Finishing Off The Year With An Idea I've Wanted To Paint For A While, A Cat In The Clouds ☁️

Oswald and his family, being happy and sweet. 

At first I was disappointed that Ed was left out, but then I realized, even though he’s not pictured really, there are two gifs of Os looking at him/attempting to confess his love for him, so he’s implied in it. 

Three generations of Cobblepot cuteness :) 

I hope no one minds my Christmas spam, but I feel like I’ve got to post all this cuteness tonight because it will be late tomorrow. So much Christmassy fluff, so little time...

Merry Christmas!

For my DCTV Secret Santa giftee @khenq

fandom is so weird you never know how old anyone is but you just kinda assume most of them are around your age until proven otherwise and then one day someone is talking about their 9 year old kid on your dash and another person is saying they just finished 10th grade. wild.  

It is a kitty Kida!!! She is so pretty :) 

Also, I love when people remember that Atlantis exists. It was definitely one of my favorite movies growing up (as were its sequels). I think I still have my Barbie Kida with the light up crystal necklace somewhere...

I have decided that DJ Dr. Death Defying absolutely loves the song “the Last DJ” by Tom Petty (and he vibes with it pretty hard for obvious reasons), and in fact, Tom Petty is one of his all-time favorite artists. 

I once wrote a series of short stories that was basically just sensory descriptions of what it would be like to walk around on every planet, moon, and celestial body I had heard a description of. I later remembered that stories have to have plots and feebly attempted to introduce some actual events happening, but mostly I just wanted to write flowery descriptions of walking around on other planets (and moons and space rocks, etc) because, like... just imagining being on their surfaces is so deeply mind blowing. There are molten magma rivers on Venus, and lakes of liquid methane on Saturn’s moon Titan, and Jupiter’s moon Europa is covered in an ever-cracking miles-deep ice-crusted ocean, and I just wanted to walk around in all of those places, just walk around and see them. 

This is a fantastical accumulation of photos and it’s astonishing to realize how many places we have pictures of like this, as if we’re really there--places where we sent something and that thing of ours, at least, was really there. 

On the other hand, funnily enough, these pictures also prove Doctor Who’s assertion that a significant portion of the universe bears a striking resemblance to a quarry in Wales. 

dude seeing these Mega high quality images of the surface of mars that we now have has me fucked up. Like. Mars is a place. mars is a real actual place where one could hypothetically stand. It is a physical place in the universe. ITS JUST OUT THERE LOOKING LIKE UH IDK A REGULAR OLD DESERT WITH LOTS OF ROCKS BUT ITS A WHOLE OTHER PLANET? 

I love youtube’s suggested video categories feature and its understanding of my interests <3 

As promised, here is the Nygmobblepot fanmix I mostly put together this fall. (See the end of the post for links.) I’ve come across a few very nice fanmixes for them, but not a lot of the ones I found had rock music, and since Nygmobblepot is such a hard rock sort of couple I felt like the need to make a more rock-heavy playlist for them. (Plus, it’s just the sort of music I listen to most often, and so these are the songs that come to mind for me.)

I focused mainly on their season 3 arc, especially the angst. I tried to put the songs in a sort of narrative order, so it starts out with songs that are a bit more focused on their love; Lydia is meant as the turning point where the Isabella murder happens and things start heading south, and the songs thereafter are more focused on their darker dynamic in the latter part of season 3 (though they’re all on the dark side; this is meant to be an angsty playlist). Not every song precisely follows this arc; Bloodfeather, for example, leans towards that darker side of things, but it also fits them so well that I wanted to open the playlist with it. I think it works as echoing the foreshadowing of their relationship in season 2 as well. 

1. *Bloodfeather by Highly Suspect: “In the name of love, I’ll follow you. And if my body’s dead and cold I died for you; in the name of love I’d kill for you.” “You’re fatal but I love who you are. Be my death or my forever; you’re my little bloodfeather.” (Our Penguin does tend to get his feathers bloodied... Granted, that’s not what a bloodfeather is, but the image does fit.)

2. Song 3 by Stone Sour: “If you take a step towards me, you will take my breath away, so I’ll keep you close and keep my secrets safe. No one else has ever loved me, no one else has ever tried, never understood how much I could take. There’s a darkness down inside me that I know we’ll both enjoy. Did I save you? 'Cause I know you saved me too.” 

3. I’m Not Alright by Shinedown: “All messed up and slightly twisted. Am I sick or am I gifted? Maybe it’s me, I'm just crazy; maybe I like that I’m not alright.” (Honestly this one fits Gotham in general--”all dressed up in a white straight jacket” is actually a very Jerome line--but I figured I probably wasn’t going to get around to making a general Gotham playlist and it suits Nygmobblepot’s mutual madness, I think.)

4. Little Monster by Royal Blood: “Hey little monster, where’ve you been hiding, and can I come this time? Heartache to heartache, I’m your wolf, I’m your man. I say run little monster, before you learn who I am.” 

5. Glycerine by Bush: “We live in a wheel where everyone steals, but when we rise it's like strawberry fields. I treated you bad; you bruised my face. Couldn't love you more, you’ve got a beautiful taste. It could have been easier on you, I couldn't change though I wanted to. Should’ve been easier by three; our old friend fear and you and me.” 

6. Possum Kingdom by Toadies: “I’m not gonna lie. I'll not be a gentleman. Behind the boathouse I'll show you my dark secret... Do you wanna die?” (I’ve heard and thought of many interpretations for this strange, dark love song, but somehow or another, they all seem to fit Nygmobblepot.)

7. *Lydia by Highly Suspect: “I am the hungry shark, fast and merciless. But the only girl that could talk to him just couldn't swim, tell me what's worse than this. Your eyes alive in pain, black tears don't hide in rain, and I tied you to the tracks; when I turned around, I heard the sound, I hit the ground, I know there's no turning back.” (It’s particularly interesting how Oswald circuitously killed Isabella with railroad tracks, echoing the old mustache-twirling villain trope of tying the damsel to the train tracks that this song also references. Although if Isabella had had the presence of mind to realize that even if her breaks were out, her steering wheel was still working, she probably wouldn’t be dead, but that’s a rant for another day.)

8. I Only Lie When I Love You by Royal Blood: (the title says most of it but) “Go ahead, pull the plug; broken finger, sticky trigger, now I can't get it off my chest... you know I’m up to something.”

9. Roll Me Under by Stone Temple Pilots: “Do you believe in something beautiful between chaos and the light?” (harks back to their earlier romance, but) “Roll me under, I'll pull the trigger for you. Do with me what you will. Hold me under, the water running over...” (harks forward to the first dock scene. Really I could’ve put this later in the mix but I also put it here to keep the hard/soft balance of the songs cycling back and forth just for auditory balance. Narratively it probably should’ve been #11.)

10. *House on Fire by Rise Against: “I’m in over my head and she's a high tide that keeps pushing me away. I thought we would build this together, but everything I touch just seems to break. Am I your sail or your anchor? Am I the calm or the hurricane?” “Till then I’ll hold you like a hand grenade. You touch me like a razor blade. I wish there was some other way, but no. Like a house on fire, we’re up in flames. I’ll burn here if that’s what it takes.”

11. Disarm by the Smashing Pumpkins: “Disarm you with a smile. Cut you like you want me to. The killer in me is the killer in you, my love. I used to be a little boy; so old in my shoes.” 

12. Say You’ll Haunt Me by Stone Sour: “I will give you everything to... say you'll never die, you'll always haunt me. I want to know I belong to you; say you'll haunt me. Little soft pulses in my dead, little souvenirs of secrets shared, little off guard and unprepared.” (Basically Ed to Oswald in s3e15.)

13. Let it Die by the Foo Fighters: “Did you ever think of me? You’re so considerate. Hearts gone cold and your hands were tied; why’d you have to go and let it die?” (To clarify, I don’t by any means want to suggest that the ship is dead by ending my playlist on this note; I still have hope for Nygmobblepot in season 5, and if nothing else I think season 4 very clearly showed that the ship didn’t die for good in season 3. I just love how powerful and raw Dave Grohl’s voice is at the end of this song and I wanted to let it linger, to let that sound be the note this playlist ended on. Like I said, it’s an angsty playlist.)

Here are links to the playlists. I made two because the songs I’ve marked with an asterisk all have the f-word in them; in the case of House on Fire, it’s only once, but it’s several times in Bloodfeather. If you’re alright with that, here is the playlist with the original, uncensored songs. 

If you would prefer clean versions, here is a version of the same playlist with clean versions of those three songs. 

Fun fact: there was no clean version of House on Fire by Rise against on youtube, so I made my own using a handy editing trick. I probably could also have made better versions of the clean edits of the two Highly Suspect songs (no offence to the original editors but they’re not perfectly smooth and Bloodfeather has a weird gap at the end) but I decided it wasn’t worth the effort. If you would like me to make different edits of those, though, let me know and I’d consider it. I should perhaps also mention that Possum Kingdom does use the name of Jesus, but as long as you read the singer’s request as sincere it’s not taking it in vain. But, I do admit that it could be interpreted that way, for the sake of fair warning. 

So, I hope you enjoy this dark, angsty, rocking season 3 Nygmobblepot playlist! Here’s to hopefully some great Nygmobblepot scenes in season 5.

I love it, it’s like they’re all Harry Potter newspapers! Actually I bet the editors of the Gotham Gazette and the Daily Prophet would get along fairly well. Well, the Gotham Gazette is probably a bit more accurate, but clearly they still love some sensationalism. Anyways, this is some very clever editing. 

Farewell Gotham Challenge [DAY 11 – 12] Favorite Quotes - The Gotham Gazette

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.

I think listening to "at the airport terminal" by Bill Wurtz while sitting in an actual airport terminal is one of my favorite travel-related experiences. It's the definition of peak yet undefinable vibes; the song just matches the otherworldliness of air travel so immaculately.