#Rob Rue

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

Anti-immigrant lies and rhetoric spewed by Donald Trump and his party have caused real and terrifying results. On Thursday, several city, county, and school buildings in Springfield, Ohio, were targeted by a bomb threat. On Friday, a Springfield middle school was closed and two elementary schools were evacuated. ABC News originally reported that there was no direct connection made between the threats and the GOP's repeated racist lies about Haitian immigrants abducting and eating pets. Additionally, ABC reported it was not “immediately clear if Friday's evacuations were from a new threat or linked to bomb threats sent via email Thursday morning.” But in an interview with The Washington Post, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said that Thursday’s bomb threat “used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community.”

During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Trump erroneously claimed, “In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating—they're eating the pets of the people that live there.” This lie has also been pushed by his running mate Sen. JD Vance a number of times. And Trump continued to perpetuate the lie, adding geese this time, in a campaign rally Thursday in Arizona.

The Haitian Times reported that some of Springfield’s Haitian community has felt so threatened during this barrage of right-wing hate-propaganda that they chose to keep their children home from school following the debate. “We’re all victims this morning,” one woman, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told the outlet. “They’re attacking us in every way.”  The same kind of racist rhetoric has also besieged Venezuelan immigrants in Colorado. Trump has repeatedly pushed bullshit crime numbers (which he did once again during the debate), targeting Venezuelan communities in the Centennial State as filled with “gangs,” and saying they were “taking over” Colorado cities. 

[...] This is sadly par for the course during a time of fascistic and hateful rhetoric. We saw it with Asian hate crimes rising during COVID-19 pandemic, when Trump and others would frequently use derogatory terms for the coronavirus such as “Kung Flu,” and the “Chinese Virus.” We've seen it in the rise of antisemitism connected to the rise of MAGA extremist rhetoric and conspiracy theory as well as the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. The consequences of the Republican Party’s need to target, isolate, and divide various groups of people, are that innocent, hardworking people suffer. At the same time, without any meaningful policies, the fear and economic uncertainty that the GOP repeats remains the same.  Trump said Tuesday during the debate that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield were “destroying” the residents’ “entire way of life.” That divisiveness, despite the fact that these Haitian Americans are part of that community, is the Trump way. And in a country made up almost entirely of immigrants, there’s always someone to blame.

Aurora, CO and Springfield, OH are two communities in the news recently as a result of right-wing hate mobs targeting the cities to push their anti-immigrant BS.

[thestarstoasun]

Side Character Interactions / Behind The Scenes of Camp Half-Blood

• Will is friends/acquaintances with pretty much the entirety of camp, but is closest to Cecil and Lou Ellen. The next in the circle is Clarisse, Castor (before the BotL), and Mark (the son of Ares).

• The Hermes Cabin is the place to go for year-rounders to get "out-of-camp" items. (Fidget spinners, mortal toys, etc)

• There is a "secret" betting pool that the Aphrodite cabin has going on when campers and their mutual crushes will get together. (Percabeth (canonically), etc)

• Clarisse helped train Will in using a dagger before the Battle of Manhatten at his request due to him not feeling like he was as good with a bow + being a combat medic.

Connor to Will before he is claimed: Don't worry, we will teach you all you need to know about being a Hermes kid

Lee, walking up behind them from a long infirmary shift: Absolutely not. Will, how about you come with me and we can get some hot chocolate?

Clarisse: That has got to be the dumbest thing I've heard all day!

Silena: Clarisse, please calm down...it's only breakfast, there's still plenty of time.

Mitchell: What the Hades is going on in here?

Cecil and Travis attempting to do basic make up for Connor (and failing): ...

Cecil: Surprise!

Connor: Gods, I should've asked someone else for help

Michael: You look like shit

Lee: I'm running on 3 cups of black coffee and spite.

Michael: GO TO SLEEP, LEE HYACINTH FLETCHER

Chiron: I'm glad at least your cabin doesn't cause many problems.

Beckendorf: Uh..yeah..about that. It may or may not have caught fire earlier, but it's alright because we put it out.

Chiron: How did you manage that?

Beckendorf: We got the Hermes kids to help, so we still have half of a cabin at least

I can definitely make another part of this if anyone wants, feel free to ask and request ships (I make no guarantees.) I did hint at like 2 of them in this though! If you have any duos/ideas feel free to also send them my way as well, I love seeing them and I want to be on Tumblr more anyways. Have a nice day, y'all!

[pain-is-too-tired]

Great now I'm thinking about Clarisse and Michael again.

We know from Michael's interaction with Percy later at Williamsburg Bridge that after Clarisse still refused to join the fight after getting the chariot, that he said some "choice words"

Knowing him, probably cussed her out a bit gdgdg

But honestly, I'm imagining him also calling her out on caring too much about her pride than lives

Because, for all the fighting to keep the chariot,we don't really know what was happening between getting the chariot and BoM. Other than Beckendorf's death.

And we see Michael's pride isn't something that he's completely obsessed with. If anything, his pride seems to be centered more on his cabin than himself. We don't know what it took to get the chariot, but I'm sure his cabin fought hard in the battle. Of course he'd want to keep it, his siblings earned that.

Clarisse's seems a little more focused on her own pride or the image of her cabin. She led the battle, so she thinks that the Chariot should be hers. Despite the fact they probably wouldn't have the Chariot if the Apollo cabin hadn't taken it, and as archers a flying Chariot is much more suited to their fighting style.

For how people talk about Michael, even in the books, he doesn't seem to be on the same level of attitude/aggression as Clarisse.

I think he just matches what he's given.

Clarisse is the one who started the fight with the chariot. That's why Annabeth specifically says she'll come to her senses. Because the Apollo cabin are just defending what's their's, maybe aggressively but they have even Chiron supporting that the chariot should be their's. Michael is being more on the defensive in a loud way. It's why no one goes to him and tells him to just give into Clarisse, heck Percy assumes Michael would still have the chariot during BoM. No one wants to just let Clarisse run over the Apollo cabin's achievements. Especially not Michael who's only been Head Counselor for a year.

Yet, Michael is the first to step away from it. But he doesn't let Clarisse just get by with still putting her pride first. He gives her choice words, likely out of lot of emotion, then just leaves.

And he dies. He dies defending Manhattan and his peers against Kronos. He let's Percy push him out of the way on Olympus, he doesn't fuss other than a sarcastic comment when Percy pretty much has Annabeth take over organizing his cabin. He let's Percy make the calls once he's on the scene, continuing to fight when he was just about to retreat. Than retreating when Percy actually orders a retreat. Only to come back when he sees Percy on his own after Annabeth is hurt.

He dies making sure Kronos doesn't get past them. Armed with nothing but one arrow and an idea.

And when Clarisse finally gets to the Battle, it's because her cabin and Silena left without her. She goes berserk on battle more so out of grief than duty.

I really do wish we got to see her reaction to learning about Michael's death/disappearance. Obviously she's had guilt over Silena's death. But she got to say goodbye. She got to be there for her and avenge her.

The last words she heard from Michael was likely him cussing her out.

There's one song I think about when I think about their relationship and it's Allies or Enemies by The Crane Wives

What happens now? Do we have another go? Do we bow out, and take our separate roads? I'll admit I've had my doubts But I want to be let in, not out But I want to be let in, not out Are we allies or enemies? This will be the death of me This will be the death of me All is fair in love, and war But I can't fight with you anymore This will be the death of me

Idk, just something about it hits. Really I don't think Michael necessarily hated Clarisse, I think he was disappointed and upset. And I feel like Clarisse would take his death hard, at least feel pretty guilty. Especially if she was close to him before hand. Heck even if she had just been close to Lee, she would feel lot of guilt for not being there to help his siblings.

And even more so. The last words they ever shared was out of anger.

And she'll never get to apologize.

[maitso]

we were ROBBED of having clarisse as one of the seven in the great prophecy. dont get me wrong, i love frank, but imagine the power if we had clarisse, frank AND reyna being three of the seven

[sunburnacoustic]

Everyone’s like oh I picture everyone on here as their icon! Well now I have to try don’t I

[jose96853]

LAURA LOOMER—MAYOR OF SPRINGFIELD, OH IS PRO BLM

Now we are understanding why there has been so many illegal Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. According to report from Laura Loomer that I link under here, the Mayor, whose name is Rob Rue is all in support for BLM and pro face diaper (masking). Back in 2020 he spread his pro-BLM propaganda during those riots caused by the BLM. Another thing is he told Christian on X to “Confront Racism in…

[workingwhileidream]

Okay Burrow's End had me thinking some thoughts... So here are my favorite Dimension 20 moments that rotate like a rotisserie chicken in my brain (in no particular order other than the order I thought if them).

- Riz goes into the butthole of the Corn Ooze Monster (Fantasy High). The first absolutely insane shenanigans move anyone makes on D20, setting the tone the show will have forever.

- Raphaniel kills Queen Pamelia (Ravening War). I think I saw Brennan's soul leave his body briefly when he got that How Do You Want To Do This from Matt. Time was an absolute flat circle that day.

- Hank convinces Brennan to let him role savvy instead of sneak (Mentopolis). Hank is one of the most famous content creators, having him on the show was phenomenal to begin with. Then right out of the gate, he pulls this move in his first episode. And it just works. Hilarious, instantly iconic.

- Jet Dies (A Crown of Candy). When Lapin dies, it is shocking but I wasn't attached to him as a character. Lapin was a bit antagonistic and his death happens early in the season. On the other hand, Jet is instantly likeable. Emily and Siobhan are amazing as siblings, their performances this campaign are some of my favorites. I have siblings and I am very close to them, so this hit me like a ton of bricks.

- The entire epilogue of Burrow's End. "Are you pitching and Air Bud ending?" is one of the instant hall of fame quotes from this show. I started crying I was laughing so hard.

- Ylfa's bottleneck and the TPK (Neverafter). There are so many close calls for total party kills in Dimension 20 history, but this is where it finally happens and it's only 3 episodes in. I was on edge, expecting another TPK at any turn, for the rest of the campaign.

- 3 nat one initiative rolls for the battle that literally opens the season (A Starstruck Odyssey). The beginning of a new season is always full of excitement. This season was extra special, having everyone back in the dome after the pandemic and the season being based off Brennan's Mom's comics. The zoom energy is still in the air and I still think about this season opener a lot.

- Mother Timothy Goose breaks Snow White's concentration with a cantrip (Neverafter). Only Ally Beardsley could and we all damn well know it. Still didn't stop me from being so far in disbelief that all I could do is laugh.

- Hob's "You will never know another lonely day" speech to Rue (A Court of Fey and Flowers). I will still cry about this if I think about it for too long. Rue and Hob's romance is the heart of this season to me. I won't be over it ever.

- Gertrude convinces Nyruth to give the Questing Queens very powerful boons after the Queens tried to rob them only a few hours earlier (Dungeons and Drag Queens). The fact that this season exists drives a level of serotonin into my brain that is unimaginable. This is the definition of a big swing and when Bob rolls well, Brennan has no other choice than to honor it. This is one of the moments I have made a meme of. I cannot wait for season 2.

- Wuuvy shows up to the duel and she did not come to play (A Court of Fey and Flowers). Aabria has talked about how Wuuvy is one of her favorite NPCs and I feel the same. Wuuvy and Rue's relationship has such a great arc and this moment is so pivotal.

- Fabian's no good very bad day (Fantasy High Sophomore Year). An iconic moment in D20 history that was truly wild to watch live. For everything to go so fantastically bad for Fabian and Lou was unprecedented. There is a reason why people still talk about this moment to this day.

- Amathar survives being pushed off the castle (A Crown of Candy). Brennan tried to kill Lou so many times in this campaign. I really thought Brennan had gotten him with this one, my stomach sunk. But Lou pulls it out and Amathar lives once again.

- Pib plays "Smoke on the Water" (Neverafter). "I stepped out to play 'Smoke on the Water' " is also a hall of fame quote to me. This list could be all Pib moments if I'm being honest, he's my favorite Zac character. And the fact that Zac doesn't roll well makes this moment funnier to me.

- Buddy Bear gets planted with the All Blossom (Dungeons and Drag Queens). Jujubee and Brennan owe me a therapy session for this one. I sobbed. My cat is my baby and I will be ruined the day she leaves me, so I get it. I really do.

- "Eat your dice, Brennan" (Fantasy High Sophomore Year). A great bit made physically possible by Siobhan. I hope Siobhan gives him gummy dice or something like that so that Brennan can continue to eat his dice for Junior Year.

- Orange Top Hat Fairy (Neverafter). It's a horror season and the cast is doing bits about how hot a mini is the entire finale and the Adventuring Party that followed. I felt the stress and off the walls energy through the screen. The Smooth Criminal pin was the first piece of Dimension 20 merch I bought.

- Viola's epic takedown of Phoebe (Burrow's End). Watching Rashawn absolutely crush it her first time in the dome was amazing. I loved Viola from the jump, her arc was so satisfying and fun to watch. Also the idea of a tiny stoat kicking a gun just the right way to get it to fire is hilarious. No notes other than please have Rashawn come back on every season she possibly can.

- Evan Kelmp warns the Rosemont student not to duel him (Misfits and Magic). Brennan's deadpan warning matched with the reactions of the other players and Aabria really make this scene. An underrated Brennan moment for sure.

- Stacey Fakename turns out to be real (Mentopolis). This was such a good reoccurring bit, so to have Stacey be real at the end of the story was too funny. In a season of bits, tropes, and puns - this one has the most payoff to me and is definitely my favorite.

[raps-hellion]

non-main-seven demigods who know how much an average loaf of bread from the store costs:

luke castellan — had to figure out some way to feed the demigods in kronos's army. probably looked at the cost, went "that's stupid, i have a sword", and robbed the store at sword point instead.

ethan nakamura — luke's bread-stealing accomplice.

clarisse la rue — now that she's in college, yes. she's not happy about it, and even less so when someone (sherman) tells her she sounds a lot like percy when she gripes about it.

sherman yang — clarisse keeps him updated and he likes to annoy her about it.

travis stoll — yeah, but price is an illusion to him. anything can be free if he tries hard enough.

connor stoll — only because travis sends him letters from college bragging about how he hasn't been caught yet.

non-main-seven demigods who do not know how much an average loaf of bread from the store costs:

thalia grace — she was a tree.

will solace — has too many responsibilities as head counselor to even consider bread prices.

reyna ramíez-arellano — new rome has a far more stable economy than the rest of america and their bread is unrealistically cheap and/or free depending whether or not it's magically sourced.

drew tanaka — absolutely not.

bianca di angelo — lotus casino for 70 years then straight into military academy. no time for bread.

silena beauregard — camp half-blood provides food magically.

charles beckendorf — too busy looking at silena.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Liz Skalka at HuffPost:

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — Joe and Cheryl Backus have plenty of concerns over the influx of immigrants to this central Ohio city. “They’re giving up on our homeless here,” Joe Backus, a retired 80-year-old, said from a loveseat in his living room, referring to the general strain population growth is having on certain sectors of the local government. “They’re ignoring them.” But the spotlight Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio’s own junior U.S. Sen. JD Vance, have put on Springfield and its estimated 60,000 residents hasn’t helped matters — whipping up tensions here to a potentially dangerous degree after the former president baselessly suggested to a live debate audience of 67 million people last week that foreigners here were eating cats and dogs. It’s quickly upended life, leading to bomb threats and general threats of violence that closed schools and government offices.

“I think here in this town, we’re going to have a — well, you wouldn’t call it a civil war — but an uprising,” said Joe Backus, a Democrat who’s in the minority of this red county that went twice for Trump. “Because I think people are going to get tired.” From a recliner across the room, Cheryl Backus, 67, recoiled at the idea of people associating Springfield with the consumption of pets. “Eating the cats and dogs? No, no, no, no, no. We don’t need — no.” The GOP ticket has made this blue-collar city a Midwestern front in the party’s immigration wars, stoking fears about a reign of terror that includes reckless driving and pet-snatching — all as Republicans continue to blame Democrats for a glut of asylum seekers and illegal crossings at the southern border in an election year when Republicans tanked their own border security bill to help Trump.

At the center of it all are people like Steven Pierre, a 32-year-old who emigrated to Springfield from Haiti at age 12. Now he’s a married father of four and works for Amazon. He has a dog, Baba. “It’s sad, because I gotta hear this, and my kids gotta ask questions about it,” said Pierre, who was building a chicken coop in the back of a pristine white home as Baba looked on. “And it’s like, what do I tell them?” “They’re not here to bother anybody,” Pierre said of the Haitians. “They’re here for a goal and to get on with their life. We’re just regular people. We want to be left alone.” Vance, who grew up an hour south of Springfield in a challenged town he popularized in his memoir, acknowledged last week there was no basis for the viral pet smears. But Vance still told his followers to keep sharing the cat memes these rumors helped spawn.

The vice presidential nominee took it a step further Sunday, suggesting he spread the hoax for the greater good of the country. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he said on CNN. Trump also vowed to begin his planned mass deportation of immigrants in Springfield, where the Haitian population is mostly here legally, and claimed to know nothing about the bomb threats he helped stoke. “I don’t know what happened with the bomb threats. I know that it’s been taken over by illegal migrants, and that’s a terrible thing that happened,” Trump said Saturday. The rhetoric is beginning to grate on members of even their own party.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who has a prickly relationship with Trump, went on TV this weekend to decry the drama surrounding Springfield as “unfortunate” and the pet rumors as “garbage.” He praised Springfield’s population of “hard-working” Haitians, who are able to work legally under a special immigration status afforded to immigrants from countries suffering from civil unrest or natural disasters. Springfield’s own GOP mayor, Rob Rue, said he was tired and angry, and wouldn’t reveal whether he’d vote for Trump in November. All the attention has turned Springfield into a tinderbox. Right-leaning content creators are prowling the streets, hunting down evidence of pet-eating for a $5,000 bounty. Elementary and middle schools were closed or evacuated for two consecutive days last week due to threats. City Hall also closed due to security concerns, as several city commissioners found themselves targeted with threats.

[...] After decades of economic decline from factory off-shoring, the legal influx of Haitian immigrants seeking blue-collar work at factories and warehouses in Springfield struck a raw nerve in a community with a significant number of boarded-up buildings and homes, and longtime residents struggling to make ends meet. An estimated 20,000 Haitians have flocked to Springfield since the pandemic, stressing the city’s housing infrastructure, schools and hospitals. “The people who have lived here pay taxes and support Springfield all their life. They cannot get help, because it’s all about [the Haitians],” said Carol Lawson, 65, who lives a block over from Pierre. Lawson, who said she does not work and collects disability, repeated an oft-cited complaint about the Haitians: That they drive nicer cars than everyone else and appear to be the beneficiaries of generous government support — even though Temporary Protected Status, while it affords a pathway to getting a Social Security card and eventual citizenship, does not automatically confer public benefits like food stamps.

Over the last week or so, the residents of Springfield, Ohio have been unwillingly thrusted into the spotlight thanks to JD Vance, Donald Trump, and the right-wing media’s amplification of the false and racist insinuation that Haitian migrants are eating pets.

Tensions have risen in the town as a result of the debunked and unsubstantiated rumor.

[pynkhues]

omg that analysis was everything!! thank you sm! really was a palette cleanser. would love the continuation with the parts you didn't get to - his relationship with jonah and the dynamic within the rue royal household. the housewife insult from claudia really did a number on the fandom's reading of louis. (still not over people seriously considering him the embodiment of "edwardian housewife" archetype while lestat is a classic patriarch. dunno if i wanna laugh or cry).

(x)

Thank you! And yeah, I think I've mentioned it before, but it's interesting to me that so many people take both Claudia's housewife insult and Grace's white daddy insult as effectively one-to-one attributes instead of as weapons of emasculation to not only try and hurt Louis, but to goad him into action.

The dynamic of the Rue Royale household is probably it's own entire answer, and one that might be best answered after I've finished my re-watch, but yes! Let's talk about Jonah. Or, well, about sex, haha.

Virtue and the gothic heroine

One of the key attributes of a gothic heroine is her virtue, because Gothicism as a genre is rooted intrinsically in the loss of that virtue. What that means or looks like exactly changes – in the earliest stories within the genre, that loss of virtue was a result of perversion or corruption and usually spelled doom for the heroine, and in later stories it marked a point of transformation or metamorphosis where the loss of that virtue often came to symbolise a transition from girlhood to adulthood.

Virtue was, and still is, often depicted in the genre through virginity as excellently stated in the paper Female Virtue in Gothic Literature 1780-1810 “female morality was irrevocably intertwined with a sexual code of conduct. Daughters…were reminded that their most important attribute was intact virginity and wives were constantly retold their worth relied upon their chastity and therefore their ability to bear legitimate children.”

This came to define gothic literature, and her loss of virginity became pretty vital as a character beat as it would mark this loss of agency which I talked about a bit in the last post. Significantly too though, the gothic heroine usually has men after her virtue. Which, well, - -

As put in this paper Haunted Heroines: An Examination of the Complication of the Gothic Heroine: “She is the object of the perverted sexual desire of older men, above all representing the innocence and purity that the men are themselves negations of.”

Typically, when she did lose her virginity, she’d end up with three options: she could marry the man who took her virginity, she could “give up the idea of marriage and take holy orders” (aka become a nun), or she could die. Regardless of the decision she makes, the actual choice is a really marked moment for the gothic heroine, as it’s often the only actual moment of agency she gets in a story which is invested in her disempowerment. She has to give herself away – to a husband, to God, or to death – because the gothic, particularly the female gothic, understands that once her body has been taken by a man, it can never be her own again for better and for worse.

Claudia loses her virginity way back in season 1, but she’s robbed even of that momentary agency, because her body itself stays virginal. She does not get to make a choice. The monstrosity of Claudia’s making is that she will never not be an innocent, the virtuousness that men seek to take from her can never be taken, and thus she is never allowed transformation, she is never allowed her moment of agency, and she can never belong to another. It re-emphasises her arrested development, but it also keeps her trapped as the gothic heroine in Louis and Lestat’s house forever. There is no getting out for Claudia, she dies without transformation, she dies so that she can be mourned by the monsters in the house.

The Byronic Hero and the Past

On the flip side of that, the Byronic Hero is, inherently, a romantic, both physically and poetically, or as Jean Ann Bates put in her excellent 1949 essay “The Byronic hero is distinguished by the clearly defined existence of sensuousness and its antithesis, sensitiveness.” After all, as an archetype, he’s based on Lord Byron who fucked his way through Venice while producing some of the most romantic poetry ever, in history.

Bates continues:

“The Byronic hero is almost always a man with a mysterious past. This past is usually surmised to be of wickedness and sin, and our hero is periodically haunted by feelings of remorse concerning it…the mood of the Byronic hero is one of intense melancholy and pessimism; yet we feel underlying this apparently static exterior, the beat of throbbing life energy. Like the Corsair, the Byronic hero is ‘warp’d by the world of disappointment. He seems to loathe himself and all mankind, and is always one apart from his fellow creatures…The Byronic hero’s  character is amoral rather than immoral…The Byronic hero is all that is characteristic of the somewhat jaded cosmopolitan man of the world.”

The whole essay’s a great read, and I think again, really encapsulates Louis’ character, but I wanted to talk a little bit about this sense of a mysterious past and one surmised to be of wickedness and sin, because I think it’s an overlooked part of Louis’ arc.

Because he tells us in such soaring, and romantic detail, this large portion of his life, it can be easy to think we know all of it, when really, there’s a lot we don’t know about Louis as a young man. We meet him when he’s 33-years-old, we know that his father is dead, that the sugar plantation his father owned went broke, that he and his brother had a chapter of their shared life where they shuffled for pennies, but we lack a lot of context beyond these glimmers of what Louis tells us.

In particular, we don’t really know that much about his sexual history before Lestat, which is actually pretty typical of the Byronic Hero. Think the reveal of Rochester’s wife in Jane Eyre or Heathcliff’s three year absence where he mysteriously returns wealthy in Wuthering Heights and soon marries Isabella, the Byronic Hero has chapters that remain unrevealed to us, and part of that is often soaked in sexual or romantic undertones.

In the first episode, Louis talks about the fact that he didn’t consider himself a homosexual, which I think can become a focus, but I’m more interested in the earlier exchange with Daniel where Louis articulates using Lily as cover for his sexuality.

If you take this scene at face value, and look at it on its own, Louis’ saying yes, he had urges towards men, but his faith was keeping him in check, only if you look at it with the scene before it, we see him refuse to enter the church confessional after joking with Paul that Paul is wasting people's time as he has nothing to confess. An implication, perhaps, that Louis knows that he does.  

My reading of that has always been that Louis was sleeping with men in New Orleans long before Lestat came into the picture, and probably a fair few, but the show plays with Louis’ unreliable narration and the mystery of his sexual history to shroud that really until Jonah’s introduction. Jonah, after all, not only confirms that Louis had been with other men prior to Lestat, (as does Louis’ familiarity with the bayou as a gay hook up site), and that he wasn’t keeping much of anything at bay through the threat of absolution, but that he was sleeping with boys.

Louis’ 33 when he’s turned in 1910, and we know from the notice in this episode that we’re now in 1917, so Louis should be 40. We don’t know how old Jonah is, but given they look like contemporaries now, I think you could pretty safely gauge that if Louis was hooking up with him when Jonah was 16, he was probably in his mid-twenties. The context of the era is, of course, important, and there are a million reasons why Louis might have taken the opportunity with a teenager (although I think given Louis’ relationship with power, particularly in the NOLA era, we can assume that plays a role) but the narrative choice of the show to make Jonah a teenager when they hooked up – just like the choice to have Madeleine sleep with a Nazi teenager – is a deliberate ethical muddying of the waters to show that these elements of the monstrousness and the predator existed in him prior to his turning.

Louis is not, and has never been virtuous. He is not chaste when Lestat first has sex with him, and he is not an innocent when Lestat turns him. He can’t be corrupted, because, like a true Byronic hero, he is corrupt.

I could talk more here about the Paris park hook-ups, or the 128 boys in San Francisco (literally the most Byron thing imaginable to fuck your way through the city and then try and write a book about your ex lmao), but I think it’s worth leaving it at the New Orleans era, because I think what Jonah represents is not just Louis’ tendency to paint himself in the best light, but the mystery of his past and his inherent sexual agency which is vital to a Byronic hero. Louis is deeply feeling, and he’s capable of being in love with Lestat and having his heart dance with another man, he’s allowed sexual agency and sexual freedom even if it does lead to a bitter fight with Lestat because he's not under the thumb of the patriarch, he is one of the patriarchs. Lestat might follow after all, he might watch, but he doesn’t interrupt, he doesn’t exert control, in fact he fills the house with other men to offer Louis the deepening of depravity even through his own jealousy and, notably, empties the house when Louis tells him to.

Again, this goes back to what I was saying in the last post, but Louis doesn’t lack agency. The townhouse is not a prison to him, Lestat’s patriarchal, yes, but so’s Louis, he’s just more emotionally manipulative about how he keeps Claudia close to him. Louis' sexuality is a huge part of him, but it also doesn't define him in the way Claudia's virginity does. After all, for Claudia her sexuality is symbolic of her eternal chastity and girlhood, a gothic heroine locked in a prison of her own innocence, whereas for Louis, it gets to be so much more, because as a Byronic Hero, he gets to be so much more.

[fallingskiesandrisingseas]

Seems like I am not done talking about Haymitch.

Do you ever think about how he probably got a visit from Snow after he pulls his stunt with the forcefield?

I mean, this IS an act of defiance, a very big one at that. Finnick, Cashmere, Gloss and Johanna haven't had their Games yet. Snow maybe starts using people as prostitutes after he sees how badly losing his family breaks Haymitch, how it kills his spirit.

Imagine Haymitch coming home from the Games, stitched up, gasping for air, still feeling the ax digging into his stomach. And he's angry. Angry for Maysilee Donner, angry for his other two district members.

But he survived the hardest Games in history, despite being from the worst district. And the forcefield? He chuckles at the thought. Well, that was just the cherry on top. We, the audience, now know how smart he is. But he knew all along. He's made a fool out of the Capitol... and he is proud of it. Now there is only a lifetime of peace with his family and his girlfriend. And maybe, just maybe, also revenge.

He walks through his front door after two weeks of Victory Tour, traumatized but alive, and strong, and ready to embrace his little brother... And there sits Snow. Smiling.

Haymitch looks around. He doesn't smell his moms cooking, his brothers laughter isn't echoing in the halls. He can't find his family.

"Where are they?" Haymitch demands. He feels fear travel up his spine.

Snow gives him nothing but a cold, cold glare. "I hope you will think twice about fooling us in the future, mr. Abernathy. Enjoy your retirement"

He walks out. Haymitch doesn't know what to do. Then he runs upstairs.

Their bodies are already cold.

With no one around to help him, Snow counts on Haymitch's grief taking him out.

And it works. For over 2 decades, one of the smartest, most cunning people to have played the Games is nothing more than a bumbeling idiot, trying to drink himself to death. Snow makes sure the force field is a dome, that he has measures to take out tributes who play the game too cleverly.

Who could become a problem, like Haymitch.

He starts threatening beautiful victors to kill their families if they don't play whore for him, knowing that it'll be much better to have them close, where he can watch them, then back at their districts.

He threatens other winners too, but more subtely. If they can't be prostituted, they might somehow get addicted to morphling or alcohol. A child, brother or parent might go missing. He starts showing up at their houses, making sure that every Victor understand that Snow is all powerful. That there is nothing his hands cannot touch. Just so they are not alone and unthreatened.

Where they can plan, where they can brood. Haymitch might be drinking, but he's not dead yet. He hasn't killed himself like other Victors have. Somewhere deep inside him, the spark for revenge is still burning. So he bides his time, keeps himself alive, even if just barely.

Snow knows a lot about grudges, and he knows about the type of people who hold them. He cannot kill Haymitch, and he cannot blackmail him anymore either. He learns from that. So he keeps their families over the victor's heads.

Because otherwise he might get a Haymitch who isn't drinking himself to death. Otherwise he might be in serious trouble. Men like Haymitch, killers with a sharp mind, they might become a problem. Johanna almost becomes one, before he teaches her a lesson and robs her of her strenght. And Finnick Odair knows more secrets than his best spies.

Then the 74th Games happen. And Snow sees, much to his dismay, glimpses of the old Abernathy, of the brilliant mind, of the charming personality. He sees him walking around the Capitol. Making connections.

So of course, he tries to take the girl that looks so much like him out. Fireballs, secret gifts, rule changes; if he cannot kill Katniss, he will kill the image of her.

But then Katniss gives Rue her funeral. Haymitch sees Rue die in Katniss' arms and is transported back, for a moment, to 24 years ago, holding Maysilee. After he sees the berries and he knows she is much more like him than is good for her. He knows she is in danger now.

Snow thinks about how to kill two birds with one stone. He wants Katniss back in the arena. But maybe there is a way to finally kill Haymitch, too. If things work out.

Haymitch is angry beyond belief when he hears the announcement of the Third Quarter Quell. But he's not suprised. He knows Snow.

Almost all the men and women he knows are going back into the arena. He might go back. The chance that Katniss or Peeta comes back is extremely small.

When Peeta volunteers for him, he knows he can't do anything to stop it. The boy is far too noble for his own good. Haymitch admires that about him.

And that is the moment he starts planning. He knows how he needs to protect her, the girl that looks so much like him. And he's heard the rumours about 13. He might be an alcoholic, but he's still clever as the devil himself. He knows - fuck, he doesn't want to, but he's clocked it - that there are other victors that are angry like him. He starts building his alliance, just like all those years ago, in the Games. Only this time he isn't playing a simple game of kill or be killed. This time around it's much more dangerous.

This time, it isn't just his life he's playing with.

But he succeeds. Even though it costs him almost all his allies, he gets Katniss out. And for the rest of the war, he is right there beside her, advising, keeping her alive.

He knows he cannot keep her safe, so he lets her go into the Capitol, lead a team. Clipping a bird's wings is just as bad as killing her, and she is the revolution, even if she doesn't see it herself.

With Peeta's hijacking, she needs a goal, otherwise it might eat her alive like it's eating Haymitch, who curses himself for not being on time. He could have saved Chaff and Peeta if he got there earlier. If only, if only.

He promises himself two things: that if they make it, somehow, he'll take care of her for the rest of his life, and if she doesn't, he will finally do what he wanted to do ever since he found the bodies 25 years ago.

When she comes back they hug for a long time. Katniss tells her about Prim, about the bomb. She tells him about her talk with Snow, although she doesn't tell him what it was about. But he's figured it out already. How could he not? He's spent months studying Coin; he connects the dots almost as fast as Katniss herself. Coin used the bomb to break the resistance. And Gale designed the trap. So he tells her "to remember who the real enemy is" He trusts that Katniss gets it. She is so much like him, anyways.

And because he knows her so well, because the same dark thoughts Katniss has have been racing through his head ever since he looked into broken eyes of his brother's dead body, he replaces the nightshade in her uniform with simple black berries. And he posts Peeta right next to him, near Katniss. Just in case.

But he needs to do one more thing. The day before Snow's execution, Haymitch visits him. He sits down in front of the dictator of Panem and does not move. Snow doesn't notice him, at first. But after years of substance abuse Haymutch cannot get his hands to stop shaking. Snow notices the twitch from the corner of his eye and starts looking at his hands. He wonders if Haymitch can still feel the blood on them.

Then he looks up. Katniss doesn't terrify him, he knows her through and through. She's an arrow, fast and straight. He knows exactly what to expect.

But when he looks in the eyes of the victor of the Second Quarter Quell he shivers, despite the temperature. For the first time in a long while he feels fear.

Because if Katniss is an arrow, Haymitch is a knife. Concealed, sharp, o so deadly. And slow. Very, very, very slow.

An arrow needs to be fired, but knives can twist all by themselves.

Snow doesn't know how to describe the look in Haymitch's eyes, but it looks nothing like the boy he left broken on the steps of his home, 25 years ago. In his eyes is hurt that sits so deep it's become part of him. And rage. Haymitch, drunk Haymitch, cunning Haymitch, in control Haymitch, has to clench his fists and grit his teeth to not strangle Snow with his bare hands.

Snow is at a loss for words. Haymitch only leans forward and moves his finger slowly across his neck in a gesture that leaves nothing to the imagination. He doesn't say a word. There is no need. Snow knows exactly where he is: in that house in the Seam, 25 years ago.

Haymitch gets up.

For the first time in ages, he doesn't feel like drinking.

[sharararararara]

MASTER LIST★

AVATAR

NETEYAM:

All I wanted was you...( Yandere Neteyam x Metkayina reader)

Neteyam HCS( Neteyam x reader)

Husband Neteyam x reader( AGED UP) (NO SMUT)

Not all stories end with a happy ending( Neteyam x Metkayina reader) (ANGST)

AO'NUNG:

Ao'nung HCS( AO NUNG X READER)

Yandere Ao'nung HCS

TSIREYA:

I see you...( Tsireya x Fem Metkayina reader) (Angst turns into fluff)

Tsu'tey:

Nga yawns lu oer...(Tsu'tey x Omaticaya reader) (angst turns into fluff)

YANDERE AVATAR THE WAY OF WATER FAN FICTION:

INTRO

CHAPTER 1

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON

AEMOND TARGARYEN:

RIGHT PERSON WRONG TIME( Aemond x reader ANGST)

Fire and blood( Dark Aemond Targaryen x reader) ( Coming soon)

Yandere Aemond x Older sister reader (Chapter 1) (Chapter 2) (Chapter 3 )

Aemond Smut Imagine

Jacaerys Velaryon:

Yandere Jacaerys Velaryon x reader HCS

Harry Potter

CEDRIC DIGGORY:

ALMOST LOOSING YOU- DARK CEDRIC DIGGORY X READER

VICTOR KRUM:

My swan( Yandere Victor Krum x reader)

DRACO MALFOY:

Yandere Draco Malfoy x reader( coming soon)

HARRY POTTER:

Coming soon

NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM:

Coming soon

HUNGER GAMES

FINNICK ODAIR:

Never letting you go- Finnick Odair( Dark Finnick x reader)

CATO HADLEY:

Blood in my hands- DarkCato Hadley x reader( coming soon)

CORIOLANUS SNOW:

Cold as snow( Dark Coriolanus Snow x reader)

PEETA MELLARK

Coming soon

HONKAI STAR RAIL

JING YUAN:

Yandere Jing Yuan x reader HCS

DAN HANG

coming soon

BLADE

Coming soon

ONE PIECE

ZORO:

Yandere Zoro x reader HCS

SANJI:

WILL POST SOON

BUGGY:

WILL POST SOON

LORD OF THE RINGS/ THE HOBBIT

LEGOLAS:

WILL POST SOON

THRANDUIL:

Letter from Dark Thranduil

Dark Thranduil HCS

FRODO:

WILL POST SOON

PIPPY:

WILL POST SOON

MERRY:

WILL POST SOON

SAMWISE:

WILL POST SOON

ARAGORN:

WILL POST SOON

Game Of Thrones

Daenerys

Coming soon

Jon Snow

Coming soon

Sansa Stark

Coming soon

Rob Stark

Coming soon

Oberyn Martel

Coming soon

PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS

LUKE CASTELLAN

Dark Luke Castellan x reader HCS

The sun shines brighter when I'm with you.

Wrapped in a deadly embrace

PERCY JACKSON

Finding you

ANNABETH CHASE

COMING SOON

GROVER UNDERWOOD

COMING SOON

CLARISSE LA RUE

WAR AND BEAUTY

Outer Banks

RAFE CAMERON

Sick.

[sapphiccanadian]

Attack on Rue Plumet -simplified for your understanding by yours truly

Thenardiar: THIS BITCH SCAMMED ME, WE'RE GONNA ROB HIM

Brujon: why the fuck do I care, pay me

Eponine: I'LL FUCKING SCREAM

Thenardiar: YOU BITCH

Eponine: *Screams*

Thenardiar: FUCK, RUN AWAY

Marius: Lol, thanks platonic best friend who totally isn't in love with me, I'mma dip now

Val Jean: Yo, I heard screaming

Cosette: oh, yeah, fuck, yep, that was me, there was, uh, people, but they gone

Val Jean: Ah, fuck, we gotta leave, it's JAVERT, THAT BITCH, WE GONNA SAIL AWAY, FUCKERS