My name is mispronounced so often I go by several different names/nicknames just to avoid it— I go by anything from Lulu to Hey, you. Hana means blossom or flower, which is fitting since I adore flowers. (My favourites are chrysanthemums.) I’m originally from Wyoming, but grew up in southern Japan. Sometimes I think I dreamt it. 

 

My father claims he doesn’t remember a time that I wasn’t drawing. I have always been The Art Kid. During the first UK lockdown of 2020, I did one watercolour portrait a day for twenty-four days. (I drank tea and watched Coraline for the last few days, and the smell of English Breakfast Tea still smells like Coraline to me.) I can’t see very well, and got my first pair of glasses at the age of seven. I have fantastic hearing and smelling, and I sometimes think my other senses are making up for my lack of vision. I almost always have my headphones on; they (and my glasses) are part of my character design.

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My favourite books as a child were Frog and Toad, which I’m pretty sure shaped who I am as a person. I collect postcards, rosaries, and antique keys, and I use a dollhouse as a bookshelf. I love old things, and I have personal beef with anyone who takes an old house and turns it into a white, minimalist box. My handwriting is wildly inconsistent, and I’m good at typing on a keyboard, but not on my phone. I’m a good speller, but you wouldn’t know it from texting me. 

 

I hate using acrylic paint and I love watercolour, even though no one ever actually taught me how to use it— I have my own weird method. I love colour even if my artwork doesn’t reflect it, and I used to dye my hair every few weeks. (It’s been blue several times, as well as pink and purple and black and white. It’s my natural colour now, for Health™.) I love pomegranates, mismatched mugs, bugs, lighthouses, clowns, and the moon. I celebrate Halloween year-round, and I adore ghosts. If I could have any unconventional animal as a pet, I would want a grizzly bear. They’re friend-shaped.

 

I really love birds. My favourites are crows, but magpies are a close second. (I relate to them both— I too make weird noises and gather trinkets.)