When I Say I'm Leaving You An Inheritance Of Vampire Jewellery, This Is What I Mean

If you're having an existential crisis, it's good to have a vampire friend who will lend you his coffin to hide from the world in.

Well. Sort of good.

Hope you feel better soon!

Look, I'd I'd sleep with fourty-six 2024 Count Orloks in my face without a PEEP if it means i get a coffinmate!! Thank you, Aurik (and Vlad!!) I don't know what I've ever done to deserve all this kindness!

I can't get over how fluffy I am and my jumper and aaaaaaahhhh

Massive thank-you and love to everyone who left me a kind word (and drawings! And cats!!!), I'm scrunched up in a small happy ball right now with aaahhhhh running through my brain on loop. I never expected any of this, thank you!

Doomed by the narrative.

They doomed themselves and each other. They treated each other like monsters and believed themselves to be monsters.

The "monster or human" narrative is one of the central conflicts of the story. Were we made wrong, or did we lose our souls somewhere along the way? What happens when you believe you are a monster?

Before I worry anyone unduly, my well-being is, well, quite well. A reason I hesitate to post my writing is that I'm worried I'll make people concerned - yes, a lot of it is based on experience, but it's gothic fiction and I paint it darker than it is. Also, I have a gremlin in my brain that screams, "MAKE IT WEIRDER!" A weird imagination is the side effect of growing up feeding on novels, don't read too much into it.

Welp, I suppose we'll soon know just how weird it is, if I don't chicken out and actaully release the creepy lil creature into the internet.

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!

i love poto so bad it makes me wanna cry

Us when POTO:

(From Pharoga cats Christmas)

It gets worse when you have Phan friends. They have the most diabolical minds for tragedy. Yes, I'm looking at all of you here.

Unless you're speaking of the Spanish poto, Anon?

Have some more silly comics of Leroux Erik roasting his descendants while I storyboard a Phantom music video animatic.

@jennyfair7 your reblog of my WIP is on point, that's basically what happened 😹

All PotO cat comics here

Someone challenged me to write a romance.

Call it my special brand of braincell torture, but I decided to take it further.

I shall try to write something sweet with a happy ending, with no gloomy-doomy self-inserts, no characters with 1,800 personal problems and absolutely no long discussions about the meaning of life, the justification of murder, love, loneliness, alienation, complicity, or suchlike.

Somebody help. I don't know how to write anymore.

I don't dare to say no vampires. Do you want me to be absolutely miserable?

Somehow, I'm unable to draw cats or hampsters now, so I made MCR-themed keychain earrings and a Black Parade parade zeppelin choker. I'm strangely mesmerised by the zeppelins in the WTTBP music video.

The Hotel Bella Muerte keychain can only be seen for one blurry second in A Summoning, but I've seen many renditions made by Etsy sellers, and they all seem to agree that it has a Lil Guy.

The Desolation Row one is based on Gerard Way's trousers. It felt like a legitimate design choice at the time and I ran with it.

MCR art from when I can still do it

For some reason I haven't been able to draw any cats lately. Catch me lurking around the house like a cryptid cosplaying a person.

I can't be bothered to update my meet the artist but I cut my own hair again and I can see my scalp for the first time. Yippee.

WHAT DID I SAY? What did I say?

ARGH.

Original posts: Nosferatu here and Lescat here.

Thank all of you who pressed the little funny buttons!

Germs got me. The whole inside of my head, throat and chest feels inflamed. Like a vampurr who snorted garlic powder or something - I've lost my singular braincell, can't really be poetic.

Oh well, guilt-free bedrot and "Salem's Lot" audiobook. I'm not a fan of Stephen King, but vampire fiction is vampire fiction.

I'm not going to be up to much these days. I do have some weird drafts stored up, and if my brain comtinues to be so swollen, I might just post them.