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crimson-kisses · 3 years

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{Yandere! Allies & Axis! x F! Reader: God au}

N.Italy- God of Architecture, Art & Poetry.

The deity of thriving creativity, Feliciano loves imagining and creating his stuff with a great loving passion.

He would often romanticize your first encounter with him, describing it as a love at first sight and many other poetic and aesthetic elements.

Would paint stuff and make dozens of poems dedicated for you.

Feliciano is a rather carefree and enjoyable deity that many people adore everything about him.

He would be incredibly clingy and infatuated with you, caressing your hair and stroking your cheeks cooing romantic words.

He might not be the strongest but he has a lot of influences, he can be manipulative and won’t hesitate using his emotions to guilt trip you.

Your strength would rather intimidate him, hence why he would use his more charming and intellectual aspects.

Once he gets you though, he’s so teasing and just plain annoying altogether, he knows you are pissed and kinda enjoys it.

Bright, vivid and pastel colors swirled around over the fancy architecture of the castle. It seemed to show a story that you didn’t bother to interpret.

The pastel gown hugged your curves and barely covered you much, it was pretty to look at although you felt similar to a doll being dressed up. Your hair was in a bun adorned with pearls, all this just for a dinner.

Feliciano smiled widely at your reflection and traced his fingers down your bare back which he knew would make you shiver, no matter how much he acted so childish and innocent.

“The most wonderful things are always hidden from the seeing eyes, no wonder it took so long for me too see you my love, but I could still feel that you would come eventually”,

You internally rolled your eyes at his usual ramblings although it somewhat made you blush and feel charmed, he was still the man who managed to pull some strings to capture you in his grasps.

Just to have you as his personal antique piece.

S.Italy- God of Fortune & Festivals.

Another hard deity to please, although Lovino is a pretty suave and a flirt with the ladies, he is not an easy person to bargain with.

He is very temperamental and can be suspicious of your intentions because of his own insecurities.

So be ready for arguments and emotional outbursts, it will get very tiring quickly.

Lovino does make up for it though by being romantic and taking you out on expensive dates or one of many festivals.

He will shower you with many gifts and show you off to everyone, he won’t tolerate any attitude from anyone else or from your side.

Guilt trips you often and manipulative with your own insecurities.

Laughter and music echoed through the village, people wore bright and vibrant clothes as they dances around with each other, of course they would be happy. The village was celebrating one of its many festivals.

Not that you wanted to be here, preferably somewhere quite would have sufficed but of course, Lovino had to drag you away and make you suffer.

Shivers went down your spine as a hand snaked its way around your waist. Breathing nervously, you slowly turned your head towards Lovino, who smirked at your frown and huskily whispered to you, his words effortlessly silky.

“Let’s enjoy ourselves Farfallina, we are going to have a lot of fun tonight”,

Gulping as you understood the hidden meaning, you groaned internally.

Japan: God of the Wind.

Pretty much isolated himself, Kiku would be very understanding and give you your space.

Obviously he would be stalking and sneaking up on you, trying to know everything that you do.

He can be very obsessive and can get pretty creative on how to capture you or make you fall into his traps.

You won't even realise he truly is obsessed with you until your caught and tied on his bed.

He's a lewd person, but won't bother you much with his perverse advances.

Not a good person to anger at all, you will probably end up getting swept off your feet.

He’s emotionless expression can also be very uncomfortable and just plain weird, he can stare at you for hours.

Definitely uses the wind to navigate you or spy on you. (He’s a creep lol)

Tries to be romantic but comes off as very formal and stiffed.

He was looking over you again.

Definitely not stalking you or sneaking up on you, he was just keeping an eye on his precious little blossom. Sure, he knew you were a strong person but nonetheless one cannot be too sure and must be cautious, right?

"You are truly so...... mystical",

He whispered softly, making sure his voice was carried away by the wind although you swore that the wind seemed to howl around you.

Germany: God of the Ocean.

Just like the ocean, Ludwig is very powerful, unpredictable and can be ruthless when needed.

Although young, he has been raised and mentored strictly well by his father and then his brother, no matter who takes an interest in you; these both would work together to claim you.

Like everyone else, Ludwig is very curious about you and researches what he can as well as interrogate others.

He’s a gentleman and a bit awkward when he meets you, but won’t be intimidated and let you get the best of him, he very much admires your strength and would love to see you in action. (Ludwig is a sucker for strong women)

Mostly because he knows he has the most strongest elements under his control so he would love to see you try to escape him or defy him.

Much like Japan he would understand and respect your decisions but wouldn’t care too much about it.

Would love to show you his unique underwater creatures and all the sceneries, would give you an ability to breathe underwater (or take it away if you attempt to escape or turn you into a sea creature- like a mermaid or an octomer)

Ludwig is not necessarily romantic but would still give the most precious treasures as a gift, they could he enchanted so watch out for that-

He can be merciless and drown an entire island with his anger or cause a huge storm, it’s pretty haunting more so for mortals. But is also very loyal to those who serve him.

Ludwig will sympathize with you over your domains and let you his help if it’s necessary, you both do control part of the nature after all.

The ocean hugged your curves as you swam around with the bright neon fishes, looking at the bright blue sky and couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the looming domain over you.

The ocean seemed almost endless and suffocating that you couldn’t help but feel a tremendous sense of dread on your chest. How could you be free?

It felt childish really, to still believe that there was a chance of escaping. All the deities have made you feel fatigued and very much troubled, you just wanted to rest after everything.

But you couldn’t, whatever peace you had left has been destroyed and you couldn’t go back to the life you had.

Ludwig’s grip was strong on you as he pulled you down slowly by your tail he had transformed your legs into for the time being. You forgot you didn’t had to hold your breath as he softly smirked at your puffed face.

“You truly are so amusing and the most precious pearl the ocean could have mädchen”.

Prussia: God of Death.

Many do fear death itself whether they deny they do so, its something that is inevitable. For everything and everyone.

So obviously Gilbert, the one who rules the realms of the afterlife with an iron fist is feared or intimidating to most.

When he takes an interest in you, he has certain privileges. Gilbert can summon the souls of the past deities and can get much needed information or advice when it comes to you.

Gilbert is very charming and alluring to everyone, one of the deities who gives respect and is pretty merciful to the mortals especially the younger or the more older ones.

Of course he is still strict with his own duties and obligations, he has his limits and makes sure it is clear to everyone. No mercy to those who defy him despite knowing the rules.

He is chill most of the time tbh but his experiences and responsibilities demand his virtues to be put in use. Gilbert might joke around sometimes but when he is not joking around, it’s pretty evident.

Is very respectful and patient towards you, he will give you your privacy but would have strict rules that you must obey or certain duties you must at least try to do so.

He doesn’t have much to show that wouldn’t make your blood run cold or make your skin crawl.

Any living being would break mentally upon witnessing what happens to the undead or any of the terrifying creatures that roam his domains.

He would appreciate a very resilient darling but if you are too much of a trouble, he will make sure to deal with your attitude.

Gilbert has a way with words and can pretty much manipulate you if he wants too; he just opts to charm you in the beginning.

If he snaps tho, then it will be frightening for everyone involved. Gilbert is also very powerful and strategic so good luck with fighting against him.

Not the worst yandere to have but it’s mostly because even if you do run away or reach the farthest place possible, in the end he will have you come to him anyway.

Especially if you are a mortal, you cannot outrun death, no matter who or what you are. Waiting several years till you pass away? Nothing to him really, yes it’s lonely without you but he’s very patient and doesn’t worry much.

Will send some spirits to haunt your ass or those who trouble you.

Cold.

The cold atmosphere clutched you in its grasp, making you rooted on the spot you stood on.

The robe you had worn did nothing to stop the air from nipping your skin, the gloomy domain was often cold anyways making you dearly miss your domains.

Marching sounds in the distance broke you out of your trance as the maids and butlers ran about for one reason or another. Maybe they were poor unfortunate souls who belonged to no realm at all.

Suddenly warmth adorned you as a heavy blue coat was placed over your shoulders, yet you got goosebumps. Maybe it was because Gilbert was here, his presence demanded respect and he was pretty intimidating.

You couldn’t help but hug yourself to calm your nerves, the silverette quietly gave you a peck on your cheeks making you slightly blush.

“Somehow..... you make my heart feel warmth it had been deprived of”.

Again you couldn’t help but look straight into his eyes as he lifted your chin up and embraced you, his touch making you feel weaker yet warmer than the blue flames adorning the candles.

Even if you are very powerful there’s no denying that it will be tough to fight against several powerful deities.

Not to mention most if them would have connections to other deities who won’t hesitate to help them. Which if you did most likely isolate yourself is pretty hard for you to deal with.

Katyusha & Natalya are Ivan’s siblings and would definitely help him; same with Antonio & Emma, they will help Lovino having raised him together. Erzsebeta won’t mind helping Ludwig & Gilbert, although Roderick & Vash would be stubborn they will come around to it. Lily won’t hesitate helping them either.

Francis & Feliciano have nice relations with almost everyone; Monaco would help them because they can be annoying while Seychelles would give some help too. Felix would gladly help Feliciano.

Arthur has his siblings who would help him for a price, they wont do much tbh just to get on his nerves.

Of course this depends if their relations are nice nice currently or they are equally messed up in the head. But angering these deities would be disastrous so in the end they don’t have much choice.

A/N: This was very corny I am sorry, I have more things I will definitely post over here, I am just going through some stuff at the moment- i think i went astray from what the original ask went. I apologize for that, hope you liked it @yandere-dark-cupid 🥰

I managed to write this between my studying sessions lol

Thank you for your patience & reading!

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meikuree · 3 years

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fic writer interview

tagged by @lightdescending -- tysm, this was really fun and i enjoy elaborating on things about writing/the writing process!

putting this under a read more because of my trademark verbosity (AGAIN)

name: meikuree

fandoms: actively writing for snk, tempted to write for the locked tomb

two-shot: oh i've not intentionally done these! twenty years of snow accidentally fits the bill, but only because it's on an indefinite hiatus

most popular multi-chapter: of aubades, my pieck-centric ficlet series, by some metrics

actual worst part of writing: when I get stuck in a loop of perfectionism and excessive self-scrutiny and rewrite… and rewrite… and rewrite again. my solution to this is to send it to a friend and ask for them to tell me just one (1) nice thing about it and put me out of my misery, or do freewriting where the point is to write whatever immediately pops into my head. usually then I’ll bump into an epiphany in the middle about how to Make It Work.

alternatively: fic writing is at times such a solitary, obsessively recursive activity and that’s one tension I dislike/have to negotiate with, because part of why I like art is to share it with people or at the very least engage in some kind of reciprocal conversation about it. community in art is very important to me in general, and I try to cultivate it in my online presence in small ways!

how you choose your titles: i'm a fan of grabbing titles from poems and songs/song lyrics (like you!) -- and drawing them from regina spektor songs in particular, bc she’s by some metrics my all-time favourite musician and i’m very familiar with her discography

do you outline: usually, yes. i don’t confine myself to it, but at minimum I outline pivotal moments and turning points. my process tends to start with a compelling scene or character interaction popping into my head and then goes on with me thinking about how i can use it as a vehicle for communicating a certain concept/philosophical idea/insight about XYZ characters' relationships somehow. that becomes the core idea/endpoint I want to reach by the end in a fic, so then i'll outline the main emotional or introspective beats i want to carry across in service of that

ideas I probably won’t get around to but wouldn’t it be nice: wow, um... /gestures vaguely at my unending list of wips/ that said, one idea i'm tickled by is an obnoxious, utterly random M-rated pieck/lady tybur fic involving painplay and knifeplay, the plot for which is literally just… lara tybur stabs pieck with a knife, but make it sexy somehow… with a dash of political intrigue and a complicated ambiguous relationship where two women use each other in a decidedly callous but also self-aware and self-indulgent way. the idea for this just came from me going "ah yes... the inherent homoeroticism of being stabbed by another woman..." and wondering about ~scenarios enabled by being a titan shifter, when you can regenerate your wounds and such! (partial inspiration also came, I will admit, from the locked tomb fandom and its lesbian body horror influences)

callouts @ me: sensory details are one of my biggest weak points. i've been ironing it out through concerted practice, but when i first started out writing fic i tended to be more comfortable dealing with metaphor, introspection, and mental states than... writing about actual, corporeal things happening in corporeal textspace. it can create the impression while reading, I suspect, that the characters are stuck a lot in their own heads. one of my earliest and favourite ao3 comments i've gotten said in passing that i used "very little dialogue and description" and i'm still tickled by... how true it is as an MO. it also amuses me because it seems to parallel the same issue i had with essays i wrote at university, i think (!) -- my professors would tell me, “you have a great grasp on the theory but you need to include more concrete examples." and i'd go "what? i was supposed to use examples?? ?__? isn’t the point self-evident from the theory?” for me, shifts in relationship dynamics and the negotiation of one's worldview underlying an event ARE the plot! -- and everything else tends to become subservient to that when i write

the other thing, which is somewhat related to the above, is just... self-confidence! i can be very insecure about my writing style, as my partner and poor friends I’ve whinged to can attest. mainly because i always fear that reading it feels like wading through a thick, unappealing swampy bog of someone's thoughts. but i think the solution is to just take a grounded, balanced view, like: there are some things i do well, and some things i do not-as-well in writing, and that's fine! that's normal! and in the moment i can be very hard on myself, and wring my hands thinking OH MY GOD THE UTTER CRINGE OF ME WRITING ANY OF THIS but i find that somehow, i always end up enjoying rereading what i write.

best writing traits: the most consistent comment i get, i think, is that my writing is beautiful and poetic (and one time: "this is one of the most poetic things i've ever read." which -- ?!?!). I’ve also been told that i characterise people well or with nuance, and write about them sensitively and with depth. i'm grateful, always, to hear these bc these things constitute the one niche i CAN do, imo!

spicy tangential opinion: hm… from what I’ve observed, many fandoms have a tendency to flatten character motives and complexities into easy, tidy and dare i say, sometimes bizarre, labels and categories. it’s not surprising it happens, but sometimes there’s space for people (a big, vague, nonspecific ‘people’) to go beyond simplistic assumptions about characters and one-dimensional portrayals (and to give writers who achieve it their due! I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen an incredibly well-written fic that was relatively undernoticed and gone, “why, fandom???”) sometimes you write to fix canon, and sometimes you write because it’s fanon that needs fixing instead.

tagging (no pressure): @ebbet @noxcounterspell @leksaa90 @minoan-ophidian @frumpkinspocketdimension @acerinky @rose-gardens @chocochipbiscuit @whiteasy @ochen @kallistoi anyone else who wants to join in!

#side note your answer about writing insecurity was so relatable #ask game #meikuree talks #writing

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

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Today, a friend of mine said that he thinks, in some ways, literature peaked with Shakespeare. He then sent me this excerpt of Romeo and Juliet

And when he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun

He then proceeded to talk about how he couldn't get over it, especially since he couldn't remember ever reading anything else quite like it. And it is really gorgeous, I never read the original Romeo and Juliet and I loved this, but it did make me think immediately of An Apology. So I gave him some context for Kauri's story and sent him the poem (and read it again in the process)

I feel like you should know that the impact for me hasn't changed since you first posted it and that your poem is currently being discussed against Shakespeare. (My friend thought it was beautiful, btw)

(for those who don’t know, this is the post Vicky is referencing)

Oh my gosh, that’s such a lovely thing of you to say. I mentioned it after I published the post, but it has been so long since I put much work into writing poetry that it definitely felt like being Kauri trying to force all the thoughts to fit together the way I wanted them to.

It was a really weird thing of trying to write decent poetry after a long time away from the format while simultaneously trying to make sure it read like someone who hasn’t written poetry in a while and so was a little rough around the edges but ALSO not wanting it to read like BAD poetry and it was just. A whole thing.

That said, I definitely believe Shakespeare had an incredibly rare gift for words and pulling emotions from thin air. I think the same of poets like Rumi, every once in a while someone is born to write in a way that absolutely eclipses almost all the writing around them. And I’m so glad we have kept as much as we have to look back on and get that “people have always been people, and art/writing/poetry/storytelling in general is intrinsic to our existence, but some people embody humankind’s capacity for art in ways that are absolutely mind-boggling.”

(I have like a whole series of thoughts on this about cave paintings for the record but like. I will spare you. Just know that prehistoric art was one of my focuses in college and I have SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT IT and I think our insistence on everything being for some ritual purpose or a sign of early religion obfuscates the simple fact that people. tell. stories. and. people. love. art. and... I’ll stop now)

Romeo and Juliet definitely includes some of my favorite moments and turns of phrase (although plenty of his other works just absolutely knock me apart too, MacBeth is just... aahhhhhhh, and oh god Hamlet as a portrait of self-destruction in so many ways and the fucking sonnets anyway moving on) and I just. The comparison is so much and I love you for it but I absolutely do not deserve it, haha

Also I’m bad at receiving compliments so there’s that

I will now be hiding under a table

(below the cut is the text of the poem if you want to skip rereading the Kauri piece but want a reminder)

AN APOLOGY

I am built from the hollow air left after your heart stopped beating Your hands still gripped tight to the life they were ending I know you thought of home but I don’t know where your home is The sound of my voice is a green valley that only sends back screaming

Covered in smoke and dust that I told myself smelled like cologne Pathways that remember your laughter silent in the years that followed Have I done enough to build a life you would have enjoyed living? I am built from the hollow air left over when your heart stopped beating

The heat of their hands as inevitable as a river tore down every foundation Their cruelty buried you so deeply that only I remain I don’t deserve the love that should have been yours to receive The sound of my voice is a valley echoing back your screaming

I owe you an apology for walking around inside you Crumbling ruins with my touch and calling it preservation I’m sorry for every blade of grass growing through our bones Am I nothing but hollow air from when your heart stopped beating?

Wildflowers grow inside me from soil windswept over ash Is that life worth everything not quite dead so deep below? Is Kauri Grant good enough to make up for Liam Harker’s loss? In the valley of my body, does anyone but me still hear you screaming?

I owe you an apology and have to hope the life I live provides it I wish I could ask for forgiveness from the shape of you We’re both ghosts, in the end, mosaic pieces shattered in shadows I’m sorry that I’m all that’s left.

I built myself from hollow air in the shape of a heart still beating The sound of my voice will always carry the echo of yours screaming

#kauri asks #poetry #ash rambles

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haileyyanneupton · 4 years

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❄ small - one chicago au ❄

Hailey Upton and Adam Ruzek have been friends for as long as they can remember. When Hailey changes schools to be with Adam in her junior year, she’s introduced to a new group of people who feel strangely like home.

pairings: jay halstead x hailey upton adam ruzek x kim burgess kevin atwater x vanessa rojas kelly severide x stella kidd

warnings (chapter specific): swearing

masterlist | series masterlist

❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄

❄ four ❄

A little over a week had passed since Jay and Hailey had gone out for coffee and pancakes to work on their assignment, and each of them had decided that they would keep their poems a secret from each other until they had to present it to the class. Secretly, it was because Hailey hadn’t actually started the poem and had nothing to show him — meanwhile, Jay had already worked through at least half. It wasn’t a bad thing; she just hadn’t been able to find the right way to get it down on paper yet. Her plan was to keep collecting as much as she could about her literature partner; the group milkshake date seeming like a relatively good way to do so.

“Yo Upton, Rojas! Are you two coming, or are you just going to keep dragging your feet like slow pokes?” Stella called out to the two as they trailed a few steps behind her and Kim.

“We’re coming, we’re coming,” Vanessa rolled her eyes as she tutted. “Calm your farm, Kidd.”

Hailey only chuckled as the Stella and Vanessa both fought for the passenger seat of Kim’s car, Hailey not minding the back as she climbed in and waited for someone to accompany her. Eventually it ended up being Stella who called heads on a coin that came up tails, leaving her to take the seat beside the blonde.

The girls had all gone in Kim’s car while the guys went in Adam’s, all driving to the same place not too far from their school. It was a Wednesday afternoon and the upperclassmen had been given the afternoon off, allowing the group to finally go out as Adam had suggested a few weeks previously. Hailey’s mouth was already watering at the prospect of a banana milkshake — it was the only banana flavoured thing in the entire world that she liked. She had been buzzing with happiness all day as she awaited twelve o’clock to come; the second it did, she had almost launched herself out of her seat in pre-calculus.

The drive to the milkshake parlour was short, but nonetheless fun. With Fifth Harmony blaring from the radio (courtesy of Kim), the words to Dope were being shouted by all four girls as they pulled up in the parking lot, finding a space right beside Adam’s car as they all jumped out and raced inside where the boys had saved them all a table.

"Look what the cat dragged in," Kelly teased, earning a roll of the eyes from both Stella and Vanessa. "Took you all long enough. Did the car break down or something?"

"We were enjoying our drive here and listening to music, thank you very much."

"And?"

"And. . . we got stuck behind a railway crossing."

"Knew it," Kelly smirked, a mischievous look in his eye as the girls all headed to the counter to place their orders.

As Kim and Stella debated which flavour they would get, Hailey couldn’t help but notice the way that Vanessa was awkwardly hanging back in an empty space smack bang between the front counter and the table that the boys were sitting at. Everybody else seemed blind to it — but Hailey was perceptive. She could see the way that Vanessa studied her feet as if they were the most interesting things in the world, the way she tried to retreat without anybody noticing. Although Hailey didn’t know why, she wasn’t about to let it go unaddressed.

“Hey.” Hailey’s voice was only loud enough for Vanessa to hear as to took a step towards her. “You not getting a milkshake, V?”

Vanessa frowned ever so slightly, her eyes sad despite the fact that she tried not to let it show. “Nah. I — uh — I don’t really feel like one.”

Hailey knew that wasn’t the reason. There was something else. As she thought back over the day briefly to try and work out what could have upset her friend, it suddenly hit Hailey with as much force as a freight train. She felt almost dumb for not realising it sooner, her heart aching for Vanessa as she glanced back over at the girl.

“You can’t —“

Vanessa silenced the girl with a small nod — one that begged her not to go on about the matter. Vanessa couldn’t afford it.

Before Hailey’s brothers had moved out and gotten jobs, her family had been in a similar situation. Obviously it wasn’t the same — Hailey had never been bounced around foster homes — but regardless, the Upton’s were living paycheck to paycheck. Hand me down clothes were all Hailey knew, whether it be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt from her brother or a Spiderman hoodie from Adam, she was always dressed up in somebody else’s leftovers. She didn’t mind too much about that part, but she could remember the first time that she went to school without lunch. She remembered the first time, the second time, even the third time — after that, it all just blurred together. It all just became the usual for Hailey who at the time, was still in third grade in elementary school. As she grew older, things got even just the slightest bit easier — Adam’s parents would always put an extra sandwich in their son’s lunchbox for Hailey, or they’d send both children with a ten dollar bill to pay for a hot lunch if they wanted. When her brother Nate moved out — he had always been there for his youngest and only sister — things changed for the better, financially. He was making good money as a mechanic. He could afford to pay for Hailey’s tuition at a fancy private school, he could send a hundred dollars or so to Anne to cover the groceries; he even started sending Hailey money so that she could buy herself what she could afford to be a teenager. Was it a lot? No. But did it make the difference? Absolutely.

Glancing down at her wallet, Hailey spied the two twenty dollar bills she had shoved in there that morning before leaving for school, the green paper sitting untouched until she took one into her hand, closing her fingers around it so that nobody else could see it. In one swift movement, her hand dropped down to her side and her fingers became interlaced with Vanessa’s as she sneakily and subtly transferred the money from her hand to the brunette’s, leaving the girl with wide eyes as she snapped her head around to face Hailey.

“I-I. . . You didn’t have to —“

“I know I didn’t have to, but I wanted to.”

The small smile on Vanessa’s face dropped for a second as she looked Hailey dead in the eye. “I’m not a charity case you know. I just. . .”

Her voice trailed off as Hailey squeezed her friends hand lightly.

“I know that, V. I know. And I’m not treating you like one. I’m lucky enough to have people look out for me and lighten the load when I need it — you deserve that too.”

“But I’m not going to be able to pay you back Hailey — you know that right? I don’t have a job and I can’t —“

“Vanessa, that’s not what this is. I don’t want you to pay me back. I just know what it’s like to feel like you’re missing out because of something so shallow as money, and now that I’m in a position where I can make your day a little better, I’d like to do so. God knows you’ve done plenty for me since I showed up.”

“I gave you an apple slice, dude!”

“It’s more than that,” Hailey chuckled lightly, her lips curling upwards as she saw Vanessa stare down at the twenty dollar bill with sparkling eyes. “Besides — you do not want to miss out on one of these milkshakes. They’re literally to die for. I would run through the fiery pits of hell, being tortured by satan himself to get one of these milkshakes.”

Vanessa shot the girl a lopsided smirk. “I dunno, Hails — walking up to the counter sounds like a lot less effort.”

Hailey only rolled her eyes with a grin as Kim and Stella finally stepped away, allowing the two other girls to order their drinks before returning back to the table where they would be bought out to them. Hailey took her usual seat between Vanessa and Jay (even when they weren’t in the art room, apparently their seating arrangement still stayed the same). As their milkshakes began coming out, Jay smirked in Hailey’s direction as she took her first sip of the banana flavoured beverage.

“What?” Hailey quizzed, arching a brow as she crossed her arms across her chest expectantly. “There a problem?”

“No. Just . . . observing.”

“You’re observing my milkshake drinking habits?”

“I’m observing your reaction to ordering the most basic drink on the menu.”

Hailey scoffed, openly laughing in the boy’s face as she turned to face him. “That’s rich coming from you, Halstead. You’re about as basic as they come.”

Jay only chuckled with a shake of his head as Kelly cleared his throat dramatically, calling for the attention to be bought upon him. Stella groaned from his left, her forehead resting against the table. Hailey let a small smile of amusement cross her lips; Stella wasn’t normally one to be embarrassed by Kelly’s antics. In fact, normally she joined in — but today, it was different.

“I have an announcement,” Kelly proclaimed, tapping the end of his fingernail upon his milkshake — Hailey thought he looked like a dork, but she also knew he gave absolutely no fucks. “You all must listen very, very closely!”

“Alright, alright, man. We’re listening. Out with it already!”

Kelly shot a lighthearted glare over at Adam who wore a grin in response.

“After much deliberation, there has been a mutual confession between the wonderful, amazing, beautiful, talented, badass —“ Kelly paused for a second to dodge Stella’s fist which was heading straight towards his groin. “— incredibly intimidating Stella Kidd and I. We — uh — we’re. . . “

“What this dumbass is trying to say is that we’re together.” Stella interrupted Kelly as she lifted her head up from the table ever so slightly, her chin resting upon her hands as everybody else broke out into a grin. “I told him we should tell you guys today, but I didn’t expect for him to make it into some kind of theatrical fucking performance.”

“You should have known better then that, Stell. It’s Kelly we’re talking about. King of Dramatics.”

“Yeah, I’m realising that now.”

Hailey was happy for the new couple, but she wasn’t as invested as she could see everybody else was. Apparently, Stella and Kelly had been making heart eyes at each other since freshman year, the rest of the group waiting for one of them to make a move on the other. Hailey knew there was something between them but figured that they were probably just close like she and Adam were — she couldn’t even begin to count how many times people had assumed that she and the boy she had grown up with were dating. Nonetheless, it became evident that Kelly and Stella were much more comfortable with their secret coming out; their hands fell into each other’s as they laughed alongside one another.

Sitting and watching, observing if you will, something suddenly became very apparent to the girl. It was one of those things that once she saw it, she couldn’t un-see it — the sight bought a small, fond smile to her lips as she stayed silent, simply watching. Well, she was — until Jay interrupted her thoughts.

“What are you staring at?” Jay asked, a small smirk on his face as Hailey leaned back slightly so that she could speak only just loud enough for the boy to hear.

“Do you see what I see?”

“Uhhh . . . ” Jay furrowed his brows slightly as Hailey let out a chuckle, shaking her head.

Without realising it, Hailey inched her way closer to Jay as she pressed her back against the cushioned booth they were in, her shoulder brushing against Jay’s as she grew even quieter. The freckled boy hadn’t seemed to notice either, despite the fact that they were practically sitting on top of each other at that point.

“Look at them all,” Hailey couldn’t help but let out a small snort as one hand rested against her thigh, the other holding her banana milkshake close to her chest. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it earlier.”

“I still have no clue what we’re talking about here, Hailey. Give me something to go off of.”

“Right, right,” Hailey grinned up at Jay sheepishly. “So there’s Kelly and there’s Stella. Totally head over heels for each other, yeah?”

Jay nodded soundlessly, a puzzled expression still plastered upon his features.

“Then there’s Vanessa and Kevin. Now I don’t think they realise it just yet, but they’re totally going to be a thing.”

The boy’s eyes widened in realisation. “Holy shit.”

“Wait, just — just wait . . . ” Hailey held up a finger. “Now — look at Adam and Kim.”

If it were at all possible, Jay’s eyes grew even more as he too became fixated on the scene in front of them, the evidence now slapping him in the face. His mouth hung open wide as the corners of his lips turned upwards into a smile.

“I smell a bet coming on.”

Hailey grinned widely once again, a mischievous look on her face as her and Jay’s eyes locked. “You’re on, Halstead.”

“Twenty bucks says Burgess and Ruzek will get together by the end of the year.”

“Please,” Hailey scoffed lightly, folding her arms over one another before taking a sip of her milkshake. “Thirty says they’ll be together by the end of the month.”

“Ah, so you’re a risktaker.” Jay’s trademark smirk met Hailey’s gaze. “I’ll make sure to make a note of that for my poem.”

“Not a risktaker, per say — I just know Adam is an impatient, idiotic dumbass who can’t help himself.”

The mention of Adam’s name caused the boy in question to snap his head over to the blonde, a scowl etched into his features as he shot a playful glare over at the girl, Hailey not backing down from her words even the slightest bit. Before she knew it, everybody was back to their own conversations with people jumping in and out where they wanted to, leaving Hailey to do what she did best — observe. It wasn’t like there was something she was looking for or trying to understand; Hailey had just always been the kind of person who would sit and listen rather than interject herself into the conversation. She found that she learned a lot more that way — people would often tell you their darkest secrets if you let them do the talking.

She would never admit it, but somehow, her eyes kept finding their way to Jay as if his face was a magnet and they were calling her. She studied every part of him closely, taking note of how the corners of his eyes creased when he laughed, counting the freckles that looked as though they had been methodically scattered across his skin in the most perfect way. Hailey noticed his little quirks and even jotted a few of them down in the notes app of her phone, like how he tilted his head slightly when he didn’t understand something or was asking a question or the way he would run his tongue his bottom lip when he was thinking of something. Every little thing that made him unique soon compiled into an extensive list that Hailey had saved to her notes, ready to use when she eventually found the right way to complete her own literature assignment.

It wasn’t long before everybody packed back into the two cars, this time the order being switched up and mixed around. Hailey had gone in Adam’s car, because, well — duh — meanwhile, Vanessa switched places with Kelly and Kevin who lived closer to Kim and Stella anyway. While Jay and Adam talked each other’s ears off, Hailey was sat in the back seat with Vanessa who looked absolutely wrecked from their day.

“You look exhausted, you poor thing,” Hailey smiled halfheartedly over at the girl.

“Yeah, I am.” Vanessa yawned tiredly. “I was up half the night studying for that precalc test we have.”

“You’re like, the smartest one in the entire class, dude,” Hailey said, looking at her friend with an incredulous look. “You don’t even need to study!"

“Still doesn’t hurt to make sure I know what I need to know. And to make sure I know that I know what I know so that I can make sure you know what I know.”

“I think I just had an aneurysm trying to understand that.”

Vanessa grinned. “You’re welcome.”

The two girls shared a laugh as Vanessa leaned her up against the headrest behind her. Turning to Hailey slowly, the girl wore a small and gratuitous smile as her hand fell into the blonde haired girl’s hand, earning back her attention with the small yet simple gesture. Vanessa was a very physical person — she loved hugs, she loved holding hands with her friends to show them her love and appreciation — Hailey, however new to the group she was, was no exception.

“Hailey. . . I hope you know how much what you did today meant to me.” Vanessa began, her accent coating her words as her eyes fell to her lap. “I got moved to another foster home on Monday and. . . I know it sounds stupid, but asking for money before the first cheque from the state comes in is a big no no if I want to stay somewhere for longer than half a week."

Vanessa’s voice was low and quiet, only loud enough for the blonde sitting beside her to hear as Hailey’s heart squeezed tightly. She hadn’t missed the giant smile on Vanessa’s face as she was handed her Oreo milkshake, or the way her her mood had completely brightened in giddy, goofy happiness as she bounced around and made fun of Kevin. Hailey, despite her tough exterior, would secretly do anything to make the people she cared about smile. Absolutely anything. Without ever second guessing herself.

“I didn’t want you to be left out.” Hailey’s response was at a matching volume. “Feeling like the outsider all of the time. . . It’s not fun. I get that. That’s why I’m so endlessly grateful to have made such good friends here.”

“You? The outsider? That’s hard to imagine.”

“Three words, V. Three words.”

“Hm?”

“Private girls school.”

“. . . Yeah, say no more."

Everything that Hailey had said was the truth. She knew what it was like to be the outsider, she knew what it was like to feel like the ground beneath you was always shaking and about to give out on you no matter what you did. No amount of duct tape would hold it together, and given the fact that Vanessa had just had to uproot her life — again — Hailey could sympathise with what she was going through despite the fact that she would thankfully never understand it fully.

Hailey sighed lightly as she gave Vanessa’s hand a small squeeze. “I wish you could live with me.”

“Can I?”

Though Vanessa was clearly joking, as seen by the smile playing at her lips and her humorous tone, Hailey really did wish she could bring Vanessa to live with her — perhaps just not at her house. With her father. And her mother, who was always excusing the former’s behaviour. Always.

“I’m not sure you’d like it very much at my house.” The blue eyed girl let out an exhale as she spoke. “There’s a reason I spend so much time at Adam’s house.”

“I get it.” Vanessa’s eyes held sympathy towards Hailey. “But hey. . . we’ve got each other, right? We’ve got these two doofuses in the front seat, we’ve got Stella and Kim and Kelly and Kev. And one day we can all run away together and forge a home in the woods using our very minimal survival skills that would definitely not suffice to stop us getting eaten by a bear or something.”

At the sound of Vanessa addressing him and Jay, Adam turned around from the driver’s seat as he pulled up at a stoplight before directing his words to the girls in the back seat.

“Hey! I was a Cub Scout when I was younger, you know! ” He said, his chest puffing out ever so slightly in pride. "We’d be just fine in the woods."

“Adam, shut the hell up,” Hailey laughed as she looked at him incredulously, rolling her eyes at the boy. “You did Cub Scouts for two months and then you quit when you couldn’t get a single badge because they required you actually putting work into them. All you wanted to do was sit there with a juice box and a cookie.”

“Says the one who got kicked out of Girl Scouts for threatening to set a girl’s hair on fire!”

“She deserved it.”

“She was traumatised!”

“Good. I don’t like her. She tried to steal my backpack."

“It was ten years ago, Hailey.”

“It was my favourite backpack!"

❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄

aaaaaa! I apologise if this isn’t great I really struggled trying to write this one I don’t even know why 😂

thank you so much to @ruzek-halstead for proofreading! after writing this for so long I definitely lost the ability to do so, so marcia — you’re a literal lifesaver 🥰

tag list: @ruzek-halstead @lissethsrojas @sammywiths @butterflies44 @upsteadheart @shawnscheeks @puckluck28 @karihighman @thetwit @azu1ang3188 @juu-series @justanotheronechicagofan @stinaax @stayupton @fullwattpadmusictree @anna-justice

ps: if anybody ever wants to be added to the tag list, just let me know! it’s so easily done!

#chicago pd #one chicago #chicago pd au #alternate universe #hailey upton #jay halstead #kelly severide #adam ruzek #vanessa rojas #stella kidd #kevin atwater #kim burgess #au #cpd

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rahleeyah · 3 years

Note

A big country influence on your favorite artists and albums! I remember you saying once that Taylor Swift was never your cup of tea, but I’m a fan of hers, and her latest album evermore is in my top albums of all time.

I also really like Sigh No More by Mumford and Sons - the song and the album as a whole. the song takes lines directly from Much Ado, which is how i found it. it opens with “serve god, love me, and mend”

Melodrama by Lorde, and her latest, Solar Power, is really growing on me.

Favorite artwork? In this answer, it’s both incredible basic and deeply pretentious, i suppose: my favorite painting is ‘almond blossom’ by van gogh

but I also absolutely adore the shenanigans that modern art gets up to. ‘the treachery of images’ also known as ‘ceci n’est pas une pipe’ is terrific - because it isn’t a pipe, is it? it’s a painting of a pipe, and art can reflect something, resemble something, represent something, but it’s never the actual thing, not really. it is always what the artist takes that thing to mean, and then how they choose to present it.

i also love this one exhibit where a photographer took photos of the famous Dorothea Lange Great Depression photos - questioning what it means to ‘own’ an image, questioning what photography as an art form truly is - what makes this different from taking photos of anything else that already exists and calling it art? what makes this different from the ready-made pieces that surrealist artists used to submit to museums and galleries? if that was art, surely this is too?

but of course, it’s also very much ‘stealing’ another photographers work, but that was the whole point of the exhibit.

and everything that makes people go “that isn’t art” - well, why not? the whole point is to make yourself question why people would judge something as “not art” or “art” - is it the perceived amount of skill needed? is it the topic? is it the medium? is it whether the piece serves a functional purpose instead of merely an aesthetic one? what is art, at all? and how do we define it, personally and culturally?

and what’s great, i think, is that no surrealist/modern artist ever really seeks to answer that. just to make people think about it.

i do understand what you mean about the [Jeopardy music] when it comes to being asked about favorites, though I’m not sure my question will be easier: something about you that most people wouldn’t guess is true?

i am a product of my upbringing it must be said lmao

i find it interesting bc whenever i talk to my friends about music i always discover that all my favorite artists are male. i mean i like maren morris and kacey musgraves, i like joni mitchell and alison krauss, sugarland and miranda lambert, i fucking love lizzo. but when i start listing off like my very favorites, the ones i go back to time and time again, the ones whose lyrics i borrow for fic, it's always the dudes and i am certain there is something psychological at play there i just. have no idea what it is. is it just 'cause i'm gay and love songs that are overtly about loving women? i don't know bruh i don't know

ok sorry for the detour

i haven't ever been like into Tswift, but a lot of the lyrics from folklore and evermore have been inescapable on tumblr and there have been lots of them that resonated with me, so i mean, never say never lol

and i am a big fan of mumford, and i love that song what a good choice

almond blossom is also such a good choice, though. you will get no judgment from me there.

and oh my goshhhhhh i'm so glad you went this direction with your answer. i was kinda hoping you would lmao the question itself is sometimes more important than the answer, isn't it? bc the thing about art - any kind of art, a song, a painting, a poem, a book, what have you - is that there are gonna be limitless ways to interpret it, and any way it could possibility interpreted someone is going to view it that way. ten people can look at the same piece and give ten different descriptions of it. and so to seek to answer the question is all but impossible; someone, somewhere, is going to disagree with your answer. and i am thinking also about a quote i saw from an author recently who was saying something to the effect of "don't write the themes"; that is, that the themes themselves, the point of the piece, will come out on their own as you write, but if that you cling too stubbornly to what you think the theme ought to be you can end up beating people over the head with it, and damaging the efficacy of your own work. we start with an idea, but the idea itself is alive, and ever growing. isn't it? we make but we are also made in the making.

the discourse on what is art is fascinating up to the point where someone decides they have a definitive answer, and then it becomes self-serving and exhausting.

i am just. delighted by your thoughts.

and my goodness you don't ask for much, do you? the very first thing that came to mind is I'm an asshole; that is, i try, very hard, not to be an asshole both on tumblr and in real life, and i think that most people - bc by definition most people are people with whom i have a casual acquaintance not people who have spent a great deal of time around me - might not necessarily know that i'm mean and petty and prickly and too loud and just generally live with my foot in my mouth, but then i got to thinking oh no, they probably do know that, and so my final answer is this:

i do not have a college degree. everyone seems surprised when they find that out.

and since you cursed me with that piece of self-reflection i am going to turn it back on you. what is something about you that most people wouldn't guess is true?

#anonymous #my anon

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shyanlibrary · 4 years

Note

hello!!! what are your favorite fics??

Nonnie, what a question...

Let’s keep it short, top 10 under the cut:

1. The Chain by Lafayette1777

Rated: Not Rated (T) | Chapters: 6/6 | Complete | Word Count: 14,073

Summary: Do you not know how love works?

Shane and Ryan, in transition.

Commentary: Christ almighty, this will forever be my favorite fanfic in the entire world and I mean it. I’m someone who has been in many fandoms for more than 15 years now and let me tell you something, I have never felt so much as I have with this story. Because it’s just so incredible well written and the characters are just what drives everything in it! The imagery, the feeling of it, each dialogue, all of this fic is wonderful and I’m in love with it. PLEASE read it if you haven’t.

2. can’t take you home to mother (that’s what i like about it) by redmaynes

Rated: E | Chapters: 7/8 | Ongoing | Word Count: 20428

Summary: “I still hate you, you know that?” Ryan gasped out after they finally broke for air, and he roughly shoved Shane back on the mattress to make quick work of the button of his jeans, and smirked when he heard Shane curse under his breath when he pulled down the zipper slowly, agonizingly.

“The feeling’s mutual, baby,” Shane said through gritted teeth.

“Don’t call me baby.”

Commentary: Fun fact: this was the first fic I read, and I did because I wanted to read smut and I was looking forward to know how this fandom expressed that kind of intimacy between these two, and I was hit by one of the most interesting scenarios put together for this kind of AU, good plot and great characterization. I adore this fic, I’ll go to hell and back for this fic. It’s wonderful and.. how to explain it? Just plain ol’ good, man.

3. Perfect Fit by moliuoli

Rated: E | One-shot | Complete | Word Count: Unkown

Summary: There’s a legend that says anyone able to take all of statue Shane’s cock will summon the god to the mortal realm. Given the statue’s excessive size, no one has ever succeeded to prove or disprove the story.Until Ryan that is.

Commentary: When it comes to original AUs and situations, this fandom never disappoints. Look at this fic in particular, it’s a fun exploration of college life and loneliness in the most freakin’ horny way and that’s why I loooove it and re-read it pretty often. My favorite from the author, too, and she’s a writer I really like. This fic is work of art, a classic in the fandom, just incredible.

4. Let the Sunshine Burn Your Eyes by YogurtTime

Rated: E | One-shot | Complete | Word Count: 6,577

Summary: An innocent man of taste and leisure, Ricky Goldsworth, just wants to check into his hotel room, but gets into an altercation with the concierge while a mysterious gentleman in expensive-looking clothes watches nearby.

Commentary: The only RG persona fic I like! I’m not ashamed to say I’ve read this fic more times than I have sat down to actually write something in years, lmao. Okay, so-- this masterpiece always puts me in a mood, in that mood that makes you grab a glass of wine, sip, stare into nothing and say “oh my”. I LOVE IT. I know I’m saying this about all fics in this list but lololol, it’s true. The writing in this is magical and transports you to another world, to the world the author wants you to see in this text and it makes you wonder everything about these characters and smile at the end. This, also-- has my favorite ending in a fic like this. Just. Oh my.

5. I would like that by Crimsonflowerz

Rated: T | One-shot | Complete | Word Count: 3,994

Summary: The third person who knew Ryan was trans was the ghost that haunted his apartment.

Commentary: This fic, oh-- I think about this fic and Shane in this fic a lot, actually. I always loved his character in this and I loved how much we knew of Ryan, his life and his feelings in it, because it let us wonder with him about Shane and his spirit, his life before being a ghost, and well-- you have to read to understand, this is one of the best fics in the fandom and it has one of the happiest and most hopeful endings and boy oh boy, am I a lover of happy ending. Read this beauty, I re-read it recently because my main fandom and its company broke my heart and my spirit last December, and this was the only thing that got me to stop crying over the way I was mocked by the male white creators of said main fandom. Life saving story.

6. ready if it happens with you by sarcasticfishes

Rated: E | One-shot | Complete | Word Count:4,319

Summary: It’s not a thing. Ryan’s just a little… touch-starved. Intimacy-starved.

Shane passes behind him when he’s sitting at his desk, idly touches Ryan’s shoulder, thumb brushing the curve of his neck — and goosebumps erupt down the length of Ryan’s arms.

Commentary: A beauty! I said to the author, who is a good friend, that I was really honored this fic has my name as one of the persons it was dedicated to, because my man believe me when I say this is a fucking beauty and it’s one of my favorite smuts and getting together fics in the fandom. I’ve thought of that scene in the dark so many times, of the way it’s written and described, and every and each action is driven by pure feelings and it’s just so gorgeous. You gotta read it.

7. You Are on the Fastest Available Route by InkStainsOnMyHands

Rated: T | One-shot | Complete | Word Count: 2,362

Summary: "It’s in the light.“

[Based on the Local 58 YouTube Series]

Commentary: The night I read this fic, I couldn’t sleep. It made me feel uneasy, made me think of it for days, and I still think of it. Often find myself wanting to re-read it and I wish I could live again that first moment when I read it. Once, when I was in a meeting, I filled a page of my moleskine with the summary of this fic, and kept thinking of Ryan hudding Shane as the light came, of him looking up, of the road in front of them, the hints that something was amiss. What a genius story.

8. We Went To An Orgy And We Didn’t Have Sex (well…kind of…) by iris_rise

Rated: Not Rated (M) | Chapters: 4/? | Abandoned | Word Count: 11,045

Summary: They met at a bar that afternoon before filming started. Liquid courage, Ryan had called it. “Or a surefire way to a pair o’ whiskey dicks,” Shane quipped back, giving him a playful smile, and Ryan knew he was totally screwed.ORShane and Ryan agree to film a one-off Buzzfeed documentary-type show, ‘We Went To An Orgy and We Didn’t Have Sex’, in which they attend a sex party and try to keep their hands off one another.

Commentary: I know what you guys are thinking about the title of this, but believe me when I say this fic is WONDERFUL. It’s such a gorgeous work with so much soul, and I would never really be reccing an unfinished work that is likely abandoned by now if it wasn’t THAT good. Soooo, let me tell you about the atmosphere this have, it has such a powerful spirit, it makes me cry that I will likely not know how it would have gone. Mother of GOD, this is perfect. Also one of my favorite interpretations of dom!Shane.

9. we are breathing river water by undeadapocalypse

Rated: M | One-shot | Complete | Word Count: 4,503

Summary: Shane thought, through the kisses and the feeling of Ryan’s skin all over his, too much but not enough, I will not.

Between the light ending up off and the clumsy hands in a dark room, the floorboards that hide secrets despite not being theirs, he thought to himself, I will not fall in love with him.

The tabernacle reconstructed.He falls in love with him.or: a fic based off of “litany in which certain things are crossed out”

Commentary: Richard Siken is my favorite poet out there and when I found this fic and saw it was based on my favorite poem, I almost died right there. And to my delight, it was an excellent fic and even now, many reads later, it’s still an amazing fic with a beautiful ending that haunts me in the best of ways. Every part of this fic, the images of it, the parts were you can feel the poem in it, all of it, I love it with all my heart. Read it. It’s beautiful.

10. I live alone in a paradise (that makes me think of two) by Ros_ora_sal

Rated: Not Rated (T) | Chapters: 4/4 | Complete | Word Count: 26,971

Summary: Ryan and Shane get stuck in a haunted house together.

Commentary: Oh, this fic. Oh this fic and its brutal plot filled with mystery, hope and even a few scares. Man, do I love this fic. Something I adore of this fandom is its more dark or weird stories, and this one hit me in the face with how good it was, really a gorgeous addition to our fandom. The story and the way its written has stayed with me ever since I read it, and I promise you it will stay with you too.

#shyan #skeptic believer #buzzfeed unclean #shyan fic #answered #recs #rec list #multiple #au #oneshots #multichapter #personal favorites #personal recs #on ao3 #Anonymous

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ambersky0319 · 4 years

Note

Dumb idea from a tired Rayne: Logan, who doesn't want to date Roman, keeps telling him "___ and then maybe I'll date you" so later you have Roman looking practically like a fucking clown as he tries to recite Shakespeare in full garbwhile also trying to speak in a perfect accents with the mind palace looking like a galaxy, only for Roman to find out after while he was practicing his brother and Deceit asked Logan out and he said yes, and he tried to tell Roman but he refused to listen.

This doesn’t have a happy ending, but it’s also not a bad ending?

Ships : One-sided Logince, Platonic Logince, Romantic Intruloceit

Warnings : Leading people on, miscommunication, let me know if there's anything else that I should add!

Masterpost

----------------------------------------

It wasn't that Logan didn't like Roman. He did, in complete honesty, Logan loved spending time with Roman, he loved being Roman's friend. But that's where it ended.

Being Roman's friend.

So when Roman confessed that he had feelings for Logan, he didn't know what to do. How do you reject someone, and then say it's because he just got into a relationship with said someone's brother and his partner?

But that's the thing. Logan tried to say that. But every time he got near the answer 'no' Roman would fall into another round of rambling that lasted anywhere between five to twenty minutes. It got to the point that Logan just... Gave up on trying to outright reject him.

Instead, he started giving Roman impossible tasks to do.

He didn't expect it to backfire so terribly on him though.

Logan sighed loudly as he collapsed onto the couch within the dark commons, right by Deceit who set his book down to console his annoyed boyfriend. Remus was nowhere to be found, probably in the Imagination. Logan just wished he could cuddle them both right now, that would surely cheer him up.

Deceit gently pulled him into his arms, pressing soft kisses to his temple as he started to massage Logan, slowly drawing circles on his back. Logan made a soft, strangled noise as he curled closer to Deceit.

"What's happened now?" Deceit hummed. He and Remus knew of Logan's predicament, and both knowing how well Roman took rejection, weren't able to give Logan any ideas on how to tell Roman that he wasn't interested, not without letting their own relationship slip.

"He- He actually learned Latin and performed not five, but ten original poems! And! He actually changed his sash to that awful gray that he hates!" Logan let his head fall into Deceit's neck, huffing and shaking his head.

"I told him that he needs to perform an entire Shakespeare play all by himself looking like Pennywise using time-accurate accents and in garb and that the entire mind palace must look like a galaxy."

Deceit began threading his fingers through Logan's hair. "What are you going to do if he actually succeeds in this one?"

"Honestly?" Deceit hummed in confirmation. "I have no fucking clue."

Silence filled the dark commons for a long while. Logan was far less tense now but refused to move out of Deceit's lap. Not that Deceit minded. But then Deceit broke the comforting quiet.

"Remus and I were talking earlier, about maybe to put a stop to this we just... All come out."

Logan shifted only slightly, frowning against Deceit's neck. "I thought that's what we were trying to avoid?"

"Well, we've been dating for what, four months now? And Roman has been doing this for about three. No matter how the others react, we'll stay together, and Roman can work on moving on and accepting that you aren't interested." Deceit continued to run his fingers through Logan's hair, no knots remained but he knew it was helping Logan relax. "We're ready to come out. If you aren't though, that's fine, and Remus and I can always help you come up with something-"

Before Deceit could finish, there was a crash as the Imagination door slammed open, and Remus came stumbling down the stairs cursing up a storm.

"Remus?" Logan asked hesitantly when Remus started to tug at his hair and pace. Remus barely glanced at them.

"I fucked up, guys I fucked up royally- Roman's pissed, he's so incredibly pissed oh my god, guys-"

"Hey, hey, Remus," Logan shifted out of Deceit's arms a bit for the first time in quite a while. "Come sit down, and maybe explain what happened?"

Remus did, settling down on Deceit's other side and welcoming the embrace from both Logan and Deceit. He then went on to explain how Roman had unconsciously wandered into Remus's part of the Imagination, where Remus had been talking with Hope about Deceit and Logan, getting suggestions from Hope on how to handle the situation if Logan didn't want to tell anyone yet. He described how Roman now knew that they were all together, and how he looked so incredibly heartbroken but also so pissed, and Remus wasn't able to tell if it was at Remus and Deceit, or Logan.

Once he was done, Logan groaned loudly, head falling back to hide in Deceit's shoulder. He said something, but it was muffled by Deceit's shirt. Remus clung to Logan, burrowing his face in Logan's hair. "Maybe we can just give Roman amnesia, y'know, and no one will know!"

"I don't think giving your brother a concussion is a good idea, Remus."

"At least it's an idea!"

Logan shook his head, taking a deep breath. "No, I'm going to have to talk with him. But... but I think I'll talk to Roman tomorrow. Hopefully he'll be willing to listen, I doubt he will be right now."

"You sure, Lo?"

Logan nodded, moving so he could press a light kiss to Remus's cheek. "I just really want to spend time with you both. And maybe this'll be safer."

"Alright..."

The next morning, Logan rose up in front of Roman's room. It was too early for Patton or Virgil to be awake, but Roman often got up around the same time as Logan. He knocked lightly on the door, and it took a minute and Logan was just about to knock again when he heard a lock click and the door slowly opened. Logan bit his lip as he felt his heart figuratively break at the sight before him, Roman with irritated eyes and hair so tangled one brush would never be able to help tame it. He looked so pale, too, and he wobbled slightly in place as he processed just who was at his door.

When it finally caught up to him that it was Logan, Roman attempted to shut the door. But Logan stuck his foot out to stop it. "We really need to talk-"

"I don't want to see you, Logan."

"Please, Roman?"

". . ."

"I just want to explain things. You don't need to actually respond, but you need to hear me out. And then, if you no longer want to be friends, then I'll just leave you alone from now on. I won't even take long, I just need five minutes."

Roman hesitated, before sighing in defeat and he sulked back into his room, letting Logan enter. He sat on the bed and just stared at Logan. "Five minutes. Go."

Logan took a deep breath. "First, I wanted to apologize. It was wrong of me to lead you on like I did, getting your hopes up that I might reciprocate your feelings when in fact I wasn't only not interested, but was seeing other sides.

"Next, the only reason why I kept doing that is because any time I tried to tell you no, or that I wasn't interested, you would cut me off, or refuse to listen. I tried each and every time to get you to listen and I failed, so I gave you more and more ridiculous tasks thinking you would eventually give up. And then you didn't. And I just had no idea what to do, because I still wanted to be frends, I love being friends with you, but I don't like you how you like me and I just- I'm um, I'm just really sorry, Roman."

Logan held his breath as he watched Roman for any reaction, holding Roman's gaze. Roman took in a shuddering breath, before glancing to the side, frown tugging at his lips.

"And you were with my brother and Deceit the entire time...?"

"... Yes."

Roman closed his eyes for a moment, processing everything that Logan had said. When it seemed that he finally did, he exhaled slowly, still not looking at Logan.

"I'm still mad, Logan, I'm still hurt. But... But I don't want to not have you in my life. I still want you around. It wouldn't be the same with you gone- and I- fuck, Logan, I'm sorry for not listening... I should have, this all could've been avoided." Roman held his head in his hands. "Just... can, can we come back to this in a few days?"

Logan nodded hastily. Roman glanced at him for a moment before looking back down at the floor. "I'll see you later, Logan."

Logan hugged himself as he left Roman's room, summoning a water bottle for him before he left. God, this wasn't how he wanted things to turn out...

----------------------------------------

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inkabelledesigns · 4 years

Audio

Poem 31: Thank You

A short poem from Alice and Poet, but a longer recording because I have my own two cents to add in as just me. I want to give a huge HUGE thank you to @halfusek for hosting Ink Demonth for the second year in a row. Thank you for all that you do to make the Bendy community as great as it is, you’re an absolute delight, your art is amazing, and you’re super sweet to all of us in the audience! This is the first month-long creative challenge of any kind that I’ve managed to see through to completion, and I’m happy with the result. I’ve learned a lot from it that I’m gonna continue to use for a long time.

I also need to give another thank you to AJ and Steve ( @ahjones94 and https://twitter.com/HypeVoiceActing ) for all of their help with these audio pieces. You guys are awesome, and I’m proud to not only work with you, but call you my friends. <3 It wouldn’t be the same without you!

And now you get the full audio transcript below, not just the poem! Plus some project links to my friends, as promised.~

Steve (HyperVoiceActing): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgD1...

Rouge's Denial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F3ic...

AJ (BigBlue VA): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnMB...

Break Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZYCh...

Sound Effects (Creative Commons 0): https://freesound.org/people/Aldebara... https://freesound.org/people/YourFrie...

A Fond Farewell

By: Kat Alyst

Poet: Well dear listeners,

It seems our time together has come to an end.

I won’t pretend

I didn’t enjoy it.

Because truly, I did.

You’ve been a delight to have around

Even though you’re not in our underground.

And it’s been a pleasure entertaining you

For the long month that it’s been.

Twisted Alice: Really and truly,

It’s been nice having you here. And seeing all your lovely compliments has made this angel feel heaven-sent. We may be stuck in this dingy old studio, but our stories will always live on out there, with you.

Poet: Quite right dear angel!

It’s really a shame,

I wish I weren’t running out of tapes.

I know, there are steaks,

but it’d be nice to entertain again, you know?

It’s been so long since our show.

Surely we’re due for a comeback, yes?

Twisted Alice: Quite. Though it’d be a bit of a “dark revival,” all things considered. -chuckles- Either way, it’s been nice having an audience that doesn’t hate my guts. Thank you all for listening in.

Poet: Indeed. Dear viewers,

I hope you’ll consider looking back

at all the lovely stories we shared together.

And if you keep the tether,

Consider listening again during stormy weather.

A good story is the best medicine

When you’re having a cloudy day.

Until I can find more tapes to record on,

Here’s wishing you well out there.

Come back again soon!

Your Poet is always ready with their monsoon of verses for you!

Kat: Wait, wait, don’t cut the tape just yet!

Greetings everyone, my name is Kat Alyst, and I am the writer and voice behind the Poet, and all of these Ink Demonth poems.

I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you so so much for all of your support throughout this month. This has been such a fun challenge for me, to test out my skills as a writer, a voice actor, and as an audio editor, and it feels so good to be in all of those things.

I think the thing that surprised me the most is just the amount of people that stuck around to listen to all of these.

Like I get it, poetry is not the first thing you think of when you hear “Bendy and the Ink Machine,” but it’s like, I’ve gotten to do so many fun things. I don’t think I’ve ever seen “fandom poetry” as a big thing that anybody’s explored, but there’s a lot of potential for it in a series like this.

I don’t know if I’ll ever do any Bendy poems again, but this was a really fun experiment, and I’m glad that I went through with it.

Before I let you go, I feel it’s important that I give a huge, HUGE thank you to Steve and AJ for all the help that they’ve given me throughout this month. Like oh my god, you guys are superstars, and I love you. Steve (HyperVoiceActing) was our voice actor for Joey Drew, Bendy, Boris, and Generic Toon #47. Yes, I’m sticking with that name and you can’t stop me.

He’s also been my primary ‘sound board,’ just the person that I’ve been talking to the most with making sure that I’m doing a good job of all of this. ‘Cause I’m still very amateur when it comes to audio editing, and sometimes it really helps to have a second pair of ears. So Steve, thank you so much for everything you’ve done, you are phenomenal.

AJ (BigBlue VA) was our voice of Henry in that one skit (27: Fight, he was also the Butcher Gang). AJ and I have been working together for a long time, and he is hysterical. So I was really looking forward to that as well. Just both of these guys have had some amazing performances throughout this whole thing, and I couldn’t do it without them. So thank you again.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with these two before, be it on projects with our other friends or projects that they’ve been doing, so if you’d like to hear some work we’ve done together, I’m gonna link a little bit in the description. HyperVoiceActing is the channel for Steve and BigBlue VA is the channel for AJ. So go show them some love, they’re amazing at what they do, and it would really mean a lot to me.

So with all that said and done, thank you so much for tuning into the Ink Demonth. And comment down below, what was your favorite poem of the bunch? Well, technically most of them were poems, a few of them were audio skits, but I wanna know what you think. I wanna know what you think I could be doing in the future too, because I am totally open to doing more crazy projects, it’s always a great time to just go in there and have some fun. So thank you again so much for tuning in, and I hope you all have a great rest of the day. Don’t let the Ink Demon bite! Ta-ta!

#the ink demonth #ink demonth #bendy and the ink machine #bendy poem #batim #bendy poet #bendy poetry #twisted alice #lost ones #alice angel #susie campbell #voice acting #bendy voice acting #my voice acting #my friends voices #some damn good voice acting #some damn good voices

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all-pacas · 3 years

Note

4, 10, 19, 29!

4 - favorite shade of green

OH MAN THIS IS HARD WEIRDLY, but definitely on the warm/yellow end of the green spectrum and not the blue end. i like a nice medium tropical green, but also you can’t go wrong with a dark, dark green. actually, i’ve been thinking of painting my bathroom a dark green. something like this. i have a fair amount of plants in my house, and i’m always looking for more, so green is kind of an accent color or something. might be nice to just go for it and have my bathroom join in.

10 - favorite sad song?

you know, i was literally just talking about this with a friend earlier today, but i’m gonna go with ‘the rotting strip’ by crooked fingers. i guess it’s not actually the saddest song, but it’s just so bleak, just about two people telling themselves their lives will get better and slowly sinking into nihilism. no song has ever quite captured the feeling not of heartbreak or loss but of giving up so well as this one does for me. i mean — some may say the price you pay is far too much to spend/but they don't know the cost is fair if for a while/it keeps your heart from crumbling

youtube

19 - favorite poem

i am admittedly not really a poetry person, so instead let me quote you some motherfucking homer, because i am obsessed with the emily wilson translation of the odyssey, which is a story i have weirdly been obsessed with since i was a kid, and i just love the directness, the modern language, the directive at the end of the opening lines:

Tell me about a complicated man. Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy, and where he went, and who he met, the pain he suffered in the storms at sea, and how he worked to save his life and bring his men back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools, they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus, tell the old story for our modern times. Find the beginning.

oh god i just unironically said i was obsessed with the odyssey does this make me pretentious

29 - favorite book longer than 500 pages

GOD I READ SO MUCH THO okay a few sprung to mind, for different reasons:

a) stephen king and peter straub’s The Talisman, which i highly recommend even if you don’t typically read stephen king, it’s highly underrated, it’s literally his take on a YA adventure novel except he wrote it in the 80s. it’s about a boy named jack who finds out that his dying mother is the queen in a parallel world, who travels across it and the US to try and save her. it has fantasy and mild horror and all of stephen king’s cheesy and unironic sentimentality — the song happy days are here again is a plot point, and an unironic one — and i read it for the first time when i was 12 or 13 and it really stuck with me, i still have that copy of the book, which i stole from my dad’s stack of stephen king novels in the attic.

b) killing commendatore by haruki murakami

i mean look, any of murakami’s books can go here, and it’s not my absolute favorite of his, although i do love it. i picked it because murakami novels are fucking weird, but always in the same ways — obsession with music, cooking, art, dreams, surrealism, cats, ears, strange teenage girls, a meandering dream quality — and this one manages to be somewhat less out there than his other novels and still really good. i can just read this and like, relax, almost, just let the story carry me without worrying about the details.

c) beauty is a wound by eka kurniawan

okay it’s only 470 pages I CHECKED but look. if the murakami book was an acquired taste this one is EVEN WORSE, but it’s also one of those books i literally could not put down. it’s vulgar, dark, funny, crude, has a weirdly high incest quotient, and incredibly gripping. the opening line is: One afternoon on a weekend in March, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years. it is a modern history of Indonesia as told through the life of dewi ayu, a famous prostitute, and her three beautiful daughters and her hideous fourth. i literally could not put it down, the translation is so weird and smooth and pithy, i really do adore this weird-ass book, even if it isn’t quite 500 pages.

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yourdeepestfathoms · 4 years

Text

everything great about Burlington Carrie

i’m slowly watching every version of Carrie the musical on YouTube and rating them, so we’re kicking this off with Burlington Carrie!

The musical starts with fire alarms, police sirens, fire roaring, and people screaming, which is such a cool way to open the performance! Then they end and are replaced with a heartbeat that gets faster and faster, and agh! I love it!

Right off the bat, gotta say this show gets a point for having an actual set. As much as I love BK and Seattle, the lack of background and set pieces really throws off the immersiveness.

This show also doesn’t have the “everyone wears red” thing going on like BK and Seattle did, which I enjoy because in the book Carrie wasn’t allowed to wear red.

Also, the ages in this cast are a little strange. Mostly all the students look like college kids, but the Chris looks like she’s in her thirties and Carrie looks like she’s fifteen, maybe sixteen. A little odd, but hey. If Chris is supposed to be an adult bullying a child, then I could get on board with that!

For the opening choreo in In, Sue kinda gets blocked and thrown around and then circled, which is something I’ve never seen before! It’s really cool looking! I love the way she stops being scared and starts singing with the others in a blink of an eye.

THEY LET MISS GARDENER SAY “you can choke on it for all I care” HELL YEAH

Miss G throws a basketball at one of the girls

Really enjoying how they actually play a sport during the gym par of In. I love the choreo where the dances look like they’re playing, don’t get me wrong, but something about seeing these girls throw around a basketball feels a lot more immersive.

Cynthia Reynolds, the girl who plays Carrie, really goes hard with the whole “shy girl” mannerisms and I love it. She is so cute.

Carrie’s loud “WHAT” when Sue says she got her period

Also holy shit, Cynthia is actually naked. Like, I’ve always been under the assumption that the actresses wear a strapless bra and at least shorts or underwear under the towel, but no she has nothing around her chest.

Good for her for doing that! If that were me and there was a wardrobe malfunction and the towel fell off, I would just die. Like, cancel the rest of the show, I can’t recover from that.

Chris’s face when Sue said Miss G isn’t a lesbian

(She is)

Cynthia’s vibrato in the opening note of Carrie is AMAZING

I love angry Carrie is! Both the character and the song!

Carrie falls to her knees and whimpers because of cramps in the middle of Carrie (song)

Look at this cutie!!

I love how unflattering Carrie’s clothes are. Like, it’s a wrinkly white shirt, a tan jacket with one (1) button buttoned, and fucking khakis that look way too tight for her legs. I love it.

Every time I watch a new version of Carrie, I always get nervous that the girl who plays Carrie won’t be able to hold the notes, since Carrie is an extremely difficult role, but Cynthia does a really good job! She has such a pretty voice, too!

Billy feels up and slaps Carrie’s thigh during the scene with all the boys

Carrie already looks like she’s about to burst into tears at the start of And Eve Was Weak

Where as in Seattle Carrie was on her knees for most of the song and in BK she was shoved around, here Carrie gets grabbed by the hair a lot and cowers. She also gets her arm twisted.

Carrie’s screams as she’s being pulled into the closet are heartbreaking!!!!

Billy snorts crack at the start of the party scene

The guys pick up Chris in The World According The Chris which was pretty damn cool

During the beginning of the show, they had chairs for the period scene, but for the scene where they’re actually in a classroom they make the kids sit on the floor lol

Carrie hugging her backpack in class, poor baby is so anxious

When Mr. Stephens was talking about who had the best poem and says that person should stand and read, Sue starts to get up and then immediately turns around and goes 😬 when Tommy’s name is said

But she’s supportive we stan

“Yeah, Tommy boy! That’s my baby!!!” -Billy

After Dreamer In Disguise, Sue immediately takes the poem from Tommy and starts reading it lol

The way Carrie says “it was beautiful” was so cute!!!

Billy mocks what Carrie said about Tommy’s poem in the most gay voice omg

The way Carrie speaks in this show is really in character for her. It’s kinda choppy and stammered. She. Talks. Like. This. There’s pauses and she stutters a lot and it fits so well!

Carrie SCREAMS at Sue WOW

Miss Gardener absolutely just tears into the girls during gym. She’s just insulting them left and right!

Have I mentioned that I love this Miss Gardener? Because she’s REALLY GOOD. Major props to Mackenzie Smith!!

The way Frieda says “sorry, Carrie” is a lot funnier than it probably should have been

Also Helen’s “Sorry????”

This Carrie is so fragile. Chris says she eats shit and she bursts into tears.

Carrie’s expression in the opening part of Unsuspecting Hearts.... She’s so sad

Also the bags under her eyes are HUGE does she ever SLEEP

Miss Gardener tries to dance with Carrie!!!! It’s so cute!!!!!

The way Miss Gardener spreads her arms and then Carrie looks down at her own and slowly copies her is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen

They t-posin

Even closer

Carrie immediately hugs Miss Gardener, it’s so cute!!

Carrie’s big grin and the way she says “thank you” after she gets invited to prom has my heart melting

The anger from Cynthia and Jillian (Margaret) in I Remember How Those Boys Could Dance is so powerful!!!!!

Instead of closing the windows, Carrie pins Margaret up against the wall with her telekinesis, which is a really interesting take on that part of the song that I’ve never seen before!

We love Carrie eating pie while watching her mom cry against a wall

So during A Night We’ll Never Forget, they have it set up where Norma, Frieda, Helen, Stokes, Freddie, and George are in class and singing about their plans for prom and Miss Gardener is reacting to what they’re saying. Another interesting take on the prom and very entertaining!

Look at this baby! Look at her with her hair down!

Isn’t she just the cutest little thing?

After Margaret calls Carrie a fool in Stay Here Instead she instantly flinches away like she’s scared

“I NEVER SHOULD HAVE LET YOU LIVE!!!” “Then why did you, Mama?” WOAHHH NEW LINES

Carrie grabs Tommy’s hand with both of hers

The way Carrie says “no shit” oh my god

Miss Gardener in her dress has me Big Gay

“After prom a few of us are going--” “OKAY”

Frieda clapping when Helen says prom king and queen insults women

MR. STEPHENS DANCING DURING PROM CLIMAX

Miss Gardener’s reaction to that

ALSO CARRIE GETS DOWN IN PROM CLIMAX HELL YEAH!!!!!

Her reacting to herself dancing and then giggling over it

She dances with Frieda!!

After Carrie and Tommy get announced prom king and queen, Carrie goes around hugging everyone and it’s SO CUTE

She launches herself into Mr. Stephens and he stumbles back slightly

And now we get to what is probably the best The Destruction scene I have ever seen before

FIRST OF ALL, the blood mainly goes all the way down Cynthia’s back, so she has to smear it on her dress and face, but I LOVE how dark red it is!

Next, during “our father who art in heaven” she breaks down into sobs and it’s so heartbreaking!!!

On the first “oh my god” she slams her hand back against the wall and smears the blood. The look of terror on her face as she looks at her hands is incredible!!!!

During the Note Of Death, Cynthia has to shift her pitch to hit the note, but she ends it with a scream, which sounds so good!!! I still think Keaton sang the song better, but Cynthia had so much emotion!!

When the massacre begins, everyone starts to scream and run around in a panic instead of Carrie controlling them all and make them wiggle around like in BK and Seattle. Instead, she kills them one by one as they frenzy around and try to escape. They all cry and scream at the ones who died to get up. There’s also a “fire” going and it’s just so good!!!!

As Carrie slowly walks out of the prom, Chris screams at her. And then everyone starts to cry and moan and call for help as the lights fade to black and holy shit it’s so chilling.

Cynthia cries out her lines over the prom instead of whispering them. It’s so heartbreaking to see and hear her sob and wail! And she continues to do so even as Jillian sings the reprise of Carrie.

My god the SCREAMS after Margaret dies! The EMOTION! I actually started crying because it’s just so sad!

Sue pulls Carrie into her arms even as she wails and shrieks and cries with her, which hurts even more!!!!

AND OH MY GOD THIS PART

When Sue sings alone during the end of Epilogue and all the kids part and there is Carrie, bloodied, staring blankly forward, and Sue just sings to her in tears

AND THEN CARRIE TURNS AND JUST LOOKS AT HER AND AAAGH

GO WATCH THIS PRODUCTION THE ENDING WILL KILL YOU IF CYNTHIA!CARRIE’S ADORABLENESS DOESN’T

#carrie #carrie the musical #burlington carrie #carrie white

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learrianie · 4 years

Text

What We Do in the Past, Echoes in the Future

Given the state of our country right now due to the unjust killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and so many others, it reminded me of a short essay I wrote about discrimination last year. It covers from the time of the Harlem Renaissance to 2020. How black people in America continue to face the same prejudice time and time again. This particular essay examines Claude McKay’s poem If We Must Die, Danez Smith’s piece dear white america, and Malcolm X’s speech The Ballot or the Bullet.

Not everyone can be at the protests and it can make you feel like you aren’t doing enough to help. If you’re like me, I constantly question “what can I do? how can I help? We can donate to the organizations, but if you can’t afford it, one of the most important things EVERY ONE can and should do is listen. Stay informed. Learn our history. Change the future.

I’ve included both poems and the speech. The Ballot or the Bullet is long, but I urge you all to read it or listen to it on youtube. It’s a difficult conversation to keep having, but we must keep speaking up for the victims of the systematic racism in this country and continue to fight for justice, by any means necessary.

What We Do in the Past, Echoes in the Future

By Arriana M. Williams

Literature and art have always been powerful tools for expressing and analyzing the human condition. We write as a way to leave something lasting and tangible for the next generation to, hopefully, improve upon society as a whole. When it comes to the marginalized communities of the world, specifically in our country, the role and value of literature becomes essential in understanding the plights and difficulties these people have faced in history and today. By reading the works created by these men and women, we gain a more intimate and personal insight into their struggles, aspirations, and their outlook of the world and their hopes of a brighter future. As cliché as that may sound, it was the ultimate goal of men like Martin Luther King Jr, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and so many more. While these men followed in the footsteps of men like Claude McKay, who defined his perspective of racism in his poem “If We Must Die”, they also inspired those who came after them. Men like Danez Smith, who in his poem, “Dear White America”, addresses the typical perspectives white people have towards those of color in America. Although reading and writing is not a cure-all for discrimination or injustices in America, it is hard to deny that the old adage is true. That those who do not learn history, are doomed to repeat it.

Take for example Malcolm X’s speech, "The Ballot or the Bullet". Given as a response to congress deliberating about the Civil Rights Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, religion, and origin. This speech is considered to be one of his best as it clearly and sophisticatedly describes how people of color in America must demand equality regardless of economic class or political affiliation. His message was not aimed towards any specific group of black Americans, nor religious associations. Malcolm X was a very relatable figure in that, the way he spoke was how common people spoke. He was intelligent, but he was not a politician.

The tone of his speeches touched people because of how passionate he was, but also how he was just like us. A man who wanted a better life for himself and his people, a man who was genuine in his convictions. Some people consider him to have been a radical, because he believed that the disenfranchised should demand equality “by any means necessary”. His goal was to urge black people to use their votes as a way to progress their civil rights. To do this, he used some humor to connect to the masses. His use of Muhammad Ali as a metaphor in this speech may have been funny, stating that we should not be “singing” for freedom or treading lightly in this fight. But he goes on to say, “But you can swing up on some freedom. Cassius Clay can sing. But singing didn’t help him to become the heavyweight champion of the world. Swinging helped him” (Malcolm X 338). His tone grows from humorous to serious because he tries to exclaim that we must come to terms with when enough is enough. Malcolm X gave this speech in 1964, forty- five years after Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die”, but the message remains the same.

Malcolm X was trying to usher his people into a new world, a new way of thinking and living in America. Claude McKay was originally from Jamaica, but when he moved to the United States for higher education, he experienced racism first-hand which inspired him to begin writing poetry. His poem, “If We Must Die”, is written from the perspective of a black man speaking about fighting back when it comes to racism. The final line is the most powerful stating, “Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack/Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!” (McKay 139). The speaker says that their blood will not be shed in vain and this poem goes on to display themes of the frustrations and concerns with discrimination and with the state of the country. Written in 1919, this poem is yet another example of people of color no longer willing to take the horrendous treatment of them in America anymore. This is a pattern in the pieces of literature throughout the Harlem Renaissance, when the dynamics in the country were beginning to change, after slavery was abolished but before the civil rights movement began. Basically, black people were beginning to fight back against oppression, just like Malcolm X explained in his speech, even decades after McKay’s poem, that people of color must continue to fight back by any means necessary.

Perhaps to a layman on the subjects of racial experiences, maltreatment, or persecution, it would seem like things have improved when it comes to inequality in America. So why are we still reading about prejudice and racism? All of the men I mentioned, Martin Luther King Jr, Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X were assassinated in this country. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that there is still room for improvement. Even during the era of our first black president, men and women of color were still living in fear of many threats. In “Dear White America”, Smith uses metaphors for religion and the justice system in our country as examples of how people of color are often the ones left out of “God’s miracles”. He mentions the issue of mass incarceration of black men and says, “I’m sick of calling your recklessness the law” (315) which is a statement of the epidemic of police involved shootings of unarmed black people. Smith goes on to address the typical “white” perspectives towards people of color in America. Like the, “I just don’t see race” and “Why does it always have to be about race” (315).

The poem is written in a way that the speaker is acknowledging the problems with common, white opinions. That they do not understand the harm they cause, but the speaker is attempting to enlighten them from a person of color’s point of view. The piece progresses from just words that are detrimental and hurtful stereotypes, to the ongoing violence black/brown people must endure in this country. The tone of this poem, as in all of the other works, is angry, the speaker does not want to remain silent and in the ends tells the “white audience” that they will create a new world, one that cannot be stolen, sold, beaten, hanged, or shot and that, “this, if only this one, is ours” (315). It is discouraging that from 1919 to 2019 we are still analyzing these types of experiences in literature, because they continue to be relevant. Many people believe that living in a post- Obama America means racism is eradicated, but all it takes is to open a book, watch the news, or check social media to see that notion could not be further from the truth.

What all of these pieces have in common, are the ways in which literature and assembly of like- minded individuals can open up a space for those whose voices might not be heard otherwise. The written word is a medium unlike any other in the way that it can stand the test of time, to be passed down from generation to generation. While some subjects are incredibly depressing to endure, they remain extremely poignant time after time. With something as complicated as racial issues, we need literature to understand the speakers that came before us. To gain more awareness of how far we’ve come, and how much more we have to work on in this country. From Malcolm X, to the poets of today, the similarities far outweigh the differences in their experiences, which is both concerning and comforting in a way. It is unfortunate that people of color are still facing such ordeals today, but that fact that so many before them faced trials and tribulations, it goes to the strength and power they possessed in order to keep fighting. To keep fighting for equality and the advancement of the people.

If We Must Die

BY CLAUDE MCKAY

If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

dear white america

BY DANEZ SMITH

i’ve left Earth in search of darker planets, a solar system revolving too near a black hole. i’ve left in search of a new God. i do not trust the God you have given us. my grandmother’s hallelujah is only outdone by the fear she nurses every time the blood-fat summer swallows another child who used to sing in the choir. take your God back. though his songs are beautiful, his miracles are inconsistent. i want the fate of Lazarus for Renisha, want Chucky, Bo, Meech, Trayvon, Sean & Jonylah risen three days after their entombing, their ghost re-gifted flesh & blood, their flesh & blood re-gifted their children. i’ve left Earth, i am equal parts sick of your go back to Africa & i just don’t see race. neither did the poplar tree. we did not build your boats (though we did leave a trail of kin to guide us home). we did not build your prisons (though we did & we fill them too). we did not ask to be part of your America (though are we not America? her joints brittle & dragging a ripped gown through Oakland?). i can’t stand your ground. i’m sick of calling your recklessness the law. each night, i count my brothers. & in the morning, when some do not survive to be counted, i count the holes they leave. i reach for black folks & touch only air. your master magic trick, America. now he’s breathing, now he don’t. abra-cadaver. white bread voodoo. sorcery you claim not to practice, hand my cousin a pistol to do your work. i tried, white people. i tried to love you, but you spent my brother’s funeral making plans for brunch, talking too loud next to his bones. you took one look at the river, plump with the body of boy after girl after sweet boi & ask why does it always have to be about race? because you made it that way! because you put an asterisk on my sister’s gorgeous face! call her pretty (for a black girl)! because black girls go missing without so much as a whisper of where?! because there are no amber alerts for amber-skinned girls! because Jordan boomed. because Emmett whistled. because Huey P. spoke. because Martin preached. because black boys can always be too loud to live. because it’s taken my papa’s & my grandma’s time, my father’s time, my mother’s time, my aunt’s time, my uncle’s time, my brother’s & my sister’s time . . . how much time do you want for your progress? i’ve left Earth to find a place where my kin can be safe, where black people ain’t but people the same color as the good, wet earth, until that means something, until then i bid you well, i bid you war, i bid you our lives to gamble with no more. i’ve left Earth & i am touching everything you beg your telescopes to show you. i’m giving the stars their right names. & this life, this new story & history you cannot steal or sell or cast overboard or hang or beat or drown or own or redline or shackle or silence or cheat or choke or cover up or jail or shoot or jail or shoot or jail or shoot or ruin

this, if only this one, is ours.

The Ballot or the Bullet

by Malcolm X April 3, 1964 Cleveland, Ohio

Mr. Moderator, Brother Lomax, brothers and sisters, friends and enemies: I just can't believe everyone in here is a friend, and I don't want to leave anybody out. The question tonight, as I understand it, is "The Negro Revolt, and Where Do We Go From Here?" or What Next?" In my little humble way of understanding it, it points toward either the ballot or the bullet.

Before we try and explain what is meant by the ballot or the bullet, I would like to clarify something concerning myself. I'm still a Muslim; my religion is still Islam. That's my personal belief. Just as Adam Clayton Powell is a Christian minister who heads the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, but at the same time takes part in the political struggles to try and bring about rights to the black people in this country; and Dr. Martin Luther King is a Christian minister down in Atlanta, Georgia, who heads another organization fighting for the civil rights of black people in this country; and Reverend Galamison, I guess you've heard of him, is another Christian minister in New York who has been deeply involved in the school boycotts to eliminate segregated education; well, I myself am a minister, not a Christian minister, but a Muslim minister; and I believe in action on all fronts by whatever means necessary.

Although I'm still a Muslim, I'm not here tonight to discuss my religion. I'm not here to try and change your religion. I'm not here to argue or discuss anything that we differ about, because it's time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem, a problem that will make you catch hell whether you're a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist. Whether you're educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you're going to catch hell just like I am. We're all in the same boat and we all are going to catch the same hell from the same man. He just happens to be a white man. All of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppression at the hands of the white man, economic exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social degradation at the hands of the white man.

Now in speaking like this, it doesn't mean that we're anti-white, but it does mean we're anti-exploitation, we're anti-degradation, we're anti-oppression. And if the white man doesn't want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us. Whether we are Christians or Muslims or nationalists or agnostics or atheists, we must first learn to forget our differences. If we have differences, let us differ in the closet; when we come out in front, let us not have anything to argue about until we get finished arguing with the man. If the late President Kennedy could get together with Khrushchev and exchange some wheat, we certainly have more in common with each other than Kennedy and Khrushchev had with each other.

If we don't do something real soon, I think you'll have to agree that we're going to be forced either to use the ballot or the bullet. It's one or the other in 1964. It isn't that time is running out -- time has run out!

1964 threatens to be the most explosive year America has ever witnessed. The most explosive year. Why? It's also a political year. It's the year when all of the white politicians will be back in the so-called Negro community jiving you and me for some votes. The year when all of the white political crooks will be right back in your and my community with their false promises, building up our hopes for a letdown, with their trickery and their treachery, with their false promises which they don't intend to keep. As they nourish these dissatisfactions, it can only lead to one thing, an explosion; and now we have the type of black man on the scene in America today -- I'm sorry, Brother Lomax -- who just doesn't intend to turn the other cheek any longer.

Don't let anybody tell you anything about the odds are against you. If they draft you, they send you to Korea and make you face 800 million Chinese. If you can be brave over there, you can be brave right here. These odds aren't as great as those odds. And if you fight here, you will at least know what you're fighting for.

I'm not a politician, not even a student of politics; in fact, I'm not a student of much of anything. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican, and I don't even consider myself an American. If you and I were Americans, there'd be no problem. Those Honkies that just got off the boat, they're already Americans; Polacks are already Americans; the Italian refugees are already Americans. Everything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet.

Well, I am one who doesn't believe in deluding myself. I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American. Why, if birth made you American, you wouldn't need any legislation; you wouldn't need any amendments to the Constitution; you wouldn't be faced with civil-rights filibustering in Washington, D.C., right now. They don't have to pass civil-rights legislation to make a Polack an American.

No, I'm not an American. I'm one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I'm not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver -- no, not I. I'm speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.

These 22 million victims are waking up. Their eyes are coming open. They're beginning to see what they used to only look at. They're becoming politically mature. They are realizing that there are new political trends from coast to coast. As they see these new political trends, it's possible for them to see that every time there's an election the races are so close that they have to have a recount. They had to recount in Massachusetts to see who was going to be governor, it was so close. It was the same way in Rhode Island, in Minnesota, and in many other parts of the country. And the same with Kennedy and Nixon when they ran for president. It was so close they had to count all over again. Well, what does this mean? It means that when white people are evenly divided, and black people have a bloc of votes of their own, it is left up to them to determine who's going to sit in the White House and who's going to be in the dog house.

lt. was the black man's vote that put the present administration in Washington, D.C. Your vote, your dumb vote, your ignorant vote, your wasted vote put in an administration in Washington, D.C., that has seen fit to pass every kind of legislation imaginable, saving you until last, then filibustering on top of that. And your and my leaders have the audacity to run around clapping their hands and talk about how much progress we're making. And what a good president we have. If he wasn't good in Texas, he sure can't be good in Washington, D.C. Because Texas is a lynch state. It is in the same breath as Mississippi, no different; only they lynch you in Texas with a Texas accent and lynch you in Mississippi with a Mississippi accent. And these Negro leaders have the audacity to go and have some coffee in the White House with a Texan, a Southern cracker -- that's all he is -- and then come out and tell you and me that he's going to be better for us because, since he's from the South, he knows how to deal with the Southerners. What kind of logic is that? Let Eastland be president, he's from the South too. He should be better able to deal with them than Johnson.

In this present administration they have in the House of Representatives 257 Democrats to only 177 Republicans. They control two-thirds of the House vote. Why can't they pass something that will help you and me? In the Senate, there are 67 senators who are of the Democratic Party. Only 33 of them are Republicans. Why, the Democrats have got the government sewed up, and you're the one who sewed it up for them. And what have they given you for it? Four years in office, and just now getting around to some civil-rights legislation. Just now, after everything else is gone, out of the way, they're going to sit down now and play with you all summer long -- the same old giant con game that they call filibuster. All those are in cahoots together. Don't you ever think they're not in cahoots together, for the man that is heading the civil- rights filibuster is a man from Georgia named Richard Russell. When Johnson became president, the first man he asked for when he got back to Washington, D.C., was "Dicky" -- that's how tight they are. That's his boy, that's his pal, that's his buddy. But they're playing that old con game. One of them makes believe he's for you, and he's got it fixed where the other one is so tight against you, he never has to keep his promise.

So it's time in 1964 to wake up. And when you see them coming up with that kind of conspiracy, let them know your eyes are open. And let them know you -- something else that's wide open too. It's got to be the ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet. If you're afraid to use an expression like that, you should get on out of the country; you should get back in the cotton patch; you should get back in the alley. They get all the Negro vote, and after they get it, the Negro gets nothing in return. All they did when they got to Washington was give a few big Negroes big jobs. Those big Negroes didn't need big jobs, they already had jobs. That's camouflage, that's trickery, that's treachery, window-dressing. I'm not trying to knock out the Democrats for the Republicans. We'll get to them in a minute. But it is true; you put the Democrats first and the Democrats put you last.

Look at it the way it is. What alibis do they use, since they control Congress and the Senate? What alibi do they use when you and I ask, "Well, when are you going to keep your promise?" They blame the Dixiecrats. What is a Dixiecrat? A Democrat. A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat in disguise. The titular head of the Democrats is also the head of the Dixiecrats, because the Dixiecrats are a part of the Democratic Party. The Democrats have never kicked the Dixiecrats out of the party. The Dixiecrats bolted themselves once, but the Democrats didn't put them out. Imagine, these lowdown Southern segregationists put the Northern Democrats down. But the Northern Democrats have never put the Dixiecrats down. No, look at that thing the way it is. They have got a con game going on, a political con game, and you and I are in the middle. It's time for you and me to wake up and start looking at it like it is, and trying to understand it like it is; and then we can deal with it like it is.

The Dixiecrats in Washington, D.C., control the key committees that run the government. The only reason the Dixiecrats control these committees is because they have seniority. The only reason they have seniority is because they come from states where Negroes can't vote. This is not even a government that's based on democracy. lt. is not a government that is made up of representatives of the people. Half of the people in the South can't even vote. Eastland is not even supposed to be in Washington. Half of the senators and congressmen who occupy these key positions in Washington, D.C., are there illegally, are there unconstitutionally.

I was in Washington, D.C., a week ago Thursday, when they were debating whether or not they should let the bill come onto the floor. And in the back of the room where the Senate meets, there's a huge map of the United States, and on that map it shows the location of Negroes throughout the country. And it shows that the Southern section of the country, the states that are most heavily concentrated with Negroes, are the ones that have senators and congressmen standing up filibustering and doing all other kinds of trickery to keep the Negro from being able to vote. This is pitiful. But it's not pitiful for us any longer; it's actually pitiful for the white man, because soon now, as the Negro awakens a little more and sees the vise that he's in, sees the bag that he's in, sees the real game that he's in, then the Negro's going to develop a new tactic.

These senators and congressmen actually violate the constitutional amendments that guarantee the people of that particular state or county the right to vote. And the Constitution itself has within it the machinery to expel any representative from a state where the voting rights of the people are violated. You don't even need new legislation. Any person in Congress right now, who is there from a state or a district where the voting rights of the people are violated, that particular person should be expelled from Congress. And when you expel him, you've removed one of the obstacles in the path of any real meaningful legislation in this country. In fact, when you expel them, you don't need new legislation, because they will be replaced by black representatives from counties and districts where the black man is in the majority, not in the minority.

If the black man in these Southern states had his full voting rights, the key Dixiecrats in Washington, D. C., which means the key Democrats in Washington, D.C., would lose their seats. The Democratic Party itself would lose its power. It would cease to be powerful as a party. When you see the amount of power that would be lost by the Democratic Party if it were to lose the Dixiecrat wing, or branch, or element, you can see where it's against the interests of the Democrats to give voting rights to Negroes in states where the Democrats have been in complete power and authority ever since the Civil War. You just can't belong to that Party without analyzing it.

I say again, I'm not anti-Democrat, I'm not anti-Republican, I'm not anti-anything. I'm just questioning their sincerity, and some of the strategy that they've been using on our people by promising them promises that they don't intend to keep. When you keep the Democrats in power, you're keeping the Dixiecrats in power. I doubt that my good Brother Lomax will deny that. A vote for a Democrat is a vote for a Dixiecrat. That's why, in 1964, it's time now for you and me to become more politically mature and realize what the ballot is for; what we're supposed to get when we cast a ballot; and that if we don't cast a ballot, it's going to end up in a situation where we're going to have to cast a bullet. It's either a ballot or a bullet.

In the North, they do it a different way. They have a system that's known as gerrymandering, whatever that means. It means when Negroes become too heavily concentrated in a certain area, and begin to gain too much political power, the white man comes along and changes the district lines. You may say, "Why do you keep saying white man?" Because it's the white man who does it. I haven't ever seen any Negro changing any lines. They don't let him get near the line. It's the white man who does this. And usually, it's the white man who grins at you the most, and pats you on the back, and is supposed to be your friend. He may be friendly, but he's not your friend.

So, what I'm trying to impress upon you, in essence, is this: You and I in America are faced not with a segregationist conspiracy, we're faced with a government conspiracy. Everyone who's filibustering is a senator -- that's the government. Everyone who's finagling in Washington, D.C., is a congressman -- that's the government. You don't have anybody putting blocks in your path but people who are a part of the government. The same government that you go abroad to fight for and die for is the government that is in a conspiracy to deprive you of your voting rights, deprive you of your economic opportunities, deprive you of decent housing, deprive you of decent education. You don't need to go to the employer alone, it is the government itself, the government of America, that is responsible for the oppression and exploitation and degradation of black people in this country. And you should drop it in their lap. This government has failed the Negro. This so-called democracy has failed the Negro. And all these white liberals have definitely failed the Negro.

So, where do we go from here? First, we need some friends. We need some new allies. The entire civil-rights struggle needs a new interpretation, a broader interpretation. We need to look at this civil-rights thing from another angle -- from the inside as well as from the outside. To those of us whose philosophy is black nationalism, the only way you can get involved in the civil-rights struggle is give it a new interpretation. That old interpretation excluded us. It kept us out. So, we're giving a new interpretation to the civil-rights struggle, an interpretation that will enable us to come into it, take part in it. And these handkerchief-heads who have been dillydallying and pussy footing and compromising -- we don't intend to let them pussyfoot and dillydally and compromise any longer.

How can you thank a man for giving you what's already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only part of what's already yours? You haven't even made progress, if what's being given to you, you should have had already. That's not progress. And I love my Brother Lomax, the way he pointed out we're right back where we were in 1954. We're not even as far up as we were in 1954. We're behind where we were in 1954. There's more segregation now than there was in 1954. There's more racial animosity, more racial hatred, more racial violence today in 1964, than there was in 1954. Where is the progress?

And now you're facing a situation where the young Negro's coming up. They don't want to hear that "turn the-other-cheek" stuff, no. In Jacksonville, those were teenagers, they were throwing Molotov cocktails. Negroes have never done that before. But it shows you there's a new deal coming in. There's new thinking coming in. There's new strategy coming in. It'll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades next month, and something else next month. It'll be ballots, or it'll be bullets. It'll be liberty, or it will be death. The only difference about this kind of death -- it'll be reciprocal. You know what is meant by "reciprocal"? That's one of Brother Lomax's words. I stole it from him. I don't usually deal with those big words because I don't usually deal with big people. I deal with small people. I find you can get a whole lot of small people and whip hell out of a whole lot of big people. They haven't got anything to lose, and they've got every thing to gain. And they'll let you know in a minute: "It takes two to tango; when I go, you go."

The black nationalists, those whose philosophy is black nationalism, in bringing about this new interpretation of the entire meaning of civil rights, look upon it as meaning, as Brother Lomax has pointed out, equality of opportunity. Well, we're justified in seeking civil rights, if it means equality of opportunity, because all we're doing there is trying to collect for our investment. Our mothers and fathers invested sweat and blood. Three hundred and ten years we worked in this country without a dime in return -- I mean without a dime in return. You let the white man walk around here talking about how rich this country is, but you never stop to think how it got rich so quick. It got rich because you made it rich.

You take the people who are in this audience right now. They're poor. We're all poor as individuals. Our weekly salary individually amounts to hardly anything. But if you take the salary of everyone in here collectively, it'll fill up a whole lot of baskets. It's a lot of wealth. If you can collect the wages of just these people right here for a year, you'll be rich -- richer than rich. When you look at it like that, think how rich Uncle Sam had to become, not with this handful, but millions of black people. Your and my mother and father, who didn't work an eight-hour shift, but worked from "can't see" in the morning until "can't see" at night, and worked for nothing, making the white man rich, making Uncle Sam rich. This is our investment. This is our contribution, our blood.

Not only did we give of our free labor, we gave of our blood. Every time he had a call to arms, we were the first ones in uniform. We died on every battlefield the white man had. We have made a greater sacrifice than anybody who's standing up in America today. We have made a greater contribution and have collected less. Civil rights, for those of us whose philosophy is black nationalism, means: "Give it to us now. Don't wait for next year. Give it to us yesterday, and that's not fast enough."

I might stop right here to point out one thing. Whenever you're going after something that belongs to you, anyone who's depriving you of the right to have it is a criminal.

Understand that. Whenever you are going after something that is yours, you are within your legal rights to lay claim to it. And anyone who puts forth any effort to deprive you of that which is yours, is breaking the law, is a criminal. And this was pointed out by the Supreme Court decision. It outlawed segregation.

Which means segregation is against the law. Which means a segregationist is breaking the law. A segregationist is a criminal. You can't label him as anything other than that. And when you demonstrate against segregation, the law is on your side. The Supreme Court is on your side.

Now, who is it that opposes you in carrying out the law? The police department itself. With police dogs and clubs. Whenever you demonstrate against segregation, whether it is segregated education, segregated housing, or anything else, the law is on your side, and anyone who stands in the way is not the law any longer. They are breaking the law; they are not representatives of the law. Any time you demonstrate against segregation and a man has the audacity to put a police dog on you, kill that dog, kill him, I'm telling you, kill that dog. I say it, if they put me in jail tomorrow, kill that dog. Then you'll put a stop to it. Now, if these white people in here don't want to see that kind of action, get down and tell the mayor to tell the police department to pull the dogs in. That's all you have to do. If you don't do it, someone else will.

If you don't take this kind of stand, your little children will grow up and look at you and think "shame." If you don't take an uncompromising stand, I don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do. And that's the way every Negro should get. Any time you know you're within the law, within your legal rights, within your moral rights, in accord with justice, then die for what you believe in. But don't die alone. Let your dying be reciprocal. This is what is meant by equality. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

When we begin to get in this area, we need new friends, we need new allies. We need to expand the civil-rights struggle to a higher level -- to the level of human rights. Whenever you are in a civil-rights struggle, whether you know it or not, you are confining yourself to the jurisdiction of Uncle Sam. No one from the outside world can speak out in your behalf as long as your struggle is a civil-rights struggle. Civil rights comes within the domestic affairs of this country. All of our African brothers and our Asian brothers and our Latin-American brothers cannot open their mouths and interfere in the domestic affairs of the United States. And as long as it's civil rights, this comes under the jurisdiction of Uncle Sam.

But the United Nations has what's known as the charter of human rights; it has a committee that deals in human rights. You may wonder why all of the atrocities that have been committed in Africa and in Hungary and in Asia, and in Latin America are brought before the UN, and the Negro problem is never brought before the UN. This is part of the conspiracy. This old, tricky blue eyed liberal who is supposed to be your and my friend, supposed to be in our corner, supposed to be subsidizing our struggle, and supposed to be acting in the capacity of an adviser, never tells you anything about human rights. They keep you wrapped up in civil rights. And you spend so much time barking up the civil-rights tree, you don't even know there's a human-rights tree on the same floor.

When you expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights, you can then take the case of the black man in this country before the nations in the UN. You can take it before the General Assembly. You can take Uncle Sam before a world court. But the only level you can do it on is the level of human rights. Civil rights keeps you under his restrictions, under his jurisdiction. Civil rights keeps you in his pocket. Civil rights means you're asking Uncle Sam to treat you right. Human rights are something you were born with. Human rights are your God-given rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this earth. And any time any one violates your human rights, you can take them to the world court.

Uncle Sam's hands are dripping with blood, dripping with the blood of the black man in this country. He's the earth's number-one hypocrite. He has the audacity -- yes, he has -- imagine him posing as the leader of the free world. The free world! And you over here singing "We Shall Overcome." Expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights. Take it into the United Nations, where our African brothers can throw their weight on our side, where our Asian brothers can throw their weight on our side, where our Latin-American brothers can throw their weight on our side, and where 800 million Chinamen are sitting there waiting to throw their weight on our side.

Let the world know how bloody his hands are. Let the world know the hypocrisy that's practiced over here. Let it be the ballot or the bullet. Let him know that it must be the ballot or the bullet.

When you take your case to Washington, D.C., you're taking it to the criminal who's responsible; it's like running from the wolf to the fox. They're all in cahoots together. They all work political chicanery and make you look like a chump before the eyes of the world. Here you are walking around in America, getting ready to be drafted and sent abroad, like a tin soldier, and when you get over there, people ask you what are you fighting for, and you have to stick your tongue in your cheek. No, take Uncle Sam to court, take him before the world.

By ballot I only mean freedom. Don't you know -- I disagree with Lomax on this issue -- that the ballot is more important than the dollar? Can I prove it? Yes. Look in the UN. There are poor nations in the UN; yet those poor nations can get together with their voting power and keep the rich nations from making a move. They have one nation -- one vote, everyone has an equal vote. And when those brothers from Asia, and Africa and the darker parts of this earth get together, their voting power is sufficient to hold Sam in check. Or Russia in check. Or some other section of the earth in check. So, the ballot is most important.

Right now, in this country, if you and I, 22 million African-Americans -- that's what we are -- Africans who are in America. You're nothing but Africans. Nothing but Africans. In fact, you'd get farther calling yourself African instead of Negro. Africans don't catch hell. You're the only one catching hell. They don't have to pass civil-rights bills for Africans. An African can go anywhere he wants right now. All you've got to do is tie your head up. That's right, go anywhere you want. Just stop being a Negro. Change your name to Hoogagagooba. That'll show you how silly the white man is. You're dealing with a silly man. A friend of mine who's very dark put a turban on his head and went into a restaurant in Atlanta before they called themselves desegregated. He went into a white restaurant, he sat down, they served him, and he said, "What would happen if a Negro came in here? And there he's sitting, black as night, but because he had his head wrapped up the waitress looked back at him and says, "Why, there wouldn't no nigger dare come in here."

So, you're dealing with a man whose bias and prejudice are making him lose his mind, his intelligence, every day. He's frightened. He looks around and sees what's taking place on this earth, and he sees that the pendulum of time is swinging in your direction. The dark people are waking up. They're losing their fear of the white man. No place where he's fighting right now is he winning. Everywhere he's fighting, he's fighting someone your and my complexion. And they're beating him. He can't win any more. He's won his last battle. He failed to win the Korean War. He couldn't win it. He had to sign a truce. That's a loss.

Any time Uncle Sam, with all his machinery for warfare, is held to a draw by some rice eaters, he's lost the battle. He had to sign a truce. America's not supposed to sign a truce. She's supposed to be bad. But she's not bad any more. She's bad as long as she can use her hydrogen bomb, but she can't use hers for fear Russia might use hers. Russia can't use hers, for fear that Sam might use his. So, both of them are weapon- less. They can't use the weapon because each's weapon nullifies the other's. So the only place where action can take place is on the ground. And the white man can't win another war fighting on the ground. Those days are over The black man knows it, the brown man knows it, the red man knows it, and the yellow man knows it. So they engage him in guerrilla warfare. That's not his style. You've got to have heart to be a guerrilla warrior, and he hasn't got any heart. I'm telling you now.

I just want to give you a little briefing on guerrilla warfare because, before you know it, before you know it. It takes heart to be a guerrilla warrior because you're on your own. In conventional warfare you have tanks and a whole lot of other people with you to back you up -- planes over your head and all that kind of stuff. But a guerrilla is on his own. All you have is a rifle, some sneakers and a bowl of rice, and that's all you need -- and a lot of heart. The Japanese on some of those islands in the Pacific, when the American soldiers landed, one Japanese sometimes could hold the whole army off. He'd just wait until the sun went down, and when the sun went down they were all equal. He would take his little blade and slip from bush to bush, and from American to American. The white soldiers couldn't cope with that. Whenever you see a white soldier that fought in the Pacific, he has the shakes, he has a nervous condition, because they scared him to death.

The same thing happened to the French up in French Indochina. People who just a few years previously were rice farmers got together and ran the heavily-mechanized French army out of Indochina. You don't need it -- modern warfare today won't work. This is the day of the guerrilla. They did the same thing in Algeria. Algerians, who were nothing but Bedouins, took a rine and sneaked off to the hills, and de Gaulle and all of his highfalutin' war machinery couldn't defeat those guerrillas. Nowhere on this earth does the white man win in a guerrilla warfare. It's not his speed. Just as guerrilla warfare is prevailing in Asia and in parts of Africa and in parts of Latin America, you've got to be mighty naive, or you've got to play the black man cheap, if you don't think some day he's going to wake up and find that it's got to be the ballot or the bullet.

l would like to say, in closing, a few things concerning the Muslim Mosque, Inc., which we established recently in New York City. It's true we're Muslims and our religion is Islam, but we don't mix our religion with our politics and our economics and our social and civil activities -- not any more We keep our religion in our mosque. After our religious services are over, then as Muslims we become involved in political action, economic action and social and civic action. We become involved with anybody, any where, any time and in any manner that's designed to eliminate the evils, the political, economic and social evils that are afflicting the people of our community.

The political philosophy of black nationalism means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community; no more. The black man in the black community has to be re-educated into the science of politics so he will know what politics is supposed to bring him in return. Don't be throwing out any ballots. A ballot is like a bullet. You don't throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.

The political philosophy of black nationalism is being taught in the Christian church. It's being taught in the NAACP. It's being taught in CORE meetings. It's being taught in SNCC Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee meetings. It's being taught in Muslim meetings. It's being taught where nothing but atheists and agnostics come together. It's being taught everywhere. Black people are fed up with the dillydallying, pussyfooting, compromising approach that we've been using toward getting our freedom. We want freedom now, but we're not going to get it saying "We Shall Overcome." We've got to fight until we overcome.

The economic philosophy of black nationalism is pure and simple. It only means that we should control the economy of our community. Why should white people be running all the stores in our community? Why should white people be running the banks of our community? Why should the economy of our community be in the hands of the white man? Why? If a black man can't move his store into a white community, you tell me why a white man should move his store into a black community. The philosophy of black nationalism involves a re-education program in the black community in regards to economics. Our people have to be made to see that any time you take your dollar out of your community and spend it in a community where you don't live, the community where you live will get poorer and poorer, and the community where you spend your money will get richer and richer.

Then you wonder why where you live is always a ghetto or a slum area. And where you and I are concerned, not only do we lose it when we spend it out of the community, but the white man has got all our stores in the community tied up; so that though we spend it in the community, at sundown the man who runs the store takes it over across town somewhere. He's got us in a vise. So the economic philosophy of black nationalism means in every church, in every civic organization, in every fraternal order, it's time now for our people to be come conscious of the importance of controlling the economy of our community. If we own the stores, if we operate the businesses, if we try and establish some industry in our own community, then we're developing to the position where we are creating employment for our own kind. Once you gain control of the economy of your own community, then you don't have to picket and boycott and beg some cracker downtown for a job in his business.

The social philosophy of black nationalism only means that we have to get together and remove the evils, the vices, alcoholism, drug addiction, and other evils that are destroying the moral fiber of our community. We our selves have to lift the level of our community, the standard of our community to a higher level, make our own society beautiful so that we will be satisfied in our own social circles and won't be running around here trying to knock our way into a social circle where we're not wanted. So I say, in spreading a gospel such as black nationalism, it is not designed to make the black man re-evaluate the white man -- you know him already -- but to make the black man re-evaluate himself. Don't change the white man's mind -- you can't change his mind, and that whole thing about appealing to the moral conscience of America -- America's conscience is bankrupt. She lost all conscience a long time ago. Uncle Sam has no conscience.

They don't know what morals are. They don't try and eliminate an evil because it's evil, or because it's illegal, or because it's immoral; they eliminate it only when it threatens their existence. So you're wasting your time appealing to the moral conscience of a bankrupt man like Uncle Sam. If he had a conscience, he'd straighten this thing out with no more pressure being put upon him. So it is not necessary to change the white man's mind. We have to change our own mind. You can't change his mind about us. We've got to change our own minds about each other. We have to see each other with new eyes. We have to see each other as brothers and sisters. We have to come together with warmth so we can develop unity and harmony that's necessary to get this problem solved ourselves. How can we do this? How can we avoid jealousy? How can we avoid the suspicion and the divisions that exist in the community? I'll tell you how.

I have watched how Billy Graham comes into a city, spreading what he calls the gospel of Christ, which is only white nationalism. That's what he is. Billy Graham is a white nationalist; I'm a black nationalist. But since it's the natural tendency for leaders to be jealous and look upon a powerful figure like Graham with suspicion and envy, how is it possible for him to come into a city and get all the cooperation of the church leaders? Don't think because they're church leaders that they don't have weaknesses that make them envious and jealous -- no, everybody's got it. It's not an accident that when they want to choose a cardinal, as Pope I over there in Rome, they get in a closet so you can't hear them cussing and fighting and carrying on.

Billy Graham comes in preaching the gospel of Christ. He evangelizes the gospel. He stirs everybody up, but he never tries to start a church. If he came in trying to start a church, all the churches would be against him. So, he just comes in talking about Christ and tells everybody who gets Christ to go to any church where Christ is; and in this way the church cooperates with him. So we're going to take a page from his book.

Our gospel is black nationalism. We're not trying to threaten the existence of any organization, but we're spreading the gospel of black nationalism. Anywhere there's a church that is also preaching and practicing the gospel of black nationalism, join that church. If the NAACP is preaching and practicing the gospel of black nationalism, join the NAACP. If CORE is spreading and practicing the gospel of black nationalism, join CORE. Join any organization that has a gospel that's for the uplift of the black man. And when you get into it and see them pussyfooting or compromising, pull out of it because that's not black nationalism. We'll find another one.

And in this manner, the organizations will increase in number and in quantity and in quality, and by August, it is then our intention to have a black nationalist convention which will consist of delegates from all over the country who are interested in the political, economic and social philosophy of black nationalism. After these delegates convene, we will hold a seminar; we will hold discussions; we will listen to everyone. We want to hear new ideas and new solutions and new answers. And at that time, if we see fit then to form a black nationalist party, we'll form a black nationalist party. If it's necessary to form a black nationalist army, we'll form a black nationalist army. It'll be the ballot or the bullet. It'll be liberty or it'll be death.

It's time for you and me to stop sitting in this country, letting some cracker senators, Northern crackers and Southern crackers, sit there in Washington, D.C., and come to a conclusion in their mind that you and I are supposed to have civil rights. There's no white man going to tell me anything about my rights. Brothers and sisters, always remember, if it doesn't take senators and congressmen and presidential proclamations to give freedom to the white man, it is not necessary for legislation or proclamation or Supreme Court decisions to give freedom to the black man. You let that white man know, if this is a country of freedom, let it be a country of freedom; and if it's not a country of freedom, change it.

We will work with anybody, anywhere, at any time, who is genuinely interested in tackling the problem head-on, nonviolently as long as the enemy is nonviolent, but violent when the enemy gets violent. We'll work with you on the voter-registration drive, we'll work with you on rent strikes, we'll work with you on school boycotts; I don't believe in any kind of integration; I'm not even worried about it, because I know you're not going to get it anyway; you're not going to get it because you're afraid to die; you've got to be ready to die if you try and force yourself on the white man, because he'll get just as violent as those crackers in Mississippi, right here in Cleveland. But we will still work with you on the school boycotts be cause we're against a segregated school system. A segregated school system produces children who, when they graduate, graduate with crippled minds. But this does not mean that a school is segregated because it's all black. A segregated school means a school that is controlled by people who have no real interest in it whatsoever.

Let me explain what I mean. A segregated district or community is a community in which people live, but outsiders control the politics and the economy of that community. They never refer to the white section as a segregated community. It's the all-Negro section that's a segregated community. Why? The white man controls his own school, his own bank, his own economy, his own politics, his own everything, his own community; but he also controls yours. When you're under someone else's control, you're segregated. They'll always give you the lowest or the worst that there is to offer, but it doesn't mean you're segregated just because you have your own. You've got to control your own. Just like the white man has control of his, you need to control yours.

You know the best way to get rid of segregation? The white man is more afraid of separation than he is of integration. Segregation means that he puts you away from him, but not far enough for you to be out of his jurisdiction; separation means you're gone. And the white man will integrate faster than he'll let you separate. So we will work with you against the segregated school system because it's criminal, because it is absolutely destructive, in every way imaginable, to the minds of the children who have to be exposed to that type of crippling education.

Last but not least, I must say this concerning the great controversy over rifles and shotguns. The only thing that I've ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it's time for Negroes to defend themselves. Article number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun. It is constitutionally legal to own a shotgun or a rifle. This doesn't mean you're going to get a rifle and form battalions and go out looking for white folks, although you'd be within your rights -- I mean, you'd be justified; but that would be illegal and we don't do anything illegal. If the white man doesn't want the black man buying rifles and shotguns, then let the government do its job.

That's all. And don't let the white man come to you and ask you what you think about what Malcolm says -- why, you old Uncle Tom. He would never ask you if he thought you were going to say, "Amen!" No, he is making a Tom out of you." So, this doesn't mean forming rifle clubs and going out looking for people, but it is time, in 1964, if you are a man, to let that man know. If he's not going to do his job in running the government and providing you and me with the protection that our taxes are supposed to be for, since he spends all those billions for his defense budget, he certainly can't begrudge you and me spending $12 or $15 for a single-shot, or double-action. I hope you understand. Don't go out shooting people, but any time -- brothers and sisters, and especially the men in this audience; some of you wearing Congressional Medals of Honor, with shoulders this wide, chests this big, muscles that big -- any time you and I sit around and read where they bomb a church and murder in cold blood, not some grownups, but four little girls while they were praying to the same God the white man taught them to pray to, and you and I see the government go down and can't find who did it.

Why, this man -- he can find Eichmann hiding down in Argentina somewhere. Let two or three American soldiers, who are minding somebody else's business way over in South Vietnam, get killed, and he'll send battleships, sticking his nose in their business. He wanted to send troops down to Cuba and make them have what he calls free elections -- this old cracker who doesn't have free elections in his own country.

No, if you never see me another time in your life, if I die in the morning, I'll die saying one thing: the ballot or the bullet, the ballot or the bullet.

If a Negro in 1964 has to sit around and wait for some cracker senator to filibuster when it comes to the rights of black people, why, you and I should hang our heads in shame. You talk about a march on Washington in 1963, you haven't seen anything. There's some more going down in '64.

And this time they're not going like they went last year. They're not going singing ''We Shall Overcome." They're not going with white friends. They're not going with placards already painted for them. They're not going with round-trip tickets. They're going with one way tickets. And if they don't want that non-nonviolent army going down there, tell them to bring the filibuster to a halt.

The black nationalists aren't going to wait. Lyndon B. Johnson is the head of the Democratic Party. If he's for civil rights, let him go into the Senate next week and declare himself. Let him go in there right now and declare himself. Let him go in there and denounce the Southern branch of his party. Let him go in there right now and take a moral stand -- right now, not later. Tell him, don't wait until election time. If he waits too long, brothers and sisters, he will be responsible for letting a condition develop in this country which will create a climate that will bring seeds up out of the ground with vegetation on the end of them looking like something these people never dreamed of. In 1964, it's the ballot or the bullet.

Thank you.

#george floyd #ahmaudaubrey #justiceforahmaud #protest #malcolmx #georgefloyd #black lives matter #i cant breathe

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