Latest Posts by alfhildr-the-word-weaver - Page 4

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

I am realizing that I’ve been obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer for more than a month now but I haven’t put anything on my main blog from it yet, so it’s time to remedy that :) 

There is something so tragic and darkly beautiful about Spike and Drusilla’s relationship... I quite like the light this quote casts on Spike’s turning, how he was a poet out looking for his ideal of love, and in her own way, Drusilla was looking for her ideal of love too, but neither of them got quite what they expected--and yet they also sort of did, oddly? In a twisted sense, Drusilla got her knight, brave and true, inasmuch as a vampire can be one; from a vampire’s point of view, killing a slayer could indeed be akin to slaying a great beast, except for the part where they themselves are the beasts to be slain (from a human perspective, at least). And Spike really did get a grand romance with Dru (until it ended), though it involved perhaps more pain and death than he had anticipated. They are in many ways a dark, grim old fairy tale couple. 

528: First time I’ve ever wished for a disney version.

So the one on the left is from August of 2010 but it’s about the closest I could find; side note, I have had a whole heck of a wild nostalgia trip today looking back through old pictures on my mom’s computer to find this. 

And yet, oddly, I’m kind of surprised how little I’ve changed from then until now? For a minute I almost wondered if this picture was dated wrong because some of the pictures of me in 2009 looked like they were from much longer ago somehow, but I think the date is right... I guess it’s kind of hilarious to me looking at how much everyone else in these pictures has changed and I just. Have not. 14 year old me and 24 year old me look almost the same. Maybe this is why it’s so hard for me to believe that much time has passed, haha. If I wasn’t a coward and I’d dyed my hair this summer like I was thinking about, maybe... but anyways, yeah. I’m perhaps a bit better accessorized now, although in fairness 2010 me was on a hike to the Cascades in Pembroke, Va, which is also why I was wearing my conspicuously rainbow-colored swimsuit under my shirt. But so much is still the same I’m a little flabbergasted that it’s been a literal decade between these pictures. 

*Kill All Your Friends starts playing* It’s been ten *bleep*ing years.... Sorry, wrong album. 

the 10th anniversary of Danger Days is coming up on November 22nd and i think we should all post what we looked like when the album was released verses now yknow “me November 2010 vs me November 2020” i think that’d be really cute

Oooo okay, let me pick out some things from my Vampire Vibes playlist:

Uninvited, the cover by Red Sun Rising

Possum Kingdom by Toadies

Little Monster by Royal Blood

Nocturnal Me by Echo and the Bunnymen

Animal by Badflower

Out for Blood by Sum 41

Animal, the cover by Chase Holfelder (it’s not the same song as the Badflower one)

There’s more on the playlist but I think those are the most evil and s*xy :)

send music recs for a playlist about sexy evil vampires

Halloween 🎃

Hmm, I could list a few things I've seen that strike me as fairly common, though of course they'll be different for everyone. These are just generalizations I feel like I see crop up a lot; maybe they'll help you get your feet wet with the fandom’s lore.

Obviously, the Fab Four are barely in the comic, but there seem to be some commonalities to their characterization that the fandom has built. For example, I feel like Fun Ghoul is typically fairly chaotic, probably the most so out of the main four, and on the reckless side. He’s probably the funniest. Also, he’s often skilled with explosives and quite fond of blowing things up. Party Poison is the leader, sassy, and often has a temper. Party laughs loud and shouts louder. I think Poison is also the one of the Fab Four most frequently cast as non-binary, but the gender of all the characters varies quite widely across fanon. There was a movement recently against Jet Star being cast as the Mom Friend, but I feel like he's still widely regarded as sort of a mediating force and generally a bit more on the thoughtful side, though obviously they can all be wild at times (there’s a certain minimum of chaotic energy required to be a Killjoy). Kobra Kid typically loves his motorcycle and likes to race it; I feel like he's usually kind of a cool dude(tm), or at least tries to be. And, naturally, Kobra and Party are almost always siblings.

Outside of the Fab Four, Cherri Cola writes poetry and has a poetry corner segment on his radio show; he's usually sweet and rather melancholy. Show Pony is even more chaotic than Ghoul, highly flirtatious, and even more widely headcanoned as nonbinary than Poison--I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone use "he" pronouns for Pony (though the actor in the music videos does for himself, but that’s not really relevant to fanon about the character). Dr. Death-Defying is something of a guardian of all the Killjoys, borderline omniscient at times with his radio broadcasts, and he serves as the grounding force behind a rowdy, chaotic gaggle of teenage rebels. His couch is always there for new Killjoys to crash on. He’s a comforting presence and a source of wisdom (though again, I’d say a certain amount of chaotic energy is present in all Killjoys, Dr. D included). 

Anyways, I'm basically trying to summarize the headcanons of a bunch of people at once, and as it’s been said before, things are different for everyone. Just because I see these as throughlines for these characters doesn’t mean that they will be for everyone. But, those are some general impressions I’ve gotten through the fandom.

Also I realize I really only went for basic character descriptions, rather than anything about the setting or other lore, so let me know if there’s any other area of fanon I should attempt to sum up and I’d be happy to try :) 

Could you maybe give a crash course on killjoy fanon? Like I read the comic and I just got here and I’m hella confused. I almost feel like I read a different comic than y’all lol

Okay my answer won't be good, you came to the wrong blog for something coherent, but if anyone sees this and would like to add on, please do!

I'm gonna start by saying basically there's just what little canon they gave us and you just make what you want with it, your own set of hcs and worlbuilding and characters' races and sexualities and genders and whatnot, it's free real estate.if the canon doesn't spark joy, you can throw it away,have fun with this.

I've been trying to write an answer for a couple of hours but i have nothing, I'm sorry this wasn't helpful at all. Someone give an answer to this?

A moodboard for my Killjoy OC Fruit Snack! She is half African American and half Hopi; I'm still working on developing the full details of her character, but putting together this moodboard has helped me work towards getting to know her better. Her name arose out of this post (blagueofchaos is my sideblog) and I’ve basically run with it from there, trying to work out what a Killjoy who named herself Fruit Snack would be like. I do plan on doing a full OC intro post once I have a decent summary of her worked out and written, so I’ll try to refrain from making this post super long with details and mostly let the moodboard speak for itself. 

I was motivated to make this moodboard by the Killjoys of Color Project run by @andromeda-flash and @code-red-against-mike-milligram. This is for Day 3: City Born OCs. Thank you for the inspiration to actually make this! 

For full photo sources and credits, plus an expanded section of thoughts on my moodboard process that I moved for brevity’s sake, see below the cut. 

I was also thinking about putting something to more specifically represent her Hopi heritage in this moodboard, and I’ve been reading up on Kachina dolls, but I didn’t want to just stick one in my moodboard without understanding the full context of them and whether it would be appropriate. I think it’s fairly likely that BLI, as an organization that tries to strip people of any individuality, would attempt to prevent the passing on of such traditions, but I’m also sure that her mother would have passed some knowledge of her heritage on to her in secret before she left the city, so I was thinking maybe a Kachina doll could be like the one physical aspect of her culture she has to hold onto. I may at some point make a revised or an additional moodboard with one in it, but for now I decided I should wait to be sure that I understand what I’m doing with those. 

Image Sources: 

1. Dreamstime; I edited the hair pink in Pixlr (which is a great free picture editing software by the way, if you’re looking for one).

2. Etsy

3. Background: Phototrekker; Quote from D. Antoinette Foy found via pinterest; my edit made in Pixlr.

4. My own work; I looked around my room and thought “what in here makes me think of Fruit Snack?”. My light up floral cat ear headband, my multicolor metal fidget spinner, two starbursts, and a rose pin. 

5. Background: Wikipedia; my text edit made in Pixlr.

6. My own work; I painted some water guns to be Killjoy rayguns and I do plan to make a separate post about them soon on this blog! Also, they glow in the dark. 

7. Background: Phototrekker; Quote from the 12th Doctor; my edit made in Pixlr. 

8. I forget what site but I bookmarked the picture link here.

9. Background: TripSavvy; Model: WiseGeek; I edited the pink hair in Pixlr.

Ooo I love this idea!

Although I could also see Ghoul really enjoying a kick wheel too, because there's just something so delightfully tactile about giving big leg-flopping kicks against a large metal disk to make your pottery spin... I always found it more satisfying than the electric wheels so maybe I'm just projecting, but I feel like Ghoul would also vibe with the sensation of using kick wheels.

Ooh, and also, if they couldn't make it out to the kiln sometimes, they could always try a pit firing! It would be a good excuse for a nice big bonfire with the crew, and then the pottery would have a cool, smokey look to it, even unglazed (I think?)--like this:

(Image source) [Image ID: a short stout clay pot with an almost watercolor-esque swirling and speckled pattern of rust, dark silver, smokey grey, and maroon splotches on its surface resulting from a pit firing. End ID]

Of course, the bonfire might risk drawing the attention of Dracs, but then again we know they do canonically have fires at night sometimes... Ooh I just decided my new headcanon for the campfire scene in Na Na Na is now that they were doing a pit firing! (Or you could always just pit fire during the day when it would be less obvious, but I’m just enjoying the thought of this.)

Anyways. Fun Ghoul does pottery. There’s a wheel in the diner, and they got it to operate off battery power, and they drag Kobra out on clay-finding missions, since he’s got such a skill for finding water. They make all their own tools for it, and stuff is mostly unglazed. There’s a working kiln at a studio in Zone Two, and every other month they load up the Am with one of the others and drive out to it.

They’ll make functional pieces whenever someone breaks a few too many plates by mistake, or clay shells for certain kinds of bombs, but mostly they make abstract, rarely-useful pieces, all warped and twisting, halfway between sculpture and dream. Sometimes they handbuild pieces on after throwing it on the wheel.

How precious it is to lightly hold my cat's paw and feel her gently squeeze back <3

....OP you are correct.

Also searching “chinchilla dust bath” is definitely worthwhile. 10/10 do recommend.

(Do I even need to include the top image source? I took the screenshot myself. I should really learn to make gifs one of these days. The first video link is also the bottom image source btw)

gerard in the famous last words video -> chinchilla taking a dust bath

I played the entire Danger Days album tonight while finishing up my taxes, and just as I stapled them together, the anthem in Goodnight Dr. D hit the staticky part. It felt... poetic. 

This reminds me, just the other day I was thinking about which MCR album would correspond to which house! I feel like Danger Days has pretty obvious Gryffindor energy, what with the whole Killjoy storyline being all about impulsive bravery and a fight for ideals. Then, I decided I’d put Black Parade with Ravenclaw, since it’s a very contemplative and philosophical album, reflecting on and exploring death as it does. Also, it’s theatrical as heck, and you know Ravenclaw has plenty of theatre nerds (including me, and several other theater people I know). 

The last two I had a harder time with, because I feel like a good case could be made for both Bullets and Revenge for being associated with either Hufflepuff or Slytherin. Bullets has that close-knit family-feel of the “van days”, and there’s something hardworking and loyal and bristling with Hufflepuff energy about the band just starting out, that whole “us vs the world” mentality they had. (I know this is based less on the album and more on the era than the first two, thought I feel it’s also somewhat reflected in the songs- you’re not in this alone...). At the same time, though, early MCR were certainly ambitious, and there’s perhaps somewhat of an edge of dark cunning in some of the songs, too. 

Revenge, on the other hand, is also underlaid by loyalty, albeit a darker, murderous loyalty, that of one Demolition Lover to another. The quest for 1,000 souls and the ideals of vengeance could perhaps be construed as Slytherin ambitiousness, but at the same time, if we’re going by the narrative of the Demolition Lovers, then a desperate, tragic love is really the driving source more so than personal ambition; but then again, the pair only got themselves separated in the first place because of their criminal ambitions. 

My gut says that Bullets is more Hufflepuff and Revenge is more Slytherin, but it could easily be the other way around. 

Hogwarts Houses represented by Gerard Way

~GRYFFINDOR~

~SLYTHERIN~

~HUFFLEPUFF~

~RAVENCLAW~

Oh yay I got tagged in a tag game!!

Oh no I am horrible at decisions!

(I cheated and used italics for ones I felt less strongly about, and I also used numbered asterisks to add third options and commentary. I also chose both options more than once because I am incorrigibly indecisive.)

ancient or modern • bitter or sweet • chocolate or vanilla • coffee or tea • create or destroy • day or night*1 • early bird or night owl •  freckles or dimples • gold or silver •  greek mythology or egyptian mythology*2 •  macarons or eclairs • hot or cold • thunder or lightning*3 • typewritten or handwritten • secret garden or secret library*4 •  spicy or mild •  dark magic or light magic  • ocean or desert*5 •  mermaids or sirens • known or unknown*6 •  rough or smooth •  moon or stars  •  rain or snow

*1. What about like... evening, like from golden hour into sunset into twilight?

*2. Norwegian mythology is my real favorite.

*3. I mean... how do you separate the two? A thunderstorm is meant to be seen, heard, and felt, deep in your core. And smelt, too. Have I mentioned how much I love thunderstorms?

*4. Consider: a secret library inside a secret garden!

*5. Except in the case of the Killjoys, of course.

*6. This depends so much on context...

I’ll tag...  @saturnrx  , @ravenfal , @mellone-collie​ (or @frankiemustlive ), and anyone else who wants to do the thing :)  

Thank you @itsjacobperalta and @billiejs for tagging me!

rules: choose between two words and make the chosen word bold.

ancient or modern · bitter or sweet · chocolate or vanilla · coffee or tea · create or destroy · day or night · early bird or night owl · freckles or dimples · gold or silver · greek mythology or egyptian mythology · macarons or eclairs · hot or cold · thunder or lightning · typewritten or handwritten · secret garden or secret library · spicy or mild · dark magic or light magic · ocean or desert · mermaids or sirens · known or unknown  · rough or smooth · moon or stars · rain or snow

I’m tagging @fandom-phaser @bi-bowen @crossedties and anyone else who wants to do it!

Absolutely!

It also looks like something young laser-wielding rebels living in the desert on the run from a colorless corporate dystopia built on emotional inauthenticity might stumble upon while looking for somewhere to park their Trans Am and camp for the night...

Which further feeds my headcanon that these things are happening in the same desert, or perhaps that Danger Days takes place in the desert otherworld...

Desert Bloom [OC] Joshua Tree, Ca

Whenever I post something and I’m hoping people notice it, a little voice in my head starts singing “notes give me notes I do need them” to the tune of “drugs give me drugs I don’t need ‘em” from Na Na Na...

So Gerard’s Quarantine Coloring Book got me thinking, and I’ve had these lyrics stuck in my head a lot lately (what with the quarantine and everything), so I made my own little doodly coloring page with them. 

In the spirit of the Quarantine Coloring Book, feel free to color it and post your own colored versions of it if you’d like! (Though of course I’d appreciate credit for the drawing part of it if you do post it :) And please tag me so I can see it!)

“And we’ll love again, we’ll laugh again, we’ll cry again, and we’ll dance again” 

~My Chemical Romance, I Never Told You What I Do For a Living

Anyways, I’m just having some nostalgia(tm) this morning and I was just thinking about all the ways fandom has affected my musical experiences of late since I joined the MCR fandom and how much Tumblr has had to do with that. 

And then I was like, what would it have been like if I had grown up with fandom around the music I was listening to in my youth (I say like an old person)? And anyways I’m looking through pictures of Tom Petty on Tumblr now as I continue to contemplate Tumblr fandoms and my musical tastes. I picked this one to share because I hadn’t seen it before and his hair looks particularly lovely here. 

(I did make a post with some of my favorite Tom Petty pics a while back, though I was basically just talking about how I thought Lemony Snicket ought to look like Tom Petty.) 

Also, I believe I’ve found references to Tom Petty made by 3 of 4 MCR members in various interviews and things (I think Mikey is the only one I haven’t heard mention him) and I do love the excitement of finding the people behind one of your obsessions mentioning another (just like whenever Gerard mentions a fondness for Doctor Who). Let me know if you want sources and I’ll track those back down :) 

Tom Petty, especially sassy, by Michael Zagaris

Pass the happy!🌻🌈When you receive this list 5 things that make you happy and send this to 10 of the last people in your notifications!

Oh wow I got this like forever ago and forgot about it; sorry I haven’t answered yet!

1. Dandelions and violets springing up all around our yard

2. Overly detailed and unnecessary Elvish translation (see previous post, hehe)

3. My cats, and the way it feels when they’re curled up on my lap and just vibrating with purring--especially when they both try to fit on me at once, lol :)

4. Dreaming of going on a road trip with my friend(s) once it is again safe to do so. (It’s funny, I’ve had this ask in here long enough that I know I’d never even heard of Coronavirus when I got it. Not to bring down the happy, but that thought just struck me.) 

5. Reading a good fanfic. It’s been a while since I read Gotham fanfics, but I remember I always liked yours :) 

I’ll probably color this later, but here’s my little snail friend, chilling on a flower :) 

@ravenfal​ and @saturnrx​, I’m curious what your snails would look like, if you want to!

But yes, anyone who follows me and would like to draw a snail, please do. It was fun :) 

My friends, I bring you the first “make your talented friends draw some dumb stuf for fun”

The challenge: I, Piotr, challenge you to draw a snail and post it on your blogs. @ofdirtandbones @jordaniel-eats-rocks @loverswithbasil . You can also challenge more people if you want (I just really want to see how far I can take this lol)

Also here’s mine:

His name is Fred, and he’s mighty suspicious Charlie is a fae.

Okay, so, today on deeply nerdy things I'm working on (and also looking for advice on; vote at the end of the post!)...

So I've been working on coloring Worm's page from the quarantine coloring book (this is what I have so far), and I decided that I needed to put a name on the side of the boat. Because this stream was the first thing I watched with Gerard and Worm, I decided that “Daydream Believer” would be a good name for the boat (fair warning, it’s a pretty violent game they’re playing in that stream, but to summarize, the part I’m referencing is from Gerard’s turn as the murderer when he starts playing Daydream Believer by the Monkees to creep out Worm and the other dude they’re playing with, which is the moment I linked to.)

But then I thought, this is an alien creature’s magical space-boat. I can’t just title it Daydream Believer in English. So I whipped out my D&D player’s handbook (5e) and went to the Elvish alphabet.

But then I thought, I can’t just write Daydream Believer in English with Elvish letters. I need to translate it into proper Elvish first. Which, of course, the only correct Elvish languages to use are Tolkien’s--Sindarin and Quenya. (In any case, I don’t believe that there is a complete D&D Elvish language.) 

So, I brought up a few Sindarin and Quenya online dictionaries and translators, and I came up with a few different translations for “Daydream Believer”, and I wrote them out and transcribed my favorites to try and see which ones looked best in the D&D Elvish alphabet (I know Tengwar is technically the correct Tolkien-based Elvish script to be writing in, but I was already rolling with the D&D Elvish transcriptions, and I think I like the look of them for an alien space boat better, so I stuck with the D&D Elvish). But now I’m kind of stuck between three, and I thought, why not ask tumblr?

The two on the left with the blue highlights are Sindarin translations, and the one on the right with the green highlight is Quenya; I know there are differences in use between the two languages but I figured there’s no particular reason an alien couldn’t speak either of them. The first of the two Sindarin translations is “celain ely thenid pen”. ‘Celain’ means daylight, ‘ely’ means dream, and since I couldn’t find the word ‘believe’ in Sindarin anywhere I looked, I used ‘thenid’ which means ‘faithful’ and ‘pen’ as a pronoun meaning ‘one’. So, the first translation is really “daylightdream faithfulone”, which is fairly close. But I chose that translation mostly for aesthetics, and I worried I had strayed from the truest translation of the words, so I did another. 

The second Sindarin translation I did was “eraid ely esteliad pen”. ‘Eraid’ is just ‘day’ instead of ‘daylight’, and ‘esteliad’ is ‘trusting’, which seemed closer to the meaning of a daydream believer as one who is trusting in their daydreams rather than one who is faithful to their daydreams, although that could lead to a whole debate on the meaning of the original song, which--let’s be honest I’m way overthinking this already. I’m just trying to find pretty letters to write on the side of this boat, lol :) But nerdy linguistic overanalysis for a random obscure reference that pretty much no one is going to get is what I’m here for, haha. 

So, the third and final of my top three translations is the Quenya one, “árë maur savindo”. Quenya actually seemed to translate the phrase more easily, if only because there’s a word for “believer”. ‘Árë’ is day, ‘maur’ is dream or vision (which, I like the idea that the daydream believer’s daydreams are visions of a sort--oh no I’m analyzing the song again, I said I wouldn’t do that, I’ll stop, haha. I actually have thought about the meaning of the song quite a lot), and ‘savindo’ is believer. The Quenya translator that gave me ‘savindo’ warned that it was fan-created, but ‘sav-’ is in fact the Quenya verb for believe, and there was a whole section in the Quenya-English dictionary I looked at for “one who ___” verbs and they all ended in ‘indo’, so I think it’s a correctly derived translation. 

Tl;dr--those are the three best translations I came up with, and I highlighted where I wrote each of them out in Elvish in the image above. So, now I’m asking you to vote: which Elvish translation of Daydream Believer should I write on the boat on my coloring page? “Celain ely thenid pen”, “eraid ely esteliad pen”, or “árë maur savindo”? Vote in the replies or reblog with your vote! :) 

Postscript: If anyone wants to see my full Elvish translation scribblings which led to this, here’s what my process in my sketchbook looked like:

(There was a reflection from an old art class in the top left so that’s what I roughly photoshopped out if you were wondering.)

It’s always fun to have an excuse to mess around with translations and practice writing things in Elvish script :) 

Mom: Why don’t you get out some cookbooks and look for a recipe? Let’s try making something different tonight. 

Me: Okay. *Goes to bookshelf and pulls out my Harry Potter and Doctor Who cookbooks* 

If you get this and would like - answer with 3 random facts about yourself and send it to the last 7 blogs in your notifications, anonymously or not! Let’s get to know the person behind the blog!

1. Not to copy the person I got this ask from, but I also have two cats! Their names are Maple and Willa :) They were abandoned as kittens so we actually bottle fed them and raised them from when they were only a few weeks old, and now they’re super clingy because my mom and I are collectively their mom cats <3 Also, Willa is actually my blog icon. So, in fairness, I suppose I should post a picture of boy cat (as we often call Maple):

Here he is helping me do yoga. 

Also here’s another picture of Willa because she’s beautiful and adorable.

2. I sometimes suspect I might be tone deaf. I’ve been trying to tune my guitar but I have a terrible time telling if the notes on the guitar are higher or lower than the notes on the tuner. I used to have a tuner that just made a buzzing sound and I really couldn’t make heads nor tails of that since the sound it made was nothing like the one my guitar makes; I don’t get how people can do things like that, where they can get a pitch from one sounding thing and make it match up with a completely different sounding thing. It’s like when people take a note from a piano and sing it. Seriously, if it’s not the same sound then how do you tell if you’re at the same pitch as it? But anyways, I found this online guitar tuner that actually makes guitar sounds and I’ve been getting closer to being able to tune my guitar. I still had to ask my mom a couple of times whether I was higher or lower than the note on the tuner, but eventually I got it fiddled in and I think the first three strings on my guitar are actually pretty much in tune now. They certainly sound better than before, at least. (I can generally tell “good” or “not good”, more or less, even if I can’t always tell whether the “not good” is higher or lower.) I was going to try and tune the other three strings but Willa, speaking of whom, decided that she was more important than my musical endeavors and climbed up on my chest to demand attention. Fortunately, the first three strings are all I need to play Ode to Joy, which is the only piece I can play from memory. Despite the fact that I first took guitar lessons in 6th grade, I am still very much a beginner.

3. I have been idly thinking about dyeing my hair something between red and purple since… probably around middle school, but I’ve never done so. I have had roughly the same length and color of hair all of my life, basically. I’ve been thinking about it much more seriously of late (partially thanks to my current MCR obsession, between Gerard and the Killjoys), and I was generally thinking that after the current play I’m in, (which is the Crucible, and being historic, discourages unnaturally bright hair colors,) I might finally dye it. The rub, though, is that our play, which was supposed to happen this very weekend, is postponed indefinitely, what with all this pandemic business. So, now I’m not sure how long I need to wait before I dye my hair. But anyways, I found this blog post and this woman’s hair is pretty much exactly what I’m wanting color-wise. 

Bonus fact, I am pretty much incapable of giving short, simple answers, haha. I’ve always been inclined to overexplain, I guess. 

Also, you may have thought you saw me accidentally answer this ask before I was ready, but that definitely didn’t happen. Pfffffft I have no clue what you’re talking about. I know how to tumblr. 

Heck yeah, I listened to this album literally like 8 times today!! I also took the garbage to town and I dressed in lowkey Killjoy fashion to celebrate going out among humans :) 

The current state of the world is making me appreciate post-apocalyptic concept albums even more & I pick my music carefully on the rare occasions when I need to drive my car

So I have a tradition that on the eve of opening night for any show I’m in, I reblog something related to the show. In this case, we aren’t actually opening tomorrow (because, well, you know. Pandemic and all.) but we would’ve, so... here, have a Crucible meme to celebrate our scheduled opening night eve, in hopes that we will have a real opening night... some time in the future. 

Anyways, back when we were still doing rehearsals, I showed this to my friend who plays Mary Warren and we had a long hard laugh over it :) 

I have another new obsession

Oo, this is like... modern impressionism! It’s great :) I love the vibe and the sense of motion and the colors so much!! 

And I agree, the Danger Days family is beautiful and precious <3 

Run away like it was yesterday

If we could run away, run away from here

[x]

~~

surrogate families are going to be the death of me i swear to god why does Danger Days affect me so much

ignore me i can’t draw motorcycles

Huzzah!

When I woke up this morning I had 4 notifications on youtube and my first thought was that they had done something, but alas, nothing yet... *keeps fingers crossed*

TODAYS THE DAAAAYYY!!!

Speaking of sharpie tattoos, the way Gerard and Lyn Z used them to write messages back and forth to each other on tour is adorable <3 I had heard that the lyrics to Summertime came out of this exchange, but it’s super cool to actually see pictures of it.

I wonder if there’s a story behind the unicorn shirts or if they were just being funky.

Gerard Way Sharpie Writing - Part 7 of 7 (the rest)

Gerard/Lynz co-ordinating words:

I *heart* U // MORE TODAY (Projekt Revolution 08/17/07, Cleveland OH)

4 EVER // AND EVER (Projekt Revolution 09/03/07, Denver CO) - on their wedding day, complete with matching unicorn shirts!

RUN AWAY WITH ME // ANYTIME YOU WANT (Project Revolution 08/24/07, Mansfield MA)

IN LOVE // 100% (Projekt Revolution 08/15/07, Jones Beach NY)

KISS // TELL

Happy March 22 all! 

so do we get sad on the 22nd this year or..?

So I decided to give myself a sharpie tattoo tonight :) I’ve been vaguely imagining having a “God is Love” (1 John 4:8) tattoo for quite a long time, but I’m afraid of both needles and decisions and thus have not done so as yet. 

But I’ve been seeing these pictures of Gerard Way with sharpie tattoos and I was just like “there is no reason I should not give myself a sharpie tattoo right now” and so... I did. 

See beneath the cut for step by step pictures and general rambling :)

I put it in the spot where I would get a real tattoo if I ever get around to getting one; I have a big weird scar about halfway up the outside of my left calf and I figure if I were to get a proper tattoo, that’s kind of an ideal spot for a tattoo anyways and I might as well cover my scar with one. 

As with any good scar, there’s a long story to it, but (gross-out warning, mild medical violence warning) basically I had a spider bite that got infected and it swelled up into this big nasty boil-ish, welt-ish thing that lasted for an uncomfortably long time. When I went to the doctor with it, they pretty much just stabbed it twice to get it to drain and it left me with this. It’s hard to get it to show up very well but it’s basically two deep divots in a patch of pale, off-texture skin, a bit bigger around than a quarter. 

So I knelt on my bed with my leg at an awkward angle, whipped out my treasured 30 pack of rainbow sharpies (minus like 3, because sharpies like to run away), and went to work. It was kind of a weird angle to draw at not only because of how I had to bend my knee but also because everything I was drawing was sideways, but the heart turned out fairly nicely, if a bit lopsided. 

I didn’t make the heart quite big enough to fit “God is Love” inside of it so I wound up with the love bit underneath. I’m fairly pleased with how it looks, although you can definitely tell from the “e” that I was working sideways. 

I liked it well enough, but I wanted more color, and so I decided to add a butterfly wing to the left--or perhaps a flower. I have a tendency to draw those rather similarly so it’s basically both. One flower lead to another, then another, plus a couple of vines; I have progress pictures with each individual piece I added, but to prevent this post from going on for too long, I’ll just jump back to the final design. 

Also, side note, my knee was stiff as all heck after sitting like that for all the time I was drawing, and I had to limp around the house a bit to get my leg to straighten back out. In hindsight I would advise taking more breaks during the drawing process when sitting with one’s leg at such a weird angle.

The main picture at the top is from that stage as well, but then I went and googled “sharpie tattoo” because I remembered something about there being a way to make them last longer. I found this, which said to cover it in baby powder and spray it with hairspray. I don’t really use hair spray regularly, but I was pretty sure I had some around somewhere; the first stuff I found actually turned out to be a spray can of hair mousse, though, so I just patted it around on top of the baby powder. I didn’t quite get the whole thing covered because I was worried about smudging it if I rubbed it around. 

I was fairly certain I had some actual hairspray somewhere; eventually it occured to me to look in my old dance bag, because the last time I used hair spray was probably my 9th grade dance recital. I was correct, and upon locating said dance bag, I found both hairspray and an abundance of nostalgia. I reapplied baby powder and sprayed it on. Having not been used in nearly a decade, the hairspray came out in a confused trickle rather than a spray, and the whole area became very wet as I tried to pour out enough spray to cover the design in its entirety. The ink started to bleed and, while pretty, I was worried that rather than preserving my sharpie tattoo I was going to rinse it off prematurely in a flood of aged hairspray. 

I quickly dabbed at the flow with a bit of toilet paper, and in doing so accidentally made a rather lovely watercolor on the paper. 

So, this is where things are at now. The baby powder did leave quite a bit of texture on my leg. I imagine it will rinse off, but I think for tonight I’ll let things ‘set’ before I try and rinse it. Perhaps it would’ve been better if I’d left the initial design without putting any of this on it, but hopefully this will help it last longer. It’s just fun to have something bright, colorful, and meaningful on my leg. 

I’ve been really digging Killjoy aesthetics lately and I love the whole culture of being bright and colorful and unique that they have, and as I’ve been conceptualizing my Killjoy OC (cosplay to come, if I ever get around to it), I’ve found myself thinking about how I’d want to ideally design... well, myself, and so I guess this sharpie tattoo was really born from that. 

Along those same lines, I’ve also been revisiting the idea of dyeing my hair. It’s something I’ve contemplated since middle school but never done, but now I really think I would like to. Again I’m at least partly inspired by Gerard Way, both in the sense of the bold hair colors of the Killjoy universe and from seeing how many great hair styles and colors Gerard’s had over the years. I’m not fond of the idea of cutting my hair, but I like the thought of mixing it up by dyeing it. 

The wrench in my plans right now, though, is the way that everything is just on hold at the moment. Specifically, I’ve been in rehearsals for a play, but with this whole pandemic business, our rehearsals are suspended and our play is postponed for an unknown period of time. The play is the Crucible, and unfortunately, neon red violet hair would not fly in puritan Salem. My plan initially was to dye my hair as soon as the play was over in early April, but now, well... who knows how long it’ll be until the show happens and I’m in the clear to mess with my hair. So, stay tuned for that I guess. I don’t know if I’ll wait to do my Killjoy cosplay until I’m able to dye my hair; I would like to have both this sharpie tattoo and dyed hair at the time of said cosplay, but I’m not certain whether those time frames we’ll overlap. We’ll see. 

Anyways, if anyone’s still reading this, thanks for sticking with me through my rambling! I hope you have enjoyed this episode of Violet’s adventures in sharpie tattoos.

Absolutely the cutest of all vampires <3