Hiii, Just Wanted To Say Hi And Ask How Your Halloween Was?

Everything about this drawing makes me happy, but the detail that makes my Undead heart sing is the yellow-covered copy of Dracula. It's the 1897 edition, designed to evoke the appearance of the 'yellowback' - the cheap sensational fiction sold at railway stations at the time. Dr Watson was mentioned reading one in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. (Above is the miniature version I made for my haunted dollhouse.)

Cover me in sunshine...Shower me with good times

Tell me that the world's been spinning since the beginning....And everything will be alright

What can I say, my little nosferatu loves yellow. Get some sleep, Aurik.

watercolour and gouache with coloured pencil detailing, a little white ink for highlights.

@blackforrestpunk and @vladimirsangel ! I drew so many cat comics that they'll need a whole new post. Oh, and there's me:

Vlad, you win Design Choice Headache Award, combats and plaids are no joke to draw. Aiden, gold star fashion choice.

Phantom of the Opera (2004), we have beef!

(I'm sorry, Gerald Butler's Phantom, you're still very cool. See the original drawing without beef here.)

I'm not saying that the film is entirely bad. It's only that I tend to be extra critical about plot and portrayal. Phans of the film, feel tree to sit this one out. Now, the beef.

🥩 1. They cut out one of the most powerful scenes

Before I fell (or rather, was pushed) into the Phandom, I saw a clip of Sierra Buggess and Ramin Karimloo performing the 'SING!!!' part of The Phantom of the Opera, and even then, it struck me. Watching film, I was waiting to see it again... But they just kept rowing the boat. I find this direction choice rather symbolic of the angle of the entire film: they lowered the prominence of Christine's thrall to the Phantom's music and instead focused on their dubious romantic attraction.

🥩2. The Phantom's origin story

Perhaps they felt the need to explain his past more, but this is a case of the more you explain, the worse it gets. Why on earth would you feel the need to explain that the Phantom has been visiting Christine since she was a child? That is not only terrifying but also creates unnecessary confusion. If he's been teaching her for so long, I find it dubious that nobody has noticed her behaving strangely before the Hannibal performance.

🥩3. They gave Mme. Giry too many hats to wear

In the film Mme. Giry essentially took on the role of three characters: her own, the Persian's, and Mama Valeris' (Christine's surrogate mother in the book). Initially, I liked that they gave Mme. Giry a more active role in the Phantom's past, but then it gets very weird because she's essentially matchmaking her surrogate daughter with a man her own age whom she has witnessed killing someone. I mean, it's not implausible to give a character two conflicting roles, but the film gave no viable explanation for it.

🥩4. The graveyard duel

Why were they using rapiers in 1870? The Phantom dueling I can get behind, being the theatre kid he is, but Raoul? Get a pistol, monsieur le vicomte. Anachronism aside, this addition doesn't add more to the scene. It's meant to show how the Phantom tried to lure Christine again and Raoul comes to disillusion her, but with the duel added in, it's just a question of who wins the duel, who gets to leave with Christine. And I keep wondering how the heck the Phantom lost the fight in spite of his Magnificent Cloak advantage. (Cloaks were used as shields back in the day of rapier duels.)

🥩5. Carlotta

I adore Wendy Ferguson's Carlotta. I understand that the film wanted to make a contrast between Christine and Carlotta, but making her something out of Mean Girls was uncalled for. You got the wrong musical, mate.

I talk about other POTO adaptations here!

@w0lfinsheepscl0thing Yes we can! It's a drawing from my website!

How many literary cats can you recognise?

Phantom of the Opera (1990), you did Erik proud

Alternate title: Christine, we have beef!

(Meme inspired by this post.)

I have not a bad word for this Erik (and not just because I can feel a certain friend of mine holding a chandelier over my head). The 1990 adaptation made some big changes to the story, but it perfectly captured the childlike soul of Leroux's Erik that is often lost in translation but vital to him. (When I was explaining POTO to someone outside the situation, i. e. my mum, two things I kept using as comparisons were a child and Gollum - not because he's a chaos gremlin, I was trying to describe how he has a skewered perspective of the world that isn't evil but doesn't follow the accepted moral system. But that's for another time.)

I found myself trying very hard not to resent Christine - a first time for me. I will defend her choosing the Compte de Chagny over Erik, she doesn't owe Erik love, no matter what he did for her. The problem is that she took on a responsibility she couldn't possibly carry.

Never, ever assume to fully understand someone. Especially someone like Erik, who thinks and exists on a different pane as most people. Christine was wrong, terribly wrong, to assume she 'knew his heart.'

When faced with a person so sensitive, so particular, when you are the one person trusted by someone who trusts no one, don't make huge gambles like that. She shouldn't have assumed she knew what Erik needs better than he himself does - if he told you he is happy with where they were, then stay there with him! Instead, she pulled the 'I can fix him' and shattered him completely. I don't hate her for being unable to catch Erik when he falls, I hate her for blindly promising to catch him and failing him.

(I do realise how much of the above describes myself and my worries about how people treat me, so fair warning, I may be a bit biased.)

An opinion: in most versions of the story, Erik emotionally manipulates Christine, but here, Christine is the one who is emotionally manipulative. ('Manipulative' may sound malicious, but manipulators aren't always aware of what they're doing.)

In the second part of the series, she said at least three times 'If you love me...' Now, that is one of my least favourite sentences to see and hear in the best of times, but this is somehow even worse because Erik DOES do everything because he loves her. In other versions, there is the question of possessiveness against love when it comes to their relationship; in that context, I would accept her saying this, to remind him that he should love and not obsess over her. But here, Erik is not possessive.

As for Monsieur Carrière, I have beef with him, too. It's an even bigger, tougher slice of beef. He is irresponsible: not once, but twice, he got in relationships and then left his partners when they have children. The first time could be a mistake; the second time, especially when kept Erik's mother in the dark about his marriage, is inexcusable. Yes, he stayed with her till the end, but then left their son in a basement. Yes, he reached out to Erik in the end, but too little, too late. If Erik is emotional and irrational, it's because Carrière never gave him the guidance he should have.

Christine and Carrière love Erik, I don't doubt it. But it's still painful to see Erik fall down through everyone and everything that should have caught him: his talent, his parents, Christine.

If you'll excuse me, I need to cry in the catacombs and draw something miserable.

I talk about several other adaptations here!

This vampurr feels like she's just been sucker-punched with a potato sack of garlic.

2024 probably thought it was too good to me and HAD to go out with a Parthian shot. Well, at least I got to finish a good vampire podcast in one sitting. Happy New Year, people.

As @ablatheringblatherskite eloquently put it in their lovely tags for this post:

Now, go read it, people.

Erik - Top of the Sky Update

another sad chapter. man, this drama will take some time. AO3 Fanfiktion Song of this chapter:

Spotify

No Surprises

Radiohead · OK Computer · Song · 1997

*Slams this lil dude down on the table* Phandom, dinner time!

I found out that the Chinese Phandom calls the Phantom 饭桶, "Rice Bucket," because it sounds like "phantom" (fàntǒng... meh, close enough).

That isn't the best bit.

If someone is a rice bucket, it means they're good for nothing but holding rice inside them (i.e., eating). So it means "useless person."

Now, isn't that perfect for someone who cools his heels in a dank cellar and blackmails his way to massive wages?

More POTO nonsense here!

@blackforrestpunk I'm holding you responsible for this

Look, I know I own a cat ears headband and a furred cat-eared hoodie, and I draw a lot of cats, but-- I'm not escaping the allegations, am I?

@windforkthewriter @t4z-0n-p4wz @greenfinchwriter @nalesnik-z-morela

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put your name/nickname in the headcanon generator to see what you get!

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TY for the tag, Kat! 🥰💕 @dreamingkitsunewrites

I have been called out 😩

no pressure tags: @teenidlegirl @yougavemeyourheartyouknow @mrsoharaa @catladyoftheyr @swiftyangx12 @greensagephase @fairlyang @mysteria157 + whoever wants to 🥰

Love Never Dies, we have beef!

This was... painful. But I think I can ramble without roasting. As always, if you're a fan, don't read, because I'm still serving beef!

I first watched it, I was so bored I had to play it on 1.25× speed. Nothing seemed to be happening even as every new thing wrecked my faith in the creators' intelligence a little more.

"The Beauty Underneath" had unbelievable visuals. People in fish tanks horrify me. In a good way. But when the Phantom decided to yeet his mask like that, I wanted to reach through the screen and shake him. Mate, the kid doesn't hate you. He just got randomly jumpscared. Of course he ran away.

I loved Ramin's sassy Phantom in "Devil Takes the Hindmost," but the premise of the song is so bad it deserves a whole roast post.

All this could be a problem of my personal taste in music and storytelling. But I can't forgive how thoroughly they destroyed Phantom's character. In Ramin's version, Mme Giry was roasting him to his face, and he didn't pull out the lasso? Met Raoul drunk in an empty bar and didn't drop him off a pier and make it look like an accident?

Look, we all love "poor unhappy Erik," but Phantom does not have a heart of gold. No, he's not a monster, but he's not a hero either.

Call me doomy and gloomy, but I don't believe that Phantom would give a hoot if Meg died. He definitely wouldn't show the compassion and repentance he did in that final scene.

The worst thing a PoTO story can do is to make it all about his appearance, which I feel LND did. The greatest reasons Phantom is doomed by the narrative is:

1. Society alienates him for his appearance.

2. How he acts because of his self-hatred, fueled by his alienation from society.

When the narrative puts too much weight on one or the other, it loses direction.

More POTO adaptation rambles here!