#white europeans as well

[goldenpinof]

Congrats on meeting Dan!!!! Anyway, I don't think he ages the same way as the rest of us. How is he still so youthful like if you told me that man was in his early 20s I would believe you

i have not met Dan and i won't (Warsaw still has m&g tickets but i already bought the regular one and selling it isn't an option + i'm broke 😂). but yes! this bitch not only has a babyface, but also look at his hair and hands. this man is not 30+

[zevranunderstander]

number #1 tactic that people use to not sound as racist as they are when they talk to black people: 'uhh so you AMERICANS need to stop pretending everything is about YOU. why should i know this im not from the us :/' (= is talking about like. a phenomenally internationally well-known black artist)

[mostlyvoid-partiallyflowers]

The most recent episode of Interview with a Vampire let's us see Lestat's side of the story and see how it compares to Louis' accounting of their relationship. As a result, it reaffirms just how unreliable of a narrator Louis is, but it also further illuminates elements of his character that the director and writers have been playing with since the beginning of the show.

There's this part in the episode where Lestat turns to Louis and apologizes and it's framed with Lestat turned to Louis on one side and Claudia on his other side. They're the angel and devil on Louis' shoulders, but who is the angel and who is the devil? And as my friend said, Armand and Daniel are placed into that same dynamic with Louis later on. We are being asked to decide who to trust, who's telling the truth, who's the good guy, but the fact of unreliability robs us of that decision.

This whole story is about Louis, he's the protagonist, though not the narrator, and he is constantly being pulled in two directions, no matter when or where he is in his story. He's a mind split in two, divided by nature and circumstance. He's vampire and human, owner and owned, father and child, angel and devil. He's both telling the story and being told the story. His history is a story he tells himself, and as we've seen, sometimes that story is not whole.

Louis is the angel who saved Claudia from the fire but he's also the devil who sentenced her to an life of endless torment, the adult trapped in the body of a child. He's the angel who rescued Lestat from his grief and also the devil who abandoned him, who couldn't love him, could only kill and leave him.

He's pulled in two directions, internally and externally at all times and so it's no wonder that he feels the need to confess, first to the priest, then Daniel, and then Daniel again.

He's desperate to be heard, a Black man with power in Jim Crow America who's controlled by his position as someone with a seat at the table but one who will never be considered equal. He doesn't belong to the Black community or the white community, he can't. He acts as a go-between, a bridge, one who is pushed and pulled until he can't take it anymore. He's a fledgling child to an undead father, he's a young queer man discovering his sexual identity with an infinitely experienced partner. He's confessing because he wants to be absolved, that human part of him that was raised Catholic, that child who believed, he wants to be saved. He wants to be seen.

Louis wants to attain a forever life that is morally pure, but he can't. He's been soiled by sin, by "the devil," as he calls Lestat, and he can never be clean again. Deep down, I think he knows this, but he can't stop trying to repent. He tries to self-flagellate by staying with Lestat and then tries to repent by killing him, but can't actually follow through. He follows Claudia to Europe to try and assuage his guilt. He sets himself on fire, attempts to burn himself at the stake, to purify his body, rid himself of the dark gift.

Louis is a man endlessly trying to account for the pain he has caused and he ultimately fails, over and over again, because he can't get rid of what he is. A monster. He's an endlessly hungry monster. He's hungry for love, for respect, for power, for forgiveness, for death. He's a hole that can never be filled. He can never truly acquire any of those things because he will always be punishing himself for wanting and needing them in the first place. He will never truly believe he deserves them and as a result, can't accept them if they are ever offered. He can never be absolved for he has damned himself by accepting the dark gift and thus has tainted himself past the point of saving.

[mothric]

yesterday i went to make chimichurri - specifically, my Argentine father's recipe - and discovered, to my great dismay, that I'd forgotten to buy fresh parsley, which is the main ingredient of chimichurri. i collapsed to the floor in dramatic despair, hand cast over my arm, when my roommate, my dear, sweet, extremely white roommate, asked "can't you just use dried parsley?"

in that moment I felt the pain an italian man feels when you break the spaghetti noodles in half. the dismay a polish person feels at beholding a store-bought paczki. the absolute indignance of a frenchman tasting hershey's for the first time and wondering how any sane person could possibly call it chocolate.

FRESH PARSLEY IS THE POINT, i shouted, you uncultured ninny i politely held back. YOU CANNOT SIMPLY REPLACE FRESH PARSLEY. it is what chimichurri IS!!! the chopping and crushing of the leaves and the mingling of its juices and aroma with the garlic and the vinaigrette is what makes it! there is nothing in dried parsley to CRUSH!!!!!

'what if you just mixed other herbs with garlic?' they supplied. 'and then you can still have some kind of sauce thing.'

my rage evaporated into blank apathy. they did not get it. they do not understand. a margherita pizza is not made with parmesan and mint leaves. chicken noodle soup is not made with pork tenderloin. a scrambled egg is not made by boiling it. how can i possibly make them understand when they have fallen so far from grace.

i will buy parsley tomorrow, i said. then you will see. then you will taste and smell. then you will understand.

chimichurri marinades in the fridge as i write this. i do not know if they will like it. may my ancestors give me strength

[superkitten-poison]

to me velvette doesnt lie about *being bisexual* for attention but she lies about being bisexual *for attention*. like admitting to being attracted to women would make her a dyke and manly and f/f relationships dont even count bc her internalized misogyny goes so crazy she subconsicounsly does not see women as full people and needs men to validate her own personhood, and since men hold most of the power, surrounding herself with men is in fact a means to power. so one way she feels she Can have sexual contact with women is through excuses: it's for attention, for convenience, as a power play. but never because of her own desires and it can never mean anything. can you imagine? two women in a loving relationship. who would want to see that?

[storywestistrash]

i am actually so tired of the way westerners treat eastern europeans

[leroibobo]

the paradesi synagogue in kochi, kerala, india. the first synagogue on the site, built by the city's longstanding malabari jewish community, was destroyed by portugese who'd colonized the area in their persecution of locals. it was rebuilt in 1568 by spanish and portugese jews who fled persecution and later expulsion, hence the name "paradesi" ("foreign" in malayalam).

these sephardic jews and a community of jews of mixed african and european descent who were formerly enslaved ("meshuchrarim", "freedmen" in hebrew) joined the malabari jewish community of kochi and somewhat integrated. they were later joined by some iraqi, persian, yemenite, afghan, and dutch sephardic jews. the middle eastern and european jews were considered "white jews" and permitted malabari jews and meshuchrarim to worship in the synagogue. however, in what seems like a combination of local caste dynamics and racism, malabari jews were not allowed full membership. meshuchrarim weren't allowed in at all, but were instead made to sit outside during services and not allowed their own place of worship or other communal rights.

as the "white jews" tended to be rather wealthy from trade, this synagogue contains multiple antiquities. they include belgian glass chandeliers on its walls, hand-painted porcelain tiles from china on its floors, and an oriental rug that was gifted by ethiopian emperor haile selassie.

[saturngalore]

ngl i thought the new world was literally the cottage living world….boring 👎🏾

[gothimgem]

dod1.3 sirene designs finally done

[aeolianblues]

Every time I see someone qualify habits by saying something like 'especially Americans/North Americans' on here, I can't help but think 'ah but all that means is you haven't met as many of the rest of us, right'. Everything isn't America-exclusive behaviour, there are awesome people and assholes everywhere and it probably helps not to moralise nationality. I dunno.

[kittykatninja321]

On both a watsonian and doylist level Dick Grayson is white passing

[waxflowerwoes]

obviously chandrilan fashion is influenced by traditional east asian garments (the first time i was watched andor i was thinking about how much it reminded me of korean hanbok but that bias is probably indicative of how i grew up near a koreatown) and i saw someone somewhere say that it's odd that the shirts are crossed right over left (the way to dress a dead person) instead of the traditional left over right

now this could be a cultural oversight on the part of the costume designers. it wouldn't be the first time hollywood (or even star wars) appropriated an aesthetic they didn't understand. but with the line "play it how you want. but i'm going to assume i'm already dead," also existing in this show, maybe it's not.

[vanmarkus]

every day i think about the utter loneliness of trying to learn about a culture that has next to no written records that has next to no written language and that has been subject to ethnic cleansing and historical erasure and is still subject to segregation and genocide in multiple countries today, but then i think about the people who work hard to keep their communities together and to provide aid to those who need it and suddenly that loneliness feels a little easier to bear

[butwhypants]

Israel is absolutely not a settler colonial state what the fuck. I have no idea where that started, there are like a million different criticisms at the current government you can make but it is not a colony? What the fuck?

Like, if you want to call the current Israeli government far-right, you can do that. If you want to call them a theocratic police state, you can do that. Those are all genuine criticisms that can be responded to, and used to shape a better world for both Israeli's and Palestinians. You don't need to make up some hogwash about Benjamin Netanyahu being a fake Jew or an evil convert to justify criticizing his current government! Fucking Goyim! Just say you don't like the police state! It's fine!

[spiltcandycoatedpunkblood]

this really was the year of 'I feel sorry for the guy who invented the atomic bomb because he was sad it was used to kill people, but Palestine are terrorists for retaliating and shouldn't have done that'

[leroibobo]

oh if you ever are curious about non-maghrebi/egyptian african synagogues i highly recommend this website. they're unfortunately not as recorded in pictures as the other sorts of synagogues i post, but there is comprehensive information on them.