And finally, welcome back to Reader's Digest!

This week, the fanfiction I'll be sharing with you is called Girls with Short Hair Who Play Quidditch by azurish on Ao3 (Archive of Our Own). 

Girls with Short Hair Who Play Quidditch is a 2,540-word fanfic about Ginny Weasley wanting to get her hair cut short, but feeling guilty about representing queer stereotypes. The summary is:

"'You know what they say about girls with short hair who play Quidditch.'

Ginny contemplates a Very Significant Haircut. Luckily for her, her girlfriend is kind of an amazing non-comformist. (Also, Ron can't catch a break, really.)"

And, yeah, it's pretty much exactly that! Azurish does an amazing job of encapsulating that internal conflict of wanting something personally but also feeling like you're the representative of an entire community. Also, it contains Linny (Ginny x Luna Lovegood), which, as was mentioned in the last issue, is my absolute favorite ship. I could talk about Linny for ages, but I'll spare you the trouble and just let you know that it's written beautifully in Girls with Short Hair Who Play Quidditch. 

It also captures the essence of the characters we know and love! I find that often in Golden Trio Era stories, there are a lot of OoC (out of character) moments, or at least they're more noticeable seeing as we know the Golden Trio Era characters very well. But azurish really hits the nail on the head with every character! Well, she does kind of do Seamus dirty at the end, but the reasoning for that is explained in the Notes section at the bottom--that's all I can say without giving spoilers, though!

Girls with Short Hair Who Play Quidditch is really incredible in that it delivers an important message about self-expression, but in a story that's also engaging and fun to read! A lot of fanfics (and stories in general) that try to have a moral or a lesson end up being really cheesy, but I don't think that's the case with Girls with Short Hair Who Play Quidditch! I would read the same story if it was about something else, like Ginny wanting to switch from Divination to Muggle Studies, or something inconsequential like that, because it's well-written. 

So, get on with it! Read Girls with Short Hair Who Play Quidditch! I promise you, you won't regret it.

If you want your favorite LGBTQ+ Harry Potter fanfiction to be featured in A Gay's Gaze, owl me with the title and author or put it in AGGatH Readers.

Well, that's all for this week's issue of A Gay's Gaze! And as one final reminder, make sure to head over to AGGatH Readers and fill out the Form! I hope you enjoyed, and have a spectacular day/night!