Weird Girl Solidarity Is When I Complimented The Gal At The Gas Station Checkout On Her Decorative Owl

I was finding a lot of Moocow text posts in the Puppy Bowl tag but not enough pictures/videos of Moocow so I went to youtube and --

https://youtu.be/JB9LMjTaSlI

Teeny tiny Moocow!!

Look, Chester, buddy, I get that (some) Ravenclaws tend towards perfectionism, but... what more do you want from me, dude? We’re 79 points ahead...

I’m happy I can find Atlantis appreciation here! I always loved it. I’m pretty sure I still have my Kida and Milo barbies somewhere around here...

And, I know not everyone is crazy about the current trend of live-action Disney remakes, but can you imagine how epic a live-action Atlantis would be?! Just putting that out there...

i don’t understand why atlantis isn’t more popular of a movie

i mean

amazing and unique art style 

spot-on humor

strong, badass female and/or POC characters

awkward but incredibly intelligent lead that isn’t conventionally attractive

COOKIE

history jokes that you won’t catch as a kid

MOTHER

FUCKING

WILHELMINA BERTHA PACKARD

did i mention

BADASS AF FEMALE CHARACTERS

AND MULTIPLE POC CHARACTERS

WHO BREAK STEREOTYPES LEFT AND RIGHT

i just have a lot of feelings about atlantis and i think it needs more love than it gets

It's also the inspiration for the title of one of my all-time favorite youtube miniseries, The Guards Themselves!

It's a fun little "the superheroes are being used by the rich to further their agendas and the anarchist supervillains have a point actually, though they're not exactly the most skilled supers ever tbh" type adventure with lots of fun memorable characters. It was basically the creator's film school senior project and I think it's pretty well done as low-budget youtube movies go.

But yeah, in this case, the guards are variously the superheroes, the private security force employed by Meyer (the primary rich guy in question), and the anarchists, and there's plenty of exploration of the guarding of the guards themselves!

Also Kyle (the main creator)'s best friend Ian actually teaches Latin--he plays Big Fist in this--and I'm pretty sure he had a hand in the title.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0u5ZHidq4X4QhFAX9FzSiYJLRen74sLF&si=cd6os_w0rL3OFYs-

(General warning for some pretty gratuitous gun violence, but not too much in the way of blood)

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ?

"Who will guard the guards themselves?" / "Who will watch the watchmen ?"

It was found in Juvenal's Satires but it may have been added by someone else

Nowadays, it's sually used in relation to tyrannic governments or corrupted law enforcers but it was originally about the moral behavior of wives and eunuchs.

"Who watches the Watchmen ?" is a phrase used several times in Watchmen

In Terry Pratchett's Watch series (Discworld universe), it's super important and is an acab phrase of sorts used by Commander Vimes, the cop main character to keep himself in check in a pre-acab world when these books were published

*Note : the Discworld propaganda isn't mine. I had actually cut parts of my original list of phrases before letting you make picks and this one hadn't made the cut. However, one of you had asked about this specific phrase and I elected to add it to the form

If you want to submit a new form to vote for it, go for it. Same thing if you've changed your mind about other phrases, but please try to remember which ones you have already voted for

I would like to present: Pirate Killjoycore! I’m pretty sure I’m not the first person to suggest pirates in the Danger Days ‘verse*–after all, we know that east of Battery City, the desert is full of runaways fighting BLI, but there’s all that ocean to the west unaccounted for. Why wouldn’t some ‘joys run off to sea instead of the desert, steal some boats, and carry on the fight on the other front? 

So, I wanted to try and capture how the Killjoy vibe might play out on the pirate side of things. I figure some ‘joys steal big yachts and graffiti them up and manage to run them off of the same mystical fuel source cars in the Zones run on. Maybe others who can’t get the magic gas thing to work for them or who don't want to rely on fuel patchwork together sails from scraps of fabric, graffiti those, and cobble together some rigging--and maybe some were lucky enough to grab up actual Tall Ships for that authentic Pirate Vibe.

If you’re a pirate ‘joy, of course, your boat will also be your crew’s home, so I figure they’re pretty cozy and colorful inside, too (and probably pretty cluttered, but in a homey way). As far as Pirate Killjoy fashion, I imagine it’s as bright, chaotic, and colorful as its counterpart Zones fashion, except naturally more pirate-inspired, with long swishy coats and big hats. 

I have a lot more Pirate Killjoycore pictures saved that didn’t make it into this moodboard, too, so let me know if there’s something specific you’d like to see more of! I can always make posts with individual pictures, too; my standard moodboard formatting wasn’t working this time since I needed my pictures to be different widths and heights for this one, so I had to make it elsewhere, hence why it’s all one image, but if you want to see one or more pictures closer, let me know. 

Seriously though feel free to ask me about Pirate Killjoys and related aesthetics! I am very slow about answering asks but I do have many thoughts about this :) 

Sources and more below the cut.

*I thought for sure at one point I’d seen a headcanon post about pirates in the DDverse, but I haven’t been able to find anything in the tags. If you have one, feel free to tag me in it or otherwise send it my way! 

Sources: x  x  x  /  x  x  x  /  x  x  x

Disclaimer, I don’t necessarily go through all of my sources, I just grab the pictures and links from image searches; that said, I did happen to click around a bit and the image on the flickr account the bottom left picture came from is right next to a picture of a dead person so I felt like I should give fair warning in case you decide to look through that flickr at all. It appears to be some part of a funeral procession in India but the dead person is clearly visible so, fair warning. 

Also I did watch the video on La Preciosa (top left, the boat with the smiley face) and that was pretty cool (and had definite Killjoy vibes). :)  

Also technically I found the first graffitied tall ship here but I did a reverse image search to find my sources and the artist’s page has more information about the painting. Now that I look at the original post though, you can actually see the details of the painting better there I think. 

So, I’ve been reading the Buffy Season 8 comics, and I have a question. Well, several questions actually, but these are all about one particular panel. 

[Image ID: A screencap from the Buffy Season 8 comics which shows Dracula walking away from Renée and Xander, cape swooshing behind him, left hand raised in a dramatic flourish as he speaks. His speaking text reads “It’s not possible, manservant. These powers you speak of--they’re part of the ancient magics.  I risked my very soul to attain them. I am their worldly guardian.” The word ‘soul’ is italicized in his speech. End ID]

Does... does this mean that Dracula has a soul?? 

And if so, how long has he had one? Did he have it when he faced Buffy at the beginning of Season 5? Did he get it between then and now in the comics, and if so, how and why, or else how and why did he get it in the first place? Was he cursed like Angel, or did he fight for it like Spike, or is there some other way to get a soul in the Buffyverse? Why would he want one if he did get it willingly?

Is this otherwise unmentioned soul the reason why he’s willing to fight against other vampires by Buffy’s side in this arc of the comics, or is he another example of a soulless vampire acting for the common good for probably at least partly selfish reasons like Spike circa season 5 (although it’s worth noting that Dracula is doing it without a chip)? Is it because he really likes Xander (as a friend or as a crush), or just a personal grudge against the Japanese vampire group that, in his eyes, “stole” his powers?

Perhaps more significantly, does this make Dracula a third eligible party besides Angel and Spike who might be the subject of the Shanshu prophecy, seeing as he is also a vampire with a soul?? (And how mad would Angel and Spike be if that turned out to have never been about either of them this entire time?)

Or, am I jumping on the soul thing a bit too much? Could he maybe speaking... metaphorically for some reason? Does he mean something different by “soul”, like say, the poetic essence of who he is as a vampire or his honor or some such, rather than his human conscience as it is to Spike and Angel? 

Or is he aware of his soul outside of himself somehow, like how when vampires don’t have their souls they’re apparently just out in the nether somewhere, available to be summoned when called upon? If it can be put at risk but isn’t inside of him, then is Dracula’s human soul in some sort of Heaven somehow while his vampiric self is causing mischief on earth, and yet somehow vampire!Dracula is aware of his human soul elsewhere and is aware that his earthly actions may somehow put it in jeopardy? But Spike and Angel seem convinced that they’re fated for hell for being vampires (which irks me, but is a rant for another day), so why would Dracula be an exception? Could he have somehow sold his soul for these powers when he didn’t even have access to it? Does he just mean that he risked his soul back when he initially became a vampire specifically to attain access to these powers? But wouldn’t the specific use of the term “risked” and not “lost” imply that, while there was peril to his soul, the peril ultimately did not persist, hence his soul was neither lost nor damaged, only at temporary risk of being in some sort of harmed state? 

Why would the comic writers put emphasis on the world “soul” in a throwaway line that isn’t revisited at any point in Dracula’s stint in the comics so far (I’m just through with the Fray crossover arc now and no one has said another word about this that I can recall) when vampire soul lore is such a complicated and contentious aspect of the Buffyverse? Did they just... forget the significance of the whole soul thing? What could this line possibly mean other than that Dracula has had a soul this whole time without mentioning it to anyone, and yet he casually let it slip while talking about his secret transforming powers? 

To put it more briefly, I’ll quote Xander in “Something Blue”: What? How? What?

Okay, so it turns out I have many questions. Well, some of that was more like my own speculations and theories posed as questions since I was on a roll, but anyone can feel free to respond to any of the many questions I put here, honestly. It’s such a small moment but I saw the word “soul” there and it just sent me reeling because... well, it raises all of my above questions and then some. Anyways, I’d love to hear the fandom’s thoughts on this and the possibility of Dracula being a third vampire with a soul(tm). 

Edited to put an actual TL;DR: Dracula implies in this panel of the comics that he has a soul!? Thoughts??

The more I think about Victorian Christmas traditions and Spike, the more I wonder whether this may’ve been a Christmas party. It probably isn’t, given the lack of Christmas decorations, and I suppose there are plenty of other occasions for which Victorians might throw a party, but I still enjoyed the thought of it being one as I imagined it yesterday. (Also, even if it isn’t one, I’m quite sure Mr. William Pratt would’ve also gone to Christmas parties, and they probably would’ve looked a lot like this but perhaps with a few more pine boughs and red ribbons.)

I also recently discovered this podcast from the Weird Christmas blog, which has fit well with the cravings for Victorian Christmas traditions Spike's awakened in me. I already talked about Spike and Christmas ghost stories, in this post and a bit more in my tags on my reblogs of that podcast on blagueofchaos, but another thing mentioned in that podcast was Victorians playing hide and go seek at a Christmas party. I would just like you to join me in imagining sweet little William the Bloody playing hide and go seek at a fancy Victorian high society Christmas party. 

I just... I really love pre-turn Spike and thinking about him and Victorian-ness and Christmas things. 

William “Spike” Pratt | Fool for Love (5.7)

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

Hogwarts still wins all of the Halloween decorating contests. 

“A thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins stutter. The feast appeared suddenly on the golden plates, as it had at the start-of-term banquet.”

The other night I had a dream that there was a hot new parody of the song Lump by Presidents of the United States of America. Tragically, I don't remember any of the parody lyrics beyond the chorus of "she's Lump, she's Lump, she's Lump" being replaced with "he's Trump, he's Trump, he's Trump".