Water Spirits

look how many teeth / you have—the better to swallow the sky

Emily O’Neill, from “where St. Francis tamed the wolves,” Curious Specimens (via lifeinpoetry)

me @ the demons that stand at the end of my bed:

it’s a lot warmer under the covers if you wanna come cuddle

Paris is always showing its teeth. When it is not snarling, it is laughing.

Les Misérables, Part III, Book I, Chapter XI (via sextmen)

Alhambra. Granada, Spain.

aristotle & dante quotes: 7/?

I wanted to tell them that I never knew that people like Dante existed in the world, people who looked at the stars, and knew the mysteries of water, and knew enough to know that birds belonged to the heavens and weren’t meant to be shot down from their graceful flights by mean and stupid boys.

Button author Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib’s poem featured on the sign of a BBQ restaurant in Toronto. Get your copy of Hanif’s incredible book here.

So we have a lot of ‘Sirius is beautiful and my word does he know it, his hair is his favourite thing and he revels in the glory of his own splendour’.

But I’m just laughing at the idea of a completely oblivious Sirius who is too busy being hyperactive to ever pay any real attention to what he looks like in the mirror- I mean the boy brushes his teeth sat on the counter chatting rapid fire to the others (much to ‘Fuck Mornings, Fuck You, Fuck Everything’ Remus’s ire), or bouncing around the dorm flinging stuff in his bag. He doesn’t ever really brush his hair- there’s a charm to do that, and then he doesn’t actually have to watch what he’s doing because who has time to actually look at their hair? And it all gets in his fucking face anyway- he keeps it long partially because his mother claims it looks unruly and partially because he just can’t be fucked getting it cut, but one evening in the common room he’s tucking it behind his ears to do his Transfiguration for the 7th time in quarter of an hour and angrily says he’s just going to chop it all off, and there are literally about 15 people around the room (including Remus) who just go ‘NO!’ and then look really awkward but he can not cut it- just that casual elegant way it falls into his eyes and it’s all wavy and silky and so so so pretty, and Lily comes to the aid of Remus like ‘Well Muggle mythology says there was this lion called Sampson, and when they cut off his mane he lost his power. So you shouldn’t cut it off- it’s unlucky. Here, have a hairband.’ and he thinks it’s very odd behaviour but like Ok, fine, people are weird.

And he knows he’s charming because he charms people all the time, and he’s a massive flirt but that’s just because he likes people and it makes him happy to talk to people in a way that makes them feel good about themselves, and it makes him happy to see the smiles and bitten lips and slight flushes that say they’re flattered because it’s nice to make people feel good (except Snape, obviously), and if it means he can worm his way out of detention or get drinks for him and the lads at The Three Broomsticks then so much the better, but he just does not understand why not everyone finds it as easy as he does? Like he tells Peter to get the next round in, tells him what to say to Rosie to get her to forget they’re 16, and Pete comes back really dejected like ‘I said what you told me and it didn’t work’. And Sirius is really confused by this like ‘What, but you said the exact same thing I just said?’

And really why do girls giggle so much? Do they do that all the time? Why? At least Evans is normal, but some of the others actually freak him out a bit, and truth be told sometimes the blokes are no better. And it becomes a massive inside thing, especially amongst the Gryffindors, like ‘Someone should tell him he’s a fucking adonis.’ ‘What? No way! His ego’s just fine as is- don’t inflate it any more.’ ‘But he’s so pretty it’s just wrong for him not to realise.’ ‘No! If you tell him, maybe he’ll turn really picky…’ ‘You do realise he is so picky already that he has literally never had a girlfriend?’ ‘Oh come on, he’s been pining after Remus Lupin for years!’

And it’s just something that’s never really occurred to him- to be bothered about what he looks like. Maybe it’s so many years of an abusive home being looked at like he’s dirt, but he’s got a remarkable resistance and ignorance towards the way people look at him, good or bad. And it’s only really Remus who breaks past that. Because he’s got such eerily perceptive eyes, it’s just like he’s looking right into your soul, and it’s sort of uncomfortable and it makes his skin go all crawly but he loves it- it’s a sort of adrenaline rush to feel so totally exposed, and he feels like Remus likes what he sees when he looks at him like that. He feels valued and important and special, like the way it makes him smile to make other people feel, only so much more intense, and when, eventually, Remus is brushing that bloody fucking hair out of his eyes and down his cheek and says he’s beautiful, he feels like maybe he is. And it’s got absolutely nothing to do with the way he looks in the mirror.

[1] it's getting cold outside. it's has snowed way too much and the gang are literally stuck @ monmouth because it's just much to dangerous to drive home with the amount of snow that has fallen and continues to fall. i dont even know where i'm going with this. i just imagine huge cuddle puddles on gansey's bed, copious amounts of hot chocolate being consumed, noah being banished for a bit cause HE'S mAKING IT COLD! a lot of poking and "who did that's?", sappy platonic love confessions

[2] “i love you all so much i could kiss you” everyone halfheartedly wiggles away from gansey cheek kisses. what a sap. they love him too. adam and blue fall asleep in the cuddles first. gansey and ronan don’t bother continuing much of a conversation after that. they watch the snow fall from the windows until their eyes are too heavy to keep open. Noah makes sure they all have covers on them so they don’t get sick. he loves them so much.

this is so dang cute gdi 

Why The Raven Cycle isn’t getting any diver$ity cookie from me.

This contains mild spoilers, and text from The Raven King.

The way Henry was introduced in BLLB was unforgettable. We saw him making an offhand rape comment. This is pretty common. See All For the Game series by Nora Sakavic where their lone!good!moc could be seen making the same proclamation throughout the series. I am willing to let it slide, maybe, this is not about race.

Moving forward to The Raven King, we get to know Henry Cheng better. He’s half Chinese and half Korean. His mother Seondeok is a Korean dealer of illegal antiquities. White authors can’t seem to write East Asians without associating them with mob, yakuza, and mafia? Another example: All For the Game series by Nora Sakavic

This is the part where it gets nauseating. 

“Principles? Henry Cheng’s principles are all about getting larger font in the school newsletter,” Ronan said. He did a vaguely offensive version of Henry’s voice: “Serif? Sans serif? More bold, less italics.”

Blue saw Adam both smirk and turn his face away in a hurry so that Gansey wouldn’t see, but it was too late.

“Et tu, Brute?” Gansey asked Adam. “Disappointing.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Adam replied.

It was explicitly stated Henry’s second language is English. I’m going to assume Ronan is mocking the way Henry speaks, the intonation or accent of his voice. Whichever fucking way I look it is racist. Nobody even called Ronan out. The gross thing, the author made it into an “inside joke” for pynch.

This didn’t end right there. We have another pynch scene where they made a punchline out of Henry’s ethnicity.

“Adam made puerile jokes at Henry’s expense (He’s half Chinese? “Which half?”) and sniggered clannishly; Blue called them on it (“Jealous, much?”): Gansey told them to put aside their preconceptions and think about him.

Really? This made into the final publication? Minority’s ethnical identity isn’t a subject for crass puns.  Blue and Gansey’s meek intervention is not going to pacify me. I’m not here for this. Once again, this become a “cutesy” pynch scene.

These vile ~scenes~ about Henry’s otherization serves no purpose. It doesn’t contribute anything to the plot. You can reason out the narrative is implying Adam and Ronan are jealous (of Gansey’s new attachment to Henry,) but the author could’ve made a different approach of executing that. This is deliberate.

Another troubling scene with Henry and Blue

It was this: Blue, teetering on the edge of offence, saying, I don’t understand why you keep saying such awful things about Koreans. About yourself. And Henry saying. I will do it before anyone else can. It is the only way to not be angry all of the time.

Great another Korean character written by white author who might or might not be experiencing internalized racism. Sounds familiar? See Ellen Oh’s intake of Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell.

I see a lot of bloggers here are now clamoring for Henry, maybe it’s because he’s greatly sculpted, or because he’s Asian and his characterization speaks to you. If your reason is the latter, I have news for you. There are plenty of Asian authors specifically Chinese, and Korean, who are out there doing a spectacular job at it. Here are some of them; Jenny Han, Renee Ahdieh, Cindy Pon, Malinda Lo, Ellen Oh, Maureen Goo, Marie Lu, Lydia Kang, Amy Zhang, Celeste Ng, S. Jae-Jones, and more.