Sweet mother, I cannot weave –
slender Aphrodite has overcome me
with longing for a girl.
Sappho, from Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works tr. Diane Rayor
(via lifeinpoetry)
#the more i look at this the more i love it#aphrodite just slam dunked this poor lady into the gay zone#can’t get anything fuckin done today too busy getting wrecked over girls#aphrodite i had some shit to do today i was gonna make a new chiton#aphrodite could you please stop mopping the floor with my face i had chores#not cool#my mom’s not gonna understand this aphrodite#she’s going to be like ‘okay well do the dishes’#HOW CAN I DO THE DISHES WHEN I AM THIS GAY APHRODITE#HOW??
If you want to push it back even further Margaret Cavendish, the duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) wrote The Blazing World in 1666, about a young woman who discovers a Utopian world that can only be accessed via the North Pole - oft credited as one of the first scifi novels
Women have always been at the forefront of literature, the first novel (what we would consider a novel in modern terms) was written by a woman (Lady Muraskai’s the Tale of Genji in the early 1000s) take your snide “Isaac Asimov” reblogs and stick it
even in terms of male scifi authors, asimov was predated by Jules Verne, HG Wells, George Orwell, you could have even cited Poe or Jonathan Swift has a case but Asimov?
PbbBFFTTBBBTBTTBBTBTTT so desperate to discredit the idea of Mary Shelly as the mother of modern science fiction you didn’t even do a frickin google search For Shame
Kinda funny, considering this Isaac Asimov quote on the subject:
Mary Shelley was the first to make use of a new finding of science which she advanced further to a logical extreme, and it is that which makes Frankenstein the first true science fiction story.
You know what else was invented by women? Masked vigilantes, the precursor to the modern superhero. Baroness Emma Orczy wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1905. The character would later inspire better known masked vigilantes such as Zorro and Batman.
the first extended prose piece - ie a novel, was not, as many male scholars will shout, Don Quixote (1605) but The Tale of Genji (1008) written by a woman
LITERALLY GOD BLESS THE PEOPLE THAT CALL OUT IGNORANCE. MY OWN EVEN. GOD THANK YOU FOR THESE STRONG WOMEN. MAY WE READ THEM. MAY WE LOVE THEM. MAY WE GIVE THEM THE CREDIT YOU GAVE BUT THE PATRIARCHY TAKES AWAY. AND FINALLY, MAY WE BE LIKE THEM:)
People die. Characters die. This is perhaps life’s most unfortunate fact: that people will die and leave the rest of us behind. It’s incredibly rare that any dramatic television series lasting over three seasons will never kill a main or recurring character, and all those deaths have driven a stake through the heart of fandom: Joyce on Buffy, Lady Sybil on Downton Abby, Charlie on Lost, Ned Stark on Game of Thrones, Jen on Dawson’s Creek, Nate on Six Feet Under — but when the person who dies is a lesbian or bisexual character, queer fandom takes it pretty hard.
We’ve hit a new record for Bisexual Books - 20,000 followers and a little over 3 years of bringing you the best in news and reviews of bisexual literature!
So to celebrate, we’re giving you guys the presents (because you’re the best!). We have FOUR awesome packs of cool stuff to give away because we love you!!
You could win all the fantastic goodies pictured above in our Bi Girl Prize Pack:
An AUTOGRAPHED copy of Red Sonja #2 by Gail Simone
A copy of About A Girl by Sarah McCarry
A copy of Very LeFreak by Rachel Cohn
A copy of A Woman Like That by Joan Larkin
bookmark and pin from @riptidepublishing, a full set of stickers from the Pantomime series by Laura Lam, a bi pride flag sticker, and even more cool swag
bookmarks from bi authors featuring Corinne Duyvis and Saundra Mitchell
Now all the boring rules stuff:
This giveaway is open to everyone (yes international friends this includes you as long as you can receive US mail).
You must be following us here at bisexual-books to win
Your askbox or submit box must be open so I can contact you for shipping details or else your prize will be redrawn to someone else
You must reblog this post and you can reblog as many times as you’d like
But no giveaway blogs
Winners will be chosen July 27th at 9pm CST
And don’t forget to enter our other awesome giveaways – the Bi Guy Prize Pack, and the Transgender Prize Pack.
Twelve YA Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novels with Lesbian, Bi, or Queer Girl Protagonists
The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow
Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova
Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst
Sound by Alexandra Duncan
Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis
The Impostor Queen by Sarah Fine
Adaptation by Malinda Lo
The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie
A Darkly Beating Heart by Lindsay Smith
As I Descended by Robin Talley
Shallow Graves by Kali Wallace
Bleeding Earth by Kaitlin Ward
For even more books–to my delight, this is nowhere near an exhaustive list!–check out the fantastic @lgbtqreads: the website has a list of LGBTQ+ YA organized by gender of protagonist and genre.
(Images feature the covers of the twelve books listed, and a rainbow banner with the text “Queer Girl Leads in Sci-Fi & Fantasy YA.”)
Now available on Amazon. A humorous YA lesbian fairy tale romance novel.
What do you do when your fairy godmother is out of her mind, you’ve married a heartless man, and your brand new step daughter is older than you, won’t stop trying to torture you, and looks like a Greek goddess?
The answer is, of course, cry. Then swear. Then conscript your step daughter into taking off with you on a quest to find your true love’s heart. As soon as you figure out who that is.
Excerpt:
Something dark on the horizon was coming closer. It was too large to be a bird... I halted dead. I had expected it to take longer; we had barely left the witch half an hour before. “It's the dragon!”
I could see its great big wings and spines and whipping tail. Its scales glinted blood red in the sunlight. All previous distaste of running disappeared as I made a break for the bushes, getting under their scant cover in record time. It took a moment to realize that Nathalee wasn't behind me. She was still on the road, shielding her eyes as she gazed at the dragon. There was no fear on her face, only wonder.
“Hide, Nathalee!” I shouted.
The dragon veered suddenly to the left, heading toward us. “Great, now you've let it know that we're here!” Nathalee shouted back. She picked up her skirts and ran towards my bushes as the dragon bore down on us.
I could see each individual claw, the layering of many reds that made up its scales. Awash with terror, I flattened myself to the ground, praying that it would not come after me.
I'm going to get eaten by a dragon and nothing good will come of it. Oh, why did I have to be the type of person that dragons love to eat? Young and innocent and...
Nathalee shrieked. I lifted my head to see her clutched in one giant claw, plucked from the ground.
There were many things I wanted to say as I watched the dragon carrying Nathalee away. Most of them were swear words, some of them were whimpers. I was terrified. Nathalee was the brave one; the one who was, for lack of a better way of putting it, manly. I'd only managed to avoid hysterics so far because I knew she was there with her sword and would probably skewer anything that tried to kill us. She had all the food, all the supplies.
I said none of those things aloud, however. What I cried out to the heavens as that dragons flew off into the horizon was “Why in the name of the blessed mother did he take her?!”
French privateering in the Gulf of Mexico: ended circa 1830
Conclusion: an adventuring party consisting of a Victorian gentleman thief, an Old West gunslinger, a disgraced former samurai, and an elderly French pirate is actually 100% historically plausible.
It really just comes down to whether a given individual or group is looking for reasons to include, or reasons to exclude. Hypothetical groups like these can go a lot further than this, too.
Men write universal stories. Women write stories for girls. Men write Literature. Women write chick lit. Even in a world where women do publish in heavier numbers than men do, they are underscored, underseen, and undervalued. Twilight is and will remain a crucial part of YA’s history — YA’s female-driven history — despite or in spite of the fact it doesn’t garner the same praises that those held up as idols within the community do. Men like John Green become symbols of YA’s forward progress and Seriousness as a category, whereas Stephenie Meyer gets to be a punchline.
A Censored History of Ladies in YA Fiction (via catagator)
what's extreme is people like you not realizing that sometimes diversity can go too far. When characters are made black or disabled or gay for no reason it hurts the story and it hurts the cause of the people who are supposedly being represented.
I like how you sent me an ask claiming that no one says a thing except people rhetorically making fun of the position that no one actually holds, and then you send me an ask clarifying that you hold exactly the same position.
I’m kind tempted to just not address anything else you said and just marvel in the perfection of that.
What’s the reason for making a character white? What’s the reason for making a character straight? What’s the reason for making a character abled or neurotypical or cis?
When you assume that making a character Other relative to yourself weakens the narrative, you’re revealing a terrible thing about yourself: that you can’t imagine that those people have backstories and inner lives the way that you do.
Every single person in a fictional narrative is ultimately there because a writer decided they needed to be there, but when the person looks like you and matches your expectations, you accept that this person who was made up for the plot had a life full of events that led them to the point where they’re appearing on the screen or page.
But when your expectations aren’t met, you start saying it’s forced. You can’t accept that events led them here because you don’t grant them the kind of life that you know you have. Your empathy does not extend to them.
Look at how many white people think they can relate to a little girl in an industrial orphanage who falls in with a capitalist robber baron during the Great Depression more than they can relate to a little girl in the foster system in modern New York who falls in with a career politician, all because of a difference of race. The original Annie’s situation and world were only slightly less alien to us than the Victorian period, but making her white somehow makes her relatable in a way that a little girl who clearly exists in our world isn’t.
The fact is, empathy is linked to imagination and we can (and do!) relate to people who are literally alien beings in literally alien worlds. The choice not to relate to Quvenzhané Wallis as Annie—or a Black or gay or female or trans video game character—is a choice to shut off both imagination and empathy.
The failing is not with the narrative, it’s with you.
People who say bi erasure doesn’t happen need to realize Freddie Mercury is know as the most famous homosexual man when he identified himself as bisexual. If that’s not bi erasure I don’t even know.
dededos
2087
andulkaphoto
romaincrisis
tangentwithtanner
origamiaround
izzy806
baratheonpilled
