I think what makes “she’s not alone” and especially “don’t worry, she’s got help” so impactful isn’t that she had backup. It’s that she had female backup. There are enough strong, capable female warriors that a scene with an army of women was possible. For literal years, Natasha was all there was. She made this, an actual army of hero women, her legacy.
the hardest part about bouncing back from a depressive episode is cleaning up the mess you’ve made of your life like you can’t exactly say “sorry for ignoring you and your messages for a week, i was too busy suffering from crippling loneliness hope we’re still ok lol” right
I’m reblogging this just to say if anyone I know ever drops all contact with me for a week because they’re having a depressive episode and then comes back to try and re-establish connection afterward, I will understand.
the thing about people who are like “i don’t like tolkien that much, fantasy should move on and be better” is that i AGREE that fantasy has all the wrong holdovers from lotr. but when you ask those people what contemporary fantasy they think is better, they’ll say shit like name of the wind or game of thrones, and i do not relate to that…..at all?? or even, like, brandon sanderson, whose books i REALLY like. but if you’re still naming mostly white straight male authors, what is it about tolkien you wanted to leave behind exactly???
If y’all’s “moving on from Tolkien” is still centered in reading fantasy written by cishet white men, y’all are missing out.
Martha Wells, Books of the Raksura. Shapeshifting gargoyle-dragon-lizard people in a matriarchal society. About finding a new home and a new family. Really evocative world building that hints at much older civilizations in a luxuriant setting.
NK Jemisin, The Broken Earth series. Post-apocalyptic setting. People of color actively dismantling systems of oppression. People of color being justifiably angry at what has been done. People of color being powerful. A black woman as the main character and multiple queer characters. She won THREE Best Novel Hugos for this series.
NK Jemisin, The Inheritance Trilogy. An empire has imprisoned and enslaved multiple gods, and is using them to further their oppressive systems. The mixed race female protagonist helps them find liberation. Some polyamory and non-binary themes.
Aliette de Bodard, Dominion of the Fallen series. “Dark Gothic fantasies set in a ruined turn-of-the-century Paris devastated by a magical war.” Fallen angels, Asian dragons, Viet culture, and queer PoC in positions of power. Her website has lots of free fiction as well. Special mention to The Tea Master and the Detective, a Sherlock Holmes retelling where Sherlock is a WoC and Watson is a sentient spaceship.
Fran Wilde, The Bone Cycle. Beautiful worldbuilding, tradition, (mis)information, climate change. This series is so gorgeous I have deliberately not finished reading it yet, because I am saving the last few chapters of the final book for when I’m going through a rough patch and need something lovely to escape into.
Amal El-Mohtar, Seasons of Glass and Iron. Fairy tale heroines going “nah, fuck this nonsense, we’re making our own story”. Amal mostly writes poetry and short fiction, and all of it is beautifully lyrical. Her words are so beautiful they make me angry.
Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky. It blends several genres in one, and honestly you are better off reading it than reading any summary I could make about it.
And so many, many, many more in the fantasy/sci-fi/horror genres. Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher, Alyssa Wong, Ken Liu, Rebecca Roanhorse, Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant, Daniel José Older, RF Kuang, Nnedi Okorafor, Jeannette Ng, Ann Leckie, Ted Chiang, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ruthanna Emrys, Louise Erdrich, Elizabeth Bear, Saladin Ahmed, Nisi Shawl…
If you can’t afford them, that’s okay, you have options:
Make sure to check them out at your local library.
Don’t want to go to the library, or don’t have a means to do so regularly? Ebooks! Overdrive/Libby is your friend–you just need to get a library card and then you can borrow ebooks through their ever-growing database.
You can even recommend books to them–authors will get a sale if the library buys the book! They also have a growing audiobook supply, and you can recommend those to your library as well.
Libby has a phone app that is perfectly functional, so if you don’t have a dedicated e-reader but own a smartphone, you can get your books that way too.
Do you prefer short fiction? So many of these authors have stuff available online, be it on their website or on zines. A brief search will supply you with more fiction by non-white-dudes than you know what to do with.
tl;dr:
Read diverse authors.
Diane Duane, Lois McMaster Bujold, Doris Egan, Ann Downer, Pamela Dean, Emma Bull…
Reblogging so that I can remember some of these names next time my to-be-read pile is winnowed down to a point where I can get new books from bookstore or library (oh, who am I kidding, reblogging so I can get some more books and who cares that I already have piles to read…)
“skip dinner and become thinner” more like “skip dinner and you have an eating disorder please get help”
“a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” more like “a moment on the lips is okay to have, please take care of yourself in this lifetime”
“every time you eat you delay becoming skinnier” more like “every time you eat you give your body the nutrients it needs in order to survive, please keep surviving”
“you’ll be able to wear whatever you want when you get to your ugw” more like “you’ll be able to wear whatever you want now because fashion =/= weight”
“Don’t reward yourself with food your not a dog” more like treat yourself because you’re amazing and deserve happiness
This is actually really helpful thanks
I love this post for how it politely demolishes destructive pro ana/mia mantras i love it
“if you can pinch an inch” congrats you have skin and flesh like all humans
I… I… thanks… for sharing this cause I needed a lot.. hopefully anyone who follows me and needs can benefit from it too…
I really wish this was a thing I saw a few years ago, but I’m glad it’s circulation is moving strong. Just like you my wonderful followers <3<3<3 be brave darlings, I believe in you
Take care of yourself, guys. Eating is good for you, your body needs it or it will shut down. If you feel like you need to get healthier or lose weight, there’s tons of ways you can do that, that doesn’t put your body in danger. NEVER STARVE YOURSELF
slavic forests are actually located in another dimension
if you’ve ever been in one of the great forests in a slavic country
you’ll know that there’s a point where the trees grow so densely packed
that the air is completely still and it’s so silent you could hear a pin
drop a mile away and you suddenly become uncomfortably aware of the
sound of your own heartbeat and the knowledge that the trees surrounding
you are alive and just as aware of your presence as you are of theirs,
and that’s when you know you’ve crossed into a different realm
there’s that moment when you actually feel how your ancestors used to worship old gods there and treat nature as part of their spiritual world and you’ll know that those old trees have seen empires rise and all, they’ve seen people forget the power in nature and yet they stand there, proud and old, with history etched into their bark, roots back in the times where there used to be prayers sang in the forests
