#<- it is now 2024 and i drew these all the way back in 2021 and like. anyway. delayed gratification my beloved.

[heleneplays]

Scene redraws - Ch. 5, Relics 2: The Crusader's Tomb

The Maríamancer in me jumped out!!!!!!!! I have 0 regrets, it's abt the long awaited romance start for this slow burn enemies to lovers arc of two pining dumbasses for me 👏😩💖

---

QUICK LINKS -> [Relics Book 3 | Dashingdon | Itch.io Direct] [Relics Book 2 | CoG/HG Direct | Google Playstore | Steam | OG Forum | Forum Update] [Relics Book 1 | CoG/HG Direct | Google Playstore | Steam] [Fan-run Discord Server (Spillane Clown Brigade) | Permalink] [My Ko-Fi | Link]

[iamred-iamyellow]

⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ Dancing in the Courthouse

♥ masterlist | request rules | part of my 1k event

♥ pairing: oscar piastri x fem!reader

♥ synopsis: In 2021 you and oscar decided to elope due to your unpredictable schedules. now that you have more stability in your life, you were able to throw a dream wedding with the man you loved most in the world.

♥ smau + written - as always none of the pictures are mine <3

♥ warnings: swearing !!!

♥ a/n: first fic apart of the 1k event!

-Paris, 2021-

The streets of Paris were bustling as you took a seat in your Uber. You could hear a Taylor Swift song playing faintly on the car's radio as you pulled out your phone.

You

hey osc I'm on my way back

Oscar checked the notification and panicked a little internally. He slipped the device back into his dress pants and shook his hands.

"Relax, tout ira bien," Estie assured Oscar. (translation: everything will be fine)

He sighed and turned towards the two French men, "Are you sure?"

All Pierre did was laugh.

"Call me when it's over," Pierre said with a smirk and guided Esteban out the door, into an elevator.

You were in France on a girls night out with your best friend Kika, whom you met through Formula 1. Little did the two of you know that Pierre and Esteban snuck over to your hotel room in order to help Oscar set up a surprise.

You tapped your keycard on your hotel door and called out your boyfriend's name. You set your purse down on a small marble table and kicked off your heels, making your way through the main room.

A small trail of pink rose petals guided you to the terrace causing your heartbeat to pick up.

Was this really happening?

You opened the glass doors to find more rose petals surrounding the floor and a very handsome Oscar. You strode over to him in complete shock until he grabbed your hands in his.

"Y/n you have been my best friend for as long as I can remember," he said as his thumb drew circles on one of your fingers. "You have stood by me since the beginning of my career and I could never imagine a life without you. I know we don't get to spend as much time together as we'd like to, but that is why I wanted to do this today."

He slowly got down on one knee in front of you and pulled out a black velvet box to reveal a silver ring.

"Will you marry me?"

You squatted down to his height and mumbled, "Is that even a question?"

You cupped his face in your hands and kissed him gently, "Yes of course I will."

✧˖ °. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁‧₊˚ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁˖°✧

-July 4, 2024-

liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris, lilymhe, and 300,572 more

ynln london girl

📸 creds: @/oscarpiastri

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user1 lmao the oscar picture creds

oscarpiastri I risked my life for that first pic

ynln @/oscarpiastri you were on another balcony?

user3 if anyone risked their life for that picture it's Alex

user2 speaking of alex she looks SO pretty there

carlossainz55 red nails for ferrari

ynln anything for you carlitos 😽

iamrebeccad so so true and real

user4 pretties

user9 lets all manifest an oscar win for this weekend

✧˖ °. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁‧₊˚ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁˖°✧

✧˖ °. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁‧₊˚ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁˖°✧

liked by oscarpiastri, nicolepiastri, hattiepiastri, and 1,481,583 more

ynpiastri oops I guess the cat is out of the bag huh! the rumors are in fact true, oscar and I are married. we have been trying to keep it a secret since our elope in 2021, but it seems as though I slipped up with a photo on my insta. at least it was the perfect timing for the reception we're throwing this summer 🥰

view comments

nicolepiastri see you at the sequel wedding!!

ynpiastri <3

user1 ...sorry?

user8 PARDON

user12 THEY'RE ACTUALLY MARRIED

user2 POOKIE YOU CANT JUST POST A SHIRTLESS OSCAR LIKE THAT

user7 her username change I am so endeared

mclaren how many of you knew...

logansargeant I did

alexandrasaintmleux I did

charles_leclerc I did

landonorris I DIDNT?!?!

landonorris @/oscarpiastri how come charles knew before me

charles_leclerc @/landonorris he's my son???

iamrebeccad I'm so happy for you!

ynpiastri tysm becks 🥹🫶

✧˖ °. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁‧₊˚ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁˖°✧

liked by pierregasly, oscarpiastri, charles_leclerc, and 123,740 more

wagupdates the girlies pulling up to the belgian paddock

view comments

user1 the color scheme 🛐

user2 PLS did they plan this for y/n’s wedding?

wagupdates @/user2 we think so!!

oscarpiastri I guess I need to step up my fashion game

charles_leclerc @/oscarpiastri I can help 😁

ynpiastri @/charles_leclerc no you cannot

user7 I love them

user4 they're GORGEOUS

francolapinto 😘

user8 ITS MR STEAL YOUR GIRL

user3 HAHAHA

user9 FRANCO Y/N IS MARRIED

charles_leclerc @/francocolapinto Te sugiero que elijas sabiamente tus próximas palabras (I suggest you choose your next words wisely)

francolapinto sorry sorry! its a joke its a joke 😅

user10 the threatening spanish 😭

carlossainz55 @/user10 I taught him that

fernandoalo_oficial @/carlossainz55 and I taught YOU that

✧˖ °. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁‧₊˚ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁˖°✧

✧˖ °. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁‧₊˚ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁˖°✧

liked by pierregasly, ynpiastri, carmenmundt, and 563,885 more

francisca.cgomes rich bitch energy

tagged; @/ynpiastri @/alexandrasaintmleux

view comments

user1 are you shopping for dresses

francisca.cgomes mayybbe

ynpiastri GORGEOUS

francisca.cgomes NO YOU 😚

aussiegrit @/nicolepiastri do i get to walk oscar down the aisle

nicolepiastri no 😐

charles_leclerc that’s right because i am

user2 the family seating is gonna go crazy lol

user5 so what’s the dog situation?

landonorris bark

ynpiastri @/landonorris NO 😭

user5 I MEANT LEO AND ROSCOE 💀

ynpiastri @/user5 leo we know is definitely going to be there! 🥰

✧˖ °. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁‧₊˚ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁˖°✧

-Wedding Day-

liked by alex_albon, maxverstappen1, carlossainz55, and 1,749,053 more

ynpiastri 💍

tagged; @/francisca.cgomes

view comments

danielricciardo 🥹

pierregasly vous êtes tous les deux magnifiques (you both look gorgeous)

user6 the fact that kika is her maid of honor

user7 IM NOT CRYING

user4 the venue is STUNNING

✧˖ °. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁‧₊˚ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁˖°✧

There was a salty ocean breeze on a cliff-side of Monaco, the place you and Oscar picked for the wedding.

There were dozens of familiar faces along with beautiful greenery and pastel flowers decorating the space.

You were sat at your table with your husband Oscar as the toast’s began to start.

“Hi,” someone said into the mic with a smile. “I’m Kika.”

There were a few soft laughs from the crowd. She pulled a piece of paper out of her gold-colored dress.

“When I found out you eloped without me that day in Paris my first thought was ‘fuck you’.” she said causing some more chuckles to come from the guests.

“It was only because I wouldn’t get the chance to give you the speech I had planned—but here we are today and I’m so glad I finally get to say it. Over these past couple years you have been my best friend, in and outside the paddock. I have so much love for you and I couldn’t be happier for your relationship with Oscar.”

You got up from your seat and hugged her, eliciting a few ‘aws’ from the room.

Lando stood up next with the mic, “Oscar was the guy on the grid no one could shut the up about,” Lando spoke into the mic and everyone laughed. “I didn’t get it at first, but then I met him, and I got it. And I felt the same when I met Y/n. You two are lucky to have each other. Congrats, mate.”

He raised his glass of champagne causing everyone to clink their glasses and cheer.

liked by lewishamilton, aussiegrit, nicolepiastri, and 1,937,954 more

ynpiastri wifey

view comments

user1 this is so cunty

wagupdates we heard that y/n’s heel broke and oscar had to carry her to the car (hence the last picture) 😭

user7 she is SO pretty

patriciooward great to see you again osc!

user6 I. LOVE. THEM.

user2 omg they’re so hot

user3 y/n’s outfits today >>>

lilymhe the reception was beautiful

ynpiastri <3

[maevstar]

| Introducing myself in my fame dr ᯓᡣ𐭩

ᝰ. My name is Maeve Amelie Solace, but people usually call me by “Mae”.

ᝰ. I’m 26yo and I’m an A-list american actress and singer. (I was born in 1997 but I didn’t turned 27 yet).

ᝰ. I started my way on acting when I was 16 when my older brother was doing a play on high school and begged me to participate. I did, and since then I’ve been in love with acting.

ᝰ. When I graduated from high school i moved out from my hometown — Austin, Texas — to LA and entered to UCLA School of Theater.

ᝰ. My first big project in Hollywood was “The Edge of Seventeen” when I was 19-20yo, before that I just worked with small projects, mostly from my uni.

ᝰ. That project gave me more visibility in the industry and I became more well known.

ᝰ. Some of my films: The Edge of Seventeen, The School for Good and Evil (adaptation of the books), Lady bird, Scream 4 (2018), Little Woman, Causeway, We Live in a Time, Challengers, Me Before You, Glass Onion 2, Duna, Anyone but You, Don’t look up, No hard feelings, Don’t worry darling, The outrun, and etc.

ᝰ. Some of my shows: Supernatural (Claire Novak), Looking for Alasca, YOU, outer banks (season 4).

ᝰ. I’ve been nominated for the Oscar 4 times as the best Actress in a Leading Role, but I’m just gonna win the award in the 4th time (2024). Futhermore, i’ve won a lot of awards and nominations like Emmy’s and Golden Globes. In 2022, I entered the list of The Most Influential People by Time Magazine.

Now, my singer career:

ᝰ. My mom is a country singer — not much known — in Texas, so I’ve grew up loving music, and I’ve been writing songs since I was 15, but these never turned into real songs, until 2019-2020, when I recorded my EP’s.

ᝰ. My first EP is called “Minor” and it has 7 songs. I released it in 2019 just for fun, was some songs that I’ve been writing during the years. In 2020 I released more 2 EPs, called “Bittersweet” and “Good Riddance”, with 7 and 10 songs respectively, again, just for fun.

ᝰ. Now, my new coming up project on music is my first Album, called “The Secret Of Us”, it has 13 songs (+ 7 from deluxe) and all of them will have a music video, cause my objective is making a visual album.

ᝰ. With my new album, I intend to go on my first tour.

Fun facts about me:

ᝰ. I know ballet and gymnastics cause when my sister was 8 years old she wanted to learn but was scared to do it alone, so I used to go to classes with her.

ᝰ. I have 3 siblings, Will, Kayla and Austin. Will is 2 years older than me, Kayla is younger than me 4 years and Austin is 8 years younger than me. (Another fun fact is that Austin is adopted).

ᝰ. My s/o is Drew Starkey, I met him in a party at Maddie Cline’s house (2021). Also, Madelyn is my best friend and I’m very close to the cast of the outer banks too.

ᝰ. I’m in fact brazilian. I was born there but my family moved to the US when I was 8 — my father is brazilian but my mom is from us, she was in a trip when met my dad in brazil and blablabla — so I have dual nationality. (latinas are better lol). But when I was 14, I moved again to Brazil and lived there for almost 2 years with my aunt before I came back to US.

ᝰ. When I was 16, I made a YouTube channel with my brother Will and we used to talk about the most random things ever (btw it was a flop lol, this channel just came up when we became famous). (another fun fact is that he is also a well known actor, but more on theater plays than on screen).

ᝰ. When I was in high school, I was planning on going to med school — mostly because of my dad, he’s a doctor (my obsession with greys anatomy might got me inclined to that too🤭) — but then I fell in love with acting (when I was 16, like i said) and never quit. Besides that, I’m still very interested with things related to science and human body, stuff like that; most of things that I know are bc of my dad tho.

ᝰ. I’m polyglot. I speak Portuguese, English, Italian, Spanish and a bit of French and Latin. I also know ASL.

ᝰ. I still don’t know how to ride bikes without training wheels cause no one ever taught me (😭).

ᝰ. I love the sea, beaches, everything related to that, it’s one of my favorite places in the world.

mood boards; mood boards details;

─────── ୨ৎ ───────

[wigglebox]

Follow up [x]

If you click the link and go to the original post made in 2015, you'll see in the tags how I felt insecure about what I was doing and how my art style never felt like my own.

And I've seen others, particularly newer or younger artists (but sometimes seasoned ones as well!) who talk about how they feel like their style changes every day and that they don't know how to make a consistent style and how they don't feel like what they draw is truly their own.

At this point, I'm convinced this is just something we all have to go through.

The art that I used to get me into art school back in 2009 was heavily inspired by Tim Burton. Every year after that (and I dropped out of art school in 2010) I just felt like I couldn't get ahold of a style of my own.

But in 2021, after a handful of years where I more or less gave up on any art muse or any real art in general (other than some doodles on my phone), I drew this (on said phone):

And from October 2021 to now, June 2024 we've gone from that to this:

Even in the last three years my style has changed but I've finally been on the highway of "A Style That Feels Like My Own" so even changing a lane here and there doesn't take me off there.

So when I saw this 2015 post in which I lamented the fact that I felt like I didn't have my own style, I found art that inspires rather than makes me feel bad, my voice, the medium that I work best with, and how to implement resources and references in a way that works.

I wanted to follow up on that 2015 post because I feel like many of us get into this spot when it comes to our art.

Your art is an expression of yourself, and you'll eventually find your voice! There's no time limit.

[genericpuff]

I drew this 5 years ago in 2019 when I was in the midst of some hardcore burnout with my original projects-

A year later, in the midst of the 2020 pandemic lockdowns, I completed Volume 6 and jumped right into Volume 7. I had finally "gotten over it" as my past self had hoped for but couldn't see through the haze of burnout at the time.

A year after that, on December 31st 2021, the series ended, coming in at 11 volumes, 2000+ page, and 7 years of work.

Now it's 2024. The "sequel" to this series has been on hiatus since December 2022, with only one update since in April 2023 and the next episode is still sitting in my WIP's. I'm feeling the suffocation I felt back then, and trying to remind myself that, like last time, I'll eventually "get over it". In the meantime, I've been working hard on a comic I never saw coming, LORE | REKINDLED, and I couldn't be more thankful for the things I've learned making it. It gave me the space and time I needed away from the pit I was digging myself into, a pit that I'm still working to get out of.

For 7 long years I felt like a "failure". I defined it as "not having readers", "not making money" , "not getting seen". And while my definition of success still includes some of those things - we all want to see some kind of tangible return for our work and that's natural - I know now in hindsight that the "failures" of that comic were necessary to get to where I am now. I'm thankful that it was nothing more than that, that I was able to make those mistakes and learn what I needed to learn without the pressures of what the popular definition of "success" tends to bring.

That comic was still a success in its own way. I completed it. I learned. The scars from what I put myself through making it are still there, but I'm healing, and getting stronger. I'm putting out some of the best work I've ever pushed myself to do, and I'm having a blast doing it. And I'm starting to make plans for my return to my original series, with the focus and skills I've gained working on Rekindled at the forefront.

And I can happily say that I'm no longer afraid of panels.

[fran-aka-mak]

art development !!

i started doing digital art in 2013 but the template starts at 2015 hehe

[[ template ]]

my essaying about my digital art journey below!!

2015 - i was very immersed in the soul eater community! i kept doing resbangs and making friends, and i love doing AUs, specifically soul & maka centric. this is the HTTYD AU where soul is the dragon!

2016 - yes this is Little Things PH's OCs that i did back in the day! i love their lil guys so much i had to make fanart. this was the art i gave to Ate in person!!

2017 - i drew a lot more pokemon this time ! idk why i didn't draw more of it digitally before. i had too much soul eater brainrot lmao. so i combined them! behold contestshipping x soma AU

2018 - this was the time when i got into K-pop! specifically Monsta X haha, i got more interested in doing fashion, especially for male characters~ (and i had to draw my beloved agenda, somakid)

2019 - my bias from MX, Minhyuk on a whale with Minggom! this was made for an artbook that was sent to him! i hope he got to see this along with my tiny message ;; i delved more into a new tiny chibi art style here

2020 - i drew way too much during this year and it led me to impossibly high standards for my art to this day //sobs. i redrew my Your Lie in April AU fanart and i really think i improved so much….. i went out of my comfort zone to really draw the background and the piano

2021 - genshin brainrot started here !! i was trying to find my style even more, and i love kokomi's color palette. i remember looking at 10x references and combining them into this specific pose in the fanart. i still think to this day this is one of my personal favorite art pieces of all time

2022 - another personal favorite art piece (and something my friend aura and a commissioner personally loved!), i was practicing on drawing men since i wasn't confident, but seeing how this turned out made me want to keep going ❤️

2023 - the latest maka & kid piece that i made! they are so precious to me. i love trying out new poses and dynamics, and i tried changing their outfits a bit more to highlight that i wanna try new fashion stuff ^^; i'd like to say it was a job well done ngl

2024 - and finally, a recent piece that i'm most proud of, and shows a lot of my art style (and i drew the background from scratch!). i redrew an old comic panel from a now discontinued comic, but i feel like i improved so much in terms of rendering, coloring, and anatomy!!

[tomorrowusa]

J.D. Vance is so awful that I'm starting to think that Trump chose him as "impeachment insurance" – if Republicans indeed win the November election.

Maybe the devil put the Trump-Vance ticket together...

He said that every person in attendance for his speech believed “something that’s a little crazy.” In his case, he said, “I believe the devil is real and that he works terrible things in our society. That’s a crazy conspiracy theory to a lot of very well-educated people in this country right now.” Vance made these remarks at a September 2021 gathering of the Teneo Network, an invitation-only group of young conservatives that counts elected officials, pro athletes, financial executives and media figures among its members. Vance joined Teneo six years ago. ProPublica and Documented obtained a video recording of his 30-minute speech and question-and-answer session, which has not been previously reported. [ ... ] According to tax records, the Teneo Network’s chairman is Leonard Leo, the legal activist who built a pipeline of lawyers who interpret the Constitution based on the “original intent” of the framers or the meaning of the words in the text when they were written. One of the most influential conservatives of the past three decades, Leo helped confirm all six conservative justices currently serving on the U.S. Supreme Court. Leo-aligned judges have pushed to restrict abortion rights and rein in the government’s power to regulate corporations. Leo has said he views the Teneo Network as a way to extend his influence beyond the judiciary to industries including finance, media, government and Silicon Valley. The network identifies and cultivates conservative leaders in “other areas of American culture and American life where things are really messed up right now,” as Leo put it in a Teneo video.

Leonard Leo is behind the effort to pack the judiciary with far right judges. Of course he has connections to Project 2025.

Adding Vance to the ticket bolsters the connections between Leo’s network and the Trump 2024 campaign. It also strengthens ties between Trump’s reelection bid and the Project 2025 blueprint, which outlines plans for a second Trump administration, including firing thousands of career civil servants, shuttering the Department of Education and replacing ambitious goals to combat climate change with ramped-up fossil fuel production. In a recent TV interview, Vance said the document contained “some good ideas” but claimed that “most Americans couldn’t care less about Project 2025” and that the Trump campaign wasn’t affiliated with it.

If people "don't care" about Project 2025 it's because they don't know about it yet. d'oh!

And yes, Project 2025 is filled with old Trump administration staffers/officials and people who worked in Trump campaigns. Saying there's no affiliation with the Trump campaign is like having a paramour and claiming there's no relationship because the couple isn't married.

J.D. is a fanboy of Alex Jones who spreads vicious conspiracy theories about the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre.

Shortly before he spoke at the Teneo conference, Vance drew criticism when he tweeted that “Alex Jones is a far more reputable source of information than Rachel Maddow.” Jones, founder of the online show Infowars, gained a following with his promotion of conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. More recently, judges in several states ordered him to pay $1.5 billion to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, which Jones had called a hoax.

Don't think that Trump and his apprentice can't get elected just because they have bizarre extremist ideas. Remember 2016?

Trump has basically chosen Vance as his successor. Permit Trump-Vance to win and you help make America Russia.

[mysticsparklewings]

Obscutober 2024 Day 31: Paracosm 🦄

----------

Paracosm (n.)

a detailed imaginary world, especially one created by a child

----------

Inktober is officially OVER!! 🥳YAHOO!! 🎉 

…Oh, and Happy Halloween, too. 🎃

I did my best to go out on a high note, and I think I largely succeeded…even if the results aren’t very Halloween-ish. 😅 

Click the "Keep Reading" and we'll talk a bit more about my general thoughts/process. ✨

Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

----------

At long last, we end very similarly to how it all began: In a "world" of sparkle and starlight. 😉

I could wax poetic here about how glad I am to be done, but I think me just saying those words alone is plenty enough of that for tonight. Besides, if you really want to split hairs, it's not over until we do the wrap-up image you Sparklers know I usually like to do...

Anyway. I'm not sure my posting time will reflect this by the time I get done with this description, but I did start on this one early enough in the day to give myself plenty of time to brainstorm and play with the concepts a bit. Though, in fairness, I don't think I actually ended up scratching that many ideas or changing my mind all that much as I worked; I think the bulk of my time was just spent trying to figure out where to squeeze in more detail. After all, the definition does say a detailed imaginary world.

Now, I will admit that I'm not entirely sure this really evokes "world" so much as "little house," ("playhouse?") but this is very much another word I put on the list thinking it would be fun to play with in poetry format. More specifically, I was thinking of how satisfying it was to end Obscutober 2021 with "Phantasmagoria"Obscutober 2021 with "Phantasmagoria" as the final word and was hoping for a similar experience.

But as we discussed yesterday: I'm not working in poetry format this time! 🙃

So I relied on the same "Adult Coloring Book Vibes" that I was trying to channel yesterday, because when I think of trying to encapsulate a tiny imaginary world in a detailed but simple drawing, a lot of Johanna Basford's work comes to mind, particularly her book "Small Victories."

From there, a tiny house as an "easy" way to communicate this is meant to somehow be representative of a whole world wasn't a far leap of logic, so that's what I ran with.

I will also take this opportunity to point out that I deliberately drew the houses to point inward, towards the center of the mandala, to kind of go along with the idea of an "inner" world. It was also just a nice change because I somehow did not really notice until today that every other Obscutober piece I've done this month except maybe Day 7 all "point" outward in some way. 😦

Not that which way they "point" matters all that much, I'm just surprised I didn't really notice I hadn't taken advantage of the ability to "point" inward. That could've been fun to play with on Day 23 in particular!

It also doesn't really show at all, but I was thinking about Haunted Houses when I drew the little house, since tonight is Halloween, which is part of why it doesn't use very many properly straight lines...And you might be able to see a the tiniest bat I have ever drawn in my life over the door! But that's about as far as I got with making the house look "haunted." I had thoughts of pushing it further, but I held back because I knew I wanted to get kind of rainbow-y with the color scheme and didn't want the house to clash too much with that.

And as you can probably tell, I also just didn't have a ton of space to play with a lot of fine "spooky" details and have them actually be recognizable. The windows on the house were pushing the limits as it was. 😅

Speaking of windows, I'm not sure how well it comes across, but I did try to put some edging around the houses to create kind of a cathedral/stained glass window effect. Ironic as heck considering I mostly tried to avoid that kind of thing all month previously because I had two glass-specific words I wanted to let have that option on the table...And then I mostly didn't even use that effect for those specific days. 🙃

But! Go big or go home, I wanted to have fun and I like stained glass, so here we are!

I kind of tried to tie the "world" aspect back into it by filling some of the "glass" spaces with those cobblestone-ish spaces. Obviously it's not a "yellow brick road" as in a certain imaginary world because it's not all yellow, but calling it a "rainbow stone road" in similar fashion would be fair, I think. 😉 It's cute and goes super well with the stained glass impression...In fact that might be carrying the whole stained gladd impression by itself, but I'll let Sparklers decide that for yourselves.

Also, to my credit, I did try to bring in a little more "spook" by going with moths to help fill out the rest of the space rather than my first choice, butterflies. Butterflies don't really specifically have anything to do with imaginary worlds, I know, but they seem to have gotten filed in the same folder in my brain. At the very least you could draw the connection between butterflies (and moths), fairies, and magic, which would fit in nicely with an imaginary world.

However, my compromise was starting with the very butterfly-esque Luna moth, which is more colorful but they do have a very eye-like marking on their wings, which I attempt to use to my full advantage here (while still attempting to keep it at least a little abstract).

I was actually going to have all Luna moths all the way around, but when I copied & rotated the layer I discovered they were too long and go cut off on the other 4-points, which I did not like the look of.

So rather than have to figure out something else to draw in their place or re-draw new months from scratch, I erased the bottoms of the wings, altered the shape of what was left a bit, then changed the antennae and the "eyes" on the wings to be a bit different. Boom! New "normal" brown-ish moths. 🦋 And y'know, the brownish moths don't get enough love compared to their flashier counterparts anyway, so they deserve to be here and I'm happy to have them.

To polish things off, I felt it essential to have a rainbow border. More than anything else, I associate rainbows with the concept of imagination. I very nearly put some clouds in there too, but then I remembered how surprsingly annoying it's been to get cloud shapes I'm happy with in this format at various points earlier in the month. So no clouds, just more rainbow bits to fill the space where the clouds would've been.

Besides, this way it kind of looks like the moths are going to fly over the houses, bringing the rainbows with them, which is a pretty cute idea. 😊

And then I topped things off with some stars/sparkles because one of my earlier ideas was to get some trees in here and maybe evoke the idea of laying out under the stars at night, letting your imagination run wild. But as evidenced by my little trees stumps, I did not actually get very far in entertaining that particular idea. 😅

Setting the scene at night does go better with the hints of more Halloween-ish themes, though, so all is well.

The colors then are about as self-explanation as you can get. The only thing I didn't really touch on is that I tried to make the house black/purple with red roofing, but I kept the layers light because I didn't want the coloring in those spots to stick out too much. I think it's better if the house can kind of "blend in" as just a small final nudge to the idea that they're just a small part of a larger world, rather than their own central figure. If that makes any sense.

In the end, I do think this turned out as one my better more doodle-y attempts for the month. Just goes to show what a difference actually having time to think about what the heck I was doing can make. [I say knowing my past self cannot hear/see this yet because that's how the past works.]

And I do think this is among my favorites for the month, but I'm still not quite ready to say it's my favorite-favorite. It is missing some more "traditional" mandala touches that make it harder to compare with those that strike the doodle vs. traditional balance better. I tried to squeeze a couple things in there, but ultimately my other ideas literally and figuratively took up to much space to really leave room for that.

It looks good—great even!—though! So I'm thrilled to go out on a relatively high note, especially after the last few prompts both gave me trouble and were a bit of a whirlwind to make since I was so bad at giving myself enough time to make them in. 😅

...Well, it's a high note for now. We'll see how hard of a time I have with cross-posting and if that dampens my mood too much or not. 🫠

Still, that won't change the fact that I am DONE. I DID IT!! And now I can safely focus all of my attention on a certain other project I've been working on prepping for November in the background all the while.

Still, that won't change the fact that I am DONE. I DID IT!! And now I can safely focus all of my attention on a certain other project I've been working on prepping for November in the background all the while.

I'll see you Sparklers tomorrow, bright and...colorful. 😉 👋

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See the Prompt List

Artwork © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

[tytangfei]

Jina’s dramas awards 2023

It’s here! I feel like I say this every time, but truly, this year, I had less time to devote to dramas. Also, there were few dramas that held my full attention from beginning to end, so this year's list will be pretty short! (Check out my favs from 2020 , 2021, and from 2022.)

As usual, these are mostly Chinese historical/period romance dramas. I do have a category for modern dramas but I didn't watch any this year, so I'll be taking it off for this year. :)

Best Overall Drama

Lost You Forever (Season 1): A brilliant first episode played by talented kid actors who just drew you to this solemn, aching world of xiao yao and others. Technically, the drama isn't over, but my goodness, the characters are so good. The actors are chef's kiss.

Most Delightful/Fun Drama

The Starry Love: Knowing xianxia and wuxia genres, I expected this drama to have more angst, but I was laughing more than I was crying. A strong ensemble cast too that made everything more fun. I love this drama so much.

Most Impactful Drama

Lost You Forever: I still mull over certain scenes, cry over the characters' back stories and motivations and what gives them grief. I am still patiently waiting for season 2.

Drama with the Best Soundtrack

Circle of Love: Bangers after bangers. I still play it after all these months. The drama is such a wild intense ride, it was super entertaining.

Best Costume/Design/Set Drama

My Journey to You: Everything felt so elevated and elegant and sharp and mysterious and dangerous. Love it.

Best Short Drama

Butterflied Lover: This director never misses. Adore the two couples, even though the plot slowed down a little bit about 2/3 of the way. Beautifully shot, interesting storyline, happy ending. Nothing else I could ask for from a short drama.

Most Unexpected Drama (aka the Dark Horse) / Drama(s) I'm Enjoying Right Now But Have Not Finished

Mysterious Lotus Casebook, A Journey to Love, and The Last Immortal. For all three, I was surprised I enjoyed them so much. For MLC and AJTL, I know there are some major characters deaths, so I have yet the heart to finish it but I know that I've enjoyed a huge portion of it and I know their endings will not ruin that.

The Last Immortal is still airing and could have a disastrous end since they have to cut a lot to fit the 40-ep max limit, but I am surprised that I really like the characters. Unlike their prequel An Ancient Love Poetry where I did not care for the male lead's God self, for this drama, I care much about gu jin/yuan qi and a yin. I hope this drama ends on a good note.

------------------------------------------------

That’s all for me! Did we share any favs? Which drama would you in what category? Feel free to let me know. :) Thanks, all! Here's to new and beloved dramas in 2024!

[peculiar-potato]

My Art Fight 2024 Stats & Summary!

(This might be really boring but I like numbers and this is my tumblr so too bad)

For starters, here’s my progress on the Art Fight Bingo card, almost blacked the whole thing out! I hit a lot of categories with the same attacks, so to avoid too much repetition I decided to fill in the blocks with attacks I thought fit the brief the best, even if they weren’t the first one to check it off.

A few things of note, compared to previous years:

I had 28 level 1 attacks I needed to revenge (not counting chains). This most direct revenges I had to do so far! (Previous record was 21 in 2021). Essentially a lot more people attacked me first this year!

My attacks to defenses ratio this year (including mass attacks I was included in) was 42.2%. This is my lowest ratio of all the years, and the first time it fell below 50%. I did revenge everyone but I got a lot of attacks back for my mass attack so I technically received more art.

I did 38 attacks, which is my second-lowest amount of attacks (I did 31 in 2018). This was because my mass attack took up a ton of time, and now it just takes me longer to make attacks of the quality I want to.

18 of those attacks were friendly fire, which ties for the most friendly fire attacks in a year (I also did 18 in 2020), but friendly fire overall made up a higher percentage of my total attacks this year.

I had at least one character included in 19 mass attacks, which beat my record of being included in 12 in 2021. (Worth noting that between both 2022 and 2023 I was included in only 8, so I was not used to this many ahah).

This year my mass attack scored 9609.75 points, which absolutely destroyed my previous personal record of 3750.25 in 2021.

That helped my total points scored this year land at 12445.75, which is way more than previous years, my previous record being 7340.75 also in 2021.

In general, my fan characters took my art fight by storm, receiving wayyy more attacks than any of my original characters, which hasn’t happened before! I think a big contributing factor to this was all the mass attacks I was included in, but still, it was really interesting!

This year’s “fan favorite” (character who received the most attacks) was actually a tie between two characters- Twelve and Cyrus, both being included in 12 (aha) attacks each! Gray was a pretty close second being included in 11 attacks.

New/different things I did this year:

A lot more animation! I’ve done tiny bits here and there, but this year I actually fully animated a few attacks (including my mass attack)

Also my giant amv mass attack lol. So much fun but so much work ahah.

A traditional art attack! I’ve never actually submitted a traditional art attack in all my years of art fight despite originally being a traditional artist before I got into digital art in like 2017.

More comics! I did quite a few comics as revenge, (usually as revenge for others’ comics), and those were really fun too.

A lot more character interaction! I included my characters in attacks on other characters more, usually as revenge for people who already drew our characters together. Building off of other attacks and kind of “continuing the story” when I got a coupe comics was really fun.

Bonus doodle reward! Whoever was the first to draw one of my characters for the year got a bonus mini-doodle in my cartoony style of the character of theirs I attacked/revenged with. This was in an effort to try and get more of my characters attacked instead of people just focusing on some of the same ones. I don’t know if it actually made that much of a difference in getting more of my characters attacked, but it was kinda fun. I almost forgot to add the doodles though sometimes ahah. I haven’t decided if I’ll bring that back next year or not

Overall I had a great time! I would say this has been my favorite year of Art Fight so far, beating 2021 which was my old favorite. Only disappointment is not getting to do quite as many attacks as I wanted to due to time constraints- there were a few people I wanted to attack but didn’t get to. In general though, this year was awesome, and I’m sad to see it end. Already cooking up some fun ideas for next fight though!

Here’s a few screenshots from my overcomplicated spreadsheet that break down some of the numbers!

[guacomelon]

I wanna ask about the JSaBsonas, actually! I'm intrigued about all of them, so if you could say a few words about each one or at least how they came to be, that would be nice, but if you want to focus on a specific one - I'm curious to know more about the sunny one, top right.

Alright,

we'll be going in this order: 006, "Sunny", "Crown", and "Pae-ki" Here we go. Forgive me for using the same old art, it's the only rendered stuff I have of them 😅

🎵 Dancing on Our Disasters by Calavera

alt song: 🎵 Granite by Shirobon

The very first was 006, or "Six". All the way back in Sep 2021, I had the idea of creating a shapesona. At the time I had certain.. feelings, about JSB and my identity surrounding it. I definitely see those feelings represented in the character now.

Six is a professional JSB player in a world where the game is in AR. They're reclusive, obsessive. Attention seeking. And they dance. Oh, they dance until they no longer can.

Some of you had the chance of talking with them on April Fools of 2022; I liked that. It was very fun to write them, and I wish I could do it again. Maybe in the form of their own roleplay/ask blog, just like I always intended.

🎵 A New Day by Danimal Cannon

alt song: 🎵 Same Song by DEFENSE MECHANISM

Second persona is a character I've nicknamed "Sunny."

I started a continuation of a previously failed project under a pseudonym, a persona. It wasn't until Jun 2021 when I gave that persona her design... I think it helps when I'm writing as them.

There's currently not much character story to them, other than she exists in the same world as Six. She gets burnout often but never gives up. It's not over til it's over.

I'm sure you've seen a certain one of my projects so far. Maybe it was obvious from the beginning, maybe it just clicked now, or you're still lost. Those who know, I want you to know this aswell: I'm not being sneaky, I'm just anxious. When I'm tired of pretending and gain the confidence to put my face on these projects, I do plan on just using them as the mascot.

🎵 Ecstacy by Nitro Fun & Rob Gasser

alt song: 🎵 Fracture by Shirobon

Third is the crown. It doesn't have a name, and it probably won't - Jan 2024

Ok, this ones strange. I've been invited to play a certain fangame a few times, and one of their available shapes is a crown. The crown is just the shape I played with. Nothing else, nothing more. It will never be something greater, involving me.

So what about that art...well.... I think I'm just going through post-JSB:FE depression 😭 ... Recently I've been thinking about the "maybes", alot of "what ifs" And if I'll be honest with myself, I need to let those go.

🎵 happy camper by laamaa

alt song: 🎵 DON'T STOP by DEFENSE MECHANISM

And last, but not least, is my actual JSB/shapesona!

They currently have no real name (idk you can call them my ingame name "GUAC" lol,) but for records sake I've been using "Pae-ki". I first drew them up in Oct 2023, around when I first played The Fangame.

They are just, me! Lover of 'Close to Me', unreasonable hater of 'First Crush', and protector of triangle players. An "OG god" as some say. (I'm not sure what else to say that isn't just me talking about myself. idk, I still play Challenge Runs, come join me on NSwitch or Steam)

I'm still working on their design.. I wanted to incorporate mementos from all the JSB-like things I got to do. They were always going to have a crown.

[it's been 3 months I'm not working on this ask anymore, I'm just happy to have it out GOOD LIRD]

[elecman108]

It's that time of year again! Art Summary 2024! And... Wow, I had a lot of things I pushed off to "later" and only ever completed two of them (Sept and Aug, although the Sept one was finished this month and will be posted later).

Honestly... I'm proud of myself this time around. I know a lot has happened this year too. From a toxic relationship to many multiple work troubles to hell, even some general life shit hitting me squarely in the face. I'm honestly impressed at how much I just kept at it.

Although the only thing I drew in November was "Hop On Street Fighter 5". That month is an outlier and will not be counted.

I mean, look back at my previous years.

In 2023, I had a lot of months where I didn't draw. I did end up redrawing one of my works I put off to later this year although it's not... noticeably different. I struggled and stuff consumed my days, swallowing up by ability to draw with them.

In 2022, my computer broke in February and I lost all of my January and half of my February art. March was when I fixed it, and I felt... weirdly out of practise. I spent the whole year struggling to get my art to the level I wanted it at. I don't know if I really achieved it...

In 2021, I felt like my art actively improved. I did Drawtober completely for the first time ever and have yet to top the feeling of seeing everything done together at the end. Some of my art is a little... rough... but I enjoyed it. It was well worth the time, but I felt that things were a little rough and things would get better. Looking back... They did. It took three more years, though.

In 2020, the start of this whole tango, I got my touch screen laptop in February. I started drawing digitally. Looking back from then to now, I think... I think I've improved. I think I genuinely have improved. It's been five whole years of this nonsense, from February 2020 to December 2024, and so much has changed.

I got a job, got burned several times over, gained new health problems and now manage other ones comfortably. I graduated college for the career I currently am head over heels in love with, and I fell back in love with fighting games after spending so long avoiding them due to tryhard gatekeepers. So many games, so many memories, and so many times I've ended up watching Die Hard... Like... I've seen it way too much in the past five years. Sometimes unintentionally.

This is honestly my favourite Art Summary. It's not as colourful as the previous ones, nor as stuffed with art I love, but it's perfect. It's my year. I had to put so much aside over the years for many reasons, and now, I can just DO things. My mental health is better than ever. I'm happier than I've ever been. I think my art looks better than ever, and maybe it's because I'm not forcing myself to finish things constantly. I've shifted to Tumblr and BlueSky, and am better off for it.

I'm happy. Today's December 24th, 2024, and while my folks are cooking Christmas Dinner in the other room and I sit here waiting on a laundry load to finish in the dryer, I'm happy. Much as I have my... hatreds, I guess, of Christmas and all, I am happy.

And I hope you find your happiness too.

The same but different on Bluesky.

[newstfionline]

Thursday, November 21, 2024

Guns, drugs and children (NYT) If I drew you a graph that showed the death rate among American kids, you would see a backward check mark: Fewer kids died over the last several decades, thanks to everything from leukemia drugs to bicycle helmets. Then, suddenly, came a reversal. From 2019 to 2021, the child death rate rose more steeply than it had in at least half a century. It stayed high after that. During the pandemic, the mortality rate among children and adolescents shot up by more than 10 percent in a single year. These children weren’t felled by some spreading contagion; their deaths were sudden and “almost always preventable,” as Dr. Coleen Cunningham, the pediatrician in chief at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, puts it. Deadly car accidents among tweens and teens climbed nearly 16 percent. Murders went up 39 percent. Fatal overdoses more than doubled. But guns were at the center of it all, replacing car crashes as the leading killer of kids. Gun deaths alone accounted for almost half of the increase in young people. They are now equivalent to 52 school buses of children crashing each year. Of course, how children die is not the same as why, and answering the latter question is difficult.

Asheville Gets Drinkable Tap Water Back, 53 Days After Hurricane Helene (NYT) Jeff Watts, 57, barely followed the incremental updates on his city’s water distribution system after Hurricane Helene knocked it offline in September. All he knew was that life in Asheville, N.C., had become more difficult and dirty. But on Monday, he listened to every word of a voice mail message from the city informing him that, for the first time in 53 days, the water was clean enough to drink, a significant breakthrough for a place that has been dragged down by grief and financial hardship. Mr. Watts, a landscaper who has had little work since the storm devastated western North Carolina, decided to have a beer at the Rankin Vault Lounge on Monday afternoon, but it was not quite celebratory. His home was still destroyed, most of his belongings were gone and he would continue to live in a tiny hotel room indefinitely. “I got water,” he said, “but I have nothing else.” The announcement from Asheville officials on Monday that the boil water advisory had been lifted brought a sense of relief to residents who have spent the past two months finding ways to live without drinkable tap water. But while it felt like a promising step on the city’s path to recovery, there was still anxiety about whether Asheville could rebound from the worst natural disaster to ever strike the state.

As the glaciers of South America retreat, the supply of freshwater is dwindling (NYT) Dionisia Moreno, a 70-year-old Indigenous farmer, still remembers when Shallap River, nearly 13,000 feet up in the Cordillera Blanca, brought crystal clear water brimming with trout to her village, Jancu. “People and animals alike could drink the water without suffering,” she said. “Now the water is red. No one can drink it.” At a glance the river looks like a casualty of mining pollution; Peru is a major producer of copper, silver and gold, and the waters near abandoned mines often run a shade of rust. But the culprit is climate change. The Cordillera Blanca mountain range harbors the world’s largest concentration of tropical glaciers, which are particularly sensitive to rising temperatures and are a major source of freshwater in Peru. For thousands of years, the glaciers were replenished with ice in the winter. But they have shrunk by more than 40 percent since 1968, uncovering rocks that, when exposed to the elements, can trigger chemical reactions that leach toxic metals into the water and turn it acidic. Alipia Cruz draws water from their well in Cacapaqui village and says that the spring water tastes sour and members of her family suffer from stomach aches.

Argentina’s Milei pivots to pragmatism (AP) Last year, then-presidential candidate Javier Milei declared Argentina would not “make deals with communists” in China or Brazil, calling their leaders “murderers” and “thieves” in a bid to channel the populist energies of Donald Trump and other global far-right icons into a winning political message. But Tuesday, President Milei found himself at the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro shaking hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping and vowing to boost trade with the Asian powerhouse. “Argentina is not a great power and it is in a very difficult situation economically,” said Roberto Goulart Menezes, a professor of international relations at the University of Brasilia.

Ukraine Fired U.S.-Made Missiles Into Russia for First Time, Officials Say (NYT) Ukraine’s military used American-made ballistic missiles on Tuesday to strike into Russia for the first time, according to senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials, just days after President Biden gave permission to do so in a major shift of American policy. The pre-dawn attack struck an ammunition depot in the Bryansk region of southwestern Russia, Ukrainian officials said. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that Kyiv used six ballistic missiles known as ATACMS, for Army Tactical Missile System. The attack came on the same day President Vladimir V. Putin lowered Russia’s threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, a long-planned move whose timing appeared aimed at showing the Kremlin could respond aggressively to Ukraine using American missiles to strike Russian territory.

Greek workers hold general strike over high cost of living and call for collective wage agreements (AP) Greek public and private sector workers walked off the job Wednesday in a 24-hour general strike that is disrupting services across the country, with public transport in the capital suspended for several hours and ferries that connect the islands to the mainland tied up in port. Medical staff at state-run hospitals and teachers are also participating in the strike, called by labor unions to protest the high cost of living and demand collective wage agreements that were scaled back during Greece’s nearly decade-long financial crisis that began in 2010. Unions have criticized the center-right government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for failing to tackle inflation and housing policies, which have eroded workers’ living standards.

Turkish strikes in Syria cut water to one million people (BBC) Turkish air strikes in drought-struck north-east Syria have cut off access to electricity and water for more than a million people, in what experts say may be a violation of international law. Turkey carried out more than 100 attacks between October 2019 and January 2024 on oil fields, gas facilities and power stations in the Kurdish-held Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), according to data collated by the BBC World Service. The attacks have added to the humanitarian crisis in a region reeling from a years-long civil war and four years of extreme drought. Water had already been scarce, but attacks on electricity infrastructure in October last year shut off power to the region’s main water station, in Alouk, and it has not been working since. More than a million people in the Hassakeh province who once got their water from Alouk now rely on deliveries of water pumped from around 12 miles (20km) away. “Water is more precious than gold here,” said Ahmad al-Ahmed, a tanker driver. “People need more water. All they want is for you to give them water.”

Amid mass repression, glimmers of resistance in Hong Kong (Washington Post) As the court cleared out after the sentencing of dozens of Hong Kong’s most prominent activists and pro-democracy icons late Tuesday morning, a lone woman stood up on a flight on low steps and held up a sign. “The righteous shall live, the evil shall perish,” it read in black writing. She could only hold it up for a few moments before armed police surrounded her and bundled her into a police van. The woman, Elsa Wu, is the adoptive mother of one of the defendants, social worker Hendrick Lui. Lui had been sentenced to four years and three months in prison. As police officers tried to shut the van and obscure her from those filming, she cried and shouted, asking why her son, a “good person,” had to go to prison. “Tell me why!” she demanded. Hong Kong police arrested Wu on suspicion of “disorderly conduct in public,” according to local media, and granted her bail. The Washington Post was unable to contact her directly on Wednesday and the Hong Kong police did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the videos of Wu, which were quickly circulated across social media in Hong Kong, served as a reminder: Sparks of resistance and acts of bravery continue to flare up in the now-suppressed territory, despite a years-long campaign to snuff out any anti-government sentiment and remake the city in Beijing’s image.

Israel’s war on Hezbollah takes terrible toll on Lebanon’s children (Washington Post) Scattered throughout the wrecked apartment was evidence of how particularly vulnerable children are to the effects of explosive weapons. A day and a half after Israel fired the missile through the building, the bodies of the adults had long since been retrieved and identified. Pieces of the children, though, were still being found everywhere. Israel’s war against Hezbollah is exacting a terrible toll on Lebanon, where the militant group is based. More than a quarter of the dead registered by Lebanon’s Health Ministry have been women or children. At least 231 children have been killed and 1,330 injured, according to the ministry. Over the past three weeks, an average of 3.5 children have been killed and 9.5 wounded per day, according to the Health Ministry. In the past two months, at least 400,000 children have been displaced from their homes, the U.N. children’s agency estimates. For a country already brutalized by years of economic crisis, the war has brought new misery: Lives forever changed by airstrikes. Daily survival made more challenging. A population anxious about what comes next.

The war in Gaza has left many with horrific wounds (NYT) Amputations. Disfiguration. Brain damage. Their injuries are life-changing. Ruba Abu Jibba lost an eye during shelling as her family was fleeing Israeli tanks in Gaza, she says. She and some other badly wounded Gazans survived a war that has killed tens of thousands. They made it out for medical treatment in Qatar, where we photographed and interviewed them. They are alive—even if some are not sure they still want to be. Mahmoud Ajjour’s family fled their home after Israeli shells began falling, his mother, Noor Ajjour, says. The going was slow, and the boy went back to urge everyone on. When an explosion ripped off one hand and mangled the other, his pleas changed. He asked to be left behind, saying: “I am going to die.” Abdullah al-Haj, a photographer, lost both legs in an airstrike as he was taking pictures of two fishermen emerging from the sea with their catch. At first, when the war began between Israel and Hamas, he refused to pick up his camera. “I don’t like pictures of destruction,” he says. “I usually take pictures of the beauty and love in Gaza.”

How to bridge our political divide? A pastor’s answer: Do unto others (NPR) Campaign lawn signs rarely bring people together from opposite sides of the political fence. But in the lead up to Election Day, some purple-colored ones in this Pittsburgh suburb did just that. The signs are an attempt to transcend the nation’s bitter divisions. Instead of touting a candidate, they promoted a value: the Bible’s Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” the signs read. Christ United Methodist Church here in Bethel Park distributed the lawn signs as part of what Pastor Chris Morgan calls a movement for kindness, built around a handful of sermons as well as hundreds of purple “Do Unto Others” T-shirts. “We wanted to remind our people that no matter what happened, whether Trump won or Harris won, our job as followers of Christ is to remember that God’s bigger than all of this,” says Morgan, who is 49. “Our call as followers of Christ is to show people kindness and respect and love and humility and compassion, no matter what.”

[hexfloog]

2021 - 2022 - 2023 - 2024 - 2025

Here's my art summary for 2022! In 2021 I had hoped that the inspo kick would last well into the new year, and... here we are. I produced WAY more this year than I initially thought and actually ran into the strange dilemma of having too much to choose from for this template :0

What a year for art.

I think because of the slow speed at which I produce-- and the relative stylistic consistency of what I do make-- I tend to fall into this trap of thinking I'm not actually going anywhere with my work, but looking back at my portfolio... this really isn't the case.

To put it bluntly, I see improvement from last year to now in the form of risks.

I hit a lot of milestones and firsts since January: I drew another comic, dabbled in several projects in grayscale, drew plenty of complicated backgrounds (or "whole pieces," I suppose), put together at least one .gif sequence, made mockups for merch, made real merch, zine entries... And even beyond 2D work, I wired up my first custom model kit, experimented with new materials, archived an entire TCG set, put together another cosplay, and (maybe most significantly) started writing fic again!!

I'm genuinely surprised by my output. While this year was creatively fruitful, it was maybe one of the worst on my health-- and by extension, my funds-- all around (an ER visit, COVID, some Mystery Issue with my feet... still a mystery to this day, actually) so I am pretty stunned that I managed to tap as far as I did into my creativity overall, especially when compared to 2021, a year I also thought went surprisingly well for art. Deadlines and community events and contests all pushed me into making more than I would on my own terms, so challenging myself a little definitely paid off... who would've thought? >___<

(while shoving my 2022 body of work under the bed) On the flip side, it turns out that throwing my dignity to the wind and shamelessly indulging pushes me to create, too! How many Evil Conans can one person depict in a single year??

...On a more personal level, aside from challenging myself with external motivators I think I was only able to produce as much as I did on account of simply learning to love what I make the way I make it. The vast majority of what I drew this year falls into what I've been referring to (to myself) as "drafts." But they're not drafts as most people would think of them - they're just not fully-polished works. March/November are good examples - contrast against June/August, which are definitely "polished."

It's probably not that big of a deal to other people how I refer to my work in my own company, but this year I seem to have realized that thinking of it in this way-- dismissing the time and effort spent on any one piece as merely "unfinished"-- is actually quite harmful. I have a habit of being harsh on myself and to call these works "drafts" undermines the amount of effort I put into them, and for what? Because they're not "clean" enough for (my own, self-imposed) impossible standards? That alone implies that there's only one way a work can be for it to be good enough, when the truth is that no-one would be none the wiser if I called them "finished" instead.

That's not really to say that I would stop trying to achieve this high-effort "finished" standard since I can get the same amount of mileage for lesser effort or whatever. I don't operate that way, there's a lot of pride and self-esteem tied to my art and I subscribe pretty unconditionally to delivering something that I'm proud of. I guess the key here is that "high" standards should not be "impossible" standards.

Starting from March (probably right around the time of the first DCMK FF Server Exchange), as year the progressed I slowly started warming up to this idea that I don't have to make something perfect to "get credit" for creating it. Perfectionism is an itch I'm still learning not to scratch every time it calls for my attention. And, relating to the exchange, there's something about a gift well-received that puts my guard down, and maybe it's because I'm always bracing for the worst (some imagined rejection of effort, perhaps) that I don't really expect people to so plainly like things I don't consider "good enough" for myself.

I guess what I'm saying is it's probably not an epiphany I would have just had for myself one day. I really don't think I would have realized the inherent hurt in my system if people didn't indirectly point it out to me time and time again, whether that gushing over artwork to my face or in tags or whatever, so... for that I am very grateful T___T

On that note, it has been a rough year for me so I want to express my deep appreciation for everyone who has supported me, whether you're just an art appreciator or an internet buddy, whether you came for ponies or animal mecha or ducks or detectives, whether you've donated at any point or bought something from the shop, commissioned me, etc ;___; I appreciate you all very much and truthfully I would not be creating so much if I didn't think I had an audience who could enjoy it with me. Thanks from the bottom of my heart <3

Wishing everyone a creatively fruitful and healthy 2023!!

if you've gotten this far tysm for reading i'm very stingy about good feelings and being this saccharine about anything takes effort, capital E

[coldtomyflash]

I'm still a little confused about the whole who Savitar is thing and time remnants and flash point, could you try and explain it if you have time?

It’s complicated in part because it’s discussed in canon as a closed time loop, similar to Eobard’s sort of paradoxical existence / time loop, and our brains don’t do so good with loops (and the Flash canon doesn’t really involve loops, it just pretends that it does, but it makes more sense to conceive of speedster time-travel as more linear and branching).

A simple explanation that I drew from to answer this came from ScreenRant so do check it out. But here’s what I’ve got, to the best of my current understanding.

First things first: Savitar’s and Cisco’s explanations.

Savitar says that Barry will create time remnants to kill Savitar, and all but one of them will die. That time remnant will be shunned because he’s not the “real” Barry, and moreover, this is after Iris is dead (I assume? It’s implied) so no one is really in an emotional state to be there for a time remnant confused about his own existence. He’s literally Barry, a grieving Barry, one who has lost everything and isolated himself and is all the darkest parts of himself. That’s the Barry who makes the time remnants to fight Savitar, and doesn’t think about the consequences of having one of them survive.

So this time remnant, we’ll call him Barry-S, he’s lost and confused and hurting just as bad as Barry, just as angry, and even worse. He sees that Barry has everything but shuns it: the love and acceptance of the people who he still has left. isolated, Barry-S sort of says “fuck this” and leaves. Presumably, time travels, heads to other dimensions, begins to build his suit, and over time creates this reputation as “the first speedster” for himself. Maybe we can conjecture that at first, he’s training, trying to go up against other speedsters to improve, finding the fastest people across time and dimensions so that he can get fast enough to stop Savitar, to fix all this. He’s still Barry, after all.

But like the parable of the Black Night, this White Night runs through the forest searching for his enemies for so long that his suit of armor becomes muddied and his heart bleak, and becomes what he sought to end and avenge. He slowly realizes his suit is becoming that of Savitar’s, as he builds it, and that his speed is truly becoming unparalleled after all, and what his reputation is becoming as the “God of Motion”. He sees where it’s going, and it grips his (cold, still grieving, bleak and heavy) heart. And he continues. Pushes on. Continues to fight and kill, becoming what ruined him.

Because it’s all he has left. It’s all he ever had. Was this pain, that Barry bore him into the world with. Memories of a life and an Iris that were never his, because they belonged to Barry, and not to Barry-S, not to the mere remnant.

So after… who knows how long. Weeks, centuries, time is totally relative to someone like that, he returns. Returns to 2021. That’s right. Returns to the Barry who created him to wreak his vengeance. Except that doesn’t go exactly as planned.

That Barry is waiting with a trap, the one built by Tracy to deal with Savitar’s suit. So when Barry-S arrives decked out in the suit, and he is trapped in the speedforce. Note that up until he was created, he and Barry had the same memories, so Barry must’ve gone to Tracy after the fiasco with the time remnants “mostly” dying, and likely Savitar ditched shortly after that, only to seemingly return later (to challenge Barry) once the trap was complete. Except it’s Barry-S returning. 

I mean, it’s still “Savitar”, but he’s younger than the Savitar in 2017 who kills Iris. Barry-S hasn’t done that yet. He’s the younger version of Savitar except he’s run into the future, to 2021, to challenge Barry. And maybe it’s Barry-S and not the older Savitar because he kills his older self and takes his place. Maybe he has to, to be strong enough to face Barry, because maybe the older version of Savitar is too tired and weak and scarred after his own temporal loop, after being trapped in the speedforce for so long, and Barry-S needs to take his place and live out their destiny.

So Barry-S challenges Barry in 2021, and Barry-S gets trapped. He’s imprisoned and pissed. And going through hell in the speedforce, trapped inside that prison, likely reliving the moment Iris dies over and over.

And inside the speedforce trap, he realizes he has to escape. Maybe he’s eroding, or maybe that hasn’t happened yet. But it will. He has to close the loop in order to exist. It is a time loop, and unless he escapes and kills Iris, none of this ever happens, at least in this timeline. He has to escape, kill Iris, live to 2021… and then get killed by himself (his younger self), probably, unless he can change things.

So, somehow using the philosopher’s stone (I don’t have all the details on that front) and sheer force of will, he manages to appear to speedsters in the material world, to use his skills to gain acolytes, to see across the timelines Barry has created (like Flashpoint) and use them against him. Up until the point where he manages to finally escape from the speedforce.

At which point, it’s all going just like he remembers it did, back when he was Barry, when they were one and the same, before he was Barry-S, a remnant.

(Except maybe he doesn’t remember this… Barry is changing things now, after having run to the future. 2024!Barry hadn’t done that, so now we’re in a new timeline).

But to Savitar, Iris was dead before he was created, and he’ll kill her in order to close the loop and ensure he will create himself, become himself. Only this time, he intends to stay free after he does. To not become trapped ever again, and to not die in 2021 when he meets Barry-S, his past self who hasn’t yet been trapped and eroded. 

(Or if he never did kill his older self, maybe he was always sort of free, after, given that it’s his past self that was trapped in the speedforce. But then, the rules of time travel don’t fully apply to him, and to be trapped in there might mean to be trapped at all points in time/existence - past, present, and future. Regardless of what it is, I would not be surprised.).

For the record, you can conceive of all these time jumps as creating slightly different unique timelines, and it’ll still sort of lead you to the same place, but that’s an added layer relative to what the show tried to give us. 

But, that also explains why Barry killing himself now (or failing to create a remnant in the future) won’t necessarily “undo” Savitar as we know him now. The Savitar we know now came from a different timeline, was created already in that timeline, the same way Eobard was a time remnant from another timeline. Eobard died when his ancestor died in the current timeline because his existence was no longer confluent with the current timeline and the speedforce didn’t like it, but Barry-S may have hopped timelines so many times that’s become somewhat irrelevant, especially since he was created from a loop to begin with.

Final note: how this fits with Flashpoint?

It sort of does and sort of doesn’t. The point is mostly that when Barry mucked up the timeline as much as he did, he created a new timeline in which a different set of events happened than it otherwise would have. Savitar wasn’t an issue before he messed up the timeline, but when he did, he created a timeline in which Savitar and this time loop existed and have always existed. I can’t say exactly why, except maybe as a repercussion from selfish timetravel handed down by the semi-sentient speedforce or else because the existence of Savitar was/is predicated on the existence of multiple timelines that are connected only through the speedforce (philosopher’s stone) so splitting the timeline too much creates problems like him as some mercurial inevitable outcome. 

Either way, way to go Barry.