morgan

Texas| 16 |cheer| sc: taggies12

[bepeu-deactivated20171202]

things to take * a nap * it easy * care

[tinsnip]

* on me

[brinnanza]

* me on

[babexgoals]

Women with tattoos omfg

[kristina100000]

girls who use “like” and “literally” in every sentence are the hottest bitches in the world

[shygalxx-deactivated20180908]

my self esteem just boosted

[pure4evr]

same i thought it was gonna be like mean

[dumdolly]

this is literally so nice

[go-to-helvetica]

Sometimes I feel a little guilty that I read fanfiction way more than I read actual books nowadays, but then I realize why.

It’s not just about my ships being canon. It’s about great, well written stories where the characters are LGBTQ. Fanfiction has way more representation than actual books and I love it.

If I want to read an actual book with LGBTQ characters, it’s going to be a dramatic coming of age thing or a side character where their identity is heavily coded/barely mentioned.

With fanfiction, I can read space operas, high fantasy, rom coms, horror, or whatever  and the characters being LGBQ, while important and part of who the characters are, is not the entire plot.

 It’s part of why I liked the Captive Prince. I get wonderful gay/bi rep, but I also get an interesting story of betrayal and war and intrigue and I love. I shouldn’t have to read coming of age novels in order to get LGBTQ characters.

And that is why I love fanfiction.

[theartofangirling]

Woah there! I’m all for pushing books to do more, and I love fanfiction as much as the next person, but if you think that books published today don’t have representation, you haven’t been paying attention. Especially in the young adult genre, authors and publishers have been pushing for more and more voices to be heard, and these days some of the most popular YA books are written by authors and about characters with marginalized identities.

Let’s look at the New York Times best seller list for this week (October 24), just for a snapshot. First on the list is a book by a black woman about racialized police brutality in America (The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas), which has spent 86 weeks on the list and recently came out as a movie. We’ve also got a book about a teen with extreme social anxiety that deals with mental health and suicide (Dear Evan Hansen by Val Emmich), a book about a summer romance between two boys (What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera), a book about a girl with OCD (Turtles All the Way Down by John Green), a fantasy story inspired by West African mythology and police brutality (Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi), and a book about a Muslim girl in post-9/11 America (A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi). 

This is only a small sample of the kinds of diverse books that are being published and thriving. I could name a dozen popular books with LGBTQ main characters where their identity is explicitly named but not the main focus of the story. These days, you can find space operas, high fantasy, rom coms, horror, and so much more with queer characters or characters of color or characters of a wide array of identities. 

Fanfiction has so many options for incredible stories with strong representation - plus it’s free! - but let’s not forget to support the people who are creating stories for a mainstream audience and actually being heard!

A few recommendations of books with LGBTQ characters where that isn’t the main focus:

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland (black bisexual girl fights zombies in post-Civil War America)

Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro (gay black boy faces police violence)

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virture and The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee (bisexual boy gallavants through 18th century Europe; his aro-ace sister tries to become a doctor)

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente (biracial pansexual former rock star competes in intergalactic competition)

Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moira Fowley-Doyle (queer Irish girls mess around with magic)

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman (bisexual biracial girl makes a podcast)

Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore (bisexual girl goes to a mysterious house)

Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore (family of queer Latina girls live in a garden)

Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (six criminals, half of whom are queer, attempt an impossible heist)

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan (queer Asian girls escape a demon king)

[hello-lesbians]

I could really use a 9 hour hug right about now

[trap-mind]

i wanna be the one who makes your bad days better

[nwumb]

i’m just rlly overwhelmed and i wouldn’t mind sleeping in ur arms for awhile

[16ll]

‏you’re something that i wanna keep forever

[latenights]

if someone makes you happy, make them happier

[fairylander]

This mindset will make you the kindest you can be

[unspokengrief]

im so scared the rest of my life is gonna feel like this

[just-shower-thoughts]

People love dogs because they love us unconditionally. Imagine how happy we’d be if we treated each other that way.

[itsapros3xia]

I just want to crawl in bed with someone I care about and have my heart feel at home again and watch movies and talk about random stuff for hours

[softbull-deactivated20181230]

not to sound like a soft bitch but i’m really in the mood to fall asleep in someone’s arms

[danger]

There’s a part of me that isn’t the same anymore

[probably-voldemort]

When my cousin Olivia was three, she started preschool and became best friends with a boy named Abraham.  Most people called him Abe, even then, because Abraham is a mouthful for a three year old and, to most people, it’s the logical nickname.

Not, however, according to Olivia, who decided to nickname him Ham.

No one’s really sure whether she wasn’t totally listening when he was introduced and only caught the last part of his name, or if she decided Abe was too boring a nickname, or maybe she was just hungry, but the nickname has stuck for the last twenty years.  Of course, Olivia was and still is the only person to use it.

When they were seven or eight, he decided to get back at her by calling her Olive.  That nickname stuck, too, and they’ve been Olive and Ham since.  But only to each other.  They get highly offended if anyone else calls them that.

Last night was their seventh anniversary, and Abe proposed to Olivia, and she said yes.  And how did she announce it on Facebook, you may ask?

People used to tell me “If you like ham so much, why don’t you just marry it?”  So I am.

[probably-voldemort]

Shout out to Olive and Ham, who are still engaged and adorable and who are planning on getting married sometime next summer

[capriking]

no offense but I could really go for a make out session with a particular girl rn

[ofwoodandbone]

Unrelated, but boy do I wish I were an anthropology major in college right about now so that I could write a bombing thesis on why doing the hokey pokey at Hurricane Florence in the hopes that she’ll turn herself around is a seemingly legitimate modernized attempt at animistic folk magic.