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69balcony · 11 months

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Larry Kramer Speech at Cooper Union

“The Tragedy of Today’s Gays”

November 21, 2004

I think this has been the most difficult speech I have ever had to write and to deliver. It is a long speech. I pray you will bear with me until its end.

It is an attempt to give you some idea of who and what we are up against. It is also an attempt to discuss our ability to deal with these.

I recently learned about two dear friends, both exceptionally smart and talented and each in his own way a leader of our community. One, in his middle age, has sero-converted. The other, in his middle-age, has become hooked on crystal meth. Both of them are here with us tonight.

I love being gay. I love gay people. I think we’re better than other people. I really do. I think we’re smarter and more talented and more aware and I do, I do, I totally do. And I think we’re more tuned in to what’s happening, tuned into the moment, tuned into our emotions, and other people’s emotions, and we’re better friends. I really do think all these things.

To us it defies rational analysis that this incompetent dishonest man and his party should be re-elected. Or does it?

I hope we all realize that, as of November 2nd, gay rights are officially dead. And that from here on we are going to be led even closer to the guillotine. This past week almost 60 million of our so-called “fellow” Americans voted against us. Indeed 23% of self-identified gay people voted against us, too. That one I can’t figure.

The absoluteness of what has happened is terrifying. On the gay marriage initiatives alone: 2.6 million against us in Michigan. 3.2 million in Ohio. 1.1 million in Oklahoma, 2.2 million in Georgia. 1.2 million in Kentucky. George Bush won his Presidency of our country by selling our futures. Almost 60 million people whom we live and work with every day think we are immoral. “Moral values” was top of many lists of why people supported George Bush. Not Iraq. Not the economy. Not terrorism. “Moral values.” In case you need a translation that means us. It is hard to stand up to so much hate. Which of course is just the way they want it. Please know that a huge portion of the population of the United States hates us. I don’t mean dislike. I mean hate. You may not choose to call it hate, but I do. Not only because they refuse us certain marital rights but because they have also elected a congress that is overflowing with men and women who refuse us just about every other right to exist as well. “Moral values” is really a misnomer; it means just the reverse. It means they think we are immoral. And that we’re dangerous and contaminated. How do you like being called immoral by some 60 million people? This is not just anti-gay. This is what Doug Ireland calls “homo hate” on the grandest scale. How do we stand up to 60 million people who have found a voice and a President who declares he has a mandate?

The new Supreme Court, due any moment now, will erase us from the slate of everything possible in no time at all. Gay marriage? Forget it. Gay anything, forget it. Civil rights for gays? Equal protection for gays. Adoption rights? The only thing we are going to get from now on is years of increasing and escalating hate. Surely you must know this. Laws and regulations that now protect us will be repealed and rewritten. Please know all this. With the arrival of this second term of these hateful people we come even closer to our extinction. We should have seen it coming. We are all smart people. How could we not have been prepared?

They have not exactly been making a secret of their hate. This last campaign has seen examples of daily hate on tv and in the media that I do not believe the world has witnessed since Nazi Germany. I have been reading Ambassador Dodd’s Diary; he was Roosevelt’s ambassador to Germany in the 30’s, and people are always popping in and out of his office proclaiming the most awful things out loud about Jews. It has been like that.

All Mary Cheney is is a lesbian! Even her mother is hateful! That Cheney must be one fucked-up kid to stick around that family. I hope she doesn’t want to teach school. One of the reelected Congress persons vows to make it illegal for lesbians to teach school.

I know many people look to me for answers. Perhaps that is why many of you are here. You want answers? We’re living in pigshit and its up to each one of us to figure out how to get out of it. You must know that by now. Crystal meth is not an answer. You must know that by now. And quite frankly statistically it is only happening to so few of us that it is hard to get anyone worked up about that problem. Just as it hard to get worked up about a middle-aged man with brains who sero-converts. You want to kill yourself. Go kill yourself. I’m sorry. It takes hard work to behave like an adult. It takes discipline. You want it to be simple. It isn’t simple. Yes it is. Grow up. Behave responsibly. Fight for your rights. Take care of yourself and each other. These are the answers. It takes courage to live. Are you living? Not so I can see it. Gay people are all but invisible to me now. I wish you weren’t. But you are. And I look real hard.

No one likes to be told to grow up. It’s insulting. But these are always the answers. They will always be the answers. The only answers. There will never be any other answers. Grow up. Behave responsibly. Fight for your rights. Take care of yourself and each other. Be proud of yourself. Be proud you are gay. I don’t know why so many find all this so complicated. But then I am 69 years old and have less patience for the many problems I had myself when young. It is one of the privileges of getting old.

It is 25 years since 100,000 of us marched on Washington.

The Aids service organizations are all about to collapse. No money. And the problem is too big to handle anymore. We have not slowed this thing down at all. $100 billion we’re spending on Iraq. This is a conscious choice by our “leaders” and by a large portion of the population of this country. They have in their infinite and never-ending cruelty decided this was the most effective thing to do with 100 billion dollars that might also end Aids, and a few other things like worldwide hunger. But the cabal doesn’t care about these. People say: well we can’t take care of the rest of the world. That is so stupid. The rest of the world is us. We are so intertwined geopolitically that we cannot separate ourselves off into parts, into sections. Those days are over. If they ever were here. We have everything required to save the world except the will to do it. In a recent New Yorker piece Michael Specter writes that because of Aids Russia is on its way to disappearing. Disappearing. Imagine that.

The immense knowledge we have learned about Aids has provided us with precious little more than that knowledge. HIV/AIDS is now the worst disaster in recorded human history. In parts of Africa 7000 people are infecting each other each and every day. We who are here are idiots if we think this fact is not going to alter our lives mightily. If your company loses enough world markets, which it most certainly will, you are going to lose your job. You will not have health insurance, for a start. And for a finish. Economies are simply going to collapse. This is already happening.

In 1990, that is some nine years into what was happening, 46% of gay men in San Francisco were still fucking without condoms.

60% of the syphilis in America today is in gay men. Excuse me, men who have sex with men.

Palm Springs has the highest number of syphilis cases in California. Palm Springs?

I do not want to hear each week how many more of you are becoming hooked on meth.

HIV infections are up as much as 40%.

You cannot continue to allow yourselves and each other to act and live like this!

One of these days the miraculous drugs we have to keep us alive are going to stop working. Our systems cannot process these extreme chemotherapies indefinitely. That is what we are on. We are on daily chemotherapy. No one wants to call it that. We call it the cocktail. We are on chemotherapy! Chemotherapy either kills the disease or kills us! What are we going to do when they don’t work any longer?

Some 70 million people so far are expected to die. “July 3, 1981, Rare cancer seen in 41 homosexuals.” When I first started yelling about whatever it was there were 41 cases. THERE ARE NOW OVER 70 MILLION WHO HAVE BEEN INFECTED WITH HIV. Somebody up there is really listening, don’t you think? There is no way that all infected people can be saved. No one ever says that out loud. Have you noticed? Somehow in some dream world we are going to get treatment into 70 million people. It is never going to happen. IT IS TOO LATE. We told them. But they didn’t do anything. Did you notice? Nobody every does anything. I hope it’s finally dawning on you that maybe they didn’t and don’t want to. So, in case you haven’t noticed, we have lost the war against Aids. I thought I’d tell you that, too. I hope you might have noticed. I can’t tell.

The President refuses to buy generic drugs for dying people. He is still saying he is waiting to hear if they are safe. These drugs have been approved. In some cases for several years. Does this sound like a President who wants to save anyone?

I do not understand why some of you believe that because we have drugs that deal with the virus more or less effectively that it is worth the gamble to have unprotected sex. These drugs are not easy to take. There are many side effects. Not life but certainly comfort threatening. I must allow at least one day out of every week or two to feel really shitty, to have no sleep, to be constipated, to have diarrhea, to require blood tests and monitoring at hospitals or in doctors’ offices, and to have the shakes. The shakes, which come often, are not useful with a mouse or reading a newspaper or with a lover in your arms. And I don’t enjoy eating anymore. Keeping on weight is a constant problem. I have dry mouth. I get up six or seven times a night to pee. Many of the meds we are now taking are new meds and were approved quickly and side effects have a sneaky way of showing up after FDA approval, not before. I recently discovered that I was taking an FDA approved dose of Viread that has turned out to be five times the amount I actually need. We are all probably taking too much or too little of every single one of our drugs. Doctors don’t want to test for this; tests are not readily available. You have to do a lot of homework yourselves on these drugs. Is a fuck without a condom worth not being able to taste food? Obviously for too many of you it is.

My lover often sits on top of me to make me eat. The first time this happened I was in the hospital just after my liver transplant and I wouldn’t eat and Dr. Fung said I had to eat, or else I would die, and I just couldn’t eat (do you know how strange this is to someone who was always on a diet?). It was New Year’s Eve. We were in beautiful downtown Pittsburgh. David had brought a hamper filled with my favorite dishes. And I could not eat anything. Furiously he crawled into bed with me, boots and all, and started to cry. “We haven’t come this far for you to die because you won’t eat,” he screamed, tears streaming down his face. I will never forget that. I will never forget this man I love so much in bed with me with his snowy boots on starting slowly to spoon into me whatever he’d made and I trying so desperately hard to swallow it, looking at him, this man I love so much, doing this for me, both of us now bawling our eyes out and hugging each other in this strange bed in this strange town, wondering how we got here.

It’s so wonderful being a gay person. I said that before. I’m going to say it again. I love being gay. And I love gay people. I think we’re better than other people. I really do. I think we’re smarter and more talented and more aware and I do, I do, I totally do. And I think we’re more tuned in to what’s happening, tuned into the moment, tuned into our emotions, and other people’s emotions, and we’re better friends. I really do think all of these things. And I try not to forget them.

Since the very first day of this plague we have been given, almost as if by some cosmic intentionality, American leaders who most assuredly wish us dead. There can no longer be any way to deny this fact. Each day brings more and more acts of hatred. Tell me it is not so. Tell me that the amount of good that is being attempted is not totally and intentionally overwhelmed by the evil. Point out to me how this is not so. I cannot see it. I have been unable to see it since July 3, 1981. I thought it was because it was a tricky virus. That is what we have been told. It’s a very tricky virus. I hoped for a while. But we are being played for chumps and it has been so since July 3, 1981. And we never saw it.

We of course continue to be in our usual state of total denial and disarray. Whatever structure the gay world had, if we ever had one, is gone. Our organizations stink. Almost every single one of them. I cannot think of one single gay organization that despite the best will in the world is now anything but worthless to us. Oh maybe one or two. We have no power. Nobody listens to us. We have no access to power. The cabal disdains us totally. We are completely disposable. It is a horror show. There is not one single person in Washington who will get us or give us anything but shit and more shit. I’m sorry. This is where we are now. Nowhere. And you expect me to cry for you if you get hooked on meth or can’t stop the circuit parties or the orgies. OK, I feel sorry for you. Does that change nything? I would say I feel sorry for myself, but I don’t. I know I am fighting as hard as I can. I may not be getting anywhere but I am trying. It’s exhausting and I have to do it every day, every single day, like taking my meds which if I stop I know my body will cease doing something or other. I have accidentally missed a few days of meds and boy do I know fast that was a mistake.

I fear for us as a people. Is that crazy? I am always being called crazy by somebody. I love being called crazy. That’s a sign to me that I’m on the right track. Maybe it takes a crazy person to see into the future and see what’s coming. Straight people say “my how much progress gay people are making. Isn’t that Will and Grace wonderful.” If it’s so wonderful why am I scared to death? More and more I am filled with dread. That is my truth that I bring to you today. Larry is scared. Do you see what I see? I don’t think so. Most gay people I see appear to me to act as if they’re bored to death. Too much time on your hands, my mother would say. Hell, if you have time to get hooked on crystal and do your endless rounds of sex-seeking, you have too much time on your hands. Ah, you say, aren’t we to have a little fun? Can’t I get stoned and try barebacking one last time. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND! At this moment in our history, no, you cannot. Anyway, we had your fun and look what it got us into. And it is still getting us into. You kids want to die? Because that’s what I sometimes think. Well, then, die.

You cannot continue to allow yourselves and each other to act and live like this!

And by the way, when are you going to realize that for the rest of your lives, probably for the rest of life on earth, you are never going to be able to have sex with another person without a condom! Never! Every time you even so much as consider this I want you to hear my voice screaming like crazy in your ears. STOP! DON’T! NEVER! NO WAY, JOSE! Canadian scientists now warn that even partners who are both un-infected should practice safe sex. As I understand it, more and more new viruses and mutant viruses and partial viruses that are not understood are floating around. Are you ready for that one?

Does it ever occur to you how much you have been robbed by both your country and your behavior? America let the men who should have carved out a space for you in the social discourse, the development of your history and being, America let these men who should have been your role models die. So there is this big empty space in which you live. And you don’t know where to go or how to fill it in. This is not my original thought but Michael Brown’s of the NYU gay student organizations that helped to bring me here, who gave me this to think about. It is sad for a young gay person to feel this way.

I had people to follow and many of you have not. No baton was passed to you. In a way you must start everything over. You must invent a world from which you can move forward from. This is both an extraordinarily exciting challenge and a terrifying one, one that can just as easily leave you by the wayside as make a new man of you. I say man because it is gay men who appear to have the greatest difficulty, it seems to me, in moving forward, getting off their particular dime.

Many of you deny the horrors of what happened to your predecessors. That is something I do not understand. Every moral code I know of requires respect for the dead. I often hear that many of you don’t want to know about them or admit to them. You disdain anyone older who was there.

This is denial of a most destructive nature. You cannot move forward without accepting your past. I am going to say that again. We cannot move forward without accepting and understanding our past. We were as varied as you are. We were no different, really. We were very different from those who preceded us. We were the first free gay generation and we were murdered because of our freedom. And yes you were robbed of this freedom that for obvious reasons could not be passed on to you as your heritage. So instead of being understanding of all this, you condemn your predecessors to non-existence and flounder into a future that you seem unable to fashion into anything you can hold on to that gives you emotional sustenance. You refuse to be part of any community. But if you don’t have any community you have no political strength. You are too busy denying and disassociating to know that. You do not seem able, it seems to me, to fashion your future. To discover what you want. You don’t even ask what you want. You don’t even ask what you need. Your needs are as mighty as needs always have been, but you don’t ask what they are, which amazes me. How can you not have curiosity about your future as a gay person? Don’t you want to go anywhere? Do you want to stay where you are? That is too bad if you do because we are about to enter a place more monstrously worse. You can deny that, as you deny those of us who went before you, but just know that down this path of your numerous denials lies your own continued destruction, the continuing destruction of gay people as gay people, which this cabal of haters I shall shortly describe, and its supporters, which are legion, are intent on accomplishing with increasingly ruthless vengeance. If you do not fight back you will be murdered in ways just as hideous as the ways in which we got murdered.

Every single president since 1981 has denied our existence and denied the existence of AIDS. And we let them get away with it. Oh a few thousand of us fought for the drugs that we got but many millions of us did nothing and of course an enormous number of them died. They died because they lost their health along their journey of non-involvement and their lack of responsibility to their brothers and sisters. Instead of learning from this lesson, you are repeating it. And you are acting like this with your health intact, many of you, which strikes me as even more perverse than what your dead predecessors did to destroy themselves.

Does it occur to you that we brought this plague of aids upon ourselves? I know I am getting into dangerous waters here but it is time. With the cabal breathing even more murderously down our backs it is time. And you are still doing it. You are still murdering each other. Please stop with all the generalizations and avoidance excuses gays have used since the beginning to ditch this responsibility for this fact. From the very first moment we were told in 1981 that the suspected cause was a virus, gay men have refused to accept our responsibility for choosing not to listen, and, starting in 1984, when we were told it definitely was a virus, this behavior turned murderous. Make whatever excuses you can to carry on living in your state of denial but this is the fact of the matter. I wish we could understand and take some responsibility for the fact that for some 30 years we have been murdering each other with great facility and that down deep inside of us, we knew what we were doing. Don’t tell me you have never had sex without thinking down deep that there was more involved in what you were doing than just maintaining a hard-on.

I have recently gone through my diaries of the worst of the plague years. I saw day after day a notation of another friend’s death. I listed all the ones I’d slept with. There were a couple hundred. Was it my sperm that killed them, that did the trick? It is no longer possible for me to avoid this question of myself. Have you ever wondered how many men you killed? I know I murdered some of them. I just know. You know how you sometimes know things? I know. Several hundred over a bunch of years, I have to have murdered some of them, planting in him the original seed. I have put this to several doctors. Mostly they refuse to discuss it, even if they are gay. Most doctors do not like to discuss sex or what we do or did. (I still have not heard a consensus on the true dangers of oral sex, for instance.) They play blind. God knows what they must be thinking when they examine us. Particularly if they aren’t gay. One doctor answered me, it takes two to tango so you cannot take the responsibility alone. But in some cases it isn’t so easy to answer so flippantly. The sweet young boy who didn’t know anything and was in awe of me. I was the first man who fucked him. I think I murdered him. The old boyfriend who did not want to go to bed with me and I made him. The man I let fuck me because I was trying to make my then boyfriend, now lover, jealous. I know, by the way, that that other one is the one who infected me. You know how you sometime know things? I know he infected me. I tried to murder myself on that one.

Has it never, ever occurred to you that not using a condom is tantamount to murder? I cannot believe you have never considered this. It is such a simple and intelligent thought to have. And we all should have had it from day one. Why didn’t we? That has been haunting me for a while, that question. Why didn’t we? It is incredibly selfish not to have at least thought that question at that moment, all those moments when we were playing Russian roulette.

>From here on I am going to get even more complicated. I want you to pay attention. This is the most important part of this speech.

Bill Moyers recently said this in a speech on October 20, 2004 at the Palace Hotel:

“For years now, the corporate, political, and religious right—this is documented from 1971 on—the religious and political right has been joined in an axis of influence whose purpose is to take back the gains of the democratic renewal in the 20th century and restore America to a rule of the elites that maintain their privilege and their power at the expense of everyone else. For years now, a small fraction of American households have been garnering an extreme concentration of wealth and income while large corporations and financial institutions have obtained unprecedented levels of economic and political power over daily life.”

“Take note,” Moyers continues. “The corporate, political, and religious conservatives are achieving a vast transformation of America that only they understand because they are its advocates, its architects, and its beneficiaries. In creating the greatest inequality in America since 1929, they have saddled our nation, our States, and our cities and counties with structural defects that will last until our children’s children are ready for retirement, and they are systematically stripping government of all its functions, except rewarding the rich and waging war.”

In other words, our country has been taken away from us by a cabal that includes all the people who hate us.

These people make the rules. They are rarely elected officials. They may or may not know each other. They have several things in common. They are very rich or have strong connections to money or power. They are in agreement on what they do not want. They believe fervently in their God. And that they are doing all this for Him. And they stay in constant touch.

I hope you realize that all these people Bill Moyers is talking about hate us. Thriller writers write better histories of our times than actual historians.

Anyway, it is done. What Moyers is talking about. It’s already happened. On a scale of such magnitude that it is difficult to see how we can ever take it back. It’s all in place now, this cabal of power. It almost doesn’t make any difference who is president.

You want to know why AIDS was allowed to happen. This is your answer. You want to know why gay people have no power and are unlikely to get any. This is your answer.

The top 1% of wealth holders control 39% of total household wealth.

The richest 5% of households own 2/3 of the value of all stock owned in the our country.

The the top 1% have as many after-tax dollars to spend as the bottom 100 million.

The richest 20% of households received almost 50% of the national income, while the bottom 20% received only 3%.

At a time when 265 people in the United States were billionaires, 32 million people were living beneath the official poverty line.

This inequality gap in the United States is the highest in the industrialized world.

“That drive,” Moyers continues, “is succeeding with drastic consequences for an equitable access to public resources, the lifeblood of any democracy. From land, water, and natural resources, to media and the broadcast and digital spectrums, to scientific discovery and medical breakthroughs, and even to politics itself, a broad range of American democracy is undergoing a powerful shift in the direction of private control.

“We are experiencing a fanatical drive to dismantle the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual and cultural frameworks that have shaped public responsibility for social harms arising from the excesses of private power.”

In 1971, Lewis Powell, a Richmond lawyer who called himself a centrist, was secretly commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Congress to write a confidential plan on how to take back America for the survival of the free enterprise system. Not democracy. Free enterprise. Barry Goldwater had lost, Nixon was about to implode, Vietnam had sucked the nation’s soul dry, the cabal saw their world unraveling. They saw the women’s movement, black civil rights. student war protests, the cold war. They saw the world as they knew it coming to an end. (We are not the first to feel our world crumbling and becoming powerless.)

This is what Lewis Powell wrote: “Survival lies in organization, in careful long range planning, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing only available through joint effort and in the political power available only through united action.”

This was the birth of what is now called the vast right wing conspiracy. It is known as the Powell Manifesto. You can google Lewis Powell (not the one who helped to assassinate Lincoln) and read it in its entirety.

Under the supervision of some of the richest families in America, that plan has been followed faithfully since 1971 and it has resulted in these past years of horror and the reelection of George Bush. Nine families and their foundations, all under the insistent goading of Joseph Coors, have financed much of this. The Bradley Foundation. The Smith Richardson Foundation. Four Scaife Family Foundations, The John M. Olin Foundation. The Castle Rock (or Coors) Foundation. Three Koch Family Foundations. The Earhart Foundation. The JM Foundation. The McKenna Foundation. From 1985 to 2001 alone they contributed $650 million to this conservative message campaign. They have helped to launch and gain financing for networks of newspapers and magazines. They have seen to it that hundreds of the most powerful think tanks have appeared, including the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institute, the American Enterprise, Cato, Manhattan, Hudson Institutes, and many more. There are now in place an ever growing number of well-funded student organizations at many colleges. There are legal advocacy foundations, such as the Center For Individual Rights and Judicial Watch. There are Leadership Institutes and Action Institutes and Institutes on Religion and Public Policy and Religion and Democracy. There is a heavily visible media participation: Fox Television and Pat Robertson and Oliver North and Radio America and the Washington Times and Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, to name but a very few, including the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.

For the preparation of this manifesto, Lewis Powell was rewarded by Richard Nixon with a seat on the Supreme Court, where among other things he voted against gays in Bowers v. Hardwick, and against Black people in Bakke v. University of California.

It is vital for us to realize that this plan was written in 1971. The people it was written for did not go off then to a disco, or to the Pines or into therapy, or into drugs. They took this plan and they have executed it religiously every day and night for the next thirty-five years initially with some 400 million dollars and always from then until now with unending hours of backbreaking, grinding, unglamorous work, of civic engagements county by county across the entire expanse of America. They took the richest and most liberal nation in the history of civilization and turned it hard right into a classist, racist, homophobic imperial army of pirates. 30% of America now self-identify as conservative or extremely conservative. When Lewis Powell wrote his Manifesto that figure was less than 10%.

And on the morning of November 3d we wrung our hands and wondered why.

And we have a community that still cannot decide on what we want or what to do. We are completely inept at organizing ourselves and have a monstrously bad record of attempting unity.

The continuing existence of HIV is essential for the functioning of the totalitarianism under which gay people now live. It works out like this: HIV allows “them” to sell us as sick. And that kills off our usefulness, both in our own minds, their thinking we are sick, and in the eyes of the world, everyone thinking we are sick. All of this obliterates the consciousness of those who should help us and don’t. This liquidates and incinerates our individuality and our spontaneity, our abilities to fight back, to hold our oppressors to task. They want to keep HIV going as long as they can! Why haven’t we seen that? The signs have always been there! But like everything else we couldn’t believe them. No one could be as cruel as that. They want to make us superfluous. Their media, their newspapers, their networks will see to it that our good qualities are invisible.

It should therefore come as no surprise that when HIV came along they, this cabal, facilitated its rapid deployment and continue to do so. Before even making the feeblest attempt to commence any miniscule response or inquiry into what their press was not reporting, which they most certainly knew about themselves, they waited until masses of us had all been exposed to the whatever it was. We on the other hand chose to not believe that the whatver it was was a virus until this was incontestably proved. But they knew what it was, or were willing to take the chance and hope that it was, and they just sat back and waited. Their wildest dreams then started to come true. The faggots were disappearing and they were doing it to themselves! I can locate no work of any urgency, or indeed much work at all on aids for most of the period between 1981-1984. Oh many claim it, as many claim seeing cases many years earlier, which I also doubt, but I cannot locate whatever these are claiming. In those four years almost every gay man who had fucked in America had been exposed to the virus.

And when they did start doing anything it was with such feebleness that it amounted to nothing for ten years. You can give me all kinds of reasons why it took so long but my research has convinced me that the actual scenario was completely intentional neglect. Oh perhaps not the doctors or the scientists. But they had no money. And they were not going to get any money. Or enough money. People upstairs were going to see to it that there would be no money. Let even more people get infected first. Blacks, junkies, prostitutes. Every color of skin but straight white. Every religion but Christian. Excuse me, white Christian. Then we’ll throw them a few pennies to make it look like we’re concerned.

The cabals Bill Moyers talked about have called all the shots in facilitating and accelerating the plague of aids. If scientists discovered something useful, it has rarely been available. I spoke earlier about the refusal of this president to allow already approved generic drugs out to a desperate Africa and elsewhere. Of that huge Congressional approval of many billions for HIV around the world that Bush brags about, something less that 2% has left Washington almost four years after its approval. Does this sound like a President and a government and a country that wants to help?

I guess I have suspected behavior like this all along. But I never knew it in quite the way that I have now come to see it thanks to Bill Moyers: intentionality is the only word to describe the genocidal treatment the world is drowning in. Much of the world, most assuredly including us, has been intentionally hung out to die. So far some 70 million of us. That is some manifesto Lewis Powell birthed. And all we have to do is keep fucking each other without condoms and the rest of their “moral issues” will be dead.

Do you seriously think they care about the continuing rise again of HIV infections? They are grateful for them. Do you think they care about a sudden plague of crystal? They thank us for our cooperation. And we thought for one brief second of time that we might even be allowed to marry the ones we love.

And while all this happened, even if we had enough suspicions to act, what did we do? We completely shrank from our duty of opposition. Those are Christopher Isherwood’s words: “the duty of opposition.” But he was flagellating himself with these words. He fears that should he have to live face to face with a war in his backyard that he “would shrink from the duty of opposition.”

Marriage? Forget it. Non-discrimination laws? Forget them. Those that have been enacted will be rescinded or amended into toothlessness. Adoption? Equal rights? Forget everything. We are going to be erased into nothingness. They hate us so much and now they are in complete and utter power, the most dangerous situation in the world for the unwanteds to live under. And I no longer think it matters who is President. Clinton turned out to be as rotten for us as George Bush, either one.

Ok, keep putting your life in jeopardy. 110 of their drug companies certainly want you to do so. Keep dancing your asses off at circuit parties all over the world as you go down to the sea in ships that are made to intentionally capsize and take you down with them. Ok, keep being bored and crying for your poor selves. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. With our complete cooperation they have already murdered several generations of us so far. They won’t have to murder so many more of us to get their wish. Like Russia, we will disappear. That is what they want to do. Disappear us. And now they are able to officially do it. George Bush has his mandate. Can’t you see all this! People high up there in their secret powwows don’t want us here. Word has come down from on high: get rid of the faggots once and for all. You think the law will protect us? Think again. Wait until you see the new Supreme Court.

You are here as a gay person because of certain events and certain people who lived and suffered and died before you. You must learn about them and not continually deny their existence and importance in our history, the history of gay people in America. You must learn about them! They have made your life possible! What kind of person doesn’t want to learn about themselves? I don’t know why but you don’t want to. Most of our fellow gays don’t read books about us. Or come to plays about us. What do you want to do? I don’t know. And for all I can tell in talking to many of you, you don’t know either. And this is very frightening. A large uncongealed mass of potentially superior beings doesn’t know what to do with themselves or bother to learn their history. So they dance. So they drug. So they go on to the internet to find more sex. These are useful lives being wasted. Why is that? Why is there no useful creativity going on? Why is there no mental agility visible, no audible questioning discussions of… almost anything of importance? Don’t you long for some involvement in the humanity that you belong to, for your place in the scheme of things? You don’t know how to make entrance on these playing fields, is that it? I don’t know what is wrong with us. I wish you could tell me. What do you do with yourselves all week long, seven days and nights a week, that amounts to anything really important? I can’t see many of you as doing anything important, to give your lives meaning. Oh I can see lots of frocks on the runway but I can’t see bodies inside of them, bodies with brains and concerned with anything but pretty and orgasms. What do you do to make your world, our world, a better place? A world that needs every bit of help it can get, our world, not their world. You don’t seem able to connect with anyone beyond the basest ways.

“Why can’t we look at our bodies and see not just a sexual definition? Why can’t we see in the body all that the body represents? Sexuality, yes. But also mortality, humanness, humaneness, innocence, purity, health, sickness, strength, consideration, responsibility, divinity. When did we rob our bodies of all the complexity they possess? Why do we refuse to see all that we are capable of? All the other things that make us full beings.” That very beautiful paragraph was written by my friend, Jordan Roth, who is one day going to be a very fine writer if he just keeps at it.

Do you know you are taking the same crystal meth as Hitler? The stuff that was being used well into 1997, the government outlawed one of the ingredients and so the orignal process was resurrected, the one as used by the Nazis. It was first synthesized by the Germans in the early part of the 20th century. Hitler was a crystal addict. The new version is much more potent than the stuff you were taking before 1997, which is the main reason why it is so hard to break an addiction. Dr. Howard Grossman told me this bit of history. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you about the Hitler part. To the more twisted among you it may be a turn-on.

I love being gay. I love gay people. I think we’re better than other people. I really do. I think we’re smarter and more talented and more aware and I do, I do, I totally do. I really do think all of these things. And I try very hard to remember all this.

But I am finding that I am not so proud of being gay anymore. It’s come over me slowly. As much as I love being gay and I love gay people I’m not proud of us right now. It’s disappeared. I almost could say we’ve disappeared. But since you are here I can’t quite say that. But that’s how I feel.

I do not see us, don’t you see? I do not see us! They are killing us. They are eradicating us from this earth. Little by little by little we are disappearing. I do not see us and I am beginning to see us less and less.

I have recently come to believe that gay men and women are tragic people. We are so wonderful but we are also so fucked up. So blind. So ignorant in ways to look after ourselves. So uninterested in the Outside World that is subsuming us when we thought we were making them pretty and giving them songs to sing. So without agendas to utilize our wonderful-ness. We know who the enemy is and we just stand here letting them shoot us over and over again. WE STAND HERE AND LET THEM DO IT! All of the brains and abilities we have among us are useless. The smartest among us, our famous ones, our rich ones, seem to allow this most of all. The ones who should help us and speak up for us refuse that responsibility. We have enough rich gay men and lesbians to finance a takeover of the world but their brains and their money and their skills are not available to to help us. To lead us. To inspire us. To finance us. To be like Lewis Powell’s Nine Families. That, too is tragic. To have so much money and to not to use it for brothers and sisters, for family, for our continuation here on earth. Why is that? Rockefeller tithed himself from his very first dollar, to go to his church for his salvation. Please, can we get word to every rich gay person to show up to help save us. We need our Nine Families desperately.

Public service: how many religions demand this of their members? How much public service in behalf of your brothers and sisters, your family, have you performed recently? Don’t tell me you don’t know what to do. If you can find another ass to fuck, and you seem endlessly inventive at accomplishing this, then you should be able to locate a more useful and responsible outlet.

For a few brief years we had some noble moments, of togetherness and anger and progress. Not many of us, mind you. If you are still alive, you know who you were and where you were during those worst years of our mass murder. You know what you did and what you didn’t. And I know too. I know that most of you, should you still be alive, didn’t do a goddamned thing. In fact, you were ashamed of us, many of you were. I remember that as well as I remember those who died. “Friends” crossing the street to avoid me because I was advising cooling it. I was actually told to not come back to Fire Island Pines. Lots of people come up to me now on the street and say, thank you for what you did for us. I do not consider that a compliment. My response quite often’s been a curt Fuck You, why aren’t you doing it too! I don’t do anything that anyone else couldn’t do. I just do it, and some 10 or 15,000 other people did it too then. And the rest of you sat on your asses. And, those of you who are still alive, know who you were and how little you did.

Yes for one brief moment in time we got angry. Correction, a few of us got angry. Of all our many many millions of gay people in this country, about 10,000 of us or so got angry enough to accomplish something. We got drugs. We got aids care. We got enough so we could continue fucking again. That in the end is what it amounted to. As soon as we got the drugs, you went right back to what got us into such trouble in the first place. WHAT IS WRONG WITH US? The cabal can’t believe their good fortune.

How many gay people in America in those years of Aids? Ten million? Twenty million? Thirty million? How many of us are there now? We don’t even know how many of us there are! Or how many we lost! And every time some statistical number is released by some faceless organization or government office, I always wonder: how the fuck do they know how many of us there are when we don’t even know how many of us there are? And none of our so-called gay organizations ever bothers to find out. It would be nice to know, helpful to know. Don’t you think?

You know, it isn’t meant to be easy, life. I don’t know why it isn’t meant to be easy, but it just isn’t, so we might as well get used to it and try to find things that give us a certain sense of pride. We must create ourselves as something we can live with. It takes energy, yes. Why are we so crippled intellectually? Oh, we study sexuality and gender stuff until it comes out of every university’s asshole but we don’t study history, who we were and where we came from and our roots, the wellsprings of our historical existence. We do not honor our dead as we do not honor ourselves. We continue without surcease to be and remain, endlessly, day after day, helpless victims. “In my country when they raise the bus fares, we burn the buses,” a Brazilian journalist said to me as she watched a sparsely attended Act Up demonstration.

There is never one single hour that a disenfranchised minority does not have to fight to breathe and stay alive. The hate out there will never lessen. It only grows and grows, this hate. Most of you refuse to face this. I hate you for your doing that. I really do. I have no more patience for this kind of weakness. I know this is uncharitable of me. I don’t care. I am too tired of fighting with so few troops. You are now dancing your own dance of death, you know. And I hate you for this, too. Grow up, I beg you. Oh, grow up.

Time goes by so fast. We are allotted so precious little of it on this earth. How sad that you use it so stupidly. Every minute that goes by is gone forever. You who have been given a new lease on life, the very gift of life itself, piss it away. It is so incomprehensible to me who has come so close to death a couple times. I find your inactivity and ingratitude and lack of imagination on how to act in emergencies incongruous, incomprehensible, insulting. And unacceptable. I could never understand during all those years of Aids why every single person facing death would not fight to save his own life. And I cannot understand now how, life having been given back to us again, again you treat your life with such contempt.

Yes, all that I have spoken of tonight is the stuff of tragedy.

I wish we could truly look upon each other as brothers and sisters. It sounds corny I am told when I keep using terms like this. How can we be related I am asked dismissively. You do not know or want to know that we have been on this earth as long as anyone else and that we have as many available heroes and heroines as anyone else. Your family has been here a very long time and has an ancient and distinguished lineage. You must learn that Abraham Lincoln was gay and George Washington and Meriwether Lewis and so many others we are only just beginning to uncover. But they will not let gay history be taught in schools and universities. And we seem unable to teach ourselves. My own college, Yale, with $1 million of my own brother’s money to do just this, will not teach what I call gay history, unencumbered with the prissy incomprehensible gobbledygook of gender studies and queer theory. Abraham Lincoln did not talk that language.

We richly deserve the government we have received. We do not even know who we are. And our enemies participate in their convictions every day of their lives. We only show up when we want to, which is not very often. But then perhaps you do not love being gay. Or think we are better than other people, and smarter and more talented and more tuned into what is happening, and are better friends.

I leave the hardest topic we must face till last.

How do we fight as a united front when they don’t approve of our “behavior” and when our behavior is inseparable from our beings? How do we fight as a united front when some of us won’t or are unable to change certain behaviors that many of us have difficulty in supporting and defending ourselves? We’ve been so concerned about showing the world a united front. We feel the need to say that everything gay people do is good and it simply isn’t so. We must have an honest discussion amongst ourselves about what’s good and what isn’t. This is of course the problem that has finally brought us down because we have refused to deal with it, and perhaps is one reason today’s youngsters have difficulty in acknowledging our past. It is the unfaced devil in our closet, if you will, that we have refused to deal with and which, now, now that they have achieved their position of imperial power, will be used to hang us once and for all. To be crude about it, how do we market and sell our wishes and our needs as they have been able to package and sell their wants and needs so successfully for thirty-five years? How do we frame this issue? How do we claim the God that they have subsumed into their own ownership? It is inhuman to think that the only way we can get through to some safe other side is by policing each other and in so doing destroy whatever hope we have of getting along? If they have been able to convince this country that the Republicans are the party of the people, surely so many sons and daughters can be smart enough to find a way to sell our parents permission to co-exist.

I do not know how to answer any of this. And I don’t think anyone among us does either. To talk out loud about what our bodies have done and continue to do is asking for trouble from others of us. How do we admit our past, own it, and evolve from it and move on? For we must do this.

I know some of you will immediately jump up to act. I caution rushing off to form anything quite so fast until we decide how we want to deal with what I have raised tonight. I know many of you are prepared to tough it out and say to them, “fuck you, I am what I am.” And point out quite rightly that they have simply pushed us too far and, no matter what we have done and continue to do we simply cannot allow them to treat us this way any longer. We are human beings as much as they are, and their God is the same as our God and He simply cannot be allowed to be as punishing as they are requiring Him to be.”

But this is perhaps too honest and reasonable to say to those who are not either. Reasoning like this has not worked for us in the past. But I sense that ignoring this question of responsibility for much that has murdered us will only please them more.

These are the problems we must confront as we go forward. If you are going to fight in a united way, which I am convinced is now the only way that can save us, we must find a platform that all of us can support without divisiveness and shame and guilt and all the other hateful weapons they will club us with.

And if we do want to go out and fight again in a united way we must ask ourselves: are we able to replicate the kind of devotion and commitment and backbreaking thankless work and tactics that continues to bring them year after year into such positions of unlimited power. Thirty-five years of that? For thirty-five years the cabal I have spoken of has worked every single day and night to bring them their success. Quite frankly they deserve their victory and we deserve our loss.

I would like to quote this from a Baptist minister, Tom Ehrich, in Durham. By chance, I found it on a Christian website at 3:00 this afternoon. “It would be helpful if we started in silence and just listened to each other’s voices. Whether we can muster such maturity amid toxic political attitudes remains to be seen. If we are to have a meaningful national discussion of moral issues, we will need to start with the sexual issues, not because they are the most important but because they are the fire engulfing the tower. Let’s get it all on the table…

“And let’s do so openly and boldly, without the code language that we often use in moral debates, without our usual cherry-picking of Scriptures, without our usual blistering indignation, without the bullying that elevates one’s viewpoint into divine certainty.”

So we are being invited to this table whether we want to or not. We must be prepared.

I love being gay. I love gay people. I think we’re better than other people. I really do. I think we’re smarter and more talented and better friends. I do, I do, I totally do. I really do think all of these things.

And I passionately and desperately want all my brothers and sisters to stay alive and well and on this earth as long as they want theirs to.

Can we all help each other to reach this goal?

#gay #politics #hate #larrykramer

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gabbylyons · 1 year

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💙👅👎💚

Let's go 👀

💙 ship that you used to have as an otp:

I used to be very vocal on the Doctor Who fandom about shipping Doctor/Master. They were the very best friend of each other since childhood in a very oppressive society, planned to run away from their planet (which was a crime) to see the stars. They did run away, but separate, and now they are each other's nemesis and their planet is gone. Yet their love for each ran so deep that it cut through the deepest hate and longest time and they can't let go of trying to convice the other to come to their side, despite continuously trying to kill each other, once they are two sides of the same coin.

Look, i love problematic ships. But even i have my limits and racism is one of them.

My problem began not long ago, even though i love this ship. You see, if you never watched it, their species can regenerate once they're dying - it's like reincarnation, but they dont lose their memories unless there's something wrong. Their whole body is consumed by regeneration energy and is replaced by a new body. The most recent of the Doctor's incarnations was a blonde, white woman; while the Master was a dark-skinned indian man. Everything was going well, until the Master in one of his plans used a device to pretend to be a white man so he could work with nazis, and the Doctor, who already had him in her hands because he was already defeated, keep that in mind, made the nazis aware that he was not white and just..used her position as a white woman to give him in the nazist's hands. And the narrative framed this as a good thing..which was definitely not. It was evil.

Look, i love problematic ships, but even i have my limits and racism is one of them.

👅 ship that you find most sexy:

ooh bridgerton's kate/anthony got me on my knees. the forbidden love, the enemies to lovers because they just couldn't deal with how attracted to the other was..🔥🔥 hot as fuck.

👎 ship that you can never see happening:

i've seen people, usually anime watchers, shipping kurogane/tomoyo and i was like.. babies. sweethearts. THAT'S A LESBIAN AND A MARRIED GAY MAN. Since then i am begging every anime watcher to read the mangas. also, i always found watanuki/zashiki-warashi so cute but i dont think this is going to happen. And it's so painfully obvious that the ame-warashi is in love with zashiki-warashi, while watanuki is connected to doumeki, and honestly i ship those two ships way more.

💚 ship that you secretly like:

OH MY GOD.

What if i told you that i..invented a ccs lesbian love triangle out of the sheer power of my lesbianism??

We only had scrapes of them in clear card canon, but before she met fujitaka, sakura's mother was best friend's with akiho's mother. She sat fujitaka down to talk about how precious lillie was to her, but in order to protect nadeshiko from the cult she was in, lillie ran away. And we know that canonically, sonomi was in love with nadeshiko and was very possessive of her - nadeshiko was meant to be only hers and she was nadeshiko's. everyone else were pigs.

now imagine what we could have if we had this gay tragic love triangle?? sonomi, this powerful, rich and possessive woman who only has eyes for her sweet, magical girlfriend suddenly feels jealous when her girlfriend becomes too close to a beautiful girl who has so much in common with her?? I NEED THIS.

(it's so infinitely better than fujitaka marrying one of his teenage students, leaving sonomi to forever greave the love that she lost but will never forget..)

Of course canon only tell us that Nadeshiko and lillie were close friends, but im a lesbian and thus reality belongs to me. clamp came to me in dreams and confirmed that i am always right about everything.

#thank you for the ask ♥️♥️♥️♥️ i love talking about my ships

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thestobingirlie · 1 year

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Oh my god I saw about that hate anon and that was a wild read ngl. Also I saw the other stuff and it’s wild how many people create an idea of what Steve fans are like and then press that on Steve fans who have never said what they’re complaining about.

Yep yep yep! About people forgetting that they’re writing human beings like the characters themselves aren’t him an beings but they should resemble human beings ya know? Yes like all the teens have major complexity and I always hate whenever people just dumb it down on the complexity because that’s what makes it hella interesting. And also thanks for the fic I’ll def read it!

Yes exactly what you said about Nancy! Like it isn’t a great track record that and yeah it is def a trauma thing! But also like you said she could grow out of it but also I don’t want Robin in that mess! Especially since I did bring up she’s a lesbian in the 80s like she genuinely needs someone who is as serious as her in a relationship

Yes about the similarity because like idk how people saw being similar as being an indicator that you’re too much like the other person to work things out! Like we only see a few traits in Robin that are reflected in vickie but just because it’s reflected doesn’t mean that they’re the exact same! Yep people are seriously so nit picky about their relationship for more reason at all! Oh my god especially about that part about how they act like these characters are in their 20s and that’s the only relationship they will have. Like these characters are in their teenager years and idk why it’s so wild that people can’t comprehend the fact that they’re just teenagers and are most likely not in it for the really long haul. It’s amazing when relationships last that long however the way people in this fandom act like just because teenagers are in romantic pairings that means it’s the end all be all

Also you’re so correct about the Nancy thing and her probably doing that! Cuz I could so see it.

i know, it was so weird lmao. and yeah, people make up this idea of what steve stans are like, and then get annoyed at me for it! like, what’d i do?

yeah, like, obviously they’re just characters written to fit a narrative, but if you’re trying to write a fanfic, you have to at least try and make them seem like people. otherwise it’s just boring. and complexity is so fun! like i love a little toxicity between characters, so i just find it so weird to engage in a ship/relationship that would have a lot of tension and then get annoyed that it isn’t running smoothly.

yeah, i don’t think nancy will always have issues with her relationships, but i also don’t think they’re getting solved anytime soon, and that’s why nancy just needs to be single. like, everyone in her relationships is getting hurt in some way (including her), and until she confronts her trauma that will keep happening. and yeah, robin’s got enough going on, let her have a sweet little relationship.

a lot of people in the fandom contradict themselves constantly to try and prove that only their opinions are correct about the relationships. and that’s human nature! you know, i don’t hate them for it. it’s just fucking annoying lol. and i hate any fandom where the kids are teenagers and everyone acts like who’s endgame actually matters. like, they’re teenagers. they’ll probably break up in a week! they still have years of growing left to do! that’s why i like when some ships are left ambiguous. like, i’d love if nancy ended the show single, and if the audience wants to, they can decide if she ended up back with jonathan or steve, or ended up with some random, you know?

it’s tough being so correct about nancy when most of the fandom disagrees with me lmao

#robin buckley #nancy wheeler #stranger things #asks #lovefrom-theother-side

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chronotopes · 1 year

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2022 is nearly over. time for 2021 personal writing wrapped

(2020) (2019)

salvaging this post for drafts because i don’t wanna miss a year and i have important professional reasons to be ruminating on theme’s and such in my writing

poetry:

“dancing balls of yellow light”, february. emotional breakdown poetry that i had literally no memory of writing until i decided to scour my notes app. #girl

“The sonnet holds a self-destructive place...”, march-ish. I was in the last gasps of a three-year Really Stupid About Something Phase, and wrote a super groundbreaking and original meditation on petrarchism after discussing him in class. I’ve written better things, and also worse things.

“London”, August. In the summer of 2019, I made a call that every time I or someone I cared about was on an airplane I’d write a poem titled after my/their destination. Plane poetry is for hacks but only if they publish it.

“Philadelphia”, December. See above.

Four completed pieces in total.

fanfiction

CHOICELESS HOPE, January-March. A fucking ILLUSTRATED FANADVENTURE about postacanon terezi pyrope, predictably unfinished. Was anxious about starting this one because I was afraid of not finishing it. Then I didn’t finish it, and nobody died.

“the truth must dazzle gradually (or every man be blind),” May. Kanaya & Terezi relationship study. Underrated.

“When the open road is closing in,” (published in the dirkjake zine). Flash fiction hastily brainstormed on a trip to the outer banks; postcanon jake and brain ghost dirk have a talk about the modernist crisis of representation, because, like, of course they do.

“In other words, please be true,” December. - Sequel to a dirkjake space au written for dirkjake week 2022.

Three completed pieces in total.

AL2RNIA, which is kind of fanfiction and kind of origfic, i guess

AIVIDE THE PREQUEL, the whole damn year. The monster. All-drafted, half-published, not-to-be-completed-in-the-foreseeable-future. Anyway, this is a novel about a girl who hates college and sucks at lesbian dating.

the aivide epilogues, sequel to aivide the prequel. very, very unfinished. a novel about a girl who was looking for a job. and then she found a job. and heaven knows she’s miserable now.

Heartbreaking! The Two Worst Women You’ve Ever Met Have A First Encounter - fun little vignette that was meant to be the intro to the aivide epilogues, in which aivide’s evil mom and vinbre’s even eviler mom meet for the first time

A bunch of character-buildy exercises from a guy with a ~Hyper Fixation?!~, including aivide’s disco elysium skills and her thoughts on the cast

Two complete pieces in total.

ACTUAL ORIGFIC (FOR MY SINS, I TOOK A FICTION CLASS)

“cass & laura, nashville pride,” february. psychological realism assignment that started out being called “one semi-final hour in nashville, tennessee.” a secret about me is that i am not good about writing psychological realist literary fiction, meaning that this is just a creative nonfiction piece with enough names, details, and places changed to make that plausibly deniable.

“Two Stories.”, February. Fairy-tale assignment for the same class. Frankly, the most competent piece of fiction I have written as an adult without cribbing from either a fictional property or my real life. Plays around with fairy tales and why we tell them. Confused my fellow participants in a very shitty three-person Zoom workshop.

“HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE: Or, a Smart Girl’s Guide To Persistent Boys.”, March. Lol. Another one that i always forget is not a nonfiction essay because i wrote it as what is basically a nonfiction essay. My professor, god bless him, astutely pointed out that it was, in fact, gender horror.

“The Saviors of the Galaxy! (And all that happened after.)”, April. Science fiction assignment. Introduction to what, scope-wise, is much more of a science fiction novella than a story. Pretty good; my professor was impressed, at least. What he didn’t know: the protagonists were based on June and Rose Homestuck.

Three complete pieces in total.

NONFICTION (2021 was my nonfiction flop era. huge L.)

“In another world, you die at eighty,” May. Lyric essay written the day of my friend’s funeral. (The world wasn’t this one!)

“Where Light Doesn’t Die,” April. Hypertext memoir about my trip to St. Petersburg; a more grown-up version of “Four Russias,” which I wrote in 2020.

“What Ceremony Else?”, November. Lyric essay written like six months after my friend’s funeral. About ghost tours and such.

Three complete pieces in total.

FINAL ROUNDUP CALLS

Works i was most excited about writing: AIVIDE THE PREQUEL and all of the other al2rnia writing

Work i am most impressed with in hindsight: “Where Light Doesn’t Die,” honestly the fairy tale and science fiction assignments, “In another world, you die at eighty.”

Work that could feasibly help me on an mfa application: “What Ceremony Else” if i changed just about everything about it (lol)

#writing adventures

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neuromantis · 6 months

Text

you know what i've been thinking about?

i don't know. i really don't know.

i am a very suggestible person. and when i talk about him. people... suggest things. just from the way i talk about him.

and i wonder. i keep wondering. since i were 16. are they... do they. know. do they, perhaps, know more than me?

i don't remember much of my past. everything that becomes the past is barely remembered.

and what i remember is the constant slutshaming. to the point he wanted to leave me to live under a bridge because of the tights or theater mentors chose for a particular number.

and what i remember is him coming into my bedroom. tugging at my fingers and laughing as they popped. while i kept telling him. that doesn't feel good. i don't like that. but i had to humour him. fingers walking along my vertebrae, crawling under my pajamas. walking along as he counted. every vertebrae pronounced. because they couldn't really afford to feed me.

and what i remember is him clambering on top of me, kissing my eyelids and moving to my mouth while i pretend i were sleeping. telling me. how i am the only one. the only one, the best one, forever. the only one he truly loves.

and what i remember is him falling on his knees before me, as i sit. clutching at my hands, kissing my palms and fingers, begging me for forgiveness while tears streamed down his cheeks.

and what i remember are incessant questions. the same question until i say what he thinks is true. not only for my misgivings, but also my health. my biology. are you a woman yet?

and what i remember is the callouse of fingers. and the scratch of the stubble. sometimes i feel it on the inside of my thighs. but i really, really don't remember much else.

and what i remember is him asking me. "are you a lesbian because i beat you too much as a kid and you hate men now?" and i remember talking to him about a new friend and him pushing me to date her. and him asking. always asking. when will your tits grow in. do you get your period regularly now. are you dominant or submissive when you fuck women? why do you keep fucking women? are men not good enough for you? did i ruin it for you?

and what i remember is. telling me. how sorry he is. how if i just told him about what my angel did to me, he would have killed him with his own hands. was that righteous anger or just simple jealousy?

and what i remember is him coming into my room, late at night, utterly drunk. telling me. how i am the only one he would ever love. telling me how perfect i am. how i am a god. and through whatever, he will always follow me. he will always love me with all his heart.

that's all that i remember. not much else. but when a friend or god, a therapist, asks me. i just say "yes" immediately. and i don't know why i say that. because i really, i really don't remember. i don't remember what happened yesterday and you're expecting me to recall things that happened before i turned 13. i don't know. i really, really don't know.

he is insane. that's what i've known since birth. my father is not right in the head. but. for years i have thought that... i am better. and now i realize. i am also insane. been since birth. harder to conceal or compartmentalize. harder to remember.

so. if i don't remember. i have to ask him eventually. a man, who doesn't even know for sure how many kids he had. a man so addled by substances he consumes, he forgets the names of people he's talking to. a man who always has several truths and opinions.

so. were the people "connecting the dots" right? or should it just have stayed. a secret. a half-memory. a not-memory. for two people who are so, so, so crazy.

0 notes

sailorwritesstuff · 2 years

Text

Just casual Madrigal Family headcanons because I can. (And I can't stop thinking about this family)

This might be a part one if I think of more

cool kid camilo >>>> he gets invited to parties all the time.

Antonio always ask his new animals their names before anything else. And sometimes he'll forget that his family members can't also talk to the animals so they don't know their names. And he'll just be like "yeah so Tony told me the other day-" and they're "like who the fuck is Tony???"

Luisa enjoys knitting.

Pepa's comfort food is anything that is insanely spicy.

And she gets a good laugh out of it when Felix and Camilo try her food because they're big cry babies and can't handle the spice

This one is kind of canon?? But Alma talks to her husband's photo whenever something big happens to the family like whenever they find out someone is pregnant.

Bruno is on the asexual spectrum and gay, and when I say gay I mean like has never even thought about a woman that way type gay. This man has never felt the touch of a woman. and I feel like he would have sex with this partner if it's something they wanted to do but he would not specifically seek it out.

Dolores can hear when people are pregnant after a certain amount of time and she always smiles when she hears the little heartbeat for the first time.

Isabela Is a lesbian.

Not in like a weird sexual way but Camilo has thought about what would happen if he turned into a pregnant woman?? It's just something he thought about.

Luisa is unlabeled. Why? Because I don't like how people look at her and saw that she was masculine and said yeah that's a lesbian before the movie even came out. 😐

Dolores really likes sitting by running water

Julieta actually really hates cooking. She enjoyed it a lot as a child and as she grew up but now that she's older making so much food in the heat of the stove and oven drives her crazy.

speaking of Julieta It also drives her crazy when Bruno throws salt in the house. He's done it since they were children and she always has to clean up the mess. "suficiente con la sal, Bruno!!!"

Pepa was really cautious with Bruno holding her babies It made him very depressed. but Julieta let him hold all her babies. Bruno and Mirabel could be found passed out in Isabela's garden very often.

Antonio has bad eczema and sensitive skin (and mirabel was the first one to notice)

Bruno has nicknames for all of the kids.

he calls Isabella honeybee And it drives her crazy because in Spanish its "miel de abeja" And she doesn't think it's a cute nickname.

Dolores is Lolita because that's a common name for women named Dolores.

Luisa used to be called princesa when she was little but now that she's much taller than him Bruno figured she wouldn't like it so he took the calling her kid/niña until one day he slipped up and called her princesa again and she cried because she thought it was nice

Camilo is Camaleón or miel marrón, Because when he was born the first thing Bruno noticed about him was how pretty his brown eyes were

Mirabel is Mariposa

Antonio was just pequeño until he got his gift in which bruno affectionately took to calling him Tarzan

mirabel gets a dog after they rebuild The house she figured he would keep her company and she named him Prophet. (Bruno is terrified to look into Prophets future He doesn't want to see his mariposa sad because her dog died)

The Triplets pass notes to each other at events where they're not allowed to talk. like weddings, church, whenever their mamá is talking. they've done it since they were young and they continue doing it even though they're 50.

Felix and Agustin go on trips together sometimes and now that Bruno is back they take him with.

Felix has a giant baby albums of all three of his children. They're like the size of a Harry Potter novel. 😰

Pepa is one of those wine aunts Because it helps relax her nerves

speaking of Pepa all three of her babies were c-sections because if she was awake during her pregnancy it literally would have caused her hurricane

Camilo can copy the rest of his family's powers when he turns into them. they simply just doesn't tell anybody because it'll mean extra work and she simply not about that 😕

Antonio has a pet opossum and it hates Agustin for some reason

Casita gives the family members random pretty rocks when they're sad. No one really knows where it gets them. But they are shiny so most of the family keeps them.

Camilo uses All pronouns But literally will cry if you call them a girlfriend. No one really understands it not even him They just like it that way.

Bruno named his rats. The main three that are always on him are named Rosita, Mateo, and Pedro (after his father) He thought Rosita thought was a boy for almost a week before he realized it was a girl rat. Her name used to be Alejandro.

after everything that happened the blue Madrigal kid's (Isabella Luisa and Mirabel) set aside at least an hour a week to sit and talk with each other

and the yellow Madrigal kids ( Dolores Camilo and Antonio) will crash in Dolores's room for a sleepover because its sound proof

when Isabela finally gets a girlfriend Camilo is actively just as annoying as when she was getting engaged. "ISABELA YOUR GIRLFRIENDS HERE!"

But it's fine because she got back at him when he started crushing on someone from town.

Pepa and Camilo do yoga as mommy/son bonding.

Alma won't tell you this but her favorite is Antonio.

Bruno really wishes he got the chance to have kids at least one. But now he's 50 and he doesn't think he could do it.

Pedro (Alma's husband) really liked jazz. I don't know why he just has a jazz face.

Felix and Antonio snore.

Dolores used to listen to Bruno's telenovelas and sometimes they made her cry.

Camilo, Mirabel, Antonio, and Isabella have a D&D group and Isabella is DM. All three of them were sworn to secret because she doesn't want people to think she's a nerd.

Alma really likes bread. It's like her own little secret. It's not that she's ashamed about it It's just she doesn't talk about it.

Antonio is really good at braiding hair. scary good. no one knows where he learned it.

Camilo acts out dramas by himself sometimes when he's bored.

final one for now. on Sundays the whole family cooks together to give Julieta a break.

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sevlgi · 3 years

Text

hit and run

requested: no

group: blackpink

pairing: rosé x fem!reader

genre: a shit ton of angst, some fluff

contents: idol!rosé, actress!y/n, closeted!rosé, costar!au, slight enemies-to-lovers, unhappy endings because i’m a bitch, a lot of attempted cinematic parallels, italicized dialogue is when they’re speaking as their characters

warnings: slight homophobia

synopsis: There’s absolutely no reason for you to get involved with a costar who you should hate by all accounts. But of course, you manage to forget that love is usually more like a hit-and-run than a cruise ship.

a/n: while i was writing this, i imagined this as what happened before rosie sang “gone”, so maybe you can think of it like that too? i’m honestly so terrified of this flopping lmao...

for a little background on the film: Y/N plays Luna, a pirate captain who unknowingly sacrificed her family in order to have the power to fight the regime that Rosé’s character Helen is a part of. Helen approaches Luna, determined to help her bring justice, but Helen is unable to choose between the benefits of staying with the regime, and following what she knows is right and destroying her life as a result.

word count: 6.8k

The last thing you want to hear on the morning of your first script reading is that the actress playing your love interest in the film has changed.

“What?” you say loudly, straightening in the backseat. Your manager frowns, and you sit obediently, but the scowl doesn’t leave your face. “What do you mean the actress changed?”

“Yeah. She had to leave the movie at the last minute,” he sighs.

Sooyoung was chosen alongside you, after lengthy interviews testing whether the two of you would be able to handle your characters’ dynamic. It took weeks for the director to decide that you were the pair that she wanted, so the news that you’ll be meeting your costar for the first time in front of paparazzi is quite the shock to your system. “Shit. Then who’s the replacement?”

Your manager presses his lips together firmly before answering, “Park Chaeyoung. She’s an idol.”

You groan and slump down again. “Great. Another idol actress? Please don’t tell me that this is her first role too. Oh god, is she straight?”

“Yes to all of the above,” Chan says tensely.

Maybe you’re being dramatic, but it’s honestly a big deal. It’s the first leading role you’ve bagged, especially in a mainstream LGBTQ+ movie, and Sooyoung was the best costar you could’ve picked. You’ve never met Park Chaeyoung before, and you already know that all your plans are going to be messed up.

Chan pulls the car into the parking lot, and you scowl when you realize that most of the paparazzi have arrived. “We’re going around the back. Y/N, promise me one thing: don’t make a scene, okay?” your manager pleads. “I’m not happy about it either, but Chaeyoung has a good reputation. You’ll just ruin yours if you blow up at her.”

“I promise,” you answer through gritted teeth. You slip through the open side door as soon as you get out of the car, ignoring Chan’s call after you to have a good time like you would’ve.

To make matters worse, you don’t even get a chance to talk to the director or Chaeyoung before you’re swarmed by a crowd of reporters, even if that ‘talk’ would’ve consisted of more yelling than anything. “Y/N, Y/N!”

“Okay, let her up!” Seulgi shouts, pushing her way through. She grips your arm to lead you towards the cast table, whispering under her breath, “I’ll explain later. But just run with it, okay?”

You have plenty of problems with idol actresses, but you’ve never been inclined to say all those problems to their faces. Until now, that is. Now, you’re sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with a girl you know has absolutely no credentials to be playing the other role in your upcoming movie, resisting the urge to ball your script up and throw it in her face.

There’s nothing wrong with Park Chaeyoung as a person-- she’s admittedly gorgeous, probably sweet, and you’re sure she isn’t a bad actress in any sense. The only thing wrong with the situation is that she’s painfully straight and auditioning to be your love interest in what might be Korea’s first mainstream lesbian film, and that you have never spoken to her before.

Chaeyoung avoids your stare with a clenched jaw, and in normal circumstances, you would already be apologizing profusely for making her uncomfortable. In this circumstance, though, your obvious grudge against her only contributes to the dynamic her character is supposed to have with yours.

“Miss Kang, is it true that the actors were only picked today?”

The director grimaces, and the both of you turn to look at the cameras flashing by the sides of the room. It was never the plan to allow paparazzi to sit in on the first reading that you and Chaeyoung would be doing together, especially since it’s true that Chaeyoung was only chosen hours ago, after the original actress bailed. Even though your grudge should be against the girl who left, it’s easier to glare at the one sitting next to you. “Not exactly. Y/N has been confirmed for the role of Luna for months, but we recently added Chaeyoung as Helen. But we can assure that their chemistry will be wonderful,” Seulgi reassures the audience. What a lie.

Yet another reporter calls out, “How much of the script will we be seeing today, and when will the trailer be released?”

“Since the casting was changed today, the trailer has been delayed,” Seulgi says. You can hear the panic in her voice, and clear your throat. “As for the script… we’re only doing part of one scene that will show up in the trailer today, so we’ll just let them begin. Y/N?”

As you take a sip of water to prepare yourself, you almost hope that Chaeyoung messes up her part. It would be bad press, sure, and it would only contribute to Seulgi’s stress, but it would be satisfying for her to realize that she doesn’t deserve her part. She’s just an idol, after all, and she’s taking away representation from the people who need it.

“Are you saying you’re better than me?” you begin, your voice ice-cold.

You watch Chaeyoung’s throat bob, but her voice is steady and clear when she says her line. “No! I’m not saying that I’m better than you… but by all accounts, there’s no way you should have this power.”

“Would you be less scared then?” You pause, watch as Chaeyoung’s expression changes to the panic that her character’s would. “I’m kidding, Helen. I did things to get these powers, things that I’m not proud of.”

“Why would you do that? You’re strong… you don’t need them.”

“I’ve never been-- shit.” The tips of your ears start to burn, and suddenly, your lines are swimming before your eyes. Maybe all your hoping and wishing that Chaeyoung messes up has reflected onto you instead.

She attempts to remind you, “I haven’t always--”

“I know,” you hiss, but your voice is too loud in the silent room. Chaeyoung turns bright pink, too, but you still can’t seem to say your lines out loud. Shit, shit, shit--

“I’m just trying to help,” she sighs.

You whip your head to glare at her, and she winces at the daggers you send in her direction. “Shut the hell up--”

“Okay, the script reading will end here,” Seulgi announces loudly, and you bite down hard on your tongue. You don’t dare to look at the other cast members, don’t dare to think about how they must be guilting you for cutting their PR short. “Thank you everyone, please leave with security.”

You stay in your seat, staring at your script with burning eyes until you feel a hand on your shoulder and jolt. “Hey,” Chaeyoung reminds you, “we can leave.”

“Don’t touch me” is your only answer, and you storm out of the room. Alone.

The next time you see Chaeyoung is the next day, at a script-reading that the paparazzi knows nothing about. (You do see a friend request from a Park Chaeyoung the night before, but you ignore it.)

Seulgi attempts a smile, but it doesn’t hide the bags under her eyes. She claps and raises her voice to get the cast’s attention. “Okay, everyone. We didn’t get what we wanted yesterday, but that’s fine. Um… let’s try yesterday’s scene from Chaeyoung’s part, okay? From ‘you don’t need them’.”

Chaeyoung nods. “You’re strong… you don’t need them,” she starts, worry tinging into her voice.

“I haven’t always been strong,” you reply, your voice harsher than it should be just to stop yourself from messing up again.

“Still. Powers aren’t everything, Luna, it’s too hard to have them.”

You sigh. “Newsflash, princess. It’s harder not to.”

“But--” Chaeyoung interjects.

“Did you ever think,” you cut her off, “that I didn’t care that it’d be hard? Did you ever think that the rest of us are tired of you abusing the thing that you’re given, but we have to fight for?”

You look right to Seulgi once you finish, ignoring the part underneath that says you should look to Chaeyoung at the end of the scene. The director smiles anyway. “That was great, you two. I think you capture the tension perfectly, which is a relief.”

You fight the urge to laugh. “I know that changing our main cast so close to the actual production is really difficult,” Seulgi sighs. “And I’m really sorry to inconvenience you all. The schedule is really squished now, and we just have to work through it. Chaeyoung, Y/N, all I ask is that you try to work together, okay? I know you’ll be amazing together.”

Chaeyoung speaks, possibly for the first time besides her lines. “Of course, Ms. Bae. I’ll do my best.”

“I’m sure. We have to cut this short, again, but we’re scheduled for costume fitting right now,” Seulgi groans. “We have to at least get the outfits for the trailer to fit. Sorry, everyone. Down the hall, okay?”

Of course, you and Chaeyoung have to get fit together. The only sound in the hallway is that of her heels clicking on the wood, and you resist the urge to shout at her to stop. Luckily, you arrive in the fitting room before you can.

Your eyes widen at the dress hanging there. It’s incredible, even without the layers that would support the skirt-- you can’t even imagine how the beading and pink silk would look on Chaeyoung. Ethereal, probably. “Y/N, yours is here,” the costume director laughs, beckoning you over.

Even though your own outfit isn’t nearly as opulent, you can’t help but admire the gold detailing on the cuffs and the tailoring. “Thank god yours doesn’t take so much sewing,” the director grunts, pinning the side. “You know, the two of you are going to look fantastic in these, even if we have to spill all that blood on them to shoot the trailer.”

“Sooyoung would’ve looked better.” It’s mean, and it’s a low blow, but the director doesn’t take your bait.

She pokes her head out to where Chaeyoung’s being fitted. “Now? Okay, Y/N, go out there. We need to take a look at the two of you together.”

You can’t stop your jaw from dropping when you see Chaeyoung. She’s all candyfloss hair and gold adorning her tiny waist, and in all her glory, you can’t stop yourself from thinking that maybe she was made for the role. “You look really good,” she compliments softly.

Nodding stiffly, you turn for the seamstresses. Chaeyoung moves to fiddle with her gloves when she realizes that you have absolutely no interest in continuing the conversation.

Well, if there’s one thing you can nitpick about her, it isn’t how she looks; she looks absolutely perfect for the role of Princess Helen, maybe even more perfect than Sooyoung.

One of the costume directors steps in. “Okay, you can get changed out, but you have to come back in a few hours,” she tells you. “We have to make a lot of changes, then fit you again.”

You step down from the podium, going towards your dressing room without a second thought until Chaeyoung calls for you. “Y/N? Do you want to have lunch later? In your trailer or something?”

“Sure,” you answer, barely glancing back. When you do, all you see is her with shiny puppy eyes, and in her giant gown, it’s eerily similar to the role she’s supposed to be playing.

“It’s nice. You’ve decorated it?”

You nod absentmindedly, clearing the narrow couch off for yourself to sit on, since Chaeyoung has taken the only chair that could fit in the trailer. “Yeah. I mean, I’ve had it for a few months, so.”

She winces. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” you frown. Chaeyoung apologizes too much, but at least she’s upfront about whatever she has to say.

Your costar sighs, “For usurping the role? You must’ve gotten attached to Sooyoung, and it’s got to be horrible for me to just… arrive like this.”

“You know… that’s part of it.” You can’t lie; a big part of the resentment you hold against Chaeyoung is the fact that she took a role meant for someone else, someone you were friends with. “The other thing… I don’t like idol actresses,” you tell her.

Chaeyoung’s brows furrow, and she leans forward. “Why? I mean, why don’t you?”

You pause to think about it. “Well… I mean, think about it like this. Sooyoung and my auditions went for weeks before we were chosen, as a pair. Didn’t you get this role because you were an idol? You had to audition, sure, but I bet you just flashed a few smiles and read the script and got chosen. How is that fair?”

She opens her mouth to speak, but you hold your hand up and continue, “And the other thing. You’re straight.”

Chaeyoung chokes on air at that, spluttering, “What? You hate me because I’m straight?”

“No,” you say incredulously, “Well, I don’t hate you. But you being straight, and landing the lead role in a film like this… you’re taking away representation. And that’s kind of shitty of you.”

The air inside the trailer becomes suffocating, and Chaeyoung’s fiddling with the jacket in her lap finally stops when she throws it aside and stands up. She sounds like she’s about to cry when she says quietly, “Have you ever considered that I’m not straight? It’s not… it’s not that easy to be out about it--”

“Oh, cry me a river,” you groan. “Look, I apologize for assuming, but if you want to act in lesbian roles, you can’t pretend to be straight. It’s all for your fans, isn’t it? Another part of being an idol--”

She stands up, then storms right out of the trailer without another word, the door banging closed. The only thing you can do in response is sigh and utter a quiet, “Shit”.

Perhaps it’s just your luck that the first proper scene you have to film with Chaeyoung is your culminating kiss scene.

It shouldn’t be in the trailer at all-- according to the scene schedule, the two of you would’ve filmed your scenes together in chronological order, and the kiss would’ve been at the end, hopefully after a reconciliation between the two of you. However, for some inexplicable reason, it’s going to be the first one you do, without a single second of rehearsal.

You’re a one-take wonder, and you always have been, but you can’t help but think about how impossible it’s going to be to pull off such an intense scene with someone you just fought with. Sighing, you lean over to fiddle with your hair; it’s slightly tangled now, and there’s a fake scrape on the side of your cheek.

At a side, Chaeyoung is similarly beat up, fake blood smeared on the left side of her face. Her long hair has been put in an updo and then taken down, and parts of her dress are ripped; to you, she looks more like Helen than herself now.

“Okay, everyone, are we ready? Positions, please!”

You arrange yourself on the ground where you should be, holding a handkerchief to your cheek like instructed as Chaeyoung stands by the camera to run to you. Exhaling sharply, your eyes meet hers for the first time in days. “Action!”

Chaeyoung sprints to you as soon as she’s cued, falling in front of you in a heap. “Luna,” she gasps, reaching a gloved hand out to the ‘injured’ half of your face.

“I’m fine,” you smile weakly. The camera hovers by Chaeyoung’s shoulder, and you soften your gaze as much as possible as your hand comes up to hers.

The other girl only moves closer, her eyes scanning yours and her dress surrounding the both of you like a sea of gauze. Her nose is almost brushing up against yours, and you mutter softly, “Be careful. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want.”

“Well, what do you want?” Chaeyoung implores, almost inaudible. Her breath quivers, and you feel it when you reach forward to cup her jaw. “Luna, what do you want right now?”

“I’m not making a move until you tell me to,” you shake your head.

The blonde’s hands slip off your face, and she braces herself on your thighs instead. She laughs breathily, “Coward.”

“Your coward, huh?”

Chaeyoung pauses, scraping her teeth across her bottom lip. It’s so quiet that you think you could hear a pin drop, and the torches held up by the crew flicker across her face so naturally. “If you want to be.”

There’s probably another line that comes after, but with Chaeyoung so close to you, it swims blurrily in your mind. So instead, you just lean up, pull her down, and connect your lips.

She plays along, thankfully, stumbling slightly in her character’s eagerness to get a little closer. The only thing you can hear is Chaeyoung’s slight gasp when you let your hands wander down to her waist, and it’s almost scary how absorbed you are in the scene.

“Okay, cut!” Seulgi’s shout breaks you from your trance, and you hold your hands up as if in surrounder. Chaeyoung’s cheeks are red yet again when she sits up, staring anywhere other than you.

Your director hops off her chair to run towards you, a huge grin on her face. “That was perfect,” she shouts. “Y/N, I think you forgot a line? But it worked out amazingly. The one-take wonder, right?”

You grin when she pats you on the shoulder, a little harder than necessary. Apparently, all your worries were for nothing, as you and Chaeyoung stand to monitor your own shot in the screen next to Joohyun.

You can’t even hear all the praise she showers on the two of you, and you pay no attention to all the details she points out that apparently showcase your perfect chemistry with your costar. All you feel is a slight squeeze on your hand, hidden in the mess of fabric by your side.

You jolt awake at the sound of your phone ringing loudly by your side, finding an unknown number as the caller ID. Accepting hesitantly, you greet, “Hello?”

“Y/N? Did Chan give me the right number?”

Oh. It’s Chaeyoung. “Yeah.” You clear your throat in an attempt to sound a little less drowsy, then repeat, “Right number. Why’d you ask Chan?”

“Well, it’s kinda hard to find you when you never accepted my request,” she laughs quietly. “Um, I have to record the OST today, and I was wondering whether you’d want to come watch? Chan said you didn’t really have any scenes later today.”

“Um. Okay. I’ll ask Chan to bring me,” you answer, then hang up. Your head swims slightly, partially due to the fact that you woke up to the piercing sound of your ringtone and partially because you just don’t understand why Chaeyoung’s reaching out again. You should be the one apologizing, after the tangent you went off on, and you highly doubt that your kiss scene doubled as an apology. Of course, you’ll take it.

Your manager is more than pleased to pick you up this time, but thankfully, he doesn’t question you. If he did, he’d probably be the one you shouted at.

The studio is honestly too small for two people, probably hastily set up, but you recognize the recording equipment from a video of Chaeyoung recording one of her group’s songs. And you recognize the girl already standing in the recording booth, waving you over. “Hi,” she smiles, and for all you try, you don’t see a hint of malice.

“Hey,” you mumble, taking a seat. “Uh… I’m sorry.”

“Wow, straightforward,” she tries to joke. “What for?”

You scratch the back of your neck, sighing, “For assuming, for blowing up on you, for… I don’t know, kind of everything. I’m an asshole, even if what I said wasn’t wrong.”

Chaeyoung chuckles, fiddling with the mic. “I mean, I appreciate the apology, but I wasn’t great either. You definitely had some truth behind what you said, even if it was kind of too to the point.”

“I know. You were just trying to apologize and help us become civil, and I kind of ruined it,” you hum. The other girl adjusts the lyric stand as you continue, “But I’m hoping you understand why I had to say what I did?”

“I do,” she agrees. “You’re definitely right that it’s not good representation at all, I just wish you had heard me out.”

You nod uncomfortably, changing the way you sit on the couch just to distract yourself. “So… you’re gay? I’m just asking because I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about it, and I’ve seen plenty of your interviews.”

“So you watch my interviews?” Chaeyoung teases. When you scowl, she just smiles, “I can’t say specifically, but I am confused. You said last time that it’s just another part of being an idol, and you’re… you’re right. It’s taboo for idols to be gay, even though Korea’s opening up to it a bit more now. So even though I want to, I don’t think I can ever be out about it.”

“I understand. And I’m sorry,” you say quietly.

She swallows, throat bobbing. “Thank you. Hey, Y/N… would you mind singing with me?”

“What?” You stare up at her incredulously; it’s not like your singing would make the other girl faint on the spot, but you definitely don’t possess an angelic voice like hers, either.

But maybe it’s an olive branch. “Just… can you match this note?” She hums, and you attempt to create the same pitch. “Okay. Can you do the chorus part in that key, while I do it in the main one? We’ll sound better like that,” Chaeyoung offers.

Against your better judgement, you stand, and shuffle into the recording booth next to her. “If this sounds bad, you’re taking the blame,” you warn, and she giggles while twisting the stand so you can see.

You do sound good together, maybe to a level that you would’ve never anticipated.

You know that something’s off when Chan doesn’t wake you up bright and early on your birthday, even if Seulgi already promised that you wouldn’t have to go to work on the day of. After spending many a birthday with him, you’ve already gotten used to him tugging you up just to take you outside and celebrate somehow.

You know something’s especially off when you hear a female voice cursing from your kitchen, and smell something burning.

“Who the shit-- Chaeyoung?”

The girl turns in surprise, caught red-handed with a piece of burnt toast pinched between her fingers. “Um. Hi?” she offers weakly.

Suddenly self-conscious, you cross your arms over the faded sweatshirt you wear. In your own apartment, Chaeyoung is leagues more put-together in the summery dress she wears, her dyed hair tossed in a braid and glitter shining at the corners of her eyes. “Hello?”

“Chan said you wouldn’t be awake for a few hours,” she sighs, shaking her head as she tosses the toast in the trash. “And I wasn’t supposed to burn the toast.”

“What were you supposed to do?” you question, stepping closer. There’s a cake box on the counter, as well as a couple suspicious tubes of icing right by it, and you think you know what’s going on.

Chaeyoung huffs out an exasperated breath. “I was supposed to surprise you. Chan has something going on at home, so he sent me to supervise your birthday instead. Obviously, I messed that up.”

“It’s fine,” you shrug, taking a seat at the counter and reaching for the icing. “I’ve always wanted to decorate a cake anyway.”

She looks surprised at that, but a smile breaks out across her face. “Really?”

“Really,” you confirm. It’s partially a lie, but you’re decently sure that Chaeyoung will refuse to let you do most of the work anyways. “Uh. I’ll just change first, and then we can get that going?”

“Yeah,” she grins, and you take it as your cue to scurry off to the bedroom.

By the time you come back, there’s a plate of not-burnt toast on your counter, and Chaeyoung’s pouring out two glasses of the juice that you can never bring yourself to buy because of the price tag. “I hope you like it, this is one of my favorites.”

“Like it? I love this,” you gasp, surging forward to pick up one of the glasses. “It’s expensive as hell, though.”

“Well, I couldn’t get you a gift, so I thought a nice morning would suffice,” Chaeyoung laughs. She unties the bow on the cake box to reveal a completely bare vanilla cake, a few packets of sprinkles that you hadn’t noticed now lying next to it. “Do you want to start?”

“Oh, sure.” You choose the blue icing after a bit of debating, and pick up the spatula that your costar offers you. “You didn’t have to, though, I would’ve been okay on my own today.”

Chaeyoung shrugs, “I mean, I didn’t have anything else to do, and I wouldn’t like to be alone on my birthday.”

“How do you usually celebrate?” you question, glancing up at her.

She pauses to think, then answers, “Well, I do live with my members, so we’ll get something to eat. Sometimes, we’re on vacation, so we just do what we can, but I like staying in the dorm to receive the things that their families send me.”

“It sounds sweet.”

“It is,” she grins. “I honestly don’t know what I would do on my own, it seems lonely-- Oh. I’m sorry.”

“What for? It is kind of lonely,” you admit, squeezing a glob of icing out. It’s definitely not as graceful as you would’ve appreciated, and you catch Chaeyoung stifling a laugh. “Chan lived with me at the beginning, but he eventually moved out when I got a girlfriend. Obviously, that didn’t laugh.”

“Sorry,” the other girl repeats again, and you wave a hand out. “When was that?”

“She moved out two years ago,” you answer. “And I’ve been alone since. Or, lonely, not always alone.”

Chaeyoung nods just so that you know she heard you. She accepts the icing tube when you hand it to her, making a spiral that’s infuriatingly better than yours. “How about you? I know you said you aren’t out, but have you dated yet?” you question.

She shakes her head, admitting, “Not yet. I don’t really know how to, you know? You assumed I was straight when you first saw me, so I think everyone else does too.”

“Sorry,” you say, an echo of her.

Your costar doesn’t respond, only setting the spatula down once the basic blue icing is smooth. “I think we’re supposed to refrigerate this before decorating, right?”

You grimace. “Well, I don’t know. I stopped watching cake videos years ago, so I’ll just listen to you.”

Chaeyoung hums and ties the box back up. “Okay, then I’ll just do it. Um, do you mind ordering chicken or something while we wait?”

“Sure.” Reaching for your phone, you ask, “Would you be opposed to romcoms?”

“I’m never opposed to romcoms,” the other girl answers.

You have to remind yourself to order two servings of chicken, something that you haven’t done in a while. But it’s comforting, in a way, to not be alone again.

“Can you believe we’ve only got a week left of filming? I feel like I haven’t seen you at all.”

You wince guiltily, even though you know that Yerim doesn’t mean it. Acting with your friend was originally a huge incentive for you to accept the film’s role, but the two of you quickly discovered that you had almost no scenes together, and with your push-and-pull with Chaeyoung, you forgot all about it. “Sorry, Yerim.”

She makes an incredulous expression, swatting your arm. “Don’t be ridiculous, Y/N. I’m happy you’re pursuing love and all that, and besides, we’ll have plenty of opportunities to act together.”

Blinking, you set your cup down on the counter. “Pursuing love?”

Yerim raises her eyebrow and says, “Yeah. Aren’t you and Chaeyoung together yet? We’ve been filming for two months, I’ll be shocked if you still haven't kissed and made up.”

“Uh. Well, we’ve kissed, but I don’t think it counted,” you frown.

Your friend sighs and rolls her eyes. She’s all too used to how dense you are, and apparently, she’s finally gotten tired of it. “You’re an idiot. You literally met the morning of your first script reading, and you knew each other for… what, a week before you had your kiss scene? There’s got to be something there.”

“No.”

Right on cue, a few of the other cast members arrive, Chaeyoung sandwiched between them. “Have you seen the articles?” Nayeon grins, waving her phone around in the air. She’s drunk, obviously, but you have to indulge her.

“Which articles?”

She shoves the screen in your face as an answer, and you cringe when you find a screencap of you and Chaeyoung. “You won’t believe the chemistry-- nope, I’m not reading that.” You hand the phone back to Nayeon, then press it in her hand when she doesn’t take it. Yerim sends you a knowing expression, one that you definitely don’t like.

“Aw, come on! It’s good press,” Nayeon whines. “And a great kiss scene.”

“Don’t be weird,” Chaeyoung warns. She doesn’t seem to be drunk at all, though she does look fantastic in the silver dress that she wears. Your eyes linger on her for an embarrassing amount of time.

Nayeon pouts. She’s bubbly-- you’ve learned that much through acting alongside her in a total of three productions so far. You note that your costar doesn’t seem to be so accustomed to her temperament yet. “You’re no fun, Chaeng. We all know you enjoyed it.”

She goes bright pink at that amidst Yerim’s joking coos. “The token straight, converted?” your friend gasps, and you elbow her to stop her from going too far.

Apparently, it already has. “I didn’t!” Chaeyoung defends herself.

“Prove it,” Nayeon demands, slipping when she attempts to lean on the counter next to you.

Chaeyoung goes silent at that, apparently unable to find a way to ‘prove it’. You finally sigh, “Okay, I think that’s enough teas--”

If it wasn’t for the fact that you’ve long since memorized your entire script book, you would almost think that Chaeyoung reaching forward to tug on the front of your shirt is a scene between your two characters. After all, it’s perfectly in character for your eyes to widen comically as the other girl kisses you right on the lips.

It’s also in character for Nayeon to start whooping next to you when your hands wrap around Chaeyoung’s waist to pull her in closer. You part at the noise. “You certainly look like you liked it,” Nayeon grins.

“Yeah, get a room,” Yerim follows, and you shove her.

“You know what? Maybe we will.” Ignoring your friends’ jeering, you grab Chaeyoung’s wrist and lead her down the hallway, though not to a bedroom like you joked you would. “Hey. You okay? I didn’t know if that teasing crossed a line,” you whisper worriedly.

She bites down on her lip, but instead of answering you, Chaeyoung tilts your face up and leans closer, only stopped by your hand on her wrist. “Chae…”

“I’m sorry, this… this isn’t what you want, is it?” She steps back, mouth already opening to apologize, but you stop her from leaving you alone in the hallway.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” With the flashing neon lights echoing in her eyes, you can’t tell what Chaeyoung’s feeling, and you can’t tell if she’s willing to answer you properly at all. “I’m not making a move until you tell me to.”

Still, you don’t hear her say a word, until your grip starts to loosen on her wrist. “Did you drive here yourself?” she finally asks, barely audible. You nod hesitantly, and Chaeyoung’s voice grows firmer when she says, “I’m telling you to make a move.”

“I thought you were questioning?”

She swallows hard and takes your hand. “Not anymore.”

You don’t taste any alcohol when you lick your lower lip, and so, you nod. It’s stupid, especially considering how quickly your time together is about to end.

But for once, you know what you want.

“Good luck out there, Chae,” you smile, arms wrapped around the girl’s waist.

“Thanks,” she hums, adjusting her hair yet again in the mirror. “We’re almost done filming, I have to promote us well so that we have enough money to at least put the damn film out.”

“Mm.” Your thumb smooths over the sliver of skin exposed by her top, and you place your chin on her shoulder to look at the two of you together.

She glances down at you. “What? Are you thinking about something?”

“Sort of,” you shrug. “I just can’t believe we’re almost done, but we… we just started this. You know, this thing between us.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely a thing. But it doesn’t have to stop with filming,” Chaeyoung says offhandedly.

Raising an eyebrow, you question, “Doesn’t it? It’s going to be suspicious for us to constantly be seen together after filming together, I’ve seen the way your fans behave. Especially while you’re not out.”

“I think I can negotiate that with my company,” the other girl shakes her head.

You joke, “What, you release another two albums if you get to come out about having a girlfriend?”

“Do you want to be my girlfriend?” Chaeyoung responds immediately. Her ears pink endearingly, and you wait for her to clarify, “In secret for now, obviously. But… one day, I’ll be out about it. I promise.”

“Don’t make empty promises, okay?” You press a kiss to her bare shoulder and let her go when you hear a knock at the dressing room door. “Do good!”

“Alright, Chaeyoung, it’s about time that we ask you some questions about your upcoming film, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” your costar smiles, and you raise your head from your phone to watch the screen. She’s sitting cross-legged across from some of the most famous idol interviewers in Korea, absolutely poised and natural even in front of the crowd that cheers over the interview.

The woman behind the podium clears her throat. “A huge talking point in Korea right now is your chemistry with your costar, Y/N. How exactly do you pull that off, since you’ve never experienced a relation like that?”

Chaeyoung laughs nervously, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Oh. Well, um, I don’t have much experience with relationships at all, so--”

“Really? A pretty girl like you must have had a boyfriend or two before.” You despise the way that the interviewer leans in conspiratorially, as if the prying questions weren’t completely scripted. “But you seem a little to pretty to have experienced that, am I right?”

The crowd laughs with her, but Chaeyoung glances behind the scenes, probably to where her own staff sits. “You know, you can tell me if you ever felt… uncomfortable during filming,” the interviewer continues on. “Y/N has been out for years, hasn’t she?”

“Oh, she has…” You’re practically fuming, but you also can’t seem to pry your eyes away from the screen. All of Chaeyoung’s practiced idol-charm has seemed to dissipate into thin air, and she’s practically blending into the wall as she sits there.

The Chaeyoung you know-- no, the Chaeyoung that you’ve come to know, wouldn’t stand to hear something like that. You’ve watched her argue with a scriptwriter, and you’ve watched him get fired because he said something incredibly offensive, even though it wasn’t about you. But here, she sits still and just listens to the interviewer discuss you behind your back, and she says nothing about all the disgustingly backhanded comments.

The thing is, you don’t care about Chaeyoung not being out. You were closeted for enough time yourself, and you know how hard it is, so you’d never wish it on her; but watching her completely let go of all her personal principles just for a stupid interview is just another reminder that you’re letting go of your own. Chaeyoung won’t ever speak up, you realize, because her career comes before anything else. And you can’t stand for that.

“I’m leaving,” you tell the guard standing outside of your door. Only increasing your anger, tears start to burn in your eyes, and you scrape your sleeve across your face as roughly as you can. Chan picks up on one dial, and you say furiously, “Pick me up. It’s over.” In more ways than one.

Chaeyoung shivers at the top of the hill, where she’s supposed to be filming her closing scene with you. She hasn’t seen you for the past week, and after how disastrous her interview was, she’s pretty sure she knows why.

“Where’s Y/N?” she finally asks her makeup artist, giving in to her own curiosity.

Felix shrugs, reaching to mess with the blood on her hairline. “I have no idea, honestly, I haven’t seen her yet. She’s never late, though, you don’t have to worry. You’ll get your scene done.”

“That’s…” Chaeyoung sighs. That’s why she should be worried. “Right.”

“Okay, can we start?” Seulgi shouts. It’s started to rain, but with the excited look on the director’s face, Chaeyoung figures that it suits the scene even better than the gray clouds that had been planned. “Great. Chaeyoung, Y/N!”

Your hair is plastered to your forehead with the rain, and water makes your blouse cling to your curves; with the grim expression on your face, Chaeyoung could easily just mistake you for your character. “Hi,” you mutter, taking a seat on the grass right next to your costar. You say nothing else.

When cued, Chaeyoung takes a deep breath before her line. “Luna. I love you.”

For a second, Chaeyoung thinks you won’t respond, but the rasp to your voice proves her wrong. “No. No, you don’t.”

“I think I’m the one who should be deciding that, don’t you?” The blonde raises her eyebrows, reaching forward hesitantly for your shoulder.

Of course, you dodge it. Blinking the rain out of your eyes, you’re resigned when you ask, “You have your birthday gala tonight, don’t you?”

“Yes, but--” Chaeyoung swallows, lets her hand make contact, then continues, “I’m spending as much time as I can with you, aren’t I with you right now?”

“But you’re going.” It feels like you’re staring right into Chaeyoung’s soul when you speak, as despondent as your voice is. She nods, and you stand, her hand slipping off of your shoulder and into her lap. “Then go. You’re still a princess at the end of the day, aren’t you?”

“At the end of the day, yes…”

“You can’t do that. You sneak out onto my ships, get my people to love you and protect you, and then turn right back to your family to stay safe while we die for you. You can’t say you support our cause and then go back on it when it’s inconvenient for you, it doesn’t work like that!” Chaeyoung flinches at how intense you sound; at this point, she barely knows if it’s still acting. She can only hear her own heart in her ears, can only see your chest heaving from how quickly you spoke, and it all feels too real.

“What, do you want me to get found out?” Chaeyoung demands, getting to her feet as well. The rain becomes harsher, angled so that it perfectly blurs her vision of you. “I’ve saved your ass just as many times too, don’t pretend like I’m not a valuable part of your ship!”

“You’re still pretending.” Realizing that it’s not the right line, Chaeyoung opens her mouth to stop you, but your voice chills her into silence when you speak again. “You’ll always pretend, as long as it benefits you, won’t you? You can’t do that, Helen, not if you ‘love me’. Putting a crown on your head doesn’t mean that you’re a princess. Until you realize that, and until you’re willing to embrace it, you don’t love me. and I don’t love you.”

None of it is the script. None of it is the scene that you rehearsed a thousand times together in your trailer, but somehow, it makes Chaeyoung’s heart quaver in her throat so much more than the original lines ever did.

And when you drop your gaze to the ground, turning to walk off into the rain alone, she knows that to you, your entire relationship is already done.

#blackpink #blackpink x reader #rosé x reader #rosé imagines #rosé scenarios #blackpink imagines #blackpink scenarios #blackpink reactions #blackpink rosé #blackpink chaeyoung #park chaeyoung #park chaeyoung x reader #park chaeyoung imagines #blackpink is the revolution #blackpink in your area #girl group imagines #girl group scenarios

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9tzuyu · 3 years

Text

who you are

note: mostly made this for my own comfort, but i do hope it helps and/or comforts any fellow lesbians :]. i normally wouldn’t specify sexualities on any characters because obviously everyones going to feel differently about different characters, but like i said this started off for my own comfort bcs i was hashtag goin through it.

prompt: basically just reader struggling to accept themselves as a lesbian. sorry non lesbians :(

warnings: heavy heavy heavy on internalized lesbophobia. talks about comphet (trying to force oneself to like men) and wanting to be ‘normal’

thank u ally for proofreading <3

not tagging anyone just because i don’t want to trigger :[

. . .

you were wrestling with something, natasha could tell that much. your eyebrows were drawn together, eyes lost in a gaze. it wasn’t until the third time tony called your name when you snapped out of it.

“sorry,” you mumbled.

“well are you going to answer the question?”

natasha noted the tapping of your foot, knuckles cracking beneath the table. it was obvious you weren’t in the right state of mind to be answering any kind of question. foolishly, no one else picked up on that except for the redhead.

“what was the question?”

tony sighed, his patience growing thinner by the second.

“i asked if your report was done. it was supposed to be handed in three days ago, remember?”

your foot tapped faster.

“yeah- yeah, i’m almost finished.”

it wasn’t like you to be so late on things like this, you were usually on top of everything.

“you told me you would have it ready by today. this is the fourth time this month that you’ve done this. you’re dragging your ass and the rest of us are getting pretty tired of it.” a collective agreement could be heard from the team. all eyes were on you waiting for a reply.

if you hadn’t felt anxious before, you most definitely did now.

“it won’t happen again.” tony blew off your statement and rolled his eyes. you shifted uncomfortably, nauseous from all the negative attention.

you couldn’t help but wonder if they knew. maybe that’s why they were being so short. it made sense after all.

natasha tried making her way towards you, but she was stopped by steve’s hand on her shoulder. you were well past gone by the time she managed to scramble away from him.

your back pressed flatly against the wall, tears steadily falling down your face. hatred was all you felt. hatred towards yourself.

why couldn’t you be like the rest of them? why didn’t you belong?

whywhywhywhywhywhy

granted, you knew there was absolutely nothing wrong with being gay. that was never the issue. the issue was the fact that it was yourself, that there was no possibility for you to ever be attracted to men.

you were sure it would be a phase, that it would pass, that you would forget about it and never think about it again. you tried to go on dates, tried to form a relationship, tried to enjoy having sex with them. none of it worked, no matter how much you forced yourself to believe it would.

all you could think about was how sick and disgusting you felt. and the shit representation didn’t help your case at all. the media hardly ever portrayed a good, well-rounded lesbian character that wasn’t problematic, over-sexualized or dead.

the media only reiterated the fact that you were supposed to want men. you were supposed to find the right guy and fall in love with him, call him your husband and start a family.

a knock on your door pulled you away from your thoughts. you shuffled your way back to your feet, drying your eyes for good measurement.

natasha stood patiently, eyes drilled on your doorknob. if it were up to her she’d be picking your lock, but she knew that would be crossing a boundary. she went to knock again when your door swung open.

“hi nat.”

“hey,” her voice was soft. “you’ve been crying...” she pressed her hand against your face, thumb rubbing the top of your cheekbone.

you shrugged. it wasn’t like you could deny her, your red eyes had already given away the truth. “yeah.”

she hummed, “may i come in?”

you hesitantly moved out of the way to let her through, cursing at yourself for finding her so attractive.

“you know you can talk to me, you always do. why haven’t you said anything?” natasha moved to sit on the edge of your bed. “you’ve grown quiet these past few days, it’s not like you.”

“i’m just tired, worn out from work i suppose.”

she nodded, though she knew better than to believe such a lie. natasha could always tell when you were lying, something you both hated and loved at the same time.

you sat next to her after a friendly tap on the bed. her gaze made you feel like a little kid in trouble. it was as if she already knew and was prepared to say the worse.

“i don’t believe you.”

“well, i don’t know what you want me to tell you, nat.”

“how about the truth?” you scoffed purely out of defense. “and what good would that do?”

“it might relieve whatever you’ve got on your heart.” you met natasha’s eyes and your lip immediately began to quiver.

“i’m afraid you won’t be able to look at me the same.”

she softened, taking your hand in hers. “there’s nothing in the world that would change the way i see you.”

“you say that now, nat, but-”

“i wouldn’t say it if i didn’t mean it.”

you thought about it further. natasha had never been one to judge someone based on the things they’ve been through, the things they’ve done or the things that make them who they are. she saw people the way they were, nothing more, nothing less.

but what if she didn’t like you or see you the way you were? you weren’t sure you could handle the aftermath if that were to be the case. it was bad enough you struggled to accept yourself, natasha’s disapproval would only break you.

“i’m a lesbian.” a lump in your throat began to form and you found yourself crying once more. “i tried so hard, i tried everything i could think of, but i can’t, i don’t like men.”

you coughed, choking on your words.

“i don’t understand, nat! i don’t understand why i can’t be normal. why can’t i do it? if i just liked men i would be okay, i would be fine, i would be fucking accepted.” you paused for a breath of air. “i just want to be normal.”

natasha was taken back by your confession. it was nothing near what she thought it would be. she expected you to tell her you’d been stressed or that you were scared for the next mission.

“i’m sorry, i-”

the spy quickly cupped your face, tilting your chin upwards as a hint to meet her eyes again.

“look at me, c’mon, hey. you have nothing to be sorry for, don’t ever think that you do. i love you for who you are. there’s nothing wrong with being a lesbian. you’re normal, you’re who you are, who you’re supposed to be. you are real. i promise you are.”

without thinking you leaned into natasha, clinging on to her for dear life. her arms found their way around your body, hands rubbing your back up and down.

“you should be proud to be who you are, not ashamed. and if you’re not proud of yourself then please know that i am. i am so, so, incredibly proud of you, sweetheart.” she finger brushed your hair as you continued to cry. “shhh, you’re alright baby. i’m sorry you’ve been dealing with this alone.”

“it’s okay nat.” she gave your body a small squeeze, frowning at your response. “you shouldn’t have to feel like you need to force yourself to be someone or something you’re not. you don’t deserve to struggle so much for your own acceptance as a lesbian.”

you nodded, though she could tell you weren’t fully convinced. “the only opinions you should care about are your own and the people you love and cherish. i know that’s easier said than done, but it’s true. besides, what you told me just gives me something more to love about you.” natasha finished off with a delicate kiss to your forehead.

“this means a lot to me, nat. thank you, for everything really.”

“oh sweetheart i should be thanking you for trusting me with such an important part of you are.” you shied away, a growing smile forming on your face as you leaned into her shoulder.

natahsa smirked, clearly aware of the effect she had on you. “who knew you could be so cute?”

“nattttt.”

she rose her hands up in surrender, “alright, alright. i’ll stop on one condition.”

“what’s that?” you mumbled.

“would you let me take you out for dinner tonight? i’ll show you just how beautiful it is to be with a woman.”

“yeah, yes- yes please, that’s fine.” natasha could’ve sworn she heard your heartbeat quicken and she had to refrain from letting out a small laugh at your flustered state.

“we need to clear that little mind of yours. i’ll be back here at seven on the dot, okay?” a pat on the leg caught your senses as you watched her stand. the last thing natasha heard was the soft “okay” fall from your lips as she walked out the door.

you’d never been happier to be a lesbian in your life by the end of the night.

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanov x reader #black widow x reader #natasha x reader

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roseworth · 2 years

Note

tell us about lady caine!!! please. what are your headcanons/thoughts/etc??

oh my god bestie you are going to regret asking me this i have so many thoughts

but before i start, as always quick disclaimer that very little of this is based on anything in canon it is all just the Vibes from my heart

now first and foremost. she is a lesbian and i will die on this hill. HOWEVER. while she was young and figuring out her sexuality she was had a comp het crush on eugene (i mean come on who didnt amiright gals 🥴) so they ended up going on like one date, then after that one date she was like "ope yeah im definitely a lesbian sorry rider" and he was like "lmfao its cool 🤝" mlm/wlw solidarity 😌

she and eugene pulled a few jobs together back in the day but they had very different reasons. she stole from the castle to be like "fuck the monarchy and fuck frederic" and eugene did it a) to pay back his debts to the baron and b) for fun. they recognized that they both had very different motives but they had the same goal so they still teamed up a lot. they were friends but they were never like. Close.

caine grew up in corona and never wanted to leave it because its her home! her dad loved corona and believed that it was a good place right up until he got thrown in jail for a minor crime. lady caine took that to heart because her dad believed in the kingdom and believed it could be better, and it COULD but she saw fred as the thing that was in the way of corona's improvement, and by association rapunzel. her mom was never rly in the picture, so once she lost her dad she pretty much had no one. but she cared about corona and thought that it could be as good as her dad said it was if it weren't for frederic, so she made plans to overthrow the king because she believed it would save corona

once rapunzel came home, everyone was celebrating and was like "wow the king and queen must be so happy!" and lady caine is PISSED because wtf???? fred gets to pull all this shit while rapunzels gone but now that shes back we're all just supposed to forget about it and be happy???? and shes angry because fred gets his daughter back after all these years but caine doesnt get her dad back even though rapunzel's kidnapping is the reason she lost her dad in the first place. so she is even angier at the king than she was before and she goes "fuck it! we're going to interrupt the coronation because everyones going to be watching and we need to remind the people of the fucked up shit frederic did and he shouldnt just get to look down on us like this!!"

also going back to her dad, she has NO idea what happened to him because she was never allowed to stay in contact with him after he got arrested. she has no way of knowing if he got executed or was still in jail or what happened. once she gets thrown in the dungeon after the coronation, she starts asking around to try to find out what happened, eventually she finds out that he died in jail and thats pretty much her breaking point. he was what she was holding onto to think about how good the kingdom could be, but he died and maybe theres no hope for it after all. which is why she tries to leave in that one horse episode (the one with axel. i forget the name all i remember is that i hate it).

THEN. she is in her moment in the boat episode (peril on the high seas i think??? you know the one). FIRST OF ALL she was the one to plan most of it. she was like "fuck it we're on a boat, we're getting the hell away from corona right now." she straight up murders the guards that were supposed to be on the boat. (side note but in that episode they make a comment at the beginning where eugene is like "??? if this is a prison barge where are the guards?" and its not brought up again. it is basically canon that the prisoners fucking killed the guards.) shes running the ship in this, and shes no explicitly in charge because no one on that boat would be very happy about it if she was straight up telling them what to do but like. shes the one handling things

also a little unpopular opinion but i dont think she really cares at all about eugene. she first hears about Flynn Rider™️ saving the lost princess and she goes "?? okay? idc good for him i guess" because she has bigger things to worry about than him. and its not like he abandoned his morals or anything because she knew that he wasnt in it for the same reasons as her so she was pretty much like "alrighty then rider's with the princess now, i do not care" but shes pretty pissed at him during the coronation and the boat because hes directly getting in her way, shes especially annoyed during the coronation because shes like "bitch you KNOW why im doing this wtf" but she still gets it and doesnt hold a grudge against him specifically any more than shes holding a grudge against all of them

anyways! eventually she breaks out of prison and kind of has no idea what shes doing now because shes spent so long trying to save corona and take down the monarchy but shes all but given up that hope so she just kinda wanders around for a while. lo and behold she runs into cass, who is also on a journey of self discovery, and they fight for a while but eventually they end up sort of teaming up? they just kind of go "alright we're both trying to figure out our place in the world, might as well do it together" and, you guessed it, they get together. casscaine nation rise 😌🙌 they have an awkward mutual pining thing for a while but eventually they start dating

cass is like "hey i know you hate corona but its my home too actually and its not as bad as you think it is" so caine ends up giving corona a second chance and sees that rapunzel is queen and shes actually Making A Difference so shes not as mad anymore. later on she and cass return to corona and she goes to rapunzel and basically gives her an itemized list of things that need to be changed to make corona a better place, and she ends up kind of working for rapunzel? no one is entirely sure how caine sort of became an unofficial royal advisor other than that she pretty much walked into the castle and wouldnt stop talking until they listened to her

back to casscaine <3 everyone in corona has a fucking heart attack when cass is like "meet my new gf 🥰" and its the person that has wanted to kill all of them multiple times. shes like "its okay im domesticated now" and i mean. theyre all reformed criminals. so theyre just like "okay cool! welcome to the club" but the captain is much less receptive. he tries to be calm and chill and normal about it because he wants to be supportive of his daughters relationship but he is nearly having a stroke because back in her Crime Prime she ranked on his list of "Top Ten Criminals That Give Me Gray Hairs" (eugene takes up 3 spots on that list). after a while he warms up to her, hes still a little wary but mostly hes like "🙂whatever makes my daughter happy🙂"

okay this is already way too long so thats all for now, stan lady caine or die 💕

#how dare you let me talk about lady caine when i have 10 page essay to write #there is no logical organization to this i just wrote my thoughts as they came #also i definitely stole the idea of casscaine meeting against after the show and getting together but i have no idea who started it #so creds to whoever that was xoxo thanks for the god tier ship #i fucking love talking about minor characters in tts i have so many thoughts on them #never forget the time i wrote a whole essay about my headcanons for fitzmom despite the fact that she has 0 lines in the show #lady caine #tangled #long post

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abluescarfonwaston · 2 years

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Help how do you invent cases??? Need em for writing purposes

Read enough detective conan (one pass through the series should be more than enough) and murder mysteries until they come to you unbidden like visions from a vengeful god.

But, to be more helpful, I start at the end. What kind of story are you telling? Ask yourself 'What work can this case do to enhance that narrative?' How can you use this case to tell the audience something new or reinforce what you've already told them about the main cast?

I'm going to assume you're from the Ace Attorney fandom if you're asking this and I'm going to draw your attention to the second game. Whether the details of the cases themselves work (please stop hitting on high-school students adult men) they still tell the audience a lot about the cast as we go through it. The first case (up until the twist) Really looks like a sister getting revenge on her sister's murderer. We don't know Franziska at all- but we know she's here for revenge- a fact both implied and explicitly stated. Phoenix repeatedly says its for her Father. But the cases (2-2 and 2-3) both tell us stories of siblings getting revenge for their siblings. 2-4 is about revenge for a mentor of course (although the anime switched it to her sister- a weak move - LESBIANS - used to save time but one that does reinforce the themes of the other cases.)

So when the audience finally realizes that Franziska is doing this for her Brother - that's why she's after Phoenix- not her Father it all clicks into place. Use the cases to set the characters up.

2-4 does a Really good job of this too. Adrien Andrews mirrors SO much of the cast- to the point the Characters themselves start projecting on her. Gal's practically a movie theater there's so much projection happening. For example, Miles sees her 'weakness' and attempted suicide much like his own and it Disgusts him. He hates her. But only because he hates the part of him that is so similar to her. (and a large motivation for his 'I don't care if you kill yourself' line. If we are too weak to stand alone then we don't deserve to live at all. - Look I never said he had a Healthy mindset)

Franziska also goes Out of her way to protect Andrews. (I don't care what crimes You committed on your way to getting revenge. She was justified. Don't we all deserve a little revenge on the people who took away the ones we love?) She's ready to do anything to get her revenge on her most important person's killer and accomplish her goals. Andrews alters a crime scene. Franziska tells her to plead the fifth. Takes photos of Maya channeling Mia (2-2). Because she see's what she (both Andrews and herself) is doing as Right.

I don't know if those examples are helpful but the most memorable cases are the ones that teach us something new about our cast. Highlighting their weaknesses, strengths or flaws. So cases are all pretty much the Last thing I figure out when I'm writing a fic.

What needs to happen in this case to make the Scene I want to write happen? (Does someone need to be kidnapped? Do we need to have someone poisoned? Does Pess need to be there and owner-less so Edgeworth can adopt her? Great. How do I build a case around that premise?)

What work does the case need to do to advance your story?

Use that to give you the guts of the case. Then its just a matter of filling out the guts. How much of this case do you Really need to do what you're trying to accomplish? I'd certainly never write an entire case like the games do. It's just a Lot of dialogue and work when just hitting the twists of the cases (and the funny dialogue) will do.

And a note about the 'guts' of the case. I mentioned above 'use the cases to set the characters up'. But if you've got multiple cases in your story don't forget to use the cases to set the Later cases up! The first tutorial (1-1) is much more memorable than the second tutorial (2-1) in part Because things we learned in that case come back! (The clock statue)

That's actually one of the strengths of how the ace attorney games write their cases! There is a very clear backwards to front design. If you know the twist you can set it up so the audience isn't blindsided- they had a fair shake at figuring out the twist before it was announced and they're either proud of themselves for figuring it out or they get to go Ooooh looking back.

Let's examine how this works in relation to The Thinker statue. It's called a Statue for the full first case but the fact he Knew the (wrong) time is used to convict Sahwit.

Then that twist is used Against us in the second case. No it IS just a statue because the guts have been taken out. Well then how did you know the Time April May? Because the bus boy came by. OH well then lets talk to him. -> Plot advances.

In the end cases are a key aspect of the Show don't Tell mentality. The games don't Tell us Edgeworth's 'chooses death' note was probably a genuine suicide note. They Show us it was by paralleling Andrews and him. The first game Shows us Edgeworth will do anything to win. (Evil. Bastard.) But then Shows us a heel turn. (Edgeworth helps you catch Vasquez.)

You're going to spend a lot of time writing these cases. (probably) Make sure they're working For you. And don't spend too long on the details. You don't need to know if your 'facts' are 100% correct. (Is that an accurate representation of cyanide poisoning? Probably not but most people don't know or care either.) Most of the audience is happy to suspend their belief. And sometimes you'll get someone who is Very excited to tell you how horse colors actually work which you then later reference in the future.

This is a LOT. So TLDR:

Design your cases based on what needs to happen to advance the characters and/or narrative.

Start with only exactly what you need. Build out from there.

Provide your audience with the information you are going to use for the plot twist so they can solve it. (or see it coming)

Use the cases to Show the audience what you want them to learn.

Don't get too bogged down in all the details.

#writing #haha #ah i don't know if any of this his helpful #or if anon will even see this #but as i've warned #i'm always one pointed question away from writing an essay

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itsonlystrange · 3 years

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Okay I’m just saying..do you guys realize what a cultural reset canon byler would be?

Like it would trend on Twitter, 100%. People who have never seen the show before would become interested in it, ESPECIALLY people who are looking for queer representation in shows.

Byler is a good slow burn that’s INTERESTING. It’s not your stereotypical gay guys who obviously like eachother and are only there for comic relief and pushed to the back so that the het ships can get the spotlight. It has DEVELOPMENT. And it’s rare you come across stuff like that.

Neither mike nor will are stereotypically “gay”. They are just regular teenage boys who happen to not be straight. Usually gay ships portrayed in TV and Film are used as comedic relief. Or the overly flamboyant gay guy and the super macho gay guy getting together in the last 10 seconds the show.

Yes, there are a TON of good shows out there that have queer representation however a LOT of them get thrown under the radar or are overshadowed by the more heterosexual ships or shows.

So imagine, a show as big as stranger things, having its two boys be in a canon relationship. Like the internet would BLOW UP. It’d be the topic of every interview. Finn and Noah would be the topic of every interview. Stranger Things would have relevancy again.

Obviously, ST is still relevant however with this whole hiatus it’s falling off the radar easily and people are becoming bored. But this...this would blow it up again.

Obviously queer ships are NOT there to make a show relevant again, at all. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is, imagine all the lgbtq+ kids that watch ST. The lgbtq+ BOYS that watch ST.

Often, when queer relationships are portrayed in film or television, it isn’t portrayed accurately. And it’s often shown as “if you don’t come out this way then you’re invalid.” Or “if you have internalized homophobia you’re invalid” and a thousand other things. Hell, I remember being much younger absolutely hating myself or not “picking a side” and being so confused with my self and wondering why I was even bisexual in the first place.

But then you have byler, which portrays a much more accurate relationship between two closer than normal boys. It portrays the internalized homophobia, the abuse and bullying people back in the 80’s (and still now) would endure. And yeah, it’s not the most accurate depiction but it’s FAR better than some other popular show’s queer relationships.

Millions of people watch this show, an abundance of them being lgbtq+. And imagine them having a ship to look up to. A ship that doesn’t portray gay relationships as a “joke”. And even better, Mike and Will are teenagers!!

Often, in film and television, queer ships are usually based around two adults. In fact, a lot of times they portray young teenagers being in a gay relationship as “gross.” They say that it’s too “mature”. That having a partner that’s the same gender as you is wrong, and that you need to be a little bit “older” because apparently being in a queer relationship is only for adults because queer relationships are just too “inappropriate.”

But then you have Mike and Will who are two 14 year old boys. Who aren’t stereotypically “gay” as the movies portray. They’re just normal teenage boys. And that’s how it SHOULD be portrayed. We need to stop portraying Lgbtq+ ships as “inappropriate” or “weird”. They’re just two teenage boys in love.

Remember when everyone found out Robin was lesbian after being straight baited? Yeah. The internet blew up. So take that and times it by ten thousand. That would be canon byler.

It’d be a huge step for the media. Unfortunately, we haven’t come that far with queer ships. It’s gotten better but there’s still a lot of steps to take. But having a huge show like stranger things have their two man boys be in a canon relationship and have it portrayed regularly, guys!! That would be huge!!

Imagine all the little kids getting to grow up with that. Or all the teenagers that are Mike and Will’s age struggling with their sexuality seeing these two boys who aren’t stereotypically anything be canonically in love. Like, that would be huge.

I know that if I grew up with a canon byler I would definitely have felt a lot more sure of my sexuality earlier on. So many kids would have a wonderful ship to look up to that isn’t fetishized or treated like it’s “weird.”

And the fact that it’d be the topic of every interview. Noah and Finn wouldn’t see the end of it. People would talk about it non stop. It’d be advertised on social media accounts, the duffers would talk about it, the stranger writers would talk about it. I mean, it’d be big!!

And yeah, it’s sad that a gay ship becoming canon would be revolutionary, but that’s just how the world is. We still haven’t progressed past that yet. And it’ll take awhile before having a gay shop isn’t a big thing.

I often see people say “if byler became canon then everybody would stop watching” which just ISN’T true.

They’d gain so many viewers. It’d be more popular than Mileven ever had been. Yes, Mileven has their cute moments, however at the end of the day, Milevens dynamic has been done before. Thats not to say bylers hasn’t, obviously a canon byler wouldn’t be the first. But it’d be the first big canon queer ship in awhile. Straight ships with mileven’s dynamic happen all the time.

And at the end of the day, ST isn’t a romance show. If Mileven didn’t end up being end game I don’t think many people would care. It wouldn’t be as big as people say it is. I feel like the fandom likes to think that Mileven rakes in all the money but that simply isn’t true. It’s a science fiction show at its core and the core viewers don’t watch for romance. If Mileven is what raked in all their viewers then season 2 wouldn’t have been as successful as it was, considering mike and el don’t even interact until the last episode of season 2. So I really think the fandom is just overreacting on that part. Yeah, people are gonna leave the fandom. Just how people left when stancy wasn’t endgame or when their favorite chatacter died or when something happened that they didn’t like. That’s just how life works. They’re gonna lose viewers regardless of what happens because not everyone will be happy with how season four plays out. But at the end of the day, it’s hot like ST is going to lose 25 million viewers because two 14 year olds weren’t endgame. It’s often easy to forget that the fandom doesn’t reflect ST’s viewership. The fandom takes up only a small percentage OF their viewership. So yeah, some fan accounts may deactivate, just like how a lot of bylers left the fandom after season 3. But it’s not like nobody’s going to watch the show, that’s absurd. Mileven isn’t their main cash cow. It isn’t even on the leader board of st’s main cash cows. If anything, Steve dying would make st lose more viewers than Mileven not being end game. And it’s been made more clear recently that a lot of people prefer Jopper over Mileven, especially with the ending of season 3. We gotta remember that, the FANDOM is mainly teenagers however stranger things main demographic and viewership is ADULTS. And I don’t see many 21+ year olds not watching the show because a ship almost 10 years younger than them wasnt end game. Most of st’s viewers don’t care about the romance

TLDR: canon byler would be huge for stranger things and would probably blow up the internet. It’d also be good commercially and financially for stranger things. Also having byler he canon would be so helpful to all the kids and teens and even adults out their struggling with their sexuality and would make so many lgbtq+ kids, teens, and adults feel seen and feel loved and feel validated. Over all, canon byler would do more GOOD then bad.

#byler #gay mike wheeler #gay will byers #stranger things #stranger things 4 #will byers #mike wheeler

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ailuronymy · 3 years

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do you think every disabled character in wc is handled poorly? i understand theres def some cases of ableism but at the same time when i hear ppl say that its usually bc the disabled cat wasnt able to become a warrior due to their disability. and i feel like ppl forget, that not everyone irl CAN do what they want after they become disabled. ex. someone wants to be an athlete, but their legs have to be amputated. a cat like briarlight esp i feel is p realistic and could be a source of comfort

Hello there, thank you for writing in. I’m going to reply to this question with a series of questions I think are a bit more useful, given what you’re trying to ask me. I hope that’ll clarify what is a deeply complex, multilayered issue.

Do I think Erin Hunter handles anything in the series “well”? Not really. I don’t have a high opinion of the work of the collective and, broadly speaking, I think every right note they play, metaphorically speaking, is an instance of chance rather than effort, skill, or intention. Stopped clocks are right twice a day, mediocre writers will sometimes do something cool by accident, similar principle. That’s not to say Erin Hunter hasn’t ever done anything on purpose--just that overall the underlying drive of the series isn’t so much quality as it is quantity, and speed of production, and it shows.

Do I think Erin Hunter puts any significant research into how they portray disability? No. I do not think it is a priority for this series. They’re not trying to make a meaningful work of literature, or capture a realistic experience of disability, or tell especially impactful or thoughtful stories, or even make a particularly good or coherent fantasy world. Warriors is a specifically commercial product that was commissioned by HarperCollins to appeal to a particular demographic of drama-loving, cat-loving kids. It’s not really trying to do anything but sell books, because it’s a business, so the text in many ways reflects that. They’re not going for disability representation, in my opinion. They’re including disability in many cases as a plot-point or an obstacle.

Do I think this means that people can’t connect to these characters and narratives in meaningful ways? No. Often I say that a work is completed only when it is read. Before that point, it doesn’t have a meaning: a reader finishes the work through the act of reading, and interpretation, and filling in the spaces and resonance of the story with their own values and experiences. When people talk about subjectivity, this is what they are talking about. What this means in the context of disabled characters in Warriors is that these characters and their stories can be multiple, conflicting, even mutually exclusive things at the same time, to different people, for different reasons.

Do I think characters have to be “good” to be significant to someone? No. I think genuinely “bad” (i.e., not researched or poorly researched, cliche, thoughtlessly written, problematic, etc. etc.) characters can be deeply meaningful, and often are. Ditto above: for many people, and especially marginalised or stigmatised people, reading is almost always an act of translation, wherein the person is reading against the creative work of the dominant culture in a way that the author likely didn’t intend or didn’t even imagine. There’s a long documented history of this in queer culture, but it’s true for just about everyone who is rarely (or unfairly) represented in media. Disabled people often have to read deeply imperfect works of fiction featuring disability and reinterpret them in the process--whether to relate to a kind of disability they don’t experience themselves but which is the closest they’re offered to something familiar, or to turn positive and meaningful what is intended as narrative punishment, or simply to create what’s commonly called headcanon about “non-disabled” characters who echo their personal experiences.

Do I think everyone has to agree? Extremely no. As I said before, people will actually always disagree, because all people have different needs and different experiences. What can be interpreted as empowering to one person might be very othering and painful for another. There is no “right” answer, because, again, that is how subjectivity works. This is especially true because marginalised communities are often many different kinds of people with different lives and needs brought together over a trait or traits they share due to the need for solidarity as protection and power--but only in a broad sense. It’s why there is often intracommunity fighting over representation: there isn’t enough, there’s only scraps, and so each person’s personal interpretation can feel threatening to people whose needs are different. You can see examples of this especially when it comes to arguments over character sexuality: a queer female character might be interpreted as bisexual by bisexual people who relate to her and want her to be, while being interpreted as lesbian by lesbians who also relate to her and want her to be like them. Who is correct? Often these different interpretations based on different needs are presented as if one interpretation is theft from the other, when in fact the situation is indicative of the huge dearth of options for queer people. It becomes increasingly more intense when it comes to “canon” representations, because of the long history of having to read against the grain I mentioned above: there’s novelty and, for some people, validation in “canon” certainty. And again, all of this is also true for disabled people and other stigmatised groups.

Do I think this is a problem? Not exactly. It is what it is. It is the expected effect of the circumstances. Enforced scarcity creates both the need for community organising and solidarity and the oppressive pressure to prioritise one’s self first and leave everyone else in the dust (or else it might happen to you). The system will always pit suppressed people against each other constantly, because it actively benefits from intracommunity fighting. Who needs enemies when you have friends like these, and so on. A solution is absolutely for everyone in community to hold space for these different needs and values, and to uplift and support despite these differences, but it’s not anyone’s fault for feeling threatened or upset when you don’t have much and feel like the thing that you do have is being taken away. It’s a normal, if not really helpful, human response. But until people learn and internalised that the media is multifaceted and able to be many things at once, without any of those things being untrue or impacting your truth of the text, then there will be fighting.

Do I think my opinion on disability on Warriors is all that important? No, not really. I can relate to some characters in some moment through that translation, but my opinion on, say, Jayfeather is nowhere near as worthy of consideration than that of someone who is blind. I don’t have that experience and it’s not something I can bring meaningful thinking about, really. That’s true for all these characters. If you want to learn about disability, prioritise reading work about disabled rights and activism that is done by disabled people, and literary criticism from disabled people. And as I mentioned above, remember that community isn’t a monolith: it’s a survival tactic, that brings together many different people with disparate experiences of the world. So research widely.

Finally--do I think there’s only one kind of disabled narrative worth telling? No. For some people, a disabled character achieving a specific, ability-focused dream is a good story. For other people, a story that acknowledges and deals with the realities, and limitations, of disability is a good story. The same person might want both of those stories at different times, depending on their mood. That’s okay. Sometimes there’s power and delight in a fantasy of overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles and defying all expectations. Sometimes there’s value and catharsis in a narrative that delves into the challenges and grief and oppression experienced because of disability. There’s no one truth.

To round all this off, I’m going to give my favourite example of this, which is Cinderella. I think it’s a great and useful tool, since for many it’s familiar and it’s very simple. Not much happens. In the story, she is bullied and tormented, until a fairy godmother gifts her over several nights with the opportunity to go to a royal ball, where she dances with a prince. The prince eventually is able to find Cinderella, due to a shoe left behind, and they are married. In some versions, the family that mistreated her are killed. In others, they’re forgiven.

Some people hate the story of Cinderella, because she is seen as passive. She tolerates the bullying and never fights back. She does every chore she’s told. She is given an opportunity by a fairy godmother, and she doesn’t help herself go to the ball. She runs from the prince and he does the work to find her again. Eventually, she’s married and the prince, presumably, keeps her in happiness and comfort for the rest of her life.

For some, this story is infuriating, because Cinderella doesn’t “save herself”: she is largely saved by external forces. She is seen as a quintessential damsel-in-distress, and especially for people who have been bullied, infantalised, or made to feel less capable or weak, that can be a real point of personal pain and discomfort.

However, for some others, Cinderella is a figure of strength, because she is able to endure such hostile environments and terrible people and never gives up her gentle nature or her hope. She never becomes cruel, or bitter. She is brave in daring to go outside her tiny, trapped world, and she is brave to let the prince find her. She doesn’t have to fight or struggle to earn her reward of happiness and prove her worth, because she was always deserving of love and kindness. The prince recognises at once, narratively speaking, her goodness and virtue, and stops at nothing to deliver her a better life.

Depending on the version, the wicked family disfigure themselves for their own greed--or are punished, which for some is a revenge fantasy; or Cinderella forgives them and once again shows her tenacious kindness, which for others is a different revenge fantasy.

The point? Cinderella is the same character in the same story, but these are almost unrecognisable readings when you put them side-by-side. Which one is right? Which one is better? In my opinion, those are the wrong questions. I hope this (long, sorry) reply is a set of more useful ones.

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vvienne · 3 years

Text

SANGCHENG FIC RECS

flight of a one-winged dove by bloodletter

Talking at someone is only fun for so long. That's all being a sect leader is: talking and talking to people bound by courtesy to listen to you. It's so fucking dull. A relief, then, to face one’s equal, and no less an old friend who is inclined to interrupt you whenever you ramble. He likes it. It’s one of Jiang Cheng’s best qualities.

In the years after Guanyin Temple, Nie Huaisang attends to unfinished business.

whipped by reindeercolin

Jiang Cheng blinks. “Dammit, they do think you’re dating one of us! I hate it when Wei Wuxian is right.” “Excuse me?” Nie Huaisang gives him an incredulous look. “First of all, they think I’m dating you, and if anything, they’re getting more aggressive!”

(or, the one in which Jiang Cheng has too many relatives, not enough patience, goes through a brother-divorce and finds out he has a boyfriend - in that order, more or less.)

Ponder the Manner of Things by Pip (Moirail)

It's not that Jiang Cheng can't do a quadruple flip followed by a triple toeloop. It's that his mother seems to think that's still not good enough.

Jiang Cheng is grateful that Huaisang doesn’t have the same kind of family life that he does, all - messy with expectations and cravings for closeness and nothing but vague filial piety where love is meant to be.

a matter of time and organ donation by nev_longbottom

This is it. The call he’s been waiting for. His brother had ‘an accident’ or ‘died in his sleep’ or some other lie to cover up the murder.

“Please, Mingjue is missing. He got into one of his moods and he was gone when I came back from grocery shopping. He’s not answering his phone. I don’t know if he left or was kidnapped or if something else happened. Huaisang, please, if you’ve heard anything,” Meng Yao begs.

Nie Huaisang hunts his brother's killer.

no tip necessary by tattletold

With all the nervousness of a virgin in a whorehouse, Jiang Cheng closes the door behind himself and enters, sitting on the low seat across from the escort. The pretty young man keeps his face hidden behind the delicate fan, and Jiang Cheng thinks for a moment that he recognizes the design painted onto it now that he’s closer.

It’s only when he lowers the fan and opens his eyes, wide, does Jiang Cheng paralyze with realization.

They speak at the same time in equally horrified tones.

“Jiang Cheng?”

“Nie Huaisang?”

Your Place in the Family of Things by raisedbyhyenas

No matter what happens, no matter the circumstances, Wei Wuxian will always leave and Jiang Cheng will always get stuck trying to rebuild from whatever’s left.

*************

In which Jiang Cheng makes friends; gets a cat; begins to rebuild a relationship; and maybe, possibly, potentially, learns a little bit how to be happy.

sigh yourself to sleep by merthurlin

“Let me take care of you, A-Cheng.”

No one—no one has ever said that, not to Jiang Cheng. He wasn’t a very sickly child, true, but the few times he remembered being sick it was never—he had a-jie, and later on he had Wei Wuxian, for what it was worth, but he never—

halcyon days by serein

They're in a forest, it seems just the two of them.

"You have to be patient," Nie Huaisang says, "I once waited for three days to catch a sparrow."

"Three days?" Jiang Cheng replies, sceptical. He can't imagine Nie Huaisang having the attention span for that.

"It's not that hard," Nie Huaisang says, "if you know what they want, and find a way to get it for them."

[JC stumbles across an array and gets physically de-aged to be 16/17. NHS kindly offers his help to an old friend, but things... escalate.]

To Distraction by isozyme

It’s the third night of Yunmeng’s kite festival celebrations. Nie Huaisang has come visiting, eager to partake in the food, the arts, and Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng wants to forget. Nie Huaisang has some new lube and wants to see if he can put his whole fist in somebody’s ass.

Lights, Camera, Kiss by MissMagus

When Nie Huaisang gets paired with straight porn star Jiang Cheng for a five-part series, he’s sure it will be an utter disaster. Until the cameras start rolling and their chemistry alights like wildfire.

(Or, the five times Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng have sex for their job, and the first time they have sex outside of it.)

Only the Shallow by hamburglar

When Nie Huaisang gets bored and convinces Jiang Cheng to make out with him, he’s probably not expecting to still be dealing with the guy 16 years later.

OR the story where Jiang Cheng goes into: the Cloud Recesses, denial, some bushes, the private porn library at the Unclean Realm, and subspace.

Blind for Love by manamune

Jiang Cheng is poisoned with an aphrodisiac and needs to orgasm repeatedly in order to flush it from his system.

The first person he thinks of going to for help is Nie Huaisang, who does what any good friend would do: he shoves his three decades worth of feelings for Jiang Cheng deep into the recesses of his mind, locks them up so he can pretend they don’t exist, and then fucks him so hard that he passes out.

Descending by lightningwaltz

“I want to… to not be embarrassed.”

“To not be embarrassed during what?”

“During sex.” There. Jiang Cheng can say it. “In general. Also with you right now.”

“Very good.”

“When did you become so authoritative?” Jiang Cheng wants to sound irked, but can’t quite manage anything beyond nervous curiosity.

dark water by Morgan (duckwhatduck)

There are words, somewhere, for this. Words that would put a shape to the thing that sits between them, would seal their understanding. There are words for sympathy, for friendship, for understanding, for that touch, for this feeling.

Jiang Cheng can feel them, somewhere, fluttering formless at the back of his throat, squirming under his ribcage, but he cannot grasp them. They swim beneath the surface, fish in muddy water - and like fish, they will dart away if he grabs for them incautiously, and leave him nothing but cold splashes and grit.

Or: Why talk about things when you could fuck about it instead?

never knew i was a dancer by isozyme

“What’s a stone butch and why aren’t they real?” Jiang Cheng asks, too buzzed to care too much about not being up on lesbian culture.

Huaisang pats Jiang Cheng on the no-man’s-land between her boobs and her shoulder. “You’re so useless, Jiang Cheng. A stone butch is a fictional hottie who doesn’t make you do any work at all, just wants to give head and fuck you stupid on her strap.”

“Fictional?” Jiang Cheng echoes, having - not a moment, per se, but sort of a problem where her thoughts are going too fast for her poor drunken brain to keep up with.

“Nobody actually wants to fuck a chick who’s too lazy to eat you out after,” Huaisang mumbles.

After leaving Wei Ying and Lan Zhan’s bachelorette party, Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang decide to experiment with some outdated stereotypical lesbian sex roles.

lights out by rynleaf

“Nie-zongzhu makes the most sense,” Sect Leader Yao nods sagely, to murmurs of assent across the Jin Sect’s gold gilded banquet hall. Jin Ling, clad in opulent robes that look somewhat comical on a boy of sixteen, inclines his head as his scribe makes a notation, and the noise rises as sect leaders pat themselves and each other on the back for a decision well made.

Jiang Cheng groans and downs his cup of wine in one go.

In which the Sect Leaders elect a new Chief Cultivator.

shadow eternal by rynleaf

“You want me to distract the Chief Cultivator from the Annual Cultivation Conference, so you and other sect leaders can… what. Sign contracts without adult supervision?”

“If Jiang-zongzhu is amenable,” Sect Leader Ouyang repeats with a nod.

Jiang Cheng pinches the bridge of his nose. The pressure he felt building behind his eyes all morning is swiftly coalescing into a bitch of a headache. “Just what do you all think I’m capable of?”

Sect Leader Ouyang bows with a cheerful smile. “We have utmost faith in Sandu Shengshou’s abilities.”

In which a night hunt ends in disaster, Jiang Cheng catches a glimpse of Nie Huaisang's heart, and feelings are discussed after a certain fashion.

Four Days in Lanling by halotolerant

Nie Huaisang looks at him. ‘You are confusing me, Clan Leader Jiang, perhaps I misunderstand, but…’

‘You didn’t misunderstand. You don’t misunderstand. You understand all of it.’ For six months Jiang Cheng has been mulling this over, and now with Nie Huaisang in front of him he can’t figure out if he most wants to knock him down or kneel at his feet. What he does is try and breathe. Clench his hands at his sides. ‘And now I am going to ask you to do something for me. You have to do something for me. You have to help Jin Ling.’

Lean for Love Forever by Pip (Moirail)

Having a crush on your roommate is really embarrassing, except that's apparently the opposite of a problem. Jiang Cheng can't deny that's pretty convenient.

Wei Ying holds it up, a series of straps and buckles and velcro and wow, really a lot of leather. It has absolutely no conceivable form beyond tangled.

Nie Huaisang opens the door at exactly the moment that Wei Ying holds the thing up to Jiang Cheng’s chest, as if he’s trying to imagine how exactly it would fit onto a person, and it falls into a tangled pile between them while they stare at Huaisang in mild mortification.

acquired momentum by mongrelmind

Had Madam Yu known that this is where her son would end up, she would have gouged his eyes out with her bracelet before he made the grave mistake of looking in the direction of Nie Huaisang.

in which Nie Huaisang has an art show, Jiang Cheng is begrudgingly topless*, and there are. Shenanigans.

*Nie Huaisang excluded.

#sangcheng #mdzs #mdzs recs #fic recs #jiang cheng #nie huaisang #ill probably add more fics when I read more fics

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ssamie · 3 years

Text

epilogue. “your girlfriend’s kinda hot”

kozume kenma x fem dazai!reader

(bsd x hq)

tw: mentions of suicide and suggestive themes + dirty jokes

masterlist. suicide freak!

"hey uh, welcome to my stream i guess" he said as he spared the camera a quick glance "im not really playing tonight because an incident has recently occurred in this household" kenma said with a tired sigh

nobody else knew it, but the said 'incident' was y/n accidentally setting half of their living room on fire

the reason? apparently, she wanted to try burning herself to death in the furnace. obviously, it didn't work. and all that's left from that is more shit for kenma to clean up and a trip to yosano-san.

kenma is stressed. and y/n is still alive. both of them are facing problems.

"can you please wear a maid outfit- no."

kenma shook his head as he continued playing, glancing at the chat once in a while to read the veiwers' questions and comments

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮

user: how about cat ears?!

user: ^^ cATBOY CATBOY CATBOY

user: u suck at this game wtf

kuroo.tetsu: hey kenma ;)

╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

"first of all, i do not suck at minecraft thank you very much" kenma scoffed

"second of all, go away kuroo. im still mad at you"

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮

user: LMFAOOO kuroo what did u do?? 💀💀

user: he probably broke kenma's pc

user: PLSS he's the one kenma’s throwing shade at on twitter

kuroo.tetsu: STOP THE SLANDER 😔✋🏼

user: rooster head lookin ass

user: ^^ NOT THE HAIR

kuroo.testsu: 😃😃

╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

kenma sighed as he continued building a cute little cottage. he was currently vibing, just building y/n a cute cottage for her to probably burn later on.

and he decided it would be nice to go on stream since his oh-so-lovely girlfriend was still out for work.

ah yes, kenma has somehow kept y/n alive all those years.

barely.

hence why his phone was being bombarded with messages from her, all of which being blurry selfies.

the photos had her sporting a huge grin while atsushi panicked in the background.

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮

user: ayo, ur phone's blowing up

user: do you have a girlfriend?

user: KODZUKEN LET ME SUCK UR TOES 😋😋🤩

user: ^ ayo chill 😃

╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

kenma simply ignored them and continued on with his task. all was going well until a loud slam was heard. his cat-like eyes widened as he heard a familiar voice singing from downstairs, it was undoubtedly y/n.

kenma chuckled nervously and muted his mic.

but of course, cute dumb catboy didn't actually mute his mic. haha <3

he ignored all the questions in the chat, all of them being speculations that he has a girlfriend. which he does, but they simply did not need to know that <3

"kenma~" she yelled out "i have a surprise for you!!" she said, followed by menacing giggles.

kenma glanced at the camera before hopping off his gaming chair and peeking his head out of the door.

"y/n, im streaming!! stay down there!" he yelled out in panic

"aw, you're playing hard to get aren't ya?" she chuckled

kenma deadpanned as he saw her limping up the stairs, with her bandages torn and unravelled, same with her clothes. he didn't really think much of it since this is usually how she comes home.

its most likely just due to work and/or another suicide attempt.

"so, kenma.. you'll never know what just happened to me today" she started off with a goofy grin

"im streaming, atleast let me turn it off first-"

she paid no mind to him as she peeled off her ruined coat and pointed to her poorly bandaged stomach

"i got stabbed!"

"you got what?!"

kenma furrowed his brows as he immediately rushed over to his side, cradling her face and waist as he inspected her injuries

"are you okay, kitten?" he asked worriedly

"yep, apparently it wasnt deep enough to be fatal" she sighed dejectedly

"please don't be sad about that." kenma groaned "can you undress?"

"ara ara~ whats this?" she cooed "you're getting real bold, kenma" she smirked at him

she unbuttoned her shirt and started pulling down on her skirt "but since you asked so nicely-"

kenma simply sighed and shook his head. "i was gonna prepare you a bath but now im considering leaving you here to die"

"but the second option would've been better though" she smiled at him

"oh my fucking god."

kozume kenma. (22)

╰─▸ university student, stock trader, pro-gamer, youtuber, ceo of bouncing ball lpt.

╰─▸ y/n's struggling boyfriend. definitely needs a pay after all he's been through.

╰─▸ currently panicking because his girlfriend got stabbed.

l/n y/n. (22)

╰─▸ operative/member of the armed detective agency.

╰─▸ kenma's girlfriend. kinda dumb, very hot to compensate for it. still hasn't died yet.

╰─▸ currently bleeding and wounded. also hoping for severe blood loss.

"kenma, did you know" she mused in a teasing tone "lack of sleep and too much stress could possibly lead to poor memory and lack of awareness"

kenma looked up at her with a look of confusion. he was currently kneeled down before her while she was sat on the bed as he cleaned her wound up with a damp towel.

"why are you telling me this?" he asked

"i just thought it probably applied to you" she snickered

"why? i didnt forget anything-"

he cut himself off with a huge intake of air. he slowly turned his head to look at the screen which still had his stream going on. to make it worse, the camera was on and they were both clearly in the camera's field of view.

to make things worse worse, his mic was on the whole time and the live chat was in shambles.

"i hate it here" he sighed

kenma laid his head on her lap as he continued on patching her up, honestly not caring that this whole scene was being recorded for thousands or millions of people to see.

"well, atleast the internet could finally see my beauty before i die" she laughed

she ran her fingers through kenma's hair as he grumbled under his breath. kenma was a pretty private person. he made sure not to overshare, given his current 'influencer' status. and he was planning on keeping his relationship a secret, though it seems he can't do that anymore.

"might as well say hi" she shrugged

so of course, she then decided to walk up to the camera looking utterly dishevelled and roughed up.

for context, the newly wrapped bandages around her stomach was being stained already by a crimson red hue and it was only getting worse the more she moved, undoubtedly messing up her wound.

"hi, im kenma's girlfriend and if i see you flirting with him i will make you regret it" she grinned

"y/n!" kenma groaned from the bed "you're close to dying right now, turn the stream off"

ignoring him, she proceeded to read the veiwers' comments, laughing at some of them while she joked around.

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮

user: heLLO?!?!

user: GE HAS A GIRLFRIEND NOOO

user: bruh, did i just hear that right? were you fuckin stabbed?

user: ur kinda hot tho

╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

kenma furrowed his brows as he reluctantly walked up behind her, reading the comments with varying reactions

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮

user: well damn, hot bloody girl comes in and suddenly im lesbian

user: kenma looks so done

kuroo.tetsu: hi y/n ;)

user: HER NAME IS Y/N

╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

"jesus christ shut up, kuroo" kenma grumbled out with a sigh

"yup! yup! im y/n, and no, i am not a criminal. i swear." she shook her head

"i got an injury from my job, that's all." she cleared up

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮

user: tangina nyo sana ol

user: MSKAKAKKA

user: THIS IS LOWKEY ICONIC

user: time to scratch another gamer boy off my possible bf list 😔

user: girl wtf happened to u

user: that's wack bro 🚶‍♀️

╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

"great question, random person from the internet!" she beamed "see, what happened was.."

"i went on a certain mission and got severely injured. though, when i called for help nobody responded" she said

kenma furrowed his brows at her words. "why didn't anybody respond?" he asked. she sighed and fiddled with her torn bandages, pouting her lips as she does so.

"well, when i told them that i was finally on death's door, all they said to me was 'congratulations!' and all that.." she said "what's your take on that, hm?" she asked kenma

"im not surprised" he said

she grinned at his words and leaned in for a kiss. "you're so mean to me, kenma~" she whined

she licked her lips as she held his blushing face in her hands, she nuzzled their noses as she leaned in closer to him.

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮

kuroo.tetsu: oh shit 😳

user: we all know where this is heading ;)

user: sana ol talaga punyemas

user: AYO CHILL

user: why we goin so fuckin fasstttt 😳

╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

kenma hastily turned the camera off as soon as y/n's lips touched his.

"kitten, were still- hmph-"

he was only silenced as she slipped her tongue in his mouth, smirking lightly as she ran her fingers through his hair

"thanks babe." she said as she pulled away, giving him a soft peck on his cheek and a nod "anyways.." she hummed as she turned the camera on once again

she looked through the chat while kenma slaps his face to get rid of his blush.

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮

user: ur fuckin freaky

kuroo.tetsu: oya oya 😼😼

user: MS MAAM I JUST MET U AND I LOVE U ALREADY WJABSJSJJS

user: not me blushing chiiilllleeeeee 🏃‍♀️

user: KENMA IS FLUSTERED

kuroo.tetsu: kenma, i didnt expect this from u 😼

user: im so fucking JEALOUS GRR😡

user: girl r u bleeding rn 😃

╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

upon reading a certain comment, she subconsciously grazed her fingers against her bandaged wound. her eyes slightly widening as she felt a concerning amount of wetness seeping through

she glanced at kenma who was still calming himself down and inspected her wound

"oh my.." she muttered, though she couldn't help but let a smile slip through

so like any normal person would do, she simply ignored her bleeding wound and the fact that she was getting a bit lightheaded. haha <3

"anyways, let's answer some questions!" she beamed

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮

user: what's ur full name

user: what's ur job miss girl

user: are you possibly looking for a gf, because i am more

than willing to take the spot 🚶‍♀️

user: how did you meet??

╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

"alright, those are all very nice questions" she chuckled. kenma, who's now calmed down, sat down beside her to look at the chat.

"first, im l/n y/n" she mused "nice to meet ya"

"second im a detective! mhm, im cooler than your fathers"

"third, it depends, belladonna" she cooed as she sent the camera flirty smirk "are you perhaps willing to join me in a double suicide?"

"oh god.." kenma grumbled. he pouted at her and shook his head in disapproval. "don't flirt with random girls" he whined

"why not?"

"uh- because i am your beloved boyfriend, is that not good enough of a reason??"

"... anyways, we met at a cafe way back in high school" she said with a smile "also, i asked him to join me on a double suicide" she said

she was smiling and nodding as if it was the most normal thing in the world, all while kenma nods along

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮

user: wtf are u okay 🗿

kuroo.tetsu: teenage romance 🤩

user: cute ❤️

user: im concerned ❤️

user: ur a detective?? cool

user: LMAOO I'LL GO ON A DOUBLE SEWER SLIDE

WITH U MOMMY 😩😩😋

user: ^^ SAME 😩

user: CHOKE ME WITH THOSE BANDAGES MOMMAE 😩

user: u r still bleeding 🚶‍♀️

╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

kenma was simply glaring at the chat as more compliments and flirtatious comments came flowing in, all of which were directed to his girlfriend.

"this is why i didn't wanna let people know about you.." kenma grumbled

"aww, why not?" she asked with a playful pout

"people are flirting with you." he sighed "also, stop asking for my girlfriend's onlyfans! she doesn't even have one!" he snarled

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮

user: LMAOO CATBOY IS ANGRY 😩

user: y/n-senpai spit on me 😡😡

user: drop the onlyfans

user: chupapi munyanyo 😩

╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

"anyways, i'd hate to ruin the mood" she chimed in with a sluggish giggle "but im so wet kenma" she whined out

a menacing smirk was etched on her lips as kenma spluttered in response, a bright red hue covering his face almost instantly as he faced her with widened eyes

"y-y/n! why would you say that?!" he whisper shouted

"cuz i am" she whined out as she grabbed his hand and trailed it down her abdomen

she faced the camera and gave them a shit-eating grin as kenma mumbled out incoherent words

"y/n we should-" he cut himself off as he felt the concerning amount of blood drip down his whole arm

kenma's face paled as he looked up to see her smiling like a kid in a candy store, completely unbothered.

"y/n, you idiot! why didn't you tell me!" kenma exclaimed

"um- my girlfriend is bleeding. excessively. so uh- bye i guess" it was all he said before hastily ending his stream and turning off his computer.

"y/n, let's get you to a hospital" he said as he reached down to carry her away. though she simply slapped his hands off and closed her eyes.

"nope. this is my time, kenma. don't ruin it for me" she said

"you're fucking dying!!"

"well, would you like to join me?"

"no"

"damn." she muttered in response

"so...wanna fuck?" she asked sheepishly

"for the love of god-"

this was so messy :/

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