#but i don’t have nails

[certifiedducky]

okay gang do you see the vision

inspo:

the actual shelf part was originally going to have the akuma and ladybugs on it as well, but i didn’t end up going through with it because i was worried it wouldn’t translate well and it would’ve taken a lot longer lol but im very happy with how it turned out!!!!

[afterartist]

Apriltello /neg

2k12 Dee I love u but this was not it

Pushing my rise turts paint their nails the colour of their brothers agenda

Bonus of my fav panels

[asklesbianonceler]

🕯️High Priest of Manus Metyr🕯️

Kind of a quick piece because I really wanted to do the cathedral as a backdrop.

[fallenfawnn]

get high with me <3

[spenglerstwinkie]

COME AND GET ME OUT OF HERE‼️

[turtleblogatlast]

One of the biggest things that makes me see Leo as trans is absolutely the size of his carapace in comparison to his brothers’.

And I’m not talking about height! I’m specifically looking at his shell here, because when you compare him to the others, particularly Donnie who is nearly the same height as Leo, it’s very clear that Leo’s carapace is much longer in proportion to the rest of his body.

Like - standing side by side, even though Donnie is shorter his carapace ends noticeably higher up than Leo’s does. And I like this not only because it really helps push the idea that Leo could very likely be trans (or intersex!), but it’s also just a fun design difference between them.

(It also lends way to future scenarios of Donnie eventually getting taller than Leo, but sitting down still has Leo being the taller one haha.)

[hersterical]

When Vi says “I am the dirt under your nails” my dad got all sarcastic and was like “Oh, how romantic?” And I was just kind of sitting there like… Yes it freaking is romantic!

First of all, part of good dialogue is that it’s dialogue the character would actually say. If Vi said something super pretty and sweet and something out of the big speech of a rom-com, it wouldn’t be romantic because it wouldn’t sound like Vi. It would sound hollow and insincere. The phrase itself might be a little awkward but what would be even more awkward if Vi said something more traditionally romantic sounding and out of character

Second, it’s reminiscent of the phrase ‘blisters and bedrock’

Third, yeah, it is a little self-deprecating. Out of context I can get why people could see it as demeaning. But actually watching the show Vi and Caitlyn are on equal footing for pretty much the entire time they’ve known each other. There does start to be a bit of a power difference in Act I of season 2, but that works as the exception that proves the rule because as soon as this power difference becomes apparent then they stop working. It’s only when they act as partners in Act II again that their relationship begins to heal

Fourth, I personally have always loved these gritty little details that brings romance back to earth. Cait and Vi have a far from perfect relationship and it’s built on a shared struggle and cause. They don’t have a story book, fairytale romance. It’s better because it’s real (well, you know what I mean). For these two there will always be another fight and they will always be getting their hands dirty. This line was specifically in response to the question ‘are you still in this fight with me’ so this is specifically just as much, if not more, about their relationship as partners fighting for the same cause and for each other as it is about their romantic relationship. It’s rough, it’s dirty, it’s ugly, it’s desperate, and it’s the most real thing that either of them have. For as long as one is fighting (always) the other will be fighting by their side.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a weird turn of phrase. Rough around the edges. But so is Vi. So is Cait. And so is their relationship. If anything that just makes it more special

[horseshoemybeloved]

One thing I love about Pete’s gender non-conforming-ness is that like. I feel like a lot of guys/celeb guys are so like. Performative with it?

They’re all so “ yeah I…. Painted my left toenail pastel beige so yeah…… I’m queer and a queer ally✊ I hope this Statment I’m making has real world effects….. I hope me wearing a pearl necklace ( that I take off when I see my grandma ) will really make a change in this world I’m like a great guy I’m making such movements such changes such-“

And then like in a recent interview a guy was like “ Pete why did you grow out you hair what was the significance what was the meaning ???“

and he was like “ well yknow I like kinda like think about cutting it but like then I’m like no cus like I like how it falls yknow ?”

Like Pete’s gender non-conformity feels so genuine to me. It doesn’t feel like he’s thinking “ oh yeah this is such a huge statement twitter is gonna LOVE me and praise me for my allyship “ it just seems like “ hmm I wanna put my hair into little buns today “

[monstersinthecosmos]

I read your answer, where did you say "Pandora is his actual type and Armand was his pet"

But how could Armand be just a pet for him? He is one of only three of his turned children. Marius speaks of him as the greatest love (along with Pandora). Although I see some hypocrisy in this. Marius loves no one as much as Pandora. But certainly more than just a pet

Well !

Babe the thing is that, I said what I said and it’s okay if you don’t agree!!! And I’m gonna take this opportunity to double down. (Assuming that you’re asking in good faith and not to pick on me for my analysis lmao please this fandom has traumatized me too much.)

(((TLDR the text never treats Armand like he’s Marius’s equal but also I never said that being a pet was a bad thing.)))

I want to start by talking about the concept of MAKER in VC and how canon tells us that vampires exist outside of human social constructs, including traditional family roles right? Like for example, the moment Gabrielle is turned, she ceases to be Lestat’s mother. 

But with Marius I think a lot about how he’s crafted a persona for himself, and tries to operate in a very rigid set of rules. And part of this is like, how determined he is to live by stoicism even when he’s a mess on the inside, but I also think about in TVL when he says that thing about how it’s easier to just knock a glass on the floor, and how he goes out of his way to appear more human and retain human gestures. 

So like, in the way a MAKER is kinda like, a parent/lover/companion/something too big for our tiny human minds to comprehend. We still get a Marius who is determined to be a father & mentor, and I think a lot about how his need for stoicism and humanity is probably also expressed with his need to be the paterfamilias. 

I’ve been also thinking a lot lately about Bad Fathers in Media—specifically people like Tony Soprano, Logan Roy, Roderick Usher—and how the toxic patriarchy affects their relationships with their sons. Tony Soprano in particular is one who resonates with me a lot when I think about Marius—Tony often indulges in anger because he enjoys being feared (he thinks it’s respect but it’s usually fear), and that’s a bit different on a material level from Marius “anger is too pathetic” de Romanus but they’re both sort of obsessed with the idea of stoicism and trying to be a ~ strong silent type ~ on the outside, even when they’re actually quite messy and emotional underneath.

But wait — put a pin in this for a second. We’ll come back to this, and the concept of fathers and sons. I want to pause real quick to swerve to clarify:

Armand being a pet isn’t a bad thing.

It wasn’t “pet (derogatory) 😒” —  it’s “pet (adorable creature that I care for) 🥰”.

Here’s the thing about MARIMAND if you will (I hate all the VC ship names oh my god theyre all hideous lmao) but like OKAY OKAY. THE THING IS. WHAT ARE WE HERE FOR IF WE’RE NOT INTO THE FUCKEDUPEDNESS ? 

Like I’m not telling anyone how to enjoy a ship, please have fun ! Do you! But to ME? That inter-species friction and 1,517 year age gap is like WHAT THE DYNAMIC IS ABOUT, THAT’S THE FLAVOR BABY!!! Anne Rice herself even said the book was about “a boy’s love for a monster” !!

WHAT’S THE POINT OF MONSTERFUCKER EROTICA IF HE’S NOT A MONSTER LOL

And YEAH I get that not everyone wants to read TVA as a monsterfucker story. That’s okay! It also reads as a savior fantasy. But I enjoy the messiness of it—I LIKE that Marius is an apex predator & ghoulish ancient thing. I like that it’s problematic. I LOVE that Marius really does love him, though, amidst all these other themes. I find it SO compelling.

But I never once said that Marius doesn’t love him. Of course Marius loves him. What I said is that he loves Armand the way we love a pet. I would fucking die for my cats. I regularly burst into tears looking at my cats because I love them so much. But they’re fucking cats lmao.

I never for one minute forget that Marius isn’t human. He’s operating on a whole different wavelength with different points of references and ethics and life experiences. Like, people get so hung up on Armand being 17 and IT WOULD BE JUST AS BAD IF HE WAS 18 OR 25 OR 30 LOL. A frail little human cannot comprehend !!!!!

What’s interesting with Marius’s fledglings though is that he tends not to treat them as equals. Like I think you could read TVA thinking: Once Marius turns him, they’ll be real partners. But no, they stick to their mentor/mentee, dom/sub, father/son roles. We don’t have tons of examples in canon of other maker/fledgling relationships but it’s not a coincidence that Roman Patriarch Marius maintains status over his fledglings. Even once Armand is a vampire, he’s still not Marius’s equal, and Marius’s age and power are still held over him. 

BUT LIKE.

That’s weird, right?

I MEAN THE DARK GIFT IS DIFFERENT FOR EVERYONE but it’s interesting to me that Lestat & Gabrielle’s relationship completely dissolves once she’s a vampire, but Marius & Armand’s doesn’t.

(Sidebar that like, I think there’s also ways to acknowledge that if we think their relationship is good that it’s OKAY for them to maintain these roles because Armand WANTS to be his sub but let me focus on my point here. We should also make time to talk about diegetic BDSM and whether or not it’s appropriate to use a D/s framework for this discussion if the roles are baked into the text and not a choice for the characters and not a game they are agreeing to but that’s for another post.)

So back to the thing about fathers.

I’ve been thinking a lot about bad father characters, specifically Logan Roy and Tony Soprano (also bad mother Margaret Chenowith) and the impossible standards they give their children. Logan and Tony are both men who are disappointed in their sons for being soft, because they were able to provide better lives for their children. They both spoil their sons with all the material wealth that they did not have in their own lives. For Logan we see how badly he resents his kids—Kendall even accuses him of being jealous of what they have—and for Tony he seems to be at a loss on how to parse his feelings. Part of him literally hates AJ for being such a whimsical little fuckup, and at the same time he wants to protect that part of AJ and doesn’t even WANT AJ to follow in his footsteps. Still, he hates to see that AJ is spoiled with no work ethic, and doesn’t know how to set an example for him.

Everything in Venice is designed to spoil Armand with all the things Marius didn’t get—it’s such a specific & deliberate opposite of how Marius was turned. And I think him seeing Armand as a pet puts a little bit of distance between the hurt he’d feel if he thought of Armand as a true son, or even an equal. He doesn’t have to resent Armand for having it easier than he did, but also doesn’t have to feel extremely betrayed by Armand fitting in with the cult. Like, let’s never 4get that by the time Marius catches up with Armand, Armand is right at home and thriving with them. A CULT? THE THING THAT KILLED ME????? Marius has no idea what the fuck they did to him, he just knows that Armand settled in just fine and has discarded everything that Marius tried to teach him. 

I think these roles are appropriately all muddled because it’s VC—like we said, the No Social Constructs series—so like, how do we compare the words SON and PET and FLEDGLING and SUB, I’m not sure. But my point is that he’s never seen or treated Armand as an equal, and perhaps never even a full adult person. 

ARE THESE IDEAS CONFLICTING? A little. But that’s okay. Am I incoherent and ill-equipped to tackle this analysis or is it because Marius is not a consistent person and never quite lives up to the ideal he’s trying to be? Does he want Armand to be his pet but secretly has feelings? Does he fail at being a father figure? Is he brushing off his Big Big Emotions so that he doesn’t have to admit how wrecked and destroyed he is and how badly his feelings were hurt? Idk man. I’m sure you can send me another anon to tell me I’m wrong. 

I wonder sometimes if like, keeping Armand at this lower status (like a pet) actually protects Armand from Marius’s ire and disappointment. Marius is sort of a father, but sort of not. He’s crafted a role for himself that is never all the way sincere, and it allows him some space to protect his own feelings of betrayal and disappointment when it comes to Armand. Marius is also classically bad at following his own rules, and never quite sticks the landing on the people he’s trying to be. 

I can imagine a version of events where Armand does gain some ground with Marius, maybe pays his dues and matures into someone that Marius trusts and respects, but that’s not the version of events we get in canon. Marius turns Armand, Armand remains his pupil, they visit Kiev and Marius is jealous of Armand’s father, they make it all the way to the raid without Marius ever confiding about The Parents. Even in the present day, during a dispute, Marius tells Armand he has the savage & ignorant soul of a child. Even in the present day, Marius won’t stop calling him Amadeo!!!! 

And like!!!!! It feels like Marius is more upset about Santino wronging him by ruining his home and taking his toys than he is about what Santino did to ARMAND. It’s more about Marius’s own feelings and possessions than it is about Armand’s own feelings and experience of what happened. AN ARMAND FRIDGING, IF YOU WILL. 

Anyway.

By never seeing Armand as a complete person, Marius never has to feel threatened by him. We see this in toxic parents a lot. Like, I want you to be good, but I’m insecure if you’re better than me. Or I can never fully respect your feelings because I always see you as a child and not a fully grown adult. And the truth is that Marius is actually quite threatened by Armand, on the inside. He is very hurt. He cares what Armand thinks of him. He’s relieved at the end of BCtu when he assumes that Armand wants to open his heart again. 

So idk like. I think the books end with a little bit of a hope for them; we see a lot of growth and self-acceptance from Marius in the last book and it’s reasonable to assume that he and Armand might have a long chat and nice long cry and work it out. I don’t think it’s completely set in stone, but it’s nice to think about! A nice happy ending. And I wonder if this is when Marius finally takes Armand seriously and listens to what he has to say without demeaning him! 

Am I gonna add 2000 more words to this point by tying it what the whole like “I fear him because I could love him again” thing in TVA means? No I’m not. But like. Again! It’s okay to be a pet, I think Armand liked being his pet. :) 

[calciferstims]

day 2 of @deadboystims’s 300 follower event

a board based on your favorite song/album!

I already made a board based on my favorite album here so I decided to base this on “paint the town red” instead :)

sources: 💋💋💋 | 🩸🥀🩸 | 💋💋💋

[voidcat]

You and your annoying uni friend slash occasional roommate Endo who likes to crash at your place unprompted and unannounced at random times. Despite your pouts and groans you enjoy his presence as much as he does.

He’s an impressive artist with wonderful line work, his newest works always has you waiting to see the end result, watching with great focus as he works on them on your floor in the dead of the night

And he’s great company too. A beer cracked open, snacks all around and it’s just the two of you shittalking others, gossiping and being mean just because you can and oh—

is it not fun to spend time with him like that- to the point he has become perhaps the closest to you. Each others confidants, secret keepers, the number one victim to drag when the other one is trying something new or going to a new place.

So it’s no surprise when you whine about how boring and lonely things have gotten lately and you just miss a good ol heated making out session. Maybe a little handsy if türe feeling up to it, maybe even a little grinding if the night looks promising.

Before the two of you know, your hot breaths are all over each other, Endo’s hands at both sides, pulling you into his lap with strength and pressing you against that aching spot in his pants just to relieve himself as you bite into his neck and mark him up in red

[mrghostrat]

your hands are very nice

thank u 🥹

[trrenchertrash]

I was finding it difficult to reconcile with Caitvi’s arc this season, and so I’ve been thinking about it and in the end what made it work for me is that the through line of their entire relationship is trust. In s1 you have lines like “in what mad world would I trust someone like you,” and “this only works if we can trust each other,” and of course we’re shown that they do come to trust each other — up until s2e3, when Cait breaks Vi’s trust, breaks her promise. Then they reconnect in act 2 and hesitantly decide to put their trust in each other again, but not without wariness. That’s why Vi has a contingency plan set up with Jinx. She’s giving Caitlyn a second chance to prove herself, to earn that trust back, but she’s not fully convinced. It’s a test, and should Caitlyn fail, Vi is prepared. This leads to their conversation in e8:

Vi: She saved your life! Even knowing you’d never have done the same for her.

Cait: We’ll never know, will we? You didn’t let me in on that part of your plan.

Vi: Clearly the right call, since you still can’t trust her enough not to shove her in a box!

Cait: Trust? You believe I’m so daft I can’t recognize a contingency? She wasn’t there for my benefit, she was there because you didn’t trust me to follow through.

Vi: Can you blame me? How long were you sidled up with that shifty, self-serving war pig? She oinked poison in your ear and you just ate it!

Cait: I know!

Imo, Vi’s “can you blame me?” is the most important part of this exchange. This is Vi holding Caitlyn accountable: Remember what you did? I do. Can you blame me for no longer trusting you?

The second most important part of this exchange is Caitlyn’s “I know!” Her acknowledgement that Vi is right. That yes, she does remember and she knows what she’s done is wrong. She can’t blame Vi.

Initially I was pretty put out that Cait doesn’t outright apologize, but ultimately I think because we’re strapped for time, this is more important. The purpose of an apology is to admit that what you did was wrong and express remorse for it. And here, that’s exactly what happens. Now, Caitlyn’s remorse doesn’t look the way I expected it to. I think I’m probably not alone in that. Her remorse isn’t soft or weepy (at least not at this point), instead it’s angry and loathsome. But the next steps here are clear. Caitlyn needs to find a way to repair the trust that’s been broken between herself and Vi. And she does, by letting Jinx go, in direct contrast to the action that broke that trust in the first place. It’s I trust you to choose, and you can trust me to stand by you while you do. It’s proof that Vi’s “I always choose wrong” isn’t true (and it’s not, because the narrative payoff of freeing Jinx is that she’s able to rally Zaun to swoop in and save the day later on), and it’s proof that Caitlyn is ready to put Vi ahead of herself, as Vi did for her.

All of the turning points in their relationship revolve around the trust between them. S1 is about building the trust between Cait and Vi. The midpoint of their story, the darkest point, is the breaking of that trust. Then the second half of their story is about repairing that trust. It’s all there.

[seagull-scribbles]

Taxidermy fingerprints, taxonomies our differences

[Part 2 here]

[la-principessa-nuova]

well, i guess this is going to be an interesting weekend

fuckin yolo i guess

[idontmindifuforgetme]

I admire girls who can pull off long nails bc it literally can never be me. I just don’t get how it works functionally