+ London, San Francisco and Beijing achieve ‘remarkable reductions’ in air pollution.
“This report shows that cities can achieve what was once thought impossible: cutting toxic air pollution by 20-45% in a little over a decade,” said Cecilia Vaca Jones, executive director of Breathe Cities, one of the organisations behind the report. “This isn’t just happening in one corner of the world; from Warsaw to Bangkok, cities are proving that we have the tools to solve this crisis right now.”

+ Fifty years after New Zealand stopped whaling, humpback population showing signs of recovery.

+ Two pairs of beavers released in Cornwall.
Beavers became extinct from the wild in England more than 400 years ago due to hunting for their pelts, meat and glands.
The charity said beavers were increasingly recognised as one of nature's most important keystone species - animals whose presence shapes entire ecosystems.

+ The river otter’s remarkable comeback.

+ European Parliament Votes Overwhelmingly For "The Full Recognition Of Trans Women As Women".
Significantly, the vote gathered support not only from left-leaning groups but also from the majority of the European People's Party, the largest and most powerful center-right bloc in the European Parliament. The center-right support drew sharp criticism from the far right: the Patriots for Europe group, which includes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Fidesz and French far-right leader Marine Le Pen's National Rally, voted against the resolution and denounced its exclusion from negotiations over the text. The European Conservatives and Reformists, the group of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia, also voted against. But their combined opposition was not enough to block the resolution, which passed with support from a broad cross-ideological majority.

+ Ireland’s basic income for the arts scheme becomes permanent.

+ Why comics needs its own Criterion Closet, an inside look at THE STACKS.

+ stop counting. what you love matters..
Cardiff University's Dr Lucy Bennett put it well in that same piece: "Once taste is turned into a scoreboard with ratings, competition then inevitably follows." Which, yes — but I'd push that further. Competition doesn't just follow. It replaces something. In the war to protect a number, the actual shows get swallowed whole. Nobody in these review threads is talking about what made "Ozymandias" so devastating, or what any of these subsequent shows did differently. They’re just defending territory. The number had stopped being a representation of the thing and had become the thing itself.

+ Marvel Comics has the optimisation sickness.
The current status quo at Marvel seems to be that if a storyline is successful they'll publish too many comics about it and it will get derailed. If a storyline isn't successful enough they'll publish too many comics about it and it will get derailed.

+ The Secretive Company Filling Video Game Sites With Gambling And AI.
Chris Button, an Australian tech journalist and former contributor, wasn't pleased to see his old profile alongside the AI authors. All of his former articles were edited to include closing sections pointing to casino and betting guides. He attempted to have his author profile removed by emailing the new management of GamesHub, but he never received a response. However, he no longer appears on the Meet the Team page. Button is disappointed with what the site has become. "Seeing GamesHub transformed into a site promoting gambling is devastating, not just for those who wrote for the site, but for the industry the publication championed", he said.

+ Friendly reminder that The Importance of Being Earnest is available to watch for free a little while longer. Chaotic fun, highly recommend.

+ Dune Messiah traile dropped! I treated myself to one peek and one peek only. But I am vibrating.


+ The mountain in the middle of town is ah. On fire. 240 evacuated so far, including two of my friends and two of my friends' parents. Real windy outside. Not a good time.

Given this has been awards show season, have you ever attended a TV watch party? And if not, would you like to? Take the poll and tell us more in comments!

More icons here at my journal

Finally! Here's my progression post for 2025! (click here for: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016)


# of icons: 1230
# of icon posts: 65

Graph instead of words for distribution this time:



Last, year the busiest months where May, October, June, and March - well there is some overlap - and the quietest ones February and December - nope, not even close. :D

Biggest achievements/progress made/observations: I don't think I made any huge leaps. My work was so busy and exhausting that I resorted to mostly minimalist icons without text. The most complex icons were around March, and after June the text use dropped significantly. I'm not bothered by this, because apparently it meant I made more icons, and I can't say I had less fun making them than I would have had making more complex ones. It's all good, then!

New this year: I made a gallery for 2025, just one huge pile without any text/descriptions/explanations, which you can see here: https://tinpix.de/2025/gallery_page_1.html. They go from new (page 1) to old (page 24).

Now for the monthly details:

Every icon post is linked separately, through the example icons for each month. But you can also click on the month names for that month's calendar with links to all my posts. Or you can simply look at my art-icons tag. Every month states the number of icons posted that month, plus the number later posted in drop posts, to get a better idea when I made what.

-> -> ->

( My progression over the last 12 months )

Looking back at the year, I'm happy as always that the iconmaker community still exists. Some new (and old!) makers joined us again, and my comms are all a source of joy. I'm also happy to have found seasons_of_fandom, a landcomm that works really well at integrating iconmakers, which no other landcomm I've seen has done as successfully, and I enjoy participating there. It's in fact the first landcomm that I've managed to stay in for more than one round. (Well, okay, I managed a few rounds at fandom_empire, too.)

Many thanks to everyone who mods, participates, or even just comments. You all make my life better. <3

Last but not least: the graph!

comparison with last year

Compared to last year, the number of Zhu Yilong icons dropped considerably *again*, from 175 to a measly 33. I feel like my Zhu Yilong addiction has well and truly run its course. My new obsession is Wu Lei, who leads the count with 374 icons, then HPI with 323, neither of which were at all a thing in 2024. All in all, adding cdrama (104) + BL (51) to the Zhu Yilong and Wu Lei numbers, Asian fandoms still come to almost half my total number (560).

Last year, I thought that I would icon more western fandoms, but apart from HPI, that prediction has not come true. It's all Wu Lei's fault of course. :D

So far, 2026 has started out well where iconmaking is concerned, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way.

Duty
The Pitt | Whitaker, Abbot Gen | ~2700 words | Thanks to sheafrotherdon for betaing. Episode fic for 2.10.

(Also on AO3)

( Dennis doesn't know if he's overreacting. )

The latest round at icontalking is all about making your icons look like comics. While I was at it, I made a few actual comic icons, from Dr Seuss, Calvin and Hobbes, and Asterix. I don't think these are much more than bases - two are actually just crops with no editing whatsoever - so I'm posting these only here to my journal and not to the actual round. Enjoy!

Teasers:


( 10 Asterix, 8 Wu Lei, 3 Calvin, 3 Dr Seuss, 1 CDrama )

I love comments, and if you have concrit for me, I'm open for that, too. All my icons are free to take and use, credit is appreciated. The list of makers whose textures and brushes I like to use is here in my resource post.

Previous icon posts:

Happy Saturday!

I'm going to be doing a little maintenance today. It will likely cause a tiny interruption of service (specifically for www.dreamwidth.org) on the order of 2-3 minutes while some settings propagate. If you're on a journal page, that should still work throughout!

If it doesn't work, the rollback plan is pretty quick, I'm just toggling a setting on how traffic gets to the site. I'll update this post if something goes wrong, but don't anticipate any interruption to be longer than 10 minutes even in a rollback situation.

Good Talk
The Pitt | Jack/Robby | ~3100 words | Thanks to sheafrotherdon for betaing.

(Also on AO3)

( Five times that Robby walked in on Jack having a conversation that made him pull a confused face. )

It's Spring Break here, and I look forward to sleeping and drinking a lot of tea. Hurrah.

( The Pitt, 2.10, 4:00P.M. )

Welcome to the weekly roundup post! What are you watching this week? What are you excited about?

I have 61 Heated Rivalry icons to share. In the post you can find:
- 32 Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov
- 15 Ilya Rozanov
- 11 Shane Hollander
- 2 Svetlana Vetrova
- 1 Scott Hunter/Kip Grady

Preview:


Here @ love_sacrificed

The current round at retro_icontest was a list of 5 themes, and I picked two: the No Eyes theme, and the Inspo Icons theme, and made three icons for each:

1-3
4-6
Wu Lei x3 | Chen Minghao | Wu Lei | Nothing But You

the inspo icons for comparison

lazuli_reikou | milkfed | ieatstickers

I'm happy to receive all kind of comments, including concrit! All icons shareable. Credit for brushes and textures I use can be found here in my resource post.

Previous icon posts:

Streaming for free here. I'm definitely watching this weekend :D