#personal bubbles

I've always disliked Lestst because of how much I saw my mother in him. His controlling, domineering, drama queen presence is all that became suffocating about my mother as I lived with her. Love bombing, clinging, hot-and-cold attitudes that led to me fawning just for peace in the house. Lestat was never 1:1 for her, but it is enough of the traits that trigger me that I find myself unable to feel at ease with Louis's depiction of him.

So when Gabriella entered, with her sexuality-as-escapism and her desire to live through Lestat, I saw my mom in a full clarity I have never seen in motherly characters before. How Gabriella abuses Lestat is eerily close to how my mother abused me.

Emotional Incest personal experience below the cut:

I love the dark ships in the series. Magnus and Santino are favorite characters of mine. If something is taboo and nasty, I'm leaning into it, not away from it. I love evil women, and Gabriella's characterization in s3 wasn't as much of a problem for me as the lack of depth was.

I like to talk about incest, fauxcest, dub-con (though non-con isn't really my vibe), the underage aspect of many relationships, and the abuse of many relationships. Especially, I love the philosophy of the exchange of ideas that these relationships can create in a corruptive or inspiring way.

I am aromantic, and I find relationships that do not have an undercurrent of toxicity to genuinely be boring. This also means I love the subtext of relationships, so I often ship things in veeeery different ways than you'll see in the fanon.

I ship Marimand and I find their dynamic to be fascinating and multi-layered. Yes, I view their relationship as a metaphor for imperialism and colonization, and I see them as a fictional depiction of the taboo of grooming and CSA, but I ship them. I will write and reblog content about them.

If you treat shipping like "I want them to be together" rather than "I think the ways these characters act when interacting with each other is fascinating," you will not enjoy my blog. I'm shipping crackships and canon relationships in ways that often need a dead dove tag.

I am also very aware of this, so I keep the most alarming of my ship stuff to #mydeaddoveloves if you want to filter that.

I don't find Marius to be the boogeyman of a groomer; and I mean 'boogeyman' as a simplified, shadowy presentation of that anxiety that haunts our minds. I find him to be a very fascinating and real depiction of a grooming predator, which means he is a multi-faceted character with other interests, hobbies, fears, flaws, hopes, and loves; these may pair with how he takes advantage of others, and may not. I see his grooming as a toxic manifestation for his desire to be someone who cares and heals - and because of his vampirism, this desire becomes horrifying. He is someone who abuses people with how he wants to care for them, and I think that makes him a really interesting character to talk about and use in storytelling.

I also fucking hate him because he's a Stoic asshole, and I consider him to be the walking legacy of the haunting tradition of Roman imperialism, which has been utilized through Western European history to justify some of the worst things about our modern world. See the above paragraph for how this tradition has manifested in justification. I hate the Roman empire, I hate stocism, and I have studied enough about the philosophy and justifications of American colonization, that Marius causes me the same rage and grief as reading historical documents from 150 years ago.

I am a creature of many nuances.

I post a lot of analysis on this blog, but I am still just kind of a weird person. I don't think I'm better than anyone, but I'm also kind of a pretentious bitch and I have accepted that about myself. I delete anons that are tone correcting or critical, for the most part, or I treat them as unwelcome comments from a masked stranger. If you have something to say to me that you think I may have mishandled, I recommend you do it with your whole chest. I will treat criticism seriously and with as much grace as I am able to in the moment, but not from an anon.

As I finish my grieving process with IwtV, I'll be moving into posting about books, gothic horror and writing, and Witch Hat Atelier. I'll probably still post fanfic with this fandom, because I love these characters so so so much, but s3 betrayed everything that I respected about AMC's IwtV. With that in mind, don't expect me to be interested in participating long-term with the fandom.

Other times it's because a bear broke into a garbage can in front of my neighbor's house, and because it is too warm to close the window, I just have to listen to the rustling of cans, tearing of plasting and the thumping of a bear wrestling with a garbage can like he's playing a gatcha roulette.

It would be one thing if they were just busy, and I could tease them about it later, but this just feels 😐