Something sickening this way slithers — ! And honestly, sickening is an understatement when it comes to Plastique Tiara and Nymphia Wind. And their first-ever tour — The Serpents Tour — is more than just a drag show; it's an all-encompassing entertainment experience, soon to be brought to audiences all across America.
The pairing itself is the stuff of legend. Plastique Tiara emerged from RuPaul's Drag Race Season 11 and All Stars 9 as a fashion icon and fan favorite. She has since become the most-followed drag queen in the franchise, with 4.8M followers on Instagram and 11.9M on TikTok. Nymphia Wind made Drag Race herstory as the winner of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 16, the first East Asian winner in the franchise. She followed her win with a legendary performance for the president of Taiwan, in the presidential office. And who could forget Nymphia's unexpected, yet incredibly heartfelt, one-on-one call with renowned conservationist Jane Goodall? Together, Nymphia and Plastique are bringing AAPI excellence to stages across America — sharing equal parts culture and ... well, that other "C" word, which feels tacky to use right here.
Pop Heist was honored to get the chance to chat with the two queens ahead of the debut of The Serpents Tour. Keep reading for insight into Plastique and Nymphia's creative process, and how they're updating ancient folklore for drag-loving audiences.
Brett White: When did y'all first meet? Let's hear the meet cute.
Nymphia Wind: I met Plastique in 2019. I was still living in Taiwan and Werq the World came over. And then it was the after party, and Plastique at this point was the pinnacle of beauty and womanhood. When I saw her come walking into Cafe Dalida, I was like, "She's here," in my brain and everyone's gagging. And now, meeting her in America, it's so crazy. After going on [RuPaul's Drag Race], the first time was in Washington, D.C. I remember it was June.
Plastique Tiara: Indirectly I met Nymphia through a needle kit they gave me, named Nymphia, that had a really nice four ply thread and a curved needle. And I was like, "Oh, this bitch knows exactly what she's doing." And we connected and it's been a whirlwind ever since. She's just so talented, and I couldn't get enough.
When did y'all decide to go on tour together? Because this is a big commitment. It's kind of like proposing marriage.
Plastique: Oh my gosh, you don't even know.
Nymphia: By the end, we'll be choking each other.
Plastique: Like how every great marriage ends, with choking.
Nymphia: I think we, like planned it in 2024 — when my season was airing.
Plastique: Oh my god. It's been a whole year and a half.
And building it around this legend of the white and the green snake. When did that idea come to fruition?
Plastique: Right at the beginning.
Nymphia: It was also because the Snake Year was coming up, so it made sense to do this folklore, the Legend of the White Snake, because we both have it in our respective countries. Vietnam has a version, and then Taiwan has a version.
I was doing research on the folktale, and in some versions, the White Snake is a demon that eats hearts and the Green Snake is honest and loyal. How did y'all decide which one is Green and White?
Nymphia: There are different variations. Watching it growing up, the main story is that they might be built into monsters in normal society — like, they're actual monsters. they turn into snakes, they're shape-shifters, they're seducers, they're liars. But throughout the whole movie, it goes to show that they're not what society says they are. So for me, it's a story based on this. But being the White Snake just represents purity, and she's more like the older sister, the more mature one, and she's more angelic. And the Green Snake is more youthful and chaotic and just like fiery and all over the place.
Plastique: And we relate that to being drag artists too, because we're doing an art form where sometimes in society, they think that we should not be doing it. So it's very against the grain, and we're just expressing everything that we are.
How did you drag up the folktale? Like you said, it's right there in the premise.
Nymphia: You'll have to come see to find out how!
Plastique: There's the meaning behind it, but we have to drag it up and make it fierce and make it cute and make it funny. So this is the whole Drag Race challenge in a year and half that we have going on.
And you actually have enough time to execute it instead of like, eight hours.
Plastique: Girl, we never have enough time! There's never enough time!
Nymphia: We're working on drag time here.
You're also featuring local AAPI talent in every city.
Nymphia: For me personally, I think it's really important to highlight these AAPI talent, because I feel like in America, unfortunately, it's not really showcased as much. We're kind of like at the sidelines. So in the New York show, because when I arrived in New York, those are basically my friend group, the AAPI drag queens. So I have them come perform at the show, and they're Angel AU and Felicia Oh, and then we have another performer [Filthy Mari Chino], which I haven't met, but she's serving a lot of cunt. So I decided to invite all three of them to come perform. And the other cities, there's a lot of AAPI talent, and seeing them representing themselves and a bit of their culture and their background — and it's not necessarily just drag specific. There's drag queens, there's dancers, there's pole dancing, and there are groups which do martial arts combined with drag. There's a variety of different kind of performances,
You're both obviously fashion queens and can slay a sewing challenge. But in a pre-planned show like this, I imagine you already have your looks together. Will you still be creating more during the show? Can you turn that creativity off and just stick with the plan?
Plastique: No.
Nymphia: No, we will constantly be upgrading it because, you know, we're working on drag time, so we leave everything — at least I do — very last minute. I know there's not gonna be a lot of things done that I want to be, but it's gonna be 90%. But I want it 100%, so I'm definitely gonna work on it as we go through the tour, and improve it here and there.
Plastique: And I've been on many other tours, but I would say that I've never had so much fun preparing for any tour that I've ever done in my life. Not only are we striving to be a better version of ourselves, but we want to give the audience the best experience. Tt's teaching the audience what we're about and what we've learned throughout our lives, rather than just a drag show, like, you go out there and you do your numbers. This is about paying homage to what we love about drag and what we essentially do this art form for. So we just push each other to be better and better through each and every idea. It's quite amazing.
Nymphia: We keep saying that it's basically a passion project. We're investing so much.
Plastique: It's kind of wild. I look at it and I'm like, "Oh, I kind of went overboard here."
Nymphia: It's like, "What are we doing?!"
Plastique: Like, "Oh, okay, 3D printing, okay, taking six months, okay."
Are there any sides of your own creativity and talent that you'll be showing for the first time, or that you're particularly excited to show?
Plastique: Everything. I don't think you've ever seen anything that we're showing before. It's kind of wild.
Nymphia: I'm doing a lot of different things I've never done before and trying to rehearse it and try to make it work.
Being two iconic Drag Race queens, do you feel any pressure to work the show and references to it into your stage show, even if it's The Serpents Tour and not a Werq the World tour? How do you balance those expectations from the audience?
Nymphia: Like a snake, we're shedding our skin.
Plastique: Okay, she ate that!
Nymphia: Obviously we'll try to make it camp and gay. And of course we're gonna reference a bit of the show, but it's only like a small section of it. It's not like we're gonna be "yassing" everything. To make it camp, of course you have to reference RuPaul's Drag Race.
You've never toured together. So are you prepared to be on a bus together for the tour? Have you talked to each other about when you like to have downtime? Like, "Don't talk to me before 10 AM..."
Nymphia: We'll be stuck in a bus together, so I don't know how much we can escape each other. But I don't know, I'm pretty chill. As long as I can lay horizontally, I'm fine,
Plastique: Yeah, I'm much more a vibe person. So if I catch a vibe where like, today is not the day, I know how to tour with girls. I understand how I think Nymphia is.
Nymphia: She's survived. She's done the Werq the World.
Plastique: I don't know if she's surviving me or I'm surviving her. The lovely thing about this is, like, it's our project that we've done together. So I think with each show, we're just wanting it to be better and better and better.
Nymphia: We'll be working on it right up until the end.
Plastique: Yeah, by the tenth show, we're like, "Okay, we got it."
How do you two inspire each other? What has the other one brought out in your creativity?
Plastique: I think it's endless. Every time there's a text, every time there's a ding, every time there's a notification, I'm just like, "Wow. We got this on lock." I've never been so inspired. I've never had so much fun creating something. I'm never a group project type of person, but I was the one who asked, so something in the universe, something in me felt that this was right. And, you know, I think I'm right..
Nymphia: Plastique's known to be the TikTok queen reigning supreme, and it's just inspiring to see how she works behind the scene. You look at these Instagram reels and you assume someone has a whole team, but Plastique basically just does it herself, most of the things. And it's just amazing to see how she does it. I'm just like, "Nymphia, get your shit together. You can do this!" Like, in the group chat, we're just constantly trying to improve everything. Nothing's good enough for us, and we're just trying to make it better, better, better, and look good. We're just both very anal in how we want things to look, so it's just great to work with someone who's like-minded.
The Serpents Tour kicks off on Sunday, Jan, 25 in New York City. Tickets are on sale now for all tour dates.
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