I don't work at Walmart

Imagine they made a tv show about me where I'm the prime minister and before the show started, my husband got hit by a lorry. And I'm really upset about this, obviously, especially because I'm the one who asked the lorry driver to go that way, I just didn't know my husband was going to be in the middle of the road right then. So I force a bill through Parliament that will ban lorry driving and also require the state execution of all current lorry drivers. I do a lorry driver genocide. It really jams things up at the Channel crossings because now everyone has to use small vans and that gets a lot of people really mad at me. But I'm the prime minister. My word is law.

Then a few years later I hire this young twenty something to work in my office. I make him my son's PA (my son works here because of blatant nepotism). And I don't know this, but the new young guy is actually secretly an extraordinarily talented lorry driver, and he's been driving lorries in secret. This is really good for me, because all of those people who are mad at me for causing unprecedented queues down in Kent by making the only international trade decision worse than Brexit are now sending assassins after me, except I'm only half aware of this, because the new guy has secretly been using his incredible lorry driving abilities to help run them off. He does like, amazing drift tricks where he takes out three men with a single turn of the steering wheel. It's rad. Also he has major homoerotic tension with my son (it's not really relevant, but I thought I'd mention it). I don't know about any of this. I'd totally kill the new guy if I did, I don't care that he's saved my life a bunch of times, I just hate lorry drivers that much. I also have this daughter who thinks it's really screwed up that I hate lorry drivers and have been tyrannically murdering them, which only gets worse when she starts to realise that she also has hidden lorry driving talents. She winds up joining a group of domestic terrorist lorry drivers and decides she's going to hit me and my son and also the new guy with a lorry, which is of course very evil of her. Other stuff presumably happens after that but I don't know what because I stopped watching the show that this is all a metaphor for around that point, and I haven't seen anything of it in years, so this is all based on vague rememberings and skimming the wiki, but I do know that my son and the new guy don't get to kiss even once, not even a little bit, even though everyone wanted them to :(

Anyway, that's why I could never really get into Merlin.

Everyone always talks about what a bitch Emblem Soren is to everyone (and rightly so it's hilarious), but no one ever talks about how surprisingly tolerant he is of Amber

Bad Ghosts AUs: BBC Toasts. It’s exactly the same scripts but everyone is a stop motion animated bread product and food puns are inserted wherever possible. We remake the entire show that way. Call me BBC, this is the replacement you need once the original show ends, you could absolutely do five series of this, the gimmick totally wouldn’t get old-

or rather-

stale-

I’m a bit happy

Need to be on the Succession universe’s version of Twitter. Need to read their 49 tweet threads written by teenage politics students on why Tom is problematic

Lots of people talk about the Captain’s arc like it’s entirely about him learning that it’s okay to be gay (homosexual). But I think, really, it’s far more about him learning that it’s okay to be gay (happy). That’s what’s actually changed about him from series to series, really - he’s gradually become more free and open and honest about everything. The man went from being the most strongly disliked member of a group of people who all already disliked each other, to being a supportive friend, and a surrogate father figure, and a guy who can find simple, peaceful pleasure in sitting and watching a colony of ants go about its business.

(And, you know, a guy who’s also still kind of a dick sometimes - but would we really want him not to be?)

But his sexuality is, obviously, still his biggest hurdle, and I think that’s why it’s taken so long. It has to be the last thing because it’s the culmination of all of it. He can’t get to a place where he can fully accept that he’s allowed to be one of those definitions of the word without also fully accepting that he’s allowed to be the other. It’s a coming out story where coming out is just that one final piece of a much bigger puzzle - but, of course, placing the piece is the only way to finish the picture

I think the villain of AITSF 3 should be the guy that sold Pewter his slutty full body spandex and leather lab coat ensemble on eBay eHarbor. The ultimate betrayal

Last minute crack theory: As a very stupid punchline to him having previously had a wife, Trent will end up with (another) Beard

Nirvana Initiative stop forcing me to proceed to the next scene before I finish all the conversation options challenge I swear to fucking god-

Is that Cousin Greg

One thing I would really enjoy is if BBC Ghosts did more jokes that acknowledge the massive age gaps between the characters. They only really do it with Robin, and usually it’s for dramatic, poignant purposes, and I love those moments, don’t get me wrong - I would just also really love to see, say, a smug Thomas telling an irate Captain that he’ll understand something when he’s older

I love how both AI: The Somnium Files games will occasionally just pause and let a character do an entirely unsubtle little speech about LGBT rights. It’s sweet, and the fact that it’s not even trying to pretend it’s not also directed at the player is very funny. So many people complain about even hints of gay references in video gaming - I actually think every game should have a moment where the characters turn directly to camera and tell gamers to knock it off with the homophobia

Seadall #1 Diamber shipper

Trying to find a way to tell people all about my favourite anxious paranoid self-sacrificing gay accountant who put me in infinite student debt without them getting hung up on the fact that he is also a bird

oh my god the starving malnourished teenagers are making irrational decisions this makes no sense at all what terrible writing

I met the author of this book, Ian Eagleton, at a children’s book festival I was working at last weekend. He was so lovely, and I thought his book looked good, so I bought it, got him to sign it, and have just finished reading it.

Glitter Boy is an excellent middle grade novel which follows an eleven year old boy called James who loves singing and dancing and Mariah Carey. He also adores his lovely grandmother, but has been having a hard time with his mother, who walked out on them, and his dad, who’s not so sure about having a son who’s this fabulous. And, unfortunately, that sentiment is shared by some of the boys at school.

Poor James goes through the wringer, he really does - homophobia and his parents’ divorce and fighting with friends and the death of a loved one, Eagleton does not give this kid an easy time. But he also gives James a brilliant best friend, and some great gay mentors, and a really sweet when-they’re-both-a-bit-older love interest (because spoilers, while there’s clearly a mutual crush, they don’t get together, they’re still only eleven). And he also gives James a happy ending. I might have teared up a little.

The book also has a whole lot of stuff in it about LGBT history and the rights movement, and the celebration of specific figures - Marsha P. Johnson in particular is the focus of a whole subplot. You can tell the author is also an activist himself, and has a background in teaching.

If you like reading kids’ books, or you have a kid in your life who’s in that middle grade 9-13 age range, I really recommend this!

I was feeling nostalgic and watching an episode of Ned’s Declassified and this caught me so off guard. Genuinely in tears of laughter

Thank you so much! I am so happy to hear that you liked it, and that it cheered you up during a rough time. I mostly wrote it over lockdown, so I’ve heard that before, and it always makes me glad I could help someone in a small way.

I also love that you felt like you were checking in with friends and seeing them grow up. The whole thing started as a parody, but clearly by the end it turned into very sincere love letter (with jokes) to something that was a huge part of my life as a kid. But I did always want it to feel like reading an actual grown-up Rainbow Magic book, not just a story about two girls called Rachel and Kirsty. Which very accidentally tied into what ended up being the main theme of the story - that (for most people) starting adulthood isn’t a completely new world, it’s just a more complicated one.

And I’m also very glad you found it funny :)

Ahh! Even two years on I could talk about writing that story and how much I love it for days! Thanks again!