#more like the picture of dorian GAY

[incongruous-faggots]

🤨🏳️‍🌈

[potato-lord-but-not]

would you be interested in some gay people plagued by horrors on this fine October evening?

[glorious-destruction]

I think about this a normal amount

[cassidy273]

Trying to explain the plots of books using Dhar Mann titles

The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Man makes PAINTING of GAY CRUSH - Lives to regret it!

The Phantom Of The Opera

Man gets BULLIED for DISFIGURED FACE - What happens next is shocking!

Be More Chill

Kid uses DRUGS to try and be POPULAR - He lives to regret it! (Ft. Keanu Reeves)

Lady Chatterly's Lover

Woman CHEATS on PARALYZED HUSBAND - Gets pregnant!

[fluffypinkposts]

The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Read this sooo long ago, it's such a vibrant story It's one of those books that are so good, I'd rather read them that eat a meal yk

[pasta-in-the-pudding]

RIP Dorian Gray you would've loved drunk elephant skincare <///3

[criscura]

Absolutely adore your OPM writing but I am also living for your recent takes about Dorian Gray. Easily one of the best books I’ve had to read back in school. I just love when I find other people who are also obsessed with jt!

THANKS FOR ACTIVATING MY TRAP CARD I'M GOING TO GO OFF ON WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT YESTERDAY

okay. okAY so like. so i finish Dorian Gray right. It still feels so cold and ruthless and bitter, and once AGAIN I'm left thinking "oh damn, Henry is probably gonna be a little devastated by this one, he spent the last twenty years hanging out with this dude who he was absolutely fucking almost daily, and THEN he's going to find out that Basil really is dead, AND his wife left him, he can't sardonic his way out of feeling for this"

and he's hot right like that's a plot-critical point, Henry is seductive. SO HERE I GO LIKE "okay tumblr let's try this again SUREly you have art of the fucked up sexy old bastard right"

AND FUCKING THEN (under the cut this is SO LONG and i'm not apologizing for it)

i go on and see????? like not only is there almost nothing of him??? people GENUINELY hate him??? but they LOVE Basil??? and I'm like no, no this CAN'T be right, maybe--like okay, Tumblr is a unique place, maybe this is one of those cases where my opinion falls more in line with the majority, so I go to google and I just. Type in "Dorian Gray Henry Wotton"

AND IT'S ALL THE SAME. ALL!!! ALL THE SAME!!!! He's awful, he's the villain, he's the worst, blablabla, and i'm like. okya. OKAY. ALRIGHT OKAY yes he was terrible but it was so painfully obvious he was in love with/obsessed with/infatuated with Dorian, S U R E L Y that's gotten him some brownie points there. Like. He sees Dorian, and then goes onto spend every single day with him if he can, morning, noon, and night, taking him out on dates and trips and giving him anything he asks, for EIGHTEEN YEARS, to the extent that when his wife divorces and leaves him he begs Dorian to stay with him.

Like even his whole issue with women, specifically romance with women, like---did???? did fucking no one???? ?DID FUCKING NO ONE READ THAT AND SEE A GAY MAN PISSED OFF THAT HE HAS TO PLAY A PART??????? HOW MUCH FUCKING CLEARER CAN YOU GET. All in all he does the EXACT SAME THING Basil does, just in his own way, so i figure there must, there MUST, there has GOT TO BE sympathy for him *somehwere*

AND!!!!! NO/!1!!!!! NOT!!!!1 NO!!!!!!!!!! EVERYWHERE!!!! i loook EVERYWHERE!!! for "Henry Wotton in love with Dorian" AND IT'S ALL LIKE!!! oh no, he just wanted power, oh no, he just wanted to see dorian fall, oh no, he NEVER felt ANYTHING for this guy he fucking DEVOTED ALL HIS WAKING HOURS TO IF HE COULD and i just. i.

so i go to my last recourse right??? i'm fucking desperate. i am DESPERATE. I go to Reddit. Surely, FUCKING SURELY--and at this point i just want to know I'm not insane, you KNOW you are in the absolute fucking trenches when you're going to reddit for opinions on literature but fuck at least if I can find a mirror in the cesspool i know that I exist right like i'm not some fucking ghost right SOMEONE will have seen what I saw--and

overwhelmingly

OVERWHELMINGLY

it's people talking about how much they hate Henry.

i. And like. SOME people are like "oh he was so interesting, he was the best part of the book," which yes, gratifying, but???? I????

As i was reading it, it was unbelievably--UNBEARABLY--again ****OVERWHELMINGLY**** obvious that a) both Basil and Henry were in love with Dorian b) they were BOTH older men taking advantage of him and dominating his time and attention so they could try to mold him into something for their own personal viewing pleasure c) Dorian was bare minimum a little bit shit from the start--as in, BEFORE WE SEE HIM he's introduced as someone who likes to hurt his friends because he enjoys it. This was so obviously a mean book about bad people and we're watching a train wreck unfold. a sexy, sexy, SEXY train wreck because wanting to fuck Dorian is a critical pull for the whole thing, but!!!!

BUT!!!!! ALSO CRITICALLY!!!!! ESSENTIALLY!!!!! HENRY WOTTON IS A SEXY ASSHOLE YOU NEED TO WANT TO FUCK

LIKE!!!!!! It's like the whole thing with stories about Satan, where he HAS to be hot so you understand why people would do what he says despite knowing it's bad for them. Henry is designed to be the dangerous, hot, older worldly dude stepping further and further into the shadows while beckoning for Dorian to follow after him, and to a certain extent you NEEED to understand that pull so you understand what Dorian is going through. AND THIS IS SO COMMON IT'S A MYTHOLOGICAL TROPE!!!

DO YOU HATE SATAN IN THE BOOK OF JOB. DO YOU HATE MEPHISTOPHELES IN MEPHISTOPHELES. Henry is performing the exact same role!!! All his lines are written sex!!!! it is fucking LEGITIMATELY some of the most sensual shit I have EVER read!! "talking to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin" ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. aND YOU!!! You're supposed to be pulled in!!! that's SO IMPORTANT. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU READ THE BOOK AND ENJOYED IT BUT HATED HIM AND DIDN'T WANT TO READ HIS LINES. WHAT DID YOU FUCKING READ.

But okay. Alright okay. EVEN DISREGARDING that Henry is a hot sexy bastard and that's necessary for the story and for Dorian's characterization. I would fucking GET IT if he was the ONLY person in the story that's like that. I would give it a pass if this is a story where everyone is good and sweet and everything is all daisies and niceness. FUCKING BUT.

THE ENTIRE NOVEL IS FULL OF ABSOLUTELY SHIT ASS PEOPLE FROM START TO END

Everyone uwu-ifies Basil, but that man is the same age as Henry. He saw this barely legal???? Not yet legal???? I'm not entirely sure how that works at that time with people of that status, but he saw the equivalent of a fresh-faced "i've been 18 for one day and have never left my house" angel of a boy who lost his parents young and was raised with family that fucking hated him and was like "yes well i want to look at him forever I'm going to keep him with me as much as I can and tell him how perfect and pretty he is so he does what i say and lets me paint him in whatever pose i can think of" and like

HE DOES TEH SAME THING AS HENRY???!!! IT'S TEH SAME THING???????

IT'S NOT BETTER JUST BECAUSE BASIL IS PATHETIC?

He does the same thing Henry does!!!! Henry is also a manipulative predatory asshole!! HENRY IS JUST MORE FORWARD ABOUT IT.

like WHAT??? what is it better when he does it because he's a sad wet cat of a man??? why, because he says he loves Dorian? He loves Dorian SOOOOOO MUCH he watches as he falls down a worse and worse path, refusing to believe any of the rumors he heard about him FOR TWENTY YEARS because they don't line up with how he personally sees Dorian, and only steps in to try to make a positive difference the HOUR before he was going to leave for an unknown amount of time???? he loves him THAT MUCH he just gives up every time he runs into legitimate resistance when it comes to helping Dorian out????

And!!!!! fuckin!!!! Everyone uwu-ifies Dorian too!!!!! ONCE AGAIN, LITERALLY ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS WE LEARN ABOUT HIM--no, I'm just gonna write out the paragraph:

"He likes me," he answered after a pause; "I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him dreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I know I shall be sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to someone who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day."

HALF OF THAT IS DEVOTED TO SAYING HE'S KIND OF A DICK. The *other* half is Basil saying being with him makes him happy, but, but, but, but, but. There's SO MANY conditions on that happiness. Dorian is NOT a purely good person--he's capable of good, but he's also capable of bad, and he chooses which he's going to be. He's capricious. And he's not an idiot!! He can tell Henry is bad news!! and he gets PLENTY of warning about it! But he's curious and he chooses to go back to Henry, over and over and over again.

AND THAT'S THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT!!!!!

Dorian chooses!!!! DORIAN CHOOSES!! Basil and Henry are both different forks on the same kind of hedonistic, idolatrous paths. Basil wants to put him in art; Henry wants to put him into the world. They're BOTH fucking Pygmalion and Dorian is their Galatea--it's just that the medium they both use is different. And Dorian can tell!!! He can see!! He realizes that Basil sees him like a pretty thing to keep around to inspire him! He KNOWS that Henry's ideas poisoned him!! AND YET!!

HE CONTINUES TO GO BACK TO BOTH, depending on what he wants the most at that moment!!

AND IN THE END HE BECOMES A WORSE VERSION OF BOTH OF THEM BECAUSE HE CONTINUES TO CHOOSE BAD DESPITE HAVING SEVERAL OPPORTUNITIES TO STOP.

The manipulation? Using people for his own pleasure and then throwing them away when he's bored of it? The hateful, bigoted, judgemental thoughts? Ruining lives because that's convenient for him? The deaths of MULTIPLE people, probably considerably more than we know about? Dorian does ALL OF IT, again and again and again, because he wants to.

We revisit him throughout SEVERAL points in his life, all of which it's very apparent he wants for nothing and can do whatever he pleases. At ANY OF THOSE MOMENTS, or any of the ones between, he could have chosen to do good. But the same way he chose to hurt Basil because he enjoyed it, he chooses to fuck around and cause chaos because he likes it. The ability to do bad was always, ALWAYS inside Dorian, and both Basil and Henry were fascinated by it because it served different parts of their own vanity.

Basil liked Dorian the way you like a filter on a camera, and he thought Dorian left everything that HE made looking more beautiful. It's made abundantly clear that his biggest concern was the art he was creating, and Dorian was key to it. Henry liked Dorian the way you'd like a phonograph, where you can hear everything you've said reflected back at you, but in a different way with different tones. They are BOTH narcissistic in their approach towards Dorian, WHO IN HIMSELF IS NARCISSISTIC IN HIS RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER PEOPLE. No one is good here!!! No one is a purely good person!!!!!!!!

And everyone else, except fuckin' Sybil Vane, is bare minimum kind of shit. We don't meet a SINGLE other character that's a glowing representation of what mankind can be, who doesn't have some sort of flaw. And like.

THERE IS A LITERAL LIST OF RULES AT THE BEGINNING THAT MAKE IT CLEAR NOTHING IN THIS BOOK IS SUPPOSED TO BE MORALLY GOOD.

It says it!!!!!! Again and again and again!!!!!! It makes it SO FUCKING CLEAR that this isn't concerned with right and wrong and you need to abandon that at the doorstep!! There are no good characters, the same way there aren't any evil characters, because that doesn't apply here.

SO FUCKING. TO COME BACK TO IT. AFTER ALL THAT. AFTER!!!! ALL!!!!! THAT!!!!!!!

TO HAVE PEOPLE SAY HENRY IS EVIL AND THE VILLAIN OF THE BOOK!!!!

DORIAN IS THE VILLAIN OF THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY. DORIAN IS THE BAD GUY!!!

Basil and Henry were paths!!!! They were choices!!! They were options AND DORIAN FUCKING CHOSE!!!!!!! And you're not supposed to feel good about it!! It's not supposed to make you happy!! We're supposed to see that Dorian was doomed from the start and we're watching his downfall!!

And it just!!!!! IT IS MAKING ME INSANE. IT IS DRIVING ME CRAZY THAT I'M NOT SEEING THIS OUTSIDE OF MY OWN HEAD. Gosh even just!!! Even the way the "Henry is the antagonist" removes agency from Dorian, and everyone else, when it involves Henry?? As if they don't all willingly go to him and talk to him and want to be with him??

Not to get fucking spicy about it but it comes WAAAAYYY too close to the idea that thoughts and ideas are guilty/sinful/actions in themselves and they need to be shut up, and there's little to no responsibility on the shoulders of the people hearing them to dissect them and decide whether or not they're a) legitimate and b) something they want for themselves. It's the reason it drives me absolutely I N S A N E when people say the devil made someone do bad or it was just God's influence who made something good happen, as if there weren't real actual living fucking human beings who made choices and put in the work, good AND bad, to make those things happen. It's like throwing up your hands and going "well! everything is predetermined and there's no point in fighting."

Like. The complete villainization of Henry, and the hand-waving on what Dorian and Basil do, is just---TUM,BLR. TUMBLR!!!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!! I CAME TO YOU FOR HELP. I CAME TO YOU FOR NUANCE. TUMBLR!!!!!!!!! HENRY IS THE FOREFATHER TO ALL YOUR SEXYMEN!!!!! HE'S GAY!!! HE'S MANIPULATIVE!!!! HE'S HOT!!!! HE'S WEIRD AND OLD AND LURKS IN CORNERS ALL THE TIME!!!!! WHAT !!! THE FUCK!!!!!!!

[gravedigg]

Here’s the Dorian playlist I started. It’s very much vibe focused, just let it wash over you. <3

[st4r-with-a-four]

They're so silly.

[azumasoroshi]

oh of course izaya is an oscar wilde fan. he would definitely use this as his bio for his private discord/twitter account

pulls out the importance of being earnest and the picture of dorian gray. time to analyze these from the psychological/literary perspective of izaya lets go baby (he has his own category)

edit check tags and rbs for some actual analysis stuff lmAOo

[x-the-picture-of-dorian-gay-x]

On one book cover I saw, Dorian wears these Crowley-from-good-omens-lookin-ass sunglasses and I needed to draw it

[fuckvictorvale]

up next on the dark academia reading list: the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde and these violent delights by micah nemerever

[passerinesoncaffeine]

omocat knew exactly what they were doing holy fuck

[renthony]

In Defense of Shitty Queer Art

Queer art has a long history of being censored and sidelined. In 1895, Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was used as evidence in the author’s sodomy trials. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the American Hays Code prohibited depictions of queerness in film, defining it as “sex perversion.” In 2020, the book Steven Universe: End of an Era by Chris McDonnell confirmed that Rebecca Sugar’s insistence on including a sapphic wedding in the show is what triggered its cancellation by Cartoon Network. According to the American Library Association, of the top ten most challenged books in 2023, seven were targeted for their queer content. Across time, place, and medium, queer art has been ruthlessly targeted by censors and protesters, and at times it seems there might be no end in sight.

So why, then, are queer spaces so viciously critical of queer art?

Name any piece of moderately-well-known queer media, and you can find immense, vitriolic discourse surrounding it. Audiences debate whether queer media is good representation, bad representation, or whether it’s otherwise too problematic to engage with. Artists are picked apart under a microscope to make sure their morals are pure enough and their identities queer enough. Every minor fault—real or perceived—is compiled in discourse dossiers and spread around online. Lines are drawn, and callout posts are made against those who get too close to “problematic art.”

Modern examples abound, such as the TV show Steven Universe, the video game Dream Daddy, or the webcomic Boyfriends, but it’s far from a new phenomenon. In his book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, queer pop culture analyst Matt Baume writes about an example from the 1970s, where the ABC sitcom titled Soap was protested by homophobes and queer audiences alike—before a single episode of the show ever aired. Audiences didn’t wait to actually watch the show before passing judgment and writing protest letters.

After so many years starved for positive representation, it’s understandable for queer audiences to crave depictions where we’re treated well. It’s exhausting to only ever see the same tired gay tropes and subtext, and queer audiences deserve more. Yet the way to more, better, varied representation is not to insist on perfection. The pursuit of perfection is poison in art, and it’s no different when that art happens to be queer.

When the pool of queer art is so limited, it feels horrible when a piece of queer art doesn’t live up to expectations. Even if the representation is technically good, it’s disappointing to get excited for a queer story only for that story to underwhelm and frustrate you.

But the world needs that disappointing art. It needs mediocre art. It even needs the bad art. The world needs to reach a point where queer artists can fearlessly make a mess, because if queer artists can only strive for perfection, the less art they can make. They may eventually produce a masterpiece, but a single masterpiece is still a drop in the bucket compared to the oceans of censorship. The only way to drown out bigotry and offensive stereotypes created by bigots is to allow queer artists the ability to experiment, learn through making mistakes, and represent their queer truth even if it clashes with someone else’s.

If queer artists aren’t allowed to make garbage, we can never make those masterpieces everyone craves. If queer artists are terrified at all times that their art will be targeted both by bigots and their own queer communities, queer art cannot thrive.

Let queer artists make shitty art. Let allies to queer people try their hand at representation, even if they miss the mark. Let queer art be messy, and let the artists screw up without fear of overblown retribution.

It’s the only way we’ll ever get more queer art.

_

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[pictureofdoriaaaaaangay]

chaotic book ramble so I can stop spiraling into the abyss: dark academia books you've heard of and probably already read edition

I need to talk about books I love to stay sane please stand by <3

Bunny by Mona Awad. I love this book SO MUCH. it's beautifully written, the characters are all unhinged women, there's murder, there's creation, there's a creative writing class. it drips with insanity and eroticism. reading it is like living a fever dream. you can picture the events of the book perfectly, but could never hope to explain it to anyone.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt. this book is the entire world to me. I love the characters [they're all terrible and irredeemable people], I love the story [they kill a man then they kill their friend and also worship Dionysus], and I absolutely want a friend group just like the Greek class [to reiterate: they are all walking red flags]. it's a book you have to read once, then again, and again, just to notice more and more so you can analyze it and make deductions. at the end of the day, it goes beyond the age-old "moral implications of murder" and delves into "moral implications of love". don't ask me how many times I've read it. that's my red flag.

If We Were Villains by ML Rio. it was only recently that I read this over the course of twenty four hours, and I honesty have yet to recover. I'm not a Shakespeare girlie, but I still loved the way his work was so inherently and intricately woven into the story of the iwwv characters. it was transcendent. it was a tragedy, it was a love story, it was a comedy. it depends on your perception of it, I suppose. but I digress - it's a really good bloody book. expect the ending to make you cry.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by our lord and savior Oscar Wilde. this, technically, can't really be classified under the textbook definition of "dark academia" since there's not exactly any academia (can Harry even read let's be honest here), but it goes in this list because VIBES. this is one of my favorite novels of all time, and another one I've read one too many times for it to not be a red flag. I mean, the name of my damn blog is my red flag. I love it so much. it's got everything, from art to obsession to murder to gay people to the most heartachingly profound lines you've ever read. I mean, why wouldn't you read it if you haven't already?

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever. this one snuck up on me. towards the beginning, I wasn't sure if I'd like it, but by the middle, I was hooked. by the ending, I was shooketh. reading the author note, I was sitting silently in abject horror. more gay people, more obsession, more murder - what else do I have to say?

this has been a chaotic book ramble. thank you for being here <3

[sweet-s0rr0w]

day 26 of @hprecfest - a smokin' hot fic

Lucid by @dracoladon - E, 4.4k, 2020

Summary: Harry's not sure what makes him harder; listening to Draco talk about astronomy, or shagging Draco so thoroughly that he can't talk at all. Both, probably.

Excerpt:

Mm, yes. Because, here’s the thing; Harry likes that his boyfriend is smart. 

He likes that Draco is passionate and articulate, and he likes that he can talk to almost anyone. 

He likes that he sometimes doesn’t understand Draco’s jokes, and that on occasion, his sarcasm is so profound that Harry really can’t tell whether he’s being serious or not. He likes it when Draco says something awfully dry, and he has a feeling that he’s just been insulted, but can’t be quite sure. 

He likes that Draco reads Muggle literature (he didn’t stop trying to pester Harry into reading The Picture of Dorian Gray for fucking weeks. “It’s like, so completely gay, Harry”. Harry tried, and didn’t get very far. Draco ended up reading it to him, and Harry was happy with that compromise) and listens to political podcasts. He likes that Draco researches alchemy while he’s studying at law school, just for fun — that he’s a swot, basically (perhaps even more so than Hermione, though it would send both of them into a strop if he ever voiced this opinion aloud.) 

Sometimes, when Harry’s brought home a casefile to review in the evenings, he’ll ask Draco to explain a paragraph of legal jargon to him, just to hear him talk, and see him wave his hands in that expressive way of his. 

Harry also likes it, however, when Draco gets… hmm. Harry’s friend Lachlan from five-aside-Quidditch, who is really fit and who Harry and Draco have on occasion invited into the bedroom (Harry hasn't ever been so simultaneously mortified and entertained as when Ron and Hermione walked in on the three of them. Ron essentially carked it right there in the doorway, and Hermione couldn’t look at him without blushing for weeks. His friends are so square, and he loves them terribly for it), calls it sex-dumb. Draco, when’s he’s emerged from said haze post-fuck, calls it fuck-drunk. Harry doesn’t know what to call it, but he thinks it’s utter perfection.  

This fic - YUM. Love the premise, love the dynamic, love the sex. Just the perfect little PWP.

If you read it, and especially if you love it, please do let me know! And as always, please do take the time to leave the author a kudos/comment <3

day 1 - first fic you remember reading

day 2 - a fic rated G

day 3 - a fic not on ao3

day 4 - a comfort fic

day 5 - a romantic fic

day 6 - a fic for a ship you don’t normally read

day 7 - the best of your OTP

day 8 - a fic that was recced to you

day 9 - a WIP

day 10 - a fest/event fic

day 11 - an underrated fic

day 12 - a fic from your favourite author

day 13 - a rare pair

day 14 - a fic rated T

day 15 - a fic over 50k

day 16 - a podfic

day 17 - a fic that makes you cry

day 18 - a fic that makes you laugh

day 19 - fanart

day 20 - a fic with fanart

day 21 - a fic rated M

day 22 - a series

day 23 - a crossover or AU fic

day 24 - holiday (vacation)

day 25 - holiday (national holiday)