Oooo Okay, Let Me Pick Out Some Things From My Vampire Vibes Playlist:

Heck yes I am... Okay, so who's gonna write the Nygmobblepot viking AU now? Just let me know when you do so I can read it! ;) 

The other day I was walking out the back door at work and a crow startled me and I can tell I'm far gone on the Vampire Diaries because, just for a split second, something in my brain went "Damon? Is that you?"

Guess what my new phone background is :)

I finally decided it was time to change away from my Christmas screensaver (it was Os, Ed, and Martin decorating their Christmas tree by random-fandom-art, partly inspired by a prompt I sent, which I reblogged a while ago--it’s currently on page 4 of my blog, though obviously that will change--side note, how cool is it that you can suggest things to artists on here and then the art happens? Epic.) 

So this is my new home screen. I always love Spicy Watson’s colors so much; they’re just so vivid and cheerful and the art really pops. I also love the details of the pattern on Os’s robe. Perhaps the best thing about this piece in particular, though, (I’m sounding like a wine-sipping art critic right now, aren’t I... woops) are Os and Ed’s expressions. I just love how straight up annoyed Oswald looks that Ed has gone and done something silly and gotten himself injured; his eyebrows could not more clearly say “again?”. Ed looks so bashful and embarrassed, yet there’s also that edge of a smile he’s barely biting back, and he looks like he’s actually quite happy to be having Oswald patching him up. I also love the purple outlines on Oswald’s hair because purple, and the fact that Oswald has canonically had purple highlights is still one of my favorite things about his fashion choices. Because purple. In conclusion, they may annoy each other, but they’ll always take care of each other. (That was a completely non sequitur use of “in conclusion” but I’m standing by it.) 

-Oswald, really, I’m fine.

-If you come home like this one more time, you’re sleeping on the couch.

[please don’t repost anywhere]

I’ve been working on a fic lately that has very quickly become much more Martin-centric than I had at first anticipated. He really is a fascinating character. He’s both the innocent child who showcases the kinder side of the King of Gotham’s dark heart, and a mysterious potential future supervillain. I love thinking about just who he’ll wind up becoming in the future... And, though I’m sad Gotham never showed us what he grew up to be, I love how open to speculation he is as a character. 

Also, I love that book dedication :) 

Martin Cobblepot - The Emperor’s Chick

“Did you know that male emperor penguins keep their eggs warm by balancing on their feet?… Pretty neat.”

I love this episode so, so much... I’m not certain whether I can call it my absolute favorite because there are so many great Doctor Who episodes, but the interactions of the two Masters, both with one another and with the Doctor--and the way that they illustrate how much the Master and their relationship with the Doctor has changed and grown--it’s just so beautifully done. From the banter to the Doctor’s epic moral speech, I just love all of it. 

Anyways this isn’t specifically relevant to this particular gifset, but it just showed up on my dash and I was like OMIGOSH THAT EPISOOODDEEE and I had to ramble about how much I love it. I need me that Doctor/Master interaction, and that multi-Master interaction, and just... all of it. Yes. 

I’m so articulate tonight, haha. 

Do you ever consider alternate names for ships? Like Spuffy could’ve been Billiam, or... or Bike.

Bike

Bike

Ooh okay so I’ve been thinking, and hear me out. I know Spike has adapted and become pretty thoroughly modern and Punk Rock and all that, but never forget that, as a human, he was a Victorian gentleman. So, I like to imagine that every once in a while, he does these random little Victorian things, like sending Buffy a truly weird Christmas card like one of the above or wanting to tell a spooky Christmas Eve ghost story. 

Granted, in life, proper little aspiring Romantic Poet* William said he didn’t like to discuss “dark, ugly business”^ such as the “rash of disappearances” that had been going around town (spoiler alert: the ones caused by the vampires that were soon to turn him, but I digress) so maybe that suggests he wasn’t the biggest fan of the Christmas Eve ghost story before his turning--although it’s also possible he simply wasn’t big on true crime (nor the people telling it, since they often made fun of his poetry) but he was still down for a spooky story enchantingly spun on a dark night by the fireplace; I know we don’t get a ton of pre-turn William--but either way, after becoming a vampire and thus becoming into Dark, Edgy Things, I’m convinced he would have loved a scary Christmas Eve ghost story, and I like to imagine he carried that forward with him even after getting into the Ramones and Nirvana and hair dye. And whatever Passions is; I should really look that up. Huh, I guess it’s basically just a soap opera. But in any case, we know the guy likes to tell a good spooky story, like that time when Dawn comes to visit him and he’s regaling her with his own gruesome exploits, so we know he has a talent for suspenseful tale-telling. Even after getting his soul back, I don’t think that storyteller aspect of him goes away (although he probably prefers fictional stories to his personal history now). 

So, one year, Buffy gets a Christmas card with an illustration of Santa stuffing a kid into his sack or frogs falling on ice, and on the back there’s an invitation to Christmas Eve ghost stories in Spike’s crypt (does he move back into a crypt? I’m just into season 7 now and he’s living at Xander’s at the moment but I do still picture him in his crypt) and anyways I miiight have to write this fic now if I can get around to it. As much as I love punk rock Spike, I still want him to be a little Victorian sometimes :)  

*I know he’s technically from after the Romantic Era proper--he was born shortly after it ended if you take Wikipedia’s end date of 1850 and consider that he was I think 26 when he was turned in 1880 (which is firmly in the Victorian era)--but I still feel like Romantic Poet is what he was aspiring to be.

^I looked up a transcript for the quotes; thanks go to this site

P.S. Along these lines, I’ve also been thinking about whether Spike would go Christmas Caroling. I do very much doubt that soulless vampire Spike ever would, but I’m fairly confident that pre-turn William would do it happily; so, my question is, would now-reensouled Spike be willing to go caroling, or would he still be too Edgy? These are the real questions about Buffy’s soul lore we should be asking, haha. 

Victorian Christmas cards were bonkers

They’re so cute and so fluffy :) And the colors are so bright and also did I mention how cute this is? I love it! <3 

For @lordazazel23 !

I love your pencil sketch style and especially the nygmobblepot sketches! 💚💜  These two (x | x) make me always laugh so hard! 🤣

You are an amazing artist! 😉👍

____________________________________

One of your wishes was “Something cute” for nygmobblepot - I hope you like my gift for you. 😊 Please try to ignore the anatomy, i’m sure there are still many mistakes. 😅 Oh, and I still can’t upload vector graphics on tumblr properly … (pic looks always blurry) … please click on it for better quality!

These drawings and photos helped me very much creating the gift so I want to thank their creators:

LeniProduction | deviantart.com (bodies)

Lena London | supercoloring.com (Oswald’s umbrella)

oswalddcobblepot | tumblr.com (Oswald’s coat)

Brooke | customstyle.wordpress.com (Ed’s bowler hat)

And this pic for Ed’s glasses 👓

____________________________________

I wish you a very Merry Christmas! 🎄🎁🎅

Yours, buntesfuenkchen (Steffi)

Olaf, Bertrand, Poison Darts

Before Olaf ever officially met Bertrand, he had heard stories about him.  Bertrand’s chaperone thought he was an amazing, model apprentice. But that chaperone also ranked last out of all 52 VFD chaperones. Who coincidentally was also Olaf’s nemesis Snicket’s chaperone, and that was where things got interesting.

Someone who Lemony Snicket was unfavorably compared to? Olaf hadn’t even met this guy, but he decided that he’s going to like him.

When they finally met for the first time, Olaf discovered that Bertrand was quite unlike the usual VFD theater teens he encountered. Bertrand wasn’t much a literature guy, nor was he invested in poetry or theater. He didn’t quote classics in everyday life (not even wrongly or sarcastically or anything) like the rest of them.  (Perhaps that was how he got assigned to lowest ranking chaperone, Olaf thought.)

Despite his differences with the theater teens of VFD, they all turned out to like Bertrand a lot.  He was pleasant and easygoing and because of his interests were different from them, they didn’t feel the need to compete with him.  But the best thing was, he was great at building sets and props – everything the theater people needed on stage – and every fancy, overly dramatic equipment they probably didn’t need off-stage but he was nice enough to make for them anyway.  (One day, the working wings of a dragonfly costume might turn out surprisingly useful for an actress, but that was another story.)

And Olaf liked him too, just like all of them. Bertrand was the only person who wouldn’t tear his Al Funcoot plays apart, and as much as it was fun bickering with Beatrice or R about the literary references in his plays, it was great to have someone who he could spend time with that didn’t care about all those and would be glad to help make the props for the play.  (Although he did have to fight the other theater majors for his time – as if Beatrice’s bat-styled hot air balloon or Esme’s martini glass dress was more important than his demands.)

And perhaps that was why Bertrand’s part in his parents’ murder came as the most surprising of them all.  After being friends – if he could call them that – with Beatrice for so many years since their childhood, he’d known, grudgingly that she was capable of a lot of things. Mostly in the name of drama, but sometimes for things more sinister too. He’d seen her darker sides that sometimes he wondered if Snicket realized. And Kit – she followed VFD’s orders in a way nobody else could, she planned coldblooded schemes in the name of necessary evil better than anyone else. (It probably said something about their relationship that he wasn’t that surprised when his girlfriend played a part in his parents’ murder.)  But Olaf never expected it from Bertrand.

Bertrand, who got along with everyone, who was always helpful, who didn’t argue much but not in a Jerome kind of way.

He’d long known ago he shouldn’t trust actors, but perhaps the biggest lesson was to not trust the polite and practical engineers either.

In retrospect, maybe he should have known. After all, Bertrand was the one with the craftiest hands out of them all. And if he could make theater props for them, who knew what else he was able to make?

A handy little device for aiming poison darts, as it turned out.

This is so mysterious and spooky and I love it. I do kind of wish we got to see a little bit more of Ed’s interactions with the Court of Owls after he finally got to meet them, i.e., got captured by them. 

That whole mystery illustrated him as a Ravenclaw villain so beautifully. While I love Oswald dearly, his villainous motivations are very much classic Slytherin ones--he’s ambitious, and his cunning and manipulation serve his ambition. And of course, there’s nothing wrong with a classic Slytherin villain, but I suppose as a Ravenclaw I love to see villains from my own house. Unlike Oswald, Ed doesn’t care about ruling Gotham. He wants people to know how smart he is and to be recognized for that, but also, he’s a genuinely curious person. He wants to know all the secrets the city keeps. The Court of Owls was a perfect trap for him, really--curiosity is one of his greatest downfalls (arrogance is another, of course, but that’s for another time).

Anyways, I just love how creepy and eerie this is, and I think it’s a fitting and illuminating picture of that moment when Ed finally got his answers. Or, well, just more questions, really. 

I love how Ed was really just starting to think of himself as a big, scary supervillain, starting to have that power and feel it, and at that very moment, he stumbled into something much bigger and scarier than himself. This picture really gives off that feeling in a lovely way that makes one shiver a little.

This is another one of those pieces of art I’ve simply stared at for an inordinately long period of time. 

Welcome to your new home.