#i do not understand feeling artistic pride in something you did not fucking create like that

[fefairys]

i think ai art is real art but it’s the COMPUTER’S art, not the prompter’s. you wouldn’t request art from a human artist and then pretend you were the one who made the art just because you prompted it. THATS what ticks me off, is people calling themselves artists because they type words into a box to get an image they did not create. you are not the artist, the computer is.

you might as well have typed something into google, found someone else’s art of it, and then posted it and said it was your own art, simply because you typed the right words into google to find it.

[tyrantisterror]

So twitter has been assaulting my eyes with an "AI Generated Stop Motion Lord of the Rings video" for the past two days and, like, it's stirred up some FEELINGS and I need to process them by way of a fucking tumblr post.

'Cause, like, I've made stop motion movies.

Were they good stop motion movies? No, not particularly. They were probably as good as you could reasonably expect of something a high schooler made for an assignment, or a college student made in their spare time during the summer, with a budget of "whatever I was able to spare over a period of several months." They're a far cry from the works that inspired me - not equal to the works of Henry Selick or Ray Harryhausen, that's for sure.

I say this not for my usual reasons of knee-jerk self deprecation, but to emphasize that I understand how people feel when their art isn't as good as the art that inspired them, when it fails to match that lofty image you have in your head. I get it, man, I get it, it hurts, and it's hard to overcome that "I'll never be good as [insert artists who inspired you and probably have at least a 20 year headstart on getting good at the art form you've chosen]" pain.

But, like, man, the act of actually creating art is so satisfying. I know that we're on the "creating art is pain, shut your whore mouth toad I will continue scrolling tumblr instead of writing" website, but for all the agony involved in creation, it is fun, I swear it's so goddamn fun and enriching!

Putting together those sets, designing and building those puppets, sweating in a makeshift studio in my dad's garage from painstakingly moving those little puppets just a tiny bit to take a photo over and over again... it was work, yes, but god it was so good. There's this tactile sensation of creation you get from it, because you physically assemble everything that goes in front of the camera, and you physically move it and take the shots, and when the movie comes together you see how each and every bit of your labor gave LIFE to what was lifeless.

And it holds true for all other forms of art. The satisfaction I get from writing it different from the satisfaction I get from drawing, which is different than the satisfaction I get from acting, and so on and so on - but they all share that element that they are MINE, they are something I brought into the world and no one else did, and without me they would not be here. They are reflections, extensions, and creations of ME, and god there's no feeling better than looking at something you've labored hours to make and thinking, "I did this. This only exists because of me."

You rob yourself of that feeling if you let some algorithm do it for you. And maybe some people are ok with that tradeoff, but I can't help but view it as tremendously sad. Those movies I made may not be perfect, my books may be mediocre, my singing off key, my drawings limited, but goddammit, they're mine, and everyone deserves to feel the pride of making something that's theirs and theirs alone.

[girlreviews]

Review #438: Parklife, Blur

In some ways this review is going to be like the antithesis to the one I wrote for Pulp’s Different Class. In that, this album features songs that are so important to British culture, and individually to my formative years, that I can’t ever be mad to hear them. However, unlike my ongoing and steadfast admiration for Pulp as a band, I have way more complicated feelings about Blur, and about this album in particular. Okay, so some context and education first. Blur had success in the UK with their debut album, Leisure, but had really dug themselves into a financial hole through poor management. They owed the taxman a lot of money. As such, they were essentially forced to go on a long, arduous tour of the US to promote their successful album. In theory this would be great. But it wasn’t great. They were touring tiny towns and venues that had never heard of them. The grunge scene had just exploded out of the Pacific Northwest and literally nobody Stateside had any fucks to give about Blur, British Music, or what they were doing on this tour. The band themselves have described the space and time immediately preceding the creation of Parklife as pretty bleak. Miserable. Oppressive. They felt backed into a corner, exhausted, downtrodden, underappreciated, and homesick.

Where they sort of lose me on this is where they express feeling as if they were shamed for being British and they were resistant to just create a record that adhered to the current trend of music. They returned to the UK with a concept in mind: a quintessentially British album, about British culture, that makes a statement: British music is a thing of its own, and it’s worth your time. I mean, I don’t disagree with that. I just fail to see how grunge being a popular genre at the time meant that they weren’t able to be proudly British, and proudly produce whatever music suited them. Artists make art for the art, and if someone likes it, that’s great. But they were young men at the time and I imagine egos and the lures of chart success influenced their feelings about it. You don’t get into a tabloid frenzied ongoing rift with the Gallagher brothers because you’re a really chill bunch of guys that only care about the music. There’s an irritating overtone of testosterone and national pride that has an icky vibe to it. It’s too easy for it to be co-opted. And it was! And it still is!

So let me just get the following points off my chest and then I’ll work my way through them:

1. Parklife is and was an important record in British music

2. It’s also not Blur’s strongest album by a BIG margin, but it’s managed to persist as somewhat of a defining album for them. I’m glad they shook it off, and we didn’t just get record after record of Parklife from them. That’s honestly how a lot of people would have done it and I can respect their commitment to art as a band: we’re going to do something different than what you just loved, and if you don’t like it that’s a you problem. People did like it.

3. Parklife also paved the way for an obnoxious marketing/PR ploy from the music industry surrounding British Indie/Rock artists, that created a ridiculous craze and wave that was surfed by bands ranging from incredible and deserving, to absolute dogshit. Ladies and gentleman, I give you: Britpop. If you were there you know what it was like, and you understand all the nuance and resentment surrounding it as a “genre”. We’ll get into this more later. In hindsight it all worked out okay and we live in a world where – at least to my knowledge – you can appreciate and criticize both Oasis and Blur for their talents and their fuck ups without it representing some massive class and cultural divide. This was absolutely not always the case and it was, for some reason, a really big deal, and it mattered to everyone, a lot. Blur or Oasis? I was 7 turning 8 years old at the height of this manufactured-turned-real rivalry, and it genuinely caused me stress. As a child! I loved them both. But I felt forced to choose. I chose Blur. I understand how ridiculous it sounds, but I wish I could go back in time and refuse to choose. It mattered, and it also really didn’t. They don’t sound similar enough to compare or compete? So why did we have to? But WE DID. It was on the news. It was the biggest thing going on at the time. It dominated the papers. Bookies were taking bets on who would be #1 between the two of them. Blur won that battle with Country House. I don’t think anybody won the war. I think everybody got bored, gave up, and went home.

So Blur kicked off Britpop with their return from this grinding US tour and they made a full blown concept album about being British. And it was good. But all of a sudden there was just this… Overwhelming influx of bands who were banking their success solely on this “being British”, thing. It had a look, it had a sound, it had a style, it had a location. The same thing happened with the Indie wave in the early/mid-2000s. It’s so annoying to me though. You end up just having to sift through a whole bunch of fucking garbage to find the stuff that is legit, and would be legit with or without the “scene”. Parklife is legit. It’s just responsible for the aftermath and onslaught of bullshit. Is that their fault? No, but they definitely participated in it all for a bit. There was a lot of great music that technically fell under the Britpop genre, but essentially looking back most of it isn’t Britpop – because that was just made up. It was just good music from various genres, and they all happened to be British artists. That’s not the same thing. It was just a music industry scheme and boy howdy did everyone buy-in.

The song Parklife, is pretty genius, still. Damon Albarn, unable to commit to the concept with a cockney accent, enlisted well-known British actor, Phil Daniels (of Quadrophenia fame) to deliver the lyrics. This was both creative and super novel. People went pretty nuts about it. They still do. It’s got the same pull as Common People. If you want to see an entire nation lose their shit over a song – you might stick on Parklife. It’s just deeply entrenched into the fabric of British culture and it’s as if it was from the moment it was released. It just is. I actually saw Parklife live at Reading Festival when I was 16 or 17, and they brought Phil Daniels out. The most memorable thing about the whole thing, was that Damon Albarn fell off the stage. I guess the most surprising thing about the wider record, is that you expect it to be more of Parklife the song. And it actually isn’t. It’s just a Blur record, and a not bad one at that.

It's just so weird how a regular album took on this entire life of its own, turned into a cultural phenomenon, and produced this era of music that for better or worse is part of history now. Some of the subsequent singles from subsequent albums honestly seem like they were more “Britpop” than a lot of the tracks on Parklife. Maybe they were running with it for sometime to bank on its success, but ultimately they grew tired of it too and changed directions. I’m glad.

I guess the other thing about Blur, is the individuals its made up of. They’ve been indie darlings forever. Graham Coxon was a nerdy little weirdo, he left and came back. I think Britpop almost killed him if I’m being honest. Damon Albarn was a pretty-faced front man and has gone on to produce some absolutely insane albums for other artists and with other bands. He’s got something, that’s for sure, but it’s not always good. Some ego and misogyny always sort of leaks out and it would make my life easier to enjoy his creative output if he just kept his mouth shut. He seems to have a problem playing nice with successful women and insists on tearing them down publicly, only to be forced to admit that he hasn’t actually worked with them, met them, talked to them, or even listened to the music that he is loudly criticizing. That’s fucking annoying, but, is also par for the course regarding male opinions being inexplicably important and accepted even absent of any actual valid perspective or input. Damon, you have a lot of great things to say with your music. That doesn’t mean you have to say something, about everything, all the time.

Alex James, floppy-haired and handsome bassist, for a time was the biggest darling of them all – attracting praise for being so quirky and unique by establishing a cheese farm. Over the years, I have come to suspect he’s really just hidden in plain sight and really what you get with him is a basic man, with basic opinions, who loves some attention. I can’t ever really quite put my finger on it with him but there’s something deeply off putting about his whole persona. I’ll just say it. Whatever image he puts out and however quirky and cool he makes himself out to be: he’s just a fucking Tory, man. With that comes everything else: classism, racism, misogyny and fucking over everyone worse off than you, so long as you get yours. But hey everyone, who cares right? He makes cheese! Isn’t that so weird and kooky? He’s gotta be a cool guy! It was this exact fucking line of thinking that allowed Boris Johnson to take advantage of the comedy panel show circuit for years and years and years, elevating his reputation among liberal young voters. Everyone thought Boris was a funny joke, so let’s vote for him! He goes from MP, to London Mayor, to high-ranking cabinet member, to the fucking PRIME MINISTER. And it wasn’t a funny joke then, was it? So let’s pay attention to the things people actually say and do, and not just the music that they make and the cheese they produce. The other guy in the band, whose name I can literally never remember – Dave Rowntree – he’s just the drummer, who brought nothing to the band visually, and was just sort of along for the ride. Seems like a nice enough guy, it’s just that nobody cares.

If you’re interested in making more sense of this review, I will recommend that you turn your attention to Netflix series This Is Pop which does a pretty decent overall rundown of Blur, Oasis, and the Britpop era. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good, and I appreciate that it gives a voice to the women in that music scene at the time, who were treated like shit and had to deal with all of the masculine national pride shit that came along with it all. It’s pretty clear from listening to them: Oasis, literally didn’t give a shit – about anything – and that was pretty hilarious. Blur, despite being genuine talent with good music to offer, bought into the hype and acted like a bunch of pricks publicly. They were all pricks, it’s just some of them were more authentically pricks than others. Ha.

I guess all I can say is this: I love Blur, and I hate Blur. I don’t know that I’m inclined to agree with Parklife’s inclusion in the Rolling Stone Top 500, but I can also appreciate that I’m talking from the inside and the majority of listeners didn’t also absorb the cultural moment as it was happening. If you happened to be there, you know it was all kind of nonsense. It’s kind of wild watching documentaries or reading write-ups of a particular time in music that you were actually present for in real-time. Like how I imagine people who were at Woodstock, or when Bob Dylan went electric, or the original British Invasion of America with the Beatles. It was a whole thing, and if you were there, you remember.

[livebloggingmydescentintomadness]

Recently I broke up with someone who was a mean drunk. In one of our last fights, when he was blacked out, he called all my paintings bullshit and damaged one of them. I think I can fix it but every time I look at it I think of him, and I'm questioning whether I have any talent. What if everyone is just being nice and they all think my art is bullshit?

i'm so sorry, sweetheart, that was an incredibly vindictive and hurtful thing for him to do and it's totally understandable that it caused you a lot of pain. i'm really proud of you for breaking up with him.

i think there's a lot of things i could say here about trusting your friends and not letting this one asshole ruin everything for you, but i think you're probably smart enough to expect me to say that, so i'm going to try saying something else.

first of all, since the awful thought is in your head, let's entertain the idea for a second - let's say your art IS bullshit and other people don't actually like it.

do YOU like your art? does your art make YOU happy?

you're not a renaissance artist drawing to please your patron, you're not painting portraits for a royal family - you're making YOUR art for YOU. do you enjoy making your art? do feel pride when you complete a piece and see the finished work in your hands? does it make you happy to share it with other people and to dream about the next thing you want to work on? does it feel fulfilling and satisfying to look at your work and know that you MADE that?

if all that's true, then it wouldn't actually matter if your art was "bullshit", because humans don't just make art for other people to admire. the creative process itself is valuable and worth doing, no matter how "ugly" the result.

then there's the fact that "good art" is wildly subjective. let me tell you a secret: i don't really like van gogh's work. i mean, starry night is cool, but every other painting of his i've seen, i just don't really get the hype. i think a lot of them are kind of ugly. i sure as FUCK don't get rothko. practically every day i see a drawing on tumblr with like 10k notes and, to be frank, i think it's hideous. then i see a gorgeous drawing with 200 notes and i'm like, why doesn't this have 10k notes?? i can't watch the spiderverse movies because, even though it's technically genius, the jerky art style really bothers me.

even if 10k people hated your art, 10k more would love it. and even if your closest friend didn't like it, that could simply be because it doesn't match their personal taste.

and lastly... ask yourself if you actually WANT a mean, vindictive drunk to like your art. i mean, i'm pretty proud of my writing, but i'm also pretty proud of who would hate my writing. i don't want miserable assholes to enjoy my craft. a person who hurts other people doesn't like what i do? good. fucking choke on it.

i know, i do, that validation means so much to creators. i know that getting comments and kudos on my fic is a thrill, and makes me more excited to write. i haven't gotten any hate, thank goodness, but i'm sure it'd be really upsetting if i did. and yet, i know that i have to write for me, and that outside validation, while nice, can't be the pillar that props up your creative process. it's too unstable, too easily knocked out from under you.

fuck that guy. your art is yours, and it will only improve the more you do it. create for spite, create for grief, create for love, create for hope. create because you are an artist, and no one gets to take that away from you.

[blocodibujo]

You know what, I’m gonna say it, because I’m pissed off, but it really angers me that this website that prides and pats itself in the back because of how quirky it is, how welcoming and creative and whatnot, doesn’t give a shit enough about me to fucking look at a couple of messages from one of its users, on their own support platform, and see what is wrong or to offer some kind of help.

Like, a few days ago I wrote a post praising this site ecosystem, because even with all its problems (and that’s a long list, starting with the fact that they haven’t done shit to ban the n4z1s and t3rfs from the website), it still provided a healty ecosystem compared with other platforms, where some drawing you posted could keep having visibility and being discovered by people through the years, unlike what happens with stuff on twitter or instagram, to name others. 

And that’s still true, but it’s impossible to feel nothing short of a moron when these fuckers randomly and without explanation decide to hide your posts from the one place where people are supposed to find them. 

And you know what, it hurts because I do think that this site it’s like the only reliable platform that I still have to put my art around, because instagram it’s a hell of its own in regards to having your posts visible, unless you already have a sizeable following or you prioritize dumb shit like reels or what not. I deleted my twitter account the moment Musk took control of it and never looked back. I haven’t used facebook in years. I deleted my DA account after the whole AI fiasco. And the list goes on.

Even if I don’t want to say it out loud, I already made peace with the fact that my art will just be a hobby as it has been for the last 32 years, that it was dumb to merely entertain the idea that I could try to earn a living with this, even as a side gig (I don’t have formal training, my art’s probably not good enough, or not popular or marketable enough; heck, even most of my friends don’t even care about it on the account that they probably don’t understand what drives me to keep doing it, since most of them are already so deep in their own professional lives that kinda just live for their work and barely have time to read books, do some sport or watch a show or movie, because capitalism tells them that if it doesn’t make you money, its worthless). 

And you know what, that’s totally fine, maybe I’ll never be a professional artist or at least have a big enough following.

 But having this platform, and that little boost of serotonin that comes with the fact that I created something, usually out of love for something I invented or for something that someone else did and that I managed to find something to like or connect there, and that somebody else liked what I did, was something that, NGL, even kept me going through hard times, say during the pandemic, or when I didn’t have a job or couldn’t find any client on my regular job. And it pains me to see that go away because this website or its systems decided that, for whatever dumb reason, they weren’t gonna show my art to other people, and that I wasn’t worth the time to explain why.

[zodiacrant]

🍩My experiences with each Moon sign🍩

(Cause yall are messy)

I have done this a few times before but for Sun signs and did rank placements but never shared my thoughts and experiences with the Moon signs.

Now I know how this goes, so if you get mad or sad then go off I guess. Aint the first time I get cursed out or attacked in this bitch. Plus, I am a Cap moon so naturally I won’t do well with some Moons and I will be nitpicking everything about everyone.

🍩Aries Moon🍩

My dad’s moon. Yup, that tells you alot without me even starting. Having our Moons in Square shit was hard to say the least. It took a long time for us to be on middle grounds and because I don’t feel comfortable talking about my problems here I will continue on. The Aries Moon that I really like and can think of is Rihanna, so I would say it’s unfair to make a whole judgment but from what I saw and heard they’re not exactly the best to be around. So I give them a 3/10 for being bold and having nerve.

🍩Taurus Moon🍩

Now this Moon right here I know people from ( a close friend and my sister, plus some others) and I don’t have many strong opinions about it. As a Taurus Sun, it can be a challenge to work with a Taurus Moon. I am stubborn at my core and they’re stubborn with their heart, so everytime we disagree it’s like a rope pulling contest. Way too stagnant for me but I think that’s because of my other placements and they don’t take any advice or open up no matter what. On to the good, I never disliked someone with this placement. No matter how much of an asshole they can be, to me it is difficult to hate them or stay mad at them. They’re warm, kind, and sweet but a bit aloof and naive, also they don’t like to touch and hug as some people might think. I will give them a 8/10

🍩Gemini Moon🍩

(⚠️TW⚠️ mention of rape and erratic behavior)

I only had one best friend with this placement and I don’t I want to meet any more, and I am at peace with that if they resemble her in any way. She was a maniac. She loved to lie, create drama, blow shit up, act crazy and basically be shocking. I do find similarities with Gemini Sun where they do shit for reactions but with her, she will take it to the next level. Lie about being raped, act possessed, or pretend that she is being followed. It’s not fair to associate her with people who share the same Moon as her but that was y’all’s representation in my life. She was erratic so it’s difficult to see where her Moon was in effect and where she was just off. I’ll give them a 1/10, would not recommend until proven otherwise.

🍩Cancer Moon🍩

The first that comes to my mind is Taylor Swift and to me she is the ultimate Cancer Moon. It juat makes sense how fast she takes it to the next level with people. Whether getting serious quickly with someone or throwing down and feuding. She just always at a 100. Personally, I never got close with someone who has this placement, maybe it’s because I am a Capricorn Moon myself, but I would say the ones that I have met were nice. I’ll give them a 5/10

🍩Leo Moon🍩

I only had one best friend with this placement but the people I have met with this Moon I still remember. They all had one thing in common and that was being emotionally traumatized and have lost one parent. My best friend was super loyal, very confident in what they believed in and represented, were always there for me and had an amazing ability in motivating others. But they were also super prideful and there’s no coming back with them. Fight once and it’s over. (Yes I am looking at you Jonnie). One of the other people was with me in uni and always had the to urge won up me and my friend. He had scars all over and he doesn’t remember how he got them. But he was super proud of himself and his home country, which I respect and admire. I’ll give them a 6/10

🍩Virgo Moon🍩

I know two people with this placement, my mom and a professor at uni, and oh boy it makes sense that they’re a Virgo Moon. Me and my mom are too alike that we clash strongly at times. She thinks she can do it better and I think I can do it better and we just have like a competition on who done it better basically. From cooking, to how you light the stove, to how you put on clothes, to how you lay down on bed. Both my mom and my professor are super critical and precise, althogh my professor is a double Virgo (Sun and Moon) so she will go even further. They have to do everything as it arises and act like there’s no time and everything is about to go wrong. Like damn sis chill the fuck out for a sec and this is coming from a Cap moon so you know it’s bad. But I really like Virgo Moon, even though people might hate such a personality but I can relate to them in some ways. I’ll give them 7/10

🍩Libra Moon🍩

My only online friend that I talk to all the time got this Moon. Other than her I met only two people and they were something. Okay so for my friend, because I never actually have seen her physically with my own eyes I can’t say how she acts all the time, but she is one of the best listeners I had in my life. She likes to hear me ramble for an hour about a dumb encounter that lasted a second, talking about astrology and some nerdy things and then not so nerdy things. I believe that it’s a Libra Moon quality to be emotionally versatile and attentive. I think because she is a Leo dominant she acts much fiery and fiercely than a Libra would. As for the other people I just thought they were fake. One acted as a friend but then would just disappear so I was over it quickly and the other was super passive and pretentious that I think she shits out plastic. All in all I think it’s a great Moon. I’ll give them a 7/10

🍩Scorpio Moon🍩

One of the hardest Moons I ever delt with but I find that I love them too. My oldest sister had this Moon and she is such a mystery. Because I am a Taurus Sun, it is only natural for me to have a hard time with a Scorpio Moon. Even though she is an extrovert, she rarely talks about herself and her feelings, you will never catch her slipping or show vulnerability. I can see how difficult it may be for her being a Cancer with a Scorpio Moon and have Gemini dominance. But she’s a bitch at heart and I am cool with it. I’ll give them 5/10 cause I am not a big fan of paradoxical people

🍩Sagittarius Moon🍩

A moon that I always babysat. I had two best friends with this Moon and if I was born a second earlier, it would mine too. I don’t know if it’s because of my Gemini Venus or my 0 degree Capricorn Moon but I love Sagittarius Moons. I was fortunate to see some of their weaknesses and for them to trust me enough to be vulnerable. But boy do they get themselves into the dumbest situation because they wanted to see what would happen. I had to babysit them and help them do everything like shopping, cooking, cleaning, assembling furniture, be their body guard when buying weed. (Shhhh it’s a secret). They’re in many ways immature cause they run from things and everytime you try to be real with them, they say “stop being negative”. I’ll give them a 9/10

🍩Capricorn Moon🍩

The grande dame of the Moon signs, sitting at it’s opposite planet. I have met many Cap Moons and honestly we are bitches 😂. The energy of sitting next to a Capricorn Moon is too fucking much like I never knew it’s like that. I noticed the way they stare, talk, walk and sit can be so aggressive and intimidating. I see why people might label us as bullies, cause the energy is definitely there and I myself was such a cunt (still a little but I am more aware of myself now) that I get where both are coming from. Life as a Capricorn Moon is emotionally flat. If wasn’t for my other placements you will never see me even flinch. I think we just take everything and let it process in our head before we let it into our hearts. So to me, we’re not mean, we just don’t see how something might be hurtful. But also that tone and that blank face, goddam! That’s why I try to smile cause bitch no, I didn’t know I was walking with a death stare this whole time. Anyways, I will give us 10/10 cause I am self appreciative like that 😂✌️

🍩Aquarius Moon🍩

I have always tried to understand Aquarius Moon and it was only a month ago that I have realized they themselves are not sure of who they’re. I had one best friend with this placement and three cousins (all siblings). First, my cousins are super competitive with each other on who gets to do what and if it happens that they’re similar in something they will get pissed. The person that was my best friend was like that as well. Only he would drop a an entire hobby, interest, something close to his heart, shit even a personality trait. I find them to be constantly changing and trying, so they shift between one end of extreme to the other until they center themselves. I’ll give them a 4/10

🍩Pisces Moon🍩

Now let’s talk about a depressing placement, in my opinion of course 😅. I don’t know if it’s the influence of Neptune on the Moon or is it the just the demeanor of Pisces, but good god girl get a grip (they call this the five G’s). My youngest sister is a Pisces Moon, and as creative as she is, she is pessimistic and overly cynical. I mean I am all for being critical and real but looking at everything with jacked up black sprayed glasses is just too much for me. Other than my sister I don’t know any Pisces Moon very well but I had a few acquaintances. I noticed that they talked about a specific thing and that’s it. I have found them to be amazing at drawing, painting and have an incredible artistic sense. At times twisted and dark, but I love the art that comes with it. I’ll give them a 5/10

Here’s the tea. It’s Pisces season so remember I am sensitive right now, and also it’s my life and I wish I met someone as amazing as you might think you’re. (Maybe that was a little too aggressive)

Okay love you ❤️

[thismaydestroyme]

Little Did I know Pt. 2

summary: in this short story, harry is famous, and he moved into a town during the summer to relax and potentially write some new songs for his upcoming album. i included some song lyrics from different amazing artists, and i pretended that harry and y/n wrote it.

author’s note: i wrote the beginning of this two months ago me being lazy i picked up where i left off because i’m too lazy to read through this. so if there’s any major fuck ups then…. i did warn you that i’m incompetent

word count: 3165

“I’m a SLAVE FOR YOU!” Y/N shouts out, and little did you know Harry was front and center watching your trainwreck of a performance. 

Harry did a whole french inhale without breaking eye contact with you. “I really wanna dance tonight with you.” Y/N hears Brittany playing in the background which you pause the music, to see what Harry would say about your little ‘performance.’ 

“Really? A slave? don’t you think it’s pretty dramatic don’t ya think?” Harry says, raising one of his eyebrows. You know he’s just playing around, but you coudn’t help feeling embarrassed how he fucking witnessed… that. You don't want Harry to know that you’re embarrassed, so you did the next best thing. 

“That fucking snake was huge. Did you know she was holding an Albino Burmese Python? I bet MTV wasn’t expecting that. Do you think MTV got filthy rich from that performance? Everyone tuned in for that performance and till this day it’s still the most talked about.” You ramble and spew out random information you bet Harry couldn’t care two shit about.” Harry has a smirk on his face, you bet he was enjoying you looking like a damn idiot. 

You start profusely apologizing until Harry interrupts you, “Do you want to come over?” He says all nonchalantly and walks away without you even agreeing. You’re all stunned and weren't able to even say one single word or even move your two feet. Harry doesn’t need to turn around to see you not moving, “C’mon weirdo, don’t act all shy with me now.” He threw back. 

“Fuck.” You whisper, but your feet finally start to move and your feet are heading straight to Harry. 

Harry turned his head and started to smirk, but he kept walking which had you feeling some nerves building up in your stomach. You’re not scared per se, just you’re going to Harry Styles house. This is normal. This is fine. This is just a once in a lifetime opportunity. 

Cool. 

When you finally get to his entrance Harry is already inside and he disappears somewhere because you don’t see him. You hesitantly walk inside and shut the door behind you. When you turn around you couldn’t help, but notice the disarray this house is covered in. Your mouth gape opened, but you immediately brought your hands to cover up how shocked you are. You couldn’t help but gawk at Harry’s place. There’s a big pink couch in the center of the room which is covered in boxes and clothes. There’s a TV on the floor which doesn’t seem to be plugged in because you don’t see it even plugged in. You try not to be too judgy because he did just move in, so what do you expect?  Harry having his life all sorted out in a span of a couple of weeks? 

You almost missed the nice white fluffy carpet that’s underneath the couch. Even though Harry’s place is a disaster, you can envision what Harry is planning on doing when he has his stuff all situated. In the back of your mind you hope he might even invite you back if he does a ‘welcoming party.’

Before you could even investigate more Harry walks back in with two bottles of water in his hand. He’s already drinking out of one of them, so he handed the one that hasn’t been opened to you. You reach your hands over to grab it. 

“This isn’t safe for the environment.” You states while unscrewing the cap. 

“Well.. you belting out to Britney is an endangerment to our society, so I guess we both got the short end of the sticks.” 

You immediately start drinking your water because you didn’t have your next rebuttal. You start scanning the room and hoping it’ll have your heartbeat settle down because you can feel it through your chest. Harry moves from his spot and starts taking boxes off the couch and to make some room for the both of you. He had to take down three boxes, so you could both sit comfortably. 

Harry walks over to you, but you freeze. Harry was pleased knowing he had you all flustered. It was one of Harry’s turn ons. Harry sits and brings his arms draping on the back of the couch which would have you being in his arm if you decide to sit right there. A couple of seconds of you contemplating you walk towards Harry and hesitantly sit down. 

“I’m not going to bite.” he whispers in your left ear. Feeling his breath in your ear made you slightly clench your thighs together, hoping Harry doesn’t notice. But knowing your track record he probably did notice.

You try to come up with a conversation starter that hopefully doesn't hold all the spotlight on you. You look down at her close water bottle and scrambling for something in her head. 

“Now you’re shy. The last time I checked up you were coming for my head after that  mishap with your dog earlier.” 

“You deserved it. You were attacking Cosmo, so yeah. I was in fact coming for your ass.” You glance your eyes to Harry. You’re overly protected over Cosmo. Cosmo is your life.

Harry gave you a smirk. He couldn’t help but to admire your bluntness. He barely comes across people who lit a fire inside of him. They always try to please him because he is a celebrity, and people just want to please him- which he doesn’t mind, but he does wish they sometime bites back. Having you in his presence he doesn’t want to let you go just yet, little did he know, he wants to get to know you more. 

“What do you do, Y/N besides piercing people’s eardrums and being a dog mom.” 

“Ummm.. that’s a loaded fucking question. But you being Harry fuckin’ Styles I guess I have to come up with something to make myself more interesting and less… chaotic. Well I’m a 21 years old who doesn’t have anything to offer to this world. I live my life accepting I’ll probably be working at Newbury Comics. And on top of that I love music, but I’ll be considered unqualified because I have no talents, and all I could do is muster up some mediocre lyrics that I have stored in my notes app.” 

Harry didn’t break any eye contact when you were summarizing your sad life. That created a pit in your stomach because you never experienced anything that could ever compare to Harry’s tense gaze. 

Harry never encountered anyone in the span of meeting them baring their skin to him. He couldn’t help, but feel some sort of pride knowing he created a space for Y/N to be able to let your hair down and express herself in full detail. He feels more drawn to you because he knows what you’re feeling. The unknown is a scary thing to feel, but you’re doing that with grace without you even realizing it. Just accepting reality is the biggest thing to acknowledge, and you’re doing just that. 

“What do you have on your notes? Could you even help me write my next album.” Harry shrug glances his eyes away from you. 

You feel a surge of worries entering her body. You don't know what’s going on, and you don't like it. “What?! You barely know me. My so-called ‘lyrics’ could be shitty and cliche. What are you getting out of this? My humiliation?” You don't like being taken as a joke, but that’s all  you could come up with this peculiar interaction. Harry sees a naive little girl. 

“You’re pretty,” Harry says. And that’s all he said. He got up and walked out the room. You're left on the couch alone, and not understanding what he just said. Just a few minutes ago he asked for your help, and now just a few seconds ago he said you’re pretty. What kind of fuckery is this?!

You immediately got up and walked to whatever room you could find Harry in. It wasn’t that hard because Harry is in the kitchen. 

“Harry! I need you to explain. Talk to me, please.” You say while running her hands down your face. You thanked yourself for not wearing any makeup.

“Uh, you beg. I like that Y/N,” Harry chuckles and closes his fridge door. 

“Well…. I do find you attractive and I see a potential in you. I might be wrong or I might be right. There’s nothing wrong with finding out and seeing what you have.” Harry says. Harry isn’t afraid to look people in the eyes, but you sure do. You’re debating if you should  take this risk. Harry did say there’s nothing wrong with finding it out. 

“Fine. I will take that jump with you.” You say unsurely, but you have some faith in him and a little bit in yourself. 

“Good. Now can you stop being tense and enjoy yourself. You’re in fact talking to the one and only Harry Styles.” 

“Shut up, doofus.” 

One month Later

After Harry made the deal with you a month ago,  you guys have been surprisingly working together quite nicely. You guys wrote one complete song, and that song is now called, “Dirty Little Secret.” You can’t wait to hear Harry sing that song with his band because you’re pretty sure it will fit the band theme for his upcoming album. Harry doesn’t want to limit himself, but he does have an idea to make his third album mostly rock. 

Harry didn’t expect you to be a fuckin’ genious. Watching you in the corner jotting down lines in your beat up notebook with a pen in your hand made you start feeling someway. You always appreciate the art seeing people enjoy what they do, but Y/N is truly gifted because she has no experience with producing music. One long night two weeks ago you guys were sleep deprived because there was a week where you guys would stay up all night to write and you would stop when you saw the sunrise. Y/N found her love in music because of her father. He was a huge factor that made her who she is today. There was substance in her when she would talk about the accent in a song, how she would bounce that off with the bar while you would play the instruments. Y/N is truly a force to be reckoned with and you couldn’t help but wonder how it would be like to have her on tour with you. 

Y/N never felt more alive after her father passed. It’s like Harry woken something inside of her. You never thought you would experiment with music with Harry Styles, the artist for this generation. You’re not going to lie that you would watched all of his interviews and he would talk about when he write songs he has no boundaries, and it’s crazy he upheld that ideology because Harry made sure you know that there’s no right or wrong way, the only way is to play around and see how it goes. 

“I’m going to get some water. Do you want some?” You ask Harry dropping your notebook on the coffee table that’s covered in rolled up papers and a lot of take out boxes.

“Yeah. Thanks.” He says. You nod at him, and you got up to grab two cups of ice water for you both. 

Your notebook page flipped to a new page and Harry couldn’t help but notice to see “Bubblegum Bitch” written in all caps. Harry got intrigued, so he happily kicked the table so the book could fall, so his excuse could be, “Y/N it fell.” 

Harry kicked the coffee table with his big ass feet and the notebook happily splat on the floor. Harry reached for it and started flipping pages to see that title again, and it took him a couple of tries to find it. 

“Got a figure like a pin-up, got a figure like a doll

Don't care if you think I'm dumb, I don't care at all

Candy bear, sweetie pie, wanna be adored

I'm the girl you'd die for”

Harry couldn’t help but not try to read all the lyrics. He wants to digest it all, but he knew Y/N could walk in any second. He couldn’t help but make a small gasp when he skimmed to the part of the song that had him falling on his knees 

“I'm gonna be your bubblegum bitch.” 

“Harry, what are you doing?” Y/N says timidly. On the outside Y/N is calm and cool and collective, but on the inside you’re shaking and screaming. Your songs are attended only to you, not for other eyes to see. You’re still not confident with your writing abilities when it comes to songs for yourself, but knowing your idol probably read more than one line of your song is having you want the ground to swallow you up. 

“I’m not going to tiptoe around you and pretend Y/N. Bubblegum Bitch is amazing, fuck maybe fucking brillant Y/N. Shit.” Harry says he looks at you but goes back down to your notebook flipping pages after pages. 

You’re stuck where you’re standing. Feeling the condensation of two cups of water you’re currently holding is the only concept you’re able to maintain. 

Did Harry say that he likes your songs? Did he say brilliant? You’re not able to speak, all you’re able to do is walk up to the coffee table, drop the cups down and grab your notebook from Harry's grabby hands and collect your belongings. This is too much. You feel too much. You simply can’t right now. 

Harry sees you picking up your stuff and shoving your notebook and pens in your purse you bring every time you visit him. Harry couldn’t help, but feel bad that he could possibly make you feel uncomfortable. 

Harry stands up and starts walking up to where you are putting the last thing in your bag, “Y/N I’m sorry if me going through your stuff made you angry, but I couldn't help it Y/N. What I read was amazing, you’re amazing.” Harry hurrys out his words because he felt if he didn’t say it fast enough you would vanish. 

You’re trying to hold back your tears because it’s getting too much for you. The last time somebody read your stuff was your father, and right now you feel like you’re betraying the intimate moments you had with him. He was the one you would share your songs first with him. Now that he’s gone, you couldn’t put yourself out there to have someone else read it. You turn back around and you try to give a smile to Harry. 

“It’s okay, I- I just have to go. I’m sorry. We can talk later.” You push past Harry to make it to the front door, but you feel someone hand on your wrist so you immediately stop. 

“Y/N, I can’t have you leave, when I know that you’re not okay. Can you please talk to me? Please?” There’s a hint of sadness in Harry. You couldn’t bring yourself to leave him without having the answer he’s yearning for. 

You turn around and there’s Harry. His green eyes are pleading with yours, and you couldn’t help, but do what Harry is asking you to do. 

“Okay, I don’t want pity. Okay? Tell me you understand.” You ask Harry because the last thing you want from him is sympathy. 

“I promise Y/N. Would you mind if we sit down?” You nod your head and he walks you back with his hand in your hand. You both couldn’t help but feel some sort of palse running inside you both while holding each other's hands. It’s something both of you guys can’t simply forget. 

You got to the couch and you both sat down, no longer holding hands. You adjust yourself so you can face him. “Okay. My father died a couple of years ago and he was the only one I let read my stuff first. After he passed I never showed anyone my stuff because it would feel like I’m replacing him. I’m not mad that you read my stuff- I was just surprised, and I couldn’t help it but feel sadness creeping over me. Once again, I’m not angry at you, I’m just adjusting to a new milestone I just crossed without me not realizing it.” You say, and you’re hoping Harry doesn’t say, “Oh I’m sorry”  because you’re sorry to. 

“Well, I’m not sorry for your loss,” Harry says and you couldn’t help, but smile and laugh. “but I’m not sorry that I read it. You have something Y/N and I know you told me you haven’t had any experience in music industry, but fuck that. You have passion and I feel that every time we write something together in the past month, I don’t think I'll be able to forget about you when the summer is over.” Harry says. There was so much sincerity in what he just said.  

You thought it was all one sided because you felt so much being with Harry. You felt you were finally seeing a rainbow you hadn’t seen in a very long time. Harry brings so much out of you that you. Harry was always there when you were scared to take the first step. Him being there with you made it less scary because he was there every step of the way.

Harry didn’t expect he would’ve met someone this summer who would make such an impact on him. Harry thought he would do a lot of hooks up, go to parties and write for the entirety of the summer. But the universe had something planned for him. He met Y/N. He didn’t want to tell Y/N he that he found his first and only love, but he didn’t want to scare her. She could probably feel the same way or she only saw him as a friend but neither of them were ready for that big leap of faith. Even Y/N knew Harry is someone she couldn’t live without because he brings something out of you that you never felt in your entire life and that was courage and faith. 

Y/N met her faith. Only time could tell if faith would lead Harry and Y/N the soulmate they both were looking for.

“Harry, I don’t think I could possibly forget about you.” Y/N whisper because you felt if you used your normal voice the bubble you guys created would shatter within seconds.

Faith is a silly thing because faith could have you longing for something that’s impossible to grasp or faith could have you leaving you vulnerable, but that vulnerability could unlock something you never dreamt was even possible. 

[corpsentry]

january: an art retrospective

i did some stuff last month (but it’s a lot of stuff and there’s a photodump + some Serious Fucking Reflection, so it’s all below the cut)

so ok, let’s start with this. here are some heads. each head has a red arrow. that red arrow is what i call the red line of the devil. it’s the slope of the face from the side of the eye to the cheekbone and then down towards the chin. up until like 2 weeks ago, i couldn’t draw it. i couldn’t fucking draw it. i would edit over that part of the face over and over again until i was frustrated and tired and i had a raging homosexual headache and it still never looked right. notice that each head is different. notice that each head looks wrong.

at the start of 2021 i finally admitted to myself, as per the image above, that i was deeply, deeply unhappy with my art. what was the problem? i dunno. but i decided i was going to fix it and i was going to do so via another one scribble a day event wherein for every day of january i would find a photo of a human head, and i would draw it.

january 1st, 2021. i was embarrassed to tweet this even on my private account where like 5 friends and a rock would see it. in retrospect, you can also see all of my bad habits emerging like dicks from a hole in the ground. it’s disproportionate. the brows look flat. the eyes are slanting upwards. the entire drawing looks flat, like this isn’t a 3d person but a caricature of one.

january 2nd, 3rd, 4th:

on the 2nd i decided to start a separate thread for doodles and applied learning. here’s the first set of tests

the rest of the week is kind of uneventful so we’re going to skip those. fast forward to january 11th

this one is especially bad. i am acutely aware, suddenly, that i am not changing anything at all. i’m stressed and miserable about it because i’m still trying to see people as people and trying to draw people that look attractive and proportionate and hot. my friend, leny, reminds me that i need to think about faces in terms of planes. i have a moment. my other friend masha sends me some links to anatomy tutorials. i have another moment.

january 11th. applied sketch

january 13th is when i start the troubleshooting process. the link above drives me mad because i’m pretty happy with the face but then i realize that there’s something very fucking wrong with the shape of the head LOL and then i realize that i’ve never had any idea what the proportion of the face to the rest of the skull is so i grit my teeth and i open a new canvas and i

bald studies. it seemed like the right thing to do. can’t draw heads? ok draw some heads. look at some photographs. i traced each photo but tried to stick to straight lines so that i could replicate the shapes more easily. i broke each face down into shapes. i thought about airplanes

i got really excited. i started doing studies, then applied studies, then stylized studies.

sketches. i’m not sure what’s going on (as always) and it’s very rough, but they look different from the sketches i did on january 2nd. that’s a start

january 16th’s daily study. looks more like a person now. juuuuuust a bit

more applied studies

on the 18th i take a break and go stare at some lips because i don’t understand how the fuck they work. again, i focus on shapes, on volume, on the fact that these things exist in 3d. holy fuck lips exist in 3d. holy fuck we are real

january 19th. i’m working on it.

january 22nd. some sketches + a daily study. it has finally occurred to me that heads can tilt up and down and that things look different accordingly. yes i was not aware of this before. yes i have been drawing for over a decade.

january 23rd. by this point after doing my daily sketch i almost always go back and do an applied study which is basically to say i drew a lot of fucking links. this one looks kind of okay. i’m kind of proud

january 25th. links. trying to make sense of everything i’ve learned

26th, 27th, 28th. daily studies

january 1st. january 31st

The End Of The Photo Dump (dab)

ok NOW i get to talk about what i discovered while studying the shit out of human beings

FIRST OF ALL, there is something precious and magical about drawing shit without the explicit knowledge that you’re going to tweet that shit out to 45 people later. it takes the burden of perception off your shoulders and that does something to you, or at least that’s my theory. i told myself i wouldn’t post any of this stuff until the end of the month (if i wanted to post it at all) and kept everything off my public social media accounts and that meant i could draw ugly as hell without worrying about who would point and laugh, which i absolutely fucking did. a lot of these are fucking trainwrecks. most of these are fucking trainwrecks. why do they look like that?? why??? this doesn’t look like the work of someone who’s allegedly been drawing since they were in kindergarten, does it?????

here’s why: because that person took a huge motherfucking swing at everything they’d ever known about art and spent a month building something new in its place. the abstract explanation is that i grew up on shoujo and weird old anime and my understanding of anatomy was unironically kamichama karin and while i love kamichama karin, when kamichama karin is your rule even if you try to break it, you’re going to end up going nowhere. “you have to know the rules to break them”, yeah? well i didn’t know shit. the abstract explanation is i’ve been miserable about my art for a few years now because i saw other people doing things effortlessly which i couldn’t and instead of going back to the basics, i tried to do what they did (not plagiarism, mind you, i mean i literally tried to copy the red line of the devil i mentioned above because i couldn’t even make that happen) and then i fucking failed.

the simple explanation is this. i had to unlearn everything, and relearn it again (like some kind of new renaissance clown, what the fuck is this?)

take this for example. all my life i’ve drawn faces in the order: eyes, nose, mouth, face shape, head. this works for some people, im aware, but it was something central to how i had always drawn, so i decentralized it. i said fuck you to the old me and changed the order up. now i start with the nose, then the eyes, mouth, the chin line, and the sides of the face. now i force myself to think about the human head as a series of parts interacting with each other instead of a bunch of disparate features which i want to look pretty.

or let’s use this zelda from last year. something about this looked wrong last october, the way something about all of my drawings looked wrong, but i couldn’t pinpoint it for hell the way i couldn’t articulate Any of my feelings about the visual arts. now, looking back, here’s what i see. that nose is sticking out far too much given how she’s not really facing very far away from the camera. that ear at the back shouldn’t be there. her forehead is too big. she doesn’t have a forehead. what the fuck is up with the shape of her head?

so apparently reject modernity embrace tradition has its roots in alt-right terminology and i’m not very horny for the alt-right (you understand), but the spirit survives here. you know sometimes you have to admit that you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing and draw people for 31 days. i’ve spent my whole life drawing stylized people and while again there are artists who have no issue with this, i veered off the track of the Good and the Holy and couldn’t get back on. i had no point of reference because i’d never thought about what an actual human being looks like, so i had no way to fix what i knew in my gut looked wrong but wouldn’t come out better.

this was hard. this was like oikawa tooru swallowing his worthless pride and admitting that ushijima wakatoshi had gotten the best of him for the last time in his high school career, but in haikyuu!! by furudate haruichi oikawa tooru fucks off to argentina and then joins the argentinean national team, and you know what, i think i’ve made it to argentina (not the team just the country). as per the golden rule of dont fucking move until you’re at least two thirds of the way through the month, i only started trying to draw Shit shit on like the 22nd or something, but i was happy with that i created. i am happy with what i’ve done. i’ve posted like 2 things this month that involve people with what i now call ~applied Knowledge~~ and they’re, like, not perfect obviously (perfection is an unattainable ideal), but i’m fucking proud of them. i didn’t spend 5 hours hunched over my laptop adjusting the red line of the devil because it’s not a devil’s line anymore. because i finally sorta get how people work. because i sat down and i said ‘we are not going to fuck with this misery shit anymore’ and then i did that. it’s just a line now.

here are 2 collages tracking my painstakingly carved out progress from january 2nd to february 2nd because i’m a slut for collages

and here’s what i’ve done to my art! the same person drew these but also Not Really! you know! for the first time in a year i don’t immediately hate what i’ve drawn. you know what guys? art is fucking fun. zelda’s forehead doesn’t scare me anymore because i know how foreheads fucking work now, and i don’t know everything, and i’m going to keep troubleshooting stuff as i go (i want to draw a skeleton. like a. i want to draw a goddamn skeleton guys) but i’m honestly and genuinely proud of what i’ve done in the span of a month, and i’m also in disbelief. i started this month-long challenge out as a last ditch effort to make peace with my art because i’ve been tired for a long time and i was ready to kick the bucket on drawing people altogether. i didn’t think anything would happen. nothing’s happened for years. i’ve been miserable for years.

this was the caption for january 1st, 2021. i was super, super fucking embarrassed and it looks like super fucking shit, but you know what, i think i did in fact triumph over the bullshit. surprisingly enough, when you put in consistent effort into something, You Will See Results. didn’t see that coming, did you? i know i didn’t.

this isn’t a success story. it’s a happiness story. i never gave a shit damn about the institute of art or whatever, i was just mad at myself because what i saw in my head didn’t match up with what was on the canvas. and now it’s getting better. now i’m calibrating the compass. now drawing not just backgrounds but also people is exciting to me, and i can stick my links in your face and tell you ‘they hot’. i’m going to keep doing that. i’m going to keep going until i drop off the side of the earth and then spiral towards mars like some kind of fairy, and then i’m going to create something beautiful.

thanks for reading. here’s a pr department link for sticking around until the end

[stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland]

There is a light at the end of the tunnel

Hello, Stuck. Sorry, I don’t know your real name.

I wrote this long ass post to bring some light into the fandom and between the CSs, and I hope you can post it? I’m new in the Tumblr world, but not in the 5H fandom. I don’t quite know how it works yet and, for the moment, I only know your blog and those of @emisonme, @karlaswine, @sun-to-my-luna, @underthatimpression, and @mentesimploria because, in one way or another, you’re all connected to each other. I just wanted to tell you guys how much I appreciate every single one of you, the passion you have, and the hope you keep alive among those who, like me, love the girls. Also, the patience you guys have, especially against the haters, is admirable. I love the fact that you keep going. Because this is your sacred place, as it should be.

This is the very first time I’ve ever done anything like this. I’m what can be defined as a ‘silent fan’. I never commented on anything in the girls’ posts, not even on the fan accounts I follow. I don’t have Twitter. I have Facebook but it’s like I don’t have it because I don’t use it. I have Wattpad (obviously). I recently registered here on Tumblr, and I have Instagram. That’s what I use. It’s the only app along with YouTube that I use daily to keep up with the rest of the world. Especially the American part of the world. I’m Italian, but I speak American English well, and I apologize in advance if my lazy ass hasn’t noticed possible grammatical errors. I saw that a lot of you are into this stuff, so I thought I’d add it just because. I’m a Capricorn Sun, Cancer Moon, and Virgo rising.

I’m gonna turn 29 on December 22, and this is a BIG fuck off to all the people who have attacked you lately for your age. This is personal information that I give freely to make ignorant and small-minded people understand that, in this context especially, age is irrelevant. As you, little fucker who hides behind a computer to attack people just to feel stronger, have a life, we have it too. Like you, we have a life, a job, friends, etc. We also have passions. Passions that yes, my dear haters, also include shipping people. I don’t know why in your stupid brain we’re too old to ship people we love and to give opinions about it. I didn’t know it was something reserved only for those who still smell like mommy’s milk. But anyway…

I became aware of 5H existence just before summer 2015 thanks to ‘Worth It’. Being Italian, however, I had no idea who they were, and to be honest, I didn’t go searching for them. Randomly one day then, I ran into Camren on YouTube. I can’t remember which video I was watching, but I know for sure it was about ‘Heya/Brittana’ (Heather Morris and Naya Rivera/Brittany and Santana, my very first hard LGBT ship). And among the suggested videos, there they are. As ridiculous as it sounds, and although I liked them as soon as I saw them, I didn’t go searching for them. I did it when ‘Work from Home’ came out though. From there, I connected that they were the same ‘Worth It’ group and the same two girls I liked from those YouTube videos. I had officially become a fan. I was screwed. Screwed because, I’d officially entered one of the most messed up and yet most beautiful fandoms ever.

As I initially said, this is the very first time I’ve ever done anything like this. But after the recent events, seeing how many people gave up, it made me a little angry and gave me the strength to speak for the first time. I thought the first time would’ve been through the fanfiction I’ve been working on for over two years, but no. Lauren and her beautiful mouth had to terrorize, disappoint, panic, and make angry 80% of CS, thus fueling the hatred of all the other fandom towards us. So I decided to speak now. Maybe, just maybe, this very long ass post of mine is gonna help struggling CS. Maybe, just maybe, it’s gonna make them reason and bring them to their senses.

So. This, as I think you’ve understood, is about Lauren and what she said in the podcast. This is a reminder of the Laucy situation. These are things we already know and that I want to remind you of because apparently, my lovely fellows CS, either you have a short-term memory, or Lauren has the power to create amnesia in people’s minds and I knew nothing about it. Surely this power of hers didn’t work on me and a few others.

Oh and, before starting: 1) You may disagree with me. It’s normal to have different opinions. 2) You can search for information such as dates, easily on the internet. 3) I’m gonna use nicknames on PRs for fun. That doesn’t mean I hate them. I have my reasons for dislike each one of them as people, but I can assure you it has nothing to do with the fact that they were or are the Camren beards. An example to make you understand what I mean is Ty. I’m a huge Ari fan and I’ve been listening to ‘safety net’ non-stop for two days straight. I really dislike Ty as a person, but I separate the art from the artist.

Okay, that said, I can start.

Lauren said: “I knew I was queer because I fell in love with my best friend when I was like 15.” – “Her and I started to have a physical connection when I was 15.”

Lauren and Lucid Vivisectionist met when L moved to Carrollton in 7th grade. Lucille moved back to Puerto Rico in February 2012, returning to visit Miami occasionally (this explains the fetus pictures with Lucy and Camren at L’s house). In February 2012, Lauren was 15, Camila 14, and Lucy 16. And who did Lauren meet when she was 15? Oh yeah, Camila. C and L did the first phase of the audition, the ‘cattle call’, on May 1, 2012 in Greensboro, North Carolina. Audition where Camila took courage to speak at the (“Oh my God that girl is) literally so beautiful” girl from which she felt intimidated by starting that adorable brief conversation “Hi, I like your shirt”, “Thanks. I like your jacket” just before it was her turn to get in for her audition. In May 2012, Lauren and Camila were both 15 years old. Lauren and Camila saw each other again for the first time on July 25th, two months later, in Miami on the first day of boot camp, and it was Lauren herself who went to Camila: “You’re the Cuban girl!”. In July 2012, Lauren was 16 and Camila was 15.

Lauren said: “She came back into my life when I was 18. I was on tour and I was in my room in a hotel somewhere, and she called me.” Let me explain to you why I think this is true.

Lauren and Luxy reconnected with each other after Lucy’s car accident that took place on May 15, 2015. Lauren was really 18 in May 2015, and we can rule out The Reflection Tour dates because it started on February 27, 2015, and ended April 6, 2015. We can also rule out these other show dates that 5H did: April 11 in Jackson Township, New Jersey - April 13 at Live! with Kelly and Michael in New York - April 19 Lauren was at Coachella with Keana, Britt, and other friends - April 22 at the Worldwide Radio Summit in Hollywood - April 25 at Radio Disney Music Awards 2015 in Los Angeles - May 8 at Channel 93.3 Summer Kickoff 2015 in Chula Vista, San Diego - May 9 at Wango Tango 2015 in Carson, Los Angeles (May 9, rumors about Camila and Louis Tomlinson just because paparazzi believed they were together when Louis was actually together with Liam outside the Project Club L.A., and C who was at the club next door) - May 15 at KDWB Radio Show in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The rest of their program and possible date: May 16 at Kiss Concert 2015 in Mansfield, Massachusetts - May 19 at Dancing with the Stars in Los Angeles - May 30 at G-A-Y in London (rumors about Lauren and Louis Tomlinson this time, born because 5H went to Libertine nightclub with Louis and Niall) - May 31 at Britain’s Got More Talent in London - June 2 at Capital FM in Birmingham, England - June 5 at Good Morning Britain in London - June 6 at Capital FM Summertime Ball 2015 in London - June 12 at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii - June 14 at LA Pride 2015 - June 18 at Jimmy Kimmel Live in Los Angeles - June 20 at B96 Pepsi Summer Bash 2015 in Bridgeview, Illinois - June 23 at San Diego County Fair 2015 - 28 June at Show Of The Summer 2015 in Hershey, Pennsylvania - July 10 at Rockefeller Plaza in New York. July 15, 2015, beginning of Reflection: The Summer Tour.

June 27, 2015 Lauren turned 19, and do you guys remember the events of those days? Because I do.

On June 24, 2015, Lauren celebrated her birthday in advance at the famous sushi restaurant ‘Katsuya’. Among the guests were the girls, her mom Clara, some friends, including Jill (the same Jill/Jillian Gutowitz who worked with Zack Sang and who 5H met on April 22, 2015, at the Worldwide Radio Summit, which lasted for three days but they were present for two: 22 and 23. The same Jill who wrote the article for AfterEllen on January 25, 2016, about her experiences with women who denied their sexuality. Remember the story of Lauren Jordan, right?), and Noah Benardout (may he rest in peace). Still no Lucia, not even on the days when Lauren returned to Miami to celebrate with her family before resuming the program from the 28. As I already said, The Reflection Summer Tour began on July 15, 2015, and Lucy’s first public reappearance took place on one of the tour dates, that is, July 27 at Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

From that moment on, we saw Lucille appear on multiple occasions in hops through time. After the July 27th date, we saw her during the trip to Hawaii with Lauren and Keana in September, followed by the concert that the girls had on October 10 in the Bahamas, where they stayed with their families and friends for a few days. After the Bahamas, the mess happened between 5H because they found out about Camila’s departure from the group which initially should’ve been immediate, but for which they fought and gained another year. That, was also the time when Laucy signed their PR contract. As we know from Lauren herself, that was the worst and darkest time for her. That was the beginning of her numbness.

On October 23, they were on their way to Italy and Lauren wrote on her dark diary, the one shown to us in Episode 8 of her Attunements. On October 24, they arrived in Milan for the MTV Europe Music Awards 2015 occurred on October 25, and on October 28, in Madrid instead, there was the interview with Alyson Eckmann, the journalist Camila flirted with while Lauren was sitting right next to her.

Going forward, in November we have:

- Rumors about Lauren and Julius Dein (his friend who is a YouTube magician).

-The release of IKWYDLS including the rumors about Camila and Shawn and Michael Clifford (who was already in the picture) who were ‘vying for her’.

- Beginning of Lauren’s coming out plan which included: 1) The release of The Vamps’ album on November 23rd, that is, a week after the release of IKWYDLS, and which included the track ‘I Found A Girl’. Joe O'Neill, the manager of The Vamps, liked that famous tweet. Despite the efforts to make us believe that Bleahren (sorry for the Italian pun I made here, but ‘bleah’ in Italian is equivalent to the ‘eww’ to indicate something gross, and therefore Bleah-Ren) Brauren was real and that the girl involved was Lucille and not Camila, they’ve miscalculated since Lauren and Brad ‘dated’ in 2014 when Lucy had not yet returned into Lauren’s life. But since the album and consequently the song came out on November 23, 2015, they tried to manipulate people’s minds as usual. 2) Jill’s article that served to connect and more or less ‘confirm’ the story between this Jordan and her childhood friend, Lauren-Lucy.

- December: completion of the 7/27 album + Dina LaPolt’s entry + renegotiation of the contracts (mostly DNA’s contracts) + FIFTH HARMONY MUSIC, INC. created by LAND on December 21 to prepare for the transfer of the 5H trademark, the FIFTH HARMONY PARTNERSHIP, of which they became owners from April 27, 2016 + change of management from Faculty Management: Jared Paul and Janelle Lopez, to Maverick Management: Larry Rudolph, Dan Dymtrow, and Tara Beikae. [All things that were possible ONLY THANKS to the exit of C from the group]

- January 2016, we have Lauren and Lucrezia who came back from Colombia to then taking a road trip for Lucy’s birthday week.

- Jill’s article came out and coincidentally, by pure chance, exactly two days later, on January 27, 2016, Camila and Dinah were hacked.

- On March 9, 2016, Lauren, Normani, Andrea, Dinah, and Keana went to pierce their ears, or rather, Laurmainah pierced their ears, mama Dre and Keana just accompanied them. During her turn, Lauren asked Keana to take her phone to make a video. In the meantime, Mani was filming Lauren, and again by pure chance, Keana, who was in the heart of the frame, took Lauren’s phone as she’d asked, and both the lock screen and the home screen portrayed a picture of Lucania during a photoshoot. Same picture Lucy herself posted on Instagram on April 10th to leave no doubt.

- April 24, 2016, Coachella together.

- Luciana went with 5H in London, in May, during the promotion of the 7/27 album. (+ Camren video of May 28, 2016)

- She was present during the start of the tour in South America on June 26th (in the evening during the concert, L danced Big Bad Wolf for her, but that’s not the famous video, that was on September 5) and 27th to celebrate L’s birthday together (picture of the 27th of them in Buenos Aires).

- June 27, 2016, on L’s birthday, Jill posted a picture with L from the birthday dinner of the year before, further confirming the story of ‘Jordan’.

- August 1, the national girlfriend day, L posted a picture of her and Lucy.

- From August 12 to 21, Lucy was with them. The night after the concert on the 13th in Rochester Hills, Michigan, videos in which Lucilla appeared during Lauren Fuller’s birthday celebration at the hotel for dinner. On the 14th in Noblesville, Indiana, during Gonna Get Better and Big Bad Wolf Lauren smiled in Lucy’s direction who was in the audience. On the 18th in Virginia Beach, Virginia, a fan met Laucy in a movie theater restroom, taking a selfie with Lauren (C posted a picture of her in the dark with the words of Bad Things “don’t think that I can explain it” the same night).

- On September 4 and 5 Lucippe returned. On the 5th in Houston, Texas, the famous ‘super HD’ video took place in which Lauren danced Big Bad Wolf for Lucy, even pointing to her during her verse. [On September 6, Midland, Texas, during the Q&A, Lauren wore the same dress that Lucy was wearing to the concert the night before, and at the same time, she sat next to C and got jealous when C complimented a fan by sending her flying kisses. Ahh… The irony]

Now. Let’s move on to the part of the podcast where Lauren explains about the kiss with Lucza at her uncle and aunt’s wedding, how her aunt “super innocently” posted the pictures on Facebook that her “unreal invasive fans” found and posted, how Perez Hilton outed her to the world by posting an article with those pictures, how she did nothing for a week, and that after thinking “Ok, it happened. People know. What am I gonna do?”, she wrote that letter against Trump as her own way of coming out.

On November 4, 2016, Lauren and Lucynda did the ‘famous’ photoshoot in New Orleans called ‘Bare With Me’. Lauren flew to NOLA right after Halloween, got back to Miami to vote, then returned to New Orleans on the 10th along with her family for the wedding. Lucianna was also with her on the 10th for the rehearsal/bowling with all of Lauren’s relatives. Meanwhile Orange Trumpeter was elected on the 8th, and many celebrities were preparing to write a letter through Billboard against him and his supporters. Labels and management saw it as a perfect opportunity to get her to come out also considering how much Lauren has always been vocal on the subject, and THEY contacted Billboard to get her to participate in exchange of the exclusive of her coming out. All that was missing was the evidence to make sure that there had been no connection with Camila, and that was the reason for the kiss at the wedding on the 11th.

On November 13, the wedding photographer posted those pictures on his website, including the one of the kiss. And I’m sorry, Lolo, I love you but, really? Who are you kidding? The pictures didn’t start spreading because her ‘unreal invasive fans’ found them on her aunt’s Facebook page where she’d posted them ‘super innocently’. The pictures started spreading after the photographer posted them! And you know what’s even more funny? That to see those pictures on the website, you needed an access password. So what are you saying here, Lo? That your ‘unreal invasive fans’ were so good, to even have hacked their way into the website for pictures they didn’t even know existed? It wasn’t your team, was it? Oh, okay. My bad.

Sarcasm aside. The pictures started to spread, Perez tweeted about it on the 14th, and in the meantime Lauren had time to write the letter that was approved by the labels and sent to Billboard (on the 14th), who approved it a couple of days after it was sent (on the 16th), and which they then published it in the article two days later (on the 18th). In all of this, on November 15, 2016, the girls all went to Epic’s party. Since we know very well that most of the cases of coming out as bisexual in the industry made by a female celebrity occur in succession with the connection with a guy, that night there was the PR proposal between Typo Dolour Signal and Lauren that he obviously accepted, and in fact, he was there that night at that party too (Picture of C with a tear mark on her cheek).

Now, the icing on the cake of the Laucy’s PR: Nicole Cartolano. Nicole is a friend of Lecy’s with whom she had already worked together and who also posted pictures of Lauren on November 17 and 22, 2016, one on December 31, 2016, together with Marian Hill taken backstage after Lauren’s performance with them on the 30th, the night before, for the Snow Globe Festival in South Lake Tahoe, California, and the one of Laucy (with the piñata) on January 10, taken the same night to celebrate Lucilia’s birthday at midnight and that Lauren also used to post it for wish her a happy birthday. That was the last public interaction between the two. *Slow entry of Tympans Dollhouse Signalized in the picture from January 4, 2017, thanks to that tweet*.

On January 21, 2017, Lauren and Lucy were at the same Women’s March, but separately (single), and we haven’t seen them together anymore. LuBYE. On March 22, 2017, both ‘Bare With Me’ and the interview article Nicole did with MTV News (she confirmed that Laucy had been together by having an on-again, off-again for years and also said a lot of other bullshit like the fact that the girls were nervous because they didn’t know how their parents would’ve responded) came out. On August 13, 2018, Nicole officially apologized to Lucy for being angry with her for posting the pictures and therefore for having outed her and for having taken part in the MTV interview without their permission. There was also the screenplay made by Nicole’s mom to make everything even more true.

Bullshit on bullshit on bullshit. Number 1, Lauren herself confirmed in this podcast that her parents knew about her, and said how much she loved Lucre’s ‘I’m out and proud’ part.

Number 2, Nicole posted a preview of the pictures on March 18, 2017, so if she really wanted to stop her before the publication on the 22nd, she would’ve had time to do so.

Number 3, Lucita came out publicly on her own with that Spanish post on Instagram on November 20, 2016, saying in summary that she was anything but straight because she didn’t want to label herself (she did it years later by saying she was a lesbian).

Number 4, as Lusia also confirmed in that post where Nicole’s mom left that comment, Nicole signed a non-disclosure agreement form. If she had actually violated it without having had a release and written consent form, she would’ve been sued.

Number 5, if Luciferase really wanted to have that conversation in private with Nicole’s mom, she might very well have done so. She could’ve contacted her and answered her IN PRIVATE for real, and not via IG where EVERYONE saw and took the side of poor, poor Luckless.

Number 6, the biggest proof that shows the hypocrisy of all this, Lucasta continued to work with Nicole. Their last work dates back to November 25, 2019.

Okaay, sure… sure, because it was normal for her to continue working with the person who outed her, wasn’t it? People’s lies never cease to amaze me. For that matter, Nicole also posted a picture of their ‘adventure’ as they made their way to the photoshoot location on November 1, 2017, and continued to wish them both a happy birthday with posts every year.

And lastly, on June 6, 2020, we have the Lucerne’s video leaked (+ old pictures and videos of 5H) where she burned pictures of Lauren and of the two of them together in 2017, accompanied by the tweets occurred two days later, in which she explained that she was hacked and that she burned the pictures for a closure. Then, exactly 20 days later, that is on June 26, 2020, the PAPER Magazine article of Lauren’s interview came out. What a coincidence! In that article, Lauren explained, along with other things, that she’d been in love with her best friend for 7 years.

Lauren, honey, the maths, the maths… If according to your words you fell in love with her at 15, got together with her at 18, and broken up at 20, how can these be 7 years? It’s 5 years… And as if it wasn’t enough, still according to your words, after 1 year and 8 months (from mid-May 2015 to mid-January 2017), 2 months of which public because of the wedding pictures, of the relationship you wanted at all costs, “all in” and “now we’re gonna be in this relationship”, you broke up with her because she was really toxic, and after less than a month, you started dating an even more toxic person without the proper time to heal?? How do you expect me to believe you? And I’m putting aside the fact that I know they’re both PR relationships. I’m speaking out of logic. How? How can I believe you? How does this make any sense?

Personally, yes, I believe Lauren and Lucy have a past. Lauren’s first kiss was when she was 13 (8th grade) with her boyfriend at the time, Dominic, but I think Lucy was her first kiss with a girl. And I think it happened when she was 15, but in 2011, so long before Lucy left. Lauren dated Paul Martinez from June 4, 2011, to the end of July (around 23/24). From after Paul, until her very first PR at X-Factor, Keaton Stromberg, she was single. I truly believe that before she met Camila, Lauren and Lucy did everything Lauren said. I really believe Lauren experimented with her in secret, but I don’t believe in anything else she said at all.

This is my opinion. And in my opinion, Lauren always knew she was queer, and Lucy was the first with whom she could experience the attraction and the feelings towards girls she had always felt and concealed deep inside herself. But they were friends. Just friends. Friends who messed around and experimented together in secret given the environment that surrounded them. Lucy then returned to live in Puerto Rico and they simply drifted apart because of the distance and Lauren’s busy schedule with 5H. When she came back into Lauren’s life, they rekindled their friendship. Just that. Also because, Camila, hello? Camila entered Lauren’s heart the same year Lucy left and never get out of it. Not to mention that Lucy had a girlfriend, Sarah Scott Narcise, before getting together with Nicole Marie Rendón in March 2017. I honestly think that Lucy was also giving advice to Lauren about her relationship with Camila, and I also think that now they really aren’t friends anymore for something we don’t know about, even though I have my theories… But anyway. Lauren needed a beard to be able to come out, Lucy needed visibility for her modeling career and, at the time, also for her music which, however, never saw the light of day. The labels approved because they would’ve done anything to keep their chosen one out of the gay light. Camila also approved. Boom, PR.

I don’t believe all the other bullshit she said during the podcast. Because if they’d been true, they would’ve made logical sense. A sense they’ve been trying, and failing, to give for years. If Lauren really didn’t want to come out, she wouldn’t have done a photoshoot with Lucy a week before the wedding with the intention of using that same photoshoot to come out. She would not have kissed Lucy in a public place during the wedding pictures in front of a professional photographer hired for the event, knowing full well that those pictures would eventually have been published by the bride and groom, her aunt and uncle, and the photographer himself. If she wanted so badly a picture of her kissing her girlfriend, drunk or not, she would’ve taken her fucking phone and take selfies. It wasn’t the fans’ or Perez’s fault. It was the management that was following the plan.

And I’m supposed to, what exactly? Forget all these things, things that have been proofed multiple times in the past, because Lauren, or Camila, or management, or labels, or their contracts, must continue with their stupid narrative? Because Camila must continue to look straight and continue to look in love with Shalt Menstruated because the señorito is about to release his documentary and his album? Because Camila’s movie is about to come out? Because Lauren’s own album is about to be released and because the subject matter of her female-pronounced songs must only and exclusively be related to Lucy? (Although I think her album will be out next year. I think a song with female pronunciation is coming out soon. And no, I’m sorry, I don’t think it’s Burning)

Guys, come on…

Think about it. She used Lucy as a shield to tell part of her story with Camila that happened in 2014. It all fits. Even the story told through songs from Camila’s cocky POV, including ‘Like Friends Do’, ‘Eyes on You’, ‘Cleopatra’, ‘Leave for Good’, and a couple from her last album like ‘Should’ve Said It’ and ‘Feel It Twice’.

I understand why many of you have been hurt by this podcast and by Lauren herself. I understand why a lot of you are angry about the things she said. I see you, I understand, I really do. And everyone is free to feel whatever they want, I’m not saying otherwise. But I really don’t understand why you’re hiding or why you’re abandoning the ship. Authors who don’t wanna write anymore. Accounts closed. Names changed. Hope lost. This, all this, makes me angry and hurt. Because you fell for it. And you know why you fell for it? Because Lauren changed her approach. Leaving aside the part just before when she said: “Even when I talk about it, and I don’t talk about it because I’ve learned to just ignore it because-” and there, I swear I had to pause because I burst out laughing, and I was like: “Bitch, you’re the one who pulled this out of your ass out of nowhere right this second, what are you saying?”. She went on by saying, and she knows us so well because of this: “I just chose to ignore it at a certain point because getting angry to them would it mean that it was real and validate it more for them”.

And it’s true. This non-angry approach of hers, worked like a charm. Lauren’s older, she’s more mature than before. Although she was very nervous, she managed to explain everything calmly. The fact that she was emotional and almost cried in many parts, it really gave an extra boost to what she tried to sell. And I’m not saying she faked almost crying. Hell, no. That was super true and hard for her. I’m saying though, that it’s really easy to manipulate people’s minds, and Lauren used her real pain, the real suffering she has gone through over the years to tell this charade. That’s why it seemed so real. And I’m supposed to fall for that shit just because that’s what they’ve wanted for years, right? Convenient much?

Guys, please. You’re smarter than that, use those beautiful brains. For example, the fact that Lauren said: “I was queer, but she was not”, wrong as you want it to be, and “Camila and I were just really good friends at that time”, yeah, sure, Jan. Doesn’t the very fact that she used the past tense make you realize that it was done to completely detach herself from her IN THE PRESENT? Everything she said was for something. Everything had a purpose. And the goal is always the same. Make us stop shipping ‘em. Putting a label on C only served the Shoestoremila purpose, nothing else. And those were words that came out of the mouth of the one who says she doesn’t like labeling people. The same one who was pissed that someone had outed her before she wanted to. Do you really think she’s that hypocritical?

The fact that she put all the CS in the same box, especially when she talked about the Daddy situation, WAS DONE ON PURPOSE. She couldn’t fail to generalize because their purpose is, and will be for a long time to come, to kill Camren. That means the whole fandom. Not just invasive elements. But really all the CS. The purpose was to make us feel guilty. The purpose is to make us accept that it was never real, and since we care about them, to make us continue to support them individually and not as a couple, even though she knows that the real CS do it regardless. This, is called manipulation, guys.

Think about everything else too. The inconsistency. The holes in her story. The lack of explanations. And the fact that during the story of how it all happened, she jumped from one theme to another and therefore managed to deflect and not completely finish one before moving on to the other, doesn’t it make you understand that she didn’t want to give too many details? And when does that usually happen? She knew we’d analyze her. She knew she couldn’t say too much. When she talked about Lucy, she knew that WE know she was talking about Camila, and with too many details, it would also have been obvious to the others because WE would’ve pointed it out to everyone. I mean, it’s obvious enough in itself, imagine if she’d fed us more information that we would’ve compared in the timeline.

Please, guys. I know that it feels like something’s changed, but it’s not. It’s really not. I’m appealing to all of you. Open your eyes. Reason. I know many of you still have conflicting emotions and feelings, and that’s okay. If you’re still upset, if you still wanna cry, then cry. Do whatever helps you feel better because, especially after the haters have come to bite your asses, you’re entitled to feel the way you do. But please, please, don’t give up. If you give up, you just play their game. You just do them a favor. You guys had invested so much of your time, so much of your passion, so much of yourselves to just, give up. Think of all we’ve been through, especially those who’ve been in the fandom for years. Think about how happy Camren makes you. They were there for you when you needed them. When you were going through hard times. I know they’ve helped a lotta people.

And think about this too. Lauren herself said at the beginning of the podcast: “The news and the media are constantly spinning narratives for your clicks so they can make money”. And what do you think this podcast was for? It’s always the same shit. Have you not noticed how the very same news and media have ALL talked about them? Didn’t you notice how My Oh My magically returned into the charts? How 50ft surpassed the 9 million streams on Spotify? And you still have doubts?

This is instead for the CS who get often angry about their actions. I personally think it’s pointless to blame Lauren and Camila for every single thing they do that has been PLANNED for them. Especially Camila as far as Shonas is concerned. There’s a pattern here too. Lauren had her light PR with Lucia. Lauren then had her heavy PR with Typic Dole Sight while Camila had a light one with Eatchu. And now Camila’s having a heavy one. C’s one is heavier simply because they’re much more famous than PRen (Tyren) were. So, guys, be patient. There’s really no point in getting angry and blaming them. It’s a waste of energy. It’s useless to blame them if they’re gonna continue to do so over the years to come. They’re just still trying to get past their original contracts and survive in the industry at the same time. Sooner or later, I HOPE, they will be free to tell the truth or the truth will come out on its own.

Well, I’m done. Jeez, that was long, wasn’t it? But I hope it was worth it. I hope I’ve cleared your heads a little bit and instilled some hope again. I also hope I made you smile with all those nicknames and my sarcasm. I especially hope that wherever you are, you’re having a good day, and if not, then I hope it has improved at least a little bit with this post. And thank you so much, Stuck. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to use my voice for the first time publicly/virtually. You, above all, keep on being one of the lights and NEVER let them turn you off. I love you guys. Stay safe. Stay strong. Stay patient. With love, F.

I leave you with these two pearls:

Number 1. Lauren said something else too. She said: “Don’t trust me. Go research. Go look this shit up yourself”. I know she said it for a completely different context, but I found it really funny given the situation.

Number 2. This is a small scene that automatically created itself in my head as soon as I finished listening to Wonder. I titled it: The sad and short story of the making of ‘Wonder’.

Enjoy:

*on the phone*

Shawl Mendicant: “Hey, buddy. I know you were a huge Fifth Harmony fan and I know you love my fake girlfriend, so I was thinking… could you help me? You know, I need her to stay relevant, but to do that, I also need to release music and completely take all the credit from other people because, you know, the most I do is change a sentence or two in my style to make people think that I wrote all my songs.”

Sam Smith: “………okay?”

Shawnita Menorrhagia: “So, I was wondering, can I copy your homework? You can totally refuse if you want to, but I’m hoping to appeal to the love you have for 5H and Camila, and maybe help a friend out?”

Sam Smith: “Yeah, sure, you can copy my homework. Anything for my girls. Just, change it up a bit so it doesn’t sound too obvious you just copied it.”

Shonas Mended: “Don’t worry. I’ve got this. Thanks, man.” - *ends the call*

Sam Smith looking at the phone with an incredulous expression and one hand over his heart: “I came out as a non-binary, you insensitive asshole!”

Shoes Mentionable from the other room: “Cameeela! He said yes!” *reaching then Camila and Lauren in the living room where Lauren is lying with her head resting on Camila’s legs who’s running her fingers through her hair with one hand and holding the book that she’s reading with the other one* “You were right, all I had to do was mention you girls.”

Lauren chuckling and continuing to pet Cleo who’s lying at the foot of the couch with one hand: “Told you”, to then adding: “And please, I know you’re excited because of the news but keep your voice down”, continuing to caress Sofi’s head who’s sleeping on top of her with the other one.

Shapeless Mentality: “Oh, sorry.”

Camila without looking away from her book: “Sam’s really nice. I’m sure they would’ve said yes even without the need of mentioning us.”

Lauren: “Hmm, I’m not so sure about that, babe. Yes, they’re very nice, but we’re powerful in their minds, so it was an added incentive for them to say yes.”

Shaved Mentholated: “Who are they? Weren’t we talking about Sam?”

Camila who was giggling at her girlfriend’s words:

Lauren:

Sinu from the kitchen:

Cleo who was nibbling her toy:

Even Thunder, Leo, and Eugene from outside into the yard:

*the end*

Chon Mendable: ‘Wonder’ - Sam Smith: ‘One Last Song’

____

OMG I am speechless. I’m really still digesting this whole story because it’s amazing but I wanted to start by saying hello to you and telling you my name, my name is Marite. It is a pleasure to meet you dear friend. I don’t want to write too much because your words are much more important than mine but I wanted to thank you for trusting me and my blog to tell me your story. That side of the story that, being new and not having been a harmonizer from the beginning, I never learned. I intended to ask for more information about Laucy’s Timeline but what you have told is a gem. A gem that shows that the bastards of the industry cannot fool the fans because we pay attention to everything and it is not easy for us to fall for their shit. I think the power we fans have is so great that if we all came together, we could bring down this whole fucking fake empire that they have created. That said, Laucy’s story is surprising. As planned and how each person involved had to do their part on the chessboard. Incredible. Now that you tell me that story, I think it fits the one I wrote in my once upon a time post. Sure, yours is true and has everything that mine doesn’t. I have tried to keep this blog open for all who wish to come and air their ideas, their thoughts, their tea. And you dear friend, you have been one of the best so far. You’ve given us that support that the fandom so badly needed and I really appreciate it. I also appreciate your humor, the nicknames have been so hilarious and I’m still laughing. Thank you for daring to tell this part of the story and reopen the can of worms of a PR that right now resurfaces with that Lauren interview. With a purpose, it’s true. And something tells me that we will see much more very soon. Thank you for your support, my friend. And you know, you have my blog at your disposal for whatever you need. And if you need to talk or anything else. I greatly appreciate that we can continue to keep this ship afloat among ourselves. Among a group of intelligent people who have been hurt by someone we have always loved very much even though we know the reason for all that. We can’t give up now because if we do it like you say they will win and I personally don’t plan to indulge them in that. Thank you very much for all dear friend and I hope you have a nice day. I send you a hug and I hope you stay safe.

[awilddreamermain]

Hi, Chels! Congratulations!! I'm so happy for you! You deserve every follower and more! That is a threat, I'm holding everyone hostage 🔪

I would love to get a MHA matchup, I wanna see who you'd match me with! Got me so curious! SFW & NSFW if you'd be willing!

My name is Chloe but I prefer May, nicknames include May-May, Maybell or Chlo.

I'm 25, pronouns are she/he, Cancer Moon, Aries Sun and Virgo Rising. Quite the weird mash of zodiacs, huh?

My favorite colors are pink (that soft pastel kinda baby pink), red (especially blood/garnet red) and...can I add pink again? Any shade of pink this time. Bubblegum or hot pink.

Favorite AU's include A/B/O, Mafia, Historical, Fantasy and does Mythical Creatures count?

Oh...oh boy, I gotta look deep for some fun facts that aren't just...facts but I'll do my best!

1) My sneezes are so short and high pitched I go "chu".

2) I have vitiligo, makes me look like a dog because it's mostly around my mouth and my right eye so I have a spot!

3) I have atrocious balance, my knees and shins are always banged up because I cannot for the life of me walk correctly.

4) I have a stutter, on top of speaking so quickly it turns into a jumbled mess. So good luck understanding what I said because I have no idea either.

5) I have a growing unicorn plush collection. My favorite is Cupcake, one that's actually taller than I am. Big chunk.

My likes are pretty simple. Cute & soft sweaters, blankets, warm coffee and strawberry milk, pastries and the cold! Winter is my favorite season. History, particularly the Medieval and Victorian times.

My interests revolve around creativity and you could say they're my hobbies as well. Drawing in particular, I used to do digital but I'm stuck with traditional pencil and paper at the moment. I'm dipping my toes into painting and its very fun! Obviously writing and reading and if I'm not doing of those listed then I'm definitely playing video games.

Personality I might say I'm quite split down the middle. At first, to a complete stranger I might come across as cold, stoic, with a resting bitch face, that just wants to get whatever I'm outside for done so I can leave. I'd create a witty or sarcastic comeback if I was given sass by a Karen but with my speech issues? I'd be lucky to get one coherent word out at her...and spend the rest of the day fantasizing what could've happened. So I'm rather quiet, agoraphobia hits hard in large or crowded places so I'm an anxiety riddled mess on the verge of a panic attack. In private or with people that I'm comfortable with? Complete opposite. Happy, bubbly, cracking puns and jokes so get those groan worthy reactions. I try to be the "mom friend" and get over my issues if someone is having it worse, I'll march up to a counter and ask for ketchup if someone wanted it but was too scared to do it themselves. The shoulder to lean and cry on, I'm highly empathetic and understanding, compassionate at times. But I have to actively try and keep myself positive and say good things about myself because I do fall into the pit of self-loathing and hate.

For appearance I'd say I'm average height, pale with white splotches that are inching larger due to my vitiligo, chubby, ashy blonde, blue eyes, button nose. I'd say I'm decently cute? I don't know if I can rate myself.

Okay I know I said I'd be looking into Zodiac compatibility for this but— I literally just screamed internally "KIRISHIMA" when I was reading this. You two would be perfect omg. This Libra king would do anything for you. For this you're an artist and the daughter of a mafia boss :) I like to think of ship names sometimes so like, yours would either be like Eijmay or Mayjirou or Kiriloe— that last one and first are awful I know so lets go with the second? I can't write a proper stutter for the life of me so I tried to keep your dialogue to the minimum.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ Pairing: Eijirou Kirishima

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀AU: Mafia

⠀Theme Song: You're The One That I Want - Alex & Sierra

How you meet (his point of view):

⠀⠀The gallery was full of black and white suits, tight, floor length dresses with the sounds of laughter and clinking glasses meeting his ears. It was a joyous evening, celebrating the wonderful art work created by the boss's daughter. He had never met her before but he had heard whispers, all good as no one would dare slander the name of their leader's precious little girl. You were the boss's pride and joy, thus he kept you as far away from the darker side of the family business as possible.

⠀⠀Kirishima was still a new hire, a bodyguard of sorts and would consider this his first gig. He had an idea of who he was looking for as he walked further into the mass of people admiring your work but didn't expect what he would eventually come across. You were as far away from the crowd as you possibly could be, guzzling glasses of wine and over all appearing to be a deer in headlights. He couldn't fugure out for the life of him why you seemed so frightened until he watched people approach you to talk, noticing the stutter in your voice when you replied to questions and greetings,your body language telling people to stear clear of you.

⠀⠀So, he did what he was hired to do. "Kindly step away from the lady." He said with a smile, approaching with his large arms crossing over his broad chest as he towered over the guests. They looked at him as if he were a giant shark looking to devour them before scurrying away, leaving the two of you alone. He stood quietly, listening to the voices on the other side of his ear piece as his ruby eyes scanned the area around you. He made sure to not stand so close and avoided in letting his gaze wander.

⠀⠀He couldn't help but admire your skin in quick glances, finding the spot over your eye to be quite adorable. Your silky, ask blonde hair was all dolled up for the event, light make up on your face but not enough to cover the vitiligo. You were stunning and his heart hammered against his chest. So the rumors were true.

⠀⠀You thanked him, voice quiet and careful as you set down your wine glass and clasped your hands together. Out of the corner of his eye he watched you twiddle your thumbs. You didn't want to be here, did you? This obviously wasn't your idea, how could it be? A girl like you, timid as a mouse, didn't want to be surrounded by strangers. "Miss..." He began, thinking carefully because the last thing he wanted to do was piss off the boss and likely get himself killed. But this was his job wasn't it? Making sure you were happy and safe? "Would you like to leave here for a bit? We'll come back of course, but you look like you need some air."

Extra.

He ended up taking you to a drive thru restaurant and got you whatever you wanted, letting you talk about whatever you wanted or sat quietly if you chose not to talk at all If it was quiet in the suv then that was fine too, he just wanted to help you in any way he could. Eventually the silence becomes small talk and then leads to a rather deep conversation about whatever the hell was going on inside that beautiful brain of yours. Kirishima wasn't the smartest man but he wasn't stupid, he wasn't as clueless as most thought he was. You told him how your father made you do this as an attempt to get you out there, to socialize and possibly find a suitor. This was the mafia after all.

The Confession:

⠀⠀It was a tradition now, every Sunday you and Eijirou would go to your favorite café to have coffee and enjoy the early day weather before it got too hot. You sit at the same table, in the same chairs with him facing the door. You get the same drinks and food and just overall enjoy each others company. After that night at the gallery you two became fast friends, which your father obviously had to approve of but thankfully he did. Kirishima was a good man, he's trustworthy and puts you before himself.

⠀⠀The day he approached your father and asked to speak in private was the day he knew he was likely to get thrown in the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean. He has confessed his feelings for you to your old man, who listened intently with a blank face behind his desk. "Sir, I'm in love with your daughter, and with your blessing I'd like to... court her." He was utterly terrified when your father cleared his throat and sighed, shifting where he sat so he could stand and move around the desk. He reached out for a handshake which Kirishima looked up at him with a questioning look.

⠀⠀Your father gave his blessing and now... He just had to tell you, his best friend, that he loved you. God he loved you so much— "Kiri," you interrupted his thoughts, bringing him crashing back to reality," a-are you alright? You seem nervous." He swallowed hard in response but cleared his throat, taking a sip of his cappuccino.

⠀⠀"Oh yeah— definitely." He breathed with a laugh, moving a hand to the back of his neck to scratch. How was he going to say it? "So, uh—" he licked his lips, adjusting himself in his seat multiple times until he groaned and leaned forward. "Fuck, I'm just gonna say it— Maybell, I love you. I have for a long time now and I talked to your father and he said—"

⠀⠀"Said what, Eijirou?" Your eyes widened at his confession and he felt like a complete idiot. Should he had said something to you first? Was this a mistake? What if you didn't feel the same way? God his mind was going to explode—

⠀⠀"That I could... court you. With your permission." You were quick to nod and smile to his surprise, which prompted a grin if his own.

Extra.

Kirishima HAS to be facing the door in any public place you go to. I don't make the rules.

He never let's you walk close to the road, he has to be between you and it at all times when you're walking.

He oders your food and drinks for you when you can't but is there for moral support when you do. He wants you comfortable and happy. He wouldn't ever dare get in your way though, you're a lot stronger and braver than most may think you are.

The Relationship:

⠀⠀On days like this, Kirishima can't help but admire you. He catches himself staring wuite often but he just can't help it. What did he do to deserve such a beautiful partner? He looks at you and all he can think about is how much he loves you and wants to see you smile. He watched you from the kitchen island, leaning against it as you waltz around the kitchen in your pinky fuzzy slippers and one of his shirts that's much, much too big on you. He remembers your surprise when you found his clothing was actually too big on you and how happy you were.

⠀⠀"Maybell?" He hums, adjusting his stance and crossing his arms on the counter. He listened for you to him back in response, a smile on his lips. "You look so cute in my clothes.

⠀⠀You giggled, shaking your head and continued putting the dishes away until Eijirou appeared behind you, arms wrapping around your waist and his forehead coming down on your shoulder. "Need somethin' baby?" You turned your head just slightly, a brow cocked inquisitively. He squeezed you in response, swiftly lifting you and making you squeal. Thankfully you didn't have anything in your hands at the moment. He peppered kisses all over the side of your face, setting you down only to lift you again bridal style.

⠀⠀"I've got all I need right here in my arms." He chuckled and you playfully smacked his chest, letting him carry you to your shared bedroom.

Extra.

TICKLE FIGHTS.

He thinks your sneezes are the cutest thing in the world.

He loves your god awful puns, they crack him up every time.

Adores the fact you're a nurturer, especially with your friends. He thinks you'd make a great mother but if that's something you don't want he respects that.

You take care of everyone, but who takes care of you? Eijirou is always there to be your shoulder to lean and cry on, he's your sound board and is always happy to let you talk about your feelings with him. You're allowed to not be happy and bubbly all the time, he realizes how staying positive all the time can actually do more damage than goof, especially if you bottle everything up.

If on a particular day you're struggling with your speech he's happy to be your voice as well. He understands you better than anyone, even your own father.

Speaking of your father, he can't wait to make Eijirou his son-in-law! He's a good man with a good heart and treats you right, what's not to like?

He has trouble saying no to you and spoils you quite a bit.

The Fights:

...

Extra.

There's nothing, what you say goes and all he can say is "yes dear". He knows better than to argue with you, however when he's right and he knows he is, he finds a way to prove it without making you mad.

The Sex:

⠀⠀"Fuck baby—" he hissed, hands finding your hips and guiding you as you rub yourself on his cock. Your hands are on his thighs and your head is tossed back, giving him the perfect view of your tits. God he loves them, he loves the plush skin of your stomach and your thighs, your ass too, he loved seeing all of you. He was so happy that you allow him this privilege of seeing you, granted you've been dating a while now but still. Your sounds are music to his ears and all he wants is to make more, make you feel so good you're calling his name and making a mess.

He wanted— no, needed, to feel you, to feel inside your warm and wet cunt, to feel it squeeze him and milk him dry. He was quick to flip the two of you over, careful to not hurt you as he did. You gasped and giggled, reaching up to hold his face as he smiled, leaning down to capture your lips in a searing kiss. He loved your taste, he could go on and on about all the things he loved about you all day if he could. "You want it baby?" You nodded excitedly, lip caught between your teeth. He smirked and reached between the two of you, thick fingers tracing a line between your lips and slipping inside your soaked pussy.

"D-Daddy—" you whine, a slight pout on your lips as your face morphs into one of pleasure. He chuckled, pumping his fingers in and out a few times before removing them and grabbing his cock. He coated it more in your slick, guiding it between tge lips of your cunt before slowly pushing inside, groaning at how tight you are. You squeal of course, gasping for breath because Kirishima is an impressive size, you still struggled to take him sometimes but like a good girl you always managed.

"That's my good girl." He cooed, moving so his forearms were on either side of your head. He gave a couple test thrusts, waiting for you to adjust u til you nodded for him to continue.

Extra.

Terrified of activating his quirk while he's fucking you, but he keeps himself under control.

He loves his hair pulled and he loves to be bitten, he especially likes it when you scratch his back when he hits that good spot.

Eats you out for his pleasure mostly, but for yours as well. He loves when you grind on his face and moan his name when you do it. Speaking of, please sit on his face, he loves that shit. He knows how to be careful of his teeth!

If you have pets they CANNOT be in the same roon when you're doing the do, it's just weird.

He'd happily bend you over in the kitchen and do you right there. Hell, he'll fuck you anywhere you deem suitable.

He likes to do a mixture if praise and degradation with you, and edging and overstimulation is a big go-to. He just loves seeing you squirm under him, hr loves hearing you beg and say you need him.

[kindness-bliss]

New Beginnings Ch. 8

Timothy Thatcher x OC

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: none

Maya got ready at her shoot as she looked at herself in the mirror and scrolled through her instagram feed to let time pass, searching Tim’s name in the search bar as she looked through as raised a brow at how many fans adored him and posted pictures with him and events   “Well damn, he’s wanted” she nodded impressed as she continued to read captions, not understanding most of them since they were in German, raising a brow as she saw heart emojis on captions “Too bad he’s mine”. She grinned as she saw more and more from men she assumed were his friends always talking about how respectful and hardworking he was in the business   She sat up startled from her lurking when she heard a familiar voice and sighed “Are you kidding me ? What the hell are you doing here ? This is a private shoot”    Marcel sighed as he stepped through and thanked the security guard “I saw you on the same company’s page who works hair and makeup for NXT, I put 2 and 2 together when I saw their stories and you happened to be tagged. I know, it’s very stalker of me”    “Extremely” she answered sternly as she covered herself in her robe “who does that ? This is my job you psycho. Once again, head empty no thoughts in that pretty big ass head of yours”    “I don’t even know what that means” He admitted quietly as he stood in shame in front of her “are-are you calling me stupid ?” Maya let out a breath as she shook her head “Kind of, now tell me why you’re here ?” she asked as she got touched up “and make it quick preferably, this is my work remember”     “What’s this I heard about Tim insulting you ? Why didn’t you tell me when it happened ? I’m gonna assume that’s why you were crying the other day at the store ?” he asked, giving a small nod when he saw her face look down at the floor “and yes, Walter told me everything so don’t worry you don’t need to go into details I just wanna know if you’re okay”   “I am fine, we’re all good” she nodded “I’m going to see him tomorrow, he has a match and he invited me”

  “What ?” he whispered as he looked up at her “y-you’re gonna go see him ? After what he did ?”. Marcel knew how much wrestling meant to him, how much he prided himself in his work. He knew Tim inviting Maya over was a big step for him in how he felt about her.

  “Absolutely I am, I wanna see him wrestle and how he is in that environment. I’m gonna assume you’re gonna be there too ?” Maya asked as they got her ready 

  “Yeah, we have a match too and well chances are Tim’s gonna introduce you to me so what are we gonna do ?”

She stiffened at his question and fixed her curls as she looked in the mirror as she slid off her robe revealing a one piece bathing suit with a deep plunge as she turned to look at him “If you think I’m gonna tell Tim that you and I had a 3 year long relationship then you’re dead wrong. No way I would ever tell him something like that at his workplace, so let’s get this straight alright ? Tomorrow you keep your mouth shut and you tell your little friends or whomever to not say a thing or I’ll have my other model friends put a word out that you guys like screwing around when you’re on the clock”

     Marcel widened his eyes at her look and tone as he clenched his jaw “Maya I-”

“Maya nothing” she snapped back “You really think I didn’t know ? You really think Walter also wouldn’t tell me that you tried to get Alex and Fabio or whatever the fuck his name is to tell Tim for you ? To do your...our dirty work ? He texted me everything just before I got here, how you wanted to tell Tim abruptly and then I’d have to deal with the rest. Alex ? Yeah did you forget I also helped his wife out with her bridesmaid dresses and got to know the both of them really well ? He sent me an instagram DM telling me everything too, basically apologizing for your shitty actions. You’re a spineless little coward Marcel, 3 years and you haven’t changed one damn bit”

  “I-I...it w-wasn’t like that” he stuttered out nervously stepping forward

“Bull shit !” she exclaimed as she slapped him across the face and breathed heavily

Marcel stood back as he rubbed his cheek and gave a frown as his blue eyes stared at hers “I’m sorry, I just….I still love you” he whispered as he left hastily

  Maya sighed as she rubbed the feeling back in her hand and let the makeup artist fix her eyes “Mickey, did you tell him I was here ?”

 “You try saying no to that piece of German goodness” Mickey shook his head “His accent came out and I melted, then he did the whole pleading puppy dog thing with his blue eyes and well, I was sold. I’m sorry Maya, I didn’t realize how big of an issue it would be. You really gave it to him good though, he walked away as if you stomped on his heart”  

“Yeah well I didn’t wanna do that exactly” she admitted “He’s just being sneaky and I hate it, it reminds me of what happened when we were in a bad spot”   

“Well I’ll tell you this girl, Timothy Thatcher is all man and would never do that shit to you” he giggled Maya raised a brow as she let out a chuckled “and how do you know I’m seeing Tim, what’s going on here that I’m not aware of ?”   Mickey smirked as he dabbed some gloss on her lips “Tim from what I’ve seen and heard is quiet but apparently he told some of the guys that you’re gonna go see him and he’s a little...giddy. Now I’ve been working hair and makeup there a while and I’ve been there since he got there and nothing has made that man do a complete 180 like you have”   She blushed as she listened and looked around the room “So you think he...likes me likes me ? Like he wants me to be his...you know ?”   “Girlfriend ?” he chuckled “oh yeah, I heard from Candice, who heard from her husband Johnny who heard from his friend Oney that Tim told him tomorrow was pivotal”  “Oh” she whispered softly as she walked with him “I’m not gonna expect anything though, especially after this whole fiasco. I’m gonna have a nice day with him tomorrow and focus on that. Now let’s get this thing done so I can call him”   “You’re just as whipped as he is” Mickey chuckled as he helped set her up ______________________________________________________________ “What’s with that face ?” Tim asked Oney “You’re red and you’ve been on your phone for like 5 minutes, Oney ?” he sighed as he walked over and took his phone and let out a tight cough “this-this from today ?”   “Yeah” Oney nodded as he took his phone back and put it in his pocket 

“Um all I can and want to say is….you are one very very lucky man Tim, very lucky”

  “I like her for other things besides her looks” Tim rolled his eyes as he grabbed his gym bag “she’s a good person, she’s understanding, she’s really smart and funny. She’s a great cook, she’s super funny” he chuckled “and she-what ? why are you looking at me like that ?”

  Oney grinned as he walked with him to the showers “You really like this girl, it’s not just a little rendezvous like you had thought it’d be. I’ve known you for a while and never have I seen you act this way towards a girl”

  “Don’t” Tim warned as he took off his shirt “It’s just that I like her and I feel she feels the same about me and you know that’s it”

  “So it’s okay if she dates other guys while talking to you ?”

“I never said that” he said almost immediately as he turned around “Why ? Is she ? Have you heard anything ?”

 “Chill out, I was just joking but point proven” Oney chuckled “I say you ask her out, officially like to be your girlfriend”

  Tim nodded as grabbed his things “I was thinking about that after tomorrow”

“I think you should” Oney nods as he looked around “oh look it’s Marcel, shit look at his face” he grimaced

  “What the hell happened to you ?” Tim asked concerned “Your cheek is red as can be, are you okay ?”

“We need to talk” Marcel said sternly “Alone, and it has to be now”

Tim nodded as he changed and followed him outside

   Maya arrived at her apartment as she exited her elevator and saw Tim standing against her door “hey” she grinned “what are you doing here ?”

  “So when were you gonna tell me you were engaged to one of my closest friends ? Or did you plan on keeping that a secret forever ?” he asked wasting no time as he crossed his arms trying his best to stay calm

  Her stomach turned as she blinked trying her best to catch her breath “I-I…. Tim listen, I wanted to tell you I did, I promise I did but things happened and then the Walter thing and I just couldn’t find the appropriate chance to do so but I promise I was. I promise, you have to believe me” Maya pleaded as she reached for his hand flinching when he yanked it back

  “I don’t believe a word you said, I don’t. I don’t even trust anything you’ve told me in the past, probably more lies from you. I’m not gonna insult you or demean you like I did last time because quite frankly...you’re not worth it” he said coldly as he stepped back “Have a nice life and don’t contact me again”    

 “Tim, please don’t do this” she whispered tearfully as she grabbed his arm lightly

“Don’t touch me” he responded quietly as he carefully lifted her hand and placed it by her side “Goodbye Maya”

  He left her apartment quickly, and didn't look back knowing if he saw her face he wouldn’t be able to leave. Once in his car, he wiped his eyes quickly as he turned on the radio and sped off back to his place where he knew he could release his emotions freely and privately

  “What did you do !” she practically screamed into her phone “You fucking told him !”

“It needed to be said” Marcel said quietly “I’m sorry, I am but we both know you were gonna wait it out too long and it would only make things worse. I did this for the both of us”

  “I fucking hate you” she spat out “and I will never ever speak to you again in my life, ever. You’re dead to me” she hung up

  Marcel rubbed his face as he threw his phone across his room and laid down in bed as he looked up at the ceiling and drifted to sleep, trying his hardest to forget about the chaos he selfishly created

  All eyes were on Tim as he entered the Capitol wrestling center the next morning, he heard and saw it all as he walked into the locker room. The looks of pity people gave him, the mumbles and whispers they gave each other as rumours about what had happened at the gym went around. None of it mattered, at least not to him. The damage had been done and if there was one thing that was hurting him other than his heart it was his pride. He knew deep down it had been kept for him for a reason, but the lying and deceiving still hurt.

  “Hey” Marcel said quietly as he opened his locker “Listen I won’t bother you but I just want to say I’m sorry about what happened and it's my fault entirely. Maya wanted to tell you after today” he finally admits “After your match, she wanted you to have a good match and then break it down to you on he own time and I selfishly told you because I still love her and in my stupid head I thought that once you knew and let her know she would somehow want me but instead she told me I’m dead to her”

   Tim nodded as he laced up his boots and didn’t bother to look at him “yeah well, that makes two of us. I don’t want her around me, I don’t wanna hear from her again or anything like that. It’s done and over with and we should just not speak of her again. She’s something of the past and well I’m not gonna hold your past against you”

  Marcel furrowed his brow “Y-you’re not going to attempt to talk to her ? She’s pretty sad Tim….”

“Nope” he shook his head “She’s the one who started this so it ends, I don’t like things like that and I can’t just let it slide by. Her choice was made to lie, so now we leave it at that please. I don’t care nor do I wish to hear about her again”

  “I understand” Marcel nodded as he put on his tracksuit and headed down seeing everyone glare at him as he sped down the hallway to catering sitting down by himself in a table and beckoning over Fabian and Alex “Over here guys”

    “No thanks” Alex muttered as he looked at him and turned around “I prefer not to deal with you unless it’s necessary for tv”

“Agreed” Fabian nodded

“I know it was a mistake okay, you can stop with the harsh punishment.I should have never tried to involve you two either and I’m sorry I did. I regretted this whole thing as soon as I opened my mouth and saw his face. I was selfish and it was wrong, can we just stop now ? Please” he pleaded “I hurt Tim, I hurt Maya, Walter isn’t answering any of my messages or calls. I get it now, I do” Marcel rambled “Please just sit with me, you don’t have to talk to me but just sit with me so I can at least have some company while everyone stares at me”

    “No” they both answered in unison as they shook their heads and left him alone

Marcel looked down as he played with his plate of food feeling all eyes on him as he tried his hardest to ignore the stares and whispers and took out his phone seeing still no messages or calls from Walter and sent one last message   “Hasst du mich jetzt ?” (do you hate me now ?) “Nein, nur sehr enttäuscht” (no, just very disappointed)

He sighed and put his phone away as he shook his head, upset at himself for what he had done but knowing deep down he didn’t regret it. Maya was his one true love, the one person who understood him and helped him cope with the loss of his father and deal with the emotions rather than ignore them and hold them in.

  “Are you gonna go after her ?” Tim asked nonchalantly as he sat with him “because you can, I don’t care”

  “What ?” Marcel asked his head shot up quickly

“Don’t act stupid Marcel, you still love her and I know you did this in a way to get me to be mad at her so I”d leave her alone and therefor you could go after her”

   He knew him so well, so well it truly fucked with him “Yeah” Marcel nodded “I let her go once and it ruined me and now she’s here and right now she wants nothing to do with me but I’ll give her that space and then I’ll fight, I’ll fight like I should’ve fought for her 3 years ago and this time, she’ll end with me” he looked in his older friends eyes “We’ll get that happy ending we both wanted”

  Tim simply give a short nod as he sipped his water “Then go ahead”

Marcel looked around as he got up and left back to the locker room, not wanting to cause anymore awkwardness between them and sat by himself as he listened to music

  “Well if it isn’t the life ruiner” Oney rolled his eyes as he stood in front of him “Are you happy with your actions ? With ruining the one thing giving Tim genuine happiness ?”

  “Oney, please” he rubbed his face “This is something you don’t understand, don’t get involved”

“You ruined the one thing my friend wanted, I’m sure as hell gonna get involved you traitor” he shoved him 

  Marcel sighed “Don’t do this, I don’t have the energy to-” he stumbled back as he held his eye and groaned

“You deserve that and way fucking more” Oney spat out as he left ______________________________________________________________    Maya wiped her eyes for what seemed like the 500th time as she once again got sent to voicemail and let out a frustrated cry getting up when she assumed her takeout was delivered “I said to just leave it at the door” she whined putting on her hoodie “stop knocking !” she finally yelled as she opened the door ready to rage “I clearly said-” her eyes widened at the scene in front of her “what the hell happened to you ?” she asked   

“Oney punched me” Marcel said quietly as he removed the ice bag he had and revealed a bruised and bloodied eye

  “Oney ? That’s Tim’s friend” she said as he remembered his face from the gym

“Yes him, he punched me in the locker room for….for what happened” he said quietly “I needed to get out of there and the only place I could think of was here. I know you hate me and wish I was better off dead but I just had to come. I’ll leave though if you want me to”

  Maya looked up at him as she opened her door and stepped aside “come in”

He stepped inside and sat down on her couch “I’m sorry, I am so so sorry” he whispered “I acted so selfishly”

    “What’s done is done” she whispered “You unfortunately can’t take it back, and truth be told you were right” she admitted “I would’ve just kept waiting and waiting to tell him and let time pass by, in a way what you did benefited me more than anyone Marcel, you did the hardest part and all I had to do was explain myself”

  He shrugged as he bit the inside of his cheek and looked up

“Don’t cry” Maya chuckled weakly “I’ve been crying since last night, and I’m positive I can cry for the both of us and this whole fiasco

  “I’m not” he blinked away tears quickly

“You’re doing the thing, the cheek thing and looking up. You really think I wouldn’t forget how you try to hide emotions after all this time ? she scooted over as she gently patted his hand “You’re the ugliest crier too” she joked trying her best to lighten him up

Marcel gave a light laugh as he sniffled “You’re really good that you know ?”

  Maya gave him a small grin as she dabbed his cheek with a tissue and got the alert of her food delivery “stay for dinner ?”

“Absolutely” he answered as he nodded. Sometimes life truly does work in weird weird ways.

[popculturebuffet]

Jake Reviews Stuff: Star Vs: Friendenemies

Happy pride all. I’m getting ahead of this one for a number of reasons:  1) It’s pride month and this episode is one of the most shiptastic things i’ve seen with two male characters since Robochris from bravest warriors. I mean it dosen’t quite reach “Creating a skull robot of your best friend because he won’t touch you a lot to make him jealous enough to do that” levels of romantic tension but it tries. 

2) My good friend @jess-the-vampire​ is a tomco shipper, and with things being rough for her I figure she could use this sooner rather than later. 3) Shows are actually coming back with Amphibia emerging from it’s year long odinsleep the same week Close Enough finally escapes from it’s dumpster after 10,000 years to conquer earth before it gets put back in there then escapes again and marries lord zedd.. I lost the metaphor the point is I want to keep Tom train, and other star arcs I have planned, moving at a steady clip. 

So with all of that yeah, i’m ready to go. No real exposition to dump again, come on let’s go after the cut!

We open with Marco at his laptop nervous about something and Star coming into his room tangled in christmas lights... so normal day at Casa Diaz.  Anyways Marco can’t help star out of her latest self made prison because he’s preording tickets to a Mackie Hand Film Festival. Mackie Hand is Marco’s faviorite martial artist and movie star, who died performing a stunt on himself.. accidentally.. did he give himself a death punch? Is this the same universe as regular show.. please say yes.  Anyway as is natural for Marco in the first two seasons as god apparently hates him, the tickets sell out instantly and he dosen’t get them, banging his head against his laptop as Star TRIES to comfort him , saying he might still be able to get them. Marco also says “Good things don’t happen to me”

I mean just look at Season 3. Anyways tom comes in licking a rainbow snowcone for no explained reason other than they wanted to make it obvious this was the Tomco episode. Tom asks to hang out and after Star, understandably at this point given you know, the horrible date where he tried to murder her best friend and the gaslighting a few weeks back, tells him a million times no, Tom explains he’s not here for her.. he’s here for Marco. Marco, given tom’s threatned to kill him twice now and tried to at least once, isn’t biting. Tom naturally has tickets to the festival as a trump card, and assumes that time he kidnapped marco and played him in ping pong for his freedom counts as a friend hang out, and geuinely apologizes for his behavior promising not to get angry. Really while as you probalby know we DO get the reveal later he was partly doing this whole thing to finish his anger managment... I do get the sense this apology, and a lot of this is GENUINE. We’ll get more into the why in a bit, but he does seem to genuinely want to bury the hatchet.  Marco pulls star aside and, given the last two times he saw Tom, the boy had some horrible scheme up his ripped sleeves, he understandably, and as it turns out correctly, thinks Tom is once again up to some sort of scheme, star is fully on board. I have. mixed feelings about this. On the one hand STar did forgive tom for the previous episodes mess and Ponyhead for much worse and it does set up the tiny plot curnel of corn that would grow into an entire corn field of her still having some friendly feelings toward tom. But it just feels weird, even with how cahotic star can be to have her flip flop from “Stop calling me” To “You should totlaly go on a date with the guy who harassed me and tried to kill you twice now. “. Especially since next time she has an episode with Tom, She’s fully resentful of him and a bit snarky and spends and episode, in part thanks to aformentioned magical severed ponyhead, suspicious of him playing games with her head again. We’ll get there soon obviously, i’m just saying it feels mildly off. 

So Marco decides, much like bart simpson that getting where he’s going’s worth it even if he has to ride with the devil himself and reluctantly agrees. We see the inside of Tom’s carriage for the first time, and see my good personal friend dead horse again on the outside, and it’s really nice.. lit by torches because mood lighting, but similar to his room it’s plushly decorated and even has two serious speakers and according to Tom 6 flatscreens. Damn I wish I had one of those.. that and I wouldn’t have to drive since I can’t due to my anxiety. Plus who wouldn’t want a firey horse skelton sidekick? Anyways Tom offers Marco cold cereal and Marco is frank with tom, pointing out he’s suddenly being nice to Marco after never being nice to him before and understandably isn’t sure he’s even a mackie hand fan but a bit of banter and trivia shows Marco that no, Tom really seems to be telling the truth.  Tom then confides in marco that he gets why Marco didn’t belivie him: Most people dont’ get past their preconcived perceptions of him. And here the series does flesh tom out a bit: Tom admits to not having many friends.. which frames the previous two episodes in a diffrent light. Sure his actions to Star are still very much not okay... but you at least see WHY he was so obessive about her: She was probably the first real friend he had that wasn’t a casual aquantince, his own family member, or a pet. Most Mewman kids his age probably weren’t too keen to hang out with what to them was a monster, rich or not, little raicst shits. And in the underworld most people probably just did whatever he asked because they were afraid of his temper or his parents fury, even if his parents are the nicest people in the underworld. So when he lost her, Tom didn’t know how to properly react and while his first attempt to win star back was genuine, it was marred by his refusal to adress his anger or control issues that likely lead to Star dumping him in the first place. While Star’s forgivness HERE is a bit werid, her willingness to give him another shot wasn’t: Tom was SEEMINGLY genuinely trying. He was in therapy, he’d been anger free for several days and most glowingly, when a stranger karate chopped his hand off in a misguided attempt to protect star.. he got upset but instnatlly went into his coping mechanisms.  The problem was as I covered in that review.. Tom didn’t WANT to change. That’s the thing about changing: you need to both know there is a problem and WANT to fix it. And even then, as we’ll see sometimes i’ts hard. I know, i’ve had my own personal issues i’ve had to change up as years went on. It’s a slippery slope you have to constnatly climb up. And BMB era tom.. just didn’t WANT to change he just wanted to do what he thought star wanted that would get her to take him back, and couldn’t understnad why she wouldn’t just listen to him and obey, two things not in star’s vocabulary for anyone much less her ex. 

So , much like I did, rather than blame himself for screwing things up, he just saw it as Marco being in the way and tried to fix that. And so he sunk to rock bottom.. but it didn’t fix their relationship and it took Marco having an honest conversation, as someone who was also very close to her and knew her well, to get him to see that Star wasn’t going to take him back unless she wanted it.. what he was doing was selfish and self destructive.. and Tom probably realized in that moment he had to stop. He let her go, and thus as I put al ot of emphasis on last time, made his first step to being better.  And to me that’s why this makes sense as his next step: While it’s partly to fufill a checklist... you get the sense he really DOES like marco on some level. They hung out, which I do feel tom did genuinely feel was like friends hanging out instead of you know the second highest stakes game of ping pong i’ve ever seen. 

The first if your curious. So while part of this is Tom just wanting to get through anger managment for likely his parent’s sake, part of it is also him genuinely wanting to be somebody’s buddy, anybody but a bumbling butler. It’s just being Tom, he dosen’t know HOW to make friends or get them to see past who he is surface wise; a spoiled angry boy and see the inside, a nice kid who just has no idea how to talk to people beyond a surface level or understand them and we’ll see that more both in this episode and as we go. Speaking of going back in the episode proper, two bros drive up and insult Tom’s carriage also wondering if he’s going to his grandpa’s funeral. Fuck you both.. both on general principal and becaause his grandpapapapapapaaaaaaaaaaaa is alive and magnificent. 

Satan bless you Relicor. Anyways, Tom is naturally pissed at this and Marco challenges them to a race.. but eases tom off actually following them as, since this isn’t a fast and the furious movie, the police immidelty arest them and we get the blessed image above. Let’s see that again.

NOGODWHY

Not right but it’ll have to do I fear what may happen if I try again.  ONE BALLON DICK GIRAFFE LATER, our boys are on a high, as Tom finds there are things more fun than obletarating people. #tomhaskilledmultiplepeopleandisstillthebestboy. Marco is reminded of a song from his faviorite band Love Sentence, and Tom, suprisingy given his My Chemical Romance with a splash of metal astetic, is not only a huge fan but has a giant Helga Patiaki esque shrine to them complete with a cd player with shuffle. Fancy. 

We then get a wonderful, shiptastic montage of the two just hanging out, hanging out with a white tiger. Having themselves a party. And given the song itself, sung by 98 Degrees and horrible realtiy show Newleywed’s alumnus Nick Lachey, even says “we used to be enimies but now we have chemistry” yeah I think this is intentional and they are a good ship. Are they my prefered ships for the characters? No tha’ts kelly and flame princess... the last one was recent and I love a good crossover ship sue me. But I do headcanon both as still Bi and still find the ship great, it’s just not my main one. 

However the good times can’t last as it is film time... but Tom refuses to let marco leave befor eblowing his top off... dude that’s not how you build a suppportive relationship, you know this by now. Turns out the white tiger I haven’t mentioned to now is actually Brian, vocied my boy Stephen Root who apparently just.. lives at DIsney’s animation studios now as he has a tendency to show up in every other animated disney show. You may know him from Gravity Falls as Bud Gleeful, THe Mayor from Amphibia, or , in non disney voice work, Bill Dautrive. Turns out as I haven’t even tried to hide, Tom was in the final stage of his anger managment class and to get out of it had had to spend 3 hours with the person he hated most. As I said I do think part of it was GENUINE on tom’s part, that he was trying to be what he thought friends were... it’s just he didn’t get that Marco, if grumblinignly, probably STILL would’ve agreed if he were honest.  However.. it’s still a step up. While i’ts still a scheme, and his LAST on the show.. it’s more benign after the last two; Instead of being harmful his scheme this time is just “Bribe my worst enemy into hanging out with me and get out of anger managment” it’s still not quite right, but compared to the things he’s done with star, it’s an improvment and a sign he is changing despite himself. He could’ve just kidnapped marco again and forced him to spend the three hours.. granted this might’ve just been Brian saying, obviously no tha tdosen’t count, but still, instead he tried being nice and giving an apology. Even if it was for personal gain on some level, Marco’s words clearly got to him and he’s now trying genuinely unselfish tactics. It’s also notable since he spent the three hours with marco, and at least half an hour of awkarndess before it got all fun, WITHOUT getting angry or falling back on old stratgies and only beefing it at the end because, as i’ve established, he dosen’t get people.  So naturally tom gets mad.. while it is a sign he’s getting better he dosen’t do his trademark horrifying demonic EXPLOSION of rage... he’s still being petulant and sore over his failure is mad at marco for pritoritzing the tickets nad destroys them. Marco naturally calls him out, angry over him manipulating him to get some badge , as he puts it, calls him a jerk and a liar, accurate and the worst part to marco? “I WAS DUMB ENOUGH TO FALL FOR IT”

Credit where it’s due while I may not LIKE adam mcarthur as a person...as a voice actor he is excellent and his delivery here is perfect as you do get the pain in Marco’s voice as he genuinely ahd grown to care for tom. Wethere it was friendship or wanting to make out... probably wanting to make out, you get the pain in his voice. Tom admits the love sentence hting wasn’t a lie.. but too little too late.. whcih is marco’s second faviorite love sentence song and leads to another moment of shippy goodness. Seriously I see why this ship exploded in popularity after this. Also I will say both Adam and Rider have damn pretty voices.  So Tom does what any romantic lead faced with a third act breakup would do.. say a demonic chant and bring Mackie Hand back from the dead. This is also the first time we see just how fucking powerful tom is. Before we’ve seen him summon his carriage and immolate some stuff and easily reattach a hand.. but this is the first time that we see he’s every pit as powerful as star, who probably could raise the dead she just dosen’t want to. Granted I don’t know why this sort of undead stuff hasn’t been used on say, Moons assitnated mother, but presumibly anti-monster stigma combined with the fact that we don’t know HOW she died or how much was left, and are probably better off that way solve that. It goes a long way to explain why Tom’s family are allies instead of the conquered like most monsters: They have equal , if far diffrent and spookier, magic power and are the only kingdom with this trump card besides the butterfly kingdom. 

So as we close Marco tries to use Mackie to get in, the usher dosen’t buy it and a fight insues, but Marco and Tom patch things up, Tom becoming a fan of Mackie now he’s seen what the guy can do and Marco forgiving tom since, evne if his actions were still a bit greasy, he immidetly did his best to try and fix what he broke. The two are friends again despite them both saying they hate each other... but they clearly mean it playfully. The End.  Final Thoughts: After the Slog that was last episode this one is a fan faviorite for a reason... well okay 2 reasons. One...

And two.. it’s excellent. I feel bad it took me years to see this one, but it’s one of season 2′s finest. It’s funny, has great character stuff for both boys, introduces a new ship that’s fantastic and a great new dynamic between Tom and Marco that would carry for the rest of the show. It also beliviebly advances Tom’s character arc: He’s TRYING a bit but he’s still got a bit of the scheming and selfishness that defined his earlier outings, but it’s telling that after this episode, and hurting marco, he stops. This episode REALLY gets him to change that and for the better.  Sadly Tom would only make one more apperance this season in Naysaya, an episode I will cover when I cover Jackie and Marco at some point, but has him show up for a cameo when it turns out the episodes antagonist, a curse that takes the form of a sentient head that spills the target’s worst secrets and insecurities when they try to ask someone they like out, is Tom’s fault from back when he was a baddie, and Tom genuinely apologizes and tells him how to vanquish it, if ribs marco a bit since he cast that curse presumibly sometime between BMB and MCC and is delighed and suprised that Marco seriously hadn’t asked anyone out in that time. But it’s a nice bit that shows their not only still friends but Tom is genuinely sorry for some of his earlier behavior. We’ll see more of that as we go and more of tom trying to be better.. he’s made up with Marco, next time we come back to tomtrospective, we’ll see how it goes with Star. 

Coming up besides the obvious, as Pride Winds down I’ll have my first steven unvierse coverage, one of the first openly gay couples in western animation, and some asexula pride as we take our first look at Bojack Horseman..’s loveable rommate todd. Until we meet again, stay safe, black lives matter and later days. 

[justasparkwritings]

May: TinyDoubt

Previous: April’s The Wild Lillies 

Pairing: None

Genre: Creative Angst

Rating: PG13 

Word Count: 1.5K

Warnings: Swearing! 

Summary: Creative block is alive and well as you stare at the figurines in  front of you, your only comfort? The voice in your head challenging you to soldier on. 

Notes: I tried to channel my deep deep writers block for this. Do I hate it? Maybe. Do I feel all those things about my writing? Oh absolute. Is that inner voice how I talk to myself? You bet it is. Is the title so good? Yes, yes it is. 

Paintbrush

Sculpting clay

Carving tools

Dry hands

Paint under fingernails

Hair swept back

Slick drying on cheeks

Shoulder’s tense

         Should’ve sprung for the expensive chair, the one that holds my legs back and supports my core.

       It isn’t too late, I could still spring for it after this batch sells… if I sell it.

       I sigh, glancing at the clock, 5 minutes to midnight. How long have I been sitting here? When was the last time I ate or drank anything? Too long. I’ll feel it tomorrow, the ache in my joints, the exhaustion in my body, limbs sore, eyes worn out, all craving nourishment and rest.

       Gently, I place the figurine on the clean expanse of my drying rack. Thin and leucite, it supports the variety of creations I’ve been making, each in a different state of disarray. None have ended up being perfect, none are worthy of completing, except maybe, just maybe, this one.

       Standing perfectly still at 3inches, somehow, in the bright light of my desk lamp, magnifying lens on its second highest setting, I had perfectly sculpted the manicured swoop of hair. Each strand carved delicately, the part off center, the lingering hair nearly over the left eye, all made from modeling clay. It had taken days to perfect the lift, the arching bow from one side. In its naked form, it looks immaculate. But I know I can only succeed if the coloring is perfect, if the glasses I made, labored over, filling with resin in raspberry pink, fit properly over the new ears I carved days ago.

       Ears were always the easy part, a simple structure on the head, never taking more than a pin-head size of clay. Noses too, tiny and dainty drops, always done in the middle of creation.

        Staring at this latest iteration, I can’t help but wonder if this is worth it. Meticulously drawing every line, breaking my back mixing yellows to get the golden shade and all the highlights, not to mention the truly painstaking part of it all, hands. Is it worth it, the weeks spent making this tiny, tiny creation, only to deem it unworthy, and left incomplete?

        Yes.

        Yes, it is.

       It’s always worth it, despite what the odds tell me. There’s always that voice in my head, telling me that not only is my skill appreciated, but worth something. The last set sold for five times the asking price. This set could double, triple that… Maybe if it did well enough, I could transition to this, full time. Though the thought of working on perfecting miniatures for 12 hours a day sounds quite possibly like hell.  

        This isn’t hell, or horrible, you’re too hard on yourself.

        The voice in my head tells me. Laughing, I counter that statement. “I am not, they’re all shit,”

        They are not.

        “I should’ve stuck with wood carving,” I grumble.

        You cut yourself pretty badly the last time-

        “I know I did!” 

       I can’t tell if I’ve fully lost it, or if this conversation is going to lead to a creative breakthrough. Though based on my running internal monologue, which yes is voiced by Nicole Byer, I am due for a serious heart-to-mind pep talk. It’s not that I haven’t scolded myself recently, or lamented about how completely incompetent I am, how horrific my work is, or how I am wasting my youth sitting at a cramped desk with coffee I’ve reheated four times. I haven’t had the full ‘this is meaningless, stop wasting your time perfecting the shades of blonde on this plastic and clay figurine and go figure out the next steps in your career’ in at least three weeks. I suppose, staring at these in complete monstrosities, that a conversation with myself regarding what I’m doing is far more enjoyable than listening to my father droll on about how I am in command of my destiny.

        Because I’m not in control.  If I was, I wouldn’t be sitting here making TinyTan figurines, crying when the paint dries a different color than my swatches or weeping when a miniature dot of adhesive gets stuck on the outside of the clay and chars the entire piece in the oven.

        So I’m not in charge of my fate.

        You make your own luck.

        “Alright, I didnn’t ask you.”

        Who did you ask then? Jimin? Yoongi? Oh wait, they don’t have mouths and they’re made of plastic!

        “See, they don’t have mouths because they fucking suck and I should give up.”

        They’re probably better than you think, you’re just too close to it.  

        “I think that’s actually incorrect and there is nothing wrong with how close I am to these figures,”

        You are though

        “What do you suppose I do? Capture their souls? Summon them with a knock off The Power of Seven Will Set Me Free, while I hold their tiny little plastic hands?” I throw the ball of clay I’ve been rolling onto the table, the small glob sticking to the side of a larger block I had been carving from.  

        Do you always have to be so difficult?

        “You’re inside my brain! You know how creatively frustrated I am! And you know how absolutely fucking bitchy I get when I’m upset!”  

        Why are you frustrated?

        I groan, standing up from my chair and walking to the kitchen sink. The hot water scalds my dry hands, melting the clay and paint off, the extra judicial scrubbing peeling back layers of grime I’d let build in the last 10 hours.

        Why are you so frustrated? Is it because you aren’t good enough? Are you scared it’s going to be your senior year showcase again, where that girls sister didn’t understand you collage and made snarky comments?

        I dry my hands, unwilling to answer the questions my mind was asking.

        If you don’t talk about it you’ll blow up like a volcano…

        “Because! Fuck, because I can’t get any of this right. I just got the hair done, and that’s taken me two weeks. All I’m doing is chipping away, carving away, fucking up and starting again. When I’m not working on it, all I’m doing is thinking about it. They haunt me in my sleep, their little round bellies body rolling to Mic Drop, trying to get me to eat the mini quiches they’ve carved their initials in. My life is consumed by these tiny fucking figures and it’s making me absolutely hate them.”

        Hate them?

        “Whoever decided TinyTan needed to be a thing,”

        Shouldn’t you be mad at whoever told you to create your own versions of them?

        “Oh, so you want me to be mad at myself? Aren’t I already?”

        Okay, point made.

        “I just stare at them, their little body parts, heads on a platter like the Addams Family.. Everything I make is ugly, everything I make isn’t good enough. Every curve, every cut… garbage.”

        Do you want to quit?

        “Give up on my project?”

        Yeah, say fuck it, toss them out, never come back to them.

        “I, should’ve gotten into doll houses,”

       Why?

       “They’re easier, the rules aren’t as rigid, it’s an interpretation and you can do that 1000 different ways,”

       So quit, move to doll houses, sell all your tools. But, answer this, what happens when you get upset or frustrated making doll houses?

       I sigh. “I don’t quit craft projects.”

       … didn’t you just say you wanted to?

       “I don’t quit crafts. Relationships and friendships, that’s another story. But art?”

        Then why are you bitching?

        “I just,” I sigh, slumping into my couch. “If I finish them, and they don’t turn out, what kind of artist will I be? What does that say about my craft? My ‘talent’?”

        What kind of artist do you want to be?

        “This Socratic method is really fucking annoying.”

        I’m your mind, stop doing it if it bugs you so much

        “I just, what does it say about me if they aren’t any good?”

       I’m not sure it says anything about you as a person.

       “Me as an artist?”

       I don’t know if we can answer that.

       “Maybe you’re right,”

        About?

        “Maybe I just, I’m too hard on myself. A set of figurines isn’t going to break my hobby… even if it’s broken my spirit,”

        If it’s broken your spirit, why keep doing it?

        “I love the finished product, but I love the process more,”

        Then keep going.

        The thing about the voice inside my head is that no matter how hard I try to lie to it, it always knows. It always comes back with wisdom and truth, shining a light on exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid.

        “Tonight?”

        No bitch, you need sleep. TinyTan will be there tomorrow.

        “Is this when we sing Zero O’Clock while we brush our teeth?”

        Only if you want to.

        I rise from my couch, slipping my apron off, putting it on my crafting chair and clear my throat.

       “Oo- and you’re gonna be happy,” I sing as I move through my apartment, miniatures drying, waiting for another day of scraping, molding and painting, my broken spirit stitching itself back together as the clock resets. 

Next: June Pride

[artificiallyimplantedmemories]

@videniye​ sent this meme: Send 🛡️ for your muse to take a bullet meant for mine. [x]

    Both of them have aggressively left behind a life of pain. Natalia doesn’t talk about her past, but the Red Room’s training sometimes still lurks in her mind. She covers it up with laughter and sass, and in Bucky and Steve, she’s found genuine friends. They care about her, make her feel like she has a place to belong, and the flirting (and eye candy, let’s be honest) is a definitely perk. As for Bucky, Nat has found out about his wartime experiences in bits and pieces, but still doesn’t have a holistic picture of everything that happened out there. Bucky is extremely reticent on this front (as people usually are with trauma), and Nat knows better than to push. It’s not like she’s any better, right?

    Still, as the months have gone on, they help heal each other. Sometimes, that comes under the guise of a new tattoo, sometimes it’s simply crashing on the floor together under a massive blanket to watch shitty movies. Steve is in the middle most of the time (because he gets cold most easily, and both Nat and Bucky know that he needs the most protecting), but the two of them also steal moments for themselves too.

    Steve pouts at them, but he knows he gets his own time with each of them too, so it’s fine. They deserve to be happy together.

    Nat has done a phenomenal job of covering her tracks. She and Ivan have purposely kept their operation local, off the radar from anyone who might be looking for them. They’re popular but niche, and don’t have so much as a website up in order to reduce their clientele. She respects Ivan immensely for that — after all, he neither had to take her in nor go on the run with her when things got bad. Besides all of that, his talents are enough to seriously make a name for himself if he wants, but he still settles for very nearly struggling by for the sake of his adopted daughter. It’s more than Natalia could have asked from anyone.

    Unfortunately, even the best laid plans are waylaid

    The Red Room comes back to claim their lost protégé, and Natasha is not prepared. It’s not that she can’t fight them off, as she does keep her training up secretly, but it’s the fact that she now has people to worry about, attachments that they can take advantage of.

    Sentiment is not worthwhile for an assassin, they tell her.           She should have left her heart on ice, and maybe she would not have failed.

    She refuses to believe that it’s true. She has felt more alive in the last few years than she has in the rest of her life combined. She’s been able to experience joys and sorrows the way that all people should. She’s had leaps of hope, brushes of gentleness, and even managed to destroy the fear that she had no soul left to spare. She has been whole here, and she would not trade it for the world.

    No. That is a lie.           She would trade it in a heartbeat for the safety of the people she loves.

    The first attack comes when she is alone. The Black Widow is easier to tackle without Ivan at her side. He is ex-military after all, and can put up a hell of a fight, has been proven to do so for the sake of his girl. If they can get in and kidnap or kill her first without him knowing, they’ll be better off. 

     It doesn’t go as they expect. She may have settled into a routine that doesn’t involve death on the daily, but she knows what signs to look for. Hyper-vigilance is an old friend, one she has yet to shake off. They not only fail to take her by surprise but also get three of their agents hurt in the process. That is a surprise to them. Natalia has aimed to maim and not to kill. Things have changed. Perhaps it’s complacency? Perhaps it’s a conscience? 

     Nat heads back using the most roundabout method she can, climbing up facades of buildings, ducking into abandoned homes, biding time in seedy bars and stealing a change of clothes. A beanie hides her bright hair, grime covers her face, and she looks like a homeless wanderer instead of the neat, clean, precise Natasha that people know here. She’s fired off a text to Ivan, letting him know that he needs to get away before people come to hunt him down too, but she doesn’t really have enough faith in his self-preservation where she’s involved. 

     He’ll probably be waiting for me with two shotguns and a hot-wired car, the madman, she thinks fondly. The KGB wouldn’t launch their attack on me without knowing my routine though. If they did, it would be highly unprofessional. So they’ll probably stay away from him as long as he keeps his head down and doesn’t do anything too terribly suspicious. 

     This is her hope as she ducks into the alley behind the shop. It’s closed today, and she goes through the hatch in it that leads up to the supply room, rather than having to use the front door. Quickly, she gathers long-disused supplies, a couple firearms, blades, a hat and coat with extra pockets. She’s glad that she stashed these here instead of at the apartment. Suddenly, there’s a lurch in her heart as she realizes that being on the run again means that she won’t get to say goodbye. Hell, fuck, and damn it all. At least Bucky and Steve deserve an explanation... 

     Survival comes first though, and she takes a moment to scrawl a note for them to leave in the shop. Inevitably, they’ll come around on Monday when she doesn’t show up for their lunch meeting, and they’ll find out at least a little about who she is, why she’s running. It’s an apology. An attempt at an explanation. An inadequate farewell. Natasha forces her hands not to shake as she rushes through the words, and it’s so very tempting to sign off with the three that she’s been wanting to say for the better part of a year. It’s not right though, to let them invest themselves when she’s only going to disappear, so she folds it and lays it on her desk with a sigh. Enough time has been wasted, she needs to go. 

     Scarf pulled up around her face, she rushes back to the apartment. There are raised voices inside, and her hackles go up so fast that they could have given her whiplash. One is the angry, low voice of Ivan, spitting his Russian in the way he does when he’s been backed into the corner about something. The other is a voice that sends chills down her back. She’d know that gravelly voice anywhere. The Headmistress herself has come to find her. 

     If she goes in, she may be dragged back to Russia and forced to resume a life of blood and bitterness. If she doesn’t go in, it’s entirely likely that Ivan will end up dead for arguing. She may still be able to ensure his safety, and so she takes a deep breath and opens the door. 

     The old woman sitting on Ivan’s chair (there’s a moment of colossally illogical rage at that) beckons Natalia in. They all know what her entering the apartment means. Almost immediately, Ivan sags in defeat. Once the redhead has made up her mind, there’s very little he can do to dissuade her. Still, his eyes plead for her to reconsider. She, in turn, carefully doesn’t meet his gaze. 

     “How kind of you to join us, little Spider,” the woman croaks, and the only sign of Nat’s displeasure is the hard set of her jaw. Her sidearm is within reach, but she’s not sure how many other assailants are currently hidden in nearby apartments, ready to blow them apart for making even the slightest wrong move. Ivan only got away with arguing for so long because it bought them time for her to arrive. “Your services are needed. I’m sure you understand.” 

     She does. The Black Widow was their top student, their little killing machine. If they want her back, it’s because there’s a high level assassination that needs to take place, and someone else has failed. 

     Her expression is one that cannot be classified. Perhaps there’s a hint of satisfaction, that she’s been able to outwit them for so long, perhaps resignation, pride and pain. There have been so many others after her, she knows, and none of them have lived up to her legacy. How they must be punished for that. She wishes she could save them. She wishes she wasn’t broken enough that she can’t scrounge up the appropriate amount of sympathy.

     “I take it that the Recluse has been punished?” 

     It’s an ultimatum given. You show me that you will torture your own daughter to gain my loyalty or I won’t go. It’s no less cruel to herself though. Anya was her friend once, so many years ago. 

     “I’ll let you personally oversee it,” comes the reply. How utterly horrible. 

     “Then you know what I will ask for in turn. Ivan and the others here go untouched, or I burn your entire operation to the ground, your own withered husk included.” 

     The Headmistress scoffs, but nods. She has expected as much. Natalia’s current life reeks of domesticity, but her senses are sharp. She has already proven that she is more valuable alive than dead, and her skills will be useful to the agency. They are the Dark Room now, even more deadly, with more experiments underway to create Natalia’s successor. So far, though, none have been quite so perfect. They need her back, even if they have to dispose of her later. 

     The redhead nods as well. “Leave. I have packing to do.” The Headmistress, accustomed to the Widow’s rudeness, rises. Just as the old woman gets to her feet, though, there is a knock at the door. Everyone freezes. 

     “Natasha, you in?” 

     Nat fights not to let her expression crumble. It’s Bucky, darling, sweet, wonderful Bucky who has seen too much and been through too much and does not need to know that his tattoo artist fling is about to vanish off the face of the planet in order to kill people. Her heart breaks a little, and if she hadn’t been in the presence of her most hated enemy, she would be shaking. 

     “Let him in,” the Headmistress whispers, and the redhead tenses further. 

     This can’t be happening. No, no, Bucky, run! Run away from here! She yells it in her mind, as if she can get him to listen, but there’s nothing doing. She hears him call her name again and has no choice. The Headmistress will kill him even if he walks away if Natalia does not prove that she’s willing to take orders. Slowly, she moves to the door, unlocks it, and opens it a fraction. 

     “Hey,” she murmurs, soft and sad and wishing she could do anything but this. “Sorry, this isn’t the best time.” 

     “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” 

     And gods, doesn’t that just make her eyes want to swim with tears. She closes them for a second, regaining control. There are others watching, even if the Headmistress is towards her back. She cannot afford to show weakness. “I’m fine, Bucky. It’s okay. Can I catch you back at your place in a little bit?” 

     “You may not,” the Headmistress interrupts, pulling the door wide. Her gnarled face sneers down at Bucky, then grabs Nat’s arm and drags her back in. “Why don’t you tell him why you’re leaving, hmm?” 

     “You’re leaving?” He sounds devastated, and the redhead wishes she could show any emotion at all here, that she could pretend that she didn’t have to be a weapon right now. Instead, she doesn’t even look at him anymore. 

     “You promised you wouldn’t touch them,” she says to the old woman instead. “He walks out of here and goes about his life without your interference. That’s part of the deal.” 

     “Oh he will, but I think he should know who you are first. I won’t hurt him, precious little Spider.” Her hands trail down Natalia’s jaw and she fights not to jerk away. The Headmistress’s touch has always been associated with painful stitches, whip marks, reminders of failure and that hasn’t faded even after all these years. When the woman pulls her hand back at last, it’s to motion to the weapons littering the apartment. “See these, Mr. Barnes?” (Oh god, she’s done her research she knows who they are, they’re not just casual acquaintances, I’m so screwed, Nat thinks.) “These are the tools of the trade for your precious friend here. Not a tattoo gun, but real ones. She’s made her life on taking the lives of others. Possibly even your own comrades — you were in the military too, weren’t you?” 

     Nat can see Bucky starting to shake a little. If she could just reach out her hand to take his, to reassure him that she got out as soon as she could, that she doesn’t hurt people anymore...! But she can’t because she’s just promised to go back into it, hasn’t she? For his good, even, but she is willing to kill again. She hates herself. The Headmistress keeps talking, and the buzz around her ears builds. She can practically feel the anxiety attack that he’s having manifesting within herself, and suddenly her self-control snaps. 

     “Enough.” She places herself in front of the old woman, glaring. “You would not say such things to someone you meant to have survive. Get out before I kill you myself.” 

     “Oh, Natalia,” comes the reply, hoarse and amused, “you would not survive killing me.” 

     She does leave though, at long last, and when it’s just the three of them in the room, the air whooshes out from Natasha’s throat, harsh and wet with emotion. “I’m sorry,” she whispers to Bucky, “I didn’t think she’d ever come back. I was naive, I’m sorry.” Bucky, for his part, remains silent, eyes glazed as he fights off the war in his head. Slowly, gently, Nat works her fingers into his tense ones, drags him close enough that he can feel her body heat, presses her forehead against his. “Please, Bucky, James, look at me darling. Breathe with me.” 

     It takes a long moment before his gaze shifts to hers almost mechanically, but her audible breaths seem to help. Ivan, blessed be, tucks all of the weapons out of sight. They’ll be bundled up into bags soon anyway, and gone with Natalia into the stark blankness of Russian winter. Nat tries to calculate how long she has like this, how she can maximize the good she can do for him before she has to disappear, and it just... doesn’t work. At any moment, KGB agents might break down her door and drag her out of here. Violence on their part will only cause Bucky more trauma. It’s time for her to ease him out of here. 

     “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I need you to go find Steve. He can help you, alright? But I can’t do that if you’re not somewhere safe. I need you safe, do you understand?” 

     This is not what she usually says. Normally, when his world is falling apart, she is the one telling him that he’s safe, that she’s there with him and not going anywhere, that everything will be fine as long as she’s there to protect him. It seems foolish to him that he has to take refuge in that, but he’s always believed it somehow, that she was capable of protecting him. He’d never questioned why. Now, with the image of guns laid out on her table and a knife strapped to her arm, he feels like it’s viscerally true. 

            It also feels like he’s letting her go to her death. He’s terrified. 

     “You have to come back,” he says at long last, and Natasha’s face twists in agony. Of course she wants to come back, she doesn’t even want to leave in the first place! She adores him, wants to keep him from harm, and here she is doing what she does best apparently — hurting the people around her. “Please promise me.” His voice is nearly a whisper. 

     Natalia cannot give false platitudes. She squeezes her eyes shut, shakes her head, presses kisses to his face. “Go, Bucky. Be well. Take care of Stevie for me and he’ll take care of you.” She pulls him into a bone-crushing hug and then shoves him away. “Go. The Headmistress is not patient. She can still come back and kill you. Run, please!”

     Ivan grabs her shoulder and hands her the duffel bag. They, too, are running out of time. He will come with her, against her wishes, because someone has to stay by her side. Better him, he supposes, who knows the workings of that world inside and out, than someone who will shake apart at the seams, no matter how much the young man may love Natalia. She needs someone who will not blink in the face of destruction, who will kill ruthlessly and precisely, just like she does. Bucky remains standing in the doorway as they leave, and Natalia can only hope he’ll get home safely. 

     Downstairs, a car waits. The Headmistress glares at Ivan, and shoos him away. He will get his own vehicle, only Natalia is allowed to ride with her. “I’ll go with him,” the redhead says, “to make sure you honor your word.” Without her in his company, she’s fairly sure that a bunch of the goons will immediately try to kill him. She’s not chancing it.

     When she turns back for a last look at the building though, the vision of Bucky in the doorway chills her. She can see at least three people moving towards him, and all she knows is that he is not safe not safe not safe those words were meaningless he’s not — 

     “Bucky!” 

     She throws caution into the wind, races back to his side and it’s just barely in the nick of time because gunfire starts raining down on them. She grabs him and drags him into a neighboring building, knowing that this one has a hidden cellar where she can stash him until the firefight dies down, but he’s dragging her through it, into the back and out into the alley, his hold on her is too tight and if she weren’t in top shape she’d be dragged along and she wants to yell that Ivan is still back there but... 

     But Ivan is better at taking care of himself, and right now Bucky needs to be as far away from the action as possible. She throws a flashbang behind her to stun her pursuers (the best she can manage while fighting not to trip over her own feet), and pulls a knife loose from its strap across her chest. She’ll throw it when she gets the chance. 

     The world is a blur around her for a moment (because holy fuck Bucky is fast), and finally they gasp as they lean against the wall just inside the back door of a local restaurant. Bucky is shaking with the adrenaline, but seems present enough to talk to, and Natasha hugs him tight. ��They’ll come after me again, but this was a good distraction for them. You keep running, I’ll pull them off the other way. I know you don’t want to use this again, but...” She presses one of her guns into his hands. If it’s kill or be killed, she’d rather he did the killing. 

     His breath hitches as his hand closes around the weapon. She’s really just — 

     His thoughts are cut off by a kiss, slow and gentle and oh so familiar. “I wish this could happen any other way. I don’t want you to get hurt,” she says, and he finds himself nodding, unfathomably sad. She’s had this on her shoulders for so many years, unable to say a word. If he has to deal with his own PTSD for the sake of her survival, he’ll do it. He’ll suffer afterwards in silence, but he’ll do what he must for now. 

     Natalia presses another chaste kiss to his cheek, and then disappears out the back again. There are the sounds of gunshots in the distance, fading, and he heads outside. He should go home, he knows, he should find Steve, keep them safe however he can, make sure none of the agents that were after Nat come after them. He does none of those things. Instead, he discreetly follows the sounds of fighting. Long-buried instincts come to the forefront even as he fights the bile down, and the first man falls by his hand. A second is not far behind. Natalia is up on the rooftop, fighting someone hand to hand, Ivan is shooting at a retreating car, and he climbs the brick with shaking hands, hoping that everyone that matters is still safe. Carefully, he levers himself up onto the roof, injured arm practically vibrating in pain. Natasha appears to have some bruises and scrapes, but little else. 

     The relief does not last long. The man that Nat had been sparring dives off the roof, and instinctively Natasha goes to follow, setting her up precisely in line of a waiting sniper. Bucky spots the assassin half a moment before Nat does, and yells. 

     The moment seems to happen in slow motion. There’s not enough time for her to get out of the way, given her momentum, so he jumps, slamming himself into her instead. They take a rough tumble on the gravel, and Bucky hits his head. When his eyes reopen, bleary, he can see Natasha’s face set in fury like he’s never seen before. She shoots wildly until a bullet finally hits its mark and takes the sniper down, and then returns to his side, hurriedly propping him on his side and pressing down on his stomach. Her other hand fiddles with her phone, calling 911 and relaying the details before hanging up.

     Slowly, he looks down at her hand and... oh, that’s a lot of blood. 

     “You fool,” she whispers lovingly. “You absolute fool, why did you come back?”

     “Because you were here.” 

     She cries, ugly and beautiful and absolutely devastated. The bullet has gone deep. She can’t tell if he’ll survive, and she can’t bear the thought of him dying for her. She’d been willing to leave it all behind, to go on living without him as long as he was safe, but this... this is not something she can cope with. She can’t lose him, not like this. 

     “So help me god, if you don’t survive this, I will bring you back to life for the express purpose of murdering you myself. And you know Steve will do the same. Please... you’ve got to survive for me, okay? Please.” She hangs her head, hoping against hope, and there’s nothing she can do to fix this. There’s nothing she can say except... “I love you.”

[thewestmeetingroom]

Looking to the Future of LGBTQ+ Identities in Eastern Europe and the Slavic Diaspora

Broadcast Jan. 9, 2021 - 58:12

SPEAKERS

Rebekah Robinson, Gala Mukomolova, Damir Imamović, Mateusz Świetlicki 

[Into Music]

Rebekah Robinson:  Hello, and welcome to the West Meeting Room. On today's episode, hosted by me, Rebekah, one of the producers here, you'll hear part of a conversation that I moderated titled, Looking to the Future of LGBTQ Identities in Eastern Europe and the Slavic Diaspora, which took place on Zoom on Monday, November 2, 2020, and organised by the Slavic Languages and Literatures Department here at the University of Toronto. I sat down with writer and poet Gala Mukomolova, Dr. Mateusz Świetlicki, and musician, Damir Imamović, to discuss the role of culture and activism in the community as they look toward the future. I would like to thank professors, Dragana Obradovic, Zdenko Mandušić, and Angieszka Jezyk, for putting together this conversation and inviting me to moderate. The bios for these accomplished speakers will be available in this episode’s show notes.

Rebekah:  I've been really looking forward to this conversation over the past few weeks. And so, I'm hoping in order to get started, that each of you could briefly tell us about the context in which you're coming from, and the work that you do. And if the cultural context from which you're coming from influences your work in any sort of way. I know, we've mentioned that a little bit during your bios. I'd like to get into it a little bit more. And let's start with Gala on this one.  

Gala Mukomolova:  Okay, sure. Um, well, I am primarily a writer, and that's what I do. I write a lot of astrology things.

[chuckles]

And that is, I mean, I feel it's interesting already, just to think about like musicians and philosophers and rebels, and literature scholars as a point of conversation around world events. I think that I came to astrology writing sort of by circumstance. And I've mostly tried my best because it's very commercial and I work for a major syndicate to subtly or unsubtly move large masses that would otherwise be un-politicized by my like weekly astrology writings. And all my writing work that's more creative or personal, like the essays or the poems that I write, are very influenced by my upbringing, and I guess, just where I'm at, right. So I was raised, but, I mean, I was born in Moscow. My family's Jewish. We had to immigrate to Brooklyn, around the wave time that everybody else did. 1992 / 1993, I was raised very much in, in a kind of, like, understanding of difference as marker, right. So it's like the idea that who we are is always in relation to who we are not, or history. And I think that what I'm interested in, actually, in this discussion is, is learning more about people who are in place. Like I think I come from, my writing comes from being displaced. And, yeah, I don't know, I feel like there's so much, I mean, it's just who we are always influences what we make, right? I think that I also am very invested in a queer post-Soviet perspective, and that's really particular because I, I have an okay relationship with my family now, but I was disowned for many years and didn't speak to them. And the idea of being like, queer, or lesbian was antithetical to being Russian, to being Jewish -- Russian Jewish, because we're like, Well, you know, like, when you're, when you're a Jewish person from Moscow, but like, my family doesn't identify as Russian. They identify as Jewish. So it's like a particular thing to say, but, um, I think understanding the amount of disavowal that happens amongst like, how people come to define themselves. Like, with my family, being like, “Well, you know, if you're choosing this aspect of yourself, then you're not one of us, right?” But the “one of us” mentality has to come from a fear that you need to keep being like, non-Western. I'm just, like, kind of like creating this idea of devotion to the to the national idea. I don't know. So, which doesn't claim you, right, the national idea which doesn't claim you. So like, Russian people for so long, did not really claim Jewish people as one of their own. And yet, like to be clear, like Jewish Russia is to create a disavowal from the country that you come from, which we actually disavow to begin with.

Rebekah:  Thank you so much, Gala, I think that's, I like the idea of, you know, or I find the ideas fascinating about being displaced within, like these different communities. You know, and I know you mentioned your work with astrology. And I'm hoping that you can about how these sort of intersections and ideas maybe even play into like contributing to your writing these astrological pieces. And as well as just know who we are is in relation to who we are not. Like, that's especially prevalent in today's politics throughout Eastern Europe and throughout the world, really. You know, everyone's trying to juxtapose themselves. And there's this fear of othering. So, I hope we can touch on that in this conversation as well. Let's move over to Damir, if you could introduce us, tell us a little bit about the work that you do. And if you find that your cultural context is influencing your work as well.

Damir Imamović:  Thanks Rebekah. No, yeah, of course. I was born in 1978, during the time of Socialist Yugoslavia. And probably, mostly the kids at that time, end of 80s, I was what 10, 11, 12 when the war, when the dissolution of Yugoslavia started that I, 14, 13 and a half, something like that. So I somehow feel that most of us who are coming from that geographical area , we we carry this mark and this, most of our interests of that generation, or are of those generations are still colored by this, you know, traumatic event that happened in Yugoslavia. In the beginning, I started playing music during the war when Sarajevo was under the siege. I was in a shelter. And us kids, we were bored basically, so I had to do something. You know, you can't go out you can't do much. And some days, you cannot even go to your apartment upstairs. And I picked up a guitar and started learning songs. And, but actually, and of course, traditional music was always big around me in my family of traditional musicians. But I also, my first songs that I fell in love with were, you know, rock and roll, jazz. It was 90s. So, the whole Nirvana. But somehow in Bosnia, in Sarajevo, especially this sevdah traditional music, which was strongly rooted in Slavic oral culture, but also had a strong Turkish Ottoman Empire influence was always around, you know. So I just, I woke up as a 20 something year old and realized that I know all these songs. You know, in the day, I even use them not only as songs, I speak in that way sometimes. You know, they're some little pieces of those songs, some parts of it, I use it in everyday speech and it's so much a part of me. And then I realized only actually several years back that I was always interested, because this trauma really formed me. And my primary school class completely dissipated when the war started, you know, and suddenly, we became strangers. And that's why even today, I'm still probably quite close, closer to my friends from primary school, because I was in seventh grade when we started, then with later on high school, friends and university friends and other people. And I realized that without me knowing that all of my themes I was really interested in, you know, like, after high school, we have this system where we write at, like, a final paper in high school. Some kind of a diploma or something. And, of course, the University the same. And just when I look back, I realized that all of these things were actually connected to the same topic. And it is, how is it possible that people become strangers to one another, you know, when I, I never had the problem, intellectual or artistic with people being, you know, foreigners, people being unknown to one another. And you discover something that you don't know, but this very feeling that due to some act of politics, history, whatever, you become stranger. You become this foreign person, you know, and of course, coming out is a big part of that. Because it's, you know, the situation when you have some friends, you have family, and after coming out, and that's what a lot of LGBTQ people know, you suddenly become somebody else and you're still the same fucking person. But there's this estrangement, or whatever the word is in English, that happens, you know. So a lot of what I do is is kind of colored by that. Even without me knowing that I - That's actually one thing I'm rediscovering about what I do. But I have, you know, I always had diverse interests. I always loved literature, history, philosophy. Music was just a part of it. And after studying philosophy in Sarajevo, I had my ideas of pursuing a career as a philosopher means mostly sitting at one place and thinking, anyway. But I was lucky enough that I, just by chance, I was offered a gig as a musician, and I did it. And it was a big success. And I just felt that that's what I love doing, you know. And of course, later on, after that, I realized that I don't have to give up on my intellectual interest, you know. But I can still write, I can still, you know, research stuff and, and I realized that you have to, if you have an opportunity, you have to take over this place in mainstream society and speak with a different voice from there. You know, it's not, because mostly, I mean, the whole of Balkans, meaning former Yugoslavia, plus other countries in Eastern Europe, is actually today a place people are mostly forced to leave if they want to live their dreams, you know. And I remember this, this first Pride parade in Sarajevo last year at which I played. There was one moment when I literally wanted to cry. And that was when I saw all these guys and girls, queer couples of all kinds who are from Sarajevo, usually, both of them, you know, from a couple they were both from Sarajevo, but they've been living in, I don't know, all over the world for 15 plus years. And then they came back for that particular date was such a strong message, you know? So that's just for starters.  

Rebekah:  Absolutely. Thank you so much. I feel like you brought a lot of food for thought. e\Especially, I like the concept of how even within a specific region, you know, you become a stranger to one another through force of trauma, but also how that can also impact how LGBT people are also impacted as well. Especially when coming out from to their families or to their society, to their communities, on how you can even be ostracized and a kind of stranger in that way too. So, I hope we can explore that idea of being considered other and this estrangement that you mentioned later on in our conversation. How about you Mateusz?.

Mateusz Świetlicki:  That's a difficult question. First of all, I want to say that I absolutely love my job. I love everything about it. It gives me satisfaction for a number of reasons. But before I say few things about these reasons, let me answer the question. Because your question was about, you know, the personal experience. I think that we cannot escape our personal experience at all. In order to, you know, succeed. You need to combine your personal experience. You need to stay, you know, truthful to your own self and your heritage and your identity. And, I was born in Poland. I lived in Poland when I was a child. I also lived in Germany. I also live in Louisiana, Shreveport, Louisiana. And I decided to stay in Poland. I decided to stay here because I do have hope. And I think that sharing my experience, sharing all of the things that I know. Sharing my you know, vision of the world, can actually help my students. And I absolutely do use my experience when it comes to my writing. When it comes to my teaching. When it comes to my writing, I have a degree in Slavic studies and Ukrainian studies and in American Studies. And I published a few things about Ukrainian literature, about Polish literature, about American literature. I try to write some things about gender, about men studies, about masculinity studies about queer things. I tried to find some queer themes in Ukrainian literature, but I always, I've always been interested in children's literature and YA literature and popular culture. I find this trash culture to be extremely inspiring. Now I'm working on a project on North American children's literature. By North American, I mean both American and Canadian. But, I'm writing about literature books written by Ukrainian and Polish authors. I mean, second, third, fourth generation Ukrainian / Polish authors. So books written in English, but books about the experience of being Polish, the experience of being Canadian, the experience of being Polish Canadian. The experience of being Ukrainian Canadian, experience of being Ukrainian, in Canada, and so on. So I think I'm trying to somehow combine my expertise. Like, I think this is the perfect topic for me, because I'm using everything of my knowledge. So I can use my Slavic studies, background, and my English studies, American Studies, background. And every single time when I want to write about, let's say, memory. When I want to write about something else, I always end up thinking about queerness, I always end up thinking about the ways in which sexuality or gender are, you know, constructed in the literature or film. And I think it is connected to my identity, you know. This topic, I cannot escape this topic, you know. I absolutely cannot escape this gender theme, and it's difficult to do that in Poland. And when it comes to the last few years, when you hear your president saying that LGBT is not people, LGBT is ideology. When you hear politicians saying that we have to make sure that gender ideology and the so called LGBTQ ideology doesn't destroy our children. And there's always the child to use as this political, you know, tool. It's, on the one hand, it's challenging to write about such topics. But on the other hand, I find it so fascinating and stimulating, intellectually stimulating. And I think that we should resist. And this leads me to what I said at the beginning of my little speech. My students, teaching is fascinating, really, and inspiring. And my students are absolutely brilliant. I am so privileged to be teaching a number of really intelligent, clever young people who are sick and tired of this situation. Who grew up in Poland, with the internet around them, who grew up traveling, you know, going on vacation to various different places. And there are queer individuals who want to live in Poland, and who want to, and who are proud or openly gay, or lesbian or transgender, and they don't care. And they don't want to move to America or to Canada or to Germany. They want to stay here and they want to make a change. And what I hear my students tell me that my classes made them want to fight. I'm shocked because I always think that my classes are ideologically neutral. So I always think that I'm not really that political in class. But it turns out that while I'm not trying to be political, I am political. So yesterday, my wonderful graduate student told me that during one of like, random classes, like ethics of academic work, stuff like that -  I taught them about the phenomenon of angry white men in America, like Trump supporters. And someone, and I didn't remember that, I just used some basic examples of books, and I, and I asked them to come up with a list of Works Cited. And then she told me that because of this little class, the entire group, read that book. And that's why I find my job to be really, my profession to be really inspiring, because I can teach. I can write and my students really inspire me. So I, every single class influences my writing.

Rebekah:  We'll tease that out, for sure. I really enjoyed this idea of Polish people who want to remain in Poland because that's like their home, you know. And just trying to make it a place. I think that's going to be one of the ending questions, you know, what are their hopes for the future? How can people you know, move to this place where they can build a society and build an area where they can be completely themselves. And so I want to hold on to that idea and bring that up a little bit later. Thank you. Gala, I wanted to go back a little bit to talk about your astrology workings. And I want to see how might your traditional Slavic values, maybe that you have been surrounded with ongoing in your life, how you maybe incorporate them a little bit into your writing astrology? Or how even being part of a diaspora community, how that might influence your work when writing about astrology?

Gala:   I'm just feeling inspired a little bit by all the hopefulness. I think that, I'll say this. I think that when I came to astrology as more of a work than a hobby or an interest, so much of it has to do with the fact that in ways I was raised with astrology, it's like a shared language with my family, because it's pretty similar in Russian or post-Soviet culture. Soviet culture, as it is in the West. That said, I don't know. I think that as Mateusz was speaking, I was thinking about, you know, what it means to have pride in place, or like a nationalistic love. I think that I was very much raised without it. Very much raised without place, and in some ways, like a kind of - like, I feel like I was raised in a refugee Jewish community, which had a lot of pride in the fact that they came from a Jewish lineage. And also, at the same time, kind of had no God, and no rituals, no practices, right? No, no prayers that we knew. And so, most esoteric practice was sort of memory based. We light a candle on this day, we don't wear shoes in the house, I can't tell you why. You know, things like that were just sort of based on like a rule, a rule you inherited that you follow blindly. And so for me, I think astrology as I got older, and as I found, safety and pattern was a place where I could connect to all these different types of rituals and understandings about the largeness of the universe, without being completely far away from where I came from. And I do think that now as I inhabit this world. And like the astrology world, is kind of a world because they're, you know, on a, on a level of who's creating it and how there are just so many social media facets. So many different types of writers, many different types of people who are offering the same thing. But I do think that astrology is inherently invested in like the domino effect or the collective effect, right? So there's this idea that what happens there affects us here, right? That the sun is not shining on one side of the planet, for no reason at all. And that there is a continuation, and also that there is a story that happened before us and is happening after us. And I think that being in a lineage of people who were moved toward the collective, who sacrificed a great deal for the collective is information. Like I don't think that I was raised to believe in the collective. Like I actually was, I was brought into a country, I was brought into your country with this premise that now we'd like that we would have individual lives, right. And that being said, I was then raised in this sort of, in a tense, what an astrologer might call a kind of square between two planets aspect between people who actually wanted to escape a collective, authoritarian, totalitarian really, rule, and people who actually valued collective ideology as more righteous and more ethical. So this idea that I wasn't just myself, I was part of my family and I wasn't just part of my family. I was part of a lineage of people who survived numerous mass genocides, you know. I wasn't just, I wasn't just learning to live in a country for myself, but at the same time, also, one could never go back to what those collective ideas and beliefs lead us, right. So that tension, that place for me is a lot of the place where I write from as well. I think when it comes to astrology, because I think that astrology has always been political, has always been, you know, used in rulerships of presidents and kings. So I think that there's a sense that the, the stars that you might be interested in, in terms of like your love life, or whatever, like your new job, are also the same stars that if one were to believe it so, are impacting the people who make it hard for you to get that job. Make it hard for you to be present in your love life. I think that if I can use whatever medium I have, that maybe people seek for just gentle comfort or some sense of accompaniment, some sense of like, pleasure or relief, if I can use that medium to let people know that not only are they connected to a larger picture, but that larger picture is also connected back to them and their daily behaviors and their daily lives and what they think about, then maybe I'm doing my job.

Rebekah:  Absolutely, that's actually really beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I think this idea of using different creative mediums, whether that's through astrology, with your music, finding ways to connect, to connect these different themes and different ideas that are inherently political, that we sometimes don't always see as being political and reaching a larger audience that might otherwise not choose to engage with it. So, thank you for sharing that. And then speaking of music, I wanted to go back over to Damir and ask, you know, how do you take this genre of music of sevdah, and how might this traditional music make sense, and how do you incorporate that? How do you speak to this modern world in which you're producing this music? I'm wondering what that looks like for you?

Damir:  Well, there are many ways of course, and the very act of doing that today, at least at a time when I was beginning 16 / 17 years ago, the very act of doing that was in a way that you know, I was already, you know, quite active in, as a student in many feminist and queer organizations. I was already, you know, doing different stuff. And I remember some of my friends told me, come on, you're a young hip guy. You should do jazz or rock or pop or stuff like that, why would you do sevdah? You know, because sevdah was similar to the folk music in United States. You know, or country music was some kind of, you know, popular, extremely popular music, but it was some kind of a redneck music. One part of it was some kind of rural community music, you know, not all of it. And, but for me, I always saw other things in it. You know, I saw how important it is. And, and it was actually at the time end of the 90s beginning of 2000s, when actually quite a lot of music, musical groups or individuals started to see, like - I remember this, they were really good at the beginning, actually from Poland. So, they were doing Polish folk music, but in a really punk way. On the on the other hand, on this kind of research side, I completely feel what Gala just said, about finding some structure in this whole you know, crazy crazy world. And I remember when I was a kid, I read a poem by Rita Mae Brown and she said at some point, like you know, she's having cancer, she's queer, and she had so many layers of her personality and her body and her everything, but she said at some point like, which one of me, of I's, will survive all these changes? You know, what will be left at the end? So, I feel that what God said that this need to find some order in this crazy world, and for me, it's it's music theory and scales of this sevdah music because it's when you see it from that point of view, it's actually sevdah music, as a lot of Balkan music, is situated between two worlds. Two worldviews of music you know, one is a Western European, and another one is this oriental, usually Ottoman history gave us this, this oriental way of thinking about music, you know, which is different. And it's not like, completely different but they, you know, that they're places where they connect. So when you do theory, in Bosnian, in sevdah music, you're constantly with one leg you're in this Eastern world of hearing music and thinking about harmonies, melodies, and everything. And at the same time you're doing, you're doing it in the western medium. For me those scales and teaching them, researching them, and then teaching them and trying to find some order in that is also a way of doing that, you know. And of course, there are a lot of, you know, everyday usage of music in many ways. And that's sometimes with artists, it's hard to control it, you know, what your music is. How you convey it. And how will people use it.

Rebekah:  Thank you so much for all that. I did want to ask in terms of like your music, are there any themes or ideas that you try to incorporate, like modern themes into your traditional folk music? And how do you incorporate those, like, what kind of language and stuff do you use, especially considering the, I guess, the traditional structure of the framework of music, how you choose to go about doing that?

Damir:  Well, when I started doing it, I realized that this music was codified in the socialist time, in the time of famous socialist radio stations. So, there was a time when this, in former Yugoslavia, every different ethno national groups had their own cultural expression. And I realized that behind that there's a, there's just a peak of an iceberg, you know. A huge, huge, there's a whole iceberg of music, you know, that we just see the top of. And I realized that, that's why that's where I wanted to go. And there I found a crazy humane, everyday, everyday world of old recordings, interviews, everything, you know. And I was especially happy to find, and I used it in this exhibition I curated in 2015, in Sarajevo, where I can try to portray the history of this music behind what people usually know, through, you know, all the different materials. And I included many, you know, of course, queer stories, all the different other things that were just left out of official histories, you know. But for me, my idea, talking about writing about this music and researching it was, I never wanted to write the queer history of sevdah music. And I've spoken to many of my friends who are, you know, queer activists, or activists in different fields. And they taught me that, you know, if you do only this "small thing," you become some kind of expert in queer stuff, and that's your field. In that way, I realized that there is no history of music. Nobody, it has never been written by anyone on any, not even a positivist stupid, dumb, you know, kind of a book. And then I said, Yeah, I'm gonna write a history of the music. I have to take this mainstream position, you know, and push it. And my music and what I do artistically is completely different. And I, to be honest, I have no control of that. I was lucky enough to be invited to do music for films and theatre, a part from my scene of the stage work and performance quite early. And I started in 2007. And when I realized that I can do that. I can write, you know, when you work, in so called in functional music, which is theater, film and stuff that you have a director, you have a need for a particular music, you know, in a scene. So nobody asks you: What do you like? You have to do that, that as a craftsman, you know. You just do what's needed. So when I realized, you know, I can write the rock and roll song, I can arrange for chamber quartet, that I can do stuff for a choir and stuff. Then I realized, maybe there's a way for me to write sevdah songs, you know, because it's been decades since new sevdah songs kind of appeared. And that's how I started in 2007 and writing for myself and other people. My first song was traditional lyrics and my own melody. It's called Dva Se Draga Vrlo Milovala: Two Darlings Caressed Each Other. And that's a beautiful lyrics about two souls in love, but of course, mother and father forbids it, so they have to separate and they die and they buried them together, blah, blah, blah. It starts with this gender neutral description of two darlings. You know, Dva Se Draga Vrlo Milovala, for those of you who speak language, you recognize the pattern. And, there's been a lot of these songs in the history of sevdah genres and neighboring genres of music, but they were abandoned because they were, you know, modern culture didn't tolerate this gender neutral. So they become male and female, in the second part of the song, after mother comes in, and prohibits the marriage, or them being together, you know, and everything in this song separates into, you know, into genders, into graves, into everything. So I was so inspired by the lyrics that I wrote the melody to it, and that's how it started. So these days, luckily enough, this sevdah genre, I wrote a lot of songs for myself and other musicians, other performers. There are other people writing new songs. So, I think something is happening there. And a significant part of it also has this queer, I mean, there are different kinds of people in this in the scene. But there are also people who are who are pushing this new idea of what tradition is.

Rebekah:  I really love this idea of incorporating, you know, different ideas and queer elements of culture into this new tradition of music and going forth, like in that way. And that's something that more and more people are starting to get involved with. And I like this idea of representation of like, the queer communities, especially if even if it's gender neutral, that it's part of the history. It's not like just made up, it's an ongoing thing. And so how can we modernize that and shape that for a new audience? And also thinking about representation? I wanted to turn to Mateusz and think about what does representation look like, especially concerning LGBT interests in young adult literature and children's literature? And how does that look specifically within Poland? And do you think that students and children are getting their needs met or interests met within literature?

Mateusz:  That's a very good question. Um, there's a number of LGBTQ themed Polish books, mostly picture books and YA novels, and of course, there are a number of translations, mostly from English, but not only from English. And similarly to Ukraine and Hungary, such books usually become, quite, let's say, political, or maybe not the books themselves become political, but they become political tools. And this, you know, political, anti-LGBTQ+ discourse. For example, there's this really interesting book: Kim Jest Slimak Sam. I'm not sure if you've heard about it, probably not. So, yeah, it was published in 2015. By it's a picture book by Maria Pawłowska and Jakub Szamałek illustrated by Katarzyna Bogucka. It's quite similar to And Tango Makes Three, let's say, became similar because it caused a number of controversies because its protagonist Sam the snail, who is just starting school is a hermaphrodite. He's a snail. Yeah, I mean, Sam is a snail. Interestingly, both advocates and opponents of the book seem convinced about the power of literacy. In this book, when a teacher asks pupils to split into two gendered groups, Sam does not know what to do and hides inside their shell. And the school psychologist asks Sam to prepare a report on the storm that passed the area the day before. And to do that, Sam needs to meet and talk to several queer animals inhabiting the nearby woods. While the picture, while this picture book is biologically accurate, some Polish Education Officers ordered the book removed from school libraries as inappropriate for young children and for its potential to promote "gender ideology." And this is not surprising when we remember that an educational supervisor from lesser Poland tweeted that LGBT is an endorsement of pedophilia. And when we remember the fact that the former Minister of Education, Anna Zalewska, tried to ban Rainbow Friday. Rainbow Friday is a name of events aiming to show queer children and teenagers that school should be a safe space for all. And it's worth mentioning that despite the years of progress, the situation of LGBTQ+ individuals in Poland has deteriorated under the role of the populist Law and Justice (PiS) Party, resulting in the increase of number of suicides among queer teenagers. We have gay celebrities like Jacek Poniedziałek, Michał Piróg, and allies, great allies of the LGBTQ community, like Anja Rubik, who is a top model, you know, fashion model, Beata Kozidrak, this iconic Polish Madonna, let's say, or Taco Hemingway, who is a Polish rapper. You can read about him and the latest issue of New York Times, if I'm not mistaken. So when it comes to equality, Poland, a member state of the EU is closer to Ukraine and Russia than its EU neighbors. And of course, I'm talking about politics. But we do have a lot of books, like Sam the Snail, also translations like I Am Jazz, this picture book about a transgender girl, but what I find particularly interesting is that we don't have books about same sex parenting in Poland at all. And what, yeah, it's quite interesting, because when you compare Poland to other countries, including Ukraine, usually the first queer, let's say, I'm using this term really frivolously, let's say, usually queer themed, usually the first queer themed books are picture books about same sex parents, that's the pattern. When it comes to practically every single country, which has queer themed books, but in Poland, we don't have same sex parenting books. We have books about transgender children, we have books about like, YA novels about gay characters, gay and lesbian characters, of course, and I think that is quite - you know, literature, children's literature, YA literature is really crucial in the development of young people, and representation is fundamental. We all know that. When we compare the, like the number of picture books or just books, children's books in general, depicting children belonging to different ethnicities, the representation, like disparities in the representation are shocking. So most books present white children. Yeah. So there is this discussion about the need to include other types of children. And Poland is a very specific country. I want you to remember about the fact that 96% of Poles are white. Most Poles are culturally Catholic. I'm using this term "culturally Catholic" on purpose, because most Poles do not go to church at all. But being culturally Catholic is a totally different thing. It's all about customs, traditions. And this guilt. I don't go to church. I'm not part of this institution. But you know, cultural Catholicism is stronger. Yeah. So, though I was, okay, I was talking about children's books, and then I started talking about, you know, the church. Okay, so when it comes to the need to include such themes, it's quite similar. There are queer children, queer adolescents in Poland who need to see that they are normal, you know. And such books should appear in the book markets, such books should be published and should become part of the mainstream. And it's not enough to have translation of Love Simon and, you know, American YA novels. I think it's crucial to have local books, including local themes, or references to our local culture. And I think that it's crucial for the development of young people. And I know that I also take, I believe in the power of literacy. But that's what I've heard from a number of students who, throughout the years have told me “When I was growing up all of the books and all of the characters and YA books and children's books were just straight. And I've always thought that I'm weird.” I think that it's amazing that this situation has started to change. That we do have queer books, that we do have books featuring non heteronormative, let's say, elements. And you know, I've already said it, children are the future.

Rebekah:  Absolutely, thank you so much for all of that. I think it's definitely important that the literature reflects local customs and traditions. And I think that every student should have the opportunity to be represented and feel represented, their family or themselves in general within this kind of literature. Because it's crucial to the development of young LGBT students and just other children in general to be exposed to such themes to learn about differences. I think that's incredibly important. But yes, I love the idea that you know, that things are starting to change. That there's, we're moving towards like a state of future. We're trying to incorporate more radical literature into like earlier settings in schools. And so my last question for you all is, what are your hopes for the LGBT communities from where you're coming from? We've mentioned radical changes within literature, talked about astrology, we talked about music. What does that look like for your specific communities?  

Damir:  Well, here's a good candidate, if you allow me this combination of nationalism and LGBT issues. An example of Bosnia, Bosnia is a small place. It used to have three and a half million people, when Yugoslavia parted. Now, I think it has, some people say not even 3 million people. And the thing is such a small place is really, it's really hard to have an authentic agenda for anything, you know, let alone the fact that we are completely politically paralyzed because we still live the consequences of dissolution of Yugoslavia. Because the Constitution of Bosnia is basically a peace agreement, which was signed in 1995. Like a ceasefire peace agreement. We still have that as a constitution, you know. So just to cement the opposing sides in the war, and blah, blah, blah, to stop the war. The problem with that, why am I mentioning that is that it's really hard to promote LGBTQ rights in Bosnia as an authentic need of the local people. And it's so easy, by opposing side nationalist fascists of all kinds from these communities, etc. to give it some kind of: "oh always this sort of guy, those are Americans, Angela Merkel, and Swedes are promoting you know, lesbianism" and that kind of stuff, you know. So that's why I think that's one of the reasons. And of course, the lack of tradition, why we only had Pride last year. And those people who are, who are doing it, activists, are brilliant. They really did a great job. We had a huge Pride, three and a half thousand people without any problems. It was a really beautiful day. And I see that, you know. But I guess and I would love maybe to hear if there's time for Mateusz, about, because Poland is such a big country with a strong culture and just in numbers, also huge country and market and everything. Is it in any way easier for such a big country to promote the need for queer rights as some kind of an authentic need? So you understand what's my problem? You usually have nationalists who are saying, you know, “yeah, but we never had gays around here. We were all straight. It's just when Americans came or whoever came, Germans, that we've gotten queer people.”

Mateusz:  It's similar here, really.

Damir:  I think, in a interesting way to connect nationalism and queer rights.  

Mateusz  Yeah, it's always somebody else's problem when it comes to LGBTQ rights in Poland. I mean, rights, maybe not rights. So once again, the biggest problem in Poland is that we are a monoethnic country. So there are no "enemies," you know. It's quite difficult to find a common enemy. After all, culturally Catholic, all white. Someone has to be blamed for everything. So the last few months our politicians, right wing politicians have decided to use, once again, to use members of the LGBTQ+ community as this enemy of the nation, enemy of the state, say that these are not people. This is just a foreign ideology of the EU trying to destroy Poland, all over the country, trying to destroy Poland. These are not real people There's this Polish Regional Education Authority called Barbara Nowak, who said that after the Coronavirus, we'll get back to normal quickly, but what about the long term effects of gender and the LGBTQ ideology? Coming back to the, to your question Rebekah, I would love my LGBTQ+ students to know that it's okay to be Polish and LGBTQ+. That is okay to be Polish and non-Catholic. That it's okay to be Polish Jewish and gay. That it's okay to be Polish and Black, you know. We have Afro-Poles are also discriminated and so on. But and I think that most of our problems come from the fact that we are so monoethnic. And of course, we know that when it comes to our history, it all changed after World War II. Because before World War II, Poland was not as mono ethnic. Poland has no colonial history, in this traditional, of course, understanding of colonialism. We're not going to dig deeper into local like, Ukrainian Poland, Ukraine, Poland, stuff. But we don't have this, I mean, we Poles don't have this colonial guilt. What I find really problematic is that nationalists, the so-called patriots have decided to claim this one particular vision of being Polish. And there's no place for members of the LGBTQ community and this, you know, Polish label and this particular identity. And in the last few months, young people, mostly young people, young queer people, have rebelled against this notion, you know, maybe not notion, against this vision of Polish-ness. They've been fighting. They've been using, you know, acts of civil disobedience. They've been rebelling against this vision, they are unapologetic, they don't care. They are, they are not here to just, you know, talk. They're here to fight. And let's be honest, you're probably all familiar with the current situation in Poland regarding the abortion rights, of the protests, and so on. The first protests in Poland this year started in August and these were protests initiated by young LGBTQ+ individuals who fought really. And what's happening now, all of the nasty slogans used by protesters are quite similar to the nasty explicit slogans used by of members of the LGBTQ community in August. But back in August, they were criticised for, you know, for using explicit vocabulary for breaking taboos. And now, the mainstream, let's say mainstream protesters, are using their methods. And this, I think, shows us how effective our local LGBTQ+ community can be.

Rebekah:  Yeah, absolutely. That's beautiful. Thank you so much. And I think that it's super important to highlight, you know, the people who are on the ground doing the actual work. And they're the ones out here who are trying to make a difference for themselves and the ones who come after them. How about for you, Gala.

Gala:  I think I've just been - So I want to say that I was thinking this whole time about bubbling of ideology that can create this sort of flattening of human experience. But I think that if one were to apply this idea of the flattening of the human experience, what you know about what you're fighting for, what you're good at, what involves you, what affects you into a general hope, right, for the collective. Like for me, I think if I were to imagine my hope for queer people in the US, it would be the same hope that I have for people in every country, which is that they hold otherness as sacred and they continue to. And I think that when it comes to queer activism, right, like when we see it in action, the people who have made the most difference in a lot of activist spheres pushing against government have been people who have been invested in human otherness as sacred and integral. So if you think about I don't know, like what was happening in Chechnya. And so many activists, like so many Russian activists were from queer activists, were actually creating secret, like were getting people out of Chechnya, and creating like secret lives for them to live in Chechnya. Queer people are constantly in, especially in countries where queerness is criminalized, but also countries where it isn't like the US theoretically, are constantly being placed in this business to choose between this idea of being loved and being part of a nation and being themselves. Right. But ultimately, at least for the US, as an example, like queerness is a part of the national story here. It's a part of the American story, if you think about it. Like there is this idea that people inherit, right? That isn't necessarily true, that if they come here, they can be whatever they want. Right? And so, in some ways, that is like this, like false bat signal, right? Like you get to come here, and you get to be whatever you want in this country, which is inaccurate, because then you could wind up going to a nightclub with all your friends and get shot for being who you are. Right? So there's this idea, then that a lot of people who come with, like what I imagined is a true, I don't know, I don't want to give it value. But I think that queerness, or aligning oneself with queerness has to do with recognizing that it's not something that you inherit from an authority, right. And so I think that if I were to imagine a true optimistic hope it would be that queer people as they are pushed toward action, as they are pushed toward some acts of sovereignty, that they hold otherness as sacred, as opposed to falling into traps of homo-nationalism, where they can serve the nation state, but also whiteness. So queer whiteness against like, people who are anti-racist and against the carceral state.

Rebekah:  Thank you so much for bringing that up. I am absolutely in love with this idea of holding otherness as sacred, you know. Because I think a lot of the issues where we get pinned against one another and trying to blame our issues on this other, there's a fear of the other. And I think that's an issue worldwide. And so if we can come to a point where we can hold otherness as sacred, I think that we can move forward to a more promising future.

[queenmylovely]

congratulations on 800 love!! idk if you write for lucy (if you don't you can just write for rog or ben instead, whatever you prefer) but i've had this idea in my mind for weeks now about going on a date with lucy for the first time (i'm thinking dinner? even though it's super cliche lmao) and it's like super romantic and intimate 🥺 maybe you could make this a blurb or hc? 🤭

Oh my gosh, yes I write for Lucy! At least, I do now as this is the first thing I’ve written for her. The concept is not cliche, it’s perfect and this made me so soft, thanks for sending it in 💖 (under the cut cause it’s 1.5k, just fluff)

Masterlist 

what’s going on  send me something 

💖💖💖

Getting out of your uber, you smoothed down your dress and exhaled slowly to calm the nerves you were feeling. The nerves were due to the fact that you were going on your first date with a friend of a friend, Lucy. But the excitement you felt overpowered the nerves. You had already met her once before, at a dinner party at your mutual friend, Gwil’s place. The two of you had instantly caught each other’s eye and made flirty eye contact from either end of the table all night. By the time everyone was leaving, you had worked up the courage to ask for her number and had made plans for the next weekend.

You were walking to the doors of the restaurant, wondering whether Lucy was already inside or if she was still on her way. The latter seemed to be true when you looked around the waiting area and didn’t see her. There was a short line leading to the host station so you went to the end and stood there, glancing at your watch to see that you were exactly two minutes early.

Standing there, you looked around the restaurant and were pleased that you had told Lucy to choose where you went since it looked very nice; the perfect ambience and atmosphere. You were only there for about a minute when you heard your name.

Turning, you saw Lucy walking over to you and smiled brightly to match hers. She came up next to you, scooting past the person in line behind you and pressed a quick kiss to your cheek.

“Have you been waiting long?” she asked, adjusting her purse on her shoulder. Then she looked at you expectantly.

You realized you had just been staring at her, admiring the way her hair framed her face perfectly, the flattering cut of her dress and how she was just a tad taller than you in her heels. Smiling sheepishly you told her, “No, just a minute. You look beautiful by the way.”

Lucy smiled, looking at you happily as her cheeks became a very cute shade of pink, “Thank you, so do you.”

By then, you were at the front of the line and Lucy relayed the reservation information, then the host took you to your table. You sat down across from each other and then started to look at the menu.

“I know we literally just started looking, but do you have an idea of what you want? They have a great red or white if you want to pair it with your meal,” Lucy offered and you grimaced a little. Lucy joked, “What, am I being too controlling?”

“No, not at all. I just don’t like wine,” you said with a laugh.

“Oh, thinking back I do remember you having a G&T instead of Gwil’s rosé,” Lucy replied with a knowing look. “Is that your go-to?”

“Well it’s what most people have stuff for,” you answered. “But I’ll go for a mojito if I can. Like I think I’m gonna go with this peach one.”

“Ooo that looks good,” Lucy said, looking on her menu where you were pointing. “I think I’ll join you.”

A few minutes later, you had your drinks and had ordered your food. The two of you were chatting about work and upcoming projects. Lucy was happy to answer your questions about the films and shows she was working on, but was happier hearing about your job.

“Wow, as someone who’s always just working with someone else’s ideas, it’s wild to me that you actually create everything you do,” she said, her eyes wide.

“Well, we have a group that works on every project, but yeah, a lot of what I do is on my own,” you amended, feeling a rush of pride for what you did based on Lucy’s interest. “But acting definitely takes a bit of creativity, right? Like you have to decide how you’re going to do things.”

“That’s true,” Lucy said with a nod, “You seem to understand a lot of it for someone who said she didn’t ever do any acting.”

“I may have never done any formal acting, nor do I want to,” you shook your head, “However, I’ve been running lines with Gwil since the first year of uni.”

Lucy burst into laughter and you laughed with her but found yourself feeling an inexplicable amount of adoration for her as you did.

“Tell me,” she said with a conspiratorial look and through a few giggles. She leaned closer, her voice getting softer and the scent of her perfume growing stronger, “Has he always been this… pretentious?”

You looked at her in excited shock, reaching over and touching her arm, “Oh my gosh, you think so too?”

She let out a relieved laugh, quickly looking down at your hand, “Yes, but I swear no one else sees it!”

“It’s his ability to charm the shit out of everybody he meets. Never really worked on me though, as much as I love him,” you admitted, lifting your hand to gesture to yourself.

“No, me neither,” Lucy agreed, looking at you so intently that your heartbeat sped up.

“Let’s just say that his 20 minute spiel about the rosé was a repeat performance from one in uni, only then the bottle was worth $8 instead of $35,” you said with a smirk.

Lucy’s face broke into a smile as she laughed, her eyes sparkling. She hit your shoulder lightly, “You’re so bad!” but the look on her face told you she thought anything but.

Half an hour later, the food was eaten and you were looking at the dessert menu together.

“Okay, but the real question is do you like lemons? Because they have an amazing lemon soufflé with a raspberry sauce that is to die for,” Lucy suggested hopefully.

“Sounds perfect,” you told her with a smile.

When the dessert came, you dug into it together, and Lucy tried to ignore the bolt of heat that went through her when you moaned at the taste.

“This is so fucking good,” you said through a half-full mouth and Lucy chuckled. You swallowed your bite and continued, “You know, you have incredible taste. This restaurant, your outfit, this dessert!”

“You,” she added and you felt your cheeks heat up at the compliment, shoving another bite of raspberry covered lemony dessert into your mouth to keep you from saying something dumb.

The two of you continued eating and chatting, playfully using your spoons to fight for the best bites. As she smiled and laughed yet again you felt yourself stumble further down the path of falling in love with her already.

When the check came, you told her that since you were the one that had asked her out you were going to pay and if she wanted to pay then she’d just have to ask you out another time. She looked determined when she said she would.

Since neither of you had driven, you decided to share a car. It allowed for you to sit closer together than any other point in the evening, with your hands resting next to each other’s on the seat and your pinkies brushing together.

You took turns pointing out different things like good restaurants, a hidden shop full of local artist’s work, and eventually just random places you had been as an excuse to lean closer to the other.

The car arrived at your place first since it was closer to the restaurant and Lucy offered to walk you to your door. As you climbed out and fished for your keys, she leaned in the window and told the driver to wait.

She went with you to the entrance of the building and the two of you stood a little to the side to be out of the way.

“I had a really good time tonight,” you said with a soft smile.

“Me too,” Lucy told you. “You’re a great first date. And I’m sure you’ll be an even better second one.”  

Your smile grew, already excited for more.

“And you’re so cute,” Lucy added, unable to help herself when you smiled.

You were about to compliment her as well when she leaned forward and kissed you. Her lips were soft and warm and when you didn’t pull away, she brought her right hand to your waist and her left to your cheek to keep you close. Feeling her tongue slide along your lower lip, you opened your mouth for her and brought your left hand to her shoulder and your right one to hold hers in place.

Sighing into the kiss, you enjoyed what you hoped was the first of many, many kisses to come. After a minute, you pulled back and her lips followed yours so you pressed another quick kiss to them.

“The car’s still waiting,” you pointed out.

Lucy blushed, “Oh right, I should--”

“Tell them to leave and then come in with me,” you said, looking at her suggestively.

Lucy was surprised that you were being so forward, but as surprised as she was, she loved it even more and nodded quickly.

“I’ll go do that. Be right back,” she told you, sneaking another little kiss before she turned and rushed down the path back to the car.

You saw the driver shift into gear and start to drive away as Lucy looked back and smiled at you. She was back next to you in a moment, and she grabbed your hand as you unlocked the door with the other.

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