⚡Natalie Haines⭐
@lightningstar1389.bsky.social
6K followers 150 following 460 posts
(she/her) Freelance illustrator - IDW Sonic + MLP artist 🦔✍️ (CCAD 22' alum) Portfolio+ Online print shop in Linktree below ↓ 📧 [email protected] 🎨 https://linktr.ee/Lightningstar1389
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lightningstar1389.bsky.social
Figured I'd make a pinned post
--
I'm Natalie (she/her), a disabled illustrator and comic artist. I've done work for IDW Sonic and MLP (and more! 👀)✨ I’m always on the hunt for more freelance work! Reach out to me with your projects anytime

🎨 Lightningstar1389.com
📧 [email protected]
Reposted by ⚡Natalie Haines⭐
strandjunker.com
“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943
lightningstar1389.bsky.social
The first day of Halloween... 🎃
Little refresh on an old fan favorite print that I made years ago. Thought it would be fun to add some color to it finally
Reposted by ⚡Natalie Haines⭐
lightningstar1389.bsky.social
"I wish things were different. But it weren’t us who changed"
#rdr2
Reposted by ⚡Natalie Haines⭐
Reposted by ⚡Natalie Haines⭐
danny8bit.bsky.social
20 Days left on the ENDLESS FANTASIA Kickstarter!

Today, I figured I'd share the colored version of the short, 5-page comic I wrote for The sparkFLAME Anthology from earlier this year -- with lineart by @mikeluckas.bsky.social and colors by @loopyyylupe.bsky.social!

(Pages 1 and 2)
lightningstar1389.bsky.social
Hehe thanks! I'll definitely share him here from time to time
Reposted by ⚡Natalie Haines⭐
davidmariotte.bsky.social
Like, I get that taking a popular TV host off the air is hugely representative of the problems right now, but the censorious efforts of Republicans are literally trying to get trans people's existence labelled as pornography and punishable by 20+ years and $100K fines for literally existing online.
davidmariotte.bsky.social
I made a few short, sharable info posts about the things that're going on (mostly here in the U.S.) that I think people need to be paying attention to and fighting for. Trans rights, fighting against censorship, fighting for a free Palestine, fighting against all the oppressive policies in place.
•	Almost 1000 bills have been introduced in the U.S. at both the state and federal levels attacking the rights of Trans people in America. 
•	According to translegislation.com, which tracks those bills, 122 have passed, 225 are pending, and 677 have failed. As recently as 2021, only 153 bills were even considered (and only 18 of those passed). 
•	Some current big ones to be aware of:
•	In Michigan, HB4938, the "Anticorruption of Public Morals Act" would seek to imprison for 20 years, fine for $100K (or more), all "pornography", which includes in their definition, any trace of trans existence. It'd also target all actual porn, block usage of VPNs, and seek to force sites to comply to not host any sort of "adult" content, which again, includes trans people just existing. 
•	The FY2026 budget for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies would prohibit any federal tax dollars going to any gender-affirming care for trans people, and ban funding for any school that allows a trans kid to play sports. These are secs 243-46 and 311-12 respectively. 
•	Again, there are so many fucking more. 92 have just been introduced at the federal level this year. 
•	What you can do: If you live in Michigan, call your state reps to tell them to vote no. Also demand that the 5 Republican reps who introduced this bill resign in disgrace. If you live in the U.S. generally, call your reps and senators. And keep up to date on legislation in your state and in the country with translegislation.com to know what to fight against. •	In the comics and entertainment community, I also want to make sure you're up-to-date on what's been happening with trans creators. 
•	Last week, after the death of a noted transphobic white supremacist, Red Hood writer Gretchen Felker-Martin sent out a few posts on Bluesky. They referred to the man as what he was, a nazi, and didn't mince words about how he shouldn't be missed. 
•	Felker-Martin received both a week-long suspension from Bluesky and had Red Hood unceremoniously canceled within 24 hours of the first issue's release.
•	Like, canceled canceled. Future issue orders canceled, the collection canceled, offering retailers refunds for sold issues canceled. 
•	It may also be worth noting that DC's parent company, Warner Brothers, has significant business dealings with noted transphobe and person Felker-Martin once killed in a work of fiction, JK Rowling. 
•	Trans folks and their allies have already been suggesting a boycott of WB in light of their continued Harry Potter push and funding Rowling's anti-trans crusades in the UK. Now, trans comic creators and allies are suggesting a boycott specifically of DC. 
•	This isn't the only instance of our trans peers being silenced and censored. Speaking specifically to comics, on itch.io, though this has largely been addressed, when they began their panicked response to their payment processors threatening transactions for having adult content on the site, a number of non-adult trans creators had their work restricted and delisted. 
•	It only benefits the people seeking trans genocide to silence trans people. •	Closely related, including Michigan's HB4938, are numerous bills seeking to codify first amendment violating censorship. 
•	At the Senate level, there's S.1748 the Kid's Online Safety Act (or KOSA), which has never actually been significantly revised from when KOSA co-author, sen. Marsha Blackburn, said that the bill was specifically for "protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture" (a statement she "walked back", but we know the intent). It is also backed by known radicialist group, the Heritage Foundation. The bill is incredibly overbroad in what topics must be censored online as "harmful to children", including the existence of queer people, information about mental health or women's reproductive rights, and of course porn. 
•	There's also the s.1671, the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act, that seeks to create a new definition of Obscenity (and therefore non-protected speech). It's essentially HB4938 on a national level. 
•	There's s.737 the SCREEN Act, which is national age verification online, similar to the UK's Online Safety Act, especially in tandem with KOSA. The ability to punish sites for including age verification--particularly sites like Wikipedia where it isn't posting porn, but has information about sexuality--is another attempt at censorship. It also requires an unreasonable burden on most sites that don't have the capacity to safely capture users identification data (which CONSTANTLY leaks even when "securely captured"). States are also implementing these kinds of age verification policies in law (and in Missouri, the Attorney General just decided it herself), which has driven sites like PornHub to stop operating in those states. It is dangerous for online privacy and through limiting sites that can comply, acts as de facto censorship. •	Other states that're specifically going for age verification laws right now include Minnesota (SF2015/HF1434, HF1875), Hawaii (HB1212, HB1198), Michigan (SB284/HB4429, SB191), New Jersey (S4455,A4146), Pennsylvania (HB1513, SB603), South Caroline (H3405), Tennessee (Ht B222/SB466), Iowa (SF207/433, HF864), and Wisconsin (AB105/SB130).
•	Additionally, Texas, home of so many censorious bills and bills seeking to regulate trans folks out of existence, recently passed SB-20, which is incredibly overbroad in its language to prevent "child pornography" to include any depiction of children's anatomy, causing a comic shop to stop selling Dragon Ball. 
•	Beyond that, there're bills like FADPA (HR791), which while as a creator I am concerned about infringement of my copyrighted work online, has very few checks in their ability to regulate sites that may include copyright violating material (or copyright dubious material) out of existence. Fan sites, for example, could easily be destroyed by this bill. 
•	Outside of state and federal bills looking to create censorship, there is also campaigns going against payment processors, credit card companies, and banks (like Stripe, PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard, to name a few), over their policies that're significantly targeting and restricting the sales of legal, adult content. 
•	In speaking with representatives of Stripe, for example, I've both been told that the Song of Fire and Ice series would be exempt from their restrictions, and yet also, an art book with nude Greek statues would not. Therefore, it's a bad policy. Stripe also doesn't penalize accounts that're violating their policies around intellectual property or not promoting harm, given that they're involved with Substack, Amazon, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
lightningstar1389.bsky.social
Didn't know Captain Kirk was chill like that ✨
Took Rodeo to the Anthrohio picnic last week 🌵
Hope y'all don't mind the occasional fursuit posts on here lol, I'm proud of how he turned out
Rodeo, an orange, green, yellow, and teal cheetah fursuit dressed in cowboy attire is standing on a boardwalk in a canopy of trees Rodeo, an orange, green, yellow, and teal cheetah fursuit dressed in cowboy attire is standing on a boardwalk in a canopy of trees. He is looking down at someone placing a small action figure on the ground. Rodeo, an orange, green, yellow, and teal cheetah fursuit dressed in cowboy attire is standing on a boardwalk in a canopy of trees. He is stepping on the small action figure on the ground. A 0.5 lens close up photo of a small action figure of Captain Kirk from Star Trek dressed in small furry ears and a tail.
lightningstar1389.bsky.social
I specialize in painted covers and do interiors as well!
lightningstar1389.bsky.social
Figured I'd make a pinned post
--
I'm Natalie (she/her), a disabled illustrator and comic artist. I've done work for IDW Sonic and MLP (and more! 👀)✨ I’m always on the hunt for more freelance work! Reach out to me with your projects anytime

🎨 Lightningstar1389.com
📧 [email protected]
lightningstar1389.bsky.social
Don't be afraid to text or call me if you need to vent or just talk at all ❤️
Reposted by ⚡Natalie Haines⭐
danny8bit.bsky.social
Here's a little recap on who Jack Flash is and what characters inspired his creation, for those that missed it!
lightningstar1389.bsky.social
Quit lookin at me with them big ol eyes
lightningstar1389.bsky.social
TODAY!!
I'm the booth right inside the door :)
lightningstar1389.bsky.social
TOMORROW! see ya there!
lightningstar1389.bsky.social
3 DAYS!!
this Sunday I'll be at he Canton-Akron Comic and Toy Show ✨
Stop by to get some prints, stinkers, originals and more !
lightningstar1389.bsky.social
Aw thank you!! I really appreciate it 💕
I still have to make actual art for him, most of the art I have was planning stuff for his design for the suit haha so he's changed a bit throughout the process. Need to make a proper ref sheet sometime