#Idlewild

[libraryleopard]

earlier today i was thinking about how interesting it is that i saw the tv glow is a piece of media about fandom but it's entirely grounded in the real world instead of the internet (like there's no mention of either character visiting forums for the pink opaque or anything which probably would have existed in-universe even if it's the 90s) and also how i bet there was some really killer lesbian fanfiction about tara and isabel and then i was like WAIT i can think of a piece of media with somewhat similar vibes that is indeed All About the internet

[kittybricks]

I saw the tv glow for men who are on they computers

[hyumjim]

Idlewild as I see it is a sort of parable about the dangers of sublimating your desire to go on HRT through writing rpf erotica

[bones-clouds]

books i read in 2024:

“idlewild”

james frankie thomas

“if i couldn’t manifest homosexuality in myself, i would instead locate it everywhere else. if nell and i couldn’t be gay together, we could—we would, we did—create for ourselves a separate world in which gayness was ambient and immanent and unrelated to us.”

[evenstarfalls]

Idlewild (2023), James Frankie Thomas

[allthedesiredusernamesaretaken]

Idlewild

- Samantha French

[destinationtoast]

I'm currently devouring Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas. It's in part a novel about being best friends who are a single entity in high school, constantly either together physically or conversing from afar. Obsessive friends who search all text for sexual subtext and who write fic together. I recognize my high school best friend and myself in so much of this novel.

These characters are about 7 years younger than we were, though. They have the internet. They have Livejournal, and AIM. One of them haunts Willow/Tara forums, and the other reads Holmes/Watson slash. They rp and write fic together.

Oh, to have been a teen at that time.

(Except that I'm SO glad that much of my bestie's and my content -- the self-insert bandom fic, the long notes speculating graphically about the private lives of our teachers and classmates, the wacky AU fic about people we knew, the use of phrases like "throbbing manhood" or "steel-hard rod sheathed in velvety skin" -- was never posted online.)

Anyway, even though I'm nowhere close to finished, I feel confident that this book will probably be of interest to many people in fandom, especially folks old enough to remember 9/11 (the high school part of this book takes place in 2001-2002 NYC), folks who were queer but nervous/confused about it in high school, folks who have long been obsessed with two dudes doing it, and anyone who was ever hive-mind close with a friend.

[smokefalls]

I loved her as I loved myself—uneasily, protectively, sometimes not at all.

James Frankie Thomas, Idlewild

[transbookoftheday]

Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas

James Frankie Thomas’s Idlewild is a darkly funny story of two adults looking back on their intense teenage friendship, in a queer, trans, and early-Internet twist on the Manhattan prep school novel.

Idlewild is a tiny, artsy Quaker high school in lower Manhattan. Students call their teachers by their first names, there are no grades, and every day begins with 20 minutes of contemplative silence in the Meetinghouse. It is during one of those meetings that an airplane hits the Twin Towers.

For two Idlewild outcasts, 9/11 serves as the first day of an intense, 18-month friendship. Fay is prickly, aloof, and obsessed with gay men; Nell is shy, sensitive, and obsessed with Fay. The two of them bond fiercely and spend all their waking hours giddily parsing their environment for homoerotic subtext. Then, during rehearsals for the fall play, they notice two sexually ambiguous boys who are potential candidates for their exclusive Invert Society. The pairs become mirrors of one another and drive each other to make choices that they’ll regret for the rest of their lives.

Looking back on these events as adults, the estranged Fay and Nell trace that fateful school year, recalling backstage theater department intrigue, antiwar demonstrations, smutty fanfic written over AIM, a shared dial-up connection—and the spectacular cascade of mistakes, miscommunications, and betrayals that would ultimately tear the two of them apart.

[libraryleopard]

the thing about idlewild. is that there is a LOT of really interesting stuff to discuss about to discuss in regards to this book (codependency, theater, queer loneliness, unrealized trans identity, racism, fetishization and idealization and exploration) but also my most visceral memory of reading this book is probably going to be when i realized that that excerpts of the rpf the two protagonists wrote was going to be actually INCLUDED in the book and had to physically put my copy down and walk around the house with my head in my hands out of sheer secondhand embarrassment. utterly masterful moment of cringe.

[sneakyteeth]

James Frankie Thomas, IDLEWILD, 2023

[vincentpriceofficial]

Halfway through Idlewild I’m still unclear if this is the kind of book where someone is going to get murdered before the end but also it feels kind of central to the reading experience that there is a level of psychological tension and intrigue that could be about a murder or could be about a high school friend breakup and there’s no way to know for sure just from vibes

[creaturefeaturecommando]

People who wanna redesign Alastor I’m gonna tell yall what I told the Cuphead fandom when they were whitewashing King Dice.

Watch these black centered movies that take place in the 1930s to get a glimpse at what black people were wearing in the 1930s. There’s the more accurate Harlem Nights and the less accurate but more accurate than Vivziepop is ever gonna be Idlewild and I even encourage you to use these films as inspo to rewrite Alastor’s backstory. Base outfits off of them and hairstyles, stories, idk just don’t bullshit it like Vivziepop aka doing three seconds of research

Harlem Nights is actually free to watch on YouTube or Pluto TV right now and I’m pretty sure you can pirate Idlewild even though it usually gets released for free on Tubi during black history month they even have great music examples that aren’t white centered that he probably would have liked and or listed to

And even when it’s occult stuff with Alastor I encourage you to check out the comic Bitter Root a comic that that takes place in the 20s instead of the 30s but it respectfully takes inspiration from African American culture and Voodou so it’s worth checking out

Point is if you’re looking for inspiration for your Alastor redraws and redesigns and rewrites and what nots, use these along with doing research

So yeah. There.

[elliotly]

if there’s one thing idlewild taught me it’s that i have no clue what “gifted kid” means anymore. fay, love, reading queer theory doesn’t make you smarter than the other kids in your class if you are not doing any schoolwork. you just have an extracurricular interest. other kids have those too but they are also doing the schoolwork

[coldduckweaselkid]

christopher korkian i want to save you

[black-is-beautiful18]

“Rap doesn’t belong in The Color Purple” Did y’all never see André 3000 and Big Boi in Idlewild???? Cuz that was set during the prohibition and incorporated rap very well🧍🏾‍♀️. Also, Megan is t the only rapper on the soundtrack. Missy Elliot and Black Thought were also listed and we still don’t know everybody on there yet. They’re all doing songs inspired by the film tho. These aren’t the songs that are gonna be in the film