QOTD: What’s your favourite book with a trans MC or by a trans author?
Transgender Day of Remembrance marks the end of Trans Awareness Week so today I’ve got another rec list.
We remember trans lives by celebrating trans lives and sharing trans stories
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Contemporary Romance:
- Make Room for Love by Darcy Liao
- Under the Mistletoe With You by Lizzie Huxley Jones
- Second Chances in New Port Stephen by TJ Alexander
- Love and Other Disasters by Anita Kelly
- Single Player by Tara Tai
- The Pairing by Casey McQuiston
- Pit Stop by Ellis Mae
- Graceless by Ruby Landers
- The Prospects by KT Hoffman
- Sing Anyway by Anita Kelly
Paranormal Romance:
- The Full Moon Problem by Kay Claire
- The (Most Unusual) Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy by Roan Parrish
- Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore
Historical Romance:
- A Gentleman’s Gentleman by TJ Alexander
- Something Spectacular by Alexis Hall
- A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall
Fantasy:
- The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
- Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson
- These Vengeful Gods by Gabe Cole Novoa
- The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy
- Dragonfall by LR Lam
- She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
Sci-fi:
- Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove
- A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
- Unexploded Remnants by Elaine Gallagher
Horror/Mystery:
- What Moves the Dead by T Kingfisher
- The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall
Graphic Novels:
- Genderqueer by Maia Kobabe
- Strange Bedfellows by Ariel Slamet Ries
- Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu
- Ash’s Cabin by Jen Wang
- Evil-ish by Kennedy Tarrell
- I Shall Never Fall in Love by Hari Conner
- The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
- Stars in Their Eyes by Jessica Walton
- Paper Planes by Jennie Wood
- Lunar Boy by Jes and Cin Wibowow
- The Tea Dragon Festival by K O’Neill
- A Song for You and I by K O’Neill
YA Romance:
- Leaving the Station by Jake Maia Arlow
- The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimmons
- Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
- Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa
- Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
- Okay, Cupid by Mason Deaver
- Out of the Blue by Jason June
YA Fantasy:
- Witchlore by Emma Hinds
- Devil’s Like Us by Lin Thompson
- A Dark and Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth
- This Fatal Kiss by Alicia Jasinska
- The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas
- The Wicked Bargain by Gabe Cole Novoa
- The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda Hall
- Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe Gong
YA Horror:
- The Honeys by Ryan La Sala
- Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White
- Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White
- The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
YA Contemporary:
- Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore
- The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester by Maya MacGregor
- Out of Blue Cones Green by ME Corey
- Honeybee by Craig Silvey
- The Evolving Truth of Ever-Stronger Will by Maya MacGregor
I love how unabashedly confident G3 Frankie is❤️Mattel could’ve made their identity part of their journey, added questions and uncertainty to their character arc, but instead Frankie knows exactly who they are and how they identify: their journey is all about discovering what life has to offer. It’s such a beautiful and important message❤️
So, Digimon Story: Time Stranger dropped its demo a little over a week ago now, and a few days ago (after I played as much of the demo as I was interested in; though it recently got an update I might be taking a look at soon-ish) I decided to take a look at the Discussion section on Steam.
I was quite surprised how many threads I saw that were annoyed that the character select screen asks you to "choose your body type" instead of "are you a boy or a girl?"
Especially surprised and mildly annoyed at the people who were complaining that "Digimon's gone woke," considering that Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth (the previous game in this sub-franchise) had two explicitly queer characters and two implicitly queer ones.
The explicit rep was a nonbinary hacker we have to stop from scamming people because they were protesting the virtual reality program not having "nonbinary" as an option for their avatar and a guy who was quite happy with the Lilymon who downloaded itself onto his phone intending to block the calls of any "hot girls" because he was actually gay.
The implicit rep comes from secondary protagonist Nokia, who has official art of her and the female version of the lead character in a fairly compromising position, and the mildly antagonistic Fei, who is heavily implied to be in love with Yuuko, the other secondary female antagonist (to the point of knowing its her in disguise as Yuugo, Yuuko's older brother).
Then, off course, we also have the older stuff out of the anime. The most famous of which is when Renamon in Digimon Tamers notes that "Digimon don't have genders." Meaning they are, ironically for computer-based life, inherently nonbinary.
There's also a thing in Adventure Zero Two, where Tailmon and Hawkmon fuse into Silphymon. Because Tailmon is a feminine Digimon who evolves into Angewomon, while Hawkmon is very masculine, even as Aquilamon.
Even further back in actual Adventure, you could even consider Sora's partner Piyomon, who is also as feminine as Tailmon, but has a Perfect level in Garudamon, who is very masculine in form.
Oh, and let's not also forget the Dub-Induced queerness. There are basically (currently) three Digital Worlds, Yggdrasil, KunLun, and Homeros, and they all have consciousness. For some reason, when translating Yggdrasil to English, they renamed it King Drasil. Which became queer-ish when Yggdrasil's human-like avatar was revealed to be a girl.