Looked into it, and it’s real. Not only that, but if you look at his twitter account, he made some more awesome tweets that day that make me really happy to be a Catholic. I’ll include screenshots and text versions of them below.
It saddens me that a #trans student cannot choose what bathrooms to use. A basic need. It’s an affront to their dignity as human beings.
And who is harmed by a #trans student using a bathroom? I’ve seen women using men’s rooms when the ladies’ rooms were full. Who is harmed?
As usual, the one who is made to suffer indignities is the one on the margins, the one seen as “other,” the one seen as “them.”
But for Jesus, there is no “other.” There is no “them.” There is only “us.” So we must be about openness, acceptance and inclusion. #trans
Who should stand with the marginalized, the mocked, the bullied, the confused, the outcast, the minority? The Christian should. #trans
Who should stand with the marginalized, the mocked, the bullied, the outcast, the confused, the hurt? Who should stand with the one seen as “different,” the one seen as “other,” the one seen as “them”? Who should stand with people who often stand alone? The Christian should. Because Jesus did.
“Döden” (“Death”) by artist Janis Rozentāls, 1897. It rare to see death depicted in white.
It’s a refreshing change to see Death in a liberator sort of role rather than a condemner. Here they are shown light with feminine features and scythe held low and non threatening. She is bent forward and speaking as if to apologize for the sadness she will leave in her wake, but also conveying the reverence and respect she has for her position and those souls she reaps.
“I pray that my soul comes to maturity before it is reaped.”
These two play such amazing roles in The Vampire Lestat and I wish there had been more insight into the two of them dealing with one another in Armand’s book. I imagine this scene as a final, hateful, farewell… Perhaps there is an ounce of sadness or even relief in the both of them.
I also included two wip stages in case you find those things interesting.
Wanted to do a painterly illustration of Armand from Vampire Chronicles. I think the scene from his mortal days where he’s whipped and then… the stuff that happens… has all these unexplored layers.
Regret, reparations, the mixing of pleasure and pain and the guilt of seeing yourself as a victim- whether you see pain in your life as fate. Anyway, I love Armand’s character and his outbursts have always been fascinating!
I’d like to imagine that this scene is a vision he’s given himself. Going back to Venice and destroying it while his backside stings from lashes and the blood chills as it trickles downwards. A sheepish curl of his hand in his hair. The expression we cannot see. The hand clenching the beloved color of his master, maker, lover, etc.
BEAUTIFUL. Beautiful in the way that it’s a very delicate subject and I feel like @superhiki captured it with such tenderness and dignity… as @gothiccharmschool put it, re: Crimson Peak: “as my definition of goth/gothic is looking for “beauty and wonder in dark or unsettling places”.” (X)and this is an example of that for me *applauds*
Trying to figure out if you’re ace or aro can be so much harder than other
sexualities because it’s like, trying to find the absence of something. Imagine
you’re at a pond and you want to know if there are any turtles, or fish. Say
you find a turtle and you’re like “great! Now I know there are turtles.” Or a
fish, now you know for sure there are fish. Or you find both, and now you know
for a fact there are both turtles and fish in the pond.
But like, if you don’t find any turtles it might be that there are no
turtles or maybe you’re just really shitty at looking for turtles and maybe you
THINK you saw a turtle over there or maybe it was just a stick. Maybe there are
only a few turtles. Maybe you need to do something special to find the turtles. Maybe a bunch of these rocks are actually turtles but you couldn’t tell them apart.
Maybe there are no turtles. You have no idea. Meanwhile some people are saying “Oh
there have to be turtles! You’ll find them eventually ;)” or “How many turtles
have you found in your pond?” or “Try planting some vegetables at the shore to
attract the turtles.” Or “Oh no! What disaster happened to your pond that there
are no turtles?” And you’re just standing there wet with an empty net and a
tired expression.
But whatever because whether there are turtles or fish or not your pond’s
ecology works just fine without them because that’s what eco-communities do
they form a system around what they have. You aren’t missing anything if you
don’t have turtles you just have a pond system without turtles. If someone
tried to change you by pouring a bunch of turtles into your pond it would
probably fuck something up.
So you don’t have to be entirely sure. You don’t have to search every inch of the damn pond before you can decide there are probably no turtles. If you want to take the aro or ace label because you think it fits go for it. And if you do find your turtles you can rename the pond. That’s fine.
Isnt it amazing how beautiful people are. Like just look at anyone and study them and their features and how their lips tort and eyes glisten and how their hair falls or sticks or lays. How their eyebrows flex and the way their arms fold, how expressive their hands are. The way their body moves and how their chest rises and falls so subtley with their pulse. People are beautiful even if we dont find them attractive. The fact that they’re a living being is unbelievably magnificent.
*hugs* Sorry this casting stuff is stressing you out, Anon. I feel ya, some of the POTP’s suggestions are really so out there I wonder how they read the same books I/we did. Some of their headcanons are also… laughable at best and downright offensive at worst, but I’m not going there.
TL;DR: I don’t think AR and CR are that easily influenced by the suggestions they ask for on FB. They’re probably trying to generate and maintain the hype so that as they make their rounds looking for a producer/showrunner/etc., they can point at the fanbase that wants it! I think they also like the attention and enthusiasm (who wouldn’t??!).
As with her writing, AR will cater a VC adaptation to her own tastes primarily, but thankfully she’s been very public about standing her ground re: making the current adaptation as faithful to canon as possible.
Anon: “I see [Lestat as] much less masculine than a lot of ppl want, I think a part of this is all the part on tumblr makes them all a lot more feminine and beautiful which I really like.”
IMO, this is more feminine: (gonna post a little bit of fanart here and if the original artists want it removed, I’ll remove it, just illustrating a point.)
^X L/L by @claquesous, kind of androgynous to me, but one could say more feminine than masculine, too.
^X L/L by @icestorming. Also what I would consider feminine.
And this is more masculine:
^X Lestat by @jodeeeart, to me, this is more heavily masculine, but there’s still some feminine elements.
Keep in mind that finding someone who looks like fanart is asking a lot; we’ll have to give the actors a chance to prove that they can ACT like the characters, and hopefully their talent will overcome whatever physical limitations some of us are bound to disagree on (I probably have the WHAT DOES LOUIS’ HAIR REALLY LOOK LIKE??!! Debate 1-2x/month, most recently w/ @wicked-felina lol).
Anon: “AR is suggesting these big hairy guys and FB and I just think.. nooo.”
I haven’t seen her suggesting “big hairy guys”… I know she liked Chris Hemsworth at one point or another, and he’s big, not really that hairy to me? But he’s bulked up as Thor right now. He seemed less built up in Ghostbusters, but you make a fair point. My headcanon of Lestat is not a huge mountain of dudebro, so to speak.
You should read @monstersinthecosmos‘s post about the VC series bc it’s got some very good points about more than the casting aspect that are worth keeping in mind. I asked permission to post a few snippets here, my emphasis added in bold:
I think the posts on FB are mostly just to get everyone excited; I’m sure they’re taking the general temperature of everyone into consideration but LIKE THE IDEA THAT MAJOR CASTING DECISIONS ARE GOING TO BE MADE FROM FACEBOOK IS JUST REALLY NAIVE AND STUPID AND IMO NOT EVEN WORTH DISCUSSING BECAUSE IT’S COMPLETELY PREPOSTEROUS.
^See, this is why I don’t go on AR’s or the OVCFB pages* that often bc it would take too much time for me to attempt to keep up with all the posts and comments, and tbh yeah, I think @monstersinthecosmos is right!
(*ppl submit links/screencaps of posts that seem to be newsworthy to me, which I really appreciate bc if it’s really something TRULY newsworthyand not just hype, I do share it here.)
BASICALLY the thing everyone needs to keep in mind is that for this to get greenlighted there has to be a viable expectation of profit.
^YES, they’re trying to generate hype and excitement in the fandom bc that’s a good thing to do when you want producers, etc., to get on board w/ your project (”Look, our audience is SCREAMING for this TV series, we have the audience READY!”) and also I think CR and AR like the attention (who wouldn’t??!).
… this has to please and appeal to like MAINSTREAM REGULAR MORTALS who haven’t read these books. It can’t only be fanservice.
^EXACTLY.
I’m kinda cautiously optimistic about all of this. I’m obviously super paranoid that it’s gonna suck and I would hate for it to be on some shit network, and I would also hate if they had to change it SO much that the core themes of the story are unrecognizable, but I’m also personally open to changes if it’s gonna make for a compelling show.
^AGREED.
Hit the jump for more, cut for length.
But to return to the casting thing briefly, there are ppl suggesting Brad and Tom currently when that is TOTALLY ridiculous, HELLO? they are both 50+ yrs old, not gonna happen but I would take them in cameo roles, or have Tom as the Marquis de Lioncourt *begging the universe*
Anon: “Also, is she really catering her audience to fb? Does she know the amount of young ppl that read vc?”
We are getting an influx of new VC fans from the recent books, and some of them are young ppl, and some of them find her FB page, so idk that you can divide those groups; (a) young ppl and (b) her POTP, bc there is probably some overlap. I personally couldn’t make a blanket statement like “All the POTP want X; and all the young ppl want Y” bc of that overlap and that there are plenty of other factors at play. Cultural and personal tastes in beauty being one of them.
Sometimes writing is like having an enormous lake in your head, and you want to get it out of your head and into a proper place for a lake so other people can come and go swimming and ride jet skis and stuff, except all you have to move the lake is a teaspoon. So you’re just sitting there frantically flinging water out of the lake with your teaspoon and telling people, “Guys, this lake is going to be so cool when it’s done,” but it will never be done. There is so much lake.
I didn’t really expect this to be relatable, but if you wanna reblog, go wild.
hey, brown eyed people: I know you aren’t the readily described. No writer can match a gem to your hues, you’re seen as boring, uninteresting. But let me tell you. your eyes are fertile earth, the ploughed fields, rich and sustaining. Your eyes are rings of ancient trees, wise and profound. your eyes are swirling chocolate comfort on a cold day, radiating warmth, so soothing. Your eyes are nature at her most beautiful. Be proud of your peepers.
Destroy the idea that goths can only like super-gothic-dark-things-hail-satan-and-misery in order to be considered ~tru~ goths.
Wear pastels. Listen to pop. Watch rom coms. Get excited about sunshine.
Your non-gothy likes don’t cancel out your gothy likes, and there is no point in not being true to yourself and suppressing the things you enjoy in order to fit a stereotype!
What’s wrong with being authentic? The goth style was an extension of certain attitudes and sensibilities. Just because you wear pale makeup and get a nose piercing that doesn’t make you goth. It’s only superficial, an artifice. Subcultures have been bastardized to the point that they no longer have meaning for people. –
This misses the point entirely. This post was aimed at people who get bullied or discouraged by elitist attitudes of not fitting into the stereotypical goth box. There is nothing “authentic” about bullying people because they have traditionally un-gothy likes and choices in fashion, especially since the subculture is in the end built on music, not clothes. Additionally, nowhere in the post has it been implied that people who do not wear pastels, do not listen to pop, don’t not enjoy rom coms or don’t like sunshine shouldn’t to be that way. There is nothing wrong with looking like the stereotype, reading Dracula by candle light while drinking absinthe and listening to Bauhaus with a black cat on your lap (or whatever it is that people think “authentic” goths do). If that’s your thing, go or it. But there is no reason to discourage people who want to be a part of the subculture by reinforcing the idea that one has to be all-dark-and-miserable to be goth and all other, “happy” likes need to suppressed in order to fit in. (I’m pretty sure lots of the original goths enjoyed pop, rom coms, summer, and colours as well.)
Goth might have derived from punk but it quickly became its own branch with no religious or political affiliations. The attitudes that carried over were basically gender (or the lack of thereof) expression, sexuality in fashion, and yes, colours, to name a few. Looking at pictures of goths in the 1980s, it is easy to see that there are tons of colour and colourful prints being used, it’s not just black leather, velvet and lace. Even a lot of tradgoth looks (that are supposed to be closest to the original looks) nowadays don’t perfectly match with the 80s look because styles evolve and people have their own takes on them. And yes, pale make-up and a piercing doesn’t make one goth, just like wearing pastels doesn’t make you ungoth. Robert Smith is a goth icon but wears big jumpers and colourful prints. Andrew Eldritch is a goth icon but completely dismisses the affiliation with the subculture even though he checks everything on the stereotypical goth list. Siouxsie Sioux is a goth icon who wears fishnets with leather but also baggy, colourful print t-shirts. The list could go on. What is “authentic” varies hugely even during the subculture’s first years. While fashion is the most noticeable part of goth, it is but one fraction of the entirety.
The subculture has no meaning for people who only see that one side of it, but for us who listen to the music, read the literature, enjoy the aesthetic, and just in general find beauty in the “dark”, it is very meaningful and provides us with a community.
Some goths have no money, some goths have no time, some goths have no energy, some goths have no opportunity, and some goths have no desire to have a “goth look” and they should all feel accepted in the subculture despite that.
Fashions change, subcultures branch out to microcultures, and so on. That is evolving and creating new things from the old, not bastardization. (One could argue about the use of the stereotypically gothic look as inspiration in mainstream fashion or the increased amount of gothic clothing labels cheapening the meaning of self expression and killing the DIY culture in the subculture, but that’s a whole different topic with loads of pros and cons.) No fashion is so holy it should stay untouched and be kept from evolving with time (how boring would that be) and the old styles are still alive and well, they have just gotten company from the new styles. If the subculture has been bastardized by anything, it’s people who think everyone in it need to act and look like an “authentic goth” 24/7/365 and go around giving grief to those who don’t meet their standards. That’s what this post was about. Not what is authentic and what isn’t, or what is the right or wrong way to be goth but the fact that as many goths as there are, there are that many ways to “do” goth and it is okay to like ungothy things because your non-gothy likes don’t cancel out your gothy likes, and there is no point in not being true to yourself and suppressing the things you enjoy in order to fit a stereotype!
Also, paging @gothiccharmschool in case an Eldergoth wants to give her two cents.
Sooooo I’m super-tired and perhaps a tiny bit incoherent right now (words? how do they work?!), but I absolutely had to chime in on this.
@spookyloop is absolutely correct. It is okay to like ungothy things. Liking ungothy things does not cancel out the gothy things you like. Goth Points aren’t real, neither is a Goth Card, and there is no Elder Goth Cabal waiting to pass judgment on people.
Back In The Day [TM], the Goth Style [TM] was still not a uniform look! There were goths wearing colors! Or no makeup! Or sporting their natural hair color! Frolicking at the beach and in parks! Gleefully discussing whatever caught their interests, and smiling while they did so! But because there aren’t as many photos of those things floating around Teh Interwebs, not everyone is aware of that.
Anyone who claims that someone needs to be 100% Goth 24/7 is wrong. No one, not even Dave Vanian and Patricia Morrison, could manage to be 100% Goth at every moment.
Goth contains multitudes. What one person considers beautiful or worthy of celebrating may be another person’s squick. AND THAT’S FINE.
(Speaking of “may be another person’s squick” – if you are NOT a fan of extreme gore, crime scene photos, or images of violent, bloody trauma, do NOT visit the tumblr of joecrossjr87. Trust me on this. That’s his thing, and that’s fine. But there are other folks who choose not to view such images, and I want them to be properly warned.)
Am I seeing legit Goth Culture discourse on my dash? Like, are there PERG’s out there?? (Pastel Exclusionary/Exterminatory Radical Goths??)
on one hand I’m like “why” and on the other hand I’m like “a lot of Goth Rules™ associated with the established culture as it is today can and are often twisted into gross racist/transphobic/ableist/whathaveyou nonsense that really hurts people”
so my verdict on this post? oh thank fuck someone is talking about this at length
I mean I’m sure like every subculture has nasty tendencies toward those it can’t be denied, it just seemed so surreal to read a post that was specifically about how the purity of people’s goth identity is policed. Like, are there intolerant ass radgoths out there making posts like “we cannot deny that pastel Goths have prep socialization…” ?
Sadly yes. During my time in the subculture (13 years or so now) I have personally been given a lot of grief about the fact that I openly like pop and my hair is plain and brown. I was literally not accepted in the group because my hair wasn’t black and I jam to Michael Jackson. I still some times get anon hate for it, as well as my glasses which is just odd. (I’m blind as a bat, surely that adds to my Goth Points [TM].)
When I started being on Tumblr I started noticing this on a bigger scale: babybats getting hate for their wardrobes not being full of label clothes, people not having great make-up skills, people not being white (goth is for everyone, people, you don’t have to be pale), people wearing colours other than black… There even used to be a blog called something like “This is not Goth” dedicated to reblogging people’s selfies if they didn’t meet the admin’s ~goth standards~. And when the pastelgoth look was trendy, people were attacking both the trend-following people and goths who preferred to wear pastels calling them names and automatically shunning them out.
Even if the posts outright attacking people aren’t as prominent anymore, these attitudes can be seen in a way a lot of alternative people talk about themselves. I see it most often in tags with people saying things like “I wish I could dye my hair/get a piercing/wear these clothes so I could call myself goth” or “I really like goth music and the aesthetic but I’m too happy to be goth”.
Long story short: I’ve come across those negative attitudes so often during my years in the subculture that I feel like it’s important to remind people (especially babybats) every now and then that being a goth does not mean having to reduce your personality to a one-dimensional stereotypical character.
As the Resident Eldergoth around here, let me tell you: while there has always been a nasty thread of gatekeeping and elitism in the subculture, it became more … noticeable? Loud? With the rise of social media. Because then the elitist gatekeeping types were able to point at other people’s pictures and try to enforce their arbitrary, exclusionary views.
Even if the posts outright attacking people aren’t as prominent anymore, these attitudes can be seen in a way a lot of alternative people talk about themselves. I see it most often in tags with people saying things like “I wish I could dye my hair/get a piercing/wear these clothes so I could call myself goth” or “I really like goth music and the aesthetic but I’m too happy to be goth”.
The majority of letters that I get, either at the Gothic Charm School site or any of my social media accounts, are ALL variations of this. People who are interested in goth, but feel that since they can’t tick off all of the bat-shaped boxes, they’re not goth enough and shouldn’t even try. Which is so, so far from the truth that it hurts.
Again: There are no Goth Points. There is no Goth Card to be stamped. There is no Elder Goth Cabal waiting to judge you on your gothness. If someone dares utter the phrase “A real goth” at you, laugh at them. Goth is especially for the misfits, the outcasts, the people who don’t fit in.
I-want-my-IWTV 