#post match interview

[portraitofpatio]

[mrsafc86]

Oh Leah 🥺🥺

Nearly crying at the interview

“When i put this badge on i feel 10times taller and 10times stronger”

Girl you worked your ass off for that badge ❤️🤍

[havesomeballs]

This genre of asking people intentionally tear jerking questions on live tv right after/in the middle of some of their hardest moments professionally will never fail to make my blood boil and I’m forever in awe of the ones who have the poise to handle it. “Is it tough for you (…) that it’s all coming to an end now and you don’t want it to happen?” I mean— seriously?

The “it is what it is and it’s no problem” is killing me (and him, which is what actually is killing me).

Also gotta love the choice of words at Thomas re the sacking of people. Tells the tale I guess. ✌🏻

[cityzenchick]

Smiley happy City boys 😁🩵

[kalibabysworld]

"What was working for you tonight?"

Carlitos: Well I think everything

[gillybilmour]

[wow-thisismylifeiguess]

So so

I don’t think Bruce has DID, nor will I ever attempt to write him having DID, BUT LET ME TALK ABOUT SOMETHING REAL QUICK

Bruce has a number of alternate personas. The most popular (to my knowledge) being Batman, Bruce (the truest form of himself), Brucie, and Matches. I know there are others, or at least I think there are, but let’s just ignore that for now.

When Bruce is playing into a separate persona, it very much is not an act. He embodies that version of himself /completely/. He is not faking his actions, his words, his mannerisms. It’s just naturally how /that/ version of himself acts. Brucie is a klutz and trips over his own feet? It’s not Bruce pretending to trip. He genuinely wasn’t looking where he was going and went crashing into the nearest guest, causing champagne that spill onto their suit. Matches has the thickest Gotham accent and is sometimes unintelligible? Bruce can’t tamp it down, it’s just /how he talks/.

ALL THIS TO SAY, Bruce is bad at communicating. It’s difficult for him to talk to his family and express his feelings. But his other personas? Some of them are real good at it. Some are a lot more open than baseline Bruce. He is /in/ that headspace so fucking hard, things that are difficult as Bruce are easy now.

But imagine his kids don’t get it. They assume that Bruce’s personas are purely faked. That Bruce is an A+ actor, and maybe he is, but they don’t understand that when Bruce is using a persona, he is also /genuinely/ being that version of himself. So if Brucie cries about how much he loves his children, how he misses them and appreciates them? They assume it’s just for show. But no. Bruce really does miss his kids, and it’s only when he’s not /Bruce/ that he’s able to show it.

[fritzes]

ben shelton's reaction to beating flavio cobolli for the first time

[cityzenchick]

He is gutted ..... and so are we 😢

10.10.24 john stone's interview

[matteoberrettini]

jannik sinner is all smiles when the crowd cheers loudly as he starts speaking italian during the trophy ceremony at umag 2022

[licncourt]

allegorical vampirism and slavery in IWTV

A couple people made comments about what I said regarding the parallels between vampirism and slavery/how they interplay in the story when I mentioned it in another post so I wanted to talk about it a little here! Adding a disclaimer though for non-followers that I am a fan of the books, so please don't take this to say otherwise!

There's a lot of crazy stuff in the beginning of IWTV, but the ideas of systemic violence and parasitism really permeate all of it. The parallels in how slaveowners like Louis and Lestat live in the human sense is very reminiscent of how vampires literally drain the life from their victims to continue. The implication here is that there's no cost too great to sustain a vampire and that vampires have a certain inherent superiority over humans (this is believed explicitly by a majority vampires in the series). There's even something to be said for the sexualized (usually non-consensual obviously) nature of vampire feeding bearing a striking resemblance to the sexual exploitation of enslaved people on many plantations.

Of course, the usual conversation about Louis' hypocrisy plays in here most prominently as we see his ridiculously selective concern and morality, leeching off the forced labor of enslaved people while refusing to feed on humans out of his own concept of mercy and goodness. Clearly he has no real problem with surviving on death and exploitation, which is why it's shocking but not surprising when he reveals the "aesthetic" nature of his objections during the interview. Even he recognizes that his moral complaints were contrarian and performative, more about resisting Lestat's control than genuine care for victims.

He's remarkably and sickeningly blasé about the whole matter, and as hard as it is to read, the way he talks about his perpetuation of chattel slavery is what I would expect. He seems to find it mildly regrettable, but ultimately a reflection of the times and of circumstance, implicitly passing off the blame for his actions. It mirrors a lot of vampire rhetoric, most of the main characters in the series seeming to simply agree that It Is What It Is and say Well, What Can You Do? Louis represents the mundane evil of slavery and of vampirism, the integration of something so horrific and unspeakable into the workings of everyday life with flimsy justifications and token moralizing on peripheral matters that obscure the violent reality of the situation.

The privilege Louis was born into really shows here. He doesn't seem to outwardly relish his position as master, but not because he sees it as morally wrong, only because he sees it as natural, as his birthright in much the same way we see vampires excuse any harm they cause as just vampire nature, therefore nothing to be concerned about. Radically normal even. The only really crimes that really matter occur between vampires in the same way that the only crimes that really mattered in the Antebellum South were those committed between white people, especially wealthy white people. We see Louis get away with all kinds of bad behavior after Paul's death because he's a wealthy white man, so he can be as drunk and disorderly as he likes, even if it crosses the line into violence. Vampires operate similarly, power equaling a license to do as one pleases because who can stop you?

While Louis is, for obvious reasons, the primary focus of the discussion around slavery in IWTV, it's important to note how Lestat plays into this too in his own way. Not only is he not innocent or merely allowing it to happen passively around him, he engages with it quickly and in a rather Draconian manner when the opportunity presents itself. Lestat approaches his interactions with the enslaved people on the plantation much the same way he approaches vampirism itself, as a means to subjugate others and affirm his own power and control over his situation. He relishes them similarly too, finally On Top after being under the heel of others for so long.

He behaves like the stereotypical school bully who was abused at home, punching down as soon as the opportunity presents itself. He immediately takes the role of an enforcer of sorts for Louis, both by request and of his own volition. In one scene, Louis mentions (sickeningly casually I should add) that he requested Lestat use his position as "a white master" to quell unrest among the enslaved people on the plantation before a riot and Lestat does so happily, even saying something similar to Louis on other occasions. In another, Lestat takes it upon himself to "mercilessly beat" a slave for lingering too long near where their coffins are kept. The behavior is egregious, both the acts themselves and the unbothered way that Louis relays it to Daniel, but maybe that easy acceptance of cruelty is necessary for vampires. Would they be able to continue living the way they do if they acknowledged this sort of reality for what it is?

The final thing I want to add is the way the context of slavery plays off of the dynamic between Louis and Lestat personally in IWTV. There's a certain dark irony to the way Louis, the slaveowner and one primarily responsible for enslavement on the plantation, reacts to his new power dynamic with Lestat. The way he chafes at Lestat's grip on him is almost comical in contrast, and while it's not stated explicitly, it seems that a large portion of the reason stems from his belief that he's inherently at the top of the food chain and that this is a disruption of the natural order he clings to so strongly. He's not poor, he's not a woman, he's not black, he's not even a mere mortal anymore, so what right does anyone have to control him the way he controls others (who in his mind should expect it)? And even then, it's nowhere near comparable. He lives in the definition of a gilded cage with Lestat, not autonomous certainly, but absolutely languishing over a tiny fraction of what others endure at his own hand.

Their microcosm of vampire life feels even more frivolous by comparison, two men of equal standing in all the important ways bickering eternally over the technicalities of emasculation, philosophy, and disrespect. Still though, Claudia points out to Louis that in her opinion, Lestat "made a slave of him" and Louis doesn't say this explicitly, but that simple comparison seems to be the breaking point in him opening his mind to the allowance of Lestat's murder. Even the suggestion of such a thing, that he's been made not just a fool or an accomplice or someone’s bitch, but a slave, flips a switch in him visibly. And that tells us just about everything we need to know.

[pernillemagda]

Pernille's interview after today's game in a mix of German and English

Me when I'm speaking German

[cityzenchick]

He is such a sweetheart ♥️ (tbh I would love to see what he looks like without the beard) 😍

Josko Gvardiol｜Real Madrid vs Manchester City

[pedripics]

https://x.com/Pedri_World8/status/1921629546438180906

The ref pulled out yellow and Pedri pulled out his lethal face card 🤏🏻😭💖

the fact that he's just laughing 😭

[22plus15]

"obrigada" okay lucia roberta 😌 post-match interview w/ tnt sports brasil!