Alessariel's Sanctuary

Dr Glass was only three cars back from the entry point. After pondering the problem in this unexpected pocket of leisure, he got out of the car.

The other drivers looked at him, astonished, censorious. Was this muppet just up and leaving his car? Abandoning a vehicle in congestion? Were they about to witness someone making their day WORSE?

Dr Glass walked to a pedestrian crossing, a few feet upstream, and pressed the button. He turned around and got back in his car.

Enlightenment, and a cautious hope, dawned on the faces of the other drivers in the queue.

The pedestrian sequence unrolled. The red light cut off the oncoming stream of traffic. The queue was freed. The roundabout was freed.

The crowdfunding campaign for our next anthology, Wild and Full of Marvels: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Folklore and Fairy Tales, launched yesterday, and we’re already almost 50% funded and a Kickstarter “Project We Love”!

With Wild and Full of Marvels: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Folklore and Fairy Tales, our authors and artists bring our perspective as queer adults in the 21st century to the stories, some ancient, some modern, that meant the most to us when we were young. Each creator selected a folktale, fairy tale, myth, or legend that had personal significance for them, then reimagined these personal touch-stones as we wish they could be: stories that uphold our cultures, stories that impart the lessons and morals we wish to impart, stories that drive home the cautions we wish we’d received, stories in which people like us are the heroes held forth for emulation. We’ve transformed these stories to be more inclusive, more personal, more understanding of others, and—of course!—much more queer.

The book contains 23 stories, each up to 5,000 words long; 21 full-page artworks; a 4-page comic by Max Jason Peterson; and a 10-page comic by Jupiter V—a total of 46 queer fanworks inspired by stories from North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

In addition to the book, we’re offering awesome merch – two stickers, a bookmark, an art print, a slate coaster, an acrylic window hanging, an enamel pendant necklace, and a journal! There’s also a ton of add-ons you can choose from, from stories from our back catalog to Duck Prints Press merchandise and more.

Visit our campaign page TODAY to learn more about the anthology, our contributors, what we’re offering to backers, and our plans for getting this book into print with your help!

Like, seriously, women should be educated about their own bodies.

So if you're on the other side of 45 and suddenly everything is twice as difficult, you get more migraines, your blood pressure goes funny, you can't sleep and you feel like your entire psyche is unstable, you might be experiencing perimenopause. My gyn was like,oh, like think of it like reverse puberty, your entire body rearranges itself. I was like, Great, nobody ever told me it can be this bad. My GP didn't even ask me about my period or hormone levels or anything. He just told me I was probably depressed and sent me to a psychiatrist, who also didn't ask about my period or my hormones. If I hadn't experienced something akin to postpartum depression and therefore know what my body does when its hormones are out of whack, I would have had no idea.

Seriously, nobody tells you how much hormones fuck you up as a woman. Nobody prepares you for this.

I've been trying to talk openly about what's fucking me up right now, and I've discovered that it's a lot more common than I thought it was. I feel like every phase of life finds another way to fuck women over. Puberty: have fun with your period as it adjusts itself. Childbirth: prepare for a hormonal rollercoaster. PMS: oh, it can get BAD. Like, BAD. After birth: hormones out of whack for months, maybe longer. Perimenopause: can fuck up everything. Like literally everything. Osteoporosis is also hormonal. Post menopause: supposedly things get better, but they don't have to.

And I feel like we're left pretty alone dealing with all of it. And we know so little about it that we're left wondering why suddenly nothing works anymore. So we flail about and feel terrible about our sudden inability to cope with life, when it's in fact our bodies screwing with us. Again.