#How to be human

[wanlingnic]

Character design/concept art I did for How to Be Human!

Designing the protagonists, based on the author's directions, was my favorite part. My intention was to ensure kids could - with just a glance - immediately understand their personality!

As always,big shoutout to the Authors, Zed Yeo, and Tan Yi Lin, and Editors Melanie Lee and Melvin Neo!

The books are in the process of being released now - so it might take a few months before all 6 books appear at your retailers.

If you're in the UK, check your listings on on W H Smith.

If you're in the USA, the books will be released be on Amazon.

If you're in Singapore - get them wherever good books are sold!

[cosmogyros]

Time for a Proper Pinned Post (PPP)!

My name is Jinx. You can call me that or Cosmo. Any pronouns. I am not as old and crotchety as I act, but I'm still a full-grown adult.

I am first and foremost a songwriter, and you can listen to my songs right here on Tumblr or elsewhere on the internet.

If you like my music, want to support my top-surgery dreams, or are simply feeling generous, you can donate to my ko-fi.

Some other words that describe me: music nerd, language lover, accidental philosopher, avid autodidact, professional translator, writer for love, (former) editor for money, feminist, queer, kink-positive, neurodivergent. I’m pretty anachronistic.

Some of my favorite tags I often use on this blog can be found attached to this post. Enjoy!

EDIT: If Tumblr goes down, you'll be able to find me on Dreamwidth and probably also on Pillowfort. Feel free to add me there pre-emptively any time, just in case.

(also: I'm the leftist-socialist-anarchist type. Free Palestine, BLM, ACAB, FCK NZS, FCK AFD, you get the idea. Not a fan of TERFs or Zionists. I have no DNI.)

[littlesentences]

Oc kiss week day 1 - Desperate

Death didn't blame the soul for buying themselves time with endless questions. It just wished they were new and creative ones.

The soul it had come to see was sitting on the ground beside their body – lying on its back on the side of a road – as if they were unwilling to leave it behind. Death had seen a lot of things in its time, but never this. Everyone always seemed to want to get as far from their body as possible the moment they could. Even the ones who didn’t step through the door.

As it answered the latest question – how long have you existed? – Death joined them on the ground, framing the door a few short steps back.

Logically, it knew there would have been a time where it hadn't existed, but Death could not remember it. But it didn’t say that, instead giving a noncommittal, “I don’t know.”

The soul didn't immediately ask another question, instead looking out onto the road, watching the vehicles pass at unprecedented speeds. Or maybe they were watching the park on the other side of the road.

The view was blocked by trees, but the squealing of children reached both of them with relative ease. Maybe the soul was listening to those.

The trees were tall, stretching high enough up to surpass second storey windows, some with trunks Death wouldn't be able to wrap its arms around if it tried, though most would hold a generous hug. How old were they? And the leaves, they were so ... green, almost matching the voracity with which the birds were chirping

The park was so full of life, it almost expected Life to walk out of one of the trees.

Death blinked.

Looking over at the soul, still staring wistfully at the trees and probably the park beyond, it asked, “What are you waiting for?"

The air changed. It was the only way Death could describe it. Where before the air had felt lively, moving around and between the two beings sitting side-by-side on the side of the road in front of a dead body, it was now stale. If Death was still in the habit of breathing, it would have struggled to get air into its lungs for it was so still. In fact, if Death thought about it, it could almost describe it as ‘waiting’.

Fitting, considering the question.

The soul beside it took a redundant, shaky breath. “For someone to find me.”

And if Death hadn’t been looking at them, it would have said something insensitive. But the soul was looking at their body like they felt sorry for it.

“Someone will.” Death had no idea why it was so sure of it. “You’re in a city, beside a busy road. Someone will find your body.”

The soul sighed and shook their head. “I know why you’re here.”

Death would have been worried if they hadn’t figured it out by now.

“Will I be able to see it from wherever I go?”

Death hadn’t opened the door yet, so it didn’t really know, but contrary to popular opinion, it did not have dominion over the worlds of the dead, it just ferried the souls. So it was well within its right to nod. It wasn’t as though they’d be seeing each other again, whether Death had just lied or told the truth. But it got the soul moving, and Death, as ever, took its cues from dead people and stood up, moving to be beside the door to open it.

Turning to the side – where the soul should have been – Death found nothing. Looking down at where it had left the soul, however, it found something puzzling.

The soul was leaning forward, pressing their lips to their body, almost like one last desperate act to be revived. But that would not happen – the only way the body would have been revived would be if someone else had been there when they died. Death had enough heart left to believe that if there had been another soul around, they would have tried to save the one currently kissing their own corpse.

Death watched, with its head cocked to the side and wondered if all the souls it had left to wander the earth eventually ended up back where they had died. Maybe it was inevitable. To be human is to care, and most humans were selfish enough to care about the place they died.

This though, Death couldn’t put a finger on it, but it felt different.

Eventually, the soul stood up and walked away from their body. Towards Death, and the door it had opened.

It was nice to know it hadn’t lied after all.

[demaparbat-hp]

For the Spirits—

Chapter IV: To Be Human.

To feel like crying, but say you're fine

To think you're losing all the time

To never truly know your mind

Just to breathe, and to bleed

Is how to be human

—How To Be Human by Amber Run

.

The Painted Lady hummed, “I was beginning to think you’d pretend I wasn’t here.”

“Are you?” he muttered, leaning over the rail. She tilted her head.

“Am I what?”

Zuko turned to face her.

“Here.”

[sparklestheunicorn]

in case you havent figured it out by now, im putting a story that i wrote and then didn't look at for four years up on here on my writing blog @littlesentences every saturday, with snippets on wednesday and friday. its called how to be human and i'll link the blurb here. under the cut of the blurb are links to all parts that are out.

[gu-tz]

How does one even date… Like… are we not gonna meet after a rock concert from one of my favorite bands? Are we not gonna accidentally bump into each other at a book store and fall in love? Am I unrealistic for expecting things like that…?

[divine-nonchalance]

Invoking the Highest

I stand with my feet spread out and my arms stretched out sideways, extending my shoulders with my hands like fists. And then I make alternating circles the size of a food plate in the air very quickly with my fists, it takes just about every muscle in the human body to make that movement.

So when my left fist is in the upward part of the circle, then my right fist is in the downward part of the circle. My arms move like one extended arm with my heart at the core.

It has unleashed something in me.

I do it with my eyes closed until I've had enough and then I relax my fists and hold my hands open as if they were wings, and then I imagine that I am an eagle or pterodactyl soaring high above the mountains.

Inviting the Highest to guide me always.

Nice way to start the day.

Blissful feeling.

. Sejeluho . Affirmations for All

[yeepof]

I understand that tall men are our POV characters, but surely being like a foot taller than everyone around them would have some occasional consequences

[ihonestlydontknowwhattocallthis]

Guys heat waves Is glass animals’ most BORING song and it’s the one they decided to play on the radio all the time

[hansoeii]

It was affection.

[shencomix]

This is it, this is my worst joke for sure

[prokopetz]

I fully understand why "character A is astounded at the sight of character B's penis" is a specific kink that gets tagged for, but the fact that some platforms choose to tag this kink as "penis awe" is unintentionally very funny. Now I'm picturing penis experience kink tags for all those other allegedly transcendent emotions in the glossary of your Philosophy 101 textbook. Penis faith. Penis Weltschmerz. Penis apprehension of the absurd.

[littlesentences]

Oc kiss week day 4 - Reunion

His mum’s dream was a weird place to be. Michael probably should have thought of that before he had asked to talk to her in her dreams. He also probably should have prepared for the possibility that he would be in her dream—not quite right, but playing with her like he barely remembered doing.

Thankfully, his bosses had dropped him behind a hedge, so he had time to watch and figure out the best way to show himself. And he was a nice distance away from the fake family.

Michael would like to think his mum had a better view of her family than he did, but he wouldn’t take that risk. He still remembered, all too well, the way they had tracked him down wherever he went, never letting him relax in his own head. He didn’t want to know what that version of him would be like.

But he didn’t have to wait long at all for the dream to change, and for his mum’s version of him and his childhood home to disappear. (For all he knew, they were probably still living there.) In its place came a field he thought looked familiar, but the headstone he was now hiding behind, and the others dotting the ground, were throwing him off. And his mum stayed alone.

Out of reasons to avoid her—he had actually really wanted to see his sister, but it was less likely that his bosses would have agreed—Michael stood up and walked to her side.

The words on the headstone she was standing in front of were gibberish to him, readable only to the dreamer. Either that or they were unimportant to the dream he was crashing. “Mum?”

His mum jumped and turned to look at him. “Michael what are you doing here? You should be with your dad.”

With that sentence, Michael had some idea of what his mum was dreaming about, and he wondered if he should have asked his bosses to have them meet in a dreamless place. “Mum, I’m real.”

“Oh of course you are baby,” she said, holding his cheek. “But your dad is going to be worried sick when he can’t find you.”

“I think dad would be more surprised if he could, to be honest.”

His mum knelt and looked up into his face, concern written all over hers. “Honey, why do you say that?”

He knew there were definitely better ways to do this, but they all took time, and he didn't know how much of that he'd have. Dreams, he had found out, were fickle things. But he couldn't just not try. “Because I’m dead.”

Maybe there was something worse than her believing him.

Her eyes went wide, and before he could say anything else, she pulled him against her, pressing her face to his chest, wrapping her arms too tight around him. It had been—ten years? Twenty? (no) Fifteen?—too long since he had been touched like this, too long since someone had squeezed him too tight for the sake of comfort.

“Baby, no, why would you say that?”

His mum had always held him too tight.

Michael’s arms came up and around to hold her, too, and he felt tears prick the back of his eyes. He had felt her voice all the way through his body. “I was hit by a car over ten years ago and didn’t survive.”

It felt cruel to tell her when she clearly didn’t remember in this space. But she had to know that he was real. It was her son. Her actual son.

But no, his mum just looked up at him and brought one hand around to wipe the tears from his face. “No you weren’t honey, you’re right here.”

He couldn’t he couldn’t he couldn’t—he wanted to scream at her. I’m dead! You watched as they pulled the plug on me! I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead and this shouldn’t be happening. Aren’t you even a little curious?!

But that would just hurt her so much more than she was already hurting. And maybe giving in to her would help her. Michael didn’t know. He was just a kid. And his mum was hugging him for the first time in a very long time.

His mum's face was above his again, and Michael spared only a second on wondering when he had fallen to the ground before burying his face in her shoulder. His mum pulled him tighter, brushing his hair down with her hands, kissing his head.

With her lips still in his hair, she said, “I’m sorry you feel like you died ten years ago. But you’re here now, and I love you, and your father loves you, and even your sister loves you, though she may not know it yet.”

Michael buried his head deeper into her shoulder, not caring that he was getting her fake clothes wet his snot and tears, grateful that no one was around to see him like this but his mum. Voice thick with tears Michael said, “I love you, mum.”

His mum just kissed him again, pulled him impossibly tighter, and said, “I know you do, baby.”

They stayed like that until she either woke up, or his bosses pulled him back. It was hard to tell which.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[sparklestheunicorn]

In fact, the girl in apartment number 402 giving birth was the least bizarre thing to happen that night—she had already been pregnant for nine months. Her mother had been staying for the past month, doing what mothers do when welcomed back into the life of their only daughter out of necessity. The girl’s mother had told her that her father would also be living in her apartment for a month or two after the baby was born.