#w/sister issues

[konigs-left-pec]

Crow was 100% a toxic POS when he was Uldren, but omg he was hot. 😭

[pepperpixel]

SAID HE LIKES CRAZY GIRLS,

BUT HE HATES WHEN I ACT CRAZY,

IT TAKES TWO TO TOXIC!

FINALLY!!! Finished these pics of jinx I’ve been working on!!!!! HOLY SHIT, these took so long…. But finally… they’re done… pls enjoy this art of my beautiful princess w a disorder. Featuring alternate colors for the big pic and also a closeup! Cuz I rlly like how both the lines and coloring on her face turned out… like the pink gradients w her eye… her deer in headlights expression,, like uve just startled a raccoon digging thru ur trashcan and r two seconds away from getting mauled.. m proud of it!

[efverse]

little sister...

[baylardian-1]

just the four of us we can make it if we try

[pixxelminxx]

ooohhhh lalondes…. oohhhhh

mom lalonde doing rose’s hair as a kid…. when rose gets into her emotionally distant teenage years they stop doing that….. but roxy never got that at all

and when rose and roxy meet… rose talks about her mom doing her hair and roxy’s like ive never had anyone do my hair :( and so she does roxy’s hair just like her mom did for her

[ssruis]

There is so much u can read into with this one line… I’m going to go insane… tsukasa as a kid seeing his sister and parents actually be happy for once and they’re all in the same place and enjoying themselves as a family… tsukasa “family is everything” tenma internalizing that specific moment for the rest of his life bc he’s like “finally here’s something I can do to help” when he’s been unable to do anything to help saki or his parents (mostly saki bc lbr saki has always come first for him but I think seeing his parents stressed over saki definitely factored into this) & being like “its my job to make everyone happy because that’s what I *can* do.”

He undoubtably loves shows now (to an insane degree) but it fascinates me that his love for them originates from his love for his sister. Obsessed with them. Also has… so many implications wrt dazzling light and the period where he was really focused on the piano instead of shows. Saki is doing worse -> using piano as a way to deal with his feelings over that.

Saki is feeling better and recovering -> “I can play anything” (I don’t feel like I need to say anything abt that)

“She’ll be back (and I’ll be waiting for her) (at home)” head in hands. So much of what I hate about the overly angsty reading of tsukasa in middle school is that it completely ignores *why* he was more subdued/down at that point, which is that the person he loves more than anything and would do anything for is suffering and there’s nothing he can do to help her.

Saki is literally the most important thing in the world to him to the point where it’s shaped just about every aspect of his life. I have tenma siblings induced mental illness and it’s lethal I fear.

Speaking of saki:

“Was it (tsukasa’s interest in shows) all for me?” The implication that saki (who hates the idea that people feel compelled to inconvenience themselves for her which. Is an entirely different conversation) thought he was still following this path for her and her alone… That’s such an insanely heavy burden to carry… SAKI………. (Soung of crying)

[fandom-geek]

so i've been catching up on call the midwife and finally watched the latest episode (s14e4), and this line caught my eye:

"We journey in faith. We must permit all doubt, for it is only through doubt that we can find its opposite."

which naturally made me think of conclave, since that also talks a lot about doubt and faith/certainty - namely two particular quotes:

"Let me tell you there is one sin I have come to fear above all others. Certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. [...] Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore no need for faith."

and obviously CTM has this quote coming from sister julienne, an anglican nun, whereas conclave is catholic. but i'm just kinda fascinated by how they're two diametrically opposed quotes despite their similarities. cardinal lawrence views doubt as the foundation for faith and thus the two are the same, whereas sister julienne sees it as a way to find faith (but not the same). it's especially interesting since conclave is dealing with a church that is torn btwn change and stasis, whereas call the midwife's nuns are dealing with a changing world that is increasingly uncomfortable (and rightly so) about the role of religion in healthcare.

idk if sister julienne's view is typical to anglicanism, but as an atheist who was raised catholic, i've gotta say that i prefer cardinal lawrence's view of faith and doubt. it just seems... so much more accepting of human psychology.

[newty]

it frustrates me when i observe that fans often prove they're in possession of the mandate of canon by....talking shit abt fanfic writers.

fans frequently assert interpretive superiority by saying that fanfic is full of terrible grammar, stupid plots, wild mischaracterization, abominable kinks, weird women and their demented woobified or daddy dom fantasies, so on and so forth. fans have Entertainment Standards that the fanfic writing masses do not meet

yet unskilled fan illustrations are encouraged, and the same comments about illustrators would be unacceptable & seen as vindictive, bullying, and unfair

[geddy-leesbian]

And now I'm feeling shitty like ppl are going to think im like faking or milking this. Like I thought abt having another "sorry for mistakes, I'm sick" note at the start of chapter 3 but ive done that too many times i feel like i don't have the right to pull that card AGAIN

Because I was so sick before and just kept whining about it forever and i know ppl had to be thinking god this bitch is STILL sick. And now i was barely better and already im sick AGAIN.

It also doesn't help that porphyria is an extremely weird... almost.... dramatic? disease. And even from person to person it varies wildly, i don't get the same symptoms as family members with it

I know it sounss so fake. This morning i was 100% fine, now I'm in severe pain and my head feels weird almosr like I'm disassociating, my foot hurts, my hands might stop working. And it's all bc i went a day without eating and now i have to make sure i eat a ton of carbs or I'll get significantly worse

It sounds like I'm making shit up, but just google acute intermittent porphyria, it's all real, my nervous system can just randomly go from fine to complain fucked in a matter of hours

^ just a random assortment of screenshots because the generalized anxiety disorder and/or porphyria caused heightened anxiety are telling me that everyone is fed up with my bullshit and thinks I'm lying and I have to prove that I'm actually suffering from a real condition that can make me this sick this fast and can come back so soon and I'm not just milking things for sympathy and attention

[yakkety-yak-art]

Saw the ghost movie that I was really excited about. Was disappointing. Ultimately it was just really…okay or downright bad in the parts that weren’t concert footage. More specific comments below the cut because spoilers, I guess, but there’s really nothing that happens in this movie that matters enough to count as a spoiler.

First, if this had just been concert footage, it would have been much more enjoyable. The movie parts were not at all interesting and each cutaway made it drag on and on. I hadn’t slept well the night before the showing, so the movie itself wasn’t the reason I was dozing off at some parts…but it also wasn’t helping keep me AWAKE outside of the concert footage. No complaints about that footage (mostly, but I’ll get back to it later).

Story: whoops, Tobias Forge can’t write! Sorry, that’s a bit mean, but…I paid money to watch this, so I’ll be a little bit mean. Seriously, this thing needed at least a couple more passes with the script. Every. single. conversation. as repeating what was already brought up in the OPENING voiceover: Cardi doesn’t wanna die, doesn’t wanna stop fronting for Ghost, but everything ends eventually. Yes, we GET IT. We do not need several scenes of Cardi with his parents saying it over and over again with no additional information added to understand that. After the opening VO, we could’ve just had one scene of Cardi looking a bit forlornly at himself in the mirror, and then Sister Imperator happily telling him that “things are going to be changing in the clergy soon!” or something like that and he looks unhappy.

That’s what I thought we were getting at first, but then it just. Kept happening??? Like oh my god Tobias, I get it, Cardi doesn’t want this to end, I KNOW. The quality of the writing suggests that Tobias is one of three things: incompetent at writing anything longer than a short (maybe, but the other two are a bit more likely), had no real story to tell and this could’ve been one of the shorts so he had to pad it out to an insufferable length (definitely), or so full of himself that he thought “eh, I don’t actually have anything to say, but this way I’ll get to be on screen the whole time and the only writer credited,” (probable). It’s just so offensive considering I know there were so many resources available to make this GOOD: more time, writing assistance or hiring a real writer, etc. and yet they were not taken advantage of. If this was something just put up on YouTube I really couldn't care less about the quality, but if you're charging money for this AND are as big as Ghost is, you can't expect to slide by with mediocrity. Except he will, because apparently everyone else loved this thing. Okay. Also, the humor overall just fell super flat. There were several moments where I was like, "wait, was that a joke? was I meant to laugh there?" because they were just nothing. Also, there was a fart joke. Okay.

Acting: sorry, I’m going to be mean again. The acting in the movie parts was very. Hit or miss is what I’m gonna call it. The voice acting in the voiceovers at the beginning and the end were oddly rushed in several places? They weren’t placing words in very natural ways and it just felt like they needed to do another take for some of the lines. It’s especially noticeable in the beginning voiceover because in most of it he’s speaking at a slower pace and it’s perfect and sounds great, but then he just…speeds up sometimes? And it doesn’t feel intentional and isn’t in places that make it feel like it makes sense to speed up for dramatic effect. In Sister Imp’s voiceover at the end, she is also just speeding through it and it’s incredibly awkward, because in a lot of places it’s noticeably faster than she’s speaking in her other scenes. Like, guys, you know you can shoot more footage right??? You can put some b roll in??? You don’t have to squeeze the whole speech into the shorter shot you have if it’s going to compromise the actor’s delivery.

Tobias' acting was passable for the whole thing, though that might be partially because he's not acting with his face as much as the others, so it's less noticeable when something isn't quite working. Sister Imp did a fine job for the most part, excluding her VO and some awkwardness (and no, not intentional awkwardness) in a couple scenes with Papa Nihil. Papa was also fine; nothing to write home about but nothing terrible stood out to me. Most of the issues probably came from the special effects on him to make him ghostly, which I'm presuming involved him being on a green screen or something (I have no clue. Idk anything about making effects lmao.) I'm NOT going to really review the acting of the stagehands because that's not their main job and they already had a lot of work to do, but it wasn't so bad as to take anything away from the scenes they're in. Basically, the acting overall was okay, but not great, and it adds to how much the scenes drag on for sure.

Tiny section about the animated Mary On A Cross segment: I'm not gonna comment on the bad animation, because it's on purpose and emulating old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. My issue is that it makes zero sense and goes nowhere. Nihil chases Sister Imp around for a while looking forlorn and sad and desperate, and she runs away/beats him up while looking pissed off until they come across a graveyard and she pulls him into a kiss. Then it cuts to Nihil naked in a hotel room in the morning while she storms off angrily....okay? And? What changed her mind? Why is she still angry in the morning? Why does this matter at all? Knowing that Papa IV was the product of a one night stand is a footnote if this is all we get from it. Just weird, and didn't fit the song IMO.

Editing: super frantic and distracting in places, particularly the fast cuts in the concert footage. It's just a lot and can be disorienting. Nothing is really allowed to sit on screen for very long (which is related to another point...) but at the same time, some of the movie shots just linger for no reason. They're just awkward and clunky and repetitive. Some people disliked the crowd shots, but I thought they were fun and cute and used sparingly enough. Shout out to the dude in the nun costume!

Weird lack of concert footage: what they chose to keep and what to cut was just confusing. Most of the footage was just Tobias singing, short shots of the Ghouls rocking out, and crowd footage. Almost none of the Ghoul antics that they're known for, unless Tobias was also in shot and involved. Whenever he went backstage and a Ghoul took the spotlight (I'm sorry, I can never remember who is who, but it was usually White Guitar Ghoul if I recall correctly), it cut to a story moment which, again, were boring, repetitive, and told us nothing. It just felt disrespectful to cut out so much of the Ghouls and their performances, especially because the crowd and the fans love them a lot. They add so much to Ghost's live shows and, in my opinion, are more important to Ghost than Tobias. I don't care if that's a "controversial" Ghost opinion to have, but it really is true. I think anyone could be any of the Papas. But the Ghouls, even when they get changed out, are always so talented, so energetic, so passionate, and make Ghost what it is in a live setting. They were also missing from all but one movie scene, where one of them asks if they're doing an encore, and for a second I thought the line had been spoken by one of the stagehands. That's it.

(Okay, there's also there in the scene where Sister Imp dies, but they're just standing there.)

I can't speak for if the Ghouls themselves felt a bit sidelined or disrespected by this. I can't say for certain if they even wanted a bigger presence outside of the concert footage. But I can definitely say that, from a fan perspective, the lack of the Ghouls compared to how OFTEN Tobias is on screen, backstage, doing NOTHING when we could be watching the Ghouls was GLARINGLY obvious. It felt weird and it felt uneven. I started getting really irritated by about the third time it cut backstage when I could be watching the Ghouls! It just led to the whole thing feeling super vain and self-important considering Tobias wrote the film to be this way. Some people have defended this by saying, "well, they're the Nameless Ghouls!" but that's bullshit. They're part of Ghost canon too, so why don't we get anything from them? We can't even see a little bit about how they might be feeling regarding a Clergy mix up? Whether they care about the current Papa, or anything like that? Involving them would feel so much more interesting than just another Papa, but this one wants to KEEP singing!! Again, maybe the Ghouls didn't want to be more involved...but it felt off.

I've never seen Ghost live, so I had no frame of reference for how much was cut from the concert footage aside from the lack of Ghoul antics, which is what they're known for, but apparently several people who were at the concerts filmed for this noticed a ton of footage that was cut (again, mostly Ghouls) that they thought would have been more fun to see compared to so many backstage shots. And yet we got the sequence of him in a boxing outfit, walking through the crowd, which ended with...nothing? He just...does that? Waste of time. (AND YES, I KNOW that it is a reference. That doesn't make it good. It didn't need to be there. Replace it with something relevant.) It just exemplifies how much time is wasted in this movie.

Special effects: oh my god did anyone even look at this movie before sending it out Jesus Christ. The special effects are so bad I was genuinely shocked. When Papa IV and Papa Nihil are talking while IV is in a box (for some reason?? I actually don't know why) Nihil is weirdly sized and not lined up properly. It was odd. The greenscreen was so godawful I was honestly amazed. It's YouTuber comedy sketch levels of greenscreen quality. What the fuck? Especially compared to the amazing performance and how much work is put into their live shows, the horrid effects stood out starkly. Another comment on Nihil: his face is hard to see in some scenes. His ghostly effects make his features kind of blur together sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't, so it clearly wasn't intentional. Just another odd thing. The effect of him getting sucked into his body for his sax performance was very, very bad. I know you had the option to put more time and/or money into the effects, Tobias. Why did you not. What is your problem. Why the fuck would you put out a product of this quality for money and act like it's okay, especially considering the fact that this was marketed as a lore-heavy MOVIE and not just a concert film? If this was a smaller production I would not rag on the effects, but I know for a fact that Tobias has the resources for this to be better, and he chose to not use them. Honestly, it feels disrespectful.

That's the crux of my issues with this movie, really. It was teased as a real movie with real lore and serious effects on the canon of Ghost, and it was none of those things. The lore amounted to Sister Imp dying, which means nothing, because ghosts, and Cardi becoming Frater Imperator at the very end and then the movie ending. It's NOTHING. There's also an end credit scene apparently, which I did not stay to view, because I didn't care and I had been sitting for long enough. Basically, there are ghosts (including Sister Imp, obvi) and then another cliffhanger about meeting the new Papa, and an implication that Cardi has a twin who might be the new Papa. People are freaking out about this possibility. I have no idea why. It really doesn't seem like a big deal at this point when all the Papas have a crazy family situation. A secret twin doesn't even feel like a twist, and it's certainly not enough to count as an addition to the lore when it hasn't even been confirmed. At the risk of sounding rude, fellow Ghost fans, raise your standards. You deserve better.

And that's the crux of my issues with this whole thing. It's mediocre, it's boring, it's absolutely nothing outside of some fun concert footage, and yet it was billed as a must-see film and cost real, actual money to view. If they had been honest about it being a concert movie, I'd have been fine with that! I think they're fun, especially for those of us who can't go to live shows. But we were told it would be more than that, and it wasn't. It feels disrespectful, like Tobias knew he could just put out some slop and people would be okay with it, and it feels even worse because in a way, he was right. Tons of Ghost fans loved this movie, but the more positive reviews I see, the clearer it becomes that they just loved the chance to see the concerts, and love Ghost. Loving Ghost didn't make me love this movie. It just made me disappointed and sad. We could have gotten a great film, but we got something that was low effort because it's obvious that you can take advantage of the fans of something by throwing them crumbs and dressing it up to seem nicer than it is.

I appreciate that individual people on this production put tons of effort into this; the crew, the actors (excluding Tobias) who were clearly doing their best with what they had, and yes, I'm sure even the effects people did what they could with what they had. But all of the parts that were clearly Tobias' call were not high enough quality to be in a movie.

[moe-broey]

Some. Sort of spectrum. From most likely to least likely.

And by kitten-pile I mean This

I'll put a transcript under cut for easier reading! 🫡

How Likely Are They to Kitten Pile?

__

Mirabilis: "are you tired..? do you need a break...? ohh we could take one together..."

If she likes/trusts you even a little, she wants to cuddle about it!!!

-

Sharena and Peony: "Okay! 💖 Yay! 💖"

Shari: The only thing stopping her is social conventions -- making her MORE likely to jump at the opportunity!

Peony: Learning social awareness as she goes, and is surprisingly good at it?

-

Triandra: "Aren't we a bit old for that...? But... even so..."

Embarrassed, conflicted, but feels strangely nostalgic at the notion...

-

Plumeria: "I'm not so petal-soft that I'd resort to such INDECENCY, I mean even if your intentions are Pure USE YOUR HEADS YOU FOOLS!! Girl, the IMPLICATIONS!!!"

Desperately wants to join the kitten-pile, but her Issues and Pride gets in the way.

-

Moe: "aw, so cutes!"

Generally touch adverse, extremely picky even with the people it likes/loves -- everything is entirely on its terms.

[kirishwima]

im gonna cry y'all. not a moment of peace to be found 🫠

[fjordfolk]

I've now been so set on upgrading to the Canon eos R7 that I'm now starting to doubt my decision to upgrade to the R7.

[ssruis]

Please elaborate on the "nene teaches tsukasa to sing in a way that doesn’t make me angry" because as much as I like Nene the way she teacher people to sing does indeed make me a little angry (that's on sega not on her probably-)

OHH I meant that I hate tsukasa’s singing voice and nene needs to help him before I start a petition to have colopale release daisuke hirose from the shackles of singing with a character voice. I’m not a singer & most of my knowledge of music/singing on the technical level comes from osmosis of knowledge from my sister who studied comp/vocal performance for years and at a higher level. And that essentially amounts to something something diaphragm sing from the stomach (? Or is it chest) round your vowels natural talent can only get you so far if you don’t refine it the voice is an instrument. Dont drink dairy. Etc.

I can’t really critique nene’s teaching methods (also don’t remember them well enough. Iirc rui does say nene’s teaching helped emu improve though) although I’m sure anything before canary can be explained by her not knowing what she was doing and being self taught. And she probably still doesn’t know what she’s doing which I expect nene5 to go into with the opera group they’re visiting.

[softshuji]

eldest daughter syndrome really do be kicking my ass tbh

[5eyed]

some recent sprites for "on the flip side" characters (or rather the dimensional doubles of existing characters lol). ive posted characters from this universe a lot over the years, as its my oldest story that i still work on/think about, but ive never really explained who they are! if youd like to explore the setting and characters of "on the flip side" a bit, i made a carrd for it here (its still a wip but im trying to get it all finished within the month! main characters have fully written out bios & backstories, some side characters still just have basic info.) (also this all takes place in a fictional californian city and if you read this and go "wow that is definitely not how things are in california or the us" sorry i dont know shit im french.)