And Again, On The Eve Of Opening Night For A Year With Frog And Toad, I Find A Second Frog And Toad Related

I watched this episode tonight, and I must say, I’m not sure if I was in just the right mood or what, but I don’t think I’ve ever shipped anything on the Orville quite this much before. Like, I find Claire and Isaac and Ed and the Krill lady intriguing, and I root for Ed and Kelly, but none of them give me quite this many feels. 

I mean, it was clear from the start that this was going to be a tragic ship, and in a way perhaps it was that underpinning of inevitable tragedy that made it so beautiful. But like... it was so sweet and moving and I felt so much for Gordon. I wanted it to last even though it obviously couldn’t; I wanted them to be happy. 

Now I want them to develop time travel for real so he can go back and meet the real Laura, not just the computer-synthesized version of her. Perhaps this is the perfect time for a Doctor Who crossover AU...

Leighton Meester as Laura Huggins in The Orville 2x11

Happy Mother’s Day, Loki! Haha :D 

I really love how this artist managed to take Loki’s wild, chaotic, Ragnarok-inducing menagerie of mythological offspring and somehow make them actually super adorable. I love the contrast of myth-Loki’s children with movie-Loki, too. This is beautiful, adorable, sweet, and hilarious and I love it. 

Also I love imagining the confusion of people only familiar with the movies wondering how on earth Loki is a mother... Welcome to Norse mythology ;)

I may have a bit of a weakness for Loki with his kids. Okay, a HUGE weakness. And, really, it may be for all Supervillains with their children cause I always had a major thing for Lex being cute with Kon when I was in SV, hmmm…^__- Alas, as popular as preggers!Loki is, him with his kids doesn’t seem as common in fic…:-p

I figured I’d go ahead and reblog the updated version, because it is rather relieving to see the inside looking recognizable, though damaged. 

(Also, I ramble about guilt regarding what I do & don’t reblog after the cut.)

Of course, people are also posting now about other important fires in culturally significant buildings that have happened recently and asking why this one is getting all the attention; and, of course, as bad things happening in the world right now go, there are doubtless a great many of them doing more immediate harm to people. Obviously, humans are more important than buildings. In short, it’s making me feel guilty that this is basically the first news story I’ve shared on my tumblr, and there are probably more significant things I should’ve reblogged in the past. I mean, I’m pretty sure I still have things about the recent floods not far from us in the midwest sitting in my drafts somewhere. The fact is that typically I take a long time to process a post, because I am the sort of person who takes a long time to think through what I want to say--and then I probably say too much, but I still always feel like I’m never saying everything I mean to or would like to. 

In short, I am not the blog to follow for timely commentary on things, because I take weeks to process the average post. The first Notre Dame post I shared just struck an ideal storm of coincidences for me to have the time and motivation to post it in a timely manner. When there are other terrible things going on in the world that it seems I should be posting about, know that if I have heard about them, then I likely care about them and am praying about them. There are just always so many things. This is why my prayers so often escalate to “bless everyone, God, because everyone is dealing with something or another that is troubling them in some way, and everyone needs you”. I know I really should be more specific in my prayers, but it’s also true that everyone needs God, and the more I hear about the problems of the world, the more people I feel the need to pray for, and so that’s where I wind up. 

Since my first ‘in short’ didn’t work, I’ll try one again: in short, I see these things and I care about them, and I’m sorry if my reblogging isn’t always balanced towards the most important human disasters. This is foremost a multi-fandom blog, and maybe I shouldn’t have dabbled in news at all, but this one just struck me for a moment.

Sorry this post devolved more into my guilt about all the things I don’t reblog rather than an update on Notre Dam. 

notre dame is burning.

this is ok.

it has happened before. it will happen again. it has been lost before. it will be lost again. and again. and again. and again. art and architecture are transient, and temporary, and 850 years may seem like a lot to the individual, who will live maybe 100 if they are very lucky and very healthy, but even the pyramids at saqqara have only existed for about 6000 years and that’s still not all that much, if you consider the grand scheme of things.

yes, this is terrible. as someone who is deeply religious and literally a professional historian with a focus on art and architecture, this is terrible. im mourning. im gutted. im horrified and upset and miserable. but.

it’s not over.

victor hugo wrote hunchback because notre dame du paris was in the process of collapsing and falling apart, and revitalized the entire world’s focus and love for this church, and that was not even 200 years ago. it led to it being renovated.

the roof has fallen in. the scars of fires are on its buttresses. the rose window has fallen out. the beams and piers have collapsed. the spire has toppled. the stones have suffered, and will suffer again, but it is not gone.

renovation work is essential. sometimes things collapse and burn and break and have to come back. it’s not a terrorist attack, it’s renovation, an accident, but we have so much evidence, history, carefully documented everything on one of the most studied places in the world.

it’s not the end.

I was genuinely sad that Mr. Penn got killed off (again), but at least his demise facilitated this great Nygmobblepot moment. Ugh, I don’t know, Mr. Penn was weirdly sweet and I actually quite liked his... odd fondness for/relationship with Oswald, and I’m glad we got this episode where they hashed out their issues. I was happy that Oswald didn’t want to kill him. 

I actually quite like the idea of Penn being part of the accidental party on their secret submarine, too, with Os and Ed and Selena and Barbara and her unborn Jimling (I’m sure she’d strangle me for calling it that but too late) and Penn aaaaalll together in a confined space. Now I want that fic. Maybe I should write that fic... but I’m already working on a season 5 AU with Martin... but maybe I could incorporate this phenomenal cosmic party in an itty bitty submarine? We’ll see.

But anyways, yes. I’m sad for what befell Penn, but the moment of mutual acceptance and maniacal Nygmobblepot laughter that followed had all their strange, dark sweetness. I’m happy to see them bonding back together :)

Oooh, I hadn’t necessarily considered the Bruce/Martin parallels in Gotham... Very clever. I do hope we get to see more of Martin in season 5, though I know things are a bit squished. 

THE SON OF GOTHAM  //  THE PRINCE OF GOTHAM

Let’s go on a trip

(via blagueofchaos, fuckyeahbillbeckett-blog)

So I decided to try stripping the blue tones out to see what this would look like with more natural coloring. It still looks weirdly off because I think there wasn't that much color left underneath the blue, so even boosting the saturation didn't really make it quite normal-looking, but here's my best try with what I can do on my phone:

Then I messed around with it a little more on my laptop and boosted the contrast and messed with the tones a little more, though it’s still flatter than I’d like, especially in the background.

Well, it was a fun experiment at any rate, and it does look a touch more true to color! To get it really realistic, I think you’d have to color it section by section, almost like colorizing a black and white picture, but I don’t really feel like messing with Pixlr right now so I think I’m going to call this good enough. Enjoy! :) 

My gosh, these are beautiful. The color and the lighting are so delicate and the water is just glowing. I love how faint the ships coming through the fog are. Also boats are beautiful in general and this captures that, plus the water looks like candy in some of these. Lovely <3

ART HISTORY MEME; 8 artists: Ivan Aivazovsky [3/8]

You know, I didn't get an email from my new friend Jonathan Harker today! He's been emailing me every day of his trip so far. Do you think I should be worried? I wonder if something strange is going on in that castle...

Nah, I'm being silly, he's probably just busy with legal documents and so forth. I'm sure everything is fine.

It’s been unseasonably warm this weekend in Iowa and I’m having dreams of a grand garden this spring (the kind where I'd never actually be able to keep it all weeded, but a girl can dream; I’ll probably end up with at least a few herbs and some pumpkins and peppers, though).

I’m also getting really into the idea of making one of these super cute faerie gardens. They are adorable and fantastic and I want one. I’ve been shopping for fairy houses and I have far too many tabs of them open.