@shit-hit-the-fan
here. i'll send yours when you reply to this post
Prompt: "Why?" [pronouns here] cried. "Why are you helping a monster?"
a/n: guys i’m sorry this is so bad, i promise i tried.
Darkness slowly peeled away from the edges of [name]’s vision, and a dingy light assaulted them in its place. She reaches up to rub her eyes tiredly, mistaking the dimness for the usual dark light of her bedroom.
She is restrained, however, shackled to the wall, and the metal is cold against the soft skin of her wrists. She doesn’t know why she’s here or how she got here until memories start to wheedle their way into her mind.
Her best friend’s hands pressed firmly against a white cloth, holding it to [name]’s mouth. The smell of chloroform works its way into [name]’s nose, and she blacks out without a second thought.
[name]’s eyes widen, and panic drowns her, pooling in her eyes. She thrashes desperately against the cement wall but to no avail. She only succeeds in injuring herself further than the dark, bloody scratches pockmarked throughout her body.
Of course, the door chooses this time to swing open, revealing two figures, one easily recognizable as [name]’s best friend. At least, she was once. [name] thought drugging your best friend and chaining her to a wall qualified as a good enough reason for a bestie breakup.
The other figure, however, was tall and lean, vaguely masculine. As this figure steps into the light, his features are revealed. [name] knew this face. She had seen it in her nightmares. Her father. Her father, who hurt her over and over and over.
[name] had escaped him though. She was sure of it. She went to the country to teach. Yes, that’s where she met her best friend. She had been free.
Now she was anything but.
“Just as toothless as ever, I see.” It’s [bff/n]. Her voice is a sharp stab to the gut, and tears well up in [name]’s eyes. But she doesn’t let them spill.
“Just as bitchy as ever, I see.” She bites back, her sadness growing teeth and claws. Her father's eyes darken as he watches the exchange. He strides over to [name], each step purposeful, and slaps her straight across the face. Her head snaps to the side, hair hanging over her face.
The teeth and claws don’t sheath. [name] glares up at her father, storm clouds bruising her face darkly.
[bff/n] laughs, high and cold.
Thoughts are swirling wildly in [name]’s head, and she backs down again. She knows she shouldn’t, but she’s honestly so broken. She doesn’t know what to do. And so, she looks up, ignoring her father, and asks the question burning in her mind.
“Why?” she cried, “Why are you helping a monster?”
[bff/n] struts toward [name], and bends down to her ear. “Because I’m one too.” She whispers darkly.
Fear fills [name]’s eyes, as the person she loved most and the person she hated most walk out of her prison, together.
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Whinging about my extremely subjective dissatisfaction with the Constantine in the Sandman show. Like. Super subjective and I know that, but rambling into the abyss is how I get things out of my head so there can be more room in there.
Anyway yeah, permission to scroll past and ignore me lol.
Johanna Constantine doesn't even have a trench coat (or blond hair). I was trying so hard not to be Super Gay for John Constantine about my dislike for Johanna, but that fucking pea jacket. No. I refuse. She's okay - the actress is good and I'm not salty enough to say otherwise - but Johanna's not Constantine and I'm not happy about it.
Everything else in this show (Sandman) is so fucking cool too. I'm just pissy because I'm too gay for John and not gay enough for Johanna (look I'm a demiboy and anyone I like is basically someone I'm gay for to me).
God the pea jacket. It's not actually a pea jacket, tho. It's worse in my heart. Why couldn't she be Constantine in the trench coat? Why she gotta be, what?, stylish? Fuck off, give me the rumpled button up and loose tie and stupid trench coat.
I don't need her to be John, per se. But the lack of trench coat is salt in the wound of the. The. The not being John.
I just want that stupid trench coat I think. I'm emotionally attached to it.
Keanu Constantine pleases me more than Johanna. At least he had that silly black trench coat. *huffs*
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thinking abt like. there's so much fiction out there that makes me feel bad! sometimes really deeply bad! and like, in many many cases i could present a whole argument abt how it makes me feel bad bc it's pressing on bruises inflicted by some systemic prejudice that has deeply wounded my psyche—and that argument would be true!—and still i don't want that fiction erased from existence, or modified to suit my taste, or anything else that enacts my will on it, rather than the artist's and the artist's alone; i don't even want the artist erasing it because my argument ultimately convinces them it's Bad! produce a revised edition of it, fine; stick an asterisk or other warning on it, fine; but i still want the original to be available somewhere, because i don't want to be responsible for blotting creation out of existence. even when it's a creation i hate, i don't think that should be my place (or indeed anyone's).
mind you, i absolutely do want to feel that i've got somewhere i can analyze/vent about fiction like that, and people who will take my analysis/venting both seriously and sympathetically;
and i want fiction to exist that doesn't make me feel bad;
and i definitely shouldn't have to put up with discussions around fiction in which fellow discussants further express a prejudice towards me, or justify it, or whatever;
but it just seems so obvious to me that a world where framing yr discomfort with a work of fiction in sufficiently sympathetic (victimized) terms leads to its deletion [not that i think this is what all leftists who complain abt offensive fiction are looking to have happen! but i do get the impression that at least some of them might be?] is a frightening world—
a world where, to choose a sufficiently sympathetic (victimized) example, authors who have themselves been harmed by prejudice become unable to explore the workings of that prejudice in their fiction, unless they're doing it in a way that's unambiguously, didactically condemnatory—isabel fall is the obvious example here, but i'm thinking also of all the women and transmasc authors who write fic that, quite frankly, eroticizes misogyny and abuse of power, and how sometimes i think stories like that are hot and sometimes i don't feel particularly strongly about them one way or the other and sometimes they leave me furious or fucked up or both! but like. even when i hate it, even when it offends me not as a matter of abstract principle or allyship but right in my own personal gut—i still do feel that people have to be allowed to write, and to publish, fiction that strikes me personally as being in bad taste!
because the minute you let anyone's taste dictate what's allowable to express, even if it's leftist taste, you're going down a bad road; it's like saying monarchy can be a good system as long as the monarch is a good person. no! because (a) no system that relies on good actors to be good is a good system; and also because (b) no one who's happy to have power over others is actually a good person! [that's an awfully strong statement and i'm open to the idea that it may have some asterisks, but like. as a general rule: cincinnatus or bust.]
and similarly i feel like. if you personally want not just to critique other people's fiction—valid and good and i do it all the time—but to crush it out of existence because it expresses an ideology you may not (i may not!) like? i don't trust you. i think you're trying to substitute pain for principles, and like. i have huge sympathy for pain! i live with a lot of my own! but pain doesn't actually, in itself, necessarily constitute good moral guidance—it can lead you towards valuable sensitivity that helps people we should care about, but it can also lead you towards impatient reactivity that harms people we should care about; and ultimately it's thinking abt our pain, imo, not the pain itself, that steers us towards the former outcome and away from the latter.
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censoring the name so it doesnt show up in searches bc its not my intent.
so i read the 1-6 of h/eartstopper online the other night because i was pretty sure i couldn’t actually watch the show and its free online. it was fine i think it definitely had a target audience that wasnt me, and if it had come out 10-15 years ago i’d have eaten it up.
i was right that i wouldn’t be able to watch it, it’s too… teenagery? and i just can’t get through that kind of thing for various reasons that have grown stronger as ive got older. its similar in a way to my inability to watch my / mad /fat diary - i never finished it because it was just… too much
the online version was a nice read, quite predictable (not in a bad way) and i think it was written in a way that was very appropriate for the characters?
it definitely reminded me of being a teenager but.. idk. i think theres a level of sadness associated with my teen years that makes things like this too difficult. the whole premise of found family is too intertwined with negative feelings for me (in the range of longing & jealousy & desire rather than anything else) and i just can’t quite deal with seeing people getting that.
ive watched a few clips of s2 on twit,ter that have come up and theyre sweet but im absolutely solid i couldn’t watch it. which is a little shame, but im not too disappointed - i think because i never expected to watch it. i am really glad it exists though. i hope 15yo queer kids can watch it and see their reflection in it. (and beyond 15yo but. thinking about myself.)
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