Borders: What are they good for?
White text reading “Borders: What are they good for?” superimposed on top of a greyscale background showing the jagged border between two sides of a sand dune. Credit: Original photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash. Digitally altered by Lucy Kang.
What are borders, and why do we have them? And how is violent border enforcement at the US-Mexico border connected to Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza?…
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do you have any book recommendations? pls i need lots 💙💙
this is such a loaded question friend. but lucky for u, i am procrastinating assignments, my take out has yet to arrive, and i just finished another book!
horror fic has been my choice for the last several books
the centre by ayesha manazir siddiqi is about a young Pakistani woman living in the UK. she's a translator for Urduru films. language and translation are central to this book. people are becoming fluent in a matter of weeks in complex languages.... the centre is gorgeous if not entirely mysterious, magical even. but whats the catch?? beautifully written. vivid details. anisa is a flawed, honest, and genuine feeling mc, as are the people in her life. i just finished it a couple hours ago n i miss my girls.
slewfoot by brom is set in 17th century Connecticut. our protag, Abitha, is not from this town but she does he best to adhere to the Puritan standards, if not for her well being, than that of her husband's. something stirs in the outskirts of the village, in the forest and beyond. she finds help from an unlikely source while also fostering a deep inner power of her own. these characters felt so well thought out, the writing is magnetic and the action is well paced. it puts so many preconceived notions right on their head. i loved this book and can't wait to read brom's other novel, the child thief, a retelling of peter pan and the lost boys!
sister, maiden, monster by lucy a. synder was oh so gay and oh so cosmically horrendous. this is like h.p. lovecraft wasn't a weird racist. this is like if biblically accurate angels were once just women in love. this is horrifying, visceral, and relevant to our COVID world. i was gawking at so many of the details. there are so many monster themes actually, it's perfect. the story is told through 3 povs of 3 different women. and we love women! and horror! i didn't expect to pick this one up but I'm so glad i did.
mary: an awakening of terror by nat cassidy do u know what it's like to be virtually invisible? forgotten? disaffected? do u know the pure joy of having a precious collection, adding to it over time, and it being almost ur only reason for living anymore?? then you're a lot like mary. and mary is a lot like plenty of women who get the chance to live beyond adolescence, who are cast out by society-- deemed invaluable. mary is utterly lost at a time in her life she feels she should have it all figured out. she goes back to her hometown, an ambiguous small town in the middle of the desert, and some unlikely characters help her piece things back together. i finished this book feeling so close to mary. we are friends now. there is mystique, horror, fables, myths, bad guys, mysterious architecture, and well mary is not the most reliable narrator. loved this one too.
the last house on needless street by catriona ward i had no idea where this book was going and i loved piecing the narrative together through several characters and their povs. it forces u to confront ur own biases regarding mental health. u are sympathetic to the characters in the most painful, heart wrenching ways. there is murder. there is mystery. there is missing children. there are cats. this book surprised me and it was fun to have to find a couple reddit threads to be sure i was understanding the story correctly. i felt like i read this kind of fast! which is always fun too.
brother by ania ahlborn this one pissed me off a bit. but in a good way because i was so deeply invested. this one is set in Appalachia. i'm not one for stereotypes, especially bc i think Appalachians have a bad rep and it's of no fault of their own. that being said, the insular feel of the book and the absolute claustrophobia those mountains create in this story were like a character in it of itself. our protag, michael, knows there's something beyond. he's seen them on colorful postcards. but his own mind and his own heart seem utterly trapped here. this one is heartbreaking. it's horrifying. and it'll make u dizzy from the amount of times u change ur mind. excited to read her other novel, Seed, because this one stuck with me so much!
a couple honorable mentions that fit the theme:
the vegetarian by han kang korean food. infidelity. art. nightmares. inexplicable mindfucks! this story was scary because it felt very.. possible? no monsters this time. no spells. just... the mind deteriorating. could happen to any of us.
a certain hunger by chelsea g. summers what if girlbossing is just a quick pivot from sociopathy?? what if the crimes are so much more gratifying than say, fame or fortune or even love?? women can be sociopaths too, you know!! this one is fun bc the protag is crazy and it's fun to slip into these characters. cathartic even. omg did i mention, she's a foodie too! just like me :-)
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For the Fanfic Ask game:
23 and 40
hey, thanks for the ask, friend!! 🤗
23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?
whoooo boy, you broke a dam asking this! im so excited to answer :D
a deaf!lin beifong au for avatar: the last airbender/legend of korra is at the very top of my list, it’s been rotting my brain for the past month. i am so in love with the beifong family, but lin and toph in particular are my favourites. it would just be so interesting to see how they navigate communication since they can’t exactly use sign language or writing. and i mean, the amount of flangst! (also i personally have such a fascination and interest in sign language for like, no reason at all lol, i even started self-learning recently for funsies (it’s ridiculously hard to find free online resources for auslan compared to asl)) <- this might also apply to question 17 but oh well :3
and and and an au for agents of shield where an alternate variant of skye (known as daisy) escapes into the canon universe sometime after the events of afterlife due to kang the conqueror destroying her own. she trains skye in her powers, we have some lovely maydaisy angst for both universes, and some character death :3
also ghost!lucy for fairy tail where lucy sacrificed herself in the final battle and became lumen histoire, but sticks around as a sort of spirit to help her friends move on bc i’m all about that angst <33
another one is for demon slayer, where a young tanjirō keeps inexplicably skipping through time, non-linearly and uncontrollably, but he always ends up near giyū (and through a series of confusing events and time-wimey misunderstandings, all the hashira believe tanjirō is giyū’s secret little brother ;))
and i could go on all day but no one has time for that so i’mma stop there lol—
(but feel free to ask more about these aus if you want!!)
40. Do you tend to reread fics or are you a one-and-done kind of person?
oof, it really depends on the fic. i do tend to re-read oneshots, and occasionally longfics if i have the time/when the premise suddenly returns to me and i have this primal urge to reread the whole thing lol. or sometimes i just remember a moment that really stuck out to me and i ctrl + f for it lol.
tldr: yes i do tend to reread fics
thanks for playing! i had a lot of fun ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡
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Characters that I headcanon as Bisexual! (Movies and Video Games)
Video Games:
Takahashi Takeda (Mortal Kombat)
Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy)
Noctis Lucis Caelum (Final Fantasy)
Tifa Lockhart (Final Fantasy)
Zack Fair (Final Fantasy)
Leon Scott Kennedy (Resident Evil)
Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Liu Kang (Mortal Kombat)
Cayde-6 (Destiny)
Movies:
Finney Blake (The Black Phone)
Peter Parker (Spider-Man)
I play video games more than I watch movies sooo......
I like shit okay.....
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Jenny Odell and Discovering Life Beyond the Clock (Encore)
Excerpt from the book cover, reading “Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock” superimposed on top of orange and pink geological features. Credit: Penguin Random House
Have you ever really considered how we view time as a society? From work to leisure to appointments, we schedule every minute of our days, but how often do we think about why we treat time the way we do, our relationship…
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