#London literary walks

[rozmorris]

The between-places. Tension, mystery and friendships. Shuddersome fun! Turn Right At The Rainbow. A little horse. All in my newsletter https://mailchi.mp/5a102eee4e18/the-between-places-tension-mystery-and-friendships-shuddersome-fun

[literarylondonhq]

Edinburgh Fringe mini blog. Day 11. And 12. Cancelled Performances!

This has been a weird and wonderful fringe in so many ways. It’s also resulted in the first cancelled performances in Maverick’s 30 year history! Apart from once, in Birmingham. When an actor, Jon Morris, was so energetic during a performance of my play P.A.L.S., he pulled all the tendons in one leg and ended up in plaster. Ouch! This is less physically painful, to be honest. It started, quite…

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

a list of some autumnal movies/series 🍂

i am nothing if not an organised little goblin who can not stop themself from making a good list. this is just in case you want something with that fall vibe but can't think of any. just close your eyes and point somewhere on this little list, or even put the numbers in a generator and go with whatever the result is ♡

winter | spring | summer

🥧 ‧₊˚ ⋅ movies ⋅˚₊‧

nosferatu (1922) 

sabrina (1954)

the creature from the black lagoon (1954)

psycho (1960)

rosemary’s baby (1968)

the rocky horror picture show (1975)

halloween franchise (1978-)

friday the 13th franchise (1980-)

an american werewolf in london (1981)

dark crystal (1982)

a nightmare on elm street (1984)

ghostbusters (1984-)

ronja rövardotter (1984)

clue (1985)

princess bride (1987)

the witches of eastwick (1987)

elvira mistress of the dark (1988)

dead poets society (1989)

when harry met sally (1989)

ghost (1990)

the witches (1990)

death becomes her (1992)

hocus pocus (1993)

addams family values (1993)

interview with a vampie (1994)

the craft (1996)

the first wifes club (1996)

the scream franchise (1996-)

halloweentown (1998)

practical magic (1998)

you’ve got mail (1998)

the blair witch project (1999)

sleepy hollow (1999)

chocolat (2000)

amelie (2001)

the lord of the rings franchise (2001-2003)

scooby doo (2002)

school of rock (2003)

mona lisa smile (2003)

peter pan (2003)

pirates of the caribbean franchise (2003-2017)

north & south (2004)

pride and prejudice (2005)

the descent (2005)

just like heaven (2005)

the devil wears prada (2006)

the lake house (2006)

penelope (2006)

el orfanato (2007)

juno (2007)

ratatouille (2007)

bridge to terabithia (2007)

the edge of love (2008)

twilight (2008)

the curious case of benjamin button (2008)

julie & julia (2009)

jennifer’s body (2009)

dorian gray (2009)

coraline (2009)

true grit (2010)

the cabin in the woods (2011)

jane eyre (2011)

wuthering heights (2011)

perks of being a wallflower (2012)

the odd life of timothy green (2012)

hotel transylvania (2012-)

the conjuring franchise (2013-)

what we do in the shadows (2014)

the riot club (2014)

as above so below (2014)

john wick (2014-)

the age of adaline (2015)

the witch (2015)

far from the madding crowd (2015)

the edge of seventeen (2016)

paterson (2016)

20th century woman (2016)

the love witch (2016)

mary shelly (2017)

murder on the orient express (2017)

get out (2017)

a quiet place (2018 + 2020)

the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society (2018)

on the basis of sex (2018)

knives out (2019)

ready or not (2019)

the lighthouse (2019)

little women (2019)

the gentlemen (2019)

emma (2020)

ammonite (2020)

the dig (2021)

fear street trilogy (2021)

good luck to you, leo grande (2022)

the batman (2022)

fresh (2022)

bodies bodies bodies (2022)

mr malcom's list (2022)

totally killer (2023)

slay (2024)

🧦 ‧₊˚ ⋅ series ⋅˚₊‧

moomin (1990-1992)

twin peaks (1990-1991)

x files (1993-2018)

buffy the vampire slayer (1997-2003)

gilmore girls (2000-2007)

supernatural (2005-2020)

vampire diaries (2009-2017) / the originals (2013-2018) / legacies (2018-2022)

downton abbey (2010-2015)

the walking dead (2010-2022)

once upon a time (2011-2018)

american horror story (2011-)

teen wolf (2011-2017)

peaky blinders (2013-2022)

outlander (2014-)

how to get away with murder (2014-2020)

the magicians (2015-2020)

izombie (2015-2019)

poldark (2015-2019)

critical role (2015-)

stranger things (2016-)

ghost files / buzzfeed unsolved (2016-)

lucifer (2016-2021)

shadowhunters (2016-2019)

anne with an e (2017-2019)

the good fight (2017-2022)

riverdale (2017-2023)

manifest (2018-2023)

killing eve (2018-2022)

succession (2018-2023)

you (2018-)

a discovery of witches (2018-2022)

the chilling adventures of sabrina (2018-2020)

dickinson (2019-2021)

virgin river (2019-)

carnival row (2019-2023)

the witcher (2019-)

the umbrella academy (2019-2024)

sanditon (2019-2023)

good omens (2019-2025)

the haunting of bly manor (2020)

i’ll be gone in the dark (2020)

queens gambit (2020)

the great (2020-2023)

shadow and bone (2021-2023)

the nevers (2021-2023)

wednesday (2022-)

interview with the vampire (2022-)

vikings valhalla (2022-2024)

lessons in chemistry (2023)

my lady jane (2024-)

[pasdasin]

Wicked Game

wolverine x vampire!reader

an: omg sorry for such a long break 😭 a lot has happened over this past weekend. I literary moved home from my college apartment and everything! Also I couldn't walk??? but im okay now lol. I made this chapter longer but it might be a lil shitty, also i know yall dont care for the fight so next chapter will be smut focused!

ch 5

warnings: cussing, violence, mentions of seizures, saliva, foam in mouth, drinking blood, murder, inappropriate use of a dead body erm, u know what mdni this is kinda fucked up

previous -- next

~~~~~

Everything felt wrong. Holding Alex’s hand was wrong. Your dress was wrong. The restaurant was wrong. London wasn’t like anything you remembered. It made sense, given that you weren’t in the city for at least century, but everything was wrong.

Maybe the mission was going too well? No that couldn’t be it. 

You shifted in your seat, tugging at the part of your dress that laid over your thighs. Alex was rambling over something that he watched recently, trying to keep appearances. You nodded everything once in a while, sipping some wine. 

Thump…. Thump…… thump

Your eyes zeroed in on his neck. Oh. That’s what it was. The sound of Alex’s blood pumping through his body, no the sound of all the blood in the restaurant. Ever since you tasted it, you craved more. Whatever Alex was saying was lost on your ears. 

You scanned the faces of everyone in the restaurant, feeling your mouth salivate. Each person had a unique rhythm. Alex was spaced, he was always calm, cool headed. Logan was faster, like he was stuck in a state of fear.

Your eyes landed on a man in the middle of the restaurant, standing to excuse himself from the dinner. No beat.

“Bingo”

“What you got sugar?” Alex asked, taking a bite of his dinner roll. 

“Morgue to your right, heading to the kitchen”

“Morgue? Who is that?”

“Alex stay here okay? I’ll be right back” You stood, brushing off your dress and started your pursuit. Following his path, you entered the kitchen, ignoring the cooks trying to escort you out. You walked down a back staircase, careful to stay out of sight. 

You were pressed to a wall, listening for the trail of footsteps, when a hand wrapped around your neck and pushed you into the wall. 

“I knew it was you, darling” You peered up into his eyes. “You’re rusty, I thought you’d never show up in our city again.”

“Fuck you” You spat in his face. He blinked at you in shock, then used his other hand to wipe his face.

“Never play nice, do you?” He muttered, tightening his grip on your neck, tearing skin slightly. Your nails extended into claws, tearing into his hand. He hissed in pain, dropping you, allowing for you to jump on him and pin him to the floor, kneeing him in the groin as you moved. 

Quickly, you pressed your hands down on his neck, your fangs flaring. You pushed your claws deeper into his neck causing blood to seep out of him, starting to feel his neck tear.

You were so close. Feeling his vocal cords start to snap under the force of your hands.

The only known way to kill a vampire, decapitation. His hands frantically clawed at your back, trying to distract you. You were close, hearing bones snap, when a beam of energy started hurling towards the two of you. Startling you, you loosened your grip on his neck, causing Morgue to push himself up and bring you to his chest. 

Morgue in an instant pressed his finger to your forehead, pushing your skull.

“You’ve been a bad girl. Don’t you remember what you did?” Your eyes rolled into the back of your head as you seized on the ground. You heard Alex call out your name and then your whole world went black. 

----

Logan wished he payed attention to you when you were showing him ‘find my’ on his own. Kurt dropped him off at the location Charles provided him, promising to flash back once he was done. 

Logan was just trying to follow your scent, but it had changed. Something had tainted it, he had realized halfway through his walk that the smell was himself, more specifically, his blood. He felt hopeless as he aimlessly wandered around the city. 

Rolling his eyes when people stopped him for whatever reason this time. Night fell and he was still walking. He saw the flash before he smelt you. 

Running over, he saw Alex hurl another energy blast at the strange guy in the trench coat. The trench coat guy was bleeding badly, but he was still standing. Logan felt his claws unsheathed themselves, before he ran over to assist Alex with the fight. 

Stabbing the dude in the back, he ran his claws up and down his body, hoping to cause some more damage. He growled as he threw him towards Alex who shot him with another blast. 

Logan turned his head to your body, unconscious and foaming at the mouth. It finally struck him, who this man was.

Morgue, your ex boyfriend. A man who manipulated you into saving his life with his dying wish. A man who forced you to kill three young mutants in a burning orphanage, forcing you to drain them dry as they cried for help. 

“Alex! His head!” Logan shouted to him as he started to try to bring you back from the memory wave. 

“C’mon sweet thing. Come back to me” He muttered softly, placing his hands on your forehead and chest. He listened to the sound of his own blood mix around in your body, the irregular pace worrying him. 

Morgue had only one trick that transferred over from his human life. His mutation of making people relive their worst nightmares. It was clear to Logan that you were trapped in this state, and if he didn’t act fast, you’d be dead. 

Another energy blast was hurled, causing a fire to catch on some back alley trashcan. The sounds of fighting filled the air, but Logan persisted on trying to focus on you. 

Logan didn’t remember a lot of the bullshit you told him about Morgue. He didn’t care for the guy back then and he definitely didn’t care for him now. 

“It works in fairytales, so maybe it’ll work now” Logan muttered to himself. He wiped your mouth of any saliva that was building up and pressed his lips to yours. It wasn’t your first kiss and when you finally was snapped back to reality, Logan was reassured it wouldn’t be your last. 

You pressed your hand to the side of his face and slowly pulled away. Looking up at Logan, you weakly smiled. 

“I knew you would save the day”

“When have I not?” He smiled softly down at you. Helping you to your feet, you turned to face the fight, noticing Alex was on his last stand. You turned to face Logan and smiled, your fangs baring. 

“Just like the last time we were here” You joked, starting to sprint down toward Morgue. Jumping up you wrapped your legs around his waist and bit down into his neck. He yelled back in surprise, allowing Logan to get to Alex and move him out of the way.

You managed to repin him to the ground, pounding both of your fists into his chest. He wheezed out and you smiled wildly, losing yourself in his pain. You pushed his neck down again and twisted. 

Finally, you leaned down into his neck, the blood oozing out of his neck. Licking the blood, you giggled in his ear.

“Remember when we first met and you asked me what I was?” You leaned upwards, your eyes now staring into his.

Fear flooded his vision. You had created him, the blood oozing from his neck was a result of his murderers.

“I’m a vampire. I’ll see you in hell” You twisted his neck and off came his head. You threw it up and Logan quickly stabbed it with his claws, ensuring the end. 

You looked down at the headless body and blinked back tears. A puddle of blood surrounded the two of you. Your hands covered in it. Your clothes were stained in it. You had no more restraint. 

You leaned down, licking the blood seeping out of him. Your eyes rolled back into your head, feeling satisfied with the amount you were consuming. You were so, so hungry. 

You felt two hand wrap around your torso and pull you up from the body. You thrashed around, kicking whoever dared to separate you from the meal at your disposal.

“You need to calm down. Alex is hurt. You can eat later” Logan’s grip tightened around your waist and you cried out. Turning your head, you looked at the body of Alex Summers and gasped.

Alex was on the verge of death, and only you could save him.

~~~~~

Tag list: @captain039 @twinky-wink @fuckmachine42069 @honeybeedrabble @reidsworld @clairealeehelsing @bontensbabygirl @policedeer

an: the fight was so rushed but idc lol. planning on writing a cowboypool smut and a cowboy clark kent smut soon too, lmk if yall r interested lol

[pitchsidestories]

Dear Reader II Lotte Wubben Moy x Reader

arsenal women masterlist

It was Lotte's and yours first year anniversary as a couple before that you’ve been friends for a long time, and you decided to celebrate it in your own special way which meant visiting a bookshop with a café in it and maybe going to an arts museum afterwards.

The latter one was a maybe, because it was very likely you two were eager to start reading your freshly bought books in a nearby park.

“Are you ready?”, Lotte asked beaming from the excitement to spend her free day with you.

Equally excided you nodded: “Yes, I’m ready to go.”

“Perfect.”, she replied with satisfaction in her voice while letting you go first out of the door of your shared appartement.  

On the bus ride to the bookshop Lotte wanted to know from you :“Do you know what you’re looking for or do you just want to browse?”

“A mix of both.”, you answered, your cheeks blushing slightly which your girlfriend found adorable as she often remarked.

The brunette tried to not let her relief shown because she had planned something out for you in the shop: “So, like the same tactic as usual.”

“Exactly.”, you replied, before looking out of the window seeing the scenery of your hometown London unfolding, you knew you could never get tired of that sight where so many of your literary heroines and adored authors lived.

Lotte and you enjoyed those quiet moments between you two just like the loud ones, but soon it was time to step out of the bus and into your first stop of your day.

In front of the bookshop, Lotte opened the door and held it open for you. You smiled at her gratefully as you slipped past her.

With a deep sigh, you breathed in the scent of the books and let your gaze wonder over the shelves. Lotte watched you with a smile, “Go on, love.“

“I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.“, you laughed as you made your way further into the bookshop.

You loved browsing the shelves, looking for any book that would pique your interest. And there were a lot of them.

Time never felt real in a bookshop, so you didn’t even realize how much time had passed when you looked up from your books and caught Lotte staring at you from the other side of the shelves.

As soon as your gazes met, she looked back down at the book she was holding.

She could pretend all she wanted but you could tell from the grin on her face that she has been watching you for quite some time getting lost in the many different stories.

You could feel a smile spread across your face as well. You took a few of the books that you liked and walked over to your girlfriend.

She was standing with her back to you, so you rested your chin on her shoulder and asked, “Did you find something, love?“

Lotte turned her head to you, looking into your eyes and then down at the books you were holding, “I did. And I can tell you did too.“

"You know I can never contain myself in a bookshop.", you smirked at her.

The brunette defender simply nodded and took the books you were holding on to with the words:"It's our anniversary so let me buy them for you."

"Alright, I'll pay our coffees later.", you agreed to that arrangement happily.

Later you both started reading your books as the waiter brought the hot brews to your table.

With a huge grin on your face you noticed a card with a handwritten message from Lotte hidden inside your current read it read:

I love all the stories you manage to find but our love story remains my favourite. Here's to many more, we can share together.

Moved by her words you kissed your girlfriend's cheek:"I love you, Lotte." "I love you too.", she replied softly and slightly blushed.

[centrally-unplanned]

Another big stop in Tokyo for me was Jimbocho Book Town! It is a neighborhood of, depending on who you ask, up to 400 generally-secondhand bookstores flanked by some of the major universities in Tokyo. The local government even prints out maps of the stores to help people find them all:

Which, you will note, is not 400 stores, because the process of becoming an "official" Jimbocho Town Bookstore is an intensely political operation run by local stakeholders with tons of fights over what should qualify and what rights that entails - never change humanity!

"Book Towns" used to actually be quite a common thing, and they peaked during the literary boom of the late 19th century. Figuring out "what books existed" was a hard task, and to do serious research you needed to own the books (you weren't making photocopies), so concentrating specialty bookstores in one area made sense to allow someone to go to one place and ask around to find what they need and discover what exists. It was academia's version of Comiket! Modern digital information & distribution networks slowly killed or at least reduced these districts in places like Paris or London, but Jimbocho is one of the few that still survives.

Why it has is multi-causal for sure - half of this story is that Tokyo is YIMBY paradise and has constantly built new buildings to meet demand so rents have been kept down, allowing low-margin, individually-owned operations to continue where they have struggled in places like the US. These stores don't make much money but they don't have to. But as important is that Japan has a very strong 'book collector' culture, it's the original baseball cards for a lot of people. The "organic" demand for a 1960's shoujo magazine or porcelainware picture book is low, but hobbyists building collections is a whole new source of interest. Book-as-art-collection powered Jimbocho through until the 21st century, where - again like Comiket - the 'spectacle' could give it a lift and allow the area to become a tourist attraction and a mecca for the ~cozy book hoarder aesthetic~ to take over. Now it can exist on its vibes, which go so far as to be government-recognized: In 2001 the "scent wafting from the pages of the secondhand bookstore" was added to Japan's Ministry of Environment's List of 100 Fragrance Landscapes.

Of course this transition has changed what it sells; when it first began in the Meiji area, Jimbocho served the growing universities flanking it, and was a hotpot of academic (and political-polemic) texts. Those stores still exist, but as universities built libraries and then digital collections, the hobby world has taken over. Which comes back to me, baby! If you want Old Anime Books Jimbocho is one of the best places to go - the list of "subculture" stores is expansive.

I'll highlight two here: the first store I went to was Kudan Shobo, a 3rd floor walk-up specializing in shoujo manga. And my guys, the ~vibes~ of this store. It has this little sign outside pointing you up the stairs with the cutest book angel logo:

And the stairs:

Real flex of Japan's low crime status btw. Inside is jam-packed shelves and the owner just sitting there eating dinner, so I didn't take any photos inside, but not only did it have a great collection of fully-complete shoujo magazines going back to the 1970's, it had a ton of "meta" books on shoujo & anime, even a doujinshi collection focusing on 'commentary on the otaku scene' style publications. Every Jimbocho store just has their own unique collection, and you can only discover it by visiting. I picked up two books here (will showcase some of the buys in another post).

The other great ~subculture~ store I went to was Yumeno Shoten - and this is the store I would recommend to any otaku visiting, it was a much broader collection while still having a ton of niche stuff. The vibes continued to be immaculate of course:

And they covered every category you could imagine - Newtype-style news magazine, anime cels, artbooks, off-beat serial manga magazines, 1st edition prints, just everything. They had promotional posters from Mushi Pro-era productions like Cleopatra, nothing was out of reach. I got a ton of books here - it was one of the first stores I visited on my second day in Jimobocho, which made me *heavily* weighed down for the subsequent explorations, a rookie mistake for sure. There are adorable book-themed hotels and hostels in Jimbocho, and I absolutely could see a trip where you just shop here for a week and stay nearby so you can drop off your haul as you go.

We went to other great stores - I was on the lookout for some 90's era photography stuff, particularly by youth punk photographer Hiromix (#FLCL database), and I got very close at fashion/photography store Komiyama Shoten but never quite got what I was looking for. Shinsendo Shoten is a bookstore devoted entirely to the "railway and industrial history of Japan" and an extensive map collection, it was my kind of fetish art. My partner @darktypedreams found two old copies of the fashion magazine Gothic & Lolita Bible, uh, somewhere, we checked like five places and I don't remember which finally had it! And we also visited Aratama Shoten, a store collecting vintage pornography with a gigantic section on old BDSM works that was very much up her alley. It had the porn price premium so we didn't buy anything, but it was delightful to look through works on bondage and non-con from as far back as the 1960's, where honestly the line between "this is just for the fetish" and "this is authentic gender politics" was...sometimes very blurry. No photos of this one for very obvious reasons.

Jimbocho absolutely earned its rep, its an extremely stellar example of how history, culture, and uh land use policy can build something in one place that seems impossible in another operating under a different set of those forces. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

[laurapetrie]

do you know any other perfumes worn by historical figures like otma? 🩷

Elisabeth of Austria wore Creed Fantasia De Fleurs. Obviously we don't know what Anne Boleyn smelled like (AN ANGEL!), but there is some evidence that she had a fondness for rose-water and even had several bottles of it in her inventory. Marie Antoinette was mad for perfume (there are entire books about this), and you can still buy her custom blend of Parfum du Trianon by her very own personal perfumer, Jean-Louis Fargeon. She even packed it for Varennes! (Louis waiting for her to get ready like 😒.) Her beloved Le Jardin Secret has been repackaged as Black Jade by Lubin, and you can buy it here. Marie-Thérèse also wore Lubin. Napoleon had François Rancé create Joséphine for Guess Who. To absolutely no one's surprise, it's like an explosion of rose petals. Victoria was a big fan of Fleurs de Bulgarie by Creed.

Madame du Barry‘s favourite scent was Aqua Mirabilis by Giovanni Maria Farina. Creed's Jasmin Imperatrice Eugenie was created (shockingly enough) for my beloved Empress Eugenie. STARLET SCENTS:

Grace Kelly walked down the aisle in Creed Fleurissimo.

Givenchy created L'Interdit for Audrey in 1957, but she also wore Creed Spring Flower later on - another perfume made just for her! Carole Lombard wore Casma by Caswell-Massey during her flapper era.

Pattie Boyd recorded in her Letter from London for 16 Magazine that she wore Jicky by Guerlain during her dolly bird days. (Also a favorite of Sharon Tate!) LITERARY LADIES: Zelda Fitzgerald wore Salud by Schiaparelli, describing it as "violets and lilies and pink beauty." And just for fun: the fictional Linda Radlett wears Après L'Ondée by Guerlain, and knowing Nancy Mitford, I'm pretty certain this means she wore it herself. 💐🩷

[darlingillustrations]

How To Know If Someone Is In Love With You

Ever since I was a kid, I was notorious for being gullible. Context clues were often lost on me, and I’d launch forward into social interactions, taking people at their word.

When I was in 9th grade, I’d just returned to the states from living in Bulgaria. I’d spent the last 4 years away from American pop culture and was clueless about a lot of things. While riding the bus home from school, the other kids told me that Tommy Hilfinger had a crush on me. They were laughing at me. I did not know who that was.

In college, I went on a study abroad program to London and struck up an easy friendship with one of the guys there. We bought a literary tour guide to the city and spent our free time visiting obscure locales important to different authors. While we were busy walking through Virginia Wolfe’s park and standing outside Rudyard Kipling’s old house, the girls in the program were taking bets on whether or not we would end up dating. I didn’t even realize the guy was into me until I’d unwittingly rejected him. After that, we didn’t hang out as friends any more.

The summer after I graduated college, I worked at a coffee shop, and I fell for one of my co-workers, a wiry Italian who invited me to her feminist book club and would drive me home from work when our shift ended after my last bus. When she invited me to her birthday party downtown, I hitchhiked to make it there (even though I was two hours late). To me, she was brilliant, and her moments of raw honesty felt real in ways that many other relationships were lacking. I could never figure out if she liked me romantically or not.

Relationships are complicated, and people are confusing.

I used to play D&D with a family who hosted in their special D&D room at their home. Above the D&D room, there was a loft with a bed, and the couple talked about how they had guests stay over often. The husband used to go out of his way to touch my shoulder as he walked around the table, but I just thought that he was clumsy. The wife would needle me, teasing me about liking David Bowie. It didn’t occur to me until years later that this couple were swingers and that they had likely been trying to see if I would swing with them.

I don’t know how to read people. If you tell me you want to see the original manuscript of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, I will pack snacks for the tube. If you say you want to watch the Labyrinth, I will grab a blanket and curl up on the couch. If you say you have a friend who wants to date me, I will ask you questions about their interests and values, even if their name is Calvin Klein. I don’t know the difference between interactions that are flirty, friendly or making fun of me, but if I’ve learned anything in life it’s this:

I will live brilliantly. I will live my life as in love with myself as possible. If someone is in love with me or not really isn’t my business, at the end of the day. Each person is entitled to their own feelings. But I treat each interaction as genuine, and I live like everyone loves me for who I am.

And, if I want a relationship with someone along the way, I will tell them, point blank, and let the chips fall where they may.

This writing originally appeared in my newsletter. If you want to read more of my creative writing and get updates on my art, you can sign up here.

[mybeingthere]

A beautiful photograph by a dear friend Sasa Gyoker from her numerous award winning works.

"Season of Silence"

Sasa tells: "In this series I have gathered works I took in winter. I live in Canada, and this season here can be a fertile terrain for meditative albeit fiercely cold walks. I find winter accentuates the graphic qualities of nature, while offering an invitation into a contemplative state enriched by silence."

"Sasa was born and lived in Budapest, Hungary, before moving to Canada. After completing her M.A. degree in Art History and working as a Curatorial Assistant at the National Gallery of Canada, she returned to study—this time graphic design, which has been her vocation ever since. In tandem with graphic design, her interest in and passion for photography has been growing stronger through the years. Her album, Of Trees and Birds and Snow and Silence, was published in 2015. Since then, she has won several international photography awards, and has participated in both solo and juried group exhibitions in Canada, the United States, Europe, and South Korea. Her works have been published and used for cover pages in books, albums, blogs, posters, literary journals and photo magazines, including her photograph in David Gibson: 100 Great Street Photographs (Munich, London, New York: Prestel, 2017), D. Tyler Bennett: The Coffee House Anthology—A Meeting Place for the Arts (Charnwood Arts, UK, 2016) as well as in LensCulture and Lomography Magazine, among others. Her photographs have also been shown in exhibitions worldwide, such as in the international juried exhibition at the Kiscelli Museum in Budapest, Hungary, a venue of the 2019 Budapest Photo Festival, and the exhibition of over 30 of her works at the ArtReach Gallery in Portland, Oregon, in 2021."

https://monovisionsawards.com/.../monovisions.../show/2206

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fantasy Books Bracket: Round 1

Book summaries below:

The Last Hours series (Chain of Gold, Chain of Iron, Chain of Thorns) by Cassandra Clare

Cordelia Carstairs is a Shadowhunter, a warrior trained since childhood to battle demons. When her father is accused of a terrible crime, she and her brother travel to London in hopes of preventing the family’s ruin. Cordelia’s mother wants to marry her off, but Cordelia is determined to be a hero rather than a bride. Soon Cordelia encounters childhood friends James and Lucie Herondale and is drawn into their world of glittering ballrooms, secret assignations, and supernatural salons, where vampires and warlocks mingle with mermaids and magicians. All the while, she must hide her secret love for James, who is sworn to marry someone else. But Cordelia’s new life is blown apart when a shocking series of demon attacks devastate London. These monsters are nothing like those Shadowhunters have fought before—these demons walk in daylight, strike down the unwary with incurable poison, and seem impossible to kill. London is immediately quarantined. Trapped in the city, Cordelia's friends discover that a dark legacy has gifted them with incredible powers—and forced a brutal choice that will reveal the true cruel price of being a hero. Fantasy, young adult, historical fiction, paranormal, urban fantasy, Edwardian, series

Salt Slow by Julia Armfield

This collection of stories is about women and their experiences in society, about bodies and the bodily, mapping the skin and bones of its characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession and love. Throughout the collection, women become insects, men turn to stone, a city becomes insomniac and bodies are picked apart to make up better ones. The mundane worlds of schools and sea side towns are invaded and transformed by the physical, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold on to the bodies of its inhabitants. Blending the mythic and the fantastic, the collection considers characters in motion – turning away, turning back or simply turning into something new. Short story collection, horror, fantasy, literary fiction, adult

[allwaswell16]

A fic rec of One Direction fics that feature soldiers and/or war as requested in this ask. If you enjoy the fics, please leave kudos and comments for the writers! You can find my other fic recs here. Happy reading!

—Louis/Harry—

💥 As We Were, As We Are by @jaerie *

(E, 51k, Dunkirk) Alex is a British soldier who has been injured in battle, Louis is a RAF pilot with amnesia. Somehow they put each other back together even if they get separated along the way.

💥 We're What's Right In This World by BriaMaria / @briannamarguerite

(E, 48k, soldier Harry) Or the World War II AU where Harry goes off to fight and all Louis wants to do is be the boy who brings him home.

💥 fondre ton absence by @scrunchyharry

(T, 41k, amnesia au) Determined to find Louis, Harry did everything he could in his quest to be reunited with him, except prepare for the state Louis might be in.

💥 another hazy may by deLILAh

(M, 41k, soldier Harry) louis is a terrible poet and harry lives in the now and they have six weeks to fall in love but, really, it only takes six seconds. bookshop meets military meets summer romance au ft. marlboros, the backstreet boys, and underrated literary devices.

💥 Letters to June by Larry_you_know / @larryyouknow

(M, 41k, a/b/o) It's 1915, Europe is in the middle of the Great War. Omega Louis decides to join the Letter Home Project to become someone’s penfriend.

💥 All That You Are by asphodelknox / @iamasphodelknox *

(M, 40k, Dunkirk) Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson meet on a civilian boat, taking them home after their rescue from Dunkirk. 

💥 You and Me by delsicle / @eeveedel

(E, 36k, Dunkirk) Alex goes to war. He comes back and everything is the same -- his hometown, his flat, the boy with the bad heart he left behind. Everything is same. Except for him.

💥 the dead things we carry by MediaWhore / @mediawhorefics *

(M, 25k, WWII soldiers) There are some things people never fully come home from. Until, one day, if they’re lucky, home comes to them.

💥 Trouvaille by delsicle / @eeveedel

(E, 18k, Dunkirk) The last thing Alex expects to find in an abandoned neighborhood in Dunkirk, France is something he actually wants to remember.

💥 High Heels, Red Dress by @jaerie *

(E, 15k, WWII) Hiding his queer identity isn't so hard until he attracts the attention of a particular soldier. It's all lies and secrets until the war is finally over. 

💥 To Honor by Awriterwrites / @a-writerwrites

(E, 14k, Scotland) Commander Styles leads his men to victory, but at what cost?

💥 Baby Honey by delsicle / @eeveedel

(E, 14k, Dunkirk) When the next great war strikes, all alphas have to ship out. Alex leaves a little more behind than some of the others.

💥 Worth the Wait by Rearviewdreamer / @all-these-larrythings *

(M, 10k, WWII) WW2 soldiers get cut off for their group in a storm. They hole up in an abandoned bar and get to know each other and slowly fall for each other. 

💥 You Smiled by @taggiecb

(G, 9k, Canada) Harry prepares himself and his guards for their prisoners of war, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of the most beautiful man he has ever seen- who is now his prisoner.

💥 To Love Without Reason by @mugglemirror

(E, 8k, post WWII) “Come on in, soldier,” Louis pats Harry’s chest and walks away, leaving Harry to follow behind.

💥 beat the darkness by @turnyourankle

(T, 7k, WWI) Harry is a volunteer nurse stationed in Cairo; Louis is one of the patients in his ward.

💥 The Letters by thecheshirepussycat / @the-cheshire-pussy-cat

(NR, 5k, Dunkirk) Correspondence between Louis Tomlinson, a writer from London who is writing about the children sent to the country to escape war, and his lover Harry Styles, an officer in the British Military stationed somewhere in France.

💥 ring around the moon by unwept / @peachade *

(T, 5k, historical au) 5 slices where they seek shelter in each other.

—Rare Pairs—

💥 History in the Making by areyoutherelarry

(E, 45k, Zayn/Liam) Liam, a soldier, and Zayn, an art therapist, meet at an art fair and immediately are attracted to each other, but Zayn has a kid and a dead fiancée and Liam has a career to think about.

💥 Write me not by sweet_mysterie

(G, 23k, Niall/Harry) Niall has never had anything he’s thought was worth fighting for and Harry just wants to fight for his own cause.

[consistentsquash]

Catullus 16 by eldritcher

Harry/Voldemort. Rated M. 168000 words.

Fest - @hprecfest. Day 13 - A fic over 100k.

This is a special rec because Cat16 is a really special fic. One of my all time fav fics! The fic was originally written in 2014 and it returned to AO3 in 2023 after it was taken down in 2018. This is a fic I avoid reccing because I don't really think I can do it justice. Lots of prep work went into this rec <3

Cat16 is a glorious love story. Also a scary war story. Also a story about grief, living with the ghosts of the people you lost.

This fic is hard to categorize. It has everything. A depressed, grieving villain avoiding war. A depressed, lonely headmaster avoiding war. A frightened, brave hero who has to walk a pretty fine line between morally good and not so good but doesn't succeed sometimes. Compromises on top of compromises but how do you even with somebody who killed your parents? The grief is visceral/unending/painful to read/painful to think about. Love clasps grief as only love can. This is a repeating theme in every single eldritcher fic. But it really is the biggest ghost haunting Cat16.

The war framing is Grindelwald’s invasion after he escapes from the prison. But the real war is the heart and mind war Harry, Voldemort and Dumbledore have to fight everyday as they make compromises. Dumbledore is charismatic and brilliant. Voldemort also. Their depression, grief and sensuality are the other side of the coin. Definitely not inhuman. Harry is so brave, so hopeful, so flawed, so everything.

You can’t talk about Cat16 without talking about the smut. Because Catullus wrote this poem about sodomy and face fucking. Because eldritcher's love for ficdick isn't like a secret or anything. The opening scene has serious Kill Bill vibes. The fic starts hard, goes hard, doesn’t really stop going hard. Honestly Harry and Voldemort have got to be nonstop dehydrated because of their dickchasing. So much dick. Sexposition is dickposition here :D

Also the character progression. Harry’s character gets layers as he deals with new challenges everyday. Dumbledore’s and Voldemort’s characters work in reverse with them losing layers when they trust Harry more and more. It’s a really brilliant and unusual exposition technique I don’t see a lot in fic. Works for the fic 100%.

The relationship arc has a lot of literary clues about the progression. The locations also show the relationship evolution and the real scale of the fic. The fic starts in Hogwarts, next London, next Canterbury which is really important for Dumbledore's arc, next some war locations, next Hungary in the Carpathians which is the classic Grindelwald setting in eldritcher's fics and the finale is in France locations in Rheims and Verzenay.

Also Grindelwald. The Grindelwald/Dumbledore confrontation in Canterbury with the backstory of Thomas Becket/King Henry is really intense. OMG. This fic. Like any eldritcher fic you can use it to prep for history trivia. Probably better than learning history on Twitter :D Also more fun. Less shouty more smutty. Zero preaching. Zero pretension. Somebody on reddit compared this to hpmor done right which I feel is insulting Cat16 but yeah I get the comparison.

The finale, Acheron, is one of eldritcher's best longfic finales and that's a really high bar right there. The ending is bittersweet and haunting. They are in love, they are together but you finish reading with this loss of innocence melancholy, sweet ache which is going to haunt you for the rest of your life.

Love love love this dickpoetry epictragedy soaringlovestory fic <3

art source

Recs I made for this fest

[literarylondonhq]

Edinburgh Fringe mini blog. Day 9. Performance 6 and Fringe Flu!

People often talk about ‘Fringe Flu’ but it’s not affected me since 1992. Until last night! Suddenly my nose is blocked, eyes streaming. I’ve not had a cold for years! Great. JUST what you want when presenting a very ‘sociable’ event like our Literary Pub Crawl! But I manage not to sneeze over our lovely – and actually quite large – audience and in spite of me still feeling uncomfortable after…

[asterrrrion]

Alright so part two of my explaining BSD french authors:

Arthur Rimbaud !

This is the boy. Looks young, right ? That's cause he's seventeen in this. (Funnily enough, he's exactly the same age as Verlaine's wife. Verlaine, though, is 27 at the time they meet. Yeah, I wasn't kidding when I said he was a piece of shit.)

Rimbaud is kind of THE poet of teenage rebellion. He was born in 1854, under Napoleon III to place him back in his historical context. He wrote quite a bit in opposition to Napoleon, actually.

His father is absent at first, and then not here at all later. He has... A complex and complicated relationship with his mother. He gave her a disrespectful nickname, she was seen hitting him several times (although at the time that's hardly surprising...), but at the same time when he asked her to go see him in London (at a time where the trip was very expensive, and she'd never left France in her life before that) she came, and his sister described him then as "the happiest I'd ever seen him". She's often seen as the source of his inner anger and rebellion.

What he hates for sure, though, was living in his house, with his family, and especially in his hometown, Charleville, which he despises.

He's especially known for having fled his house a lot, as in several times a year, for several days every time, walking during the day and sleeping on the road during the night. His most famous poem, "Ma bohème" (unstranslatable title because "bohème" is a french concept, but it basically means living your life day after day, in communion with nature and/or your dreams, often with an artistic dimension and no money whatsoever - also has travel connotations because it derives from "bohemian"), actually talks solely about that.

He wrote from his fifteenth to his nineteenth birthday, and was - still is - seen as a genius, being one of the most influential french poets ever despite having written for only four years. He was famous for being uncontrollable, and it translates back to his style : he took extremely traditional forms and changed their rules. (Which weirdly enough actually kinda fits with Rimbaud's ability ??)

If we ever have a Baudelaire in BSD, know that his character will probably look up to him, seeing as Rimbaud is usually seen as continuing Baudelaire's legacy of completely revolutionising french poetry. His two most famous books are "A Season in Hell" and "Illuminations", his last one. His literary movement is symbolism, invented by Baudelaire, characterized by melancholy and an attraction to the ethereal and mysterious. Rimbaud himself thinks that "the poet must search and describe the unknown" and, well, too bad if he sacrifices his sanity. He's also one of the first after Baudelaire to write prose poems.

He stopped writing, forever, at twenty, after the Verlaine fiasco. Actually, he wrote "Illuminations" directly after, then gave it to Verlaine so that he could get it published instead of doing it himself.

That's where his life gets really weird. He tries to learn seven different skills and languages while traveling everywhere, fails, his sister dies and he shaves his head for her funeral, is forced into the military to fight in Java, then deserts, gets hired on a boat on his way back and becomes a sailor, then tries to get hired in the American Navy, doesn't get any answer, goes in a circus then a factory, and all of that while traveling everywhere in the world in the space of about three years.

Nobody knows where he was for the nine months after that - and during all of this, everyone who knows him is hoping that he gets back to writing poetry - and then he goes home to help his brother with his farm before leaving, AGAIN. He walks from France to Italy, then gets in a boat to Alexandria, where he works in a construction project to manage the workers. This keeps going for about eleven more years, so I can't list everything this guy did : we'd need a whole ass novel.

He stays in Northern Africa for almost the rest of his life, although he travels quite a lot in that region and never stops moving. In France, he's still as famous as he was at 17, and several eulogies are written for him without his knowledge. We can also note that he does weapon trafficking, for a very short period, at some point. He writes to his family that he's "bored", of all things. He's described by the people he meets then as "smart, sarcastic, not very talkative, never talking about his past".

He then dies in Marseille, in his thirties, from cancer in his leg.

I'm gonna be honest : I don't like his BSD characterization. Rimbaud's a wild card, a chaotic teenager, as an author. I also ! Hate ! That he's Verlaine's mentor. But that'll be the next part, where I'll talk of IRL Rimbaud and Verlaine.

Previous and future parts are in the #IrlBSDFr tag.

[thethirdromana]

My journey is all mapped out: a two-week Dracula tour of Europe

A fun fact about me is that I enjoy planning holidays that I have no intention of taking. So, if I had two free weeks and more money than I actually do, here's the Dracula-inspired journey around Europe that I might consider.

(Spoilers under the cut)

Days 1-3: Whitby

This is the opportunity to visit all the key Dracula locations, from a coastal walk to Robin Hood's Bay to gazing out over the village and the sea from Mina and Lucy's favourite spot in the graveyard of St Mary's.

In non-Dracula things, Whitby Goth Weekend happens twice a year in April and October. I recommend the Magpie Café for fish and chips.

Day 4: travel to London

Most of the long train journeys in this plan are delightful overnight sleeper services that will make you feel like you're right there with Jonathan and Mina rattling across Europe. Unfortunately, the journey from Whitby to London is not one of them.

Services are infrequent and the journey takes a solid 5 hours. But the start, where you go very very slowly through the beautiful North York Moors, isn't too bad.

Days 5-7: London

There's a whole heap of things to see in London on a theme by either Dracula or Bram Stoker:

The Lyceum Theatre, where Bram Stoker worked for 27 years

The various houses that Bram Stoker lived in

Golders Green Crematorium, where Bram Stoker's ashes can be visited by appointment

Assorted Dracula settings, such as those the Harkers visited on their London day trip

I'd also suggest a visit to Highgate Cemetery, which may have been part of the inspiration for Lucy's tomb (pop in on Karl Marx and Douglas Adams while you're there), and the British Library for general literary joy.

Exeter is a 2.5 hour train journey from London, so you could also go there, either overnight or for a speedy day-trip, if you're a completist. But personally I'd skip it and spend the time going to see the Lion King at the Lyceum or a Shakespeare play at the Globe instead.

Day 8: Paris

The characters in Dracula take a number of different routes to get across Europe, but I've gone with the route that the Crew of Light take as they go to hunt Dracula down in his home.

That means following the Man in Seat 61 guide for travelling from London to Romania by train, taking an early Eurostar to get yourself to Paris. You'll only have a few hours in Paris before the evening sleeper train, but it should be enough to visit Père Lachaise Cemetery, where Oscar Wilde is buried.

Day 9: Vienna

You'll arrive in Vienna around 10am, then have the day to spend there until another evening train. Personally, I'd spend the time visiting the Hofburg Palace and Sisi Museum; Empress Elisabeth (Sisi) of Austria was famous in the late 19th century and her tragic life story feels fitting for a Dracula tour.

Yes, this plan involves fast trains crossing multiple European countries without much of a breather. Just like they do in Dracula :)

Day 10: Cluj-Napoca

Note: I've visited all the other destinations in this guide, but never been to Romania, though I'd really like to go to Cluj in particular. So from this point on, this is based on googling, not first-hand knowledge.

Cluj, referred to by the German name of Klausenburg in Dracula, is the unofficial capital of Transylvania. Your sleeper train from Vienna should get there around 8.20am, in time to hop on a tram to the Old Town's cluster of breakfast places. I've been told that Cluj is a lively, student-y city with great nightlife and festivals.

Days 11-14: Romania

Time to explore Romania! At this point there's a decision to make. On the one hand, there's strict adherence to the settings of Dracula, in which case you'll want to head to Bistrița, or maybe even extend your journey on to Varna or Galați.

On the other hand, you could go more on vibes. In which case, hire a car to drive through the remoter parts of Transylvania, then turn south to Bran Castle, which has very little actual connection to Dracula but certainly looks the part.

-------

In the unlikely event that anyone actually does this journey off the back of this post, please let me know how it goes. I'd be so thrilled to hear about it!

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 18

1834 – Catherine Tozer Coombes, born (d.1914). One day in 1897, a little old man, penniless and disheveled, walked into an English police station and begged for admission to a country poorhouse. "I am a woman," the man said, thus opening the strange case of Kate Tozer. To escape a brutal husband, she said, she had dressed in male attire and lived as "Charlie Wilson," a housepainter, for almost half a century, fearing all those years that her husband might find her if she were not so disguised. The novelist Charles Reade, fascinated by the story, investigated it on his own and discovered that it was only true in part.

What had really occurred was this: Kate Tozer had indeed married Tom Coombes, but he had not mistreated her. Having inherited ten pounds from an aunt, she appeared dressed as a man before her husband one day and announced "I am no longer Kate. My name is Fred."

They continued to live together as Tom and Fred, both working as house painters. Then one day, "Fred" fell in love with Nelly Smith and they eloped, together with Tom.

When the police, spurred on by Nelly's parents, broke down the Coombes' door, they found Tom smoking his pipe and reading a newspaper, while "Fred" and Nelly went at it on the sofa. It's only after "Fred" got out of jail that she became "Charlie Wilson" and eventually settled down and found herself a nice bride named Anne Ridgeway, about whom, alas, he tells us nothing. One would like to hear her story.

1872 – Sir Edward Marsh (d.1953) was a British polymath (master in many fields), translator, arts patron and civil servant. He was the sponsor of the Georgian school of poets and a friend to many poets, including Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon. In his career as a civil servant he worked as Private Secretary to a succession of Great Britain's most powerful ministers, particularly Winston Churchill. He was a discreet but influential figure within Britain's homosexual community.

A classical scholar and translator, Marsh edited five anthologies of Georgian Poetry between 1912 and 1922, and he became Rupert Brooke's literary executor, editing his Collected Poems in 1918. Later in life he published verse translations of La Fontaine and Horace, and a translation of Fromentin's novel, "Dominique".

The sales of the first three Georgian Poetry anthologies were impressive, ranging between 15,000 and 19,000 copies apiece. Marsh and the critic J. C. Squire were the Bloomsbury Group's most important patrons, and it was in Marsh's London rooms that Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke met for the first and only time, in June 1914.

He was also a consistent collector and supporter of the works of the avant-garde artists Mark Gertler, Duncan Grant, David Bomberg and Paul Nash, all of whom were also associated with the Bloomsbury Group.

In addition to his work editing Churchill's writing while the latter was in or out of government, Marsh introduced Siegfried Sassoon to Churchill as a means of aiding the former's career. He was also a close friend of Ivor Novello. In 1939, he produced A Number of People, a memoir of his life and times containing his memories of those writers and politicians with whom he had associated.

1901 – On this date Mexico City police raided an affluent drag ball, arresting 42 cross-dressed men. But one was released, supposedly a close relative to President Porfirio Díaz. The resulting scandal, known as the Dance Of The 41 Maricones, received massive press coverage. The press was keen to report the incident, in spite of the government's efforts to hush it up, since the participants belonged to the upper echelons of society. The list of the detainees was never published.

On Sunday night, at a house on the fourth block of Calle la Paz, the police burst into a dance attended by 41 unaccompanied men wearing women's clothes. Among those individuals were some of the dandies seen every day on Calle Plateros. They were wearing elegant ladies' dresses, wigs, false breasts, earrings, embroidered slippers, and their faces were painted with highlighted eyes and rosy cheeks. When the news reached the street, all forms of comments were made and the behavior of those individuals was subjected to censure. We refrain from giving our readers further details because they are exceedingly disgusting. — Contemporary press report.

A rumor, neither confirmed nor denied, soon emerged, claiming that there were in reality 42 participants, with the forty-second being Ignacio de la Torre, Porfirio Díaz's son-in-law, who was allowed to escape. Although the raid was illegal and completely arbitrary, the 41 were convicted and conscripted into the army and sent to Yucatán where the Caste War was still being fought:

The derelicts, petty thieves, and cross-dressers sent to Yucatán are not in the battalions of the Army fighting against the Maya Indians, but have been assigned to public works in the towns retaken from the common enemy of civilization. — El Popular, 25 November 1901

Punishment: public works

In 1901 there was a similar raid on a group of Lesbians in Santa María, but that incident received far less attention.

As a result of the scandal, the numbers 41 and 42 were adopted by Mexican popular parlance to refer to homosexuality, with 42 reserved for passive homosexuals. The incident and the numbers were spread through press reports, but also through engravings, satires, plays, literature, and paintings; in recent years, they have even appeared on television, in the historical telenovela El vuelo del águila, first broadcast by Televisa in 1994. In 1906 Eduardo A. Castrejón published a book titled Los cuarenta y uno. José Guadalupe Posada's engravings alluding to the affair are famous, and were frequently published alongside satirical verses.

Such was the impact of the affair that the number 41 became taboo, as described by the essayist Francisco L. Urquizo:

In Mexico, the number 41 has no validity and is offensive ... The influence of this tradition is so strong that even officialdom ignores the number 41. No division, regiment, or battalion of the army is given the number 41. From 40 they progress directly to 42. No payroll has a number 41. Municipal records show no houses with the number 41; if this cannot be avoided, 40 bis is used. No hotel or hospital has a room 41. Nobody celebrates their 41st birthday, going straight from 40 to 42. No vehicle is assigned a number plate with 41, and no police officer will accept a badge with that number. — Francisco L. Urquizo

1906 – Born in Munich, Klaus Mann (d.1949) was the son of German writer Thomas Mann and his wife, Katia Pringsheim. His father was baptized as a Lutheran, while his mother was from a family of secular Jews. He began writing short stories in 1924 and the following year became drama critic for a Berlin newspaper. His first literary works were published in 1925.

Mann's early life was troubled. His homosexuality often made him the target of bigotry, and he had a difficult relationship with his father. After only a short time in various schools, he travelled with his sister Erika Mann, a year older than himself, around the world, and visited the US in 1927.

He travelled with Erika to North Africa in 1929. Around this time they made the acquaintance of Annemarie Schwarzenbach, a Swiss writer and photographer, who remained close to them for the next few years.

In 1932 Klaus wrote the first part of his autobiography, which was well received until Hitler came to power. In 1933 Klaus participated with Erika in a political cabaret, the Pepper-Mill, which came to the attention of the Nazi regime. To escape prosecution he left Germany in March 1933 for Paris, later visiting Amsterdam and Switzerland, where his family had a house. In November 1934 Klaus was stripped of German citizenship by the Nazi regime. He became a Czechoslovak citizen. In 1936, he moved to the United States, living in Princeton, New Jersey and New York. In the summer of 1937, he met his partner Thomas Quinn Curtiss, who was later a longtime film and theater reviewer for Variety and the International Herald Tribune. Mann became a US citizen in 1943.

During World War II, he served as a Staff Sergeant of the 5th US Army in Italy and in summer 1945 he was sent by the Stars and Stripes to report from Postwar-Germany.

Mann's most famous novel, Mephisto, was written in 1936 and first published in Amsterdam. The novel is a thinly-disguised portrait of his former brother-in-law, the actor Gustaf Gründgens. The literary scandal surrounding it made Mann posthumously famous in West Germany, as Gründgrens' adopted son brought a legal case to have the novel banned after its first publication in West Germany in the early 1960s. After seven years of legal hearings, the West German Supreme Court banned it by a vote of three to three, although it continued to be available in East Germany and abroad. The ban was lifted and the novel published in West Germany in 1981.

Mann's novel Der Vulkan is one of the 20th century's most famous novels about German exiles during World War II

He died in Cannes of an overdose of sleeping pills. He was buried there in the Cimetière du Grand Jas.

1972 – Gay McGill holds first of what were to become the most successful community dances at McGill University in Montreal. They were ended in May 1975 by withdrawal of their liquor license by Quebec liquor board.

McGill has had a student club supporting lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender students since 1972. The group, originally named Gay McGill, was renamed Queer McGill in 1998 to better identify with the diversity of its members. Queer McGill supports both students and non-student members of the McGill community. Membership in 2002 was over 400.

1984 – T.J. Osborne is half of the hit country music duo The Brothers Osborne consisting of T.J. Osborne (lead vocals) and his brother John Osborne (lead guitar, background vocals), both natives of Deale, Maryland.

The duo's albums consist largely of songs that both brothers wrote with a number of collaborators. Artists with whom they have worked include David Nail, Dierks Bentley, Lee Ann Womack, and Lucie Silvas, the last of whom is John's wife. The musical style of the duo takes influence from Southern rock, outlaw country, and neotraditional country.

They have received seven Grammy nominations, won four CMA Awards and have had seven of their songs become Top 40 hits including Stay A Little Longer, which features gay interracial couples in the video.

In February 2021, TJ Osborne came out as gay, making him the first openly gay artist signed to a major country music label. He received support from other country artists.

1985 – Christian Siriano is an American fashion designer and member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). Siriano first gained attention after winning the fourth season of American design competition show Project Runway, becoming the series' youngest winner. He launched his namesake "Christian Siriano" collection in 2008, which brought in revenue of over $1.2 million by 2010 and was estimated to have reached $5 million by 2012.

Siriano was born and raised in Annapolis, Maryland where he spent a year at Broadneck Senior High School before transferring to Baltimore School for the Arts. The school allowed Siriano to choose fashion design as his course of study. He is of Italian and German descent.

Siriano has said that his parents supported the arts and encouraged him and his sister to pursue creative fields. As a child, Siriano studied ballet, and on a March 2008 Ellen appearance, he described himself as a "musical theater kid who loved costumes". Siriano's interest in costume design inspired him to pursue a career in fashion. He began designing clothes at age thirteen, while working as a hair washer and styling assistant at Bubbles Salon in Annapolis, and eventually began sewing clothes for the salon's annual hair shows.After being rejected by the Fashion Institute of Technology, Siriano chose to study abroad at American InterContinental University in London, England. Following the recommendation of a teacher during his senior year, he began interning at Vivienne Westwood, and later, at Alexander McQueen, who Siriano has stated is his favorite designer. Siriano moved to New York City after graduating from college.

Siriano is openly gay and lives in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan with his husband, singer-songwriter Brad Walsh. Siriano and Walsh became engaged on July 28, 2013. They exchanged engagement bracelets rather than rings. They were married on July 9, 2016 at their summer home in Danbury

1986 – Nick Bateman is a Canadian-American actor and model. He's most notably recognized as the partner of American comedian and actor Tyler Sherman.

At a young age, Bateman began martial arts training in Gōjū-ryū karate and bō staff. In his teens Bateman won four world titles in the National Blackbelt League's 15-17 age division, with three in weapons as well as one in Japanese forms in Houston and Myrtle Beach in 2003 and 2004. He graduated from Capilano University in Vancouver at age 20, and later opened his own karate school. Shortly thereafter, he began modeling professionally, during which time he lived in Milan, as well as New York City and Miami. Bateman is also a film actor and co-starred in the 2011 film Hobo with a Shotgun. He will play Miles Archer, the main character in a film adaptation of Ugly Love, a 2014 novel written by Colleen Hoover.

Bateman came out as gay in 2016, after speculation that he was in a relationship with American comedian and actor Tyler Sherman. He came out as gay on his partner's website with a joint statement from the couple saying that they have been in a relationship since late 2011.

He was awarded the Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award in 2017 for his coming out at the annual Human Rights Campaign Los Angeles Gala.