the worthwhile fight

Hi my name is sam! 21. she/they.

[edenprime]

LGBT+ books by authors of color

For those of us tired of LGBT+ romance always being featured between white characters, or from the perspective of white characters, here’s a list of LGBT+ novels by authors of color centered on characters of color.

Thank you so much @percyannabcth​ for your recs! ♡

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz: a beautiful mlm coming of age story between two brown latino boys. Personally, one of my favorite books (young adult).

We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia: first of a series set in fantasy Latin America with a main couple compromised of brown wlw (young adult).

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: enemies-to-lovers time travel fantasy novel featuring wlwoc (adult).

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan: I’ll admit, this one wasn’t my cup of tea, but I’m more the exception to the rule. Fantasy with main asian wlw. Heavy rape and abuse tw (young adult).

It’s Not Like It’s a Secret by Misa Sugiura: contemporary novel with a japanese protagonist that falls in love with a latina girl (young adult). 

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie Mclemore: not a mlm or wlw story, but one with a latina protagonist and a love interest that’s a Pakistani trans boy (young adult).

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera: borrowing elements from both sci-fi and contemporary, this is a story about the hardships a Puerto Rican boy from the Bronx has with coming on his own. Suicide and homophobia tw (young adult)

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong: beautiful novel that tackles a lot of themes, including coming to terms with being LGBT+, from the point of view of an Asian man (adult). 

Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan: coming of age contemporary novel about a persian girl that falls in love with one of her friends (young adult).

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender: contemporary novel in a high-school setting about a black trans boy learning to navigate the dificulties that are put in his path due to his identity. Transphobia tw (young adult).

Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender and Kheryn Callender: a tale of magical realism about a girl whose luck was sealed when she was born on the dreaded day of a hurricane (middle grade).

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera: Juliet, a Puerto Rican lesbian, moves out of her family’s home and leaves to explore what her identity means both for herself and for those around her (new adult).

Ash by Malinda Lo: a wlw retelling of Cinderella with a girl of color as a protagonist and a very quick, entertaining read (young adult).

A Line in the Dark by Malinda Lo: a contemporary novel where the main character, an asian girl called Jess Wong, used to being on the sidelines, becomes the protagonist of her own story as she falls in love with her best friend (young adult). 

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann: Alice, an asexual black girl, learns to navigate her sexuality and how the perception of others affects her (or not) after a break up with her girlfriend and the start of adult life (adult).

Seven Tears at High Tide by C. B. Lee: Kevin Luong, an asian-american guy, asks the ocean for one summer where he can find love - and a selkie boy hears his pleading and seeks him out, willing to give him exactly that (young adult).

Not Your Sidekick by C. B. Lee: an intern girl with no powers at a superhero school starts getting notes from a mysterious person that goes by “M”. Bisexual main character, and the sequel includes a trans boy on the main cast, both people of color (young adult).

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum: prepare for your heart to be torn out by this not-quite psychological thriller about two boys in a codependent relationship that must learn to cope with their less-than-ideal circumstances, and their also less-than-ideal dynamic. Read the book’s description for potential trigger warnings (young adult).

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo: a series of short tales that tells the stories of british black women through different years, including the those of lgbt+ women (adult).

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson: when a girl’s attempt to get a scolarship to the college of her dreams falls through, her only choice if she wants her life to keep going on the path she’s set for herself is to become prom queen. It’s just too bad that the competition is so cute (young adult).

Final Draft by Riley Redgate: an 18 year old writer, who happens to be a plus-size pansexual ecuatorian girl, learns the perils of adulthood and gains life experience in this extremely relatable contemporary novel (young adult).

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera: a heart-wrenching novel about two boys that meet up to live the entirety of their life in a day - a day which happens to be their last. (death tw) (young adult).

Adaptation by Malinda Lo: when strange events turn the American government into a paranoid mess, Reese wakes up with a month of her life gone from her memories. This time, as our main character finds herself pulled in two directions, the love triangle is bisexual (young adult).

The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum: a slow-burn, slow-paced romance between two women that will leave the reader bewildered and feeling like they have a new understanding of life, with a touch of sci-fi (young adult).

She of the Mountains by Vivek Shraya: an illustrated novel that touches on gender, sexuality and a re-imagining of Hindu mythology (adult).

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin: fantasy novel set in an apocalyptic world, with a cast made up mainly of black characters, that includes polyamory in the first book and wlw relationships on the latter ones (adult). Be wary of possible trigger warnings.

Note: all the links redirect to The Storygraph, a Black-owned site currently on Beta! Consider checking it out and giving it your support - it lets you import all of your books and shelves from Goodreads, but unlike Goodreads, it’s not owned and ran by Amazon.

[cheaphalloweencostume]

not to be controversial but the feeling of being so thoroughly sleepy that you know you’re gonna pass out the second you get curled up in bed? unsurpassed, baby

[aleclighwood]

Every time Magnus has called Alec “Alexander” throughout the seasons

“Alexander,” he murmured, wanting to say more than just “Alec,” to call him by a name that was longer than and different from the name everybody else called him, a name with weight and value to it. He whispered the name as if making a promise that he would take his time.

[timmychalamet]

6:11

[caroline1augestad]

[usertoxicyaoi]

#tfw you both see each other for the first time again after almost being so close to kissing each other but you gotta fake the chill when you’re actually highkey shook.

[mbti-stereotypes]

tl;dr short typing guide!

[actualmichelle]

moody superficial cold hippie….surprisingly accurate tbh

[eightsenses]

Henrik talking about auditioning for season 3 and his connection with Tarjei.

[eightsenses]

Henrik Holm: A young professional at giving interviews.

[isakdeilig]

｡◕ ‿ ◕｡

[chioink]

More #skam #fanart #evenbechnesheim #art #myart #isakandeven #animated #GIF

[isakdeilig]

Isak + Dragging Magnus 

[tobermoriansass]

Salazar Slytherin was a bigot, end of story.

Okay, I know HP fandom hates the way Slytherin was treated in the books, with all its implications. I know JKR’s belief that all blood supremacists go to Slytherin sounds implausible and dodgy. I know there are kids who have been mocked/side-eyed for being Pottermore-sorted into Slytherin. Hell I know that I’m pretty ehhhh on JKR’s Pottermore reveal that Peter Pettigrew was actually probably a Slytherin. There’s a lot of worthy criticism to be made there & an understandable instinct to want to redeem the house from its less than savoury reputation.

HOWEVER.

1) as pommedeplume put it so succinctly in this post: 

Wizarding culture is fucked up and we shouldn’t shy away from admitting that. There’s a difference between being a Slytherin in our world and being a Slytherin in their world. You are not part of wizarding culture and not subject to the problems that comes with that.

Which is a position really worth keeping in mind in any fandom discussion, especially one concerning Slytherin and its position in HPverse.

2) There have been a couple of posts floating around, defending Salazar Slytherin that I’ve seen lately (x, x), claiming that canon + history are somehow ‘evidence’ that Salazar Slytherin had the ‘right’ idea - and that therefore, canonically, Slytherin was a nice guy and not a bigot.  And that is complete and utter bullshit. The rest of this essay is a copy of a response to the original post that I’ve made before, but I’m posting it again because apparently this idea refuses to die a permanent death.

There’s a distinction to be made between headcanon and canon here. You’re free to headcanon Salazar Slytherin however you want, but it’s disingenuous to suggest that there is ‘canonical proof’ for a headcanon when the bulk of canon, well, contradicts it. However, it also pays to be critical about how you’re headcanoning something and to ask yourself why you’re headcanoning Salazar Slytherin’s racism/bigotry away & what you achieve by it - and even more importantly, what real world issues does it feed into/reflect?

3) JKR wrote the persecution of muggleborns as a really really clear parallel for anti-semitic persecution through the ages. It’s really hard to ignore that when you have things like the Muggleborn Commission (and Mary Cattermole’s trial in Deathly Hallows), propaganda titled with things like “Muggleborns and the Threat they Pose to Wizarding Society”, or hell, even the twisted version of muggle studies the Carrows teach the kids in DH - muggles are wild animals etc. Now, suggesting Salazar Slytherin’s views made ‘sense’ because witches were being persecuted c. the 10th century is 

a) historically inaccurate, therefore, completely baseless, 

b) is canonically inaccurate because wix in canon have used a variety of spells to save themselves from death, notably, Wendelin the Weird who used Flame-Freezing charms to save herself from burning & the Duc de Trefle-Picques who escaped beheading (and faked his death) using a Disillusionment charm on his head  and 

c) it suggests that his assertion that muggleborns were a ‘real’ threat were right and by extension, that that language of justification is all right, as long as a ‘case’ can be made for a ‘threat’ - which has all kinds of really messed up implications re. the real world where the language of ‘threat’ is used repeatedly to justify violence against immigrants, racial minorities, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, sexual minorities and yes, was used to justify the Holocaust (this is basically the thesis of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that the Jews were behind some big ‘conspiracy’ to take over the world, which is one of the texts Hitler built his campaign on).

d) the real world implications are important here because HP has a huge social element to it and if HP fans are going to pat themselves on the back for being more socially aware & tolerant than other fans, then its worth being aware about what kind of views in our society Salazar Slytherin’s declaration that muggleborns were a threat to wizard society (despite them being a relatively powerless minority) is meant to reflect.

e) in doing so, you’ve actually fallen hook, line and sinker for Salazar Slytherin’s own propaganda.

Cool?

Cool.

And now, the really long essay in which I cover all the arguments I’ve seen in favour of Salazar Slytherin in depth using canon, Pottermore & historical & academic sources to talk about why Salazar Slytherin has no foot to stand on. A summary of the arguments I make:

A bigot is always a bigot, no matter how much they talk about ‘threat’ and ‘risk’. This language has been used in the past to exclude minorities, Salazar Slytherin uses it to exclude muggleborns - there’s a really clear principle here.

Salazar Slytherin lived in the 10th century, the witch hunts did not start until the late fourteenth century and really only intensified during the 16th and 17th centuries. Incidentally, the worst of the hunts took place in Germany and not in Britain, though the Scottish witch hunts of the 17th century were pretty bad. 

The people of the middle ages held a lot of contradictory views on magic and religion, so even though a bunch of texts concerning folk religious and magic practices were destroyed (though there are lots of exceptions to this) they weren’t only a) studying the Bible and nothing else and b) folk magic really was a thing even during the medieval period.

Witch burnings were mostly to do with getting rid of unwanted people/people who were felt to be ‘burdens’ or ‘undesirable’ but had no real ‘crimes’ that they could be put away for. Socially marginalized groups usually bore the brunt of this persecution. A lot of money-making was involved as well. Actual magic was not always the point of contention.

JKR has independently confirmed that a) Salazar Slytherin’s views were statistical outliers for his time and b) that the belief that muggles were dangerous really only gained traction after the establishment of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692.

JKR has also independently deconstructed the idea that witches and wizards had anything to fear by the way persecution in the 14th century, using the character of Wendelin the Weird to do so.

Cuthbert Binns is an unreliable narrator, the wizarding world is highly corrupt and prejudiced - JKR literally spent seven books telling us this was so.

JKR independently confirmed, on Pottermore, that Salazar S. placed the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. Also, really, there’s a big difference between a safety room (e.g. a nuclear fallout bunker) and a room that has stone pillars made of snakes, snakes with emeralds  for eyes and one giant statue of Salazar Slytherin whose mouth opens when you say “Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.” in Parseltongue. Sounds more like a shrine to myself, made by Salazar Slytherin to me tbqh.

David Cameron, Donald Trump & Tony Abbott use this same language of ‘risk’ and ‘danger’ to society to explain why immigrants shouldn’t be allowed into their countries; that’s ba s i c a l l y what Salazar Slytherin’s views boil down to in the end. 

 Hit read more because it’s really long. Feel free to reblog this.

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[artmuke]

and never for a second blame yourself.

missing you // all time low

[parisgilmores]

[minddpalaces]

[softnorwegians]

#this is the most upsetting honestly #because he’s not just forgotten about something important #and clearly missed out on the things his friends are now discussing #which is the worst when you’re seventeen and in a bad place anyway #but he’s also trying to join the conversation #and for the first time his friends aren’t letting him #they’re like it’s a long story and you weren’t there and we can’t be bothered explaining it to you anymore #showing for the first time that they are really getting tired of whatever isak’s deal is #and while that’s completely understandable #it is heartbreaking to see isak realize this #that he’s really kind of an outsider now #and then on top of that they keep talking about kissing someone with stubble #or a mustache or whatever something like that #and kind of acting grossed out by that #and so isak isn’t only not part of this conversation #but over his head they’re also talking really negatively about something that he spent the whole weekend doing #which was kissing someone with stubble and really really enjoying it #and you can see how much this hurts him #and by the end of this scene you see him thinking #i will never be able to talk to them about this and this will never be okay (@koninginnen)

[gansevy]

sore loser?