This is a collection of other people's zines, games, and other creations about lesbians, bisexual women in sapphic relationships, same-gender relationships, and/or same-sex relationships, and women loving women (WLW). These are LGBTQIA-positive works that may be about cisgender women as well as transgender women, and sapphics with more complicated relationships to sex and gender, such as butches who go by he/him, and transmasculine or nonbinary people who feel strongly about being lesbians, even if they don't feel that they are categorically women. Being queer has never been about fitting neatly into boxes, and lesbianism has always had room for people who don't.
This collection is part of my directory of other people's creations on itch.io, Curated Collections of LGBTQIA, where you can find more collections about other topics. I personally select and review each creation in them, even if they are different than my own views or experiences as a queer person myself.
Content: Rated G. Except for drug references on page 56.
Medium: Comic book.
Genre and subject: Fiction. Comedy. Furry.
About: As described by the cartoonist,
"This book collects the first year of Rae the Doe comics, chronicling the life and times of Rae the Doe, from meeting her girlfriend Mimi to coming out as trans to unionizing a haunted house. This book has it all: off-beat, wholesome jokes, a cast of loveable characters and lots and lots of puns. With over 200 pages, five never before seen book-exclusive comics, character bios, and a few other bonuses, this book has it all. Wait, I already said that. Ah, it's worth repeating. This book has it all."
Queer themes: Many characters are various colors of queer. The main character is a gay transgender woman who has a bisexual girlfriend.
Vibe: Laugh-out-loud funny.
Content: Rated PG. Some suggestive language and flirting. Warning for screen shake in certain scenes.
Medium: A computer game. It can run on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Length: 37,000+ words long, with 23 different endings. 2 to 3 hours for a full play through.
Genre and subject: A visual novel. Romance.
About: 23-year-old CiCi can hardly choose which of her hobbies is her favorite. Help this mermaid get ready for a festival and maybe even find love under the sea. Recommended by The Dialog Tree: A Dating Sim Zine, which praised the character design and world building, and noted that you can play it with or without romance.
Queer themes: Women loving women. Tagged by the game designer as lesbian and LGBT.
Vibe: Cute, uplifting, innocent, and sweet.
Content: Rated G.
About: "a queer moment I had at a mosh recently, captured in a short 7-page comic"
Vibe: Fun!
Content: Rated PG-13. Flirty and suggestive.
Medium: A computer game created with Bitsy. It runs in your web browser.
Length: About ten minutes. One ending, no choices, one play through to see all.
About: A lesbian tale inspired by a motif that recurs in fairy tales in many lands, "The Princess's Birthmark."
Content: Rated R just because of nudity from the waist up.
Medium: Comic book.
About: "Quiet moments of intimacy between two butch lesbians."
Vibe: Peaceful. Wholesome.
Content: Rated G.
Medium/about: A book of fan art of Scooby Doo, in which Daphne and Velma are girlfriends.
Vibe: Lighthearted romance and silly quips in spooky and everyday settings.
Content: Rated PG-13. Blood. Violence. Sexual harassment. Homophobia.
Medium: Comic book.
Length: 7 pages, with cover.
Genre and subject: Historical fiction.
About "love, monsters, and cultural anxieties ... drawing on inspiration from Sheridan Le Fanu's novel Carmilla ... deconstructing the stereotype of the predatory lesbian."
Content: Rated R. Sex scenes. Blood. Art and description of animal sacrifice (bull and sheep) as part of religious practices in ancient times.
Medium: A poetry book illustrated in full color.
Length: 28 pages.
Genre and subject: Historical fiction.
About-- as described by the artist-- "two women in the ancient world, inspired by the fragments of Sappho and her translators." A priestess falls in love with a noblewoman and sings of the intimacies that she yearns to do together.
Queer themes: Women loving women. Tagged as lesbian.
Vibe: Sensual.
Content: Rated R. No actual sex scene is written or seen, but the story revolves around plans for one. It makes references to various things used for sex acts and kink, and discusses consent.
Medium: A tiny computer game created with Bitsy. It can run in your web browser. The game is only in French. A fan has written a complete English translation in the comments.
Length: About ten minutes. There is one ending and no choices, so you can see the whole story in one play through.
Genre and subject: Comedy.
About: Search your bedroom for the harness while your two girlfriends make playful remarks as they wait to use it on you.
Queer themes: Lesbians. Polyamory. Transgender women. (One of the triad mentions that she takes estrogen.)
Vibe: Silly and realistic. Naughty and yet also wholesome.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: A tiny computer game created with Bitsy. This is a playable prototype. The author wants to expand on it in a later version with a combat system.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. History. Combat. Crime. Romance.
About: Play as a queer person from history, Julie d'Aubigny (1673–1707), as she duels a suitor for a woman's hand, and reflects on how her life brought her to this point.
Representation: Gender nonconformity. A historical figure who had relationships with men and women, and so has been described in today's language as bisexual.
Vibe: Exciting, rebellious.
Content: Rated PG. Some excerpts are suggestive of sensuality, but nothing explicit.
Medium: Zine.
About: "A selection of excerpts from public domain and classic literature that are TOTALLY GAY, Y'ALL." These come from Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, the Bible, and more.
Content: Rated PG.
Medium: Zine. Comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
Length: 8 pages.
About the cartoonist's experience of being a Chinese-American lesbian, focusing on his feelings about the family he grew up in.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Zine. Comic book.
About: "The short story of two friends who fall in love with their respective crushes, and support each other along the way. (and it's queer!) Approx 12 pages, but full of the fuzzy feelings of first love"
Queer themes: Women loving women. Men loving men. Friendships between queer people.
Vibe: Tender.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Zine.
Genre: Poetry. Comic book. Romance.
About: "A 10-page minicomic including adaptations of Sappho's poetry, as translated by Anne Carson."
Vibe: Beautiful. Sad. Lovely.
Content: Rated G. Friendly for all ages.
Accessibility: Colorblind friendly. Subtitles. One-button.
Medium: A computer game.
Genre and subject: Puzzle. Matching shapes.
About: As you solve puzzles, you unlock a little more of the life story and goals of the main character, Ruya, as she dreams of motherhood.
Queer themes: In an interview, the game developers describe Ruya as "a lesbian [who] adopts a family. Which is a deliberate attempt to normalise same-sex love and adoption. The idea was to imagine someone who’s growing up battling with this issue, perhaps in a culture or home where this is less accepted and the consequences may be extreme. It’s for a young person who’s having these feelings so they can find comfort in the story. We tried to tie it into the game in a way that was subtle and not too ‘in your face’. This way it sinks into people’s subconscious to hopefully see it as less of an issue. A kind of passive mind-altering form of activism I guess. The sooner it’s normalised, the sooner people will grow. We released a soft-launched an android version of the game and the country with the most popularity was Russia. Which was interesting considering their governments take on homosexuality."
Vibe: Peaceful, calm, meditative.
Content: Rated R. This is a realistic story about sex and BDSM, but it doesn't show the acts. It talks about feeling guilty or ashamed about your kinks. It also talks about how some kinks can be physically dangerous or distressing.
Medium: A tiny computer game created with Bitsy. It runs in your web browser.
Genre and subject: Fiction.
About: A lesbian butch/femme couple prepares for a BDSM scene. The butch is an experienced top, but gets uncomfortable about it this time. Instead of going ahead with the scene, the femme does some caring things for the butch.
Vibe: Hurt/comfort.
Content: Rated PG-13. Artistic nudity.
Medium: A computerized card game.
Genre and subject: History. Poetry. Romance.
About: "a contemplative, creative card game based on the poetry of Sappho. A typical game can be completed in 1-2 minutes."
Content: Rated G.
Medium: TTRPG with board game.
About: "a strategy romance roleplaying game that can be printed onto three sheets of paper & played with any standard checkers set. Two players take on the roles of women who are very attracted to each other as they try to figure out if their attraction is mutual."
Content: Rated G.
Medium: TTRPG with board game.
About: "a strategy romance roleplaying game that can be printed onto three sheets of paper & played with any standard checkers set. Two players take on the roles of women who are very attracted to each other as they try to figure out if their attraction is mutual."
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Physical game. A bookmark microgame.
About: Print out this bookmark. It is your passport for recording your travel through the diverse world of books. At the top, describe yourself. Below that, there are sections on the bookmark for particular types of authors: banned, indigenous, queer, etc. When your bookmark enters or leaves a book by a particular type of author, stamp that section and write the date.
If you do not choose to print a version of the bookmark that uses the least ink, then you can choose from 20 different pride flag backgrounds to represent yourself. One relevant option in here is the lesbian flag.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: A tiny computer game created with Bitsy. It runs in your web browser.
Genre and subject: Fiction. Poetry. Romance.
About: "a bee muses on new love in spring"
Vibe: Romantic, lighthearted, charming, sweet.
Content: Rated PG-13. Alcohol, sensuality. Description of dead bodies decomposing.
Medium: A book of poetry.
About: As described by the poet, "a suite of eight poems about longing for women. Some of the poems have won the 2nd Gémino H. Abad Awards for Poetry and Literary Criticism in 2019 and published in the Journal of English Studies and Comparative Literature in 2021 as a smaller suite. This zine includes three more poems and is arranged in the order I have always intended them all to be read."
Content: Rated PG.
Medium: A tiny computer game created with Bitsy. It runs in your web browser.
Genre and subject: Science fiction fantasy.
About: "explore a gay little moon and discover the source of your gender envy."
Vibe: Silly.
Content: Rated PG. Suggestive humor.
Medium: A computer game that runs in your browser.
About: Two players each control their character's arms. Try to make them have a normal handshake without accidentally hugging or making out.
Relevance: Each match has a random pair of characters. They can be the same or different genders. The designer submitted this game to Yuri Game Jam 2017.
Vibe: Goofy, silly, second-hand embarrassment, giggly, laugh out loud.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: An illustrated story poem in a zine.
Genre and subject: Science fiction.
About "robot girl maintenance and sapphic yearning."
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Zine.
Genre and subject: Poetry. Romance.
About: A poem for the zinester's love.
Content: Rated R.
Accessibility: Some of the text is intentionally difficult to read for artistic reasons.
Medium: A personal zine designed for reading on screen.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir. Poetry. Collage.
About the zine writer's personal experiences with being a lesbian, enjoying being surrounded by other sorts of queer people (gay, bi, and trans), and how being a lesbian doesn't necessarily mean being a woman.
Content: Rated G, so far as I've seen.
Medium: A poetry generator created with Twine.
Genre and subject: History. Poetry. Romance.
About: "This generator creates lines of poetry using Sappho's style and vocabulary, as translated from dozens of fragments (using Anne Carson's chosen terminology). As such - representative of Carson's style - many of the generated lines will be broken or incomplete, marked with ] or [ to represent words lost to time. This is intentional."
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Zine. Full color. Designed for reading on screen.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. History.
About: A history of several pride flags that are relevant to lesbians and women loving women. It has a couple of flags that aren't supposed to represent lesbians, because some lesbian flags were based on them.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Zine. There is a versions for reading on screen as well as one for printing.
Genre and subject: Historical fiction. Romance. Anthology.
About: Six short sapphic historical fiction stories, "framed by the Victorian language of flowers."
