*The best day of March 2022 for me, the third…was when this awesome internet moment happened…* 🥳

Next to my beloved first vector teacher, Mystic Drive, Dashohalite (also called Dash-o-Salt, on DeviantArt and Reddit) was one of the fundamental vector artists whose tutorial showed me so many vectoring foundations and taught me through his YouTube series how to be a better vector artist. Because of him, my transition between the 2019 style to where I am now was made. I would have never been vectoring movie style nor at this quality, were it not for this awesome guy…

Skip ahead to March 3rd this year (2022), and I decided to take a leap of faith. I had seen his Reddit around back in 2021 after doing a general search of his YouTube name, but had never made the attempt to contact him as I hadn't seen any activity on his YouTube for a long time. But that day, I decided to go for it. For that sole reason of hopefully meeting the icon behind my vector success, be it even just online — I created my own Reddit account, same name as this one. I sent him a gratitude note for his work and positivity, but was still unsure whether or not he was active on R/MLPLounge where I'd seen him originally.

Call it luck or coincidence…but this was a pure happy miracle for me. The same day, only a few hours later… Dashohalite responded to my post! I was so excited and shocked all at once, I almost lost myself! I screenshoted that glorious moment into my memories and quickly raced out of my Gmail to respond on his post. He was thankful for my kind words and told me about what had happened these past nine years since his extraordinary series. Most shocking to this writer was that — I found out he is a fellow writer! :D (Well… more an adult natured novelist, but you feel me \^u\). He is also now more involved in the anime culture (not really my thing, but I can respect it for some MLP influence in that awesome Season 4 finale nearly ten years back ;3), and has since published, in addition to his novels, a self-publishing help guide for Amazon. And he was appreciative of the love for the work he has done in the MLP community, albeit if even only for a short while (which I can certainly testify to). All in all?

*Dashohalite is back and doing better than ever!* 😇

I am so thankful God gave us the chance to meet (now I'm just waiting for my favorite artist to come, but I believe it will happen super soon 😁). And in honor of a day a month gone by that I don't want to forget, I created this vector! Us sharing a powerful internet hug, through my laptop (because why not :D).

While this vector took around five hours on and off, and had some difficult constraints — especially on getting him masked with the laptop screen, still working on learning that 😅 — it was worth it for preserving this beautiful moment. So blessed 😌💗🙏

Gotta admit translucency hugs are a wittle bit complicated though. ;D

We are still connected on Reddit too. Best account opening ever? Thankful for it. 🥰🤗

Wall texture is Pointillism. And carpet texture is…Silk Carpet! Duh! 🙄😆

Based on Twilight and Pinkie's telekinetic hug from The Best Gift Ever (another big-time favorite MLP special of mine, because ponies and Christmas are my favorites 🎄🥰) in >>1867938.

Hope you all enjoy this tribute to an amazing vector legend…but, even more so, the amazing person behind. 🎖️⭐ ✨

Male and female tag tralindrome milestone (111). *And cute face palindrome #171.* 🥳🎖️