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

[captainjimothy]

i am always thinking about trans brunt. if i start with a ferengi female--humiliated from birth, treated as less than an object--and i add transgenderism, and i sell that character to a husband while he's still in his teens, well, it's entirely possible that he kills his husband and steals his identity and burns his house down. or some other horrible accident, you know, it happens. so he claws his way into true success, obtaining a very powerful position, and he reaches his middle age with everything he's ever wanted and the scars to prove it.

he knows firsthand how cruel men can be to other men. he knows that his life is in constant jeopardy, because if someone needed blackmail material, it's all right there in the medical records. the only thing keeping him alive is the bribe he forks over to his doctor every month, and his ability to perform ferengi masculinity to the very letter at every moment of every day.

and then that character meets quark. a cis man, with a truly disgraceful set of family members: his father had no head for business, his mother is leading the women's rights movement, his brother used to be his sister and has married a non-ferengi on terms of equality and started a labor union with her, and his brother's son, now a damned starfleet cadet, was a daughter first. oh brunt, you remember that. you remember the brothers leaving ferenginar as fugitives with the child between them, setting up inside an active cardassian military base to protect themselves from men like you.

and it worked. they're fine. they're happy, even. they don't care about the rules anymore, the rules that would descend on you like a thousand hells if you put a toenail out of line.

quark, as the cis brother, is the only one you are at all capable of dealing with, but even this is infuriating. he may still profess to follow ferengi custom, but it's with very little genuine effort, and the end result is shamelessly, flagrantly disrespectful of every rule that hangs over your own head as a death sentence. yet he faces no consequences outside of his self-imposed exile, and even curries favor with ZEK, who has decided to FUCK HIS MOM.

and just to add insult to injury, you cannot ignore the fact that you desperately want to fuck him, which makes you feel like a girl even while you degrade him in your mind for being a faggot.

like. god. OF COURSE he's obsessed with shutting the bar down OF COURSE he can't stop coming back just to irritate quark OF COURSE he wants to buy quark's desiccated remains and would happily kill quark himself if needed.

[slnttyspydr]

I can't believe this needs to be said but...

Can we stop attacking Stolas for how he handled himself? He loves Octavia, and he loves Blitzo̶. They're the ones he loves the most.

Yes, he was on antidepressants to deal with the abuse from Stella. She openly stated how much she hated being married to him and treated him like crap. She even plotted his murder AT THE DINNER TABLE.

Yes, during Mastermind he chose to save Blitzo̶. Even given everything that happened between them, Stolas still has strong feelings for the imp. He chose Blitzo̶ for more than one reason. When Stolas slept with him the first time, he genuinely felt wanted and that he could love him, something he never felt from his own wife.

Yes, he stayed with Stella for Octavia. He genuinely loved her as a father but sometimes parents fuck up. It's life! She's also a teenager, and while she is justified, she can misunderstand the situation just like anyone else. Stolas even tried calling her for a month after he snapped out of his self-pity party.

Stolas' actions may not be what everyone wants, but one thing no one has even stated is...depression hits everyone differently. He just shuts down when he feels all is lost. Stolas is quick to make certain decisions because of anxiety, too. Why else would he give up everything without taking the time to think about it?

He didn't consciously make the decision to abandon his child, but one of his two greatest loves was in danger and he was saving him whether or not it cost his life.

Octavia was never in danger except for her gaslighting mother and uncle, which have basically had a whole month to poison her opinion of her father. And yet, she still tried to bring Stolas his happy pills.

Please just remember: these fictional characters from Hell are very human. Ironically, they may be more human than some actual humans.

That being said...I've watched the episode multiple times already.

[mer-acle]

What's this mama's girl au athena's reaction when hera has ares?? I mean, a MALE god of war with her husband that doesn't get send away😭😭😭like we know it was not intentional but athena's mom is dead, pallas is dead, triton hates her, and her stepmom (the mom that TRIED to step up before zeus happened) JUST HAD A BABY BOY WITH HER SAME DOMAIN!!!!!

hehe you really guessed my plot-point there

That's gonna be a big deal actually, bc after Athena returns to Olympus she refuses to get any closer with Hera than Queen of Olympus and Royal Counselor (It hurts everyone involved) to protect herself from more pain.

And naturally, bc Hera is much more motherly in this AU, she's just adorable with baby Ares, and Athena remembers how warm that love feels but she can't have it anymore. She tries her hardest not to be mad at Ares or Hera for this bc "I don't even want this anymore anyway, it would just make me weak." But she also does not want to get close with Ares at all bc a) it hurts her and b) no attachments. Meanwhile Ares is like my sister is the coolest why won't she love me, and Hera is like 😢She does love you, sweetie, she's just very busy with her duties.

I think Athena would actually be scared that Ares would get sent away too bc Hera loves him so much, more than she ever loved her (Oh Athena, she loves you just as much) and she doesn't want him to go through this. Ofc, it hurts all the more once she realizes that Ares is allowed to be loved by Hera. Zeus doesn't mind not having to raise him. Not that he raised Athena, but he's still possessive over her (fuck him) So yeah, it's a constant reminder that she's a child of Zeus, and not of Hera...

[icarusredwings]

I know we joke a bunch about mental health in the marvel and poolverine community esspecially with Wade but Im gonna share something super personal. Maybe someone will relate and feel less alone.

Tw: mental health episode.

Im native.

As a child I had very long thick lush hair.

Then it was shaved... by someone who didnt want to "deal with it"

It was also burnt off, fried off, chemically relaxed to the point of falling off, cut extremely short, and ripped out often.

I, now, as an adult struggle very very much with my hair. It never can grow very long and it makes me very upset. Like.. melt down upset.

I tried extentions this week hoping it would make me feel better but I couldn't even make it a full 24 hours with them in. They were nice dont get me wrong but they were very uncomfortable, they were too tight, they hurt my scalp when I tried to do any of my normal styles. It might just be me, because my head is very sensitive due to past injury but also mentally it was telling me it hurt even when it shouldn't.

Not physical voices telling me it hurt, rather then my pain receptors weren't working properly. I know this because my brain was claiming I was hurt even before they were fully glued in. I figured it was just the truama of other stylists burning my hair off at my scalp that was making my head scared and go into a panic mode. Maybe that was true. I don't know.

Well, tonight I wanted. No. I NEEDED them out. They hurt too badly and were pulling etc. Something about my mental health wasn't letting me enjoy what ive always wanted.

It was the longest ive had it as an adult recently, past my shoulders, but then I impuslively trimmed it because.. well I dont even know. I dont fucking know. But I just lopped a good 3 inches off to where it sat on my shoulders instead.

Well I just cut them out.

Riped them out.

All of the above.

I was told to wait and I couldn't. I just couldnt wait for the help. So I cut them out. I feel like, in retrospect this was obviously NOT the best thing to do. For OBVIOUS reasons. So now my hair is INCHES long instead of almost the entire foot of Length that I had. Its patchy, its short, Im literally crying right now trying to figure out how im going to fix this.

It dosn't feel right. It dosn't feel or look like how im supposed to look. I look like that kid who just walked out of the salon who is sobbing with a shitty lolipop in his hand and a bowlcut because thats the only thing my caregivers could handle.

As a man I wish we could stop this narriative of not caring what we look like and "oh its okay, boy hair is short"

I just want long pretty hair... without my brain panicing and causing more issues... is that too much to ask for?

My heart is broken. I really hate when im like this. When my brain is so mean to me that it sabotages my goals despite the YEARS of work ive put in oiling it, styling it, the routines, etc etc.

Im devastated.

I am literally crying on my bathroom floor because even without the extentions in my head STILL hurts. Like im getting PHYSICAL pain from how bad I feel about this. I just.. I can't. I can't.

I don't know what to do..

[mrmeepsmadmind]

Please i would love to hear all of the headcannons on Soundblaster i beg we need more of this silly guy

PUTTING U IN MY POCKET AND CHERISHING U FOREVER FOR ASKING ME THIS. i LOOOVEEE YAPPPP!!!!!!!

MY SOUNDBLASTER HEADCANONS / GEN THOUGHTS AND STUFF !!!!!! Warning for dark, mature topics like g*re mention / h*micide ‼️‼️. Not rlly explored but mentioned. No s*xual stuff tho. Still tho, disclaimer, he's an awful cold mech ... who tortures u and twerks to stuck in the middle with you while doing it

best way i can describe how i view Soundblaster is an orca born & raised at SeaWorId who ended up accidentally kiIIing a trainer while playing as a baby and was then separated from his mother, pod, home, everything he once knew.. & luckily released as untrainable into the wild,

but he wishes he was kiIIed instead

he yearns for family, deep down, but can't. have one .

he views his old family as weak & miserable, stuck behind glass to perform for others until they die, & he hates them for not at least trying to fight for him when they took him away. The fact that they couldn't do anything but didn't at least Try just to Attempt . . makes it even worse.

at least he is free to swim the entire ocean as his exercise. But his past follows him everywhere. he is excluded from pods for his nature being even too unorthodox for them, his fin forever drooped. other animals naturally fear him. & he misses his mom ( soundwave ), even though he hates her. He hates her because he misses her .

In my headcanon, SB was made to be a bot with No sentimental attachments, specifically to cassettes, created by Shockwave at the order of megatron. He was made with the purpose of being a bot who could send soldiers off to die without a blink. He was made to be ruthless for the decepticon cause, no one else.

Soundwave Hates SB. The mere idea of SB implies there to be a flaw within Soundwave that caused Shockwave, a mech whose intelligence is renowned, to decide such a severe action as cloning was necessary to fix that. Out of the big three decepticons, soundwave is the bot who deals with empathy the most, although that bar is VERYYYY low considering his comparisons are shockwave and starscream (who is a much better contender than shock in the empathy battle, but star is more involved with his self than outward empathy for others at this point in the war ). Soundwave deals with mentality and communication. Despite his monotone, he does feel. He tunes it out for the cause but thats because he values the cause over the value of others' thoughts, he has to, that's his Job. But tuning out his cassettes' thoughts .... it's. That's when it gets difficult. Soundwave values shockwave for his contributions for the cause with his intellectual gifts and curses. Shockwave making Soundblaster is like if your husband made The Perfect Robot Wife right in front of you and expected you to be perfectly fine with it because thats how you've HAD to be your whole life. If it's better for the cause, than it's better for everyone and everything, ultimately. So just do what you're Assigned to do, soundwave, and simply tune it Out.

SB didn't hate soundwave at the beginning.

i think the whole FAILED clone experiment should be more explored in SB. not just as a 'lol look at sb! Soundwave would NEVER do that! That's so funny!!' like that's cute of course but.. we can also go even further to 'oh my Primus. Soundwave would Never go as FAR to do this . 'and soundblaster just grins with his visor and says ' that's why i'm the Upgrade . ' he's the opposite in some extensions, but similar in some, and that's what makes others so wary, and it's not just from similar appearances, bcs i think that's something soundblaster can try to do something about and has

I think of Soundblaster as WaveWave's fucked up child who fucking hates them, can't stop being compared to them, and can't stop missing them no matter how hard he tries. He's discarded and pretends like he doesn't care, but he's so. Empty. No matter how things he forces into his new cassettes, hobbies he switches to, careers, accents, teams, bodies and parts he keeps in his tapedeck, he's just. Empty in the end.

He's programmed to be ultimately unfeeling. Everything he builds is necessary for his own entertainment, and everything he burns down is necessary for his apathetic functioning, while still desperately trying to wring out at least SOME joy out of it, but always ultimately being unable thanks to shockwave.

SB is intelligent, not to shockwave's capabilities, but he tries. He has shockwave's ability to push and abuse boundaries for the sake of expanding his interest in knowledge, and he has soundwave's observations. He collects information and then He capitalizes on it. HE capitalizes. HE is the cause here, though, not decepticons or autobots, shanix, not even to rule something because it might Seem fun at first .. but then that nagging restlessness tugs him again and he needs to make another cruel move simply for the sake of Moving, of thinking he Can feel. If others, populations, companies, markets, etc, just so happen to be lucky enough to momentarily benefit off that or unlucky enough to be tortured from it, then so be it. He doesn't care. And he's not even saying that to seem stronger to everyone because he Doesn't care (look out for, wonder, worry, valuing feelings, etc. He doesn't view anyone as anything but slight distractions to keep his processor jumping instead of just running) for Anyone, No matter how hard he tries, he always ends up abandoning everyone in the end because abandonment is all he knows. Shockwave and soundwave differ only bcs they tie with his creation. Shockwave is akin to Primus to him, only because SB doesn't care for Primus, but he Does find himself pondering Shockwave, HIS creator because Shockwave made HIM, ties to HIM, tethered to HIM. soundwave is similar. SB hates that, he hates being tethered to anything or anybot. It's just not his programming. He needs distractions so he doesn't have to think about his programming being permanent for at least a few seconds, but it always reminds him it's Never leaving in the end, and part of him doesn't want it to because if he doesn't feel nothing then he'll feel Scared, and he can't tell which is worse

Personal attributes

His voice is booming, dominating, and emphatic because he's learned how to mimic the right inflections, personality, pathology, etc to act alive just so he can remind you he's not in the end because it'll make the pain hit harder for you, & that's Much more Fun in his eyes. He can mimic accents fluently, and sometimes just changes them rapid fire for some shake up. He'll go from a cowboy to Italian in a split for no rhyme or reason, he simply Wanted to. When he Speaks, you Listen.

He views jobs as the same throwaway thing, as he views everything. He goes from a mercenary with a band of bots who admire him for his confident callousness until he burns it all to the ground to explore a new avenue, while success sometimes happens to follow bcs people can't help but worship how indifferently strong he is. Mercenary, pirate, black market, thief, torturer, executioner, decepticon brief ally, autobot brief ally, energon disperser, he wants to do it all because he needs to because it's Different and he Needs differences, not to be quirky for others, but to fool himself into thinking that just for one moment.. he could change

But he never does ! He's stuck in a programmed cycle of apathy and he's dragging others down with him to distract him from the constant spiral

Like how skybound soundwave loves sealife and whales, SB loves dolphins. He loved orcas for their color scheme, but then he researched and further fell in love, trying to model himself into something separate from soundwave without even knowing he's still stuck being eerily similar but still eerily different, not enough to be lovingly regaled the same, nor stand out as a bot truly Different and his own.

Orcas and soundblaster are very similar in many ways. Orcas can even mimic humans.

Soundblaster has STRONG mental abilities. Hypnosis is his favorite. Unlike soundwave, he doesn't care who he hurts with it, he revels in it. Until he's bored. Soundblaster loves to lure unsuspecting bots of all factions by using others' voices and their thoughts to fool everyone, like a siren, but unlike a siren, he's not trying to feed on drunken sailors for survival, he just felt like playing that day . He loves displaying graphic images on his visor or any screen, whether that be a victim's loved one dying from footage he's saved of him torturing them, or just showing them some of his favorite g*re footage because he felt like sharing that day, he just thinks it'll be a neat trick for him to do. His screens often display disturbing, uncomfortable images, with horrifying sounds to match as well

However, SB has weaker sound abilities than soundwave, either from improper training, care, or maybe even an inability to fully replicate what the original can do. His speakers are distorted and sometimes slowed or skipping. Dancing queen slowed reverb YouTube song lol. Happy music is usually not as affected by his radio quality, aside from the occasional audial splitting sparks, so he likes listening to that while torturing.

Back to the sound, his soundwave are weaker. At close distances they're stronger, but far away they echo out and surround instead of always focusing. To help him out, he has an orca-like tail that can extend from his spinal strut to help direct the waves better. But hypnosis is just so much more fun.

SB loves earth, he thinks there's just so many opportunities to have some joy before getting bored! Mimicking a mother calling for her child to lure it away for dissection. Mimicking a baby crying for its mother. Mimicking a puppy and displaying footage of a poor puppy trapped in his car with the windows up and the heat outside is excruciating so a good Samaritan can try breaking the window only to be pulled right in. So much fun!!! Sometimes, he'll even steal a singer's skin and pretend to be them so his hypnosis can easily reach bigger crowds with less effort on his part. Think the movie smile with how he invades them and their effects.

I like to think his human skin disguise's fc looks like st chroma. Just for fun.

Soundwave being able to turn others into his new cassettes is something soundblaster loves to do, and most of the time he forgets he even did it. He loves melding machine and man. He has a dog mech instead of a cat mech, with a human face melted on it. A mix of human teeth and fangs. It used to be a - eh, he doesn't remember. Maybe it was a little girl, at one point. He thinks he got the inspiration from an anime he watched. He likes anime.

His tapedeck is fucking abhorrent. He keeps his skinsuits in there. His cassettes strain and shake, but he always hypnotizes them obedient .

He has a mouth, but the mask doesn't cover directly on it. The mouth is where his chin would be, and from a direct angle, can't be seen until he tilts his helm high up and can even snap it back so the face is dangling on the other side. The mouth has various teeth of various kinds (human, monster, mech, alien, etc) inside, and eyes are everywhere, blinking gums, bloodshot cavern, even on the teeth themselves, since his helm is snapped so far behind him. They don't blink, which is why the tongue is so long, helping to coat them with moisture

Unknown if he has an actual face behind his mask or not.

I think he should have a mini friendship / pls don't kill me sb with bee like he did in the Netflix tf bcs bee is someone whose thoughts DO NOT and cannot match his actual actions bcs theyre selfish and kinda rude and bee cannot allow himself to be Imperfect or the autobot cause and optimus's reputation would be ruined. HES supposed to be their shining light, their hope. If their hope is awful, then what does that say about the cause. I think soundwave and bee are very interesting together in general, but that's another talk another day. But yeah, i think bee feels terrible for sb but also is terrified of him, but bee can't just abandon him . Not like everyone else. Bee CANT be like everyone else, he HAS to better. ...don't tell anyone he thinks that tho- he just wants it implied a little- he just has to be perfect not bcs hes secretly selfish and mean but um! U guys just kinda suck! OOPS, UM. HE MEANS. he'll just distract them by being cute or smthing... & meanwhile soundblaster is watching like 'you're mentally ill. ...I Like That. '

This is how soundblaster talks and views bee, LOL. He just keeps him alive bcs hes entertained by his trauma that bee pretends he doesn't have, which makes it all the more entertaining. I just think the dynamic would be rlly funny, not even in a shipping sense, but a I just think they would be funny sense.

Bee: i mean .. i can't help but feel bad for shockwave.. he used to be a senator.. a Good senator.. he was so kind.. empurata- it's really awful.. he looks so different now.. it must have been so painfu-

SB: WOMP WOMP :P !

Bee:

Bumblebee: ...did you just say Womp Womp to Empurata-

LIKE. i think soundblaster is so fucked up and can be even more fucked up if they just explored him more to really distinguish him but also keep that soundwave association haunting him bcs that mech is Never getting rid of it. I think even if he gets damaged and tries getting repairs, his spark turns down any parts that Don't resemble soundwave's, hence why he has skinsuits to slither into to make himself feel like he can finally relieve himself of soundwave's shadow. Hypnosis doesnt work on him, not even his own. All the mirrors are immediately broken wherever he goes. He's an ill cretin who is also very funny to me. He loves to dance and sing while torturing and is very good at it! But he's also. Awful.

He can't feel, but he can feel some sort of peculiar tie to his cassettes, mainly so he can know their location Wherever they go. He likes to purposefully dispatch his army into losing battles with terrible odds so he can feel their cries shudder from within his spark and that low hidden mouth Grins. And if they end up somehow surviving and winning, then he guesses that's good too, or whatever :/

Bumblebee would be the perfect we have to do good straight man to soundblaster with how compassionate he is.. and soundblaster would be perfect in demonstrating bee's desperation to be liked when bee mistakes soundblaster's tolerance of bee being a good distraction for fondness.. like. Tf could do so much more with sb than just a clone.. bee would be a good big character to help get others familiar with SB !!! LIKE! UGH! THERES JUST SO MUCH POTENTIAL WITH SOUNDBLASTER!!!!! but also transformers is trying to appeal to a younger audience to get new tf fans and keep it alive so i don't think we'll get the soundblaster depth i dream of... if we get more of him at all.. but still.. a m&m can Dream ..

if the name Mr. Blonde from reservoir dogs rings any bells, that's who i associate with Soundblaster as well as orcas to help understand his personality better, to conclude my yap !!!

ANYWAYS!!!! THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THIS WEIRD THING SM!!! SILLY GUY!!!! MY EMO WIFE!!!! WE NEED SO MUCH MORE OF THIS SILLY GUYYY URGHHHHHHH!!!!!!! URE SO RIGHT! PLS ANON I LOVE U FOR ASKING ME THIS! SRRY THIS IS SO LONG! I THINK IMIGHTVE FORGOTTEN SOME THINGS BUT YEA HERES MY YAP FOR NOW !!!

[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

[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

[girlivealwaysbean]

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.

[running-in-the-dark]

went to bed early and woke up before 8am today! pretty cool. except I woke up with a bad headache and eventually had a very long nap.

I'm just so damn tired! like, no matter how much or how well or when I sleep, I'm still tired all day. so it's just pointless trying to fix my sleep schedule (when I'll just be asleep most of the day anyway).