"Bla bla bla professional pride bla bla circuitous logic bla bla LET ME ILLUSTRATE THE WAYS IN WHICH YOU ARE WRONG bla conclusion."

ETA: Too bad "this is a load of self-indulgent crap" is not a viable thesis.

Okay, I give up. There is no way on Earth that my lgbtfest entry will be ready by midnight. I don't know when, exactly, the tiny tense Mary/OFC fic that I was writing grew into a freaking novella - 4000 words before OFC is even introduced! 1000-word scenes! This never happens to me! - but it did, and it's going to take it's sweet time finishing, and drive me insane in the meantime.

(I suspect a lot of my irritation with this fic has a lot to do with the fact that I'm writing about a bunch of things that I know nothing about, like "guns", and "how to fix cars" when I don't even know how to drive. And babies. I'll admit I'm relying on thefourthvine's Earthling posts to an embarrassing degree, since I don't know a ten-month-old baby from a newborn from a potato! Thank god for babysitting; at least I have a vague idea of what five-year-olds are like.)

everysecondtuesday, it may... er, be a while before I get back your Mary/Ruby. BUT IT WILL HAPPEN. (My track record this year notwithstanding.)

So I just had a really infuriating argument about all of Glee's SERIOUSLY PROBLEMATIC PROBLEMS (of which I could go on forever, but I won't, because this show makes me go AAAAAAAARGGH) with a friend who was convinced that Glee was "fluff"; that I was "taking it too seriously"; that it was a "coincidence" that the main storylines went to white, straight characters (and hey! Gay characters and disabled characters and characters of color exist! So obviously my argument is groundless); that the writers weren't racist (and sexist, and ablist, and homophobic), and if they were, it was because they "didn't know how to handle so many storylines", or (my personal favorite) "because they wanted good ratings, and nobody watches shows about gay people/black people/asian people/disabled people/women".

And this a good friend. Someone I really like. And who could not accept that it was a problem that Glee had problems.

!!!!!

Then I read this, and that made it a little better, at least in regards to the Brittany/Santana storyline. So that's something.

So, posted the question about small-town lesbians in the 1980s to little_details (thank you, nekosensei!), and... wow. Answers are really not pleasant, and you really get a sense of where the old-school gay activists are coming from. I feel like there's a disconnect in the gay rights movement - a generation gap of sorts, between the old-school activists (militant, segregationist, radical gay identity) and the newer-school folks (not militant, not segregationist; "it's not about sexuality, it's about equality"; especially gays & lesbians) who really de-emphasize the gay part. I mean, I'm definitely of the latter school of thought. For instance, it's always a little weird to see someone waving a rainbow flag; emotionally, at least, it seems a little bit like hanging the bloody sheets out of your window. (Intellectually, it's more complex, but that's my gut reaction.) And you know what, I'd prefer not to go through life as HEY LOOK HERE COMES THE LESBIAN, though of course to some degree I will. But damn, I can understand why there was that fierce... well, pride, if it came out of this.

All I can say is, thank fucking God for being born in 1992.

However, this poses a problem. Because, see, the fic I want to write (even though it's for the lgbtfest) isn't about the fact that it's a lesbian affair; it's about love, and loss, and aftermaths, and all sorts of shit, but not that. Except, the lesbian thing seems so fucking HUGE I feel like I have to address it, significantly.

Thoughts? Advice? Brick to the head?