reading male-written books is so tedious. since sexism isn't real (or offensive), people casually rave about a sexist book with no mention or criticism of sexism, influencing you into picking it up with hopes of this man's mind being the exception. it's not. the walls of his mind palace are covered in misogyny mold and so, while the reviews are praising the furniture, you are standing there, bewildered, wondering why and how everyone else is completely chill about the mold.
I'm currently reading a book where the male protagonist at some point in the beginning mentions himself being sympathetic to feminists (the reasonable ones only of course, not the radicals) as a reason for why women should date him in his internal monologue. He later on demonstrates that even just calling out his sexism is crossing that line for him. 🙄
He's also a cheating pest who has sex with women mainly to boost his ego and doesn't care about his partners besides wanting to get into their pants until they break up with him, and even then only wants to get them back for his pride.
Meanwhile the reviews are talking about how relatable the characters are, and i'm like, if all men think like this i'd rather stay single for life...
the relatability as a justification is interesting to me, because in literature classes it was always the readily available explanation for the graphic descriptions of violent and cruel behavior towards women. he is stalking her to get off? well that's relatable; the author isn't pretending to be better than how an average man actually is. he is treating female characters as mere sex objects? well everyone does, don't they? oh don't be silly. if a man tells you otherwise, he is posturing. and so on. it was expected that you, as a woman, would let it slide not in spite of it being common but because it is. it's the norm. you are the weird one for protesting.
meanwhile the female-specific experiences in books written by female authors automatically marked them as female fiction. they can't be relatable to anyone but a woman. which is, in a way, the tedium i was talking about: to be a woman and to imagine yourself and other women as human is strange and unusual; instead, you have to ignore the sexism, allow it to go unquestioned, to keep enjoying anything male-made. rather than forcing men to change it is seen as more reasonable to force women to adapt to being mistreated.
It's also crazy because at first you're like, this author is writing a sexist asshole on purpose, bit annoying for a pov character but whatever. And then as you keep reading you realize oh no, this is actually the author's self insert mary sue and the author is the one who's a sexist asshole, and he's not even aware of it. And neither are any of the male readers.
this is such a poignant discussion; i actually recently read something which is a brilliant critique of misogyny with a sexit male main pov, but as its written by a woman it actually accomplishes the critique instead of simply reinforcing sexism (its claire keegan’s so late in the day by the way, in case anyone’s read it).
i haven't read the book myself, but i want to chime in with an addition: i think that a big part of distinguishing portrayals of sexism vs endorsements of sexism is in the dignity and humanity afforded to female characters. a lot of male authors can vaguely recognize that misogyny exists. a lot of them are capable of recreating that misogyny (think grimdark traditions of brutal rape portrayal to add "grit" and "consequence" to the story; manipulating the real history to make it even more sexist since that feels more "true" to how a modern person with little interest in the matter might imagine that past) in their narrative, but most don't even try to focus on the women who are subjected to those misogynistic acts (e.g. rape victims don't actually struggle much in unappealing ways which it's difficult to sexualize; they are either fine, hypersexual, or vulnerably sad). because those male authors notice, but they don't empathize. that's the difference.
I understand why a lot of fantasy settings with Ambiguously Catholic organised religions go the old "the Church officially forbids magic while practising it in secret in order to monopolise its power" route, but it's almost a shame because the reality of the situation was much funnier.
Like, yes, a lot of Catholic clergy during the Middle Ages did practice magic in secret, but they weren't keeping it secret as some sort of sinister top-down conspiracy to deny magic to the Common People: they were mostly keeping it secret from their own superiors. It wasn't one of those "well, it's okay when we do it" deals: the Church very much did not want its local priests doing wizard shit. We have official records of local priests being disciplined for getting caught doing wizard shit. And the preponderance of evidence is that most of them would take their lumps, promise to stop doing wizard shit, then go right back to doing wizard shit.
It turns out that if you give a bunch of dudes education, literacy, and a lot of time on their hands, some non-zero percentage of them are going to decide to be wizards, no matter how hard you try to stop them from being wizards.
It wasn't just the hoity-toity ritual magic stuff, either. Popular media often frames a fundamental opposition between the Church and practitioners of the Old Ways™, but on the ground, any given medieval European community's foremost practitioner of traditional folk magic was likely to be the village priest. And again, they very much were not supposed to be doing this. There were some very pointed letters going around reminding people to cut that shit out, not that we're naming any names, Jeremy, and no, "if you invoke the saints first it's fine" is not going to fly with the bishop.
I feel like a lot of folks in the notes are missing a critical piece of context here because they're not clear on what the Church's official position toward magic actually was during the Medieval period.
In brief, the idea that magic is a. real and b. Satanic was not the party line for the greater part of the Middle Ages. Obviously the particulars varied both regionally and over time, but for the most part, the official position of the Church was that there is no power but God's and magic is fake. The Church's principal objection to the practices of divination, spirit-binding, etc. was that they were fraudulent, not that they imperilled one's soul. Sometimes this was even carried to the point that accusations of witchcraft would result in the accuser getting in trouble rather than the accused; after all, if your neighbour is pretending to do wizard shit, that's fraud, but if you actually believe your neighbour is capable of wizard shit, that's heresy!
The hardline "magic is the work of Satan" stance that most folks are thinking of when they think of magic and the Church wasn't particularly widespread until very late in the Medieval period, and is really more characteristic of the post-Reformation era – which adds an extra layer of hilarity to the aforementioned local clergy doing wizard shit, because from the perspective of their superiors, the problem was less "oh no, our priests are consorting with Satan" and more "god fucking damn it, our priests keep scamming people with this wizard shit".
The really funny part is that, by all accounts, some of the priests involved didn't even want to be doing wizard shit. Allegedly, they more or less got pressured into it by their congregations, who expected wizard shit of them and wouldn't take "no" for an answer.
I've been summoned by @artielu to vet this post, and I'm happy to confirm that it is, in fact, fairly accurate and does represent many of the ways in which medieval people did (and did not) think about gender, witchcraft, religion, magic, and practice. I've written quite a bit on this topic before, probably back when I was teaching a class on magic and the supernatural in the Middle Ages, but it's been a while.
The boring stereotypical Bad Middle Ages take is that medieval people were all howling misogynists and thus were burning Female Witches (and also midwives, out of an idea that medieval people saw all female-led intellectual practice as inherently bad, which is also uh, questionable) at the stake left and right. As I have carped about many times, Witch Trials (TM) as most people think of them were decidedly an early modern invention. The idea of witchcraft as both a) real and b) specifically and evilly female was also in fact a very late medieval invention; it was most explicitly codified in the infamous Malleus maleficarum of 1485. However its author, Heinrich Kramer, was already a raging misogynist and had been chased out of his parish the year before when for some reason, people got tired of him randomly accusing their wives and daughters of witchcraft. The Malleus is well known as a "witch hunting handbook," but people then tend to generalize its late 15th-century conclusions, written by one tiresome misogynist, as completely representative of The Middle Ages Everywhere. The Malleus also contains some anti-sodomitic polemicals, so there are just a whole stew of gender, queer, and other anxieties being represented here in a late medieval context. See i.e.:
Bailey, M. D., ‘From Sorcery to Witchcraft: Clerical Conceptions of Magic in the Middle Ages’, Speculum, 76 (2001), 960-90.
Bailey, M.D., ‘The feminization of magic and the emerging idea of the female witch in the late Middle Ages’, Essays in Medieval Studies 19 (2002), 120-134
Broedel, H.P., 'To preserve the manly form from so vile a crime: ecclesiastical anti-sodomitic rhetoric and the gendering of witchcraft in the Malleus Maleficarum', Essays in Medieval Studies 19 (2002), 136-148
Broedel, H.P., The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft: Theology and Popular Belief (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003)
Harley, D. ‘Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-Witch’, Social History of Medicine, 3 (1990), 1-26
Katajala-Peltomaa, S. ‘A good wife? Demonic Possession and Discourses of Gender in Late Medieval Culture’, in Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by M.G. Muravyeva and R.M. Tovio (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), pp. 73-88
Stephens, W., ‘Witches who steal penises: impotence and illusion in the Malleus Maleficarum’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 28 (1998), 495-529
It's true that some of the most dedicated practitioners of ritual magic, and scholars and conservationists of magical texts, were monks, churchmen, and other religious figures. Some of them started from the position that God possessed the only supernatural power and any claim of other magic was wrong, but many others did believe that magical power was accessible from a variety of sources, even as this interacted uneasily with related notions of heresy, religion, blasphemy, and (demonic) sin. This represented the complex and shifting interaction between institutional Catholic and traditional/folk magic beliefs, which were never fully assimilated or "erased." It was in fact also popular among laypeople, as magical amulets or charms were highly valued for their supposedly protective capacities. Magic and ritual magic was also widely used in medicine and yes, for sex (people have always been people etc. etc.). See i.e.:
Bailey, M. D., Battling Demons: Witchcraft, Heresy and Reform in the Later Middle Ages (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 2003)
Boureau, A., Satan the Heretic: The Birth of Demonology in the Medieval West, trans. by Teresa Lavender Fagan (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 2006)
Collins, D., ed., Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West (New York, NY and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Fanger, C., ed. Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic (Stroud: Sutton, 1998)
Flint, V. I. J., The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991)
Kieckhefer, R., Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Kieckhefer, R. ‘Erotic Magic in Medieval Europe’, in Sex in the Middle Ages, ed. by J. Salisbury (London and New York, NY: Garland, 1991), 30-55
Olsan, L.T., ‘Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice’, Social History of Medicine, 16 (2003), 343-66
Page, S. Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests and Occult Approaches to the Medieval Universe (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 2013)
Rider, C. ‘Danger, stupidity and infidelity: magic and discipline in John Bromyard’s Summa for Preachers’, Studies in Church History, 43 (2007), 191-20
I could go on with quite a bit more, but the point is: there is an extensive scholarly literature on this topic, and any depiction of magical and supernatural beliefs in the Middle Ages, especially in popular media, is often the laziest imaginable shorthand for "they all hated women, thought they were witches, and burned anyone who didn't believe in the all-powerful Catholic church." Yet again, this also does vary by time period, as The Middle Ages are not one single undifferentiated block. A twelfth-century author is far more likely to scoff at the credulous fools who think magic is real or can actually compare to the power of God, whereas the early-modern authors, influenced by Kramer, will do far more of the stereotypical "witchcraft is a particularly female-gendered thing and also real, satanic, and evil." And yes, many medieval magic practitioners and enthusiasts were a) monks and the church and b) regular people, because it occupied a complex place in their belief system and was by no means simply evil. This doesn't mean that they were "more" or "less" enlightened according to the also-wildly-erroneous Scale of Perceived Human Progress, but just that they were complicated, stereotypes are stupid, and my kingdom for one (1) single nuanced, thoughtful, or remotely accurate depiction of this in medieval-themed media. The end.
Want to weave but don't have space for a loom? Have a few sticks and yarns but no DIY skills? Come, be tempted anyway. Weaving is a whole family of crafts, some of which don't require a loom at all.
Small-ish looms like box looms (as basic as yarn wrapped around a cardboard grocery tray), inkle looms, and rigid heddle looms exist, but I'm assuming every possible space for a box in your life is already filled. In this post we're going even smaller and cheaper. As far as possible, everything either is flat enough to stow behind/under furniture or rolls up safely into a bundle of just sticks and yarn.
Many of these crafts have some crossover - the same setup can be used for multiple styles of weaving. Most of them can be improvised at home depending on what you have on hand, or if you need to buy something there is not a huge gulf between homemade vs professional equipment. Alas I am not skilled in any of these and my descriptions will not be wholly accurate; corrections and additions welcome! If you need help, I'd only be able to tell you to seek out books and tutorials yourself, ask other weavers, and just try stuff out.
All photos included with permission. My thanks to the people allowing me to use their projects! I saw so many gorgeous and skillful projects when assembling this and I wish I could have included them all.
Fingerweaving
Projects by @kitteniestkitten (here) and @wefty-weaver (here)
Culture - I am aware of this as a Native American technique, I don't know its history with any more specific tribe.
Fabric - "Warp faced" cloth of any width, insofar as warp and weft have meaning for this craft as the weaving is on a diagonal. Often used for sashes or blankets.
Method - There is no loom! A couple sticks hold the yarns to begin with, but then it is all freehand. Starting at one corner, you use your fingers to weave a strand through the other strands, and... that's it. Very simple beginnings work up to very complex patterns that no loom is capable of. The whole project can be rolled up when not active.
Backstrap loom
Projects by @calendae-creations (here) and @weavingforlooms (here)
Culture - I am most aware of this from the Andes but I think it is much more widespread than that.
Fabric - Warp faced or balanced fabric of any width up to your own reach, suitable for blankets and clothes and many other things.
Method - You are the loom! Several horizontal rods hold and manipulate the warp threads but your body provides the tension, with the other end hooked to some furniture or around your own feet. When not in use, you can roll up all the equipment into a small bundle of yarn and rods. You can also use a backstrap loom setup for other methods like tablet weaving.
Warp weighted loom
Projects by @shadowcreepling (here) and @doctormead (here)
Culture - used by ancient Greeks among many many others.
Fabric - any kind of fabric at any size. Shadowcreepling is using a warp weighted loom for a tablet-woven band, Doctormead is probably using heddle rods to make a wider piece of cloth.
Method - the warp threads are held by a bar at the top and tensioned with weights on one end that hang down towards the floor, then the weft is woven into them with any method such as tablets, heddle rods, or by hand (if you have a lot of patience) and beaten into firm fabric at the top or bottom of the loom. Warp weighted looms can be very big, but they are simple and can also be very small and taken apart when not actively weaving.
Tablet weaving / card weaving
Projects by @damage-ko (here) and @foxease (here, hardware from CellesKit on Etsy)
Culture - found as far apart as textiles (geographically and temporally) from Byzantine Egypt and the Vikings
Fabric - a warp faced fabric with patterns made by twining warp threads around each other, usually used for strong narrow bands like collars, belts, and shoelaces.
Method - the cards hold open the shed so you can pass the weft through, then rotate the cards to advance the pattern. Many people make their own with cardboard or playing cards, or you can buy some. The rest of the weaving setup can be improvised with a backstrap (or just a shower curtain hook clipped to your trousers), a cardboard box loom, or warp weights.
Rigid heddle band weaving
Projects by @pisaracraft (here) and @crookedtines (here)
Culture - small rigid heddles like the first project have been found in Roman archaeological sites across Europe. The larger rigid heddle in the second project is being used for "baltic pickup" style designs on the band.
Fabric - can be warp faced or a balanced weave, size limited by the size of your heddle.
Method - you provide tension with any setup you please such as an inkle loom, backstrap, or warp weights. The heddle creates sheds so that you can pass weft yarn through the warp easily. Infinitely many "pick-up patterns" let you weave patterns and even words into the cloth.
Pin loom / potholder loom
Projects by @pardalote (here) and @weavingmyheartout (here)
Fabric - a small square (or rectangle or triangle) of balanced weaving, which can be used alone or patched together into larger fabrics. Pin looms are finer and suitable for many knitting/crochet yarns, potholer looms are chunkier and designed for big elastics, but the method is similar.
Method - wind yarn lengthways around one set of pins and then pull yarn widthways through these strands with a hook. Or, work at 45 degrees in continuous strand weaving! Lots of room to experiment with colour and texture. You can improvise a pin loom by cutting notches in a square of sturdy cardboard.
Needle weaving / stick weaving / peg loom
Projects by @thaylepo (here) and @pastelispunx (here)
Fabric - weft-faced fabric and rugs of any size.
Method - thread long thin warp threads through the pegs, then wind a thick weft (eg heavier yarn, sheep fleece, or long scraps of fabric) around the pegs. Push the weft down along the pegs as they fill up, so that it slides off onto the warp. The pegs can be secured in a base to make a peg loom for large projects, or just handled freely. I believe these evolved as separate crafts and the nuances are different, but the overall method is similar.
Frame loom / tapestry loom
Projects by @squeakygeeky (here) and @battlestar-gasmacktica (here)
Fabric - weft-faced or balanced fabric ideal for wall hangings and upholstery, size limited to the frame being used.
Method - (usually) thinner warp threads are wound round a frame, such as heavy cardboard with notches cut in the end, a picture frame, or a small and flat purpose-made loom. Thicker weft threads are woven in by hand using needles or just small lengths of yarn. Some people make lifelike images, others make more ordinary fabrics or geometric patterns.
Bobbin lace
Projects by @crochetpiece (here) and @noxx-notions (here)
Culture - began in renaissance Italy and spread throughout Europe, often as a cottage industry.
Fabric - balanced fabric usually made of very thin threads in freeform shapes. It's not usually considered "weaving" but the basic cloth stitch is definitely a woven fabric!
Method - each thread is wound onto a bobbin (e.g. a clothespeg) and then bobbins are crossed over each other to weave threads together. The lace is pinned to a cushion to hold everything in place while the design grows.
L to R: Sagiri Seina, Ouki Kaname, Amami Yuuki, Asumi Rio, Wao Youka, Asaji Saki, Shiraki Ayaka
If you’re queer and into theatre or Japanese media, chances are that you will have heard of all-female theatre company Takarazuka Revue… but it’s also equally likely that you won’t have checked out anything of theirs. For those who are curious but were intimidated by its over 100 years of history, or who just want a quick primer to ease in, click below!
1. Why get into Takarazuka?
L to R: Rei Makoto in Tiara Azul (2024), Yuzuka Rei
For those into androgynous women
As you probably already know, Takarazuka's big selling point is that it's an all-female theatre company where the male characters are played by women. The actresses are expected to continue presenting that way off-stage, which in practice means a lot of handsome women with short hair in binders and men's clothing... Why that might appeal to people who are into androgynous women (or GNC/enby folks) is pretty obvious.
Reality Check:
Sadly, after "graduation" (i.e. leaving Takarazuka), nearly all such actresses will transition into feminine presentation and take on female roles. It's similar to the "lesbian glasshouse" idea in Class S yuri, but for gender non-conformity. That said, there are some notable counter-examples: Shion Yuu and Nanami Hiroki have basically refused to change their presentation after graduating (the latter still frequently plays male characters in both anime and stage productions), and things are more relaxed lower down the rungs too.
L to R: Wao Youka & Hanafusa Mari, Sagiri Seina & Sakihi Miyu
For those into butch/femme pairs
Just as roughly half of Takarazuka's actresses specialise in male roles (otokoyaku/男役), there is another half specialising in female roles (musumeyaku/娘役). On top of that, Takarazuka is split into five different troupes, and for any given production, the male lead and female lead are automatically assigned to that troupe's "top star" (leading otokoyaku) and "top musumeyaku" (leading musumeyaku) - the "top combi".
Unlike leading pairs in other theatrical traditions, the "top combi" concept extends to them being marketed as a pair in interviews, magazine features, TV programmes, etc. Just watch the mini TV special where Sagiri Seina and Sakihi Miyu visit Tokyo Skytree and Sumida Aquarium-- it's basically a date, and is described as such by the commentating TV announcer. Likewise, Wao Youka and Hanafusa Mari were interviewed about being a "golden combi" by women's magazine Fujin Kouron (though to be fair this was after they had, improbably, managed to win a Kikuta Kazuo Theatre Award - an award for individuals - jointly, for their "splendid performance as a combi" in 2004's Boxman).
Taken to its extreme, there have been cases where the Japanese public have been convinced that a top combi was dating, as with the immensely popular 1980's pair Daichi Mao and Kuroki Hitomi... It's no wonder that the actresses themselves frequently describe it as being like an arranged marriage.
Separately, due to certain reasons, it's practically part of the job description for top musumeyaku to adore their top star partners. This, in theory, inadvertently creates a safe space for any top musumeyaku who could be gay for their stage partners... Just to illustrate, during her graduation speech, Hinami Fuu repeatedly referred to her feelings for her top star partner Hokushou Kairi as koi (恋), a word specifically denoting romantic love, and nobody blinked an eye.
Reality Check:
Due to conservative attitudes in both Japan and Takarazuka itself, most actresses go on to marry men, including many of those named above. Vanishingly few are publically out, though former otokoyaku Higashi Koyuki (stage name Aura Maki) is a queer activist and was one half of the first same-sex couple to be married in Japan, and another former otokoyaku, Misuzu Aki, has been living with her female partner in Europe for years. Just, well, don't forget that being married to a man isn't necessarily evidence of heterosexuality.
L to R: Asumi Rio in The Poe Clan (2018), Sagiri Seina in Rurouni Kenshin (2016)
For lovers of anime and manga
Takarazuka is probably best-known as the inspiration behind Revolutionary Girl Utena, Revue Starlight, Kageki Shoujo, and Sailor Moon’s Haruka and Michiru, but did you know that it also inspired seminal works featuring androgynous female leads such as Princess Knight? If you enjoy “prince-type” characters in yuri, you’ve got them to thank
Apart from inspiring anime and manga, Takarazuka also does quite a few animanga adaptations itself! Most famous are their Rose of Versailles musicals, but other popular adaptations include Ace Attorney, Rurouni Kenshin, Lupin III, Boys Over Flowers, and Hagio Moto’s bishounen vampire vehicle The Poe Clan. They’re also doing a Castlevania musical this year!
Wao Youka & Hanafusa Mari in Phantom (2004)
For the theatre nerds
Female Phantom of the Opera, duh
Jokes aside, Takarazuka’s unique position in the theatre world can't be overstated. As a rule, all-female productions are either smaller-scale, one-offs dependent on the work, or part of a theatrical tradition completely separate to Western-style plays or musicals (hello, Chinese Yue opera). Takarazuka is the exception: it offers productions comparable in size and scale (and budget) to the largest West End and Broadway musicals - it just so happens that it's all-female.
If the all-female aspect doesn’t excite you then why are you here, then let me emphasise again: Takarazuka is totally worth checking out as a production company in its own right. It is very much a part of the broader Japanese musical industry, and one of its powerhouses at that. Just take a look at some of these clips from past productions (all around 5 mins or less):
(a) Maeda Keiji - a musical loosely inspired by real-life samurai Maeda Keiji;
features an uncannily convincing horse performed by two people in costume which needs to be seen to be believed
(b) Ephemeral Love - a period piece about the doomed love between Prince Rudolph
of the Hapsburgs and his lover Marie Vetsera
(c) The Man Who Never Sleeps - a biographical musical about Napoleon Bonaparte
(d) Casino Royale - an adaptation of the 2006 James Bond movie of the same name
(e) BADDY - an off-the-wall sci-fi comedy featuring loads of velvet suits, silly shellfish outfits, and queerness.
Wao Youka and Hanafusa Mari in Dracula (2011)
2. Random Queer-ish Trivia
It's pretty common for former otokoyaku to be cast in WLW roles: Sena Jun headlined the 2018 Japanese production of Fun Home, Otozuki Kei cameoed as a lesbian escort in 2022 LGBTQ-themed J-drama Kojinsa Arimasu, and Seto Kazuya played the owner of a lesbian bar in 2024 yuri J-drama Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko. (Incidentally, Sal Jiang, the original creator of Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko, has mentioned being a fan of Sena Jun when she was younger)
Otokoyaku are sometimes mistaken for men, with amusing results: Yuzuka Rei was thought to be a “host” by a passer-by while talking to her fans, and Houshou Dai has mentioned being hit on by a woman before. But the prize goes to Todoroki Yuu, who like many women once had to rebuff unwanted advances from a man—except in her case, he thought that she was a guy
Before entering Takarazuka, Sou Kazuho – eventual Snow Troupe top star – went to a co-ed school and had long hair. To her confusion, this didn’t stop her classmates from asking her to play a male character (possibly the male lead, IIRC) in the school play. They saw her as an otokoyaku even before she did!
Continuing with the high school theme, former Cosmos Troupe top star Wao Youka has boasted about how in her high school days, she received more Valentine’s chocolates than her brother, and in fact second-most out of her year. Important note: she went to a girls’ school
Speaking of Wao Youka, her 2011 Dracula (see photo above) - from @cryoverkiltmilk's “Cunt Dykecula” post - wasn't actually a Takarazuka production! Since Wao was acquainted with and later married its composer Frank Wildhorn, some assume he was the one to cast her, and that Hanafusa Mari was brought in due to being her old stage partner. But Wildhorn had wanted Wao to play the female lead. It was she who insisted on Dracula. And Hanafusa wasn't just a third party... she had been Wao's manager since 2007, having retired from the stage after graduating and only just returned with 2010's Dietrich. (She played Edith Piaf, legendary chanson singer and “very good friend” of bisexual icon Marlene Dietrich, played by Wao.) Dracula was the swan song for their partnership, with Hanafusa going on to conquer the Japanese musical industry as she had Takarazuka-- but it marked the first, and so far only, time a top combi performed as romantic partners after graduating.
On a separate note, renowned queer photographer Leslie Kee has been responsible for taking the cover portraits for Takarazuka's offical monthly publication Kageki (歌劇) since 2010. You should definitely check out his ongoing "Out in Asia" project – he's taken literally thousands of photos of out queer people in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan in a bid to raise visibility
Lastly, in November 2015, Takarazuka City became the first Japanese city outside of Tokyo to announce its support for same-sex partnerships… though this may of course be a total coincidence.
Flower Troupe in Takarazuka Fantasia (2015 Taiwan tour)
3. Where to Start?
Nearly all Takarazuka shows since the 1990's are available on DVD (earlier ones are on VHS), and these recordings are very well done - they have great video and audio quality, are well-edited, and use a large number of camera angles
They do livestreams and live broadcasts of performances as well! You can watch a livestream from your mobile or PC by spoofing your location. For a more communal experience, if you're in Japan, Taiwan, or Hong Kong, you can catch live broadcasts of Grand Theatre performances at a local cinema
VODs of selected productions are available on various platforms, including Amazon Japan, though this still requires location spoofing. If you're actually living in Japan, you can also consider subscribing to Takarazuka's official TV channel (yes, that's a thing) Sky Stage - they do a lot of reruns of past performances
With that done, here are several recommendations if none of the productions mentioned throughout the post caught your eye!
(a) Elisabeth - Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay's musical about Empress Elisabeth ("Sisi") of Austria and the fall of the Hapsburg Empire, featuring an (inevitably very sexy) personification of Death and fantastic music. Takarazuka has done many, many productions of this, so just search them and pick whichever looks most appealing - but you won't go wrong with the 2014 Flower Troupe production, which has a very strong cast and a more refined version of the staging
(b) Phantom - Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston's adaptation of Phantom of the Opera. Though obviously not the ALW version, the music is actually pretty great and Takarazuka goes all-out on the costumes and stage magic. All the productions are wonderful, but my favourite is the original 2004 version (which is also the one which went viral on Tumblr before - thanks, @wheel-of-fish!)
(c) Rose of Versailles - no list would be complete without Takarazuka's representative work, buuut I wouldn't necessarily recommend starting here if you're looking for a typical musical experience. There are loads of productions to choose from - note that these are split between a version focused on protagonist Oscar, and another focused on Marie Antoinette and her lover Fersen - but the 1991 Moon Troupe production is my personal pick
(d) Casanova - a light-hearted romp in which Casanova is reimagined as a charming playboy who falls for the feminist-minded daughter of Venice's mayor... only, she doesn't know his real identity. The very catchy music was commissioned from Dove Attia, the producer behind French musicals Mozart, l'opera Rock and 1789: Les Amants de la Bastille. Check out the performance digest here!
(e) Shinjuu: Koi no Yamatoji - Takarazuka puts Chikamatsu Monzaemon's tale of the doomed love between a commoner and a courtesan to a classic rock score (see this clip!). An Edo-era work that doesn't just focus on samurai and nobility, this romantic tragedy offers a grounded look at the social pressures of the time. (Though if you do want to watch something focusing on Japanese nobility, I highly recommend Takarazuka original and guaranteed tearjerker Hoshiai Hitoyo.) There are quite a few productions of this, but I've only watched the 2014 Snow Troupe one, which was very good.
Thanks so much for reading! Please feel free to DM me or send an ask if you have any questions~ I definitely want to do a follow-up post on musumeyaku, and maybe delve into Wao and Hanafusa's history (it's messy, but fascinating)... but we'll see!
So, Microsoft is terrible. Yes yes, the oldest claim in the world.
But specifically… I just hate how Windows 10 tries to conflate and confuse web searches with things on one’s own computer. The start menu should never do anything related to web-searching, especially if it purports to try to give examples of things that are on my hard drive!
This will make old, computer-illiterate people more malware-vulnerable. You have to maintain a strong distinction between “things that are on this computer (and maybe even included in Windows)” (safe, one hopes, or you already got pwned by it, probably), and “things on the web” (scary, dangerous, not to be trusted at all).
Eroding that barrier in the UI is awful. It just FEELS like a violation every time I start typing into the start bar, and it tries to show me ANYTHING web-related. My computer is NOT just an internet-portal! It has tons of stuff on it, and when I’m interacting with the OS, I ONLY want to see things that are already on here!
If I wanted to see something online, I would go to my browser! All the online stuff should be segregated into the browser!
Specific programs can access the internet; that’s fine. But my OS’s functions and interface should JUST be about the things that are already on my computer.
Literally spent multiple hours lobotomizing my Windows reinstall when I upgraded recently, the amount of awful shit they had in nowadays makes me long for the age of win98, when software was merely bad, rather than actively harmful.
There are 2 programs that will turn Windows 10 from an advertising riddled, bloated mess into a useful tool.
10AppsManager
With one click, this will remove ALL THE BLOATWARE Windows comes with. Seriously, you need NONE OF THESE apps, and if you do, you can just uninstall all the ones you don’t need individually.
Winaero Tweaker
This program will give you almost complete control over Windows 10’s behavior. Disabling the web search in the start menu, op rightfully complained about, is just one of the many things this thing can do
For example, with a single setting you can turn off any ads from microsoft, system-wide
It is a powerful tool, but it can be a bit overwhelming. Luckily every single setting comes with an explanation about what it actually does, and most settings can be easily reversed.
reblogged in the hope that i’ll eventually both remember AND have the executive function (AT THE SAME TIME) to actually sit down and deal with this. win10 really is terrible.
Also, if you’re like me and utterly unable to handle the weird tile-style menu and just want to go back to the days of lists that make sense, check out OpenShell https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu
It’s a very simple program, and it turns the tile menu on win10 into something much more logical like this
Which i will never be able to live without, so it goes on every win10 machine I have to use regularly.
i'm so glad you guys like this costume! it is one of my favorites. but I put my absurd pumpkin pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else.
...literally
anyway, here are some construction/project notes/wip photos in case you don't have 50 minutes to spare for the full video about making it!
inspo wise, The First Book of Fashion: The Book of Clothes of Matthaeus and Veit Konrad Schwarz of Augsburg [this is an affiliate link] served as the major influence for this. the book is basically documentation of what this man and his son wore to major events in his life over a period of decades. he was getting ootd painted before it was cool.
the base pattern for the pantlegs came from another pair of ridiculous pants I made a few months earlier.
the paned portion is made from homemade piping sewn to strips of jacquard that are backed with twill tape to prevent fraying.
I made so much fucking piping for this oh my god. each of these strips was 20"+ long, both sides have piping, and these are the panes for ONE LEG. there were also sleeves. we're talking like 60+ yards of piping.
perhaps unsurprisingly, these strips were too thick to gather. so instead I had to overlap them to create the shaping over the leg. it looks OK but isn't ideal.
after this was done, velvet ribbon was sewn over the marked point to hold them in place.
oh! I also sewed a layer of mesh over the orange base fabric to dull it somewhat and provide contrast before sewing on the bands.
the upper portion of the pants was made from even strips of velvet and jacquard seamed together and fitted over a cotton base. the appliques were added to cover the fact the stripes meet at an angle at the side seam, and I sewed on orange sequins because I like sequins.
the happiness I felt when this fit was immense, I must say.
the bodice is two pieces, one for the front, one for the back. it laces up the sides with hand sewn eyelets. it wasn't very flattering as just an expanse of orange of the chest, so I added appliques to the front and back, too.
the black detailing around the top edge is made from varying widths of velvet ribbon.
the sleeves have similar elements of everything shown above--a paned upper portion, velvet ribbon trim, and a bit of lace at the cuffs.
unlike most of my projects the sleeves have no lining forcing the shaping, what you see beneath/between the panes is the chemise worn beneath this. it's made from the mesh used as an overlay on the pants with a jacquard/velvet ribbon collar which you can see peaking out above the neckline of the bodice.
oh! and then there is the pumpkin hat! there is a video on patreon about making this somewhere, I think.
and it's just that easy to live out your renaissance pumpkin prince/ess dreams!
Also From Microsoft’s own FAQ: "Note that Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers. 🤡
Because this has mostly been talked about with Windows 11, heads-up that this installed itself on every Windows 10 computer in our house with this week's update.
Privacy Possum is an anti-tracking extension that not only blocks commercial trackers, it also fucks with them by generating nonsense data.
Forget Me Not is a cookie management tool that lets you choose whether/how sites can store cookies on your computer on a site-by-site basis.
Bypass Paywalls Clean does exactly what it says: allows you to bypass paywalls on news sites and the like.
SponsorBlock uses crowd-sourced data to block sponsored segments on YouTube videos. Now you never have to hear about NordVPN or Raycon ever again!
Breakthrough Twitter Login Wall is another “what it says on the tin” extension. It stops Twitter from trying to force you to log in, so you can browse anonymously in peace.
instead of shelling out 70 dollars for the new Silent Hill 2 remake, consider playing the original masterpiece for free on PC.
installing the game is incredibly easy even for the least computer-savvy people.
no matter your PC specs, you can play it. the game was designed to run on 2002 hardware. there is a 99% chance the game will run on your build.
the original Silent Hill 2 is abandonware, so you need not worry about the ethics of piracy.
after you install the game, be sure to patch it to turn it into the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition.
the Enhanced Edition will let it run on modern builds and vastly improve the framerate and graphics.
you don't need to have any prior knowledge of computers to patch the game. follow the very easy instructions on the website. the game will essentially patch itself.
So for anyone interested that doesn't already know, here's some more information on Linux and Ubuntu distributions (AKA distros for short) - arranged in no particular order:
The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Linux by Linux.com
Best Linux Distributions That are Most Suitable for Beginners by It's FOSS
30 Days of Linux A Complete Guide For Beginners by Geeks For Geeks (may need to read this in reading mode, if viewing on Firefox)
Ubuntu: A Beginner's Guide by Make Use Of (MUO)
Ubuntu Manual Project by Ubuntu Wiki
The Linux command line for beginners by Canonical Ubuntu
Getting Started With Ubuntu by It's FOSS
Official websites for downloading the various Linux and Ubuntu distros:
Linux.org
Ubuntu.com
Note: Ubuntu is derived from Linux. Both are free, open source, and can be modified however you like.
There is a method to "try before you buy" on either distro by downloading them onto a dedicated USB (this will require re-formatting it, and any previous information will be wiped on the USB), and Linux/Ubuntu will load from the USB. Your mileage may vary with this approach, so please refer to documentation on recommended methods and potential pitfalls.
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