Tranny by Laura Jane Grace with Dan Ozzi
Jan. 18th, 2026 10:58 amAt the time, I did not realize that this memoir was about the lead singer of the band "Against Me!"
Because Tom Gabel was only a couple of years younger than me, the musical cultural landmarks of this book felt affirming. It starts with Tom, as a child, thinking about Madonna. The juxtaposition of "Material Girl" with the politics of punk was interesting.
Tom began making music with his friends as a teenager and dropped out of high school. There was a lot of booze and many drugs involved.
Then, he wanted to get better as a musician and bigger as a band, and some of his band mates were on a different journey.
After the band made a deal for $25,000 with a very small label, the crust punks began accusing him of selling out. They would show up at his shows and flip him off for playing any new material and slashed his tires.
Despite the exhaustion of constant touring, they kept at it, and did well, but you can definitely hear the production difference between "Baby, I'm an Anarchist" and "I Was a Teenage Anarchist."
Then, after having his first child, the need to transition became more pressing, and it was tough because he was living in that part of Florida that might as well be Alabama. There was a scene about a field of crosses representing aborted babies, and I took a picture of something similar to that in my hometown the last time I visited. Tom made the album "White Crosses" with the title referring to both the crosses and amphetamines.
Transition was really difficult in that type of environment, and his wife who was really into the punk aesthetic just really hated living in the backwaters of Florida.
Transition publicly and privately blew up life, the band, and the marriage; but ultimately, it leads Laura to a more sustainable life, with more humility and with a band more aligned with her politics, and a musical audience that is more diverse than it has ever been. During the grueling tours, they had opened for many types of bands, and those audiences added to the fans of the band.
The song "Because of the Shame" is about one of the important people in the book that was lost, and that song survived the transition.
Anyway, I recommend this book to
Fairy Cat, by Hisa Takano
Jan. 18th, 2026 09:54 am
One rainy day Kanade, a high school student, finds a mouse-sized cat in his room. It's a fairy cat or "palm-sized cat!" They are elusive magical creatures which sometimes adopt humans, but mostly behave like ordinary cats. Only extra-tiny!
That's about it for the plot. What this manga is actually about is showing an incredibly adorable tiny cat being an incredibly adorable tiny cat. It's an incredibly adorable manga. Proof:

No, no, there is too much, let me sum up...
Jan. 18th, 2026 11:08 amA funeral, sorry, no, a "celebration of life" that includes some tears, but more laughter, is a successful ritual.
Though what y'all will mostly appreciate is that the final speaker chose to read one of her poems to close the service, and I was mouthing the words along with him. Within my sight (I deliberately sat in the middle of the room, not up front), several others were doing the same.
All my proud sisterhood,
Swearing you will be good,
Wishing the hell you could leave it unsaid.
Bare your arm, make a fist, tattoo it on your wrist;
Never correct a man's grammar in bed.
From Advice to a Young Bride, by Dodie Messer Meeks
Two shows
Jan. 18th, 2026 12:07 pm( Read more... )
ClaireBell: After the Final Scene clip 1:
( Read more... )
"I'm not in Minnesota -- what can I do to help?"
Jan. 18th, 2026 04:02 pmLinking to the last skeet in the thread because the threading's broken otherwise:
https://bsky.app/profile/naomikritzer.bsky.social/post/3mcdamldccc23
Also here's a collection of links to local mutual aid funds, food banks, and other organizations doing work on the ground:
https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
Fandom Trees 2025 Reveals: Gifts Given
Jan. 18th, 2026 09:57 amTitle: Winter Wonderland
Author: Spikedluv
Fandom: The Sentinel (tv)
Rating: PG13/Slash
Pairing/Characters: Jim/Blair
Length: 1,600 words
Spoilers: Nothing specifically, but for entire series to be safe.
Summary: "Don't be mad," Blair said.
"Well, it's not auspicious that those are the first words you say to me when I walk in the door."
Author's Notes: Written for
Feedback: Would be greatly appreciated.
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me.
Posted: December 2, 2025
Read Fic @ AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75130406
Title: But What If There Was a Demon vs Dinosaur Cage Match?
Author: Spikedluv
Fandom: Angel: the Series(tv)[/Primeval (tv)]
Rating: PG13/Het
Pairing/Characters: Dawn/Connor & Faith
Length: 1,935 words
Spoilers: Takes place post-series, but no real spoilers unless you don't know who Dawn and Connor are. o_O. General spoilers for the concept of Primeval (dinosaurs!).
Summary: "Dinosaurs?" Faith said, sounding dubious after Dawn and Connor had given their account of their experience with Jennifer and the Triceratops.
Author's Notes: Takes place post-Some Things You See With Your Eyes . . . Written for
Feedback: Would be greatly appreciated.
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me.
Posted: December 19, 2025
Read Fic @ AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76027846
Dustborn
Jan. 18th, 2026 02:31 pmIt's 2030, and some years ago a sci-fi-esque disaster affected the former contiguous USA. It left behind a few individuals with superpowers, some perhaps more useful than others. And it left at least two rival authoritarian regimes.
In this game a group of nobodies sets off to cross the continent under the authorities' radar. Their cover: being a band on tour. They meet people along the way, and of course things don't go entirely to plan.
It's interactive fiction, but more interactive than some. It's a road-trip story, of course. The summary is that it's a really nice character-driven story, where the things you say and the choices you make mould the character development along the way. The people feel largely realistic/plausible, which is no mean feat in writing. Like most such games the big picture of the plot is fixed, although I think there are different ways to reach the milestones, but the evolution of the people is not.
It's a game about people, families, and relationships; also a game about resistance, and different forms that it can take.
The protagonist starts off as quite a flawed character, and I had a number of "I don't want to say any of these things!" moments near the start. But that gets better, if you have her develop that way. The pacing is perhaps a little slow in the middle, but it picks up again and makes that a very minor complaint. The art is lovely, and it has a good soundtrack.
Alongside this there's some combat which... eh, I found it fun, but it's not the strongest part of the game. And there's a note-bashing minigame, which... again, I enjoyed it, and how good you are does affect what happens, but I don't think in any major ways. Both of these break things up nicely and give changes in pace.
Good on accessibilty: combat difficulty is adjustable, and fights can be skipped altogether. There's an "easy QTE" mode. It does require a games controller, I think. It took me about 20 hours to complete in non-rushed way. It rewards you for remembering what characters say and like, so it's worth trying to play in a relatively concentrated period rather than spread out over months.
Bonus points for unremarked queer and non-wihite representation throughout, people struggling with mental health, and for a female protagonist. Actually, a majority-female cast. It got review-bombed on steam for being woke, so maybe extra bonus points for that? ;-) Recommended, either way.
Night of Camp David by Fletcher Knebel
Jan. 18th, 2026 08:58 am
A deranged President sets his eyes on Canada and Scandinavia, forcing one senator to consider the prospect of contemplating the preliminaries to action.
Night of Camp David by Fletcher Knebel
Book Bingo: G1 | An author's debut/first book | Where the Dark Stands Still
Jan. 18th, 2026 08:37 am
Blurb:
Liska knows that magic is monstrous, and its practitioners are monsters. She has done everything possible to suppress her own magic, to disastrous consequences. Desperate to be free of it, Liska flees her small village and delves into the dangerous, demon-inhabited spirit-wood to steal a mythical fern flower. If she plucks it, she can use its one wish to banish her powers. Everyone who has sought the fern flower has fallen prey to unknown horrors, so when Liska is caught by the demon warden of the wood—called The Leszy—a bargain seems better than one year of servitude in exchange for the fern flower and its wish.
Whisked away to The Leszy’s crumbling manor, Liska soon makes an unsettling [discovery] - she is not the first person to strike this bargain, and all her predecessors have mysteriously vanished. If Liska wants to survive the year and return home, she must unravel her taciturn host’s spool of secrets and face the ghosts—figurative and literal—of his past. Because something wakes in the woods, something deadly and without mercy. It frightens even The Leszy…and cannot be defeated unless Liska embraces the monster she’s always feared becoming.
I seem to have fallen into reading books in a small niche genre of Polish folk/fairy tales turned into novels. If I hadn't previously read Uprooted, I might have rated this one more highly. Liska is a good character, but I found the story too derivative - of Beauty and the Beast, Howl's Moving Castle, and Uprooted itself. YA novels can be complex and original but this is not one of them. However, I didn't feel like it was a waste of my time, and it was an enjoyable read.
The cover art is gorgeous and on point.



