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Yeah this just shows a lot of people here haven't read LeGuin. All the love for Murderbot but come on!

FINAL: Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Murderbot Diaries series (All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse, and other stories) by Martha Wells

Endorsement from submitter: "My favorite sci-fi spacefuture world where being queer + polyam is normal and yet the protag is still queer in its own special way <3"

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

Science fiction, queernorm, novella, series, adult

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Endorsement from submitter: "That book was written in 1969 and yes, not everything hold up today, but for the time is very progressive"

A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants spend most of their time without a gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

Science fiction, classics, speculative fiction, anthropological science fiction, distant future, adult

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Daily motor oil baths 

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I irritate people with authority. Always did. My father. My teachers. My bosses. Anyone who has a modicum of authority seems unreasonably irritatded by my presence. And damn if I know why. I am quiet. I am compliant. I mind my own business.

But my existence just chafes at their sense of being in charge, of being superior.

I can't figure out why.

Is this a neurodiverse thing?

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One winter shortly before the Six Weeks War my tomcat, Petronius the Arbiter, and I lived in an old farmhouse in Connecticut. I doubt if it is there any longer, as it was near the edge of the blast area of the Manhattan near miss, and those old frame buildings burn like tissue paper. Even if it is still standing it would not be a desirable rental because of the fall-out, but we liked it then, Pete and I. The lack of plumbing made the rent low and what had been the dining room had a good north light for my drafting board.

The drawback was that the place had eleven doors to the outside.

Twelve, if you counted Pete's door. I always tried to arrange a door of his own for Pete-in this case a board fitted into a window in an unused bedroom and in which I had cut a cat strainer just wide enough for Pete's whiskers. I have spent too much of my life opening doors for cats. I once calculated that, since the dawn of civilization, nine hundred and seventy-eight man-centuries have been used up that way. I could show you figures.

Pete usually used his own door except when he could bully me into opening a people door for him, which he preferred. But he would not use his door when there was snow on the ground.

While still a kitten, all fluff and buzzes, Pete had worked out a simple philosophy. I was in charge of quarters, rations, and weather; he was in charge of everything else. But he held me especially responsible for weather. Connecticut winters are good only for Christmas cards; regularly that winter Pete would check his own door, refuse to go out it because of that unpleasant white stuff beyond it (he was no fool), then badger me to open a people door.

He had a fixed conviction that at least one of them must lead into summer weather. Each time this meant that I had to go around with him to each of eleven doors, held it open while he satisfied himself that it was winter out that way, too, then go on to the next door, while his criticisms of my mismanagement grew more bitter with each disappointment.

Then he would stay indoors until hydraulic pressure utterly forced him outside. When he returned the ice in his pads would sound like little clogs on the wooden floor and he would glare at me and refuse to purr until he had chewed it all out... whereupon he would forgive me until the next time.

But he never gave up his search for the Door into Summer.

From "Door into Summer", by Robert Heinlein

“September is the dying breath of summer - and all my winters I spend mourning it.”

- from Letters of Summer Past (Listy Tamtego Lata) VIII

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Handpicked Bittersweet Nightshade, slightly less poisonous than Deadly Nightshade.

Solanum Dulcamara. Bittersweet. Like these last summer weeks in the midst of so much tragedy. Like my cottagecore witchy dreams in the overheating apartment I live in.

Warning: although a very pretty plant, should you encounter it in shady little ditches and under trees, do not ever eat the berries! The range from green to bright orange red and are toxic!

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So if unicorns are bisexual culture, then vampires are gay, and elves are nonbinary, no?

Am I getting this right?

Maybe dwarves are lesbian culture? I'd trust any lesbian with a hammer and an anvil.

What could werewolves be? Trans masc?

I'm not so well versed in trans culture, help me out here folks.

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You don't want to be special. You want to just be a regular boring person, and be loved anyway . You didn't want to be the gifted kid. But it was the only way to get dad to even consider your humanity for a second.

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Ok but what if purgatory and hell are really just the place where you finally understand how you broke the people you claimed to love, and have to watch the results. That child you never really showed proper affection for growing into a sad depressed insecure adult. The sibling you ignored for years making all the toxic friends and getting used by them. The young cousin you bullied thinking it's just a joke walking away from family forever and harming himself.

And you can no longer do anything to change things. You just have to watch.

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Et'Ada conspiracy theory.

They hate the undead. They hate them because they don't feed their energy into Nirn and back into the divines. We know souls are energy, because that energy can be used in soul gems, or directly, even daedric princes crave that energy to enhance their power and collect souls. We know aedra became mortal and started feeding their own energy into the existence of the world. Because it's a flawed creation. It needs the constant death and soul energy of living things, unlike daedra whose energy and existence is self contained. So any person that becomes immortal will retain their energy instead of properly dying and feeding the ever hungry maw of Lorkhan and the other aedra. Nirn is just a feeding ground.

Explains why Meridia hates the undead. She wasn't always a daedra. She also needs to feed on the energy of mortals. She just deluded everyone into thinking that she's a source of it.

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Post+ thoughts. I know, believe me, I know artists have so little financial protection, and we all wish we could somehow make money off our work, especially on internet hell sites like this.

But I also know it's not content creators who make money. It's the platforms. Always. They're just the landlords of the internet, allowing you to sell your stuff for pennies so they can gain.

I won't be putting up paywalls. If anyone ever wants me to draw something for them they can message me and commission me.

This thing, it's just kill the last bit of creative breath tumblr has.

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Loki and Sylvie's first night together. Loki'd be like "Aaaah that's the spot" and Sylvie casually like: "I know"

For real tho the best part of dating a version of yourself is you both know exactly what the the other likes lol

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I fail to understand a good chunk of the Marvel Fandom. Castlevania fans came up with Trephacard and just generally celebrate all the characters they love and ship. Marvel fans have started an all out ship war. Why can't we just settle on Sylkius and be happy qnd enjoy all the characters and art qnd fics?

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Honestly I also felt there was a bit of hidden racism in the complaints of his part being boring . How can it seem boring? It was absolutely masterful acting, I absolutely bought that this is a man who is long gone over the edge of sanity and it's the memories of countless horrors that keep him doing what he's doing.

There was something deeply unsettling about him but also a grand tragedy. It was amazingly well done.

Everyone loves the Joker as a white giggling madman who talks a lot. But a black guy isn't allowed coz it's boring?

Hearing a lot of people saying the finale was “bad”, “boring” and that Kang’s dialogue was too long. 🛑stop🛑 your bullshit just say you’re racist and go! Cause I sure as shit know if they’d cast a whyte guy as Kang my dash would be overwhelmed right now…👀👀You AINT SLICK! Majors gave us one of the most dynamic and mind blowing performances without fanfare, fight scenes or assistance. Just pure acting!!!!!! And you have the gall to say boring psshhhhhh cause you’re ship didnt sail WEAK 🙃

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Gods i just love them together! And yes they reek of mythology. Literally a thousand histories dripping from them together and I could spin and unravel tales for a thousand nights!

in hindu mythology the only thing that stopped a rampaging kali was shiva, her husband, lying down on the ground unarmed and unresisting, and her stepping on him. out of love, she stopped before she could hurt him

anyway.

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Great. Just Great! The fucking ocean is burning!

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I loved Castlevania, and I enjoy a lot of other vampire media, but what deeply bothers me is hoe, starting with Bram Stoker, every story just erases the eastern European qualities and aesthetic of Dracula and vampire myths in general. It's jarring and borderline offensive to see Dracula dressed like a western romantic gentleman (yes i am aware it's an iconic look by now and it was one of us who sold out and brought him to Hollywood, looking at you Lugosi Bela), it feels weird seeing so much catholic aesthetic in the stories, catholic priests being the enemies, all the Gothic architecture, all the vampire ladies looking like some 19th century English girls , it's really damn weird!

Just once I'd like to see something that says "Eastern Europe" clearly in a vampire story.

I feel cheated and ignored by the media.

Not a big deal, they're just our stories and history, right?

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Right? Was shocked to find out that there aren't millions of people shipping them! They're perfect together! I suppose Fandom is a lot more conservative than they led everyone to believe.

I have to say something related to the Loki series that’s going to make me sound potentially weird. But big spoilers from all the episodes up to the end of today’s episode 4, so it’s below the ‘keep reading’ thing. 

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