#Writing this for all my fellow artists out there young and old

[elbdot]

Hey, your work is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing it with the world the way you have, even in this wretched climate so inhospitable to art and artists. You do a lot of good by existing and sharing and creating. Thank you!!!

ADKJGFJGJDKJGF OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! 😭😭😭 Yeah the whole AI-stuff seems very grim and depressing, but luckily I see more and more conventions, corporations and publishers putting a stop to it by not accepting any AI-generated work and I'm sure more companies will follow this motion and update their guidelines accordingly, for only "human-made" work to be accepted.

I don't say much on the topic because I just don't like to put my attention to it, so this will be my only comment on the subjet, but I absolutely applaud all those who are actively fighting against it, because it's definitely a necessary fight against art theft and to make sure there are guidelines being created to handle this new technology. We can't make it disappear, but we can set up rules and give it proper management.

This may sound naive but I am actually very optimistic that this will be handled and settled in a couple of months. Or maybe a year or two. I don't think AI can replace artists in any way. Because in the end, artists are not a hivemind you can study and simply copy and paste, because every artist is an individual. They're all unique with their own minds, their own styles, their own ideas and concepts and every single person brings something new to the table.

Sure, AI can steal and copy a person's art style. But they cannot copy what's inside your mind. They cannot predict you. They can just copy what you have already created, but its YOU who came up with it. And if you're a comic artist or a storyteller of any kid, they'll never be able to tell YOUR stories.

They'll never replace you because they cannot be you. Nobody can be you. Only you can be you. And that's why you'll never lose your worth, because nobody can create the things you create in YOUR way. Don't let the outside world tell you otherwise. You are so worthy just for being here. You bring so much joy just for being and sharing what's on your mind. Don't let anyone make you feel like you're replacable, because you're not. So thank you for being here too! :DD

[drchucktingle]

It’s Carly Tingle’s big day, the release of her first traditionally published horror novel, Camp Damascus. Unfortunately, Carly’s having trouble enjoying this moment as fear and chaos begin to swirl around her. She wants the book to do well, of course, but it slowly becomes apparent there’s more to Carly’s ambition than meets the eye.

Things get clearer when Carly revisits an old erotica short she’d written, titled Eaten Right By The Physical Manifestation Of My Pride And Excitement That The Lead Character Of My First Traditionally Published Horror Novel Is On The Autism Spectrum Just Like Me. This sets off a chain of fourth-wall breaking events that will send Carly on an adventure unlike any other.

Now at the book shop, Carly will come face-to-face with the beautiful physical manifestation of her pride and excitement as an autistic artist, culminating in an erotic lesbian encounter that could inspire generations to come.

This erotic tale is 4,300 words of sizzling human on sentient physically manifested excitement in the form of a punctuation mark action and lesbian autistic pride love.

----

please enjoy EATEN RIGHT BY THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF MY PRIDE AND EXCITEMENT THAT THE LEAD CHARACTER OF MY FIRST TRADITIONALLY PUBLISHED HORROR NOVEL IS ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM JUST LIKE ME out now for free but asking for donation to AUTISTIC SELF ADVOCACY NETWORK

MORE ABOUT THIS TINGLER:

hey there buckaroos i would like to use today to talk on something that is very important to me. i have talked a lot about my journey as a bud on the autism spectrum, and about how I LOVE BEING AUTISTIC.

my story on the spectrum is not a struggle. my way was diagnosed in early twenties, but because of way of masking VERY FEW BUCKAROOS WOULD EVEN NOTICE. it has given me ability to hyper focus and get large amounts of writing done, to find creative ideas neurotypical buds might miss, and to have a unique perspective on life on this timeline.

HOWEVER as man name of chuck my pride in this way used to make me uncomfortable, thinkin i should not share my story. there are many buds on this spectrum who have a MUCH harder time than chuck, and i want to respect the VERY IMPORTANT AND VERY REAL struggles of my fellow autistic buckaroos. for long time i did not feel like it was my place to share and say ‘personally, i wouldnt change my autistic trot for anything. i think being autistic is very cool’

but as tingleverse got more fans and buckaroos started listening to my words more i started thinking: THIS is an opportunity to prove love. part of the reason i am PROUD of my spectrum way is because FIRST INTERACTION with idea of this trot (was called aspergers way back then) was to realize that ALL MY HEROS were on this spectrum: david byrne of band TALKING HEADS being number one.

my FIRST INTERACTION with this idea was not ‘whoa this is tragic’ it was ‘whoa the coolest buckaroo on the PLANET is the same as me’

POINT IS i have been on this timeline a while now and now i am in this position myself. i can be the one buckaroos see when they learn this about themselves and think: WOW LOOK AT THIS WILD ARTIST I ADMIRE BREAKING THE NORMS AND CHARTING A NEW TROT THROUGH THIS TIMELINE WE ARE BOTH AUTISTIC THIS IS THE HECKIN COOLEST

most of the characters i write are probably a little on the spectrum because they are comin from inside chucks head. i look back and notice this and laugh, but other than a single tingler i rare actually OUTRIGHT SAY this character is autistic. i decided that FIRST BIG HORROR NOVEL WITH A TRADITIONAL PUBLISHER was a good time to change this. while i write erotica most of the time which means NO YOUNG BUCKAROOS ALLOWED, horror is a little different. buckaroos young and old can read CAMP DAMASCUS and think ‘i see myself in this autistic hero and I FEEL COOL’

EVEN WRITING THIS NOW makes me get teary eyed and emotional, because these feelings of belonging and positive representation were SO IMPORTANT to me. i would not be trotting here without these autistic heroes, and now i have been given the chance to create one of my own with CAMP DAMASCUS and WITH MYSELF just by being chuck and talking openly about my joyful, exciting, artistic trot on the spectrum.

WITH ALL OF THIS IN MIND i am releasing a brand new tingler called EATEN RIGHT BY THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF MY PRIDE AND EXCITEMENT THAT THE LEAD CHARACTER OF MY FIRST TRADITIONALLY PUBLISHED HORROR NOVEL IS ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM JUST LIKE ME for free. HOWEVER i am requesting that if you choose to read you send your three dollars (or whatever donation you would like) to the AUTISTIC SELF ADVOCACY NETWORK. this way 100 percent of all profits will go to them. (WARNING this is actual erotica so no young buckaroos allowed for this one).

all ages (who are old enough to read horror) can preorder CAMP DAMASCUS at any bookstore. i also have a tingler name of NOT POUNDED BY THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF SOMEONE ELSE'S DOUBT IN MY PLACE ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM BECAUSE DENYING SOMEONE'S PERSONAL JOURNEY AND IDENTITY LIKE THAT IS INCREDIBLY RUDE SO NO THANKS that is pound free so all ages can read so check that out if you would like.

thank you for blessing me with a space to explore these ideas. i am so thankful to be here with you and you have treated me so well. i am eternally grateful for our tort together and look forward to the future we craft on this timeline.

LOVE IS REAL - chuck

[storiesforallfandoms]

just for us ~ johnny depp

word count: 1790

request?: yes!

“Hii can you please write a Johnny Depp imagine where its the 90s, you are both famous, and the press keeps beging you  expose your relationship?”

description: being famous at such a young age makes it hard to keep anything a secret, but you’re determined to make sure your relationship is just for the two of you and not for the media

pairing: young!johnny depp x female!reader

warnings: swearing, use of y/n, rpf

masterlist (one, two, three)

I started acting when I was five years old. It was a commercial, and I had all of 30 seconds of screen time. But that 30 seconds was enough to impress the director apparently, because two years later when he was hired to direct some new sitcom, he called my parents looking to cast me as one of the main kids. The show only lasted one season, but one season was all it took to kickstart my career.

Becoming an actor at such a young age meant losing a “normal” life. I never went to normal school, normal prom or graduation. I never really had normal friends, just co-stars and other child actors. And I never had any privacy. Once I became a household name, privacy went completely out the window as I was followed by paparazzi and fans daily. Not to mention the creeps who came out in droves when I turned 18.

Nothing in my life was private. Nothing except Johnny.

We met on set of a movie we were working on together, and I knew from the moment I laid eyes on him that I was going to fall for him. I tried not to. Dating as a celebrity was basically impossible, even more so when it was with another celebrity. But i couldn’t stop myself, and when he told me he had fallen for me too, I was a goner.

Being a fellow actor, Johnny knew exactly how to keep our relationship a secret. He knew which restaurants had the most hidden away seating, which ones had the most private parking so we could actually show up and leave together. He knew how to sneak in and out of my place without paparazzi noticing, and how to do the same with me at his place.

It worked for a long time. Like, two years at least. No one had any idea we were together. Until a fan spotted us out together. They didn’t see us acting like a couple, but apparently us hanging out together years after our movie had come out was suspicious enough to get the rumor mill going. Suddenly, every interview we did had us asked at least once about our relationship. But we never broke. We kept insisting we were just friends, and we kept our relationship a secret.

It was early in the morning when my alarm clock started to blare. I groaned as I rolled over to turn it off. The bright red numbers read “7:00am”. I groaned again, sleep fighting to take me again.

I smiled as Johnny wrapped me in his warm embrace and kissed my neck. “Why are we awake so early?”

“I have a morning interview at 9,” I told him. “I gotta get up and get ready.”

He squeezed me a little tighter. “Absolutely not.”

“I have no choice, J. I can’t cancel so close to the interview.”

“Just don’t show up. Problem solved.”

I turned in his arms to face him. His eyes were still drooping with fatigue, but he was trying his best to focus on me. I smiled at him and kissed his nose.

“You can stay here and sleep,” I told him. “I’ll be back by the time you wake up.”

“You better be,” he sleepily muttered.

I chuckled and finally wiggled free from his grasp.

Getting ready for interviews never took long. I didn’t have to do my makeup because the studio makeup artist would do it for me when I got there, and an outfit was chosen for me by my stylist prior to the day. All I had to do was get breakfast, clean myself up, and get dressed in my pre-chosen outfit. I was brushing my teeth when I heard a car horn honking outside, signaling that my ride to the interview had arrived.

I took one last peak into my bedroom. Johnny was sound asleep again. I smiled and quietly moved to my bed. I placed a gentle kiss on his cheek before rushing out the door as the car honked again.

I was rushed through the makeup and placed in an uncomfortable chair within 20 minutes. I tried not to shift too much in an attempt to find a comfortable position. Morning talk shows always had the worst chairs for some reason.

The host walked onto set and greeted me cheerily. I smiled back at her, wishing I had her chipper energy for so early in the morning.

I wonder how many cups of coffee she’s had.

She sat down across from me and we were given the five minute warning. I adjusted myself in my seat one last time, then smiled as the cameraman announced we were live.

“Good morning everyone, and welcome to our special guest, (Y/N),” the host said, gesturing to me. The crowd cheered as I smiled and waved to them. “Thank you for being here.”

“Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here!”

The host asked me about my new movie, and I went over the talking points I had been given for every interview. It was going as smoothly as most interviews did, until the host said, “I have to ask, is there anyone special in your life?”

I kept the smile on my face, but I was sure it looked much more strained now. “Nope. I’m absolutely single pringle.”

“Really? There’s not even anything going on with you and Johnny Depp?”

I glanced over at my manager, who looked about ready to shut the whole interview down. Most celebrities have a few off limits questions that interviewers are told they can’t ask about. It’s usually super personal and private stuff that they want to keep private. For me, the one topic that was off limits was Johnny. It wasn’t just because we wanted to keep our relationship a secret, but it was also because my management and I didn’t want all my interviews to suddenly be just about Johnny and not about my work.

It was clear from the look on my manager’s face that this host was told my limitations, and she was choosing to ignore them. This was her attempt at getting a huge scoop before anyone else so that she could boost the ratings of her show.

I knew I couldn’t just stop the interview. It was a live show, stopping would just cause a scene that I knew would do more harm than good. So, I took a very subtle deep breath and said, “Johnny has been my friend since we worked together years ago. There’s nothing more between us besides friendship.”

“Oh, come on. I know you’re aware of the rumors about you two. Everyone is dying for you to finally confirm that you’re together.”

“Well, everyone will just have to keep waiting because I am not confirming what’s not true. Also, I think it’s incredibly disrespectful and invasive to keep pushing this topic when Johnny and I have both said we aren’t dating and like to have our privacy. I don’t get many things that are just for me, but I want my relationship to be one of those things.”

My manager whispered something to the cameraman, who then signaled for the show to go to commercial. Once the cameras were off, my manager demanded for me to be un-miced so we could leave. I ignored the host’s apologies as the crew took off my mic and my manager beckoned for me to come with her.

As we left the studio, she nudged my shoulder and said, “You handled that amazingly, kid.”

I had no other obligations for the day, so my driver took me back home. I was happy to be back in the comfort of my own home after that interview.

The smell of food greeted me at the door. I smiled at myself as I made my way to the kitchen. As I expected, Johnny was stood at the stove, cooking up some breakfast. He was still in his pajama pants with no shirt on. I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. He leaned into my touch, allowing me to place a kiss on his bare shoulder.

“You’re back early,” he said.

“The interview was cut short,” I responded.

“So I heard.” I looked up at him in confusion. “I woke up just in time to turn on the interview.”

I groaned. “So you saw the whole thing?” He nodded. I buried my head in his shoulder. “We told her not to ask, I swear.”

He moved in my arms, turning so he could face me. He wrapped his arms around me, too, as I moved mine around his neck instead.

“I think you handled that whole situation very well,” he said. “It was pretty clear you were caught off guard by the question, but you still handled it maturely and with more respect than I think she deserved.”

“I wasn’t going to cause a scene over it, even though I really wanted to just walk out if she had asked.”

“Would’ve made for better television if you had just stormed out.”

“You’re right. It’s probably best that I didn’t then.”

He chuckled and leaned down to kiss me. Any tension I had left from that day immediately melted the moment his lips touched mine.

“We’ll have to tell people eventually,” I said with a sigh, resting my head against his. “We can’t keep this a secret forever.”

“We’ve done so for two years.”

“Yeah, but we’ve already gotten caught once. There’s just no proof of us actually being together for the tabloids to run with. But if we slipped up once, it can happen again. Then we’ll have to tell people about us.” I sighed and added, mainly to myself, “We’ll ever get a moment of peace again.”

“It’ll happen eventually, but until then I’m happy to have our private moments,” Johnny said. He kissed the top of my head and added, “But the day I get to loudly say you’re mine will be a good day for me. I want everyone to know eventually that I have the most amazing woman as my girlfriend.”

“You’re gonna make me blush.”

“Good.”

He kissed me again, but pulled away quicker than I wanted. I tried to pull him back in, but he just shook his head and smiled. “I don’t want the food to burn. The last thing we need is everyone finding out we’re dating because I burned your house down.”

I chuckled. “Okay, you have a point.”

“Are you hungry? I made enough for the two of us.”

I nuzzled close to him as he turned back to the stove. “I’ll never say no to your cooking.”

[jmdbjk]

No hurricanes.

We have 4 days left in August but it looks like there will be no hurricanes for us. We are typically waiting for one to arrive about this time every August. Definitely a welcome calm because there was already too much shit packed into this past month as it was so thank you to Mother Nature for not adding that extra layer of a shit show.

That being said, there is always next week for a hurricane. We wait. In the meantime, Episode 5 of Are You Sure? drops after I go to sleep tomorrow night.

Namjoon has been active on his IG account, he just tweaked his bio, changing the title "right place, wrong person" to all lowercase. We are holding the ship on a steady course, Captain. Seas are rough but we see the signals.

In case you didn't know, Miss Karma came back from her vacation. As of today, Min Hee Jin has been terminated as CEO of Ador.

She is being given the choice of remaining as director/producer for NewJeans but all of her stock options and whatever went poof. Good luck bitch, fighting your sexual harassment lawsuits without your CEO salary or perks. On your way out, please fumigate your office and leave the keys with the security team.

In other news, Billboard executives meeting this week to discuss major changes to Billboard Hot 100 and minor changes to Billboard 200. Can't wait to hear what this new round of fresh hell will be.

Also, Billboard having an event in Seoul to fiNd ThE nExT BTS!

Ya know... after all this time... how has no one ever realized its not the NEXT BTS anyone needs to be searching for? Yes, to the part about finding an authentic artist who can craft their own (really good) songs with lyrics that resonate. But the real key they need to find is...

... the next FANDOM that is like Army. Globally diverse from different walks of life including young, old and in-between. Loyal, loving, smart, organized, even if at times we seem to struggle to come together.

If an artist can cultivate a relationship with their fandom which consists of mutual respect and trust between them only THEN can the artist do anything, be anything, even untouchable. Hasn't anyone been listening at all? BTS has been saying for years they couldn't do anything... wouldn't be where they are... would have no reason to exist WITHOUT ARMY.

Seriously shaking my damn head. No one listens. No one.

Some other random things that are constantly doing a hit n'run inside my head...

I hope Jimin’s time with Dior menswear is finished because good lawd that shit is fugly. No. Just no:

It looks like an outfit they would be forced to wear as a penalty for losing a Run BTS game. Isn't that the same way Koreans tie up what they call a "lamb head" towel around their head to go in the public baths?

I haven’t talked about Jin at all this month. Shame on me.

He's been very very busy endearing himself not only to Army but to middle-aged men, women, kids, moms, future spouses, actors, idols, foodies, gamers, fishermen, grandmas, grandpas, the world.

Hobi will be coming home in 49(?) days!

Jimin and Jungkook are sending off their fellow soldiers with autographs as they are discharged. I guess it is somewhat comforting to read these simple messages they write to their departing comrades. It's all we have for now. I hope they are doing ok way out there in the boonies. 9 months and 15 days left.

[nachocheezos21]

[Lark!Sebastian Solace — From the Beginning; the first part]

From a small village came Sebastian, a young man who lived alongside his family doing all that he could to help the familiar people of his town, as well as provide his aid in taking care of his family (especially his younger brother). His sister had left the village a couple of years back in order to provide for their family by sending them bags of goodies and gold — financially helping from afar as she worked in the city. His mother was a weaver, while his father helped with the crops, and a 16-year-old Sebastian had always dreamt of traversing through the lands and fields. Hence came the time where he bid his goodbyes, but not before bringing his essentials; one of which was his trusted mandolin, a gift given to him by someone long ago.

At the age of 18, Sebastian had been living in an entirely different city — one that was still almost close enough for him to visit back to his hometown in two days worth of travel — working as a handyman for various shops, fixing a variety of tools and equipments, as well as a fellow carpenter for when new buildings are made. His many jobs had earned him enough, with a majority of his earnings being sent to his family back at home. For the rest, Sebastian spends them for his own survival.

Word began to spread around about the unfortunate passing of a group of nine. A horrid crime had taken place inside the city, and the people are shaken in their boots of what was to come. Panic, mass hysteria, and fear shadowed everyone’s morale. And it wasn’t long for the news to reach Sebastian — for he was taken by the city folks and was brought onto an unwilling trial in front of prying eyes.

There was no substantial evidence against him — as it was likely that he was innocent. But considering that the people, not to mention the victims, are already throwing hands at the man before them, it was unfortunately concluded that he was guilty of his crimes, and was thus sentenced to death…that was until the Scholars of Shade intervened.

Not much is known about the Scholars of Shade, nor what they plan to do with the accused. He had heard of them through word of mouth, but did not choose to acknowledge on such rumours and groups. A loud knock on the wood was enough to silence the chatter and chaos as a group of figures drenched in dark cloaks entered the old court, announcing that they shall be taking the young man for their own. He did not understand from start to finish — everything felt confusing, his world was crumbling beneath. He was innocent, the young man swore! But no one could hear his side, nor bothered at all.

Soon, Sebastian, along with his items and what little coins he had, had been banished — sent away by the wooden carriage where he sat on top of his many item crates. He didn’t even get to say goodbye to his beloved family, much less his mother. How could their son be a murderer of nine, innocent souls? It didn’t make sense.

It didn’t matter. He was in the hands of the Scholars; they can do whatever they want with him.

Under the watchful gaze of the Scholars, Sebastian felt like a prisoner of sorts. And while he is treated normally (fed with nutritious meals, given chores to do to the likes of repair, and such), there was a lingering fear that crawled at the nape of his neck. An inkling of doubt that all wouldn’t end well within the Scholars’ care — rumours amongst his fellow captives that they had planned for something, but no one could tell what it was. And it didn’t help the agonising screams that can be faintly heard in the middle of the night.

He needed to get out of there. One way or another.

[Notes from the author/artist]: aaaaa holy shit i finally did something !!! yea erm i couldn’t get this out of my head and so i decided to finally write something about lark!seb eueheuheu. idk about the pressure tumblr community’s stand on a non-pressure story au (much less one that’s far, far from canon at least) but i needed a silly outlet to release my ideas my friends have suffered enough hdjnjvdnjdv. if it was obvious, yes, i had to split this into parts bc i’m still brainstorming ideas on how to do the second part of the backstory (will probably take me a few days depending if i’m lazy or busy).

i am well aware that the story of meadowlark is still in the works, this is only a fun little project/au that i wanna drabble before i officially go to college on september. if anyone else is interested then feel free to interact, i’d love to share and hear ideas from this .:}

[masha-nikita]

The Archetypes of Red Rose, White Rose

I need to balance my brain out due to sudden onset of depression. It is the result. Rommel is probably the only general who, even if you draw him from the back, he's still recognizable- flowers, a camera, and love for beauty. Rommel has a Venus-Mercury conjunct with a direct Neptune influence; he is going to appreciate artistic expressions.

In fact, this colored-doodle with an unintentional Mucha vibe has the energy of his wife Lucy in mind. According to some sources, Rommel wrote home to Lucy daily, as it was reported to be his mental crutch- I imagine it to be transcendental emotional support, not unlike my own experience, my own relationship with our Tumblr community here. Whether you guys interact with me directly or not, you keep me alive. My sincere thanks to you.

Lucy was a formal dancer in Danzig with a decent middle-class background, her father seemed to be a land owner- Lucy being able to do art, probably added to his admiration for her- fellow artists, angelic companionship.

I suppose he did need emotional supports, and a lot of it-- Rommel is the only high commander with whom Kessering "the smiling Albert" did not get along-- which is a feat. After all, Kessering was very renowned for his exceedingly cordial and diplomatic temperament. The same could be said of von Rundstedt, the calm, gentlemanly, old Prussian field marshal. These two could put up with some bad BS from any one else, except Rommel. He was too intense, too mentally off-balance, too difficult to deal with for his colleagues.

There are a few things I noticed from Rommel's biography (including the Trail of the Fox, 2005), that allow me to make some observations. His love for Lucy appears to be non-sexual. They had their only son 12 years after marriage. That is a pretty long time, not customary with a Scorpio man who has a 8th house Mars (who is supposed to have at least above average sex drive).

As a matter of fact, Rommel had a daughter with Walburga Stemmer before his marriage with Lucy was finalized. At that point Rommel’s family felt the need to step in and strong-armed him back with his fiancée-- one reason being to prevent the young lieutenant from the pitfalls of sex and alcohol. In my humble opinion, the subtext here might be Lucy would not lead him astray in that regard, therefore his conservative family would rather have him marrying Lucy.

A side note, Stemmer family still holds a collection of hopelessly romantic letters from Rommel. Did Rommel write comparable letters to Lucy at that point in time? A bit hard to tell.

I could not recall which article comments that Rommel was "hen-pecked' in the household, but Lucy was dominant at home, that part had been very true.

Ouch, I don't know, some aspects of this living environment must've been toxic to Rommel no matter how much some folks wants to romanticize it. It is horrible to be in a friend group where there's a mean girl boss who takes pride in ruling over her husband and turning any girl who crosses her into a persona-non-grata. But I digress. Back to my title.

Nevertheless, for me, Lucy being archetypal White Rose still holds water as a concept.

The Red Rose- White Rose archetypes originated from the same-titled short novel by Zhang Ailing, one of the 20th century's greatest female writers. She depicts love's tragedies as Chin dynasty fell apart and China marched into an era of post-colonialism, world war II, civil wars and partisan conflicts-- and eventually, modernity.

White rose is your ideal wife, the guardian of your family's social standing. She is angelic, she seems docile, she reminds you that you are from a place of honor and integrity, not of seedy backgrounds and carnal desires. White rose kills love by loving you, by being stable, by calming you down whenever you freak out. Very slowly, she castrates you, she brings you home to domesticate you.

The Red Rose symbolizes those dark desires, a black hole that sucks you in to have sex with you, a fragrant bed, a sex dungeon you do not have the will power to claw yourself out of. Red rose loves you by conquering you, destroying you and everything you represent and cherish with triumphant strides. Very quickly Red rose tears you down, burns all your bridges, until you are beyond recognition, until you are flesh, blood, fire and desire, a literal mess.

It is implied in Ailing's novel that men invariably choose the White Rose, because they are human, all too human. Marrying her, he regrets it; not marrying her, he regrets it even more. Such is love's tragedy in the face of humanity, and tragedy is the only inevitability in Ailing's universe. That's why I pull Lucy in as a faint through-line in my Montgomery x Rommel fanfics... not that I am going to write any more, I don't think so.

And yes, Red Rose is synonymous with Bernard Montgomery, in my fandom brain's humble opinion.

I know I am weird.

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

It’s not been a good summer to be a Beowulf scholar, let alone one focusing on Grendel’s Mother

Mariah Dahvana Headley’s “feminist” translation, and later full retelling of, Beowulf are at their best consistently cringeworthy (“Cheugy” being an extremely accurate term here) and at their worst stroll all-too-comfortably into racialized narratives that a white woman (or in at least one especially egregious case, any decent person) should not be writing at all. However, she brought progress to the field, centering the narrative on feminist voices. I myself am white, and having seen BIPOC reviewers adore her books, I previously felt able, if not obliged, to put my personal misgivings aside and appreciate imperfect progress.

Headley, who also published several other successful “feminist re-interpretations” of classical works, has worked closely with Neil Gaiman often over the past year, including co-leading writing classes with him and having him as the lead voice in a mid-quarantine celebrity performance of her Beowulf translation.

She has been silent.

Comic artist and amateur-yet-devoted Beowulf Scholar Zach Weinersmith (he taught his then eight year old daughter to read the original text in Old English) wrote Bea Wolf, a take on Beowulf that was re-imagined for and about modern children, replacing 5th c. mead hall culture with tree houses and nerf battles, Grendel with an angry, rule-obsessed adult neighbor, and most interestingly, death with the inevitable transition out of childhood. In addition, Weinersmith took advantage of the (obviously) non-exact and non-culturally-accurate translation to perfectly preserve the original Old English poetic meter present in the piece. Bea Wolf is a masterclass in creative adaptation, that I recommend to friends and fellow academics alike. At some point within the next year, Weinersmith will publish Bea Wolf’s next installment, continuing the adaptation to cover the conflict with Grendel’s Mother.

Weinersmith also works in speculative sci-fi and futurism. A vocal proponent for the (at the very least) cautious acceptance of AI “as a creative tool”, this summer he shared on social media that he was using AI to “help him” write Bea Wolf pt. 2 - generating lists of alliterations and synonyms when adapting a certain passage of Old English was “too hard”. “To speed things up”, he said. I don’t mean to self-promo here but I gladly would have dropped everything to help. I’m confident in my abilities there. He showed a sample passage that AI “helped” with. It’s bad.

Beowulf studies is a small field. Grendel studies is smaller. Grendel’s Mother studies is, without Headley, virtually nonexistent in terms of published, easily accessible media. Losing two authors, to hypocrisy of values and hypocrisy of art, is devastating. I genuinely do not want to be the only person willing to get creative with this story without bowing to AI, problematic stereotypes and Creepy Old White Men In Power. I know these authors made their own choices, and those choices weren’t good. But this field is too small, too closed-off and non diverse, and too hemmed in by lack of historical context on one side and the alt-right on the other, to afford “bad choices”. This field is starving for young, creative minds, new approaches and diversity of experience. What these authors have done will only isolate us further.

What I feel from this is grief.

[gracefullou]

What an amazing ride! From the late nights watching lives even though exams and work were a few hours away; to new friends made even though we didn’t speak the same languages; to sharing victories and challenges when sometimes the entire world would hold us at arms length and ridicule for simply loving his music; for letting the young, the old, the rich with heart and the poor with money be part of all one community; to Louis/Louies bringing each other up when real life is harder than it looks. To Louis and my fellow Louies, it’s been a privilege to grow up with you, sharing the experiences, the memories and all the love. Thank you for all this time.

Aww thank you, anon. That's so sweet and ending it with all this time is just so lovely. I still remmember vividly the first fitfwt show, how nervous Louis was, how we were all so excited and curious to see the setlist, the stage design, the performances, the outfits, just everything. And boy did Louis deliver. He killed it. Night after night after night. I used to stay up till 5am watching the US shows and i'll never regret it i don't think there's anything or anyone else i woud do that for . It's been a pleasure to witness Louis evolve as an artist and a performer and honestly just freaking blossom and glow. He was born to make the most beautiful songs and then perform them for audiences. As a 2019 Louis fan, i don't take that for granted. He was held back for years, with no album and therefore no tour. But look at him now 🥹❤️‍🩹. He is thriving. And thanks to him, we also have our little lovely community of louies 🫶. And now after a huge successful tour and a round of festivals all over the globe, here we are at what looks like the end of the fitf era 🤧. Fitf is not only my all time favorite album, but it's also the album that confirmed to me with no doubt what an exceptional talent Louis is, and that basically i will be a fan of him till the very end (it's you and me until the end- silver tongues 😁). So it is so special and dear to me. Still, i can't wait for LT3. The expectations are soooo high but if anyone can deliver something that measures up to that it is Louis Tomlinson. How am i to survive the lack of content while he lets live in and write his album? idk 😭 but we'll figure it out. Hey, we survived the 2020 drought we can survive this too 😭💔💔

[harmonic-melodii]

Writerly Questionnaire

Thanks, @davycoquette, It's time for me to drop some more lore about myself! My answers will most likely end up longwinded. And here's a link to the original post too for the questions if you'd like to fill them out yourself! Link

About You

When did you start writing?

I started writing around 2016, so when I was about 12 years old. I was already an avid reader and devoured every single book I came across. Back then my stories were much more fantastical, but the passion never died.

Are the genres/themes you enjoy reading different from the ones you write?

I will never write Historical Fiction despite it being one of my favorite genres to read. Books that delve into alternative history or simple romance stories that take place around historic events have always held a special place in my heart. Why will I never write in that genre? Because I'm not built for the research that goes into creating those settings.

I also enjoy the occasional romance novel, though I don't write romance-specific stories. The lightheartedness is a much-needed break from the gritty stories and concepts I write. At most I include romantic subplots in some things, but I don't like focusing on romance as a plot.

Is there an author (or just a fellow writer!) you want to emulate, or one to whom you’re often compared?

Not for my fantasy works. For sci-fi, I would like to emulate Ray Bradbury. I've always loved his books and short stories. And how he wrote about the human condition and its interactions with technology for better and worse. Though I cannot say I have written anything as profound yet.

As for poetry, I'm heavily inspired by many African-American poets like Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. As a young black woman myself, I hold a lot of respect for similar artists in my discipline that came before me. And while my poems are inspired by my experiences and struggles with race, I believe they can bridge gaps of understanding.

Overall, I have never been compared to any authors.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space(s)? (Room, coffee shop, desk, etc.)

My writing spaces are as chaotic and fluid as me. Sometimes I will be sitting at my desk with a water bottle and typing on my computer. Other times I'll lie in bed at 2 am typing furiously into my notes app. Hell, I have a tiny spiral notebook that's a bunch of index cards with entire plots and character profiles. I write wherever and whenever I can.

What’s your most effective way to muster up some muse?

Music. I create countless playlists, some of which I'll share soon. I probably have over 70 total. Not all for my WIP or other characters that exist, but all of them are for writing in some form or another. Otherwise, I try to regularly consume new media. That is a lot harder because it takes so much energy for me to engage with new content, but when it works it works.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

Not necessarily. Very little of my inspiration comes from the beach town I grew up in. Rather I'm influenced by places where I've endured insane life trauma. Don't worry, there's no trauma dumping here. I want to write about those places because it allows me to visit them again safely and on my own terms.

As for people, yes a handful of my characters are inspired by people I've met. Some are not the best. But hey, it makes for decent inspiration.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

I feel like I always gravitate towards writing about religion in some form or another. I was raised Christian myself and currently identify as Agonistic. I like deconstructing faith and what it means to believe in something greater than yourself. So it doesn't entirely surprise me that I circle back to religion in one way or another.

I also write a lot about family dynamics and the platonic love or lack thereof within those dynamics. And about the limits of love and what is considered "too much".

Your Characters

Me? Talking about the lesbians in my novel?? Yep!

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character? (Current WIP, past WIP, never used, etc.)

Hands down my favorite character in the cast is Aaliyah. She's the main protagonist. An optimistic college freshman, who has an intense thirst for knowledge. She was raised by her father, Ezra, all on his own. Ever since she could remember it's only been the two of them. She's funny, sweet, but very sheltered at the end of the day.

Which of your characters do you think you’d be friends with in real life?

I think I'd be decent friends with Graham. She's a guitarist in a rock band. A little rough around the edges, but I'd love to hear the music she plays.

Which of your characters would you dislike the most if you met them?

It'd probably be Ezra. He's a strict man and quite judgmental of people. If anything he'd dislike me first and I'd simply have to fire back on principle.

Tell me about the process of coming up with of one, all, or any of your characters.

In general, all of my characters start as an idea or concept. For example: Graham came to fruition because I thought it'd be funny for the man who oversees campus safety at this small college to have a rebellious daughter. Then slowly, I add more details about who she is as a person. I ask "why?" questions all of the time. Once I have a solid idea of who they are, I connect them to other characters. Sometimes relationships come before the solid idea and they help.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

I write so many lgbtq+ and people of color. I genuinely don't think I have many cishet white characters. Because if they're not straight, then they're bisexual, lesbian, or asexual. I write a handful of trans people (Graham my darling beloved is trans). And I don't write a ton of white people because I enjoy writing things that represent me and my communities.

When it comes to this specific unnamed WIP the characters share themes of guilt, love, and rebellion. Which is what creates the perfect storm of the plot they find themselves in.

How do you picture them? (As real people you imagined, as models/actors who exist in real life, as imaginary artwork, as artwork you made or commissioned, anime style, etc.)

I use picrews to imagine what my characters look like. I don't draw and I prefer the blank canvas I get with avatar creators. It's very freeing.

Your Writing

What’s your reason for writing?

I write to share my thoughts and feelings. My opinions will be heard one way or another.

Is there a specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

Honestly, most comments are motivating enough. Just the idea that someone looked at my work and felt compelled to write something about it is enough for me.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Character building and writing tension. I feel both go hand in hand when you're writing scenes. The stronger the character the better potential for a tangible relationship between the two.

What have you been frequently told your greatest writing strength is by others?

Professors have complimented me on tension and character-building. I've been told I have the ability to really dig things out.

How do you feel about your own writing? (Answer in whatever way you interpret this question.)

It's fun and cool. Best hobby ever!

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

Definitely. In fact, I'd probably write in obscure and weird places. Like I'd get paint and write lines of poetry on the street. Things like that. All of my writing doesn't need to be read, I just like getting it out of my head.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? If it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence?

As someone who has also written fanfiction, I don't care what other people enjoy. I write for myself first and foremost. Because for every single person who doesn't like my writing, I know there's at least a handful of people who love it. If I focused on what people enjoyed reading I simply wouldn't be writing my WIP novel.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tag list time !

@sodaliteskull @honeybewrites @cowboybrunch @writeblragenda

+ Open tag to anyone else who wants to participate!

[kindestofkings]

a mastermind [1]

ryan mcmahon x reader

faceclaim:phoebe bridgers

authors note: k so this is kinda an all over the place fic but I had a lot of fun making it so ENJOY! @orangeinecstasy a fellow ryan appreciator, thanks for the brainstorming 🫡

2020

yourusername

liked by rass75 and others

yourusername oi have you listened to NOACF yet?? theres something special in tracks 8,9,10 and 17 or should I say someone 👀

view all other comments

1975fan1 wow can't believe the 1975 broke their own no collabs rule for matty's girl of the week

yourusername you seeing this ratty? Im your girl of the week 😍😍 trumanblack wait JUST one week?? yourusername yeah so short! better cheat on me quick xxx 1975adam I just dont get you two...

rass75 celebration pints?

yourusername like you need any excuse hahah

trumanblack they're ALL special tracks thank you very much.

1975_fanbase the tumblr gays just overloaded thanks!

trumanblack anything for the cause 👍👍👍

ynfan1 really not a 1975 fan but jesus christ 2005 is so amazing, I just bought the album!

bedfordanes75 studio time was sick can we please do it again

yourusername I do need a producer for my next album...

ryanmcmahon_15 just added to their story!

replies:

elijahhewson haha man you good? bobbyskeetz new day same crush inhalerfan1 omg you being a yn is everything!

2022

the1975

liked by yourusername and others

the1975 I'm in love with you. out now.

view all other comments

rass75 🖤🖤

yourusername its good to be back boys

pollymoney so right I am in love with yourusername

yourusername stop im blushin so hard rn heheh

trumanblack loser

yourusername lover* trumanblack eh alright then

ynhealytruther ahhh I missed you guys so much, such a hot couple

1975fan1 since when have they confirmed they're dating??

ynhealytruther

liked by ynfan2 and others

ynhealytruther this is confirmation right?? they HAVE to be dating

view all other comments

ynfan1 ah I really hope not he's kinda old for her no?

1975fan2 yeah tbf it is like 10 years or something...

1975fan1 I hope so they are the definition of bi panic

1975fan2 ew hope not shes kinda ugly

ynhealytruther absolutely no yn slander excepted here! move on with your hate

yourusername

liked by ryanmcmahon_15 and others

yourusername someone just said stop writing songs about sad things and blowjobs. best joke I've ever heard!

view all other comments

trumanblack over my dead boy

yourusername pleaseeee dont tempt me with a good time 😍

1975fan1 are you guys dating?? just confirm it already

1975fan2 class music video!!

ynfan1 please date someone else, hes too old for you!!

bobbyskeetz just added to their story!

man's (celeb) crush is in a relationship (we think) so he's turning to the drink 😔

replies:

inhalerfan1 its yourusername isn't. cause same joshjenkinson_ cause there was defo a chance before hand!

ynfanclub

liked by ynhealytruther and others

ynfanclub guys I'm at yourusernames's secret session ah! look this is her face when people asked if she was dating matty. adorble!!! and THEN HE CAME OUT AND THEY SANG JESUS CHRIST 2005

view all other comments

ynhealytruther oh what a day !!!

ynhealytruther my literal parents

ynfan1 hes literal so old ewww

trumanblack

liked by yourusername and others

trumanblack just friends.

view limited comments

yourusername dw guys he checked my id AND sang robbers beforehand !!

rass75 have you two ever been serious about anything in your lives? yourusername what do you mean I'm taking this job of being matthew healy's controversially young alleged girlfriend VERY SERIOUSLY 😤 trumanblack serious is my middle name mate 😍🔥🤠😎 rass75 why did I even ask....

yourusername

liked by ryanmcmahon_15 and others

yourusername Ireland I am in you. and loving you as per usual! my (second) favourite Irish artist asked me to stop by at his home gig 😢 so so honoured andrew <3

view all other comments

ynfan1 I cant believe this, I'M GOING TO HIS SHOW TOMORROW NIGHT!!!

lucydacus parents.

ynfan2 you said it.

inhalerfan1 bestie for research purposes I need to know who's your fav??

yourusername hmmm research purposes you say .... 🤔 inhalerfan1 ahhh hi omgomgomgomg hello

bobbyskeetz huh @ryanmcmahon_15 see this?

yourusername just added to their story!

replies:

inhalerfan1 OH FUCK YES I KNEW IT I KNEW IT!! inhalerfan1 thank you for answering my question &lt;3 elijahhewson honoured! are you here long? we've a drummer who's a big fan of yours, we could all link up for drinks ? ↳ hi! sounds so fun, I'm here till saturday actually so i've got time! presuming you guys know the best spot for a pint 👀 ↳ elijahhewson sir mcmahon knows the place!

joshjenkinson_ just added to their story!

replies:

ryanmcmahon_15 im never coming down from this. and I'll never stop talking about it

elijahhewson still havent recovered from the incredibly girlish scream he let out hahah

bobbyskeetz a king, ill never question him again

yourusername

liked by trumanblack and others

yourusername psa: offically go ON THE RECORD that I am not dating anyone of these wonderful human beings that are my friends. although they are very beautiful and even hotter, we're all just a homies that are a lil bit fruity 💅

view all other comments

trumanblack wait what?? I thought we were married? what am I telling the kids ???

yourusername tell em their mother is in her hot girl era and their dad's a LOSER

bedfordanes75 you are such a mystery, how does your brain work 🤔

ynhealytruther nooooooo NO say sike rn RIGHT NOW

1975fan1 yay! theres still a chance 😎

inhalerfan1 oh this is really feeding my delusions hehehe

yourusername just added to their story!

y'all are gonna be so proud I'm off to go SOCIALISE with NEW people ahh 🔥🔥

replies:

trumanblack ooh is this the drinks with bono's sons band? ↳ yourusername you betcha, trading in the nepo baby in my life for a newer model xx rass75 I cannot believe you manifested this. go get that celeb crush ↳ yourusername welll if you insist ! ynfan1 you are soooooo me coded hahahha

AHH how we doing?? Go read part two please 🫶🏼

part 2

[lorenfinch]

Introduction

Hello! Very recently I found out about the existence of writeblr, and since I am currently working on a book series and trying to get the word out about it I thought I'd make a sideblog for it!

My name is Loren, and my full pen name is Loren Finch. I'm 24 at the time of writing this (though my birthday is less than a month away), I like to primarily use he/they, though I still go by she/her in some places due to not entirely being out and still experimenting with my pronouns. I am a mixed, queer, autistic/adhd, transmasc, aroace author who enjoys all things fantasy, gothic, and supernatural.

I am also an artist and you may find some of my character art here! My main blog is @circuslollipop and my art sideblog is @circuslollipopart! You can also find me on twitter @/circuslollipop and on insta @/circuslollipopart!!

I would love to meet and befriend fellow writers and seek out some beta readers in the future once I'm ready for it!

My current writing project was actually inspired by another writing idea I had! That project was moreso about faeries in a steampunk-inspired city, until I had a few worldbuilding ideas on how to integrate vampires into the setting. Then I came up with a couple characters and an entirely new setting, and found that I wanted to write about them instead!

For the time being. Perhaps when this monster of a project is all done, I can go back to that other idea! Or, idk, something about sapphic werecoyotes in an Old West-inspired town.

MY WIP

Currently, I am working on a new adult dark fantasy book series, with an aim for 5 books total. I would comp this as GRISHAVERSE x HELL FOLLOWED WITH US x THE WITCHER.

The Everdark. A vast expanse of forest and mountains where the sun cannot touch, where monsters roam wild and where magic permeates the very soil. To most mortals, the Everdark is a death sentence, but one young man hopes to make it a sanctuary. Renwick had always held a fascination for vampires, and now that he’s been turned into one, he revels at the chance to finally leave behind who he once was—scared and meek with no friends, shunned by his fellows who insisted he was a wretched little girl. Yet instead of the grand castles, billowing capes, and candlelit ballroom dances of his dreams, Renwick finds himself thrust in the middle of a conflict between vampires and monster hunters that threatens to turn deadly. With his new home and fellow vampires on the line, Renwick must uncover the secrets lurking in the fog, all while searching for his enigmatic uncle and grappling with the mysterious circumstances of his own transformation.

This series will feature vampires, undead creatures, elves, magic, a trans autistic MC, many queer characters, and an eventual MLM romance. The setting is inspired by mainly 19th century Europe with some medieval/renaissance era elements, and North American natural landscapes. Currently, I have just started drafting the first book! I am a plotter by nature, and have completed outlining book 1, and have mapped out where the rest of the series will go.

TAGS

ART: #character art

CHARACTERS: #ch: [insert character name]

TIPS: #ref

INSPIRATION: #inspo

I'll also add anything I see fit!

TAGLIST

@/angie-j-kay || @/digitalsatyr23 || @/sam-glade || @/worldsfromhoney

[butterflyhiptattoo]

Emerging From the Magazines: Bob Mizer's Athletic Models Guild

When twenty-four-year-old Bob Mizer began marketing photographs of men in posing straps in 1946, he was already on a crusade.

He was tired of police harassment in Pershing Square – a well-known meeting spot for gay men in downtown Los Angeles where he socialized with friends nearly every day during high school. They gossiped about their fellow Pershing Square regulars – the effeminate belles, the butch trade, and some in between. But in 1940 he wrote in his diary of a crackdown: "vice clean up is tightening Lillie is really serious about cleaning up the city," using a slang term common in gay circles for the police.

He also made weekly visits to the nearby Los Angeles Central Library and was tired of reading psychology books on the danger posed by "sexual variants" such as himself and his friends. "Anything you could read anywhere showed how pernicious a thing this was... [how] you would deteriorate into a mass of trembling flesh if you did these things," he later complained.

He was also tired of arguing with his Mormon mother, who vociferously objected to his transgender friend Rodney-later known as Daisy -who was bullied at school for wearing pink girls' slacks and having plucked eyebrows. Delia Mizer called Rodney a "pansy" and labeled his sexual proclivities "against all the laws of nature." Her son responded angrily, using a very different vocabulary, one that drew on notions of legal equality and civil rights: "Most people are just obeying their impulses," he retorted. "Should they be denied the right to fulfill their instincts?"

As a young man, Mizer had already identified the many ways society looked down on "temperamental people" like him and his circle of Pershing Square friends. More important, he was also clearly determined to do something about it to confront the legal, medical, and religious prejudices that so viscerally affected his life.

One Sunday night in March 1940 he was on the telephone listening to Rodney describe his sexual exploits from the night before. Someone else on his party line was also listening in a common occurrence at a time when only the rich had private telephone lines. Using vulgar lan-guage, the eavesdropper expressed his contempt for such people. Mizer had had enough. He channeled his anger into his diary that night: "My aim in life will be to create tolerance among mankind and especially to vindicate the decent, spiritual Urning," using a nineteenth-century term for men attracted to other men. He was beginning to articulate the sense of defiance that had been building up inside him. Soon his rudimentary efforts to create tolerance made it into print. "This week I made my column risqué," he noted of his writing in the Polytechnic High School newspaper. "All of my gay friends are included." Even as an eighteen-year-old high school student, Mizer demonstrated a willingness to defy convention and assert his desires. He had also developed the ability to publicly affirm his gay friends if in a coded way that perhaps only they would understand.

Mizer's ambition was to be an author. He was not just a columnist but an editor of his high school's award-winning newspaper – considered one of the top ten in the country by the Columbia University School of Journalism. He had begun creative writing in grammar school and published several short stories. He was also a voracious reader, checking out popular psychology and sexology books like Out-witting Our Nerves and Sexual Power on his weekly runs to the Los Angeles Public Library. He so identified with Boris Barisol's biography of writer Oscar Wilde, subtitled The Man, the Artist, the Martyr, that he labeled his own 1940 diary "Bob Mizer: The Man, the Thinker, the ?" One of his teachers suggested that his skills at writing, shorthand, and typing would easily land him a steady job as a court reporter. But Mizer wanted to write his own book. He would call it "How You Can Help the Homosexualists" and would target younger gay men whose worldview had not yet formed.

Although he never published such a book, writing would occupy much of his life, as he penned hundreds of feisty editorials denouncing censorship, puritanism, and prejudice for his magazine Physique Pictorial, which he published for over twenty years. Not unlike the book he hoped to write, Physique Pictorial offered help and comfort to tens of thousands of gay men in Cold War America. As the editor of the first large-circulation American magazine targeting gay men, Mizer found a way to help the community he had found at Pershing Square. In the pages of his path-breaking magazine, Mizer honed the skills he first tried out in his high school newspaper-thumbing his nose at the authorities while speaking up for his friends.

In postwar America, a commercial network of gay physique photographers and magazine publishers emerged from the contests and magazines surrounding the physical culture movement. Bob Mizer was neither the first nor the only gay man to capitalize on his community's interest in physique photography. But he became the center of a network that served to connect, inspire, and politicize that subculture. He drew on an older tradition of gay photographers marketing their products through an underground market or in the back pages of mainstream fitness magazines. But with the founding of Physique Pictorial in 1951, he opened this tradition to public scrutiny and a new level of visual and discursive engagement. He was joined by Irv Johnson, the owner of a gym in Chicago, who began publishing Tomorrow's Man in 1952, and by Randolph Benson and John Bullock, a gay couple who met at the University of Virginia, who began publishing Grecian Guild Pictorial in 1955. Together they created a new genre of small magazines that would help serve and unite gay men throughout the country. 

The social world Mizer constructed with his gay high school friends at Pershing Square was central to his budding role as a pioneering gay entrepreneur. "The number of faggots cruising around here is legion," remembered the writer Hart Crane. But the number of available sexual partners was only part of the appeal. "Here are little fairies who can quote Rimbaud before they are eighteen," he observed, suggesting how the space also offered an education in gay cultural codes. It was through connections made there that Mizer not only discovered a sense of community and a sense of oppression but also learned about a central feature of gay male culture: photography of the nude male.

While still in high school, Mizer went to a party at his friend Sydney Phillip's place, where three gay friends posed in the nude for "artistic studies" that the host photographed. "It was terribly cute to see them rush to hide in the bathroom whenever a knock was heard at the door," Mizer noted of the models' skittishness. Featured in one of the first entries in his 1940 diary, the night clearly made an impression. A few months later Mizer himself posed for another gay photographer and became "enthused about barbell exercising."3

Weightlifting led Mizer to another formative influence: Strength & Health, the preeminent physical culture magazine published by Bob Hoffman in York, Pennsylvania. Mizer began reading the magazine in high school when he started lifting weights – he purchased his barbells through its back pages. He enjoyed the bodybuilding photos and articles but was particularly intrigued by the monthly "S & H Leaguers' Page," a pen-pal service for those who wanted to exchange letters and photographs. Members often described their hobbies and interests, which included not only bodybuilding and physique photographs but often music, ballet, and theater. In April 1945 Mizer placed the following notice, hoping to connect with other leaguers; he included his home address, which would become the legendary home of his physique studio: "Bob Mizer, 1834 West 11th St., Los Angeles, Cal. is interested in photography and creative writing, and promises an immediate answer and exchange of photos to all who write. He uses a York barbell and other training appliances and hopes that we will allot more space to the league notes, as he enjoys reading this department and writing to other leaguers. "

The response was overwhelming – Mizer received over three hundred letters from fellow S & H Leaguers, some of whom remained life-long friends. Other leaguers reported similar responses from their no- tices. One received such a flood of mail-but to the wrong address – that the Post Office requested he issue a correction immediately. Mizer later praised this service for allowing "lonely bodybuilders and others" not only to correspond but also to form "long-lasting and fruitful" friendships. His positive experience with the S & H Leaguers' Page offered a pivotal lesson, demonstrating to Mizer the desire of men who enjoyed physique photography to connect with each other.

After high school graduation he worked as an office clerk and typist for the Texas & Fort Worth Railroad, but in his spare time he also began to help out at various Los Angeles photography studios, learning how to pose models, position lighting, and develop film. In the summer of 1945, during the final days of World War II, Mizer was full of excitement as he made plans over the establishment of what he was already calling "my business." He was honing his craft by apprenticing at Fred- erick Kovert's Hollywood studio. "I am helping him in my spare time in order to decide whether or not to come into the studio to work." Kovert was a former silent movie actor who had become one of the more daring and well-known photographers of nude men. Mizer was one of numerous young men working for Kovert, doing much of the photography that bore his name. Mizer often brought models there, used his darkroom, and even posed himself. He could do none of this at home, since his mother, who ran a rooming house, did not approve of his interest in photographing nearly naked men. Still, he found Kovert to be controlling and difficult to work with.

Soon he bought his own camera and started to frequent Muscle Beach and bodybuilding competitions to find models. Muscle Beach in Santa Monica-not far from the home he shared with his mother near downtown Los Angeles was the center of the postwar interest in bodybuilding and beefcake. It was the perfect place to meet bodybuilders who were anxious to be photographed. "I modeled for Bob Mizer in 1947, '48," Ben Sorensen remembered. "Bob came down to Muscle Beach and just talked to people, you know? He invites us up. Of course everybody's interested, when they're bodybuilding, in getting some free pictures." It was Bob McCune, another bodybuilding champion Mizer photographed, who convinced Mizer to submit his photos to Strength & Health. Editor John Grimek, himself a well-known bodybuilding champion, encouraged Mizer to submit more work. "Yours are as good as others," Grimek told the budding photographer when they met at one of the bodybuilding competitions in Los Angeles. 

Mizer called his business the Athletic Model Guild (AMG) and offered his first advertisements in Strength & Health in 1946, where they competed for attention with similar advertisements from other gay photographers, such as Alfonso Hanagan, known as "Lon of New York." Hanagan had first become interested in physique photography when he became enthralled with images of bodybuilder Tony Sansone, who marketed his own photographs. After moving to New York in 1936 to pursue a career in music, he met Sansone and began to socialize with and photograph him and his friends. By the 1940s his physique photographs were being featured on the cover of Strength & Health and bodybuilders began seeking him out, hoping to appear on magazine cover. As payment, the magazine gave him free ad space in the back of the magazine. It was this mutually profitable world of photographers, bodybuilders, and magazine publishers that Mizer would enter, then help to transform.

When Mizer began marketing physique photography to a gay audience, he joined a field with deep roots in gay culture. The taking, sharing, and selling of such images had been central to gay culture for well over a half century by the time Mizer discovered it. Wilhelm von Gloeden began selling photographs of nude young men he posed in classical staging in Taormina, Sicily, in the 1890s. He developed a large following in cosmopolitan circles, especially among cultivated gay men. Some of his more restrained images appeared in European journals that were popular within the Aesthetic movement, while his nudes circulated through an underground market. Oscar Wilde and other gay notables made pilgrimages to his studio.

In addition to such high art, images of nearly nude men circulated in the context of the physical culture movement, starting with images of Eugene Sandow in the 1890s. By the 1920s nude photos were widely marketed in the back of both art and physical culture magazines. Physical culturist John Hernic offered nude photos in the back of Art Magazine in the 1920s and Strength & Health in the 1930s. "These photos will be a source of inspiration to you in your training for a well developed body," Hernic's ad promised, providing a small image of a muscled and oiled young man with a prominent posing strap a pouch hanging off a string that covered only the genitals, the most revealing item of clothing a model could wear.

Collector Robert Mainardi identifies Hernic as a "mail-order pioneer," but his Apollo Art Studios was soon joined by others. To earn a living during the Depression, brothers Fred and William Ritter photographed themselves and their fellow physical culturists who trained at a New York City YMCA. They developed their own photos and sold high-quality images for $1 apiece. Film historian Thomas Waugh labels them "the first gay generation of physique photographers. "10

Nude figure studies were only one of the many items available for sale in the back pages of these magazines. There were advertisements for barbells, food supplements, clothing, figure studies, and more. Indeed, most magazines were simply vehicles to sell products. Bob Hoffman founded the York Barbell Company a year before he founded his magazine Strength & Health and admitted the periodical was really a means to sell equipment. Both Hoffman and his main competitor Joe Weider distributed their fitness magazines at a loss, seeing them as a way to sell more barbells. Some of the first famous bodybuilders were similarly engaged in marketing products. Eugene Sandow – considered the world's most perfect man – performed on the vaudeville circuit, published books on physical culture techniques, and marketed postcards of his own image. As much a brand name as a bodybuilder, Sandow opened a chain of vegetarian restaurants, sanatoriums, and hotels that by the 1920s made him a millionaire. Bodybuilding promoter Bernarr Macfadden also constructed a commercial empire around the sport that included health retreats, restaurants, beauty contests, book sales, lectures, and mail-order fitness courses. Right from the start, bodybuilding was a lucrative business, the centerpiece of a network of consumer items.

A legend has developed that Mizer's first business plan was to serve as a referral service between models and the studios that required their services. According to this legend, the talent agency model failed, but Mizer díscovered, as if by accident, that the photographs were more lucrative than the modeling connections. This unsubstantiated story implies that his idea of marketing photos to gay men was sui generis. It cuts Mizer off from the long tradition of gay men taking, exchanging, and purchasing such photographs, beginning in the late nineteenth century. One of the sources of the legend was Wayne Stanley, a Mizer protégé who inherited Mizer's business and who self-servingly asserted that AMG was "the first photographic studio of the young male physique, ignoring Von Gloeden, Hernic, the Ritter Brothers, Lon of New York, Kovert, and many others. Mizer's diaries suggest that photography was key from the beginning and that he considered himself to be part of a field of physique photographers from at least 1946. While a pioneer in many ways, Mizer did not create the genre. 

Although the selling of physique-type photographs was not new, in the post-World War II era such imagery was becoming a much more visible component of American culture. Men had only recently started appearing shirtless in public. While European men had begun going topless on beaches soon after World War I, one-piece men's bathing suits emerged in the United States only in the 1930s. Some called them "Depression suits," suggesting that the shirt disappeared owing to lack of funds. As more and more proud male bathers defied convention by exposing their chests, the media began to talk of a "no shirt movement." Some beach communities such as Atlantic City, New Jersey, pushed back and banned topless male bathing. Responding to the changing beach regulations, clothing manufacturers offered detachable tops for their swimsuits. Representing the shifting cultural sands, their advertisements often featured one shirtless male and another with trunks and a tank top. According to David Chapman, by 1937 the controversy was settled, as most of the nation's beaches allowed men to appear shirtless.

World War II brought images of shirtless sailors and soldiers into American homes and theaters. In covering the war, New York magazines and Hollywood films soon reflected the trend toward displays of the male chest. A cover of Look magazine in 1942 featured a shirtless image of Muscle Beach denizen John Kornoff, the U.S. Army's first physical trainer. Cannon Towel advertisements in Life featured soldiers bathing in the South Pacific wearing nothing but one of its products. Within a year of the war's end, as Mizer started marketing his photo albums, Sidney Skolsky, sitting across town in Swab's drugstore writing his nationally syndicated gossip column, coined "beefcake" to refer to Hollywood's liberal use of Guy Madison's physique. Madison had been discovered by gay Hollywood agent Henry Willson, who also named and popularized gay actors Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson. Skolsky dubbed the bevy of male actors posing in bathing suits a "beefcake brigade," and this new term for displays of young, pulchritudinous male flesh took hold. Willson was a frequent client of physique photographer Lon of New York but was now bringing that same look to Hollywood. So the popularization of "beefcake" imagery and terminology, from their very origins, had a gay inflection.

But if male torsos could increasingly be seen on American beaches and in popular periodicals after World War II, they were still considered taboo in town. Men would continue to be subject to arrest for appearing shirtless on many city streets and in parks into the early 1960s. They were particularly vulnerable to such arrest if they did so in a known gay cruising area, reflecting the tensions in American culture over male nudity and its homoerotic implications. A seventeen year-old Harvey Milk remembered being charged with indecent exposure in the summer of 1947 for baring his chest in a secluded gay cruising area of Central Park, even as men with families did exactly the same on the more public grassy lawns. Being grouped among "the men without their shirts" was one of Milk's first visceral experiences of antigay oppression. 

As interest in the male physique increased during the postwar period, Mizer's Physique Pictorial would catch the beginnings of a cultural wave. Yet he would also feel the wrath of law enforcement that tried to shut his business down, even before it was formally on its feet. He and his magazine would be caught up in legal disputes over the sexual meaning of such displays of male flesh. For the next two decades, Mizer would place himself at the center of this battle.

POSTAL INSPECTOR VISIT

On July 23, 1945, Mizer had his first of many encounters with federal law enforcement authorities. After leaving work as usual at the Texas & Fort Worth Railroad and bicycling by the library on Pershing Square to exchange some books, Mizer arrived home to find postal inspectors waiting for him. They searched his room, found "dirty pictures," and took him to their offices for questioning. Mizer somehow escaped arrest, but a few months later Kovert's studio was also raided, resulting in headlines in the Los Angeles Examiner. Intimately involved in the resulting legal drama, Mizer attended court with Kovert, who pleaded guilty to possession of obscene materials, and drafted a letter for Kovert's customers seeking their support. Not even the intimidating tactics of the Post Office and the court system seem to have deterred the twenty-three-year-old Mizer. "Spent evening on [Athletic Model] Guild calls and letters," he wrote in his diary, just two days after being what he described as "probed" by postal inspectors. Rather than serve as a deterrent, Mizer's encounter with federal postal authorities seemed to increase his resolve and suggests how his struggle with the forces of censorship formed a central component of his business. Mizer would face arrest again in 1947 and 1954 in connection with his business, each encounter with the authorities sharpening his sense of outrage.

Mizer began his business in 1946 by producing and distributing mimeographed "albums" to sell his beefcake photographs, copying the standard operating procedure followed by Kovert of Hollywood, Lon of New York, and many other such photographers.17 He would send customers who responded to his advertisements in Strength & Health a one-page sample of photo albums, from which they could select the models and images they wanted to purchase. However, Mizer's early albums went beyond providing the necessary marketing information. Mizer peppered his albums with news and commentary on the physique world-biographies of models, bodybuilding contest results, and warnings about Post Office crackdowns. As with his earlier writings in high school and his later editorials in Physique Pictorial, Mizer constructed a narrative that drew customers and models into the same enlightened circle of upstanding physique enthusiasts and supporters of free speech, while casting public censors and moralists into the darkness.

Starting with Forrester Millard in 1946 -- the first featured model in his premier "Album A" – Mizer constructed a fantasy narrative about his models that encouraged a sense of identification between them and his target audience of middle-class gay men. At the same time, he cleaned up the description of his interactions to avoid any hint of illegality. Although Mizer would print on almost every mailing and magazine he produced that he neither took nor sold nude photographs, he took nudes of Millard and of most every subsequent model. A native of New Mexico, Millard was only sixteen at the time Mizer photographed him, though Mizer fudged his date of birth to make him seventeen.

Publicly, Mizer lauded Millard as the ideal model who had control of every muscle due to hours posing before a circle of mirrors. Privately, Mizer complained that Millard was narcissistic to the point of being "completely entranced with his own physical beauty." Vanity had led Millard to quit school and be supported by his mother and a girlfriend. "In the album bulletins I try to be truthful – but naturally I must show jurisprudence in what truth I tell," Mizer wrote a correspondent at the time. "I would doom a model's popularity if I announced he was married with two kids.... Most of my models over 23 are married or are permanently shacking up with their common-law wives."

So the biography Mizer constructed for Millard centered on discipline, Horatio Alger upward mobility, and a hint of homosexual camaraderie. "Laughed at because he was skinny, Forrester rapidly developed a magnificently defined body which became the envy of his former tormentors," Mizer wrote. Mizer replaced mention of his real-life girlfriend with "training companion" John Miller, who had won top honors at a recent AAU contest. They posed for Mizer's first duos, a homoerotic format that set Mizer and other gay physique photographers apart from their mainstream colleagues. Dark-featured Millard and blonde Miller looked like the perfect gay couple. They hoped to open a gym together, Mizer told his clients suggestively. The image of Millard and Miller on a settee with overlapping arms, hands touching, appeared in Strength & Health and became a signature AMG photo. Millard was later called "almost the touchtone for AMG's fame".

To counter the perception of both gay men and bodybuilders as degenerates, Mizer's biographical notes gave his models middle-class respectability, highlighting not only their physical attributes but also their alleged intellectual and professional ambitions. Not only was model Johnny Murphy tops in the "muscle game," but his business courses at Woodbury College were preparing him to become a business executive. "In anything he does, he will not content himself with being just average, he must be the best," Mizer gushed.

From the feedback he received to his many customer questionnaires, Mizer had a keen sense of what his audience liked and the "psychological effect" of his photos. As he told a colleague, "A picture is rarely unpopular if the model looks directly into the lens (and hence seems to be looking at the person observing the picture) as naturally they feel identification with him." Not only in his lighting and posing but also in his editorial content, Mizer made sure that his largely middle-class audience could identify with the models he was offering them, assuring them that they were "from upper-level homes." While seeking to bond models and customers in a circle of mutual camaraderie and respectability – what he called "the few... who demand freedom of expression" – Mizer also used his albums to make a detailed and careful analysis of censorship efforts by people he derided as "philistines," "moralists," and "unaesthetic law enforcement officers. " Mizer had gotten nowhere in his attempts to reason with censorship authorities. He and his fellow Los Angeles area physique photographers petitioned the Post Office to allow the use of the mail for nude photography. Postal authorities responded that they were forced to forbid such mail by local civic organizations and church groups that feared such products would fall into the hands of children. Mizer offered a clever countersuggestion: photographers could send nude photographs care of the local postmaster in every city, where they could then be claimed by the recipient with proper proof of age. His proposal went unheeded.

Mizer had been in business less than a year when he was first arrested, but it was not for sending nudes through the mail. Mindful of postal inspectors, he had sold nudes only to walk-in customers at his studio near downtown Los Angeles-what amounted to just 10 percent of his business. But when one of those customers, thirty six-year-old Mexican-born Texan Pasquel Barron, became embroiled in a Post Office obscenity investigation, he admitted to obtaining nudes from Mizer, and the Post Office quickly forwarded the information to the local district attorney. Mizer was arrested in 1947 for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, James Maynor, one of his first models, a seventeen-year-old. The district attorney uncovered a network of teenage bodybuilders centered on Muscle Beach, many of whom had been brought to Mizer's studio by William Petty, a physical education instructor employed by the city of Santa Monica to organize athletic activities and performances. Petty and another photographer were also arrested.

Unable to afford an attorney, Mizer was convinced by a public defender to plead guilty to the misdemeanor charge he admitted to photographing Maynor in the nude. But in his plea to avoid prison and receive probation, Mizer insisted that he operated a legitimate business. He stipulated that he had consulted with attorneys and obtained signed release statements from his models or their parents. To distinguish his from previous such enterprises that operated underground, Mizer granted the court access to his meticulous records concerning both customers and models. He freely admitted to being a homosexual and to "attend[ing] several meetings of other types of such individuals in Lafayette Park" a possible reference to gay social or fraternal organizations. Friends and neighbors testified to his good conduct and character – they described him as a photographer and artist who never smoked, drank, or got entangled in the law. The district attorney countered that Mizer's business was "pandering only to the tastes of lustful homosexuals." Several of his models, including John Miller, featured in AMG's early advertisements, confessed to engaging in oral sex with Mizer.

In denying his request, the probation officer emphasized that Mizer showed no remorse for his activities and was an admitted homosexual. He labeled his business of photographing teenage boys in the nude "a vicious and deliberate crime." Mizer was sentenced to six months at a work farm in Saugus, California. As with his interrogation by postal inspectors in 1945, the time he spent in Saugus seemed to steel his will. He felt abused by a legal system that was persecuting him for his lack of shame in being gay and operating a business that catered to his fellow homosexuals. He would later caution his readers to remain silent if arrested and never admit to any guilt, lest they find themselves "rail-roaded to prison" like he felt he was. As he wrote to his mother from Saugus, "I feel more strength now than ever before, but this strength, this driving energy, shall be carefully bridled and directed with wisdom.... ambition is everything." Mizer's tone and focus on the forces of censorship turned darker after his 1947 arrest. By 1950 he reported on a "witch hunt" at Muscle Beach, where one Sunday all the photographers were arrested and further photography forbidden. "Los Angeles and California is in a stage of sex hysteria," he warned, with the state legislature passing sex laws "which only stop short of outlawing the double bed." He chastised "those too stupid and prurient-minded" to understand and appreciate the need for nude art. "These same philistines are mischievously at work to undermine other basic rights of the individual," he wrote. He recommended that readers join the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or the American Sunbathing and Health Association, a nudist organization. "The only successful way to fight these frustrated reactionaries is through national organization." Fighting the forces of censorship through collective action was clearly on Mizer's mind.

Mizer closely followed and reported on the legal struggles of other physique photographers, even though raising such issues threaten to scare away more timid customers. Whenever possible, he noted what he saw as rays of hope, such as a "progressive Federal Judge" in Chicago who ruled in 1947 that photographs of nude males by Al Urban were not obscene. He noted that most magazines and photographers "in the field" had almost always beaten their prosecutions, but "only at damaging expense." These small victories failed to establish a clear national legal precedent, nor did they silence the local churches, parent teacher organizations, and other "moralist groups" behind censorship efforts. Mizer quickly identified the pattern of obscenity prosecution that would continue for the next twenty years: censors won at the local or lower-level courts but then lost on appeal. Physique photographers would have to work together to establish a large war chest to fight the censors and establish a national precedent.

PHYSIQUE PICTORIAL

So when Mizer began publishing Physique Pictorial in 1951, he envisioned it as a collective effort – a catalog of merchandise from a variety of gay photographers and other vendors facing exclusion from mainstream fitness magazines. The first few issues were "advertising booklets," offered to subscribers for free – a "gift" underwritten by participating businesses. Like the mainstream fitness magazines, Mizer figured that photograph sales would more than pay for the magazine, as barbell sales financed mainstream fitness magazines. He wanted to bring gay physique photographers into closer alliance and thereby more effectively fight the forces of censorship. First called Physique Photo News, it would take advertisements from the back of Strength & Health and give them a new, safer, and more prominent home of their own.

Under pressure from postal authorities, mainstream fitness magazines were beginning to refuse ads for undraped nudes. Warning that "queers" had "obtained a particularly vicious hold on our bodybuilding game," Iron Man instituted a policy refusing ads with models wearing anything less than swim trunks and threatened even stricter rules in the future. Strength & Health had faced censorship efforts over a cover image that had been taken in the nude and later retouched with a posing strap. The managing editor of Strength & Health warned Mizer that his advertisement photos were becoming "less athletic and more risqué" and threatened to bar him from the magazine. While Mizer pledged to cooperate, he saw the writing on the wall. "We are anxious to get our own magazine strong enough that in a few years time we can thumb our noses at the physique magazines," he wrote to a trusted adviser.

The first issue represented the combined effort of six physique photography studios, but most of the others soon opted out. "Bruce [Bellas] was so frightened that he decided not to be represented in the next issue," Mizer recalled. To avoid postal inspectors, Bellas preferred to travel from city to city selling his images in person to select clients. Russ Warner also demurred, having already been summoned to Washington for an arduous hearing before postal inspectors over his nude photos with inked-in pouches. "The only people who would want photos of men were gay people," the postal inspectors confided to him, and their threat to "get every one of them" left him skittish. Even Mizer feared repercussions since "it will look dangerously like an organization which might effectively resist the postal distaste for physique work." Postal authorities may not have viewed it as a threat, but such organizational power was clearly at the forefront of Mizer's thinking.

Mizer's efforts at consolidation drew inspiration from the most prominent scholar and writer on the subject of sex in America. Like other early activists for gay rights, Mizer had read Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and considered it pivotal for his understanding of homosexuality as a naturally and frequently occurring variation of human activity. "Dr. Kinsey's first book was the most important one in my whole life," Mizer wrote to a colleague, "and for it I owe him a debt I could probably never repay. "

As an avid collector of materials to document American sexual culture, Kinsey became a regular Mizer customer, and the two quickly established an active correspondence that lasted nearly until Kinsey's death in 1956. On his many visits to Los Angeles, Kinsey met with Mizer and conducted sexual histories of his fellow physique photographers and models. Mizer even forwarded his frequent customer questionnaires to Kinsey for tabulation, thereby offering him indirect access to his customer base. In return, Kinsey offered strategic advice about how best to combat postal authorities.

Because of his own struggles with postal and customs authorities over shipments of erotic materials to his institute at Indiana University, Kinsey had developed relationships with prestigious law firms specializing in the First Amendment. It was he who suggested that physique publishers could win at the appellate level if they could find a way to sustain and finance their legal cases. "I have suggested before that all of you photographers should band together and employ the very best attorney that you can in the L.A. area to advise you and to handle individual cases," Kinsey wrote to Mizer in 1951, just as Mizer was establishing Physique Pictorial. Kinsey suggested that photographers of female nudes had tried to do this but never succeeded at forming a united group. While Mizer never formally organized his fellow physique photographers, he and his magazine served as a de facto central bureau of information, connecting customers, photographers, and publishers.

Tapping into an underserved gay market, Mizer's business flourished. As Mizer later remembered, "there was not such a thing at the time as a magazine that showed a variety of young, youthful models – not supermen – which is what most people wanted." Through his customer questionnaires, Mizer knew what his clients wanted: less information on weightlifting and exercise and more models. One twenty- two-year-old customer from Winchester, Massachusetts, remarked how Mizer's models were becoming "more youthful, slimmer and more suggestively posed" and encouraged him to be upfront about it – not to "hide all this under the general category of art photography," a common claim of photographers offering undraped nudes. As he wrote to Mizer, "It appears to me that by the constant polls you all seem to be taking so that you may satisfy your customers, you are catering more and more to the homosexual trade." Models, too, knew what Mizer was up to. "I think Bob was, um, interested more in the gay magazines than the bodybuilding ones," remembered model Ben Sorensen. "I'm straight, but that didn't bother me at all. Everybody at the gym knew what they were doing with the photos."

Within a year of establishing AMG, Mizer reported a gross monthly income of $700-annualized, this amounted to nearly three times the average family income of 1947. Mizer had hired his brother as a full-time employee and had nearly $2,000 in savings. His mailing list already contained customers from "practically every country in the world," according to the district attorney who prosecuted his case. "It grew like Topsy – a little bit each time," Mizer remembered.33 He soon began offering a "Nickle Plan," similar to a monthly book club, where customers would regularly receive photographs from each new AMG album. Wishing to respond to the particular desires of his customers, he allowed them to specify what types of models and photographs they preferred not to receive: "models over or under ages, races, slender or very heavy weights, poses with girls, models in clothing or part clothing such as Levis, models in trunks, portraits." Mizer was already engaging in specialization, acknowledging the particular sexual desires, fetishes, and prejudices of his customers.

Although Physique Pictorial could increasingly be found on select newsstands, Mizer's initial sense of it as a catalog of merchandise for subscribers endured. He recalled that although magazine wholesaler Lou Elson began to distribute it in New York after a year or two on the market, newsstand sales did not substantially increase total circulation. "Its circulation was horrible. It was very hard to get. Most newsstands didn't carry it," remembered Chuck Renslow, then a fellow physique photographer in Chicago. Mizer himself called his newsstand circulation "quiet select." Continually struggling to find a newsstand distribution network, he mostly sold Physique Pictorial by subscription. But he was proud of his independence – unwilling to bow and scrape to distributors or advertisers. In addition to working with a few wholesalers, Mizer sent copies himself to select newsstands. "Tell your dealer about this and give him our address," he suggested to readers, trying to get them actively involved in increasing circulation. When Physique Pictorial did manage to appear on newsstands, it sold out almost immediately.

In 1963 AMG tried to diversify and modernize by offering a large format, color magazine called Young Adonis to supplement the black-and-white Physique Pictorial. It was a sell-out wherever it was sold, but again Mizer had trouble getting it on newsstands. The distributor wrote Mizer a two-page letter describing the magazine's "sins." Although Mizer promised future issues would feature new offerings, including a fashion section handled by model Mark Nixon, it was the only issue Mizer offered.

FROM GUILD TO NETWORK

Mizer's choice of the term "guild" to refer to his business started a trend among physique photography studios. Don Whitman founded the Western Photography Guild in Colorado in 1947 and soon had advertisements next to AMG's in the back of Strength & Health. In Metairie, Louisiana, a group of physique photographers and artists launched the Southern Guild. And in Portsmouth, Virginia, George U. Lyon and Charles E. Smith started Underwood Photographic Guild. The word "guild" could refer to any association of people with a common goal but historically referred to a group of craftsmen or merchants who exerted some control over their trade. As an avid reader, Mizer was probably well aware that medieval guilds were famous for regulating entry into a profession and often exerted considerable power in city government. His choice of words suggests his aspirations to unite, protect, and empower those involved in the physique field. It was the same term Harry Hay would use as he began organizing the Mattachine Society as a gay political group across town a few years later.

In keeping with the spirit of a guild, Mizer cooperated with and promoted the work of other photographers. He would share or sell mailing lists to competitors and alert readers when new physique magazines were launched or studios opened. "Physique Pictorial is not a closed enterprise and any legitimate studio can be represented in it," he promised. By 1954 he regularly included a directory of photographers, artists, and models selling merchandise, a custom followed by many later physique magazines. He was happy to note when individual models offered their own photos directly to readers. When he had a disagreement with a physique artist, he let readers know that the artist's work could now be found in a competing magazine. 

As the number of physique studios catering to gay men proliferated, Mizer's magazine functioned like a Better Business Bureau. Mizer barred advertisements from studios who were known to be unreliable, gave bad service, or sold illegal material (although he included photos with "inked" pouches, indicating the original photograph was in the nude.) He threatened to publicly denounce photographers who were territorial and unwelcoming to new talent in their area, and he was quick to publicly reprimand photographers who did not reciprocate his courtesies. Mizer also warned readers of offers from the "get-rich- quick boys" promising special pictures available only to a few "intimate friends." Given the Post Office's vigilance, he knew that studios selling nudes would not last long. "Every mailing list is peppered with postal inspectors and their collaborators," he cautioned. After sending in an exorbitant fee, the customer might receive nothing. He encouraged readers to confess their stories of being victimized by such schemes.40 Envisioning a constantly widening network of producers and consumers, Mizer sought to place himself at its fulcrum. Soon he was offering a host of consumer items – artwork, slides, viewers, and "garments for athletes" including jeans, T-shirts, bathing suits, and the ubiquitous posing straps. Physique Pictorial functioned as a nexus for finding, producing, selling, and admiring male photos. Other studios described AMG as a one-stop shopping experience: "one of the largest photo guilds in the country and supplies about everything a photo collector or bodybuilder wants: movies, garments, thousands of all sizes of photos, color slides, and many other works of art." 

The network grew increasingly international as Mizer featured photographs by Arax of Paris and models wearing trunks from Vince of London. He soon had agents in Belgium, France, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Japan. By 1962 Mizer sponsored European tours for physique enthusiasts, "to photograph local athletes, and to visit famous clubs of special interest."

Mizer encouraged not only other physique photographers but a new and growing group of physique artists in his magazine. AMG became a generative center that showcased the work of talented young painters and sketch artists who then developed their own followings that often eclipsed Mizer's own popularity. In 1957 he introduced an unknown artist who "depicts the healthy robust youth of the forests of Finland," who would later reach international renown as "Tom of Finland." But it was an artist from Virginia, George Quaintance, who created what Mizer called a "vogue" that was widely imitated.

Quaintance had begun taking photographs and drawing sketches of male nudes under the tutelage of Lon of New York. He had worked drawing bodybuilding champions for the cover of Joe Weider's Your Physique, but it was when he started painting for Bob Mizer's new magazine that his career took off. Set either at a dude ranch in Arizona, where he lived, or at a bath in ancient Greece, Quaintance's paintings created the kind of playful environment of easy male camaraderie that Mizer sought to foster through his magazine. And like Mizer, Quaintance considered his homoerotic artwork to be "a crusade for the rights of the feelings" of his customers. "I too feel that I crusade in my attempt to supply, or satisfy, a deep emotional hunger in the inner lives of my customers," he explained to a homophile leader. Soon his mailing list of ten thousand active buyers around the world surpassed that of Mizer. He offered not only physique paintings but prints, photographs, and sculptures, expanding his business to a four-man operation. "It grew too fast.... I'm trying to adjust myself to all the confusion," he wrote at the time. Those who met him as he toured the country selling his artwork describe a flamboyant artist who loved wearing western gear, turquoise jewelry, and showing off his young Mexican American lover and frequent model, Eduardo.

What distinguished Quaintance's artwork was not just the invitation to view nearly naked men but the excitement of seeing them looking at each other, as Michael Bronski has argued. One of Quaintance's first cover images for Physique Pictorial demonstrates how groundbreaking those gazes were. "Morning in the Desert" featured four ranch hands around an outdoor bath dressing and preparing for work. One naked bather is standing, his genitals covered only by soapsuds. Another naked man lies below him in a tub of water, looking directly up at the other's body. But for the cover of the magazine, to pass postal censors, Quaintance shifted the man's head to the left, so his gaze no longer fell longingly on his fellow naked male bather. Like his better-known successor, Tom of Finland, Quaintance constructed a "network of looks" that included and invited those of the viewer, furthering the sense of homoerotic identification.

Mizer's growing network of photographers, artists, and other physique-related businesses used a language of friendship and camaraderie that further encouraged a sense of community. Seattle physique artist William MacLean set up a studio and invited new and emerging physique artists to market their work through him. This offer featured a photograph of the very handsome artist hanging images in his exhibit space, noting suggestively that he was "a very eligible bachelor" and therefore "his studio is a gathering place for the young social set and many a party is hosted there." London model Clive Jones sold his images directly and promised to handle orders personally. "Clive would like to hear from his many friends in America" and promised to send a catalog of images of himself and his "buddies" in London.

Mizer offered slides of physique models intended to be projected on a wall or screen for group viewing. One of MacLean's more reproduced drawings showed a group of men admiring AMG slides and imitating the poses of the models. When Mizer began making physique film shorts, he called for readers to submit script ideas, giving members yet another way to participate. He offered suggestions on where to buy a good, inexpensive projector and soon began renting the films at a quarter of the price of purchasing one. In words and images, he encouraged readers to share the experience of watching physique films. "Imagine what a hit these films would be at your next party or gathering of friends who are physical culture enthusiasts!" Indeed, much of the allure of participating in this network, whether as a producer or as a consumer, was the sense of community it offered.

Mizer's own rhetoric helped to solidify that sense of community. Boasting that his magazine lacked "mass appeal," he explicitly signaled his targeting of a minority population, what he called "the limited aesthetic group" who appreciated the male body. Mizer was borrowing a gay discourse developed in the late nineteenth century, a period he knew well from his reading of Boris Brasol's biography of Oscar Wilde. As art historian Christopher Reed argues, "The Wilde trials seemed to reveal homosexuality as the secret behind the enigmatic passions of the Aesthetes, tainting the entire movement, all of its products, and even the idea of aesthetic sensitivity." 

Indeed, the modern identities of "the homosexual" and "the artist" – both considered manifestations of innate predispositions – developed nearly simultaneously in the nineteenth century, as both creating art and committing sodomy moved from activities to ways of being. "Artistic" quickly became euphemistic slang for "queer." Painter Paul Cadmus remembered how the association had transferred to the American scene by the 1930s. "The word homosexual was never used," he remembered. "They just said, 'He's an artist." American psychiatrists, too, described men suspected of homosexuality as "aesthetic in temperament." Thus when Mizer adopted this language, praising Quaintance for his "neo-aestheticism" and imagining his audience as "the limited aesthetic group," he was signaling to and helping to construct a distinct gay identity among his readers.

"THE TV SHOW THAT MADE AMERICA GASP!"

Physique Pictorial's increasing circulation came with its own risks. Its presence on Los Angeles newsstands soon caught the attention of Paul Coates, a conservative columnist for the afternoon tabloid the Los Ange- les Mirror, known for exposing what he considered to be the seamier side of life in Southern California – prostitutes, repo men, drug addicts, and shoplifters. In 1954 Coates used his local television program Confidential File on KTTV to alert his audience to the "unpleasant fact" of homosexuality in Los Angeles. It was the first prime-time television program to broach the topic and helped propel Coates's show into national syndication. Coates featured footage of a Mattachine Society meeting with well-dressed men and women drinking coffee and eating cookies. He also gave his audience a glimpse inside a gay bar. But he ended the show by holding up a copy of Physique Pictorial as a shocking example on city newsstands of the publications catering to homosexuals. According to one tabloid, it was "the TV show that made America gasp!" Working closely with the local Parent Teacher Association (PTA), Coates couched his programming as a crusade to warn families of the dangers homosexuals posed to children. He followed up with three newspaper columns devoted exclusively to the presence of gay maga-zines on the city's newsstands. Although concerned about the homophile magazine ONE, which billed itself as "The Homosexual Magazine," he noted that its editors at least made an effort to avoid the lurid. Physique Pictorial, however, was "thinly veiled pornography" that appealed to sex criminals and sadists. Coates claimed that this "Esquire for men who wish they weren't" featured images of men in chains being beaten and stabbed – a sensational reading of Mizer's photographs with swords and chains as props. He highlighted the case of one of Mizer's teenage models from Muscle Beach-an active church member engaged to be married, he noted-who complained of unwanted homosexual solicitations after his photo appeared in Physique Pictorial. There were dozens of such dangerous photographers, Coates warned. "It's big business in our town."

Leveraging his connections to the powerful Chandler media family, Coates orchestrated an all-out assault on Mizer's business. After Coates's columns appeared, a phalanx of local government officials descended on Mizer's business. Police began to intimidate newsstands where his magazine appeared. City regulators inspected his home, and health officials tested his pet monkeys for diseases. The former model featured in Coates's column sued Mizer for invasion of privacy.

Most ominously, the story brought a plainclothes Los Angeles Police Department vice officer to his door asking to buy nudes. Mizer demurred, offering him only his usual catalogs of men in posing straps. Undeterred, Detective Philip Barnes asked who of the many other photographers featured in his magazine might offer nudes. Mizer again demurred, but Barnes had already visited the studio of Lyle Frisby, a young, up-and-coming Mizer protégé whose images Mizer often included in his magazine. More accommodating, Frisby sold him "inked" nude photos, where the posing straps could be easily rubbed off.

Coates proudly covered the sting operation in a subsequent column. To again sensationalize the threat posed to children, he noted ominously that Frisby's Los Angeles studio was located just 250 yards from an elementary school. Both Frisby and Mizer were promptly arrested for possessing and distributing lewd photographs – a violation of the Los Angeles municipal code allowing Coates's newspaper series to end on a note of civic triumph.

Frisby was easily convicted and spent time in prison. The prosecution of Mizer, however, was more complicated, since the focus of the charge was "aiding and abetting" the sale of lewd pictures. Detective Barnes testified that Mizer told him he could obtain nudes from any of his advertisers, but he failed to note this in his initial report. Mizer denied the claim, testifying that he told detective Barnes that nudes were illegal and unavailable in Los Angeles and that he personally advised all photographers not to deal in nudes. Either way, there was little evidence to link Mizer directly with Frisby's nude photos. Seeing the weakness of the "aiding and abetting" argument, the prosecutor argued that Mizer's own photos were obscene because they displayed both "scenes of brutality and torture" and "the uncovered rump." Mizer's lawyer, Herbert Selwyn from the ACLU, argued that Mizer's posing-strap images were no more lewd than those in classical statuary or in movies such as Garden of Eden, a film set in a nudist colony then screening in area theaters. He called it "the first uncovered rump case" in memory.

But as in almost all trials of physique photographers, the real issue was less the explicitness of the photos than the sexual orientation of their audience. Displaying his real concern, the judge told Selwyn, "These are nothing but pin-up pictures for homosexuals." To feed the judge's suspicions, the prosecutor displayed a copy of Confidential mag- azine at trial with the blaring headline "America on Guard! Homosexuals, Inc." Trying to further associate Mizer with the homosexual cause, he concluded his cross-examination by asking, "Do you also publish the magazine known as ONE?" The judge sustained Selwyn's objection but enjoyed a "hearty chuckle." He found Mizer guilty and sentenced him to ninety days in prison.

Mizer appealed his conviction, telling Kinsey he was willing to put a substantial dent in his bank account and solicit help from nudist and other groups. He convinced a British magazine to publicize the case. "It is odd that when I am one of the few physique photographers who does not deal in nudes that I should be picked out as the one who must fight for their legality," he complained to Kinsey, who thought he was singled out because of the size of his business. Mizer was the aggressive entrepreneur who took the physique business from the back pages of fitness magazines to the cover of his own magazine, openly challenging postal inspectors. Predictably, Mizer's conviction was overturned on appeal. "You have done very well to stand up for your legal rights," Kinsey congratulated him. But Mizer, concerned about the effect such news might have on the field of physique photography, did not gloat. "I am keeping news of our victory quiet because I think some of the photographers in our field need a bit of a deterrent to keep them in line."

Mizer and Barnes squared off again a year later, this time in a televised congressional hearing. Mizer and Frisby became fodder for Senator Estes Kefauver's traveling hearings on the alleged problem of juvenile delinquency in America, part of his bid to enhance his presidential aspirations. Kefauver got Benjamin Karpman, the chief psychotherapist at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., to testify that exposure to pornography at an early age could turn someone gay. Barnes described how he had confiscated pornographic materials from major national distributors Edward Mishkin and Irving Klaw. Some of the material was on display in posters lining the walls of the hearing room.

"Have you had any occasion to investigate cases wherein the use of male models might be used?" Kefauver asked, a delicate way to invoke homosexual erotica. Barnes outlined the case of Frisby and Mizer, pointing out that Mizer happened to be in the audience. Exaggerating the success of his efforts, he claimed he had confiscated $10,000 worth of materials from Frisby, that both men had been convicted of obscenity, and that Mizer's sentence had been overturned only because of a technicality. He highlighted the danger they posed to the public by noting the proximity of the school and the youth of the models.

Kefauver commended Barnes's efforts and noted what a difficult job he had, given how the courts and the legislatures continually failed to provide the tools he needed. Barnes impressed on the committee the need for a national agency to coordinate the efforts of local law enforcement to stamp out pornography. At the conclusion of the hearing, Senator Kefauver offered anyone who had been named the opportunity to correct inaccuracies. Detective Barnes looked squarely at Mizer, egging him on. Mizer contemplated speaking up but, aware of the presence of journalists and television cameras, decided instead to offer a written statement, his preferred form of communication.

In the pages of Physique Pictorial, Mizer denounced the hearings as "the grossest obscenity of public trust" he had ever witnessed. He accused Barnes of perjuring himself in his claims about Mizer's case. Within a year, however, Mizer enjoyed some schadenfreude when he revealed that Barnes was sent to prison for molesting his stepdaughter. He was also delighted to tell readers that Kefauver's chief counsel, James Bobo, was forced to resign after admitting to hosting private screenings of stag films for a Memphis fraternity. It all reinforced Mizer's conviction that the legal system was corrupt and that those who were most obsessed with fighting prurience were hypocrites.

Like many self-appointed guardians of American morality, Coates viewed both the Mattachine Society and the Athletic Model Guild as threats. But the reactions of the two organizations differed markedly. In 1953 Coates gave the Mattachine Society its first negative press coverage by suggesting that it had ties to communism. Coates's accusation caused a crisis in the organization, which led to the resignation of the original founders, many of whom had been members of the Communist Party USA. The organization was restructured and membership fell off. Historian John D'Emilio called it a "retreat to respectability," a turn away from political activism toward internal self-help tactics.

Coates's assault on Mizer was even more aggressive – involving the Los Angeles Police Department, a powerful U.S. senator, and backstage efforts to influence his obscenity trial – yet Mizer changed his operating procedures only slightly. He decided to tone down the "brutality" aspect of his images, eliminating props such as whips or chains. But on the issue of the "uncovered rump," Mizer stood his ground. "Bob has defied them," Kinsey noted of Mizer's refusal to succumb to a Post Office ultimatum barring nudes seen from behind. He also continued his feisty editorials, despite Kinsey's suggestion that he tone them down. "Certain principles I will not back down on," Mizer defiantly told Kinsey. 

Each of Mizer's encounters with law enforcement politicized him, and he, in turn, sought to politicize his readers. To supplement his personal experience, he read widely in popular and scholarly texts on censorship and sought to convey that knowledge to his readers. He noted that those who were opposed to physique magazines were organized into groups such as the National Organization for Decent Literature and had the ear of local and national politicians. He pointed out how local newspapers pressured newsstands and magazine distributors to discontinue all physique magazines. He urged readers to organize. When one reader suggested ignoring the censors, Mizer compared him to the Jews in Germany who "ignored the menace of Hitler."

Putting the issue in the context of human rights, Mizer called for a collective and activist opposition. "The censor is a bully and will back down if we all stand up to him." It was a theme he returned to frequently, asserting that putting one's head in the sand would not make the problem go away. He repeatedly implored customers to join the ACLU. "It's Your America," he reminded readers, and politicians and police were "your servants." He implored readers to write their representatives and local newspapers to defend freedom of expression. Otherwise, he warned, a state-controlled media will emerge that would be the envy of Hitler. According to his alarmist rhetoric, the ACLU was the only thing standing between the status quo and totalitarianism.

Mizer's editorials on censorship even seeped into model descriptions. He described Sonny Star, a lean model lounging by the pool, as being from Fargo, North Dakota, where a federal censorship trial was taking place. He railed against police corruption and governmental injustice so often that readers tired of his many editorials – one counted eight in a thirty-two-page issue and complained of all this "doomsday talk." Many just wanted information on where to purchase forbidden materials.

IRON MAN BETRAYAL

As Physique Pictorial and other physique magazines that emphasized the "aesthetic approach" flourished, they increasingly came into conflict with what Mizer called " 'hard-core' muscle magazines" or "old-school muscle books" that had fallen on hard times. He knew that their harsh critique of new magazines like his had alienated "the great bulk" of their readership. But he still encouraged readers to support these magazines and their veteran writers. "We cannot afford to lose them from the field," he generously noted.60 Mizer had gotten his start through the support of these editors and was not prone to burn bridges.

Mizer had an especially close relationship with Iron Man, founded by weightlifter Peary Rader in Nebraska in 1933. Mizer had contributed enough photographs to be listed as one of Iron Man's "staff photographers" in 1949. Some of Mizer's first catalog advertisements appeared in its back pages, and Rader had even printed the first issue of Physique Pictorial. But under pressure from the Post Office, Rader refused to print subsequent issues. Fearing the loss of his second-class mailing privileges, he then stopped running physique photography advertisements. And in 1956 he published a scathing editorial denouncing the "homosexual element" that had infiltrated bodybuilding and ruined its reputation. He called for a comprehensive "crusade" to clean up the sport, including a ban on nude or G-string photographs, fewer body-building contests, and more manly poses. He attributed the immorality that had seeped into bodybuilding to increasing "commercialism," emphasizing that his concerns were not only moral but also financial. Mizer felt sorry for Iron Man. "I doubt if many copies would be sold to those solely interested in the weightlifting results."

This attack from his former supporter and printer caused Mizer to pen his first editorial on "Homosexuality and Bodybuilding." Claiming to have less familiarity with the subject than the editors of Iron Man and others who seemed so preoccupied with it, Mizer first resorted to a version of the schoolyard taunt, "It takes one to know one." He did so by quoting one of the most famous closeted homosexuals in 1950s America. A London reporter had recently asked Liberace in the midst of a legal struggle with a tabloid that had outed him "Is your sex life normal?" Fully composed, Liberace hastily replied, "Yes, is yours?"

In many ways, Liberace and Mizer were in parallel situations. Both offered the public fairly open representations of gay life, but without the label. But because of their popularity, they had caught the attention of the media and were being tarred with the sin of homosexuality. But Mizer went beyond Liberace's taunt to frame the question in terms of civil rights. "We wonder if really good people show prejudice against any minority group," he wrote, comparing such prejudice to that against a particular religion, race, or political party. This effectively made Peary Rader the one guilty of immorality and repositioned the debate on homosexuality within the realm of minority rights. Most important, he referred readers to the homophile groups Mattachine Society and ONE for more factual information.

Mizer's mailbox must have been full after this unusually frank editorial. He noted that readers clamored for him to reprint letters, demonstrating their desire to connect to each other, to see who else was out there reading Physique Pictorial. Mizer printed only four responses. One called Mizer "naïve" for not realizing that all bodybuilders are in some way homosexual, since they are so obsessed with the male body. Another expressed the opposite view, that such "he-men" could not possibly be sissies. But the most unusual letter came from the mother of four male bodybuilders-three of them married with children, the youngest openly gay. She described his difficult coming-out process, psychiatric consultations, and much anguish. But she then painted the picture of a happy, healthy gay domesticity. "John lives with another young man who shares his interests, both are highly successful in films, are 'accepted' everywhere." She thanked Mizer for his sympathetic attitude.

Mizer could not print any letters from openly gay readers for fear of confirming the concerns of censors. But he gave readers clues that he received many such letters. He noted that many had written in anonymously to "unburden [their] frustrations" and "project [their] own motives to us." Although such personal, confessional letters could not be shared, Mizer assured readers that he would send them to a "psychological research group for study," a probable reference to the Kinsey Institute. While Mizer had to be cautious about the content of his magazine to appease censors, his readers were often more explicit. Mizer considered many of the letters he received to be so salacious or incriminating that he did not want to keep them in his home in the event of a "purge" by authorities.

Art historians have documented the lasting impact that Bob Mizer's physique photography had on Western visual culture, influencing the work of such artists as Francis Bacon, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Andy Warhol. British painter David Hockney famously said, "I came to Los Angeles for two reasons: The first was a photo by Julius Shulman of Case Study House #21, and the other was AMG's Physique Pictorial." Dozens of high-end coffee table books attest to the lasting appeal of the artistic vision of Bob Mizer and his fellow gay physique photographers. But Mizer's business model was as generative as his photography. His business acted as a key catalyst for a gay consumer culture network, encouraging and popularizing many other gay mail-order businesses.

Although often portrayed as something of a bumbling loner, Mizer was at the center of an increasingly sophisticated gay network and came to be a leader of an effort to unite and defend the rights of gay men. It was a dream shared with early gay activist Manuel boy Frank, who, through his involvement in an early underground gay pen-pal club, had seen the potential power in gay men's interest in physique photography. Mizer, too, had an early sense of the depth of a gay market, through his work with Kovert's studio and his classified advertising in Strength & Health. He also had a great sense of the dangers involved. Each time Mizer had come under attack, he had come back more determined and open about his intentions. Neither the Post Office, nor the local vice police, nor vigilante journalists, nor mainstream muscle magazines deterred him. Over the course of his career he tried various tactics: reasoning with authorities, cautioning his fellow photographers, fanning the flames of outrage, and encouraging collective action. He had been on a crusade since high school to stand up and make the world a better place for his fellow homosexualists, and Physique Pictorial was his vehicle.

Mizer saw Alfred Kinsey as a hero and collaborator in this crusade because he saw Kinsey's scientific work as a vehicle for increasing tolerance. "One of the greatest values of your present work will be to allow at least the ones who read it to realize they are not uniquely perverse because of either their overt or desired behavior," he wrote to Kinsey. "Many a man will be able to hold his head a little higher and square back his shoulders and know he is not disgustingly 'abnormal' merely because he is gifted with more healthy, vital sex powers than his sanctimonious moral condemner." But what Mizer wrote so admiringly of Kinsey also applied to his own life's work. Mizer took inspiration from his academic friend and advisor, offering the same message of healthy normality in a more visually accessible format, reaching a much wider audience. He provided images to substantiate Kinsey's scientific treatise.

Like his mentor, Mizer was something of a workaholic, shooting still or moving film nearly every day of his life. But his ambitions were not monetary. Although by the end of his life he had expanded his home-studio property in Los Angeles to include several adjoining homes and a pool, it was never lavish. It became a sort of dormitory or homeless shelter for wayward models. Friends remember him in later years wearing glasses held together with tape and string. After his death in 1992, friends found hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash stuffed in film cans-proceeds never invested, or given much thought. Mizer's ambitions had not changed from the time he was in high school. He took pride in knowing his readers considered the arrival of his magazine like "a visit from an old friend." And since that old friend "always brings new friends with him," he hoped it offered his readers the sense that they were part of a large, welcoming community similar to the one he had discovered in Pershing Square. As he told his readers, he hoped all who read his magazine carefully – who "take the trouble to study" it – would take away a message of "hope and inspiration."

Hope was the message that Noel Gillespie found in Physique Pictorial when he discovered it as a teenager. He remembered it as "a gay-oriented oasis" in a Cold War desert of prudery and macho conformity. He considered Mizer less a salesman than "an old friend and confidante" because of all his "chatty remarks" among the model images. Gillespie praised Mizer's editorials on the "anti-nudity, anti-gay, anti-free speech attitudes" of the period. He recalls how he eagerly antici- pated each new issue for both Mizer's "latest fresh-faced discoveries and his candid and for the period, courageous commentaries." Beyond this special bond with Mizer, he also felt linked to his fellow subscribers through their occasional letters to the editor, which he thought made Physique Pictorial "more a friendly resource than a mere sales catalogue."

Hope was exactly the message that a young David Hurles understood when he encountered Physique Pictorial on newsstands in Cincinnati in 1957. "I came face to face with the awesome and wonderful knowledge of a place somewhere different from any place I yet knew," Hurles later wrote. He remembered following Mizer's exploits closely, noticing when he put in a swimming pool in 1956. "His pictures, magazines and films turned us on. But more than that, they gave us hope," Hurles eulogized at the time of Mizer's death in 1992. Hurles later became a Mizer protégé and went on to produce his own magazine. "Bob revealed the evidence which made us certain that what we desired and needed did, in fact, exist."

-- from David K. Johnson's Buying Gay.

[ohlookanothercartoontofallinto]

Guess who came alive today! Me! So yes today is my birthday I'm 23 I'm so old. However because it's my birthday it means I get to compliment people AND YOU DON'T GET TO SAY NO BECAUSE IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!

@socksandbuttons THANK YOU FOR BEING MY BESTIE! You met me when I was 17 and now I'm 23! How time flies when we're having fun! Thank you for letting me come along and be co-creator on the UnderRem au. Thank you for letting me ramble about random idea's. You are such a beautiful and amazing person that I cherish. I would get into a fist fight for you! Love you so much! You mean so much to me, and I know you're bad with words about how you feel. But trust me I know how just by your actions. I just adore you okay!

@midnight-the-goth-artist hey sweetie! I'm so proud of you, you're such a sweet young lady. Watching you grow this last year as an artist and your life in general has made me so proud. I'm so glad you reached out to me when you did. I also have so much fun talking about knd persona stuff with you! You're just so adorable.

@silvercaptain24 (HUGS) Hi! Thank you for, even when I'm not online you reach out. You're the only one who ever reaches out on here and it makes me smile every time. Your such a talented young writer, and I will never forget the support you gave me when I started writing. You're amazing and have such a kind heart. I'm also really proud of you, I know college is hard, but you're making such a effort. You're doing great!

@socialc1imb You're not escaping this Sky! First, you are such a talented artist, second, you are such a talented writer, third! You do not know how much I enjoyed doing our collaboration! It was such a delight and possibly some of my best writing! You're a champ! I hope you're doing good in all you new endeavors!

And last

@smilesrobotlover You thought the compliments would end HA! I mean what I say you're art makes me smile so much! You give so much life to your art, and the fact you are managing so many different comics at once is so impressive. I know I don't get to talk to you much but you're always an delight to speak with! Also will always support someone who is a fellow Toon Link lover! We are a small clan! But in general, you are just a really neat person! And I can't wait to see what you do next!

You y'all have to take these compliments, because it's my birthday! Also about to be offline for a few hours so try to fight me on this! Also also for petes sake just let me show how much I care okay! (Hugs to you all!)

[crystallinearts]

so hey guys, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year! if you want, come be writing buddies with me! https://nanowrimo.org/participants/aj-strong

and check out my latest project, which I'm hoping will be my first published novel (if I'm able to publish it for people to read for free somewhere uwu), The Lovely Disaster Sideshow! It's a mystery, horror, adventure, historical, weird mishmash that takes place in a Victorian Era circus!

Here's the cover, and below the cut are some bullet-point details about the main characters!! Let me know what you think so far, and... well, get ready for me to do very little else throughout November XD

ABIGAIL HUGHES AND EULALIA "LALI" HUGHES

Mother and daughter protagonists

Abigail (late 20s) is missing a hand and Lali (6 years old) is unable to speak due to trauma (Abigail’s missing hand and Lali’s trauma are both from the accident which killed Abigail’s husband)

They fill the jobs of whatever needs done within the circus after joining; cooking, mending, running errands

Abigail occasionally performs with Bharata after he teaches her tricks on how to live without one hand

Lali enjoys working with Estelle and Cedar particularly, but the entire circus is protective of her as their youngest member

Native English

RINGMASTER

The circus ringleader, the master of ceremonies who runs shows and hires new workers

A friendly fellow (late 30s-early 40s) who welcomes anyone into the circus, regardless of disabilities or age, as long as they can work in some way or another

Creative in describing the sideshows to attract the attention of the public

In reality a cold, calculating bigot who is bitter toward, resentful of, and disgusted by the ‘freaks’ he employs in the circus

Native English

GWYNN

“The Eyeless Albino” visual oddity (pure white hair, no eyes)

A young man (early 20s) who is completely albino and was born without any eyes

He is entirely blind and relies on other people (most often Bharata and Siobhan) to help him around, though he’s learned to navigate most of the circus by sound as long as he has landmarks to go by; new areas confuse him until he learns the layout

His skin burns incredibly easily, meaning he often carries a parasol to block sun rays even when it’s cloudy

(His parasol also double functions as a makeshift cane) Welsh and a little English

SIOBHAN

“A Marvelous Mouth” sword swallower and fire breather

A young woman (early 30s) who is a former prostitute, leading the Ringmaster to capitalize on her relaxed gag reflex to make her into a sword swallower (and, occasionally when the shows need that extra oomph, fire breather)

Quite heavily tattooed, at least for the time period, she sports many tattoos on her arms, legs, back, and hands, as well as one on her neck; this causes many people to view her as a degenerate and adds to her ‘freakishness’ for the circus

Irish

CAIN AND ABEL

“Two-For-One Twins” visual oddity (conjoined twins)

Two young men (mid 20s) joined at the hip, they’re unable to be separated and sometimes have issues with moving around; they have separate bodies (two arms each, two legs each, separate torsos, separate heads, etc.) but their bodies are fused at the hip and doctors have all told them separation is too risky

They get along fairly well, with the occasional sibling fights, though they feel isolated even from the rest of the circus, stemming from only having had each other for most of their lives, especially given that they were the most recent additions before Abigail and Lali

Native English

ESTELLE

“Silent Angel” trapeze artist

A young woman (early 20s) who is almost entirely deaf and can only hear (barely) if someone is shouting right next to her ear, she cannot speak very well and prefers to communicate in other ways

She can’t read or write, but she’s made up her own variety of gestures (basically an individual sign language) to speak with the other circus performers, and she can read lips quite well

Short, petite, and kind… and will simply walk away from anyone who treats her or her friends cruelly

Spends hours teaching Lali her individual sign language, so that Lali can communicate even though she’s too traumatized to speak verbally

French and English

BHARATA

“One-Armed Wonder” knife thrower

A young man (late 20s) who has only one arm, and is perceived by many others as very clumsy; every household he’s worked for has set him up to fail by assigning him tasks that simply can’t be done with just one arm, leading him to find a belonging in the circus

Wanting to prove everyone wrong, he trained to do something that others thought couldn’t be done with only one arm: knife throwing… and is very good at it

He’s sympathetic toward Abigail and tries to teach her every single tip he has about how to live without one arm/hand

Indian

CEDAR

“Crystal Ball” fortune teller/palm reader/astrologist

A young nonbinary person (mid 20s) who was ostracized from society when they refused to answer to ‘she’, who ran away from home after their parents tried to beat them into conforming

No physical disability aside from dysphoria (which is obviously helped when they’re around supportive people who respect what they want to be called), and very supportive themself of the people in the circus who do have disabilities

Rather easygoing in terms of interacting with other people, they tend to simply go with the flow, but they’re also incredibly perceptive which is what makes them such a good fortune teller; while they do study palmistry, astrology, and tarot, they also employ the use of cold reading techniques (“might as well take advantage of all the gifts I have, including observation, right?”)

Native English

SALEM

“The Lizard Man” visual oddity (has X-linked ichthyosis resulting in scale-like skin)

A man (late 30s) who was cast out from society because of his strange appearance, stemming from his medical condition; people have been ‘terrified’ of his looks before, not to mention fearing that whatever he has is ‘contagious’ (despite him knowing from experience that he’s not)

Soft-spoken and gentle in general, but if one hits the right buttons he’s very capable of getting violent, particularly in defense of his friends

He has anywhere from 1-3 animals (that he’s nursing back to health) in his tent at any one time, even though he’s allergic to anything with fur… he has a soft spot for reptiles, though he adores all animals

Native English

[minnophee-writes]

My Masterlist~

This is my Masterlist where I post my fics! I originally had another writing blog but that was before I realised about Tumblr's side blog option thingy. I'm a 25 year old hobby fanfic writer in my free time, as well as an artist. I'd love to connect and talk to more adults in the fandoms I'm a part of and would love to even write some fanfics in honour of some of my favourite fic writers <3

Some fanfics will be explicit and/or have dark themes, therefore I do not allow minors to read any of my works. Age in bio or get blocked. I'm not messing around. Do not follow, like, reblog or interact with my works or myself if you are a minor - please and thank you.

I should also note that I do not write, and will never write, fics that involve; incest, underage, homophobia, transphobia, and beastiality. Those are a hard NO, do not request any fics with those or you will also be immediately blocked from my blog.

Here is the list of fandoms I write for, and who I write within those fandoms: Fandom List

Key Guide: Smut (🔥) Fluff (🌸) Angst (💔) || Dark (😈)

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Avengers

Bucky Barnes

Right Where You Were Meant To Be 🌸💔 (one-shot) Summary: Reader has a crush on Bucky the second she looked at him but she also has feelings of self-consciousness about her body and doubts she’d ever end up with Bucky or any guy like Bucky. That all changes one night at one of Tony’s parties.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Johnny Sawyer

My Little Crybaby~ 😈 (series) Summary: Reader finds themselves waking and tied up in some sort of basement with a few of their friends and trying to escape. Death follows them but once they look death in the eyes maybe they might have an internal moral compass crisis.

Dead by Daylight

Ghostface

No One Escapes Death... 😈🔥 (one-shot) Summary: Screams echoed all around Penelope as she tried to work on repairing generators and helping her fellow teammates from being strung up on hooks like some sort of sick trophy. One by one her friends are slaughtered viciously; multiple, deep knife wound bleeding from the tops of their backs, and a river of fluids leaking from their mouths. When Penelope becomes the last survivor standing its a scramble to find the hatch before getting caught by the killer, but he's got better plans in store for her~

Pyramid Head

His Judgement 😈🔥💔 (one-shot) Summary: When things go from bad to worse during a trial against the Executioner, Reader finds herself standing face-to-face with the large killer himself, ready to accept whatever judgement he deems fit to bestow upon her. However the situation doesn't seem to go as she suspected.

The Purge

Leo Barnes

Safe and Sound 😈🔥(part 1) Summary: When you're trying to bunker down in your poorly barricaded house with your young 8-year-old son it doesn't go to plan. A gang of unruly criminals come breaking into your home and you're forced to take your son and flee down the street toward your brother's apartment. On your journey there you're corralled into an alleyway, certain of death, but then a lone saviour comes to your aid.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Aloy

Little Miracle 🌸 (headcannon) Summary: Varl and Aloy have been trying for a baby and haven't had much luck. That all changes when Varl goes on a hunting trip and Aloy gets sick.

Original Stories/Works

For Science~ 🔥 (one-shot) [Zonnu x m!reader] Summary: Reader finds himself in an unfamiliar room when he wakes up. He ventures to find someone for help and stumbles upon an alien life-form, Zonnu. She’s very interested to know how the human male anatomy works when sexually stimulated.

Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust~ 🔥 (one-shot) [Mars x Felix] Summary: Mars begs Felix to use some of his fairy dust on his cock during sex, they find out the outcome.

I will be updating this when I can add more stuff to this as a navigation point for this blog <3 Please be patient while I set everything up uwu

[marthamaxing]

Guardian

Well, I never thought I’d find myself writing fanfic, as I’m more of an artist, but here I am. This being my first fic, I think I did alright, and as for the fic itself, I don’t see enough stories of Ib and Garry in more normal scenarios, so I thought I’d do them justice. I might do more stories about them in the future, but for now, I hope my fellow Ib fans enjoy this. 

Also, if you're you enjoy the family dynamic between Ib and Garry then check out my Discord server: https://discord.gg/ZkuC7C7y 

Summary: An afternoon of fun at the park with Ib and Garry quickly turns awry when Ib's stuffed rabbit suddenly disappears. Update: 8/25/2023 I decided to make a few modifications to my fic. The only really noticeable alterations made was how the beginning plays out, but other than that, I mostly just changed certain paragraphs to describe things better.

A cool breeze flowed through the leaves, accompanied by the gentle warmth of the sun. Flowers bloomed in various colors, and the trees- which had appeared practically lifeless due to the harsh winter- had now grown lush and green. In addition, many creatures were also in motion, from the birds that chirped their tunes to the bees that buzzed about. For many, this was certainly a time to be out and enjoy such a beautiful and lively atmosphere. And a certain nine-year-old girl and a young man, whom she met through rather unusual circumstances at a particular gallery, didn't want to miss out on this opportunity.

Garry had been so busy with his studies and working a few extra hours at his job that he hadn't been able to babysit or visit Ib for the past few weeks. Needless to say, he was relieved to leave such stress behind for the day and spend the Friday afternoon at the park with his young friend once the school day was over.

Ib and Garry spent most of the time strolling along the sidewalk and taking in the surrounding scenery until they eventually came across the playground. Garry had thought that Ib wanted to play with the other kids; however, she turned down the idea. It wasn't that she disliked playing, but the rambunctious and frenzied energy of the children was overwhelming. So they instead opted to rest on one of the nearby benches.

Once the two sat down, Ib reached into her backpack and pulled out a storybook and, surprisingly, a plush rabbit. Ib said that her name was “Mirabella," and it was relatively small compared to the other plushies Garry had seen in the past. And this one, in particular, sported a light pink dress that made it stand out. Ib explained that she had brought Mirabella along because the rabbit had insisted on joining them. While Garry found her claim a bit humorous, he was willing to play along if it meant making her happy. As Ib opened the first page of the illustrated book, she glanced up at Garry and requested that he read it to them. It wasn't the first time he'd read to her, so he was more than glad to do so, as he genuinely enjoyed reading these little tales.

  "…But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper." Garry said as he closed the book and chuckled. "I think I did a fine job with my narration. Wouldn't you agree?"

Ib nodded and smiled at him. He then looked down at the stuffed rabbit sitting beside her.

"And did Mirabella like it, too?" he asked, gently patting the stuffed bunny.

"Yeah," Ib said with a hint of laughter.

"Good," he said happily. "My, I'm feeling thirsty after all that walking around from earlier, aren't you?"

Ib's muffled "Uh-huh" prompted Garry to scan the area. "Pretty sure I saw a vending machine around here…" he said as he continued looking before he noticed it a bit off in the distance. "Ah, there it is!" he said, pointing to it.

"You wanna wait here?" he asked.

"Sure," she replied.

"Okay, want any soda or just water?"

"Water's fine."

"Alright, just stay right there, okay? I'll be back in a bit."

She gave him an affirmative nod and smiled as he walked away. Ib turned her attention to the pond a few feet away from her while she waited for him to return, watching the ducks swimming in it, observing them as they occasionally flapped their wings or dived into the water. Her focus slightly adjusted to the ground when she noticed a vivid green frog speeding over the pavement. Ib had never seen one so close; the little creature's bright color held her interest while it hopped around on the sidewalk. Her gaze followed it till it veered off the concrete and into the grass. She couldn't resist rising to see where it was going; when she got too close, it dashed to the pond's edge and disappeared into the water. She felt somewhat let down to see the little guy leave in a hurry, but at least she had something to tell Garry when he returned.

As she turned around to head back to the bench, she suddenly felt her heart skip a beat, now seeing the spot where she and her stuffed friend sat wholly vacant. Panicked, Ib rushed over to it and tried looking under the seat. No luck. She was positive that her plushie had been placed there. She made an effort to search among some of the adjacent trees but came up empty-handed.

"Where could you have gone?" she thought, her worry intensifying gradually.

Shifting her focus to the children still running around in the distance, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to head over to the play area to do a little investigating. It wasn't as if she would be straying too far, and she knew Garry would undoubtedly have a panic attack if she weren't in sight. She just had to look. And she wasn't going to let some brat take something that didn't belong to them. Glancing over, Garry seemed to still be casually standing there, waiting for other people to grab their beverages. With that, she made her way over to the playground.

As she began her search, she first focused on the jungle gym, where most children flocked. She watched carefully as the youngsters raced their way across it, some climbing across the monkey bars by grasping them one at a time, to those that scaled the rock climbing wall and descended from the slide. After a few minutes of careful observation, she realized that none of these kids had what she was looking for. 

With only the swing set and sandbox left to check, she looked around once more. However, the results remained the same. Apart from two kids swinging back and forth on the swing set and a toddler playing with their mother in the sandbox, there was no sign of Mirabella anywhere.

With a sigh and her head hanging low, she reluctantly turned back to the bench. Her only option now was to wait for Garry's help; she only hoped whoever took her plush toy was still nearby and hadn't run off with it. 

Just as she was about to sit back down, she caught a glimpse of a much taller figure in the distance, obscured by the trees, with something white dangling from their hand. Not a second later, Ib sprinted at the sight, and as she drew nearer, the unmistakable shape of her stuffed animal came into view.

"Wait!" She shouted. 

The young man stopped in his tracks at the sound of her voice and turned to face her. Once Ib made it towards him, she was panting heavily, but seeing Mirabella in sight brought her relief.

"Uh, what do you want?" he asked, irritated.

Looking up at him, Ib suddenly found herself unable to speak. The teen appeared anything but friendly, from his ripped and ragged attire to the slight scowl he gave her, was enough for her to realize that this probably wasn't going to go as well as she had hoped. All she could do now was look for words that wouldn't irritate him any further.

"Well, what is it?" he asked once more.

"U-um," she stuttered, "t-that bunny is mine..."

He glanced down at the doll and scoffed. "This is yours? You still play with wittle bunny dolls?" he said, sneering at Ib.

Ib looked down at her feet in an attempt to hide her reddened cheeks. Although this wasn't the first time she'd been criticized for still playing with toys at the age of nine, she didn't understand what the harm was. It didn't mean she was immature; if anything, she was very well-behaved compared to most her age.

"Tell you what, I'll give it back… after I have a little fun with it." he said with a smirk.

Ib did not like the sound of that, as he placed one hand on top of the toy's head with the other on its torso, giving it a slight tug. The very thought of what he was going to do next made Ib feel increasingly anxious, sending her heart pounding at an accelerated pace.

"You see, kid, I take any opportunity I get to grab whatever I want, and when I do, I like to... make improvements."

Now she knew for certain what he was planning.

"N-no!" Ib cried.

"You want it so badly? Come get it!" With a sudden yank, the plush toy was torn in two, its stuffing quickly descending to the ground, followed by its head and torso. Such a terrible sight made Ib fall to her knees in shock. Time seemed to stand still as she stared at the pieces of her beloved toy. Before she knew it, she felt a stream of tears sliding down her cheeks as she started sobbing quietly. The teen's laughter at the sight of her misery was audible, and she could tell this very much amused him. Why he decided to act so cruelly toward her was beyond her understanding.

To Ib, this wasn't just any stuffed toy; it meant so much more to her. For as many bunnies as she owned (gifted mainly by her father), she treated them with the same level of care as if they were her real friends, even giving each of them a name. Throughout her young life, she struggled to form bonds with other kids, so those stuffed friends of hers were all that she had to fill that emptiness. And now she sat in utter despair at the sight of one of them destroyed.

As she continued crying, the laughter came to an abrupt stop. A familiar voice called out her name, followed by footsteps charging in her direction and the teen's aggravated shouts. Blinking through her teary vision, she could make out a figure wearing a dark blue coat as he confronted the person she presumed to be the same one who destroyed her doll. The angry exchanges between them rang in her ears, escalating from verbal conflict to a full-on fight within moments. Wiping her tears away, she saw that her suspicions were correct.

"Garry!"

Garry glanced down at her, only to be struck in the face by his opponent’s fist, sending him back a few steps. He barely had a moment to react before he was met with a second punch to his stomach. The vicious blow forced Garry to his knees, gasping for breath. As he sat there clutching his abdomen, Garry's head was yanked up by his hair, and as a final assault, he felt a knee smash into his face from his attacker. Ib watched in horror as her friend helplessly lay there writhing in agony. She desperately wanted to help him, but her fears prevented her from moving even a single muscle.

The enraged teen made a sudden turn to face her, rage visible in his eyes. "You.. .you knew he'd come, didn't you?" he snarled.

Ib shook her head frantically, "No! I didn't-"

"Liar!" he spat. "Looks like you need to be taught a lesson too." 

He began to advance towards Ib, his intent clear in his eyes. Ib instinctively took a few steps back as he drew nearer, only to trip over a stray root. In an instant, his hand clamped onto her collar, hoisting her from the ground and pinning her against a tree, causing her to yelp. Ib's eyes widened as she found herself face-to-face with him. While she didn't dare speak, her eyes begged him for mercy, but she could see nothing but the desire to harm her. Now that they were isolated from others, she knew that nobody would come to her rescue.

As she closed her eyes tightly and turned her head away to brace herself for the inevitable pain, she suddenly felt the man's hold on her quickly release, making her land hard on the ground. When she opened her eyes, she saw Garry grappling with her attacker as he promptly pushed him flat on his back. Instantly, Garry's fist connected with his face. He clearly hit the teen pretty hard as he cried out in pain, but was soon cut off as Garry delivered another strike to him. The next thing Ib knew, Garry's fists were a blur as he mercilessly pounded the man’s face. She sat there in shock and disbelief as she watched him; she had seen him angry before, but this... this wasn't like him at all. For once, she felt frightened of Garry, the same person who had always seemed so kind and gentle. It made her question for a moment if this were the same person she had grown close to in the few months they'd known each other.

"G-Garry…?" Ib said faintly.

Garry showed no sign of stopping. With each blow he landed, his fists grew increasingly stained with red, and Ib dreaded the thought of what might happen if she let this go on. Even if it was all out of a desire to protect her, the man seemed to have given up attempting to shield himself as Garry continued to pummel him. She knew she had to intervene somehow.

Taking a deep breath, she managed to muster enough strength to shout, "Garry, stop!"

Garry turned to Ib as he was about to raise his fist once more. Seeing how distressed she was, he snapped back to reality and slowly lowered his arm. As he sat over the young man, panting, he saw the amount of damage he had done to his face and felt somewhat regretful for his actions. With a sigh, he grabbed him by his shirt and glared directly at him.

"If I ever see you near Ib again, you'll be sorry," he said, shoving the man back to the ground and proceeding to get up.

Not a second later, the teen quickly got to his feet and staggered off. All the while, Garry stood there and watched, making sure that monster was as far away from them as possible. Once he could no longer see him, he turned to Ib. She was still a bit shaken up by his actions from earlier, making him feel worse than he already did.

"I'm sorry you had to see me like that," he said, feeling too ashamed to look at her. "I… I was just so worried about him hurting you; I just lost it…"

Ib's expression softened. Despite how he had acted out earlier, she couldn't blame him entirely for it. She knew how protective he could be sometimes. However, part of her wondered if he had been in conflicts like this before, but she didn't dare ask as it wasn't her business to know.

Looking at the crimson droplet slowly trickling down from Garry's nose, Ib felt an immediate rush of guilt. Realizing all of this was because of her absent-mindedness. She had always been taught by her mother to take care of her things, and now, the one time she forgets, she and her friend were put in danger.

"It's my fault..." she muttered.

This took Garry aback. "Wha? Ib, you didn't-"

"I got distracted and left Mirabella behind, and he took her," She interrupted, tears growing in her eyes once more.

"I'm sorry, Garry..."

Garry knelt down and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, don't be too hard on yourself. I know you didn't mean for this to happen." He lifted her head by her chin to face her. "Look, you just gotta keep an eye on your stuff next time. Okay?" Ib nodded and brushed her tears away, followed by a hug from Garry, hoping to put her at ease.

Once Ib had finally relaxed, Garry stood up and picked up the two halves of her doll. "I think I can sew her back up," he said as he examined it closely.

"Really?" Ib asked as her eyes lit up.

"Yeah, I think I have enough thread to do so. And I'll be sure to give her back once she's fixed."

Hearing that gave her a sense of comfort. Provided Garry had fulfilled his promise to return her handkerchief a few months before, she was confident he'd also go through with this.

"For now, why don't we grab some macarons?" Garry said with a smile and wrapped an arm around Ib. "You've had a rough day; you deserve something nice."