QPoC Reads Of 2021

!! I was wondering when someone would bring this up!!!

For the longest time I was trying to figure out why they thought pansexuals were simultaneously bisexual and biphobic and after extensive research I've figured out that it's because panphobes have no critical thinking skills.

Someone: "Pansexuality is the same as bisexuality therefore its biphobic so im panphobic >:((("

Me: "So you're saying you're biphobic?"

Them: "no-"

Me: "By your definition they are the same thing, so if you're panphobic you're biphobic. By your definition, because that is what you said."

Them:

Them: >:(

Recent mlm reads

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall - Fake dating, intense fear of emotional vulnerability, domesticity, great group whatsapp banter: chef’s kiss. This was an ace contemporary UK romance.

Hither, Page by Cat Sebastian - A sweet little pre-war detective story set in a sleepy English village, this was a short read that made me crave some Miss Marple TV specials. 

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune - A lovely found-family romance set in a world where magical creatures are treated like second-class citizens, and magical children are sent to surveillance orphanages. A civil servant who is very loyal to his intricate bureaucracy is sent to review a slightly unorthodox orphanage on an island, run by an eccentric and kind man. He realises there’s more to caring for children than ticking all the boxes on a form, and falls in love with the whole island along the way.

The Sugared Game (The Will Darling Adventures #2) by K.J. Charles (review of book 1 here) - A bookseller teams up on a smuggling case with his on-again, off-again hook-up, a government spy who is unwilling to risk his job’s secrecy for their relationship. Sparks fly as they investigate mafia nightclubs and high class fashion events. I love this series!

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold - A quiet, contemplative book about two older partners (male and female) in a throuple, coming back together several years after their male partner died. This is set in the far future on another planet, but the sci-fi element takes a back seat here as they find a path towards a happy retirement together.

My own LGBT YA novel was just released! The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker is a paranormal horror about ghosts stuck in the afterlife.

 What if death is only the beginning? When Harriet Stoker dies after falling from a balcony in a long-abandoned building, she discovers a group of ghosts, each with a special power. Felix, Kasper, Rima and Leah welcome Harriet into their world, eager to make friends with the new arrival after decades alone. Yet Harriet is more interested in unleashing her own power, even if it means destroying everyone around her. But when all of eternity is at stake, the afterlife can be a dangerous place to make an enemy.

Remember those "I don't have 2020 vision" memes

Like they were funny as hell a few years ago but like man we really couldnt have predicted this year huh

I was trying to explain to my mum that I want to be cremated and made into a reef when I die and she just said "you won't die" with such surety and determination and I was like "oh alright then I guess not"

no one: me: here’s a flow chart of 41 lgbtq+ book recommendations, have fun! disclaimer: this is a very non-comprehensive list since I’m only including books that I’ve read

i KNEW what the link was and i still pressed it out of some deep rooted fear

so glad illumination hasnt picked up on this live action remake trend because seeing a minion rendered in photorealistic cgi might just be the one thing capable of breaking me

Comprehensive Guide For Assassination Classroom Content

Because it's pretty hard to find a straight up list of it all. Please note that whilst I believe this is accurate, I was not involved in the fandom whilst the series was active and so could reasonably miss something.

Core Content

Assassination Classroom manga as serialised in Shounen Jump. If you buy the physical volumes, there's a bit of additional content between chapters, most notably introductory character profiles.

Assassination Classroom anime (some count seasons 1 and 2 as separate entities)

Assassination Classroom Meeting Time - an animated short featuring Korosensei and Karasuma's first meeting.

Assassination Classroom Extra Curricular Lessons - adaptations of a couple of manga chapters that weren't in the show itself. I'll just link a playlist here. Fun fact this is where Nagisa gets hit by a chair (lowkey he deserved it)

Additional Content

365 Days Movie. This isn't 'canon' as it's an anime original thing. There's no official English release that I know of. Honestly the movie is mostly a series recap, and only features Karma and Nagisa in new scenes. It's only really worth watching if you especially ship them as there's only maybe 10 minutes of actual content (and most of that is just montage, you can get the gist with this)

Roll Call Book - this was published mid manga run. It's mostly just a bunch of bonus content particularly character based. No official English translation exists, but snippets are easy enough to find online.

Graduation Album - as the name implies, it accompanies the end of the manga. About half of it is an art book, but there's extra character information especially about their post graduation lives. Crucially it includes a few manga shorts which extend past the actual canon ending.

Korotan A, B, C, and D plus Korosuu. They're mostly just Assassination Classroom themed text books (Seriously. My actual university book store sold them.) Korotans are for English vocabulary, Korosuu is for maths. Notably each book also contains a light novel (sometimes these are just referred to as 'the light novels'). It is debatable how canon these are as Matsui didn't write them, but he was involved through illustrating and overseeing the writing. Korotan D is especially debated because it's post canon content set when 3E are 18, but there's a small 'it was all a dream' implication right at the end of the book. Personally speaking I take them as full canon.

Official Spin Offs

The live action movies (part one and two). They change a lot of plot so I place them more in the spin off area. Easily skippable.

Korosensei Quest Manga (otherwise known as Koro Q) - a spin off gag manga set in a fantasy/video game inspired universe. This is not canon (unfortunately) and as far as I understand Matsui isn't involved in it. There's an implication of the idea it's Fuwa's own manga creation. Overall there are four volumes but there's no official English version (though fan scans aren't hard to find).

Korosensei Quest Anime - lightly based on the Koro Q manga. This is only a short 10 episode series though, and was complete long before the original, as such only the first few episodes are actual adaptations and it starts doing its own thing. All voice cast return so that's neat.

The OVA - basically an early adaptation of the Kyoto arc. Link here. It was released in 2013 so predates the actual anime, and a lot of the voice cast are different.

White day shorts featuring Karma, Maehara, and Nagisa - posted on official website as an otome game parody for promotion. Included because they're voice acted.

The 3DS games. They're region locked as far as I understand, and there's no translation of them. You can find it dumped if you know what you're doing with emulators, I've only played a few minutes of it myself.

The app game - no longer available. It was a gatcha tie in game featuring a variety of character illustrations.

Various merch lines and related illustrations. There are far too many to list and new ones still come out sometimes.

As I said, I hope I covered everything but there's a good possibility something slipped my mind.

I just alternate between ‘maybe I’m smarter than I give myself credit for’ and ‘maybe I’m dumber than I realized’

Read these 10 YA books by Trans Authors instead of HP

There's a rule I have (that I took from author Emery Lee) that says that every time someone mentions JKR, I have to rec 2 books by trans authors. Here are some of my favorite YA recs if you ever felt like adapting the same rule in your friend groups.

As always, the pictures and jacket copy are from publishers’ sites! If they didn’t have info available, I used info from author sites! :)

If any of these interest you and if you are able, please support your favorite independent bookstores when purchasing these and other books!

Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee

Emery's book isn't out until 05/04/21, but because I saw this rule from em, I couldn't NOT rec eir book!

Noah Ramirez thinks he’s an expert on romance. He has to be for his popular blog, the Meet Cute Diary, a collection of trans happily ever afters. There’s just one problem—all the stories are fake. What started as the fantasies of a trans boy afraid to step out of the closet has grown into a beacon of hope for trans readers across the globe. When a troll exposes the blog as fiction, Noah’s world unravels. The only way to save the Diary is to convince everyone that the stories are true, but he doesn’t have any proof. Then Drew walks into Noah’s life, and the pieces fall into place: Drew is willing to fake-date Noah to save the Diary. But when Noah’s feelings grow beyond their staged romance, he realizes that dating in real life isn’t quite the same as finding love on the page. In this charming novel by Emery Lee, Noah will have to choose between following his own rules for love or discovering that the most romantic endings are the ones that go off script.

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after. When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle.... But as he navigates his complicated feelings, Felix begins a journey of questioning and self-discovery that helps redefine his most important relationship: how he feels about himself. Felix Ever After is an honest and layered story about identity, falling in love, and recognizing the love you deserve.

TW for a forced outing.

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

There are no monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up with this lesson all their life. But when Jam meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colors and claws, who emerges from one of her mother’s paintings and a drop of Jam’s blood, she must reconsider what she’s been told. Pet has come to hunt a monster, and the shadow of something grim lurks in Redemption’s house. Jam must fight not only to protect her best friend, but also to uncover the truth, and the answer to the question–How do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist? Acclaimed novelist Akwaeke Emezi makes their riveting and timely young adult debut with a book that asks difficult questions about what choices you can make when the society around you is in denial.

TW for discussions about child abuse.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can't get rid of him. When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his true gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free. However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school's resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He's determined to find out what happened and tie off some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.

Deep and Darkest Red by Anna-Marie McLemore

Summer, 1518. A strange sickness sweeps through Strasbourg: women dance in the streets, some until they fall down dead. As rumors of witchcraft spread, suspicion turns toward Lavinia and her family, and Lavinia may have to do the unimaginable to save herself and everyone she loves. Five centuries later, a pair of red shoes seal to Rosella Oliva’s feet, making her dance uncontrollably. They draw her toward a boy who knows the dancing fever’s history better than anyone: Emil, whose family was blamed for the fever five hundred years ago. But there’s more to what happened in 1518 than even Emil knows, and discovering the truth may decide whether Rosella survives the red shoes.

Who I Was with Her by Nita Tyndall

There are two things that Corinne Parker knows to be true: that she is in love with Maggie Bailey, the captain of the rival high school's cross-country team and her secret girlfriend of a year, and that she isn't ready for anyone to know she's bisexual. But then Maggie dies, and Corinne quickly learns that the only thing worse than losing Maggie is being left heartbroken over a relationship no one knows existed. And to make things even more complicated, the only person she can turn to is Elissa—Maggie's ex, and the single person who understands how Corinne is feeling. As Corinne struggles to make sense of her grief and what she truly wants out of life, she begins to have feelings for the last person she should fall for. But to move forward after losing Maggie, Corinne will have to learn to be honest with the people in her life...starting with herself.

Between Perfect & Real by Ray Stoeve

*This book comes out April 27, 2021 but I'm excited enough about it that I'll share it a week before it comes out.

Dean Foster knows he’s a trans guy. He’s watched enough YouTube videos and done enough questioning to be sure. But everyone at his high school thinks he’s a lesbian—including his girlfriend Zoe, and his theater director, who just cast him as a “nontraditional” Romeo. He wonders if maybe it would be easier to wait until college to come out. But as he plays Romeo every day in rehearsals, Dean realizes he wants everyone to see him as he really is now––not just on the stage, but everywhere in his life. Dean knows what he needs to do. Can playing a role help Dean be his true self?

Can't Take That Away by Steven Salvatore

An empowering and emotional debut about a genderqueer teen who finds the courage to stand up and speak out for equality when they are discriminated against by their high school administration. Carey Parker dreams of being a diva, and bringing the house down with song. They can hit every note of all the top pop and Broadway hits. But despite their talent, emotional scars from an incident with a homophobic classmate and their grandmother's spiraling dementia make it harder and harder for Carey to find their voice. Then Carey meets Cris, a singer/guitarist who makes Carey feel seen for the first time in their life. With the rush of a promising new romantic relationship, Carey finds the confidence to audition for the role of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, in the school musical, setting off a chain reaction of prejudice by Carey's tormentor and others in the school. It's up to Carey, Cris, and their friends to defend their rights--and they refuse to be silenced. Told in alternating chapters with identifying pronouns, debut author Steven Salvatore's Can't Take That Away conducts a powerful, uplifting anthem, a swoony romance, and an affirmation of self-identity that will ignite the activist in all of us.

Peter Darling by Austin Chant

Ten years ago, Peter Pan left Neverland to grow up, leaving behind his adolescent dreams of boyhood and resigning himself to life as Wendy Darling. Growing up, however, has only made him realize how inescapable his identity as a man is. But when he returns to Neverland, everything has changed: the Lost Boys have become men, and the war games they once played are now real and deadly. Even more shocking is the attraction Peter never knew he could feel for his old rival, Captain Hook—and the realization that he no longer knows which of them is the real villain.

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco

L E T   M E   B E   C L E A R : I never intended to raise my brother from his grave, though he may claim otherwise. If there’s anything I’ve learned from him in the years since, it’s that the dead hide truths as well as the living.

When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she’s a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training. In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha—one who can wield magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles…and make a powerful choice.

And that wraps up this week's list! What books by trans authors are you excited about? Any recs for me?

do they know when I called them "buddy" I meant it romantically