Marilyn Monroe photographed by Harold Lloyd, 1953.
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
Mike Driver

izzy's playlists!
occasionally subtle

PR's Tumblrdome
i don't do bad sauce passes

Andulka
AnasAbdin
$LAYYYTER

Love Begins
Monterey Bay Aquarium
One Nice Bug Per Day
KIROKAZE

blake kathryn

#extradirty

No title available

roma★
sheepfilms
d e v o n

No title available

seen from Canada

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Canada

seen from Germany

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom

seen from Indonesia
seen from United States
seen from France

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Netherlands

seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
@vaeliris
Marilyn Monroe photographed by Harold Lloyd, 1953.
cleaning him
those aren’t their names!!!!!!
Authors, agents, publishers: every part of the industry is seeing the strain of five years of escalating anti-LGBTQ censorship.
if you'd like to show support, here are some upcoming queer books:
When Life Gives You Corpses is a brilliant YA about a cursed praying mantis who falls for a young witch. Yield Under Great Persuasion is a raunchy, but surprisingly sweet story about two men repairing their relationship. Fabulous Bodies is a horror story about a queer rockstar rising from the dead.
This is Where the Future Bleeds is a fantasy set in a vividly imagined land, where two women (who happen to kiss) are the key to healing the broken sky. You're No Better is a story about a teen struggling in the shadow of his murderous parent. Oil on Canvas is about a woman who finds disturbing paintings in the home of her dead mother.
and then here's a list of 26 queer books by Black authors set to publish this year, and a 10 upcoming books by trans authors. if you want to fight back against queer censorship, use your wallet! or (if that's not an option) you can contact your local library and ask them to stock a copy.
Reading List: 20 Fat Liberation Books Written by Black Authors
Read from Black authors this Black History Month and every month!
🖤❤️💛💚🖤
Belly of The Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da'Shaun L. Harrison
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings
The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor
Fat Girls In Black Bodies: Creating Communities of Our Own by Joy Arlene Renee Cox, PhD
Fattily Ever After: The Fat, Black Girls' Guide to Living Life Unapologetically by Stephanie Yeboah
Unashamed: Musings of a Fat, Black Muslim by Leah Vernon
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women's Unruly Political Bodies by Andrea Elizabeth Shaw
Bad Fat Black Girl: Notes From a Trap Feminist by Sesali Bowen
Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation by Dalia Kinsey, RD, LD
Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
Fat. Black. Femme. Revealing The Power of Visibly Queer Voices in Media and Learning to Love Yourself by Jonathan P. Higgins, Ed.D.
Reclaiming The Black Body: Nourishing the Home Within by Alishia McCullough, LCMHC
The Body Liberation Project: How Understanding Racism and Diet Culture Helps Cultivate Joy and Build Collective Freedom by Chrissy King
#VERYFAT #VERYBRAVE: The Fat Girl's Guide to Being #Brave and Not a Dejected, Melancholy, Down-in-the-Dumps Weeping Fat Girl in a Bikini by Nicole Byer
It’s Always Been Ours: Rewriting The Story of Black Women’s Bodies by Jessica Wilson, MS, RD
Fat On, Fat Off: A Big Bitch Manifesto by Clarkisha Kent
Romance With Voluptuousness: Caribbean Women and Thick Bodies In The United States by Kamille Gentles-Peart
Yoke: My Yoga Self Acceptance by Jessamyn Stanley
How many of these have you read?
Inspirations for this text / recommended reading (on a Tor browser)
Malatesta, Let Us Be Of Good Cheer!
The group formerly know as “Bash Back”, I Don’t Bash Back I Shoot First: On Queer Gangs
Institute For The Study of Insurgent Warfare, Nine Theses On Insurgency
Mia Mingus’ concept of pod mapping
Basically every communiqué from the EZLN but see especially the Fourth Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle
adrienne maree brown, We Will Not Cancel Us ; and Pleasure Activism
Aragorn!, Toward a non European Anarchism or Why a movement is the last thing that people of color need
Margaret Killjoy, (podcast) Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff: Gay Resistance to Nazis, 2022-05-30 and 2022-06-01
Kaneko Fumiko, A Work of My Own! (in: The Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman )
Sylvia Rivera & Marsha P. Johnson’s interviews, quoted in the zine Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries: Survival, Revolt, and Queer Antagonist Struggleread
My 10 Favorite Books: Hugh Dancy
For his bookshop and website One Grand Books, the editor Aaron Hicklin asked people to name the 10 books they’d take with them if they were marooned on a desert island. The next in the series is the actor Hugh Dancy, who shares his list exclusively with T.
“The Pickwick Papers,” Charles Dickens
When I need to read something that I know will fill my imagination, lift my spirits and also be effortless, I go to Dickens, and this is the most preposterously, comically overflowing of them all.
“Women in Love,” D.H. Lawrence
Nobody has ever written like Lawrence (except bad imitators, and nothing’s more embarrassing than knockoff Lawrence. Sometimes he’s pretty embarrassing, too). This novel transports you.
“Sabbath’s Theater,” Philip Roth
The most anarchic, provocative, lewd and brilliant Roth novel. It feels like it’s on fire.
“Lucky Jim,” Kingsley Amis
I was recommended this when I was a teenager trying to figure out how to start reading “serious” books. Great recommendation, because on the surface it’s nothing of the sort, but it is brilliant.
“My Struggle,” Karl Ove Knausgaard
In part because reading the first two gave me the unsettling sensation of knowing what it’s like to be someone else better than I know what it’s like to be me, and in part because including it might force me to read the remaining four.
“Tristram Shandy,” Laurence Sterne
You could spend years on the first chapter alone, in fact people have. But in a good way. There’s so much going on and so much reinvention it’s bewildering.
“The Big Sleep,” Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler is one of life’s great pleasures, ideally in a bath with a drink to hand.
“The Left Hand of Darkness,” Ursula K. Le Guin
Forced to pick a single sci-fi novel, I’ll go with this because, in ways even beyond most sci-fi, it is so far ahead of its time. You’re left believing entirely in the worlds she’s imagined, including a better version of this one.
“The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology,” P.G. Wodehouse
I know that on and off I’ll be reading this until I die.
“The Tremor of Forgery,” Patricia Highsmith
I could pick almost any of her novels — “Deep Water” would be another. This one is typically masterful in the way it measures out information and suggestion, laced with a growing sense of dread. And a great title.
Left Hand of Darkness made Hugh’s top 10, this is getting really unfair
an intro to the gothic: non-fiction recs
a friend recently asked me for book recs on the history of the gothic novel, so I thought I'd throw together a quick, non-exhaustive list of non-fiction recommendations:
The Gothic by Fred Bottling: roughly 200 pages long, this book is such a great introduction to the gothic and its many iterations since its emergence in the mid-18th century. very accessible, gives you a good overview rather than very specificized or niche depth.
The Contested Castle: Gothic Novels and the Subversion of Domestic Ideology by Kate Ferguson Ellis: Focusing especially on the emergence of the middle-class female reading audience in the 18th century, Ellis traces the direct connection between the growing idealization of the home/domestic sphere and the popularity of the Gothic genre (women, importantly, were the primary consumers of Gothic fiction!)
Colonial and Post Colonial Gothic: The Carribean by Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert: a really fantastic article which highlights the role of imperialism, colonialization, and slavery within the early Gothic genre. I found the full PDF online -- please enjoy!
The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction: another really fantastic collection of essays which outline the history and the progression of the gothic across time (from the 1700's to the present) and space (starting in Great Britain than moving through and across the Atlantic). Like Bottling's text, this book would serve as a great critical introduction for those new to the genre.
Monster Culture (Seven Theses) by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen: this essay isn't strictly about the gothic, but it gives a useful and very popular framework for how to culturally and critically interpret the monster which lends itself very helpfully, i think, with studying Gothic texts. full article available here.
The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar: again, not strictly about the Gothic but still a worthwhile book to check out. at 700 pages, this is a tome of critical essays. some of it is a bit outdated, i don't personally agree with some of their interpretations (but that, arguably, makes their criticism all the more useful!) -- I don't think you need to read this entire book if you're not inclined, but their interpretations of Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights is worth skimming if you're interested in a feminist analysis of these gothic and gothic-adjacent texts.
if anyone's interested, i can compile a rec list of critical articles or a list of gothic fiction for those who are newly interested in reading the genre!! i hope this is a helpful resource for now -- happy reading and many thanks to @girlfan for the inspo!
An intentionally eclectic mix of current (fiction) favorites, nostalgic children's series, and various non-fiction and academic texts.
Threw together another one of these lists because as it turns out, I personally have always read more book that I have watched movies or TV shows, so as far as personal picks go, this was definitely the better option.
There is very little rhyme or reason to this one -- some are books that left an impression on me as a kid, some are current favorites, and some are academic reading related to my future PhD hopes. For longer series of books, I generally included either my particular favorites or let the first one stand in for the whole series.
Curious how many on here people recognize!
How many have you read?
0-10
11-20
21-30
31-40
41-50
51-60
61-70
71-80
81-90
91-100
Devises et Emblemes Anciennes & Modernes (1699) Daniel de la Feuille
Full Interview
“Have I been here before?” is what you might be thinking when looking through Nona Limmen’s photography works. Though they lean more towards
Claude Paradin, Devises Heroïques, 1567
Character Development: Unlikable to Likable
3 strategies on making unlikable characters likable (or at least, more relatable)
Redeeming Quality
Give your hero one redeeming quality or action (even if it’s small) at the beginning of the story.
This helps endear your readers to your character.
An Enemy
Give your hero an enemy…a really evil one.
One of the best ways to make a reader sympathize with an unlikable character is to have an even more unlikable character to compare them to.
Love to Hate
This strategy is probably the toughest one of the three to implement, because it requires the most creativity, and it can also backfire if not done carefully.
Essentially there are numerous reasons we love to hate certain characters.
It’s often hard to pinpoint why we love to hate them.
One trick is to find a unique flaw or skill about your character that you can exploit and/or exaggerate to the point of comedy, ridicule, or fascination.
Source ⚜ Writing Notes & References
Anna Molinari Spring, 1996
youtube needs to implement some sort of 'do not recommend channel + kill yourself for recommending me this' button
“Opera has the power to warn you that you have wasted your life. You haven't acted on your desires. You've suffered a stunted, vicarious existence. You've silenced your passions. The volume, height, depth, lushness, and excess of operatic utterance reveal, by contrast, how small your gestures have been until now, how impoverished your physicality; you have only used a fraction of your bodily endowment, and your throat is closed.”
— Wayne Koestenbaum, The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire.