#queer transfigurations

[lurkingteapot]

It's here! I'm enjoying myself a lot and thought I'd share some bits and pieces, again, starting with the introduction.

Introduction: Boys Love (BL) Media and Its Asian Transfigurations by James Welker, in: Welker (editor), Queer Transfigurations. Boys Love Media in Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2022. p. 1–16. [Jstor]

I took notes by hand while reading, tried to type them up as coherently as possible here.

BL is an umbrella term for all sorts of media (going by volume, the primary mode is still written – prose or manga) that depict male-male romantic and sexual relationships and are primarily marketed to young women. BL has had fans 'around the globe' since the 1980s, especially in East and Southeast Asia, though it really 'dramatically expanded in popularity in the current century'. (p. 1)

Asian BL fandoms do not exist in isolation from the rest of the world (p. 2)

queer as in a) gender/sexuality-related expressions that flout social norms, b) queering norms of (female) sexuality and c) creating breathing room for queer individuals (p. 2)

there's no clear line between BL and LGBTQ media (p. 2)

why 'transfiguration'? -> transit from one culture to another (p. 3)

BL: minor and often underground as a genre, still

4 overlapping attributes of BL and fandoms: 1) transnational + transcultural media phenomenon, 2) useful tool for unsettling gender and sexual norms, 3) cannot be separated from LGBTQ issues including politics, 4) BL is political (p. 4)

note on piracy of BL, its impact on Japanese producers, and how this is rarely discussed (*) (p-5)

1980s/1990s: BL makes it to Taiwan, Korea, China -> category blurring? (p. 5)

shipping as a part of BL fandom (p. 6)

legal issues in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore (p. 7)

shipping/fan works were a part of BL culture from the 1970s onwards (cf. Welker 2015) (p. 7)

seme/uke dynamics + shifts? -> mutability of gender (p. 8)

way of alternatives to masc stereotypes for cishet men (fudanshi) (p. 8)

blurring of gay and straight? (p. 8/9)

taboos around BL in Japan arise because it's often sexual and women engage with it (p. 9)

elsewhere in Asia: BL often serves as 'first conscious contact' for middle-class Indian and Indonesian fans with homosexuality -> may prompt reconsideration of own preconceptions/ideas/religious doctrine. (p. 9)

"representational appropriation" of images of gay men (cf. Ishida 2007) (p. 10)

fans turning activist for queer rights in Taiwan (p. 10/11)

rosy image of Japan among gay male fans of BL in mainland China (p. 10)

BL as progressive force for good (p. 10)

impact of US lawmaking on international fan communities (p. 10)

fan wars in South Korea (odeokku vs hujoshi) ca 2016; -> more recently: SK version of yaoi ronsou? (p. 11)

BL queer in that it flouts and facilitates the flouting of sexual and gender norms, has been pushing cishet fans to think about queer rights and the social standing of queer folks, sometimes even pushed fans to activism (p. 12)

grouping chapters under national/regional headings potentially misleading -> borders not so clear in the lives of fans and the texts they engage with (p. 13)

(*) I would LOVE to read more about this personally, anyone got anything? point me!

… this took entirely too long and I REALLY need to work on my handwriting, but I hope this might've been interesting to some. If you read this book (or anything else from the realm of BL scholarship), feel free to hmu, I'm an amateur but I love to talk this sort of stuff!

[sarasade]

The local librarian when they see the same fujoshi mf (me) filling out acquisition proposals for BL non-fiction lit once again.

[spencersk]

This is a project in the making. I’m still figuring out what I am doing. It is a teddy bear that is being transfigured into something else.

http://spencersheehankalina.com

[thurifer-at-heart]

In honor of the Feast of the Transfiguration today (August 6th), here's a wonderful little song about it by Sufjan Stevens, who is an Episcopalian.

When he took the three disciples To the mountainside to pray, His countenance was modified, his clothing was aflame. Two men appeared: Moses and Elijah came; They were at his side. The prophecy, the legislation spoke of whenever he would die.

[...] What he said to them, The voice of God: the most beloved son. Consider what he says to you, consider what's to come. The prophecy was put to death, Was put to death, and so will the Son. And keep your word, disguise the vision Till the time has come. Lost in the cloud, a voice. Have no fear! We draw near! Lost in the cloud, a sign. Son of Man! Turn your ear. Lost in the cloud, a voice. Lamb of God! We draw near! Lost in the cloud, a sign. Son of Man! Son of God! —Sufjan Stevens

[godhasheardtruthfully]

20 Rabi Al Awwal 1445

A poem delivered from my womb fresh! 4 u!

Trans/Figured

Slayyyter shirt with the Buckees shorts

I've seen Club Paradise

It's so like my face still puffed from the FFS.

Coco Chanel can't compare to the brand new 2 C's on my chest.

None could have done this save Allah

I come up from anesthesia praying our Father each time, so twice with three cuts.

Oh God this here is my body, my blood.

I'm needy. Thou need me not clearly still I long for He perhaps he wants me. Please rest your heart on me.

I'm drowning.

Uncircumcised men have captured me. I pray for my enemies but God look at my friends!

Beautiful ones. I know I've fucked up. Forgive Ms Adultress etc Allah & be Gracious as my heart pangs -

Oh Sam-Amina! Really you must cum to Jesus.

Lust be gone! This must be otherworldly love.

Isa be mine.

Level mountains and gather us up as you raised my breasts and the dead sing again.

Wont stop streaming Mary Magdalene.

Watching Beyoncé's Homecoming for a higher education.

Peace be on them! Assalamualaykum.

When I say I'm Matthew I'm not kinning.

Is it not written?

I am Gods gift Amin.

[valeriehalla]

CURSE/KISS/CUTE issue #1: “Name of the Helper, Part I” is now live!

Nathan Small is as normal as humans come. Sure, he may have hopped on a train to Monster City just to interview for a job—but in this economy, who can blame him? There’s only one problem with his plan: the giggling little fairy-thing that just transfigured his slacks into a miniskirt…

CURSE/KISS/CUTE is a queer multimedia web series for adults only. Check out the homepage for more info, including the backlog of previous issues!

[ohholydyke]

See the thing about fundamentalists and trads and Christian nationalists and MAGA evangelicals and ethnocratic bigots is that they render the faith so boring.

I take no issue with the fact that they would look at me and say that I’m not a member of the faithful because their faith is radically, inherently, ontologically distinct from mine. My God is too big and too loving and too esoteric to fit neatly into the gendered understanding of an authoritarian white father disciplining his children for not perfectly falling into lockstep. My Savior is the man who told the religious leaders “Caesar can have his idolatrous blood money, but give God your heart and your faith,” challenging the notion of an earthly ruler. My apostles wrote of the throne of man being empty—there are no masters or kings or governments, there is only Jesus Christ, Basileus Basileōn, king of kings. I believe in radical oneness with God through Christ—one flesh and one body, biblical marriage with the bridegroom whose flesh and blood make up the holy Eucharist. My faith is Queer, ancestral, esoteric, anarchist, insurrectionary, anticolonial, antiracist, unorthodox, disruptive, free. When I encounter the divine, or pray to the saints, or sit in the chapel to pray, I am experiencing communion with the sublime, in every sense of the word, the same presence that made the apostles fall to their faces before the transfiguration, that shaped the world from void, that animates the deep care and rage which boil into every aspect of my being.

When conservatives tell me I am not a Christian it is only because they cannot conceive of a Christ and a faith so big, so all encompassing, so beyond anything our human minds can comprehend, and they cannot conceive being in tune with this divinity and being left senseless by the knowledge that the divine above all else is us and loves us more than we could ever comprehend, such that experiencing this love is enough to leave one fundamentally, ontologically changed down to the fiber of their being. I feel sorrow for them. I pray that Christ may reach into their hearts and open their eyes, that they may see not only the horrors that they commit but also the deep love and freedom that awaits them through abandoning their fundamentalism and their bigotry.

Or, in other words, me every time I see another conservative Christian whining about how people aren’t doing Christianity right because they don’t adhere to a super narrow and watered down version of the faith:

[fourthemarauders]

As your favourite bisexual icon,

I present

The bi marauders era characters

And their craziness

Not that we're crazy

Shut up

Go on and read

Remus Lupin — Bisexual, Trans Ally, Walking Identity Crisis

🏳️‍🌈 Vibe:

Soft cardigan, sharp tongue.

Looks like he’d be embarrassed to speak at Pride and yet somehow ends up leading a rally while holding a “Protect Trans Kids” sign and a half-eaten sandwich.

Doesn’t seek the spotlight, but the spotlight finds him whenever someone says something biphobic within 500 meters.

📚 Aesthetic:

Worn-out jumpers, queer poetry books in every pocket, thrifted combat boots with scuffed pride flag laces.

Tattoos: one on his ribs that says “both/and,” one behind his ear of a moon cradled in two hands. He got them when he was feeling brave.

Smells like petrichor, black tea, and the scent you get when you open an old book and it hurts a little.

💔 Love Life:

Has had two (2) healthy romantic experiences and seventeen (17) full-on Shakespearean disasters.

Gets flustered when Sirius flirts, furious when Sirius stops flirting.

Probably once kissed a Ravenclaw boy in the library, then ghosted him for three months because he had “an identity spiral and a transfiguration exam.”

🪞 Queer Inner Monologue:

“What if I’m too much?” followed immediately by “What if I’m not enough?”

Thinks a lot about the fact that he’s monstrous and marginalized, and how it’s not the same, but it overlaps in ways no one else really talks about.

Writes whole essays about being both queer and a werewolf, titles like: Monstrosity, Moonlight, and Men I Shouldn’t Miss.

✊ At Pride:

Shows up to Pride Month events like he’s just “there to help,” then gives a five-minute speech that has everyone crying.

Brings snacks. Water bottles. Extra glitter.

Volunteers at the “Questioning? Come Talk” booth because he remembers exactly how lonely it was, back when he thought he was the only one.

🧵 His Hogwarts Pride Legacy:

Wrote the GSA’s anti-discrimination policy from scratch.

Helped Regulus write his coming-out letter, even though he didn’t sign his name on it.

Once told a professor, “if you can’t say the word bisexual, I’m not answering your question.”

Lily Evans — Bisexual, Witch of the Revolution, Pretty with a Purpose

🏳️‍🌈 Vibe:

Thinks “girlboss” is a slur but is one.

Wears bisexual pride pins on her robes next to her Prefect badge, and yes, she will hex you if you say it’s “too political.”

Has resting activist face. If she’s marching, you're following. If she’s angry, you’re about to be educated.

🌺 Aesthetic:

Combat boots and sundresses.

Sparkling eyeliner and a thousand band-aids in her bag (because someone’s always bleeding and it’s usually Sirius).

Smells like fresh ink, strawberries, and righteous fury.

Her bedroom walls are half protest posters, half sapphic poetry.

💔 Love Life:

Very Bi™ — once dated a girl who ran a secret broom racing league and a boy who wrote her haikus about blood magic.

Could never quite tell if she was in love with Marlene or wanted to be her.

Said “I’d rather die than date a man who calls me feisty” and meant it.

Every boy she dated knew she’d hex him if he made one (1) joke about girls being “just a phase.”

🧠 Queer Inner Monologue:

“I can fight for justice and cry about pretty girls in magazines. Watch me.”

Worries sometimes that her softness is performative and her rage is too loud — but owns both like weapons.

Constantly oscillating between “I love being queer” and “I’m so tired of explaining myself.”

✊ At Pride:

First to arrive, last to leave, covered in glitter and shouting into a megaphone.

Has an entire collection of shirts that say things like:

“Queer Witch Rage is Sacred”

“Don’t Bi Me Unless You Mean It”

“Ask Me About My Polytheistic Feminism”

Brings pamphlets about queer health stats and hands them out aggressively.

Once magically duplicated a thousand trans flag cupcakes and started a bake sale protest called “Eat the System.”

🧵 Her Hogwarts Pride Legacy:

Founded the first queer student-led safe space in the castle — the Room of Requirement adjusted itself to match her vision.

Hexed a fourth-year for saying “I just don’t get nonbinary people” and made him speak in gender theory quotes for 48 hours.

Is the reason queer students at Hogwarts feel like they own the space they take up now.

Should I do a part 2 with other flags?

[themodernchicanareview]

Who is Gloria Anzaldúa?: A review of a Revolutionary Women

This is a somewhat academic research essay about Gloria Anzaldúa and her impact on the queer Chicana Identity. If you are unfamiliar with her work and you are a queer Chicana, it's like waking up. A professor once told me that reading Anzaldúa for the first time is like taking the Red pill. It's confronting a part of yourself that society has conditioned you to quiet. If this something doesn't fully resonate with you, that's okay. Read and learn from someone with a different perspective anyway. As Chicano Studies will stress, Connection is fundamental to growth and healing. I am always open to critique and edits. Feel free to DM me with questions/concerns/or even edits. My goal is to build a connection with those within this space!

The day I was assigned Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa was my first encounter with the true nature of my cultural heritage. It was my first year at Texas State, 558 miles from El Paso, Texas, the borderland I called home. At that time, my goal was to go to law school, work as an attorney, maybe run for office, and eventually become a Judge; I was to be the Perfect Mexican Daughter. Borderlands was a transformative read. It was the story of the border, my home, and my life. Anzaldúa writes, “1,950-mile-long open wound dividing a pueblo, a culture, running down my body, staking fence rods in my flesh, splits me, splits me, me raja, me raja.” [1]Living on the U.S.-Mexico Border, being Mexican, you grew up with a tear in your soul, the likes of which you were conditioned to ignore. Subsequently, this societal-imposed ignorance breeds resentment, anger, and conformity. It is the pressure to assimilate. It's important to understand that the goal of assimilation is to distance yourself from yourself. This distance, for me at least, was painful.

Reading Anzaldúa for the first time made me realize I had a choice. For me and so many, Anzaldúa served as the bridge between assimilation and decolonization. Meaning she presented a world in which my pain could be transfigured into the reclamation of my identity. Through her philosophical and historical narrative, Anzaldúa gave us a path to reconnecting. Reading Borderlands and discovering my Chicana/Latina and Indigenous roots put me on the path to reconnection; it made the grip that assimilation once had on me gradually loosen. I could breathe, write, and create and connect with my identity. Therefore, this essay aims to provide a context of the historical and social importance of the revolutionary work of Gloria Anzaldúa's work.

Seeing that Anzaldúa primarily writes about the effects of a political border like the US-Mexico border on culture, I believe it is important to understand the historical context of border relations between the United States and Mexico when Anzaldúa was writing. Anzaldúa published most of her works between 1981 and 1996, while her last work would be published after she died in 2015. Therefore, I will primarily focus on the border relations between the U.S. and Mexico in the 80s and 90s. Historian Douglas Massey points out, “Although the Mexico-U.S. border has long been deployed as a symbolic line of defense against foreign threats, its prominence in the American imagination has ebbed and flowed over time. Over the past several decades, however, the political and emotional importance of the border as a symbolic battle line has risen.” [2]Massey points out that the idea of a US-Mexico border as a physical and metaphysical construct that divides is a fairly recent concept. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, U.S., Texas, and Mexico relations were inconsistent fluctuations, leading to an ever-changing physical border. Massey writes, “In theory, the Mexico-U.S. border first came into existence with Mexico's achievement of independence from Spain in 1821, although very quickly the border was blurred by the entry of U.S. settlers into northern Mexico from southern and border states in the United States.” (161) Which leads us into the 20th century. Where the border is now effectively militarized, and there are increasingly anti-immigration sentiments that have been pervasive throughout history and perpetuated through the militarization of the physical US-Mexico border. “A systematic coding of weekly U.S. news magazine covers dealing with immigration from 1970 to 2000 found that negatively framed covers increased markedly in frequency through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Migration from south of the border was increasingly referred to as a "crisis" and was labeled either a "flood" that would "inundate" the United States and "drown" its society or an "invasion" of hostile "aliens" pitted against "outgunned" Border Patrol agents who sought to "hold the line" against "banzai charges" by migrants who would "overrun" American society.” [3](168) This was the tumultuous time when Anzaldúa became prominent in her academic career. It was important to her that within her works, she addressed the systematic failings that caused this racist climate. In Borderlands/La Frontera, Anzaldúa says: “Those who make it past the checking points of the Border Patrol find themselves in the midst of 150 years of racism in Chicano barrios in the Southwest and in big northern cities (37).” Within the context of the time, simply acknowledging the tyrannical effects of the physical US-Mexican border revolutionized the way Chicanos interacted with border ideology. By highlighting this systemic racism within the physical and metaphysical U.S.- Mexico border, Anzaldúa highlighted the pain that Mexicans Chicanos felt living with the hostility that came from being a borderland person. 

Moreover, within the historical context of the 80s and 90s, Anzaldúa faced a great challenge when it came to her queer identity. Within Borderlands, not only does A write about the struggles of a border identity, but she also writes about the struggles of queerness and gender and how that itself is an intersectional identity worth exploring and worth value. It’s important to note that historically being Chicana with a voice, and also being queer was still extremely taboo. “Gay and lesbian lifestyles are taboo, and Chicano culture and are harshly castigated. To violate this fundamental moral standard is to invite ostracism, violence or both.” [4]The inclusion of her queer identity as a form of intersectionality, a form of a borderland, was revolutionary for the time. Not only was she talking about queer identity and gender during a time when it was dangerous, but she used her lesbian identity as a form of intersectionality to demonstrate aspects of her philosophy. “She says that as a queer, she has no culture yet at the same time she has so much. Thus she inhabits Sandoval’s idea of a new kind of social movement that is “differential.” She revolutionized how we view queerness and gender regarding identity, and including this aspect of her identity exemplifies bravery and a revolutionary mindset.  Within her work, Borderlands, Anzaldúa outlines the concept of cultural tyranny. Aspects within Latino and Chicano culture that aim to exclude. Within this aspect of her book, she directly addresses the systemic issue of machismo culture. The same machismo culture that when she dares to speak her mind and her truths, they call her a “traitor,” a “sellout. ”She writes: “Not me sold out my people, but they me.” [5]. Not only does she defy cultural expectations, but she’s unafraid to critique the culture and its exclusionary aspects as well.

Given the historical context, Anzaldúa was a revolutionary woman with revolutionary ideas. As a queer Chicana, she shook the modern landscape of Chicana identity by pulling to the forefront the Chicano consciousness of the true narrative of borderland people and by validating and empowering the identity of those that live and in-between those that live in a borderland. She countered racist ideology with a counter-narrative and a call to action for those who live in borderlands for those who live in a borderland to deassimilate to choose to reengage with the intersectionality of their identities. I think Anzaldúa legacy can best be summed up In this quote from Revolutionary women of Texas and Mexico: “In our work, we use exploration leading to cultural identity as a way of seeing self and others, and the basis for this is Anzaldúas framework. Exploration starts us on the road not only to understanding others and their identities but also to looking within to expand our perspectives in articulating our own cultural identity.” [6]

[1] Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands La Frontera , 4th ed. (San Francisco, California : aunt lute books, 2007).

[2] Douglas Massey, “The Mexico-U.S. Border in the American Imagination,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 160, no. 2 (June 2016): 160–77, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26159208, 161.

[3] Douglas Massey, “The Mexico-U.S. Border in the American Imagination,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 160, no. 2 (June 2016): 160–77, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26159208, 168.

[4] María Herrera-Sobek, “Gloria Anzaldúa: Place, Race, Language, and Sexuality in the Magic Valley,” PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 121, no. 1 (January 2006): 266–71, https://doi.org/10.1632/003081206x129800, 270.

[5] Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands La Frontera , 4th ed. (San Francisco, California : aunt lute books, 2007), 47.

[6] 1. Kathy Sosa et al., Revolutionary Women of Texas and Mexico: Portraits of Soldaderas, Saints, and Subversives (San Antonio, TX: Maverick Books, Trinity University Press, 2020), 202.

[moonyaugust]

how i see james potter

a gift for the birthday boy!! forever twenty one i'm sorry jamesie :(

born on march 27th, 1960

pureblood

pansexual

gryffindor chaser, captain, and head boy

indian and guatemalan

patronus: stag

of the potter and fawley families

his animagus form is a stag

has several older siblings who died either before birth or shortly after. he is doted upon by his parents

as a teen he is arrogant, haughty, and mean. as he matures, his heart of gold becomes clearer, as well as strong sense of morality

has had a crush on lily evans since he was twelve, begins dating her at the end of sixth year. has had the ring picked out since their very first date

grew up in merlinspire (just outside of durham), along with marlene mckinnon, peter pettigrew, amos diggory, frank longbottom, septima vector, michael mckinnon, and alice fortescue.

best classes are transfiguration, defense against the dark arts, and flying

his friend group is sirius black, peter pettigrew, remus lupin, marlene mckinnon, and later mary macdonald and lily evans. becomes friends with emmeline vance through quidditch

his middle name is fleamont (for his dad)

very wealthy, inherited a lot of money from his dad's business

was descended from the peverells, received the invisibility cloak from his dad when he entered hogwarts

loves spicy food as well as anything ice cold (he likes the sensation of extreme temperature)

has a cousin through his dad named cepheus, who is twelve years older and a massive dick (fun fact, cepheus is the direct cousin of alphard, walburga, and cygnus)

was the one who decided to become an animagus for remus

his queer awakening was frank longbottom (james genuinely believed he just admired frank). also he and sirius used to make out as practice (nobody knows about this)

would die for his friends

first kiss was marlene mckinnon when they were twelve behind the quidditch changing rooms, neither were all that into it

dreamed of becoming a pro quidditch player as an adult until the war hit, and his priorities completely shifted

always wakes up early and is somehow never tired. also never gets a hangover

keeps a snitch in his pocket that he likes to play with

has a total ineptitude for anything muggle related

isn't as intellectually brilliant as sirius nor as hardworking as remus, but still gets almost top grades. he's mostly bored in any class where he can't get into trouble

has received detention more than a few times for flying his broom through the hallways and setting off stink bombs

credit to sophithil, fancast is abhay verma

for more james, check out my fic valkyrie!

[nikolai-alexi]

For @jegulus-microfic

Prompt: Weekend (I’m a day late, but I fell asleep at my desk writing this last night lmao)

WC: 1,250 i really tried to keep it under 1k but fjdjdnfjr here we are i once again failed the “micro” portion of this

Tags: Poly RoseStarKillerChaser (Jegulus x Rosekiller), a very strange RSKC dynamic here, James and Regulus have been together for a year-ish but James, Evan and Barty are only just beginning to navigate their own little relationship, James is quite anxious about the whole thing but he’s trying really hard, it’s very vaguely implied that Regulus, Evan and Barty have been together for a while (in what capacity? idk man I just work here), it’s all very queer platonic tbh, they’re just a big puppy pile of exhausted people and everyone uses James as a human heater like the little reptiles they are, Barty is a human wrecking ball and just constantly walks into a room and bites whoever’s nearest to him because he’s Barty and what else would he do, I have an unreasonable amount of affection for James calling Barty “bub”, Evan is adorable and touch starved and just wants a hug, Reg is a cat animagus, it’s vvv wholesome

It’s the first weekend they’ve all managed to be together since term started. Which is, objectively, insane because it’s Christmas break. Every single time they’ve tried to spend any amount of time together, someone has had something come up. Whether that’s exam prep, suspicious friends, detentions, or projects, it’s all somehow managed to ruin their plans.

And look, James gets that trying to make four schedules align all at once whilst avoiding suspicion from friends or getting caught by professors is difficult, but he is sick of it. This…thing…they have going is new. It’s tremulous and blooming and none of them really know where the lines are with each other. It makes James so incredibly nervous. He knows where he stands with Regulus, after a year together he feels mostly confident in what he’s doing with Regulus, the boundaries, the navigating, the trauma responses. But with Evan and Barty? He has no idea what the hell is happening. It makes him anxious. He wants to know how to define the lines of this strange relationship the all have. They aren’t friends, but they aren’t not friends, but they aren’t lovers, but they aren’t not lovers. It makes James’ head spin. He doesn’t like not having clear expectations.

He’s forcefully ripped out of his rather maudlin thoughts when someone audibly collides with his side, knocking the breath out of his lungs with a soft “oof” and disturbing the previously peacefully sleeping cat on his lap. Regulus, in his frankly adorable animagus form, grumbles without opening his eyes more than a tiny slit and rearranges himself before going back to sleep. The scent of cigarette smoke, whiskey, and Evan’s vanilla shampoo invades his nostrils when he tries to turn his head.

Barty is slumped unceremoniously against his side, face buried into James’ neck, one hand atop Regulus’ soft fur, and the other fisted in James’ shirt.

Then Barty bites him. Hard.

James rolls his eyes. This, he understands. Their new dynamic may only be a few months old, but Barty entering a room and biting the nearest person to him? That was old news.

“That bad, bub?” He asks quietly.

Barty doesn’t say anything, just stops biting him so he can tuck his head into James’ neck and nod. James’ free hand instinctively comes up to card through Barty’s hair like he’s seen Evan do thousands of times. Barty stiffens at the first few passes of James’ fingers, but he slowly relaxes and James can feel his low hum resonate through his own chest.

He shifts just a bit and sees Barty’s ridiculously long legs hanging off the armrest of the sofa and chuckles. Barty is just a slumped over heap of awkward limbs and exhaustion. James’ wand is in his bag across the room, but a casual flick of his wrist has it sailing towards him.

Transfiguring the sofa whilst they’re laying on on it is a bit trickier, but he’s not been the top student in transfiguration for seven years straight for nothing. He manages to get a large bed with a bit of a crooked frame beneath them after several long minutes without disturbing Reg or Barty. Both of them are fast asleep. He’s not sure when Barty drifted off, but he can feel his soft snores against his neck.

Thank Merlin for the amount of Quidditch training he does, because trying to situate Barty is a feat, but eventually, he gets Barty tucked against his right side so he’s no longer hanging precariously off the furniture. Regulus has abandoned James’ legs in favour of smushing himself in between James and Barty, the body heat thief he is.

When Evan comes barrelling through the door of the Come and Go Room an hour later with dark purple bags under his eyes and a manic sort of look, James just holds his left arm out in invitation. Evan sheds his shoes and outer robes with easy efficiency and falls onto the transfigured bed in an eerily similar fashion to Barty. Evan isn’t quite as tactile with James as Barty is yet, so he has to quickly mask his surprise when Evan tucks himself against James’ side, tucking his freezing hands under James’ shirt.

“You okay?” James asks, careful to keep his voice as quiet as possible. Regulus still opens his eyes enough to glare at him, but perks up considerably when he sees Evan and comes to curl up on James’ chest, tucking himself under Evan’s chin. James feels him purring just seconds later. Reg doesn’t pick favourites, my left arse cheek, James thinks with a wry grin.

Evan sighs softly, and his breath tickles, but he doesn’t say anything, not that James expects him to. Evan is like Regulus with his words — selective and careful. When he speaks, you stop and listen. When he doesn’t speak, you listen to what his silence says. Evan and Regulus communicate more in their quietness than they ever do with speech. It’s been something James has had to actively work very hard on to understand. He and Barty operate on a much similar frequency to each other. They’re both chaotic and loud in their own ways. Barty has a mean streak that gets him into trouble, and James has no boundaries with other people which gets him into shitty situations. They balance each other out, sorta. James attempts to keep Barty from hexing first years and Barty pushes anyone who has the audacity to look at James wrong down the stairs. It works…sometimes.

James brings his arm up and very tentatively wraps it around Evan; a silent question hanging in the air between them, to which Evan nods his acquiesce. That small gesture makes warmth bloom behind his breastbone and he knows he’s not imagining the almost inaudible huff of laughter from Evan when he no doubt hears James’ heartbeat pick up underneath his ear. He doesn’t bother to keep the grin off his face.

He wraps his arm around Evan and drapes his arm over Regulus’ back, brushing his fingers against Barty’s. He doesn’t hold Evan to him, just keeps his arm loose and relaxed, draped over him. Never pinning or holding him down. Evan’s breath comes quickly for a few, long moments, but eventually it steadies out once more. It doesn’t take long, between being tucked against James’ side, the purring cat curled under his chin, and Barty’s annoying, but comforting snores, for Evan to fall prey to the siren call of sleep too.

James remains awake a while longer. He listens to Barty snoring, feels Regulus purring and his little paws making biscuits in his sleep, breathes in the smell of vanilla and the Forest after a rain shower that perpetually clings to Evan, and feels his mind’s activity slow to a crawl. All of his anxieties take a back seat, his racing thoughts settle down, and the constant buzzing between his ears quiets. He knows they only have this weekend. Monday will come around and Regulus and Evan will have to go back to their awful families for the holidays, he will go to his parents’, and Barty will be left, alone, at school. He knows they only have three days of this together, but from where he’s laying, this doesn’t seem like a bad way to spend their time together.

He loses the battle against sleep with a sweet smile stretched across his lips. Yeah, he thinks, this isn’t a bad way to spend it at all.

[lesmisletters-daily]

Tholomyès Is So Merry That He Sings A Spanish Ditty

Les Mis Letters reading club explores one chapter of Les Misérables every day. Join us on Discord, Substack - or share your thoughts right here on tumblr - today's tag is #lm 1.3.4

That day was composed of dawn, from one end to the other. All nature seemed to be having a holiday, and to be laughing. The flower-beds of Saint-Cloud perfumed the air; the breath of the Seine rustled the leaves vaguely; the branches gesticulated in the wind, bees pillaged the jasmines; a whole bohemia of butterflies swooped down upon the yarrow, the clover, and the sterile oats; in the august park of the King of France there was a pack of vagabonds, the birds.

The four merry couples, mingled with the sun, the fields, the flowers, the trees, were resplendent.

And in this community of Paradise, talking, singing, running, dancing, chasing butterflies, plucking convolvulus, wetting their pink, open-work stockings in the tall grass, fresh, wild, without malice, all received, to some extent, the kisses of all, with the exception of Fantine, who was hedged about with that vague resistance of hers composed of dreaminess and wildness, and who was in love. “You always have a queer look about you,” said Favourite to her.

Such things are joys. These passages of happy couples are a profound appeal to life and nature, and make a caress and light spring forth from everything. There was once a fairy who created the fields and forests expressly for those in love,—in that eternal hedge-school of lovers, which is forever beginning anew, and which will last as long as there are hedges and scholars. Hence the popularity of spring among thinkers. The patrician and the knife-grinder, the duke and the peer, the limb of the law, the courtiers and townspeople, as they used to say in olden times, all are subjects of this fairy. They laugh and hunt, and there is in the air the brilliance of an apotheosis—what a transfiguration effected by love! Notaries’ clerks are gods. And the little cries, the pursuits through the grass, the waists embraced on the fly, those jargons which are melodies, those adorations which burst forth in the manner of pronouncing a syllable, those cherries torn from one mouth by another,—all this blazes forth and takes its place among the celestial glories. Beautiful women waste themselves sweetly. They think that this will never come to an end. Philosophers, poets, painters, observe these ecstasies and know not what to make of it, so greatly are they dazzled by it. The departure for Cythera! exclaims Watteau; Lancret, the painter of plebeians, contemplates his bourgeois, who have flitted away into the azure sky; Diderot stretches out his arms to all these love idyls, and d’Urfé mingles druids with them.

After breakfast the four couples went to what was then called the King’s Square to see a newly arrived plant from India, whose name escapes our memory at this moment, and which, at that epoch, was attracting all Paris to Saint-Cloud. It was an odd and charming shrub with a long stem, whose numerous branches, bristling and leafless and as fine as threads, were covered with a million tiny white rosettes; this gave the shrub the air of a head of hair studded with flowers. There was always an admiring crowd about it.

After viewing the shrub, Tholomyès exclaimed, “I offer you asses!” and having agreed upon a price with the owner of the asses, they returned by way of Vanvres and Issy. At Issy an incident occurred. The truly national park, at that time owned by Bourguin the contractor, happened to be wide open. They passed the gates, visited the manikin anchorite in his grotto, tried the mysterious little effects of the famous cabinet of mirrors, the wanton trap worthy of a satyr become a millionaire or of Turcaret metamorphosed into a Priapus. They had stoutly shaken the swing attached to the two chestnut-trees celebrated by the Abbé de Bernis. As he swung these beauties, one after the other, producing folds in the fluttering skirts which Greuze would have found to his taste, amid peals of laughter, the Toulousan Tholomyès, who was somewhat of a Spaniard, Toulouse being the cousin of Tolosa, sang, to a melancholy chant, the old ballad <i>gallega</i>, probably inspired by some lovely maid dashing in full flight upon a rope between two trees:—

“Soy de Badajoz,

Amor me llama,

Toda mi alma,

Es en mi ojos,

Porque enseñas,

A tuas piernas.

“Badajoz is my home

And Love is my name;

To my eyes in flame,

All my soul doth come;

For instruction meet

I receive at thy feet”

Fantine alone refused to swing.

“I don’t like to have people put on airs like that,” muttered Favourite, with a good deal of acrimony.

After leaving the asses there was a fresh delight; they crossed the Seine in a boat, and proceeding from Passy on foot they reached the barrier of l’Étoile. They had been up since five o’clock that morning, as the reader will remember; but <i>bah! there is no such thing as fatigue on Sunday</i>, said Favourite; <i>on Sunday fatigue does not work</i>.

About three o’clock the four couples, frightened at their happiness, were sliding down the Russian mountains, a singular edifice which then occupied the heights of Beaujon, and whose undulating line was visible above the trees of the Champs-Élysées.

From time to time Favourite exclaimed:—

“And the surprise? I claim the surprise.”

“Patience,” replied Tholomyès.

[transformativeworksandcultures]

TWC 45: Sports Fandoms [Special Issue]

Editorial

Jason Kido Lopez, Lori Kido Lopez; Beyond the game: New perspectives on sports fandom

Article

Laura Nyhart Broman; Fandom, speculation, and capitalist space-time at the Crypto.com Arena

Júlia Zen Dariva, Natália Brauns Cazelgrandi Ferreira; "What a bust": Character selection and the possibilities of failure in hockey RPF

Seth S. Tannenbaum; The historical marginalization of Black fans at Major League Baseball games

Brendan O'Hallarn; The legend of Taylor Heinicke: An autoethnography of unexpected, passionate fandom

Natalie Le Clue; Controversy, social media, and Formula One: Examining #VoidLap58

Sammy Roth; Institutionally appointed fan-athletes: The hegemonic performativity, commodification, and consumption of scholastic dance teams

Cameron Michels, Deepa Sivarajan; "Pass it to your girlfriend!": A collaborative autoethnography of a friendship through women's sports fandom

Symposium

Dafna Kaufman; Everyone watches women's sports

Tom Z. Bradstreet; The implicated supporter: Complicity and resistance in contemporary football fandom

Alexander Kupfer; Detroit wants Ty Tyson: National and regional fandom and the 1934 NBC World Series radio broadcast

Emry Sottile; Fanception on ice!!!: Cycles of choreographic adaptation and fandom in figure skating

Book review

Tess Tianzi Chen; “Queer transfigurations: Boys love media in Asia,” edited by James Welker

Allison McCracken; "A queer way of feeling: Girl fans and personal archives of early Hollywood," by Diana W. Anselmo

Multimedia

Laís Limonta Gonçalves, Gabriela Lopes Gomes; The commodification of affections among Taylor Swift's and Travis Kelce's fan communities and the Cetaphil Super Bowl 2024 advertisement

Chloe Bond; "Who's afraid of little old me?": A Swiftie theory of monstrous femininity

[likealittleheartbeat]

“It is essential to remember, however, that, while there are a significant number of exceptions, the male characters in same-sex relationships in BL are most often not intended to be ‘gay’ but rather simply two boys who are drawn to one another. For many fans, the against-the-odds nature of such a relationship adds to its beauty, no matter how graphically their sexual activities are depicted…Regardless, many fans in Japan have long blurred straight and gay in their own imaginations. The same is true elsewhere in Asia.”

James Walker, Introduction to Queer Transfigurations: Boys Love Media in Asia

[fabiansociety]

hey, if you're looking for a good, seasonally appropriate watch, may i suggest the lure, a 2015 polish musical adaptation of the little mermaid?

you like a little gore in your fantasy? you ever read the little mermaid and think, fuck that prince, man? you want queer text and trans subtext? you like body horror but wish more movies found bodily horror joyous and transfiguring? watch the lure.

it's a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the hans christian andersen story, so, y'know, still got a bit of a downer ending, but it's at least more bloodily cathartic than poor HCA allowed himself to be.

[whatever-letmebe]

I read three chapters of Queer Transfigurations today while waiting at the laundromat and they were all so good! It's a collection of articles about BL media. (If anyone is interested in any chapter in particular and can't find it elsewhere, feel free to dm me btw.)

And then I met my sister at a Korean restaurant and they had a drink called Flowers over Boys, which made me laugh because I get that reference.

My sister and her 7-month old kid are visiting me atm. It's very nice. Demanding - taking care of a baby takes so much energy (and you don't get enough sleep) - but stll very nice.