Ok It’s Late So Bear With Me As I Try To Articulate This.

As I previously stated, I loved 01x05. It was fantastic. It was real. It brought my emotions to the forefront, and I don't get to experience that with much of anything, these days. But, this little misfit family... I feel for all three of these characters, in my own way. (They're fictional, so, yes, I can do that, thanks). Possibly because I have been in each of their positions, in one form or another, throughout my life.

I'm going to get mighty personal with this one, so be warned.

01x05 hit home for me, in a big way. This is a legitimate breakdown of a forced family unit, and that's something I personally feel for. Children have been the Bad Marriage Band-Aid for generations, and I am grateful to the writers for acknowledging it. (Some of us get a little tired of seeing cookie-cutter families, when ours look more like the aftermath of an oven fire, y'know what I mean?). We're getting to see it from all three sides, too, which I find absolutely refreshing. One parent thinks the child will settle the relationship. The other goes along with it, and ends up so blinded by jealousy, there is no middle ground left.

Claudia, though. This girl... She has my heart. Claudia is not to blame for what she was brought into, the absolutely fucked-up relationship that her guardians share. Is she a little shit? Yes. Is she hard-headed? Yes. Unstable, in terms of coming into her own? Yes. But, she is not the cause of her parents' issues. That's a hard thing to overcome as a child brought up under such circumstances, especially when the household arguments are about you. Because, sure, they may be about you, but you did not cause them. Claudia isn't the origin of Louis and Lestat's tensions. She is the excuse to pick a semi-fresh fight. She is the mirror held up in front of the two of them to show them that, "Hey, this isn't right." The product of their unstable union. The best and worst of one another in one person. (Speaking of her vampiric years, not her humanity). That isn't to say that there isn't genuine concern for her, particularly on the part of Louis. Claudia just got caught up in a toxic situation, and it's no wonder she took the hell off. I'm not surprised which parent's side she took, either. (Then again, are any of us?).

Louis and Lestat are... Well, I feel less for the two of them. Some years ago, I was in a relationship with similar features, so I think what I am experiencing is that mirror (minus the children). I will first say that nothing - nothing - excuses abuse. I've seen it. I've experienced it. Hell, I'm guilty of it. I also acknowledge that abuse takes many forms. I see it in Lestat's constant manipulations. I see it in Louis' repeated threats to leave. Louis withholding intimacies (not just sexual). Lestat playing his little one-sided What's Good for the Goose game, in terms of monogamy. They both know what they are doing to one another, they know the reactions they will trigger, yet they keep doing it. It's an ugly, ugly cycle, and it won't end until one of them cuts the damned cord. Breaks the chain. (I don't exactly advocate that they do so through violence, but). Walking away isn't easy, fuck knows it isn't. There's truth to the notion that things need to hit rock bottom before they can get better.

No one is asking to be abused. That isn't what I'm getting at. My point is that these two are so completely caught up in trying to hurt one another, blame one another, and sabotage the other from the inside out, they ignore what it is doing to their charge. They know she can hear them fighting, and they carry on. Falling victim to The Pattern is part of the cycle, and it is likely to be passed on to Claudia. This whole situation is toxic. This is abuse. This is co-dependent. Everybody sucks, here. (Sorry, I had to). And, by golly, I will be here for it until the bitter end.

Y'know. God-willing.

P.S. I'll happily clarify anything that sounds shitty, if need be. I'm rattling this off at work, between what I should be doing, so. Y'know.

Your love is my turning page

Where only the sweetest words remain

Every kiss is a cursive line

Every touch is a redefining phrase

― Rebecca Stead, The List of Things That Will Not Change

The boys are done! I’m going to making foil prints (tarot cards) of these guys to go in my shop. I’ll post again once I have them in person 🫶

Nevermind that he ignored 8 zillion glaring red flags but eye f*king a man as he massages a heart causes some grand epiphany.

History’s greatest tactician has made a grave Tactical Error

(Based off this post)

yet another thing that ofmd does so well is how awkward and nervous all the dialogue is during all the romantic confession scenes we get from our three canon relationships. like it's so fucking relatable. watching those scenes makes me think of the (admittedly very few) times in my life when i have made these kinds of halting, nervous confessions. i can feel how the adrenaline is making their hearts pound and their hands sweat and their faces flush with heat. trying to sound casual while there's a heavy lump the size of a dodgeball trying to claw its way from your chest to your mouth.

Black Pete starts off stammering, "So... uh, listen." He veers too close to genuine, revealing too much when he says, "I-I thought I was gonna... lose you," and when Lucius responds jokingly, he tries to backtrack a bit, play it cool. "Exactly! And uh, and... uh—death, yknow..." He shrugs, tries for nonchalance and doesn't quite make it. "I'm used to death. But, um..." And Pete's barely been able to hold Lucius's gaze this whole time, his eyes constantly flickering somewhere to Lucius's left, but here he closes them, steels himself. "But not, um..." A beat. When he says, "your death," he opens his eyes again, looks right at Lucius, and the surprised little smile on Lucius's face is almost too much.

Olu's been listening to Jim's tragic backstory, hurting for them and understanding them on a deeper level than he ever has before. When Jim says that their nana is their only family, Olu's face goes on a journey, here: his eyebrows furrow in concern, then twitch upwards as he thinks about how lonely that must be. He hunches in on himself, shoulders to his ears and hands in his pockets, and he rocks himself to the side as he gathers his nerves. "Well, look..." he begins, moving half a step closer, "if you wanted–" his eyes land on Jim's for only a moment, then he's looking above them, around them. "I could be family," he says, shrugging and spreading his hands, like he's showing Jim what he has to offer: himself, just himself, and his desire to be someone Jim can lean on. "I just..." There's no ending to that sentence, he didn't know where he was going when he started it, so he trails off as Jim glances away, then looks at him from under the rim of their hat, considering.

(And Jim is so lucky—but also, it's what they deserve—that they get not one, but two confessions from Olu. When they come back, when they ask him why he gave their room away, Olu's demeanor goes from "happy to see his friend alive and well" to "nervous boy asking their crush to prom" in an instant. "I, um..." His hands bounce at his sides, his eyes flicker all over the room. When he finally meets Jim's gaze, his hands are still moving nervously. "I-I missed you.")

And Ed. Ed. He enters the scene by walking over and sitting so close to Stede, close enough that they could be touching. He sits in Stede's space like he belongs there (and he does; Stede doesn't move away, doesn't react like Ed's proximity is unexpected or unwanted). He looks at Stede and smiles at him as he offers reassurances, but once he looks away he doesn't look back for several minutes. As he dismisses Stede's self-deprecation and answers Stede's questions he alternates between fiddling with the sand in front of him and gazing out at the sea. There's nervousness there, things going unsaid that have been ready to jump from Ed's tongue at any moment. And Stede gives him that moment when he asks what makes Ed happy.

But despite how desperate Ed is to tell him, there's still hesitation. He meanders his way towards giving Stede his answer, starting with, "These past... few weeks?" as if this isn't something he's given much thought to. "Have been... th'most fun I've had in ages. Years." His voice is soft, his face scrunching casually as he speaks. He still doesn't look at Stede, because the nerves climbing up his throat right now would choke him into silence if he did. So he stares at some fixed point in the distance, maybe a specific rock or blade of grass, as he says, "Maybe ever," with a surprised twist in his expression.

And as he moves into the next part, into the important part, those nerves in his throat climb higher. "So," he says, firmly, but that's the last thing he manages to say with any force. As his nerves go higher, so does his voice, but the volume becomes softer.

"So–uh... I reckon. What makes Ed happy..."

He feels Stede's eyes on his face, and that nervous fidgeting is gone, replaced instead by a stillness that his heart doesn't emulate.

"Is..."

Ed's been run through many times. He's been held at gunpoint, had rope tied around his neck, been stranded for days without food. He's watched the life drain from his father's body as a result of his own violence.

But for some reason, this is possibly the most nervous Ed has ever felt, the hardest his heart has ever pounded. The only moment that competes is when he watched four men in red coats point their rifles at Stede's trembling body.

"You."

OUGHUHUFHUGHUGH..... i know EXACTLY how they feel and it makes all these scenes hit so much harder. and SO MUCH OF IT is how fucking good the acting. if you just read these lines as flat dialogue, taking out all those pauses and stammers that the characters are trying to hard to hide, so much of the flavor is lost:

"Death, y'know, I'm used to death. But not your death"

"Well, look: if you wanted, I could be family."

"These past few months have been the most fun I've had in ages, weeks, maybe ever. So, I reckon what makes Ed happy is you."

like these are cute lines, but they're also awkward ways to stumble around just outright saying "I Care About You" and it's so real and incredibly relatable. i know EXACTLY how it feels to nervously try and tell someone you like like them and ofmd does it so so well

(bonus tag game: if u reblog this and ur comfortable w it, PLEASE tell me about an awkward confession you have given or received, i love shit like this. i will, of course, add my own story in the tags of the original post)

Me to me

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (2.01) “WHAT CAN THE DAMNED REALLY SAY TO THE DAMNED”

Find someone who looks at you {redux} (original here)