i might be fully delusional but lestat was not acting right during the trial.
the way he moved was so automatic he looked like a marionette being moved around by a puppeteer.
when he “went along with the script” his face looked wrong, his eyes looked empty, he only looked and behaved as himself whenever he was reminiscing on what truly happened between himself and louis.
the way you could tell whenever he went off script bc santiago looked confused and alarmed, like when he told the “jury” that if they condemned louis and claudia they would have to condemn him as well, he was being truthful and deciding that if they go he’ll go with them, and santiago immediately intervened.
also the fact that when we first saw him in the theater he was looking into a smokey mirror, something used to imply that whilst what is being shown might look true, it is not.
and as claudia was burning and she turned to him one last time he looked frozen, yes obviously that could be bc he was shocked which would be fair, but i mean that he literally looked frozen, like whomever was controlling him forced him to stay in place so he couldn’t look away.
so that he couldn’t escape claudia’s accusing gaze, but also her last plea for help which he could not answer bc he was powerless.
lestat was being controlled and manipulated during the trial, an essay written by a delusional woman who reads too much into everything.
i thank you for your attention.
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As I'm doing my leisurely line annotation of mdzs I'm impressed by many things and one of them is how thoroughly it's spelled out that Wei Wuxian is, by nature and personal inclination, an incredibly difficult person to piss off. He just does not care about most insults.
Like. Wen Ning thought he was going to be mad at him, the day they met in Qishan, because Wei Wuxian stood up to a bully for him and then Wen Ning's nerves made Wei Wuxian look like a fool in front of all their peers, which while unworthy would actually be a fairly normal reaction. But in fact this never even occurred to him; he doesn't care about that kind of thing. He doesn't get mad on his own account and once the cut heals he forgets it was even made (idiomatic expression but also in his case possibly literal), these are defining attributes.
So the fact that two definitive chapters of his life wound up getting defined by his taking brutal revenge really serves to underline the level of provocation he was subjected to.
Also there's something there about him going off on Jin Zixuan the way he did back at Cloud Recesses. Because that was, actually, somewhat uncharacteristic behavior! He is not generally a punching first kind of guy!
Just about every other time we see him start a fight, or try to, he's either the one doing the shit-talking or there's someone there in immediate need of protection.
He punched that guy in the face not in the moment for being rude about Jiang Yanli, and not I think even for insulting Jiang Fengmian or treading on Wei Wuxian's own sensitive places, but because he hit on the statement that would be most painful to Jiang Cheng.
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For @sansebastinae and @boisinnot, my fellow saint seb truthers :)
+ the usual
Yayyyy finished a drawing! Haha only took me...2 weeks. I kept going back and forth on whether I could finish it tonight, and I really wasn't going to. But then I looked at the unfinished version on a different screen and was like oh? Not too bad actually?? So I finished it :) First of all, ofc, here is the process. Kinda weird seeing it for smth like this, it makes me feel like I'm the painter in rennaisance au, not Mark dhjfkf
Ah I was gonna draw a silly renaissance au comic to accompany this(read: lighten the mood), but it's 5 am and I've still not really drafted it well, so! I'd like to finish it at some point bcs I wanna draw more chibi comics, but when I finish smth, I can't help but immediately want to post it, so part 2 will have to wait. I'll show you the outline though so you can at least imagine 😭
^ So many renaissance and beyond paintings of Saint Sebastian are always the most horny thing ever. Like pre/early rennaisance, yeah he was naked and all that, but they were pretty chaste, and uhhhhh suffering?? Well the newer paintings are suffering, but in a different way, if you know what I mean.
So I feel like Mark's the type to be overly pedantic about it, and refuses to make borderline porn of a saint, I mean, god forbid, Seb!!! But then he just. Does anyways. Because he can't control his lust for Seb even when drawing him half dead. I just imagine him holding the paintbrush in a death grip like "must not be horny. Must not draw him sexy. Must make him chaste." And then he ends up with the one seen above. Seb is all smug about it. "Wow you'd wanna fuck me even while I'm all bloody and dying? 🥺"
Mark: "oh I'll make you bloody, alright."
But god so funny to imagine Seb doing all these different slutty poses, like arching his back as much as possible, the cloth nearly falling off at all times, etc etc. And Mark finally lands on this pose bcs he hopes the suffering will outweigh the horny. It doesn't. Also Seb is genuinely serious once he actually gets into the pose, focus mode on. And honestly that's even worse for Mark, bcs it's so much more arousing to see Seb in his element, focused. Tbf I think Seb could be drinking water, and Mark would still find some way to sexualize it. Don't look at his sketches!! They're just filled with Seb doing all kinds of random activities.
Also! Here is the painting I referenced this off of, must give credit where credit is due ofc
The Dying St. Sebastian by François Fabre
Also this isn't really relevant in the context of this drawing specifically. But I looked thru a bunch of Saint Sebastian paintings while trying to find one I could reference, and I came across this middle ages one that actually looks so much like boy king seb 😭 I guess it really is meant to be!
St Sebastian between St Roch and St Peter by Pietro Perugino
Lmao but do you see the difference between early rennaisance and later work???
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In which Eddie panics a bit, Wayne is a voice of reason, and Steve is really going through it but finds some relief in Eddie bringing him lunch.
Part 1, part 1.5, part 2, part 3, part 4 of the love spell no go au
Eddie does not, in fact, see Robin or Steve the next day. He holes up in his room for three days until Wayne drags him out by his ear, sits him down, and pries an explanation out of him because “do you know how many times that Harrington boy has called, knocked, and slid notes under the door trying to track you down? I’m surprised he hasn’t climbed in your damn window by now.”
He breaks and tells Wayne about the love spell and getting to know Steve. He walks his uncle through the entire strangled route of his logic and the thoughts he’s been stuck in his head with ever since the other day.
And, okay, the whole prom scenario had been a completely theoretical product of his overactive and dramatic imagination, but something like that might have happened. Except if Eddie, instead of fucking up, had somehow cast it really, really strong…
“That’s why he keeps calling, because of the spell,” Eddie concludes. “It makes sense, doesn’t it?” He desperately wants to hear that no, actually, he’s lost his marbles, no one can brute force a spell into being smart and biding it’s time like that.
But Wayne sighs, somehow conveying both endless patience and weary amusement, and says, “Eddie, what have I always told you?”
“Uh… never tell anyone that magic is real?”
Wayne snorts. “That, sure, and that magic ain’t ever something outta nothing. Your daddy always thought he could make gold from thin air, never even tried spinning it outta straw, and look where it landed him.” Jail. Eddie winces. “The reason no one bothers with love spells much is they gotta have some potential to grab onto, so they fail more’n you’d think. Spell or not, Ed, there was always something there.”
By the end of the conversation, Wayne has more or less managed to hammer in the idea that maybe all the spell had done was keep them apart until they fit better. Eddie retreats to his room again, this time to brainstorm how to make up for the abrupt three day radio silence.
Steve has had… a rough few days. If it hadn’t been for Wayne Munson assuring him that no, his nephew hadn’t disappeared like Will Byers or the Holland girl, just “got a bug up his ass about something and is still holed up in his room working on it,” he would have completely spiraled. As it was, he’d had trouble sleeping even before smoking through the last of his stash, on edge all the time, swimming laps at night because that feels better than doing nothing.
So when he looks up at the jingle of the bell over the door and sees Eddie slink into Family Video, he’s torn between relief and upset. If Eddie is fine, and very obviously not eaten by monsters or kidnapped to an alternate dimension, then where the hell has he been? Why hadn’t he returned any of the messages Steve had left him? Is the return to jock tendencies that off-putting?
His eyes catch on the bag and cardboard carrier Eddie is carrying, laden with three paper cups from the nearest diner. The warm greasy smell hits him, and it’s been a long few days of wanting to stress eat but not letting himself. Steve’s mouth fills with saliva—just because he hasn’t had his lunch break yet.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asks flatly, since there’s no one else in the store right now.
Eddie ducks his head. “Ye-eah, I deserve that.” He holds up the bag and drinks, tentatively meeting Steve’s gaze from under his bangs. “Brought you a peace offering?”
Steve breaths out sharply and runs a hand through his hair. He’d probably…Yeah, he’d probably been overthinking everything. Wound too tight, like Robin said. Not everything is a sign that the world is ending; Eddie had probably just been busy and knows that Steve is kind of needy, and brought him lunch as an apology.
God, it smells like his usual order from before Starcourt. And Eddie is here now, perfectly fine except for the shadows under his eyes. What does Eddie have to be so worried about?
Get it together, Harrington.
“Okay,” Steve says, not bothering to wonder if he can make whatever Eddie’s brought him fit into his diet—cheat days are a thing for a reason, right? “I’ll let Keith know I’m taking my break.”
Tilting his head to one side, Eddie is now close enough to set his offerings on the checkout counter. “No Robin today?”
“I wish. It’s her dad’s birthday, so she got roped into family stuff.”
“Hm.” He flicks at one of the straws poked through the top of the lid. “Looks like I brought one too many milkshakes then. Which is the more egregious sin, letting it go to waste or sharing it with Keith?”
Steve wrinkles his nose. “Second one. I’ll go punch out, meet me around back?”
A few minutes later they’re sitting across from each other at the table behind the little strip mall that houses Family Video and the arcade. It’s technically for anyone who works there, not just the video store, but it’s hot as balls out so there’s no competition for the spot. The first mouthful of milkshake is a welcome explosion of cold and rich chocolatey goodness in Steve’s mouth, and he hums approvingly. Holy shit, he’d forgotten how much he liked ice cream.
“How’m I doing on the apology?” Eddie asks, starting to pull foil-wrapped burgers out of the greasy bag.
“Pretty good, if one of those has cheese or bacon on it.” Steve accepts the one held out for him and unwrapping it to find both, and a second patty. He takes a big bite and hums in satisfaction, chewing for a moment and pleasantly aware that Eddie is watching him. As soon as his mouth is empty enough to speak, he says, “... Alright, you’re forgiven. Just answer your damn phone next time, man, okay? Let me know you’re still alive?”
“Sorry,” Eddie says, looking guilty. “Yeah, sorry, I will.” He nudges a large fries across the table, followed by several packets of ketchup. Eddie hates ketchup on fries, because he’s some sort of heathen, but doesn’t so much as comment when Steve squirts all of the packets down one side of the container for himself. “Didn’t mean to make you worry about me, Stevie, I just… got in my head about something.”
Steve swallows a mixed bite of fries and burger, christ he’s hungry today. Must be the relief of knowing that Eddie is okay. “Anything I can help with?” he offers, because now that his ruffled feathers are soothed, he doesn’t like how tired his friend looks or the hint of melancholy that had flashed across his face at Steve’s requests. Eddie, who had looked at his bruises from Starcourt and visibly didn’t buy the government-concocted explanation for them but agreed not to ask, and thinks the source of his recent tension is from a few days of trauma rather than going on two years.
But also—Stevie? That’s new. Steve takes another big bite of his burger to hide how much the nickname makes him want to beam, that would be so weird given the current topic of conversation.
“Nah,” Eddie says. He mimes knocking his fist against one temple, other hand tapping the underneath of the table to make a wooden sound. “Got it worked out now. I’m good.”
“Well, good.” Despite himself, Steve grins around his next bite of burger. He swallows, snags Eddie’s milkshake (strawberry) and then Robin’s (vanilla), following with a sip from his own—a poor man’s Neapolitan. “Want to come over tonight and finish that movie?”
A surprised look crosses Eddie’s face at the offer, followed by something else that Steve can’t read, and then a small grin of his own. “Sure, if you don’t mind starting it over. I’ve kinda forgotten the beginning.”
Which is fine, because Robin had insisted on finishing it (“You know I don’t do well with cliffhangers, Steve. Do you want me to not be able to fall asleep tonight trying to guess what happens next? Do you?”) and Steve isn’t sure he remembers where they paused it last time anyway. He’s pleased as he finishes his burger, licking the grease from his fingers and grabbing a bunch of fries positively dripping with ketchup, hurriedly getting them in his mouth before any can drop on his work clothes. Feels even better when Eddie chuckles and reaches across the table to wipe a smear of the condiment that had dripped down the side of his chin, almost making it to his work vest. The contact is nice, makes his heart beat faster.
It doesn’t have to mean anything, but he wants it to.
Tag list (comment to be added): @hotluncheddie @8em-em-em8
Part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11
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