Lana has been one of my favorite artists since I was an angsty wannabe rebel in the early Born To Die years of the 2010's. There's a dreariness, a dire emptiness to her words and sound, and I've only come to love her more as I've grown. Lana Del Rey has created her own world of "bad boys and sad girls" as Spotify describes it, and it was listening to her that Herb and Opal's first ideas were conceived.

As anyone who has seen a Wes Anderson movie knows, the filmmaker carries his own vibe and executes it perfectly in every film of his. He is a master of world building, with perfect symmetry and color saturating every film, animated or not. My personal favorite is Fantastic Mr. Fox (pictured above), a film based off of a Roald Dahl novel made using stop motion animation.

Willow is a musician whose presence across all mediums inspires my craft, whether it be through music, style, or her ethereal outlook on life. Her year-round spooky witchy-ness is something I wish to emanate through my own style and various crafts. My personal favorite song of hers is Marceline - a gorgeous song centered around the popular animation Adventure Time that transports you to the world of Ooo itself.

Have you ever felt that certain type of wanderlust where you want to go somewhere, anywhere, but you're just not sure where? And you're aching for something, somewhere, but you're not sure what? Studio Ghibli movies bring you to that somewhere that you can't quite place in your brain, scratching an itch that's never been satisfied before. There's something pleasantly unexpected around every corner. The cooking depictions within themselves are a mouth-watering sight to behold.

With the various forms of world building this page admires, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is well worth discussing. This heart-wrenching novel follows a young girl in a mental institution as she struggles with worsening schizophrenia. It is told from our main character Deborah's perspective, which allows the reader to see the whole world that is Yri that she builds and escapes to in her mind. Joanne Greenburg does a wonderful job of helping the reader understand the built world in a mere 300 pages.

Kathryn Nicolai of the Nothing Much Happens podcast has the single most soothing voice I have heard, and pairs it with simply (yet very beautifully) written stories that whisk you away to your happy place. She'll also show you new happy places within the simple things of life, like a cup of coffee or a pecan tree. She instructs deep breaths, and reads her story twice, the second time more slowly than the first. This gentle, sleepy form of storytelling makes you look fondly upon any task you do during the day, and gratefully reflect when all is said and done.