bookavid:

 for the people who keep telling me they cant find diverse #ownvoices books by people of color or that there are none. 

contemporary + romance

- asian authors -

• born confused - tanuja desai hidier
• girl in between - pintip dunn
  
• i believe in a thing called love - maurene goo
  
• enter title here - rahul kanakia
• if you could be mine - sara farizan
• its not like its a secret - misa sugiura
  
• my so-called bollywood life - nisha sharma
  
• none of the above - i.w. gregorio
• since you asked - maurene goo
• starfish - akemi dawn bowman
  
• tell me again how a crush should feel - sara farizan
• this promise i will keep - aisha saeed
  
• to all the boys ive loved before - jenny han
  
• qala academy - tanaz bhatena
  
• when dimple met rishi - sandhya menon
• written in the stars - aisha saeed
• tiny pretty things - sona charaipotra & dhonielle clayton

- black and african authors -

• all american boys - jason reynolds & brendan kiely
• allegedly - tiffany d. jackson
• american street - ibi zoboi
• the boy in the black suit - jason reynolds
• dear martin - nic stone
• the hate u give - angie thomas
• little & lion - brandy colbert
• peas and carrots - tanita s. davis
  
• the sun is also a star - nicola yoon
  
• this side of home - renée watson
• tiny pretty things - sona charaipotra & dhonielle clayton
  
• pointe - brandy colbert
• when i was the greatest - jason reynolds
• you dont know me but i know you - rebecca barrow

- latinx authors -

• the education of margot sanchez - lilliam rivera
• the inexplicable logic of my life - benjamin alire sáenz
• juliet takes a breath - gabbi rivera
• north of happy - adi alsaid
  
• we were here - matt de la pena
• when reason breaks - cindy l. rodriguez
• yaqui delgado wants to kick your ass - meg medina

high fantasy + urban fantasy

- asian authors -

• the bone witch - rin chupeco 
  
• the forbidden wish - jessica khoury
  
• forest of a thousand lantern by julie c. dao
• huntress - malinda lo
• not your sidekick - c.b. lee
  
• prophecy - ellen oh
• the reader - traci chee
• serpentine - cindy pon
  
• silver phoenix - cindy pon
• soulmated - shaila patel
• the star-touched queen - roshani chokshi

- black and african authors -

• akata witch - nnedi okorafor
  
• promise of shadows - justina ireland
  
• shadowsharper - daniel josé older
  

- latinx authors -

• labyrinth lost - zoraida córdova
• shadowsharper - daniel josé older

historical + historical fantasy

- asian authors -

• an ember in the ashes - sabaa tahir
• everything i never told you - celeste ng
• outrun the moon - stacey lee
  
• under a painted sky - stacey lee

- latinx authors -

• burn baby burn - meg medina
• iron cast - destiny soria
  
• shame the stars - guadalupe garcia mccall
  

magical realism

- black and african authors -

• into white - randi pink
  

- latinx authors -

• the girl who could silence the wind - meg medina
• summer of the mariposas - guadalupe garcia mccall
  
• the weight of feathers - anna-marie mclemore
  
• wild beauty - anna-marie mclemore
  
• when the moon was ours - anna-marie mclemore
  

sci-fi

- asian authors - 

• forget tomorrow - pintip dunn
• the amaterasu project - axie oh
• the girl from everywhere - heidi heilig
• want - cindy pon
  

- black and african authors -

• binti - nnedi okorafor
  
• the blazing star - imani josey
  
• the fifth season - n.k. jemisin
• love is the drug - alaya dawn johnson
• orleans - sherri l. smith

is that enough? they’re out there. you just have to be willing to look.

All Book Recommendations | My Book Blog 

prokopetz:

That thing about how cats think humans are big kittens is a myth, y’know.

It’s basically born of false assumptions; folks were trying to explain how a naturally solitary animal could form such complex social bonds with humans, and the explanation they settled on is “it’s a displaced parent/child bond”.

The trouble is, cats aren’t naturally solitary. We just assumed they were based on observations of European wildcats - but housecats aren’t descended from European wildcats. They’re descended from African wildcats, which are known to hunt in bonded pairs and family groupings, and that social tendency is even stronger in their domesticated relatives. The natural social unit of the housecat is a colony: a loose affiliation of cats centred around a shared territory held by alliance of dominant females, who raise all of the colony’s kittens communally.

It’s often remarked that dogs understand that humans are different, while cats just think humans are big, clumsy cats, and that’s totally true - but they regard us as adult colonymates, not as kittens, and all of their social behaviour toward us makes a lot more sense through that lens.

They like to cuddle because communal grooming is how cats bond with colonymates - it establishes a shared scent-identity for the colony and helps clean spots that they can’t easily reach on their own.

They bring us dead animals because cats transport surplus kills back to the colony’s shared territory for consumption by pregnant, nursing, or sick colonymates who can’t easily hunt on their own. Indeed, that’s why they kill so much more than they individually need - it’s not for fun, but to generate enough surplus kills to sustain the colony’s non-hunting members.

They’re okay with us messing with their kittens because communal parenting is the norm in a colony setting, and us being colonymates in their minds automatically makes us co-parents.

It’s even why many cats are so much more tolerant toward very small children, as long as those children are related to one of their regular humans: they can tell the difference between human adults and human “kittens”, and your kittens are their kittens.

Basically, you’re going to have a much easier time getting a handle on why your cat does why your cat does if you remember that the natural mode of social organisation for cats is not as isolated solitary hunters, but as a big communal catpile - and for that purpose, you count as a cat.

hedgewitchwanderings:

fryderykszopen:

cursethecosmos:

castameresweaters:

Latino/Latina: originating from the Carribean, South or Central America. Gender neutral term (in English) is usually written as latinx.

• Sentence: María was born in Ecuador, so she is Latina.
  

Hispanic: Spanish-speaking.

• Sentence: José was born in Brazil, so he is NOT Hispanic, since his country’s official language is Portugese, but he IS considered Latino.
  

Mexican: from the Central American country named Mexico, NOT a language. NOTICE! not all Latinos in the US are from Mexico

• Sentence: Enrique was born in Mexico, so he is Mexican. Enrique speaks Spanish, since “Mexican” is not a language. 

Chicano/Chicana/Chicanx: a person of Mexican descent (usually born in the US)

• Sentence: Anna’s parents were born in Mexico, so she identifies as Chicana. Her friend Miguel’s parents are from Colombia, so he identifies as Latino.
  

Spanish: a language spoken by many countries all over the world/ originating from the country Spain. NOTICE! not the only language spoken in Spain or South/Central America.

• Sentence: Juan was born in Madrid, so he is Spanish. He only speaks Spanish, but has friends who speak other languages.
  

Quechua, Catalan, Nahuatl, Gallego, Euskera: other languages spoken in countries where Spanish is the ‘official’ language. Many Hispanics are bilingual and Spanish may not be their native language.

• Sentence: Alba was born in a region of Spain called Catalonia. Even though she is Spanish, she speaks Catalan with her family and friends. 
  
• Sentence #2: Sofia was born in Mexico and does not speak “Mexican,” but her family does speak Nahuatl, a native language originating in Mexico.
  

That is all.

Mandatory reading for my followers. 

@korkat !!

Thank you for this, I know it but keep getting it confused nonetheless so would like to hammer it into myself. :)

theopinionatedartist:

skeletree:

hungrylikethewolfie:

inkdot:

This weekend I was told a story which, although I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, because holy shit is it ever obvious, is kind of blowing my mind.

A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.

Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic?  She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing.  But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great.  She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success.  So - what gives?

His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear.  Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles.  He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses.  You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on.  Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered.  He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit.  That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.

I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way.  I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did. 

It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this.  But no one ever told me.  I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes.  No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.

I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed.  I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to.  No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to.  I guess I just didn’t know.  I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.

I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.

I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.

So, I have to take that and sit with it for a while.  But in the meantime, I thought perhaps I should post this, because maybe my friend, her friend, and I are the only clueless people who did not realise this, but maybe we’re not.  Maybe some of you have tried to embrace the arbitrary size you are, but still couldn’t find a cute pair of jeans, and didn’t know why.

This post is one of those things that I will reblog every time it appears on my dash.  This is so important, and no one ever tells you about it.

I almost didn’t read this but then I did and I’m really glad that I did.

Super important

staff:

Today Tumblr continues its involvement in the fight for transgender rights by signing an amicus brief, filed by the Human Rights Campaign, in the case of Gavin Grimm vs. Gloucester County School Board. We stand with Gavin and trans students across America in opposing the board’s decision to bar students from using restrooms corresponding to their gender identity, which violates both Title IX and basic human decency.

Trans youth are already at exceptionally higher risk of violence and trauma of all sorts. Schools must be safe places for the kids we send there, and some of those kids are trans. They deserve, as do all students and all people, to be protected equally by the institutions designed for them.

We’ve always fought, and will always fight, to protect marginalized people—and their rights to exist safely and express freely—both on our platform and off.

Here are some things you can do:

• Show your support for equal access to public spaces by joining the #EveryoneWelcome campaign.
  

• Support and share resources like The Trevor Project, which offer crisis intervention for trans people.
  

• Stay informed and help educate others. An excellent place for news and educational resources is the National Center for Transgender Equality.
  

vulvacrat:

if y’all ever wonder why you can’t say the word ‘patriarchy’ out loud anymore without sounding like a ridiculous stereotype, it’s because men have stigmatised it in internet media (image of angry woman with dyed hair, ‘hysterical feminazis’, ‘slay the patriarchy) to the extent where it is no longer taken seriously. it’s a clever silencing tactic which effectively rids us of the language we need to describe things critically

glumshoe:

je-suis-letat:

glumshoe:

vorequeen420lolrandomxd:

glumshoe:

Cemetery forests would be great, if you could get them to work out ecologically. Not only would you have healthy, sustainable burials with physical markers to mourn at, you’d also inspire emotional investment in conservation and promote old-growth forests. No one wants to chop down great-great-great-grandpa Karkat the oak tree for lumber.

@ask-treekat

you’re kidding me

You want a haunted forest. That’s how you get a haunted forest

Well, better a haunted forest than a haunted useless plot of land filled with concrete and steel and hundreds of gallons of poison that we have to constantly manicure. Haunted forests are classy *and* contribute to the world by absorbing CO2 and producing oxygen, providing shelter for wildlife, and help get goth teenagers to appreciate nature.

hobbitkaiju:

paskakissa:

biggest hetero lie i’ve been told: fighting is a part of a healthy romantic relationship

Disagreements are a part of every healthy relationship. Having bad days when you’re not your best self is a part of every healthy relationship. Fighting, disrespect, and insults? Those are not healthy at all.