riyukco

a tumblr mutual of mine awhile ago made some post about "if i had a nickel for enemies to lovers romances set in philadelphia", etc etc, so naturally i had to track down both of the books she was referring to. the entanglement of rival wizards, by sarah raasch, was one of them. the book. uh. disappointed me somewhat. first of all theres nothing that makes the sport set in philadelphia besides a couple mentions of the South St Bridge. no other references to the surrounding area or landmarks or anything, just, "yeah we're in philly". okay, whatever, not actually a crime. i think i'm not a huge fan of the romance novel conventions at play in the book, though. the tragic backstories on both parts and the "everyone works out just fine!" with the lawsuit and sebastian's parents and his friend coming back to the east coast. i think this is good, if overly smutty, fanfiction of someone's modern with magic dnd campaign, but it does not make a great book on its own. sebastian is INCREDIBLY unlikable (i'd love to read this book from Thio's perspective actually!) and i'm not invested in the world At All.

well hey, it's been a minute! i've read one (1) book so far in 2026 and that is whipping girl, by julia serano, aka a seminal piece of transfeminist writing. i've got mildly complex feelings about this one. 

• i'm really into her different axes of sexism (oppositional and traditional) and how those interact but also contradict each other--and how her view of the main conflict is like, it's not being female that's suppressed, it's being feminine. i love this take partly because it breaks open a certain perspective for me re: why trans women are treated the way they are but also just, like, i think she's right? hard agree here?
• particularly she talks about, like, men will be less scared of femininity if it's normalized (massively oversimplifying here but this is a dw post for 5 people so whatever). i have straight men in my life who paint their nails. i guess they're doing the most? but no for real like, the guys i hang around are guys who have traditionally "feminine" traits e.g. being quieter, emotionally intelligent, etc whereas the people i avoid, vice versa. funny how that can be kind of a litmus test for if someone's gonna be cool
• she got personal about her experience here without being too revealing, that's a fine line to walk and i think she knew that going in and didn't WANT to cross that line--especially as she pointed out how the gory details of transition are so often sensationalized. thought she struck a good balance there
• a lot of the stuff she talks about in here re: the social-constructionist gender model and trans-exclusive feminism i've been familiar with for a while (see: tumblr, historically women's college with a trans-inclusive admissions policy, one of my besties from said college, my ex) but she's often cited in discussions about those things so it's cool to read it straight from the source
• couldn't quite keep the difference between her use of transsexual and transgender in my head because those terms are so conflated now 20 years later. like i think i see what she's getting at but it felt sort of slippery
• subconscious sex vs presentation vs gender identity was a big emotional game changer for me. i've spent the past. hmm. checks calendar. 7 years pingponging back and forth between various types of gender expression trying to figure out why something feels so off but i can never fix it and then all of a sudden im like oh. actually i like presenting as feminine, i just also think i should have different body parts than the ones i have. fucked up. not really anything i can do abt that though i like my big long skirts so female social gendering it is 
• having read some queer theory (not a lot), i get why she disagrees with them and their social-constructionist view, i think there's more nuance to be drawn out of that particular discussion but it's all purely theoretical at that level so whatever. 

good book, made me think, there were parts of her theory that i wasn't so into but that wasn't really why i was reading it so whatever

a few complaints to cap off the post:

• man, remember when my local hockey team won games? damn. happy the sabres are getting out of the basement but did it have to be at our expense
• my all-hands work weekend in november conflicts with a friend's wedding and i'm big mad about it
• woke up this morning and the temperature was 23 f with a feelslike of 9. evil evil evil