the saturday-sunday night diabolical "life is falling apart"- to do list followed by a mad scramble

birth is always painful. or however that reanimator quote goes

Hali's Fic Superlatives

Welcome to my fic superlatives, where I hand out absolutely unasked-for awards to some of my favorite characters and stories from fics that I read this year. I was going to wait until the end of the year to do these, as I still have plenty of time to read, but honestly, if I don't do them now I'm going to forget that I planned to do them at all!

Please do not take these too seriously - I did not read a ton this year but I always tried to review what I did read! My goal next year is to try and read even more and give myself time to find new writers instead of just reading what I happen to see on my dash.

This list by no means was limited to what was written this year - some of these fics were written previously but I either read them this year or re-read them for joy and I felt like they went well on this list!

CONGRATS TO THE WINNERS OF THESE UNASKED-FOR AWARDS! YOU GET MY LOVE AND ADORATION SORRY THATS IT!

☾ Angsiest Fic: Aphelion by @eoieopda ☾ Funniest Fic: The Package Thief by @blog-name-idk ☾ Fave Supernatural Fic: Bump in the Night by @colormepurplex2 ☾ Fave Fantasy Fic: The Mark of Yun-Ki  by @ladyartemesia ☾ Fave Crack Fic: Cosmic Collision by @gimmethatagustd ☾ Fave Romance Fic: Amalthea by @daechwitatamic ☾ Fave World Building: Until Death by @kpopfanfictrash ☾ Fave Holiday/Special Occasion: I Wanna Hold Your Hand by @minisugakoobies ☾ Fave Horror or Thriller: Simply Meant to Be by @caelesjjk ☾ Fave Comfort Fic: Real Magic by @here2bbtstrash ☾ Fave Soulmates Fic: 5 Times You Don’t Believe In Soulmates by Min Yoongi Does by @vyduan ☾ Fave Polyamorous: Flowers of Fate by @/colormepurplex2  ☾ Fave A/B/O: One Day At A Time by @theharrowing ☾ Fave Mafia: Collateral by @/theharrowing  ☾ Fave Namjoon Fic: Love At First Bite by @raplinesmoon ☾ Fave Seokjin Fic: Amalthea by @/daechwitatamic  ☾ Fave Yoongi Fic: Three Tangerines by @kithtaehyung ☾ Face Hoseok Fic: Please by @anotherbtswriter ☾ Fave Jimin Fic: Don’t Go Insane by @/gimmethatagustd ☾ Fave Taehyung Fic: Of Ruin by @/daechwitatamic  ☾ Fave Jungkook Fic: Crybaby by @/here2bbtstrash  ☾ Couple Most Likely To Get Married: Darksided couple as written by @/eoiepda ☾ Best Dressed Character: Keena from Blackthorn by @sweetestofchaos ☾ Best Threesome: She, by Proxy by @ugh-yoongi ☾ Most Likely to Succeed: Yoongi from Best Served Cold by @/anotherbtswriter - trust me this man has GOALS lmao ☾ Best Best Friends: Yoongi and Jin from Ugh, Fuck by @/kithtaehyung sodgjdofgi does this count as friendship soifjsofij ☾ Most Likely to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse: Taehyung from Collateral by @/theharrowing  ☾ Most Likely to Kill Each Other: Repeat Offense couple as written by @/gimmethatagustd

☾ Favorite Read of the Year: Of Ruin by @/daechwitatamic

While all of the chapters for Of Ruin are not yet posted, I’ve had the pleasure of being able to beta read this chapter ahead of the general public and it is absolutely the fic of the year for me. It is a robust story full of romance, action, intrigue, beautiful storytelling, and world-building, and it touches every single one of these categories above. It is a knockout. 

Thank you to all the amazing authors who wrote these works and had the bravery to put them into the world. If anything is tagged wrong, please do not hesitate to correct me!

Animal of the Day!

Parrot Crossbill (Loxia pytyopsittacus)

(Photo by John George Richardson)

Conservation Status- Least Concern

Habitat- Europe; Russia

Size (Weight/Length)- 55 g; 17 cm

Diet- Tree seeds

Cool Facts- The parrot crossbill is one of the only birds to naturally have their top beak mandible cross over their lower one. Their beak helps them to feed on pine nuts without having to husk the entire pinecone. The crossbill inserts its lower mandible into the pinecone and presses up on the scale with its upper. This gives the bird time to grab the pine nut with their tongue before moving on to get the next seed. They’re essentially the squirrels of the bird world. Parrot crossbills have distinct sexual dimorphism with the males being bright red and the females being green or yellow.

Rating- 12/10 (Their scientific name is translated to crosswise pine parrot.)

Howl and Sophie

[through gritted teeth] I’m doing this because I love Jesus I’m doing this because I love Jesus I’m-

happy autumn!!!

hi, firstly, i love your art so much!! fengqing make me so weak ;-; secondly, do you have any tips for lack of motivation/fear of failure? like that feeling when drawing seems scary because you’re not sure if it’s going to look the way you want it to or it’s hard to get yourself to produce something just because drawing is difficult?

hello!! thank you for your kind words 💖✨ fengqings will always be here for us!!

i think that if you are not motivated to draw, there's no point in forcing yourself just to produce something, because pressuring yourself will just make you stressed. i think you can get more motivation in many ways, but you should just give it time.

for me, even doing something unrelated to drawing can give me motivation/ideas to draw!! for example, if i go shopping and i see some cute outfits, or a nice cafe, or i went somewhere fun with my friends, it will make me want to draw my fav characters doing it too hehe🤭🤭 in any case, you dont have to feel bad about not drawing. not drawing for 6 months can seem long, but its nothing in comparison to all the years that you are alive 🫡🌟

for the avoiding failure part, you can consider that a drawing doesnt ever have to be finished. one secret about drawings is that you can fix them how many times you want and you can spend months on one drawing if you want !!

i think it's the best thing to accept that you will never nail a drawing in one try. if the arm looks wrong then it just looks wrong and you can just draw over it again. if the face looks bad then you can just erase it and redraw from scratch how many times you want. in my case, i will absolute have like 60 layers of sketch before i colour lol

me duplicating my layer and redrawing each part until i get it right (2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2)(2) etc. etc.

you can't fix a thing without putting something down on the canvas first so i say just draw it however. then you can see what looks bad and fix it one by one. just work towards making it look the way you want it to.

i often post a "finished" drawing, and then come back to it months later and redraw some parts and post it again. i just think it's nice to think that you can always decide that you can still work on it!! my drawing is a dear plant that i grew myself by watering it and giving it sunshine over the days. 🌿

for a concrete advice, i would say to look up references even for things that you think you know how to draw.

it gets soso more easy when you stop relying on your brain waves to hallucinate a picture onto the canvas. if you don't know how to draw a hand holding a phone, just google "hand holding a phone stock image" and then copy the position!!

i drew both of these in under 1 minute ↓

seeing the reference pic made it easier to identify where is mistaken, and helps you improve the drawing easily.

it doesn't have to look exactly the same as the ref, but it helps you visualize better.

ALSO!!!! i will never stop recommending "PureRef" to everyone!! (a software to paste all your reference images to have them on your screen while you draw) !! you can move around the little board window and no need for a second monitor 🌟✨

in any case, keeping yourself interested in a lot of things will also make it easier to find reference pictures (by searching more precisely) + have more ideas/inspirations to draw!!

in think overall you should just let let your interests take you where they will.

happy drawing !!! 🤭💖🌟

One of my sideblogs is gaining a very large number of new followers today…

and I can’t figure out why.

Best guess is that someone with a large platform reblogged something I’d commented on, but it’s far enough down the reblog chain that I didn’t get a notification.

"I hope that we meet in another life..."

Animal of the Day!

Alpine Chipmunk (Tamias alpinus)

(Photo from Animal Spot)

Conservation Status- Least Concern

Habitat- Sierra Nevada Mountains

Size (Weight/Length)- 10 cm

Diet- Seeds; Berries; Fungi

Cool Facts- Bears and chipmunks have more in common than you might think. They both experience torpor rather than hibernation, meaning that they can wake up during winter if they really wanted to. The alpine chipmunk’s heart beats an average of 350 times a minute during summer as they feast on alpine seeds. They never drink water, instead getting all the liquid they need from the plants they eat. Once temperatures fall below 4 degrees Celsius, their heart rate falls to only 4 beats a minute. However, when an alpine chipmunk grows hungry, they can increase their heart rate enough to wake up and stumble to their food store before sinking back into sleep.

Rating- 12/10 (The true kings of Yosemite National Park.)

animaniacs is such a genius premise for a show. it’s like—here, have the funny puppy children that can be inserted into any scenario in any time period or parody and be entertaining. oh, don’t like that? not your thing? that’s cool. we’ve got a million other things up our sleeves and a ton of musical numbers you’ll never get out of your head.

Wielka Sobota w Modlnicy (1937).