#since oils and inks are my favorites

[despite-everything]

sick and tired of being so fucking depressed i need to make art again

[yukyuki]

As Simple As That- LH’44

summary- It had been rumored that Lewis Hamilton was dating someone, but she was not famous nor “anyone special” but they don’t know what she means to Lewis. ❤️‍🔥

warnings- smut 🔞mdni!, age-gap, insecure reader, language, some grammar errors, slight aftercare, fluff ☁️, romantic Lewis

a/n- he is just the type to do this! ✨I know I’ve been gone for like the longest time so have a Lewis fic <3

You smiled softly looking at your finished curled hair swinging it gently styling it more. You put on your glossy lip oil you smiled at yourself in the mirror. All the sudden your phone rings and you grabbed it, you believed it had been a text from Carmen since you and her had planned a double date with your boyfriends. But no, apparently someone must have tagged you in their post, clicking on the notification you see pictures of you and Lewis. Lewis’ fans have seen you two around LA in the arcades and malls having cute dates. The cute pictures of both of you bring a smile to your face, there was one where you were playing basketball in the arcade, getting drinks while holding hands, him holding your bag and even both of you kissing. Your smile got bigger with each picture until you reach the section that Lewis had prohibited you from going, the comments.

comments

“Can’t believe THE LEWIS HAMILTON is dating a girl like her!”

“what’s so special about her? Isn’t she like years younger than him?”

“she probably wants the fame”

“she’s so ordinary and she’s honestly not that pretty”

“Lewis deserves so much better not a child!”

All those comments started to hurt your feelings really bad, even though you had promised yourself to not let anything like this hurt you, but they started to get into your head, setting your phone down on the bed you take a deep breath and stare at yourself in the mirror which you gasp quietly seeing Lewis already standing behind you.

You watched his eyes scan your body from behind, he looked at the dress hugging your waist down to the skirt that was loose yet he couldn’t help but go crazy for your body curves. Coming closer to you his ink covered hands land on your waist leaning to kiss your shoulder slowly resting his chin in your shoulder.

“you look so pretty my love, I think this is my new favorite dress on you” he whispered looking at you in admiration through the mirror. You give him a soft smile slowly resting your soft hands on his rough ones.

“Lew…do you…do you think I’m too ordinary or…a child… to be dating someone like you?” you asked making his eyes go wide as his embrace around you loosen slightly. He never thought you would be asking him something like that, to which he suddenly felt nervous and concerned as to what had made you ask that and what would happen.

“Y/n, sweetie where does that come from? You are an amazing girl, and I think I should be the one questioning myself as to why I’m with someone so perfect as you” he said smiling as you gently smile slowly shrugging your shoulders looking slowly towards your phone on your shared bed.

“No Lew, you’re right…I…sorry, I just…social media is such a horrible place” you say still looking at your phone slowly walking towards it grabbing it, it was left on and it was like hate towards you was trending.

Giving your phone slowly to him he saw the previous comments but started to scroll and the new ones just grew worse as he shook his head giving you a sign that he was angry, he wasn’t the type to yell or get aggressive when angry but from the time you’ve been together you’ve learned to see that anger through his eyes and knew exactly when he was mad.

Taking the phone back you sit on the bed, glancing at the screen.

comments

-she’s such a whore you guys she’s dated another driver before right?

-what!? she has??

-oh no wonder she’s after MY Lew

-she’s probably just his sex toy for the moment!

-he’ll leave her soon

He slowly kneeled down in front of you taking your phone away.

“Don’t you ever let those comments in your pretty head okay love…those people just have nothing to do…and they think that by doing this they might achieve something…those are not true fans loves, my actual fans loves you” he comforted you seeing tears starting to build up in your eyes. He quickly moved you on the bed and he laid next to you holding you close. Your head rested on his chest as his heart beat soothed you down as a tear rested on your cheek.

“I know love, I just…I don’t know I’m being hated on too much…what if those comments now get to you? and you leave me when you realize I’m not like other girls” you say softly as he moved propping himself on his elbow looking at you wiping your tear away with his thumb.

“baby of course you aren’t like other girls…you’re way beyond perfect in my eyes and that’s what matters, I’ve experienced those comments myself telling me I couldn’t achieve something and here I am…you my love you are too perfect you’ve become a target” he whispered kissing you softly.

“You’ve been my greatest supporter and been there through my lowest, we have never fought and when we do it only lasts 5 minutes or less, now you ordinary? baby you are extraordinary…you are not an extravagant girl you are definitely smart, you take care of me and show me your love in all the ways you probably can, you my love are as simple as that and I couldn’t ask for more” he said which ended in you being a crying mess you slowly wrap your arms around his neck hugging him tightly making sure to let him breathe you kiss his temple pulling away.

“I think I just fell in love with you again Lew” you say giggling through sobs wiping your tears.

“I fall in love with you every day baby” Lewis responded showing his teary white coming down to kiss you rubbing your sides. You smile at the feeling slowly rubbing his chest up to his face cupping it in your small hands. Your phone started ringing with more hateful DMs, Lewis head slowly turned about to reach for it as you slowly stopped him pushing your phone of the bed.

“I need to feel loved right now Lew” you whispered blushing pecking his lips.

He chuckled quietly at you as he nodded kissing your cheeks as his fingers slowly came in contact with the zipper to your dress.

“you know what I also love about you?” he asked you smiling softly seeing how your eyes started to sparkle and how your big eyes looked at him as you hummed waiting for his answer.

“our “alone time” it’s always filled with love and not forgetting how beautiful you look” he started making your cheeks start to redden as you covered your face in embarrassment.

“Lew” you whined giggling as he pulled your hands away gently kissing them softly.

“it’s true baby…you’re even perfect when we’re making love…your body, your actions, your sounds they are all so perfect to me” he whispered in your ear smiling as you squirm gently feeling embarrassed but so happy to have someone like Lewis to your side.

“can we…make love tonight?” you whispered to him slowly moving your hand up to his hair gently twirling one of his braids around your finger.

“we can watch the movie after, through my projector” you say making him chuckle as he now got shy. Even after years of being together till now your love making was always gentle in a way that he was never harsh with you, until this day he always made sure you could feel all his love.

As you kissed him slowly again you reach down to his shirt pulling it off as you kept it close feeling its warmth as your free hand rubbed his cheek feeling his beard against your soft palm he moved to hovered over you slowly unzip your dress as the kiss got more passionate.

“you lips are so perfect” he whispered through the kiss as your hands rubbed his strong arms giving him soft scratches sitting up slowly you take your dress off as his eyes admired your body you smiled at him as his finger slowly traced your forearms down to your hand pushing you back on the bed. His eyes couldn’t look away from the new lingerie set he saw you wearing, a black laced push up bra that made your boobs just more perfect to him.

“god see baby? you’re like a goddess…my goddess” he whispered kissing your neck down your collar bone to your cleavage as his hands moved to your thighs squeezing them. Moaning quietly at his touch you started to grow wet for him down on your core. You bit your lip watching how his hand made its way into your panting making you gasps as his cold rings touched your warm sensitive skin.

“Lew” you whispered rubbing his shoulders as he his hand reached behind you unclasping your bra pulling it off as it landed somewhere in the room.

As his mouth wrapped around your nipple his fingers started to tease your clit rubbing it gently with his thumb. His hand slowly moved reaching to your panties taking them off as your body got goosebumps from the chilly air hitting your core. Noticing he kissed your forehead pulling the sheet on you making sure you were warm.

Reaching down to his pants and boxers he let you unbutton them before he finished taking them off. In a few minutes you two were naked under the sheets kissing and touching each other before he pulled away turning you to your side.

Giggling quietly against his lips your turn comfortably as he laid next to you pulling your back against his chest.

“Lew…what are you doing?” you whispered blushing as he laid his arm under your head and lined up himself to your entrance.

“We can always try new things baby…is this okay?” he asked as you moved your hand back touching his cheek nodding slowly as your eyes closed slowly releasing a moan as he entered you, he went in gentle but deep like always yet the stretch he gave you was always amazing.

His free arm slowly hugged your waist as he also moaned quietly into your ear. Holding his hand softly your head fell on his other arm moaning his name louder.

“Lew…go faster baby” you whispered with eyes half closed as he did what you told him picking up the pace. You whined in pleasure once his skin was slapping against your as you sat up slowly moving his hand to your clit as he added pressure to your clit.

“oh fuck!” you screamed feeling a knot on your lower stomach throwing your head back, looking at the sweaty Lewis next to you, you placed a passionate kiss on his lips before moving away, getting on top of him sinking down on him. Groaning at the feeling and the sight of you was driving him crazy his hands resting on your ass as you moved up and down was enough to come for you there and then.

“god you’re so perfect…look at you” he whispered biting his lip pulling you down kissing you as you kept moaning moving your hips harder

“L-Lewis…I’m coming” you said as he nodded quickly admiring you, he was always ready for you. Placing butterfly kisses on your neck down to your collar bone you threw your head back releasing on him scratching his shoulders as he followed after a few seconds.

Wrapping your arms around his neck he held you close bringing you back down on the bed, kissing your cheek he pulled out of you.

“I’ll be right back my love” he whispered to you reaching his shirt giving it to you before pulling on his boxers going to the bathroom you couldn’t help but smile tiredly looking towards the bathroom waiting for your boyfriend to come back. After a few minutes he came back with a two towels.

Moving into the bed he slowly wiped your sweat off your forehead gently down to your neck, as he reached for the other one moving down, cleaning your part, you couldn’t help but blush. You were truly so lucky to have him. Wrapping your body in one of his silk sheets he joined you under the other covers and pulled you close to him in the same position you started with your head on his chest.

As he kept admiring you and sharing sweet kisses his phone rang which he reached for not letting his body leave yours.

“Hello?” he answered to which you remained quiet enjoying his heartbeat and his soft voice hugging his waist.

“Oh sorry mate, couldn’t tell you sooner something came up…yup last minute…I couldn’t ignore it” he said looking down at you smiling at his little lie which you tried to hide your giggle.

“yup yes definitely next weekend, enjoy you guys! have a good night” he said before hanging up.

“can’t believe I had to lie baby…I hope George believes it” he said softly rubbing your shoulder.

“I bet he will, he’s too distracted sometimes” you say snuggling closer to him, the rest of the night you remained in each other’s arms watching movies on your projector, eating popcorn and sharing touches and kisses. You both for sure were such a simple but cute couple and that night you proved again what you meant to Lewis.

[u3pxx]

I'm a big fan of your drawings, especially your drawing process!

Question, what brushes do you use to make your backgrounds more dynamic? And any recommendations on how to implement backgrounds?

ahhh thank you! on implementing backgrounds, the way i do it is that i usually thumbnail before starting on what would be the final drawing. here's some thumbnail vs final drawing stuff lol

they dont have to be the most polished but they should give you an idea on what you want the final drawing to look like! though, sometimes, i don't thumbnail (WHICH U SHOULD THUMBNAIL, IT MAKES THE PROCESS SM EASIER BC U ALREADY HAVE AN IDEA OF WHAT YOU WANT THE FINAL PRODUCT TO LOOK LIKE) --

BUT!! when i don't thumbnail, i do use references that have a similar perspective on what i want to draw and go from there. i also add some extra stuff to it to give some personality and atmosphere to the background i want to draw (i wanted to draw an overgrown and abandoned building so i added tons of plants everywhere! which is my favorite thing to do lol)

i'm extremelyyy inspired by how steven universe's backgrounds look, so i implement some things I've observed from them! namely, how the lineart of things offset with the object itself, i like to do it a lot with plants bc i feel like it adds pizazz

also, something i try to do with every drawing with a background is to make use of a foreground element that would lead the eye of the viewer to the main focus of the drawing (which is usually the character) having some moving parts to your bg whether that be leaves, petals, curtains or whatever add some dynamism to bgs i feel

and uhhh another piece of advice that i heard that i thought was pretty useful to me is to treat designing backgrounds like you're designing a character! is this place neat or messy? brand new or ancient? what kind of person/people hang around here and what kind of stuff do they leave here?

also, if fullass bgs are difficult for you to draw, sometimes you don't even have to draw the whole thing! you can just give the suggestion of a background via some props and scene elements! put that background in a box for all i care!

(also if you're struggling to draw props, 3d models are your best friend)

ok onto the brushes LOL it depends on the background really bc when i draw rooms or buildings, i just use my regular brushes for that since i just line and ink them like i do with characters.

when it comes to backgrounds set in nature, however, i tend to go a lot more free/abstract with it so here are the brushes i usually use! they're also pretty helpful for painting, i just try to achieve a lot of texture with em

Custom Brush (i use this one for the leaves i gave in my examples!)

Stamp Table Pen Set スタンプ台の線画

Flat_Dirty_Archv

Rake Brush

Oil Brush

Thickpaint Superflat

MB_Wood

Smoke Brush (used this on that abandoned building drawing and could lady, it's really fun for like fog and mist too)

anddd that's it, i think! hopefully these are helpful!!!

[dharmaart]

Hi! Your blog randomly got recommended to me and I've been scrolling past your work for the past ten minutes and I'm so obsessed!! Two questions came to mind:

What are your favorite materials to use when painting? Like the type of paint/brush/etc.

How did you practice proportions? Or is it just something you figured out w/ a lot of practice?

Ty for creating here!

I'm glad you like my art! I'll do my best to give you good answers to your questions.

1. My art materials vary quite a bit, but I really like painting with calligraphy ink. Calligraphy ink can give you really nice bright/pure colours, create results that look quite a bit like watercolour and that are usually waterproof (so they can't be re-weted or smudged like a watercolour painting). Watercolour and gouache are great too, and they can be used together easily. I usually use acrylic on canvases, but I think it's very under appreciated in general - I actually prefer it to oil paint which is practically sacrilegious to say as an artist. I basically like any art materials I can work quickly with. I'm really not too particular about brushes, so long as they don't shed hairs I'm happy. Having said that I'm fond of round, flat, bright, and angled brushes.

2. Practicing proportions boils down to really looking at things. Yes, it is good to practice a lot but make sure that each time you're actually drawing/painting you're really looking at and seeing the subject. Pushing past what you think you see is the hard part and the thing that makes your art improve the fastest - it definitely did for me! With proportions you can also measure them out (there are various guides for this) but you can easily just measure it with your fingers or a pencil. With this I mean you can check how many headlengths a horse's body is etc. The usually example is where you divide the human face into 1/3s or say most adults are 7 to 7 1/2 heads high. You can measure anything like that though. For guides on that for humans I would recommend Loomis' books since they are high quality and free online, like Drawing the Head and Hands or Figure Drawing for all it's Worth (both of these and more are available on Internet Archive). The Art of Animal Drawing, Construction, Action Analysis, Caricature by Ken Hultgren (available for free on Internet Archive) is the book I'd suggest for help with animal proportions, though I haven't personally used it a lot.

I personally practice proportions by measuring things out with my fingers, learning anatomy (so I know why something looks the way it does) and working on drawing/painting only what I actually see.

I hope these answers were useful.

[tobyisave]

ask dump #3!

rch

Yes and no! Holetta Baby is a character song for a story I wrote in high school with some friends I've since fallen out of touch with --- because of that (esp. since some of the characters were based on ourselves), and because it's frankly bizarre, I don't know if I'll ever share too much about it.

All you really need to know is that it's from the perspective of a man whose wife flew away as he gradually realizes that she's never coming back. IIRC she was just fleeing for a while because their love was forbidden, hence "Loving you's so good I fear it's wrong." In reality, she got trapped on an island somewhere and he was too heartbroken to consider the possibility that she might need rescuing.

Thank you!!! I really can't overstate how happy I am that Townsend resonates with other people who have intrusive thoughts. It's something I still have trouble talking about but she's been a good outlet for that. Also quite happy that the angst is hitting right ehehe

art

Honestly no, I have so much trouble with that too OTL. Occasionally I use the warp tool on a sketch to help put an interesting line of action before I actually do lineart? I recently started experimenting with drawing in fisheye perspective too, and that definitely shakes things up.

Thank you so much!!

I almost always draw in Procreate (with an iPad + apple pen). I have 2 sets of favorite brushes on there - these are what I usually use:

6B Pencil (found in the "sketching" category). I use this for EVERYTHING from lines to rendering.

Studio Pen ("inking")

Medium Hard Airbrush aka the most generic brush on earth

Inka ("inking")

Spectra ("painting") - annoying because it can alter colors by pressure though

Then I have this set I call 'ink kit' which I use when I want to change things up without actually switching mediums lol

Blackburn ("drawing") - Really thick brush that makes me think a little harder about lines. I also have a duplicate modified to make it a little smoother and smaller & I switch between those two when doing lineart on these pieces

Gesinski Ink ("inking") - one of those pens that's flat so it's really thin or wide depending on the angle

Oil Paint ("painting")

Watercolor ("painting") -- just for coloring stuff in when it doesn't have to be precise

Also these niche uses:

Driven Snow ("elements") for freckles

Nikko Rull ("painting") for skin texture

adamandi

It was just a fairly thick curling iron (curled upwards all over my head) and then a lot of hairspray. If I remember correctly, the first night it was done by our costume designer Hahnji Jang (@/hahnjij on insta!) and then I did it myself the rest of the nights. It was definitely their idea at least - my hair is naturally pretty flat and up til then I assumed Vincent's would be too, lol.

No idea where the bag (or really any of it) is from, sorry. I really liked walking around in his swooshy jacket, and I ended up buying it afterwards. As far as normal people clothes I would actually wear, I really really liked his pants, which I was unfortunately not able to keep.

There actually exists in my mind a completely different "biblically accurate Vincent," which is the Vincent I had been picturing all the way up until the actual performances. I always pictured him with long black hair and freckles, and I considered drawing on freckles for the show because of that.

[wishing-stones]

ahdifejbd you know I always get so stressed sending requests for meme things cause I’m always 10000000000% convinced that I’m going to be the 38th jerk to ask the exact same thing SO I am sending two letters that I think would be interesting ONLY because I am giving you the option to Choose One - NOT because I am asking you to write both!

I think Dream with B or C could be interesting in different ways!

B. Under cover of darkness. (Sunshine Boi Bein’ Sneaky sounds fun as heck. What kind of circumstances would require for him to do a sneak in the dark?)

C. A moment’s respite. (What do *you* imagine a moment of rest would look like for the guy who’s chronically Duty Bound to literally the whole multiverse?)

Again - pls pick *one* that suits your fancy OR one that hasn’t been picked already if someone else beat me to the punch lol. Happy Turkey Weekend, Friend! And pls take your time over the holiday weekend! Don’t overwork yourself!!!

Hahahaha, I think I'll go with C for him since I did B for Baggs already. Space out my same-prompts some.

I'll pick one later for myself once I've answered the bulk of these

C. A moment’s respite.

He's thankful for his little corner of the multiverse. He owed Ink a lot for helping him claim it and bring it to life.

The little cottage, perpetually bathed in the warm light of golden hour, is the perfect little place for him. He has enough spare rooms to house a few people, and his two best friends have their own spaces as well.

He has his gardens, his orchard, and his small stable with a single cow.

It was nice to be able to have such a comfortable home to return to. One that didn't remind him of his past failures, one that didn't reek of sorrow and death and anger. One where he could enjoy the warmth on his bones and the peace of birdsong and crickets.

As much as he liked to keep busy here by gardening or by general upkeep...

Today he was taking time to lay on one of the golden hills in the soft grass, listening to the wind quietly hush over the blades and petals of wildflowers. He was kicked back with his sockets closed, skirting towards the edge of sleep, completely at ease.

He'd been all but bullied into taking a day off-- no duty to the multiverse, no busywork in the garden-- they would take care of that-- and no worrying about anything. He'd started the day off with a long soak in his favorite bubbles and oils, and followed it up with reading beneath the largest apple tree in his orchard. Now, he was contemplating a nap in the sun, reminded of simpler times when such days of leisure were common.

It was only slightly painful to think about them, and to lack his brother to enjoy such a moment with.

... Perhaps Nightmare was similarly enjoying a day off. Stars knew that he had luxury in spades in his dark, imposing fortress. Grand marble baths, gilded chaises, massive hearths and wine aplenty.

Wine did sound appealing. Maybe he'd break a bottle of blush open later, at dinner.

It was the one thing he'd managed to negotiate with his friends-- he would be the one to make dinner for them all. Ink could create very fine foods from thin air, and Blue... was not as bad as he used to be.. but Dream took a special pleasure in cooking things from scratch. It was as relaxing to him as laying here, beneath the sun was.

He didn't know what time it was, nor did he really care. He could afford not to today.

He was fortunate to have such good friends. Perhaps his brother was similarly fortunate-- he could afford to take a day of leisure with his underlings handling whatever serious issues might crop up.

He hoped.

The one thing that would put the cherry on the top of the day would be the knowledge that Nightmare had similarly taken a day for himself. Perhaps Killer could harass him away from his perpetual mountain of paperwork. Maybe Dust could ensure he took time to relax. Cross could remind him of the many luxuries the castle had to offer, and Axe, naturally, handled all the food.

His phone was on silent today, but he retrieved it momentarily to contact Cross, texting him to maybe, gently, get him to take the day off.

[Cross] Don't worry about it, Killer has it handled. I think he's soaking in that huge spa bath he has right now.

With a content sigh, Dream pocketed his phone and curled up on the plush grass, tipping his circlet partially off of his head and drifting off into a well-earned, completely content nap.

[threshasketch]

Bye Bye Photoshop

So, yeah, Adobe is pushing the generative AI stuff more and more (and their "ethically sourced" AI engine Firefly uses around 1.25 million Midjourney images in its dataset, e.g. made with scraped stolen art, and opted all of the stock it offers in for training without asking the creators.)

Seeing Kyle T. Webster, the guy who made the 1000 free amazing brushes that PS Creative Cloud users get, quitting PS and being outspoken about his stance against gen AI around social media was an eye opener. (He offers some brushes on Gumroad apart from Adobe as well, thank goodness!)

When I first got Photoshop and switched from Krita to it, I found the brushes incredibly bad and unusable until I got the Kyle's brushes sets. You might say PS only worked for me so long because of Kyle's brushes, and that's not an exaggeration!

Anyway, my annual Photoshop Creative Cloud subscription was about to renew next month on July 6th, my birthday, as it has since 2017. I was already considering switching to something else when I saw it: Clip Studio, on sale for 60% off! I had literally downloaded the demo the week before to try it out and consider whether to invest $54 in a copy to switch from PS.

The perpetual license was under $25 USD now, but the subscription for an entire year was $10.79—cheaper than one month of my Photoshop subscription—and I'm already used to a subscription with constant updates. So I ended up getting the CS subscription and quit PS cold turkey.

So now I'm saving $109/year on art software, not giving money to people contributing to the biggest art theft in human history (literal billions of images scraped), and as a bonus, CS has a great community with tons of free brushes and textures and such up for grabs all the time!

I'm happy to say that all of the PS brushes I've purchased from Gumroad loaded right into CS and work perfectly. All of my Creative Fabrica fonts load in and work perfectly.

To be sure I could use CS before I committed to the switch-over, I whipped up a book cover (cannot tell it's made with anything different than my previous ones), and I illustrated and colored a piece of character art (looks super clean!) I opened PS and copied down my favorite fonts short list (minus the Adobe fonts, of course, which came with my subscription.)

And then I uninstalled Photoshop and Creative Cloud entirely, including their fonts. And it felt good! I sincerely thought switching to CS would be going to slightly worse software to be ethically okay using it, but after getting used to CS and customizing it with some very shiny brush sets (oil paints, watercolors, ink pens, gorgeous pencil, all free), I think it's just as good.

And CS won't shove "generative fill" AI tool garbage at me, or load my account with "generative credits" without ever asking.

It felt so gross logging into Adobe after ages to cancel my subscription and seeing those credits on my account, knowing they offered the option to buy more of them, taking money for things generated by using (among many other things) every art piece I've ever posted in the past 21 years for their scraped dataset training. Good riddance, Adobe!

Anyway, yeah. I'm using Clip Studio Paint now, and I'm excited to get to play with my new brush sets! ♥♥♥

[circus-clangen]

Since I am bored and decided it would be fun to show y'all what inspired Inkbelly's design soo-

One of them is my oc, Core. Shadowy feline with mystery thats kinda chaotic? Heck yes.

Another one was well- Ink- and oil. I was going to add an Oil slink hair color type thing on her but decided against it because it just didn't fit. (aka i don't know how to make that look good haha)

Another one was an Onyx stone, my favorite stone.

Lastly- was honestly just the vibe of Circusclan, I wanted to make a cat who was basically just a shadow. Mysterious and chaotic.

Anyway, thanks for reading and I can't wait for the next moon of Circusclan I am so CURIOUS.

OOOO this is so neat! I love seeing what inspires people…it’s super interesting and never something I would expect! VERY neat art, also!

[inklingofadream]

Ink's 2023 Fic

It’s the end of another year, and you know what that means! Or you joined me this year and don’t, one of the two. At the end of every year I post a list of everything I wrote to become my blog’s pinned post for the upcoming year. However, this year, it’s a bit different. We’ll get to that in a minute.

According to my AO3 stats, I posted 709,908 words of fic in 2023, across 8 fandoms and spread over 64 individual works. That’s a 765.784% increase in word count from last year! I’m unwell!

Normally, I post everything I wrote, split up by fandom and in chronological order, with basic stats and descriptions that vary between synopsis, liner notes, excerpts, or all of the above. However, 45 of those 64 works were written for Whumptober this year. Since they’re mostly for The Magnus Archives (dominating the list as usual) and many of them are very short, I’m not going to list all the TMA fics. I’ll list my favorites and ones I think got less attention than they deserved, as well as all fics for other fandoms, and since that’s my most popular stuff I’m listing it last/under the cut. Wordcount and relationships (romantic or platonic, healthy or not) are listed, but check the AO3 tags, warnings, and notes, as I won’t be including the content warnings here.

Batman

Mom’s Been On a Parenting Kick Lately- 9k, WIP, Talia/Bruce, Talia & Batkids;This is still getting off the ground (I need to get back to it), but I’m excited about the future of this fic! It’s my take on Jason’s post-resurrection time with the League of Assassins, but with timelines turned into spaghetti to facilitate bonding. Talia is currently in possession of 3 batkids, but she isn’t done stealing Bruce’s kids yet :)

i'd walk a wire, jump through a fire for you- 800, complete; literally just just shy of 1k about Dick have feelings about falling and parents

The Locked Tomb

lyin’ on our backs and countin’ the stars- 900, complete, John&Gideon; I’m actually shocked there aren’t way more John and Gideon “bonding” fics out there. This one also has a backstory for Gideon and Ianthe’s friendship bracelets!

The Adventure Zone- Balance

old worn out suit and shoes- 600, complete, Taako&Lup; Post-finale nightmares for Taako, now that he can remember he has a sister to lose

Malevolent

Please Come Back To Me- 2.9k, complete, Parker&Arthur; Parker lives and goes to hunt down and kill whatever used Arthur to try to kill him.

You’re here. That’s all I need to know.- 300 complete; Arthur finds Faroe in the bath.

Living, Dead, or Undecided?- 1.7k, complete; Arthur is sacrificed to the King in Yellow as punishment for what happened to Faroe.

His head and limbs were heavy with ornaments, much of his flesh left unprotected from the elements. It was far too mild a summer evening for that; he deserved to freeze or burn at the freedom of open air. His thoughts were fuzzy with the overpowering cacophony of scented oils and chanting. He was deposited at the top of the hill, too gentle in slope to burn at his atrophied muscles, on a stone slab. They chained him in place, the seeping stone finally sapping enough warmth from his bones to feel appropriate.

Dracula

i still see your ghost- 200, complete, Jonathan/Mina; Some fill-in angst about Jonathan seeing Dracula on September 22… which I did actually write on September 22.

Hannibal

I can’t remember if I cried- 1.7k, complete, Abigail/Marissa; This is actually a concept I came up with in high school lol. Hopefully, someday I’ll write a fic expanding on the shipping kernel of the concept.

Hench

The Kind of World Where We Belong- 1k, complete, Anna/Quantum; AU where Leviathan dies and femslash ensues.

The Magnus Archives

The Vampire Saga- 68k, 6 works, Jon/Martin; The first of several shared universes with @suttttton on this list. Vampire!Elias snacks on Jon until Vampire!Martin gets hold of him instead, fluff and romance ensue. The new works this year both feature Gerry!

The Vampire Saga Route 2- 38k, 7 works, Jon/Martin, Jon/Elias, Jon/suffering; Shares a few fics with its predecessor, up to Martin entering the picture, this is the darker version. Fic this year mostly focuses on Jon meeting Tim and Sasha, and the gang rescuing Danny from the Circus. And the aftermath thereof. I’m really proud of the Circus stuff I wrote!

Bird-Verse- 37k, 7 works, Jon/Beholding, Jon/Martin;Spin-off of cult au, also with Sutton, featuring a happier resolution to many of Jon’s problems, so he gets to live with all his friends and marry Martin. Except for how this year’s additions are about him dealing with the lingering cult intrusions and trauma :)

Indent AU- 50k, 2 works, Jon/everyone;My first foray into writing smut. I’m very proud of it, and I’d say it deserved more love than it got, but I’m realistic about the content being very much not for everyone.

Cult AU Bad Ending- 9k, 2 works, Jon/Beholding, Jon/Jonah; This is a good time to mention that, as I have 10,000 Cult AU derivatives, they have their own AO3 Collection now. This one is a far future fic where Jon is immortal with Jonah and sad about it. It’s a crier.

Interesting- 3.7k, complete, Jon/Elias, Jon/Martin; This is an old fic of Jon and Elias in the Panopticon that got a new chapter for Whumptober! It took about 2 years to get that draft to publication…

restless soul who always skips town- 900, complete, Jon/Peter; This is the one I most wish got more attention. Peter keeps Jon in the Lonely.

When Peter comes, it's wonderful. Peter is a person in a way the Archivist isn't and, he knows, Peter even sometimes leaves the fog. He knows it because Peter gives him journals that are red and gold and violet, so different from the limited palette of the fog and the Archivist and Peter that they make the Archivist's eyes hurt.

dead if they knew- 6k, complete, Elias/Jon/Tim; I had SO much fun fiddling to differentiate the four POVs from each other!

Familiar AU- 16k, 4 works, complete; Jon is kidnapped by Elias and turned into his familiar; for Sasha, Tim, and Martin, it’s a long, hard road to rescuing him.

no beat, no melody- 600, complete; Canon-compliant fic in between Jon getting the tape of the birthday party from MAG161 and the episode itself, hanging around the safehouse in the Depression Zone.

welcomed you with open doors- 1.6k, complete, Martin/Jon; Spiral!Martin in a role reversal au that swaps him and Michael. Martin is much more proactive as the Distortion (and more liable to fall in love with nearby Archivists)

save some face (you know you’ve only got one)- 1.4k, complete; Sasha is altered by the NotThem instead of killed. Half body horror, half giving her my fibromyalgia, all bad times!

somebody once broke me- 2.7k, complete, Jon&Gerry; Gerry lives! Visibly monstery Avatars! Jon gets kidnapped from a kidnapping! It’s all the hits for my body of work ;)

remember this moment- 3.8k, complete, Jon&Daisy; I initially planned this fic for, I think, Februwhump 2021. It’s been slated for every Februwhump and Whumptober since, and FINALLY finished!

Take Me Through the Darkness- 15k, complete; Superhero AU, ft. epistolary interludes! Several more of my greatest hits! (And also Jon getting kidnapped from another kidnapping.) My personal favorite is Jon thinking Tim is a hallucination and crying.

look upon your greatness (and she’ll send the call out)- 8k, complete; Cult AU AU where Georgie tracks Jon down a few months after his kidnapping.

The chances of Jon being abducted, held somewhere, and still alive are so narrow that they might as well not exist. Checking the resources the charity sent, Georgie realized it's even grimmer than that. She struggles to picture Jon doing anything to appease his captors. It's extremely easy, however, to picture him literally or figuratively daring them to kill him.

Something Wretched About This- 2.9k, complete, Jon&Tim; Jon returns from the Circus without vocal cords, and he and Tim have a moment of peace, if not reconciliation.

just like a real-life thelma and louise- 6.6k, complete, Sasha/Annabelle; Sasha and Annabelle have superpowers and escape from the lab experimenting on them.

Kinky Polychives AU- 70k, 2 works, WIP, Polychives; My second, much fluffier smut verse. I tagged Jon as “horny for predicaments instead of people” and I think it’s the thing that’s been commented on specifically by the most people lol

til the veins run red and blue- 200, complete, Jon/Martin; I really like the Lonely, and I don’t know why I don’t write it more. This one is a little Somewhere Else coda with Jmart

come home (to my heart)- 8.7k, complete, Jon&Gerry; a fusion of Little Archive and cult au where Jon is the specialest boy in the whole Cult of Beholding, and Gerry grew up with Mary. If anything I wrote this year gets a sequel, I think it’s this. The fic is all Gerry POV, but I had a chunk written in Jon POV I cut, ft. Jon convincing Beholding that he can definitely wander London solo and it’s FINE, he won’t disappear in the house of a murderer or anything… ;)

Extras- 18k, Jon/Martin; My fae au is complete, but this is a bunch of little bits that inspired me beyond the bounds of the main story, like meeting Melanie, Martin proposing, and so on.

sitting pretty on the throne, nothing more i want (except to be alone)- 217k, WIP, Jon/Beholding; Cult au wraps up another year! Hopefully, by this time next year, it’ll be complete at LAST!

Beneath the Stains of Time- 98k, WIP; Also a contender for longfic that I hope to finish in 2024! This year, we FINALLY got to the gang figuring out Jon’s identity and now it’s all unraveling…

Little Archive- 85k, WIP; Last but certainly not least! I’ve been so happy to see the warm reception for Cecile and Anika this year 💗

[daydreamerwonderkid]

What fandoms you currently hyperfixated on?

Your oldest fandom?

Your favorite animes?

Favorite games?

How long you've been drawing?

Your favorite character from any franchise you can think of rn?

Sorry for the introgation LMAO, i just want to know more 👀

Lol you're all good, I don't mind asks like this :3

What fandoms you're currently hyperfixated on?

-Currently I'm pretty stuck on Batman/DC (can you tell?), but I'm also really into Dungeon Meshi and Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint. My sister recently introduced me to The Greatest Real Estate Developer and we've both been having an absolute blast with it. Idk if it has that big of a fandom, but it definitely should pffftt

Your oldest fandom?

-I wanna say Marvel and Star Wars since the first movie I ever saw was A New Hope and my first comic books were Spider-man and X-men comics. I was really hardcore into the MCU at its height and I'm a diehard fan of the Clone Wars series.

-Funnily enough, I was getting a bit burnt out by both the Marvel and SW fandoms a while back and that's actually why I got back into Batman and DC XD

Your favorite animes?

-My #1 favorite anime/manga/story of all time has got to be Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I don't know what to say about it that hasn't already been said, but it really is that fucking good and Hiromu Arakawa is definitely a huge inspiration to me.

-Other than that, I gotta say Paranoia Agent, Mob Psycho 100, Love is War, Spy x Family, Trigun (haven't seen Stampede yet), Mononoke, Castlevania, and Mushishi. I'm sure there's more, but those were the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

Favorite games?

-There's so many games I play, so I'll try to narrow it down a bit. Tbh my longest favorite running series/franchise has got to be Legend of Zelda. The only game from the series I didn't enjoy was Spirit Tracks, but otherwise I've pretty much enjoyed every single entry.

-I also love the Ace Attorney series, Stardew Valley, Jedi: Fallen Order (I have Survivor, but haven't played it yet), Disco Elysium, the Yakuza series, Ib, etc.

How long you've been drawing?

-Genuinely don't remember when I started. I think I've always been drawing. Of course, I was taught traditional art mediums first. I did a lot of oil painting, watercolor and charcoal drawing. It wasn't until, I wanna say, my third year of college that I started learning about digital art. It's not a medium I'm a 100% comfortable with and I've only recently started feeling more confident with it when I realized I could download brushes that were similar to pencils/ink/charcoal/watercolor/copic markers/etc.

Your favorite character from any franchise you can think of rn?

-That's a little difficult since I have so fucking many XD

-Atm, I can say my brain has been super fixated on Marcille Donato (Dungeon Meshi) and Dick Grayson (Nightwing/Batman). Tbh my brain is constantly rotating my favorites, so it really depends on the day or the week who my new top blorbo(s) is gonna be

[seawing-vibes]

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYPONY ! ! Here’s some art summary thangs <3 ! Template is by Mintcokev on DeviantArt !! I did one of full pieces and one of Sillay Doodles

Explanations of every piece & stuff is below read the readmore ! + links to the full work if its posed online !

First Template:

January -> This Sora Piece ! I am honestly still super proud of how it turned out , it was fun to work on and looking at it still gives me that nice vibe I was in while drawing it

February -> This headshot of my OC Elk! I developed and expanded on her story this year and did some headshots for their TH, still super proud of how the shading came out here ,,

March -> lmao nothin , not sure what happened in March but I dont have anything there aside from sillay Doodles

April -> This design of Blaze! One of my fav designs I’ve done recently .. shes just so sillay To Me

May -> This piece of my friend and I’s cat ocs ! Stickpaw & Frostclaw, two silly fellas <3 something possessed me here I’ve never drawn a kibby this well since and Im still super proud of this

June -> This reference of my oc Dee!!!! ITS DEE ! ! EVERYONE SAY HI TO DEE <3 ! ! ! ! ! I was so happy to finally give her a proper ref , shes one of my favorite ocs of all time and this came out so well , it looks so much like her!!!!

July -> This artfight attack! This piece was honestly just a blast to work on, the background and frame design and expression were all fun to illustrate

August -> These refs of my lomp ocs! Lomps are fictional guys made by my good friend and August was just the Month for them. These guys are (bottom to top) Fizz, Roe, and Skipper! They’re . Normal <3

September -> This piece of my fursona Kenny ! ! Just a fun piece to work on again, the colors came together way better than I thought they would

October -> This piece of my oc Houndcall! They’re feeling normal about their leader being possessed! This was like a weird experimental painted piece and ou .. I really loved working on it I wanna do more things with that method

November -> Not posed online! Surprisingly, this is a wip of a self-portrait I’m doing for class! Fathead Minnows and Rainbow Trout !! This canvas is massive (taller than me ,, which aint much but still!!) and I’ve been cracking at it for a while but hammered out the details of the trout in November so! It’s acrylic but I really wish I could’ve done oil instead .. acrylic dont blend well

December -> The final fella ! My idiot son ! Also not posed online , this is a linocut printed on hand-made paper! Fun fact, I make my own paper and my own Lino cuts as my main medium, I just cant afford the proper transfer ink, but I got some from school to use so ! My idiot dragon linocut son was born ! I hate him because he wont print proper but this piece ended up working out. Its lino-ink on handmade paper with red micron pen over it

Second Template:

January -> DNA Helicase

February -> Valentine’s Day Gift <3 !

March -> Not (publicly) posted online doodle of my epic oc Anton Bayheart giving his grandson a thumbs up :)

April -> Not (publicly) posted doodles of my ocs Sebastian (left) and Dee (right) (you saw her ref earlier <33) having a normal convo !

May -> A shot from This video of my friends ocs … the one depicted is Quickpaw <3

June -> Not posted doodle of Breezewhipser giving Rippletooth some good advice (it was not good advice) (ripple just learns hes aro)

July -> Not (publicly) posed doodle of my Oc’s Garret (BALD) and Benny (TIRED) . Also just two normal guys (they’re divorced) (and obsessed with eachother)

August -> This doodle of my ocs Savi & Skipper (Skip’s ref is in August first template <3) . Music taste

September -> a small part of this cat sketch page ! Beetlekit getting bullied by his cousins

October -> This doodle of Skipper . I appreciate him

November -> I dont know where this came from actually. Its my friends oc’s Redstone and Bumblebuzz staring kitty-like at my oc Specklestep (she is married to Red and Bumble is their daughter)

December -> Doodle of Tide from this whiteboard ! !

Have a great new year everyone ! ! ! Thanks for reading through all that if you did lmao

[lusciakoushiro]

June Part 2

Along with comparing clays for the base, I compared shrink plastics as well. Lotura was made with the named brand Ruff n Ready Shrinky Dinks and Sheith was with a off brand I found on Amazon.

Laying down they both look pretty opaque and the smudging on Keith's face was actually due to poor judgment on my part. I colored is hair first instead of his skin so the black got picked up a little. But over all they looked good and I went foward, filling the domes with two different liquids; Sheith with baby oil and Lotura with a mix of distilled water and vegetable glycerin.

Note the opacity here. Sheith still looks pretty solid, but Lotura looks a little transparent. In terms of function Sheith works amazingly, but I might have goofed and added a tad too much glycerin to the Lotura one as the glitter just sticks instead of floats. It's also worth noting that this was where I learned that micro glitter isn't good for this project as it just seems to vanish in the water. So of these two my results were;

The air dry clay worked just as well as the apoxie, if not better since it dried the Mod Podge well before the apoxie

The off brand seemed to give better coverage of the colors with no transparency.

Distilled water and vegetable glycerin wasnt as clear as the baby oil, but in terms of making multiple domes it was worth the money as 20z bottle of baby oil would only net you one dome. Due to my error it was worth doing again.

Uh... keep that last remark in mind for a post later...

I had one more experiment in mid before I decided on a third dome and that was coming back to markers. I really wanted to get them to work so I thought, "what if I baked the lines first and then color it once it's out?" It would stop the desaturation of colors which would be a plus and I could blend colors. Permanent markers worked so this should in theory work well, right?

It's always my OCs that get messed up lol Sorry, Sora... I colored the back drop pieces with permanent marker so it should have been set once it was baked, but the alchohol ink reacted to it and it bled into the places it shouldn't have. I saw something somewhere that said to use the not frosted/treated side for ink so take two.

I opted to use Yorak from my Monsters and Mana fic. The colors went down very strangely and oddly bright, but look at the treated side. It's all blurry, so no don't use the smooth side if you want something double sided.

So with me saying nope to inks I started on my third dome dedicated to 2 if my favorite characters; Zack and Aerith from FFVII.

The main reasoning behind using these two aside for my love for them was the question; "can I dye the water?" I tried different ways via dye and a dolip of paint with food coloring winning out. I made a small base out of resin and I love the way it turned out.

Next month I would find out if I did this justice.

[supercantaloupe]

happy sleepover saturday!! hope your day’s been treating you okay friend <3 some sleepover questions for you: what characters are living rent free in your mind these days? if a small songbird landed on your head what would you do? and do you have any favorite pens/pencils? (also sola farmer's market update bc for some reason you're always the person i want to tell abt them: i didn't go this week but apparently the indoor market in my neighborhood just got a jewish deli stall? i am very excited)

happy sleepover saturday! i had a good lesson and got some spinach from the farmers market this morning which was nice, but most of the rest of the day i spent curled up in my room with a migraine :(

right now taking up the most real estate in my brain are don giovanni leporello and donna elvira from the opera don giovanni (rotating around in there like shawarma). but i've also been thinking abt the celestine secrets crew today...i miss them...

ough my favorite pens. i have a shiny teal fountain pen that i got as a birthday gift in highschool, currently filled with red ink but i change colors every semester or so. i use this pen for nearly all of my notetaking at school because i find that writing with a fountain pen is much less taxing on my hand than a pencil or ballpoint for long periods of time, especially important now that i'm playing EH more regularly (the instrument is quite heavy and its weight rests almost entirely on my writing hand, which is a lot of strain on the wrist/thumb). my fave ballpoint pen is this cool metal and wood one i got from a lathe worker at a local crafts fair. the body is made from turned poison ivy wood (totally safe to handle, since it's stripped of the usual oils that cause skin irritation)! i used to have a cool turned wood mechanical pencil from the same guy but it got lost :( generally i just like to use any mechanical pencil for writing and drawing. i like the papermate ones, they have a decent grip on them.

[ask meme]

[firemama]

Coworker on the overnight shift: is it true that autistic people like to collect stuff?

Me, focused on sorting and stocking thread: yah. Or, often, anyway. Not everyone. Obviously.

Her: Huh. What do you collect?

Me, sweating, trying to thing of a normal answer that is also true: oh... you know. Things. Uhm... i collect uhhhh. Rocks? Like, crystals?

Her: oh cool, i like big colored rocks! Like the cut ones. The slabs.

Me, trying not to immedeatly infodump about how fucked up quartz classification is: yeah thats agate probably. Nice.

Her, so very unaware: do you collect anything else?

Me, thinking this is probably fine so far: uh. Uh. Nope.

So anyway heres the list of "collection habits i *have*":

Rocks (as stated), mainly trypes of crystal or gem

Round clear orbs NOT marbles with the little swirl inside ONLY clear ones with nothing inside.......

Miniature pieces. Like tiny things. Yes like tiny bread or tiny pots n pans. Yah those.

Pins. Like even bad ones that arent funny.

Scarves. I live in florida. I dont wear scarves. But i collect them. Its a mystery. I like them.

Littlest Pet Shop figures up until very very recently where i tooth and nail forced myself to give them up to give to my younger cousins who are actually young enough to, you know... play with them. Rather than just. Horde them.

Ink and colored inks. Crave more but expensive.

Acrylic Paints. Also expensive so i made myself stop buying it ezpecially since i dont actually paint all that often, but i continue to crave having enough paint to look like a fucking craft store in terms of paint hue options.

Plants. Specifically plants that produce edible product but pollinators are also welcome in my home. This has been a difficult thing to collect because every time we move they die and also it is very hard to keep plants in fucking florida sometimes.

Puzzles. The idle day dream the one day i will collect and put together every puzzle is not only impossible but yet still something i crave doing.

Game achivements. I soent two years tooth and nail trying to get a terrible awful achievement for minigolf perfect game in the fucking Dream Daddy game.

Notebooks. My favorite kind is grid paper notebooks. Spiral, bound, hard cover, sketch, lined....mm...delcious.

Qoutes. I have a notebook of favorite quotes.

My own art work. I have painted exactly 2 (two) ink canvases that i have willingly given away after painting them exclusively to be gifts. And i still fucking regret it.

Sharpies. I steal them if they are near me. I dont ever buy any. I only end up Taking. But i have MANY.

Old Toontown Cards. Im jot like a pricy collector but sometimes i find one at a yard sale and do not Hesitate to get it.

Board games. Want all.

Nail polish. I dont paint my nails: collect anyway.

Wrappers from werthers orginals caramel candies. I had to thrownmine away during the last move........ but i had like 3 boxes at some point.

G2 pilot pens (.7 mm)

(Edit: Dice. Lots of dice. Let the fact that i had to edit and add this prove that there are probably other things i collect that i also forgot to add lmao)

Things i WOULD collect if given free income and space for storage? Things i desperately want to collect?

A fucking craft stores worth of glitter.

Thread and yarn and string. All the colors. Just like acrylic paint. Just like glitter, too. I just want... ALL.

Books. Like the puzzle thing, it is absolutely impossible to collect them *all*. But my brain still wants to.

Food. Its an impulse thing. If one of every food existed in my possession i would be Happy.

Trees. Would need SO much space and land but t r e e s.

Thisbisba weird one, but... house styles? Want to slowly collect accents and designs from different types of archetecture into one house. Build and expand it over time.

Fragrance oil. All of them. Yaaaaa.

Broken glass. I do not collect this because i have common sense.... but i want to.

Ornate eastern hand fans. I do not know why, but it is a passive craving i have had since i was young.

Beads. Duct tape and decorative tape. Paper. Stickers. Whole collections if manga. Whole collections if novel series. Movies and dvds. Every single hard copy disk expansion for the sims 1, 2 and 3. Every single pet in wizard101 and every singly piece of clothing in loveNikki. YOU DONT UNDERSTAND. IF I HAD UNLIMITED MONEY I WOULD JUST DEDICATE WHOLE ROOMS TO EACH COLLECTION OF THINGS. I would have all the things, ALL OF THEM.

[littlecarnet]

I've gotten asked by friends what I do offline, since I intentionally limit my screen time. It's easy for me to say I devote a lot of time to creative and meditative activities, but that's probably too vague. So I compiled a very short list of the top activities I like doing daily or every weekend. Many of these I was either trained in or dabbled in out of boredom. Remember, I existed waaay before the internet, so I needed to do something with my time. Heh...

God I've lived too long.

Writing: I write nearly every day for various reasons. Either basic journaling, keeping track of budgets, keeping a commonplace book, writing poetry, listing favorite books and what I think of them, travel journaling, lectio divina, testing out art supplies, cataloging my gem and mineral finds, and mood tracking. Because of this I have so many little notebooks and journals everywhere. Sure I could use a phone or word processor, but it's such a deeply rooted habit for me, plus I really enjoy the tactile feel of paper and pen.

Making tea and bath supplies: I use a lot of herbs for my basic health needs, a skill picked up from my grandmother. I like making rosewater and herb steams for my face, distilling oils from roses, brewing hibiscus into a concentrate for flavoring sparkling water, anddrying lavender for sachets. Herbal healing salves made from herbs and beeswax are a staple in my emergency kit when outdoors. I can make my own soaps as well, tailored to my skin's needs.

Making and mixing ink: Because I do write a lot, naturally I'm drawn to pretty inks. For mundane tings, a simple gel pen will do, but for special thing I go for my glass pens, but there's a satisfaction of making custom colors and even adding scents to them. I have a book filled with ink formulas to recreate my favorite blends.

Drying flowers: During the warmer season I love bunching up sweet smelling flowers, like honeysuckle, lavender, and greenthread, to hang in my room. The added bonus is that the flowers once dried, make a great tea. I also love pressing flowers to use on cards, in scrapbooking, or put between glass to make suncatcaters.

Making incense: Naturally since I work with herbs, I also love making incense. I like using hard sap I've collected from pine trees, but also sweet grass, juniper, star anise, cedar, ect. I powder them, add a binder, and either press them into a cone or pellet. Apart from burning them, I like to put them in small cloth bags to scent a drawer or in a box with stationery or even fabric pieces.

Grinding pigments and binders: There's a certain therapeutic process in grinding paint pigment to turn into paint or pastels, along with any binders like gum arabic and limestone. I tend to do this during the winter, when I'm snowed in. In the summer I'll have lots of material to use in dyes, inks, paints, soft or oil pastels, and even colored beeswax for encaustic art and crayons.

Sewing practical items: If a bedsheet is worn or stained, I'll repurpose it into handkerchiefs, napkins, and small bags for jewelry or other tiny things. Old jeans get turned into kitchen cleaning cloths. Its a treat to use fabric that I've put in a box with incense, I can make pincushions and coasters while smelling pine or rose petals. Related to this is tatting, a type of lace-making.

Leather work: Related to the above, I like working with leather to make practical long lasting outdoor gear, such as bags for my binoculars, a roll up kit for my chisels, as well as a secure case for my gem loupes. I've also made a journal cover out of leather, it uses an elastic in the center so I can switch out booklets when they're filled up or need to be moved around.

Jewelry: Basically beaded chokers and bracelets, macrame, and kumihimo. I like making them while listening to music or having a movie on in the background.

Mosaic: Mostly a summer activity, I have a lot of shells, glass, gems, and broken ceramic to create mosaics.

Other stuff I've experimented in: Origami, woodburning, glass etching, bonseki, soap making, cross stitch, embroidery, basket weaving, sun printing, henna, quilling, mushroom growing, terrariums, cultivating dinoflagellates (blue tide), growing crystals, gourd art, ceramics, clay and rock sculpture, calligraphy, stamp carving. Pretty sure there's stuff I've forgotten.

[joyfulpirates]

Updated thoughts on some products I recently bought for my own routine (context, I spent several years not caring about skincare AT ALL and am now very glad I coupon religiously because damn). For every picture, I'll list off all the products shown. I just need to make sure the pictures get there, and y'all presumably have Amazon.

(This is the Byoma Hydrating Milky Toner.)

I really like this, but because of some issues I'm still having with a different product (that I've removed but is still fucking me up), I'm not enjoying it as much as I would ordinarily. I'll try some of their other toners first, but this one seems like a good fit for my skin (which leans dry even during the spring and summer).

It was about $20 at Target, but I coupon like a beast, so I managed to get 50% off.

(This is the Byoma Brightening Travel Kit. I'm going to include all the products individually. This was $5, but it retails for $19, I just coupon really aggressively and go for sales.)

I've used a lot of cleansers, but the Creamy Jelly Cleanser is my favorite, hands down. I'm buying a version of this and their Cleansing Balm as soon as I get the money for it. Why? Because it's gentle on my skin and it doesn't leave oil residue behind, which are two problems I tend to have with other cleaners, even with double and triple Cleansing (I was doing a Quadruple Cleanse for a few years, before I finally got frustrated and gave up on skincare entirely).

Full disclosure, I still don't know why this was happening. Honestly, the leading consensus is newspaper ink. No one could figure it out. I went to doctors, dermatologists, drunk college students, and an ex of mine for help, and all of them looked at me like I was insane.

The Jelly Cleanser is the best daily cleanser I've tried. With a cleansing balm (I recently tried out the CeraVe Cleansing Balm, it works but it's too small for the price, I could probably use this to remove my makeup.

The Byoma Brightening Serum with Niacinamide and Hyaluronic Acid

Full disclosure, my big Skincare Problems are actually pretty simple.

I have skin that leans dry, but still gathers up enough of a sweat to cause oiliness and debris. I'll get breakouts if I don't wash my face, and they tend to be pretty deep and pretty nasty (though not prolific or life-altering like I've seen admittedly), usually around my eyes where my glasses sit. I get hormonal breakouts around my jaw, chest, and neck. I have really deep dark circles that always lead to me looking tired and groggy.

Has the serum helped the pore situation? I mean no, but I've only been using it for a week. Has the serum helped my dark circles? No, and it probably won't, they're genetic and there's nothing I can do about that.

The Byoma Moisturizing Rich Cream

Don't get me wrong. It's a nice cream. I don't mind it. I just have a loyalty to my jar of CeraVe, which I've been using daily for a month and still doesn't look touched (not just on my face either, I use it for my elbows).

It's okay. If you think you'd like it (pro tip, this is better for dry and combo girls, I don't think oily girls are gonna be fond of this). I'll just probably not purchase this ever again, and I don't think that's wrong.

Agency Anti-Aging Skincare

I know this is bad of me to say, since I'm currently using their free trial, but fuck it. I hate this brand.

They prescribed me two retinols (one for my eyes, one for my face), a face cream, and a Cleanser.

In order:

-I don't know what this is, but the retinols burn the shit out of my face. I use it as directed by the bottle, but it's so uncomfortable and itchy - and if I'm not enjoying it, I don't think I'd get into skincare in general. I couldn't bear to use them for longer than a few days, and I'm not shy about using retinols typically.

-I'm having an allergic reaction to the moisturizing cream. What kind? The kind where pieces of your skin fall off your face in dry flakes. That kind. It's annoying, and not the type of reaction I typically associate with moisturizers, I more see that in retinols, so I don't know if this is all down to this retinol they prescribed me, or if there's other stuff at work here.

-I don't know what's going on with the eye cream, but it smells like death.

-The Cleanser is the worst part of it though. It burns, it doesn't really do anything for your makeup, and it just ... SITS THERE.

I'm really glad I have that policy of only buying samples at first, because I'm sending this free trial back. I'm not going to use this line anymore, or pay for anything they sell. I've been eyeing Curology for a few years, so I'm glad I took the leap on Agency since they're owned by the same company, but I will probably not be taking more leaps like this, and in fact will probably just avoid Curology's parent company altogether.

And of course, we can't forget Old Faithful:

I can't emphasize enough how much I adore this moisturizer. It looks so good under foundation guys, you should try it.