#whtf

[mysticmiav]

People lived because she killed🏹

People died because he lived🗡

I've been rereading We Hunt The Flame by Hafsah Faizal and loving it all over again, all while eyeing We Free The Stars on my shelf.

We Hunt The Flame was and is still an especially lovely world to me because of characters and culture embedded in it. It's so refreshing to see the many foods, dishes and even myths that I recognised in the book, let alone see arabic words and names! Gonna be reading the sequel next and am sooo excited🖤✨️

#zafira #zafira bint iskandar #zafirabintiskandar #nasir #nasir ghameq #nasirghameq #we hunt the flame #wehunttheflame #we hunt the flame fanart #whtf #bookfanart #book fanart #book art #bookart #bookish #booklr #bookblr #sketch #sketches #fanart #fanarts #character art #character fanart #character sketches #digital fanart #digital sketch #digital sketches #books #book #book characters

[the-narnian-sea]

If you want me obedient, prince, kill me and carry my corpse.

— Zafira bint Iskandar

We Hunt The Flame by Hafsah Faizal {@hafsahfaizal}

#we hunt the flame #we free the stars #hafsah faizal #zafira bint iskander #nasir ghameq #altair al-badawi #benyamin haadi #kifah darwish #fantasy ya book #book recs 2022 #arab #tiktok bookrec #arab representation #moodboard #imma use the hashtag #six of crows #bc the books are basically related #zumra #whtf #wfts #nafira #ancient arabia #enemies to lovers #enemies to lovers trope

[bookloverturnedfangirl]

no you don’t understand, they’re the love of my life (they’re fictional).

#caraval #thg #tid #kotc #these violent delights #Emily Henry #grishaverse #acotar #tog #tmi #marvel #dc #books #v.e. schwab #tfota #six of crows #whtf #the atlas six #kerri maniscalco #Chloe gong #ya books #na books #enemies to lovers #book lovers #tshoeh #rwrb

[luce1ence]

“Habibti, Hayati, Roohi”

my love, my life, my soul.

#we free the stars #we hunt the flame #zafira bint iskander #nasir ghameq #whtf #wfts #sands of arawiya #zafiranasir

[lonelyforlonesomelove]

a gentle reminder

#zafira bint iskandar #zafira #whtf #we hunt the flame #zafiranasir #zafira x nasir #Nasir x zafira #zafira bint iskandar you will always be famous

[safirefire]

I’m a little late to the party but look at this gorgeous cover for a Tempest of Tea I’m so excited!!

(website with the full summary text)

#we free the stars was better than we hunt the flame and I’m so excited for her third book #a tempest of tea #hafsah faizal #bookblr #ya fantasy #ya books #soc #six of crows #whtf #we hunt the flame #sands of arawiya

[octopusoptimusprime]

why do zafira and yasmine have so much gay energy ,,,

as much as i ship zafiranasir (a fucking LOT) zafira was looking a lil.. jealous thru yasmine & misk’s wedding. & thru the whole first bit of whtf tbh

bi!zafira? methinks.

#zafira bint iskandar #nasir ghameq #yasmine whtf #zafira x nasir #zafira x yasmine #bi zafira agenda #zafiranasir #we hunt the flame #we free the stars #whtf #hafsah faizal #bisexual

[ohwarnette]

kaz "i protect my investments" brekker 🤝🏻 nasir "i didnt want to lose my compass" ghameq

#whtf #sara.chats

[a-brown-girl-recs-books]

[ID: a screenshot of Hafsa Faisal’s Instagram story which has a latte and four pieces of text. The first one says “three days post-deadline on the Secret Project and I’ve finally figured out the book”. The second one says “ there’s nothing quite a satisfying as when all the disparate pieces finally click together, and unveil the twist, but I really wish it hadn’t taken me this long to figure out”. The other two pieces of text refer to the latte, saying “also yes this latte is utter perfection thanks to cayskii” with cayskii referring to her husband, and “a second thank you to him for listening to my nonsensical rambling and helping me figure out the plot”. End ID]

OMG WHAT SECRET PROJECT GUYSSSSSSS

#booklr #books #ya books #book recommendations #we need diverse books #book quotes #fantasy books #hafsah faizal #we hunt the flame #we free the stars #whtf #wfts #ATOT #a tempest of tea #sands of arawiya #muslim authors

[chatitav]

#whtf #whiteness #big tiddy committee #white girl wednesday #bi girls #big white butt #big white ass

[normalaboutitpod]

In a world where magic is an afterthought from a different time, a hunter and a prince of darkness have the opportunity to bring their kingdom a new hope. They are also bringing us hope that the enemies to lovers island we’ve deserted ourselves on was worth the trouble. This week, we relive the frozen tundra we grew up in, scream into our pillows, and one of us gets murdered in cold blood by a fly. This is our discussion of Hafsah Faizal’s We Hunt the Flame.

#we hunt the flame #hafsah faizal #we free the stars #book review #the sands of arawiya #WHTF #nasir x zafira #nasir ghameq #zafira bint iskandar #podcast #Spotify

[mysticmiav]

"I find the best payments are always the most difficult to extract."🦅🗡

From all the characters in the books, Altair is my absolute favourite. He never fails to make me smile, and his banter with every single character is incredibly fun and entertaining✨️

So there are 2 versions because I like them both a lot. The white version fits him thematically, while I love the black version aesthetically. So yeah here are both of them lol

Altair Al-Badawi, from We Hunt The Flames by @hafsahfaizal

#altair #altair al badawi #altair al-badawi #altairalbadawi #we hunt the flame #whtf #wehunttheflame #we hunt the flame fanart #whtf fanart #bookish #fanart #digital fanart #sketch #book art #bookart #bookfanart #book fanart #book #books #bookblr #booklr #sands of arawiya #charachter art #character fanart #characterfanart #character illustration #characterart #art #digital art #digital sketch

[appleduna]

We Hunt The Flame and accidental homophobia- a small rambling essay

BIG SPOILERS FOR WE HUNT THE FLAME//

Queerbaiting is a term that kinda varies on meaning from person to person. Personally I think it has a couple meanings, but the one that matters today is bait and switch. This is for all intents and purposes having a queer-coded character than punishing the reader for interpreting them like that. Benefiting from the queer aesthetic and not following through.

So anyways I recently read a book called We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal. It was pretty good, not amazing, but good. And people really like this book. For good reason, I think it’s much better than other novels of its genre.

The problem I have with this novel is pretty small but to me emblematic of a trend in YA Scifi and Fantasy, and that’s queerbaiting/sidelining. You might ask where is this book even remotely queer and I’ll answer that by introducing you to our main problem- Altair.

Altair throughout the novel is a classic YA archetype- the funny man who’s got a hidden badass side, and FUCKS. So basically a sexy crouching moron hidden badass. I usually am not a fan of these characters despite them often being the best in their series. Examples of this character are- Jesper Fahey, and Kenji Kishimoto. (And let's be clear Jesper is a good example of this trope) They usually steal the show away from the other characters by virtue of being more interesting than most of the other characters. And also they’re usually bi-coded.

Maybe it’s cause people associate biseuxal people with a sorta funnyman attitude which is sourced from homophobic tropes but we’re not getting into that today. The problem I have is not following through with this coding.

One of my least favorite thing straight authors pull is the one-off line that this character is queer, and never elaborating on it outside of maybe a line at the end of this character actually doing something queer. This is tokenizing. I shouldn’t have to explain why- but here we go- They’re benefiting off of the reader thinking ‘oh theres a queer character so this book is progressive, and the authors not homophobic But never actually doing anything with that character, they don’t show this character being queer, they don’t have to do the hard thing and research what queer people are like, what being queer is like, what coming out is like. They don’t have to work, and that show’s a lack of giving a shit.

I’m so desensitized to this that I give straight authors a pass when they pull this stuff cause frankly I’m not gonna have every review ranting on why ya book no.45 is homophobic.

But We Hunt the Flame somehow makes it worse, and taints an otherwise good book.

...

So lets get to it.

Altair is a general, and the Sultan wants him dead, that’s most of what we know about him at first. But we do know that Altair is the closest thing the male love interest has to a friend. And throughout the book they’re kind of a dynamic duo. They chat and banter, and Altair forces him out of his comfort zone more than most of the other characters, cause he’s the only one with that close of a relationship with him. This is kinda required, since the main character has no interest in either of them, seeing as they ‘killed’ her closest friend. And for Nasir to become an attainable love interest for the MC, he needs to be socially loosened up. This is fine, I see the narrative purpose and I actually think it makes both characters better. But here’s the problem- Altair flirts with Nasir very openly, and very brazenly. Which is a normal thing for YA books who employ these tropes. Besides the fact that they have more chemistry than the MC and Nasir, there’s no problem.

Until the reveal.

So YA fantasy tends to feel the need to have huge twists at the end of the story, that changes everything! (except they usually don’t) and dishearten the characters (except when they don’t) and recontextualize the whole story! (except when they don’t) And We Hunt the Flame is no stranger to this.

The Twist?

Altair and Nasir are half brothers.

So any of yall read Cassandra Cla-

I hope I don’t have to explain why this is homophobic but I will cause I LOVE writing this all out

Faizal uses Altair’s flirting to show off a piece of his character, to show him as a funnyman who everyone gets along with. They show it off to show that Altair is not afraid of Nasir, and see’s him as a human being. All of this buildup, the tension, the dynamic, the friendship of Altair and Nasir are at least a little bit romantic coded- and what Faizal does is punish the reader for thinking this. She punishes them by making them brothers. She benefits from the setup, from the characterization that their queerness brings and then slaps away any queer interpretation of these characters pretty soundly.

(Seriously I have no clue why someone would have characters who are sibling have any sort of romantic/sexual comments to eachother UNLESS they’re Cassandra Cla-)

It’s a showcase that these tropes are not only harmful but not productive for your story. Faizal shoots herself in the foot for this one, because her decision to tokenize Altair’s bisexuality, to use it as a joke, ends up with her either looking like she either supports incest, or is homophobic. SHE’S NOT EITHER (I hope) But it makes her look that way, and that’s a shame. It’s plainly just bad writing. Cause there’s a very simple solution to these problems- remove the lines, or remove their brotherhood, and it’s suddenly not homophobic, this bait and switch only makes the novel worse.

And once again, I am not accusing Hafsah Faizal of homophobia, or anything else, I think this is a problem with the YA Fantasy in general. But I want to hold her accountable for this. I don’t know why other’s haven’t mentioned this before, but it needs mentioned.

#we hunt the flame #bookblr #criticism #small little essay #booktok #booktwt #hafsah faizal #sands of arawiya #altair #whtf #queerbaiting #homophobia #spoilers

[decayingliberty]

My mother is running out of stuff to nag me with.

How do I know? Today she told me to dust off the inside of my wardrobe.

Which. What.

#rambling #we cleanedout the wardrobe last month #she saw it #she was there #i dont think wardrobes needs dusting rhat often?? #also she never askedme to do thatnefore ever??? #whtf

[fatheriimaginedyoutaller]

Hafsah Faizal, please give your characters a personality I'm begging you

#my post #whtf #bookblr

[the-narnian-sea]

We started a whtf groupchat on twitter, if anyone would like to join let me know! 🌸🔥⚔️

#we hunt the flame #we free the stars #hafsah faizal #whtf #altair al badawi #nasir gameq #zafira bint iskandar #its basically an altair gc ngl #bc we stan a king 🙌🏼