#and any guesses what *that* leads to

[problemnyatic]

executive dysfunction really is a complete fucking nightmare. all the decisions you could make, but you won't. All the things you know you should do, you want to do, but you won't. Yeah yeah we all know it's a symptom but it feels and looks like just.... deciding not to be responsible.

It's easier not to, so i guess I just won't. I promise it's not laziness, I swear. It's not me just giving up on things that affect more than just me, I swear. Maybe if I say it enough I could hope to believe it myself.

[art-is-kayos]

Checking up on his commission

[journey-to-the-attic]

the rest of the cast got their new song covers, so i wanted to try putting the others in a band :>

i did want to make it look a bit like an album cover but i have no idea how those are designed so eh?? i also couldn't think of any band or album/song names so. if anyone has any ideas...

[phantoms-lair]

"Okay, I can see why your astrology loving self likes it here," Tim elbowed Danny.

"It's astronomy and you know it." Danny said, fake offended.

"Yeah, I will admit I'm surprised by how good the internet is here. I wasn't expecting that out of rural Kansas."

"Well, think of who they have to keep in contact with, and how far away." Danny pointed out. "Honestly, pretty sure Bruce is responsible."

"Wouldn't be surprised."

"Hey Danny!" Elle hovered over the two of them. "Let's go flying!"

"We've got a guest you know." Danny gestured at Tim with his thumb. "Be kind of a jerk move to fly off without him."

"Can't he fly?" Elle asked. "His hero name is Robin, right?"

Elle looked like she was ten, but Tim had to remind himself she was less than half a year old and often surrounded by metahumans. "No flight. All my powers are up here." he said, tapping the side of his head.

"You're psychic?" she asked.

Danny laughed and Tim rolled his eyes. "No powers, just smart." he clarified. Then he looked back at the stars. "It would be interesting to see what it would be like to have powers, but like most of the family, I'm a normal human."

"No one who can lie to Batman with a straight face is normal." Danny pointed out.

"If he wants to know what it's like to have powers, why don't you show him?" Elle asked.

"It's rude." Danny said, sticking his tongue.

"Not with consent."

"Not with permission." Danny pleaded. "You are too young for me to want to hear you use the phrase 'consent'."

"Missing something." Tim pointed out.

"Overshadowing. If I take control of you I can channel my powers through your body. But like I said, it's kind of rude."

Tim wasn't sure 'rude' was the word for stealing someone's bodily autonomy. But Elle did have a point of her own. There was a world of difference between doing something with or without consent. "Okay, how would that work?"

"How would what work?" Danny asked.

"The overshadowing thing."

"Oh, it's er," Danny was fiddling with his fingers, suddenly nervous. "It's kinda creepy."

Tim gave him a flat look. They'd covered Danny referring to himself as 'creepy' enough in Gotham that he wasn't amused.

"It's basically possession. I would seize control of your body and channel my powers through it. Normally the person getting possessed is sort of put to sleep and only has vague impressions of the time they were controlled. But a person with strong enough willpower can resist and be aware." Unsaid was that pretty much everyone in Tim's family would be able to hold onto their awareness.

"Could you cede control once you had it though? Possess someone but not control them?"

"I honestly don't know. I've never tried it." Danny admitted.

"Then lets try it," Tim suggested.

Danny looked at him like he was crazy. "Why?"

"Two reason. The first is it will see how well I do if a ghost tries controlling me. The second," he shrugged, "I'm not a metahuman and will probably never be one. And I'm okay with that, but it's been interesting to see what it feels like to be one, you know?"

Danny pursed his lips and Tim wondered if he was crossing a line. Being a metahuman hadn't exactly been a fun experience for Danny, after all.

"Okay." Danny said reluctantly. "But you don't get to blame me if you don't like it."

Or he could just still have issues with the thought of people rejecting him for his powers. "Fair. We've got Elle as our witness that this was my idea. I could talk to the Kents beforehand too-"

"Not necessary!" Danny shuddered.

Tim felt his heart droop. Deep down Danny still didn't trust they'd keep caring for him. He hated what the Fentons had done to Danny's self esteem. "You don't have to if you don't want to." Tim softly reminded him. "I don't want you to be uncomfortable either. But I trust you, you know?"

Danny swallowed heavily. "Okay. If you're sure."

It felt cold, at first, like a chill up his spine. Then Tim felt his mouth move and vocal chords activate independently of of him. "Okay, so this is overshadowing." His own voice said. "So I guess, try to do something and I'll try not to stop it?"

"Do you have to talk out loud?" Tim asked. "It's going to look like I'm talking to myself."

"I guess that works. And yes, no psychic connection for this. Sorry."

"Weird," Elle observed. "I've seen some recordings of overshadowing and usually the person has the eyes glowing the ghosts color when control, but the glow fades when they resist control. But the eye glow didn't go away when Tim spoke."

"He's not resisting me, I'm letting him have control, it's different." Danny insisted.

"Maybe I should start resisting you. Just to see if I can." Tim suggested.

Elle giggled. It really did look funny with him talking to himself.

"Okay," Danny raised Tim's arm and clenched his fist. "You try to open your hand and I'll try to keep it shut."

Tim had to admit just feeling his arm move like that was mildly panic inducing. He'd managed not to be carded by Hatter but imagined this was what it felt like. He struggled to move his hand only to have it firmly stay in place. He struggled more, eventually sending his arm into erratic fits, punching himself in the face. "Owww" he moaned as

Elle doubled over in laughter.

"Healing factor should take care of it in a few minutes. Unless you want to stop now." Danny rubbed their injured nose.

"No, I mean, I think I want muscle control back, we can work on resisting stuff more later. But I want to see what having powers feels like!"

"Which one do you want to-"

"Flying!" Elle interrupted gleefully.

"I think you might have an ulterior motive." Danny said dryly. "You up for flying, Tim?"

"Yes please," Tim answered, trying to hide how excited he was to try.

He's seen others fly, several times, but it wasn't something he's ever thought he could do except on a hang glider or something.

"We're going for invisibility first." Danny warned. "Since we don't want to be seen."

If getting possessed had been a shiver up his spine, becoming invisible was like being dunked in cool water. Not frigid, but a definite chill ran across his skin as it vanished from sight. Then Tim felt gravity lose it's hold on him. Without any form of propulsion he lifted up about a foot in the air.

"We're going to start low and slow." Danny assured him. "So if anything goes wrong you aren't going to fall too far." Gently he leaned forward and glided effortlessly through the air.

"Do you think I could do this myself?" Tim asked.

"No clue, let's try!" Danny seemed to be warming up to the idea of testing with Tim's lack of a bad reaction to being overshadowed.

The floated in place and Tim tried to move their shared body. But while he could mover his limbs with ease, Danny's power couldn't be interacted with. "Doesn't look like it, sorry."

Elle looped back around. "This is low and slow is kiddy stuff." She groaned.

Danny gave her a mild glare. "You are three months old. You have no right to complain of kiddy stuff."

"If anything I can more." Elle countered. "Come on, can we at least do tag or something?" Tim shrugged. "Sure, tag sounds good."

~

"Does she normally smoke you this bad at tag?"

"No." Danny grumped.

Tim sighed. "Sorry. Having to plan out our strategies is letting her hear us. If you took full control-" "Then you wouldn't be in the game, I'd just be using you as a meat suit for no reason." Danny pointed out.

Tim thought for a moment. "Danny, can you put your shield in a bubble around us, so Elle can't hear us planning?"

"Sure, but it's going to be obvious."

"That's fine, we're just planning the planning." Tim assured. Danny raised the shield "We're planning to plan? Seems redundant."

"We're planning the things that will let us plan in plain sigh without your sister knowing." Tim corrected. "So our main issue here is we've got two minds that need to collaborate. Even if we split the division of labor of you powers me body, we each need to use both. You can take control of my body if an opportunity needs it, but I can't take control of your powers, so that what we need more communication for."

"Elle hasn't developed much beyond the standard, so we can keep to those. So, intangibility," Tim tapped the ring finger of his left hand twice. "If I make that motion, it means I'm asking you to use intangibility, if you do it it's warning me you're using it and I don't have to flinch away. Blinking twice will work the same for invisibility and..." Tim thought a moment more. "Tongue for flying." "Okay, I get eyes for invisibility and hands for intangibility, why tongue for flying?" Danny asked.

"Because it can't be seen. So tongue on the roof of my mouth acts as the taps or blinking, but can also be used to indicate direction in three dimensions." Tim demonstrated by holding his tongue to the roof of his mouth, then pressing it to the left side of his cheek."

Any more discussion was interrupted by Elle knocking on the shield. Danny dropped it to reveal his younger sister looking annoyed. "Are we playing or what?" Dany smirk and cracked their shared knuckles. "Round two begins now."

~

Alfred stood on the porch with the Kents while Martha rang the bell to call the children in. It had been a lovely visit catching up with them while Tim spent some time with Danny and Elle. It warmed his heart that despite moving to Smallville and possibly adding Kent to his name instead of Wayne, Danny and Tim were still very much brothers.

(One of the contingencies, if the Kents hadn't felt able to take in the boy, was for him to be officially adopted by Tim as a Drake, allowing him to still be a part of the family without feeling an unwanted connection to Master Bruce. But that plan was scrapped when Danny became publicly known during the Seige of Gotham. It was for the best, Danny truly needed more adults he trusted.)

It wasn't unexpected to see the children approach from the air. What was unexpected was there was only two of them and Master Tim seemed to be flying of his own volition. A raised eyebrow was all it took to remind the children that this wasn't an ordinary situation either.

Tim felt his shoulders hunch and his cheek flush as Danny's self-consciousness expressed itself in his body. Danny separated from him and opened his mouth, probably to apologize, but Tim wasn't going to let him. "I wanted to know what it was like to fly." he said, cutting off any apologies for his existence his brother might make.

"Indeed." Alfred said simply. "And how did that work out?"

"Quite well. I can better coordinate flying members of the team now, as well as Danny and I worked out a simple non-verbal code in order to plan around Elle while she could hear everything we said to each other. It was a productive endeavor."

"More importantly, Master Tim." Alfred's eyes crinkled into a smile. "Did you have fun?"

Tim felt himself becoming bashful now, ducking his head. "Yeah." He answered. "I did."

Good. Just as Danny needed the occasional reminder they were cared for, Tim needed the reminder that he was more than his use.

"That's something." Pa rubbed his chin. "Don't suppose you'd be willing too take me up there too. "I'd love to be able to go flying with Clark."

Danny's face turned red, and he half hid behind Tim's shoulder.

"It's okay if you're not comfortable with us for that yet." Ma said kindly. "We know you haven't know us as long as Tim."

"S'Okay." Danny muttered.

"You can take Pa and I'll take Ma. We can all go flying!" Elle cheered.

"When your brother's ready," Ma gently admonished.

"With that we must be off." Alfred apologized. "While I treasure these times, it's not fair to Miss Gordon to have to run herd on our family all evening without backup."

"Give Bruce our best." Ma patted Tim on the head while Pa and Alfred shook hands.

"I will. See you soon Danny."

"Yeah." Danny smiled at his brother. "See you soon."

It would be sooner than either of the two thought

[sneezarify]

oh allergies, I adore you 🥺

(I was looking through my drafts, and noticed I had made two very similar posts a year apart 😂 maybe I should make it an annual thing?)

Essentially, my nose in allergy season is the nose I want all year round! I’m so jealous of sensitive nose/all year allergy people.

Well, feels timely to share as my nose goes back to being boring 😝

2024:

“Some notably fun things to report from this allergy season so far:

I have become a red wine sneezer (!!)

I am more or less a morning sneezer now (I sneezed myself awake today).

I can’t drink ginger beer without triggering sneezes.

On a bad allergy day that becomes any sparkling drink.

I can often induce some stuck sneezes by rubbing the roof of my mouth with my tongue and can help stuck sneezes along by hitching or breathing slowly and purposefully.

On bad allergy days I can rub/press my nose the wrong way and trigger sneezes.

Inducing triggers FITS.

I’m much more sensitive to dust.”

2023:

(lol I was a lot more passionate this year)

“Ok ok, hear me out!

because I’m sick n tired of people not liking allergies more than colds.

Reason #10,000 that allergies are better.

During allergy season, my nose becomes x100 more sensitive, and trust me, I don’t have a sensitive nose. (I wouldn’t even sneeze from shaking pepper in my face normally)

Here’s a list of the weirdest things that have made me sneeze

The wind

Vaping

Rubbing my nose

Kissing someone

Drinking a fizzy drink

Grazing my tongue on the roof of my mouth

Like are you fkin joking me? What does a cold give you? A stuffy nose??? 😤

allergies are ELITE.”

see you next year 🤪

[minticecodes]

I'm slowly getting through devil may cry v and got inspired enough to doodle again. Sure they aren't polished but I love looking at others' sketch dumps, it's like looking at a smorgasbord of ideas. So here you go. Read more for close ups of the other doodles. The ID in alt are the same as written in the text.

[I.D. Digital art. A boy in a shirt hoodie, Nero, sits cross legged as he leans backwards to smile up at his companion. Said companion is a tall horned knight, Nelo Angelo, kneeling behind Nero. Nelo gazes to the side, but braces his broadsword by Nero, and his cape drapes around where Nero's sitting. Nero is rendered in light blue and red, Nelo is rendered in light blue, and they're brightly illuminated. End I.D.]

(Was thinking of 'Love Seeketh Not Itself to Please' by Indigomoods on ao3 while doing this one).

[I.D. A number of digital art sketches, most prominently featuring Dante and Vergil from the Devil May Cry series. From top to bottom, right to left:

Headshots of two boys, Dante and Vergil. Short comic of a man (Dante) ruffling a boy's (Vergil's) hair. Sketch of two boys on a couch, one (Dante) looking concerned at the other (Vergil) in foetal position. Branches curl under the couch. Sketch of child Dante and Vergil in red and blue, running hand in hand. Thumbprint sized chibi child Dante and Vergil. Nero and Nelo sitting together.

Semirealistic headshot (DMCV Vergil) in blue. Boy (Dante) curled in a fire, and fire demon (SDT Dante) gazing at his palm against a black background. Loose sketches of a man's head, roughly scribbled out except one, and an angry cat with a sword. They're labelled in blue and red writing. Side profile of a young man in blues (DMC3 Vergil), face shadowed, a yellow ribbon curled in the background. Side profile of DMC3 Vergil. End I.D.]

[I.D. 4 black and white digital pen cartoony sketches of child Dante and Vergil. Head and bust shot of a boy with slicked back hair and black turtleneck (Vergil) looking right. His brows are furrowed, eyes narrowed; he looks unimpressed. Below is a head and bust shot of a boy with shoulder length hair and white shirt (Dante) looking left with wide eyes and a fang toothed, wide grin. Centre close up of a cloaked boy (Vergil) glaring up, brow furrowed. His hair hangs over a shadowed face. One narrowed eye is visible. Right sketch is of a cloaked boy (Vergil) hugging a book to his chest, referencing a Visions of V panel. His one visible eye is wide as he gazes down with a small expression. End I.D.]

[I.D. Coloured digital art over a black background. Two panels. Panel one is child Dante, arms hugging his legs as he sits within a fire raging around him. He's buried his face in his arms. Panel two is an adult Dante in his demonic SDT form. He gazes down at his clawed hand while the fiery core in his chest glows as the main source of light, casting shadows and red light against his armoured form. The tips of his claws seem to glow in the reflected light. End I.D.]

[I.D. Messy sketch of child Vergil and Dante, running hand in hand. The two look at each other with smiles, Dante with a wide grin and Vergil with closed lips and determined brows. Their full expressions aside from the smile cannot be seen; Dante's hair whips back and covers his face while Vergil's face is eyeless. They're softly rendered in light blue and red, and bright lighting. End I.D.]

[I.D. Messy sketch of child Vergil and Dante sitting on a couch, shot from behind the couch. Dante directs a concerned gaze to Vergil, his hand braced on the couch back as he leans closer. Vergil only looks down. His arms are curled around his knees. From the angle, his expression cannot be seen aside from a small frown. Under the couch slithers Qliphoth tree roots. End I.D.]

[I.D. Chibi doodle of child Vergil and Dante, holding hands. Light blue and red ovals were airbrushed on the page, and a pen lined out their features. They have round cheek patches, like budgies. Vergil has a cartoony pout and a book tucked under an arm, labelled with a V; Dante has a toothy grin and is making a bunny ears hand sign. End I.D.]

[I.D. 'DANTE' is evenly block printed in blue pen. Underneath are what looks to be the start of three portraits of Dante in black pen, but they're roughly scribbled out. The most detailed of the three scribbled out portraits is Dante's grinning side profile. He had sunglasses on. The only intact portrait is a shot of Dante from behind, from the chest up and face not visible aside from a grin. Carried on his back is the Devil Sword Dante, rendered in more detail than Dante.

Meanwhile 'VERGIL' is written in orange/red pen, but strikethroughed. Written above instead is 'PURR-GIL!!', an arrow pointing at a doodle of a cat holding a roughly drawn katana(Yamato). The cat is grimacing with furrowed brows. It has spiky fur on its head, a spiky curled tail, a thorn pattern on its arms resembling Vergil's coat sleeves, and fat round blushy cheeks. End I.D.]

[I.D. Semirealistic rendering of DMCV Vergil from the neck up in three quarter view. He's painted in blues, with soft red shadows. He glares at the viewer, brows furrowed. His irises are a soft red, and he has eye bags. His lips are somewhat glossy. To the side is the blue color palette. End I.D.]

[I.D. Stylised depiction of DMC3 Vergil glaring downwards in profile, from the chest up. He's rendered in blues, his face shadowed from the light against his back. Running over his skin are cracked gold lines, reminiscent of kintsugi. In the background curls a yellow ribbon in the same gold. He's wearing a sleeveless turtleneck and cravat. End I.D.]

[I.D. Stylised black and white lineart of DMC3 Vergil glaring in profile, lips sneering, from the neck up. He's in a coat and cravat. End I.D.]

[I.D. Messy comic.

Panel 1: DMCV Dante ruffling child Vergil's hair. Dante's face is out of the panel

Vergil (grimacing): "Dante!"

Panel 2: Vergil's staved off the hair ruffling, lifting up Dante's hand with both his hands. His brows are furrowed as he looks up at Dante. In the background is a laughing sound effect, that tapers off. 'HA HA ha...'

Panel 3: Adult Dante gazing down at child Vergil, arm hovering over him. His expression seems sad, despite the small smile.

Dante: ... I missed ya, Verge.

Vergil gazes up at Dante, a small question mark by his head. End I.D.]

[gjsxj0]

mindless rambling in tags don't mind me

[frootbyethefoot]

looking at the book of bill teaser where the pines family burns around ford while "we'll meet again" plays in the background. normal.

[hella1975]

i cannot stand the aot fandom this is not a new take at all they are universally intolerable but oh my dayssss u are FORBIDDEN from making ANY take about the show it's actually insane to watch. 'aot is perfect' no show is perfect. 'tell me you didnt get the show 😂🫵' people have different opinions/interpretations about things. 'eren is a good guy they could never make me hate him' i think there's actually 4 seasons and two movies explicitely using him as a tool to show that no one is 'good' or 'evil' they are only trying to survive. hello. the fandom r all so far up aot's ass that they actually discredit its writing in the process and it would be laughable if it wasn't so frustrating

[whenthegoldrays]

overthinking … nooo ……

[skunkes]

might sound weird to say as a person with a couple ocs who have Big Horrible Event(s) in their backstories or as a person who has like 3 ocs total bc he sucks at writing and as a person who hopes their ocs arent too Boring with [the thing im about to mention] but the thing about writing [characters] and [people] is that like.

any little thing a person experiences can take up their whole existence... its actually something "fun" to experience as i meet new ppl and do more things. My friend had something happen that she'll be talking about forever. I had several things happen last year that ill never stop talking about, some of which other ppl think werent that bad actually. In the same way I'll forever remember about the way my sister accidentally insulted me almost 10 years ago, it's really interesting and Fun to find and assign smaller things like that to characters...its really Real. some people's dealbreakers are other people's solvable problems etc etc

[icewindandboringhorror]

finally finished all of one character's entire quests/optional dialogue/questions/etc.... 100,000 words... .... aughhh

[sysig]

Challenge level: Impossible (Patreon)

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[colloquialcolors]

in similar vein to reading watership down and being pleasantly surprised by how hopeful it was i have now finished reading haunting of hill house and have been kind of pleasantly surprised by how. sapphic. it was. i mean its a horror story and has left me with the correct sense of sort of quiet unease and like. im going to need to think about it for a while and like. damn. but it also was QUITE queer in ways i was not expecting going in. so thats fun! (said while thinking about houses and walls and unreliable narrators and dissolving sense of self)

[matrixwhore]

bare with me bc im fatigued but unable to sleep so i’m just here thinking and need to get my thoughts out, but i think much of louis’ passivity stems from his relationship with his mother and family. we don’t really see him become passive until claudia arrives. please correct me if i’m wrong but i believe that side of him is awakened once that traditional family structure is solidified in his home and i think the du lac family has a lot to do with why he’s like that and not just that he’s incapable of acting or choosing.

i see him and i see the child/mother that doesn’t want to repeat his mother’s failings on his own family but takes it so far to the extreme that it means he refuses to confront anything ever bc he feels he’s communicating the unconditional love he never received. he really is someone who wants the ones in his life to know they can be loved through anything. whether or not people receive it in the way he gives it i don’t think should be put on his shoulders as much it is.

he doesn’t have healthy understanding of discipline/consequences bc he was punished for things he couldn’t help like his queer identity. it doesn’t really seem like growing up he got into much trouble, again correct me if im wrong. other than paul his pimping isn’t really admonished by the du lacs bc it affords them their lifestyle. they are willing to distance themselves from it bc they get the house and the staff and the honeymoon trips etc. but they won’t overlook who he is. and it outweighs anything else. and that’s a weird thing to process being punished for bc the only thing you can do is deny yourself. but they know. so you hiding it and they know and they show you they disapprove even if you’re trying to play by their rules. it creates a complex.

then there’s paul. he’s the only one who really took it on to take care of paul and establish a relationship with him. i think florence probably didn’t push back against his institutionalization and grace seems to agree he belonged there. louis was the only one who saw how it negatively impacted paul. he loved paul that was his favorite person and then he killed himself and florence blames him for simply being there. this is where he starts to go from the favored son to the scapegoat which is a fucked transition to experience and i think its super underestimated how badly louis is impacted by it. it also happens when he starts to openly entertain lestat so it’ll never matter that his last moments with paul were expressions of love bc his all florence sees is that he’s been acting in sin and so of course he must of done and said something to kill her baby who he was raising and caring for in her place btw. when paul was upset he went to louis not florence. the last thing he ever said to paul was he loved him and he still died and florence blames him for it. he’s always punished for loving as far as he’s concerned.

then he does make “a choice” to become an immortal monster/companion/wife, which given all the circumstances is very much not much of a choice on his part, but he decides to go with what he wants and that choice is at the center of the unraveling of almost all the things he cares about and links to his human identity. and he clings to his human identity so i believe that fucks with his ability to trust his own decision making for sure. it’s the loss of his role in his family slowly but surely and everything he did he did for them. he always struggles with his decisions about how he supports his family and how he copes w the impact it has on his community. so if in choosing his own desire to love and be loved for once strips him of his family and his community what does that say about the decisions he made along the way? what was it all for? and then on top of that he didn’t even know what he was choosing in choosing immortality with lestat. he’s rocked by being faced with the reality of his choice so much so that he forgot his brother died for a moment. he’s probably developed an inability to take a step in any direction bc every step leads to a new rock bottom and he doesn’t trust himself anymore. that’s a very real thing that happens.

so how does that manifest when he has his own lil nuclear family?? well

with claudia he doesn’t ever want her to feel like she could ever lose his love for her for any reasons. like his family showed him. so bc his own punishments were correlated with who he was and not things he did really i don’t think he’s able to see disciplining claudia as guiding her towards better actions i think he sees it as punishing her for being as she is which he blames himself for and also for loving (where charlie is concerned but i’ll get to that…). it was his choice to bring her into this life so how can he trust himself beyond loving her unconditionally. that’s what he wants so that’s what he gives. claudia does what she does bc she’s a vampire and she didn’t choose that. he did. so he retreats when the consequences of that crop up and becomes passive. he doesn’t want to take a step in any direction on top of the patriarchal structure that the father is the law of the house, but then charlie happens.

claudia didnt kill charlie out of maliciousness. it was young love with all the demanding of the insatiable hunger of a vampire. even lestat recognizes that she got carried away so to louis punishing her or even makeing her feel bad for the action was too deeply entwined with punishing her for loving at all and that is a sensitive thing for him. he doesn’t handle it better than lestat that’s not what i’m saying what i’m saying is he doesn’t have the tools to guide her through this. what he has is the desperation to not repeat what harmed him growing up. it’s after this that he decides lestat cannot be the law of the household where claudia is concerned until he realizes his approach seriously blinded him to the fact that claudia ,yes is a doomed child vampire, but she’s a doomed child vampire making decisions and her actions have serious consequences for all of them and he doesn’t have the tools to guide. he can love her through anything, but how can he of all people really guide her. this isn’t as simple as no running in the house and listen to your elders. the mother is learning her daughter is her own person (and vampire) not an extension of her and with character traits like her father too. (plus the mother has to realize that she can’t heal herself through her daughter) whew. so louis decides to step back and to let lestat be the law again and then claudia LEAVES and on her way out she challenges his decision to turn her at all (with good reason. these two vampires should not be raising a baby!!) louis is literally so distraught he wants her to come home but he can’t bring himself to go after her and bring her home. he doesn’t want to take a step!! he doesn’t want to decide. it never leads to what he thinks it will. i don’t think he believes he can trust himself to make good choices. so he loves her unconditionally on broadcast for every vampire within radio earshot to hear because that’s what he can do. thennnn she’s harmed while she’s gone and i’m sure he’s feels in a way responsible. he wanted to be her protector so badly (when actually she’s his but i’ll get to that in a bit) and wasn’t able to. and of course there’s that scene™️ in ep5 with being put in a position where he was pressured to choose between lestat and claudia and because it LOOKED like he MIGHT choose claudia and because he didn’t IMMEDIATELY choose lestat disaster ensued. that’s a lot. fuck.

and when the nature of his relationship with claudia shifts more to siblings because she’s getting older, wants more agency and claudia realizes she is also a replacement for grace, this is where the passiveness that is the result of his relationship with grace developed. bc while its true claudia takes over for grace, she is the sister to louis that grace never ever was. on top of the fact that her solution for their issues was “you’re dead to me,” grace never actually accepted and supported his queer identity truly like claudia and she definitely never protected him like claudia either (defending mama du lac in regards to paul comes to mind and also her husband being the replacement son). and louis needs and wants both those things as well as someone who won’t abandon him like grace did and he let’s claudia be them but takes it to the extreme where the last two are concerned. Louis doesn’t think he can save himself from his situation and claudia believes she can save herself and him. she isn’t gonna leave him behind. he leans into that heavily. it’s not just that he can’t and won’t make choices to get them out of their situation it’s also that he’s traumatized by his past choices and also he’s also loving lestat unconditionally as well on top of that (in the way he’s able to). i don’t think louis could see a way out like at all. he was shrouded in darkness. the best he could do was compartmentalize his love for lestat to protect himself when things were at their worst that was his flashlight in that darkness. but like when it was necessary for the success of the plan that he allow himself to love lestat fully he said if i feel it there’s no way out of this fr fr. he knew he wouldn’t make good choices. choosing lestat is the decision he will always make for better or worse. but that’s at the expense of claudia on top of choking her.

like idk we joke about his inability to make decisions but that trait in him is drenched with trauma. and his family is a huge part of why imo. i just get so upset when i think about them. i really rambled on and on here. not sure how much sense this makes but i guess this ties into my feelings about this as well. but yeah not choosing as a trauma response and not just as a way to get out of confronting his problems even tho that is a symptom. if that makes sense. idk. my brain is mash potatoes right now.