I'm In A Musical (Bright Star) And The First Show Is In Literally Two Minutes So I Made A Blinkie In

I'm in a musical (Bright Star) and the first show is in literally two minutes so I made a blinkie in my terror

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.)

The other night I had a dream that there was a hot new parody of the song Lump by Presidents of the United States of America. Tragically, I don't remember any of the parody lyrics beyond the chorus of "she's Lump, she's Lump, she's Lump" being replaced with "he's Trump, he's Trump, he's Trump".

Currently watching this very cliche (but still decently enjoyable) Christmas movie and it has this horse girl subplot where the older sister is falling in love with horses, but there are these long, lingering shots where she's looking at this female farmhand working with the horses, and she keeps talking about how great and cool that farmhand is, and I can't decide whether it's actually a burgeoning lesbian subplot or just a heavy accidental implication, but it really does feel soooo close to overtly romantic.

Anyways my hot new ship is these two. Time to build it from the ground up ;)

*Wiggling the string toy for my cats*

*I swing it over to Maple's paws*

Maple: Mother you are breaking my immersion. No prey would so readily surrender itself to me. I am a hunter to be feared. Mother I cannot believe that this is a creature I am meant to hunt. It should fear me. It should tremble and flee before--

*I swing the toy away*

Maple: Mother. That is simply too far. I am not going over there.

Watched it. Cried a lot. Still crying. I have mixed feelings about it tbh but well... it happened I guess.

It's wild because I have exactly one episode of Vampire Diaries left and I've been saving it since *checks blog* a little over a week ago (versus the six episodes a night I was watching back in season 1) and I keep telling myself I have to watch the ending if only so I know what I'm working with in fic but also I do want to see the return of Elena (and Katherine) but also I don't want to see Stefan die (or Damon and Elena in a flashforward apparently? How will they have time for all this, honestly?) but I do want to see how they manage to break the curse with Bonnie still alive (but maybe it wouldn't be so bad to write my fic without knowing) but I don't know. I'm notorious for not watching the last few episodes of shows I love (White Collar, Psych, Once Upon a Time, although that last I ragequit over many minor grievances with multiple seasons left so it's not really the same thing) but I keep telling myself that if you don't watch the end of a thing then you just have less of the thing that you love but like I turned the TV on to watch it just now and I'm actually so nervous? I both do and don't want to watch it so intensely, so I had to open up tumblr and blog about it. I could save it another week but I want to watch it before the intensity of my obsession starts to fade but I know this is going to hurt me, emotionally and profoundly. Maybe I can stretch it out to two episodes by stopping in the middle or something idk. But aaaaaaaaa I don't know I'm not ready but I feel like I have to watch it. Help me I don't know. I need some of you internet people to come over and watch this with me or something lol I don't know. I'm so nervous I'm not prepared but I don't want to put this off forever either. And once it's done I could start rewatching. But like, aaaaaaaaa!!