I just realized why lestat marked Tom, like the big stupid idiot I am
(I know everyone else probably already figured this out, but this is MY blog and I get to post whatever deranged thought crosses my pea brained mind.)
When I watched that scene in episode 5 where they're at the bar talking to Tom, I was confused as to why exactly. Why does Lestat mark Tom? If he's marked to kill, why does he wait almost 2 decades later? Well I realized, as all realizations come, in the shower.
Lestat has been planning on killing Tom the whole time.
(Warning before you click read more, this post is a lot longer than I first intended holy fuck)
Well not the whole time. Just right when Louis realized that Anderson and Fenwick had screwed him over. Maybe even longer if he knew it was a trick ("ridiculous of you to mix human and vampire business it always ends poorly"). Notice how he's upset with louis when he kills the guy who's microaggressive with him, cus lestat wasn't there (even if he was there I have my doubts Lestat would understand microaggressions, but he would have definitely killed him for touching Louis.) But tells Louis he's proud of him for killing Alderman. I think this has to be because he witnessed the disrespect first hand. He didn't give a fuck about the money, what he DID care about was that those two disrespected not only him, but Louis.
Even with Lestats little understanding of race relations of the time in America, he did understand hierarchys. He's from 1700s France for God's sake. It's no coincidence wanted to be king of mardi gras. Lestat came to New Orleans and saw himself as the king, even if no one knew it. And he wanted Louis to be his queen. Honestly I could make an entire other post about how Lestat almost literally saw himself as if he was a King and Louis his beloved Queen, which is why he thought it was okay for him to sleep with other women (mistresses and playthings of the king should mean nothing compared to the queen in lestats eyes) but that's getting off topic. I only bring that up because I'm trying to paint a picture of how I think Lestat sees disrespect done to Louis. To him that goes beyond disrespect or rudeness, it's irreverence.
You begin to notice if you watch scenes with them together. Because while I wouldn't say lestat is good at controlling his anger, he's definitely great at concealing it until it erupts (props to Sam Reid have to be given here) lestat is always on the verge of fury when talking to Tom. It starts as a distaste then as he begins to fall more in love with Louis and become more protective of him, his anger builds. Claudia was wrong about one thing, it was no petty slight that was the reason Lestat killed Tom first, it was a loooonng time coming.
I could list every detail I think supports this but I'm sure you get the gist by now. My main point is really the layer of complexity this adds to not only the story, the characters, but also lestat and louis' relationship. Consider it for a second, Lestat saw all his violence as justified, everything he did one can see it through the lense of him punishing the disrespectful (take a shot every time I say disrespect in this post jesus christ). "I bring death to those deserving" indeed. Lestat has a god complex out the wazoo, and every attack, torture, and death he caused was righteous to him and thus enjoyable. Louis on the other hand didn't see himself so highly. He may seem confident but if you look through the cracks it's apparent Louis's self worth in near nonexistent and he's horribly insecure. I think lestat thought when Louis was made a vampire he would see himself as Lestat saw himself, and as Lestat saw Louis. But again, another post for another time.
Despite Louis' insecurities (or perhaps because of them) louis revels in the violence lestat commits for his sake. That's probably why louis is so quick to forgive lestat about the priests. For a brief moment Lestat truly said the truth to Louis and Louis could forgive him because of it. As lestat says, he doesn't kill the priests to intimidate Louis, nor does he do it just because he enjoys it. He does it because he sees them as humiliating Louis, charlatans that don't deserve Louis' sorrow. Louis didn't want the priest's to die, but he could understand why lestat killed them, simply because for once in his goddamn life lestat told the truth, and louis loved that truth. That truth being that lestat killed and mutilated and committed such horrors not just because he liked it, but because he did it out of a fucked up sense of protection. Him killing the priests was essentially a knight killing a dragon to earn the princess' hand in marriage.
The worst part is that Lestat doesn't even realize it. Not fully anyway. Let's be honest with ourselves, lestat doesn't understand Louis. Obviously there's the race, background, culture differences that lestat doesn't understand nor seems inclined to try, but there are better posts about that made by smarter people than moi. I'm mostly talking about lestat doesn't understand louis' mind itself (louis' mind in a vacuum I suppose you could say) he understands Louis' desire for violence sure, but he doesn't understand the core of that want. Honestly I'm on the fence of if he ever understood that Louis loved it when lestat was protective in the first place. I guess it can be dumbed down to Louis wants Lestat to kill to protect Louis and to protect the family (and anyone who deeply disrepects them), lestat perhaps understood a little at one point, but since he sees everyone as a threat and everything is a slight to him, he has no trouble and qualms with delighting in the torture of people Louis views as innocent. Louis' heart is a bit dark, but ultimately human, so he's disgusted by lestats violence towards the undeserving. Lestat can no longer read Louis' mind and even if he could, Louis doesn't quite understand the difference himself (that's why he tries to hunt for criminals briefly) so the cracks of miscommunication starts to form, and neither of them even realize there is miscommunication.
Therein lies the importance of Tom Anderson for season 1. Not much of a character, more of a plot device in human skin. Claudia can see that Lestat hates him, but doesn't understand why, nor does she care to get to the depths of that. (*Mr house voice* understandable) I think it's notable that Louis rarely brought him up, he didn't understand the depths of lestats love. Nor did he know about Lestats 3 decade long grudge, all because Tom disrespected Louis.
Now I'm not excusing Lestat's actions, I just think it's interesting how this one throwaway character reveals a whole level of complexity to the relationship between him and Louis, and better sheds light on not only Lestats personal philosophy but louis' as well. Even Claudia to a degree.
Anyway, uh. End of essay. Bye.
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soft sappy romantic college AU ranchers at the end of a long day. that is all <3
so uh. remember how i said i'd do these requests? how i said they'd help me get back into writing and such?
well! um! don't mind that that was. months ago.
anyway, here is a very short little drabble from College AU, which i made a while back with the asker above, my good buddy theo! i haven't talked about it much on here but for some context if everyone else is interested: uh imagine ranchers but they are semi-secretly seeing each other and tango has to climb into jimmy's bedroom window to see him most nights. that's all you really need to know. :)
i just wanted a lil bit of fluff tonight and this called to me, so thank you for the request, theo! sorry it took me so long. <3 hopefully this is okay, haha.
As soon as Tango hops into the bedroom, Jimmy can tell it has not been a good day.
Maybe it’s the paleness of his face that is usually more flushed, or the curl of his brow in the focus on pulling the window closed, but he looks.. spent.
Jimmy turns away from the bright screen of his laptop, the habitual smile of a familiar entrance a little less bright once Tango looks at him.
“Hey,” he says.
Tango’s blond hair is a mess, the parts usually slicked back now loose and dangling across his forehead. His eyes look dim, mouth drawn down in a perpetually grumpy expression.
“Hi,” Jimmy says softly, “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m alright," Tango says, rather un-convincingly, with how his voice is so flat and almost lifeless.
He crouches down, unfastening the laces on his boots, as he usually does. It makes Jimmy feel excited, that small guarantee in simply removing his shoes that Tango will be there for more than just a brief visit. Though, the excitement is run over by a wave of worry.
“Pardon me if that doesn’t feel very convincing,” Jimmy says, smiling just a little, “Y’don’t really look alright..”
Halfway through unlacing his other boot, Tango’s hands go limp as he deeply sighs. He doesn’t look at Jimmy, eyes falling shut for just a second, as if the very action tires him.
“Just been a long day,” he says, “Tired.”
Jimmy’s mouth twitches with a frown, already feeling his heart ache at Tango’s worn expression.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” Tango says firmly, standing up once he’s done. He kicks off his boots and moves further into the room, socked feet padding against the creaky wooden floor.
While Jimmy thinks to push, he knows better. His eyes follow Tango across the room, just as he sits at the edge of the bed.
“You- You didn’t have to come by tonight, if you wanted to just go home,” Jimmy says, suddenly feeling an odd wave of guilt, “I really don’t mind.”
“We planned to meet up,” Tango hums with a shrug, “You still wanted to hang out, right?”
“Well, always. But y’know-”
“Jimmy, it’s fine,” Tango grunts, “I wanted to see you. Like I said, I’m just a little worn out, okay?”
Tango’s eyes focus down at his hands in his lap, which wring and rub at each other. Jimmy stands from his chair immediately, wandering over. One hand finds Tango’s forearm, while the other gently pushes its way between Tango’s hands and curls into an oddly executed clasp. He can feel how Tango’s hand twitches a bit before relaxing, clearly not expecting it.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk? I’m all ears, you know,” Jimmy says.
Jimmy offers a smile, despite knowing Tango won’t really look at him. There looks to be consideration from Tango for a moment, but he just shakes his head.
“Alright. That’s fair,” Jimmy hums, giving Tango a gentle squeeze of the hand, “What can I do? Anything?”
Tango looks up at him, finally. He reaches his free hand up, knocking it free of Jimmy’s grip on his forearm and pokes at Jimmy’s chin. He brushes his calloused thumb across the stubble there, soft scratching noises coming off it. It shifts from chin strokes, to holding the side of his face, to that same thumb brushing over his cheekbone. Jimmy can’t help it when he giggles a little.
“Seriously, love, what can I do for you?” he asks softly.
There are quiet mumbles of something under Tango’s breath, who pulls at Jimmy’s hand. Taking the hint, Jimmy stands up, allowing his wrist to be yanked while Tango moves further onto Jimmy’s bed.
Jimmy cocks an eyebrow, especially as Tango lets go and adjusts himself a bit, arms now outstretched to Jimmy. It takes a moment and in a rather intelligent move, Jimmy points to himself.
“Yes, you,” Tango says.
“You want me?” Jimmy asks, a little shocked, and partially amused.
“No, I just want to sit here with my arms out,” Tango says sarcastically, then does a small grabby motion with his hands, “Come on, less talk-y, more crush-y.”
With a snort, Jimmy crawls onto his bed. A little awkwardly, he slips into the space between Tango’s arms, wrapping his own around the thin waist in a tight embrace. The two tip back, momentum taking them and flopping into the cushy comforter underneath. Jimmy makes an oof noise, now enveloped in a very pleasant warmth. He feels Tango wrap his legs around his waist, squeezing, and everything in Jimmy feels like it comes to life. He will admit, in the fairly short time they’d been together, he still wasn’t used to this. Jimmy still worries of being too stiff, or causing damage, or just not doing this.. correctly.
But Tango stares up at him, lips parted as a long breath escapes. There is a sense of melting underneath Jimmy, with how Tango’s once tense body now relaxes beneath his weight.
Okay, maybe he was nervous, but he likes how that feels.
“Better?” Jimmy says quietly.
“Yeah. Better,” Tango says, “Been waitin’ for this all day.”
Jimmy feels his stomach flutter. “You- really?”
“Mhmm,” Tango hums, his free hands grabbing at Jimmy’s face and holding him gently. He smiles big now, tired eyes looking even more sleepy, but in a much nicer way than before.
“..Oh.”
Feeling a bit flustered, Jimmy’s face heats up.
“What? Never been told someone wants to get under you before?” Tango asks, a once sweet expression turning to something a bit more cheeky— and if steam could shoot out of his ears like a hot kettle, Jimmy is sure it would. He drops his face, averting his gaze.
“Why did you have to say it like that?” he asks.
Tango bursts into laughter, shaking entirely underneath him.
“Because you look so scared,” Tango coos, “Loosen up.”
“You’re the one who’s had a long day,” Jimmy retorts, “You should be the one relaxing.”
“I’d relax much easier if I wasn’t lying underneath a literal plywood board. Come on, Angel, lean on me.”
Jimmy looks at him, wrinkles his nose, and nods. His back muscles, a little more tense than he thought, slowly disengage. More and more parts of their torsos, their hips, their chests, all press against one another. The warmth gets more intense. They sink further into each other and Jimmy tries hard to take a deep breath. It feels so close, their chins bumping into each other, which prompts quiet chuckles and a mumbled apology. When there are no sudden cries of pain, no demands for him to get away, Jimmy’s odd breathing pattern begins to even out.
Okay, Tango was right—it did feel much nicer. The two lay in a warm, cozy heap, only the distant sound of a late spring breeze in tune with their own gentle breathing to be heard. His room is dark, only the yellow-y desk light on Jimmy’s desk illuminating their faces in a soft outline.
“There we are,” Tango whispers, “See?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jimmy says, still flushed, “I know, you were right.”
“Always,” Tango says, “And this is perfect, you know why?”
“Why?”
Suddenly, and rather overwhelmingly, Tango leans his face unbearably close. Jimmy nearly lurches back, but Tango’s arms wrapped around his neck makes it a little difficult.
“Because I can reach you much better now,” Tango whispers.
He then reaches up, pulling Jimmy into a slow kiss. A surprised hum escapes Jimmy, but he does not falter, instead taking the kiss into stride. It’s brief but so sweet, Tango coming out of it with a big grin. Unable to help it, Jimmy laughs, voice now a little squeaky and raspy.
“Was that your plan the whole time?” he asks.
“Mm.. maybe,” Tango says, shrugging lightly, “It was just too easy. Had to go for it.”
“Of course, there were just no other options,” Jimmy teases, rolling his eyes playfully.
“Are you saying you’d prefer I didn’t do that?”
Suddenly feeling very serious, Jimmy rapidly shakes his head.
“No! No, no, not at all,” Jimmy rattles off, “Nope. It’s great, Tango, I like this option.”
“Mhm. That’s what I thought."
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I have been losing my shit over this damn panel for the past THREE DAYS (more or less) and I need to yell somewhere so it's gonna go here.
It all began when I was writing my fic (I think this was for My Immortal), and I needed to recap significant hakukai moments. And I remembered "hey, I should include this one thing saguru said during sunset manor that was stupidly super gay for no fucking reason" bc like, yea hakukai not canon, but if canon was gonna give me a whole ass confession then I might as well use it. So, like always, I head to mangadex to look for this panel... Except... It's not there... The line... The line's not there... But I remember... I remember something about "the only one to disrupt/disturb my thinking/mind"... Where... I didn't imagine that right? I mean I read a lot of google translated Chinese fanfics but... I REMEMBERED reading that line... In a manga... In English... ON mangadex...
This is where I should mentioned, that if you weren't around for the Great Collapse of Mangadex. Then... Well, so there was this period of time where mangadex just DIDNT EXIST. Bc there was some cyber?? Attack??? On the site??? I can't fully remember. But it like wiped out most of the site. The mangas r just, gone. So mangadex fixed it. It took a while bc they figured "might as well revamp our site and system". And they did. And it's great. And it looks beautiful now, even more than before.
But see. The line I remembered? Yea... Yea that was from before The Collapse. And mangadex let multiple translation groups submit their translations. So u can read diff translations of diff group, see how things are interpreted differently... And... I remembered this one, that I posted here up top, but I remembered there was another. One that had The Line.
And it was driving crazy so, like usual, I asked my cn friend. But my cn friend (why am I still saying that, it's @beingvv , that's the friend) has A Life, and isn't always online, and we love that for ppl. So. I'm still crazy. I can't trust my own damn mind and memory bc why tf do I remember something that isn't there (happened before btw, but that has nothing to do with this).
Luckily, I have a friend who knows jp. UNLUCKILY, I don't have the jp raws and it's from chapter 300 and we are in the thousands. So, I went back to losing my mind. Until I found it again, and realized. Heyyyyyyy there's a whole ass ANIME. So like the baggage my dear friend had the misfortune to be saddled with, I went to find the ep, timestamped it, yelled begged them for help.
This is where I lose my damn mind the first time in the recent weeks.
(thank you my dear piglet, u don't even go here but u tolerate my insanity)
THIS. THIS WAS THE LINE. THATS WHAT I REMEMBERED.
So, I feel a little more sane (bc my mind didn't fabricate a memory again) and also A LOT more insane bc WHY WOULD U SAY THAT, HAKUBA SAGURU 😭😭😭 WHY WOULD U SAY IT LIKE THAT 😭😭😭
In any case I feel validated. Told beingvv about my discoveries (for whenever they come back) not that they need it cn fandom already got the correct translation. And finished writing my fic.
And then Saguru's comeback was announced.
So I've been losing my shit for 3 days on twitter, looking at all my fave KR and JP accounts and the things they say.
And then someone dug up and old tweet thread that talked about this panel. Specifically, op talked about the nuance in the word choice used.
Here's the og thread if anyone wants to read or Google translate it urself.
(mkppyong my love, bless you)
Bc mkppyong talked to a jp acquaintance about ??? Uh I dunno just language I guess. POINT IS. They pointed out that gosho used specific words/phrases that really wasn't needed if all he wanted to say was "the only one who drives me crazy/mad." But he did used them. It's specifically "his thoughts/mind" that's being driven crazy. And that if he wants to just talk about Saguru's mind being disrupted/confused, then there's rly no need to use the words "go crazy"
And then they wrote out a whole symbolism about clocks and saguru and being broken down/disrupted and I lost my shit over the clock symbolism, sue me 😭😭😭
I don't think I'm making sense anymore bUT WAIT, THERES MORE, THE FINAL BLOW
THE THAI TRANSLATION
This is where I expose myself more than I ever want to, but here's a fact. I'm thai
Here's a second fact. I'm SHIT at Thai. I've been bad at this language before I got good at English. My Thais as good as an elementary student. Every time I understand difficult words I get confused bc where did I know THAT from???
In any case, point is, I saw that tweet, read the text, immediately understood it and began losing my shit all over again... And then I doubted... Bc like, I'm not good with this lang anymore... Maybe im understanding it wrong? So I look up Google.
Google: คลุ้มคลั่ง just means go crazy
So I was like, damn guess I'm wrong, read too much into this. BUT SEE BC I LIVE HERE I HAVE FRIENDS WHO ARENT A DISGRACE. And so my friend said:
SO WELCOME TO MY THIRD ROUND OF INSANITY.
HAKUBA SAGURU WHY WOULD U SAY THIS SHIT IN FRONT OF LIKE NINE OTHER PPL 😭😭😭😭😭 BOY WHY R U TELLING THEM UR OBSESSED 😭😭😭 youre driving ME crazy 😭😭😭
So. Here we are. At the end. I have no idea how tf I'm supposed to end this post. I'VE been obsessed for 3 days straight. I don't have a lot of braincell left in me (there weren't any to begin with). I don't have a statement to wrap this post up in a nice little bow. Go make ur own conclusion I dunno.
But I would not have been losing my shit over this stupid panel for a month if it wasn't for the fact that eng translation was missing a pretty crutial thing in what Saguru said. I don't know if this was a mistranslation or a misunderstanding or something, but the English translation was lacking. And I love and have always been thankful and grateful to the ppl who worked hard to translate mangas in their free time, and do it all for free, bc I haven't had any real way to rent/borrow mangas from renting shops/libraries in years. So this was one of the only ways I can read mangas. But, even as I checked the raw panel with Google lens just now, even google translate it as "the only one to make my thoughts go round." No where was there any mention of "case" and "solving." So that's just, multiple accounts of ppl who knows jp, including native jp speakers, all saying that this panel is Saguru saying "the only one to drive me crazy". And man I rly hope this doesn't make me come off as ungrateful or like shitting on the translation team, I'm rly not. But yea. Uh. The translation was wrong. And I remembered that there used to be a diff eng translation. And it led me to go to all this trouble and journey to find out what was actually said. And here we are, at the end.
The only one who could disrupt Saguru's thinking.
The only one who could disturb Saguru's mind.
The one whose sole existence drives him mad.
The only one to make his mind obsess over till he's driven to madness.
Or to use the symbolism mkppyong wrote: the only one to break down the clock, the precise and accurate mechanism, that is Hakuba Saguru.
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