violet water day

[solarbird]

woah it’s a violet water day

If you can’t see ultraviolet, which is most of you, it’s one of those days when you are reminded that UV is not blocked at all by clouds even when a lot of other light is, and so the UV is as bright as ever, and everything else isn’t. So if your kitchen sink is in front of a window, the water is now violet.

And I wouldn’t really bother mentioning it but today the water is very violet.

Also, it’s snowing, which wasn’t supposed to happen, and it’s still snowing, which even revised wasn’t supposed to happen, but I think it’s stopping for real now.

(It only stuck to trees. And some to grass, but not a lot.)

Trees, shrubs, and grass, seen from the upper level, with snow in varying amounts on a cloudy day with thin snowfall

…wait

Is this like purple rain? Was Prince actually writing a song about this? Did he see UV also? Or is that just a coincidence?

Now I’m actually wondering.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Comments

[kathmandu]

I never thought of that possibility, about Prince and 'purple rain'.

[solarbird]

Neither had I until today!

[filkerdave]

I've never heard of this. How cool!

[solarbird]

I've only met like one person ever who sees into ultraviolet and she has other serious vision issues so I'm the only person I've met who sees into UV and doesn't.

Also it's generally known just to be very rare.

I also probably have tetrachromacy. No way to tell for sure without genetics samples from your retinas, but I show all the signs of it. These facts are most likely related.

For the record, ultravision (which is what D&D used to call it lol) is a completely useless superpower.

[mme_n_b]

Wow, this is so cool! Is it just water or everything reflective? Or everything transparent? Is the snow violet?

[solarbird]

Well, it's just like seeing violet, but more. There's more violet in my world than yours. But that said it kinda bends differently so sometimes it's surprising since it doesn't entirely act like other colours.

I spent a lot of time in art school arguing with other people about colours.

[mme_n_b]

OK, now I have to ask you my favorite question. Imagine that you are making a realistic horizontal rainbow for a child's room using flexible strips of wood painted with different colors. You have lots and lots of strips of any color you may want. Please tell me which ones you'll use, starting with the top edge of the rainbow.

[solarbird]

uh

I don't really have an answer for that? Like... I'd probably use some set of reference colours?

Though really what I think would be more interesting stylistically isn't paint but strong but not opaque stains on light wood. That'd be much more interesting to me.

[mme_n_b]

You have a really cool way of thinking.