Combing Stars and Dreams Out of Her Hair

Recently I've been experimenting with my style a little and I've done some monochrome portraiture, so I decided to give it another try today, since I was quite happy with the result last time.

I picked this reference from pinterest. The original was in color but I prefer to turn the picture in b&w to get a better grasp at the values

I do my sketch

And I was pretty happy with it here. Sure, it doesn't look exactly like the reference but none of my portraits do despite my best attempts🫠 So I outline with a blue pen, fill in the darkest areas with a blue marker (like her eyes, her hair, her nostrils, the cast shadow on her neck and at the jawline), shade with a blue pencil and...

And I'm not so sure about it anymore🫠

In my opinion it doesn't look like the reference at all. That's a whole other person to me. Plus I'm not sure about the contrast here, if it needs stronger shadows and highlights. I initially laid down a light base layer and attempted to work my way from dark to light, but for some reason it was turning muddy/blurry, so I laid down a darker base layer, worked on the shadows and used a kneaded eraser and a pencil eraser for the highlights. I do think I did a good job differentiating the planes of the face but that's about it. In my opinion it looks good only if you don't know what the reference looks like (which can be said about pretty much all my portraits). What do you think? Do the shadows ans highlights need more work? Shall I work on the contrast? Did I completely butcher the resemblance with the shading or was the problem starting to arise way earlier? Do you have any tips on how to make the technique work with darker skintones? And if anyone else has some advice too I'm glad to receive it.

Thank you in advance for the help and I wish you, Mr.CBC and Jojo a wonderful sunday.

but we’re apparently supposed to wholeheartedly condemn essentially the same behavior in people with cluster B personality disorders (where this IS actually a well-documented symptom) and dismiss those people manipulative narcissists

For millions of people managing type 2 diabetes, mornings begin the same way — a needle, a dose, and a quiet mental note to do it all again tomorrow.

That routine just changed.

On March 26, 2026, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Awiqli (insulin icodec-abae), developed by Novo Nordisk, as the first and only once-weekly basal insulin ever approved for adults with type 2 diabetes in the United States.

This is not a minor update to an existing drug.

It is the first entirely new class of basal insulin to reach U.S. patients in more than two decades.

Instead of injecting insulin every single day, people with type 2 diabetes using Awiqli will only need one shot per week, on the same day, every week.

That means reducing from 365 injections a year down to just 52.

For anyone who has ever felt the weight of that daily ritual — the anxiety of forgetting, the physical discomfort, the constant reminder that their body needs help — this approval represents something much bigger than a dosing schedule.

It represents relief.

How the Drug Actually Works

Understanding why this injection lasts a full week requires a quick look inside the body.

Most traditional basal insulins are absorbed into the bloodstream and begin breaking down within 24 hours, which is why patients need a fresh dose every day to maintain stable blood sugar levels.

Awiqli works differently.

Its active ingredient, insulin icodec-abae, is engineered to loosely attach to a blood protein called albumin, which is found naturally and abundantly in the bloodstream.

This attachment creates a slow-release reservoir.

Instead of flooding the system and fading fast, the insulin releases gradually and consistently over an entire seven-day period, keeping blood sugar in a healthy range around the clock...

What Comes Next

Awiqli is not standing alone in this space for long.

Eli Lilly is developing its own once-weekly basal insulin, called efsitora alfa, which is currently in late-stage clinical trials.

If that drug also earns FDA approval, it would give patients and doctors two once-weekly options to choose from, allowing for personalized decisions based on a patient’s health profile, insurance coverage, and individual response.

The broader direction of travel in diabetes care is unmistakable.

Fewer injections, smarter formulations, and better integration with digital tools like continuous glucose monitors and insulin-tracking apps are all converging toward a future where managing diabetes requires less daily mental effort without becoming any less medically precise...

A Small Shot With Large Implications

It is easy to look at a once-weekly injection and see only a scheduling change.

But the science behind Awiqli, the scale of the ONWARDS trials, and the consistent satisfaction reported by patients all point toward something that matters far more than convenience.

Diabetes management has always asked a lot of people.

It asks for daily vigilance, daily discipline, and a daily willingness to confront one’s own condition, sometimes in uncomfortable or inconvenient circumstances.

Anything that reduces that load, without reducing the quality of care, is worth taking seriously.

For the more than 37 million Americans living with diabetes, and the hundreds of millions more around the world, a simpler weekly routine could mean the difference between a treatment plan that works on paper and one that actually works in a person’s life.

That is the real significance of what the FDA approved on March 26, 2026.Not just a new drug.A new way of keeping people healthy, one week at a time.

Human Perry art by my personal favorite PnF fan artist @chio-chan2artbox

They're incredibly invasive, too- you know how some places in the US complain of massive "ladybug swarms" in their windows in the summer? Well those are usually actually Lady Beetles! :D

Though the can look quite similar, ladybugs have no "M" marking, have fewer spots, are usually symmetrical, and don't invade houses- they are predatory and mostly just eat aphids.

And on top of being rather smelly and invading houses, Lady Beetles are very agressive and can bite!

in aotearoa, june isn’t our pride, it’s theirs. marsha p johnson and sylvia rivera are their historical figures, not ours. the phrase that “you owe your rights to Black trans women” is true there, but here we owe our rights to (mostly) Māori historical figures. i have the freedoms i do because of the legacy of an entirely different set of people operating in an entirely different context at entirely different times.

But because of american cultural imperialism, most queer people in Aotearoa don’t even know our own queer history. Carmen Rupe, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, the Dorian Society, Gillian Laundon, Georgina Beyer, and the Wolfenden Association are some of our queer history. We should know their names! we should know what they did for us! but because of the power of the american imperial machine, we don’t.

our national pride month should be july, the month that the Homosexual Law Reform Act passed in 1986. our two largest cities hold their pride festivals in february and march, respectively. american queer history has very little (or nothing, depending on who you ask) to do with our queer history. anecdotally, from my own queries, queer youth in aotearoa know more about american queer history than our own.