#it’s white culture not my gay tastes

[spookiat]

Had allos smugly assume a close silly friendship was romantic: 10,000 dead 900,000 injured, I am exploding them with my mind

[tailsbeth-writes]

Favourite Books of 2024

Tagged by @myheartalivewrites & I can't say no to chatting about books.

If you happen to be on Goodreads or Storygraph, add me. Always like more book pals! In no particular order, here's my faves:

Fraternity by Andy Mientus: this was a dark academia queer treat. If you thought Dead Poet's Society should have been more gay & have black magic, this is the book for you.

Dear Mothman by Robin Gow: I listened to this, started it at the gym... Cue me, crying on the treadmill. This middle grade novel deals with grief and gender identity via letters sent to Mothman.

P.S. Burn This Letter Please by Craig Olsen: If you've got an interest in queer history or drag culture, you gotta read this nonfiction. Pieced together from letters, we hear about the New York queens from the 1950s and the beginnings of modern drag culture as we know it.

Let Me Out by Emmett Nahil & George Williams: This graphic novel is gorgeous, I just really jelled with the style. It's a classic satanic panic story set in 1979, with a wonderfully queer cast.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White: this book is not for the queasy of stomach. This historical novel has been on my TBR for a while but the book club I'm in (Bisexual Disasters Book Club) chose it for October and I'm so glad they did! It follows Silas, an autistic trans man in Victorian London who is being sent to a Sanitarium & Finishing school. There's lots of TWs provided by the author, please do take care.

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston: The king of romance does it again! Genuinely my fave McQuiston book (someone cover RWRB's ears) & I was so lucky to get a digital ARC of it. I bought a copy for my birthday I loved it that much & it ended up being chosen for my book club. We were all collectively obsessed with Theo and Kit, the whole tour gang and those pornographic descriptions of food. Can't wait to re-read next summer, hopefully on holiday!

Honourable Mention - The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch: I haven't finished this book yet (over 70% through) but it's been such a joy! It's got holidays, princes kissing, moments of surprising depth and a lot of laughter. If you're a RWRB fan but need something with holiday vibes, you'll love this.

In summary: a very queer reading year (as it should be.)

(Apologies if you were already tagged)

Tag You're It: @taste-thewaste @judasofsuburbia @suseagull5914 @onthewaytosomewhere @run-for-chamo-miles & open tag, I wanna see who the readers are in my feed!

[jedi-enthusiast]

@confusledqueer apologizes for not responding sooner, it’s been a busy couple days and—honestly—I forgot for a bit.

Moving on-

—————

Me equating some of the things that anti-Jedi people say to antisemitism and, sometimes, outright Nazi-esque rhetoric is not “wild” or “a stretch,” as you’re implying.

Justification of their genocide, denial that it actually was a genocide, a belief that the genocided party “caused” their own genocide, and a belief that they genocided party were wrong or “led astray” while one person was sent to make things right- (via either making them change their ways or outright destroying them/their culture) -are all things I’ve seen people say about the Jedi…

…but they’re also things that people have actually said about Jews.

Take the example I put in the post of someone denying that the Jedi Purge was actually a genocide, and how—by changing “Jedi” to “Judaism” and “Force-religions” to “Abrahamic Faiths”—it sounds verbatim to Holocaust denial.

Or, as another example, people claiming that the Jedi “kidnapped kids to brainwash them”…don’t you see how that sounds like Blood Libel?

So me pointing out that a lot of stuff anti-Jedi people say sounds like antisemitic rhetoric isn’t a stretch, not when a lot of it sounds verbatim to what people are saying with the rise of antisemitism and stuff they have said in the past.

—————

Now, I’m not Jewish, but it’s not just me, your neighborhood White Girl™️, who’s pointing this stuff out.

Actual Jewish people have pointed out the alarming similarities between anti-Jedi rhetoric and straight up antisemitism. So, if you wanna argue about- “you shouldn’t compare real world discrimination to fictional stuff” -then you should probably take that into account.

Go ahead and try telling Jewish Star Wars fans to stop calling out antisemitic rhetoric in the fandom, I’m sure that’ll go down real well.

I also find it hilarious that you’re telling me to be careful about the rhetoric I use in a thread about how I shouldn’t point out that some of the rhetoric other people spout is basically antisemitism rebranded.

And my point in that post wasn’t- “since this is based off of a real world culture/religion, you can’t criticize it.”

My point was- “since this is based off of a real world culture/religion then you need to be careful about how you criticize it, otherwise you might unconsciously be spouting bigoted beliefs and antisemitic rhetoric because you don’t recognize that that’s what it is because you’re saying it about a fictional culture.”

By all means, I get that some people just don’t like the Jedi, that’s their prerogative and we all have our own tastes.

Criticize them, if you feel like it, but don’t go around spouting rebranded antisemitism to do it. I’m sure you can come up with plenty of things to complain about them for without doing so.

—————

Now, I can understand why you might be worried about the slippery slope from this to shit like actual censorship—which, I think we can all agree, is a bad thing. Or how you might think criticizing this could lead to the whole “fandom purity” debate.

My thing is, it all comes down to does it actually harm people?

Perpetuating harmful stereotypes via saying stuff like the Jewish based characters “steal children,” or “lost their way,” or “they caused/deserved their genocide”—that does cause actual harm.

Think about why the “angry black man” stereotype or the “cheating bisexual” stereotype are bad and people- (rightly) -push back against them. It’s the same thing here.

Shipping a problematic ship, calling a fictional serial killer “babygirl,” writing about dark topics*, headcanoning characters as gay or trans…none of that is actively harming people.

(*obviously when writing about dark topics you should tag appropriately so people can avoid triggers, but that’s another topic for another day)

That’s the difference.

And, for the record, I think letting people spout bigotry just because they’re saying it about something fictional is the more dangerous mindset than calling it out.

[direwombat]

oc smash or pass

*showing up to this a year late with a starbucks* hey guys...

tagged by @socially-awkward-skeleton, @shallow-gravy, @strafethesesinners, @adelaidedrubman, @rhettsabbott, and @josephslittledeputy

and @carlosoliveiraa

Rules: pretty self explanatory. include physical descriptions or pics, and propaganda. the “other” label can be used for “sexuality misalignment” (ie: oc is femme and you’re gay, vice versa or you aren’t into smashing but a specific thing you wanna do with them like perhaps hug or study them under a microscope idc).

QUICK FACTS:

Height: 5’9"

Age: 35 (circa. 2018)

Gender: cis woman (but in the sense that she's just running on default settings and didn't bother to investigate other options.)

Pronouns: she/her

Sexuality: bisexual

propaganda under the cut

pros:

🐇 loyal. unwaveringly so. she will buckle down and stand with you through your lowest of lows and once you've weathered the storm, she will be there to lift you up and celebrate making it through.

🐇 bilingual! will teach you louisiana french to the best of her abilities if you're interested in learning. she starts with the swear words.

🐇 versatile and attentive in bed. she has her preferences, but is ultimately more interested in what brings her partner pleasure.

🐇 witty. she loves a good back-and-forth and banter is a good way to test your compatibility with her.

🐇 you'll never have to hire a handyman or mechanic ever again. she will take care of it for you (fix your plumbing, touch up the paint on your porch, change your oil/tires, etc). she's like a working dog and needs to feel useful. and that's on top of helping you do household chores.

🐇 while not necessarily spontaneous, she is down to go with the flow when it comes to a night out. all you gotta say is "hey, do you want to do/go to/see xyz?" and her response will almost always be "sure, lemme get my keys/jacket." get the right amount of booze in her too and you can convince her to engage in most shenanigans.

🐇 enjoys a good late night philosophical conversation or debate. preferably sitting outside under the stars in a white plastic chair and a beer in her hand.

cons:

💀 smokes like an industrial smokestack and reeks of tobacco. hope you like how nicotine tastes because that's all you're getting when you kiss her.

💀 infuriatingly stubborn and prone to self-destructive behavior. will work herself to the bone until she's passing out in order to keep herself distracted and will turn to the bottle when she starts to spiral.

💀 poor emotional communicator. refuses to be emotionally vulnerable and gets deeply uncomfortable when talking about her feelings (and her past).

💀 has night terrors and wakes up thrashing and screaming almost every night. assuming she sleeps at all. also she doesn't take any of her meds so it's going to keep happening.

💀 you will have to listen to her complain about food not being as good as it is in new orleans

💀 bootlicker (voluntarily joined the military and became a cop :/)

💀 claims to be non-religious but is undeniably culturally catholic.

taglist (opt in/out)

@g0dspeeed, @omen-speaker, @confidentandgood, @tommyarashikage, @cassietrn

@fourlittleseedlings, @purplehairsecretlair, @aceghosts, @finding-comfort-in-rain, @voidika,

@locustandwildhoney, @testyfestyenthusiast, @strangefable, @inafieldofdaisies, @alexxmason,

@deputyash, and anyone else wanting to do this!

[malebodyexhibit]

A Trinity Minus One (a free commission tale)

My best friend was the one who showed me the Grindr profile that day. He was single and stilled used that garbage app. Looking at him still doing hook up culture, made me glad I found my boyfriend of five years. I was so lucky to find a hunky Latino guy. I might be a gringo, but I loved that we were so diverse. Then my friend with trepidation showed me on his phone a profile that showed my boyfriend locking lips with his coworker.

They both worked as mechanics and I thought they were just good friends. I never had a suspicion that José was gay or that he and my boyfriend Germán were hooking up. Much less hooking up as a couple on Grindr. But reading their shared profile, I felt the past decade hollowing into a tangle of lies and deceit.

"Latino couple looking for a bull. NSA. Make me watch you satisfy my boyfriend. No gringos, gracias."

My friend tried to console me but I left and spent the day crying in my apartment. My boyfriend and I shared the place, but he always worked late. Through my tears I saw the red flags: he never came back by dinner, preferring to eat dinner at work; he left early to get extra hours; and always made sure he looked good when he left. I wondered why he would put up with me then.

I thought I was attractive. I was blond with muscle tone, but... no gringos. I guess I was just an apartment and a meal ticket.

I wanted to hate him. To hate them, but they looked so good together. After leaving my friend's place, I downloaded Grindr and stared at their profile. I had thought of messaging them, but... no gringos. I wondered who wrote that. My boyfriend or his? It didn't matter. I was nothing to them. And I actually wanted to be with them. I thought of José and he was hot and funny and charming. I could see why Germán would fall in love with him.

I just wished I could be someone they wanted.

I must have been dreaming because I felt the world around me shift and change. It seemed like the walls separated and fell away, the colors of nature lifted like watercolor and melted, and I felt myself lose the pain of the past hours. Then as swiftly as the world distorted, it returned to normal, except me.

I wished I could be someone they wanted. The loose definition of my body started to collect. It was a tightening of new and old memories. New smells and tastes of a childhood I never had. It was the new sounds of a language I only heard Germán speak. I wished... I stared at myself forming anew in the reflection of the mirror.

My natural blond hair became a shocking platinum dyed crew cut. My white skin became a glowing bronze. Tattoos snaked down my arm, displaying a history on my skin that my old body lacked. My eyes turned sharper, more mature, more determined. The soft upbringing of my white childhood morphed into a struggle in an English-dominated culture. I looked at the naked landscape of my muscular body and felt a rush of hormones, but I wouldn't jack off yet.

Like stars in the sky, I still remembered my old life and could pick out outlines of what happened, though the glow of my Hispanic life was like the sun. I remembered Germán and José. I grabbed my phone and reopened the Grinder app.

While I was still nude with the sweat from the transformation, I took photos and made a profile. My name was Gabriel, like the angel. A second after my profile was made, I got a message from Germán.

"Holy smokes, bro, you're so fucking hot! You dtf?" He texted along with photos of his shirtless body and another of his cock that I had sucked the past five years in my old body.

I didn't feel like talking. I took a picture of my massive, dark cock and sent it to him. "Beg for it, puta."

"Please, please, papí."

I laughed and wanted to torture him some more. Show him more of this body, and tease him, but I remembered the love I felt for him, and simple wrote, "okay, mi amor, don't let me down."

[spider-xan]

flashbacks of watching the dd fandom foam at the mouth when someone suggested a white British man shouldn't be mystically "blessing" his appropriated Nepalese weapon and going on about something something "can't be sheathed unless it tastes blood" which is not a thing he ever did in the book so they somehow made it MORE orientalist for him to have it.

The way a (white) fandom in the 2020s that loves to pat itself on the back over how inherently progressive they are bc the fandom is mostly (white) queers who re-imagine the characters as a progressive GNC gay polycule with maybe one character being rewritten as a POC, but only as aesthetics or to absolve a canonically white character of being textually racist, somehow managed to be MORE racist and Orientalist than a conservative Victorian man like Stoker is my villain origin story lol

Like, at least Stoker didn't go any further than giving his white man protagonist a kukri and didn't treat it as any different from another character's Bowie knife or frame it as an exotic mystical weapon, so while not great, it just feels like he chose it bc it's a big knife that would work for decapitation and ofc South Asian culture would be on the Victorian mind due to the British Empire's colonization of India - the fandom, on the other hand, basically out-Victorianed him on that front, and personally, as a POC, I wish other POC would not give white people ammunition to be racist, even if they personally don't care about or even enjoy Orientalism as POC or specifically Asians.

Also, I know the specific incident you are referring to and witnessed it happening in real time, and I still cannot believe that in addition to the racism and Orientalism, it was the sheer entitlement of someone demanding that shit from an artist who simply said he was not comfortable writing that Orientalist mysticism for his own version of the character, who is a white man, and that pissed off the racist fans who then dogpiled her and called her a white saviour, denied India was colonized by Britain, sent messages about how Orientalism is good bc South Asians said so - and there was misogyny involved too bc this artist wanted to focus on Mina and her relationship with her son, but God forbid anyone prioritize a woman over her husband in this fandom, you WILL sideline her for him, and no, we don't hate her, here is a post about what a badass girlboss she is and how her husband is the ultimate wifeguy, anyway, that's enough feminism for today.

[bwv572]

People on the Elon website are arguing about the Odyssey and in particular Emily Wilson's bad translation of it, and somewhere along the way this opened up the discussion to an aesthetic debate about the older "flowery" translations vs the modern day "everyday speech" translations.

This is right up my alley as I was thinking about this earlier this year as I was compiling John Dryden plays in my own personal edition, and in particular after reading John Dryden's essays where he defended his high and lofty verse in the face of critics who derided it as "unnatural". And I began to think about the impossibility of a dryden style translation or even an original work in that style being published today. In the tastes of modern classicists, Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad, or John Dryden's translation of Aeneid, are both considered pretentious, old fashioned, inaccurate (I disagree, I've read both texts side by side betore), and depending on how far left the academic is, classist.

I have been wanting to write an essay for a while now, "In Defense of Artifice", where I earnestly defend the use of artifice in poetry and drama, the flowery language, the "unnatural" meter and rhymes, as a sort of sacred elevation in art form from the lowly, profane, "realistic", "everyday" quality of modern sensibilities. I haven't really gotten a single night with more than four hours of sleep in over two months though so I haven't done it.

But while thinking about this essay, there was a paradox that came to mind that I haven't really resolved: the more grounded in reality a culture seems to be, the more artificial its artistic sensibilities are; while the more fake and gay a culture seems to be, the more "realistic" its artistic sensibilities become.

Take movies: actors today now do everything they can to "act normal". The actor of today does not use exaggerated diction, dramatic elocution, mimed poses, and so forth, like an actor would for Shakespeare; the actor instead looks like a normal dude from the street (albeit hotter, usually), mumbles on camera, says 'umm', 'ahh', etc. The actor's task is to not sound like an actor. In today's sensibilities, "classic acting" is reserved primarily for comedic roles (because comedy still requires exaggeration). Think of a movie like Hail Caesar, which is a love letter to old Hollywood, and all of the acting is exaggerated and higher than life, but it's all comedic. Part of the joke is that it's funny people used to act like that, even though the movie leaves you kind of wishing that actors still would act like this.

Quentin Tarantino sort of hit the sweet spot where his actors were "classic actors", but his dialogue was "natural" (although it becomes more outdated every year as people become more antisocial and no longer talk that way, revealing the actual artifice more and more, and younger idiot critics pick up on that). Think of the tipping scene in Reservoir Dogs or the random chit chat throughout Pulp Fiction.

But you also see the same impulse in the demand for representation. The suspension of disbelief was higher in older art: men and boys played women, a moor character may have been a white in blackface (or maybe even no attempt at changing his skin color at all). The characters themselves were obvious stock characters, the plot was cliche, the romance was unrealistic, the violence and murder was left to your imagination, the speech was higher than life: meter, rhyming couplets, Latin and Greek derived words flying like bullets. It was understood that the character on stage is not a "real character", that people do not "really talk like this", that romance doesn't really "work like that", that murder is probably a lot harder and more gruesome than watching somebody fall down on the stage, and so on.

In essence, it was understood that the stage and the page are artificial, not real, and that artifice was integral to a good piece of art.

But people today require that characters on the screen DO act and talk and look like people in real life, that actors be diverse in sex and ethnicity as in the broader population, that romance and sex and drug and violence scenes be "realistic", and so on.

The paradox is that the people today are so fake and gay that they can't even handle fake being fake: they have to make fake media even faker by being more realistic. Take a second to ponder that. In essence, they affirm the artificial but they shun the artifice. In day to day life, they deny reality, and live in fantasy. They believe that men can become women, but not on the screen.

They even hyperreality'd drag queens into existence! Drag queens are actually an interesting example because they were originally a highly artificial "classic acting" overexaggeration of female characters in the artifice of the stage. It was literally just blackface but with womanface. But now, in modern day circles, people look at old drag queens and discuss them with the modern language of the transgender community. They are no longer ordinary people who play around with artifice and step into a character, but are actually "really like that". Take Lou Reed's boyfriend, I don't remember his name, but you can't even find old articles about him with his original name and pronouns anymore, because people retroactively speak about him as if he was a trans woman, when he was a gay man whose hobby was performing in drag shows, when Lou Reed's band mates called him a he and referred to him as Lou's boyfriend. And then there's the stonewall myth where people pretend that trans women "threw the first brick" when the trans women in question were gay men that occasionally did drag for fun.

And so on and so forth and etc, mostly etc.

I can't really make sense of this paradox, I haven't solved it yet, I'm just thinking here. Of course it's not just artistic sensibility in a vacuum, and it's not all politics either. The rise of more "realistic" technology (cameras which show every single wrinkle and pore on the skin, microphones which allow actors to mumble and whisper instead of shouting and yelling all the time) is involved. I even think the loss of ceremonials in every day life as people become less religious and people participate in civil rituals less and less (I saw the other day a post mocking an older man for actually following the ritual to the book of burying a flag) has a role in this.

This all goes back to the magic circle in the end of the day, that is, a hallowed out area separate from ordinary life where different rules pertain - rules of ritual, ceremonialism, games, art, law, etc. There's another paradox here, where the magic circle is seemingly stronger than ever, even though the magic circle is now less delineated than ever with the advent of the internet allowing us to be "online" 24/7 even when we're not looking at a screen. All of this interacts, but I'm trying to resolve too many interrelated paradoxes at once and I can't do it right now. Eventually it will make a good essay that nobody will read.

[chilewithcarnage]

hi,

first off, you are awesome and i love following you. amazing taste and an absolute great person all around. want and hope better things for you and your family bc y'all deserve!

i think the past few weeks, but moreso lately, this site is just the blog version of a03 where it centers white gay (maybe lesbian?) fandom weirdos who are freaks for all the wrong reasons.

like i don't remember the circumstance of karp(?) leaving and who was the owner before the current trash rn, but at the very least even if this site was predominately white, i can still find corners of black or other poc blogger's content to enjoy and it's getting harder to do that!!

also bc i'm isolated, i'm obvs horny, but now nsfw blogs are being nuked even though there's an existing mature content filter so like what's the post (besides attacking trans women rmfe). like it feels like the acceptable freaky things are like fucking i*cest, i just want to see black women make out and twerk jfc

(also on larger scale there's an uptick of ~faux~ i*cest p0rn i.e step family shit and like whyyyyyy????) i just want hot women (of color) being all over each other is getting harder to find or filter through or isn't behind a paywall :((

i'm just a wall of anxiety and dread bc of everything going on w/ the genocides, covid denial, yt ppl in general, and this staff so idk where to turn with this anger and frustration

sorry to vent but i don't have anyone to talk to. ilu and wishing your sis a safe work trip and that she gets to have a couple days to enjoy herself at least

hey friend, starting off thank you so much for the kind words and well wishes my sis did manage to have safe trip she's been back for about a week now. now I get where you're coming from completely and I don't mind being a listening ear for you, I'm honestly sorry that took so long for me to respond to you. It is in fact frustrating the way that tides have turned in terms of the culture and populace of tumblr and how it's run and who's running it. I've been on here for 11 years and idk if I can say the current wave of things is the lower point this site has ever been at but it's pretty damn close. I was so confident that yahoo wouldn't have ended up bagging this place but look where we're at now, missing 75% of our original user base, 💖💙🤍💙💖♀️ getting deleted left and right. it's a shit show indeed. don't even get me started on the lack of black and brown oriented nsfw content and the rise of the proshit ppl.

[lakesbian]

if worm was 2024 do you think Alec would dress/do his hair much differently?

thats a good question. i think his fashion taste would definitely be considered significantly less faggy today than it was in 2010 depending on what cultural context you're putting him in, but i also think that hypothetical-actually-written-as-gay-and-gnc-on-purpose alec is dressing & doing his hair that way because dressing that way specifically is comfortable for him and not because he intentionally wants to be feminine. like, chicken-or-egg situation where the answer is that he's most comfortable dressing that way & it incidentally happens to be feminine rather than being feminine being important to him on its own & him dressing like that to fulfill it. so i think he would obviously be influenced by modern fashion trends (although honestly i don't think much would change for him there because he's already textually wearing clothing that's non-specific enough to not really become abnormal in 14 years. black jeans and a plain white t-shirt are still 100% normal), but i don't think he would like. switch to dresses solely because wearing skinny jeans isn't enough to get you called gay anymore or anything. his hairstyle (nape-length mop of curly hair) is also something i still see pretty frequently so i'm not sure modern fashion trends would influence him there or anything, especially because he wants to do the lowest effort everything possible. i do think that it's possible that he could take a few cues from the social landscape and end up with, like, a little ear piercing or more frequently* painted nails or something else along those lines. but i don't think he would change much no.

*my vision of And Wgat If Regent Was Like For Real Gay includes him occasionally getting bored and painting his nails black or white with random nail polish that's laying around & then keeping it on until it starts flaking at which point he inevitably fidgets when bored by picking it off and flicking it onto the ground. like maybe a few months out of a year you'll catch him with nail polish on

[tealfruit]

the thing about Seinfeld is that so many of the plots revolve around either a) the characters trying to correctly behave within societal norms and social cues and either reacting to others' percieved failing of them OR failing themselves, b) men are from Mars women are from Venus type sexism, and c) These Characters Are Just Kinda Stupid Assholes Generally.

and like, it would be super wicked easy to update that to a modern setting. for a) we just update societal norms to the modern ones. for b) I don't think the men/women divide would be quite as acceptable, maybe just slighter divides along other lines encompassing gender, sexuality, generation, etc. that is less "we are basically different species" and more just "we have different experiences and maybe don't always understand each other fully". which is just kinda how it is. and c) doesn't really have to change at all, just be adjusted alongside a).

the character archetypes are easy too. Jerry is fairly aloof, generally polite out of social obligation, somewhat petty at times, unwilling to start hard conversations and weirdly picky about his romantic interests. George is a sad, self-centered, insecure little man who schemes and lies and performs to make people like him. Elaine has a strong moral compass in theory, but very little patience and a vindictive, petty side that causes her to lash out at people who don't fall in line with what she thinks is right. and Kramer has almost no filter, immediate understanding of social cues or trust in the government. none of these characters have to be stuck in the 90s.

and on top of all this—Seinfeld was not an especially regressive show! some of the episodes tackled some bigger topics in ways that weren't awful, though usually with less taste or dignity than they maybe deserved. everyone's seen this image:

this is from an episode where, due to a prank on an eavesdropper gone wrong, an article is published about Jerry and George's gay relationship. which they do not have, because they're both straight. so they continuously dispute the idea that they're gay, and every time they do, it involves the line "not that there's anything wrong with that!" there are of course a few tasteless jokes, but nothing heinous. another episode has Elaine dealing with not knowing whether her new boyfriend is black or not, the (all white) gang being uncomfortable discussing or questioning it, and my favorite punchline to a plot in the whole show—when they realize they're just a white couple (the boyfriend thought Elaine was Latina), Elaine says "wanna go to the Gap?"

Seinfeld was full of pop culture and current events references at the time it aired, too, so keeping that would keep the spirit of the original show alive while providing tons of modern material. like if you did a modern Seinfeld reboot, they'd all be discussing the days internet discourse or tiktok trends in mildly wacky scenarios. it would be so very easy. Jerome Seinfeld is just a bigot that lacks creativity or imagination or interest in what is considered funny today.

[heyftinally]

I remember the summer You Need To Calm Down was so popular (my first year at pride! My swiftie friends blasted it half the 2hr drive there. Honestly just glad I agreed to let drivers pick the music so I could drive the second half and not have my ears bleed bc they heavily outnumbered me at the time) honestly that song feels so condescending. Like, genuinely I could see it being from the perspective of the bigots (also I feel like I remember there was drama around the music video with her not paying people or something but all I remember is a dumb article quote about her 'not wanting to work and just hang out and play with the drag queens on set' which. Ew)

The song honestly gives me perfect Taylor vibes - that is to say, performance allyship. It sounds like it's from the POV of some out of touch white dishes woman who just wants her Hot Girl Summer Kickoff to start with going to Pride with her GBF (gay best friend) because he's "sooo sweet, and has the BEST taste in fashion" -_- Like, saying homophobes "need to calm down" just fundamentally ignores and downplays the severity of the situation. LGBTQ+ people are MURDERED for existing. Trans healthcare access - read that again access to healthcare that keeps people healthy and alive - is being restricted. And Taylor's responss is "calm diwn" like bigots are just tantruming toddlers.

Not only that, the shoehorning of our slang - most often born from the black queer community - into her song feels incredibly cringey in the worst way. It's like when people start saying random Japanese words because they have a weird, idealized, anime-ified view of Japan. You're taking a culture and using just the popular bits you've seen on TV to masquerade as belonging to that culture. It's weird, and it feels really wrong. That's not her slang to co-opt. If she wanted it included, she should have partnered with an actually queer artist to sing those parts.

Also, the music video was nothing but a desperate marketing ploy, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if there were issues with people not getting paid and/or getting objectified. I honestly expect nothing more from Taylor.

[blood-mocha-latte]

~ miscellaneous tag game ~

tagged by the lovely @mutantmanifesto and @dontirrigateme <3

Favorite place in the world you’ve visited?

rough draw but munich! 'twas gorgeous and also where I got engaged

Something you’re proud of yourself for?

dragging my ass through college in two years and double majoring. nearly killed me but by god it's done

Favorite books?

the awakening by kate chopin - the woman in white by wilkie collins - all quiet on the western front by erich maria remarque - a tree grows in brooklyn by betty smith - letters from the 442nd by min masuda

Something that makes your heart happy when thinking about it?

mah wife (borat voice)

Favorite thing about your culture?

god what even is my culture. how unhinged would i sound if i said swamps and rigatoni

When did you join the HBO War fandom? What was the first show you watched?

joined about three years ago but not on tumblr, but watched the pacific first

Have you read any of Easy Company’s books? If so, which ones were your favorite?

no because i. have a reading list and they aren't up in the queue lmao

Favorite HBO War character and your favorite moment with them?

leckie. he’s like. webster if webster was a wet cat what’s not to love. favorite moment is all moments ever EXCEPT for the sex scenes because what kind of hallucinogen did i take to have to watch that

Do you make content for any fandoms, if so; what sort of content?

i write fic and am. a little consumed by it at all times. i also make edits but am going through a bit of a rut with that so for now only writing thank you

Favorite actor/actress and your favorite film of theirs?

eliza dushku for her wonderful performances in buffy the vampire slayer and angel (i'm gay. can you tell)

Favorite quote/s that you wish to share with others?

just this entire dick allen poem which is luztoye coded forever and ever

Random fact your mutuals/followers don’t know about you?

hm. idk. i once got bit by a raccoon in a bayou and had to get rabies shots for the next two weeks

If you’re a writer, do you need a beta reader (say yes so I can be your beta reader 🤭)?

i write everything by hand and then put in in the Computer which is like. a built in beta edit. and then mah wife (borat voice) betas for me because she's wonderful

Three things that make you smile?

mah wife (borat voice) (i'm predictable)

our air purifier (i’m old)

our vintage dog teapot

Any nicknames you like?

my name is three letters long like there's not a lot of leeway there. i went by adelasia for a while which is my middle name but like. that's it. does papera count

List some people you love to see around on tumblr!

@lamialamia is the pillar of my entire person at all times and genuinely one of the nicest people i’ve ever met. linh wrote this wonderful fic for the secret santa exchange, which i am currently reading and fawning over

@staud is easily one of the talented people in the entire hbo war fandom and has the fucking VISION for gifs and videos. most recent of which i’ve watched (and panicked about) being an incredible eugene sledge video. erin is also just fucking funny bro idk what to tell you

@mutantmanifesto is someone that is like. genuinely a celebrity to me. every time i see lenora’s drawings anywhere i have flashbacks like i’m in the louvre. also just a wonderful person with incredible taste

@ep6bastogne is on a tumblr hiatus right now but always deserves a shoutout. she did incredible edits of skinny sisk, eugene roe, ron speirs, and david webster for the secret santa exchange that changed my brain chemistry forever and is one of the warmest people i’ve ever talked to

@ewipandora is someone that i’m ALWAYS holding hands with <3. both a genuinely funny and wonderful person and has incredible taste in reblogs. ewi is currently doing a band of brothers ship series that i plan to Consume as soon as possible because i have no doubt that they’re incredible

@dcyllom is an incredibly underrated and kind part of my Dashboard Experience™ and is also just wonderful and one of my favorite Tumblr People :)

@educationalporpoises is a genius and an INCREDIBLE writer. zee was my secret santa gifter and this luztoye fic knocked it all the way out of the park and into the cemetery, which is how hard it slayed. also wins for best mutual handle

@almost-a-class-act is ridiculously supportive and kind, and a backbone of the hbo war fandom forever and always. sam’s also one of the best fucking writers to ever grace this earth, with the most recent thing i’ve read being this top notch luztoye fic <3

What would you do during a zombie apocalypse?

die. girl i work in an er i'd be the first to go

Favorite movie?

ladri di biciclette for all time favorite movie ever. a perfect movie

Do you like horror movies?

it depends entirely on the level of homoerotism that can be found in those movies. and also if matthew lillard is in it

Tagging:

everyone mentioned above as well as anyone who wants to do it since i have no clue who’s been tagged :)

[vital-information]

"Much work in queer and transgender studies is governed by an epistemological framework that, as Robyn Wiegman has argued, “calls for scholars in identity studies to offer cogent and full accounts of identity’s inherent multiplicity in ways that can exact specificity about human experience without reproducing exclusion”. This version of an intersectional critical project faces an injunction to continually bifurcate the categories of identity it takes as its objects, driving toward a horizon beyond which the spider web of subaltern identity will be fully articulated and social justice (or at least its discursive possibility) will be achieved. The attempt to glimpse the other side of this horizon can lead to the fetishization of certain kinds of bodies—the contours of which change over time—as representing an Archimedean endpoint of radical otherness. Within queer theory and politics, rapid changes in the social location of gays and lesbians have forced these contours to shift quite rapidly. As a homonormative political vision has made its way to the center of liberal politics and concomitant rights have been granted to some—generally white, moneyed, and sexually respectable—gay and lesbian subjects, the L, G, and (more ambiguously) B in the bricolage of queer identity no longer appear to pose, in and of themselves, an existential challenge to social and political norms. A queer political discourse that remains beholden to the logic of identity has thus passed the buck along to the T, asking transgender subjects to hold down the fort of queer difference. The transgender subject—and particularly the figure of the trans woman of color—has come to figure within these coordinates as “a utensil to reference at will” when figuring the outer limits of political representability (Vidal-Ortiz). As Kate Millett once wrote of Jean Genet, trans women of color are seen within this discourse as having “achieved the lowest status in the world,” and through that “perfection of opprobrium” have “acquire[d] the pride of the utterly abject, a condition which turns out to be next door to saintliness”.

All of this has led to what we might call a politics of trans sincerity, in which the gender-nonconforming subject is celebrated as transgres-sive to the extent that her nonconformity can be read as serious —that is, to the extent that she rejects camp...

This new vision of transgender evokes David Halperin’s account of a contemporary homonormative sociality in which sex and desire have switched places with culture and sensibility as tokens of admission into gay male life. Whereas once, Halperin quips, gay men hid their porn collections in the closet and framed their Broadway playbills, now they hide their play-bills in the closet and frame their porn (). Yet this state of affairs—which, in the case of both transgender (particularly trans feminine) and gay male aesthetics, pivots on the status of camp—exists in tension with one that has been more often remarked upon: the self-conscious absorption of camp aesthetics into a wide swath of mainstream media productions, from Lady Gaga to RuPaul’s Drag Race, which in turn bear a complex and varied relationship to queer audiences. In Halperin’s account, such productions testify to the survival of gay culture, however disavowed, after several generations of denial that it still exists or still matters.

I would amend this argument to claim that, though camp performance is in fact ubiquitous, camp reading practices—techniques for interpreting a performance, cross-gendered or otherwise, as camp—have been pushed back into the closet. “What Camp taste responds to is ‘instant character,’ ” Sontag writes, “understood as a state of continual incandescence—a person being one, very intense thing”. You may not be the gender you were assigned at birth, but according to the ontology of camp, you are really something. (And most likely you are—as my grandmother would say, with the emphasis on both words—really something.) Camp taste’s response to such incandescence may take on a range of affective and epistemological guises. It can appear as an intimate act of aggression, as in the drag spectator’s “read,” her knowing look at a performance that shows its seams (Butler, Bodies). But it can manifest, too, as what Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick calls camp-recognition, in which the encounter with a tacky or overwrought object elicits a gesture of sympathetic identification from the viewer who, instead of distancing herself from the scene of aesthetic disaster, asks, “What if whoever made this was gay, too?". Either way, camp reading—forsaken or forgotten within much queer political discourse today—marks an attempt to grasp its object as a whole."

Marissa Brostoff, "Notes on Caitlyn, or Genre Trouble"

[justbrainrot]

It’s time for my Legendborn characters' sexuality headcanons to be out into the world:

(Disclaimer: yes some of these characters are underage. I know. Folks’ preferences don’t come in the mail with their voter registration though. Don’t come for me about these entirely fictional characters because I’ll just block you and that’s not gratifying for either of us, ‘kay?)

That being said there is a cut this is all gonna live under lol

Bree: Our girl’s motto is, “I’ll try anything once. Or twice! Maybe it’s an acquired taste.” I mean listen, she has almost no experience prior to meeting these dudes, but she does have her big big brain & Alice. So she’s well read iykwim. And has an inherently queer sensibility when she thinks about relationships, despite how things may look from the outside. She really enjoys the negotiation prior to a scene, which makes her a natural at this poly thing. Also, she’s a switch.

Identifies as: Queer

Sel: Baby boy is a service bottom. I mean if this isn’t obvious to you maybe we can’t be friends lol. He enjoys both lightly applied sensation & some pretty heavy pain on occasion. He will definitely top & top well when told to. Sensory deprivation is 100% his jam because it turns his brain off just a li’l bit.

Identifies as: Pansexual (this is canon btw, I didn’t make this part up)

Nick: Oh my darling! Nick is the most vanilla of our trio, but that’s not saying much because, well, have you met the other two lol. He is a natural dom but is also patently disgusted by all the trappings of dominant white cishet dudes in our culture. So he’s also a unicorn, bless ‘im. He is deeply in love with Bree, which is obvious to anyone with eyes, but his feelings for Sel have been clouded by the Kingsmage Oath for so long that when it’s removed, it takes him a minute to work out that he’s in love with Sel also.

Identifies as: Bisexual

Alice: First I need to say that Alice rocks a sick lesbian manicure seven days a week & if that isn’t the hottest way to flag I don’t know what is. She is solidly femme4femme, & knows how to top from below so smoothly you’ll have no idea it’s happening until you are wondering if you forgot to set your face because it’s dripping into your eyes all of a sudden.

Identifies as: Lesbian

William: This dude is a gentleman first & foremost; he ofc redefines making enthusiastic consent sexy as hell. He is uncomfortable having sexytimes when he has Gawain’s strength at noon & midnight, so he has deftly avoided it thusfar. Dating Lark might change that, though, I’m thinking. He’s not dated within the Order before, after all. Pretty vanilla guy, all things considered, but that does not mean boring!

Identifies as: Gay

Mariah: at first I didn't think I had a handle on Mariah, but now I'm thinking she is either ace or just isn't in a place where sexuality is all that important in her life atm and she's fine with it. She's def down to be a soundboard for her friends though, and is wicked smart, so for these reasons she knows the most about what's going on with everyone else but is the soul of discretion.

There will be a part two because this hellsite gets buggier the longer my posts get, apparently.

Edit: part two ✨here✨

[distant--shadow]

in my tank top and stonewashed jeans older men approach, say hi to me

they got shaved heads and tattoos and thick arms just like the mirror says, but that doesnt

make me feel desirable (like they do), make me feel so fucking manly

make me feel so

terrified

survival weighted on glancing eyes,

seasoned hands groping what's made of them - syntethetic between thighs

the boy with a leather bound sketchbook in the back pocket of his pants

and sorry, did I say pants? I meant jeans. pop culture gave me a vernacular outside of my genes.

gay as an insult, for object, feeling, and circumstance - something that is demeaned.

not the taste, the rush, the scent, the lip split like bread from the elbow thrown at my head.

the belts, the buckles, the leather, the harness, the mask you end the day in and the one you start it with

the salt of the sweat, saline of the tears

concious of time getting away, making up for lost years

where I should have been in a white tank and stone washed jeans

chest ruptured, harvested, and skin silvered into seams

older men approaching me

and I welcome their spittle

take what they give openly

[demi-shoggoth]

2023 Reading Log pt. 4

March was hard for me, both in terms of my personal life and in terms of my reading. I started a whole bunch of books that I haven't finished. Some of them I intend to come back to (two monster books, one for RPGs and one reference book). The ones I intentionally gave up on are listed here, as well as the whys of why I gave up on them.

16. Bestiarium Greenlandica, edited by Maria Bach Kreutzmann. Recommended to me a while ago by @abominationimperatrixx, but I have only been able to get a copy recently. This is the second edition, put out by Eye of Newt Press, which seems to specialize in publishing monster books with previously limited print runs (they also have an edition of Welsh Monsters and Mythical Beasts by C G J Ellis, for example). This book is an A-Z look at mythical creatures from Greenland, which entails a peek at traditional Thule culture. Anggakutt (the equivalent of shamans) use various monstrous spirits to guide them through the spiritual realm and work wonders for them, and these have to be negotiated with or even battled in order to recruit them. So there’s plenty of monsters, many of which are very obscure in English language sources, or confused with other creatures from other Inuit cultures. The book has illustrations for most of the monsters, some line drawings and some full color paintings. All of the art is great, and it doesn’t shy away from the sex and violence in the myths. So a trigger warning is at play if dead and decaying fetus monsters, ghouls with giant penises, or all manner of grotesque facial features are not your thing. But if you’re okay with those, this book is highly recommended.

17.  Bog Bodies Uncovered by Miranda Aldhouse-Green. This book looks at the various bodies that have been discovered in peat bogs throughout northern Europe, and is primarily concerned with why these people were killed and placed in the bog. After a discussion of the history of finding bog bodies, and about the nature of bogs and how the tannins contribute to preservation, the book is primarily a forensic investigation. Its ultimate thesis is that most of the bog bodies represent intentional human sacrifices by Celtic and Germanic people. The author does a good job of supporting that claim, although her extrapolations and speculations go a little far for my taste (especially when she conjectures that the Lindow Man was sacrificed because of a specific battle written about by the Romans). The book features a mix of black and white photos and illustrations with color plates, which is always appreciated for a book about physical artifacts.

17a. Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller. I gave up on this one around the halfway point—much longer than I typically go into a book I decide not to finish. That’s because I really wanted to like this one, but couldn’t. The subject is how queer history has often been sanitized and gay historical figures made saintly, when in reality there were plenty of unremarkable and some downright evil gay people as well. The book also wants to aim a giant fuck you at respectability politics, arguing for radical queer liberation and that the current state of gay representation is rooted in capitalism and patriarchy. It also also wants to make snarky quips about gay kings and military leaders—this is a very distant priority. I agree with the book’s politics in the broad sense, and there’s just enough quips and history to have kept me interested this long, but the overall feel of the book is very preachy, and not actually that interested in the lives of the individual subjects. There are ways to make a book both stridently anti-capitalist and an entertaining read, and this one fails.

17b. How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler. I stopped this one a few pages into the second chapter. I was looking for a book about marine life and fun facts, and this has that, but is interwoven with personal memoir and is much heavier on the memoir. The first chapter is about how goldfish are stunted in fishbowls, but can grow to enormous sizes in the wild and can act as an invasive species. And this is contrasted with the author feeling stifled by small town life and realizing that they’re queer upon growing up. That was fine, but the second chapter draws connections between how mother octopuses starve themselves watching over eggs, and the generational eating disorders that the author and their mother dealt with. My mood couldn’t handle that. Maybe I’ll come back to this book when I’m in a more secure mental place, but I didn’t feel like crying while reading again. Not for a while—I think my allotment is one sad book a year.

18. Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains by Bethany Brookshire. This feels like a companion volume to Mary Roach’s Fuzz. Both books are about how humans behave when animals get in their way, but Fuzz deals more with the humans and Pests deals more with the animals. There’s lots of evolution and ecology material here, including very recent research, like the possible link between the evolution of house mice and the contents of their gut flora, and a modern look at how Australia’s ecosystems are reacting to and coping with the introduction of cane toads. This book is much more the balance of science to personal experience that I was looking for right now, and I had a good time with this one.

19. Ancient Sea Reptiles by Darren Naish. I’ve been looking forward to this book since it was first announced, so I’m happy to report that it’s as good as I was hoping. The book discusses Mesozoic marine reptiles (with some guest appearances from Permian taxa, like mesosaurs). First, it goes through the history of their discovery and some overview of their anatomy, physiology and evolutionary relationships. Then, it goes through the clades. Ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, marine crocodiles and sea turtles get their own chapter, and all the other groups, from weird Triassic one-offs to sea snakes, are compiled into a single chapter. Naish is one of my favorite science writers, as he combines a phylogeny-centric approach for an appreciation of the novelties and weirdness of specific genera. I would love it if he wrote a similar book about another group for which books for educated laypeople are thin on the ground, like stem crocodiles or non-mammalian synapsids.

20. Effin’ Birds by Aaron Reynolds. This is the book form of a Twitter feed, which I appreciate from a historical perspective. The feed, and the book, have two main jokes. One, pictures of birds with profanity as captions. Two, faux descriptions of bird behavior and habitats that are jokes about common types of unpleasant people, or people who avoid unpleasant people. I got a few laughs out of it, but I’m glad that I got this book from a library and would not pay money for it. The funniest thing about this book to me is that that selfsame library put it with the books about bird biology and field guides, when there is zero informational content in this book, combined with the book itself making a joke about how you’d never find this book in a library.