So, The Snow Live Wallpaper I've Been Using On My Phone Kept Crashing On Me, And I Figured It Was Time

So, the snow live wallpaper I've been using on my phone kept crashing on me, and I figured it was time for a new phone background. As luck would have it, I’d seen this beautiful comic illustration earlier that same day, and I thought it would make a perfect screensaver for my phone!

I messed with the tint, warmth, and saturation a bit to give it a purplish cast in order to make it match my personal color palette, and then I screenshotted it so it would match the dimensions of my phone screen, and behold, my new wallpaper:

[Image IDs: A comic book drawing with Buffy in the foreground, wearing a cute dress that is white on top with purple flowers along the shoulder and side, short, ruffled sleeves, and a light blue skirt, raising her signature Slayer ‘scythe’ as she takes a semi-crouched action pose. Her hair is partially braided in two segments on the sides and tied back in a loose bun, and her expression is determined. Behind Buffy, Spike is leaping dramatically in the direction opposite from the one she is facing, though his eyes seem to cast back towards her. His signature long black leather coat sweeps out behind him and a stake is clutched in his right hand. He has a similarly fierce look on his face, although it is not his ‘vamp face’, but his cheekbones are sharp as ever. In the background, there’s a stack of three wooden crates, a brick wall, and a string of red paper lanterns with tassels hanging down from them. The second image is the same as the first but is tinted to be a bright pinkish-purplish tone and it has black bars added at the top and bottom. End ID]

I’m quite fond of my new wallpaper! I’m still just reading Season 8 and so I haven’t reached where Spike shows up quite yet, but I’m very much looking forward to it; from a few panels I’ve seen, it looks like it’s going to be really cute. Anyways, having this as my phone screensaver has been making me smile whenever I open it. It’s a very cute and dynamic Spuffy art piece! Feel free to use my screensaver edit on your own phone if you’d like.

By the way, if anyone wants to take my image ID without the part about my screensaver edit and put it on just the first post, that would be totally fine, though I’d happily appreciate credit. Thanks! 

I put a couple more variations of my edits to this picture below the cut:

In case your phone has a different aspect ratio than mine (it’s a Pixel 3), I’ll stick the original edit here so you can screenshot or crop it however your phone requires. (It’s just the above tinted image but without the bars that make it fit my screen’s height.)

Oh, and also here’s a much less dramatically tinted version that I made first before I decided to tint it more, if anyone would like to use that: 

Variant cover for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 10 #9, by Rebekah Isaacs

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??

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!

Cool blog! Love everything I have looked at. lol

     Aaw, thank you so much! I’m glad you’re enjoying it :) Ever since I split off my sideblog (blagueofchaos), and even before that to some extent, I’ve tried to keep this one as the place for pretty much my top favorite things of the moment, so hopefully it stays pretty nice. 

     Oh, and sorry if I went a bit wild likespamming your blog the other day, by the way. Sometimes Tumblr shows me a blog and I go through and like a bunch of things. 

     (I forget there isn’t a place for tags on asks for some reason. I actually drafted my reply in a doc beforehand because I know Tumblr does weird things with asks if you don’t answer them all at once, and I wrote a bunch of tags for this; apparently I can put a cut in, so I’ll stick them under the cut.)

#for the record people are always allowed to likespam my things #I just get self-conscious of my likespamming ways sometimes because I’ve seen one or two posts complaining about people who do that #but for better or worse that’s kind of just how I tumblr #but yeah welcome to my blog! Happy to have you and glad you like it :) #your ask made me smile :) #by the way I know I have other asks in my inbox that I haven’t touched yet. Sorry about that if you have been waiting months for an answer #this one was just easier to respond to. #I’ll get to the others eventually! Here and on blagueofchaos too #I am a slow blogger #except when I’m being chaotic. hence the sideblog #asks #I am pretty excited to be someone who gets asks #although I’ve basically sworn off reblogging ask games since I’m so slow to answer things I get #I just have this need to fully say my piece about things I guess #which is another aspect of this blog; it’s the one where I comment everything I’m thinking on the posts I reblog pretty much #it just feels like the one where I need to Say Things #I suppose in part because it was my first non-blogspot blog so I’ve been treating it as a more Formal Blog where I Speak on Things #which is also why my blog description is kinda quirky and non-tumblr-y #anyways I am overexplaining in the tags once again #even in the tags I ramble #yes this is why it takes me so long to answer things #ah communications in the strange lande of tumblr #at least I put more of my rambling in the tags than I used to I suppose #(haha I wrote that not knowing there wouldn’t be actual tags on this post #maybe if I edit it after it’s posted I can fix this IDK #or I may just leave all this under the cut)

Ooo I love it! It really has that ‘calm moment in the midst of storms’ vibe, like I feel the tranquility of the moment but also the tinge of melancholy that comes from the constant danger of being a Killjoy. It has a soft bittersweetness.

Anyways, future me here, just combing back through my drafts for anything with a Christmas vibe. I spotted the Christmas lights (and, once I increased my screen brightness, Poison’s sweater). So, have some Christmas Killjoys :) 

FINISHED FINALLY Gee and Frank as Party Poison and Fun Ghoul at the California desert

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