#mlm lit

[gayteensupreme]

"Because of you," he says. "Don't say that," I plead. "Because of you," he says again. "You are sick," I tell him. "If I'm sick it's because of you," he says ... "Because of you I am sick and I will not get better."

[professionalqueerbookworm]

I'll be honest guys, gals and nonbinary pals, 2023 was A Year and I barely made it out alive tbh. I'll try to start posting again as best as I can, for now enjoy my current favorite queer fantasy series by T.J. Klune. Happy New Year ❤️🌈

[camilleisback]

Hot take: if you shame women (especially heterosexual women) for consuming queer (especially mlm) media, specifically literature and fanfiction, you should take a good ol' humility bath and STOP. POLICING. WOMEN'S. INTERESTS. AND. HOBBIES.

Kindly fuck y'all. You're no different from your forefathers who thought that us, as women, should have been banned from reading NOVELS. And you have the nerve (the nerve!) of calling yourselves progressive or leftists. I'm so sick of it.

[lit-erary-memes]

Detective Levi Abrahams from the Seven of Spades series by @ckingsbridge. The ball of rage that I just want to hug.

[aritany]

CHARACTER INTRO | I WISH YOU WOULDN’T

CONNOR MURPHY

basics | 17, he/him, narrator

appearance | short, slight, dusty brown/blonde hair, round wire reading glasses, fine-boned

personality | analytical, funny, rigid, sarcastic, afraid, yearning

MBTI | INTJ

facts | 

hasn’t seen Dear Evan Hansen out of spite but puts up with Natalie’s jokes about it anyway

has mild OCD

is very honest about everything he considers important (doesn’t consider a lot of emotional stuff important)

doesn’t like natalie’s boyfriend At All

can be a bit rigid out of self-preservation

absolutely refuses to discuss The Incident

AUX preference | alternative: The Killers, The Aces, alt-J, The 1975, 

road trip snack of choice | pretzels, iced coffee

theme song | Bambi by Hippo Campus

aesthetics | spattering rain on canvas, the pop-hiss of a can opening, fingers tangled in hair, the inhale before a secret, wavering uncertainty, sun through the windshield, the roar of a waterfall

[littlefurpants]

'Bonds of Brass' by Emily Skrutskie

I had fun reading this book, even though it deals with heavy topics like, oh, galactic conquest and executions. But it comes out hot out of the gate with our hero piloting a fighter spaceship to save his and his best friends lives, and it doesnt stop from there. Plenty of spaceship action, explosions, mixed with "we cant kiss" romantic tension and fanfic-worthy "and they were roommates," "theres only one bed" and fake dating. The fanfic cliches were a little much for me at times, and it was very "just kiss already." If that's your cup of tea you'll love this book. The romance is broken up with the task of getting the secret prince back to his empire, and in the process having to betray the oppressed people that the mc belongs to. At times I wondered who I was supposed to be rooting for, but I like that kind of morally ambiguous "who are the bad guys" thing. The twist at the end changes the whole game, the entire relationship between the two main characters, and I cannot wait to see what happens in the second book. When I finished I wanted to read it again immediately in light of what was revealed. Definitely recommend, and I will be reading the rest of this series as well as Skrutskie's other books.

[contentmlm]

“friendship”

homegoing, quey + cudjo, yaa gyasi / maurice, maurice + alec, e.m forster / giovanni’s room, david + giovanni, james baldwin / brokeback mountain, ennis + jack, annie proulx / tin man, ellis + michael, sarah winman / mrs.dalloway, septimus + evans, virginia woolf

[nevermind-the-witchcraft]

The Book

Now that the first draft for Book 2 is done, I figured it’s time to address some common questions I’ve been getting about The Book

When’s Book 2 coming out?: Sometime this year! I can’t be more specific at the moment. 

Is James really dead???: :’) you tell me

How long did it take you to write Book 1?: Uhhh... Well, the entire series started off as a short story series, meant to be cut into 3 parts. I realized that just wasn’t going to happen, so the duology (trilogy?) was born. It was a very different animal when I first began and has gone through many edits and overhauls. The final version took about a year or two to perfect and complete.

(Indignant voice) Why would Kira just leave her girlfriend like that??: A lot of people seem to think that the way my characters act is a reflection of me/my personality/my opinions/views. They aren’t! My characters are all different people with their own motivations and morals. Kira’s relationship with Gia is layered and simple all at once. She loves Gia and is very attached to her, but Gia wasn’t the one that got caught up in the ~revolution.~ To Kira, it would have been unfair to involve her, not to mention dangerous. There’s nothing Kira values more than friendship, and she’d do anything to protect the people she loves. Leaving Gia in Greenwilde for so long was her way of protecting her. 

Why are all of your characters gay? Where are the straight people?: This question has a multi-layered answer. 

1. Growing up queer, I can’t tell you how difficult it was/is for me to find quality entertainment with LGBTQ representation. I hope I don’t have to explain why representation is so important, or why its important that said representation be as varied as possible. I’m sorry, but I get bored of watching heterosexuals dominate everything and most of the books I read with gay characters are boring and/or cliche. It’s time that we had something better. Something different. 

2. If you want to read a book with heterosexual characters, all you have to do is go to the bookstore and pick up a random book. If you think it’s odd that there’s so many gay people in one area in my book, then you should question why that is. Do you think its strange when a television show is dominated by MOSTLY straight characters? No? Because people tend to believe that heterosexuality is the default. It isn’t, and it shouldn’t be.

3. In addition to that answer ^, gay people tend to hang out w/ other gay people. Not to say that I don’t have straight friends, but the majority of my friends are LGBTQ. Its not uncommon for a marginalized community to stick together.

Why aren’t I in the book / Where am I?: I think its lazy to self-insert or base characters off of your friends. There is not a single character in TWW that is based off of me. There are maybe four characters I vaguely based off of people I know, and none of them are main characters. In fact, the only one you see somewhat regularly is Monroe. To make things simpler, I’ll use him as an example. Monroe’s appearance, kindness, and loyalty are based off of a friend of mine but everything else about his character is an invention of my own. I work very hard on my plot, sub-plots, and characters! They’re all my children and I made them up. So if you see yourself in the book, it’s because I love you and I wanted to honor that love with a cameo in some way.