featheryminx

[featheryminx]

the thing is, eddie treats buck like his husband. he treats him like his partner and expects buck to act like his partner and he usually does!! they usually operate like a unit without acknowledging that the space they’re taking up in each other’s lives is “spouse”. but because they do this without talking about it, sometimes when something enormous happens (800 miles of desert, bobby dying, etc) the cognitive dissonance gets in the way. and so when buck is crashing out about eddie leaving, or when eddie is angry with buck for not being emotionally supportive in the way he needs, what they’re really saying is “you’re supposed to be my husband and you’re not doing that right now and it feels bad”. and by and large the response from the other one is almost always “you’re right, I fucked up, and I’ll do better next time”. and this has bled over into chris’s worldview too. in my opinion. because i don’t think he has ever thought hard enough about it to think of buck as Dad #2 in conscious terms, because to him, he probably does not remember a time before buck entered his life. Buck has basically always been there and so he does expect buck to operate in a dadlike way in his life, and even though buck has not given himself that title in his head, it’s how he treats chris and thinks about their relationship. like i think if chris asked buck for permission to go somewhere or do something, buck would either say yes or no, and that would be final, and no one involved would think this was weird. does that make sense? like if chris asked if he could go to the movies, buck would just be like yeah as long as you finished your homework. he would Not say “idk man ask your dad” or whatever, and if he did chris would think it was weird. and eddie would think it was weird too. because he treats buck like his husband.

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Sometimes i randomly remember "who are you? I love you too" and have to have a little cry about it

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Saw a post making the whole 'shannon rolling in her grave because the kid she birthed looks like her ex husbands situationship.'

And then I looked at the comments where several people were talking about how actually Eddie just has a type and Shannon and Buck look alike.

And like-

They kinda do

And, these are some of the best examples for this.

So, now I am of the belief that, yes actually, Chris does look exactly like his mom, it's just that his mom happens to look like the man his father is totally in love with.

I've also been people mention that 'Eddie doesn't have a type he dated Marisol and Ana' and like, yeah he did.

But.

As I've seen several people mention before they were women Eddie felt that he needed to date.

He felt obligated to because it's what was expected of him.

These women are two lovely, Hispanic ladies that are good with his son.

Things his parents have told him he should find.

Buck and Shannon are the opposite, and are fantastic with Chris.

Shannon for obvious reasons loves Christopher, and her and Eddie obviously had a kid together for a reason even if their marriage wasn't for good ones they did love each other at one point.

Buck, he has no obligation to love Christopher or even interact with him in the way that he does. He could just be Eddie's best friend, or a family friend that Christopher sometimes hangs out with.

But, no. He actively chooses to be a part of Christopher's life, to love and care for him in similar if not the same ways as Shannon and Eddie.

This is something that I think draws Eddie to him.

Though obviously Shannon and Buck are nothing a like so Eddie's attraction to him isn't soley based on looks.

Anyway they totally look a like and I've spent to long typing this because at work. And work has had overtime last and this week meaning I work 5 12 hour shifts.

I'm tired.

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Image Description.

Facebook post from Matt Norris.

Post reads like a conversation between 2 people:

Prison labor is a problem we need to address soon.

Convicts in prison should have to work like the rest of us.

You mean like slavery?

No, we’re giving them 3 meals and a bed, at our expense, while they just sit around and watch TV. They should have to work!

Right. Like slavery.

It’s not like slavery!

Can they leave?

No.

Can they refuse work?

No.

So how exactly isn’t this slavery?

We DO pay them!

Do we pay in accordance with labor laws?

No. We pay them between 33 cents and $1.41/hour with a maximum daily wage below $5, then take up to half of that as room&board fees and victim compensation.

Right. So like slavery.

BUT.

No.

Image then links to this url.

Below URL image reads “fun bonus fact: enough of our labor market currently relies on labor at these depressed rates, that it has a substantial downward pressure on both wages and job availability in low-skilled sectors. Immigrants aren’t taking your jobs. Slavery is.

End description.

I’d also like to add it’s not just private prisons. It’s also private detention centers where ICE keeps the immigrants.

-fae

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Fundamentally I believe that writing about the rich and varied human existence is so important, and authors who do this end up seeming prescient in ways that naive analysis often rejects.

Two examples. First; a lot of people ship Frodo/Sam or Legolas/Gimli (or more obscure gay ships like Maedhros/Fingon), and some people say stuff like “well, Tolkien was catholic, he clearly didn’t intend for these characters to be gay.” But Tolkien himself says that he doesn’t write Christian allegory, in fact he despises all allegory. What he does is write about the rich and varied human existence, and when he did so he drew on the experiences of the likely closeted gay and bisexual men he had met over his life! And he synthesized this as just a way people behave, not as ‘representation’ but reality. And we can recognize that while in the early twentieth century, the 15% of people that identify as bisexual in the current generation (gen Z) would likely have married people of the opposite gender, that doesn’t mean they didn’t have same-gender relationships that had romantic elements even if they were never consummated.

A second example; in Tamora Pierce’s the Song of the Lioness Quartet, Alanna, the main character, dresses as a boy and trains to be a knight. As she grows up, she has to re-learn to connect with her femininity in secret with the few people who know who she is (thus making her a paradoxically-apt role model for both trans men and trans women, depending on which parts of the narrative one projects oneself onto). But Alanna never feels truly comfortable as a woman, either, and constantly has to assert both her masculinity and femininity to different people once she becomes a knight and reveals the secret. Tamora Pierce has since stated that if Alanna were born in the modern day, she would likely identify as genderfluid. But these books were written in the 1980s, and while there were people in that time period who were exploring the language of nonbinary and genderfluid identities, it wasn’t really a widespread notion, and while I can’t be sure Tamora Pierce didn’t encounter that language I sort of doubt Alanna was intended from the beginning to fit that identity. Instead, Pierce wrote a character based on the people she knew in life, who perhaps uncomfortably chafed at their assigned gender, and wrote a character who really believably would be genderfluid today, despite (plausibly) not knowing what ‘genderfluid’ was!

And I think that’s beautiful. There’s not really a point to this but just to highlight a perspective in literary analysis that you can lose if you focus too much on the biographical details of the author.

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you bottle Miette??

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i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.

there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.

anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.

A Better World - create an alternate history timeline

Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game

Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet

Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games

Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones

Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy

ZenGM - simulate sports

Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi

IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)

Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface

The Cafe & Diner - mystery game

The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game

Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions

Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game

Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game

Miniconomy - player driven economy game

Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes

BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators

Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil

Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.

if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.

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As a character, Tommy was nothing more than a one-dimensional love interest who happened to have a documented history of discrimination and bigotry.

canonically accurate tommy kinard

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It’s come to my attention that some people are traversing the interwebs of fandom without ever hearing of the Ms. Scribe Story or the Cassandra Claire Debacle.

At surface level, this is concerning because they are awesome stories, and everyone’s life is made a little better when they find an awesome story.

On more serious levels, fandom is a wacky place, full of people doing wacky, occasionally damaging things to each other. Some of that has evolved, but some of it is the same as it ever was. History rocks because you can learn from the mistakes of others, and maybe hurt people a little less in the future. Fandom being a giant, convoluted web of passion, some history that could use sharing goes missed.

The two stories linked are from early 2000s Harry Potter fandom. The Ms. Scribe Story is a tale of one person’s aggressive use of sockpuppets to work their way up fandom hierarchy. The Cassandra Claire Debacle is about how the top name in that fandom hierarchy is a plagiarist.

They’re prime examples of fandom being fandom in intensely negative ways. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a brand of fandom toxicity that isn’t on display in some way within these write-ups, and while that is admittedly sort of depressing, having things to point at that make you stop and think, “Wait, I’ve seen this before, this is not a thing I want to be part of,” can keep you out of some of the deeper fandom pitfalls.

They are also deeply fascinating reads. If you haven’t explored them before, or only know the summary versions, give them a shot.

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saw an elderly woman walking around with a tote bag whose design were the four AO3 fic category squares and she very excitedly asked if i was a reader or a writer bcs nobody else at the con had recognized it, and after telling her that i've been writing fic since fanfic.net, she solemnly nodded and explained that she'd been reading fic since "the days of personal websites" but that she only started writing fanfic when she was 47 and oh my god when i tell you that i genuinely teared up on the spot!!!!! like!!! HELL YEAH???? LITERALLY NEVER TOO OLD TO START WRITING. NEVER TOO OLD TO WRITE AND SHARE YOUR FIC.

her enthusiastic "i'm a very nice and bubbly person, i swear! but i love writing angst and major character death :)" nearly took me the fuck out.

icon. legend. diva. i wish her nothing but a kajillion million comments and kudos. i hope her fic updates crash AO3. i hope she knows i'm promoting her to my personal patron saint of AO3.

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i hope whoever actually shot that CEO is having a good day.

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oh god I got a picture of the moon you tumblr bitches are gonna LOVE

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The more that I (trans dude) participate in "men's things" the funnier it is to me to realize so much of ostensible 'the way guys are' is shaped socioeconomically.

Men "care less about their appearance"? Men's clothing tends cheaper, sturdier, but also more boring and featureless. You have to work a lot harder to find interesting cuts or styles or vibrant colors. Shorter hair is far more forgiving to style- I can roll out of bed and examine myself in the mirror and think 'hey, that bedhead look is pretty solid and workable'. Cosmetics 'for men' tend packaged for bulk and convenience and seldom will tell you what their scents actually are so if you like smelling a certain way you have to work harder to think about it.

Even down to men's underwear has a much thicker waistband so it's more likely to show above your pants! I can dress the same way in the exact same pants with different underwear and one of them shows above the waistline and the other doesn't.

And sure we can argue the idea that this marketing exists because it's what men want (IMO, a bit naive considering how large and powerful corporations are / the very sorry state of the ostensible invisible hand) but then I can point to experience working at a daycare and tell you that every three year old boy wants ponytails and his nails painted and likes purple or pink, wants to be a princess, wants to wear costume skirts and dresses, because those things are exciting and pretty- and when those boys turn four or five and start to shy away from them, their response is not a refinement of taste nearly as often as it is one of anxiety and dread- that he has learned those things attract him unwanted attention or admonishment or scolding.

Boys are taught what is safe to want, what they 'should' want. And as a man who intends to enjoy being a man with exactly as much color and glitter as I please, the hollowness of the facade has never been more obvious. Nor more aggravating, considering how much genuine harm and misery comes from it. Manly dudes who really like being "conventionally masculine" aren't going to crumble into dust if walmart stops differentiating some shampoo brands as 'womanly' and some as 'manly'- and he might decide he really likes the way this fruity sparkle body wash makes him smell.

One of my still most-popular posts is about how gender of choice should be universal, and this is another chunk of it- social forces that, if we're being bluntly honest, are mostly after our money, have a vested interest in trying to tell us what to want. That men 'should' want this, and women 'should' want that, and the vast beautiful sphere of human experience is carved up haphazardly and each half flicked aside, here, this is for you, in casual ignorance that what we may literally need to survive wasn't in our allotted chunk. "Aberrant" men- men of color, disabled men, queer men- are forced to see this more and more dramatically, but it affects even the most normative socially accepted men. And this is men- the people who, in patriarchal, misogynist societies are getting ostensibly the better deal!

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So back at the start of the year I was tagged in a "what are you reading this year" kind of tag game and we're halfway into the year and I've read... well three of the books on that list, but 9 new books total! Plus I saw @tobermoriansass post a "books wot I read in june 2025" which prompted me to finish up Doom Sword at last, so I'm doing this update. Books with an asterisk are from the original list.

So, thus far this year, I have read:

Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao - excellent sequel to Iron Widow, Zetian is indeed ready and willing to tear the sky down, the new deuteragonist is his own flavour of bi disaster who makes me want to commit Violents, Zetian stop making mistakes with him please, I get you’re still a reckless teenager but you really do deserve better. If you want Chinese elemental mechs with leftist politics and bickering over the best way to do things, a disabled poly main character, and a Lot of Anger, read this!

The Book of Ile-Rien by Martha Wells - Got into Martha Wells with Murderbot. Found out she did fantasy with Witch King and Books of the Raksura. Am now diving through her backlog for more. Very much enjoyed the setting of this and just the way that Wells approaches magic in general - mysterious advanced science, obscure to outsiders and not always fully understood by insiders. It very effectively makes magic seem magical, and it’s very cool.

Shadow’s Heart by Kresley Cole - So this is fantasy erotica. Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark is one of my guilty pleasure series, and some of the only non-fandom erotica I read. It is littered with issues, dub-con-y sex, overly pushy leads, hetero bullshit- I could go on. However,the worldbuilding and order of events stays consistent across multiple books which are happening in overlapping times. I'm 99% sure this woman has a spreadsheet. For a fantasy erotica series. This one had less than usual of the “we shouldn’t but we’re so horny” sex, and broadly, I enjoyed it!

Witchcraft: a History in 13 Trials by Marion Gibson* - So while I was wary at the start, the book does pick up and do better as it goes on. It gives an interesting look at various witch trials (including one fictional one), of both men and women. I do think its final conclusion is a little weak - it could talk about how gender conformity is an avenue by which “witches” have been attacked - but it does serve as a good introduction to recognising witch hunt tactics.

Horus Rising by Dan Abnett* - Recommended by someone in my book group after I made them read some Imperial Radch for similar "part of an imperial war machine and blinkered because of that" aspects. Better than anticipated! Also. Why do so many 40k people claim the fascist Imperium is the only way for humanity to survive “the grim darkness of the far future”? The interex was right there! 

Hellboy II: The Golden Army Novelisation by Robert Greenberger - So. I love this film. I’ve loved it for years, and it’s part of what got me obsessed with basically everything Guillermo del Toro has ever made. So when I saw this in the local comics shop, going for £1, obviously I bought it immediately. It was not even a question. It’s certainly not the best of the GDT novelisations I’ve read (Shape of Water is that for me) but it’s effective and helps to round out a few scenes with a bit more character insight!

The Poison Garden: An A-Z of Poisonous Plants by the Alnwick Garden - Many years ago my family went on a camping trip up through Yorkshire and Northumberland, and one of the places we visited was Alnwick Castle and Garden. The Garden is what’s especially notable: they have a poison garden. As a weird nut who loves old herbals and folklore, obviously, I loved this. Every now and again I get myself another herbal or poison book, just out of sheer curiosity at the many ways in which nature will try to kill you.

Death in the Garden by Michael Brown - … Look, I like books about herbs and poisonous plants. I find their history interesting! Where the last was kind of a brisk run through various poisonous plants and how they’ll horribly kill you, this is full of more anecdotes, both the author’s own run-ins with plants and stories from history and previous herbals and apothecaries. Very interesting, if littered with more than its fair share of typos.

Doom Sword by Peter Beere* - As I said in my “what are you reading this year” post, I read this once as a child. It’s… yeah about what I remember, which is to say Pretty Bland. It’s very clearly a LOTR retelling for an 8-12 year old bookish boy where the One Ring is a Cool Sword instead of a Ring. There’s even an evil spider fight and black riders chasing them across the map. The only cool bit is that the main character isn’t a hobbit but is a teenage boy from Norfolk who got isekai’d into the world. No, I’m not joking.

Anyway, if anyone else wants to ramble about books they've read so far this year - @davidstirlings, maybe? @secretaryofthebirds? - feel free and tag me if this is what prompted you to do so! I shall continue reading through my booklist and report back later.

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Remember, history was awful. Never trust the romantics.