tinny

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.

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:

TV finished

Nothing, sob.

Okay, maybe I could count the complete video of Wu Lei's birthday livestream (from his birthday in December) which I found on youtube? It's about an hour long, and I watched that a few times until I understood at least some very small parts of it. Yay? That took up a lot of time, too, lol. eowuli on twitter promised to sub it, but I haven't seen a subbed version of it yet. The raw is here on youtube.

TV new (ongoing)

I'll count Saint Pierre here. The second season has started, and I have now watched one episode. I had forgotten how much getting used to Arch's French accent takes. I had no trouble with it (loved it, in fact) by the end of season 1, and I'm surprised that I'm apparently starting from scratch again now. I don't know why I missed the show so much, but I did, and I'm happy to have it back. The first ep took me right back into the town and the characters. I'm looking forward to the season.

TV continued

The Company (16/30), the time-traveling cdrama. I watched eight episodes of that this month. Still enjoying the BL vibes, wondering if they really put them in there intentionally or if I'm just wearing slash goggles. Peak time travel shenanigans in ep 10, then they set logical boundaries, and then immediately broke them again, lol. :D They are adorable. I'm definitely enjoying the show more than I thought I would, even though I expected more time machine shenanigans in the latest plotline, but my guess as to what had happened was completely wrong, lol. :D Overall, now that I'm about halfway through: I find some of the show a bit preachy, but not overly so. It hasn't turned me off yet. Most of it is just fun, and I find it surprisingly engaging! It's on viki.

I watched four more episodes of The Cross-Dressed Union, now on 22/24. It really is a fun watch, and even the grasslands sidequest was kind of satisfyingly resolved and integrated into the rest of the plot. I was surprised. Sadly, I then lost track of it, I really should just finish it, there's not much left. I definitely rec it. It's on youtube.

Three eps of Bridgerton Season 4! Watchalonging this, and we're all caught up now for the second part of the season. I loved the Queen in ep2! I didn't expect them to make her this obvious. Her reaction to Agatha's announcement in ep1 was pretty obvious to me, but seeing it play out like that was *chef's kiss* and made me cry. For some reason, I'm not really invested in Violet's storyline anymore this season? I liked it better last season. But her line in ep4 was hilarious, I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. :D My favorite character continues to be Penelope. <3 Sophie is starting to grow on me, too. The cliffhanger after ep4 is painful, but I thought it was quite logical. I have no complaints, really.

Two eps of Our Times (05/38), the 90s retro "IT students go professional" cdrama with Wu Lei and Hou Minghao. I still just find Wu Lei and Hou Minghao in (ugly!) period dress and hairstyle very very adorable. The bromance vibes are through the roof. So far, all lead characters are being trodden on repeatedly, to really firmly establish their underdog status. I'm sure that'll change throughout the show, but for now, this is exactly my thing. The embarrassment squick is relatively strong so far, but I made it through and am confident I will continue to do so. (I now have an active icon for it. That escalated quickly. :D). It's on wetv and youtube.

TV (dropped)

Nothing, I hope?

Shows for which I have fewer than 5 eps left but haven't watched a single one all month: The Long Ballad (1) and Love on the Turquoise Land (4). /o\

Rewatches/Watchalongs

The Nothing But You watchalong is now on ep 20. \o/ Enjoying the hell out of this watchalong.

Bridgerton season 4 hasn't gripped me. I'm not sure if it's because I'm not watching it on my own, or if it's the show itself. Who knows. We do both enjoy it, though.

The When A Snail Falls in Love watchalong is now done! \o/ The last episode was actually a little better than I'd feared. I don't regret watching it. We have now also started Nothing But You, I can never watch that too many times. <3

Because those rainbows really work best when viewed as a set, here's my submission for the fourth special round at lgbtrainbow:

I didn't watch many lgbtq+ things that I liked last year, but Heated Rivalry exceeded all my expectations. \o/



( 3 alts )

Concrit welcome! Comments adored! Credit appreciated! Take and use as many icons as you like. If you want to know whose textures and brushes I use, take a look at my resource post.

Previous icon posts:

The current round at retro_icontest is the Icon Crossing round from somein30. I had been working on sets for 2023 and 2024 already, but never finished them. I'm using this round to post those icons I made then, along with the new ones. I also randomized new pairs for 2025 and made new crossover icons for those. As suspected, this was so much fun, and I made a lot more icons than expected. In fact, I don't think I've ever made this many icons for a contest in one month before. Some of them are hilarious crack! :D Luckily, retro_icontest has no upper limit, so here you go:

Enjoy!

05.
->
31.
->
32.
->

( 40+6 icons!! - Lots of Wu Lei PLUS 2 Heated Rivalry, 3 DMBJ, 2 Zhu Yilong, 1 Guardian, and 1 Bai Yu )

Comments are love - and concrit, too. <3 Take and use as many icons as you like, credit is appreciated. Texture and brush makers: here in my resource post.


Previous icon posts:

I was way more tired after the holiday vacation than I had hoped. But I had time and energy to watch a few things:

TV finished

Nothing, lol.

TV new (ongoing)

The first eight eps of The Company (8/30), a cdrama about a time-traveler from the future (his tardis is an antique shop, but otherwise... even his face reminds me of David Tennant). It looked fun from the trailer, and even though the first episode threw me off a little with weird pacing and repetitive humor, it also sets the two male leads up as eternal lovers, and I still can't shake that feeling even after eight eps. I think both pacing and humor improved from there, and I think I've figured out the structure of the show, and for now it's one I like? I don't think this is spoilery at all, because I'm not far in, but I will cut it anyway.

what i think this show is about

It seems to be a string of romance-of-the-week cases that all more or less echo the ML's life (and partnership with the other ML). It's quite neatly done, the fact that he caused all those disruptions in the timestream with his obsession over the death of his lover friend, and now all those artefacts are in the hands of other loving couples and he has to fix them, all the while knowing that he would do (and has done) the exact opposite of what he's now supposed to do. For love. I do like the relationship between the two male leads, too. One of them pretends to be all high and mighty but really is the biggest fool for love, as evidenced by the whole artefact mess, and the other is playful and openly romantic, and the combination is just very cute. I love me some unreliable narrators when it's all about feelings, and Bi Zhi is peak unreliable. He finally, in ep 6, got the idea to use his all-knowing time machine to find out the other's origins once and for all, i.e. whether he's his long-lost lover or not, and he said he's not emotionally ready. Heeee. I buy that!

Anyway, I liked all the artefact cases so far, there was finally some timey-wimey-ness, and I will continue watching. It's on viki.



Someone on c_ent mentioned the Cross-Dressed Union, and it drew me in almost exclusively for a while. It's a costume drama about a man who's disguised as a woman who has to marry a woman disguised as a man. It's a new enough take on an old idea that I found it intriguing. The quality is middling, especially the sound is full of background noises sometimes, but the subs are decent (except for the gender shenanigans, they get those only about 50/50 right). There are 24 half-hour episodes, and I'm now on ep 18 and adore both leads. They get the secrets out of the way fast (like by ep 4), and from then on they seem to be smitten with each other. I just enjoy the way they smile at each other. So cute. (I skip all the politics, and so far have not regretted it.) It got a bit too sappy for me in the middle, and I lost interest what with the grasslands tribes sidequest. But as long as the leads are in the same scene together I'm happy (sappiness or not), and I'll likely watch the rest of it soon. It's on youtube.



Bridgerton Season 4! It's been two years since season 3, so this goes under "new". :D Watchalong-ing that one. I hope they'll manage to make it more interesting than the book was. It's Benedict's book, and I'm never a fan of Cinderella retellings. So far I've seen one episode and am planning on keeping a one-a-week schedule for the first half-season. That first ep was very sumptuous, the ball room looked much better than it had any right to :D, very much like a fairy tale, which fits the theme I guess. My favorite parts were the Queen being unreasonable as always, Eloise, and Penelope in her excellent pirate costume. (Note that neither Benedict nor Sophie make my list. Sophie is too new, I think. I don't dislike her like I do Benedict.) Fwiw, I did like what they let Benedict do before he came to the ball. Better a little fanservice than no fanservice. On Netflix.

TV continued

Still The Long Ballad (47/49), and I still don't want it to end. I watched exactly one ep in very small parts throughout the month and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Love on the Turquoise Land (28/32) - I watched eleven eps of that this month O_O, and I'm not even skipping anything, the pacing is all good. Once I got over my "omg these vampires are so illogical" reaction, I really started enjoying it, and am just cackling at them by this point. The small moments are still what make this show for me, the lead couple are great together.

mildly spoilery details

She goes to a sword fight with a waterproof (blood-repellent?) sacrificial robe omg! :DD The subterfuge in those middle eps is amazing. They meet in a restaurant, carrying on two completely unrelated conversations! Something I haven't seen done since the old 1960s British crime capers. There was a torture scene I really could have done without, but I enjoyed the kidnapping plot line quite a lot, and I warmed up to the doctor and sister characters. The vampire hunters are now moving towards the final confrontation, and that part is a bit... um... ridiculous again. Weird riddles that apparently none of the hunters bothered to memorize, long treks through the woods, a living mountain which is really icky (but cool!), and the vampires being as overdramatic as ever. The romance made a tiny little step forward, and I really like their relationship, but I had expected a bit more sexytimes than I got (which is none).

I am looking forward to the ending, I really enjoy the show despite its ridiculousness. It's on viki.

Our Times (03/38), the 90s retro "IT students go professional" cdrama with Wu Lei and Hou Minghao. I lied apparently misremembered last month when I said I was on episode 3. I only watched that episode yesterday. Oh, well. I enjoyed it, the retro vibe is wonderful, and old computers are an interest of mine, so that's also a point in its favor. Wu Lei plays an overconfident idiot, I'm here for that, too. And the bromance between him and Hou Minghao's character is strong. It's on wetv and youtube.

TV (dropped)

I'd really been planning on finishing A Moment But Forever, let's see if that's still happening. I made it to ep 27 in November and nothing since.

I started The Demon-Hunters Romance and watched five episodes. While I like the idea of it, and the demons were both good and bad and extremely different in size and shape, the character details put me off. Too many identical demon fights (the same demon is fought more than once too), relatively one-note secondary characters (her cousin and his nemesis, the policeman), both leads have stupid sidekicks, and both leads love to not speak up when asked (even when they were clamoring for attention a second earlier), instead they just pout and make the other run after them. So annoying! I gave up. It's on youtube with French hardsubs (and English softsubs).

Another mention from c_ent: Angry Wind, a modern cdrama with some kind of time-skip. I tried only the first ep, so I didn't quite understand what it's about. The quality reminds me of early 80s Hong Kong action movies, and the sound is really bad. It has a long-haired ML, but he's so much not my type that even the long hair isn't helping. The first eps are on youtube, but I'm not sure how many are (there is no playlist), and the rest is on wetv.

Not quite dropped, but also not really picked up: I started both Shine on Me and Riverside Code at QingMing, about 20 minutes each, and did not get the appeal of either. I will likely try a bit more of both before I give up, though.

Movies

On maggie33's repeated rec, I finally managed to find the movie Upcoming Summer with Wu Lei and Zhang Zifeng (it's on Netflix), and fell in love. With Wu Lei. Again. :D What a wonderful movie. It's a coming-of-age movie, and as such fleeting and bittersweet. The leads are crying *a lot*. I loved it. The ending is a bit abrupt, some things I would have loved to know more about, but most things are explained, and you know that this was just a glimpse into their lives and an important step in their journey of growing up. It does get its message across beautifully, so I don't mind the ending too much. There's one big reveal very near the end that is easy to miss and very unexpected, and it made me rewatch almost the whole movie again the next day, and I'm still not quite free of it even now. I'll likely write up a review.

Rewatches/Watchalongs

The Nothing But You watchalong is now on ep 15 (*sobs*). They are so adorable, even this early on. This watchalong is so much fun. <3

We're going to split our time between that and Bridgerton for the next four weeks, though. I haven't seen the new season yet, and it's unusual for me to do a watchalong for something I haven't seen. But we'll see how it goes.

The When A Snail Falls in Love watchalong is almost done, only two eps left. Omg those last eps really drop the ball on the logic big time. Much better than Parallel World, we both agree, but I think we'll be happy once it's done.

Because I haven't finished any more Wu Lei dramas yet, and like looking at my ~800 pics of Wu Lei a lot, I'm starting another type of Wu Lei picspam, featuring different looks of his. This first one: all pics in which he looks ethereal, tall and thin.

Other Wu Lei picspams so far: Nothing But You, Amidst a Snowstorm of Love

All 53 pics separately downloadable in full size from this gallery: https://postimg.cc/gallery/696GW6J

or in one zip file here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/yfdnfrt9a350nwq/wulei_picspam_elf.zip

Enjoy!



( 52 more )

I've made 19 icons from these (or ones from the same photoshoots) so far:

( 15 more )

This set took me much longer than it should have, considering this is my fave pairing right now. But once I sat down to finish it, I had fun again! It's for round 04 at ships20in20.

Enjoy!

Teasers:


( 20+3 icons of Ashile Sun and Li Changge from The Long Ballad )

Every single comment is treasured. All icons shareable! Concrit welcome. Check out my resource post for makers of textures and brushes I use.

Previous icon posts:

Heated Rivalry dominated December:

TV finished

Heated Rivalry! It was so good! It's on HBO Max and Crave. I really liked the first two episodes, there was a ton of sex, and other people much more eloquently explained why that's not a bad thing: the sex is the plot!
I hated ep three, depriving me of the main pairing I love, but I see how it's necessary as context for later episodes. Since I knew that going in, I waited until I was ready for it and just treated it like a different show. That worked for me. I loved the last three episodes again, there was a ton of romance. *A lot* of thought went into the show, and it's all intentional, and that's such a change from the things I usually watch where I rant at the writing all the time. Here, there's almost nothing to rant at. Plus, it's pretty much exactly what I'm most looking for in a tv show: m/m sex and m/m romance. \o/ I will probably read some of the books this year, and likely write up a review for the show if I find the time.

For now, let me direct you to

* my friend machinistm's heated rivalry tag
* the heated rivalry comm gamechangerhr
* the hockey podcast "What Chaos!" reacting to every single episode with genuine enthusiasm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us7Pok5nDRc

TV new (ongoing)

Love on the Turquoise Land (17/32) - a modern fantasy/horror cdrama with Dilraba Dilmurat as a mystical sword fighter. I started watching for her, and by now probably would still be watching even if she wasn't on it. It's ... not good, exactly, but I love it anyway? I got over halfway through it in a few weeks. The horror aspect is not my thing at all, but it was only strong in the first episodes, and after that it started focusing more on vampire rituals and a general good vs evil fight and the horror took a backseat. I'm happy with that! I am very much enjoying Dilraba's actual voice (yay! she doesn't usually get to dub herself! This is cool!) and seeing her fight monsters. I am ranting at how illogical all the vampire lore is (they're called Earth Fiends but everything screams vampire to me), but fwiw once you disengage your science brain, it's fine. Giving the vastly overpowered FL a damsel-in-distress moment made me grit my teeth, but it did lead to the ML taking care of her for three eps straight, and I am not complaining about that at all. The character interactions are really good! I love the fighting, bantering, h/c, and budding romance between the ML and FL. The central mystery sounds interesting, and even though I don't trust the book author (who also wrote Parallel World) to plot herself out of a wet paper bag, the plot seems to hold together so far. Since Heated Rivalry has finished, this is the show I'm most motivated to watch right now. It's on viki.


Our Times (03/38), a 90s retro "IT students go professional" cdrama with Wu Lei and Hou Minghao. The costumes are amazing (bell bottom jeans and corduroy jackets galore), and I really am enjoying the retroness of it all, especially the way the cut scenes are interspersed with actual old footage from Chinese cities, e.g. the construction of the tower in Shanghai. I immediately imprinted on Wu Lei's character (who is a bit of an arrogant asshole but gets beaten up twice in the first episode woah, see another cap). I only watched three eps so far, but liked those a lot. The only downside is that the show triggers my embarrassment squick (they are so incompetent as computer salesmen omg!), so I have to go through it slowly with many breaks. We'll see. It's on wetv and youtube.

TV continued

Still The Long Ballad (43/48), I don't want it to end. omg why do I love this show so much? I haven't loved a historical cdrama this much since Lost You Forever. Whenever Ashile Sun is on screen I go awwwwww. I'll enjoy the rest of the drama at a slow pace, while it continues to give me life. <3

I haven't dropped A Moment But Forever yet, but also haven't watched a whole ep this month.

TV (dropped)

I got halfway through Love at Night, and once the leads got together, which always makes me happy and is the main reason I watch anything, I immediately lost my motivation to continue, lol. I guess it just wasn't otherwise good enough. I might pick it up again, once I'm done with Turquoise Land? Maybe? I'm not holding my breath, though.

I realized that To My Shore is airing now, a Chinese BL (one of those sneaky international China-Thailand co-productions), and I watched half an ep, but I think it's too dark for me. For whatever reason, they keep picking the non-con ones to produce. *sigh* I prefer my romance consensual.

Extraordinary, a shorty cdrama with 20 15-min episodes about a computer nerd who transmigrates into a playboy in the past and basically transforms his family into the richest family around using his modern knowledge of business and weaponry. There's a cross-dressing FL (who he immediately sees through, lol), but otherwise it's mostly comedy of the type I'm not too fond of, and I dropped it again after a few eps.

Rewatches/Watchalongs

The HPI watchalong finished season 5. Unfortunately, there are no subs (yet) except French ones. We tried auto-translated English ones *once* and then decided that French will have to do. We enjoyed it very much but now it's over. *sob*

We started Nothing But You after that. Now on episode 6 already, we're going through it fast because we don't want to spend a year on it. So far looking good in the *show everyone how good this cdrama is* department. \o/

Still watchalong-ing When A Snail Falls in Love with my other friend, and will move on to Nothing But You after that as well.

I had expected the first Snowflake Challenge to be "update your intro", so I did that. :D It wasn't quite that, though. The first part of the challenge was "introduce yourself", so I guess close enough. :D Snapshot of my current dw profile page:



I only updated the icon comms and changed a few icons in the color bars. Nothing much new, really.


The second part was "why do you do the challenge and what you you hope to gain from it"? Idk? I'll just see which challenges speak to me and then I do them. I did this in previous years as well, and it suits me fine. I usually just pick a few challenges that I like, no more than five, usually, and then I do those.

Here's my post from 2025: challenges 2-6 challenges 14+ and my own

Here's my post from 2024: only challenge 5, the icon scavenger hunt

Here's my post from 2023: challenges 5-10, 12 and 13

Lets see what this year brings, shall we? :D



What I'll also do this year is try and think about my creative process, and there's a new comm for that:


cultivativity

I'm looking forward to this, too!