#gill doesn't have a fucking clue

[skywerse]

the eepening

[arwainian]

Reading This Week 2025 #22

hello hello, happy pride! lets talk about what i was reading in the final week of May!

Finished:

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good written and gathered by adrienne maree brown I joked about the masturbation homework in this last week, but it does have much less sexual journaling prompts about being in relation with others, where you get pleasure and how you WANT to get pleasure from those relationships. I loved the sections on pleasure in friendships, it felt very affirming to what I am prioritizing in my relationships right now

Gender/Fucking: The Pleasures and Politics of Living in a Gendered Body by Florence Ashley very good, and ALSO caused me to write a personal journaling entry (though without prompting, i just needed to think through and express connection to some parts of this book). honestly i great choice to read right after Pleasure Activism. has a very interesting concluding chapter on the concept of "palliative activism" as an approach the author takes when they can't find enough hope or belief that environmental activism will accomplish enough to avert the worst of climate change. essentially saying that activism to make the world better now even if it doesn't stop it from ending is still worth it, because we can still make the world more just for the hurting in the collapse

Honeycomb written and narrated by Joanne M. Harris i listened to a library audiobook so i'll probably have to look up the illustrations for these fairy tales separately sometime. i have no clue why this was on my goodreads tbr but i could at least get it out of my library

Started/Ongoing:

Histories of the Transgender Child by Jules Gill-Peterson history of the medical treatment (and mistreatment) of intersex and transgender children and teenagers in the 20th century during an period of increasing knowledge on the human endocrine system and redefinition of what "sex" was. I'm always grateful for the work Gill-Peterson does digging through medical archives to uncover as best she can the perspectives of marginalized patients and retell their narratives

The Thief of Always by Clive Baker reading for sff book club! children's horror book so it reads like a breeze. i'm enjoying my time with it at the same time as it creeps me out

For My Lady's Heart by Laura Kinsale, narrated by Nicholas Boulton oh the prose in this is lovely and the atmosphere of its medieval setting is so so excellent. you can tell the author is a nerd for this period of history and isn't just using it for flavor. courtly love time

[emcscared-whumps]

@dang-i-like-whump because you got me onto the collapsed lung bullshit lmfao it's your fault ^-^ also @painful-pooch bc i added some extra tidbits lol

it's just a roughly outlined thing instead of actual writing bUT;

CONTENT and WARNINGS: uh, collapsed lung, drowning but not actually but it looks like it unless you Know Pete's a mer shifter so... oh yeah, and he'll effectively be rendered mute bc speaking is a lung thing

idek lmfao i dance on all the tw topics like a 10 year old doing the nutbush on a funky mat to the entire song

and i can't get enough

~*~

imagine Pete just, minding his own damn business, getting a collapsed lung for x reason (not injury related, he'd literally die lol), and just, eyes going wide, clutching at his chest and throat struggling to breathe properly, hyperventilating at an alarming rate as he drops to his knees, cane clattering to the ground

if anyone tries to help he'll probably shy away and almost end up flat on the ground, and you can very much see the decision happen behind those beautiful scared eyes when he see/finds the Nearby Water

he doesn't wanna but all previous inhibitions go yeet when you can't breathe

frantically, with shaking hands while still hyperventilating, he slips off his scarf and shrugs off his jacket

-- you can see him getting faint--

he clumsily dives in, in fact he half falls in, but it's clearly intentional

he'll be rendered mute because he can't use his lungs anymore, he can't get the air moving, he's reliant solely on his gills; so he can't communicate what's happened

I wonder though, who he's with… no clue, but bonus if they/one doesn't Know and it's all in an unfamiliar place (would be better if they're alone with him so they have no context tbh)

so he's struggling, panicking, and he jumps in the water and then doesn't surface for a solid fucking minute (that, and he's still recovering from the 'holy fuck I couldn't breathe and there wasn't even any water involved, I was totally dry')

imagine the heart attack the person Not In The Know would get I mean holy fuck lmao

Pete ofc will pop back up, or rather, get within an inch of the surface to see if they're still there, they spot him first, and he has to surface to let them know he's… okay… not really… he couldn't breathe yeah and they practically reach in and drag him back up lmao

anyway, bb is stuck as fish, and reliant entirely on water

ACTUALLY?? you know what would be fun??! if they jumped in after he didn't come back up after a few seconds :eblurryeyes:

and the water is cold af

and Pete has to try and stop them going after him and getting hypothermia >:3