I Don’t Know, My Favorite Was Always Witch Weather. That Moment That In A Gust Of Wind Or In The Rumbling

Paul Eluard, “Absence”, Selected Poems (trans. Gilbert Bowen)

[Text ID: “My voice discovering you”]

I bought a Marquee board

the foxes → some of the strongest people i’ve known are women

Sofia Sanoh photographed by Savanna Ruedy for Nylon Magazine

Stylist: Heather Newberger Hair: Kiyonori Sudo Makeup: Tony Tulve

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.

Ok but what if Adam became like a Disney princess, like animals are oddly attracted to him. From pets just really liking him to flocks of birds following him around and that insistent with the bear, anyway the gang loves it. Noah has an army of bunnies, Gansey and Ronan are training some of the strays and blue is very fond of one of the cats and Adam is just exasperated by the whole thing. and Ronan starts calling Adam princess and he wants to hate it but loves it. I think about this too much

this is so gorgeous :’)

The Mirror

The Seeker

The Magician

The Dreamer

The Ghost

THE GANGSEY

foxes: human beings in a mob

riko: what's a mob to a king

ichirou: what's a king to a god

andrew, probably: what's a god to a nonbeliever get over here ill break ur arms too

fleabag is very good

lynch ( es ) ▬

one, two, three brothers…