#Life Beyond Us

[himluv]

Life Beyond Us is finally here! This amazing anthology has 27 short stories about what life beyond humanity might look like, and each is paired with a science essay discussing the ideas in the story.

I'm honored to be included on an absolutely rockstar Table of Contents (👀 @itsaquantum) am so excited to share my story "The Lament of Kivu Lacus" with you all!

You can buy the book here!

[septembersghost]

I'm not sure if anyone has shared this yet, but it's phenomenal, and such a transcendent, emotional journey through her music.

the video is also spectacularly gorgeous, I'm in awe of the impressive talent, dedication, and time that must've gone into creating this and capturing the highs, lows, and connective tissue of these (230!!!) songs. it's like a magic distillation of why so many of us are impacted by and love her art the way we do:

[sketchy-tour]

✨DANDY COMMISSION APPRECIATION POST✨

Of course, being commissions I bought, none of these lovely beautiful pieces are by me. Credits (in order) @frillsand @weevmo @lanlishiba @parrotparfait @kandavers

I am!! GONNA attempt to gush about all these pieces without devolving into keysmashes or screams but like. A. AA. AAA. I was gonna say "yall have no idea how annoying I am about Dandy" but honestly you do. You all do because I shake my silly puppet oc around CONSTANTLY.

ANYWAY I JUST!!! AUGH! ALL OF THEM MAKE ME SO HAPPY!!! The fact I get to see Dandy in art styles I love and adore around the fandom fills me with a joy I cannot even DESCRIBE to you!! OOH I JUST!!! I love them. I love these pieces. I stare at them all the time and now I'm rattling them all around at you guys!!!!! LOOK!!! LOOK AT THESE LOVELY LOVELY PIECES RN AND CHECK OUT THE ARTISTS!!!!!

[moodlesmain]

Warrior cats anthro au where cats are all still normal cats living normal cat lives until they go Into The Wild™️ and enter the Warrior Cats magical pocket dimension. Like in The Cat Returns but also they still live in like clans in the woods and stuff. Its just the Magical Cat Woods. Do you get me do you see the vision

[cashmere-caveman]

forever obsessed w the fact that in bh lore vampires do actually die and stay dead for a short bit and then come back wrong. something that sadly never really gets elaborated on but that i find deeply fascinating bc it is implied that they remember the afterlife! which is such a cool and insane nugget of lore to give ur vampires like hello. also the implication that it scared the shit out of them, or at least out of mitchell..... can we talk about it!

mitchell eating his stupid fucking noodle box as hes waiting w the newly turned vamp to make sure he doesnt wake up alone and scared even though lauren mocks him for it!

mitchell making sure to remind george to NOT look at what's beyond the threshold when they are preparing to say goodbye to annie when her door shows up!

that little moment when annie decides to tell owen the secrets of the dead to drive him insane and george asks what that was all about and mitchell shakes his head so annie goes ahaha lol i was just improvising even though both her and mitchell know better!!!! thats their best friend who they will protect from the horrors of death as long as (in)humanly possible! they love you alive boy ♡

[rin-solo]

Pls tell me I'm not alone—

[delicioustarong]

"I had to save them"

Rest in peace, Liam. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten. 😔✊

I finally finished this, YAY! This animatic is a mix of digital and traditional art. I definitely learned a lot of tricks while making this (also, can you notice the slight difference between art styles??).

This animatic singlehandedly explains what happened to JD after his mom sacrificed him. He was definitely ready to accept his faith until he discovered Branch's was with him (which almost gave him a panic attack). It was a good thing that everyone decided to help him, and Liam (a troll around his age, maybe older?) helped him escape.

For more context about my au check this post!

I obviously don't own the audio, only the animatic. "Bruno is Orange" by Hop Along featuring Francis Quinlan, so credits to them. Here's the link

[hanhwrites]

sometimes i sit here and think 'yeah i'm a pretty normal person'. and then i remember that i am fully preparing myself to write a 20-ish page academic paper on how enjolras and grantaire directly relate to achilles and patroclus and that love and passion conquers fear and cynicism

[dykedivorce]

stuck on the fact that a small part of Dongsik hoped for 20 entire years that Yuyeon was still alive. he fantasized about coming across her in random places and was anxious about recognizing her as a 40 year old woman because he genuinely still held onto a glimmer of hope for two decades. ten years and another ten years after than. half his life picturing his sister dead and alive turn by turn. maybe even when he burst the wall open he still thought there was a chance it would be empty.

and isn't it supremely fucked up that for the enormous, cataclysmic impact that Yuyeon's disappearance had on Dongsik and the central place that his love for her occupies in his motivations as a character, the only time they interact on-screen is when he finally finds her body and tenderly cradles her long-dead hands in his.

[himluv]

Goals Summary 2023 – Wk #17

Hey, there! It's a week, which came after another week, so let's, like, talk about it or something. You know, like a week!

Well, this isn’t ideal. But, better late than never, yes? Last Week Write 3x Record Podcast Finish reading something Newsletter Prep How’d I Do? Write 3x No. But I did write once, which is better than prior weeks.  Record Podcast Yes! Finish reading something Yes! Newsletter Prep Lol, no.  Weekly Word Count: 1,150 Look. Two out of four isn’t the worst. There was a lot on my plate last…

[betterbooksandthings]

Best Fantasy Anime (with mostly female leads)

Listen, I love fantasy anime. They are fun and I love a fight scene as much as the next girl. I am relatively uninterested in male leads mostly because of the *cough, cough* excessive fan service. So, without further adu, if you are interested in some fantasy with women at the helm here's what I got.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Yona of the Dawn

Inuyasha

Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss But I'm Not the Demon Lord

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!

Fluffy Paradise

Ascendance of a Bookworm

I Shall Survive Using Potions!

The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent

Tearmoon Empire

My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for my Retirement

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

Reincarnated as a Sword

Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools

Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast for Spirits-

The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess

Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!

Management of Novice Alchemist

These ones I am keeping an eye on but signs point to a favorable outcome.

The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor

I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History

Nina the Starry Bride

[acidblum]

oh save me female protagonist in a video game please save me

[babybells123]

I’m obsessed with them already

[plusultraetc]

I ended up having way too many unfinished fics to choose from for Shinsou's birthday, none of which were ao3-ready, so have this extra long snippet of my beloved ice cream shop au that I've spent way too much time on for a fic that might never actually get posted 😭

(the context here is that Shinsou & Kaminari are trying to get erasermic together, but Kaminari didn't know he was trying to set his teacher up with the music store guy bc he's only heard about him from Shinsou)

[xnightmare-eyesx]

An idea that took up all of my brain power (shade + unshaded versions)

Jade but she's an assassin :>

(I WILL DRAW MORE OF HER LATER)

[skinnypaleangryperson]

My heart is broken over this gray world and this life dedicated to slavery by selfish people who are just playing sheep differently taking control of me and paying me so little that I can't even have a decent personal life to make up for crushed creative dreams. I hurt myself with my own imagination and how vivid it is, the TV shows that I would have liked to work on an extended with my passion and ideas, the artistry the lights, the emotion the storytelling, the storyboards and the artistic lighting that I work on every day simply because it's all that makes sense to me. These images, thoughts, storytelling, emotions, everything where I pour all of my desperation of what I wish the humanity and connection that my life would have into a couple of iPad drawings every day in the corner of an empty bedroom.

It comes across as melodramatic posting about it online, but if you were to live a day in my life with having nothing except for my raw isolated imagination in such a repetitive, soulless, compassionless gray world, where I have no connection to anyone anymore, and no one that I can share anything with and convinced I will never have a true friendship or relationship with anyone outside of baseline tolerance at best again, on top of failed motherhood and a failed creative career, you would be crying out on the internet every second you got the chance to. I haven't wanted to live this life for the longest time that I could remember, and I will never want to again. In a sense, thank God nobody cares and that I can just post about it at whatever whim that I want throughout the miserable day, because this is the only place left where I can still feel somewhat human, and where I can just be as unashamedly detailed about every single depressed and morbidly despairing thought, share some of my work, even if it's only to myself just to prove that it even exists outside of my own sick corner of the world, and generally to feel seen for a little while, Even if only by myself, which is what me and the majority of people in working class America have, with no way out, because we're not "special", And if you have an artistic vision it will break your heart more than anything else.

I especially love this scene that I came up with it during my on maladaptive daydreaming lately with my family with BoJack and Samantha and Harper. The storylines that I come up with his family and with our girls are always incredibly vivid every single day and they both still simultaneously break my heart, because I know that the vision that I share in the passion that I have and my want to share in storytelling will only ever be an ongoing sickly headspace in the back of my head while the gray reality of a life that has long since over if it ever began goes on around me without change. The beauty of the family life that I wanted to have on top of the creative dreams that I have that has projected itself into the muddled mental disorder of maladaptive daydreaming of my beautiful family with Bojack both is the only thing that keeps me going throughout the empty slave hours of my life, which is so lonely that most people I'm convinced would not be able to live it, well at the same time fills me with such a beauty and meaning taking it in that I couldn't ever let it go.