#bellarus

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience? oh boy. well the short answer is a capital-Y Yes. we were just speaking about emo lashton! the third one, aka i know that you're so afraid, was written after i had a really really awful day and pretty much embodies how i was feeling that day (the screaming/crying/destruction of property bit), though i did not do any of those things. also acappella 'verse (excluding the merrikat fic unfortunately) is HEAVILY influenced by personal experience in fact probably moreso than most of my other fics - the second one where they drop a single was written literally the night that my acappella group released our first single so it is like. Extremely Real Life. obviously jewish cake aka ha'ahava hazot shelanu is Very Very inspired by my personal experience, some chapters more than others, by which i mean the ones with the families lmao. brazil fic is inspired by personal experience though that one is a lot more "inspired by" than "taken directly from" because i lived there i wasn't just a visitor and also i never went to maracanã or like. did most of this stuff. but the location of the hotel is on a road i have actually been on many times and the pizza place they go to was one of my favorite places to eat so there's that. and the lashton sequel of brazil fic (you should have seen that sunrise) is based on a time when i actually went to pedra do arpoador and watched the sunrise, though for me it was with my family and it was on rosh hashanah hdflkgjdlksj.

i wrote this fic you should know i'll be there for you for jess where ashton misses his siblings and more specifically laments not being there for his sister when her gerbils die which was like a canon divergent version of me actually being present for when my sister's gerbils died. that's one. also wrote a cashton prompt fic where, again, ashton misses his siblings, are you detecting a theme here? i project basically all of my homesickness onto ashton because he's the only one with younger siblings. but those feelings are very personal and authentic. AND LASTLY: this jalex prompt fic where jack drives the wrong way on clara barton parkway is directly inspired by a time when i drove the wrong way on clara barton parkway and it was, in fact, one of the most terrifying moments of my life. okay i have to stop now because i've basically written you a novel answering this question and i could probably keep going. in short (lmao): yes. many.

E: If you wrote a sequel to t-shirt jalex, what would it be about? i actually know the answer to this!! the plan for the next t-shirt jalex fic, god willing lmao, is to write one where jack meets some of alex's students. i just really wanna see it happen. also, one day maybe i'll write their wedding, but like...that's a big Maybe since i have never been to a wedding that i remember well enough to write and i don't know shit about them especially non-jewish ones lol

L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting? i saw taylor answer this and i agreed very strongly with what they said. for shorter fics, especially when they're written on a whim (which i haven't done in a long time, excluding halloween fic event for which that was not supposed to happen), i'll read over it once or twice when it's done and do final edits and then just post it. for longer fics, like for example so damn familiar, i reread it almost every time i opened the doc, and whenever i'd finish a scene i'd go back and reread it and then probably reread it again. this serves a dual purpose though, because while it is good for editing, i also just...really enjoy my own writing lmao. and i will also add that i have not finished editing so damn familiar like before i post every chapter i go back and reread it and make small final changes so i can be sure that when i'm rereading it after it's posted there's nothing that makes me think "damn it i wish i had changed that before i posted it." so for short fics, very few, and for long fics, Very Many. i remember when i was writing hello hello i reached a point where i wanted to be done writing it so bad but i had to reread the entire thing every time i wanted to continue writing it, to get the vibe, and i was soooo sick of reading it. which is a difficult point for me to reach considering how much i like my own writing so do with that information what you will.

A: How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]? okay i know you said not to answer this one and it's not like i need reason to say MORE but i just wanna put it out there that i do in fact have a google doc entitled "good lyrics for titles" and if i hear a good lyric i throw it in the doc and when i need a title, especially for something short and spontaneous like a prompt fic, that's the first place i look. also on occasion i do listen to music when i write so i can get a title from a song i've heard while writing but a lot of the time i do not just because it's harder for me to concentrate or maintain a vibe while listening to music and in those cases it's convenient to have a doc full of potential titles so i don't have to go hunt down an appropriate song and scour the lyrics. ok that's all.

Me and one other guy ran behind a store, the district was immediately cordoned off from three sides. On the store’s parking lot the Special Police forces were beating up cars, dragging detained people out and making them kneel. We realized that everything’s cut off and we can’t escape, so we jumped into the store’s inner courtyard, it was a closed one. It was this really low courtyard, with closed gates and a fence about 5-7 meters high. The Almaz saw us running there but they couldn’t follow us immediately. We ran towards the back entrance of the store, there was this canopy over it which we could theoretically climb on and jump over the fence. I say to this guy, boost me up and I’ll pull you up after. He boosts me, I jump onto this canopy and it’s metal, there’s no purchase there, so I slide off it right away and fall down, and the Almaz forces already broke down the gate and were running towards us. We realize that we’ve got no time for the second attempt. There were loaders in front of the store’s entrance, we pushed through them and ran inside, and the Almaz were following us with assault rifles through the whole store, and there were customers inside as well, about 20 people or so. We ran to the main entrance, hoping that the Special Forces had detained everyone and were gone and we’d be able to break free somehow. I exit through the main door and see through the glass about 20 Almaz guys there. There were also about 20 people detained, on their knees in front of them, and the Almaz were pummeling them.

Now I think that we could’ve hidden in a trash bin, or run somewhere else. When you’re safe, you think about what you could do and how. But when it looks like they’re hunting you, and they have all these things, and assault rifles, and what can you do, with your backpack. There were columns in front of the store, and I hid behind one of those – there were doors on the left and on the right, and another column, but you’re hidden from two sides out of four. The other guy was caught but they couldn’t find me for about 15 minutes, they were searching the store and looking through everything. The glass doors were covered by promo posters, and there was a clear square of glass on the bottom. I looked into it and saw people kneeling and being brutally beaten. I was visible from a certain level, you had to crouch down to see. The guy who was being beaten looks at me and then he collapses (from the hits – The Project). The police were beating them and I was there thinking, please, let them not find me, and I’ll leave in an hour through the warehouse. And then the Special Police officer leans over the guy who collapsed to check something, and he raises his head and sees me. Our eyes met and he beckoned me with his hand. And then I realized I won’t escape the beatings.

The prisoner transport vehicle.

All the customers that were in the store were also led out and made to kneel. They were just regular guys shopping, and there were five of Almaz officers over them. To the left of me there were people who were being beaten, and then there’s me between two rows of Almaz guys. I’m exiting the door and I still had my backpack with the paints on, I somehow never thought about discarding it, I hoped I’d be able to escape somehow until the last moment. So I exit, and there are about 20 people there in front, and the Special Police throw us all on the ground, and my backpack was thrown there too, but they didn’t know it was mine. They came by and started asking whose was it. One of the policemen opened it and saw the masks and the gloves and the paints inside, and he said – hey, this must be some of the organizers. So he asked whose backpack that was. I just thought “well, fuck”. I don’t know what they’re gonna do if they find out that the backpack’s mine, so I’m just lying there. They were beating us this whole time, but after this question they started beating us again. Then they singled out me and one other guy, and started saying one of us was the owner. The other guy started crying and saying it wasn’t his. They believed him and started beating me because I said nothing.

Then three of them took me away, behind the store, they took out a grenade and said, listen here. We’ll remove the pin and put the grenade down your pants and leave you with your hands tied behind your back. You blow up and we say you blew yourself up on a handmade bomb, unless you admit the backpack is yours. I tell them, no, it’s not mine. They put the grenade down my pants and ran off. But they didn’t remove the pin. Then they came back, started hitting me in the groin, beat me up again and said the backpack was mine. I was carrying it with my teeth. When they lead you towards the prisoner transports, they just beat you casually, you do what they ask and they still beat you, it doesn’t matter what you do.

They lead us to the prisoner transport, loaded us in. They were calling me “the dauber” because I had paint, and they said I’ll be getting special treatment. At first they beat me up in that transport. There were about 20 people inside, people lying on top of each other, unable to move. The ones on the bottom had trouble breathing, there was one guy with asthma and he was saying that he couldn’t breathe. The Special Police Force guy stepped on his throat and said “so die, we don’t give a fuck about you”.

When they got me out of the prisoner transport, there was this girl, she also had paints on her, so they spilled the paint on the ground and were shoving her face into that puddle of paint. The girl’s face was all covered in paint. There were girls as young as 18 there. The police weren’t beating them as badly, so the girls could raise their heads and bring attention to people who were suffocating. One of the Special Police Force guys came to one of the girls when she yelled that someone was suffocating and he started shouting at her, like “shut up you whore, you were protesting”. Then they partially shaved her head and she started screaming. The police were calling the girls whores, telling them that they’d throw them into prison cells with guys to be raped and then they’ll abandon them in a forest. They were pressuring them that way. The guys they just beat up so badly they couldn’t move.

I didn’t have anything on me, no phone, no IDs, but the people who had phones were all made to unlock them. If they refused, they were beaten up and their phones were broken. There was a guy who didn’t want to unlock his phone, so the police undressed him and told him they’ll rape him with their batons (the rubber ones – The Project). He unlocked his phone and they started looking through it, through the channels he was subscribed to. They were somehow on the lookout for non-Belarusians, and if you weren’t Belarusian, they beat you up even more brutally. There were some foreign students with us, unrelated to the protests, they were just in that store. The police beat them up even more. The police had a weird hangup – they would ask you where you were from, and if you said “Minsk”, they’d beat you up again and say “you have to say Hero City Minsk” and they wouldn’t stop beating you unless you said it that way. All the detainees learned that fast.

Then they lead us to this prisoner transport with four Special Police guys. They made us lie on the floor face down and they started beating up our legs, from two sides, with their batons. I thought they fractured something, because my legs were beaten black and blue. You can’t walk after that, you don’t even walk, you crawl, and they still beat you and beat you, and then they take you to the common prisoner transport which is already filled to the brim and ready to go. The police walked all over us, they put 20 people in there, on top of each other, and the police were walking all over the people, they didn’t step on the seats that were on the sides there, they were stepping on people, right on you. They made sure to step on your throat, to kick you. Then they drove us to “Stela” (a district in Minsk – The Project), they had some kind of transfer hub there for all the people they’ve detained. They drove us there, and they made us run the gauntlet, there were about 40 Special Police guys and you walk by them and they all beat you, you can’t even raise your head and if you do, they’ll hit you harder. Then they lead us to this bus, “sotka” (a public transport bus that the police uses to transport the detainees – The Project), where you get to be beaten up more. I collapsed near that bus because my legs were hurting too bad, and my hands were tied with these plastic zip ties. They hurt your hands, my hands went numb almost right away, and you can’t complain about it because if you do, the police will make sure it will only get worse. If my hands hurt, they’d hit my hands. They wanted to remember whose backpack with paints it was, but we were all lying on top of each other and everyone was in paint by that point. One of the Special Police Force officers said “ok, we’ll just beat them all up again”.

Then they took me by my hands and my feet, swung me around and threw me into that bus. I fell down. They told me to crawl and I tried to crawl as best as I could with my hands behind my back. And of course, when you crawl slowly, they beat you.

They have two kinds of batons, rubber ones, and the ones with a metal core inside, the officers have those, supposedly because they use it more carefully to not deal permanent harm. I was lying in that bus, I did what they told me, I didn’t move. I understood that when they beat you, you can’t actually raise your head and say “I object”, they’d fucking kill you then. I was lying quietly among other people and then he came to me, that police guy with a metal baton, stepped on me and started hitting my head with that metal-core baton. After a few hits my head was ringing, I didn’t even feel anything anymore, it was like vacuum. He probably split my head then, but I didn’t feel it, I couldn’t understand that. Then he just left and I was buried under other people. You lie there and you suffocate, but you also feel the people on top being beaten, and you can’t understand what’s worse – to be suffocating on the bottom, or be beaten up on the top.

Then there was another prisoner transport and another gauntlet where they beat you up more. There was this prisoner transport with the capacity for three people, and they put 10 people there, we were all squashed against each other. I was pressed to the wall and only then I saw my blood and realized my head was wounded. There were so many people, no air, I was starting to faint. Other guys started screaming that there was a person with split head who was losing consciousness, so they’d take me out, but the police just replied they don’t give a fuck. We rode in that thing, you can’t sit there so you have to stand, and in one moment I just slid on top of another guy and pressed my shoulder on his chest. He couldn’t breathe properly and also started bringing attention to me being unconscious, I could hear it and tried to get away, but you’re throwing up and you’re suffocating and your head’s split. When we arrived at the detention center at Okrestina street, I just fell out, unconscious, and the police officers said “that’s one done for”, and dragged me to some patch of grass. They didn’t touch me then because I was all bloodied. They stood over me trying to decide if I was dead or not. One asked “what, is he dead?” and the other replied “nah, seems to be alive”. They stood like this for a while and then left.

The detention center.

The rest of the people they detained were made to kneel and they were beaten up again before they were taken up inside (the detention center – The Project). I was conscious and could hear what was going on around me, everyone was screaming. I was lying there, a woman from an ambulance came up to me, she noticed I was conscious but she told the police I was not. They didn’t touch me anymore, I spent an hour in the detention center’s courtyard, I could hear a lot of people being brought over and the police said they were the organizers. Not the protests organizers, but the elections watch. And every activist or watcher was marked with red paint and beaten up especially cruelly. They mark you with red paint like a target. I think those people were taken away to be tortured. A medic came up to me and she told me it’s going to be okay. I started convulsing, they thought I was having a fit, and then finally the ambulance arrived. The police was trying to keep me there till the end, they were saying I was faking it, they were pushing me around, tore off my bracelet. The ambulance agreed to take me because my head was split. I felt joy then, for my split head, I was lucky, because this was a torture chamber.

The medics took me and they started asking me what has happened. They were swearing and accusing those police officers and they kept telling me that it’s going to be okay. They asked me to stay quiet because there was a local medic in the detention center who was too cruel and he could keep me there. The police officers asked for my surname, but I was pretending to be unconscious then so I didn’t reply, and I had no ID on me. They just shrugged it off, like, okay, an unknown person. I started begging the medics to take me home, I begged them not to take me to the hospital – I was afraid it would be a military one. The medics told me they’d take me to a safe hospital, where the police won’t be able to take me from. By morning they got me home from that hospital.”