that I have worn so many winters out

That gage thrower your noble father always warned you about. Always on that damn Richard II. Transfeminine!Hamlet truther. Average reader of works, and the spirit of posting at night.

[helsinore]

Tumblr rolled back the latest enshittifcation update, but for now at least, I will continue to spend more of my time on Bluesky. You can find me here: https://bsky.app/profile/helsinore.bsky.social

[agentravensong]

thinking about flowey chara-isms (and ralsei parallels. but when i am not doing that these days). more below the cut

(thank you penny snapcube for the visual aid)

look at his stupid face. he's a good character, is the thing.

bonus:

[blackjame]

https://www.instagram.com/staydancingdave/?hl=en

Patricide (Button Poetry)

Dave Harris, 2019. Harris' stellar debut collection of poetry takes a nuanced look at the complexities of black masculinity.

Kearney Blvd. | A. Zell Williams | Substack

I'm A. Zell Williams and Kearney Blvd. was the first place I called home, hints the name. I'm a playwright, TV writer, podcaster, a dog dad,

https://www.instagram.com/azellwill/

https://www.instagram.com/benphilippe/?hl=en

[androidtrashfire]

Okay can we talk about the BOTCHED retcon of the train scene and why it doesn't work NARRATIVELY??

Yeah, so, here's what happened in s1:

Claudia is meeting with Louis in the park. She tells him she can't stand this anymore, she's going to leave, and she wants Louis to come with her. (Louis's direct POV)

Louis says he can't, wishes her well, and then sits on the park bench for the rest of the night seriously contemplating suicide. (Louis's direct POV)

Claudia disappears from the park, telling him she intended to leave that very night (Louis's POV)

Antoinette, who was already turned into a vampire, heard everything and reported back to Lestat (this is not known at this time, but is revealed later!!)

Claudia gets on the train and the train is leaving. (Claudia's diary)

Lestat finds her, scares the shit out of her, threatens to kill her, using the visceral reminder of her own rape to really drive home how dangerous and serious he is (Claudia's diary)

Louis finally decides not to kill himself, and comes back home. Upon returning to the house, he walks in to see a smug Lestat talking about how good it is that Claudia didn't decide to leave them after all because of the war in Europe (he's really laying it on thick). Claudia, in her traveling clothes, with her packed bags clearly on the floor, looks at Louis and Louis looks at her in a way that makes it clear to both of them this is not Claudia's choice, it is Lestat's doing (Louis's POV!! Not Claudia's diary!!)

Claudia figures out that Louis did not tell Lestat she was leaving, so the only way Lestat would know is if someone had been overhearing her and Louis originally talking in the park, and concludes that Antoinette is spying on them for Lestat (Only revealed later)

The tension in the house gets icier and more openly hostile. Claudia and Lestat are making little pretense at being a family again, Claudia is secretly using the mind gift that Lestat cannot hear, convincing Louis that they are trapped, and that they have to kill Lestat or they'll never be free of him. The implication is, again, that SHE WANTED TO LEAVE AND LESTAT REFUSED TO LET HER, AND KILLING HIM IS HER ONLY OPTION NOW (Again!! Louis's POV, NOT THE DIARY!!)

However, Claudia's plan to kill Lestat is both a genuine plan, and an intentional misdirect, because she knows that her and Louis's secret talks/plans are being spied on, likely by a now-vampiric Antoinette (not revealed until later)

As they scheme, and Claudia's schemes include an intentional misdirect, the unholy family pretend to set up their family "escape" from New Orleans via the Mardi Gras celebration/blowout massacre (Louis's POV, potentially corroborated by later entries in Claudia's diary)

Both factions have developed their own plans at this point: Claudia to get Antoinette to reveal herself/to kill Lestat by misdirection. Lestat to foil what he thinks is Claudia's plan, have Antoinette kill Claudia, and then he and Louis and Antoinette will sail off into the sunset together (Louis's POV, presumably corroborated by Claudia's diaries, and including the details of both schemes).

The night of the massacre comes, the showdown happens, Claudia's plan wins and Lestat loses, BECAUSE CLAUDIA KNEW THE WHOLE TIME THAT THEY WERE BEING SPIED ON. AND USED THAT TO HER ADVANTAGE. A thing she WOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN IF LESTAT HAD NOT WAYLAID HER ON THE TRAIN, WHEN SHE WAS TRYING TO LEAVE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

The problem with trying to retcon the "rape" thing (besides the fact that the writers seem to have forgotten that Lestat USED a gross reference to Claudia's rape to unbalance and threaten her, but did NOT actually directly threaten to rape her himself), is that...?

In the order of operations we have been given, there's not really any other space for anything other than Lestat having done SOMETHING very fucked up and frightening to Claudia to make her return to New Orleans, when she was already leaving. Because she does return, packed bags and traveling clothes and all.

Additionally, the only reason we are ever told/shown Claudia suspected Antoinette's vampiric turning, to the point where she actively included it into her plans to kill Lestat, is BECAUSE Lestat showing up to get her on the train clues her into the fact that someone must've been spying on them.

In order to accept that Lestat didn't actually threaten Claudia in some dangerous and impressive way, whatever he may or may not have said being largely irrelevant, we have to then question the entirety of what happened (and what we're shown DIRECTLY THROUGH LOUIS'S OWN POV, not Claudia's diary!). About why the schemes against Lestat began developing in the first place (Claudia felt she could not leave or Lestat would kill her. Because he said he would. Which does not feel out of character, since... yknow. He had Antoinette spying on her. And then tries to make Antoinette MURDER HER. Again, this does not need to be explained through the diary, this is straight up Louis's own memories of the fight between him & Claudia vs Lestat & Antoinette.)

There is simply no need for this retcon at all, and retconning it makes the chronological timeline of the whole last few episodes of the show make no sense.

They're clearly doing this to try to exonerate Lestat.

But it's so stupid! Because it would make way more sense to simply say that Claudia's death made Lestat face some uncomfortable truths about the way he treated her and saw her, and about the way he treated Louis by extension.

God, they don't even have to mention the big scary R-word (racism) or the big other scary R-word (rape). If they either don't want to or if they were being hamstrung by the network.

It's even weirder to try to exonerate him now through retconning now, in this season. Because they've already made a huge point now to set up that

Lestat has weird issues re Gabriella always leaving him, which make him weird about other people he cares about leaving him. Then you can have him acknowledge and unpack that he's done horrible things to people with less power than he has who he nevertheless cares about, whenever he thinks they're going to leave him. And he should not have done that.

And also he minimizes the impact of sexual violence when it comes to other people. Because that's how he's coped with being a victim of sexual violence in his own life: minimization. And he shouldn't have done that either.

Boom, done. Problem solved. He is now your typical, traditional still cartoonishly fun vampire who's still got plenty of other problems to make him fun to watch. AND he has redeemed himself and made the audience even more sympathetic to him by having him acknowledge some of his flaws that he picked up through trauma and them did the old "repeating the cycle" deal onto his own fledglings. Which we all already know, because we watched him do it throughout the entirety of s1.

Is it the best they could do, when honoring the racial components set up in S1, no. Or telling a really rich, realistic story about the politics of sexual violence? Also no.

But it's safe. It's predictable. Fandoms will eat up "cycle of violence" shit. There will be a lot of discourse, probably, but most people who don't want to engage with it will just ignore it, or say it doesn't fit the show, blahblah.

But crucially! At least it's not... whatever the fuck we just got with the Claudia scene. And the million uncalled for and narratively/characteristically irrelevant racial language. And the "Louis is somehow nebulously, equally bad, actually" framing. And the whole "teenage Black girl made up a rape accusation against a white man" thing.

Especially when, as a retcon, it literally solves none of your narrative problems.

And in fact, now has created a whole bunch more!!!!!

[taleteller]

We can’t have conversations about what it does/doesn’t mean for Louis as a character to read Claudia’s diary entries about her rape out loud because first we have to have the conversation about what it means that the writers deemed it necessary to 1) detail Claudia’s rape so directly after 2) themselves declaring that any narration past the point Claudia’s voice-over cuts off/Louis ripped out the diary pages would be unnecessary exploitation and that 3) a brand new story line of Claudia being raped was introduced in the first place only to 4) ultimately be used to narrate Lestat’s own rape while simultaneously 5) Lestat’s rape was depicted much less graphically/more metaphorically and 6) Lestat never has to put words to his own experience because he gets to stand behind Claudia’s expression of her pain as if it were his own.

And so many people are so eager to demonize Louis for the act of reading the diaries in and of itself that they drown out or ignore the bigger question first and foremost of “why is this depiction of rape part of the narrative AT ALL?”

Louis’s a character! He was CREATED by someone walking around in the world with us! He’s the expression of their thoughts and intentions!

Up until the moment of Louis reading the recollection of the rape out loud, what is the function of Claudia’s rape in the story? In what ways does giving Claudia a rape narrative affect her character arc?

At best, it can be argued that being raped complicates Claudia’s desire to get away from Lestat (and Louis) because she discovers first-hand just how vulnerable she is. Because having Claudia constantly accosted and confronted and pushed out of any space she tried to access solely on the basis of her being Black – the thing that was happening at the university the moment Bruce showed up and intervened, by the way. That’s what was happening. Those white human students were attempting to prey on Claudia because she was Black AND because she was a woman. LSU for example didn’t accept their first female student until 1905, and they didn’t accept Black students until 1953, that’s why Claudia had to make up an excuse for her own presence when all she wanted to do was read a book – is itself a violence she’s already experiencing. It’s a violence that Louis and Lestat were able to partially mitigate through a combination of their own standing in New Orleans and money, neither of which Claudia had access to while traveling alone outside of New Orleans. But for people who can’t make the obvious connection to the innate vulnerability of a young, Black girl living under Jim Crow, Claudia getting raped is a quick and dirty shortcut for comprehension.

When Louis’s reading Claudia’s rape out loud, what is the function of Claudia’s rape in the story? Why is Louis even in that house ripping out Bruce’s spine and burning him down to ashes?

Yes, Louis saves some other humans and takes out a bunch of (presumably) new vampires turned in the interest of the Great Conversion, and that’s very altruistic and humane of him. But when the Talamasca asks him nicely to go be their clean-up crew 🙄 after getting Daniel to help them ambush Louis in a moment of vulnerability at the restaurant, Louis turns them down point blank, says “I don’t care,” and walks away.

The only reason Louis engages at all with the Talamasca, who he has every reason to hate given their connection to the publication/fabrication of Interview with the Vampire –which he just finished telling Daniel has caused multiple problems in his life and skews his character for the worst— is because they go, “By the way, Claudia’s rapist is involved.” So now Claudia’s rape is a reason for Louis to avenge her—by doing the thing the Talamasca wanted him to do all along. It’s a side quest.

And Louis’s revenge is not about closure, because Louis was finding his way to peace with his murdered daughter and his own experiences ever since leaving New Orleans without looking up Bruce, which he could have done at any point through either his vampire powers or wealth. At no point when Claudia was alive –from the moment when she first came home and her only priority was asking Louis to leave the country with her, to her taking care of Louis after Lestat beat and broke him, to the moment Claudia demonstrated zero compunctions about getting Louis to help her with murdering Lestat, someone they both actually cared about!– did Claudia present an opportunity to Louis to handle Bruce in any capacity other than listening to her and validating her experience.

So who wants Bruce dead? Like I said before, the writers made the narrative such thatRaglan shames Louis into action not just over the Fang Gang in general, but Bruce in particular. As if Louis’s journey and catharsis without killing Bruce was incomplete and wrong.

Now Louis’s reading Claudia’s private recollection of her rape out loud, not just to Bruce but to the audience. Why doesn’t the reading stand alone? Claudia’s explicit diary entry of her rape is cut over imagery of Lestat’s rape, which as depicted is highly suggestive of brutalization but not, in this world where vampires are completely capable of penetrative sex, explicitly sexual assault.

Lestat’s clothes stay on, while Louis describes Claudia’s being taken off.

Lestat claws at the ground trying to escape and has mysterious hands pulling at his face and hair in the car where he’s hallucinating/having a flashback while we hear, “I fought him even with my broken arm, and then my rebroken arm,” from Louis-as-Claudia.

Lestat writhes on the ground (shown from the shoulders up) while Magnus lies on top of him (also from the shoulders up) and holds his head down, and then Lestat’s grimacing face takes up the entire frame while Louis speaks Claudia’s physical recollections out loud. AMC’s lack of male-on-male thrusting comes back around, but also, Lestat’s clothes are all still on and in place, unlike Claudia's in her narration.

Lestat’s shirt collar is pulled aside and then the camera cuts away from the actual moment Magnus sticks his fangs in Lestat’s neck while Louis-as-Claudia says, “I hope one day he feels this, small and cornered.”

Lestat screams as Magnus drips blood into his mouth while we hear, “He let me go cause I seemed small and it looked like he’d won.” (yes, yes, vampire reproduction, blood = other body fluids/semen, but Claudia’s words do not shy around the physicality of her rape while blood in the mouth and fangs in the neck is what’s explicitly shown on the screen for Lestat)

And this is where Claudia’s and Lestat’s narratives diverge even further. Lestat wasn’t let go, Magnus successfully passed on his legacy (vampirism and wealth, and Lestat’s described his framing of the relationship between a vampire maker (father) and their fledgling (child) quite enough as of episode 4 for the obvious connections to be made), and then killed himself. Bruce got bored and left with no expectations of Claudia and arguably no lasting memory of her if not for the fact the encounter was immortalized in the book. Lestat didn’t think he was “the thing lurking in the shadows,” he was an unextraordinary human who was deeply affected by a lifetime of abuse at his family’s hand and deeply traumatized from an encounter with wolves. Claudia was a vampire who thought she finally didn’t have to be afraid after a lifetime of a mean old auntie and an “uncle” who watched her in the bathroom. They are not the same, before, during, or after.

What does Claudia’s rape do in the story? Whose story does Claudia’s rape serve? Who does the audience learn about through Claudia’s rape?

The answer is not Claudia. That’s just one part of the problem.

[sillybilly-kitty]

if there’s one thing internet drama has taught me it’s that you should never make a discord server ever

[juniebgroans]

Theyfab is an offensive word but also I want to use it to title my eternal experience - the TheyFAB Paradox which is the very specific emotion of where people are perceiving me as a woman and treating me as they would normally treat a woman (i.e. shittily) so Im both upset from the standpoint of "I'm not a woman, it sucks being misgendered through being treated differently" and also of "you treat women this way fucko?????? Why tf you treating ANYONE like this?"

[dykestat]

Well. I don't think she would say all that.

[dykestat]

The funniest part about this is that I do completely understand that the device being used here is that it's supposed to feel inconsistent and jarring and make you reconsider everything you thought you knew about the story but by total coincidence I actually rewatched all of season one literally yesterday and so I'm in a very well-read position to say that nothing new has been revealed about season 1 except perhaps that whoever wrote that speech hasn't watched it recently

[dykestat]

In season 1 the point of the "massa" lines is that she's calling Lestat an enslaver

[lipstickhamlet]

guys i can't do this anymore. i have to speak my truth. hamlet is not the emo goth kid lounging around in hot topic clothes and laertes is not the varsity jacket-wearing jock. it's the other way around. before the events of the play, hamlet was very much a jock (4.7.111-114), enough so that his lack of exercise is noticeable (2.2.319-320) and was well-liked and popular by the common people (4.7.20-24). polonius implies to reynaldo that laertes is in france to study music specifically (2.1.81). laertes is easily agitated, provoked, and sensitive, which is arguably more likely to be a pre-existing condition of teenage angst hot topic-ism than hamlet's legitimate grief (open your eyes and look). i can't stress enough that hamlet's transformation into the person we see in the play is so jarring from his real self that he almost isn't the same person anymore, and laertes has similarly been pushed to be the volatile, violent person he is by his circumstances. hamlet is literally the popular athletic golden boy and laertes is, like, the kid lugging around a huge cello case every day to and from school who gets high as fuck behind the bleachers and picks fights with anyone who says anything about his sister

[helsinore]

wondering if the trans guy stereotype of "trans dude transitions into just some guy" exists because we live in a world where male = default and so when you transition into man mode you've achieved just-some-guyhood because well. that's where all the neutrality went. in our world that's the neutral zone. idk.

[linkloki]

I think R2 productions should be required to tell me if it's a Richard or a Bolingbroke production before I buy tickets

[helsinore]

maybe bolingbroke killing richard was matricide. yall ever think of that one.

[helsinore]

BOLINGBROKE  Then, England’s ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu, My mother and my nurse that bears me yet. Where’er I wander, boast of this I can, Though banished, yet a trueborn Englishman. (Act I, Scene III) KING RICHARD  Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy To stand upon my kingdom once again. [He kneels.] Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand, Though rebels wound thee with their horses’ hoofs. As a long-parted mother with her child Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting, So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth, And do thee favors with my royal hands.

(Act III, Scene II) i'm connecting the dots .............................. i've connected them ............

[helsinore]

i just think that maybe he couldn't be england's daddy but he was definitely important and usurping him fucked shit up forever and cursed the shit out of everyone. so what i'm saying is is that he was england's mom,

[helsinore]

maybe bolingbroke killing richard was matricide. yall ever think of that one.

[helsinore]

BOLINGBROKE  Then, England’s ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu, My mother and my nurse that bears me yet. Where’er I wander, boast of this I can, Though banished, yet a trueborn Englishman. (Act I, Scene III) KING RICHARD  Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy To stand upon my kingdom once again. [He kneels.] Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand, Though rebels wound thee with their horses’ hoofs. As a long-parted mother with her child Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting, So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth, And do thee favors with my royal hands.

(Act III, Scene II) i'm connecting the dots .............................. i've connected them ............

[maiblog2]

My mother is still in the ICU, fighting for her life every single second. The suffering hasn't stopped. 💔

After my previous accounts were suddenly shut down, I opened this new one because I won't give up on her. Being in the ICU requires urgent treatments and tests costing between $500 to $600 per week, an amount we completely cannot afford.

Please, do not scroll past. Your donation or even a quick Reblog is the only hope we have left to save her life.

Donate here -- PayPal -- Verified fundraiser

[helpmaifamily]

@sheepinthebigcity @hadesfirst @ascending-axolotl @kachowbunga @kirisakin @chomesuke @trashdruid @malwizard @divortion @7bitter @black-mesa-runs-wikipedia @ectoplasmentity @myappleorchard @loverboy-ish @poisonseller @glassbird333 @fadingplaidtrashpatrol @bombabykai @srdcovka @theriverwater @rosalia-de-castro @violetjarrah @zibah-ho @bitten-by-astra @stanningsky @peanut-with-wifi-access @clownworld13 @byfireflies @a-lizard-in-disguise @goldenresonance @endlessknights @meepingmeep @rocksnstars @asteriis @cosmickoshi @c1trus-lim0n @cannedsandwich @momotech764 @hairasuntouchedaspartoftheamazon @malenkaya-glosoli @magicalprofessorsludgedeputy @yarnpika @toot-bender @saint-nevermore @imaducknotachicken @imafluffycupcakey @whoopsiedoopsies @sweetsnickers

[helsinore]

"Hi, sorry to bother you, but my mom is still in the ICU fighting for her life, and my old accounts were suddenly shut down. Please, even if you can't donate, just reblog my latest post to help spread her story and save her. We are running out of time.

Reblog by @helpmaifamily

💬 105  🔁 489  ❤️ 109 · My mother is still in the ICU, fighting for her life every single second. The suffering hasn't stopped. 💔 After my p

[helsinore]

Good evening, my friend. ✨

I am writing this from a tent on the street with an IV drip beside me. Please share my latest post. Maybe someone will donate and help save my life. 🩸

Reblog by @aboud-lives · 1 image

💬 1  🔁 478  ❤️ 149 · TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.. WE ARE UNDER INTENSE BOMBARDMENT AND FIRE BELTS IN GAZA. SPEAK ABOUT US BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE

[helsinore]

maybe bolingbroke killing richard was matricide. yall ever think of that one.