#unthinkable natural law

[touhou-memories]

Locked and unlocked Music Room from Hisoutensoku if you do not have the game linked to Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (top row) and when you have it linked (bottom row).

[eddiesxangel]

Be Quiet Darling | Eric x Reader

Cw: aqpdo, porn with an end of the world plot. Oral (m receiving), p in v, use of breeding, no use of pronouns for reader but reader has breasts and a vagina.

Wc: 2k

The city loomed in darkness; its once vibrant streets were now shrouded in an oppressive shade of gray. Following the invasion of New York City, layers of ash and soot blanketed every surface. Despite the efforts of millions to escape, a few thousand souls remained trapped within its confines.

You were among the few thousand who were not so lucky to be stranded in the city, hiding underground in the basements and parking garages.

The bunker was the only place you could call home. It was a sealed-off parking garage located on the lower levels of a towering skyscraper. Months had passed since you had seen the light of day, and the absence of natural light had become the new normal. Quietness enveloped the bunker, and you longed for the sounds of the outside world. Anything but the rumbles of the military battling those creatures. Those aliens who had ultrasonic hearing could still hear you even though you were deep in the ground.

Even if you couldn't speak, you bonded with the people around you, mainly the law student you met named Eric. He had made an impression on you. An ever-growing crush was forming, and you didn’t know how to deal with it. The world was ending, but Eric was in your mind twenty-four-seven. You wanted to be near him; you longed to hear his voice; you wanted him to hold you and tell you everything would work out, that you’d escape this place and live happily ever after with the white picket fence.

Only in your fantasy would that happen, but it was nice to hold onto that dream as you learned the military was on its way to the last remaining survivors. They radioed the bunker to say it wouldn’t be easy, and you may die as the death angels were waiting and hunting still. There were thousands of them in New York State; even up north near the Canadian border was invaded.

The plan was to move everyone at dawn; it was going smoothly, and you and Eric stuck together throughout the march. Holding hands as you silently made your way through the rubbled streets that once held so much life, then the worst happened. Someone sneezed, and they were on you in an instant. Eric pulled you, and you ran with him. Neither of you knew where you were going; the subway was your best bet. You found a staircase that wasn’t barricaded and stumbled your way down as quietly as possible.

It must have been hours. You and Eric were hiding in an isle of an abandoned shop, munching on a bag of cookies that hadn’t been broken. Half an hour ago, you heard the sirens warning you to stay put. It sounded awful in the streets above. The sounds of guns and bombs, the shrieks of the creatures, echoed through the underground tunnels.

You mouthed, “I’m scared,” tears breaching your lash lines.

Eric nods, and you can see his eyes are wet before he reaches over and cups your head into the crook of his neck. You both silently cry before you lift your head and do the unthinkable at a time like this. You kiss him.

Surprisingly, Eric kisses you back, but you’ll take anything from him that he will give.

The moment your lips touched, you felt his weight sink into you, like he wanted this just as badly as you did. You desperately wanted Eric to hold you, tell you everything would be okay, and protect you from the abovementioned monsters.

Your hands found his waistband and tugged on the belt loops to pull you in closer. You knew it would be so stupid to do anything else; you could die in an instant, but your primal need to procreate and survive was taking over.

His hands grabbed your waist as he pulled you closer to him as well, so close you could feel how hard his cock had gotten. You both have wanted this for so long, but you dare not utter a sound as the passion grew stronger.

Your hands bravely went lower, and Eric pulled away, looking at you with those eyes that make your heart race. He bobbed slowly to confirm this was okay, and you slowly pulled the zip to make as little noise as possible.

Eric’s chest fell up and down with each breath of anticipation as he watched you so close to where he wanted you to touch him the most. Through all of this madness, he had fallen deep and had for you and yearned for your affection. All he wanted was to hold you, for you to tell him that it would be okay, that you both would survive this and live happily ever after.

You fold down his dress pants and hold back a giggle when you see his cowboy boxers. He rolls his eyes in embarrassment; of course, these were the only other pair of underwear he could find this morning. However, that didn’t deter you from kissing him deeply. You kissed him passionately, letting your tongue slip past his plush pink lips as your hand ran the outline of his cock through his corny boxers. His endearing ways made you want him much more now that you’re alone, hiding from what was above.

Eric wanted to let out a moan so badly when your fingertip grazed the head of his cock through the thin cotton. He was already leaking so much precum there was a little wet patch that had formed. You circled it with your thumb before you slipped your hand under the waistband and pulled it out.

The lighting in the small store was dim, but your eyes had adjusted so you could see what you were working with. You smiled to yourself as you observed the thick shaft in your hands. Your pussy clenched around nothing as visions of him stretching you out flooded your thoughts.

“So big,” you mouthed, and Eric bashfully looked down, shaking his head. You hooked your index finger under his chin for him to look at you again, and you nodded yes while biting your lip.

You don’t break eye contact as you sink down to take him in your mouth.

The moment your hot, wet tongue touches his head with a kitten lick, he has his fist in his mouth to stifle the noise he was about to make. You would have begged him to hear those moans in any other situation, but you’ll now yearn in silence.

You want to praise him, tell him how good he was for being so quiet, and tell him how strong and handsome he is.

Eric ran his hand over the top of your head, gripping your hair l, surprising you a little. Your soft sweet teddy bear of a man taking a little bit of charge on how you sucked his cock was so hot. He only puts a little pressure on your head to take him further and releases the tension when you take him the furthest you can. The velvety walls of his shaft guided against your tongue so smoothly that you loved feeling him in your mouth. You couldn’t wait for him to split open your pussy.

A small gasp escaped his throat that sounded like a “fuck,” but you stopped and froze in place to make sure that nothing heard it.

You looked at him through your lashes, and he mouthed a “sorry.”

You pulled up off him, and he thought he had ruined it, thought you no bother trusted him to continue, but when he saw you were unbuttoning your jeans and lifting up your top, he relaxed his tense shoulders.

“Please,” you mouthed, as sores your legs wide for him to come between. You wanted to feel him inside of you, and you didn’t know how much longer you had.

Eric nodded his head percussively as he crawled towards you, and you lay down, resting your head on an unopened cardboard box.

You hold in a moan as Eric kisses your exposed body. He started at your lips and worked his way down your neck, to your shoulders, to your breasts, staying as he paid close attention to each nipple. He looked up at you with those big brown eyes as he sucked and flicked your sensitive buds. Your pussy grew wetter by the seconds as he kissed your tummy and stopped right above the tufts of hair that led to your needy pussy. You wanted nothing more than to have him go down on you, but your need to be filled was stronger.

You shake your head before he can move an inch closer, and he looks at you in confusion. Eric knows he gives amazing head. He wants to feel you cuming on his tongue for him, to taste him, but when he sees your plead for him to fuck you, he can’t say no.

You watch as Eric nods and aligns his cock yo to your entrance. You watch his face as he slowly sinks into you, your pussy aiming him in so tight that he lets his mouth fall open but doesn’t dare let out a sound as you kiss him. With an elbow propped up beside your head, he takes your face in the other as he ungulates his hips to thirst up into you with such precision.

The way he slowly rolled his hips so that he couldn’t make a sound made you want to cry out. It felt so good. You haven’t felt good in weeks. You slowly leaked a few tears as it was all so much to handle. You break as you hold back a sniffle, and Eric kisses your tears away; he coos you silently, whispering so lowly that he’s got you, that you’re doing so well for him, how you’re taking his cock so good.

You wanted to beg him to fill you with his cum, that you’ll be so good for him, that you love him, that he’s all you have left in this world. You want to be his so severely that it hurts. Even now, as his hips roll into yours, as his cock is hitting that spot deep up inside you, you want to scream that you want him to mark you, claim you, breed you.

But you can’t. All you can do is kiss him and pull him in closer; your feet wrap around him, making his thrusts sharper as your pussy clamps down on his thick hard cock that is making you see stars.

Your wet pussy threatens to echo throughout the tunnels of the subway, but Eric slows down and reaches down between you to circle your clit. You let in a sharp breath as he massages your swollen bud. You’re so close you can feel it. You stare at him, not daring to look away to break you into reality.

Right now, it was you and him. Nothing else mattered. You both needed this to feel something other than fright and loneliness.

As you unfold for him, you and Eric stare into one another’s eyes. A silent scream of pleasure doesn’t dare leave your throat, but you let your jaw fall open and arch up into your orgasm. Eric wants to tell you so badly that you did so good for him that your pussy feels so delicious as you cum on his cock. The way you clamp down on him has his head spinning as well, your hot spend coating his cock, making your wet walls all that much warmer, tighter and wetter for him. He can’t help but release himself deep inside of you.

With heavy breath, you both lay there in silence, unable to say anything, but you both know that it was good, great, fantastic sex. Eric kisses you again for confirmation, and you gladly roll your hips into his softening cock before he pulls out.

What could be between the two of you with words could be amazing, but for now, this is what you have to survive.

[blasphemousclaw]

ok jokes aside… I’ve said this before but like the whole design of Volcano Manor is soooo symbolic of who Rykard is as a character… when you enter the manor through the front door, it’s grand and lavishly decorated and well maintained:

but behind curtain it’s an absolute horror — sinister serpent-creatures, gruesome torture devices and cages, half-dead victims, piles of corpses.

During the Shattering Rykard built up this persona as a “worthy sovereign,” someone who dared to stand up to an unjust order and to do the unthinkable in order to fight for a new world, someone whose ideals inspired his followers to fight for him. Then, he seemingly threw all these ideals away when he fed himself to the serpent god, descending into “mere greed” for power… but I don’t think Rykard ever really changed, I think his true motivations were always for the sake of power. It’s why he enforced the law of the Erdtree so brutally and turned his cloak so readily; I think he enjoys the feeling of exercising his power over others and despises being treated like a servant. His transformation into a grotesque monstrosity that is greed personified is just the natural conclusion of his greatest flaws.

Though Rykard during the Shattering and Tanith during the present day present their goals as noble despite their blasphemous nature, in reality, they are violent and grotesque… it matches our view of Volcano Manor as an initially noble and impressive estate that grows more and more sinister as we explore beyond the walls of the main hall. The way the setting is designed perfectly matches the character that looms at the heart of it... and that’s why I think it makes perfect sense for Rykard to have himself crafted both the manor’s noble facade and the horrors “behind the curtain.”

[kitsuren]

DEMO // PLAYLIST

Flirting with Death is a 18+ Otome-like action dark romance in the form of an interactive fiction. The game focus will be mostly into character and relationships development, exploring how you interact with the world and the reactions to your decisions.​

Take charge of Eris, a newly (and forcibly) inducted operative of a shadowy organization, as she enters a world way more twisted from what she is already used to. 

The game will be released chapter by chapter and it will be entirely free after completion!

You died. For all your life, you have been making bad decisions after bad decisions and this time your luck ran out. During your years working with the wrong side of the law you had seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. What you never expected was that your choices would take you into a maze of lies and backstabbing capable to bring countries to their knee. Something big is happening and you are not in the small leagues anymore. To bring down titans you will have to ally yourself with the shady HADES Project, a group with dubious objectives and even more dubious reasons. In a race against time you will have to do the unthinkable before it is too late. There is no right or wrong in this game and the stake is your second chance in life. The clock is ticking. Grab your power suit. Gather your allies. And remember: Trust no one.

Play as a female gender locked protagonist;

Customize your Eris: decide on your past, specialization, appearance, and attributes, bringing your character to life;

Romance one of the 3 initial ROs, each of them having their own unique route that explore the story trough different perspectives;

Make  decisions that impact the people around you for the good or the bad;

Use state of the art never-seen-before technology, including your very own power suit so you will never die (again!) during a mission;

Choose between 5 classes that will assist you during the various dangers that will follow you and your team as you try to solve the mystery;

Be a a righteous vigilante or a complete menace to society;

Kick a billionaire in the face (or not)!

This game is rated +18. Not only it will touch on heavy subjects, but it will also contain: 

Graphic depctions of violence; Strong language; Unhealthy coping mechanisms; Guns and gun violence; Manipulation tactics; Explicit sex (if chosen); Taboo relationship; Toxic relationship; Mature content; (This list will be updated if and when necessary!)

Yes, the protagonist is gender locked: This is my first time coding an IF and I didn't want to bit off more than I could chew. Not only that, I wanted to mix the otome/josei genre with the interactive format. Maybe it will work, maybe not.

This game is a ROMANCE first and foremost: You will not be able to opt out of it. I am aware that some people are not fond of this type of content and yes, you as a player will have the choice to have (or not!) sexual content/pda, but you will not be able to get out of locking into a romantic route.

Cold, cynical, and incredibly sardonic, Phobos is all objective, giving up on any and all distractions and not being afraid to do whatever it is necessary for the greater good. His no-nonsense attitude and his constant tries to intimidate anyone into submission​ turned him infamous in the organization. His morality is almost black and he doesn’t care about the sacrifices that he needs to do to obtain the desired result. Killing for him is second nature, but most of times he will let Deimos talk him down from his murderous rampage. At least until he decides that the more approachable way is not being efficient anymore.

Friendly, good natured, and helpful. Everyone who knows Deimos has the impression that the man is not fit for this kind of work. He is well regarded by anyone across HADES and normally tries to resolve everything without violence, doing a really good work as a “face” in his Kerberos Unit. But don’t be mistaken, even preferring to not harm innocents, Deimos is a perfect killing machine, honed by his past to be the perfect assassin and torturer. He has an approachable personality, but when working he only focus on the job that needs to be done. Can be quiet work focused and hyper fixate on the mission, which feeds his insomnia.

With zero chills to give and almost always having and anxiety attack due to Phobos and Deimos shenanigans, his boyish appearance masks very well his personality and he constantly runs with the power of coffee and spite. As a handler he is extremely methodical and professional, being proficient with first aid, tech, engineering, and plan making, even if his ADHD tries as hell to hinder his plans. Being a genius, he mostly always lose patience with stupidity and prefer to work by himself. Chaos is the youngest handler in HADES history and by far one of the most respected, at least by name, since he is the only one capable to make Phobos and Deimos to actually shut up with just a glare.​ Can be a tad dramatic and fatalist, but he rarely is wrong. His favorite phrase is “I ain’t paid enough to deal with this shit” (Yes, he is.).

[sweet-evie]

Pure Love

Rewatched JJK 0 recently, and caught the feels...

Content: JJK0 timeline... Post-Suguru... Established relationship, AFAB!OC, nameless OC, she/her/hers pronouns, Fluff, Angst & Comfort, Cheesy thoughts about love (like it's actually disgustingly cheesy), Lovesick!Gojo, Soft!Gojo, Sad!Gojo

✨ masterlist ✨

The blade slipped from his fingers and clattered loudly against the ground — the final punctuation to what should have been an unforgivable deed according to the laws of mortal men. He couldn’t bear to hold on to the blade, not when the deed was done, and not when he had already accomplished what was once unthinkable. 

He stared at his own hands and the specks of red that stained the pale flesh, stared at the man he’d called his best friend, his one and only, even after a decade had come and gone. He was horribly disfigured, the sight made uglier by the clean cut across his throat — just an empty shell of what he had always known.

His friend really had gone. The familiar traces of Suguru’s cursed energy, snuffed out — as it should be, and none other than at the hands of the strongest sorcerer alive — none other than at the hands of his best friend.

The tears wouldn’t come and the shortness of his breath didn’t abate. He couldn’t bring himself to stand again either, just numbly content to kneel on one knee before Suguru’s corpse — the murder weapon several inches away from his trembling fingers. Closing his hands into tight fists, Satoru refused to look away. He had priorities. He still had to check on his students despite the fact that he knew they were actually okay. But all the same, his own legs betrayed him and refused to get up — refused to leave. Suguru deserved better than this, and Satoru only had himself to blame for failing to see his friend’s struggles all those years ago — so absorbed in his own tumultuous thoughts, he’d unintentionally left his friend in the dust at a time when Suguru needed him most.

“Satoru…”

His ears barely registered the sound of his own name and the familiar set of footprints behind him. He now knew it was her, but he couldn’t bring himself to move still. He wanted to say something, he knew he needed to say something, but the words couldn’t quite leave his tongue. His own voice refused to cooperate. And for this, he would choose silence over the utterance of something careless and brash.

No number of words could properly express how he felt at this moment. Devastation, loss, guilt, anger at himself, exhaustion.

She was quiet and respectfully distant, offering him respite yet reminding him that he wasn’t alone — that he didn’t have to be alone. Not when he had her.

There were no words of reassurance, no expressions of verbal sympathy. Once again, she just knew that it wasn’t what he needed right now. Perhaps for later, but right now, he needed the silence, and not for the first time, he was eternally grateful for her unfailing understanding of his nature. She let him stew in his thoughts, let him feel whatever it was he needed to feel — just as she gladly shouldered the brunt of the turmoil he felt. She was steadfast and simply carried the burden of his loss alongside him.

A burden shared was a burden halved, was it not?

He vaguely registered her movement, noting that she’d left her naked katana on the ground in favor of kneeling beside him. A pair of familiar arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind as she buried her face into the crook of his neck and just held him. Her fingers threaded through his hair gently, drawing small soothing circles all over his scalp. His body responded to her touch and her ministrations, leaning into her compassion and her understanding.

And he was grateful for it all… Grateful to her even as grief swallowed him whole and left an empty space in his soul where Suguru used to be.

=OoOoO=

His sullen mood lasted all through the night. Even when they eventually returned to the home they shared, her Love stayed quiet and so very subdued.

The heaviness of loss combined with the weight of what he’d done for his best friend’s sake kept chipping away at him until she was left with a grieving husk — a man removed from his vibrant and cheery personality. She didn’t expect him to be okay at all. He could take as long as he wanted, and she would stay beside him all the same — to be there for him whenever he needed her (not that he would ever tell her that out loud). He never shed a single tear, never so much as sobbed or caved under the oppression of his own emotions. But he didn’t need to cry to show just how broken and defeated he felt.

He laid on his side all night, staring off into space — grieving in silence, perhaps even blaming himself. It honestly wouldn’t be the first time. It meant a lot that he was comfortable enough to let her be in his space while he wallowed in undeserved self-loathing. As they stayed longer in front of Suguru’s lifeless body that afternoon, she could feel his trust and gratitude in the way he buried himself in her arms.

And so as the night wore on, she didn’t hesitate to spoon him. They lay together with her arms around him and her lips leaving affectionate kisses on the crown of his head, his temple, or his cheek.

She drifted off to sleep with him in her arms and when she woke again in the middle of the night, the space he occupied beside her was empty. He was still in the apartment. In fact, she knew exactly where he would be. Padding out of the bedroom in her sleeping shorts and one of his T-shirts, she found him standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

Her heart breaking for him all over again, she stopped and stood beside him. She pretended not to notice the way his heavy gaze landed on her. Neither dark sunglasses nor pesky blindfolds obstructed her view of those gorgeous blues.

He embraced her this time, took her into his arms and held her tightly as they stared at the distant yet flickering night lights that dotted the rest of the Tokyo metropolis. Sheltered in his grasp with her ear resting on the place where she could feel and hear his steady heartbeat, his fingers found their way into her hair as his other hand moved up a little to caress her face and trace her features like he’d done hundreds of times before.

“Thank you.” He whispered quietly into her hair. “To be honest, I don’t know what to say right now. But perhaps it’s for the best. Just… thanks for not leaving me alone. I— I won’t be okay for a while, but it’ll get better.”

“I understand.” She smiled and squeezed him a little, more affectionately than she would like to admit. “I love you and I’ll be here. I’ll always be here.”

“Always there.” He echoed quietly. “You’ve always been there.”

“Do you need anything?” She pulled back a little to peer up at him through her lashes.

“You. I just need you.”

His lips pressed to her forehead, she basked in his love and the gentle yet potent thrum of his power simmering just underneath his skin. Inhaling deeply, she burrowed further into his arms, stepping ever closer into his space until she couldn’t tell where she began and he ended. Pressed so close to him, one of his hands drifted to cradle her cheek, tilting her head up ever so slightly so that when he leaned down to eliminate the space between them, brush his thumb across her lower lip, and initiate a tender kiss, she melted into it. They’d kissed plenty of times before and yet this one felt so different — filled to the brim with assurance, absolution, and comfort. A kiss so full of love, it made her head spin and her toes curl.

She was so in love with him and if he wasn’t holding on to her or too busy kissing her senseless right now, the force of the renewed realization would have knocked her off her feet. She sighed onto his lips when they parted long enough to catch their breaths, and when he leaned in again to kiss her, she let him — let him take as much of her as he wanted just as she basked and indulged in the love he poured into her.

It was… beautiful, exhilarating, blissful, consuming, and so unconditional.

It was so raw and wanting, so encompassing. So much love, her own heart could barely take it. He loved her so deeply and completely, all of the longings he’d had pent up, rushing out all at once to overwhelm her and ground her so firmly into his presence — fueled by a desperate need to communicate the depths of his love lest cruel fate intervened one day and he would never have the chance.

For as much as he grieved and agonized over the loss of someone who was tied and bound to his soul, he also reveled in the beauty and consuming nature of the love he found and shared with her — a love nurtured and cherished for nine long and precious years.

They parted quietly, softly gasping for air that couldn’t enter their lungs fast enough, staying close enough for their breaths to mingle.

A fond smile graced those lips as he regarded her with tenderness through half-lidded eyes that held infinite blue skies.

How he loved her so…

He kissed each cheek, the bridge of her nose, each eyelid, her forehead, and her lips again.

When she reached up to touch his cheek, eyes misty with gratitude and adoration for the man who always chose her from the moment they met, he held her hand against his face, turning to the side to kiss her fingers and her palm with the reverence he reserved just for her — his partner, his equal.

For her… For the love of his life.

==========================================

[Dumped in AO3]

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Elchanan Poupko

For centuries, rabbis around the world get up on Shabbat Zachor and speak about memory, never about violence. Not once in the past 2000 years of Jewish history – and that is a vast record to draw on – was the Biblical account of Amalek used to evoke revenge. It was always used to evoke memory. The imperative to remember the unprovoked atrocities committed against our own innocent communities.

The name of Amalek was invoked to remind us of the ubiquitous nature of antisemitism, the only hate in the world directed against people who are unknown to those seething with hate for us. People like the Houthis in Yemen who never saw a Jew in their life, yet are determined to destroy the Jewish state; Nazis in Germany who traveled hundreds of miles away from home to kill Jews in Belarus, Lithuania, Hungary, and Morocco even though they had never seen or known much about those Jews, that is the kind of evil we speak about when invoking the memory of Amalek.

In our generation, when speaking about that kind of senseless hate, we speak about the Hamas terrorists who woke up on the morning of October 7th and were willing to gable away their lives and futures to murder and burn alive people like Canadian peace activist Vivian Silver, someone who spent her life driving Palestinians from Gaza to medical appointments in Israel’s best hospitals. We invoke the memory of Amalek when we encounter something so evil it defies any logical explanation.

It is appalling to see how many people rushed to the Bible to judge Israel’s use of the memory of Amalek before looking at its use for the past 2000 years, most notably during the Holocaust.

While Germany starved to death and killed hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, Jews secretly published a newsletter called Kol Hamidbar in which the emaciated Jews wrote: “Many nations waged war against the Jews and did bad unto them, but Amalek, that is something absolutely different. Amalek put the destruction of Jews as a goal, a program, a method; premeditated, in cold blood, sadistically, according to a plan, organized, and with laws… Amalek and their grandson Haman are not satisfied with the killing of individual Jews…they would like to destroy the entire nation and eliminate Judaism.”

These words ring powerfully to any Jew who has seen what Hamas terrorists did on October 7th. The senseless hate that defies any logic or pattern of human conflict is simply unexplainable. The kidnapping of grandmothers from their homes and burning of babies and little girls alive with no reason whatsoever has no other language.

Jews invoke this language of Amalek when we encounter the world’s oldest hate, acted on with cruelty no human can explain. Jews have done so countless times while remembering the Holocaust and also did so while seeing the evils of Hamas on October 7th.

Like Jews after the Holocaust, the memory of Amalek’s unforgivable horrors reminds us of the need to take action. How does that action look? Years ago, speaking to congregants in synagogue, here is what I said as I spoke of the story of Amalek, and I was not the only one:

“The greatest heed to the call ‘Yidden, Nekama – Jews, Revenge’ inscribed in blood in Slabodka, Lithuania, is not going back to that town and place or to those perpetrators; it is that there are today thousands of students in Israel learning in Yeshivas named Slabodka. It is that we are undeterred in leading proud Jewish lives, laser-focused on the future while refusing to forget the past.”

Jewish revenge never looks like the acts of our enemies. We never follow in the inhumane footsteps of those who committed the unthinkable against us. This is true also concerning the horrors of October 7th.

[touhou-memories]

Giant Catfish - Hisoutensoku.

I did not draw the pictures, I only made the collages.

[tea-with-evan-and-me]

man about town interview | spring/summer 2014

for the tweam! click through for my best attempt at deciphering this (maybe impossible to find?) throwback interview

‘’I don’t think I’m scary at all. It was kind of funny watching myself being scary. Because I’m not scary.’’ Says Evan Peters, the up-and-coming up-for-anything actor best known for his extreme roles on American Horror Story, the prestige television series that treats social taboos as map points. For three seasons, Peters has excelled at playing against his offbeat boyishness by amping up his young Malcolm McDowell intensity, with results that fall somewhere between ‘’teen dream in strangler’s gloves’’ and ‘’terrifying Michael Cera.’’ He most recently appeared in American Horror Story: Coven as Kyle Spencer, the good-natured university student who is decapitated and then reanimated with the body parts of his Kappa Lambda Gamma brothers as a temperamental Rocky Horror who beats his sexually abusive mother to death with a trophy.

Over a bold chai tea with stevia, at a restaurant in Venice, California, Peters is lighthearted and dryly humorous, like a young Michael Shannon, with whom he should costar in a successful disturbing family sitcom. He wears black jeans, a well-worn t-shirt under a plaid flannel, and a necklace with a toy dinosaur pendant. He drives a 2004 Pontiac Vibe that he correctly describes as ‘’vintage’’; says that he just feels like growing his longish blond hair into a ponytail, and has a red thumbs-up permanently inked onto the to pof his right hand, that was traced over a nightclub door stamp. At one point, he raises his forearm to show off a temporary tattoo that he received the night before at the castle park family entertainment center in Sherman oaks. ‘’This is a Belle tattoo. It’s not real,’’ he explains playfully of a small portrait of the beautiful young heroine from the animated Disney film Beauty and the Beast. I tell him it’s very pretty. ‘’Thank you. She’s gorgeous,’’ he responds. I ask if Belle is his favorite Disney princess. ‘’Well, I picked her out. There was also Jasmine, Ariel and Cinderella. My other buddies got those.” ‘’What about Belle appeals to you?’’ ‘’She likes the Beast.’’ Peters says.

This summer, Peters appears as the teenage Mutant speeder Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past, the sequel to 2011’s X-Men: First Class, which has proven to be an eventful ??? movie. In October 2012, director Matthew Vaughn – who relaunched the franchise with much needed style and a new cast of young, indie + credible actors – left the film to be replaced by original trilogy director Bryan Singer. As such, fans were already touched when Singer announced that he would retell ‘’Days of Future Past,’’ the seminal X-Men time-travel storyline from 1980, an ambitious plan turned wild when he revealed that both franchises would merge into one. Cut to the 2012 San diego Comic-Con whereby unthinkable feats of scheduling – the sprawling casts of the modern-day first series and the 60’s era prequel (that include expensive names like Jennifer Lawrence, Hugh Jackmon, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Michael Fassbender, and so on). Convened with ??? new additions like Peters to unhinge popular culture. ‘’You think to yourself, ‘’wow, people really, really love this stuff.” And it makes you appreciate it more. It makes you work harder at it.’’ he says about the experience.

Peters’ role in the films is crucial but concise. ‘’It’s a huge, huge opportunity but I always make sure to tell people it’s just one scene. Easy, it's just one scene.’’ Peters says, as if talking down a rearing horse. Quicksilver has already been the subject of film industry chatter regarding lawful usage of the character, who is both the son of Magneto and a colleague of the Avengers, making him fair game for inclusion in both Days of Future Past and the 20n5 Avengers sequel (in which he will be played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson of Kick-Ass). An Empire magazine Preview of Quicksilver’s costume design was greeted with comparison to Kid Vid, a ‘90’s cartoon form of the Burger King ‘’Kid’s Club,’’ and the news that Peters had been saddled with the Halle Berry “rough wig’’ role. But his fan’s enthusiasm for the project—in which desperate X-Men from a dystopias future try to stave off mutant genocide by altering the present day—is undimmed. ‘’I think it’s the best film of the francise yet,’’ proclaims Peters. ‘’It’s pretty dire. It’s a pretty epic situation. But there’s definitely some humor in there. Its’s just badass, man.’’

Quicksilver is a departure for Peters in some ways if not others. Both X-Men and Horror Story are tight productions that take extensive precautions to protect story lines. Peters says that he did not receive the full script for X-Men until arriving at the Montreal location days before shooting. Horror Story pages are often delivered the night before a scene. The short lead time can demand a ??? almost improvisational acting process. ‘’The minute we get the script, plans are cancelled, dinner is cancelled,’’ he says about working on Horror Story. ‘’Some of it you’re like, ‘Oh shit, I have to do that?’ Screaming and crying, realizing that my whole body is pieced together and I’m not myself? I’ll probably have to work on that.’’

Peters owes his career to television. ‘’I was watching a lot of TV and I kind of wanted to be on the TV and in movies. I love movies and TV,’’ he says, and cites inspirations like Joaquin Phoenix, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, George Clooney, JIM Carrey, Chris Farley, Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, and the millennial teen comedies Even Stevens starring Shia Labeuof and So Little Time with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. ‘’That sort of stuff. I just really wanted to be a part of it and loved acting and performing.’’ He moved to Los Angeles with is mother when he was 15 years old, and steadily won work in television, on shows including Phil of the Future (2004) and One Tree Hill (2008), and in movies like the independent films Clipping Adam (2004), his first big break, and later Kick Ass (2010). Being cast as Tate Langdon in the first season of American Horror Story in 2011 was his tipping point, playing a Skull Boy-faced high school shooter in a latex catsuit who rapes his girlfriend’s mother to please a ghost. He has since become one of the five main players to appear in all three season of the series, sterling company that includes Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe and Frances Conroy.

Now the world gets to enjoy a lighter side of Peters, like when he appeared on a 2011 episode of the G4 networks Attack of the Show and blithely volunteered that he was working a a rap song called ‘’I’ll Tap That Fucking Ass.’’ He laughs off a request to recite a verse. ‘’I can’t. That never materialized. I tried but it was too much pressure. It was just a concept. I was just trying new ideas,’’ he says, and then volunteers a different musical direction. ‘’It’s called ‘Natch Snatch.’ Like all natural snatch. Big bush. Snatch. Cause it’s nice. You know, ‘girl, you’ve got that natch snatch.’ It’s another nice concept. Probably on the same album.’’ Peters laughs in agreement at the suggestion that he is a kook in the best sense of the word. ‘’I get called a weirdo sometimes,’’ he admits ‘’But it’s like, I don’t feel that weird. I don’t feel that different. I look at everybody else and I’m like, ‘’you’re a fucking weirdo, too. You like all of your shit. I like my shit.’’ Why does one have to be weird and one have to be normal? It doesn’t make any sense to me.’’ Meanwhile, he seems to be successfully negotiating his public and private persona. ‘’I’ll try to be myself as much as I can but you obviously can’t be who you are at home in your skivvies eating donuts. You can’t be that.’’ He explains, before confirming that guy exists, with his tongue sort-of-in-cheek. ‘’You bet he does. Yeah, definitely watching New Girl. Crying.’’ But while Peters seems fairly comfortable in the public eye, fame no longer interests him. The development is not unrelated to his intense, closely-watched relationship with fiancée and two-time costar Emma Roberts (on coven and in the 2013 ?? Adult World) ‘’When I was younger I was like, ‘’That would be awesome!’’ now I don’t particularly love it,’’ he says ‘’Emma gets paparazzi a lot, and because I’m with her we get paparazzi, so it’s kind of a weird thing that I don’t love. But it’s so small in the big picture of all the positives that come with this job that I can’t really complain about it.’’ he may be surprised by the attention he and Roberts receive, but he is hardly self-ptying. ‘’Honestly, it’s not that bad. If you don’t set up a Google alert on yourself and go out searching for it then you’re not going to see it. So I don’t see it.’’ Roberts has already endured the Hollywood learning curve that Peters is now experiencing. ‘’She gives me advice, like cut your hair. She likes my hair to look nice,’’ he says, and laughs. ‘’She’s been around and knows the ropes and how to play the game very well. And she has incredible social skills. She can talk to anyone and everyone loves talking to her. I’m not that good at that stuff so she kind of helps me out with that.’’ I wonder what guidance she offers him. ‘’You’ve just got to be personable and talk to people, even if you don’t want to. Put on a happy face and buck up. Grow a pair of balls. Don’t be a little wuss.’’ Petersa says, and laughs. ‘’I mean, she doesn’t say that, but you know what I mean.’’ 

Next for Peters is Lazarus, opposite Olivia Wilde, Donald Glover and Mark Duplass a 2015 feature from director David Gelb, known for the documentary Giro: Dreams of Sushi. Peters describes the project, about a team of brainiacs working magnanimously to reanimate the dead, as a “contained Sci-Fi horror thriller” as it mostly takes place in one laboratory setting. He plays the party animal scientist. Peters encouraging sidesteps the questions of his involvement in the next season of American Horror Story, to be set in 1950 and the present day, for which Jessica Lange is practicing a German accent. ‘’I don’t know what I’m allowed to say so I’m going to say no comment,’’ he says.

‘’At the end of the day it is acting. You want to go with the biggest, weirdest, boldest shit and see if you can actually do it and go there,’’ Peters concludes, ‘’I’m very curious about everything. I feel like I don’t know that much. I’m trying to learn it all and figure it all out.’’

[msgameandcake]

A very strange quote about Sanae from Symposium of Post-mysticism is "Unfortunately, she lacks in knowledge about the outside world. No one has been able to learn about any newer technology or gain any new information about the outside world from her." with the additional note of "According to her, 'I'm telling you, everyone's like this.'"

Her story in Unthinkable Natural Law is founded on her being familiar with the tropes of Mecha Anime, which would imply she at least knows about TV. She was stated to be good at math and science in school. She goes on to talk about some elements of irl space travel in Touhou 15. She was the one who suggested to perform the nuclear fusion experiment in Gensokyo because the fantastical nature of the realm could potentially allow it to succeed where the conventional reality of the Outside World resulted in those experiments failing, and she was right about its success! Kanako intends on becoming a goddess of technology specifically because it was replacing her function as a god.

By all accounts, Sanae knows a decent bit about technology. The SoPM quote is framed as though the implication is Sanae is clueless about modern technological progress and was functionally already living in ancient Japan while in the Outside World. Like, I guess she'd be Japanese Amish or something? However, given the knowledge she has displayed throughout the series, the implication becomes reversed. Even though they functionally live in ancient Japan, the people of Gensokyo apparently know enough about the modern technology of the Outside World that Sanae, who has displayed knowledge of telecommunications, nuclear power, and space travel, didn't have anything new to teach them.

Maybe this was an early idea for the character, but ZUN decided to take her characterization in a different direction as time went on. Maybe she really didn't know about outside world technological progress, but in working towards becoming a goddess of technology Kanako began teaching Sanae about such innovations over time. Maybe there is something major I'm missing here and every interpretation I've brought up is fundamentally off somehow. Its all just a bit odd to me.

[racefortheironthrone]

Are there any notable examples of anti-mutant prejudice towards the X-Men coming from within the superhero community?

This is a great question!

This gets to the complicated nature of how mutants fit into the Marvel Universe. I've always been a vocal proponent of the idea that, far from the mutant metaphor only making sense if it's in its own little bubble where mutants are the only people with superpowers, the mutant metaphor actually functions better in the context of the Marvel Universe, because it allows you to explore more complicated and more subtle ways that prejudice functions.

While there are plenty of super-villains who have quite blatant anti-mutant prejudice, you don't tend to get that same kind of overt bigotry towards mutants among super-heroes. Partly, this is because bigotry is a very unheroic character trait, but it also has to do with the way that the way that Marvel historically portrayed the spillover effects of anti-mutant prejudice.

Following in a kind of Niemöllerian logic, it's almost always the case that groups that hate and fear mutants also end up hating and fearing non-mutant superheroes. Thus, Days of Future Past starts with the Sentinels being turned on mutants, but it ends with the Sentinels wiping out the Avengers and the Fantastic Four too - because the same atavistic fear of "the great replacement" applies to both mutants and mutates. Likewise, the same forces that line up to push through the Mutant Registration Act inevitably end up proposing a Superhuman Registration Act, because once you've violated the precepts of equality under the law for one minority group, you establish a precedent to do it to another.

Instead, I would argue what you see in the case of anti-mutant prejudice among superheroes is explorations of liberal prejudice. This takes many different forms: in Civil War, you see Tony Stark insensitively try to wave the bloody shirt of Stamford in the face of a survivor of the Genoshan genocide or Carol playing the good liberal ally but ultimately trying to get mutants to set aside their own struggle in favor of her own political project. (For someone who's spent a good deal of time working, and living with, the X-Men, occasionally against the interests of the state, Carol does have a tendency to stick her foot in her mouth. Hence in Civil War II, you see Carol essentially goysplaining the dangers of creeping authoritarianism to Magneto.)

In Avengers vs X-Men, you see the Avengers acting like they know the Phoenix Force better than mutants and ultimately prioritizing the safety of mankind over the efforts of mutantkind to reverse their own extinction. This is where the "Avengers are cops" meme in the fandom comes from. (I would argue that Captain America is badly mischaracterized in the latter event - we know which side he's on when the interests of mutants and the interests of the state come into conflict.)

The common thread here is that anti-mutant prejudice among superheroes emerges as a kind of unthinking, unreflective callousness brought on by a worldview that thinks of humans as the universal default of lived experience - while thinking of mutants as a somewhat annoying special interest group that fixates on their particularist grievances rather than working for what the heroes consider to be the common good.

For a more intimate version of how this plays out, I think the Fantastic Four are a great exploration of how "well-meaning" liberals can massively fuck up when they don't do the work of examining their own biases. We've seen this since the very beginning: in Fantastic Four #21, Kirby goes out of his way to depict uber-WASP Reed Richards blithely assuming that the "free market of ideas" will take care of the Hatemonger, while the subtextually Jewish Ben Grimm knows that the way to deal with a mind-controlling Hitler clone wearing purple Klan robes is deplatforming-by-way-of-clobberin'.

Then later on, we see Reed Richards debate Congress out of passing a Superhuman Registration Act, while saying nothing about the Mutant Registration Act - even though he has a mutant son who is directly threatened by it. (See that adorable blond moppet with the slur scrawled across his face in the fictional advertisement above? That's Franklin Richards.) This is why I have a crack theory that Franklin's biological father is actually Namor rather than Reed, which is why Reed so consistently shows a passive-aggressive hostility to his son's mutancy.

At the same time, Sue also has her blindspots when it comes to mutant rights. In the underrated FF/X miniseries, Susan Storm acts like an understanding and supportive parent to Franklin - right up until someone suggests that Franklin might want to come to Krakoa and explore his mutant identity, at which point she goes full Karen and starts lashing out with her powers. Chip Zdarsky, the writer, explicitly compared Reed and Sue to liberal parents who support gay rights in the abstract until their kid comes out as trans and wants to spend time in LGBT+ spaces.

[sotwk]

I would absolutely love to hear literally any random thought you have about Eomer or Boromir.

Hee! What a wonderful Ask! But oh my goodness, this is a little tricky because just thinking of either of those two kind of torches what few brain cells I have left because they're just so... you know. ;)

I do have timeline notes for these two wonderful Men because I'm finally starting my multi-chapter fics for them. However, I don't want to spoil anything, so lemme check what headcanon is spoiler free....

Quick Headcanon: EOMER

Eomer's military career can be summarized as follows:

Ages 12-15 - Served as squire to King Theoden

Age 16 - Accepted as Rider in the Eored of his cousin, Theodred

Age 20 - Given command of his own Eored

Age 26 - Becomes the Third Marshal of the Mark

Eomer is a prodigious soldier, often deemed the greatest Rohirrim since the days of Eorl himself. This is the result of natural (almost supernatural) talents and a fierce dedication to his country. He envisioned himself as serving as a soldier his whole life and never had any political aspirations.

Quick Headcanon: BOROMIR

Book canon states that Boromir had little interest in taking a wife because he was too preoccupied with learning the ways of warfare so he could protect his beloved City. This certainly was true when he was younger, because settling down wasn't a priority in his mind.

But I also headcanon that young Boromir was a "good soldier" a.k.a. good at taking orders. This was part of why Denethor loved him so much; he didn't deviate from "The Plan". Basically The Plan was to inherit the Stewardship and rule Gondor after his father. Oh, and he was going to marry and have kids and continue the prestigious bloodline.

Denethor assigns his sister-in-law, Ivriniel, to find a good match for his son for whenever the right time came.

Good Soldier Boromir says, mindlessly: "Yeah, okay, sure. Whatever, Auntie." He was ready to do as he was told and just let them pick his "perfect" wife for him.

But then he did the unthinkable and fell in love. With a commoner. A commoner with a far-less-than-ideal background.

That's not THE PLAN, Boromir! You're not supposed to have opinions!

And you can bet Lady Ivriniel is gonna make a damn good impression of Lady Catherine de Bourgh when she finds out and it's gonna make for some Austen-ian drama.

(All this coming in the Boromir fic I have in the works.)

Tagging just a few fans who might be interested: @scyllas-revenge @ass-deep-in-demons @hippodameia @hobbitwrangler @konartiste @emmanuellececchi @thetempleofthemasaigoddess @heilith @absentmindeduniverse and I'm sure I've missed people but like I said my brain cells are probably fried from thinking about these two. XD

Other useful links:

Introduction to SotWK

Fanfiction Masterlist

Fanfiction Request Guidelines

[reasonsforhope]

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has galvanized Ukrainian society in many unexpected ways, but perhaps one of the most remarkable is how it has advanced the rights of LGBTQ people.

On Tuesday, in a move that would have been nearly unthinkable a year ago, a Ukrainian lawmaker introduced legislation in the country’s parliament that would give partnership rights to same-sex couples. This legislation, along with a prohibition against anti-LGBTQ hate speech abruptly adopted in December, reflects a sharp rejection of Russia’s effort to weaponize homophobia in support of its invasion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said repeatedly that he attacked Ukraine last year partly to protect “traditional values” against the West’s “false values” that are “contrary to human nature” — code for LGBTQ people. Perhaps he hoped this would rally conservative Ukrainians to Russia’s side — it’s a tactic Kremlin allies have tried repeatedly over the past decade. But this time, it instead appears to be convincing a growing number of Ukrainians to support equality and reject the values Putin espouses.

--

Recent History

I could not have imagined the LGBTQ movement building such momentum when I first visited Ukraine as a reporter in 2013. Ukraine was then on the verge of consummating its long-negotiated “association agreement” with the European Union, a step Russian President Vladimir Putin bitterly opposed. As the deadline to sign the agreement approached, an oligarch close to Putin funded a campaign with billboards reading, “Association with EU means same-sex marriage.” Anti-EU protesters dubbed the EU “Gayropa.”

This effort failed to dissuade Ukrainians from a European path...

But the past decade has also seen Ukrainians standing firm in their commitment to democracy, and a growing understanding that this includes protections for fundamental rights.

There was an explosion of organizing by LGBTQ people in the years that followed the Revolution of Dignity, and some slow advances were made. But it’s been the stories of queer Ukrainians fighting and dying in the war with Russia that have truly helped other Ukrainians to see them as full citizens.

Pictured: Territorial Defense member Romanova shows a unicorn insignia, a mythical creature that has become a symbol of the LGBTQ community. This patch, which depicts a "valiant" unicorn breathing fire, has become the unofficial symbol of Ukraine's LGBTQ+ military.

Today

Ukraine’s current LGBTQ rights debate is unprecedented; never before has a country under siege had such visibly out soldiers who have so few formal rights under their own country’s laws. LGBTQ rights supporters have successfully framed the question on same-sex partnership as whether Ukraine will recognize LGBTQ people as equal citizens, which has become the norm throughout much of the European Union, as well as North and South America. They are successfully flipping the proposition that, as one Ukrainian politician once infamously put it, that “a gay cannot be a patriot.” ...

“I actually think that the Russians did a good job in terms of raising awareness and changing attitudes towards the LGBT community in Ukraine,” Sovsun told me in an interview. “The more Russia insists on [homophobia] being a part of their state policy, the more rejection of this policy [there] is from inside Ukraine.”

The aspiration of many Ukrainians to join the European Union has also helped move more Ukrainians to become supportive of queer peoples’ rights, as Ukraine attempts to define itself as a European democracy in contrast to Russian autocracy. A study conducted last May by the Ukrainian LGBTQ organization “Nash Svit” and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found nearly 64 percent of Ukrainians said queer people should have equal rights. Even among respondents who said they had a “negative” view of LGBTQ people, nearly half said they still supported equal rights.

The current push for same-sex partnership rights began with a school teacher from Zaporizhzha named Anastasia Andriivna Sovenko. In June, Sovenko registered a petition with Ukraine’s government demanding same-sex couples be granted partnership rights. It said simply, “At this time, every day can be the last. Let people of the same sex get the opportunity to start a family and have an official document to prove it. They need the same rights as traditional couples.”

Sovenko said she was inspired to file the petition after reading a story about different-sex couples getting married before one partner went off to war. It felt unfair to her that queer people couldn’t take the same step to protect their rights. Signatures quickly poured in, stunning even Sovenko herself...

Under Ukrainian law, the president is required to formally respond to any petition that gets 25,000 signatures, and the partnership petition quickly cleared that threshold. But in a sign that the politics of the issue remains complicated, Zelenskyy ruled out full marriage rights in his response, arguing that this required a constitutional change that could not be carried out under the rules of martial law. Instead, [Zelensky] punted to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, to examine the creation of civil unions. His language implied support, but he stopped short of using presidential powers to make it a reality.

“Every citizen is an inseparable part of civil society, he is entitled to all the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in the referral."

-via Politico, 3/7/23

Notes:

While the fight is still ongoing, I can't underlie enough how massive this shift in public opinion is. Russia and Ukraine have generally been incredibly unsafe places to be LGBTQ, including in very recent history. This is huge, and it sounds like it will only get bigger.

This could also help bring about a wider sea change throughout Eastern Europe, which in general has a very pervasive culture of homophobia, often tied in with both religious conservatism and ethno-nationalistic conflict, though thankfully things have been improving significantly over the last decade.

[inventors-fair]

Sublime Scares: Fear Contest Winners!

~

Our winners this week are @izzet-always-r-versus-u, @nine-effing-hells, and @reaperfromtheabyss!

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Don't Make a Sound

Not to be confused with Don't Blink, Don't Move, or Don't Try This at Home. This is a brutal punisher card, though, levying a harsh tax at anyone who tries to extend to far on their own turn. Of course, it still leaves players with the ability to do so if they're confident they can bear the cost, unlike more stringent effects like Rule of Law. I love the use of flavor here too: as with a lot of punisher effects, both the gameplay and flavor stress that you don't want to make a wrong move. I do worry that this might be just a bit too effective at two mana, because the restriction to only a player's own turn means you could simply build your deck to play on your opponent's turn and handily break the symmetry. But that's also a fairly big commitment to go all the way, so...I dunno.

@nine-effing-hells — Bedside Shadow

Oh, well, hello there! What bring you here at such a late hour, friend? This thing's got more than a little DNA from the original Lazav, but I appreciate all the little touches to set it apart. First, requiring specifically discarding and milling to trigger goes a long way towards sharpening the focus, though it does make it less broadly applicable. Lazav will pick up more faces just in the natural course of the game; this one asks you to go out of your way. That said, the ability to field multiple of these is very attractive, and needless to say I find the flavor brilliant. At a first glance this effect seems slightly dubious in mono-black, but in practice it's not all that different from black's propensity for stealing creatures from others' graveyards, so I'll give it a pass. Oh, and, one minor wording tweak: the typical phrasing is that it "has this ability," because you don't need to gain an ability you already have.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Nagging Anxieties

From sleep paralysis demons to the terror of the waking world, but no less a Nightmare! This is a neat little thing that—just like its namesake—compounds on itself very quickly. There's a bit of luck involved, and your mileage will vary heavily depending on what kind of deck your opponents are playing, but you should be able to hit something and a land reasonably often in any situation. I'm a big fan of how this explores how mill is often represented as a sort of mental attack, and it's also a lot more subtle and insidious than the blunt force of something like Traumatize or Glimpse the Unthinkable. The flavor text is great as well, evoking the spirit literally whispering doubts into your ear. I do have a small, potentially insignificant critique, though: I've been erroneously referring to this card all week in my head as "Nagging Worries," which I just feel flows much better than the chunky word that is "Anxieties." That's very much up to you though, of course.

~

Don't go anywhere, runners up are right on your heels! —@spooky-bard

[100gayicons]

Walter Plunkett was an award winning costume designer, perhaps best known for for his work on “Gone with the Wind” (1939). In 1951, he was one of three credited designers on “American in Paris” (1951). His contribution was for Beaux Arts Ball sequence in the film. The three designers shared the Academy Award at the 24th Oscar ceremony in 1952.

As a young man, Plunkett studied law at University of California at Berkeley, but he discovered his true passion - acting. In 1923, his father bought him a ticket to New York and encouraged him to give Broadway a try.

Although Plunkett was cast in several productions, he found greater success in costume design. He was encouraged by friend and fellow designer Howard Greer to go to Hollywood, where Greer was already ensconced.

Many of the costume designers for the major studios were gay. Hollywood gave Plunkett the opportunity to openly live life as a gay man. Friend Don Bacardy (partner to Christopher Isherwood) once said of him:

“I'd say Walter Plunkett was very at ease with who he was.”

In the 1940 U.S. Census, Plunkett identified his then lover as another member of his household, Hal Richardson, as his “partner.”

Satch LaValley, another close friend described how Plunkett would put up bail for gay men arrested for cruising Pershing Square or Griffith Park.

"He'd often post bail for boys who were arrested. He didn't even have to known them. That was just part of his nature. He'd hear of some boy's story and go down and try to help."

After his retirement in 1966, Plunkett lived in Santa Monica with his longtime companion Lee.

In an era with no gay rights and the idea of gay marriage unthinkable, Plunkett made plans to ensure Lee would inherit his estate after he passed… he adopted Lee as his son.

Plunkett died in 1982 at the age of 79.