#is Shakespeare really just for the gays

[ratfc]

Just went to see a fabulous rendition of Twelfth Night with a bunch of straight friends and none of them got it ...

[lala-blahblah]

I will never make this because it would be for an audience of one (me) but ever since reading "If we Were Villains" (story about serious drama kids in college who perform shakespeare and deal with a murder) I have been entertaining the thought of a crack fic crossover with High School Musical The Musical The Series where the staff decides they will no longer put on shakespeare after the tragic accident that happened at Thanksgiving, because Shakespeare plays would only increase the tension and drama. So they hire Ms. Jen who decides their spring play will actually be High School Musical (which exists in the 90s in this universe) and it ruins the vibe so much that everyone gives up on being dark and mysterious because they're universally pissed at Ms Jen for making them learn choreoraphed basketball dancing.

[humaforever]

Ivy/Claudine "If I were to kiss you then go to hell I would, so I can brag to the devils that I saw heaven without ever entering it"

[carriagelamp]

Had the sort of month where I could feel my books crying out for me while I was at work. They wanted to draw me home into their loving embrace…

My main take away from this month is that if you're going to be anything, by god be sincere

Bury Your Gays // Straight

My hold on Chuck Tingle’s latest horror novel came in just in time for spoopy season, which felt very appropriate, so I read both it and Straight, his horror novella that I hadn’t known about until I was looking up the release day for Bury Your Gays.

Both were quite enjoyable reads, and struck similar chords. He does a really good job of taking a potentially campy concept that’s been done before, and giving a very unique spin — not just in the inclusion of queer themes which can often come across as surface level and token if poorly done, but from the societal commentary that’s woven through both works. The queerness isn't window-dressing, but inherent to the story, horror, and criticism that’s present in both. Another thing they both have in common is that they are also, fundamentally, about hope and community and overcoming horror, which feels very relevant to the topic matter.

Straight is the shorter of the two, and on the surface is a zombie story. Due to vague cosmic horror, a strange thrall comes over straight people once a year that causes them to become rabidly violent towards all queer people. Two years out from the first instance, this story looks at how a group of queer friends deal with the trauma, how society has responded to it (and the fact that this came out 2021 feels very obvious as it looks at a fictional global pandemic), and how the friends themselves brace themselves for this years event. Isolating themselves out in the desert, they batten down and hope to wait for it to pass by relaxing and playing board games… obviously this doesn’t happen as intended.

Bury Your Gays was very different again, and between the two feels like the more ambitious in terms of imagination and story telling. The main character of this story is a partially closeted screenwriter for a major film studio who has had some success, both cult- and critical-success. However he starts to realise that there may be something sinister pulling the strings when he comes face to face with a fan dressed up as one of the horror monsters he had created for the screen. It must be a fan, right?

Both of these are excellent stories, and I appreciate how they shamelessly demand the reader suspend disbelief. They don’t bother over-explaining things, and allow horror to be unapologetically horror, slightly fantastical and campy and definitely scary. I have to admit, neither quite lives up to Camp Damascus, but I enjoyed both quite a bit nonetheless.

Defekt

The sequel (technically midquel?) to Finna, though it honestly stands alone fairly well. Finna, which involved hopping wormholes through fictional Ikeas, was alright, but I definitely think if you want something like that you’d be better for reading Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix. Defekt, on the other hand, I thought was an excellent novella and I’m glad I decided to give it a try! If you’re on the fence about this series, I’d skip right over Finna and just go straight to Defekt.

This novel is about Derek, who is LitenVärld’s most loyal employee. Everything about his life is centred around his work… even after his shifts he goes no farther than the storage crate in the LitenVärld parking lot where he lives. In this way, and many others though, he starts to notice that there are some… inconsistencies between how he views the world and how his coworkers view the world. He has never quite connected to them before, but do they have entirely different manuals? And why is his superior getting so angry about him taking a sick day when his colleagues seem to see no problem with it? Things come a head though when he’s scheduled for a special sort of inventory shift and he finds himself face to face with not just one but a whole team of people who seem to be his direct clones…

Doctor Who: The Day She Saved The Doctor

Like many Doctor Who novels this one is… fine. If you’re in the mood for more Doctor Who and want something easy it’s pleasant, but nothing world rocking. It’s composed of four short stories that bill themselves as feminist tales that focus on Sarah Jane, Rose, Clara, and Bill and how they “save” the Doctor. Honestly my main complaint is that they don’t actually do a great job sticking to this theme. The stories range from rather hamfisted to completely insincere — none of them have a truly impressive “save” but part of that might just be that they’re such short stories that they really have no space to come up with a complex rescue mission. None of them were actually bad, but also none of them stuck with me enough to describe them now…

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries

I was disappointed by this one. I feel like I’ve seen rave reviews for this novel, and it’s been on my reading list for ages, but now that I’ve finally sat down to read it I found it… profoundly underwhelming. It seems to be going for a sort of “cozy academia” vibe and I’m sure that works for some people but mostly I just found it… very boring. Maybe I was hoping for something more like a grown up Spiderwick. Emily Wilde was an okay character, but without much depth, and the male character they introduced was uninteresting to me. I ended up giving up on it part way through when I finally gave up on the plot picking up in any significant way. If it does get better, it wasn’t worth the slog to get there imho sorry to all the people out there that love it.

Hakumei & Mikochi v1

I honestly just adore stories about Very Tiny People in a Very Big World. This completely scratched this itch I have for Borrower-esque stories! It’s an episodic manga about the lives of Hakumei and Mikochi, who live together in a tree house, and little events in their life such as shopping in town, camping, and befriending a necromancer! Normal day to day things! I wouldn’t mind reading a second, it was very chill and charming.

Jaws

I honestly don’t know what I expected here. I had never seen Jaws before, but me and my friends have spent so much time swimming this summer to keep cool that we decided it was the time to finally watch it. I see why the movie is such a classic, it was an excellent film! Very well made thriller! And a great end-to-the-summer movie. Then I made the mistake of deciding to read the original novel. I got about eight pages in before they said faggot for the first time. At that point I decided maybe I should read a review or two. Honestly I might have pushed past the homophobia if the novel itself sounded good, but apparently the types of horror used in the novel vs the film are very different. The novel has none of the subtly that the movie uses and is primarily sexual and gross-out horror that was fairly typical of the 70s pulp horror scene. So. I did not continue reading Jaws. I feel like I need a nega-pride flag for this one.

Poison For Breakfast

Really neat novella by Lemony Snicket, and honestly I have a hard time classifying this one. It’s technically fiction, but in a lot of ways feels like it’s not, it’s autobiographical about someone who doesn’t actually exist. It starts with the author receiving a note telling him that he ate poison for breakfast. More than anything, it’s an entire book of philosophy told through the lens and language of Lemony Snicket. If you have any fond memories of The Series of Unfortunate Events then honestly you should read this. Even if you don’t, it’s worth reading. The language is so evocative and it genuinely made me stop and think and squirm with a general discomfort that good philosophising around life and death can bring about. 

Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window

I stumbled across Poison for Breakfast specifically because I decided to reread the Series of Unfortunate Events. I’ve been fairly anxious lately (more than usual, which is saying something when it’s me) and I needed something that would hold my interest but otherwise be an easy audiobook to listen to at night or during my morning commute. Since I’ve never actually read the whole series as a kid (they weren’t all out yet when I started and I never got around to finishing it) I decided now was the time. I’m especially excited to read it as an adult because I’m picking up a lot of nuance I simply didn’t notice as a kid, especially related to the Snicket / Beatrice subplot. Lemony Snicket really does now how to write a compelling mystery.

If you’ve never read The Series of Unfortuante Events, it’s got to be one of the best youth novel series out there (I say, unbiased). The narration is unlike anything else I’ve read in any genre, as is the strange world that the story is set in. The series starts with the three Baudelaire children learning that their parents died in a horrible fire that consumed their home, and that they will have to go stay with a distant relative who they have mysteriously never heard of before: Count Olaf. It quickly becomes apparently that the cruel Count Olaf is only after the Baudelaire fortune that Violet will eventually inherent, and though they expose him by the end of the first book it’s only the beginning of the tragic events that will dog at their heels from here on out…

The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room and The Wide Window are the ones in the series I’ve reread the most, and were very comforting to return to! (also I feel compelled to mention that Tim Curry does the audiobook for The Reptile Room and he uses his fucking Nigel Thornberry voice for Uncle Monty and you haven't lived until you've heard Nigel Thornberry get horrifically murdered in a completely unrelated novel... wild experience.)

Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent

Easily the best book I read this month. This book was originally meant to be a series of interviews between Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea about her time as a Shakespearean actor. The interviews took place over four years and were meant for archival purposes before O’Hea realised how much these might be enjoyed by a wider audience — and boy was he correct about that.

The interviews are profoundly insightful about the various roles Dench played, her opinions on the characters and plays themselves very compelling, while also being interspersed with wit, banter, and reflections on everything from her fellow actors, to costuming choices, to green room antics. Dench has a remarkable memory and it means the interviews are able to go into great detail about the specific productions of each play that Dench participated in. I listened to the audiobook and if you have even a passing interest in Shakespeare I really can’t recommend it enough.

The Scum Villain Self-Saving System v2

 I continue down the SVSSS rabbit hole and honestly I have to applaud this series for proving to be more than mindless fluff, which is kind what I had been expecting of it (sorry, I was very biassed against this series). Don’t get me wrong, it is a genuinely hilarious series and an absolute parody of the genre, but it’s more than that which I think is important. Despite being a parody, it’s very sincere in its characters and relationships and story; while the main character may bitch and moan about certain “story tropes” and the “shitty author” who wrote the webnovel he’s found himself in, he’s as much swept up in this world as anyone else is, and the story forces you to acknowledge even the tropier aspects and look at how they would fit into a world where such things dictated every day life.

In this volume Luo Binghe (the “protagonist” who is supposedly destined to kill Shen Qingqiu) returns from his “presumed death” in the Abyss, much earlier than in the original story. Shen Qingqiu is frantic when he finds out, desperate to ensure his back up plan is in place and that he might yet avoid the inevitable death his character is meant to suffer at Luo Binghe’s hands. Of course, nothing is that easy, and Shen Qingqiu has irrevocably changed the plot (and possibly the entire genre) of this story, though he himself may not realise it yet…

Yuri Is My Job v1

So, my earlier comment about sincerity? How both SVSSS and Chuck Tingle’s stories intentionally use a lot of specific tropes and parody their genres? Despite this, both examples clearly love the genres they’re lampshading and ultimately commit to the story they’re telling. They never break away from the story to wink at the audience and say “see how dumb this is?” (cough Marvel) — they are completely embroiled in the worlds they create, they are entirely sincere in the story they’re telling.

And then you have this. Yuri Is My Job is a yuri manga about a protagonist who hides her true self behind a cutesy, beauteous mask. She’s determined to be the prettiest, sweetest, most desirable person in any room — she always wants to be the first pick! And things continue well for her, until she finds herself getting roped in to covering a shift at an usual themed café: one that’s based around a fictional private academy where the “students” work at the cafe and play out little dramas for the customers.

This could have been fun, especially as the protagonists realises that everyone is wearing a mask, and how their performed personalities can differ wildly from their true personalities, but there’s just no sincerity here. It makes me think of Ouran High School Host Club but without any love behind it. OHSHC can get away with a lot, and I’ll suspend a lot of disbelief while reading it, because it’s having so much fun with what it does. This manga seems to suck away any joy by constantly poking fun at its own premise.

So I dunno… YMMV, maybe this is something someone else would enjoy a lot, but it honestly just kind of annoyed me, especially when I sat down to figure out what exactly I didn’t like about it.

If you’re going to be anything, be sincere at the very least. Show me that you love what you’re about.

[akkpipitphattana]

and if i say bad buddy is far closer to being an adaption of romeo and juliet than the heart killers will ever be of taming

[cluusheen]

research is actually really cool and a lot of fun when you aren’t doing it for a grade

[vaguely-concerned]

Neither the king, nor he that loves him best, The proudest he that holds up Lancaster, Dares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells. I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares: Resolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown.

a) top 5 romantic things to say to your man on the most nerve-racking day of his life, b) ig dick energy, c) the fact that he uses the informal/intimate register the whole scene and then calls york by his first name as the last sentence before he actually physically claims the throne, after calling him york, prince, and plantagenet through the beginning of the scene/play... hello

[lateseptemberdawn]

Reading Shakespeare's sonnets not realy understanding a thing and continuously thinking of a Shakespeare inspired smol fic on tk :((( exams are so evil

[steviewashere]

I kinda feel like Steve wasn't as popular as he's made out to be. Like, maybe he's got a bit of a reputation that proceeds him—ladies man, The Hair, and Steeevveee Harrington. He takes care of himself, takes care of his dates. The guys around him oversell his personality a lot, how many people he can get in bed with him, the way he can instantly charm a person.

But then you meet him and it's just.

This is the guy you're talking about?

The guy who forgets how to use his tongue sometimes and just does one of those little finger waves? The guy who, if he thinks you're not paying attention to him, will just stand there and make a bunch of goofy faces, lost in thought, muttering song lyrics under his breath? The guy who keeps making the most dorky references to music and movie culture—he quoted something from Star Trek on one of his dates. And the guy who will run into walls when trying to make a swift exit?

Dude is awkward. He is clammy. He is stuttering over his words and trying to cover it up with his pretty smile—which, yeah could be charming, but in his own special streak of charming. Every romantic gesture he pulls is more outlandish, garish, and brash than the last; he is fumbling matches for candles, though, and he is sticking himself in the thumb with the thorns on roses, he is spilling popcorn all over himself on movie dates, and he is tripping on his own feet while trying to carry a girl to his bed upstairs.

Every time a girl kisses his cheek, he's immediately flushing head to toe, smiling all crooked, eyes all soft. He almost forgets to kiss them back.

When he dates Eddie, though? Oh my god.

Eddie flirts with him and Steve literally squeaks. Eddie watches him while Steve is playing basketball, he fumbles the ball and falls onto his knees on the court. Eddie tucks hair behind Steve's ear, Steve is blurting out his entire hair care regime—all because Eddie murmured about how soft it was. Eddie rubs his back while they're cuddled on the couch, Steve gets a boner so fast that he nearly blacks out. Eddie makes them dinner once, tells Steve to just sit down at the table while ushering him out of the kitchen, and Steve is in such a daze of love that he runs into the doorjamb face first and breaks his nose.

When Eddie tells him he loves him? Steve literally screams and has to take a lap before saying it back.

Every time Steve flirts, he has to back track five steps. Every time he compliments Eddie, he has to clarify that it's a compliment because they all come out so aggressively to the point they sound like insults. He tries to quote Shakespeare and, sure it's a love quote, but it's from some incest scene and Eddie laughs before telling him what it really means.

I don't know. Steve just embarrasses himself a lot. Like he definitely has the capacity to sweep somebody off their feet, romance 'em or whatever. But when he's really, really in love with somebody (whether it be after a few dates with a girl, the person he's in love with is Nancy, or even Eddie)? Steve is not chill whatsoever.

Everything that rumors said were just complete lies. You wanna know who started them?

Tommy.

It was Tommy trying to cover for his best friend. Because he saw Steve smile at a girl once, flirt with her, get a date with her. But he had a piece of broccoli stuck between his two front teeth. He couldn't save the interaction even if he tried, Steve was too enamored to quit. The only saving grace Tommy could think of was sell Steve as this handsome, charming, romantic guy—even though the Steve he knew was dorky, a major geek in private, awkward as hell, and funny half the time (his jokes were very hit or miss).

(Also, imagine gay Tommy just trying to reason with himself that his crush—his best friend—is actually not the awkward guy he really is. And maybe he still likes Steve. But Jesus. That piece of broccoli was huge! How did Steve not feel it?)

Anyway. Cringe fail Steve is something very important to me.

[cuddlytogas]

So I accidentally almost got into an argument on Twitter, and now I'm thinking about bad historical costuming tropes. Specifically, Action Hero Leather Pants.

See, I was light-heartedly pointing out the inaccuracies of the costumes in Black Sails, and someone came out of the woodwork to defend the show. The misunderstanding was that they thought I was dismissing the show just for its costumes, which I wasn't - I was simply pointing out that it can't entirely care about material history (meaning specifically physical objects/culture) if it treats its clothes like that.

But this person was slightly offended on behalf of their show - especially, quote, "And from a fan of OFMD, no less!" Which got me thinking - it's true! I can abide a lot more historical costuming inaccuracy from Our Flag than I can Black Sails or Vikings. And I don't think it's just because one has my blorbos in it. But really, when it comes down to it...

What is the difference between this and this?

Here's the thing. Leather pants in period dramas isn't new. You've got your Vikings, Tudors, Outlander, Pirates of the Caribbean, Once Upon a Time, Will, The Musketeers, even Shakespeare in Love - they love to shove people in leather and call it a day. But where does this come from?

Obviously we have the modern connotations. Modern leather clothes developed in a few subcultures: cowboys drew on Native American clothing. (Allegedly. This is a little beyond my purview, I haven't seen any solid evidence, and it sounds like the kind of fact that people repeat a lot but is based on an assumption. I wouldn't know, though.) Leather was used in some WWI and II uniforms.

But the big boom came in the mid-C20th in motorcycle, punk/goth, and gay subcultures, all intertwined with each other and the above. Motorcyclists wear leather as practical protective gear, and it gets picked up by rock and punk artists as a symbol of counterculture, and transferred to movie designs. It gets wrapped up in gay and kink communities, with even more countercultural and taboo meanings. By the late C20th, leather has entered mainstream fashion, but it still carries those references to goths, punks, BDSM, and motorbike gangs, to James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Mick Jagger. This is whence we get our Spikes and Dave Listers in 1980s/90s media, bad boys and working-class punks.

And some of the above "historical" design choices clearly build on these meanings. William Shakespeare is dressed in a black leather doublet to evoke the swaggering bad boy artist heartthrob, probably down on his luck. So is Kit Marlowe.

But the associations get a little fuzzier after that. Hook, with his eyeliner and jewellery, sure. King Henry, yeah, I see it. It's hideously ahistorical, but sure. But what about Jamie and Will and Ragnar, in their browns and shabby, battle-ready chic? Well, here we get the other strain of Bad Period Drama Leather.

See, designers like to point to history, but it's just not true. Leather armour, especially in the western/European world, is very, very rare, and not just because it decays faster than metal. (Yes, even in ancient Greece/Rome, despite many articles claiming that as the start of the leather armour trend!) It simply wasn't used a lot, because it's frankly useless at defending the body compared to metal. Leather was used as a backing for some splint armour pieces, and for belts, sheathes, and buckles, but it simply wasn't worn like the costumes above. It's heavy, uncomfortable, and hard to repair - it's simply not practical for a garment when you have perfectly comfortable, insulating, and widely available linen, wool, and cotton!

As far as I can see, the real influence on leather in period dramas is fantasy. Fantasy media has proliferated the idea of leather armour as the lightweight choice for rangers, elves, and rogues, a natural, quiet, flexible material, less flashy or restrictive than metal. And it is cheaper for a costume department to make, and easier for an actor to wear on set. It's in Dungeons and Dragons and Lord of the Rings, King Arthur, Runescape, and World of Warcraft.

And I think this is how we get to characters like Ragnar and Vane. This idea of leather as practical gear and light armour, it's fantasy, but it has this lineage, behind which sits cowboy chaps and bomber/flight jackets. It's usually brown compared to the punk bad boy's black, less shiny, and more often piecemeal or decorated. In fact, there's a great distinction between the two Period Leather Modes within the same piece of media: Robin Hood (2006)! Compare the brooding, fascist-coded villain Guy of Gisborne with the shabby, bow-wielding, forest-dwelling Robin:

So, back to the original question: What's the difference between Charles Vane in Black Sails, and Edward Teach in Our Flag Means Death?

Simply put, it's intention. There is nothing intentional about Vane's leather in Black Sails. It's not the only leather in the show, and it only says what all shabby period leather says, relying on the same tropes as fantasy armour: he's a bad boy and a fighter in workaday leather, poor, flexible, and practical. None of these connotations are based in reality or history, and they've been done countless times before. It's boring design, neither historically accurate nor particularly creative, but much the same as all the other shabby chic fighters on our screens. He has a broad lineage in Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean and such, but that's it.

In Our Flag, however, the lineage is much, much more intentional. Ed is a direct homage to Mad Max, the costuming in which is both practical (Max is an ex-cop and road warrior), and draws on punk and kink designs to evoke a counterculture gone mad to the point of social breakdown, exploiting the thrill of the taboo to frighten and titillate the audience.

In particular, Ed is styled after Max in the second movie, having lost his family, been badly injured, and watched the world turn into an apocalypse. He's a broken man, withdrawn, violent, and deliberately cutting himself off from others to avoid getting hurt again. The plot of Mad Max 2 is him learning to open up and help others, making himself vulnerable to more loss, but more human in the process.

This ties directly into the themes of Our Flag - it's a deliberate intertext. Ed's emotional journey is also one from isolation and pain to vulnerability, community, and love. Mad Max (intentionally and unintentionally) explores themes of masculinity, violence, and power, while Max has become simplified in the popular imagination as a stoic, badass action hero rather than the more complex character he is, struggling with loss and humanity. Similarly, Our Flag explores masculinity, both textually (Stede is trying to build a less abusive pirate culture) and metatextually (the show champions complex, banal, and tender masculinities, especially when we're used to only seeing pirates in either gritty action movies or childish comedies).

Our Flag also draws on the specific countercultures of motorcycles, rockers, and gay/BDSM culture in its design and themes. Naturally, in such a queer show, one can't help but make the connection between leather pirates and leather daddies, and the design certainly nods at this, with its vests and studs. I always think about this guy, with his flat cap so reminiscient of gay leather fashions.

More overtly, though, Blackbeard and his crew are styled as both violent gangsters and countercultural rockstars. They rove the seas like a bikie gang, free and violent, and are seen as icons, bad boys and celebrities. Other pirates revere Blackbeard and wish they could be on his crew, while civilians are awed by his reputation, desperate for juicy, gory details.

This isn't all of why I like the costuming in Our Flag Means Death (especially season 1). Stede's outfits are by no means accurate, but they're a lot more accurate than most pirate media, and they're bright and colourful, with accurate and delightful silks, lace, velvets, and brocades, and lovely, puffy skirts on his jackets. Many of the Revenge crew wear recognisable sailor's trousers, and practical but bright, varied gear that easily conveys personality and flair. There is a surprising dedication to little details, like changing Ed's trousers to fall-fronts for a historical feel, Izzy's puffy sleeves, the handmade fringe on Lucius's red jacket, or the increasing absurdity of navy uniform cuffs between Nigel and Chauncey.

A really big one is the fact that they don't shy away from historical footwear! In almost every example above, we see the period drama's obsession with putting men in skinny jeans and bucket-top boots, but not only does Stede wear his little red-heeled shoes with stockings, but most of his crew, and the ordinary people of Barbados, wear low boots or pumps, and even rough, masculine characters like Pete wear knee breeches and bright colours. It's inaccurate, but at least it's a new kind of inaccuracy, that builds much more on actual historical fashions, and eschews the shortcuts of other, grittier period dramas in favour of colour and personality.

But also. At least it fucking says something with its leather.

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

Let’s look at some myths and facts about drag queens:

Myth: “Drag queen” is a gender identity.

Fact: Drag is a performance art. 

Let’s go into some detail here: “Drag queen” is a role you play, for example as a form of entertainment or as an expression of your creativity. A gender identity on the other hand is intrinsic and enduring, it’s about who you are in your mind and heart (For example: a trans woman doesn’t “play” a woman, she IS a woman). So, drag and gender identity are two separate things - although we also need to add a little disclaimer here that gender identity is wonderfully complex and highly individual and not always so easily defined. So while drag is usually separate from gender identity, there can be overlap! 

Myth: All drag queens are gay cis men.  

Fact: Drag is an inclusive art form. Many drag queens are gay cis men, but not all. Drag performers can have any sexual orientation and gender identity - including transgender or non-binary. See that part about “overlap” above! 

Myth: There’s only one type of drag.  

Fact: Drag is incredibly diverse and has many different styles. Drag queens may also blend different types to create their own unique persona. Some examples: Pageant drag focuses on glamour and beauty (drawing inspiration from traditional beauty pageants). Camp drag leans into humor and exaggeration (celebrating the “so bad it's good” aesthetic). Alternative drag experiments with unconventional or avant-garde looks (breaking norms to challenge mainstream beauty standards). Club kid drag is known for its bold, futuristic looks (inspired by the nightlife scenes of the 80s and 90s). 

Myth: Drag is inherently sexual.  

Fact: Any art form can potentially be done in a sexual way but that doesn’t mean art is an inherently sexual thing. So, while some drag performances may include adult humor or themes (if they’re advertised for an adult audience), many other shows are family-friendly and focus on comedy, storytelling, or artistry. A drag event advertised as a family event will not be sexual. (It’s really just a common sense thing: You don’t expect kids movies to be sexual, just because adult movies also exist). 

Myth: Drag has only been around for a few years.  

Fact: Drag has a long history, dating back centuries. Men and women have cross-dressed in theater since at least the time of Shakespeare, and modern drag has roots in the ballroom culture of the 20th century. It definitely didn’t randomly spring up in the 2020s. 

Myth: Drag queens make fun of women.  

Fact: It’s more the opposite. Drag is a tribute to femininity and celebrates aspects of female identity and fashion. While some drag may use exaggerated features for humor, it’s usually done with admiration and respect, not as mockery. If it mocks something, it’s usually things like extreme beauty standards, gender stereotypes etc. 

Myth: All drag queens are famous and rich.  It’s easy money. 

Fact: The majority of drag performers are local artists who put a lot of time, effort, and money into their craft without making much. Only a small fraction gain fame or wealth, most do it out of passion.

Myth: Drag isn’t important for the lgbt+ movement. A ban on drag doesn’t really affect the community.  

Fact: Drag historically has been (and still is) an essential part of the lgbt+ movement, creating a visible platform for self-expression and providing a safe space where people can explore their identities. Drag performers have often led the way in activism, supporting many causes from HIV/AIDS awareness to transgender rights. A ban on drag doesn’t just limit artistic freedom - it threatens to silence a key part of queer culture and history. It also sets a dangerous precedent that can lead to further restrictions on our rights, marking the start of a slippery slope toward broader discrimination.

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[tobiasdrake]

Oh shit, the reboot of Ranma 1/2 has begun airing on Netflix. I am here for this.

Like a lot of people with gender stuff, Ranma 1/2 was a major part of my formative years. It was the first anime I ever saw outside of dubbed TV broadcasts, before I really understood what anime was. And the first anime I liked so much that I ravenously devoured the manga it was adapting.

To this day, I often find myself thinking back to it. Ranma 1/2 had a lot to say about societally-enforced toxic masculinity, and also about intrinsic gender identity that doesn't change even when the body fails to match.

In a way, it was kind of ahead of its time. It came to us in a time when a lot of genderbending stuff was like, "Okay, if your body turns female, then you're a girl. If your body turns male, then you're a boy. Whatever your body looks like at the moment, that's your gender, those are your pronouns. Now let's come up with a cute little name for what we should call your opposite-gender self when you flip!"

But here was Ranma 1/2 saying, "Ranma Saotome is a man. It does not matter if his body is female or male; he is always a man at heart." He never misses an opportunity to correct people who misgender him - or to seek a cure for the gender dysphoria that his curse routinely inflicts on him.

But he also has extremely rigid beliefs about masculinity and femininity; Beliefs that cage him in a prison of his own mind. He's not ashamed, at times, to take advantage of his curse in order to indulge in things that men "are not allowed to do".

Small things like sitting around an ice cream parlor enjoying a sundae. Real Men (TM) don't eat ice cream! Ranma is proud of his masculinity, but is also a slave to it. He is proud of his gender identity regardless of the shape of his body, but nonetheless cross-dresses to escape from the gendered pressures he places on himself.

And he gave a lot of fans their trans awakening. For a lot of people, myself included, Ranma Saotome was their first experience with the idea that assigned-sex did not have to be the absolute truth of your identity. Many fans took tremendous inspiration from Ranma's curse, and carried their own interpretation of Ranma with them in their heart as they went.

The fandom is overflowing with transfem Ranmas and genderfluid Ranmas and nonbinary Ranmas, because that is what this character meant to the LGBT community of his day.

He may not have been perfect - In fact, when you get right down to it, he's basically just a macho cis regularly forced into drag for comedic effect; This is not Gay Shakespeare - but he left a mark on the community. He was a key that unlocked the identities of a lot of us.

So it's with both excitement and also a degree of trepidation that I say, "Welcome back to modern pop culture, Ranma 1/2."

[contact-guy]

“#I read so many gay Victorian love letters and books to get the tone right lol #Plato‘s symposium reference was THE way to signal you liked men in the late 19th century“ would you mind sharing some of your sources? 👀 I also want to write gay Victorian fanfiction am just naturally curious about the victorians

Omg 1000%, let me cite my sources:

Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteeth Century by Graham Robb - this book is a treasure trove of well researched information. A lot of queer history focuses on men and I really appreciate all the stories about women in this one. It’s 20 years old and by (as far as I can tell) a straight author, so there’s some limitations - a total lack of awareness of bisexuality and trans identity - but I really enjoyed it regardless. There’s also like four pages where he discusses Sherlock Holmes as an iconic gay protagonist that changed my brain.

Fanny and Stella by Neil McKenna - a heavily researched story of two trans femmes in Victorian England, the crossdressing trial that scandalized London, their sisterhood and surrounding community, and the love triangle they were involved in. It’s written in a VERY fun and gossipy way, with a ton of primary sources, and is such a compelling story! This author also wrote a book about Wilde I haven’t read yet.

Gay History and Literature by Ricor Norton - it’s a website, not a book (I can’t find his books except at really high prices!) but it’s an obsessively compiled list of…basically…what it says on the tin. There’s a collection of gay love letters and newspaper clippings that are fascinating to read!

The Portrait of Mr. W. H. by Oscar Wilde, heard of him? This is my favorite Wilde story! It’s about the theory that Shakespeare’s sonnets were written to a young man, and how the desire for proof drives a man to death, and the frustrations and joys of looking for yourself in long-dead writing.

Before Queer Theory: Victorian Aestheticism and the Self by Dustin Friedman - reading this book felt like making my brain lift weights, but it was really interesting - it’s about the Aesthetic movement and how modern queer identity began in the nineteeth century.

Maurice by E. M. Forster (not technically Victorian but close) is a story written in 1913 about gay love (published in 1971 and dedicated to “a happier time” 🥲). It gave me some ideas about how a confession could play out. Plato’s Symposium is used as a pickup line, of course.

[artiststarme]

The reason why Eddie kept failing English is because he wrote about all of Shakespeare’s characters being gay and Mrs. O’Donnell didn’t approve. 

In his first senior year, he wrote a really nice essay about it which she graded harshly because she was homophobic. By his third senior year, Eddie has given up and just writes whatever he feels like because he knows she'll fail him anyways.

“Hamlet and Macbeth? Fucking gay as hell,” Eddie writes for his third essay.

Steve thinks he's hilarious and that's why Eddie loves him.

(Mrs. O'Donnell gives him an A on his final paper just so he stops coming back. But a win's a win in his book and he finally fucking graduated!)

Well guys, I wrote it! Read it as a fic here!

[kabr0ztrousers]

How about helping a penis-having demon friend of yours who is just entering heat/rut? The gentler early stages of it, but getting more intense as time goes on until their arranged heat partner arrives and helps you. Lots of cum, begging, and then some nice aftercare :) (demon top, femme male human bottom, please?)

I hope that's not too specific!

- @zeal-kitten 🩷

Now here's the million dollar question: did Zeal request this, or did someone else, knowing they'd get off to it?

Kabr0z Writes episode 50: Hot as Hell

Find the rest of the Kabr0z Writes anthology here!

CWs: Hell; demons; light femdom; anal sex; excessive cum; group sex;

A/N: Wow, 50 of these! I absolutely should've planned for this, but if I'm totally honest I wasn't expecting to get this far!

If you want to support me in writing an episode a day until the 31st of December, it's totally free! Just send a request to my asks or DMs! Near enough anything's fair game, check the pinned if you're unsure!

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It's early evening in your little corner of Hell.

You were sent here a decade or two ago after an unfortunate incident involving an angry horse and your chest cavity. Turns out, being gay still gets you sent here. On the plus side, Hell really is infinite so there's plenty of housing, you're already dead so there's no need for food, and everyone in Heaven is a prude anyway. You're told it's only worth it if you're really into bright lights, liturgical chanting and harps, and you can get that down here too if you want.

Since getting here you'd made a few friends, one of whom was on the sofa next to you, helping you decide on the movie for the night.

Shg'shthg, like all demons, had the ability to alter his shape to his liking. He was slightly taller than you, even without the ram's horns curling from his brow. His skin was bluish-white, decorated with row upon row of swimming black runes subtly moving across every inch of his body. The characteristic long claws fashionable amongst demons currently held your TV remote in one hand and a sending stone in the other as he scrolled through the list.

"Satan's breath, every single piece of media humanity's ever created, and absolutely nothing to watch... How about Love's Labour's Won?"

You sighed "Shakespeare again? Like, it was nice the first hundred times, at least put on Edward III"

Shg'shthg looked at you "I was there when he was king, and the play is so wrong it's actually insulting. You know how I feel about the historys"

"When's D'Nzro getting here anyway?"

The demon beside you rolled his eyes "She's stuck in traffic. I keep telling her to get some wings but noooo" he waved his hands "She has to drive a car"

You laughed. Hell is, of course, Hell. No matter how decent life was down here, everything was just a little bit shit.

The TV flicked to a film, some B-movie about a bunch of sharks in a tornado. You looked over at the demon next you you. He was trying to focus on the TV, but you could see him starting to squirm in his seat. Sweat beaded on his brow as he checked his sending stone again. He crossed and un-crossed his legs, over and over, the beads of perspiration starting to roll down his head.

"You OK?"

He looked at you, the faint bluish tinge of his skin deepening, the text scrolling faster across his face "I wasn't expecting it to come this week..." His eyes screwed shut as his head tipped back "I need to ask you a favour"

"What do you need? I'll do it" you agreed a little hastily, but despite conventional wisdom you did trust this demon

"It's my heat, I need to fuck someone. Normally it'd be D'Nzro but she's-"

"Not here" you leant over the demon next to you. You won't pretend you hadn't fantasized about getting with the buff incubus, but you'd rather hoped for a more romantic setting. You kissed, gently at first. Shg'shthg whined in his throat, his desperate eyes wide and dark, looking up at you. You kissed him again, this time letting him push his tongue up into your mouth. He tasted of cigarette smoke and iron. You sucked gently on his tongue, allowing one of your hands to slide up his leg to his crotch. You could already feel the heat of his cock through his pants, opening them and allowing it to spring free.

You looked at it, leaking a thin stream of steaming fluid from its tapered tip, those same glyphs running up and down the shaft, speeding up in time with the throbbing of his inhuman cock.

One hand cradling his balls, you slowly licked the shaft, tasting the sticky precum running in rivulets onto your tongue. You reached the tip, placing your lips on it, letting the fluid leak out into your mouth, sucking it straight from the tap.

"Please" the demon breathed. You could feel the hand on the back of your neck, straining against the desire to force this cock down your throat.

You bobbed your head, taking the first couple of inches of the cock in your mouth, gently sucking as you played with his balls. Your other hand wrapped around the shaft, teasing the base as you sucked on the tip. Shg'shthg was groaning, the pulsing precum tasting richer and thicker. Your hand clenched on where his scotum, where it met his body, stopping his balls receding all the way. You spoke around the cock, eking out words between sucks "You wanna cum in my mouth?"

Shg'shthg nodded, whining and panting, the text on his body whirling with your edging, precum squirting from him in sticky spurts, filling and drooling out of your mouth to coat your chin.

You dipped your head deeper, sucking faster and harder, squeezing the base of his cock and massaging the balls as they shrank into him. He groaned, the hand on your head pushing down as the cock in your mouth spasmed and filled with cum, pumping it into your mouth as you struggled to swallow it all. It flooded your mouth, spurting from your lips, flooding your sinuses as it poured from your nose.

You pulled your mouth away from the cock as the last spurts pulsed out, covering your face. The door opened behind you, D'Nzro stepped in, her heels clicking on the floor. You looked at her, she saw you kneeling over her boyfriend, cock in hand, face covered in his cum.

"Let me guess. He told you he wasn't expecting his heat cycle so soon, and convinced you to suck him off?" Her voice was imperious, somewhere between a stern teacher and a vicious taskmistress

You nodded, taking in her body. Skin like tanned leather, eyes like coals, and two rows of short horns running down her shaved head

She grabbed you by your slight waist, lifting you so you straddled the incubus below you "Well, in that case, you've both been naughty boys." One clawed finger cut a slit in the ass of your jeans and your boxers, leaving your tight asshole unprotected "Naughty boys get punished." She held you with one hand, the other scooping up a handful of the demon-seed pooling on your sofa before slathering it on your ass, pushing it into your hole, before setting you down on Shg'shthg's lap, his still-hard cock resting against your back.

Shg'shthg's hands were on your waist now.

"Lift him up"

He lifted, lining your puckered hole up with the pointed tip of the cock you'd just drained. D'Nzro pressed the cock into you, a slender claw teasing your ballsack as she did "Drop"

Shg'shthg dropped you. Your weight rammed half his cock into you before you caught yourself.

You groaned as D'Nzro grabbed your hips and started moving you around, pushing you down and rocking your hips against the cock inside you. You leant back, pressing the cock against your prostate, feeling as the hard organ invading you pressed against it, making you leak. Two fingers pushed into your mouth, you sucked on them as you bounced on the cock within you, getting another inch of it in you with every drop.

You didn't care whose fingers you were sucking, whose hand was wrapped around your cock, or whose hands were on your waist, guiding you ever further down. Your aching cock was throbbing as pressure built behind it. Your asshole twitched and your balls rose as you came hard. Groaning and sweating you splattered Shg'shthg with your cum, adding your seed to the pool of cum on his chest and belly. The smell of sex filled your head, still sticky and oozing demon cum from your nostrils.

You were pushed down. The last few inches of the Incubus's huge cock filling you as it twitched and pulsed, spraying heat into you, filling your belly and clouding your thoughts.

D'Nzro pushed you onto Shg'shthg's chest, your dripping cock landing in the pool of mixed cum as it deflated. A blanket fell on top of you, and moments later you heard the kettle boiling, the smell of hot chocolate filling the flat, ousting the omnipresent sulphur.

A few minutes later, you had a warm mug of chocolate milk and two demons cuddling you from either side, watching some terrible B-movie about a flock of evil birds.

Not a bad evening, all things considered

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Hope you don't mind I took some creative license with the request!

Remember that you can submit requests through my ask box or DMs, though the lead time at the moment is the better part of a month, so be warned it probably won't be written soon, though it will be written!

[youssefguedira]

like the thing is i DO think misogyny is a major contributing factor to a lot of older 'bro' movie homoeroticism. sure sometimes it's queercoding and deliberate subtext. other times it's the base assumption that the Love Interest will fall for the Hero because that's just how things work, the hero saves the day, the girl is his reward. there's so little effort put into the writing of the intended love interest because she is ultimately there to fulfil the role of hero's prize and therefore their relationship doesn't need development because it will simply happen. she's not a real person she's decoration. but the hero's sidekick, or best friend, or rival - more time is invested into these relationships because they are both men, and therefore permitted to be more complex characters by the film. they are not necessarily written well, dependent on the film, but they will get more to work with than the women in the film. and so of course their relationships will be deeper and get more screen time, because they are not a foregone conclusion. which lends itself to queer readings and homoeroticism.

this isn't confined to bro movies or action movies either! like the examples i cited in the tags earlier were the lost boys, dead poets society, and die hard, which are different types of film but have the same issue. both the lost boys' and die hard's love interests are so woefully underdeveloped that the more compelling relationship is with another man, the villain and the cop respectively. those are the relationships that get developed. die hard's wife is just kind of there sometimes, and the lost boys' is just a generic damsel in distress with nothing going on for her beyond standing there and looking pretty.

dead poets society is a different beast, more drama heavy. there's barely any women in it! one subplot with one romantic interest that involves repeated overstepping of boundaries despite the girl telling the guy to stop, but it's fine because she wants him really, she's just trying to protect him of course, and she needs rescuing. the rest of the film is easy to read through a queer lens because of the exclusion of women from the environment entirely, partially because it's an all boys school, but also because women are simply there to be looked at and pursued but not intellectual equals. when they're brought into the cave it's a threat to the space, and of course they've never heard of shakespeare, because dead poets society's idea of culture and intelligence is reserved for men near exclusively. there's a campaign to bring girls into the school but it's so they can fuck them. so of course it feels like they're all gay because women are deliberately excluded from the film's spaces.

like i get the point about intricate rituals and queer coding and all that. but i DO think misogyny is an important factor here