#i feel like a fucking child i can't deal with this

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

Seeing certain fans of Mouthwashing either make fanart or fanfic of Anya happily being pregnant or her happily having her rapist baby.

Completely downplays and disregards the massive impact of Anya trauma and pain of what Jimmy did towards her, in terms of taking away her autonomy and forcing a pregnancy on her, the woman seriously killed herself not only due to no longer wanting to be at the hands of Jimmy abuse again.

But also because she didn't want to give birth to her rapist child that was forced on her.

I swear the narrative of this game story went over a lot of some people's heads...,

If Anya did end up having to give birth on the Tulpar or if she ended up having the baby back on Earth it wouldn't be a "happy " or "wholesome " situation or scenario whatsoever.

Not everything dealing with pregnancy and having a baby is always a happy one.... or a joyful event because, for some people and women, it isn't okay.

Depending on the circumstances or the situation, pregnancy and dealing with a baby can be a total nightmare for some women out here. Especially if said pregnancy was brought on by fucking Rape!

If she somehow did have the baby (although I think she likely would've had a miscarriage due to being under a large amount of stress), especially on the crashed Tulpar with no food left or supplies or anything suitable for an infant. Said baby would have probably not survived long anyway, especially as a newborn, it would have died due to malnourishment.

Also, Anya would most likely end up having terrible postpartum-depression if she did give birth, and she probably wouldn't have any emotional connection or feel any bond towards said baby at all. Because said baby would forever be a living reminder of Jimmy himself and his abuse of her.

Not to mention that Jimmy would have likely ended up killing Anya sooner or later due to said pregnancy being evidence of his disgusting crime against her.

Either way, you look at it, it is a doom scenario on top of another doom scenario for Anya and that unborn fetus.

Her killing herself was sadly one of her best options.

To see certain fans have AUs / fanfic/ some art where Anya is really happy to have her rapist kid...just feels so... I can't even find the words for it.

I just feel like it adds another example and issue of misogyny within parts of fandom where you can have a female character or female character's still get reduced down to just only being the mommy's or what there uteruses can pump-out, even if canonical said female character isn't meant for Motherhood and canonical don't want children.

Or in Anya case, literally killing herself because she couldn't bare having the child of her rapist that was forced upon her against her will.

Because God forbids a woman who decides *NOT* to want too have anything dealing with a pregnancy by her damned Rapist.

[the-music-maniac]

This is one that ended up way longer than I would've liked but the brainrot has reached concerning levels.

Brief mentions of sephgen, sephgeal, sephzack, multishipping, spoilers for crisis core, rebirth etc. etc.

I've begun realizing the longer I traverse the various pages of FF7 fanworks that when I say I ship Sefikura, the romantic/sexual aspects of it don't matter as much to me as the emotional catharsis of it. And I say this because I feel like sefikura is often used to explore one specific type of fantasy/smut/kink etc. There's a portion of people who like the ship because they like exploring how fucked up it is for post-nibelheim Seph to try to make Cloud into a puppet - this is usually (not always) accompanied by size difference kink, sub Cloud dom Seph, etc. And while I personally despise that characterization common in that interpretation of the ship, it's still valid, cause y'all should be able to explore your own fanfics however you want. An "Ew. Oh well, none of my business." kind of deal.

I would like to make it known though, that as a Sephiroth fan I kind of hate domroth. Block me if you must, we can just agree to disagree lol.

My interest in Sefikura stems mostly from Sephiroth. I'm gonna shamelessly admit here that while I love Cloud as a character, he doesn't intrigue me as much as Sephiroth does. And I know I'm biased cause he's my favourite, but I get easily stuck on characters who were abuse victims that became villains because they gave into their demons, characters who managed to stay kind, up until they were so beaten down they snapped, characters who I think have redemption potential, even if it wouldn't be easy to do. Which can be the case with Seph both pre- and post- Nibelheim.

Post-nibelheim is a LOT harder to write convincingly, seeing as how he actually did fuck up like. Everything. And his victims don't have to forgive him. Not Cloud either, even though I am writing a post about sefikura. The redemption is more about personal improvement, rather than forgiveness. But it's really interesting because a Sephiroth that even has a chance at redemption post insanity, is one who is a mix of before and after. He still has all that rage inside him from how he was treated by humanity, still has visions of annihilation and delusions of grandeur in his head, but he also remembers that he used to love, that he used to have companionship, scarce as it was, and cared for the well being of the soldiers he lead, etc. How does he get to that point in the first place, and how does he deal with it after? With the warring that is likely occurring from those two sides, the festering resentment of knowing he was given so much less than he should've been, knowing that he had a human mother, but since he IS closer in capability to a god than a human, does he think he's a monster because of his heritage still or because he gave in? Does it even matter at this point, what he is? And what will he do, now that he has a portion of his humanity back (however that occurred) and isn't just purely Jenova? How does he deal with knowing that even in the depths of insanity, he still just didn't want to be alone? And of course the turmoil on Cloud and Co's side, usually some flavour of, okay so repeatedly killing him isn't working, I'm tired of fighting him every couple of years, I still have the responsibility of making sure he doesn't fuck everything up again, and of course the hatred they understandably feel for the shit Sephiroth has done. And as Sephiroth kind of fights to recover some semblance of identity and understanding of himself (without destroying anything), watching that occur and knowing objectively that your enemy didn't deserve what he got when he was a child, that a part of what occurred was after he was pushed to that degree - even if you subjectively can't make yourself feel it at the beginning. And then as the story progresses and characters undergo development, Cloud likely wrestling with the fact that he actually is starting to understand Sephiroth's predicament, realizing Seph can be so very human at times. And dealing with the worst sin/betrayal of all, enjoying his company for his company's sake. A Sephiroth that gets through that and finds some semblance of contentment is meaningful because it would take a mind-boggling amount of hardship and work to get there. And tbh here's where the bias comes in - it's what I would say is a happy ending for everyone. I know people would disagree, a lot would say Cloud and Co getting rid of Seph is good riddance, why should he get a chance, why should they have to deal with him, etc. hence why I acknowledge this is biased - but a happy ending to me is one where everyone else gets to stop fighting Seph and move on with their lives and Sephiroth actually gets to live the life he wanted when he was a child. I won't ever be entirely satisfied with FF7 canon for this reason (true of any tragedy). Nothing that happened to him pre-insanity was fair. So. Catharsis.

As for "redemption" of pre-nibelheim Seph, I read time travel fix-its when it comes to sefikura cause I find it more interesting. For anything pre-insanity that involves canon divergence without time travel, sephgeal, sephgen, sephzack, shipping, platonic or poly makes more sense to me, cause those three are positioned better to help Sephiroth in a meaningful way. Also I personally do think Cloud is a little too young for that then (even if I'm also convinced he 100% had a celeb crush on Seph. Which is also not what Sephiroth needs at that point).

So, for sefikura, pre-nibelheim redemption usually involves Cloud getting yeeted back in time, either by the planet or by choice, to stop things before any of it happens. Cloud usually believes he has to kill Sephiroth, so he'd likely be in close proximity. So how would he deal with seeing, first hand, all the ways that Sephiroth was isolated and dehumanized in Shinra? Cloud still hates him at this point, for good reason. So he's here, witnessing not only Sephiroth being a kind/decent (awkward) human being, but also the lab visits, Hojo being Hojo, being paraded around for propaganda, the effect the "betrayal" of the other firsts likely had, Sephiroth being straight up depressed and malnourished and overworked, hearing whatever lies were fed to control him when he knows the truth. How does he deal with the moral repercussions of killing a technically innocent man? Especially when he realizes that a little support and compassion could've changed the outcome entirely? And Sephiroth on the other hand, now stuck with this persistent stranger that doesn't treat him like either an emotionless weapon or a legend, but some secret third thing (is he trying to kill him???? Can't tell, mixed signals are happening). Cloud would also likely help take Sephiroth's mind off things by virtue of existing - not because Sephiroth particularly cares about Cloud at the beginning (why would he, they're strangers) but because Cloud is fucking weird. Not a soldier, still mako enhanced, angry/aggressive at him in particular and seemingly frustrated about it, history that doesn't match up to current behaviours, etc. Hell, Shinra would likely even order Seph to keep an eye on Cloud. Meanwhile Cloud is desperately fucking with the timeline to ensure everything ends up differently, and accidentally becomes some sort of support for Sephiroth in the process. Because while everyone else was so fooled by the propaganda surrounding their hero, leaving him alone to his own devices (despair and depression), Cloud knows that his attention should be on Seph right now. And I don't think he's the type to just leave things alone out of spite if Seph where to, for example, stumble out of the lab, half delirious from Mako, because of one of Hojo's whims. There's also the question of whether Cloud would know to help with Angeal or Genesis' degradation, which could help either clear up some misunderstandings between Seph and his friends, or just ensure that Seph doesn't lose them at all in the first place.

And if Sephiroth were to find out/be told the truth, about his mother, or about the future, HOW is he gonna react to that???? Knowing that okay, so my heritage isn't actually that of a monster, I have human DNA, but ended up snapping and trying to destroy the world anyways - once again, what does it mean to be a monster, and is he one already, if he hasn't even done all of it yet, technically? In this timeline he's likely closer to Zack, maybe close to Cloud, potentially has met Aerith, maybe Genesis and Angeal are still alive, so he's more tethered by a support system, so how would that change his viewpoints? Would he feel guilty? Does that send him into a worse depression?

Sefikura just tends to give me emotional catharsis when it's written like that, because it gives Sephiroth the opportunity to mourn what he should've had, and gives him a fighting chance to change it. It's someone else being shown the decades of neglect, how deep the hypocrisy of Shinra actually went, the systemic abuse, acknowledging all of the bullshit Sephiroth went through before Nibelheim. It's him breaking out of other's expectations of him, Jenova, or Hojo or whoever else, and getting his childhood wish to just be normal. Like Angeal said (quoted loveless I think) "and what do angels dream of?" "Angels dream of becoming human."

This is also why I find very little enjoyment in reading domroth sefikura. Sephiroth isn't someone who reminds me of that type of personality, before he went crazy. He seems like a very awkward, calm and even sometimes soft dude in his downtime. He's literally just some guy. We don't see a lot of his personality because he was trained (tortured) into believing anything other than perfect control is weakness and failure. I don't think he would have any sexual experience. I think he's depressed, and exhausted and alone and is just very good at hiding it. I don't think he even wants or needs sexual intimacy necessarily, so much as he needs someone to feel safe around.

Anyways. This is. Way too long now. Goodbye.

[ashoss]

world building beloved </3

also i thought i replied to this earlier? woops

duke

i think the gods would be so fascinated by his existence. i don't know how often they would be interacting with aliens or metas, if at all. at the very least, not knowingly interacting with them. they're all like "you can see me? sort of? but you can't see through the mist? fascinating" or "you're blessed with the powers of light and darkness, but you're not a child of apollo? or hades? how intriguing!"

yesyesyes hes like . a fascinating specimen to the gods. while on metas/demigods kinda... i wonder how overpowered a meta / demigod would be. like a demigod and a meta had a kid together type shit. or the meta gene was also in a demigod. for example someone like a flash also being a child of. idk apollo. they would be overpowereddddddd dear god.. that mix would be interesting to explore.

ik duke i've made a post about before on how i think his powers in particular affect the greek world (tried to find it and i realized it was NOT that detailed LMAOO) but yes his powers would be veryy interesting to delve into with this au - seeing demigods/legacies as.. brighter? than regular people. coming across a god or something and seeing gold in their veins or inhuman eyes.

rip damian my baby, someone throw some ideas in here 😭 i feel like he deserves a really cool unique origin, but idk what that would be. since he has ties to magic, i think it would be interesting if he was the one in the batfam who learns the ability to manipulate the mist since it's a form of magic. the entire batfam is gonna have to be on TOP of their training to see past illusions and disguises because oh man, damian would not miss the opportunity to mess with them lmao

mist manipulator damian...... i actually love that so much

i do want to read more comics focused on talia and ra's and the LoA as a whole before i really settle on what exactly i want damian to be involved in. but definately magic - possibly egyptian magic... (i feel like that means i have to finish kane chronicles .. sigh)

also yes he absolutely fucks with his family. like "timothy theres a minotaur behind you" or something like that LMAOO

2. claiming

like maybe dick knew because his parents told him or since they were traveling around with the circus, they would hear things from locals and they pieced it together? i think we said for steph that cardea eventually comes to her right (i can't remember what we said before), but she definitely wouldn't know beforehand. maybe when she's with tim when venus shows up, venus takes one look at her and is like "oh thank the gods, there's another roman here" and steph is like WHAT

dick... sigh dickie..... since his parents died when he was so young. i feel like it would have been a like, "ill tell you when you're older" type deal? maybe they told him, or even hinted at it, telling him myths when he was younger, focusing on hermes in them, stuff like that. but .... his parents... dying before they could tell him.......

for steph. i do think cardea would come to her directly. with how involved she is especially with claudia in pjoverse, cardea would inform steph on the basics lmao. or bring her to camp for an introduction or whatever. its ALSO funny if venus just shows up and is like "oh timothy!! i have some teaaa i need to share with you immediately!-oh theres another roman finally" and thats it.. tim has to wait till venus is gone and stephanie isnt... shellshocked to bring her to the cave or something and give her a rundown of the godly stuff LMAO

i think jason would be kinda similar to cass. they might not know exactly what's going on, but they can tell that there's something different about them, that they have certain abilities and can see things that other people can't. but yea, i do think alfred would have the knowledge to be able to identify that they're demigods, though obviously he wouldn't know who their parents are. but someone's gotta keep the batcave stocked with ambrosia and nectar.

alfred, upon seeing bruce brought home ANOTHER demigod accidentally....

(speaking of, do the bats have a secondary set of weapons made of celestial bronze in case of demigod emergencies? and imperial gold too, once tim and steph join the family and bruce finds out that they're roman. cass would be so OP with a stygian iron weapon, but she'd never accept it lmao. anyway, how do they get it? how do they make it? questions, questions)

cass with fucking... stygian iron batarangs........

also yes i think they would absolutely have specific weapons possibly stashed around incase of emergencies. celestial bronze batagangs and little daggers they can stash in their utility belts.

(i can only imagine someone else finding like. a sword with one of them and being like? i thought you guys dont kill?????)

all of the kids looking horrified when dick shows them his crushed flower. persephone (or if it's fall/winter and she's back in the underworld, some manifestation of her powers like a vine or a tree) is supposed to come to you when you crush it, and then she/the plant will replace the crushed flower with a new one. they've seen the physical evidence in the garden and can literally feel the lack of vitality in the manor, but they didn't want to believe. they all look at their own flowers, wilted and color fading. they should...someone else should try. just in case. a sample size of one isn't good enough, they should verify this. but...they're scared to face the possibility (fact) that persephone won't come. if she didn't come for dick, her spring sibling, the first of her little birds and bats, then what hope did the rest of them have?

</3 </3 </3 </3 </3 </3

ok this isn't eloquently said at all, but it was inspired by a batfam fic i love on ao3 called "way down hadestown" (which i love so much and highly recommend if you haven't read it yet). i was thinking about bruce/wayne ancestors and patron gods and instead of it being athena or hestia, what if it were persephone? patroness of bats, goddess of springtime, and queen of the underworld. on the one hand, she embodies growth, rebirth, and resilience, on the other hand, she has ties to death and is known as the destroyer. thinking about bruce has lost so much and yet can't escape death no matter how much he wants to because it literally blesses his family :')

PERSEPHONEEE IS SOOOO GOOD oh my god u cooked with this u cooked with this......

[hauntingblue]

Oden's prophecy of young pirates coming to save wano becoming yamato's hope for his freedom.... and him becoming oden because of it.... it's just so good... on the other side luffy taking ace's spot for liberating yamato... I think I hauve covid

[lesbiansanemi]

I'm so tired

[thebigcjart]

Here's Nepeta :33

Terris people generally don't have last names in canon, but I think that because Eridan's Caste (he's a full Feruchemist and technically fully Terris) is part of the High Class, that feature of nobility would pass down through family lines.

She is a member of the Terris Ferring Caste, and is considered a slightly below average citizen by Caste standards. Just shy of middle-of-the-pack. She isn't really interested in Terris culture, mostly because she never spent much time around it. Her Terris settlement burned down when she was a kid, and her mother took her to live in a cave just outside the capitol. A Lusus (who are identical to the Kandra in canon) named PonDeil was actually living in the cave, but hid from the two. Her mother, who was kind of radical in her views and was a follower of the Tuner's teachings. fell ill soon after, and made a deal with the Lusus to give her body after she died if it would continue to raise Nepeta. The Lusus agreed and Nepeta did not learn until later in life. She's aware of it now, and her Lusus took on the body of a predatory cat that almost killed Nepeta once, and now they work as a sort of mother-daughter sort of good cop bad cop partnership. Nepeta's love of roleplaying was unknowingly learned from her Lusus. It is unknown what Nepeta's mother did in return for PonDeil to raise her child, and PonDeil does not talk about it.

Her typing quirk is prefacing all text with ":3 <" and replacing all her "e"s with "3"s. She uses cat puns wh3n3fur pawsibl3. She also mainly sticks to lowercase letters.

Her ability to store and tap speed in her numerous Steelminds makes her incredibly hard to catch or fight in combat. The weight of her many Steelminds is mitigated by her simply being able to move faster anyway. Steelminds are some of the most difficult to store for practical reasons, and especially because it is used so quickly. Nepeta mitigates this by storing speed as often as possible during the downtime, and likes to draw comics on pieces of scratch paper. She keeps all of the steel on her body Invested at all times to resist steelpushes or ironpulls. She avoids water to prevent her Steelminds from rusting, further adding to the cat gimmick.

She has stored a non-zero amount of speed in Sollux's eye spikes as a prank. He gets pissed every time he thinks about it.

She is in a very stable moiraillegiance with Equius, but stays away from all the Hemalurgy stuff. She walks through House Zahhak like she owns the place, and doesn't really care what anyone there thinks. Equius tells her not to, but he simply cannot stay mad at her :3. Equius has said that he would only ever use Hemalurgy on her to save her life and if it were the only option, otherwise, he would prefer if she stayed away from it entirely.

She has a flushed crush on Karkat, but this goes unrequited for quite some time. She feels a strong bond to him as a fellow Terris who was raised by a Lusus. There is exactly one (1) time where anything romantic happens between them in the plot of what would be considered The Final Empire, and it is when he is tapping Connection as fast as possible while trying to save her life during one of the later attacks on the Condese's Atium stashes (tapping that much Connection gives him a pretty good idea where she is due to their similarities), where he pulls her away from a would-be-fatal attack and they share a kiss, and he notes that "I CAN'T LOSE YOU." Neither of them bring it up to each other until after they take out the Condese.

Some silly quotes:

AC: :3 < *ac taps sp33d, dashing through the for3st to tackl3 her purr3y* AC: :3 < gotcha! *sh3 says, glomping m3w*

CG: I CAN'T LOSE YOU. AC: AC: :0 < oh AC: X3 < oh wow CG: I'M SERIOUS, NEPETA. AC: :3 < m3w wont lose m3 karkitty AC: :3 < i'm a tough cat to h3rd. CG: LET'S GET THE *FUCK* OUT OF HERE. CG: SCREW THE ATIUM. AC: :3 < but now that i know wh3r3 it is CG: PLEASE. CG: COME BACK TO BASE WITH ME. AC: :3 < o-okay. yeah, l3t's... do that. CG: DON'T READ TOO MUCH INTO THIS. AC: X3 < too lat3!

AC: :3 < ar3 thos3 f33lings i am d3t3cting with my wiggly whisp3ring nos3? CT: D--> maybe AC: :3 < then w3 must tak3 this to th3 pil3, scratching-posthast3!!! ;3

Homestuck Beta Trolls X Mistborn AU

Spoilers for Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series. This is what powers I think the beta trolls would have if they were born on Scadrial

Aradia Megido - Gold or Electrum Misting

Allomancy: ‘Augur’ (Gold: see own Past), ‘Oracle’ (Electrum: see own Future)

Hemalurgy: Cadmium (Placement Unknown: Gold or Electrum Allomancy

It is unknown what her original misting ability was, but the spike from Equius gave her the other one

Tavros Nitram - Cadmium Ferring

Feruchemy: Gasper (Cadmium: Breath), “Bloodmaker” (Gold: Health)

Hemalurgy: Gold (Between Ribs: Gold Feruchemy)

Cadmium compounder; Vriska makes fun of him for having a ‘useless ability’, but doesn’t see the potential that storing breath has. Equius provides him with healing powers to fix his legs through hemalurgy.

Sollux Captor - Born powerless

Allomancy: “Coinshot” (Steel: Push metal) “Lurcher” (Iron: Pull metal)

Hemalurgy: Steel X2 (Left and Right Orbit: Iron and Steel Allomancy)

These spikes were not given by Equius, but instead were applied in a “freak acciident” involving a “jaiilbroken beehiive”.

Karkat Vantas - Copper/Duralumin Twinborn (mutant)

Allomancy: Smoker (Copper: Hide Allomancy)

Feruchemy: Connector (Duralumin: Connection)

I’m not exactly sure why being a natural twin-born is bad in Scadrialternian society, but it is and Karkat’s gotta hide it. Also the castes follow a natural Misting-Ferring-Powerless-Misting-Ferring-Powerless pattern, and Karkat’s caste breaks that so it was completely eradicated through eugenics so im pretty sure he’s the only one.

Nepeta Leijon - Steel Ferring

Feruchemy: Steelrunner (Steel: Physical Speed)

Nothing special, just run-of-the-steel-mill feruchemy.

Kanaya Maryam - Chromium Misting

Allomancy: Leecher (Chromium: wipe allomantic reserves of target)

Her caste is supposed to be powerless, like Equius', but much like how she's a rainbow drinker in canon, she is somehow a misting in this AU. Snapped after Eridan shot her half to death with his “poison wwand strike” (toxic chromium bullets). He did not know that these bullets were Allomantically viable, and neither knew that she would be able to burn chromium. She uses this to sap Gamzee of his massive Zinc reserves, causing him to be distracted long enough for her to kill Eridan.

Terezi Pyrope - Tin misting - Tin Savant

Allomancy: Scout (Tin: Increases senses)

Terezi and Gamzee are the only Savants on the team, which forms the basis of their bond and later kismesitude on whatever this au’s equivalent of the meteor is. She snapped during a feud with Vriska, which left her blind, but she has been flaring tin for so many sweeps that she can basically assemble visual data through her other senses.

Vriska Serket - Cadmium Ferring

Feruchemy: Spinner (Cadmium: Fortune)

Hemalurgy: Left Eye (Cadmium: Destiny)

Forced Equius to use Hemalurgy on her to heal her during a feud with Terezi, but she was tapping Fortune so hard that Equius managed to select the wrong spike and gave her Destiny instead of some healing ability, which is apparently good luck according to the spiritual realm? It’s destiny to be relevant forever I guess so she can’t really die until the plot demands it. She also has Kelsier’s weird metal vision allowing her to peep into the spiritual realm just a little bit. She ended up having her arm fully amputated due to her spirit not being able to accept another spike. Equius in this au isn’t exactly a roboticist, so she won’t get a replacement arm until wayy later down the line.

Equius Zahhak - born powerless

Allomancy: Thug (Pewter: Strength)

Hemalurgy: Between ribs (Steel: Allomantic pewter)

Equius is a Hemalurgist, who was born without allomancy or feruchemy (much like the rest of his caste). He gave himself pewter to make future hemalurgy easier for him (pushing spikes into/through people is physically intensive). He has also given powers to Aradia, Tavros, and Vriska so far.

Gamzee Makara - Zinc Rioter - Zinc Savant

Allomancy: Rioter (Zinc: Riot)

As a Zinc savant, he is so used to being able to fuck with people’s emotions on a whim that he has no idea how to handle empathy without it. He has a very carefree attitude because if someone is saying/doing something he doesn’t like, he can just Allomantic them away. This also means that everyone around him naturally swell with anger and frustration, which leads to the events of the meteor. Rioters and soothers can also gain control of hemalurgic constructs, so I imagine he could take over any hemalurgy users in the party at a whim.

Eridan Ampora - Electrum “Ferring” (Full Feruchemist)

Feruchemy: Pinnacle (Electrum: Determination)

Eridan, like others in his caste, is a full feruchemist, but unlike his other caste members, he only believes that he has one ability.

Feferi Peixes - Mistborn

Allomancy: Mistborn

Feferi, like all others in her caste, is a Mistborn. The Condese is too, actually.

EDIT: Various bits of phrasing and removed the mature label (I have no idea why I wasn't able to before)

[cosmic-ships]

Looks like I got to reiterate this again =_=; Thinking I should slap this into my carrd somewhere because I'm tired of saying it every year-

[sharkneto]

Why don’t you want five in school?

Oh, I've ranted about it before in the tags of THIS POST but in general it makes me wildly uncomfortable. As an adult, the thought of hypothetically being forced back to high school is the fucking pits, you could not pay me enough to do it - and I even had a good time in high school! Five is almost 60 years old and they're going to force him to go to classes and hang out with teens? That feels bad from every angle! It forces Five to act in a way he'd only do under great duress and fucks his agency and autonomy as an adult so badly. There are better, more interesting ways to play with the consequences of his physical vs actual age than sending him to goddamn high school. There's other, less dominating options for the "he looks like a kid and never actually graduated" problem.

You do you if that's your jam, don't let a random dude on the internet yuck your yum, but Five in high school is a squick for me.

[anaalnathrakhs]

btw my mom said it. she said it to me looking me in the eyes. i told her about how difficult it was for me to get through those family reunions, and she admitted it was very important to her, important enough that she was just going to do it anyway.

[vamptastic]

truly dgaf about traumadumping i do sometimes experience empathy (like, in the crying over a sad story form) but it probably won't go off unless you have an incredibly tragic story are visibly emoting and i already really like you. so it doesn't really stress me out. people talk about fucked up things in cavalier and humorous ways it's how we deal with things. i am not really emotionally phased by discussing most fucked up or personal things in my own life expect for one or two topics that will make me immediately break down, so like who am i to judge. also learning things about people is fun.

[ehlnofay]

in the midst of a little depressive episode at the moment I fear and it's causing me to Ponder... in a weird way I'm almost grateful. like this is UNBELIEVABLY better than it used to be, even as much as it sucks in the moment. I wish I could go back to find myself at twelve years old hiding out in the school toilets and tell them that as long as we stick it out for long enough then one day the outsize bad emotions will be triggered by actual definable events and they'll be a noticeable change from our baseline. I'm not ✨recovered✨ and I don't know if I ever will be - I think I might have spent too many developmental years creating terrible patterns and associations to be able to straighten it all out - but it's Better and I'm able to know that it can continue to get better, too. and that's fucking huge.

[rainbowcarousels]

No need to apologize, a sudden essay was truly all I ever wanted 🥹 it does align quite perfectly doesn’t it? I mean sometimes it’s all about “reading between the lines” as Lestat once said, specially when it comes to characters who are not Lestat himself/the people closest to him at any given time or POV characters, and this is one of those instances where we’re given just enough to do that imo, it’s all there in the timelines like you said. “It just won't change the fact that he had a second chance to do it right this time with Daniel where he had failed before, to not be a blunt object seeking practical solutions and prove he can in fact take care of people without destroying them”, god this is so true, and I think it also ties back to him being a “failed experiment” in his maker’s eyes, and how he’d been conditioned in his mind (by fate, by circumstance) to repeat that pattern. Armand’s sense of identity in regards to who he is to Daniel is a huge thing too and I’ve always HC that at some point during their difficult years and then in their years apart, he probably rationalized it as him only being fit to be his lover but not his teacher in the blood (which of course represented yet another unforgivable failure).

“He's trying so hard in the modern age to make caregiver be a huge part of him and to be seen as someone who keeps his children safe and even if Daniel was safe at the time, I can't help but think it would bother him that his own firstborn had to be cared for by someone else and that maybe Lestat would be the only person he would really admit this to because he would be the one to understand it.” Yes! Reminds me of that great post by @monstersinthecosmos I think(!) that had me nodding along from start to finish where they mentioned (and I’m only paraphrasing lmao) how Trinity Gate, despite having being conceived as a safe place where people could all heal and come together as a family, also ends up being a place where Armand has to live up to a lot of expectations (the caretaker, the teacher, the protector), like he had to in the cult, and then the theater. And not only that but it would also serve as a constant reminder of how when it had mattered the most, with his own fledging, he was not able to do it. Lestat would totally understand Armand and never judge him for it, he’s “failed” in similar ways before and plays a similar role to Armand’s in the present (the only difference I think is the scale, Lestat has made more fledglings than one can count and Armand only has Daniel to dump all of his trauma on, bless) xoxo DA still sad asf but your meta is like chicken soup for the soul ❤️‍🩹

Absolutely all of this!! Lestat is not omnicient, even if sometimes it feels like he is and you have to remember you're a person removed from his stories.

Oooh yeah actually that is an excellent point, it makes it a little bit worse that it's Marius that takes care of Daniel and the whole idea of maybe Daniel would be considered a failed fledgling from Armand adds to the idea of him being a failed experiment himself. It's a generational trauma thing too, I think this is something Daniel is terrified of being seen as something Armand regrets and sees as a failure, but Armand trying to figure out who he is to people is such a big pattern in all of his identites and part of it definitely feels like it stems from feeling like he can't measure up to his previous self in the eyes of his own maker. Like he couldn't even get something that any back alley vampire made on a whim can do properly, that is a spiral waiting to happen even if it's not true.

Absolutely 100% agree that Armand could rationalise it that way, he does tend to seperate his identities and roles as a coping mechanism but I also think it's just another nail in the coffin of feeling like this is his failure. It would have been compounded by living with the day to day of Daniel when he was at his worst and probably wound have caused a knock on spiral which wouldn't have been fair to either of them, but it doesn't make it easier.

Trinity Gate, despite having being conceived as a safe place where people could all heal and come together as a family, also ends up being a place where Armand has to live up to a lot of expectations (the caretaker, the teacher, the protector), like he had to in the cult, and then the theater. And not only that but it would also serve as a constant reminder of how when it had mattered the most, with his own fledging, he was not able to do it.

This just punches me in the gut every time. I hadn't really thought about it in this context but you're right, the scale of it with Lestat and Armand being seen as community leaders in their own right really does echo each other and puts so much pressure on both of them to be more than themselves. They are roles and figureheads but that doesn't leave them with much space to explore their own traumas and identities in detail. Even in their own homes, it's not really about them.

Someone really needs to make a therapist for these folks, they really need to learn some ways to process what they're going through that isn't running away (Lestat) or trying to wear his reputation like armour to protect not only himself but his children (Armand). I think if you sat down and really interrogated why Armand feels the need to protect his own people so intensely, he's been losing them since he was a child and losing himself over and over at the same time and it's why I think it would bother him to have someone else do that for his child. It's become a part of how he sees himself so it shakes his very sense of identity and it wouldbe a fascinating thing to explore one day.

Thank you for soming in and letting me think about this stuff, I appreciate getting the chance to really look at it in detail!

[justinefrischmanngf]

my family . i love them . but good god .

[batemanofficial]

i need weed. i need a medical card so bad or im gonna go out of my fuckign GOURD

[wisteryuu]

vent in tags don't mind me

[girlthativealwaysbeen]

i want to be the strongest most unaffected aloofest person ever but im literally the weakest saddest cries at every inconvenience type of person and man.