Apollonian Gasket Forge

If I had a nickel for every time there was discourse because it was unclear if a character was coming out gay and recontextualizing their previous straight relationship or coming out bi I could probably buy a pizza!

The guy or gal or pal who does not want to be pinned down by a label is a very specific species of character, stop talking around it

Realistic fiction writers. We are fucking obsessed with identity. We love saying who we are. You can definitely find exceptions, but the default is that your character has a label, write like it

Slightly irritated that for in-world reasons I am leaning towards not labeling my characters as L/G/B/T etc, which is a pet peeve of mine in realistic fiction, especially with avoiding bi and pan

Like, I may invent inworld terms and an inworld way of thinking about it because I hate the trope

He is a composite of an enormous number of people I met on this very website, in fact

He absolutely loves winding people up. Looking for trouble. Putting people down

He's a peach

This, by the by, is why I'm so steadfastly supportive of trans people. Gender affirmation is lifechanging, I've seen it so many times. The people who are broken and wrong are the people who spend all their time trying to snuff out that light and I'm tired of arguing about it

Actually, the timeline is that his dad is pushing his mom that girls might not be for him before Shane realizes that fact. It's a beat I've seen a lot in my and my friends' lives and never seen in fiction before except maybe as a joke

And his dad, who it is both implied and stated knows pretty early, runs away when confronted with it because he doesn't know what to do! Neither of Shane's parents know what to do, not because they are homophobes, but because they are figuring this out in parallel with Shane

And the show acknowledges that Yuna could have done a better job making space for Shane to come out and maybe was never affirmatively supportive of the idea until he came to her, but it also acknowledges that Shane and Ilya can both see she's going to do right by him. The nuance is 🤌🤌🤌

The other beat they miss is why you'd stay in the closet so long with supportive parents

Don't worry, Shane will spend the rest of his life wondering that too! But it's because it's one of the most important and irreplaceable relationships you have and the downsides are just unfathomable

I also reread this when I want to be inspired to cook more.

I've read this book a lot >.>

It's nonfiction, but whenever I feel like I need to nourish my sense of what words are and what they can do, I reread The Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler. She knows exactly how to paint a picture on your tongue

And I know straight people don't really need defended, but I feel inspired to do so anyway: These comments are from supportive, open men who are invested in this gay drama and putting themselves out there, and you see them get it by the end

Straight people of bsky, if there is such a thing, gather 'round: Watch when your friends and loved ones come out. Look at them 6 months later. It's often like someone turned a light on in them, it's fucking amazing. The closet sucks, and the worst part is you have to hide how much it dims you

To be fair! I think the episode kind of assumes that it's gay audience is going to pick up the couple of sad puppy dog looks Robbie G.K. is giving and soft balls the point. And it probably could have been a little sharper how miserable he is, though its all there. But straights who know still don't!

I have fallen down the rabbit hole of "straight guys react to Heated Rivalry" content. First of all, it's shockingly wholesome??? But I post because while they overwhelmingly Get It, every single one is like, "what's the big deal with Kip going back in the closet!" My dudes, it's *soul crushing*

The older meaning of "perfect", that of "complete", helped me deal with this. A scene is perfected when it does everything it needs it to do

It is still a high bar, but asking what something needs to be finished takes the infinity away from it

I know I have a different relationship with spoilers than most everyone, but I feel like I would have enjoyed it more and had a clearer idea of the arc and what it was doing if I'd known the ending, which the promotion anti-spoiled by setting different expectations

I will say, Pillion was done no favors by marketing it as a romantic comedy. It is quite arguably neither! The characters don't understand the relationship as romantic, they don't get together at the end, and while it can be funny at times, it doesn't lean into those elements

"Get over" might not be the right to think about it, though! Modulate it, make the wheel smaller, make it sting less.

And, as I think about it, embrace riding it sometimes

Speaking for me, making sure I'm getting exercise, doing stuff "outside my head" (does that makes sense?), and not working 7 days in a row on end are all in my quiver

Suffering From “Creative Hangover”? You’re Not Alone A new study finds that artists experience negative emotions the morning after their most productive days.

This piece is quite good! This is something I've noticed myself, on all counts, and something I take steps to anticipate and reduce the impact of

What tricks you got in your bag for the drain that can come from working hard on creative projects?

One thing people get wrong, by the way, is that the "Red Pill" stuff is some kind of broad Gen Z movement. No, the kids who want that kind of culture have had to build a subculture. That's not great, we don't love that, but a lot of it used to be just normal stuff "every" boy thought and said

Standard caveats that this is a broad brush, there's still too much homophobia and sexism, and there are still bottled up men. But a lot of young straight men don't see homosocial touch as gross and see homosexual touch as something people they care about do

It explains why people keep projecting sexual intimacy onto Hudson and Storrie's body language and why there has been a good reception of the show among straight streamers. Gen Z's ideas of masculinity are basically a foreign country if you're over 30

A lot of Heated Rivalry discourse makes a lot more sense when you remember:
1) straight Gen Z guys are under a lot less pressure to front as heteronormative, especially with respect to touching
2) straight Gen Z guys are much more likely to have gay friends and an insight to gay culture

The story I'm literally procrastinating on another round of outlining by scrolling bsky is about a civil war and, no spoilers on if these crazy kids make it, if they make it out the other end it's not going to be the lives they thought they were going to have and they know it

Since a certain night in November 2016, I have tended more towards a "happy" ending because I think its important to tell myself that whatever happens, however low things get between start and finish, we will put ourselves back together and make a better world

I have endeavored to show both and I like telling both stories, though I will say my happy endings tend to come at a high cost