#vampires don't exist

[chubbie-bunnie-96]

#music #me #vampires don't exist #red #velvet #big tiddy goth gf #hot alt girl #calabrese #song #mine #stoner chick #alternative #it me #chubbie bunnie 96 #spotify #makeup of the day #black lips #undead creature #selfie

[notbecauseofvictories]

the unintentionally hilarious side-effect of reading adult books as a preteen pure and ignorant as the stupid snow is that you will spend a number of years going "it seems like these two characters want to...do things to each other? special, married sorts of things? is that.....allowed?"

at the time it will be baffling, but in hindsight it was so, so funny.

#just for some context: I read anne rice before I knew gay people existed. #do you know how immensely funny it is for ''the vampire lestat'' to teach you that maybe two men want to kiss each other #do you know how much FUNNIER that will get with each passing year #especially! each time the author comes out and tells you that NO THEY ABSOLUTELY DON'T WANT TO KISS #anne sweetie I didn't even know gay people existed and still clocked your homosexual subtext. in fifth grade. #give the fuck up.

[hekateinhell]

In some of the earlier drafts of Memnoch the Devil, David Talbot was supposed to die, NOT Armand:

From what I saw, a lot of Anne's drafts and notes at Tulane for MtD where more heavily focused on developing the whole religious aspect and the lore that she wanted to follow, but this really caught my attention in a big way for obvious reasons. In an another world, David would've self-immolated instead of Armand, and the book would've ended with Armand and Lestat walking together in Central Park!

"Almost Claudia, but not"... Ouch.

I will say that I understand why ultimately Anne decided to go the route that she did with Armand in actual canon (aka what's literally on the page)—I think it does make sense for his arc given his background and religious trauma. I understand it, but also as a reader and an Armand girlie, I would have been much more satisfied by this ending 🥲 (no surprise there!). Alas, I am not Anne Rice, and I'm just so grateful that she thought ahead to make her notes, drafts, and diaries accessible to us after her passing so we can have fun trying to understand her creative process and considering all the possibilities!

Lastly:

"I do think David has go to to go. Maybe he should go instead of Armand." just takes me right out.

ANNE.

#i'm in between the liminal space that exists between christmas and new year's (even though i don't really celebrate either of them) #and i was going through some stuff on my phone and had fit about this all over again #listen it's memnoch season AROUND THIS TIME IS WHEN IT HAPPENED!!! #i promise you the images were so much better but tumblr ruined them like it does everything else 🤧 #armand #lestat de lioncourt #david talbot #the vampire chronicles #vc #anne rice #the skateboard of shakespeare #quotes

[sn0wbat]

more einarr!

i just wanted to draw some very stylized scars on him again. while also making the queerest drawing of him yet. thanks.

#low stakes 🦇 #my art #apparently i never posted this. he has been sitting in my drafts for months. oops. #anyway HAPPY TDOV 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️ #also yeah his build is pretty much skeletal at this point. he's skin and bones. ancient vampire man #he chopped off his tids with a sword fairly soon after becoming a vampire and sewed himself shut #i don't expect the scars to have healed all that well but that's fine honestly #he's thriving #also yeah he's aroace too #posts that would make my conservative family explode at me if they saw this #like hoW DARE u make ur viking TRANS that is HISTORICAL SLANDER AND INACCURATE (no it's not. we have existed forever. get over it)

[apoptoses]

🚨 what do you think is the best and worst thing Armand ever did?

Oh anon strap in, this is gonna get heavy.

Disclaimer: this is my personal read, my own meta, everyone else is entitled to their own takes etc etc

We're gonna start with the worst: everything he did with Louis in iwtv.

Let me explain.

Something that is very common for survivors of trauma that was more psychological in nature and required betraying oneself in order to stay safe is to enter the fawn response. Aka people pleasing. Someone who has learned that they have to pretend to be someone else in order to keep others around them happy and keep themselves safe doesn't just shake that when the threat has ended. They then go on to feel as if they must do that in all future relationships in order to be loved and cared for, and if this goes unchecked then it can manifest into some really damaging behavior.

Things like lying about personal beliefs in order to tell the desired companion what the traumatized person thinks they want to hear, trying to control outcomes of certain situations in order for things to happen that they think will keep the desired companion with them. Someone who is people pleasing ends up saying "Yes I love the thing that you love" to one person, while saying deep down (or to another person) "I actually hate this thing so much".

And while it's understandable why someone who is people pleasing believes they have to act that way, it leads to their companion feeling manipulated when they find out that all the things that were said and done to 'please' them were untrue or done simply to control the situation and keep them around.

(And if it gets really out of control, subconscious behavior can become conscious acts of manipulation)

So with Louis we meet an Armand who says that he cares nothing for god, that if he met a mortal who inspired a lust for life in him once again he would turn that mortal immediately, that he would have turned Madeline himself. As readers we find out this isn't true later, that Armand struggles with his faith, that Armand would rather suffer anything than turn someone else into a vampire. But if we look at his words from a perspective of someone in a fawn response, he's saying those things because he believes that's what Louis needs to hear in order to accept his love and love him back.

And in more overt ways he forces Louis' hand with Madeline by using his influence, because Armand has decided it would be 'good' for Louis to turn her, that this will help him accept the loss of Claudia and come be with him. It's an act of controlling the situation to try to control for Armand's desired outcome (Louis loves me and will leave Claudia behind for me) but he's doing it under the people pleasing lie of 'this is what Louis needs, this is what will make him happy' when really it's about what will make Armand happy and safe. In that act subconscious fawning has become conscious manipulation.

While Armand's emotional detachment and lack of reaction to the burning of the theater and death of Denis is in many ways related to his self-admitted inability to feel anything at that time, there's also an aspect of fawning there: in order to people please one cannot offer their real feelings for fear of upsetting the companion. So really it just leads this situation where Louis doesn't know how Armand really feels about anything. He never shows Louis a moment of hurt or anger or outage, which we readers know he is capable of, because in order to feel safe and continue to 'please' he cannot let himself feel anything at all except that which his companion feels.

And that's why their relationship crumbles, because Louis is right: they cannot offer each other real love because Louis is mired in grief and Armand is incapable of being fully honest. He can't cultivate a true sense of self and show Louis that self because he's too swept in fawning for him and 'pleasing' him. Even when he and Louis break up he doesn't show his hurt, doesn't articulate having felt neglected. He just walks away, holds it all in, and fawns away his own feelings.

So that's why I think the best thing he did was that moment of sincerity with Daniel right before he turned him: admitting that he felt like a coward, and that he loved Daniel far too much to let him die.

In his explorations with Daniel Armand stops pleasing and swings to far other end of the spectrum for a time: he is so utterly absorbed in exploring the world and figuring out who he is and how he fits in that at times he doesn't consider Daniel's feelings much at all. But by the end of things when the running begins, he doesn't chase Daniel until Daniel calls for him. He becomes honest about his feelings and desires, despite the layers of shame he's heaped upon them. He stops detaching and fawning and gets real.

Which in the end is the key to him re-uniting with Louis and building a healthier relationship, creating his own home, opening the door to future reconciliation with Marius and having Daniel move back in with him. Armand had to learn to be himself fearlessly so that he would have genuine love to give.

#pls i am not an armand/louis hater at all don't take it that way lmao #and i don't believe his relationship with daniel was 100% healthy either #it's just that he hits rock bottom on both ends of the spectrum with excessive fawning and excessive selfishness #before he can find his way to a middle ground and honesty #and that's growth baby!!! #i think this is why in the vampire companion anne said armand was a good person with daniel #because by daniel's turning he's learned to stop chasing and manipulating and fawning and be genuine instead #and trinity gate couldn't exist if that arc never happened #apoptoses answers #vc meta

[liam-summers]

Bangel/Dangel + Parallels 

#btvsedit #atsedit #buffy the vampire slayer #bangel #bangelus #buffy x angel #dangel #angel x darla #zanisummers #dailybtvs #dailyats #*gif #parallels #the two most important women in Angel's existence #the only two valid Angel ships #sorry I don't make the rules #the one that makes him better #the one that makes him worst #both equally epic in opposite but similar ways

[archliches]

simon is so convinced of his own irrelevance and unimportance in the brave new world of Ooo but from our perspective as the audience we know that at least 3 or 4 of the worlds they've visited turned out the way they did (for better or worse) due to his interference or lack thereof as simon, not ice king. but also knowing that would literally not be helpful to him and might honestly make things worse. really good stuff.

#like - farmworld is bc he stopped the mushroom bomb #we don't have DIRECT evidence that his wish created the winter wonder world (would make sense for it to be Marcy) but it's not unlikely #vampire world could only happen bc he wasn't there to raise marcy #Fiona's world can only continue to exist bc he exists #man. man!! #fionna and cake spoilers

[starthelostboys]

the thing that i really like about sam's friendship with edgar and alan is that sam has such early teens "i need to be cool" energy while the frog bros clearly don't give a shit what anyone thinks of them because they're into quite possibly the lamest thing you could be into (vampire hunting).

#they're lucky that vampires are real #cause it would be even more lame to get really into vampire hunting and then vampires don't exist #the lost boys #tlb #kate's bad takes

[inconsistentlywrittensoul]

I want to talk about Buffy and Angel's relationship in Ted (and, I guess, Bad Eggs as well, a little). And I think it's a good time to look at them together - for one thing, at this point, post-What's My Line, I think they are definitely in a relationship, rather than the weird murky situation they were in for most of the early season. And in two episodes time, Angel's going to lose his soul - this is basically the peak of their Season 2 relationship, and also of what I see as Angel's pre-'Surprise' arc, of him gradually becoming less of a complete fucking disaster.

So now in Ted, we see them together as boyfriend and girlfriend, and... well, the scene starts with her talking his ear off complaining about Ted and him clearly bored. It's not as bad as it sounds - he's pretty good in this scene, and gives Buffy some sensible advice. (Ignoring the fact that Ted turns out to be abusive and also a robot, which isn't a factor yet.) This might be the first time in the series that Angel actually seems more emotionally mature than Buffy, and he uses that maturity to be a good, supportive boyfriend helping her through her issues...

But...

This is also a scene where Buffy is very much a teenager and Angel very much isn't. (This is also in an episode partly about Buffy's parental issues, which seems relevant to their relationship but I'd like to ignore for ick reasons.) His maturity is an advantage here, but there's also a clear disconnect between them, and that becomes more apparent as Angel gradually works his way towards being a functional person.

Bad Eggs is similar. Again, we see the positive side of their relationship, in the form of fun makeouts, but we also see the shadow of deeper problems in their relationship from a long-term perspective - the fact Angel can't have kids, Buffy's immaturity and inability to think about the future (for both normal teenager and doomed slayer reasons).

I am glad we get this period of them being mostly happy together, of their relationship mostly working - it's not just all-angsty- melodrama-all-the-time, a common failure state for their relationship and for Buffy as a whole. But even at the best of times, the issues in their relationship are always present - not the grand, dramatic problems that are the focus of Season 2, but the mundane issues that are the reason they ultimately break up in Season 3.

#don't know if it's time to put forward my grand Bangel Thesis #such as it is #should probably wait 'til I finish season 3 #see if it actually holds up #but I do have thoughts #btvs #Buffy the Vampire Slayer #btvs s2 #Ted #Bad Eggs #Bangel critical #meta #(to be clear I'm not trying to make any comment on shipping) #(just trying to look at the relationship as it exists in canon) #(but I'll tag it for blocking purposes)

[methredhel]

another artfight attack! this time: Avaris for @mothermara!

#first time painting a scene in a long time #and I have to say: #you can just ignore perspective <3 #this shit simply doesn't exist if you don't want it to #tes #my art #dunmer #vampire #artfight

[uwuspaceboy]

louis: i almost ate my nephew!!!!!

lestat:

#this man has the worst case of blue eyed stare i have ever seen #interview with the vampire #iwtv #in my mind there's a blue eyed stare meme that i don't think exists in the real world so oh well u get miley

[front-facing-pokemon]

#elekid #what to say here… well‚ their mouth looks like they have vampire fangs. is that something? you can't see any of their stripes ofcoz the zoom #pokémon with jpeg faces aren't always the most fun. i don't have a lot to say about elekid. i think it's also retrofit prevo for electabuzz #and that. is certainly a thing. check this guy out they exist and i think that's awesome. why. well i don't know #what's the evolution criteria for elekid into electabuzz? hold on #oh it evolves at level 30 but the fucked up evo *i* was thinking of was electivire. which is a retrofit EVO from gen 4. because REASONS #WHY NOT. changing pokémon's evolutionary lines in TWO different generations. SURE!!! and make one of them a DAMN TRADE EVOLUTION #join the trade evolutions haters club with me. the super saver shoppers– club? join it with me. we hate trade evos

[nosferatufaggot]

Old Sally and Tim during a New Years Eve kiss!

(drawn over from Hello New Year, Goodbye Moon)

#I wanted to draw them kissing and then this episode aired and I realized this was perfect. #I just want to make it explicitly clear that I didn't picasso this. I drew over an already existing Sally and Tim scene to make them look- #-like how I draw them old. #I drew this but not most of it! And I also.....what's the word.......traced! That's it! #I traced for the most part. #I don't think the people behind Wordgirl will mind though. And that's usually how I contribute to the fandom anyway. #So anyway. #Wordgirl #Sally Botsford #Tim Botsford #vampiric scribbles

[petricorah]

#i feel like sokka has a more upbeat extroverted dog personality so it makes sense for him to be werewolf coded #BUT HEAR Me out: the inherant temptation of vampires and sokka luring zuko in to his side of freedom and happiness #halloween is coming up and im in monster moods #not including sirens because i don't feel like they're not particularly scary and i don't feel like drawing mermaids. #i also feel like if sirens existed in the atla universe katara would be able to turn into one but sokka wouldn't and i think thats funny #although i do have a comic script about him being a mermaid... #notmyart #reglob #i said cat ears i meant dog ears bc werewolves its fine. although...cat person zuko and dog person sokka..

[ottiliere]

oh my goodness your dios.. what a delight to see someone so fully invested in phantom blood dio wow. i am very happy. i love your 3D dios. really makes me want to sculpt him as well

Do it... clay is cheap bake it in the oven paint with 10 dollar set of acrylics your life will never be better. I adore phantom blood Dio so very much... years ago saw someone coin the term “phantom blood purist” and it's so funny I think about it literally every time I enter a Dio cycle. There are many aspects that go into this preference of course, and upon a great amount of time pondering i can say confidently that this is because mainly that:

1) I love history (especially the fin de siècle) and I love thinking about him in relation to Victorian values/etiquette/sociology in general... there's something so special about a society that enabled such a gross disparity of wealth&poverty while being so inherently pretentious that its asinine etiquette rules would completely elude you unless you were raised in an aristocratic family or had access to etiquette books. Dio absolutely read a great amount of these before going to the Joestar mansion btw, even before his father snuffed it I think. God help him he would not be doomed to look like a slovenly ill-bred gamin if and when he needed to manipulate the upper classes. I really can't think of a way for him to have developed these skills enough to outclass Jonathan otherwise. god and like thinking about him as a barrister too with his profligate fashion sense you just KNOW he gets drawn that way into all of the court sketches that go in all the newspapers since everyone loved to read about crime and there were a million papers for this in England alone... he'd get caricatured so bad sometimes and he is NOT happy about this.

2) You can probably tell from my indifference to the rest of the parts (except sbr; I call this the "diego rule") that I'm not the biggest fan of fantastical elements and I'm much more interested in interpersonal conflict/relationships in general... PB is extremely unique to the rest of the series because for five WHOLE chapters absolutely nothing abnormal happens and we just get to see Dio harassing Jonathan and his girlfriend until Jonathan snaps and humiliates him so bad in beating him up that he makes Dio cry. and then Dio kills his dog. Like it's literally just some impoverished child abuse victim bullying a spoiled rich kid who wanted to be his friend because lalala sunshine daisies only knows what "poverty" is from reading Oliver Twist and has no conceptual understanding of what the real-world implications of that are. That was the character development that needed multiple chapters to develop it's so fucking awesome. like yeah I'd read an entire novel of just this alone happening and how it impacts their relationship as adults no vampirism needed. I reread "dio the invader" so frequently I'm surprised the spine of my jojonium copy isn't cracked at the exact endpoint of it. I just adore him interacting with Jonathan so much it's hard to remove him from that… that's his FOIL... all the stories (some "AUs") I make with Dio involve the way he and Jonathan gravitate each other to some degree. we get the clearest view of who he is in the face of someone who is the polar opposite of himself. 🤯

2) This iteration of him is the closest degree of separation he has from his "humanity" (childhood), thus

3) I find him to be the most interesting, endearing, etc., version of him walking around, given that... well. behaviors stem from somewhere... the thematic & active severance of himself from a species he is fundamentally incapable of connecting with due to the way he adapted to help him tolerate his childhood... from his point of view I can't imagine that there is one convincing reason for him to continue being human after given the opportunity to deviate from it (despite likely still being inebriated when he vamped himself — very much an impulsive decision since he had, what, an hour or two to think that through? drunk?). If everyone's underneath him, yes, after the fact the choice seems extremely fitting. Maybe he'll cultivate a vast swathe of worshippers and disciples that obey his every command. Maybe he'll rule the world. And then, maybe, he will start to feel genuinely content for the first time in his life. But probably not. That's the drawback of having something fundamentally missing from within you.

4) He lacks a certain type of introspective awareness that 100 years alone in a box might enable him to develop... he's very animalistic to me and possesses a precarious/immature/nonexistent grasp on his emotions just given the fact that he exhibits enraged outbursts from perceived ego wounds (in both childhood and adulthood) + struggles with alcoholism due to an incapacity to self-soothe any sort of negative emotion that makes it past the self-aggrandizing filter he can't help but see life through; he really isn't in conscious control of anything happening inside of him despite needing control over everything and everyone so he can get exactly what he wants, and deserves, always. PB paints a very dim and pathetic view of his character by allowing us to see when he's most "vulnerable", which is the thing he likely hates being the most, so getting to see scenes where he's walking around publicly intoxicated and disparaging himself for acting like his father (implied: again), who he hates, and attacking men with a wine bottle for evoking the concept of his mother, who he also kind of hates but lacks the cognizant cogency to dissolve whatever cognitive dissonance is causing this mental incongruence, rules. he rules

tl;dr SDC dio is "iconic" but I feel like he misses a lot of the charm he had in part one, removed from the context of the society that had such rigid social boundaries and rules of decorum, in addition to his maladaptive approach to interpersonal relationships, his substance abuse issues, his humbling foil... he's too "cool" for me. In the end SDC dio is simply not my Dio... he is someone else's Dio. And that's okay.

#lucy art #dio brando #ask #jjba #I've said this elsewhere but somewhere out there exists my dio-obsessed doppelganger who only likes him in parts 3/6 and dislikes PB dio + #how he looks in the first part too and if we ever made physical contact the universe would implode like matter on antimatter #though I haven't actually read sdc in many years. which may be part of the problem. but also... I don't need it... jonathan isn't there...! #I did however reread the ending the other day and I forgot that jotaro gives him brain damage so bad he couldn't walk. I almost cried #soooo cute... I wish something similar happened when he was shot in the head before being burned alive #well no I don't because the narrative point was to showcase wow oohhh wow vampire powers wowwww and it worked very well #but araki retconned this in the best way possible so basically life is perfect #(acting really approachable as I dip my toe into a fandom of something I've cherished for years) have you considered dio getting more TBIs?

[hikarinokusari]

Let's say it counts as my Strahdtober entry even if it has nothing to do with the prompt. Keeping up the fake illustrations of what if scenarios. This time with the sweet Volenta, who I enjoy very much as a DM. I've always thought of her as the mad dog Strahd would unleash on the party. She worships her master in my game, so I thought of drawing her in a desecrated place... Sent to choose a sacrificial lamb for her Dreadful Lord ... or to answer the vain prayers players would made for Barovia to get better.

I will polish things one day, I’m just playing around and don’t have energy to do clean things.

#art #volenta popofsky #strahd brides #curse of strahd #my art #dnd art #cos art #vampire spawn #dnd npc #digital art #i went overboard with the lighting but i don't have a clue on backgrounds so i just splashed brushes here and there #sketch #she definitely has a baal verzi dagger in this never happened never will happen drawing #there's no light in barovia so don't ask me where the light comes from idk i just felt like doing light that doesn't exist 😅 #next one is escher if I ever figure out how to draw bards #ravenloft #it's strahdtober time