I Like Existing.

I just have no idea what’s going on, characters just pop up and I’m like…. Should I know who this is??? And then they leave?? And the two main characters have very similar names and the POV shifts between them so quickly I barely know what’s going on.

Also the book isn’t a sequel but it’s in the same universe as a previous book and things are talked about from that book and there was nothing to imply that this book was a sequel. I’m just expected to have attachment to characters I didn’t know I’d have to know??

My aunt bless her heart said that I should make an outfit for Hudson William’s and just…. Send it to him in hopes that he’ll wear it.

Like beyond the fact that I don’t know him, I don’t think he’s a YouTuber with like a PO Box I can send stuff to, I don’t think even if he did all that and even wore it, he would like shout me out cause he’s a celebrity now, he has a stylist and a team and also I can’t just like get his measurements and make something?!!

It was very surreal being like, um actually this idea is completely out of touch with reality and I can’t believe you’re not joking right now.

I’m was flabbergasted that she thought that I could just do that. Make an outfit and send it off and hope he wears it.

I’m going to read it all because I know it is a good book and I’ve only been reading like fun and flirty contemporary romance and I should read something a bit more fantastical to practice imagination but yeah. I’m not a huge fan of fantasy which is so ironic because one of my favourite games is baldur’s gate 3 and I play a lot of DnD.

I really like Linus so far though. Very charming very endearing.

Lucy is a perfectly fine character and I’ve only just met them in book I’m just not super enthused about the little kid says dark messed up thing and that’s funny cause it’s ironic. He reminds me of Abbadon from haunted hotel and he was fine but I’m just not a huge fan of creepy kid saying dark scary things for laughs. I think it has to do with how I was a kid saying well not dark but I’d love sharing what I learned from horrible histories and creepy animal facts. So unfortunately those types of characters remind me of a younger me that I should probably be kinder to but won’t.

Like i remember revelling in being perceived as “cute” but being into edgy things when I was 12. Like I was a preteen who liked watching yandere sim videos. Not exactly a highlight of my life I want framed.

So sorry to Lucy that he reminds me of my unfortunate preteenhood. Which I’m not necessarily ashamed of because I believe all preteens must be as cringe as possible to find their truest selves.

Like I do agree that it obscures and flattens the content of the book. Like a sexy book should have a sexy cover and the illustrated ones are clearly trying to be more palatable but as a biased individual, I do judge a book by its cover. Like I gave one of the torso books a chance and it was good but a lot of them have descriptions and plots that don’t suit my tastes so unfortunately I tend to not really bother even reading the descriptions because often it’s too smutty for my tastes.

Like I’m interested in the romance and drama not the sex and yes I know I’m poking around the gay sex genre and am not enthused about the gay sex I’m running into but it’s not like I’m a complete prude. It just doesn’t do anything for me. Like you two boys have fun now and all but I’m not interested.

So the love interest was a closeted dude who was not ready to come out and obviously did the whole internalized homophobia thing to the main character and he does get outed and I’m not super thrilled that the two characters are probably in a relationship now but the book ends before it completely confirms anything. The main thing is that yes they’re both interested in each other and they like each other as people but there’s no jump forward to their marriage, it simply ends shortly after the guy is outed and gets over it.

Though the subtext is pretty clear, the two of them are probably getting together, I’m happy it didn’t do a jump forward. Cause they’re in a weird position right now.

But also the story has a lot of themes of forgiveness so it’s clear that the main character forgives the guy for his internalized homophobia things and now they’re going to move forward and see what happens.

This book basically has a similar story to Game Changer except what is the main story in game changer is a side plot in this book.

I do wish the book ended with the two characters mutually going, “I took advantage of you while I was at rock bottom” and “I have low self esteem and the power imbalance between the two of us makes this relationship have rocky foundations”.

But also forgiveness and communication are key themes of the book so like I can’t be too mad that they’re getting together. Cause if they didn’t get together it’s because they’re holding onto grudges which the story directly shows is a bad thing.

And I do really like how the story handles the ex of the main character. Obviously you want to go he’s a shitty ex but as the book goes on it’s clear they broke up for a reason and that since we’re seeing the book from the main character’s perspective, his situation is not, victim and toxic ex, it’s two people who weren’t right for each other.

I do think that the love interest isn’t great for the guy but the book is about the main character getting over hang ups that would get in the way of their relationship. So following the themes of the book it’s not like it’s the love interests fault. I do think the main character needs a bit more self respect. Like just cause you’re heartbroken doesn’t mean you should be falling into the arms of a rich down low “straight” guy.

I also thought that the book was gonna pull an interesting twist and have the main character end up with a guy he almost hooked up with halfway through the book. That would’ve been a lot more interesting. But the almost hook up guy was a red herring.

Also the book has a reading group guide where it directly acknowledges how their relationship is potentially rocky so I think that’s another reason why I’m not bemoaning it as much as I thought.

Like the last quarter of the book I could see them being endgame and I was not happy about it until suddenly the book was over and while the two characters both shared their mutual interest with each other, we don’t see what their relationship is to become. And the reading discussion guide directly acknowledges that. Like there’s literally a question going, “the closeted guy hurt the MC, do you think they’re ready for a relationship” to which my answer is NO!

I do think they are good for each other but also, they have a lot to untangle.

Also the MC isn’t exactly over the “why would famous and rich athlete want to date me?”

Though the book is about the MC getting over his inferiority complex. Like he’s constantly comparing himself to his friend thinking he’s never struggled in his life just because they have different backgrounds.

So maybe by getting over that with his friends he can get over it with the love interest.

Anyways this book was fun it had a lot of messy drama and it was called The Gay Best Friend.

I liked the themes of forgiveness and as much as I want to go, cut off your shitty friends babe! That’s the toxic cut off everyone mentality from Instagram and TikTok. Not to say you shouldn’t cut people out of your life, but also that sometimes there doesn’t need to be a big blow up it’s okay to change and grow and communicate. You don’t necessarily owe anyone communication but there’s a balance, and if both parties mutually want the relationship to work they have to be willing to talk with each other.

And it’s like so dark.

We were talking about intergenerational trauma and what my grandparents and great grandparents survived. And like holy shit.

This is extremely graphic but I just need to get it out.

My dad told me my grandfather watched as Japanese soldiers surrounded the local priest with bayonets and forced him to stand. He was forced to stand and if he got tired, he’d be stabbed to stay standing. Eventually the priest threw himself on a bayonet to kill himself to end the torture.

My mom shared how I have a great uncle who might be alive. Key word might because he was kidnapped by Japanese soldiers and my dad said he was probably made a slave until he died.

My dad told me how my grandpa watched Japanese soldiers fill someone up with water and then dropped a heavy stone on him so water burst out of him.

I don’t know what the lesson from all this is exactly? Cause war is still ongoing. Genocide continues. Ceasefires are lies.

It’s weird because my family chooses to see the past as worse which I’m inclined to believe but they use it almost as an excuse to not complain about now. Now fucking sucks too. For different reasons. It sucks in its own way.

Maybe at a certain scale, it sucks less today. Theres no world war going on but also that’s cause of fucking proxy wars. So yeah sure maybe less people are dying from war overall right now but numbers fucking lie. Depending on how it’s measured, casualties can easily be hidden. Like people still refuse to call what’s happening in Gaza a fucking genocide. And frankly I don’t care how many people die, people dying in war any amount of people is too fucking much.

But I’m supposed to be thankful because I don’t live in the world my grandparents live in? Cause I am actually. The world wars sounded awful but that doesn’t then retroactively make me appreciate the genocide and ecocide surrounding us.

To be a doomer, which I’m not. Life will go on but climate justice is needed to ensure the lives that go on include the marginalized. But anyways, climate change is here. Climate disasters are happening. I’m just currently privileged enough to not be homeless and unable to afford shelter during extreme weather situations. But heatwaves are here. Water shortages are here. Just because it’s not directly killing me right now doesn’t mean it’s not a climate disaster.

And this world is worth living in. We only got one habitable planet no matter what the billionaires say and ecofascism solves nothing so the edgy humans are the disease is a fucking cope that’s useless. Humans are part of the environment and we better start acting like it. We are not above the ecosystem. We are the ecosystem. Just as the population of wolves will go down because they ate too many prey animals, we can go down because we took too much from the earth.

The difference between us and wolves is that maybe we could actively stop consuming so much and reach balance. Because unlike us, wolves are in balance with the ecosystem. The more prey there are the more wolves, the less prey and less wolves. But we demand infinite growth. That’s not how nature works. That’s how cancer works.

Also we’re not disconnected to history. Though I didn’t experience what my grandparents went through, here I am horrified lying awake thinking about it. And here I am living in the consequences of that cruel world. The world is still cruel. And I want to be kind because the world is cruel enough.

So I rage, I make art, I feel beautiful and ugly, I overthink and calm myself, I explode the Nazi I saw on the bus with my mind, yes I saw a lady with TWO fucking Nazi tattoos on her body I hope she experiences deep deep shame and covers that hateful shit up or gets hit by a bus if she refuses to change.

Uhg believing in transformative justice is no fun sometimes because deep down I do genuinely hope that fucking Nazi lady is deprogrammed and covers up her tattoo and spends the rest of her life trying to make up for her Nazi brainwashing but also I know some people won’t change. They won’t and even then I don’t want the death penalty. But I hope they get beat up in the streets I hope that Nazi lady gets her Achilles tendon slashed I hope she cries and cries out in pain as everyone around her looks down at her in disgust.

But also I don’t want that to happen to her because she’s a human being. A human being who believes in horrifically terrible things. But I hope the conditions that lead her down that path are dismantled. I hope that road is torn asunder so that no one ever walks down that road again. NEVER AGAIN.

But I know how people end up cruel. My great grandmother was broken by her life and tried to break others. She was a miserable terrible evil woman. But because she’s family, I know why she’s like that. Or at least I know her sad backstory that probably lead her down that path. It excuses nothing. But I see how hurt people hurt people. But it’s not about forgiveness. It’s about understanding and to not repeat those mistakes. To break the cycle of trauma.

It’s selfish and individualistic to think I can save the world. That’s a lie told to us growing up to make us feel special and less existential dread at climate change and war and everything. This generation will be the problem solvers.

Unfortunately this generation is human. And humans are imperfect. But we don’t have to fix the world perfectly. We just need to keep on trying.

Like already it was once seen as socially acceptable to hit kids. And now it’s not. And sure some people think we should hit kids again because now kids are too soft but no. We made progress. Sorry you can’t accept that fact that you were hit as a kid and that wasn’t good. It didn’t make you better. Maybe it made you tougher which could help you become better. But it probably made you worse. And there’s no big grand story. You’re not a fucking main character. You’re not in a god damned fucking memoir where you’re showing how you overcame bad things and became the person you are today. YOU ARE A PERSON WHO WAS HIT AS A KID. Do you want a fucking cookie? Do we need to tell the whole world? You’re so tough because you were hit as a kid and you’re gonna hit your kids now??? Gonna talk about how you walked up hill to school both ways?? In the snow barefoot??? Congrats your childhood was fucking miserable. And now things are better now but you can’t accept it. Things are better now and that means they’re worse actually. Bring back the good old days where priest willingly impale themselves in front of children to stop being tortured.

Let’s go back to the good old days where we had slaves! Wait we still have slaves! So we’re in the good old days! But maybe the good old days was when slaves weren’t made into invisible labour so we can stop feeling bad!

The world is beautiful and the only place where I know life flourishes. And yes I lament the cruelties of the world because it’s awful. But the world is cruel sometimes. Parasitic wasps inject other insects with eggs and they’re eaten inside out. The orcas torture the seal before eating it. The spiny star kills the coral reef. The only difference is I’m human so I can infer how other humans think. And because I’m human, I can go, I would never do something that cruel. How could you do it? And it’s terrifying because no one is immune to cruelty. We will all be cruel. But we can also be kind but also fuck that optimistic bullshit right now. I’m being a doomer.

The world is cruel and grotesque because that’s how our human brains understand it. I don’t want to say it’s just in our nature because that is a fucking excuse, but it’s an explanation. People are cruel because we are the world and the world is cruel. But we can only be kind. The anemone is a home for the clownfish, the leaf cutter ant provides a safe home for the fungus, the eel and the grouper work together to hunt and share their meal. The frog lives in the spider burrow and they protect each other. The cleaner fish eats the parasites off the other fish.

The things that humans do are unimaginably cruel and while acknowledging that we are animals and animals do unimaginably cruel things to us important I am once again emphasizing that’s not an excuse. We are humans and we have the capability to communicate with each other. So we can work together to try and live with each other and make each other better. The cruelties are so horrific because they happen to other humans and I’m human. The cruelties happening in the world between animals, I am not that animal so I shouldn’t impose my world view on what goes in through their heads when the orcs hunts the seal.

The reason why I’m talking about it and giving it the time of day is that I honestly kinda agree but also I’m like….. things can be optimistic?? Like sorry it’s not a dark cynical horror movie???

The review is basically judging a fish on its ability to climb a tree.

However I don’t just want to dismiss it because I think there is value in acknowledging why project hail Mary’s optimism can make the movie less interesting to them.

I don’t just want to label the person a party pooper because there is some interest.

I’m gonna put on my pessimistic lens. The obvious parallel is climate change for PHM. And if you view the story purely through that lens, it’s going to end up a bit neoliberal? I dunno if neoliberal is the right term here. But like the idea that the solution to climate change is just do science better and get smarter people. Like I’m very critical of kurgazet or however you spell it. Those bird science videos. Obviously I’m more critical of them as their politics are uh not great as they refuse to acknowledge the genocide in Gaza and overall have a status quo view on a lot of political issues.

Anyways. So those videos have a sense of climate optimism that kinda boils down to, don’t worry about it, smart rich people do care and they hold our best interest. Basically they don’t seem to acknowledge that capitalism/colonialism is a root issue to climate change and how exploitation runs hand in hand to it all. So viewing PHM through only a lens of this story is about climate change, then yeah, PHM may be excessively optimistic in it showing that yeah we can totally just trust the technology and world governments to fix the problem. Obviously I’m being intentionally overly general because the story itself acknowledges that humans will probably fight and kill each other in the ensuing conflicts caused by the depletion of resources. So frankly in my eyes, it does acknowledge how social changes need to be implemented along with technological advances to solve climate change.

But also back to criticizing the criticism, the story is also a story about miracles and hope. It’s like why I read gay romance books with happy endings. I like happy endings! So I like this movie! Cause it’s happy! And it makes me happy! And I’m not saying you can’t view it in that way but you should acknowledge that YOU didn’t like it because you found its message overly optimistic. Which is FINE. I honestly slightly boarded on that line while enjoying the movie because yeah, the world is kinda shit rn and seeing something so optimistic where everything works out does make me a bit envious but for me it also inspires hope because good things do happen.

Like though I critique kurgaset now, they were instrumental in me fighting against nihilism and climate pessimism. But it’s about balance and once I learned more about climate change and climate justice, me personally, I don’t see those cartoon ducks being the sole solution to climate change. Plenty of what they say in their videos are true but a lot of it is biased. Science can be biased and it’s important to remember that. Numbers are not impartial and those cartoon ducks present numbers as impartial a bit too much for my taste.

And so while I now rain of their parade, I can acknowledge that kurgazet is still important. I’d prefer if they could be a bit more radical in their teachings but also in the end we want the same thing and I can work with that.

Anyways, so the person who wrote that critique, is well within their rights to not like PHM. I understand why an optimistic message can feel like a water balloon in a forest fire. Climate change feels insurmountable and it seems like the world governments are allergic to working together to solve it in meaningful ways and instead bow to whoever has the most money.

And I like sad stories too! I read a story called olive juice where the author thought about giving it a hopeful ending and tbh I think it does have a hopeful ending but it’s still devastatingly sad. But anyways, the story could’ve been a bit happier hopeful but the author chose to have it be a sad ending because it felt more realistic. But that story was also very grounded. It discussed real everyday personal tragedy.

PHM is science fiction. It’s about a larger than we can imagine problem. The only personal issue is the trolley problem aspect of sacrificing three people to save earth. But other than that, the solution is to figure out why this star isn’t going out and then send the solution back to earth.

And you can even say it reflects a solution to climate change we have here. It’s not technology like geoengineering and reaching carbon neutral that’s the sole solution. Like I used to be a teenager who thought I was some science climate knower and I assumed carbon capture would reverse climate change and we just had to put solar panels on everything and make everything electric. I know now that solar panels aren’t perfect, they can take up water and require wide open areas and mining to produce. Anyways, PHM shows that the biosphere has answers. Working with nature and acknowledging that we are not separate from it.

Resilience is something I learned in my climate justice courses. Climate change disasters are here but we should be making sure communities are resilient. Because unfortunately even if the technology did reverse climate change with no repercussions, the repercussions is that we still live in an exploitative society and the distribution of such technologies would not be equitable. Like indigenous communities have their land robbed and poisoned by resource extraction companies.

Anyways, there’s a lot to be critical about in the world. Critical theory is important. But also, sometimes we can do both. And we can acknowledge how we are measuring something. Because that changes the context. If I measure PHM purely on the message it can give us to the world right now, I can say that its message of hope and optimism can be inspiring but also runs the risk of becoming overly optimistic to where the response is one of cynicism.

Like if la la land ended with Mia breaking up with her husband to get back with Sebastian in a final show of dramatic romance, it’d feel cheap because the story was about the quiet tragedy of loving someone but not being able to be with them. Like what many people would’ve considered a good ending with Mia and Sebastian getting back together would cheapen the message of the movie which is that sometimes love doesnt work out like in the movies. Or like, I have a friend who doesn’t want to finish watching heated rivalry right now because they’ve just been through a break up and don’t want to watch romance right now. Like I get it! I wouldn’t want to watch a movie where someone survives cancer when a loved one died of cancer! I don’t want to rewatch one of my favourite anime: Orange, because I lost a friend and that movie is about saving that friend from dying and like, my friend is dead and there’s nothing I can do to bring them back. But that doesn’t retroactively make Orange and Heated Rivalry and the entire romance genre bad just because me personally have been through something that makes the taste sour.

Like if the review was presented in a “everyone like this movie but its message didn’t speak to me” that’s fine. But it’s the bold statement of this movie is universally praised but someone’s gotta rain on this parade and it’s going to be us it’s tough work but someone’s gotta. Like actually you don’t gotta. You are allowed to not like the movie for frankly interesting and valid reasons, but you don’t need to act like you’re speaking truth to power or some bullshit. Like congratulations you have an opinion. You can balance having an opinion better because your perspective is valuable and should be kept in mind but it should also be present less as fact and more as an observation. Like yes I’m tone policing but like I’m not sorry.

Like I don’t want to give the cop out of “just let people have fun” because that can easily evolve into anti intellectualism. Like yes sometimes the curtains are blue but sometimes the curtains being blue does reflect something important. BOTH CAN BE TRUEEEEE IT IS ABOUT BALANCE.

And you don’t need to put other down when you have an opinion. Like I know I’m really putting this person down sorry but I want to emphasize I’m writing all this bullshit because I do think their perspective is interesting and important. I just hate how since it’s the internet obviously it’s presented in a provocative way so consider me rage baited whatever fuck you. You could’ve left on comments but I know you turned off comments because you knew it was a controversial opinion and people were probably being nasty in the comments which I disagree with but also you intentionally were being inflammatory whatever. Who cares.

Anyways, I think it’s incredibly interesting viewing PHM as being potentially too optimistic. Because I do agree that while hope is so powerful, it only gets you so far. You can sit and hope all you like but hope is an action or whatever that quote I see thrown around (another good example of how excessive optimism can be grating, that hope quote I’m referencing is wise but I’ve seen it so many times I’m annoyed by it now) Hope is like a fighter bleeding but still getting up or something along those lines.

Anyways, PHM can be perceived as an individualistic, technology based solution towards climate change where we just need some hero to rise up and fix the problem for us. Or it can be seen as encouraging us to work with people who we may not understand and to work with nature and to be brave and sacrifice for the greater good. And that’s only through the lens of the movie vis a vis climate change.

You could also view it through the lens of did I enjoy it? And the answer is an overwhelming yes for me. And I don’t want to go “sorry you hate fun” to the person but moreso, it’s okay that you don’t like a movie everyone seems to love.

I didn’t like the new avengers or whatever that movie was called. The thunderbolts? But my friends liked it and that’s ok. Did I think its message about mental health was super shallow? Yes. But did it mean something important to my friends? Yes.

The stem kids knowing they want to be engineers or doctors and they work their way through extremely difficult classes and the like 50% drop out rates but they preserver because they know it’s what they want.

The kids with a talent like music where they can follow their passion.

The art kids who know they love to draw.

But I consider myself lucky because I feel like that now. Even though I didn’t figure it out in high school sewing ignites a joy and focus in me that nothing else has.

I can be sitting at my sewing machine seam ripping a mistake I made for the second time and I’m well not happy but I’m not miserable. I’m content. Hand sewing is meditative. It doesn’t feel like a slog to sit and hand sew for hours.

Procrastination comes from decision fatigue and not knowing where to start but it doesn’t come from a dread of not wanting to do something. I can sew because it’s there and I like to sew.

I want to write a webcomic. I don’t know how to draw nor am I willing to learn to. I don’t want to just start because I’m busy learning how to sew. I also don’t have any ideas and it’s more of a nebulous desire than a concrete goal.

I want to be a soprano. My voice dropped lol. I’ll never sing notes that high my vocal cords won’t let me oh well.

I want to be a figure skater. No thanks I don’t want to work towards that that’s too much work. And I’d rather do too much work for something else nowadays.

I want to be a professional musician. Same as figure skater lol. Too much work and I could see the spark and drive in my peers but not in myself. I loved it but I didn’t ever practice on my own time all too much.

I want to get married. I discovered I’m asexual and aromantic. I’d get married for tax reasons or for money tho.

I want to date a boy in high school. Yeah not in high school and I was definitely aro ace back then and didn’t know it.

I want to be a marine biologist. I can just like the ocean without it being a job. I mean I tried hardish for this one. I did all the science courses in school and I worked at a science museum and talked to people getting their education in marine biology and then I burnt out really hard. Sobbed my way out of physics and straight into quarantine where I saw this dream kinda crumble, tried to shift gears a bit in university to work in something adjacent, took enough social justice courses and realized that arts was for me more than stem. Also met a lot of stem people in university and I realized my brain doesn’t work like that. I wasn’t as passionate as them to work towards that.

I want to be a palaeontologist. No thanks. You can’t just like dinosaurs and be a palaeontologist.

I want to be a geologist. I really thought I like this thing so therefore making it a job makes sense which is a fine strategy but as a kid I didn’t think about what came along with all that.

I want to be in musical theatre: honestly fumbled this a bit. Because if I did do musical theatre, it would help me a bit because I’m adjacent to that right now. Like this dream refers to wanting to be onstage but like now I want to work backstage and knowing what it’s like onstage helps with that.

My current dreams.

Be a part of a film union. I want to sew costumes for movies. I’ll do set work but the goal is to make costumes or maybe design them.

Get on drag race. It’s a weirdly achievable goal for me. I don’t think I’ll come out of it a huge star by any means but having a few years of my life dedicated completely to drag would be cool. I don’t think I’d be successful enough to live on just drag even if I got on. I love myself. I love my drag I know I’m good but I know I’m not some groundbreaking drag performer or a hilarious personality.

Make my own version of a Dior bar suit. I just need to learn the skills.

Make my own version of Charles James the clover and the butterfly. Ditto as Dior suit.

And it’s important to remember that and not in a “let them think I’m the villain” like just be the villain and not in a “I’ve snapped I’ll be mean” like accept that fact that there’s no need to center yourself. You hurt someone. Or they hurt you. But we don’t need to frame it as they hurt me they are this they are that all the time.

Sometimes you hurt someone and you won’t receive their forgiveness and you might not need or even deserve it. But you have to forgive yourself in some manner. You have to preemptively forgive yourself for hurting people. You will hurt people but that doesn’t mean we have to fill our heads with types of people that you’ve become and you should avoid.

Like if it helps you understand why that person hurt you in that way sure maybe the types of friends or whatever can be helpful but I dunno. I just think people are a lot more complex than just “the flakey friend” or “the crisis friend” “the fair weather friend” “the jealous friend” like people are people and we won’t truly know what they’re going through or how they see the situation.

Sometimes a person hurt you because they’re hurting. Sometimes they hurt you because they don’t respect you. Sometimes they just have a view of the world that resulted in harm.

And you can thank whatever you want about them. Because you’re a person too. But I’m kinda over with the way these videos engrained themselves in my brain and now I’m thinking “I’m I the selfish friend?” The xyz friend?? Like it’s good to be aware. It’s good to think about how to develop my social skills in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m hiding myself.

It’s not about making myself palatable, it’s about making sure my joy doesn’t come at the expense of others and I’m included in others.

I’m allowed to experience joy. I don’t need to make myself miserable obsessing over what I am or am not.

I can both see the person behind the behaviour, understand it, forgive them, and also still be upset.

But I have to be upset in a way where I have to decide, am I upset enough that I want to have a conversation to fix this? Am I upset about this or am I just looking for reasons to not like this person so I can feel morally justified in wanting to distance myself? Am I upset but because I’m unwilling to have a confrontation I have to accept that if the behaviour continues I can’t explode on this person because I’m choosing not to talk to them about it?

Like fuck all this “I stopped texting my friend and now we haven’t talked in years” bullshit. Like if someone did that to me, guess what, you’re not hearing from me cause I assumed that our friendship had run its course. If you feel like you’re taking the brunt of planning you either talk it out or if you don’t, then it’s an issue you don’t feel strongly enough to fix and you either make peace with that something is or leave and make peace with leaving. Or some weird middle thing I dunno.

We don’t need to create this distinction of good people vs bad people. We can all become bad people. And that’s okay. People can grow and change. And you don’t have to forgive them but they should grow and change. We should always try and become the best version of ourselves.

Like oh nothing matters so let’s have fun! I understand and honestly respect how at a certain point in my life it was helpful for me to think that way. Cause like I personally tend to be a bit selfish at times and at a certain point you gotta learn that you’re not the main character and that you don’t really matter in the sense of like a main character or the center of the universe or whatever. It was helpful to think that yes I don’t matter but I don’t need to be cosmically important to live a good life.

But I just feel the idea of everything is awful but in the end it doesn’t matter so let’s have fun! Can unfortunately just feel tone deaf sometimes.

Like things “don’t matter” in the grand scheme of things sure but like racism seems to affect people’s lives in real and tangible ways and I think that matters as well. Obviously most people who use the nothing matters let’s have fun aren’t actually racist just cause they think that. Theres frankly nothing truly wrong with being tone deaf cause in the right context it’s totally fine to talk about absurdism like that.

But I always took the absurdism thing as like, okay so if nothing truly matters, then it doesn’t matter if I choose to believe something matters and thus I’m sure I’m just regurgitating a thought activity that someone has done already way better than me but who cares.

Anyways things might not matter but it’s important to care for others. Like for me we should be trying to allow as many people ideally everyone to have access to a life that provides them satisfaction.

And like we can all have our own perspectives on things but I worry that the perspective of absurdism as nothing matters so have fun can make people care less for others. Cause if nothing matters, why support activism? If nothing matters why do anything?

Also absurdism isn’t just about having fun, to my understanding it’s more like an general accepting that in the grand scheme of everything the universe is probably cold and uncaring but that doesn’t mean you have to be cold and uncaring as well which I’m 100% sure that’s a tumblr post I read.

I just think absurdism can sound a bit too individualistic sometimes. Like humans live together. We interact with each other. Even if you don’t see it directly. Your lights turn on because someone maintains electricity. Your garbage is collected, your house was built by someone.

So it’s not like we’re completely alone in life even if it can feel that way.

Anyways that is to say that like, be absurdist for sure but don’t be selfish lol racism, transphobia, colonialism, fascism, it’s not going to end cause we all decide to just have fun.

Like we should be able to find joy despite our situations. That’s why queer joy is so important for example. To be happy despite it all.

But we can’t give up and say I’m just gonna party cause we’re all gonna die anyways. Because what if you don’t die? You’re going to have to keep living. And I hope that when you do die, you’ve left the world a little bit better for someone else.

I don’t want to give ratings because I feel that flattens out the enjoyment I’ve gotten from a book though I do like star ratings to determine what I want to read lol so they have their use just don’t expect me to provide ratings lololol

Going in order of what I’ve read post game changers, here’s my list of books and what I liked and maybe didn’t like of them.

The Shots You Take: I loved it. It was so good. It made me to happy. I loved the topics it covered and the characters. I also am a huge sucker for romances involved older people cause love doesn’t only strike for the youth.

Olive Juice: I also loved this one. It really stuck with me. It has an important message to share and it’s devastatingly sad. I don’t think it’s a book I’d go back and reread because it’s so sad though. But I loved it.

Stars In Your Eyes: I liked it. Sometimes the characters felt more like mouth pieces for the author to say their important message which is fine cause the message was important it sorta just felt out of character sometimes for the leads to know about certain things like colourism, and colonialism. Like hey I love being woke too but I doubt a Hollywood actor who never went to school would talk about those topics frankly in that manner. Like it’s cool that they know about it but whenever they talked about it, it was in a way that felt out of character. I’m glad it was in the story because it provides a lot of important context and messaging to the story. And it handled the relationship really well. I was worried in the middle but the middle set up the ending really well. And like I know it’s a cute little romance story but I wish it had the bravery to do the interesting thing and not have the two characters end up together in the end. Their relationship was intentionally presented as a little toxic. And it was presented in such kind and interesting way. I appreciated the exploration of trauma and how hurt people hurt people but that doesn’t mean you have to let yourself be hurt by them. Like a part of me is happy they ended up together in the end I just think the book would’ve been more interesting if they didn’t. Like they still love each other but it’s time to move on. But alas I know what genre I’m reading. And this is why I don’t love star ratings because I liked the book overall but there are a few things that sit off with me but I still think it’s good just not to my taste so I’d rather a rambling word salad that a number rating. I do like an enjoyment ranking which I’ll do later.

Roommate: I just finished reading this one and I really liked it. The beginning was definitely super good. Loved the drama and everything of setting up the characters and their situation. The character’s backstories are interesting and makes me care about them really quickly. Theres a little too much will they won’t they for my taste but it’s fine, I get why one of the uncertainties was because one of the characters didn’t want to be in a closeted relationship again. And I understand it was to create a tension of yearning and on the one hand I’m happy that the relationship pauses didn’t go on for too long and happened for understandable reasons, it ran the risk of occasionally feeling a bit forced to spice up the middle of the book. The ending was great though the ex randomly showing up to be told off was weird. Like how did he even find him? There’s no way he could’ve found him. But overall I really liked this one.

Ok ranking time! So baseline I enjoyed all of these but these are the ones I enjoyed the most.

The Stars in Your Eyes: it was good! And it’s made for a very interesting conversation starter.

Roommate: super cute and simple! Nice and sweet.

Olive juice: so good but so sad

But the entire game changers series was suddenly over and read in the span of like two weeks and then I went back to fanfiction and then I read so many that I was desperate to read more but the format of the game changers series being about a new couple each time made me desire new characters.

So I read another Rachel Reid book that wasn’t connected to the game changers series and The Shots You Take is by far my favourite.

And then after that I read TJ Klune’s Olive juice because a friend recommended that author and I loved that short story even if it was devastatingly sad.

I’ve read a few more gay books and while I’m still a bit picky about it, I don’t really love smut so I just sorta tolerate it when it shows up in the books which is incredibly ironic considering what heated rivalry is known for but it’s just that good.

Anyways the best way I think I can describe my love of contemporary gay fiction is that I’m nosy. I like being on public transit and imagining about all the lives people live and reading those types of books is like that but way more in depth.

Honestly I don’t need to really think of reasons as to why I like these book. I just do. Though I do fear that I already see potentially worrying things on the horizon as a lot of these books seem to follow a lot of tropes. But like when I read fanfictions I basically read the same story written by different people and perspectives over and over so I’m sure it’ll be fine. But also, I don’t want to get bored… I’m enjoying reading. But I guess the enjoyable books that are just good if a bit boring elevates the really good ones.