#maybe one day I'll actually fully render this piece but for now this is it so

[parroset]

Flowers of Elarion

Here's my interpretation on Aaravos with some flowers of Elarion (in glow pens because it's fun). I based them off of hyacinths for several reasons:

1. Hyacinths are my favorite flowers

2. Hyacinths smell AMAZING, and Tales of Xadia states that flowers of Elarion "have a scent that can soothe the most ragged spirit":

3. In flower language, hyacinths can symbolize jealousy, desire for forgiveness, and sincerity, among other things:

To me, this fits Lasair's story well. Leaving behind a flower as a gift as a way of asking for forgiveness for what they've stolen gives the gesture a bit more meaning. The sincerity/jealousy not only represents duality (a theme that is prevalent within the flowers of Elarion story) but also represents Lasair's feelings of jealousy for humans, who have enough to survive and don't need to steal, and the sincere desire for friendship and forgiveness.

I just think they're neat.

[pqrachel]

New Year's Resolutions

I don't really know what to put here, but I felt like writing something just to have it down, so here goes... I haven't done formal resolutions in a while but why not right??

For art there's the stuff I've already posted on here: I want to keep up the trend of 4 days of sketches posted on here every week as a minimum. The best of these will be posted to bluesky as well, which I've already started. And any supporters on Patreon can commission a sketch once a month as well, these sketches will be recapped on Patreon as well. There's also gonna be one fully rendered piece every other week, which can be voted on by supporters as well. I want to keep that schedule going for as long as I can, hopefully through the entirety of the year, but I don't want to promise a full years worth of anything because there's always some complication, but I'm trying to commit to at least a season of that schedule, so Jan-Mar. I kind of also want to get more engagement on my art, bluesky's been great at that but I think maybe finding some art communities could be helpful as well. (Tumblr's fun but there's almost no interaction from followers, at least for me.) Since I'm trying NSFW art now, I kind of also want to see if a strip game format could work, I just worry that I'll get no engagement but I want to try that at some point, since it seems fun.

https://www.patreon.com/pqRachel

https://bsky.app/profile/pqrachel.bsky.social

Moving off of art though, I need to start earning some actual money. I've been trying YouTube and some small gig stuff but I think get an actual paying job is probably my biggest resolution. I hate having to work, I just get so overwhelmed so easily, but it's unfortunately becoming a necessity. I'm also gonna go back to tracking all my money, I want to be able to see where it's going and assure myself I don't get fucking scammed like I did this year, fucking BS hidden subscriptions for something I bought.

For fun stuff, I want to visit my friends more. It's been a bit of a lonely year and I miss them. It's mostly just they live too far away or are having financial issues themselves and are stuck working and/or being exhausted from working, so it's not like anyone's fault but still I want to see them more. It's weird, for like all of my life friends have been there when family hasn't and but since my dad died but mostly recently family's been there a bit more now that friends haven't been as central to my experience. But yeah the lonely year's been hard emotionally and mentally.

And to not end on a sad note, gaming. I've been playing a lot of games this year, and even though I have a lot of time to game I want art and finding a job to take priority. That being said: I want to get better at Trackmania, keeping the trend of improving every season going; Marvel Snap I don't have any specific goals for but I do want to keep playing for a while; I want to beat expert mode Terraria, I'm in hardmode and enjoying it so far; for upcoming games there's Rivals 2, The Bazaar, Horizon Forbidden West (for PC), and a few more that hopefully will be released in 2024, all of which I look forward to playing and enjoying. And for my game, I've kind of lost motivation, art and playing games have been more fun than developing a game with practically no following, so while I'd like to work more on that right now I just don't care to.