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sparklemaia.bsky.social
@sparklemaia.bsky.social
64 followers 110 following 100 posts
comics, crafts, & feelings
she/her/they 🏳️‍🌈
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sparklemaia.bsky.social
a collection of fuzzy black pompoms made out of yarn with googley eyes glued onto them so that they look like the soot sprites from the movie My Neighbor Totoro, hanging from the ceiling with strings of tiny colorful paper stars.
November 6, 2025 at 3:39 AM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
our nonstandard offering to trick-or-treaters was VERY popular this year (we had a bowl of candy too)
A woven square basket full of river rocks with googly eyes glued onto each one, with a handwritten sign inviting trick-or-treaters to "take a friend! (and some candy)"
November 1, 2025 at 4:07 AM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
made Creatures with the 4yo. Then my housemate made fan art of them. god, being alive is so cool sometimes
Two little creatures made of white clay, googly eyes, beads, twine, and wooden skewers. The one on the left is sitting on its haunches and has four cute little paws and a lumpy tail and a weirdly rumpled flat head with a giant googly eye stuck on it off-center. The one on the right vaguely resembles a lumpy snowman but with oversized beads for buttons and a hat, twine that might be a scarf or a very muppety and sad mouth, and googley eyes set so far apart they look like they're about to fall off, plus it has wooden skewers for arms that are so long they extend beyond the edge of the frame. All in all they are equal parts charming and cursed. A digital illustration of the two clay creatures from the previous picture. This rendition somehow makes the one-eyed one on the left look baffled and possibly concerned, and the snowman-ish one on the right looks just completely unhinged. They're perfect I will take no criticism
August 16, 2025 at 2:00 AM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
I would take a cataclysmic meteor for this pterodactyl the 4yo drew as a game piece for a board game
a child's ballpoint pen drawing on a scrap of paper of what is allegedly a pterodactyl but looks more like if Kirby and Finding Nemo mutated into a cursed amalgamation that had haunting black scribble eyes and a gigantic open mouthed smile and stubby round wings
July 27, 2025 at 7:05 PM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
I am him and he is me
A photo of an office chair viewed from behind with the arms up. An opening in the backrest resembles a screaming mouth, and two paper eyeballs have been added above that, so the overall impression is that the chair is shrieking in horror with its arms in the air.
July 21, 2025 at 3:31 PM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
Literally same
July 17, 2025 at 3:54 AM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
I have chosen my next set of housemates well
July 13, 2025 at 12:31 AM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
We will fight for you to do whatever the hell you want with your own body, fiercely and forever 💜 (free pdf available at sparklemaia.gumroad.com/l/2friends2years, and I'll mail physical copies for free anywhere in the US if you dm me!)
Image 5: Back cover of the zine. Text at top: "While we recognize our privilege in being able to access top surgery, it's not fair that it requires privilege!" Beneath this, Maia and Liam defiantly hold bricks in their hands while standing behind a crumbling brick wall, saying, "We will fight for your right to do whatever you want with your own body!" Under the wall is the text "Everyone deserves access to medical care that helps their body feel like home" with a heart symbol to the right of the last word. At the bottom are the artists' links, with cartoon heads beside their respective info. For Maia: "linktr.ee/sparklemaia" and instagram account "sparklemaia.art". For Liam: "linktr.ee/LMPerttula_design" and instagram account "LMPerttula_design". Beneath is a creative commons license symbol, dated June 2025.
July 2, 2025 at 2:30 AM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
My friend Liam and I just released a mini-zine to celebrate being two years post-op from top surgery!
Photos of a hand holding a printed zine in front of green plants, progressively turning pages for each image. Art is inked in a simple style, and shaded in greyscale. Image 1: Zine cover. Title text reads: "two friends, two years since top surgery!" Metallic scissors snip through a curling ribbon decorated with the words "two friends, two years," the word "since" is a script font centered below, and "top surgery" is inside a speech bubble coming from illustrations of the artists in the bottom corners. Maia, on the left, has one hand up and is wearing a t-shirt with a bicycle graphic; Maia has short hair that's slightly longer on top, earrings, and glasses. Liam, on the right, is wearing a plain t-shirt and has buzzed hair with a long topknot. Image 2: Pages 1 and 2 of the zine. Left page: Text at the top surrounds an illustration of Maia as a bust, with twisting smoke covering her chest. Top text: "I didn't hate my chest, exactly. It just never felt like it belonged." A rounded black rectangular section with white text reads: "Dysphoria manifested as a disconnect between my brain and body." Chains break on both sides of the word "disconnect." Below, Maia walks down stairs, holding books tightly to her chest. Text reads: "Repeatedly encountering the reality was an unpleasant, jarring surprise--like missing a step." Right page: Maia, wearing a striped t-shirt and smiling with one hand on her chest, holds up her phone to take a photo. The rounded black rectangle behind frames the white words: "Top surgery has given me a peace that's hard to articulate." Grey steam spirals from beneath this text into the bottom of the page, coming from a mug that a seated Maia contentedly holds with two hands. Text to the left: "It's like taking a hot shower and then putting on the softest, coziest pajamas that fit just right. It's a quiet 'yes'-ness, a joyful resonance." Image description continued in reply below. Image 3: Pages 3 and 4 of the zine. Left page: Three illustrations of Liam as a young kid with long curly hair, implying the passing of time from left (youngest) to right (oldest). The first two look down with discomfort, while the third is typing at a laptop, frowning. Text on the page splits across the illustrations and reads: "I wanted the weight off my chest long before I knew that the word for the knot of feelings living there was dysphoria." A black squiggle covers the chest of each iteration, scrawling down the page beside the text and becoming the word "dysphoria" at the end of the sentence. An older Liam with short curly hair holds the end of the unraveled line, eyebrows raised. Right page: At the top is an illustration of Liam in a side profile view, hunched forward with their fist curled towards their chest, over a dark background made of zigzag lines. Text at the top reads: "I hadn't truly realized how loud that dysphoria was--until it wasn't." The last part of the text breaks into the light section of the panel, alongside a zigzag shape that leaves the large mass above and slowly disappears as it reaches another Liam, standing upright and holding a hand to their chest. They smile in relief. Text beside them reads: "Now it is quiet, every breath a connection with my body." Image 4: Pages 5 and 6 of the zine. Left page: Maia holds a pair of scissors and a set of four cutout hearts. She says, "Top surgery for me was less about my gender identity and more about my body feeling like mine." The word "mine" is written across the hearts. Maia continues: "Even though my experience doesn't align with a 'typical' f to m transition, top surgery was 100% the right choice for me." Beside this text is a Sharpie marker and a name tag. The name tag reads: "Maia she/her" with a smiley face. Below is Liam as a floating head, above five cutout people in different skin tones holding hands. The middle person has lines across their chest and is surrounded by tiny cutout hearts. Liam says, "For me, it was both about my identity and about crafting a more comfortable space to exist in." Right page: Top text reads: "We believe access to top surgery is fundamentally about the right to bodily autonomy." Maia and Liam hold either side of a large pair of scissors, cutting through a ribbon with the text "bodily autonomy" on it. Below, more text reads: "Though we each have different relationships to gender, we both chose top surgery to feel at peace in our bodies."
July 2, 2025 at 2:24 AM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
it's make a terrible comic day and this... this is a terrible comic. Drawn in 5 minutes in my notes app with my finger in a moving train. I am never making comics this way again 😂
June 24, 2025 at 5:11 PM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
Update on the race between finishing my thesis and this toddler cardigan I've been knitting: finished thesis first but finished the cardigan the night before my thesis review so really it was kind of simultaneous
April 30, 2025 at 3:05 AM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
How much will the school librarians hate me for generations to come if I include all of these random objects in my thesis box (I am doing it anyway)
March 9, 2025 at 2:24 PM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
you ever get so frustrated and overwhelmed that you have to take off your pants to calm down? Coincidentally I finished knitting the neckline of this sweater while pantsless
February 11, 2025 at 4:53 AM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
February 8, 2025 at 9:36 PM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
February 8, 2025 at 9:36 PM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
February 8, 2025 at 9:35 PM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
February 8, 2025 at 9:34 PM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
February 8, 2025 at 9:34 PM
sparklemaia.bsky.social
Hourlies! a thread
February 8, 2025 at 9:33 PM