Some Weird Queer Writer

This is literary fiction following Abe, a Kanienʼkehá:ka man who moved away from home decades ago, but when he develops health issues that none of his doctors can explain, he returns to the reservation to visit his great uncle the healer, even though he doesn't know if he really believes in tradition anymore.

This was phenomenal! The writing style is incisive and funny as hell even dealing with horrific topics, and communicates the stress and loneliness Abe is going through really well. The integration of the narrator into the story was also extremely fun and made the book feel like it was in conversation with the reader. It's both a nod to oral storytelling and also a really creative and interesting character exploration that I had an absolute blast with. The only issue is that it very much presumes a white USAmerican audience- the narrator talks to the reader and discusses the reader's role in the ongoing genocide of Natives, which means it ironically creates a distance between itself and readers of color, presumably especially Native readers.

I was also just gripped by Abe and his story. I've often said I tend to shy away from literary fiction because the lack solid plot progression can feel tedious, but that was not an issue here. Yes, it's just a book about Abe going through this difficult time in his life without solid scaffolding around the story like lots of literary fiction, but Abe and the way he views the world is compelling enough on its own to have kept my mind on him constantly whenever I had to put the book down. It also ends with a trope in disability fiction that I usually hate, but I was so drawn in and in love with the rest of the story that I am fully fine with the ending.

2026 reads / storygraph

Morsel

folk horror novella

an agender person trying to maintain her office job after taking time off due to her mother’s illness takes an assignment in rural Ohio

but quickly finds herself stranded, with the sense that something or someone is chasing her and her dog

April is Arab American Heritage month!

I wanted to put together a small list of Queer Arab books. And even though it's Arab /American/ I did want to also highlight non-american Arab and Muslim authors as well.

❤️🖤🤍💚

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

Koolaids by Rabih Alameddine

This Arab is Queer by Elias Jahshan

The Skin and It's Girl by Sarah Cypher

Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow. by Noor Hindi

Are You This? or Are You This? by Madian Al Jazerah

Blood Orange by Yaffa As

Nayra and the Djinn by Iasmine Omar Ata

Guapa by Saleem Haddad

A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar

The Twenty-Ninth Year by Hala Alyan

Against The Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.

All The Parts We Exile by Roza Nozari

The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar

Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating by Adiba Jaigirdar

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan

If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar

Roses in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar

Unicorn by Amrou Al-Kadhi

How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi

Only Ever One Choice by Ilham Asra

Unbecoming by Seema Yasmin

Son of Sin by Omar Sakr

The Carpet Weaver by Nemat Sadat

No Time Like Now by Naz Kutub

In Sensorium by Tanïs

Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabrina Khan

Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed

I do not trust you with your own life because you are good and kind and noble--I know you would not hesitate to sacrifice yourself to save me."

Tiny brain: “oh cool Legolas will find Aragorn”

Small brain: “ummm actually in the first Hobbit film it says that The Hobbit take place 60 years before Bilbo’s 111th birthday in lord of the rings? So wouldn’t Aragorn be a baby?”

Medium brain: “ummm actually if you watched the extended cut of The Two Towers, it’s made clear that Aragorn is a descendant of Numenor who has an abnormally long lifespan. He is 87 at the time of Lord of the Rings; 60 years earlier, he was 27, a very reasonable age for him to have made a name for himself as a ranger.”

Large Brain: “Ummmm actually in the book it’s confirmed that there’s a twenty-year gap between Bilbo’s 111th birthday party disappearance to Frodo leaving the Shire with the Ring. The Hobbit quest happened 60 years before Bilbo’s famous birthday party. 87-60-20=7 years old. Aragorn would be a lil guy. He would not yet be Strider, the timeline makes no sense.”

Giant brain: “ummm actually the screenwriters have confirmed that the 20 year gap is not canon in the film’s universe. First, it’s really not portrayed as a 20-year-gap in the films— it’s written and shot as if it were a couple months. The screenwriters were also aware of the implications of removing it. For example, in a behind the scenes commentary they discussed how their portrayal of Frodo is much younger than the version in the book —because they removed the 20-year gap. Film!Frodo is an innocent youth going out on his own for the first time, in contrast to the book’s more mature adult— and that deeply affects his characterization throughout the trilogy.

We can consider Legolas’s journey to meet Strider an official canon confirmation that the 20-year gap did not happen in the film’s universe. So the timeline makes sense!”

Galaxy brain: “okay, but even if the timeline works with the LOTR films, this new backstory doesn’t work with the LOTR films’ portrayal of Legolas’s character.

In the Hobbit films, it’s retconned that Legolas went to find Aragorn because he was so overwhelmed by all the death he witnessed in the Battle of the Five Armies. It’s retconned that he has a mother who died when he was young, and a grief-stricken father, and that he’s constantly Angsting over both. it’s also retconned that Legolas was in unrequited love with a grieving woman who loved a dwarf tragically killed in battle. Legolas feels he can no longer stay in the Woodland Realm because of all this loss, which is why he decides to find a new purpose with Aragorn.

But in the Lord of the Rings films, part of Legolas’s character arc is that he’s witnessing death and mortality up close *for the first time in his immortal life.* He’s a fae magical immortal who’s not used to death affecting him personally. This character arc is unique to the films. (it is not reallllllly in the books, and doesn’t jive with the way Tolkien writes elves in general— but it is the way the films chose to rewrite Legolas’s storyline. )

film!Legolas reacts to Gandalf’s death with bewilderment, acting lost, as if he’s experiencing emotions that are entirely new to him. This acting decision is discussed explicitly in behind the scenes materials. Legolas has rarely encountered this kind of death, not in a way so close to him personally, so it’s hard for him to even comprehend. Legolas’s unfamiliarity with mortal death continues through Boromir’s death and into the Two Towers, where he gradually grows more worried over the lives of Aragorn/ the people of Rohan. He reacts with bewildered anger when told to leave Aragorn for dead, and then lashes out at Aragorn when he thinks that everyone at Helm’s deep will die (only to receive the response: “then I shall die as one of them.”)

This character arc ends in Return of the King, with a famous bit of dialogue that does not appear in the books. Gimli says he “never thought he’d die side by side with an elf,” and Legolas cheerfully responds “what about side by side with a friend?” Mortal death goes from something Legolas finds distant/unfamiliar, to something he accepts as a natural part of living among mortals.

This is similar to the changes the films make to Arwen’s character, vs the original book. In the films, both of the “young” elves have arcs about encountering death up close, and yet continuing to love the mortal world. The films contrast them with the “older” wearier elves like Elrond and Galadriel. Obviously this theme is more of a focal point in Arwen’s plotline, but it’s also relevant to Legolas. (And! In early drafts of the Two Towers, Arwen joined Aragorn at Helm’s Deep— I have a theory that the scenes where Legolas worries over Aragorn’s death were originally written for Arwen.)

So!

if you care enough about the Lord of the Rings films to understand that “there is no twenty year gap,” that Frodo is a young ingenue instead of middle-aged adult, that the films have their own storyline/characters/timeline separate from the books, and that therefore the timeline of Legolas meeting Strider can make sense …

….then you also probably care that Legolas had a specific character in the LoTR films, and this new backstory contradicts it.

Giving Legolas a new core motivation where “he’s overwhelmed by angst/grief from encountering too much death” undercuts his entire characterization in LOTR, which was meant to be about encountering mortal death up close for the first time. It also cheapens really impactful moments from LOTR— like Orlando Bloom’s performance after the death of Gandalf, where he really captures the idea that this fae immortal is struggling to comprehend the ordinary human emotion of grief.

And that’s why so many critics get that moment in The Hobbit wrong XD. People always try to critique it from a timeline/continuity perspective, when in reality, the timeline continuity makes perfect sense!!! The actual problem is the way it poorly attempts to retcon Legolas’s entire characterization. And IMHO that’s a much more serious flaw than a continuity error. It’s not “making a math mistake,” it’s undercutting the meaning of Legolas’s story in LOTR.

Then about a week into their journey like

Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying

Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst

Legolas:

Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits

Merry: Frodo what’d he say

Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish

Merry: I mean you could do that but consider

Merry: you can only tell him ONCE

Legolas: umm well your accent is horrible

Aragorn: *hollering from a distance* HIS ACCENT IS BETTER THAN YOURS LEGOLAS YOU SILVAN HICK

Legolas: y’alld’ve’ff’ve

Frodo: Good morrow to thee, frend. I hope we twain shalle bee moste excellente companions.

Legolas: Wots that mate? ‘Ere, you avin’ a giggle? Fookin’ ‘obbits, I sware.

english would probably have changed less since Chaucer’s time, if a lot of our cultural leaders from the thirteenth century were still alive and running things.

they’ve had like. seven generations since the sun happened, max. frodo’s books are old to him, but outside any very old poetry copied down exactly, the dialect represented in them isn’t likely to be older than the Second Age, wherein Aragorn’s foster-father Elrond started out as a very young adult and grew into himself, and Legolas’ father was born.

so like, three to six thousand years old, maybe, which is probably a drop in the bucket of Elvish history judging by all the ethnic differentiation that had time to develop before Ungoliant came along, even if we can’t really tell because there weren’t years to count, before the Trees were destroyed.

plus a lot of Bilbo’s materials were probably directly from Elrond, whose library dates largely from the Third Age, probably, because he didn’t establish Imladris until after the Last Alliance. and Elrond isn’t the type to intentionally help Bilbo learn the wrong dialect and sound sillier than can be helped, even if everyone was humoring him more than a little.

so depending on how much of a role Thranduil took in his upbringing (and Oropher in his), Legolas may have some weird stilted old-fashioned speaking tics in his Sindarin that reflect a more purely Doriathrin dialect rather than the Doriathrin-influenced Western Sindarin that became the most widely spoken Sindarin long before he was born, or he might have a School Voice from having been taught how to Speak Proper and then lapse into really obscure colloquial Avari dialect when he’s being casual. or both!

considering legolas’ moderately complicated political position, i expect he can code-switch.

…it’s also fairly likely considering the linguistic politics involved that Legolas is reasonably articulate in Sindarin, though with some level of accent, but knows approximately zero Quenya outside of loanwords into Sindarin, and even those he mostly didn’t learn as a kid.

which would be extra hilarious when he and gimli fetch up in Valinor in his little homemade skiff, if the first elves he meets have never been to Middle Earth and they’re just standing there on the beach reduced to miming about what is the short beard person, and who are you, and why.

Pippin, confused: Is he not speaking Elvish?

Frodo, sarcastically: I dunno, are you speaking Hobbit?

Boromir, who has been lowkey pissed-off at the Hobbits’ weird dialect this whole time: That’s what it sounds like to me.

Merry, who actually knows some shit about Hobbit background: We are actually speaking multiple variants of the Shire dialect of Westron, you ignorant fuck.

What Cas doesn't imagine until it's actually happening is this: Billie takes a step through the broken dungeon door. The empty warps and oozes around her and gets its goo all over Cas's feet in preparation to grab him as well. And Dean tackles him out of the mire, and in a swift, decisive second, grabs Cas's angel blade, runs it quickly across Cas's throat, and catches his grace in the same flask where Dean keeps his whiskey. OR Cas survives his confession. It still takes a while.

Angels aren't meant to have imagination. Imagination leads to questioning orders and angels were never meant to be anything but good little soldiers in Chuck's army.

It's been well over a decade since Castiel could've been considered a good angel. Not since he first laid hands on Dean Winchester's soul and dragged him out of Hell.

He's exhibited imagination, disobedience, all the things angels aren't supposed to, since then. But he's never allowed himself to think about this — to imagine this. Even thinking about telling Dean how he feels has always been too close to the happiness that would summon the empty.

And because he's never let himself imagine that, he's similarly never imagined Dean's response.

If he had ever given it thought, as he does over the span of heartbeats between his confession and the empty appearing to whisk him and Billie away forever, he imagines Dean's stunned silence. He imagines a stammered "Uh — that's — Cas, buddy, I'm, uh, I'm, I mean I'm flattered, but—". He imagines, for a split second, Dean's face twisting to disgust, showing some relief at the idea that Cas is about to be dragged to the empty, never to be seen again.

Dr. Grace Ryland who never managed to play the game of academia and wasn't male enough for her stubbornness or eccentricity to be forgiveable. Grace Ryland who ended up a middle school science teacher and she loves it, she does, but she can never shake the feeling of shame that she's letting the cause of Women In STEM down for it.

Eva Stratt intentionally seeking out highly-degreed and underemployed minorities (here, including women) for the project because the current Top Scientists aren't having much luck and the project needs a diversity of overlooked ideas. Ryland thinking that she and Stratt have like, a sisterhood/solidarity/Girl Power thing going on which is why Stratt keeps her around. Ryland learning that she and Stratt do not have a sisterhood/solidarity/Girl Power thing going on when Stratt sits her down in her office and tells her You Are Going To Space Whether You Want To Or Not. (That betrayal hurts but not as much as the arguments Stratt uses against her: "You don't have a husband, or children, or even a dog. You don't have anyone to stay for." After all this, and she's disposable because she's failing to be a woman correctly, which means a picket fence and a nuclear family, being a wife and mother, and because she's not she might as well die? It's not like she's never faced this judgement before but it's not something she ever expected to face here, not from Eva Stratt. STRATT THAT APPLIES TO YOU TOO. WHY IS IT OKAY FOR YOU BUT NOT FOR ME.)

Rocky's an engineer, not a biologist. They have a reasonably informed person's understanding of Eridian biology, but they're learning all sorts of wild things about human biology just by hanging around Grace.

So, okay, humans are squishy bags of water. Seems impractical but you don't get to choose your evolutionary trajectory. This means Grace is constantly taking in water, and also leaking it out, to maintain her internal water homeostasis. But, for something humans are constantly doing, she is so weird about it. Taking in water is something she'll do whenever and wherever no matter who is watching (gross), but leaking it out is something embarrassing and private?

Things Rocky has learned about human liquid management:

She leaks water out of her face (normal and fine, just embarrassing and private and she doesn't want to talk about it)

She leaks water out of her middle (normal and fine, just embarrassing and private and she doesn't want to talk about it)

She can leak blood out of absolutely anywhere (NOT normal or fine, a sign of injury that needs to be addressed right away, but she is not embarrassed or private about that at all??? She cut her hand on a xenonite tool while working and it started bleeding and she treated this as a minor inconvenience, but was cheerful and even excited to show Rocky what blood looks like and explain what was going on. Rocky actually wasn't concerned at first because Humans Be Leaking but that's how they learned to be concerned, despite Grace not being terribly concerned? It was confusing. Grace bandaged it up in the public workspace and explained blood and injury and it did make sense: something that is supposed to be on the inside falling out of a cut in your body is not a good thing. And blood is Supposed To Be On The Inside. They can accept this without too much trouble although now they are anxious about Grace being so fragile and able to leak all her crucial Inside Water so easily.)

New discovery: she leaks blood out of her middle (normal and fine, just embarrassing and private and she doesn't want to talk about it)

I'm imagining a distressed Rocky going Grace is bleeding! Grace is injured question??? And Ryland going. Uhhh no this is normal. This is expected. This happens every... hang on... 720 hours, approximately. It's called a period. Cause it happens periodically. Never thought about that before.

Rocky is somewhat skeptical. Grace is bleeding but it is not a concern, question? Grace isn't lying to Rocky question? And Grace has to be like no genuinely this is just a thing the human body does. In fact if I wasn't doing it that would be a much, much bigger concern. Because it would mean I was either starving or the name of this mission just became terrifyingly literal.

Rocky: ... Grace making joke question?

Ryland: yeah I'm making a joke.

Rocky: Rocky not understand joke.

Ryland: it would take a lot of explanation that's not really relevant honestly.

Rocky: joke was funny question?

Ryland: no.