Alright, I Think I’ll End The Day’s Mass Christmas Rebloggings Here, With Some Good Old Fashioned

I Will Follow - Chris Tomlin

Wonderhole Edition

How precious it is to lightly hold my cat's paw and feel her gently squeeze back <3

That awkward moment when Batman is an interruption in the legal procedures of crime solving...

TBH from what I’ve seen on Gotham I get the sense that the GCPD doesn’t actually care all that much about the chain of evidence and whatnot, but maybe Gordon’s working on turning things around. 

Gotham City Forensic Files (x)

I just love all the art of these three as a family so much <3 They have their flaws, but they take care of each other. After all, even slightly murderous children get scared of monsters sometimes :)  

Martin making Oswald check under the bed for monsters and Oswald checking even though it hurts his knee?

Ed’s joining in to give his opinion on the matter as a man of science!

A moodboard for my Killjoy OC Fruit Snack! She is half African American and half Hopi; I'm still working on developing the full details of her character, but putting together this moodboard has helped me work towards getting to know her better. Her name arose out of this post (blagueofchaos is my sideblog) and I’ve basically run with it from there, trying to work out what a Killjoy who named herself Fruit Snack would be like. I do plan on doing a full OC intro post once I have a decent summary of her worked out and written, so I’ll try to refrain from making this post super long with details and mostly let the moodboard speak for itself. 

I was motivated to make this moodboard by the Killjoys of Color Project run by @andromeda-flash and @code-red-against-mike-milligram. This is for Day 3: City Born OCs. Thank you for the inspiration to actually make this! 

For full photo sources and credits, plus an expanded section of thoughts on my moodboard process that I moved for brevity’s sake, see below the cut. 

I was also thinking about putting something to more specifically represent her Hopi heritage in this moodboard, and I’ve been reading up on Kachina dolls, but I didn’t want to just stick one in my moodboard without understanding the full context of them and whether it would be appropriate. I think it’s fairly likely that BLI, as an organization that tries to strip people of any individuality, would attempt to prevent the passing on of such traditions, but I’m also sure that her mother would have passed some knowledge of her heritage on to her in secret before she left the city, so I was thinking maybe a Kachina doll could be like the one physical aspect of her culture she has to hold onto. I may at some point make a revised or an additional moodboard with one in it, but for now I decided I should wait to be sure that I understand what I’m doing with those. 

Image Sources: 

1. Dreamstime; I edited the hair pink in Pixlr (which is a great free picture editing software by the way, if you’re looking for one).

2. Etsy

3. Background: Phototrekker; Quote from D. Antoinette Foy found via pinterest; my edit made in Pixlr.

4. My own work; I looked around my room and thought “what in here makes me think of Fruit Snack?”. My light up floral cat ear headband, my multicolor metal fidget spinner, two starbursts, and a rose pin. 

5. Background: Wikipedia; my text edit made in Pixlr.

6. My own work; I painted some water guns to be Killjoy rayguns and I do plan to make a separate post about them soon on this blog! Also, they glow in the dark. 

7. Background: Phototrekker; Quote from the 12th Doctor; my edit made in Pixlr. 

8. I forget what site but I bookmarked the picture link here.

9. Background: TripSavvy; Model: WiseGeek; I edited the pink hair in Pixlr.

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.)

Hehehehehe silly kitty :) Also I reaaaally want to pet its fluffy little belly <3 

Side note, no one let me near an actual snow leopard. I would definitely get myself mauled. BUT.... KITTY!!

The majestic snow leopard

One of the things I love about having a tumblr now is tracking down all the great fanart I’ve appreciated for so long and getting to share it and sing its praises properly :) The lovely Christmas Tardis picture in this set was my first phone screensaver when I started using my first smartphone last Christmas. (Yes, I’m very behind on technology for a millenial.) I love all of these so much, though. The style feels like proper, old-fashioned book illustrations, gentle and fantastical and nostalgic--and, of course, Christmassy :) 

In response to the “which door” question--well, the cheating answer is the Tardis so that you could visit all of the other worlds with it ;) Honestly, though, I would choose the Tardis first for the sake of variety--I mean, how could you turn down the whole universe, past, present, and future? Second place is harder to pick, though. Probably Hogwarts, followed by Middle Earth and/or Narnia--I think those two tie for a close third. Each promises similar fantastical adventures. Wonderland and 221B would be neat, too, but they’re lower priority. I don’t actually recognize the door below the Tardis with the hippos (or horses?) and the lighthouse. Whatever fandom that is is probably laughing at me now. In any case, I love how each door leads to adventures :) 

“The universe is big. It’s vast and complicated and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles.” 

— The Doctor

So if some bizarre Christmas miracle was about to happen with you and all of those fantastic worlds become actually properly real - what door would you choose? ~_^

Also, I have temporary added all of this illustrations to my Redbubble shop, so if you want some of those Christmas cards - it’s better to hurry because they may  disappear from there any second now ^^’

Here is the link: redbubble.com/people/illustore/collections/341550-christmas-cards

Guess what my new phone background is :)

I finally decided it was time to change away from my Christmas screensaver (it was Os, Ed, and Martin decorating their Christmas tree by random-fandom-art, partly inspired by a prompt I sent, which I reblogged a while ago--it’s currently on page 4 of my blog, though obviously that will change--side note, how cool is it that you can suggest things to artists on here and then the art happens? Epic.) 

So this is my new home screen. I always love Spicy Watson’s colors so much; they’re just so vivid and cheerful and the art really pops. I also love the details of the pattern on Os’s robe. Perhaps the best thing about this piece in particular, though, (I’m sounding like a wine-sipping art critic right now, aren’t I... woops) are Os and Ed’s expressions. I just love how straight up annoyed Oswald looks that Ed has gone and done something silly and gotten himself injured; his eyebrows could not more clearly say “again?”. Ed looks so bashful and embarrassed, yet there’s also that edge of a smile he’s barely biting back, and he looks like he’s actually quite happy to be having Oswald patching him up. I also love the purple outlines on Oswald’s hair because purple, and the fact that Oswald has canonically had purple highlights is still one of my favorite things about his fashion choices. Because purple. In conclusion, they may annoy each other, but they’ll always take care of each other. (That was a completely non sequitur use of “in conclusion” but I’m standing by it.) 

-Oswald, really, I’m fine.

-If you come home like this one more time, you’re sleeping on the couch.

[please don’t repost anywhere]

So the one on the left is from August of 2010 but it’s about the closest I could find; side note, I have had a whole heck of a wild nostalgia trip today looking back through old pictures on my mom’s computer to find this. 

And yet, oddly, I’m kind of surprised how little I’ve changed from then until now? For a minute I almost wondered if this picture was dated wrong because some of the pictures of me in 2009 looked like they were from much longer ago somehow, but I think the date is right... I guess it’s kind of hilarious to me looking at how much everyone else in these pictures has changed and I just. Have not. 14 year old me and 24 year old me look almost the same. Maybe this is why it’s so hard for me to believe that much time has passed, haha. If I wasn’t a coward and I’d dyed my hair this summer like I was thinking about, maybe... but anyways, yeah. I’m perhaps a bit better accessorized now, although in fairness 2010 me was on a hike to the Cascades in Pembroke, Va, which is also why I was wearing my conspicuously rainbow-colored swimsuit under my shirt. But so much is still the same I’m a little flabbergasted that it’s been a literal decade between these pictures. 

*Kill All Your Friends starts playing* It’s been ten *bleep*ing years.... Sorry, wrong album. 

the 10th anniversary of Danger Days is coming up on November 22nd and i think we should all post what we looked like when the album was released verses now yknow “me November 2010 vs me November 2020” i think that’d be really cute