hopeisjjk

[fragolinaa]

This quote lives RENT FREE in my brain, and the answer is yes. Yes, Yasha. I love her.

[jake-is-screaming-in-tune]

sorry about the shitty quality :/

screencaps under the cut

[yellowocaballero]

One of the many things that I've been doing instead of writing are these damn manwha binges and Villain To Kill is literally so funny. The comic premise is straightforward action, think Tokyo Ghoul meets Solo Leveling - local Genetically Superpowered Superhero Cop working for corrupt Hero Organization gets #betrayed and #murdered and is reincarnated into the body of a Genetically Superpowered Villain Teenager so now he has to join up with all the other villain superpower people to get justice.

It's so 5/10. Cassian is extremely OP and the story isn't well-written enough to pull that off well. The worldbuilding is so incredibly nonsensical and weak that it falls apart if you think about it for more than five minutes (tried to write fic for it and failed because I would have had to rework the entire world - which, I could have, but that's a lot of effort for Villain to Kill). The plot is mostly any OP action hero plot where guy gets increasingly powerful by fighting increasingly powerful guys. Cassian himself has almost nothing going on internally, to the point of elegance. And it is somehow the gayest manwha I've ever read.

It's the fucking character designs. And like its narrative but it's the fucking 100/10 character designs. The entire cast's design and characters slam. There's not that much depth but we don't care. You know if we don't like somebody if they look vaguely straight, and you know that we like somebody if they look like they were set to tumble dry in the queerness washing machine. The (great!) women are high femme or hard butch. The corrupt institution assassinated a man Cassian loved and framed & murdered him, at which point he was adopted by a rag-tag bunch of flamboyant homosexuals deemed unacceptable and undesired by society who all teamed up and decided to villainize society in exclusively funny ways and spend most of their time gossiping or hacking the Pentagon. An AFAB character dresses as a man and goes by he/him pronouns half the time for no good reason. Cassian is physiologically incapable of thinking about anything but violence so the heartwarming found family scenario's going over his head, but his Painfully Het Hero Foil Indoctrinated Into Homophobia caught the found family ball and now he's dancing in their gay bars and dressing in drag. There's only a few characters who are explicitly gay but this is gayer than that.

I talked a while back about how important a decent supporting cast is to a good story, and this is yet again good proof. Looking at this, I think I'd go further and say - it's an action manwha, we're reading it for a reason, we don't need character-driven story arcs or really complex characters. I think it's just charisma. A story can go really far on characters with charisma.

TV Shows that are carried on the lead actor (Columbo I love you) - it's because the actor has charisma. You watch it to see the actor hang out being himself. That's way way harder to do in fiction, but I think that "a complex character" isn't necessarily a "charismatic character". I'd rather have a cast of only charismatic characters rather than only complex ones. A story of any genre needs a strong cast of charismatic characters. They can be deep or they can just be chaotic lesbians. Charisma invests the reader in the story and the characters. It's simple but it's really powerful. And it is fucking hilarious how sometimes all you need to do on that front is "Rupaul this shit".

I can't genuinely recommend Villain to Kill and this is not a recommendation. But random stuff always interests me like this, and I really had no idea that I would read 120ch of a manwha bc the designs fuck so hard. Also, like, this is queerest manwha I've ever read. Somehow. Fucking somehow.

[gojolight]

kusakabe is grating on my nerves tho. saying he supported yuuji's execution and gojo saving him was a blunder. after yuji saved THEM. you didnt even want to fight in shibuya. dont you have a hole to go cry in?

[aethernoise]

@nuclearanomaly asked👻 to see them looking or acting in a scary or intimidating manner.

Boo!!!

[foryoupeko]

Doodle Dump Jan 15

[carefulchaotic]

surprise it's 2024 and i'm now deeply obsessed with voltron again after like 7 years of not thinking about it. i'm debating on rewatching and actually finishing the last 3 seasons but based on what i know..... i might just stick to fan content for now

[dyrewrites]

Before Deluca -- Night at the Opera

His plans were focused on entertainment, on relaxing among people. He would later insist this was for my benefit, incorrectly believing me more at home in crowds—more comfortable than he was, perhaps, but I preferred the quiet of our room and a novel than bustling streets.

We found his entertainment in the rowdy cacophony of an open theater, which I held him back from as he made to enter, the pulse of so many veins too loud against my skull. Never mind their scents, heady all; from the tang of their sweat to the salt-sweet nectar beneath...

“We must attend, treasure, no one ever holds shows like these at night,” giddy his voice, bubbling with an excitement rarely seen outside of wanton bloodshed, and I delighted in it—sight and sound alike, his eyes wide, smile joyous.

But I had to disrupt, “I can’t be near so many, my dream...not now.”

Hands on me, gripping my shoulders, he studied my face with that slight tilt of his head—an amused gleam in his eyes—and smiled, “Is my treasure hungry?”

In truth, I had been for some hours, and I wondered then if it were my heat. If, perhaps, I needed more than he did.

Ever in my thoughts, and those far louder than what I hid, he kissed me quick and soft before addressing what worried, “Could be your heat, my love,” standing taller he teased my ear, whispering, “or your size.”

Gasping as I tried to scoff, to mock his tease, I kept a wary eye on the crowd ahead of us and answered his question, “Yes, I am...hungry.”

Keeping at my ear, he cooed, “then let’s find you someone to eat.”

Much to my dismay, Lucient didn’t walk passed me, out into the less busy streets. Instead he took my hand and lead me deeper into the crowd, through enchanting stone arches that even the ache of my veins couldn’t tear my eyes from. Elaborate murals decorated every strip of the walls we passed, and mixed into them I spied sigils glowing ever so.

Magic, I wondered, certain to address the giggling leading me, my love do you know what they’re for?

Sound, treasure, he answered, squeezing me through a group of boisterous men shouting at one another in Spanish spoken far too quick—pulses too loud, singing to what burned in me—and Lucient’s grip tightened, that is what the sigils say, anyhow. I imagine they amplify the performers.

I had visited theaters before, in trips to Rome with my parents, but they did not employ magic. Nor did their seats stretch quite so wide or deep into the earth as those of the one I stood in then. Tapering toward the stage, those seats were yet too numerous...and full, each pulse playing a litany in my veins. My hand in Lucient’s ached with how I gripped, Wherever we are headed, love...we must reach it soon.

Giggling louder, he ducked under a couple absently dancing in the hall—forcing me to break them up—and rushed behind a towering column. There he stopped, pressing me up against the stone and I looked up for the first time since he pulled me through the crowd. Open, the theater, void of ceiling to welcome all the wonder of the stars above. And it was a perfect night for it, not a cloud to disrupt.

Chill hands took my face as Lucient whispered, “We lure here, my love, dine without eyes to catch...and then take in the show.”

I stared at him, studying eyes too like the stars above us—distant and glittering—and that ever-sharp grin before hunger overtook any sense they should have mustered, “Which of us is the lure?”

Chuckling low, he pet my beard, “With this crowd, treasure, it’ll have to be you.”

Shivering then from what growled inside me, I found room for snark, “and will my possessive dream be able to stand such a thing?”

“Of course, treasure, because I know what they don’t,” He said, gripping my cheeks and yanking me to his lips. But the kiss I expected didn’t come, instead he turned my head and whispered in my ear, “You belong to me.”

He did give me his lips then, and a taste of his tongue—chill and calming as was—and I pressed for more, ached for more, but he pushed me back. Pointing after, he indicated the very group of boisterous men we’d circumvented.

And I scoffed, “Them? They are too many, and too close, how do I get one to leave with me?”

“That delicious charm of yours, treasure,” he answered, hand slipping into my jacket to test the other layers hiding my chest, “and I do not mean your voice.”

Staring at him until he looked up at me, I waited for him to stop giggling at what I’m certain was a sour expression, “So you want me to go over there and, what, wriggle like a hooked worm and see which follows?”

His giggles blurted into laughter and it took too many seconds to control it—seconds I spent breathing deeper, trying to keep hunger from further blurring my vision.

Then he kissed my cheek and softened his voice, “My perfect treasure...just do whatever it is you used to, with the sailors.”

The emphasis came iced and I wondered what would come after, should it take more than a smile to lure someone to us. I shouldn’t have. Ever in me, as he so loved to remind, he heard my wondering and narrowed those bright eyes.

But he didn’t speak, he shoved, and I sighed, “Well, I did wish to practice my Spanish…”

Lucient’s eyes kept on me as I navigated the growing crowd back to the men he’d set me on. Chill his gaze, and not the sweet cool of his touch, it was sharp and ever-present. A sensation that did not aid what I’d been sent to do, nor did it lessen the gnawing inside me, or the twitch that took my lips. Still I found them, three men in a tight circle speaking far too loud—even with the noise of other voices all around us.

All of them were shorter than myself, and all fairly slender, though not so much as Lucient, and none of them terribly attractive to me—although by then, in all honesty, no one but he was.

And with his insistence I follow who I was, the heartbreaker I used to be, I entered boldly into that circle. Slapping my hands on the shoulders of two of the men, I polished rusting lessons, discarded them and referred to them as the true entertainment of the evening in the worst accent I could muster, “Bueno, parece que he encontrado el verdadero entretenimiento.”

The two I had my hands on eyed me before continuing their conversation, but the third tilted his head and smiled. A gesture I mirrored before letting the others go and slipping around to speak to him alone.

“Hablas inglés?” He asked me, ignoring the shared look of the other two—one that had a distinct flavor of, ‘this again’, to it, emphasized by the irritation in their thoughts, clouded as they were by their debate.

I laughed softly, feigning embarrassment, “That bad?”

“Not the worst,” he answered, his own laughter just as quiet, but he smiled wider—never taking his eyes from mine—as familiar heat sang through his words, “Are you new to the...area?”

Confusing that moment, able to sense so much—too much—and not want it. No part of me wanted this man in the way he already seemed to want me. Not seemed, did. I knew he wanted me, the very second he saw me in fact. The others’ thoughts were clouded with local politics but that one, he thought of the other men in the theater.

Then he thought only of me.

“Yes,” I answered, remembering my task—blinking and masking my breaths for the hunger that had become agony, “Very new, actually. Just docked.”

I wouldn’t need much to lead him from the others, as he approached me, taking my arm with effortless confidence to lead me toward the very column Lucient waited behind. And I followed, smiling as he spoke, “Where from, if you don’t mind? You don’t sound English.”

Laughing at his observation, while smiling at the bright eyes peeking from the column, I gave an honest answer, “Italy, southern Italy, to be specific.”

He stopped in front of the column, eyes firm on mine—though they wandered to take in all of me—and sighed, “Beautiful country...and, what are you doing here?”

Stepping closer to the column, I backed into the shadows, beckoning him with a finger. Still smiling, he followed, and without a word put his hands on my waist. I allowed it, careful not to notice the one sneaking up behind him as I set a hand under the man’s chin.

Tilting his head up, as if for a kiss—that he expected, closed his eyes for—I leaned for his neck and answered, “Grabbing a bite.” He swooned with my bite, hands tightening on my waist, but while his thoughts swam with heady visions of compromising positions...he said nothing.

Lucient watched us for less than it felt before he grabbed the man’s shoulders and bit into the other side of his neck. The moans he drew were almost as sweet as the blood, flavored as it was with whatever alcohol the man drank before entering the theater. And again came the lust with the salt and syrup; hot and eager, solidifying what his eyes and thoughts had suggested.

But no tease followed from Lucient of how that one lusted for me, no remark on how quickly I’d lured him. He only drank, pressing against the man hard enough to hold me around him, to make any who might spot us believe we’d fallen to our basest urges in public.

However, he did warn me, though not of that, Don’t take it all, leave him breathing.

I obeyed, pulling away—hunger not sated, but staved off—and leaving the man gasping and unresponsive, but breathing. Leaving the mess of blood on my lips, I stared at Lucient. We’d not left anyone alive—though I knew we could—and while I could function with the lessened hunger, it was out of character for him to suggest. More than that, however, was the matter of how I’d brought the man to him and how my jealous, possessive dream of a monster...would not be so calm in that situation.

Lucient laid the man against the column and turned to me, licking the blood from his lips too slowly before addressing my confusion, “You said it yourself, treasure, there were too many with him. They might come looking.”

“And you’re...comfortable, with my luring him?” I shouldn’t have asked, I knew the moment the words escaped but hindsight is what it is.

On me quick as he ever was, Lucient licked every drop of blood off my lips and dug for what lingered on my tongue as he spoke to my worries, Not in the slightest, my love, and you will pay for every smile, every laugh, every promise those big beautiful eyes made. Releasing me, he took my hand, chuckling at my ragged breath and wobbly gait—heady that tongue, always too sweet—as he lead me to the seats. Not until he sat me in one and snuggled up beside me, did he speak aloud, “After the show.”

“But, what of the,” I had questions, important ones I thought.

Lucient disagreed, putting a finger over my lips, “Chut, it starts soon and I want to know how those sigils sound.”

The man, my love, I tried quietly, what happens when he wakes?

I said chut, he returned as quietly, he’s of no consequence. Turning his ever-beautiful eyes on me, voice yet silent, he teased, unless my treasure wants to keep him?

Rubbing my forehead, I ignored the question, “Very well, my dream, I’ll be quiet.”

I can’t tell you what the performance was. I’ve tried to remember, dug as deep as I could for the specific purpose of putting it into this book—there are many things one can find with modern technology and magic at their disposal but a midnight showing of an opera three hundred or so years ago is not one of them. So, thanks to my lack of focus and inability to find a mage willing to dig into my mind, you’ll not get that experience.

I was lost to how strange Lucient was acting, and the oddity of my comfort. Not in luring the man, no, I was not comfortable at all with that. But the feeding, the willingness to drain him dry...and the disappointment that I wasn’t allowed to. Monster, that is how I felt, how I felt so often, yet in that feeding—luring on my own, behaving as the predator Lucient insisted we were—the word became less damning.

Less painful even, and I wondered, as a soprano silenced the theater with her solo, My love...was that a test?

He didn’t answer with words, but when I looked for them he smiled and he winked—tears glistening from an opera I wasn’t listening to.

[szllr]

I had to draw this because Eric was really distracted here

[probadbatch]

Commencing Bad Batch rewatch binge now

[krembearry]

hey whats up guys. would you still love me if i started south park posting

lmao too bad im obsessed with shit and no one can stop me. obliterates your dashboard

[blooferlady86]

Having had a chance to sleep on it, I've decided that the main problem with Last Voyage of the Demeter is that it doesn't know what manner of horror movie it is.

It starts off with a heavy historical and Gothic tone, then it spends about 5 minutes being a psychological thriller and mystery before going into full slasher mode. And from there it just bounces between those genres.

But the problem is, those genres don't play nice together. Once you go full slasher, it's a bit hard to settle back into moody Gothic horror. If you've shown Michael Myers in the first 5 minutes, it's tough to build psychological suspense around whether the crew is facing something supernatural or not. And if you've established that your creature pretty much just rips open necks, you'll be hard pressed to find multiple creative ways to rip open necks.

They try to do all these things! They really try! They just don't succeed.

All the while, it suffers from the fact that it has clearly told you in the opening, expository text of the movie that this is a story about a derelict ship with no survivors from the novel Dracula.

I was reminded about the Hitchcock quote about creating suspense by showing the audience a bomb and telling them it would go off at 1 o'clock.

I think the lack of focus on tone took away the effectiveness of the metaphorical bomb. Instead of wondering what they were going to do to survive next, we just got to watch as each crew member, most of whom we cared nothing about, got brutally murdered.

That's not to say that individual parts of the film were not terribly effective, they definitely were. The acting and cinematography (excluding the obviously telegraphed "jump scares") were great!

There is a top notch horror movie in there, waiting for a great editor. But it feels like there were too many cooks in the kitchen and they all wanted to make a slightly different type of film.

(Also at one point a character FROM THE VILLAGE BENEATH DRACULA'S CASTLE says that Dracula is going to London because there is no one left to feed on in that country, which is a line so stupid I cocked my head to one side like a confused puppy trying to parse it.)

[whatimdoing-here]

Should be looking forward to this weekend but I am 80% dreading it

[ratbastarddotfuck]

Brussels sprouts

When I was a kid, for so long I wanted to be a zookeeper.

I wanted to learn about and care for every animal I could possibly know.

And then my family said: But you need to be good at science for that. And you do not know very much science (because you are too stupid (I was nine years old)).

So then, as a slightly older child, I wanted to be a behavioural zoologist.

I wanted to understand how animals worked, I wanted to learn the science and get to be around critters all the time.

And then my family said: But in order to be a zoologist, you have to be good at math, because science requires lots of math. And you are bad at math (because you are stupid (I had undiagnosed disabilities)).

And I - twelve years old, thoroughly drenched in the cultural idea that math is hard and everyone hates it, had moved schools 4 times and missed a lot of curriculum, hadn't memorised my times tables - said "you're right, I am bad at math (stupid)", and I discarded all dreams of working with animals.

At sixteen years, my family tried to convince me to work with animals, because I'm so good with them and love them so much.

And then I said: I'd love to, but I'm (stupid) bad at math.

At seventeen I graduated, and my highest grade was math. And I didn't know what to do.

[lumeha]

Seeing Alear wearing Lumera's regalia in the credit scene made me think about how Rhea wears a crown that is clearly inspired by Sothis' regalia and the weight of this reminder for the both of them

What it means to take up the mantle of your mother as a guardian and carrying a reminder of her on you as the symbol of this

[isadora-greenhall]

Stewie Griffin from Family Guy ripped off a vegan's nipple with his teeth :)