Apparently, 15 Years (and Two, Three Days) Ago, Love Never Dies Had Its First Run.

Aggressive, gothic-scenery music is what's keeping me going right now.

Have a London after Midnight cat whacking at you with a guitar. It's part of a drawing collage I failed to finish, but funnily enough, now that I'm in a bad mood, I want to pick it up again. Do you want to see the whole thing?

Tiny Erik is here to say cheers to you!

His hat looks CURSED off-camera, so I gave him some juice (it's Lego, and I can't say how much I love that piece). He still looks a little frightened and brain-off, as Aiden says, but I think he's buzzing inside about so many good stories about him!

Konrad and I have just proofread chapter 29 of the webcomic. I'm so incredibly happy that I've covered the next 10 months with enough comic chapters.

My visit at the doctor today was pretty sobering. Tomorrow I'm going to see another doctor for other problems.

Due to my state of health, it took me about 4 weeks to draw chapter 29. I'm currently putting off the next 3 bonus chapters. No energy for storyboarding.

But I am soooo happy. Chapters 16, 17 and 18 are already prepared in Tapas. I can't wait to read what you have to say. 😍✨✨✨

Ooh goodness, thank you so much for reading and poiting it out, I will edit it. That is quite an on-the-nose title, I can't believe I forgot it!

Blog post: 5 most Unhinged Sherlock Holmes Stories

Purrlock Holmes Books

5 most unhinged Sherlock Holmes stories

Sherlock Holmes doesn’t always live up to his reputation of being a thinking machine. Or rather, he has a few bugs. Spoilers ahead! The Adve

My apologies for my radio silence. As the Victorians may say, I have been suffering from delicate nerves (that is to say, miserable for no definite reason that anybody could identify).

I have had this post in the backroom ready to go for a month now, but could never bring myself to finish it - here it is, in all it's chaotic glory.

When I say I was bouncing off the walls and crawling around the ceiling when I got the comm, I mean it! I'm so happy my love for it translated! And Happy Nosferatu is going to be my new seasonal greeting now

I swear I have never been this excited about an advent calendar and just in case it wasn't clear I am a grown adult but I am bouncing around like a child.

@purrlockswatson made such a beautiful advent calendar already and then this. THIS.

Aurik has a yellow hoodie. His favourite colour. He's going to the movies. One of his favourite things. He's meeting for the first time a vampire who looks a bit more like him (Count Orlok) and that vampire is a movie star and they're watching his new movie and they got the big novelty coffin popcorn bucket and they got to bring the pet rats and and and....

It's so lovely. Merry Christmas to all who celebrate and Happy Nosferatu to everyone in general.

Send this to all your favourite moots and pass the pumpkin round! KEEP THE PUMPKIN TRAIN GOING 🎃🖤🎃🖤🎃

Pumpkin recieved - and passed on.

(Thanks, smol skeleton Erik!)

I just started a new journal for the first time in years. Of course, I'm addressing my entries to Count Dracula.

I quote: 'let this Undead creature address her woes to a dead Undead who wouldn't care less if she was putrefying from coffin-rot (bed-rot).'

I had to find some way to amuse myself while trying to be my own therapist.

(Yes, Vlad, Aurik got the hairstyle he deserves. No pigtails in sight)

This is so accurate it's horrifying. Can confirm, in people situations I'd be quiet you'd forget I'm there, then out of the blue say the most outlandish things. Aiden, are you in my walls?

Good to be the spokesperson screamsperson!

I cannot hear you!

@vladimirsangel @purrlockswatson

Susan Kay's Phantom // L'Opéra des Vampires by me. (Full except and context below cut)

I haven't yet uploaded this part of Gothic Tales because this "tale" is undergoing severe redrafting, but this scene stands thus:

(Anyway, chapter one of Gothic Tales is up on AO3!)

My Erik is very talkative. I also had to take care to make him more gremlin, since he's often too wise and sad.

I think a lot about how Madeline swore to change when it's too late. Maybe it wouldn't have been different anyway. Maybe it would have been too late even if Erik didn't leave that night.

Message in a bottle.

I wanted to get this in writing and throw it into the void. It's either this or try to have a Victor Frankenstein-esque breakdown, which will take too much time and effort. So. This is my monologue about my melancholia and spite. Into the void it goes.

One of my professors was talking about how they think dropping courses shouldn't be an option and went on to tell a long tale of their own perseverance, how you must do things you don't like to achieve in life, why giving up means you're not trying.

And I was sitting there thinking that if I don't make Great Achievements in the future, my story would be told as a lesson. 'She was a bright student, but she couldn't take pressure and dropped out. All that potential, wasted. So stick to the path we've given you and go through with it no matter how much we stack the odds against you and how much you hate it.'

The most ridiculous part? If I do achieve their idea of success, they'll be saying how great it is to be yourself and how their wonderful, inclusive, tolerant system gives you the resources to follow your dreams.

Sometimes, I wish I'm not too weak of mind to take the chances I've been given. I wonder if I'm not struggling, just too soft and too vain to to proper hard work.

Then I try to remember that that's not me talking. That's the voice of people who don't know me and don't try to, talking in my head. The times I've been squashed down, the times I had to make myself small to fit in - all that is real, and it hurt me. None of the people who tell me I'm doing well saw when I was breaking down right under their noses. It's time to go.

It's not easy to choose according to your own judgement, especially when that judgement goes against the values of the people around you. There will be people who support you, if you're lucky, but you will have nobody to follow. And that's frightening. I hope I'll have the strength to say, I'll have it no other way.

Everything about this drawing makes me happy, but the detail that makes my Undead heart sing is the yellow-covered copy of Dracula. It's the 1897 edition, designed to evoke the appearance of the 'yellowback' - the cheap sensational fiction sold at railway stations at the time. Dr Watson was mentioned reading one in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. (Above is the miniature version I made for my haunted dollhouse.)

Cover me in sunshine...Shower me with good times

Tell me that the world's been spinning since the beginning....And everything will be alright

What can I say, my little nosferatu loves yellow. Get some sleep, Aurik.

watercolour and gouache with coloured pencil detailing, a little white ink for highlights.