cool

Thank you SO VERY MUCH for your time as a reader and as an artist!

This is remarkable. I am really just so moved by this!

During Qifrey and Olruggio’s first big adventure, Qifrey falls into a ravine filled with sawbrush bushes. He lies about wanting to be left alone in order to get Olly to leave him behind so that he doesn’t also get hurt.

Now, Olly has pen, ink, and paper. He’s just done some very clever casting to get rid of the herd of liongoats. He’s also identified that there’s a town nearby from the beast wards and well-worn path.

At this point, Olly could attempt to draw something to get Qifrey out of the ravine. Or failing that, he could draw a pyreball, vaporbubble, and whatever other useful utility spell and toss his quire down to Qifrey, then go get help from the town.

But prodigious, crafty Olly does none of that.

What does he do instead?

Olly jumps into the ravine after Qifrey, hurting himself on the sawbrush as well.

Later, in case you didn’t get it, Olly literally flashes back to that very instance when Qifrey’s trying to convince Olly to let him go. Olly even says outright that it’s the same thing.

Then, he comes up with his plan.

Then, he jumps in after Qifrey.

This is who Olly is. This is who Qifrey is to him.

Qifrey tries to push him away to avoid hurting him as well. Olly refuses because he doesn't care if they're hurt as long as he and Qifrey are together.

hmm. Did... didn't they used to have like, plot and characterisation in this show, like, measured out in some decent proportions? What is even happening here?

If you haven't spent the past 2 years reading up on book canon via wiki articles and tumblr arguments, is any of this episode going to make sense?

I feel bad for all the actors, honestly. It's such weird material to work with.

Anyway, so Sam Barclay is back because... Gabriella is now a music producer? And Lestat doesn't like him because of the whole, you know, lynching thing that Lestat also did, but they are all going to make a song about Claudia together? Which Sam will crack a half-hearted expression of sadness about? Euugh.

Meanwhile, Jacob is knocking it the fuck out of the park with his scenes with Regina. And, for that matter even with Lestat. Somehow he has managed to carry over the fact that he used to habitually talk to dream Lestat, into the explanation for why he's not talking to fake Claudia, and through his body language and face maintain that continuum of a person who grasps at supernatural straws because all his life he has been surrounded by the possibility. Paul heard voices too, remember?

Also a giant fuck you to everyone going around sneering and smearing Louis--Regina clearly had her head on her shoulders and had enough agency to go for that bag. Good for her.

Meanwhile Lestat sitting there whining about Louis not calling him when he got shot... like, does this baby ever stop crying?

And look, I'm sorry, I'm SORRY, but I got more romance and zing from Louis describing his relationship with Lemuel than I did from all of Eric's overacted shock at being Armand and Louis' stalking toy. Is it because Bogo can't sell it, or just because the tell don't show was taken to ridiculous measures? Who can say. (I am grinning wildly at the idea of Armand and Louis having hot kinky sex after discussing the latest failures of Daniel P Esquire.) (Also this then means that when Real Rashid was snickering up his sleeve at Dan showing up in Dubai, he ALSO knew that he was a vamp chew toy. Hee hee.)

Marius seems really silly and overwrought, and I don't know why you'd direct a character that is supposed to be patrician like that. The whole info dump on vampires and Amel and Akasha was gobbledy gook and Lestat teaching himself to be a musical savant was...

Yeah, I mean, the whole white supremacy of Akasha picking out Lestat from all the vampires in all the world to be the specialist little boy is pretty disgusting, no? Especially when we get her acting like a hysterical madwoman who has to be subdued by the white Roman, and the whole plot is going to end up in Lestat working to kill her.

(And once again, a terrible wig on a woman, and making Sheila Atim play frail and feminine sure is a... choice.)

Meanwhile little murder gremlin is cleaning up the litter of bandmates that Lestat and Gabriella clearly don't care about. How public spirited of him.

This is America. Because some I literally had to dig to find out their stories and what happened. Different deaths and causes but.. the media coverage has been minimal on all of them including the hangings While we hear about 47 and foolishness daily. Their lives mattered. Our lives still matter. Celebrate 4th of what?? Not every story becomes a national headline. Some of these individuals died in police encounters. Some were reported as suicides. Some died under tragic or still questioned circumstances. Some cases received brief local coverage and then faded from the public conversation. Regardless of how they died, every one of them was a human being with a family, dreams, and people who loved them. We don’t have to compare tragedies to acknowledge a painful truth: too many lives are lost without sustained attention, accountability, or remembrance. May we honor them by saying their names, seeking truth over speculation, and refusing to let compassion be selective. ~Gwendolyn

"Tonea Miller, a 27-year-old Black woman, was found lynched from a tree after traveling to Miami, to celebrate Juneteenth, the annual June 19 holiday that commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans." Dade County Sheriff concluded her death was suicide! What Black woman would travel to Miami to celebrate Juneteenth, go to a wooded area and tie a heavy rope on a tree, climb the tree and place the noose around her neck and unalive herself?!

louis: ...

lestat in ep5: why didn't you answer your phone when i got shot at? i was in pain. i could die and you didn't care 🥺💔. i could literally die—