#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

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

genre: literary, contemporary, coming of age, lgbt, transgender

synopsis:

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.

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.

[sexcromancy]

As Stephen [Ira] left the stage, he quipped, “You know what they say—trans girls play video games, trans boys write slash fiction.”

I hadn’t known that, actually. I was like, Huh. Later I thought about it and I was like, Oh. And then I thought about it some more and I was like, Oh NO. It was going to be incredibly inconvenient and time-consuming, but it was the only path forward: I had to rewrite the whole novel. Fay was trans, and I owed it to the novel to explore the implications of this, which meant I was now writing a trans story.

I’d be lying if I said it never crossed my mind, over the next three years of writing and rewriting, that this might also say something about me. In fact, besides men having sex with each other, I thought of little else. But it was an abstract, hypothetical thought. After all, what was I going to do, transition? I didn’t have time for that. For God’s sake, I was trying to write a novel here

made me shriek-cry-laugh at work. stream idlewild

[detroitlib]

View of the Club El Morocco in Idlewild, Michigan. Printed on front: "Club El Morocco, Idlewild, Mich." Printed on back: "All rights reserved. The L.L. Cook Co., Milwaukee."

Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

[coolthingsguyslike]

[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.

[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.

[evenstarfalls]

Idlewild (2023), James Frankie Thomas

[sneakyteeth]

James Frankie Thomas, IDLEWILD, 2023

[bellamer]

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

[libraryleopard]

random thoughts i've had about idlewild by james frankie thomas while standing at the bookstore cash register in a lull between christmas shoppers (spoilers below the cut)

fay's dysphoria not just manifesting as discomfort with his* body (see: attempt at deepening voice for iago role + wearing a binder near the end of the novel) and the suicidal ideation on the roof with theo near the end but also the inability to, like, imagine a future life because what fay really wants is to live life as a gay man and can't envision going through life as a woman and that's what results in fay essentially being stuck kind of emotionally/physically in the end of high school? (like even having the same jacket)

fay's obsession with gay murderers because he's gay and is drawn to that vs. theo's obsession with gay murderers because he has a manipulative/cruel hidden side? and they both don't understand why the other person is fascinated by that archetype?

i think nell's ex-girlfriend kiley named for author kiley reid who has a blurb on the back and was in the iowa writers workshop where thomas wrote idlewild lmao

rip the f&n unit you would have loved these violent delights by micah nemerever

i kept imaging as a thought experiment what this novel would be like if it took place ten years later in the early days of tumblr and i think it would just be filled with cringe and anguish in a different way

some reviews don't like the adult framing device but i actually loved the characters going "i know differently now but had i known this in high school i don't think it would have actually changed how i acted though" because i think felt very real (from the f&n unit's excusing of the creepy tech guy behavior to fay's gender identity)

the bit when nell remembers the fight about smith as her saying "well, they're all lesbians and you wouldn't fit in" while fay remembers it as "you're not gay, so…" which mean SUCH different things to them. ugh when the unreliable narrator hits, it hits!

i need someone to do a study of seemingly normal phrases that are nonetheless very associated with the language of fanfiction (like "tongues battling for dominance" is silly and very associated with fanfic, but "carded his fingers through his hair" is a phrase used in the faunfic that is not weird or cringey and yet has very strong fanfic connotations to me

genuinely this novel has taught me that inducing secondhand embarrassment in the reader is a skill and one that can be perfected

i wonder what fay and nell would have thought if they read twelfth night in high school

the ending of this novel is so bleak and i know that's the point. however someone should still write fix-it fanfic because i think that would be a fascinating exercise

*i know fay is referred to by she/her pronouns in the narration by nell in the past timeline but idk if i should do that outside of the story?

these are not particularly coherent thoughts and this is not a review but just random things i have thought about while chewing on this novel for the past couple weeks

[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

[smokefalls]

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

James Frankie Thomas, Idlewild