Art and Ikemen @bakersgrief - Tumblr Blog

yehudah

viralfrog

gaymerkittycat

z-a-d-i-e

from Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, by Anne Rice

surrenderdorothea

I’ve been very frustrated by the gender discourse in this fandom, which often seems far too rigid. But these passages reminded me of why I loved these books so much when I read them, so many years ago, and why they still remain important. The show is also playing with gender, and I’d love to see more of that play in the fandom.

some-punishment-deactivated2025

@vampire-scripture

vampire-scripture

That was part of what bled into the characterization of Claudia, the idea of being less worthy of respect just because of your body or how you are perceived by society.

“I saw Claudia as a woman in a child’s body,” says Rice. “There are women who are eternally called girls - cute, sweet, adorable pinchable, and soft- when in fact they have a strong mind that’s very threatening” - The Vampire Companion

‘Let tears gather in your eyes. You haven’t tears enough for what you’ve done to me. (...) Monsters! To give me immortality in this hopeless guise. - Claudia, Interview with the Vampire

Claudia is brilliant and dangerous. Yet her fathers treat her as a "doll", a child. Part of her character arc is fueled by rage, caused by this constant paternalism.

Of course, Lestat gave me a doll as usual, the replica of me, which as always wears a duplicate of my newest dress. (...) And what should I do with it? Play with it as if I were really a child? "Is there a message here, my beloved father?" I asked him this evening. "That I shall be a doll forever myself?" - Claudia's Diary, The Queen of the Damned

There is a great interview in which Anne talks about the rage in the character of Claudia, I'll try to make a gifset of it for this week ^^.

Still, it is wild to see some interviews (old interviews) of a bestselling author, in which the host asks things like: "what does your husband think about you writing "x"?".

Which, you know, sometimes can be pertinent (e.g. what does your husband think of you featuring his poems in your books), but in some other cases...

apoptoses

Something I think gets lost in the discussion of gender in Anne's work/her view of self is the context of the time in which IWTV was written and published.

IWTV wasn't published until 1976.

Women in the United States were not legally allowed to have a credit card or get a home loan in their own name, without their husband's approval, until 1974. Laws were just being put into place regarding discriminating against women in hiring and discriminating in pay for women. Most women still couldn't get birth control without their husband's approval. There was no such thing as no fault divorce, or even the concept of marital rape.

While there was no law against a woman getting a driver's license on her own, in the 60s and 70s it could still depend on where you lived and who was working the DMV that day. Anne herself did not have a driver's license and did not drive because Stan would not permit her to drive.

I wish I could remember the exact interview, because she did talk extensively about how in her early days of writing their mutual friends would just refer to her as 'Stan's wife'. 'Stan's wife' wrote a book. 'Stan's wife' is getting published. 'Stan, how is your wife getting on with her book?' being asked while she's in the room. No matter how libertine we view the 1970s, socially women still weren't really looked at outside their roles as wives.

Interview with the Vampire was published right on the cusp of women getting important financial rights, labor rights and marital rights (many of which didn't even come until decades later). So I think Claudia's pent up rage at being a woman trapped in a child's body and Anne's desire to make vampires something that are not male or female but something other is so, so timely and we don't really consider that context enough.

podcastwizard

you don’t realize how important lunch is until you’re wandering around thinking about how unloveable and untalented and uniquely cursed you are and then it’s 4pm and you finally eat lunch and you go Oh. oh right.

podcastwizard

lot of people commenting on this post like "who eats lunch at 4pm that's a terrible time to eat lunch" yes. that is the point. 4pm lunch is inadvisable. 4pm lunch is not the ideal. 4pm lunch makes the mind demons real.

podcastwizard

folks you’re never gonna believe what i did today

theonion

As public schools across the country increasingly face budget shortfalls, educators like Patricia Harper, a fifth-grade teacher in Baltimore, have reportedly found it more necessary than ever to provide their own salaries. “I’m committed to coming into this classroom every day and helping my students learn, but in order to do this, I’m now required to dip into my own pocket to cover my annual income,” said the 10-year veteran of Baltimore City Public Schools, a district with more than 5,000 teachers who together would need to come up with an estimated $340 million to meet their annual salary requirements.

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kosmogrl

we got august this week

homunculus-argument

Feeling physical exhaustion as a psychosomatic reaction to things that feel daunting or intimidating is such a ridiculously counterproductive thing to do. Like there's a situation that requires you to be alert and mentally present and paying attention, and your brain just goes "hey I don't wanna. I don't wanna be here. How about going unconscious instead. No fuck you we're warping out. Night night."

guccifloralsuits

If THE modern translator of the OG Odyssey text wrote this about my film adaptation I’d kill myself

Emily Wilson you’re goated

positive-meme-experience

Is this anything?

day 3: Change 🌺

mutuals

Moby Sick. Robert Mickelsen, Chadd Lacy. 2018. Glass.

beemovieerotica

was at a bar and a 50+ year old drunk white woman complimented me and my friend's outfits, told us there was a campsite up in northern maryland where a lot of gay bears go to have sex in the woods. we asked her how she knew about this and she very aggressively said "because i'm a FAG HAG!!! but i'm not allowed to say that anymore I GUESS!!!"