#it might also be kindergarten with 11 days left of school but still

[sneaking-out-late]

Returning to work post eras tour has been ROUGH

[devskindawritingblog]

I remembered to send the ask to your writing blog this time!

Okay, here’s my idea for Shauna: she and reader aren’t dating yet, just best friends (sorry Jackie) and reader doesn’t know what to get her for Christmas. Then Shauna accidentally leaves her journal at their house, and they read it to try to get an idea for her gift. But instead they find all her entries about how she’s in love with reader. Shauna finds out and gets really mad, but she’s actually just embarrassed and scared that she ruined their friendship. But then reader kisses her and tells her they love her too. Turns out the perfect Christmas gift for Shauna was a girlfriend

Christmas Confessions

Shauna shipman x reader

AN: My last Yellowjackets Christmas fic! And of course my lovely tumblr wife requested it😘. I made the reader and Shauna besties and didn’t want to try and include Jackie somehow so I just don’t mention her. Shauna’s text is in green. And I put like the journal flashback things are in italics And the word count is I think the biggest at almost 1.8k. Also now that my Christmas things are done I’ll totally take requests. I’ll take requests about anyone that I have written for so far.

You and Shauna have been best friends since kindergarten. You have always been inseparable. Always having sleepovers together even joining the soccer team in grade 9. Everyone at school knows about you too and how much you care for one another.

One time in grade 2 a few of the boys were making fun of you and pushed you and that was the first time Shauna punched someone for you. That was when you first realized how much you would do for each other. Sure, Shauna got in trouble but it was grade 2 so she didn’t catch that much slack.

After that point no one messed with either of you. People were scared of Shauna and they were scared of what Shauna would do if they hurt you. And it was like that even in highschool.

————————————————————————

December 12, 1996

You and Shauna are both in your senior year now. She came over for her weekly sleepover. The two of you were hanging out like you normally do. Watching a movie, listening to music, and sometimes just laying there together.

That was the thing you loved about Shauna; the silences were never awkward. You could lay there and talk or just sit. Sometimes Shauna would write in her journal while you did homework.

 You start to think she loves that journal more than you. She always had it around. You learned early that she is very private about it. So you don’t ask to read it anymore. She’s your best friends but she can keep her thoughts and feelings private if she truly wants to.

Shauna had already left after having dinner with your family. Her mom had been in a rush to go somewhere. You go back into your room and that’s when you notice Shauna's journal sitting right on your bed. She must have forgotten it because she was rushing. 

You move it off your bed and place it on your nightstand. You will give it to her at school on Monday you think to yourself as you lay down on your bed. An hour passes every so often you glance over at the journal. 

You realize you still need ideas for what to get Shauna for Christmas. You look over at the journal and grab it. You get a good idea. You might as well take a little look to find possible gift ideas. It couldn't possibly hurt, right?

The cover has her name printed neatly with a pen. For a second you hesitate hoping nothing too personal is in her journal. It will only be for a few minutes you say to yourself. That reassures you and you flip open the first page.

————————————————————————

June 28 1996. You knew Shauna got a new journal at the end of grade 11, because you two found it at the mall together. You picked it up and showed it to her.

“Look Shaunie, it's green. Don’t you need a new one?” You said to her. Shauna ended up buying it. What you didn't notice back then was how Shauna looked at you that day or any day really.

The entry is pretty normal. It talks about your guys mall trip. And how you guys got ice cream. You smile to yourself as you remember how much fun you had with her. It talks about how you got ice cream all over your face and Shauna had to get a napkin and wipe it off.You finally notice how she talks about you. Sure you're close and give each other compliments but this feels different. You shrug it off and keep searching.

The next few entries are all in the summer. Mostly talking about the family vacation she went on .You flip to another entry.

————————————————————————

August 5 1996. You and Shauna were at her house. It explains what you guys did that day. Shauna had gotten a new lip gloss for her birthday and you both were trying it out. Shauna put it on first, rubbing her lips together. She writes about how you put it on as well. You remember how much you liked the lipgloss. The lovely pink shine looked great on your lips. And Shauna definitely thought so too. In fact she goes into great detail about how much she did like it.

You pause a confused look on your face. The sudden realization hits you hard. How did you not notice? You keep reading trying to confirm if you're not going crazy. You blush as you read the last sentence. 

“I wanted to kiss them so badly.” Shauna writes with a few pink hearts around your name. You suddenly feel really guilty but also relieved. You have known you like Shauna for a while. But you have been too scared to confess. How could you ruin your relationship with her like that?

You have so many conflicting feelings. You're happy she likes you back, but nervous as to how she would respond about you snooping around in her private journal.

At this point you can't stop reading them. Each one is a different day. Each entry delves into just how big of a crush Shauna truly has. 

————————————————————————

September 25 1996.

This one was around your first few weeks of grade 12. You and Shauna were in the same English Lit class. You went over to study with her. It was a fun night. but clearly Shauna saw it differently. She spent a good paragraph talking about your silly jokes and describing just how much she loves your laugh.

————————————————————————

October 31 1996

The two of you went to Lottie's annual halloween party. Of course dressed in matching costumes. You spent a long time finding a cute costume that would match with one another. The entry sounds pretty normal except for Shauna’s clear jealousy to you playing spin the bottle with the other girls. You ended up having to kiss Natalie. It was all for fun and games but clearly Shauna didn’t think so. You read it over and Shauna sounds angry.

“It should have been me kissing them.” She finishes off the entry with that angrily scribbled in pen.

The next few entries are about the same. You feel bad for reading all her personal thoughts and feelings. But you can’t seem to stop yourself from reading. You spend 2 hours reading all of the entries. You lay in your bed contemplating what you should do?

Give it back to her?

Confront her?

Keep her in the dark?

You run through all the ideas and scenarios in your head. Your anxiety builds and builds. You decide to sleep on it, you're exhausted from all the thoughts of what could happen.

You wake up on Sunday morning rubbing your eyes as you look over and see her journal staring back at you. You get up and get dressed, determined to tell her.

Your mom went out to do some Christmas shopping and you left her journal open on your bed.

You hear a shape knock on your door. You walk over to the front door and open it to a slightly flushed Shauna. She’s dressed in her iconic flannel .

“Uh,hi, sorry for showing up unannounced but I-uh left my  journal here last night.” She is clearly nervous that you might have read it .

“Oh! Right, come in , it’s uh in my room.” You say ushering her in, your face heating up as your heart pounds.

You bring her into your room forgetting that you left her journal open on your bed. She walks in after you as you quickly grab it, closing it and passing it to her.

“Did you read it?” She says half nervous half accusatory. You stumble over your words as all your thoughts slip from your mind.

“You did read it ! You know it’s private!” She yells pacing around your bedroom. You try to jump into it to try and defend yourself but she’s not having any of it.

Shauna never yells at you and this version of her scares you. 

“Shauna plea-“ You try to say but she cuts you off to mad to listen. “You know how I feel about you don’t you? You know how I feel about you ?” She says her voice quiets a bit. 

“I can’t believe you would do this!” She starts yelling again. She sounds almost disappointed and it makes you feel worse. But you have to tell her.

You start tuning her out as you work up the courage She goes on about how mad she is. But you're not listening anymore. You step closer to her. She stops noticing the look on your face.

“What?” She starts to say before you quickly cut her off. You lean forward cupping her face and pulling her into a passionate kiss.

Her breath hitches and she gasps in shock. You pull back a little, noses touching. “Is this ok?” You say a hushed whisper. Shauna nods and smiles wrapping her arms around your waist, pulling you into another kiss this time.

You both end up on your bed, Shauna's journal discarded on the floor. As you too enjoy your first kiss together. Shauna’s hands behind your neck as you both make out. 

Shauna lays down with you and you smile . “I love you too. You know ?” You say as Shauna blushes remembering that you read all the things she said about you.

“Did you actually read like everything?” Shauna says quietly as she plays with the hem of your pants. You blush too a little embarrassed. “Yeah uh I did , funny enough I was trying to find an idea for a Christmas present.” You say as Shauna’s embarrassment slowly disappears.

“That stuff I wrote was a little uh well you know.” Shauna says turning shy again. “It was really cute Shaunie.” You say with a little smirk. She groans and covers her face. “Especially when you said that you wanted to fight Natalie during halloween.” You say giggling a little at Shauna’s flustered face. 

“I also heard all about how you love when I wear this shirt.” You say sitting up a little to give her a full look. Her eyes widen a little and she somehow blushes more red. 

“That's mean.” She whines but you both know now that she is loving this. She eyes you up and down and pulls you in for another kiss. “I bought you that shirt for your birthday.” 

“I know silly you went on and on about it.” You tease as you pull her down with you and pull her into another long kiss.

“You know what? It turns out I got you what you wanted for Christmas.”

“Really what was it?”

“Me.” 

[8hrsbabysitting-aita]

Okay, so, i know there’s not a lot of people asking for info but i need to clear some stuff up and stuff I forgot to say that may or may not make me the asshole here.

1. My mom had 2 event. Brunch with her badminton friends, then lunch with her old friends.

2. My mom DOES NOT neglect us. Yes, it might be irresponsible to leave a 2yrs old with a 15yrs old, But 1) this was one of the only times she left without the baby for more than 3hrs, the other times, my dad was home. 2)she was meeting an old Friend that she hasn’t met since 2019, 3) I’m so sorry that I forgot to mention this, but her friend has suffered miscarriages and that might be the reason she didn’t bring my youngest sister (tho her other friend did bring her kid, but maybe that’s because he’s 3/4 and my sister is 2. That also didn’t explain why she didn’t bring her to the brunch but whatever )

3. I am experienced. I have been babysitting since I was 6 and only have 1 younger sibling (for better or worse)

4. The reason I instantly left was because 1) my teacher didn’t specify WHY I was called to school. 2) I am an extremely lazy student and I was scared that I was called to school because I’m have some not finished homework. 3)my house is one of the closest one to school.

5.my mom usually only leave me to babysit for 2/3 hrs every Tuesday after school. The only other times she left me with my my younger siblings was when I have a no school day on Wednesday morning(for 2-3hrs), and Thursday night when her and my dad has a date night (2-3 hrs, but the youngest already ate so i dont need to Feed her)

6. My dad couldn’t babysit bc he’s at work. He also have said knee injury so he can’t hold the baby for too long.[Though I have thought of punching my dad bc he keeps complaining about my mom not taking care of my sister enough yet blows up on Everyone (yes, everyone. Even the baby. And his wife) If they’re crying. ]

7. For the “find a baby sitter” option, being a babysitter (unless it’s your actual job) isn’t really common in my country.

8. In addition to no.7, My parents was traumatized bc back when my mom was still working, we did have a baby sitter, but she wasn’t doing a good job and 3 years old me walked into traffic. So they don’t trust babysitter anymore

9. Sadly, yes. This has happened before, BUT I only have to take care of my sister (then 6 and 1 years old) and my baby sister shits on the goddamn carpet while I was cooking dinner and my dad got angry at my mom and my mom got angry at me (and my 6yrs old sister who was focused on the tablet that she didn’t hear her sister saying she is pooping).

10. Silent treatment is the usual go to for my mom when she’s angry at her kids (she does minimal talking when my dad’s around). I thought that part is just Normal.

11. An addition to no.5, she did use to leave me (then 13 years old) with my youngest sister (then 3 till 7 months old) for 2-3 hours to hangout with her friends (the parents of my old friends and my younger sister kindergarten friends) while they wait for my sister and her friends to get out of kindergarten (took at most 3hrs. This was back in 2021). Only my youngest sister though, my other siblings was already studying at school. Because we live in the border of 3 different sub-province(?), my school still had to use Zoom bc the place was in the city with one of the most covid19 cases. (This may make me unsuitable to babysit, because now I have anger problems)

12. Also the reason I am the asshole in this part, my parents don’t know that I have shitty sleeping schedule. All they know is Im just sleepy all the time.

(Bonus.For everyone who’s telling me “leave the adults problem to the adults” (because some of you are saying that), I know you mean well, but this type of argument has been happening since I was a kid. And even though my parents fought less (or fought more privately, ig), I would rather stab myself than letting my siblings have the same goddamn trauma as I did. )

Am i the asshole for getting my mom yelled at?

✨🐢✨<—-so I recognize the post

So yesterday, my mom (40F) left me (15F) at home with my siblings. Everything was going fine until I was called to school to help with the report books (my house is one of the nearest) I told my brother (12 M)to take care of our younger siblings (7 F and 2 F), while I went to school. I also told my mom that I was at school, helping my teacher.

I came back around 1:30 pm. My brother was busy playing games with his friends and him & my sisters haven’t eaten lunch yet. So I told my brother to stop playing with his friends for a bit and eat. After I ate, I tried feeding the youngest, but she didn’t want to eat. I, not wanting to deal with her crying (i get angry easily and I don’t like scolding my siblings), didn’t force her, but waited for her to want to eat. I accidentally fell asleep while waiting (I have horrible sleep schedule, so I was tired) and woke up like 3hrs later. I tried feeding my sister, but she still didn’t want to. So I forced her. Then my dad came home and saw that 1)My mom wasn’t home, 2)my sister barely eat anything. He was angry but he didn’t told me.

Anyway, my dad had to go to the hospital (he has a knee injury) and my mom was going to meet him at the hospital. He wasn’t going to bring my youngest sister, but she insisted on coming.

This is where I might be an asshole. As my dad was bringing my sister, I mentioned that she also cried this morning, like, 5 minutes after my mom left. She had previously put my sister to sleep so she doesn’t need to come with her. But she woke up around 5minutes after my mom left, crying because she wanted to come with my mom. I thought he was going to treat it like a grain of salt and forget about it. I was wrong.

My dad basically blew up on my mom bc she “wasn’t taking care of the kids”. My mom got angry at me because I didn’t feed my sister and bc I told my dad about my sister crying, and blamed me for getting yelled at by my dad. She scolded me saying “can’t I have a break for once?!” And “ I wasn’t even gone for a whole day. Just 8.5 hours!”. The thing is, even her friend brought her son (he’s around,like, 4 or smth). That was one of the reason my dad was angry at her. Now my mom isn’t talking to me, and don’t know what to do.

Am I the asshole?

What are these acronyms?

[romance-lover77]

Newt Scamander x Fem Muggle Reader Part 3

Part 2 is here

Plot: Theasus comes to warn you and Newt that the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol are taking Muggles away from their witch/wizard spouses. Your baby is almost here!

Warning: This might not be the best writing

It has been a week since Queenie and Jacob have arrived, and when You and Newt finally had your alone time ;).

Queenie and Jacob had left back to New York because the bakery couldn’t be left unattended but they promised to come when your baby was born. Newt had decided to take a vacation and stay to take care of you. He had just put Lottie to bed and was now getting into bed where you were reading a book. You put down your book and look at him with a soft smile. “Thank you Newt for putting her to bed, you have no idea how grateful I am”. Newt just nuzzles his nose on your chest, “You don’t have to be grateful, it’s my job to put her to bed too, I will do anything you ask me to do “. Your heart was fluttering and you were running your hand through his hair. Then you suddenly felt his lips kissing your breasts making you want to let out a small moan but you held it in. You patted his shoulder while chuckling, “Newt not now, we got to wake up early tomorrow remember, to take Lottie to her first day at school”.

Now that Lottie was 5 years old it was her time to go to kindergarten and tomorrow was her first day. She won’t be going to Hogwarts until she’s 11 but something worried you. Dumbledore has told you that at a young age wizards/witches showed signs of magic, but he also told you that some who were from wizarding families, were unfortunate to not have powers of magic and they were called Squibs. It worries you because Lottie hasn’t shown signs of any magic. You would still love Lottie with magic or without magic but you just wanted her to be happy.

Newt didn’t stop though he kept kissing you and went up to your neck knowing your weak spot. Your eyes closed with pleasure and you felt something touch your leg making your eyes widened. You didn’t even have to look, you already knew that it was Newt’s erected member. “Newt trust me I want this too but we really can’t, we won’t wake up early if we do this”.

Newt stops kissing your neck and faces you, this was a completely different Newt. His eyes filled with lust and hunger, “I'll make it quick I promise”. Without letting you speak he starts kissing your lips and you let out a giggle. Newt grins, laying you down and both of you kissing, literally ready to get on with it when a sudden loud noise comes from the sitting room and it sounds exactly when someone apparates. Both of you hearing Theasus' voice “Newt! Y/N!, are you here?”. You and Newt sit up immediately wondering what Theasus was doing here at these hours, both of you looking at each other confused. Newt then looked really annoyed because his brother had interrupted his private moment with you and because it was his brother. Newt gets up from bed as well as you, but it took you more effort to get up since the baby is so heavy. Newt stops you “don’t get up, stay here and rest. I’ll see what Theasus wants”. For some reason you had a bad feeling about this because why would Theasus come at these hours, it was very strange and you wanted to know. “No Newt i’m coming too, I want to know what Theasus wants to say, he called me as well”. Newt knew that he couldn’t stop you so he helped you stand up and helped you put on your slippers. Both of you go to the sitting room only to see a nervous Theasus. Newt looked very annoyed just seeing him, “What do you want?”

You were just beside Newt, still feeling like something bad is going to happen.``Hello Theasus what brings you here at these hours?”. Theasus looked at both of you with anguish and without letting a second pass. “Y/N you have to get out of here and hide now!”. Both surprising you and Newt. This bad feeling was getting stronger and you were about to answer when Newt spoke first. He had a frown and expressed worry, “Theasus what are you talking about? Why does y/n have to do something like that?”.

You also couldn’t help expressing worry “Theasus tell us what’s happening?”

Theasus sighed and tried to calm down to explain as fast as possible. Looking at both you and Newt, “Look I have to say this as fast as possible, something strange is happening in the Ministry of Magic, the law was changed here in the UK, Wizards/Witches can’t be married to Muggles anymore and the Magical Law Enforcement are going to each Muggle who is married to witch or wizard taking them away and later obliviate them. Forgetting forever that they were married to a Witch or Wizard. Y/n they are coming for you!”. Newt looks horrified and you are horrified as well. You couldn’t imagine a life without Newt, you would die without him and Lottie,what would happen to Lottie without her mom(you).

Newt immediately grabbed your hand pulling you!?”

Newt didn’t answer, he looked and he stopped to look at Theasus. '`Do you know a way?”

“Yes I do”, Theasus said. You were really

Newt then said “ Theasus can you help Lottie get ready”, and Theasus nodded and immediately went to Lottie’s bedroom

Newt once again pulled you, taking you to the bedroom and sat you down on the bed. He grabbed his wand and made a movement with it and did an incantation “Pack”.His suitcase opened, the wardrobe opened itself and Newt’s and your clothes started floating. The clothes were folding themselves and packing themselves. You were sitting there dumbfounded not knowing what was happening and you couldn’t speak a word because you were scared. Newt then grabbed one of his coats and one of your coats. Placing them on the bed and then grabbing his boots and your shoes (mid heels because this was the 30s or 40s) . Newt then started putting your shoes on both of your feet. You could finally speak “Newt, what are we doing? I-I don’t know what’s happening”. Newt finally looks at you and he has an anguished expression,”Y/n what do you think we are doing, we are leaving….I can’t bear losing you”.

You also couldn’t bear being separated from Newt and forgetting him forever, and you would also have to forget your daughter Lottie. Your heart ached just thinking about it and tears started forming in your eyes. “I also can’t bear being separated from you… I’m just so scared like where the heck are we going to run off to Newt? What if they find us no matter what?”. Newt started putting on your coat for you, “They aren’t going to find us, we are going to Jacob’s and Queenie’s in the meanwhile”. Newt then started putting on his own boots and coat. You couldn’t help saying

“Aren’t we just going to make it worse, it’s a crime to run away and if they do find us, they will arrest you and might put you in Azkaban, Newt you’ve told me that that’s the most horrible place to ever be in and Lottie will be alone, they will put her in an orphanage, Oh my goodness”, Your hands covered your face and you started sobbing. Newt hugged you and his hand rubbing your back “I won’t let any of that happen I promise”. You let your hands fall to your lap and Newt then kissed your forehead which made you calm down a little, and he then lowered his face to your face. Placing a kiss on your lips and you kissed back until both of you heard Theasus’ voice from the sitting room. “We have to leave now!”

Both you and Newt quickly stood up and went to the sitting room where Theasus was carrying Lottie and her trunk. Lottie looked sleepy and rubbed her eyes while yawning. “Mommy, Daddy uncle Theasus says that we are going to Aunt Queenie’s place but I told him that I have school tomorrow”. You and Newt frowned knowing that Lottie won’t be able to experience school but Newt wasn’t risking it. You were going to answer to Lottie but Newt beat you to it.

“Sweetie don’t worry, you are just going to miss some days of school. It won't be the end of the world and we are going to go on an adventure. Then we will come back”. Newt then cupped Lottie’s face and gave her a weak smile and Lottie nodded. In reality Newt was terrified inside and tried to seem happy for Lottie. You also tried putting on a smile but it was so hard to do, your mind just kept going back to the what ifs.

“Come on, let's go!” Theasus said

Newt grabbed your hand and all of you were leaving the house from the front door but then you were confused stopping at mid way while still holding hands with Newt. “Wait”. Theasus and Newt looked at you wondering why you stopped

“How are we getting out of the country? we can’t use a port key or apparate because i’m pregnant, did you guys actually think this through?”

Newt held your hand tighter and Theasus answered your question, “Don’t worry My place has a floo powder chimney that is in the network and will take us directly to your friend’s house”.

This seemed to calm you down and you put on a brave face “Okay let’s go”.

(side note, Newt is taking his suitcase where all his creatures are and also packed the clothes in there. Pickett hasn’t had the opportunity to be with Newt :( )

All of you were sitting in a Taxi car where a driver was taking you to the destination and the reason is because you had to stay low. Not to cause any attention especially to Magical folks so that you won’t get found out . Lottie was sleeping on your lap peacefully, while you were looking at the window asking why is this happening, and wishing that you were a witch because if you were , none of this would be happening. You started to feel some small cramps but decided to ignore it.

Newt was also really silent looking at the window until he asked Theasus “ You really don’t know who is doing all this?”. You looked attentive,interested on Theasus answer.

“No I don't, strangely, No one does but I imagine the Minister of Magic does. I believe that something is being hidden”.

“You don’t think it can be Grindlewald?” You asked

“But we defeated Grindlewald years ago, It can’t be him”. Newt said while his heart was beating fast, part of him worrying that it might be Grindlewald. Theasus shakes his head, “It can’t be him, he is locked up in Nurmengard. If he had escaped there would be news about it everywhere”. Newt grabs your hand and squeezes it, you squeeze back“We have to find out who’s behind all of this, Theasus we have to go see Dumbledore”

Theodore sighs, “I was thinking that as well”.

Finally the Taxi had brought you to Theasus place, it was a flat somewhere in London. The streets were empty and quiet because it was midnight .You could only hear the air and the owls hooing. All of you get out of the Taxi and Newt pays the driver. Next thing you knew the taxi was gone. Theasus was carrying sleeping Lottie once again and her suitcase, and Newt held his suitcase in his left hand and he was holding your hand with his right hand.

Something didn’t feel right, you had a feeling that someone was watching over all of you. Theasus then said “Alright follow me”. All of you started walking until suddenly cramps took over you and you closed your eyes from the pain . Newt saw this and frowned. “What's wrong?”.. Theasus turned around and stopped as well “Everything alright?” You really didn’t want to worry anyone, “Nothing this baby is just so heavy, just the pain of always, don’t worry, let’s keep going”. Newt didn’t look convinced, Knew you like the back of his hand but didn’t say anything. You all walked up to the stairs and to the front door where the door opened itself. In that very moment your hairs stand up from your neck, and your eyes widened because there was someone definitely behind you guys. Theasus says”Come on in”

Your eyes were full of fear, Newt felt that you squeezed his hand really tightly. He looked at you wondering what was wrong. “Newt they’re here”. Newt’s eyes widened in fear and Theasus heard you. Both Newt and Theasus turn around and see the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol Wizards/ Witches.. There was something off about them, Like if they were possessed, their eyes didn’t have pupils and were soulless.

They were there right across the street running towards all of you ready to attack. Newt told you without hesitation “Get Lottie and use the floo powder”. You nod and Theasus gives you Lottie who woke up by the sudden movement. Now you were carrying her and running as fast as you could to the chimney (it was hard because you were so heavy) Lottie was fully awake in your arms and seemed so confused, “Mommy what’s happening?”

“Don’t worry sweetheart just close your eyes okay”. Lottie didn’t want to go against you and closed her eyes and hid her face on your neck.

Immediately when you left Theasus and Newt took out their wands and started to attack the other wizards and witches.

Newt and Theasus casted “Everate Serum!” and it sent some flying backwards but there were more than 5. Newt and Theasus kept attacking and defending themselves (moving their wands). That is until you let out a scream and Lottie yelled “Mommy!!!”. When Newt heard your scream his heart sank and his face full of horror.He didn’t let a second pass by and he went running to where you were. Theasus furrowed his eyes while gritting his teeth, the adrenaline kicking in and tried his hardest to help his brother get to you by not letting any of them pass by.

Newt went running to your destination, he saw that a wizard was pinning you down on the floor because he casted a full body bind curse on you. Lottie was hitting the man on the arm “Get off my mommy!!!!”. You couldn’t feel your body, you couldn’t move anything, all you could do was let tears roll down your face. Newt felt so much rage inside him, seeing this man on top of you and casted “Knockback Jinx!” sending the wizard flying and hitting the wall ,knocking him out. Newt ran to you and Lottie. Lottie was crying “Mommy can’t move daddy!” Newt then said “It’s okay sweetie I can fix it”. He flicked his wand “finite incatatem”. Your body wasn’t frozen anymore, and you were able to move again. Newt was helping you stand up but then you felt the painful cramps again but this time worse. You groaned “AH!”, closing your eyes and holding your stomach. Newt felt concerned and yelled “Y/N!” .Lottie yelled “Mommy” with a shaky voice. But you couldn’t respond with so much pain, it felt like someone was putting so much pressure on your abdomen.

“N-newt h-help me”. Newt helped you stand up and was holding your waist, his eyes full of total concern. “Tell me what’s wrong love!”. Lottie was wrapped around Newt’s leg and was hiding her.

You open your eyes and look directly at Newt’s eyes. More tears forming in your eyes and a small whimper escapes your lips. Then all of a sudden your panties felt wet not realizing that your water had just broken. Newt’s eyes widened when he saw all the water falling to the ground and was panicking “Love! your water just broke!”. Lottie had also seen and gasped. Your eyes widened and your heart sank “Oh no…. AH!” Another labor cramp took over you and Newt wrapped his arm around you “Love, we have to take you to St.Mungos!”. But you yelled back “No! we can’t! they will find us there! I’m going to give birth at Queenie’s and Jacob’s flat(apartment)! We have to go! AH!”. You didn’t care where you gave birth,even if it had to be in a barn, Gosh damn it, you aren’t letting anyone separate you from your husband and daughter. Newt knew you were right so he told Lottie “Lottie sweetie go bring me that pot that’s on that shelf”. He pointed to a not so high shelf that was in the corner of the room, Lottie nodded and went to get it.

Newt then was holding you and both of you were walking toward the chimney, Lottie came back with the pot in her hands “Daddy here”. You heard footsteps and turned your head only to see more Magical Law Enforcement Patrol Wizards/Witches coming. “Newt!!! There’s more coming!”. Newt looked back and cursed “Buggar! Lottie go inside the chimney now!”. Lottie’s heart was beating so fast and quickly ran into it. The chimney started expanding, letting her in, while Newt was helping you get to the chimney as fast as possible. Finally inside the chimney Newt then said, “Sweetie grab some powder in your hand and throw it on the floor yelling 443 Rivington Street New York!”. Your heart was beating so fast, it felt like it was going to explode and you felt like you couldn’t breathe. Everything felt like it was going slow motion. Lottie managed to get powder and throw it yelling “ 443 Rivington Street New York!”

All of a sudden everything was spinning and everything was blurry. Then bam! You, Newt and Lottie rolled on the floor from the chimney, and were covered in ashes. All of you started coughing from the ashes and Lottie stood up from the floor seeing you and Newt still on the floor.

To Be Continued in Part 4

[animation-is-my-jam]

I mentioned before that I would also post my drawing of the other fan kid OCS for the “Hero’s” side (basically the wg kids) (The upper left one is Omi (age: 8) and he’s actually created by another OC so don’t worry, the middle left is Kuzo (age: 7), the one below him is Clover (age: 9), the one in the middle is Tori (age: 11), the one in the upper right is Willow (age: 11), and the bottom right is Sele (age: 10)).

Omi: A normal kid who attends school and is definitely not a robot, well he is but that shouldn't stop him from being normal. He was built by other robots and he really admires Tobey, although Tobey kind of finds it competitive that someone else built a really functional AI for Omi. Omi is really shy and kind hearted, where he likes to focus on his friends emotions first before his. He likes to take care of animals and people.

Kuzo: The first adopted child of Tj and Johnson, Kuzo has five younger siblings where he remains the leader. Growing up in a home with five chaotic siblings and his older cousin Tori who loves to get into trouble, he at only age 7 is very responsible and serious for his age. He acts like the most sarcastic and stern out of the entire group, but it's not hard to make him overjoyed, especially if he gets to hang around Omi. He likes to do anything that involves problem solving and puzzles, and the most important thing to him is his family.

Clover: The biological kid of Violet and Scoops, where Scoops is their guardian father. Scoops and Violet aren't divorced or anything, Violet volunteered to be a surrogate for scoops and Clover was born. While Scoops and Violet are still good friends, many can't deny things are kind of awkward between the two. Clover and they're older sister were being raised by their dad in another big city, when Scoops actually got a promotion to run the big city times in fair city. Prompting for Clover to move and met their new friends and cousins in Fair city. They adore cleanness and photography, but they really are a big germaphobe, they also are very timid when it comes to any scheme the gang gets them involved with.

Tori: The daughter of Becky and Tobey. Tori considers herself extremely proud to be born with a legacy such as her mother's and redeemed father's, who has really made a positive impact on most things (Spoilers). Ever since she was a baby Becky and Tobey would always tell her stories about their adventures and life, this always fascinated Tori into admiring the history of her parents. Tori unintentionally became a Wordgirl superfan with how she carefully documents the stories of her mother and father. This of course led her to admire the concept of history in general, focusing her genetics of lexiconian literacy to become a history buff. While at first Tori was content in just being quiet and nerdy for most of her childhood, she was still ambitious in being more, and accomplishing great feats like her parents. Tori wants to make a legacy in which she can be proud to document, with her developing lexiconian powers she might be able to achieve that by wanting to be a hero, however her schemes in trying to be a hero kind of put her in more trouble than anything. Luckily she has her friends/cousins to always bring her down on earth. While she adores history, she also likes fighting and anything physical (while her parents disapprove of this) and will take any chance to show off and train her powers. Tori loves birds and a particular friend of her's (it's Sele), and her dream is to open a very historically accurate Wordgirl museum when she's very old and done with being a hero.

Willow: The adopted daughter of kid math. Willow knows her father is a superhero and she really does try to help him with both his jobs, as fair city's overlooked superhero and the school's fifth grade math teacher. Willow and her dad are the only people in their lives besides faraway planetary family and the McCallister-Botsfords. Willow, however does have a role model in Violet, she extremely admires Violet, and becomes interested in the same things as her. Her main passion is however is entomology, where she has a special talent in communicating with bugs of any kind. While most kids and teachers at school don't respect her with her very vocal opinion on bug rights, she can count on her old/new friends to help her with her bug passion, even if Clover can't stand the sight of one.

Sele: The daughter of Eugene May and Emma, technically making her on of Granny May's Great granddaughters. Sele used to be best friends with Tori when they met in preschool, because Tori was the only one who enjoyed her home made burnt cookies. But after kindergarten they both eventually stopped hanging out with each other and drifted, that didn't stop both from forgetting the other one though. Sele started hanging around very self absorbed girls, who didn't hesitate to make fun of Tori's tomboyish attitude and Willows love for bugs. Sele never really participated in anything ridiculing but she still felt guilty in letting it happen. After a day of her bully friends picking on Tori and the new kid Clover she finally decided that she didn't want to hang around her "cool" friends. Sele was actually free from her judgemental friends and she can get back to her old love of baking and cooking. Sele was eventually invited to hang out with Tori and the group after years of separation, and while most were surprised by her true nature, Tori wasn't since she always knew that her old best friend hasn't changed. Sele is aware of most things, but the crush Tori has on her is still a bit oblivious to her, but she can't ignore how admires Tori ambitious nature and eventual dream to be a superhero. If Tori would let her, she could be her sidekick, even if her great grandmother wouldn't approve.

Basically Tori, Kuzo, and Willow have know each other since birth. Omi just showed up in school one day, quickly being accepted by the group of marveled popular outcasts. Clover recently moved and decided to hang around his friend cousin's and Sele was recently taken in by Tori's decision. They quickly became a very loyal group of friends after a weird moment where they all decided to run for student council at Woodview elementary.

[exxar1]

Episode 11: New Believer, New Faith, and a New Vow

2/7/2021

- 1 -

Good morning! It’s a beautiful Sunday here in Las Vegas. I have much to talk about so I’m just going to get right into it.

           It’s hard to believe we’re already a full month into the new year. This year for me has been very rewarding thus far. For starters, I have had no trouble keeping up with resolutions 1 and 4. (For a refresher, you can scroll back through my previous posts to the one from New Year’s Eve.) I have found time each day to read my Bible and pray, and I have had little difficulty in maintaining a pleasant attitude and a smile in my daily encounters with my co-workers and customers. As expected, though, that latter one has been tested a few times by the occasional sour apples that woke up on the wrong side of the bed. But I’ve surprised myself every time by my patience and my ability to keep a calm and pleasant demeanor. (Those of you who have known me for a long time will understand how truly remarkable that is for me.) It’s simply another testament to the power of God to change our basic attitudes when we are willing to let Him.

           I’ve also made great strides in resolution #3, and that’s where I’m going to spend the bulk of my time on this post.

           Have you ever sought something – therapy, a particular medication, advice from a friend or colleague – thinking that it might help with one problem, only to be pleasantly surprised that one, the result helped in many other ways you hadn’t anticipated; and two, that the change/outcome/counseling exceeded your initial expectations by such a great magnitude that you couldn’t believe you hadn’t sought this help long ago? That feeling has been with me for over three weeks now, and it’s only getting better with each session.

           One of my first tasks in tackling resolution #3 was to consult a pastor on this issue of homosexuality and the Bible. I needed to know what God really said in His Word on this controversial topic, and since I have yet to find a home church here in Las Vegas the only pastor that I am casually acquainted with is Mark Sjostrom of the church in which I was born and raised back in Twin Falls, Idaho.

           For those of you unfamiliar with Twin Falls or this particular church, allow me to forge a brief rabbit trail here to give you a short history. Grace Baptist Church was founded in 1975, and, back then, it was just a one-story, oblong, red-bricked building, its main auditorium forming a bubble at one end, at the intersection of Eastland Drive and Falls Avenue on the eastern edge of town. It’s still that same building today, only now there’s a massive, two-story gymnasium/classroom on the other side of the back parking lot, and a third, smaller, two-room annex that sits behind the gym. The first of those latter two structures was needed in the early eighties when the church launched its own private school, Twin Falls Christian Academy. I was in kindergarten when the gymnasium was under construction. I have many memories of watching my dad and some of the other men in church up on the scaffolds, putting together the walls, while I waited for my mom to pick me up after school, which was held in the various Sunday school rooms in the church. A few years later, I would be attending high school in the classrooms above that gym.

           In the years since I have grown and left Twin Falls, I have come back to that church on the occasional Sunday morning worship service when I’m home for a vacation visit. I’ve always had mixed feelings every time I set foot beyond the threshold of its main doors (see my previous posts about my struggles during my teen years.) It’s the same feeling you get when you come back to something that is at once familiar and strangely comforting, but also brings with it unpleasant memories and the pain of old wounds that have never quite healed.

           Grace’s pastor since 2005 has been Mark Sjostrom (pronounced ‘shos-trum’), and I didn’t know him that well when I decided to consult him on this issue. Our only interaction thus far had been a brief handshake and a greeting after those sporadic Sunday morning worship services, and I wasn’t sure he would even remember me when I nervously texted him a brief ‘Hello’ a month ago. He responded within a few minutes, and I re-introduced myself and then gave a short explanation of what I needed. We agreed on a time and date for a phone call, and I emailed him the next day with a longer explanation of what I needed to talk about with him.

           That letter was a  somewhat detailed account of what most of you are already familiar with: my struggle in high school with keeping my secret of being gay while trying to fit in socially and eventually declaring myself an Atheist after being expelled from school my senior year a month before graduation. It was probably about 2 pages, and I was now very nervous after clicking the ‘Send’ button. I suppose now is a good time to tell you something else about me.

           I have been one of ‘those people’ for all of my adult life. You know who I’m talking about: the people who silently judge the other customers in the book store who pause to browse the Self Help section; or the people who quietly scoff when anyone talks about their latest therapy session with their friends or coworkers at lunch in the break room. I’m glad I don’t need self-help or therapy, I’ve always thought. But, then again, good for them, I guess. I’m glad I have all my issues worked out, and I’m a stable, normal adult. I’ve never had any issues that were so bad I needed to get help from an armchair counselor’s latest best seller or a psychiatrist’s couch.

            Hhmmm. My life, lately, has been chock full of irony.

           When the time came to dial Pastor Sjostrom’s number my level of nervousness was up to a ten out of ten on the anxiety scale. I hadn’t felt like this since high school when it was opening night of our Agatha Christie play, and I was one of the main cast. I had prepared a detailed outline of what I wanted to discuss, and, after a few initial pleasantries, Mark quickly put me at ease. I was pleasantly caught off guard by his relaxed, casual personality. I found immediately that he was very easy to talk to, and my anxiety level dropped to a ‘three’ in the first five minutes. Pastor Sjostrom is definitely one of those people who has found the right calling. His warm, personable demeanor made me feel like I was talking to an old friend over coffee at Starbucks, and after about ten minutes of getting to know one another, he brought the conversation back around to my letter.

           Here’s where my second surprise occurred. Mark was bluntly honest. I had told him that I believed I was saved in 1985, when I was seven, after the evening service of one of our church’s mid-summer week long revival meetings. “Neal,” Mark said rather pointedly, “after reading your description of your life after high school, I gotta say that it doesn’t sound like you were saved. Your behavior and your atheism doesn’t reflect the change that is described in the Bible.” He went on to explain that salvation is a change brought about the presence of the Holy Spirit in the new believer. There is a desire to learn more about God and His Word. There is a desire to serve him and to live one’s life in surrender to Him.

           I had to pause and think about that. And, doggone it, you know what? He was right. And the reason I knew that was because I had only to look at the last four months of my life, even more so since I had returned from Christmas vacation. That desire – that hunger – to know God had never been present in my life until September 17, 2020. That was the night I surrendered to Christ in an awkward, fumbling prayer on the way home from work. Ever since, I have had nothing but a desire to read my Bible and change my life. I told pastor this, and he agreed. It was evident now that I was truly saved. That evidence was lacking in my youth and my adult life up to this point.

           My third major surprise of that initial counseling session – yes, that was what is was – was when pastor told me he was assigning me homework for our next weekly conversation. He wanted me to read the book of 1 John. He explained that we would eventually get to the issue of homosexuality, but that we needed to cover this ground first. I agreed  to the assignment, and we hung up. I glanced at the clock in the upper corner of my computer screen. We had talked for almost an hour. I immediately reached for my Bible and opened it to 1 John. I read the whole book in about ten minutes.

           1 John is a primer for the new believer. John states clearly and succinctly what makes a Christian a Christian. Chapter 1:9 was immediately familiar to me from my Sunday School days: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So was chapter 2:9: “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness, even until now.” John goes to say in chapter 5:2: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments.” And, finally, verse 20 of that same chapter: “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”

           Yep. All of that book made perfect sense. Part of that was because I had absorbed so much of God’s Word in my youth that it had sat in the deep recesses of my brain for all of my life, and much of it had begun floating to the surface in the last several months – like debris from an ancient wartime submarine that has been recently dislodged from its ocean grave. Except that these artifacts – Bible verses, fragments of sermons, some of Mr. Walker’s proverbs from Bible class – were not dirty, soggy, disgusting relics. They were bits of priceless treasure, and I’ve been rediscovering them in dribs and drabs ever since.

           I have had three sessions with Pastor Sjostrom, and they are each the highlight of my week. I very nearly broke down after hanging up from our first talk. I felt a combination of immense relief, peace and calm. Not to be overly melodramatic, but it was if something had dislodged in my very soul, like a sliver of wood just beneath the skin that has never quite come all the way out. I realized with immediate clarity that I was getting far more than just a pastor’s opinion on a particular issue for my book. I had stumbled on to something else, something I needed far more: spiritual counseling and guidance for my new life as a child of God.

           I am a new believer.

That seems so strange to say out loud. I was raised in the church. I had at least a third of the Bible memorized by the time I was twelve. I knew all the major stories from the Old Testament – the creation of the world; God’s covenant with Abraham; Jacob, Esau and Isaac; Joseph sold into slavery into Egypt and God’s eventual deliverance of the Israelites from their captivity there; the introduction of the ten commandments and the Mosaic Law; Esther, Ruth, King Saul, David, the Book of Psalms, the prophet Isaiah – I knew all of it by heart by the end of my days in elementary school. Same for the New Testament – the birth of Christ; all of His teachings and parables; His death on the cross; His resurrection after three days; the founding of His church after His ascension back to Heaven – it was all as familiar to me by the time I walked away from high school as the mathematical precepts of basic addition, subtraction, division and multiplication.

           I had assumed all this time that I was still saved. I thought I had really, genuinely believed in Jesus as my savior that long ago night in 1985 when I was seven years old. And maybe I did. But, for whatever reason, the Holy Spirit had not come into me back then. I was not truly saved. (This is perhaps worthy of a more detailed discussion and analysis later on down the road.) Whatever the case, I am most definitely a new believer now. The Holy Spirit is alive and well within me, and I have only a single desire and purpose: to know the God that created me, and to serve him with all my heart, soul and mind.

           Pastor and I did discuss my homosexuality issue in our second talk, and that, along with the extracurricular reading I’ve been doing on this topic, has enabled me to finally reconcile what I couldn’t in my teen years when I first fought with this problem.

 - 2 -

If I am gay, and God – through His written word – has condemned what I am as a sin, how can I be His child and serve Him as he commanded me to do? That’s the question I’ve been wrestling with anew for the last few months. I began this new journey in last September with the premise that I was born gay. I’ve believed that my whole adult life. I proceeded from that assumption through all of my reading and research these last few weeks. But if God made me this way, why would He then condemn as an abomination the very thing that I am? Is He not contradicting Himself? How can this be?

           Pastor Sjostrom asked that very question in our second talk. He then went on to answer it by explaining that my unnatural desire for the same sex was a cause of the Fall, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is what led their descendants to the sins of idolatry, fornication, sexual perversion, and many, many others. Yes, I was born gay. But that’s not how God made me. There’s a very distinct difference.

           His explanation corroborated what I have come to discover in the last couple weeks as I’ve read Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church from the Counterpoints series. Author and editor Preston Sprinkle gathered four prominent Christian authors, scholars, and theologians to discuss this issue – two for and two against. I will not go into great detail of what these authors debate and discuss, mainly for the sake of page and time, but also because this issue is not anywhere near as complicated as it seems.

           All four of the contributing authors to the Two Views book have used the following Bible verses/passages as the foundation of their arguments:

1.)   The creation story in Genesis 1 and 2.

2.)  Genesis 19:4-11 (Sodom & Gomorrah)

3.) Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13

4.) 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

5.) 2 Corinthians 5:17

6.) Romans 1:18-32, emphasis on verses 26-28

7.) 1 Timothy 1:9-10

Those authors have also drawn from extra-Biblical material such as the writings of Philo, a Jewish historian who was a contemporary of the apostle Paul; the Apocrypha; the writings of Saint Augustine; and various other books – most written in the last 50 years – on sociology, sexuality and anthropology in the ancient world.

Here’s an example of one of one of the arguments for the church’s endorsement of homosexuality. One of Two Views’ contributors, Megan Defranza argues that there were many people in Biblical times that were born with no distinct male or female genitalia or other defining sexual characteristics. These “intersex individuals” were often referred to as eunuchs by the people of that time, and many of them were used as sex slaves. Megan claims that Genesis 1 is “…a theological account describing creation in broad categories, not an exact scientific inventory of all of God’s good creatures.” She goes on to say that Adam and Eve were not the exclusive, ideal models for all of man and womankind. They were, rather, just the broad categories; that the birth of eunuchs and other such of types of intersex people prove that God would welcome the church’s acceptance of gays, lesbians and transgenders since they have been born that way, and their sexual desires are natural to them. She claims that God was not condemning the eunuchs and other similar people in those verses/passages I listed above. Those condemnations were for the ones who had turned deliberately turned away from God to worship idols and indulge their sinful lusts.

There’s a lot more detail to Megan’s argument, especially regarding the eunuchs and their forced sexual slavery to their male masters, but it’s not worth going into here. The other three contributing authors give similar arguments, citing external sources in addition to scripture, to support their particular view. Wesley Hill and Stephen Holmes, the two that are opposed to the church’s condoning of homosexuality and gay marriage, give the stronger of the four arguments. Two Views opens with Megan’s and William Loader’s essays (the other author who falls on the affirming and open acceptance side of this debate), but by the time I reached the end of their arguments, I already knew which side of this issue I was going to fall on.

Wesley Hill and Stephen Holmes – as well as Pastor Sjostrom – present a much stronger, sounder case for why the Christian church, no matter the denomination, should be condemning ALL forms of homosexuality as clearly as God does. My own Bible reading and prayer showed me this after only a few weeks. I don’t really need to read all the other books on this topic to know the truth. To be completely honest, I had a pretty good idea of what the end of this journey would look like before I even started it. All the verses from Genesis, Leviticus, Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and 1st Timothy that deal with this specific issue are quite clear. It is stated over and over: homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God. Paul stated it best in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

That word “effeminate” in the KJV is translated from the original Greek word that Paul used: arsenokoitai. This is a compound word: arsen – male; koite – bed. “Male bedders”, in other words; those men who sleep with other men. In the NIV translation, the word “effeminate” is replaced with the phrase “men who sleep with other men”. The only other passage that Paul uses that word is in 1 Timothy 1:8-10 (NKJV):

“But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine…”

The meaning of these two passages is quite clear: those that practice any or all of those sins listed will not inherit the kingdom of God. They are not true believers and followers of Christ. And thus, any church that not only allows its homosexual members to remain in their sin, but also performs gay marriage, is not a true church of God.

And such were some of you.

God has commanded those that follow Him and declare His name to turn from their wickedness and be transformed. Those that believe on His name and repent of their sins will no longer practice those sins listed in the passages I quoted above. That’s the meaning of the phrase, “…and such were some of you.” Well, I have definitely been transformed. I can feel the Holy Spirit working in me. And, because of that, I have no other choice. If I am to be faithful to my Lord and Creator, if I surrender myself completely to His will, I must take a vow to turn away from my sin nature. I cannot indulge in the “lusts of the flesh”, as Paul says in Romans, if I am to call myself a true Christian. I am now a child of God, and His will alone must govern all I say and do.

But, even more important than those passages I listed and quoted above, is the book of Genesis, chapter two. God created Adam first and then He decided it wasn’t good for man to be alone. So God made the woman out of Adam’s rib, and he called her ‘Eve”. Then, in verse twenty-four, God said, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” This chapter, more than any other passage in the Bible, clearly and explicitly demonstrates what God had intended from the very beginning. The only natural desire of the flesh was for the opposite sex: man for woman and woman for man. That was God’s original plan.

Unfortunately for us, Adam and Eve did not resist the serpent’s temptation to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After the Fall, their perfect, pure natures were corrupted by sin, and that corruption was passed unto their children, and their children’s children. Part of that corruption was the perversion of the natural, normal sexual desire. Men lusted after men and women for women. Even though the subsequent passages in Genesis which describe mankind’s deplorable state before the Great Flood never state it specifically, it is not unreasonable to assume that more than just homosexuality was a problem. Bestiality, pedophilia, rape and incest were very likely abundant among the first few generations of man, as well as the worship of false idols and complete rejection of God. Why else would God have felt the need to punish his creation by wiping them from the face of the Earth, save for Noah and his family?

As the old saying goes, ‘God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’. I’ve always hated that pithy, snarky retort whenever I had to defend my sexuality to anyone who tried to tell me I was living in sin. But it’s true. God created only Adam and Eve; not Adam and Steve; not Melissa and Eve; not Adam, Eve, and some other non-gender, non-binary person.

Just Adam and Eve.

Man and woman were joined in holy matrimony and, until the Fall, they lived in perfect peace and union with their Lord and Creator. Anything that deviates from that original, holy standard that God still demands of His children today, is a sin. That includes homosexuality, bestiality, pedophilia, incest, idolatry and devil worship, to name a few. Anyone that willfully practices or engages in any of those things and does not repent cannot call himself a true believer in Christ. Nor can any church that not only openly endorses homosexuality but also performs gay marriage can call themselves a true church of Christ.

So then, what now? If I accept that my sexuality is a byproduct of my sin nature, and that God, in fact, did not make me this way, how can I best serve Him? I’m still gay. That hasn’t changed. (And, yes, I’m sure. I’m watching last week’s episode of The Resident as I write this. Matt Czuchry and Manish Dayal are among the best male eye candy on TV right now.) I still desire a physical relationship with another man. (Either of the aforementioned actors would be especially nice.) But that desire – as well as the act – is a sin. God has made that clear in his Word. After some more talk with Pastor Sjostrom, I finally came to an answer – or, at least, part of one.

 - 3 -

I mistakenly assumed that after I asked Christ into my heart, after I surrendered myself to God, that my sin nature would be transformed. I thought what many torn, conflicted gay Christians and their family have thought: with enough prayer, genuine repentance, and strong faith I would no longer be a homosexual. God would change my unnatural desire, and I would be sexually attracted to women instead of men. I would throw out all the symbols of my gay pride that I had collected over the years – t-shirts, bracelets, baseball caps, the rainbow colored Apple watch bands – and I would begin my new life as a heterosexual man. 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Yes, it would be hard at first, but God and I would make this work, glory hallelujah amen!

But that’s not how salvation works. Yes, there was a transformation, but not quite the kind that I was expecting. It’s hard to put into words exactly what I felt in the weeks and months following that quiet prayer on that car ride home from work late the night of September 17, 2020. I knew for sure that something was different. To begin with, there was an almost instant peace and calm that settled over my entire being. All the anxiety, the fear, and the worry about the state of the world around me that had been plaguing me for many weeks melted away. In its place was a quiet, firm assurance that, no matter what happened from then on, I was in the hands of God. He would take care of me.

And then, in the days and weeks that followed that moment of salvation, I began to feel more than just spiritual peace and tranquility. The first was a hunger – an insatiable, ravenous desire to read my Bible. I had only the app on my iPad, and I started with Genesis 1. Every night, before bed, I would read two or three chapters. And then I would pray. It was awkward and nothing like the prayers that I heard time and again from my dad or my teachers in high school or my pastor back then. I stumbled over my words, I repeated myself, I kept forgetting what I wanted to say. And I still felt weird doing it. It was like I was talking to myself. But I kept praying nonetheless.

Gradually, as Christmas loomed closer and closer, and the more I read my Bible and talked to God, I felt something stronger inside of me. But it wasn’t anything physical, like an emotion. It was…something else, something in my soul. I imagined this new feeling as a few drops of red ink falling into a bowl of clear water. At first, the drops fall straight down, coloring only a little bit of the water. But then the ink begins to slowly spread, crimson tendrils that stretch outwards, eventually turning the whole water into the color of blood. That’s what it felt like was happening inside of me. My soul – the very thing that made me me was being changed from the inside out. And it felt damn good!

It was after my Christmas vacation, after ten days of rest and relaxation with my family in Idaho, that I noticed an even bigger change. When I returned to the daily grind of my two jobs, I realized that my whole attitude – and, by extension, my whole outlook on life – had been transformed. I was no longer the angry, anxious, frustrated, fearful man that was always pissed about something – usually the people who were my customers. Before, I was short tempered, impatient, always inwardly complaining whenever those around me were being difficult or annoying me in some way. Now, however, I was at peace. The difference in my new attitude from the old was as glaring as night from day. I greeted my customers with a smile. It was no longer an effort for me to be patient with the difficult ones. Nor did I feel the need to rant and rage on social media about the problems of the world, as I had been doing practically non-stop before I became saved.

It was like being wrapped inside joy, as if joy was something tangible – like a big, soft, warm blanket fresh from the dryer. I had to constantly check my reflection because I was sure I had a giant, stupid grin on my face all day long. And that feeling only got stronger the more I continued to read my Bible – now an actual book that I had bought from Amazon – and pray. That, too, was getting better. I no longer stumbled over my words or forgot what I wanted to say. The hunger to know God, to build a new relationship with my Creator, overshadowed everything else in my life. I lost interest in many of the things that had once taken up all my time, like watching TV or playing video games. All I wanted to do every night when I got home from a busy day was to open God’s Word and keep reading.

But there was one thing that didn’t change during all of that wonderful transformation. I’m still gay. The desire for that sin is still there, as strong and lustful as ever. Everything else about me seems different. I am, indeed, a new creature in Christ. So why am I still gay? Why is this particular thorn still lodged firmly deep in my flesh?

I still don’t have an answer. But I do have a theory. The transformation of the new believer in Christ is not like wiping the old operating system of your ten year old iMac. With a computer you can install a whole new operating system that’s free of the bugs, viruses and malware that plagued the old system. The hardware is still the same old hardware, but the software is brand new. Your computer has been transformed. It performs and operates like a new machine.

But we humans are not machines. We are creatures born of the Fall. Being saved in Christ has made us like new, but the old self – the old, corrupt nature – is still there. The old operating system hasn’t been wiped away. Rather, the new OS is now installed, and the two systems are at war with one another. Why is that, I wonder? Why doesn’t God simply transform our sin nature by wiping it way when He fills us with the Holy Spirit? Wouldn’t that be easier – and more complete – than  forcing us to constantly battle our old selves in order to remain faithful and obedient to Him?

The honest answer is, I don’t know.

What I do know is that God, in His infinite wisdom, has chosen not to remove this particular thorn in my flesh. I am still gay.

           The thorn in my flesh. Yeah, that phrase sounds familiar. In fact, it’s been rolling around in the back of my brain for several weeks now.

In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul writes of the “thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan sent to buffet me.” Those four verses, more than any other Bible passages that I’ve read and also read about, have continued to echo within me ever since the beginning of this journey. Many pastors and scholars agree that that the thorn Paul speaks of was of a spiritual nature, not a physical. Paul says that he “…besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.”

The thorn in my flesh.

What if I am in the same seat as Paul? What if my sexuality is the ‘thorn’ in my own flesh?

I think that part of the reason that God doesn’t just snap his fingers and wipe away our old self is because, without those old, sinful desires and temptations, we wouldn’t continually come back to Him for mercy, grace and forgiveness. It might have taken a little longer for me to surrender if the outside world hadn’t melted down last year, but I have no doubt now that God has always been working in my life, and He wants my love, worship and obedience. My homosexuality is a reminder from Him that I have a choice: I can give in to my sin nature and indulge my own desires, or I can turn from the flesh, take up my cross daily, and follow Him.

God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our sin nature, and He knows that when times are good, when everything is going our way, we often forget Him – just as the Israelites did over and over in the Old Testament. We get wrapped up in our daily lives, turn away from Him, and give our worship to false idols instead; or we just pay Him our weekly rituals and sacrifice on Sunday, and then put aside our Bibles until the following week. But it’s during the times of adversity, when God allows the trials and tribulations of life to afflict us, that we come to Him. We seek Him because He is our only source of comfort and peace. The storms in our lives remind us that God alone can save us, can heal us. Our afflictions draw us closer to Him. And, if we remain faithful to Him, there is much reward for our devotion and service. When the storm has passed, we often find a rainbow.

The rainbow was God’s covenant with Noah and his descendants that God would never again destroy the world with a flood. In our modern world the homosexual revolution of fifty years ago took the rainbow as a symbol of pride and diversity. When I entered my adult life as an out and proud gay man, I, too, adopted the rainbow as a symbol of pride in myself. I vowed to live my life on my terms, and I wouldn’t be cowered or ashamed into silence about who I was, of what I had been born as. But, of course, I have renounced all of that since becoming a new child of God. It is NOT my life, but His as a gift to me. I live now in complete service to Him, and Him alone.

But I’m not quite ready to throw away my rainbow bracelet that I wear on my right wrist every day. It is still a symbol to me – and to everyone I meet in daily life – but not the one that it used to be. I have found a new place beneath the rainbow created by God in the aftermath of that flood in Genesis. The peace and reconciliation I have long sought has been found at last, and the rainbow is a symbol of both my old life and my new one in God’s service. I don’t find that conflicting at all, just as I have no problem calling myself a gay Christian. Until such time as God, in his perfect timing and wisdom, decides to change my unnatural desire completely, I will always be a gay Christian, and the rainbow will be a sign of my personal covenant with Him.

The process of reconciling this issue, the spiritual traveling and soul searching that I have done over the last few months, has shown me clearly that God is my Lord and Savior. He has allowed this affliction so that I would do the work that I needed to reconcile what appeared to be a crisis of faith. I wouldn’t have experienced personal growth in my life – and my faith – without this conflict and pain. Yes, it has been painful. Peeling back the faded scars of old wounds wasn’t not all pleasant. I had to go back to that fifteen-year-old kid and have a long talk with him. (See section 5 of this post.) I wrote letters to my parents and my three brothers, apologizing for the way I treated them all those years ago. I have recognized how selfishly I have been living my adult life, and the pride of my old nature has screamed fiercely whenever I bow my knee and my heart every morning in prayer. There is now a fight within me – the old nature vs. the new self – that will never let up until I die. And, sometimes, that fight will be painful. And yes, I already know that there are times when I will fail, when I will give in to the temptation to break my new vow with God. But that failure is not as important to God as whether or not I stay in the fight. And I will stay. I’m in this for the long haul, and I know without a shred of doubt that God is on my side. He wants me to succeed.

Hallelujah, amen!

 - 4 -

           Most of you have seen my post on Facebook from three days ago. My only answer from God to this twenty-four-year-old conflict has been a call to celibacy. Until such time as he chooses to change my sin nature, to change my unnatural desire into a natural one, I have made the following vow to Him:

           I take a vow of celibacy before God; that I have surrendered my life and my will unto Him; that I will not give in to the temptations of my sinful flesh; that I recognize my homosexual desire as a sin in His eyes, an abomination caused by the Fall; that He has saved my soul from eternal damnation, and I owe him nothing less than my whole heart, soul and mind.

           I take this vow on the 3rd of February, 2021.

           Amen.

 - 5 -

           I read a long time ago – probably in a textbook somewhere in college – that one of the tools therapists and psychiatrists use in their counseling of patients is to have their patients write a letter to their past selves. As I mentioned earlier in this post, I wrote letters to my family to apologize for how I had wronged them in the past. After some more thought and deliberation I decided to write one more letter, this time to that fifteen year old kid that used to be me.

           At first, I thought this a stupid idea. I mean, how much more clichéd can one get? Plus, I’ve already treaded into dangerously melodramatic waters in this post. Is yet one more emotional, sappy passage needed?

           Ehhhh…yes and no. Turns out, I had a lot more to say to myself than I thought at first, and, son-of-a-gun, I did feel remarkably better afterwards. Guess there was some genuine, therapeutic value to this little exercise after all.

           So…here it is.

 Hello.

It's been a long time.

Yes, I see you. You've been there all along, but only recently have I begun to really see you. You've been with me my whole adult life, affecting me, shaping me in ways I never realized until now. I thought I left you behind when I left high school. At various times in my life since, I've judged you, shunned you, tried to erase you, or just simply ignored you. I could never understand why you never had the courage to speak up, to ask for help. There were a few adults – or even your friends – who would have very likely sympathized and tried to help you. All you had to do was say something! But you didn't. You kept your secret, protecting it, guarding it like Gollum with his precious ring. I was the one who eventually had to reveal the secret to those around me when I was old enough and no longer ashamed of what I was.

           But now I realize that instead of judging you and blaming you, there's one thing that I should have done long ago. I never said, “Thank you.” Thank you for giving me the strength and courage to step into the world as a confident, independent adult. It was because of you, what you went through silently as a teenager, that I developed the strength and resolve to live my truth as an adult. It was because of you that I knew what I wanted in life. It was never my desire to just go with the flow, to blend into the crowd and do whatever everyone else was doing. I did my own thing. And yes, it would have been better if I had been living that truth within God's will, but God, in His infinite wisdom, decided not to work His will just yet. He chose to wait while I forged my own path.

           Part of me wishes that I could go back in time and be the adult that you needed. I would have embraced you, told you that you weren't a mistake; that God loves you just the way you are, including being gay. And, deep down inside, you knew that you were loved. Your parents told you that every day. But you always had that sliver of doubt in the back of your mind.

“Would you still love me if you knew my secret? Would you still accept me if I was gay?”

I, the adult looking back at you across the gulf of years between us, know the answer to that is a resounding “Yes! They have always loved you, no matter what!”

           Part of me also wonders how our life would have been different if you had reached out to the one person that understood what you were going through; the one that knew your pain – and your secret. It was He that made you, after all. What I can see so clearly now is that it never occurred to you to reach out to God. You only knew Him through the church, through your teachers, through your parents, through all the endless rules, and restrictions, and demands that they all placed on you. That's what you rebelled against. God, to you, was just a system, an institution that governed every corner of your life. That institution would never understand your secret, would never accept you for the real you.

           But He was there all along. He was there on those nights when you cried yourself to sleep. You were struggling to understand your pain, to understand the turmoil inside you, but you didn't have the words or the wisdom or the experience to fully realize it all. All that you knew was anger, frustration and fear. But God understood you, and He was there in the darkness, crying with you.

           I want so badly to be there now, to wrap you in my arms and wipe away your tears and tell you that everything will be okay. Because it will be. You can’t see it now, but things will get better. You will find a way through this, and you will emerge on the other side with a strength and resolve that you never knew you had within you. The rest of your life is an as-yet-unwritten map of joys and blessings, failures and setbacks, triumphs and successes that will make all of this suffering worthwhile. You will know happiness that you couldn’t dream of – most of it found within the family that you don’t understand or get along with now. (There are 10 nieces and nephews that think you’re the greatest uncle ever, for example.) God has a plan for you, and, like the father of the prodigal son, He will be there with open arms when you finally come back home. He will accept you, just as you are.

           But all of that is for later. For now, just know this: the storm will pass, and there will be peace.

           You will find your rainbow.

[annabelleb49]

New Kid- Chapter 1

Rafael Barba x Reader

Some background info: This is set in whatever years Barba would have been in HS. Late 1980s? Location is Washington D.C.

Notes: This is the writers first time writing fan fiction, and first time using tumblr at all. I may do poorly and mess up, and so I apologize in advance :/ Please don’t hesitate to leave feedback. The writer has also not lived through the 80s so please excuse any historical inaccuracies. Also, there’s the issue of smut. ;) Smut is fun to read but I don’t know how I feel about writing it...so uh, let me know in the comments what you think.

Chapter 1: And so everything begins

You were bent over tying your converse shoes up as you got ready to leave home and go to school. It was the second quarter of junior year, so school was tough and starting to really kick your ass. It was 7:15 and you were exhausted, as always, dreading the multiple exams you would have to take that day, everyday. With no energy left due to school and extracurriculars taking its toll, you were just dressed in a simple gray sweater and denim jeans. Who cares what you looked like, half the kids at school dressed the same way. Your high school was known for its academic rigor so everyone was just as tired as you.

“Y/N, lets get going!” Your dad yelled from the garage. You stood up, slipped on your backpack, filled with heavy binders and notebooks, and grabbed your lunchbox. As much of a hassle it was to pack your own lunch, you were not going to subject yourself to eat the so called “food” your school cafeteria served. You shuffled your way to the garage and got into the car with your dad. 

“So, you ready for school?” Your dad asked you as he pulled out of the driveway. 

You rolled your eyes. “You ask me that every morning, dad. And the answer is always of course not.” 

Your dad laughed. “Well it’s the thought that matters? Don’t forget tonight we need to go driving together, you only need a few more hours until you can test for your license!” You nodded your head, you couldn’t wait until you could get your license and drive yourself to school, to the mall, to everywhere. Freedom, oh what a dream!

15 minutes later you arrived at school and hopped out of the car. There was still 30 minutes until class started, but you liked to get there early enough to meet with your friends and either hangout or cram together for any upcoming tests. As you walked up the steps to the main door, you saw a boy standing, staring at the school, dressed in dark pants and a black turtleneck covered in a grey jacket. Oddly formal for school, you thought. As you neared him, you noticed his worried and confused expression, and in his hands he clutched a paper schedule and a map of the school. Ah, a new kid, you thought. 

“Are you ok?” You asked him. 

He turned to look at you and smiled timidly. “Uh yeah, I’m just new and this is my first day.” He turned back to study his schedule and map. 

You knew what it was like to be a new kid. You continued, “Well, there’s still 30 minutes left until class so, um.. I can take you around the school to help you find your classes right now. If you’d like, of course.” You smiled at him. 

He turned towards you again and smiled, this time a brighter smile that reached his eyes. “Really? I don’t want to inconvenience you or anything...”

“It’s really no problem. I’ve moved a few times before and I know how hard it can be. So, what’s your name?” You sympathized with him.

“Rafael.” He responded.

“Well, Rafael, my name’s Y/N. Nice to meet you.” Rafael. You really liked that name. It rolled across your tongue so nicely.

He handed you his schedule and you skimmed it quickly. 

***Rafael’s schedule:  Barba, Rafael. Grade 11

1) AP Language & Composition 2) Journalism  3) AP Spanish 4) AB Calculus  5) AP US History 6) Speech & Debate 7) Physics Honors

Odd days: A Lunch Even Days: B Lunch

“Oh, you’re a junior too! This is is what they call ‘hell-year’ because it’s so hard, especially at this school. It’s really kicking my ass, I have to admit.” You looked over his classes. “Damn, you’re taking AP Spanish? You must be really good.”

He smiled sheepishly. “Well, I’m a native speaker. I’m Cuban, you see.”

You looked at him with wide eyes. “You’re Cuban, as in from Cuba? Did you just move from Cuba?”

Rafael laughed. “No, I’m��‘Cuban-American’, more specifically. I was born here. I moved here from New York.” 

You nodded your head. “From big apple to the capital of the country. Welcome to DC, I guess. I hope it compares with New York.” You continued looking over his schedule, noting that you two had multiple classes together. 

“Guess what? We have quite a few classes together! We have English, journalism, math, and history together. And we’ve got the same lunch on both days!” You exclaimed, eyes lighting up. Perhaps this was the start of a friendship? But as soon as you thought of that, you mentally kicked yourself. He’s new and you can’t seem overly pushy and excited right away. Maybe you two wouldn’t even get along. You were only showing him around the school, right?

***Your schedule:

Y/L/N, Y/F/N. Grade 11

1) AP Language & Composition 2) Journalism  3) Physics honors 4) AB Calculus  5) AP US History 6) Chinese 3 7) AP Computer Science

Odd days: A Lunch Even days: B Lunch

You walked into the building together and led him to all his classes, explaining which hallways were dedicated to which subjects. You also explained how the bell schedule worked: There were even and odd days, each class was 90 minutes. However, everyday you would have period 3, only, it would be 60 minutes to make up for the fact it was everyday. Other than that, periods were matched up with even or odd days, depending on if it was an even or odd number. It was a quick tour, and by the time you finished, there was still 15 minutes until class started. 

“Hey, Rafael, do you want to come meet my friends? There’s still time until class starts, and since we’re in the same first period, we can walk there together.” You fumbled with your hands, nervous as you didn’t want to seem too invasive or too welcoming, if that was even a thing. You simply knew what it was like to be in his shoes and wanted to help out as much as you could.

Rafael seemed happy to oblige, however. And was that relief you saw across his face for a split second? So, you walked him to one of the common areas where your friend group always hung out at every morning. There were 9 of you: 5 girls and 4 guys. Rafael would even it out if he joined your friend group, you noted. 

***Your friend group:  Y/N, Hannah, Avery, Zadie, Nicole, Nick, Peter, Joseph, Bobby.

“Hey guys, this is Rafael and he’s new here. You all ok with him hanging out with us? He’s got a bunch of classes with us too.” You introduced him to your friends. You and your friends were what you considered normal-smart kids. Not conventionally popular, but not eccentric either. Just really normal, hard working and got along with everyone. But then again, your school didn’t really have those movie style cliques. Most people were normal and didn’t really pay attention to popularity. 

“Yeah no problem, welcome to the school, Rafael! Come sit down with us.” Avery spoke up, and the rest of the group chimed in their welcomes. And so, Rafael settled down with you and felt thankful someone had welcomed him. Maybe being the new kid at this school wouldn’t be as lonely as he as anticipated.

~~~~~

The morning zoomed by and it was already lunch time. You remembered that Rafael had the same lunch as you, and you told him to look for you at lunch. You sat at a table in the middle of the cafeteria with 5 of your friends from your friend group and a cluster of other people who you were friends with, but not as close. You sat down and looked around the cafeteria. You spotted Rafael, head held high as his eyes scanned the room. You smiled inwardly, happy at the thought he had remembered you and was looking for you. You waved your hand and caught his attention, and he walked over and sat down across from you. 

“Hey guys, you remember Rafael?” You said to your five close friends. And to the rest of the table you announced, “This is Rafael, he’s new and is joining us for lunch today.” You made sure to add the “today” because you didn’t want to pressure him into sitting with you everyday or joining your friend group. It was ultimately up to him, and who knows, he might find other friends he’d rather hangout with. However, Rafael had noticed and suddenly worried if he was really welcome to join your friend group or if you were just being nice for this one day... In truth, he really liked you and your friends and felt he fit in nicely. Everyone at the table said their hellos and you started chatting with Rafael. 

“So how was your day so far? I hope people have been nice. There aren’t really any stereotypical bullies or mean girls here.” You said over a bite of your sandwich.

Rafael smiled. You were right, compared to the movies and other schools he had been in, people here were much nicer and there didn’t seem to be much of a bullying problem. “Pretty good. I mean, English was nice with you and Avery and Joseph, and AP Spanish was easy-peasy. As soon as people found out I was fluent they all seemed shocked. I guess I don’t look like Hollywood’s version of a Latino.” He laughed.

He was right. With his light brown hair and green eyes, one wouldn’t associate him with Cuba or even Latin America in general, thanks to Hollywood and America’s stereotypes. “I’m glad everything is running smoothly.” You replied. Then you narrowed your eyes. “If anyone gives you any trouble, call me and I’ll knock the wind out of them with my kindergarten tae-kwon-do experience.” You said and mimed a weak punch, chuckling. 

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” He said back, laughing. He opened his lunch and you were impressed. It was a pork dish and it smelled amazing. 

“Wow that looks really good. What is it?” You said, munching on some apple slices.

“Thanks, it’s lechon con moros- roasted pork. A classic Cuban dish. My mom made it for me specially for my first day of school.” He explained as he dug in. “I can’t eat it too often though, or else I’d be starring on the next episode of My 600 Pound Life!” He said, eyes twinkling. 

The rest of lunch went by smoothly, Rafael, you, and the rest of the table talking and laughing. You noticed how he fit in immediately, chatting away as if you were all old friends. The lunch bell rang and you all stood up to rush to next period. You had history with Hannah and Bobby, and now Rafael, so the four of you walked to class together from the cafeteria. 

You walked into AP US History and sat down at your usual table. The class was taught by Mr. Yamamoto, one of the nicest teachers in the entire school so he let everyone choose their own seats. Rafael joined your table, consisting of you, Hannah, Bobby, and two more people who you didn’t really know too well. 

Mr. Yamamoto took attendance and then smiled. “Alright class, if you haven’t noticed, today we have a new student. Would you like to introduce yourself?” 

Rafael looked a little nervous, but you glanced at him and nodded your head supportively. He stood up and introduced himself to the class. “Hi, I’m Rafael and I just moved from the Bronx in New York.” He sat down again.

Mr. Yamamoto instructed to class to say welcome, and then proceeded to begin the lesson. “Thank you Rafael, I hope you enjoy my class. Now moving on to today’s lesson. We will be starting the unit on the Revolutionary War. This unit is especially fun for me because one of the most famous battles- the Battle of Gettysburg, happened where I was born and raised- Gettysburg, Pennsylvania!”

As Mr. Yamamoto began passing out notes, Rafael whispered to you, “It’s always so nerve-wracking when teachers make you introduce yourself. I’ve had to do that in all my classes so far except English.” He looked exasperated. 

You grinned. “Don’t worry, I think you did fine. Plus, you’re just practicing your speaking skills to become the next President of America!” You said jokingly, nudging him in the arm. 

Rafael smiled back, but you noticed he looked a little sad as you made the joke about him becoming president. You began to overthink that joke, hoping you hadn’t ruined anything between you two. 

The rest of class consisted of Mr. Yamamoto lecturing and then you working with your table to do research with big textbooks. The bell rang and everyone stood up to go to last period. You realized that you and Rafael didn’t have any classes together for the rest of the day, and said goodbye to him. 

“It was really nice meeting you, Rafael. We meet at the same common area every morning, so if you want to join us tomorrow, feel free to. If you want to though, no pressure or anything..” You said, still trying to not sound too pushy. 

“I’d love to, Y/N. Also..thanks for everything today. I really appreciate you, um, welcoming me and stuff. It was really nice.” He said shyly. 

You considered asking for his phone number to keep in touch. “Rafael-” you began. But then you thought better of yourself. You’d only known each other the first day. He would probably think you were weird if you asked for his contact info right away. This could wait for later, when- if, he became a close friend. “Um, nevermind. See you tomorrow!” You cut yourself off and waved goodbye to him and your other friends. 

You went home and continued the same routine as always. Start the grueling homework, then rush to whatever extracurricular there was that day, then rush back home and continue working. Then dinner, more studying, and finally showering and getting ready for bed. Your bedtime varied day to day, but the result in the morning was always the same. Exhaustion and feeling like you weighed a ton of bricks as you got up from bed. As you settled in for bed that night, you replayed the day. Meeting Rafael at the front of the school, showing him his classes, having class with him and lunch, and saying goodbye. He seemed so sweet and nice and seemed to fit in right away. You sent a tiny prayer up that Rafael liked you and your friends and would join your friend group. However, you, being a pessimist sometimes, couldn’t stop a pit feeling that he might not like you and would stop hanging around you as he met more people. Little did you know, this was not the case.

A girl can wish, right?

~

Author’s note: Well damn this ended up being longer than I expected. I hope this actually gets noticed by people and not end up unnoticed in some dark hole in Tumblr. As the mc said, a girl can wish, right?

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Mount Everest Ain’t Got Shit On Us (Fezco x fem!reader, Part 14.)

Description: You were always told that your life will be as you wish it to be if you’ll study enough. That it will pay off if you work hard. And some people were given you like a scary example of what will happen when you don’t obey. But sometimes it feels good to disobey.

A/N: This is the last proper chapter before we move on to the ending, which should be separated into three to five chapters.

Warnings: Illegal actions, drug smuggling.

Word count: 3.7 K

Read the rest here, babe:  PART 1  PART 2  PART 3  PART 4  PART 5  PART 6  PART 7  PART 8  PART 9  PART 10  PART 11  PART 12  PART 13

Masterlist and declaration: H E R E

Tagging: @charmed-asylum, @jeyramarie, @pantherxrogers, @analia-analia-analia​

Since you are a small kid, they tell you that you will have to find work when you will grow up. You are prepared for that ’work’ since you’re a little kid. What had you thought? That they are making you visit the kindergarten because they want you to have fun? Only to find some friends that you can have all-life-lasting memories and friendships with? For you to have cute photos in costumes on your fridge?

If you did, then think again - the system prepares you to go to that work since you’re a small kid. Then, there’s an elementary school, high school, and college. Just to make you prepared. Just to make you work for the system. 

Maybe you want to be a lawyer? No, you have to be smart for that - you’ll be a cashier for that. You want to be a police officer? Dear, you’re too fat for that - you can work as a cook, maybe? Yeah. That’s the fucked up society and system we are all a part of. 

That’s how it works. 

But soon, you learn that there are one or two ways how to fuck the system up, so you could bring some chaos to it. Black marketing, for example. White meat trafficking and prostitution. And, of course, the one we all know really well about - drug dealing.

And since your boyfriend and his small best friend were the biggest distributors for your small American suburb, you naturally came across that. You started to notice how it usually goes - they come on a party or onto the gas station and the hand each other the things so fast, that you don't even have the time to notice if you’re not paying attention.

Usually, it looks like a handshake between two people who haven’t seen each other in a long time - but one had the small package of, most likely, weed, coke or something like LSD and the second person has cash rolled in their hands. They shake hands - dealer handles the drug, takes the cash. Not a big deal.

Sometimes you even see small iron boxes around the city - Fezco took the money and left the material there. And to be honest, there was a shit load of them. Or just leave it on places which would never appeal to anyone as suspicious while the money was waiting for Fezco out there - dull books in a full bookshelf, an empty tube of pills, under a specified stone... These tactics were previously agreed by both sides and usually performed at parties when the two couldn’t meet from eyes to eyes.

But to be honest, the funniest for you was the pocket change, as Ash called it. It sounded less suspicious then. That was when the dealer and the other party met, but tried to be less suspicious - like on a street or something. The dealer came next to the buyer, shoved his hand up the buyer’s pants into one of the pockets which are previously specified to be ’the ONE’ and leaves the drug there while taking the money out. 

Let’s just say that you were able to learn a lot of Fezco’s tactics. As time passed and you saw them more and more times, you were pretty sure that you could perform at least one of them on your own. And that how Ashtray thought as well.

"Hey, baby girl." - He grinned when you enter the shop and put his Snickers bar away to perform a handshake ended up with a fistbump with you. You just ended at school and immediately went to the shop to show Fezco an exam you totally nailed. He was excited for you because he never was as good in exams as you were and he was fucking proud of his baby girl. You were definitely a genius in your boyfriend's eyes.

"Baby girl? That's a new level for us, little kid." - You jumped onto the counter, so you sat there and wiggled your legs from side to side while chewing on gum.

"Heard it from his bedroom while ya weren't here. Bet his hands were occupied at that moment." - Ashtray grinned and snored while talking of that and this thought made you cringe like hell. Jerking off while thinking about you? Definitely hot and cute. Making Ash aware? Pure idiocy.

"How you even are? I haven't talked to you in days." - You looked at him as he sipped some Gatorade or what.

"Ya know da drill, the business somehow rolls, we survivin'." - He nodded, but his face got more serious than before. - "Havin' a problem with a package lately. Kinda thought ya might be willin' to help us?"

"How could I help you with package delivery? Ashtray, that's dumb even for you." - You bickered back, but your smile faded away as none showed up on his serious face.

"Simply. Snuggling into the school's toilettes." - He shook his head as if you were completely dumb. You. You smuggling drugs. You smuggling drugs into school. Holy shit, that boy went officially crazy.

"Ash." - Fez's voice could be heard before you he entered the shop with the back entrance. He was looking tired as hell... Your poor baby boy. Such a cuddly kitten he was when he was tired like that. - "I told ya dat we ain't discussin' dat shit. Hi, babe." - Fezco came in to hug you and kiss your cheek. He stayed like that for a fairly long time before kissing your neck.

"And I told ya that Mouse will kick ma motherfuckin' ass if that package doesn't disappear. It a load and it's fuckin' huge. Expansive. It costs at least 200, maybe 300. It depends on how I'll be feelin'." - Ashtray answered seriously.

"Slow down. Both of you. First off, who the fuck is Mouse?" - You asked and made Fezco back up a bit. He would make you less concentrated with his nuzzling and neck kisses. Ashtray got up and took three different packs of gum.

There was a menthol flavor on the top, melon under it and the bubblegum flavor on the bottom. You looked at him with raised eyebrows and Ash just held a hand in front of him to tell you that you have to wait a bit until he'll tell you the conclusion.

"Look at it like dat, honey." - He told nonchalantly and you nodded, still keeping Fezco one feet away from you. - "The menthol ones are da best, so they on the top. Then there are the melon ones because of their good but not da best. And she bubblegum are just not dat good. Ya with me?" - Ashtray looked at you and you nodded.

"So. Mouse is da menthol flavor because he keeps deliverin' da shit to deal. We da melon ones. We sell to people. Which are da bubblegum flavor? This is sort of an analogy." - You leaned into the counter and smiled at you. You exhaled loudly as you finally understood.

"So, when I put into normal language." - You rose your finger while you looked at his gum analogy and hierarchy. - "Mouse is producing your material, whoever it is. You buy if from him and you sell it to other people. Am I right?"

"Honey lemme tell ya that ya a smart gal." - Ashtray smile got even wider and he went to put the gums back.

"And you two have a package which is huge and expansive and you need only a delivery service, right?" - You rose your eyebrows and Fezco broke the distance for the first time and held your hand firmly.

"Babe, I don't want to get ya involved into dis shit." - Fezco whispered into your ear and gave you a look from his fucking long lashes. His baby blue eyes were worried.

"Dat's right. Fez and I only need a delivery service. Ya up? We'll give you a little somethin' for takin' the risk." - Ashtray smiled at you. Something was tempting you to do it.

It was wrong, definitely. But it had to be adrenaline. It would be risky and you would go to rehab or straight to jail if somebody would catch you. It was on the borderline of crazy. You were putting your dignity and your sane mind into the stakes.

But also, your boyfriend and his little friend were in trouble. And it sounded like serious trouble if someone would ask you. Some guy, probably a gangster, would kick their asses if they didn't sell it.

"I can ask Rue if ya can't do it." - Ashtray smiled and smoothed your hand gently. - "I would get it."

"Don't be stupid, Ash. Rue is having her backpack searched through and they keep an eye on her since her OD. Jules is watched as well." - You exhaled loudly and you could feel Fezco's look directly on you. He didn't agree with your forming decision. You could feel the tension between the two of you. There will be an argument afterward between you, you were one hundred percent sure of it.

"Yeah. I told myself da same thing." - Ashtray nodded.

"How... How would that go?" - You turned more to look into Ashtray's face. - "I mean... No fucking way that they wouldn't notice drugs in my fucking backpack."

"Oh, I see, gal." - Astray went away for a minute.

"Y/N... I tell ya that I don't want ya to even come close to ma or Ashe's business. Back off." - Fezco begged for quietly and you took his face into yours, so you kissed him.

"You can't tell me what should I do and what shouldn't I do. I can decide on my own because I have a brain. Don't be afraid, okay?" - You smiled at Fezco.

Oh, how did he loved that you're your own girl? That you have your own brain and that you never let him dictate you anything - but sometimes, it was the serious pain in his arse.

Than Ash came back with a big package. It wasn't like... Extremely huge, but it was slightly bigger than your own palm. It was impossible for you to just snuggle it into school without someone noticing it.

"I see ya scared face. But lemme explain how it works." - Ash put the package in front of you. It was pretty full and heavy - someone needed a fucking load. You looked at Ash while Fezco was still looking at you with his disapproving look. - "I'll be waitin' under a window in da bio lab. You'll go through da checkpoint. They will believe ya dat yo backpack is clean. Ya will take it from me. After dat, ya will snuggle it onto da toilettes. The last one with broken top and with 'Maddy Perez bites cocks'. Ya leave it there. Take da money. Dat all."

"And I will bring you the money after school?" - You rose your eyebrows. It sounded pretty simple to you. It could be fast in and out.

"Exactly." - Ashtray looked at Fezco. - "Ya ladybug is not only pretty but smart too."

"And she won't be doin' dis shit. Leave her fuckin' out." - Fezco almost broke his teeth from gripping it together as hard as he did.

"I can help you, baby. This sounds easy." - You smiled at both of them.

So were in and opened for business. You joined their little gang, you were part of the drug cartel. And it felt badass.

When you rode into the school that morning, you were as paranoid as ever. Almost like the first day at school. You felt like everyone was watching you, talking about you. That morning's check out for guns or drugs in your bag felt itchy. Almost funny. They knew you're one of the good kids, so they just quickly checked your bag and gave it back, wishing you a good day.

Rue was watching her with a furrow. She knew that you're about to do something. But you didn't want to tell her what. She had a feeling that it is something almost extremely stupid, but you just didn't talk to her.

Ashtray was on the spot on time which was determined the very morning before when Fezco was taking you to school because Fran had to leave early. you only opened up the window and shoved the things inside your bag. But then your stomach almost made you throw up because the classroom opened up. Your hand was still in the bag, holding the package and you almost shit yourself on the spot.

You needed to calm down as soon as you could to think of some good reason why you were in an empty class before school even started.

"Oh, miss Y/L/N." - Mrs. Garner walked into the class with her folder pressed to her boobs in her typical black jeans. She was a bio teacher and she was a great one. She was sensitive, nice to her students, positive and just overall nice. Every time a problem, you could come to her and tell her. - "Nice to see you here. Looking out of the window, watching photosynthesis? Nice."

Mrs. Garner liked you and she wasn't suspecting a single shitty thing about you in an empty classroom next to an opened window. You were a good student, you always answered in her classes. You were smart as well, giving her some good questions. She liked you.

But you thought that you're fucked. You closed your eyes and tried to calm yourself down, but you couldn't. Your cheeks reddened and you almost threw up her new Nike sneakers. Did she see anything? Did she see the drugs? Had she seen Ash running away from the window? Holy fuck. God may help you.

"I had just... Forgave something here. Sorry for not telling you, miss. Also, the air was kinda stuck in here, so I thought I will let in some fresh air in here before your first class." - You closed up your backpack and shoved your fists into your hoodie so she couldn't see how you nervously played with your fingers and how sweaty your palms were. You tried to smile at her, but it felt fake.

Miss Garner didn't seem to notice as she smiled at you and slowly smoothed your shoulder.

"I swear to God that you're one of the best students I ever had." - She looked at her watch before smiling at you again. - "You should go before the class starts."

And how gladly did you run off all sweaty? You were about to faint when you reached your English class. Rue was furrowing her look at you, asking you what's up silently. You weren't looking good at all. You waved her off and sat on your seat. There you rapping your feet at a fast pace.

What now? What's the next move? What should you do? You sat through half of the class as a body without a soul. But then it hit you. Toilettes. You throwing up. Pretend to be sick.

"Sir!" - You yelled through the whole class and stood up. You looked like a mess with a really bad fl, sweaty and pale as the classroom’s wall. - "I think I'm gonna puke." - And with that, he basically let you run out of class without a question; your throat made a similar sound to when you were puking and your teacher did not really want to be puked on. That was easy. So now, you had to find the fucking toilette, leave it there, take the money and leave.

Finding a cab which had 'Maddy Perez bites cocks' all over it, sprayed in green color, wasn't that hard - everyone knew that toilette. But you couldn't get in whatever the fuck was with it. You tried everything; your own hands, power, kicking it off, nothing helped. You almost cried. You didn't want to be caught with a shit ton of drugs in your backpack.

But at the moment, you didn't know what else outside a breakdown you should do.

"Hey, shithead." - Rue's voice echoed through the empty toilettes. She was walking slowly and her footsteps were louder and louder. You tried to stop crying, but you were too fucked up to even take the mucus off with a Cleanex.  - "Hey. What's up?" - Rue asked, opening the cab door slowly and walking into the cab to kneel beside you. 

She wanted to ask you if you're ok, but she only smoothed your shoulder and then she stopped herself. Oh, so that was why you were so weird since the very morning. Then she looked at the toilette, at you and almost slapped herself on the spot.

Of course, Rue knew what is happening in the very cab. She started with that cache when she was in the freshman year and she couldn't meet with Fez face to face. A lot of people in the eleventh grade took it as a good opportunity to get some cash.

"Fuckin' Ash. Keeps forget to tell ’em about the lock on the back of da tank." - She rolled her eyes and leaned behind the toilette, opening the tank up with skilled hands. She giggled and showed you her slim palm. You just watched it with a frightened face.

"Gimme da package." - She ordered and so you did. She laughed when she saw how many materials were in there and how much it weighed in her hand. Then she gave you the money in a waterproof sack, stuffed the drugs inside and closed the toilette again, locking it on the other side. 

She sat there on the other side of the cab, there was barely space for that, your legs were entwined and you just quickly and silently shoved the bag with money into the depths of your backpack.

“Yo first time doin’ dat?” - Rue smiled a bit at you and she looked pretty relaxed. She wasn't even a bit upset about you smuggling drugs or your cab breakdown - she was just happy. - “Mine secret cache. A lot of da older kids know about it, but I had started it here when times were bad.” - She smiled and smoothed your leg.

“My first time doing this and certainly the last doing it. I could have been fucked if not for you.” - You finally calmed down a bit, since you had only money in your bag now, cleaning up your face with a tissue.

“Yeah. But da better thin’?” - Rue stood up and offered you her hand. - “Ya look so terribly that Mr. Smith told me to take ya home when I find you. He doesn't want a student with flu in his class, he's too afraid that he might catch it too.”

“So I can give Ash the money ASAP and finally take a deep breath in.” - You stood up and she hugged you, smoothing your hair quietly. 

“Tell me ya won’t fall into da trap me and Fez are in.” - She took your face into her palms. Oh dear lord, she was about to cry, her lips curling down. - “Promise me that yo gonna stay the fuck out, baby.”

“Yeah. I can fucking you promise that.” - You mumbled and shoved your face into her neck as you both stood there and cried. You were holding her tightly; even if nothing happened basically, your nerves were on the top of stress. This... Everything was biting your ass and all you wanted was to really go home, lay in bed and forget about all that day. 

Rue and you decided to really go out of the school. You didn't want to be there because you knew that nothing that would the professors say would catch your attention. So you visited your friend in the reception room who wrote you and Rue the permits to leave school and then, you rode down on her bike, you sitting on the spot for the bags.

For a small moment, you felt free. Completely free and careless. You were glad for this experience - at least, you were able to determine that you'll never do any of it again. It was just not worth it for a person like you.

Since the day you've been born, everyone saw as the good girl. As the nice one who helps people, who are there to listen when they got a problem, to help them with their ailments. Stuff like this, stuff in which was Fezco and Ash lived in was not a world for you to live in.

You weren't as strong as they were. Your nerves could barely handle the stress of being caught. You almost fucked up two times - even if you only had to deliver the package in a radius of thirty meters.

You gave Ash the money, firmly put it onto the wood and gazed on him with a dead look in your eyes.

"Don't you ever dare to make me do it one more time. I almost puked, I almost shitted myself and no amount of money is worth to end up in jail. No, thank you." - You shook your head and Ash smiled quietly at you as Rue put her bottle next to the counter.

"Got it. I know dat dis isn't da work for everyone, but you saved my and Fezzy's ass." - He gave you fifty dollars from the package payment. - "For risking yo ass. And you can get somethin' for free today." - He left the shop and Rue made her puppy eyes on you.

She wanted the cherry soda you took there on your first visit to the shop. So you nodded and left. You wanted to be as far from Ash as you could.

[nazariolahela]

Best Beloved: Chapter 1

A/N: Hey y'all! This is a PM AU I’ve been working on. It’s a bit different than my previous fic series and I’m really excited to try something new. I hope y’all enjoy it. This story is told in dual first-person narrative, from Kaia (F!MC) and Damien’s POV. The first half of this story takes place during Kaia’s freshman year and Damien’s senior year of college. The second half is two years after Kaia graduates. There will be sprinklings of canon in this fic, but we’ll try to step out of the box for the most part. Thanks for reading, and please leave feedback, and/or if you would like to be tagged.

Synopsis: What happens when you find yourself crushing on your best friend? For years, Damien and Kaia have been friends, while secretly harboring feelings for one another. Everything changes one night after a little too much alcohol and years of pent up feelings. Can they control their emotions and salvage their friendship, or will the feelings they hold for one another destroy everything they have?

All characters are the property of Pixelberry Studios. Thanks for allowing me to borrow them.

Chapter Summary: It’s the first day of classes at Hartfeld University and that means meeting new faces.

Kaia 

Six Years Ago

I raced across the courtyard of Hartfeld University, tugging my backpack higher on my shoulder. It was the first day of the new school year and class started in less than five minutes. Except I was all the way on the other end of campus. Whose bright idea was it to hold college classes at 8 a.m.? Way to make a good impression on the first day, Kaia.

That’s what I got for staying up until 2 a.m. the night before binge-watching episodes of America’s Most Eligible. In my defense, my roommate Victoria and I spent most of the evening getting to know each other. We discovered that we both love the show and are huge fans of Jakenzie. (That’s Jamie x Mackenzie for all you old folks out there.)

We also learned that we were both valedictorians of our respective high schools. So we spent most of the evening sharing stories of our childhood and teen years. We might have also played a few rounds of Truth or Drink. Hence why I was running late that morning. I didn’t even have time to stop at the campus coffee shop for caffeine and eye candy. What? The barista was a total babe.  

I eyed the big clocktower near the library and saw that I only had two minutes left. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it. I still had to make it to Clark Hall and climb the ninety-million stairs to the third floor.

After finally arriving at Clark and climbing the Mount Everest of staircases, I sucked in several deep breaths and burst through the doors of Professor O'Keeffe’s Composition 101 classroom at 8:03 a.m. The whole class turned and the professor eyed me exasperatedly as I slinked to the back of the room, waving a silent apology as I took a seat. She shook her head and continued going over the syllabus. I pulled my MacBook from my backpack and started taking notes, stopping occasionally to scan the room for signs of anyone I might have met at freshman orientation.

I spotted a girl who sat next to me. I think her name was Sloane. Looking like she just stepped off-campus at a prestigious prep school, she wore a blue long-sleeved turtleneck sweater with a plaid skirt and a gold necklace. I focused my attention between her and the professor, watching curiously as she dug around frantically in her laptop bag, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose every time they slipped down. I spotted an empty seat next to her, so when the professor had her back turned, I gathered up my things, rose from my seat and moved over to the other side of the classroom.

“Hey!” I whispered as I took the seat next to her. She looked up from her bag and grinned when she noticed me.

“Hi, there! Kaia, right?” she asked, extending her hand. I nodded and shook it. “I’m Sloane. How’s your first day going?”

“Well, I was late for my first class and I haven’t had coffee. How’s yours?”

“I can’t find my phone charger. I know I packed an extra one, but it seems to have grown legs and walked off.” She continued shuffling through her backpack, her brows pinched in a V. Her unruly curls fell in her face and she brushed them away frustrated.

I dug through my bag, pulling two different phone charges from the side pocket. I held both of them up to her. “Which one do you need?”

Her eyes widened as she examined both chargers in my hand. Reaching for the Samsung charger, she mouthed a thank you and plugged the USB end into her laptop before plugging the other end into her phone. She glanced at my iPhone sitting face-down on my desk, then turned to me. “I gotta ask. Why do you have two different chargers?”

“My cousin Nadia is always losing hers, so I keep a spare on me just in case.”

She nodded and turned back to the front of the classroom, focusing on the professor. The rest of the class passed by uneventfully. When Professor O’Keeffe dismissed us at 8:50 a.m., Sloane and I gathered our things and walked out of the classroom together.

”Where are you off to next?” she asked, adjusting the strap on her bag.

“Intro to Sociology. You?”

”American Government. Gotta love those Gen Ed courses, ” she said with a laugh. “Wanna get lunch later? I have a free period after 11 a.m.”

“Sure. I’ll text my cousin and see if she wants to join us,” I said, pulling out my phone and shooting Nadia a text.

My cousin Nadia is quite the character. Our dads are brothers, but she and I are so close, people often asked if we were sisters. We grew up together, living three houses down from one another. Since we’re only six months apart, we were lucky enough to be in the same grade from kindergarten all the way through high school. Now, we’re privileged enough to attend the same college. I glanced at her text and shook my head.

Sloane and I exchanged phone numbers and I waved goodbye as we took off in opposite directions. I pulled out my campus map, trying to find Alexander Hall as I made my way across the courtyard to my next class. I wasn't looking where I was going when I accidentally slammed into a brick wall. Except it wasn't a brick wall.

“Whoa! Watch where you’re going!” a deep voice shouted as I immediately went flying backward onto the pavement, my phone and backpack crashing to the ground with me. The sound of breaking glass made me cringe. Well, shit. That’s going to be expensive.

“Are you okay?” his velvety voice probed. “You fell pretty hard.” He hooked his arms under mine and helped me to my feet, checking me for injuries. I released myself from his grip and bent over to pick up the rest of my belongings. I nodded a thank you and dusted off my black skirt, frowning when I saw the run in my pantyhose. I huffed as I picked up my phone and examined the shattered screen. I just got this damn thing in May. It was my present to myself for graduating from high school. Now, I have to pay to have it fixed. 

I shoved it into my backpack and took a moment to study him. It only took a few seconds, but I immediately recognized him as my old friend Damien. My eyes widened as I realized who I had just crashed into. “Oh. My. Gods! It’s really you!” I said as I flung myself into his arms.

“You always were clumsy,” he laughed and squeezed his toned body against mine.

It had been four years since I saw him last. Damien and I were next-door neighbors and although he was four years older than me, we spent nearly every day hanging out. I had the hugest crush on him, even though he only saw me as a sister. After years of pining for him, I decided I was no longer going to hide how I felt. I stole two of his dad’s beers, chugged them in rapid succession, and went in search of the boy I’d loved since 7th grade.

We snuck away from his party and hid out at the playground down the street from our houses and about how much we would miss each other after he went away to college. There, under the jungle gym, I drunkenly confessed my feelings for him. That was also the first time I kissed him. After he gently pushed me off of him, he told me that he cared about me, but that I was only 15 and it was inappropriate for a guy his age to pursue me. I was so embarrassed, I ran away from him and hid out at my house for the rest of the night.

He came home for Christmas that winter but we didn’t get to see much of each other. Now that he was here in front of me after all this time, I realized how much he had changed since then. My eyes traveled the length of his denim-clad legs, past the black t-shirt stretching across the muscles of his broad chest, up to his face. He had the softest chocolate brown eyes, wavy brown hair, and warm tan skin. Just a hint of stubble peppered his chin and his defined jaw tensed as he watched me. His intense gaze made my cheeks tint pink.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Are you okay?” I replied. Of course, he was. He barely flinched when I all but plowed into him.

“I’m more worried about you. I’ve never given someone a concussion on the first day of classes before and I’m not looking to start.”

I rapped my knuckles against my temple. “You know me. I’ve got a thick skull. My phone on the other hand, well R.I.P.,” I said, miming pouring out a 40-oz for my now-broken handheld device. He chuckled and his brown eyes bored into mine, making me feel suddenly self-conscious.

“How have you been? How’s your first day going so far?”

“Well, I overslept and was late for my first class, I still haven’t had caffeine, and I bulldozed into a random guy with reckless abandon. So, I’d say it’s going well.”

He laughed again, the sound warming my insides. My eyes scanned his face, taking in his strong features. He was so pretty, I could cry. “So, where are you off to in such a hurry that you’re Miley Cyrusing people?”

“Oh, I’m trying to get to Alexander Hall. I missed out on the campus tour during freshman orientation, so I’m trying to find my way around.”

He took my map from my hand, his fingers brushing mine in the process. The sensation of his touch coursed through my entire body and I had to remind myself to breathe. He retrieved a pen from his backpack, pulling the cap off with his teeth. I’ve never wanted to be a pen cap so bad in my life.

“So, you are here,” he said, marking an “X” where we currently stood in front of Clark. “You’re going to want to keep on this path and head past the library, then take a left at the fork,” My eyes followed the line he drew along the paper. “And then you’ve reached your destination.” He circled the building in question and handed the map back to me, before capping his pen and slipping it back in his backpack.

I opened my mouth to ask him if he wanted to hang out later when a female voice pierced the air, interrupting us. “Babe, hurry up. We’re going to be late for Social Psych.”

Babe? I looked over his shoulder to see a woman with dark brown hair, full lips, and piercing brown eyes making our way toward us. She narrowed her eyes at me, then turned back to Damien, slipping her hand in the crook of his elbow and pressed a kiss to his jaw. He glanced at me apologetically as she pulled him toward Waterfield Hall.

“Be careful out there. And have fun this year. We'll get together soon,” he winked and gave me a wave as the two of them walked away toward their next class.

“Who was that?” I heard her ask, their voices fading with every step.

“Just an old friend,” he replied. My stomach sank. No matter how much I wanted us to be more, we never would be. I glanced at the courtyard and noticed the crowd thinning out, meaning the next block of classes would be starting shortly. I hitched my backpack on my shoulders and sighed deeply as I made my way to Alexander.

***

Damien

Alana’s nails gently scraped up and down my bicep as we sat in the lecture hall, listening to Professor Henderson drone on over the syllabus for this semester. Just two more to go and I’d be done with this place. Don’t get me wrong, I’d enjoyed my four years at Hartfeld, but I was ready to graduate and GTFO already.

Sophomore year was particularly hard. I almost dropped out halfway through fall semester after Dad passed away. Except Mom wouldn’t let me. She begged me to stick it out and made me promise to graduate. I couldn’t say no to her. Call me a mama’s boy if you must, but she’s the most important woman in my life and I couldn't bring myself to let her down. If we’re being honest here, I was doing it for me too. To be the first person in my family to graduate from college was a pretty big achievement. 

I struggled to listen to the professor’s lecture, jotting down notes in my notebook. I should have been paying attention, but I had too much shit on my mind. Mainly my schedule for this semester. I needed to meet with my advisor after class and get my internship shit lined up. That’s what you get for waiting until the last minute, Dames. I pulled out my phone and shot a quick text to my advisor, asking if she had a free period this afternoon to get my paperwork filled out.

I looked to my right and saw Alana jotting notes in her notebook as her left hand still stroked my arm. I watched her for a few moments, taking her in. Alana and I met spring semester during our freshman year. We sat next to each other in Western Civ and our class discussion on long-standing issues in Western history turned into a full-blown shouting match. The professor pulled both of us out into the hallway and calmly explained to us that she would not allow that kind of behavior in her class. She then decided the best form of torture was to pair us up for the semester research project. 

The first few weeks were hell. Alana and I disagreed on everything. Including the topic for our project. About halfway into the semester, she and I were studying in the library, when she asked me why I was — and I quote — “such a moody little bitch.” I told her she would be too if she had a pain in the ass like her for a partner. She laughed and told me how lucky I was to even be in the same vicinity as her. We exchanged jabs for a good ten minutes before she leaned over and kissed me. When I asked her what that was for, she replied that it was to shut me up.

Not going to lie, I was intrigued. She had a level of snark I had only seen from the women in my family. I knew I was in trouble, but there was just something about her that drew me to her. We began dating a week later and have been nearly inseparable ever since. Being that this was our senior year, I found myself wondering what would happen to us after graduation. I raised the topic of marriage once or twice over the last year, but she was always quick to shut me down. She insisted that she loved me, but didn’t think marriage was “for us.” I shook the thoughts from my mind and peeked at Alana from the corner of my eye. She was still focused on the professor. Good thing she couldn't read my mind.

My thoughts wandered to Kaia. It felt like a lifetime since we saw each other. She had grown up since then. I remembered the last things we said to each other before we parted the night of my grad party. She got drunk and told me she was in love with me. As much as I wanted to return her feelings, she and her cousin Nadia were like little sisters to me, which made the whole situation weird. Plus the whole age thing. I sighed and dragged my hand across my face, trying to clear my head. Before long, the hour was up and our professor released us. Alana and I gathered our things and linked hands as we made our way out of the lecture hall.

“I’ve got some free time before my noon class, so I'm going to head back to the dorms. You wanna come with me?” she said, batting those long lashes my way. My dick screamed yes, so I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and pressed a kiss to the spot behind her ear as we walked.  

“As long as we’re back in time for my Interpersonal Comm class.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can't believe you, a senior, are taking a 200 level course. Why didn’t you take that class sophomore year?”

I shot her a look. She knew why. She was the one who stood by me during Dad’s illness. I was lucky I was able to finish most of my classes that semester. Interpersonal Communication is the only one I had to drop. So, here I was retaking the course so I could graduate with my full 120 credits.

“It is what it is,” I said as we walked back to the dorms. A few minutes later, we arrived at Richmond Hall where Alana lived. I waved to some guys I recognized from one of my classes last year and followed her inside, checking out her ass the entire time.

When we arrived at her room, she dropped her bag off at her desk and disappeared into the bathroom. I moved around her dorm, looking at the pictures of us on the wall. All the memories we shared in the last four years. The Winter Formal sophomore year. The summer before senior year at the Cape. Our trip to San Francisco junior year over Spring Break.

I rubbed the aching spot in my chest, remembering proposing to her on that trip. She looked like she wanted to throw up when I dropped to one knee in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. She covered her face in embarrassment and begged me to stand up. Confused, I asked her what she meant. She pulled me away from the gawking tourists shooting me sympathetic looks and explained that while she loved me, she wasn’t ready for marriage. I felt like the biggest idiot.

I was still looking at the photos when the bathroom door swung open and Alana strutted out, wearing nothing but a silk bathrobe. Ho-lee-shit. Pretty sure I died and went to heaven. She sauntered up to me and wrapped her arms around my neck, peppering my jawline with kisses. “Is this what you brought me to your dorm for?” I whispered in her ear, taking her lobe between my teeth.

“Mmm...This one is my favorite. Look how hot you are in your board shorts,” she said pointing to the photo of us at Cape Cod. She examined the photo wall while she casually slipped her hand down my pants. I snaked my arm around her waist and slid it down to her ass, which the robe barely covered. My eyes widened when I noticed she wasn’t wearing panties. I turned her around to face me, then grabbed her by the waist and tossed her on the bed. She squealed and reached up to grab my t-shirt, pulling it over my head. I dipped in and began to kiss her neck when my phone went off.

“Ignore it,” she panted, raking her fingernails up and down my back. I licked a trail from her earlobe down to her collarbone, peeling the robe open to expose her breasts. I kissed my way down the swell of her left breast when my phone went off again. I groaned and rolled off her, grabbing my phone from my back pocket, and saw two missed calls from my advisor.

“Shit. I gotta take this babe. Gimme a sec.”

“Are you fucking serious?” she huffed and pulled the robe closed. I grabbed my t-shirt off the floor and slipped it on before stepping out of her room into the hallway. I pulled up my missed calls and hit the redial button. Dr. Griffin picked up on the first ring.

“Mr. Nazario. I’m glad you called back. I have a free period now if you’re available to go over your internship paperwork.”

I sighed and raked a hand through my hair. I really needed to get my internship taken care of so I could get credit for my work, but my girl was on the other side of the door, half-naked and waiting for me. Waging a war with my thoughts, I decided that I’d have to make it up to Alana tonight.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I told her, then hung up the phone. I steeled myself for the difficult conversation I was about to have with Alana and made my way back into the dorm room. She sat on the bed, a scowl on her face as she looked at her phone.

“Hey, babe. That was Dr. Griffin. I need to go get my internship paperwork taken care of.” Alana rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath. I moved in front of her and leaned over until we were at eye level. “I promise I’ll make it up to you tonight. Okay?”

She glared at me, not saying anything. I gripped her chin between my thumb and forefinger and pressed a kiss to her lips. She didn’t pull away, so I knew she wasn’t that mad. I kissed her once more before I turned and headed out of her room.

I made my way out of the dorm and shot her an apology text as I headed across campus to Dr. Griffin’s office. The grey text bubbles popped up, then disappeared a few times, before she replied, “K.” I sighed and slipped my phone in my jeans pocket. I couldn’t blame her though She was mad because she felt I hadn't been the most reliable boyfriend, but if I knew her like I thought I did, she’d get over it. Either that or I’d have blue balls for the next week.

[gregcollins]

’ ･ﾟ :  ❄ : ･.  INTRODUCTION  .･: ❄ :･ﾟ ’

⌠ hero fiennes-tiffin, twenty-two, cismale, he/him ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, gregory ‘ grey ‘ collins! according to their records, they’re a second year, specializing in awareness training, breath control, hand to hand combat + knife fighting skills, sword training, precision shooting, firearms & swat training; and they did go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of ( old rings to cover up bruised knuckles, face shadowed due to his hood always being up, scoffs being heard in the distance  ). when it’s the scorpio’s birthday on 11/20/1997, they always request their apple from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation.

PAST

❄ Grey was born as Gregory Robert Collins in Edinburgh, UK ❄ His family was pretty much middle class, there was seriously nothing special about them that would make them stand out ❄ One would even say they were boring to an extend. Neighbors would just ignore them for the most part ❄ Especially when Grey grew older, he was a pretty quiet kid – never causing any trouble, partaking in group activities of Kindergarten and being an all around good kid ❄ However, around the time the male was a few months old his sister, Nina was born and then everything changed ❄ From the second she was reached around to everyone’s arms, everyone completely adored her – excluding her own brother ❄ As with any family, there of course was always some sort of jealousy when there was a new born. However, with the male it was more than that. He felt completely neglected already from a young age and he couldn’t even comprehend why just yet ❄ And it wasn’t just his parents, also his neighbors and with the years going by it were also his friends even if there was a small age gap ❄ So that envy continued, always being in the shadow of his sister whether it was more popular friends, getting better, more expensive gifts, being better at school as well as just generally being better at the majority of things and therefore getting more praise than he ever received ❄ So at one point, he started to act out, just deciding to not even try anymore in most regards, not studying anymore and hearing less and less about what his parents had to say ❄ Which ultimately resulted in his parents favoring Nina further, considering she was being the princess and he was just the irresponsible kid in the family ❄ So of course things had to spike up someday, Grey started smoking and drinking at the age of 16 – of course having that group of friends that wasn’t good at all for his behavior and health ❄ To his luck, however his parents didn’t find out for the longest time because they simply didn’t care much about what he was doing at that age, genuinely just focusing on their perfect child ❄ What his parents didn’t know though, his sister took note of and she found herself curious of how the life of her older brother would feel like ❄ Of course, Grey wasn’t too interested in having her join – wanting to have at least one thing to himself ❄ Though, after a long time of begging he figured it wouldn’t hurt if he brought her along to one of his friends parties and it was soon for this to become a routine thing ❄ This time instead, it wasn’t his sister taking away from the fun or making him feel left out – no they were genuinely bonding while partying and after a while, Grey even was beginning to enjoy having his sister around ❄ That didn’t mean that he had control of everything though. Luckily, they were smart in a way that their parents didn’t notice and Nina’s grades didn’t slack just yet but it had become a thing of her wanting to go without him on days when he didn’t feel like it and he quickly realized that she was enjoying it a little too much.

❄ TW; DRUG MENTION AND OVERDOSE: Grey has had his experience with party drugs but he never went to enjoy them too much, usually just staying to weed and alcohol instead because they didn’t fuck with his head too much. However, while there was a promise with his sister to never try them and he attempted to take care and protect her from that for long – there was one night where he was distracted by a girl and that’s when his sister was lured into trying the harder stuff. It didn’t last long for one of his friends to call him, telling him that his sister was unconscious on the bathroom floor and not much longer until her pulse stopped. ❄ Of course, Grey was completely devastated but it got even worse when their completely oblivious parents heard of the news. Though, like always, it wasn’t only his parents who blamed him for introducing her to this lifestyle and not taking care of him enough – the neighbors did too and eventually so did his friends. ❄ While the family bond with his side was already ruined from the get go, this only worsened. His parents even going as far as despising him until one point where he was almost 18 and they got into a large fight to when his father ended up abandoning him, forcing him to leave their household completely. ❄ This certainly wasn’t something a regular seventeen year old wanted to hear but after everything, he had obliged – dropping out of high school and instead joining a school he’s heard about from a friend, a spy school. ❄ It meant he’d be undercover, people not knowing what he did and lastly, to be away from his family. ❄ That’s also where he found his passion for combat, a way of just fueling his anger and energy into something productive and it was enough to get him into Gallagher as they started allowing males.

PERSONALITY

❄ Given his history, it’s not hard to believe that Grey is, although still quiet, short-tempered, snarky and generally unhappy ❄ He prefers not to talk to people too much, his replies always being short and without much emotion behind them ❄ He’s very, very stonefaced .. only ever furrows his brows or shakes his head at others ❄ He’s not very judgmental of anybody though, majorly himself because that was how he was raised ❄ Is very closed up, most might think he doesn’t even have a proper personality lmao ❄ Scoffs a lot ❄ He doesn’t drink anymore, although instead he smokes an excessive amount of weed since he believes that’s the only thing that calms him down

QUIRKS N SHIT

❄ His clothes are mainly dark hoodies because he does like to have it up and pretend like he’s not listening ❄ Someone once asked if he’s mute bc he never speaks ❄ Literally fears nothing ?? ay ❄ Has a weird protective kink … sister issues fam ❄ Sometimes paints his nails black ❄ Wants to have a lizard as a pet, idk he thinks they’re cool and fighty ❄ likes to wear rings ?? idk where he has that from he just thinks it rounds up his basic ass outfit ❄ likes to play basketball late at night ❄ loves, loves, loves to read ( don’t ask me what’s his favorite book is bc idk books )

UPDATES

❄ he’s the jealous type for some reason ?? but like he takes it very personal like once he’s envious he will most likely compare himself to that other person in every aspect n that’s toxic gregory smh ❄  he’ll go jump over his shadow to go out with people if he cares about them, most likely when he knows they’re drinking and he needs to be a sober buddy ❄ finds long drives really calming ❄ will kinda lie about having a sister ?? mad uncomfortable about talking about his home, most likely will just say he’s from England n that’s it ❄  addicted to coffee ?? never sleeps ?? trains too much ?? yes yes ❄  doesn’t know anything about movies/music or any other kind of media besides books ?? his childhood was playing in the bog thank u ❄  is fascinated by the slightest things ?? bc he’s not used to it, legIT EVERYTHING NORMAL IS LUXURY TO HIM ❄ has weird episodes where he just talks about strange stuff but only with people he’s really comfortable with ❄ gonna get a chamelon once they’re back from berlin yee yee ❄ uh, his prep school was in england ?? idk i just made that up recently so theres that

[lokilickedme]

True Story Time

Did I ever tell you guys about the time I gave Ronald Reagan the finger in front of 228 people?

In 1984 when I was in 10th grade, Reagan sent a team of “Presidential Aides” around to the schools in my state on the premise of observing small-town procedure and getting a feel for how the southern educational system was working out.  It wasn’t.  I had just moved from a suburban junior high of 8000 kids in a big city to a country school with 212 students total.  Kindergarten through 12th grade all in one building.  We had 11 classrooms, 9 teachers, and no funding.  We ate lunch outside and the bus driver doubled as the History teacher (and sometimes Science and Math...occasionally Home Ec).  The English teacher was the janitor.  There was no PE teacher, we just went outside and ran around the block (sometimes we came back, sometimes we didn’t) and in the hot months the Shop teacher brought his tools and took the doors off the building in lieu of air conditioning.  We went through five Principals in a two-year span of time and male students regularly just didn’t show up for two weeks during each semester because it was time to harvest something.  Female students regularly quit showing up halfway into 11th grade because they either got married or were too pregnant to fit into the desks anymore.  We were pretty much the school system that time forgot in a town that was more of a punchline than an actual place.

And here Ronald Reagan was, sending his representatives into our midst to “see how we’re doing”.

We weren’t doing so hot.  But if there’s one thing people in small country towns have going for them, it’s a fierce and intense pride in their own self sufficiency, and nobody - nobody - was happy about that rich bastard sticking his nose in our business.  And I, being from somewhere else and knowing what a real actual honest to god school system should be like, was pretty disgusted that this place couldn’t even get enough money to fix the roof that the last tornado had nearly taken off.  Odds were good the building was going to fall in on us before I could graduate.

So during lunch on the day of The Event I sneaked back into the school while everyone was outside eating.  The teachers were conferring with the Principal about the Big Presidential Visitation, and while they argued about which students they should hurriedly send home before the Very Important People got there, I ran through the school and wrote in 3 foot letters on every chalkboard in every classroom:

WE DON’T WANT THE PRESIDENT’S AIDS

I thought it was pretty clever, given Reagan’s shameful handling of the ongoing AIDS crisis.  Also I was a kid and it was the era when “you’ve got AIDS!!” was a commonly flung insult among idiot teenagers.  And the Reagan Administration’s other policies certainly hadn’t “trickled down” to our little town or school system, so twisting his disgusting neglect of one group while putting on a show of caring about another into a slyly juvenile joke seemed appropriate.  He was sending a highly publicized suited battallion into our economically/socially/progressively depressed town to “check on our progress” without any intention of doing anything about whatever report they might bring back.  We were a diversionary tactic to make him look good and it was obvious...well, it was obvious to me anyway.  I felt like it was a slap in the face since our area of the country had been pretty much completely left out and forgotten.  The children were the future, right?  Unfortunately the grownups in power didn’t seem to care much about that when there wasn’t a lot of money to be made or fame to be raked from it.  So we didn’t want them coming in with their clipboards and asking us questions and mucking up our day of state-sanctioned goofing around just to fuck off back to Washington and forget about us.  We had meth to be made during science class, we didn’t have time for this.

So the big black car arrived while everyone was filing back into the building and the President’s Aides entered the school just as the Principal was noticing the written vandalism in the science lab.  I saw him come running out and he spotted me at the other end of the single long hallway.  He knew it was me - he’d had trouble with me before, but that’s a story for another day - and as he was raising his hand to point at me with that STOP RIGHT THERE look on his face that school principals are known for, an outburst started in the math room.

It was followed by random outbursts from other classrooms as they filled with returning students.  And since the teachers were always a good five to ten minutes late to every class after lunch because there were cigs to be smoked and why the hell not, the chalkboard diatribes were still intact as the President’s representatives entered the rooms.

I didn’t even bother denying anything.  I had chalk handprints on my jeans.

It was a glorious day.

None of the students understood the double meaning of my graffiti, they just assumed I was making a crude joke about the President having AIDS because hurr durr, funny AIDS joke.  The English teacher chastised me for incorrectly spelling “Aides” (she obviously didn’t get it either). The art teacher gave me an A for originality and artistic style (she wasn’t from there).  I was told that at least two of the five Aides laughed.  The Principal, who wasn’t from there either, shot me a sternly halfhearted threatening look the next morning but never issued any consequences.  He was outta there two weeks later anyway, replaced by yet another in a long line of people from somewhere else who thought they could turn our school around.

I forgot to mention that a camera crew arrived with the Aides and videotaped the whole thing.  I don’t know if any clips ever aired anywhere, or if it ended up in someone’s report, or if it was just taped over later and forgotten.  Maybe it was stored in Reagan’s Presidential Library.  I’d like to think it was shown to him at some point, though.  And if he did see it, I sure as hell hope he got my finely crafted middle finger embedded in six chalked words on eleven blackboards in a tiny ramshackle school in a town he likely had no clue ever existed.

Or maybe he just didn’t get it, and assumed it was just another AIDS joke.

[carol-effing-danvers]

where we grew up

this is part two of the series “run long, roam far, return soon” part one: “knock me the fuck out (i dare ya, babe)” (cont.) (fin.) part three: “push me, pull you” 

(click here if you’d prefer to read this in AO3′s format)

Steve assures her that he’s done all the right things, followed all the right procedures. He’s calm, he looks…not relaxed because no one could possibly be relaxed in this situation, but he looks like someone who is collected and has control of the situation.

But Robin knows him, and she can see in his eyes that some piece of him has quietly died – maybe not forever, but this day has wounded him deeply.

So, she tells him he’s got this and when their lunchbreak is over, she goes back to the high school building and immediately goes to the main office. Impatiently, she dials and waits for someone to answer, anxiously hugging herself with one arm.

“This is the 11th Hour,” El answers in her best ‘customer service’ voice. “I’m Jane. How can I help you today?”

“I need you…” Robin sighs, closes her eyes, and puts a hand over her face. “Is Hargrove there with you?”

“Yeah, Robbie, hold on.”

There’s a clattering in the background before Billy’s gruff tone says “Buckley. What’s up?”

“You…you need to pick up Steve from work, today.”

“Car break down? Didn’t sound like it was in bad shape, last I heard,” Billy observes cautiously.

“No, Billy,” she says with quiet pain. “He’s-he might be there late. But he’s going to need you, when it’s finished.”

“Okay, Rob, you need to back up here. What’s going on?”

“Steve had to call CPS, Billy,” she whispers, “One of his kids came in with belt marks all over him, and while the school nurse was looking him over, Steve brought his older sister up and started asking her some questions, and he and the nurse realized very quickly that someone has been beating her around, too.”

Billy’s stomach drops. “But they’re-they’re five year olds,” he says numbly. “Little kindergarteners…”

“Yeah.” It’s amazing how much pain and anguish can be packed into a single word. “They are.”

He is, at this very moment, imagining anyone attempting to do that to his sweet little Lulu and the blind fury that left him for so long suddenly comes back with a fiery vengeance. “What kind of monster beats a five year old with a belt?!”

But the thing is…he-he knows. He was raised by that same kind of monster – Neil Hargrove absolutely beat Billy with a belt, more than once throughout his childhood.  He has no idea how Robin is managing her side of this conversation so calmly.

“Their mom is an addict, and it seems she doesn’t pay a whole lot of attention to how her boyfriend treats her kids. Steve mentioned a couple of times throughout the year that he’d noticed both of them looking a little…unkept, but Rosie is a single mom and times are hard, so he gave her the benefit of a doubt,” Robin says grimly. “Turns out, they were looking unkept because the sister was the one trying to do the laundry and making sure they both got a bath and she wasn’t always so great at it. Not surprising, since she’s only nine.”

Swallowing past the sick feeling in his guts, Billy asks “Okay, so what do you need me to do?”

“I need you to be there when he lets himself freak out. He was acting super calm when I saw him because he has to finish class and wait with them until CPS can contact their aunt, but I’ve known him for a decade – the moment a child doesn’t need him, he’s gonna fucking lose it, Hargrove, and I know you’re the person he wants the most right now.”

Billy’s eyes go wide. “I’ll be there.”

“I know.”

Even with Robin's helpful warning, Billy doesn't really know what to expect when he walks down the Grade K hall. There are no children left in the classrooms here - school let out twenty minutes ago and these kids are too little for extracurricular activities.

He is expecting what he sees in Steve’s classroom least of all.

Steve and the other kindergarten teacher, Melanie Dohr, have rooms that mirror each other – boxy spaces slightly wider than they are long, with a doorway at one end that faces the children’s cubby stations, except that Melanie’s desk and chairs are to the left of the classroom door and Steve’s are to the right. At the very end of this room is a little sofa and an open space where they do story time and nap time and when he leans his head in to check on Steve, this is where he is sitting.

Squished right up against him on that sofa is a little girl with brown hair in two long braids. She’s a little girl, but she’s still too old to be someone Steve teaches. As Steve reads aloud, one arm around her, she listens intently as she leans into his side, a tissue clutched in her fist that she holds near her mouth as she silently cries. She’s heartbreaking and what’s worse – Billy actually recognizes her.

“Something that for lack of any other name might be called friendship existed and always had existed between Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel, in spite of – or perhaps because of – their dissimilarity...”

This is Marcy Roberts, Martin’s big sister. He’s seen her many times, because Marcy walks her brother down to the kindergarten hall every morning before she goes back to Mrs. Webster in the third grade hall.

On their very first date, Billy had overheard Steve having a talk with Martin outside the classroom when he hit a classmate who called him names, and it reminded Billy so vividly of himself it was nearly painful. Of course Martin was the boy who’d taken a beating with a belt. He didn’t know why he hadn’t guessed it was Martin in the first place.

Silently, Billy makes his way into the room – he knows when Marcy spots him, because the fourth-grader immediately becomes tenser and tries to shrink into Steve’s side, her big blue eyes watching him wearily. Steve’s arm tightens around her, eyes briefly flicking upward before he serenely continues with his reading.

Old Billy would’ve been furious that Steve was deliberately choosing to ignore him – Old Billy was furious when Steve ignored him. New Billy slowly crept his way around to Steve’s desk while being watched by a little girl, settling back into the teacher’s chair and trying to look as innocent and nonthreatening as possible.

He wouldn’t consider himself a natural with kids, not like Steve was, and he’s definitely never had to interact with a child whose been treated…well, the way he’d been treated, he supposed. Lulu has never been afraid of him, but she also doesn’t really know any better. Uncle Billy is Uncle Billy, and he’s always been Uncle Billy in her eyes. And Justin is a worthless father, but he’s never actively tried to cause his daughter physical pain or mental anguish – though his complete disregard for her existence could hardly be called any better.

Steve is beloved by all of his students, of course, but for Marcy, he may literally be the only adult that she trusts. Marcy and Martin need him and that will hold his entire focus until they can be settled.

For a while, Billy wonders what happened to Martin, and then realizes that he probably had to stay in the nurse’s office. He knows from hard experience that sitting was likely painful and difficult at the moment if Martin got the belt. With any luck, the nurse has given him a light sedative, something to put him to sleep or even just make him a little more comfortable.

When Marcy’s focus is no longer dedicated to waiting for Billy to suddenly attack her, he takes the time to really look at her. Has she always been so small and thin? Is he only really noticing this now because he has some idea of what her home life is like? There’s a wrapping of gauze around her right forearm hinting that Marcy didn’t entirely escape the mercies laid upon Martin. Her hair – brown to her younger brother’s toe-headed blonde – is looking a bit unkempt and her clothes aren’t dirty but they are also certainly not new and Billy knows he wouldn’t have noticed any of this if Robin hadn’t already told him that their mother has been neglecting them.

But Steve had noticed.

Steve has been noticing, maybe the entire year, probably watching with helpless dismay as Marcy and Martin’s condition deteriorated right before his eyes as their home situation got more and more unhappy. Billy wonders what finally led him to the proof he needed to get CPS involved.

In hindsight, Billy now realizes that more than one of his own teachers had tried to get him to open up to them about the way Neil treated him at home, but he had been a scared and angry child and in early childhood, he hadn’t understood what they were asking for. And later on, he hadn’t trusted any adult enough to do that, until he’d become a sullen and violent teenager that everybody wanted to write off instead of an energetic and overeager child.

Marcy is still half hiding against Steve’s side, listening to him read – or maybe just letting the sound of his voice wash over her the way Billy is doing. Her hand is up near her face, fingers reflexively curling but she doesn’t actually put any of her fingers in her mouth. It’s not normal, is it, for a nine year old to still have the urge to suck her thumb?  

He loses track of time, letting the murmur of Steve’s voice soothe him into something like a doze, though his eyes are still open, when there is suddenly a knock on the classroom doorframe. A slim blonde woman with a briefcase wearing a navy blue pantsuit stood in the hall, standing beside a brunette woman with her hair cut into a short bob. “Hello, you must be Marcy!” the blonde says, just a little too bright to be entirely natural. “I’m Mrs. Rhodes, but you can call me Vicki.”

“Uh…okay,” Marcy says nervously, still glued to Steve’s side.

Steve gives Vicki a very charming smile – though now that Billy knows him so well, he can see that it’s a bit insincere. “Can I talk to Marcy for a just a second? Nurse Downing’s office is just down the hall and to the right if you’d like to check in on Martin. He might still be asleep, though.”

“Alright!” Vicki said, though the brunette looked like thrilled about this, she followed her back down the hall to the nurse’s office.

As soon as the woman’s footsteps had dwindled down the hall, Steve gave Marcy the worn down copy of Anne of Green Gables. “Keep that with you,” he tells her quietly. “It has my address and phone number inside. I think your Aunt Rachel will take good care of you, but if someone hurts you again, if you don’t feel safe, or if you just want to talk to me, call me, okay? Even if it’s really late at night, even if it’s not a school day, even if it’s the middle of summer, alright, Marcy? Any time you want to talk to me, call me. Alright?”

“Okay.” Marcy repeats, louder this time but with a wobble in her chin. She clutches the book to her chest like a shield, fingers tightening on the spine now that she knew the truth of its importance.

She surged forward, embracing Steve desperately, which he returns before plucking up her faded purple bookbag. “Let’s go find Mrs. Rhodes and Aunt Rachel. We’ll see how Martin is doing.”

---

The hand off was just as hard as he knew it would be. Martin was emotional and weepy, throwing something like tantrum – or Steve would’ve called it a tantrum if he didn’t know how scared and confused and traumatized he was – but Helen handled it pretty well and managed to calm him down. Marcy practically had a panic attack as they were leaving but Steve could almost see her reminding herself to be the responsible big sister.

Fuck.

Steve has to remind himself for the hundredth time that the state won’t let a single man with his history and his salary have one child, never mind two. No matter how much he loves them. No matter how torn up he is to watch them leave.

Rachel will do a good job, he tells himself firmly. Truthfully, Rachel couldn’t do much worse to them then her younger sister already had. Even after his gentle question of Marcy – something Vicki and Rachel will probably follow up on in more depth later – Steve isn’t exactly sure when Rosie checked out on her job as a mother. What little Marcy had admitted to, beyond the evidence directly on her and Martin’s bodies, left him believing that the real problem had been that Rosie was never checked in.

Rachel had looked unhappy with the development of this whole situation – unhappy, but not at all surprised. Steve thinks that maybe Rachel has long harbored some suspicions of her own.

Steve walks back to his classroom like a sleepwalker. He feels drained, like some kind of vampire has been sucking on his neck all afternoon.

Billy leaning against a corner of the hall, waiting for Steve to return. His eyes, so stark and vividly blue, remind him painfully of Martin and Marcy. Reminds him of a hospital bed, and a monster made of a mountain of corpses and carnage. Reminds him of the way Billy had looked against the starched white linens, and how for the longest time, that was the last image Steve ever had of him.

Deep in himself, he feels sick down to his soul. With time and practice, he’s gotten the hang of dealing with other people’s pain, but Steve has never quite gotten the knack of looking directly at his own. His voice crawls from his throat, falsely bright and without any warmth. “Picked a wild time to surprise me.”

“Wasn’t a surprise,” Billy grunted, watching him closely. The way he always seemed to be watching him. The way, Steve now realizes, the way Billy literally always had watched him. “Buckley asked me to take you back home.”

“I don’t know why,” Steve says, frowning at his desk as he idly tidies up before reaching to shut the lights off. “You don’t have to. I can drive, it’s not like I’m impaired or something.”  

“Humor me,” Billy replies shortly, in a way that tells Steve he won’t be taking ‘no’ for an answer. Not that he ever really takes ‘no’ for an answer. Steve finds it both aggravating and charming, and he knows that combination is going to get him into some serious trouble one day.

Steve shrugs, though even that’s half-hearted. “Fine, I guess.”

Maybe Billy and Robin are right – he doesn’t really remember the drive back to his apartment and he’s sure that he opened the door at some point, but Steve finds himself in the kitchen, just…staring at the cabinets, and he can’t quite recall how he got here. Standing there, with no Billy in sight.

“Billy?!” His voice cracks, his voice going shrill with the same panic that’s making his palms sweat.

“What, what’s wrong?!” Billy shouts from the bedroom. His bedroom. Their bedroom? “Stevie?”

“I-nothing.” Relief suddenly makes his legs so weak that he nearly just collapses right down to the ugly linoleum floor. “Nothing!”

Come back. Come back and hold me and don’t leave me – not now and not ever. Tell you love me and tell me you’re okay. Tell me everything is gonna be okay.

Steve slid down the side of fridge and on to the floor, breathing deeply in and out.

Back when they first began living together, Robin had very quickly caught on to the fact that sometimes Steve was…not okay, so she made him get some time with an anxiety specialist – paid for by the US government, because part of the cause of this condition was a secret interdimensional hole under the town that occasionally produced violent alien entities that killed and ate people, which Steve and Robin were both not allowed to talk about with the outside world. They taught him breathing exercises, meditation techniques for moments like this one.

When he can get his legs beneath him again, Steve hauls himself off of the ground and searches around for the cast iron skillet. They have the ingredients for cornbread around here somewhere.

It will probably still taste like sawdust to him, but the activity will occupy his mind, at least for a little while.

He feels bad that he can’t pretend cheerfulness, even to Billy. Beyond the aching numbness that has penetrated into his very bones, Steve’s anxiety is shrieking at him, telling him that if he keeps acting this way, Billy will leave. A voice in his head that sounds like Robin warns him that his inability to give a shit about even that isn’t a good sign.

They eat dinner, and Steve tries to answer like a normal person would, but he can tell by the way Billy doesn’t quite meet his eyes that he’s not doing a good job. A much less helpful and comforting voice – one that sounds more like his mother or his father – tells him not to be so sensitive. To stop overreacting.

That other voice, his Robin/common sense/better angel voice, won’t shut up. Won’t leave him alone. Tell him. If you don’t tell him, you’re always gonna feel like shit about this. Tell him, dingus.

In the end, it’s Billy himself that breaks that final barrier on his silence.

---

Billy knows how to solve this – or at least he knew how Henry solved this when he found Billy wandering around fucking Silver Lake in the rain. But he doesn’t really want to put Steve in a bath of ice cold water and pour whiskey down his throat until he gags. Lost white boy. Hey, lost white boy! Why you walkin’ round lookin’ like somebody whipped yo dog? Huh?

He never did give him a real answer. What could he have possibly said?

Part of the problem is that if Billy didn’t know him so well, Steve would seem almost normal. But he seems a little extra vacant throughout dinner, while watching television, even while brushing his teeth. Like somebody replaced his boyfriend with a friggin’ Stepford Wife or something.

As gently as he can, Billy removes the remote from Steve’s nearly limp fingers. Steve barely blinks at him – though it would usually garner at least an indignant squawk from him. He tries to think of a way to say it diplomatically. Fail, because he’s Billy Hargrove and he has no diplomacy – and says: “Are you going to talk to me about this or do I have to torture it out of you?”

He’s entirely joking, but Billy flinches when Steve absently replies, “I doubt you’ll have any better luck than the Russians,” blinks, and then says: “What?”

Swallowing down his queasiness – Max has passionately defended Steve’s bravery at Starcourt before he ever even returned to Hawkins – he sweeps back the bangs hanging into his eyes. “Your kids,” he says, still clumsily attempting gentleness. “Do you want to talk about that? What happened?”

Steve smiles weakly, giving Billy a hug that held maybe a tenth of the strength he normally possesses. “No,” he whispers, face hidden away against Billy’s neck. “No, I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Billy swallows again, wondering why he feels so disappointed. He doesn’t really want to hear the grisly details – he’s probably got firsthand knowledge of most of it already – but at the same time, it feels like part of Steve doesn’t fully trust him. Though that idea should sound ridiculous, an insecure part of himself – mostly the part that still remembers his dad calling him a fuck-up all the time – wonder if Steve is actually as serious about them as Billy is.

Because Billy is like…insanely serious about them. A hundred times more serious than a heart attack, serious.

If a single pastor in Indiana woulda let him, Billy would put a ring on the long white second finger of Steve’s left hand tomorrow. That’s how serious he is. They’ve been together less than a month, but a part of him has belonged to Steve, with Steve, for more than ten years now.

Beyond even his own paranoia and insecurity though, is just…plain old worry.

He’s pretty much always known that Steve has a heart of hold, but it’s starting to look like maybe this day has hammered it to pieces. He watches Steve brush his teeth mechanically, unaccompanied by any of his usual chatter, moving like someone twice their age.

At bedtime, they usually trade off being the big spoon and little spoon, but this time, Billy stays facing Steve, gently strokes his cheek. A part of him feels a flair of love and hope when Steve leans into the touch. “Take it easy, heartbreaker,” he whispers, sweeping back Steve’s bangs again. “I’ve got your back tonight.”

The streetlights outside spread across their bed in a warm orange glow, allowing Billy to watch Steve blinking in a heartsick daze. Faintly, Billy hears him say “He was just crying. Just crying the whole morning, and I couldn’t understand why. By the time I took him to the nurse’s office, I-I think I already knew.”

Steve is the one crying now – crying and hangin’ on to Billy like he’ll disappear.

Billy’s just stunned, stunned and heartbroken by how utterly devastating this has been for Steve. He’s speechless, and the only thing he can do is hang on and be here for him. So he does.

---

The next morning is one in which Steve is allowed to sleep in, both because it’s Saturday and also because it seems that Billy has already gotten up to feed Angie for him. Normally she wakes him up whether his alarm goes off or not. He felt the mattress move just before dawn, but Billy is in bed with him now, wrapped around Steve’s back. He’s got a lowkey headache from all the crying – or trying not to cry – that he did yesterday, but he feels calmer about the world today. Marcy and Martin are safe, and Rachel will make sure they stay that way. Billy is here.

Relaxing back into the pillows, Steve finds Billy’s hand resting against his belly and laces their fingers together. He can tell that he’s already awake – his fingers squeeze back at his own too readily.

“I thought about you,” he admits quietly, tracing over Billy’s knuckles – rougher than his own, belonging to fingers shorter and thicker than his own. “The head nurse probably thought that I was going crazy. He was just…staring at me, on the bed. And I kept thinking about the last time I’d seen you before you left town.”

“What happened to me…it’s all in the past,” Billy says simply, and the ways his arms tighten around Steve’s body is comforting but the words don’t soothe him.

It’s all in the past.

But it wasn’t. Not for Steve.

“I use to wonder where you were,” he whispers, lifting Billy’s fingers to trace his lips over the scars on those knuckles. “No…not wonder. I use to worry. About you – where you were, what had happened to you.”

And now that the words had were finally coming out, Steve couldn’t hold anything back. “I’d worry myself sick, because the last two times I’d seen you-” He chokes, surprised anew that even with Billy right beside him, those images held just as much power over him as they had before. “-the last times I’d seen you, you were dying or you were-you looked so hurt and lost…”

“I’d wonder if you were even still alive – were you okay? I used to have these-these really vivid night terrors about that night in the mall…” He closes his eyes and swallows past the hard lump sitting in his throat. “Robin made me see a doctor, it got so bad – she didn’t know the specifics, but she did know that it wasn’t getting better.”

And for ten years, he hadn’t been able to say the name of his crush out loud, like there was a terrible curse placed on Steve. He laughs weakly. “I-I remember nearly fainting when El sad she’d seen you at Max’s wedding, and you looked well. You were happier. Calmer. It seemed so silly after that – though I still wondered what happened to you.”

“That’s not silly at all,” Billy murmurs, and he sounds thought, squeezing Steve around the middle and warming him right through. “Was I okay? I wasn’t. Not for what felt like a long, long time.”

To Steve’s surprise, Billy hooks his chin over Steve’s shoulder and continues speaking. “After I tried going back to my mom’s – I was kinda homeless. I mean, I had the truck, but I’d just got out of the hospital and I could barely sleep for more than an hour or two at a time and every little noise made me wanna crawl outta my skin. I didn’t really notice much back then, but I’m sure anybody who walked down the street crossed to the opposite side when they saw me coming toward them.”

“This guy – this random black dude named Henry found me walking around Silver Lake, just wandering around by myself in the rain. I’m still surprised nobody called the cops on me. Anyway, Henry took me back to his apartment, poured whiskey in me until I gagged and threw a bucket of ice water over my head.” Billy chuckles slightly. “Miguel was so mad at him for that.”

“Miguel?” Steve repeats in a whisper, terrified that Billy will stop talking.

“Yeah, Henry’s boyfriend, Miguel. He was a nurse. I called them Harold and Maude just because it drove him crazy. They, um,” Billy took a deep breath in, held it, then exhaled hot air down Steve’s neck. He shivers and Billy cuddles closer, Steve’s heart thump, thump, thumping for him. “They were part of the group of volunteers who like…took care of people with AIDS. A lot of their families just kind of…abandoned them.”

Thrown them away, Steve thought, heart sinking. Just like Billy’s mother had (repeatedly) done to him.

Quietly, Billy says “For my first couple years, that’s what I was doing. Helping Henry and Miguel and the other volunteers. Looking back on it, they probably thought I’d lost someone to it. Most of us had, it seemed to be everywhere.”

He’s silent for so long that maybe Steve thinks that this is it, these tantalizing hints are all he will get of Billy’s past for right now, and Steve continues obviously stroking at his knuckles. He aches at the idea of Billy, still injured and hurting from the rejection of his mother, wandering through California all alone, until a good Samaritan was kind enough to take care of him.

Then Billy says, “Sometimes, I wished…I wished that had it.”

And Steve can’t breathe, he can’t move, he can’t think. With five short words, Billy had wrecked his whole thinking brain. “You…that you had…”

“Yeah,” Billy says, very softly. “I didn’t want to die, I didn’t even want to be sick. But HIV was a concept Henry and Miguel would’ve known how to understand. I know that they saw the bandages, that first night, and the scars later on. I think I spent the first year there wishing that I were sick instead, just so that I would be able to tell someone what had happened to me.”

Steve can’t stand doing this without seeing Billy anymore and rolls to face him. “You shouldn’t have had to do that by yourself,” he says, nose trailing down Billy’s neck. “Nobody should have to do something like that by themselves.”

Willing his anxious stomach to settle, he adds “I hate that you went through that and that you were in such obvious pain that a literal stranger could see it. I hate that it took meeting two complete strangers for someone to finally care about when you were hurting. But more than anything, I hate that I wasn’t there for you when you needed someone.”

Billy’s freckles show in the morning sun, and the light makes his eyes bluer. He leans into the touch as Steve holds his cheeks in both palms. And what he says next makes Steve love him just that little bit more: “Maybe not. But I used to be a little boy, just like Martin Roberts. And you were there when he needed you, when Marcy needed you.” Softly, painfully gently, Billy kisses his mouth. “Because of you, Martin doesn’t have to grow up into me someday.”

Steve caresses down Billy’s cheeks with his thumbs, palms tickled by all the bristle. He whispers, “I don’t see growing into you as a bad thing, Billy.”

Billy huffs out a laugh, long eyelashes falling to his cheeks. Just the lightest of flushes touching the tips of his ears. “You were there, y’know.”

“Hm?” Steve murmurs dreamily, caught in the spell of those freckles and lashes.

“Every pair of big brown eyes were your eyes. Every lanky brunette with a sweet smile was you. I saw you everywhere I went. Trust me, even if you didn’t know it – you were there, heartbreaker.” His eyes devour Steve’s face, gaze lingering at the curve of his lips. “You're here with me right now."

When Steve cuddles closer, he rests his head right above the scars that mark the place where the Mindflayer pierced his chest. He has never been more owned, more possessed by anything than the feeling of his bare hand on Billy's chest. "Wild horses couldn't drag me off."

[imperfekti]

Tenipuri Party: Tezuka Kunimitsu profile translation

TN:

In the absence of an official English version, this translation is intended to help those who can’t read the material in the original language. Please support Tenipuri by getting your own copy of this book - it is worth it! There are various ways of purchasing it even for those not living in or visiting Japan.

The pictures I have included in this post do not show full pages.

On the translation: this time I’m aiming for a more direct, “Japanese-sounding” translation to share the mood of the content more as it is. This will probably cause some sentences to appear weird in English.

On Tezuka’s style of speech: his word choices and sentence structures are mostly polite and serious.

I’m still working on Japanese, so there might be mistakes. Please let me know if you spot any translation errors so I can fix them here!

Tezuka Kunimitsu

U-17 German representative player Seishun Gakuen Middle-school player

Beyond the imagined future - the released challenger!!

Message

“For the support every day, I’m grateful. For the sake of becoming a professional, and for the sake of my tennis, I intend to earnestly keep confronting myself. I think you are the same. In the future as well, together. Let’s go without carelessness.”

Extra prize: A voucher for two at a high-class mountaintop hotel “An undeserved honor. I’m focusing on tennis right now, but… If I can make the time, I will gratefully use it. For two, huh…”

Profile

[DATA] Middle-school 3rd year / October 7th (Libra) / Blood type O / 179 cm / 58 → 61 kg / Left-handed

Special techniques: Drop shot, zero shiki drop shot, Muga no kyouchi, Hyakuren jitoku no kiwami, Saiki kanpatsu no kiwami, Tenimuhou no kiwami, Tezuka zone, Tezuka phantom, Zero shiki serve

Playstyle: All-rounder

Family: Grandfather, father, mother

Father’s occupation: company employee (business) (grandfather is a judo instructor for the police)

Hobbies: Mountain climbing, camping, fishing

Favourite saying: The enemy is within yourself

Favourite color: Green or blue

Favourite food: unacha (a dish with eel carefully broiled in soy-based sauce), Räucheraal (TN: smoked eel)

Favourite book: German-Japanese-German dictionary (to carry with him)

Favourite music: Classical (Beethoven)

Preferred type of person: Trying not to think about it at the moment.

Preferred date spot: Zugspitze

Most wanted item: A mountain model kit

Things he’s bad at/with: Being idle, colourful cakes

Elementary school: Seishun Dai Daiichi Elementary School

Committee: Student council president

Strong subjects: World history

Weak subjects: None

Often visited place in school: The library

Uses allowance on: Books

Skill outside tennis: Woodworking, preparing fish for cooking

Routine during tournament: Keeping a diary in German, watching foreign comedy-dramas.

Favourite anniversary: 23rd August

Preferred travel destination: Macchu Picchu ruins and Huayna Picchu

Present for a special person: Writing a letter of gratitude

Scenes

Injuries, seizing the nationals… Tezuka Kunimitsu overcame numerous challenges that waited for him and seized glory. But he is not a man who would be satisfied with that. From now on too, I want to pay attention to the steep path of him who moved over to Germany.

(Quotes on pictures:)

“I will not lose.”

“Saiki kanpatsu no kiwami!?”

“And then Seigaku’s era will begin once again!”

“Now, let’s go without carelessness.”

Indeed, it should perhaps be called a “Tezuka zone”.

“Hyakuren jitoku no kiwami!?”

This boy’s tennis is certainly Ten’imuhou no kiwami!?

“No matter who I will end up fighting… I will win!”

The German representatives’ strained atmosphere connects to rapid development (*1)

Tezuka-senshu (*2) becoming a German representative was a shock. Did you not have worries about this decision?

If I said no, it would be a lie. However, as to what is important for me as someone aiming to become a professional, I judged it to be fighting as a German representative and based my decision on that.

Specifically, the currently important thing for Tezuka-senshu is…?

Most of all, it is actual experience of fighting at a higher level. At the German training centre, I have the fortunate chance to rally with top pros like Volk-senshu. Even in practice, they are always making hypotheses as to which shot they should hit, what kind of a play they should make in any kind of match circumstances when they are standing on the court. Having put myself in such a strained atmosphere, I can truly feel my level of experience rising rapidly.

Any bewilderment at facing your former comrades…?

Whoever will become my opponent will not be a problem. But, at first, I thought I was feeling sorry. However, at the time of fighting Japan in the exhibition match, I came to realise my heart was throbbing about competing against them. But just fighting as sworn friends, it is not to elevate ourselves. Rather, by putting a net in-between and confronting each other, the light can come from a new angle and hasten growth - that is what I believe right now.

Then, what is Tezuka-senshu’s current objective or dream?

Upon seizing the world, to hold up the flag of Germany that showed in me, a foreigner. If the opponent for that match were to be Japan, there would not be higher joy.

In a well-ordered and non-negligent environment, pleasant days go on

Have you already grown accustomed to life in Germany?

Yes. Everything proceeds very systematically, so in that sense, it sometimes feels like it is actually even more pleasant than in Japan.

What things for example are like that?

Everyone is already gathered around 15 minutes before the set meeting time. The notion of ecology is growing, so most customers carry eco bags for their shopping, and the separation of waste is enforced thoroughly. Everything is done logically, and it’s an environment without negligence.

I see. It suits the serious Tezuka-senshu perfectly. Then, how do you spend your days off?

Touring antiquarian bookshops is currently my biggest enjoyment. From Goethe to Ende, I have been able to acquire several original texts that I couldn’t in Japan. Also, when time and money allow, I try to go to classical concerts.

What about the German language?

The German language too is a very systematic and logical language. There are very few exceptions, as long as one memorises the basic grammar and idioms, it is quite effective to use. Of course I still lack study, and there are many points where I lack experience, but words are not the only means of communication. Rather, sometimes it is facial expressions that speak more eloquently.

Facial expressions…?

Yes. Facial expressions.

Message for Tezuka Kunimitsu

As expected… should I say. Congratulations. (Inui)

YEEES! CONGRATULATIONS!! (Kawamura)

You should still be able to grow one rank higher. Put effort into your training. (Volk)

I will definitely not forget the thing that you taught me. Let’s meet on the court. (Fuji)

I’m glad you seem to be doing well in Germany too. Eat your meals properly! (Ooishi)

Tezuka-buchou-senpai, congratulations. We are protecting Seigaku. (Kaidou)

I’ll win one day, both in popularity and tennis! (Momoshiro)

You’re not planning on ending it at this? I’m waiting for the next opportunity to fight you. (Atobe)

Congratulatioons. But I’ll overcome you soon. (Echizen)

Are you doing well Tezuka? Send something tasty from Germany! (Kikumaru)

This guy is in 4th place!? Gimme a break! You can go higher than that! (Siegfried)

Party talk

Q: Who would you like to inform about this time’s rank and feelings? A: My family. My grandfather too is always supporting me.

Q: You are being served a lot of food. A: Ooishi. I’m grateful, but it’s already enough. I’m eating sufficiently… I tasted Japanese unacha for the first time in a while.

Q: You can also take part in an improvisation skit competition. A: … No, thank you. I was able to enjoy it quite a lot just by watching.

Q: You got excited with Bismarck-san, though... A: … I was merely unilaterally lectured about how to flirt with women.

Q: Who did you come to the venue with today? A: With the German representative senpai. In addition to training, we measured the time and ran to the venue.

Q: Oh? Is there something the matter with Echizen-kun? A: No. I just thought he seems to have gained experience and grown somewhat.

History

Age 0 October 7 Birth

Age 5 Makes a mistake in dance moves in a kindergarten’s play

Age 10 June Climbs Switzerland's Matterhorn with his father

Age 11 Summer Meets Yukimura and Sanada after the Jr. Tournament, has a match Goes fishing with grandfather, catches a sea bream

Age 12 March Graduates from Seishun Dai Daiichi Elementary School

April Enters Seishun Gakuen Middle School Is hit on the elbow with a racket by a senpai in the tennis club Is told to become "Seigaku's pillar of support" by Yamato

Age 13 November Displays a sketch of mountain grass in the culture festival

January Goes to the first shrine visit of New Year with the club’s 1st year members, makes a vow of conquering the nationals

April Becomes a 2nd year Becomes the vice captain of the tennis club

June Participates in a bread eating race in an athletic festivals, places second

September Gets lots of recommendation letters and becomes the student council president

Age 14 Declines the Jr. Senbatsu invitation Around autumn Has an uncomfortable feeling in his arm

October On the field trip (Taiwan), buys tea utensils for souvenirs

November At the Allied music festival (*3) , participates in the class chorus as a musical conductor

February For the first time in his life, forgets something

April Becomes a 3rd year Becomes the captain of the tennis club

May Wins Tokyo preliminaries championship Is mistaken for a teacher at Kawamura Sushi Has a match with Ryoma on courts underneath the railway

June Wins prefecturals championship Declines offer from the special overseas JFH program Goes to the drawings for the Kantou tournament

July Is invited to Hyoutei’s opera appreciation party as the student council president but declines Start of Kantou tournament In the first round against Hyoutei, loses to Atobe in S1 Goes to Kyuushuu for rehabilitation

July 27 Wins Kantou tournament championship

August 14 Drawing for the nationals, returns from Kyuushuu

August 17 Start of nationals Faces Higa in the 2nd round, wins against Kite in S1

August 19 Quarterfinals against Hyoutei, wins against Kabaji in S2 Semifinals against Shitenhouji, wins against the Chitose-Zaizen pair in D2 Yakiniku battle, is one of the last members remaining

August 23 Finals against Rikkai, loses to Sanada in S3   Wins nationals championship Goes to the victory celebration at Kawamura Sushi

Age 15 (*4) September Is invited to Rikkai’s ocean festival, makes guest participation in a play

October 12 Climbs Kitadake with father

November Participates in U-17 camp Wins against Kaidou in the “friendly fire” matches Learns about a fishing mobile game from Marui and Kirihara In the court shuffle between 3rd and 5th court, wins against Yamato Abandons the match against Fuji midway, departs for Germany Aiming to become professional, participates in the German representative team

December Participates in the U-17 Pre-World Cup drawings U-17 Pre-World Cup starts In Vs Japan, wins against Irie-Atobe pair in the second match U-17 World Cup starts Is drawn into a fight about food by Siegfried, eats Japanese food together Wins against South Africa and Canada

Plan

(Pictured: two documents of mountain climbing plans, including itinerary, packing list and map.)

“This is from when me and father climbed during consecutive holidays. When climbing mountains, let’s make plans properly and climb without carelessness.”

Fashion

It seems he didn’t bring much clothing with him from Japan. I will give you something next time. (Volk)

With Kunimitsu’s hair style, clothes from any country would suit him. (QP)

Wearing clothes you received just like that. That’s like you. (Fuji)

Whether the person in question is aware of it or not, wearing a waistcloth is quite stylish. (Kite)

“I am not a person who is particular about clothes, but only when it comes to shoes, I make it so that I can play tennis in them.”

Room

Bedroom of the room I’m staying in in Germany There’s only bare minimums like the bed and desk that were part of the furnishings. But I’m thankful that letters and daily necessities have been delivered from Japan. Overall, I like the things made from wood and seeing the townscape from the window.

TN:

*1 張り詰めた, haritsumeta. Strained, stretched, tense. Not strained in the sense of anxious or having problems. It seems more like everyone is ambitious and focused.

*2 選手, senshu: player, athlete. I chose to leave this as it is since the interviewer uses it all the time as an honorific, and couldn’t figure out a natural expression in English.

*3 連合音楽会, rengou ongaku kai. This seems to be some kind of an annual music event that at least schools participate into.

*4 It seems like a mistake that age 15 is placed at September, not October.

[10-dutchies-12-bicycles]

i was tagged by @purrfectgf thank you!! :3

(for reference’s sake: this was on 2020-1-29)

1. are you named after anyone?

nope. lmao i remember when i was like 13 one of my teachers was also like “ok so youre DEF named after *insert relatively well-known dutch person*” and i said no im not and he was like “just ask ur parents and ull see im right” so i asked my parents and guess what? he wasnt right djshbfjskgbsb

2. when was the last time you cried? 

yesterday lol. i was overwhelmed w LifeTM

3. do you have any kids? 

do my plants count? vfjhsfg

4. do you use sarcasm a lot? 

i would say no? but i think that that means that (playful, not mean) sarcasm has become so ingrained in my regular communication that i ..... dont even notice anymore fdjshfs

5. what’s the first thing you notice about people? 

....what they look like i guess??

6. what’s your eye colour? 

brown, with green and gold around my iris (as an aside: luna @purrfectgf ur eye color sounds SO COOL tbh)

7. scary movie or happy endings? 

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm idk

8. any special talents? 

uuhhh idk... im sometimes good at making events sound like twice as exciting as they actually were lol #adhd

9. where were you born? 

10 km from where i live now vdjhbfjdbfhajfh

10. what are your hobbies? 

as u all may have maybe guessed.... i... might have been hyperfixating on knitting the past few days....... (i found a rly cool but rly ambitious pattern on ravelry and... im scared but also sooo excited. i might yell abt this later so heads up)

also ive never known what to answer if someone asks me what my hobbies are. like ever since i was 8 ive just said like “uuhh.. i like books? and also i play the piano?” and then ppl will be like “oh you play the piano thats so cool!!! :0″ and then i dont have to come up w any other hobbies :)

11. do you have any pets? 

some fish. also last month we got a puppy

also we used to have the absolute best rabbits i loved them so much??? we got them in like... 2010? and they lived until like 2016 or sth like... i miss them :(

12. what sports do you play/have played? 

volleyball :D i played it when i was like 9-10 or sth and then picked it up again 2 years ago

13. how tall are you? 

1.75 or sth idk... taller than 1.72 and shorter than 1.76 i think? so yea xD

14. dream job? 

i think it would be rly cool to have a phd?? or just be a professor in general yk? bc i rly like the combo of teaching and doing research. ever since i was in kindergarten i wanted to be a teacher and that idea never really left me i guess? also doing scientific experiments is just,,, so fun

15. favourite subject in school? 

high school? latin, ancient greek, biology, physics. i also liked french, history, chemistry, just a bunch of stuff rly. dislike: P.E. 😂😂😂 and economics

bachelor? PLANT BIOLOGY!!! and also quantum mechanics is quite cool

ok ill quickly tag @itswrittenintheshinyorbthings. if ure busy pls feel free to only answer question 9 or sth bc i think u would like answering that one vdjshfjdsbf

i might edit this later to tag a few other ppl. im cleaning out my tumblr notification emails so ill prolly find a loottt more tag games. if i find a rly fun one ill tag a lot of ppl that i notice a lot in my notifications (the type of ppl that u dont rly interact with but still see and appreciate yk? that type) so yea uve been warned >:3

and if anyone else would like to do it then pls ofc feel free to!!

[ytsthepodcast]

Infinite Consciousness Could Be Predetermined As Energy (#20)

Infinite consciousness could be predetermined as energy, which is never created or destroyed, which kind of lends to reincarnation. But that might be another thing, but definitely what we do in life. And those set milestones, you know, get a diploma, get a job, get a big house, nice car. Having the awareness that there is life and certainly something that you can look into things.

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        Did you hear the last episode with Bobby Tester? The Biggest Obstacles In The Culture Of Toughness And Self-Sufficiency (#19)

            LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE

  Is the D.A.R.E. program good for America's kids (K-12)?

The 5 big lies that D.A.R.E. told you about drugs.

David Icke

David Icke is an English writer and public speaker, known since the 1990s as a professional conspiracy theorist

David is the author of over 21 books, 10 DVDs and has lectured in over 25 countries, speaking live for up to 10 hours to huge audiences, filling stadiums like Wembley Arena.

        Wanna get heard on Your Transformation Station? Leave us an audio review here.

      SHOW NOTES

How our social upbringing plays an impact on complacency.

It's when you're at the lowest frequency and we're soaking up informationSubliminal messaging in television shows.

The problem with the DARE program.

And much more.

      Interested in getting on the show?

      Previous Episode

Should You Feel Ashamed For Wanting To Kill Yourself? The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. But if you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, you need to know that you're not alone. The Biggest Obstacles In The Culture Of Toughness And Self-Sufficiency (#19)

        Transcription

  You have to have a definition of success. If I could go back, this does not mean things that I would go back for, but what do you do when you lose your purpose? It's okay to struggle. It's okay. That you're not okay. I am your host Craig for Vasa together. We will go on a journey. The show is all about surpassing our internal dialogue.

We discovering. The true identity in new foresight, we have a chance to make the world a better place for our chip. Starting leaning in the example today and become your future self tomorrow. If you can leave our viewers with some good advice to follow, what would you let them know? These things that you're afraid to do?

Go boom.

  We're tapping into surpassing expectations from the most successful people in the modern-day and honing in on new foresight, methodologies, and clairvoyance. You never knew this is your transformation station with your host, Greg Abaza.

Then, the military gave me this fire inside, and lately, I just feel like I've been struggling to keep it ignited. I'm pretty sure it's probably not so much the fire that they instilled in you as much as it is the fire that you already have, that they help jar out. You already have that power and that flare and drive.

It's just that being put in that situation drew it out of you more than it would if you will like a regular citizen, the situation that I've noticed. Okay. I'm an introvert. However, you put me into a situation where I have men that are below me waiting to react to my command. I can, I completed one 80 into an extrovert, all a passion, anger, and frustration to deliver the very best I can be for them.

  And that is wood is something that I don't because you want them to be able to obtain the frequency that you have got to. You want to draw out in them the same way things which are not in you. Which still means that they have that fire in them. But in this scenario with you as a leader, you draw that fire that's in them up to the surface.

And that is within the regimen. It's in command is taking orders and following tasks. Nate, welcome to your transformation station. How are you doing brother? I'm great. Thanks for having me. What's that with you when you do it right now. Now right now, I am trying to find out where I'm going in life. And, uh, obviously I'm doing this podcast with you.

  It's really relatable. Like what are we doing with our lives? I was dunno, man. I fell out. Most people just go day to day and never think it through like wake up and react to the day rather than planning it out. Exactly. That's all people do. They let things happen in set up, making it happen themselves. What do you think that complacency it's taught through childhood up until school?

You know, the entire indoctrination of the system is kind of why most people are where they are now. So it's like an industrialized mindset. Hasn't left. That they're still, it still carries over because it's enforced through school such as we were taught to just obey, listen, learn, and then go to college, then get a job, get married, and then die.

Exactly. It is. This sounds miserable when you say it out loud, that is, that is. Um, it's what you make of it to a certain extent, but it starts from before school, you have parents, for example, that will transition the knowledge of the system. They were taught to their newborn baby babies to toddlers young children before they even get the chance to go to school or kindergarten or whatever it may be, keep going.

  Okay. So for example, we are taught from an early age, that dreams are not real. So if a young child has a nightmare or a bad dream, it's put down to be in a boogie man under the bed, or, you know, Oh, it's just a dream. It wasn't real. But keep in mind, this is some of the most influential ears of your life.

It's when you're at the lowest frequency around that four Hertz range and we're soaking up information. And it's all coming from parents that have been felt through the system and a system through technology, through phones, tablets, TVs. Um, that has become a surrogate parent of sorts to children because they spend so much time watching television and soaking up all of this information.

Not realizing that it's not organic and it's preprogram prescheduled pre-installed is all decoded and they're recounted into saying a child's show. And then it's broadcast and the child was soaking up all that information, not knowing whether it's positive or negative because their young brains are too young and underdeveloped to process that from wrong.

  So are you saying subliminal messaging in children's shows? Exactly. Can you elaborate on that? Um, I mean, I wouldn't say it's necessarily a child show, but the Simpsons have, let's say, had its fair share of interest in the media over the last few years. Um, they predicted a lot, you know, obviously Donald Trump's presidency, the nine 11 incident we had happened here in America, um, is being installed into personal homes.

You know, they've polluted to quite a lot of stuff. I can pick that up in a second. As far as indoctrinated of what our family values are, what our parents believe. How did you come to understand that is what's happening today in America? Well, here's the thing. Um, being able to, and being allowed to are two separate things.

Most children won't venture out because they're afraid of what their family, their peers or say. And when you're a young child, you have more fear of both Dorothy than certain people do as they progress through life. But. When all is said and done, the child was told not to put the curve and the hands in the cookie jar, normally of the children that end up doing it and have a face full of crumbs.

  I don't know if you're familiar with the dare program. It stands for drug abuse, something. I can't remember the exact words I have to look that up and then I'll enter in the show notes, but the whole point of it is to teach children that drugs are bad. It's like, if you smoke weed, you are Brian to smoke other drugs.

You will pretty much, the backfire as well, they tried weed. Oh, I didn't end up homeless. Okay. So let's try it. Let's try some heroin. Let's try some, let's try some crack. It just kept going. And they were like, well, fuck, they didn't plan that. So would it relate to what you're saying? Or is this a completely deeper topic that I'm going on too?

So I think with drugs is subjective to an addictive personality and it depends on why someone would use weed, um, would lean into whether they were more prone to, or not try other drugs, have a harder, more chemical substance. Is let's face it, not everyone that smokes cannabis ends up being a method.

  It's just not known plus cannabis hasn't as far as I'm still aware, ever had a recorded history of death in human history. So, and obviously math, cocaine, heroin opium, all of these other things they can kill and they have, and they will, I think the tobacco industry. Is also fighting that, wow, it's not death from a cigarette.

It's cancer that is caused by proxy. Yes. Cell killing people left-right. And center every day. Doesn't change. Let's go back. You've said the child being brought up at a certain frequency. What do you mean by frequency? So when you are born and you're out of the worm, As, you know, a child's head is not the same size as an adult head, which means, you know, the brain is softer and more vulnerable, I guess, to young babies.

That's why, you know, people take extra care with babies over a 13-year-old boy, for example. Um, and with that, The brain, as it evolves and grows gains mass, as well as soaking up all this information. And so I guess the frequency that I was pertaining to is when you are a certain age between. One and four you're around a lower Hertz frequency range, um, like radio waves for G wifi, um, and information that you process through the senses.

You know, the smell, touch, airing, taste, all of this pertains to what a child will learn. So basically. If they're exposed to the good things that those senses can pick up, then they're going to have a headstart over someone who is born into negativity. I'm a broken home. Uh, parents are, it did to a substance of some kind, um, abused being shown.

  Some things on television aren't appropriate for that age range. But most importantly, I think it's what the child sees outside of the home as well because that's another thing that they decode different than say, someone of older age, because someone that say 13, that's been to school and being a part of the programming.

We'll see. Mainly the programming outside of the score outside of the family hub. It's. Pre-installed whereas a young child, they don't have a bad experience with the outside world and they haven't been indicted translated yet. So they decode it differently than someone older say, decode, I'm referring to the way they perceive things.

The way they look at the world and everything in it. They look at the world in a more your perspective, something that caught my ear. Uh, it was, uh, Broke up was prime. It made me want to think of prime, a decode Prince sold. Maybe these children are being primed or something it's preemptive. Yes. Yeah. Now, what do you think people in societies actually being primed for?

  To answer. Some of this is to open up a real big hole and it's kind of endless. So you have to first acknowledge the separation of self and everything else that isn't the self. So when you say what splits up a person's life, pretty much from their true calling, you have. You know, for me, Nate, that works at the store and it's Nate at the store.

That's what people say. But the real stuff isn't even bound to Kara tourist steaks or the true South. Isn't the body I'm in. It's more of infinite consciousness now. Yeah. Again, I've been inspired by David Ike for years. And a lot of this, I have picked up from him and when I was younger, I really didn't understand it.

But nowhere near as much as I'm starting to now. And he just described the life that we lead as an experience, we are infinite consciousness, living, and experience, and infinite, conscious snares could be predetermined as energy, which is never created or destroyed. Which kind of lends to reincarnation, but that might be another thing, but definitely what we do in life.

  And those set milestones, you know, get a diploma, get a job, get a big house, nice car, have a family and kids that are nice. And that's certainly something that is good and you can look into it, but the true meaning of life and this is where it gets kind of dark there. Isn't one. It is purely what you make of a miraculous existence that you've been thrown into because no one's ever asked to be born.

They just are. But the energy for that existence is drawn from somewhere. Yes. There's conception, childbirth, all the Scientifics that you can apply to it. But if you look so much. Deeper than what may as science and that alone has a lot of gravitas. Me as science. Science is a base Foundry for everything pretty much.

But if you look further than science and just, you know, an egg or sperm and, you know, contraceptive, not contraception, um, conceiving, then you really start to look way deeper, a lot deeper. Like the chicken before the egg, which came birth and still no one really has the definitive answer to that thing.

  Now that is really interesting in who is David Eick. David Ike is someone that actually was born and raised, not too far from where I lived in England. A car thinks quite off the top of my head where it's from. It might have been, sorry, maybe Norfolk. But I was born in Leicester, share, raised in a little town called Burbage.

And I think the sky was like maybe an hour or two in a car away from where I live my whole life growing up. So now it just took a wild turn. What are you doing in America? So I actually met a girl that I knew online, did the whole internet date in thing. And between her and my wanting to leave England because of everything I had seen that growing up and I felt like there was never really a good Avenue for me to branch out into not many job opportunities, really, not a lot of anything.

There are all the manufacturing jobs were closing down because England had been in a recession for many years. And there was just no room for growth there. So between meeting her and the potential of life over here and my wanting to leave, that was kind of where that came from. Do you tell me you met a girl off tender protocol now it was back in 2013, 2014?

I believe to leave England. Yeah, the pursuit of happiness. I guess. So you, you don't have any family here, you met a girl online and you just said you're the one I'm I'm a nappy. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. It was, uh, she, uh, she came to visit England before we left. Wow. Yeah. She originally went to Wales and then came them, I say, over to England, depending if you're wild shot, now it's the same place.

  But, um, yeah, when we got together and did our little thing and you know, and we, I came over on a visa originally and then, uh, transitioned through that, paid my dues to the government, got an old uncle. Sam's got to have his current right. And, uh, basically here I am still living in America and all my paperwork up to date.

Don't come to get me and we are all good. So we did you come here on a temporary visa for a little bit, and then somehow had to go back and then the chick that you're seeing go back to Anglin. And then from there, you decided to. So originally how that was meant to play out as I was meant to go back after six months and it never happened because we got married.

Yeah. And in the state of Missouri, if you do that, it waivers the visa. Apparently, this sounds like one big green card thing going on here, but it's not a problem. Let's, let's rewind. And let's what got you into understanding how our minds pick up neuro. Would that be the frequency in our brains that is being delivered out?

  And how did you come upon this information? I think I figured it out at a very young age, probably around. Doris says four or five. And basically what that pertains to was I looked at things differently than all the others is in my classes. And I'm not really sure why, but they were so focused on doing this paperwork and pleasing the teacher.

And I would just sit there thinking about all the things taken in the day before, or. You know, little things, you know, like out of the window in the school. And I guess that's one of the reasons why they labeled me as like special needs kid in school is they put me on a statement soon after I didn't really perform to their standard in the classroom.

And, uh, it kinda just snowballed from there, but I was never really into the whole, you know, Being a part of the mainstream, even as a little child, I didn't really know what it was back then, but I knew it didn't feel right. And like, guess everything I did from that point on was more self-discovery than letting myself be in a cog in the system.

  When you say self-discovery, were you something that, that happened later on in life and you kind of just blown with the system, but lived in a different realm? Perse, you know, for me, Nate, that works at the store and it's Nate at the store, that's what people say. But the real self isn't even down to characteristics of the true self isn't, the body I'm in, it's more of infinite consciousness now.

Yeah, again, I've been inspired by David Ike for years. And a lot of this I have picked up from him and when I was younger, I really didn't understand it that nowhere near as much as I'm starting to now. And he described the life that we lead as an experience, we are infinite consciousness, living experience and.

Infinite consciousness could be predetermined as energy, which is never created or destroyed, which kind of lends to reincarnation. But that might be another thing, but definitely what we do in life. And those set milestones, you know, Get a diploma, get a job, get a big house, nice car. Having the awareness that there is life and certainly something that you can look into things.

  But the meaning of that, we don't, this is where it gets kind of dark hole there. Isn't one. I think we can understand that is surely having a love of Mirage likes this instinct to, or how do we think no one's ever asked to be born. They just are, but the energy for that resistance is drawn from somewhere that happened in the past, conception, childbirth, all the Scientifics that you can apply to it.

But if you look well so much deliberate science and alone has a lot of gravitas. Mia science, science is a base Foundry for everything pretty much. But if you look further than science and just, you know, an egg or sperm and, you know, contraceptive, not contraception, I'm conceiving, then you really start to look way deeper, a lot deeper by the book before the day.

Yeah. And still, no one really has the definitive answer to that of think. Now that. Really, I'll be sure to link a bit. First off I have five or who is David? David. Ike is someone that actually was born and raised, not too far from where I lived in England. Uh, coughing quite off the top of my head where he's from it.

  Might've been sorry. Maybe Norfolk. But I was born in Leicester, share, raised in a little town called Burbage. And I think the sky was like maybe an hour or two and a car away from where I live my whole life growing up.

What are you doing in America? So I actually met a girl that I knew online, did the whole internet date in thing. And between her and my wanting to leave England because of everything that I had seen that growing up. And I felt like there was no right branch out because. Yeah. Or to challenge somebody let's say knowledge would have another lens.

England had been in a recession and there was no room for growth there. So between meeting her and the potential of life over here and my wine to leave, that was kind of why that came. Can you tell me, you meant girl?

It was Facebook. Oh, Facebook. Yeah. Back in 2013, 2014, I believe. And that was your primary driver? Yeah, the pursuit of happiness, I guess. Very well, but

  you don't have any family here? Is that a girl? You're the one. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. It was a share. She came to visit England before we laughed. It seems like no, everybody's she originally went, nobody's going to step outside their own, say over to England, depending if you're wild Shaw, now it's the same place.

But, um, yeah, when we got together and did our own little thing and you know, and we came over on a visa originally and then, uh, transitioned through that, paid my dues to the government, got an old uncle. Sam's got to have his current right. And, uh, basically here I am still living in America and all my paperwork's up to date.

Don't come to get me and we are all good with it. So I'm going to go off.

We did you come here on a temporary visa or a little bit, and then somehow had to go back and then the kick that your theme. Go back to Anglin. And then from there, you decided to come back. Yeah. So originally how that was meant to play out as I was meant to go back after six months and it never happened because we got married.

  Yeah. And in the state of Missouri, if you do that, it waivers the visa apparent. This sounds like one big green card thing going on here, but it's not a promise. No, no, I'm curious. I heard this story. Well, what was the girl's name? Uh, wow. She went by many names on a real name's Jess in the note. What's the last name, but I'll be sure to edit this out.

Alright, bringer. Yeah, no, cause it blows my mind. Because I don't know. I was talking to the girl. It's all starting to take a picture of when we originally started out children being a blank canvas, all their parents' values passed down onto them, whether they want that or not. Is based on it indoctrination, that's the beginning process, the moment.

  And they have the self-realization to know that they're worth more and can do more. Most people find that when they're at the lowest place in life and they will question, why am I here? What am I doing? Where will I end up? It's kind of like how people in an interview will say, where do you see yourself in five years from now?

Now, um, they're talking about the system, the construct in the workplace, the real self-discovery of why you'll be years to come can only be unlocked three around self-realization. And I think a part of that is revisiting past events. I'm looking at where you are currently and having that movement, that plan, that regime to progress for the, as an individual.

Cause I have so many cons there are so many things that are going through my head that I want to take this. As far as we reach self-actualization between age 35 to 45 or even never. And that's for somebody who. Takes the appropriate steps to learn their own image that they carry. And also who others perceive them as, because what we think about ourselves and what people perceive us are two different identities.

And once we

Marker

reach that self-actualization, we understand those two factors plus our purpose, our direction, and our vision in life. And that's how we define meaning. When we come to that ultimate question. What is the meaning of life that there's so much work behind that? And that's what we have to do. We have to put in the work nature, want to leave our audience with anything?

Yeah, I would basically say no matter how you feel, when you wake up in the morning, take a second to quiet your thoughts. Don't reach straight for the farm. Don't turn on the television thing to yourself. What would I like to achieve today, analyze to yourself if it's possible and how much you can port of yourself and that effort that you have?

Into that plan. And even if you don't succeed, you do everything you can to make it happen. Because like I said before, I have everything to gain from trying and everything to lose from not trying. So no matter how bleak it may seem in the day and in the moment take life by the horns and you don't know necessarily is it's going to lead, but it'll lead somewhere and somewhere is always better than nowhere.

Nate. I appreciate you coming on to your transformation station for this weekly uplift. Absolutely man. Thank you for having me. You've been listening to your transformation station, rediscovering your true identity and purpose on this planet. We hope you enjoyed the show and we hope you've gotten some useful and practical information.

Join us weekly on Monday for the YTS challenge and biweekly on Wednesday for the exclusive interviews at 8:00 PM central time. In the meantime, connect with us on Facebook and

Instagram at. Y T S the podcast we'll be back soon until then this is your transformation station signing off.

  Check out this episode!

[petting-mutts-and-sticking-butts]

How Veterinary School is the real world equivalent of Hogwarts.

For many veterinary students this profession has been a dream from when they were in kindergarten, much like a young witch or wizard hoping that they get their very own acceptance letter to Hogwarts when they turn 11. Most of them are fairly confident that they are getting it, because they are purebloods (or in muggle terms a legacy student). While others, like myself, are hoping that there magical ability (academic accomplishment and extracurricular activities) were enough to earn them a spot. No matter the background every young witch or wizard is ecstatic when they finally get that letter.

Once accepted, there is a whirlwind of things that need to be accomplished prior to getting on the Hogwart’s express. First you have to go to Diagon Alley (Amazon) to purchase their many school supplies: books, robes (spirit gear/ scrubs), wands (dissection kit), and trunks (backpacks). Getting off the train and arriving to Hogwarts (Veterinary school) you are greeted by the larger than life groundskeeper, Hagrid, who shuttles you across the Black lake to the castle. The whole time all the first years students are getting acquainted and more excited to actually enter the school.

 At our college we have a whole week of orientation, you are greeted by the larger than life dean of student’s and many other higher ups in the college. You are given a tour of the hospital by some of the upper classmen. During this orientation process, much like Hogwarts, our school has houses that you are sorted into. These houses compete throughout the year in various activities to build up the students morale and build bonds that will last a life time.

There are so many classes that you go through in veterinary school that honestly have a Hogwarts counterpart: 

Potions= Pharmacology

Care of Magical Creatures= Medicine Courses

Charms= Emergency Medicine/ Pain management

 Astronomy= Radiology

Defence Against the Dark Arts= Bacteriology/ Mycology/ Parasitology/ Virology

History of Magic= History of Veterinary Medicine

Herbology= Toxicology 

Devination= Clinical Pathology and Veterinary Neuroscience

Transfiguration=Surgery 

 And with each of those courses comes the many professors and the personalities they bring with them.

The Professor Snape: A professor/ clinician that instills fear in every student they come across. They may have a few students that they tolerate more than others but for the most part they hate students. They would really prefer tinkering by themselves and work on different research projects but because this is a teaching hospital they are forced to interact with people. But in their own words “I am tenured so what are they going to do?”  

The Professor Kettleburn: A professor/ clinician that loves all animals, no matter how dangerous they are or how often said animal has tried to kill them. They have some of the coolest war stories around but they also have the associated battle scars. You wish you were as brave as they were but you also question their sanity. 

The Professor Binns: A professor/ clinician that drones on and on and doesn’t even notice that half of the class is not paying attention, while the other half of the class has fallen asleep. Sometimes they even bore themselves while they are lecturing on the subject. 

The Professor Flitwick: A professor/ clinician that is very eccentric and likable. They always seem to be in a happy mood and will do anything in their power to brighten your day. Often times they are exceptional in their specialty making them a force to be reckoned with. 

The Professor McGonagall: The professor/ clinician that seems very serious when you first meet them but as the years go on you realize that they are one of the students biggest supporters. They are hard on you when they need to be, but they are understanding and helpful when it is most needed. They are astounding in their field and are respected by all that know them. 

The Professor Sprout: The professor/ clinician that is very earthy and was likely your toxicology professor. They don’t really deal with animals a whole lot but they deal with the plants that could kill said animals. They are the leader of the misfits but they are very likable people.  

The Professor Trelawney: A professor/ clinician that seems to live on their own planet. Most of the time you think they are making things up as they are going but every once in a blue moon they get something right. And the things they do get right are world changing so that’s why they are still around. 

The Professor Lupin: A professor that was only with your class for a short period of time. They always look disheveled and like they had a hard night. They are very nice and often very good at working with students but misunderstood by most of the faculty.

The Professor Dumbledore: A professor/ clinician that leads a complex life, but also has a taste for some of the simpler things. They are brilliant, eccentric, loving, and strict. You go through school thinking you have them pegged and then you get to clinics and realize that this person is far deeper than you ever imagined. 

The Hagrid: A technician or hospital staff member that would do anything to help the students. They often give tips and tricks that the clinician probably wish they wouldn’t divulge but they really don’t care because they like the students more than the clinicians anyway. They love all the animals as if they were their own, and often times they pour their heart and soul into the treatment of those animals. Treat these people nicely, they will be your best friends during the clinical year. 

The last comparison to be made is between the main characters of the story (including the villains) and all of your classmates. 

Harry: The chosen one. They seem to have all the clinicians and professors on their side. They can do no wrong and very few people truly dislike them. While from the outside looking in it appears that everything in their life is so easy, often times that is quiet the opposite. Rarely do they actually know what they are doing, they just get lucky and have a lot of help.

Ron: The funny best friend to the chosen one. They may be just as smart or be the reason that the chosen one accomplished as much as the did, but because they are the sidekick they don’t get nearly as much credit as they deserve. But they are okay with that, because they are good people. 

Hermione: The brainy student that you hear everyday in class. When a teacher asks a question, they raise their hand first. They are overachievers, so much so that you wonder how they have time for it all (time-turners must be real right?) They have tidbits of knowledge tucked away and they are ready to apply at the drop of a hat. The more you get to know them, the more likable they are but damn were you annoyed before that (this is me...).

The Weasley Twins: The jokesters. The professors know that they are pranksters, and sometimes they help pull off grand schemes. Other professors hate them because “this is a professional program so you need to act like grown-ups.” They may even drop out in there clinical year because this really wasn’t for them in the first place.

Luna: That one classmate that always seems to have their head in the clouds, and when they actually talk you never really know what might come out of their mouths. They are brilliant in their own right but they are extremely eccentric and have some beliefs that are not widely accepted by the veterinary community. 

Neville: The student that you constantly find yourself asking how they got here in the first place, since they are all but a squib anyways. They always seem to be struggling and never really seem to have a full grasp of what is going on. But then you see them in the clinics, and watch them finally gain some traction and see their education come full circle. It’s like something finally clicked and they found their element. 

Ginny: The students from the classes beneath you that are associated with your class for one reason or another. They may be a roommate, a girlfriend/ boyfriend, a classmate that failed a class, or your first year buddy. Either way you see them so much that sometimes you forget they are not part of your graduating class. 

Peeves: They speak mainly in riddles, and they are constantly trying to start some kind of drama. They get along pretty well with the Weasley twin’s because they are all up to no good. They will not rest until mischief is managed. And they show up when they are least wanted, because all they do is make your life harder.

Moaning Myrtle: That one student that you always see crying in the hallways. You wonder what in the world makes their life so hard that they are always on the verge of tears, but who knows maybe that’s just how they handle stress. Everyone is afraid to be left alone with this person because you never know when the waterworks might be coming.

Malfoy: The one classmate that everyone loves to hate. Not only did they chose to act like a total ass-hat within the first year of school, but they continued to make decisions that put them at odds with most of the class. They may have wanted to be a good person, but their inherently bad heart lead them to make all the wrong choices.  

Crabb and Goyle: They are associated with the aforementioned villainous classmate, so everyone still hates them. When in all reality they probably are not that bad but they are associated with the wrong people and have forever been grouped with that hatred.  

Filch: This is the student that absolutely hates anything fun, despises the Weasley twins, and HATES PEEVES! They walk around with a scowl on their face, their scary sidekick in toe, ready to turn in anyone that even thinks about breaking a rule. Sometimes you wonder how they got past the interview process to begin with, but maybe they just scared the interviewers so much that they had to let them in. 

Voldemort: This is the NAVLE in my mind. You can’t reach your full potential if you don’t defeat that damn test. Every year you are in school the weight of that test grows heavier and heavier. You know the final battle is going to test everything you have learned throughout your years of school and training. You know that it is going to be an epic battle of wits and you are going to leave that testing center feeling a lot worse for the ware but it can be done. IT MUST BE DONE FOR YOU TO LIVE YOUR LIFE LIKE THE PROPHECY PREDICTED!

Dolores Umbridge: This person isn’t necessarily a classmate, but it could be. They are despised beyond all others. They are hated more than the NAVLE, maybe not feared as much, but definitely hated more. They have inserted themselves into your veterinary school experience and every minute with them made it worse.

Bellatrix Lestrange: This person is sadistic and enjoys torturing people just because they like to watch them fall apart. They are intelligent but mentally unbalanced and easily lose focus but they are devoted to making the life of their victims worse through the teachings of Voldemort. Often twists reality to suit their view and purpose. Everyone is below them in status, at least that’s how they see things. Evil incarnated. 

Lucius Malfoy: This person often considers themselves better than those around them because of where they come from. Often acting as though other classmates are beneath them because those classmates took a different route to get here. At times they may even attempt to sabotage their classmates because of their belief that they are superior. This person often hides in the shadows, making it hard to detect their true feelings but if you watch their repeated actions their beliefs become very clear. 

Sirius Black: A person that you originally thought was evil due to rumors that had gone around the class. Then you take the time to get to know them and hey become family. People wonder why you like them, but you tell them that this person is good people.

Molly Weasley: This person is a mother figure in your school. It may be a classmate, a faculty member, or supporting staff. They often bring baked goods to class and try to make sure that everyone is happy and taken care of. They check-in often and are always there for you when you are down in the dumps.

Arthur Weasley: This person is a father figure to all. Often fascinated with things that have nothing to do with veterinary medicine. The job that they have often contradicts those outside interests but they don’t mind. They are goofy and light hearted most of the time but will kick ass and take names if need be.

Madeye Moody: This person knows everything, so much so that you are pretty sure they can see in all directions. They look crazy and dangerous but in all reality they are very smart and somebody you want on your team. At times they seem paranoid until their suspicions come to fruition.

Dobby: This is your family and friends that always seem to be there when you need them most. They put up with being treated like garbage because you are their family. Because let’s be honest, these people take the brunt of your piss poor mood when you are stressed. They are the closest too you so they see the absolute worst of you, but yet they still love you. So give Dobby something nicer than a used sock... Say thank you for the years that they put up with you. 

Hedwig: Don’t forget about the veterinary student’s pets. They are the real heroes to this story. Not only do they keep us sane but they put up with our constant poking and prodding. They also get voluntold to be the dummy for sooooo many wetlabs. All the while they greet you at the door with a wagging tail or a rub of the leg and would sacrifice their life for your at the drop of a hat.