Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.
Only to avoid whoever makes you feel like that as much as humanly possible for the rest of your life.
(If it’s you doing it to you, stop it, now and be kinder to yourself and your writing. If it’s someone else, tell them to stop and, if they can’t, let them out of your life.)
if someone writes you a letter or makes you a mixtape or composes a poem or song about you or creates literally anything for you then you had better cherish the absolute shit out of that person because they care about you a real lot
Master lestat may i ask a question of you. What exactly do you look for in a person in order to determine if you want to make them one of the damned? Personality wise more than physical traits and even then do you even look for any specific physical traits?
-forever yours crissabelle laffiate
♛Miss Crissabelle, this is a very difficult question… and I might answer differently now than I would have in the past, and may answer differently in the future.
I don’t consider myself “damned,” not in the literal sense of the word. Not all the time, anyway. If I really did, I don’t think I could bring anyone into this life with me. I’ve always seen this existence more as an incredible adventure, why keep it to myself? In the same breath, not everyone can handle it, I can’t just give it out to every striking face and beautiful spirit that crosses my path. There has to be more to it than that.
Superficially, I admit I tend to be drawn to musicians and
dark haired people. Musicians because they have a passion for something, they needn’t be the best at their instrument but that they practice it and it gives them intrinsic pleasure outside of the applause of an audience… music is a language that speaks to the soul in ways nothing else can. Brunets, well, I admit I find them visually appealing, the darkness is a mystery, it begs to be touched, explored. There happens to be plenty of dark haired musicians out there so I can feel free to feed my heart’s desire in lusting after all of them and enjoy them without getting close enough to needing to invite them onto the Devil’s Road with me.
Appearance is always secondary to the inner qualities, and I can’t tell you what specifically those are. At minimum, the person has to know what they’re getting into, yes, you can live this life without killing, but killing is part of the fun as far as I’m concerned! At minimum, I choose people who are whole onto themselves and aren’t looking for me to complete them. People with their own pursuits. I’m not a babysitter. I’m not looking for a babysitter.
It’s different for different people, but I would say that it all comes down to chemistry and I can’t define that for you. Patience is probably the main required personality trait.
The shape of their body does not matter to me, their gender, their age… it’s the indefinable spark you feel in their presence because the two of you are together. More than lust. Simmering joy in being with them, not because they entertain you, but because of what you can be together.
What you’re really asking is what I look for in a lover, because, with certain exceptions to this rule, the Dark Gift is for those who I need to keep with me forever, those who I can’t allow to slip away into the maw of time, if they’ll have me back. I’m not adopting a pet or taking on a student; that seems to end in disappointment sooner or later.
So just being pleasant and charming is not enough. Real relationships have friction. I look for someone whose inner soul speaks to mine in ways no other does, someone for whom the fights make us stronger, because we have an underlying foundation of devotion to each other.
Though I may fall in love easily, I do not fall in devotion easily.
Dude it’s not about the art quality! Don’t do it for the notes. Do it for yourself. You might be being too hard on yourself, you may find your style not as “good” as someone else’s but that doesn’t make it Hella Bad™! It’s Hella Yours.
As with all the arts, like writing, music, drawing, etc., we all have to start at a place of less skill than we can earn over time. For me, humor can supersede technical ability. Applying humor and choosing the right expressions can be just as difficult as the technical ability, and to my taste, can be better than a really pretty portrait.
This is not the best drawing but it’s totes lolworthy:
[X]
Ppl might not Like/Reblog your stuff but it’s always great to see someone’s archive and see how they’ve improved over time.
Claudia probably had to practice for years to draw so well, and that should have been a clue to her dads that she was much older inside than she looked, bc few children would be able to draw this skillfull, especially w/o a live model in front of them well she had a dead one but she wasn’t looking at it:
^Claudia’s drawing
[X]
compared to Raphael’s on the left of Leda, c. 1508 [X].
So keep drawing! And share if you want.
[X] from Claudia’s portfolio
♛This is something I have yet to master myself. I’m more in love with myself than anyone else, so really, when people choose each other over me, it’s more their loss than mine.
It hasn’t happened yet, be glad that your friends are still just your friends. So no need to be truly jealous yet. But yes, being a third wheel is not much fun.
([X] //ooc; ^L/L didn’t do this so explicitly in front of her, but I imagine that’s how Claudia might have felt in general ;A;)
I don’t know enough about your situation to advise you one way or the other, but it is possible to let them date each other if that’s what happens, and their happiness can be your happiness, you don’t have to dump them both as friends just for leaving you out. They’ll still need you separately, if they valued your friendship in the first place.
You can ask them not to slobber all over each other when they’re in your presence, though, that seems like a reasonable request.
Of course, if Louis and David “got together” as they say, and left me out, I’d have a tough time being happy for them. Very tough. No. Impossible. They’re not allowed. Absolutely not!
The main thing to remember is that finding a mate shouldn’t be your mission. If it happens, it happens, and if not, then not. But you should never feel lesser because you’re single. Friendship is as valid as a romantic relationship. In some ways, even more difficult. Different definition of intimacy. I’ve known people whose relationships were based mostly on sex and they had little else really in common. It was enough for them, but it wouldn’t be enough for me.
If they do start dating each other and you can’t be happy for them, you should probably not torment yourself by being around them. Focus on other things you’ve been meaning to do, or meet new people.
♛A polyamorous relationship? *sits up, grins, rubs his hands together* Anon, if and when you successfully manage it, you tell me how to do it! I’ve been trying for years to get Louis to accept David and David to accept Louis for this very arrangement; does it not make perfect sense that if they love me separately, they should be able to love me together, at the same time, in the same bed, or wherever we are?! Why the hell not! Alas.
I do have some experience with threesomes – and moresomes – but only really outside the context of a relationship, and that is typically with people who don’t expect the ongoing relationship aspect. These purely physical interludes can be extremely satisfying, the extra set of hands, the extra lips… etc. Such indulgence. Like an upgrade from your bathtub to a jacuzzi with jets (Not that I don’t also love my bathtub as it is *flicks a fang*).
I won’t tell you it’s not worth trying, but I would advise you to tread carefully, especially if you’ve all called it platonic already. As in a two-person friendship that you might want to escalate into a romantic relationship, there’s the risk of losing them if the feeling isn’t mutual. How do you know when to do it in that situation? Well… every relationship, between friends or lovers, is defined by the people in it, you mutually set the expectations and limits together.
When do you decide that you want to be closer to someone? What are the signals they give that they want that, too? Not every relationship requires physical intimacy, that’s something you mutually decide, too.
My love life is flashing before my eyes and I can’t pick out answers to those questions *frowns* Unfairly, the best I can tell you is what’s been true for me, that you’ll know when you know, when you can’t keep your hands to yourself because you need their skin on yours, you want to feel their heartbeat with your own and you have a burning need to ask them, “Can I hold your hand?” … And you are 99% sure that they’ll say, “Yes.”
♛I have been doing that, haven’t I? I have a terrible track record with relationships. I have plenty of experience in what NOT to do, that’s for damn sure…
(Alright, well… there have been some wonderful relationships. I’m in a relationship now with someone who has a high tolerance for pain and almost limitless patience, thank the powers that be, but enough about Louis…)
*cracks knuckles* Well, H, this is, as they say, a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation.
You’re going to have to put these feelings for him out of your mind and focus on your own life. You can do it. That relationship was grown by both of you, it became part of you, but it’s a severed limb now, what’s left is that eerie phantom feeling where it used to be.
Being in love is intoxicating, there is a whole science behind that apart from the emotional addiction. Being in love is fun, it’s pleasurable. Your physical and emotional attraction to your ex is probably something like what recovering drug addicts feel for the drug they’ve sworn off. Just because he is a drug, does not mean he’s loathsome. Just because you feel drawn to him does not make you weak.
The trick really is not to “think” about it. It’s not constructive to give him your mental energy. Focus on other things. Don’t replace him with another lover just to have that high of being in love again. Love yourself. Please yourself, physically and emotionally. In time, this shadow of attraction to him will fade away. Trust me.
*kisses,* L.
Do you ever see people whose faces echo another era?
I’ve seen women with the round faces, sparse brows and high foreheads of medieval illuminated manuscripts.
Men with dark brows that meet in the middle, olive skin, strong noses and jaws–Byzantine men, ghosts of Constantine, reanimated faces from the Fayum Mummy Portraits.
Women with soft figures and the large eyes and prim, petaled mouths of the 19th century.
Grizzled men whose brows predicate their gaze, whose wrinkles track into their thick beards and read like topographical maps of hardship and intensity–the wanderer, the poet; Whitman, Tolstoy, Carlyle.
Faces sculpted into the perfect, deified symmetry of the pharaohs–almond eyes, full lips, self-assurance 3,000 years in the making staring at you at a stoplight.
Plump, curved white wrists curled over purse handles in the waiting room and you think Versailles, Madame Pompadour, Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great. Wide cheek bones, courage and sorrow in the scrunched face of the old man in line behind you and it’s Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Tecumseh. Reddened skin, thick forearms, hair and beard and brows burned by the cold into a reddish corn silk and you think Odin, the forge and the hammer and skin stinging from the salt of the ocean.
Virginia Woolf’s quiet brand of gaunt frankness surveys you in passing in the parking lot. Queen Victoria’s heavy-lidded stare and beaked nose are firmly, uncannily fixed on a sixth-grade classmate’s face.
Renaissance voluptuousness on the boardwalk by the beach. Boticelli’s caramel androgyny in a youth smoking on a bench outside the mall.
Jazz age looseness spurs the tripping gait of the man who watches you paint with his hands in his pockets, and he smiles a Sammy Davis Jr. smile and tells you that you look familiar, that he’s sure he’s seen you somewhere before, but he doesn’t know where or when.
I-want-my-IWTV 