i. about 2 weeks ago, i was told there's a good chance that in 5 or so years, i'll need a wheelchair.
ii. okay. i loved harry potter as a kid. i have a hypothesis about this to be honest - why people still kind of like it. it's that she got very lucky. she managed to make a cross-generational hit. it was something shared for both parents and kids. it was right at the start of a huge cultural shift from pre to post-internet. i genuinely think many people were just seeking community; not her writing. it was a nice shorthand to create connection. which is a long way of saying - she didn't build this legacy, we built it for her. she got lucky, just once. that's all.
iii. to be real with you, i still struggle with identifying as someone with a disability, which is wild, especially given the ways my life has changed. i always come up against internalized ableism and shame - convinced even right now that i'm faking it for attention. i passed out in a grocery store recently. i hit my head on the shelves while i went down.
iv. he raises his eyebrows while he sends me a look. her most recent new book has POTS featured in it. okay, i say. i already don't like where this is going. we both take another bite of ramen. it is a trait of the villain, he says. we both roll our eyes about it.
v. so one of the things about being nonbinary but previously super into harry potter is that i super hate jk rowling. but it is also not good for my mental health to regret any form of joy i engaged with as a kid. i can't punish my young self for being so into the books - it was a passion, and it was how i made most of my friends. everyone knew about it. i felt like everyone had my same joy, my same fixation. as a "weird kid", this sense of belonging resonated with me so loudly that i would have done anything to protect it.
vi. as a present, my parents once took me out of school to go see the second movie. it is an incredibly precious memory: my mom straight-up lying about a dentist appointment. us snickering and sneaking into the weekday matinee. within seven years of this experience, the internet would be a necessity to get my homework finished. the world had permanently changed. harry potter was a relic, a way any of us could hold onto something of the analog.
vii. by sheer luck, the year that i started figuring out the whole gender fluid thing was also the first year people started to point out that she might have some internalized biases. i remember tumblr before that; how often her name was treated as godhood. how harry potter was kind of a word synonymous for "nerdy but cool." i would walk out of that year tasting he/him and they/them; she would walk out snarling and snapping about it.
viii. when i teach older kids creative writing, i usually tell them - so, she did change the face of young adult fiction, there's no denying that. she had a lot more opportunities than many of us will - there were more publishing houses, less push for "virally" popular content creators. but beyond reading another book, we need to write more books. we need to uplift the voices of those who remain unrepresented. we need to push for an exposure to the bigotry baked into the publishing system. and i promise you: you can write better than she ever did. nothing she did was what was magical - it was the way that the community responded to it.
ix. i get home from ramen. three other people have screenshotted the POTS thing and sent it to me. can you fucking believe we're still hearing this shit from her when it's almost twenty-fucking-twenty-three. the villain is notably also popular on tumblr. i just think that's funny. this woman is a billionaire and she's mad that she can't control the opinions of some people on a dying blue site that makes no money. lady, and i mean this - get a fucking life.
x. i am sorry to the kid i was. maybe the kid you were too. none of us deserved to see something like this ruined. that thing used to be precious to me. and now - all those good times; measured into dust.
/// 9.6.2022 // FUCKING AGAIN, JK? Are you fucking kidding me?
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the unofficial ultimate bungo stray dogs reading list
this is mainly for myself bc i rly do want to read most if not all of these and i'm sure it's already been done by someone somewhere. but, i thought why not post it lmao; most if not all of these can be found on anna's archive, z-library, or project gutenberg! (also, consider buying from your local bookstore!) for those that are a bit harder to find, i've included links, though some are from j-stor and would require login to access.
detective agency:
osamu dazai:
no longer human (novel)
the setting sun (novel)
nakajima atsushi:
the moon over the mountain: stories (short story collection)
light, wind and dreams (short story)
fukuzawa yukichi:
an encouragement of learning (17 volume collections of writings)
all the countries of the world, for children written in verse (textbook)
yosano akiko:
kimi shinitamou koto nakare (poem)
midaregami (poetry collection)
edogawa ranpo:
the boy detectives club (book series)
japanese tales of mystery and imagination (short story collection)
the early cases of akechi kogoro (novel)
kunikida doppo:
river mist and other stories (short story collection)
izumi kyouka:
demon lake (play)
spirits of another sort: the plays of izumi kyoka (play collection)
tanizaki junichirou:
the makioka sisters (novel)
the red roof and other stories (short story collection)
miyazawa kenji:
ame ni mo makezu; be not defeated by the rain (poem)
night on the galactic railroad (novel)
strong in the rain (poetry collection)
port mafia:
mori ougai:
vita sexualis (novel)
the dancing girl (novel)
nakahara chuuya:
poems of nakahara chuya (poetry collection)
akutagawa ryuunosuke:
rashoumon (short story)
the spider's thread (short story)
rashoumon and other stories (short story collection)
ozaki kyouyou:
the gold demon (novel)
higuchi ichiyou:
in the shade of spring leaves (biography and short stories)
hirotsu ryuurou:
falling camellia (novel)
tachihara michizou:
in mourning for the summer (poem)
midwinter momento (poem)
from the country of eight islands: an anthology of japanese poetry (poetry collection)
kajii motojirou:
lemon (short story)
yumeno kyuusaku:
dogra magra (novel)
oda sakunosuke:
flawless/immaculate (short story)
sakaguchi ango:
darakuron (essay)
the guild:
f. scott fitzgerald:
the great gatsby (novel)
the beautiful and the damned (novel)
edgar allen poe:
the raven (poem)
the black cat (short story)
the murders in the rue morgue (short story)
herman melville:
moby dick (novel)
h.p. lovecraft:
the call of cthulhu (short story)
the shadow out of time (novella)
john steinbeck:
the grapes of wrath (novel)
of mice and men (novel)
lucy maud montgomery:
anne of green gables (novel)
the blue castle (novel)
chronicles of avonlea (short story collection)
louisa may alcott:
little women (novel)
the brownie and the princess (short story collection)
margaret mitchell:
gone with the wind (novel)
mark twain:
the adventures of tom sawyer (novel)
adventures of huckleberry finn (novel)
nathaniel hawthorn:
the scarlet letter (novel)
rats in the house of the dead:
fyodor dostoevsky:
crime and punishment (novel)
the brothers karamozov (novel)
notes from the underground (short story collection)
alexander pushkin:
eugene onegin (novel)
a feast in time of plague (play)
ivan goncharov:
the precipice (novel)
oguri mushitarou:
the perfect crime (novel)
decay of the angel:
fukuchi ouchi:
the mirror lion, a spring diversion (kabuki play)
bram stoker:
dracula (novel)
dracula's guest and other weird stories (short story collection)
nikolai gogol:
the overcoat (short story)
dead souls (novel)
hunting dogs: (i must caveat here that the hunting dogs are named after much more comparatively obscure jpn writers/playwrights so i was unable to find a lot of the specific pieces actually mentioned; but i still wanted to include them on the list because well -- it wouldn't be a bsd list without them)
okura teruko:
gasp of the soul (short story; i wasn't able to find an english translation)
devil woman (short story)
jouno saigiku:
priceless tears (kabuki play; no translation but at least we have a summary)
suehiro tetchou:
setchuubai/a political novel: plum blossoms in snow (novel)
division for unusual powers:
taneda santouka:
the santoka: versions by scott watson (poetry collection)
tsujimura mizuki:
lonely castle in the mirror (novel)
yesterday's shadow tag (short story collection; i was unable to find a translation)
order of the clock tower:
agatha christie:
and then there were none (novel)
murder on the orient express (novel)
she is the best selling fiction writer of all time there's too much to list here
mimic:
andre gide:
strait is the gate (novel)
trascendents:
arthur rimbaud:
illuminations (poetry collection)
the drunken boat (poem)
a season in hell (prose poem)
johann von goethe:
faust
the sorrows of young werther
paul verlaine:
clair de lune (poem, yes it did inspire the debussy piece, yes)
poems under saturn (poetry collection)
victor hugo:
the hunchback of notre-dame (novel)
les miserables (novel)
william shakespeare:
romeo and juliet (play)
a midsummer nights' dream (play)
sonnets (poetry collection)
the seven traitors:
jules verne:
around the world in 80 days (novel)
journey to the center of the earth (novel)
twenty thousand leagues under the seas (novel)
other:
natsume souseki:
i am a cat (novel)
kokoro (novel)
botchan (novel)
h.g. wells:
the time machine (novella)
the invisible man (novel)
the war of the worlds (novel)
shibusawa tatsuhiko:
the travels of prince takaoka (novel; unable to find translation)
dr. mary wollstonecraft godwin shelley
frankenstein (novel)
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