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#Presentation Tools
ibmarketer · 6 months
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⭐🎯DrLambda Review | AI Pro Presentations | Lifetime Deal🚀⭐
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mirthfulartist · 1 month
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fumifooms · 3 months
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What if we were both magic prodigies and it otherized us in different ways and we devoted ourselves to protecting a family member who has general other goals & priorities. What if we both did self-sacrifical devotion in opposite ways.
What if we were dark mirrors of each other and where I've grown overcontrolling you've grown complacent. What if, bought as a servant into a pretty loving home, ownership and control is what love looks like to me, and to you neglected and lonely growing up, love is gratefully taking any scraps of it you’re lent.
By belonging to someone, even if she comes back injured or fails at finding Delgal, she feels like she belongs and is cherished, by owning someone he feels safe in them not leaving him.
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She’s what’s tethering him do you see… And he’s the only thing giving her direction and purpose in her state. She needs a compass and he needs a support.
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They’re both so out of it 😭 It’s the weirdly intense and unearned mutual trust and reliance on each other?? They’re each other’s weird little comfort codependent teddy bear. Or at least they were headed towards that before SHE DIED THEN HE DIED THEN THEY BOTH FORGOT ABOUT EACH OTHER AND NEVER MET EVER AGAIN. Though she’s also the guard attack hound keeping him safe… And vice versa he heals her and can rewrite her very being with just one wave of his hand. They’re both so so mentally and physically vulnerable both but they cling onto each other. They can’t perceive things accurately but despite it all someway somehow they stumble into something closer to resembling companionship just before they both die. Falin is just that kind and Thistle is just that lonely. Overworked. We both haven’t lived for ourselves in a very long time, haven’t we.
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They both have a similar devotion to the people they love but again the difference is that Thistle starts overtsepping while Falin is self-effacing. The other difference between them is that people care about Falin <3 People have given up on Thistle long ago, and he has given people reasons to, while people refuse to give up on Falin. Yaad has a mini arc about it dw about it it’s ok he’s not all alone in the end 😭😭 He reached out for Marcille’s hand but they already all wanted to help him, they just had to be given the chance to, Yaad just had to be given the chance to, it’s okay I’m okay
Hey what if we learned to get in touch with our own identity and the world around us and living in the present again through being in the worst codependent situationship ever.
Falin and Thistle sitting in a tree, sucking on flowers together because they’re h-u-n-g-r-y 💕💕💕
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I bet he’s only ever thought of flowers as useless ornaments. Weak weeds. But she shows him they’re tasty and useful and good and pretty in their own right too and deserve existing without proving their worth and waaa <33 Thistles…... Did you know thistles taste sweet if you remove the thorns and eat them?
"Even as a chimera, her kind nature remains" you can’t suppress her in the way that matters. You can’t soothe him in the way that matters. It’s doomed. You’re doomed. It’s all doomed. Save me.
#Spoilers#dungeon meshi manga spoilers#Thistle#falin touden#thistlin#OOOOH UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP THAT SOMEHOW WORKS OUT SAVE ME#I need them to be traumabonded kittens to not separate post-canon#I’m seeing a raise in post-canon thistle content/interest which makes me v happy#Fumi rambles#Falin learning to disobey orders with Thistle is one of my fave things. EAT THAT CURRY GIRL!!!! Nvm that it’s gonna get you killed#It’s good for the character arc#Falin and thistle sitting on a web o-b-s-e-s-s-i-n-g <3#This is somewhat of a tldr of my huge thistlin post. Plus some thoughts i had in discord or twitter#Keeping it for another day but tbh if you see their dynamic in canon as her thinking/having picked him as her mate it changes nothing#about her behavior which I find funny. Thistle accidentally claimed himself a parrot mate bc he’s bad with monsters confirmed#Ik my thing of them learning to relax and live in the present moment again is pretty fanon BUT IT’S WHAT KUI POINTED TOWARDS#With her calming him down from a panic attack and eating berries. With the baths for dandruffs. Etc. Thistle hasn’t socialized in a long#time and he wouldn’t if it wasn’t a tool he needed to interact with BUT it’s still socialization and it’s getting him in touch with his#surroundings again even if just a bit slowly but surely!! The Toudens have a superpower in reaching Thistle. Bless#How’s that one post go again. he refuses to develop he's part of the problem he maintains the cycle he's trapped in the cycle.#she's growing she's finding her place she escaped her original role she wants to help people she will never save him she will never save hi#Something something they have to abstract each other bc relationships with humans have always been too charged and unsafe#Only by seeing each other as more concept than person more object than peer can they truly be vulnerable#Like the fuckedupness lf their dynamic and state is WHY they’re so attached. Why their dynamic could be so raw and needy#The stars aligned in the worst way. Mission successfully faile#Tfw we both need to feel needed
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redhotarsenic · 1 year
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@nowfallc PICTURE!! FOR YOU!! PLEASE TAKE IT!! <3
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bookshelf-in-progress · 3 months
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Now that I know more about writing, I'm upset at all the writing advice that urged new writers to find the one best way to write stories, when they should be telling us to play with writing techniques like toys.
Don't tell us to avoid certain points of view! Don't box us into the one currently popular prose style! Let us play and see what effects different techniques achieve, so we can learn the best ways to make use of them! Give us a whole ton of possibility instead of one cookie-cutter template!
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s2 episode 7 thoughts
hmm. hmm. that is the sound if me pondering what i just watched.
(i understand that this episode was an analysis into mulder's self-destructive behaviors when faced with overwhelming grief, but. that does not mean i enjoyed vampire hookup time)
well. we shall start from the top!
i read that it was an episode about vampires which i thought was a weird narrative choice because. hello. scully still gone??? but then i remembered that i too ignored the main quest in skyrim to hunt some vampires and that i had no place to judge
(granted, my main quest wasn't finding scully though. might have given that a bit more priority than saving the whole world. because she IS my whole world)
we open with a guy that looks like joe biden meeting with an attractive young woman. they're making out in a hot tub and we just know someone is gonna get slurped upon. and woe, it be upon us! double vampire attack.
back in DC, mulder gets his old office back! it's covered in plastic. he takes some of it off. he adjusts his calendar from may to november, so we see how much time he and scully had been assigned to other tasks, which also has me wondering how she managed to get a new house that quick.
(also, this calendar is... scantily clad women posing next to tools such as hammers and saws. was this allowed? was this acceptable? was it normal? were the 90's a lawless wasteland and mulder an irreparable freak?)
well. scully is an x file now, and he puts her glasses and id into an evidence bag and closes the filing cabinet which was sooooo evil. but he can't bring himself to put her necklace away. oh man. oh he's gotta have it in case he finds her. he has to hold her close. i'm Fine this is Fine.
so. he goes out to california to deal with the joe biden looking fellow being murdered. and he is not wanted on the crime scene. we know this because someone greets him by saying "nobody called the bureau" and he says "well, they should have" and lifts up the tape to let himself in. because one thing about him is that he's gonna let himself into a place he isn't wanted.
he sees the writing of a bible verse in blood on the wall and says something about their grasp of biblical knowledge being "feeble and literal" and i was like okayyy need to have a theological discussion with him
he then scares the other guy who originally wanted to kick him out by reciting a LARGE amount of facts related to similar cases and it's very much giving photographic memory. got me thinking, have we ever seen this man forget something? (directions don't count. they're confusing. but everything else sticks in that man's brain)
he just needs one thing: a phone book. which he uses to call a blood bank and ask about a new guy. who must be the vampire who did this!
so he rolls up to the blood bank and i'm over here struggling because i do Not Do Blood, and i knew at this point this was gonna be a tough watch, but i didn't anticipate the non-blood related reasons why this would be true
anyway he's sniffing around the blood bank and he hears some slurping and wouldn't you know, this dude is tearing into a bag of the red stuff like it's a capri sun. somehow he gets him into custody, where the dude refuses to talk because the lights are on, and mulder comes in with a lamp he put a red filter over, because he was prepared for vampire interrogation.
the vampire is going on about how what he did isn't murder because it's not like animals hunting prey is murder which is. not the greatest approach in terms of legal defense. mulder tells the guard that the guy is delusional and it's best to play along, and he believed this to be true... until he, quite literally, burned to a crisp in the sunlight. and died.
he's talking to the coroner and rattling off a bunch of vampire facts and says he didn't believe in vampires which is so funny to me because like. why is that where you draw the line, my friend. not at bigfoot and definitely not at aliens. but man. vampires are just too out there for spooky mulder. until now!
the coroner has a very funny line: "you are really upsetting me... on several levels" which seems to be the general effect fox mulder has on people. and also because i felt the same way about his dumbass actions during this episode.
coroner finds a stamp on the dead body's hand, which seems to come from a nightclub. so naturally our fbi agent ends up there.
you often see posts saying that "(insert character here) should be at the club". i fear that this is not the case for fox mulder, but it's possible that it's his suit and tie that are throwing me off. he just doesn't seem like he belongs there. i ask myself, where should he be instead? perhaps some sort of star wars convention would suit him better. a book signing with some author he likes. idk, an interior decorating festival. not here.
i shall use my verbatim words to walk you through the next scene:
"pause. he's talking to a woman who was looking into a compact without a mirror. so. vampire suspect. and now why are they getting so close together. and getting a drink. okay now they're leaving to a new spot together? AFTER she admits to vampirism"
(here she did some stuff that required me to look away from my screen due to my Weak Constitution. but also it would have felt necessary to look away anyway because it was getting... charged)
she tries to get him to... suck on her finger... but he won't do it because aids. which is fair. i think that's a smart move, actually. it's just that getting flirty with a vampire he knows was involved with a ton of killings was such a stupid move, i don't know why it's now the braincells start to kick in.
that kills the vibe, though, so she gets another guy to take his place and things escalate.
mulder pulls in at a restaurant called ra. nice! the sun god! and he is... through a window, witnessing some more slurping action. he seems to want to intervene and save this poor soul being feasted upon...
but the poor soul is no poor soul at all! he comes out and decks mulder, and delivers this line with stunning conviction: "i don't know who you are, freak, but we're two consenting adults" and with this, he is forced to flee.
and yeah. it made me laugh. my expectations for the genre were subverted. he signed up for that shit! what he did not sign up for, however, was the next part, where he was killed by the other vampires.
cut to investigating the crime scene. mulder has brought along a forensic dentist, which is a job i had no idea you could go into. he needs to see about those bites, which are very human.
next they go to vampire woman's house. it's a very nice place. mulder... opens her oven. and sees a loaf of bread in there. and i'm thinking, man, i hope this doesn't go where i think it's going. baked goods... ovens... i never want a vampire pregnancy arc. but he cracks open the loaf and something red spills out and somehow, this to him means that she is gone and isn't coming back. he can read the signs of the bread. so add that to his resume. what did the bread tell you, my liege?
he seems to have stayed in her house, however, because he's there when she's back, and says he knows she was using the bread as a charm to ward off evil. because apparently that's an eastern european thing, blood bread to warn off evil. sound off if any eastern europeans in the chat wanna confirm or deny.
anyway. he's IN this woman he thinks is a vampire's HOUSE? what the hell. mulder seriously i need you to stop and think. like you should have stopped and done some thinking a while ago. honestly i'm not mad i'm just disappointed. and he's like "i want to save you come with me before they kill you" ohhh big tough man needs to save her huh. make him feel good inside. huh. certainly no ulterior motive here...
she's monologing about her horrible childhood and how sweet blood tastes. um girl. don't lie to him like that. i have busted my lip open before that stuff does NOT taste sweet and dangerous. it's like a penny with rust that you found in a parking lot.
it seems her vampiric origin story, if to be believed, is that things simply got too kinky. which is a new take on the genre.
(it's also about being caught in an abusive relationship and the damage that inflicts, but it seems abusive boyfriend came into vampirism at his kinky parties and things escalated from there. which. well. it blew the eyebrows clean off my head, to be fair)
at this point we see that he is WEARING SCULLY'S NECKLACE? he says something like "it's from someone i lost" and she says that she "hopes he finds her"
i did not like the undertones here and certainly not the overtones. because i knew where this was going. he was shaving in her bathroom. and let me tell you something: there is only ever a shaving scene in media because the writer needs a way to get some blood out of someone's body and into the real world. and man. i knew it was coming.
but what i didn't see coming was her SHAVING HIM??? girl. i am uncomfy. and she does, of course, cut him, and then they kiss. aggressively. terribly aggressively. can anyone answer what was going on in a satisfactory manner?
but the gag is: the original vampire- who burnt to a crisp in the jail cell, and was the abusive ex she spoke of- HE'S WATCHING THEM THROUGH THE WINDOW!
he breaks in and taunts the vampire woman about how he had to "wait for her to finish" and i was like cool. thank you SO much for that mental image i'm super happy with it. i definitely don't feel like i need a shower. but then he's going on about how he can't be killed.
here, at the tail end of the episode, we learn the rules of vampirism in this world: a vampire cannot be killed by a non-vampire. and a non-vampire BECOMES a vampire by consuming the blood of a believer and also taking a life. it is only here we realize that this woman is not an actual vampire yet, she just appropriates their culture by drinking blood unnecessarily.
mulder's still sleeping in her bed and she's like "you need to leave" and she stabs the wall to make her evil ex think she's killing him. but when they go to break out, mulder ties him up quite handily and he gets in the car to escape with vampire woman. until ANOTHER vampire woman jumps on the hood of their car. and main vampire woman knocks her out for a bit by running into her with said car, which is super effective.
mulder's leaving the place in shambles, his shirt still unbuttoned, wandering down the side of the hill. back at the house, now that we know the vampire rules, main vampire woman says she can finally kill the evil vampire ex. and he's like how!! you haven't had the blood of a believer or taken a life. so. she licks the blood off her hands (unclear if it's hers or mulders tbh) and says she'll take her own life. and drops a match after pouring gasoline.
so. that brings that to an end. and shabby looking mulder sits on a hill as he learns all four in the house died.
the episode ends with him playing with scully's necklace. which i don't even sort of feel like unpacking right now but maybe another time.
probably not, though, because i just didn't like this episode. and yeah, a lot of it comes down to me not wanting to see mulder hook up with people who aren't scully. can you blame me? is it so wrong to have preferences in this world?
but also, narrative wise- do you honestly see the guy fucking off to cali while scully's still missing to deal with an unrelated problem instead of devoting every hour of his life to finding her, like we saw him do in the last episode? you expect me to think he just puts it off for a lil while? the guy who, just last episode, pulled his gun on the ski lift operator to get to the top where she might be a little faster, and then choked his one and only suspect out of fury? you're thinking this is the guy that's gonna go soak up some west coast rays?
and yeah, he was obviously not himself through the episode- very cold and analytical- but c'mon. we all want to bang a vampire. he's not special. i just personally wouldn't do that if my friend were gone. like how is that gonna help the situation. be so for real. time and place!
and also the whole only learning the rules of being a vampire about 5 minutes before they need it to be plot relevant. that annoyed me too.
overall, mulder, like i said, i'm not mad, just disappointed.
let me know what you thought on this episode- i try to not be a hater, but i also understand that hating in small doses can be good for the soul. if it's a widely beloathed episode i'll feel better in my judgement as i join a long tradition of haters who have come before me.
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quaranmine · 29 days
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On Wednesday before I gave my presentation I confessed to a new employee that I was worried it would be too long and she brightly told me her life hack was to just let AI rewrite things for her. She said I should put in all my talking points and ask ChatGPT to give me a five minute exactly presentation. I was like....how is the most polite possible way (since this is a new colleague I shouldn't get off on the wrong foot with) that I can express that I will Not be taking this advice. Ever. I told her that I didn't think we were allowed to use ChatGPT at this job (we most certainly are not, it is a nightmare for any type of protected information) and also that I prefer to write all of my own work. Despite my best efforts the last part of that was still passive aggressive, lol.
Something about being a writer makes it so that it's almost offensive to me for someone to suggest I use AI to do my work instead? Like, the day I reach the point where I let AI write something for me is the day y'all need to be checking me for brain damage because clearly I'm losing it
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reve-de-sang · 19 days
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for @vamptember
(x) Vamptember September 8 prompt: honey
“No,” Louis said. “Do not,” he emphasized, “compare my skin to food.”
David sat up straighter, sniffing. “I don’t know why you take offense. My pale British skin, for example, would commonly be described as a milky white—“
“It’s not a conversation.”
“Fine,” David said primly. “How would you like me to describe you to your European counterpart, then?”
“Pissed.”
-
The North American and European covens were attempting to make an alliance for the first time in history. No one was quite certain why it had taken so long—until now, when there was a real crisis pending—though Marius posited that things tended to move glacially slow for vampires. One blink and it was five hundred years later and technology was unrecognizable. Or two hundred years later, and an upstart colony was a nation. One could sleep in the earth for that long.
Lestat privately felt like things could move quickly if one wanted them to. For example, last week he’d been single. Today he was engaged. It would have come as quite a surprise to the Lestat of seven days ago.
Last week’s Lestat would have also been quite alarmed at his transformation, but in the wake of a pending move overseas, a pending new husband, and suddenly finding himself a diplomat and figurehead, Lestat found himself oddly pacific about his newly granted ability to bear life.
He’d reached the point where it was all just washing over him now. Gabrielle could come into the room and pull back the curtain to a green sky and Lestat would just assume that was how Tuesdays were now.
“I know the North Americans shun being recorded, but David could have at least described my future husband to us in his email,” Lestat pouted. “‘Handsome’ could mean anything. David is a terrible delegate.”
“He is an excellent delegate,” Marius corrected as he typed away at his laptop. “He is not some matchmaker. Patience. You will meet de Pointe du Lac soon enough.”
Armand gave a soft laugh as Lestat theatrically melted in his chair. Lestat always felt compelled to be extra dramatic in Marius’s pompous office. “Marius, Lestat is nervous. Maharet came all this way to perform the ritual on him, Mekare has confirmed we are now in line with the prophecy, the whole continent is heavily invested in our new brood mare—” Lestat threw a pen from Marius’s desk at him; Armand easily deflected— “The least David could do is confirm the baby daddy isn’t an uncouth ogre. One doesn’t want to marry one’s father, after all.”
“Unlike you, Armand,” Lestat smiled.
“Who said anything about marriage?” Armand wondered, curling his fingers to study the shine of his nails. “Why would I leave the elderly gentlemen of this world so unexplored and untested?”
Marius glanced up from his laptop and arched an eyebrow at him.
“Don’t worry,” Lestat reassured Armand, “I know that someday you will find the attention you crave.”
“Surprising world view from a man who lost the interest of both his fledglings.”
“We seem to have different perspectives on the maker/fledgling dynamic. Are you confused, thinking I expected to bind them to me?”
“I suppose not having the guidance of a maker does make the maker/fledgling dynamic opaque to you,” Armand sympathized.
«Do tell me more about healthy maker/fledgling dynamics, Armand.»
Armand tilted his chin up. «What Marius and I have makes sense to us. I appreciate he is too busy for involved commitments.»
«Well, if I end up as this American man’s booty call, I am going to revolt.»
“The pressures of being the chosen one,” Armand observed with a sigh. “Or, well. The little chosen one’s dam.”
“If you refer to me as livestock one more time—”
“No, please do keep your conversation private and telepathic,” Marius said. “In fact, you are welcome to take it out of my office. We covered the paperwork. Go—pack, or something. Armand, make sure he actually has some clothing that is not lurid, so that we may be well-represented. At least in the first few days.”
Lestat tossed his hair as he stood. “I have a very stuffy Calvin Klein and a rather conservative Tom Ford. I saw the grey and thought of you, Marius.” Lestat smirked at Armand. “The Gaultier is for day three.”
Armand cocked his head in approval.
-
Lestat felt a mounting sense of finality as his formidable pile of bespoke luggage was wheeled away in one direction, and he and Gabrielle made their way in another direction to the the delegation’s private lounge at the airport before their jet departed London for New Orleans.
In the lounge, Marius and Pandora paused to acknowledge them from where they were deep in conversation across the room, and Lestat noticed Khayman skulking by the small bar.
Lestat was antsy as he and Gabrielle settled in the plush lounge chairs with elegant glasses of fresh blood (a merciful 0.2 blood alcohol content). He cast about for something to say. “You told me once that your first birth was one of the most painful experiences of your life.”
“Yes.”
Lestat waited for her to elaborate, but her gaze was placid. “Mother,” he insisted. She hated to be called that.
“I have been burned by the sun briefly, in the early days, when I did not make my hiding place from the sun as carefully as I could have, out in nature. I woke up in the evening to agonizing pain—the flesh of my arm was charred and blackened. Do you know this pain from the sun?”
Lestat shook his head, wide-eyed, fascinated.
“Childbirth was worse.”
“You know, most mothers would offer their children some comfort. Lie to them or something.”
“They sound, as they say, like some basic bitches.”
“Yes, I suppose,” Lestat sighed.
Lestat had not been chosen for this for his child-bearing hips. He certainly hadn’t been chosen for his ability to bear children, because at the time, he’d been missing the parts and the inclination. The twins’ prophecy, mindless of the mechanics, had dictated he and the American de Pointe du Lac would combine their legacies to birth the young vampire queen who would defeat Akasha when Akasha rose and began her reign of terror.
The prophecy didn’t indicate a timeline, but the councils thought it was obvious the faster this particular bun was in the oven, the better. Lestat liked to imagine his pre-teen daughter vanquishing some vampire queen magical-girl-style. But he acknowledged adulthood was probably a more stable place to be for homicide.
He was a little disconcerted that he wasn’t more bothered by being rushed into making a family with a stranger—much less parenthood itself. Perhaps the idea of making a life was too fascinating to him. And he might be impulsive, but an entire prophecy seemed to dictate he couldn’t derail the fate of the world too badly? How much could he fuck it up if his daughter was destined to be a savior?
“You know that’s not how this works, right?”
Lestat drummed his nails on his crystal tumbler as Armand sat down next to them. His mother acknowledged Armand with a nod, and pulled a book out of her bag.
“Leave my thoughts alone. Boundaries, Armand.”
“I’m just saying, do not get complacent.” He briefly clasped Lestat’s forearm with an elegant hand. “This isn’t set in stone. She is the only hope for defeating Akasha. But we do have to actually make that reality happen. Did you really think everyone would be this worked up if it were a cakewalk?”
Lestat frowned. “That’s not how I understood it.”
Armand laughed. “Perhaps the twins gave you a more palatable version of the prophecy to make you more amenable to the idea. There was a lot riding on your cooperation.”
“Oh really. Any other surprises.” Lestat swirled his untouched drink in its glass.
“Well, as none of it is certain, you may actually have to do a little work. Don’t assume de Pointe du Lac will fall into your bed. And if you do manage to conceive, imagine the possible horror of you spawning a hellion worse than yourself. Having to raise a child like that. She does defeat a queen, after all, and then become one.” Armand signaled for his own beverage from the fledgling manning the bar.
Lestat swirled his drink a little faster. “You and Gabrielle are such excellent travel companions. I’m so delighted you’re part of the delegation.”
“Goodness—you could even die in childbirth, Lestat,” Armand observed. “There’s not a lot said about the vessel beyond its purpose.”
“It’s remarkable how jealous you are that you’re not the prophecy’s specialist little boy.”
“I’m glad it’s not me that’s going to have to give up a 26 inch waistline.”
“And once again I am disturbed by your obsession with my body.”
Armand leaned in. “It’s not infidelity if you’re not married yet. There’s still time for us to discover new things about each other—and discover how well-appointed the VIP lounge facilities are at Heathrow.”
“Oh, Armand, how can I possibly be the first person you’ve dragged into a Heathrow VIP lavatory.”
“It would be the first time with you, however. And it’s been over a year since Marius and I were in one. Perhaps they’ve repainted.”
“Are you going to be like this the entire flight.” Lestat downed his drink.
“What if it’s my last chance. What if your beau is a troll, and the Americans make you wed at gunpoint right out of the airport gate before you can change your mind?” Armand’s drink was promptly delivered. “Bring another round for both of us,” he ordered.
“Two more for me,” Lestat sighed.
“Oh yes, of course— good thinking. You’ll have to give all that up for the baby. Best to make the most of it while you can.”
Mercifully, Armand sat with Marius on the flight. But the damage to any remaining calm Lestat had had was already done. He was nine hours out from a performance in front of a wild card audience with an unknown partner.
None of this would work if Lestat couldn’t stand de Pointe du Lac. It was impossible to imagine putting up with a terrible husband: Lestat felt he knew himself well enough that he could acknowledge that.
”Please distract me from turkey baster thoughts,” Lestat whispered to Gabrielle.
She had burned through her first book and had almost finished it. She tilted one slender finger down for a bookmark and looked over at Lestat. “This doesn’t sound like the kind of prophecy that accepts artificial insemination.”
“Why does everyone else know more about this than me?”
“I'm sure it's as Armand indicated: given the extreme upheaval, perhaps they were nervous about which straw would be the one to break the camel’s back.”
“Look— I feel like we’re moving backwards if I repeat the past. You coming to Auvergne, and the fate that awaited you there. Your life uprooted for an arranged marriage.”
“And yet you are not a young girl—you’re a 34-year-old man with agency and power. You have agreed to this, up to this point. I do not think anyone would force you, though, if you changed your mind.”
“How does one change one’s mind about preventing the apocalypse and the death of everyone one loves?”
Gabrielle shrugged. “We all have to die sometime.”
“No, not if I can help it—”
“I apologize, I do not mean to be flippant. But Lestat,” Gabrielle said softly, leaning her shoulder against his. “Do not forget that Auvergne was not the end of my story. It was a chapter. I had a son, and he saved my life. I am free. I have experienced parts of the world I never dreamed of, and I wield the powers of a god. De Pointe du Lac will not define your life.”
Lestat leaned back into her a little. “…No, of course not.”
Lestat sighed in gratitude as he felt his anxiety melt a little, if only for a while. Ridiculous to worry. De Pointe du Lac was the other half of the prophecy—well, one third: obviously he would be important. But ultimately how much could one man matter, when Lestat had eternity in front of him?
Representatives had met them on the tarmac when they landed in the small hours of the morning, escorting them to the de Pointe du Lac mansion. As if he were once more about to step out on stage from the wings, Lestat felt an odd, focused calm descend upon him.
It was shattered when he walked into the crowded, glittering de Pointe du Lac drawing room and David Talbot guided him to his devastatingly handsome future husband.
Lestat may have taken half a step back in alarm.
His future husband also looked thunderously irritated. With everything. It added an exciting edge to his beauty. Lestat took half a step forward.
His heart was doing new and complicated things in his chest.
At his side, Lestat heard a soft sigh from Marius; Gabrielle laid a hand on Lestat’s forearm. He was admittedly not known for his level-headed behavior around beautiful men. But surely this would all be fine!
«Congratulations,» Armand murmured in Lestat’s mind with a hint of wonder. «When you die in childbirth, I am going to marry your gorgeous, grieving husband.»
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yarboyandy · 11 months
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Chosen Ones
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bagheerita · 1 year
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I would like you all to surrender, or I will smite you. ...It's a word, from the Holy Book. It means slay or kill. I will kill you.
Osferth, The Last Kingdom 3.1
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darewolfcreates · 14 days
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I may not have a Grand Festival shirt but I do have these shirts that I printed!
Repping team present!
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I'm not selling these. I don't have access to the roller I did when I made this lino cut, the only prints I made were for my friends/me, and also I have no idea where I put the lino cut- .w."
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jichanxo · 4 months
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oh god, i miss you (song/tl)
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a-ko-ge · 1 year
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Insider info (of what variety? 🤔)
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captainshyguy · 2 months
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thinking abt that religion poll and its like i try very hard to not be one of Those Atheists, but then i remember watching a christi*n say with their whole chest that atheists have no purpose in life, and isnt that so depressing!! and when i brought this up to another christi*n they didnt think that was disrespectful at all so like no actually i think i can be a little mean and judgy abt christi*ity actually
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q-starhalo · 2 months
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How did I never notice that Grumpy was short.
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streetlites · 9 months
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??? and her useless boyfriend
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