#sorry for the condescending tone

[nightcolorz]

Unhinged Sybelle and Benji tangent (cw references to abuse csa trauma etc)

yeah so Marius’s turning of Benji and Sybelle isn’t about whether or not that was the right decision to make and isn’t made better by their contentment living as vampires in late canon. Benji and Sybelle’s relatively happy lives as vampires are irrelevant to me. The cruelty of how he did it is made worse by the hypocritical nature of turning a kid into a vampire after so firmly insisting that turning children is morally abhorrent and smth he should’ve never done, yeah, but that’s only a small part of it.

It was so awful and upsetting to me bcus of the deliberate stripping of Armand’s agency. See, we have a whole book where Armand tells the story of how throughout his entire life and childhood he was forced into the role of submissiveness and/or dependency. whether that be his childhood religious devotion that would eventually lead to his being buried alive for God or being sold into sexual slavery or Marius’s mentorship of him that ultimately intended to teach him to stay loyal and dependent on Marius’s authority to Marius’s relationship with him sexual and otherwise to the cult indoctrination, up until Lestat comes along and tilts his own view of submission and devotion as his only way to survive and function in the world onto its head.

He gives him a theater and then he gives him Louis. Armand floats around, tries to find purpose without devotion through using Louis and Daniel as tools to understanding the modern age. The modern age to Armand is possibility and independence, things he’s never had so much access to and doesn’t know exactly how to apply to himself until the devils minion chapter when he’s like ah ok I get it, life without devotion is something I’ve always been familiar with—it’s what Marius taught me! I Am The Master now with my excessive indulgence and my Boy and my sea side paradise.

But Armand is a Void™️ with no concept of self besides a collection of concepts and experiences and people he’s been exposed to throughout his existence, so rlly he’s kind of a fraud. Internally he’s still a saint who yearns for a God to follow, he’s no Marius, and this all comes to a head in Memnoch the devil when he throws himself into the sun for Jesus etc. and so TVA Armand is mixed the fuck up, he’s lost everything he’s been building for himself, he’s like an open wound, like red and gold sand art shaken around until it’s sludges of brown.

Armand believes himself to have no coherent narrative of a life, no coherent and consistent sense of self, just a collection of unrelated sequences that he draws from to occasionally preform personhood, and at the beginning of TVA he is very much just that. No thoughts only colors and pain. But he’s trying to rebuild himself as best he can, he has these young humans who he’s caring for, and through caring Armand finds meaning.

These humans are very much reflections of himself, or who he used to be, and seeing a personhood reflected back at him through these two gives him insight into his own value as an individual, as someone who is inherently worthy of having a life. So with Benji and Sybelle he tries to rebuild his own sense of personhood by giving them what he would want in there place. The conclusion he reaches at the end of his story to David is that after everything ultimately he is learning and rebuilding, gaining fulfillment and individuality he’s never had before through his empathy and care for these two people in his life. Benji and Sybelle are representative of Armand’s healing process!!! They mirror him bcus they are him!! He’s literally nurturing his inner child!! And with that there comes self care and self love etc etc. but then the book doesn’t end!!

Then after all that trauma and all that healing everything that Armand was tenderly attempting to build for his new life is stripped away ! When Marius turns Benji and Sybelle it doesn’t matttttter that they like being vampires. What matters is that when Armand finally gained agency and individuality Marius decided to take that from him! Marius decided that he actually knew better then Armand, and if Armand would just allow him to do what’s best for him then everything would be so much better and so much easier. And when Armand starts sobbing and screaming and fighting him that’s just justification to Marius that Armand isn’t capable of independence or self sufficiency, that he’s a child throwing a tantrum who can’t make his own decisions, that he should just be dependent on Marius like he used to be and trust that other people know what’s best for him.

That’s why it’s so tragic! That’s why it’s so frustrating and so sad. Armand was on the road to healing but then Marius stormed in like the symbolic representation of his past telling him that no matter what he does or the progress he makes he’s still Armand in the catacombs, Amadeo on the red sheets, Andrei waiting to be buried alive. So I don’t really give af if ultimately Benji and Sybelle are fine! It’s great that despite being a child vampire Benji is able to function independently and contently as an adult with minimal body dysmorphia and existential dread, but you know who’s not able to do that? Armand 😭😭

[meowsticmarvels]

the concept of delta engineering the decision game so he and phi can be born is kinda funny he's like ok so i have to worsen my parents' existing ptsd so me and my Stupid ass sister I Guess will be born witj magic powers and shes also gonna have worsened ptsd as a result. this is a Necessary evil Life is Simply Unfair :/

[whentherewerebicycles]

there are a million things I find challenging about this workplace dynamic but I think the one that bothers me most is that I don’t like the feeling of contempt and this dynamic makes me have to experience it all the time. I don’t like being the subject of someone else’s contempt and I really don’t like feeling contempt for another person. I think both are so spiritually corrosive!! but if someone treats you with barely concealed disdain and dislike, or acts like your work is worthless and they expect to be disappointed by you before you’ve even done anything, it’s SO hard to not react in kind. woof!!!

[flowerakatsuka]

there's a fucking rude ass customer in the store, i need kurokara to comfort me—

[whitehartlane]

i rly do think there is a line between being critical of saudi, their involvement in football, where all the money is coming from, the millions of human rights violations that the government perpetuates and covers up via sportwashing … and then just straight up dunking on football cultures outside of europe (specifically england/germany/italy) and acting like the fans there are inferior in some way (even if they are smaller in number that does not mean that the football being played is worth any less) and implying consciously or subconsciously that the footballers who grew up in the system there don’t deserve to play football. i’ll be honest, way too many ppl cross the line.

[holygraund]

hello! just wondering how youre 100 percent taylor swift when she knowingly does this to the environment? with the private jets especially, making her directly responisble for a noticeable negative impact. and her lack of enacted change ig. ok ty have a good day! hoping your response isnt just climate change denial lol

Hello, condescending anon! Good to know that your idea of the solution to environmental problems is going to stranger gif maker's inbox and taking it out on them.

[neredoesnotfail]

❛ do not forget what i am.  ❜ // @lcftyambiticns

"And what is that?" the drow questions with a mocking not-quite-smile, that telltale [ patronizing ] sing-song to his voice.

His head canted slightly to one side, he continues, pondering the potential answers aloud.

"A ne'er-do-well? A cad? A wizard of... questionable renown? A mere mortal hoping to cast off his mortality? What, precisely, is it that you wish us to remember that you are?"

[vamptits]

you cannot be bringing this energy to my posts i am disableddd i get dizzy when i stand up on account of my chronic illness!!!

[mudzdale]

so cool that one of the outcomes of this event is that people who do unserious things like refer to the far right as "trump's fandom" get to be condescending about voting and call everybody reading their posts morons

[edmunderson]

wild response i got to a comment i made on a webcomic. sorry you think compassion is weird and somehow specifically christian or something. idk what to do with that 🧍‍♂️

[violexides]

like whatever here's the thing do you want democrats to take away the idea that no matter what their politics are so long as they're not trump they'll win? or do you want democrats to understand that they're not going to win votes unless they make political changes?

[cackel]

Quit simping for those Saw victims, you can do better

you cant tell me what to do 😜😜😜

wait... anon... when you say i can do better... do you mean... you!??????? awww if you wanted to date me you didnt have to be so sly with it!!!!

[skeletons-in-ur-closet]

i gotta beat my brother with hammers ong

[classicsmosh]

hi, im that aro anon you were talking about. you didn’t sound preachy at all, dw, i just wanted to clarify myself because i sent that ask like a week ago i think and i probably could’ve explained myself better.

..which is sort of the hard part for me because articulating my thoughts on love is just as hard as fully grasping haha. it makes sense in my head but writing it never comes out right.

i think you bring up a lot of good points and i totally agree with your thoughts on platonic love, always have, and i’m the last person that treats platonic love as second best to the romantic kind.

what i was trying to say is that the label or line itself doesn’t really matter to me when it comes to ianthony. in real life they’re obviously platonic, but a lot of people see them in a romantic context too for fun, and i understand it regardless so it doesn’t make a difference to me. in my mind, it doesn’t even really require a label. it’s just Love, and that’s why i felt that i could understand it fully in a way that’s usually hard for me.

to quote myself, they are [an example of] my definition of love, and that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s romantic— i didn’t mean it romantically. it just is. my aromanticism felt relevant when talking about this because it affects the way i view all love, but i think that might’ve led to confusion.

you said it better than me: “I’d even say it’s true love”. that’s what i was originally trying to get across, and i think it might’ve gotten misinterpreted a little. but i really appreciate you talking about it because i love discussing things with other aro(aces) like myself. sorry for the essay ❤️

Thank you for the clarification! I also didn't mean to sound like I thought you were devaluing platonic love! That wasn't the thought process, the whole thing sort of came from a misplaced sense of concern, I guess. 😅

[blagueofchaos]

7. Somewhat. Perhaps. Partially. In a sense. One might say as much with partial accuracy.

He Would Express Those Sentiments, But Not In That Vocabulary

[pluggedintosaverockandroll]

soooo sorry but the bands on that vest with the punks not dead patch ong!

Are you the same anon that asked if I was a minor? (If not then please ignore this reply) Did you ask me that because you think the bands on my vest are childish or not "punk enough" (yes I am aware that those bands are emo/pop punk (new wave in Blondie's case))? Because if that's the case that's not cool or very punk of you.