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joshua-flipping-washington · 4 years

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EllieDina Week - Day 6: Redemption.

Shit, I apologize for this one being late again! But it got away from me, and ended up being my longest story yet. I hope that you guys enjoy .

Rating: Teen and up.

•○°●

Ellie stands stock-still on the worn front porch, the seafoam green paint that used to cover it in bright droves, was peeling off in little chips and flakes. Ellie raises her hand and closes it in a loose fist, her hand is shaking as she brings it forward and knocks on the dark blue front door. With a familiar three toned knock, she closes her eyes and takes a step back.

She counts backwards from ten, and draws in four big breaths and then exhales. Repeating until she feels herself start to calm down. " Dammit, Ellie- Calm yourself! It's just Dina and little Spud! We are just going out on a picnic, nothing too serious. " Ellie grimaced at her own words towards herself, she knew that she had every right to panic. Dina could have cut Ellie out of her and JJ's life, and just moved on. But she'd chosen to let Ellie prove herself, and Ellie would always be eternally grateful for that.

Ellie's green eyed gaze had drifted down to the porch at some point, so when the door went flying open she was quick to raise her head and brace for impact. She crouched down just in time for JJ to come barreling into her arms, giggling with delight as he wrapped his arms around Ellie. " El! I made yew something! " He excitedly moved back a bit, and presented Ellie a bracelet that was made out of twine, she smiled as she held her wrist out.

She watched him struggle for a moment with getting it tied onto her wrist, but once he did, she chuckled as he smiled proudly. His missing front tooth making it ten times more adorable than should be legal. Ellie turned her wrist over and examined the bracelet, it was covered in multicolored beads and had a few charms between a couple of the beads. She ruffled his hair, and grinned at him. " Whoa! This looks super badass, Spud! You made this all by yourself? "

" He made it at school. " Dina's voice suddenly sounded, making Ellie jump slightly and raise her head to stare up at the woman leaning against the door jamb with a loving smile on her face, and the basket for their picnic held in her hands. " He was asked to make a gift for the people who mean the most to him. " Dina raised the hand holding the basket, showing that she was wearing one as well.

Ellie looked back at the bracelet JJ had made for her, then she looked back at him. She sniffed, not at all oblivious to the tears that welled in her eyes. She quickly wiped them away, pulling JJ into a small embrace. " Thanks for the new piece, JJ. I will wear it with pride. I still- I can't believe that you are old enough to attend school! " She let him go, and slowly got to her feet.

JJ rushed back past Dina and inside the house as soon as Ellie had released him from the hug. " I forgot! " He shouted as he zoomed upstairs.

Ellie looked at Dina with her brow arched in confusion, but Dina just shrugged her shoulders. Letting her know that she had no idea what he meant by that. " He's a wild card, he could have meant anything. You know, he kind of reminds me of you, when you first came to Jackson. Not the stealing a whole bunch of jerky bit, but just your general personality when you opened up and started talking with me. "

Ellie's mouth fell open with a soft ' oh '. Her eyes shimmered as the memories all came flooding back, and she chuckled. " Well, looks like your work is cut out for you. Having to deal with a replica of tiny fourteen year old me. "

" Yeah, I guess that it is. " Dina said with amusement, she turned to face the stairs as she heard JJ come parading back downstairs. His backpack all packed up and clipped onto him, like he was ready for a weekend of adventuring. " Whoa! What's all that for, buddy? " Dina asked as she watched him walk back onto the porch.

" Nothing, it's a secret. " Was all JJ said, his missing tooth making the his S's sound like he was whistling. He marched down the steps and stopped at the bottom. " I'm ready! " He announced, looking at both Ellie and Dina expectantly.

" Well, alright- As long as it isn't another one of those mice from school. I told you that they are alive, and can't breathe inside of your backpack or pocket. " Dina spoke as she walked out the door, closing it behind her.

JJ gave a firm shake of his head. " No, is not a mouse, Mama. Promise. "

Dina let out a breath of relief, happy to not have to deal with THAT situation again. " Oh, thank god. "

Ellie looked confused at the mention of mice from school, and all it made her think of was shooting rats with a BB gun back in Boston. She walked down the stairs with Dina, gently nudging JJ's shoe with the toe of her boot. " Fine, keep your secrets, Spud! " She teased.

Ellie was trying really hard not to think about the fact that JJ was going to school every weekday and she was missing it, because she lived back where she used to. When Joel was still alive. The place brought back a lot of feelings, especially one's about all she'd done to fuck up her life. But thankfully, she wasn't ever home long enough to be constantly reminded of the past. She just longed for the days when she could cuddle with Dina and JJ in bed, forgetting all the horrors of the world.

JJ gently tugged on the sleeve of Ellie's flannel, pulling her out of her thoughts. " Let's goooo! I'm starving. "

A grin stretched across Ellie's face as the old joke came to her mind, and she couldn't resist. " Hi, starving! I'm Ellie. It's great to meet you. " She said as she shook JJ's hand with great force. Causing him to laugh and try to tug away.

" You are such a dork. " Dina said with a fond smile, beginning to walk in the direction towards the center of town.

Ellie follows after Dina, JJ trailing along beside her. His backpack making an awful lot of ruckus as he bounced around like the happy kid he was. She side-eyed the bag with suspicion, her mind practically teaming with curiosity. What on earth could a four year old have that's so big of a secret, it must be hidden in a backpack?

Dina stopped once they reached the front gates, talking to one of the guards on duty. She had talked with Maria before hand, just to make sure it was safe. But she still needed to let the guards know they were leaving out. She smiled brightly at them, grabbing Ellie and JJ's hands, and leading them out of Jackson's front gate.

Dina drew in a large breath, exhaling happily. " I know it seems dumb, but the air always smells so much more crisp outside the walls. " She laughed as JJ attempted to mimic her, she tickled his sides with wiggly fingers, causing him to shriek in delight.

Ellie couldn't keep the big smile off of her face, she gave a shake of her head in disagreement. " I don't think it's dumb, especially not when I know exactly what you mean. "

《》

The walk to the picnic spot had been a rather uneventful thing, but JJ's excitement about every little leaf, critter and river definitely made it worth it.

Dina came to a stop right on a gorgeous riverbank, a field of small bright yellow flowers surrounded them. She smiled as she saw the look of awe stretch across her sons face, but she definitely wasn't surprised to see that Ellie was just as mystified. " Ah, I see that you two love the view here already! "

Dina set down the picnic basket and opened it up, pulling out the small fleece blanket she'd brought for them to enjoy their picnic on.

JJ ran around near the waters edge, laughing and giggling as the water splashed up and licked his feet. " It's cold! Ellie, come! Play with me! " He says in excitement as he crouches down and starts splashing at the waters surface.

" Coming, Spud! " Ellie shouts as she jumps over a fallen log and squats down beside JJ at the waters edge, watching as he concentrates on catching imaginary critters. " Look! I caught a big one! " He says as he holds up his empty fist.

" Whoa, nelly! That fish is as big as you were when you were just a little Potato! " Ellie says in excitement, miming the size of the imaginary fish and placing her hands on her head in wonder.

" Alright, enough fishing you two! It's time to eat. " Dina calls out to them from her seat on the blanket, she had been watching them bond for about ten minutes, a loving smile on her face. Despite all they'd been through, Dina knew that Ellie was the missing half that JJ needed in his life.

Both JJ and Ellie rush over to the blanket, laughing as they flop down onto it.

Ellie was amazed by the amount of food that tiny basket had been able to hold, it was packed with fruit, cheese, fresh bread and jam preserves, beef jerky and a big thermos of water. " I have no idea, how you managed to bring this much stuff. But oh man, this is a feast built for a king. "

Dina shook her head with a snort, gently shoving Ellie by the shoulder, before handing out the plates. " Shut up, you dope. It's normal sized picnic basket. "

Ellie stuck her tongue out playfully at Dina, earning a slight kick from the other woman's foot. Oh… How much Ellie had missed this, just spending time and being in the here and now with Dina and JJ.

Dina served all of them the fresh fruit, bread with raspberry preserves, the cheese and jerky as well as a glass of water. They all sat in silence as they ate, listening to the sounds of the forest. The soft babbling of the river, the leaves brushing against each other as a breeze blows through them.

JJ was seated in Dina's lap, he was munching on a piece of apple, while talking excitedly about something he'd learned in school. And Ellie was just beyond herself, head over heels in love as she watched Dina listen to him speak with such patience, love and understanding in those beautiful brown eyes.

The sun was reaching that beautiful golden peak in the sky, and it cast it's golden rays on the both of them. It was a moment Ellie wished she could preserve forever, Dina's freckled face as she laughed and tickled JJ's side.

" I love you. " Ellie blurted out in a firm, matter-of-fact tone. " And I always have, I never stopped. Even when it seemed like I had, and I lost myself. I love you, and- I want things to be like they used to be. I want to wake up in the bed beside you, and prove to you… How much you mean to me. I want to be a constant in JJ's life, I don't want to watch him grow up from the sidelines. " Ellie sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of her nose.

" And I know, I have no right coming out and saying all of this- But I've been talking about it all with Dr. Monroe. And- And I just needed to get it off my chest, I know that it's stupid- And that all of that is probably the last thing you want, after all I've done. " Ellie didn't realize that she was tearing up until one of the sneaky fuckers slipped down her cheek.

Dina stared at Ellie in shock, her brown eyes flashing with so many different emotions as she searches Ellie's green eyes for any hint that she was fabricating something, anything. But when she saw none of that, and only a look mixed with fear, adoration and love. " Ellie… "

Could Dina let Ellie back into her life like that? Part of her was so unsure, and felt that same fear creeping back up. But she shoved it back down, and told it to shove it. Ellie had been working for two years, to earn back her trust. And… Dina couldn't lie, though she still shielded herself and JJ. Ellie had earned that trust the second she started truly working to fix things in her life. The things that ran deep, and cut to the bone.

Dina's eyes softened as she reached her hand forward and gently caressed Ellie's cheek. " Ellie, you stole my heart the moment I met you. I can't say that it doesn't hurt, when I think back to that night. But- I think that with time, we can mend those wounds. " She leaned forward and pressed a loving kiss to her lips.

JJ giggled and scrambled out of Dina's lap, flopping down onto the blanket in between them. He pulled his backpack off and opened it up, pulling out a small sketchbook that Ellie had found for him. He opened it up to a page it seemed he knew by heart, and proudly showed it to the both of them. It had the words ' My family ' scrawled across the top in typical toddler fashion.

Ellie furiously wiped at her eyes as she observed the drawing, then she laughed and pulled both JJ and Dina into a hug. " Ugh, I love you both so much it physically pains me- Would be a shame... If you were stuck with me. " Ellie said as she pulled back and looked Dina in the eyes. " Dina… I never thought I'd find myself ever saying these words- Especially now. But- What better time than now. Marry me? You wonderful, gorgeous woman. I want to spend the rest of my life, with you and JJ. "

Dina really didn't think that she could be more surprised than she was at Ellie's confession. But she certainly didn't expect to break down in tears, voice thick with emotion as she answered. " Yes, I wouldn't want it any other way. You… Complete us. "

JJ was still a little to young yet to completely grasp the concept, but he was happy because his Mama and Mom were. They spent the rest of the day just spending time together, talking and laughing. They had been given a second chance to grow together as a family.

#elliedina week #ellie x dina #The Last of Us Part II #Ellie Williams #Dina TLOU2 #Sony Interactive Entertainment #Naughty Dog #video game photography #video game edit #rich the idiot writes

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theteej · 4 years

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Lee-Jackson Day, yet again.

The feeling creeps in, like a slow fog in the morning. A sense of helplessness, of grief, of powerless confusion. It's a freezing feeling, and I feel everything grind a little slower inside me, like the gears of some fading automaton. This feeling has snuck on me like clockwork these past three years, unwavering in its unpleasant reaction.

I feel it long before I realize why it's happening. Here in California people make idle references to "the three day weekend." But for four years, it was something a hell of a lot worse for me: Lee-Jackson weekend, and its accompanying violent fuckery.

Nearly two decades after Confederate commander Robert E. Lee died the Commonwealth of Virginia commemorated his birthday (January 19) as a state holiday in 1889, adding the birthday of fellow Confederate soldier Stonewall Jackson in 1904 (January 21). Lee-Jackson Day became a state holiday in third week of January, a tribute to the rehabilitation of Confederate rebellion and a chilling moment of celebrating in the face of terrorized black people the lamentable loss of the slave state. Absurdly, the state simply slapped Martin Luther King onto the whole equation when MLK became a federal holiday; from 1983-2000, there was Lee-Jackson-King Day, truly a nonsensical mishmash that made a false equivalence between honouring white supremacist slaveholding and a civil rights leader. From 2000 to 2020, the two were separate, creating a strange standoff on either side of the weekend, Lee-Jackson on the Friday, MLK on the Monday.

I of course knew none of this prior to 2014, when I flew out to Washington and Lee University on a job visit on Martin Luther King Day. Faculty gave nervous glances at the queer, black candidate who'd arrived just after the weekend, but I still didn't understand until the next year, when they rolled into town. The Confederates came by the dozens, setting up gigantic Confederate flags directly in front of my workplace, slapped up huge signs screaming that Lee was being disgraced by the "new" changes at the University (which had finally acquiesced in taking down Confederate flags in the central chapel on campus that they still made students of colour attend, under the watchful statue of a dead Lee, to partake in school activities), and they would yell at us, challenging us to see them in their unmelanated victimhood.

It fucking hurt every year. It hurt every year to see the town I lived and worked in invaded by these entitled white men, women, and children, who spewed invective, who openly missed enslavement of people like me, and who loudly made their sense of disenchantment and complaint very known.

You know what hurt more? The fact that that it was absolutely a right response to the moral bankruptcy of Washington and Lee University, and the white administrators and my fellow colleagues rarely openly responded to it as such. The entirety of Washington and Lee's largesse, its attractiveness, is its storied 'heritage.' But that heritage is one of enslavement, of white supremacy, of violence. And it has never, ever been repudiated. Instead, it's a shitty compromise, where we hold all the slave-built buildings, the memorial chapel that worships Lee, and we think if we wish hard enough, it wouldn't be violently anti-black, and it wouldn't be a complete mockery to hold the institution as thus.

I needed a job after my PhD, and it was a good one, this job in Virginia. I had enough funding to do research in South Africa, I had curious and thoughtful students, and for the most part I had thoughtful colleagues. But the place is an open sewer with decorative bricks. It is a pit of violence and hatred that is as papered over as the thin-lipped smiles I encountered from my white colleagues and the sorrowful shrugs they offered me without doing anything. It was the dean who shook her head in commiseration but told me to head to another town (ironically, Charlottesville) the entire weekend rather than see the Confederates occupy my town, the stretch of street in front of my apartment, for four days. It still hurts. It still bothers me.

Two years in, after KKK recruitment flyers were spread around the town, we formed an anti-racist group. It was largely well intentioned white liberals, headed in particular by problematic professors who wanted to speak over people, but it was something. And we decided to finally have an MLK parade. And in a turn of pettiness, we petitioned to have the parade on Saturday, the day the Confederates usually marched. And we beat them to the permit. And all hell broke loose.

I and other people got doxxed online. i got death threats in my email and my picture was circulated as one of the problems threatening Southern heritage. My mother cried over the phone and worried if I'd die.

We marched on that parade day and it felt significant. But I also had to deal with deeply disingenuous white townsfolk who made false equivalences. Stephanie Wilkinson, who would make headlines a year and a half later for finally drawing a line and refusing Sarah Huckabee Sanders service at her expensive restaurant, publicly equated Martin Luther King marchers and the Confederates as 'outside problems' and asked for a neutral free speech zone to accommodate both. I saw the hypocrisy of whiteness and accommodation long before the siege of the Capitol.

Working in Virginia from 2014-18 was a rewarding experience for my career, and yet it came at a cost. It fucked me up badly. I had to endure, politely, the daily mendacity of polite white society--of people who wanted to imagine that this was "a good town." And when I wasn't being threatened personally by Confederates I was being gaslit by professors like Robin LeBlanc or Jim Casey who insisted that they were the good ones beyond reproach and that they were the arbiters of what racism was or wasn't.

I am grateful and acknowledge that I have a career because of Washington and Lee, but if I could do it over again, I don't think I would.

Sometimes I still wake up afraid. My anxiety became a regular companion in those four lonely years. I felt belittled and gaslit and frankly humiliated, no times more frequently than that interminable fucking weekend in January where in the freezing weather, I was forced to say out loud that it was absurd that I was being asked to accommodate--with kindness no less--the vicious false victimhood of shitty Confederate whites and worse still the well intentioned crocodile tears of my white liberal colleagues.

When the University of San Diego offered me a job I left what was fundamentally an abusive relationship. But it never leaves you.

And every fucking year since I've been back, even in the counterintuitive summer warmth of these January weekends (it was 83F/28C today), the chill creeps in. Part of me wants to unclench in the false calm of the California sun. That we aren't in the middle of another moment of cruel perfidy, where the people with actual structural power perform their victimhood and demand once again that people like me die, or at the very least, be broken in the dust for the soothing of their petty, pointless pride.

And that's why, after the Jan 6 Capitol assault, another Lee-Jackson Day fucks me up. Because despite the fact that the Commonwealth of Virginia finally, FUCKING FINALLY discontinued the holiday in the summer of 2020, they're back in Lexington today. Celebrating once again, with huge flags. Taking up space. And the university does nothing, just victimizes new black faculty trying to quietly write their way out of hell, and reminding the black people still living there that they are always to be seen as obstacles to be crushed. I can't. It breaks me, still. Perhaps because I've cruelly come to realize that this isn't over. I moved three thousand miles away and yet those vicious complainants who see people like me as a threat to their minor existence aren't just invading Lexington.

They're assaulting the Capitol. With precious few consequences. And I've few places to run.

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forlornmelody · 4 years

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Kord Center Mall: Curiosity

Rating: T (no smut, just lots of angst)

Fandom(s): DC Comics

Ship: Rose Wilson/Cassie Sandsmark, Rose Wilson/Jason Todd

Linkage: Ao3

Summary: After her fight with Jason, Rose is willing to move on to anything or anyone who can get her mind off of him. And Cassie seems good enough. What could go wrong?

Note: This is a cross over, mall-verse AU concocted by @scifi-ginger and myself. You’ve been warned. Also, I have a lot of disclaimers for this one. Cause. Firstly, Cassie doesn't get a good look in this one. Turn back now if that puts you off. Also, Rose has some not-nice thoughts about sexual identity labels, and they do not reflect my views on labels, kay? She's kind of in denial at this point. *cough* It's called a character arc, Susan.

–>–>

Rose hasn’t slept well in a week. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees the hurt on Jason’s face, and it makes her heart pound. He’s better off--You’re better off, this way. This way no one gets hurt. Except he’s hurt already. The times when she does fall asleep, she dreams of holding hands at the Wayne Estate, nursing him back to health when he’s sick, crying on his shoulder when her dad doesn’t show again. Each time Rose wakes up in a sweat, and then her brain won’t shut the fuck off.

Thank the Great Whatever for punching bags. Let Joey meditate and mouth his mantras--sometimes punching is the only thing that calms her mind. With each hit--the synapses connect, her blood flows where it’s supposed to, and her muscles relax. Rose hits and hits and hits, sometimes throwing in a kick for good measure, until she’s too gassed to stand. Then she sits on a bench and stares out the window as the world starts to make sense again. Maybe the endorphins make it easier. Maybe her body’s too exhausted to let her brain overthink, but Rose realizes something after her second round of cardio.

Rose wants more.

Before, and maybe now still, Rose figured romance, real, true, love, was something ashamed people made up to feel better about what and who they did in bed. Joey, in his typical Marches-In-The-Pride-Parade-And-Has-Fucked-Every-Color-Of-The-Rainbow fashion, labeled her aromantic, or maybe demiromantic. Rose shrugged off the label and continued fucking whomever she pleased--let others worry about what to call her. She was Rose Fucking Wilson and she did what she wanted. Ugh. Her older brother probably has a label for whatever this is, too.

So, what does Rose Wilson want, exactly?

Well.

Jason Todd, obviously, as usual. But Rose wants Jason in more than Just-The-Guy-I-Fuck-Around-With-Sometimes way. She wants to hold his hand when they’re out in public, wants to make him chicken soup from scratch, she wants to be held--not just when he’s thrusting in and out of her and making her scream. And Rose already fucked that up.

So, what is Rose to do?

Well.

There’s Cassie Sandsmark--the girl Rose has fucked more than once. More than usual, recently. To the point where her friends keep asking Rose what’s going on--and her usual shrugs and suggestive eyebrow waggles don’t seem to cut it. Maybe Cassie is still real fucking annoying, but she’s also kind of...charming? Fun to look at, at least. What the hell. Rose has no idea how this love thing is supposed to work, so maybe Cassie will work.

At least, that’s what Rose keeps repeating to herself as she waits for Cassie to show up for their shift.

“Someone pee in your coffee?” The sound of Cassie’s voice makes Rose jump in her seat.

“No,” Rose says shortly. All those lines she rehearsed in the last ten minutes? Gone.

“No really. What’s up?” Cass plops down in the seat next to hers, bumping their knees together.

“You look nice.” Well, she did. But why did Rose just say that out loud?

“Okay. Who are you and what have you done with my…?” Girlfriend? “...desk mate?”

Rose shakes it off. “You busy later?”

“Mm. Depends. Why?” Cassie does that thing where she twists her pencil into her hair, and now it makes Rose melt instead of cringe.

What the actual fuck is happening? To me? “I was thinking I could make you dinner. Or something.” Smoooth. “Your place?”

Cassie’s eyebrows rise to the ceiling. “Sounds...different.” She pulls out her phone, thumbing through her text messages. “Yeah. Sure. Mom’s still out of town on a dig.”

Rose probably looks too eager, but she can’t help it. “Sweet. I’ll be there at 6.” There’s only one problem--she has to act casual for the rest of her shift. The hours drag on, as Rose sits, completely aware of how close Cassie’s chair sits next to hers, how she can just reach over and touch her hair, pull her close, and kiss her until she’s a writhing mess. She plans the menu in her head--starting with drinks and working backward. Cassie probably likes wine more than beer, right? Or is she more into the cheap shit the older kids keep smuggling into her parties?

“Uh, excuse me?” Rose looks up, meeting the eyes of a disgruntled soccer mom in overpriced yoga pants and a matching crop top. She holds a mat in one hand and a designer thermos in the other. “Where’s the hot yoga?”

“Down the hall, second door on your left.” Rose says automatically, heat rising to her cheeks. Shit. Could she tell? Could she smell the want radiating off her body? Soccer Mom moves on, and Rose steals a glance at the girl who’s stolen her heart. She’s halfway through her inbox, labeling and responding to emails in triaged fashion, seemingly unaware of Rose’s gaze.

Stir fry would work. Everyone loves stir fry, right?

->->->

Hours later, Rose stands in Cassie’s kitchen, making her dinner and daydreaming about making her dessert. The peanut sauce simmers on the backburner, and the curves of Cassie’s thighs boil in front of Rose’s mind. She rehearses her speech over and over.

Hey, I think I really like

You’re really awesome and

What do you think about being girlfriends?

Cassie wraps an arm around her, and Rose jumps out of her skin. “You’re really jumpy today.”

Rose swallows, hoping the heat of the stove excuses the redness in cheeks. “I have a lot on my mind.”

Leaning closer, Cassie chews her grin. “Oh, like what?” Close enough to kiss.

“Heh, yeah. Something like that.” Their noses brush, and Rose swears she can taste her already.

Just as Rose’s lips brush Cassie’s, she jerks back. “Is something burning?”

Rose’s eyes widen, shoving Cass out of the way. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

->->->

Cassie has devoured half her plate before Rose finally blurts it out. Rose tries taking a bite, but it tastes like wet papier-mâché and goes down her throat like gravel.

“Cassie?”

She looks up at Rose, and Rose drops her fork. “Yeah?”

“Want to be my girlfriend?”

“Huh?” Cassie shoves another bite in her mouth, narrowing her eyes.

Shit. Fuck. Rose takes a breath, trying to slow the hammering in her ears. “I think...I know. We’ve. Fu--slept together a few times. And you’re actually really nice so…” Waving her hands in vague gestures, Rose watches for Cassie’s reaction.

She smiles. Then she laughs, leaning back in her chair. “Rose.”

Rose holds her breath, and every tick of Cassie’s grandfather clock takes an eternity to strike.

Cassie shakes her head, chuckling a little. “This...I mean. I’m not really interested in girls that way.”

What little Rose managed to eat churns in her stomach.

The girl across from her softens, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “Don’t get me wrong. The sex is great.” She smiles. “Girls are hot. But I only form emotional connections with men.” Her forefinger taps Rose’s knuckles. “Did you still want to? Y’know?”

Don’t. Don’t you dare. “Sure.” The word slips so easily out of Rose’s mouth.

They fall into bed together easily too. It’s easy to pretend this is all she wants right now. Making Cassie squirm comes as readily as doing algebra. And it feels nice to be touched by her. And if she doesn’t like her, then it doesn’t matter if Jason’s the one she’s thinking about, right?

Rose doesn’t stay the night.

#dc comics #rose wilson #rose wilson x cassandra sandsmark #jayrose #kinda #angst #kord center mall #internalized acephobia #au #mallverse #melody writes #really nervous about posting this one

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peacefulwriter88 · 5 years

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Silent Orders - Part 1

Teacher!Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: None for part one minus sweet fluff

A/N: @gifsbysimplysonia requested this a while back and my imagination was able to cluster together this cute little two parter - hope you all enjoy

Also mood board created by me so tag me if you reblog/share _______

The spring bake sale had been pushed up earlier, much to many parents dismay. The spring soccer teams were in dire need of new uniforms for every grade so the principal had suggested to use the popular small town event as a fundraiser in which every parent was encouraged to participate in.

And in a small town like Green Oaks, that meant of course that everyone participated.

It was what had led Steve walking down the narrow Green Oaks Elementary hallway, a small chubby hand encased in his own as the pair of them slowly strolled down the narrow passage. Dismissal had been an hour ago but the school was still vibrant with life, surprisingly for a Friday in March, the air drifting with laughter and the sweet smell of baked goods and other wares.

“Is my mommy going to do be down this hallway?”

Adrians voice is tiny, barely audible above the chatter and Steve looks down at him with a large smile, giving him a squeeze.

“I think so buddy. Remember, this morning she said she was going to be a little late because she had to run home and grab all of the yummy goodies you helped her bake for the fundraiser?”

Adrian nods but his small, round eyes still don’t stop from roaming from the endless array of tables. Steve gives him a squeeze, resisting the urge to lift the small boy and sing him one of the many songs that he knew would yank a grin out of him.

Biasedly, Steve adored the inquisitive five year old and he knew that half of it was because the boy had the kind of intelligence and compassion most kids didn’t find until there were far older, and the other half was because he was an extension of you.

When you had dropped Adrian off this morning, you had that worried glint in your eye that he had become accustomed to seeing.

“My father can’t pick Adrian after the bake sale,” you had sighed as you watched Adrian run around on the playground with his peers.

“I have to rush home to pick up all the things I baked which would mean an hour of Adrian being unintended for, and I’m not comfortable enough to ask any of the new moms. I know they mean well but….sometimes they just come off judgy, you know?”

Steve knew. That mixed with your pride kept you biting down on your lips, eyes trained on your son. The solution was easy to him,

“If you don’t mind,” you had flickered your eyes to him, “ I can happily watch Adrian during that time. Dawkins likes for the staff to linger for these things, say hi before we head out so I’ll be around anyways. And I don’t mind watching Adrian.”

The smile that had erupted across your lips had been all he needed, happy for his decision as you squeezed his arm in quick thanks, before waving at your son and currying away.

You were exactly the kind of trouble he was enjoying getting lost in.

“Steve I didn’t think you’d stay for this thing.”

The familiar low tone of his good friend draws his attention away from Adrian and he stops them both, turning and watching as Natasha makes her way through the crowd, oblivious to the many dads who give her a second look as she progresses toward him, a bag in hand.

Natasha was probably one of the most attractive people Steve has ever met in his life, point blank. Fiery red hair and a personality to match, supple lips that matched her hips and wide blue eyes. The only thing stopping her from breaking Green Oaks male population was the fact that her fiance and his best friend from childhood, James “Bucky” Barnes, was a respected police officer in the community.

That and she shut down most men before they could get a word out.

Regardless, she was far softer with the fifth graders she taught and Steve was grateful that he had someone else in this building he could have normal conversations with. He wasn’t oblivious to the looks he received from most of the women he worked with, the lingering touches despite if they were married or not. It was a far different experience from how he used to be treated in high school - his former scrawny self an afterthought after puberty hit him in college.

“Well I had some motivation.” Steve pulls Adrian into view who smiles widely at the redhead, beaming,

“Hi Ms. Roman….Roman….Romaneff.” the young boy furrows his eyebrows trying to get her name out and Natasha laughs as she ruffles his head,

“You can just call me Ms. R,” she shifts her eyes to Steve. “I’m going to be so happy to be Mrs. Barnes for so many reasons. Mainly so kids can finally say my last bloody name but don’t let Bucky know that’s the top reason.”

Steve laughs as he directs Adrian back in the direction of the cafeteria and Natasha nudges him, following his pace,

“He’s stinking adorable but why are you on teacher duty? Bell rang nearly an hour ago.”

Steve stops with Adrian at a table, watching as the young boy eyes travel to the soap dinosaur bombs with mild curiosity before flickering his eyes back to Steve. Steve knows that he shouldn’t buy it for the boy - you would hate that - but there’s something about those large bold eyes that has him tugging in his back pocket for his wallet, telling Adrian he can have one if he liked.

“And one for my mommy?” Adrian asks shyly and Steve chuckles and nods. You were going to be livid with him.

“Sure bud - that way this nice lady doesn’t have to break my ten.” he winks at the elderly woman behind the table who laughs though she blushes, shaking her head as she temporarily asks Adrian which dinosaur he’d be interested in.

Natasha raises an eyebrow as Steve turns to her and says,

“I told Y/N that I’d watch him while she prepped for this thing. Her dad couldn’t pick him up today and she was in a bind so…”

“So you just thought to play babysitter to the hot new mom in town.” Natasha kids and Steve rolls his eyes though he smiles. He notices the woman flicker her eyes between the both of them but he waves it aside.

Everyone knew about you - it was hard not to in a small town like this, a distant suburb of Boston. You had moved here two years ago with just Adrian and had been an immediate hot topic. Single mom who bought the only art gallery in town and curated some pieces for the few museum in the local area - why wouldn’t you be a gossip?

Really it was the women who gossiped and really, Natasha had pointed out the one summer evening she had dragged him and Bucky to a show you were hosting, it was because you were...different. The women were intimidated by you. You were an outsider from the city, this curvy one woman show that was also the daughter of Green Oaks former mayor.

Your dad had bee a scandal - a known Green Oaks native winning their votes despite his Brooklyn upbringing. The fact that he had always talked about you but never dragged you out - the tongues that wagged though he was voted for term until he couldn’t any more.

Then you, his daughter. Single mom with no husband fresh from the big city opening a posh art gallery in town. Obviously you were scandalous.

Except, of course, like most things time shifted the tide.

You used your space on Saturdays to host free art classes that you facilitated. Adrian participated in every class, club and sport you could sign him for and you were a proud member of the local book club and an active member in Green Oaks PTA. You volunteered at parades and organized charity runs and was a proud chair member of the city council.

Through time, people discovered how Adrian’s father ran out on you when he found out you were pregnant. That you had studied in Versailles and was a distinguished artist before you had gotten pregnant. That you moved to Green Oaks where your parents decided to retire so you could get help with raising him, not wanting Adrian to get lost in the city that was New York.

Steve had known you long before Adrian was in his class, from afar, when he would go to art nights with his friends and sometimes drop in for classes. Had enough pleasant enough conversations with you but could never break down your wall.

But then he started teaching Adrian and things had changed.

“She’s not new anymore Natasha.” Steve chuckles as Adrian runs to him with the bright Stegosaurus and T-Rex bombs he had selected. Steve helps him place the bombs in his backpack before Adrian grabs his hand and they resume their journey down the hall.

“I know,” Natasha nudges him, “I’m just curious as to why? You normally shut that down with moms month one. Playing the babysitter.”

Steve keeps the smile to himself as they turn a corner and it's obvious that this is a particularly popular hall, the noise level increasingly louder with families jammed together. The baked goods hall. Adrian tightens his hand around Steve, his hold around the plush dinosaur that he favored being bought to his chest as he looks around amused.

“This hall is busy.” Adrian finally comments and Steve agrees, nodding.

“I agree bud - this hall is busy.”

“Why?” the young man asks, the curls on his head falling back with him as he looks up at Steve with large, curious eyes.

“Hmmmm, I’d guess there’s a really popular table with a lot of yummy goodies.”

“I bet it's mommy’s table.” Adrian doesn’t miss a beat, smiling deeply as he starts to pull the large man down toward the hectiness and Natasha gives an approving nod.

“He actually is right about that.”

It only takes a few strides before they find the source of the long line and, like Adrian and Natasha pointed out, your table is the source. You’re oblivious to their presence as you talk to parents, jumping from English and Spanish depending on the individual as you exchange your baked delicacies for cash or credit card. You’re hair has been thrown into a haphazard ponytail, the bodycon professional dress fully exposed as you throw your blazer on the chair behind you exposing your bosom.

He feels the air escaping his lungs, tries not to let it show as Adrian pulls toward you more strongly, though he feels Natasha’s eyes on him as Adrian screams out,

“Mommy!”

Your head automatically snaps to his direction, eyes falling on your son before they blink up to Steve. There’s satisfaction in seeing the way you exhale a large breath, teeth tugging on your bottom lip before you shake your head, moving from behind the tight space of the table to bend down and extend your arms out for your son. Adrian moves with ease in the crowd, despite the awkward weight of his large backpack and he jumps in your arms as you lift him, placing kisses all over his face.

“Oh little man I’ve missed you.” you say as Steve and Natasha near and you flicker your eyes to the group,

“Natasha you back for more?”

The red head laughs and shakes her head,

“No way. I’ve bought enough chocolate to ruin my wedding dress size for the next few weeks. No, I figured I’d lead Steve in the right direction since he’s been looking for you.”

You smile over at Steve as Adrian burrows himself in your neck, wraps around more as you say,

“Mr. Rogers thanks so much for looking after Adrian. I really appreciate it and am sure the last thing you wanted to do was watch a five year old for one hour longer on a Friday.”

Steve sticks his hands in his pockets, bashful grin planted on his face,

“It was no problem at all, it was fun hanging out with Adrian. And please Y/N, you can call me Steve. Especially after work hours.”

He feels silly when he’s in your presence, hard to grasp on his thoughts but he is grateful as he sees you fall into yourself, a similar shy smile on your face before you clear your throat and turn with your son in your hands.

“Well everyone bought up a lot of my cupcakes and truffles-”

“You should have an in house bakery in your gallery. Those truffles are sin.” Natasha cuts you off and you laugh as you turn back to them.

“Not sure about that Natasha but I did save these for you Mr. Roge….I mean Steve. To thank you for hanging out with Adrian...it really does mean a lot.”

You hand over the container that held four cupcakes and you shift Adrian on your hip as you say,

“They’re the dark chocolate ones you like. The ones with the salted caramel frosting. I remembered you telling me how much you enjoyed them when I made them for your class last fall so...figured you deserve the small batch I whipped up this morning.”

“Oh come on...those are Bucky’s favorite and she wouldn’t let anyone buy them! I even offered to pay 50 dollars for them. Aren’t you lucky Steve.” Natasha pretends offense though she laughs at the way Steve smiles cheekily at you, a slight blush tinging his cheeks. He doesn’t mean for the thank you he shoots your way to come off as timid as it does as you stare him back down but he also was still trying to figure out how to navigate interacting with you in public spaces.

You clear the air, promising Natasha you’d bake her and Bucky a special batch as you sit Adrian down, handing him a book as you start to clean up the little material you had on your table. Steve notices that you have nothing left, not compared to everyone else around you and doesn’t hesitate to volunteer himself and Natasha to help clean up.

“We were headed out anyways.” he notes when you protest and though Natasha throws him questioning eyes she doesn’t challenge him, happily helps fold the black tablecloth you’ve bought, pile the left over plastic containers into your travel cart.

“I’m happy I sold out early, means I can head home and start my weekend early.” you say as the four of you head out of the school, Adrian unwilling to leave the embrace of your arms as you carry him and your work bag. Steve is carrying the four tubs of plastic ware and Natasha has the rolling bin that held your tablecloth - the table decorations. You stop temporarily to speak with the principal about your contribution, handing him your moneybox before you proceed with the group back to the parking lot.

“Tell me about it. I don’t know why we planned for a late spring wedding. School is out and then a wedding? I’m an idiot - I have so much to plan for and have little motivation to want to get it all done.” Natasha mumbles and you click your Nissan Rogue open as you say,

“If you want, I could come over this weekend. I took Saturday off and I’ve been in a wedding or two...I’d happily help out if you need it.”

“Oh my god would you? Bucky would be eternally grateful….would even forgive you for giving his best friend all of his cupcakes.”

You laugh as you place Adrian in the back seat, buckling him in and nodding.

“Let me give you my number. Text me when I can come over...as long as you don’t mind Adrian tagging along. We were going to go to the zoo but if the weather is going to be bad like predicted he’d happily watch some movies while we plan and drink wine.”

Steve places the containers in the trunk, and the bin before closing it and checking on Adrian who is playing with the bath bombs like action figures.

“You have a good evening little man. Don’t give your mom too much of a hard time.”

“I won’t Mr. Rogers. I’m gonna tell her about the dinosawr bones we found!” the young boys face is enthusiastic and Steve ruffles his head before coming to the other side, waiting on you patiently as you and Natasha see each other off, Natasha waving goodbye to Steve before heading to her car.

“Natasha’s kind of had a girl crush on you for months...you don’t know how much that means to her.” he says when you turn to him and you laugh as you cross your arms, tightening your hands around your body as you try to block it from the early spring chilly air.

“I doubt that. Natasha is too cool of a girl to want to hang out with a dork like me.”

Your voice is teasing and he laughs as he shuts the door at Adrian’s side, waving at Adrian through the tinted glass as you turn on your heels, moving toward the drivers side. He’s not too far behind you.

“Well it was a pleasure getting to spend time with you, Ms. Y/L/N,” you stop at your door, leaning on it as he stands in front of you, mirroring your movement, “You really know how to brighten up a man’s day.”

You blush as you play with your keys, shaking your head before looking back up at him and smiling,

“Well you’re the one who saved my ass earlier today Mr. Rog….I mean Steve,” a gust of wind hits and you tighten your hold around you. “Thanks for watching Adrian. I really appreciate it.”

There was so many words going unsaid as he watched you in the twilight, your eyes twinkling as they looked back at him, hair getting tugged out of your ponytail and whipping against your face. He loved that when you smiled your dimples dug into your cheeks, loved the faint smell of perfume that wafted to his nose. If he could, he’d lean over and kiss your lips, succulent and teasing - whisper how much he loved you and how he was looking forward to seeing you later. But you weren’t ready for that, not yet. You wanted to make sure that it was okay with your son, knows it would be a big step for him to have someone like Steve in his life.

Instead he digs in his pockets, finds the scrap of paper he’s written out to you earlier and grabs your fumbling hands, rubs the soft skin that's gone cold from the wind before giving it a quick squeeze.

“Anytime,” he places the small note in your hands before raising them to his lips, giving it a quick peck and saying, “See you around.”

He opens your car door, waits until you’re in before he closes it, giving you a wink that you return before waving to Adrian one last time. Waits until you’ve safely left the parking lot before he walks to his own car, getting in and waiting for it to warm up. Barely puts his car into drive before Natasha is calling him and he doesn’t get a chance to say hello as Natasha barrels out,

“Holy shit how long have you and her been dating and how the fuck has this town not known and put it on the front page of our herald!?”

He’s on Bluetooth and looks around the parking lot, sighing as he sees her car still in its parking space,

“Did you really stay back in your car to spy on us?”

A snort,

“Uh yes. Bucky and I have been trying to hook you and her up for months now! You always chicken out when we go to the gallery nights. Apparently we should have just brought her to your world, she’s into the whole naughty teacher act.”

He laughs as he pulls out of the parking lot,

“That's not….that's not how that happened at all. I was surprised same as you when I saw Adrian on my roster. But it all gave me some one on one time and we started chatting more casually. And a little before Halloween I finally got the nerve to ask her out and she said yes. That's all.”

“Why haven’t you told your two best friends!?” Natasha counters and Steve shrugs though he knows it falls on silent eyes.

“We wanted to keep it quiet for a bit because everyone in this town is always gossiping about something. And...she wants to make sure Adrian is ready for a new person in his life. It's not just her I’m dating - she wants to be considerate of her son.”

Natasha wait's a beat before saying,

“That’s fair. I get that, I guess, you’d think I’d gossip to the harlots of this town -”

“You’d completely tell at least Sam and Wanda and Wanda actually works for the herald - Sam is a government official…..we all know the minute they know everyone does. So yes, gossiping to the harlots indeed.”

“Whatever,” Natasha continues, “How did you both manage to date for five months without anyone else knowing? Seriously, you sneeze in this town and everyone’s texting about it.”

“We drive to Boston or stay at my place.” he says simply and Natasha laughs,

“Well then you both deserve this secret romance. Well played. Next question - can I ask her about you tomorrow?”

“I’m hanging up now.” he deadpans and Natasha laughs

“I mean I was going to regardless, you kept giving each other fuck me eyes. God you should have seen Alison Johnson - she has such a hard on for you and got so sour when you didn’t even acknowledge her waving at you and instead was drooling over hot mom. She’s definitely going to be gossiping about it….”

“Good night Natasha. Tell Bucky I said hello.”

He hangs up on his friend, laughing in good nature. Natasha was probably right and that was something he could talk to you about later. In the meantime, he needed to make a minor adjustment to dinner plans and he knew exactly where to begin.

________

Tag List:

@Sad-af1121, @whichwayisthebeach-Sebass, @theplumbclub79, @4theluvofall, @tatathekissypatato, @baezen, @lostinthoughtsandfeelings-blog, @plumbfondler, @pegasusdragontiger, @prettybubblesintheair, @docharleythegeekqueen, @brieannakeogh, @palaiasaurus64, @emotchalla, @thejenniferincident, @shayla-markele, @jalapenobarnes @toastmaster94, @brandybucky, @papi-chulo-seb, @jaamesbbarnes, @paulxrudd, @badassbaker, @letsalltakeanap @papi-chulo-bucky, @moonbeambucky, @jaceyfade, @samingtonwilson, @violentlybarnes, @wehaveathor, @buckfics, @frostbitebakery, @killmongerdreams, @plussizeappreciationfics, @softlybarnes, @prettyyoungtragedy, @angryschnauzer, @221bshrlocked, @yslbucky @zohoffman @ssweet-empowerment @capsofwinchesters @tacohead13@harleycativy @pietrotheavenger @francezka10 @papichulosebastian@obsessionsofmynerdheart @melaninmarvel @avengedqueen26 @nasteaxluvgal@winterbuttmunch @nys30@buckyslongasshair @ohlumi @wellthirsted@geminimoonbeamx @jetaimeamore @gifsbysimplysonia @harleycativy @microgirl8225 @mississippifangirl @younghades

#steve rogers #steve rogers au #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x poc #chris evans #captain america

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fireteam-survivor · 5 years

Text

My Experience At This Years Pride.

This isn't going to be an overly positive post and probably won't be that well received but it is a post I feel the need to make all the same.

Whilst I still support my cities pride parade and events that happened of the weekend just gone I believe some changes need to be made to make it something that will continue to run and draw people in.

For example my cities pride event went from being held in a nice open space that allowed for people to move around a lot more freely and had more room for stalls and stages to being held in a tiny space in a pedestrian area. This has resulted in it being very crowded, extremely loud and also it has lost a few sponsors and the number of stalls had dropped drastically over the last few years.

Also my cities pride holds some adult events at specific venues and these events are advertised and the venues make it clear people can wear what they want but as the day events are also catered for minors that revealing outfits should be worn after 9pm. When I went into town Saturday to ruin some errands and go to pride I saw a group of men in assless chaps and a few in leather thongs with their man marbles out. Now by all means go for it when at the events which I have attended in various outfits in the past, but the pride organisers and adult event organisers have made it clear they run events for children of all ages during the day and outfits worn to the parade and overall day event should be appropriate. Which I agree with. You also have other individuals who those types of outfits may make feel uncomfortable, not just kids.

Also due to it now being in a small crowded area it is loud and lots of people bumping into each other. As someone with social anxiety and autism this makes it very hard to attend the event and feel comfortable. I had to leave pride after less than five minutes because someone grabbed me and started trying to get me to dance and someone was giving whistles out to little kids making it very loud. Also high pitched noises cause me physical pain when loud enough which made it very hard to stay in the area. Especially after being grabbed as I had a panic attack and my husband had to take some somewhere quiet to calm down (Luckily the tatoo studio I go to is in the area and the tattoo artist saw us and let us relax in his studio for half an hour).

On top of all this most the stands that give out useful information about local charities and national ones that can help LGBT+ individuals have been unable to afford a stand and as a result companies who have a large presence in the city now have stands aimed at recruitment and promoting themselves using their equity and anti-discrimination policies to highlight how LGBT+ friendly they are. And whilst it is good they are doing that it has made it less about highlighting the communities needs and more commercial.

Also much to my dismay a group that in my city is known to be bi/transphobic marched in the parade according to my friend and some members had to be asked to leave by police and event volunteers for absuive language and harassing others.

I really want to support my cities pride parade, I honestly do but over the last few years I have watched it decline and I just don't know if I will even attempt to attend next year. Even some of my friends don't go anymore.

And every year people write about how it needs to change in the papers and how it has lost sight of where it began, but nothing really changes which is sad.

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coloringthegreyscale · 6 years

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Hi, despite my body’s popular belief, I am in fact still living

So this counts as me surviving my first Pride, motherfuckers!

I’m eating pizza, listening to music, and contemplating life’s questions like “Why the fuck am I still awake?” but for those who want to hear about this, here it is:

So Friday, we got there at around 3. Doors didn’t open until 6, so that meant we could wander around the Short North for a few hours. There wasn’t much to do other than wander around the shops and make friends with the staff at Pressed Grill while we ate loaded cottage fries and waited for my phone to charge. Spoiler Alert: Phone didn’t actually charge and in fact the battery died while it was off and plugged in, so fuck everything for about five minutes until I decide that I’m not going to let my bitchy phone ruin my fucking night.

Then, it’s what every single person who ever purchased a ticket to an event with general admission - it’s the standing game.

Standing game that lasts 3 and a half fucking hours.

So we used this time wisely by making friends with the people around us. I, miraculously, without the aid of my phone, managed to run into @dottiethunderfuck, but we couldn’t talk very well because we were about two rows of people away from each other. Thank you, Dottie for giving me more encouragement! I wish we could have talked more. You’re a gem of a human being.

So everything started an hour and a half later than it was actually supposed to. First it was the underwear fashion show put on by one of the local gay businesses, hosted by our very own Virginia West and Crystal Something Something. (Nina West was billed to host with Virginia, but is out for five weeks due to an expensive foot surgery that keeps her off social media, and no one is buying this story, what the fuck guys?). They talked about the rally Virginia headed because Pence was in town that day, and this is pretty much an excuse for me to say I love our gay city and drag queens. Also, turns out my roommate was high school friends with one of the models. Surprise!

Then, after what I think it was probably 5 hours at this point, after the fashion show and the opening music act, The AAA Girls came on and they were all gorgeous. They performed four or five songs I think? The banter was hilarious, the uncoordinated choreography was great. I loved watching them.

After was a lightning round of a meet and greet, so if this story doesn’t seem very detailed, it’s because I literally had about a minute to meet three queens. Went like this.

So first off, I need to mentioned that the art that I made was small in scale, but because of the wood and the watercolor paper, and the fact that I knew it would probably get jostled around a lot, I had wrapped them in tissue paper.and wrote which belonged to who so I wouldn’t get them mixed up. I neglected to unwrap them before I handed them out and I probably should have, but you live and you learn. I still fucking gave them the thing when I almost forgot to bring them twice.

So Courtney was the first in the line, so I struggled with the art being like “hold on, I actually have gifts for you guys!” and I handed them off to each of them. I vaguely remember Courtney saying something like “Oh thank you” and then “Oh, it’s beautiful!” but I dunno. I could be making that up? I know she said something. Did I say this was fast and I was super nervous?

So Willam actually gestured me back and asked me my name and then introduced herself (thanks Willam, for speaking to me like we were just normal strangers who met for the first time and not like I’m a nervous idiot fan who can’t properly speak to people - that’s not sarcastic, that’s entirely serious). She asked me if I wanted a photo and then said something like “Come, settle into my sweaty armpit” and then wrapped her arm around me. Photo taken, she wished me a happy pride, thanked me for the gift, I’m pretty sure I got a hug at some point and then I was passed off to Alaska, who hugged me, thanked me for the art and said it was beautiful. Over, done. I’m shaking. But fuck it. Done.

Apparently the roughly 45 seconds I got with them was lucky because we found out the next day that about 40 people were turned away. There were a lot of rumors hopping around and people were admittedly incredibly upset and bitter, but guys - do not blame the queens. I am certain that if they’d known there were people still waiting, they would have stayed. The whole event seemed to have hit a huge hitch somewhere and it wasn’t very well laid out. So be mad and what not, just try to keep a level head if you can.

Anyway, we walked back to our car, went home, got about three hours of sleep, woke up at around 7 to get ready and head back down so we could get a decent place for the parade. Which was two hours long. I got hugs from my coworkers who were marching in the parade and then at some point ended up just sitting on the street with my new #lovewins flag that we need to figure out where to put it.

Another long walk down to the festival, passed out on the grass, wandered, and then caught a ride back up to Short North so we could eat proper food at Pressed Grill (if you guys are ever in the Short North in Columbus, this is one of those places you need to try. Food is decent price, staff is super friendly, and everything is delicious). Then cue another walk, back to the car, said goodbye to friends we met up with, and then back to Axis.

Sidebar: On our way back, we were going to cut through the convention center because it provides a bit of relief from the heat and also bathrooms. Origins was happening the same time, so there was a crowd of people. As we were passing, an older guy looked at me and said “You need to drink some water. You look bad.” My roommate commented that that was a rude thing to say, to which he adjusted his wording to say “Oh, I just meant she looked tired and probably should stay hydrated to stay healthy.”

Yes, hi. Not sure who died and made you my dad, but I’ve been walking for like twelve hours with minimal sleep. I’ve been drinking all day. So kindly go fuck yourself.

Anyway! Back at Axis, we keep getting conflicting stories on what is happening with Adore’s meet and greet. The irritating part about this, is that it’s before her performance and during the giant drag show that’s happening before it, and we keep getting different information. @dottiethunderfuck comes to the rescue again, finds me, and tells me that it’s definitely inside the club in the VIP lounge at 9 pm, but capacity for the lounge is only 50 people, so it’s best we get there early. So we book it to the upstairs because fuck taking chances at this point, and also fuck standing and double fuck being in the heat.

So we chill for the next hour, sitting, chatting, people watching, etc. Until we start to line up for the meet and greet that Adore DEFINITELY had, do not let any trolls on Instagram try to convince you otherwise.

So here’s the twist of the fucking story. Roomie is usually the bold and collected one of the two of us, while I’m the one riddled with social anxiety. I felt like I was actually doing a pretty good job at keeping my cool, up until Adore walks past and says hi to everyone and then I look over to realize that Roomie has completely lost all of her cool and is like “Holy fuck, I’m meeting Adore, what now?” and I’m standing there like “well if your going to panic, what the fuck am I going to do?”

This time I at least had the conscious thought to unwrap the gift before I give it to her. But here we go:

Roomie had me video her meeting Adore. While doing so, suddenly Adore is smiling and waving at me. Apparently, Roomie had told her that I was excited to see her but I’m very shy and nervous, so I might be very quiet. She steps off after getting her photo and second hug and now it’s my turn.

So I’m greeted with an instant hug. She didn’t even wait for me to get to her, she met me halfway, and I handed her the art saying I had a gift and she looked at it in disbelief, the conversation went a bit like this:

“Wait, this is for me? I can keep this?” “Yes.” “This is beautiful! What is it? Watercolor? I love it!” “Yes.” (it’s also got a bit of charcoal but I digress)

At this point, she was fiddling with it to try to stand it up on the table and she turns and looks at me and asks me if I’m alright. I tell her I’m fine, I’m just a very nervous person. But I’ve got her attention now so I conjure up every single bit of courage that I have to tell her what I kept forgetting to say to Bianca and Courtney and Willam and Alaska.

“I wanted to make you something to say thank you, because you made me smile when I really really needed to.”

It’s a very simplified statement on what kind of mindset I had been in about 10 months ago, but she hugged me again and said something to the effect of “That’s incredibly sweet. Thank you so much. You’re too sweet.”

She said something about how she couldn’t wait to show it to her cousin, that he’d love to see it because he’s an artist too. We got our photo together, she thanked me again and wished me a happy Pride, I told her to have a good night and we parted ways.

So yes, guys. For those who think that Adore didn’t have a meet and greet, she did. If you didn’t know about it, that’s the combined fault of yours and the coordinators who didn’t explain things to the staff. So that clusterfuck, again, is on them and not on the queens.

Anyway - back down to catch the second half of the giant ass drag show going on outside.

Yeah, hi. We’re Columbus, OH and our drag scene is fucking a-maze-ing. Hi. Motherfucker. Stage nearly broke down it was so shook by all that talent.

We also knew one of the queens and we were SO PROUD to be able to tip her on a stage with this kind of a crowd. She’s come so far. She fucking worked it.

I got my fingers sucked on by one of the queens taking my tip. So there was that.

I ended up next to @dottiethunderfuck again and we both kept shooting heart eyes at each queen and king that came up on that stage because hi, did I mention that Columbus has a fucking great drag scene because it definitely does. I love them.

Then Adore was announced, she got up on stage and did her set, which was very short, but she was absolutely hypnotic. When I could see her. Some asshole decided he was going to try to tip her and wouldn’t move. Roomie at one point tapped him on the shoulder and was like “She’s not going to take your tip. She’s not that kind of performer.” He tried to start a fight with her. It was stupid. She’s a presence, though.

Second she left the stage, we had to bounce because we were about to pass out.

AND THAT WAS MY FIRST PRIDE!

I don’t have pictures of the meet and greet yet, because those were taken by the club and are to be posted on Facebook later. Thank you everyone who helped me through my random breakdowns leading up to this. It was probably a good thing that I didn’t finish the Bianca costume, but I at least got to make some art that I was relatively proud of and managed to give it away (which is a problem for me, if you knew me).

I’m going to continue to lurk in my dark room now and cuddle my dogs because I have to work tomorrow and I definitely don’t want to.

#pride 2018 #sometimes I meet drag queens apparently #columbus pride 2018 #adore delano #alaska thunderfvck 5000 #courtney act #willam belli #long post is long

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pioneerofprogress-blog · 5 years

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Growing Up. by Jocelyn van der Put

you were four when you faked your first crush. you told your friends that you didn’t have one, but they laughed at you and ripped at you with their words until you chose one. you chose a boy who seemed the least awful. you chose him and your friends laughed, tore you down with even more words. “why him?” they asked. you didn’t know. “he’s nice,” you said. most boys weren’t nice to their female peers, but that’s a whole other issue.

you were six when you kissed your best friend. she laughed, and you laughed and it felt normal. “girls don’t do that with other girls,” her mom said when she saw, her voice sharp and eyes cold. you went home confused and embarrassed, and didn’t touch any of your friends for weeks after that, suddenly unsure of how much affection was allowed. you found out ten years later that her mom sat her down and scolded her for another half an hour after you left.

you were nine when a boy from the back of the bus leaned around the seat to talk to you. “are you a lesbo?” he asked, sticky and badly dressed. you didn’t know what that word meant. he said, “a girl who likes girls.” you wanted to say yes, because all of your friends were girls, but something in his tone said that you should say no. you shook your head, and he laughed in your face. you glared at the back of the seat in front of you for the rest of the drive.

you were eleven when you were on a pumpkin patch field trip and you heard a song on the radio about a girl kissing a girl. all of your friends knew the words, and you were excited to actually enjoy a popular song along with everyone else. you went home singing it, and your dad looked at you with the same sharp look you’d seen years before. “we don’t sing about things like that,” he said. it wasn’t discussed further, even though you prodded him with “why, why, why?”

you were thirteen when you got news that a boy had a crush on you, and your stomach filled with nothing but dread. you decided that those were called butterflies, but felt exposed and anxious every time he held your hand. you tried to convince yourself that he was nice and funny and that you should like him. you still flinched back every time he put his arm around you.

you were fourteen when you let a girl leach all the life from you for almost a year because you didn’t know that you deserved better. she pulled you down to her level; she told you that you were the only person who was good to her. you couldn’t admit to yourself that you liked girls, and she knew that. she dug into you with her sharp nails and tore you away from your friends. you didn’t know who you were and she convinced you she was the only one who understood.

you were fourteen when you heard a boy in class call you a dyke. the school counselor asked, “are you?” and you knew the answer but you said “of course not.” you sat in shame and fear and watched as no disciplinary action was taken. you punched the boy in the face a month later, and felt vindicated, though you weren’t sure what you were avenging.

you were fifteen when you met a couple with matching flower-print tourist shirts and grey hair. they had thirty years of love between them and a foosball table in their basement. you watched them hold hands and beam at each other. you watched them and heard the word lesbian as a blessing, not an insult. they smiled at you and you knew who you were in an instant.

you were sixteen, and you had a cute girlfriend, one that embodied a summer’s day. you had grown accustomed to self-sufficiency and distrust, and that meant you had to fight yourself to communicate well. you loved her. you borrowed her sweatshirts and skyped her when she toured with a marching band. the two of you lasted a year, and she let you down a little too gently. you kept her sweatshirt because you didn’t know what else to do.

you were sixteen and you heard that forty-nine people had been shot in a club because they were like you. you drove to school with your hands shaking, your lungs feeling like they were filled with sand, but eyes dry because you were too scared to let anyone know you were affected. the news people on the radio didn’t even mention that it was a gay club, because they needed all the audience they could scrape together in a town conservative enough that the gender-sexuality alliance club has been bullied down to two members. maybe you’d already put yourself in danger by telling anyone who you loved.

you were sixteen and seeing election coverage and praying. you held your friend’s hand because she was as terrified as you were. you broke backstage etiquette rules, refreshing the webpage whenever you ran into the dressing room between scenes of the music man. your drugstore foundation was melting off and you prayed that you and your friends would be safe. you prayed that the loud, baseball-capped boy in your class would stop hissing slurs at you and your friends. you prayed that swastikas would stop being scratched into the desks at school. you were sixteen and sobbing into your mom’s shoulder that night, completely enraged.

you were seventeen and you went to pride for the first time, a muggy day where you got heat exhaustion and your feet and hands swelled up from dehydration--but your heart was the lightest it had been in years. you climbed up on a streetlight with your friend to see over the crowd. you’d been feeling run-down lately, the routine of keeping quiet starting to pull at you, and even watching the parade, you were worried that someone with a gun was going to ruin the best afternoon of your year. you dared to feel proud, tossing a free fluffy feather boa over your shoulder and laughing. a beautiful woman with a pink and blue flag handed you a rainbow sticker and you lit up like a sunrise.

you’re eighteen now. you wish you could tell six-year-old, eight-year-old, nine-year-old, fourteen-year-old you that you deserved better. right now, you wish an older version of you would tell you if it really gets better than this. you’re banking on eventually being happy in an apartment with a beautiful wife and a cat or five, but all you can do is wait, which is harder on some days than others. you’re planning on one day being out to everyone you know, but you hold your tongue for now, which is harder in some catholic classrooms than others. the place you’ve come from has made you a little too angry and a little too cynical and a little too guarded, but you’re alive.

you’re eighteen and not giving up yet.

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renlyisright · 7 years

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Season 6 Episode 5: Fleeting Reign

The pieces are moving towards the end, I can feel them moving. This is so weird. Daenerys is no longer going “One day I’ll cross the sea and go to Westeros”, now she has it marked in her calendar, with a transportation coming for her. And the army of the dead…

Sansa is called to the ruins of Mole’s Town by Littlefinger. She goes, and gives Littlefinger all the heat that he deserves. I think I applauded once or twice. It’s great to see Sansa on top of the situation.

But the problem is that she allows Littlefinger to keep talking. That is always a mistake. Given enough time to talk, Littlefinger could have everyone in Mickey Mouse costumes and have a parade in King’s Landing. He doesn’t waste any words, simply points out that the army they plan to win the North back with is actually Jon’s, and that her mother’s family has taken control of Riverrun again, and could be of better use to her than her half-brother’s (emphasis his) army.

Did somebody say chaos?

A girl who was previously known as Arya is told a bit of history: Braavos was founded by the Faceless Men. The first Faceless Man was “given his ability by the Many-Faced God”. How much of this - especially the part about the God - was true and what is myth is hard to divide. Who knows what powers come from god/gods and which are just finding out how to use the natural magical field in repeatable ways?

A girl gets a new mission. She has to assassinate an actress playing Cersei in a play version of Season 1. I really liked the play, it’s great to see a glimpse of how these events may be seen by future generations (if there will be any). It’s not a flattering depiction of Ned, but the Lannisters got to write his legacy. Maybe once they are topped some author will write a different version of the events (and as a tragedy) but it’s unlikely that it will look anything like the real events either.

There’s a bit of a moral dilemma for a girl, as her target doesn’t seem to have done anything to warrant death. If a girl is correct, another actress is just jealous of her skills. Maybe the target is secretly a murderer but a girl is just not told that to check if she can follow orders she doesn’t like and kill also people she doesn’t hate.

The Iron Islanders have a vote of who becomes their new king. Nice and democratic in a male-only-voters way. Yara’s platform is about how they are insignificant and can’t do much without the continentals swatting them like flies. Yes, I have been saying this for months. Your little islands are pretty insignificant as far as the plot goes. What are you going to do about it?

Before Yara gets a chance to tell her plan, Theon is pushed forward as a male heir. But he removes himself from the race. So Yara, you are the only candidate… except that Balon’s murderer comes forward.

Euron Greyjoy. I have to appreciate how he knows his audience. He pretty much says everything I have said about the Ironborn. If the strongest rule, then why exactly did Balon rule so long after his failed conquests? So he killed him, and has a plan for the future: Daenerys.

There. Pieces go together. Daenerys needs a fleet, the Iron Islanders need something important to do before the end, it’s a match. I’m a bit sad that Euron comes out of nowhere, having new relatives to the royals show up just like that, with no foreshadowing or anything, feels false, even if that’s the point. If he had been seen in Essos in a small role a season or so back… But never mind. He gets metaphorically and almost really drowned (these people don’t mess around) and then crowned as the new king. His first order: kill the previous pride leader’s cubs. But they have already left the island.

Euron will build his Iron Fleet, but will he be the one who presents it to Daenerys? Kings fall like flies after all, and Euron shows up a bit too late to be too important in the long run.

Speaking of Daenerys, she has her own Dothraki army now, and leads it out of Vaes Dothrak. Now she just has to 1) not get wounded, or, if wounded, 2) not trust anyone who would want her dead to treat her. Following these two rules will hopefully get her to the coast.

Jorah tells her about the deadly disease he has. That must explain a lot of his recent behaviour to Daenerys. She tells him to go find the cure and then come back. Will he find it? I’m not so sure, but something says to me that they will meet again. It must be the same thing that says that Arya and Nymeria will meet again. That one has taken its time.

In Meereen a fragile peace has taken hold. It appears that Tyrion’s method worked, at least for now it has. And now he has brought a Red Woman from Volantis to tell everyone that Daenerys was the one responsible and she is a good ruler.

This Red Woman, named Kinvara… hmm, she has same kind of necklace as Melisandre. Does it do the same trick? Is she as old as Melisandre? Anyway, Kinvara believes that Daenerys is the One Who Was Promised. I would like to read the actual promise, if you don’t mind. Melisandre thought it was Stannis, and now thinks it’s Jon. Kinvara says it’s Daenerys. These three people don’t have that much in common, and Stannis marched into his death because he was promised he was the promised one.

I wonder if Thoros of Myr has an opinion. He is a red priest too, and did resurrections before it was cool. Actually I wonder what he has been doing these past three months. Still resurrecting Beric? Hmm, what if Beric is the Chosen One but no one ever tells him?

Varys is as skeptic of Daenerys’ chosenness as I am, but Kinvara silences him by telling him that she knows of how he was mutilated and dropped two new questions (for the record: What did the flames say when it happened, and whose voice said it?).

After a bit of a council, Jon and Sansa decide that they have to get every other house of the North under their banner if they want to defeat Boltons, Karstarks and Umbers. There is also the news of Riverrun, which I hope someone checks before they put too much trust on the Tully support. It would be too bad to send Brienne there and once there she finds out that Littlefinger did a little trick called lying.

Every named character except Edd leaves the Castle Black. Everyone. He is now the Lord Commander because there is no one else. Not the good kind of promotion, and not the good kind of position these days. There’s the army of the dead which is running out of people to kill north of the Wall.

Bran’s story was the main attraction this time (which it hasn’t been since Winterfell was burnt). Finally the man with root access shows him some answers. The Children of the Forest created the White Walkers because their lands were being taken by the First Men. Boom! That certainly backfired for them, as humans are still here controlling the livable parts of the continent and the Children have… one cave?

Funny thing, but as the next part of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive is coming out in a few days I am reminded that in that series too the indigenous people start the apocalypse because they are defending from people killing them and mess with very bad things in desperation.

Skipping forward, I assume that these are the last Children alive, and they die here and now. Their whole people gone. That is sad. I wonder if the Walkers backfired immediately or if their existence helped the Children’s survival from humans for a time. With their extinction, I hope that also the secret of how to create Walkers is gone, that would be the only good result about this horrible affair.

Later, when everyone is asleep, Bran decides to have a vision by himself. He goes back to the place where the first White Walker was created, but this time in present. Deliberately or does he have trouble moving in the time axis? No matter. The weirwood seems to be broken, cut down vertically or something, and otherwise the place is empty… no it’s not! It’s army of the dead! Those sneaky guys.

Bran walks through them, because when there is an army of zombies that is of course what you do. Behind them he finds at least four White Walkers (camera doesn’t show more), one of them the one with the horns. Was he the original one? Since he can create more Walkers, he may be. Or they all can, but he still is. Or he isn’t. Doesn’t matter at this point.

Oh yeah, the horny one can see Bran. I couldn’t see if the other Walkers could too, but they must have watched the spot the entire army currently looks at even if they couldn’t see anyone there, to figure out what the ruckus is.

The horny one touches Bran’s arm, and apparently this removes the barrier to the Children’s cave. Oh, and he is apparently called the Night King. Everyone has a title these days. His people consists of moving bodies and an undetermined number of Walkers who don’t seem like a jolly company.

Hmm, how many Walkers are there, by the way? Now that I think about it, I have thought of 10-15, that number was present in the Northest North when the Night King made one out of Craster’s last son (is that kid a toddler Walker now, or do they grow up during the transformation?). But Craster had almost a hundred sons by his count, and there could be any kind of number left from the previous ages.

Question time over, it’s death time. The Children die. Meera kills a White Walker (What? Oh yeah, they got obsidian from Sam). Summer dies (the wolf deaths are always the hardest, and this time there’s even a metaphor of winter killing Summer). The root guy dies.

Bran and Meera escape into the night. So Bran has root access now too? But can he just touch a tree and see a vision, like when he was looking for the root guy? That would be a lot more user friendly than having to touch roots. But those times the root guy sent him the visions, without him he may have harder time seeing anything useful.

Hodor stays to hold the door. Hold the door. Hold the door. Stupid space-time-continuum-messing magic, ruining people’s lives in advance. I always liked Hodor, his positivism, his determination, his helpfulness. Gentle giant.

I really really really don’t want to see zombie Hodor, if it’s all the same to you, thank you. It would be too awful, even if it would be just the body moving. Because Hodor is gone, and the world is a worse place for it. I don’t wish to be further saddened by his passing.

#game of thrones #renly is right #hold the door

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nedsecondline · 7 years

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How to Explain to Your Son Why White Supremacists Are Marching on Your Town

"Explaining to your biracial child why white supremacists are marching feels like asking him to try to hold battery acid in his bare hands. How do you tell him and still protect him? How do you keep him safe but preserve his warm and generous heart? He’s on the cusp of adolescence—a door is closing. You clear your throat. You tell him: Those men are filled with rage, and they aimed that rage at black and brown bodies, at queer and Jewish bodies, at Muslim and female bodies, at anyone who would defend the dignity of those they called Other. They think you are Other, you say, full of shame. You tell him: They want America to heap all blame on black and brown bodies, set those bodies on fire, and call the ashes victory. You tell him: Whatever their true grievances, those men falsely choose to believe that if bodies like yours and his could be disposed of, their own lives would be better somehow. You tell him that there are so many other things to discover—in the world, in people—so m Illustration: Xia Gordon.

You have to say something. Your son sees that you’re not taking him to violin, and he knows you are supposed to go. He asked to take lessons, wanting to learn to play like Yo-Yo Ma or Eric Stanley. Your son is eleven with golden skin, and you are his mother, but your skin is dark brown.

Your husband, whose skin runs pale to pink, who has shaggy hair and a sloped English nose, has gone to his studio this Saturday morning to take photographs. His studio sits in downtown Charlottesville, a few blocks from Emancipation Park, where the Unite the Right! protest is slated to take place in the afternoon. At the center of the park, Robert E. Lee’s stone effigy sits high on a horse, no more than a mile from your home.

The protestors began to arrive yesterday from all over the country. They announced themselves with a spectacle of guns, swastikas, Confederate flags mashed up with Klan iconography, and makeshift military garb. At nightfall, they poured onto the University of Virginia campus, an orchestrated pre-demonstration. The images flooded your Facebook feed: droves of angry-looking men held up Tiki torches, their collars arched, their angular faces shiny by that flickering light. They chanted, Jews will not replace us! They chanted, White lives matter! to which you thought, They do. In videos, when counter-protesters arrived, skirmishes broke out. Those fiery poles were brought down with alarming force.

Today, protests are not scheduled to start for hours, but violence is already mounting again. Throngs of alt-righters rove the pedestrian mall, parading past stores and restaurants that your family knows well. These men are uniformly white, or rather: pale, and tan, and ruddy. They cover themselves in Klan robes, Nazi regalia, camo, business casual. They carry shields and flags and sticks and canisters of Mace. Too many hold up assault rifles: United, they say. Chests wide with pride, they raise flags that glorify the murder, enslavement, and genocide of bodies marked as Other. That’s what they claim your body is.

The counter-protesters have come early, too: black and white, and brown, and pink, and bronze. Many are from out of town, but you recognize some faces. They hold signs, shields, pepper spray, or nothing at all. They look massively outnumbered and woefully out-weaponed. If this is a battle, the word asymmetrical comes to mind. A group of religious leaders kneels along the park’s perimeter, men and women with arms looped together, their faiths visible on their robes, singing hymns and lowering their heads in front of all that fury.

You’ve braced since winter for these men and their movement. You watched the video of Robert Spencer, the UVA graduate who popularized the term “alt-right.” In footage he offers a strident Hail Trump! along with an arcing Hitler salute, returned by a fervent crowd. More intimately, you’ve seen a local provocateur, Jason Kessler, position himself at the center of your public square. One Friday evening, walking out of a movie theater, you watched a crowd of locals encircle him. At the center, Kessler smirked and performed. You’d worried over the crowd’s righteous anger—that somehow, Kessler fed on it. You watched Kessler on YouTube, too, calling anyone who opposed him “Antifa,” singling out the one black guy in the crowd to ask about the one black city council member, whom Kessler blamed excessively. He veiled his message of white supremacy with the right to free speech.

Sure, speak, you’d said, then challenged yourself to listen to his specious claims of white genocide, delivered like shouting Fire! in a crowded theater. You kept listening through the alt-right’s stated remedy: to disappear brown and olive-skinned bodies, to create an all-white nation atop the graves of slaves and in the place where you stood. You received their vision of a great and terrible America as sharp jabs to the hollow of your throat.

All morning, your phone has been buzzing, an urgent, endless string of texts from a group of people you know, most of them women. Months ago, you joined this informal group in an attempt to prepare for and oppose these men. The group met on Sundays, sitting in cramped circles in rotating living rooms. At the last meeting, people took turns saying what they planned to do on the day of the march. You’d remained ambivalent about whether or not to attend at all: Would your presence show resistance? Or would your righteous anger be appropriated by the other side? Would you be safe? Now you worry about those group members who text from side streets and parking lots, asking for the number for legal aid, or for medical assistance, like a renegade triage of saints.

A helicopter has been circling for hours, its constant drone vibrating in your skull. When you step outside, you can see its anxious silhouette circle above the trees. Your phone trembles again: the governor has declared a state of emergency. Uneasy, you text your husband. Your son looks up and registers the worry on your face.

Now every shade of white supremacist—the swastika-yielding ones, and the torch-wielding Polo-shirted ones, and the armed, our-government-is-illegitimate ones—have all been let loose on your small college town. All that adrenaline and rage is radiating out from Lee’s statue and toward your tree-lined streets. Some men, you hear, are getting into cars and driving to traditionally black neighborhoods, like the one where you live. You hear that some have physically assaulted the line of clergy, or are trading blows with counter-protestors.

So, no, you’re not going to violin.

You’re not going anywhere today.

***

You hear the sound of your husband’s bicycle falling on the front porch, the screen door rattling closed behind him. He’s still breathless when he finds you in the kitchen. It’s crazy over there, he says. He tells you he saw hundreds of men marching toward the park under a haze of tear gas. He tells you he saw dozens of fights, breaking out all at once, and long lines of police, seemingly guarding buildings, doing nothing to intervene. He watched bands of grizzled men dressed in camo and helmets, holding guns muzzle-up or across their chests, at the ready. He saw a black man, in his fifties, scrubbing at his eyes, white liquid and tears running down his face. He saw a white man, in his twenties, holding a bandana to his head, trying to stop blood from flowing. Your husband recognized photographer friends weaving in and out of the crowd, their eyes wide with shock. As he biked back home, he passed a man shouting, Race war! He passed a man shouting, Dylann Roof is a hero!

You feel seasick, like you’ve been forced to gulp saltwater.

The helicopter chop-chop-chops.

On your computer, on your phone, you watch as the story of the day grows darker. A friend posts pictures of grotesque propaganda: xeroxed flyers locked inside Ziploc baggies, weighted down with kitty litter, scattered overnight in his mostly black neighborhood. A protestor throws urine onto members of the press. Leading up to this day, you’d pictured contained horror, a rally rung around that long-dead Confederate general. Hateful signs, holstered handguns, and a crowd of counter-protestors circling with police in between. But this is chaos, spreading lawlessness. Here are fresh images of a group of white men chasing down and beating a black man, in daylight, in full public view. They strike his head with flagpoles, over and over, even though he has fallen to the ground. The man’s skin is the same color as your brother’s; his blood is bright red. This is happening, right now, in a parking garage that sits right next to the police station.

You feel your son behind you, so you swiftly scroll down, though his eyes linger on the screen. You wonder how much he saw, though you can’t bear to ask yet. You’ve been telling him, for weeks now, that these men were coming. But you couldn’t have known what their arrival would mean.

They’re why we aren’t going to violin, he says.

You nod and close your computer. It’s Saturday, and normally you’d go to the store, to the park. Let’s go outside and shoot a few baskets, you say.

You open the screen door and step out. Your yard is set far back from the road and sheltered in a grove of walnut trees. Your son turtles his head behind you.

We’re gonna die! he shrieks, mockingly. His octave betrays a kernel of fear, but mostly he’s trying to make you laugh.

But not today, you answer, half guilty, half relieved.

So what, you tell yourself, if you didn’t join the counter-protestors downtown today? So what if you didn’t even make it to violin? You’re still resisting, just by playing ball in the yard in your brown skin with your gold boy. You’ve resisted in the stories you’ve written, in the votes you’ve made. You resist with the kindness you extend to all your students, in all the skins in which they arrive. Resistance teems in your blood, inherited from your parents who plotted their own escape from the segregated South, and managed to preserve warm and generous hearts. You will resist with your reedy compassion for even those men who would demean and defile you.

The two of you four-square the basketball in the driveway. Mid-August and it’s warm out, humid. The towering magnolia under which you were married is slowly being overrun by vines. The helicopter blades still thrum overhead, sounding like Vietnam in a movie.

You palm the ball to your eleven-year-old and really look at him. This is a kid who became a vegetarian at the age of eight, because he loves animals, even though, he acknowledges, bacon tastes delicious. This is a kid who raps to Kendrick Lamar and Hamilton with equal zeal, bleeping out the curse words in both. This is a child who donated several months of allowance when he learned that this nominal amount could provide a lifetime of clean drinking water to a stranger somewhere in the world. This is a boy who can watch shrill YouTube videos for hours, and hold a grudge for years.

The basketball goes back and forth between you.

It’s really bad, your son says.

You look at your phone.

It’s really bad, you answer.

He’s only eleven but you’ve already explained the concept of prejudice to him. He understands that people hold biases, even when they don’t want to, even when they don’t realize. You’ve calmly described histories of racial oppression—in schooling, in housing, in jobs, in pay. You’ve tried to steel him against the disdain for brown bodies by offering these anecdotes, like vaccinations. You’ve warned him that someone may well look at his skin tone and imbue it with some false disease, or mock it with distorted accolades. It’s painful to tell these things to your child, but the alternative is worse: What if, for example, he had the audacity to move his hands quickly during a traffic stop, the way his own father might? So you’ve cautioned your son to move very s-l-o-w-l-y, and explained that even slowness might not be enough. For some bodies, misdemeanors can hold a death sentence, and even good behavior may be met with hostility. You’ve told him like your own parents tried to tell you.

When you were a child, your parents hedged their stories of growing up under sanctioned Jim Crow racism against the hope that things would be different for you. You were born in the suburbs of northern Virginia; your childhood was so starkly different from theirs. And so, they handed you a heavy, battered shield, hoping you’d never need to lift it. They understood that convincing you of the need to shield yourself at all was its own kind of injury.

Your son has the ball; he is dribbling, dabbing.

You look at your phone yet again.

Oh fuck! A car has barreled into a crowd of people. Bodies thrown, bodies crushed. Oh god.

What’s wrong, what happened now? your son asks.

You realize you’re cradling the ball.

You’ll have to tell him soon.

Let’s go back inside, you say.

***

Earlier this summer, you had lunch with a friend you don’t see as often as you’d like. She is an art person, in her forties, like you; her skin is brown like yours. At the end of lunch, she shared a story as if confessing, her shame swaddled in a kind of pride, because the shame shouldn’t have even been hers to carry.

This past winter in Charlottesville, she and another mutual friend—a guy you know, brown too, who air-kisses you on both checks when you see him—were walking downtown. They passed a venue just as a concert was letting out. A small group of people hurried behind them, talking loudly.

This friend of yours was not afraid—she often walked downtown at night. But at once it became clear that the strangers from the concert, who were white or tan or sunburned, were taunting your friends. One of the strangers shook liquid from a water bottle onto them. When your friends turned to ask what was going on, the group called your friends niggers. One of the strangers punched your male friend, another punched your female friend, so hard that she fell and blood ran from her nose. As you listened to your friend tell this story, your throat tightened, your hand flew to your chest.

She told you that the police showed up right away, but the officers could not hear her story. They only understood the story offered by the strangers: So, you all were fighting each other? the police concluded.

One officer gestured to the young woman who’d assaulted your friend. She says she lost an earring, he explained. While your friend remained bleeding on the ground, he stooped and shone his light to help her look for her jewelry.

***

It’s almost dinnertime, though no one in your family is hungry. You find yourself watching a video of the car that plowed into the crowd: the car rushes into a collection of bodies and then screeches back out at the same frenetic speed. You recognize the narrow one-way road, a corridor barely fifty feet from your husband’s office door. There are screams, bodies fly, limbs torque at odd angles. Nineteen human bodies broken. A town of souls battered. One young woman, dead.

Did you just watch it, too? your husband asks.

You feel heartsick, lost.

So, someone drove their car right into a crowd of people? your son says. You don’t show him the video.

You all notice the helicopter sound has stopped. You peer across the table at your husband, both of you sighing at the reprieve. Maybe things are quieting down, ending. Moments later, you learn the helicopter crashed.

Phone calls and messages pour in from friends and family. Charlottesville, they exclaim, unbelieving.

As night closes in, you look back and forth between screens and the faces of your child and husband. Your thoughts loop around as you scroll through posts and tweets, searching for answers, trying to figure out what it all means. People you know are outraged, horrified, heartbroken at the chaos, the devastation. But when you read those men’s responses, you feel like you’ve been knocked to the ground. You taste copper, like blood, at the back of your throat.

We will be back! the men say, triumphantly. This is our town now!

***

Days later, when you pick up your kid from his summer day camp, he tells you his group hiked up to Humpback Rock. From there he could see all of Charlottesville: the university, the towers of the hospital, the downtown mall. You turn up the radio as another national news story about August 12 comes on. Many sides, the president says, and you twist under your seat belt as if he’d said, So, you all were fighting each other? A spokesperson for the Fraternal Order of Police suggests that there hasn’t been much of a problem with protestors openly carrying guns, as if your town hadn’t watched the police cede their authority to armed and angry men. In nearly the same breath, the spokesman seems to admonish the counter-protestors: Why bring sticks to a peaceful demonstration?

Meanwhile, communities all over the world hold vigils. They mourn Heather Heyer, the young woman who was killed. They mourn a sense of safety, of decency, and the dream of what America claims it wants to be. They are losing sleep, like you have. They hold shame in the cave of their chests for the brazen hate those men displayed—maybe even for the systems of oppression that harm so many but feel nearly impossible to dismantle, and are sometimes hard to even speak of out loud.

When you put your kid to sleep that night, you perch at the edge of his mattress. At the foot of his bed, his violin lays silent in its case. Earlier, you listened to him play: a series of impatient shrieks, then a long yearning note like someone singing. He is still only practicing for the person he will become.

You think of those men who came to march on your town, to intimidate, to oppress, to injure, to stoke fear. You think of Iraq, of Syria. You think of desperate unaccompanied minors crossing borders, and of those murdered boys in Mexico, restless in unmarked graves. You think of the riots in Ferguson, and of the brown boys in your own Jeffersonian town, just a few years older than your son. Too many of them already feel marginalized, their grievances ignored or dismissed. Too many suffer silently, with burning guts, with clenched jaws and bruised fists. You think of all this and feel ashamed, for all the beautiful places you’ve been in your life, for the comfort of your home and the shelter of your yard. It feels newly fragile in your chest.

Explaining to your biracial child why white supremacists are marching feels like asking him to try to hold battery acid in his bare hands. How do you tell him and still protect him? How do you keep him safe but preserve his warm and generous heart? He’s on the cusp of adolescence—a door is closing. You clear your throat.

You tell him: Those men are filled with rage, and they aimed that rage at black and brown bodies, at queer and Jewish bodies, at Muslim and female bodies, at anyone who would defend the dignity of those they called Other.

They think you are Other, you say, full of shame.

You tell him: They want America to heap all blame on black and brown bodies, set those bodies on fire, and call the ashes victory.

You tell him: Whatever their true grievances, those men falsely choose to believe that if bodies like yours and his could be disposed of, their own lives would be better somehow.

You tell him that there are so many other things to discover—in the world, in people—so much of it beautiful.

You lift the shield and pass it to your son, even though its protection is a kind of wound, too. You hate that this hurt has a job to do, that it feels so necessary. And you worry, still, that it won’t be enough.

The post How to Explain to Your Son Why White Supremacists Are Marching on Your Town appeared first on Guernica.

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ouraidengray4 · 8 years

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The Mississippi Delta Guide to Gay Pride: Our Life in the Deep South

Kilby Allen and Lindsay Sproul, Wedding Day, Tallahassee, FL 2015

My wife, Lindsay, grew up on the Massachusetts south shore. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, all rocky beaches and moored sailboats, old growth hardwoods and colonial houses built before the founding of the country. Visiting her hometown was like walking into an L.L. Bean catalog.

As a child, I spent a lot of time memorizing photographs in magazines and catalogs, tracing the contours of unfamiliar landscapes, wanting to file these images in my imagination, to remind myself that the entire world wasn’t the Mississippi Delta. To describe the Delta, to really explain the intricacies of rural Southern life and geographical isolation, would take days. To approximate the tourist experience of the Delta, listen to Charley Patton’s High Water Everywhere while flipping through photographer William Eggleston’s The Democratic Forest. But if you can’t do that, just imagine the flattest, muddiest land possible. Then picture little towns, houses huddled together, in a sea of endless, clear-cut farmland. It’s the poorest, most isolated part of one of the poorest and most isolated states, and it is extreme in all things: weather, religion, politics, foodstuffs.

Basically, Lindsay and I grew up in opposite universes, and we probably never would’ve met, but luckily, the recession basically forced us both into graduate school. And I can honestly say that the best thing about getting a PdD was marrying Lindsay.

Photo booth reel, New Orleans, LA Summer 2016

We were married in the city hall annex beneath the Bank of America in Tallahassee, Florida. Gay marriage had become legal in Florida by default a few months earlier, but the Federal Supreme Court ruling was still forthcoming, which meant that our marriage paperwork bore the labels Bride and Groom. So technically, Lindsay may be my husband.

"I can finally pronounce you… married," said Bob, city clerk, skipping over the gendered language in his civil ceremony script. It’s not how I imagined my wedding, because I never imagined my wedding. And even though we were in a basement room with a fake, backlit stained glass window, no family or friends, on the Tuesday after I turned in my dissertation, our wedding really was everything the magazines say: The Most Important Day of Our Lives.

And then the rest of life happens. I graduated, and when neither us landed a full time job, we decided to move to the Hudson Valley. We wanted to be somewhere other than Florida, somewhere with mountains. There were plenty of colleges within commuting distance—so many, in fact, that we had to turn down adjunct work because our schedules were full.

But to condense a very long story, it’s practically impossible to make enough money adjunct teaching to survive in New York, even if you teach at three different schools and work 18 hours a day. We spent the year uninsured and too poor to buy food. When the spring semester ended, unable to make rent on our crappy apartment, we were also homeless.

So like the many millennials, Lindsay and I were forced to move back in with mom and dad. My mom and dad, specifically, which meant that we became a married lesbian couple living in Mississippi, a state that was scheduled to enact HB 1523,"The Religious Liberty Accommodations Act," legislation aimed at not only de-legitimizing our marriage, but also supporting (if not outright encouraging) public discrimination against all LGBTQ individuals.

So last June, on Lindsay’s 31st birthday, we moved into my childhood bedroom in Indianola, Mississippi.

The protesters were mostly overweight, middle-aged people in sweaty t-shirts. The queer people were also mostly overweight, middle-aged people in sweaty t-shirts. Without the signage, you’d hardly be able to tell the two groups apart.

I left the Delta for school when I was 16, half a lifetime ago, and my old bedroom was exactly as I had left it: glow-in-the-dark ceiling stars, a Lisa Loeb poster, and dozens of plastic ponies lining the bookshelves, their eyes staring downward.

In Mississippi, I started to become my teenage self again. I was moody and irritable. I ate deep-fried food filled with preservatives. I sweated when I was nervous. (Or maybe that was because it was 105 degrees outside.) Worst of all, the internalized Bible Belt homophobia that I’d spent years in therapy trying to dissipate reemerged with a vengeance.

In all the time we’d been married, Lindsay and I had the luxury of thinking of ourselves as another boring married couple. We lived in progressive cities, and neither of us were the kind of people who woke up in the morning thinking, I’m gay! But suddenly, we lived in a place where we were constantly reminded of our gayness. "You don’t touch me in public anymore," Lindsay said. I was busy rifling through our suitcases, looking for something to wear that was neither plaid nor baggy, or in any way "masculine"—my mother’s term.

"We just can’t do that here!" I heard myself say, and in that moment, I felt completely defeated, because it felt so true. Then I’m sure I cried. We spent most of the time crying, those first weeks in Mississippi, which is one of the reasons we decided to go Pride. Though we’d both been to various Gay Pride events in New York, California, and even in Florida, neither of us is the kind of person who likes big, drunk crowds or assless chaps. Pride always seemed like a party I’d rather avoid, but I still thought of it as that—a party.

Kilby Allen and Lindsay Sproul, Los Angeles 2014

Last summer, Mississippi held its first-ever official Pride celebration. There was originally supposed to be a parade, but in the wake of the Orlando shooting, organizers (or maybe law enforcement) decided that it would be safer to barricade a tiny park in downtown Jackson and surround the entire event with armed policemen. We weren’t surprised by the security, though I assumed it was unnecessary. The event was tiny: half a dozen tents and folding tables, four food trucks, and a single beer line. When we arrived, there may have been 100 people there.

Then the protesters arrived. We’ve all seen pictures of backward-looking hicks holding "God Hates Fags" signs, but this was in 2016. Weren’t we past this?

Lindsay and I were sitting on the grass, watching drag queens sashay in the noonday sun, when the chanting started. A man with a megaphone buzzed in the background while someone born with a penis danced to "I’m Every Woman" while wearing a sequined evening gown in the 100-degree heat. Restless queer people, the novelty of outdoor, daytime drag wearing thin, began to drift toward the barricades to see the real, live protestors.

Lindsay and I were curious too, so we joined the crowd. The protesters were mostly overweight, middle-aged people in sweaty t-shirts. The queer people were also mostly overweight, middle-aged people in sweaty t-shirts. Without the signage, you’d hardly be able to tell the two groups apart. Good thing there was a chain-link fence and a bunch of people with guns between us. Otherwise we might get mixed up.

I reached out and took Lindsay’s hand. I pulled her close and kissed her there, a few feet from the screaming, sweaty face of a homophobe wearing a sandwich board. I finally realized that Pride isn’t a party, and you can’t show up fashionably late. In Mississippi, Pride is still a protest. By the end of the summer, I managed to get a full-time academic job half an hour from my hometown, and Lindsay got a two-book deal for her novels, so we were able to move out of my parents’ house. But we still live in the Mississippi Delta.