Last updated: September 29, 2026

The following is a list of some of the writing that has radicalized, aroused, or entertained me the most. Sorted by which, though there is some overlap. All categories are fake, after all.

Radicalize Yourself

I Hope We Choose Love – Kai Cheng Thom – Essay collection covering transfemininity, “mental illness”, racism, queer and activist spaces, and more. Her fiction is also very good. Book.

The Dawn of Everything – David Graeber & David Wengrow – Nonfiction book. Big long list of prehistoric and ancient cultures that were way less evil than what we’ve gotten stuck with today; a counter to the dominant narrative in archaelogy/anthropology/history etc.

How to be an Antiracist – Ibram X Kendi– Nonfiction book. I feel like this is mainstream enough I probably don’t need to platform it, and it looks like low-hanging fruit to say: “look how woke I am!” but it did really leave a mark on my worldview; especially the emphasis on judging systems and beliefs over individuals. And if you’re white and haven’t examined your white fragility at all, it’s a very (too?) gentle first step toward fixing that.

Against Safety/Towards Bleed – The Garden Below – Blog post about the dangers of safety in transfemininity and tabletop gaming

Radicalize Yourself: Antipsychiatry Edition

The Book of Woe – Gary Greenberg– Nonfiction book. Discusses the greed and farcical incompetence of the corporation that decides which of us are insane, the American Psychiatric Association. I now recommend this over Saving Normal by Allen Frances, especially because Frances himself features prominently in this book, in a more honest and critical light

The Sexuality of Care – MK Thekkumkattil – Nonfiction book about healthcare work and kink, by a trans ICU nurse of color. Even if you don’t work in healthcare, you’re a patient, and I also really found the case they made for kink as transformative in relationships and healing really compelling.

Crazy Like Us – Ethan Watters – Journalistic nonfiction book about the irreparable harm the white supremacy and imperialism inherent to psychiatry and big pharma has done worldwide.

The Collected Schizophrenias – Esme Weijun Wang – Nonfiction book about living with our culture’s most stigmatized “mental illness.”

Collected Works of Otto Gross – Gross was one of the founders of psychoanalysis, as influential as Jung from what I can tell, but he’s been erased for being a communist about it. He’s far from blameless, but fascinating, and he does have some good takes (my favorite is his essay that calls gender norms a “humanity-encompassing etiology”).

Fag it Up Transsexual Style

Before Gender – Eli Erlick – Nonfiction about trans people alive between 1850-1950, pretty much all of whom were erased by history. It also covers MULTIPLE trans-led riots pre-stonewall. Effie Smith is an icon.

The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions – Larry Mitchell – A mythologized accounting of faggotry from before the AIDS genocide, casting cishetero men as the world-dominating villains they are.

My Goblins are Dirty – Lost Tsojcanth – Blog post. Random tables for goblins from someone who fucken gets it. And as a literal goblin and goblin pervert I would know.

Bad Habit – Alana S. Portero– One of very few novels to make me cry.

Priestess – Gray Levesque – Very lyrical and trans short story, free online. There’s a lot of good stuff published in The Temz Review (including this) but I think this is my favorite piece from it so far.

Stag Dance – Torrey Peters – A collection of short stories and a novella, all extremely transfem from wildly different angles, all extremely good. Read all her work.

RPG Bull Shit

Faggot Games: An Urgent Warning – Eclipse Dot Gay – Blog post. An incitement to make unapologetically horny games. This follow-up post builds on it; read both.

The Palette Grid – Jay Dragon– what if safety tools were good?

No One Can Take Your game From You – Bare Nuckelavee – Blog post. A lovely tirade in defense of roleplaying games as anti-consumerist praxis

Orcish Genocide and the Reaction Roll – The Retired Adventurer – one reason why the reaction roll was secretly key to D&D and all the editions without it are inherently more racist.

On Childlike Media – Cavegirl – one of my favorite entries to Cavegirl’s really good blog. An exploration of the appeal of dark kids’ media. Not actually that RPG-related, but a lot of her other content is, and it’s great.

Yummy Fiction

The Prisoner – Patrick McGoohan – Yes, it’s a TV show; it’s important to me, shut up. Aggressively 60s, weird allegorical sci-fi, way ahead of its time and our time. Watch it, then watch the documentary so you can understand why I’m crediting this show to one guy, and worry for me that I relate to him so much.

Jerry Cornelius series – Michael Moorcock – Novel series. My favorite Moorcock books, even above femme icon Elric (this blog’s namesake). It’s like if James Bond was severely fucked in the head and queer, plus it has lewd illustrations.

Collected Fictions – Jorge Luis Borges – I dunno what to say other than that Borges’ work is deeply weird in wonderful and influential way, and he conveys a love of books that is very specific and relatable.

Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino – fiction without narrative; just sheer weird imagination. 

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed – Mariana Enriquez – Collection of short horror stories set in Argentina. All her collections are great, but this is my favorite.

Shardik – Richard Adams – Novel. The guy who wrote YA classic Watership Down also wrote a fantasy epic for grownups. No speculative elements, big fuckoff bear, child slavery, what more could you want?