Where's the African mythology?

Trying to paint environments more often

The witch of the midwest, Tammy Harris by fellow Indie Showrunner Dana Terrace (Insta @ danaterrace)

The Three Tomes is a Queer YA coming of age series about a bi black teen witch fighting monsters and falling for vampires. Support The Three Tomes on Kickstarter.

Inspired by @creatingblackcharacters post here, here's a list of Black creators to check out and support this month & beyond, as well as places you can support them:

@rockybloo(creator of the webcomics "Beanstalked" and "Glitter and Guilt"): I've been following them across many social media sites, beginning on Deviantart in 2018-ish, on Twitter, Tumblr and Bluesky. I have seen their work grow and flourish over the years, becoming more self-indulgent with their characters and stories, and their care and devotion for both of that shines through in their art. Their work has really inspired me as I've seen them grow as a creator through their art. Go support them through their Patreon & Ko-fi!

@btrcp(creator of the webcomic "UM"): I came across their work around 2020/2021, and have enjoyed witnessing their creative process and expressing their opinions regarding storytelling, philosophy, and a variety of other subjects. Go support them through Patreon, follow them on Twitch where they stream their work, and pick up a copy of UM: Volume 1!

@simplynovology(creator of #IndigeNovember): an amazing artist & character designer, showcasing much variety and range within their original artwork and fan creations. I'm so lucky to have first commissioned them years ago and see all the little details and things they put into their art, which makes it so uniquely theirs. Check out his Commission page and other links, and check out this link for ways to assist them financially.

@theawesomeadventurer(creator of @cryptidzdotorg): A multifaceted artist and crafter who has made many wonderful things, from paintings to jewelry, T-shirts to music. I am grateful to have gotten to have known them through their creativity and vibrancy, seieng how they move within the world as an artist and a person. Go check out their store at cryptidz.org and their linktree for more info!

@genkibutch(illustrator & fan artist): a bright and talented artist whose specialties are vivid colors, painterly rendering, and a semi realistic art style. I am blessed to consider them my creative peer and mutual; from their innovative redesigns of popular characters to their in-depth analyses of Mitski lyrics, it's been so incredible to see what they're working on and how they want to continue improving as an artist. Check out their carrd and follow them on Bluesky!

Also~

Shoutout to Micah(known as @/micah_ers on Instagram), creator of the comic "Dark Zone" on Webtoon, as well as the animated shorts "Can I Please Have A Waffle" and "Coulda Dropped My Croissant"!

Their work fits within speculative fiction, mainly science fiction and fantasy, primarily centering Black characters within the setting of Earth and the fictional planet of Danyella(the aliens are unmistakably Black coded)

Micah recently created a Patreon page where they post behind-the-scenes work connected to the world of DZ and other projects they're working on; go on & check it out!!

I'm so lucky to have witnessed the beauty, talent, passion and ingenuity of all these wonderful people I listed here!

Go check out these amazing artists, follow them, and support them year-round, not just in February!!

Happy Black History Month y'all!

i love you, Girl That Haunts The Narrative patreon * twitch * shop  

Summary: Julie never meant to become that author. She left her Killmonger fanfic days behind, but one viral fantasy novel later, a live TV interview drags it all back—right before Michael B. Jordan himself shows up. Now the internet’s in chaos, her publicist calls it opportunity, and Julie’s just trying not to die of secondhand embarrassment while the man she once wrote into 50k-word thirst fables actually wants to know her.

Julie liked to say she became an author by accident.

The truth was messier. She had always been writing, scribbling in marble notebooks, clicking away on an ancient Dell laptop that wheezed like an old man, updating fanfiction chapters on sites where usernames sounded like bad passwords. For years, she was “KillerQueen97,” an identity that felt safer than her own. Under that name, she wrote entire sagas about Black Panther’s Erik Killmonger; half-political manifestos, half-hard-core devotionals; stories where grief became poetry and desire stretched across whole pages of hard strokes, heavy moans and loads of ‘cum’.

It was indulgent, sure. But it was also practice.

That practice carried her through college, where she earned an English degree with a minor in African literature, and then through a master’s in gender studies. Julie knew the texture of theory, the sharpness of critique, the way power and desire were braided into every story. All of that, the scholarship, the politics, the way she annotated even romance novels, bled into her writing, even when she was just trying to spin another 12,000 words about Killmonger hard fucking someone against a throne.

And practice turned into something more when a tiny independent press emailed her out of the blue. They wanted to publish her trilogy of Killmonger retellings, yes, the ones that had readers typing “slow burn? she invented it” in the comments. She’d nearly deleted the email, assuming it was spam, but six months later there they were: three slim e-books with her pseudonym plastered across the cover and the tiniest print run she had ever seen. She made five hundred dollars total and thought she’d peaked.

Then came her first book. A dystopian, decolonial, anti-capitalist fantasy, dark but tender, an ode to every paper she’d ever written and every fic she’d ever posted. She wrote it while working at a publishing house, revising chapters in between slush-pile rejections. And somehow, it went viral.

Now she was on morning shows, grinning nervously while women in sequined jumpsuits asked her about her “process.”

She’d dressed the part. Her stylist had strapped her into an emerald green satin dress that curved with her body like it was in love with her. Julie was all cinnamon-and-fire: skin warm and freckled, hair a copper halo of curls, glasses large enough to double as armor. She wasn’t delicate, never had been. She was bold, shapely, impossible to ignore and she dressed in an elegance that said she knew it.

Inside, of course, she was a mess.

When Jennifer leaned forward with her devastating smile and asked, “So, Julie, if your book were made into a movie, who do you see playing the leads?” Julie’s brain immediately summoned Sandra, her publicist, like a tiny drill sergeant inside her head: Be smart. Be strategic. Say literally anyone safe. Some actor with two indie films and zero Google Alerts.

But Julie’s mouth had never been a team player.

“Keke Palmer as Shadow. And Michael B. Jordan as João.”

The audience clapped. Jennifer laughed. Julie laughed too, in that brittle, too-high way of people who know they’ve just detonated their own landmine.

And then, it did.

“Speaking of Michael B. Jordan,” Jennifer said, drawing out the pause like she’d won an Emmy for it, “we hear you used to write about him before…”

Abort. Abort. Smile. Pivot to Octavia Butler.

Julie nearly swallowed her tongue. She blinked at the cameras, at the studio lights, at the people who would soon be tweeting clips of this very moment. “I…uh…not exactly,” she stammered, attempting to look like a “serious author” rather than the woman who once wrote a 50k slow-burn where Killmonger learned to bake bread and shared two girls with his cousin T’Challa.

Jennifer, sparkling and merciless, pulled a slim paperback from under her chair. Julie’s paperback. One of the old, repackaged fanfics.

Sandra’s voice in her head: Talk about your twenties. Bring up cultural context. Smile like this was always part of the plan.

Jennifer, to the audience: “Tell us more about this…”

Julie’s heart went rogue. But she managed a half-joking, half-pleading explanation: fanfiction as community, as practice, as cultural scholarship. She talked about how fan fiction actually shaped her and million others as writers and also about how important fandom is to keep the culture alive, referenced Black Panther for credibility, sprinkled enough laughter to disguise the sweat sliding down her spine.

By some miracle, the interview ended on a high note. Jennifer hugged her, the audience cheered, and the segment producer mouthed great job from offstage.

Julie exhaled. She had survived.

"And we’re so glad you wrote about Killmonger, because we’ll have Michael on the show later.”

Julie’s soul left her body.

In the car afterward, Sandra gave her a look that belonged in the Smithsonian under Publicists Who Have Seen Too Much.

“What,” Julie said, wanting to crawl under her own skin. “What’s with the face?”

Sandra folded her arms, perfectly composed. “Do you want the short version or the long version?”

Julie groaned. “The short one.”

“You’re trending.”

“The long one?”

Sandra adjusted her oversized sunglasses like she was shielding herself from Julie’s stupidity. “Hashtags. Memes. A think piece already up on Medium about the cultural significance of your ‘Killmonger thirst canon.’ Someone just tweeted, Julie invented horny literary theory. It has six thousand likes.”

Julie slammed her head against the seat. “Sandra. He’s going to see it. Michael B. Jordan is going to find the fic where I wrote about him handcuffing someone to a radiator and giving a five-paragraph essay on prison abolition mid oral sex. He’s going to sue me. Or worse. He’s going to pity me.”

Sandra scrolled on her phone, unbothered. “You mean the one where he “dragged a finger down her spine like punctuation, like every comma was a promise”? Or the one where he invented six new ways to use olive oil for sex?”

Julie covered her face with both hands. “Stop. Stop, stop, stop. I’m going to die in this car. My ghost is going to haunt every Goodreads reviewer who gave me less than four stars.”

Sandra smirked. “Honestly? The prose was kind of good.”

Julie peeked between her fingers. “Not helping. He’s going to need therapy.”

Sandra arched an eyebrow. “Or maybe he’ll be flattered.”

Julie buried her face in her hands. “Flattered? Sandra, I wrote about him spitting in people’s mouths. That’s not flattered, that’s exhibit A.”

Julie sat up. “What? What now? Is there a TikTok of me ugly-crying in 4K?”

Sandra tilted her screen toward her. “Worse. Or better. Depending.”

On the screen was a message chain. From a number Julie didn’t recognize. But the name at the top.

Michael B. Jordan

Her stomach dropped. “That’s fake. That has to be fake. Please tell me that’s fake.”, she pleaded.

Sandra grinned like a wolf. “It’s real. His team reached out. He asked for your number.”

Julie blinked. “Why would he…? No. No, this is some elaborate scam. It’s probably just a guy named Michael Jordan from Ohio with a Samsung Galaxy Note.”

Sandra tapped the message. “He said, and I quote: Her book is actually really good. Shadow’s monologues go crazy. Ask her where she got that bread-baking scene from.”

Julie’s entire skeleton tried to escape her body. “He read it?

Sandra nodded. “Seems like it. And he knows the bread thing.”

Julie pressed her palms to her cheeks. “Oh my God, Sandra, he thinks that’s me! That’s me, kneading metaphorical dough like it’s foreplay. He’s going to think I wrote him into a carb-based sex cult.”

Sandra shrugged, smirking. “Maybe he likes carbs.”

Julie groaned. “No. No way. Give him a fake number. Tell him I’ve joined a nunnery. Tell him I took a vow of silence. Tell him…”

Sandra was already typing.

Julie yelped. “What are you doing?”

Sandra didn’t look up, her smile sharp as glass. “Oh, sweetheart. He’s Michael B. Jordan. You answer when he calls.”

@8lia-murasaki

Hey yall! Did my own interpretation of this photo some time ago and I finally have the time to share it

There’s a mixture of science fiction and fantasy characters