yeah all right I'm at s5e2 of this dumb firefighters show and look I'm sorry I haven't seen anything this intensely but unacknowledgedly gay without feeling the need to either no homo itself or engage with a very special episode subplot since, like... Due South. Or The Sentinel. It keeps using all the same tropes you see between the main love interests in an ensemble piece, just centered on two people who happen to be guys.

I'm weirdly convinced that this is a deliberate choice to probe the genre and play with the writing opportunities afforded by taking these really standard and familiar procedural tropes and storylines, and then mixing the genders willy nilly. After all, this show is... not subtle about making a habit of that throughout: it loooooooves to dig through familiar procedural subplots with gendered expectations and subversions. This is, in fact, the show that kicks its first arc off by exploring the possibilities for character decisions entailed by a loving, supportive marriage divorcing because one partner wants to come out as gay. It's a show that gives all its most traditionally masculine subplots to Athena, the most femme woman on the main cast! It really wouldn't be out of character for the show to move in that direction.

I'm not actually invested in canon Buck/Eddie per se— I've never needed that from my fandom time — but I'm fascinated by the storytelling opportunities afforded to it, and I'm keenly aware that writers rooms almost definitely include people in them now who have spent a significant time in fandom as participants, and who have thought deeply about the ways that gender can shape stories (particularly though the venue of always-a-gender! AUs). I'm also.... hm, how shall I put this...

That relationship is already textually queer. Wills have been modified involving custody and co-parenting agreements, okay, we are firmly in the territory of "immediate family" commitment levels. They could both be 1000% straight and cis and this would still be a relationship that queers normative expectations, particularly on men and especially on young men. I don't actually need it to do anything else to love it.

So I'm not coming from a place of wanting to see anything in particular in that respect, but I gotta say: it really feels to me that this show is playing with the ability to have its cake and eat it too in terms of the "will they/won't they" dynamic of the "main couple" in a television series: you can be as dramatic and iddy as you want, really dial up those emotional stakes, but at the same time your audience isn't huffing and whining that everything is so predictable because just by existing between two men you're subverting audience expectations.

It's really interesting. I'm enjoying myself a lot.

Good Luck Babe has to be one of the best "mad at your ex" songs of all time - right up there with You're So Vain and You Oughta Know. That bridge has the force of a curse on someone's entire bloodline

Some frog wizard magic ✨

do you think insight can be gained about an author from the stories they write?

no. authors are like squids and can only be understood through spirited but ultimately futile combat

goat fight. non-negotiable.

It's so surreal seeing a TERF saying things like "stop exclusing us, we just want to be safe." Stop being a danger and you'll be welcomed. As long as you're a TERF you're not a safe person and we get to behave accordingly.

verso books has made books on palestine, mass protests, and student rebellions free to download on their website

from nebraska earlier today. this has got to be some of the craziest tornado footage i have ever seen. from @nickgormanwx

every autistic person watching this episode of dungeon meshi:

Source

I always forget people don't know I'm hard of hearing.

Probably because it doesn't affect my life as much as my other disabilities/chronic illness shit, so I don't bitch about it as much. But yeah. I'm hard of hearing on my left side. It started after the whole heavy metal poisoning/jaw bone infection thing, where I ended up with some nerve damage and bone loss.

Turns out that's bad for your hearing.

And if you're thinking, "oh, that's where she got Nathan's arc from in Hunger Pangs," yeah, I uh, I wrote Nathan's arc before we found out I had mercury in my mouth.

That whole first book was just my subconscious jumping up and down waving red flags and yelling, "wouldn't it be WILD if METAL POISONING was killing someone??? wouldn't it be even wilder if MOLD SPORES turned out to be [REDACTED]"

'Cause, yeah, I wrote that plot point before we knew about the deadly mold in the walls that was making my health worse. Wild.

Anyway, yes, I am hoh on my left side and also have an audio processing disorder, so, y'know, sorry if you ever meet me irl and I'm awkward af, but unless we're in a quiet room with limited background noise, I will not know wtf you're saying lmao.

ill keep writing about surviving because i don't know what else there is

As a wheelchair user I'm trying to reframe my language for "being in the way."

"I'm in the way," "I can't fit," and "I can't go there," is becoming "there's not enough space," "the walkway is too narrow," and "that place isn't accessible."

It's a small change, but to me it feels as if I'm redirecting blame from myself to the people that made these places inaccessible in the first place. I don't want people to just think that they're helping me, I want them to think that they're making up for someone else's wrongdoing. I want them to remember every time I've needed help as something someone else caused.

Can you believe we can just live in our houses with little animals