If I Must Die - Refaat Alareer

Official art by: Hidekaz Himaruya

• wickenburg, az

only 16 hours till I make it to my destination. but look, postcards postcards!

If you’re in the right headspace for it, please learn about Emily Pike. Heavy trigger warnings for brutal murder, dismemberment, and generally disturbing disregard for the life of a child.

She should not be forgotten. None of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls should be forgotten.

Star death

This drawing is based on the butterfly nebula :)

If anyone cares for my symbolism:

A nebula is often formed by the gas and dust ejected by a dying star after it burns out all its fuel. Stars die once the energy from fusion isn’t enough to sustain its mass, causing a collapse that produces a supernova, throwing heavy elements into space. Throughout a star’s life, they’re constantly fighting their own collapse, fusing hydrogen into helium to resist the pressure of their own gravitational pull. They die when they can no longer do this.

In the au I’m obsessed with that only exists in my head (more here), both of them sacrificed their teenage experiences to get into the school they did, and kind of know nothing else; in that way they’re fighting their own collapse and burnout. They're each other's first run-ins with a relationship like this and that experience makes them feel unable to sustain a disconnected tunnel vision outlook on life, if that makes sense. Hence star death.

And nebulae are how new stars form :)

Serengeti ol-tulét

this is my work for the lovely and amazing @hwsfemmephenomenon zine! while she has never made an appearance in the anime, Kenya has always been my fave heta-girl simply off her design!

I wanted to do a piece where she is interacting with her citizens, so here she is in Maasai traditional garb in Maasai Mara! they are singing a maa hymn to celebrate a young woman's coming of age. the title translates to 'endless generation', represented by the women as they stand; youngest singer to oldest singer (being Miss Kenyata herself)!

thank you once again for an incredible community experience! 🇰🇪

This weekend about 2 billion people will celebrate Christmas across the world, and the birth of their religion in Palestine. Today the only remaining 700 Christians, the descendants of the first followers of Christ, are being wiped out in Gaza and their churches bombed to pieces. [@/ Hanine09 on X. 12/23/23.]

after not seeing much of each other (or the best of each other) in the 50s-60s, I'd like to think that alfred and ivan enjoy exploring musical media of that era together in modern day. for example, alfred loves to show ivan how to dance the twist and ivan will share his x-ray record collection of contraband music with him.

ivan won't let him know that he's been to a maya kristalinskaya concert or two and he's already learned the dance. alfred won't let him know that he owns multiple muslim magomayev lps and once snuck past the iron curtain to hear vladimir troshin live.

during my trek to find all the dress up games i used to play as a kid, i found blossom.nu again!! I played it again and when I saw that i could make fem rusame, i cried and vomited

awkward introvert ivan braginsky tells goofy extrovert alfred jones the corniest joke ever known to man and he laughs earnestly and beautifully as he does and almost stops ivan's heart

there are so many nyotalia women to draw and not enough time