#reflection post

2025 was definitely a year, and I hope that 2026 will be better for us all. I made a lot of art this year, I have at least 145 things documented in my phone, but there’s no doubt in my mind that there’s more than that undocumented.

But anyways, I want to thank you all for being so kind to me over the past couple of months. To start the year I had about 50 followers, and now I have 215! That's like...a lot of people. But I'm very thankful to have all of you guys following my silly little art blog. Whenever people on here talk with me about my OCs or just like my posts n stuff it makes my heart happy. I never expected to have people interested in the universes in my head.

I also made my OC webpage for the Ghost Council this year! It took me a couple months but I think it's pretty comprehensible for the most part. I hope it helps people understand my story better and possibly interact with it.

I also met many amazing mutuals this year! I have a lot of internet paranoia but interacting with my kind mutuals alleviates some of that anxiety. Honestly I didn’t really expect to have moots when I joined tumblr, but it’s been a nice surprise to interact with so many cool people with cool ocs and art!!!

I aged another year. I’ve lost friends but strengthened my bonds with my current ones. I’ve failed some subjects and passed others with flying colours. I read around 70 books - some old, some new. I came out as aroace to my friends and fam. I published 5 different fics, which have all gotten more love and attention then I thought they would. I stopped self-harming in March and started going to therapy in June. I listened to nearly 40k minutes worth of music. I went through surgery on my shoulder. I’ve laughed, cried, complained, cheered and shuffled my way through the blazing fire that is 2025, coming out only slightly burnt.

Thank you to everyone who has made my year that bit better:

The ultimate cheerleaders and super talented people known as @ghostedmercury and @thalium9thmuse - you both are so supportive and wonderful, and I wouldn’t trade you two for anything <33

My beloved Tumblr moots @thestoryteller-thedreamer @jaiofskyandstorm @linlovesnoodles @iobsesswaytoomuch for being such kind, wonderful people and being such a great part of my Tumblr experience

And shoutout to the rest of my lovely moots: @stxrrstruckk @i-am-a-living-god @kaistrosity @mintleafkitty72 @oddpossumcreature @your-local-book-hoarder @the-l0ser-st4rr for being such cool peeps :D

It’s definitely been a bumpy year, but it wasn’t all bad. I started this blog late this year with the intent of being apart of the proship community for the first time— and I think I’ve been successful! I’ve met some amazing people in this community, and I’ve found the community as a whole to be a delight. Some of my posts have really resonated with people, and the amount of attention some of them are still getting is crazy to me. I never imagined I’d be here by the end of 2025, but here we are.

I personally have went through some pretty large bumps, my mental health taking a few dives, and I’ve gotten more than one stressful situation under my belt. My home country has been in a rough state as well. A mix of those factors have made me less active on this blog, which I’m sorry about. I promise to try and be more active in the community in 2026!

Overall, this year has been a very mixed bag. From the start of the year, straight to the end, it’s felt like everyday has been a new adventure (whether that was a good or bad thing depended on the day lmao). But I’m glad I got to spent a little of it with you. I love you, and thank for everything!

(Lmfao)

my two cents

I come across certain images and feel a kind of unease that's hard to explain. Perhaps it's because behind the face of a someone I deeply respect both as an actor and as a man—a true, lived-in face, full of silence and subtlety—I see something that no longer belongs to him. I understand the nostalgia, the tenderness, even the desire to bring someone back to life through art or imagination. But there are boundaries that are sacred to me. A person's image isn't something to be reshaped at will. It's the trace of a life that has already given so much. When I see those montages or those videos that feign intimacy, something breaks: not the memory, but the respect. Truly loving an artist, for me, also means leaving them intact, not forcing them into stories they never chose.

What’s more upsetting is that, for the majority of those creating these videos, it’s not even admiration — they are often against his widow Rima Horton Rickman, projecting narratives they themselves support rather than honoring the people involved. Maybe it's just a sense of modesty, or another way to preserve what remains. But I still believe that respect is the highest form of affection towards a great man like Alan Rickman. (It's just my opinion, everyone is free to do as they wish obviously!)

_eve-rickmaniac1979

Closing out the year finding I wasn’t very creative at all. Life got so busy and scary that my one of my biggest outlets and, honestly, identifiers was pushed to the side out of frustration, burnout, and fear. 2025 felt like a year of borrowed time and endless transition. I hope going into the new year, I learn to find myself again and reignite this passion.

This past year put me in front of some big players as an advocate and ambassador, started a new masters program, lost my childhood home, restarted my seizure free streak, and pushed so many people away in pursuit of numbness and escapism. Perfectionism is a hell of a drug and it rears its ugly head when you’re perceived more than ever. I dedicate 2026 to good health, fulfilling art, and internal love.

@thescorpioracesfestival

Aro Character of the Week: Keladry of Mindelan

To know why I love Keladry so much, you need to know a little about me.

I was this awkward, anxious, autistic kid and teenager who spent most of my time reading. But even when I was far too old for children’s chapter books, I was still reading them. While I couldn’t articulate this then, the reason I felt no interest in reading the YA books I was supposed to read was their focus on something portrayed as relevant to all teens--romance and romantic relationships. All the books we studied at school, all the books the librarians told me to read--everything pushed at me had romance. Something I didn’t feel at all.

Then one day at the library, I discovered another book by Tamora Piece--Magic Steps. A fantasy book, a YA fantasy book, about a teenage character like me, whose story had no romantic element? I didn’t know I was aro then, but I devoured this book and then started working my way through Pierce’s back catalogue as though my life depended on it, and in a way, it did. I didn’t connect to Alanna or the last book about Daine, but The Circle of Magic and The Circle Opens? Books, totally not-coincidentally, that have no romance narratives (because of the characters’ ages) but feature courageous children and teenagers saving the day? Be still, my beating aro heart!

And then came Keladry of Mindelan.

A female, teenage character who does what she thinks is right, who makes friends, who matters to people because people matter to her, whose most important relationships are those with her friends and family and mentors, who goes through trying out the romantic relationships expected of her and ends the story not with a partner but with a town of people who love her? A character who is rich in friends and companions and love, a character who is never, never once shown to be lacking because she doesn’t have a romantic partner?

I wonder how much my life would have changed if Pierce had known then to write Kel as specifically aro-spec, if I had been exposed to discussions about my identity so many years sooner. I wonder how much better Kel’s story might have been if she were more than just Word of God aromantic (in canon, anyway). Even despite that, though, Kel has always been a message my teenage self needed to hear--that one does not need romance to be accepted, to be loved, to be important, to make a difference, to save the world, to have a happy ending.

It’s hard for me think critically about Kel because I have so much feeling about her as a character who walked into my life at a time when I needed it. I am extremely uncomfortable with Pierce’s Cis Feminism, and Kel’s character speaks too often of this approach. I wish the series properly addressed Kel’s privilege as a wealthy, white noblewoman, and I loathe its handling of anxiety in Kel and Lalasa. At times the contrast between Word of God aromanticism and the text on the page rings false with Kel, as much as I read her crushes as the result of amatomormative pressures--I know I have believed myself to be crushing on others because I felt expected to do so. But Kel, as a woman who cares for others and is loved by so many people but is never defined by a romantic partner? I can’t not adore Kel. We still need more characters like her.

I hope that the teenage aros that come after me get a character like Kel who is specifically, explicitly, wonderfully aro. In the meantime, I don’t think Kel is a bad place to begin.