Come see me in Leeds this Friday!
Good morning, good morning!
First things first, in the aftermath of the piece I submitted to Trans_Muted late last year, I'm going to be at an event at The Bookish Type, a queer bookshop, in Leeds this Friday evening! Tickets are sold out online, but there will be more tickets available on the door at the £0-£5 range depending on how much people can afford.
It's going to be a Q&A and discussion sort of night, with some readings as well - as well as me, there'll be Dalton Harrison, the founder of StandFast Productions, a collective for ex-offenders to share art and stories; there's Loren Lepton, who does all sorts of rocking art across different disciplines and has published poetry in Trans_Muted; and of course there's Dorian Rose, the founder of Trans_Muted!
Here's the piece I'll be discussing and potentially reading from:
Questions You Wish You Could Ask A Gay Transgender Man — A tongue-in-cheek take on cisgender people’s frequently asked questions.
Also On Medium / / On Patreon.
There will be books and such forth available from us, as well as the fact that the Bookish Type is an excellent queer-run bookshop that will have all manner of wonders for you to peruse as ever.
Great news for those who enjoyed my Minotaur talk a while back - Romancing the Gothic have invited me back to do another talk as part of a charity event toward the end of March!
On March 16th 2024, Goths for Breakfast is going to centre a variety of talks about gothic literature to raise money for hungry kids, and mine is going to be a presentation and dive into Crimson Peak (2015, dir. Guillermo Del Toro) and its appeal as a modern gothic romance, with a bit of examination about people's hunger for ~problematic~ themes in the age of BookTok, book bans, and rising puritan values and opposition to nuance. Title is yet to drop, but in the meantime, go sign up for Romancing the Gothic and check out their other events!
My plan is to write more non-fiction in the next few months as honestly, I need the money - I'm settling well into the new place but I'm getting used to balancing all my bills against furnishing everything, and I'm currently in need of some dental care. I've talked about it at length here, and there's two polls here and here at the moment about particular essays or non-fiction people would be most eager to see and read, but please let me know if there's anything you'd really like me to write about!
I have a few media recs this week - I already mentioned that I've been playing Dragon Quest XI and I'm now replaying Final Fantasy XV again, but onto some movie recs! A few of these fucking rock, and I definitely plan to write a bit more about them at length.
The Holdovers (2023, dir. Alexander Payne) - This one was good, not a new favourite of mine or anything, but it's well-paced and has a lot of well-done slice-of-life and character study, which I know people who like my work will undoubtedly appreciate! It's a loving and sensitive film - I found it to be a bit bland for my taste, but for being this sort of film it's not at all too saccharine, and it definitely might be worth a watch if you like nasty old men or nasty young men! I'll be honest, though, none of the men in this are particularly to my taste - I did love Da'Vine Joy Randolph's performance though, she really makes the whole film.
Demon (2015, dir. Marcin Wrona) - This film has been criticised a lot by genre horror fans because they're upset that it doesn't meet genre horror conventions: it doesn't. This is a real fucking horror film delving into the reality of living on haunted, bloodied land, and it's a modern retelling of The Dybbuk - gentiles at a wedding become haunted by the ghost of a dead Jewish bride, and horrors unfold for them. This film is beautiful, and I don't think I've ever seen a film that depicts gentiles grappling so much with the violence that's been done by them and their community to Jewish people, and then making the decision to turn away from it. The haunting of the pogroms in this film is visceral, and it feels all the more salient at the moment given the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the historical-to-now experiences of Palestinians in the face of that colonial violence.
Minyan (2020, dir. Eric Steel) - This is a super gorgeous film as well - I've watched a lot of coming-of-age flicks about young queer men coming to terms with their sexuality, particularly set in the 80s, but I've never seen one that has such a loving depiction of a man's developing sexual identity at the same time as his developing religious one and the relationship he has with his Judaism and with worship and religion, and other queer men in his community and how many there are once he knows how to look for and find them. I really love the undercurrent of his relationship with James Baldwin's work, especially a contrast at one point of a fellow young Russian Jew saying he's going to join the IDF, and then immediately jump to work from Baldwin. I would recommend Baldwin's short open letter on Zionism, antisemitism, and Palestinian liberation from '79 in The Nation, which you can read here.
New Works Published
Serial Update: Powder and Feathers
Chapter Fifty-Four: Colm has a painful discussion with his granddaughter; Jean-Pierre bonds with his niece.
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It seems to Aimé Deverell that there is very little point to life, except for what pleasures can be enjoyed before the grave. Life is short - thank God - but at least there's enough in the world to dull the senses in the meantime.
That philosophy shatters like glass when he meets Jean-Pierre, an angel.
Read on Medium / / Read on Ao3 / / Read on WorldAnvil
Erotic Short: Wine Barrel
The angel Jean-Pierre lets himself get caught by the all-too-friendly Dionysus.
Rated E, trans M/everyone at a party. Featuring object insertion, inflation with a womb filled up with wine, unsafe alcohol consumption, lactation, milking, public humiliation, voyeurism, transformation, very drunk sex, sadomasochism, free use, objectification, begging, multiple orgasms, overstimulation.
Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon / / Read on SubscribeStar / / Read on Ao3
Erotic Short: Window Trap
Jean-Pierre makes an unwise decision, and gets caught amongst the wrong crowd.
Rated E, 3.9k, trans M angel gangbanged by Greek gods, mostly by Hermes (Aetos Talaria). Doros is also here — Doros and Jean-Pierre both being characters in Powder and Feathers.
Dubious to non consent here after some pure hubris, with a gangbang, large insertions, come inflation, deepthroating, spitroasting, predicament bondage with Jean-Pierre stuck in a wall, humiliation, degradation, dirty talk, masochism, stomach bulges.
Read on Medium / / Read on SubscribeStar / / Read on Ao3
Non-Fiction: My Top 6 Films of 2023
2023 had a few knock-out hits as far as the cinema goes — obviously, people were very excited about the respective releases of Barbie and Oppenheimer, but my top films of the year were a bit different.
One thing I do think unites a lot of these — and a trend I hope to see from more films in the next few years — is a trend toward more earnestness and sincerity in scripts and plot lines, and I’m hoping that trend continues!
Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon/ / Read on Tumblr
Woe, Boypussy Be Upon Ye: Transing Characters in Fanfic & Fanart
What’s the deal with envisioning your blorbos as transgender?
Read on Medium in Prism & Pen / / Read on Patreon/ / Read on Tumblr
Erotic TweetFic: Building Stamina
A new addition to a band of mercenaries struggles to keep pace with them - but no worries. They've another role in mind for him.