D.M. Shields

The term "Herbo" never fails to make me laugh

I feel like I do almost the opposite. Most of my stories start as one extremely emotional interaction between two characters. The characters kinda crystalize and grow from that moment, and then I have to go make a good home for them.

Often the moment doesn't even make the final draft.

Sometimes I feel like I must have hallucinated Shock Treatment because so few people have even heard of it.

Anyways go watch Shock Treatment, the music is incredible.

A graphic for Beyond Bringers. It has a green and cyan gradient background and says: "QUEER | SCIFI | HORROR. Some time ago, a glimmer broke the horizon, blistering the periphery of sight and mind. Since then it has evolved to claim a name. The Beyond. A vast, ravenous entity gaining purchase in the world with each passing day. Amidst the chaos, Nieve Lyonne rises to fill the long-vacant position of Biotheologist. Beyond Bringers is a sci-fi horror novel about limits, language, and where humanity is lost. " On the righthand side, the book's cover is on display. The title "Beyond Bringers" is aligned vertically. A woman emerges from an inky cloud holding a dagger. Her bones and muscles morph in and out of the ink drop. Behind her is a nonsensical space created with textures and patterns.

Beyond Bringers is a Queer Sci-Fi Horror novel about language and limits.

🌌 Sentient Landscapes
💉 Hot Medical Malpractice
🩻 Body Horror
🌌 The End Of The World As We Know It
💉 And Everything That Follows After

(art is 100% human made by me)

#bluepit📖 #bluepit #A #LGBT #Q #SF #H

A trope map graphic featuring the THE DISTANCE BETWEEN STARS AND SALT cover with arrows around it. From top left and moving clockwise, the arrows read: * Non-MC chosen one * Sapphic love and tragedy * Finding your purpose * Sailing across a drowned world * People descended from the stars * Malta-inspired setting

An advertisement flier featuring various sea-based images. "The Distance Between Stars and Salt | A Sapphic Maltese-Inspired Seafaring Fantasy Novel" is listed at the top, followed by two circular images. The first depicts an aurora borealis in the night sky, while the second depicts an overhead view of ocean waves. Beside this is an image of luzzu boats in a harbor. Below this is an image of rocky outcrops within an ocean. Beside this is "There was and there was not, in the oldness of time, a star-born woman and her hapless wife who ventured on an arduous quest...". Below this is an overhead view of a rocky shore. Beside this is a four-panel color palette.

🇲🇹 WIND WAKER x THE TIGER'S DAUGHTER

A mortal woman returns from a dangerous quest—alone. To tell her island community what happened, she must eulogize her starborn wife, whose sacrifice saved their world, and navigate the churning waters of grief.

Out this summer!

#BluePit📖 #A #F #LGBT #TR #W

A swirling chaos parts, and two lands suddenly gain a border. Different languages, cultures, needs, and philosophies of magic hinder Vel's mission of peace. One warmonger races behind her, another waits to meet her in the strange land.
#BluePit📖 #F #A #Q #LGBT

Pallas Athena by Klimpt. A woman in golden scaled armor, helm, and holding a golden spear. Abstract figures in blue form the background

A race to stop a brewing war, featuring:

📚 Polyglot dodging conscription
🪒 Surgeon of dubious morals
⚔️ Failed revolutionary turned imperial knight
⚒️ Common laborer turned sorcerer’s apprentice
✨ Old women wielding phenomenal magic power
🌈 Queer characters of all stripes

#BluePit📖 #F #A #Q #LGBT

Starry sky; a statue of a woman's face with moss on it; dying flowers; a castle on a dark, moonlit night; skulls, a graveyard; a fireplace

An enchantress with abominable magic must defeat an ancient necromancer who uses the life energies of murdered men to animate his dead lover’s body. #BluePit 📖 #W #A #F

NOSFERATU x ONE DARK WINDOW

A pitch image for Arcane Heart. The background is blue and the text is white and gold. The comps are, “The queer forged family dynamics of The Witch King by Martha Wells,” and, “The cross cultural politics of Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon.” Accompanying images and their labels are: An anatomical drawing of a skeleton and a heart with the text, “Sorcerers are literally heartless.” A burning roman city with the text, “Vengeance at the cost of peace.” Gustav Klimt's Pallas Athena (A painting of Athena clad in gold on a dark purple background) and Where Nature's God Hath Wrought by William Wendt (A painting of a rocky hilltop surrounded by green fields and copses of trees). Between them it says, “A protagonist from a forest shrouded in iron and gold, to whom green grass and timber trees seem alien.”

Vel and her spouse’s diplomatic mission is on the brink of failure. Foes from home stalk her in the guise of beasts, and foes ahead have already begun culling any voices for peace. Her only hope lies in two enemy soldiers who, like her, know the cost of a violent life.

#BluePit📖 #F #A #Q #LGBT

Oh, there's some interesting stuff in there. I can't believe I'd never heard of City of Lost Children or Zero Theorem, as a fan of Delicatessen and Brazil, respectively.

Great choice. Satoshi Kon is easily in my top five directors of all time. If she likes this one, you have to watch his other three feature films. My mom took me to watch Paprika when it was first airing stateside, and I thank her every day because it permanently altered my brain chemistry.

Two elemental gods, one of sun, one of the moon, intertwine. Together they create an eclipse.

Celestial Reunion - watercolour and acryla gouache on paper
for Magic: The Gathering's "Lorwyn Eclipsed". AD: Jameela Wahlgren

An emotional reunion between two elemental gods. I was asked to lean into a stylized representation of them, and I had a lot of fun playing with the intertwining shapes.

This feels like it will become another classic Shen meme, so I'm getting in on the ground floor.

I've probably put more miles behind the wheel at 30 than most people do in a lifetime.

I wasn't sure on the exact definitions, so I used: stopped is no overnight, visited is 1 night, stayed is 2 or more.

A piece I got back from the gallery I was partnering with a couple months back - love the texture a palette knife provides

Yeah I feel like this joke could have been way darker if I just used all the shots of war and horrible violence. That shot, the tank in Nausicaa, the soldiers in Mononoke running down fleeing civilians, the fascist police chasing down Porco...

This is gonna be my new Bechdel test. We're not settling for two any more. Does this movie have enough well written women to form a compelling heist crew?

Hayao Miyazaki directs all my favorite gritty crime dramas

Vel hails from a conquering empire, a land where grass is razor steel and trees grow fruit of solid gold. When the swirling chaos parts to reveal an alien world of rolling green hills, she sees a chance to be more than an instrument of war, if her queen doesn't destroy it first.
#DVpit #F #A #LGBT

Different languages, cultures, needs, and philosophies of magic hinder Vel's mission of peace. She crosses a border revealed by shifting arcane tides, desperate to bridge the gap between two peoples. One warmonger races behind her, another waits to meet her in the strange land.
#DvPit #F #A #LGBT

Azen only use magic to shape themselves. Humans only use it to change the world around them. A deep sea of unreality always separated them, but when it receeds their differences push them towards war. The Azen Vel strikes out for peace, soon gathering unlikely allies in the strange land
#DvPit #F #A

In ARCANE HEART, ghosts of the past threaten to drag us into our old ways, and the allure of violence is ever present.
The world is hemmed in by swirling chaos that dissolves reason, sorcerers must cut out their hearts for power, and are always at risk of losing their humanity.
#DVpit #F #A #LGBT

Vel hails from a conquering empire, a land where grass is razor steel and trees grow fruit of solid gold. When the swirling chaos parts to reveal an alien world of rolling green hills, she sees a chance to be more than an instrument of war, if her queen doesn't destroy it first.
#DVpit #F #A #LGBT

A race to stop a brewing war, featuring:

📚 Polyglot dodging conscription
🪒 Surgeon of dubious morals
⚔️ Failed revolutionary turned imperial knight
⚒️ Common laborer turned sorcerer’s apprentice
✨ Old women wielding phenomenal magic power
🌈 Queer characters of all stripes
💖 Polyamory

#DVpit #F #A

WITCH KING X PRIORY OF THE ORANGE TREE
When the mists part to reveal a continent rich with unknown wonders like grass and humans, war weary sorcerer Vel and her family strike out to forge a peace, before her queen draws blood and mires their people in another bloody war of subjugation.
#DVpit #F #A

I love trying to imagine what could connect those four images. Definitely grabs my interest!

The most darling of my current WIPs is The Odyssey x BLAME! A man returning to his husband and child, after a war loses him inside the unknowably vast castle in which they live. Crossing whole countries all within those stone halls, whose purpose and method of making has been lost to time.
#DVparty

A meme from the Pirates of the Caribbean. Norrington says, "you are without a doubt the worst sorcerer I've ever lost a fight to". Jack Sparrow responds, "Ah, but you did lose a fight to me". Flames spout from his fingertips.

A meme featuring my MC barely surviving an encounter with an incurious and willful enemy.

#DVparty

The bent and twisted trunk of a great iron tree formed a makeshift bridge over the eastern river. Rough black bark mottled with reds and greens, branches buried like speartips into the opposite shore. The Rust had ebbed away, inhospitable bedlam resolving into a vast and unknown continent.
#DVparty

Elyain's cold demeanor made them the favorite scion of the royal house, with a heart of silver that lets them wear any face they desire. They were content with their work as a surgeon, until they fell for a wayward traveler. Now they are following that love into new and strange lands.
#DVparty