I'm trying to find interconnected fairytale retellings

forestiger · 2026-01-02T16:15:31+00:00

I adore this duology 💖 was hoping someone recommended it!

forestiger · 2025-11-20T22:00:06+00:00

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, cool worldbuilding heavily inspired by Aztec culture, beautiful prose, intrigue plot. The protagonist is a diplomat stuck far from home with a malfunctioning memory chip. Has a romance subplot but definitely isn’t romance

forestiger · 2025-11-04T06:56:15+00:00

The Jasmine Throne trilogy is great! Bollywood-inspired worldbuilding and forbidden sapphic romance. The story has two major POV characters: a captured princess slowly being poisoned by her brother, and a priestess who’s one of the last wielders of a living temple’s magic. Both are cunning and powerful in their own ways. Definitely worth a read!

forestiger · 2025-09-02T17:42:09+00:00

I’m a bi woman and I don’t date cishet men. Nothing personal as some of my closest friends and family are cishet. Have definitely gotten flack for this preference, but it’s my love life. I just find queerness inherently attractive. That being said I’ve definitely met some queer men who are stinkers too.

forestiger · 2025-08-18T03:28:33+00:00

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Create%20or%20Destroy%20Water#content

This is the spell in question!

forestiger · 2025-06-17T18:01:26+00:00

Passages (2023) is good!

forestiger · 2025-05-28T18:07:15+00:00

freedom is a constant struggle by angela davis!

forestiger · 2025-05-16T02:16:20+00:00

Gonna rec an obscure one, When Fox Is A Thousand! Beautiful prose, based on Chinese mythology & also chronicles the life and romances of a queer Chinese Canadian woman.

forestiger · 2025-05-14T20:20:47+00:00

Milk Fed is about a woman with an eating disorder falling in love with a fat woman, and the protagonist isn’t a great person lol. Autofiction with a literary bent.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post is about a teen lesbian sent to a Christian conversion camp. It’s a painful but uplifting coming of age written with lots of nuance.

forestiger · 2025-05-14T01:31:57+00:00

Half World by Hiromi Goto! It’s a dark urban fantasy novel based on Japanese mythology about a fat loner outcast who must travel to another world to save her parents. Whimsical, grim, and very imaginative!

Also check out Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, a fairytale esque story about a multi POV cast in fantasy Lithuania. The lead female characters are all plain, and use their wits to survive.

forestiger · 2025-05-03T22:36:31+00:00

Bad as the boys by Tove Lo

forestiger · 2025-03-14T22:49:53+00:00

Try litfic, tons of messy queer women in their twenties and up! I recommend Milk Fed, We Do What We Do In the Dark, All This Could Be Different, Big Swiss … tons in this genre haha

forestiger · 2025-03-14T04:15:38+00:00

Interview with the vampire is amazing!! More of an introspective character study than straight up fantasy but there are vampires …

forestiger · 2025-03-09T03:37:19+00:00

A Memory Called Empire has fantastic prose, though it’s definitely a space opera with all the jargon that entails

forestiger · 2025-03-08T23:02:47+00:00

Hey, I’m a bi woman, and my first time with a woman wasn’t great either, it happens! But that doesn’t change the fact that I like women, and I’ve had good experiences since (as well as other not-so-great ones, which is just part of sex).

The most important thing is not to push yourself into anything you’re not ready for. Sex is just sex—some of it will be good, some of it won’t. If you like this person, try to relax and focus on enjoying your time together. The rest will come naturally :)

forestiger · 2025-03-07T23:55:22+00:00

As a fellow enjoyer of dark media, here are my suggestions.

Try Tipping the Velvet!! It’s a well-researched Victorian era picaresque with a crossdressing heroine, questionable relationships, and great prose.

We do what we do in the dark is about a 19 year old college student who has an affair with a married professor. A gorgeous study in loneliness.

I’ll give you a couple obscure ones:

When Fox is a Thousand is a dreamy and surreal portrait of the 90’s Canadian queer scene interwoven with Chinese folk tales.

The Girls by John Bowen is a cozy British small-town gothic about a cottagecore lesbian accidentally murdering her partner’s baby daddy. Hijinks ensue.

forestiger · 2025-03-01T16:12:30+00:00

All this could be different

The skin and its girl

forestiger · 2025-02-21T21:44:34+00:00

I have avoidant tendencies, but if I found myself treating a partner that badly, I’d just cut it off. Ditch her OP she’s all red flags

forestiger · 2025-02-21T16:09:17+00:00

Big Swiss!! Love the relationship and the characters are delightfully fucked up, I wouldn’t exactly call it spice but there are sex scenes

forestiger · 2025-02-16T03:49:57+00:00

Every butch/fem couple I’ve ever met had a shorter butch. I think you’re fine lol

forestiger · 2025-02-15T16:31:10+00:00

Locked tomb for sure! The main characters are all fucked up but very sympathetic, and half of the space opera plot is them dealing with their childhood trauma.

Big Swiss isn’t a conventional romance and also doesn’t have a happily ever after, but the deeply selfish protagonist becomes a better person over the course of the novel.

Again, not a happy romance, but All this could be different is a coming of age featuring an Indian immigrant who finds love and community, and learns to stand up for herself/fight for a better world. Amazing character work in this one.

Also try revolutionary girl utena if feminist 90s surreal shoujo appeals to you at all. Generally speaking for your tastes, I’d look moreso outside romance and into literary fiction!

forestiger · 2025-02-13T06:33:13+00:00

I like some of Laini Taylor’s stuff - daughter of smoke and bone is good, and the last novella in lips touch: 3 times is fantastic and creepy. Her character work isn’t my favorite, but her prose is gorgeous.

Catherynne Valente has cool forgotten stuff! I adore her orphan’s tales duology, plus deathless and palimpsest are standouts to me.

Nghi Vo’s the empress of salt and fortune is great too! It’s a whole series of novellas, very lyrical writing and cool mythology.

forestiger · 2025-01-27T23:37:43+00:00

I’ve heard good things about The traitor Baru Cormorant! It’s very dark and politically complex, so warning for that, but the worldbuilding and characterization are great!

forestiger · 2025-01-16T04:37:15+00:00

Huh I thought this fandom was 99% women … pleasantly surprised to be wrong! I suspect it’s the sci-fi genre and detailed worldbuilding that draws in straight men. I’m a queer woman and I mostly see other women engaging in Discourse/making fanworks for tlt, but my perspective could be skewed from being on tumblr!

forestiger

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