Claudia :)

Typically asexuals don’t have protection to begin with (we are recognised partially in two countries as of 2025, may have updated since then but doubt it) so we aren’t included.

This is the first case of “asexual acts” being criminalised.

It’s illegal not to have sex?

Is it illegal not to have sex for religious reasons now? Such as a nun or priest?

Not only that; but the laws (if there are any) around consent have just been demolished. A man could now accuse a woman who won’t sleep with him of “asexual acts”, resulting in prison time. They might have a strict “not before marriage” faith/law, but don’t tell me someone won’t do this.

Do you think she felt a pitching, gut-wrenching horror when she realized that he was alone?

Do you think she thought back to that day that she forced him to go, soothing herself with the reminder that he at least wouldn't be alone, and realized that, no, she not only sent him to his death but she sent him utterly alone with two corpses?

Do you think that she remembered the fact that Grace had always been forcibly alone: ostracized from his communities, humiliated into silence, and realized she was only compounding on that?

Do you think that, upon hearing about Rocky for the first time, she felt a wash of relief rather than wonder or awe or surprise?

cameron: tenor 1

knox: tenor 2

charlie: tenor 1

neil: bass 2

todd: tenor 2

meeks: bass 1

cameron: soprano 1 absolutely. bro is the most annoying and snotty person in choir I fear😔 (soprano 1 specifically bc there is a difference trust)

knox: tenor 1. performative male maxxing. bro can't hit half those notes comfortably.

charlie: hmm probably a tenor but one of those annoying ones that just talks during rehearsal but is actually really good

neil: bass, he's chill like that

todd: he gives such alto vibes

meeks: alto as well, one of those people that marks down every single thing in their music to the point where you can't decipher it

he has a few records at home, classical ones that he listens to while he studies. they get repetitive and tiring. however, his favorite section at the store is the jazz one, the ones full of miles davis and bud powell and nat king cole. he loves sitting in the vinyl listening booths, the headphones too big for his ears, and sampling jazz songs from every vinyl he can get his hands on.

one day, he decides he's going to save up for a jazz record of his own. for a month straight, he delivers newspapers and collects the little birthday money he gets and even tries babysitting his neighbor's kids for about a day. when he finally counts his money up and realizes he has enough, he walks into the record store with a jar under his arm, practically glowing.

he spends about an hour deciding until he finally decides on duke ellington plays the blues. a classic. he dumps his jar out on the counter, coins spilling everywhere, and eventually walks out of the store with a record and an empty jar and a full heart. he feels the happiest he's ever felt in his full 8 years walking home that day.

the moment he gets home, he runs up to his room and takes the classical record off the player and swaps it out for duke ellington. much better. he sits on the floor tapping his foot along to the beat and trying to hum along to each of the different instruments. the only problem is, he doesn't hear when the front door swings open and his father's keys are hooked up by the front door. he doesn't hear the footsteps coming up the stairs. in fact, he barely even hears his father until the record stops.

before he knows it, his prized record, the one he'd spent his hard earned money collected over a month on, is being ripped out of the record player and thrown straight in the trash. he fights back tears. he can't cry. he really can't. the moment his father leaves the room after going on an entire rant about how jazz music is "poisoning the new generation" and "too modern and radical" and a lot of other things cameron doesn't understand, he hurries to the trash can and pulls out the record. it's got a scratch on the side of it from being pulled out of the record player, and it's not salvageable even if he tried. he cries himself to sleep that night, his small body shaking with sobs, and when he wakes up in the morning, his records and record player are gone from his room.

richard cameron who is freshly fourteen, going into his first year at welton. he's never been more scared for anything in his life. he has a precisely packed suitcase trailing behind him as he steps through the doors of welton, feeling tiny and insignificant in the large building around him. he makes his way to his dormitory, the map clenched in his hands, and almost cries when he realizes his parents are going to leave him alone. not that he'd rather spend the year with his parents. just that he'd rather be anywhere else than here.

he says goodbye to his parents and starts to unpack his stuff, trying his best not to roll his eyes at the mess his roommate has already left behind. he gathers his stuff to go down to dinner, only he hears a strange noise as he's walking through the hallways. something he hasn't heard in years. a saxophone. and piano. even an impromptu tapping on the table that resembles drums. he stops and looks in the window, and there's a small group of boys, playing jazz. and for some strange reason he suddenly feels right at home. especially when he realizes the saxophonist is none other than his (albeit annoying) roommate.

richard cameron whose heart breaks when his first real friend dies. he sees his play, and, all of a sudden, he's never coming back. none of his friends tell him, and instead he has to find out at the school-wide assembly. all he feels is anger and hurt and isolation as he gets his roommate expelled and his teacher fired and destroys the lives of everyone around him in the process. he feels nothing but empty as he packs up his stuff and doesn't dare look back at the school and forces polite smiles to his parents as they ask him questions on the drive back home.

summer begins, and he thinks he's starting to go stir-crazy in that house. he stays up way too late and only gets a few hours of sleep before his dad wakes him up and moves his food around on his plate at breakfast and burns up his heart from the inside. his mom is out one day at her book club that's mostly gossip, and his dad is working late, and he remembers something. for just a moment. his record player is in the attic. he'd stumbled across it once in the middle of the night when he couldn't fall asleep and it felt too stuffy to breathe in his room.

he's not really sure what he's doing, but he gets out of his bed and gets dressed and puts his shoes on and takes his little bit of spending money leftover from the school year. he traces the path he's taken a million times before, down the sidewalk to the record store, which hasn't changed much in the years he'd spent away. it's less busy, meaning cameron can make a beeline for the jazz section at the back, flipping through the familiar stacks of records. he doesn't remember much, and he doesn't know any of the newer ones, so he chooses one at random and uses most of his money to buy it at the front counter. he walks back to his house with change in his pocket and a record tucked closely under his arm and a heart that's been burned to ashes long ago.

when he gets back home, he takes the record straight up to the attic, leaving the stairs down behind him. his father will kill him. see if he cares. he blows the dust off the old record player and pulls the new one out of its plastic sleeve and sets the needle down. it takes a second, but it works, and music starts to flow from the record player, filling the attic with sound cameron hasn't heard in years. he lays down on the attic floor and rests his head next to the record player, feeling every drum beat and note from the saxophone and piano chord throughout his entire body.

and for the first time since his first real friend, the one who'd made sure he felt included, died, he cries. he lets the tears run down his face and leave tracks in the dust on the wooden floor and his body shakes with sobs and his head aches and his eyes sting and his nose is too stuffed up to breathe, but for once he doesn't care. he doesn't think he cares about anything anymore. except the music playing next to him and the steady rhythm that he can practically feel in the floorboards and the forgotten memories weighing on him.

he's always loved too much the things he's not supposed to.