#who knew my parents taking me to Sunday school and raising me to be the perfect little muslimah would turn out to not only make me hate

[rowanisawriter]

pov: you’re a cleric and you’re completely losing faith in your goddess after falling in love with her former lover and the religious guilt is tearing you apart but you still have to pay tribute to her and receive her favor to fuel your divine might

[moncharrow]

𓆩⚝˚‧no room for the holy spirit ♱꙳˚₊‧

a/n: finally it's here! been screaming into the void abt this one for... ever. a thousand thank yous to @thirsting-over-women who proofread this for me :>> my savior actually. if the religious themes offend you (whether you are religious or have trauma) i encourage you not to read, maybe check out my other works instead :D

content/warnings: 4,500 words, preachers daughter!ellie x fem!reader, nsfw, reader wears a skirt, semipublic/car sex, fingering, oral (r receiving), reader's first wlw experience, sexual awakening?, religious motif, christian themes, mild religious guilt throughout, mentions of religious homophobia, internalized homophobia, ellie smokes a lil, she's a bit mean, fuckin in a church parking lot

The pressures of being a teenage girl were hard enough without the pressures of being a gay teenage girl. Being a gay teenage girl was hard enough without the pressures of being the daughter of a fucking preacher. Ellie had never really bought into the whole 'organized religion' thing, ever the skeptic. Even as a puny 8-year-old, she asked why she had to wake up early every Sunday for something she didn't even like doing. Her attitude didn't change much after that, but her parents got stricter and stricter in an attempt to control her sacrilege. She didn't spend much time with her family, instead seeking familial bonds at school, especially with her mechanics teacher, Mr. Miller. But, you know what they say:

Strict parents raise sneaky children.

And it's true. If Ellie's dad knew what she was doing outside the holy walls of the ministry, he'd have an aneurysm and have her exorcised. But, she always thought, what he doesn't know won't hurt him.

You were the opposite. Raised the same as Ellie, you took to religion and fully participated, though mostly out of obligation. Just go every week for an hour and your family will leave you alone. This tactic, for the most part, worked. Your traditional family had their rough moments, specifically when they mocked the outfits you'd wanted to wear to service and called you some... unsavory names. But if you could avoid any similar incident, any clash with authority, you were taking the holy road.

On the outside, you were the purest of people. There was never a bad or dirty thought in your mind. You were a pillar of the community, someone that parents pointed out to their kids. "Be like them," they'd say. Your parents were proud, so you should've been proud. Should've.

You and Ellie had grown up quite close due to being in similar social groups and seeing each other every week at service. Since then, you'd grown apart as you took different paths in life, though you still felt a sense of commitment toward her; So when she cursed out her father in front of the clergy, your eyes widened.

"You fucking dick! You don't know shit about anything! You use all this- this... bullshit- as a crutch so you don't have to own up to your own baggage!"

As she stormed out, you silently move from your spot in the choir, doe eyes shining in the bath of stained glass light, and shuffle up to the front of the room.

"Father, if I may, I would like to go check on your daughter." You're a model fixture, a saint.

"Of course, my child. I hope someday she'll be more like you. I pray that-" You shuffle off again, not wanting to hear about how he wishes his daughter was different. He really wishes his child hid who she was, you think bitterly. You admired Ellie's rebellion, though you'd never say it, and you wished you were as strong as her.

You walk away from the church to the little park you and Ellie used to go to. Your memories flood with nostalgia for simpler times, and you smile to yourself, pleasantly strolling through the large trees and foliage and looking for the rough girl. You find her crouching against a tree, squatting with her head between her legs.

Is she crying?

"... Ellie? Are you alright?" You whisper, not wanting to startle her.

You notice Ellie tense up before quickly standing up and whipping around to face you, a hand behind her back. "Oh! It's... you. Hey. Aren't you s'posed to be inside?"

"Yeah, but I just wanted to check on you. That was intense in there."

"Mhm, I'm good. Just needed some, ah, fresh air. Y'know?" She sounds a little too jolly, weirdly chipper. It's suspicious.

"Uh-huh," you say, unconvinced. "Whatcha got there?" You point to whatever she's trying to conceal.

She knows she's been caught. Her attitude suddenly shifts from faux-innocence to her usual snarky persona as she rolls her eyes, leaning against the tree and revealing what she had. She brings her hand up to her lips. "Nothing."

"Ellie!" You shriek. "You can't do that! Where'd you even get a cigarette?"

She laughs as if you'd said the funniest thing imaginable. "You think this is a cigarette? Are you stupid? No offense. But are you stupid?"

You scoff. "No! I mean, you're smoking it. What else am I supposed to guess?"

"A blunt, idiot. Kush. Mary Jane. Weed. Ma-ri-jua-na." She spells out for you like you're a toddler.

You cross your arms defensively. "Okay, I know what weed is, smart guy. You still shouldn't have it. Where's it from?"

"Stole it. I just wanted to see why people liked it so much. They say it relieves stress, and I think yes." Ellie grins lazily, eyes lidded. "I got another. You want?"

The answer to your question only makes you freak out more. "No! And you stole?! You stole? Oh my goodness, Ellie, you're gonna get us thrown in jail or something!"

Ellie wordlessly watches your breakdown, eyes red and amused, the corner of her mouth turned up. "Relax, man, it's barely illegal. Who's calling the cops for a single gram? Don't be lame like that."

"Lame?" You scoff. "Are you a first grader? Ellie, it's against the law, you could go to prison. And it's not juvie anymore, you're gonna go to real jail!" Your hands flail around wildly as you explain the repercussions of her actions.

"Jail..." She rolls her eyes.

"Yes, jail! That's kinda what happens when you steal something, Ellie!" The high-pitched, prissy tone with which you said her name was starting to annoy her, but the way you looked when flustered was intriguing. Maybe in another context, she'd enjoy hearing her name fall from your lips.

Ellie takes another hit, looking up at you. She tilts her head, asking if you're being serious. "Jail? Over a single blunt? Who cares that much?"

You gasp when you realize: "I'm an accomplice!"

"You're not an accessory just because you're here." She chuckles as the wind blows past and carries her smoke near your head as you duck dramatically and swat away the smoke. She looks at you for a moment, slightly smiling. Her green eyes meet yours briefly before turning her attention back to the joint.

"Why are you using it anyway? It smells rancid."

"Already told you. I wanna know why people do it. It relieves stress and I'm plenty stressed. Plus, I look dope as shit with it, right?" Ellie leans against the tree, and a small part of you wants to say yeah, you do. "You should try it. Maybe get that stick out of your ass."

"You're gonna get addicted."

"God, it's just this once. What are you gonna do, tell my dad?" She chuckles to herself, taking a long drag.

She checks you out, head to toe, examining the flowy fabrics and neat hair and the Mary Jane shoes that drive her crazy. Who wears those? Her gaze returns to meet yours, and she looks utterly dumbfounded by you. Your eyebrows furrow as you see how her expression changes. "What's that look for?"

She shrugs nonchalantly. "I dunno. You're just so robotic. It's like you never think about stepping the teensiest bit out of line. It's creepy. You've never had an independent thought in your life. Have you ever done anything even remotely rebellious?"

You make a noise that seems to say Well why would I? "No! Of course not! And you shouldn't either, I mean look at your dad, he's-"

Her voice raises, a tone you've never heard and don't care to hear again. "-My father? You mean the preacher?" She mocks. "What about him? You don't know anything about my father." Ellie's look hardens, eyes steely and mouth pursed into a thin line. It's a look you've seen maybe twice before, both in much more tense situations. Her voice says that you can't change her mind. You don't care to try. Whatever she's referencing, you believe her.

"Okay. Okay... sorry." You say gently, losing the defensive energy you'd held a moment ago. Ellie sighs and takes an irritated puff. To relax, you think.

"And you always apologize. It's so weird. You need to loosen up a bit." Another long, somehow sarcastic hit. "What's the worst thing you've *ever* done?"

An embarrassing, very private thought crosses your mind. You obviously can't tell her what you think about at night- you're barely able to admit to yourself that you have such impure thoughts. Instead, you shake your head. "Can't- I can't think of anything."

You watch her forest green eyes roll up, then down. It's a very familiar expression on her. "Thought so." She grins up at you, and you look away into the treeline nervously. "Do you wanna try something fun?"

"Is it... illegal?"

"No. Don't worry about that." She motions for you to come closer, so you take a tentative step forward, eyeing her like a wild animal. She hates the way you look at her, making her feel alien. Just because she lives authentically. It makes her want to ruin you, to have you stoop down to her level. Then maybe you won't look at her as if she were extraterrestrial.

You need an attitude adjustment, you need to chill the fuck out, you needed to get fucked, and hard. Ellie thinks she can help you with that.

She grins that toothy smirk as she watches you step closer, taking a puff and placing the blunt between her slender fingers. She doesn't miss the way your eyes trail the two long fingers that hold it. You wonder if she's doing this on purpose.

Ellie backs you up against a tree, and you recognize it as the same old oak that you would climb with her as kids. The branches and bark have left scars on you that Ellie helped you heal. She wonders how they look now.

Your back hits the trunk with an unceremonious thump, and you startle. Ellie keeps walking toward you, now getting uncomfortably close. "Uh- so what are we..." You trail off, thinking she'll explain what she's doing right in your face. She doesn't.

Her arm raises, trapping you between the tree and her body as she studies you. It makes you want to crawl out of your skin, but feels incredibly electric at the same time- it's a sensation you've only felt around her, though you don't know why. She takes another hit and you nervously look away.

She tilts your jaw back to look at her. You have to face her pretty green eyes, unwavering as she stares you down, while you sneak glances just to check if she's still there. Your breath speeds up when she leans closer.

Ellie puts her stupid pink slightly chapped adorable smiling lips near the base of your neck.

"What are you doing?" You say breathlessly. You swear that you feel her ghosting over your skin, so close, yet not as close as you want her. Maybe if you lean in...

Before you can, she breathes out her smoke, lightly trailing her lips down your neck. Her tongue comes out to prod at the skin, tasting you. You whine. The smoke envelops the two of you, and your nose crinkles at the foul smell. You look down to chastise her but she's already looking at you with those eyes and that cheeky look. No matter what you say next to defend yourself, you know you're caught, that Ellie knows she's affected you. It's in your eyes, the way you've seized up so tightly, how you look at her like you can't wait to see what she does next.

She presses a chaste kiss on your collarbone and you crane your neck upward. You're not sure if you're trying to get away or if you're giving her more access. She pulls away and you find yourself leaning forward to try to get her back on you.

"Is that the most rebellious thing you've ever done?" She chuckles, taking another drag and blowing it over you, bathing you in the white haze. "You like being treated like that, huh?"

You shiver. "I don't get it," you say dumbly. You've never been this confused.

"What don't you get? I just think it's fun to make you squirm." She thinks you've had enough and blows her next exhale away from you. "I wanna corrupt you, sweetheart." It sounds derogatory coming from her but you find that you don't mind the tone. The spot Ellie had made contact with feels as if it's burning. You crave for that feeling all over your body.

You stammer over your words, pathetically unable to spit out any sort of coherent reaction to her. Any reaction would be better to tripping over your words. Fed up with trying to sound like a person, you decide to stop talking.

"You enjoyed that huh? Admit it." She inhales and repeats her action. "Makes you feel hot inside."

"What? No- no, are you insane?" The sane part of you is telling you that you shouldn't be doing this, especially not with Ellie fucking Williams of all people. She's everything you aren't- she's rude and snarky and devilish... and tall and strong and hot. Oh shit! The batshit insane part of you is slowly melting the angel on your shoulder, and you can basically see the little devil cackling as you feel yourself straying further from the good girl persona you'd cultivated. You feel your heartbeat in your pants.

Ellie begins to kiss down your neck, sucking and licking at your jaw and collarbone. This time, you're acutely aware that you're actively giving her access to do as she pleases with you. "Maybe I'm insane, but I can tell. You did like it. And if you deny, I'll do it again until you tell the truth."

"Well I didn't, so you can forget about-"

She places her thumb on your lower lip as you start your tirade, effectively shutting you up. "Too late." Ellie leans in and before you know it, her lips are on yours. Her arm snakes around the back of your waist and pulls you as close to her as you've ever been. That warm feeling flushes down your body, leaving chills across your skin. More. All you can think is that you want more. Your hands come up to grip her shoulders, you almost want to push her away, but you find yourself pulling her closer and closer. No room for the Holy Spirit.

Ellie pulls away, smugly looking down at you. "Told you you liked it."

"I didn't say that." You were being a contrarian on purpose at this point. Anything to keep Ellie treating you like this- you wanted to prolong this moment for however long you could. She hoists you up, bringing you out of the park and into the back of the parking lot. She throws you into the backseat of her beaten pickup and crawls atop you with darkened eyes.

You squeal in surprise. "El-lie!"

She continues to kiss you, making you wetter by the second. The heat pooling in your panties is so fucking embarrassing, but you find that you don't care how humiliating this is. You just want more.

"Els, what if someone sees?"

She scoffs as if the idea is preposterous; as if the prospect of getting caught is impossible. "Nobody can see us, and they won't leave until later. Don't stress about it." Ellie bites her lip and it makes your body get hot flushes. "I can do whatever I want to you. But you know what? I think you'd let me. Is that right?"

"...Maybe." Read: Yes, yes, anything! She leans down, placing her hand on the back of your neck and pulling your head closer up towards her. Her hand forces your legs apart further to allow her access. The way she lays on your inner thighs, atop your clothed core, makes you feel lightheaded. You love the way she manhandles you, and it's exactly how you thought she'd be. Every time she adjusts her position, your clit rubs against her and sends jolts of electricity up your body.

"I knew it. You're not as perfect as you try to be. You're dirty."

You want to deny it, you really do, but the evidence is clear. You're disheveled under her, lips swollen from hers, and she's pulling your panties to your ankles and shoving them in her jacket pocket, yet you're ashamed to say that you don't feel an ounce of guilt over it.

Despite how excited you are for whatever is about to happen, you're still incredibly nervous. This is the most physically vulnerable you've ever been with another person, and the fact that you're completely bare under your skirt makes your stomach flip.

Your face must betray your emotions because Ellie momentarily softens. She pulls her hands away from your hips and cups your face, peppering kisses across your cheeks and up to your forehead, making you laugh lightly. "You alright? We can stop."

"No... please don't." Her face lights up.

"Sorry, say that again?" You roll your eyes and she chuckles. "I knew you were like this. Not so pure now, huh?"

"Guess not."

"So you admit it?"

"...Fine. Yes."

Ellie sighs in relief as if her thirst were quenched- that's what she's been wanting to hear from you forever. She could see it in the way you snuck glances at her during mass, finding your wandering, hungry eyes from across the room. She could feel it in the way your hand lingered on her a little too long to be friendly, your touch suspiciously light, like if you touched her any harder you'd start to tremor.

But now, there's no semblance of the timid person you'd been. When Ellie pulls away, your hand comes up to the back of her neck to pull her back in. You're insatiable, and Ellie fucking loves it. She tugs at the bottom of your sweater. "Pull that fucking thing off. Show me those pretty tits." Her breath becomes heavy as you oblige and become needier. "Did you know you were this easy?" She teases.

"What? I'm- I'm not." Everything she says feels designed to evoke the biggest reaction from you. She keeps you on your toes, never letting you get too comfortable. How exciting.

"So it's just for me then?" You don't answer, and it excites Ellie to know that she's right. This reaction is purely for her. Nobody else has seen you like this, and she's grateful to be the one who gets to corrupt you. It really didn't take much effort. "You're so easy to control."

Her hands drift back to your thighs, sliding under your skirt, her lips press to your jawline. Hot breath trails along your neck, down further to your collarbone. Her fingers slide over your inner thighs, sensitive skin rippling as she applies light pressure, testing how reactive you are. You twitch, unwittingly opening your legs more and giving Ellie more access. "You look good like this, though."

Ellie's fingers dig into you, grasping the flesh of your ass and moaning softly into your ear. Her thumbs are on either side of where you desperately need her, and your hips buck up into her, seeking her touch. "Knew you had a nice ass, too."

"Shut up." You mumble.

"Why would I? You like it when I say things like that, don't you? You wouldn't be this drenched if you didn't." She swipes the pad of her thumb over your clit and applies delicious pressure. You nearly cum on the spot.

Is this what you've been missing? This pleasure, this euphoria? Ellie grins at your reaction, drinking in your desperation for her like a succubus. "Aw, sensitive little pussy. Haven't you touched yourself like this before?"

You had, a few times, actually, but it never went this far, deep-rooted guilt gnashing in your stomach and ending the moment before you'd been able to finish. After admitting this, she coos at you. "Poor baby." Her tone is so condescending, but it makes you clench around the tip of her fingers.

She slides the first knuckle of two fingers past your entrance, pumping them in and out painfully slowly. "Ellie, you prick. Come on." She continues her ministrations, gently stroking your entrance, never giving you enough to feel remotely satisfied. She uses this time to take in your disheveled, sweaty appearance. Your cute tits bounce as you shift uncomfortably, waiting for Ellie to please you. A bead of sweat rolls down and she can't help but bring her mouth up to lick at it as it slides over your nipple. Her mouth attaches to you and you sigh, holding her closer by her hair. She grins up at you, making eye contact through her lashes. You can see the tip of her tongue poking out, wetting your bud as the cool air nips at you, making you all the more sensitive. Even now, Ellie still hasn't stopped her teasing below.

"Can't call me a prick then beg for me to fuck you. 's not how it works, pretty girl."

"Then what do you want?" You whine.

Ellie can feel your clit flutter and pulse as she moves. "Fuck, you're so desperate for me, aren't you? I want you to tell me how bad y' want me."

"I- I d-" You begin to protest, being cut off with a squeal as Ellie licks a sloppy stripe up your pussy, finally tasting you.

"Don't bullshit me. If I'm gonna fuck you, I needja to be a little more honest with me. I see how you look at me. You been trying to push some thoughts down, huh?"

It was so humiliating how well she could read you. Whenever her tongue came out of her mouth to take communion, your eyes would be trained on the muscle, breath hitching as she would wink at you. Without fail, you would trail your gaze up her body when Ellie walked in with a suit, her way of dressing nicely for service. Always, always, she could feel the heat radiating off your body as she pulled you closer, not taking her eyes off the pastor speaking.

Your thoughts were impure, sinful, and how embarrassing that Ellie knew. You believed you were hiding it well- obviously not.

"Yeah. Maybe."

Ellie's big hands wrap around your thighs, fingers landing on the sensitive skin near your pussy. She looks up at you and you can feel her hot breath on your clit. It takes everything in Ellie to not eat you out immediately, but your embarrassment is too tempting to pass up.

"Tell me about it. You try to fuck yourself thinkin' of me?"

"I do. I- I tried to, at least. Doesn't work."

"Why not, babe? You're so responsive right now." Her fingers find their place back at your entrance, pushing in as you speak.

"I- oh, shit-" You gasp.

Ellie grins. "Talk to me."

"My fingers aren't good enough."

"Ah," she says, "and mine are?" She knows the answer.

"So good."

Ellie likes that she's made you desperate enough that you've abandoned your pride. She enjoys the flush on your face as you shamelessly admit your secrets to her, the good-girl persona a figment of the past.

She's so busy staring up at how your face contorts in pleasure that she doesn't realize that she hasn't moved her fingers in a hot minute. The teasing is torturous for you.

"Ellie," she hears you whine, "Please!" You rut your hips against her fingers and she feels lightheaded. Jesus fucking Christ.

"Sorry, pretty girl. Got distracted." She smirks. "I'll give you what you want now." Ellie finally moves her fingers, curling them in and out slowly. You groan again and she laughs. "Okay, okay! Sorry." Her face darkens and she bites her lip. "You want me to fuck you? Alright, I'll fuck you."

Ellie's fingers begin to pump inside you, hitting all the spots that make you jump and squirm, and you're sure the rusted heap of a car you're in is about to fall off its chassis. She's going so fast and hard that you're immediately overwhelmed and you don't know where to put your hands. In the span of a minute, they cup your face, a forearm slings over your eyes, and you throw your arms up against the window. Finally, you settle on cupping your cheeks, fingers slit open so you can peer down at Ellie's focus on you.

Her eyes haven't left your pussy since she started. She's absolutely mesmerized by how fucking wet you are, how you seem to suck her fingers back in as she tries to pull out and your body betrays how desperately you want her. Ellie's mouth is slightly agape and she can't help when her tongue flickers out to lick curiously at your clit, wanting to taste you again.

"Fu- fuck!" You yelp, bucking your hips up into her face. Ellie snorts as she watches how you squirm. You can feel something building and though you have an idea of what it is, it's building fast and slightly scaring you. "Wait, Els, hold on a second, something- ah- I think- I think I'm-"

You're nervous about how it creeps up on you so suddenly but you find there isn't time to be self-conscious about it because you cum, and you wonder why God could possibly think that doing this is a sin. How could it be a sin if it felt so right?

You don't know what sound you made or how your face looks, but by the way Ellie looks up at you, it must've been something. Her eyes flicker back down to how your clit pulses as you finish, leaking cum onto her fingers and trailing down her hand. You know what she's fucking thinking because you always do. Before you can form a sentence, she's licking up your cum like it's the best meal she's tasted.

You shudder violently. "Ellie, holy fuck, stop, I'm still sensitive! Oh m- Ellie, come on!" Only when you push her face up does she stop, giving you the cheekiest grin.

You roll your eyes and throw your head back against the car door, panting. The dull ache in your thighs is apparent when you attempt to sit, pulling your panties up and cringing at how your cum pools on them.

Ellie still hasn't said anything. You glance over at her, wondering how she feels about whatever just happened. She's looking down, grey hoodie still pulled up to her elbows, staring at the fingers she'd just fucked you with. She glances up at you, a shit-eating grin spreading across her face. 

“That was hot.” Her hand rubs up and down your thigh, a kind of comfort you’d never received from her. It wasn’t unwelcome.

You don’t quite know how to feel. There are twinges of guilt gnawing at your stomach, that religious guilt creeping in. Had you done something wrong? 

But at the same time, there was a warmth in Ellie’s gaze that made you feel like maybe, it was all worth it. Was it unholy? Almost definitely. But this awakening couldn’t be all bad if she kept looking at you with those soft, fond eyes.

my masterlist...

[bangaveragewhitewine]

soft slow, morning glow

Steve Harrington x Reader

A prosaic peek at Steve Harrington’s inability to sleep in and stay in bed and his reasons for changing his ways. 

October 1997; a cosy easy morning, where kisses are shared and ABBA songs are sung as a lullaby.

Word count: 4.3K

Content/Warnings: TW for talk of bleeding during pregnancy, borderline neglectful parents. 

Mention of sex (18+), not explicit. This contains dad!Steve & mom! reader toward the end; pregnant reader. Kinda rambling. Very soft. Low angst (but not none).

Note: Thank you to my ST rewatch for making me fall for Steve all over again. 

Proofread by @specialagentmonkey | Divider by @silkholland

Steve Harrington was always an early riser. 

As a honey-haired little boy, he spent Saturday mornings on the sofa watching cartoons with the volume dialled low as his parents slept. He knew not to make a mess with the cereal, or the milk, rewarded with a stack of pancakes or a new toy for keeping himself amused as Richard and Katherine Harrington slept off the previous evening’s dinner party hangover. 

Always the first awake at sleepovers, he would wait with bated breath for Tommy to stir or feign a sneeze to wake him. 

He never had to be dragged from bed to go to school during the week, always up and at ‘em to go see his friends, play tag and swap baseball cards on the playground. 

As a sporty and popular teenager, he started running when he didn’t have early swim practice or basketball. Steve rose with the sun and waved to his neighbours politely as his shiny sneakers slapped the pavements of Loch Nora. 

He was never sure what he was running from, or towards, but the burn of chilly morning air in his lungs made him feel alive. 

When he started going to house parties and hangouts on Saturday nights, his Sundays still started early, dragged to show face at his parent’s church. It was less about faith and god and all about appearances. He snuck out of bedroom windows, hopped white picket fences as the sun rose, fought hangovers as the priest’s voice droned and caught the eyes of pretty girls from the convent school a town over - they always blushed when he smiled at them or dropped them a sly little wink as the collection plate was passed around. 

When his parents started travelling more, after the shortlived re-commitment to the church, Steve’s Sunday morning hangovers were kept at bay with cold swims in the pool or hot coffee and loud music in the kitchen as he tried and failed to focus on homework.  

Steve started working right out of school as punishment for unsubmitted college applications and lower-than-predicted grades. He volunteered for the opening shifts in Scoops Ahoy and Family Video - he liked the responsibility and having a purpose, having an excuse to be out of the house before his parents could tutt and fuss and lecture him. It was easier when they weren’t there; when the office in Indy needed Richard’s attention more than his wife and son did, when Katherine spotted smears of lipstick on his collars again and insisted she spend some time with him in the city apartment. 

In their absence, the Harrington house was a mausoleum of failure that Steve couldn’t bear to be in. So he raised his hand for early delivery shifts and stock takes and drove his friends to school when he didn’t have to, already awake after another night of nightmares, memories of flying fists. 

Steve Harrington rose early and burned bright; burned out quickly when he realised he didn’t know what to do with himself or what his purpose was. 

He filled his time with making himself useful to other people, chasing and seeking a purpose or a person to fill the gaps and spaces in his chest; the hollows once reserved for the people who didn’t return the outpouring of love he offered so freely, so innocently. He found and made a rag-bag bunch of friends, a found family, who returned the love he deserved in the ways they knew how. Woven and knotted friendship bracelets, squished candy bars, mixtapes, weed sold and rolled at buddy rates or for nothing at all.

Steve Harrington moved to the city with his best friends; a Beemer and a battered van filled with boxes and suitcases. The early morning drive made Steve Harrington glow golden in the rising sun, his excited eyes hidden behind dark-tinted sunglasses as Robin Buckley snored in the passenger seat and Eddie Munson listened to metal at an ear-bleeding volume in his van and flipped Steve off with that big grin in the rearview mirror. They stopped for strong coffee and sweet pancakes and started a new chapter in the city. 

When you fell in love with Steve in 1990, he found a reason to stay in bed a little longer. A reason to slow down, soak up the sunshine glow you shone on him. 

You spent Saturday nights with friends, a patchwork group cheering on Corroded Coffin and selling T-shirts and tapes at a merch table when they scored a bigger venue and a bigger crowd. Movie nights and takeout Chinese food and a stack of new and old movies from Blockbuster. Date nights at swanky bars and restaurants, with flickering candles and pizza on the way home because you didn’t want the night to end yet. You spent hours in bed together, night and morning, talking about everything under the rising sun and dwindling moon, learning about each other’s life and mapping each other’s body with kisses and gentle touches. 

In the morning he gazed at your sleepy softness and took his own pulse to make sure he wasn’t dying. No heart attack, just falling in love.

He brought you cups of coffee and sweet pastries from the bakery a block away when his limbs felt restless. He always got back into bed with you to cuddle and while away the morning without a moment wasted. With Steve, those mornings were syrupy slow; he worshipped you between your thighs and held your hands as the headboard bashed against the wall.

You became Mrs. Steve Harrington in the spring of ‘94. 

A small wedding. A big party for your friends. A honeymoon week where every morning felt like a perfect lazy Saturday.

When Steve found his reason to stay in bed, together you created a reason that kept you from it. 

Bethany Rose Harrington. Born June 21st 1995. 

Beth had her Daddy’s eyes and her Mama’s nose, and the sweetest little dimples in her smiley pink cheeks. She was her Daddy’s little doughnut, her Mama’s little bee. She inherited Steve’s charm and wrapped her extensive collection of doting uncles and aunts right around her tiny finger. She took after you in the way that Steve was completely and utterly in love with her. 

Just like her Dad, Beth liked to start the day early. After a few weeks of seeking out and settling into a routine, Steve spent the earliest part of the day feeding his little Bethie her bottle of milk in the cosy armchair nestled in the corner of her pale yellow nursery. As he watched her big brown eyes gaze and blink, felt her tiny fist wrap around his finger, Steve decided that these were the happiest mornings of his life. 

On those soft and slow mornings, you could hear Steve’s low murmur to your little girl through the baby monitor when his excitement to see her gummy smile or stop her sad fat tears bypassed the off-switch. You fell back asleep to the sound of Steve telling Beth about how the Cubs and the Bulls (their teams now) were doing this season, or about the walk in the park you were going to go on once ‘beautiful mama’ was awake. He sang to her; never typical lullabies, Queen and ABBA and Dusty Springfield. 

Steve basked in the joy of her little smiles, soaked in the soft cooing noises as Beth found her voice to talk back to her Daddy. When she fell asleep again, milk-drunk with her cheek against his heartbeat, Steve watched the morning sky shift and brighten and listened out for the sound of your waking time. The soft thud and shuffle from bed to bathroom, running water, your yawn and stretch, the gentle steps to seek and find him and your little treasure. You filled reams of camera film, documenting Steve as a Dad, your little girl's first weeks and months. Lit by morning light, by afternoon sun and the shade of the tree in your yard, and dusky nighttime lit by nightlights.

When your laundry list of chores allowed it, you took one of your three options on those mornings of parenthood - take turns to bask in the warmth of lavender and milk-scented baby cuddles while the other showered; bring the sleeping beauty back to your bed to gaze at the ten fingers and ten toes you had created together; or leave the sleepy and full-tummied grub to sleep in her crib again to spend the slow dawn hours holding each other and trading kisses, and knotting yourselves up in the sheets together once the doctor gave you the all-clear and a prescription for birth control. 

You did plenty of all three. 

Summer turned to Autumn, then Winter, and Steve balanced being a father and husband with keeping a roof over your heads and the final year of his programme to get his qualification to become a guidance counsellor. His mornings with Beth were part of his routine, leaving her smiling and drooly for you when he kissed his girls goodbye. Missing him during full days of supervised sessions and hours in the college library when he wasn’t in classes bonded you and Beth, thick as thieves and lovestruck for the golden Harrington boy-turned-man. You made sure that he never missed a moment with how many pictures you took, and Beth saved all of her firsts for when he was home. You coached her to say ‘dada’ in Steve’s absence and he sobbed happy tears when she parroted it back. (He had been coaching her to say ‘mama’ during their early mornings together).

Your late nights of talking turned to early-to-bed nights, sleeping when the baby slept and when your little home was some semblance of clean and tidy. Steve fell asleep to the sound of Bethie’s breath on the monitor, your heart under his cheek and the soft stroke of your fingers in his hair, along the length of his arm. 

Both of you were exhausted. Neither of you had ever been happier. 

When he graduated in the Summer, you and Beth cheered and clapped for your golden boy along with his best friends - the loudest bunch in the college auditorium. A picture of the Harrington trio - Steve in his shirt and tie and graduation gown balancing a smiley baby and his degree as you kiss his cheek and tickle Beth’s tummy for the camera - was placed with pride on his desk when he started a counsellor job that landed in his lap in the late summer of ‘96. He coached basketball two afternoons a week on the side; it was perfect for him.

You go back to work part-time and you balance taking care of Beth and each other with the utmost care. With help from your family and Steve’s trust fund from the Harrington’s, you make it work. You are what he holds dear, pride of place in the centre of his chest, once vacant and hollow. The gaping space he yearned to fill with the wrong friends, the wrong girls, watery beer and too many cigarettes. 

By the Fall of ‘97, Steve had learned to sleep again. Sleep when the baby sleeps. Enjoy your days off. Enjoy every moment. He is. He’s so tired but never happier. 

This morning, you wake first. 

Your little house in the Chicago suburbs is bathed in autumn darkness on a lazy Saturday.  Six a.m. and Steve snores peacefully. 

Beth is silent, dreaming of her two favourite things: fairies and pancakes. That top five list favourites is rounded out by her Daddy and Mama and Mrs. Murphy’s orange cat that visits the backyard. 

The littlest Harrington is an early bird too, twirling in your tummy beneath Steve’s protective hand. Until Steve can take the morning shift, you are the early riser.

Beth is your sleepy little dreamer, she loves her bed like her Mama. She sneaks in between you and Steve (and the bump now too) when she wakes too early; you spend those mornings gazing and counting fingers and toes again like when she was a tiny thing. 

This baby however seems to take after her father’s love of sport, the way she practices the aim and strength of her kicks on your bladder. You don’t officially know yet (they were less than cooperative at the last ultrasound), but you know it’s a girl. Steve swayed to boy for a day or two before realising you were right. Maybe next time… 

The flush and sigh-groan from your aching back pulls Steve from sleep. When you pad back in from the little bathroom, he’s just about upright and wild-haired. 

“Y’okay?” Eyes swollen with sleep, he reaches blindly for you to help you back into the cosy nest of blankets. 

“Mm, needed to pee.” 

You try to keep your cold feet away but Steve sandwiches them between his own size fourteen and always warm feet. His lips brush your shoulder and the back of your neck when you settle into a comfortable position; Bump dictates what will suffice as ‘comfortable’ and settles under her father’s comforting hand. Harrington’s magic touch is famed in your home; settling gassy babies and working out knotted shoulders, fixing leaky faucets and carrying all of the groceries inside in two heavy handfuls, making shadow-puppet shows on the bedroom wall and holding back your hair when you’re not well. 

Slowly, small-spooned by Steve’s bigger body, you drift again. Sleep comes and goes like an inconsistent tide, and you are anchored safely in his arms. Baby names ebb and flow into your tired head and you wish Steve was awake to tell you what he thought of ‘Heather’ or ‘Ava’. Whether your (very slow) re-read of Little Women was influencing you too much to ‘Josie’. You wonder about how much candy you should get for the trick-or-treaters, and whether Beth will be too scared to help you answer the door to them this year. 

You wish he was awake - because you always wish your every waking moment was spent with Steve Harrington - but you’re so glad he is sleeping soundly, snoring sweetly behind you. You wish you could take more responsibility, take the pressure he puts on his own shoulders from him, but this pregnancy is less easy than the first and you hate that you can’t do it all anymore. You take solace in the fact that Steve is asleep, not awake worrying or nesting. 

Turning in his sleepy hold, you place his hand back on the bump to keep the littlest Harrington settled and content, and watch your handsome husband look like the teenager you wish you had known. You map the laughter lines instead of the ones etched by worry, counting the happy memories (which are insurmountable) as you fall back to sleep with him at last. 

Sleeping Beauty herself slumbers on until almost 8 a.m., meaning that both you and Steve sleep until almost 8 a.m. too - later on you will toast coffee (decaf for you) over that parent win. For the next few months, the weekends mean Steve will be hitting snooze on his body clock when the chances arise. 

This morning Beth’s little voice sings his name down the hall. Steve wakes with a smile and kisses your sleepy face as you stretch and peel your eyes open. 

“You’re up, Coach.” Your voice is a tired yawn, mumbled into the fluffy duvet Steve untangles himself from.

“Bring her in for cuddles please.” You pout for a tired kiss and hum happily when he grants your wish. 

Steve’s ankles crack as he walks from your room to Beth’s. She’s wide awake and wild-haired, matching her Dad, and she sits up in her bed with her bunny-teddy clutched in her fist. 

“Hi bumblebee,” he gasps, his tiredness swept away by his genuine joy to see her. Steve lays down on her too-small-for-him baby bed and pretends to get comfy to sleep again. “Sleepover?” he asks, opening his arm for her. 

“Nooooo, yo’bed!” Her sweet voice crackles with sleepiness and the remnants of a cold she picked up as the seasons changed. 

In the warmth of your bed, you can hear the mini-eye-roll she’s giving her Dad as he plays up to her dramatics. Uncle Dustin has a lot to answer for. 

“Bethie,” you call from your nest, “I miss you.” 

Steve watches with barely restrained amusement as her face beams bright like sunshine before leaving him in the lurch to seek out Mama. “Hey! What about me?!” 

You can hear his grumbling as he hauls himself up from the tiny toddler bed but your focus is the bundle of sunshine that bounds her way to your room in her sky-blue jammies. Pushing messy hair from her face, she squeaks happily as you lift her before Steve can beat you to it. You didn’t want another moment apart from your girl and she burrows against your chest under the toasty-warm duvet. 

“Morning Betty Boop.” You press kisses to her smiling face and hear Steve stomp and flop back into the room and into the bed. 

“Is Daddy not invited to this love-in? Just for Mama and Beth?” he asks, scowling at your smushed-together faces. 

You cuddle Beth and stroke her back as the girl shifts her impish gaze to Steve. “What do you think, Betty? Kisses for Dada?”

She can never ever resist him and reach-grabs out to be gathered in his big strong arms for kisses and cuddles. 

Steve lights up, features relaxing from his feigned annoyance, as he gives and receives morning kisses. You are gathered up alongside the titch of a girl and with her help, you smother kisses all over Steve’s happy face. 

“Never ever not invited to the love-in, my love.” You kiss his shadowed jaw once and tuck yourself under his arm. 

“Kiss d’baby?” Beth’s messy head pops up and looks at you hopefully. 

“You wanna say good morning to Baby?” Steve asks, and she nods. “Mama?”

“I think she’s asleep, but I bet she’ll wake up when she hears Big Sis and Dada.” Beneath the pitched tent of the duvet, you lift Steve’s t-shirt and present the rounded bump for inclusion in the morning love-in.

Beth has been immensely eager to meet her baby since she took notice of your bump and realised the new baby was actually in there.

The little girl’s pillow-soft cheek rests against the curve as she hugs around your middle. “Moh’nin, baby.” Her little voice is still a little stuffed up, nasal. 

Your heart and tears swell as you watch her with Steve, who kisses the bump and murmurs hello. You’re at that point of pregnancy where you could cry when the wind changes and you cover your eyes so Beth won’t go out in sympathy-tears with you. 

Steve’s big hand squeezes your hand as he distracts Beth, who babbles in toddler talk to her sibling. His eyes are wide and worried as he looks up and sees the hitch of your chest. He’s had that worried look since you bled at ten weeks and the doctor put you on bed rest, just three weeks into actually knowing you were pregnant. Everything has settled bar your hormones and emotions; two perfect heartbeats, an active healthy baby, a happy but tired Mom. Steve is more scared now than he was with Beth but pretends to be brave for you.

You swipe at your hot tears, dry your hand in your t-shirt before reaching down to stroke through Steve’s thick hair. 

“M’okay.” You give him a watery smile. “She’s just… so sweet, Stevie.” 

Moving up to lie along your side, Steve wipes your cheek and presses a kiss to the trail of the tears left behind. “Sweetest. Sweet Bee. Feelin’ okay?” 

His hand stays on top of your bump and then passes over Bethany’s bedhead when she looks up curiously. 

Seeing that she is missing out, Beth decides she has had enough and wants to cuddle with you instead of the baby who won’t kick back hello. She wiggles up to lie on Steve’s chest, little fingers poking into the freckles and moles as he pulls the duvet back around you all like a cosy cocoon. 

“Feeling good. You okay?”

Steve has tucked away his worry again, but you still see the pinch in his brow - though the curious little fingers might be the reason for that. 

“Peachy.” He chases the poking fingers with a growling kiss, pulling a shrieking giggle from Beth. “Hello, can I help you? Why are we poking Daddy this morning, huh?” 

You giggle with Beth and kiss where her fingers had pressed, modelling the gentle sweetness you know she possesses in multitudes. “Poor Daddy. See, Betty? Gentle kissies.” A kiss is snuck onto his mouth for good measure. 

“Daddy,” Beth sing-songs, patting his cheek lovingly. 

“Bethie,” Steve sings back to her, echoing her melody. He accepts a wet baby-kiss as you curl close to them both.

You twirl a finger in the messy wave of her hair. “What will we do today? Do you want to get some library books? Or we could… go to the park?” 

Steve pats her back gently. “Oh wow. All the possibilities, huh?” His lips press to Beth’s forehead as she cuddles up to him, her fingers distracted by the gold chain he wears around his neck. “Gentle, please.” He kisses her head again and looks at you. “We can do both… Go get a t-r-e-a-t?” 

You smile and nod, covering Steve’s hand on Beth’s small back. “I like t-r-e-a-ts. What do you want to do, big guy?” 

Steve’s fingers slot with yours. His lips brush your head as you share his pillow - the firm one to help with his neck pain. “Just be with you two. Could stay right here all day and I’d be the happiest guy.” 

You press your nose against his cheek and close your eyes; you’re both surrounded by your favourite people, it is utter bliss. 

“I love you.” Your voice is soft and tired against his stubbly jaw. 

“Love you. So much, babe.” 

Steve tilts his head so you can share a morning-breath-be-damned kiss. He wishes he had woke up sooner, before the wide-eyed toddler, so that he could have showered you with kisses, made out like teenagers (despite the baby bump between you). 

“No! Me!” The frustrated little whine makes you smile apologetically to each other, chancing one more peck before you both look to scowling Beth. 

“Sorry, Bee. Mama’s too delicious for me to resist.”

“Steve!” you tuck your face in his neck as you laugh, an affectionate headbutt. 

“What? The kid’s gotta know.”

The two-year-old smushes her face to her Dad’s chest, still too little to comprehend her Dad’s silly banter when she just wants to be the centre of both of your attention. You have a few months left to figure that out before the baby arrives, but it scares you that she might feel like she’s not the best thing that ever happened you (bar her Dad, of course). 

Your pout matches hers and you push back the stinging Mom Guilt Tears. She is only coaxed away with sweet little cheek-kisses from you as you hum-sing Take a Chance on Me (accompanied by Steve’s tapping fingers on her back ‘take a chance, take a chance, take a, take a chance-chance.)

The girl's smile splits her frustrated face, a quiet giggle as she is serenaded by her current favourite song (you have just got I Was Made For Lovin’ You out of your head after Steve had introduced her to KISS in the car). Her little arm hooks around your head as you whisper how much you love her, soft voice tickling her ear and cheek. 

Beth’s laughter coaxes a fluttering kick against your belly, which Steve feels against his side as you spoon against him. He wears the same wide-eyed joy on his face every time he has felt your babies kick. 

“Oo, she’s awake again. Finally joining the party.” You rest your hand against the side of your rounded belly and telepathically tell the tiny one how much you love them too, how you can’t wait to meet them but please stay in there until they’re fully cooked and ready. 

Steve’s free hand - the one not keeping Beth upright as she sits up on his torso - joins yours and echoes your telepathic communication to the littlest Harrington - I love you, I can’t wait to hold you, please stay safe in there and be nice to your Mom. 

His wide palm on your bump settles the fluttering before she aims her kick right against it Hi Dad! Okay, Dad!

You share a secret little smile with him and kiss his cheek as his eyes shimmer before rolling onto your achy back, feeling the satisfaction of the pop and crack as your spine relaxes against the mattress. Steve’s hand stays on your belly, and you hug his arm to your chest, as Beth sings her toddler-babble version of an ABBA mashup for you both from her throne. 

Steve’s face hurts from smiling as he listens to her, hears some semblance of the lyrics in Beth-speak. He doesn’t remember mornings like this with his parents, few and far between were the times he was even allowed to cuddle with them in bed on a weekend morning.

You glance at his face, watching shifting emotions come and go as he remembers, tries to forget and focuses on the memories being made right now in your cosy nest of a bed. You squeeze his arm and hold his hand on your belly - matching gold wedding rings clicking against each other as your fingers intertwine. 

Steve squeezes your hand, three pulses. There is simply nowhere he would rather be. 

[meantaylorsversion]

I CAN SEE YOU BEING MY ADDICTION

Football Player!Peter Parker x Marching Band!Shy!Reader

summary; both you and peter were nominated for homecoming court, but not as each other's dates. In fact you two kept your relationship a secret from everyone, even your closest friends. He wished he could show you off to the whole school

warnings; none lol

notes; pookies i am not in band but i have a lot of band friends so forgive me if this isn't the most accurate

words; 1.3k?

You watched as the crowd roared when Peter ran into the end zone. Your instrument blaring, to the sound of a song you've played many times before. A sly smile appeared on your face, the corner of your lips holding a secret only two people knew. It was a stroke of luck that the cheerleaders were placed in front of the band. All anyone could see from the big screen was Peter looking towards the cheerleaders with a big grin on his face, or what they thought was a smile underneath the helmet. The game was a landslide, the team was up 35 while the other team only had one touchdown from the first quarter and hadn't scored since. You heard your best friend at your side, whispering, "Why are you watching Parker? I thought you hated him,"

You scoff, turning your face away from them, "When have I ever said that! He's in my physics class and he's.....nice!" You hated lying to your best friend but you liked having him all to yourself. You and Peter had been dating secretly for a few months but you knew what all your friends would say. They were wrong, they only saw the persona he put on in school, but beneath that was the sweet and nerdy boy who geeked out over Star Wars while you threw popcorn at him. They didn't know how he visited his parent's graves every Sunday, or how he adored his Aunt May.

They scoffed lightly, "Yeah and the sky is green!" You rolled your eyes ignoring their comment, gluing your sight to the field, holding your instrument tightly.

The timer had ticked down, the lights shining brightly on the players. It was almost half-time, which was when the nominations for Homecoming Court would be announced. There was no chance that Peter wouldn't be voted for King, and you knew that Gwen Stacy would be nominated as his 'date'. It didn't bother you at all. No, not at all.

What you didn't account for was your friend putting your name in for the ballot and all of the music department voting for you and the Drum Major Austin Lawrence. The whistle blew, signaling the game was at halftime.  You let out a breath of relief as you got off the stands, following behind your friends slowly, hoping to catch a glimpse of Peter while the other marching band took the field.

You almost stumbled over your feet as you saw Peter take off his helmet as he exited the field. No matter how many times you saw your boyfriend, his beauty always took your breath away. The front strands of his hair stuck to his forehead, his face holding a grin as his teammates bumped their shoulders with him, as they left to the locker-room. You heard him laughing and joking with them, and you wish he would never stop laughing, the sound was so melodious to you that it felt brighter than the sun. You had spent so much staring at him that your friend had grabbed your arm and pulled you over to the concession stands, grabbing the food Austin was holding for them and shoving it into your hands, and you turned your head to the big screen. You could see the pictures of Peter and Gwen from the yearbook being projected as the announcer had started speaking.

You felt the envy spread throughout your body, it was stupid but you couldn't control it. Your jaw had clenched, so much so your friend put their hand on your shoulder, raising an eyebrow at you.

"Y/N? What's your problem?" Their eyebrows furrowed, as they tried to discreetly look at Austin. He knew about the nominations, your friend had convinced him to keep it a secret. They thought it'd be a nice suprise for your senior year, but you never liked the spotlight. It's why you haven't revealed that you and Peter are dating, meanwhile there was nothing more in the world that he wanted to do than show you off to the whole school. Your friend waited for your answer, but you were lost in thought, watching Peter from afar.

"Huh? Oh it's nothing, um just a headache I guess," You replied, before you practically jumped out of your skin when you heard your name and Austin's name was announced, heard all around the stadium. The picture of you two was you and Austin talking during a break at a football game, but what you didn't notice was the lovestruck look on his face. Peter noticed, he's been noticing since you guys started dating, and he hated it.

Peter had a class with him once, and he found him annoying. Was Peter biased? No, of course not, why would he be? It's not like the kid was in love with his girlfriend or anything. It had irked him so much how he couldn't go up and kiss you like the world was ending, all because you didn't want to deal with the backlash of dating the school's quarterback. He understood of course, but he loved you so much and all he wanted to do was show you off.

The camera had practically put the camera in front of you and Austin's face, the look of surprise evident on yours. You heard the whole band from behind cheering as Austin put his arm around you, and smiled down at you.

He practically shouted in your ear, “C’mon! Cheer up! This is supposed to be fun!" You laughed nervously, trying to keep your unease at bay, at least while the camera was pointed at you two. Luckily for you, the camera man walked away, intending to find the next homecoming couple. You moved yourself out from underneath Austin's arm and walked away from him and your friend.

It was lucky that the band didn't have to be back for another 15 minutes and that Peter saw you walking away from them. He followed after in a safe distance, so that there wouldn't be any suspicion, he knew he should be in the locker room, but he knew you were upset and he couldn't give a damn about anyone else in this moment. You found a little hiding spot in freshman year in the stadium and any time you needed a moment to yourself during a game, you’d escape there.

“Y/N, babe? What’s wrong?” He frowned, as he looked down at you, reaching for you. You melted into his arms, allowing yourself one moment in public with him.

"I didn't know I was nominated for it," You mumbled into his chest, scrunching your nose slightly as his jersey was sweaty. He hugged you a little tighter before Peter let go and looked into your e/c eyes.

"Babe, it won't be that bad ok? You are an amazing person and I love you." He reassured, kissing your cheek before running back to the locker room. He could care less if his coach was mad, all he cared about was you.

You smiled sweetly as he walked away, taking a deep breath before walking back to the band bleachers. Your friends breathed a sigh of relief as they saw you walk up.

"Where were you? We turned around for one second and you were gone! And you didn't come back for five minutes!" Your friend whisper shouted as you walked up the bleachers. You ignored them, walking back to your spot ignoring them. You were pissed, you didn't even know about it and now you had to do all this extra stuff for homecoming that you didn't want to! All you wanted to do was go with your friends and watch Peter from a distance.

They didn't understand, it was the whole reason your relationship with Peter was a secret, you hated attention! And now you had to do all this extra stuff for Homecoming now, though you would be able to spend more time with Peter or at least be in his presence.

[windvexer]

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I'm not even quite sure how to articulate what I want to ask. I have religious trauma- specifically Christian- and am presently in an environment where this is being aggravated on the daily. When it comes to spirit work and witchcraft, in spite of a deep fascination with and desire to explore these practices, I feel like... to welcome them into my life on the level that they require would also be to open myself to the magical thinking inherent in this religious paradigm, and all the ways I would be violating it (and am already doing so by simply existing in ways seen as deviant, or sinful). I'm prone to succumbing to scrupulosity, and am perhaps wondering if you have any advice or experience in this regard. How to overcome it, or perhaps your opinion? I've been following you for some time, and you seem like a very intelligent, and level-headed person; I would value and deeply appreciate your feedback on the matter.

Previous anon (hopefully)- on that note, how much of magic do you think can be explained by confirmation bias? Thank you, again, for your time.

Hello, Anon.

Let's start with the easy bit!

I believe in literal magic. That is to say, I think magical power, spirits, & so forth, are actually real.

Therefore, I think no magic is explained by confirmation bias. If something is just confirmation bias, it isn't magic. I think there are very interesting discussions to be had about the intersection of personal perception and tinkering with reality, and I don't mean to disregard the nuances of the conversation.

I think there is a chance that what you might be asking is, "how often do people think they are doing Magic(tm) but are just experiencing confirmation bias?" to which I say, probably quite a lot.

I have very specific beliefs about how to accomplish magic, especially Witchcraft, which is one kind of way to work magic. I think very many people who are intending to do magic, aren't.

[...] to welcome them into my life on the level that they require would also be to open myself to the magical thinking inherent in this religious paradigm

When you say "this religious paradigm" do you mean Witchcraft, or Christianity? I suspect what you're saying, but I'm not 100% sure, is that to embrace spirit work and witchcraft is to also breach a barrier you've built to protect yourself against your scrupulosity.

I think this prior ask might be helpful to you.

I don't at all mean to try and speak in a general theological sense, but only out of personal experience:

I was raised Christian and it did leave me with Problems, one of those being the tricky matter of love.

I recall in Sunday school, we watched a video with puppets or something, that taught us how to correctly think about love, and how to correctly feel love. This was twenty years ago or so, and I don't remember the details, but it was like this:

"You might say that you love a cheeseburger, but do you? NO! You like a cheeseburger, but you love God. "You might say that you love watching TV, but do you? NO! You like watching television, but you love God."

I still think about this sometimes. We were a lot of children in a room, being taught that the only true love that's acceptable to feel is towards this specific deity (I think parents got a piece of the pie, which was nice for them).

We learned lots and lots about love, and how God's love is perfect and human love is flawed, and how we should love, and... a whole big thing, you know?

And later on when I realized I had to stop being Christian, there was this problem of love again:

That there is no more pure or unconditional love in the universe, and that turning away from God and Jesus meant that I would never experience unconditional love ever again. That there was no other being or force in the universe that would want to protect me and cherish me as much as God did.

Well. Imagine the stress. I was someone out there who knew my toes were in a stream, but what a lonely stream it was. And it took me a while to figure it out, which is:

Witchcraft - the kind I practice, at least - is all about love. It's about the love of finding your Family, and living as an active member of that family.

Figuring this out was wonderfully healing to me, because all of the sudden a big piece of that Christianity thing started to make a lot of sense.

Sure, God is love. But to me, he's a specific kind of love. His kind of love isn't home to me. And when you go out there and start touching all these spirits, and pagan gods, and powers in ourselves and in nature, I think you might come to the same conclusions I did:

Love abounds. Pure, true, unconditional love is as common as water. It fills the sky like clouds, like vapor, like rain. Unconditional love, true benevolence, and deep spiritual acceptance infuse the world. The world around us is overflowing with it.

The problem is, not each of us are kin with the same spiritual families. The rainforest pond that nurtures my damp frog skin may be suffocating to you, if you're a jackrabbit. If you're a jackrabbit, you've got to get yourself over to a nice chaparral zone. The good Christian God is an ancient oak tree, and the perfect home to many.

But jackrabbits don't live in oak trees. Neither do rainforest frogs. Sometimes I seek out the shelter of his shade (depending on the angle of the sun), and I know exactly where to go if only an acorn will do.

I'm a spiritual critter. I have spiritual needs. And spirit work and witchcraft can just be fucking around with the otherworld to do sorcery, sure. I don't even mean that in a derogatory way - sorcery is great, and doesn't have to be deeply spiritual, or whatever.

But spirit work and witchcraft is also finding where you belong, and learning how to be an active member of your personal spiritual microbiome. And we all deserve that. We all deserve a chance to live spiritually with our true spiritual families, in our natural spiritual environments.

The oak tree doesn't judge the rabbit for living in a burrow. From time to time the birds get confused about the situation, but that's quite alright.

Lots of room to hide from birds in burrows.

You can mess around with sorcery, if that's all that interests you. But if you're someone who senses, or dares to hope, that Home is still out there somewhere -

What deviancy can there be in trying to find it?

[itslenagain]

How did I figure out I was a lesbian at 27?

Hi I'm high on cold medicine & I've had people ask me before how I figured out that I am a lesbian vs bi/pan sooo here is a long post on my journey & how I figured out I'm not actually into men!

I started out by establishing these very basic facts:

While I have had serious relationships with men, there was always an underlying feeling of discomfort surrounding those relationships that I struggled to identify

While (at that time) I had not had a serious relationship with a woman, I found that I did not feel that discomfort during past romantic and sexual encounters with women

I have always felt romantic and sexual attraction towards women (though I am definitely ace-spec, which I will discuss further below), but don't really experience those attractions towards men

I have significant relationship trauma related to previous relationships with men, and also significant childhood trauma. TRAUMA/MENTAL ILLNESS IS NOT A CAUSE OF QUEERNESS! But, it was important for me to address this in my specific situation (will discuss in more detail below)

Once I had established the facts, I started to analyze a little further. One thing that was helpful for me to learn about comphet and to understand the role it played in how I viewed romantic relationships. If you've found this post because you are questioning and you're unsure about what comphet is or what it means, this article explains how comphet is taught throughout childhood and the potential consequences it may have on queer teens and adults.

Which leads us to,

Part 1: Understanding my Tragic Backstory™️

I, unfortunately like many other queer people, was raised in a very cisheteronormative home where my parents were openly transphobic and, while slightly quieter about it, homophobic. When my parents talked to me about my future, their idea of my future absolutely included me finding a man and having his children. It was almost unthinkable for them to imagine I could have any other goal in life. That was how they were raised, and in turn, that's how they raised me. I often felt like I was fighting for their approval.

I knew from my early teens that I liked girls.

(It would take me until my mid-20's to figure out that I am non-binary but that's a story for another post)

For my 13th birthday party, my friends and I rode a limo to go to see the Twilight movie in theaters, since we all were obsessed with the books. My friends were arguing over whether Edward or Jacob would be the better kisser (don't act like you weren't cringe at 13) and the whole time I could not imagine myself kissing literally any of the men in that movie. Now, Rosalie? Oh my GOD I wanted her to step on me. Alice? Please, climb on top of me and do my eyeliner. I shipped Bella and Alice, but also Bella and Bree, because of course I did. 🐀✨️

At that time in my life, I also would regularly attend Catholic mass every Sunday with my neighbor. She was like a grandmother to me, she was one of my safe spaces away from my parents. I looked up to her. We would drink coffee at her kitchen table and chat about school and about life. She taught me how to crochet. We both loved to sing and would sit in the front row together so we could be close to the piano at church. I didn't know she had any kids of her own until she told me about her daughter. She would talk about her in a way that you could tell it pained her. She told me how her daughter made a decision that disappointed her, how she prayed every Sunday that she would see the light and come back to the church.

The decision her daughter made? Marrying a woman.

So despite knowing and recognizing that I was attracted to women, knowing that not only my parents, but also this person who at the time I seriously looked up to, would likely not be accepting of me dating women, I felt like I had to hide. It also made me believe that maybe I *was* attracted to men, I just hadn't met the right one yet. Yes, I even told everyone I was Team Edward.

When I was 14, I ended up in a 3 month relationship with someone who at the time identified as a girl (has since figured out he's a trans guy) and felt ready to talk to my parents. I planned to come out to them as bisexual. They were NOT okay with this. Mom said that bisexual doesn't exist (booo) and that I wasn't allowed to be a lesbian because women could never possibly have happy relationships with each other (she does not have any long-term female friendships) and she didn't want me to have a "miserable life" (I feel sad for anyone who is miserable around women tbh).

Cue the part where I decided to try dating a man to see what it was like and ended up in a sexually and emotionally abusive relationship! ✨️🎉🎊

Cue parents telling me that I can't base my sexuality on one bad experience! ✨️🎉🎊

Cue my neighbor telling me God was preparing a man for me and I just had to be patient and trust in the Lord to find him! ✨️🎉🎊

Cue therapists who told me I probably felt uncomfortable around men because I was traumatized and I'd eventually get over it! ✨️🎉🎊

Cue friends, family, and random strangers telling me it's okay and it's "not all men" and one day I'd find the perfect man who would "fix my broken heart!" ✨️🎉🎊

So you can see how I became confused by all of this! Part of me wanted to believe that I *could* still be attracted to men, that I *could* have a healthy relationship with one, and anytime I had doubts, I'd basically end up gaslighting myself and blaming my trauma.

Which brings us to,

Part 2: Maybe I *did* just need to meet the right man?

I did not have any positive male role models growing up. My parents' marriage was, to put it mildly, not great. It's a common thing in media to see men and women in relationships that don't even really seem to like each other! Comedians make a killing off of the "old ball & chain" type jokes. Straight people often speak of their spouses as if they're an annoyance.

So when you consider all of that, how the hell was I supposed to know what I am supposed to feel towards men?

I could talk for hours about all the negative experiences I've had with men, but when analyzing my feelings, I decided to zoom in on what was probably the healthiest relationship I've ever had with a man. I felt like that was the less biased lens to view my feelings towards men through, despite it ending in a not-so-great way.

Junior year of high school, I met a man through a mutual friend who thought we'd make a cute couple. He made me feel... less uncomfortable than most other men did. So romantic, I know. I was not attracted to him, but he was someone who I would say was definitely conventionally attractive. I wanted to give it a shot, so we started spending more time together, at first just talking in the hallway or during lunch, to eventually seeing each other outside of school.

As he and I began to open up to each other more, we discovered that we both had sexual trauma. I felt that he understood me on a level that a lot of people did not understand me at that point in my life. He said he felt that way about me, too. We formed a connection over it, and for a while, he became my safe space. We were together for almost 2 years. I honestly believe that the attention and care that he treated me with when it came to sex, when it came to our relationship, and my history, that all helped me heal parts of my trauma. I don't think I could be comfortable with sex in the way I am today without having had that safe environment he created for me. I think I would not be as comfortable in relationships as I am if it were not for him.

I still wanted to believe I was capable of being attracted to men, so I hoped that maybe with time, with him, it would happen.

It did not.

Even though I was comfortable spending time with him, and comfortable having sex with him, it still all felt a little off to me, and I couldn't understand why. It felt like there was something missing. Things were really good with us for probably the first year and a half, but got ugly towards the end. I was struggling with things inside myself and took it out on him. He cheated on me. It hurt a lot at the time, but I made my peace with it. I forgive him. I hope he forgives me.

But, the point here is, that even with a man who was seemingly "the right man," I still did not experience romantic or sexual attraction, just an emotional connection.

So then I thought,

Part 3: Well, maybe I'm just ace?

I've always had fewer crushes than my friends. They would just call me picky. I don't think being picky is a bad thing! But when I started thinking about this in terms of my romantic and sexual orientation, I started to wonder if maybe it was because I did not fall on the same end of the spectrum as they did.

Asexuality is a wide spectrum that encompasses people who don't experience sexual attraction in the way allosexual people do. There are Ace people who are completely repulsed by the idea of sex, there are Ace people who feel indifferent about it, there are Ace people who feel other types of attractions but maybe not sexual attraction, there's demisexual and graysexual and all the orientations that fall under that umbrella.

I am someone who loves sex. It's fun, it's creative. It can be casual, or it can be a way you connect yourself to another person on another level. On the other hand, I also don't think sex is 100% necessary in order to have a healthy long-term romantic relationship, and my sex drive in general is on the low side.

Through exploration, I've discovered that it's almost impossible for me to feel sexually attracted to a person that I don't have some sort of existing connection with. This probably puts me somewhere on the demisexual spectrum. However, because I have been able to form celebrity crushes (though very rare) I tend to identify myself as graysexual. The things that make me sexually attracted to someone are inconsistent. I don't really have a "type."

It took me a looong time to work out the difference between "I want sex and this person is available" and "this person specifically is who I am interested in having sex with." They sound similar! It was easy for me to confuse the two! The more that I evaluated these feelings and worked through them, I was able to fully recognize the difference; all of my sexual encounters with men fell into that first category, most of my sexual encounters with women fell into the second.

I am a person who enjoys sex, and I *can* have sex with men, but it's not really because I *want* to have sex with men. This was a very awkward discovery to make at 26 when I had been married to a man for several years. However, it helped me understand some of the dynamics of that relationship (as well as past ones) and was the gateway to me wanting to further my understanding of my sexuality.

Which got me thinking,

Part 4: What makes me want to date a person, anyways?

By the time I was thinking about this part of the question, I was about to turn 27, married to a man, we had 2 kids, I had just come out as non-binary. My husband was an okay man. We had plenty of ups and downs, just like anyone. Realizing that I wasn't sexually attracted to him was definitely rough, but I still believed that the more I thought it out and worked on myself, I'd realize that everything was okay afterall and we'd survive my minor identity crisis.

(We did not. The divorce was finalized last month.)

When I met my ex-husband, I was 19 years old and wanting desperately to get away from my family. It was an incredibly turbulent time in my life. He was 26 (I know, I'm grossed out by it now, too) and finishing up college. We worked together. The flirting started almost immediately. I liked the attention. We started dating, and 6 months in, he proposed. We got married on our 1 year dating anniversary. I still had that weird feeling that something was off, but I blamed myself and just assumed it would get better. Just for a little backstory there. I am the literal definition of "don't date a man when you're 19"

I started really thinking about the things that made me interested in dating someone. I'd never really thought much about it before. I sat down and made a chart of all of my past relationships (and even some crushes) and wrote down the things that made me want to date that person. I literally cried reading it. Full-on existential crisis. There was such a stark contrast between the things that made me want to date women vs the things that made me want to date men.

Some of the common themes when it came to my crushes/relationships with women:

Being around her makes me happy

I spend all day and all night thinking about her

She's thoughtful, I love her mind, etc

We have some common interests

She's beautiful, I could stare at her all day, I'm attracted to her, etc

She makes me want to do (insert romantic thing here)

I can imagine a future for us & it makes me want to be alive so we can have it

Sounds pretty cute, right? Like, that's what a crush should feel like! When I think about dating women, it just makes me feel so warm and I want to give her the world.

Some common themes when it came to relationships with men:

I was tired of being lonely

There was something he could provide for me that I needed (ie emotional support, attention, money etc)

Other people thought it was a good idea so I wanted to try it

He asked me out

He seems nice

Umm. Wow. Yeah. You get my point here? Note that when I tried to think of any men I had a crush on, I couldn't think of any other than Gordon Ramsey (listen I like food and I feel like that man could eat pussy like a pro)

The more I analyzed my relationships with men, the more I realized that there were a lot of.... transactional elements? Like. Yes, I can do romance with this man, as long as he pays the bills... yes, I can do sex with this man, as long as I am completely in charge of everything... whereas with women, it's not conditional. It's not "I can make myself do this for her," it's "I want to do this for her."

For a long time, I believed this was normal. But in the past few years, I've seen couples who are actually happy with each other, people in nice, stable relationships, people who love each other unconditionally, and I just thought, oh my God, *that's* what is missing for me. That's why my relationships feel off. I just kept putting myself into relationships I was not happy with or did not want.

Now I'm 29, I'm divorced, I'm out to everyone (including my family - mom has calmed down a bit, dad is still weird about it) and I am very happy with my girlfriend! I still have a long way to go in terms of healing and really fully understanding myself, but I feel like I've made so many big steps forward on that front.

Part 5: But what if you're wrong?

That's the thing - it's possible I'm wrong. Maybe I am indeed bisexual. Maybe I actually do like men, I'm just not as healed from my trauma as I think I am. Yeah, it's possible, I guess.

There's one thing I know for sure that I'm definitely not wrong about - I am gay as fuck for girls. I love women. Being around women makes me want to be alive. Being around women makes my heart feel whole. I honestly cannot for the life of me imagine myself ever dating a man again.

We all have that voice in our head that makes us doubt, that makes us feel like an imposter, that makes us think we aren't worthy. For a long time, that voice has been telling me that I am not good enough to be loved and I don't deserve to be happy. It's still there, it still tells me that sometimes. You know what though? I'm kicking its ass right now. I look at how far I've come in the past few years and I say "I have spent too long hating myself. I have spent too long trying to shove myself into boxes I don't belong in."

I am finally in a place in my life where I feel like happiness is within reach, and I'm going to keep reaching for it.

I am a lesbian. I am proud of that.

Part 6: Conclusions

I am gay as fuck for women

I love my girlfriend

You can evaluate your life at any time. It's never too late to figure out who you are.

Don't try to put yourself into a box you don't belong in to please other people

It took me 14 years to figure out what I actually wanted even though I already kinda knew. Be kind to yourself if it takes a while for you to figure it out. There's no rush

If you're here because you're questioning, I love you, you've got a friend in me, you are worthy of happiness and love, please don't settle for less

This post is brought to you by Mucinex & Sudafed brrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[bleeding-quietly-living]

You Are Everything I Want.

Aleksander and Dominik meet up in the school bathroom during class.

Title from MakeDamnSure by Taking Back Sunday

Ao3 link:

It was very rare that Dominik and Aleks were able to have a moment of peace together by themselves, between school, Judo, homework, overbearing parents who decided 18 was a good age to finally start raising their son, they didn’t get a lot of personal time.

Usually when they could they would meet up during break or sneak away into the bathrooms during class, but the amount of times they damn near got caught sucking face before even making it to a stall was one to many, and they didn’t want to have anymore of those kinda close calls. So now they at least get in a stall first like decent people. Most of the time anyway…

Today class had been absolute pain in the ass, pre calc his senior year was not something Dominik would wish on even his worst enemy, well, maybe. That same period happened to be when Aleks was across the hall in Honors Physics, a class his parents insisted on him taking to be more applicable for colleges. Needless to say he hated it as much, if not more, than Dominik hated pre calc.

The couple would always try to find some excuse to ditch that class, yet they were surprisingly still passing by the skin of their teeth.

‘Meet me in the bathroom down the hall.’

God, Aleks was such a dry texter.

‘omw <3’

He didn’t even bother waiting for a response knowing that 9 times out of 10 if Aleks wanted to say something he would just wait until they were face to face.

Raising his hand he excused himself from the classroom, shuffling down the hallway his clunky black boots could be heard echoing throughout the confines of the building, making Aleks smile to himself as the vibrations bounced of the surrounding walls.

Dominik pushed his fringe to the side, making his hair look at least somewhat decent before he stepped into the bathroom. He didn’t even have time to fully look around the all to familiar space before Aleks had him entangled in a kiss, hand rested to cup a side of his face while the other held onto his hip.

For a second Dominik let himself get the lost in the feeling, no matter how many times they kissed it never grew dull, his heart was beating rapidly within its cage of rib bones damn near shattering them every time.

A lot of their classroom escapades had been at least threading the line of an experience similar to this, which had Dominik worried at first, worried that maybe Aleks just wanted to get off and Dominik just happened to be there. But the more loving, longing glances inevitably turned to stares they would exchange in class, the calls they would stay on late into the night, the small comforting and reassuring touches and smiles in the hallways, Dominik had stopped doubting it as much.

He draped a scarred arm over his boyfriends shoulder, entangling gentle fingers in the short dirty blonde hair, resting his other along the front of Aleks’ torso, hand grasping his collarbone while his fingers barely clung to his other shoulder, pressing them impossibly closer.

Dominik could feel Aleks’ heartbeat panging against his chest, he always thought it was weird just how much he enjoyed the other boys heartbeat, but it was an everlasting reminder that Aleks was alive, that Aleks was there, that Aleks was real , something he always felt himself doubting in the beginning.

His limited edition ‘My Chemical Romance’ t-shirt rode up ever so slightly on his back, but he only took notice as the freezing tile wall pressed up against his skin as Aleks took the initiative of shutting them into a stall. Dominik wasn’t all to worried about somebody walking in and finding out he was gay, he was bullied for it before he even knew so it’s not like it would be any different for him.

He felt almost the same chill he had on his lower back move to his hip as a hand was removed, which he quickly found out had disappeared so Aleks could blindly swat in attempt to find the lock on the door. Dominik peeked out from behind his fringe to place a hand over his boyfriends, guiding it towards the lock that they then sealed together. This moment was for them, and only them.

“Thank you.” Aleks muttered against his lips, pressing their foreheads together while they both gasped for air, smiling like lovesick idiots.

“No problem.” Dominik replied gingerly, grinning with the small indescribable satisfaction with the way Aleks breath flushed his face hot only to turn cold less than a moment later when the boy inhaled again.

Dominik fought down the giggle that bubbled up into his throat as he looked at Aleks, his face distorting within their close proximity making him look like a cyclops. So instead he raised a hand to cradle around his boyfriends jaw instead before pressing their lips together again. It wasn’t heated or extremely vulgar like their first kiss had been, Dominik was a little more than familiar with how Aleks’ lips pressed against his own now.

He kissed him like he was saying a prayer, muttering words of everlasting devotion to a deity, pouring all of his love, passion and admiration into it that he hoped Aleks could feel.

Without thinking he muttered a broken “God, I love you.” inbetween the space of lips. It took him a solid second to realize exactly what he had said, god he felt like the overused ‘accidentally saying i love you’ stupid movie trope. It took all his willpower not to physically cringe and recoil, apologize and walk away, but with Aleks’ arms keeping him in place that was near impossible.

Dominik expected Aleks to back away, or at the very least look at him weirdly, he expected anything but the smile he was practically blinded by when he got the courage to open his eyes and look at Aleks.

Familiar lips planted on his own once again for a split second before the dirty blonde pressed their foreheads together once more, a stupid grin still plastered on his stupid face.

“I love you too, Dominik.”

[exvangelicalrage]

Sin Is Fake

6/5/23

I realized something this week. Which is that I don't believe in sin. Obviously, I don't believe in a lot of things, including god, christianity, and literally anything, haha, but I realized this week that I'd been taking the idea of "sin" as a given.

The idea of sin has been a constant in my life since my birth; only a few weeks after we came home from the hospital, my parents had me "dedicated" in front of the church congregation, which is the protestant alternative to the catholic baby baptisms. Instead of saving your soul, however, it's merely a commitment by christian parents to "raise their child in the way he should go" or whatever. And in this case, that meant raising their child to believe they were inherently sinful and needed to be saved by jesus in order to go to heaven. 

I've long determined that people are not inherently sinful; that babies are not evil from the moment they are beget; that children do not need to plead forgiveness for imagined wrongs. 

But the idea that perhaps sin simply... doesn't exist at all? That is new.

When I was five, I kneeled next to my bed on the pink throw rug my great grandmother had given me, clasped my hands together, and said, "Dear jesus, please come into my heart and forgive me." As I said the words, there was a deep sense of "this is what I'm supposed to do in order to get to heaven." I hadn't quite put together the "I'm sinful and need to be forgiven" part, despite the emphasis on that during Sunday school and vacation bible school, but I knew the words and I said them and I meant them. 

But as I grew, it didn't take me long to fully understand what "sin" was. 

Sin was whining about chores. Sin was arguing with my brothers. Sin was being obstreperous. Sin was reading instead of cleaning my room. Sin was talking back to my parents. Sin was watching other kids get picked on in school and doing nothing. Sin was not wanting to do my homework. Sin was getting bad grades. Sin was not listening to the teacher. Sin was watching movies. And listening to secular music. And reading books with swear words in them.

Sin was doing anything that upset my parents for any reason. 

Sin was lack of total perfection.

Sin was making god mad.

I asked for forgiveness regularly. As a 7 year old. As a 10 year old. As a 12 year old. I knew my soul was irreparably blackened, and jesus was the only one who could cleanse me and guarantee my way into heaven. 

When I reached my teenage years, I continued to pray for forgiveness, but I tacked on an extra little request at the end of my prayers: "Please forgive me, and also, if you notice me doing something wrong, could you just let me know?"

"If I'm doing something and don't realize it's a sin, could you please point it out to me?"

"I'm not entirely sure quite what I'm doing wrong, but I know it must be something, so please forgive me even for stuff I don't realize is wrong."

It's a pretty heavy weight, to walk around thinking that you're perpetually committing grievous offenses but have no idea what they are. To believe that god is incessantly watching every movement, every choice, and every thought, and judging you accordingly. Especially as a child. And sure, the pastors said "his blood covers it all" but what does that even mean? And if his blood covers "it all" why couldn't we just be regular people? Why did we have to focus on being as perfect as possible? 

The thing is, though, the existence of sin is necessary to christianity. If humans weren't inherently "sinful" then what would the point of christianity be? Because if we weren't inherently sinful, nothing would be preventing us from accessing heaven. We wouldn't need jesus, we wouldn't need the bible, and most of all, we wouldn't need the church. 

Sin, at least in a christian context, is a direct and willful violation of god's will. But in order for it to be real, a.) god has to exist, and b.) we have to be able to determine what his will is—irrefutably. But since god (if he exists) hasn't provided a clear-cut directive... how can we possibly ensure that we aren't violating god's will? And if we can't know his will, we can't violate it on purpose.

Hence, sin is fake.

But if pastors, leaders, humans make clear-cut statements that say, "This is wrong and I know because god told me so," then they can claim that your violation of their commandments is sin, and in doing so, they strip access to heaven from you.

The idea of sin allows humans to control other humans. Even humans who don't believe in their ideology.

But if sin doesn't exist in the first place? That hill they're standing on is nothing but air.

To be clear, I think mistakes are real. I think we can do things that we wish we hadn't. I think we can cause harm. We can do things that upset or cause pain or discomfort toward other people, ourselves, or the world around us.

But sin? Nah.

I think I still carry this weight, even though I left christianity over a decade ago. 

It's clearest for me in this subconscious  pressure that suggests I'm "living a sinful lifestyle," despite the fact that even according to christian standards, my "lifestyle," as it were, is pretty innocuous. I'm straight & hetero, married and monogomous, donate and volunteer to causes, mind my own business most of the time. But I do swear. And read romance novels (with sex scenes *gasp*). And I'm not christian. Which all equals "sinful lifestyle" in my subconscious, I guess.

But there's a lot of freedom in being able to look an action in the face and say "What harm does this cause?" If the answer is "It causes no harm," I can move on with my life. And if the answer is "It causes this specific harm," then I can remediate to the best of my ability. 

Litter? I can donate to an environmental organization or pick up more trash than I dropped. 

Give voice to my internal biases, even unintentionally? Apologize immediately and truthfully. Or donate to an anti-racist/feminist/trans-inclusionary/disability activist organization if an apology isn't possible. Or all of the above! 

Steal something? Give it back. Pay for it. Go to jail. Whatever. Make amends.

There is freedom in accountability. There is freedom in taking responsibility for my misdeeds. I don't need jesus or christianity to "save" me. All I need to do is own up to my behaviors, decisions, and choices, and the consequences therein. 

I can make amends. All by myself. No penance, priest, or prayer necessary.

If everyone did this, instead of just "praying for forgiveness," I think the world would be a lot less shitty place.

-----

A not-exactly side note: 

If I'm being honest, I think this whole blog is partially about me trying to make amends in a way. It's also therapy through writing, an exploration of my feelings, and a process to think through some of the concepts and ideas that still nag at me. But I could do all of that without sharing it online.

The one thing I feel more guilty about than anything in my life, was the evangelism I did as a teenager. I talked down to other people. Tried to convince them they were evil. I built walls around myself, and judged everyone else as either "saved" or "unsaved." I roped people in, with music and a pretty smile and the threat of hell. 

I understand that I was still a child. And that the religion I wielded was placed into my hands by adults. That it's not entirely my fault. I know I was trying to do what was right. But I also feel strongly that I caused harm to those around me. Harm I regret to this day.

I made it out. But not without casualties.

It's a strange type of survivor's guilt.

So I'm hoping that writing out & sharing my experiences, feelings, and pain will maybe help somebody somewhere. I want to do something good that directly counteracts the harm I caused then. Maybe I can support someone leaving the church now, validate someone who is questioning, or offer logic, reason, and experience to help someone see the door. 

Maybe it'll help, maybe not. But it feels like the right thing to do.

[charliethomascoxuniverse]

In the Footsteps of a Saint

FAITH TODAY：MAY 2011

Catholic actor Charlie Cox is making waves across the Atlantic – and he’s about to hit the cinemas in his native UK playing a saint in a new movie.

FAITH TODAY went to meet him.

How does it feel to be a saint?  That’s something no-one alive can ever really know, since sainthood is only acknowledged after death: but up-and-coming actor Charlie Cox knows more about it than most. Cox, 28, is the star of There Be Dragons, a new movie about the early life of St Josemaria Escriva, the Spaniard who founded Opus Dei.  So – given that he’s a Catholic himself - how did it feel to Cox to walk in a saint’s shoes, and to portray his holiness on screen?

What struck him most, says Cox, is that ‘there seemed to have been no single moment when Josemaria was saintly... instead, what people who knew him spoke about and wrote about was a lifetime of consistently good decisions and a dedication of his entire life to God’.  So in fact, he explains, portraying him meant being very human – and yet aware that decisions often had to be made that weren’t directed at other people, but were directed at God. Playing Josemaria is the latest step on a path that’s fast feeling like the road to the big-time: Cox first appeared on the showbiz radar in 2007 when he got the role of Tristan Thorne in the movie Stardust, and he went on to play the Duke of Crowborough in the ITV drama Downton Abbey.  And just a fortnight before we meet, he’s filmed his first episode of HBO’s prohibition drama Boardwalk Empire, the flagship programme of the new Sky Atlantic channel, in which he plays an immigrant from Northern Ireland with ties to the IRA.  Cox says he’s loving the part: Steve Buscemi, who recently won a Gold Globe award for his portrayal of Enoch ‘Nucky’ Thompson in the series, is one of his all-time heroes, and he can hardly believe his luck in being cast with him.

’Working with Steve feels amazing, I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been,’ he says, as we chat over coffee at a Madrid hotel on the morning of the premiere of There Be Dragons.  He jetted in this morning from New York – he’ll be there filming Boardwalk Empire through the summer and, he says, he can’t imagine a better way of spending the next few months. ‘They’re the nicest bunch of people – and everyone is so confident about how good the series is, so there’s a great buzz about it.’

Working on Boardwalk Empire has taken him a long way from his Sussex roots.  He grew up in Hearst Green, the son of publisher parents – and he was raised a Catholic, like his father, although he was educated at a non-Catholic independent school, Sherborne School in Dorset.  ‘Only about 70 out of 700 boys were Catholics. We had to get up early on a Sunday to go to Mass at a local girls’ school... it would have been easy to skive off it, but actually we never did.  I’ve always loved churches – even now, in a strange city, I’ll often wander around looking at churches.’ There was no history of acting in the family – bar a grandmother who had been at RADA before the second world war – but even as a youngster, Cox was smitten with the idea.  ‘My mum and dad had a fantastic attitude to it,’ he says.  ‘The school wanted me to go to university, play it in safe mode, have a back-up plan.  But my parents came to see me act, and afterwards my dad sat me down and he said: ‘I think you’d be a fool not to pursue this’.  And I don’t know whether I’d be here now if it hadn’t been for that one comment...’ Despite living in the US at the moment, and the fact that his parents spend most of their time these days in France, Cox says Britain will always be home – and he’s very close to his family.  He has a brother, and three half siblings from his father’s first marriage, and his parents have flown to see him in Madrid while he’s over for the premiere of There Be Dragons. After school, he spent a gap year working for a photographer – and even before he could take up a place at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, he’d landed the role of Theo in the movie Dot the i.  ‘An agent took a punt on me and put me up for the part,’ he says.  ‘I’ve been incredibly lucky, and that was just one of my lucky breaks.’

But it’s not just luck – Cox is immensely likeable, and he’s obviously genuinely passionate about acting.  He’s also been smart enough to realise that he can learn a huge amount from more seasoned actors – so he saw acting alongside Robert de Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer in Stardust, for example, as a fantastic opportunity to soak up knowledge.  And he’s learnt lots more, too, from Roland Joffe, director of There Be Dragons, who was also the film-maker behind The Mission (about the early Jesuits in south America) and The Killing Fields (about the murderous Pol Pot regime in Cambodia), both of which were Oscar nominees.

‘I didn’t think twice about taking the part of Josemaria, and that was down to Roland,’ he says.  ‘He’s such a great director – he really understands the processes that actors have to go through to give their best.  I learnt so much from working with him.’

Given the subject-matter of There Be Dragons, Cox also spent time in the run-up to filming learning about Opus Dei, which has the status of a ‘personal prelature’ within the Catholic Church.  ‘I visited several Opus Dei houses, and I went on a retreat and had a lot of help from an Opus Dei priest, Fr John Wauck.’

Before he made the film, he admits, he’d never heard of Josemaria – and all he knew about Opus Dei was what he’d read in Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code.  But researching Josemaria, he says, what struck him most was the saint’s humanity – and his ability, examined in the film, to forgive.  ‘It was an example I had to put into practice, because one day when we were filming I returned to my trailer to find someone had broken in and cleaned the place out completely,’ he says.  ‘They’d even taken my computer, and the charger, and even my clothes.’ ‘The following day I was due to film one of the big scenes in which Josemaria shows how he can forgive, and I remember thinking: this is really interesting.  And the thing is that I did manage to forgive the guy who nicked my stuff.’ ‘And what I realised, through that incident, was that – though we think of forgiveness as something very moral and impressive, it’s actually something that works totally in your own favour.  Because if you don’t forgive then you’re angry inside – and that anger doesn’t hurt the other person, but it really hurts you.’ Since filming finished for There Be Dragons, Cox has been working on another movie – Moby Dick, due to be released later this year – and now Boardwalk Empire.  It all suggests, I tell him, that fame – which he’s told previous interviewers frightens him – could be beckoning. ‘It’s tricky,’ he says, candidly.  ‘I’ve got friends who have gone on to extraordinary fame, and what I’ve realised through them is that it’s never quite as appealing as it promised to be. ‘On the other hand, like everyone else I want recognition.  I like people to think I’m good at what I do. That’s human nature, isn’t it?’

~*~

[windsongs2]

I'm a Christian, my child is a transgender woman (born male became female.)

I accept her fully I believe the God loves all cuz that's what the Bible says if you read the Bible it says Jesus loves all not just some of the people but all.

In today's world where groups hating another group and this person hate this person. it's really sad because that's not the way God wants.

read the Bible there's nothing in there (and I've read the Bible many many times) that says to hate transgenders, hate gays hate lesbians, hate people with purple hair and so on. but it does take he says love everyone.

My daughter's choices are between her and God and Jesus.

I raised my daughter to know God I took her to church, we did the VBS, Sunday school and listen to Christian music and when she became an adult she knew what was going on.

It doesn't not make me a bad parent because my daughter chose to be a transgender. It does not make me a bad person

And it does not make her a bad person for being a transgender person she's a good person, she cares she loves, she knows right from wrong and she makes me proud.

I will love her to her dying day or to my dying day.

there's nothing that will keep me from loving her.

she may never want to talk to me That's okay I still love her.

and I do pray for her NOT that she'll turn back to the person I knew growing up, that is a boy. I PRAY that she is happy, healthy and to know I love her. I also pray that she will find Jesus . Cause Jesus loves all... The body you have it is just a wrapping paper.. what's important is what inside.. that's what Jesus is concerned about .

I don't wish that if that's going to make her unhappy, if that's going to stress her out and if that's going to make her have problems. I don't wish that.

I want her to be who she is today a beautiful loving person

She wants me to go to therapy with her so she can discuss all the things I did wrong I did things wrong.

I was single parent when I've been married to an idiot ex-husband I was still single.

he didn't want to do anything with her I had to force him to do stuff with her.

All he wanted to do was hurt her.

All he wanted to do is make her feel bad and I tried so hard not to let that happen.

But as best as I could do there were times where I wasn't there to help her.

It wasn't my fault It wasn't her fault, The blame totally lays on the ex-husband.

I didn't have much money to give her everything that a child should have. I ran up credit card debt so she could have good Christmases, so she could have food and clothing.

I ran it up that so much I couldn't pay it off which left me with bad credit for years. luckily for me I had a father who came along and paid it off for me. God bless him cuz for that him I would be in jail

I wanted so much to get away from this guy (my ex) when my daughter was small but I didn't make much money, My ex husband made more money than me.

And I knew there was a very good chance that if I divorced my ex back then that he would get the child not me.

that he could provide my child with a stable future and a house

I couldn't at that time and sometimes it cried myself to sleep because I couldn't help My daughter. I wanted to get us both out of the situation we were in, but I stayed because I knew that if that monster abuser idiot ever got a chance to keep her, that she would have been so much worse off than she is now.

she would have been abused more there wouldn't be a life for her really and I couldn't stand that thought. so I stayed with the abuser so I let him hit, me I let him yell at me, I let him do whatever he wanted but I protected my daughter from that.

there was only a couple times I couldn't be there and I regret those times even now. it breaks my heart but I also knew I did the right thing cuz I did not let her go through that alone and I was knew that she was better off then without me.

anyway she wants me to see a therapist with her so she can tell me everything I did wrong.

Why don't I?

because I Went to a therapist when I was four or five or six years old. My mom took me to one, I looked at the guy and I hated him before even stepped through those doors and had a talk with him or whatever

I hated him I didn't know why that I really hated that guy she took me there because she thought I was lying too much. I was a kid, kids lie especially when they think they're going to get in trouble duh

So after a couple months of no progress My mom decided not to take me.

I remember one time coming out of his office he was carrying me and I so much hated that I mean every nerve every cell in my body wanted to kill that guy and I didn't know why.

I was crying so much and I think he told my mom the reason i was crying was cuz I stubbed my toe or something stupid like that

Well after a couple more months I heard my mom and dad talking about that this guy.. this therapist had lost his license probably put in jail .

Why? Cuz he was caught sexually abusing the boys in his care.

yeah I hated the guy before I met him. I have such a extreme good intuition about people that when I was young I knew that person was evil.

My family never talked about it never ask me if I remember being abused, never asked me any questions.

they just didn't talk about it and that's what they do.. they don't talk about what happened. It just goes under the rig and they act like nothing's happen.

Am I damaged because of that maybe.

The only damage I really know of is I will not go to therapist. I don't care if it's online/offline or anywhere I don't believe in them, I don't like them.

therefore this gal is never going to one. I don't care what you say I am like ___ years old and I've been doing good all my life I don't need a fucking therapist now at my stage of life.

[ramblingcecimonster]

On the Train to Success

The night sky turns gray with the ache of dawn and I watch a tired young couple pass a cup of coffee and a lit cigarette back and forth on their postage stamp scrap of a porch that looks like the gentlest of breezes could detach it from their trailer. We don’t make eye contact or anything, but something about their expressions, in the split second before the train rambles speedily down the track, is familiar to me. I can imagine a colicky baby finally sleeping or a sick toddler whose fever finally broke, a pile of bills, a car that needs gas, an empty fridge. I know what white trash looks like, what “trying our best,” “secondhand furniture,” “buy one get one free sale,” “too much month at the end of our money” look like. Sure, we wear it like pride: hard-working folks, trying our best, willing to bend over backwards for our neighbors. Wearing dusty shoes and worn-out jeans and fixing whatever just broke until it literally cain’t be fixed no more. But it’s a tired existence. Hungry. Worn.

It's an existence I don’t know from childhood. It’s not how I grew up. I grew up with polo shirts and golf sweaters and country clubs and new cars and back-to-school shopping at the LL Bean. We never went to the Walmart. We never cussed or ate day old food or had holes in our shoes. I didn’t know what a factory looked like, but I went on vacation twice a year. I grew up with angry parents who absolutely knew better. (Some folks ain’t got resources, they’re just doing what’s always been done, raising their babies up the way they were raised, with no knowledge that giving your kid soda in a baby bottle or sending them out for a switch really ain’t what to do. They don’t necessarily know not to expose their kids to drugs or alcohol or driving without a license or whatever else it was that my folks looked down their noses at. If their kids went to bed without dinner, it was because there weren’t money for dinner, not because their kids did something wrong. They aren’t bad people, they ain’t bad parents, and they love their kids. They just ain’t got no money and they don’t know better than the only life they’ve ever known. My parents weren’t those kind of parents.) They knew better than to starve their teenager or to keep their fourth grader up all night as punishment. They knew better than to punish any expression of emotion with psychiatric medications and trips to a private psychiatric hospital. They knew better than to keep me isolated, gaslit, and terrified. But they did it anyway. In our ivory tower, silver spoon world, as long as you wore the “right” clothes and said the “right” words, if your parents went to church on Sundays and volunteered their time and had you in youth soccer or Boy Scouts and were good enough at lying, nobody questioned everything. I learned not to trust the cops not because my parents’ car insurance expired 4 months ago or whatever else it is that law enforcement likes to punish poor folks for because they’re poor. I learned not to trust cops because when I ran away from home after being spat on and getting kicked in the head at 14 years old for taking food from the pantry because I was starving, the cop wanted to know why a kid from such a nice home and such a nice family would run away like that. Because my parents labeled me the problem, a liar, and not to be trusted, so I knew nothing I said would be believed or even matter. I watched my abusers lie straight to the police officer’s face, and knew in that moment that the whole system was a sham.

But I was nonetheless raised to believe that poor people were somehow a problem, that they were morally deficient. So imagine my surprise when the family that came to my rescue when I got summarily kicked out at 16 by the suburban couple from hell was a truck driver and a high school teacher. Poor, tired, with lines on their faces and miles and miles on their shoes. My new mama worried loudly. It was no secret that she worried about every last one of her babies – about our grades, our futures, our relationships, our emotional states. We are the same person, and the older I get the more I open my mouth and the words I find leaving my throat are just TL. Mama G with a little more therapy under the belt and far more colorful hair tendencies. She taught high school English at a military boarding school, so she knows a thing or two about angry teenagers and how to navigate the emotional hell of abandoned children. I knew her first, recognized her as safe first. With her black pencil skirts and schoolmarm bun, standing stock still at my track meets because sometimes all you need is someone who is there. She cooked like a maestro, picked out nail polish colors, introduced me to Patrick Swayze, drank cheap beer, and watched baseball in a way that involved far more screaming than I was used to. She loved summer nights and all her babies and hated the cold and the fact that her husband smoked.

But my daddy is a different breed of human. Quietly there. There’s a quote in one of my favorite books, about a young girl’s adoptive father. “Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man’s gentleness, his thereness. The girl knew from the outset that Hans Huberman would always appear midscream, and he would not leave” (Markus Zusak, The Book Thief). I was a hurt, angry, insomniac teenager. I was lost and lonely and broken. And when I woke up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, he was there in the living room, watching some horrible made-for-tv action movie or crime drama. We watched most of Criminal Minds together in that quiet living room. We didn’t speak, but sometimes we’d go do the grocery shopping at Walmart at the crack of dawn before anyone else in the house was awake, me in my superhero pajamas and him in his cargo pants and t-shirt – the same outfit he’s worn nearly every day of my entire life. We’d stop for sweet tea at the McDonald’s on the way home. I helped him fix the cars and he existed. A phone call away. He called me Missy and I called him Dude. He spoke my language, the language of broken and angry and abandoned teenager. His there-ness, his appearance on the other end of my phone in the middle of every panicked scream assured me that as bad as it got sometimes, it would never be as bad as it once was. He told me with a laugh that he was born white trash, and he’d die white trash, and there wasn’t a lot he could do about it in the meantime. He budgeted and scrapped and saved nails and screws and stripped wire. He worried quietly.

A friend of mine joked, when I was fresh out of college and trying desperately to figure out how to actually be a human person who understood relationships and emotions and how to live in a world that terrified the shit out of me, that I was like Athena. That one morning, Craig had woken up with a headache to beat the band, and then I popped out of his skull, fully formed, angry, and ready for war. I was on a battlefield against the world, against myself, against anyone who might try to hurt me. Some days, I wonder if Zeus ever worried about Athena the way I know my daddy worried about me. Did Zeus ever wonder what his tired, angry daughter might be like if he had been given the time to raise her up the way she ought to have been raised? To channel that righteous furious energy into something beautiful, like the drums or boxing or who-knows-what. To tell his brilliant, decisive, strategic daughter that it was okay to take a deep breath and trust the world a little. Did Zeus ever worry that it was too late for all that? That his war-torn daughter was already too covered in her own blood to be able to take a full breath and wash it all clean.

Because I know Craig worried about me. I know he still does. I know the face of world-worn, tired parents on a middle-of-nowhere back porch drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes they meant to quit 10 years ago is familiar. It’s familiar the same way “Hey Missy, whatcha doin’?” is familiar, the same way the smell of old spice and Marlboros on the coat you wear to go haul the dog back inside because it’s the one closest to the door and it’s 10pm and it’s January is familiar. He worries about this child born of fury and fear might tumble headlong into something, eyes closed, head first, can’t lose, that they can’t find their way out of. That maybe my heart won’t stop beating a little too fast, that the drumbeat I run to is just a little too off step, that one day someone will try to convince me I didn’t deserve to be free. He won’t ever really say, but when you’ve spent hours in silence with someone while you were learning to be a human person, you learn to read their expression, their voice. The way they pretend not to cry on the day of your college graduation or on the day you drive away from their house with a U-Haul holding all of your worldly possessions attached to your Jeep on the way to California. The way they know you’re having a panic attack over the phone before you’ve even said anything, they way their voice catches just a little bit when you tell them you got into the PhD program. The way their eyes change just a little when you start talking about your something and they tell every store they deliver to how smart and wonderful their kid is.

So, when I saw that dawn-tired young couple, and imagined them a child and a sea of bills to pay, on a train on my way to a conference where I’m presenting twice, I may not have known them, but I recognized them. I recognized them in the way my daddy looks at the sky to ponder the weather while he’s rebuilding the deck after my mama fell through, in the way he checks the route and the road conditions and the name of the hotel and asks what day I’m presenting when I head to a conference in a city he’s never been to do, to do things he hardly ever imagined possible. I recognized them in the dreams they have for their hypothetical, imaginary child. I recognized them in the way you can’t pretend you don’t have an accent, but you read the etiquette books and know all the right things to say and read and research relentlessly and watch your child accomplish things that you – and they – never thought were possible. I recognized them in the way the smoke curled but never took away the worry; the way some things just line your face a little more every year and when it’s four in the morning on a foggy fall morning and your kid is just doing the best they can, the only thing you have left to do is smoke and drink your coffee and hope you did enough. Worry the way I’m sure Zeus never did, but the way that I know Craig always will, that it won’t be enough, that being there, perpetually and permanently there won’t be enough.

But to me, to me and for my tired and worrying and world-worn parents, for that young couple outside my train window and all the trailer trash, poor, working class parents out there doing your best to put one foot in front of the other and make it to the end of the month without running out of money… some things are as lasting as the moon and the tides, and one of those is the act of not leaving. Of being there, of worrying the way Zeus never did, of doing the best with what you have to make sure that your kids – even, and perhaps especially, the angry, hurt, and terrified ones – know that you are there. That you will not leave them. That they are worth the world.

[allthingsfangirl101]

In This Together. Always.–Steve Harrington

I played with my hands as the group argued about who would go into the store and who would stay with the stolen van.

"That's enough," I sighed, cutting them off. "We need a lot of supplies. You all will go into the store. I'll stay here with the van. Now, no more arguing. Get in there so we can take this son of a bitch down."

They nodded in agreement and started to gather their things. I caught Steve's eye, making him freeze. Instead of following the others into the store, he walked over to me.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" He asked gently.

"Of course," I scoffed. "I think I'll be okay sitting in a stolen van. Just make sure the basketball team doesn't see you."

He started to leave but stopped. He gently reached forward and grabbed my hands.

"If there is any sign of trouble, I want you to honk the horn three times and run," he said under his breath.

"What about you guys?" I asked, making sure I added the others to my question.

"Forget about us."

"But Steve. . ."

"If anything happens, head straight to my house," Steve continued. "You know where the key is to the back door. Run straight there and I will meet you there as soon as I can."

"Steve, stop," I cut him off. "I'm not leaving you behind."

"And I'm not going to let you get hurt," he said instantly. "I mean it, Y/N. The first sign of trouble, get out of here."

"I can't leave you," I whispered.

"I'll always find you."

A tension-filled silence fell between the two of us. I didn't want him to stop looking at me the way he was. But sadly, we were both dragged back to reality.

"Steve, let's go!" Robin yelled from outside the van. Steve cleared his throat as he finally let go of my hands.

"We'll be back as soon as we can," Steve reassured. "Don't go anywhere. Unless. . ."

"The first sign of trouble," I finished for him. He laughed as he started to leave. He turned around and jogged back. I gasped when he leaned in and kissed my cheek.

"I'll be back."

As he finally ran into the store, my stomach refused to calm down. The guilt got too overwhelming as I choked on my sob. I sat in the driver's seat and let my tears fall.

Steve's been my best friend since kindergarten when he stopped Andrew Wilson from pulling my pigtails. In all those years, he never knew the truth. Of course, he knew part of it, but not all. He knew that my parents were killed in a car accident when I was four. He knew that my grandparents moved to Hawkins to take care of me.

What he didn't know was how my grandparents acted behind closed doors. Around other people, they were sweet grandparents raising their poor granddaughter. When it was just me, my grandmother was barely conscious and my grandfather was angrily drunk at the world for losing his son. He got worse after we had to take my grandmother to the nursing home.

There were so many times I thought about telling Steve. There were so many nights I wanted to run to his house, climb in his window and beg for him to keep me safe. The only reason I didn't tell him was because I was scared that my grandfather's rage would be turned on Steve. I'd rather take the beatings than let my grandfather hurt Steve.

I also haven't told Steve–or anyone–about the clock. I was about to tell Steve about it when we broke into the school to look at the counselor's notes but Max announced that she had started to see it. Turns out, I started seeing it about twelve hours after Max first saw it.

The only person who knows anything about my grandfather is Robin. When we were working at Scoops Ahoy, Robin and I got a little too high on break one Sunday. I ended up blurting it all out. The next day, I begged her not to say anything and she swore she wouldn't.

I looked around the van, the tears still streaming down my face. A sob got caught in my throat when I saw the supplies I used to clean the gash on Steve's stomach. When the pain got too much, I stood up and ran. I remembered the promise I made Steve but the guilt and fear were suffocating me.

                                * * * * *

"Wait," Dustin stuttered as they climbed back into the stolen RV. "I thought Y/N stayed with the RV."

"She did," Steve said as he walked in. Everyone avoided looking at Steve as he discovered his best friend and the woman he secretly loved was gone.

"Where is she?!" He panicked.

"Steve, calm down," Nancy tried to soothe.

"How the hell am I supposed to calm down?!" Steve yelled. "Y/N is gone and Vecna is out there, snatching people up."

"What if he takes her?" Dustin asked.

"You don't think. . ." Robin hesitated.

"Don't think what?" Steve pushed when she didn't continue.

"You think there's a chance Y/N might become another one of Vecna's victims?" Nancy asked.

"Why would he take her?" Lucas countered. "He takes people with repressed trauma. Y/N doesn't have any of that. . . Right?"

"Her parents died when she was really little," Dustin shrugged. "But her grandparents moved here and took care of her."

"It's not that simple," Robin mumbled.

"What are you talking about?" Steve demanded. "Y/N is nothing like Vecna's victims. She's happy."

"Steve," Robin sighed. "It's not. . . She isn't. . ."

"What are you trying to say, Robin?" Steve asked, his anger building. "Because if you're trying to tell me that my best friend is actually miserable and going through shit that she's never told me. . ."

"She wanted to tell you but you always get so damn protective!" Robin cut him off. She took a shaky breath, forcing herself to calm down. If she was going to tell Steve Y/N's big secret, she needed to calm down.

"Look, Steve," she sighed, "you're not going to want to hear this but there's something you need to know about Y/N's father and grandfather. When her dad was growing up, her grandfather believed in raising his son with a heavy hand."

"Robin, just get to the point."

"Her grandfather abused her father and now he abuses her," Robin sighed, no longer dancing around the subject.

"Absolutely not," Steve scoffed. "He would never. . . She wouldn't. . . If that was true, don't you think she would've told me?"

Steve looked around to see the same expression on everyone's faces; pity.

"You guys think. . ."

"I'm sorry, Steve," Robin sighed. "But I'm right about this. Which means. . ."

"Y/N could be Vecna's next victim."

                                * * * * *

The group looked everywhere for Y/N but she was nowhere to be found. They checked her house, the school, her work, the bookstore she frequently visited, and nothing.

"I don't understand!" Steve angrily grunted. He sat on the Wheeler's couch with a huff. "We've looked everywhere. I don't know where else she could be!"

"There is one other place we could try," Robin mumbled.

"Where?!"

"There's an old folk home a few miles outside of town," she explained. "They moved her grandmother there about a year ago. She might've gone to visit her."

Steve jumped up, ready to run to his car. He stopped at the door when he saw the others staring at each other.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go."

"You go," Nancy said, sending a knowing look to Robin.

"Yeah," Robin jumped in. "We're gonna go check on Eddie."

Steve wasn't sure why they were staying behind but he didn't care. He needed to get to Y/N before it was too late. He turned on his heel and jogged to his car. He was about to leave when Nancy stopped him. He impatiently rolled down his window as she jogged over.

"I gotta go, Nance," Steve sighed. "If she's alone too long. . ."

"Tell her," she cut him off.

"What?"

"Steve, you deserve to be happy," Nancy explained, "and we all see how happy Y/N makes you. We also all know that you've been in love with her for a long time. Maybe even before you and I went out. It doesn't matter. What matters is how you feel about her."

"Nancy," Steve stuttered.

"You love her, Steve," she smiled at him. "It's pretty obvious. Probably as obvious as it is that she loves you too."

"She does?"

"Of course she does," Nancy chuckled. "I'm surprised you don't see it."

"See what?"

"The way she looks at you," Nancy said like it was obvious. "The way she runs to you when she needs help. The way she depends on you to protect her and keep her safe. The way she needs you. So, please, Steve. When you find her, tell her."

                                * * * * *

I gasped as someone grabbed my shoulders and quickly spun me around.

"What were you thinking?!" Steve yelled the second I was facing him.

"Steve," I gasped as I looked around the room at the old folks staring at us. "Please. . . Can we. . ."

"Did you really think you could just run away?!"

"Steve, please," I begged. "Can we take this outside?"

The look on Steve's face dropped as I wrapped my arms around myself, still looking around the room. My breath got caught in my throat when Steve grabbed my hand and led me outside. He pulled me through the garden until he found the small bench I usually sit at.

"Y/N," Steve whispered after we sat down. I smiled when I noticed he was still tightly holding my hand. "I'm sorry I got so angry," he sighed. "It's just. . . You disappeared and. . . Then Robin put the idea that you could be next in my head and I went crazy. I started. . ."

"She's right," I cut him off. I looked up to see Steve's eyes widen.

"She's right?" He asked. I held my breath as he figured it out. I wasn't sure how much Robin told him about my grandfather, but I could tell he knew most of it from the way he was looking at me.

Steve pulled on my hand, turning me towards him. His eyes were soft as he studied me.

"Y/N, does your grandfather. . ." He couldn't bring himself to finish his question. And I couldn't bring myself to answer it.

"If it makes you feel better," I whispered, "whenever he started to get angry or would start to. . . I would run to you."

"Really?" He asked, letting out a sigh of relief.

"I swear," I continued. "Whenever my grandfather started drinking too much and would begin getting angry, I'd go to my room but instantly crawl out my window. Then I would run to your house. I knew you'd always open the door."

"I'm glad you always came to me," Steve said, scooting closer to me, "but I still don't understand why you never told me. We've been best friends since we were little, Y/N. I thought you trusted me."

"I do!" I said quickly.

"Then why didn't you tell me?" Steve asked. "Not even after everything started with the killings."

"It's just. . . Max started seeing that damn clock a few hours before me which means Vecna might come after her first. We could lose her if we started worrying about me and not her. So see? If I brought up what happened to me, we'd shift our focus. We've lost enough, Steve," I whispered. "We can't lose Max. We can't lose anyone else. I didn't want to add to everyone's stress."

"I don't give a shit about everyone's stress," Steve scoffed. "I'm more focused on the fact that the most important person in my life was keeping a huge secret that literally put her life in danger as if her life meant nothing to me!"

"I didn't mean it like that," I said under my breath.

"You should've told me," he sighed, finally calming down. He stood up and started running his fingers through his hair. "Out of everyone in your life, I thought I was the one person you told everything to. Why didn't you tell me? Do you not trust me?"

"It's not that," I said quickly as I jumped up. "I just. . . I knew how protective you'd get and I didn't want you to worry. Plus with everything else going on. . ."

"Y/N, you still don't understand," Steve said, his frustration returning. "I don't care about everything else that's going on. As much as I focus on everyone else's safety, I find myself always focusing more on you. The only thing I care about is you. You are the one person that I can't bare to lose."

"Steve," I whispered, "I'm just your best friend."

"You're so much more than that!" He yelled.

He was suddenly breathing heavily as he stared at me like he was making up his mind. I held my breath as Steve slowly took a step toward me, making the gap between us smaller.

He grabbed my hands, making the gap even smaller. I could barely breathe when Steve and I were inches apart.

"You are so much more than my best friend," Steve whispered. "I love you, Y/N. I've loved you since you helped me in sixth-grade math. I've loved you since you fell asleep in my arms during that movie marathon we had in seventh grade. I've loved you since you clung to me when we went to that haunted house eighth-grade year. I've loved you since you encouraged me to try out for the basketball team. I've loved you since you met me at school early so you could help me keep my grades up. I've loved you since I knew what love was. You are the most important person in my life. Without you, nothing matters. I would rather be eaten by demodogs than lose you."

"Steve," I whispered with a smile on my face. My heart fluttered when I saw his nervous and hopeful smile. "I love you too."

"Really?" He asked.

"Of course," I shrugged. "You've always been there for me, through everything. It killed me not telling you the truth about what's been going on at home. I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

"It's okay," he smiled down at me. "Now that I know, I can start doing a better job of protecting you."

"You do a great job of protecting me," I teased.

"Now I can do a perfect job," he smirked.

Silence fell between the two of us. My face burned as he looked at me with love in his eyes.

"Steve?"

"Yes, my love?"

"Will you kiss me already?"

Steve laughed as he pulled me into his chest, letting go of my hands, and wrapped his arms around my waist. I slid my hands up his chest and wrapped my arms around his neck. He leaned down, stopping when his nose was pressed to mine.

"What are you waiting for?" I whispered.

"Nothing," Steve sighed. "I'm just enjoying this moment."

"As sweet as that is," I teased, "we told each other "I love you" for the first time, but we still haven't had our first kiss."

"My fault," he chuckled. Steve leaned in and finally pressed his lips to mine.

Fireworks immediately erupted as our lips slowly started moving in sync. That kiss meant everything to both of us. All the feelings we've been hiding over the years came pouring out.

"Please," Steve whispered, breaking the kiss. "Don't run away again, Y/N. I can't protect you unless I'm with you."

"I won't leave your side," I whispered. "Ever again."

"Good," Steve smirked as he slightly leaned back. "Because we're in this together."

"Always."

[sneek-m]

Favorite Dramas 2023

I think I need to raise the grading curve on ratings over on MyDramaList and start relegating the "just fine" shows from a 3 star to a neutral halfway point of 2.5 stars. That goes to say this year I actually watched a good amount of "just OK"s, a lot of 3s as those currently stand. Which is fine! I mostly watch these to wind down after a day at work or get my mind elsewhere as I catch up during my lunch breaks, hence the easier pickings of comedies. (Though, crime, mysteries and hospital dramas never really interested me anyway.) But I did watch some memorable ones, and I jotted down thoughts on them below:

0.5 No Otoko (Sundays, 11 p.m.; WOWOW)

0.5 No Otoko is far from showy, very comfortable settling into its suburbia: it’s only in the last credit roll did the crew decide to flex, revealing the elaborate set they used to execute the one-shot takes in Masaharu’s home. Though, calling the show low-key would be to gloss over the huge attention to detail they put in to build the world. The episode that sold me on this was the one involving Bugranger, the fictional in-universe super sentai show. They filmed an entire opening sequence for the episode, and made up its own exclusive little dance — actually a key component to get Masaharu bonding with his nephew, and then eventually his sister’s entire family. The drama goes on ordinary yet never mundane, finding warm comedy in the most everyday scenarios, but also handling the heavy stuff plainly, like his niece reading back the sticky notes left by his mother in the past when he was a more severe recluse. In the spirit of the drama, I think it would be better said that it’s more than meets the eye. 

Kashimashi Meshi (Mondays, 11 p.m.; TV Tokyo)

There were quite a few shows that I watched this year about the hardships in trying to create new, meaningful friendships in your late 20s. While Kashimashi Meshi isn’t explicitly about that compared to the few others, it still brings attention to the fact that a relationship like the one forged (rekindled?) by the show’s main trio isn’t so easy to come by. Because as incidental as their meeting seems, it still goes to show a chance to create and foster a connection isn’t to be taken for granted, a fact of post-grad adulthood written home from the pilot on: I understand the desperation in trying to keep company from Atsuko Maeda’s Chiharu, who quietly breaks down over dinner in front of her newly reunited college mates, revealing to be suffering from a debilitating depression while living alone after leaving a hostile workplace. Their initial interactions hint that they may have not been the closest of friends when they knew each other in school, yet it only makes it more worthwhile to see them deepen their relationship in a new form. I only hope there will one day be a dinner table like the one in Kashimashi Meshi I can join after a hard day at work.

Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Fridays, 0 a.m.; TV Tokyo)

I recommend watching the 2021 theatrical release beforehand as a kind of prelude to the discussions that happen in season two. But even without the viewing, you get the point it’s trying to make pretty clearly as general anxieties about mortality looms throughout. These guys are entering their 50s after all, and the topics often comes up as mundane as Shiro’s own grocery-shopping and yet nevertheless just as crucial: I think about Shiro going out with his parents to check out cemeteries to store their ashes with the same demeanor as if they’re looking at apartment rooms for rent. The lightness actually makes it more real for me, especially as I have these thoughts kind of often. 

Sexy Tanakasan (Sundays, 10 p.m.; Nippon TV)

One of my favorite episodes of TV this year was the show’s 8th episode revolving around what it really takes for get one’s make-up to not only look good but simply work for their preference. Of course, 23-year-old Akari’s own style is not compatible with 40-year-old Tanaka’s — it’s never one size fits all. You have to really study your own face and then visualize how you want to look; if you’re doing make-up for someone else, as Akari does, you have to really get to know the other’s person from the outside in. That’s a lot of work on multiple levels, and as much as make-up seems very interesting, I frankly have not had enough energy nor confidence to start doing the self-assessment myself so I can even begin experimenting on my own face. But that whole process, confronting your own reflection and putting in work to make your visualization of self-beauty come true, is embedded in the whole comedy of Sexy Tanakasan — albeit in the form of belly-dancing, though the make-up becomes more adjacent as the show goes along — to the point the men really become besides the point. 

Nichiyo No Yoru Guraiwa... (Sundays, 10 p.m.; TV Asahi)

Nichiyo No Yoru Guraiwa.. maybe deals with the right amount of extremes and by that I mean it’s so extreme to the point the fiction becomes clearly obvious and you stop sweating about the details, like, say, the whole lottery-ticket wish fulfillment that drives much of the plot. Still, the show dumps so much misery to its main trio, and I am thankful to these three particular actresses for adding to their respective fatalistic characters a much needed levity. Because really, whatever they decide to blow their lotto winnings on, as long as the gang has an excuse to get together again and have a grand ol’ time, that’s all you can ask for. That anticipation to go out on a weekend after long days spent planning out the details with your buddies is almost too real, especially as the droning part-time grind can waste away the hope of a free weekend entirely. And of course, actually having available buddies to make those plans real after being robbed of the opportunity to befriend strangers in the past. It all started from listening to their favorite radio show partly as an escape from their humdrum lives; in the case of Seino Nana’s Sachi, being roped into attending the show’s fan event as a sub for her mother, the real fan. You never know what can happen.

Ranman (Every weekday, 8 a.m.; NHK)

I cried like a baby, internally, on the last episode as it delivered what the 6-month-long serial had been building up to practically since week one. As Sueko withers during her last days, Mantaro presents her with his lifelong gift: her name etched into history as the scientific name of yet another of the botanist’s newly discovered plant species. After pouring everything to support her husband’s dreams, she can now stay by his side forever, she says. You follow a man’s silly obsession, and he shows a life is defined by what we do with what we’ve been given, and, perhaps more importantly, what of us we leave behind and pass down to those who come next. It’s what started Mantaro’s whole journey: the memory of his dying mother, embedded eternally into her favorite flower, one of the few things he got to know about her while she was alive. I’m kind of weak for these kind of things, this want to preserve a loved one’s memory as pristine as possible. Mantaro did it for Sueko superbly.

Daga, Jonetsu Wa Aru (Sundays, 10 p.m.; Nippon TV)

If there’s anything to be gained from the life of the two comedians during their come-up, it’s that art — if you can classify the routines of Audrey and Nankai Candies as such — takes a painstakingly long time to perfect. And it takes even longer when their egos get in the way of the growth of their own craft: it’s hilarious seeing that both Masaharu Wakabayashi and Ryota Yamasato wrote themselves as the boke of their respective duo when they so clearly are the tsukkomi, and they stubbornly stuck to their desired roles despite floundering for several years all for the sake of being the star of their own comedy. But the dynamic only seems obvious in hindsight of the comedians they would eventually become, and sometimes you do repeat your mistakes over and over again until something spontaneously flickers a switch. 

More dramas:

Paripi Koumei

Maikosanchi No Makanaisan

Oishi Kyushoku Season 3

Ichiban Suki Na Hana

Watashi No Oyomekun

Kocchi Muiteyo, Mukaikun

Hayabusa Shobodan

Pocket Ni Bouken Tsumekonde

[echrai]

My grandmother went to be with all of her loved ones who had walked before her on the morning of May 7th, and I can only imagine that she greeted them with as much rejoicing there as she ever did here.

Unlike my grandfather, my relationship with my grandmother is the furthest thing in the world from complicated. It was always easy. It was comfortable. It was home. She was baking bread and cookies homemade fudge and cross stitch and crochet and french fries at the Burger King at Andrews Air Force base. For the majority of my life my grandfather was an incidental accessory to the brightness that was my grandmother, and it broke my heart when that light dimmed at all eleven years ago when Sharon died.

I really think that it shattered both of our hearts in similar ways. We could barely look at each other for years without crying. Each of us a memory of what was lost and how alone we felt in holding it. She lost a daughter. I lost a mother. But we had each other in the middle of it all. An anchor to the grief we couldn’t articulate.

My grandmother was stacks and stacks of books and old movies and the air and space museum and the library of Congress. Music. Humming along with the radio. She was Christmas morning presents in a pink chair covered in an afghan. She is a bookmark in every book. She was orange juice in an old Tupperware cup. Raspberry tea with too much honey. A chocolate pudding snuck before bed. The soft humming click of a sewing machine. Click of her low heels and swish of her pocketbook on a Sunday morning. Hiss of hairspray. Turning pages of the hymnal to make sure I was keeping up with the verses.

Piano, and choir, and handbells. Sunday school. Church dinners. Oxen Hill farm. Making lunch for Grandpa before he went to work and greeting him with a snack when he got home. She is me standing on a chair in the kitchen to help knead bread. She is magnets on the never used front door. She’s a stuffed otter, and a seal, and a Garfield pillow. She is every new family child’s star baby blanket. She is my baby blanket. She is my Puck, when a tiny one year old wouldn’t put down a stuffed cat. She is the scolding I got after cutting the eyebrows off a mink teddy bear hiding under the coffee table.

She is hummingbirds. She is a stained glass Angel on the tv stand. Grapes from the backyard. Bubbles and playing in the bathtub water. Mickey Mouse computer games.

She was souvenirs from every trip. She was handing me a new book to take home every time I visited. She was always asking if I had met anyone that made me happy, and she was delighted when my answer was finally yes. She took a sum total of 24 hours to find her way to a God that loves my wife as much as I do. And who would never hesitate to be in my corner.

She was an only child from rural Indiana who joined the navy to have a future that looked different than her parents. She raised three children in Maryland, South Carolina, Florida, and California while my grandfather was deployed. After her children were grown she became a research librarian, never stopped learning new things, and was sharp as a fucking tack.

She was easy with praise and with joy and support and also firm in what she thought was right and wrong. She was the gentler, softer half of their marriage but she was also someone you never wanted to cross. They were equals in every way and loved each other fully. She followed where Troy led, and often waited until he came back to lead her where she intended them both to end up.

She was my eternal constant, the reason for my name. The first person to hold me when I was born. She took me to the nursery, carried me herself while my father stayed with my mother. My entire life she was a steady presence that I counted on to be there. Always safe. The last piece of home. I knew she would be gone one day but I would be lying if I said I was ready. I’ve always known that losing her would be the next axis shift in my world and it is.

Fair winds and following seas Meme. I love you.

[dasenergi]

Were you raised in any sort of religion?

How has your spiritual practice changed over the years?

I'm putting this behind a cut, because my answer is kind of long. I like to be mindful of people's feed. But if any of my followers are interested in my spiritual history, click and read-on!

No, I wasn't raised in any particular religion. Before the age of five there was a church within walking distance from my house. And often on Sundays I would go to Sunday School there. My parents didn't take me. I wanted to go. I liked the stories and the arts and crafts. So sometimes I'd walk myself or sometimes my sister and cousin would go too. One time when my sister and cousin went to Sunday school, I went into the big church and sat and listened to the sermon. (Again, this was all before the age of five and I was alone.) My strongest memory of the moment, was looking up at the rafters in the church… the church was God's house. And according to the preacher, God lived "up there". So I wondered if there was an invisible God in the rafters of the church watching me.

In July of 1976 we moved 50 miles away. And in this new town I still wanted to go to Sunday school. So occasionally one of my parents would take me to a nearby church. But that didn't last long. It was an inconvienence. We went camping a lot, or there were chores do to, or I wanted to play with my friends. That was the last time I went to church.

Another memory from childhood, probably around 6th grade - my aunt and uncle are religious. And they would give me childrens bibles for Christmas (I think I got three from them over the years). Anyhow, one Christmas the aunt took me into a back room of my grandparents house, turned off the lights, lit a candle, and we got on our knees and prayed. It was one of those, "Repeat after me things" - And she asked if I was ready and wanting to accept Jesus into my heart as my Lord and Savior. And really, I panicked. I felt very uncomfortable. My gut reaction was to flee. But I was a good kid, and I said yes. She was so excited for me. Afterwards she wanted me to go up to each family member (even my parents) and tell them, "I accepted Jesus into my heart!" I was so embarraseed. But I did it.

I have always been a seeker. Since childhood. I have always felt an affinity to martyrs, saviors, myths, and legends. It was 1980 (I was 9 years old) when I started feeling like I might be the reincarnation of Merlin or King Arthur. (I'm still not convinced I'm not. There's always the possibility.)

With Star Wars and Yoda, and the Beat authors like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, I began investigating Buddhism in high school. Ram Dass and Alan Watts.

In college I took religious and philosophy classes. Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism. I began reading all the texts of worlds religions. And studing their history and leaders. Even things like Joseph Smith and Mormonism. Wicca. Druidism. Satanism.

I had a good friend who started attending classes at a Zen Buddhist temple. He was the first one who really sat me down and we meditated together. Actually, I worked at the library at the time and I had a key and knew the security password. So we broke into the library in the middle of the night and he walked me through a guided meditation together there.

When my marriage started falling apart, and we separated, my very first night alone with no kids or wife I was a wreck and had no idea what to do with myself. So I went to a Barnes and Noble book store. And I went to the section on Buddhism. And there I found the book "Dharma Punx" by Noah Levine. I started reading it there in the book store and I immediately connected to the author's story / history. We were the same age. And when I looked him up online, I saw he taught classes within walking distance from my work in Santa Monica.

And that was when I became a Buddhist. Noah became my Buddhist teacher and my mental health therapist all throughout my marriage crisis. I got very deep and involved in Noah's organization, "Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society." I arrived early and setup all the cushions, I was the greeter welcoming newcomers, we had a little book store with merchandise and I collected all the money. I had spent years there. I was taking classes to become a Buddhist teacher myself. And that was when I had a falling-out with Noah. I felt he was taking advantage of me, and he kept choosing other (new) people to become teachers and not me. Noah was very involved in the 12-step program and he was choosing people he worked with from there.

I changed teachers and spent a couple more years in Buddhist circles, before I stopped going altogether. Although I still follow the Buddhist principles, I wouldn't describe myself as actively practicing. But I do have a week-long silent meditation retreat planned for May.

Towards the end of my time in Buddhism, medical marijuana was legalized in California and I started taking it instead of Prozac. It helped a lot and there was no side effects like Prozac had. And with that lifestyle, my eyes were really opened to the New Age movement. That was when I started having really profound visions that rewired my understanding of the universe. And even after I stopped using marijuana in 2018 (because it gave me anxiety attacks) my mind had already been awakened so I could quickly get into those meditative states. I've been very involved in the New Age movement and have had wonderful magical experiences within it -- Things that defied the laws of physics and the known universe. I've traveled the world several times. I've met wonderful powerful people. I've meditated in magical places on every continent except Africa and Antarctica. I truly do believe that we are living at a time of great change, and we are all a part of it. This change was prophesized by Nostradamus.

And that is kind of where I am now, I consider myself a New Age Buddhist. But as you know, I am also currently in a 9-month program working with a teacher on magical pagan practices, doing rituals and meditations and kything and scrying and things. I am also a certified master reiki healer. I've also done work in the Akashic Records. I can see people's past lives. I have done distance healing. And I'm pretty sure I am becoming who I was always meant to be, who I have always been… a Merlin for a new age. 😉

[thatonefrustratedwriter]

Fear has different faces.

It has different aura, different texture and different emotions to withdraw in your system. It may be dark, it may be deep and vast, or it may be seen on the streets randomly.

Hey reader, I am Karyl. And if you don't know me, I am just a person who loves to talk about anything. If you want someone to talk to, just reach out to me and let me accomodate you as long as I am not that busy. Once again, I am Karyl and this is my twp cents. I call it Karyl's Diary and for today's dilemma, we will be talking about fear. Specifically, my fear. So, let's begin.

Fear has always

been with us.

It has been with us ever since we came into this very world. It has been with us when we got our first bicycle and got to rode it, it has been with us in every first days of school, in our first dance, in our studies, of course in falling in love and most definitely in every first of our lives.

We tend to be afraid of the things we are yet to know. There are a lot of possibilities that we can encounter the things that can make our heart palpitate much faster than the horses racing through the wilderness, things that can make our palm sweat and can make us feel agitated all the damn time. It makes us forget what we were doing, it makes us forget that we are not alone, and most definitely it's there to help us learn the lessons that should be taught.

I as person whom everyone knew as a happy-go-lucky girl, has my own fears. They may not see it, for I hide it really deeply but sometimes it will just wake me up late at night. It will crept into my mind and would choose to stay there. It would choose to stay, and I believe that it had chosen my mind to be its home. It's hard, if I am going to be frank. I could never live the life that I wanted because I have fears. Because I chose to fear. Because I chose to let the overthinking and all of my demons eat up all of the goodness in every single thing.

I have a lot of fears. Fear of the ocean? I have that. Fear of heights? I also have that. But the fear that I would never come to live by, is the only fear I know would stay. Losing someone. That is my biggest fear. I imagine myself, being in this wide room; it is so wide that I could imagine myself as an ant being trapped in a big bowl. I would imagine that and I would look around, the place was empty. It was barren, perhaps. There was no tapping of hands, no shouting, no singing, no children running around, no friends' laughter, no parents telling you to take care always; It was a total silence. It was peaceful, yet its quiet was too much. And I cannot bear that kind of quiet, I cannot bear that kind of loneliness in my life. The kind of quiet you do not want to experience. It was an eerie scenario and yes that is my fear. To be left alone. To be left alone to fend for myself. And I had always carry that fear with me. No matter how hard I try to evict this fear, it always and when I say always, I meant it like from Monday to Sunday I always think about it. Every single day, babes, every single day.

I was born and raised to be independent. If I am to be left alone, I would be fine, they say. Because I know how to look after myself. But the truth is, they do not really see what's underneath this sheep skin. Yeah, I am wearing a thick sheep skin, because I don't want them to see me fearing the fact that one day they'll leave, and I would be all alone. That one day, the familiarity that I know would be just another passing memory. It would only be another memory from the past. And I don't want that, I never wanted anything to be put in the past. I am a very sentimental person, and I always always think about those people that I interact with or moreso, been with for more than a year.

To be left alone is like the worst thing that a man could ever experience. I believe that we are not destined to be alone in this lifetime. There are some who loves their solitude, all by themselves but are they alone? No, they have their books, they have their music, their passion for crochet, their love for dogs and other things. Still, they are not alone. They may seem to be alone in the eyes of the beholder, but in their world they definitely are not. They are together with something or with someone that they love.

And my dearest readers, I thank you so much for being with me, pondering on my rants in life. And it is more than enough. Because in this way, I know that I am not alone. That I am not being desserted. I would like you to know dear reader, that I am also here for you. You do not have to feel loneliness, and wallow in your own fear.

Once again, dear reader, conquering fears is also a sign of greatness. Be brave.