You Know, I'm The Kind Of Person With Like 80+ Ongoing Projects At Any Given Time, And I Rarely Ever

So much cute fluffiness!! 

Also this one works quite well as a laptop screensaver :)

Just some happy family time 💜💚

Do not repost please!

This post caused me to look this song up, and it’s very catchy! It has such a swift, unceasing pace to it and an epic buildup, and it captures the feeling of running. Also, of course, very fitting for the Hargreeves, and very nicely paired with these gifs. 

Side note, the rhythm of this song makes me think of Loki’s Song by Lucinda Holdsworth. It’s not an exact match, but enough that it brought it to mind and I thought I might as well recommend it :)

don’t blame me because I can’t help where I come from ♫

I figured I ought to tell the story of my blog background (which gets into the story of my blog) and give credit as best I can for the picture I used to make it. Also I should probably warn you here and now that I tend to ramble. 

So, first off, I have to admit that I can’t give exact credit for the original picture I used; I got it from Google Earth a long time ago, and now that they’ve changed the photos layer, I can’t find the original anymore. I’ve tried a reverse google image search, but it doesn’t come up. All I can tell you is that it came from Narrows, Virginia, or the surrounding area, and it’s of the New River. So, if you’re the photographer who took this picture, let me know how you’d like to be credited (or if I need to find a new background image). 

I love this picture, though, with the tranquil water reflecting the mountains and that lone tree jutting up on the left. It has a nice balance, or perhaps a good visual flow, and it reminds me of home. (I’m originally from Blacksburg, Va, and Narrows is a little over half an hour west and a smidge north of home.)

Anyways, I’m also posting the various stages of my photoshopping (well, actually, I just used the “markup toolbar” in Preview on my Mac to edit the color of the image, but that doesn’t work as a verb as well as photoshop does). 

Aside from my general love of all things purple, I also wanted to tint the picture purple so that it would be a picture of “the Lande of Violet Mists”. The Lande (with an “e” for artistic flair) of Violet Mists is a fantasy land and somewhat of an in-joke going back to the blogspot blog I made Sophomore year of high school. It has a vague mythos on said blog--in bits and pieces, such as the one I have in my blog description here--but it’s mostly more of an aesthetic theme than a properly developed literary location, though I have written bits and pieces set there. Remind me to dig some of those back up and see if any are worth sharing here, actually. 

At first made this edit for aforementioned high school blogspot, and I did try to set it as my background there, but I couldn’t get the formatting to work. When I started this tumblr, though, I was happy I had it in reserve. 

So, basically I tinted the picture pink and turned the temperature towards cool (aka blue) to make it purple. I think I also decreased the sharpness to give it that atmospheric haze and boosted the saturation some to intensify it. I decided the first one wasn’t purple enough, so I made the second one, but that one just looked too unnatural (and a bit too pink) so I went back to the first one (each time I started a new edit, I made a copy of the original so that I could have each step as a separate image) and made it just a little more purple. I liked that one, and I just inserted a translucent square to have that more opaque region in the middle where posts go. That wasn’t wide enough, though, so I actually took a screenshot so that I’d have an image in proportion with my computer screen and copy-pasted the image onto that and stretched it wider, and that’s how I got the final image. I suppose this isn’t necessarily specific enough to be helpful as a tutorial, but hopefully it gives the gist of how I edited my background picture. When in doubt, add purple :)

I promised to share the sources that inspired my Oswald Cobblepot nail art, so here they are. The step-by-step penguin nails came from here: http://confettiavenue.com/penguin-nail-art/ 

(The tutorial there says to use a ‘dotting tool’, but I just brushed polish onto the end of a toothpick. To do the stripes and the stem of the umbrella, I brushed up the side of the toothpick.) 

The purple umbrella nails were both from pinterest:

 https://www.pinterest.com/pin/453808099932669718/ 

 https://www.pinterest.com/pin/453808099932638801 

(Also, in case you missed my original post with my Oswald nails, here it is: https://alfhildr-the-word-weaver.tumblr.com/post/180302544865/so-i-did-some-oswald-cobblepot-inspired-nail-art )

I should probably mention the main reason I was in a space pirate mood today: Skyvault. As a kickstarter backer I got to preview the pilot yesterday and today, and I am feeling all of the hype--I want to binge it but the show doesn’t even exist (beyond what I’ve seen) yet! 

[I ramble at length about my experience of and feelings about Skyvault below, with somewhat of a pilot review mixed haphazardly in. There shouldn’t really be spoilers but some may consider some of it as such so read with caution.]

I mean, to be fair, I knew a great deal of the pilot’s plot before seeing it, mostly from watching all of the Q&A’s Door Monster’s already done on it, and also partly from the audition scenes I got to read when I auditioned for it... a year ago already I guess, wow. Time is weird. (I didn’t get a part in it, if you were wondering, but looking back on my audition tapes, they were kind of a train wreck and I have definitely come a ways as an actress in the past year, though of course I have a ways to go.)

But yeah, it’s pretty cool having the forbidden knowledge of the audition scenes--obviously I won’t say much, but when Ian mentioned in the Q&A that Truman’s favorite soup would become a plot point down the line I actually had a pretty good idea what he was referring to, and (assuming I’m right) that was 100% my favorite scene to read for (even though I wasn’t actually in the age range of the character I was reading and so in terms of professionalism I probably shouldn’t’ve included that in the audition, but pretending to be that old woman was also the best acting I did so there were pros and cons.)

But yeah, that’s just to say I did already know a significant portion of what the pilot would be before watching it, which is probably why I must admit I felt like not a ton actually happened in it plot-wise. There were also definitely things I wanted to see developed more in depth--Jay’s relationship with his friend and worldbuilding stuff in particular. It did feel like it moved a little too quickly, although as Kyle explained in the Q&A the pilot isn’t going to be exactly how the first episode will be if/when they get picked up but rather a summary of the show which they’ll use to help sell it, which is reassuring. So, its main weaknesses for me were plot depth, pacing, and world-development, and I have confidence that those were either influenced by my knowing too much ahead of time, or among the things that they’re already planning to fix going forwards, so I think hopefully my current critiques of it will dissolve with time. It really just deserves to be a longer first episode than it was so it can develop itself better.

The best thing about the Skyvault pilot, I’d say, was the characters. I fell instantly in love with both Jay and Truman. At one point I referred to them both as “shards of my soul”. Jay is delightfully enthusiastic about everything and addicted to adventure; he is far too happy in the face of potential death. He’s the hero who has completely idealized and romanticized adventure and is just so deeply in love with it that he plunges headlong into danger and grins in the face of death traps. 

The only character I may love more than Jay is Truman. I said right away that he reminded me of a live action Milo from Atlantis, and in the Q&A they told us that Milo was one of the main inspirations for the character other than Ian (acknowledging my comment while doing so, which always feels great). Being deeply in love with Milo and all awkward adventurous academics, it was inevitable that I would love Truman, and he certainly did not disappoint. I don’t want to spoil it, but there’s a reveal with him that is brilliant and hilarious and beautiful. I also love how they’ve already displayed his internal conflict between earnestly wanting adventure and discovery versus his tendency towards fearfulness (“I’m done being safe.” vs. “The things we do are extremely dangerous.” “How extremely?”). 

To put it in Harry Potter terms, Truman is my inner Ravenclaw and Jay is my inner Thunderbird, and I love them both dearly. 

I will admit I don’t relate to Kat nearly as much, but I’m sure I’ll come to love her as time goes on. There was already a moment when she and Truman touched hands and I’m such shipper trash that I’m already fully prepared to ship it, haha. I mean I’m still flexible on ships at this early stage, but like, I’m ready. 

They’ve also done a great job with kickbutt female characters and diversity. There are already several women who display a range of strengths in different ways but who are all capable of handling themselves, and it bodes well for an epic series. 

It also has, of course, that signature Door Monster humor. The actors have done a good job of being characters based on the Door Monster cast but not exactly them, and the whole thing has DM’s signature inventiveness and I am so ready to find out more. 

And, yes, as I stated, this is primarily what caused me to go on a space pirate bingeposting spree today. 

Anyways, this review, like my Skyvault audition tapes, is a bit of a trainwreck, but I am now too tired to edit it properly so for now I’m just going to toss it into the merciless void of the internet. 

New official poster for Skyvault as the pilot enters post production

So I just went through the new Gotham promo at .25 speed, as one does, and I don’t have any discoveries quite as significant as my Selena one last promo, but I still thought I’d share a few screenshots and speculations. Probably the best is this first one, where I managed to pause on this funky bird-masked person in the night vision goggles. Is this that Magpie who’s supposed to be coming in this season? I thought she was the silver-haired girl? Well, perhaps this is her wearing a mask. 

Also, this looks disturbingly like bones in a furnace--see the ribs? Is this a cremation or something? Well... I’m spooked. 

Speaking of bones... someone is collecting teeth? Is... is there a tooth fairy themed Gotham villain? Or is this Zsasz or Strange or someone keeping trophies? Actually I’m not completely certain whether they’re teeth but I also don’t know what else they’d be. For the most part, they look too smooth, but the gold ones definitely look like false teeth. 

On a less spooky note, look, a random child. While I have no more information about this beyond it being a random child, my heart is already saying that this is another orphan like Martin for Os and Ed to adopt. 

And here we have Bruce presumably looking down at Jeremiah falling into the vat of Joker-juice... Either that, or this is before the fall and he’s just gazing down at the glowing green chemicals and brooding as Jeremiah monologues. It didn’t feel like there would be a lot of time for monologuing and brooding before the fight breaks out, though, so my gut is telling me this is post-fall. It’s an interesting mix of emotions on his face, to be sure.

And, lastly, I know plenty of people have screenshotted this without the frame and some have even giffed it, but I had to throw in this lovely Nygmobblepot moment :) Mostly I just wanted to say that that bit where Ed is confronting Oswald and he overhears that Os named his dog Edward is basically everything I’ve been hoping for from season 5. I laughed so hard while my mom and grandma were watching wheel of fortune. It’s not exactly the “not you, we named the dog Edward” exact Pirates of the Caribbean parody I was hoping for, but it’s darn close and I’m deeply excited to see the rest of that scene. 

Aaaaa you guys, Gotham season 5 is almost here!!!!!!!!!!! *screams fangirlishly into the night*

I love how palpable the emotion is in this drawing. You can feel Ed’s anger melting away into confusion, regret, and sadness; you can feel Oswald’s deep hurt (emotional as well as physical) but you can also feel how his love for Ed overpowers it and turns it to forgiveness. It’s like a summary of the twists and turns of their relationship all in one art piece, dark but surprisingly hopeful. It’s painful and beautiful and lovely and definitely among my favorites; this is one of those drawings I’ve just stared at for an extended period of time while listening to music. 

Here to deliver more angst. Really hope we at least get a kiss out of the disaster that is going to unfold in the next few episodes.

I love reading all the stories here; I’ve been up and down the notes and I have several versions saved to my drafts, one of which I’ve begun writing out my own Fae story on. However, this post has actually had an influence on how I interpret the play I’m currently in, so it seems only appropriate to reblog a version of it on the eve of our play opening as well. 

The play is called Almost, Maine, and it’s a subtly surrealist series of small town romances. The blurb on the back of the script describes it as “a midwinter night’s dream”. Basically, weird, seemingly mystical things are happening in the lives of people in this town as they fall in and out of love, and at the end of the night, everyone sees the northern lights. You could read it just abstractly as ‘the northern lights make weird (or should I say wyrd) things happen’, or you could even rationalize most of the things away, but I’ve decided that it makes sense that Almost (that’s the name of the town) just has a very heavy Fae presence and the Fae--likely excited by the northern lights--are meddling in everyone’s affairs--much like in Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

I even decided that one of the characters I play, Ginette, actually is a Fae who left the Fae realm because she’s in love with a human, Pete. That explains, for me, how she *SPOILERS* walks all the way around the Earth in about 10 minutes for him--it’s done with the Fae magic she has, but in my interpretation, she has literally travelled all that distance for him. Then, when the northern lights appear at the end, it’s even deeper for me, because I’ve decided that for Ginette that’s a sign that the Fae have finally approved of her romance with Pete. 

Pete would be incredibly overwhelmed by all this. He freaks out when she says “I love you” for the first time. It’s best he doesn’t know all this. 

Anyways, I know this is a digression from the main subject matter of this post, but I just wanted to share how considering the Fae has been useful to me in deepening my acting and my character backstories. Thanks for all the great stories!

Irish people; The faeries aren’t real

Irish people; No fucking way will I go in that faerie ring

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! 😉👍

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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)

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