full-time vampire

I won't ever get over the removal of headphone jacks, or micro sd slots, or cd drives. I won't. Fuck everyone and everything

Redemption arc not because you did something bad but because of the years you spent not doing something good

When the thing the character needs to be redeemed from is passivity >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

im realizing very fast that people do not in fact know that sometimes things in stories suck on purpose and it sucking is the point

One of the best things about being a writer is thinking of something small you can add to your work that’s just. Devastating. Like you’re sitting there going. Oh. That would be diabolical. People would get really riled up about that. Exquisite. Let’s do it.

this is from "research as a leisure activity" by celine nguyen, publs. on stubstack in 2024. it's a very good read

it’s just such a GOOD compelling choice that louis was the one to beg for claudia to be turned. it’s him who can’t accept her death, who clings to his humanity by taking hers away, who sees her as his salvation. and then there’s lestat who knows she’s too young, that louis is naive, that claudia will come to resent not having had a choice. and yet, he walks into it, and that’s the perfect tragedy. what did you think was gonna happen, his eyes say when claudia returns with charlie, dead. she will never grow up, and we did that to her. you don’t get this kind of life without paying a price for it

hey bestie i think ur post might be charmed 'cause you aren't gonna fuckin believe what happened today

arranged political marriage narratives are for me similarly fraught to unplanned pregnancy in that they tend to skew towards a conservative, anti-choice sentiment regardless of the author's intentions or ideology, because the end goal is typically the realisation of an apparently empowering and subversive romantic fantasy where the characters involved experience compellingly turbulent and sexually charged conflict between normative expectations and their own desires, but ultimately find themselves fulfilled in and even healed by the acceptance of undeniably important and worthwhile but conventional (and oppressively gendered) roles like that of the loving husband and wife or parental figures. which is a shame because i Do think that there's some interesting and worthwhile commentary to be explored through these kinds of kinky fantasies that reflect the anxieties surrounding very real and enduring sociopolitical issues regarding autonomy and consent, but when that tension is ultimately resolved by settling into a role that's always been what's expected of you, even if it does allow you to manipulate certain social power dynamics in your favour, it just rings kind of hollow. all of which is a very long-winded way of saying that i wish there were more arranged marriage narratives where the participants never fall in love, but still come to care for and respect one another, and perform the marital duties expected of them out of that affection and desire to both help each other advance their sociopolitical countermoves to subvert the status quo and to survive, using the legal and social trappings that come with their marital status to their advantage to protect each other.

like i really Cannot stress enough how imperative it is that they never feel anything like romantic love for one another - nor are they really friends, although they may like each other's company and even actively prefer it to anyone else's. rather their relationship is comparable to that of two people covering each other's backs in a fight, or two prisoners in the same cell, and there's as much of the beauty of human connection to that as there is tragedy that those are the circumstances that brought them together. and they can absolutely have sexual tension and even consummate a sexual relationship and enjoy it, but it will be unavoidably dubiously consensual at best by design. no flinching from it.