one day i'm gonna write a long ass post about armand's relation to submission/passivity as an intentional component of his sadism and not like. something he masks it with or that he sheds to reveal a more "true" nature. the prevailing fandom interpretation of this is starting to make me feel insane

anyway they better not pull punches with akasha or twist her motivations. she is a villain. she is an evil, self absorbed, misogynistic queen who is willing to use violence to make the world comfortable for only herself, to make it bend to what she deems as correct. she orders the rape and mutilation of women who won't affirm her religious beliefs. she orders the genocide and colonization of nations because she does not like their cultural or religious practices. when she wakes she refuses to acknowledge her part in the pain and suffering she has caused or the domino affect in the vampiric world that was the result of her violence towards two women and the slaughter of their entire village. instead she victim blames, displaces the responsibility onto men as a whole, and goes on killing and trying to control women to bend to her idea of peace. and it makes her a fascinating villain and very real symbolism for many types of women who exist even to this day, claiming to have feminist morals but being exclusionary, cruel and violent to the women who don't fit their more privileged narratives. it's a relevant story. the world is full of terfs and women in power who trample those beneath themselves all while claiming to be feminist or empowered. that is who akasha represents.

and alSO the thing is, people try to boil it down to "oh anne rice hates women and did akasha dirty" kinda of shit which is so tired. whether you like it or not, rice was a good writer and good at constructing symbolism and narratives. she knew what she was doing. i'm sorry you think someone who constantly grappled with catholic guilt and religious trauma somehow "accidentally" wrote a very complicated, nuanced characterization of what it looks like when women in power use religious belief to control and harm people. that narrative the fandom tries to sell falls apart when you make them talk about the twins. because when rice wrote this story about an evil woman she did not make her defeat come by the hands of men. she wrote about two women who were oppressed by her. she wrote about two women, one who is allowed to remain angry and vengeful over her trauma, who is allowed in the end to rise up and avenge her people and herself. and the other, who while working with her sister to do this also takes the trauma and harm she went through, turns it around and becomes a matriarch to a long line of family. she lost her ENTIRE village because of colonization and genocide and turned around and rebuilt the only way she could. she watched over her bloodline, ensured their livelihood, watched over them as this sort of deified matriarch for a millennia. she did not let akasha win. she did not let her oppressors win. she rebuilt from the ashes. these are the heroes set up in the story. two women who rise up against their oppressors and make a new world. two women who have every right to be hurt and angry and want to end it all, but willingly take on the burden of being mothers to the vampire species. they take their pain and build something new and better from it. so no, akasha is not evil because rice hated women and wanted to make an evil woman. akasha is evil because many women in power are evil and use religion to hurt other women. it's real. it's relevant.

*street shot of zohran mamdani clad in nasty lil suit and hard hat* five months ago i was elected mayor of new york city. in that time, we have managed to COMPLETELY defeat the Staten Island Minotaur at no additional cost to the new york taxpayer

would you trust me with the death note be honest

marius and armand's sexual relationship was written as erotica, which is why i really don't bother discussing it if what i want to explore are themes of child exploitation in tvc because that is simply not what that portion of the text aims to accomplish. there's already a thesis on predation, extraction, and parent/child incest in the books. it's part of the extremely robust metaphor which defines the entire series. you know, the vampires. so how we're still arguing abt how those scenes are presented is beyond me

It is thursday morning. Visualize yourself as the marble, the chisel, and the untrained sculpter who just tried methamphetamine

i got spanish anon hate for this one btw

It's hilarious to me that Al Capone was an amazing tipper. I get why it took so long to catch him.