#i also had to remake them both twice

[honeyspawn]

I won't be at starkid innit (sadly), but I wanted to make friendship bracelets, cuz it looked so fun. Here's some LiB themed ones.

[risunsky]

2023 review

So, was it a good year ?

I think so, I've enjoyed challenging myself, I've tried Beksinski for a second time, Klimt twice, I've done a crossover hellraiser which I'm quite happy with… I made cement for the first time and it was great!

At the 2022 review I said I wanted to do more horror, so I went for gore with all my emaciated skeletons and I'm very happy with that.

September is my favorite of all.

Outside of my fanart world, my biggest freelance achievement has been completing a big comic commission on time and now that the book is out and I've had good feedback from both commissioners and readers I'm relieved and quite proud. It's been a stressful time so it's nice to see that it hasn't all been for nothing. So, even though I'll never stop considering myself as a learner and experimenting with new things, I think that this year I've finally managed to settle on a style, or a range of styles, that I like and that I think I'll stick with for a long time. I've been drawing for a very long time but this is the first year I've felt so strongly that I've found MY style. As for my universe, it seems that somewhere in the horror area of dark fantasy it is my home.

What's planned for 2024?

In terms of priorities, the gift commissions, yeah.... I'm soooo late. I've finished one, but two are still on hold, and have been for at least a year now. I'm terribly sorry about that, because I haven't been overwhelmed like that for a long time, and I intend to sort it out as soon as possible.

It should also be the year I finish the Goya remake. Ideally, I'd like to finish in February because that's my birthday month, or March because that's the anniversary of my discovery of Ghost.

For the rest, don't take it as a promise, because I tend to let myself be carried along by my desires and they are constantly changing. For example, I was planning great things with Nunussy but the poor thing was left on the side of the road. My interest in it just died. it seems that shipping characters and writing an alternative universe for them is not my thing. I have at least 3 shorts comics ideas, more or less ghost related but always mixed with something else. I really really want to work on it but it's a lot of work and this year I need money, like more than usual so I don't know... I also want to do Bloodborne fanart.

The fails

I haven't kept to my plan to draw the other characters in the Ghost lore, oopsy. I still haven't had the time to open any commissions, but last year was really special, working on a big contract that kept me busy for months and that was something new, it was stressful enough. 2024 should be different. I had to show a bit more of my traditional technique, let's say I do it with the Goya project, it's a semi-failure.

Not really a failure: I still haven't come up with a design for an official t-shirt. I think that's because I'm more of an illustrator than a designer and for a good design I need to find a special thing. It's not a big deal for me, just, if it happens it's cool, if not, well, not the end of the world.

To finish

I'd like to thank all those who follow me and who like and share my drawings, including those who remain silent in the shadows - I'm myself a lurker so I understand! Of course, a huge thank you to those who have supported me on ko-fi, it's the first time I've tried this system and I'm happy to have had some support pretty quickly!

my apologies if there are any English mistakes in this text, which is still too long

Have a great festive season!

[lipglossanon]

i didn’t wanna send another i was gonna wait to fully flesh out this idea but i’m outweighing my anxiety and saying asks are asks and it’s doesn’t change the number no matter when i send them like,,,,, it’s still six 🫣 asks i just don’t wanna spam,,,,,, i feel bad 🫠 also sorry for any typos in all of my asks lol…. ahem anyway i reduced my thoughts into longer asks so i didn’t send you so many but dbf!leon has me thinking of some unholy shit like let’s say reader comes home from school one day and her dads friend is there and she’s all shy and basically runs to her room and her dad laughs it off but leon’s like side eyeing the situation and he’s over so much that you tune out the noise of him and your dad hanging out so when your parents go in a date and they have leon “babysit” you, you don’t even pay attention thinking they’re all gone and you’re home alone so you’re in the kitchen in a crop top and booty shorts with thigh high socks and you make eye contact with him and it’s all fucking over from there. the slight touches, picking you up like in his car but also accidental ass pussy grabs when you’re playing 🥴, or tripping you so you fall and your skirt flips up, slowly discovering what makes you wet when your guys rough house like 😩 and finally your parents are letting him watch you when they’re gone for the weekend and you had been wearing less and less clothes around him and he finally can’t help himself anymore when you’re in those socks again with a tank top and thong in the kitchen 🤭

- 💀

(or he’s a perv and slipped into your room once or twice while you’re changing and makes advances when you’re in the kitchen in the middle of the night in thigh highs and an oversized shirt with no bra, makes you watch scary movies with him so you’re practically on his lap, your parents leaving for the weekend and he’s supposed to babysit house sit and you’re masturbating in your room and he’s outside your closed door jacking off and he hears you unlock the door and lets himself in after putting his dick back in his pants and acts like he doesn’t know why you’re all flustered and red faced but doesn’t care either when he asks why there’s a hairbrush on the floor (we’ve all been there 🤭) and goes to pick it up for you and it’s sticky and he’s sooooooo accusatory and you’re trying to pretend it’s not hot but you cave and tell him so he pins you to the bed and fucks you with hairbrush handle until your crying and begging then he forces himself on you while you try to pretend you’re not into it but he knows better than that and i need to stop rambling lol but ugh DILF leon lives rent free in my head right inbetween RE4 remake leon and las plagas leon which like 👀👀 don’t even get me started on my horny daydreams of getting tentacle fucked by plagas leon like him choking you with his tail while there’s at least two tentacles in your mouth, one sucking on your clit, one in your pussy with his dick and maybe one in your ass like overstimulation station all the way)

You’re totally fine! Send as many as you like, I’ll get to them when I do 🤭

AHDKVL I love both!!! 😩 I like you both just falling into temptation but I also like him just being a straight up perv 😩

And plagas Leon is so good!! Monster fucking is so underrated.

[palesweetscherryblossom]

The double standards in the MHA fandom when it comes to villains is insane. So, it’s not okay to like or simp over Overhaul cause he abused a child (which is true and he deserves to be punished) but it’s okay to like the LOV even though they did far worse?

Shigaraki attacked USJ, planned on killing Tsu (AKA A CHILD) Kidnapped Bakugou and planned on brainwashing him, Dabi straight up attacked and burned Deku, Todoroki and Shoji. Toga attacked Ochako and Tsu with full intent on stealing their blood, she also killed her crush. Magne was also about to kill Deku if it wasn’t for Spinner and then there’s the entire WAR!

Look, if you like the MHA villains then that’s okay! I love the villains too but don’t attack other people for liking Overhaul and then turn around and woobify the LOV. In short, both of them are evil assholes.

Also, gotta love the people thinking that the canon LOV would treat Eri well, even though they had full intentions on remaking the bullets. Toga and Twice planned on nabbing her while they worked for Kai.

Also, I’m not talking about AUs that diverge from canon. AUs are entirely different.

@theloganator101

@theuntamedangel

[princess-of-the-corner]

MHA the Entrance Exam Assassin.

Just something I thought of:

The villain points and the rescue points are the same, but there is one more gimmick added to it worth 100 points; The Assassin.

The assassin is a pro hero, either a teacher or a pro hero from an agency connected to UA, with a screen attached to the inside of their forearm that displays the five applicants with the highest villain point counts. They enter the zone 1 minute after the exam begins

The assassin’s role is to harass, annoy and generally get in the way of whichever student has the highest amount of villain points in their zone. The assassin is only allowed to restrain applicants if they directly attack them, but they can be restrained for however long they want so long as it doesn’t get in the way of harassing their target. The assassin can also restrain their target if they have a lead of over 25 villain points more than the second place, the assassin can restrain them for a minute in or until they are overtaken and only   twice in the whole exam.

The assassin has a large, bright pink disc velcroed to their chest. If that disc is taken from them, they are out of the exam.

After the exam, if the assassin is taken down, the 100 assassin points will be spread out among all the students who attacked them, with more or less being given to people depending on how well they did. If they got in the way or used excessive force, they can be penalised up to 25 points.

Probably the biggest problem with this mechanic is how complex it is. The other two are literally “attack this robot, points depend on type” and “we’ll decide as it goes”. This one instead has a number of rules and regulations both for the examinees and the examiners. The examiners need to take into account who attacked the assassin and how, and decide how to grade them as a group. The examinees have to remember all the rules and think about wether they should team up or not.

My favourite part of it is the risk/reward decisions that examinees have to make. Do they attack, knowing they could be restrained for the whole 9 minutes? How much force can they use without being penalised? Are they confident in their ability to take down a human being instead of however many robots? It also makes getting all the points kinda risky, since it’s possible to get sabotaged too heavily if they’re not careful.

On the other hand, it’s 100 points. The highest score in the canon entrance exam was 77 and the 10th highest was 56. Even divided into 4 people, if you and your team successfully work together to take the assassin down and get the average amount of points on top of it, you basically have a place guaranteed. It’s a really good bonus if you can pull it off.

It also brings up how canon characters react to the challenge: I think most of the canon hero course would ignore them when possible, but Bakugo would probably try to fight them immediately and get severely sabotaged, Shinzo might successfully get into the hero course if he can find them. Ida would probably get harassed (he had 52 villain points in canon), but I’m not sure how he would react. There might be more exceptions.

-

Honestly I think this would work best a hidden challenge like the rescue points. Someone posing as a student to mess with the others and see how they react to a supposed hero/ally sabotaging the competition. Do they sabotage back? Do they call them out? Do they ignore it assuming the teachers will deal with it?

Like. In /general/ I think the Entrance Exam needs a complete remaking to actually give various Quirks a fair ability because, as shown /in canon/, not all Heroes are direct combatants. Yes, all of them have to be capable of direct combat either with their Quirk or support items or hand-to-hand. But you have Heroes who focus on rescue or undercover work. And even the Sports Festival being a second chance still only works for Quirks that work best in Combat.

[kadavernagh]

Myself I must remake || Siobhan & Regan

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Ireland PARTIES: Regan & Siobhan SUMMARY: Regan and Siobhan arrive in Saol Eile. CONTENT: Domestic abuse allusions

The sooner proof of Regan’s presence was displayed to that toothless hag, the sooner they could part ways. Siobhan could spend her time trying to remember, and Regan could spend hers trying to forget.

Green on green on green on jade blurred through the windows as the Irish moors opened up in front of them. Many humans found them beautiful, enchanting – it was that combination of the low hanging mist and the limitless greenery that made it feel like another world, one that so many poets and artists had their glimpses into over the centuries. There was nothing so poetic about it when you looked beyond the surface. Regan’s stomach pitched up and sank back down with each hill and valley, and twice they needed to stop to let a parade of painted sheep cross the road. The windows were rolled down, of course, and the air was crisp and clean, tinged with the scent of earth and wildflowers. 

For two banshees, they were disgustingly quiet. She had barely said a word since she set foot on the plane and even less when off. Regan huffed. Siobhan told her to get over it. Regan huffed. Regan slung a barb about how Siobhan’s ancient spine must be sore from all that time cramped in Economy. Siobhan called her a microscopic fetus birthed by an ant. The hours blurred and did not matter beyond the amount of remaining gas in the tank. She didn’t know what time it was here, or back h– in Wicked’s Rest.

There was also a remarkable degree of emotion, for two banshees, though they both had the strength necessary to deny it. Siobhan’s grip on the wheel was as tight as a cadaveric spasm, like she’d died clutching it. Her face looked tighter, older. How long had it been since she had seen these hills? Forty one years? Or was it forty two now? Longer than Regan had been alive, though it was a speck in the grand scheme of their lifespan. She didn’t understand the desperation. Siobhan’s training had been a success. What did she have to gain by coming here? It was a question that had swirled around her thoughts for weeks now. When she had asked before, Siobhan supplied that it was home. It was that simple. But she did not look like a woman returning home.

They were close now, Regan could sense it; her skin was ready to fly from her body. Soon they’d pull over and one of them would belt out a scream, and Saol Eile would carve itself from the fog, swallowing both of them up. “Here?” Regan asked her. She wasn’t loud, but her voice sliced through the eerie stillness. “I recognize that cliffside, and those boulders. There are lilies in the valley over there, the lake just next to it, and I found a family of badgers over that way.” It was not nostalgia she was basking in. Her voice was completely flat.  

No need to stop and scream, apparently. Another banshee offered up her scream. Regan had grown used to her own scream, and even Siobhan’s lungs shaking the town. They were familiar. This scream, from some unknown banshee, was not. For all Regan knew, it could have been someone she’d heard a hundred times before, easily forgotten by her ears, but the very fact a third banshee came screaming into her world again, after her growing so used to there being only two, made her knees tremble (not even worthy of my patellae collection, her grandmother would have said of them). She shared a look of uncertainty with Siobhan. Did she feel the same? She had been in exile. Other banshees would have kept their distance from her for decades, no screams reaching her ears. 

And… there it was. Regan’s senses adjusted to the surreal place that shimmered into focus. Saol Eile was charming at first glance, with haphazardly-laid streets not meant for vehicles and dotted with modest white cottages. The longer Regan stared ahead, the longer she felt a million tiny bugs biting her skin – a gift from fae presence. A single sniff filled her lungs with decomposition – there was always something, or many somethings, being appreciated as they decayed around town. An occasional banshee marched proudly by, mostly minding her own business, wings stiff and eyes dark. She did not compare, could not even fake half their pride. Regan looked away in the shame that would need to be burned out of her. 

Her legs wobbled as she climbed out of the car. That thing was not going to be returned to the rental place, was it? The tank was practically empty. It would rot here; nature would take it. Soal Eile would take it, as it did everything. She felt pretty empty, too. And her stomach grumbled. Yes, that must have been it. But the thought of whatever soup her grandmother would inevitably prepare killed her appetite. The slam of the car door rang through her skull like a gunshot in a way that scream had not. Finality. Regan paced to the trunk, ready to pop it open, but the moment she turned around, a shadow moved overhead and snatched her attention away.

A magpie stretched its glossy blue-black and white wings in the air above, cawed, and then promptly plummeted headfirst into the ground by Siobhan’s feet. It bounced a little but still came to rest closer to the other banshee. Regan’s grandmother would have called that a sign of good tidings for Siobhan, saying that one was in Fate’s graces (which was, of course, entirely different from the manmade concept of luck). “I suppose that’s yours,” Regan said bitterly. She would respect where the bird fell, and being here was supposed to strike her covetous nature from her. A banshee should be proud, should stake a claim to what is theirs, but never be jealous. 

She was quiet for a long moment, and abandoned the trunk. Someone would help with that later. Regan wasn’t sure she had anything left to give, right now – no effort, no thoughts, no words. No emotion. She had already been reamed open and drained, she was exhausted from a full day of travel, grieving from being ripped away from Jade, and this place was so full of ghosts that her mind didn’t know how to process their onslaught. So it became cement instead. She became stone. And wasn’t that just what needed to happen?

Regan did manage one small flourish, first, before sealing up. “I hate you.” Again. Like a child. Like Siobhan had dragged her here after all. Like she was allowed to hate. Regan looked away, figuring it was one of the last times she might ever express such a sentiment. At least she got that one in. “So who determined the conditions of your exile? I suppose that’s where we’re headed first, yes?”

------

It’d been forty-two years, in addition to the hours, minutes and seconds. It was her greatest regret that she didn’t know the exact time that she’d been cast out as a bloody mess upon the moors. She remembered that the sky was bright, she remembered the birds above, and she would never forget the green ocean. The true water was far from them—crashing with desperation against the jagged stones of a cliff; Siobhan always thought the ocean was a hungry creature, eating the rocks away—but the green ocean was the moors. When the wind caught the bushes, the branches, the long soft blades of wild grass, it sounded like the lap of water against a shore. What she remembered of Ireland, of Saol Eile—her home—were these moors: the green, the mist, the sour note of salty oceans far away. 

There was poetry here. There was meter, verse, hymn, language that failed and succeeded, there were Siobhan’s own childish words scrawled in the margins of other authors that slipped through Saol Eile’s cracks: she wrote beside Jonathan Swift, in tandem with W.B Yeats, in understanding with Oscar Wilde. There was Iambic pentameter built by the beat of wind; consonance, couplet; pyrrhic flow; Spenserian stanza. There was metaphor and allegory. Here, in these lands, in their home, there was poetry—what sort of person would sit in denial of it? Siobhan closed her eyes, letting the green ocean wash over her, knowing she was in the place she understood better than anything else. Against the world’s motion, Fate breathed in Death—yes, every banshee knew this—but it lived in nature. In the moors. In Ireland.

She didn’t speak, the world spoke for her. She thought she might be eased by her home, but her body tightened like shriveled fruit. When Regan spoke, she responded in the ways that fell most naturally to her. Whatever she said, she didn’t remember. She was home. She was home. She was home. They, though she hated to see Regan as anything more than the annoyance she was, were home. It’d been forty-two years, in addition to the hours and minutes and seconds, and Siobhan had missed it for every moment that passed. Yet, the home hadn’t missed her. The scream that welcomed them back was one she didn’t recognize; it might have been a young banshee, grown in the years apart, it might have been one that aged her scream, it might have been one she didn’t know at all but in that spark of time, she felt herself to be an outsider. 

She stepped out of the car (which would undoubtedly not be returned) and a magpie plummeted to her feet, assuring her that she was no outsider at all—it was fate reminding her who she was. As a little girl, when she’d gone into Dublin with her mother, she was awed by the common magpies hopping about without a care for the humans that stomped around them. They were common creatures, adapted to the environments that had sprouted around them, but Siobhan wasn’t any less fond of them. Once, a stray cat had captured a young magpie, and for the entirety of the day she had listened to their calls of mourning—violent, screeching cawing. Some banshees might have claimed the crow was more like them, or the raven, or a vulture, the barn owl, the vicious shrike, or the Irish Chough, but to Siobhan it was always the magpie. “Only children would seek to lay claim to Death.” She scooped the dead bird in her hands; it looked so small, so much like it was merely asleep. She cradled it like it was.

She was Siobhan Dolan, of the Ó Dúbhláin’s that had been living in this area for years upon years. She had memorized their lineage, she could map the route of their ancestors; this was home. If anyone was an outsider it was the child. The— “Regan,” she said, “there is no one currently alive in these lands, or any other, who hates you more than me.” She was home. Then, she winced. “That would be my mother.” She wasn’t excited to see her, in forty-two years, it hadn’t felt like they were apart for a moment. In the mirror, it was her face more than her own she saw. In her head, it was her words more than her own she thought. No, her hair wasn’t straight enough for her mother. Her clothes weren’t proper enough. She wasn’t ready. “What about your grandmother? Wasn’t it on her request that we came here? Maybe..,” Siobhan’s eyes grew wide and she leaned across the space between them with the grin. “The judge! You mean the judge—yes, we can…” She swallowed, hoping she didn’t appear as happy as felt by her small, substantial loop-hole to Regan’s question. “We can see her. She’s over by the worm statue. If the worm statue is still here, that is.”

------

“Mutual, then.” Regan muttered, bitterness barely hidden. Could she appreciate, even the most miniscule amount, that Siobhan had lowered herself to expressing the same sentiment? So either it had not been childish, or Siobhan was no better. Selfishly, she liked the thought. But what would that mean for banshees who spent too long away from here? Were all of them destined to atrophy, to have their hardened skin crack open with the years as their soft innards poured out? Regan had been taught to be hollow instead, but she had failed at it. For the first time, Regan wondered how similar – if at all – Siobhan had been to her when she was new at this. Did she struggle to carve herself out from her body? Was there anyone there to begin with, or was all of what Regan was a byproduct of her wasted years? And if a banshee who never started with such a humanity inside of them still struggled while not here, what did that mean for her? It meant… she had made the right, the only, decision to come back.

Siobhan breathed in her home with each inhalation, the years that piled on during the ride here seemingly lifting away, and Regan didn’t dare interrupt. Siobhan was always so poised, so glamorous in the most paper thin of ways like a maggot-chewed epidermis, but this place had changed her. The look on Siobhan’s face, one of peace, was universal, and there was true beauty to be found here, she’d admit, even if it was not among the residents. She would allow Siobhan to have it, all of it. 

In fact, she would have liked to leave Siobhan to it as quickly as possible. “My grandmother after this,” Regan reminded her. So perhaps there was a reason not to rush, though she preferred to get the necessary over with. The bubble in her throat, swollen from thinking of her grandmother, was almost too large to swallow. “But you need me present for a few minutes longer. Remember that. You need me.” Regan turned her nose up. She could still relish that a little bit, and it wasn’t like Siobhan was free of all flaws (how many hid under her glamour?). 

Every step they took closer to the center of the Saol Eile brought a new wave of pinpricks all over Regan’s flesh. It had been a year since she had been around this many fae, and it practically burned. To Siobhan, it was probably the equivalent of an embrace after so long. Surely other things were new for her, too. What else had been made or unmade in her time away? Regan decided to just ask. “What looks or feels different to you? Can you tell, or has time made your memory fuzzy, cailleach?” She was truly curious. Nothing had appeared changed in the year Regan had left, but Siobhan was absent for decades, and as slow as the community was to adopt anything new, few things erected here would outlive a banshee. Buildings crumbled, fences were constructed and constantly shifted around to claim dead things on one’s property, a few newly awakened banshees flit about; there was change only the most familiar noticed. “I think the only significant thing that changed in my absence was me.” As easy as it would be to point fingers at the people she had opened her heart to, she knew it had been born only of her failure. “My grandmother would not have been moved by my leaving. She will be exactly the same. I can picture how she might have informed others I had left. ‘We need to put that band-aid dispenser back in the clinic, my granddaughter is an ungrateful fool’.” There was bite in the comment that she tried to swallow back, but she could feel it hover in the air, mingling with the decomposition, even making the stench temporarily unappealing. 

The house by the worm statue was no mystery, though, and Regan started off in that direction. The statue was as unchanging as Cliodhna, precisely how she’d left it. Regan had walked by it daily on the way to the clinic, and, unfortunately, she knew the resident well: Putrecia. “They would never take down the statue for Worm Remembrance Day. That should be coming up soon, if I’m recalling my months correctly.” It didn’t matter. The days always blurred here, each running into the next. 

The statue in question depicted the well-known worm, Talamh-Ithe, who single-non-handedly protected the honor of the whole community. Against what? That part was unclear to Regan. Siobhan probably knew. “But… I do know who lives there. She is an acquaintance of my grandmother. So was it Putrecia who decided your exile, then? What exactly were the terms? You did not tell me very much.” That put a couple of malformed puzzle pieces together though – how Regan had ended up on this list of tasks for Siobhan. An item to check off. An object to reclaim. Or maybe the other banshees just began growing concerned about her blabbing all of their secrets to the humans, the untrained cur she was. 

The doorbell sounded like the caw of a hooded crow, which had to be confusing. Regan hung back. She had learned in her interactions with grieving next of kin when it was best to stay silent and watch something play out, when she had no business interfering. She only needed it to play out quickly. The sooner proof of Regan’s presence was displayed to that toothless hag, the sooner they could part ways. Siobhan could spend her time trying to remember, and Regan could spend hers trying to forget.

------

On a good day, Regan was a bloated fly, slowly filling Siobhan’s ears with her heavy, annoying buzz she mistook for conversation. On a bad day, she was bile; a constant burning hole in her stomach—an ulcer. But in Saol Eile, there was nothing Regan could do or say that tarnished the coat of serenity that Siobhan now wore. She was home; the thought wrapped around her. She was home; the truth bundled her together. She was home; there was the uneven ground, the blue sky, and the twisting pathways emblematic of the fact that no banshee was ever formally trained in urban planning and everyone wanted a good view of Farraige na Buanachta—the world’s best tar pit. Despite Regan’s gift of annoyance, Siobhan moved with the poise of a returning lioness to her den. 

Regan’s voice rang out somewhere far beyond her, despite the other banshee being right at her side. She was small, insignificant. When she said she was needed, Siobhan smiled at her the way she might at a fledgling chirping from its nest. “Time breeds many differences; new signs of erosion, new blades of grass between the cobbles. You’re so young, you can’t understand what it means to exist above the quick cycles of life. Eventually, you learn to see beyond the minutia. It’s the heart of the place that remains the same and this place is the same.” She buzzed with the presence of the other banshees, who were absorbed in their own tasks for the time being, but every new corner turned it seemed one would stare. Siobhan nodded at them, straightening herself out. She’d opted for long sleeves, unsure if it was more embarrassing to glamour her scars away or less than walking around carrying her symbols of banishment. In the end, it was easier to have her clothing create a middle ground. It was all form-fitting, of course; there were some aspects of her beauty that remained undeniable. She welcomed the staring. Regan buzzed beside her again, something about her grandmother and something about the Bandaid dispenser. 

Their stalwart doctor—the dispenser—had been new when Siobhan was a child, replacing the old ‘doctor’ that was the pile of scrap fabrics. Medical care in Saol Eile had always been a lot of shrugging and faith that maybe there wouldn’t be an infection this time. The mothers took care of it, mostly, and one was lucky if their mother learned the right things from her own mother. “What does the dispenser have to do with you?” she asked, and by the time the last syllable slipped from her tongue, she regretted it. Siobhan stopped walking, having fallen behind Regan by several paces, watching her back. When another banshee turned to stare, it was obvious who she was really looking at. In forty-two years, who would really remember another dutiful banshee in their community of dutiful banshees? In one year, who could ever forget Regan? Siobhan continued walking, keeping her pace behind Regan, watching the banshees of Saol Eile turn and whisper and point—not at her; it had never been about her. “You were the doctor,” she mumbled, “you replaced the dispenser.” Which was less effective than the pile of fabric, if she was being honest. 

The Dolans were a family like many others in Saol Eile; proud, orthodox, and with an old lineage that mattered only to them. They kept farm animals, and lived on the outskirts of town to keep them out of the general range of screams that burst from the town proper. It was Dolan dairy that went into cream of bone soup, but anyone could make cream and dairy cows littered rural parts of the human world. How many banshees spent time in medical school? How many of the women staring at Regan now were actually useful to this community? Pieces drifted into Siobhan’s mind like the ash of a pyre: their desperation for Regan wasn’t fondness for a lost daughter. She could see every new crack now; every misplaced addition to someone’s home, every fresh face she didn’t recognize, every new fence, everything that had moved on without her. Even the worm statue was different—much skinnier than its once girthy glory. 

“Putrecia did in a sense, yes.” Siobhan spoke through gritted teeth, crushing the dead magpie into her chest. “My terms were simple: I was to regain honor. To do—” She swallowed as the door creaked open by the width of a dead squirrel. “To do what I was told,” she answered quickly before Putrecia’s cloudy eyes emerged from the dark. One thing, at least, had not changed: the old judge was as miserable as ever. She said nothing as she stuck a finger out of the door, gesturing at Siobhan’s dead magpie. Siobhan said nothing either as she handed it over. Putrecia’s wrinkled hand snatched the bird and snapped back to her tiny body. In the shadows, Putrecia’s toothless grin was a void of black. The door slammed shut again.

“Putrecia has never liked me,” she said, tapping her foot impatiently against the ground. It was fair to say that Putrecia had never really liked anyone. Siobhan believed the job of judge had fallen to her expressly for that reason: she hated every banshee with an almost admirable equality. “And nothing is ever worth her time unless it comes with a bribe,” Siobhan explained, wondering if her history with Putrecia created any kind of superiority in this situation. She certainly didn’t feel superior and now she was in loss of one dead magpie. The door swung open again on its rusted hinges, revealing the inside of Putrecia’s crowded hut. Siobhan stepped inside, ducking her head under the hanging skins of dried stoats; she gestured for Regan to follow behind her. 

Putrecia was hunched over a small table, slowly scratching an ink-stained feather across an old sheet of parchment. She stopped when Regan entered, meeting her gaze with her misty eyes. “Good, good,” Putrecia mumbled in Irish, licking her empty gums. She finished on one sheet of parchment, folding it up. Siobhan’s patience wore thin as she watched the old woman lift a wax crusted spoon above her candle. “This is Regan,” Siobhan said, stumbling as she adjusted into Irish. “I brought her back, like the letter said.” She hadn’t expected Putrecia to be excited to see her, but she had hoped for some manner of welcome. “This is Regan Kavanagh,” she repeated, hoping that would help.

Putrecia poured melted wax over the folded letter, stamping her seal into place. “This is Regan?” Siobhan tried again. “Regan? Like the letter said?” 

Putrecia paused, lifting her head up. She squinted at Siobhan. “I don’t remember sending you a letter, Sadhbh,” Putrecia said. 

Siobhan bristled. “No.” She stiffened. “I’m Siobhan.” This was one of Putrecia’s weird amusements; the story went that she lost all her teeth trying to bite a bone. She’d always been a little strange, everyone always said so. Putrecia hobbled towards them and Siobhan held out her hand, expecting a shake. Putrecia lifted hers and pressed it to Regan’s cheek. 

“Good girl,” she said to her, patting her face. “Go on now, go back home. Tell your grandmother she’s a lucky old crone to have such a darling granddaughter like you. Now we can throw the damn dispenser out again.” 

All Siobhan could do was stand there.

------

Putrecia’s abode held no surprises. Sheets of parchment and rows of quill ink pens, dead weasel skins, paintings of wings in a rainbow of colors and shapes on the walls, and the fetid stench of something stewing in the kitchen while the banshee was hard at work jotting something that seemed to her of grave importance. Regan peered down at what Putrecia had been scrawling as she carefully navigated the clutter and squeezed by the old writing desk. It was in Gaeilge, but her handwriting was poor and difficult to read (and people said doctors were bad). Something about cleaning. Hopefully it was a to-do list; this place was worse than most crime scenes. Putrecia strung the magpie up next to the weasels with a surprising amount of tenderness, and then turned her old eyes over to the two of them, the visitors. She hardly seemed concerned with Siobhan. Regan, though, she held her hazy eyes over, recognition spinning through them. 

Regan stood there through the introduction – the repeated introductions – feeling like a stilt-legged fawn, staring, tethered to a strange place, waiting for the hands to be laid on her flank and for the scream to come turn her to spray.

Regan knew she was not supposed to want. She had come here to fix that, to pull the want out of herself (let Jade have all that she possessed, let it stay in Maine). But right now, she was still a failure, and her foolish, childish stomach curdled at the hag’s gaze, and her useless muscles pinned her. If Putrecia saw her human stains, how deeply fixed they were within the fabric of her being, she made no show of it. If anything, it was Siobhan she was questioning. Siobhan said the old woman didn’t like her, but Regan wasn’t even sure she knew her.

“Siobhan is right.” Ick. Saying those words was more foul than the soppiest of feelings. “She, um, brought me here… with great difficulty, if that counts for anything. She flew Economy.” The Irish felt strange only because it was directed towards another banshee (rather than a pet name for someone who didn’t know Irish, and wouldn’t recognize it), but she was quick to slip back in. For Siobhan it had been much longer. “From the US… she was tasked to bring me, yes? Right? There was a list? I was on it. Please confirm that I was on it.” A well-trained banshee, which Siobhan was, could easily swallow a lie, conjure up a non-existent list for whatever motive suited her, but this was not a matter the other banshee would have lied about. There had to be a list and she had to be on it (because… no, not thinking about that). “Oh, uh, you may have told her my name was Regis?” No, that didn’t ring a bell. It might have made her more confused. Her mouth opened and Regan’s eyes traced the curve of her gums.

Putrecia’s throaty voice was like gravel against stone. Sadhbh? The Grim Reaper? Did the old bat not even remember writing to Siobhan? And… if that was the case, would this all have been for nothing? No, she couldn’t think like that. She was not here to usher Siobhan back in. She was here for herself, her duty (for the two should have been indistinguishable). 

Regan watched them closely, unsure what this meant for Siobhan. Putrecia had retired as the judge since before Regan had arrived here, but any challenges to her previous determinations remained in her cracked, ancient hands. Despite the hag being the picture of perfect stoicism, Regan always found it difficult to picture Putrecia as the judge known for doling out brutality to those who besmirched the community or powers they served. It would have been easier to mistake her for some gentle, senile old woman with eyes as cloudy as her judgement, but Regan had heard enough to know otherwise. What had Siobhan’s full sentence been? Surely not just exile. Not with Putrecia in charge. Whatever it was, it seemed to have continued even now: Regan could think of no worse thing, in Siobhan’s eyes, than being forgotten by the place she could never let go of.

Saol Eile had not yet found a new judge, for Putrecia’s last determination was what would occur after she no longer heard cases. The new arrangement was as chaotic as the most cutting of Putrecia’s rulings. Judges were often picked at random on a literal case-by-case basis, with humans sometimes being dragged into the court to make decisions they did not understand. Exile was funny, the banshees thought, when a human declared it without knowing what sentence they were handing down (or handing up, really, because a human judge was not above even the lowliest of banshees). Regan wasn’t sure if a trial awaited her for fleeing a year ago – it was unlikely. Leanbh were prone to poor decisions at times (really, thinking they could make decisions at all) and the others were apt to leave retribution to her grandmother first.

Regan had never seen a spine go limp so quickly, snapped in the mouth of a crocodile. All of Siobhan’s triumph and pride plummeted like the magpie. And she didn’t even have the bird anymore.

The cold, skeletal hand on her cheek was not unlike that of her grandmother’s, but her grandmother never looked at her the way Putrecia was – like she was something useful. Regan had figured the stares of the other banshees had been reserved for Siobhan, or because she had left here so suddenly and with such shame, but maybe it was more than that. Were they grateful to have their doctor back? Or did they detest her for leaving their wounds to grow putrid and their wings to tear off? Flattery without loathing was a rare thing here and Regan was a born skeptic.

She certainly would not tell her grandmother that. Every one of the old woman’s words made her chest gape open when it should have been sewn up, clamped shut. Speaking to her like a child. The dispenser. Regan turned away from the hand that made her skin slither, feeling fingers drift away from her cheek. Those were not the hands she wished to be there (when she closed her eyes, she could just barely imagine the right ones).

Regan hated herself for looking to Siobhan, asking permission with her eyes, searching to obey, even more than she hated Siobhan herself. But that was a promising start, was it not? Hatred was no more permitted than any other emotion, and Regan tangled with it, success out of reach for now. Her voice was chillier than she would have liked, clipped where it should have been indifferent. “I’m sure she’s busy. Her flowers, you know, the season is right. Or perhaps she’s working on her knees.” Not her own, which were fine, but the shelves upon shelves of patellas collected throughout the centuries. “However, I will leave you and Siobhan.” The name had the slightest edge to it as she spoke it, and she wondered if it might provoke Putrecia into remembering (more likely, she did remember, and merely did not find Siobhan of any importance, not worth straining to recall a name). You need me, Regan had said to the other banshee earlier. And it was truer than she had thought. She looked uneasily at Siobhan, drowning in uncertainty, checking one more time if there were any objections – silent or otherwise – to her leaving now. 

Regan’s breath hissed out from her teeth. There was nothing more for her to do here. “I know when I am being dismissed. You’re right. My grandmother… she knows that I have a lot of catching up to do.” None of it conversational. Regan turned to Putrecia, giving the old hag a nod – respect, acknowledgement, she was not sure – but kept her eyes glued to Siobhan as she backed out the door. It screamed shut on its rusty hinges, and Regan’s stomach sank as if it had been hurled into the tar pit. She realized what she had been looking for in Siobhan, on some level, however interred in her subconscious it was. That had been their last chance to leave together.

------

Siobhan winced at the wailing crash of the hut’s door, swallowing Regan’s body. How strange the new empty space beside her was. How terrible the silence without Regan’s buzzing. Siobhan swallowed; an uneasy boat rocked in her stomach. Banshees possessed no other abilities of foresight beyond Death—she couldn’t tell the weather and she was just as hopeless in predicting the nebulous future as any pathetic human—but she could tell with certainty that she was never going to see Regan again. The insipid doctor had done it: she was adored, she was needed. Wherever she went now, it would be someplace that wanted her. She turned to the door, knowing she was far too late to catch her last glimpse of Regan. She wanted to ask her how she’d done it, how she could have succeeded in so many places that Siobhan had failed—was still failing in. She wanted to say that she was sorry and that she was wrong and that she was grateful that Regan had tried—was trying. Siobhan had no ability to read the threads of Fate outside of Death but she knew that the two of them were not going to the same place. 

How terrible, she’d been hoping to see the clinic. 

“I’m not going back, am I?” Siobhan asked, her voice drowned out by Putrecia’s scratching quill and then tink-tink of her tapping it against the inkwell. How strange that suddenly she was full of objections and there was no one left to give them to. 

She imagined the ceremony that Regan would return to; she imagined her grandmother’s tight embrace and joy she would dare to express for the return of her talented granddaughter. They would call her good and worthy. They would usher her back to her place and easily, as if she’d never left at all, she would fall back into her role. There might have been screams of joy outside, Siobhan could imagine them, but inside Putrecia’s hut, there was only the sound of the quill and the dripping ink. 

[italianpersonwithashippersheart]

BL Wishes

My List of things and Plots that I Would Like to See In BL

FIRST: Rapid Fire Specific Drama Edition:

Big Dragon S2: I need it, I need it now and I need at least one kinky scene with MossBank because I have not forgotten about the lack of kinky sex in s1. I know it's going to focus on a new couple but I need at least one sexy kinky time with them please and thank you.

I need Minato Coin Laundry s2 not to break them up, or have stupid cheating plots. (The bar is in hell)

I need both Domundi (The Next Prince, Naughty Babe, Love Upon a Time, Middleman) and Taiwan (I forgot the names of announced shows but it's in my blog somewhere) Line Ups to come to me and I need it now. Especially Taiwan.

I need Make A Wish to be more available, I could only find it with Italian Subs, I didn't watch it yet, but the ending seems to be hinting at a season 2 and at the possiblity of a poly ending (or at least a love triangle) so I need other people to be able to watch it as well.

The HIstory franchise needs to get its shit together and start producing more and better shows. Like for all of it's fault I did like History 4 and History 5 was fine. But I need more, I need them to do 2 shows again, I don't want them to "fine" I want them to go all out. Go Crazy. Just don't kill gays again.

Now More Generic BL Wishes:

VAMPIRES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just give me vampires, maybe even some werewolves. I need it, I know that we have Mafia BLs but I want Vampire BL god damn it!!!! The main four actors of Cutie Pie would be great a Vampire-Werewolf BL. And I know Fluke Natouch would be great as a Vampire as well (he was in 2015 movie playing a human to vampire co-lead). I also think Earth Cooheart would be great as a Vampire. And MossBank, they would be great in a werewolves pair.

Speaking of Fluke Natouch and Earth Cooheart I need both of them to get more adult and darker roles. I need Cooheart to be allowed to be a little sexy, and I know Fluke would do a darker powerful role justice, I want him to be in a role where he bringes "bigger" man to their knees. I want to see him covered in blood (I say this with love)

POLYCULE with the main four actors of Cutie Pie. This is entairly @respectthepetty's fault. I saw the MaxZee posts on her blog and and It send me down a rabbit hole. By the way did you know there are no true polycule fanfic of the four of them, there is something, but not true polycule and never with Lian and Yi as a pair. Truly no one knows these characters they way @respectthepetty knows them.

Also @respectthepetty's fault for putting this in my head: Domundi Line Up Mash Up. Bad Friend and Middleman Ship meet Cutie Pie and Naughty Babe's ships. In one big BL. The idea is now in my head and it's glorious. Let's Do It!!

Choco Milk Shake Thair Remake but Poly this time. Not sure what trio could do this, but I need it.

LET GUN KISS SOMEONE WHO IS NOT OFF. Listen I realize that OffGun are probably GMMTV best pair branding, and I know that both Off and Gun are going to bank on this pair and be settled for life. I don't even need Gun to be in an endgame ship with another actor, I just need him to kiss another male actor. Not Me would have been the best scenario because of the twins situation. But they didn't go there, and I will never forgive them for that.

Related to Number 5, I had this idea for a plot with an OffGun endgame ship, that started with Gun's character being in a relationship with Sing (because I am still mad about ToddBlack - Listen they have baited us twice with GunSing kiss I need this now) who cheats on him and Gun has to move out and finds an appartmant with Off's character and maybe another roomate played by Tay because I love the Tay/Off dynamic. We would get scenes with Gun and Sing together, showings us flashbacks and stuff but also an OffGun endgame. WIN WIN!!

I need more shows with parents that are in the murky gray area between full acceptance and abusive, I need them not to change their mind at the end and I need a realistic exploration of what it means for a queer person to have parents in that gray area, I want them to question if it's worth it to have to be one that is keeping that realtionship alive. I am also loving the trend of dramas dealing with homophobia and I need to see more of it. I don't want it in all my BLs far from it, but I do like when BL goes there.

More disable characters in BL, preferably by disable actor's but this is a streach so, I just need more disability in BL.

And more actually fat characters, not like Jao in SCOY (which I Love, but calling him fat, felt like a bit of a strech)

And Obviously more GLs and more masc women in GL

I think that's it. Those are the major ones. Feel free to share your thoughts on your own wishes or if you agree or disagree with any of my ideas.

[dez-wade]

Ok this is long, but I feel that you like to discourse, but feel free to ignore this if you want! So last night there're very interesting convos between qbad and qforever, fist let me say how badass qbad is for dying in his own terms when all the server wants his head, he protects qpac and don't let himself die to not prejudice his team. He would stay in a role in the ground until the server close to not die, qetoiles and qroier would never be able to kill him, and actually no one wanted to fight with them, green needs a kill if they want to win, cause they didn't have any kill all the day

The green passes all day doing the quests, the only thing they needed was kill someone and kill qbad twice to get the egg quest and qforever manage to do it using diplomacy, he passes 1 hour talk with qbad, who would constantly try to change the deal and even talking with the other team to try and get something better. In the end their deal were good for both teams, green would win the day and finish the egg quest and blue would get the pix with fortune and end the quest as well by killing qfit, Also is best to blue if green won cause then blue would only need one win to stay at the lead, but if red won, blue would need two wins

Qforever talk with his teammates in call, they did know that he was trying to make a deal, but since the deal were broke and remake thousands of times because of qbad, people in his team thought that it didn't worked, but in the end it did, but qforever doesn't haved the time to say "hey NOW it worked guys". Also qbagi had the same ideia in the begging of the day of try to talk with qbad if they didn't manage to kill him, were everyone agree

People are using qetoiles and qroier who wanted to win by pvp to shit on qforever and saying that he passes by qetoiles authority, with was not the case, this people don't know how green works together, and even saying that qforever broke a alliance between green and red that he didnt even knew that existed, and even if he knew why wouldn't he make what he need to end the egg quest and win? I think qfit undestand this even more, since he is the only father of ramon, for him is best to green or blue win because of the deal qfit and qbad has about dapper and ramon

Like people complaining that this event is majority pvp, and then a player that is not good at it manage to put his team at top by talking and make a deal, also there were an admin with them when qforever was killing qbad. qforever, qfit and qbad will make whatever they need to win and get their kids back, and if who make the deal was the other team it would be conside fair and super smart

Yeah, it's extremely frustrating that people keep twisting what happened. Like, okay you don't need to like but people making it as if Forever did behind Roier's and Etoiles's back and that's the reason they were so upset it's revolting because they're trying to pit them against each other and make the others look like assholes.

And also, Green and Red didn't exactly have an alliance. Etoiles was 100% willing to kill a red if he found one in the wild that day but they were all hiding behind their safe zone, and they refused to fight him when he asked. What's the point of having an alliance where you put yourself at a disadvantage? Red already got two wins before, while Green got only one. People love to talk about balance but people were fine if Red and Green were together all the time just to target Blue? How is that fair to Blue being against two teams at once?

And in the end, they didn't even kill anyone from Red and just did an exchange with BBH, not even Blue, to kill him. It's not something that will last it was just for that day.

Sometimes it seems like people really forget this is a competition with their kid on the line.

[renardtrickster]

hey!! due to possible embarassment im going anonymous so i dont out myself as the most borderline obsessive ruby/nan quest fan out there

but have you ever had a phase where youve tried to coax your friends/mutuals in an attempt to fill up the empty community while also commissioning related content in some desire to experience something new cause not a lot of people make new stuff for rq and nq anymore graah

Sorry for letting this one sit for a few weeks, my laptop still isn't fixed yet. Also this is THE place to be extremely borderline obsessive about stuff, even though claiming to be "the biggest RQ fan" means you now have to fistfight me for rights to the title.

I've definitely "coaxed", but in more of the passive "hey look at this cool thing" and talking about it semi-frequently in "talk about media you like" spaces and stuff. Which has been semi-successful, everyone I chat with at least knows about those quests and has prolly read them. And I don't think I've ever tried to commission anything unfortunately.

Also yeah, I know what you mean in terms of not a lot of stuff happening. Which I imagine is for a couple of reasons.

RQ ended roughly 15 years ago, and NQ 9 years ago, so we're a bit (fashionably) late to when it was active.

Speaking of activity, being heavily interactive and mystery-themed, the blood would be pumping most when people were still asking questions, finding answers, and Doing Stuff. Some questions are still open to ask about, and things to talk about, and excitement for Really Good Media never dies, but still.

Adding onto THAT, the majority of the activity for both were on 4chan and questden, neither of them traditional or very well known forms of social media (except the former, but it's not "popular"), and neither very conducive to long-term content or "fandom".

And finally, "quests" have always been niche to my understanding, so a specific quest would be twice-over.

It's a lot of numbers but the math still adds up to "not that much activity". Or at the very least it's occasional. Still cool as hell when it pops up. Regardless, my preferred coping mechanism is in Adjacency. Weaver's done other quests, and Dive Quest is still ongoing (it's being updated right now as I type). He's also done other non-quest work, like Boxdog or Pack Street or whathaveyou (all really good). And there's also a lot of other good quests on questden made by other creators. Re-reading DiveQuest, I suddenly remembered Knight Blades was meant to be an official story running in parallel, and while I somehow did not yet read Knight Blades specifically yet (super Getting Distracted powers GO), I did go through Reaver's other catalogue of works, which has been an interesting and somewhat tumultous experience.

And regardless of anything, we still have some of the OG shooters running around. fyeahrubyandnanquest was active as late as 2021 (and still has stuff I haven't seen or reblogged yet), and I don't know if you've ever heard of them (;D) but someone called rubysvn has a fansite up with all sorts of goodies like an old RQ remake, information on lost media, and so on. So it's definitely a low energy sort of fandom, but nowhere near a dead one.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

2023 Movie Journey #10: The Little Mermaid

, 

the little mermaid. okay, so this one was really interesting! i didn’t go into it with high expectations, but i also wasn’t expecting to hate it--i’ve seen very few of the disney live action remakes, so i didn’t really know what i might think at all. (as a matter of fact, i think the only one of the remakes i’ve seen is beauty and the beast? i have a couple others on my watchlist cuz @actuallylukedanes​ recommended them, like tarzan and pete’s dragon, but i haven’t seen aladdin or the lion king and i can’t remember if there are more.)

i did go into this one expecting to have fun whether i actually liked it or not, though, because i saw it in the theater with my family and i have a good time doing that with any movie. and i knew i loved some of the cast--awkwafina, daveed diggs, and melissa mccarthy were all selling points for me. i wasn’t familiar with the actress playing ariel but i knew she could sing, so i looked forward to seeing what she did with the role.

before it actually came out, i was originally worried about melissa mccarthy playing ursula, because i adore her and know she’s super talented, but the whole ‘ursula was modeled after a drag queen’ history of the animated character made her casting surprising to me, for some reason. it made me wonder what angle this version would be going for, with ursula. i didn’t get excited about it until they released a snippet of poor unfortunate souls and i was like ‘ohhhhh. okay she’s really going for it.’ 

after that i think i watched the clip at least twice before even seeing the movie, cuz it made me happy to feel like her interpretation was probably going to be true to my childhood attachment to the original character. honestly, it seems tricky to bring animated characters to life, especially beloved ones, and i’m not sure how a person does it well rather than the much more likely result of screwing it up--but i think a large part of it must be wholeheartedly committing to your ideas and then flinging yourself into it, without concerning yourself with whether or not other people will agree with how you interpreted it. 

and that may not actually create widely beloved interpretations, i wouldn’t really know--i feel like emma stone did the same thing in cruella, and for the same reason, i loved her portrayal. it was off-the-wall insane, but she committed to it, and that movie knew what it wanted to be and it won me over against my expectations. 

back to the little mermaid! i felt like this movie had several big problems, but most of them were the direct result of having live actors play these characters in this story without changing the basics (and changing the basics would make it a different story). the parts of the little mermaid that are abstractly weird/concerning when it was animated in the ‘90s become actively, unavoidably difficult or more creepy once everything is three-dimensional.

first of all, ariel’s scenes once she couldn’t talk were just...rough. the movie tries to give ariel and eric more of a connection, more bonding time and things to bond over, but she just can’t communicate very much with the wide-eyed lack of emoting that was happening until she got her voice back. i honestly don’t know if it was the actress herself, or the result of how she was directed, or if the real problem is that a cartoon face can just be made more expressive to balance a lack of words. but for me and both of the people i saw this movie with, there was just nothing there on her face, to a weird degree, while her voice is taken.

while i know this wasn’t the case for everybody, though, i did like her singing. i liked the moments in classic ariel songs where she made them her own, little vocal flourishes that reminded me of whitney houston playing the fairy godmother in cinderella. (though i was horrified by her addition to under the sea, which was totally unnecessary and cut into an otherwise great take on another classic by daveed diggs.)

his voice acting, along with awkwafina's, was great as well. her new added rap, i would also file under ‘totally unnecessary,’ but whatever, it’s fine, i know they always add stuff now and with lin involved i would’ve been surprised if it wasn’t a rap. this version of flounder made me miss the animated one a lot, because i remember loving him and i felt like in this one he somehow wasn’t nearly as endearing, or lacked personality or something. i’m still not sure why. 

the massive cgi might be part of it, though. i could tell it would be a problem for me as soon as there was a trailer--and i was not wrong. there’s just so much of it. i get that it’s not exactly convenient to, say, make your cast work underwater in tanks or anything...but real fish exist! the ocean exists! i don’t care if it was cheaper to just build the ocean out of pixels; jurassic park is cool because it made an effort with physical effects, and this movie could have looked so much better if they’d tried. even just for the Hey Look Fish scenes.

the other element of this movie that feels a lot worse in a live-action version is the basic love story between ariel and eric. it wasn’t exactly ideal when they were hand-drawn, but we didn’t have to think about it as much. the love at first sight concept is always pretty thin, and it’s no different here--she likes the look of him on his ship, possibly appreciates his willingness to risk his life to save his dog, and is ready to make a deal with ursula on the strength of that. it’s a little more believable for me on eric’s side because even without a voice she has a personality he seems charmed by, during their time together once he’s conscious. but the age gap between them is still gross. 

i had to look it up to learn that officially, they made her eighteen for this version instead of sixteen (and the actress was 21 while filming it). but the movie is vague about eric’s age and makes it possible that he could be as young as 21--only the actor playing him was 26 at the time, and to me he looked it. so despite their efforts to tweak the ages to make them closer together and to age her up, i watched this believing that she was an inexperienced teen and he was a fully adult sailor and that was supposed to be totally fine. romantic, even.

even if i wanted to be in favor of them, the actors really didn’t have any chemistry i could see. i don’t remember feeling the same way watching the animated one, but during this version when her friends are trying to manipulate them...it just seemed fully comedic. like, how ridiculous, and not because it’s a bird and a fish and a crustacean wanting them to kiss--the idea of them kissing at all. if it wasn’t required to save ariel’s soul, it wouldn’t have been clear to me why we should want that.

however, i did also like eric! it felt like in the beginning, they put more time and effort into trying to establish him as a character than i remember from the original. making him figuratively more than two-dimensional, not just literally. and it mostly worked.

his most memorable part for me was not necessarily for good reasons, though? i don’t think i’ll ever forget it, but it definitely undermined whatever success they had in making him a love interest hero worth taking seriously. 

they...gave him a song. and not just any song. this was a song that reminded me so painfully, so specifically, so unavoidably of another song, that i couldn’t unthink it and he immediately seemed ridiculous when he hadn’t before. 

anybody who has seen frozen 2 might remember a little number called ‘lost in the woods.’ it was one of my favorite parts of that movie, because it was very clearly done in the style of ‘80s hair bands, with kristoff overdramatic in his movements and full of emotion and played seriously while not taking itself completely seriously. it struck the perfect tone in what it was aiming for.

but what they do with eric is literally the same sort of thing: overdramatic movements, loudly emoting, Very Serious Despite Looking Silly. the problem is that he’s not an animated character! and he’s not troy bolton from high school musical, either (troy could emote at 1000% like nobody else and get away with it). eric can not get away with it, or at least he doesn’t, and i suspect it’s because the movie gives no indication that there’s a joke we’re supposed to be on. 

as far as i could tell, that scene was just eric’s big power ballad, and they wanted him to have a big power ballad, and whether they modeled it after frozen 2 or not, they clearly thought it was a good thing. i’m not so sure they were right about that. 

i gotta say, the scary parts of this movie were much scarier than i ever found the animated version to be, though they didn’t change the actual story a lot in those scenes so i’m not sure if i was just less affected as a child (which seems unlikely when the dogcatcher from lady and the tramp gave me nightmares). both her father destroying her collection and the final battle with ursula felt more intense than i remembered, and maybe that comes from having the characters played by real people. a Scary Dad is much scarier when he looks like an actual person, merman or not, and the same is true i guess for a sea witch. 

the final battle with ursula was also the worst scene for me when it came to cgi, though. i spent a lot of it not being able to tell what was going on, because eventually that’s what happens--my brain just sees pixels and can’t turn them into whatever they’re supposed to be, and i’m confused until it stops.

but ursula was definitely my favorite part of the movie, in terms of this familiar story going from its animated roots to live action. melissa mccarthy, who is truly so much more talented than her choices in projects always show, took on this role which was iconic when i was a kid. and she somehow approaches it both very sincerely and straightforwardly, giving us the drama and the danger and the snark of the original, while also adding just enough camp. i was genuinely surprised disney let her get away with being so good at it! 

at one point, she pauses during a song just to push up her breasts--and i had a flashback to queen latifah in chicago, throwing her all behind ‘when you’re good to mama,’ and teenage me could not have been more delighted. i know there was no deliberate connection there, but for me, that’s such a random moment of flair and sass in the middle of ursula’s singing and it didn’t have to be there. since they didn’t cast an actual drag queen to play her, i really enjoyed that moment that felt, on its own, even the tiniest bit subversive. melissa mccarthy was alive and loving it, playing this character, and we were blessed.

overall, i wouldn’t say this movie was my favorite new disney movie, or even my favorite live action remake (i don’t think i have one). but it had good elements, and i had a good time watching it--it’s just also fun to critique.

[quietbluejay]

Know No Fear 4

uh oh it's reunion time ffvii remake is invading calth as well

like gene-father, like gene-son guilliman's bad decision making is inherited through the geneseed

this is about these two but it's also about guilliman

oh we're back to Thiel vs a cool daemon also thiel figured out that older weapons work better against daemons but he's worried if he tells people they'll just dismiss it as superstition

thiel and this other dude are going door to door killing daemons "every door, a new horror" also, huh, I am now wondering if this was deliberate every time i thought it was setting up for a character to die for sure, they would have died in a horror movie they survived the guy with the wife and the vet he's buddies with, Old Person, Ventanus actually getting reinforcements that weren't a trick

this is why people don't like you guys

sometimes, the dead aren't dead

guilliman's problem is that, when he gets like this there's no one on his level who is able to tell him to knock it off but yeah they really are all like this, huh oh boy time for a new guy also, reading this book first really gave me a skewed idea of what happened at Monarchia

is it crack???? is it crack that you all smoke????

or is this just them all trying desperately to justify it to themselves and internally rewriting what happened

they really are just all eternal teen boys

congratulations the bar was in hell and you actually managed to wiggle over it oh welp

they're still wiggling over the bar but they're wiggling a bit closer

ope look at that a direct consequence of breaking your code daemon time

bruh really??

oh so he realized he was lying to himself seeing this, she casually threw aside a large rock

get lorelei'd idiot owo more Thiel POV he's in spaaace space fights…alas he is outnumbered 8:1 honestly i would have rioted if Thiel had bit it

OH WAIT RANE DIDNT DIE??

I CANT BELIEVE IT also, Old Person is old he was at Verdun

and Old Person makes an improvised bayonet with a ritual knife from a dead enemy okay he's even older Austerlitz so a century back from wwi

THIS DUDE HAS THE BEST LUCK OF LITERALLY ANY BIT CHARACTER IN A HORROR NOVEL EVER he got lorelei'd TWICE and managed to come out of it

oh holy shit does Ventanus get lucky nothing is working and the only weapon he has is the Word Bearer's ritual knife aka one of the only things in this book we've seen that seems to kill daemons oh! back to Thiel! things aren't looking good

I need a Hero starts playing in the background

i know it was plot armour (and there's more to come) but this was a cool moment and i did NOT expect this

abnett please stop with the clunky prose

GIANT FACEPALM

ROB ROB

YOURE GONNA GET STABBED BY AN EVIL KNIFE starting a long and "proud" tradition

AAAAA this scene ;-;

;-; "for a second, Ventanus envies her loss"

annnd yep guilliman got bodied by someone below his power level time for evil knife

guilliman: you know if i had a nickel for every time i was in this position, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but you'd think I'd learn.

thiel had to deal with this twice except by the second time, he was friends with Guilliman

okay, this was just cheap so, Guilliman put his power claw through Kor Phaeron's chest at least ONE OF THEM should have died from this they both have plot armour also why didn't the knife work on guilliman??? it sure worked on Horus there should have been long term consequences GUILLIMAN LITERALLY TAKES KOR PHAERONS HEART OUT sigh anyways, Tawren gets to be cool how many orbital weapons is she controlling rn? yes she's the one who actually turns the tables and makes this not a valiant last stand with a bare remnant surviving

looks like team rocket's blasting off againnnnnn

so guilliman and thiel are now besties, at least

epilogue time!

stay classy, Ultramarines and thus the ultramarines became mortal enemies with the word bearers anyways, it's overall a good book, aside from the plot armour and some of the clunkiness of the prose (and the weird Perpetual stuff)

[tv-gh0st]

Rant about clothes

im back again with my silly timeline merge guys

am i designing zeldas yes very very slowly

that being said i red did Wilds design twice because the guy needed it and i am very glad witht he end result but i am going to over explain it because i simply can

Notes

"Doesnt work" his scared ear doesnt work

"from champions leather" all the darker leather armor and belts are from champions leather

"Tunic of the Wild" its the tunic of thr wild hes wearing

"Purah made it" purah made the prosthetic

"Bunny ears" there floppy like bunny ears!

"both sheika design" botht thr sleve on his amputated arm and under shirt are of sheika origin

"Still has sages" he still has the sages(thr braclet/rings) is nit there because i forgot to draw it

"Heart and stamina contanire" i thought it be cool if he actully had necklesses of them rant is underneath if you want to learn about my specific choices

reasons as to why Wild is now wearing green So first off youll notice he is infact not wearing the champions tunic when everyone else is wearing there main tunics

thats because age is wearing ig and I specifically do not want Wild wearing the champions tunic for not just that reason but hes not a knight anymore atlest in this au there is ni more princess or queen and no more Hyrulien army there sre no more champions which is also why i wsnt Age and Wild to be very distictly diffrent because there worlds and lifes are so different

now originally I still had Wild in blue

For one no part of it was my design yes all of them are in there own tunics from game or whatever but there slightly personalized and designed to my liking in this design the only thing that is mine is the design of the hood that is an exact copy of the zoras tunic and thr royal gaurds pants which i hated so much

so just do your own design of the zoras armor

but why the zoras armor

it was a random choice really maybe cas it was blue or maybe cas it was made by mipha but thats not like a ship im going for and ive already established i want age and wild to be as diffrent as possible so why did i do it

i have no fucking idea

but i do know another reason i hate it is a similar problem the designers had in making link originally its noted in the creating a champion book that they needed to keep him regatnixable as link, and zoras armor if your in the fandom sure but if your not then thats not link to you.

so its a big no go

the next design isnt even worth showing you

But i can talk about it

its when i finally used the tunic of the wild. Now why did i choose the tunic of the wild, its although not thr most popular armor still his green tunic, diffrent from age and very very very easy to play around with and differentiate from the other links. But also the meaning that the tunic has not only is it described as a tunic that diffrent adventurers wore it also proves the hard work he did that he deffited sll the fucking shrines he collected wll the koroks wnd just helps add to that wild i fucking did it sll nature hes supposed to have

But okay wtf was this 2nd design

i just added a bunch of diffrent aspects of different outfit peices ontop of the champions. Tunic, and i fucking hated it. I had the logic of oo i cant draw him in every single outfit so ill just put them all into one snd it was ugly also again no originality to it

so i settled on the one i showed you at the top

i still added refrences to the champions leather but i just though it looked better this way more simple

i did do a design of him in the champions lesther tho

Now im able to get away with it looking diffrent from age cas its cannon that zelda had to remake the tunic so it can be new and diffrent

I made ages simpler and more like the game cas i felt it fit better no spefic reason really

i also did not relize i used the same undershirt as in the champions leather cas i based it off of the orginal one

So yeah that is my silly reasoning as to why i redesigned wild 3 times and why he is now in green

[daisitynook]

Random Rottmnt Head-canons

sorry for rambling some of them are just me projecting but i just had too, can you guess who i kin lmao :)

Mikey🧡

* loves the fall

* not just for the colors but mikey loves wearing fuzzy sweaters and doing the Arianna sleeve thing

* huge pumpkin fan, loves anything that have a pumpkin flavor or aroma

* Saw a rerun of bob rose once and spent a month remaking the painting till he thought it was perfect, he was 8 so we all know what it really looked like

* raph hung it on their fridge cause he was so proud

* Owns 3 dream catchers, has a bunch of incense too

* we all know he gets scared easily so you can’t tell me mikey doesn’t take every ghost catching video he sees seriously

* avid buzzfeed unsolved enjoyer

* Whenever donnie’s glasses broke when they were kids mikey tried to fix them with his stickers before realizing they didn’t work like he intended

* Besides skateboarding i think mikey really likes roller blading for the aesthetic

* he stole an old pair from the dumpster and styled it orange and practiced around the sewer

* made donnie make him a playlist of 80s songs so he can pretend like he’s in a movie while he’s doing so

* Besides Donnie, Mikey knows the most about history specifically art history

* Like Mikey knows a lot about the world and different cultures while donnie knows more scientific facts

Donnie 💜

* So we all know how he does his own eyebrows

* donnie definitely watched a billion makeup up tutorials before he finally got it right so know he has intense makeup knowledge

* does aprils makeup when she has a date or is going to an important event

* had an intense kpop phase, like was on stan twt being a heavy defender of his favs

* likes to do dance covers in his lab when his brothers aren’t home

* definitely a twice stan

* got leo into kpop so they can both suffer

* Donnie once sprained his ankle when his was a tween and he told his brothers it was during a failed experiment but in reality he was trying to learn ballroom dancing from a youtube tutorial

* Really enjoyed club penguin as a kid

* Now bullies kids online

* uses discord and un-ironically roleplays as movie characters

* leo bullied him for this and he then stopped

* The type of person to say huh ten times not hearing what the other person said

* Donnie doesn’t actually have bad vision he just wanted something that had personality and decided glasses was it

* spoiler alert they didn’t have any lenses

* no one knew

* Donnie really likes murder mystery books or adventure books (like Indiana jones, ik it’s not a book but you get what i mean)

* Even though he figures out the resolution or who done it rather quickly he still likes the build up and clues you get from reading

* makes april do a fashion show with him which is just him trying on clothes he found and forcing her to give him compliments

* even tho donnie doesn’t know a thing about sports i think he has a secret appreciation for tennis

* idk why tennis but i feel like he would just like it

* hates açaí bowls

* he hates the texture of everything together and has never found the right combination of things

* he likes to say he only drinks black coffee but dumps creamer into his with a bit of sugar

* with his shell since it’s super sensitive i think he only let leo help him clean it for a while

* when they were younger mikey would always be too touchy not really understanding boundaries just yet

* and raph was either way too gentle or way too rough cause he didn’t know his strength yet but also didn’t want to hurt donnie

* leo was the easy middle so donnie specifically had him and him only help get parts he couldn’t reach while cleaning

* however this did lead to many fights in the bath between the two

Leo💙

* loves romcons

* literally sobs his eyes out during them

* loves watching shows like love island, the bachelor, love is blind, too hot to handle

* thinks he would be perfect for those shows but not in a douche way more in a sense of

* i could be the biggest problem and people would love me

* avid telenovella enjoyer

* asks hueso about any good ones he can binge

* had a kpop phase thanks to donnie

* big red velvet stan along with seventeen

* he loves irene and s.coups

* leo also enjoys 80-90s rock

* he specifically loves the hair

* had motorcycle phase for a bit where he would ask donnie a bunch of mechanic questions and donnie would be like ??? every-time

* never cleans his room

* like he’ll throw out his trash but he has clutter everywhere, randoms knick knacks everywhere

* gets all his puns off of reddit and other forums

* has an abundance of socks for no reason he just likes how they feel

* specifically his one pair of flush blue panda socks he only washes once a month

* no one is allowed to touch them

* He snorts when he laughs really hard

* Best singer out of the boys

* like literal pipes

* has joked about winning American idol but is secretly not joking and surprisingly his family agrees

* Leo actually goes to bed early like at 10:30

* compared to donnie and mikey that’s early

* he needs his beauty rest

* leo definitely wants a tattoo on his bicep if he can

* Loves andy samburg and no one can tell me otherwise

* like a huge brooklyn 99 parks and rec arrested development fan

* he also really likes percy jackson

* stole the books from donnie as a kid and read all of them

* told donnie he hated it

* donnie knew otherwise

* Leo for a while when he was a kid didn’t really know who he was so he just kinda picked traits from his brothers

* was scared he wasn’t funny enough or that he didn’t really have a point when talking

* he slowly realized it was ok to just go with the flow and that’s why now he doesn’t really like to over complicate things when he does it

* Leo genuinely loves being a turtle, isn’t insecure in the slightest about being a turtle like the other boys (donnie and raph) him and mikey embrace it

* Does share middle child nonsense with donnie where he gets insecure about his role and if he’s really needed

* wants to prove that he’s worthy of being part of this family

* no more angst

* leo definitely has the worst eyesight in the family

* it’s not horrible but boy does he squint a lot

* mikey was once insecure about his gap so leo drew in a gap in his mouth so mikey would see how cute his gap was

* leo did it for 4 days straight

* that tooth is now permanently this grey color

* Has a secret appreciation for the color pink definitely his second favorite color no one can tell me otherwise

* like donnie is good at makeup

* specifically he can do killer eye liner

Raph❤️

* Likes to watch cooking shoes with mikey

* Enjoys a good bbq episode of a show

* Enjoys old timey british shows

* for example downtown abbey

* lives for it

* made donnie pirate the movie so he could watch it and cried his eyes out

* Raph has a lot of plushies so he definitely thinks they get jealous when one is getting more attention

* with this he picks a name out of a hat in front of them and then places the ones who didn’t get picked at the end of the bed

* he feels bad just leaving them around

* raph also definitely likes cheesy cop shows

* like he loved law and order, NCICS, criminal minds, idk cop shows man 🧍‍♀️

* big desert man

* loves anything sweet

* specifically loves churros, chocolate covered strawberries, powdered donuts, and he’s a sucker for any type of pie

* Loves gaming youtube channels, big fan of markiplier, jackseptieye, Berlzy, Coreyxkenshin, some twitch streamers he likes something in the background so this helps

* As much as he loves pizza Raph is one of the only ones to actually eat healthier food

* had a gym rat phase but it wasn’t amazing since he couldn’t go to the gym but he was obsessed with calorie counting

* wasn’t healthy at all

* recovered and now eats regularly

* Obsessed with squishmallows

* like has a whole collection of them

* he really like the dinosaur one in blue

* Leo makes fun of him for it but raph shoved him into his pile of them Leo fell asleep in an instant

* Raph is not superstitious at all

* like donnie definitely believes whack ass conspiracy theories and don’t get him started on the paranormal however raph is the complete opposite

* he’s always wanted to indulge in stuff like that but since he’s the oldest he was always the one to like “don’t worry none of that stuff is real” or “nothing can hurt you, it’s all gonna be ok”

* basically he’s just had to comfort the boys whenever their were scared a ghost was gonna get them, the monster under the bed all that

* so now he’s just over it but he wishes he can just indulge crazy fantasies now and again

[livelaughlapush]

Although I am a DieHard TwiHard, I will be honest, I did not think there will ever be a reboot/remake/ spinoff, or at the very least, a successful one of The Twilight Saga films, and here is why. Even though I love this universe, when the book first came out, it was a big deal, even more so with the movies. These Films are Iconic in the best and the worst ways. Nevertheless, as time passed with the novels and films, as did the massive criticism, people either loved it or hated it, and it was a big deal until it was not. After the saga ended, it went on to become irrelevant. The actors moved on, the world moved on, even the author of the books herself, even more so now that everyone has called out the many disturbing things within them. Furthermore, we cannot sit here and pretend Twilight has left the same legacy as something like Harry Potter. Yes, like Harry Potter, The Twilight Saga was a huge phenomenon. However, the first difference is when comparing the quality between the two franchises, I think most people will probably say the same thing, "Harry Potter is Good, Twilight is Not." Most people will agree that the Wizarding World is bigger and better. The second would be it also grew in real life. Harry Potter has many theme park attractions and video games, prequels, expansion books etc.; (aside from the one Twilight ride in china) Harry Potter has become even more significant even after the original books and films with even more fans, much more than Twilight, so you cannot compare the two, except for the problematic nature of both creators, and the problematic contents with their stories. You would have to change so much, that it would not be Twilight, anymore. Moreover, even though Harry Potter is still a behemoth, they have tried and failed to have a comeback in film, the Fantastic Beasts films, and those are doing well, critically or financially. If Harry Potter could not make it work, how could Twilight? Sadly, Twilight had its time, it came, and it went. Even though there are still people like me, still fans of it, old and new. People still go to the filming locations; they still go to the real Forks, Washington; they still listen to the soundtracks; they still binge all of the films, especially after being put on streaming platforms, but it will always be smaller than it was, especially since like Twilight, YA additions are not as popular as they used to be, many YA films, especially the genre ones, all failed to be successful. Vampire Academy, Beautiful Creatures, Divergent, The Mortal Instruments, Fallen, TWICE, etc., could have done better. If they tried REVAMPING (get it) The Twilight Saga, whether it be another Film Series/TV Series, it would not work and would not do well. Twilight ran its course, and it is over; Maybe If they make it an Anime, that might do well?

[natterghast]

WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN INTERACTING WITH MY BLOG - Customizable Edition

BASICS !

Name / Alias: marcelle, penname lottie

Pronouns: she/them !!

Blog type: single muse | multi-muse | non selective | semi selective | selective | mutuals only | private | other

Type of muses: canon | OCs | both (but mostly OCs) | other (specify)

GENERALITIES !

Triggers people MUST tag: I can tag or put content warnings in posts for other folks, but I don't particularly need anything tagged myself !

Interest tracker / checker: I have it and it’s mandatory | I have it, it’s not mandatory but I’m more likely to follow back / interact with the people who fill it | I have one and I prefer it if people fill it in | I have it but it’s up to people whether to fill it or not | >> I don’t have one (and i'm horrible about filling out anyone else's tbqh) << | other

Reblog karma: I practice it | >> I practice it sometimes << | I don’t practice it | >> I always reblog memes from the source << | >> indifferent (as in I don't expect reblog karma) << | other (specify)

Rule passwords: I have one and it’s mandatory | I have one and it’s optional | I don’t have one | I send passwords | >> don’t sent passwords (I will pass someone up if they have a password) <<

2-5 ESSENTIAL RULES PEOPLE HAVE TO RESPECT

I'm not big on rules beyond the basics, but I prefer to keep my blog a safe space for young writers. I understand why most adult writers don't want to interact with anyone underage, even if they don't write anything sexually explicit. but understand that I do here, on my own blog, because I want to encourage them to write. younger generations need positive outlets in their lives, it can make the biggest difference in the world.

understanding that I'm a slow, casual writer is also important. oftentimes I'm a one, single reply a week kind of person, you know ? if I'm not your speed, even if you like my OCs, you'll save us both headaches if you move on. there doesn't have to be hard feelings about it.

3-5 IMPORTANT PET PEEVES TO KEEP IN MIND

I don't know if I necessarily have pet peeves, I just do a vibe check on everyone. don't pass the vibe check ? I pass you up. (although when I had a canon blog I did have a few, I don't feel like getting into them right now.)

2-5 THINGS THAT WILL LEAD TO INSTANT (HARD) BLOCKING

although I've never had it happen, I will hard block if anyone comes to me about when I write, which threads I write to, etc. in an immature manner. (eg. sending something on anon, vague posting, or guilt tripping instead of coming to my dms and expressing they feel left out.)

although I myself don't identify as a p.ros.hipper: anyone who conflates the term p.ros.hipper with p.edop.hilla and says p.ros.hippers should die. no thanks.

2-5 THINGS THAT LEAD ME TO UNFOLLOW / SOFTBLOCK A MUTUAL / SOMEONE I INTERACT WITH

I've done it a few times when I give someone a shot but it turns out we don't mesh well. I encourage others to do the same with me.

multiple self depreciating ooc posts. I don't intend any hard feelings over it, I'm just not here for it.

technically not an "unfollow," but unless I really like someone I don't tend to follow through multiple blog remakes if they don't refollow me themselves. you'll get me once, maybe twice, but more than that is just tiresome. again, I hope there's no hard feelings.

2-5 REASON YOU DON’T FOLLOW (BACK) SOMEONE

often (but not always) multis with too large of a roster. talked about it here.

vibes are bad. (typically based off what their rules are.)

unfamiliarity or a disinterest in the fandom, if fandom-based.

another problem is, these days I feel I have enough mutuals. at my writing speed, I'm content with most of what I've already got. this year I've really only followed back folks that I was immediately excited to interact with.

[ckret2]

I feel so bad that you, like, an actual Morbius fan?? Like, I've had some shitty remakes in my time but that movie isn't even a finished product. I'm so sorry they did this to you 😔

To be fair, I went in with real low expectations. I was honestly kinda baffled/amazed they made a Morbius movie in the first place.

Even so, it, like... got the character facts right, while missing the spirit of the character. My reference point for Morbius is rooted in his 90s comics, so maybe he's drifted since then—but for me his stories have always felt like "cyberpunk-remake-of-a-Victorian-scientist antihero stuck in the body of a high goth vampire antivillain, and also it takes place in the grungiest possible New York at night."

They got the grungy New York but I feel like they missed the boat on the rest. Even the vampire aspect felt weak, since, like, he never drinks anybody but a few dubious bad guys and then gets himself under control for the duration of the movie. I was SO disappointed when he was innocent of the one big attack on a good guy. (That's an important aspect of his character—not the fear that he might need to drink from someone, but the guilt knowing he has before and will again.) Once the setup is out of the way, tonally it just felt like a pretty generic, formulaic superhero movie.

And one with one of my superhero movie pet peeves: when a movie introducing a new superhero isn't creative enough to invent or use a villain with their own separate theme, and so the villain is The Same Thing As The Good Guy, But Evil. Morbius did it, Venom did it (technically twice, although at least Carnage is a full character and they threw in Shriek), Shazam did it, Man of Steel did it, Captain Marvel did it, Iron Man did it... didn't a Hulk movie do it? Like please I'm tired, come up with different bad guys. Star Wars and martial arts movies are allowed to have their Hero Versus A Villain With The Same Powers fights but everyone else is banned for the next 20 years

Part of the trouble is that Morbius's first big enemy is supposed to be Spider-Man. You gotta come up with a villain for the guy who's meant to be the villain? I feel like this was a weakness both for Morbius and for Venom, much as I like the Venom movies: they're both supposed to be villains that you like in spite of their villainy, either because they're sympathetic (Morb) or because they're fun (Eddie & symby). You've GOTTA have that backstory of villainy before they make their heel-face turns. Make 'em good (and only let them eat/drink baddies right from the start) and you lose half their depth of character.

Oh and Morbius was too good-looking. He needs to look like Nosferatu 24/7, not just when he's in fighting mode. The cowards didn't make him ugly enough.