Book reviews: August-November 2022

Holy crap, I’m behind on these. Well, 2023 was a busy year for me. Anyway, this round isn’t as big as the last one, but we hit a number of points. We have the reliable series that I already know I like, the previously unread sequel (though there are several other series and sequels that I would have gotten if the library had had them), the realistic fiction, the adult nonfiction about language, the book that I saw at a store years ago but wasn’t interested enough in to buy, and the impulsive new release checkout. Also, as mentioned, I let life get away from me and it’s been a year and a half since I read most of these, so pardon me if I don’t cover all the details.

The Dark Prophecy (The Trials of Apollo #2)

The second book in Apollo’s personal series features some good returning characters and new ones. Calypso and Leo make another appearance, and notably, Calypso actually gets to do stuff. They’re rescued from a group of blemmyae, humanoid monsters that have extremely tough bodies and have their faces in their chests but are unfailingly polite, by Emmie and Josephine, who took little time to become my favorite gay couple in fiction thus far. (Emmie is short for Hemithea, a character from an obscure ancient Greek story.) Admittedly, I don’t have a lot to compare them to, but you can’t not like a couple of cool old lesbians who manage a space-bending safehouse. They meet Britomartis, goddess of nets and traps, and go on a quest to rescue some griffins stolen by Commodus, the villain of the episode, and figure out what’s up with a prophecy that they were given. Of course, they must fight Commodus in his theatrical show of violence, and of course, he also escapes to fight another day.

The book was good. It sure seemed like it had higher stakes than the previous second books, but I could already start seeing Apollo’s character development. On to the third one.

Rating: B

Anatopsis

Here is a book that I’ve actually had my eye on for a while. I first saw it at Barnes & Noble back when the year had two 0s in the middle, and the title intrigued me, but I never got to read it until summer 2022. So how was it? Well, let’s break things down.

The cast:
– Anatopsis, the titular character, known by friends as Ana, princess of a society of immortal mages, and daughter of the most powerful witch in the land;
– Clarissa, her best friend and technically servant, who is pointedly not an immortal mage;
– Barnaby, the prince of a neighboring kingdom and designated clumsy and unmanly guy with a strict father;
– Uno, Barnaby’s pet St. Bernard and apparently the only dog left in the universe;
– Abigail, the queen and overbearing mother of Ana who at least somewhat means well but spends far more time power-tripping than actually cultivating healthy relationships;
– Archibald, the neighboring king and Barnaby’s father, who has all of Abigail’s bad qualities turned up to 11 with none of her good ones and basically exists to be an abusive father who can get shown up in the end (heck, he’s a straight-up card-carrying villain, given that he seems to enjoy being evil);
– Mr. Pound, the villain who didn’t even try to pretend otherwise, in or out of the narration. Even if the synopsis hadn’t made his role in the story clear, it took maybe three paragraphs after his introduction for me to think “Yeah, this dude is shifty as all heck”.

You said it, Estelle.

The setting: A dystopian world where the aforementioned immortal mages basically have free rein to do whatever they want to the magic-less mortals, including murder and nasty transformations, and the planet is dying, so there are very few places left to inhabit. It’s one of those insidious kinds of dystopias, too, where it seems like it could just be standard science fiction or fantasy, but the world’s true nature reveals itself soon enough.

The plot: Anatopsis wants to be a knight, but her mother wants her to take over the family business as chairwoman of a corporation of witches, so she hires Mr. Pound as a tutor because she’s a horrible judge of character. Meanwhile, Barnaby’s father is treating him like dirt, so he ends up living and learning with Ana, which she does not approve of. They all eventually realize that Mr. Pound does not have anyone’s best interests at heart except his own and is searching for an artifact that will essentially upgrade him from a demigod to a full god and from Mr. Pound to Mr. Ton, and Ana and her friends must stop him before he does exactly that, as well as find Ana’s missing father.

Now, this is a story that could be the foundation for any number of imaginative adventures, but mostly, it seems to revel in its cruelty and how big of a jerk everyone is, even the protagonists on occasion. By the middle of chapter 5, we were down to two likable characters of the seven introduced so far, as Ana and Clarissa decided to torment Barnaby for absolutely no reason, and by the middle of chapter 6, I was just thinking “Okay, screw this entire society; everyone except Barnaby and Uno deserves to be locked in a basement with no food except Spam, no clothing except wet underwear, and no entertainment except a VSA choir and E.T. for the Atari, and if they die, that sounds like the opposite of a problem to me”. I guess the main takeaway here is that upper-class people suck, in every story that they’re in, including nonfiction. Actually, especially nonfiction. Ana did get some character development by the end of chapter 10, though; she just needed to warm up to Barnaby a bit. Incidentally, “Anatopsis” is presumably a play on “thanatopsis”, or “contemplation of death”, which fits with one of the themes of the story. The ideas that the writer had were interesting, but it felt like he might have tried to fit too many of them in one book. The plot thread about the Greek gods being murdered never came up again, and a number of mythical creatures were mentioned but barely even showed up in the story. Overall, the setting felt highly underexplored. It also didn’t help that the second half felt like it was trying to cram in way more than the first half; there was plenty of time setting up the main plotline, and then once The Big Quest got underway, the author rushed through it like he’d just realized that the deadline was 3 months earlier than he’d thought. He said once that his original version had been 600 pages long and unpublishable, but honestly, it might have worked better at 600 pages; at least then he’d be able to spend more time on things. (Is this what the person who designed Mega Man 3’s fortress stages ended up doing later in life?) I also noticed some editing mistakes; at the very least, there was one sentence that was definitely missing a comma.

This book, in general, was hard to read. It wasn’t because of the writing style like The Starless Sea was, but rather because of the story itself. Chris Abouzeid heaps misfortune after misery after agony after adversity on his protagonists until you feel like the payoff can’t possibly make up for it, and then when the heroes finally get their own back, the book just ends. And they barely even managed to do that; the ending is, in my opinion, pretty bittersweet, and definitely leaning more toward the bitter side. Sure, the nobles don’t get to use their powers to murder and transform people anymore, but ALL the magic is gone, including the fun kind that can be used for things like flying; Clarissa is dead, after having been turned into a hideous mutant and going through days of torment; and the villain technically isn’t even permanently defeated. One other reviewer described the ending as “gratifying”, and boy, I’d hate to see what an ending that they consider disappointing would be like. Anatopsis had potential, but it had too many irons in the fire, left way too many questions unanswered and plot points dropped, and, frankly, kind of annoyed me. It didn’t grind my nerves quite as much as the second Sisters Grimm book, but about the only thing that saved it from getting the same rating is that it was at least something new and creative, with an interesting (though underused) setting. Well, 15-year-old me, now you finally know what that book was about. Are you happy now? Because 31-year-old me definitely didn’t think the wait was worth it.

Rating: C-

Ramona the Pest

Well, at least this time, we are cleansing the bad taste with a Beverly Cleary book. This one features Ramona in kindergarten, where she gets into conflicts with another girl in her class (her curls are just too temptingly bouncy), a boy in her class (he’s just too temptingly kissable), her teacher (Ramona likes her, until she sends her home for not being able to behave herself), and society in general (Ramona can’t always get the hang of all the social rules that one is supposed to follow in school). And…that’s basically it. She doesn’t try to make trouble, but life is hard when you’re 5 and people don’t understand you. It was good as usual.

Rating: B-

A Kind of Spark

This is another realistic fiction novel, and, if I’m not mistaken, the first one that I’ve reviewed on here that wasn’t by Beverly Cleary or Carl Hiaasen, as well as the first one featuring an autistic main character. The latter will end up being a much more common trend later on, but for now, we’re still pretending that it’s 2022 and these are the most recent books that I’ve read. This is narrated by Addie, who besides being autistic is 11 years old and struggling a bit with social interactions in school (as one does), including getting picked on by students and mocked by her teacher. She finds out that her town was a place where women were burned for being witches in past centuries, and she decides that she wants to create a memorial for them, since she feels like she can relate to being different and misunderstood. With the help of her older sister and a new friend, she finds her place.

One thing that I noticed about this story was that there seemed to be a lot of character foiling to contrast different characters. My copy also didn’t state right away that Addie was 11, but I managed to figure it out based on other given information (her older sister is at college, and when the older sister was the Addie’s current age, Addie was 4). Beyond that, it’s worth noting that the author herself is autistic, so she can draw on her own experiences for Addie’s narration, and it shows. This book had some humor, some drama, and a lot of heart, not to mention a satisfying ending. I thought it was really good, and I look forward to what else Elle McNicoll writes.

Rating: A-

Howl’s Moving Castle

I actually saw the anime version of this first and hadn’t realized at the time that it was based on a book. The protagonist Sophie is resigned to working at her mother’s hat shop but would rather do something more exciting, and she unfortunately gets her wish when she inadvertently gets on the bad side of a wicked witch, who turns her into an old lady. As a result, she is obliged to leave the shop and seek work as a cleaning lady for the notorious wizard Howl, who lives in a strange house with his apprentice and a fire demon and turns out not to be actually evil, just vain and lazy. He ends up being another foe of the witch, and eventually, Sophie and Howl must defeat her in order to rescue the prince of the kingdom, as well as sort out their feelings about each other. Honestly, I liked the movie better, but the book wasn’t bad either.

Rating: B-

The Lost Frost Girl

In this book, Owl, the protagonist whose name is probably the weirdest part of the whole story, has always wanted to meet her mysterious father. As it turns out, her father is Jack Frost, who is a fairy-like elemental in this story, making Owl half-human and half a mythical creature, which she only realizes after she starts to develop strange wintry powers. She ends up going off into the unknown with her friends to find her father and ends up meeting quite a variety of seasonal beings and other fey, some of whom are displeased with Jack and find him overstepping his boundaries, expanding his season past its intended three months. Once she finally meets her father for the first time in forever, she starts to try to be more like him, performing his own winter duties to lighten the load. When it inevitably goes wrong and she nearly gives her friend Avery a frozen heart, she realizes even though the cold never bothers her anyway, she is still basically a human girl and not an immortal fairy, so she doesn’t have the stamina for it. So she decides to let it go and leave most of the frost-painting to her father. She does eventually find how how her mother and Jack Frost got together, and with all the ruckus between the seasonal sprites, she does the next right thing and helps bring nature back in balance.

This story seemed quite dense, so to speak; a lot happened in a short amount of time and not all that many pages. The writing style was noticeably “pretty”, and it was a good deal more successful with it than The Starless Sea was. I read most of it about a week into November during three of the wintriest days that we’d had that year since about February, so it was actually very thematically appropriate, especially the part about winter coming early and stepping on the toes of autumn and spring…is that an apt metaphor for the weather in Montana or what?! Jack Frost not only brought in winter a month early and considerably overstayed his welcome but even froze my family’s pipes a few times. Quite rude of him, that. Anyway, the book was pretty creative and interesting.

Rating: B+

Magicalamity

Another book about a half-fairy kid, huh. Well, despite initially having a similar-sounding premise to The Lost Frost Girl on the surface, this book has a very different feeling to it; where The Lost Frost Girl was poetic, atmospheric, and contemplative, Magicalamity was prosaic, boisterous, and comical, sort of like if Eva Ibbotson and Bruce Coville collaborated. The main character of this one finds out that his dad is not only a fairy but is being accused of murder, and he needs to go on the run, with some help from his fairy godmothers, who are far from the elegant and graceful ones typically seen. So he has to visit the land of the fairies, meet a cousin that he didn’t know he had along the way, deal with the failings of the fairy political system, and figure out the mystery of who clearly framed his father. Also, there are talking bats and a dragon. Though the dragon doesn’t show up until page 280 of this 305-page book and doesn’t even figure into the story that much, so why is it on the cover?

Anyway, it was a fun enough story. If I had a nickel for every book I read in this batch that was written by an English woman, had a nice cover, was a bit over 300 pages long, and was about an 11-year-old kid finding out that their father is a fairy, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?

Rating: B+

Ramona Forever

I had read this previously, but the only thing I remembered about it was the accordion-breaking scene, which made me so angry as a kid that I kicked the book down the stairs. Even now, I cringe at that part. Even if it’s for comedy, you don’t abuse musical instruments like that, nor give them to a little kid who will abuse them. Anyway, Ramona is still in third grade here, and she’s definitely matured compared to her earlier books (YMMV on whether she’s less fun this way). The big plot points here are Mrs. Quimby having a baby and Howie’s rich uncle Hobart marrying Ramona’s aunt Beatrice, though Ramona and Beezus get some sisterly conflict and resolution. Also, people finally realize how much of a jerk Mrs. Kemp is to Ramona and let her avoid her from now on, so that’s good (gosh, I hated that woman). This was originally the last book in the series, but there ended up being one more, which will be discussed next time.

Rating: B-

That’s Not English

This is another nonfiction book about words, again comparing and contrasting language and culture in the US with that in the UK. In this case, it is presented as a series of vignettes each based around a particular word, often regional slang (“brolly”, for instance, meaning “umbrella”, discusses Britain’s infamously rainy weather). It was an atypical take on its concept but interesting enough.

Rating: B-

The Castle of Tangled Magic

This book centers on Olia, a 13-year-old girl who lives with her family in a 500-year-old castle. One day, a supernatural storm comes that only affects the castle and non the surrounding town and is powerful enough to destroy the castle if left unchecked, the result of the castle actually being magical and no longer able to contain all of that magic. With the help of Feliks, a fox spirit (domovoi, specifically) who guards the castle, Olia must journey into a magical land full of of spirits and creatures of Slavic mythology to restore balance to the magic and bring things back to normal.

This was something interesting and different. I definitely haven’t consumed a lot of media that involves Slavic mythical creatures, certainly not as major characters. (Now I wonder what a Rick Riordan series with those would be like…that is one of the mythologies that he hasn’t tapped yet to my knowledge, along with, among other things, Polynesian, Native American including Mayan and Aztec, Japanese, and Mesopotamian.) Notably, there was a rusalka who was actually nice, which seems to be a rarity (not that I actually have many other rusalkas from personal experience to compare her to, pretty much just the second chapter boss of Bravely Default and a cycle of cards from Magic: The Gathering). I find the whole idea of an entire race/species having the same—usually evil—morality to be dreadfully banal, a fantasy trope that needs to die even more than the damsel in distress or the “destined hero”. The plot twist about the evil wizard actually not being evil was unexpected, though you could tell from a mile off that the beard thing was clearly not the correct solution, considering that there was still a third of the book left. This ended up being another book without a real villain, but it wasn’t any worse for it. I also noticed that it was never said where and when the story takes place; the former is presumably Russia, but it could be another former U.S.S.R. country or other one in that region. This was a fun adventure, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for some good fantasy.

Rating: A-

Well, there were actually quite a few winners this time. Maybe I got lucky, or maybe I’m just getting more lenient with my scores. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before I can churn out the next batch (fate tempted).

Personal interviews for queer pride, round 3

Well, I’m a whole year late on this one, but at least it’s still June this time. I have another batch of interviews ready for queer pride month. This is the third time that I’ve done such a thing; the first two were back in 2018 and 2020. This one was supposed to be for 2022, but I kept waiting for some people to get back to me who never did, and also life happened. But better late than never, right?

1.

TheMartianGeek: How would you like me to refer to you in the article?

Danielle: You can use my real name, and she or they, please.

TMG: Okay. That was going to be part of my next question. What is your full identity in respect to gender and sexual/romantic orientation? (Also, should I use both she and they or pick one?)

D: I have no pronoun-related preference. I identify as queer and gender-fluid broadly. And as pansexual, gray ace, and non-binary more specifically right now, though those terms have been fluid for me historically.

TMG: I see. When and how did you discover your identity? And how old are you now?

D: I’m 37 now. I’ve identified as polyamorous/ethically non-monogamous since middle school or high school, definitely before I knew the words for what I was feeling. I think I’ve felt genderfluid and pansexual since then too, but it took maybe a decade or more to really identify with those words and understand how they corresponded to my experience. I think it took me longer to identify as gray ace, in part because that terminology was really not in use when I was growing up, but also because my identities and sexuality has shifted, sometimes radically, throughout the past 20 years.

TMG: All right. How has being queer affected your life, including relationships with your community?

D: I feel like that’s a really broad question…

TMG: It is pretty broad. Family, romantic partners, regular events (including church if you go), general public…

D: Well, I did my undergrad degree in Philadelphia, which is a pretty great city to be queer in. Not that there isn’t still stigma and violence, but there are a lot of queer individuals, businesses, non-profits, and support systems in place. But when I moved from Philadelphia to Colorado, I did have trouble “finding” queer people, and that’s still an issue now. Everyone is more dispersed, and if you’re not in a city, it can be hard to find your people. So dating’s harder (and fairly, complicated by being autistic and poly as well). My co-parent is a man, so I also struggle with people assuming I’m straight, the same way they assume I’m a woman, which can be frustrating and invalidating too. Is this helpful?

TMG: Yes, thank you. How has being queer, including your journey through finding out your identity, affected your mental state?

D: I don’t remember. I feel like I’ve always been queer.

(At this point, the questions ended up being too hard for the person to answer due to executive dysfunction, so I didn’t push it.)

2.

TMG: Do you only use he/him pronouns, or he/they, or what?

Niko: I am okay with all pronouns, but i’m used to he/his, and thats what most people use.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender and sexual/romantic orientation? Or however much you’re comfortable sharing.

N: Agender/neutrois, asexual, and aromantic.

TMG: A triple threat, I see.

N: I’m also autistic. I like As 😉

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity? And how old are you now?

N: I always had a feeling that my body was wrong but, in puberty the dysphoria became a problem. During that time (around 13/14), I started to discover that I was trans, but I also never felt female. Later at, like, 18, I discovered that there is something like nonbinary identities.

TMG: And you’re in your 20s now, right?

N: I am 33 now.

TMG: Oh. Well, how would you say that being queer has affected your life, including relationships with your community?

N: Well, being asexual and aromantic had the effect that I never had a regular relationship, and some people found it strange. But I wasn’t bullied because of that. I still look mostly male from the outside, so there is not a lot I do to show me being agender. I just dislike being pushed into male stereotypes.

TMG: I completely understand that. Some people would question why you (and other people) can’t just be a man who doesn’t follow the stereotypes. What would you say to that?

N: I would like a society where stereotypes didnt exist. And thats how I live, as most people still refer to me as male. But there was also my issue with body dysphoria that can’t be shut off by not having to deal with stereotypes.

TMG: That makes sense. Like, you didn’t like some of the physical aspects that come with being AMAB because they felt weird and uncomfortable?

N: Yes. I had strong dysphoria toward my male parts.

TMG: Gosh. Are you sure you’re not me from an alternate universe?

N: Maybe. What’s the ID of your universe?

TMG: I don’t know. I’ve never found out.

N: Darn. But who knows. Haha.

TMG: Relatedly, are there any details about gender nullification surgery that you’re comfortable sharing? Such as what you need to get it and what has to be done afterward.

N: I don’t know where to start exactly. Don’t hold back with questions. I will tell if I dont want to answer a specific question.

TMG: Well, I’m not entirely sure where to start…

N: I’d think that the process is significantly different in Germany compared to the US, at least because our healthcare systems are so different. So I started with going to a therapist and talked about all that and options over a longer time. The first treatment I got was testosterone blockers for 3 years.

TMG: So you can just block one hormone without having to replace it with another one? I’d heard that one couldn’t simply have neither because it would cause problems for your body.

N: It’s usually not the best not to have any hormone. But for me, it actually worked really well with almost no side effects. I have to do yearly checkups, but so far everything is okay.

TMG: Nice.

N: But the hormone blockers were just the start. I wanted surgery.

TMG: So the yearly checkups are the only thing that you have to do now that you’ve had the surgery?

N: I had to do it since the blockers. After 3 years of blockers, I had the surgeries (first orchiectomy, later nullification) and still have to do the checkups.

TMG: Did/do you also grow less facial and body hair than before?

N: Facial hair didn’t change, but body hair got less.

TMG: Did anything else change? Voice, muscle tone…?

N: The voice didn’t really change. It’s more difficult to keep in shape.

TMG: Huh. So what, body fat increased?

N: Yes.

TMG: That’s unfortunate. Do you have more of an exercise routine than before, or a different diet or anything?

N: Yes. And I am still working on it and on a good way.

TMG: Fair enough. What would you tell a young queer person? Or specifically agender, aromantic, or asexual. And what would you tell a person who doesn’t feel like they fit into the community, like they’re “not queer enough” or too good at passing?

N: There is nothing like “not queer enough”. It’s not a contest who is more queer. It’s about you and how you feel.

TMG: Do you have any tips for people who are thinking of trying out different presentations or undergoing some sort of transition?

N: Go step by step and see what you are comfortable with.

TMG: What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

N: It’s getting more normalised, and I think that’s good.

TMG: Agreed. Though it would be nice to see more of the lesser-known ones.

N: Yes. Maybe there will be. Especially people like me.

TMG: What do you think about queer fashion and style? Do you have any particular preferences in regards to this?

N: I wear very neutral and unobtrusive things. Usually just something in black or grey. I don’t like to stand out. The only thing where I stand out is my swimwear.

TMG: I see. Do you have an interest in other people’s fashion?

N: Not really.

TMG: Fair enough.

TMG: Do you think that there is any correlation between neurodivergence and being queer?

N: Yes. I think there is. I am also autistic, and it seems there is an unusual number of autistic people in the queer community. But I don’t know if this is something neurological or if autistic people have fewer problems with accepting traits that are more outside of the norms in the population.

TMG: Or we see less of a point in things like gender, maybe.

N: Yeah. Thats basically what I mean. Neurotypical people usually tend to stick to norms and don’t question these.

TMG: Sure. How do you feel about the interaction between queerness and religion?

N: I am not religious. I feel that a lot of strict religious groups have a very problematic attitude toward queerness. I think they should question why their god would even create queer people if he doesn’t want queer people. I also think that these people sometimes use religion to suppress their own queer tendencies.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

N: Not much for me personally. I think we should show some presence all the time anyway. The month didn’t really change a lot for me.

TMG: Well, we’re just about finished here. Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

N: Well, there’s nothing that comes into my mind. If you don’t want to know anything else, that’s okay with me.

TMG: Okay. Well, thank you for answering.

3.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender and sexual/romantic orientation? What pronouns do you use?

Luma: I’m asexual, on the aromantic spectrum, bigender female/non-binary, and my pronouns are she/her, fe/fer, and fey/fem. The latter two I made up by taking she/her and they/them pronouns, and then switching out the sh, h’s, and th’s to f’s.

TMG: I see. When and how did you discover your identity? And how old are you now?

L: I’m 21 now, the whole process started like 2 and a half years ago. It wasn’t just one moment of sudden realization, but a series of trying new labels, and eventually finding ones that fit.

TMG: Fair enough. How has being queer affected your life, including relationships with your community?

L: So, growing up, I always felt like I was different from the people around me, and while being queer wasn’t the only thing that contributed to that, since I’m autistic, it sure hadn’t helped. Not being interested in sex at all, and romance being this thing that kinda sounded nice, but certainly wasn’t a priority to me or something I cared about all that much, while other people around made those things so important, it really made me feel alone. But then I eventually found the words for my feelings and other people who had similar feelings to me, and that has made me so happy!

TMG: Cool. So it sounds like it definitely had a positive effect on your mental state as well.

L: Yeah, it definitely did.

TMG: What would you tell a young queer person? Or someone specifically on the nonbinary, asexual, or aromantic spectrum. And what would you tell a person who doesn’t feel like they fit into the community, like they’re “not queer enough” or too good at passing?

L: What makes you asexual, or aromantic, or nonbinary, or another queer identity is that that label makes you happy. No matter what anyone else says, if that label fits right to you, then it’s right. And if a label doesn’t feel right (or right anymore), you can get rid of it. Trying new labels is always an option, these aren’t set in stone. And there’s no such thing as being “not queer enough.” If you don’t neatly fit into the box society has placed you into sexuality or/and gender wise, then you’re queer. And despite the gatekeepers, i promise you there are queer people out there who will love and support you.

TMG: Well said. On that note, do you have any tips for people who are thinking of trying out different presentations or undergoing some sort of transition?

L: Make sure to be safe, and that the people around you when trying new things are people you trust.

TMG: Good advice for a lot of situations. What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

L: I think it’s generally getting better, but we still have a long way to go. Like there are more and more characters that are queer in popular media, but as an ace, aro, enby person there are still examples where it kinda feels dehumanizing when the only characters in the work with my identities are robots or aliens or stuff like that. Don’t get me wrong, robots and aliens are cool, but you know, I’m not either of those, I’m a human being, and I’d rather not be equated to being “not a person.”

TMG: Yeah, I can understand that. Or when the only queer (often nonbinary) character is morally suspect.

L: Yeah.

TMG: What do you think about queer fashion and style? Do you have any particular preferences in regards to this?

L: I think it’s pretty cool! Breaking gender barriers about what people are “supposed” to wear ends up with a lot of interesting experimentations with clothing. For my own preferences in clothes, I tend to generally like clothes that are considered quite fem (like lolita fashion), but i don’t think that should stop anyone from wearing it. You don’t have to be female to want to be cute and pretty.

TMG: Honestly, yeah. For one thing, I feel like women’s fashion is way more interesting than men’s.

L: Yeah, I agree; modern men’s fashion is kinda boring.

TMG: Also, lolita outfits are very cute, albeit probably pretty impractical.

L: They’re so pretty! I fell in love the moment I saw them. (And it’s not that impractical if you do a toned-down coord, but yeah, over-the-top coords are pretty impractical.)

TMG: Anyway, do you think that there is any correlation between neurodivergence and being queer?

L: I’ve heard there is, but I haven’t really looked at any data about it, so I’m not sure.

TMG: It does seem like an awful lot of people I know who are one of those are also the other.

L: Yeah, true.

TMG: How do you feel about the interaction between queerness and religion?

L: I’m religious, and I think quite a few religious people tend to forgot that “love everyone” includes queer people. Like, even if you think someone is doing something wrong, that’s no excuse to hate them. And being queer isn’t an action or a thing people do, it’s a thing people are, so why the judgement?

TMG: Yeah. I can somewhat understand why a person would have prejudice based on someone’s ideology, but it being related to something that they can’t change about themselves is pretty stupid. And doesn’t it seem like they don’t listen when people try to explain why it’s not wrong?

L: Yeah. I think a lot of people don’t like being wrong about something, so even if something they believe doesn’t make sense, they’ll just dig their heels in more.

TMG: Yeah. And that’s true for a lot of people on a lot of different sides.

L: True.

TMG: Do you have any further thoughts about people not accepting queer identities?

L: Also, it just really sucks when queer people don’t accept other queer identities. Like, they’re already queer, you would think they’d understand being discriminated against, but they still do it towards other queer people.

TMG: Seriously. I feel like ace people get that a lot. And enbies who don’t look androgynous.

L: True!

TMG: What’s something that you wish more people knew about being queer, or any other specific identity?

L: One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is the split attraction model. Once I found out about it, and specifically platonic and aesthetic attraction, my life made so much more sense!

TMG: Oh yeah. I feel like alterous attraction also doesn’t get much attention.

L: True! I think I’ve only really heard of it a couple times before now. (And I had to look it up again, because I didn’t immediately remember what the word meant.)

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

L: For me, a big part of it is getting together with other queer people and talking about our experiences and other stuff. I haven’t gone to an in-person Pride (and I don’t know if I ever will; large groups of people can be pretty overstimulating), but I’ve enjoyed doing things with other queer people online during pride month.

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

L: Nah, I think I got all of it.

TMG: All right. Well, thank you for your time.

L: And thank you as well!

4.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender and sexual/romantic orientation? What pronouns do you use?

Makayla: I use she/her pronouns. I identify as aromantic.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity? And how old are you now?

M: Well I found JaidenAnimations’s video on being aro-ace and it really made a lot of sense to me. I related to a lot of the experiences she shared in that video, and I realized that “oh, maybe I’m aromantic too”. That was probably 4 or 5 months ago. I’m 15 now.

TMG: Cool. I should look into her stuff. How has being queer affected your life, including relationships with your community and your mental state?

M: Well, thankfully, my family and community are extremely supportive of the queer community. I’ve never felt unsafe because of who I am, even though I haven’t officially come out yet. I pay more attention to issues regarding queer people (same-sex marriage, trans rights, etc.) than I might have if I wasn’t queer. I don’t feel like it’s affected any of my relationships with friends or family. I can be myself without worrying about being criticized for it. That might be because a lot of my friends are also LGBTQ+ and they’re extremely supportive of everyone.

TMG: Nice. It’s good to have a support system. What would you tell a young queer or aromantic (or lesbian) person? And what would you tell a person who doesn’t feel like they fit into the community, like they’re “not queer enough” or too good at passing?

M: It’s okay to have crushes and it’s okay to not have crushes. You are the way you are and you wouldn’t be you if you were any other way. There’s not a hard line of “queer enough” to be a part of this community. I’ll support you no matter how you identify, and I know other people will too. It might take some time to find them, but they’re out there. You’re valid.

TMG: On that note, do you have any tips for people who are thinking of trying out different presentations or undergoing some sort of transition?

M: When I started going by a different name, I found it easiest to tell people my age first. I told my friends at school before I told my family. It was really helpful to see how the new name felt in everyday life and, once I was sure I was happy with it, I told my family. I told school friends first because I knew that if I didn’t like the new name, they wouldn’t have a problem with calling me by my birth name again. It was sort of like a test drive with a slightly different identity. It was really hard to get up the courage to tell my family. I waited a few weeks after deciding that I liked the new name to tell them because I didn’t know how they’d react. You don’t have to tell everyone at once that you’re transitioning or trying out a new name or some other change. It can feel really big and it’s okay to start with just a few trusted friends before everyone knows about it.

TMG: Do you consider your birth name a deadname at this point, or do you just dislike it and prefer the nickname?

M: Well, I don’t really dislike it as a name; it just doesn’t feel like me anymore.

TMG: What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

M: The books I’ve read or movies I’ve seen usually don’t have queer people in them, and I don’t really play video games with major stories based around characters (I mostly play Minecraft). The representation I can come up with off the top of my head is all from one author. Rick Riordan has included some queer characters in his books, and they’re written really well. Alex Fierro from the Magnus Chase trilogy is genderfluid, Nico di Angelo and Will Solace in the Percy Jackson series are gay. Riordan doesn’t draw more attention to their relationships and identities than he does to other characters. He doesn’t set them apart. They’re just people trying to help save the world, and I love how he writes those characters

TMG: It makes you want to write more stories with queer people in them, doesn’t it?

M: Yeah. I recently made my first queer D&D character, and it felt good to feel comfortable starting a story about her backstory that I might publish someday

TMG: My current Pathfinder character is a panromantic asexual woman. Not that it’s ever come up. It’s cool when people get to express themselves and experiment with concepts through things like that.

M: It is.

TMG: What do you think about queer fashion and style? Do you have any particular preferences in regards to this?

M: I’ve never really cared about fashion that much. I wear jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. In the summer I wear jean shorts and a t-shirt. I honestly couldn’t care less about fashion trends. I only care about what I wear when I’m performing in something like a band concert or piano recital.

TMG: That’s understandable.

TMG: I forget, are you neurodivergent at all? Do you think that there is any correlation between neurodivergence and being queer?

M: No, I’m not, and I don’t know enough people who are (that I’m aware of anyway) to say if I think there’s a correlation

TMG: I see. How do you feel about the interaction between queerness and religion?

M: I don’t like that some people feel like they have to hide who they are because their family is religious. I also think that not everyone in a religious group feels the same way toward queer people, and it’s not fair to judge someone based on their religion. That being said, I recognize that there are religious texts that say it’s wrong to be queer and I know that these texts are important to religious groups. But also those texts are pretty old and the world has changed quite a lot since they were written, and maybe the ideals and beliefs in the texts should be reevaluated.

TMG: Yeah, I know what you mean. Especially hiding oneself. A lot of people, unfortunately, still don’t accept queer identities, or don’t accept some of them. Do you have any further thoughts about that?

M: I have two friends who aren’t exactly accepted by their family (that I’m aware of). One friend’s father doesn’t accept that they’re transitioning from male to female, and the other goes by a different name and pronouns at school than they do with their family because their family doesn’t really accept queer identities. I don’t like that my friends can’t be themselves all the time. I don’t like that some people think being queer is “wrong” or “sinful”. Usually, I don’t care what people believe, but this is one of the things I really do care about. I don’t care who you are. If you think being queer is bad in any way or that queer people are bad, we can’t get along. Nobody should ever have to hide who they are. Nobody should be afraid that they’ll be attacked or shamed for who they are. Let people be who they are.

TMG: For sure. I hope your friends find peace and acceptance. What’s something that you wish more people knew about being queer or aromantic?

M: We’re still people. We might be different from you, but everyone’s unique. There’s nothing wrong with being yourself, as long as it’s not hurting anyone, right? My sexuality or identity most likely doesn’t affect you. Also, if you let the way someone identifies destroy a relationship, I’m sorry, but you need to rethink your life.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

M: It means that we’re trying to be more inclusive. People are trying their best to make the world safer. It’s slow, but change always is. Pride month, at least, is progress. Hopefully more progress will be made. Hopefully people can learn to be accepting.

TMG: Indeed. Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

M: No, don’t think so.

TMG: All right. Well, thank you for being here.

M: Sure!

5.

TMG: How would you like me to refer to you in the article?

Carmen: You can use my real name: Carmen Jarrin.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender and sexual/romantic orientation? And what pronouns do you use?

C: I identify as nonbinary trans, and use she/they/he pronouns. My sexual orientation is queer.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity? And how old are you now?

C: I am 42 years old. I came out as a gay man when I was 19, and came out as nonbinary just two years ago. It took me a long time to discover I was nonbinary, because the term didn’t even exist.

TMG: Yeah, I can imagine. I actually didn’t realize you were that old. I would have guessed at least 5 years younger.

C: Haha, thank you! I do look younger than my age.

TMG: How has being queer affected your life, including relationships with your community?

C: Hmm, that’s a big question; dunno where to start. I was hugely bullied when I was younger, in elementary and middle school.

TMG: That sucks.

C: I grew up in Ecuador, which is still a very conservative country in terms of gender

TMG: That explains the Hispanic names.

C: And i was always a feminine boy. I was definitely happier when I came to college in the U.S.; I made a lot of friends, especially women and LGBT folks. And more importantly, I found pride in who I was.

TMG: Nice. How has being queer, including your journey through finding out your identity, affected your mental state?

C: Well, in the past I’ve had a lot of shame around both my sexuality and my gender identity, which can be really rough on your mental health. I blamed myself for being different instead of blaming society for their homophobia and transphobia. Coming out really helped with replacing shame with pride.

TMG: Yeah, I’ll bet. What advice would you give to a young queer, nonbinary, or transgender person?

C: I would tell them to be patient with themselves and others. Coming out is a process, not a destination, so one doesn’t need to rush it and should only come out when one is ready. Similarly, family members and friends can have bad reactions initially and come around with time, education and patience. What drives them is usually fear or ignorance, but that doesn’t mean they can’t change. However, it is also ok to cut toxic people out of your life if necessary.

TMG: Fair enough. What would you tell a person who doesn’t feel like they fit into the community, like they’re “not queer enough” or too good at passing?

C: We all suffer from imposter syndrome, but there is no such thing as being queer enough or trans enough. We are all different, and if an LGBT identity seems right to you, you don’t need to measure up to others’ expectations. Being a Latinx immigrant, for example, my experience is very unique and different from white LGBT+ folks, and that’s ok. I have definitely felt out of place in gay clubs, or have been told I am not pretty enough. But we can’t let those norms dictate who we are.

TMG: On that note, do you have any tips for people who are thinking of trying out different presentations or undergoing some sort of transition?

C: I recommend starting different gender presentations at home or with people you are comfortable with, who will hopefully be affirming. Those first steps are the hardest ones. I remember being terrified of simple things like using nail polish; it took a long time to get comfortable and use more feminine clothes in public. But again, everyone is different and what worked for me might not work for others. I have no plans to medically transition, so not sure I have valid advice on that front.

TMG: I see. What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

C: I think it’s finally improving, but it still needs a lot of work. Trans and nonbinary people in particular are underrepresented, and there’s a long history of awful stereotypes about them in media. I love shows like Pose or Our Flag Means Death, which star trans actors and are written by trans writers; it makes a huge difference.

TMG: Yeah. I get especially sick of the one nonbinary character being the only nonhuman one, or the one with the most questionable moral compass. What do you think about queer fashion and style? Do you have any particular preferences in regards to this?

C: Yeah, I wear skirts all the time now; they make me happy. In general, I think we should degender fashion and allow AMAB folks to wear skirts and AFAB folks to wear suits without it being a huge deal. Clothing is still super gendered, unfortunately, but it doesn’t need to be. Billy Porter and Alok Vaid Menon are big fashion icons for me.

TMG: I think you’re right. Look at Rain Dove. They pull off both traditional male and female clothing pretty well and even model for it.

C: Yeah, Rain Dove is so cool.

TMG: They might be one of the few people who give me gender envy, honestly. And they’re practically a saint.

TMG: Do you think that there is any correlation between neurodivergence and being queer?

C: It’s possible! It definitely seems common. But not everyone who is queer or trans is neurodiverse. Maybe something about being neurodivergent makes you more open to exploring your sexuality or gender identity? Dunno.

TMG: Yeah, maybe. Or you care less about the expectations of society.

C: Exactly.

TMG: How do you feel about the interaction between queerness and religion?

C: I think religion, especially Christianity, has unfortunately been used to oppress LGBT+ minorities since the 1500s. There’s evidence that earlier Christianity wasn’t as intolerant, but its role in colonialism probably made it more prone to homophobia and transphobia. I’m a firm believer in the separation of church and state; you can have any beliefs you want, but you should not be able to impose them on others.

TMG: Exactly. Me being on a diet doesn’t mean that you’re not allowed to eat donuts.

C: Yep.

TMG: Do you have any further thoughs about how a lot of people still don’t accept queer identities, or don’t accept some of them?

C: I am hopeful that the long arc of history bends towards justice, and LGBT+ identities will eventually be accepted everywhere. Gay marriage, for example, is now accepted by most Americans. So it’s a question of time, hopefully. Gen Z is much more open-minded than previous generations.

TMG: True. It seems like the presumed vocal minorities are louder and more vicious than ever, if they even are a minority, but maybe that’s because they’re scared? I mean the people who are against it.

C: Yes, plus politicians keep playing on those fears and telling them how scary trans people are. A lot of it simply because they politicize bathrooms and athletic competitions without need.

TMG: Honestly, the scariest trans people I know are the ones who are activists and the ones who are a little too obsessed with Halloween.

C: Hahaha. Yeah, we are pretty harmless.

TMG: What’s something that you wish more people knew about being queer, nonbinary, or transgender?

C: I wish people knew that it can be a very joyful experience. Especially being trans or nonbinary, there’s so many assumptions that it leads to an unhappy life or leads to violence, and it’s not always true. Many of us flourish and are happy.

TMG: Sure. What does pride month mean to you?

C: I love Pride, but I am not happy about how commercial it’s gotten. It has led to Pride being depoliticized somewhat. There are Pride events that are much more political and interesting; for example, Massachusetts has a Trans Resistance March that is much more political than mainstream Pride. We can party AND make demands at the same, you know?

TMG: Yeah!

TMG: Do you have anything to ask me?

C: I don’t think so! I got to ask you lots of questions when I interviewed you.

TMG: True that. Well, do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

C: I think we covered plenty! Do you need a picture or something for the interview? Your responses were great.

TMG: Nah, no picture necessary. Well, thanks for your time.

C: No problem! Happy to help.

6.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender and sexual/romantic orientation? What pronouns do you use?

Jasper: I am a they/she in real life and usually a they/he in games.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity? And how old are you now?

J: I dont remember when I discovered my identity nor how. Should mention I’m also pan?

TMG: How has being queer affected your life, including relationships with your community? Oh, and I guess you’d consider yourself nonbinary, then?

J: Ye. I have lost some friends.

TMG: That’s rough.

J: Because they did not understand.

TMG: I hate that. None of my family really understands either.

J: I have a mostly understanding family.

TMG: How has being queer, including your journey through finding out your identity, affected your mental state?

J: It hasn’t really affected my mental state.

TMG: You haven’t at least felt better being able to be more open about it?

J: It has a little.

TMG: What would you tell a young queer or nonbinary person? You’re only 13 yourself, right?

J: Right. Well, I have a nonbinary friend that is unsure if they are non binary or trans. I asked them questions like “Do you feel like you’re in the wrong body or gender?”, etc. At the end, I told them to go for nonbinary for now, and if they feel the same way in a few years, they are trans. Does that answer your question?

TMG: Well, that’s one specific person rather than general advice, but that works.

J: Okay.

TMG: What would you tell a person who doesn’t feel like they fit into the community? You know, that whole “I’m not queer enough” thing, or people who pass as cishet?

J: I’m not sure.

TMG: Okay. Do you have any suggestions for people who are thinking of trying out different presentations or undergoing some sort of transition?

J: I don’t really have any tips, because I have not gone through any transitions or different presentations, therefore I do not have the right experiences, so I cannot give the right tips.

TMG: Fair enough.

J: Although I do have a suggestion. I would probably say for them to not get mad when people misgender them or say the wrong name, just kind of be very, like, open about it, because it it’s kind of rude to get mad about something that they might not know or just accidentally mess up.

TMG: Are you satisfied with how many queer characters there are in media and how they are portrayed now? Do you wish that things were different? Do you think there should be more diversity in different identities?

J: I am not very satisfied with how queer people are treated in social media; I believe that they should just be accepted for who they are.

TMG: Do you have any thoughts about queer fashion and style, either in regard to other people or yourself?

J: No not really?

TMG: Do you think it’s more common for neurodivergent people to be queer or vice versa?

J: Hm, no.

TMG: Do you have any thoughts about the interaction between queerness and religion?

J: Well, yes, I believe that whatever religion you are, you should be able to be queer.

TMG: Do you have any further thoughts about other people still not accepting some queer identities?

J: Yes, I believe that it is wrong not to accept people for who they are, and I want it to stop.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

J: I believe it is a little stupid that we only get a month to be openly queer.

TMG: That’s understandable. Do you have anything to ask me?

J: No.

TMG: Okay. Well, thanks for your time.

7.

TheMartianGeek: How would you like me to refer to you in the article?

Kyra: Kyra. I don’t really have a properly chosen last name.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender and sexual/romantic orientation? What pronouns do you use?

K: Current gender is MtF, transwoman, though I prefer to simply identify as female. Orientation, lesbian, fluctuating/evolving switch. Romantic I would say demisexual/sapiosexual. I can be attracted to anyone, but it’s more about intelligence and emotional connection first. She/her pronouns.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity? And how old are you now?

K: I’ve always had an idea of my identity. Ever since I was young, maybe 4-5, I always felt like there was something different about me. But it wasn’t until I was a teen that I really realized what it was, though, because of growing up in the environment I did. I denied it, even got into a decade-long relationship to deny it. Something I wish I could change was when I finally began transition, at 29 a few months before my 30th birthday.

TMG: Are you 30 now, then?

K: Yes, as of April, sorry.

TMG: How has being queer affected your life, including relationships with your community?

K: For the better, actually. With the 10-year relationship, I became a shell of myself. Kind of just went through the motions of get a job, do online college, get married, etc. But in doing so, I started giving up things that made me me. It wasn’t until I ended up in the psychiatric ward because of a suicidal episode that I finally admitted to myself and the world that I am trans. Unfortunately, my now ex-wife divorced me for transitioning, so I’m dealing with the emotional baggage of that, as well as the damage from a relationship where I only now understand how toxic and narcissistic she was. Before coming out, I didn’t have much connection or community in my life. I do have some now, a small circle of friends and a much healthier relationship. I’m now polyamorous, and it’s the healthiest relationship I’ve ever been in. Before coming out, my community was comprised of bikers and religious people. So not great company being a bi kid.

TMG: So it sounds like the whole journey has improved your mental state quite a bit.

K: To a point. There is a lot of childhood trauma that I hadn’t began working on until recently. Within the last 3 months. But I no longer feel disgusted or confused when I look in the mirror. Not to say I don’t deal with dysphoria, I still do, but now I understand it and can deal with it more productively.

TMG: What advice would you give a young queer or trans person?

K: Don’t isolate, connect and find people to help lift you up on your journey. And those who want to tear you down or try to tell you who you are can go f*** themselves. Time is too finite and precious to waste on negative things. And when it comes to family, if someone says “They are still your family.” Genetics don’t make you owe them anything. Same with people who say “Blood is thicker than water.” I hate that quote; it’s always misused. The full quote is “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” Meaning the bonds of friendship and love you make in this life are often stronger than the ones forced on you by family.

TMG: What would you tell a person who doesn’t feel like they fit into the community, like they’re “not queer enough” or too good at passing?

K: F*** gatekeepers. Don’t listen to them; people who want to gatekeep are just as bad as people who want to belittle and hurt you. We are all here, we all have one life. And there is no reason to not be nice to people. Kindness will prevail.

TMG: On that note, do you have any tips for people who are thinking of trying out different presentations or undergoing some sort of transition?

K: Don’t rush; it’s your journey. Go at your pace and walk your path.

TMG: What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

K: I don’t waste a lot of time on popular media. Haven’t watched TV in probably 8-9 years. I still will see movies and find series to watch, but they are usually older or animated. And I get my news from groups online that are in the know.

TMG: I see. Well, what do you think about queer fashion and style? Do you have any particular preferences in regards to this?

K: Not really. My style has never aligned with what’s popular or current. I enjoy pride colors and being supportive but am still very much my own creature in terms of “style”.

TMG: Fair enough. Do you think that there is any correlation between neurodivergence and being queer?

K: Possibly. I haven’t looked into it a lot; I think mental health is a much more openly talked-about subject, though unfortunately still heavily stigmatized. So I think because of this, neurodivergence is more recognized in people at large.

TMG: How do you feel about the interaction between queerness and religion?

K: Depends on what religion you are talking about.

TMG: Any or all of them.

K: I have my own belief system that is rooted in paganism and Wicca, though it’s probably closer to spiritualism, not religion. With mainstream or organized religion, my opinion is this: I am not a sufferer of religious delusion.

TMG: Do you want to elaborate?

K: How much time do you have? 😀

TMG: It’s whatever. I’m eating lunch right now anyway.

K: But really, I just take issue with religions that are Judeo-Christian/Judeo-centric. Mostly because if you study history and are non-biased about it, the amount of violence that has come from those religions is unbelievable. Wars, hate crimes, mass genocide, ethnic cleansing. And I’m not just talking about Native Americans or Africans. I’m also referring to religions and cultures that predate Christianity, and the fact that any group that Christianity comes in contact with it either seeks to absorb or destroy, like them stealing pagan holidays.

TMG: Yeah… I’m reminded of a comic I saw once where some white soldiers are talking to some tribal natives, saying “If it wasn’t for us, you’d still be worshipping the sun!” and one of the natives saying “Dude…the sun is real.”

K: Right!

TMG: Do you have any further comments on people’s continued unacceptance of queer identities? Especially when they only accept some of them.

K: That’s what I mean about the religion seeking to absorb or destroy. They still do it now, but it’s under the guise of improving people’s lives, e.g., missionaries.

TMG: Wasn’t there a Terry Pratchett line about shooting missionaries on sight? (Jokingly.)

K: If there isn’t, there should be.

TMG: “The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that’s where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won’t do if they don’t know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight.” ― Terry Pratchett, Eric

K: I’m gonna have to remember that. I quite like that.

TMG: Anyway, what’s something that you wish more people knew about being queer (or transgender)?

K: God, so much. Honestly, to learn to treat us as people and not fetishes or experiences while exploring themselves. It’s not just cis women who get objectified; it happens to people across the spectrum. I find it repulsive and dehumanizing.

TMG: I don’t blame you. What does pride month mean to you?

K: I unfortunately haven’t been involved in the community long enough to have a good answer. And I’ve yet to go to my first pride, so ask me in a year?

TMG: I see. Yeah, I just went to my first one this year.

K: So flip it, what does it mean for you? Now I am de captain I ask de questions.

TMG: Funny enough, my next question was going to be if you had anything to ask me.

K: So what does pride mean to you?

TMG: Well…I guess for me, it’s mainly a way to recognize that we are not alone, to realize that there are many other people out there who have the same feelings. It can be an opportunity to meet people who are accepting (gatekeepers aside). It’s also a way to celebrate diversity, and it’s an opportunity for people to have fun dressing up colorfully and such. I will say, though, I wish that I’d been better at talking to people at the one that I went to. And that the music hadn’t been so loud. (Those two things somewhat go together.)

K: Yeah. I’m still very much learning socializing. For a long time, I was a wallflower.

TMG: It’s hard.

TMG: Do you have any other questions for me? And do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

K: What made you start your blog?

TMG: I’m not entirely sure why I decided to start one, to be honest. I guess there were a couple others that I enjoyed reading, and I thought it would be fun to write articles, review things, make lists, and such.

K: Do you have anything else you’d like to ask?

TMG: Not that I can think of.

K: Awesome.

TMG: Thanks for doing this.

K: You are welcome. It was fun.

8.

TMG: For starters, how would you like me to refer to you in the article? I could use your real name, a pseudonym, or whatever.

M: Morganna is fine. Fae/faer pronouns if you fancy, otherwise she/her.

TMG: Okay. What is your full identity in respect to gender and sexual/romantic orientation?

M: Faegender, Faensexual (attraction), demisexual, probably panromantic? I’ve not contemplated that much.

TMG: Faensexual? Huh. I’ve not heard of that one.

TMG: Faesexual (without the N) is attraction to non-male people, right?

M: Yes, and faen includes demi-boys basically.

TMG: I see.

M: Theoretically, a more inclusive sapphic grouping.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity? And how old are you now?

M: I settled on sapphic maybe 7 years ago and around 4 years ago found the term faensexual; before that, I identified as bisexual. I’ll be 50 shortly.

TMG: What about gender? You haven’t been out as transgender for very long, right?

M: Medically transitioning (HRT) since March 2019. Started socially transitioning some time in 2017, but not all at once.

TMG: I see. How has being queer affected your life, including relationships with your community?

M: Well, Teresa & I were previously volunteers in a religious community, and that was our social and support network. They were confused but accepting of asexuality, but not being gender-nonconforming. Essentially, we were removed from an position of service and our lease was terminated early right before COVID lockdown.

TMG: Jeez. Some people are just narrow-minded.

M: After that, it was leaning on our queer friends and chosen family to get through the cataclysm. I ended up changing my theology because of it. There was a bias that they couldnt see past even with people holding their hand through it. I’m much happier now so, silver lining.

TMG: Well, that’s good. So it sounds like your mental state has been affected a lot by the process.

M: Yeah. Without direct support and isolation my depression and anxiety got unmanageable. February to May this year, I was in an intensive residential program (IRTS) and afterward, I moved to supportive housing. It took most of a year, but I feel pretty good 🙂

M: Expressing who I am in my gender and exploring spirituality without boundaries both helped a bunch.

TMG: Well, I’m glad that you’re doing better now.

M: Thanks 🙂

TMG: What advice would you give to a young queer person? And what would you tell a person who doesn’t feel like they fit into the community, like they’re “not queer enough” or they pass too well?

M: If you say you’re queer, then you are, no qualifications or anything. Every single queer person started out with a realization and too many questions, and that’s okay. If you feel you don’t fit in, press past the butterflies and try your best. If they aren’t your people, keep looking, and online communities are valid too. Lastly, if your goal is passing, I honor that and I would do anything possible to help. In my journey, I’ve decided passing is a social construct and I don’t need the validation of the culture at large. I know who I am, and they are amazing, no mods, out of the box. That’s not to say I’m not taking steps to lessen gender and body dysphoria.

TMG: On that note, do you have any tips for people who are thinking of trying out different presentations or undergoing some sort of transition?

M: If possible, go shopping with friends, sizing will be weird, it’s okay to have fun with your look.

TMG: What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

M: Oof. For the most part in film and TV, they still queer-code characters, but at least they are starting to cast queer people in queer roles. We are also seeing a trickle of queer-inclusive fiction coming out. It’s getting better, but it still seems so quiet against the noise of the opposition.

TMG: Yeah. Well, I hope I can help with that if I ever get any media published.

M: I’d love to see that.

TMG: What do you think about queer fashion and style? Do you have any particular preferences?

M: I don’t interact with popular fashion really. I’m more traditional goth/casual nerd and a sprinkle of DIY. The cuties on TikTok sharing their passion and joy for fashion and aesthetic, though, warm my heart. I love to see people in their element.

TMG: Nice. Do you think that there is any correlation between neurodivergence and being queer?

M: Neurodivergent folks are nonconformist in many ways, and that includes gender and sexuality. Coincidentally, most of my friends are neurodivergent and queer.

TMG: I’m gradually getting there.

TMG: How do you feel about the interaction between queerness and religion?

M: My experience is limited to Christian, pagan and mystic. The big C church is horrible to the queer community; they essentially promote our murder by not policing their own and actually following the teachings of the New Testament. There are a few churches that are inclusive, but then you still have to unweave the scripture from the indoctrination put in them by the big C church. Paganism mostly is inclusive and welcoming to the queer community, and people feeling a need to be connected to a higher power without the power structure of the monotheistic religions have found a place there. There are a few that stick to a very binary view of things, and if you’re elsewhere in the spectrum you’re reduced to a spectator. Mysticism I would include solitary and small groups practicing practices that are a mix of ceremony and experience. Shamanism and some types of witchcraft fall in these categories. Typically you’re not tied to a larger whole, so it can feel isolating, but anyone can practice these, assuming its not a closed practice.

TMG: Yeah, it’s really unfortunate how many people still don’t accept queer identities. Do you have any further thoughts on that?

M: Christian theology was a special interest, so I could go on. The persecution of gays in the church is blatant with a small amount of research. Beside that contextual study of what Christ actually said if understood would create a completely different organization that was radically inclusive and service-based altruistically.

TMG: What’s something that you wish more people knew about being queer? Or transgender, or whatever.

M: Finding your place in queerness is magical. It brings energy and life. And it’s evolutionary. It unfolds as you progress. Embrace the joy and revel in the understanding.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

M: To me, its a memorial month for all the martyrs and warriors that have made sacrifices so we can have public events. I make a point to share queer history, especially in that month.

TMG: Do you have anything to ask me?

M: What is the one thing you appreciate about the queer community most?

TMG: Finding people who are open-minded and accepting of differences.

M: One more. What can we do for our community that’s not in urban centers with queer culture?

TMG: Like conservative small towns? Provide safe spaces for people online where they can know that they are loved and are not alone, as well as information about how to escape unhealthy situations.

M: Great answers both. Glad I could contribute 🙂

TMG: Thanks. Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

M: Not that I can think of.

TMG: Okay. Well, thanks for your time and mental energy.

M: It was a pleasure.

9.

TMG: How would you like me to refer to you in the article?

The Rosanna System: “Rosanna system”. You can quote us as that in general and by our individual names when we’ve given them.

TMG: Okay. No pseudonyms or anything?

R: No, we’re good, thanks.

TMG: Okay.

R: We’re open irl, and our legal name actually has the “&” in it, and that’s the plurality symbol

TMG: Huh. I didn’t know you could do that.

R: Yep 🙂 I mean…not all computer systems can use it 🙂

TMG: what about computer singlets

R: *laugh*

TMG: Well, what are your full identities in respect to gender and sexual/romantic orientation? What pronouns do you use?

R: Somewhat fluid on all counts. In general “they” is what we use. As a system collective, were we to put it on a census, it’d be “nonbinary demi-girl, demi-ace, panromantic, they/she”.

Trunks: Some of us are binary guys, he/him, but still not men; none of us are.

Courtney: I’m completely genderfluid as a plasmoid; Brooke is agender as a void.

Max: I’m probably the most binary girl, a woman, but I don’t mind being seen as an enby ^_^

Rosanna&: Most of us would like romance but would pass on sex.

TMG: Same, though. When and how did you discover your identity? And how old are you now?

R: I mean…excavations are still ongoing…

TMG: I guess some people find dinosaur bones, and others find genders and/or headmates.

R: We got onto Twitter in mid 2018, that’s when we first started learning about gender and sex identities. We knew about gays and lesbians, but that was it. Trans stuff was a confusing mess. The body is 30+ at the moment. We realised we were plural in late 2019; we had met a couple other systems and started to relate. We sought out the Rings system on YouTube and went from there.

TMG: How do you think being queer has affected your life, including relationships with your community?

R: Honestly, we’ve been privileged in our community and environment; it’s a mid- to left-wing town in the UK, the absolute opposite to what we’ve heard the US south to be. Also, we’re pan in that we’re more attracted to aesthetics than gender, so the people we had crushes on tended to be straight-passing. Also…nonbinary, genderfluid, tomboys; we didn’t have much dysphoria.

TMG: That’s good.

R: Plus we’re autistic, so any weirdness was probably assumed to be that.

TMG: Heh. I need to use that as an excuse myself…

R: Go for it, lol.

TMG: How has your journey of queerness affected your mental states, would you say?

R: Not that much, I don’t think. But then, there was plenty of other stuff to traumatise us. Like…we’ve had a great life overall, but there have been some real challenges. And most of our journey to understand our queerness happened during the pandemic.

TMG: Well, I hope you can find peace.

R: Thanks, I think we’re getting there.

TMG: What would you tell a young queer person? And what would you tell a person who doesn’t feel like they fit into the community? Like they’re “not queer enough” to claim the label because they just pass as cishet and don’t feel like they’ve had the same struggles?

R: There are a few guys in this system, the body is AMAB, yet they’re still trans because they’ve travelled through gender. So even if you actually are technically almost cis, you can still be trans because you’re queer and you’ve made the journey. No such thing as “queer enough”. Also, don’t rush it. And don’t worry about changing your mind sometimes.

TMG: On that note, do you have any tips for people who are thinking of trying out different presentations or undergoing some sort of transition?

R: How will you know if you don’t try it. *shrug* But also, don’t rush it? For undergoing transition, it depends on how. Dressing different and playing with a different name for a bit is fine to do on a calculated whim. Anything medical should be through a doctor. As for surgery…ask around about side effects from multiple sources. Go for it, but don’t rush it. It’s a balance. Or another way, go for starting on the path, but don’t force yourself to find the end in any reasonable timeframe.

TMG: What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

R: I’m honestly not sure what I think of the depictions in media, except that they seem to either not try at all or try too hard. Or throw it in for the sake of “hey look how totally woke we are” while being shallow (live-action Beauty and the Beast comes to mind).

TMG: Yeah, while it seems like things are improving, it’s not fast enough.

R: Yep.

TMG: What do you think about queer fashion and style? And do you have any preferences for that yourself?

R: None of us are really fashion-conscious, so we can’t really answer this :’)

TMG: Fair enough. You just wear whatever and don’t do much in the way of makeup, then? oes that vary any depending on who is fronting?

R: We do have color preferences, but we do prefer simple clothes. We have tried makeup, but it’s not been worth the effort (but then, our mom only wears makeup on special occasions, so nature vs. nurture there, lol).

TMG: Yeah, my mom is the same way.

R: Clothing does slightly vary depending on who’s fronting, but not majorly.

TMG: Do you think that there is any correlation between neurodivergence and being queer?

R: Pretty sure scientists have already found good evidence that there is. Can’t remember the vid, though.

TMG: How do you feel about the interaction between queerness and religion?

R: Oof! This one :’) They should be relatively separate, in the same way there should be a separation between church and state. You shouldn’t feel pressured in gender or sexuality because of religion.

TMG: Do you have any thoughts about people still not accepting queer identities (especially less common ones)?

R: Yeah, but the only word I think is safe for publication is “pathetic”.

TMG: Makes sense to me. What’s something that you wish more people knew about being queer? Or nonbinary, transgender, or any other specific identity.

Max: Concerning the media question; if you’re gonna give players the choice of romancing a same sex character, don’t put the big kiss moment behind the ending where one of them dies! 😡

Rosanna&: Yeah, we all agree that Life Is Strange was a missed opportunity.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

R: It means a lot more people give it some thought and attention, which it still needs. We’ve not been to a pride event yet, but we’d like to.

TMG: I hope you get to go.

R: Thanks.

TMG: Do you have anything to ask me? Or anything to say that I didn’t cover?

R: Not that we can think of

TMG: Okay. Well, thanks for your time and for doing this.

R: No probs, we enjoyed it 🙂 Thanks for inviting us to take part, and we hope it goes well.

Tags: blog, interview, LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQIA+, LGBTQP2S+, pride month, queer, queer pride

Quick multi-review #5: Various library books, May-August 2022

I have nothing in particular to introduce this batch with, so let’s just get right into the reviews.

Artemis Fowl: Guide to the World of Fairies

This is one of those “in-universe reference material” kind of books. It describes the different fairy species in the main series from the perspective of one of the characters, along with notes from other minor characters. The dwarf section started to get a bit annoying after a while, and so did the pervasive holier-than-thou attitude. Even as someone who agrees that humans are horrible and would probably embrace transhumanism if it ever became viable in real life (and good luck with that; this society has a hard enough time accepting trans humans, let alone transhumans), the constant comments about how much better fairies are than humans got old fast. And anyway, if fairies are so perfect, then why do people like the evil goblins, the violent demons, Opal Koboi, and Turnball Root exist? And why couldn’t they have coexisted with humans originally rather than running away from them and hiding underground? (I can tell you the Doylist reason: because if they did that, then the series would be very different and would be alternate universe fiction rather than simple urban fantasy.) Also, it’s a common error, but methane is odorless. While it is a major component of farts, the gases that actually make them stink are different and include things like hydrogen sulfide. Anyway, there’s no actual narrative to speak of here, but I suppose it’s amusing for a while, and it’s interesting to learn more about the different kinds of fairies, with some information not present in the main series.

Rating: C

Notes From a Small Island

This is a nonfiction book about an American man who sometimes lives in Britain and explores the place. He’s occasionally ruder than is strictly necessary, such as with the apple turnover thing. I would have liked more comparing and contrasting the US and the UK, including linguistically. There was some of that, but most of the book just seemed to be more or less a travel journal; he want to location A and looked at X, then he went to location B and ate at restaurant Y, and so on. The length of this review should tell you how much of it even stuck with me.

Rating: C

Henry and the Clubhouse

It’s another Beverly Cleary book; how much do I even need to say? Well, okay, it’s not a Ramona book this time; it’s part of Henry Huggins’s series instead, which actually came before Ramona’s. He has a newspaper route (do kids even do those anymore? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that come up in anything that takes place after about the ’70s), which he tries to do his best on but has occasional problems with, particularly selling subscriptions. His dog Ribsy also ends up in a fight with the new neighbor’s dog when he goes over there for the first time, and Ramona is around and bugging him. Meanwhile, he and a friend are trying to build a clubhouse, with the money from the paper route going toward materials for that. The friend wants it to be only for boys, which is dumb, but I can just file it under both “people being weird about gender” and “people being old-fashioned”. At one point, Ramona locks Henry in the clubhouse, resulting in her going to Beezus for help and him having to give away the secret password. In the end, he ends up being nice to Ramona as she follows him around on the route, and the new neighbor notices his kindness. Like I said, it’s another Beverly Cleary book, but the ending was cute and satisfying enough that I’ll give it an extra point.

Rating: B

The Sisters Grimm #1: The Fairy-Tale Detectives

This is another of those books that I had read before but so long ago that I didn’t remember much about it. Now, it’s focused on fairy-tale characters, and frankly, I’ve kind of seen too many fractured fairy tales already; it’s a pretty popular theme these days. I remember back when I did the 4-H drama festival as a kid, my group was the only one who didn’t do some fairy tale play most of the time. And unlike something like Shrek that goes for comedy and having fun with it, The Sisters Grimm goes for more of a detective thriller kind of angle, or at least as close as you can get with middle-grade fiction. Our protagonists—and the eponymous sisters—are Sabrina, the jaded, cynical skeptic who must constantly be proven wrong, and Daphne, the cheerful child who somehow never gets taken advantage of for being too trusting. They’re orphans who end up getting taken in by a mysterious German woman who is actually their grandmother, though Sabrina is convinced that she’s just a lunatic, especially once she starts talking about fairy-tale characters being real. As it turns out, they’re descended from the Brothers Grimm, who were actually detectives who dealt with deeds perpetuated by various fairy-tale characters, or Everafters as they’re called in the book. In this case, there’s a house that got stepped on by a giant, which later proceeds to show up and kidnap Granny Relda and her servant Mr. Canis (who is actually the Big Bad Wolf). They get into various misadventures with magical creatures, spring Jack (of Jack and the Beanstalk) from jail in an attempt to get rid of the giant, infiltrate a party put on by the mayor (none other than Prince Charming, and not at all one to live up to his name), and eventually find out the truth and send the giant back to his own kingdom.

Now, the premise of the book/series is somewhat original, as fairy tale references go, but it could be a bit frustrating to read at times. The kids have few allies; most of the Everafters want them dead, because they’re essentially imprisoned in the town for the safety of the rest of the world, and only the girls’ presence is preventing them from being free to leave. Some of the characters could grate on the nerves, too. Puck, in particular, was one of those characters who was so annoying that he actually distracted from the story, and what comeuppance does he get for being an obnoxious brat? He gets to move in with the Grimm family, where he can torment them even more, for reasons. I might have given this book a little higher rating, but Puck alone was enough to dock it a point or two, and I dread him being a more prominent character in the rest of the series.

Rating: C-

The Sisters Grimm #2: The Unusual Suspects

This ticked me off even more than the first book. For one thing, Puck is even more prominent in this one, as was unfortunately expected. The universe also hates Sabrina even more, so we get treated to a lovely montage of her getting humiliated. Also, there’s a spoiler that I read on the wiki for the series that I found really questionable: apparently, Sabrina and Puck actually get married at the end. Considering just about all of his interactions with her consist of him being a jerk to her, that is absolutely vomit-inducing. Unless he does a complete 180 in personality (well, maybe a 135, since he’s at least not a straight-up villain), that is some Stephenie Meyer-tier cringeworthy romance. The two girls start school in the town and have some fairy-tale characters as teachers, such as Snow White for Daphne, and most of the other children seem mysteriously sick and tired. Then people start getting murdered, the protagonists get chased by monsters (literal and figurative), and well, folks, looks like we’ve got another mystery on our hands. As far as the half-humanoid monsters went, though, I totally called Bella being the frog-girl. I probably should have figured out that Toby and Natalie were the other two monster kids, but Bella especially stood out because she didn’t even get the “school kid antagonist” interactions that the others did and yet was the only other kid in class to be named; she was the equivalent of a character in an RPG who seems to be just another NPC but has a portrait when none of the others do. There are a couple of noticeable typos, or at least wrong word choices; somebody does “a mischief”, there’s a mention of “leaches” that should be “leeches”, and rabbits aren’t rodents, but that’s nothing compared to the problems I had with the actual plot. I’ve already brought up how obnoxious Puck is, but in general, Sabrina just gets dumped on, and I got really sick of the fighting between the family members, especially between Sabrina and, well, everyone else. I get that the villain was partly causing her to be that angry, but it was still frustrating to read. And what, is it supposed to be a metaphor for teenage hormones or something? The whole thing with the Pied Piper and the monsters was actually kind of creepy for a kids’ book, too. Then there’s a scene where Mr. Canis along with Rumpelstiltskin gets blown up, and while I don’t believe for a second that either of them actually died, it could be pretty shocking to a kid. And after all that, it had the audacity to end on a freaking cliffhanger.

This book…oof. This is one of those cases where I felt like throwing the book across the room on several occasions but didn’t because it was a library book, and then I got to the end and actually did throw it across the room. But the beginning and middle were no better; nearly everyone and everything got on my nerves in some way. At least Snow White was one good character…why couldn’t she have moved in with the Grimms instead of Puck the Suck? There are seven more books after this, but I’m not sure that I want to continue with this series. The Sisters Grimm #2 is probably the least satisfying book that I’ve reviewed on here since I started doing these; if I’d known how starkly it would contrast with Henry and the Clubhouse, I would have read these first (if at all) and then that as a palette cleanser. There are two wolves inside me: one represents the childlike wonder of someone who loves reading and is excited to explore new stories, while the other one represents the bitter cynicism of someone who’s been burned on books too many times and is sick of dealing with their crap. And if Henry and the Clubhouse did a good job bringing out the first wolf, this book was a fine choice for bringing out the second one. If you have a thick enough fourth wall for all the “characters driving each other nuts” energy not to spread beyond it and become contagious, go ahead, but I’m pretty sure that I personally have better things to read.

Rating: D+

Babel No More

You know, I really should stop checking out multiple adult nonfiction books at the same time; they take 10 times longer to read than everything else. That’s not an exaggeration, and in fact, it’s actually an underestimate if you count it by number of days elapsed between the start of reading them and the end. Anyway, this is basically a novel-length essay; the author discusses hyperpolyglots, people who know a large number of languages, with a special focus on one Giuseppe Mezzofanti, an Italian cardinal born in 1774. In fact, the book closes with a sort of bookend, with the last paragraphs of the book having the narrator on a boat ride in Italy talking about Mezzofanti to tourists. He also discusses what processes would necessary to learn that many languages, how likely it was that people who claimed to be hyperpolyglots actually knew all the languages that they said they did and how well, and related topics. The book was a bit dry, but I have no particular complaints.

Rating: C

The Enchanted Files #2: Hatched

This book is set in the same world as the first one, but with different characters. This time, the narrator is a griffin who feels like a misfit because he’s not brave and proud like his siblings. He needs to find treasure for his griffin equivalent of a bar mitzvah but is too timid to go on adventures, so he runs away to the human world and ends up making friends with a human by chance. In the process, he does end up finding his treasure, of course, and is even admired by his siblings for his bravery. So everything works out. Overall, I liked this better than the first book, despite having fewer things to say about it. (Well, it is easier to complain than praise.) The stakes were lower, and the protagonists were more likable (not that the previous ones were unlikable, but I did prefer this cast). It was cool to have a griffin as a narrator, too. For as popular as mythical creatures and nonhumans are, the amount of media with them as main characters is, in my opinion, considerably lower than it ought to be. But yeah, it was fun.

Rating: B

You Go First

This is about two kids who become acquaintances online due to playing online Scrabble together frequently, as well as both having some difficulties with their lives and their families’. Oddly enough, despite the title being a reference to said Scrabble games, those seemed to figure surprisingly little into the plot. For that matter, it barely felt like one story about two characters; it felt more like two stories that happened to cross paths occasionally. It had kind of a choppy writing style, too, with short sentences and chapters. Much of the remaining plot development involved a lot of sordid middle-school drama that reminds me how glad I am to have been homeschooled, and the payoff was pretty wimpy; the story kind of felt like it was missing an act at the end, if it even had any sort of real structure at all. To me, the story seemed rather tepid and forgettable overall. It was fine, but merely fine.

Rating: C

The Tail of Emily Windsnap (#1)

You know, media creators really need to stop playing on “tail” and “tale”; that is easily in my top 5 most overused puns. (And yes, I have an actual list.) It could be worse, though; at least they’re not saddling the hero with “fate” or “destiny”, or spelling words wrong or in an old-fashioned way for an attempt at mystique (any time a story talks about a “faerie”, “vampyre”, or “magick”, I’m already rolling my eyes and looking at it through a jade-colored lens). They’re also not making an entire species have the same personality traits, which is probably the speculative fiction trope that needs to die the most of any of them. Anyway…our narrator, Emily Windsnap, is forbidden from going in the water by her mother, and then when she decides to do it anyway, she turns into a mermaid, which is shocking at first but feels really good once she gets used to it, like she’s finally complete. (One could make a transgender analogy here, but I doubt the author actually intended one. I guess that makes Emily FtM: Female to Mermaid.) She finds out that she’s half-merfolk, and her father is missing in the ocean somewhere, so she naturally wants to try to find him. Along the way, she makes friends with another mermaid (a whole one), and the two of them eventually rescue her father from being imprisoned for falling in love with a human and even appeal to Neptune to change the law.

While it wasn’t an action-packed story by any means, it was still a pretty good one. There were some nice moments of family and friendship, as well as discoveries of new things, without any need for any overarching calamity. Even the antagonists turned out not to be so bad in the end. I liked the book, and I know there are at least four more in the series, so look forward to those in the future.

Rating: B

Ramona Quimby, Age 8

It’s time for another Ramona book, and this one probably had more influence on the movie than any of them. It’s also one of the few that got a Newbery Honor, but don’t hold that against it. This time around, Ramona starts third grade, which involves a series of calamities. She gets teased by a boy, accidentally cracks a raw egg on her head and gets embarrassed, has conflict about whether or not her teacher likes her, gets sick and throws up in class, and has to babysit her annoying neighbor. In the end, though, her misunderstanding with the teacher does get cleared up, and when the family goes out to eat, they realize that everyone has bad days sometimes but can still have good ones.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but this entry in Ramona’s series seemed a bit more somber than previous ones. (Maybe that explains that Newbery nomination; I’m pretty sure that it’s impossible for a book to get one of those if it’s not angsty. But this book was clearly too fun and not angsty enough, which is why it didn’t win the actual award.) She spends a lot of time feeling down, either physically, emotionally, or both. Other than that, it didn’t really stand out from any of the other books in the series that I’ve read or reviewed on here.

Rating: B-

How to They/Them: A Visual Guide to Nonbinary Pronouns and the World of Gender Fluidity

This is kind of an unusual one. I’ve hung around enough queer communities that I already know perfectly well how to they/them, as well as ze/zir, xe/xyr, and e/em, but I thought it might be interesting to see what the author says about the subject. I can certainly think of people in my life who ought to learn more about the fluidity of gender. The author spends a good amount of time talking about all the things that go into gender identity, particularly as it relates to people who aren’t cisgender, including physical and mental. They also have a very positive attitude about the whole thing and talk about the joy that can ensue when one’s idea of gender finally clicks. I was on the fence about what rating to give this, and even now, I’m not sure. I’ll admit that I could have done without the drawings of genitals. (Why do private parts always have to get brought up whenever trans people are discussed?) Other than that, I thought it was done well. It felt like the author really cared about teaching this stuff and letting people know what it all means.

Rating: B

Squirm

Well, I’m pretty well out of Carl Hiaasen books by now. I haven’t reviewed Hoot due to having read it previously, but I’ve hit every other middle-grade book that he’s written. I’ve noticed that all of his books kind of feel like the same book, just with different characters, but the recurring elements make a fine story anyway, so it’s okay. In this case, our protagonist Billy is interested in snakes, serving up karma to people who are cruel to animals, and trying to find his missing father. Once he actually does track him down somewhere in the Montana wilderness with the help of his Native American stepmother and stepsister that he didn’t know he had, the two of them basically become vigilantes protecting endangered species from poachers, particularly one man who’s trying to kill both a Florida panther and a Montana grizzly bear and is willing to murder people to do it. It was certainly an adventure, and this one had some good character interactions.

Rating: B-

The Menagerie

This book features two child protagonists, starting with a boy who finds a baby griffin under his bed, which leads him to a girl with a reputation for being weird. As it turns out, she and her family are the keepers of a sort of nature preserve for mythical creatures, and the griffin is one of seven that escaped from the place. After Zoe shows Logan around the eponymous Menagerie, the two of them must track down the remaining griffins and get them back to their proper places before the place’s inspection. The concept is fairly interesting; I like mythical creatures in media, especially when they’re sapient and there are many different types, and having a refuge for them has potential. This was another book that ended on a cliffhanger, but I was more okay with it here than I was with the second Sisters Grimm book, because I hadn’t spent the rest of the book already in an irritated mood and because I pretty much guessed before I got to the end that it would have at least one sequel; there were only a few pages left in the book and too many unanswered questions. There wasn’t even a real antagonist; the most unlikable characters were the unicorns, who were incredibly bratty and could barely open their mouths without making some rude comment. They were so snotty that their stables should have been filled with Kleenex instead. They were also karma Houdinis, since they turned out to be the ones who let the baby griffins out because…they weren’t getting enough attention, I guess? When Logan said that the family should make the unicorns feel more special, I just thought “But why, though? They’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve it. Are we supposed to reward them for causing all this trouble and for being utter jerks?” Beyond that, I also guessed that the librarian would be important later and that Keiko was actually a mythical creature. Some things seem like they’ll get payoffs later in the series, which is fine, assuming I can obtain the other books. It was a fun adventure and a good book to end on.

Rating: B+

Quick multi-review #4: Various library books, March-May 2022

We’re starting off 2023 with some long overdue unfinished business from 2022, some more book reviews.

Ramona the Brave

Well, we’ve seen what Ramona is like on the TV screen, so how about we delve into her stories in literary form? This isn’t the first Ramona book, but it’s still fairly early on, being the third one in the series (or second if you don’t count Beezus and Ramona). Before this came Ramona the Pest, but they didn’t have that one at the library at the time. In case you were wondering, this is the book where Ramona tries to use “guts” as a swear word. The other notable scene from this book that made it into the movie is when the workmen cut a hole in the house, and just like in the movie, people think she’s lying about that when she’s just being more dramatic about it than an adult might, which is always a feel-bad moment. Beyond that, she embarrasses Beezus by sticking up for her when some kids are teasing her, and her first-grade teacher is seemingly strict and unfeeling. The teacher also tells her that nobody likes a tattletale, which is stupid enough when a kid says it but is a really off-putting thing for an adult to say; it comes off to me, at least, as “don’t bother telling adults anything even when something is wrong or unfair”. The biggest thing that I remembered from reading this book previously (yeah, this wasn’t my first time, but it had been a while) is one of Ramona’s annoying classmates plagiarizing a craft project that she worked on and getting praise from the teacher for it, resulting in Ramona getting understandably ticked off and wrecking both of them (but then refusing to explain why she did it…gee, I wonder who trained her to do that?). At the end, Ramona gets chased by a dog, loses a shoe, and has to come up with a creative solution to such a problem, but she gets complimented for her courage, and all is well.

Rating: B-

Ramona and Her Mother

This is the fifth book in the series, and one that I hadn’t read as a kid. Ramona is partway through second grade in this one, and you can already see her being more mature, as she was more mature in Ramona the Brave compared to Beezus and Ramona (the book, not the movie with a similar name). See, this is one of the reasons why we like Beverly Cleary; she’s one of the rare authors who can not only write child characters realistically but do so with enough nuance to distinguish between a 4-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a 7-and-a-half-year-old. In this one, Ramona is faced with a friend’s annoying little sister (and offended by the suggestion that she was ever like that), an argument between her parents about a dinner mistake, a haircut that works out fine for Ramona but leaves Beezus upset, and Ramona deciding to wear pajamas to school and only realizing later that it wasn’t necessarily the best idea. The pajama incident results in an apparent betrayal of trust by her teacher, another argument, and Ramona feeling like nobody gives a guts about her and deciding to run away, which plays out much as it does in the movie. So yeah, this is the one where the heavy suitcase scene comes from. This is followed in turn by Ramona’s mother clearing up the conversation with the teacher and reaffirming her love for Ramona. Another fine entry in the series.

Rating: B-

The Time Garden

It’s another Edward Eager book. This is another one about time travel, if the title didn’t make that obvious enough. The child protagonists find a garden where they meet a magical toad-like creature called a Natterjack, who tells them (in a Cockney accent) that the thyme in the garden is magical and will let them travel through time and space depending on what type it is. (Yes, there are a lot of time/thyme puns.) They go back to various periods in history and often get into trouble. Something that I hadn’t realized before reading this is that the kids in this book are actually the offspring of one of the protagonists from Half Magic and Magic by the Lake, which was foreshadowed in the latter in a way that I didn’t notice. I think this is actually the second book that has this particular cast; I could probably find the first one, but I don’t know in what order the four books were written. It’s worth noting, too, that these children seem to be overall more practical-minded than their predecessors; at worst, Eliza can be impulsive sometimes (which gets her thrown in a dungeon when they visit a medieval queen). It was a decent enough book, but it’s another one that wasn’t noteworthy enough to stick with me that well, so I’m having a hard time coming up with things to say about it.

Rating: C+

The Enchanted Files #1: Cursed

The first of a relatively new series by Bruce Coville, who has written quite a lot of speculative fiction of different genres, some of which I read quite a bit growing up. This book centers around a brownie whose family is cursed to serve a particular human family until either both of them die out or the person who cursed them reconsiders, and a human girl who is ridiculously messy and freaked out when some little man shows up in her house and cleans her room. Naturally, the story focuses on the two of them teaming up to break the curse before they both go nuts. It’s an okay adventure fantasy, but there is one thing it does that almost invariably sours me on any story, and that is featuring traditional-style fae. While the ones in this book are at least a lot more child-friendly than most portrayals of them, I’ve noticed a distinct pattern with fairies in pretty much any narrative-based media intended for people beyond third grade, and that is that they are complete wastes of oxygen. Those molecules could have been taken in by a different, more worthy creature, such as mosquitoes, which at least make good food for bats. The problematic fairy in question is the queen, who is responsible for the aforementioned curse. She did because her daughter left the fairy world and ran away with a guy that she didn’t approve of. Because that’s totally a reasonable reaction. She also, at one point, threatens to execute one of the protagonists for protesting. You know, for fairies like that supposedly possessing the wisdom and life experience of centuries, they sure don’t ever seem to gain social and emotional intelligence or maturity beyond that of a 3-year-old. No offense intended to my actual 3-year-old niece, who probably has better morality and emotional stability than a lot of fairies you see. Yes, I realize that portrayals of traditional fae are supposed to make them seem inhuman, but the only thing they ever do for me is provide a sound argument for why genocide might be justified in a few cases, even if those situations are fictional. One could certainly write a story from an anthropological standpoint where the fae are no more evil or more good than humans, are just as wary of humans as humans are of them, are more similar to humans (or any other intelligent species in the setting) than either race assumes, can coexist with humans (or other intelligent species) without either of them getting murderous, are able to recognize and acknowledge different cultural standards and that any sense of cultural superiority is misguided and/or only relative to one’s own experiences, or any combination of the above, but how many stories have you seen that actually do that? tl;dr: Traditional fae are garbage, and they deserve death. At least in this book, though, the fairy in question is only in one scene and isn’t as terrible as a lot of them, so she’s not too much of a blight on the experience. From what I’ve seen, this is one of those stories where the different books are set in the same universe but feature completely different stories and characters, so we’ll see how the rest of them turn out.

Rating: C+

9 From the Nine Worlds

Since the next Magnus Chase book wasn’t available, I got a collection of short stories set in its world instead. When these stories take place compared to the main series, I’m not sure, but one of them focuses on a character who isn’t introduced until the second book, so I’m not very familiar with them yet. There’s a story for several of the different demigod characters and other creatures…and one of Samirah’s relatives who explicitly isn’t a demigod, which I’m fairly sure was just added to pad out the total story count to an even 9, because it sticks out like a sore thumb. The stories were fine in themselves, showing a few one-off adventures focused on one person each, and it was interesting to see some narrators other than Magnus. They did, however, typify one of the problems I have with short stories. They fortunately didn’t seem to suffer from the biggest problem I have with a lot of short stories, which is having unsatisfying endings due to abruptness or plot twists, but they certainly lived up to the “short” part; it felt like there was barely time to enjoy any of these little vignettes before it was time to end and switch to the next character. It’s a plus that they were all about characters who had all been introduced already, so there wasn’t that feeling of “this is all the time I get to spend with this character?!”, but it’s a minus that this is the only time in the series that we get to have other narrators (as far as I’m aware), and they all only get about a chapter’s worth of story to themselves (Samirah’s comes to mind as being particularly short). In summary, my problems with this book are not with the content, but rather with the format.

Rating: B-

The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1)

Here is yet another Rick Riordan series about Percy Jackson and his friends, except this time, it’s actually about Apollo. Apparently, he did something bad that Zeus didn’t like, so Zeus had to punish Apollo for it, which, if you’re not familiar with Greek mythology, is kind of like a yak getting mad at a human for being too hairy. In any case, as retribution for his Apolling behavior, Apollo loses his god powers and becomes an ordinary human boy until he can prove himself. Apollo is self-centered enough that I really can’t say it’s entirely undeserved, but sheesh, if every Greek god who acted like a jerk got turned into a human teenager, there’d be enough for an entire high school orchestra and Mount Olympus would be pretty darn empty. He meets a daughter of Demeter named Meg, not that either of them realize that at first, and the two of them try to combat the new threat: a trio of evil Roman emperors who are essentially back from the dead. The main villain of the book is Nero, the guy who supposedly burned Rome down while playing the fiddle and who lent his name to a CD-burning program first released in 1997. He’s also Meg’s abusive stepfather and has convinced her that his nice persona and his mean persona are two separate people and that she is at fault when the latter comes out, as abusers do. Frankly, Nero and his buddies are the lamest villains in one of these series yet; characters like Kronos (from the original Percy Jackson and the Olympians) and Gaea (from Heroes of Olympus) were ancient, powerful gods, while these jerks are just…guys. Even if they are some of the most famously psychotic Roman emperors, they’re still just human tyrants who think they deserve to be gods. I guess they, and Nero in particular, are the Mother Gothel or Gaston of the universe, being villains who are more likely to happen in reality compared to their compatriots, but they’re less entertaining because they don’t do anything cool like Maleficent or Ursula.

In any case, Apollo and Meg make it to Camp Half-Blood, go through several more ordeals, reveal a plot by the emperors to control the oracles and communication lines, and learn just who they’re dealing with. They eventually confront Nero himself, who escapes to prepare future villainous actions in the sequels. I can’t decide how this compares to any of the previous series in this universe; it does seem to raise the stakes and level of danger and drama compared to the first two series, which isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing, but I think I still liked the original better, and I would cite that as one reason why. I haven’t read a bad book by Rick Riordan yet, though, and this is decent enough.

Rating: B

The Fowl Twins #1

This is the first of a sequel series to the original Artemis Fowl, which I may review at some future date if I decide to do reviews of books that I previously read. Since this is the first thing in that universe that I’ve described on here, though, I’ll have to provide some backstory. Artemis Fowl is a teen genius (12 in the early books) from a rich and powerful family and wants to use his considerable resources both material and cerebral to gain even more money by extorting the fairy kingdom. He successfully kidnaps a fairy in the first book and ransoms her, and then the other seven books in the original series follow his future adventures with the fairies, various villains, and his own difficulties in being a good person. The Fowl Twins, on the other hand, focuses on Artemis’s little brothers, who were 3-4 years old in the original series and are now 11 and ready to get into their own wacky hijinks. Myles basically follows in his older brother’s footsteps, being an unabashed genius with no ability to relate to normal people and a habit of never using small words if a big one will do because his IQ is over 170. (You know…the trait that fiction writers always give their smart characters to show how smart they are, with no regard to how realistic it is. Heck, Marilyn vos Savant has an IQ of at least 186, possibly over 200, and she doesn’t talk like her sole resource for learning to speak was the unabridged Oxford English dictionary.) Beckett, meanwhile, is hinted to be smarter than average but hides it very well by being a complete space case. There’s also a new fairy named Lazuli who is a rare species hybrid, a miniature troll whom Beckett bonds with, and the villain, Lord Teddy Bleedham-Drye. Yes, that is actually what Eoin Colfer decided to call the guy. As character names go, that is barely a step above “Mike Rotch”, “Ivan Aufelich”, or “Kenny B. Meaner”.

As far as the tone goes, while the original Artemis Fowl started out relatively serious, this series pretty much goes for absurdity right off the bat, and it was a bit jarring at first. Once I’d picked my disbelief up off the floor that it had crashed onto, patched it up, and suspended it with stronger cables, I could continue with the story. The troll is basically the linchpin of the plot; Lord I. P. Knightley wants to use it as a game animal, while a secondary antagonist, a fiery nun from a secret society called ACRONYM (how meta), wants to kidnap and study it. The eponymous brothers want to rescue and befriend it (or at least Beckett does), and the fairy ends up getting caught up with them while trying to observe the situation, so naturally, the different groups butt heads and the twins have to figure out escape plans. Around chapter 12 or 13, the story seemed to hit its stride, once everything had been established and everyone had been portrayed. I will say that this book seems to have some rather odd pacing to it; it doesn’t really feel like a traditional 3-, 4-, or 5-act structure and more resembles a sine wave. The heroes get captured by the villains, they escape, they get captured again, they escape again, rinse and repeat for 354 pages. While the story does have a clear climax and resolution that one could point to, taking the nemesister out of the action entirely and leaving Lord Hugh Jass to make an improbable escape and cause trouble in the sequels, it doesn’t feel that much more climactic than most of the book. Eoin Colfer didn’t always seem to understand “show, don’t tell” either, given things like him telling us that the bad guy is, in fact, the bad guy and that we’re showing what happened after the cliff scene. Also, Lazuli was the only character whom I really liked all that well; Myles was so irritatingly smug that I didn’t even want to root for him, and Beckett somehow felt like a manchild despite being an actual child. It was decent enough entertainment while it lasted, I suppose; just don’t expect anything profound.

On a side note, at the time of this writing, the character page for this subseries on TVTropes is woefully incomplete. It’s not separate from the main Artemis Fowl one, it has almost nothing listed for the main characters, and several other very important characters are flat-out AWOL. Do any readers who are less lazy than me want to help fix that?

Rating: B-

Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It

This was an impulse checkout. The witty title caught my attention, and I thought it might be worth a read. It can be summed up in pretty simple terms; each section begins with a quote from a philosopher or other famous wise person, and the rest explains why the author finds it useful, how it figures into his philosophy, and how the reader can take it to heart for their own life. It’s a bit dry, but there are some worthwhile quotes here if you’re the sort of person who finds those useful.

Rating: C

That Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means

This is a book about words, specifically, a variety of words that often get misused. It discusses what the word is supposed to mean, as well as some other words with which it may get confused. I find it interesting to read about this kind of thing even though I don’t generally have trouble confusing similar words, but there actually were a few listed whose proper usage I hadn’t been aware of. I hadn’t really thought about the difference between “staunch” and “stanch”, for one (not that I’ve had much occasion to use either word); I knew that “regime” and “regimen” weren’t the same word but hadn’t really thought about there being some overlap in their meaning; I didn’t know that “ferment” could mean “stir up”; I had no idea that “perk” was short for “perquisite”; and I don’t think I knew that, in prescribed usage, “eponymous” actually refers to the person that a thing is named after rather than the thing (though Wiktionary lists both). I also doubt that many people are aware that “travesty” is supposed to mean more of a gross caricature or mockery of something rather than simply a disaster, but that’s a change that probably won’t be resisted much. Some other notable words that I either hadn’t heard of or didn’t know the dictionary definition of were conterminous, foment, fulsome, immanent (not the same as “imminent”), limn, meretricious, militate, prodigal, restive, tendentious, and venal. That said, ironically enough, the authors made a few mistakes in word choices themselves, such as confusing Kronos with Chronos (to be fair, even Rick Riordan screwed that one up) and using “preantepenultimate” to mean “fifth from last” when it clearly means “fourth from last” (look at the number of prefixes). There were a few typos as well, such as leaving one letter of a word unitalicized in the entries for deprecate and scarify and missing the second “i” in “horribilis”. Oddly enough, the copyright page was at the end of the book rather than the beginning as expected. I also wish that they’d touched on “amount” vs. “number”: they did include “less” vs. “fewer”, but surely more people confuse those than say “foment” when they mean “ferment”, right? (Another good one is “that” vs. “which”, but it’s been long enough that I don’t remember if that one was in there or not.) I thought it was an enjoyable enough read, anyway, and it could be a useful guide if you knead too fined a whirred and don’t no witch won two ewes.

Rating: B-

Have You Eaten Grandma?

This is another grammar book (or grandma book?). It covers a variety of aspects of the English language and how to use it correctly, such as the punctuation missing from the title. It even mentions some of the differences between British and American usage, and does so without being condescending to American English, which is refreshing. The writing style is entertaining enough, but unfortunately, I barely remember any details about this one, which I at least partly attribute to checking it out at the same time as the previous one and reading them right in a row; the two books kind of blurred together. So, uh…Gyles Brandreth and Lynne Truss OTP?

Rating: B-

With that, that’s all for now. Stay tuned for more reviews and other things later in the year. (Here’s hoping it won’t take me so long to get the next batch out….)

Quick multi-review #3: Various Oz books and other books, December 2021-February 2022

This will just keep being a theme, won’t it? Yes, we have another couple months’ worth of library books to review, and I just keep getting farther behind on these, but better late than never.

Various Oz books

I’m lumping these all together because despite being different stories, they’re all part of the same series and are similar enough that I’d be repeating myself describing the general plot beats. I had read at least the middle two of these before and possibly the first one, but it had been long enough that I didn’t really remember much about them before reading them again. And if there’s one thing that reading these all in a row made me realize, it’s that as an adult, I have rather lost my patience with the Oz books’ style of storytelling. They all kind of feel like the same book with a slightly different cast: some new character, possibly with a sidekick, joins up with an old one, or possibly multiple, ends up in Oz somehow, then this motley crew meanders around through various locations that are random and quirky and never mentioned again, gets into peril and then out again almost as quickly, eventually stumbles on the main conflict, confronts the villain and figures out how to get them to back down, then everyone goes home. Sometimes the main plot thread comes early on, and sometimes the story just kind of putzes around for a while before eventually settling. Even L. Frank Baum got sick of the series after a while, and he wrote the books. He’d never intended to write 14 of them and only did so because people kept asking for more Oz books, and honestly, it shows. If I made a regular habit of reading and reviewing these books, I might have to have specific sections to point out common plot elements like Troy Steele does with his Goosebumps reviews on Blogger Beware. Anyway, let’s discuss each book and its differences and unique parts individually.

Tik-Tok of Oz

(#8)

This is about a malcontent queen with delusions of conquest, a new girl from the good old USA who ends up in Oz, and the Shaggy Man, whose brother must be rescued from the Nome King, probably the most recurring villain of the series. (For whatever reason, LFB chose to spell it that way instead of the more typical “Gnome King”.) The titular Tik-Tok is a clockwork man, a loyal companion of the main characters since book 3 (Ozma of Oz) and basically a robot before the word “robot” even existed. (Seriously. Tik-Tok of Oz was written in 1914, and “robot” was coined in 1920 by a Czech playwright.) Oddly enough, Tik-Tok isn’t any more important to the story than any of the other characters, despite the book being named after him, and in fact, he doesn’t even show up until about a quarter of the way through the book. I guess it’s better than if this series were set in modern times, in which case “Tik-Tok of Oz” would refer to Ozma using her magic mirror to play 1-minute videos. The chapter titles are all alliterative, which doesn’t happen in the other three books in the series that I’ll be discussing, and the evil Nome King gets deposed by his much more reasonable second-in-command, which becomes a plot point later in the series.

Rating: C

Rinkitink of Oz

(#10)

This is about an obese king and his sour-tempered goat companion trying to regain his kingdom after it was conquered by foreign invaders. Despite the impression that the book may give, they don’t do it by weaponizing his annoying laugh. (Rinkitink is found annoying in-universe as well, though mainly by the goat, who is grumpy anyway. Well, he’s a jolly guy if nothing else, but I must say, he annoyed me too.) This book actually has some plot continuity from the previous one, where the new Nome King is Kaliko, the assistant crowned at the end of Tik-Tok of Oz, but for some reason, he seems to be way more of a jerk in this book than he was in the other one. Well, whatever. This actually wasn’t even originally an Oz book; the writer pretty much had to tack on an ending with Dorothy and friends to give it more mass appeal. For that matter, it was formerly titled “Rinkitink in Oz”, which makes more sense anyway. It’s forgettable even for this series, though.

Rating: C

The Lost Princess of Oz

(#11)

This time, the main conflict happens immediately. Ozma, the ruler of Oz, has gone missing, along with several magic items from various people, so Dorothy and the others must find out who stole them and get the items and Ozma back, passing through various strange towns along the way, as one does. They confront the villain, rescue Ozma by at least two instances of pure dumb luck, and return the stolen magic items. Also, the bad guy is apparently a skilled enough wizard to imprison Ozma despite her being a powerful fairy, Ozma can’t do any magic to get out or at least let her friends know where she is, and nobody has any sort of security for keeping track of their magic items because Oz is supposedly a utopia where no permanent harm can befall anyone or anything despite it having issues with people like this book’s villain and the Nome King fairly frequently. I’m not asking for the world to be made darker and edgier, though that seems to be a pretty common theme in stories based on Oz (and is how we got the glorified fanfiction that is Wicked), but my goodness, the books could at least have some semblance of plot structure, character development, and conflict to overcome in a meaningful way. What they have now makes Saturday morning cartoons look deep and thoughtful.

Rating: C

The Royal Book of Oz

(#15)

This is the first of many Oz books that wasn’t written by L. Frank Baum, him having died after writing book 14. The series passed through various authors, but this one, along with the next few, was written by Ruth Plumly Thompson. So does she meet the standards set by the original writer, you may ask? Well, it seems to hit most of the same broad strokes as a typical Oz book, but Ms. Thompson apparently thought that for her first outing with the series, it would be good to give one of the main characters a completely new backstory that makes little sense (and I would honestly be surprised if it ever comes up again later in the series) and involves an underground country of bad Chinese stereotypes. The plot kicks off when Professor Wogglebug, previously mentioned but never appearing on screen, as he attempts to make a country-wide ancestry chart and, apparently a churlish fellow for one so educated, makes fun of the Scarecrow for seemingly not actually having any ancestry. Scarecrow follows the pole that he was hung on (not as bad as it sounds since he’s a scarecrow) all the way down to the depths of the world, finds out that he’s the lost emperor of a kingdom called the Silver Islands that is as I said, makes a new friend and advisor whose name he insists on mispronouncing, narrowly escapes being assassinated, and says “screw this crap” and goes back to Oz, leaving the advisor to rule the kingdom. Also, his friends try to find him and meet a knight who’s down on his luck, in addition to visiting the obligatory bizarre and dangerous towns that never come up again. Well, I’ll give Ruth credit where it’s due; the Scarecrow’s part of the plot was more coherent than the average Oz book, at least. The rest of it, however, wasn’t really any improvement, and her portrayal of the Silver Islanders and their culture was Plumly awkward. Not really the best start to the rest of the series, if you ask me.

Rating: C-

The Key to Rondo

This is, unsurprisingly, another middle-grade fantasy novel, written by Emily Rodda, pen name of Jennifer Rowe used for her children’s fiction. Emily Rodda, notably, wrote the Deltora Quest series, and she’s so well-known for them—at least from my personal experience—that whenever I see anything else by her, I tend to think “oh yeah, she wrote stuff other than Deltora”. (She also wrote Rowan of Rin and the Fairy Realm series, among others.) In this one, straight-laced Leo and his odd cousin Mimi end up together with a music box that’s been a family heirloom, and Mimi decides to break the rules of using it and wind it four times rather than the specified three, eventually leading to them releasing an evil sorceress from another world and following her into said world, to which the music box is a portal. They have various adventures within the world and can barely tell friend from foe until the climax approaches, when they must confront the Blue Queen and convince her to leave them and Mimi’s pet alone.

Now, this is another book that I’m pretty sure I read when I was younger but had almost forgotten about. I also hadn’t realized that it was the first of a trilogy; I suppose I’ll have to pick up the others later. I do have to wonder how they’ll deal with the villain in the other books, considering that Mimi accidentally revealed Leo’s name to her, allowing her to control him. That seems like a pretty big weakness to leave open. I also guessed a plot twist that I won’t spoil here, though I don’t know if that was purely on my own or due to lingering memories of reading it 10+ years ago. In any case, this one was decent.

Rating: B

The Story of English in 100 Words

Our designated nonfiction book for this set is one that discusses each of 100 English words, picked for being particularly noteworthy or relevant to the language as a whole, such as being the first written word that survived, the first thing named after a person, the most widely used modern coinage, etc. It involves a lot of etymology, history, and sometimes culture related to the word described. And…that’s about it. It was pretty interesting, I thought. Obviously, linguists and other word nerds will get the most out of this one, particularly people interested in historical linguistics, but one could make a reasonable argument for anyone who’s into plain history or anthropology to pick it up as well.

Rating: B

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #1: The Sword of Summer

We’ve saved the best for last this time. This is the first of another series by Rick Riordan, that one guy known for writing a lot of middle-grade fantasy series based on various world mythologies in a modern setting (and Daughter of the Deep). His best-known one is presumably Percy Jackson and the Olympians, or at least, I’m old enough to remember when that series was his only one and still hadn’t been finished. While that, as well as two of his other series, are based on Greek mythology, Magnus Chase is based on Norse mythology, probably the second-most commonly used in popular media after Greek (in a close contest with Egyptian mythology, which he has also covered), though one character from the Percy Jackson series actually does show up in this and is the cousin of the main character. Compared to Percy Jackson the series, Magnus Chase seems to be “older”, with more overt violence and bloodshed (well, those Vikings were pretty brutal), as well as permanent character deaths. And compared to Percy Jackson the character, Magnus Chase starts out older, more bitter about the state of the world, in a decidedly less stable living situation, and with much less capability for the whole hero business. He is living on the streets when he gets attacked by a fire giant, finds out that two of his fellow homeless people are actually a dwarf and an elf, dies, and goes to Valhalla. Okay, so not all deaths are permanent. There, he meets a Valkyrie who’s a Muslim girl (the absurdity of which is lampshaded), they and the rest of their band of rogues have to run for it, and they get into various misadventures, meet various gods and other mythological figures, and eventually confront the evil wolf Fenris, then get set up for the next book.

Now, Rick Riordan’s characters are probably his strongest point, but I didn’t feel like the cast in this was quite as endearing as Percy and his crew. One can draw clear parallels between many of the characters and their Hellenic counterparts; Magnus is obviously like Percy, the narrator and primary male protagonist who gets abruptly thrust into this world of myths; Samirah is like Annabeth, the primary female protagonist and designated snarky potential future love interest who takes no crap; Blitzen and Hearthstone are kind of like Grover split into two characters with their own goals and interests; and I guess the other characters are like the other characters, who are less important but still at least somewhat so. As with the other series, most of the characters who aren’t mythical creatures are demigods, Magnus being the son of Frey, god of summer and a pretty chill dude, and Samirah being the daughter of Loki, malevolent trickster and decidedly not chill dude. Actually, I’m pretty sure that Loki is even more of a villain in this series than he was in the myths (or the Marvel comic universe, for that matter); from what I know about Norse mythology, he got kind of a raw deal; the worst thing he did was the whole mistletoe incident, which still doesn’t seem evil enough to warrant being tortured with snake venom for all of eternity. As for the plot line, it’s fine. The universe is pretty much out to get our young Viking don’t-wannabe and his friends the whole time, but I guess it works out in the end. We can be glad that we’re reading about all these trials and tribulations and not experiencing them. The overwhelming majority of fictional worlds I would never want to live in, and while this one isn’t the worst, it certainly isn’t better than real life either. Also, on a side note, I take issue with the implication that there’s no such thing as an interesting grammar lecture. Heck, most of the nonfiction books that I’ve reviewed on here are basically that in written form. Anyway, this one was pretty good.

Rating: B+

Quick multi-review #2: Various library books, November-December 2021

Here’s another round of books. There are some similarities between this group and the last one, but there are clearly some differences as well.

Magic by the Lake

It’s another Edward Eager book, and while I didn’t like it quite as much as the last one, it’s still okay. This is actually a sequel to Half Magic, with the same characters but a different source of magic. This time, they’re taking a beach vacation of sorts, when they wish that the whole lake would be magical, get more than they bargained for, and meet a talking turtle who begrudgingly helps them figure the magic out. They go on various adventures, most of them related to bodies of water and the surrounding environments, such as being on a pirate ship and a desert island, getting turned into turtles, almost getting stuck at the South Pole (well, snow and ice are forms of water), and so on. Honestly, for an adventure fantasy, I kind of feel like it it could have been a bit more adventurous. Somebody made a poorly-thought-through wish near the beginning that the whole lake would be magical and ended up having to take it back before things got out of control, but I almost wish they’d kept that and picked up the story from there. That’s not even the only time somebody makes a wish without considering the consequences fully, which is weird considering these are the same kids that have already dealt with magic before, so they should have gained some genre savviness. I guess genre-savvy characters are pretty rare in stories that involve making wishes anyway, maybe because if they were too sensible and logical, there might not be much of a story. It’s also worth noting that in both this book and its predecessor, Jane uses the magic in the lamest way of any of the kids despite being the oldest. Seriously, you have a magic item that grants you wishes, and the best you can come up with is “make my siblings stop annoying me” and “I want to be a few years older”? And she becomes basically a completely different person in both cases, too. Maybe Jane should be checked for DID, or at least DCSS (Deficiency of Contribution to Story Syndrome). Anyway, like I said, this book was fine, but I liked Half Magic and the last book I reviewed by the same author better.

Rating: C+

Scat

Another Carl Hiaasen book, this one involving some endangered panthers. Oddly enough, though, I feel like the animals don’t actually figure into the story that much here; they’re still important to it, especially in the climax, but they almost feel more like a means to an end rather than the end itself, like a thing that indirectly makes a lot of the rest of the story happen. In the rest of the story, there’s the kid protagonist, whose name I don’t remember; his parents, who are mainly there because of his love for them, but his dad comes back from a war missing an arm, and his attempts to empathize with such a condition end up being important later; the villains, who in this case are some shady businessmen trying to drill for oil illegally but interact surprisingly little with the main characters and are still way less evil than the one from Chomp was; a slacker of a kid from the same class, who makes his debut by talking about zits and eating a pencil; and last but not least, the stern teacher of the class, whose conflict with the aforementioned slacker and her subsequent disappearance during a field trip kicks off the main plot. And no, he didn’t do anything to harm her as revenge, but the main character spends a good amount of time trying to untangle what really did happen, and…well, read the book yourself, I guess. That seems to be the main part of this story, actually: interactions between characters, as well as their development, such as the one kid gaining some social skills and the teacher turning out to be not such a bad person once you get to know her. Plus some adventure and perhaps a bit of mystery. It works well enough for me. I enjoyed this book more than Chomp, though a lot of that was because the antagonists weren’t quite so distractingly loathsome. It seemed like it weaved quite a few plot elements together successfully, and it certainly kept you guessing. That’s not always a good thing, mind you, but everything turned out fine in the end. It was a fun read.

Rating: B

Parsifal’s Page

This is a book by Gerald Morris based on the King Arthur mythos, though not with most of the typical knights of the Round Table. The story is about a young boy, the titular page, and his travels with a bumbling knight wannabe named Parsifal whom he tries to train to be a more typical knight. They get into various adventures and misadventures along the way and eventually find some meaningful goals for themselves. Honestly, I’m having trouble remembering much of the overall plot of this one. I don’t read a lot of King Arthur stories, so I wasn’t familiar with many of the references, and the story felt a bit disjointed at times. It was fine, though.

Rating: C

Between You and Me

This is a book about grammar, as well as the author’s experiences with it. (The full title is Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, and it’s by Mary Norris, not to be confused with the various other books, albums, and whatnot with that title.) In each section, the writer talks about a grammar, punctuation, or spelling rule and provides anecdotes about how it’s come up in her life, often in her experience as an editor. Actually, the book seems to be mostly anecdotes; it passes itself off as a grammar book, and it’s in the 400 section at the library, but it felt to me more like 20% grammar lessons and 80% personal stories. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if you go in expecting it to be like a textbook or encyclopedia, even a casual one, you may be surprised. She at least makes an effort to have a sense of humor about it all, too, so it’s a decent read.

Rating: B-

The Starless Sea

The last book in today’s batch comes from Erin Morgenstern, which is a rather good name for a fantasy writer. This is actually the first book that I’ve discussed on here that I didn’t finish. In fact, I barely even started it. It wasn’t bad, exactly, but something about the writing style made it strangely hard to maintain focus on it. It was just a lot of setting the scene, a lot of stuff with no context, and a lot of what I can only describe as “trying to write pretty”. I’ll admit that leading off a story—or close to it—with an anecdote about a person getting their tongue burned off doesn’t give me the best first impression of it either, but that wasn’t my main issue with it. It wasn’t a case of starting in medias res (like, for example, the first book of The Seventh Tower does), either. The pacing and structure just felt odd, kind of slow and rambling but jumping around a lot at the same time. It felt like the author wanted to write poetry rather than a novel, which is fine if that’s what they’re interested in, but like I said, I had a hard time even staying focused on the story long enough to get past the first three chapters or so. As a result, I didn’t read enough to be able to rate it fairly.

Rating: Unrated

Quick multi-review #1: Various children’s fantasy and other books, September-October 2021

This time, I’m doing something a bit different. I’m giving my thoughts about multiple works of media that aren’t connected (like the three Bravely Default games were) but don’t really seem necessary to do a full-length review for. (I’d consider calling them “quickies”, but besides having one inappropriate meaning, the term is already in use by another person, albeit one whom my reviews have been somewhat inspired by.) These may be for multiple different forms of media that I consumed around the same time in the future, but this time around, they’re all books. To be exact, we have five of them: three children’s fantasy, one child/teen fiction, and one nonfiction. (For anyone questioning why I consume so much media that is intended for a younger age group, may I direct your attention to this image. It’s talking about TV shows rather than books, but it’s still very relevant.) So, without further ado…

Seven-Day Magic

This is a book by Edward Eager, who also wrote Half Magic, among other things. It follows a group of five children from two families as they get a book from the library and discover that it has magical powers and can grant wishes. They use this to explore a few different other fantasy worlds and points of interest, culminating in having to return the book to the library, as one does, after a conflict that nearly results in disaster. It was all right. I have no real complaints, but it was nothing special either. I can’t even remember most of what happened, which should say something. I guess there is one part where they actually crossover with the world of Half Magic, and that was probably the weakest part of the book, honestly, mainly because the one wish they made that got half-granted ended up turning out really awkward. There was also a bit where one of the kids got to see their grandmother when she was much younger and a schoolteacher. It was harmless enough entertainment, in any case.

Rating: Rating: B-

Philippa Fisher’s Fairy Godsister

Another wish-granting story, this one by Liz Kessler. Those sure do seem to come up a lot in young readers’ fantasy, don’t they? This one involves a downtrodden girl getting a fairy godmother, or as she prefers to say, a fairy godsister since the fairy in question presents as being about the same age. The fairy starts off as rude, condescending, and disparaging of humans, especially Philippa, but eventually learns to value her as a friend and becomes nicer. Her first two wishes are for less dorky parents and more popularity, and I called what the third wish would be well before it actually came up because it’s basically what always happens in stories about getting three wishes. Also, the fairy has to complete her mission within the span of about two weeks, since in this world, when fairies come to the human world, their lifespan is tied to something in nature, such as a butterfly, tree, or whatever, and in this case, she entered in the form of a daisy, which can only survive a couple weeks once picked. Okay, did nobody higher up in the fairy world ever realize how terrible of an idea this is? Daisy (the fairy, named for obvious reasons) has to make Philippa happy and become a more mature and trustworthy person within a short timespan, or she freaking dies. Seriously. No pressure or anything, right? There’s even a mention early in the book of a coworker who took the form of some kind of bug and got squashed before even being able to grant any wishes. You’d think that even one accident like that would prompt them to rethink how they handle wish-granting and trips into the human world. Also, Philippa can only make her wishes when shooting stars happen, which makes the time crunch even worse.

I guess it wasn’t that bad of a book, though. My favorite part was probably the bit at the end with the talent show when Philippa finally accepts herself. And even though the basic premise is a pretty tired old trope, this story is at least a somewhat interesting new take on it. I just feel like it raised too many questions. Pretty much all fantasy requires at least some suspension of disbelief, but some require more than others, and I feel like this one is more toward the higher end.

Rating: C+

Beyond Platform 13

This is a sequel to The Secret of Platform 13, written by Eva Ibbotson and enjoyed by me and others years ago. This book seems to have been done by a different author after Eva herself died. (It’s okay; she lived to be 85.) And it shows, honestly. The book involves a couple of the protagonists from the original book along with a new girl who wasn’t supposed to be there trying to save their magical island from the harpies, who were merely the law enforcement of the island in the first book but became evil in this one. (Any resemblance to real-life events is strictly coincidental.) They meet various fantastic creatures, some new faces and some familiar, and eventually save the day.

Now, the original Secret of Platform 13 was a pretty good book, I thought. I don’t know if it was my favorite Eva Ibbotson novel, but it was definitely a higher-tier one (unlike Which Witch, which [heh] I personally wasn’t big on and find very overrated), and most likely the book that got me interested in her as a writer in the first place. The sequel, on the other hand…well, it didn’t really measure up. It wasn’t bad, but it just seemed like it was missing something. Maybe it’s because we’d already experienced the world and characters before, and this didn’t really add anything new nor use the same material in an interesting way or answer any questions from it. Maybe the basic plot didn’t make enough sense; the harpies not only turned evil seemingly out of nowhere, but most of them basically apologize and become good again at the end, even more abruptly than their initial alignment change, and one of them actually turned out to be good anyway and not involved with the villains. Maybe the replacement author just doesn’t write as well as Ms. Ibbotson. I don’t know. It’s okay enough entertainment if you’re just picking it up at the library, but if you weren’t big on the original book, this certainly won’t change your mind, and if you loved the original book, you might find this one a bit underwhelming.

Rating: C

Chomp

This is a novel by Carl Hiaasen, famous for writing Hoot and Skinny Dip, among other things, and unlike the first three books on our list, it’s not fantasy. It takes place in Florida, as many of his books do, and it’s about a kid and his dad who work at a sort of wildlife shelter and a reality TV star who has a show about surviving in the wild that is actually completely fake. The book follows their adventures as Derek Badger (Mr. TV Dude, going by a stage name) butts heads with Wahoo (the primary child protagonist, and victim of a way sillier name than Derek), his friend Tuna (who has it even worse in that regard), and his father Mickey (apparently the only main character in here with a normal name). The early parts of the book are full of slapstick as the father-son duo more or less rent out their animals to Derek for use in the show and, along with Derek’s beleaguered assistant, try desperately to keep him from seriously hurting himself by virtue of being hilariously clueless about how to interact with the natural world. Movie star life, putting oneself in dangerous situations, and a negative Wisdom modifier do not go well together. Then the weather turns bad and they start having some real difficulties, and everyone has to do their best to cope with adversity. So the story is a pretty entertaining romp.

And then the true villain shows up: Tuna’s abusive father, who managed to track her down and is willing to threaten and assault people to get her back, and he darn near ruins the second half of the book. I get that a story usually needs to have conflict to be interesting, but it already had that. Was babysitting a prima donna in the Florida wilderness not enough conflict, or what? The back of the book advertised Derek Badger dealing with the dangers of nature in Florida, with a lot of help from the other characters, so why is over a third of the book spent trying not to get shot by a psycho who isn’t even mentioned in the synopsis? And unlike Derek, The Demon Dad has scenes that are 100% serious; there were many opportunities for him to experience some animal-related injuries of his own (and he would have deserved them way more than Derek; that guy was an idiot and kind of a jerk, but he wasn’t evil), but nothing like that ever happens. There is a sort of final showdown involving Derek coming out of the woods half-crazed and assisting in the capture of Demon Dad (I can’t be bothered to remember the guy’s actual name), but that’s about it. This is one of those books where most of the back cover is taken up by comments from critics rather than anything actually relevant to the book (as if I give a crap what the critics think), and at least one of them didn’t seem to have actually read the book, or at least not remembered it correctly, since they mentioned an iguana falling from a tree and killing someone. There is a part where an iguana falls out of a tree onto a person’s head, but it explicitly doesn’t kill them. It’s actually one of the first things that happens in the book; Mickey gets beaned with a lizard from above. During the second half of the book, I kept waiting for another iguana to land on the gunman and be fatal this time, as a call-back to the first scene of the book, but it never happened, disappointingly enough. The bad guy did get put in jail at the end, but honestly, it would have been so much more satisfying for him to get munched by a crocodile or something.

Rating: C

Verbivore’s Feast

For our final entry in this round, we have a nonfiction book. This one is by Chrysti M. Smith, and it’s about etymology, the study of the history of words and the origins of individual words. (Not to be confused with entomology, the study of insects. People who don’t know the difference have a history of bugging me.) There’s no plot, story, or even continuous narration to speak of here; it’s simply an alphabetical list of a selection of words and where they came from or are said to have come from. It was a fun read, and it was interesting to learn about the historical origins of a bunch of different words. I do have one complaint, though: Why weren’t there any words that started with Z? It seems like a glaring omission. It wouldn’t have stood out so much if one or more other letters hadn’t had any words listed either, but every other letter, including the other rare ones, had at least one entry. It felt like I’d skipped a page or two. Maybe it’s just an OCD thing, but surely Chrysti could have included, I don’t know, “zounds”, “zwieback”, “zenith”, “zany”, or something. (Also, I have to say, that’s the only time I’ve ever seen “Chrysti” spelled that way. Another unusual name?) In any case, probably a lot of people would not find this book interesting, but I thought it was pretty fascinating, and there’s a sequel as well with more words.

Rating: B

Personal interviews for queer pride, round 2

Well, I almost made it in time for June this time. For those of you unfamiliar with this, June is queer pride month, and back in 2018, I did personal interviews with people of various queer identities about themselves and how they fit into the world. This year, I’m doing it again.

1.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender, sexual/romantic orientation, and pronouns?

Sam: I’m male, I go by he/him pronouns, and I think I’m pansexual or possibly just gay.

TMG: Presumably pan- or homoromantic as well?

Sam: Yes, I’ve always been unsure about my sexuality and I could never find a label for it, but I settled on pansexual because while I’ve never felt attracted to a woman, I haven’t completely ruled out the fact that it could happen in the future.

TMG: Fair enough. When and how did you discover your identity? How old are you now?

Sam: I’m 16 and I can’t remember when I discovered my identity. I think it just happened one day and I thought ‘Huh. I’m gay.’

TMG: Heh. Seems reasonable to me. What would you tell a young person who is queer (or gay or pansexual) or thinks they might be? Or isn’t entirely sure about what category of people they’re attracted to?

Sam: Don’t worry about labels. Your sexuality is defined by you, and no one else should decide your sexuality for you. Definitely do your research to see if you can identify with a label, but if you can’t, don’t worry. Take your time, and remember that your sexuality is fluid and probably won’t remain the same throughout your life.

TMG: It does seem like sexuality is one of those things that isn’t nearly as cut-and-dried as a lot of people think it is.

Sam: I would definitely agree. It’s so fluid and likely to change that I don’t understand society’s obsession with hastily labelling everything.

TMG: How has being queer affected relationships with your family, friends, and community?

Sam: I haven’t come out to my family because I’m unsure as to how they will react, and I was really eager to come out to my friends that I forced myself to do it and I regret that. It hasn’t really changed any of my relationships, but I definitely feel like people are judging me from behind.

TMG: Aw. That stinks. Have you found other people who are safe to be yourself around?

Sam: Not really. I have trust issues that stop me from being as open about my sexuality with those I feel safe around because I don’t want to hurt them and I don’t want them to hurt me.

TMG: Darn. I hope you can find a good place eventually.

Sam: I hope so too. But I don’t want to rush anything. I’d rather take my time getting to know people rather than blindly assuming they’ll support me no matter what.

TMG: Yeah, that would probably be best. Especially if you’ve been burned before. Well, has being queer affected any other parts of your life?

Sam: Not really, no; I guess it has helped me cope with my insecurities in some places because I can pinpoint why I’m feeling certain ways about my sexuality. But it doesn’t really change anything else about my life.

TMG: Has your mental state been any different now compared to before you realized your identity? Aside from the increase in trust issues, anyway.

Sam: I think it’s slightly improved now that it’s not building up inside of me, but my mental health has always been bad due to issues in my life.

TMG: Bummer. Well, I refer you to my statement three comments ago. What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

Sam: There isn’t enough representation. It’s always either the feminine gay man or the masculine gay woman, and I wish there were more attention drawn to other members of the LGBTQ+ community, e.g. asexuals, pansexuals, bisexuals, etc.

TMG: I’d have to agree there. It’s like, just being gay is too mainstream now, especially if you fit the stereotypes.

Sam: Exactly! I’ve always been told that I don’t act like I’m gay and that I don’t come across as gay, which just goes to show how stereotyped gay people are in media.

TMG: Well, maybe you simply don’t wear enough glitter.

Sam: :’D Probably, yes.

TMG: At least there have been some nonbinary, asexual, and other characters in recent cartoons like Steven Universe and She-Ra, I guess. Still, one can only hope for more representation the more awareness there is.

Sam: Oh yeah, there’s definitely SOME representation. I just wish it was as mainstream as the stereotypical gay or lesbian.

TMG: Yeah. I guess TV is bad about stereotypes anyway. Remember, kids, don’t look to Hollywood for an accurate picture of reality.

TMG: Following up on that, what do you think about queer fashion and style?

Sam: The best.

TMG: Heh.

Sam: People like Billy Porter just show much influence LGBTQ+ people have had on the fashion industry.

TMG: I’ll admit I don’t know who that is.

TMG: It’s weird…I feel like as annoying as the stereotypes are, I’ve seen a lot of patterns in my online and in-person queer groups, meeting people, and such.

TMG: Honestly, I don’t have nearly enough Pride gear. I have a rainbow flag D&D logo shirt and a black ring, and that’s it. No other rainbowy things, no asexual flag clothing…what am I even doing with my life?

Sam: I don’t have anything; I haven’t been out of the house for a while due to the current environment.

TMG: Makes sense. I got the shirt online during a fundraiser. What does pride month mean to you?

Sam: Celebration, activism, and remembrance.

TMG: Makes sense. Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Sam: Not really, no. I think we pretty much covered everything.

TMG: Okay. Well, thanks for your time.

Sam: Likewise 🙂

2.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender, sexual/romantic orientation, and pronouns?

Morgan: I’m non-binary, demisexual panromantic, and my pronouns change based on if I’m masc, fem, or androgynous.

TMG: Makes sense. So, does that mean that you’re also genderfluid? Or is it just based on presentation?

Morgan: I identify as non-binary, although I do switch between masc, fem, and androgynous.

TMG: Okay. That does sound like genderfluidity to me, but hey, I’m not one to nitpick people’s labels and sense of self. And that’s still under the nonbinary umbrella. When and how did you discover your identity? How old are you now?

Morgan: I figured out I was demisexual around 3 years ago while researching sexualities for fun. I figured out I’m non-binary about a year and a half ago while talking to a friend about genders. I’m 19 now.

TMG: All right. Now that I think about it, do you also prefer different names to go with the pronouns? Or different variants of the same name?

Morgan: Nope. I go by Morgan no matter what.

TMG: Okay. I guess that is a pretty gender-neutral name.

Morgan: Yee.

TMG: What would you tell a young person who is queer or thinks they might be?

Morgan: That within this community, you’ll find a family no matter what. And don’t worry about not coming out to people about your gender/sexuality if you don’t think you’re ready.

TMG: Nice.

Morgan: And that it’s okay if they change their identity multiple times while finding themselves.

TMG: Yeah, labels and definitions can definitely change as one finds new information. Has being queer affected relationships with your family, friends, and community much?

Morgan: I’ve lost a few friends after coming out, and I just came out to my family as non-binary a couple weeks ago.

TMG: I hope your family is supportive. That’s a lousy thing for your friends to do to you. Do you think being queer has affected any other parts of your life?

Morgan: Not really.

TMG: Fair enough. How is your mental state right now? How has it been previously? Has it changed from before you realized your identity?

Morgan: Right now it’s a little better than before I came out. But since realizing my identity, it’s been declining.

TMG: That’s rough. Because of the rocky friendships?

Morgan: Some of it, yeah, but most because of past trauma.

TMG: Ah. I hope you can get some help working through that. That’s no fun for anyone, queer or not.

Morgan: Yeah.

TMG: Well, what do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

Morgan: I don’t really watch much, TBH. I stick to the same few shows, and they don’t really have much LGBTQ+ representation. It’s sad to see because it’ll get mentioned like twice then just not talked about ever again.

TMG: Yeah, that’s always annoying. Especially when you compare any given queer identity to other demographics that are comparably common. Like, from what I’ve heard, being asexual is more common than being a redhead, and you see plenty of those.

Morgan: Yeah. The representation I see the most is being a lesbian, which I believe is hurtful for the lesser known sexualities.

TMG: Apparently, the acronym is “LLLLLLL”.

Morgan: Right?

TMG: What do you think about queer fashion and style?

Morgan: It’s amazing. Every sexuality/gender expression has a distinct style, and it’s cool.

TMG: (Well, I guess that would be an initialism, not an acronym, but whatever.)

Morgan: Lol.

TMG: Yeah, it seems like quite a few queer people have a distinct…non-vanilla style, shall we say.

Morgan: Yeah.

TMG: The weird thing is that you still see patterns with that. Like, have you ever noticed how many queer people, especially if they’re nonbinary, have part of their hair long and part of it shaved?

Morgan: And with lesbians, it’s either short hair, flannel, snapbacks, or all of them.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

Morgan: It’s a month where I can show how prideful I am of my identity

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Morgan: Not that I can think of.

TMG: Okay. Well, thanks for your time.

3.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender, sexual/romantic orientation, and pronouns?

Felicia: I’m gay (I like girls); I guess lesbian would be the term, but I’ve always identified and preferred the term gay more. I also just recently have been discovering that I am non-binary, and I think I have narrowed it down to demi-girl. My pronouns are she/her/hers for now, but I might add on they/them in the future.

TMG: Okay. Well, I feel like you’re in good company with a demigender.

Felicia: Nice! Are you also demigender too?

TMG: Yep. I’ve been calling myself demimale/demiguy since shortly after I found out that it was a thing, I think. It’s like…to most people, I’m just male because it’s what I’m used to, but I’m pretty apathetic about gender and would honestly rather not have to be concerned about gender or physical characteristics associated with it at all (give me a gender-neutral robot body any day), but I also don’t care enough to make a fuss over it.

TMG: People: (assigns me a gender) Me: “Uh, sure, let’s go with that.”

Felicia: That’s really cool. It’s nice to know another another demigender person. Personally for me, I’ve been raised as a girl, but I’ve never liked dressing in girls’ clothing. I’ve always thought it was because I was always active, and camp t-shirts and shorts were better for those activities, but I recently discovered that it was more than that. It’s kind of like what you said. People would call me a girl, and in my head I would be like: you’re right, but you’re also wrong. Similar to the phrase “close but no cigar”.

TMG: Seems reasonable to me.

Felicia: So right now on most days, I tend to go for a more neutral look. Larger unisex t-shirt and/or a sweatshirt, longer guys’ board shorts or athletic shorts or loose sweatpants. I also sometimes like to pull my hair back in a ponytail and wear a backwards snapback as well. Lately I have been trying to bind as well, but that has been off and on. And then I also have a pair of red and black skate shoes that I really like to wear.

TMG: Sure. Whatever is comfortable is usually good.

Felicia: Exactly. I’ve also just recently realized that I might be demi-sexual. I feel like I need to know the person first in order to want to date them.

TMG: It kind of weirds me out that the apparent majority of people don’t care about knowing a person before dating and/or sleeping with them.

Felicia: I can see a girl and think, “Whoa, she’s pretty.” But to gain any sort of feelings, I feel like I would need to talk with her first. And even if I do talk to her, there is no guarantee that I will gain those type of feelings.

TMG: That seems pretty normal to me. But…apparently it isn’t…?

Felicia: Apparently it isn’t. Apparently people would sleep with other people and know that just by looking at another person for the first time.

TMG: Sounds fake, but okay.

Felicia: Yeah. The only thing I have questions about for that is that I still get crushes on celebrities. But as usual, I need to see how they act and their personality to get that crush.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity? How old are you now?

Felicia: I was 18 when I came out as gay to my friends. But I actually started seriously questioning when I was 16-17, and I told my sister that around November of 2017. I am 20 years old now. I first discovered that I was gay because of Lauren Jauregui. She was my first celebrity crush that I actually realized what was happening.

TMG: I see. What would you tell a young person who is queer or thinks they might be?

Felicia: That it is okay not to know. It is okay to take your time and just sit with it for while. Try and allow yourself to like who you like without labeling anything first. That is what helped me a lot when I was questioning. Also, give yourself time to come out. Come out when you feel ready, and there is no pressure to do so. Make sure you are safe and continue to do so after you tell your parents. It is okay to not say anything to them if you don’t want to.

TMG: Well said. How has being queer affected relationships with your family, friends, and community?

Felicia: Thank you. I have been very lucky and me being gay hasn’t negatively affected my relationships. When I told my friends I was gay, most of them already knew and were just waiting for me to realize it and tell them. For the ones that didn’t know, they were amazing about it and really accepting. It actually made me feel closer to my friends when I told them. My sister was the first person I came out to, and she has also been an amazing person to talk to about it as well. When my mom and dad knew, it was okay. My mom wasn’t exactly happy or excited about it, but she wasn’t mad either. It was more of, “Well okay. Thanks for telling me. Let’s figure this out together.” sort of thing. A year later though, she has really learned a lot, and it has been a lot better. One time, she came home from the store and randomly gave me a rainbow-colored water bottle and a rainbow bandana. I was really happy when she did that.

TMG: That’s good.

Felicia: She also sent up stuff to me in college that I needed, and randomly included rainbow socks in there as well. I really appreciated that when I saw it.

TMG: Nice. I could go for some rainbow socks.

Felicia: Yes! Those socks are fun.

TMG: Well, has your identity affected any other parts of your life?

Felicia: It has actually made college easier for me, at least this year. I was able to live in housing specifically designed for LGBTQ+ people and their allies to live in, so I was able to make friends easily. It was really nice because I didn’t have to worry about if I was accepted or not. I had a built in support system.

TMG: Oh, cool. It’s good to have people around who understand you.

Felicia: Exactly. I felt a lot more comfortable, too, because most of my friends were part of that community at college. In high school, most of our friend group turned out to be queer as well, so it wasn’t that big of a change.

TMG: How is your mental state? How has it been previously? Is it any different now from before you realized your identity?

Felicia: My mental state currently is up and down. Figuring out that I was non-binary and now maybe demi-sexual takes its toll, but at the same time also really helps it. It is really amazing to finally discover yourself after a long while of questioning who you are. That was extremely noticeable in high school. I used to be very stressed out and worried before I came out as gay because I was really confused and scared to let people know. After I came out, I felt a lot more relaxed and happy that people knew. It felt like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders and I was finally free.

TMG: Nice. I’m glad that you’re feeling that sense of freedom.

Felicia: Yeah, it is a nice feeling to have.

TMG: What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

Felicia: It is okay. There are some shows and movies that have good representation, but I feel like most of them don’t do that job well. It is also mostly about men liking men or women liking women. And even then, it is not that healthy of a relationship, or people are cheating, or they are getting killed, or they are breaking up. There should be a lot more movies and shows that also include other identities like people who are bi, or pansexual, or trans. Or people who are asexual or aromantic. And have all those portrayed in healthy positive ways. It is nice to have some representation, but I feel like it could be way better.

TMG: Agreed. What do you think about queer fashion and style?

Felicia: I haven’t looked a lot into the fashion of queer people, but I think people should be able to wear what they want to wear without judgement. There shouldn’t be labels or boxes that people have to fit into.

TMG: That’s fair. It seems like there are some stereotypes associated with it, like gay men being really interested in fashion.

Felicia: I’ve noticed that too. I think it depends on the person as well. Caring about fashion doesn’t necessarily make you gay the same way not caring about fashion doesn’t necessarily make you straight.

TMG: Yeah. What does pride month mean to you?

Felicia: Personally for me, it means a celebration of who you are. You get to be whoever you are without judgement or worry. Going to pride events is super fun because there is no judgement and the atmosphere is really positive.

TMG: Nice. I’ve actually never been to such an event, but I’d like to go (assuming this stupid virus would quit…).

Felicia: Yes! Once the virus is over, I hope you get the chance to go. They are really fun.

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Felicia: No, not really. You did a really good job of covering everything well. I would like to say thank you for the interview. It was really interesting, and I really liked the questions.

TMG: Well, thank you for answering and discussing them.

Felicia: Any time. I’m glad to help out.

4.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender, sexual/romantic orientation, and pronouns?

Matthew: I am a demisexual/demiromantic androgynous male (he/him)

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity? How old are you now?

Matthew: I only figured it out fully late last year, age 21. I’m 22 now! I’ve always known there was something different. I haven’t always been a ‘manly man’ who wanted to connect sexually with as many women as possible, as seems to be the thing for many men growing up. I had always figured there was something different, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Dating sites with swipe culture never really worked for me, as I never had that initial attraction to a person to swipe them—attraction only came when I got to know someone. As it happens, I was on a site where you can choose sexualities, and one woman had chosen demisexual. Curiously, I looked up what that term meant and found out that it describes me perfectly! And my sexuality has been far less confusing ever since.

TMG: Nice. What would you tell a young person who is queer or thinks they might be? It seems like demisexual/romantic people often get the “isn’t that just normal?” response a lot, too.

Matthew: I’d say do the same as what I did—research the ‘types’ of sexuality out there, and see if any of them fit! I’ve had that response a few times and just explained demisexuality as best as I can!

TMG: Has being queer affected relationships with your family, friends, and community?

Matthew: I haven’t really mentioned it to my family much. If I was gay, I would, but I feel like they don’t necessarily need to know about demisexuality! I’ve mentioned it to a few friends, and they’ve all been really accepting.

TMG: Well, that’s good. Has it affected other parts of your life any?

Matthew: I joined a Facebook group for demis, and it’s made me realise how not alone I am with my sexuality! It also helped me come to terms with why I failed in previous relationships. I was with a girl in my early teens and just didn’t have the romantic feelings toward her that she did toward me. Now I know that I wasn’t lousy, I was just demiromantic. My last relationship too fell apart for similar reasons, and I feel like I now would be better able to be in a relationship going forward now that I know fully about my demisexuality.

TMG: Nice. How is your mental state? How has it been previously? Has it changed from before you realized your identity?

Matthew: My mental state always fluctuates, but not necessarily as a result of sexuality! Realising my identity was like putting the final piece of the puzzle into place. It made me piece together why I had been ‘off’ in some relationships and not others, and why I was so different from other men in terms of sexual and romantic interest. It cleared the mist of confusion and made me realise that I’m different from your average person romantically, but not in a bad way! It’s also made me satisfied to be single, which I have been for almost two years now.

TMG: I wish I could be satisfied that way, heh. What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

Matthew: Being a satisfied single takes a lot of time, but you’ll get there! I think there’s a lot more LGBTQ+ representation in media, and that is a good thing. I think more work needs to be done to have more asexual/demisexual people in media, however, as they seem to continue to be underrepresented. I don’t think I’ve come across any character in any movie/show/book that’s openly demisexual. Asexuality is getting there—there was an asexual minor character of Sex Education series 2 who got some coverage—but there’s much room for improvement! There was a storyline about an openly asexual character in a soap opera here in the UK, but the character then went into a sexual relationship about a year later. (facepalm) I don’t think that helped represent the asexual community, as of course it’s not something that people grow out of!

TMG: That’s frustrating. Having asexual characters who “get over” their sexuality is, if you ask me, a good deal worse than not having them at all.

Matthew: Yes, I agree. It’s a bad portrayal of asexuality.

TMG: What do you think about queer fashion and style?

Matthew: I don’t do style and fashion at all, and it doesn’t really bother me, the fashion and style of others!

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

Matthew: Some people think being demi/ace should be part of the LGBT+ community, but I myself don’t feel like I’m part of it, so I am quite neutral as far as pride is concerned. If people want to celebrate who they are during pride month, then I’m cool with that! Pride festivals always seem to have a positive and upbeat atmosphere.

TMG: Well, demi and ace people are part of the community as far as I’m concerned. That’s what the A is for, after all.

Matthew: I never knew there was an A. Interesting.

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Matthew: I don’t. Thanks for the interview.

5.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender, sexual/romantic orientation, and pronouns?

Harriet: It’s a complicated answer, so ask for clarity if you need it.

TMG: That’s fine. (Complicated is more interesting…)

Harriet: I am a gray aro/panromantic asexual demigirl who practices ethical non-monogamy. My pronouns are she/her. My daughter so far identifies as nonbinary agender, and her pronouns are she/they.

TMG: Okay. When and how did you discover your identity? How old are you now?

Harriet: I discovered my identities in bits and pieces. I didn’t have words for all of it, but I knew I wasn’t your standard cishet person when I was 10. I started identifying as asexual about 10 years ago, nonbinary 5 years ago. Polyam about 10 years ago. I realized I was mostly aro about 2 years ago. I am 34 as of May 2020.

TMG: All right. I’m guessing that it didn’t take Ariana too long, being raised by you?

Harriet: Right. She’s been aware of the different gender identities her whole life. She’s too young to have decided a sexual orientation; at this stage in her life, everyone is gross and annoying. However, she started identifying as nonbinary spring 2019, but is only half out.

TMG: Seems like queer identities are often thought of as more of an “adult” thing, like there’s some minimum age threshold before you can identify as something other than cishet. Yet that’s the assumed default, even when a kid hasn’t even reached puberty yet, let alone become old enough for a relationship.

TMG: Also, I think that for some people, that “everyone is gross and annoying” stage never really goes away.

Harriet: Absolutely agree.

TMG: Hopefully, as more and more people become aware of identity spectrums, there will be more representation in children’s media and such.

Harriet: I tried to raise her knowing it was okay not to feel like her assigned gender and that whatever she decides romantic-wise will be allowed. She is aesthetically attracted to all genders as of right now. She has zero trouble switching between “that human is handsome” and “man that person is beautiful”

TMG: Hey, why not?

Harriet: I agree with her. Attractive people are attractive. Gender has no bearing on that

TMG: Yeah. I definitely see more women than men that are good-looking to me, but I think I’ve begun to realize in the last couple years that I can find men handsome/pretty too.

TMG: What would you tell a young person who is queer or thinks they might be? For Ariana, what if it was someone around your age or younger? Do you think their specific identity would matter in that case?

Harriet: That it’s okay not to know what you feel like at any age, that what society says is standard doesn’t have to be, and that there are a lot of places to feel safe to figure all of that out. Ariana says that if someone approached her at school and asked her what it was like being enby, she would say it’s mostly just a thing she feels. She knows she’s not one thing or another, and she’d tell them that not everyone will be okay with identifying as something other, so unless they have a super supportive mom like her, they should be careful.

TMG: Sure. Being safe is good. It’s kind of funny that, as harmful as it can be to make queer and especially nonbinary people out to be an “other” or “not a normal human”, I feel like there are at least some cases where it kind of backfires. “You mean I’m a mythical creature/divinity/cryptid? Cool!”

Harriet: Ariana and I are both dragons according to her. That’s how she answers kids at school who ask whether she’s a boy or girl. She has three answers: Yes. No. Dragon.

TMG: “Are you a boy or a girl?” “I’m a dragon!” “Uh, what’s in your pants?” “Your puny human mind couldn’t grasp the complexity!”

TMG: (Not that anyone should be asking a 10-year-old about their privates anyway…)

Harriet: Right. But they do insist she has to be a boy or girl, and she says “why?”

TMG: Gender is overrated.

Harriet: Agreed.

TMG: I’m not sure what I’d be. I feel like dragons are neat but overused. I have referred to myself as a dryad in some other contexts, though I don’t know if that fits. Mind you, Facebook is the only place on the Internet where I use my real name anyway.

Harriet: I feel that. Dragons are overused, but I put my own spin on them. I hoard people. I collect the broken and sad queer folx and make them part of my family. That’s my gold, my treasure.

TMG: The best hoard.

TMG: Anyway, I guess we kind of got off track, but that’s okay. How has being queer affected relationships with your family, friends, and community?

Harriet: Happens to the best of us, I suppose. It hasn’t affected anything with my family, but I’ve lost some friends.

Harriet: There’s a lot of erasure. “You’ll find the right person” or “I don’t understand how dating multiples isn’t cheating”.

TMG: That’s frustrating. Some people are narrow-minded…some are just clueless…

Harriet: My favorite was when my best friend noped out of our friendship because I was going on a date, and she kept saying maybe he’ll be the one I’ll sleep with, because you don’t know the future.

TMG: Jeez. And…dating someone but not planning to sleep with them was a friendship breaker??

Harriet: No, it was more like…she kept insisting that I would change my mind, and she was mad. I kept telling her that’s not how it works. “You never know”, she kept repeating. I said, but I do know? And that was the death of our 6-year friendship.

TMG: That’s annoying. Why is this so hard for people to figure out?

Harriet: No idea, to be honest.

TMG: Have any other aspects of your life been affected?

Harriet: I mean, my dating life gets complicated, but not really anything other than that. I have to be careful with the kid’s identity, as not everyone would approve of me letting her choose “this early”, but other than that, no.

TMG: Okay. How is your mental state? How has it been previously? Has it changed from before you realized your identity?

Harriet: I have an anxiety disorder and some depression, but it isn’t tied to my sexual or gender identity. It’s just inherently part of my general identity.

TMG: Sure. And the same is true for Ariana, isn’t it? Of course, the fact that the world sucks so much right now can’t be good for anyone’s mental health.

Harriet: Right. Same for the kid. No mental stress from being nonbinary.

TMG: Thank goodness for small favors, I suppose. What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

Harriet: There’s definitly not enough variety, and here and there, you’ll come across an ace person, and suddenly they can be cured! So what we have is false, and it’s terrible.

TMG: Yeah, and I feel like anything other than the L, G, and T especially gets passed aside. People really underestimate how common any given queer identity actually is, too.

Harriet: Absolutely. It’s very frustrating, as I am many other flavors of the community and never see myself. I’d really like to see an ace polycule functioning the way it should on TV/a movie. There’s not a lot of non-monogamy in media, less than any other part of the spectrum usually.

TMG: Yeah, it must be hard as a polyamorous person especially. Gay and trans people are pretty well-known and accepted (if you’re not human trash), and bisexual, asexual, and nonbinary people are at least getting a bit more prevalence, but how many positive poly relationships can you think of in media?

Harriet: There’s a few books, but not a lot in live media.

TMG: Like, it seems that that’s one identity that even people who accept many of the others don’t always support.

Harriet: Yes.

TMG: I’ll admit that I used to be a bit weirded out by it as well until I more recently realized…why?

Harriet: It’s the one identity of mine that gets ragged on the most.

TMG: People just don’t take the time to understand, I guess.

Harriet: It’s harder for me because of the ace/aro thing. People don’t understand why I would date at all, let alone date multiple people.

TMG: Because who the heck dates people for pleasant company and emotional connection, right?

Harriet: Right? And not everyone I tend to fancy can give me everything I need in all those aspects, but they’re still good partners.

TMG: Honestly, I think I’ve decided that my ideal relationship would be a 4-person poly-QPR where we all enjoy video/board/card games and each sing a different choir part.

Harriet: Sounds like a good dream.

TMG: As if it isn’t hard enough to find people, though…

Harriet: Agreed.

TMG: Well, what do you think about queer fashion and style?

Harriet: I don’t pay any attention to it, TBH. Ariana recently got some suspenders with glitter hearts in them, but that’s about as much as we pay attention. She’s also expressed a desire to wear bow ties more.

TMG: I guess it’s weird to phrase it that way. I’d think there are about as many fashion choices as there are individuals, but sometimes you do see certain styles keep coming up. You have a hairstyle where part of your head is shaved and part of it is longer. 7.8/10, too little originality.

TMG: It’s all just fabric, ink, and keratin filaments anyway, right?

Harriet: Right.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

Harriet: Honestly? I hate that we need it. I hate that there can’t be awareness all the time. I wish we were more accepted. I hate how corporations use rainbows for sales.

TMG: I see your point. If we could reach a point where being queer isn’t even thought of as being out of the ordinary, where “she’s asexual” or “they’re nonbinary” wouldn’t be any different than “she has blue eyes” or “he’s left-handed”…

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover? Or does Ariana?

Harriet: I don’t think so, no.

TMG: Okay. Thanks for talking with me.

Harriet: Always.

6.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender, sexual/romantic orientation, and pronouns?

Rebecca: I am female and bi-romantic ace who uses she/her pronouns. (I’m still questioning my gender, to be honest, if I’m cis or nonbinary.)

TMG: Fair enough. When and how did you discover your identity? How old are you now?

Rebecca: I discovered I was ace when I was around 22. I am 25 now. I discovered it while scrolling through Facebook and found a meme where there were describing the different sexualities. And demi at first caught my eye, but after a while I realized I was just ace.

TMG: What would you tell a young person who is queer or thinks they might be? Especially since asexuality doesn’t tend to get as much attention as some other queer identities.

Rebecca: I would tell them to not let society’s expectations pressure them into being what they are not and that other people do not get to decide who or what they are.

TMG: How has being queer affected relationships with your family, friends, and community?

Rebecca: It makes it hard for me to date other people, especially when I know they are hypersexual. Before I had a few friends ask me if I was asexual, and being that none of us really knew what it was, I had rejected it. But then when I came to terms with it being a possibility, my boyfriend at the time was angry and took it as a personal insult. My friends all accepted it, and most have been super supportive of me. Only person who still rejects me being ace is my stepdad, and the worst he does is make sexual jokes whenever I hang out with a guy.

TMG: Huh. Well, I’m glad that you’re mostly getting support. Are there any other aspects of your life that have been affected?

Rebecca: I remain quiet for the most part when it comes to work life and around people I do not know. I do model on the side, and I get a lot of comments that I can’t possibly be ace if I’m that pretty and other unsolicited remarks. On the plus side, opening up to my brother about it allowed him to open up to me about his identity and sexuality.

TMG: I see. I’m happy for your brother.

TMG: How is your mental state? How has it been previously? Has it changed from before you realized your identity?

Rebecca: So, before, I was actually in a downward spiral. I don’t think it was only because of that, but there was a lot going on: bad friends, demanding relationship, horrible job. But I decided to flip it all on its head starting by cutting out the toxicity, and it all sort of fell into place. I was definitely more comfortable introducing myself as ace at the start of new relationships instead of questioning why I wasn’t interested in a guy I had romantic feelings for. I am a lot happier now, and I’m not so pressured to doing something I don’t want to. But that still took me a year to be actually okay.

TMG: Well, I’m glad that you’re doing better now.

Rebecca: Thank you.

TMG: What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

Rebecca: There needs to be more representation that is fair and accurate. Ditch the stereotypes and show real people being people. Sure, some people do fit the stereotype, but that should not be the standard.

TMG: Agreed. What do you think about queer fashion and style?

Rebecca: I feel that fashion and style should always be a personal expression and whatever that person is comfortable with regardless of gender roles. As for queer fashion, if someone wants to run around in a rainbow kilt or any of the pride flags, then more power to them.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

Rebecca: It’s something I want to fully participate in; I want to go to marches, festivals, and parades. But I’ve just been too nervous to go.

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Rebecca: I think that’s everything I can think of.

TMG: Okay. Thanks.

Rebecca: Thank you for taking the time to put this all together.

TMG: Sure. I hope it helps people.

7.

TMG: What is your full identity in respect to gender, sexual/romantic orientation, and pronouns?

Diana: Asexual, aromantic but also kinda pan? And I’m non-binary AFAB, but I use she/her pronouns.

TMG: Okay. From your point of view, what’s the important distinction between being nonbinary but presenting as clearly feminine or masculine vs. actually being a woman or man?

Diana: To me, nonbinary just means you don’t neatly fit into the man/woman distinction; you can clearly present as feminine or masculine, but those are not what defines you. I present as pretty feminine, but due to society’s twisting of what is considered feminine/masculine (especially when you consider how it has changed from a historical and anthropological perspective), I also feel like I embody several quite strongly masculine traits. Hence the nonbinary; I feel and relate mostly to the feminine and female ‘experience’ but do feel male/masculine at times, which means I am outside the binary. (This is not even touching agender and its impact on it all.)

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity? How old are you now?

Diana: I’m 24 and discovered my ace identity at 19 after I spoke to a demi friend at uni and realised how well what she was explaining described me. The aro and enby identities are more recent and are the result of slow discovery and understanding myself over the last 2 years or so. My queer and in particular trans and enby friends have been so helpful in helping me understand my identity better and how I fit into the queer/LGBTQIA+ community.

TMG: Cool. It’s good to have support. What would you tell a young person who is queer or thinks they might be? Especially if they’re on the nonbinary, asexual, or aromantic spectrum.

Diana: It’s totally okay to decide on an identity/label only to change it later; conversely, it’s also okay not to choose any at all. Also, reach out to other people in the community (keep an eye out for those who are intersectional because they are less likely to be ace/arophobic). FB has some great groups where you can ask any questions and people are usually happy to listen and help. Also (if it’s safe), speak to friends; they often know you best and can help you understand yourself and your identity better. But the most important thing is to be safe; there’s a lot of prejudice and bigotry out there, so don’t ever feel you need to come out if it would be unsafe for you. (That’s in particular aimed at those younger who are still living at home with potentially homophobic parents.)

TMG: Well said. How has being queer affected relationships with your family, friends, and community?

Diana: I’m not actually out to my family at the moment, so that means I’m quite hesitant when it comes to any conversation about sexuality or gender. But in regards to my friends, being queer is what brought us together; I met most of my friends at uni at a queer brunch the LGBT+ society threw. We bond a lot over our sexuality and experiences; it’s obviously not the main foundation of our friendship, as we have a lot in common, but it is what brought us together in the first place.

TMG: That’s sweet that you made friends that way.

Diana: Q brunch was the best. Every Sunday, we’d all meet up to eat cake and be gay. It was so chill.

TMG: Has being queer, ace, or enby affected any other parts of your life?

Diana: According to society, yes (I don’t plan on ever dating anyone or getting married), but personally, not really? I never wanted to date anyone growing up. (Honestly, how did it take me this long to realise my orientation??) However, it has helped in that I have a really strong support system in my friends, which is so beneficial to my mental (and subsequently physical) health. As well as this, I’m planing on moving in with some of my queer friends, which has massively eased the worry of affording rent as well as the fear of moving to a new place. Being queer has also made me so much more aware of the world, discrimination, and the need for intersectionality in our approach to support. The world is a crappy place, and I as an able-bodied white person need to continue to work on supporting and boosting my disabled and POC friends.

TMG: I hadn’t thought of it that way. That makes sense. It’s really disheartening realizing how much discrimination there is in the world.

Diana: It really is, and it’s such a horrid world that we have to stand together as much as we can.

TMG: On a similar note, has your mental state changed much from before you realized your identity?

Diana: My mental state has definitely changed. I spent a long time when I was younger thinking there was something wrong with me, especially in regards to my lack of attraction and desire. The world is a very sexualised place, and as a teen, I really struggled with how I didn’t fit into the narrative that society told me I should belong to. That lead to a lot of insecurity and self-hatred that has taken a long time to get over (in fact, I’m still doing it). Finding and understanding my identity was so important to my health and healing process.

TMG: It’s amazing the difference that it can make. I feel like most cishet people don’t really understand it because they haven’t been in that situation.

Diana: Oh, definitely; there’s real power in finally being able to find something that describes you. That moment where you go “this, this is me and I belong”.

TMG: What do you think about the depiction of queer people and identities in popular media?

Diana: I think queer characters are subject to the same problem that of other minority characters face, and that is a lack of diversity, especially in the writers’ room. Most queer characters today are written by white men. Which means the lack of so much diversity, and you end up with the same two-dimensional characters. It tends to be white cis men writing characters; sometimes they’re gay, but they’re usually still cis white men and so have a very limited frame of reference. As such, you tend to have a lot of the same story: two white gay guys fall in love—there’s usually tension about one of them being out, and the out one pressures the closeted one to come out and everyone lives happily ever after. But when you introduce diversity into the writers’ room, you get much better, diverse, and relatable characters. Look at shows like Orange is the New Black or One Day at a Time. Even Brooklyn 99. They have diversity, which leads to much better (and less stereotypical) roles and characters in terms of sexuality, gender, as well as things like ethnicity, race and religion. Representation is getting better and we are seeing more queer characters with actual storylines and character progression (unlike stereotypes, like the gay bestie used to further the straight protagonist’s story 😦 ). But there is a lot of work to do; most stories focus on mostly white cis gay/lesbian characters and ignore the rich diversity found within the queer community. But we need to make sure that these stories are written, produced, and created by a diverse spectrum of people and not the same few cis white dudes.

TMG: What do you think about queer fashion and style?

Diana: I think queer fashion and style is beautiful. The queer community is based around diversity, creativity, and expressing yourself. And that is seen so wonderfully in the incredible range of styles and fashion worn by queer people.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

Diana: I love the idea of time to celebrate our community, to acknowledge the struggles we’ve gone through—and are still going through. However, I do worry about how capitalism and commercialisation are trying to take over Pride; rainbow capitalism is such an empty form of allyship that drives me nuts.

TMG: I can’t argue with that. Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Diana: Not that I can think of.

Magic: The Gathering discussion #5: Dominaria — Where it all began

It’s that time again, time to discuss another Magic: The Gathering set! Or several, actually, because in addition to Dominaria, I’ll also be covering the 2019 core set, Masters 25, Battlebond, and Commander 2018.

So, let’s start with Dominaria. It’s a fitting place to start, because the entire game started with Dominaria; it was the setting for a lot of the early sets and is sort of a nexus or “hub world” for the multiverse. Apparently, messing with Dominaria would mess up all the other planes as well, which just seems like it would make the multiverse way too unstable (and I don’t mean in the fun Bablovian way). It also didn’t have a specific theme or gimmick, unlike most other planes: they try to give each plane its own recognizable theme, like how Innistrad is the horror world, Amonkhet is the Egyptian world, and Kaladesh is the steampunk-esque world. I say “didn’t” because even with all the diversity that Dominaria has, they eventually did manage to fit it into one of those boxes that humanity likes so much; Dominaria is apparently “the history world” now. That manifests in the set mechanics, or at least the new ones. Sagas are the big new set gimmick and by far the most interesting one; they’re a new kind of enchantment with a new card frame, with the division between the art and rules text running vertically instead of horizontally, and a number of “chapter” markers in Roman numerals on the left side. (Roman numerals still have no purpose in life, by the way.) Each chapter (usually) triggers once per turn, the first one when it enters the battlefield and the rest on successive turns after that, then the enchantment goes away after the last chapter. All Sagas in the set have 3 chapters, so you’d get the effect listed for chapter 1 on the turn you get it out, chapter 2 on the next turn, then the chapter 3 effect would happen on the turn after that and the Saga would be sacrificed. I assume that if they’re liked enough, they could show up in future sets as well, possibly with chapter counts other than 3. There is also historic, which is just an adjective that describes anything that’s an artifact, a Saga, or legendary. Kind of a weird combination, but I suppose it makes sense. There is also a returning mechanic, kicker, which first appeared in I-don’t-know-what-set-but-it-was-probably-old-as-heck and whose return I actually guessed even before the set was out. For anyone unfamiliar with kicker, it’s an open-ended mechanic that allows you to pay an additional cost for a spell to get an additional effect. It has nothing to do with history, except in a meta sense because it’s been around for a while. The set also has a distinct “legendary matters” theme; historic is one part of it, but there are many more legendary creatures than most sets, even at uncommon. They also introduced legendary sorceries, which…sound a lot cooler than they actually are, to put it one way. They don’t work how one would expect legendary sorceries to work; rather than, say, only being able to cast them once per game, or if a card with the same name isn’t in your graveyard, you can only cast them if you control a legendary creature or planeswalker. Now, outside of the set, that can be a pretty tight hoop to jump through if you don’t specifically build with it in mind, and their effects aren’t that much better than similar nonlegendary sorceries. As a result, I didn’t really like the legendary sorceries.

Of course, one can’t talk about Dominaria without talking about the story and lore. And the story this time was actually kind of weird. It involves some old fan favorite characters showing up again; Jhoira, Teferi, Karn, and Jaya Ballard are here, as well as Radha, Jodah, Multani, and Squee. There are also new characters who are related to older ones, such as Danitha and Raff Capashen and Shanna Sisay. I do feel like the story might have gotten pulled in too many directions at once, though; they had a lot of characters to introduce and tell about, all of which probably could have gotten more attention, but the main plotline was more about Liliana’s last demon and the evil things he was doing, as well as her brother whom she accidentally cursed (which triggered her planeswalker spark) and who is now a monstrous lich. At least in this case, it makes sense to go after Belzenlok anyway, Liliana or no, because he’s the leader of the Cabal now (which I don’t know much about, but I guess they’re some sort of evil cult or something?) and is trying to rewrite historical records to make himself look much more accomplished than he actually is. They defeat Belzenlok, and Teferi gets his planeswalker spark back (he gave it up to fix a time rift back during the Time Spiral block, however the heck that works) and joins the Gatewatch. But we also have a fairly major spoiler here: as it turns out, killing all of Liliana’s demons didn’t release her from her contract, merely transfer ownership of it to Nicol Bolas, who brokered the contract in the first place, and now Bolas basically owns Liliana and she is forced to serve him. I am disappointed that the Gatewatch won’t find out what happened to Liliana until it’s too late and there’s a huge misunderstanding, though. Well, I guess if you look at all the cards in the set, it’s not much of a spoiler because it’s depicted right on the last story spotlight card. Speaking of story spotlight events, apparently Nissa is leaving the Gatewatch, at least for the time being: she finally decided that she’d had enough of Liliana’s crap (which, to be quite honest, I can’t fault her for) and made tracks back to Zendikar.

Dominaria has some pretty decent cards in it, too. It reprinted the other half of the dual land cycle that Ixalan had (nicknamed the “checklands”), for starters. Lyra Dawnbringer, Shalai, and Verix are good legendary creatures. Teferi and Karn are worthwhile as planeswalkers go, aside from Teferi making control decks even more obnoxious. Jaya Ballard’s planeswalker card is…okay. History of Benalia is another good one (and I actually got it as my prerelease promo, the first actually good prerelease promo I ever got). Belzenlok, Josu Vess, Multani, Jhoira, Steel Leaf Champion, and the Weatherlight weren’t bad either, and the set gave us a reprint of Gilded Lotus as well as Mox Amber, which is new. (They really need to find a way to make Mox cards good but neither overpowered nor restrictive. Come on, they’ve had 25 years to figure it out….) The Sagas, sadly, mostly weren’t all that amazing outside of dedicated decks aside from the aforementioned History of Benalia, not to mention they were kind of unbalanced: anyone at Wizards care to explain why we needed three, maybe even four board wipe variants, why there are as many black Sagas as red and green ones combined, or why an event as major as the Mending got such a middling card? Still, though, Dominaria had more good stuff than not, I think.

Next comes the 2019 core set, the first core set since either 2014 or 2015 (depending on if you count Magic Origins as a core set or not) and the first one I’ve talked about on here. This time, they didn’t have any non-evergreen mechanics, which I found rather disappointing (most of the previous core sets brought back one mechanic, such as scry for the 2011 core set, bloodthirst for the 2012 one, and exalted for the 2013 one). Core sets also don’t take place on a specific plane, so they can include reprints or new cards from any of them (there were ones from Kaladesh and Ixalan, among others). The story, on the other hand, is another matter, and kind of a weird one; it mostly takes place on Tarkir (a plane visited in 2014 and 2015), where a few figures in Tarkir’s past tell the story of Ugin and Nicol Bolas. Honestly, I don’t think the M19 story actually added that much to the larger picture; it seemed to be reasonably well-written, but I didn’t really care all that much about Icky Nicky’s start of darkness beforehand, and I care even less about it now. If you were expecting some complex or understandable reason for why he is the way he is, well, you won’t find it here. He felt powerless and weak in his earliest days, so now he wants nothing more than power over everyone else; that’s pretty much the extent of it, which is really childish for someone who’s had 65,000 years, give or take, to explore the multiverse. (Heck, just look at the flavor text on the M19 printing of Cinder Barrens.) Several dozen millennia of living and, effectively, all he’s managed to accomplish in terms of personal growth is becoming basically a draconic supervillain version of Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with a heaping helping of Donald Trump. Sheesh, I’m only 27 and I thought I was immature for my age and not doing as many meaningful things as I should have.

Pictured: Dominaria’s most ancient evil.

Also, in a story only tangentially related to Bolas but considered part of the M19 story, we get introduced to Vivien Reid, a new mono-green planeswalker. I can only assume that she’s supposed to be an eventual replacement for Nissa, though her card reminds me a little more of Garruk (which is a good thing; Nissa always was one of those characters where I tended to like her as a character more than her cards). She’s a ranger who uses a magical bow to summon images of animals from her home plane, which was destroyed by Bolas. (Why? Who knows. Maybe he was just in a mood to nuke stuff that day, or he threw a tantrum because someone told him he couldn’t have an extra juice box.) It’s an interesting enough power set, I suppose. Her stories don’t do much to make her likable, though; basically, she’s on Ixalan in a vampire city and goes medieval on them after finding out that they’re cruel to animals, pretty much using her summoning magic (and some to enlarge existing animals as well) to destroy the city. Look, I know the vampires are hardly paragons of morality either, but I doubt everyone in that city was evil, so she probably condemned some innocent people to death by beast or collapsing building. Pitting one character or group of characters who’s a lunatic against another who’s a lunatic but in a different way doesn’t make the first one any less nuts; it just makes you want to see both of them get thrashed until they’ve gotten some sense knocked into them. It really does not do Vivien any favors, either, that she has a vendetta against civilization in general and is happy to see the city get reclaimed by nature, which is a very mono-green attitude but not a very sympathetic one, and it really makes me hope that she never planeswalks to Ravnica or Kaladesh (though if she did, maybe it would be a good opportunity to give her some much-needed character development). Furthermore, she is yet another human planeswalker in a lineup where humans are already severely overrepresented. Between that, her extremist beliefs, and the fact that the Gatewatch now has an open slot for a green character, I can only assume that this conversation took place at Wizards of the Coast at some point:

Wizards creative team: “Here are some nonhuman planeswalkers we’ve designed with interesting personalities and complex motives and thoughts. Could they be main characters?”
Marketing team: “What? Main characters who aren’t human? They’ll be totally unrelatable!”
Creative: “Okay, here are some one-dimensional monocolored human characters who subscribe to a very particular, narrow worldview and philosophy that would be unrealistic for any sane person in real life. What do you think?”
Marketing: “They seem good to me. Let’s get them some stories.”

Also, on a minor note, the writer never explained why Vivien couldn’t just planeswalk away after getting captured, then come back for the Arkbow. But I don’t know, maybe I’m overthinking this all. I feel like I spend way too much time talking about the story in these reviews.

I suppose that means we’re probably overdue for discussing the gameplay of the 2019 core set. Well, there are no set mechanics, so I can’t talk about them, so this will probably be a shorter paragraph than usual. Actually, for a core set, this really doesn’t have a bad selection of cards; my personal top picks are Ajani, Tezzeret, and Vivien’s planeswalker cards along with Resplendent Angel, but there’s more. Sai, Master Thopterist is good in the right deck (and I think it did make it into Standard play), Nightmare’s Thirst is an interesting take on a kill spell, Sovereign’s Bite is cheap but seems good for a common, I’m always up for another copy spell with Doublecast, Lathliss will make a nice addition to any of my decks with an above-average number of dragons in them, Sarkhan’s planeswalker card isn’t bad (Liliana’s, on the other hand, requires a very specific deck type, and even within that, it’s merely “pretty decent”), Sarkhan’s Unsealing is interesting, Goreclaw seems useful, Vine Mare is good for what it’s worth (the mare cycle is kind of neat), Chaos Wand is silly, and all of the elder dragons are at least interesting. Notable reprints are Banefire, Crucible of Worlds, Magistrate’s Scepter, Mentor of the Meek, Omniscience, Scapeshift, and maybe Windreader Sphinx (and Crucible of Worlds and Scapeshift were clearly designed for formats outside of the set). One thing I’m disappointed about with the M19 card pool is that there were no rare dual lands. I assume it’s because they don’t want to create feel-bad moments for new players, but…surely they could have at least reprinted the half-cycle from Ixalan or something?

I guess one thing that I should mention is the Buy-a-Box promos that they’re doing starting with Dominaria, where buying a booster box from participating game stores (or was it preordering?) would get you a special card not found in the regular set. It’s supposed to be an incentive to buy from the local stores instead of online or something like that, but as far as I’m concerned, saying it fell flat is an understatement. If I’m paying an extra $20-$30 to get a box from a LGS, that extra card had better be worth that price difference, but if it’s really good (and if it’s worth $20+, it probably is), then it drives up demand and people can just sell them on the secondary market. (Though apparently, the promos are actually less rare than any given mythic rare card from the main set, so they’re perceived to be rarer than they actually are.) Also, locking certain cards to buying from specific stores actually makes me less likely to want to buy from them, because doing so only encourages the stupid practice. Besides, the sets that I like enough to want to buy a whole booster box of are few and far between. (Currently, that is exactly Kaladesh and Unstable, though I get did an Aether Revolt box to draft and a Dominaria one to split with my brother, if you count those, and I kind of want to get a Battlebond one. We’ll talk about Battlebond in a bit.)

Now, let’s talk about the supplementary sets. Going by chronological order, we’ll start with Masters 25, and fair warning, this will be a long, blunt, probably passive-aggressive, and maybe even just plain aggressive one. I’ll cut to the chase: This set is not what we wanted, or at least not what I wanted (yes, my opinion doesn’t dictate everyone else, whatever). Oh, the idea was good: a set full of cards from every set in the 25 years of MTG’s history to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the game, something to send players on a nostalgia trip, even including set symbol watermarks for style points (which, honestly, is something I wouldn’t say no to for future Masters sets). The execution, however, I found to be lackluster at best and completely senseless at worst: while there were indeed cards from every set, the designers did not put nearly enough thought into making them cards that would actually be desired or worth the price of the packs.

For starters, there are many, many iconic cards that were absent. I understand that not all of them can logistically make the cut, but…where is Doubling Season? Where is Stoneforge Mystic? Baneslayer Angel? Birds of Paradise? The Mirrodin swords? Where are the Eldrazi, or the Urza’s lands? Why are there no extra turn spells? Not even the Lhurgoyf made it in. Mirrodin block barely got any of its famous artifacts (heck, I wouldn’t say no to another Isochron Scepter reprint, even), Urza block got darn near none of its famously powerful cards, Return to Ravnica block didn’t get anything special (certainly nothing that reminds me of the block)…and why are almost all the cards from current Standard sets commons and uncommons worth pennies? Of all the interesting dinosaurs from Ixalan that could be represented, they picked one of the most boring, mundane, and already overprinted ones? Given how popular planeswalkers are as a card type and how iconic some of them are, why the crap don’t they give us more of them in supplementary sets, too, instead of only two or, in this case, one? And how, in a set that’s all about famous cards from the game’s history, did we not get a single Lotus or Mox?

And even among the cards that aren’t as famous but must be there to fill out the set, some of the choices were baffling. Surely there were better options then Blue Sun’s Zenith, Bident of Thassa, and Tree of Redemption, for example, given how many cards there are that haven’t seen print in quite some time. (To be fair, Tree of Redemption stood out enough even when the set was being previewed that it kind of became a minor meme.) We could have gotten Quicksilver Amulet again, or Wurmcoil Engine, Lava Spike, Privileged Position, Rings of Brighthearth (I rather like Rings of Brighthearth, it’s unique, it’s extremely low in supply, and it has eluded a veritable myriad of opportunities for a reprint), Asceticism, Khalni Hydra, Master Transmuter, Defense Grid, Collected Company…even among relatively inexpensive cards, there are things such as Sylvan Caryatid, Wall of Reverence, Reverberate, Invisible Stalker, Dramatic Entrance, Hunter’s Insight, Cloudpost (and Glimmerpost…and on that note, I’d consider the Locuses iconic enough to be in this set anyway), Seething Song, Prophet of Kruphix, Infiltration Lens, all sorts of stuff that would have been at least better than much of what we got. I would hope that future core sets could cover a few of those, but I’m not holding my breath. There were cards there that I was glad to see again, but they were greatly in the minority.

As a result, this set feels like lousy value for its cost. When booster packs are $10, they really need to be worth it, and Masters 25 does not seem worth it. I will say that it is at least better than Iconic Masters in that regard, mainly because IMA also had an imbalanced distribution of value, with the average being greatly skewed by most of the expensive cards being at higher rarities and most of the lower rarities consisting of cheap, barely-used bulk cards that absolutely didn’t need reprinting, making booster packs even more of a gamble than usual. (And remember, I didn’t think IMA stuck to its theme very well either.) At least one Wizards employee seems to think that IMA didn’t sell well because of the Hascon preview decreasing interest, while it seems evident to me that the set’s poor performance had nothing to do with the preview and everything to do with the fact that it simply did not feel like there was enough value there to justify buying booster packs.

On that note, the same person implied a push more toward designing future sets for drafting, which, quite frankly, seems like another harebrained idea to me. I realize now that they have always been designed for drafting, but—lest I reiterate what I said in my Iconic Masters review—you’d never guess it from the price point. If they want people to draft it, fine, but they need to go full-in on that and price them more reasonably. If they want to reprint things that people want for constructed, that’s also good and they can keep packs at $10, but then they need to go full-in on that and put more cards in the set that people want and less chaff. It seems to me that trying to design them for draft while still retaining the high price point (and sprinkling a few money cards into them in an attempt to justify the value) is merely Wizards trying to have their cake and eat it, and it seems to me that it will inevitably end up making both draft players and constructed players dissatisfied, especially if they’re casual. Besides, we already have a series of supplementary sets designed specifically for draft. It’s called Conspiracy. There is no similar product for reprinting stuff for constructed formats; they just have to be strewn around existing supplementary sets. If you ask me, rather than designing these sets specifically to be drafted, it is better simply to design them well; if a set is good, and especially if it clicks together nicely, people will want to draft it anyway.

In summary, Masters 25 feels extremely lackluster, especially for a big fancy 25th anniversary set. As widely disliked as Iconic Masters was, I think I’m actually even more disappointed in A25 because it seems like a huge missed opportunity for such a climactic set. Maybe the nostalgia is there for some people (I wouldn’t know; I started playing fairly recently, so Modern Masters 2017 was much more of a “nostalgia trip Masters set” for me), but nostalgia value isn’t enough to make something good. As with Iconic Masters, there weren’t enough noteworthy cards and there wasn’t enough value to justify the purchase of boosters. If it seems like I’m making a lot of comparisons between the two, it’s because Masters 25 essentially just feels like Iconic Masters 2: Anniversary Edition. Masters sets are supposed to provide one possible avenue to make cards that are well-liked or in high demand but hard to come by more accessible, but recently, they’ve been feeling more like games of Corrupt-a-Wish. Yes, Wizards is a business, not a charity, but businesses need customers, which in this case are the players. If those players are dissatisfied with the product, and if they feel like their complaints are not being listened to, they’ll feel alienated, and if they feel alienated, they will seek entertainment elsewhere, or at least not buy any more new product. Back during preview season, I’d heard many stories of people canceling their pre-orders because of the set being underwhelming (one person even said that every single person who made a preorder at their LGS canceled it for one reason or another), which is definitely not a sign of confidence. I suggest that whatever team is in charge of these Masters sets tries a different tack and actually pays attention to what people want, or they will continue to do poorly and leave people feeling displeased. You can make them based on a particular theme or a particular format, just as long as you make them actually worth buying.

*sigh* Anyway, on the subject of supplementary sets that actually do seem worth their price relative to their value, a new kind of multiplayer set came out back in June: Battlebond. It focuses on teams of two (formally known as “Two-Headed Giant”, but I more often just call it “team play”), so the set is designed around two people at a time working together, which is reflected in some of the cards and mechanics. The “partner” ability from Commander 2016 returns as a new variant, “partner with”, where the creatures with it—as well as one pair of planeswalkers—must be paired with a specific other card, but once you get one of them out, you can search your library for the other one and put it into your hand…or better yet, have your teammate do that. There is also assist, which allows another player to pay the generic portion of a card’s mana cost. Finally, we see the return of support from Oath of the Gatewatch, which…puts +1/+1 counters on stuff. Yeah. It’s even set on a new plane: Kylem, where the people really like sports and two-on-two battles. Sadly, we didn’t get any stories for Battlebond to explore the plane more. Notable new cards from the set include Bramble Sovereign, Arena Rector, Arcane Artisan, Najeela, and the dual lands, which depend on having two or more opponents to enter untapped (and they could be a good thing to reprint in Commander sets, hint hint). As for the reprints…let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way: Doubling Season finally got another reprint. Sadly, it’s mythic rare and Battlebond had a short print run, and as a result, it’s still 33 bucks, but hey, that’s better than 58, which is about what it was before. Beyond that, there are a couple of other expensive cards (though not as expensive as everyone’s favorite 5-mana green enchantment) that showed up: in the “high demand” corner, we have True-Name Nemesis, a rather infamous card from Commander 2013, and in the “low supply” corner, we have Vigor, originally from Lorwyn. Seedborn Muse is another low-supply one (though probably higher demand than Vigor), and it was one of the cards that I was going to complain about Masters 25 not including until it got reprinted here. Kor Spiritdancer and Chain Lightning are also good. I can’t speak for how the set actually plays, because I couldn’t convince anyone to go to any release events with me or get packs from it together.

Finally, there is Commander 2018. The themes this year are enchantments (green/white/blue), artifacts (blue/red), lands and possibly ramp (black/red/green), and “top of your library matters” (white/blue/black). More importantly, we get a new cycle of planeswalker commanders this time around: Estrid, the Masked; Saheeli, the Gifted; Lord Windgrace; and Aminatou, the Fateshifter. There’s not too much to say about the characters, since, again, we didn’t get any story. Furthermore, Aminatou seems to have been the only one of them who actually got a bio, and she’s…weird. She’s the youngest planeswalker so far, at 8 years old; she seems to be from a West African-inspired plane; and she is completely overpowered and it’s ridiculous (not that you’d ever guess it from her card, which is actually pretty weak). She has the ability to manipulate fate, which to me seems like it would allow her to do just about anything except change things that already happened, and to foresee the future, which allowed her to trigger her spark early. Saheeli is a character whom we already saw back on Kaladesh, and I’m pleased that she got another card, unless it makes her less likely to appear as a character again. Lord Windgrace is a character from the old stories and cards whom I don’t know much if anything about beyond the fact that he’s probably dead now. Estrid really should have gotten a bio as well, because we didn’t learn anything about her other than that she uses magical masks (and, funny enough, I could have guessed that from her title).

I must admit, though, the decks this year felt rather underwhelming. They weren’t as lame as the last two Masters sets, but they seemed noticeably weaker than usual, yet Wizards raised their price by $5. Also, Estrid’s deck is the only one that really felt coherent; the others seemed to be kind of disjointed. Still, though, there were at least some interesting new cards and a few decent reprints. Among the other new commanders, Kestia is kind of cool (first legendary nymph, for one) and her art is nice, Tuvasa is simplistic but decent, Tawnos seems good if you can build around him, Brudiclad is interesting (but more Phyrexian than I’d like), Gyrus is weird but could be decent (and dodges commander tax to boot), Thantis is one of those cards that I dislike both for gameplay and flavor reasons, Yennett is interesting and seems useful if you have the colors for her, and Varina seems like a decent tribal leader. For the other legendary creatures, Arixmethes is cute (and I really want to put it in a stompy/ramp deck), Varchild is weird, Xantcha is kind of silly but interesting (and hey, she finally got a card), and Yuriko could be pretty good. Other notable new cards include Heavenly Blademaster, Aminatou’s Augury, Estrid’s Invocation, Ever-Watching Threshold, Emissary of Grudges, Nesting Dragon, and Endless Atlas. Notable reprints include Bear Umbra (the other card that I was going to complain about Masters 25 not including until it got reprinted here), Enchantress’s Presence, Wild Growth (hey, that hasn’t shown up in the new border yet), Avenger of Zendikar, Mimic Vat, and Prototype Portal. I’ll admit I’m disappointed that they missed an opportunity for an Eldrazi Conscription reprint, though. Privileged Position would also have been a possibility, and maybe Darksteel Plate.

In summary: Dominaria was good, though Sagas were the only noteworthy set mechanic; the 2019 core set was actually quite decent for a core set, even if I was disappointed that there weren’t any returning mechanics (and that the story focused almost entirely on Icky Nicky); Masters 25 did the exact same things wrong that Iconic Masters did except for the name; Battlebond was an interesting new type of multiplayer-centric set and had some good reprints; and Commander 2018 was kind of weak but okay.

Interviews for queer pride month

Content warnings: Much discussion of gender and sexuality, romance, relationships, family and troubles with them, religion, mention of abuse and cultish behavior, self-harm, suicide, discrimination and ostracism, (censored) profanity…am I missing any?

Well, this post was supposed to come in June, but…better late than never? At least this time, the lateness mostly isn’t my fault. June happens to be queer pride month, so I had the idea late in the month to interview people of various queer identities, both in person and online, to discuss their feelings and experiences, which I present to you here (not in any particular order). Interviews are separated by person (or a couple in one case), and names have been changed for privacy. Also, there will occasionally be notes for terms that some people might be unfamiliar with (*like this).

1.

TheMartianGeek: What is your full identity? And what pronouns do you use?

Whitney: I’m an asexual woman and I go by she/they.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity?

Whitney: In my freshman year of college a group of friends and I were taking turns doing an online test that asked what our sexuality was, and asexual was one of the options. At the time I thought I was straight but ‘low interest’ because I thought that was the only option that didn’t include same-sex attraction, and just seeing the word made me start to question/realize things and look it up later. It took me another year from there to go from saying tentatively calling myself ‘maybe asexual’ to just calling myself asexual, but mainly just out of wanting to be sure.

TMG: How old are you?

Whitney: 23.

TMG: What would you tell a young queer (or asexual) person?

Whitney: I think my biggest priority would be to explain the different sexualities and that they exist, but after that I’d want to emphasize that there are a lot of different types of relationships and that it’s ok to take time and self reflection to find what works best for them.

TMG: How has being queer affected your life?

Whitney: There’s a lot of ways being queer has affected my life, outside of the obligatory difference from being straight. I definitely got teased for things that in retrospect were related to my asexuality in school, but there was also a big impact in my personal life and understanding my own feelings. Something that’s always stuck out to me was a time in high school when I was interested in a guy I knew. At some point I suddenly realized I’d never once thought about kissing him (let alone anything sexual) during the entire time I’d ‘liked’ him. I’d thought about going on dates, spending time together, and holding hands but kissing or ‘making out’ had never crossed my mind. At the time I thought this meant I had only wanted to be friends with him, since romantic relationships involve wanting to kiss each other. I think if I’d known I was asexual back then it would definitely have helped with the confusion, but even then this was a glaring example of how what I thought about for a relationship didn’t really match up with how relationships are portrayed in society.

TMG: How has it affected your relationship?

Whitney: My partner actually suggested that I might be asexual before we were romantically involved and before I was sure of my sexuality enough to be out. It’s never really put a strain on our relationship at all (my partner is not asexual), which I’m sure is helped by the amount we regularly communicate.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

Whitney: Pride month to me is about the history of fighting for rights and recognition for queer people and within that for same-gender relationships, as well as more recently a celebration of how far we’ve come. I think in recent years there has been what’s been referred to as ‘rainbow capitalism,’ and I think that detracts from what Pride is supposed to be about. That said, I don’t think that takes from the importance of Pride month for queer individuals and think it’s something that can be overcome in favor of a focus on LGBT+ people themselves.

2.

TMG: What is your full identity? And what pronouns do you use?

Alicia: Panromantic asexual, nonbinary/demigirl. I use they/them mostly, but I present femme so people assume she/her and I don’t typically correct them due to social awkwardness.

TMG: I’ve noticed that you do mostly present pretty feminine. Yet you don’t feel comfortable with being called a girl/woman/she?

Alicia: Not particularly. I’m AFAB (*assigned female at birth), and I like makeup and dresses, but that doesn’t make me a woman. When I finally took a look at myself, I realized that I’m not really a girl, I’m just a femme enby (*person of nonbinary gender).

TMG: What do you think the difference is between actually being female and being feminine but not female?

Alicia: Hm…well for me, being femme is more aesthetic, whereas being female is one’s gender.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity?

Alicia: My gender identity I realized recently, within the last 6-9months. Sexual and romantic identities, somewhere around 4-5 years ago.

TMG: How old are you?

Alicia: 22 years old.

TMG: What would you tell a young queer person? Or specifically asexual, nonbinary, etc.

Alicia: You’re not broken and you aren’t “bandwagoning.” You’re you, you’re unique and you’re valid. Your identities may change over the years, so don’t be scared to change those labels as often as you see fit. You’re going to be okay and you are loved.

TMG: How has being queer affected your life?

Alicia: It’s given me a community to be a part of and has allowed me to befriend people I never would have known existed otherwise. It’s also caused some hardships – always having to answer questions and knowing that more than likely I’m the odd one out in a group of strangers makes life a little difficult. I also live in an area where queers aren’t very accepted, so I have to deal with that as well, and when I go places with my girlfriend, we often get weird looks and faces.

TMG: Well, you and your girlfriend are adorable, and anyone who has a problem with it can eat a butt. Do you think being queer has affected your relationship in any way that wouldn’t be true if you weren’t so?

Alicia: Hmm… I don’t really think so! Except that… maybe I wouldn’t be dating Sally if she were, let’s say, a straight guy.

TMG: Despite being panromantic? I guess she would probably be significantly less cute…

Alicia: Hahaa I doubt that she’d be less cute, but I find myself being significantly less attracted to cis guys than trans guys, trans girls, cis girls, and enbies; maybe because most of the cis guys I’ve met are pretty jerkish.

TMG: I’m telling you…testosterone makes you angry, bald, and shorter-lived. It’s a trap. Actually, do you think asexual people who are in relationships tend to be more lovey-dovey than allosexual (*not asexual) people? I would assume that that’s not the case and they’re two separate and unrelated spectra, but it could be true that when you’re not sexually attracted to each other, other expressions of love might come out more.

Alicia: Hmm… I think we are tbh! But also because we usually aren’t just in a relationship for sex, but because we love our partners so we usually like to express that as often as possible! At least, that’s true for me! Some aces aren’t like that, and that’s okay too!

TMG: I’d say that you guys are almost sickening sometimes, but that’s not really true. Doesn’t mean I can’t lightly tease you about it, though. Besides, I’m happy for you. I think maybe more people need to appreciate the love shared between others as well?

Alicia: Lol, Jason would probably agree that we are sickening 😀 thank you!

TMG: So, what’s your family like? And your mental state (illness and such)?

Alicia: My family is pretty chill. The ones that I care about don’t really care about my identity (in a supportive “we love you regardless” way, not a dismissive one.) They’re kind of conservative, so they don’t really “get” it, so I don’t press the issue often. I’ve had some form of depression and anxiety since I was a child, and I still do. I’m in a pretty decent mental state these days though.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

Alicia: It’s a month for celebrating who I am. It’s also remembrance for those who started the LGBT rights movement, specifically at Stonewall. They’re our predecessors, and it’s important to recognize that what they started is what got us where we are now. I appreciate that.

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Alicia: Hmm… I don’t think so!

TMG: All right. Thank you for your time.

Alicia: Thank you for interviewing me!

TMG: My pleasure. I like to learn about other people’s experiences. (Well, actually, a lot of the time, they make me sad…but still…)

Alicia: Well I’m glad I could tell you mine!

3.

TMG: What is your full identity? And what pronouns do you use?

Violet: I identify as a bisexual and biromantic person, and I use she/her pronouns even though I think I might be slightly nonbinary.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity?

Violet: I really realized it for the first time when I was fifteen/sixteen, but it was the kind of deal where once I started to let myself accept it, a whole bunch of earlier experiences started to make sense. I think I always knew, I just pushed it back.

TMG: Ah. And you’re 19 now, right?

Violet: Indeed I am.

TMG: Okay. What would you tell a young queer person? Or bisexual/biromantic specifically, if you like.

Violet: It’s okay to be unsure and you don’t have to wholeheartedly dive into any particular identity. This kind of a thing is a journey, and the most important thing is accepting and understanding yourself. And if they come from a religious background, God doesn’t hate you and He didn’t make a mistake.

TMG: On that note, it seems like there’s been a lot of clashing of values when it comes to religion and queer people.

Violet: Yeah that’s a hot topic. Ultimately it usually comes down to religious people not truly understanding the nature of the God they claim to serve.

TMG: It’s all about love, no? Yet so many people choose to hate instead…

Violet: Hate and judgement are literally the opposite of what Christians are supposed to do.

TMG: Though even some well-meaning people might claim that being queer is considered a sin or something. I’ve heard that the actual meaning of the passage against “man lying with man” has been lost in translation.

Violet: Well even with that argument (which I don’t agree with), literally everyone sins. Everyone. And every sin is equal in the eyes of God—it’s like these people think being gay is a travesty and, like, lying is fine. And yeah, I’ve heard that floating around too.

TMG: One could argue that it’s unfair for your mere existence to count as a constant sin. But like you said, you don’t agree with that argument anyway, nor do I.

Violet: There’s a lot of hypocrisy at the core of it.

TMG: How has being queer affected your life? And your relationships.

Violet: It’s put a lot of strain on my relationship with my family at times and it means I have to hide a large part of my life from them indefinitely. Most of my friends have been really accepting of me, which is great, but it’s not so easy with my family due to religious prejudice and that kind of thing. It’s honestly put me in a place where I feel like I’m not queer enough to be considered a part of the community sometimes, because I can’t have a girlfriend and I’ve never been to Pride and that kind of thing. But ultimately, it’s also given me another huge community of people who love and support me even when my family might not.

TMG: Aw. I was going to ask about family acceptance and whatnot.

Violet: Honestly, my family is the biggest part of my life and has been for as long as I’ve been alive so those are the only relationships I’ve had with the potential to be affected.

TMG: Well, what’s your mental state like? Any history of illness or anything?

Violet: I have a history of self-harm, but I’m currently a year clean (go me), and I do consistently struggle with anxiety, but my coping skills are pretty good.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

Violet: It means a beautiful celebration of acceptance and how far our community has come, but also a time to think about how far we have to go because we haven’t quite reached the goal yet. It’s a time for frequently rejected people to be open and proud of who they are and I think that’s awesome.

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Violet: No I think that about covers everything. Wait, I’d also like to say that all queer people are beautiful and I love them.

TMG: Yay.

4.

TMG: What is your full identity?

Gabrielle: I am demi-hetero-romantic, sex-repulsed asexual.

TMG: She/her pronouns, I assume?

Gabrielle: Yes I am fine with she/her.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity?

Gabrielle: I was 100% sure of being asexual after I dated a guy in person and I just felt that all those relationship stuff that sexual people do were too uncomfortable for me and I couldn’t just be attracted to someone without having a meaningful connection beforehand. I didn’t seek to date with heterosexual guys anymore after that and I went on researching deeper about asexuality. I already heard the term thanks to a friend of mine, but I wasn’t sure. So around 2016 I went fully out about my defined identity. The romantic part took me a bit longer to figure out and it wasn’t until late 2017 when I understood I am demi-hetero-romantic.

TMG: How old are you?

Gabrielle: 27.

TMG: What would you tell a young queer person?

Gabrielle: Please don’t force yourself to do things you are not comfortable with just to fit a normal. Please listen truly and deeply to your own feelings first. If romance and sex are not your thing, they are not your thing. We are different and we all have the same value as human beings.

TMG: How has being queer affected your life and relationships?

Gabrielle: Trying to put a long story short, being ace without knowing the name of it was really difficult. I was mostly alone, still am. I was bullied all day everyday for the entire 13 years of schooling and I didn’t know what it was to have a relationship. I lived in an extremely hypersexualised country and it always felt alien to me, I mean, their culture. The rest of the world is very sexual, I know it, but it doesn’t feel as horrible as it was for me during my years there. As I said, I tried to date a guy now that I live in another country. Nope, it still feels horrible just to think I might have f***ed him. I didn’t. But just the thought of a what if I did feels disgusting. It was very hard. I’m one of those members of the sexual minorities who experienced suicide tendencies from an early age. Knowing who I am has been truly a liberating and wonderful thing for my mental health.

TMG: What’s your family like? And your mental state?

Gabrielle: So, according to therapists, I have issues with anxiety and depressive symptoms but, I am neurotypical. Now that I posted on FB that I got my prescription for antidepressants nooow a family relative said that it is in the family and some of my relatives have been through this. So now I know, on my mom’s side, it is a thing to go through depression. My biological father is someone I have never known. He is somewhere in USA. I tried to establish a connection with him but I felt no genuine interest on his part so, I stopped trying. I’m not a beggar and I don’t believe a child has the duty to go and find a parent and put all the effort in a relationship that never existed in the first place. I was born and he was already gone and divorced. So…yeah, single mom’s child here. I do have a soul father. A friend of mine who is older than me, could easily pass for my dad. He is the father I never had and he has a golden heart. I know he is not my dad but, I call him so. He is in Finland. Friends, well, I’m trying, I think I can trust. I also have a soul mother by the way. My bio mom had so much in her plate you know, always at work just to be able to pay my schooling. It is one of those countries where the average wage is 500 bucks but the average living cost is 1000+ so a lot of single parents work extra. Mom’s best friend was the wise mother who always gave me the emotional support and wisdom that my bio mom didn’t have the mental strength to provide. Now that I’m older I finally understood and I genuinely appreciate both of them for what they did for me. I am lucky in that regard. I have 2 mothers. A very hard working one who gave me even beyond her capabilities and a very wise one, who never hesitated to stay on the phone with me during the years of abuse at school and even today. Not everyone has this fortune. My life isn’t perfect and it isn’t happy, and definitely it is not a “normal” life, bit I am finally starting to be genuinely thankful for the good things that have happened. The sweetest victory is not revenge, is not grudge and is not succeeding over those who hurt you. To me the sweetest victory is when you can start to feel at least satisfied with what you’ve lived through, when you gain mental and emotional peace, that’s the sweetest victory, then is when you truly start to live a little bit. I’m glad I have started to feel this way even before being 30, cause I know very well that a lot of s*** is coming my way and I need to be ready for it.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

Gabrielle: Pride month arrives a little later in Budapest. We will have this year’s parade on July 7th. It is an important thing for me. It is a reminder that we are free to be who we are. It is also nice that we can go as proud asexuals and no one is excluding us from the event. It shouldn’t be exclusivist at all. It is an inclusion event where people gather to be free. It is quite symbolic that we also cross one of the city bridges during the march, at least, that happened last summer. Bridges hold a strong meaning to me and adding a pride march is simply beyond my words.

TMG: How do queer rights in your country compare to those in the U.S.?

Gabrielle: I can tell you about 2 countries. The unnameable and Hungary. Both are quite lacking when it comes to queer rights. In the other country there are no rights for nobody. Queer, disabled, elderly, foreigners, expats, nobody. Not even the locals have any form of safety net whatsoever. Son.. the other place is just irrelevant when discussing human rights. Simple as that. Hungary is quite a progressive country in its own weird way. The political system is mostly crappy. Here marriage is still only between a man and a woman. A lot of LGBT members are in the closet depending on where do they work. Some places are more open than others. But the people here are more of a live and let live mentality, and there are quite a bunch of people as activists in the LGBTQ+ community. The pride march grows bigger every year. So all in all, Hungary might be lagging behind, but it is not stagnant. It just goes at its own pace. Also I may add, the ace community in Hungary is the biggest in this region of Europe. We have been searching and there are no such asexual communities in neither Poland, Slovakia, Czechia and other neighbouring countries. We have the biggest and most active asexual group. I am definitely quite proud of this.

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Gabrielle: I’m not sure.

TMG: Well, thanks for your time.

5.

TMG: What is your full identity? And what pronouns do you use?

Luke: I’m male and biromantic though I lean more towards dating girls and a fair bit more towards sexual attraction with girls. Like I think I’d be primary sexual for girls on the red violet. But tertiary for guys.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity?

Luke: I mostly discovered my identity one day, after kind of thinking about how I felt about a guy I knew since it wasn’t quite like, a platonic feeling but something else. After a while I sorta realized that it was a bit of a romantic feeling, and ever since then that’s happened a few more times. Hence, biromanticism. (Note that this applies a lot less to sexual feelings – re: sexual feelings and dudes: I’d mostly do it for their benefit, but I don’t think I’d either be uncomfortable with it or enjoy it a lot.)

TMG: Huh. And you’re 16, right?

Luke: Yep. Everything’s subject to change, maybe. But I like to think my grasp on me is not that shaky.

TMG: What would you tell a younger queer person? Or even another person your age.

Luke: I’d probably tell them that the first priority should honestly be to come to terms with themselves and figure out who they are, no matter what other people think about it. The second thing I’d tell them is that there’s no wrong orientation or identity to hold, because we’re born the way we are and there’s nothing we can do to change it. I don’t know if that advice is helpful, seeing that honestly I come from a pretty privileged position in this regard, but that’s my opinion.
Definitely the first though, since I think a lot of the times people settle in on an identity and try to stick to it when that’s realistically not happening on the first or even second try or even later.

TMG: How has being queer affected your life and relationships?

Luke: Honestly, compared to most people, not that much. It’s led to some moments where I’ve tried to cram the “are you into guys” question into conversation with guys I’ve crushed on, but like it’s not bad these days. I’ve told my parents and mercifully, they’re very accepting, as are my friends. I consider it just another part of me, really, although it does make me often think about how fortunate I am that I don’t grow up in a less accepting family.

TMG: How about mental state?

Luke: If I’m stressed and panicky, it’s because of school. I don’t think my orientation has a lot to do with my mental state these days.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you? (Actually, is there one in Canada?)

Luke: Yeah, it’s June. I mean, I think it’s nice to have recognition for the increase in right for LGBT people alongside as a symbol for additional steps that can and should be taken. It’s good to recognize, is my opinion on it basically

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Luke: No, not really.

TMG: Okay.

6.

TMG: What are your full identities?

Frances: Pansexual, Cis-female. Stephanie: Lesbian, Trans-Woman.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identities?

Frances: I, Frances, discovered mine as soon as I discovered that I could feel attraction to people, Freshman year of highschool. I didn’t know non-binary people, so I called myself bisexual until Stephanie transitioned, and proved to me that gender really wasn’t a factor in attraction for me. Stephanie passes on this question.

TMG: Yeah, aren’t you attracted to certain personalities, not certain genders?

Frances: Right. I’m attracted to people who are gentle, kind, talented, artistic, nerdy…though Stephanie’s elf-ears do also help. So, I’m actually attracted to very few people, and Stephanie fills that mold perfectly.

TMG: “What gender are you?” “Elf.” “No, I mean what’s in your pants?” “Archery skills and fabulous blond hair.”

Frances: lol!

TMG: I’d imagine that probably made Stephanie’s transition a lot easier, too. Of course, so did having someone who loves you. But then, what isn’t made easier by having someone who loves you? Also, you’re both 31 years old, right?

Frances: Yeah, I think that it made it easier for Stephanie, knowing that I wouldn’t reject her if she transitioned. And yes, we’re both 31.

TMG: What would you tell a young bi/pansexual, trans, gay, or just generally queer person?

Frances: Find queer friends who understand what you’re going through. Family, though they may be loving, may not understand and unintentionally be cruel. Or intentionally. So, having a safe place, safe people to confide in is important as you grow to accept and love yourself.

TMG: How has being queer affected your lives and relationships? That includes your marriage, though I guess you pretty much covered that already to some degree.

Frances: It’s hard to say, since we haven’t lived any other lives where we were straight.

TMG: You have a point.

Frances: My relationship with my in-laws would probably be better. That’s about all I can think of.

TMG: On that note, what are your respective families like, if I may ask?

Frances: Mine is very liberal, mostly atheist, a mix of Democrat and Libertarian. Stephanie’s is Christian of various flavors, conservative, and has a lot of Republicans.

TMG: No prizes for guessing which is more accepting, I assume (or rather, the readers would assume).

Frances: Yeah, lol.

TMG: You, at least, get along pretty well with your family, don’t you?

Frances: Yeah. They’ve really stepped up.

TMG: Nice. They’ve seemed cool from what little time I’ve been around them.

Frances: Yup. My family is really diverse, so we fit right in.

TMG: And you’re on the autism spectrum, too. Is Stephanie neurodivergent at all?

Frances: Not as far as we know.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

Frances: It’s time to celebrate what queer people have survived and accomplished, and it helps us build community and connect with our communities.

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Frances: I can’t think of anything.

TMG: All right then.

7.

TMG: What is your full identity? And what pronouns do you use?

Nicole: I am bisexual and genderfluid, but I usually just say I’m queer because that’s easier. I don’t really care a lot about pronouns, personally, but they/them works. She/her is what usually happens, though. (He/him also sometimes happens; it was weird the first time but I’m used to it now. Still prefer they/them to he/him, though.)

TMG: Fair enough. I imagine you in particular aren’t all that strongly tied to any specific, narrow gender identity?

Nicole: Not especially, no. I often present as somewhat more feminine, but I still look pretty middle-of-the-road even then. Oh, actually, sorry, meant to say I identify as nonbinary, not genderfluid. Similar things, but I think nonbinary better encompasses me as a person. I mean, as a label, it works, but I’m not sure that I actually do move back and forth between the ends of the gender spectrum that much.

TMG: So not so much waking up and thinking “I am the beautiful queen of femininity! Give me all the makeup and dresses!” some days and “Gender? wat” others, but mostly the latter all the time?

Nicole: Yes, that’s a good way to put it. I used to have days when I’d want to wear dresses and be all feminine, but those days are becoming increasingly rare as I get older. I’m not sure if that’s because gender spectrum or just being old and tired, though. The main characteristic of genderfluid that I don’t so much experience like I used to is the hard shift between genders. I used to have Very Masculine days and Very Feminine days; now I’m just pretty solidly meh about it every day. It’s actually been several months since I’ve had a day (or other period of time) that was solidly one way or the other.

TMG: Okay. When and how did you discover your identity?

Nicole: PSA: This is going to be a bit of a novel. I grew up extremely religious, so there was no discussion whatsoever about gender, sex, sexuality, or any of that beyond “you were born female, you will get married to a man and make babies.” I’ve known pretty much since ever that being a “girl” or “female” felt weird and awkward and not quite right, and I also knew that I wanted none of this making babies business. However, I smushed all that down as much as I could because I was told it was evil and wrong to be anything other than a straight babymaker. So I didn’t really explicitly realize my identity until I was probably a senior in college. As a junior, I’d studied abroad in Morocco and been exposed to a lot of new information. A friend of mine was surprised that I’d never had a “bicurious” phase, and was also surprised at how vehemently I denied it. But her surprise and her questions made me start thinking more deeply. So then I realized at about age 21 that I was probably bi. Coincidentally, I also started dating my partner when I was 21. He was the first person I actually came out to. (Obviously, he’s very accepting; it probably helps that he’s not entirely straight himself.) I became fairly comfortable with identifying as bi, but I knew there was still something off. I was not comfortable being defined as a woman, but I didn’t really know what else was out there. So I started researching. And then the summer after I turned 23, I realized that nonbinary was a thing and that I was that thing. At first I identified as a demigirl, but it quickly became apparent to me that that didn’t encompass everything. So then I identified more as genderfluid, because I had pretty distinct days of feeling like different genders. In the past year or so (I’m 26 now), that particular pendulum has mostly come to rest and I’m just in a funky little nonbinary spot where gender is mostly a shrug.

TMG: Sounds like quite the journey of self-discovery.

Nicole: Ohhhh yeah. During that self-discovery time I also shifted from fundamentalist Christian to atheist to very lax pagan, so there was a LOT of moving about.

TMG: Well, you are valid and loved, and I’m glad you finally had everything fall into place.

Nicole: Aw, thank you ❤

TMG: So, what would you tell a young queer person? Perhaps someone who's only just realized that there is more than just "heterosexual and cisgender", or someone who's felt all along that there was something "not right" with the way everyone else was defining them?

Nicole: Well, first, take a deep breath. There's nothing wrong with you. You're valid. There are lots of other people like you so you are definitely not alone. You don't have to shoehorn yourself into some nonsense societal expectation. Be yourself, love yourself, and be nice to yourself. Understanding your identity can be a really long process, and it's okay if it changes over time. But on the other hand, be prepared for people to not like you because of who you are. A lot of people still have hateful and nasty little minds. If you catch heat for being who you are, try to just let it roll off you. Again, there is NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU. But there's a whole lot wrong with people who choose to hate! Keep your head up and try not to let other people's words get to you. (There will probably be days when words do hurt. A lot. But you'll get through them. You will survive—and not just survive, but thrive. You're your own beautiful rainbow self, and nothing anybody says to you can change that.)

TMG: That was beautiful.

Nicole: I mean, I try, lol.

TMG: Come to think of it, you mentioned being pagan, too. Do you that it's more common for people of non-mainstream religions (for lack of a better word) to be queer? Or for queer people to follow one of those religions, or none at all? Perhaps it's a case of correlation, but not causation?

Nicole: In my personal experience, absolutely. Most pagan traditions are very accepting of queer folk; in fact, many traditions have queer deities.

TMG: Like…someone who is cool with uncommon gender identities and such is probably more likely to be accepting of pagans, atheists, and such, but that doesn't mean it's a cause and effect. Like how people who watch anime are more likely to play Dungeons & Dragons, not because anime makes you interested in D&D but because they're both "nerdy" activities and tend to attract similar people.

Nicole: Yes, that. I'd say it's probably more correlation than causation in most cases; if any causative link exists, it's probably queer, then pagan, considering you can't exactly change whether you're queer. That's definitely how it went for me, though of course my evidence is only anecdotal.

TMG: Of course, that also means that anyone who is hostile to minority religions (or lack of one) is probably more likely to assume that being queer is also "evil" because of that correlation…

Nicole: Yeah, that also happens.

TMG: You know, I could probably make a similar argument about My Little Pony actually being satanic. It has unicorns, which bisexual people are compared to. Also, unicorns have horns, and the devil has horns. And since being bisexual is also evil, that means My Little Pony is a work of evil, trying to corrupt children with its eldritch messages of friendship.

Nicole: O nooooooes. How dare cute ponies spread a message of friendship and love using unicorns. Madness, I tell you. The downfall of society.

TMG: Anyway, we're getting rather off-track here. How has being queer affected your life, other than what we've discussed already?

Nicole: Mostly? I'm just a lot happier. I feel better about myself and about life in general. I'm not so annoyed at everything all the time. People do treat me differently sometimes, and my family definitely threw a hissy fit about it, but thanks to years of therapy and also a very thick skin, I no longer care.

TMG: You're happier than if you were a cishet (*cisgender and heterosexual) person?

Nicole: Ah, sorry. No, I meant I’m happier than I was when I tried to force myself to be cishet. In an objective way, being queer hasn’t affected my life that substantially. (Other than when I go to rural areas, where I get all of the stink eye. But again, I really can’t be bothered to care anymore.)

TMG: So being queer as an objective state hasn’t done much, but realizing it certainly did.

Nicole: Yes, exactly.

TMG: And you have a boyfriend, too. (Or is he a fiance at this point?) Do you think it’s affected your relationship in any way that would be atypical compared to any other relationship?

Nicole: I call him my partner. Somewhere between boyfriend and married. We’re not really set on the whole getting married thing so we’re just stuck at partner. Being queer has affected our relationship, I think. Mostly because we tend to have the same taste in women so we both tend to discreetly and politely check out the same women.

TMG: How exactly does one introduce a nonbinary significant other anyway? “Mom, Dad, this is my girl?friend.”

Nicole: Rick just introduces me as his partner. Though to be fair, I wasn’t out when I first met his parents, so…

TMG: For the purpose of our readers, what’s your family like?

Nicole: My parents are extremely religious. They brought my sister and me up in a cult and used homeschooling to try to force us to stay in it. (If they wanted us to stay in it, they probably should never have taught us to read. But I digress…) My parents are NOT accepting of anyone who is not a cishet white fundamentalist Christian. My extended family on my dad’s side doesn’t really care, although I think their brand of Christianity probably still says being queer is bad. My extended family on my mom’s side is p terrible so I don’t talk to them (hyper religious, very racist, mean, manipulative, physically and emotionally abusive… I can go on :P), well, with the exception of my aunt. She’s a lot like me (though presumably not queer) and she is also very estranged from that part of the family. My sister is the polar opposite of my family. Very open and accepting and super non-judgmental. She’s told me that this is partially because of the way my parents’ cult dealt with things when I came out.

TMG: And your mental state? Do you know if you have any mental conditions that would be classified as “abnormal”?

Nicole: I mean, anxiety and depression, but most of that is/was because of how I grew up. My therapist says I’m “cured” now, although I still have the odd trigger here and there. I’ve just gotten way better at dealing with them.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

Nicole: I have kind of complicated feelings about that. Mostly it’s a celebration of being ourselves, which I love and enjoy. BUT the first pride event I went to (which was this month, actually) was overwhelmingly dominated by cis gay men, which is fine, but unfortunately there’s kind of a lot of misogyny and gatekeeping within certain portions of that community, so it added a different dynamic to the whole thing. That might just be a DC Pride issue, though. I hear several other cities have explicitly lesbian- and other queer folk-oriented events.

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Nicole: I don’t think so. You’re very thorough.

TMG: All right. Cool. Thanks for doing this with me.

Nicole: Of course! And thank YOU for taking the time to do this also!

TMG: Sure. I hope it helps people. Friends are great~

Nicole: They are ❤

8.

TMG: What is your full identity? And what pronouns do you use?

Teresa: AFAB. Agender aromantic asexual. She/her.

TMG: When and how did you discover your identity?

Teresa: I knew as early as 10 that I didn’t experience the world in the same way as my peers. As far as actual terminology though I was 46. I was reading Sherlock Holmes fan fic and came across an unfamiliar term. Googled it and ended up on the AVEN website. Shocked to find out that what I was was actually a thing :). I’m currently 50 by the way.

TMG: What would you tell a young queer person?

Teresa: That there is an entire community out there waiting to offer you love and support… My spouse and I go out of our way to “adopt” young trans and ace kids in our city…we offer emotional support, buy them groceries…a lot of young queer people have families that have turned them out and for all of us community is vital.

TMG: How has being queer affected your life? And relationship, for that matter. Has being aro-ace (*aromantic asexual) ever been a problem for your husband or anything?

Teresa: When I publicly came out I lost a lot of friends….mostly Evangelical Christians that were angry that I was speaking up in defense of the queer community. As far as my spouse is concerning, discovering that I’m aro ace and not broken has improved my marriage. My spouse came home from work while I was sitting at the table on the laptop reading the AVEN site. I passed them the laptop and said “I think this is me.”. They looked it over and said, “First of all this explains a LOT. Secondly, we can work with this. “. Being allo, they thought that my lack of interest in sex and romance meant I didn’t love them but never said anything to me about it. Lol, when they proposed to me it went right over my head 🙂

TMG: So many people are worried about being in the friendzone. For you…the friendzone was in you all along! How long have you been married now?

Teresa: My marriage from my standpoint is a QPR (*queerplatonic relationship, a relationship with a stronger emotional bond than a friendship but still not romantic or sexual). I’ve been in other QPRs, all of them with women, usually more than one at a time. Currently just in the one because my last few have had massive issues with my spouse. Sorry….I’m married to that one…that one gets prioritized. I’m open to being in another one but will need to have a long talk with her first if and when that happens. 18 years.

TMG: I feel like people undervalue forms of love that aren’t romantic or sexual, honestly.

Teresa: Right. I want emotional closeness more than anything. I have that with my spouse. And it’s possible I think to be close to more than one person. I prefer women for that and they tend to be better at emotional intimacy and far less likely to decide they want to sleep with me although that isn’t always the case. I think that it’s easy for people to automatically drift into sexual or romantic attraction once that emotional intimacy is there.

TMG: I’m with you there. I still haven’t entirely figured out what my romantic attraction is like, but I do want emotional closeness even in friendships.

Teresa: Yeah….for me all of my relationships are categorized by how emotionally involved I am with the person. I’m also very demi when it comes to QPRs. I have to know the person first, but I do have a type….little, blonde, Irish ancestry, and some sort of mental health diagnosis….usually bipolar or BPD.

TMG: Huh. That’s interesting. You’re also a practicing Catholic, aren’t you? What do you have to say about the prevalent assumption that one cannot be both religious and queer, or that being queer is sinful?

Teresa: My parish is pretty queer-friendly. I personally manage to be both queer and Catholic pretty well. I believe that there is a biological component to why we are the way we are. I certainly didn’t choose this. My Evangelical Christian friends sometimes have issues with my gender presentation….I skew slightly masculine as far as they are concerned. Despite having a very female body (which I have no issues with) I get misgendered often as male if people don’t look closely. Whatever. I’m a person and my hair is human hair and my clothing is human clothing. I spent 4 years in Bible College and am entirely capable of going back to the original languages to have discussions about the topic with people who try to tell me I’m sinning.

TMG: What’s your family like? And your mental state?

Teresa: I’m not in contact with my immediate family because of abuse issues. I have a younger sister whom I’m in limited contact with. As far as my mental state, I went through decades of therapy to repair the damage that my parents inflicted. I worked very hard and have been stable and fine for years.

TMG: Aw…well, I’m glad that you’re doing better now.

Teresa: Cutting all contact with my parents in 2005 was a good decision. Toxic people don’t change and I married into a really lovely supportive family.

TMG: What does pride month mean to you?

Teresa: Pride month was being involved in my community. My ace group had their own tent this year at our festival and the LGBTQIA community in my city is very inclusive and went out of their way to include us and keep us safe and make us feel welcome. I feel that solidarity and protection everyday but at Pride it was more pronounced.

TMG: Do you have anything to say that I didn’t cover?

Teresa: No. You were really thorough.

TMG: Okay. Well, thank you for your time.