Media roundup for November
Sun, Nov. 30th, 2025 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kiestanMy lack of reading in Oct frustrated me so I may have overcompensated this month… I’m still halfway through a few books, but I’ve had this written up for a while, so just gonna post it!
It also occurred to me that the majority of my media consumption this month is trans-related. Until I get it out of my system, please have my gender fucky media recs wahaha.
Games
- it sucks to be us by tofurocks: Interactive fiction about a closeted transmasc enby and a trans guy who was forced to detransition meeting at a sapphic event. It’s a short, thoughtful game even if it took me half a dozen replays to get to a positive ending… is this why I’m a single pringle irl? t_t I’m too cowardly to rack up enough courage points to befriend queer people even in fictional games? Help
- Gang Beasts by indie studio Boneloaf: This was SO fun, a 10/10 battle royale party game. Someone I know bought it on Steam and we punched / kicked / picked up and threw each other around by pressing playstation controller buttons. Pressing random buttons guarantees you at least one win in a series of battles. Watch the videos in the link, it’s super cute.
Short stories
- Everquest by Naomi Kanakia: Set in India, a transfem person plays video games. Sad and hopeful. <3
- Slavebreaker by rezingrave: Gothic erotic horror and space opera fiction set in a TERF lesbian empire, featuring unreliable narrators, brainwashing, parasites, genocide and rebels. This was insane and I loved it. Reviewers on AO3 and itch.io called it "tboy yaoi psychosis" and a pulp pastiche. Nsfw. <3
- The Shape of My Name by Nino Cipri: Time travel story about forgiving family, transitioning to find yourself, and Illinois' oil fields... it made me cry. <3
- To Balance the Weight of Khalem by R.B. Lemberg: Achy soft fantasy story about immigration driven by war, as well as about the comfort of food, the desire to be seen, and the search for a home. By a bigender author from Ukraine, who has novels! <3
- Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time by KM Szpara: Trans guy gets bitten by a gay vampire. Fun and campy. Nsfw!
- Of Warps and Wefts by Innocent Chizaram Ilo: After marriage, a person lives as a husband by day and as a wife by night, or vice versa. By a Nigerian author. This had a lot of characters, but the story stayed with me.
- Chokechain by Andrew Joseph White: Teen trans boy finds out his parents bought a robot who looks like his pre-transition self. Entertaining if a bit edgy.
- I sexually identify as an attack helicopter by Isabel Fall: A pilot transitions from the gender of "woman" into the gender of "attack helicopter" to get better at fighting wars for their AI government. The military references flew (hehe flew) over my head, but in the end I found this a thoughtful subversion of the derogatory "haha if you identify as x gender can I identify as an attack helicopter?" meme.
Comics/manga
- Becoming by ND Stevenson: Quiet comic about the author discovering he's bigender and transmasc. <3
- Haikei, Seken-sama | Dear Society by Kanzaki Shin: About the protag realizing he's ftm while growing up. Apparently it's based on the mangaka's real life, and if so it sounds like it was traumatizing. Actually one of my worst nightmares sketched out in manga form. T_T Good read even if the ending didn't resonate with me... but if that's how it went down irl for the author, good for him, aha! <3
Books
- We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan, 1961–1991 <3
- Some Strange Music Draws Me In by Griffin Hansbury <3
- Crawl: Stories by Max Delsohn
- The Lilac People by Milo Todd
- You Weren't Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White
- Captive Prince by CS Pacat
Initially I started writing about each book, but they became wordy, so I'll put them in a different post. :D
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Date: Sat, Nov. 29th, 2025 08:52 pm (UTC)"single pringle" took me out hahaha. Kie you've got the rizz! Just gotta pluck up the courage to use it 😼
R.B. Lemberg is a fantastic author. I read The Four Profound Weaves and a few of their short stories. The whole idea of a name in the birdverse is such a mindfuck. I should read more of their work now that they have two more novels out!
How was The Lilac People? I've been eyeing it.
Captive Prince is so iddy and good ahaha.
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Date: Sat, Nov. 29th, 2025 09:47 pm (UTC)Forgive me for spamming you. Started reading Everquest and this part is so raw:
and "Gopal’s mother, not quite divorced but not quite married" -- this is my worst nightmare omg.
and "she and her daughter will sit down, next to a fire, and they will tell each other all the things that in life remained unsaid" 🥺🥺🥺
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Date: Sun, Dec. 7th, 2025 10:03 am (UTC)IKR!!! Everquest made tears leak from my eyes like wtf... these feelings...
Same. The last line hurt too :C Them reuniting by the fire in a virtual, post-death life is like the "what could have been" if life had just been... kinder? More accepting? Ugh
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Date: Sun, Dec. 7th, 2025 10:00 am (UTC)The synopsis of The Four Profound Weaves looked super interesting -- adding it to my ever growing tbr list rn
The Lilac People was... okay. I shall explain it more in a separate post dedicated to these books hahaha
RAHHHHH am I rizzless with courage or rizzful with no courage? womp womp
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Date: Tue, Dec. 9th, 2025 04:55 pm (UTC)Rizzful no courage lol
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Date: Thu, Dec. 11th, 2025 07:00 am (UTC)NAURRR
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Date: Fri, Dec. 5th, 2025 09:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Sun, Dec. 7th, 2025 10:05 am (UTC)I hope you enjoy the short stories! I definitely felt like scrolling a lot in Nov, hence the long list of short stories in this month's post. Usually I don't read that many. They helped bring me back into reading novels though, because the above list of books are those I've finished only nearing the end of Nov.
>:3 hot undead vampires biting you campily. Let me know what you think if you've read it!
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Date: Sat, Dec. 6th, 2025 02:00 pm (UTC)Excited to read your Andrew Joseph White thoughts when you get around to novelposting. :D I have his The Spirit Bares its Teeth somewhere on my to-read list.
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Date: Sun, Dec. 7th, 2025 10:09 am (UTC)It took me a few tries to get into it too. I think it was the unfamiliar military terms that made me pause a few times. But it was so impressive right? Oufghh
I will do up my post on Oct's books (soon I hope), including about AJW's books! I've read Spirit Bares Its Teeth too and hmm I do have some things to say about his YA fiction!