Hello everyone~ In this unusual kind of post, I want to share with you a little portion of the joy my birthday was blessed with, since I believe beautiful things are meant to be shared! 🤲💜

1 ✧ A BIRTHDAY ZINE!

It still feels unreal as I'm typing- would you believe if I told you that some wonderful people from my community spent 3-4 months to secretly put together a whole zine of 122 pages with fics and art made by themselves of my favorite ships and dynamics?

When I received it, and we were in voice-chat, I believe what came out of my mouth was an extremely long sequence of "oh my god" and "this is insane". I was so stunned I only said "thank you" after roughly 1:30 hours of browsing the zine back and forth; even before realizing it was a gift for me it took me that long to fathom something so beautiful was made!!

There is a specific reason why such gift had an especially great impact...

Through creativity we turn ideas into art, art into emotions, and these emotions are fuel for inspiration which leads us back to the beginning of the cycle. Creativity is the closest to magic humans are capable of: art is fictional, but the emotions it provokes certainly are real: art makes us dream, hope, cry, think... by sharing art, we offer this experience to a broader amount of people, while also inspiring them to join us in the cycle! This gifted zine brought me a spark of that flame I myself strive to bring to the world. It made me feel part of this magical chain of inspiration and I experienced how powerful it is!!

Some of the zine contributors don't always write or draw, some decided to do it outside of their comfort zone, some do it regularly and chose to dedicate their craft for the happiness of another... any degree of effort put into this project contributes to that exact magic of art! Witnessing the outcome of such endeavor was emotional, the fact it was dedicated to me was overwhelming!!

I love this gift so much, both for what it is -a beautifully executed collection of delicious works- and what it means! I can't stress enough over the greatness of this, and of top of that it's just so well done!

💌 You can download the zine at the bottom of this post!

Please keep an eye out on my socmed as I'm going to be sharing the amazing works of artists and writers! Give them with the love they deserve, they did AMAZING!! 🥹🫶

2 ✧ Heart of Stone COSPLAY VIDEO!!

Do I even need to say how much I FREAKED OUT when I was shown this?I was at lunch with relatives and mum asked if I was okay. I wasn't. I was more than okay and I spent the rest of the afternoon rewatching the video, taking screenshots, admiring them... They look like they came straight from the pages of Heart of Stone! They had me sobbing.

I can't even begin to say how much it means to me that my story could inspire people to the point of coming together and bring to life an extra piece of it; a beautiful addition that only exists thanks to their own passion and creativity, their time and effort. They also gave me a beautiful (both in terms of meaning and quality) reminder of what art is about: sharing a passion, spreading inspiration, bringing people closer...

💌 You can watch the full video HERE on Instagram!

Please do, please watch it! These cosplayers and their partner in crime -the photographer- need to be showered with love!! 🤲🧡💚

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Thank you for the birthday wishes, thank you for the gifts, thank you for the love! Thank you for reminding me what art is about.

Thank you for being part of this community! 💜