#I decided to add the homophobia in my eyes today because I have blown eyes but like green eyes so why not have both?

[da-riya]

[bobbyischill]

My Relationship With Andi Mack

Two years ago, when I was in 10th grade, my GSA advisor was telling me and a friend about a Disney Channel show. She hadn’t watched it yet, but apparently one of the main characters had just come out as gay! I was really happy for Disney and glad that queer kids all over the world had someone like them to look up to. However, I, a 15 year old, a mature teenager, wouldn’t really enjoy a kids show, right? So I went about the rest of my day without giving it a second thought....

Until I went home and opened up Tumblr. One of the first posts I saw was someone giving props to Disney for making such a diverse, inclusive show that was actually GOOD. They said it reminded them of Girl Meets World, except it was a million times better and diverse. Okay fine, I thought. I guess I’ll check out Andi Mack. (BOOYY I HAD A BIG STORM COMING)

I opened up my iPad around 10:30pm and decided to watch an episode or two, depending on how tired I was. After the very first episode, I recognized that this show was special. Like, REALLY special. The characters were fleshed out and unique. There was the “twist” about Bex being Andi’s mom. The friendships and relationships felt real. I knew I was going to binge the whole show that night.

That night, as I continued on with the show, I fell in love with each one of them. They all had their own quirks, they were all nuanced. I fell in love with how competitive, protective to a fault, and caring Buffy was. I fell in love with how awkward and goofy and relatable Cyrus was. I fell in love with how kind and oblivious Jonah was. I fell in love with how hard-working and funny Andi was, and how much she cared about certain things and the people around her. I fell in love with the dynamics between certain characters and how they were always changing. I loved how it tackled racism in school (Buffy had to change her hair or be sent home), how unfair dress codes are to students (especially girls), how you need to take a stand for what you believe in (the prison uniforms), and how stepping out of your comfort zone is a good thing, even if you get hurt (Andi watching a horror movie and being terrified, but not regretting it). This was all in the first season.

This show already meant so much to me. And then Cyrus looked back at Jonah. In the words of Jonah Beck, “I cried”. Just that hint of representation was more than I had ever scene on Disney or any other show marketed to kids.

And then Cyrus came out to Buffy. I, a pansexual who was out to my friends but not any of my family and who still struggled with intense internalized homophobia, burst into tears. I related to how ashamed and afraid Cyrus looked. I needed to hear Buffy’s heartfelt response. “You may be weird, but you’re no different.” That phrase was constantly bouncing through my head for at least the next few days (and if I’m being honest, it still is). I wrote it all over my notes and assignments because it was literally all I could think about for such a long time. I saw the sign on the wall that said “G: for General Audiences.” That showed me that Disney (or at least Terri Minsky, my queen) truly felt that I wasn’t a freak. I didn’t need to hide my identity from anyone if I didn’t want to. My identity wasn’t a mature subject; it was for general audiences. (Also, I just want to add that Sofia and Josh’s acting in this scene was absolutely fantastic. It was so raw and emotional, and it still makes me cry every time I see it.)

And then in that same episode Cyrus and Buffy talked about his crush on Jonah. They did it so casually, and my mind was blown. At this point, I had honestly never seen so much gay representation in a show as this.

That night, I stayed up until 5am. I was rewatched Cyrus’s coming out scene about 10 times. I fangirled about it on Tumblr. I added “Tomorrow Starts Today” to my Spotify playlist. I even wrote a diary entry about it. (I only write in my diary when I’m feeling very intense emotions that I need to write down in order to figure out.)

The next day at school, I told all my Gay Friends about Andi Mack and how amazing it was. A few of them got into it, and it was fun talking to them about it, but after a while I was pretty heavily hyperfixated on it and I needed more. And I felt like I was bothering my followers with constant posts about how much I loved Andi Mack. So I made this blog. @cyrus-made-tshirts. I haven’t changed the name since. That’s how I became an official part of the friendom.

I love this fandom. I don’t even know many people personally or have made many friends through it, but this fandom was everything to me. I loved the posts, the crackhead theories, josh’s account. I loved the crackships, the real ships, the overanalyzing of every line, of every movement, of every promo. I loved watching the reactions on YouTube. I loved making posts about the show and having hundreds of people relate to it or find it funny, especially the gay ones. My very first post to get more than 50 notes was one about how Miranda and Bex would make a cute couple (this was before Miranda was revealed to be a snake.)

For the past year and a half, Andi Mack has been my life. I have survived the many ship wars. I have survived the months-long hiatuses. I have survived the ominous tweets and posts Josh has made and the frenzy of panicking everywhere that followed it. And I have loved every minute of it.

I’ve seen these characters I love grow up before my eyes. They’ve all changed and evolved and matured so much. There’s so much more representation since I started watching the show. There’s a character with a learning disability, characters with anxiety, a homeless character, a deaf character. There’s been multiple episodes celebrating Jewish and Chinese culture. I’ve seen Cyrus go from nervously nodding in agreement that he liked a boy to unprovokingly telling his friend he liked that boy to flat-out telling his ex-crush he is gay to holding hands with his crush in public. I’ve seen all of Cyrus’s friends support him unconditionally. I’ve seen him find his happily ever after (for middle school, at least).

And then the last episode aired. I knew I was never going to be prepared for it, but HOLY SHIT, it’s over. And the finale was like a fanfiction it was so good. I watched it live on Thursday night at midnight. I freaked out about it online for three hours, then watched it on Disney Now. I pulled an all-nighter because I just kept rewatching it online until Friday night, when I watched it air on Disney. The way Cyrus and TJ sang Born This Way with the rest of the characters cured my depression, cleared my skin, and watered my crops. The bench scene was so fucking beautiful and romantic it caused me to hyperventilate. The acting from both Luke and Josh was incredible. Honestly, Luke crushed it the entire time as TJ and the bench scene was the icing on top. This scene meant more to met than some people could ever know.

A couple months ago, I was in a pretty shit place emotionally and mentally. Literally the only thing stopping me from killing myself was the guilt of leaving my friends and family behind. I needed another reason to stay, something to keep me grounded. And that reason became Andi Mack. I promised myself I would live to see the day Tyrus became canon. And I did it. I’m in a much better place now, and I’m not going to do anything stupid now that Tyrus has become canon (TYRUS HAS BECOME CANON!!! AAKDBEISSHSB I STILL HAVENT PROCESSED THAT YET!!!!). But at the time, I really needed Andi Mack to help me keep fighting. And it was there for me. And I will always be indebted to it for my life.

This show has helped me in so many other ways. It’s helped me drastically reduce my internalized homophobia. It’s given me a community of people that understand me. It’s created so many characters that I love. So thank you to Terri Minsky for creating this show and amazing characters that I will love forever. Thank you to Disney for funding it and not completely censoring it. Thank you to the crew for working tirelessly to make this happen. Thank you to Peyton, Emily, Asher, Josh, Luke, Lilan, Trent, Garren, Sofia, and every other actor for pouring their heart into this show. A special thank you to Josh and Luke for making me feel safe and loved and for caring so much about their story arcs. (And their political activism is pretty awesome, too.)

I’m really going to miss screaming about this show with you guys. I really hope that some people keep creating fanart and fanfics and keep making memes and crackships. I hope the friendom never dies. Because every one of you is so special and fun to hang out with online. And I’m really gonna miss it. And now I’m crying, and this is getting WAYYY too long, so I’m gonna stop talking now lmao. But I want to say this show has changed me in so many ways and I’m grateful to every single person involved, including the amazing friendom. I’ll love you all forever. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[sahibookworm]

If you have been following my blog for a while, you probably know that despite being an avid fantasy and romance genre lover, I really enjoy both genre fiction as well as non fiction with strong political themes. And politics for me includes a broad spectrum like actual electoral politics, civil rights and discrimination of marginalized groups, feminism and other gender related topics, the effects of capitalism and corporations – basically anything that affects the lives of individual people or the country as a whole in both the short term as well as the long term. I also really love it when genre books include such important themes but as metaphors to the real world, giving us the opportunity to escape to new worlds but also engage with real life issues.

As such, I have a bunch of books in various genres that I would love to recommend and hope that you’ll enjoy them too.

 Fiction

I think it’s not a surprise that Red, White and Royal Blue is at the top of the list. It doesn’t mean that I think it’s the best or anything, it just happens to be my favorite. And I loved how it explored so many themes like election campaigns and how they don’t always work the way we think they do, the unique struggles of a female presidential candidate (which we have also been living since 2016) and what happens when you add biracial children and homophobia to the mix, and also the importance of having an accepting and supporting family.

I’m a huge fan of anthologies and A People’s Future of the United States is one of my favorites. It’s full of speculative fiction stories about all the different paths our country might take in the future, and how there are always going to be people who will fight for the rights of those who are being oppressed. It’s powerful, thought provoking and hopeful, and I hope you all will give it a chance.

Take the Mic is another favorite anthology of mine but this is about youngsters in our world trying to fight both personal and macro level oppressions through resistance everyday in whatever little way they can.

The Test is a novella which is just around 100 pages but the way it handles the topics of immigration, citizenship and xenophobia and makes us question our own humanity is a complete mindfuck and the author is a master storyteller.

I love books that talk about feminism in any genre and I thought Watch Us Rise has excellent commentary on intersectional feminism as well as body shaming from the perspective of teenage girls and though it could be a bit high handed at times, I really enjoyed this book.

We Set the Dark on Fire is one of my favorite YA fantasies and the way it handles themes like illegal immigration, the refugee crisis, and inane concept of a border wall is excellent and very relatable to our own real world situations.

This may just feel like a romance novel (which it is and a wonderful one at that), but it explores the much relevant theme of racial profiling of Black people by the police in our country (and discrimination of black and brown people in general) and even though it’s a topic we all are quite aware of, the way author writes it just hits you hard. There’s one particular scene that is especially harrowing and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that. Definitely recommend this one for all romance genre fans.

Non Fiction

Drift is actually a pretty old book which I read a few years ago, but I have a feeling that the topic it deals with – military industrial complex, the bloated budget of the Pentagon and the never ending wars – are still relevant today and it was very eye opening for me.

Blowout on the other hand is about the Oil and Gas industry across the globe and the way this industry has destroyed the lives of millions of people, often with the full support of politicians and governments. This is an expansive book about what happens when unchecked greed in a highly unregulated industry runs rampant and I would highly recommend the audiobook.

In Why? Explaining the Holocaust, the author goes back a long way in history to trace back the origins of the hatred towards the Jews as a people, all the other groups like the Catholic Church that fanned the flame and how it ultimately culminated in Hitler and the Holocaust. This book is a very informative and thoroughly researched work and I would definitely recommend if you are interested in the topic.

The Retreat of Western Liberalism was probably one of the first non fiction books I read after the 2016 election and it talks about the fall of liberalism as an ideology and the rise of far-right groups across the globe, and the author also gives some scary scenarios of what might happen in the US as well. It’s an important cautionary tale and while it may feel a bit dated now (a lot has happened in the last three years), I still think parts of it are relevant and worth giving it a try.

This is a very inspiring and hopeful collection of essays by ten young women who got the opportunity to work in the Obama White House and they talk a lot about what others who are interested in public service can do and what kind of jobs are done daily by the President’s staff. It’s not always as glamorous as shown in TV but it’s very important work and I loved reading this book.

The first reaction any woman reading Invisible Women will have is anger and exasperation. Anger that sexism has permeated every aspect of society in such deep rooted ways that it’s difficult to even think about how to solve the issues the book talks about; exasperation because even in 2020, we are still second class citizens in many ways we don’t even realize. I don’t wanna give any details but if there’s one book I will highly recommend this Women’s History Month, it is going to be this one. Just pick it up and be ready for your mind to be blown by the unfairness of it all.

You might be wondering why Burn it Down, a book about women’s anger is political but I believe that historically women have been discouraged from using anger as an effective emotion to express themselves and act of trying to reclaim that anger now is inherently political. This is a collection of essays by authors about how they have used the anger they feel in other productive ways and I promise you, it’s very very relatable. And I think the topic is currently highly relevant because the female candidates for President are always questioned why they are shouting or being shrill or angry, while a male candidate behaving the exact same way never gets any criticism.

Both She Said and Catch and Kill are about the countless women who were sexually harassed and raped by Harvey Weinstein for a number of decades and getting away with it through money, power and intimidation tactics. But other than this particular case, the books also give a glaring look into how men in power use all the money and resources available to them to do whatever they want, and how other people in power aid them to succeed in this harassing behaviour and cover up. They are hard to read, but are amazingly written and are a testament to the courageous survivors who finally decided to speak up and share their traumatic stories. Highly recommend and very relevant after the sentencing he received in New York just about ten days ago and more probable cases being filed in California soon.

Finally, my last recommendation is a history book but please don’t discount it as boring. When we think of colonialism or imperialism, the countries that come to mind are usually Britain, Spain or other European nations – but we never think of America in the same vein. In How to Hide an Empire, the author reveals the duplicity of our country’s politicians in spouting anti-imperialist platitudes in public while actually occupying many countries and oppressing the colonies in horrible ways – and this is a book that traces the history of American colonies from the 19th century till the present day. This is an eye opening read and something I believe everyone should read just to get an idea of our own country’s often forgotten history.

Have you already read any of these books? What did you think of them? Have I convinced you to pick any of these? Let me know which of these books interest you the most and why in the comments below….

Book Recs: Books with Political Themes If you have been following my blog for a while, you probably know that despite being an avid fantasy and romance genre lover, I really enjoy both genre fiction as well as non fiction with strong political themes.