sexylazymercymama: lgbt-history-archive: Castro Street Fair, San Francisco, August 17, 1980. Photo &

lgbt-history-archive:
Castro Street Fair, San Francisco, August 17, 1980. Photo © Paul Fusco. #lgbthistory #lgbtherstory #lgbttheirstory #lgbtpride #QueerHistoryMatters #HavePrideInHistory #PaulFusco #FridayVibezzz (at San Francisco, California)
I headcanon that Bitty LOVES finding photos of hot historic gays and sending them to Jack. He has a tumblr somewhere where he individually saves all those historic gay couple compilation posts and sends them to Jack one by one with, “teach me about the Castro Street Fair”? “Are these real Marine uniforms or just costumes?” “I think I need a history lesson in men’s formalwear for this time period…” And Jack just. Can Not Handle It.
Most of them are low-key sexy in this subtle way that Jack adores. And it’s BITTY sending them to him. And asking vaguely history-based questions. And Jack’s been so focused on all these other historical events and he was so deep in the closet during Samwell that he just… didn’t let himself learn about this stuff as much as he wanted.
So he does now. Oh, does he ever. Bitty sends him a romantic pic while he’s away on a long roadie and Jack has all this free time so he starts looking up the time period and where it was taken and if it was just some private individuals that had a friend with a camera or if there was an actual gay community nearby and seeing if he can find similar ones from that place/time and by the time he gets back home he has a 5 page essay complete with photographs for Bitty to read.
And at first Bitty is like, “you’re giving me a reading assignment?” But then he sees the intense, passionate excitement on Jack’s face and what it means to him to combine his sexuality and his love of history, and the sense of hope he gets from how queer guys throughout history have found each other, found friends and families and lovers, and he reads it and turns out Jack’s really good at making this stuff interesting (as if the pictures weren’t enough already) and instead of Jack quizzing him afterwards like he thought it’s Bitty asking more questions and inspiring him to do more research.
After 5 years of this, Bitty collects all the essays and analyses Jack’s done for him, puts them together in a roughly chronological order, and tells Georgia that Jack needs a literary agent. Jack says no, it’d be too much of a distraction from hockey right now, but he loves the idea and he keeps writing stuff about the photos Bitty sends him.
By the time Jack retires, what he’s written is now a 3-volume collection. He and Bitty go on a joint book tour. Their agents don’t see any way that cookbooks and historic gay couples can possibly go together but it turns out there’s a lot of overlap and they both learn a lot about what’s going on in the world of cookbook and history text publishing. But mostly, they love going on a big, long roadie together. They get back and Jack gets an offer from Samwell to be guest professor teaching The Historic Gay: MLM in Europe and America from 1700-1950. Jack says he’ll do it if they do a similar course on WLW. The incredible lesbian historian they find to do it immediately sets to work writing a woman-based 3-volume companion to Jack’s book and Jack makes sure it gets published and marketed properly. They eventually find a trans historian to join them and soon the History Department is a close second only to the Gender, Women, and Sexualities Department in terms Gayest Department at Samwell. The History Channel comes calling for the gay perspective on their specials on everything from socializing in the military to early settlers moving west in communities that were predominantly men.
Bitty is both surprised and amused by every new development in this. He’d just been really thirsty and wanted to rile up his history-loving boyfriend. He never thought it’d turn into Jack’s new career as the Gay History Guy.
Still, it did accomplish its original purpose and ordering custom-tailored recreations of the outfits from Jack’s favorite photos brings the concept of role-playing to a whole new level….
Castro Street Fair, San Francisco, August 17, 1980. Photo © Paul Fusco. #lgbthistory #lgbtherstory #lgbttheirstory #lgbtpride #QueerHistoryMatters #HavePrideInHistory #PaulFusco #FridayVibezzz (at San Francisco, California)

Peek at an old fic because I’m OMGCP trash.