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Flautist Melissa Jefferson plays slaver James Madison's 200-year-old crystal flute in the Library of Congress.

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Really happy to see this at my local library

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Van Helsing, trying desperately not to get put in a straitjacket: don't tell anyone about this. in fact I'm not even going to tell you. just make sure you don't go to sleep. the garlic is medicine okay and it stays. you wouldn't dig up a corn, would you? CORN, Jack. guys she ran out of blood we need your blood don't ask why. I'm off to Amsterdam don't die.

Quincey Morris, showing up a week late with Starbucks: hmmm sounds like vampires to me

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I can't believe the first time someone in this book says "vampire" is Quincey Yeehaw Morris talking about his horse

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I’m loving Lucy getting blood transfusions from each of her three suitors from a narrative construction perspective but I’m obsessed with Quincey going ‘wow the last time I saw blood loss this bad was when my horse got eaten by a vampire’ and absolutely no one follows up on that.

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Arthur: I truly feel like giving Lucy my blood and becoming of one flesh makes us married in the eyes of God.

The other three men who also gave Lucy blood:

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when you’re three glasses of wine deep and your clairvoyant brother starts getting philosophical

(bruno’s hot takes sourced from this post lol)

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my utopia

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This is peak public librarian.

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It’s time to start the clock on Sherlock Holmes, folks.

First, a brief primer on copyright.

Contrary to what you may have heard, copyright doesn’t directly cover characters, or ideas, or anything of the sort: it covers specific works, as well as any derivatives of those works.

“Specific works” is the easy part: a book, a movie, a drawing, those are all specific works.

“Derivative works” is trickier. The basic idea is that you can’t trace over a drawing or take a story and search-and-replace the names of all the characters and call it your own original work. In practice, most jurisdictions, including the United States, have tended to interpret the notion of derivative works much more broadly than that – and that’s where the Doyle estate comes in.

See, though most stories about Sherlock Holmes are old enough that they fall into the public domain, and can therefore be used by anyone, a tiny handful of them, published near the end of Arthur Conan Doyle’s life, are recent enough that they still have valid copyrights – which are now owned by Arthur Conan Doyle’s estate, which is to say, the people who inherited all his shit when he died, and their descendants, and so on.

Though the Doyle estate only owns a small number of stories, for many years they’ve been cheerfully exploiting the American legal system’s extraordinarily broad notion of derivative work to stick their oar in every time somebody wants to publish Sherlock Holmes media without giving them a cut.

Basically, they go over it with a fine-toothed comb, looking for any microscopic piece of Sherlock Holmes lore that they can claim is present only in the few remaining stories that they own, and not in any of the stories that fall into the public domain.

This is where those articles you might have run into about Sherlock Holmes not being allowed to show emotions or respect women or whatnot come from: the Doyle estate pointing to some specific attitude or mannerism or turn of phrase which, they claim, is only present in the handful of stories they still own, and not in any of the others, and therefore you owe them all your money.

(Would those claims stand up in court? Almost certainly not, but the Doyle estate has a fuckoff huge legal budget and very few people have the time, inclination, or resources to fight them, so they’ve mostly been getting away with it.)

There’s an end in sight, though. In the United States, for all works published before 1978 – except audio recordings, for deeply stupid reasons – there’s an easy-to-determine limit on the duration of copyright: the date of publication plus 95 years. The copyright on pre-1978 works can expire in less than 95 years in certain circumstances, but it can’t be extended beyond that: publication plus 95 years is a hard cutoff.

Consequently, the number of remaining stories that the Doyle estate owns has been steadily shrinking.

First it was ten stories.

Then six.

Then just two, which were both published in the same year: 1927.

1927 + 95 = 2022.

In other words, this is the last year that the Doyle estate can claim to own any works at all in which Sherlock Holmes appears. After this, they’ll have nothing left to exploit.

364 days until the Doyle estate can get fucked.

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Could you draw Bruno having an involuntary vision?

I think, this motif has already been done a lot by other artists, but I tried to come up with my own interpretation.

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Others have said it better and more eloquently, but the LGBT community has a massive fear and disgust of masculinity it needs to reckon with in order to be whole. Bears, transmascs, masculine enbies, AMAB enbies, butch lesbians, masc intersex folk, drag kings, and those who find themselves in some fluid space between them or are masc in ways I’ve left out - they all need support from the LGBT community, they all have the same traumas from being queer, and all of them  that I’ve met have some horror story about hitting the ‘must be this femme to ride’ bar.

You can be gnc and masculine. This needs to be embraced.

Masculine people are not the enemy. The community needs to be as ready to embrace its brothers as it is its sisters. We are all queer.

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#trans #queer #transmasc #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia #intersectionality #racism #transgender #black excellence #tiktok #nonbinary #gender #gender fluid

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"Pride month is over"

WRONG! Your pride month is over! Me and all the other disabled queers are having pride month two: disability edition

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Now that JK has proven herself to be the jk we always knew she was, here is a list of incredible fiction by trans authors, because the best way to tell JK to shove her bigotry where the sun don’t shine is to buy the work of authors who deserve her platform. 

The Tensorate Series - JY Yang: four fantasy novellas about the guild of Tensors, magic users who can control elemental forces known as the Slack. V political, v beautifully written. Gender is a key theme but also there are dragons (naga), so there’s something for everyone tbh. 

Love Beyond Body, Space And Time - anthology: a collection of indigenous sci-fi / spec fic stories with LGBTQ and two-spirit characters and themes. Stories include narratives of transition, love stories, and just good ol’ space romps. 

The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror - Daniel M. Lavery: a collection of fairytale retellings with a spooky and disturbing twist. Some of these are darkly comic, and others are just plain dark. All are beautifully written, because Lavery is just That Writer. 

The Spirits Series - Jordan L Hawk: a very spicy paranormal romance trilogy about Henry Strauss, an inventor, and Vincent Night, a psychic, whose differing approaches to communing with the dead cause (I’m so sorry) friction. These ones ain’t for the kiddies, but they’re so good and spooky.

The Mechanical Universe - EE Ottoman: a romance series (w a trans male protag!) set in a sort of steampunk universe, where spellcraft and mechanical animation are vying for equal respect. Tbh, everything by EE Ottoman is Very Good And Trans - The Doctor’s Discretion is my personal fave. Recommend 100%.

Peter Darling - Austin Chant: a trans retelling of Peter Pan, where Peter returns to Neverland to find that his place there is now much less certain than it was before, and he no longer belongs anywhere. There is also a romance with Captain Hook, but it works! I promise! 

The Danielle Cain series - Margaret Killjoy: a duology of novellas following Danielle Cain, a queer punk rock nomad, as she solves spooky mysteries. The first book is set in an anarchist settlement, and the theme of found family + community is prevalent throughout. 

An Unkindness of Ghosts - Rivers Solomon: on board the spaceship HSS Matilda, the last of humanity make their journey towards the Promised Land. Conditions on board are akin to the Antebellum South, and protagonist Aster is driven to find her way off the ship - if she can. 

I Wish You All the Best - Mason Deaver: a non binary teen, Ben, comes out to their parents and is kicked out. Their sister takes them in and they start a new school, where their life begins to change for the better. This one is v sweet and deals well with mental illness. 

Resilience - anthology: a collection of poetry and prose by trans women and amab trans people, featuring work by Casey Plett, KOKUMO, Magpie Leibowitz and many more. 

Small Beauty - jia qing wilson-yang: a mixed race Chinese trans woman returns to her small town Canada home after the death of her cousin, and she deals with her trauma and grief. Beautiful and sad, and absolutely honest about grief. 

Little Fish - Casey Plett: a trans woman begins to believe that her late Mennonite grandfather may have been trans, and while her own life starts to cave in, she attempts to connect with him through those who knew him. This one is A Lot but it’s phenomenal.

A Boy Called Cin - Cecil Wilde: a romance novel (so it’s SPICY) about Cin, a young trans man, and Tom, an older genderqueer billionaire. This is not your typical billionaire romance AT ALL; healthy relationships are depicted beautifully here alongside the reality of transition.

Confessions of the Fox - Jordy Rosenberg: a retelling of Jack Sheppard, the famous jailbreaker and thief. It’s told as though a trans man has discovered a manuscript about Jack (who is trans) and Jack’s story unfolds alongside the personal narrative of the manuscript discoverer. 

Nameless Woman - anthology: a collection of fiction by trans women of colour. There’s something for everyone here - romance, sci fi, personal narratives and more. A lot of the topics covered are very heavy but they’re treated honestly and sensitively. 

Maiden, Mother, Crone - anthology: a collection of fantasy stories about trans women and femmes. You want a story about a dread trans chthonic goddess? Of course you do. It’s right here. Enjoy. 

Caroline’s Heart - Austin Chant: a romance between a trans man (a COWBOY nonetheless) and a trans woman (a WITCH). Cecily has been trying to bring her lover, Caroline, back from the dead via magic, but when Roy gives his life to save her, she has a choice to make. 

The Queen of Cups - Ren Basel: a novelette about Theo, who’s about to set sail on their first voyage. As per their village’s custom, they ask the Oracle to bless their voyage, and she agrees - if she can come along. A great treatise on bravery, loyalty and independence. 

Amateur - Thomas Page McBee: not fiction, but OH WELL!! You gotta read it!! The autobiography of a trans man who learns to box and asks questions about what kind of man he wants to be; can he avoid repeating the toxic masculinity he fears? 

Trans Power - Juno Roche: also not fiction! Oops! Take me to court!! Roche interviews multiple trans people about their relationships with their transness, their sexuality and their bodies, and the result is a super empowering and beautiful book. 

The Shape of My Name - Nino Cipri: a novelette about time travel. I really can’t say much about this one because it’s better to go in without knowing a lot, but the main theme is self discovery and acceptance, especially within the context of a neglectful / abusive family. 

Pet - Akwaeke Emezi: the children in the city of Lucille know that there are no more monsters. They’ve been told so. So when Jam meets Pet, who definitely seems to be a monster, she has to face the problem of saving the world from something that it refuses to admit exists. 

There are obviously many more trans fiction authors out there, but these are the ones I’ve read and can call to mind immediately. On my to read list are Juno Dawson (who writes YA primarily), Kai Cheng Thom (whose story in Maiden, Mother, Crone was my favourite), Meredith Russo (also writes YA), Leslie Feinberg, and Sybil Lamb.

I haven’t included trans poets here because I feel like that’s a separate list in and of itself, but if anyone wants to add any, please feel free!