#wherearetheplants

yes i do!!!! many in fact!!! however i am a human being who goes Overboard so this is long

ADVENTURE-Y FANTASY/SCI-FI GAY STUFF

spellhacker by M.K. England; queer girl rep, nonbinary rep, side MLM rep. OwnVoices. a group of teens/young adults sell black-market magic for a living. They're done, or so they thought. But then they get the chance for one last huge job, and... well, what could go wrong? (also found family vibes.)

six of crows by leigh bardugo; bi (wlw, mlm) rep, gay (mlm) rep. not ownvoices. (it is however ownvoices disability rep!) 6 dangerous criminals get together for the chance of a lifetime--10 million dollars to break into the ice court (think magical pentagon) and steal the creator of jurda parem, a drug that makes witches near-unstoppable... but can they trust each other enough to do it? (found family vibes, but like... Evil found family. Also my personal favourite besides TRC itself.)

The gilded wolves by roshani chokshi; MLM rep (2, both mixed race). not ownvoices queer, but it is ownvoices indian and fillipino. Kind of like SOC, but more math, paris, a much different (and equally cool) magic system, and it feels gayer. (im sorry i read it like 2 years ago idk the plot anymore but it's good and its adventure-y.)

cemetery boys by aiden thomas. gay latino trans boy rep, gay latino guy rep. ownvoices trans, gay, & latino. Yadriel summons a ghost to prove he's a boy--but it's the wrong ghost, and now he can't get rid of him. Shenannigans ensue. (urban fantasy, kinda has TRC vibes.)

raybearer by jordan ifueko. Disclaimer: the queer rep is more side, but there's lots--black ace biromantic (closest to a main character), black queer mlm, black lesbian. african-inspired fantasy about a girl who is tied closer than blood to a boy... but must kill him. (i have it on the list because when i saw ace biromantic rep in a fantasy book i almost cried then and there.)

A dark and hollow star by ashley shuttleworth; ownvoices; genderfluid rep (side), lesbian rep, pansexual rep, bisexual rep, gay MLM rep. if u like DND, i beg of you, read this. A half-fae girl gets caught up in court drama, banished (and pretty.... hm...) gods, and fucked-up expariments. (disclaimer: there's a psychotic character (i think?) and the author isn't psychotic, and since im not, i dont know if they did it well.)

now here's some romcoms that i wont describe the plots of because you didnt ask for that but i Had to add it anyway: meet cute diary, emery lee, mixed (japanese/black/white) trans boy, bi, nonbinary e/em, ace, lesbian. the (un)popular vote, jasper sanchez, trans guy, pansexual, ace biro, allo-aro, genderqueer, lesbian, gay boy. red white and royal blue, casey mquinston, bi mlm, gay, trans woman (side), pansexual (side), queer girl, my personal favourite contemporary.

{note: not listing POC rep doesn't mean it doesn't have it, it's just not ownvoices and im white so i dont know if its good.}

i think you're correct

oh thank you so much I'm also bored and willing to ramble lmao

on my other account I think I mentioned wanting to write a poem and yeah. yeah I'm thinking about that again I think

cause like in my head I want to write about growing up with strict parents and not really being free to express myself at all or experiment with my identity or even just my political beliefs like other kids got to, and like ever hobby I had that my parents didn't like and every friend I made that they didn't pick out for me they disliked and tried to distance me from. so just gradually over time I retreated into my head and daydreamed and made characters and eventually a whole world where, through my ocs, though I myself was not a character in it, I learned about and processed the world around me and slowly explored other worldviews and identities that were not the ones handed to me, I purposefully pushed these characters into positions that I disagreed with, that made me uncomfortable, and this daydreaming couldn't be taken from me, nor these characters, because it was all internal and no one could even know I was doing it unless I brought it up, just maybe I got a few comments on how quiet I'd gotten lately. I built my characters until they were developed enough to develop themselves, and then I let them take the paintbrush from me and finish the job.

I cut my hair my senior year of highschool. my characters had taught me that I wasn't straight and I wasn't a woman, or at least, that I did not identify with that term fully. my mom scoffed in the corner while my aunt cut it short, not as short as I wanted it, but after hours of arguing I reached a compromise with her and won the right to get it cut short and dyed. that was my first voyage into self-expression.

and then college hit. freedom. by then I was self-aware, I learned that I had developed this daydreaming addiction to process the world around me when I was not able to do so in the real world, and I had learned things about myself and my identity through these characters I had created. my sense of self was both stronger than ever and shattered among dozens of people who didn't exist. still is—it hasn't been that long, after all. my roommate was experienced in the alt scene. I'd wanted to start dressing like that for a while, but knew nothing about subcultures or where I might start getting clothes like that. they took me to Hot Topic and for the first time I picked out a few accessories that didn't feel forced on me. growing up, the mall was hell. my parents would take me and it was always a question of what could I stand to put on my body? what compromises could I make with society, that little girls were supposed to like that I could stand to wear? eventually I gave up. I dressed myself in tee shirts and old jeans and thought to myself "at least I'm comfortable, I'm not in pain for the sake of beauty." now I wasn't beholden to anyone. I didn't quite know what I wanted, but I was free to choose.

and now I'm sitting in a room with my grandparents and my sister and my mother, hair buzzed on the sides and dyed electric blue, my whole outfit screaming punk and personality, and I am wondering to myself where I would even be without those characters of mine, because I'm sure it would look different. and I'm starting to feel like a person again, rather than a collection of fictitious lives—certainly not like the person I used to be, but hey, I exist, and that's pretty cool. I had and have thought of even more writing this but it's already all incoherent and idk, maybe later I can put some of these thoughts into rhyme and metaphor and make it make sense in a way that exact perfect words can't really communicate. we'll see I guess, cause like I said, I'm not good at poetry

@wherearetheplants

i’m very very sad because i had typed out a good 3 paragraphs of info and even though i was not close to done answering i was really getting into some good new ideas and such and then tumblr decided to randomly refresh itself. i’m in pain 💀

anyway, thank you so much for showing interest and allowing me to tell about this because i’m really really excited about it. here’s the elevator pitch:

Oliver, a college student, is forced to withdraw from university because of his progressively deteriorating mental health. He moves back to his childhood home only to find that his old imaginary friend, Stitches, is back to visit. However, Stitches is much different than Oliver remembered.

i’m purposely leaving this vague because 1) oliver is an extremely unreliable narrator, and 2) i haven’t come up with the main plot points yet. the main vibes i wrote down in my little weird bullet point idea list are “creepy, unreality, & mental instability.” it’s going to be a non-linear narrative with lots of flashbacks of things revealed to oliver that he’s repressed, and things he was never supposed to remember at all.

oh boy :D

I've been writing a lot and so suddenly the answer to this *question* is under the cut :)