Until further notice, just assume I'm angry

Kelcee (like Kelsey, but better. Because e's) Law school drop-out, X-files enthusiast, all-around dysfunctional excuse for an adult, haunted by the hovering specter of One Direction and The Social Network. She/her pronouns

[rabdoidal]

I’ve been thinking about episode 7 of City Council of Darkness and about Lavonte reacting the way he did to Maya assuming he and HJ were a couple.

Lavonte and HJ represent exact tropes of homosexuality and vampirism of the 1980s; by the 80s, vampires had shifted from countryside landed gentry hiding away in musty castles to urbanised capitalists - the setting changes, but they still benefit from the toil of others as the bourgeoisie against the proletariat (Morrissette, 2013). At the same time, people moving to cities during the industrial revolution to work formed proletariat communities of their own, including homosexuals that left their homes in search of a better life; the city was different than their small-knit towns where everyone knew everyone, and gave them freedom. By the 80s HIV/AIDs crisis, horror had synthesised vampires and homosexuality to be intertwined urban concepts; for members of these groups (homosexuals/vampires), there is an element of hunting or pursuing a partner (cruising/finding a victim), exchanging fluids (cum/blood), and those fluids put you at risk of sickness or death (AIDs/vampirism) (Clark, 2022). There is, further, the idea of “turning someone” - this is framed as a bad thing by out-members, but contains nuance within the community. They are both seductive. They are both abnormal. You should warn your children about (homosexuals/vampires), do not let your daughter move to the city, or she will become a (homosexual/vampire). Within horror, vampires began to be queer coded; Daughters of Darkness (1971), The Hunger (1983), Fright Night (1985), The Lost Boys (1987).

HJ is the exemplar of the 80s vampire - he is a businessman with immense power, he is slick, he is clean shaven and well dressed, he is a confirmed bachelor. He is coded as (homosexual/vampire), and it’s interesting to think about whether Lavonte pursued HJ because he was a vampire, or because HJ was a man. It is risky for either of those factors to be what makes him appealing, but the desire alongside the disorder is what makes it a (homosexual/vampire) love story - it would be horrifying to want someone while also being terrified of what they can do to you. It completely makes sense to me that Lavonte, even though Lou played it as a joke, would have reservations about people thinking he was gay. Being gay in the 80s meant being dirty, meant being sick, meant being less masculine or respected, meant being the “other,” regardless of if he’s gay or not (Clark, 2022). Even though I see Lavonte as being totally accepting, being gay himself would be an admission of guilt in some way. Lavonte is focused, charismatic, and doesn’t like hearing “no” - if someone implied he seduced HJ to gain vampirism, I think that would be his nightmare.

Truly, even though none of their 80s-gay-vampirism coding was intentional, and even though Lou and Ally were playing up the miscommunication as a joke, I think it's interesting to see how character moments make logical sense within meta-horror. It’s been a great season so far.

Clark, Ian (2022) "Infectious Queers: HIV/AIDS and the Vampiric Body in Interview with the Vampire (1994)," Journal of Dracula Studies: Vol. 24: No. 1, Article 4. DOI: 10.70013/n1p5h7g4 Available at: https://research.library.kutztown.edu/dracula-studies/vol24/iss1/4

Fullilove MT, Wiley J, Fullilove RE 3rd, Golden E, Catania J, Peterson J, Garrett K, Siegel D, Marin B, Kegeles S, et al. Risk for AIDS in multiethnic neighborhoods in San Francisco, California. The population-based AMEN Study. West J Med. 1992 Jul;157(1):32-40. PMID: 1413740; PMCID: PMC1021901. 

Heller J. Rumors and Realities: Making Sense of HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Narratives and Contemporary Legends. Am J Public Health. 2015 Jan;105(1):e43-e50. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.302284. PMID: 25393166; PMCID: PMC4265931.

Morrissette, J. J. (2013). Marxferatu: The Vampire Metaphor as a Tool for Teaching Marx’s Critique of Capitalism. PS: Political Science & Politics, 46(3), 637–642. doi:10.1017/S1049096513000607 

[rabdoidal]

worthystreet circa 1984 - self acknowledgement through the other

🦇 kofi link in bio if you’re feeling generous 🦇

[discoursedrome]

they're always bringing experts or activists on the news to agitate about porn and there's a standard script for this that's like "I think sex education is important, I'm not anti-sex, but so much of this porn is violent and misogynistic if not outright illegal, and it's far too accessible to our children"

I want to see someone finally be brave enough to say that the government should just make its own porn for teenagers that accords with community values, so they don't have to go to these shady places to get it. I think the government porn would probably be pretty bad but I would be so eager to hear about the process of designing it. there would be so many stakeholders and consultations. in canada it would have to be bilingual

[dickgirlsdaily]

[quendergeer]

no-one would find it at all sexy at first but then in 20 years there'd be a thriving fetish scene where people develop elaborate codes and practices around culturally-embedded tropes from government porn

[quendergeer]

guy who can only get off when his dom pretends to be badly dubbed into quebecois french

[astrodidact]

[intheheartofman]

[wonderwanda]

I reblogged this yesterday, but I want to reblog it again. Diabetic ketoacidosis turns your blood acidic and will essentially burn you from the inside out.

The stories you hear of people dying from rationing, this is what happens to their body.

Affordable insulin isn’t just a right, it’s a necessity.

No one should have to die like that when it’s preventable with access to proper medication.

[teaboot]

"Affordable" should be the lowest fucking bar. Pharmaceutical companies should be tripping over themselves to offer insulin at "affordable". That shit deserves to be fucking free

[exxos-von-steamboldt]

[delicatefury]

I just googled this and… yes, it’s absolutely real.

And there are so many articles and videos and discussions. Like, the scientific community is buzzing about this.

So much research will have to be redone because the data was absolutely compromised, off by orders of magnitude, by using standard lab gloves.

The world is probably not horrifically contaminated by microplastics. Sterile laboratories, however, are contaminated by latex and nitrile gloves.

Thank God someone bothered to check.

[beardedmrbean]

>I just googled this and… yes, it’s absolutely real.

Sources beyond dude just trust me, for the skeptics.

Scientists shocked to find lab gloves may be skewing microplastics data

Scientists may have been unknowingly inflating microplastics pollution estimates, and the surprising source could be their own lab gloves. A

https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/scientists-lab-gloves-may-be-causing-an-overestimation-of-microplastics-411138

Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics, U-M study reveals

Nitrile and latex gloves that scientists wear while they are measuring microplastics may lead to a potential overestimation of the tiny poll

Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics - Phys.org (it’s a pdf)

An Embarrassing Mistake May Have Skewed Microplastics Research All Along

Researchers discovered a standard piece of lab equipment has added thousands of microplastic ‘false positives’ per each square-millimeter un

Ordinary Lab Gloves May Have Skewed Microplastic Data

Ordinary Lab Gloves May Have Skewed Microplastic Data: That doesn’t mean microplastics aren’t a problem, though

That should be enough

[midnightportals]

[macklesufficient]

rb to give it up for laura hall and linda taylor

[slayerbuffy]

Gillian Anderson at the premiere of The X-Files: Fight the Future in Los Angeles, (June 11, 1998).

[disarmd]

I see all these posts being reblogged about how no one can finish their stories, the second half of the doc being a barren wasteland, fics without endings etc. Do you want me to tell you how to finish stories?

[disarmd]

How to finish your story:

Know the ending

Pick the right length

Stop talking about it

Work on the story you most want to write

Write it

[louisinart]

I liked this so much I made it into a spreadsheet!

Finishing your Stories

The sheet basically turns OP's recommendations into prompts with the goal of working through your ideas to find the finish-able story within. The document is read-only, but please feel free to make a copy, play with it, and share around!

[soracities]

Mia Mingus, from "'Disability Justice' is Simply Another Term for Love", pub. Leavings [ID'd]

[disarmd]

I see all these posts being reblogged about how no one can finish their stories, the second half of the doc being a barren wasteland, fics without endings etc. Do you want me to tell you how to finish stories?

[disarmd]

How to finish your story:

Know the ending

Pick the right length

Stop talking about it

Work on the story you most want to write

Write it

[godlessondheimite]

A YA romantasy writer filed suit against another writer for copyright infringement, and as is always the case with these things, she padded her claims with delusionally spurious examples. The judge issued a 160-page ruling against the plaintiff where you can tell from the start how resentful they (or whatever clerk actually did the work) are to have been forced by duty to have read the works in question.

[cloudabserk]

mutual feeling

[melandrops]

the aroace read of ryland grace is so personal and haunting. "you don't even have a dog." was it not enough to love the world for the sake of living in it. was it not enough to live for the thrill of discovery. was it not enough to smile at your students. was it not enough to be afraid.

[decadent-hag]

Where that New England Gothic post

[countkunt]

my personal favorite

[apocryphics]

oh ok

[gorps]

[exeuntstormtroopers]

“Why would you stop in hell?” has changed my brain chemistry

[ateazure]

"and the universe said i love you."

[salbertwolf]

Victor Glover (Pilot), Artemis II - April 4th 2026