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MissLunaRose

Writer, artist, storyteller
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My little sister, Stella, has a birthday coming up. I also have over 30k fragments (300 fragments -> 1 diamond badge -> a 1-month core membership) just sitting there. You can see where this is going.


Draw a nice picture of some of my sister's favorite characters this month. And I'll award it a diamond badge so you get that sweet core membership.


A core membership offers special customization features. You'll also be able to change your username if desired (just once, so get it right the first time).


I can give out over 100 1-month memberships. If you know anyone who might be interested, feel free to share this!


Requirements

Your picture(s) should be:

  • Nicely drawn, with time and detail (not just a quick sketch)

  • Your own work (not AI or a dollmaker)

  • In color

  • Including 1 or more characters from Stella's Doll World

  • Rated PG, not sexy or violent

  • Fun! Something cute and/or funny for her to enjoy


Simple background? Beginning artist? Not so good at hands? All of that is fine. My sister isn't picky.


Post your picture in the comments here. When I see it, I'll give it a diamond badge, granting you a core membership. I'll be checking regularly all month.


Now, let's talk about those characters!


Stella's Doll World Characters


These dolls live in a giant Lego mansion in Stella's room. She loves telling silly stories about their antics.


Evil villains live next door and cause constant problems for the good people. Stella keeps changing her villain characters, but Becca is a permanent villain.


Characters marked with blue (:bulletblue:) belong to me and characters marked in pink (:bulletpink:) belong to Stella.


Some themes Stella has enjoyed lately include:

  • One character carrying another

  • Shipping Ping and Grace

  • The Fang/Song family drama and Beth's woes

  • Becca (intentionally) and Sneaky (innocently) causing mischief

  • People chasing Becca away


Rainbow Family

Ocean and Luke adopted a ridiculous amount of children. (They're currently at 7.) I'll focus on Stella's favorites.


:bulletpink: Parents

Ocean, a therapist and loving mom, is the family caregiver. Her husband is busy with work but loving.


Drawing them: Ocean is tall with a medium build, strong muscles, and 2 freckles. Her hair has a gray/white streak due to aging. Luke is balding, muscular, and super tall. (The drawing below is from the past. He's now balding with gray at the temples.)

Ocean's Office
Adopting Amirra

:bulletblue: Mia

Mia Rainbow is profoundly gifted at magic, which has given her a bit of a responsibility complex when it comes to protecting her family. She's autistic. She loves clouds/the weather, the woods, and her family.


Drawing her: Mia is short with a slight frame. She likes the color blue and skirts/dresses.

Amirra Infodumps
Amirra Imagines
Bad at Sports
SDW Story: Ghosts 1/3

:bulletblue: Keiko

Keiko Rainbow is a young woman with Down syndrome who loves rock music, being active, and dessert. Loud and brave, she will threaten to bite anyone who messes with her family. (That worries her mom.)


Drawing her: Keiko is chubby and super short with a port wine stain (birthmark) shaped like a flower on her face. She wears purple glasses and likes to look cool.

SDW: Meet Keiko
SDW: Happy Keiko

Fang/Song Family

These newer characters and their family troubles have captured Stella's interest. Mrs. Fang is homophobic and controlling, while Mr. Fang is distant. Beth Song is his illegitimate daughter.


:bulletblue: Ping Fang

Ping is a geeky, shy, nonbinary autistic young adult who cares for their two younger sisters. They like tech, the outdoors, rock music, and cybersecurity. And Grace Piper.


Drawing them: Ping is tallish and androgynous, with a slight but muscular frame. They wear blue glasses and have subtle freckles (which you can draw or skip). They mostly wear dark colors.

An Impossibly Beautiful Person
Ping Fang and Beth Song
Not Accepted

:bulletblue: Mingmei Fang

Mingmei is a high-energy lesbian with an intellectual disability who loves to have fun. Her interests include singing and dancing. The golden child growing up, she feels she knows best and isn't above meddling in Ping's love life.


Drawing her: Mingmei wears hearing aids and has a medium height and build with a freckle on her chin. She can be creative with her hair and makeup.

SDW: Kiss Me
Piggyback Ride

:bulletpink: Beth Song

Beth is bookish, highly sensitive, and anxious. She's an autistic trans lesbian with an intellectual disability. She survived a horrible car crash that killed her mother. Now, she works at the local library. She loves her stuffed animals, and unfortunately, Sneaky the cat does too.


Drawing her: Beth is short with a slight build. Like Ping, she has subtle freckles on her face. Her clothes are often delicate and feminine.

SDW: Meet Beth
Ping Fang and Beth Song
SDW: Always Ask Questions

Others

:bulletblue: Grace Piper

Grace is a sensitive, caring soul with a beautiful soprano voice. She loves music, flowers, and pretty dresses. (Think Christine from Phantom of the Opera.) Grace has a crush on Ping but is nervous about making a move.


Drawing her: Grace is beautiful, a little short, and quite chubby. Have fun with pretty hair, jewelry, and lacy outfits if you'd like. Her favorite color is pink.

SDW: Meet Grace
Pan Pride: Grace
Grace Does Integral Calculus
SDW Story: Missing Mom 1/2

:bulletblue: Evil Becca London and Her Cat, Sneaky

Becca is the greedy, mean #girlboss next door. She runs an online potion business. The most powerful ingredient? Human tears. Preying on people's fears and insecurities is her specialty. She'll stir up trouble as much as she can so she can magically collect tears, but if Keiko threatens to bite her, she'll run away.


Drawing her: Becca is fashionable and tall-ish with a slim/medium build. She has subtle freckles. Sneaky is blackish brown with yellow eyes and sleek fur.


Becca trained her cat, Sneaky, to steal from the neighbors. Sneaky thinks this is a fun game and that the neighbors like to play chase. She likes stuffed animals (hers or from the neighbors), treats, and being petted.

SDW Quick Becca Doodles
SDW: Becca the Mean Girl Entrepreneur
SDW: Sneaky Steals Shrimp

More Characters

You are also welcome to draw:

  • :bulletpink: Mary Rainbow (sister to Mia and Keiko) is dating Mingmei. She has Down syndrome.

  • :bulletblue: Christy Rainbow (another sister) is a cute, energetic kid who likes playing pirates and coloring.

  • :bulletblue: Alan London, Becca's cousin, is a chill guy who likes baking and family.

  • :bulletblue: Zack London is Alan's little brother who has a naughty streak. He plays pranks sometimes. He also plays with Christy.

  • :bulletpink: Noelle is Ocean's sensitive sister. She has a sweet 4-year-old son, :bulletblue: Teddy.


Here are some memes and comics about their adventures together:

Relative Height Reference (Stella's Doll World)
SDW: Luna's Silly 6-Character Meme
SDW Original Character Meme
Silly SDW Reloaded Meme
SDW: Fears (includes phobia-unfriendly doodles)
Makes Me Feel: Stella's Dolls
Favorite Things Meme: Dolls
SDW Bonus: Friends?

Draw something you think is fun, silly, or cute. If it makes you smile, it's likely to make my sister smile, too.


Upload your art to deviantART and share a link in the comments to make sure I see it! This offer is good until the end of March.


I'm excited to see what people draw! And I hope the participating artists will enjoy their 1-month memberships!

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My sister is getting a new fake name. I’ve been considering it for a while, and when I proposed the idea to her, she liked it.


Here’s why:

  • I chose her old name decades ago, back when she was less communicative and too young to understand abstractions like privacy on the internet. So she never got to choose what it was.

  • Her old name is a little too similar to her IRL name. As I search for permanent and stable employment, I don’t want employers to find out that I’m autistic and rule me out without giving me a fair chance. My sister is also entering the adult world, and she has the right to determine what gets shared online; a breach of my privacy wouldn’t be good for her either.


In celebration of us approaching adulthood milestones together, I offered her the chance to choose herself a new fake name. She took it.


I drew up a list of potential names that I thought she’d like, while telling her that she could go beyond the list if she liked. I wrote the meanings of each name on the side.


And as soon as she read “Stella (star),” she loved it. Didn’t care about the rest of the list.


My sister has always loved stars. She has a hoodie with a huge glittery star on it. She likes it when people tell her she’s a star or a rock star. She likes space, Star Wars, and Star Trek. And if you see her in person, you’ll notice she can light up a room.


My sister is 100% a Stella.


I asked her if she wanted a middle name too. She glanced at the list and said May. A month in Spring when the weather gets warmer and school comes to an end… I can get why she likes May.

What does this mean for you?

Well, my lovely readers, it’s pretty simple:

  • I’ll be doing my best to call my sister Stella from now on.

  • You’ll notice that past posts now refer to her as Stella instead of her former fake name.

  • Don’t feel bad if you refer to her by her old name. If you’d like, you can copy your comment content, delete the comment, paste it into a new one, then change the name and post it. And if you can’t, no big deal. She’s had the old name for almost a decade so it’s not going to be erased from the internet entirely.


I appreciate how lovely and kind everyone has been, respecting my privacy and putting up with my weird secrecy. It’s good people like you who give me hope for a better world, where someday disabilities are not seen as barriers to employment and people can be more open about who they are.


It’s a world I’d like for all of you. And in all of you, I see such amazing potential.


Thank you for listening and caring. Stella and I are glad to have people like you in the world.


This post will be edited once dA offers a decent journal editing UI.

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I draw a lot of pictures, and after drawing enough of them, I'm fairly decent at it. Decent enough that I've chosen to post some of my artwork to Wikimedia Commons as free stock.

However, that doesn't mean that everything I create is free stock.

Past Princess Rose by MissLunaHost

This image has been circulating on stock websites. Clipart Library has put it up under the title "Funny Pictures Sick People #1265398", licensed for personal use. Epicentro Festival has put it up as a "clipart princess" with the words "You can modify download and share it for free." Cliparts.co has posted it also under "Funny Pictures Sick People" with the request that you give attribution... to them.

None of them asked my permission. They didn't contact me at all.

The story of this picture



You can probably tell that I drew this picture in a rush. What you may not know is why.

According to my computer logs, I drew this in 2012. I was on winter break in high school. My little sister, Katie, had been coughing and coughing. Then my dad rushed her to the hospital. She had pneumonia. She could die.

The house became very empty all of a sudden. Sometimes I could hear my mom moving around. She wasn't about to leave me (a stressed-out teenager with major developmental delays) home alone for hours on end. I hid in my room. I don't know what my mom did, standing there in a mostly-empty house, knowing one of her daughters was in the hospital fighting for her life.

I didn't know what to do either. But I had a significant amount of online followers. Hands flying across my graphics tablet, I pulled together rapid sketches of my sister's favorite dolls. And I made a post pleading for people to draw something, anything, to give my little sister hope that she could come home and everything would be all right.

This is one of the characters: Princess Rose, a young woman with Down syndrome married to a loving man named George, who insists that her name is "PRINCESS Rose" and not just "Rose." She was Katie's favorite doll at the time and she loved pink and she was easy to draw.

It was a sketch born from pain and love and desperation as my sister struggled to breathe.

It's not stock.



I make stock art. Some of this stock art is on Wikipedia. My illustrations have been used in Facebook posts and Medium articles, with the words "Image credit: MissLunaRose." I posted square images on Instagram that were re-posted on many accounts during Autism Acceptance Month.

But that picture of Princess Rose is not stock. It's a picture with a story of two sisters, one fighting for life and the other fighting for hope. It is not there to decorate your blog or your e-card or whatever want it for, anyway.

It's not okay for other websites to grab my art and repost it while declaring it stock.

What you can do



If you're someone who uses stock images, there are a few ways you can support the real artists:

  • Don't use sites that are known to steal art without permission. This currently includes clipart-library.com, epicentrofestival.com, and cliparts.co. (Feel free to share other names in the comments if you have reasonable proof.)
  • Check if the image was uploaded by the artist. For example, if you see my art on Wikimedia Commons with the phrase "uploaded by MissLunaRose12," you know this is intended for public use. If I'm not the uploader, maybe it means I never okayed it.
  • Report stolen art whenever possible.
  • Always credit the artist by name. Link back to their work if possible. (If you don't know the artist, find new stock.)


It's discouraging for artists seeing others take their work without permission. Doubly so when that art is of personal significance. My sister could have died that year.

If you want a princess drawing of mine, pay me and I will make a special one just for you. Or search out the free stock I've uploaded, pick your favorite picture, plop it on any noncommercial place you want, and credit MissLunaRose. The free stock I make is a gift to anyone who is willing to use it responsibly.

But don't take what wasn't given to you. That's not right.

Update: Clipart Library has taken down the art! Thanks to them for getting back to me quickly.



Websites that are known to post stolen art:


To support artists, I recommend looking for clip art on websites where (a) users choose to upload their own handmade clip art and (b) art is clearly licensed with instructions on crediting the creator if applicable.


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This tutorial covers how to use HTML to format text, display images, and do a few other cool things on dA.


Codes Only for DeviantART



Most of the codes covered here can be used on any site that allows HTML. These four, however, only work on deviantART.

:iconUSERNAME: will give you the icon of a specific user. For example, let's use the icon of our friend Grumpy McGrumperson, aka GrumpEyesPlz.

:iconGrumpEyesPlz:
...becomes...
:icongrumpeyesplz:
If you move your mouse over the icon, you'll notice that it says "GrumpEyesPlz" (the name of the account).

There are two methods for turning someone's username into a link to their profile page. The old one works the same way as the icon code does.
:devgrumpeyesplz:
...becomes...
GrumpEyesPlz

A few years ago, DeviantART launched a faster way to type someone's name. Simply type the "@" symbol and begin to type the person's name. It should look like this:
A little box shows an image of GrumpEyesPlz's icon and her name.
Sometimes you will have to type out the person's full name before it shows up.

@grumpeyesplz
GrumpEyesPlz

You can also display images by copying and pasting thumbcodes. Here's a tutorial from SweetDuke.

How to Use Thumb Codes + Stamps on dA by SweetDuke


Basic Text Formatting



You can use all of these tricks to spice up text in comments.

HTML tags can alter text by making it bold, italic, etc. An opening tag "turns on" the desired change, and the closing tag turns it off.
<tag>content</tag>

For example...
<b>This text will be bold</b>
...turns into...
This text will be bold

Here are some of the tags you can use:
  • <b> or <strong> creates bold text
  • <i> or <em> creates italics
  • <u> creates underlined text (which may confuse people into thinking that you have a hyperlink)
  • <s> or <strike> will <s>cross out your text</s>
  • <sub> creates subscript and <sup> creates superscript. Or, you can always go with <small>, which doesn't move up or down.


Combining tags is also possible. Here's an example.
<b><i>This text will be bold and italicized</i></b>
...turns into...
This text will be bold and italicized

Make sure to close the tags in the reverse order that you opened them! If you mess with the nesting, it may not close the tags properly, and you could end up with weird bugs.


HTML Lists



Three tags are available for creating lists. These tags are <ul>, <ol>, and <li>.

UL stands for "unordered list," which means that each item will be preceded by a bullet point. OL stands for "ordered list," which will automatically place numbers before list items. LI stands for "list item."

Let's say we want to make a list with bullet points. This means it's an unordered list, so we use <ul>. Each new item in the list will start with <li> and end with </li>.

<ul>
<li>Cats</li>
<li>Dogs</li>
<li>Adorable frogs</li>
</ul>

Don't forget to use a closing tag when you're done with your list! It'll look like this:
  • Cats
  • Dogs
  • Adorable frogs

Now let's say we want an ordered list. The format is the same, but we'll be using <ol> instead of <ul>.

<ol>
<li>Slice banana</li>
<li>Place banana slices in vanilla ice cream</li>
<li>Add lake of chocolate syrup</li>
</ol>

And our result?
  1. Slice banana
  2. Place banana slices in vanilla ice cream
  3. Add lake of chocolate syrup

Once you're done drooling and dreaming about banana splits, we'll move on to our next subject: attributes.


HTML Attributes: Tooltips, Links, Pictures, and Alignment



HTML attributes are simply cool things that fit inside tags and allow you to customize things even more. Their format is name="value". Attributes go inside the opening tag.

Links


We use the <a> tag to make a link. The "href" attribute allows us to specify a destination.

<a href="URL">

But instead of typing URL, you paste the link of the website you want your viewers to visit.

<a href="http://www.deviantart.com/">This text will be a link.</a>
And we get...
This text will be a link.


Tooltips


Tooltips can be added to many different tags. When a viewer places their cursor on (aka "mouses over") the area affected by the tag, some pop-up text will appear. For instance, try moving your cursor over this sentence. If it doesn't work at first, lift your hand off the mouse so the cursor sits still.

The attribute that allows you to add tooltips is called title. Here's how it works:

<a title="Pop-up text">Mouse over me!</a>
Mouse over me!
(Don't click, though. It'll refresh the page and make you lose your place.)

You can pile multiple attributes onto one tag. Let's say we want to use attributes to make a link destination and a tooltip.

<a title="deviantART" href="http://www.deviantart.com/">Go to the Homepage</a>
Go to the Homepage

If you want to make a tooltip appear over regular text (not a link), you can use the tag <acronym>, which as far as I know, doesn't change the appearance of text at all. It was created in order to explain acronyms, such as this: CSS

<acronym title="Pop-up text">This text isn't a link.</acronym>
This text isn't a link.

You may have noticed that the example has a blue shadow. This is because of CSS (which I won't cover in this tutorial), and blue shadows only show up in this particular journal skin. Usually, there's no visual difference between a text with the code <acronym> and regular text.


Images


Images use the "img" tag. The "url" attribute gives you the image url. If you don't know how to find an image URL, check out this tutorial.

<img src="PASTE URL HERE">

For example...

<img src="http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/302/d/a/weird_eyes_by_luna__doodles-d6sb9wg.png">

Now we have a picture of Grumpy McGrumperson's face!

Images can also be altered with the attributes "width" and "height." For instance, let's say we want Grumpy to be only 50 pixels wide. The picture will automatically scale itself down so that it remains proportionate.

<img src="http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/302/d/a/weird_eyes_by_luna__doodles-d6sb9wg.png" width="50">


Or, we can stretch her out...

<img src="http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/302/d/a/weird_eyes_by_luna__doodles-d6sb9wg.png" width="50" height="200">

Someone's got a long face today.


We can also use the "align" attribute to make Grumpy McGrumperson float next to the text.

<img src="http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/302/d/a/weird_eyes_by_luna__doodles-d6sb9wg.png" align="left">

You can also choose to float images to the right by typing align="right".


The "Align" Attribute with Text and More



Now, we're going to deal with divs. A div is basically an invisible box, and you can put stuff in it. Everything inside the box will be affected by the attributes of this div.

For example, if we give our div a center alignment, everything inside it will be centered.

<div align="center">This is text inside an invisible centered box!</div>

This is text inside an invisible centered box!

You can also align the div to the right or to the left.
This invisible box is aligned to the right.
Grumpy McGrumperson is here too!
:icongrumpeyesplz:
Something tells me she doesn't enjoy sitting in boxes.

Anything inside the box—words, icons, images—will be affected by the alignment.


Cool Combinations



You can combine all this information to make pretty code! For example, let's say I want a button to lure you all to my gallery so I can devour you show you my tutorials and stuff.

title="My work: lots of pretty pictures and no bubbling cauldrons of death (probably)" href="http://misslunarose.deviantart.com/gallery/"><img src="http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/231/0/d/0d52689749beb26d2743f843585af1c3-d7vtl0c.png" width="150">a>



You can use this for all sorts of things: links to your gallery or commission info, cropped thumbnails of your artwork that lead to the larger deviation, or magic buttons that take users to someplace new whenever you update them.

HTML can lead to all sorts of cool formatting! You can use it in journals, profile pages, artist's descriptions, and even comments.* Use your imagination!

And, uh... try not to eat anyone.

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Hi, all!



This is just a notification that I may be able to actually, like, answer messages again.

Some weird thing happened for a while where Chrome wouldn't let me access deviantART, claiming it was unsafe. I tried logging on today and it actually worked! It's been iffy, but I may be able to get on here and there.

Has anyone else experienced this? (It seems to have been correlated with clearing my cookies, but my sample size is 1, which is hardly convincing.)

I am hoping it will stay resolved, but we'll have to see.


My writing



I've started writing on Wattpad!
  • Silent Voice is available to read. Chapters will come out around twice a week.
  • Thousand Dollar Friend will be coming out as I can transfer it.
  • My profile there is MissLunaRose.

You don't need to download the app or create an account. It's as simple as clicking a link if you want to check it out.

I'm cooling off activity on Episode due to serious disagreements with how the company treats minority groups. (I'm no longer interested in giving the company any revenue, even if the interface is cool.)

No matter what, I'm continuing writing, and so far Wattpad is looking like a versatile and community-friendly platform.


Luna got a bonus to Wisdom



I have changed my major to Informatics, which is like computer science, but less painful. (It focuses less on abstract mathematical stuff and more on how technology can improve people's lives.)

As part of understanding my various disabilities, I have come to realize:
  • 8 hours of sleep is the bare minimum I need.
  • Free time is essential for my brain to stay in good health.
  • Writing time, specifically, helps keep my brain in good health.

I am writing almost every day now, and sleeping around 9 hours. As a result, I am happier than I have been in years. My life hasn't been this good since before I started AP classes in high school.

I learned things about:
  • My health
  • My interests
  • My sexual orientation
  • My disabilities

I am 21 now, approaching 22. And I understand myself far better than I did at age 18. I feel that I have a sense of who I am, what I need, what I am looking for, and what I have to offer the world.

And I like shortcuts, so let me try to give you all a shortcut to the wisdom I've got so far:

Your needs may be different from other people's. Seek what works for you personally, not what you are supposed to do.
You need to take care of yourself before you can be effective at anything else.
Putting in 100% effort, 100% of the time, is a recipe for burnout. Put in a lot of effort, most of the time. Then go have fun. This is how you stay happy and stay sharp.
Exhaustion means you need to go to bed earlier. No excuses. Go to bed.
"Get your dream job" isn't always realistic. But "get what pays" may not make you happy. It's okay to compromise. A decent-paying, decently-tolerable job is perfectly OK. And your passion will still be there for hobbies and recreation.
Bad grades happen. You're not bad. If they're on your transcript, tell your employer that you found it challenging and had to adapt and work hard. This may look even better than a straight-A average, because it shows you have faced adversity.
Don't feel pressured to be the best. Instead, aim for "pretty darn good." Give yourself time for self care.


I tried, for about 20 years, to be the best possible. The smartest kid. The top of the class. The most impressive course-load.

I was miserable. And the stress was basically killing me. (I mean this literally.)

Now, I am taking on a workload more fitting of a person with my needs. I write. I draw. I study. I sleep. I am not just surviving. I am living.

I am not the best Informatics major, nor will I be the best worker. I thought I had to be the best at what I did, but... I don't! I can do what I want! And what I want for myself someday is a middling 40-hour-per-week job with lots of time left over for writing, drawing, watching Star Trek, and whatever the heck I feel like.

I'm allowed fun. I'm allowed imperfections. And it feels great.

I look to the future, and for once in 21 years, I'm not dreading it.


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Featured

March '24: Draw for a 1-Month Core Membership! by MissLunaRose, journal

That's Not Clipart. That's Mine. by MissLunaRose, journal

HTML: Basic Formatting by MissLunaRose, journal

News and Life Lessons from Luna by MissLunaRose, journal

Silent Voice Won the Contest! by MissLunaRose, journal