Also, fantasy stories of queer survival have basically three possible endings - carve out a safe sanctuary, bring down the entire evil empire, or resolve to keep fighting the impossible fight (see the first Matrix/Angel's "let's go to work") Each serves a function. None is a rebuttal of the others.

Late night at the art studio

The Citizen Of Eastport by @vbruth.com is pretty dang good. I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel. www.goodreads.com/book/show/24...

reading any book by priest: so which one is surprisingly well adjusted considering the circumstances and which one’s convictions are tied to their own sense of monstrousness but in reality just needs to be sprayed with a water bottle like a naughty rescue cat when they’re jughead monologuing

I would simply prefer it if I never did anything stupid ever. Especially if other people witness it, and most especially if it causes them inconvenience for which I must bear the horrible knowledge of responsibility to my grave

An onion will do well for such a shift

I think it would kill my spirit a bit not to be allowed to write for a year, but I would travel a LOT and maybe try to learn to draw

The full illustration I did for @taplingzines.bsky.social "We've Always Been Here" The zine depicts queer couples throughout cultures and history and I had the honours of portraying a Japanese lesbian couple in an underground bar during the 80s✨ #queer #lesbians #illustration

It does seem like I will be writing a hefty ONHCT casefic despite knowing barely anyone else who's watched the show (yes of course I will also be making the boys kiss)

I do not personally believe it counts as a one-skillet meal if you have to keep taking stuff out of the skillet to cook other stuff

psst if you liked the art in burnout syndrome, the painter has a print set available for preorder right now!! naisu.chirat on IG

Rewatching Tientsin Mystic, which was the second cdrama I ever watched, and realizing how wild that is

One of my most frequent and damning book critiques: "the pov character never has a single thought that would be out of place in a nice 20th century liberal mind"

I've been experimenting with this new approach called "talking to a friend when I'm struggling with something" it's too soon to say definitively but early results suggest that it is helpful

lrp: one of my biggest goals with Eastport was to create a set of female characters that are as messy and whumpable as the male characters I love. (One of them then refused to be assigned a single gender but anyway.) I hope and pray readers will feel moved to do nasty things to them.

I think if you want to see women and/or F/F more in fandom spaces, then you have to be okay with ppl talking about female characters the way they talk about male characters. which in some cases involves hypersexual language or imagining violence against them

I bought a pair of sweatpants recently and the first time wearing them was like "I wish these had a drawstring." And then I added a drawstring, and wore them again, and got to experience not only better pants but the satisfaction of having done a thing with my hands that improved my life slightly.

I have to share the full cover spread because the back is so good! Made by the very talented @isthiseva.bsky.social

Positively delighted to see that Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity is a Locus Award Finalist! Thanks and congrats as always to the contributors without whom this book wouldnt exist, to @dianapho.bsky.social, and to @erewhonbooks.bsky.social for publishing it.

Once again frustrated by a book with a setup and outline that I should love, but that feels like it's marking its choreography rather than dancing it

First newsletter post-release! A bit about what's coming next and some book FAQs. www.vbruth.com/post-release...

👀 I do like these things

AO3 put out a warning detailing what kinds of automated bot comments you should watch for, remember its AI doing these archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/...

I've got some unexpected space in my editing calendar for April, so if you have a manuscript you'd like to make someone else's problem for a bit, please feel free to reach out: www.kathowardbooks.com/editing

Script.

In light of the conversation about how hard it is to promote your own book: Post a link to buy your book here and I’ll boost it cause you destroyed yourself to get it done, your publisher won’t help you sell it, and you deserve cheers and admiration for your accomplishment.

I'm rewatching Oh No! Here Comes Trouble and it's every bit as good as I remember. Funny and spooky and full of grief.

This was a gift for me and WHAT a gift it was

Perfect April 1 bit is perfect

Rewatching Revenged Love and I'll never be over Wu Suowei watching his new bff slap an overbearing suitor in the face and going "I want what you have" One of the terrible little guys of all time

My Romance Scammer is doing the "finding a way forward after massive betrayal" arc so so well. I'm not sure I've ever seen a BL do it better, in terms of staying emotionally grounded while moving through complex, conflicting feelings. AND still being fun and comedic rather than a bummer.

How I feel reading 99% of art and media critique these days

What's great about Sammy's Children's Day is that the good college boy is drawn to the scary gang boss explicitly out of lust. No mysterious soul connection, no "I think there's good in him." He has seen that man do violence and he was terrified, but he's also seen that ass and he wants it.

I'm halfway through my second Keigo Higashino mystery and I'm already upset more of his books haven't been translated to English

"love you teacher" ep2 walking the delicate line of being quite tender about age regression and mental health while also acknowledging how chaotic and stressful this situation would be. also i need to hold pobmek in my jaws softly like a golden retriever with an egg

listened to jue ai ONE time and immediately am like "maybe I should rewatch love between fairy and devil"

A perfect line of dialogue. #SlippyRewatchesNIF

New fic! Burnout Syndrome, Pheem/Jira and Koh/Jira, several years post-canon: no one has grown or improved one tiny bit and we all like it that way. archiveofourown.org/works/81748431

YES THAT'S RIGHT you all helped us raise over $110,000 dollars this year, bringing our 10 year total to OVER HALF A MILLION BUCKS!!

And now for ep 11, wherein we learn that Dominic Toretto had it right: every problem can be solved by drive car fast #gbkhemjira

I've been on a kick of reading mainstream mysteries and thrillers and I'm having a good time but it's so weird to read books with no gay people

gmmtv weekend bl lineup 2 for 2 on making me cry this week

I have not paid much attention to this book or the news surrounding it, but this post beautifully voices so many feelings I share about the habit of approaching art with hostility

I love seeing my book in other people's hands, gosh

It's been a long time since I listened to all of Children Running Through and I just had the "oh I'm old enough to Get that song now" experience

I've been in a foul mood all day, seems like a perfect time to work on the kohjirapheem wip

I'm a week behind on running man thailand so I don't know if we've gotten an answer yet to the most important question: when will nunew finally get a bodyguard to princess carry him off the arena

I don't want to say too much about the differences between OF s1 and OFDO until we're deeper into the new one, but it sure is interesting to see Raffy using a tactic that was rampant in s1, and having it completely backfire

If you've still got donations to make, take a look at some stats. Votebeat, Fight for the Future, Greenlight America, Open Secrets and In Our Own Voice are each under 3% of total donations. Gaza Soup Kitchen, National Immigrant Justice Coalition, and Advocated for Trans Equality account for 55%.

I'm really enjoying the new Scrubs series so far, and I'm especially impressed with how they handle the OG bits that wouldn't fly in 2026. They're doing a great job of finding the joke IN the gap between what was passable then vs now, so it feels updated but never preachy or superior.