Hello everyone, sorry if I write a second journal the same day I posted another one but while I was browsing the artists news I stumbled across SheepSLAPS's journal and reading what happened broke my heart since I know her works and I enjoy a lot her art which I find highly inspirational to me. He art is fantastic, superb use of lighting, shades, the poses are dynamic and give a sense of strength, colours are very pleasant to look at and overall the level of creativity is neat as heck. Here the journal:

https://sheepslaps.newgrounds.com/news/post/1496891

Sadly I can't directly help because my family and I are living a delicate financial moment in which we have to decide some stuff linked to things we have, but I feel the necessity to help in a different way by spreading her journal. I know she has more fans than me, but this doesn't prevent a very small artist like me to try to attract the interest of those who follow me and might be able to help more incisively. So if you can help, or even spread her journal feel free to visit the link I posted. Thank you for reading and again sorry if I wrote another journal. Have a serene day/evening.

Hello everyone, I hope you are doing great here and irl. While I was browsing the art forum threads I stumbled across a thread called "Your most *controversial* art? in which people are encouraged to share their most controversial works or talk about their past experiences with their controversial works. One of the comments caught my interest because it showed a clear examples of effects of parasocial interactions that can turn into parasocial relationships.

What are parasocial interactions? They are a kind of psychological relationship experienced by an audience in their mediated encounters with performers in the mass media, particularly on television and on online platforms. Viewers or listeners come to consider media personalities as friends, despite having no or limited interactions with them. With social media this is enhanced because, social media introduces additional opportunities for parasocial relationships to intensify due to the more opportunities for intimate, reciprocal, and frequent interactions between the user and persona.

The term was first described from the perspective of media and communication studies. In 1956, Horton and Wohl explored the different interactions between mass media users and media figures and determined the existence of a parasocial relationship (PSR), where the user acts as though they are involved in a typical social relationship (1).

However do not think that PSI were born with mass media, they trace back in ancient times, when a person would establish a bond with political figures, gods or even spirits:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190307223332/http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e7dc/325264aed0fedb0205e1242724b8cb7d7200.pdf

Since then, the term has been adopted by psychologists in furthering their studies of the social relationships that emerge between consumers of mass media and the figures they see represented there. Horton and Wohl suggested that for most people, parasocial interactions with personae complement their current social interactions, while also suggesting that there are some individuals who exhibit extreme parasociality, or they substitute parasocial interactions for actual social interactions (2).

However Perse and Rubin, in 1989, contested this idea, finding that parasocial interactions occurred as a natural byproduct of time spent with media figures (3).

Don't get me wrong parasocial interactions can have positive consequences such as identity formation and learning through media, but they do have negative consequences:

body image

A study was conducted to examine the relationship between media exposure and adolescents' body image. Specifically, researchers looked at parasocial relationships and the different motivations for self-comparison with a character. This study surveyed 391 7th and 8th grade students and found that media exposure negatively predicted body image. In addition to the direct negative impact, the study indicated that parasocial relationships with favorite characters, motivations to self-compare, and engagement in social comparison with characters amplified the negative effects on kids' body images. Furthermore, the researchers found that making social comparisons with favorite characters distorted actual, or ideal, body image and self-perception. Studies have been done exploring these effects of negative self-perception and body image across both male and female students:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320069675_Body_Image_Perceptions_Do_Gender_Differences_Exist

another study examined the parasocial relationships between men and superheroes; the study looked at muscular versus non-muscular superheroes and men who either did or did not develop a one-sided psychological bond with a superhero character. The results from this study indicated a significant impact on body image, particularly when exposed to muscular superhero characters. Research conducted by Ariana F. Young, Shira Gabriel, and Jordan L. Hollar in 2013 showed that men who did not form a parasocial relationship with a muscular superhero had poor self-perception and felt negative about their bodies after exposure to the muscular character. However, if the men had a PSR with the superhero, the negative effects on body satisfaction were eliminated (4).

And don't get me start with beauty filters on social media

unrealistic life expectations

There is research that has been done that highlights the negative role that parasocial relationships play in a person's own self esteem about their personal life. Often times, a person forms a parasocial relationship with a celebrity or influencer because of their personality and the seemingly appealing life that the person lives. Studies show that depression and a decrease in self-esteem can often occur in these relationships due to the person comparing their own life to the potentially unrealistic portrayal of the celebrity's life. This makes me think about the importance of thinking not twice but 1000 times before posting stuff that can affect negatively others if you are an influencer or celebrity...

People ignore that most celebrities and influencers hide the negative aspects of their life from public view.

aggression

A study done by Keren Eyal and Alan M. Rubin examined aggressive and violent television characters and the potential negative impacts they may have on viewers. The study was based on social cognitive theory and looked at trait aggression in viewers and identification and parasocial interaction with aggressive characters. The researchers measured trait aggression in each of the participants and compared that to the level of identification with aggressive characters. The study found that more aggressive viewers were more likely to identify with aggressive characters and further develop parasocial relationships with the aggressive characters (5).

Parasocial interaction has been linked to psychological attachment theory and its consequences have seen the same dramatic effects as real relationship breakups. In considering the relationship between parasocial interaction and attachment styles, Jonathan Cohen found that individuals who were more attached to certain television and media programs tended to be more invested in parasocial relationships. These parasocial interactions use similar psychological thought processes that are often used in real-life personal relationships.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0265407504041374?journalCode=spra

It is a very one-sided relationship. But despite the distress that media consumers experienced after a parasocial breakup was quite similar to that of a social relationship, the emotional distress experienced after the parasocial breakup was weaker than that of the real life interpersonal relationship.

Social media is designed to be a new channel through which parasocial interaction/relationship can be formed. Research has shown that interacting with individuals through blogs and social media can influence the perceptions of those individuals. As Internet users become more active on social media platforms, followers often feel more engaged with them, making the parasocial relationships stronger. And this leads to another problem that arises with parasocial interactions: the fake image a person creates around the person they think to have a relationship with.

This is what happened to the person who commented on the thread. People who follow her fabricated a mental image of her and her art as innocent and innocent-looking, they attached her a sticker, a category from which she cannot escape or she will ruin their fake images of her and her art.

Her art is mostly everyone-oriented but this doesn't prevent her from drawing more adult oriented stuff and she has all the right to do so, she explained it well in the forum thread. This is a clear example of negative effects of parasocial interactions, just because a person mainly draws a specific theme or themes, it doesn't mean they are not allowed to go out their usual zone.

And this brings to what made me want to write this journal. Now that you briefly know what parasocial interactions are and their effects (I don't want to dig in depth not to make this blog too long), I want to clarify what I want to do with my art here. The first thing I did was to create personal collections of my own works to make navigation of my artworks more easily accessible to the viewer and follower, and to help myself to keep track of what I do in order not get lost in my creations one I hit big numbers (+200 works i.e.):

As you may have noticed my art tend to be for most part E-rated with innocent-looking characters but I also have pieces that are marked as T or even M because I love exploring darker themes and I like drawing gore stuff sometimes as way to both study blood and how it works on different materials and surfaces, and to sublime negative emotions I may experience due to real life stuff. So to everyone who follows me, especially minors, be prepared that I can post bloody pieces, delicate topics or dark themes along with my more light-hearted and silly content.

This artwork for example was a huge emotional relief because I was experiencing a really annoying event that even made me lose appetite for four days straight:

This piece is also tame compared to what I can draw, but I tend to mark as T blood pieces, weapons used in combat situations, minor violence, light-themed innuendos and trivial language while I mark as M everything that is more extreme. Now I don't think I will post A stuff and by A I mean everything marked as M but ten thousand heavy in terms of themes. I won't post sexual NSFW stuff because it's not my thing and it would be very tame (sorry to disappoint all horny people here ;P, jk), similar to Kunaigirl's adult-oriented works because those times I drew sexual works it always involved tenderness, affection, cuddles, kisses and never vulgar horniness. Only exception to this personal rule of mine are artistic nudes because I consider them works of art since the human body is a natural work of art to admire and appreciate.

So yeah, you have been warned about what you are about to see here, mostly SFW stuff but sometimes I need to explore more dark waters. And remember that you can toggle filters in order to avoid seeing more mature stuff, so if you see something you don't want and you didn't even pay attention to disable said filter, it's all your fault then. I always turn off adult filter when I want to enjoy some fanarts or movies in the Portal. See you next time and have a nice day/evening!

References and footnotes

(1) Horton, D.; Wohl, R. (1956). "Mass communication and para-social interaction: Observation on intimacy at a distance". Psychiatry. 19 (3): 215–229. doi:10.1080/00332747.1956.11023049. PMID 13359569

(2) Ibidem

(3) Perse, Elizabeth; Rubin, Rebecca (1989). "Attribution in social and parasocial relationships". Communication Research. 16 (1): 59–77. doi:10.1177/009365089016001003. S2CID 145109069

(4) Young, Ariana F.; Gabriel, Shira; Hollar, Jordan L. (January 2013). "Batman to the rescue! The protective effects of parasocial relationships with muscular superheroes on men's body image". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 49 (1): 173–177. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2012.08.003

(5) Eyal, Keren; Rubin, Alan M. (January 2003). "Viewer Aggression and Homophily, Identification, and Parasocial Relationships With Television Characters". Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. 47 (1): 77–98. doi:10.1207/s15506878jobem4701_5. S2CID 143790982

In this post I mentioned that I would have started talking about the original Journey to the West that will inspire works such as Saiyuki by Minekura and Dragon Ball series by Toriyama (rest in peace). Journey to the West has strong roots in Chinese folk religion, Chinese mythology, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoist and Buddhist folklore, and the pantheon of Taoist immortals and Buddhist bodhisattvas are still reflective of certain Chinese religious attitudes today, while being the inspiration of many modern manhwa, manhua, manga and anime series. The novel is at once a comic adventure story, a humorous satire of Chinese bureaucracy, a source of spiritual insight, and an extended allegory. This won't be a fresh post because it will be mostly based on these posts I wrote years ago and posted in my Tumblr account that is dedicated to Saiyuki (one of my favourite Anime), but at the same time I will add further info I gained over the years and it will be improved in terms of writing after I learned some basics of academic writing even though I don't label my posts as "academic", more like hybrid ones. This also means I will cut in six parts these posts in order to respect the original ones in terms of number. So, without further ado, let's start.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's start by saying that Saiyuki is a Japanese word, specifically it is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word (西遊記) Xijou Ji and means "Journey to the West". It is the name of one of the great Chinese novels, belonging to the group of the great classical novels. The group usually includes the following works: Ming dynasty novels Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West, and The Plum in the Golden Vase; and Qing dynasty novels Dream of the Red Chamber and The Scholars. 

There have been a number of groupings. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Water Margin and The Plum in the Golden Vase were grouped by publishers in the early Qing and promoted as Four Masterworks. Because of its explicit descriptions of sex, The Plum in the Golden Vase was banned for most of its existence. Despite this, Lu Xun, like many if not most scholars and writers, place it among the top Chinese novels (1).

These pillars of Chinese literature have influenced not only the literature, but also other arts such as the theatre, the cinema not just in China, but also in other countries such as Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

The modern 100-chapter form of Journey to the West dates from the 16th century (2). Embellished stories based on Xuanzang's journey to India had circulated through oral storytelling for centuries. They appeared in book form as early as the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279) (3). The Yongle Encyclopedia, completed in 1408, contains excerpts of a version of the story written in colloquial Chinese, and a Korean book from 1423 also includes a fragment of that story (4). The earliest surviving edition of Journey to the West was published in Nanjing in 1592. Two earlier editions were published between 1522 and 1566, but no copies of them survived (5). The authorship of Journey to the West is traditionally ascribed to Wu Cheng'en, but the question is complicated by the fact that much of the novel's material originated from folk tales (6).

I don't want to go too in depth on the work's authorship because it's not the purpose of this blog and it would become very long and maybe too academic for some readers, so let's continue with the story.

The novel has 100 chapters that can be divided into four unequal parts. For the purposes of these posts I will only focus on the second part which talks about the adventures of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang (actually inspired by a monk, Xuanzang/Tang Sanzang (唐三藏) of the Tang dynasty) who must take a dangerous journey from China to India to retrieve important sutras not available in China. As journey companions of this fantastic journey (in every sense) we have the Monkey King Sun Wukong (孫悟空), the pig Zhu Bajie (豬八戒) and the sand demon Zha Wujing (沙悟淨) and the horse Yu Long (玉龍) or Bai Long Ma (白龍馬) who is none other than the third son of the Dragon King of the South Sea and he is specifically a dragon prince.

from: https://bangqu.com/wVz7gN.html

As I said, the story is inspired by a real character who actually traveled to India to recover some sutras, since the various translations of some Buddhist texts in China said everything and its opposite, and also certain words were not translatable. So Wu Cheng'en was inspired by another text known as Great Tang Records on the Western Regions.

I stop for now, next time I would like to talk more about Great Tang Records on the Western Regions.

References and footnotes

(1) Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959), pp. 232–234

(2) Chang, Kang-i Sun (2010). "Literature of the early Ming to mid-Ming (1375–1572)". In Chang, Kang-i Sun (ed.). The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume II: From 1375. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–62. ISBN 978-0-521-85559-4.

(3) Ibidem

(4) Ibidem

(5) Ibidem

(6) Jenner, William John Francis (1984). "Translator's Afterword". Journey to the West. Vol. 4 (Seventh ed.). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. pp. 2341–2343

https://bangqu.com/wVz7gN.html

Hello everyone and serene holiday month to all people who follow me or simply stumbled across this journal. This journal will be a bit different from the rest I tend to write because it's a very personal journal about my adventure in this site after an entire year. Yes, that's it! Today is the first anniversary I decided to create an account here after DA screwed everything up with AI.

Hahahahaha, I still remember the first blog I posted here:

https://shangxian.newgrounds.com/news/4

I had yet to discover the site and its full potential as user-generated content website, in that journal I felt like a toddler who took their first steps in a world that would soon unfold before them. Many thoughts changed from the first time I wrote that journal because I originally planned to post stuff from FA (I went to that site as DA alternative due to their stance against AI but the site never truly appealed me despite the cool people I met there) and stuff only for NG in order to have a varied art gallery across the profiles. And this is well shown in the first artwork I posted since it's still in my FA page (I have yet to migrate photos and save some descriptions before I delete that account):

It's still one of my favourite piece I made there since it was inspired by a video I watched on YT and you can see it from the link posted in the description. 2023 wasn't a particularly fruitful year in artistic terms because I had joined the site practically at the end of the year, end of the year characterized by a hacker attack which I was unaware of (I will discover it months later) plus I was inactive for a good chunk of December month. Demonic Wolf was the last drawing of December, made ten days after the creation of my account.

The first drawing of 2024 is this:

Another drawing I posted on FA featuring one of major bird species I photographed in 2023 when my passion for photography arose thanks to a dear University friend, named Drugo from друг which means "friend" in Russian (it's not his real name ofc, it's how my friends and I nickname him^^), thank you and stay awesome, dear Friend!

Besides this my very first milestone on Newgrounds was this small and simple pixel art I drew from the Pixel Day:

this work was inspired by this amazing pixel artwork:

Why milestone? Because it was the work that had me scouted and gave me the very first Frontpage. I will never forget the joy of seeing it frontpaged even thought I had yet to fully grasp this concept, hence I spent lots of time reading guides like these ones to better understand it:

https://ornery.newgrounds.com/news/post/388624

https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1418778

https://lost-psyren.newgrounds.com/news/post/1461364

Ofc scouting is not everything, and I don't live for it. I live to improve my art and enjoy my stay here. I acknowledge that scouting is a good positive reinforcement tool to stimulate artists in general though, the important thing is to not become obsessive about it as I saw some people thinking only about it with the risk of sacrificing fun and confrontation with others.

With the Valentine's Day Art Collab:

my journey in this site started to take a different turn in terms of things I wanted to post because I focused more on this site and less on FA even though I still posted consistently there too but February was also the month second semester started and so my activity here dropped drastically because I had to focus on 5-6 exams in a row. I couldn't even participate in Pico Day, I hope to be able to enjoy it the next year.

Only now I realize that this piece marks the beginning of my new activity on the site:

That was first time I drew a celebrative piece for a personal accomplishment I achieved but I felt necessity to fully and finally channel what I experienced in those last summer months. Those months were an emotional roller coaster in terms of stress both with exams and real life problems of my parents. On July 11th I took the exam in German literature 3 completely in German, which went very well but my fears, anxieties and panic, generated by frustrations from past years, complicated things. I had to deal with strong anxiety attacks and even a panic attack which I controlled by focusing on breathing and mental visualization (a raven/crow feather and that's the feather you see in the composition which symbolizes my control over those fears). My mother greatly helped me a lot to find a strategy to better optimize the study and my University friends emotionally supported me, so I deeply thank you all for guiding me through this journey that felt like a Bildungsroman. You are the best!

I still want to thank the teacher who showed to be very understanding of my situation and didn't put me pressure when I spoke a language I still have to master but I love to death. Seriously I find German a beautiful language, highly poetic and intriguing that demands a lot but at the same time gives you a lot. I strongly suggest it as first fusional language since its case system is a lot easier compared to other fusional languages like Icelandic, Norwegian or Slavic languages.

The black canid-like figure represents my anxieties and fears that tried to jeopardize my exam but failed because I managed to recognize I have them but at the same time I didn't listen to them and their imaginary failure scenarios. Breathing exercises helped me to subside and eventually calm down the panic attack. The past tried to attack me but this time I didn't let it define who I am. I just accepted that I have these guys inside me and I know they will return in future in different contexts but at least now I know how to defend myself. Maybe in future I will develop further weapons to fend off them.

On NG this work was posted eight days after my exam while on FA it was posted the same day I took the exam as personal trophy^^

This work was a more personal emotional accomplishment:

because it was the first time in years I genuinely felt happy with my art, I was starting to love Newgrounds as source of inspiration and artistic growth. July-August were the months in which I joined several collabs and although I participated in collabs during my DeviantART years, NG was the first site where I actively participated in many of them, even at the same time. In August I discovered the Clock Day that gave me the second FP but what I really loved about August was The Great Homer Collab, the best collab of all collabs I took part for this year, here all the Homers I drew:

I don't want to repeat myself about how much I loved this collab, I suggest you to visit my last Homer to know more about my feelings about this event. Just know that if DioShiba wants to make future art collabs and I have spare time, I will participate again because the level of inspiration and creativity it gave me this experience will always make me cherish this collab. I just want to add that I think collabs, regardless of their nature (art, game, movie, etc.) should be like the Homer Collab: a place to have fun, get inspired, create and meet new people^^

September was the month in which I participated to some art contest like Madness Day and Brazilian Art Contest. I had fun at creating something different from what others tended to do, don't get me wrong everyone did an amazing job and showed clear superior technique to mine but I wanted to focus on more cultural aspects of Brazil, you can read about' em here:

Other cool collabs happened like the Black and Orange Collab, the Mexican Independence Day Art Collab, the Newgrounds Original Characters Cards Collab, the Ugly Cat Collab, the Halloween Collab, the OC's By Night Collab, the Alien Collab and the lovely and adorable STG 2024 NG Halloween Collab (I liked the idea of making something calm and family-friendly that would act as counterpart of the more eerie and creepy entry for the OC's By Night Collab).

Right now I am also participating in Pico-Cross Collab and Tankmas ADVENTure (my drawing will appear on December 25th), in the meantime I am enjoying playing the game:

and I took some screenshots, notably when I could see a wild Tom Fulp appearing during the first day the game was launched:

The last one is pretty funny to me because it looks like Tom offered me a burnt marshmallow XD, this might even gave me the idea of drawing something related to this funny pic.

Today I could also meet another user I see across people's blogs and I like reading his supportive words to help new users explore and use the site better, I am referring to @Gekkotsuki:

He, @Tyhond, @Aalasteir (again thank you for the support you gave me!) and @Yatsufusa are probably the best persons I ever met here on NG in terms of emotional support, help in general and depth of comments across NG, notably Yatsufusa in forum threads (I spend lots of time reading their comments and I love how deep, well thought they are; a true gem for this website) and people' blogs. The ending part of this comment they left under a user's journal deeply touched me as artist:

I will always cherish this comment, I find it the most positive thing I ever read on Internet in these last months. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

I also met other cool and fantastic people like PLJerry, Simoes1000, ElRandomGMD, Charlie57913 (thank you so much for the BBS Awards 2024 nomination^^ I think other people deserve that nomination like Yatsufusa, Gekkotsuki and Tyhond but it made me surprised and happy nonetheless, so again thank you!), SkilledFella, SchockAbe, DioShiba and many, many others that made my experience here joyful and full of happiness! Thank you too! May your dreams come true and stay always awesome!

And once I'm done with collabs (I have another to start for December 13th and December 31st) I will start the first part of the Six Fanart Challenge since I haven't forgotten some people suggested me some cool and unknown characters to me.

I also noticed that initially my journals were a lot more random but starting from the first photography journal, which is part of the Shutter-bug Chronicles journal series where I share my photos, things started to shape in a way I want for my journals: sharing my passions, limited knowledge and funny stuff.

Here the first photography journals:

https://shangxian.newgrounds.com/news/post/1475580

https://shangxian.newgrounds.com/news/post/1482125

(tw: spiders) https://shangxian.newgrounds.com/news/post/1482447

https://shangxian.newgrounds.com/news/post/1488876

And I also started other two series, the Promoting and Supporting series where I try with my small influence to promote things or people deserving to be discovered:

Promoting and Supporting: Astro Collab

Promoting and Supporting: Naruto 25th Anniversary Collab

and the Russian Diaries where in a funny and non-sensical way I talk to the Russian language as if it were a person in order to analyze my relationship with the language in a similar way I did for University when I started with English. The teacher suggested us to write down a diary where we recorded our improvement and interaction with English language. I liked the idea so much that I wanted to apply to Russian, so here the first diaries:

Russian language, here I come!

Russian diaries 1

Russian diaries 2

After I'm done with collabs for a while I want to focus on the Six Fanart Challenge, as I mentioned before, and on two sketches I plan to gradually start, the Sardinian and Kyrgyz sketches. Art is also a tool to share what I know with others, I always did and I will always do because I want to enrich my creations and not limit myself to just draw stuff. I want to give them life and meaning. In future I would like to draw even more symbolic pieces, I still have in my mind an alchemist-like piece I had in mind while reading some grimoires during October back in 2017.

I don't know what the future holds but I hope next year will be as amazing as this one in terms of interactions, art and inspiration. This website was the best thing ever happened to me in ages when it comes to Internet and I must thank Tom Fulp for making all of this possible since 1995 along with staff who helped this site to become one of the pillars of Internet culture, thank you for existing, Tom! Never change and stay awesome, guys!

Well, if you have reached the end of this loooooooooooooooooooooooooong and boring journal, thank you from the bottom of my heart! I hope you enjoyed reading the personal experience of this crazy user who decided to be part of this big family called Newgrounds, because in less than a year I already feel part of this community^^

I will leave you with this beautiful musical piece made by syphonmax

See you next time with another Russian diary, bye!

Hello everybody! Another promotion journal here and it's about one of the best-selling manga series of all time, having 250 million copies in circulation worldwide in 47 countries and regions, with 153 million copies in Japan alone and remaining 97 million copies elsewhere: I am referring to Naruto.

Cover art of the first volume of the manga series Naruto, released in Japan by Shueisha on March 3, 2000 [1]. 

Source: Shueisha

This is the 25th anniversary of this series that makes use of cultural references from Japanese mythology, Buddhism and Confucianism, and to celebrate this @MBY98 started a nice collab in which you have to choose among the 72 volumes that make the manga series in order to create this collage of artworks. The collab is inspired by 40th Anniversary “Dragon Ball Super Gallery” in which various artists from the Japanese comic industry redrew volume covers of the Dragon Ball book series.

Only ONE cover per USER, meaning that you can only draw one cover, choose from the following list:

As you can see there are still plenty of vacant covers to draw, so if you love this series and want to participate to this collab check this link below to the forum thread:

https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1536106/1

You will find more info about it and the rules to follow, now go, participate (if you want) and have fun! Believe it!

Copyright note [1]

This image is from a comic strip, webcomic or from the cover or interior of a comic book. The copyright for this image is most likely owned by either the publisher of the comic or the writer(s) and/or artist(s) which produced the comic in question. It is believed that:

the use of low-resolution images of the cover of a comic book to illustrate:

-the issue of the comic book in question

-the periodical comic book series of which this issue is a part; or

-the copyrighted comic book character(s) or group(s) on the cover of the issue in question

or the use of low-resolution images of a single panel from a comic strip or an interior page of a comic book to illustrate:

-the scene or storyline depicted, or

-the copyrighted character(s) or group(s) depicted on the excerpted panel in question;

where no free alternative exists or can be created,

qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. 

Thank you for understanding why I used the cover art of the first volume here in this blog.

Hello everybody! I'm finally back after these days without Internet. I missed this place a lot because it has become a second home to me and an extension of my creativity. In the end the problem was mine because my modem couldn't connect so Friday I had to contact my ISP and after a clumsy conversation with a bot I could contact the technician who told me a sms about problem fixing would have been sent in case of successful solving. Just a few minutes ago I got the sms and I could connect Internet. If there are other problems I can always re-call the technician, but it should be fine now.

What frustrated me the most was the potential missing of the next Takeover Tuesday because I LOVE supporting other creators and this will be the main reason I will be a supporter in future. And btw, go check the playlist I made with the artists who made wonderful creations, give them some love:

Besides this I am extremely happy I can participate collabs with calm and fun. See you next time!

Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well. As for me I write this journal to say that I won't be active until I have internet again. I haven't had it for days and it's getting frustrating since I'm participating in various collabs and I want to keep the people who kindly allowed me to be part of them updated. Unfortunately the problem is not mine, the router is fine and there is wi-fi, the problem seems to come from my internet service provider due to weather problems. My irl friend told me that she saw some work in progress in the street where the repeater is located.

Right now I'm writing from the University. I hate having to use the faculty's public wi-fi but I have no other way since I also had to deliver my piece on time for the Pico-Cross collab. I would have posted it much earlier on the server but the internet decided to flip the bird at me and not the type of bird I would like to see <.<'

I am also taking advantage of this opportunity to check some stuff for University since the change of Study Plan is getting pretty annoying since student secretary is not well organized and they have to approve my plan before 6th December or I have to wait for second semester to enroll Russian writing exam and I plan to enroll this January. So this is another element that adds anxiety to frustration.

So if you don't see me active, you know the reason. I hate writing journals like these because I want to share fun and culture not annoying problems that ruin the fun for me in this website. Oh well, see you next time I have internet connection. Bye!

Dear Russian language,

today I write this diary to keep track of what I am learning and what I still need to work on. Don't pay too much attention to the stupid meme I made, it's just a funny way to forever remember this word I memorized these weeks. As a tip I want to give to everyone who is studying a new language: make it funny and silly. Link to a word a specific feeling, colour, situation, image, drawing. Whatever helps you the most. Remember: languages are acquired the very moment you forget you are learning them.

In this weeks we studied accusative, genitive, prepositional and dative cases. When it comes to verbs we saw past tense (I love Russian past tense because it's easy to remember and you can even guess the gender of the subject using said verb, screw those hellish abominations you find in Romance languages XD) and future. We also started to see first imperfective and perfective verb couples. I plan to write down 100 times the first five couples I found; simple couples without prepositions.

ИДТИ-ХОДИТЬ= walk (on feet)

ЕХАТЬ-ЕЗДИТЬ= go, travel (by horse or vehicle)

БЕЖАТЬ-БЕГАТЬ= run

ЛЕТЕТЬ-ЛЕТАТЬ= fly

ПЛЫТЬ-ПЛАВАТЬ= swim

I also want to write conjugation of these verbs to see potential irregularities (keep in mind I am very new to the language and I started the course one month later than my classmates since I had to switch the third language), but I also need to strengthen my knowledge of how adjective works because I saw it's my weak point and I've noticed that when practicing with prepositional case.

To do so I will do extra exercises and give them to the teacher to see if I understood how they works. I can recognize if they are weak or strong but I still get confused when using endings during declension. Despite that I'm having so much fun and I am gradually absorbing what I did in these last two weeks. Currently doing some exercises for the next week so I can spare extra time for review and strengthening. My last advice: don't wait for the teacher to give you homework, do it yourself!

Well, that's all for now. See you next time!

Hello everybody, here Shang ready to share some photos of the supermoon I took yesterday. As you know yesterday was the last day where you could see the supermoon, but what is supermoon? Well it is a full moon or a new moon that nearly coincides with perigee (the closest that the Moon comes to the Earth in its orbit) resulting in a slightly larger-than-usual apparent size of the lunar disk as viewed from Earth. The technical name is perigee syzygy, hence the name of this blog title. The opposite phenomenon is micromoon which is the phenomenon when a full moon or a new moon coincides with apogee, the point in the Moon's orbit farthest away from Earth.

Here an image from NASA that compares the two phenomena:

from: https://moon.nasa.gov/news/29/teachable-moment-whats-a-supermoon-and-just-how-super-is-it/

Author: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Origin of the name

The name supermoon was coined by astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979, in Dell Horoscope magazine arbitrarily defined as:

... a new or full moon which occurs with the Moon at or near (within 90% of) its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit (perigee). In short, Earth, Moon and Sun are all in a line, with Moon in its nearest approach to Earth.

— Richard Nolle

Nolle came up with the name while reading Strategic Role Of Perigean Spring Tides in Nautical History and Coastal Flooding published in 1976 by Fergus Wood, a hydrologist with NOAA (1).

He also explained in 2011 that he based calculations on 90% of the difference in lunar apsis extremes for the solar year. In other words, a full or new moon is considered a supermoon if ld s ≤ ld p + 0.1 ∗ ( ld a − ld p ) where ld s is the lunar distance at syzygy, ld a is the lunar distance at the greatest apogee of the year, and ld p is the lunar distance at the smallest perigee of the year (2). In practice, there is no official or even consistent definition of how near perigee the full Moon must occur to receive the supermoon label, and new moons rarely receive a supermoon label. Different sources give different definitions. But the term perigee-syzygy or perigee full/new moon is preferred in the scientific community and I prefer it over "supermoon". People might not know the scientific term hence I used it in this article.

Ah by the way, what is syzygy? Syzygy is when the Earth, the Moon and the Sun are aligned, which happens at every full or new moon. The term derives from Ancient Greek συζυγία (suzugía) 'union, yoking', expressing the sense of σύν (syn- "together") and ζυγ- (zug- "a yoke").

Here some of the pics I took:

Ok, here I loved how the moon looked like a mini sun piercing through the night, when I was initially zooming.

Here I used a different mode which gave me a different colour:

Occurrence

Of the possible 12 or 13 full (or new) moons each year, usually three or four may be classified as supermoons, as commonly defined. The most recent full supermoon occurred yesterday and the next one will be on October 7, 2025 (3). The oscillating nature of the distance to the full or new moon is due to the difference between the synodic and anomalistic months. The period of this oscillation is about 14 synodic months, which is close to 15 anomalistic months. Thus every 14 lunations there is a full moon nearest to perigee. Occasionally, a supermoon coincides with a total lunar eclipse. The most recent occurrence of this by any definition was in May 2022, and the next occurrence will be in October 2032 (4).

In the Islamic calendar, the occurrence of full supermoons follows a seven-year cycle. In the first year, the full moon is near perigee in month 1 or 2, the next year in month 3 or 4, and so on. In the seventh year of the cycle the full moons are never very near to perigee. Approximately every 20 years the occurrences move to one month earlier. At present such a transition is occurring, so full supermoons occur twice in succession. For example in Hijri year 1446, they occur both in month 3 (Rabīʿ al-ʾAwwal, on September 18, 2024) and in month 4 (Rabīʿ ath-Thānī, on October 17, 2024). 

As you have noticed a full moon at perigee appears roughly 14% larger in diameter than at apogee. Many observers insist that the Moon looks bigger to them (my mother is among them XD). This is likely due to observations shortly after sunset when the Moon appears near the horizon and the Moon illusion is at its most apparent. While the Moon's surface luminance remains the same, because it is closer to the Earth the illuminance is about 30% brighter than at its farthest point, or apogee. What causes this? It is due to the inverse square law of light which changes the amount of light received on Earth in inverse proportion to the distance from the Moon. A perigee syzygy directly overhead could provide up to 0.36 lux.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120507035348/https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/16mar_supermoon/

Here a further comparison between a normal moon and a perigee syzygy:

From: Moon Compare 2011 - Suffolk, England, UK (5542637678).jpg by Karen Roe from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK, United Kingdom, 18 January 2011, 21:03 is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution 2.0 Generic license.

Effects on Earth

This phenomenon is said to cause natural disasters, and the claim of Nolle that supermoons cause "geophysical stress", have been refuted by scientists. Despite lack of scientific evidence, there has been media speculation that natural disasters, such as the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, are causally linked with the 1–2-week period surrounding a supermoon. A large, 7.5 magnitude earthquake centred 15 km north-east of Culverden, New Zealand at 00:03 NZDT on November 14, 2016, also coincided with a supermoon. Tehran earthquake on May 8, 2020, also coincided with a supermoon. Scientists have confirmed that the combined effect of the Sun and Moon on the Earth's oceans, the tide, is greatest when the Moon is either new or full. and that during lunar perigee, the tidal force is somewhat stronger, resulting in perigean spring tides. However, even at its most powerful, this force is still relatively weak, causing tidal differences of inches at most.

https://web.archive.org/web/20191022195301/http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/11/no-the-supermoon-didnt-cause-the-japanese-earthquake/#.Xa9eIJ3P32c

As an average of 1,000 earthquakes of magnitude 5 or greater (18 >= magn. 7), and multiple "supermoons", occur yearly, the law of truly large numbers guarantees that over a sufficiently-long interval, numerous "large" earthquakes will occur around the time of supermoons. Refuting the null hypothesis ("there is no relation between the variables") would entail demonstrating evidence for an alternative hypothesis, such as a statistically significant increase in earthquake frequency around the time of certain events. The inverse—formulating a hypothesis, then looking back through already-gathered data to find support (and disregarding unsupportive data)—is known as data dredging.

This is a fine example of two fallacies:

1) Texas sharpshooter fallacy ----> the informal fallacy which is committed when differences in data are ignored, but similarities are overemphasized. From this reasoning, a false conclusion is inferred

2) Apophenia ----> the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things

So be careful when observing the world around us.

I want to finish this blog with a last photo of the moon I took yesterday as way to say goodbye and see you next time:

References and footnotes

(1) https://archive.org/details/strategicroleofp00wood

(2) https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/why-experts-disagree-on-what-makes-a-supermoon/#nolle

(3) https://astropixels.com/ephemeris/moon/fullperigee2001.html

(4) Ibidem

https://web.archive.org/web/20120507035348/https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/16mar_supermoon/

https://web.archive.org/web/20191022195301/http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/11/no-the-supermoon-didnt-cause-the-japanese-earthquake/#.Xa9eIJ3P32c

Hello everybody, do you like robots? Do you like games? Do you like games with robots? Do you like collabs? Well, in this case this collab is made for you! Go check @DrSaturn2 collab in this forum thread:

https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1539594

This is a fun collab where you have to draw an Astro Bot dressed as one of your OCs, but keep in mind everything must be kept E. Let's make everything by everyone literal under the E rating. In the forum thread you will find all necessary info about the collab, the size of the artwork and other neat stuff. This is the third time I draw a robot subject and that's something I never imagined to do before fully experiencing this site.

This collab is open to programmers and composers too. You don't have to apply through Google forms, just PM DrSaturn2 and you will discuss all important stuff. What are you waiting for? Go check this collab and if you are interested apply to participate and have fun!