tori-artemis

[tori-artemis]

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2005) dir. Joe Wright

[tori-artemis]

And the highway lines pass by in two/four double-time and we don’t even recognise a single name on the street signs Nothing else is calling us But all we’ve left behind is like a hell-hound on our trail and a burden on our mind

[tori-artemis]

Fem Loki in marvel rivals yes pls

[tori-artemis]

I want to fight for Winterfell, Lady Sansa. If you’ll have me.

[tori-artemis]

I vowed I would always be yours/ If we survived the Great War

THEONSA SOUPVERSARY||Prompt:Visions

[tori-artemis]

Lestat was impressed, overcome. What a picture he made of her, the infant death, he called her. Sister death, and sweet death; and for me, mockingly, he had the term with a sweeping bow, Merciful Death! which he said like a woman clapping her hands and shouting out a word of exciting gossip: oh, merciful heavens! so that I wanted to strangle him. - Interview With The Vampire

[tori-artemis]

thinking about louis' assertion that "for claudia, all humans died with charlie" motherfucker???? you think they were ever alive to her??? honey the switch after charlie's death wasn't in her outlook on humans, it was in her outlook on YOU. his death doesn't make her more cruel to humans, it shows her that there is no fucking escape from HER OWN HOME. what claudia truly learns that night is that her body is a prison that won't let her find anyone who understands and sees her for who she is, one of her parents is unwilling to sympathize with her, the other is unwilling to help her, and they are ALL SHE HAS. THOSE TWO ARE ALL SHE HAS. SHE CAN'T FIND ANYONE ELSE. NO ONE ELSE WILL EVER UNDERSTAND HER. her world is a cage her home is a cage and her body is a cage and her jailers are both selfish, self-centered and blind.

[tori-artemis]

some idiots hate Aegon and he just:

[tori-artemis]

[tori-artemis]

The vampire Armand awoke to moonbeams streaming through the crack of his ajar coffin, cascading over his naked chest, as he lifts the lid. Armand stretched, his breasts lifting with his arms as he greeted the night. He slinks out and pulls on a shirt with a plunging neckline, exposing cleavage. His nipples are erect beneath the thin fabric. Armand breasted boobily to the stairs, and titted downwards.

[tori-artemis]

Sad I have to write this out, but abuse and trauma have zero benefits to anyone’s life. You can learn anything the kind way. You can become anyone the kind way. There is no reason whatsoever to traumatize you. Everything can be done without abuse.

[tori-artemis]

reporting straight from the movie theater, if you loved sinners (2025) like me, and if you need more, especially if you’re looking for more queer representation with well written characters of color in the horror scene, you will LOVE interview with the vampire (2022).

[tori-artemis]

[tori-artemis]

Interview with the vampire sketches 🍷

[tori-artemis]

Is there a panic room behind the stolen Rembrandt?

[tori-artemis]

the armand identity problem goes like this:

you are a child. you don’t know how old: maybe five, maybe ten. things happen very fast and then very slow. you are a child. then you are nothing. you are five years old: you aren’t there. things happen to your body: you aren’t there. you are ten years old and you bite. you are younger than you ever remember being and you cry. you are a tiger pacing around the room. you are your mother: they don’t like how your voice sounds when you plead. they hurt you: you are nothing. there is nobody. the thing that was in the body: dead. you put the dead body away. you are five. you are ten, and you bite, and they put you in a room and you are nothing. and then:

you are an angel. he calls you amadeo, you are amadeo. you are fifteen, he tells you so. you have never been fifteen before. you are amadeo: you are ten. you are twenty. he hits you and you are five. he leaves you and you miss your mother. you are your mother, you rock yourself to sleep. you break down his door with your claws and he beats you and you are fifteen, and then you are twenty, or ten, and you like it, of course you do, you ask for more, you like it, you are his equal. he tells you you are his child: you are five. he tells you you are his lover: you are five, or ten, or twenty. someone else, suddenly: fifteen, and asleep during your lessons. five, and crying, afraid of your punishment. okay. and then:

you are nothing. you are amadeo and then you are a different amadeo. fifteen, twenty, five. you are nothing. you did something horrible. the thing that was in your body: dead. you put the dead body away. you bite and then you don’t. you put the biting thing away and make up a new one to fill up the empty space. your head is empty. you are alone. the dead things slip out of your reach. you weren’t there for it: you are the box the dead things go in. it’s different. their limbs curl up like dead spiders. they must have been important, before. you are a box of brittle wood. you splinter. ten years, twenty years: the splinters spread. you are ancient. you are ten. you are five. something happened, before it all. the dead things straighten their limbs when you’re not looking. they tell the splintered bits about the sound of the waves, the way sunlight felt on the tip of your nose. you are armand. you are in your body: then you’re not. you are your master. you don’t have a choice. he tells you to be strong: you are him. but god, if it isn’t good to speak to him again. he touches the dead bodies. they don’t move. and then:

you are armand. you are there and then you’re not. you are a different armand. armand for any occasion. magnus’s fledgling: you are thousands of years old. your master tells you exactly what to do and you do it. you are amadeo. you are armand. you are marius. he kisses you, or you kiss him: you are twenty. you are on a boat, and you are crying. your coven goes into the fire. you never liked them anyway. you loved them. you throw them in yourself. you are a tiger. you are ten. you watch them go into the fire and you cry, and you can’t stop crying. you can’t remember. someone was in the body: now there is no one. you are strong. you don’t have a name yet. armand, he calls you. you are armand. you are the director, of course. maître. okay. lestat leaves. you were hollow before, you are hollow now. the cracks run up the walls. more dead things. how is it that you never die? you learn things secondhand. master, riccardo, the ghost of a boy called something you can’t remember. lestat, and then nothing. until:

you are maître. you are armand. you are the director, and there is a disturbance. you are armand. here, you tell him, this is amadeo. you are five. he was twenty, here. you are armand. things happened to arun. you don’t think about him very often anymore. he cries so little now. the painting scares you. its the only way you can make him come back. you are armand. amadeo was good at things. someone loved him. a leg twitching, an eye opening. you tell him about this. the paint and the brush and the artist and then the pain. sometimes this troubles someone else. you are armand. you are in your body. he tells you: i used to be real good at running things. you are good at running things too. you are ten. you are five. you are twenty. your master and the tiger and your mother. you are maître. he calls you arun: now he is maître, and now there must be an arun. and then:

you are arun. you are twenty. your master leaves and you are alone. you are arun: you are ten. you are blurry. you are armand. you are maître, you are arun. he is maître, you are arun. your coven tells you: you are no longer maître. you are the director, you are maître, you are armand. your body is not empty. you are hungry. someone is crying but it isnt you. you are starting to think there might be another fault line forming somewhere. the wooden box. you forgot about the box, putting things in it for so long. you are the box. things disappear inside of you. silence, you demand, respect. you are the master. you are the tiger. you are armand, the hollow one. you are armand, the angry one. you are amadeo, the angry one. louis doesn’t understand. he gets angry too, he claims, but he’s just louis. you agree. you are just armand, too. he says he doesn’t have a box: that’s because he is the box, and so are you, and that’s why he doesn’t get it. you leave it alone. he’ll find out once he, too, is as old as you are. you are armand. you love him. you are arun. you are five. he tells you no. you are arun. you’re not sure how old you are. you’re not in your body. your coven tells you: they must die. you are ten. you hate him. you are afraid of him. you love him more than anything in the world. you are five. you are twenty. you are five hundred years old. you say okay. they call you maître. you are maître. you are trapped: you are five, and on a boat, and you feel sick, and someone is touching you. you are santino. you are marius. you are riccardo: shh, shh, it’s okay, you’re okay. you rock back and forth, and then you’re on the balcony. you are five. you can’t leave. you are armand. you are empty. you are nothing.

and after: you are amadeo. don’t worry about me, you tell him, and he says don’t you fucking worry about that. you are five. you are arun. you are a different arun, the one that doesn’t know what happened. or the one that remembers something. the one that fought. the one that bit through a finger, or the one that was beaten for it. you are armand, you are amadeo. you say okay. you say sorry. decades later you say haven’t i atoned enough. you are fifteen. you have never been fifteen before. haven’t i crawled an inch forward. you are not the person that killed claudia. you didn’t know her. you dont get what the big deal was. you are nothing, and santino is standing above you. you are armand, the one that doesn’t hold onto anything. you are armand, the one that doesn’t remember. you are armand, the one that killed amadeo. you are amadeo. any one of them, any of them, it doesn’t matter. you are inside of the box, you are dead. you are the box. you are outside of the box. he calls you boring. okay, you say. okay. you’re not in your body. your body does things to another body. ah, how fragile. ah, how meaty. you are armand. you are maître. you are in charge, and then you are arun. you are five, you are ten. more bodies for the box. you are splintering. you never stopped. you are the box. you tell yourself fine. i’ll show you boring. you are amadeo. you are fifteen, and you are angry. you take your ax and you break through the door again. you will never stop breaking through things in your way.

[tori-artemis]

can everyone walk with me for a moment please. the writer’s room has set up armand’s redemption, his true understanding and love for another individual, to come through benji so perfectly. what armand experienced—and what has always been a core part of my understanding of his characterization—was both a personal and systematic decimation of his culture and people. he’s comparable to a survivor of genocide with what european colonizers did to the indian population and i do think so much of Why he wants to survive is because he’s surviving for so many other people. not just names we know, like Riccardo, but names we don’t, that he doesn’t, because they have been lost. were erased. benji is an explicitly palestinian character who was trafficked and forced into a caretaker role by an abusive white family, and I’m thinking in the timeline of the show it could be very likely he was displaced during the settlement expansion into sheikh jarrah in 2021 (bc he is from Jerusalem in the books, albeit in a different time period).

both of them were trafficked, displaced, and survived a genocide, and it is so rare for armand to look into someone’s eyes and see the horror he has been through be reflected, but i think it really is in benji. and for once armand could really feel the need to *protect* something, it’s just one life, but he failed claudia specifically because she reminded him of everything he was and everything he couldn’t be, but he’s given another chance in benji. i’m thinking specifically about colonial understandings of manhood as reflected in their two characters (everyone read uncle give me a cigarette by walid daqqah)—benji forces himself, *has been forced*, to be mature, grown, as Adult as a 12 y/o can be. but armand’s childhood was stolen from him, and he retains a boyishness. in this way both of them could be jealous of the other—eternal child longing to be a man and eternal man longing to have the solace of childhood—but there is still such a deep resonance they can have with each other because of this.

so for marius to hurt benji, benji, who is a reflection of arun, or who arun was, or all of armand’s identities really, absolutely has the opportunity to be armand’s true wakeup call IF the writer’s room has the guts to tackle all of the implications of benji’s character head on. especially if they keep marius’ obsession with the “saving of the west”. armand seems to think he deserves white supremacist and sexual violence, but benji? is exactly who he seeks to protect. and it could be so beautiful and so powerful and so poignant to allow armand and benji this moment of realization and reconciliation and the rejection of violence they’ve been told is natural for them to receive. this is by far my biggest wish for the show.