about the earl:

Hi! I’m earlgraytay. You can call me Malcolm, Mal, Earl, Gray– whatever. I’m a writer, a Twitch streamer, and a proud queer. He/him pronouns, please.

You can buy my queer fic on Amazon and Smashwords– want a hopeful queer retelling of Kafka’s Metamorphosis? How about a trans lady airship captain who hunts angels and fights restrictive Victorian gender roles, or a grumpy enby veterinarian who has to heal @historieofbeafts-style goat-unicorns? 

You can follow my Twitch streams on twitch.tv/earlgraytay. This post will be updated as I figure out a good stream schedule, but RN I stream on Mondays and Fridays (though I’m not very consistent). 

I write fanfic sometimes - I’m on AO3 as scribblingTiresias- but it’s mostly one-shots, with a few ambitious weird longfics that are never updated.

Thanks for reading! Hope to have more here soon.

penteoo:

tag yourself medieval illuminator edition

1. this guy who is painting his own letter

2. brother vitulus, whose name means calf, who represents himself as a calf

3. this guy who is really angry at the rat that keeps stealing his food

4. mr william the brailes, who represents himself being saved from hell while all the other damned look absolutely done with him

5. mr ferro, whose name means iron, who embellishes the writing everytime iron is mentioned in a sentence

6. william the brailes again, very happy getting caressed by the hand of god :)

…Forgive me if I’m wrong, but didn’t medieval monks often take a new name when they took their vows?

Because if so, this is excellent.

lizardho:

inbabylontheywept:

lizardho:

Before I knew I was bisexual I was just insanely dramatic and weird around guys I liked. I had a crush on this guy in my ward - he was older than me, he played bagpipes and had a cheerful dog and an old Volkswagen bus that he worked on all the time. He also had nice scruff and unnaturally attractive hands and a good sense of humor, so I was like FULLY smitten.

I talked about him a lot and about how he was just so dang COOL, dang it, because he was so frickin’ cool. And I really liked him. I thought he was funny and smart and interesting and cool and fascinating and a bunch of other weird feelings I barely had the attention span to think about (I think my ADHD may have prevented me from coming out for a while tbh).

One day, I’m like 14-15, his dad is called to be my Sunday School teacher. His dad is this ex-military hardass with a chip on his shoulder for absolutely no reason and unattainable standards for his children. He spent most of Sunday School talking shit about his eldest boy and how he was rebellious and didn’t listen to him and how that was going to make him a bad adult and a bad son forever. How his son was too lazy and unmotivated to be successful because he didn’t listen to his advice on how to read the scriptures. He complained about how our generation was too weak to do things right and that our generation would surely be the one that brought the world’s downfall because of our laziness and sin.

And like, first of all, that guy can already go fuck himself for that. To clarify, that’s already stupid. BUT. He was talking about the man I had uncomfortable dreams about at least once a month. I couldn’t stand it. I’d get so mad I’d go home shaking sometimes because how fucking DARE he insult his hardworking stunning son by calling him lazy? For not reading the Bible the way his dad wants? When he’s already spending his time learning bagpipes? And fixing cars? And being cool? And cute? Who the fuck even cares if he uses the footnotes in the Book of Mormon? Who gives a rotten rat’s ass if he doesn’t use the scripture study manual his dad uses? He’s so cool he doesn’t even need it? So fuck off?

And eventually I got fucking Sick Of It and decided to mutiny. And by mutiny, I mean skip class. I’d just not go. And after a bit, adults started noticing and bugging me about it. At first, this was put off by small talk and excuses, but as my absence from Sunday School became more well-known, my excuses began to be rejected.

“Oh, Lizard, why aren’t you in class?” Uhm idk because my Sunday School teacher is mean to his kid and that makes me so mad wtf do you want from me? 🫠🤔

“Where’s your class, I’ll go with you!” Oh no ty I’d rather peel my own eyes than have my taste in men critiqued tyty 🩷

“Lizard, you should go to class, I’m sure they miss you!” And I miss the innocent days where my stomach didn’t hurt when a cool boy I knew was being belittled but unfortunately for us both those days are LONG gone and all that’s left is a budding psychosexual clusterfuck that will render me almost fully incapable of functioning for the better part of a decade so Bye Bye, sister Smith 🙂‍↕️

It had gotten to the point that ward leadership was involved. I was being approached by members of the Young Men’s presidency and the Bishopric to try and make me to back to class. They were telling me God had told them to find me and instruct me on my rebelliousness. This is where I implemented my secret weapon - women. Mormons are weird as hell about a lot of things, but especially about women. And I was GREAT with women. So to combat the leadership’s attention, I started helping women.

Our ward had a lot of new moms with babies who were, as babies tend to be, fussy. But for Mormon women the church is often their only social outlet, so they try to power through as long as they can even if it means enduring the exhausting ordeal of taking care of a fussy baby at church.

For what it’s worth, I have a lot of sway with babies. I got baby street cred. Me and babies have a rapport. I have always known this. I have always loved this. And in this crucial gay time in my faggot life my baby mind powers came in clutch - Every time I saw a member of the bishopric getting close, or a young men’s leader giving me side-eye, I’d start walking slowly towards class, passing by relief society. I’d wait until a mom’s baby had gotten too fussy and needed to leave the room, and I’d swoop in like a knight. “Oh, don’t you worry sister, I’ll bounce him a bit. You go back and hang out with your friends in class. You deserve a break.”

If it was a diaper change or something they’d tell me no. But if it was just some good old-fashioned baby fusses, I mean, they’d be moved almost to tears. They just got their social time back AND a free babysitter who is renowned as the Baby Whisperer. And because I was holding a baby as a favor for someone else, I of course could not reasonably be bothered to return to class.

So just like that, I was out of everyone’s sights. This went on for about a month before the straw that broke the camel’s back, which was that without my class participation the classes were quiet and awkward. I’d often take the brunt of Sunday school lectures by answering questions impulsively and over explaining myself enough that the clock could run out without anyone needing to do or say much. My absence meant everyone else was getting hit with the full unpleasantness of this guy’s bullshit. And so slowly, one-by-one, I had a group of about 8 kids on baby-holding duty. These new moms were so overjoyed, they and their husbands were both so actively in our corner that now chastising us was untenable. Now we had bargaining power. So the Bishopric approached us, confused beyond confused and uncomfortable beyond uncomfortable, and said,

“What’s it gonna take to get you back to class?”

The POWER I possessed in that moment was addictive. By being kind to the women of the ward and ignoring the Mormon de facto Rule of Law of following rules en-masse so the rule breakers feel left out, there were now so many people breaking ranks that we had effectively enacted a church boy labor strike. And they crumbled so fast it was almost like we had swayed God himself to our cause.

“I want brother assholedad gone. He sucks at teaching.”

I didn’t even have to say it. One of my rebels said it for me. I just nodded sagely and said “Yes, his class is not edifying. It’s better to not go and hold babies.”

And just like that, with a snap of my limp-wristed, Christ-wounding, bottom-brained fingers my faggot will was enacted. God’s revelation that brother shitdad was his chosen Sunday school teacher flipped on a dime. Suddenly brother shitdad was asked to be an usher and the fun dad of another one of my crushes was called in to teach us. I still stayed to hold babies a lot, but the rest of the class returned and all was well again.

Although I didn’t recognize it then, I think that was a formative moment for me in a lot of ways. I learned that being really persistently annoying will get me what I want from authority eventually. I learned that God’s will can be swayed by going in strike. I learned that ignoring men’s made up authority forces them to level with you as a person. I learned that caring for women, especially vulnerable women, can make a whole world happier. I learned that letting women rest can help them feel more love for the things that matter in their life. I learned that social bonds make everyone stronger and happier. And I learned that loving others in a gay way can change the world.

Be gayer. Read Terry Pratchett. I love y’all 💕

I could almost write a story about the handsome bagpipe-lumberjack’s life since. He’s a fascinating guy. I just catch bits, but it’s always stuff like dog racing in Alaska, or cross country trips in some crazy ass vehicle that he personally restored, or working on some kind of hot balloon crew.

I think he’s currently in college in Washington now. Studying to be a teacher. I wish him the best

@inbabylontheywept GUH he’s so pretty it’s not even fair, and his dog is so damn cute. I’m so glad you know who I’m talking about, because him and the guy who saved me from getting stabbed on Halloween are the only two guys I’d ever willingly confess to having a crush in. My taste in men is a fucking travesty.

Also, calling it a Baby Holder Union makes it sound so much cooler 🥺😎

journalofimprobablethings:

what-even-is-thiss:

lawbreaker13:

fanonical:

genuinely, i think watching live theatre can improve your media literacy so much

like people who look at doctor who and are like ‘lol the effects are so rubbish’

maybe watch a stage play where there’s no backdrops and half the characters are played by the same three guys in different hats and maybe you will calm down

People who were raised on Marvel movies simply don’t understand the beauty of a well made and executed practical effect

You ever seen a person in all black operating a bird puppet? No you haven’t because we’ve all agreed to ignore the people dressed in all black. That’s a bird.

The show I just finished working on included a carriage chase that was conducted with actors on moving staircases that folded open into carriages, which were mostly stationary except when they were turned by the actors manipulating them, and the whole chase was communicated with projections, lights, and sound (and acting of course). At one point a character jumped from one carriage to another in slow motion, which is to say, an actor wearing all black lifted him and brought him across as he “leapt”. Audiences fucking loved it.

Theatre’s ability to create worlds with paper and string and a hat or two is one of my favorite things about it. For those two hours we all agree that the man in the brown hat is one person, and then when he switches to the blue hat he’s another person. It’s seamless and simple and is at its heart an act of community storytelling and I love it.

My new favourite musical (Come From Away) has staging that’s largely made up of 12 chairs.

Those 12 chairs can become a plane, a bus, a bar, a Tim Hortons, a scenic overlook… whatever you need them to be. And because the cast is so good at acting, you buy that they’re whatever they are.

earlgraytay:

…I’m genuinely considering making an academic complaint against anth class from hell professor, for a very stupid reason.

…..I understand why “draw your kinship chart/family tree and describe it using these terms we learned about in anth class” is a reasonable assignment to give. If you are living in the mythical fairyland where everyone has a decent enough relationship with their immediate family that thinking about them isn’t painful or triggering.

I’m “just” going to email the professor about it, I think, but fuck, I want to bite people.

okay, wait, new idea.

We learned about a group of people called the Langkawi, whose kinship structure works on the Dungeon Meshi theory of kinship, aka “the people who are your family are the people you eat dinner with”

(It’s genuinely really cool; nerd references aside, they believe that blood is formed by eating home-cooked dinner, and so people who eat dinner together share the same blood. Siblings are closely related as children but grow more distant as they form their own families, and if you need to adopt a kid, you just let them stay with you and eat dinner a bunch and they’re Family Now.)

So I’m going to do my kinship structure based on Langkawi rules, aka The Folks I Eat With Most

Theoretically she can’t get mad at me for this because it shows I did do the reading. :P

geniusbee:

ALT

Conversations with ancestors

…I’m genuinely considering making an academic complaint against anth class from hell professor, for a very stupid reason.

…..I understand why “draw your kinship chart/family tree and describe it using these terms we learned about in anth class” is a reasonable assignment to give. If you are living in the mythical fairyland where everyone has a decent enough relationship with their immediate family that thinking about them isn’t painful or triggering.

I’m “just” going to email the professor about it, I think, but fuck, I want to bite people.

I think that like… mmm… the only thing that most of the Studio Ghibli Canon ™ has in common, narratively/thematically, is that they’re coming of age stories. (and even then, Porco Rosso and Ponyo bend that rule, a lot)

and what ‘coming of age’ looks like is different for every single one of these characters, because they’re all in wildly different worlds and have wildly different wants and needs

for some people “coming of age” looks like “dealing with baby’s first creative burnout while living in a cute little village” and for some people “coming of age” looks like “taking proper grown-up responsibility for your baby sister for the first time while living in the idyllic countryside”

and for some people “coming of age” looks like “well, my youth was stolen from me, I have no fucks left to give, time to go on a Grand Adventure” or “I was born into a hostile world, and the only way forward is to learn to live in some kind of harmony with it”

if you’re a tween boy in Japan in 1943, “coming of age” looks like a fever dream. and if you’re even younger, and in even worse circumstances, you might not get to come of age at all

like I get why “Ghibli style” has come to mean, like, basically Stardew Valley, because there’s not much in the Western canon that has that vibe and it’s good to have Words For Things.

and I also get why people are really really mad about people not acknowledging their favourite non-central example of Ghibli’s range, because yeah, Miyazaki has a lot more to say as a creative director than just “can’t we all just get along”

but like at the end of the day, I think we’ll have more productive discussions about it if we look at it through that lens? where the peaceful/'cozy’ depictions are one way to come of age, and the others are…. other ways?

batmanisagatewaydrug:

hello fellow non-Black tumblr users. welcome to my saw trap. if you’d like to leave, please name one (1) Black woman author who is not Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Octavia Butler, or N.K. Jemisin. bonus points if she’s published a book in the last five years.

Finished the gender unit for Anth Class from Hell and started in on the kinship unit.

Shockingly, the kinship unit was much easier, because I didn’t feel like I was being preached at the entire time.

fruitviking:

A while ago I had the idea to write descriptions of Holmeses (detectives) and Watsons (biographers) from across various adaptations, as though you’re adopting them from an animal shelter.

Individual descriptions under the cut. Enjoy!

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