full of whimsy and staying silly

"May I have this dance?"

The word lesbian comes from the Greek island of Lesbos, where the poet Sappho lived around 630–570 BCE. Sappho wrote lyric poetry about love, beauty, and relationships between women. Because of her work and connection to Lesbos, the term "lesbian" eventually became associated with women who are attracted to other women.

Sappho's poetry is some of the earliest surviving writing that expresses romantic and emotional feelings between women. Most of her work has been lost, but fragments survive through later writers and historians.

Some of the most important sources include:

Fragments of Sappho's poetry quoted by Longinus in On the Sublime (1st century CE)

References to Sappho in Ovid's Heroides (c. 15 BCE)

Discussions of her work by Athenaeus in Deipnosophistae (3rd century CE)

Because so few ancient texts about relationships between women survive, Sappho's poetry is especially important to lesbian history.

Lesbians in written texts throughout history

Ancient Greece (c. 630–570 BCE) - Sappho writes poems celebrating love and desire between women.

Roman Period (1st–2nd Century CE) - Writers such as Ovid and Martial mention relationships between women, although they often describe them negatively or as unusual.

Medieval Europe (10th–12th Centuries) - Letters between women, especially in convents, show deep emotional bonds sometimes described as "romantic friendships (The correspondence between Benedictine abbess).

1778 – The Ladies of Llangollen - Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby left Ireland and settled together in Wales. They lived openly as companions for over 50 years and became well known throughout Britain.

Early 19th Century – Anne Lister (1791–1840) was an English landowner, diarist, and traveler from Yorkshire. She kept extensive diaries, writing over four million words, partly in a secret code. In these diaries, she recorded her romantic and sexual relationships with women, making them one of the most important historical sources on lesbian life. In 1834, Anne Lister and Ann Walker exchanged vows and took communion together at a church in York, an event many historians consider to be an early form of same-sex marriage. Because of her detailed writings and her openness about loving women, Anne Lister is often referred to as "the first modern lesbian."

19th Century – Boston Marriages

Some women chose to live together in long-term partnerships without marrying men. These relationships were often socially accepted, especially among educated and financially independent women.

The 20th Century

The 1900s brought major changes for lesbian communities.

In the 1920s, cities such as Paris, Berlin, and New York hosted LGBTQ+ social scenes. Berlin's Eldorado club became one of the best-known spaces where lesbians could meet openly before the Nazi regime shut down many queer venues.

During the 1950s, many LGBTQ+ people faced discrimination during the Lavender Scare in the United States. In response, lesbians began organizing for their rights. In 1955, the Daughters of Bilitis became the first lesbian civil rights organization in the U.S. and published The Ladder, one of the first lesbian magazines.

The 1969 Stonewall Riots helped launch the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Lesbians played important roles in organizing protests, Pride events, and political campaigns.

During the 1970s, writers such as Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich connected lesbian rights with feminism and broader struggles for equality.

The AIDS Crisis and Lesbian Activism

During the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and early 1990s, many lesbians became caregivers, activists, and organizers. They volunteered in hospitals, helped people access healthcare, organized blood drives, and supported those abandoned by families or institutions.

Lesbians were also active in groups such as ACT UP and later the Lesbian Avengers, helping push governments and medical organizations to respond more effectively to the epidemic.

Many historians point to this period as one reason why the "L" is often placed first in the LGBTQ+ acronym today. It recognizes the important contributions lesbians made to the broader queer rights movement.

Representation in Media

For much of the 20th century, lesbian characters were often portrayed as tragic, dangerous, or destined for unhappy endings. This contributed to stereotypes and the "Bury Your Gays" trope, where queer characters were frequently killed off or denied happy relationships.

Examples of older portrayals include:

The Children's Hour (1961) - quite homophobic, ending in "bury your gays" theme but one of the first movies openly addressing homosexuality on a larger scale. specifically significant since it starred Audrey Hepburn and Shirly MacLaine.

More recent media has offered a wider range of stories and characters:

The L Word (2004–2009; rebooted in 2019)

Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

Gentleman Jack (2019–2022)

Symbols

Several symbols have become associated with lesbian identity:

Labrys – A double-headed axe adopted by some lesbian and feminist groups in the 1970s.

Black Triangle – Reclaimed from the symbol used by the Nazis to identify women considered "asocial," including some lesbians.

Lesbian Pride Flag – The most widely used modern version is the orange, white, and pink striped flag introduced in 2018.

Lesbian history is often less visible than other parts of LGBTQ+ history because many women's relationships were ignored, hidden, or not recorded. Learning about figures such as Sappho, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich helps show that lesbian communities have existed throughout history and have played an important role in literature, culture, activism, and social change.

Other honorary mentions:

Sappho, Fragments

Ovid, Heroides

Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers (1991)

Bonnie Zimmerman (ed.), Encyclopedia of Lesbian Histories and Cultures (2000)

The Sir David Attenborough That Lives In My Brain: Being smaller-than-average presents an added challenge to foraging ... but necessity is the mother of invention. A little creativity turns a baguette into a tool, and voilà--

(paper towel roll falls on my face)

like, right from the get-go Freya is just a certified badass? The way she's been circumventing her nasty husband's advances? AMAZING. In the first few chapters she straight up kills that mans, with an ON FIRE AXE. GOD FIRE AXE, I MIGHT ADD, THAT ISN'T EVEN HERS. AND SHE GETS HIM. I WAS LIKE. HELL YEAH!!!

And THEN I was like hell NO when the other yucky Jarl takes her with him to be her second wife bc she's the ding dang shieldmaiden. Like. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE HER A CHOICE?? PLEASE???

AND LIKE. BETWEEN THESE TWO THINGS SHE MEETS MOTHER FUCKING BJORN AND IS LIKE. IMMEDIATELY ATTRACTED TO HIM. And their banter. Is SO GOOD. I am enjoying it and them IMMENSELY. Like, I'm maybe JUST halfway through and they've FINALLY TALKED and like. HELL YEAH! THE YEARNING! THE TENSION! FINALLY IT'S ABOUT TO BREAK AND HE'S GONNA BETRAY THE SHIT OUT OF HER!! Cause like, Freya, I love you, but he's being MIGHTY SUS right now. He is still 100% my fave character but FREYA! FREYA I THINK HE'S THE ONE PLOTTING WITH THE NORTH! FREYA! FREYA!! FREYA!!!

I will say, idk much about Nordeland, aside from cold and everything the Jarls of Skaland say, but from what I've seen? of BOTH places in the book so far?? I think Skaland is like. INSANELY messed up and the Jarl who THINGS he's going to be king needs to like, die yesterday. He SUCKS. GOD. So, like, i'm kinda excited to see how this goes, ANYWAY!

Y'all. I stayed up until 4:30 in the ding dang morning finishing the sequel. I was HOOKED. Oh my god. Everything that happened from the moment Harald was revealed as a trickster was just like, FACEPUNCHFACEPUNCHFACEPUNCH. I was like. I gotta see how Freya escapes the prison. And she fucking,,,,,,SENDS HERSELF TO HELHEIM??? WALKS BETWEEN WORLDS TO GET OUT?!?!?!? OKAY! SHIT! DAMN! BADASS! GO OFF, QUEEN! YELLS AT HEL HERSELF?? JFC. THEN SHE BRINGS HARALD INTO THE UNDERWORLD? AND ALL THE GODS COME OUT?? Like, holy hell. LITERALLY. It was INSANE. I finished reading it and just sat there like "what" (this is a good thing)

Like. She RAISED an ARMY of the UNDEAD like, oh my god. I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT! And the heckin bard lady coming in clutch FINALLY?? ONLY TOOK HER HOW LONG???????

ALSO! Enjoyed IMMENSELY how Bjorn became a damsel in distress at the end there lmao. That was a fun flip of tropes. ANYWAY. GOOD SERIES. ENJOYED IT VERY MUCH. I AM VERY TIRED TODAY (tbh the staying up late deffs also had to do with anxiety about today/landlord nonsense, BUT HEY! AT LEAST THE BOOK WAS GOOD!) AND AM STILL KIND OF SITTING HERE LIKE A CRISPY FISH FROM SPONGEBOB, BUT LIKE. GOOD READ. 10/10. I actually genuinely have no complaints or nuances. Maybe the fucking WAS gratuitous when it FINALLY happened, but like. That's SUCH a small complaint lmao.

After lots of hours I've finally completed my DP illustration! I'm glad I got to include a lot of my favorite ghosts!

Close-ups!

☽ Memory becomes absolute garbage. Like “why am I in the kitchen?” garbage. “What was I saying?” garbage. Their brain is running on buffering screens and regret.

☽ Fine motor skills? Ha. They’re dropping everything. Pens. Phones. Entire moral compass. They’re basically a malfunctioning claw machine.

☽ Hallucinations creep in. That jacket on the chair? Suddenly a person. That noise? Definitely doom. Everything becomes mildly haunted.

☽ Time gets weird. Five minutes feel like a year. A full hour disappears and they swear they blinked wrong.

☽ Irritation skyrockets. They get mad at chairs. At air. At gravity. At the audacity of other humans continuing to exist.

☽ Their voice sounds weird. Slow, scratchy, like they swallowed sand.

☽ They walk like a drunk baby giraffe. Walls suddenly jump closer. Floors rise unexpectedly. Coordination said: “I’m out.”

☽ Zoning out becomes a hobby. They stare at random objects like they’re trying to understand quantum mechanics.

☽ Vision blurs in and out. Like someone smeared Vaseline over their eyeballs out of spite.

☽ Their body just hurts. Not a dramatic pain, just the “why does my skeleton feel like it’s buzzing?” pain.

☽ Food cravings go feral. They’d fight someone for a stale cookie.

☽ Terrible choices. They will absolutely say “I’m fine” while making decisions that end in disaster.

☽ Random emotional implosions. Crying because their sock feels wrong? Yes.

A fic written 2 years ago is NOT OLD. Two years is nothing. Two years ago was yesterday.

Fatalistic sarcasm is a thing, however, it usually hides deep feelings of insecurity, and whether you consciously recognize this or not, it validates them. Seriously, I used to constantly make jokes about how other people’s work was better than mine, and it did nothing for my self-esteem, it was a tool to deflect from my own feelings of inferiority and it actively worked against me thinking critically about my own and other people’s work. If it was a joke I could put myself down instead of analyzing why someone’s work was better and trying to incorporate that into my own

As someone who took creative writing courses I was constantly surrounded by other brilliant people, if I hung my head in shame every time I read something as good or better than mine I never would have lifted it. 

As someone who has watched a lot of writers with very good idea’s crash and burn I mean it when I say you either develop a healthy sense of respect for your own work or you stop writing. 

There’s three things I really wish more people consider

1. Do you think their work is better because it’s a different style, one that you like? There’s an element to ‘the grass is greener on the other side’, I have seen people work in some amazing styles that I wished to god I could replicate, some I managed, some I never did, but there’s nothing wrong with either. having a different style Is Not the same as having a bad style, each has their own strengths and you can admire one without putting yours down

2. Knowing someone who is a better writer is a blessing and if they knew you were using their work to bring yourself down they would not be happy, mooch off that friend, analyze their work, ask them to edit your shit, as long as you’re not annoying them be shameless about it. the best thing creative writing did for me was give me the confidence to ask people to critic my work and shamelessly better each other for that sharing