Hello, internet person. I'm Metamorphosis, Meta for short. I feel like I’ve been in fandoms for too long, and have seen multiple dark ages threaten the internet. I survived college ages ago and now I’m trying survive life.
All of these books are queer, but they all have back blurbs that don’t say they’re queer. While this can be a pain if I’m scouting for queer SFF, it can come in handy for people in a situation where they don’t want to be reading queer books openly.
Please do note that I don’t have hard copies of the books on hand so it’s possible that an author quote or something mentions one being queer (I feel like this isn’t super likely, but I don’t want to rule it out). Some might also have author biographies mentioning that the author is queer. Also, some may be shelved as LGBT on Goodreads or categorized as queer on Amazon. So if you’re planning on asking for any of these as holiday gifts, I would suggest going to the Amazon page or where ever your relative is likely to buy it from and double check that it’s something you’d be comfortable with sharing openly.
I wish I had more pansexual books, but the ones I know of tend to mention queerness in the back description.
With the exception of The Spy with the Red Balloon, these are all books I have read or are currently reading. If you want to recommend others, feel free to do so in the replies!
Links to the queer books database (or Goodreads if the book hasn’t been added yet) are available below the cut. You can find information on content warnings there.
(This is for fun and character design practice, if you disagree with elements of the design you’re free to do so but please keep it to yourself, it’s a bit rude and I’ll be honest I’m kinda tired of people telling me I made batman too skinny)
lots of times if I tell my boyfriend that I am proud of him for dealing with a situation, or that I’m sorry he’s having to deal with a situation, he will say “no it’s my own fault.” meaning that he feels like he doesn’t deserve praise or comfort for dealing with a situation that is his fault. (for example a financial problem caused or exacerbated by him having been too anxious or absentminded to deal with the situation sooner.) and I tell him this and I will tell y'all this, that I don’t believe that. I think you are even braver and stronger for taking steps to deal with a mess that is of or partly of your own creation, because you have to cope with guilt and shame on top of the thing itself, and because you’re fighting against the same ingrained dysfunction in yourself that caused the mess. that’s like the bravest and most constructive thing you can do and you should be proud and I am proud of you.
#i like to think data took him all the way to the brig tossed him in and left#and then came back 60 seconds later and was like ‘i believe i have successfully played a ‘practical joke’ on you :)’#riker loses it & claps him on the back like ‘wow. good job u rly had me going. dont ever fucking do that again’
Perfect.
Actually it’s 73 seconds. Data, knowing something of how human minds work, estimates that Riker will give him 60 seconds to come back (because humans prefer “round numbers”, however arbitrary the units). After 60 seconds it will take 4 seconds for Riker to fully process the conclusion that Data is, in fact, not coming back after all, and an additional 9 seconds to build to the optimum level of anxiety.
Before you bitch about how authors are marketing their books, do this one thing:
Shut the fuck up unless you are volunteering to do all the labor required to market a book, because it’s really fucking hard, people don’t pay attention to posts about original content 90% of the fucking time, and giving a short, pithy teaser is how book marketing fucking works. Click the links and read the full book description if you want to know more.
Seriously, shut the fuck up.
Like, I don’t know how to explain to you people that the posts with long descriptions that don’t get right to the point don’t get reblogged.
People don’t give a shit about new content. If it’s not their established blorbo, they don’t give a fuck. Plastering my book cover and the plot summary all over tumblr doesn’t do shit when people aren’t actually stopping to read the posts.
Little pithy marketing statements like, “Hey, wanna read a story about a queer autistic ship captain with synesthesia?” are what get people’s attention. Time and time and time again, my own advert posts have reflected this, and it’s the same for every other author I know.
If you hate it, and you think that book marketing sucks, and authors are lazy and stupid, and you think that it’s ruining books, or whatever the fuck, here’s what you can actually do:
Promo authors and their work, share their marketing posts, and help their books get seen.
REVIEW BOOKS. Tell other people what they’re about. Share them with your friends.
Volunteer to be part of an author’s marketing/street team, if they have one. I’ve helped get promo bookmarks into libraries and bookstores for other authors before, among other things.
Stop being a dick to the authors and start paying attention to the real issues within the book and publishing industry, because there are a lot of them.
Stop blaming the authors when they’re the ones getting fucked over the hardest, and most likely are trying to scrape together money to eat, because being an author has shit pay no matter how well-known you are.
ngl this is why getting badgered over and over again by ppl saying “but what is spitfire REALLY about” when i was doing my big promo push was incredibly annoying and stressful. you have to make shit punchy or people don’t pay attention.
Just going to drop these here because @unpretty’s tags need to be preserved because they are spot on:
I’m also now wondering if people just don’t know what certain genres mean. Like that’s a really good point about Romance and people asking “But what’s it about?”
As a romance author, I get so many people telling me the Romance tag tells them nothing, and it just baffles me because Romance as a genre has set expectations.
It’s so rigid that some die-hards argue that “Happily Ever After For Now” isn’t a Romance because Romance has to end on a “Happily Ever After” period.
But basically, the whole purpose of Romance as a genre is that your characters get together and find love. There might be some other conflict that needs to be resolved along the way, but the primary focus is the character-driven narrative about overcoming obstacles and finding love. If they don’t find love, it’s not a Romance.
It doesn’t mean “this story contains romantic scenes.”
It means This Story Is A Romance.
Same with Crime or Mystery or Fantasy or Sci-Fi.
Those genres all have set expectations about how the plot and narrative will unfold. What makes them stand out is how they are written and the type of characters they are written about.
That’s where the representation tags come in– and those are what readers are primarily looking for these days.
They know what Romance entails, but they don’t want to read another white, het, cookie-cutter romance hinged on miscommunication. So they go looking for representation tags that will (hopefully) tell them this story has the potential to be what they’re looking for. If it looks good, they’ll read the synopsis and then make a decision.
And for people who claim to LOVE books but hate how authors market them… I have to wonder if they really do love books if they don’t even know what genres are. Like I get it, maybe you weren’t taught it in school or by your guardians, but fortunately, we live in a world where Wikipedia exists and you can remedy that.
Also, the whole thing about harassing authors and telling us to “kys” because we use brief descriptors to try and grab people’s attention. That, that right there, really throws the whole “loves books” thing into question. Ignorance about genres I can understand if no one taught you or if you’re new to reading as a hobby. But this shit? Absolutely the fuck not.
I’ve seen this before, but it’s been years and it just came across my Twitter in its dying days. The words are from a favorite author of mine, Maggie Stiefvater, and they are the words I most need to hear when it comes to dealing with chronic pain and illness. I didn’t need this the first time I saw it, six years ago. I need it now. Maybe you do, too.
wait, i just realised that aragorn was in minas tirith during ecthelion’s last ruling years (and was kind of vip, tbh). and you know who was there too, during that time?
baby boromir.
frickin’ baby boromir.
so it seems obvious to me, that aragorn held little boromir in his arms at least once (and probably saw it when nannies changed his diapers).
Aragorn: *sees Boromir arrive in Rivendell* wait is that
Aragorn: it can’t be him. he is a baby
Aragorn: *mental arithmetic* ….oh fuck it is him isn’t it
It’s quite possible that Aragorn held Boromir at both his infancy and his death.
Guys. Guys. Aragorn probably also met Theoden as a child, too. So… just fucking imagine that shit. Eowyn even says Aragorn went off to war with her grandfather…
Aragorn: Gondor calls for aid! Theoden, remembering this dude used to babysit him on occasion and does not want to deal with his disappointed face rn: … and Rohan will answer.
using your unmatched dad energy to guilt the entire world into saving itself
