Tuesday Top Five: Pride on the Pages

Jun. 17th, 2025 09:37 pm
nevanna: (Default)
[personal profile] nevanna
Here are five of my favorite Young Adult books with queer protagonists to be published within the last ten years. I am very lucky to live in a world where I had a hard time choosing.

1. Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera (2016)

After coming out to her close-knit Puerto Rican family, Juliet travels across the country for an internship with a feminist writer whom she idolizes, leading to a transformative summer that shatters some of her illusions but gives her a better understanding of her own identity, creativity, and strength.

As far as this book is concerned, I echo pretty much everything that [personal profile] skygiants said in this 2017 review. Juliet is a wonderful narrator, and her experiences with white hippie feminism and with the kindred spirits that she finds among her fellow queers of color read as very authentic even to someone with only secondhand understanding of a lot of those communities and philosophies. Rivera is just that good at conjuring settings and subcultures. I love how complicated all of the relationships in this book are, and the sense of possibility with which the story ultimately leaves both heroine and audience.

2. Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand (2018)

Young women have been vanishing from the island of Sawkill Rock for many years. Zoey’s best friend was one of them. New girl Marion’s sister might be next. Popular Val and her family have played their own horrifying role in the disappearances. But these three girls, working together despite their pain and secrets and distrust, might be the only ones who can stop them.

The only speculative fiction work on this list, Sawkill Girls is a wonderfully atmospheric horror story with memorably complex relationships between the three main characters. Zoey’s asexuality is only one of the reasons why she feels like a perpetual outsider, while the attraction between Marion and Val is shadowed by Val’s connection to the island’s supernatural secrets. If you like scary stories set in close-knit communities, and books about super-powered teen girls who fight evil forces, you might want to give this one a try.

3. Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli (2023)

A chronic people-pleaser, Imogen often finds herself scrambling to be the perfect straight ally to her queer sister and closest friends, even when her efforts (such as the time that she spends online, reading strangers’ arguments in order to figure out whether she’s “allowed” to enjoy a movie like But I’m A Cheerleader) cause her excessive amounts of stress. When a college visit leads to an unexpected flirtation with another girl, Imogen has to overcome her insecurities for a chance at real happiness, not only with Tessa but with herself.

I liked Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and Leah on the Offbeat, but Imogen’s journey resonated with me even more deeply as someone who still second-guesses her own identity – and tends to interpret online discourse in the most self-critical way possible – even in adulthood. Also, the dialogue and characterizations pop off the page, and Imogen’s relationships with her family and friends are given as much weight and texture as the romance. (I also found her yearning for inclusion in a potential friend group to be Extremely Relatable Content.) In particular, her longtime friend turned antagonist, Gretchen, could come across as a mean-spirited caricature of a smug Tumblr-poisoned social justice warrior, but Albertalli is careful to present valid reasons for why Gretchen is the way she that she is, and also why she and Imogen have remained friends up until this point, without suggesting that Imogen owes her forgiveness.

At the time of writing, I’ve just finished reading the new companion novel, Amelia, If Only, and I am happy to report that it is equally delightful.

4. Emmett by L.C. Rosen (2023)

Emmett isn’t interested in a romantic relationship before he turns twenty-five (and has convinced himself that his reluctance has nothing to do with the fear of having his heart broken), but that won’t stop him from trying to find a boyfriend for Harrison, his friend and occasional hookup. What begins as a matchmaking mission, with all of the humor and angst and misunderstanding that implies, leads Emmett to question what he really wants and what he’s willing to risk for love.

Having never read Jane Austen’s Emma (or seen Clueless), I still enjoyed this modern take on the story, although if you’re not interested in reading about relationship drama among glaringly privileged teens, this might not be the book for you. Emmett might be insufferable, but the narrative recognizes that he’s insufferable, and his character arc involves a reconciliation between the “nice” persona that he projects and the genuinely kind and decent man that he’s capable of becoming. The slow-burn romance is lovely, and will probably appeal to readers who enjoy watching a protagonist slowly figure out what they themselves have known for many chapters, but – similarly to Imogen – I was equally charmed by the relationships among Emmett’s social circle, as well as his loving but fraught relationship with his father and their close bond with his late mother’s best friends. It’s the kind of intertwined family experience that I remember very fondly from my own formative years.

5. The No-Girlfriend Rule by Christen Randall (2024)

When Hollis’s boyfriend excludes her from his Dungeons & Dragons Secrets & Sorcery campaign, she joins a diverse all-girl gaming group in order to experience the activity that means so much to him and his friends. She doesn’t expect to find true friends of her own, to enjoy the love story that develops between her paladin character and Aini’s bard, or to discover a spark between herself and Aini outside their imaginary world.

I’ve never gotten involved in tabletop role-playing, but I’ve done some LARP, and dabbled in online role-play, and I have friends with plenty of experience in all three. Randall fully captures the creative and emotional synergy and excitement that friends can create when they’re telling a story together (and the confusion that can arise when the lines blur between in-character and out-of-character relationships). It’s aspirational in all the best ways.

Every Time We Move

Jun. 17th, 2025 10:03 am
lb_lee: A B-movie blond young man with a pompadour, resembling a Cabbage Patch Elvis, grins weirdly into the camera. (wowzy wow wow!)
[personal profile] lb_lee
This is a post about the Kafka-esque process of moving while living legally disabled in Massachusetts.

Every time we move, we have to update our address, not just with our bank and phone people, but also the myriad social services agencies who control our existence. Since we have to move every few months to few years, depending on our housing luck, this is a cyclical, regular occurrence. We have streamlined our procedure over the course of a decade plus, studying the augurs of obscure bureaucratic paperwork errors, reading the signs in the entrails of the bald eagle.

Of course, the exact procedure changes every few years, and there is no way to find out except by accident or error.

Please put on a recording of Yakety Sax or the Gonk for the proper emotional effect of this post. Thank you. )

Loony-Brain Hive

Jun. 16th, 2025 07:02 pm
lb_lee: A clay sculpture of a heart, with a black interior containing little red, brown, white, green, and blue figures. (plural)
[personal profile] lb_lee
Realized we may well have never outright said this, so we might as well make it clear: over the past few years, some of the LB alter family has grown more hivemind-y, and at times with less differentiation, in a way that doesn't bother us.

There are a few demographics in here, and the ones we call the "alters" are all people who split off the original girl who inhabited this vessel (Mori, Rawlin, Gigi, Rogan, Sneak, and Miranda), rather than folks who had their own lives and came here from elsewhere (Biff, Falcon, Grey, Bob, and Mac). The alters are like threads of a greater rope, and we unravel and rebraid ourselves sometimes to achieve our goals, though only while working on corporeal tasks that engross us, such as working on a story. When engrossed in making group art, it can sometimes be hard for us to tell who's doing what! (Other times it is not. Coming In or Staying Out was very much Rogan drawing, while the Rawlin comics are all Mori drawing.) And constantly interrupting ourselves from the work to ask, "who am I?" is pointless and annoying, because in that moment, it doesn't matter.

This has also been happening sometimes while chatting with people or posting. We sometimes don't tag our entries because we don't know who's talking or care so much, or we share enough of an opinion that it no longer matters being like, "all the alters agree on this paragraph though Sneak questions Sentence 6."

Mori, Rogan, Sneak, and Miranda can braid like this without too much trouble, but Rawlin especially and also Gigi are still pretty separate, presumably because they still have a lot of memories and history that remain buried and lost to us. As we deal with that, perhaps they'll be able to rebraid with us easier in the future.

The braiding happens without our conscious effort, and we unravel just as fluidly. We don't think of it or call it fusion or integration, because neither have the right feel or connotations. We were threads ripped from a greater cloth, which can never be remade again. Now we are braiding ourselves in a new way that suits us, when it suits us, a cord and not a cloth.

Trail Cooking Clean and Green

Jun. 14th, 2025 06:14 pm
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
I finished textually transcribing and posted Ro and Joanna Piekarski's zine, Trail Cooking: Clean and Green, published in 1995 and seemingly impossible to find. I found it in a free box, and while the Piekarskis are apparently the kind of people who categorize raisins and unsweetened carob chips as "dessert," their thing about light, cheap, vegetarian backpacker food seemed like it shouldn't be totally lost to the void.

Check it out if that interests you!

Comic: Kissing

Jun. 13th, 2025 08:42 pm
lb_lee: Rogan drawing/writing in a spiral. (art)
[personal profile] lb_lee
The winner of the fan poll, supported by fans like you on LiberaPay and Patreon!

Mori goes to Rawlin and says, 'Dunno if I like proper kissing. Can I give it a shot?' Rawlin chuckles placidly. 'Sure.' Mori leans in to kiss her, only for her eyes to go wide and her fur to involuntarily fluff. Not noticing, Mori pulls away. 'Hmm... still not sure... might need more trials... you?' Rawlin touches her lips with her gloved hand and just says, '...I like it.'

Killing God is a Skill Issue

Jun. 13th, 2025 08:14 pm
lb_lee: Rogan drawing/writing in a spiral. (art)
[personal profile] lb_lee
Original posts by Phosphor of Hungry Ghosts here, used with permission: https://nightfeather.cafe/notice/AuOng8NknA7IRvgusi

A janky GIMP pen drawing of Mori shrugging. In her speech bubble is a post from Phosphor of Hungry Ghosts: "'that's like saying God should not treat his creations however he sees fit--' well, you see, if god was real I would simply kill him. skill issue."

A much sketchier drawing of Mori smirking dramatically, one hand to her chest, the other thrown out with a flame at one fingertip. She oversees a burning fire, and her speech bubble contains another Phosphor post: "maybe YOU can't kill god. but lbr. that's a you issue, my friend, not a me issue"

Looking for Playtesters

Jun. 13th, 2025 11:14 am
zarpaulus: (Default)
[personal profile] zarpaulus
As you may have noticed from following my Kickstarter, Scavenger: Caches and Prizes successfully funded in April. Since then I've been working on the rulebook, writing rules and systems and commissioning illustrators. I attempted to get a playtest started, but then I started a new day job which was second shift, when most people play TTRPGs.

So I'm opening Scavenger up to public playtesting, you don't have to be familiar with the Para-Imperium setting or the Traveller system to GM but it would help. If you're interested contact me on Discord.

Thank Blog It's Friday

Jun. 13th, 2025 08:02 am
nevanna: (Default)
[personal profile] nevanna
Wearing: A long denim skirt and a blue t-shirt featuring a rainbow and a unicorn reading a book, with the words "The Library is Open."
Reading: I recently read two books about how Video Games Brainwash The Youths, and I have Thoughts, which I hope to share in a separate post.
Writing: I haven't responded to any of the prompts yet, but Sapphic Summer is happening again this year.
Planning: Working today and tomorrow morning! My housemate invited me to Rocky Horror tomorrow evening but I'm not sure whether I want to go; I'm not strongly attached to Rocky Horror but it would be Fun Thing To Do With Friend.

What about you?

VAG MOMO

Jun. 12th, 2025 07:57 pm
lb_lee: The Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, doubled over laughing. (bwa-hah-ha)
[personal profile] lb_lee
We were at the nearby Indian grocery store to stock up on yogurt (only they sell it in the giant quantities we require), when Biff noticed something new: enormous Ziploc bags filled with clearly-homemade momo (Nepalese dumplings). There are a few momo joints around here; maybe it's some sort of mysterious shadow kitchen thing?

Anyway, there were tons of these big gallon-size Ziploc bags, crammed full and tersely labeled in Sharpie as to their contents: (halal) BEEF, (halal) CHICKEN, and... VAG (veg).

It's Pride. We bought the VAG MOMO.

And guys, they were delicious. So flavorful! Cabbage, carrot, (probably?) chickpeas, onion, cilantro (we think), herbs and spices. We've bought bags of potstickers from the (southeast) Asian groceries around town, and they tended to be pretty bland. Nice, but bland, so we took to cooking them with sauces to flavor them up. But these? These packed all the flavor they needed. More support for the "ghost kitchen" idea.

They were expensive ($32), but they were so worth it. That bag will last us a long time; we spent half the bag feeding us and two roommates tonight, and we had leftovers, so that's an easy six meals' worth in one bag, a good treat item. And if I'm going to shell out for food, I'm happy to be giving it to my local Indian grocery and this mysterious momo chef!

Signs of Life, by Barbara Krasnoff

Jun. 12th, 2025 09:37 am
lb_lee: A colored pencil drawing of Raige's freckled hand holding a hot pink paperback entitled the Princess and Her Monster (book)
[personal profile] lb_lee
Hey guys! I read a great women’s sci-fi anthology from 1989 in the sci-fi library. It gave me a lot of new additions to [community profile] pluralstories, but one story that really stood out to me (and has no spirited/many-selved content at all) is Barbara Krasnoff’s "Signs of Life." It’s about sign language interpreters in a universe where the Deaf are overwhelmingly the space pilots. Krasnoff had some training in the field (though she didn’t end up entering it) and reading it made my hard-of-hearing ass very happy. I really wanted to share it with y’all, but the Visions and Memories anthology is long out of print and paper-only. Alack!

So I found Krasnoff online and asked about it, and she posted the story on her blog, so now I can share it with everyone! Hooray! Here it is: https://krasnoff.wordpress.com/signs-of-life/

That anthology was really ahead of its time, and I’m glad some of the stories are finding new life (and hopefully new audiences)! I hope y’all like it!
nevanna: (Default)
[personal profile] nevanna
I shared what I once imagined to be a stereotypical hero/villain confrontation, which involved mind control because of course it did.

Thank you, kind stranger!

Jun. 11th, 2025 05:11 pm
lb_lee: A pink sketchy heart (heart)
[personal profile] lb_lee
Rogan: so, today was rough, but a kind stranger made it much less bad than it could’ve been!

Read more... )
nevanna: (Default)
[personal profile] nevanna
I went strawberry picking over the weekend with my family. Here are some of my potential plans for the berries that I carted back to Boston.

1. Oatmeal topping! I did this yesterday and today. Tomorrow, I might mix in some banana and/or peanut butter as well.

2. Lemonade flavoring!

3. Cupcakes! I am thinking of filling the cakes with lemon curd that I made a few weeks ago, and using the strawberries to flavor the icing.

4. Bread pudding!

5. PIES. Maybe I'll combine the strawberries with peaches or rhubarb.

Do you like strawberries? What are some of your favorite ways to use them?

Happy Pride, have a crisis zine

Jun. 9th, 2025 03:04 pm
lb_lee: a penguin saying "Just because you decide to sell out doesn't mean anyone's going to buy!" ($ellingout)
[personal profile] lb_lee
So, that's two events in a row that've been financial busts, and regrettably, between moves and stuff, we have no Pride events lined up.

So we made a Crisis Planning e-zine, which collates and cleans up all our crisis planning essays (and adds a little new stuff besides) and put it up for sale for $5.

Happy Pride.

Crisis Planning: Legal/Medical Stuff

Jun. 9th, 2025 02:05 pm
lb_lee: Rogan drawing/writing in a spiral. (art)
[personal profile] lb_lee
Crisis Planning: Legal Stuff: Wills, Organ/Body Donations, and DNR/MOLST/POLST Forms
Series: Essay (Crisis Planning)
Summary: A guide to living wills, health care agents, organ/body donations, and DNR/MOLST/POLST forms (i.e., how to make sure you get the care you want and not the stuff you don't when you're unable to make your desires known).
Notes: Winner of the fan poll this month! If you want to support my work, join LiberaPay or Patreon and get double-weight for your votes. Also, these crisis plan essays have proven so popular (and regrettably necessary) that we have made a whole ebook of them up for sale for $5 here.

Nobody likes to think about this stuff, but seriously, think it over, especially if any of the following is a concern of yours:
• Ending up under the care of your abusers if medically incapacitated.
• Being denied medical care you need, leading to your “merciful” death.
• Making sure your loved ones know what to do if you’re in a coma.
• Donating your body to science.

Read more... )

Citations )
lb_lee: Rogan drawing/writing in a spiral. (art)
[personal profile] lb_lee
by Ro and Joanna Piekarski
Illustrated by Cathryn Clark

* total vegetarian, low fat
* hearty, healthful, and delicious
* lightweight and inexpensive
* quick and easy
* no-soap cleanup
* keeps the garbage out of your body, your pack, and the environment

Copyright 1995
Golden Glow
192 Porter Road
Morrisonville NY 12962

Trail Cooking - Clean and Green



You're about to discover that you can enjoy delicious, healthful, quick-and-easy, "all-you-can-eat" food while hiking, bicycling, or canoeing, without any overpackaged, undersized, overpriced prepared "camping foods." All it takes is access to a good natural foods store or coop and some planning.

Table of Contents:
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner:
One-Pot Dinners
Quick-Cooking Grains
Freeze-Dried Tofu
Enhanced Rmane
Other Soup-Based DInners
Instant Taboluli
Instant Hummus
Rojo's Best Burgers and Buns
Cornmeal, Beans, and Salsa
Beverages
Dessert

Breakfast )

Lunch )

Dinner )

Snacks )

Beverages )

Desserts )

Thank Blog It's Friday

Jun. 6th, 2025 12:17 pm
nevanna: (Default)
[personal profile] nevanna
Wearing: Denim shorts, blue tank top, and a button-down shirt printed with foxes.
Reading: I finished Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang. It has elements of horror and sci-fi, like her first book, but that one seemed to lean more into the former while this one leaned more into the latter. And although there were very satisfying amounts of Mind Stuff in Immaculate Conception, and I think it did a good job of examining the art industry and dysfunctional friendships, I think that I still liked Natural Beauty more.
Writing: Still, alas, between projects!
Planning: I'm spending a couple of days with my parents, and we'll hopefully pick strawberries with my sister and cousins.

What about you?
nevanna: (Default)
[personal profile] nevanna
I wrote about some of my adventures in crossover fanfic and shared a partial draft of a fic in which Jekyll's Miranda Callendar investigated the succubus-run fashion company from The Middleman after noticing a resemblance between their models and Mr. Hyde.
lb_lee: Rogan drawing/writing in a spiral. (art)
[personal profile] lb_lee
Details here: https://www.anti-robotclub.com/event-details/the-marketplace-cambridge-ma-2


Time: Sunday, June 8, 12-5 pm

Location:
The Foundry
101 Rogers st.
Cambridge, MA

We will have a bunch of short-run prose collections, including Perspichor Freelance Explorer (an asexual monster romance), Disabled Cyborgs, and more! Cone say hi!
Page generated Jun. 18th, 2025 09:03 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios