It’s Been Unseasonably Warm This Weekend In Iowa And I’m Having Dreams Of A Grand Garden This Spring

Gaah, Treasure Planet is such a beautiful movie. It really is a shame it never got any sort of sequel. 

(*Whispers hopefully*: Treasure Planet live action sequel?)

“Why, look at ya. Glowing like solar fire. You’re something special, Jim. You’re gonna rattle the stars, you are.”

Treasure Planet (2002) dir.  Ron Clements, John Musker

This will never stop being the perfect mix of adorable, adventurous, and mystical--truly the winner of all Halloween comics :) 

Now *that* is the sword I want :)

A phenomenally enameled silver Swept-hilt Rapier, Germany, ca. 1606, housed at the Staaliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden [960 x 860]

beatrice 6 + 10 thx!

When Violet is born, she’s so perfect and fragile that Beatrice is petrified of her. How can she have been responsible for this soft, unblemished little creature? This creature that needs her - really needs her. And grows up to be so sweet and solemn and clever. Violet doesn’t care what her classmates think of her. This trait amazes Beatrice, she’s enthralled with it. Violet is happy to sit with her mother in the library and look at blueprints quietly for hours, grinning at her when Beatrice brings her green tea. Violet makes her bold enough to start a family.

Klaus is more emotional and excitable, and a grizzlier baby, too. He won’t feed as easily as Violet did, but Beatrice relishes the banality of the challenge. The mundanity of these sleepless nights, the safety of a grumpy baby, it comforts her. Bertrand is better at settling Klaus than she is, and for once, that doesn’t feel like inadequacy. He needs glasses by the time he’s four and he’s got so much to say. Her little conversationalist.

Sunny is still so new, happy and gummy and teething. Surprisingly cheerful, for a teething baby. She doesn’t whine, just chomps on Beatrice’s finger. Rejects the baby food Beatrice lovingly made for her elder two but adores the wooden teething peg that Bertrand whittles her. She crawls so fast that her mother has to skitter across the carpet to keep up with her before the crazy little perfect angel tumbles down the staircase. She’s still so afraid for her children. She never stopped being afraid for them. 

The day Beatrice dies, she sent the three of them to the beach. They’ve always been good at entertaining themselves. She needed them out of the house because she’s so scared for them, and old associates visited, didn’t stay long. She’s waiting for them to return, swaning around upstairs, when Olaf slips in through the unlocked front door. He doesn’t make a sound as he pours out lighter fluid, fumbles with his box of matches. If Beatrice had seen it, she would have been impressed at how quiet this loud, brash man, this boy of hers, could manage to be. Given the right motivation.

She only sees him later, the figure of him, while she’s struggling in the drapery. The smoke is thick, but his tall silhouette is unmistakable. How rude of him, not to even come to say hello, before he did this, finally. It outrages her, the indecency of it. Does the past mean nothing to him? Could he not have throttled her to death, to make it personal? Right for them, befitting of their history. Olaf sets fires when he’s angry with people who have hurt him. Beatrice isn’t just people, is she?

Then everything is dimmer and easier, and breathing seems to matter less. 

If this was “people from Montana” it would be an entirely valid summary of the play I’m in right now.

People from Wyoming

Gerard is just... a fascinating human. This is somehow both surreal and strange and yet surprisingly relatable? I had never thought of the images a book created in my mind as happening behind my head rather than in it, but his explanation of that is intriguing. Also the thing about climbing into your own head? Deeply relatable. 

Also I appreciate the Barbara cameo :) At least, when I see squirrels in something Gerard-related, I now assume that they are his tame squirrel friends. 

(read top to right, then bottom to right)

Back in February, Gerard contributed to a comic/prose anthology, along with several other artists/authors, called The Secret Loves of Geeks. He wrote a short 4-page comic on the subject of love. It’s very Gerard. Anyway, here are pictures from my copy. I haven’t spotted any chatter about this in the tags yet, so enjoy! Also, the full book can be purchased here– and it’s well worth it, because all these stories talk about love in all kinds of forms, all sorts of genders and sexualities, etc. Really a great thing that he participated in! 

I don’t know what it is about Geek & Sundry shows but I always end up shipping the thing that everyone else in the fandom says is meant to be purely platonic. First it was Percy and Keyleth, and now I’m having Jasper/Annabelle feels... halp. 

The other day I was walking out the back door at work and a crow startled me and I can tell I'm far gone on the Vampire Diaries because, just for a split second, something in my brain went "Damon? Is that you?"

As promised, here is the Nygmobblepot fanmix I mostly put together this fall. (See the end of the post for links.) I’ve come across a few very nice fanmixes for them, but not a lot of the ones I found had rock music, and since Nygmobblepot is such a hard rock sort of couple I felt like the need to make a more rock-heavy playlist for them. (Plus, it’s just the sort of music I listen to most often, and so these are the songs that come to mind for me.)

I focused mainly on their season 3 arc, especially the angst. I tried to put the songs in a sort of narrative order, so it starts out with songs that are a bit more focused on their love; Lydia is meant as the turning point where the Isabella murder happens and things start heading south, and the songs thereafter are more focused on their darker dynamic in the latter part of season 3 (though they’re all on the dark side; this is meant to be an angsty playlist). Not every song precisely follows this arc; Bloodfeather, for example, leans towards that darker side of things, but it also fits them so well that I wanted to open the playlist with it. I think it works as echoing the foreshadowing of their relationship in season 2 as well. 

1. *Bloodfeather by Highly Suspect: “In the name of love, I’ll follow you. And if my body’s dead and cold I died for you; in the name of love I’d kill for you.” “You’re fatal but I love who you are. Be my death or my forever; you’re my little bloodfeather.” (Our Penguin does tend to get his feathers bloodied... Granted, that’s not what a bloodfeather is, but the image does fit.)

2. Song 3 by Stone Sour: “If you take a step towards me, you will take my breath away, so I’ll keep you close and keep my secrets safe. No one else has ever loved me, no one else has ever tried, never understood how much I could take. There’s a darkness down inside me that I know we’ll both enjoy. Did I save you? 'Cause I know you saved me too.” 

3. I’m Not Alright by Shinedown: “All messed up and slightly twisted. Am I sick or am I gifted? Maybe it’s me, I'm just crazy; maybe I like that I’m not alright.” (Honestly this one fits Gotham in general--”all dressed up in a white straight jacket” is actually a very Jerome line--but I figured I probably wasn’t going to get around to making a general Gotham playlist and it suits Nygmobblepot’s mutual madness, I think.)

4. Little Monster by Royal Blood: “Hey little monster, where’ve you been hiding, and can I come this time? Heartache to heartache, I’m your wolf, I’m your man. I say run little monster, before you learn who I am.” 

5. Glycerine by Bush: “We live in a wheel where everyone steals, but when we rise it's like strawberry fields. I treated you bad; you bruised my face. Couldn't love you more, you’ve got a beautiful taste. It could have been easier on you, I couldn't change though I wanted to. Should’ve been easier by three; our old friend fear and you and me.” 

6. Possum Kingdom by Toadies: “I’m not gonna lie. I'll not be a gentleman. Behind the boathouse I'll show you my dark secret... Do you wanna die?” (I’ve heard and thought of many interpretations for this strange, dark love song, but somehow or another, they all seem to fit Nygmobblepot.)

7. *Lydia by Highly Suspect: “I am the hungry shark, fast and merciless. But the only girl that could talk to him just couldn't swim, tell me what's worse than this. Your eyes alive in pain, black tears don't hide in rain, and I tied you to the tracks; when I turned around, I heard the sound, I hit the ground, I know there's no turning back.” (It’s particularly interesting how Oswald circuitously killed Isabella with railroad tracks, echoing the old mustache-twirling villain trope of tying the damsel to the train tracks that this song also references. Although if Isabella had had the presence of mind to realize that even if her breaks were out, her steering wheel was still working, she probably wouldn’t be dead, but that’s a rant for another day.)

8. I Only Lie When I Love You by Royal Blood: (the title says most of it but) “Go ahead, pull the plug; broken finger, sticky trigger, now I can't get it off my chest... you know I’m up to something.”

9. Roll Me Under by Stone Temple Pilots: “Do you believe in something beautiful between chaos and the light?” (harks back to their earlier romance, but) “Roll me under, I'll pull the trigger for you. Do with me what you will. Hold me under, the water running over...” (harks forward to the first dock scene. Really I could’ve put this later in the mix but I also put it here to keep the hard/soft balance of the songs cycling back and forth just for auditory balance. Narratively it probably should’ve been #11.)

10. *House on Fire by Rise Against: “I’m in over my head and she's a high tide that keeps pushing me away. I thought we would build this together, but everything I touch just seems to break. Am I your sail or your anchor? Am I the calm or the hurricane?” “Till then I’ll hold you like a hand grenade. You touch me like a razor blade. I wish there was some other way, but no. Like a house on fire, we’re up in flames. I’ll burn here if that’s what it takes.”

11. Disarm by the Smashing Pumpkins: “Disarm you with a smile. Cut you like you want me to. The killer in me is the killer in you, my love. I used to be a little boy; so old in my shoes.” 

12. Say You’ll Haunt Me by Stone Sour: “I will give you everything to... say you'll never die, you'll always haunt me. I want to know I belong to you; say you'll haunt me. Little soft pulses in my dead, little souvenirs of secrets shared, little off guard and unprepared.” (Basically Ed to Oswald in s3e15.)

13. Let it Die by the Foo Fighters: “Did you ever think of me? You’re so considerate. Hearts gone cold and your hands were tied; why’d you have to go and let it die?” (To clarify, I don’t by any means want to suggest that the ship is dead by ending my playlist on this note; I still have hope for Nygmobblepot in season 5, and if nothing else I think season 4 very clearly showed that the ship didn’t die for good in season 3. I just love how powerful and raw Dave Grohl’s voice is at the end of this song and I wanted to let it linger, to let that sound be the note this playlist ended on. Like I said, it’s an angsty playlist.)

Here are links to the playlists. I made two because the songs I’ve marked with an asterisk all have the f-word in them; in the case of House on Fire, it’s only once, but it’s several times in Bloodfeather. If you’re alright with that, here is the playlist with the original, uncensored songs. 

If you would prefer clean versions, here is a version of the same playlist with clean versions of those three songs. 

Fun fact: there was no clean version of House on Fire by Rise against on youtube, so I made my own using a handy editing trick. I probably could also have made better versions of the clean edits of the two Highly Suspect songs (no offence to the original editors but they’re not perfectly smooth and Bloodfeather has a weird gap at the end) but I decided it wasn’t worth the effort. If you would like me to make different edits of those, though, let me know and I’d consider it. I should perhaps also mention that Possum Kingdom does use the name of Jesus, but as long as you read the singer’s request as sincere it’s not taking it in vain. But, I do admit that it could be interpreted that way, for the sake of fair warning. 

So, I hope you enjoy this dark, angsty, rocking season 3 Nygmobblepot playlist! Here’s to hopefully some great Nygmobblepot scenes in season 5.

I must say, it's pretty poetic that I've gotten to season 6 of Vampire Diaries right before another solar eclipse happens in America. I certainly didn't plan it, but it does feel like my timing is very appropriate with this one. I do have questions about the accuracy of the eclipse portrayal in the show, though. I mean, a solar eclipse did in fact happen on May 10, 1994, and it was visible across much of the country, so that much is accurate. But I don't think Mystic Falls would've had quite as good of a view as they show it having. For reference, here's a map of the May 1994 eclipse path (credit: timeanddate.com):

And, if you'll remember, Mystic Falls is like two hours from my old hometown just a stone's throw north of Lynchburg, Virginia, as seen on the locator spell map (this one's all over tumblr, forgive me for not remembering what blog I grabbed it from):

So if you zoom in on the timeanddate map and pick somewhere closeish to there:

It looks like Mystic Falls would be getting a little over 77% coverage or so. It's also worth noting that the '94 eclipse was an annular eclipse, not a total eclipse like tomorrow's eclipse. That still means that the moon went directly in front of the sun, but it does mean that it was small enough/far enough from earth that you didn't quite get full coverage of the sun (thanks to weather.gov for the nifty graphic):

So, I'm not positive whether it would've looked quite as dark as was shown in the show:

Although, I must admit, in this video I found on youtube of the '94 eclipse, (part of me is shocked to find footage from then but I know I shouldn't be like yes they had cameras in the 90s) it actually looks more similar than I expected it to look, but I imagine it was most likely filmed within the path of totality:

But also, when Kai takes Bonnie to Portland, don't they see the eclipse again there? I couldn't find that clip on youtube just now, but Portland barely had any eclipse--only 42-43% coverage, so it would've been way milder of a visual effect, barely any dimming in the sky noticeable without eclipse glasses.

The funny thing is, the area where I live is going to be sitting right around 80% coverage tomorrow. I was lucky enough to get to travel to Missouri for the 2017 eclipse to get into the path of totality, but I'm afraid that it hasn't worked out for me to do so this year, which is immensely disappointing to me as an astronomy enjoyer, but I do still plan to go to an eclipse party and I'm going to start saving to try and get to Spain for the next total eclipse in 2026, which is going to be right around my 30th birthday (screaming). Anyways, it isn't great, but here's my best picture from the '17 eclipse:

I didn't even have a smartphone yet then, because despite it being 2017, I was somewhat of a luddite, so I had the purple flip phone I so stubbornly clung to and a point-and-click Nikon, but I still think this picture is pretty cool for what it is. Here's the zoom in so you can really see that ring of fire (and my shaking hands doubling the image):

Obviously you can find thousands of better eclipse pictures online, but that one's still special to me because it's mine. Anyways, I'll report back with smart phone pictures from whatever I see of the 80% total eclipse tomorrow to compare and contrast with Mystic Falls's 70% annular eclipse of the 90s, because from what I've heard it's going to be much less impressive than full totality was, but I've yet to watch a partial solar eclipse, so I'll just have to find out. Also, if you happen to have any vampiric loved ones trapped in a magical prison dimension who you need help freeing during the eclipse tomorrow, let me know and I'll see what I can do! ;) Hahaha. Anyways, happy eclipse everyone, and may we all possess sufficient self restraint to avoid eye damage (says the woman who has looked at the sun unprotected so many times and is probably going to go blind because of it some day. I know what I've done lol. Don't be me.)