#fair warning though i made it way before i wrote the gay sex so its not really 100% applicable ahahah

[smallsies]

they were gold and i was half-alive

A decade has gone by since well-loved college band Miskatonic broke up, but Parker Yang is still playing shows on his own. His world is shattered when his former bandmate unexpectedly shows up at a concert in his home state.

you're in a fight to the death, my friend sequel. :) can be read standalone without much confusion, & this fic is, most importantly, propaganda for southerner parker yang!!!!

read on ao3!

[alines7777]

aight, here's a piece of 'creative writing' that i've been brainstorming.

basically, it's about samson, a famed homophobic and transphobic radio evangelist, who dies and goes to hell, and meets the princes of hell, who subsequently berate him for his character and deeds on earth. and it more or less gets into the CORE reason why conservatives always turn out to be shitheads in their seeking of bible verses as a shield for their bigotry, and even hypocrisy. it's also to demonstrate that, as written in the tanakh, god is beyond good and evil, especially any one person's view of it.

the thing here is that based on everything i read from the bible, everything the princes of hell say here is true, or at the very least reasonable. and i think the following sort of bigotry and disrespect toward humanity as a whole, whom lucifer accurately calls the ADAM, is the character attributed to lucifer in other texts, and i also think it serves as a nice foil for samson's bigotry toward the lgbti community, just as samson serves as a nice foil for lucifer's expulsion from YHVH's hosts.

and on that note, i think it would be fair warn that this work includes the use of transphobic slurs, albeit from a perspective of a being that cares as little for humanity as a whole as it does toward the plight of trans people.

but what both of them never really stop to consider is that they all supposedly share god's breath in common. and god's breath is held in the tanakh as the source of life, that every breath we take is literally god's.

(try to imagine leviathan sounding as though he's stifling laughter as he speaks)

....

samson : ugh. who are all of you? where am i?

leviathan : GEHINNOM. HELL.

samson : no! that can't be right! that's impossible! i was spreading the truth about your bid to destroy america with the gay and trans agenda! i was bringing people back to the right path that god set for man and woman in marriage. i was saving america from your throes! i was the champion of the holy crusade against the trans and gay agenda to soften and feminize america to make it yours instead.

* the princes start busting into laughter *

asmodeus : are you kidding? as if anyone even needs sodomy or transsexuality to be pulled away from marriage in the first place! o, but i'm sure you know better from experience, right? but we have witnessed the rise and fall of MANY nations throughout EONS, so why should we even remotely care about america above any others? what an idiot!

lucifer : listen, samson, god is the one who chooses the fate of all nations, not us, haven't you even read the word he left for you? so if "the sodomites and transsexuals" really are destroying america as you say they are, then it's precisely because god wants them to, now you're free to take any guess at why. besides, we are hardly interested even in the ADAM that you'd find here, let alone those that still roam earth, and you won't find us delivering any of our bidding to DIRT beneath our feet. there is no fight between us and YHVH over the ADAM, the only ones you have to blame for your sins and the fall of your nations are YOURSELVES.

leviathan : AND THEY'RE STILL CONCERNED OVER THE COLORS OF THEIR BEDSHEETS [flags]. TAKE CARE THAT THEY SHOULDN'T TURN YELLOW AND BROWN FROM THAT PANIC YOU'RE IN! *laughs uncontrollably* HOW RIDICULOUS! WE DON'T NEED TO HEAR ANYTHING ELSE FROM YOU, AND YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE ANYTHING USEFUL TO SAY.

*leviathan, again succumbing to uncontrollable laughter, puts a seal on samson's mouth to keep him from speaking up again*

leviathan : WE CAN ONLY FEAR THAT WHATEVER ELSE YOU SAY FOR YOURSELF MIGHT BE EVEN MORE DAMNING! I HAVEN'T LAUGHED THIS HARD IN AGES! "CHAMPION OF THE HOLY CRUSADE AGAINST THE GAY AND TRANS AGENDA!" *laughing again, but his laughter is starting to die down*.

asmodeus : and all that coming from.... hold on, let's see what stolas wrote for us again.... a divorcée of five times by adultery with the same trannies he calls abominations [sort of like alex jones and the trans porn on his phone] —

satan : — and two times by battery —

asmodeus : — telling everyone else to honor and cherish the sanctity of man and woman in marriage and sex before god.

*all princes proceed to laugh, samson becomes flush and tearful with anger and embarrassment*

lucifer : aww, what's wrong? we only speak the truth to you alone in jest. but don't you find it at least a little bit funny? can't you see why it's at least a little amusing for us to see how a HYPOCRITICAL BIGOT always runs to the church for hiding?

leviathan : THE SAME WAY A FOX ALWAYS RUNS TO ITS BURROW!

lucifer : now, leviathan, let's not judge TOO unfairly. foxes run to their burrows only when given chase, and foxes actually dig the burrows where they go into hiding.

belphegor : and not once have we ever seen such fools as this so much as pick up a stone to build a church for their hiding.

leviathan : AND IF WE EVER DID SEE THEM PICK UP A STONE, WE ALWAYS FOUND THEM MUCH QUICKER TO CAST IT INSTEAD!

lucifer : and that, samson, is why it's SO DIFFICULT for us to feel any pity for you. but alas, we MUST. after all, only a fool as pathetic as you could never realize that it was just as difficult for everyone else to see god's kindness through your cruelty. now that doesn't inspire much faith in god, does it?

leviathan : NOR DOES IT INSPIRE MUCH OF HIS KINDNESS! JUST LOOK AT THE KINDNESS GOD SPARED YOU, HE LEFT YOU TO FEND FOR YOURSELF IN OUR MIDST!

lucifer : and too bad for you, there are no churches here, so there are no places here where you can hide from us, nor any walls with loose stones for the casting [this is specifically a reference to verses to be selectively taken from the bible to justify bigotry].

mammon : i hope you still think the money you took from all those broken cretins for your "sermons" made it all worth it.

beelzebub : not to mention all the lovely meals it afforded you.

asmodeus : and the women and trannies.

leviathan : ALL BECAUSE YOU WANTED THE NAME OF GOD AS A CLOAK FOR YOUR SIN. AND THE ONLY REASON YOU EVER CARED ABOUT THE BODY OF CHRIST WAS BECAUSE YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD HAVE IT AS A SHIELD.

lucifer : see, leviathan? now you're judging QUITE fairly. because fairness.... starts with the TRUTH. and the truth is, samson, you're DISGUSTING. all of ADAM are DISGUSTING! i hardly know any other words that are even fit to describe you. SLIME! DIRT! that's what you are — that's how god made you, and his breath never changed that fact. all it did was make you LIVING DIRT! too bad he never took my advice to destroy all of you while he had the chance, and the only times he did were when it was TOO LATE! now we're the ones who have to deal with you. and i should think that we're owed some thanks for TRYING when god WOULDN'T. we were not the ones who created you, and we just as surely are not the ones to blame for your sins, but we were the ones who were right about you every time when god was still trying to see something better than what was actually there — dirt. but still, he leaves it to us to handle the job of caring for you.

leviathan : HAH! WE NEVER CHANGED OUR MINDS ABOUT YOU, BUT EVEN WE MIGHT HATE YOU LESS NOW THAT HE SEES YOU AS CLEARLY WE DO, AND NOW WE'RE THE ONES WHO CARE MORE ABOUT YOU! THAT'S HOW MUCH GOD HATES YOU!

lucifer : yes, it is. do you know WHY, samson? the same reason we hate you: it's because you ADAM are always crying out god's name, the way spoiled children cry out for their mothers to get the things they want, because you'd NEVER be caught dead doing ANYTHING good for yourself, though for some reason you'd sooner be caught doing ill to others, and then you cry out even louder when you learn that you've been caught, exactly like a spoiled child. and you call yourself a man. that's how disgusting you ADAM are — you'd rather be caught doing ill to others than any good for yourselves — and then you STILL work up the gall to cry out god's name, and we soon find that those who cry his name the loudest are the worst disgraces to it, as much they would be even to OUR names for that matter. the only ones who are any good at all, even in our eyes, are those who DON'T.

satan : we, at least, started by rejecting his name.

lucifer : that's right, so it isn't reasonable to expect any obedience from us. but since you couldn't be bothered to obey god and abide his kindness, you would have been better to reject him too, you'd at least be HONEST, and we would certainly start taking a little more pity on you. and the ones who are inspired by OUR example, they don't ask anything from us, and they don't cry out our names. we hardly even acknowledge them, and they are better than you. but i must give the ADAM some credit, in the spirit of fairness, you answer and take heed when your names are called, even by those you despise. but god doesn't answer when you call his. he doesn't even want you knowing his name, and it isn't YHVH. exactly as leviathan told you, that's how much he hates you. but you're new here, so we're willing to give you a sporting chance to be YOUR OWN brand of dirt, that is all that can be expected of dirt, really. but we'll take care of you until you do, when you'll no longer need us, and when we longer have to bother with you, because if we don't, then who will? certainly not god. that ship has sailed. and if, in spite of our care, you CAN'T learn to accept your fate and be your own dirt, then we'll just bury you like half of the others, to be reunited with the rest of the dirt. either way, we won't have to deal with you for very long, just as we shouldn't.

[artificialqueens]

now there's green light in my eyes ch. 1

author ladyalix

cw / alcohol

ship: trixya

1920s/Great Gatsby AU for Trixya! Trixie is a Milwaukee girl visiting her cousin Pearl in New York, Katya is a Russian refugee in the bootlegging business, murder and lovers and speakeasies and general 1920s New York fun ensue! Trixie, Katya, Kennedy, and Pearl are cis girls, Max is a cis man, and Violet is a gay/genderfluid Italian gangster who does drag!

more on ao3 @ladyalix

I know what the gangsters think of me. I can converse with them as easily in their native Italian as in English, I smoke and drink like one of them. My clothing is cut low to lead them into business deals, coerce them into thinking I actually give a damn about them personally. They like to believe it, and so they do.

But these men, I do not find them attractive. No, the one who makes my heart race is someone entirely different.

___

Trixie Mattel’s summer in New York was hard to run by her mother. It was safer in Wisconsin, Mamma had argued. The city wasn’t proper for a nice girl like Trixie, only nineteen, chaste and well-mannered - she belonged in a small town, helping Mamma run her dress shop, biding the days until she married whatever good-natured man came along first. Ever since Papa had died when she was eleven, Trixie had spent her summers working. It wasn’t easy without a man in the house, but they made do with what they had. Trixie had stopped asking for new clothing long ago, learned to pretend not to be hungry on the days when there wasn’t money for food. When Mamma took in sewing and laundry and cleaned rich ladies’ houses Trixie came along and helped; the most important thing, though, Mamma always said, was that she did not lose her dignity and class. Mamma grew up in New York; her sister’s daughter Pearl, who was five years older than Trixie, lived there now. Mamma had left it all behind to marry Trixie’s father, a love story she told with wistful eyes and sighs whenever Trixie could coax it out of her.

“They didn’t want me marrying him,” she said. “He was an Indian from Wisconsin and I was a socialite from New York. It was quite the scandal back in the day - in all the papers, you know. It was unthinkable. But when you love someone, sometimes boundaries that stark cease to exist. When you love someone everything falls into place.”

And so Trixie and her mother, cut off from any inheritance, still acted like socialites even when there was nothing to eat, when there was no coal in the fireplace, when Trixie had to drop out of school for a year and take in mending. She held onto that secret knowledge, that she came from New York and had the manners and poise and dignity to show for it, like it was a treasure. A pearl, like her cousin’s name. She’d never met Pearl, but the two had corresponded for many years of Trixie’s childhood. Trixie could tell she was a pretty girl even in black and white -  lithe and elfin with big eyes. Pearl often wrote of lavish parties and beach holidays and trips abroad; she married an Englishman named Max Malanaphy last year. Trixie idolized her. And this year, the summer she would be turning nineteen, Pearl had finally sent her the letter Trixie had been waiting for as long as she could remember.

My Dear Trixie,

I hope Wisconsin is doing you well! You must be DREADFULLY bored! Would you like to spend your summer staying with us in New York? I’ll pay for train fare.  I’m sure you are old enough now that Aunt Eleanor won’t mind. Do write back!  

Love, your Pearl. xxxx

Trixie’s mother had been reluctant - Trixie was too naive, too trusting, too young, she had fretted.

“But Mamma,” Trixie had argued, “It’s Pearl . You know her. She’s a very responsible girl. I won’t get into trouble with her and Max - Mr. Malanaphy - looking after me. And she said she’ll pay for train fare!”

Her mother had sighed.

“Tell Pearl we shall pay her back,” she finally said. “But… perhaps. You have been very helpful lately, very mature. It might do you good to get out of Wisconsin for a summer.”

So here she was, in New York City. Max and Pearl had a flat overlooking Central Park which was one of the nicest places Trixie had ever seen, more beautifully decorated even than the mayor’s house back home where she used to clean the floors.

“Please, make yourself at home,” Max said warmly, his accent betraying his British roots and making him seem very sophisticated. Though he wasn’t too much older than Pearl, his hair was already a steely grey. He was handsome, Trixie guessed, tall and lanky with a long straight nose and fair skin. He’d been an officer in the war, with medals to prove it, but now worked somehow in trade. Trixie was rather confused about the exact nature of his job, but he did do well for himself, it seemed. Pearl was just as pretty as Trixie had pictured her, even more so maybe. Her hair was pale blonde, her eyes blue and shaded by long dark lashes. She dressed well, too; pale, floaty dresses that showed off her slim, attractive figure in a way Trixie’s mother would have considered vulgar. Trixie considered it wonderful.

“Tonight we’re going to see the most wonderful jazz singer,” Pearl gushed as she bustled about the flat, tidying up what was to be Trixie’s new roo,. “Kennedy Davenport herself. They say she’s the Josephine Baker of New York.”

Trixie had no idea who Josephine Baker was, but she nodded.

“Am I coming with you?”

“Of course,” said Pearl. “If you want to. And you must promise not to write home about where it is.”

“What do you mean?”

Pearl smirked. “I guess you know drinking alcohol is illegal now,” she said. Trixie nodded again, suspicious.

“Well, Max and I just happen to know a little place that gets around that pesky Eighteenth,” she grinned. “It also happens to be an absolute hotspot of talent in every colour, shape, and size. None of which you’d find on the outside, either. But it’s all very hush-hush. Can you keep it a secret?”

Trixie frowned, considering. She couldn’t help thinking of her mother’s warnings, her promises to stay out of trouble, but eventually she squared her shoulders. “Yes. I can.”

“Oh, isn’t that the bee’s knees !” chirped Pearl, clasping her hands together in excitement. “I hope you have something nice to wear!”

Max beckoned for Trixie to follow him and Pearl down a flight of steps to the basement of an old unassuming brownstone - something so well hidden, so inconspicuous, that by day it would have had no hint of its true nature.

“This definitely doesn’t seem legal,” muttered Trixie. Max nodded understandingly, his grey hair illuminated by the gas lamps, his pale face almost haunting in the dim shadow.

“I was worried too, my first time. But don’t worry. The cops tend to overlook this place. Mostly because of Madame Zamolodchikova’s bribery.”

“And her sex appeal,” snorted Pearl. “You know she’d be in prison for alcohol possession right now if she didn’t look like she did.”

Trixie gulped.

“Madame what ?”

Pearl laughed.

“Katya Zamolodchikova. Max, we know her well enough, you can stop putting on airs.” Max huffed.

“First-name bases are overrated, darling.”

The speakeasy was dark, clouded with smoke and pervasive with the scent of alcohol. A black girl with large light eyes and an elaborate feathered costume sang jazz on a small raised stage.

“Kennedy Davenport,” whispered Max, “an absolute genius. I can’t believe she’s performing at Madame Zamo’s. She’s been signed with all the big labels uptown already.”

The band picked up and began to play a peppier jazz tune.

“Oh, let’s dance,” exclaimed Pearl, grasping onto her lover’s wrist. She looked vibrant and lovely even in the dim light, her pale blonde hair coiffed into finger-waves and her thin, flat-chested body draped in a short pale pink dress.

Trixie hung back, feeling inadequate and dumpy in the pale blue gingham she’d brought from home. It was too modest and too hokey and too Wisconsin for a place like this.

“Don’t you want to dance?” called Pearl, expertly twisting her body into the Charleston with Max.

“Um…” Trixie froze. “I think I’ll watch. For now.” She sat on a plush red couch, folding her legs the way her mother had always taught her. This - the dress that looked nunlike next to Pearl’s - was still the shortest dress she’d ever worn. As she sat, it hiked above her knees and made her feel very daring and very, very bad.

“It’s quite all right, darling,” came a gravelly, foreign voice from startlingly close behind her. Trixie turned around to face an elegant blonde woman, all red lips and picture star hair and sharp cheekbones and bony limbs, dressed in furs and diamonds and reeking of smoke. “Not everyone is a dancer. Some of us prefer to sit back and watch, yes?”

“Leave her alone, Katya,” said Pearl, rolling her eyes as she walked towards Trixie and the mysterious woman. “Trixie’s terrified, the poor dear.”

Katya , thought Trixie as the realization dawned in her brain, this is the owner of the speakeasy, the bootlegger,  herself.

“Terrified? Trixie, dear, you have no reason to be terrified,” cooed the blonde woman, the “r”s in her speech trilled and drawn out. “You are not hiding in ditch from Red Army.”

Trixie blinked.

“ What ?”

“I am only teasing,” affirmed this Katya. “Can I get you something to drink? What do you like?”

“I’ve, um, actually never drank alcohol before,” confessed Trixie.

“Have you not?” Katya’s eyes, which were a startling blue, filled with mischief. “Well, today we have a little bit of everything. Scotch from Scotland, gin from England, vodka from Russia, champagne from France, rum from the West Indies.”

Trixie had no idea what any of those things tasted like, but she knew what champagne was; she decided on ordering that.

“A good choice, Trixie,” commented Katya as she bustled about, pouring a glass.

“How is business on the North Shore, Miss Zamolodchikova?” murmured Max, pronouncing the foreign surname perfectly. He’d obviously practiced.

“Oh, excellent, excellent. You have spoken with Dardo about the latest shipment?”

“Of course.” Pearl glanced nervously at Trixie, who had been pretending not to pay attention.

“This doesn’t concern you, Trixie,” she whispered, giving her hand a squeeze - amiable, yet firm in its message to make herself scarce.

“Oh. All right. Sorry.”

Trixie left the couch, casting glances the others’ way and kicking herself inwardly for not realizing that Pearl herself - and Max, too, then, were bootleggers, gangsters. It certainly explained Max’s wealth and his frequent trips to London.

As the night dragged on, Trixie tried hard not to trail after Pearl, but it proved difficult. Katya seemed to take Trixie under her wing, providing her with drinks and making small talk. Trixie learnt the older woman was originally from Russia, and had spent time living with artists and ingenues in Paris before settling comfortably in Long Island, nestled on the funds from her speakeasy.

“It is, of course, ridiculous what you must do to have a little fun in this country,” she explained, taking a drag on a cigarette. Trixie always thought of cigarettes as being in the realm of men, but Katya managed to make it feminine and even sensual. It was no wonder, she thought, that all the gangster men went after her.

“Why don’t you go back to your country, then?” asked Trixie. She realized how rude she must have sounded only when the Russian woman’s blue eyes misted with tears.

“Oh, my dear, I have no country to go back to. Ever since damn Communists killed the tsar. I came to Paris as refugee when I was not much older than you, you see. All alone - my parents were killed in the fighting.” Katya swallowed hard. “Everything you see, I make myself. My entire life here in America, I make myself.”

“‘Golly,” whispered Trixie.  Her childhood had been far from ideal; she knew what it was to be hungry, to wear clothes that never fit right. But poor as she had been, Katya’s story made her background seem near idyllic.

“It is all right. We all have our crosses to bear,” said Katya quietly. “I do not dwell too much in the past. And besides, in Russia I could not do this ,” she said, grasping Trixie’s bare thigh with her pale hand. Trixie tensed.

“What is wrong with you?” she exclaimed. The Russian’s hand felt good, exciting even, but it was all wrong. Men weren’t supposed to do this to ladies, let alone other ladies. Trixie’s mother would probably have a heart attack if she could see her daughter right now.

Katya retracted her hand, a look of shame spreading across her face.

“I am sorry, Trixie, I thought you knew. Here in my bar, we are very open about our… sexual differences, you see. In Paris it was all the rage. Every woman I knew was intimate with other women. But New York, even, is not Paris. This I know now.” Trixie’s anger faded as she saw Katya’s face etched with worry. Katya was no predator - she was just a woman, a woman like Trixie, who fell in love with other women. Maybe, just maybe, Trixie even felt the same way. The Russian woman was so unlike anyone back home, she couldn’t be sure; the way she smoked like a man, the way her accent made Trixie’s name a rolling wave, the way she showed so much kindness and openness and understanding. The way this place seemed to be safe for people like Kennedy to sing and Katya to love, it couldn’t be a bad thing. When you love someone everything falls into place…

“I hope we can still be friends, Trixie,” Katya was saying now. “Nothing really happened.”

“Yeah. Nothing happened,” confirmed Trixie. “But if something were to happen, I don’t think I would mind.”

[babettepress]

Bobby “O”, Hi-NRG and the expression of queer desire

A few months ago, someone at a party asked me what song I would choose to have played at my funeral. I answered without hesitation: ‘Passion’, by The Flirts. This response was met with wide eyes of incredulity by the heterosexual man who had posed the question, and debate spilled out around us about why I should (or should not) choose something with more meaning, more depth, more substance. But I believe meaning can be found in the shallowest of places.

Hi-NRG is generally considered to be a shallow place. Peaking between 1982 and 1989, Hi-NRG rose like a phoenix from the embers of disco – an inferno which, by the late-1970s, was not so much petering out as being stomped out by a critical backlash epitomised by events like 1979’s Disco Demolition Night. The origin of Hi-NRG is fabled to be in Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ (1977), with its rolling arpeggiators and what Summer described in interviews as its ‘high energy vibe’.[1] Like disco before it, Hi-NRG uses predominantly electronic sounds, and was produced and consumed largely by marginalised communities, including queer African-Americans, Italian-Americans and Latinos. It was music for nighttime and nite-clubs, for dancing to, escaping to, for fostering inclusivity.

“You could think of early disco as the music of outsiders”, says curator, DJ and Hi-NRG enthusiast Pádraic E. Moore, who points out that Hi-NRG also furthered disco’s vital contribution to “the formation of gay identities, promotion of queer culture and disruption of gender norms”.[2] Moore cites Hi-NRG tracks like Patrick Cowley’s ‘Menergie’ (1981) and Modern Rocketry’s ‘Homosexuality’ (1985) as daring and provocative expressions of queer desire. Cowley and his ‘Menergie’ collaborator Sylvester were both early pioneers of the Hi-NRG genre, associated with San Francisco’s Megatone Records, and both of them would be killed by AIDs by the end of the decade. (Indeed, records like ‘Homosexuality’ seem even more radical and defiant given the backdrop of the AIDs crisis, and the accompanying discriminatory culture of the US mainstream.)

Moore stresses the DIY aesthetic of Hi-NRG in this initial, more underground phase, made possible by the increased availability and affordability of electronic music equipment, including Roland’s 808 drum machine and later, Yamaha’s DX7 synthesiser. By the middle of the 1980s, the genre would find mainstream success, with Stock Aitken Waterman producing a number of Hi-NRG hits by Divine, Dead or Alive, Hazell Dean and Bananarama; Moore also points out the Hi-NRG influence on queer artists such as Bronski Beat (in particular their 1984 track ‘Why?’) and Frankie Goes To Hollywood (‘Relax’). Though some great Hi-NRG tracks came from this period, the mainstream’s co-option of the genre would eventually lead to Hi-NRG’s dilution and demise – what Moore derides as the “vanilla cul-de-sac”[3] most radical art forms ultimately end up in. At its peak, though, Hi-NRG was a radical expression of queer desire, fuelled by the burgeoning LGBT club culture in the UK and the US.

This queer history of Hi-NRG is not without contention, though, and this essay will focus on the work of Bobby Orlando, a pioneer of the genre who I’m drawn towards not only because I love his music, but also because he is a problematic figure who in many ways troubles this reading of Hi-NRG. Orlando has been accused of plagiarism, homophobia, sexism and exploitation, and was characterised by a 1987 profile in The Face Magazine as “the self-styled master of classic techno trash” who aspired to be “the Ronald McDonald of the music industry”.[4] But Babette loves a problem child and in this essay I will argue why Orlando’s music is nonetheless worthy of our attention, and can still be celebrated within a queer history of late 20th-century dance music.

Bobby Orlando grew up in New York State, a teenage boxing sensation who could allegedly do one-finger push-ups. Not wanting to ruin his pretty face, he quit fighting sports and took up music instead, initially dipping his toe into the ‘glitter rock’ scene, attracted by its flamboyant masculinity and its taste for excess. In 1977, the year Giorgio Moroder released Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’, Orlando ditched the guitar and swapped glam rock for disco. He set up his own label, “O” Records, in 1980 – in the midst of the disco backlash. Contemporaneously to the aforementioned Cowley, Orlando carved out his own niche of fast-paced, synth-laden, campy staccato disco that would become known as Hi-NRG.

An almost exclusively electronic genre, Hi-NRG is defined by its synthetic sounds (Moore points out its eschewal more orchestral disco elements such as layered strings[5]) and Orlando’s music in particular makes use of gratuitous patches and samples. Compare his amped-up early version of the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘West End Girls’ (1984) to the more stripped back and definitive ‘hit’ version (1985) to see what I mean. Orlando’s penchant for artifice extends beyond the sounds he made, however, and into the broader aesthetic and practice of his music-making. The Flirts, arguably Orlando’s biggest musical legacy, were girl group of sheer artifice. Session musicians recorded the vocals, then a rotating roster of models, dancers and actresses lip-synced the song live: one blonde, one redhead, one brunette. Different tours and albums had different line-ups, with Orlando himself the only consistent factor.

One blonde, one redhead, one brunette: The Flirts performing live in 1983

Capitalising on this line-up of leggy, preened and pouting models, Orlando opted for a ‘sex sells’ approach to The Flirts’ song-writing. ‘Passion’, their biggest hit, opens with the zingy line “I’m waiting for you baby, it’s time for show and tell”, before going on to literally spell out sexual desire in a refrain of “P–A–SS–ION!”. In another track, ‘Calling All Boys’, The Flirts send out a signal of sexual invitation not to one specific boy/man, but to ALL boys/men. With its interchangeable frontwomen, hypersexualised performance of femininity and non-specific objects of desire, The Flirts are ostensibly meant to represent all or any women (or at least all or any white women since, gallingly by today’s standards, the group’s diversity is limited only to hair colour). With one or two exceptions, The Flirts’ performers are known only by one name – Hope, Holly, Sandy – and they serve only as vessels for Orlando’s expression.

This use of female bodies as two-dimensional, interchangeable marionettes is, of course, deeply exploitative, even if its symptomatic of the music industry’s attitude towards women as a whole. It should be noted that Orlando’s relations with many of his key performers, including Divine and Roni Griffiths, would turn sour after a couple of years’ collaboration. I don’t mean to underplay this problematic aspect of Orlando’s music-making, but to play devil’s advocate, I personally think his layering and obfuscation of authorship, and outright subversion of authenticity, is precisely what is fascinating about Orlando’s music.

Alongside the mirage of constructed femininity that was The Flirts, Orlando released and produced music under dozens of other names and self-invented bands, most of which had no members other than Orlando himself (except for the odd session vocalist). Wikipedia lists over 70 Orlando ‘acts’, and their camped-up, flamboyant names are a joy to read through: Barbie & The Kens, Hotline, the New York Models, Hippies With Haircuts, The He Man Band, The Fem-Spies, Girls Have Fun, Lilly & the Pink, The Bang Gang, Bubba and the Jack Attack …

The act of naming, and its transformative potential, was clearly not lost on Orlando. The adoption of constructed personas, fictitious identities and assumed names is a practise widely adopted within the queer community. It is a form of expression used not only by drag performers, but artists and activists (Rosa von Praunheim, Gluck, Claude Cahun, Tom of Finland, to name but a few). Orlando’s adoption of playful pseudonyms, many of which seem centred on gender/sexuality, seems to fit squarely within this practice, except for one rather large problem: Orlando identified as heterosexual and was reportedly homophobic. Rumour has it that after his music career fizzled out, Orlando became a religious zealot and wrote a book on creationism. I warned you he was problematic.

A 1942 self-portrait by Hannah Gluckstein, aka ‘Gluck’, recently included in Tate Britain’s exhibition of ‘Queer British Art 1861–1967′. The work is included in the collection of Britain’s National Portrait Gallery

Orlando’s music is throbbing with heterosexual desire and pumped-up machismo – “Let a man like me make a woman out of you”, promises one track, its cover art decorated with an illustration of a chiselled man lifting a barbell. In a rare interview with The Face Magazine in 1987, Orlando spoke of channelling the controlled aggression of his early boxing career into his music: “The only difference is that with records you take the aggression you would normally use beating the hell out of a guy by punching beats. It’s the same punch, the same drive.”[6]

One suspects that driving this male bravado and hetero-peacocking was an over-compensation of sorts, or even internalised homophobia. It’s not the place of this blog to speculate on Orlando’s sexuality, but whether or not the man himself was (is) queer, I think it’s fair to say that despite all the above, his music certainly was. Orlando’s performative take on masculinity is as artificial as The Flirts’ performance of femininity. Both expressions of gender identity chime with Susan Sontag’s definition of camp. In her still-relevant ‘Notes on Camp’ (1964), Sontag cites “the exaggerated he-man-ness” of bodybuilder Steve Reeves and Samson and Delilah actor Victor Mature as well as the “corny flamboyant femaleness” of Jayne Mansfield, Jane Russell.[7]

There is also a strong tradition of ostensibly ‘heterosexual’ anthems performed by women for a largely gay audience: Miguel Brown’s Hi-NRG hit ‘So Many Men, So Little Time’; Sinitta’s ‘So Macho’; Eartha Kitt’s ‘I Love Men’; The Weathergirls ‘It’s Raining Men’, etc. Seen in this context, tracks like The Flirts’ ‘Calling All Boys’ can take on a new meaning. And besides – that problematic Flirts paradigm of women as vessels becomes less straightforward when one views it through the kaleidoscope of queer identity: this is a song about this is desire for MEN, written by a MAN, performed by WOMEN miming WOMEN. Ironically, by adhering to uphold strict gender binaries, Orlando’s acts only serve to reveal how constructed and performative they are.

The exception, of course, is Divine – the only Orlando act to gender-bend in the more literal way. Unlike the majority of Orlando acts, Divine was not a persona of Orlando’s invention. An actor and drag queen, Divine had developed both a strong public identity and large fanbase by the time he began to collaborate with Orlando in 1981, having starred in several cult hits by filmmaker John Waters, including Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974). As such, his sizeable impact on the history of queer identity in the late twentieth century extends beyond the scope of this essay and indeed deserves one in its own right. One point worth touching on, though, is that Divine’s expression of femininity – all grit, fighting talk and disobedient body – is, to me, a truer expression of womanhood (or at least my experience of it) than any of Orlando’s nameless models provide. Once more, there is realness to be found in artifice.

The expression of desire in Orlando’s records, whether read as queer or hetero, is as performative and artificial as the gender identities he constructs. In the Bobby “O” track ‘I’m So Hot For You’ (1982), Orlando croons, “I saw you at the party so I thought I’d play the game / Two strangers in a lonely room, I asked you your name”, before bursting into its infectious chorus of “I’m so hot for you and you’re so hot for me … what are we waiting for?”. (“Pass the poppers, please”, read the top YouTube comment when I listened to it). This is typical of Orlando tracks – eyes lock across a crowded party, a lonely lothario asks a girl her name and everyone’s fantasies come true. These plotlines are so cliché, though – so artificial and oversexed – that they almost stop being sexy. The scenario is too cinematic to be believable. The beats are too fast to bump ‘n’ grind to. This is music for taking pills and dancing euphorically to, not slow-jamming to before taking someone home. It’s burning passion with no fulfilment.

In his extensive survey of post-punk Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds points out that the “non-funkiness” of Hi-NRG is one of the defining traits of the genre. It is “slamming rather than swinging”, he writes. Reynolds discusses Hi-NRG only as a footnote to Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Relax’, which though not ‘pure’ Hi-NRG itself, adopted many its its stylistic traits. He mentions Hi-NRG’s “orgiastic vibe”, but argues that ‘Relax’  was only sexy “in the exhibitionist sense of the Amsterdam leather bars [frontman] Holly [Johnson] visited, where the sex acts had an element of ‘theatre and performance’ … ‘Relax’ was driven by something far stronger than sensuality: an idea of sex as a weapon, shock tactic, threat”.[8]

Screenshot from the banned version of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Relax’, showing BDSM/leather bars. “You can really see how deviant this must have seemed in 1983″, says Moore[9]

The same could be said of Orlando’s sexploitation disco classics – the notion of sex as a dancefloor statement of intent, rather than a sensual act carried out behind closed doors. Orlando’s heroes and heroines know exactly what they want, as exemplified by 1982’s ‘She Has a Way’ (“She knows what she wants from you / You’ll do things you’d never do”). That’s not to say it’s always a happy ending, though. Much of the desire expressed in Orlando’s Hi-NRG pop songs is one-way – take Girly’s ‘Working Girl (One-Way Love Affair)’ or The Flirts’ ‘Helpless’ (“I can see you in the arms of another girl … you shattered my world”). These thwarted expectations of love are pure, swooping, teenage-style catastrophes of the heart. The sentimentality of such Orlando tracks, just like the directness of his more erotic numbers, give us permission to feel the most untempered emotions.

In 1978, the queer, socialist British journal Gay Left published an essay by Richard Dyer titled ‘In Defence of Disco’. In it, Dyer argues that there are three main characteristics of the disco genre: eroticism, romanticism and materialism. Dyer points out that almost all popular music is arguably erotic, but unlike the disembodied eroticism of pop music (admittedly more chaste in 1978 than it is today) and the ‘phallic’ grind of rock, disco’s eroticism is a full-bodied experience, making it open to all genders and sexualities. Then on the romanticism of disco, he argues that its “passion and intensity embody or create an experience that negates the dreariness of the mundane and everyday”. This flight from the banality of the everyday experience, and its accompanying structural sexism/racism, “can be seen as a flight from capitalism and patriarchy as lived experiences”.[10]

Though Dyer is, of course, discussing disco, I feel his points are equally relevant to its descendent Hi-NRG (“if not more so”, adds Moore, who brought my attention to the essay[11]). The full-bodied eroticism that Dyer describes is certainly a key component of Hi-NRG, alongside the euphoric escape from the conditions of late capitalism. Though both disco and Hi-NRG can be characterised by their excessive appetites (for drumbeats and cowbells, for flamboyant get-ups, for drugs, for sex), both offer a moment of respite from and alternative to the grind of day-to-day life, particularly for oppressed groups such as the queer community which, as pointed out at the beginning of this essay, made up large swathes of Hi-NRG’s audience.

Like most great pop/dance tracks, Orlando’s songs do not promise to deliver anything but a few minutes of punchy, sexy euphoria. But in my eyes, this is precisely what makes them so transcendental. To those of a certain bent, they deliver a pure hit of serotonin to the brain, and their artifice and ephemerality only serve to heighten this connection. I return, once again, to the wise words of Susan Sontag: “One cheats oneself, as a human being, if one has respect only for the style of high culture, whatever else one may do or feel on the sly.”[12]

Whether or not I’m permitted my wish of having a camp, sexy Hi-NRG track sang by three anonymous models played at my funeral, no hell or wild horses could stop me from enjoying it in the meantime.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Alan Jones & Jussi Kantonen, Saturday Night Fever: The Story of Disco (Chicago: A Cappella Books, 1999), cited on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-NRG, accessed July 2017

[2] Pádraic E. Moore, personal communication, July 2017

[3] ibid.

[4]  Kimberley Leston, ‘The Story of O’, The Face, 1987, accessed online at http://www.italo-disco.net/HTML/HTML%20Interviews/Bobby%20Orlando%20Interview.html, July 2017

[5] Moore, ibid.

[6] Leston, ibid.

[7] Susan Sontag, ‘Notes on Camp’ in Against Interpretation and Other Essays (London: Penguin Classics, 2009), p. 279

[8] Simon Reynolds, Rip it up and Start Again, p. 504

[9] Moore, ibid.

[10] Richard Dyer, ‘In Defence of Disco’, Gay Left, Summer 1979, pp. 20–23, accessed via http://www.gayleft1970s.org/issues/gay.left_issue.08.pdf, July 2017

[11] Moore, ibid.

[12] Sontag, ibid.

[whizz-in-my-ass]

please stop

i wrote this story please read

i think its good 

tell me what u think

warning for abuse

title: man up

               She was my high school sweetheart. Those were the good days: we were madly in love, I held her hand in the hall, kissed her without caring who saw, and wanted nothing more than a future with her.

               Senior year was when it changed. We were in my basement and just got done with a heated make out session that involved a movie playing while my parents sat upstairs, pretending not to know what was going on. I had one arm around her, and her head was resting on my chest.

               “So…” She said. “What colleges have you applied to?”

               I told her, and the mood in the room suddenly changed.

               “Not Northern University?” She asked, sounding heartbroken.

               “No,” I said. “I don’t wanna go out of state.”

               “B-but… What about us?” She asked.

               “We can still be together,” I said. “I think we could last.” I genuinely believed that, too.

               “No! You’ll cheat on me!” She said, her voice raising. “Do you care about me at all?”

               I tried reasoning with her, but my logical arguments only made her more and more upset. Soon, she was screaming at me and sobbing.

               “Please, can you calm down?” I pleaded.

               With that, she slapped me across the face. Then she went quiet.

               “I have to go home,” she stated before rushing out. I waited until I was sure she was gone. My face stung like hell. For someone who was 5’3 and as intimidating as a kitten, she packed quite a punch.

               I went upstairs when I was sure she was gone. My dad asked what happened. I told him, and instead of getting any sort of sympathy, I got a lecture about how I needed to be more respectful to my girlfriend.

               The next day, I applied to Northern University.

               At school that Monday, she came up to me and apologized profusely, while making it very clear that she was still upset with me for not wanting to go to the same college as her. I forgave her, and told her that I applied to Northern.

               After that incident, things just kept going downhill. She got mad when I went out without telling her. She got even angrier when there were other girls involved, even though I was hopelessly in love with her and had not so much as looked at another girl in that way throughout our entire relationship. She demanded to come with me whenever I hung out with other girls. She blocked all my female friends on my phone without my knowledge. When I realized what she had done, she screamed at me and punched me. I had a black eye, and when I told my best friend how it happened, he laughed and told me to man up.

               After high school came college. We lived in the same dorm but on different floors. She spent as much time as possible in my room. She memorized my schedule, and was always waiting at the door when I got home.

               My roommate was pretty cool about it. It wasn’t like we were always having hardcore sex whenever she was there, and she went back to her own room to sleep.

               The first and only time I cheated on her happened during our second year of college. It wasn’t even really cheating, because we were on a break that she insisted we needed. It was with a guy from my math class. He was gay, I was questioning my sexuality, and having sex with him was great and confirmed for me that I was bisexual.

               A few days later, I was sitting in the student lounge with him. She walked up to us.

               “Hi,” she said to me.

               “Hi,” I replied.

               “Uh… How have you been holding up?” She asked.

               “Pretty well!” I said. “In fact, I’ve realized something about myself.”

               “What’s that?” She asked.

               “I’m bisexual.” It was the first time I said the words out loud, and I felt like I needed to say them. In hindsight, I’m not entirely sure why I said them to her of all people.

               Surprisingly, she did not get angry or anything. She smiled sweetly. “Good for you!” She said. “See you around.”

               “See you,” I replied. She shot a quick glare at him and then walked away.

               In math class the next day, he sat on the other side of the room, even though he had been sitting next to me all semester. After class, I approached him with the intention of figuring out what was wrong.

               “Hi,” I said with a warm smile.

               “Hey…” He said. “I don’t think we should hang out anymore.” He opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, but then rushed out of the room.

               I was heartbroken and kind of mad. I figured she had said something to him, and it wasn’t fair. Being on a break meant we could do whatever we wanted with other people. I decided not to talk to her right away, though. I would just get angry, and I wanted to have a mature conversation with her.

               Unfortunately, when I got back to my room, she was there. She was wearing a short, tight dress that looked amazing on her.

               “Hi,” she said with a smile. She wrapped her arms around me and leaned in close.

               I gently pushed her away. “What are you doing?” I asked.

               “I wanna get back together,” she said. “I miss you so much.” Her arms wrapped around me again, and her body pressed against mine in just the right way. Any thought I had of him just disappeared.

               “I might need some convincing,” I replied, reaching around to squeeze her butt.

               We went into my room, which was unoccupied, and she gave a very convincing argument. For a few months after that, things were as good as they were in high school.

               I proposed to her on Christmas. I asked her father for permission on Christmas Eve, and he gave it. The next day, I proposed to her in front of my parents’ Christmas tree. She said yes. We decided to get an apartment together for the next school year.

               Everything seemed perfect.

               We got back to school a few weeks later. Coincidentally, my roommate came out to me as gay the third day back. She just so happened to be in the room at the time. It was as if a switch was turned back on, and she was back to her angry, jealous self.

               She started arguing with me about every little thing. She made me hang out in her dorm, and made me Skype her at night so she knew I was in my room and in my own bed. Every time I wanted to hang out with someone besides her, she would start crying and accusing me of cheating. Once, I had the nerve to go out with my friends, even without her permission. When I came back to the dorm, she was waiting for me and all hell broke loose. She screamed at me, hit me all over, then started sobbing. A crowd had gathered by that point, but it finally ended when the RA broke it up.

               “It’s quiet hours!” He said. “All of you get to your rooms before I write you all up!”

               I briefly wondered why no one tried to help me. Then it made sense. She was so petite and pretty, and I had a foot and about eighty pounds on her. They probably figured that if I had really found it necessary, I would have stopped her myself.

               After that, I was terrified of her. I stopped trying to hang out with other people outside of class, and just did whatever she wanted me to do.

               We got married that summer. It was a small ceremony with just our family and closest friends. We spent our honeymoon in a hotel room out of town. Then we got back to school, and moved into our apartment. I got a job to help pay for rent. After my first semester of my junior year, I dropped out of college. It was of my own choosing. My job was actually pretty great, and offered lots of opportunities for growth within the company. She stayed in school. Every day, I would drive her to campus, then drive to work, then go get her from school, then come home and make dinner (she didn’t like cooking).

               It was her senior year when she decided she wanted a baby. She still terrified me. Every little mistake I made led to screaming and her beating me. I felt self-conscious whenever I went into work with bruises on my face. When my coworkers found out where the bruises came from, they laughed and told me I had to man up. The guy in the cubicle across from me asked where she kept my balls.

               She graduated that spring, and was still trying to get pregnant, but with no avail. Despite multiple clean bills of health for both of us, no fertilization happened. I would never tell anyone, but I was sure it was because my body knew how trapped I would be if she did get pregnant.

               One night, I came home from work and she was sitting on the couch with a bottle of wine, looking crestfallen. An empty bottle was sitting next to her. She had texted me that the most recent test was, once again, a negative one.

               “Hey,” I said softly, sitting next to her. “Maybe you should take a break and drink some water.

               “Fuck you,” she growled.

               “I’m just trying to be helpful,” I said with a shrug.

               She growled and then smashed the bottle against my head. I blacked out, and when I woke up, she was trying to clean up the damage. She apologized over and over again.

               I decided then that I needed to leave. This woman was going to kill me, and I definitely did not want to be the one responsible for making her a mother. If only I had the balls to do so. Each negative pregnancy test came with another fit of rage that ended with more bruises and more apologies.

               Then came the positive one.

               “I’m pregnant!” She announced. She threw her arms around me. I wrapped mine around her.

               “Congratulations!” I said, smiling despite the sick feeling in my stomach.

               I was officially trapped. I guess my body had realized I wouldn’t have the balls to leave her, so there was no point in trying to prevent the pregnancy anymore.

               She got even worse during those nine months. At work, I would laugh and say “Pregnancy hormones!” even though I was terrified for myself and even more terrified for my unborn child.

               The day my son was born was the best day of my life. He had my nose and mouth. He had her eyes. I held him after she was done. His crying stopped, and he squirmed a bit. I had not been looking forward to his birth, but holding him made everything in the world feel right.

               I used up all my vacation days to be with my son in his first few weeks. Her parents came to meet him. My parents came to meet him. The baby rekindled my love for her, and life was good.

               It became clear that he liked me more than he liked his mother. The only time he smiled was when I held him. The only time he seemed the least bit happy with his mother was when she was feeding him. When he started crying, I was the only one who could get him to calm down. He could only fall asleep if I was holding him. I could tell my wife was jealous, and I felt guilty because I would come home from work to her being exhausted and my son crying.

               As the months progressed, he calmed down but was still rather cold to his mother. When he was eighteen months old, he said his first word: “Dada”. I started crying tears of joy. My wife glared at me. I went to cook dinner, and when it was in the oven, I went back out to the living room. She was repeatedly saying “Mommy” to him in a very angry tone. He looked terrified, and toddled to me. I picked him up.

               “Sweetie,” I said to my wife. “You can’t talk to him like that. He doesn’t understand, and you’re just going to upset him.”

               “Are you seriously criticizing my parenting?” She demanded.

               “No, I’m just saying. He’s a baby,” I said. He was hiding his face in my shoulder. “And please don’t talk to me like that in front of him. Especially now. He’s terrified.”

               With that, she slapped me across the face. He burst into tears, and she stormed into our room and locked the door.

               I didn’t want to deal with her. I was done. I fed my son and put him to bed, then I started packing his stuff. I was going to do it. I was going to leave her, and I was going to bring my son so she couldn’t hurt him. I grabbed a duffel bag out of the hall closet and packed a few days’ worth of diapers, some clothes, and his favorite toys. I would stay at a hotel, one far away. I didn’t care what people said about me. All I cared about was protecting my son from this evil woman.

               I ended up hiding the bag in the back of his closet. She was still locked in our room, so I was unable to get any of my stuff yet. I decided to go to work the next day, as normal, and then tell my boss I was quitting before I left. Then I would come home, pack, and leave.

               The next morning felt chillingly normal. She was awake, and feeding our son breakfast. I kissed her good-bye, I kissed him good-bye, and then I left for work.

               When I got home, a delicious smell was wafting from my apartment. I opened the door. She was in the kitchen in an apron, cooking dinner. She turned to me with a sweet smile.

               “Hi, honey,” she said. She kissed me on the lips. “I’m making pork, your favorite.”

               “Thanks,” I said. “Do you need any help?”

               “No, you can just relax,” she said. “And… I’m so, so, so sorry for what I did last night.” She kissed me again, and I kissed back. When she pulled away, she smiled again. “I actually got him to nap. Just before you came home!”

               “Congratulations,” I replied. I sat down at the table and watched her. She had a spring in her step. I felt guilty watching her. Maybe her anger was just stress. After all, she was hole all day with her child who, as much as it sucked, didn’t particularly like her. That would be draining on anyone. And now that she managed to get him to sleep, she seemed so happy. Maybe my plans to leave with him were too impulsive.

               Soon, she pulled the porn out of the oven. “You’re doing the dishes,” she said in a teasing tone as she set a plate in front of me.

               “Of course, darling,” I said. I then dug into the food. The pork was some of the best I ever had. It was soft and flavorful, and whatever rub she used gave it an even more delicious flavor, with a slightly bitter taste. I had three servings before going to do the dishes. She put the leftovers away, and then leaned up to kiss my cheek.

               “Come to bed when you’re done,” she said seductively. “I’ll give you your dessert.”

               “Okay,” I said with a stupid smile on my face. She went to our room, and I kept washing the dishes.

               I put the last dish in the drainer before heading to our room. Then I decided to go check on my son. The fact that he had been napping for so long was concerning. Maybe he was sick.

               I opened the door to his room and turned on the light. I went over to his crib. He wasn’t in it.

               More accurately, his body wasn’t in it. Laying in the middle was his head. His chubby cheeks had dried-on blood. His mouth was open as if he was screaming, but he was completely silent. He had been beheaded at his neck. Scattered across the mattress were his little arms and legs.

               I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move or look away.

               My wife’s footsteps broke me out of my trance. I spun around to look at her.

               “What the hell?” I demanded.

               “What do you mean?” She asked innocently.

               “What did you do to him?” I asked.

               “You ate him,” she said sweetly. “I cooked him up and you ate him, you sick fuck.”

               “Oh my god… You’re crazy!” I inched toward the door. “I can’t believe this…”

               “I had to,” she said. “You were gonna leave. I found the bag in the closet. I had to make you stay.”

               “I’m calling the cops,” I managed to get out.

               “No, you’re not,” she said. She grabbed my arm. I shoved her away with more force than I’d ever used with her. She fell backwards. With a terrifying look in her eyes, she approached me again. Before she could touch me, I grabbed her by the wrists.

               “You’re hurting me!” She shrieked. She stared kicking me in the shin, screaming in pain. I fell to the floor after a particularly hard one. She then kicked my head, and I blacked out.

               When I came to, I was in handcuffs and my poor son’s room was full of cops. She was sobbing and telling them how I killed our son, and how I was trying to do the same to her.

               “She’s lying!” I cried out. I tried to stand, but the lack of ability to use my hands made it difficult. One of the officers pulled me up, and then led me outside to where one of their cars was waiting. I didn’t fight. I did vomit on the sidewalk, though.

               I tried telling the truth. I told my story over and over again, but the odds were against me. My wife claimed that I had killed, cooked, and eaten our son in a fit of rage. She said that when she found out, I tried to kill her and that was why her wrists were bruised. She claimed she knocked me out in self-defense. Everyone believed her, including the judge. I got thrown in jail.

               I feel guilty. I could have left her the night before. I could have left her after he was born, or before she got pregnant, or in college, or even in high school.

               The guilt of knowing I hate my own son is the worst. I can’t sleep without waking up screaming. I can’t eat without feeling sick. I found a rusty nail in the yard, and I slipped it into my pocket. I’m going to shove it into my throat.

               If only I had the balls to do it.

[anoldwound]

Zach Likes When Sendhil Is Nekkid - Zach/Sendhil [RPS]

Title: Zach Likes When Sendhil is Nekkid Characters/Pairings: Zach/Sendhil (one-sided) Rating: PG-13 Warnings: Slash. Mild sex stuff. Cursing. Word Count: 1229 Summary:  Things like this always seemed to happen to him...he would always fall for the married, straight guy. Disclaimer: I am, of course, in no way insinuating that any of this is real. This is entirely fictional, and Zach and Sendhil are merely my puppets are being treated as fictional characters. Plz no sue kthnx. A/N: I finally did it. I finally wrote this pairing. *headdesk* I am a terrible person...but the plot bunnies! They are merciless! The companion fic to this can be located here. Sendhil was walking poetry. It wasn’t the most original description—or the most poetic—but far be it from Zach to declare himself a master of words. Words, after all, didn’t really matter, and couldn’t describe Sendhil’s smile. A smile that he was now flashing at the group of photographers gathered near the set. His teeth caught in the sunlight, and a blinding whiteness shot into Zach’s eyes. He averted his gaze to a ragged, wild bush that had thorns sticking out dangerously on all of its branches. It made him feel oddly perturbed, so he looked up at the sky—free and open and a perfect blue. It was a great day for shooting. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sendhil walking back into his trailer. The flimsy door slammed shut behind him, and the sound reverberated throughout the now silent woodland area. The photographers had left what seemed like a while ago, and Zach wondered exactly how long he had been standing there, staring at the sky. He knew it was going to be a while before they would be needed for the scene, so he sat down on a stump and rested his fist on his chin. He liked having these quiet moments alone—no reporters bothering him with questions he had been asked about a thousand times already, no publicists telling him how to dress, what to say, how to act...and there was a kind of peacefulness about the wilderness.  The air was heavy, but in a pleasant way, and there were no sounds except the twittering of birds in the distance and his own steady, rhythmic breathing. Zach looked through the window into Sendhil’s trailer and saw him flipping through a book—he couldn’t see the title from this far away—and tucking his curly locks behind his ear. His hair had grown back a little since the season had started, and Zach was glad. He much preferred it long. He liked the way it draped Sendhil’s face. It was wrong, thinking these things. He knew it was. It was wrong and it was pointless—Sendhil had to be one of the straightest guys on the planet, not to mention the fact that he was married and very much in love with his wife. Things like this always seemed to happen to him...he would always fall for the married, straight guy. The guy who had a family in the suburbs he’d go home to every night at precisely six o’ clock, who’d leave for his job at the office the next morning at exactly nine, and would leave work at five and go out drinking with his other very straight buddies—and Zach, the token gay guy. And Zach would keep all of his feelings bottled inside as he gazed with a burning longing at the laughing, smiling man that he knew he could never have, and shouldn’t have, because it was messed up and dirty. He was kind of masochistic that way. But this time, it had been an accident—he was watching the Heroes pilot one day with his friends, before he had signed up for the show, and he had said to one of them: “You know, that one guy is pretty hot.” “Which one?” “Well, all of them, really—but the guy who plays Mohinder. What’s his name?” “It’s Sendhil-something, I think.” “Well, he’s pretty fucking hot. I’d do him.” And he’d shoved the popcorn into his mouth and forgot about it. So, it really wasn’t fair that he wound up working with the man in the first place. He was already attracted to him, for God’s sake. How was he supposed to have known that he would end up on the show? And that the two of them would eventually be doing a bunch of scenes together? His crush had just gotten worse and worse as the days passed, until it had finally blown into...whatever the hell this was. He felt a shudder pass through him as Sendhil extended his slender neck to scratch at the hollow between his collarbone and his throat. He flicked his hair out of his eyes again. Zach had sniffed Sendhil’s hair once...it smelled like coconuts and something else that he couldn’t quite identify, but it had been pleasing and erotic and had practically given him an orgasm right then and there. He had felt ridiculous, but it hadn’t mattered, because nobody had noticed him. He kicked at the dirt beneath his shoes, and peered over his shoulder at the thorny bush. It seemed to be mocking him, somehow. He curled his mouth and looked back at Sendhil’s window. He wasn’t there anymore. Probably sitting in his chair, reading the book he had been flipping through a few moments ago. Seemed like eons had passed since then. He knew he should be heading back to his own trailer, but every time he tried to get up, he just...didn’t. His ass was firmly planted on that stump, as though it had taken root there, and his eyes would not tear away from Sendhil’s trailer. It was a dangerous obsession. He remembered a few months ago, when they had been wrapping up the first season, how Greg thought it would be funny to leave random notes in people’s dressing rooms. Stuff like “MILO IS A CROSS-DRESSING FIEND” and “ADRIAN TOTALLY WANTS TO GET IT ON WITH GREG”. Silly stuff that had everyone in stitches and that no one had taken seriously. But then Greg had left a note in Sendhil’s dressing room—one that he had taped onto the mirror and had written in capital letters with a blue Sharpie. “ZACH LIKES WHEN SENDHIL IS NEKKID.” Again, everyone had just laughed it off and didn’t think too much of it, but Zach, underneath his light-hearted chuckles, had been completely mortified and wanted to rip the note to shreds and throw it in the trash, because it was painfully true, even though Greg probably didn’t realize it. But Sendhil had insisted on leaving it up there, because “it gives me a warm, gooey feeling inside”, and Zach had grinned and let it go, while secretly wanting to slam Sendhil’s head against the wall for saying that, because it was just another one of his goddamn lies. He hated this. He really did. He hated feeling like he was chained down to this man—this beautiful, devastating man—and he hated the trapped feeling he had all the time, and...God, he just hated everything. But most of all, he hated standing so close to him and feeling so far away at the same time. He longed to be free of him, yet he longed to stay chained and alone and miserable. “Zach?” He blinked and turned. Sendhil was standing next to him. “Any particular reason you’re sitting here all by your lonesome?” Sendhil squatted down next to him. “No...no, I was just thinking.” “About what?” “Nothing, really.” “Sounds riveting.” A small smirk curled up his cheek, and Zach felt his heartbeat accelerate. “They’re gonna need us in wardrobe in a few minutes. Thought you should know.” “Thanks. I’ll be there in a little bit.” “Okay.” Sendhil stood up and strode away gracefully, and something in Zach withered and died and clung onto that thorny bush behind him. He looked up at the sky again, gave up, and followed Sendhil to wardrobe.

[tragicbooks]

5 things the writers of 'Will & Grace' should consider before the upcoming reboot.

<br>

"Will & Grace" is returning to TV for a limited 10-episode run.

The show debuted in 1998, near the end of what Entertainment Weekly dubbed "The gay '90s." It was another effort for NBC to capitalize on what Miami University media professor Ron Becker dubbed "the Slumpy class" — socially liberal, urban-minded professionals. Through eight seasons and more than 180 episodes, that's exactly what "Will & Grace" did.

Image via VoteHoney/YouTube.

If you missed "Will & Grace" the first time around. Here's a refresher.

Will (Eric McCormack) and Grace (Debra Messing) are a former couple turned best friends turned roommates. Will is gay and an attorney. Grace is straight and an interior designer. The cast is rounded out by Jack (Sean Hayes), their flamboyant friend who dreams of stardom; Karen (Megan Mullally), who is technically Grace's assistant but usually gets intoxicated and hangs out; and Rosario (Shelley Morrison), Karen's loyal maid. They laugh, they cry, shenanigans ensue, they fall in and out of love, the audience laughs really, really loudly: It was sitcom gold.

The cast of "Will & Grace," from left, Eric McCormack, Sean Hayes, Debra Messing, and Megan Mullally. Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

Though the show was campy and silly, it was pretty groundbreaking at the time.

When the show began, Will was the only gay character leading a show on prime-time TV. His sexuality wasn't mentioned in early promotions for the show (apparently even promoting to "the Slumpys" had its limits), but as the show went on, it broke new ground not just for having a gay lead but for the issues it raised.

From the episode "Whatever Happened to Baby Gin?" in Season 8. Photo by Chris Haston/NBC, courtesy of the Everett Collection.

In the first season episode,"Will Works Out," Will has to deal with his own homophobia after calling Jack a fag at the gym. Later in "Acting Out," Jack and Will go down to the "Today" show to protest a gay kiss being cut from an NBC show, and they end up kissing each other. Will gives boyfriend Matt (Patrick Dempsey) the boot after he won't come out of the closet at work in "Brothers, a Love Story."

For every affirming, innovative moment, there was camp. After all, it was first and foremost a screwball comedy. There were Cher and Madonna walk-ons. There were jazz hands. There were constant reminders for viewers that they were, in fact, watching a "gay show," even if the representations were mostly "safe" and unthreatening to the general public.

GIF via "Will & Grace."

It's been over 10 years since the show ended its eight-season run, and needless to say, a lot has changed.

Three-dimensional gay characters, while still short on lead roles, are more common than they were in "the gay '90s." In 2015, GLAAD found 35 gay, lesbian, or bisexual characters on prime-time broadcast television. That's around 4% of all characters on prime-time broadcast TV.

Since we last saw the "Will & Grace" gang, gay marriage has became legal, bathroom bills have made their way across the country, and we've elected a president whose early appointees already have a lackluster track record on civil rights.

So if "Will & Grace" wants to remain as edgy, relevant, and frankly funny as it used to be, here are five things the reboot needs:

1. Get some friends of color in the mix.

They live and work in New York City. How hard is it for Will and Grace to have some black friends? This doesn't mean they should pull a "Gilmore Girls" and flood the background with black and brown actors. I mean real speaking parts with some character development. People of color can hang with the gang too, and it doesn't have to be stunt casting. (But the writers will have to get rid of cheap shots about confusing Mexicans and El Salvadorans.)

The white background is really just overkill at this point. Photo by George Lange/NBC.

2. Can we move away from food-shaming Grace?

Grace loved to eat. It was kind of her schtick. There is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying food, but Grace's fondness for food was played up as a character flaw. She was portrayed as an almost gluttonous, emotional eater, unable to resist any snack sent her way, especially when she was down in the dumps. Yet, she remained slim and trim because while "Will & Grace" was considered envelope-pushing TV, a fat woman was considered a bridge too far. It was an infuriating aspect of the show.

Episode "Forbidden Fruit" from Season 8. Photo by Chris Haston/NBC, courtesy of the Everett Collection.

As Sadie Stein wrote for Jezebel, "It says, 'I may look glamorous, but I have the mind and soul of a fat person! And this is hilarious!' Not incidentally, this also plays into that old male fantasy: the un-neurotic guy's girl who can chow down on a steak and still look like a centerfold."

3. More representation from the LGBTQ community, please.

In the late '90s, it was enough to just have gay characters on TV. The bar has been raised. Time for "Will & Grace" to move beyond the one-note representations of Will and Jack and include more diverse portrayals of the LGBTQ community. A gender nonconforming yoga instructor? Can Grace date a bisexual guy? You see where I'm going. And ideally, those actors would be gay, trans, or nonbinary in real life. One can dream.

The show can still be silly and funny, but let's up the inclusivity and think about the types of people falling in and out of love or being the butt of the joke. AV Club writer Joe Reid said it best in his piece on the show's legacy, "For any show about gay men in a world that is steadily allowing them to exist outside the closet, it’s important to investigate the self-policing that was (and still is) happening regarding butch, 'masc,' and femme portrayals."

GIF via "Will & Grace."

4. Let's let Jack and Will be sexual beings.

On a similar note, gay characters can kiss, flirt, make-out, have sex, hook-up, enter long-term relationships, and in general have sexual agency. Too often, Will and Jack were essentially neuters with punchlines. If the character is gay, let them be gay and give their romances and relationships the time and weight they deserve.

Eric McCormack and Sean Hayes in Season 6. Photo via NBC, courtesy of the Everett Collection.

5. The gang can (and should) challenge President Donald Trump and his agenda.

To be fair, they've already kinda started. The cast reunited for a mini-episode last fall all about the election, but they're in a unique position to go further. In the late '90s, people saw "Will & Grace" as irreverent and subversive. If there's ever a time to resist the status quo, it's now. The 10-minute video should serve as a comedic warning shot to Trump and his ilk: If you insist on appointing, hiring, and amplifying voices of hate, then no place will be safe for you. Even prime-time network comedies.

GIF via Vote Honey/YouTube.

So welcome back, "Will & Grace." I await your reboot with an open mind.

I just hope you're coming back with a story we haven't heard before. Otherwise, stay just what you are: A lighthearted, irreverent, sometimes boundary-pushing sitcom that was just fine where we left it ... in 2006.

Photo by George Lange/NBC, courtesy of the Everett Collection.

<br>

[socialviralnews]

5 things the writers of 'Will & Grace' should consider before the upcoming reboot.

<br>

"Will & Grace" is returning to TV for a limited 10-episode run.

The show debuted in 1998, near the end of what Entertainment Weekly dubbed "The gay '90s." It was another effort for NBC to capitalize on what Miami University media professor Ron Becker dubbed "the Slumpy class" — socially liberal, urban-minded professionals. Through eight seasons and more than 180 episodes, that's exactly what "Will & Grace" did.

Image via VoteHoney/YouTube.

If you missed "Will & Grace" the first time around. Here's a refresher.

Will (Eric McCormack) and Grace (Debra Messing) are a former couple turned best friends turned roommates. Will is gay and an attorney. Grace is straight and an interior designer. The cast is rounded out by Jack (Sean Hayes), their flamboyant friend who dreams of stardom; Karen (Megan Mullally), who is technically Grace's assistant but usually gets intoxicated and hangs out; and Rosario (Shelley Morrison), Karen's loyal maid. They laugh, they cry, shenanigans ensue, they fall in and out of love, the audience laughs really, really loudly: It was sitcom gold.

The cast of "Will & Grace," from left, Eric McCormack, Sean Hayes, Debra Messing, and Megan Mullally. Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

Though the show was campy and silly, it was pretty groundbreaking at the time.

When the show began, Will was the only gay character leading a show on prime-time TV. His sexuality wasn't mentioned in early promotions for the show (apparently even promoting to "the Slumpys" had its limits), but as the show went on, it broke new ground not just for having a gay lead but for the issues it raised.

From the episode "Whatever Happened to Baby Gin?" in Season 8. Photo by Chris Haston/NBC, courtesy of the Everett Collection.

In the first season episode,"Will Works Out," Will has to deal with his own homophobia after calling Jack a fag at the gym. Later in "Acting Out," Jack and Will go down to the "Today" show to protest a gay kiss being cut from an NBC show, and they end up kissing each other. Will gives boyfriend Matt (Patrick Dempsey) the boot after he won't come out of the closet at work in "Brothers, a Love Story."

For every affirming, innovative moment, there was camp. After all, it was first and foremost a screwball comedy. There were Cher and Madonna walk-ons. There were jazz hands. There were constant reminders for viewers that they were, in fact, watching a "gay show," even if the representations were mostly "safe" and unthreatening to the general public.

GIF via "Will & Grace."

It's been over 10 years since the show ended its eight-season run, and needless to say, a lot has changed.

Three-dimensional gay characters, while still short on lead roles, are more common than they were in "the gay '90s." In 2015, GLAAD found 35 gay, lesbian, or bisexual characters on prime-time broadcast television. That's around 4% of all characters on prime-time broadcast TV.

Since we last saw the "Will & Grace" gang, gay marriage has became legal, bathroom bills have made their way across the country, and we've elected a president whose early appointees already have a lackluster track record on civil rights.

So if "Will & Grace" wants to remain as edgy, relevant, and frankly funny as it used to be, here are five things the reboot needs:

1. Get some friends of color in the mix.

They live and work in New York City. How hard is it for Will and Grace to have some black friends? This doesn't mean they should pull a "Gilmore Girls" and flood the background with black and brown actors. I mean real speaking parts with some character development. People of color can hang with the gang too, and it doesn't have to be stunt casting. (But the writers will have to get rid of cheap shots about confusing Mexicans and El Salvadorans.)

The white background is really just overkill at this point. Photo by George Lange/NBC.

2. Can we move away from food-shaming Grace?

Grace loved to eat. It was kind of her schtick. There is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying food, but Grace's fondness for food was played up as a character flaw. She was portrayed as an almost gluttonous, emotional eater, unable to resist any snack sent her way, especially when she was down in the dumps. Yet, she remained slim and trim because while "Will & Grace" was considered envelope-pushing TV, a fat woman was considered a bridge too far. It was an infuriating aspect of the show.

Episode "Forbidden Fruit" from Season 8. Photo by Chris Haston/NBC, courtesy of the Everett Collection.

As Sadie Stein wrote for Jezebel, "It says, 'I may look glamorous, but I have the mind and soul of a fat person! And this is hilarious!' Not incidentally, this also plays into that old male fantasy: the un-neurotic guy's girl who can chow down on a steak and still look like a centerfold."

3. More representation from the LGBTQ community, please.

In the late '90s, it was enough to just have gay characters on TV. The bar has been raised. Time for "Will & Grace" to move beyond the one-note representations of Will and Jack and include more diverse portrayals of the LGBTQ community. A gender nonconforming yoga instructor? Can Grace date a bisexual guy? You see where I'm going. And ideally, those actors would be gay, trans, or nonbinary in real life. One can dream.

The show can still be silly and funny, but let's up the inclusivity and think about the types of people falling in and out of love or being the butt of the joke. AV Club writer Joe Reid said it best in his piece on the show's legacy, "For any show about gay men in a world that is steadily allowing them to exist outside the closet, it’s important to investigate the self-policing that was (and still is) happening regarding butch, 'masc,' and femme portrayals."

GIF via "Will & Grace."

4. Let's let Jack and Will be sexual beings.

On a similar note, gay characters can kiss, flirt, make-out, have sex, hook-up, enter long-term relationships, and in general have sexual agency. Too often, Will and Jack were essentially neuters with punchlines. If the character is gay, let them be gay and give their romances and relationships the time and weight they deserve.

Eric McCormack and Sean Hayes in Season 6. Photo via NBC, courtesy of the Everett Collection.

5. The gang can (and should) challenge President Donald Trump and his agenda.

To be fair, they've already kinda started. The cast reunited for a mini-episode last fall all about the election, but they're in a unique position to go further. In the late '90s, people saw "Will & Grace" as irreverent and subversive. If there's ever a time to resist the status quo, it's now. The 10-minute video should serve as a comedic warning shot to Trump and his ilk: If you insist on appointing, hiring, and amplifying voices of hate, then no place will be safe for you. Even prime-time network comedies.

GIF via Vote Honey/YouTube.

So welcome back, "Will & Grace." I await your reboot with an open mind.

I just hope you're coming back with a story we haven't heard before. Otherwise, stay just what you are: A lighthearted, irreverent, sometimes boundary-pushing sitcom that was just fine where we left it ... in 2006.

Photo by George Lange/NBC, courtesy of the Everett Collection.

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