#(I hope this works! Since no verse was specified I picked one instead)

[morethanaprincess-a]

Closed starter for @hxpelessnurse​ !

Second Anniversary Starter Call - Accepting from mutuals!

With a sharp tug on the damp cotton sheet, Sonia had to wonder how much she was actually helping or, more likely, she was simply trying to stay out of the way. Jabberwock Island, the real Jabberwock Island, was free of murders but in their places there was plenty to do to keep it running. Virtual reality saw to their meals, their chores, even the hospital where some of them had succumbed to the Despair Disease. But in reality, the Future Foundation left the general day-to-day tasks of the island to the five survivors, adding to their ranks as their friends were revived.

Out of necessity, they'd decided to revive Teruteru Hanamura and Mikan Tsumiki first: they needed to eat and they needed the former Ultimate Nurse, someone with the skill and training to assist the others as they were revived from their comas and their bodies began to heal. Until Mikan's revival, the hospital had been assigned to Sonia's care due to her first aid experience from her military training (and that leaving her in the kitchen or near the carpentry tools were recipes for disaster). But while she cut new strips of and cleaned bandages, saw to fresh linens, and took note of the medical supply stock, Sonia felt rather useless. Her friends needed something between a qualified caretaker and a qualified therapist, and she was in no position to be either. Hell, she needed such help herself, seeking out an array of Future Foundation-approved media to pair with non-Future Foundation-approved beverages to numb her pain.

But she showed up on time for her hospital shifts. That, for Sonia, was non-negotiable.

With a sigh, she reached up to affix the last clothespin to the crisp, white bedsheet. She'd managed to bleach the bloodstains out, left over from one of her friends scratching at themselves (or so she'd guessed. It took three of the Future Foundation members to restrain them as they didn't trust the former princess in the presence of gaping wounds, considering her already fragile mental state). Now, all that was left was for the clean hospital linens and bandages to dry out in the afternoon sun while she went about the next task assigned to her.

"Mikan-san," Sonia addressed her, stepping back through the door leading out to the garden and the makeshift clothesline before sliding it shut. "The sheets, towels, blankets, and bandages have all been hung to dry. What should be done next?"

[hwrryscherry]

The one where the reader is a singer

characters: HARRY x SINGER!Y/N

blurb: The reader is finishing up her brand-new album and as Harry comes to visit her on her last day of working in the studio, he gets to react to one of her songs, 34+35.

word count: 1.9K

author's note: HI GUYS! It’s been a week I think? Anyway, I’ll get back to school tomorrow so idk when imma post the next request but I’m hoping that it will be soon! Anyway, I want to thank y’all for the love and support on my writing and I hope that the anon who asked this likes it as much as I did. Never forget that you’re so golden and tpwk. AND ALSO, HAPPY 27TH BIRTHDAY TO HARRY!

    You took a deep breath right after asking for the track to be played again. To everyone else the track was perfect, but it was different for you. It just felt like something was missing and you didn't know what. And god, you were tired. You were so genuinely exhausted that if you sit up in a chair and stay silent for more than five minutes you'll simply fall asleep. You felt your eyes heaving at every blink of yours and it was only 5 pm, but you were in this studio for so long. You were inside this place for 36 hours now with no shower and no sleep. You did eat but now you were hungry again.Your shoulders were tensed up, and you couldn't feel comfortable anywhere. Not in the couch, not in the chair, not in the floor and not even stand up. All you genuinely demanded right now was to be home under your bed sheets curled up with your boyfriend of four years while taking many naps or watching many movies, but no, you needed to have this done. You needed the album to be done and were extremely thrilled to release it to your fans that were excited as well. But yes, you were so frickin' tired.

— Again... — You repeated after a long and sharp breath listening to some groans from your coworkers. You all have been listening to this one song for about an hour and a half now and you haven't actually changed anything yet. — I know, I know, and I'm sorry guys, it's just not right!

— Maybe you think it's not right, but it is and you're just making a huge deal about it. — One of your co-workers said. A girl, Lucy, one of your friends as well. You turned your head to stare at her face and gave her that glaze that made her shrug her shoulders because of it — Alright, I'm sorry.

— I'm not making a huge deal. It's just not right, and I feel like the entire album is so great and this is just wrong. Like... — You said standing up from the couch you were sitten in and walked to the table with the computers on to grab the one paper you used to write this song. You stared at it in your hands for a while as you read the letters. — See, here is the problem. So here it's "you drink it just like water" and then suddenly comes "so what you doin' tonight?", it doesn't make sense, there's something missing in here. — You go through the lyrics again as you hear more groans from the people in the room — And honestly, I'm disappointed with myself for the rest. I need to change it so badly, but I have no idea on how.

— No problem, love — You naturally said referring to his previous apologies.

   That's when you hear the sound of the door being opened. You rise your head to look at the door and see Harry, your boyfriend, walking into the room with some paper bags in his hands that contained burgers directly from In-N-Out, which was in fact your favorite Los Angeles burger place ever. He arrived in silence, trying not to make a noise for fear that you were recording something but you could note his surprised expression when he saw everyone was looking at him instead of recording.

— Sorry guys, I didn't want to disturb you. I was passing by and wanted to check up! — Harry said as he closed the door behind him and walked farther into the room. You smiled tenderly when you saw the figure of the man walking closer to you. You haven't seen each other personally in some days, and he consistently secured you so much spiritual peace, he just had such a light energy and it made you feel so good  — And also y’all had been stealing my girl for so long now! — He joked getting a slight laugh from everyone inside the studio. He approached you by wrapping your waist with one of his arms around your waist and sealing your lips together as he bends down a little.

— And Harry, technically she is maintaining us here and not the other way around — Lucy said in an ironic tone causing you to look at her quickly before letting out a deep breath and lowering your head by rubbing your sleepless eyes with the help of your hands, probably a negative result of sleep. Harry reflected the girl's words and then looked at you carefully before placing the bags on the coffee table that was next to the studio sofa.

— Why? What happened? — Harry asked encountering his gaze with yours as he crossed his arms and observed you raising your hand that contained the papers with the lyrics of your new song.

— I can't write a proper ending that I genuinely like! — You said, sounding frustrated to everyone in that room.

— The ending is good! — Another of your friends, Jaden, said as he got up and picked up one of the bags Harry had brought and then started walking again to sit on the sofa.

— Jaden, you in silence is everything to me! — You said in a mocking tone while running your hand through your hair — But you understand, don't you? — You asked Harry because he has experience with such a specific subject — It's not that it's bad, it's that I don't feel like it's ready!

— I get it! But have you already recorded? — Harry asked softly in his understanding tone. He more than anyone in this room comprehended exactly what you were feeling and he would do his best to help you since you did the same with him so many times before.

— Yes, twenty times! — Jaden murmured a little before taking a bite of one of the burgers that Harry had brought. Harry couldn't hold back the laugh when he heard the boy, as they knew each other well and Harry knew all his sassiness was based on nothing more than hunger.

— Let me hear it, so I can have some ideas to help! — Harry said looking at you, and then noticing your reaction. Your eyes widened at the man's request. It wasn't fear. It was just an apprehension and that made Harry extremely curious  — What? 

— Well... It's a little... — You said in a lower tone seeking your words.

— Promiscuous and indulgent! — Lucy and Jaden completed your sentence making Harry look at her and the boy sitting on the sofa and then Harry raised one of his eyebrows and looked at you with a smirk on his lips.

— Uh, is it about me? — Harry asked in a mocking tone, waiting for the answer that would raise his ego, of course.

— Look, let's not specify anything — You said quickly and nervously looking at the smirk on your boyfriend's face — Ok, Trevor, play the song right for the love of god! — You said getting a laugh out of Harry, Jaden and Lucy due to your despair in ending this matter.

    And Trevor did as you asked and put the song on. You sat down on the bench near the wall and crossed your arms while watching Harry's reactions. The soon as the song started everyone could notice your voice and the rhythm of it that matched the beat.

You may think I’m crazy

The way I’ve been craving

If I put it quite plainly

Just give me them babies

    You could notice Harry bouncing his head on the rhythm of the song as a sign that he liked it because you knew that he only did that to songs that he likes. And you also noticed a small smile when he listened to the end of this verse because he did remember all the times you both had talked about having a baby before.

So what you doin’ tonight?

Better say doin’ you right

Watching movies 

But we ain’t seen a thing tonight

    Again you noticed the smirk and you did smirk as well because you both knew the lack of ability that you had to watch any movie that lasted longer than two hours and you almost ended not watching anything.

I don’t wanna keep you up

But assuming can you keep it up

‘Cause then I’d like to keep you up

So maybe Imma keep you up

Boy

    Harry wasn’t looking at you, though. He was looking at the floor while bouncing his head and paying attention to the song as he was trying to catch the vibe of it and honestly you don’t know if it’s the song that had this vibe but he was looking way too hot to handle at this moment.

I’ve been drinking coffe

And I’ve been eating healthy

Know I get squeaky, yeah

Saving all my energy

    Now the chorus was about to start and you were actually excited and nervous to see Harry’s reaction of it. You two have been dating for four years now. He probably understood any little detail of this song more than anyone else.

Can you stay up all night?

F**k me till the daylight

34 35

    You started to hold back your laugh as Harry lifted his head up fastly with winded eyes and a surprised look so he could face you. It wasn’t actually your style to write songs that promiscuous so he was actually surprised at it even though he loved it. He had a smile on his face though and so did you. 

    The song kept playing as the words repeated itself and it stopped just after the second chorus so Harry passed his hands through his hair as you waited for his opinion on it. Honestly, Harry’s opinion about your music is extremely important to you because you cherish and admire him way too much and love his songs so you hope that he does too with yours.

— So... What do you think? — You asked anxiously waiting for his opinion. The truth is Harry had already listened to all the songs on his new album except this one.

— I like it! — Harry said with a smile on his lips making you breathe a sigh of relief — Maybe I can help write the rest, but they really didn't lie and it's great. The beat is good and the lyrics are catchy and everything will be fine. The point, my love, is that you are too worried! — Harry said as he approached you, placing his big, strong hands on your shoulders and massaging them lightly feeling all the tension in your muscles slowly dissolving — Relax, it's amazing! You got it!

   With Harry's help, you finished the song in less than an hour. When you recorded the rest and listened, you felt that now it was ready and now you could go home with him. It was simply incredible to know you could always count on him and to know that while you were together creativity would be present and life wouldn't be boring. After all, you had each other and had the art.

[kenkamishiro]

20210218 Jack Jeanne Creator Interview with Famitsu - Interview #1 with Ishida Sui

The Jack Jeanne staff (Ishida Sui, Towada Shin, Kosemura Akira, Seishiro) were interviewed by Famitsu, a Japanese gaming magazine for Jack Jeanne’s release. Someone was kind enough to let me read it, so I’ll be translating the 4 interviews. The interview with Ishida I’ll do a full TL, and the other three I may do more of a summary since I’ve been busy lately.

Ishida Sui

Creator / Character Designer / Script Supervisor

Mangaka. From Fukuoka Prefecture. Creator of “Tokyo Ghoul” and “Tokyo Ghoul:re.” 2021 marks his 10th anniversary in the art industry.

Characters that were created based on the idea of “personifying plays”

Please share with us how you honestly felt when you received the commission request for this work.

That it seemed kind of questionable but interesting nonetheless. “If others can do it, I can too,” I thought.

How did fans react after Jack Jeanne was announced?

I still get letters from the readers of Tokyo Ghoul to this day, but some of them would bring up Jack Jeanne, or mention that they like a character and are interested in them even before the game’s release, so it makes me happy seeing that reception.

Please share with us your thoughts about being in charge of the character design.

It was a good learning experience because it was something I’d never done while working on my manga, trying to finalize the 6-member cast of the protagonist and the main characters, and then completely focusing on them as an elite squad. I tend to make too many characters, so...

When coming up with a character, how do you develop their image?

Previously, I decided it based on the character’s name and face. But with Jack Jeanne, it was a trial-and-error process. At first, I envisioned each character as a personification of a play - for example, Fumi was modelled off of “Salome”, Yonaga off of “Shintokumaru”, Shirota from one of Yamamoto Shūgorō’s works... I dropped the idea after that...and that’s how they were developed. They were created in a peculiar way this time.

Which character did you have the easiest time drawing, and on the flipside, which character did you find yourself struggling to draw?

Kai was the very first character I created, followed by Fumi. Those two I was able to draw relatively quickly. I wouldn’t really call this a struggle, but Suzu, the one with the red hair, wasn’t part of the main cast of six at first. Ootori, the blond character with the prickly personality, was actually part of the main cast at first, but since I wanted a simple-minded character, Suzu ended up being promoted.

I’m sure you consider every character your favourite, but if you had to pick only one character, who would it be?

Probably the main character Kisa. She embodies everything I think of in a shoujo manga protagonist, and I’m very fond of her. But I really do love all the characters. They each have their own appeal, so I can’t settle on just one.

Was there anything you had to constantly keep in mind when designing the characters for Jack Jeanne?

Broccoli specially requested that I give every character a strong colour palette. It’s because if I’m left to my vices, I end up using only subdued tones...I also constantly kept in my mind that I was making them look good-looking as boys.

You were also responsible for the event illustrations in the game. Could you give more details about them, and any difficulties that you faced?

For the event illustrations, I had to be aware of what scene would best match the script. Towada-san also specified where the illustrations should be inserted, but if there was a better scene before or after it, I gave priority to it instead. The hardest part...was drawing them all by myself. There ended up being more than 160 illustrations.

I heard it was you who requested Touyama Maki to design the chibi characters. Please share with us the appeal of the chibi characters drawn by Touyama-san, as well as your thoughts when you saw the chibi characters in the game.

Touyama-san’s appeal...is that their art is great! The deformed characters are perfectly balanced and outstandingly stable. I’m also a fan of their art and I like their life-proportion-size characters. It’s really cute seeing them move their tiny limbs around on the game screen.

Despite his humble abilities as an amateur lyricist, he oversaw every song with a burning passion that was second to none.

You supervised the game and the script, but what was the most memorable part of working on this game for you?

For starters, I vividly recall talking with Towada-san all the time. It was common for us to spend 10 hours a day talking to one another, several times a week.

How did production handled between the two of you for the script proceed?

I come up with the general outline. I’d talk about the overall flow and the key developments during the meetings, and Towada-san would take that and organize it, adding descriptions and colour to the details. It would have been impossible to create Jack Jeanne without her.

You wrote the lyrics to all the songs, including the opening song “Jack & Jeanne Of Quartz.” Please share with us how you came to be in charge of the lyrics.

Originally, there were several candidates, and there was even one person that I thought, “This person might be the one.” But I realized that it would take an enormous amount of time to share the understanding of my work to them, so I decided to give it a try, thinking that even an amateur would be the best for the job as long as they were passionate.

How did you come up with the lyrics?

I’m embarrassed to say this since I’m a complete amateur, but I tried my best to associate it with the feelings and information related to the subject, and whether it sounded good when sung...at any rate, I did my absolute best.

Are there any verses in the lyrics that you’d like people to pay special attention to, or any phrases that you really liked?

Avu-chan from Ziyoou-vachi (a 4-member rock band) is a friend of mine, but when I met up with her, I had her look at the lyrics, and the part she liked I also ended up liking. It’s the phrase “charcoal night grey” in the opening song. I also like the last two lines of the ending song because they represent the entirety of the game.

What was the most memorable interaction you had with the composer Kosemura-san?

He was professional in that every time, he exceed my expectations in what I wanted conveyed. We also spent about a week together (?) during the recording boot camp for the demo songs, and the time I spent sitting next to him and listening to the same songs was surreal. I couldn’t believe the person sitting next to me wrote the songs that I listened to as a student.

I want readers to like Kisa. A cover illustration filled with strong emotions.

On October 9, 2020 on Twitter, you tweeted, “Makin’ games is hard.” What was it you found difficult?

I was given a lot of decision-making authority as a producer, but since I’m a company outsider, I had a hard time making decisions without seeing the actual situation or making choices in areas where I had no insight. It was a tweet vexed from my inability to understand due to lack of experience. I wish I had more power...

What do you want people to pay attention to when they play the demo version?

I’d like people to pay attention to the fact that the art and script were created by very few people (almost two people), much like an indie game. Something like, “Ishida really drew all these characters!” or “Towada-san really wrote all the script!”...there is more to come in the full version.

You drew the cover illustration for this issue of the magazine, but I’d like to hear more details regarding this.

I drew it while reflecting on how lucky I was, like, “I’m really drawing for the magazine I’ve read since I was a kid...!?” I drew both male and female forms for Kisa, in the hopes that people would come to love the main character.

Please leave a message to your fans and readers who are eagerly awaiting the release of this game.

I made it so that players of all ages and genders can enjoy the game. There is a lot more in store besides just the illustrations. I hope you will play it!

[sherlollydramoine]

Santa’s Cumming

Warnings: Dad!Rami fluff followed by sexy times...  What did y’all expect given the title of this fic?!  Mild language, alcohol consumption and unprotected sex (be smart use a condom)

This was written for @itsme690, I hope this is what you had in mind hun.

Word Count: 3,694

You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped you as you watch your skinny ass husband as he awkwardly makes his way down your stairs dressed as Santa Claus. He was holding a large red bag over his right shoulder. 

“Hey babe, do you need a little help there? That bag looks heavy.”you inquire,as he almost stumbled off the last step, the weight of the bag throwing off his balance and he nearly toppled over.

“No, I think I’ve got it, but damn this bag is heavy. What the hell did you put in here?”

“Rocks, a mountain troll, some more rocks, a horse, maybe a car or two, the entirety of The Shire, maybe some Mordorian goblins, and baby Yoda.” you chuckle as he rolls his eyes. “Naw babe, just the stuff that was on the list that you gave me. I think it was the stuff you said that the kids wanted but their parents hadn’t bought them for Christmas.”

He laughs out, and sighs,”You had me worried. Poor Baby Yoda shouldn’t be in there with all those evil things. Though if I had to put my money on it I’m sure he could beat the goblins all to hell though.” 

You suddenly were overwhelmed with the urge to give him a kiss. He looked so adorable wearing a light sheen of sweat from the stuffy Santa suit and his exertions from carrying the heavy bag down the stairs, you step forward and reach out for him.

“Come here, Mommy wants to give Santa a kiss, even though I thought Santa was supposed to be-” Rami cuts you off mid sentence to capture your lips for a soft kiss, his hands letting go of the bag that just falls to the floor with a thunk. Threading his fingers through your hair deepening the kiss, your bodies starting to melt into each other when you hear someone shuffle their feet and someone clearing their throat. Reluctantly separating you both look towards the source of the noise which was just his brother Sami standing there with a brow raised.

“Sorry to interrupt but, well I’m not sorry, noone wants to walk in here to find you guys having some fun on the stairs. Ram mom wanted me to tell you that it’s starting to get a little late and some of the family is going to have to leave soon.” 

“Be right there.” Rami tells him before bending down to pick up the sack of gifts that he had casually dropped during your impromptu make out session.

“Hey babe, you might want to adjust the front of your pants a little, they are um, yeah.”you mention with a smirk before heading into the living room.

Rami takes a few moments to collect himself before heading into the living room himself, walking in with a bellowed,”Ho! Ho! Ho!”

The kids all begin shrieking with excitement, eyeing the big red bag that Rami had in his hands as the adults are trying and failing miserably to contain their laughter at the sight of Rami’s skinny ass dressed in a Santa suit that is too big for his lithe frame. 

Chaos ensued as the kids were excitedly crowding Rami, trying eagerly to get at his red bag that held what they assumed were all the goodies that they wanted. Watching Rami verses several children was hilarious, as he struggled to bring order to the excited shrieks and shouts from the kids. Fortunately one of Rami’s cousins steps in to keep him from being trampled by the kids as she instructs them all to take a seat in front of the tree, and to sit quietly to which they all quickly complied, even though they were all still squirming.

The moment was so pure that you couldn’t help it, you find your phone and load the camera before snapping a few pictures. Several other family members were doing the same thing all wearing goofy, happy smiles.

“Well kiddos, I’ve heard that you’ve all been good this year, so Rami-Claus is here to deliver some presents early on behalf of the big guy!” 

Several of the adults snorted at his use of the ‘Rami-Claus’ and you leaned into Sami’s shoulder, “Did he seriously just call himself Rami-Claus?”

Sami just smiled as he nudged your shoulder trying to hold back the laughter himself. You couldn’t help but beam at your husband as he somehow managed the gift giving portion of the night. It seemed as if the kids were never going to calm down after this, as things temporarily became a flurry of activity, with kids shrieking and shouting, running around to show their parents their new gifts. 

You spot Rami sitting on the floor next to your three year old daughter Layla helping her to unpackage whatever new toy she had received. When Rami gave you the list he didn’t specify what was for who so you had no idea. He insisted on wrapping and tagging everything himself.

“Momma look!” your seven year old son Said shouted as he made his way over to you clutching a bright yellow looking box to his chest. 

“Hey Bubba, what did you get from Daddy?” 

“I got more Legos! I think La got a new doll or something boring. She was really excited about it though she doesn’t really need any new dolls she already has a million of them.”

 You chuckled and ruffled his wild hair as you responded,”You don’t need more Legos either kiddo, don’t you already have a million of them?”

He just laughed at you as he flounced away towards one of his cousins, probably trying to coax them into building with the Legos.

Rami eventually made his way back to you holding your three year old, as she tightly clutched onto her new doll. Leaning over you gave him a quick kiss before taking her out of his arms as he turned to talk to his brother about something.

“Hey La, what have you got there?”

“I got a new baby just like the one you told Auntie Lindsey on the phone that you were gonna have” she said matter of factly, as you set her on the ground.

Rami stopped mid-conversation with his brother, obviously having heard your three year old’s statement. He looked shocked and confused. 

“What is she talking about YN?”

Your cheeks flush with embarrassment of having been put on the spot as you let out a little nervous laugh. 

“I guess our La pays more attention to my phone conversations than I thought she did. She was playing and I didn’t think she heard me. But,ummm..Damn.. Well it was supposed to be a surprise for tomorrow but umm.. Yeah, we’re pregnant again. Merry Christmas my love.”

His face broke out into a bright smile as he wrapped you in his arms and planted a loud kiss on your mouth.

“Ewwwwwwwwwww” you heard Said whine from wherever he was playing.

Since your daughter had decided to ruin your big surprise for tomorrow, and in front of Rami’s entire family no less. About an hour later, most of the family had left and those that were still around helped to tidy up. The kids that were still here, were sitting with yours on the couch watching The Grinch on tv. 

His brother decided to take off, but before he left he off-handedly made the comment about how he bets that this time you two will have twins, before giving you both a smile and shutting the front door behind him.

“I swear to God Rami, if your brother just jinxed us I’m going to kick his ass!” 

Your husband sure does love to laugh because that’s what he did, he laughed. You just shake your head and walked away trying to round up your children for a quick late night bath before bed. What you found instead though was both of them snuggled on the couch, covered in Layla’s favorite queen sized blanket, fast asleep. Rami was right behind you, and you heard a little camera click. 

“Who do you want to take?” you asked him.

“I’ll grab Said, you grab Layla.” and then meet me in the garage so that we can get all of the gifts out of there and under the tree.

“Deal. I’ll meet you down here in five.” 

You both gently unwrapped the kids, as he lifted Said into his arms with a soft grunt. Your son was growing like a weed, and he was definitely getting heavy. Grabbing Layla, and gently lifting her into your arms and wrapping her up in her blanket you get them settled in bed fairly quickly. 

Meeting Rami in the garage as agreed upon, you both set to work laying out all the gifts and the stockings. After all was situated you started turning off the lights downstairs. Rami was right behind you and just when you were about to take your first step onto the stairs you felt his arms snake around your waist. 

“Wait.” he said, as he pulled your body close to his. “We haven’t done our Christmas thing yet. I know you are tired and we both should probably get to sleep, but I just can’t yet. It’s tradition, our tradition and I don’t want to miss it this year.”

You had completely forgotten about you Christmas tradition, you really were tired. Prepping and hosting the Malek clan was always an event that left you exhausted. His family was always helpful though, and whenever they showed up everyone was always willing to roll up their sleeves to help assist in whatever was left that needed to be done.

He pulled you into the living room, and you stood together for a few moments before he spoke.

“I know that talking about being thankful and grateful is something that is done around Thanksgiving traditionally, but we’ve always done this. Do you remember our first Christmas living together?”

You laugh into his chest as you nod your head. 

You had reluctantly agreed to host some of his family at your place, which at the time was still quite small, and in your attempts to go all out you ended up having a full on mental breakdown in the middle of your kitchen. 

You had burned a couple of pies, because your timing had been just a little off, and you accidentally dropped the bowl of mashed potatoes onto the floor which shattered the bowl and sent potatoes everywhere. 

Standing in the middle of the mashed potatoes mess, your were sobbing and trying to clean up the mess while Rami attempted to soothe you. His mom stepped in and gave you a big hug. She told you that it was going to be okay. That sometimes one just has to roll with the punches, especially around the holidays, and that no one would care if all there was to eat was some Chinese takeout. 

You kept repeating that you could still pull off some part of the holiday meal in between sobs, but Rami just took you into his arms and guided you out of the kitchen into the living room, while his mom cleaned up the potatoes. He made you talk about the things that you are grateful for  and in an attempt to be funny your first response was, “Your mom.” 

He laughed hysterically for a solid fifteen minutes before he responded with,”Me too. I’m also grateful for you. You tried your hardest to do this for my family, to make a good impression, and trust me you still will. Noone will care about the food I promise. You should have my mom tell you about the small fire that happened one year that ruined a huge majority of dinner. I love you and am so grateful that you are apart of my life. I honestly can’t envision my life without you in it. I want to make you my wife so that we can have moments like these forever. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Forever. Just you and me and maybe eventually a few kids.”

You stopped crying from where your head had been buried in his chest as you looked up at him and questioned,”Did you just ask me to marry you?”

“I did. You don’t have to give me an answer right away, I wanted to do it in a way that was far more special that this, but if you’ll have me, will you Y/F/N Y/L/N marry me?”

“Yes!!!” you screamed as you wrapped your arms around him, pulling his body close to yours as your lips found his, you were aware that his mother very present, so you did keep the kiss semi-chaste. 

“So my love, what are you grateful for?”

“The same thing that I always am,”Your mom. And you and the kids.” 

“Me too. I’m also grateful for all of the opportunities that we’ve had this year. Yes, my workload has been crazy and I’m grateful for the fact that you have been by my side through all of it. Your hard work and dedication to our family sometimes is underappreciated. I just want you to know how much I love and appreciate the things that you do for all of us. The sacrifices you’ve made for all of us, and I know I don’t say it often enough, but I truly love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. You are the best wife, partner, mother, and the best friend that any man could ever ask for.”

The tears welled up in your eyes, and before you knew you were full on crying. He just pulls you close to him before he gently runs his fingers through your hair. 

“Shhhh.. It’s alright love. Please don’t cry. I love you. I know that you gave up a lot for me, to be there for me. You worked hard for us, especially in the beginning when I was auditioning a lot and getting nothing. You were there. You worked as many hours as it took to pay the bills just so that I could focus more on trying to land a decent paying job. My love, you never blinked when I left for Argentina, you just understood my reasoning for needing to go. You just,you took it all in stride and you never wavered in your faith of me. I am so proud of all you’ve done, and because of your support and look at us now. I finally got us somewhere. My dream became a reality but it was only that way because of you! You! The one that has given her everything to make sure that I had what I needed.” he whispers as his hands gently rub your back.

“You really believe that Rami? I think you got to where you are because you have the talent to back yourself up. Anyone that says otherwise obviously doesn’t recognize talent when they see it and that makes them stupid.”

You could feel his chest vibrate with his laughter. For a minute you couldn’t figure out why he was laughing until you thought back, what you had just said was very reminiscent of some of the things that you used to tell him after he didn’t get a role. 

“I love you Rami, and I’d always do anything for you. Whatever you need or want me to be, that’s who I’ll be.”

“Baby, I don’t need you to be anything but who you are. The beautiful woman I met all those years ago, that I married, that gave me my children. You. That’s all I’ll ever need. Except right now, I do need something from you?”

“What is it?”

“I need a kiss. I’m still wearing this ridiculous costume, and we never got to finish what we started earlier, so I’d like a kiss, if you have one or two to spare.”

You didn’t have to think twice, you just shake your head and then launched yourself at him. It took him by surprise but you held you both in place as you wrapped your legs around his waist. Your lips crashing into his as your hands settle on the back of his neck. 

The kiss deepened as you both let out little hums of pleasure, your hips involuntarily grinding against his body. You barely registered that he had begun walking with your lips still locked, as you ended up on the couch. 

His body weight on top of yours a comforting feeling, as his hands slide their way up your legs and under your dress. He pulled your thighs apart and began to thumb your clit over your panties, which elicited a low moan from you. 

“You’re soaked.”

“Always are for your my love.”

Your fingers found their way to the waistband of his pants, where after some interesting fumbling, you managed to find the belt that was holding his ridiculously too large pants in place. You got his belt loose and that pants just slide their way down his hips, and thighs before pooling at his knees.

You lift your hips for him as he slides your panties down before he takes himself in hand and guides himself to your entrance. With a whine you buck your hips into his as he slides himself into you. 

“God baby. Always so tight for me.” he moans out, ocean colored eyes locked with yours. 

He begins to move slowly at first but after some encouragement from you he begins to move his hips at a much more rapid pace. Neither of you really wanting to take your time. 

Your breathing ragged now, as the sweat is pouring from both of your bodies, a bead of sweat dripping off the tip of his nose. The sound of skin on skin and your moans filling the air. 

“I’m-oh baby-yes-please-please-don’t stop-feels so good” you stutter out as you claw at his still clothed back 

“Rami-God-yes-yes-yes-so close already-Rami I’m gonna-”

His mouth found yours at the right moment, because just as his lips collided with yours your walls clenched around him and you let a scream that may have sounded something like his name. 

This time it was his turn as he simply starts mumbling out,”I'm gonna-I’m cumming!”His abs clenching and his whole body tightened, and he came hard, cock twitching inside of you as he painted your walls with his seed. 

His body falling on top of yours, with your chests still heaving, as he lazily planted kisses on your face, jaw, and neck. Both of you were content to lay there like this all night until you hear a small voice.

“Santa? Why are you kissing my mommy?”

Both of you startled looked up to see your seven year old son standing at the entrance to the living room looking sleepy and confused.

Rami muttered a quiet,”Fuck,” as you let out a small laugh.

“Said baby, it’s just your daddy giving mommy some kisses is all. We came downstairs to see if Santa had come yet, and he did, so we just decided to have a cuddle on the couch. Can you go back to bed and I’ll be up in a minute to tuck you back in okay?”

“Okay.” he said as he headed back to bed.

“Shit how much of that do you think he saw?” Rami questioned. 

“I don’t think he saw anything, but I should probably go upstairs and tuck him back in before he comes back down here.” you laugh, as you pull your panties back up and smooth your dress down over your hips.

“I’ll meet you in the bedroom in a few? If you’ve got anything else left we might be able to get another round in before we have to knock out for the night. You know those two will be up at five and there is no going back back from there.” you state as you lean in to give him another kiss.

“I swear those two aren’t really ours because neither of us are morning people so  how did we end up with two kids that are always up so damn early?”

You just laughed again, you were always laughing with him, and shrugged,”Maybe they are secretly your brothers.”

He just gasped in mock horror, since he knew you were only teasing, and chased after you holding his pants up with one hand just so he could playfully smack your ass.

“That was a naughty thing to say YN, do you secretly have a thing for my brother?” he asks, eyes crinkled with the smile he was wearing. He knows you jest but he can’t help it. Maybe a part of him was actually jealous even though he knew he never needed to be.

“Maybeeeee, I mean it’s hard not too, you both look sooooo much alike. Maybe I got a little confused once or twice.” you tease.

He gasped again before following you up the stairs trying not to trip over his pants.

“Your ass is gonna pay for that. Maybe I need to remind you just who you belong to?”

Keeping the teasing going you quietly say,”Sami.”

He smacks your ass again, and say with a smirk,”Nope. Try again.”

Reaching the top of the stairs he pulls you close to him again, his face buried in your neck as he breathes you in. “I love you but you’re in some trouble YN, and you need to be punished. Daddy is waiting. I’m going to give you a very good reminder of who exactly you belong to so you won’t  ever forget it.”

You brows shot nearly into your hairline as you giggled, wiggled your ass against his crotch and pulled away sprinting towards your son’s room. Just before you opened his bedroom door you turned around to look at Rami and said,”Can’t wait, because you need to prove it, Daddy.”

The look on his face was priceless, he was going into dominant lover mode, and you just issued a challenge to that primal part of him. His eyes darkened and his face set, and it took everything he had to not claim you right then and there. You shot him a wide smile and then opened the door and entered your son’s room to tuck him back in as promised.

Part Two of Santa’s Cumming

@r-ahh-mi​ @xmxisxforxmaybe​ @ramimedley​ @txmel​ @hissom1933​ @mister-owls-cupcake​ @free-rami​ @mezzomercury​ @safinsscar​ @spacedustmazzello​ @itslula1991​ @youthea​ @ladyr0b0t​ @sassystrawberryk​ @itsme690​ @mrhoemazzello​

[illegiblewords]

Explanation of design approach and some personality info under the cut.

Essentially, the way I’ve been approaching this I wanted to make each world feel like a self-contained and cohesive team. Nivienne is actually from Lamia and so isn’t designed to mesh with the others, but I use her a lot and have a design strategy for her so she’s included. For team Famfrit as a whole, I wanted to make sure that each personality and design would feel distinct and that the main color for each character would stand out. Most are also pretty obvious lol--black mage is black, red made is red, white mage is white. Areas I went different are gold dragoon (or aurum dragoon if we’re being fancy), purple scholar, green bard, orange ninja, blue warrior.

CENRIC ASHER

My main and a hyur midlander black mage. With him I wanted to push against the concept that hyurs are inherently vanilla or “boring”. Imo there is nothing wrong with designs that look like they could occur in nature, but with him I wanted to do an edgy personal spin in the classic Final Fantasy black mage look where the character is a dark silhouette with glowing eyes, a high collar, and a broad hat. Sometimes he wears other things too but the overall concept ties to that particular look. In personality Cenric is a pretty angsty guy due to having been a con artist who got a lot of people killed with medical fraud. He lies a lot out of fear of the reaction he’d get if his background was known. Possibly a little nuts, thinks he is the son of Nald’Thal and bound to spread death and destruction wherever he goes--striking enemies and allies alike, regardless of his own wishes. Probably actually just has Duskwight heritage. Has pretty hardcore imposter syndrome about being Warrior of Light, but in partial response to having been destitute and outcast for a long time he tries to play into the persona of a powerful, luxurious, mysterious black mage brimming with forbidden knowledge. In reality he is intimidated by most children, can’t whistle, and is a bit of a smartass when he’s not panicking his way through conversations.

J’MOR TIA

My red mage alt, I wanted to do a few experiments with him! One was that Red Mages usually read very sophisticated and swashbuckle-y to me, and I wanted to play more into the rapier as an almost roguish weapon. Very physical. He’s somebody who you initially would not assume is a magic user but who is just as versed and capable on that front as the ivory tower casters haha. I also wanted to make him a combination of ethnically black (contrasting Cenric who is ethnically Arab but weird) and a male miqo’te because I have never seen that combination before. I wanted him to feel very charming and like he has kind of rugged good looks. Just a bit too scruffy for pretty boy. Personality he is probably the most shonen hero of my alts lol. He has stuff he struggles with (he and his sister both wanted to be adventurers but she opted out after taking things way too far in a fight and getting scared of her own power) but doesn’t get stuck in his head nearly as much as some other characters do.

CESAIRE DELAROUX

I futzed with this guy for a while—main inspiration comes from a particular kind of horse called the Akhal-teke.

Also because I have seen some really cool and pretty elezen that specifically worked to play up gold as a color scheme, and in this case I wanted to evoke a kind of warm, soft golden light. Originally I was going to make him a contrast to Cenric and make him much paler, but I wound up going that route more with Asklona instead with drawing loose inspiration from certain forms of albinism. I went more gold to make sure Cesaire would stand out visually from Asklona. Another reason for this route is because I want to make a character who looks very light and pure, but in practice has hardcore bloodlust. XD Wanted one case for playing into that possible WoL element haha. I also thought it might be neat to make a character who could serve as a kind of foil to Zenos in many ways and might credibly say yes when invited to be besties. Cesaire is still a mostly heroic guy but I figure he’s a bit like Dexter if that makes sense.

KIYO SHIROGANE

An auri white mage from Hingashi! To me it felt a little odd that the Ruby Princess of Sui-no-Sato has more of a magenta color scheme than red. I wanted to tie Kiyo to Kugane specifically in part because I think the parallels between geomancy and white magic (land, sea, sky) are super cool imo, there are a fair number or Raen au ra in Kugane with less lore exploration, and I wanted to make a character whose past trailed behind her in a clear and interesting way while she travels. So for Kiyo I kind of took inspiration from the idea of a red pearl (pearls often being white as per the horns and scales but then she has vivid red hair) and from the idea of blood tied to injury and medicine. Plus ya know, white magic. I also took light inspiration from candles conceptually. I totally forgot that Shirogane is the housing district also lol so now she has backstory lore that her family had been heavily involved in establishing the area. Kiyo comes from a large and noble family with a ton of political and economic influence, being herself somewhat sheltered and naïve. She is very sincere, playful, outgoing, and does her best to be kind. Very animated!

OSK YASKARET

For Osk, I was essentially going (ʘ_ʘ;;) because I knew that I hadn’t used ANY brown hair so far and it was making so uncomfortable lol. So I thought about what combination would be appropriate, distinct, and striking enough to fit within the cast while also being distinct. Gray and brown feel like chinchilla colors to me and I think are nice in a way that wouldn’t be out of place with rabbits/viera. I wanted dark eyes since again, I hadn’t yet for this group... so dark purple wound up being her main color. Since I was going scholar, I also wanted to keep the sense of intellect and feeling like a healer without being mistakable for astrologian or white mage. I still want to build into her look, but another aspect I wanted to incorporate--saw a lot of people arguing about the inherent sensuality of Viera, so I figured for her I wanted to make her look elegant and sophisticated but more conservative in glamours. I didn’t want her to instantly read like she hopped out of the woods either. Figure she’d have had time to adapt since.

I’m still very much debating backstory and personality or her but am leaning toward her being the offspring of a viera who left the woods while pregnant. I like the idea of Osk wanting to connect with her heritage but feeling somewhat adrift. I also want to incorporate Nym lore because omg I want more Nym in-general. Personality I do think Osk is probably a little bit of a smug bunny but things remain super tenuous.

ASKLONA WANNEYNWYN

Asklona I literally wanted to make a super soft feeling, hyper feminine lady roegadyn because most interpretations I’ve seen have been either harder feminine or tomboyish. Still fun imo, but given the grief some fans heap on femroes I really wanted to show that this kind of look is doable. I usually try to incorporate the black noses on Hellsguard designs (tiger roooooes) while with Seawolves I tend to push either fully into something natural or fully into something unnatural. So ex. the most desaturated option or else just run with blues and greens. Asklona is specifically a bard because it is pretty and fancy imo and I haven’t seen a lot of roegadyn bards in-general. Asklona I mentioned before is modeled off of certain kinds of albinism, but by that I want to make the disclaimer that pink eyes don’t generally occur in people (pale blue or violet is more likely) and that normally there are some eyesight problems that come with the condition as well as ease of getting sunburn. I don’t necessary play into that with Asklona/am going artistic license because I mean final fantasy we can lift swords bigger than we are. I know these things get overlooked a lot though so it seemed worth specifying. My choice to go this route was because I wanted to make myself use more pastels lol and I figured this would be a fun spot to contrast Cenric. I think in backstory Asklona’s father lost his mind to a siren, and Asklona pursuing adventuring as a bard is partly to take revenge and partly in the hopes that she can call her father back with song. Her involvement becomes more complicated over time but I think that’s the general direction. I picked green for her color scheme because it’s a color that feels like it evokes both the woods of Gridania and the sea itself... and because pink is a shade of red and with green being complementary, I figured it would make the pinks stand out a lot. Asklona is tied to Limsa Lominsa and besides looking for outfits that will flatter her body type I am trying to evoke the ocean in her designs. Pirates, sailors, the works. Personality I am still figuring out a bit but I think Asklona is definitely a shameless flirt, can read as insensitive and self-centered at times as she indulges in what makes her happy. She plays herself off as much more shallow than she is and in-general focuses on pursuing pleasure as a way of avoiding heavier issues.

KOKONO KONO

The scrappy daughter of a Doman fox auspice and a Thavnairian lalafell, Kokono saw her mother waste away with homesickness after fleeing the Garlean occupation. She has two brothers, one who returned to Doma while the other remains in Thavnair witht her father. Kokono hates the idea of loving a place so much you would die over it and decided to travel Hydaelyn, causing mischief while indulging a deep-rooted curiosity and love for discovering new places. Has severe commitment issues. Can be prone to swearing and being insensitive because the shocked reactions amuse her a lot, but her heart is ultimately in the right place. I designed her literally to make a lalafell fox because with the dark nose option + werewolf ears it is SO EASY to make tiny canines and I don’t understand why more people don’t do this. Like I could make an elegant white fox lalafell or a yorkshire terrier lalafell or any number of things. We can have itty bitty dogs! And like Kiyo I wanted some background to be evident in her clothes too. I designed her before I picked her backstory and mainly went for rule-of-cute/what would most evoke the red coat of a fox.

SVATOMIR AZORYA

Last of team Famfrit, he’s a Warrior Hrothgar. Very conceptually rough, I’m interested in playing him much more reserved and traditionally masculine in a lot of ways. I think a character in that vein will help balance out against the other Warriors of Light I made for that world. Design goal here was to make him look as wolf-like as possible haha. I think we have plenty of cat people already with Miqo’te.

NIVIENNE LECLAIR

From Lamia, I’ve talked a bit about her before so copypasting that in.

Basically, when I decided to try doing the whole WoL/Emet-Selch fic writing misadventure it was just a personal challenge for funsies. I’d seen other people do some really interesting and impressive stuff using unnamed lady WoLs. Hadn’t really tried something like that myself so I decided to go full improv with it.

Except my instincts tend toward specificity lol, so I scattered details according to what would make for fun scenarios or cute details. I wanted the lady to be a certain level of tall so I went with elezen. I needed to describe a readily portable weapon that would mesh with that sweet, sweet Amaurotine lore, so I made her a summoner. So on and so forth. Very seat-of-the-pants.

Particularly since the fic I have coming up is gonna be bigger, I’m thinking name is okay now lol.

Cenric as my black mage main is a dark, broody guy who doesn’t quite realize he’s nicer and sillier that he gives himself credit. So I decided Nivienne should be much more socially adept (read: not a lameass poser), very mischievous, confident… but lowkey has some heavy shit going on. Girl can be ruthlessly manipulative. Other WoLs of mine have different personalities.

As I was going through fic stuff, I decided I wanted to visually tie to and contrast with Emet-Selch since shipping. He’s got gold eyes and accents on his regalia? She’ll go silver, but her skin will have a more golden tone. He’s got dark hair with a white streak? She’ll have light gray hair, tie into the ruff of his coat. So on and so forth.

Name-wise, I actually fucked up initially by going too on-the-nose. Nivienne is another (more elezen-French) name for Nimue. Given how that story goes I figured it would be fitting here.

As a couple of other notes--color scheme being gray was experimenting to try for a different-but-distinct summoner aesthetic. I wanted to play up horns/third eye concepts (not strictly in the Garlean sense) and create a vibe that wouldn’t feel like white mage, or red mage, or black mage, etc. I also saw people arguing that female casters all end up looking like magical girls, so I wanted to really make sure that she had a different look from that while still being very feminine.

[clumsyclifford]

For the question meme you posted uh 4 and 7. If you haven't answered these two before. If you have I do apologise. And hi Bella.- glitter ✨

hey what's up glitter!!!!! it's been a hot sec!!!!!!!!!!! how goes it?

4. What detail in [insert fic] are you really proud of? well since you didn't specify a fic i will choose one myself, i hope that's okay. it would probably be most appropriate to go with sdf but ive talked a LOT about that one today so i'm going with you are my glitter and my gloom (i am so numb without you), this jalex tour friendship fic...thing. technically a prompt actually! but there is a detail that i wanted to point out because i'm proud of it and it is this: jack does not immediately say the right thing. yknow? he finds alex on the roof and his instinct is to make a joke, to try and lighten the mood a little bit, and it doesn't land. and then he does it again and it doesn't land, again. and i was really glad that i included that, because (and ofc im guilty of this as well) often in fic it happens that we portray people, close friends or people in relationships, as just automatically knowing what the perfect thing to say is, right out the gate. now jack gets there eventually but he gets it wrong first, because that's...actually reality. my jack's strategy for coping with people suffering, his friends especially, is to try and make them laugh. and it doesn't always work, and it's not always right for the situation. alex obviously doesn't want to laugh in this moment. it has probably worked on him before so jack tries it this time and it falls flat. it's not a poor reflection on jack or alex, it just represents what i think is a very real everyday occurrence, where jack's best effort isn't what would be most helpful for alex, no one's fault, just things that don't immediately line up.

BUT. more IMPORTANTLY. jack adjusts. and then alex opens up a little bit and loosens up and the next time jack makes a joke, alex does laugh at it. they're trying!! they're making the effort. they're putting in the work. jack dials back his instinct to crack wise and instead just listens, and then when he does make a joke, alex indulges him, because he knows that jack is doing his best and he appreciates that in and of itself. listen. listen. love isn't easy. sometimes you have to work for it. but the fact that you even bother working for it is itself a declaration of love!!! and in the case of this fic i mean platonic love, but it's all the same, yknow? friendship is romance. anyway i clearly got so very carried away here. the point is. im proud of the way i wrote this dynamic.

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of? answered this here and said acappella 'verse. i'll add, even though you're the wrong person to be mentioning this to, but the college/coffee shop AU in i know i don't know you (but i'd like to skip the small talk and romance), the cashton fic i wrote for ainslee's halloween fic event last year, i like the worldbuilding in that one. i like cake as roommates and the coffee shop having rian and alex working there and then also this side story of luke having a crush on michael in his astronomy class. it's all just. it feels very alive. like i said: like things are happening with the other characters even when i'm not looking. and for your benefit i'll pick a jalex fic as well, though really a jalex 'verse, because i'm pretty happy with the worldbuilding in t-shirt 'verse. i keep adding things onto it and i just love it so much. they are one of my favorite jalex-es. middle school teacher alex...i love you. i guess it's not GREAT worldbuilding considering i have yet to decide or specify what jack's job is but that's okay. everything else is good. i like them.

questions for fic writers

[cravin-you]

how would each member of BTS react to you talking dirty in spanish to them? Thank you, you're awesome!

thank you mi amor ily 

YALL IM busy wand i wanna have time to do all of yalls requests so i didn’t end up writing about every member im so sorry but please specify what members you want me to write about like pick 3 please otherwise it takes so long!! anyways hope i wrote about YOUR fave and enjoy;)

JUNG HOSEOK

His eyes were set on the TV, fully concentrated and laughing at the punchlines. You didn’t even like this show and was now officially bored. 

“Hoseooook,” you whine and try pulling him by his arm. He let’s you, but doesn’t remove his eyes from the TV. “I need to get up early tomorrow, you can watch this later. Give me attention.” 

You pout but it doesn’t help because once again he’s not even looking at you. This makes you decide to climb onto his lap and he grunts uncomfortably when you accidentally hurt his elbow. 

“Please let me just finish the show,” he says a bit annoyed. 

You hand moves it’s way to the nape of his neck and scratches his scalp, making him shiver. You kneed softly on his tense shoulders and he sighs. Hoseok tries to ignore the way his body is reacting, but his mouth falls open in relaxation from having your hands on and around his neck, massaging and scratching. 

“Mi amor,” you purr in his ear and you feel him tense underneath you.

“Don’t do this,” he finally looks into your eyes and you can tell there’s lust building up inside him. You smirk at his reaction.

“Quiero sentarme en tu cara,” you whisper into his ear and this pushes him over the edge because he knows exactly what that means. It’s a well known phrase to his ears and now he’s really fucking turned on. He licks into your mouth and moans into it as you roll your hips on him again. 

“Fuck you,” he whispers against your lips, annoyed that you won.

“Yes please!”

JEON JUNGKOOK

His big hands are palming your ass and pressing you down on his hard-on. His legs are spread widely with you on top of him as your lips suck on his tongue. Your hands are playing with the locks of his hair and he moans when you bite his lip and roll your hips. He tilts his head and you follow, you two kissing intently letting your tongues meet. His hands slide under your tank top and caress your sides and warm stomach. 

Doing laundry can get pretty boring, so here you were in the local laundry machine place at 11 at night, getting hot and heavy on the couch while waiting for your laundry to finish. 

“Y/N, you can’t keep grinding on my dick like this, we can’t have sex here.” he protests between kisses. You just grind harder and he groans. “Seriously someone can walk in here,” he says breathlessly. 

“Por favor,” you beg him and you can feel the hairs on his neck standing from you speaking like that to him.“Papi, por favor,” you pant and lick on his ear. A moan escapes his lips as you grind on his aching cock again. He grabs your wrist and pulls away from your kiss for the first time since you got to it. The look in his eyes is filled with desire and almost intimidating. 

“Call me that again,” he stutters, having a hard time breathing normally because he is so turned on. 

“Only if you fuck me - right here, right now,” 

MIN YOONGI 

You read the text again as you walked up the stairs. Yoongi had texted you that he needed your help with a song. One part of you was scared he’d ask you to sing which you really didn’t consider your strong side. On the other hand maybe he just needed a fresh couple of ears for a new perspective of the song. 

Yoongi is waiting for you in the opening of the door when you get to the studio hallways. It’s a secluded and soundproof room with a small window, about as big as a closet. He’s smiling but you can see in his eyes that he’s tired. He kisses you lightly and says hi. You notices he smells good. He sits down on the office-chair and motions for you to sit on his lap. You do and he rests his head on your shoulder and starts clicking around on his two computer screens with like a thousand tabs open. 

“Listen to this,” he says and presses play. There’s a chorus that sounds familiar to your ears as he’s been working on this for a while and you wait for the third verse which usually is his, but it’s instrumental. “I was thinking of putting in a verse in Spanish here, or at least a phrase.” 

You Ooh loudly to the idea and he smiles. “That would be sexy wouldn’t it! Anyways I need you and your Spanish speaking tongue.” he says and takes out his notes. 

“Yeah I can translate for you, but what do you want to say? What is the song about?” you ask. 

He pulls up the lyrics for you and you read trough them quickly. He presses record to be able to listen back at what you’re saying so he can  practice pronunciation. You nod. “I want the verse to be about lusting for someone.” he explains and you think of what to say. 

“You could say, me duele el corazon no tenerte aqui, nadamas quiero besarte.” 

You can see Yoongi’s face reflect in the screen of the computer and the way he bites his lip. 

“You’re so sexy when you speak Spanish.” he laughs. “What does that mean?” 

“It means my heart hurts not to have you here, I just want to kiss you.”

He writes it down and you continue.

“Ya no puedo seguir asi, tengo que saber como te sabes.”

You can tell it’s affecting him when you speak to him in Spanish since he’s breathing heavily now. 

“What does that mean,” he pants against your neck and plants a light kiss. 

“I can’t go on like this, I need to know what you taste like.” 

Yoongi mutters a fuck and kisses your neck again and his arms around your waist tighten. Feeling his lips on your neck felt so good, and so did being in control like this. 

“Quiero que me cogas ensima de la mesa,” you say as you grind on his crotch which makes a moan escape his lips. “Duro.” 

“W-What does that mean,” he choked on his own words cause you’re grinding on his hardening dick by now. 

“I want you to fuck me on this table,” you say and smile as you feel his dick twitching underneath you. “Hard.” 

“How do you say ‘go lock the fucking door’ in Spanish?”

KIM NAMJOON 

Namjoon is the type to love getting called daddy, papi or just have you scream or moan his name. If he would be intensely hitting it from the back and you’d moan in Spanish that would probably drive him crazy. I feel like he’s the type to ask you to talk dirty to him like that. First time you ever did, you didn’t even think about it. He was sucking on your nipples and circling his fingers around your clit, teasing you all spread out on the bed. You felt so good but wanted more, and it just slipped out in Spanish. 

“Por favor damelo,” 

You immediately laughed at the fact that you just spoke a language this man didn’t know and you thought he probably got very confused. Interrupting your thought, he shoved two fingers inside you, making you choke on your own laughter with a deep moan. 

“I don’t know what you just said but it makes me want to fuck you so badly baby,” he whispered and licked around your clit. So he likes it, you think. Your eyes roll back and your toes curl up as he starts going faster pumping his fingers inside you.

“Ay papi,” Namjoon growls against your pussy. “-tocame alli,” you moan and so does he, humming against your clit. His cock aches from the way the words roll off your tongue. 

KIM TAEHYUNG 

“You should teach me Spanish!” Taehyung says as he slumps down besides you on the bed and gets comfy. You look at him and wonder where this idea came from.

“Why?”

“So that I can talk to your family properly, earn some good boyfriend-points.” he says. “And tell you how sexy you look, - in Spanish.” Tae wiggles his eyebrows. You slap his chest lightly as you laugh.

“But how would you know if I lie? You know, tell you this is how you say ‘have a nice day’ but in reality it’s ‘I want to fuck you’.” you give him a challenging look and he smiles, showing his teeth.

“Noooo, my baby doesn’t know naughty words like that.” He cups your innocent looking face and laughs in a square shaped smile. You roll your eyes and shove his hands away from your face. 

“Quiero cogerte,” you say slowly, looking into his eyes and blushing at the fact that you’re saying I want to fuck you out loud. You cringe at yourself but at the same time feel a little turned on. 

Taehyung squints at you, “You could be saying anything in Spanish and it would sound sexy. You could’ve just said I love cucumber.” 

You laugh and shake your head, already blushing and praying to God for forgiveness for what you’re about to say. 

“Quiero chuparte hasta que vengas en mi boca.” 

Taehyung doesn’t laugh or squint because your voice is dripping of lust. He can tell from your voice dropping an octave and the look in your eyes that what you just said was filthy. 

“What does it mean?” he said out of breath, his Adams apple bobbing. 

You lean forward to kiss him and he hungrily responds with opening his wet mouth. Slowly you trail your hand towards his crotch, making your way inside his pants and boxer briefs. He whines when you squeeze his dick and you feel it growing in your hand. His hands grab on your waist and caress the warm skin and Taehyung feels like his insides are twisting. You bite his lip and palm his growing erection. To access his neck for leaving possessive marks you pull his hair harshly and start to lick down his jaw, making him hiss.

He pants your name and asks once again what it meant.

“Let me show you instead,” you say and sink to your knees between his legs, spreading them wide with your palms on the inner side of his thighs.  

[rallamajoop]

Fandom Trumps Hate 2018

So, I put my name down for the Fandom Trumps Hate fanwork charity auction. If you’re unfamiliar (and there are still a couple of days left if you’d like to sign up yourself), the idea is that fans offer to produce fic or other fanwork to a buyer’s prompt in exchange for donations to any of a long list of excellent causes.

Auctions open on January 8th, and close on January 14th. I’m offering fanfic for either Cable & Deadpool or The Man from UNCLE (TV) -- but please do read this post in full if you’re thinking of bidding on either, as what I’m offering to write is a bit specific.

What follows is effectively a list of all the semi-developed ideas I currently have kicking around that I’m sure I could turn into decent stories, in the hope that some will sound enticing enough for people to bid for. I’m going to include the option of requesting a new chapters for my existing WIPs here too -- even those I’ve not touched in ages. (Some of these ideas will likely get written eventually regardless, but realistically, most probably won’t, and when they might get written is a whole other question. Even the newest of these ideas has now been sitting around my head un-written for well over a year).

If none of these appeal (or you’d just like more details), do feel free to message me to let me know what sort of fic would inspire you to bid -- I can always add to the list if your prompt sounds like something I could work with. Just as long as we both know in advance what we’re signing up for.

Cable & Deadpool

Cable & Deadpool hasn't been my primary fannish love for some years (of late, I'm mostly writing for The Man from UNCLE), but I think my record shows that it never takes that much to get me writing for it again.

WIPS:

Good Intentions Born from a porny AU premise (where Cable and Deadpool's first meeting went rather differently) which inexplicably grew a plot, this is the epic I have been picking away at since 2009, but seriously stalled on since 2013. If you pick this option, I promise to turn out at least one new scene (I have a number in mind, I can probably come up with a shortlist if it helps). If bids go high enough (let’s say at least $40 is going to charity for this), I will extend that offer to a full new chapter. (Maybe this will be the boost that gets me back in the Good Intentions zone long enough to finish the thing, or at least churn out a few additional chapters, but I make no promises.) Oh, and as an extra carrot, I'll also privately send you a copy of this one future chapter I do have written, set around the time of Deadpool’s canonical first solo series. I've never publicly brought this up elsewhere, since said chapter spoils some of the bigger plot points I've always held back on, in the vague (and perhaps naive) hope I'll someday get to them in the story proper -- but if you'd like a little glimpse of this Cable and Deadpool's status quo from much later in their future, I'm happy to throw that in as a bonus.

The Ugly Merman Born from a crack AU premise of similar vintage, but never actually finished, mostly because I blew most of my best puns material in the first chapter. The next chapter I have in mind will be set between the original chapters 1 and 2, and will feature Blind Al (it has never been any secret that she's the sea witch in this version of the story). For a larger donation, I’ll throw in a second new chapter set after chapter 2, which will actually have Cable in it. Since my 'plan' for this story is much shorter than the one for Good Intentions, the odds that your selecting this one will prove the big push I need to actually finish the story is probably much better -- but again, no promises.

Other options:

That old, shameless sex pollen smutfic idea I have had sitting around forever Choose this option, and I will be committed to write at least a few thousand words worth of Cable having excruciatingly careful sex with a Deadpool who is really, really into it (like, all-his-Christmases-have-come-at-once and-he-doesn't-know-what-present-to-open-first-into-it), but who is so high on sex pollen that Cable is achingly aware he would probably consent to anything. (The Cable in this scenario Cable is also really into it, but desperately does not want to take advantage.) If chosen, this may be the fluffiest smut I have ever committed to paper or screen. Maybe it could even be a prequel to the Marital Commitments 'verse, if you'd like it to be.

Something set in the Deadpool Pulp Universe It's no secret that I adore the Deadpool Pulp mini and have been casting around for an excuse to write fic set in that universe basically forever. I have a couple of old ideas kicking around (some post-ending cablepool smut in which Cable comes home to find Agent Wilson has broken into his apartment, rather than make his report at the office like a normal person, a ficlet set in their shared backstory right after they both escape from the prison camp, another angstier look at Wade’s post-Weapon X future) but am very open to negotiation on this one.

Brother Nathan/Zenpool Another idea I've been toying with for some time. This one will probably be short and I doubt I'd get any real smut out of it (if only because I have already written so much psychic sex for these two that I don't think I have much left in me), but I am positive I could have some fun with them, given the excuse.

That crack idea where Deadpool takes a part-time gig working for the Mythbusters, for use in those tests where mannequin versions of Buster are just not realistic enough Another idea I've been vaguely tossing around since I got into this fandom. This one is pure gen crossover material and would not have Cable in it, but on the off chance you've always really wanted to see a story where Deadpool cheerily agrees to be repeatedly turned into mush in the name of science, I'm throwing this one out there.

ETA: Bidding now open here!

The Man from UNCLE

Since MfU remains the Fandom of My Heart, many of these may well be written eventually even if you don't go for them, but given the speed at which I write (not to mention the risk of distraction by shiny new fandoms), the odds I will ever get to all of them are probably not that high. WIPs and sequels:

The Redwing-verse For the unfamiliar, this is the AU where the role of sexy enemy spy whom Napoleon is forever ending up in bed with is played by Illya instead of Angelique. Entries thus far include Fatale, Of Suspension and Disbelief, and a third prequel story I will hopefully have up before the auction begins. I have no shortage of different ideas for more stories set in this universe, and if you want to go with this option, the next two entries go to the top of my to-do list. These particular stories are interconnected prequels, covering how Napoleon and Illya’s ‘arrangement’ came to be (though I should probably specify that neither will involve any explicit smut and should end up G-PG rated). You'd also be welcome to pick which of a few different options will be next in the present timeline (heck, you could probably talk me into writing one of those first if you'd really prefer that), and I'd be happy to share some details about where the series is headed and how I plan to wrap it up too, if you’re interested.

Alternate ending to A Unified Theory of UNCLE, in four parts Somewhere in the middle of writing this fic, I ran into a problem -- namely that Napoleon was fed up with how long the plot was taking and did not see why he and Illya couldn't skip all that nonsense and have sex now. This grew into an entire alternate ending concept where Napoleon cottons onto what's up with his partner much earlier in the timeline, and comes up with a 'solution' which greatly alters how they first end up in bed together -- and unlike the original ending, this one would involve much more than a fade-to-black. There's a third alternate 'ending' I could throw in here as a bonus, wherein Illya makes a move much earlier, but that's unlikely to add up to more than a few hundred words. Regardless, if you like the idea of a story where Napoleon responds to the discovery of his partner's preference for men with an oddly-conceived seduction based around the 'logic' that he's Illya's only real option -- well, that's roughly what I'd be writing here.

Sequel to The Flowers Along The Way I’m sure it’ll come as a surprise to no-one who has read my latest Christmas fic that I have plans for a porny sequel, and you can probably guess roughly what that ought to involve. As of now, that sequel is mentally penciled in for maybe-next-Christmas (assuming I have not fallen for some other fandom altogether by that point, which is always possible). If you'd like to see that sequel now rather than later, however, I'm totally up for that.

Other options:

Omegaverse AU I'm not usually a huge fan of fandom's omegaverse concept, but a universe in which Napoleon really does emit sex pheromones is too perfect to ignore. This particular take would involve an omega!Napoleon, and a beta!Illya who is painfully aware that he was assigned as Napoleon's partner on the basis that he prove to be the one man in all Napoleon's history who might capable of resisting the temptation to sleep with him. This one is likely to come out something along the lines of The Curious Nature of Felines or A Unified Theory of UNCLE, thus you may have to put up with significant digressions as the author gets carried away with ideas about the place of alpha/beta/omega dynamics in espionage, or about alternate history and biology (because I really am that kind of nerd). Unlike those other fics, this one will be rated somewhere in the range R-NC17, because omegaverse. I suspect it'll come out more around the length of Felines, for the record.

Android!Illya AU On reading Orockthro's excellent story  Unit I, Series LYA: Press to Activate about an android Illya and Napoleon's fascination with his strange new partner, I was struck with ideas for how one might expand the idea with an explicitly shippy (which is to say, NC-17 explicit) sequel, given the interesting questions about how an android like this version of Illya would think about relationships and sex. This option does come with the caveat that I haven't yet got around to checking with the author about their stance on others writing sequels to their work (it seemed not worth bothering them with it until I was sure I was actually going to write the story), and I wouldn't want to go ahead with this one if it would bother them. So there's a chance I may have to ask you to pick something else instead. In any case, I do actually have a complete opening scene for this one written already, and I'd be happy to let you see that much regardless of whether I do ever get as far as writing and posting the rest of the story.

Tingleverse Crackfic This one is going to be a little hard to explain if you are not familiar with the work of Chuck Tingle, (in)famously prolific author of absurdist gay short-form erotica, such as Pounded In The Butt By My Book "Pounded In The Butt By My Own Butt", Turned gay by the existential dread I may be a character in a Chuck Tingle book and the Hugo-award nominated Space Raptor Butt Invasion (a nomination Mr. Tingle naturally celebrated by publishing a story titled Slammed in the Butt by my Hugo Award Nomination). Say what you may about the man, he obviously has a terrific sense of humour, no fear of getting political for the right cause (see, for example, his story Pounded In The Butt By My Irrational Bigoted Fear Of Humans Who Were Born As Unicorns Using A Human Restroom), and an unshakable belief that love is real. Even (or especially) if that love is between a sentient floating disembodied butt and a space dinosaur, or something of that nature. Around about the time that Hugo nomination came out (which is quite the story in itself), a few fans were bandying around the idea of having a Tingleverse fic exchange in celebration. Alas, that never did get off the ground, but the idea of writing a Tingleverse AUs did leave me with the image of Napoleon saying "But Illya, how could THRUSH have invaded my butt? And how is it metaphysically possible for the both of us to be having this conversation while up my butt to investigate?" (To which Illya would, of course, be forced to explain in Very Scientific terms exactly how Napoleon had got them into this situation, while not really explaining anything at all, and so on.) Eventually, they would end up having sex, because Chuck Tingle, If this sounds like the kind of crack you'd like to see, I am beyond willing to write this monstrosity for charity. I feel Mr. Tingle himself could only approve.

Something involving UNCLE’s female support staff (probably gen) Okay, so it’s no secret I have a bit of a fascination with all the underappreciated women who scored recurring roles on the show, and it would take very little to convince me to come up with some fic about one or more of them. Like, Sarah Johnson and Illya bond through good-natured mutual bitching about Napoleon, or Lisa Rogers really is a robot or an assassin or something, or whatever else we can dream up. Give me an excuse!

[toukenra]

Aaaaah! I just realized in my ask I didn't specify the saniwa's gender. I asked for kasen, kashuu, and taroutachi being given presents and they realize the saniwa likes them. Can the saniwa be male?

[Continuation]: I can’t view the rules on mobile so just ignore this if it breaks the rules plz. I was wondering if you could do kashuu, kasen, and taroutachi receiving gifts from their master and realizing they’re giving them gifts because their master likes them.

Hi there my dear. I apologize for not being able to get to your request! I feel so bad! T.T. Please forgive me! I have been working on this request for quite a long time and it ended up being so long! I hope it’s to your taste.

I also further apologize if there’s any grammatical errors (It’s currently quarter to 1 AM here and I just finished studying for a test.)

Anyway, please enjoy!

Everything under the cut (as always~!)

-Mod Catharia.

KASHUU

“I’m sorry but I can’t see you right now, Kashuu.”

“Oh…” (╯_╰)

You don’t fail to catch the disappointment on the Uchigatana’s face and it kills you

“Ah, I see. When can I come visit you, Aruji?”

“I’m not sure if when I have any vacancies, Kashuu. You may need to ask either Hasebe, Kotegiri or Tomoe.”

You’re cruel …You rejecting Kashuu Kiyomitsu is equal to kicking a puppy

“…Alright.”

Kashuu literally looks like a kicked puppy, shame on you Saniwa

Do you not have a conscience?

He’s your starting sword and you treat him like this

You’re too cruel…

I’M SORRY KASHUU! I DIDN’T MEAN IT! /PLEASE STAY AND KEEP ME COMPANY!

You were so tempted to bang your head against the wall and just throw yourself into the brunette’s arms

But you had to keep your composure and act like a respectable Sage

Yeah right, half the time you’re missing from the office and raiding the pantries for food or napping in the storage house at the back.

You just give Kashuu a weak smile and pat his hand comfortingly

“How about when you come back from sortie, I’ll treat you…”

“Will you really, Aruji?”

“Yup.”

The brunette finally relents and gives you a smile before bowing

“Alright, I’ll be heading out now, Aruji.”

“Take care!”（＾○＾）／

Once the Uchigatana leaves the premises of the citadel you quickly put your plan into motion

You enlist the help Izuminokami, Horikawa, Shokudaikiri, Hasebe and Tomogata

You convinced the last two to help you after pleading and using those puppy dog eyes

Sneaky (¬‿¬)

When Kashuu finally returns from the sortie, he is immediately ushered to the repair room and was provided with a special talisman to hasten the process

After being ushered to the baths and getting dressed, He immediately goes into your office but you weren’t there

Cue the disappointed pout and sigh from Kashuu

He was about to leave but he notices a basket and a small sign with his name on it

Come to the kitchen, something delicious is waiting for you there… -A

The Uchigatana walks to the kitchen and sees a delicious-looking slice of strawberry shortcake with another note.

You must be hungry, Please enjoy this treat and once you finish please come to the library…-A

It was to celebrate his first year as the first sword of the citadel

To thank him for his service underneath you

And well…

“What is it Aruji?” He looks at you a bit confused

Your rub the back of your head while you flush a bit

 “...Well...I wanted to tell you that-that I like you...”

...

“I-I like you too Aruji.” 

Neither of you speak but your faces looked like it was going to combust anytime

 *Silently roots for you two* (〃艸〃) 

OHMAIGOD YOU TWO ARE SO CUTE (〃ﾉωﾉ)

KASEN

He was intimidating at first but then you warmed up to him

You two briefly spend time together mostly having tea, caring for the flowers in the garden or helping in the kitchens

The first time that you felt something was when you caught sight of him sitting in his room, concentrating on his own work

You definitely knew that Kasen Kanesada was a man versed in the arts so what way to learn about tea ceremonies and literature than asking him

You had a genuine curiosity and wanted to learn about it

So eventually you would pass by once in awhile to learn about literature and became much better at brewing tea

Soon, you decide to write him a poem as a way to convey your growing feelings

...But how?!

Asking for help is definitely out of the window because the last time it was a disaster:

You had asked Uguisumaru, Tonbokiri and Kotegiri who would actually help you in writing a poem

…But somehow a few more people had heard about you writing your little poem

Yagen told you that both Tsurumaru and Mikazuki surprise, surprise had heard from Uguisumaru and is now asking everyone to help their beloved master write a love letter.

Since when did a poem become a full blown love letter!? (⊙︿⊙)!?!

You stared at the two suspects down who try to look like they had no idea what was happeninng

I swear to God that the two looked so smug, knowing smiles underneath those sleeves

Everyone decided to contribute in their own way by writing their own sample letters

You were so flabbergasted when even Kasen even handed his own version

A personal endeavor would be much safer

Within a few days, you finally finish your haiku and wrote it down on a piece of paper

You invite the Citadel’s resident poet to your room, showing him your latest arrangement of flowers

“ It was quite difficult to make.” 

“It looks wonderful, Aruji. The Peach Blossoms work well with Carnations and Baby’s Breath...”

You smile proudly over your work until Kasen spoke up once more

“Ah, how about this week’s haiku Aruji? Would you like to read it out loud?”

You feel yourself break a sweat and a nervous smile on your face

It’s now or never, honey...Do it...

“Actually, how about you read it...I made it with you in mind...”

“Me?” The purple-haired Uchigatana raised a brow but held his hand out looking quite excited.

He quietly reads the paper and you tug at the sleeves of your hakama nervously

In a few moments his usually calm face turned a bit pink...

...And you immediately averted your face to the side to hide your own blush before speaking

“Er...Kasen-”

“A moment, Aruji.” he interrupts you

In the corner of your eye, You suddenly see Kasen reach for a piece of paper and write on it

Eventually, he pushes the paper towards you and he silently urges you to look at it

It read as follows...

At the perfect timeI love you my darlingAmorous spirit

D-darling!?  Σ (O///.O///)

hE JUst CALled YoU daRLInG!?!!

You almost pass out because it was such a blatant declaration from the usually conservative warrior

You stare back at Kasen who was hiding half his face with his sleeve, looking quite flustered.

“U-um…Kasen…I-Is this…”

“W-well…It’s my response, Aruji…” He finally looks at you in the eye

“…I-I have grown rather found of you as well, Aruji…I like you.”

You may have passed out shortly after due to being overheated from the sudden confession and guess who came to keep you company…

…You guessed right, Darling–Kasen did…

TAROTACHI

The first time that you met the Oodatchi was when your main party returned from sortie and they brought him and his brother, Jirotachi, home

You greeted them with a welcoming smile and Jiro literally picked you up in a tight hug while Taro merely nodded in your direction as a sign of acknowledgement

“I heard so much about you, Aruji! You’re so tiny!”

“I-I am…?”

If you stand beside them, you actually look like a midget…LOL (ᗒᗜᗕ)՛̵̖

“Brother please, put him down.” Taroutachi would scold his brother

“Awee, you’re no fun!”

From that day on you got along quite well with the two brothers and once in a while you would help them with some chores around the Citadel

One night, after having dinner, you decide to make one last round to sure everyone was settling in comfortably for the night

You pass by Jirotachi and Tarotachi’s room to bid them a goodnight

…But you are greeted by Jirotachi alongside the three Yaris– Nihongou, Tonbokiri and Otegine– who were quite drunk

I’m not surprised…Jiro has his way with convincing people….and some sake doesn’t sound so bad either…

You call a few others to help you move the Yaris back into their room while you usher Jiro into his futon

Sadly, the said Oodatchi didn’t seem to want you to leave but instead clung your arm.

“Zzzz…”

“Jiro-san…Jiro-san…please let go…” (-_-)ゞ゛

The large man just clung unto your arm and you just sat there quietly until Taroutachi entered the room

He just took one look at you and his brother drunkenly clinging to your arm before walking over and taking the limb off of you

“I apologize for my brother’s behavior, Saniwa-sama.”

“It’s alright, Tarou-san. I just want to make sure your brother was alright.”

You were suddenly surprised when you heard a small chuckle from the taller man beside you

Thump…Thump…Thump…

“I appreciate you watching over my brother, Aruji.”

What’s this…?

“Thank you…”

The smile from this handsome man was going to kill you one day…if not tonight…

“You’re very welcome.” You quickly get up, letting the Oodatchi get ready for bed, feeling your cheeks flaming

When you were about to be leave, you when you notice that Taroutachi’s futon looked a little to small

LOL can you imagine this guy’s feet sticking out??

That’s probably going to be a problem when the could season comes

You make a mental note on the bedding and make your own way to your room

You continue to have these odd feelings surfacing whenever Taroutachi was around

You looked at various symptoms you were experiencing…

You’re sick…love sick…huheuhe  ෆු(*˃ர்˂*)ෆු

You basically thought you were going to have a heart attack

You debate whether to go see a doctor…or Yagen at least

The purple-haired Tantou claimed that you were perfectly healthy and told you to just take it easy

You follow his instruction because Yagen can be scary sometimes

Once you returned to your study, you were greeted by a package and you perked up–it was the item you ordered

You decide to carry the package to it’s destination, excited to give it to the person it was intended for

On the way to the Oodatchi’s room, you bump into someone while carrying the package but thankfully the person caught your arm before toppling back

“Are you alright, Saniwa-sama?” came the familiar voice.

“Y-Yes…”

You feel the package being taken from your hands and Taroutachi’s visage greets you

“Where do you need this, Aruji?”

“Umm..It’s actually for you…” You smile sheepishly

“For me?” You nod in response

When you two reach his shared bedroom, you allow him to unpack it’s contents and he looked quite happy

You bought him a brand new futon which was much larger than the one he currently was using

“Thank you, Aruji…You didn’t have to buy this for me.”

Again that handsome smile has surfaced once more and it made you flush a bit

God, You can look at him all day…Wait, get a hold of yourself!  (o.o)!!!

“Please, it’s a gift…you deserve it for working so hard.”

“You have my thanks, Master.”

You don’t have to say you liked him…You were pretty sure he knew well enough

A few days passed and you could feel the stares of a few people which unnerved you a bit:

…Hasebe came in the office with slightly red eyes…was he crying??

…The Tantous kept passing by, looking expectantly at you…Huh?

…Even Yamanbagiri was slightly pouting…What is wrong??

The Shoji doors situated behind you slammed open catching you off guard

“WHERE’S MY FUTON AS WELL, ARUJI!? YOU GIVE ONE TO TAROUTACHI BUT NOT ME!? HOW UNFAIR!!” ( ≧Д≦)

[theclaravoyant]

also okay - if you're ever wanting to write more in the trans!fitz universe, i'd absolutely love to see a fic where someone on the team learns what 'nonbinary' is and decides they might be nb, and come talk to fitz about it! :) and maybe talk about fitz's experiences being trans and his view of gender and stuff like that

AN ~ awesome prompt! It was a lot of fun exploring nonbinary-ness and different experiences of gender (which is probably why this almost hit 2K!). 

Disclaimer: I’m a cis woman, but I based what Fitz talks about on experiences of several trans and non binary people (from these sources as well as past research, friends, tumblr posts, etc.). I hope I have done the topic some justice!

For those not familiar with my trans!fitz universe, this fic takes place in the Bridget!verse where Fitz transitioned (FTM) from a young age. He is out only to a few select people as trans, and prefers it that way, although this fic also allows for him to be more out re: his sexuality (which is not specified in this fic, but implied to be non-straight).

As for who he’s talking to… I know they’re not part of “the team” exactly but I couldn’t resist using this opportunity to write about everyone’s favourite nb lesbian, Agent Piper!

Anyway, without further ado-

Read on AO3 (~2000wd)

Piper

Pride season was an opportunity for a splash of colour in the increasingly gloomy lives of Shield’s now-underground team. The younger Agents especially filled the base with life and vibrancy while the older ones, for whom Pride was much if not more a commemoration than a festivity, provided strength and fortitude, serving as living reminders of a whole range of struggles that could affect an Agent, and a whole range of ways of being a survivor. Pride was a light in the darkness not unlike the end of year holiday season, if directed at a smaller cohort.

Tonight, many of the Agents were preparing to drive out to a Pride Parade in a nearby city, and were donning all manner of bright colours and some of them even preparing spectacular outfits for a night on the town. Daisy had on a hot-pink sundress with platform sandals and chunky jewellery in blue, purple and silver. Jemma went for a look that somehow managed to be more subdued, in a bright canary-yellow t-shirt and black jeans, with a pink bandana tied around her neck. Fitz was stuck in his room trying to figure out what to wear that was different, but that didn’t scream a Pride flag vomited all over me, when he heard a knock at the door.

“Oh, thank God,” he sighed. “Jemma, I-“

Fitz cut himself off when he pulled the door open and saw not Jemma, but the shorter, stockier, also somewhat-bewildered-looking Agent Piper waiting for him. She was still wearing fatigues, not yet prepared for the evening’s outing, and her expression was a little too serious for Fitz’s liking.

“Um. Hi,” Fitz greeted after a moment. “Can I help you? Is something going on?”

He stuck his head further into the hallway, but Piper shook her head before he could work himself into too much of a panic.

“Nothing, it’s all good out here, I was actually wondering if I could – maybe – have a private conversation with you.”

“Okay. Sure.” Still a little unsettled, Fitz invited Piper into his and Jemma’s room. He waved a hand apologetically at the suit-jackets, feather boa, dresses, heels, and button-ups that had sprawled across the room during their preparations, but Piper seemed content to ignore them even as her eyes cast about the room a little, not quite sure how to broach the subject she’d come here to speak about.

“Sorry,” she said eventually, bringing her eyes back to Fitz as she seemed to remember she was prying in a private space. “It’s just, I know you’re not really out with it and I didn’t want to be creepy. I wanted to talk about… gender. I’ve been thinking about some stuff and Jemma sort of mentioned that you might be someone who knows something about it. If you’re not comfortable with talking to me you can send me on my way and I won’t breathe a word of it – I know how it is – but it’d be really cool if you could help me out, man.”

Fitz shrugged. “It’s alright.”

“You sure?”

“Sure.” He smiled. “Happy to help out if I can.”

“Awesome.” Piper sighed, and a lot of the tension left her body. For want of a better place to plant herself, she perched on the corner of a desk.

Fitz sat nearby, in a clear space at the edge of the bed, and waited for Piper to gather her thoughts. He hoped she wouldn’t ask too much about him. Then again, he hoped she would. If it would help. If it would maybe mean he was sharing something of himself with someone who might get it in a way that the others didn’t. He wondered what she would ask. What was questioning even like? What was it like not to wake up and know? Of course, he’d been through his own questioning period, but most of that had been forced upon him, particularly by his father’s efforts to reshape him. Inside Piper’s head, Fitz knew, there could be a whole different set of sensations going on. Legitimate questions. Questions in which politics and oppression only played a part. Questions that could be daunting, and probably moreso to a thirty-year-old mind than to a seven-year-old, who didn’t yet understand so much about the weight of the world.

“Want me to start?” Fitz offered. Piper groaned.

“God, please.”

“Do you think you’re a man?”

Piper recoiled from the suggestion, but quickly recovered.

“Sorry. But no. I don’t think so – it feels wrong. It’s just that… I’m not really sure I’m a woman either. Does that make sense? Is that possible? I mean, I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy but like… recently, it feels different somehow. It’s difficult to describe. Maybe I’m just being weird, but to be honest, it’s kind of freaking me out. I thought I’d already done the whole identity-crisis thing, you know?”

Fitz laughed a little. He could relate.

“There’s no need for a crisis. You’ll figure it out eventually. And believe me, I get the double-take. Identity is an ever-changing beast.”

“How was it for you, though?” Piper wondered. “The gender thing I mean. How did you know?”

“I don’t think I can really help you with that one, unfortunately. I’m one of those people who just always, sort of, knew. I’ve known since I was a kid. I don’t really know why. Some of it was the obvious I guess. I played with model trains and cars instead of dolls. I hated wearing dresses. Tried to cut off all my hair with scissors. I wanted a pee-pee.” He snorted. “Seven-year-old me didn’t really get into the philosophy of it all, but there must be something to it, because… well, let’s just say I went through some things that would have chased it out of me if that were possible.”

Piper nodded solemnly.

“Not all the confusion is bad though,” Fitz continued. “My mum raised me, mostly, and she did it without a lot of that masculine bravado bullshit. She taught me to be gentle, sensitive, forgiving… sometimes it felt like I was less of a guy because of that kind of stuff, and the teasing didn’t help, but in the end it gave me faith in my identity. Mum always told me there should be more guys like me. That it shouldn’t be left to the girls to be the soft ones.“

“I like your mom,” Piper put in.

“Me too.” Fitz smiled. “And honestly I think having someone who believed in me like that made it all so much easier, even though she didn’t get it entirely. She started calling me by the right pronouns – you know, he and him and all that - and even gave me a different name. Helped me transition in lots of other ways, too. I couldn’t have done it without her.”

“Oh, I don’t want to transition, either,” Piper clarified. “I’m happy with my body just the way it is. Is that – I mean, does that mean anything?”

“Not really,” Fitz explained. “I mean, for me it did. I had… I had dysphoria in a big way. Phantom body parts. Huge discomfort about my dead name and pronouns. Not every trans person gets that. Some have it the other way, actually. Euphoria, it’s called. They just feel more happy when they express as their gender, or when they’re referred to by some other name or pronouns or, you know, gendered words, even if they’re not particularly unhappy with their assigned ones.”

“See, that sounds more like me,” Piper agreed. “But can you be, like, gender-neutral trans? Or is that a different thing, I don’t know. But can you?”

“You mean like nonbinary?” Fitz suggested. “Some people think of it as trans and some don’t, but yeah, sure. It’s a thing.”

“It means you’re like, somewhere between a boy and a girl, right?” Piper speculated. “Like on the spectrum.”

“Basically,” Fitz agreed. “I mean, for some people it’s more complicated than that, and just like with sexual orientation there’s a whole bunch of subsets. Some people like the spectrum, some people go with a third non-spectrum gender, some people even prefer no gender at all. It’s up to you. I can’t really tell you which one to pick, unfortunately – I mean as far as I’m aware, we as a scientific community still don’t know what gender even is yet – but if you’re feeling like nonbinary’s an option for you, try it out. There’s no harm in a label if you’re safe and happy with it. And even if it doesn’t work out, it’s not like you’re getting in anyone’s way.”

“Really?” Piper checked. “You think I should go for it?”

Fitz held his hands up, palms out. “You don’t need my permission.”

“Can I keep my name?”

“Sure, if you’re happy with it.”

“What about that pronoun stuff?”

“Well, if it bothers you when people call you she/her, tell them so. If not, you can keep them and still be non-binary. It depends on you. If you’re looking for a more neutral pronoun, ‘they’ is getting pretty popular, relatively. There are some more obscure ones around, so Google it maybe, but if it’s not a strong point of contention for you, or none of the others really speak to you, you could try they/theirs.”

“You’re right, that does sound better,” Piper agreed, a smile breaking out across her face at last. “Thanks so much, Fitz, honestly. I feel like I’ve lined up so many things in my brain right now.”

“My pleasure.” Fitz found himself beaming too, unexpectedly broadly. He kicked his legs in glee. “Glad I could help.”

“Wait.” Piper interrupted, her tone heavier again all of a sudden and, if Fitz was not mistaken, tainted with dread. “Can I still be a lesbian, then?”

Fitz’s excitement faded a little too. With the weight Piper put on it, he could tell, this part of her identity was important to her. Painstakingly so. Handling it with care was essential, and yet, he had to walk blindly into it and do the best he could.

“Well, I don’t know,” he offered truthfully. “If someone else, if another lesbian, came to you with something like this, what would you say, d’you think?”

Piper’s eyes searched the floor, the carpet, the nose of Fitz’s dress shoes poking out from under one of Jemma’s discarded dresses. She took a deep breath.

“Well, I’m sure as hell not a man. And even if I’m not a woman exactly, I still feel pretty close to it. I’d like to think I’m enough of a woman to be a lesbian still.”

“Then there you have it, I guess. Maybe talk to the girls, they might have more to say about it, but I think that’s fair enough.”

“Cool.” Piper nodded once, and then twice more for good measure as she let it all settle in. Her eyes trailed the mess that was FitzSimmons’ room and, as the mess in her own head cleared away, she remembered why it was all there.

“Shit, we’d better get ready, hey?” she reminded Fitz. He escorted her to the door, as best he could through the widespread pig-sty.

“Again, thanks so much for the talk,” Piper continued. “It was really great. Really helpful. If you don’t mind though, can we keep it on the DL for now? Sprinkle a couple ‘they’s here and there if you could, but the other stuff, I’m still easing into it.”

“No worries,” Fitz promised. “And you know, my stuff –“

“Lock and key,” Piper promised in return. “See you tonight.”

“See you there.”

[tonystarktogo]

If you have time could you write an ace Tony fic? It would mean a lot as I am asexual and almost never get any representation anywhere and it tends to make me feel more lonely. :( Anyways, thank you in advance.

To be honest you had me at ‘ace Tony’, anon :) You really can’t expect me to resist that. Seriously, I adore writing ace characters (like half the main characters in my non-fanfic works are ace, just because I can).

Since you didn’t specify on anything regarding the plot I just went with a short scene from one of my many not-ready-to-be-posted headcanon ‘verses. I hope it works for you and that this ficlet will make you feel a little better! Also I turned it into a Valentine’s story because I keep seeing these cute Valentine’s cards on my dash.

[Set in a College AU following the tale of Player!Bucky and Asexual!Tony trying to make it work. Today’s edition: Valentine’s Day. Including slight misunderstandings, declarations of love affection, fluff, and Bucky’s potty mouth.]

‘You know I’m ace, right?’ isn’t the reaction Bucky’s been hoping for, but it’s also not a door slammed shut in his face, so he counts it as a win.

Tony squints suspiciously at the roses in Bucky’s arms—yellow and red ones because those are his favourite colours, and Bucky is nothing if not a huge sap, apparently—and Bucky has no doubt the flowers will end up cut open on a lab table, to be thoroughly tested for any unsavourily additions, before the day is over.

He probably shouldn’t smile fondly at the cruel fate lying in these poor flowers’ future. He definitely shouldn’t.

Damn it. Nat’s right, he’s got it bad.

“Unless ace stands for ‘allergic to roses’ I fail to see your point.” Bucky smiles and hopefully holds the bouquet out for Tony to take. Because continuing to cling to them like a toddler to a plushy might look a little silly.

Tony refuses to take them though, crosses his arms in front of his chest instead and scowls up at Bucky. Which is not adorable, that would just be ridiculous.

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” Tony hisses, voice suspiciously high and fingers restlessly fiddling with the soft fabric of his sweater. “And you want to give me roses?” It sounds more like an accusation than a question. He’s visibly agitated, and Bucky wants to reach out and smooth out the furrowed lines on his forehead, except he isn’t so sure his touch would be welcomed right now.

“Yeah.” There’s no point in denying the obvious. And okay, maybe he’s a bit nervous about asking Tony out. A tiny little bit.

“I’m not sleeping with you!” Tony blurts before Bucky has the chance to say anything else—which, in all the scenarios he’s played through in his head multiple times, was admittedly not a reaction he’d anticipated—and promptly slams the door shut.

Bucky blinks in confusion, not entirely sure what just happened. 

But before he has time to come up with a reasonable reaction—like picking the cheap lock or fleeing for his life from Natasha’s inevitable wrath when she finds out he has messed up already—the door slowly opens again, revealing a sheepish Tony who’s chewing nervously on his bottom lip.

“You’re not actually here to proposition to me, are you?” he asks, well, mumbles, uncomfortably.

It feels a bit like a slap in the face, to think that after three months of friendship and steadfast support of Tony’s sexuality he’s still immediately jumping to the conclusion that what Bucky wants is sex. To be fair, that’s what Bucky did want, back when he approached the out-of-place looking genius at Clint’s party. But that had been a different situation altogether, it wasn’t like he’d known Tony back then, and—unlike certain fuckheads he could think of—he knew how to take a ‘no’.

Bucky doesn’t let those thoughts show on his face though. For one they would make Tony, who has a bad track-record of making other people comfortable at his own expense, feel horrible, and Bucky is self-aware enough to know that his assumption isn’t unjustified. Neither Tony’s exes nor Bucky’s reputation are of any help in that regard. For another the mere fact that Tony isn’t running, or at least has come back to get a clear answer on what his intentions are, is proof of how far they’ve come.

Tony might not trust him blindly the way he trusts Rhodes, but he does trust him, wants to believe in the best in Bucky, and that makes the stupidly warm, fuzzy feelings in his chest soar. It also makes him want to do a Charlie’s angel roll out of the nearest window because he is not equipped to deal with all this emotional bullshit, just ask Steve.

Bucky ruthlessly squashes that urge and meets Tony’s eyes instead. “I’m not asking you to sleep with me, if that’s what you mean,” he says and he means it.

“Then what do you want?” Tony asks helplessly, like he can’t fathom what else there is, what he could possibly offer anyone. And that, that just isn’t right. That uncertainty doesn’t suit Tony, who’s usually as unapologetically, in-your-face ace as possible, at all.

“I want you to go on a date with me,” Bucky replies, proud of how steady his voice sounds. The flowers he’s still holding also do a great job of hiding the trembling in his hands. “I want to text you silly emoji combinations all the time to show you I’m thinking of you. I want you to call me at the crack of dawn and tell me about whatever brilliant idea you’ve just come up with. I want to see you wear my hoodies every day, and tell you how amazing you look, and trace the lines of your blush, and kiss you on the forehead, and watch you argue with Steve about superheroes, and get tackled to the ground when I get back from the grocery store, and call you pet names that make my friends roll their eyes at our backs.”

And okay, Bucky did not mean to say that latter part out loud. It’s his turn to avert his eyes now, not that that’s what he’s doing, absolutely not. It’s just, the roses are really very pretty to look at and he’s just enjoying the view and fighting the urge to bury his flushed face in them, alright?

Only when Tony clears his throat does he dare to look up again. The blank face greeting him isn’t what you’d call encouraging though and Bucky can feel his stomach dropping what feels like straight through the floor and down another two levels.

“So, just one date then?” Tony asks airily and it takes Bucky a long moment to process the amusement hidden in those dry words and slight twitch of Tony’s lips.

Turns out it’s really hard to calling your crush out on purposefully being a little shit when he has just metaphorically freed you from the crushing weight of a panicked circle of ‘What if I’ve just ruined everything, I never should’ve-’ trails of thought. Bucky feels light-headed with relief and happiness, and really, it’s all he can do to retort with a cheeky “Maybe two” and a ridiculously wide, sappy smile.

“Two? Someone’s very sure of himself,” Tony teases.

It’s the irresistible combination of the challenging smirk and the contradicting softness in his eyes though that dissolves the last of Bucky’s nerves, allows him to regain his footing again. Because this is familiar territory, this he can do in his sleep.

“Oh, believe me, I’m gonna pull out all the stops, you won’t stand a chance,” Bucky grins back, his usual confidence quickly returning now that he knows Tony is willing to give him a chance.

“You’re setting the bar real high when you talk like that, you know that, right?” Tony counters, but Bucky just shrugs, appearing not at all bothered.

“Should the date be a bust—which it won’t be—I still got a back-up plan for after.” He winks obnoxiously.

“Oh?” Tony is trying and failing to hide his curiosity, and Bucky is unspeakably glad that the intrigue seems to outweigh the wariness.

“Yep,” Bucky barrels on, voice deepening on its own accord, “Because after our amazing, movie-scene-worthy date, I’ll shamelessly seduce you into coming over to my place, and you know what we’re gonna do there?” He leans in until he is close enough to whisper the answer right into Tony’s ear. “We’re gonna watch the fourth season of Leverage and eat stracciatella ice straight out of the box.”

“And Nat says your dirty talk’s terrible,” Tony laughs delightedly when he pulls back. Then he pauses. “Wait. Straccia- How did you know my favourite-”

“Remember our first meeting?” Because Bucky certainly does.

Apparently so does Tony, if the way he lights up is any indication. “You remember that?” He sounds awed, which is a silly question, it’s not like Bucky could ever forget. But he only gets half-way through a “’Course I do, doll,” before he has an arm full of excited genius, bright smile and teary-eyes included, peppering feather-light kisses all over Bucky’s face.

“Be my valentine?” he asks breathlessly and Bucky can’t help but laugh, because it’s such a Tony thing to go and steal his line.

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” he jokes back, which leads to Tony rolling his eyes with a huff, which leads to Bucky trying to ruffle his hair, which leads to Tony losing his hold on Bucky, which leads to the both of them toppling over like the uncoordinated, lovesick fools they are.

In the end the flowers look a little worse for wear, but Bucky really, really doesn’t mind. And neither does Tony, if the way he keeps them on his bedside table for weeks (and rescues them from the garbage can Rhodey sneakily throws them into twice) is any indication.  

I’m a little nervous about this one, so any encouragement would be welcome! (Yes, this is me shamelessly begging for validation, you’ve read that right.) In any case I hope you liked it and you have a great day!

@Anon who wrote this ask: If it helps, you can tell me what fandoms you’re in and I’ll make you a rec list for any fics that deal with ace characters I remember. It’s true that there aren’t many of them out there, but over the years I’ve found some real gems you might enjoy. (Please, tell me you’re in the TVD fandom, cause there is an amazing fic in there, and BBC Sherlock has a few- ok I stop now.) Just let me know :)

[beatrizovens89-blog]

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[afterthineownheart-blog]

The Grafted Church: The Deity of Yeshua

This is a big one to tackle at the start. I’ve been following Lex for about a year and have a lot of respect for him as a teacher. We are all on our own journeys of faith, and he’s been very honest about that in a lot of his videos. If he comes across my response, I hope he will not take my words as a personal attack. I hope that instead my words are constructive and help along in his own walk.

Who do you say that I am?

I affirm with Peter, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.” I know you agree, but do you know what that means?

Note that unless I otherwise specify, I will be using the ESV translation of the Bible. I don’t believe it is necessarily the best translation out there, but it is probably the most popular in evangelical circles apart from the KJV, so I don’t want to be accused of cherry-picking.

Also, after posting this, I realized that all the fancy hyperlinks I added to every verse reference and a few external sources is gone in the published version, even though they’re here in the body when I edit it. I’ll try to fix that.

They’re losing faith in Yeshua. They’re saying he’s not God. Or maybe he’s not the Messiah. Or maybe the whole thing was fake and he didn’t even exist.

Starting your message with the logical fallacy of false equivocation is not a great way to begin. Maybe you are not aware, but the nature of God has been hotly contested for two thousand years. Thousands or millions of believers throughout that time have embraced Yeshua as the Messiah without claiming he is the Creator God. If you operate off this premise throughout your sermon, you will only betray your apparent ignorance of historical Christianity and even what the concept of “messiah” actually means.

Someone will say he’s not God, but he’s still the Messiah.

Oh good, I’m glad you admit this is an option. If you can’t tell, I haven’t listened to this all the way through yet, so everything I type is my initial reaction after hearing what you have to say.

If he’s just a man, then how did he save us?

That’s a great question, and I’m sure we’ll get into it in more detail later on in this video. But I’ll give a short explanation now. Yeshua didn’t save us. Yehovah, the God of Abraham, saved us. He did so through his servant, Yeshua. Yeshua is God’s chosen means of salvation, not the initiator of it.

Next you bring up the Muslims who claim that Yeshua was only a prophet. Well as I’m sure you know, the first explicit Messianic prophecy given to Israel was that of the Prophet who would be greater than Moses and speak directly on behalf of Yehovah (Deut. 18:15-19).

You bring up the tragedy that is Scott Shoob (without mentioning his name, though I feel no such reservations). Scott had problems even before rejecting the Besech. [1] He often called into question the authenticity of the writings of Paul, relying on human reasoning to deduce that Paul must have been compromised, rather than simply realizing his own intellect was insufficient to answer all the supposed objections. He made empirically falsifiable claims about the start of the year being based on the vernal equinox (which would make this upcoming Passover an entire month late). It was certainly a shock when I first heard about his rejection of Yeshua as the Messiah, but it makes perfect sense after reflecting on how shoddy his exposition of the Bible was even before coming out as an antimissionary.

I can hear the heartfelt concern in your voice, and I don’t doubt your sincerity. The point of this response is not to lambaste you for being factually wrong. That would prove nothing, and I would be the ultimate hypocrite because of how wrong I’ve been on various things throughout my life. We’re all still growing.

The reason why I want to respond is to call to attention the damage you may unintentionally be doing yourself. The Besech nowhere states that belief in the deity of Yeshua is necessary for eternal life. Trust me, I’ve looked. I knew this to be true long before ever seriously studying the Trinity doctrine, and it confused me a great deal back then to think that such a seemingly foundational issue would be held in such low regard by the Scriptures themselves. Since it is not a salvation issue, you by your teaching are playing into the hands of the Roman Catholic Church by reinforcing this “us versus them” mentality.

AND THE WORD WAS GOD – John 1:1-5,10,14

There are a number of unitarian interpretations of these verses which you likely haven’t examined. Of course I don’t want to assume anything, but you are running with the mainstream Christian translation of this passage without the slightest bit of scrutiny.

The fact is, capitalizing “Word” is an editorial choice influenced exclusively by translator bias. The same is true of the use of masculine pronouns, which was introduced with the King James Bible. There is nothing in the Greek text to warrant rendering the various pronouns here in the masculine gender, especially since logos is a neuter word.

Dustin Smith, a translator working on the Revised English Version, argues on his blog that John’s usage of logos is actually consistent with Jewish poetic personifications of Wisdom in both the Tanakh and Deuterocanonical literature, such as “Lady Wisdom” in the Book of Proverbs or the high priest Simon in the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach. This seems to be the most logical and straightforward understanding of John’s usage of logos. Yeshua repeatedly says throughout his ministry that he only speaks and does that which the Father instructs (cf. John 8:28). As the embodiment of God’s wisdom and instruction, he does nothing apart from the will of God. Furthermore, he is the culmination of all prophecy, as it is through him that God has deemed to bring about his kingdom on Earth.

Perhaps the greatest point of confusion in John’s prologue is 1:14, when he says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only [begotten] Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” This verse is made complicated by the capital w in “Word.” As I said, this is merely evidence of a Trinitarian bias in translation. God’s word—his thoughts, plans, reason—was embodied in this one man, Yeshua. It does not imply a pre-existent entity called the logos (which would be, at best, a second god). Now in the Aramaic Targumim, Yehovah’s word is often personified and revealed to be a stand-in for Yehovah himself. This had me captivated for a time as I wrestled with this issue of the nature of Yeshua, but I ultimately abandoned the notion thanks to Hebrews 1:1-2. If Yeshua in any form were present in the Tanakh, it would be fallacious to claim that only in these latter days that God chose to speak to us through his son.

Yeshua being the personified word of God does not make him God. I suggest the REV’s translation of John 1:1-5 to be closer to the intended meaning John desired. “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and what God was, the word was. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through it, and without it was not anything made that has been made. In it was life and the life was the light of mankind. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Immanuel… GOD WITH US. – Matthew 1:18,21-23

I shouldn’t have to point out that theophoric names do not imply the bearer of such name is God in the flesh. As an example, the name Tobias (Heb: Toviyah) means “Goodness of Yehovah.” Are we to assume that individuals with this name were God himself, or the embodiment of his goodness? No, theophoric names are nothing more or less than a statement about God. Note that Hebrew does not employ being verbs. So Immanuel could just as well be translated to mean “God is with us.” In this sense, it is not saying that Yeshua is God, but that God is with his people through his servant Yeshua. In Genesis 21:22, we see Abimelech pronounce that God is with Abraham. Does this mean that Abraham was God incarnate? Or that he was in the presence of a human God? No, it means nothing more or less than that the Spirit of God is with the person. (If it is relevant later on, I will elaborate on the Spirit of God, since it is another element of the Scriptures horribly abused by Trinitarianism.)

MIGHTY GOD EVERLASTING FATHER – Isaiah 9:6

I hope you will provide some commentary later on. To make this a statement of the deity of Yeshua, you would have to embrace Modalism. Otherwise, calling Yeshua the “Everlasting Father” refutes the idea that he is the son of God.

I do not take the stance of the antimissionaries who claim this is only referring to Hezekiah. It probably was referring to him in a limited sense, but as with most prophecies in the Bible, it has a greater meaning in reference to the Messiah. But calling him El Gadol is not necessarily an assertion of deity. Please see the REV’s commentary on this verse.

IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD, BY HIM ALL THINGS WERE CREATED, ALL THE FULLNESS OF THE GODHEAD BODILY – Colossians 1:15-19, 2:9

This passage was the first one that I really struggled over. I don’t believe it is necessary to interpret it in a Trinitarian fashion—or in any way that necessitates making Yeshua in any way a god or the God. Let’s crack open this passage and actually examine what it says, instead of just take a few phrases and assume they speak for themselves apart from any interpretation.

He is the image of the invisible God,

We are told several places throughout the Bible that God is invisible. Verses such as 1 Timothy 1:17 and Hebrews 11:27 show that God cannot be seen. John 4:24 says that God is a spirit. Exodus 33:20 says that no one can see God’s face and live. So if Yeshua is God, then how could those in his life see him and live?

There’s another element to this that clears up any confusion with this phrase.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. – Genesis 1:26-27

As you can see, being the image of God does not mean that one is God. All of mankind was meant to be the image of Yehovah, but due to sin, we are at best a disgracefully marred and broken form of that image. Yeshua, the only man completely without sin (Hebrews 4:15), is the perfect image and likeness of God that he intended for Adam from the beginning.

the firstborn of all creation.

I know the Trinitarian arguments that this refers to Yeshua’s status in creation, not his literal origin. And I can see that argument to some degree. Yet there are other ways of stating that that do not imply that he had a beginning if Paul were not trying to imply that Yeshua, in fact, had a beginning. Being firstborn is something more profound than simply being preeminent or superior to all creation.

As Paul says in verse 18, Yeshua is the firstborn of the dead. I think that is how we must understand his earlier statement. While it is not expressly stated here, I believe this is speaking of the new creation that began in the Messiah’s resurrection. Hebrews 1:1-2:5 ascribes creation language to Yeshua, but in the final verse, the author specifies that he’s speaking of the new creation. While I don’t think Paul wrote the Book of Hebrews, the idea is still there. Since Scripture interprets Scripture, if one passage claims that Yeshua is involved in the creation of the world to come, then it stands to reason that that is the intended meaning of another passage that doesn’t explicitly state it. Of course, that isn’t a rule, but I am merely offering another interpretation.

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Here Paul clarifies what he means by “all things”: “whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities”. I have heard many interpret these things as references to angelic or demonic powers, but does that make sense? It’s possible that’s at least part of what Paul intends, since he says “visible and invisible”, but I don’t think that covers everything.

Paul tells Timothy that we will reign with the Messiah if we endure (2 Timothy 2:12). Yeshua himself said that the faithful servant will be placed in a position of authority (Matthew 24:45-47). He revealed through John on Patmos that those saints who conquer and keep his works (the Torah) until the end will rule with rods of iron (Revelation 2:26-27). And the saints will judge the world (1 Corinthians 6:2-3). So perhaps these “thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities” are referring to the various positions of authority delivered through the saints in his future kingdom. In that case, this truly would be speaking in terms of the new creation.

Also, it must be pointed out that if Yeshua is the firstborn of all creation, he cannot also be the Creator.

And he is before all things,

Self-explanatory, and I doubt we would have any debate over this phrase.

and in him all things hold together.

I used to think that Paul was talking about the nuclear forces holding together the elements. As an ardent young-earth creationist, I held this verse up as proof that Jesus was the glue that held all the universe together. But that makes absolutely no sense in the context of what Paul is saying.

Let’s jump back two verses from where you started to quote. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (1:13-14). First, the “he” of this verse is Yehovah, God the Father. The agent through which he delivers us and transfers us is his son, Yeshua. Yeshua didn’t do this on his own (John 5:30); rather, he was the means by which God did this. But with the context of verses 13 and 14 in mind, we see that everything Paul says in 15-19 is referring to “the kingdom of his beloved Son.”

And he is the head of the body, the church.

Nothing to dispute here, although I have a major pet peeve with the word “church”. This is beside any point of your video, but it is a dirty habit I am trying to break, because it implies that there is some sort of inherent difference between Israel and the assembly of God.

He is the beginning,

Understood in terms of the new creation, this statement makes complete sense.

the firstborn from the dead,

Perfectly clear.

that in everything he might be preeminent.

This statement would be easy to gloss over, but let’s take a look at it for a moment. It is contingent upon the previous phrase, “firstborn from the dead”. In order to be preeminent over everything, he must first be the firstborn from the dead. The understanding I take from this verse is that his preeminence is something yet to happen, and something that is necessarily predicated by his resurrection from the dead.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

If the “fullness of God” was pleased to dwell in him, then he himself is not God. God doesn’t dwell within himself. He isn’t pleased to inhabit himself. That kind of language is just silly. No, God indwells those whom he chooses among those who walk in covenant with him. His spirit indwelt various people throughout the Tanakh, and in the Besech we see the same thing happening—first with Yeshua, and then with all believers (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Let me ask you, if Yeshua were God, then how could it be right to say, “For in Yeshua all the fullness of Yeshua was pleased to dwell, and through Yeshua to reconcile to Yeshua all things”? Now I get that Trinitarians have ridiculously detailed rules over when “God” means the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, or any combination thereof. But with a straightforward reading of the text, if Yeshua were God, then how could Paul say that he chose to reconcile to himself all things through himself—all the while using language that strongly implies two separate individuals? Surely you can see the illogicality of it.

For in him the fullness of deity dwells bodily,

I think I have already answered this point sufficiently a few paragraphs up. But let’s take a look at the previous verse: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (2:8) This is the epitome of Trinitarianism. It is nothing but Greek philosophy. The origins of Trinitarianism and the deity of Jesus come from the pagan Greek concepts of the Logos and the Demiurge. I would betray my ignorance of Greek philosophy to try to explain these concepts, but it is not hard to guess that Yeshua was likened to the Logos based on John’s rather unfortunate usage of that word to describe a patently Jewish concept that he wished to convey, so Yehovah was considered the Demiurge. It needs not be stated that using Greek philosophy to understand the God of Israel is fallacious.

Likewise, the Trinity qualifies as human tradition more than just about any doctrine taught by Christianity today. It has a bloody history and was reinforced through sometimes brutal means. It also cannot be explained or comprehended—by design—with theologians claiming it is some ineffable mystery too lofty for our finite minds to grasp. I’m fine with Yehovah being infinite and far beyond my ability to understand, but to claim that he is a logical contradiction is a bold claim indeed.

Regarding your verses from Colossians, I think I have made my point clear. While that passage can be interpreted to support your viewpoint, it certainly doesn’t have to be understood in that way.

GOD WAS MANIFESTED IN THE FLESH – 1 Timothy 3:16

What translation are you using, Lex? My ESV says that “he” was manifested in the flesh, not “God”. Because of the discrepancy, I turned to my faithful friend, BibleHub.com. Comparing parallel translations, it appears that we’re dealing with a textual variant. That’s shaky ground for a doctrinal position as groundbreaking as declaring Yeshua to be God. When I took a look at the Greek (in which I can’t even call myself a novice), I found something intriguing. Let’s take a look.

kai homologoumenōs mega estin to tēs eusebeias mystērion hos ephanerōthē en sarki edikaiōthē en  pneumati ōphthē angelois ekērychthē en ethnesin episteuthē en kosmō anelēmphthē en doxē

and admittedly great is the mystery [of] the holiness which was revealed in flesh, was justified in [the] spirit, was seen by messengers, was proclaimed in [the] nations, was believed on in [the] world, was raised up in honor

That is my rudimentary translation, but it seems to be valid per Strong’s. God’s holiness was revealed in human flesh in the man Yeshua. He was justified in the spirit (probably referring to his mikveh), etc. To say that God’s holiness was revealed in the flesh is not the same as saying that God became flesh. And furthermore, it seems quite problematic to say that God was justified in the spirit! In what sense does God need to be justified?

OUR GREAT GOD AND SAVIOR YESHUA – Titus 2:11-14

This is another controversial verse that comes down to a dispute over the English rendering. I think the King James Version actually does a better job of 2:13 in this instance. “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” I won’t go into detail here, but there is a principle in Greek interpretation called the Granville Sharp Rule.

When the copulative kai connects two nouns of the same case, if the article ho, or any of its cases, precedes the first of the said nouns or participles, and is not repeated before the second noun or participle, the latter always relates to the same person that is expressed or described by the first noun or participle… (Source)

This rule is hotly contended by Greek scholars, since grammar can only be descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, his statement is true if that’s what the author intended, but false if that is not the intention of the author. In this case, the KJV translators did not believe the possessive “our” meant to imply that Yeshua is both our great God and Savior, but that it should be thought of “our great God and our Savior Yeshua the Messiah”. In this case, we cannot be certain either way, but the interpretation is a matter of translator interpretation. While it could be calling Yeshua the great God, that is by no means the only way to understand this phrase, thus making it a paltry support for his unquestionable status as the Creator.

Let me ask you, did the Father give himself for us? or only the Son? Because unless you are a Modalist or a polytheist, then you cannot logically interpret this verse the way you did without claiming that the Father gave himself for us. “Our God”, I’m sure you would argue, is the Trinity. When Paul refers to “our God and Savior”, he doesn’t qualify by saying “God the Son”, or anything to that effect. So unless you’re willing to commit serious eisegesis, you must admit that this verse says that all the Godhead gave itself up for us.

GOD… PURCHASED WITH HIS OWN BLOOD – Acts 20:28

Whether it be from the lateness of the hour or the amount of time I’ve spent working on my reply this evening, I’ve decided to take the easy road on this one and refer to biblicalunitarian.com’s article on this verse. I’ve done my best up to this point to answer all of these Trinitarian claims on my own, but my rudimentary comprehension of Greek failed me at this point. Hopefully you will find their answer quite satisfactory.

AT THE NAME OF YESHUA EVERY KNEE SHOULD BOW – Philippians 2:6-11

I’m so glad I got to this verse before calling it quits tonight. This has become one of my favorite verses of late precisely because of its unitarian theology. As I addressed earlier in the passage from Colossians, being in the image (or in this case, form) of God does not equal being God himself. Adam was created in the image and likeness of God, but he grasped at the perceived equality that would come from knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:5). Therefore Yehovah humbled him, cursing him with death.

Then Yeshua comes along. Like Adam, he is the form and image of Yehovah. Like Adam, he has the choice of either submitting to God or grasping at perceived equality. But unlike Adam, he emptied himself of his pride and took on the form of a servant, since he was born in the likeness of men. Adam was created in the likeness of God, but Yeshua was born in the likeness of Adam—the fallen man. Adam could have been immortal and lived forever with Yehovah, but he chose to grasp at equality with God, so he was humbled. Yeshua was born in humility and chose to serve, so he was exalted and given immortality.

And because of Yeshua’s humility and obedience to the Father, Yehovah exalted him and gave him the name above every name. I do believe that this is referring to the name Yehovah. I believe that Yeshua, for all intents and purposes, is Yehovah in a representational sense. God created Adam to rule over creation in his name, and now Yeshua, the second Adam, rules over creation in his name. That does not make Yeshua the Creator himself, but he occupies the highest position in the universe apart from God himself.

There really is no way to read this passage in a Trinitarian sense. How does God the Son (a phrase found nowhere in Scripture) empty himself of his own nature while still being God in order to be glorified and given the name of Yehovah? That implies that he never possessed the name before that time. It’s a logically untenable position.

In Daniel 7:9-14, the prophet sees a vision of Yehovah seated on his throne. Then he sees a son of Adam who is given “dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” This was God’s plan from the beginning—to turn over the rulership of his creation to human beings. Yeshua is the tangible means by which he is accomplishing this. Yeshua cannot be God for his plan to succeed, because it means nothing for God to give his authority to himself. Genesis 1:26 is God’s plan for the creation, and Daniel 7:13-14 is how he will accomplish it. Yeshua is that son of Adam described by Daniel, and God will bring all these things to pass through him when he comes in glory.

HONOR THE SON JUST AS THEY HONOR THE FATHER – John 5:23

There is nothing Trinitarian about this verse unless you read it with the loaded presupposition that “the son” is “God the Son”. We should honor the son of God in the same way that we honor God himself, for all the reasons I just finished saying in my response to Philippians 2.

THE EXPRESS IMAGE OF HIS PERSON – Hebrews 1:1-4

***SIGH*** Being the image of God is not the same as being God. Also, when you read this passage, you ought to read it in connection with Matthew 21:33-44. The author of this letter is essentially explaining this parable. In the parable, there is a clear and unambiguous distinction between the master of the house and his son—just as the words “father” and “son” imply in non-Trinitarian English. Anyway, the author of the letter to the Hebrews is trying to argue that Yeshua was not an angel—not that he was God. If Yeshua were God, the author could’ve simply stated that and moved on. There would be no need to describe how God has magnified Yeshua above the angels.

MESSIAH… THE ETERNALLY BLESSED GOD – Romans 9:5

I said up-front that I am using the ESV in order to not appear to cherry-pick translations. I pointed out a couple of instances where another translation, such as the REV or KJV, renders a verse more clearly (in my opinion) than the ESV. But you, Les, have not been so honest. It would’ve behooved you to share with your congregation several variant readings on this verse. In this case, the majority of the most common translations render this verse to the effect of, “Christ… who is over all, God blessed for ever” (English Revised Version). While I suppose this isn’t conclusive, it is once again a case of a complicated Greek phrase being used to support the most important doctrine in Catholicism—under whose theological domain you fall due to your belief in their god.

Everything I just read comes straight out of the Bible. Everything I just read is Scripture.

That’s true. But the interpretive biases that I’ve spent hours over several days elaborating upon to this point (less than 10 minutes into your sermon) are purely the product of human tradition. The Pharisees invented encyclopedias worth of human tradition to add to or replace God’s word. Don’t be a Pharisee.

It’s not commentary, it’s not opinion, it’s Scripture.

It is very much opinion. Just because you apparently haven’t actually examined the issue critically yet doesn’t mean it isn’t your opinion. You haven’t been exposed to any other explanation of those verses (even ones that fit much better than the ones you’re teaching), so you think your words are fact when they are merely someone’s interpretive spin. And yes, I’ll concede that my views are also opinion. An opinion can be objectively right or wrong based on how it handles all the evidence on the table. I spent my entire life as a Trinitarian until this past year, so I’m not ill-informed of your position. But apart from a few verses that are a little complicated to understand, I am now convinced that there is no evidence for the Trinity in the Bible and very little evidence for the preexistence of Yeshua.

The writers of the New Testament believed Yeshua is God in the flesh.

Prove it. You have yet to provide a verse that says without ambiguity, “Yeshua is Yehovah the Creator who turned himself into a man.” You can’t provide such a verse because there is none. Yeshua is the image of God, but he is not God himself.

At this point, you started to go more in depth into Colossians 1:15-19. But prior to that, you went into some of the Church history concerning the issue of the deity of Yeshua. Now why do you think it took over 200 years for people to start fretting over “what to do” with Yeshua? Could it be that Greek paganism and philosophy had so infiltrated the Gentile Church that they lost all grasp with what the Scriptures actually said?

Why didn’t the apostles fret over this? Why did Peter use such deceptively unitarian language in places such as Acts 2:22-24, where he described Yeshua as “a man approved by God”? If Yeshua were God, this is practically blasphemy! Peter confessed that “God raised him up.” There is a clear distinction between God and “him”, that is, Yeshua. And lest we neglect the middle verse, Yeshua was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” If Yeshua were God, why wouldn’t Peter simply say, “he was delivered up according to his own definite plan and foreknowledge”?

You say that Yeshua is “God in the flesh, dwelling as a man.” How does that jive with places like Numbers 23:19, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind”? Or 1 Samuel 15:29, “And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret”? Or Hosea 11:9, “I am God and not a man”? In other words, we could say that God != Man and Man != God.

Why don’t you want to get in and rehash all their arguments, Lex? Is it because you know they argued over pathetically minute points of doctrine that can only be extrapolated from Scripture by running it through a meat grinder with a grating as thin as a human hair? Is it because they argued over a span of many decades, often involving violence and excommunication for all those who held minority opinions? This grotesque history is the foundation of the Trinity. Imagine if Yeshua had preached the Gospel of the Kingdom in this manner! He’d be no better than Muhammad!! But that’s the legacy of the Trinity.

You’ve brought up the Apostle’s Creed a few times, but there is nothing in that creed that couldn’t be said by a unitarian.

I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth:

And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary:

Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell:

The third day he rose again from the dead:

He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty:

From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead:

I believe in the Holy Ghost:

I believe in the holy catholic church: the communion of saints:

The forgiveness of sins:

The resurrection of the body:

And the life everlasting. Amen.

I take a few minor issues with it, but by and large it is a good creed. My objections of it would be more about what it doesn’t say than what it does.

You also keep saying that you don’t care about all of that, and you just want to go back to what the Bible says. I hope the hours I spent responding to each verse you splashed on the screen in the first nine minutes shows that the Bible doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means. Despite your insistence on ignoring the councils and being sola Scriptura, you still rely heavily on the way the councils interpreted the Bible.

I’ve been there. I’ve been there for most of my life. Like I said, I’ve only been examining this stuff for about a year, maybe a little less. If I come across as arrogant or cocky, please forgive me. It’s hard for me to judge my perceived tone while I’m in the middle of writing something. My intention is not to ridicule or belittle you, but to hopefully lead you to open your eyes and really examine these matters for yourself. If the Trinity is a doctrine you are unwilling to test against Scripture, then you’ve identified your golden calf.

At this point, you jump over to Isaiah 43:3,10-11. I’m glad you didn’t go into Colossians 1 again because I spent so much time on that earlier in your video. You make a point of stressing that Yehovah alone is the Savior (which is classic Tovia Singer, by the way). But you jump from that to the line about the servant, which you try to tie to Yeshua becoming a servant in Philippians 2:6-11. There is no connection here. You are cherry-picking verses like there’s no mañana.

Let’s look at the context of the servant in Isaiah 43, which is explained in verses 8-13.

Bring out the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears! All the nations gather together, and the peoples assemble. Who among them can declare this, and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right, and let them hear and say, It is true. “You are my witnesses,” declares Yehovah, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am Yehovah, and besides me there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses,” declares Yehovah, “and I am God. Also henceforth I am he; there is none who can deliver from my hand; I work, and who can turn it back?”

Do you see what this passage is saying?? The “servant” whom Yehovah addresses are the “people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears!” YOU ARE EQUATING YESHUA WITH THOSE WHO ARE BLIND AND DEAF!!! I hope you can see the EGREGIOUS ERROR in what you are saying. I wasn’t fired up until I took a few seconds to read the verses surrounding the ones you picked for your doctrine and realized the implications of what you’re saying. If you believe Yeshua is God, then using this verse to prove it is BLASPHEMY to the nth degree, since this verse calls the servant blind and deaf.

There are other people who are called God’s servants in the Bible, such as Isaiah (Isaiah 20:3), Eliakim (ibid. 22:20), David (ibid. 37:35), Jacob/Israel (ibid. 41:8), and the Messiah (ibid. 42:1)—and that’s just from one book. Regarding that last verse, it is clearly Messianic, and yet let’s examine it for a moment. “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” Why must God put God’s Spirit into God? Why, if Yeshua is God, would he need his own God’s Spirit? (Yes, the Father is Yeshua’s God; John 20:17.)

If you want to build some sort of flimsy connection between the Messianic servant and Philippians 2, you could’ve picked from a number of actual Messianic prophecies that refer to Yeshua, not the blind and deaf people of the world. I’m baffled as to why you chose the verse you did, but I hope it will give you cause to reexamine this entire false doctrine.

I started putting breakers in the text because this start-and-stop method of responding is difficult to track. I spent five paragraphs addressing something you said in the span of maybe a minute, so I want illustrate when I break from my response and move back to the next thing you have to say. As it stands, I’m at 13:56… out of 42:34. This is going to be fun.

So back in Isaiah 43, you quite incorrectly claim that the servant here is referring to Yeshua, and then you err even more by saying that “I am he” means “I am the servant”. That is not what this verse is saying at all. The phrase “I am he” is a reiteration of several other “I am ____” statements in this chapter.

I am Yehovah your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior (3)

I, I am Yehovah (11)

I am God. And henceforth I am he (12-13)

I am Yehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King (15)

I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins (25)

It sounds a lot like God is trying to assert his unity here. Tell me, when did Yeshua ever say, “I am Yehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King”? THAT would be an indisputable statement, and this discussion would be over.

You bring up that antimissionaries make the claim that verses 3 and 11 invalidates Yeshua as our savior. That is such a foolish claim on their part that I’m embarrassed they even say it. God used humans all the time to be his deliverers, Moses being the most obvious example. If God appoints a man to be the means of salvation, then God is still the Savior alone, even though his means of salvation was a man. Who saved Israel from Egypt? Moses or God? That’s a trick question, because the answer is both. But Moses wouldn’t have done it (or been successful) without God’s hand throughout the entire process. God was the Savior, and Moses was his servant.

Likewise, when a man whose very name is Salvation (yeshuah) is specially created by God for the purpose of saving the rest of humanity from their sins, we can rightly say that Yeshua saved us AND Yehovah is the only Savior. Might I remind you that Yeshua stated several times his utmost dependence upon God for all things (John 5:30). That sounds like something a servant might say regarding his Master. Hmmm… Moving on.

They have some pretty convincing arguments. And if you don’t know that Yeshua’s God, and you don’t believe that he’s God, you’re gonna be like, “Oh, man, I guess you’re right. There’s no Savior but God, and if Yeshua’s not God, then I guess there’s no Savior—I guess Yeshua’s not our Savior.

You are putty in the antimissionaries’ hands. They present a ridiculous argument that is an insult to the Tanakh, but YOU accept it at face value and assume the only answer is to call a man God.

You continue on to elaborate upon this false premise and say that if we deny Yeshua’s deity, we’ll eventually give him up as Messiah. As I think I said earlier, that is an insult to the thousands or millions of unitarian Christians over the past two millennia. This line of reasoning is nothing more than a scare tactic to keep your flock from being Bereans with this holy grail of false doctrines.

They don’t have a solid foundation on who Yeshua is.

I’d love to see you actually study the writings of unitarian Christians who have a very high Christology. In fact, unitarianism has a much higher Christology than Trinitarians. Let me explain.

Unitarian Christology says that God took a man and gave him his Spirit, so that this man was able to obey his Torah perfectly, despite the daily temptations that are common to man. Through this one man who was 100% sold out for God, Yehovah was able to accomplish what seemed impossible—he broke the curse of sin and death, so that anyone who has faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Yeshua can be restored to newness of life and the hope of the resurrection.

If Yeshua were God, his obedience would be utterly worthless. God can’t sin, or even be tempted to sin. So “God the Son” wasn’t tempted in anything whatsoever. And even if he were tempted, Trinitarian theologians debate whether he could’ve actually sinned even if he wanted to! Either James or Hebrews is wrong, according to Trinitarianism.

Next you recite John 1:1,14. I’m not going to rehash all of what I wrote above, but I’ll respond to any new points you bring up.

But let me ask you a question concerning these verses. Did Yeshua preexist as himself or as the Word? What does it mean to be “the Word”? Is that just a cool nickname like Jesus “The Word” Christ? The YouTube sidebar tells me that I should listen to your sermon “Who is [sic] The [sic] Word of the LORD” next, but I’m going to pass on that. This response has taken way too long as it is, and I have a few other sermons from other pastors lined up that I’d like to critique.

If you can quote John 1:1 in Greek, then surely you’ve mulled over the question of what John actually means in this verse, right?

en archē ēn ho logos kai ho logos ēn pros ton theon kai theos ēn ho logos

in beginning was the word and the word was with the god and god was the word

I can certainly sympathize with the Jehovah’s Witnesses for thinking that last phrase means “a god was the word”, since there is no definite article on “theos”. However, as I said before, I think the Revised English Version gets this verse right. They say that because both “theos” and “ho logos” are in the nominative case, that this phrase is actually comparing “theos” and “ho logos”, hence, “What God was, the word was.” This makes perfect sense, since God’s word is his self-expression. And since God is not a man, that he should lie, his word effectively is him. So when he puts his word into a man (Deuteronomy 18:18), that man effectively becomes God to the world. (”If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father”; John 14:9). Note that I am not saying that Yeshua is God, but that Yeshua is so much a chip off the ole block that he can perfectly represent God—just as Adam was created to do.

Do we really comprehend what [this verse] is saying?

Not if we interpret it through Trinitarianism… sorry, that was a cheap shot.

You claim that this verse says that Yeshua is God. But it does not say that. It says (according to Trinitarians) that the word was God. There is a difference. You are reading into the text that Yeshua is a one-to-one replacement with “the word”. If that were John’s intent, he would’ve just said, “In the beginning was Yeshua, and Yeshua was with God, and Yeshua was God.” No ambiguity there. But John uses language that, like I said earlier, evokes Jewish poetic imagery of God’s wisdom being “with him” from the beginning (Proverbs 8:22). Should Lady Wisdom be considered the fourth Person of the Quadrinity? Why not? She was definitely there in the beginning alongside God the Father, God the Word/Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Why not have God the Wisdom as well?

He’s not just a man sent by God.

Um… yes he is (Acts 3:26). But let’s drop the “just a man” business. Yeshua isn’t “just a man”; he’s the man whom God chose to save humanity. He’s the second Adam who was uniquely capable of achieving what his ancestor and ours miserably failed to do. He’s the son of God by virtue of the virgin birth (Luke 1:35). There is no greater man than Yeshua. Nobody else even comes close—not even Abraham or Moses or David.

Did you know that, at the end of the Millennial Kingdom, Yeshua will hand over all his authority and dominion back to Yehovah (1 Corinthians 15:28)? Why would God need to surrender his kingdom back to God?

Like I said, I’m not going to rewrite everything I already said as you go through these verses again. If I jump ahead several minutes, I’m only skipping over information you (and I) already covered (and responded to).

If Yeshua walked in the room, would you bow down and worship him?

Amen, without hesitation. He is my Salvation, and we are told to “kiss the son” (Psalm 2:12) and “honor the son” (John 5:22-23). In fact, if we fail to honor Yeshua, we are actually refusing to honor Yehovah, since Yeshua is the man God chose to accomplish his plans.

God’s plan for creation from the get-go was to have humans rule over his creation on his behalf. Even though every man has failed that mission because we are all born in sin, one man accomplished that in the full power of God.

You bring up the “wise men” who came from the East to worship him. These were probably Jewish or Zoroastrian astronomers from Babylon who knew of Balaam’s and Daniel’s prophecies which pointed to a star (Numbers 24:17) and gave the approximate timing of his birth (Daniel 9:24-26). Neither of these prophecies say anything about Yehovah becoming a man. Balaam’s prophecy actually speaks about a king coming out of Jacob being heralded by a star, and this king will crush the enemies of Israel.

I can’t remember where I read this, but somewhere I came across the speculation that the gifts they brought actually came from Daniel himself. After all, he’d lived through seventy years in captivity as one of the most influential people in two empires, yet he was a eunuch. So the idea is that he set aside all his wealth to present to the Messiah. It’s likely that Daniel was quite familiar with the rest of the Scriptures that were written at that time, given how much he fretted over Jeremiah’s words (Daniel 9:2). But other than Isaiah 43 (haha), where in the Tanakh does it say that Yehovah himself will be the Messiah? I’ll further qualify that by restricting you to only texts written before Daniel’s time, but I don’t think it matters, because no explicit statement to that effect exists.

Matthew 14:33

I apologize that my use of headers and page breaks is really inconsistent. I don’t plan on editing this after I’m finished (although I have made a couple of tweaks here and there), so the headers and page breaks won’t be getting any better. Not that I have any delusions that you’ll actually read this. I mean I really hope you do, but I’m just a random blog on tumblr. It may surprise you that we’re friends on Facebook, and I’ve interacted with you a few times. But currently my account is deactivated, so you won’t be able to figure out who I am from that.

So you bring up this verse where the disciples worshiped Yeshua. That’s true, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t make him God.

Note that they call him the son of God, not God. There is a difference. No one would call me Roger; I am the son of Roger. And if my dad were the King of kings, and he sent me as his delegate into a foreign land you’d better believe the natives of that land would be right in honoring me as if I were my dad.

I won’t go into a lot of examples, but did you know that the expression “to bow down” is synonymous with “to worship”? I don’t know if that’s true 100% of the time, but if you see the words “bow down”, it is probably the same word in Hebrew or Greek as “worship”. See for yourself if bowing down always connotes religious worship.

Matthew 28:16-20

Yes, they worshiped him. That doesn’t make him God.

I love how you repeated verse 18 in such a weighty manner, stressing “all authority”. BUT DID YOU READ THE SECOND HALF OF YESHUA’S STATEMENT???

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Who, pray tell, has more authority than God himself in order to be able to give God “all authority in heaven and on earth”? This verse alone ought to be enough to disprove any inkling that Yeshua is the Creator God.

Are you grasping the power of this statement?

Yes, Lex, I am. Are you? I think it’s lost on you. If you really understood it, you would realize the incomprehensible miracle that God has given all authority in heaven and on earth to a man. THAT is amazing! I can hardly come up with words to describe how amazing that is. (Of course, that might be due to the fact that I’ve been working on this for at least three hours tonight.)

I’m very surprised you didn’t mention anything about “the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”. I am prepared to argue against that rendition of verse 19, although I won’t get into it if you don’t.

However, you do bring up times when people bowed down before angels and were rejected. That doesn’t automatically make Yeshua God. Those angels were deflecting honor from themselves and onto God, but the Bible at least twice tells us to honor Yeshua in the same way that we honor the Father. I’ve already cited those verses earlier.

Fun Fact: Did you know that Solomon sat on God’s throne? “Then Solomon sat on the throne of Yehovah as king in place of David his father” (1 Chronicles 29:23). It only matters to the extent that every time someone bowed down to him, they were worshiping Yehovah. The same is true when we bow down before Yeshua. Worshiping Yeshua is worshiping God, because Yeshua is the Anointed One whom God has chosen to rule and reign in his place.

I really want to get to the halfway marker (21:17) before calling it quits tonight…

Hebrews 1:5-8

I knew this chapter would come up at some point. I had to skim back through my draft to make sure I hadn’t covered it already. Let’s break it down verse by verse.

For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”?

I know the word “to beget” is pretty archaic, but do you know what it means? It means “to give birth”, by implication, “to cause to come into being”. If a man begets a son, he causes his son to come into being in his wife’s womb.

And I know Trinitarians are divided over the idea of “eternally begetting”—that is, is Yeshua the “eternally begotten son”, or did he become God the Son when he previously existed as “the Word”? But what does the word “today�� mean to you? Does it mean anything at all? Or is it just there to confound the otherwise clear statement that the one whom God begat just so happens to also be God. God begat God. That’s nonsense.

Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”?

Two things.

It is ridiculous to think of God in Father/Son terms while citing this sentence. Read it clearly: “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.” If Yeshua is “God the Son”, then why this future-tense, prophetic language?

This prophecy was originally spoken to David of Solomon (2 Samuel 7:14). Solomon is portrayed as a foreshadowing of the Messiah. This prophecy is about a man, not God the Son.

And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God's angels worship him.”

Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.”

No disputes here in your interpretation of these verses. Yehovah made Yeshua greater than the angels, so they ought to worship him, as we see them do many times in Revelation.

But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.”

Given how, up to this point, Hebrews 1 is decidedly not saying that Yeshua is God, we can apply the principle of “Scripture interprets Scripture” to explain this. There are two equally valid, non-Trinitarian explanations to this verse.

God is legitimately calling Yeshua God in this instance, since Yeshua will be ruling on behalf of God. Just as Moses was God to Pharaoh (Exodus 7:1), Yeshua is God to us—although he is not the Creator. He only serves in that role and function as the intermediary between Yehovah and man. Or…

This verse could be translated incorrectly, both here and in Psalm 45:6.

In the psalm, the sentence reads, “kis-’ă-ḵā ’ĕ-lō-hîm ‘ō-w-lām vā-‘eḏ šê-ḇeṭ mî-šōr šê-ḇeṭ mal-ḵū-ṯe-ḵā”. That could legitimately be translated to say, “Your throne is God to the ages and ages, a scepter of righteousness, a scepter of royalty.” BibleHub actually says that all eight of these words are nouns. That is an impossible construct in English, but apparently it’s perfectly good grammar in Hebrew. Since every word here is a noun, there is a lot of flexibility in interpretation regarding how these nouns fit together.

As for the Greek, we have, “ho thronos sou ho theos eis ton aiōna tou aiōnos kai hē rhabdos tēs euthytētos rhabdos tēs basileias sou”. That could legitimately be translated to say, “The throne of yours the God is to the age of the age, and the scepter of righteousness, the scepter of your kingdom.” In other words, “Your throne is the God.” (BibleHub)

If we take this option of the verse being mistranslated in both Greek and Hebrew, then there is no confusion here whatsoever. I’ll grant that this is unlikely to be the case, but it is a possibility, and it doesn’t break the rules of Hebrew or Greek grammar. If the verses were really saying that God is the throne, then this would make perfect sense after the author quoted from a prophecy about Solomon being God’s son. As we saw, Solomon reigned from Yehovah’s throne. So his throne literally was God. And Yeshua, too, will reign from Yehovah’s throne. God will be his throne.

That said, I did ask one of the REV translators whether my speculative translation of this verse were accurate. He said it is possible, but certainly not necessary, and probably unlikely. Perhaps the takeaway should be that it is possible that this verse says that God is the throne of the king (David, Solomon, or Yeshua), but it could also be calling the king (David, Solomon, or Yeshua) “God” in a representational sense.

I’m rather impartial between those interpretations. Both are possible, and neither requires that Yeshua is the Creator God.

[As I was researching the usage of elohim to refer to those other than Yehovah, I came across an interesting note on this page (definition 2b) which agrees with my second interpretation, saying, “Your throne is God’s.” That’s a slightly different wording than I have, but the same meaning, and it doesn’t require Yeshua or any other king of Israel to literally be God.]

I just realized I’m past the halfway point. It’s almost midnight, so I’m wrapping it up for the evening.

Do you get why there was some confusion in the early Church history about the nature of God?

This confusion is utterly unnecessary. Apart from a few passages that seem to ascribe some aspect of creation to Yeshua (all of which can be explained according to biblical unitarianism), there is nothing that seems to require that Yeshua be God. The error comes from the poisoning of the faith from Greek pagan philosophy.

The Bible’s presentation of God is very simple. Yeshua’s presentation of God is very simple. Nobody in the Bible cared how many “Persons” God is or whether it was a “compound unity”. These terms are devoid of any spiritual value—and even linguistic value, as I hope to get to at some point. This exercise of pulling out key texts and ignoring others to prove the Trinity is pure eisegesis, of the same kind that led us to Christmas, Easter, “Jesus made all foods clean”, etc. At its root, the Trinity robs Christians of the necessity and ability to walk in obedience to Yehovah by saying it’s so impossible, only God himself can do it. That is not what Scripture says, and it’s a damning doctrine.

Because we have God the Father, and we have God the Son.

Oh really? Show me a single verse that mentions “God the Son” in that phraseology, as a title for Yeshua, and I’ll delete this blog post. “God the Son” is as foreign to the pages of the Bible as “Persons” or “hypostatic union” or “Trinity” or “three ‘whos’ and one ‘what’”.

And it says, Yeshua says, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” He says, “I and my Father are one.”

Yup. But what does that mean? You’ve decided it means “one nature” or “one essence”. But I can prove to you beyond dispute that it means “one purpose” and has nothing to do with his nature. Turn with me in your Bibles to John 17:11,20-23.

Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. … I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

So, does Yeshua want us to become part of the Trinity? What would that make it then? A Multiplicity? An Infinity? Is our destiny to merge with the Godhead until we become Persons within God? That sounds like a mixture of Mormonism and Hinduism. I doubt that’s what Yeshua had in mind when he said “that they may be one, even as we are one.” If I had to guess, i’d imagine he’s pretty disappointed that people have come to such a bizarre conclusion.

Unless you believe that all Christians will be one with God as Persons in the Godhead, then you cannot interpret Yeshua’s other statements in the same manner. They are in the same context. There is no difference between “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) and "Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:11).

As for the other statement, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father,” there is nothing confusing about that. God is invisible, but the Torah is his character distilled for us to know how to be like him. Yeshua perfectly obeyed the Torah, so he perfectly demonstrated the character and heart of Yehovah. Ergo, by looking at Yeshua and how he lived, we can clearly see Yehovah. Yeshua isn’t God, he’s a man who perfectly obeyed God.

You bring up the Shema. That’s awesome! We’re finally getting somewhere! And then—

But the word echad, it doesn’t mean singular. It means a unity.

Lex, “one” means “one”. Echad means “one”. “One” never means “more than one”. The plurality you occasionally find in Scripture comes from other words. “One couple”, “one pair”, “one flock of sheep”, etc. A collective noun is a singular noun that refers to multiple items within the collective. You can have “one collective” or “two collectives”, and in that sense, echad can modify a collective. The word echad itself is not plural, any more than the word “one” is plural. To argue otherwise is forcing a grammatical absurdity onto the text.

You cite Adam and Eve being “one flesh”. I don’t even think that’s an example of a collective noun. A man and woman literally become one flesh, restoring the flesh and bone that God took from Adam’s side. Eve was created from Adam’s flesh, so when they came together as husband and wife, they become one flesh again. And that is the template for all marriages. Two people become one couple. If you interpret echad to be plural in this sense, then saying “echad flesh” makes no sense. They aren’t two fleshes, they’re one flesh. I don’t know how to say it any more simply.

The word Eloheinu, Elohim, they’re plural words.

Yes they are. But in Hebrew, words can be pluralized to denote greatness. Behemoth in Job 40:15 is a plural noun, but it is clearly referring to one creature. I have no doubt there are more examples, but that one ought to be enough. As for elohim, it is used for other gods in a singular manner. It is used of Baal (1 Kings 18:24), Chemosh (Judges 11:24), and Dagon (1 Samuel 5:7). It is used of Moses (Exodus 4:16) and the spirit of Samuel (1 Samuel 28:13). For many more usages of elohim, read this page from BibleHub.

El is a singular. Elohim is a plural.

That is factually true. But you are imposing English grammar onto a Semitic language. The fact is, Hebrew employs plural to indicate plurality in number or superiority in essence. Behemoth is not a group of animals, it is a single, large animal (probably a sauropod dinosaur, but that’s unimportant at the moment). Here’s another grammatical difference: English has superlatives (-er and -est) to indicate how certain things rank compared to others by comparison. In Hebrew, though, there are no superlatives. Instead, Hebrew conveys this by using a grammatical pattern such as “king of kings”. In English, this expression could’ve been translated as “greatest king” without losing any of the idea that the author meant to convey. The point is, you cannot use English grammar as a playbook for how to interpret Hebrew. Hebrew uses plurality to indicate more than simply plurality in number, and we have to understand that to understand the text.

Lex, I’m very disappointed with this next turn in your sermon. You used the body+soul+spirit idea to argue for the Trinity. I’m disappointed because you should know better. You were the first person who got me to seriously question whether we go to heaven or not when we die. It was you who started me on the rabbit trail to investigate what the Bible actually teaches about us as humans. I don’t have a copy of your book on the subject yet, but I do plan on buying it sometime down the road. But now you’re eyebrows deep in Catholic anthropology. You say you don’t know how it all fits together, referring to us as humans. But just like the nature of God, this question has an abundantly simple answer if you just let the text speak for itself.

…then Yehovah God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. – Genesis 2:7

God made a human shape out of dust. He breathed his spirit/wind/breath into it, and it became a living soul. Dust (body) + Breath (spirit) = Living Creature (soul). Your body and soul are practically synonymous, and they are energized by Yehovah’s spirit/breath. Watch this short video from The Bible Project to get a clear explanation of ruach in the Bible.

Anyway, you cannot speak of your spirit. The spirit that energizes you and gives you life is on loan from God, and he will take it back at the end of your days (Ecclesiastes 12:7). Yeshua even voluntarily gave up his spirit and breathed his last (Luke 23:46), which is kind of redundant since those two expressions mean the same thing.

If you take your body+soul+spirit analogy to its logical conclusion, that means that God the Father is only one-third of God. We cannot call the Father “God” because he isn’t God completely. He’s only a part of God—33.3%, to be exact. Does that make any sense to you?

We have such finite minds. How can we even try to grasp and comprehend the nature of our Creator?

We can start by not believing the absolute foolishness that is the Trinity. God is infinite—no dispute there. I wouldn’t claim in a million years to understand him fully. But he is not a God of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33), and there is nothing confusing than the Trinity doctrine. It is complete word salad. Theologians create a new language when speaking about the Trinity, but insist that everyone uses their words on their terms. The Bible never speaks of God in terms of “Persons”. It never speaks of “God the Son” or the “God-man”. Yeshua is never said to be “fully God and fully man”. Trinitarians latch onto the four instances in Scripture where God speaks self-referentially in the plural (e.g., ”Let us make man in our image”; Genesis 1:26), but ignore the THOUSANDS of times when the Bible plainly speaks of him in singular terms. (There are multiple explanations for those four “Us” passages that do not require a Trinity, by the way.)

The Trinity is a logical impossibility. Since God created our minds to understand logic according to his own logical mind, he cannot be a logical impossibility. It is as impossible for him to contradict himself as it is for him to sin.

…to say, “Oh, I got it figured out. Let me write a doctrine for you. We’re gonna write this out and we’re outline it we’re gonna say, ‘This is what God is.’” I don’t think so.

Brother Les, I know from the last year or so of watching your videos and occasionally interacting with you on Facebook that you are not a proud man. Therefore, I’ll give you the benefit of a doubt and assume you don’t realize how arrogant this sounds. You claim God is beyond our comprehension, and yet you are the one peddling a doctrine about the Trinity that is 100% the product of human imagination. You think you have God figured out—enough to tell other people that they are wrong and believe in a false God if they don’t agree that Yeshua has to be God because you say so!

You cite from 1 Timothy 3:16, which I exegeted much closer to the beginning of this response. In short, we cannot prove whether Paul originally wrote “God” or “he” was manifested in the flesh because it comes down to a textual variant. If it says “he”, then it’s referring to Yeshua and cannot be spun into a claim of his deity. I’ll grant that it’s possible that Paul wrote “God”, but the other is just as possible. Even if he did say that “God was manifested in the flesh”, all that means is that he was revealed in the flesh. It doesn’t mean that God became flesh, but only that Yeshua revealed the invisible God to us. I’ve said many times before, that doesn’t many Yeshua God.

This is way beyond my understanding.

Yes, yes it is. That’s not because you’re stupid, but because it is literally impossible to understand. It not only isn’t true, but it is a logical contradiction. I cannot stress that point enough. The Trinity is asinine. It is word salad. Alphabet soup. If you run the Bible through a shredder a hundred times, you still wouldn’t arrive at anything as convoluted as the Trinity. It is not your fault that you can’t understand it.

And I should say that I am not trying to be rude. I wouldn’t have most of my evenings recently writing this if I were out to roast you. My heart wants you to come out of Babylon completely and understand the truth about our God and his Son. You led me into a greater understanding of the Scriptures, and I want to do the same for you. I know it is very hard to convey tone through text, and we humans have a tendency to suspect hostility and take things as meaner than they are. I want you to know, I’m not trying to insult or belittle you in any way.

At the 26:00-minute mark, I realized something. You spoke of the Father and the Son, but not the Holy Spirit. It’s at this point that I suddenly realized, I don’t know if you actually said you’re a Trinitarian or not. You’re pretty clearly a Binitarian, and they have all the same flaws in their logic and interpretation of Scripture. But I can’t rewatch the last 26 minutes all over again just to double-check. I don’t want to portray you as something you’re not, but if you aren’t a Trinitarian, just mentally replace “Trinity” with “Binity”.

And yet [Yeshua] prayed to the Father. He’s not talking to himself. He said, “I didn’t come to do my will, I came to do with will of the Father.” He’s God, but he’s not the Father. He’s God, but he’s not the Father.

I wish you could see the error in calling Yeshua God. All this confusion and mystery that you see in the Bible evanesces when you drop that fallacious premise. Yeshua prayed to God because he was a man who needed God’s presence in his life in order for him to accomplish the monumental task that God set out before him.

I have no problem with John 5:23, as I explained before. I will gladly worship Yeshua because he is the perfect representation of God to men. Yeshua is not God, but he is the humblest of servants, and he has been magnified to the very throne of God himself.

Here’s another question for you. If Yeshua were “God the Son”, why does he command us to honor him alongside the Father without explaining what “God the Son” means? Yeshua never explained the Trinity/Binity. Not once. The only mention of it in the Gospels comes from Matthew 28:19, and verse is likely a forgery. Since Yeshua never explained what “God the Son” actually means, then he couldn’t fault his audience for thinking he was speaking of himself as God’s LITERAL son, now could he? If he were God, why didn’t he say so? Why bother instructing us to honor him? If he were blatantly obviously God, then we shouldn’t need to hear him tell us to honor him.

“Should we pray to Yeshua? Should we only pray to the Father, or should we pray to Yeshua?” The Bible says that he intercedes for us on our behalf. It says, “All who call upon his name will be saved.”

We should probably only pray to God, but Yeshua did say we can ask things in his name. Personally, when I pray, I often reference Yeshua because I am appealing to him as my rabbi, my judge, my high priest, and my Salvation. Not that God needs reminding of anything, but I still make much mention of Yeshua in pleas for God’s forgiveness for sin or aid in a struggle. In fact, I pray in Yeshua’s name much more than I ever did as a Trinitarian. As a Trinitarian, I never knew how to pray. Was I being sinful by only directing my prayers to the Father and not the Son or the Holy Spirit? Should I pray to all three equally? Would the Holy Spirit get jealous if I left him out of the equation? I seriously had these thoughts multiple times in my life, especially as a kid. There was nothing special about Jesus in my prayers because he was just God. I’d thank Jesus for dying on the cross for me, and thank the Father for sending Jesus on my behalf. But it was all just meaningless jargon because nothing added up in my mind. I was just reciting doctrines and creeds.

As for Yeshua interceding for us, he intercedes on our behalf concerning our sin. When the Adversary accuses us in God’s face, Yeshua stands in the gap and intercedes. What on Earth does it mean for God the Son to intercede with God the Father? We’re getting into Logos/Demiurge territory again. The Father/Demiurge is this ancient, evil god, while the Son/Logos is this benevolent deity bent on our blessing. Once you realize that Yeshua is only a man, then his intercession makes perfect sense and holds much more gravitas.

God appointed this man to be our sacrifice for sins—and to be our high priest! God himself cannot be tempted by sin, but since Yeshua was, he can sympathize with our weaknesses when he appeals to God on our behalf (Hebrews 4:15).

Most of the verses that speak of calling on the name of the Lord are referring to the name of Yehovah, not Yeshua. However, 1 Corinthians 1:2 does speak of calling on the name of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. If this means praying to him, then I have no issue with that. He is our mediator, so I can pray to him, so long as it is biblically justified. It seems it is.

That said, Joel 2:32 specifically speaks of calling on the name of Yehovah for salvation. Of course, Yeshua is the yeshuah of our God, so he is quite literally the answer to the prayer of Joel 2:32. But it is still Yehovah who does the saving. Yeshua is just his tool to do so.

Even though the Bible does speak in one verse of calling on the name of our Lord Yeshua, every other time it speaks of calling on the name of the Lord, it is quoting from Joel, or speaking in similar language. I’m going to go on a brief tangent before wrapping up for the night, but this is one problem with the rabbinical ban on speaking God’s name. I don’t really care whether you call him Yehovah or Yahweh or Yahuah, but calling him “the LORD” is needlessly confusing. Even though it isn’t expressed in Greek, there is a difference between Yehovah and Adonai. I sincerely wish the Besech were written in Hebrew, if for no other reason than to see those distinctions clearly illuminated. Is “kyrios” here referring to the Lord Yeshua or to Yehovah? But every time the Tanakh speaks of calling on the name of Yehovah, it is unambiguous, and never did they call on Yeshua’s name. They called on Yehovah’s name to bring yeshuah, but nobody was praying to “God the Son”. They weren’t even aware of his existence, seeing as he didn’t exist.

In all things, he may have preeminence.

I already tackled this earlier, but since you started going into the definition, let’s see this word defined.

In what way does this require that Yeshua be God? You say that his being superior makes him the greatest and most superior, but then you jump cut without explaining any further. I don’t know why you edited this sermon down the way you did, because there was probably some useful information there. But since I can only work off the material you have on YouTube, I’ll do the best I can.

I don’t want to be rude, but citing this verse as proof of Yeshua’s deity without any further examination is lazy researching. There are clear and unambiguous verses throughout the Besech that clearly say that Yeshua is inferior to God. He is superior over all other created beings, but he is not equal with God.

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is the Messiah, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of the Messiah is God. – 1 Corinthians 11:3

And,

Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. – 1 Corinthians 15:24-28

This passage explains the mission of Yeshua in a broad scale. He was appointed to bring all of creation back under the authority of Yehovah. When he has completed his purpose, then he will turn back over his authority to God—when God himself will live among men in the new creation.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” – Revelation 21:3-4

If Yeshua were God, then why would Revelation say God lives among men only after the new creation has come?

My browser crashed after spending about half an hour delving into more detail on Colossians 1:16-19, so I don’t think I’ll try to retype it all from memory. I will say that I used to agree with you fully on your interpretation of this passage. I was positive it referred to Yeshua as the Creator God. I now see that fails to make sense of the broader context of this passage and the rest of Scripture. When you isolate three verses from the text, you can interpret them to mean a lot that they don’t mean. This passage actually has very little to do with the first creation, and is all about the new creation.

[The Father] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

This is the setup for the next paragraph (which is really an editorial decision not found in Greek). This present creation is the “domain of darkness”. It belonged to Adam as the original son of God (Luke 3:38). But he surrendered his authority to the serpent, who is now the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). The “kingdom of his beloved son” is the new creation, which, as we saw earlier, Yeshua will surrender back to God once he has brought all of the original creation into his subjection.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Adam was created in the image of the invisible God. Adam wasn’t God. Why would the same language mean something different when applied to Yeshua, the second Adam? There is no textual justification to interpret the phrase “image of God” in two different ways.

He is the firstborn of all creation because he was literally the firstborn of the new creation. Since Paul is speaking of the new creation, we should not try to twist this into some sort of convoluted idea that Yeshua preexisted this current creation. If you believed Yeshua were merely a created being as the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim, then this could make sense in speaking of the current creation. But if Yeshua were God, then calling him the “firstborn of all creation” would be meaningless at best, a lie at worst. No, Yeshua is the firstborn of the new creation.

I explained near the beginning of this post what it means that “all things were created” by him. Paul qualifies “all things” by saying, “Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.” These are specifically the “all things” he has in mind.

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the assembly. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

Nothing confusing here. Since this entire passage is describing the new creation, the “all things” which hold together in him must also describe the order of the new creation. And that makes sense, since none of it would have been possible without him. He is God’s means and method of bringing about the new creation.

If Yeshua is the “firstborn from the dead” then he cannot be God, since God cannot die (Deuteronomy 32:40). Death is the wages of sin (Romans 6:23), and it was introduced to this present creation through Adam (ibid. 5:12). Since God cannot sin or even be tempted to sin (James 1:13), there has never been a point in time when God was subject to the curse or could die. But Yeshua was born under the law (Galatians 4:4), so by virtue of his humanity, he had to die. Even though he did not sin (Hebrews 4:15), he was born into a world subjected to futility (Romans 8:20). But with his resurrection, he became the firstborn from the dead and the Anointed One of God’s kingdom.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. – Colossians 1:13-20

This shouldn’t even need explaining. If the “fullness of God was pleased to dwell” in him, then he was not himself God. It would be ludicrous for me to say, “In Lex the fullness of Lex was pleased to dwell,” as if you had a choice of where your spirit dwelt. No, the fact that God’s spirit dwelt within Yeshua is proof that Yeshua was not God.

And Paul says that God chose to reconcile all things to himself through Yeshua. That kind of sounds like Yeshua is the mediator between God and man, not God himself.

Regarding Titus 2, I spent three whole paragraphs (plus a paragraph quotation) explaining why verse 13 does not prove that Yeshua is “our great God”. The translation of this verse is disputed based on the grammatical structures of a dead language. That is pretty poor proof that Yeshua is supposedly God.

Do you guys get why this is important?

Yes, Lex, I do. I get why it is vitally important to understand the true nature of God and his son, Yeshua. There are enormous theological problems with Yeshua being God, from claiming that God was tempted to sin to saying that he died. Belief in the Trinity or Binity or whatever view you espouse requires ignoring or reinterpreting many verses to say something other than what the plain language says because they don’t fit within the God-man paradigm. The primary reason anyone ever concluded that Yeshua is God is because of the influence of pagan Greek philosophy in the second generation of Christians. Is that really something you want to court? I’m sincerely worried that everyone who says Jesus is God will be held guilty of the First Commandment (Exodus 20:3), ESPECIALLY among anti-Torah Christians who think Jesus somehow saved them from God-the-Father’s wrathful law. I hope this is not the case. I hope they will find mercy in their ignorance.

And so when people come along, and they say, “Yeshua’s not God,” that tells me they’re not reading their Bible.

On the contrary, Lex, it wasn’t until I really began studying my Bible as I began to understand the Torah that I realized the truth about this. I know you are seeking truth, so I pray that God will lead you out of convoluted Constantinian Christianity and into the light of the truth. Had anyone told me back when I first encountered a New2Torah video about eating unclean meats that I would reject the Trinity only a little over a year later, I would’ve ran back to my Baptist church and never explored the matter again. But the longer you spend out of Babylon, the less it clouds your perception.

I don’t say this to be patronizing. It is very easy to get stuck on one track of interpretation and not even realize there is another side to consider. But just remember: There isn’t a single verse that hangs your salvation on the deity of Yeshua. Your soul is not at risk of Gehenna for pursuing these questions thoroughly. If a rigorous study of the Scriptures (without Trinitarian bias) leads you back to the God-man, hallelu-Yah! But I suspect it won’t.

Because over and over and over, it says he is God.

Not really. Thomas called him God once (John 20:28), and a possible translation of Psalm 45:6/Hebrews 1:8 calls him a god (distinguished from the God; Psalm 45:7). Other than that, I can’t think of any explicit statements calling Yeshua God that aren’t hotly debated even by Trinitarians because of the Granville Sharp Rule.

What does he say? He says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Right there he is claiming to be God. “Before Abraham existed, I am.” What did Yahweh say to Moses in the burning bush? Moses said, “Who do I tell them has sent me?” He said, “I am that I am.” “I am”—it’s his statement of fact that he exists.

I figured you’d bring this up at some point. The phrase ego eimi is a very common expression in Greek. Yeshua is hardly the only one in the Bible who says it. It is not a claim to deity. Now, the way he used this phase could be taken in that manner, and I’ll admit, it’s pretty strong evidence for his deity when taken on its own. That’s why context is so key.

Throughout John 8, Yeshua is speaking about God. He calls himself the light of the world and the Son of Man. We know from John 1:4 that the word of God is the light of the world, and that Yeshua is the embodiment of the word of God (verse 14). The Son of Man is a purely Messianic title—one which God himself staunchly refuses (Numbers 23:19; I know this isn’t in reference to the Messiah, but if God is not a son of man, then he cannot be the Son of Man).

The Pharisees are having none of it. They are getting angrier and angrier because Yeshua is accusing them of being slaves to sin and children of the deceiver. They assert that Abraham is their father, and yet he died. When Yeshua says, “Before Abraham was, I am,” he is saying he is superior to Abraham since Abraham died and is awaiting the resurrection like everyone else. He is not making a claim to deity.

In 10:31-38, the Pharisees actually accuse him of calling himself God (why didn’t they do that earlier in chapter 8?). Yeshua flat-out refutes that idea by insisting that he is only calling himself the son of God. He also brings up Psalm 82:6, wherein God refers to other people as gods and sons of God. Yeshua is distancing himself from the accusation of blasphemy. Maybe that’s why no one thought to accuse him of this claim during his trial…

Yeshua the Messiah is the same yesterday and today and forever. – Hebrews 13:8

Why is this proof of his deity? In his earthly life, he never sinned, so he was utterly consistent in his devotion to Yehovah. At the start of his ministry, he was filled with the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:16-17), empowering him to perform the miracles he did (John 5:36) and to speak the words he did (John 12:49). And in his resurrection, he has poured out that same spirit upon us (Romans 8:9), that we might do even greater works than he (John 14:12). Think of Elijah giving a double-portion of his spirit to Elisha (2 Kings 2:9-14).

Now as for the specific context of Hebrews 13:8, we must look at verses 7 and 9. In verse 7, the author encourages us to imitate our leaders, their way of life and their faith. In verse 9, we are warned not to be led away by false teachers. What does this mean for verse 8? The author is providing an example of what we should look for in a teacher and leader. If we are going to be someone’s disciple, we should pick someone who was discipled by Yeshua himself. Since Yeshua never changes, the things he taught never change either. That is the author’s point. It’s very similar to what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Be imitators of me, as I am [an imitator] of the Messiah.” Yeshua is no longer on this earth, but the idea was for us to have an unbroken chain of succession of disciples that traced back to him. Had this been kept up, we could say the same thing as Paul and the author of to the Hebrews. But we don’t have an unbroken chain of disciples of the Messiah to learn from, so we need to be faithful students of the Bible instead.

It is absolutely true that God does not change. And if God doesn’t change, then neither will his son, since his son does everything he does (John 5:19). Just as God never changes and his word never changes, neither does the one who does his word. Consider the words of A.W. Tozer,

For a moral being to change it would be necessary that the change be in one of three directions. He must go from better to worse or from worse to better; or, granted that the moral quality remain stable, he must change within himself, as from immature to mature or from one order of being to another. It should be clear that God can move in none of these directions. His perfections forever rule out any such possibility. – The Knowledge of the Holy

Now the Scriptures plainly testify that Yeshua had to grow and learn obedience just like every other child (Luke 2:52; Hebrews 5:8; Isaiah 7:15). So by Tozer’s own description of immutability, he has accidentally invalidated his own chapter on the Trinity. But as Yeshua learned obedience, he consciously chose to obey and walk in the Torah of Yehovah. Since the Torah teaches us how to be holy as Yehovah is holy (Leviticus 11:45), Yeshua was completely holy just as Yehovah is because he never sinned. He was still born under the law and suffered the effects of the curse—even death—but he was completely perfect and steadfast in his halakha.

So why does all of this matter? Because of Yeshua is the Savior, he has to be God.

No, Lex, why do you keep returning to this conclusion? It isn’t a mere choice between A and B. Option C is perfectly valid and fits the totality of Scripture much more consistently, but you have written it off already.

And if Yeshua is God, he is the one that gave us the Torah.

This is a logical conclusion to reach, but I can disprove it with a single, indisputable verse:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. – Hebrews 1:1-2

If Yeshua is the son of God, then he cannot be the one who gave the Torah to Moses. To argue otherwise would require you to say that

Hebrews is wrong; or

Yeshua is God (the Father), not the son of God.

Are you suggesting either of those things?

What does it say? If you love me, keep my commandments.

Why does this mean Yeshua personally gave the Torah to Moses? Need I remind you of Deuteronomy 18:15-19? I will regardless, because it’s become one of my favorite passages in the Tanakh lately.

Yehovah your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—just as you desired of Yehovah your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, “Let me not hear again the voice of Yehovah my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.” And Yehovah said to me, "They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.”

Yeshua is the prophet like unto Moses in whose mouth were the very words of Yehovah! He spoke God’s commandments and explained them perfectly, after they had been corrupted over 1,500 years of rebellion and idolatry. His commandments are Yehovah’s commandments because God put his words in Yeshua’s mouth. If Yeshua were God, then this prophecy in Deuteronomy would be utterly meaningless.

All throughout the Old Testament, that is what God said: If you love me, keep my commandments.

Actually, God never said that in the Old Testament. It is the undertone of the entire Torah (e.g., Deuteronomy 6:4-5), but God never said those words. I wouldn’t be nitpicky about it, except that you are trying to use it as another point to claim that Yeshua is the God of the Tanakh, and that isn’t true.

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. – John 14:1

Why, if Yeshua is God, does he speak in such a cryptic way? Why on Earth would he consistently say things that suggest that he is someone other than God if what he actually meant is that he is God? Why not say, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; and believe that I am God in the flesh?”

Why did you stop reading halfway through verse 2, then skip ahead to verse 6? Verses 2-4 are greatly important to understanding the things that play out in Yeshua’s ministry, including his absence for the last 2,000 years. He is a young man who proposed to a young woman. She accepted by drinking from his cup of wine (Luke 22:18), and then he returned to his Father’s house (Luke 24:51) to prepare a place for her (John 14:2-3). When his Father decides he is ready (Matthew 24:36), then he may return for his bride, to catch her up to his Father’s home (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) for the wedding feast (Revelation 19:6-9). God is the Father, so Yeshua is not God.

“Show us the Father.” “Have I been with you so long that [sic] you don’t know me?”

It baffles me that we can read the exact same passage of Scripture and walk away with two vastly different interpretations. Even more, I’m amazed that I used to believe what you are teaching. Yeshua consistently differentiates between himself and the Father. Moreover, he called the Father his God (John 20:17). God cannot have a God. The Father never mentioned having a God (cf. Isaiah 45:23). But I digress.

All throughout John 14, Yeshua constantly distinguished between himself and God. He revealed God to us because he perfectly walked out the instructions of God, but he himself is not God—and he never claimed to be.

I want to return to the point about Yeshua having a God. If he has a God, namely Yehovah, and he affirmed the Shema, then he surely also stood by the command to not have any other gods before Yehovah. If Yehovah is Yeshua’s God, and Yeshua himself is somehow (a) God, then he is the ONLY person in history capable of keeping the First Commandment. The rest of us necessarily must have a god besides Yehovah. And that is exactly what the Christian Church has done with Jesus.

How can you read a verse like John 14:24 and think Yeshua is saying anything other than that he is the Prophet? He literally affirms in this verse that he is speaking the Father’s words, which is what God promised would happen when he sent his Prophet. This isn’t difficult to understand, but Trinitarian pagan philosophy has taken something very simple and made it more confusing than nuclear physics.

James chapter four, James chapter four verse twelve. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. So if Yeshua is the one who is able to save, that means that he’s the lawgiver, right?

No… no, Pastor Lex. This verse is unquestionably speaking about God. I’m sure James would be quite offended to know you’ve reinterpreted it to be a claim for Yeshua’s deity. And you’re ignoring Yeshua’s own words in Matthew 10:28!

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

Where in this passage does Yeshua identify himself as the one who should be feared for this power to judge? Certainly, he has been given the authority to judge by God (John 5:22-23), although so have other saints (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:2; Revelation 20:4). But Yeshua is our Savior by virtue of being God’s agent for salvation. On his own power, Yeshua could never save. That’s why he had to pray, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Matthew 26:39).

You bring up Yeshua’s words in Revelation 22:13, where he said, “I am the Aleph and the Tav, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” The other instances of someone speaking this were from the Father specifically, not Yeshua. And I’ll admit, it would present a very strong case for Yeshua’s deity—perhaps the strongest in Scripture—were it read in isolation. Scripture must interpret Scripture. In this case, I believe his words here hearken back to Philippians 2:11. I can’t remember if I mentioned this before or not, but I believe this verse should be read, “…and every tongue confess that Yeshua the Messiah is Yehovah, to the glory of God the Father.” I could be wrong (although I doubt you’d disagree with me on this verse). But I believe that God gave Yeshua the name of Yehovah because, for all intents and purposes, he is God on Earth. Until the new creation comes, when Yeshua surrenders the kingdom to God (1 Corinthians 15:24-28). So there is nothing wrong with worshiping Yeshua and ascribing to him the glory and honor due to Yehovah. He can even say such grandiose things as he did in Revelation 22:13 without blaspheming, because he was given that right and glory by God himself (John 8:54).

So if we somehow say, no, Yeshua’s not God, he’s not deity, he’s just a man sent by God. He’s a good teacher, maybe a prophet. Yeah, sure, he’s our Savior, he’s our Messiah. He’s not God. That’s false! Because if you say he’s not God, you’re saying he cannot be our Savior. If he’s God, he’s the lawgiver. If he’s God, he’s the Savior. If we call him Lord, it demands our obedience. Why do you call me lord and do not what I command you, he says?

I am starting to get a little fired up again, Lex. I’m kind of shocked by what you said in this quote.

"He’s just a man sent by God.” – Acts 2:22

“He’s a good teacher.” – Mark 10:17 [2]

“Maybe a prophet.” – Acts 7:37

“He’s our Savior.” – Titus 3:6

“He’s our Messiah.” – Matthew 16:16

“He’s not God.” – Mark 12:29

Yeshua is all these things because the Bible says so, regardless of what you try to shoehorn into the text to fit your preconceived theology. Let the Bible speak for itself rather than forcing it to say what the Catholic Church wants you to think it says.

Yeshua is a man sent by God because the Bible says so. He’s a good teacher because the Bible says so. He’s a prophet because the Bible says so. He’s our Savior because the Bible says so. He’s our Messiah because the Bible says so. He is NOT the Creator God, since the Bible never says so.

As for calling him Lord, in what way does that make him God? He is our adon—our Master. David was Israel’s adon. David was also the messiah, as was Saul. These men were adonim and messiahs because they were appointed by God to rule over Israel on his behalf (1 Chronicles 29:23). The same is true for Yeshua, the Son of David, who is the fulfillment of all those promises to King David.

This whole sermon, you’ve only strung a bunch of verses together with minimal commentary and claimed they teach a cohesive doctrine. I can’t speak regarding all the material you cut from the YouTube video, but you rarely went into depth explaining why your interpretation of the verses you cited is the correct interpretation. You just took for granted that you’re right, and claimed those who disagree are in danger of walking away from the faith!

Tell me, where in the Bible does it say we must believe that Yeshua is God to be saved? And why, if this mental assent is so vital to our faith, did no one actually spell it out unambiguously? Why must that doctrine be pieced together from cherry-picked verses that depend on a particular translation choice from Greek?

You know, if you were to—if we lived in some country where there’s a king or a queen, and you were to go up to the king and say, “O king, I worship you. You are my king, you are my lord. Do whatever—I’ll do whatever you command me,” and he tells you to do something, and you say, “Eh, I don’t think I’ll do that,” what would he do? “Off with his head!” Right? You’re a traitor! Treason!

Forgive me, but what the heck does this have to do with Yeshua supposedly being God? I’m a little confused…

I kept on listening as you went into Romans 8:5-8, and I still fail to see what this has to do with the deity of Yeshua. I agree with everything you’re saying in the closing regarding obedience to his Torah. It is the constitution of the kingdom, and we must obey it.

How dare some man on Earth stand up and say, “No, he’s not, he’s not God. I’m not gonna bow before him”! How dare anyone say that!

Brother Lex, you need to repent for slandering. I know this is directed toward Scott Shoob, but you are painting with a broad brush here, and it is uncalled for. Scott might’ve walked away from Yeshua completely, but you are accusing ALL those who follow Yeshua yet don’t believe he was God of rejecting him as the Messiah. You are denying all of us our salvation, if such were your right. There have been millions of Christians and Messianics who would gladly worship Yeshua without blaspheming by calling him the Creator God.

You don’t get the implications of this, do you? The Bible says God can’t be tempted. Yeshua was tempted in all things. The Bible says God can’t die. Yeshua died. You must deny Scripture itself to maintain the Catholic teaching that Yeshua is God. I don’t like accusing anyone of blasphemy because it is such a strong accusation, but that’s what you’re accusing us of doing, even though I don’t think you’ve used that word yet.

It doesn’t matter how much Torah you keep; if you don’t have Yeshua, you’re lost. He is our salvation.

AMEN! I’m glad we can end on a positive note. This must be our commonality.

You said at the beginning of the sermon that you’ve seen this all over the internet lately. I’m sure that’s how Reformed evangelicals feel concerning Torah observance. If there is an awakening in the body of the Messiah regarding our Hebrew Roots, why shouldn’t we also at least be open to abandoning our Hellenistic traditions concerning the nature of God and at least examine the issue from a Hebraic perspective? The Reformers stopped short in many important ways. Let’s get it right with this New Reformation.

Footnotes:

[1] I use the term Besech to refer to the New Testament. It was developed by Blaine Robison, M.A., M.R.E., as a parallel to Tanakh. BSX is an acronym formed from the words Besorah (News), Sepherim (Letters), and Chazoth (Visions).

[2] This verse requires a longer exposition that would interrupt the flow of what I was writing. Yeshua questions the young man for calling him “Good Teacher”, saying, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18). I’ve been at this post for so long, I don’t remember if we’ve covered this passage before or not. I used to think it was clear proof Yeshua is God. But considering he says repeatedly in other places that everything he does is by God’s power, I think this verse means something else. Yeshua isn’t trying to persuade the young man into calling him God (which would be bizarre, since he doesn’t elaborate upon that point at all). Instead, he’s showing the young man that we are only good when we mimic God by obeying his commandments. Yeshua wasn’t good on his own; he was good because he obeyed God’s commandments perfectly.

[ricardosousalemos]

The Notorious B.I.G.: Ready to Die

New York City doesn’t sell drugs anymore. Sure, there are bike messengers that peddle weed packed in plastic jars and Russian mobsters who launder money through Coney Island auto-shops, but the kind of trap-house, dope-boy, Robin Hood archetype that still carries in cities like Atlanta has been wiped clean from tri-state folklore. This is undoubtedly a good thing—entrepreneurial city teens today hustle fashion trends to ogling editors instead of baggies to scraggly addicts. But the shift has fossilized a certain kind of rap album, like The Notorious B.I.G.’s debut Ready to Die, released in 1994. The lawlessness it describes—robberies at gunpoint on the A train, open-air hand-to-hand crack deals on Fulton St., shootouts with the NYPD—land unfathomably to most New Yorkers today. Young transplants and natives alike would rather hear old tall tales than experience anything near it firsthand; distinct from nostalgia, it's more like moving into a home where a murder occurred. The thrill is a combination of fear and gall, rooted in the security that the scene will likely never repeat itself.

But there may be something habitual in New York’s craned gaze backward. Note that B.I.G. opened Ready to Die by complaining about changes in the city around him over 20 years ago. Even then, the album was a reflection: an over-the-top, fisheye union address of the city’s waning crack era, and a reeling admission that something must have gone terribly wrong for it to have happened. Its intro maps B.I.G’s life against the sounds of various eras—’70s “Superfly,” ‘80s “Top Billin’,” and ‘90s Doggystyle—before the 21-year-old launches into “Things Done Changed,” an opening monologue that sets the chaotic scene. Life used to be about funny hairstyles, curbside games, and lounging at barbecues, he says, but “Turn your pagers to 1993,” and the story has taken an inexplicably dark turn. It goes unmentioned here, but hip-hop’s region of choice had changed too: New York’s first generation of rap inventors had given way to the West Coast, so it’s Dr. Dre’s voice we hear between verses, dispatching from Compton. “Things done changed on this side,” the sample declares, a savvy appropriation that characterized a rise in violence across coasts, and a shift in sound that B.I.G. hoped to correct.

In 1992, “a whole lot of niggas want[ed] Big to make a demo tape.” He’d been battling around Fulton St since he was 13, and was known in Bedford-Stuyvesant as a force, in music and otherwise. The demo he recorded, “Microphone Murderer,” along with a few other cuts, made it’s way to The Source’s Unsigned Hype column, then influential in hip-hop’s walled off media environment, and then to Bad Boy, where Sean “Puffy” Combs would sign him. But as the demo’s opening line specified, it was only at the nudging of his close friends that he pursued music—B.I.G. was splitting time between Brooklyn and Raleigh, where he’d set up a profitable drug operation. When his record advance didn’t land quickly enough, he went back to N.C. to pick up the slack, and Puffy called him, alternately begging and demanding the rapper stop hustling and return to New York, devoted to music for good. The day that he left, the Raleigh house he’d operated out of was raided by police officers.

What made Christopher Wallace pop-palatable amid such a gruesome backdrop was his humor, personality, and wit. He was a gruff, neurotic alternative to the ice-cool Snoop Dogg: if Snoop had bitches in the living room till six in the morning, B.I.G. was getting paged at 5:46, wiping cold out his eye. If Cali crossed over with low-rider funk from Parliament, New York would ride on block-party boogie from Mtume. And if taut flows were giving way to languid hooks, B.I.G. would tighten everyone back up. “Unbelievable” was the antithesis of “Juicy,” a love-letter to underground rap radio shows like Stretch & Bobbito, and to anyone with an oversized Land Cruiser (another change to consider—New Yorkers used to drive). “Those that rushes my clutches get put on crutches, get smoked like dutches, from the master”; you can hear the roots of “punchline rap” forming in Big’s puns and internal rhyme, and the ironic turns of phrase that kids like Cam’ron would intensify years later: “‘I thought he was wack!’—Oh come, come, now, why y’all so dumb now?”

At the time, the album was praised for its honest portrayal of the drug dealer’s internal conflicts, as opposed to sunny glorification of gang violence imported from L.A. Songs like “Everyday Struggle” and “Suicidal Thoughts” showed Big’s depth, frequent references to his mother showed his rearing, and casual dropping of words like “placenta” showed his coy love of language. B.I.G. was a smart kid that had (or liked) to do dumb things, the record suggested, itself a comment on the how genius gets sharpened when faced with obstacles, and an affirmation of rap as a platform for such genius to be realized, and monetized.

Despite its author’s youth, Ready To Die shows its age with its production. The beats already paled in comparison to the high-definition score of Life After Death, B.I.G.’s follow up album, and the tinny drums and swampy samples on tracks like “Me and My Bitch” and “Respect” probably played better on cassette than they do on Apple Music. At the time of the album’s release, more nimble producers were doing interesting work on neighboring albums—one could say Illmatic dried everyone in New York up of their best material. The major tracks on Ready to Die had to be heavy-handed, and the filler was just an excuse to hear Big keep rapping. “Big Poppa” was inseparable from Ron Isley’s “Between the Sheets” and snuck in a trendy, post-regional synth line that would perk up West Coast ears. The “One More Chance” remix became a smash crossover hit; the original included on the album is expectedly disposable. Even strong exhibitions of songwriting like “The What” or “Gimme the Loot”—one a duet with Method Man, the other with himself—are weighed down by loops from Easy Mo Bee, a dated producer who Puffy might’ve been smart to have axed shortly after.

Which brings us to the true triumph in Ready to Die—Sean Combs, who’s been able to spot a dollar hidden in the most unlikely places ever since, finds proof-of-concept for New York hip-pop that can carry from street corners to school dances, with the right sonic contexts, visual branding, and occasional ad-libs, a formula he’d apply to Mase, Shyne, and his own material thereafter. The sounds may have shifted, but the thesis remains: drug dealers have stories for days, and Americans want to hear them. We revere the salesman more than the politician, and B.I.G. could sell the hell out of the life he lived. Maybe not all that much has changed after all.