painting cheers me up

Kind of? I’m sure there is a much more efficient way to make this, but I was kind of winging it. But I made this in Procreate and used each box as a bead.

You can kind of see off to the side in the below picture, I figured out how many beads were in each row and then did another tally with the order of every color included on one strand. Rinse and Repeat with 105 (I think) rows of beads :)

I don’t have the papers with what colors were in every strand, and honestly they looked like the ravings of a madman so I’m not sure if they’d be helpful to anybody 😅

I’ll be much more efficient with the next one I attempt so I can share the template if that is something people would like :)

Fuji?! MeLoNiE? BANANTHONY?! I would cherish them with my whole and entire heart.

Dancing bugs. The population of an old pear-tree. 1870. Book cover.

Anything by NK Jemisin. She is the best speculative fiction writer of her generation and probably the best speculative fiction writer alive. She is easily one of the best writers working right now, across all genres. That’s not hyperbole. She deserves all the hype.

Anything by Octavia Butler. She needs no introduction. Her short fiction is incredible; “Bloodchild” is one of the pieces that inspired me to write.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. Excellent. Just read it.

The Radiant Emperor duology by Shelley P. Chan. It broke my heart and it'll break yours.

Babel by RF Kuang. You’ve probably already heard of this book because Harper Voyager marketed the shit out of it and was right to do so. It’s very, very good. Kuang writes a compulsively readable story, that’s for sure.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo.

So Long Been Dreaming: Post-Colonial Science Fiction and Fantasy (anthology) edited by Nalo Hopkinson.

Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (anthology) edited by Nalo Hopkinson.

Severely underhyped books of assorted speculative genres:

The Blood Trials by NE Davenport. Given the current chokehold romantasy has on the public it’s insane to me that this book hasn’t sold a billion copies.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez. It’ll change you.

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera.

The Lesson by Caldwell Turnbull.

Read widely. Read diversely. People of the Caucasian persuasion need to stop getting pissy when the story doesn’t immediately center them and they don’t automatically relate to everything the character says and does and is. Just let yourself get swept in the story—even if it touches on (gasp!) racism—and maybe, just maybe, it’ll reveal something to you.

Or maybe not! Marginalized sff authors do not have to and should not have to educate their readers. But if I see one more white person complain about how Black characters are fundamentally annoying because they complain too much I’m going to fling myself into the sun