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.)
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 love it, it’s like they’re all Harry Potter newspapers! Actually I bet the editors of the Gotham Gazette and the Daily Prophet would get along fairly well. Well, the Gotham Gazette is probably a bit more accurate, but clearly they still love some sensationalism. Anyways, this is some very clever editing.
Farewell Gotham Challenge [DAY 11 – 12] Favorite Quotes - The Gotham Gazette
Sparkly kitty! <3 Someone’s had an adventure with glitter...
star
I’m a simple woman, I hear the Pirates of the Caribbean music, I become gripped with the urge to don pirate garb and fight cursed skeletons upon the open sea
I am a peddler of chubby cat pics
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
Pffft, who told you I was a thief? What, just because I’m dangling upside down, I must be some sort of thief, is that it? I’ll have you know--
*grabs box of your most valued possessions*
*ascends out of sight with a swift whirrrr of cables*
“hmm. I have never been to an olive garden before.”
I bought a fancy paper hat at the grocery store (because I'm a sucker for shiny purple paper fedoras* with clocks on them apparently), consumed a little wine+, and knelt on the office floor and kissed my boy cat on his fluffy little head at like 12:04am because I was trying to finish my annual blogspot post**, do a Duolingo lesson, and find whatever TV channel has the ball drop all at once and I sort of missed it. But here we are nonetheless!
*Actually I think it might be kind of like a short top hat? I could post a picture later if anyone is particularly interested. It’s blatantly cheap and kitschy but I also think it’s really pretty actually. Also, as you can maybe tell, I’m still in pajamas; did not leave the house today.
+Technically I got strawberry daiquiri wine (it’s a cheap brand, Mom laughed when I showed it to her because it’s something they used to joke about in like high school or something), coconut creme liqueur rum (easily the strongest of the batch but still pleasantly sweet), and Bailey’s irish creme (definitely the most expensive but also probably the tastiest). I was just going to buy one but I don’t drink very often at all and I was curious to try something new and also I’m chronically indecisive so, here we are. I think I did pretty well picking sweet things actually though. Goodness gracious am I sleepy now though. I swear alcohol pretty much only ever seems to make me sleepy. Barely made it to midnight. Although I guess it’s almost one now. I have been rambling here for a while somehow.
**link maaaybe available on request? I haven't fully decided whether I'm willing to own up to my blogspot on here just yet. I started it in 2011 so. I’ve been through a lot of phases with it you could say. Actually it was a school blog initially, but it’s spiralled out from that.
Anyways here’s my mildly incoherent, slightly alcohol-soaked, new year’s post! I mostly wanted to show off my cute little boy cat’s reaction to our new year’s kiss. I love the way he looks at me, like, “I don’t know what’s going on but I love you <3″ is just written in his eyes.
Thank you! Very festive :)
So Ravenclaw common room is absolutely gorgeous with Halloween decorations right now. It’s making me curious–what do the other houses’ common rooms look like right now? Please reblog with a pic of your house’s Halloween decorations; I want to see them all!
I figured I ought to tell the story of my blog background (which gets into the story of my blog) and give credit as best I can for the picture I used to make it. Also I should probably warn you here and now that I tend to ramble.
So, first off, I have to admit that I can’t give exact credit for the original picture I used; I got it from Google Earth a long time ago, and now that they’ve changed the photos layer, I can’t find the original anymore. I’ve tried a reverse google image search, but it doesn’t come up. All I can tell you is that it came from Narrows, Virginia, or the surrounding area, and it’s of the New River. So, if you’re the photographer who took this picture, let me know how you’d like to be credited (or if I need to find a new background image).
I love this picture, though, with the tranquil water reflecting the mountains and that lone tree jutting up on the left. It has a nice balance, or perhaps a good visual flow, and it reminds me of home. (I’m originally from Blacksburg, Va, and Narrows is a little over half an hour west and a smidge north of home.)
Anyways, I’m also posting the various stages of my photoshopping (well, actually, I just used the “markup toolbar” in Preview on my Mac to edit the color of the image, but that doesn’t work as a verb as well as photoshop does).
Aside from my general love of all things purple, I also wanted to tint the picture purple so that it would be a picture of “the Lande of Violet Mists”. The Lande (with an “e” for artistic flair) of Violet Mists is a fantasy land and somewhat of an in-joke going back to the blogspot blog I made Sophomore year of high school. It has a vague mythos on said blog--in bits and pieces, such as the one I have in my blog description here--but it’s mostly more of an aesthetic theme than a properly developed literary location, though I have written bits and pieces set there. Remind me to dig some of those back up and see if any are worth sharing here, actually.
At first made this edit for aforementioned high school blogspot, and I did try to set it as my background there, but I couldn’t get the formatting to work. When I started this tumblr, though, I was happy I had it in reserve.
So, basically I tinted the picture pink and turned the temperature towards cool (aka blue) to make it purple. I think I also decreased the sharpness to give it that atmospheric haze and boosted the saturation some to intensify it. I decided the first one wasn’t purple enough, so I made the second one, but that one just looked too unnatural (and a bit too pink) so I went back to the first one (each time I started a new edit, I made a copy of the original so that I could have each step as a separate image) and made it just a little more purple. I liked that one, and I just inserted a translucent square to have that more opaque region in the middle where posts go. That wasn’t wide enough, though, so I actually took a screenshot so that I’d have an image in proportion with my computer screen and copy-pasted the image onto that and stretched it wider, and that’s how I got the final image. I suppose this isn’t necessarily specific enough to be helpful as a tutorial, but hopefully it gives the gist of how I edited my background picture. When in doubt, add purple :)
Welcome, dear traveller, to our fantastical lande shrouded in swirling violet mists. Here we study how stories shape our lives, how words weave wonders before our eyes. Here we are enamoured of love and the connections betwixt people. Here we seek daring adventures in our wild lande, delving into the unknown at every turn. But mostly, here you'll find my obsession with any number of things, like Doctor Who, the Vampire Diaries, or any number of others from the ever-shifting tide of obsessions through which I cycle. My more-used sideblog is blagueofchaos if you ever wish I posted more :) She/her, 28
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