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nightmaretyrantvantas · 5 years ago

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So I’m finally getting around to writing out a bunch of info about my Sander Sides au so I hope youre all ready--(its like 1 am im so sorry for any spelling mistakes and missed tags)

So its 1 am on a work night and I cant sleep and I’ve had lots of ideas and canon things for this au bouncing around my head for days and now TONIGHTS THE NIGHT ITS HAPPENING IM DELIVERING YOU ALL THE DETAILS AND EVERYTHING I CAN THINK OF AND TYPE

Also please feel free to ask about this! I know I got a few new followers from all my recent sander sides art and also thanks to @sugarglider9603 reblogging some art I made of their au I got the biggest flood of exposure and attention on my art ive ever had and I have so much to thank them for, for all recent exposure ive gotten the past couple days( theyre so sweet and lovely and easy to talk to sugar deserves all the love--) and its given me a huge surge of motivation and confidence to post this. And please, my inbox is always open to talk about my aus or my art! Ask questions, send requests, send headcanons or ideas, send fluff angst im open to anything and I try to do all requests sent to me(sooner or later)

Oh oh! and please id you catch any and all the little inspirations or anything let me know

And finally this au is a LAMP au with Remile and Demus on the side

Ahem ahem anyway onto the au!!!

More under the cut so I dont flood your screen too bad!

Ok so!

This Au was originally inspired by @residentanchor‘s amazing fanfic A Lesson in Practicality and also a little bit by @prettyinaccurate‘s fanged virgil au( I’ll get more into that further down)

So it takes place in a (currently) unnamed bigger city I based off San Francisco and Sacramento( because I live in Cali and those are the two major cities ive really visited ya know?) The boys are all in various stages of their twenties when they move into a four bedroom apartment together: Patton Foster is the oldest of the roomies at 27, then Logan Masters at 26, Roman Prince at 24, and finally Virgil Collins at 22. They move in together because it all works out for them really, the apartment is in a good distance to all their current jobs, whether by bus or even in Pat’s case in walking distance and with all four of them it was well affordable and was pretty nice. I mean hey it even came with a little communal balcony ( since theyre on third floor of the building)

Things are understandably a little rocky at first , i mean isnt it always though?

Virgil has alot of anxiety and so he tends not to talk really at all at the beginning unless he ABSOLUTELY had to, mostly communicating in noncomittal noises and soft grumbles, and he was fresh out of collage and barely two years into his job and out on his own for the first time and he wasnt really ready for it either like christ too many people

Patton was bright bubbly and caring. This wasnt his first rodeo with roomies, I mean cmon, hes been sharing a room with his older brother Damian(deceit) on and off almost all his freakin life, nor was it his first time living on his own with strangers(hes lived in two different parts of two when he was job hopping before he settled down in his current part time job)

Roman was extroverted loud and exciteable, he too was used to sharing his living space( he had TWO siblings after all) and before he had moved into the apartment he had tried living on his own and with other roommates while he attended collage, but those just didnt work out well ( he ended up staying with his older brother Remy in his studio apartment across the city while he finished out that semester and searched for a job to keep an income.

Logan was serious minded stern toned and confident, he had a minor degree in teaching that he was slowly repursueing and had been out on his own for awhile before he had moved in. And though cold at first he soon found his group of housemates...enjoyable.

Its about a month into them living together that they learn exactly why despite slowly getting close and getting to know each other Virgil still kept a wide distance: He had entirely sharp teeth.

“ I dunno....I was born with them..theyve always been a sharp pain in my ass...” - virgil, about his teeth

Of course just having sharp teeth wasnt bad enough oh no. You see a few years back when he was about 18 he was young and dumb and made horrifically stupid and reckless decisions under peer pressure and ended up doing something that not only pointedly (haha oh god im not funny) chipped his front teeth but it fucked up his teeth pretty majorly, he went from having a normal overbite to almost having a goddamn underbite and crooked all his teeth, and the only way to fix it( because somehow miraculous for all the damage done it turned out to be mostly reversable aside from the chipping) was getting braces to realign his teeth. So he’s had pretty purple braces over his fangs since he was 18 and they werent expected to come off until he was AT LEAST 25 and he was insecure about them. ( he got mocked for them through his two and a half years of junior collage)

Once the gang finds out they are understanding and helpful and dont make a big deal about it( though virgil gains a significant amount of more vampire related nicknames from roman)

Once they get close and comfortable around each other the apartment is pretty warm and lively!

Virgil works at the art store as an assistant manager and head stocker( a bit of a dream come true since he was an art student)

Roman works as a part time waiter at a family resturant as well as working at a nearby theater( he was of course a lovely theater major)

Patton worked at a nearby cafe and bakery as a bit of everything! He helped wait tables, serve behind the counter, and helped in the back in the kitchen( the owners were family friends and he’d been working there almost four to five years at that point, boi knows how to do everything)

Logan worked at a big name bookstore, and also provided tutoring sessions for highschool students on the side by commision

More FACTS~~

Family ages for the big families go as follows:

Fosters: Damian(28), Patton(27)

Prince: Remy(26), Roman(24, older twin by 10 minutes), Remus(24, younger twin)

Emile is 27 and is a licensed therapist and works as a counselor for young adults that volunteers at the nearby library to ready to children

Remy works as a coffee barista in Emile’s building

Remus does alot of odd jobs, kinda working as an independent for hire and gets a surprising steady flow of work and pay. Hes still a trash man though, but hes a successful trash man( partly thanks to Damian calling in favors with connections)

Damian works at a law firm slowly moving into the position of prosecutor

Virgil doesnt really get along with his family and at some point Emile offers to take virgil in as his adopted brother, with Damian assuring him if he wanted concrete legal papers to start changing his last name, cutting ties with his family, anything needed for it he’d see to it that they’d be providing(something our boi really appreciates)

Remy visits Emile on his breaks since hes literally just...two hallways down and vice versa

Damian and Remus live together in the next, slightly smaller city over because Damian’s work transferred him to a different office in order for him to keep moving up in the ranks so to speak.

Hes also good at what he does.

Family nights happen whenever they can

Patton got to teach them how to cook alot of complicatied dishes from scratch, a bonding time he adores

Roman got Virgil an Espeon hoodie after they all start dating and virgil loves it and wears it alot around the house because its a thicker hoodie and warm( though he tries to ignore the big ears and the obnovious tail

Virgil also loves visiting Roman’s work on what Ro likes to refer to as “ hellish days” AKA kids day which means goofy kid friendly theme days. His favorite was probably alice in wonderland day when Roman was Tweedle Dee

Roman played J.D at the local theater and likes to hum some of the his songs to switch up the Disney

The balcony is covered in houseplants and and a corner of old blankets and pillows to sit and chill on

Once a month Logan and Patton have what is affectionately referred to as the Cat Discourse

After any particularly rough days at work Patton tends to massage Logan’s shoulders and back to make sure Lo doesnt get any really bad stress knots

in return when Logan sees Patton’s head a hard day he makes Patton’s favorite drink and pulls him into a hug and let the older man fall asleep in his arms while they watch movies

Pat and roman sense each other’s bad days and order in some cliche diner food and hole up in pattons room with Pattons computer and relax the shittiness away with comedy specials and movies

Likewise Virgil has a knack of picking up Roman’s bad days and always grabs a couple glasses and a bottle kinda cheap wine and they end up curling up together on Romans bed marathoning Disney movies on Virgil’s laptop

and when Virgil closes himself off more than normal Logan manages to lure him out of his room and they end up sitting out on the balcony quietly talking and stargazing

so loving and fond and soft with each other

you hurt one of them you gonna get BEAT by the others.

Speaking of getting beat, never EVER mess with Roman or Remus in Remy’s proximity

Remy Andrew Prince can and WILL fuck you right up if you hurt his little brothers. He’s protective.

and where Remy will rearrange your face Damian will ruin you mentally and legally if you so much as mistreat a single freckle on his little brother’s face, despite knowing that Patton is fully capable of taking care of himself.

Everyone protects Virgil, dont mess with or hurt virgil or you have the pack coming for ya throat

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand thats all I have for right now! Of course more will be added but now its almost three in the morning and I have work at 1:30pm and im sleepy finally! But I hope you guys like this! And please, feel free to talk to me about it, my inbox is always open!!

Taglist: @phantommoonpeople @sweetsweetemo @loganberrysanders

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lolcat76 · 8 years ago

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Love your stories. Wondering you're still accepting fic prompts? Laura and Bill are both reluctantly attending a singles retreat at the prodding of their families. One of them is injured on one of the outings, and are forced to interact, and well, you know...

I am always accepting prompts. I may not always answer if I can’t figure out how to write it, but I’m always accepting. And I hope you guys don’t mind if I don’t answer in a timely fashion.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” - Tolstoy

Bill loved his sons, but sometimes he hated them. Lee, happy with Dee. Zak, happy with Kara. Even Carolanne was happy with…whatever his name was. The three of them were convinced that Bill had a huge gaping hole in his heart, so for his 55th birthday, they sent him on a singles cruise.

He should have cashed in his ticket and stayed in Seattle, done the tourist thing. Seattle was a nice enough town, and God knew he was a fan of port cities. Still, he boarded the boat and threw his duffel bag on the bed that he was sure his sons paid far too much for, but was still bigger and probably more comfortable than his rack on his last tour. He was always more comfortable at sea than on dry land, and the trip was paid for, and honestly…what did he have to lose?

As they cast off, confetti and streamers circling around him, he tried to be grateful for the gift his sons had given him, not bitter for many times he’d set sail to the Middle East without ribbons and fanfare. He was retired, done with the Navy. Being shipboard was a pleasure, not a duty. Still, his skin itched with the memory of polyester uniforms, and he fought against his instinct to wave to the wife and sons that were nowhere near the ship nosing its way through Puget Sound.

He kicked at the paper ribbons and made his way down the balcony and through the corridors that led to the door to his stateroom. Seven days in Alaska, and then he could retreat to his studio apartment in Walnut Creek. Seven days, and he could resume reading books, building model ships, and waiting for Lee’s firstborn to arrive.

In the meantime, the ship had a bar and a casino. It wasn’t a total loss.

The first day on the cruise was ‘at sea.’ A very generous description for boredom, coupled with no Wifi. Fortunately, Bill had no problem entertaining himself during lonely hours aboard a boat cutting through the Pacific Ocean. He had a shipboard credit for drinks, he had a stack of cash Zak pressed into his hand for the onboard casino, and he had his favorite book. He made conversation at dinner, watched a show that just depressed him, and hit the rack before 11pm. What a great vacation.

The second day, he woke up early and headed out to the aft deck after he downed a cup of coffee. Bill settled in a lounge chair and flipped through the pages of Searider Falcon to find where he’d left off the day before.

He was just starting the seventh chapter when he realized that he was no longer alone. Nobody came on a cruise to Alaska to sunbathe, even a singles cruise, and yet…the woman beside him was baring more than a little skin in the morning sun.

Bill was retired, not dead. He took one look and realized that Searider Falcon, as much as he loved it, was going to have to wait. Moore’s prose was nothing compared to the legs he could see out of the corner of his eye.

She wasn’t quite his age, but not far behind. Her skin was fair - maybe Irish, maybe European, maybe she just bought good sunscreen at the local drugstore. She wore a large-brimmed hat and dark sunglasses to keep the late summer sun out of her eyes. Funny that he couldn’t see her face, but he could see every freckle on her chest.

Bill was suddenly very grateful that he’d gone on this cruise.

Still, even though it was a singles cruise, he wasn’t the type of man to strike up a conversation with a stranger (much to Saul’s dismay over the years).

He eyed the paperback she was reading. Blood Runs at Midnight. Sounded like crap pulp fiction, but at least she was reading. The last woman he’d gone on a date with could barely read the cover of a magazine before she got distracted.

He contemplated asking her about the book, but before he could open his mouth, the ship’s horn echoed two short blasts.

Shore leave. (Can’t shake old habits.)

They had an excursion for the Mendenhall Glacier, something he’d been looking forward to a good half-hour earlier. Now, he was once again regretting being forced to abide by someone else’s schedule.

She closed her book and sighed before pushing herself off the lounge chair with a hum and a shake of her hair. He’d missed it earlier, tucked under her hat, but it fell over her shoulders as she tucked her book in her bag, catching the late summer sun. Dark brown, but he didn’t miss the light reflecting glints of gold and red before she gathered her things and disappeared through the door.

Suddenly he owed his kids a thanks for sending him on this cruise.

***

Wading his way through the hundreds of people who were most likely forced onto this cruise by equally ungrateful children, he tried to find a little bit of space to enjoy the grandeur of the landscape before him. Thirty years in the Navy, and he was pleasantly surprised that the world still had a surprise or two for him.

The ten years before his retirement had been spent in the seas and deserts of the Persian Gulf. Compared to sand and sun, a giant glacier was a welcome change of pace. The Mendenhall Glacier was impressive yes, but he had to admit it wasn’t even close to the best thing he’d seen on the trip, and it was only the second day.

He chose his steps carefully along the beach, keeping the glacier in his peripheral vision. No doubt Zak and Lee would ask about what he’d seen and done, and somehow, he thought a ten-minute diatribe about some woman’s legs wasn’t exactly what they wanted to hear, especially since he didn’t even know her name. Then again, it was a singles cruise. Maybe what they really wanted to hear about was someone’s legs.

Maybe he was far too close to his sons.

The glacier was icy cold, white, blue and translucent. Begged to be admired from afar and touched up close but threatened to freeze anyone who reached out. Same as the woman he’d seen that morning. The same futile unapproachability. He surveyed the cold blue veins running through the glacier. Cold, and beautiful, and completely unattainable.

Chapter seven, safe and predictable, was waiting for him in his cabin. He headed away from the glacier and back to the parking lot.

He was maybe about a hundred feet from the ship’s tour bus when someone in front of him hit a patch of ice and came down hard, letting out a small squeak of feminine surprise her when tailbone met earth. Bill took a few long steps and grabbed the poor victim of the slick sidewalk under her arms, setting her more or less back on her feet.

He didn’t recognize her at first, not until he got a good look over her shoulder at the expanse of white, freckled skin exposed by the v-neck of her black sweater. Suddenly, the desert heat was nothing compared to the flush in his skin.

“You ok?” he asked, a little more gruffly than he’d intended. His fair maiden in distress pushed away from him, brushing slush and grit from the seat of her jeans.

“Fine,” she said, her tone more than a little embarrassed. She straightened under his gaze and looked up to meet his eyes.

No sunglasses this time. Just bright green emerald eyes, clearer and deeper than the Adriatic.

And he thought her legs were impressive.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m not used to winter.”

“It’s August,” he replied. “Not exactly winter.”

It’s August? Jesus, no wonder he was single. He used to be charming, back in the days before marriage and kids and rations. Must have left that back in basic training.

“August in California looks a little different,” she said with a shrug. She thanked him again and turned back to the bus, but only managed one step before she faltered. He caught her elbow before her legs could give out beneath her.

“You’re not ok.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but before she could get a word out, he wrapped his arm against her waist. “Lean on me. I’ll get you back to the bus.”

They took halting steps, him slowing his pace to keep time with her, her leaning more and more of her weight against him. It’d be faster to just pick her up and carry her, but he’d had a good day so far, and he didn’t want to ruin it by getting slapped for being forward. Her ankle might be busted, but he had no doubt that her hands worked just fine.

I’ll bet they do. He might have left his charm back in basic, but his libido was still very much present and accounted for.

When they got back to the bus, he tucked her into a seat and settled beside her. “When we get back to the ship, I’ll take you to the infirmary to get that checked out.”

She rolled her eyes and huffed a little bit. “Figures. First vacation I take in ten years, and I manage to make an ass out of myself.”

“Maybe you should have taken a cruise to Mexico. Far less dangerous.”

She shrugged. “What’s the point of taking a vacation, if it doesn’t get you out of your head and into dangerous territory?”

A very good question. At the moment, he had absolutely no desire to be in his head, not when she was sitting so close to him that he could catch the faintest whiff of perfume, or shampoo or fabric softener. Something delicate and floral, taking his libido down paths that were far more dangerous territory indeed than an icy walkway to a tour bus parking lot. Get a grip, Bill.

“Bill Adama,” he said, extending his hand to her.

She took his hand and gave it a firm shake, far more steady and confident than he would have expected from such a soft-spoken woman. “Laura Roslin.”

Something about her name rang a bell in the far corners of his mind, but he ignored it in favor of savoring her soft skin against his callused palm. “Thank you for coming to my rescue,” she said. She gave his hand a slight squeeze, then dropped it, crossing her arms and tucking her delicate fingers away from his reach.

When she broke contact, his blood flow managed to redirect itself from his palm back to other, more necessary parts of his body. Laura Roslin? The secretary of education? He may be retired, but he still read the newspapers. Laura Roslin had just headed off a massive teachers’ strike, and not a moment too soon, if Lee was to be believed.

Lee was an idealist, and most of what he said to his father went in one ear and out the other. Still, he remembered Lee waxing poetical about Secretary Roslin’s ability to negotiate with the teacher’s union, despite the decidedly unpopular position they’d taken about teaching to growth rather than proficiency. Even Bill had to give her credit for not knuckling under to setting creationism as scientific policy, and that was well before he’d seen her legs.

He may not believe in God, but her legs…they did make for a convincing argument for the presence of a very benevolent Almighty.

Shut up, Bill, you asshole.

As the bus filled, he asked her about the strike, and about her policies on public schools. She might have been a little reticent to discuss her aching ankle, but she came alive when talking about her job. She was halfway through a diatribe about affordable college education when the bus pulled up in the harbor, and he was loath to interrupt her to get her back on the ship and into the infirmary. This time, though, she was a little more willing to lean against him as he guided her up the gangplank and through the ship’s mazes of corridors to the infirmary.

The narrow cots were full of the upper crust looking a little green around the gills, and a white-haired ship’s doctor bounced back and forth like a ping pong ball, giving out Dramamine and gruff advice to puke in a bucket, not on themselves. Bill liked him immediately.

By the time the doctor got to Laura, Bill had eased her boot off her ankle and had her foot, swelling and turning an alarming shade of purple, resting in his lap. The doctor poked and prodded at her leg, asked her a few questions, and told her that she’d be fine if she just stayed shipboard and off of it for a few days. “Sorry,” he said. “But if you didn’t want your ass stuck on a ship, you shouldn’t have gone on a cruise.” He turned to Bill. “Keep your lady friend off her feet.” He raised a thick, white eyebrow. “Which is the point of a vacation like this, right?”

Between the two of them, they let loose an impressive, yet disjointed array of words, none of which was quite enough to make the point that they were together in the infirmary, but they weren’t together. The doctor didn’t seem to care, pushing them out the door while he waved an assistant toward a bedpan and a senior citizen who was starting to heave. “Go. Off your feet. Stay out of here for the next five days.”

Bill led Laura back through the ship. Her weight against him was starting to feel…right. Natural. He held her forgotten boot in one hand and her waist in the other, content to follow her halting directions back to her stateroom. One elevator and three turns, and he realized that the door he was standing in front of while she fished a key out of the pocket of her jeans was three doors down from his own.

He eased her down on the bed and dropped her shoe. Suddenly, he was at a loss as to what to do with his hands. With himself. With her. “Can I get you some ice?”

She nodded. “Yes. From the minibar. In a glass, with some Scotch.”

A woman who read and drank Scotch. He needed to call his sons tonight and thank them. He poured her a small measure of Scotch on the rocks and handed it to her, and at her raised eyebrow, he chuckled and poured himself a drink as well.

“So, Bill Adama. Rescuer of women.”

“So, Laura Roslin. Reader of books.”

She gave him a blank look, and he cursed himself for his involuntary slip. Of course she didn’t notice him that morning. He nodded at the battered paperback on the nightstand. “Blood Runs at Midnight? Sounds awful.”

She let loose a full-bodied laugh that shook both her shoulders and her red-gold hair. “I know, doesn’t it? But it’s a pretty good mystery. If you need something to read, I’m happy to lend it to you.”

Bill grimaced. “Never lend books. You won’t get them back, and you’ll just be pissed. How about we trade?”

She leaned forward, meeting his eyes over the rim of her Scotch. “And what do you have to offer, Mr. Adama?”

The Almighty he didn’t believe in was testing him, and he was failing miserably. He drained his Scotch, then palmed her room key. “I’ll show you,” he said. He was out the door and halfway down the hall before she could even utter the slightest argument.

Two minutes later, he was back in her room with Searider Falcon in his hand. “A fan of the classics, Madam Secretary?” he asked, holding the book out to her.

She accepted the hardback, stroking the cover almost reverently. “I haven’t read this one since college.” She flipped through the pages, settled against the headboard of her bunk, then started reading aloud.

Chapter seven, just where he’d left off. “‘The raft wasn’t as seaworthy as I’d hoped.’ This boat better be, or I want a refund.” She stopped reading long enough to pat the polyester quilt next to her. He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, wanting to be close to her, but not wanting to be that guy. The creepy guy on the singles cruise who hit on an injured woman who’d just had a decent amount of Scotch.

“Bill,” she said, “come here.” She snapped her fingers and pointed to the empty space on the bed.

With that stern voice, no wonder she was so effective as the secretary of education. She must have been hell in the classroom. Not wanting to further incur her wrath, and very much wanting to get another hint of her warmth, he eased himself onto the bunk, shifting until she was once again leaning against him. She hummed softly, then continued reading. “I wasn’t afraid to die. I was afraid of the emptiness I felt inside.”

With one hand, she held the book; with the other, she wrapped her fingers around his. She read the seventh chapter, then the eighth.

Over her soft voice, Bill could hear the dim echo of shipboard announcements and voices passing outside her door. Dinner was being served, shows were going on, the casino was probably packed, but he couldn’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be.

Best vacation he’d ever had.

#lolcatfic #spaceparents fic #spaceparents prompt #fic prompt #laura roslin #bill adama #Anonymous

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avaduvernayfans · 8 years ago

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Though she’s been making short films and writing screenplays since 2005, Tina Mabry has but one feature credit to her directorial name: her highly personal drama Mississippi Damned, a story about one family’s struggle to cope with abuse, addiction, and death (all very real parts of Mabry’s experience growing up in the South). It took an astonishing six years to find a proper distributor for the film, though it premiered to warm reviews from critics and audiences at the 2009 Slamdance Film Festival.

“We were told that you couldn’t have two African American dramas on the market at the same time, because the market couldn’t bear it. That hurt,” Mabry said. referring to the fact that studios passed over Mississippi Damned to avoid putting it into competition with Lee Daniels’s Precious, which also performed quite well on the festival circuit (and went on to win two Oscars) in 2009.

Mississippi Damned finally made its way into the expert hands of Ava DuVernay and ARRAY, her film distribution collective, which seeks to find, foster, and release movies by and about women and people of color. Mabry’s relationship with DuVernay (who directed the brilliant 13th and Selma) is still in its early stages, but it’s been fruitful even in its brevity. Mabry chatted with me from her new staffer’s chair in the writers’ room of DuVernay’s upcoming TV series, Queen Sugar, which is set to premiere later this year on Oprah’s OWN Network.

The screenplay for Mississippi Damned is inspired in part by your experiences growing up in the South. Why did you choose to go to so many dark places with the material?

After I graduated from USC, I didn’t have a job, so I had a lot of time on my hands. I’ve always been someone who’s drawn to writing, especially when I was growing up. If I experienced any kind of traumatic event, writing was always my go-to therapy place, a place where I could express myself. So I thought, “OK, here are some things that happened to my family,” and I started to put them together in a screenplay, but I didn’t really know if it was going to go anywhere. But, my wife—and the eventual editor and producer of Mississippi Damned—Morgan Stiff, read them and said, “Why don’t you make this into a feature? Put it together. Tell your story.”

I don’t think I set out in the beginning to even tell anyone that Mississippi Damned was autobiographical, because I harbored shame about my background and the things that happened to me. I found out that, through writing, I learned to live with things. It was very cathartic in that way, but the actual production of the film was a healing process for me. It was a healing process for a lot of people in the cast and crew as well, because they had experienced at least one of the things that occurs in the film. We tackle a lot of deep subjects, which we tend to push to the back of our minds because they’re hard to deal with, but I felt like we never get a chance to talk about them. If you’re ever going to heal, you have to stop being ashamed of the things that happened to you, because you’re not alone and it’s not your fault.

Once we put the film together, I really struggled with whether to put the words “based on a true story” at the beginning. We started having test screenings, and people started saying, “All of these negative things can’t happen to just one family,” and I’m sitting in the back going, “Oh yes they did.” Once I talked to my family—the ones who were still living—to see if they were OK with [me releasing the film], the question then became, Are you going to say that this is your personal experience, based on your family, or are you going to say that this represents some collective experience of people in Mississippi? I decided that I was going to have to speak out on issues, expose alcoholism, poverty, and abuse, then I was going to have to own up to the fact that these things are part of my life and my tapestry. They’re part of my story. As fearful as I was, I owned up to them. At every single screening, I’ve had people say something about their experiences. I’m sad that there are so many people who can relate to the sexual abuse aspect. I’m sad about that number. But I am happy that Mississippi Damned opened up a discussion and that this film allows them to feel safe.

One thing that really moved me was, when we were screening at the DGA [Directors Guild of America], this older woman stood up and said, “I never told anybody, but I was molested when I was growing up. Thank you for making this film, because I finally feel safe enough to talk about it.” She confessed this in front of 700 strangers, and I was about to cry. I was so moved. This is what cinema is supposed to do. It’s supposed to change things. It’s supposed to highlight things. It’s supposed to have a meaning. Of course, it’s supposed to entertain as well—and to know that the film functioned on multiple levels, I feel like we were extremely fortunate to have so many things go our way in that regard, from a creative standpoint. Mississippi Damned is a personal story, but an expensive therapy for me. Yeah, make a film. That’s how you get over it!

Mississippi Damned premiered seven years ago at the 2009 Slamdance Film Festival, but it didn’t receive a theatrical distribution deal despite being well received by critics and audiences. Can you describe what that felt like?

It was emotionally devastating for me because we make films, but if you don’t have an audience to show them to, then why do you do it? That’s why I’m really appreciative to have been picked up by Showtime and to have this Netflix deal that Ava DuVernay put together. That’s the reason why we make films. Finally, we can share [Mississippi Damned] with an audience.

It happened to be a very difficult time when we came out [at Slamdance]. It was the recession, and that year [the Park City festivals were] half the size that [they are] normally. At the same time, Precious came out. Naturally, [Precious director] Lee Daniels had a bigger cast [and is a bigger filmmaker]. People on the marketing side loved both of our films. They’re different films, they just happen to both have African American leads. We were told that you couldn’t have two African American dramas on the market at the same time, because the market couldn’t bear it. That hurt. That was completely crazy to me, knowing that it was not true. That’s why I’m so happy now that new distribution models are coming out—it’s being shown that, yes, you can have two black films that are out there at the same time. [One isn’t] going to take away from the other. You’re doing the whole industry a disservice by holding back two films because studios don’t think one will make money, because the market can only bear one [with a black cast]. We all know that it makes no sense, so actually those are the things that hurt most . . . cinema transcends gender, race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status, and we saw on the road that this was true.

Did you feel a certain sense of validation, then, when Ava DuVernay picked up Mississippi Damned for distribution?

We have to remember that, as a film community, we’re in this together. Those are the times that I do admire people like Ava DuVernay, people who don’t necessarily wait to be invited to your table. They say, “To hell with it—I’m going to build my own table.” I think that is a beautiful thing and a very brave thing to do. I think more people should have that mentality. You can’t just wait for acceptance or an invitation. What are you going to do in the meantime? You can’t wait for someone to value your work or bless it by saying that it’s worthy to be seen. No. Go after it. Do it. Keep doing it. Don’t wait on someone else. Their validation is not what’s important. Do you feel good about the work that you created? Do you believe in it? If you don’t believe in it, no one else is going to. You’re going to have to live with that baby for a long time, and I’ve been living with Mississippi Damned for a very long time.

A lot of people are pushing for greater visibility in terms of race and gender and sexuality in the film industry. What is mainstream cinema to you right now, and how do you think you’d like to approach changing it?

I want to take stories that are on the outside, that people have either silenced or ignored, and give a voice to the disenfranchised. I want to give them a vehicle for their voice to speak. Sometimes, growing up, I was like, “Where’s my story? I don’t see my community or my geographical area on screen.” I personally waited for years for that movie to come out before I realized, “You can be the filmmaker to do that. You can help bring attention to the stories that you think have no visibility. You can be the one to tell those stories.” What I mean by bringing these stories into the mainstream is doing exactly what we’re doing with Mississippi Damned now on Netflix—that’s the mainstream . . . For me, it’s just about taking the silenced voices and putting them into an arena where a vast variety of people can consume that product.

Your voice is obviously being heard now, with the release of Mississippi Damned, but who are some of the other independent filmmakers people should be paying attention to right now?

There are so many. We should continue to support Ava DuVernay, especially as she’s moving to television now [with Queen Sugar]. Dee Rees, too. These are all the voices that were coming up together on the independent film circuit. I want to see what Cheryl Dunye is doing next. Gina Prince-Bythewood—that woman is the reason I’m even doing films. Without Love & Basketball, I would be in law school. Before I saw her film, I didn’t realize it was possible for a woman to direct a movie, and that’s a shame. I also look up to Julie Dash. I know [these women have] been doing stuff for so long and not getting a chance to really get it out to the mainstream, but to even have a woman directing theatrical films [is an accomplishment]. And so many more are here. We’re moderately moving ahead. We can’t do this by ourselves—we’re moving forward as a huge unit.

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