imagine_that

It feels quite beautiful to me that I have a notes file labeled "burn book" which is for jotting down things I want to remember about people to remind myself why they might rub me the wrong way (to remind myself that I have reasons sometimes and not just vibes¹

1: As a contextual note, it might be worth remembering that I lost the entire last three months of my diary of dating my abusive ex, and have had to piece together some of the "was it really that bad?" since then from trauma-touched memories and chatlogs. It was, I know it was, I remember it was, I wish I had more contemporary sources to draw from sometimes. Anyways.

The beautiful part is seeing the sorts of notes I've written most recently. My work bestie's favourite candy. The name of the girl my online friend's been gushing about. One of my DnD friend's favourite animals. The kinds of cliff bar my new friend with the allergies can actually eat.

I like that my burn book, my place to collect small little notes of things I get told or observe and want to remember, is mostly just so kind.

~Sor

And today my physical health went through the floor and my mood with it, but I hadn't known that boglands were permeating pop culture to the point of salt marsh gastronomy, biofictional art, and peat-distressed fashion. What a great time it would be for a proper home release of Michael Almereyda's The Eternal (1998). Have some further Rabbitology.

Current Music: Rabbitology, "Magnanimity (Bigger Man)"

I had a rough night and ran around less during the day than previously, but I did take a couple of pictures in the cold late afternoon.

( We hoped for something more. )

Not having dreamed memorably for months, I was amused that last night I was apparently trying to compose a journal post describing a pre-dawn view of the river which presented itself as the Charles, although in waking life it is not crossed with any rope bridges that I know about, nor have I ever seen a market running down its banks to the water. Then I was distracted by discovering the existence of living root bridges. I had never seen anything like them in a non-secondary world. I love that they are not a historical technology.

Current Music: Jim Ghedi, "Wasteland"

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! We’re here with 11 recommendations of books starring queer Asian American characters. (We apologize that none star Pacific Islanders! AAPI month focuses on Pacific Islanders who are also Americans, and we none of us have read any queer books that fit that, BUT we have a list of non-American Pacific Islander recs coming out later this month). Please tell us your favorite books by American Pacific Islanders, our TBRs are desperate. The contributors to the list are: Linnea Peterson, hullosweetpea, Nina Waters, and Mikki Madison.

Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe by C.B. Lee
The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen
Brooms by Jasmine Walls
Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao
Make Room for Love by Darcy Liao
Café Con Lychee by Emery Lee
Next Time Will Be Our Turn by Jesse Q. Sutanto
It Rhymes With Takei by George Takei
Gaysians by Mike Curato
Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee
Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi

Find these and other books on our Goodreads book shelf, buy them through the Duck Prints Press Bookshop.org affiliate page, or track them with our Pagebound.co list.

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Leaving the jewelry store this afternoon with a couple of options for repairing the clasp on my necklace which has finally broken down beyond my abilities with needle-nose pliers, I got back into the car just in time to catch an interview with a geophysicist that not only tipped me off to the 1859 Carrington Event which sounds like the science fiction of its day with its spark-throwing wireless sets and tropically lapped auroras and telegraphers communicating through atmospheric influence alone, it introduced me to the Pangaean block of the Piedmont Resistor which seems to lie beneath most of the Eastern Seaboard, just one more piece of deep—two hundred million years down to the mantle—strangeness underfoot. I may never have heard of the United States Magnetotelluric Array and I understand its utility to the fragile electrical grids we have made to stand between the crochets of solar flares and the conductivity of the earth, but in a country that preserved any care for knowledge its map of melted, sutured, fractured time would be its own payoff. I love how much is banked and shifting beneath the surfaces we interact with, from earth and sea to the structures of the universe. I have missed so many meteor showers this year.

Current Music: Pylon Reenactment Society, "Compression"

This week's Thursday Recs are back to being on time 😅

This week, I'm going to take a moment to re-rec "The Queen of Ieflaria" by Effie Calvin. A while back, Effie got tired of her publisher jerking her around, so she got the rights back to her books and has been working on re-editing and self-publishing them. "The Queen of Ieflaria" is the first book in the series, and is the only one currently re-released (with 10,000 new words!), but "Daughter of the Sun" is on its way hopefully this summer. You can find out more about "The Queen of Ieflaria" and get some infographics to maybe perhaps possibly share around over here on the author's Tumblr account.

Do you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!

Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!

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community: thursday recs

We have an annual tradition that on Speak Your Language day, we share some of our favorite queer books that weren’t originally published in English! Check out the recs we’ve got along those lines today, brought to you by Sanne, Evangeline Giaconia, Nina Waters, Lucy K.R., Dei Walker, JD Rivers, Shannon.

Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt – Dutch
Counterweight / 평형추 (Pyeonghyeongchu) by Djuna – Korean
The Route of Ice and Salt / La Ruta Del Hielo Y La Sal by José Luis Zárate – Spanish
Walking Practice / 보행 연습 (Bohaeng Yeonseub) by Dolki Min – Korean
Stars of Chaos / 杀破狼 (Sha Po Lang) by priest – Chinese
The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories by Regina Kanyu Wang & Yu Chen – Chinese
Peerless / 无双 (Wu Shuang) by Meng Xi Shi – Chinese
The Center of the World / Die Mitte der Welt by Andreas Steinhöfel – German
Kisses That Taste Like Lies / くちづけは嘘の味 (Kuchizuke Wa Uso No Aji) by Waka Sagami – Japanese
But Not Too Bold / Bem Mal Me Quer by Hache Pueyo – Brazilian Portuguese
The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter / 異世界の沙汰は社畜次第 (Isekai No Sata Wa Shachiku Shidai) by Yatsuki Wakatsu & Kazuki Irodori – Japanese
Planeta by Ana Oncina – Spanish
Mistakenly Saving the Villain / 論救錯反派的下場 (Lun Jiu Cuo Fanpai De Xiachang) by Feng Yu Nie – Chinese
Paradise Rot / Perlebryggeriet by Jenny Hval – Norwegian

Find these and other books on our Goodreads book shelf, or pick up your own copies from our Bookshop.org affiliate.

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I don't want to make any claims for stamina in case tomorrow when I have an appointment I can't leave the house, but for months it has reliably exhausted me to walk around my own neighborhood and after two days out and about I did spend most of this one curled up, but I also left the house in the midafternoon to acquire a plate of baba dip from Noor because I was jonesing for eggplant and later walked back out on a fish-oriented supermarket run in the thickening rain. I stayed an extra hour at my desk because Hestia was in full Llyan mode, swattily objecting when I ceased from petting her as she purred like a turbine underneath the mermaid lamp. The evening's bedmaking was similarly delayed by her commandeering of the clean laundry with her precise and possessively kneading small paws. It does feel like a change that I am not utterly wiped out by household chores. Now if my brain would just decide to rejoin the party. In that vague direction, I am continuing to enjoy Apple TV's Widow's Bay (2026–) which delighted me beyond measure this week not even by featuring a sea hag who explodes when spear-gunned into tide-flat brine—I treasured a Magic card along those lines—but by having shot a scene at Half Moon Beach in Gloucester. I recognized it from its boulders of Cape Ann granite: I have climbed over their tectonic jumble and dozed on them and been photographed on them by

spatch, the sticky basement rock of my local microcontinent. I am not used to fictitious islands confected out of coasts I know. It makes me want to visit them. In the meantime I read about the doused and sunken chain of the New England Seamounts.

Current Music: Pylon Reenactment Society, "Messenger"

I had reason to dig up and link to this post while chatting with new-friend Alexander. They then said nice things about me doing things full and colourful even when my brain is being shit and I said NO STOP RUDE because I am good at making friends. Luckily they also speak internet, so they made me this meme in return:

And the thing it's making me think of most, irritatingly, is therapy a couple weeks ago and talking about the ways things aren't working and how I worry my brain was better n years ago, it feels like when I reread all these old posts I was doing so much better mentally.

Except of course in my love life, because like, I was way more struggling with jealousy and security and my role in 2019 and I really haven't had emo about that like that....well, since 2020, probably. Maybe 2021? It's not like my relationships are emo-free, just that like.

And like, okay, I'm worse at my job this year than I have been some years, but I'm also much more experienced and steady in my job just in general. And I've gotten a lot better at the union work side of it, and being loud there. And somewhat better at the comrade-not-cop side of working with the students (gods I love being better able to make relationships with the students, it feels so good.)

And man, one of the things I was rereading recently was all the wordsfile from when I ran Scottish Pinewoods in 2020, which was not *quite* the height of me feeling disconnected from the RSCDS but it was maybe the really sharp start of it, the part where it was really beginning to hit me how much my hobby didn't love me. And wow, all the work I have put into making my own dance class that I can have fun with and drag other people into and hopefully be a good time...that's really good work I've done, that's consistently good work, I'm super proud of that work.

Also like now I am learning how to knit and somehow that's a thing where I can force myself to just say the vulnerable words about it and not just lock up all the imposter-syndrome and rejection-sensitive-dysphoria deep in my heart where no one can see it, and so I've had some really lovely and thoughtful conversations with people who are *much* better at this thing where they just straight up explain the things kindly and happily and don't at all make me feel dumb for it.

And then there's the thing that happened recently, where I was chatting with someone about how I'm not relationship 101 material, that the whole polyamorous-kinky-genderqueer-HSV1+-ADHDnightmarechild thing should really not be your first serious relationship. Those are the parts I put in, the reasons. Long time readers might observe that there's something missing that you might expect from the list of why it's complicated to date me, and it's not that I'm _over_ being sexually abused as a seventeen year old by a man the same age I am now, you never get like, _over_ that, but I have put in enough work to make it a *lot* less relevant to my day-to-day.

...huh.

Okay. Fine.

Maybe I am allowed to accept a compliment on my personal growth once in a while. Don't you dare get all uppity and expect it'll work every time! I can still be crazy as sin, don't you worry!

But it's nice to be able to find evidence that I am growing. It's all I ever wanted. I hope you're growing too. The opposite is stagnation, you deserve better than that. So do I.

~Sor
MOOP!

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ongoing saga of perfect

Duck Prints Press’s monthly “created works round-ups” are our opportunity to spotlight some of the amazing work that people working with us have done that ISN’T linked to their work with Duck Prints Press. We include fanworks, outside publications, and anything else that creators feel like sharing with y’all. Inclusion is voluntary and includes anything that they decided “hey, I want to put this on the created work’s round-up!”

Visit our Created Works Round-Up Master Post to see all the works our creators have shared since September, 2022!

And check out what they’ve shared with us this month…

canines of the savior by Ray Knight

fiction || split fiction || f/f || zoe foster/mio hudson || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 24,012 || complete

summary: A canon rewrite of Split Fiction for the end sections of Zoe and Mio’s stories. Altering canon so that the characters realize that they have feelings for one another and kiss about it.

other tags: Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Canon Rewrite, Canon Divergence, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Fix-it Fic

TUMBLR – AO3

I Want You To Want Me by ShannonXL

fiction || the vampire diaries || f/m || elena gilbert/damon salvatore || explicit || no major warnings apply || 12,757 || complete

summary: Canon divergence in which the sire bond is reversed – Damon discovers he’s sired to Elena, not the other way around.

other tags: Vampire Elena Gilbert, Hand Jobs, Face-Sitting, Nipple Play, Mildly Dubious Consent, Reverse Sire Bond, Relationship Negotiation, Sex Toys (Sex Dice), Canon Rewrite, Humor, Communication, Consent Negotiation, Kissing

AO3

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1. What are you currently reading?

Dawning vol. 2 by ICE: enjoying this vaguely toxic BL danmei. When I saw reviewers say it has Wangxian vibes (despite being modern) I'll admit I was little "people compare to the one danmei they've read, huh" but no it actually does kinda have Wangxian vibes, tho Li Luo is much more self-aware about his feelings than Wei Wuxian ever could dream of being. Both these idiots need to use their words.
still picking away at DMBJ vol. 2, of course.
no progress on CMoS 18. I've just been exhausted.

2. What have you recently finished reading?

Dawning vol. 1 by ICE
Do You Really Only Want a Meal? vol. 1 and 2 by Yasu Tadano: kinda flat modern BL about a guy dating his boss's son. Nothing bad happens at all, which is often okay but here it just felt one note, and also I just at no point could figure out what the boss's son liked about the guy. He just kinda. Decided he'd like him. And that was that.
Gachiakuta vol. 4 by Kei Urana: I don't know what it is about the art style, pacing, and writing that makes me feel like I never have any damn idea what's going on in this manga.
A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation vol. 10 by Misaki
Witch Hat Atelier vol. 14 by Kamome Shirahama: oh man this volume was so good.
Witch Hat Atelier Kitchen vol. 1 by Kamome Shirahama and Hiromi Sato: I'll own it was probably unfair of me to read this seeing as how I didn't expect to like it and it was exactly how I expected it to be. For all that, I actually liked it better than I usually like stuff like this, which isn't saying much, but I'm at least gonna read another vol.

3. What will you read next?

Novels: Dawning, vol. 3, which is the last volume. After I finish that I need to buckle down on...

Graphic novels (physical): still Rebis: Born and Reborn by Carlotta Dicataldo and Irene Marchesini. I've got a really big library pile from the library and I've got to read and return them, it's not fair to hoard this many new queer graphic novel releases.

Graphic novels (digital): Yuri Espoir vol. 4 is due in 5 days, so I guess that.

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Counting by months,

rushthatspeaks and I have been together for fifteen and a half years and married for five and a half and missed any formal celebration of our last anniversary because I was on my way to a hospitalization and so when we found ourselves this afternoon at Castle Island where an absurdly stiff breeze was scooting parasailers like hi-vis velella all over Pleasure Bay, the most natural thing when we tired of walking a wind tunnel around the faience-glinting waves was to pursue a meal on the brick-backed patio of our traditional anniversary restaurant, South Boston's ten-year-old Venetian-style bacaro SRV. We found street parking right around the corner. We ordered a smattering of cicchetti—the never-bettered polpette in their velvet of red sauce, the squid-black crostini topped with salt tufts of baccalà, a translucent dab of quince atop a sweetly plush mouthful of ricotta and salumi, an astonishing smear of uni and oyster butter sharpened with mignonette, plus a kitchen gift of lightly crisped eggplant—and a lambent scallop crudo dressed like the jeweled sea with tiny cubes of astringent kiwi and creamy pistachio and torn fresh mint, served on a shell I would have kept if it had come from a beach and not a restaurant I wanted to let me back through its doors ever again. Even the foccacia was bouncy, salt-skinned, assertive enough to eat even without wiping out the bright tomato sauce left over from the eggplant. My amaro mocktail was as darkly herbal as if it could have gotten me high and Rush-That-Speaks' Salt of the Earth was a tongue-spinning concoction of mezcal, fennel, and absinthe that should not have been able to taste so much like green brine. We wrote them an appreciative note and promised to return before autumn, declining their non-negligible roster of desserts in favor of checking out Uncommon Ice Cream up the street, which had not existed the last time we ate at SRV. Rush got the strawberry which really meant its cinnamon toast crunch swirl and I had the savorily flecked rosemary honeycomb. It had been actual ages since I just walked into a restaurant for an affordably luxurious meal with someone I loved, as in the pre-glacial world I could inhabit more or less safely. The two-hour free space on Mass. Ave. was just a present from the parking gods.

Current Music: Jim Ghedi, "The Seasons"

I spent Sunday scrobbling in the dirt, because my friend Apollo had a backyard work party! Another friend there described it as "well, we're really being Tom Sawyered right now" and that was a both charming and accurate way to sum it up. Apollo said "wouldn't it be fun if y'all came over and helped me move rocks and dig up weeds and shovel mulch" and you know what? It super was!

Also there was a fire going pretty much the whole time, and when we pulled especially obnoxious bittersweet or tree-of-heaven out we could go and put it on the fire in triumph and that was very satisfying! After we worked, we ate snacks and sang sad folk songs --it wasn't intentionally, sad, just wound up that way-- and it was a really lovely afternoon all around!

But the thing that's really standing out, was somewhere in the middle of dealing with the tree-of-heaven, after we'd gotten some of the bigger root clusters out but still had plenty to go, I wound up spending like...ten or fifteen minutes just digging increasingly deep and pulling out the rocks from the old rock wall the roots appear to have grown through, and trying to get one of the remaining big pieces out. And I just couldn't do it. I made lots of progress, but the roots were still in there.

So I wandered to Apollo, ready to switch tasks, and said "I give up." "I'm proud of you!" they replied, and when I tried to tease about it, they continued "both for trying and for giving up". That felt. Honestly real good. It feels nice in the way I hope it feels nice when I thank people for saying no to me. It felt nice in a recognition that setting boundaries and taking care of yourself is good. It felt like a kindness, being told that not only was it okay to give up on a frustrating task that wasn't working out, but a point of pride.

I like having the friends I have.

~Sor
MOOP!

Happy release day!! Our latest anthology, Monsterotica: Tales of Unusual Courtship and Coupling, is now officially published and available to people who didn’t back our crowdfunding campaign.

**You can buy Monsterotica in e-book or print formats direct from our webstore, via itch.io, or through one of the many other places that carry out books.**

We also have some leftover campaign merchandise for you folks who missed the chance to buy the merch during the campaign!

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One of the many charming moments about the like, 90 minutes I stood around post-dance in a little cluster of seven of us, sharing stories and chatting, was when Alexander and Willow, both here from Philly, said something lamenting the lack of Rita's in Massachusetts. "At some point we're going to go on an Adventure to visit the one currently open in like, Walpole" one of them said, and immediately I am grabbing Thrantar with one hand and Alexander with the other and near-shrieking "take us with you!"

The four of us then had to explain what on earth a Ritas is and why it matters so to the three New England natives. We almost managed? Maybe we'll let them join on our Adventure and then they can see what it's like.

~Sor
MOOP!

With great disgruntlement, Hestia submitted to the invasion of her sovereign space as I cleaned and restocked the pantry, disposing in the process of many of the shredded paper bags in which she had been pleased to nest and very unfairly folding the unshredded ones into the indispensable bag of bags, out of reach of the mighty paw of kitten. I have been so ill for so long that I have been barely cooking for myself and tired of it: nothing is superabundant, but groceries were included among the errands I spent my day running. The shelves tidily contain cornmeal and jam and tinned fish and soup.

spatch organized his ramen. When I have finished cleaning the counters, I will be able to bake something. I just heard a train whistle blowing in the night, which always makes me think of Tom Waits' "Gun Street Girl" (1985). Someday I will eat a seaweed cheese.

Current Music: Pylon Reenactment Society, "Flowers Everywhere"

This weekend, Saturday May 9th, I’ll be in Greenwich Village in New York City with the Rainbow Book Fair! From noon to 6 pm we’ll be at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center on West 13th St., and there will be readings, panels, a queer poetry marathon, and a bilingual drag story hour. The Rainbow Book Fair is the largest and longest-running LGBTQIA+ book fair in the US, and I’m pretty damn excited to be going for the first time. I hope to see some of y’all there!

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My poem "Gramarye" has been accepted by Not One of Us. As indicated by the title, it bears some influence from Susan Cooper. The rest was influenced by anger and the sea. I am coming up on twenty-five years as a published author and it started with this pocket-sized black-and-white 'zine. I always encourage writer-type persons of my acquaintaince to send them fiction and poetry.

I regretfully conclude that I am not the target audience for Elizabeth Myers' Mrs. Christopher (1946) when its its banger of a premise—whether the three witnesses to the shooting of a blackmailer will turn in their benefactor of a little old lady who pulled the trigger when the reward is £500—plays out as a Christian thought experiment of forgiveness and love in which there is no suspense after all except for the punch line of the verdict. Its tempted witnesses are not psychologically unbelievable and their different circumstances are drawn in well-written detail, but taken all together they feel like a rigged deck. I am not sure whether I should try the film it was adapted into, Marc Allégret's Blackmailed (1951). On a shallower note, the author had an incredible face in her short life. I was glad to read that she bonded with Eleanor Farjeon.

Well, actually, there are quite a few noir thrillers told from the perspective of a woman, but Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's The Blank Wall (1947) may have been my first, too, through its screen translation of Max Ophüls' The Reckless Moment (1949), and I like the cover choice of Jo Cain's New York Harbor (c. 1940) a lot.

Current Music: Jim Ghedi, "Old Stones"

In the afternoon when the overcast cleared,

spatch and I went walking down to the Mystic and I photographed a whole lot of flowers, of which I was happiest with the ones that came out like abstracts.

( I hear the river say your name. )

Physically I am just pretty miserable, but the lilac is breaking out in real bloom and Rob has been showing me potato-quality Deep Space Nine (1993–99). I had tarragon-sautéed mushrooms and zucchini for dinner.

Current Music: Lord Huron, "When the Night Is Over"

On Free Comic Books Day, the comic industry celebrates and attracts readers by offering (shock!) free comics at local comic book shops. We can’t offer any comics for free, but we CAN offer our favorite graphic novels starring queer characters (explicitly queer or otherwise!). The contributors to the list are: Tryan A Bex, Sebastian Marie, Nina Waters, Cedar, Puck, JD Rivers, Alessa Riel, Linnea Peterson, Mikki Madison, CarCrash, E. C., Rascal Hartley.

Can’t get enough queer graphic novels? There are over 150 titles we’ve recommended now and in the past, and you can find them all on our Goodreads Shelf, our Pagebound.co list, and – for those currently in print – in our Bookshop.org affiliate shop!

The Girl from the Sea by Lee Knox Ostertag
I Think Our Son Is Gay by Okura
The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen
The Witch Boy by Lee Knox Ostertag
Our Sunny Days by Jeong Seokchan
Murderous Lewellyn’s Candlelit Dinner by Sumnagi & Mukbu
The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi
Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
Strange Bedfellows by Ariel Slamet Ries
Lullaby of the Dawn by Ichika Yuno
The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz
The Deep Dark by Lee Knox Ostertag
Wish by CLAMP
Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker & Wendy Xu
On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
The Crimson Spell by Ayano Yamane
Watson’s Sketchbook by Lee Knox Ostertag
Our Dining Table by Mita Ori
Hello Sunshine by Keezy Young
Daybreak by Moosopp
The Deep & Dark Blue by Niki Smith
The Wicked + The Divine by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie
Check, Please! by Ngozi Ukazu
Don’t Call Me Daddy by Gorou Kanbe
The Tea Dragon Society by K. O’Neill

Join our Book Lover’s Discord server to chat books, fandom, and more!

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(no subject)

My old body that you buried with the mud and the timber

With life and so much loss, time has weighted us

11 Reads Starring Queer Asian Americans for AAPI Heritage Month!

Out in space, coast to coast

Thursday Recs

Happy Speak Your Language Day!

The moon still rises on everybody else

Growing up isn't mandatory it's fucking _wonderful_

April 2026 Created Works Round-Up!

WWW Wednesday

To the green field by the sea

Giving up

Now Available: Monsterotica Book and Leftover Merch!

**You can buy Monsterotica in e-book or print formats direct from our webstore, via itch.io, or through one of the many other places that carry out books.**

Hometown flavour

Eating cereal, remembering the sky

This Saturday: Rainbow Book Fair in New York City!

Like a sprig of yarrow caught in the dark

Am I lost inside my mind?

26 (Probably Not Free) Graphic Novels for Free Comic Books Day!

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