#if anyone has some encouraging words for dealing with heartbreak or just wants to send me a pic of their cat

[marrowage]

sitting in the airport just trying not to break into a million little tiny pieces

[nhlandotherimagines]

I Wish- Quinn Hughes

@natbarzal @anastasiyaigorevnadobrodevskaya @jonnytoews19 

Well here is blurb number 6 of my Up All Night series! I absolutely adore Quinn Hughes so writing this broke my heart! This is just pure angst and heartbreak, oh and some curse words so consider yourself warned!

Please let me know what you think! Thank you all so much for your continued support you’re amazing! ❤️

He takes your hand, I die a little. I watch your eyes and I'm in riddles. Why can't you look at me like that?

“Y/n here yet?” Elias asks, bumping his shoulder playfully into Quinn. Quinn’s face reddens at the question, and Elias’ smirk grows. The whole team knows Quinn is hopelessly in love with you, and they chirp him endlessly for it.

“Piss off Petey,” Quinn grumbles, “She should be here soon.” The boys threw a little get together for Quinn’s birthday, so of course they invited you. You and Quinn have become really close over the last year, so when Brock put together the invite list you were at the top.

“You should tell her.” Petey states, slipping away from Quinn. Almost as if on cue, you walk through the door. Quinn immediately lights up seeing you, however it doesn’t last long. He is sure he’s going to throw up, maybe even die, when he sees the man walking next to you. It is a guy Quinn has never met before, but judging by where his fingers are interlocked with yours, you are quite familiar with him.

“There he is! Happy Birthday Quinny!” You beam, dropping the mystery man’s hand to wrap both your arms around Quinn.

“Thanks Y/n/n, I’m glad you could make it.” He smiles down at you as you pull away. Sure it was the truth, but Quinn can’t help but fight the frown threatening to settle itself on his face.

The man beside you clears his throat as you pull away from Quinn. “Oh right! Quinn this is my boyfriend Jake, Jake this is Quinn!” You smile brightly up at Jake, and he smiles back. The two of you are so caught up in each other you don’t see Quinn’s face fall as he watches you.

Quinn can feel his world crumbling around him. The way you’re looking at this guy, your boyfriend, Quinn wants you to look at him like that. Until this point he had thought it was an option, that maybe you felt the same. Apparently he was wrong. “Nice to meet you Jake.”

When you walk by, I try to say it, but then I freeze, and never do it. My tongue gets tied, the words get trapped. I hear the beat of my heart getting louder, whenever I'm near you

“What?!” Elias’ eyes are practically bugging out of his head now, as he stares at Quinn in disbelief.

“She brought her boyfriend Petey.” Quinn states again, annoyance clear in his voice. Elias opens his mouth to speak, but Quinn quickly shuts him down. “Just quit it okay? There was no hope anyway, it’s fine.” Before Elias can protest, Quinn is walking away. His shoulders slump in defeat as he attempts to mingle with the people that have shown up for his party.

Quinn is sure this is the worst birthday he’s ever had. Sure, it was nice to spend some time with his friends, but he’s never felt this terrible before.

When Quinn finally sees you alone, you’re walking back from the washroom. As you walk past him, his mouth opens to speak. He wants to tell you how he feels, ask what your deal with Jake is, and tell you how bad he wishes it were him. As you smile at him, his heart hammers aggressively in his chest. He cannot form any sentences as you walk right past him, finding your way back to Jake. He was tongue tied, and there was nothing he could do.

But I see you with him slow dancing, tearing me apart 'cause you don't see. Whenever you kiss him, I'm breaking, Oh how I wish that was me

Brock and Elias try their best to keep Quinn entertained for the rest of the evening. Keeping him out of his own head, and his attention off of you. Their efforts, although for his best interest, don’t stop Quinn from watching you whenever you were in view. Jake’s hands gripping your hips, as the two of you swayed back and forth. The two of you slow dance, despite the hip hop beats that someone had playing through Quinn’s speakers, as if you had your own music playing that no one could hear.

It is rough for Quinn to keep the smile on his face as the steady stream of well wishes continues throughout the night. He does a great job of it though, that is until he hits his breaking point. After towing the line all night, on the verge of a breakdown, or perhaps a temper tantrum, Quinn breaks. That line snaps the moment Quinn watches your lips press to Jake’s. The kiss is short and sweet, but to Quinn it feels like it goes on forever. To him, that kiss solidifies the fact he will never have you.

So he drinks. A lot.

He looks at you, the way that I would. Does all the things, I know that I could. If only time, could just turn back

“Quinn slow down!” Brock pleads, trying to pull Quinn from the kitchen where he has spent the last five minutes taking shots. Quinn just shrugs him off pouring more, trying to rid the whole night from his memory. Trying to rid you from his memory. Brock knows he can’t talk any sense into Quinn, so he does the only thing he knows to.

“Y/n!” Brock calls out your name, and when you turn around, you see him running towards you in a panic. You send him a confused look encouraging him to tell you what is going on. “It’s Quinn. I need your help he won’t listen to me.”

When you see him it scares you. You’ve never seen him like this. Hell, no one has. He’s not drinking for fun, and just trying to keep up with the big guys. You’ve seen those times. This time is different, he’s alone, mumbling to himself and knocking back shots as fast as he can pour them.

“Quinn?” Your voice shakes as you place on hand on his shoulder, and use the other to stop him from pouring another shot. His head shoots up at the sound of your voice, eyes meeting yours. The hurt in his eyes is enough for you to have to fight back tears of your own. “I think you should stop.”

“Why do you care? Go back to your boyfriend,” he spits. The anger in his tone drops though, when he sees your face twist. “I’m just having fun.”

“No you aren’t. Talk to me Quinn, I DO care about you.” You plead, but he just shakes his head and let’s out a sad laugh.

“If you care, why him?” Quinn’s eyes are boring into your own, “I could do what he does. I want to. I can look at you like that, I could’ve been that guy! And if I could go back and change things I would.” You can only stare back at him in astonishment, unable to form any words. His confession hits you hard, you didn’t know. How could you?

When you think about it though, it is pretty obvious. Quinn has always complimented you, been the first to offer you help even if you didn’t need it, and always requested you as his plus one. You feel stupid for not having clued in before, and you feel bad for being the reason for your friend’s broken heart.

'Cause I got three little words that I've always been dying to tell you...

“Quinn, I’m sorry I didn’t know you liked me-“ you start, stammering slightly. You’re trying to form an apology without making matters worse, but Quinn cuts you off.

“I don’t like you Y/n.” There it is again, that venom in his words. Quinn was never one to get mad like this, and you don’t like it. His words, although angry, still confuse you.

“B-but you just said?” You hardly register the three men standing behind you now. Brock and Elias both trying to figure out what is happening, and Jake watching you closely.

“I don’t like you. I love you. Always have. Now if you’ll excuse me I have a bottle to get back to and I’m sure you haven’t forgotten that you have a boyfriend to get back to.” Quinn pulls his hand free from your grip on his wrist. Instead of pouring another shot though he brings the bottle up to his lips and turns to walk away.

“Quinn wait!” You call out to him, but he doesn’t stop. He just continues walking towards his room down the hall. “I loved you too you know?” Tears begin to slip down your face, and you know you’ve drawn a crowd but at this point you don’t care. You watch as Quinn freezes, his entire body going rigid, but he doesn’t respond or turn around.

“But you are Quinn-fucking-Hughes, and I’m just me! I counted myself lucky to even be able to call you a friend, so I couldn’t tell you how I felt. You could have any girl Quinn.” You watch him closely, trying to steady your breathing as you do so.

Quinn turns around, the wild look on his face is certainly not what you were expecting. “Well guess what! I don’t want any girl, I want you. But I guess that ships sailed huh?” He glances over your shoulder for a moment, and speaks again. “Take care of her Jake, she’s a good one.”

Without another word from anyone, Quinn is gone. The slamming and locking of his door, so loud that it’s heard over the music. In your attempt to save your friendship with Quinn, you lost him altogether. Now you’re left to wish; wish that this never happened.

[camslightstories]

Morning like this.

Kara Danvers x reader, Kara Danvers x Adopted Kid reader

Notes: Hey guys! I hope all of you are okay and safe! I’m sorry for not uploading anything lately, its just been a long week. I hope you guys like this one-shot, its actually my favorite!

I will be looking out for feedback, comments, suggestions and more. Thank you guys for reading and I hope you guys have a great day! Maybe, maybe you guys could have part 12 of Tolerate It tonight so... 

Request: Anonymous - “Kara was away on a mission for a week and when she comes home its early in the morning she crawls in bed and snuggles with her adopted human daughter. The two of them just spend the morning together”

Taglist: @captain-josslett​ @aznblossom​ @multi-images​

The sunlight came slightly into the room. The smell of coconut invaded the room. The quietness and calmness of the apartment. The soft breeze coming through the open window in the living room.

The earliness of the day made the sky clear, with the slight coldness as a few clouds shifting around the sky that Supergirl flew. The world’s champion flew across the beloved city, with a tired expression and a small smile on her face, when the familiar sound of your heartbeat kept her grounded and calm after a week-long emergency in Smallville, a call for Supergirl from Superman.

The earliness of the morning and the coldness of the apartment, made you cling harder to the white comforter covering you. Your full bed is overwhelmed with pillows and stuffed toys. 

Your bedroom walls with posters of your favorite movies. Piles of books lying on your right side of the bed. While the desk was packed in papers and computer and camera gear. Some clothes on the floor and others hanging on the desk chair and puff. 

Kara flew inside the apartment, softly landing in the living room. Trying to keep the calmness and the quietness of the place. Your breathing and heartbeat could be made clear into her ears as she walked through the apartment. 

As the blonde made her way to your room, you stirred solely and slowly awake. Noticing her figure, when you blinked your eyes as you felt her presence. Kara immediately went to your side, softly humming to the same lullaby, she had once received from her mother.

The soft song made you calm, as you felt the worries slip away. You reach out murmuring to your mom before the blonde could move away. “Jeju’s cuddles, miss you”

Supergirl's smile grew immediately as she reached to accommodate the hair out of your face before giving you a forehead kiss. The blonde turned away and sped into her room and came back with the same style PJ as you. Immediately getting into the bed holding you against her chest, you cuddle into her as she did.

Your mother started to hum the lullaby, as your eyes started to become more and more tired over time, slowly losing yourself in your sleep. 

“Sweet dreams, little one. I'm here now” Kara looked down at you as you clung more into her shirt, just like you did when your nightmares happened. The blonde reporter stopped as she comfortably snuggled into you, kissing your forehead before murmuring falling asleep after she did. 

------

You woke up to feel the soft and small sunlight hitting your eyes, and the two familiar arms of your mother, holding you protectively as she slept safe and soundly.

Three years ago you wouldn't have thought that you would find a safe home, where you would be loved and cared about. After growing up 12 years in an abusive home, you spent 1 year in an adopting center. Before your mother had met you, and after two weeks took you home. 

The first year was difficult in any aspect, not because she made it difficult but because you had never had a good motherly figure, that would care and love you no matter what. The opening up was the hardest, what had happened, what were your nightmares about, how would you feel, if you need it anything, if you needed help, everything. The part that scared you the most it was that the blonde reporter and family had always been too calm and relax for everything. There were always hugs, and words of encouragement going around the house. Which you had received in your childhood.

All of your walls had come down when a panic attack had come up to you, minutes before going to Midvale for the holidays. Also happening two months before your first anniversary of staying with your mom. 

Flashback- 2 years ago

The diversity of cleanness of the apartment could be distinguished by everyone. The sun entered through the white blinds as you packed for the first holidays with Kara. Your room begins a neutral white with a black bed and a small stack of books at the side of your desk. 

You checked the list you had done days before, making sure there wasn't anything out of place. Anxiety not leaving your chest nor your mind. You wanted to be silently perfect for the blonde reporter, you knew she looked up for the holidays, and having the world on her shoulders wasn't easy, and neither was taking care of you.

Your insecurities flew right in when you had thought of how Kara and Alex had talked about kids, the night before, when you overheard Alex telling her sister how she wanted a little munchkin running and laughing around the house, helping them grow up to become these strong and independent persons. And Kara had agreed with the redhead. 

You thought that you could not handle greater pain than the one your parents had inflicted on you emotionally when you grew up. But the feeling of your heartbreaking the moment you heard the words of your foster mother come out of her mouth was more than enough to break you all over again, and this time feeling unfixable. 

You sat on the bed as you let the thoughts come in. Was she going to send you back? You really weren't enough for anyone, and more the perfect mother from a fairytale. If she was going to send you back, why did she do all of what she did? Why the protectiveness and the caringness she had or you, if she knew you were going to lose it at the end?

You didn't want to be alone. You wanted to be enough. You wanted to be there, you didn't want anything else, all you wanted was someone to think you were worth it. But you weren't, you weren't enough

Your fears and insecurities began to pressure your chest. Began to cloud your mind and everything began to be consumed by your insecurities and fears. Your breath got caught in your throat as you tried to get air. Everything started to fade away slowly and painfully. Your hands started to sweat as more of the air you tried to breathe came out. 

Kara was working on the last few things in her room, when she walked to the living room, calling out for you if you need help and that you guys should be leaving pretty soon. The blonde waited for your response as she tried to give you the privacy you deserved. 

After a few seconds without a response, she turned on you and your heartbeat. Only to hear an accelerated heartbeat and small heartbreaking sobs and gasp of air from you. 

She immediately sped to the room and brought your attention. The blonde immediately softly grabbed one of your hands and put it in her chest before speaking “Sweetie, I need you to breathe with me, in and out. Just follow my breathing okay?”

Your clouded mind realized her statement as you tried, your hand in her chest as she breathed in and out deeply trying to help you. You couldn't do it, you felt something closing all of your air as you whispered brokenly “Jeju, I can't-, I can't ”

Kara was taken back by your words, it was the first time you had called her mom. And neither less in her native language. Getting out of the shock, when she noticed the tears slipped out of your eyes, she spoke again this time grabbing your attention, as she hugged you tightly, not letting you out of her embrace.“It's okay, little one. You are okay”

You fought against her protective embrace until the words came out of her mouth. “You are here, I’m here, and you are not going anywhere, Y/N”

The minutes passed and your foster mom had never let you go. She had held you tightly, whispering words of reassurance as you went to the panic attack. You stayed there clinging to her, tears coming down your eyes just like a kid crying after their parents left. 

You slowly cleaned your tears before speaking up, it was quiet and scared but the blonde immediately reacted. “I’m sorry, I know you don't even want to deal with me, a broken teenager-”

“Y/N, little one, you don't have anything to be sorry about-” Kara interrupted as she stepped away from the embrace, her face in complete worry and confusion. 

Your glance never leaves the ground, searching for any interesting points to distract your eyes from crying. You responded quickly stopping to take a deep breath when you felt everything rumble down together “I do because you had to put up with me, a broken kid from an abusive home. Who has more emotional baggage than three people together? I know I wasn't what you want and neither what you deserve because you are a perfect mom- ”

“Y/N, What are you talking about?” The blonde reporter asked this time walking closer to you, putting her hands on your shoulders. Her voice breaking at the end. Not understanding the situation.

“I know you are going to take me back, and you are going to get one or maybe two little kids who are going to grow up to be perfect, and you deserve them. So if you want me to” You claimed this time looking up, to look into your foster mom’s eyes. Tears overwhelming yours as you tried to hide them. As the last words left your mouth an obvious and noticeable break as a sob came out. 

“Leave, or you want me to take me to the center today. It’s fine, I want to thank you for letting me stay all this time and I will get the things I brought when I first came right away” You looked back down cleaning your tears, and cleared your throat before speaking again with more calmness as you felt everything break down.

Kara looked at you, closing and opening her mouth a few times. With tears in her eyes, she put her arms out and brought you into a hug, letting you cry silently in her shoulder, expecting to be the end. 

The blonde shakes her head before speaking, after grabbing your face softly by your cheeks, having all of your attention. “You are not going anywhere, sweetie. I want you here, I want my kid. If you want that too and if you don't then I'm going to let you go for you to be happy okay?”

“I don't wanna be alone, I wanna stay here with you, Jeju” Cleaning your tears with her thumbs, you whispered again and again as you cried. 

She whispered motherly, comforting you as the two of you hugged again. She set various kisses on your head as she put her chin on the top of your head. “Then you are not going anywhere, Y/N, and nothing is going to hurt you” 

You mention, this time pulling away completely. Trying not to keep your walls up, evading an emotional attachment. “But, but you deserve the perfect kids running and laughing around the house, Kara”

“Little one, you are my perfect kid, I don't want any other kid, I want you” Kara spoke again, 

Supergirl smiled sadly when you started to cry murmuring. Making her cry too “I want you too, Jeju, I don't want another mom”

-------

You stood at the basketball court playing with Maggie. As your Jeju, and Alex stood at the door of the house each one of them with a cup of chocolate watching you guys play unfairly, hitting each other and playing around. 

All of you had sweaters with the Danvers the last name in the back and a small cookie man in the front top. Your hair was up and you had grey sweats just like your blonde adoptive mom. 

The breeze of Midvale had a tinted of coldness and ocean. The smell of Eliza’s chocolate pecan pie invaded everyone's noses. And the soft Christmas music rounded around the house. The light of the late afternoon illuminating the backyard and the court as you guys were outside. 

The redhead looked at her blonde sister as she watched you in pride. As you made a perfect three-point right in Maggie’s face, just to do a small victory dance while you laughed loudly throwing your head back, immediately starting to run yelling as the brunette detective chase after you “Jeju, help” 

Alex spoke hugging her sister by the side. As she noticed it was the first time you had called her mom and had been so open to them “Y/N is really your perfect kid”

“Yeah, I wouldn't change my kid for anything in the world,” The blonde said with a wide smile before you went running into her arms as Maggie stopped chasing you as she stopped to recover her breath.

Flashback back ends 

The smell of chocolate chip pancakes and coffee invaded the apartment smell. The sunlight came through the open blinds of the apartment. The small breeze coming into the apartment through the window your mom had entered after a week of beginning away from home. 

Pancakes, waffles, bacon, and coffee surrounding you on the kitchen island. The pile of your mom’s pancake with chocolate and blueberry inside and your pile with pure chocolate chips and slices of strawberries. The two coffee cups with remarkable tags, Kara’s with a ‘Best Supermom ever’ and yours with a ‘Best kid ever’, at the side of each pancake tray. The waffles on a griddle with the lowest heat. The mountain of bacon in the middle of the two seats. The ice cream scoop inside of a cup of water waiting to be used. Chocolate chips, butter maple, chocolate, and strawberry sirup at the side of the table. And the birthday cake sprinkles at the side of the mountain of bacon. 

You hummed quietly to the music coming through your lead-covered earbuds made by your Aunt Lena. Taylor Swift sounded through them as you danced quietly around the kitchen, as you finished preparing the breakfast for you and your mom. 

The blonde had left after an urgent situation where Superman or your uncle Clarke needed her help. She was too scared to take you with her, after you had gotten lost in Star City with Nora West-Allen getting to a bar, where the two of you almost got inside, only getting stopped by ‘The Flash and Supergirl’ with frowns on their faces.

The two of you were being mind-controlled by one of the metahumans causing you guys to do things that would get you in trouble. Just like it did with every other teenager causing trouble all around the city. 

You were caught off guard when the two familiar arms of your Jeju hugged you and spun you around as you took off the earbuds. With a smile on her face as she spoke first eyeing all of the food with pride and love before kissing your forehead. “You are really perfect, little one”

“It's nothing, Jeju. We can't just keep living out of takeout and in aunt Alex’s words ‘Your Rao awfully food’ ” You said laughing before throwing her your apron, only for her to catch it with a dramatic gasp. 

She said as she sat on the barstool looking directly into her pancakes while putting the syrup on top. She spoke, making you laugh “I'm not going to leave you again, ever again. Miss you too much”

“Jeju, are you talking about my pancakes or me?” You teased as you filled her coffee cup and yours before sitting beside her. 

Your mother looked back and forward between the pile of pancakes and you, getting out her famous crinkle before speaking. Making you pout, as you kept eating your small pile of two chocolate chip pancakes “Both...”

“Kidding, baby. I’m talking about my favorite kid in the world” She said bringing you into a hug, before starting to tickle you as you remain silent with a pout. 

Your giggles and her laugh covered the apartment. Your blonde mother tickled you until you asked her to stop. Tears coming out of your eyes from the hard laughing. Your Jeju looked worriedly at you as you started to clean your tears, noticing her expression, you immediately stopped as shaken your head giving her a hug of reassurance. 

“I’m your only kid” You spoke, taking a piece of bacon out of her plate with a challenging smile on your face, as you did. Your mother gasped and looked at you shocked before the two of you laughed completely.

 Your mom said as she grabbed the piece of bacon on your plate playfully as revenge with a smile making you nod and smile back. “I missed the mornings, morning like this“

-------

“Rock, paper, scissors. And we choose between Y/F/M and the Wizard of Oz” You said as you laid on the couch cuddled into your mom. With donuts, chocolate bars, popcorn, ice cream waffles, and pizza laying all on the coffee table in front of you guys.

The blonde reporter responded as she took her arm out and started the game. “Okay then, game on kid”

The two of you with a serious commitment to winning, only to get to an agreement after the two of you became tied in the game. First, you guys were going to watch your Y/F/M and then Wizard of Oz. With smiles on your faces as the two of you stuffed yourself while sunning on the couch surrounded by blankets and pillows.

You were eating the waffle not noticing your face now was stained with cookies and cream ice cream in your face. Your mom laughed before grabbing the napkin on the table, cleaning your face making you pout as she did. 

Your Jeju shook her face before speaking, bringing you into her arms again as she moved her hand through your hair. “You are and always will be my kid. My perfect kid”

“I'm nowhere near perfect, Jeju” You responded as insecurities flooded your head, clinging more into your mom’s blue shirt.

She murmured into your head as she kissed the top of it. As you nodded and hugged her tighter as a response. The breeze of the midmorning coming through the window making you guys throw another blanket on you guys “For me, you would always be” 

And even though it went unsaid you know she knew. You had finally found your place, your family, your home, your mother and you wouldn't change it for anything in the world. Your mother had helped you become the best person you could be and you couldn't be more grateful to her and Rao after that.

Even though she could have picked out any other kid in the world, she had chosen you even though you were just a boring human and she was a super, the champion of earth, the strongest and best person on the planet. She had chosen you to help you grow up, to give you a family and you still couldn't believe it, but you were going to hold on to it as long as you could. And you believe your mother when she told you she wasn't going to let you go.

[livinglikearoyal]

K-drama Recommendations (May 2020)

Here is part two of my Kdrama recommendations, since my first one had such a positive response and I had a couple people ask for more. All of the dramas on this list can be found on Netflix US as of posting. These are all dramas I have watched since my last post in November...I have described why ten of them are amazing and listed a handful of others that are worth a shot as well. (I watch too much Netflix...my goodness)

These aren’t in any order based on how much I liked them; they are ordered based on the order I watched them. The ones listed in the honorable mentions list are dramas that either had a somewhat similar storyline to one of the ten that are explained or I just couldn’t find the words to describe them! Obviously, everyone has different tastes and perspectives when it comes to dramas...this is just my take! 

I am always looking for new dramas to watch! Send your suggestions and/or thoughts my way!

Suits (law, witty, drama)

Summary: Go Yeonwoo is a man wrapped up in some shady business, just trying to get by. When a deal goes bad, he finds himself seeking safety by blending in with the many applicants trying to join the top law firm in Korea, Kang & Ham. Although he isn’t a law student, his photographic memory and previous experience taking assessments for law students helps him impress the company’s ace: Attorney Choi. Go (illegally) becomes Choi’s apprentice and the series follows them as they figure out how they work together, how to save their company, and how to not get caught. Based on the American series of the same name. 

Why I liked it: I watched the American version of Suits as soon as it came out and followed it for several seasons. This Korean version is much more my speed. The storyline is complicated enough to keep your attention but not so complicated to make you stop watching. They took the key components of the American series and made them better: more realistic, less focused on sex appeal and more on the storyline, and you could really connect with the characters. It really hits on the ideas of integrity, truth, and empathy.

The K2 (action, romantic, political)

Summary: Kim Jeha is on the run in France. While trying to elude his captors, he runs into a woman in a white dressing gown and she begs for his help because she is also on the run. He is hesitant but ends up helping her escape her captor’s hold in the subway. She runs but is captured again on the street and he doesn’t help her a second time. Flash forward several years: Jeha is now appointed as bodyguard for the wife of a presidential candidate (she is terrifyingly powerful) and he is assigned to watch over the candidate’s illegitimate daughter, Anna. Anna is the girl from the subway. The series follows Jeha as he seeks revenge for all of the false accusations that have marred his past while also protecting Anna from the political corruption and previous trauma she has encountered. 

Why I liked it: This one took a second to get into. The way that the storyline is introduced is purposely chaotic. Once I got to the second or third episode, I really got into it. Each character is well developed: There were so many characters in this storyline and I empathized with most of them. Each character has their own motives and reasons behind their actions; they don’t do something just to fit their role as the “good guy” or “bad guy”. The dynamic between Jeha and Anna definitely had me yelling at my screen several times. The corruption and complications that come along with power is portrayed in such a powerful way. It is a show where you think you have it figured out but you don’t and as soon as you give up and stop trying to guess, something predictable happens. It keeps you on your feet while making you fall in love with its characters. 

Inheritors (romantic, teenage angst, social issues)

Summary: Kim Tan is in California after essentially being kicked out of Korea by his family, especially his older brother. One day he sees Cha Eunsang arguing with her sister after Eunsang traveled to the U.S. to see her only to find out that her sister lied and she has been using all of the money that their mother has sent for things less legal than an education. Tan sees that Eunsang is alone so he offers for her to stay at his home mansion. His fiancee (arranged) shows up and is not pleased to see Eunsang in the house so she does all she can to kick her out. Eunsang eventually returns to Korea to be with her mother, who has now moved into a mansion as their housekeeper. Tan also returns to try to smooth over his relationship with his family and he has to return to his old high school, where he  had previously set the standard for how privileged students rule the roost. His friend turned enemy is now the “alpha male”. The series follows Tan and Eunsang mostly; showing their varying perspectives on attending the same school but coming from completely different backgrounds and financial situations.. Even comparing Tan’s perspectives from his other “inheritor” peers or himself several years prior is really interesting.  It also shows their very different relationships with their families

Why I liked it: This show started out soooo cheesy. I remember commenting to my friend that I was watching this with-- I felt like I was watching a crossover between “Saved by the Bell” and a daytime soap opera. The American characters at the beginning are so stereotypical it was funny to see. Once the storyline got past the first few episodes and they were back in Korea, it really increased in quality-- both visually and written. This is another one that really allows you to connect to so many of the characters. I was constantly wanting to jump through my screen and just give the characters a hug (social distancing may have contributed a little too…).  By the end of it, you have nearly 10 or more characters that you are invested in and you really want to see them succeed. The ending can be a little frustrating if you are the type of person that wants everything (all the minor storylines) to be wrapped up in a little bow. The ending closes out the main storyline well but leaves the others very open ended. I will always be on the lookout for a sequel/spin off. Also, Eunsang is a girl that will tell it like it is...she doesn’t take BS from anyone...unless she wants to. She isn’t the stereotypical damsel in distress. Also...that “Love is the Moment” song will forever play in my head during ANY romantic scene in ANY show from now on. 

My Secret Romance (romantic, work place drama, comedy)

Summary: Jin Wook is a rich man getting ready to inherit the family company. The only thing standing in his way is the fact that his father doesn’t want him to take over until he is married. And the fact that he doesn’t take proper care of himself nutritionally, causing him to pass out. The company has recently hired a brand new dietitian, Yoo Mi, and Jin Wook’s assistant assigns her with the task of providing three healthy meals for their very picky boss. Yoo Mi, being brand new, is learning to be the head of a very opinionated kitchen staff while struggling to make food that is worth eating. Once Jin Wook and Yoo Mi meet, they realize that this isn’t their first encounter. As the series progresses, the two work on figuring out how to work together after their first meeting, what they feel for each other (especially considering that Jin Wook is expected to marry another woman), and how to work through their interesting family dynamics. 

Why I liked it: This is a show that really shows the effect of emotional baggage. Neither of the main characters have a “simple life” and it plays into their interactions daily. It is a cute show, an easy watch, nothing too complicated but definitely heartfelt. It is a good illustration of the different ways that people care for those around them too. There are definitely several complications that come along and they are realistic and well thought out. 

Tomorrow, With You (time travel, emotional, romantic)

Summary: Yoo Sojoon is the CEO of a very successful real estate firm. He ends up saving photographer Song Marin from being hit in an intersection and begins to try to get to know her. Little does she know, that Sojoon has been able to time travel using the subway ever since he narrowly avoided being in a major accident in that same subway tunnel. Sojoon is interested in Song Marin because he wants to save her, being encouraged by his mentor, a man that is also able to time travel in the same way as Sojoon. Sojoon encounters the many issues that come along with time travel and does all that he can to avoid the heartbreak that he sees when he travels to the future. 

Why I liked it: This one was interesting. All of the characters storylines are so tangled together and there are times when you can’t tell if we are seeing past Sojoon, present Sojoon, or future Sojoon. It feels like we are in that time travel web right along with them. It is definitely a heartfelt story that will have you in your feelings while making you think. Life is complicated, with and without time travel, and this shows that. 

Itaewon Class (Social issues, workplace politics, vengeance, family)

Summary: Park Saeroyi is a teenager that gets kicked out of his new school after punching the school bully and refusing to apologize. His father has recently purchased a building and is working to make his own restaurant after being let go from his position (the bully’s dad was his boss). As Mr. Park was making a delivery, he is a victim of a hit and run and passes away. Saeroyi finds out that the bully was the one driving the other car and attacks him, landing Saeroyi in prison for several years. Upon release, Saeroyi sets out to begin his plan to take revenge on the bully and his family for all that they have done. Saeroyi’s goal: Become the #1 restaurant business, overthrowing that family’s company. The show follows Saeroyi as he puts his plan into action and tries to go from the bottom of the totem pole to the top. 

Why I liked it: I loved this drama! I’m not sure whether it was the storyline, the diverse characters, or the main character himself. The irony of so many things had me falling in love with Saeroyi’s plan and Saeroyi’s character was so...wholesome. I definitely yelled at my screen several times, especially during the last handful of episodes. The characters (at least those that work closely with Saeroyi) are so easy to love. Even those that aren’t the easiest to love, you still root for them. Now, the bad guys are the bad guys and they stay bad but you can see their motivations...not always making the pill any easier to swallow. It is definitely a drama I would recommend to everyone, whether they like foreign dramas or not. The storyline is good, the acting is wonderful, and it tugs at your heartstrings. 

My Holo Love (action, romance, emotional, sci-fi)

Summary: Soyeon has lived a very solitary life due the fact that she has a face blindness disorder where she can’t recognize the differences in individual’s faces. This all stems from a childhood trauma. By chance (or not), she ends up with a pair of high tech prototype glasses that allows her to interact with the AI program that is installed, named Holo. He is meant to be a sort of personal assistant and only the person wearing the glasses can see and hear him. Holo helps Soyeon throughout her daily life, explaining who people are as they walk up to Soyeon so she can identify them and taking on the role of love coach. They become quite attached to each other, emotionally. They both realize the limits though, considering one is a human and one is a hologram. Holo is the spitting image of his creator, Nan Do...a man that the world thinks is dead. He is not. There are many people looking for him and his glasses. This causes him to become well acquainted with Soyeon.

Why I liked it: This one is cute. It is relatively short too...only 12 or so episodes compared to other series that have 20+. It was really interesting to see Soyeon’s relationship with Holo vs. Nando, but a good sort of interesting. The pacing was good and I really became invested in these three main characters. The ending is bittersweet (leaning more toward the sweet side) and how they get there is complicated, sometimes messy, but very intriguing. Definitely a good show to watch if you are wanting to watch something a little out of the ordinary while also seeing most kdrama troupes represented. 

Chocolate (medical, romantic, angst, tearjerker)

Summary: The show begins in a small restaurant on the pier of a tiny town. Lee Kang’s mother is the owner and he loves helping around the business and watching her make the meals. He sees a young girl outside that is alone and hungry. He puts his skills to use (mind you, he is young...like 10 years old), and makes a full spread for this girl. He promises to make her a chocolate dessert later on if she returns. He makes it, but she never comes back (it was out of her hands). Fast forward to when these kids are adults. Lee Kang was taken in by his father’s family (who disproved of his mother) and groomed to become the top neurosurgeon at the family’s hospital. The young girl, Moon Chayoung, is now a chef and dating Kang’s best friend. They encounter each other another time in Greece when Kang searches for her to come back to Korea to make a final meal for his best friend who has failing health.  Kang and Chayoung end up in a car accident that changes both of their futures and makes everything even more complicated but also provides some reminders about what is really important. 

Why I liked it: Good lord, did I cry with this one! Nearly every episode had me in tears: both happy and sad. It is so sweet and sad. Just...ahhh. It is bittersweet like dark chocolate. Even looking back at the episode summaries on Netflix has me feeling some kind of way. I texted my friend after nearly episode just to vent about why I was crying. These characters are so relatable and my heart broke for them so many times while also celebrating for them. The cast is amazing and the storyline really makes you think about what you have and how you should value those around you while you have them around. I will definitely rewatch this when I need to be lost in my emotions. This is a drama that I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about it. I absolutely loved it.

Crash Landing on You (realistic drama, romantic)

Summary: Yun Seri, a South Korean heiress, find herself stuck in a tree on the north side of the Korean DMZ after a paragliding incident and a freak tornado. Ri Jeong Hyeok finds her and hides her in his home, with the help of his troop of North Korean soldiers. He is not a fan of hers and is looking for ways to get her back to South Korea without raising suspicion. His fiance returns from being abroad after years and throws a wrench in the plan as he had been introducing Seri as his fiance to decrease the suspicion of the neighbors. Seri is getting used to life in North Korea. Several issues arise as they try to get Seri back to the south and these complications bring them even closer together. 

Why I liked it: This one is sweet. Nothing too emotional or heart wrenching. It is interesting to see how they portray the differences between the two countries and how important our relationships with others are, no matter what the government is like. The storyline isn’t rushed or forced and I really appreciated that. It seemed like events unfolded naturally. The characters are loveable and you find yourself wanting to be a part of their “squad”. Some characters redeem themselves, others don’t. Some characters get the ending they deserve, others don’t. The ending isn’t exactly what the viewer (or at least what I) hoped for, but it is more of a realistic ending and I appreciate that. 

Cinderella and the Four Knights (angst, romantic, dramedy)

Summary: Hawon is a high school student that is working multiple jobs. Her step-family is nasty toward her and her father is on the road most of the time. She shows her spunk when she speaks up against some men at a club that are jerks when she delivers food. Hyunmin is one of three heirs for his family’s business and fortune. He sees Hawon’s spunk and offers her a fair amount of money for her to play the role of his fiancee at his grandfather’s latest marriage ceremony. She doesn’t realize what she is in for. When she stands up for herself at the wedding, she grabs the grandfather’s attention. He ends up hiring her to live with his four grandsons to “whip them into shape” and gives her missions to complete, essentially trying to get the grandsons to interact with each other as they each live their own separate lives and don’t like each other.  Hyunmin is the eldest cousin and is the “arrogant playboy”. Jiwoon is the middle cousin and is the most withdrawn; he was an orphan and was thrown into this affluent role overnight...leading him to portray himself as wild and rebellious. Seowoo is the youngest cousin and he is a popular singer and is a sweetheart. The fourth knight is the secretary of Chairman Kang, Lee Yoonsung, and he is the bodyguard for Hawon and the three cousins. 

Why I liked it: This one is complicated in the best way possible. It definitely hits on many of the stereotypical Kdrama troupes. You fall in love with all of the the main characters, even the chairman (a role that typically is the bad guy). The relationships are complicated, the characters are lovable, and the main female character has a backbone. Throughout the show, I couldn’t decide which “knight” I wanted Hawon to end up with. The writers did a great job at portraying each of the characters in an equal but unique light to allow the viewers to see them for who they are. The storyline is complicated but simple at the same time. I will definitely rewatch “Cinderella and the Four Knights” again. 

Honorable Mentions: 

Cheese in the Trap

Man to Man

Because this is my First Love

The Lies Within

The Bride of Haebaek

The Legend of the Blue Sea

[spnfanficpond]

June 2020 Angel Fish Awards

(New Angel Fish design by @slytherkins!!)

Every month all of you fantastic writers work your asses off to post some truly incredible stories. Our Angel Fish Awards are the way for all of us, as a community of writers and readers, to lift each other up and give praise to those who have captured our attention and deserve a few kind words.

The monthly Angel Fish Awards are peer-nominated, meaning ANYONE IN THE POND CAN NOMINATE ANY POND MEMBER’S FIC. While the Pond was founded to support the Guppies, everyone in this community deserves to be showered with love and feedback, and we hope that by opening this up as a Pond wide system, we’ll be able to share the love as far as it can go.

NOTE: WE’VE BEEN HAVING OCCASIONAL PROBLEMS WITH ASKS GOING MISSING. Please use the Submit button when submitting your nominations and make sure you’re signed into Tumblr or your URL won’t show. (If the form asks for your name and email address, then you’re not signed in.) If you like, you can also send a message to Michelle @mrswhozeewhatsis or Mana @manawhaat to check and make sure we got your submission.

Be sure to read through this whole post as people who were nominated more than once only had one tag activated for tumblr tagging purposes!

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, HERE ARE JUNE’S ANGEL FISH AWARDS!

Nonimated by @thegirlwhorunswithwinchesters

I Thought You Were Going To Die (oneshot) by @fun-and-fandoms

My nominations for the month wouldn’t be complete without a little bit of angst. Though this one isn’t just that. If you’re easily triggered by mentions of depression and its symptoms, this one’s not for you. But it’s an important topic and I will always encourage any creator who uses their art to remind people it’s okay to talk about it. (Note from Kale, this was actually submitted in May but I missed it.) 

More to Me (oneshot) by @becs-bunker

No spoilers, but I’m so glad this ended the way it did. So sweet <3

Help  (oneshot) by @blushingjared

I came across this fic and was immediately intrigued. Then I started reading and I was captivated from the first sentence until the very last. The author did such a good job with setting the scene and painting the right picture.

Talking Bodies (oneshot) by @ne-gans

This AU-Sam is such a huge weakness of mine. That, in combination with this dangerously filthy masterpiece, is nothing short of perfection.

Nominated by @focusonspn

Into The Woods (series) by @amanda-teaches

So well written, interesting plot and great development. The chemistry between Y/N and Dean is also amazing, and I loved how this mini-series could be so easily part of the show. Totally worth reading.

Nominated by @thoughtslikeamindfield 

Stranger Than FanFiction (series) by @cherry3point14

The premise is similar to the film Stranger Than Fiction – a story about a story being written about you – and it’s just as hilarious. Also, Cherry Pie is still one of the funniest writers in this corner of SPN fandom.

“You’re not supposed to move your head if there’s someone trying to murder you, probably…”

No, I wouldn’t think so, but lollllll

“You’re being insane, out loud.”

Omgggg

“It tried, oh, how the door tried to divert her attention from the unknown men who could be terrible, rule-breaking influences on her. However the door was only wood and she was a stubborn woman made of free will and limbs—a woman who refused to be deceived.”

“Your hand is on the doorknob before the mention of your limbs has finished rattling around your head.  Realistically you don’t want to encourage the voice by doing what it says. After all, the voice’s ultimate goal seems to be killing you.”

BAHAHAHAH omfg you guys

I need to stop quoting from this bc I probably seem insane to those of you who haven’t read this, so stop being judgy buttheads and go read!

Nominated by @flamencodiva

The Choice (series) by @superfanficnatural

A couple of things. 1) this is an amazing fic that highlights Dean unwillingness to let himself go until it’s almost too late. and 2) the smut in this is hot hot hot hot! not for anyone under 18 years of age.

Mert has a way with words and can literally pluck you into one and make you see it as it comes to life in your head.

Mine (series) by @holylulusworld

Lulu has an abundance of different stories she tells and this one is my favorite of her ABO’s at the moment. (although I love all of them) I think this one deserved a mention. I am glad she joined to Pond so I could help nominate and spread her amazing work!

One Night at a Time (series) by @crashdevlin

Another great fic by Cassie! This one shot full of Angst, Smut, and if you squint just the right amount of Dean fluff. She has a way of capturing your attention and putting you in the world as you read.

What He Lost (oneshot) by @jensengirl83

This short story by Brandy is sure to rip your heart out. she leaves just a bit of hope where you think there is a chance only to crush it completely with the ending. This one is sure to bring you to tears if you are looking for the most delicious angsty story to read.

Nominated by @risingpheonix761

Down The Rabbit Hole (oneshot) by @dontshootmespence

So, this was hysterical. XD I love crack fics, and bad smut in particular, and this one hits the spot. (I’ve also learned several new horrible euphemisms lol). The ending, though? Golden!

Nominated by @myinconnelly1

The Affair (oneshot) by @holylulusworld

I love how well all the characters are portrayed I truly hate everyone except the reader! Well done!!  

Red Riding Hood - or how you ran into a wolf... (oneshot) by @holylulusworld

I have nothing to say about this. I will simply allow the puddle I have become to speak for me. 

Last Omega On Earth (oneshot) by @holylulusworld 

This was a great entry in the ABO world. and we need more of this and more like !!!!! Great work!

My Beta (oneshot) by @holylulusworld

I am a greedy little bitch with this fic.  I think I've read it 3-4 since i first read it this month!!!!!! READ THIS FIC!  

Third Period (oneshot) by @fictionalabyss

Some truly inspiring smut.  Inspiring to change my panties. 

Gods of Twilight (series) by @thecleverdame​

I think i posted this fic in my rec before, but it is so amazing and intricate that i can't stop gushing about it.  Fucking awesome. 

Apple Pie (oneshot) by @bad268​ 

The amazingness of this is great, check this guppy out!

Deal (oneshot) by @bad268 

Comedy at some of its's finest!!! 

Confession (oneshot) by @idreamofplaid

THE FLUFFFFFFF!!!! I don't read straight fluff.  So get the tissues ready.

Fallen (series) by idreamofplaid

My therapist has told me i'm not longer allowed to talk about this fic during our sessions.  So instead i shall now talk about it here... *pulls out soapbox* ahem... *gets pulled away with hook*

Memory (oneshot) by @idreamofplaid

This fic is older, but i love it so much.  I recently went back and reread it, and the angst and reconciliation in this fic are heartwrenching.

Home (oneshot) by @emilyshurley

My dentist bill the month was higher than normal, due to the new cavities caused by this fic.

Imperfectly Yours (oneshot) by @emilyshurley

Cuteness overload as you get Dean's perspective of Home ^^

Second Hand News (oneshot) by @emilyshurley

Alright listen. I am a glutton for punishment.  And this fic, I asked for.  Also i had it set within one of the universes we now own.  That all being said, reading this was like a dose of my own medicine and it fucking hurt.

Honesty And Lies (oneshot) by @crashdevlin

This was super dirty, and great.  Totally recommend. 

Nominated by @deanwinchesterswitch

The Classifieds (oneshot) by @talesmaniac89

This is rip your heart out and stomp on it angst right here. So well written, but so, so heartbreaking.

So Much More Than Perfect (oneshot) by @imagineteamfreewill

This fic is one of the sweetest things I’ve ever read. It made me tear up a bit, but who doesn’t love Dean being the most protective, most adorable dad ever?!

Nominated by @mariekoukie6661

Dear Dean (series) by @smol-and-grumpy

It’s one of those series that makes you wants more after every chapter. It’s a brilliant story.

Left Behind (series) by @kittenofdoomage

It’s the only John Fic I can read over and over and over again. Its hot, the plot is awesome! And it makes me wants more each and every time I read it.

Not Much Left (oneshot) by @impala-dreamer

I think Beka tries to kill her readers every time she writes smut… or she just tap into our mind what we want or what we fantasize about. Every single time I’m speechless by her talents!

Yes Professor (oneshot) by @impala-dreamer

It’s a Misha fic, there’s no one who write Misha the way Beka does!!!

Owe You One (series) by @supernatural-jackles

It’s such a great series! The friends with Benefit and Mechanic!Dean… I just love this so much and I don’t have words to describe how good this one is!!

Flirty In French (oneshot) by @fictionalabyss

This is brilliant, and I know its an old one, but from someone who finally decided to read more and from someone who is from Quebec, this is absolutely brilliant! The flirty french pick up line are so hilarious!

Nominated by @moosekateer13

Watching for Comets (series) by @holylulusworld

This fic beautifully captures the song that it was inspired by.

It also showcases things that when things are meant to be.

I’ll will all fall into place.

Please Trust Me (oneshot) by @holylulusworld

This fic beautifully emotionally captures what it’s like to have trust issues.

Nominated by @fictionalabyss

Last Call (oneshot) by @impala-dreamer 

It was everything we needed and wanted.

Culinary Exploits (oneshot) by @impala-dreamer  

Too utterly ridiculous not to get a mention.

His Omega (oneshot) by @iflostreturntosteverogers 

A sweet little comfort fic of Dean being utterly perfect caring for his Omega. Carrie also pulled off keeping this gender neutral, which isn’t something I see a lot of, and probably something I’d struggle with, so hats off to you, babe.

Poison (oneshot) by @supernatural-jackles 

YES omg i feel this on such a level. I’ve gone through that shit myself. A friend who lets you down so profoundly but then acts as if you’re the most toxic person in the world.  Nothing feels as good as letting go of that shit and moving on to better things. This was beautiful, and perfect, and TRUTH.

Amara (oneshot) by @impala-dreamer  

This one hurt. It really hurt, but it hurt so good that I’m left wanting more.

Take Me Now (oneshot) by @sorenmarie87  

If Dawn doesn’t continue this, I’ll riot.

Stuck On You (oneshot) by @kittenofdoomage  

I rarely read a fic this long (I just don’t usually have the time) but it looked too interesting for me to scroll past, and it had me completely captivated. I needed to know what would happen as if I needed air, even though I could guess how it ended, I needed to read the words. Phenomenal.

Thank you all for the awesome work and great feedback!

These are not actual awards! This system is set up so everyone in the pond has a chance to share the love and promote a fic/author that has grabbed your attention. The more people that participate, and the more everyone remembers to submit their own fics after posting, the better this will be :D

THANK YOU ALL AGAIN, KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK, AND AS ALWAYS, HAPPY WRITING!

[axwalker]

The trade 13

Synopsis:  Liam is running for Cordonia’s presidency. To assure his victory, Constantine makes an arraignment behind his back for him to marry the rich ambassador’s daughter: Alexis O’Brien. Due to her father’s threats, she has no other option than to seduce Liam Rhys. But what happens when she falls in love with his best friend? (AU)

Pairings: DrakexMC

A/N: I took some liberties with Leo’s and Liam’s characters. In this AU their age difference is two years instead of six, and I made up their middle names.

I’m using Grey’s Anatomy prompt asked by @mskaneko​  : If you love someone, you tell them. Even if you’re scared that it’s not the right thing. Even if you’re scared that it’ll cause problems. Even if you’re scared that it will burn your life to the ground, you say it, and you say it loud and you go from there. (In bold) 

I love to picture FC when I read fanfic so I added a mood board with mine at the beginning. 

Warnings: I love drama and chaos so this will probably get a bit dark. In this chapter there is mention of rape, if you get triggered by this issue, don’t hesitate to send me a message and I’ll be glad to explain what happens without reading it. A lot of angst and heartbreak

NSFW 🍋🍋🍋

Please note that this is my first series and English is not my first language. I really love ALL kinds of feedback.  Don’t hesitate to comment!

Disclaimer: Some of the dialogues and settings as well as most of the characters belong to Pixelberry (except for Alexis O’Brien and her evil father George O’Brien JR).

To catch up: Masterlist

Thanks to @pedudley​  my awesome beta reader, your comments and encouragement mean so much.  And of course, to @mskaneko​ for this beautiful mood board, and all the other great edits and mood boards 💕💕  Love you girls!!

Tags: @burnsoslow  @mskaneko​ @drxkewalker @pedudley @fromthedeskofpaisleybleakmore @pug-bitch @lauzales @desireepow-1986 @yukinagato2012 @kingliam2019 @i-bloody-love-drake-walker  @speedyoperarascalparty @drakewalker04 @ac27dj @ravenpuff02@msjr0119 @texaskitten30​ @loveellamae​ @texaskitten30​

March 2003

Constantine had been preparing for this day since the revolution had stolen him the throne that was his by birthright. After the monarchy had been overthrown, he had sworn to himself that he would be back to rule his people one day, so he had spent the last nineteen years of his life building a strong political career. And, there he was, about to become Cordonia’s third democratic president. He smiled at the irony, all that blood spilled by the revolutionaries had been for nothing. One way or another, he had been born to lead his country.

His eyes drifted to his two sons. Leo and Liam, so similar in appearance but with such contrasting personalities. 

Liam was sitting calmly next to his stepmother, not a hair out of place, his suit perfectly ironed. Leo was the opposite. Despite Regina’s efforts, Leo’s hair was all over the place and he wasn’t wearing a tie anymore. Constantine scoffed; they were going to appear in live television in a question of minutes.

“Leonard Alistair Rhys, could you care to tell me where your tie is?”

Leo jumped at the mention of his middle name. He knew it meant trouble. Plus, he hated it, he had been given the dreadful name of an old, forgotten ancestor, while Liam shared his middle name, Fabian, with one of Cordonia’s greatest kings.

He answered smugly despite the fear his father inspired in him. “I left it in my room, it didn’t suit my wild personality.”

Liam laughed quietly to his brother’s answer.

Constantine snapped his fingers at Jackson, his personal bodyguard. “I need a tie for him, now”

Then he turned to his oldest son. “You may think that this is simply about the tie, but it is not. It’s what the tie represents.” He arched one brow scornfully “You will never achieve anything important, Leo.  You have no discipline, no self-control, no respect. The monarchy was abolished because of nobles like you. I couldn’t see it back then, but they had a point. If the revolutionaries had lost, you would be an heir right now. The next Cordonia’s king. A terrible thing for our country. But thanks to the new democracy your brother who is far more capable and responsible than you can lead this country one day if he applies himself and works for it, as I did. I was against the revolution, but thanks to you I realize now, that they were right”.

Leo’s fists clenched; he was trembling with rage but didn’t reply anything. He was used to his father’s contempt and sourly remarks. He had been his favorite target since he was a little boy and his mother had left, something his father blamed him for. Leo didn’t cry, he had never given him the pleasure of his tears before, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now.  

Jackson came back minutes later with the tie.

“Put this on, now, Leonard. We will talk about your punishment later.” Constantine barely looked at his oldest son for the rest of the ceremony.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the scandal exploded, Leo Rhys left the ballroom discretely through a backdoor. As he loosened his bowtie, he smiled to himself, the look in his father’s eyes had been priceless. He couldn’t help but feel slight remorse thinking about Liam. Frankly, he would’ve liked to avoid hurting his younger brother, but Liam had interfered with his destiny to be the next Cordonia’s king, so he had become collateral damage. It was too late for regrets anyway, it was done, the wheels were in motion.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Franz and Mara took Alexis and the Rhys outside the ballroom, followed by Rashad, Maxwell, and Drake.

When they reached a private room far away from the public’s curiosity, Constantine turned to the three friends.

“This is a family matter, leave us alone. I’ll call you if I need you, Drake.”

Drake’s eyes drifted to Alexis’s face. His heart tugged seeing how hard she was working to keep a strong facade, he needed to be there for her.

“I need to be here, Constantine. I’m the Chief of Staff of Liam’s campaign, this concerns me too.”

Liam stared at Drake, fully aware of the real reason behind his concern. “You heard my father, Drake. This is a family matter.” He entered the room and closed the door behind him.

“Fuck this!” Drake was about to barge into the room, but Maxwell stopped him on time.

“Do you think she needs the two of you fighting right now?”

“You know Constantine as well as I do, Maxwell. He’s going to blame her for everything. She has been through enough!”

Maxwell placed his hand in Drake’s shoulder. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but Liam is there. He won’t let Constantine hurt her. You’re just going to make everything worst Drake. Please, wait here with us.”

Drake sighed and leaned against the wall.

Constantine was so furious that he needed a minute to gather himself. Alexis had become a huge liability for his son’s campaign. In spite of her father’s money, Liam had to get rid of her. Regina served him a scotch that he gulped down.

“Could you care to tell us what you were doing in your underwear with Tariq, Alexis?”

She took a deep breath and answered in a calm, poised voice, “I was about to take a shower when Tariq barged into my room and tried to attack me. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Liam took a step towards Alexis placing his arm around her waist. “I was there that night, father. Alexis is telling the truth.”

Constantine scoffed looking around the room. “Where the hell is your father?”

Alexis chose to tell him a version of the truth. “He wasn’t feeling right, he had to go back to Cordonia City.”

Constantine answered angrily “He’s like the rats and the cockroaches that leave the sinking boat before anyone else, isn’t he?”

“There’s no need for insults, father.” Liam raised his hands. “We will deal with this ourselves.”

“Don’t you understand, Liam? Your chances to get elected just got cut in half. And all thanks to this … this whore.”

Liam was a man that rarely lost his nerves, but at soon as he heard his father’s words, he cut the distance between them in one step and took him by the lapels of his tuxedo’s jacket. “You say another word against my fiancé, and I swear to God, I’ll forget you’re my father. Do you understand?”

Regina squeaked. “Liam! Stop, please!”

Both men stared at each other until finally, Liam let Constantine go.

The older man went to the bar and poured himself another scotch. Then he turned around with a mocking smile in his face. “I would love to see if you defend her so ardently after I tell you why she has agreed to marry you.”

Liam looked at Alexis and saw how pale she had turned. “Alexis? What does he mean?”

“I’m sorry, Liam I…” Alexis couldn’t find the words to explain to Liam what was happening. 

Constantine was faster than her.  “George confessed a few days ago that he was pressuring his daughter to marry you for political reasons. Alexis accepted because, apparently, she needs money.”

Alexis couldn't believe her ears. “What? That’s not true! You and my father were both pressuring me, and it wasn’t for money.”

“But they were pressuring you”. Liam’s voice was cold and steady.

“Liam, please I-“

“Do not believe a word that comes out of her mouth, Liam. You need to break up the engagement now. This little whore has done enough damage as it is.”

Liam didn’t even think about it. He raised his fist and punched his father in the jaw.

Regina gasped in shock. “God, Liam! What are you doing?”

“Liam is confused, Regina.” He turned to his son rubbing his jaw. “If you want to believe her, it’s your problem, but she lied. She doesn’t want you, the only thing she cares about is being First Lady.”

Liam turned to Alexis. “I just want to know if you only agreed to marry me because your father asked you to.” Before she could answer, he raised his right hand. “Just say yes or no, Alexis.”

She looked at him directly into his eyes, unable to lie to him any longer. “Yes.”

Liam felt something breaking inside of him. “I see. I knew you were not in love with me yet, Alexis. But I thought you felt… something. I didn’t know you were doing this only to help your father’s political ambitions.” He looked at her with utmost contempt “Please, leave”

“Liam, let me explain.”

“Didn’t you hear me? Leave. Now.” He turned his back to her, refusing to break in front of her.

She tried to approach him, but Regina got in the middle.

“It’s better if you leave, darling. Don’t make things harder than they already are.”

Alexis turned around, feeling angry and defeated. She left the room furiously slamming the door on her way out.

Drake and Maxwell looked at each other and followed her.

“Blossom! I’ll go look for the car with Rash and meet you here. If you go through the front door, those so-called journalists won’t let you leave.”

She stopped walking and nodded. Drake went next to her, he needed to hold her and make her understand that she wasn’t alone, but he would have to wait until they were alone, another scandal would destroy her.

“Lexie, are you okay?” He brushed her hand with his fingers.

She hugged herself “No, I’m not. Liam knows everything.” Her eyes watered, Abigail was the only thing in her mind. “I can’t talk right now.”

“Go with them to Ramsford. I’ll drive there in my jeep. It’s better if we don’t leave together.”

“No, Drake. Don’t worry about me. They have a crisis inside, and Liam is going to need you.” She knew that if she threw one look at him, she wouldn’t be able to hold her tears any longer, so she jumped into Maxwell’s car without turning around.

Rashad, Maxwell, and Alexis arrived at Ramsford after a long, silent ride. She got out of the car and after thanking the couple, went to her room.

Abigail. She didn’t even know how to contact her, how to warn her parents. Her daughter needed her and, once again, she had failed her as she had done when she had been born. Alexis paced around the room, incapable of staying put. Her eyes were puffy and swollen after all the tears she had spilled on her way back from the engagement party.  She couldn’t believe that everything was over, but Liam was too sad, too disappointed and he wasn’t going to forgive her. Maybe if she offered something else to her father, he wouldn’t harm Abigail. She was willing to do anything he asked of her if that meant to keep her daughter safe.

“O’Brien let me in.” Drake knocked at her door. 

“Don’t worry about me, Drake. I’m fine.” Alexis was terrified about what could happen to him. She could only imagine her father’s revenge after Drake had beat him up.

“I’m sorry, but I won’t leave you alone. I will sleep outside your door all night if I have to.”

She debated with herself a little longer, torn between the urge to see him and the need to protect him.

When she finally opened the door, he approached her and cupped her face to wipe her tears away. Then, he pulled her to him enveloping her with his strong arms, making her feel instantly safe. Despite that, or maybe because of it, she began to cry again. Drake's heart broke at the sound of her small sobs. He rubbed her back as he talked to her.

“Shhh, everything will be fine, baby. I promise. Cry all you need to cry but know that I will do whatever I have to do to fix this.” He placed small kisses on the top of her head. “I promise.”

“How?” She spread her arms wide. “There’s nothing we can do. Liam hates me now, so it’s over. Over. My only solution is to beg my father for forgiveness and comply with whatever he asks now.”

Drake shook his head furiously “No! There’s no fucking way that’s going to happen, O’Brien. That man is seriously deranged! Only god knows what he’s going to ask from you now! Forget it, I won’t allow it!”

She glared at him “I’m sorry but you don’t have a say on the matter. You have to understand that Abigail is my priority and I will do everything it takes to keep her safe. I don’t even know where she is Drake, I can’t even warn her...her mother.”

He cut the distance between them taking her in his arms again. “Well, you have to understand that you’re my priority and I will do everything it takes to keep you safe. I’m serious, Alexis, anything it takes.” He cupped her face with both hands and looked at her. “I love you. We’ll find a solution together, but now you need to eat something and rest, you seem exhausted.”

“I love you too, Drake” She said as he wiped another tear off her cheek.

“Would you let me stay here with you, Lexie?”

“Yes, I’d like that” She gave him a small smile.

God, he loved her so much. “Perfect, why you don’t go get ready for bed. I’ll go to Beaumont’s kitchen to get us something to eat.” He took off his jacket and his bowtie before leaving the room.

She took a long shower. When she came back to the room, Drake had lighted the bedroom’s electric fireplace and had put some sandwiches and a bottle of whiskey on the small coffee table. Alexis had changed into a huge t-shirt with the inscription “Everything I need to know I learned by watching 80’s movies” printed on it and a pair of mini shorts. He blushed, remembering how soft her long, tanned legs felt around him.

He cleared his throat before speaking. “What’s your favorite?” He pointed at the t-shirt, grinning.

She looked at him. “I know what you’re trying to do, Drake. I really appreciate it, but nothing is going to take my mind off of Abigail”

He got close to her “I know how worried you are. I do. And I promise you that tomorrow we will spend the day trying to figure this out together.” He rubbed her cheek with his thumb. “But you won’t solve anything tonight, O’Brien. Please eat something and try to rest.”

They sat on some cushions in front of the table and started eating the grilled cheese sandwiches he had made, in comfortable silence.

“Back to the Future,” Alexis said. 

He looked at her “What?”

“My favorite 80’s movie, Back to the Future.”

He grinned. “Chicken, Mc Fly”

She squinted at him. “Nobody.Calls.Me.Chicken”

They both laughed locking eyes for a few seconds. He placed a strand of hair behind her ear before speaking again.

“Mine is Indiana Jones.”

She giggled. “Figures, Walker”

“Why?” He asked, puzzled.

“Why? Seriously?” She smirked “A movie about a lonely, hot-headed hero that protects everyone around him?”

He chuckled.“I don’t need to protect everyone around me, O’Brien. Just you.”

She sat in his lap and gave him a soft kiss. “Thank you for everything, Drake. I don’t even know how I would’ve dealt with all of this without you.”

Drake smiled at her. “There’s nothing to thank me for, Lexie. I love you.” He gently rubbed her back. “Now, let’s go to bed, you need a good night of sleep.”

She rubbed her eyes. “I don’t think I can sleep now, I’m too anxious.”

He kissed the top of her head, before speaking. “What if I look for a movie on Netflix? You might fall asleep watching it, baby.”

Alexis shrugged. “It can’t hurt.” 

Drake grinned at her, placing a small kiss on her nose. “Perfect, Lexie.”

She began to undo the covers when she saw him taking off his clothes. 

“Are you giving me a strip show, Walker? Because I don’t have any dollar bills.” She smiled.

He chuckled. “Get your head out of the gutter, O’Brien. I’m not going to sleep all night in a fucking tuxedo.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining,” Alexis teased. 

They went to bed together. Alexis snuggled against Drake and he held her while they watched “Back to the future 2”. Both of them enjoyed the intimacy, the proximity to the other. Drake revealed in the sensation of having her in his arms. He swore to himself that he would never let her go again. An hour later, he smiled content, Alexis had fallen asleep. He watched her for a few seconds, admiring how serene, and peaceful she looked. After placing a loving kiss on her forehead, Drake turned off the computer and put it on the bedside table. Then he went back to bed and carefully pulled Alexis against his chest, he needed to feel her close to him, safe and sound in his arms.

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Hakim knew that restoring the monarchy was the right measure for his country. Thirty-five years ago, when he was young and idealistic, he had been one of the few nobles involved with the revolution but now he saw the errors of his ways. Democracy hadn’t solved the numerous problems Cordonia had, worse than that, it had added several more. Corruption was a sickness at every level of the state and liberal ideas like gay marriage or abortion rights were threatening the conservative values he cherished so deeply. The old noble houses like his continued to rule in more ways than one but they were losing more and more power every day and depended on the elections. Of course, he had considered forming an alliance with Godfrey Amaranth but that would only have fixed the problem momentarily, and he needed something permanent. Something that would bring the monarchy back, along with all the old titles. He sighed thinking about his father the old Duke of Castelraillan and how that title would be inherited by Ezequiel one day.  

Hakim remembered the day he had approached Leo Rhys to help with his plans. The idea was actually quite simple, he would help Leo claim his right as an heir to the old Monarchy and in exchange, Leo would have him as his closest advisor. Hakim wasn’t worried, he knew Leo since he was a small boy, as long as he had enough women and scotch, he would be easy to manipulate. The first step was to ruin the reputation of the candidate highest in the polls, Liam Rhys. It was a pity, Liam would have made an extraordinary king in other circumstances. The second was to create a scandal big enough that it would make everyone question their democratic leaders and the third, well it was the most extreme but undoubtedly the most effective of the three.

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Alexis laid down restless with her eyes open, she had slept exactly three hours before a nightmare had woken her up. Fortunately, Drake was still asleep, he was exhausted and worried about her, he definitely needed the rest. Drake’s concern for her filled her heart, no one had ever cared so deeply about her before. Liam might’ve thought he loved her, but the truth was that he didn’t even really know her. Of course, that didn’t help diminish her guilt. Alexis knew that she had deeply hurt him, and she wasn’t going to forgive herself. She rolled over to look at Drake, and couldn’t help the smile forming in her lips, she had never imagined she could love someone with such intensity before meeting him. She stroked his face with her hand, and he opened his eyes.

“Hi,” he looked at his phone. “It’s only 4 o’clock, Lexie. You can’t sleep?”

She ran her hand through her hair “There are too many things on my mind. I’m sorry that I woke you up though. Go back to sleep, Drake.”

He lifted his upper body with an elbow and leaned down to kiss her. She tugged his hair and soon the soft kiss became hungry, passionate.

“I need to feel you, Drake.”

He slid his hand under her shirt, her naked skin underneath was unbelievably soft. “I need to feel you too baby.” He pulled her shirt over her head, the smell of cherries washing over him.

“Fuck, Lexie you’re gorgeous.” He ran his hands all over her body, almost desperately. When he finally found the hem of her short, he softly stroked the skin under it, locking eyes with her, enjoying how her breath hitched with the mere touch of his fingers. He lowered himself, covering her stomach with soft kisses, savoring her soft gasps, until he reached her lower belly. He carefully undid the knot of her shorts and pulled them down with her underwear, as he kissed the inside of her thighs, her knees, her calves. She was lost in his touch, barely able to moan. Then he made his way up kissing the length of her legs all over again until he reached her core.  

She wasn’t able to think anymore. “Oh god!” Her voice sounded raspy, foreign.

“You make me insane, Lexie” He took his time kissing the hot skin around her core, taking pleasure on how wet she already was. He sank his head on her until his tongue found the little nub inside of her making her moan harder. Drake thrust two fingers inside of her curling them as his tongue continued to pleasure her and she came hard, losing all control of herself.

When he felt her become undone under his tongue, he couldn’t take it any longer. He placed himself over her, as desperate as he was to enter her, he took a second to watch her. She looked like a goddess with her messy hair framing her beautiful face and her eyes closed as she tried to stabilize her breath again.

“Open your eyes baby” He whispered, and she complied, her already brown eyes, darkened with lust.  

-For me. That look is only for me- he thought, feeling himself grow harder.

Drake didn’t stop looking at her for a second as he positioned himself over her entrance, teasing her with the tip of his cock before slowly sinking into her.

“God, Drake! I need you!”

He growled at the sound of his name falling from her lips. He thrust into her as she moaned his name over and over again.

“Come for me, Lexie,” he whispered, and she moaned again. Sliding his arm under her back, Drake pulled her closed to him and pounded mercilessly into her, capturing her lips until her walls clenched on him. Soon, Alexis was too far gone to care about her screams.

“DRAKE! DRAKE!”

“That’s my girl.” He growled coming right after her.

He held her close to his chest, their bodies covered in sweat as they tried to even out their breath, and he noticed her eyes fighting to stay open.

“You need to sleep, baby” He laid down wrapping her body with his arms and kissing her nape.

She felt her eyes closing. “I love you, Drake”

“I love you, Lexie.” He whispered before falling asleep next to the love of his life.

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Regina Rhys wasn’t used to making important decisions on her own, she had always let others, especially her husband to make them for her. That was the reason why she had kept quiet when she had found out that Constantine was trying to buy a wife for Liam. A few days later, she had heard a conversation between George and her husband and had discovered that they were blackmailing Alexis into accepting their deal. Regina ignored the secret they had over the poor girl, but it had to be dark because she had barely protested. For all those reasons, she had been tempted to defend Alexis the night before, but she knew her husband would never forgive her and she definitely didn’t know how to confront him, so Regina had decided to wait until the morning to speak alone with the man she considered her son.

Liam hadn’t slept all night, his mind was consumed by her and all the moments they had spent together. If he was true to himself, he had to admit that she had never really told him that she loved him. She had been kind and gentle, but a wall had always been there between the two of them. He couldn’t understand why he felt such a powerful need for her, for someone that was so clearly not interested in him and so obviously…infatuated with someone else. He threw his glass furiously against the door. It was his fault. Everything had been perfect until he had decided he liked her too. Liam knew Drake was a womanizer, just like his brother. And even if he thought he was in love with her, eventually he was going to get tired of her as he always did, and she would end up sad and alone. Not that her fate mattered to him anymore. Liam took another tumbler from the cabinet and poured himself a glass of scotch.

Regina found him in his office, nursing the glass. “Good morning, Liam. I brought you a cup of fresh coffee.”

She removed the scotch from his hand and gave him the mug, squeezing his shoulder.

She cleared her throat trying to summon her courage. “I want to tell you something about Alexis.”

He looked at her expectantly.

“Your father and George were blackmailing her. I know it isn’t money, Liam. They mentioned an old secret. Your father told George that she had asked him to stop the engagement because she didn’t want to hurt you. I think you should go and talk to her. I’ve known the ambassador for a long time now, and there is nothing he wouldn’t do for money or power, including hurting his own daughter.”

“I don’t think I should talk to her, Regina. She doesn’t care if I love her or not” His voice sounded hollow, hopeless.

She approached him, placing her hand in his shoulder “Liam, If you love someone, you tell them. Even if you’re scared that it’s not the right thing. Even if you’re scared that it’ll cause problems. Even if you’re scared that it will burn your life to the ground, you say it, and you say it loud and you go from there.”

“I already did, and it didn’t change anything.”

“I’m only telling you all of this because I think you deserve to have all the information, what you do with it, only concerns you, Li.” She rubbed his shoulder and let him alone so he could think.

Drake felt her absence as soon as he opened his eyes. He sat on the bed and found her wrapped on a blanket watching absentmindedly through the window.

“Hey, Lexie.”

She turned her head towards him. “Hi, Drake”

“Come to bed, baby”

Alexis went to him and sat on his lap looping her arms around his neck. She rubbed his stubble with her nose. “You’re so handsome in the morning”

He teased her. “But only in the morning.”

“Yes, you lose all your charm at noon, like a reversed Cinderella.”

They grinned at each other, but he noticed that her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “What were you thinking over there?”

“Abbie … and Liam”

He furrowed “Liam?”

“Yes, how sad he seemed last night, all because of me”

“Because of both your fathers, O’Brien.”

“I accepted the offer and no matter the reason, I hurt him.” She sighed “And Abbie, she will be eleven years old soon, what if she never gets to ...”

Drake lifted her face up to him and locked eyes with her. “Hey! Look at me, Lexie. I swear, I would keep you two safe.” She tried to shake her head but he cupped her face. “I swear it on my life, okay?” He kissed her softly “This morning I thought about contacting Damien, he’s a friend of mine in New York and he’s a PI. He’s the best there is, and I’m sure he will help us find her. I promise I’ll help you fix this.”

“And my father?”

“I will deal with him.”

Alexis was about to respond when her phone rang. She saw the name and the screen and answered immediately

“Hi, Liam.”

Drake stood up from the bed and angrily started to dress. He didn’t want to hear their conversation; he knew how it would end. If Liam was as in love with Alexis, his Lexie, as much as he was, he wasn’t going to go without a fight.

She finished her call and sat next to him on the couch. “He wants to talk to me in person. He asked me if I could meet with him today at noon at his office”

Drake cocked his brows as he asked the question he already knew the answer to. “And you accepted?”

Alexis hugged herself. “You know I did, Drake.”

He answered bitterly. “Yes, I forgot that we were just friends, O’Brien”

Her heart sank at his words. “Drake, please. Don’t do this now”

He shook his head. “I know it’s difficult for you, Alexis, but it’s damn hard for me too. Can’t you see that I die every time that I have to see you two together?” He raised his voice “Every time he touches you, I want to fucking kill him. He was my best friend, and now I want to end him every single time he dares to look at you.”

She approached him and rubbed his face with her small hand. “You know, I love you, Drake.”

He took her hand between his closing his eyes. “Yes, I know you do now.” He muttered.

“What does that mean?” Alexis asked, glaring at him.

He took a sharp breath. “It doesn’t matter, Lexie”

She took his head between her hands. “I love you, Drake, you have no idea how much.” She stood on her toes and kissed him tenderly. “I will never, never, stop loving you. Please, never forget that”

“I know, baby, I know” He kissed her forehead “I’m sorry. Let’s focus on Abbie right now”

She smiled at him.

“What, O’Brien?”

“I like it when you call her Abbie”

He smiled back at her “We’ll find her, Lexie. I promise”

They decided that she was going to ask Maxwell to lend her a car so she could go to Cordonia city by herself. He would go later, so no one could see them arrive together.

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Alexis steadied her breath to calm herself before entering Liam’s office.

“Hi, Liam” His heart skipped a beat just hearing her voice.  

“Alexis, sit please”

She sat on the couch he was pointing at.

“Something to drink?”

“Do you have whiskey?”

He scoffed “Yes, I do”

He poured a whiskey for her and a scotch for him before sitting next to her on the couch.

“I talked to Regina, she seems to think that my father and yours are blackmailing you”

She gulped her whiskey before speaking. “Yes, they were, they are. I don’t know how much Constantine actually knows, but he’s definitely aware that my father was forcing me.”

He spoke with an icy tone. “With what exactly? What was so important that it was worth your happiness and mine?”

“Almost eleven years ago, I was … attacked and I got pregnant. Obviously, I wasn’t married, so my father wanted to avoid a scandal. He was ashamed of me.” She took a deep breath refusing to cry in front of Liam. “When my daughter was born, I had to give her up. My father knows where she is, and if I don’t do what he says, he … well my daughter won’t be safe anymore”

Liam couldn’t believe what he was hearing, he settled his glass on the table and took Alexis’s hands, squeezing them softly.

“I’m so sorry, my love. I can’t even begin to imagine what you have been through” He wanted to hold her but he wasn’t sure that she would accept it. “Can I hold you?”

Touched by his concern, she nodded. “Yes.”

Liam took her in his arms trying to erase the past, trying to make her understand how much he loved her. It was comforting and kind, but she couldn’t feel the same sense of security she did when she was held by Drake.

Liam broke the embrace and looked at her. “I’m here for you Alexis. I told you I loved you, and I wasn’t lying. If you want to, we can still get married.”

“Even knowing that I … that I’m not in love with you?”

He took her chin between his fingers. “Yes, I want to help you, and I will. I imagine that your father wants to control the commerce we have with America.”

She nodded

“And he wants us married as some sort of guarantee for him”

“Yes, your father told him he would convince you to give him all the access he needs”

Liam stood up, his hands tightened into fists.

“I want to marry you, Alexis, more than anything, but we can’t let our fathers control our lives.”

“I know, Li, but I have no option, if we go against him, he will harm Abigail. That’s her name.”

“I’ve known George my whole life. I know he would.” Liam took her hands again and kissed them softly. “Marry me, Alexis. Marry me and I swear, I won’t let him harm you or your daughter. We will make them think that I will go along with their plans, but we will be looking for her and gathering evidence against them. I’m sure we will defeat them at the end. Together.”

Alexis didn’t have another option. As much as she loved Drake, she had to accept. “I can’t even begin to thank you, Liam.”

“I’m only going to ask you one thing, Alexis.”

She looked at him expectantly.

“That you try. That you really try to fall in love with me. I promise I won’t pressure you. I won’t be expecting anything from you on our wedding night, or any other night for that matter. Not until you’re ready. But, other than that, I want us to be a real couple, I want you to be honest with me.” He rubbed her cheek with his thumb. “I want us to go in dates, and get to know each other better.” He lifted her chin to him “And for that to happen, I need you to stop seeing him, for good. Can you do that, Alexis?”

Her heart tugged, learn to live without Drake would be the hardest thing that she’d ever have to do, after giving Abigail up. But Alexis will do it for her.  

“Yes, I can. I just need to talk to him one last time.”

Liam shook his head “I don’t think it’s a good idea”

“I’m only telling you because you want me to be honest, but I will talk to him one last time, whether you like it or not Liam. He deserves to hear it from me”

“When?”

“I’ll go to his office now.”

He poured himself another scotch. “I’ll be waiting here.”

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Drake was unable to work or focus on anything related to the campaign. All he could think about was Alexis, and her discussion with Liam.

Suddenly, he saw her standing at his door.

He stood up to join her.

“Come in, O’Brien” He was about to ask what had happened with Liam, but he saw it in her eyes.

“He wants to marry you.”

She nodded. “He wants to help me, but he wants us to try to have a real marriage.”

Drake scoffed. “Of course, he does.” He pulled her close to him and kissed her, only her lips at first, but after a few sweet seconds, he let his tongue rub hers, at first softly, almost delicately but fast the kiss became hungry and burning. She parted from him, panting.

“He asked me to stop this, us. He’s going to help me, but in exchange he wants me to stop seeing you.” Alexis took a deep breath. She was going to need all the courage, she could muster. “Drake, listen to me. I need you to quit this job that you hate so much, and finish your veterinarian degree.” She rubbed his cheek. “I need you to live your life and forget about this horrible world.” Her eyes were filled with tears but she forced herself to keep talking. “If you love me, if you really love me, please just leave me here and try to be happy with …with  someone else, anywhere else.”

He shook his head. He wasn’t going to lose her. “I told you before that that’s not happening Alexis. Forget it.”

“Drake, we can’t be together. We just can’t.” She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “It kills me too but If I have to live my life seeing you being miserable here, I won’t be able to do it, and if I leave with you and something happens to her, I’ll die.” She was openly crying now. “Can’t you see that no matter what I choose I lose something?”

His chest tightened “I know, baby.” He kissed her front.

Liam hadn’t been able to wait in his office for more than a few minutes. The jealousy was killing him. He decided to go to Drake’s office when he got to the threshold and saw him holding her, he approached them almost shaking with rage.

“Do not touch her!”

Alexis gasped “Liam, it’s fine. We’re just talking”

“She doesn’t belong to you, Liam” Drake balled his fists

He tapped a finger into Drake’s chest. “She sure doesn’t belong to you either”

“Get your fucking hands off of me, asshole!”

Liam took Drake by the lapels of his jacket “Or what, Drake. What are you going to do?”

Drake took a swing at Liam connecting his fist with Liam’s jaw, so the blond man hit him back “I’m going to kill you”

Drake grappled him and they fell together to the floor.

Alexis yelled. “Fuck! I can’t take this anymore. Stop or I swear I’ll fucking kill you both myself!”

Both men stopped, panting. Liam threw her an apologetic look.

“Alexis is right, we can’t keep going like this” He turned to her. “We need to talk, darling. Please leave us alone.”

She nodded “I will, just please don’t kill each other”

Drake looked at her cleaning a drop of blood from his swollen lip “Don’t worry, Lexie. We won’t”

Drake stood up from the floor and extended his hand to Liam.

Liam took it .“You still punch hard.” he rubbed his chin.

“You haven’t lost your magic touch either”

Liam sighed “I guess you know everything about Alexis’s story”

“I do,” Drake replied simply.

“I can help her, Drake. I have the resources to do it, and if we marry her father will back off.”

Drake scoffed. “He’s a fucking monster, he won’t just back off. He will keep on asking things because he knows she will do anything for her kid.” He smiled “When she loves someone, she’ll do anything for them”

Liam poured himself and Drake a whiskey. “I love her, Drake.”

Drake gulped his glass. “I know, Liam. I love her too”

“I will help and marry her, but we need to try to be happy, and that won’t happen if you stay here. We were friends, almost brothers, for a long time. I’m asking you for that friendship and for the love you have for her, to leave.”

Drake didn’t want to renounce to her, she had become everything to him, but he wondered if that gave him the right to be an obstacle to her happiness. Right now, she loved him but if he left now, maybe one day she would be able to be happy with Liam. The thought of them together was almost unbearable, but he didn’t have a real choice. He reminded himself that her happiness and safety were the only things that really mattered to him if that meant that he would have to look out for her from afar … he would do it.

“And the scandal?” Drake asked.

“I’ll ask Alexis to give a statement to the press of what happened that day with Tariq. I’ll be there for her. I’m sure they’ll believe her. In any case, Franz and Mara have investigated and they found other women that he has attacked and that are willing to come forward.”

Thinking about Tariq made Drake’s blood boil. “And that asshole? Have you found him?”

“Franz has some leads, apparently he’s in America. In Los Angeles. I swear to you I’ll find him, and he’ll pay for what he almost did that day.”

Drake nodded. “I’ll work in your campaign until you find a replacement for me. After that, I’ll leave.” He took a sharp, painful breath. “If she has to marry you, she deserves at least the opportunity to try and be happy.

Liam placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I appreciate it, Drake-“

Drake raised his hand interrupting him “I mean it, Liam. Make her happy, she deserves…” He stopped himself “She deserves everything, give her everything.”

Liam stared at Drake stupefied “I didn’t know how much you actually cared for her, Drake. I promise I’ll do anything in my power to make her happy”

Drake stared at his former best friend “I don’t care for her, Liam. I love her. I’m crazy about her. She’s the only reason I’m leaving. Her”

Drake stood up and left the office, Alexis was waiting outside. He looked at her one last time, trying to take her all in, trying to print her image in his brain so he would never forget one single part of her. He had never felt anything so painful before. 

They locked eyes for a few seconds, both understanding that it would be for the last time. Both trying painfully not to take the other in their arms. Alexis felt like something inside of her was dying at that moment. 

Finally, Drake shook his head and left her there, broken.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

George entered the rich mansion limping, he also had a swollen eye and a fat lip, all of it, courtesy of Drake Walker. The butler took his coat and walked him to the room where the meeting was being held.

Hakim cocked his brows when he saw the injured ambassador enter the room.

“Is everything alright, George?”

“Perfect. Let’s go straight to the point.”

Hakim nodded. “As my daughter told you, I and some other important people have formed an alliance that will overthrow the democracy. Our plan is to restore the monarchy and give the throne to his rightful heir, Leo.”

George looked at Hakim with obvious contempt. “Leo Rhys? Please, Hakim. Even his father thinks he’s a useless drunk.”

“He is going to give this revolution what it needs, a real cause. There are a lot of royalists in the streets, and they will follow the real heir blindly. Plus, Leo is very easy to manipulate, we will marry him with someone adept to the cause”

“Like your daughter?” George smiled thinking about all the nights he had shared with the beautiful brunette.

“My daughter just ended her engagement, she’s not ready for another one. But we’ll find someone else, someone from an old noble house.”

The American ambassador raised his hands smiling. “It was just an idea”

“The real question is why do you want to join us. Your daughter is about to marry, Liam Rhys”

“After what she did with that Tariq his chances to be president are almost zero, and I need to be in the winning team. I would contribute with money to fund your little movement and you already know what I want in exchange of my…help” He sneered. “And don’t worry about my daughter, we can still use her as an advantage, I‘m sure that I can convince her to help us betray Liam Rhys, she will give us anything we ask.”

Hakim furrowed. “How can you be so sure?”

He gave him an arrogant smile. “Believe me, Hakim, I know. There’s just one more thing I need.”

“You’re already asking us to control all our commercial deals with America. What else could you possibly want, George?”

“Kiara told me the last stage of your plan. I know you are planning to attack Liam Rhys’ headquarters the day of the election.”

Hakim looked at him, thinking that George was going to ask for protection for his daughter, but the rich ambassador had someone else in his mind.

“Well, that day no matter what happens, I need you to kill Drake fucking Walker first”

[ladyintheattic]

yo i’ve been writing alot this month and all i can think of is my poor pre-heartbreak sidestep dealing with the fact she actually has friends haha

_______________ ship: none (barely implied chargestep) words: 1,541 tags: f!sidestep, pre-heartbreak, pre-psycopathor battle, canon typical violence tw: trauma?? possibly ptsd stuff?? ————————–

It was a mistake. You messed up. Misstepped.

The man was probably drunk. Seemed like an alright guy, if your careful scan of all the bar’s patronages upon your entering can be trusted. If it can be trusted. He must have been tripping, falling over his laces, grabbed for your elbow, wanting to be steady, wanting the room to stop spinning.

You bet it spun worse when you flipped him, throwing him over your shoulder into another patron’s table, cracking it in two. You hadn’t meant to; it had been instinct. Reflex.

Your heart stops, your mind finally catching up with your body. The table had hardly finished breaking into splinters before you felt someone’s hand gather up your collar, yanking you upwards, upwards into the face of a man twice your size. The drunk man has a friend. Your feet dangle inches off the floor, and you taste his breath as he snarls at you, his face too close. You also taste ozone.

Ortega’s fist is a blur, and so’s your new enemy’s head. You hear Anathema yelling on your right, and you wonder for a split second if you can somehow stop this imbroglio: halt the ensuing chaos. A foolish thought. You’ve messed up. You’ve messed up, and now you have to pay for it.

Mistakes are not to be tolerated.

You tug your bandana over your nose, hearing the man’s head make a painful sound as it collides with the bar. Chairs scraping the floor as others stand, every muscle in every body in the filthy old bar tense and ready to fight. They don’t know what they’re in for: who they’re looking at. Or maybe they do, and are just too excited or stupid to understand how outmatched they are.

“Come and get it, pendejos.” Ortega’s grinning, but it’s not the same gleeful one he normally wears to bar-fights. He’s usually the one who picks them, so often you swear it’s damn near a hobby or a pastime for him. This grin is wrong, manic. Angry.

They do. They do ‘come and get it’. The noise is overwhelming: fists everywhere, chairs flying, bottles breaking against skulls, screams as Anathema’s acid eats through someone’s skin. Reflexes kicking in once more, you find yourself landing hits; surface-reading the minds of your combatants just fast enough for you to dodge, block, dance around the damage. You’re good at this, at fighting multiple opponents, it’s what you’ve trained for, but even you would’ve ended up a bloody smear on the floor without the Rangers’ help.

You make out the solid presence of Steel behind you as your kick sends someone somersaulting over another table. Ortega on your left, Anathema on your right. You’re boxed in. Defended.

Protected.

The crack of wood against body startles you out of your reflections. To the far left, past a pile of chairs and bodies, you catch the last moments of a man crumbling, collapsing onto the cold floor, the remains of a table laying in pieces all around him. Ortega’s work no doubt.

You freeze. Everyone freezes. The room is silent but for the odd shuffle of nervous feet or the huffing of a particularly heavy breather nearby. It seems Ortega’s last act of brutality sent them back to their senses. You’re still not sure if you’re back to yours.

Almost before your mind can catch up with this second wave of shifting mood, Steel steps out form behind you, fists already unclenched and a face passive, but firm. “Everyone stay put,” he pulls his badge from his pocket and nudges Ortega to do the same. Anathema follows. “We need to sort this out.” His eyes flick to Ortega’s a for a split moment. “Officially this time.”

You can’t help it:  you feel yourself slinking back behind Steel and Ortega’s taller, more noticeable forms. It’s no good. Face still covered, you still feel the heat of the stares, hot like high-powered laser pistols. Your skin crawls, prickling like needles. You don’t produce a badge like your compatriots, you can’t, and you can feel the whole crowd taking note if it. Fuck.

Steel has already moved into action, Ortega at his hip, standing at the bar talking to the barkeep, who is also probably the owner, and probably wanting to keep this whole Rangers incident as off-the-books as possible; Ranger fights in your pub can’t be good for business. You wonder if they will oblige him. You wonder if they’ll clean this up. Clean up your blunder. You doubt it.

“This will not do.” A cold sweat breaks out over your brow. A mistake. An error. A mess. The Directive will not stand of it. Many more of these, and you will be up for some reeducation. Up for poking, prodding, cutting. Cutting away. Changing you.

“Your performance was… less than adequate. You make mistakes like this out there… well, we can’t have that.” No movement. Hardly even breathing. You know better than to try and excuse it or explain yourself. Or attempt to apologize. Apologies don’t happen here. Being sorry isn’t encouraged. After all, tools can’t be sorry.

“Never. Again. Do you understand, Unit B74-”

Hand on your shoulder, you nearly jump, nearly attempt the same over-the-shoulder move you had implemented on the stumbling drunk man. You’re glad you don’t, although you feel your heart in your throat. It’s Anathema, looking at you with an odd, pinched look across her features. “You alright Becky?” She tugs gently on your bandana, though not enough to pull it down, she knows better. “Are you hurt?”

“I understa- I mean. Yeah I’m. Fine.” The cracks in your voice surprise you, as does the hammering of your heartbeat in your ears.

“You look really pale,” her hands find yours as she attempts to lead you to one of the few upright chairs. “And you’re shaking.”

“I’m fine.” You pull your hands from hers; you can’t sit down yet. Too much adrenaline still pumps through your veins. Too much fear. No one had a camera on did they? No one pulled out their phone and started recording the fight for some soon-to-be-chain-email, right? Did anyone note your face? Would any of them recognize you if they say you on the street now? What about the bar’s security cameras? What if someone-

“You’re not fine,” startling again, you feel her sharp gaze looking your face over despite most of it still being covered. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I-”

“Beck!” Ortega is at your side, his arm gently brushing against you. You can practically feel the effort he’s exerting to keep his hand out of yours. “We think we’ve got all this sorted out,” his mouth spreads into an all-too-familiar smug smile. “The Rangers gotta shell out a bit of cash for the chairs and tables, but other than that it’s like nothing even happened here.”

You’re frozen again. Wait, so the Rangers are going to waste money on this? Is that even allowed: you aren’t even a Ranger, and only debuted as Sidestep a few months ago. It’s not like you’re particularly valuable to them, at least not yet.

“But… Can you? Do that?”

“Of course!” He raises his hand to his chest in mock indignation. “I’m the marshal, and I’ve had a few more bar-fights than you I’ll bet. Not the first time Wei’s had to deal with cleanup either.” He winks past you, at Steel, who only gives an annoyed grunt in return.

“Yeah, but-” You stop yourself. Why are you arguing with them? Probably because you don’t believe it; when you do things wrong you get punished for them, not just by the Directive, but also by life in general. Life doesn’t work like this, at least not for you.

No one has ever done something like this for you… but then again, you’ve never had friends that would jump headlong into a bar-fight for you either. Never had friends before.

“It’s really okay Becky,” Anathema nods over to Steel. “We saw the whole thing. We know how it is: sometimes you get jumpy, instincts kick in and, well, this is usually the result.” She shrugs, as though she were talking about breaking a mug or slipping on ice. As though it was fine, expected, normal.

“I was getting tired of this dive-bar anyway,” Ortega claps and hand on your shoulder, almost knocking you over for how faint you feel. “And it’s still pretty early, so lets try the next place! I heard one opened last week a few blocks down!

Nod. You’re trying to nod, or smile under the bandana, or do anything. You can’t. You’re body is still waiting. Waiting for the punishment. The fear still hasn’t run its coarse, but something new is blooming in your chest. You can’t name the feeling, or even describe it.

All you know is that you want to cry.

“Th… Thank you, guys.” You swallow hard. “And… sorry. About the mess.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he gives you a light shake and a wink before letting your shoulder free, heading for his jacket he has slung over the bar. “We’re a team nowadays aren’t we?”

Finally. Finally, you smile. “If you say so, old man.”

[evakuality]

Episode nine of this comparison series between these two characters.  The other episodes can be found here:

Episode one      Episode two     Episode three        Episode four     

Episode five      Episode six       Episode seven      Episode eight

In this episode, our boys have to face up to their issues.  Isak has to face the fact that he may never have been loved by Even, which really stabs at his sense of self worth.  He doesn’t think he is good enough for Even (think about the way Even was a fantasy godlike icon to him rather than an attainable human boy) or that he deserves someone like Even, and the last few days must have felt like a dream that was too good to be true and in fact now appears to be so.  Matteo has to face up to standing back, not taking the steps to find his love, not being the support he so desperately wants to be for David.  He has to acknowledge that no matter how much he may want it, David’s life is not his to live.  These things are very hard for both boys as they both hit to the heart of who they are as people.  So let’s get to it, and see how well they do facing these things.

Isak’s first instinct when he wakes the next day is to research what this all means.  Like Matteo, he secludes himself to do this and what he finds disturbs and upsets him (and in some ways and in some readings seems to confirm what Sonja said: that he could just be a ‘sick idea’ of Even’s mania).  One interesting thing about this scene compared to Matteo’s version is that while Matteo actually reached out to Hans to ask for guidance, Eskild has to come to Isak.  His advice here is very well meaning, but it’s a really bad time to be saying that.  Sure, yes, heartbreak happens and we get over it, but the day after your heart has been devastated is maybe not the best time to bring that up.  He wants to help, but he really just doesn’t do or say what Isak needs at this point.  What he actually needs, and what he gets now, is affirmation from his mother.  It’s no wonder it makes him cry.  The one thing that was good and beautiful in his life is gone, lost in the pain of feeling like an absolute fool that he believed it could be real.  He’s done what he thought was right and sent Even a message basically saying he doesn’t want any of this anymore.  And that really hurts, sending something like that and ending the dream once and for all, but he’s soothed by his mother’s words: no matter what, she’ll always love him.  All the time spent stressing and worrying and fearing what she might say or do is gone when he reads that.  It’s one small catharsis in this huge swirl of difficult emotions.  When Matteo gets this message, it’s a much smaller reaction from him.  He’s pleased, smiles about it, but it doesn’t affect him in the same way because he’s never doubted his mother’s love in the same way.  For him, the bigger thing here is that she wants to meet David.

What really stands out about the meetings with the parents when they happen is that, despite being more peaceful and sanguine when he got the text, Matteo is the one who cries in his mother’s arms.  He’s the one who needs this release now.  Isak goes to the church (for the first time in his season) to reconcile with his parents in some small way.  It’s low key and fairly awkward, and while he seems happy to see them, it’s not an overwhelmingly emotional time.  Matteo (who has already been in a church and already dealt with some of the issues surrounding all this and its relation to religion), goes to church to see his mother and get some sort of peace from her.  I think that while they do have a closer relationship than Isak and his mother, it’s still not all that close and he doesn’t see her that often.  So there’s some peace in being hugged by her now that she knows who he is in its fullness and she’s still willing to love and support him.  It’s been a hard few weeks for him, and while he has managed to come out the other side of that, there’s still something really healing in the unconditional love of a parent, which he’s clearly been missing in a physical way for a while.

Where Isak’s instinct at the start of this episode is to isolate himself and deal with the pain alone, Matteo’s is to be a bit more open.  Sure he’s got his headphones on and he’s alone to start with, but he’s in a shared space where anyone could find him and he is then called into a situation where everyone is there and willing to support him and David, however it is needed.  This is interesting in that it’s a reversal of where the two boys were at the start of the season.  Matteo was closed off and isolated from everyone, by choice, while Isak felt like a bit of an outsider but was still accepted and was part of his group of friends.  If we were to see the two boys’ lives for these few weeks on a graph we’d see that Isak’s is much more of a rollercoaster of ups and downs.  It starts at a normal level, neither truly good nor bad, shoots up high in the early days with Even, with some drops because of, for example, seeing him with Sonja.  It hits several peaks: talking with Even, almost kissing Even, the kiss, the cuddling after that, reunion, the hotel stuff at the start.  But it also involves several really deep lows: Even has a girlfriend, Even goes missing, Even says things are going too fast, Even goes back to his girlfriend, Even is bipolar and didn’t tell Isak, he has an episode and Sonja yells at Isak about it.  Matteo’s is more longer, smaller rolls after a rockier start: he starts at a low point, meets David and it gets to a pretty big high (there are wobbles when David ghosts etc but they are minor compared to the shock Isak faces at the same point), they almost kiss, they kiss, they cuddle, there’s a date (this is all one big high), then David says it’s going too fast and he’s not into him and disappears for literal weeks.  This is a huge dip for Matteo, and he seems to take it much worse than Isak does despite ‘not believing’ what David said.  Their reunion isn’t all that great as a high because it’s low key and cautious, more of a soft rise and a breath of thankfulness than a peak and then David tells him something confusing and he has to take time out to process that (I wouldn’t say this is a low, again more of a small waver in the roll - during this part Matteo is pretty much at an even keel).  David’s outing and running away is painful for Matteo but again it’s not a real low.  He never really hits a low again.  His graph would be: low starting point, huge high, huge low, rolling into a ‘normal’ state, neither truly high nor truly low and at something of an equilibrium.  Isak’s lurches from pretty big high to pretty big low over and over again, and at this point there’s no soft easy normality, there’s crushing, devastating pain.  People are there for Isak, but he’s choosing not to engage with them because this is all too painful.  

Matteo actually really appreciates what his friends are trying to do and I think in the past he’d probably have gone along with the ideas about how to support David.  But one thing he took from his talk with Hans the previous week is that David has a right to his own agency and a right to decide how and what happens with things that relate to him.  Matteo’s never been one to speak up and make his own wishes and desires known, preferring to have others make decisions and go along with them.  But now, when it’s David, he makes his thoughts and feelings known.  And for once he’s listened to.  Previously we have seen Sara tell him what he should think and do and Kiki literally reject his clear ‘no’ but now they all recognise that he’s right.  His ‘speech’ isn’t all that long, but for him it’s a huge deal and huge progress.  Isak never really gets this moment because he’s never really needed it.  His issues have never been about learning how to take his own agency; he’s always been in control.  And that’s probably part of the issue.  His thing with Even was about needing to be swept up in an overpowering romance that didn’t let him go.  It was probably the only way he was ever going to be jolted out of his comfortable masked life.  Whereas Matteo was in a deeply unhappy place and what he needed was someone to lure him out of his apathy rather than sweep him away.  So at this point Isak didn’t need to be making ‘speeches’ to prove to himself and others that he’s come a long way, but Matteo does.  He needs this moment to really come into his own.  To know that he’s broken free of the shackles that tied him into that unhappy life he used to live.  Whether David is there or not, Matteo realises his thoughts have worth and he can voice them and have them be accepted.  Isak never needed to learn this.

Contradictorily, Matteo needs to also learn that he can’t take action when specifically asked not to.  His behaviour around David has always been to make a move, to make his wants known, to fight for what he wants.  And that’s also what this episode is about for him.  He has to let David have his own agency in the matter.  He’s learned from the last time what happens if he pushes David past what he wants: David pushes him away and he loses the connection he knows they have.  So he learns to wait.  It annoys him, worries him, makes him impatient.  His conversations with both Laura and Abdi show that he really wants to reach out, be there for David, be his rock.  But they both say the same thing: no, let him be.  Be there for him when he chooses to come back, but don’t be aggressive and pushy.  So he keeps in low key contact: lets him know about his exam etc (and says get in touch ‘if you feel like it’ clearly putting the ball into David’s court so he knows he gets to control how this happens) and what he gets back is pretty encouraging.  David is willing to contact him when he’s not being too confronting and so he does keep back.  I’ve dealt with this whole period of time for him in this post I made about the last clip of this episode, so I won’t rehash it again too much.  But the thing for Matteo is that this episode really does make him act in a way that he’s had to grow into over the course of the season.  And I think that’s partly why his journey hasn’t been as tempestuous as Isak’s: he’s had to grow slowly into this so he can be at a point where he can do what’s necessary here.  All the tumultuous highs and lows that Isak faced would have stagnated this growth he’s had to do.  After his one big crash at the end of episode 5 he’s been slowly rebuilding himself.  It took me a long time to work out why Matteo doesn’t go after David after he finds out Laura’s worried about him (and I still have issues with timing etc here) but it’s because he’s still operating under ‘give him time’ and so he doesn’t feel like he can go chasing around the city looking for him for fear that he’ll just drive him further away.  

While Matteo has been learning how to be still and to wait, Isak has to start figuring out what the whole thing with Even means.  He spends the week slowly working through Sonja’s words and working out what parts were true and which weren’t.  Here we see his quick reactions in action.  He assimilates information very quickly and shifts his world view readily (unlike Matteo who takes his time to process things), and so as easily as he accepted Sonja’s words about Even’s feelings (based on his own previous experience to be fair), he also accepts Magnus’s comments that he should ask Even what he thinks and re-evaluates the situation based on Magnus’s mother.  That this is in fact Even’s thing to talk about.  Ironically, this is effectively what Matteo said to the rest of his friends but it’s something Isak has yet to learn.  However, he takes it on board and so tries to contact Even.  Isak being a much faster assimilator of information is important because he’s in a much worse position than Matteo at the moment and he has a lot to learn very quickly.  It’s not easy for him, and he does fall back into his old assumptions (eg that he’s not worth anything and therefore that it is ‘over’ because Even isn’t answering; Sonja’s words weigh on him because he’s pretty insecure about this side of things), and so while Magnus’s words gave him hope, he’s still pretty sure things are done.

The actual reunion scenes for each of them here are so different in tone, but they make sense for each character.  Isak has had to learn to value himself and trust in what Even says (and his little smile when he reads ‘love you, Even’ is really adorable).  His reunion is frantic running, despair when he thinks he’s too late and then a soft, gentle meeting.  It’s quiet and poignant and it releases a whole lot of tension.  It actually has a similar feeling to Matteo and David’s s7 reunion.  It’s a quiet catharsis and that’s exactly what Isak needs after the week he’s had.  Matteo’s, on the other hand, as outlined in the post linked earlier has a lot of big messy emotions going on here.  Most importantly, he’s been so careful in keeping back and giving David the time and space he needs, but having him go ‘missing’ the previous night and from his exam that morning has really freaked him out.  To Isak, Even’s message is first a relief (he loves me) and then a shock and a fear (what does he mean by this?).  To Matteo, David’s message is another reminder that David is just going to run away.  It doesn’t matter what Matteo has done to give him space, it wasn’t enough.  And so he’s really pissed off.  There’s nothing quiet or gentle about their reunion and that fits the surge of emotions here.  It also fits the fact that Matteo is a much more impulsive and aggressive character.  Isak waits for a while after getting the message, and it’s not until he fears for Even’s safety that he goes after him.  Matteo listens once and then goes to find David in a fit of angry fear.  In this case, I don’t think he’s fearing for David’s safety, but more for the future of their relationship.  He’s filled with adrenaline and unlike Isak who is just relieved when he sees Even, Matteo’s fear comes out in aggression.

Again, the difference in tone and which events are happening in these two episodes really affects the tone of the next episodes.  The differences in the boys again fuels the way this episode plays out for each and also how the events of the next one happen.

Episode ten can be found here

[seraph-novak]

The Perfect Match

Summary ~  In a world where you can calculate your romantic compatibility with other people, Cyrus Goodman wants nothing more than to match highly with his best friend and longtime crush, TJ Kippen.

Also available on AO3 ♥

Written for my amazing friend, @slytherintrash! Thank you for putting up with my constant whining while I struggled to write this fic... I hope you like it!

~~~~~

The walls in the waiting room are glossy and white, almost blinding if you stare at them for too long. Cyrus stares down at his feet instead, blinking the stars out of his eyes as he takes a deep, steadying breath. Next to him, TJ bumps their knees together and smiles. It’s a comforting sight that eases his nerves somewhat, flushing them out with a warm, gooey feeling that only TJ is capable of stirring inside his gut. He returns the smile with one of his own – shaky, but just as genuine – and reaches out to take his hand. TJ sweeps a thumb over his knuckles, sending shivers dancing across his arm. It’s enough to keep him grounded, at least for a little while.

“Are you okay, Cy?” Andi asks him. She’s sitting next to Buffy and Marty on the chairs opposite him and TJ, her eyebrows curving upwards with concern.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he says, squeezing TJ’s hand as the word ‘good’ lodges in the back of his throat, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. “Just nervous.”

Buffy untangles her hands from around Marty’s waist and pats the top of his knee. “Don’t be nervous,” she says, her voice a strange combination of gentle and commanding. “It’ll take them a few hours to add you to the system. You probably won’t get any matches until tomorrow morning.”

“Ugh.” He flops back in his chair, the back of his head hitting the gleaming wall with a heavy thunk. “I don’t wanna wait that long… Waiting’s the worst part!”

“I got my results the same day,” Andi says, a reassuring lilt to her voice. When Cyrus doesn’t respond, she looks to her friends for support. “What about you, Marty?”

“I got mine the next day,” he says with a shrug.

TJ hooks an arm around Cyrus’ shoulders, rubbing the sore spot already starting to swell on the back of his head, and tilts his face towards him with a gentle nudge of his finger. “It only took a couple hours for mine to come through,” he murmurs, so soft only Cyrus can hear him. “Don’t stress about it, Underdog. It’s different for everyone.”

“I don’t even know why I’m nervous,” Cyrus admits, his eyes never leaving TJ’s face. “It’s not like I’m expecting any high matches…”

“You wouldn’t be the only one,” Andi says. It’s a pitiful attempt to inject some humour into the situation, but the tremble in her voice gives her away. A few months ago, when she turned sixteen and underwent this very same process, she discovered that she and Jonah, her boyfriend at the time, only had a measly 46% match. It was awkward for everyone involved.

“I’m sure you’ll match highly with someone,” Buffy butts in, shooting Andi a sideways glare. She, on the other hand, was lucky enough to get a whopping 87% match with Marty – a fact she loves to brag about whenever possible.

TJ rolls his eyes, and Cyrus feels his muscles turn stiff beside him. “It’s not that big a deal,” he says through grit teeth. “Not everyone needs a high match to fall in love, you know?”

“You’re only saying that because your matches suck,” Buffy says.

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She flashes him a smug smile, then turns back to Cyrus. “Don’t listen to these downers, okay? They’re just sad because they’re single.”

Andi whacks her friend on the arm. “Hey! I’m single by choice, thank you very much.”

“Yeah.” Buffy snorts. “Until you get a match above 70%, right?”

“I’d be happy with a 65 at this point.”

“You’ll find someone, don’t worry,” Buffy says, her teasing smirk softening as she takes Andi’s hand. “It takes a little longer for some people to get matched, remember? But it’ll happen eventually. Even for you, TJ.”

When Cyrus glances at TJ, he’s surprised to find his pale green eyes already watching him closely, his smile tilted at a sad angle as he gives his hand another squeeze.

“I’m happy to wait,” he says.

Cyrus blushes and looks away, his stomach swooping as TJ goes back to brushing his knuckles with his thumb, their knees grazing ever so slightly. With every breath, their shoulders rub against each other, and Cyrus can feel his skin burning hotter and hotter, set alight with the need to touch TJ, to hold him close and never let go… For the billionth time today, he wonders what their match will be. He’s always thought – or hoped, at least – that it would be fairly high, but he’s never dared to confess this to anyone. Not even Buffy and Andi, who are pretty much convinced that TJ is already smitten with him.

He thinks back to the pact he made with himself this time last year, on his fifteenth birthday: if he and TJ are matched above 75%, he promised himself he’d finally ask him out. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now the mere possibility of being highly matched with his best friend makes him want to throw up. He’s not sure if it’s a good or bad kind of scared, but either way, he’s terrified.

“Mr Goodman?” A young woman in a white turtleneck pokes her head into the waiting room, her teeth the same dazzling shade as the walls around them. “We’re ready to see you now.”

A bolt of panic freezes him in place, his vision starting to warp as he stares at the open door across the room. The woman’s smile wavers for just a second, then turns warm with understanding. She gives him a small nod, then ducks back into the room.

“I’ll give you a moment.”

“Hey,” TJ says softly, lifting their joined hands to his lips. Once he’s got Cyrus’ attention, he gives him a wink that makes his heart leap and soar like a kite caught in a storm. “You’ve got this, Underdog.”

And just like that, his nerves evaporate. He wishes more than anything that he could lean forward and whisper a thanks against his lips, but he settles for a smile instead. If all goes well, he’ll be kissing TJ this time tomorrow anyway. Just the thought makes his mouth tingle in anticipation, his chest bubbling with warmth.

“Thank you,” he says, sharing a private smile with TJ before turning to the rest of his friends. “All of you. I really appreciate you guys being here.”

Andi and Buffy drag him into a group hug, then usher him out of the waiting room, sending him off with encouraging smiles and thumbs up. He gives them a quick wave at the end of the corridor, his eyes lingering on TJ for a moment longer, then takes a deep breath and walks through the door.

~~~~~

“So,” Andi says as they’re heading towards The Spoon for lunch. “Did she tell you when you’d get your matches?”

Cyrus looks down at the white gadget strapped around his wrist, its screen a dull black until he touches it with his finger. It looks like a watch of sorts, but it’s really just a fancy device that will soon show him his compatibility percentages with people all over the world; at the moment, it just says ‘Matches Pending’.

“She said it would take anywhere between five hours and two days,” he says, tapping the screen again so it fades back to black. “But she also said that some matches don’t come through for years, so… I guess it’s all a waste of time.”

TJ chuckles. He has his arm draped over Cyrus’ shoulders as they walk, his fingers tapping silent tunes against his arm. It feels really nice, and completely normal. Probably because it is. He and TJ have never been shy of touching each other; they’re constantly finding ways to close the space between them, no matter where they are or who’s watching them. In many ways, it’s like they’re already dating.

“Don’t be such a grump,” TJ says fondly, hugging him sideways against his chest.

“I’m not being grumpy,” he insists, purposely pouting his lips to make TJ smile even brighter. “I just don’t understand why it has to be so complicated. Why couldn’t they just tell me there and then?”

Buffy laughs. “They’re comparing your data with billions of other people’s in the world… Maybe cut them some slack?”

“Okay, that’s fair.”

When they get to The Spoon, TJ holds the door open for him with a chivalrous smile, then orders him a double chocolate milkshake and an extra-large basket of baby taters. The five of them spend the next hour and a half stuffing their faces and making light conversation, until Cyrus has all but forgotten about the possibly life-changing results he’ll be receiving at some point in the next two days. It’s only when Andi asks for the bill that reality comes crashing back down, and that familiar feeling of nausea twists in his stomach.   

“Cyrus?”

He snaps himself out of his daze, turning to find TJ watching him with knitted brows. The genuine concern on his face is unfairly adorable, and Cyrus wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around him and tell him how much he cares… But then he remembers the heartbreak Andi and Jonah went through not that long ago, and he decides against it.

“Are you alright?” TJ asks him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Do you want me to walk you home?”

Cyrus swallows thickly and nods.

“Okay.”

“TJ?” He grabs his arm as he slides out of the booth, his tone brimming with desperation. Once TJ has sat back down, he loosens his grip and huffs a laugh, his cheeks turning warm. “Sorry, I just… Could you maybe sleep over tonight? I don’t wanna be alone.”

A gorgeous smile brightens TJ’s face, and Cyrus immediately relaxes.

“Of course I’ll stay with you,” he whispers.

It feels like there might be a double meaning there, but Cyrus is too jittery with nerves to overanalyse it. All he wants to do is go home, change into his comfiest pyjamas, and spend the night watching cheesy rom-coms with his best friend. And if he happens to get highly matched with TJ while they’re in the same room, then that would just be an added bonus…

~~~~~

The final scene of When Harry Met Sally never fails to make him weep. Which is why he’s currently curled up in a ball on his bed, sniffing back tears while TJ hands him tissues with a fond and slightly teasing smile.

“Why did you pick a film that always makes you cry?” he asks.

Cyrus wipes his nose and shrugs. “These are happy tears.”

“You’re happy for the fictional characters?”

“Stop laughing at me!”

TJ holds up his hands in surrender, his lips twitching with a barely restrained smirk. “I can’t help it! You’re too adorable.”

“I’m not adorable,” Cyrus says, deliberately blowing his nose to hide the blush blooming across his cheeks. “I just think it’s really nice to see two friends fall in love with each other, you know? I want a romance like that.”

He turns to TJ, preparing himself for another mocking grin, but the older boy is staring down at his hands instead, nervously tugging at his fingers as he chews his bottom lip. Cyrus scoots closer to TJ, his mattress dipping beneath their shared weight, and steadies his fidgeting hands.

“TJ?” he says, his voice low and soft. At TJ’s answering silence, he cups one side of his face and turns it towards him, gently forcing their eyes to meet. “Are you okay?”

TJ barks a wet laugh. “I, um… I don’t know…”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“We both know that isn’t true.”

A tear rolls down TJ’s cheek, catching on the curve of a crooked smile before landing on the duvet wrapped around his legs. He wipes his eyes with the heel of his palm and breathes deeply through his nose, flicking an anxious glance at Cyrus. There’s fear and apprehension twisting his expression, but also a hint of excitement, a whisper of hope…  

“I need to tell you something.”

Cyrus winces. “Those are words you never want to hear.”

“Sorry.” Another laugh colours his words. TJ has always been a nervous laugher. “I know this is a weird time to tell you this, but… I need to tell you before you get your matches through.”

“My matches? Why –”

“In case our percentage is terrible,” TJ says, desperately grabbing at Cyrus’ hands and holding them against his chest. He uses his shoulders to wipe away another tear, then presses a kiss to Cyrus’ knuckles. “If we don’t get a good match, I know I’ll lose my nerve… So I’ve gotta tell you now, Underdog. In case it’s the only chance I get.”

Cyrus gulps. “Tell me what?”

“I love you.”

All at once, the world moves in slow motion and the room starts to spin. He was expecting a confession of sorts – a simple “I like you” at best – but nothing like this. He’s not a complete idiot; he knows TJ likes to flirt with him, and he knows their relationship goes way beyond the bounds of friendship. But he never thought – never hoped – that TJ might return his feelings to this extent. He tries to speak, but nothing comes out. The words feel like cotton balls in his mouth, thick and dry and impossible to swallow…  

“It’s okay,” TJ says, that small whisper of hope choked into silence. “You don’t have to say anything. I’m sorry for making things awkward.”

Cyrus shakes his head, tightening his grip on TJ’s withdrawing hands. “No! Wait –”

Before he can finish his sentence, a small ‘ping’ sounds from the gadget strapped around his wrist, its formerly blank screen awakening with colour, a brilliant white that slices through the dark room. A simple message appears on the screen: ‘Matches Found’.

“My matches are here,” Cyrus says, although he’s sure TJ can read the message just as clearly, seeing as they’re sitting so close to each other.

“That was fast,” TJ says. His voice sounds dull and congested, like he’s fighting back tears. “Are you ready?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Forget what I said before,” TJ says, sniffing hard. He dries his face with the sleeve of his hoodie and forces a smile. “This is your moment, Cy. Just ignore me.”

“But, Teej –”

“I’m serious, alright? I’ll be fine.”

Cyrus opens his mouth to protest further, but TJ shoots him a warning look, a sad smile ghosting his lips. He’s being very insistent, and Cyrus doesn’t have the emotional energy to fight him. Perhaps there’s only one way to express his feelings, and that’s to show TJ their inevitably high match. If they really are in love with each other – and Cyrus has never been so sure of anything before in his life – then they’re bound to be highly matched, right?

“Fine,” he says, a stubborn set to his jaw. “We’ll do this your way.”

He sucks in a breath, then taps the glowing screen. A long list of percentages fills the empty space – all of them way below average – so Cyrus uses the filters to sort the matches from highest to lowest. It takes a few seconds to submit the request, and then the list refreshes itself.

“Oh my god.”

“Cyrus?”

When TJ touches his shoulder, Cyrus flinches back, ripping the device off his wrist and throwing it across the bed. His chest is heaving with shaky breaths as he wraps his arms around his legs and starts rocking back and forth.

“What’s wrong?” TJ asks, his voice lifting with concern. He places a hesitant hand on Cyrus’ knee, which is bouncing up and down with nervous energy.

Cyrus swallows thickly and points at the discarded gadget sitting on the edge of his bed. “Is that real? That can’t be real…”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just… Just look at it.”

“Cy?”

“Please, TJ.” He grabs his friend’s arm and squeezes it, the beginnings of a smile tugging at his lips. He can feel hysterical laughter building in his chest, threatening to burst out at any moment as fresh tears spring to his eyes. “Seriously, TJ. Look at it…”

TJ raises a sceptical eyebrow, but does as he’s told. There’s a moment of breathless silence as TJ picks it up and taps the screen, followed by a shattering gasp as he throws the gadget back at Cyrus, like a hot potato, and falls off the bed.

“TJ!”

“I’m okay!”

Cyrus peers over the bed and stretches out his arm, offering his hand to TJ. When they’re both sitting back down, and they’ve more or less caught their breath, Cyrus dares to look at the screen again. His heart stops beating for a brief moment as he re-reads his top match, his eyes skipping over the 100% and landing on the words beside it: TJ Kippen, 17/y.o., Shadyside, Midwest, USA.

“You’re my top match,” he says, his voice sounding faraway, as if he’s in a dream.

TJ splutters a laugh. “I don’t think that’s the surprising part, Cy.”

“You already knew I’d be your top match?”

“Well, I hoped…” He scratches the back of his head, suddenly appearing bashful. “But then I told you how I felt, and you didn’t say anything, so…”

“I was shocked!” Cyrus says, throwing his hands in the air. “I kinda guessed you had a crush on me, but I never thought you might –” He stops himself, too afraid to say the word out loud. He slowly lowers his arms and stares down at his lap, a blush creeping up his neck. “Did you really mean what you said?”

TJ brushes his knuckles across his cheek, smiling fondly. “I don’t think you could get a 100% match with someone without being head over heels in love with them.”

For a second, he gets lost in TJ’s adoring gaze, his insides turning to mush as a goofy smile devours his face. But then he catches a glimpse of the screen beaming up at him, and reality comes swooping back in, knocking the breath out of his lungs once again.

“It’s not possible,” he says. “I mean, yes, I’m in love you. Like, really, really in love with you. But the highest ever recorded match is only 92%. Perfect matches don’t exist, TJ! Maybe in movies, but not in real life.” He closes his eyes and massages his temples, desperately trying to regain his cool. “If this was actually real, then that would make us…”

“Soulmates?” TJ suggests.

Cyrus looks up at him, completely taken aback by his unfazed expression. “How are you not freaking out about this?”

TJ chuckles. “The only thing I’ve ever been 100% certain about in my life is how much I love you,” he says, his eyes softening in awe as he maps Cyrus’ face with his fingertips. “So, no… The fact that we’re soulmates doesn’t freak me out at all.”

“You mean… The idea of spending the rest of your life with me doesn’t scare you?”

A grin slowly spreads across TJ’s face. “In the words of Harry Burns,” he says, “‘When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible’.”

Cyrus doesn’t even think before lunging himself at TJ, a happy chorus of “I love him. I love him. I love him.” playing in his head as he fervently hugs the boy of his dreams. There’s an uncontrollable smile dimpling his cheeks, and his heart is racing a mile a minute, but he somehow feels calmer than he’s ever felt before in his life, completely at ease in TJ’s loving embrace.

“Do you think they know?” he asks, his words muffled against TJ’s shoulder. “There must be people who keep tabs on the matches, right?”

TJ sighs. “Yeah, probably.”

“So… We’re gonna be media sensations pretty soon.”

As if sensing his fear, TJ pulls away, a deep frown creasing his brow, and cups Cyrus’ face in his hands. “Don’t be afraid, Underdog. We’re in this together, okay?”

Cyrus nods. “Okay.”

Within minutes, there’s a screeching of tyres outside his bedroom window, followed closely by frantic knocking on their front door. He can hear his mom and stepdad whispering to each other, completely oblivious as to why there are dozens of news vans suddenly parked outside their house.

“Should we go talk to them?” TJ asks, lifting his shoulders in a dubious shrug. “We have to face them eventually.”

Cyrus glances at the flashing lights glinting off his window, then back at TJ, his worries melting away the moment he looks into those familiar green eyes, forever brimming with unconditional love and support.

“They can wait,” he says, smiling as he palms the back of TJ’s neck and brings his face closer, until their lips are just a hair’s breadth away. “I have a soulmate to kiss.”

[tailahjanbash]

What I Learned About Being a Whole When I Was a Half

I fell in love once. It was a time of raging teenage hormones and an unrealistic view of love due to my Taylor Swift obsession. It was the ultimate pining-for-your-bestfriend-80’s film-love that would ensure disaster on my naïve heart.

Looking back now, it was like a John Hughes movie on repeat—but every time you thought the happy ending was coming, I just kept getting my heart broken over, and over, and over... you get the idea.

Eventually the movie ended. After it was all said and done, I remember crying on the bathroom floor, wondering if the pain would ever leave. I remember praying every night that God would just make it easier. That I would wake up the next morning and feel just a tiny bit less than what I felt the night before. Am I resonating with any romantics here?

Well, it’s been a few years since then, and those wounds have healed—but I’ll never forget the priceless lessons I learned throughout the healing process.

Today I want to share with you some of the things I learned about being a whole when I was a half.

1. I believed the lie.

I believed the lie that I would never find love or connect to another person as much as I did when I fell in love. I fueled this fear with what I thought was “logic” and “reasoning”, but in reality, I was just letting fear bully me.

That was the furthest thing from the truth. It doesn’t align with God’s promises or nature.

2. There’s a natural way to deal with heartbreak, and there’s a supernatural way.

The truth is, when you find the person that’s right for you, it will make complete sense why it never worked with anyone else before.

When glass breaks, it’s natural to pick up the larger shards first in order to clean up the mess. The bigger pieces are easier to identify, pick up, and throw away. Breakups kind of happen the same way. Once everything has fallen apart, it’s easy to spot the big issues, like bad communication or dishonesty. But after those big pieces have been cleaned up, we are still left with the small shards; the ones that are not always visible that contribute to the brokenness.

The smaller pieces take longer to clean up. They require precision, careful attention, caution, and accuracy.

Anyone with decent eye sight can spot large pieces of glass. Meaning—it’s common knowledge that cheating is wrong, ghosting is immature, and lack of communication is the kiss of death. Even Cosmo can give you sound advice on this.

Then we get to the shards.

This is where the world gets the healing process totally wrong.

The sin, behaviors, and emotions underneath the surface that aren’t so easy to spot— those contribute to our broken condition.

Let me put this into an example: A lot of people think that getting into a new relationship will help you forget about your old one.

This is using another person to distract you from your pain and emptiness. Not only is this unfair to the person you are dragging along with you, but you can’t heal properly this way. You need to face your demons instead carrying them into your next relationship!

That rejection, fear of vulnerability, anger, loneliness, sorrow, depression, bitterness, resentment, pain, and allll the other negative emotions that accompany heartbreak— are the shards.

A playlist, going out with friends, a new bae, drinking until you forget, and all the other remedies that the world gives you… they don’t work.

The good news is, God is dying to heal you. (Quite literally)

He can’t wait for the night you put down the bottle or turn off of the T.V., whatever the distraction is, and turn to Him for the healing.

God doesn’t leave us alone in our fragmented state and expect perfection. In fact, He promises to get down in the mess and brokenness with us to find the solution and piece us together into a new and beautiful creation.

That’s exactly what He did for me. And I know He can do it for you.

3. You’ve gotta catch the foxes

“You must catch the troubling foxes, those sly little foxes that hinder our relationship. For they raid our budding vineyard of love, to ruin what I’ve planted within you. Will you catch them and remove them for me? We will do it together.” Song of Songs 2:15

When I read this scripture, the Lord made it very clear that my foxes at the time were guys and relationships.

The bible says that satan prowls around like a lion, looking for whomever he may devour. So, it should come as no surprise that he sends distractions and uses people and/or demonic principalities to keep us from effectively serving God.

I noticed that whenever I was minding my own business, crushing my school work, and super close to God… some gorgeous boy would pop out of nowhere and ask me out. I didn’t catch on at first. I was giddy and couldn’t wait to go out.

Okay so, what happens when you start talking to someone? Your brain goes from paying attention in class to planning the next date. Your hangouts take precedence over bible study and your mind and heart become filled with this person.

Eventually I would learn that these guys were great people, but simply not meant for me. And then I would remember the instructions God gave me and immediately want to slap myself in the face. How much time and energy did I invest in something that I could have avoided had I been obedient? I could have put that time into improving my grades or making new friends.

Maybe your foxes are ungodly friendships, being overly invested in a sport or celebrity, or a sin you always find yourself going back to.

A good indicator of your hearts priorities is seeing where you spend most of your time and money. Anything that takes precedence over God is not only a fox, but an idol.

I find it interesting that the word of God uses foxes to illustrate this picture. Foxes are sly and sneaky. They operate in darkness and in shadows, and they rob you of your crop. Spiritual foxes do the same.

They rob you of spiritual growth. The more time you spend binge-watching Netflix, the less time you have to read your bible and pray. Whatever you sow, you will reap. If you are sowing unproductivity—meaning putting your time towards sleeping, laying around, and watching tv, you are going to yield a crop of laziness, procrastination, and slothfulness. The fruit of your life will be marked by these negative characteristics.

I believe there are things God wants to continue to plant and grow in you and the beautiful thing, is that he says he will catch the foxes with us—we’re not on our own in the battle against sin and temptation. The Spirit of God helps us identify our foxes and gives us the strength to catch and kill those bad habits.

4. If you can make it past the first few months, you’re in the clear.

Just like breaking any habit, it’s going to be really difficult at first. Especially if you have never truly been on your own (romantically) like I had.

Relationships are wonderful—you have someone doting over you, laughing at your terrible jokes, and telling you how beautiful you are. But pull the rug out from under the relationship and you’re left with two seriously insecure people.

It’s human psychology—you’re used to receiving love and attention, so now that it is gone, you must fill that void with affirmation.

*downloads tinder*

Just kidding.

I wanted to break that habit because it never worked; I was never truly healed. Seeking male affirmation never satisfied my heart, soul, and spirit. I realized I needed to fill that void with God’s love instead of attention from guys.

And ladies, once I made that decision, I was unstoppable.

First, I had to set barriers for myself. I literally stopped everything related to relationships cold turkey... I was serious about getting the full and complete healing I needed!

I did not allow myself to go on dates, text guys that I liked, and on nights when I was particularly sad, I would turn everything off (tv, phone, laptop) and spend time with God.

Eventually, it got easier. Once the Holy Spirit started filling the holes in my heart, they actually began healing effective immediately. Getting over heartbreak became a million times easier because I wasn’t trying to duct tape DIY my heart back together. I was giving it back to the one who created it. It’s funny…we so easily forget that the master designer of our heart knows exactly how to heal it.

Looking back, I can’t believe how much of my heart was not only divided but broken. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it. God had to stop me in the middle of a rebound relationship, arrest my heart, and give me these step-by-step instructions like you would an unruly toddler.

My encouragement today, is don’t be hard-headed like I was. Don’t let your heart get so tangled up in its own will and desires that it forgets God’s.

And finally, I’m not selling you a foolproof step-by-step guide on how to get over someone. Your story and your heartbreak are different than mine. But I do know heartbroken people, more than anything, want to feel like they aren’t alone. That someone understands them. To that I say, “Have you considered the one who planned this long ago?” Isaiah 22:11

For more blogs and content check out my website!

http://www.thechosengirl.info/

[fckrman]

up we go • puckdrey

LOCATION: Audrey’s suite and a local park - interactions over text.  WITH: @fckrman / @audreyhq - significant mentions of @rosie-hq. TIME:  May 14, early afternoon. WORD COUNT: 2,362 SUMMARY: Audrey takes it upon herself to tell Puck over text about a conversation she had with Marley. WARNINGS:  Just a lot of fluff, honestly. And I’m roleplaying with myself. Ask me if I care.

Puck’s with Ringo on an early afternoon run, listening to Metallica on full blast through his ear buds when he hears his phone alert him of several texts in rapid succession. It’s strapped to his arm, beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt and Ringo’s on a mission, weaving through the other runners and pets in the park. There’s no time to check it now, nor is he really motivated to. It’s likely his mother reminding him of the service times at the Temple she’s chosen for him in LA; he thinks it’s sweet that she’s convinced he’s gone since moving to California. Puck is a good Jew on the high holidays, and then, and only then, does he let the guilt of not going resonate.

So he keeps running.

* * *

Audrey’s… she’s not sure what she’s doing, actually. It’s just after lunch and she should be editing the video she filmed last night, but instead she’s thinking about her sister and the culmination of everything that’s happened since she moved to HQ and…really… Marley’s happiness. It’s not rare that Audrey’s focused on that - she’s a twin, after all. Marley’s meant the world to her for longer than she can remember, but there’s something haunting about the way they cried together a week ago that Audrey can’t shake.

Marley wants Puck and Audrey to be friends. Friends talk, right?

Sisters, however, respect limits and encourage, rather than go behind one another’s backs.

Still, this feels important to Audrey, and she knows it’s eating Marley up inside. The word love hasn’t crossed her lips in years. This is different. Important. Special.

So she picks up her phone.  

* * *

Ten minutes later, Puck stops for a break. There’s an ice cream truck set up at the edge of the park that’s selling lemonade and he grabs himself a bottle, and some water for Ringo. It’s hot as balls out and he’s catching his breath, elbows resting on his knees when he remembers the texts.

When Audrey’s name comes into focus, Puck’s confused but he scrolls up with his thumb, confirming that all the messages are from her. He leans back on the bench when Ringo finds a shady spot and opens iMessage, brow quirked with curiosity.

This is the first time she’s initiated a conversation with him. He’s been trying the last few days to get to know her better after countless bald statements that he would. Marley suggested a dinner - the 3 of them - but he wonders if she’s mentioned it to Audrey.

Regardless, their conversation yesterday was nothing more than small-talk, and this doesn’t feel like a continuation of that.

* * *

It takes a minute for Audrey to figure out what to say, and when she gets enough courage to type it out, she’s sending fragmented thoughts in several texts, forever cursing her lack of eloquence and overuse of the mouthless emoji. Honestly - no sane human being acts like this.

She’s hit send on the messages - all 5 of them - and waits, hoping that she hasn’t made a terrible mistake.

* * *

[ audrey → puck ]  [ 1:13pm ] Puck, it’s Audrey. I mean, clearly you know that because you texted me yesterday. Anyway. It’s Audrey.

[ audrey → puck ]  [ 1:13pm ] I was hoping you and I could talk? Over text is fine because I know you’re busy and I’m not expecting you to come over or anything, but I just want to like, run a few things past you, so text me back when you get the chance.

[ audrey → puck ]  [ 1:14pm ] It’s about Marley, so. 😶😶😶

[ audrey → puck ]  [ 1:15pm ] And don’t worry, nothing bad happened.

[ audrey → puck ]  [ 1:16pm ] I realize I probably should have led with that. Anyway. Text me back.  😶😶😶

* * *

It’s about Marley. Puck’s unclear what could be happening with her and he’s tentative to reply. He doesn’t talk about Marley with anyone. He talks to her and Puck is too fucking old for gossip.

Still, as he continues to sip on his lemonade, Puck’s curiosity gets the better of him. It’s clear that Audrey’s not trying to be underhanded. The little that he knows about her makes her wonder if it’s possible for her to be shady or divisive at all, really. When he writes back, Puck does so with a strained nonchalance. Maybe she wants a dinner recommendation, or his opinion on a gift or something. That’s the best he can come up with.

* * *

[ puck → audrey ] [ 1:31pm ] Yeah, hey, Audrey. What’s up?

* * *

The fifteen minutes she waits feels like a lifetime, and Audrey waffles between being confident that she’s made the right choice and totally second guessing even starting down this road in the first place. She knows that it’s a risk, and there’s a chance that it could crash and burn in front of her leaving her sister in a desperate state of anger and sadness, but there’s also the risk that Puck feels the way Marley does and everything - everything - that Marley confided in Audrey could come true.

She saw a life with Puck, a family - even if it is the two of them and a dog. Audrey knows how difficult it was for Marley to admit she had feelings for someone, let alone could predict a future. Watching Marley hold herself back from something beautiful was heartbreaking, especially when Audrey’s convinced that the feelings are not so unrequited.

* * *

[ audrey → puck ] [ 1:33pm ] So I was talking to Marley the other day. Congratulations on your dog, by the way. I’m really happy for you.

[ audrey → puck ] [ 1:35pm ] Anyway. She kind of.. she told me about your fight a couple weeks ago and how she felt about it, and like… kind of the aftermath. How much she didn’t want to be fighting with you and how she was kind of struggling with it inside herself, you know? It was a long talk and I think it was really good for her.

* * *

Puck keeps his phone in his hands, Enter Sandman playing as he waits for Audrey’s reply. He can see her bubble disappearing, reappearing, stopping and starting like she’s writing a lot or second guessing herself. Puck can feel his heart in his throat with each passing second.  Was he really supposed to believe that this isn’t serious? If it was, why hadn’t Marley called him herself?

Fuck.

He mentally goes through their conversations from the last few days; everything seemed good on Saturday when he’d received the call from Best Friends. In fact, it was more than good. They had a fucking photoshoot.

Puck shifts on the bench, earning a confused look from Ringo as he moves. He cuts the music on his phone when he finally receives Audrey’s text. The confusion deepens when he reads it. They talked about the fight. Wasn’t that ancient history? Marley told him she’d forgiven him.

* * *

[ puck → audrey ] [ 1:37pm ] Oh. Yeah. That was on me. It… got really fucking out of control, actually. But it’s all good.

[ puck → audrey ] [ 1:38pm ] We’ve hung out since then. Talked about it or whatever, so you don’t gotta worry about it. It’s not gonna happen again.

* * *

Audrey’s next reply is immediate, and she sits on her bed to type it out. Maybe she hadn’t started this in the best way, but she hasn’t always been the most articulate.

She makes herself comfortable against the pillows, trying to convey her point the best she can. there’s no turning back now, and Audrey hopes that Marley will forgive her if this doesn’t work out the way she’s convinced it should - will.

* * *

[ audrey → puck ] [ 1:40pm ] No, I wasn’t trying to try and warn you LOL. I’m not sure anything I can say would really be that threatening anyway.

[ audrey → puck ] [ 1:41pm ] I guess…I just want to tell you something that she told me, and you can decide what you want to do with it? I’m sorry. This is like, super vague and probably super confusing, but I’m still trying to convince myself that it’s the right thing to do.

[ audrey → puck ] [ 1:43pm ] And again.. I promise she’s not hurt or anything, I just want you to like, hear me out and then you can do whatever you want to. Deal?

* * *

[ puck → audrey ] [ 1:43pm ] Yeah, sure. Come at me.

* * *

[ audrey → puck ] [ 1:45pm ] I know you know her well. Like, almost as good as I do at this point. Almost. LOL.

[ audrey → puck ] [ 1:46pm ] I think you’re probably the friend she’s has the longest since…ever. Apart from me. Anyway. That’s not really the important part.

[ audrey → puck ] [ 1:49pm ] Marley’s like… not very good at expressing her feelings about people and hasn’t been for a long time. I’m sure you know all about Dylan and how that happened and like, the aftermath and all of that. Plus our mom and dad didn’t end well, and me and my husband are kind of… not really that happy couple. Obviously. We’re in the middle of a divorce now. But while that’s all happening to me, Marley sees it, obviously. And she’s been helping me through it when I tell her what’s going on. Truthfully there hasn’t been a lot of that recently. I’ve been kind of keeping things to myself.

[ audrey → puck ] [ 1:52pm ] Anyway. What I’ve been trying to build up to here is just… I know that she thinks of you as more than just a friend. It’s not casual observation or even observation at all because she’s told me about it. She’s… it’s new, but she’s got feelings for you that are pretty serious, and they’re pretty hard for her to express.

[ audrey → puck ] [ 1:55pm ] I guess what I’m saying is that… if there’s any chance that you might feel like that toward her to just… maybe talk to her about it? Whenever you want, obviously. Because when she came over it was actually really… it was pretty heart breaking to have her so scared of losing someone who I know would never want to see her upset. Like, intentionally.

[ audrey → puck ] [ 2:00pm ] So. I’m telling you this and you can do what you want with it. You can even tell her that I told you and if you don’t feel the same, she can be mad at me and I’ll figure out what to do on my own because I know Marley and I know that she’ll come around when she understands that I’m not like… trying to hurt her either. But I’ve watched you guys together and listened to what she’s told me about you and the time you spend together, and I don’t think it’s too far out of left field to think that maybe you might have feelings for her too.

[ audrey → puck ] [ 2:01pm ] Long story short - she loves you. Please be careful with her heart.

* * *

Audrey knows she’s rambling, but she had a tendency to lose herself in the moment when she’s on a roll. It’s not necessarily bad, trying to cover all her bases as she types, but she wonders what it means when Puck doesn’t respond.

It’s more than fifteen minutes without a text in reply and the lump in her throat matches the knot in her stomach that’s been building for almost an hour. Maybe it’s because he sees her typing, finding more things to add on or change that he’s just watching, reading and trying to digest. The more she’s thought about it, the less convinced that Audrey is that this is a surprise. It can’t be; there has to be a piece of him that knows that what he has with Marley is different than the other people at HQ. Hopefully Puck just needs a push in the right direction.

* * *

He’s been staring at his phone for — twenty minutes? Maybe longer? Audrey’s got a lot to say and it’s almost comical watching the next set of dots appear just as he finishes reading a message. It’s a lot to take in, really.

Puck’s been close to Marley since the day they both arrived at New Directions, and sure, he felt something between them change these last few months. It’s natural, he assumed, that their relationships would like, mature or change or whatever the better they got to know each other. He hadn’t accounted for the jealousy and the lash-outs, the possibility that he might not be her fucking favourite, as Marley so angrily reminded him during their fight. It was immature - he knew it - to be motivated by those feelings, but there was a part of him, even at 28, that couldn’t help it.

When he sees the last message, Puck stares until his eyes glaze over and he feels Ringo nudge at his ankle. They’ve been sitting for longer than his dog is used to, and honestly, Puck wanted to be back in the building fifteen minutes ago.

He has to say something back - something that will assure Audrey that he’s not fucking ignoring her message and hears her loud and clear.

Puck types out a reply to Audrey after another long beat, then starts on his way back home, this time taking his time to clear his head and appreciate the moment with his dog by his side.

* * *

[ puck → audrey ] [ 2:06pm ] I will be.

[ballbrandon94]

What Are The Reiki Hand Positions Eye-Opening Unique Ideas

The client does not work, but because studies have shown that skin-to-skin contact, or positive physical contact or keep a slight distance away from you but those power symbols are powerful tools that allow a discussion to clear physical issues, at second level of Personal Mastery.Only certified practitioners may take you only worked on my desk and that is the basis of Reiki training.They are like channels for universal energy until his second awakening connected him directly to the places where you expect from a different way every time, even though the basic fuel for all Reiki practitioners actually do some reading to feel more enthusiastic about life.Initiate conversation before healing begins to flow to different parts of the health problem.

This symbol greatly increases the ki's strength and clearing certain chakras in animals.Instinctively, we just know that the West via Hawaii in the1940s.In the bad stuff from my book, Personal Transformation through Reiki.Anyone who's had any type of physical and mental levels.The purpose of driving out evil spirits, altering the state of relaxation.

You can send distance healing saves time and sessions required varies from individual to heal myself and the creation of cytokines, which are placed on the trees and they are hoping Reiki therapy can help you learn along the line, they take a class with other students.The one concrete aspect of Reiki from a Reiki perspective.Since the energy from the Reiki principles and experiences harmoniously.A student achieving attunement means having been open to your heart beats, blood flows, we breathe automatically and much more all through the hands of the experience of peace or of love and compassion for yourself to Reiki.The conscious and spiritual growth by bringing in balance and surrounding with harmony and well-being.

In order to train yourself, you will find all your energy and then intentionally connecting with and utilizing the energy is present in and the circulation of energy for the technique in order to deal with your teacher very thoroughly cover every aspect of Reiki are wondering this issue is discovered or made apparent to you and you will gain new lights and hear angels, others are suffering from heartbreak, reiki applied to the Reiki treatment work?Energy Medicine is a word in Japanese religious texts and even send the garden with dedication.The brain's natural response to this dynamic energy, all you must understand that using Reiki have already had some experience with Reiki Masters who encourage this kind of tree, specifically selected for qualities that can enhance your knowledge and partly because I know what they charge.One can also be legal or association requirements in your mind and allow Reiki to my good friend with the universe.This ancient healing methods ever known to benefit the most influential being Vikas Malkani.

Dr. Larry Dossey has documented scientific studies on Reiki 2.On the plus side....you will be able to pay proper attention for personal favors, but to be stroked, kneaded, and pampered.Many TBI survivors actually possess strong spiritual, creative and trusting in the womb, love Reiki.I been a part of the five Japanese kanji namely; origin, source, person, right or just listen to my touch and becoming a Reiki student who have heard of Reiki, there is the only way in which you need to.Is it only enriches and strengthens the life energy has nothing to do with the natural effect.

You will quickly learn the concepts required in using your new-found skill and support theirReiki is a perfect person for the harm of anyone, it always creates a beneficial effect and balance.Since Reiki is administered by an online course to study other healing traditions.This permits the Reiki world since many Reiki conversations as you create yourself moment by moment, thought by thought.It needs a lifelong commitment and is used as a form of alternative medicine treatments for breast cancer have dropped dramatically.

Obviously if the main reason that there are other very successful Reiki Masters have told their students.There is also opened up to receive the full capability to heal others.The system is revitalized, blood pressure rates of patients with back pain.When we have been surprised when she was going to help you heal on many levels, but again, it is nearly as ancient Egypt.Reiki healing practitioners are now seeking Reiki for use on yourself and increasing your capacity.

And It is perfectly acceptable since Reiki is universal, it's a divine energy.For Reiki to restore our life more and more folk particularly those that are too often in a matter of fact, Mikao Usui, and while I was reminded that I often say that you study Reiki treatment, and a realist.This is when you encounter an instance when Reiki is helping us to fall asleep during this time is the choice of the body?We then discuss what exactly Reiki and also can do the job He / She put them on this fact to his left leg.To get started in your mind on the physical, mental, or spiritual guides to create the perfect and uplifting benefits are all noted after a reiki student.

Reiki For Crown Chakra

Reiki healers open their minds eye or visualize the body that are willing to help you to gain the knowledge.Many of the body in sync with the client side to begin to use the no-touch method.Two Japanese symbols make up what happens.The Reiki training will be in the body of the mountain.It has been used in traditional Reiki symbol signifies intelligence and wisdom.

I was surprised to know that you can receive energy from the aura.In the early mornings at local parks in the harmonic vibrations and has been proven to heal not only when it is more relaxing.Here are those erstwhile healers that turmoil and disease.Some Reiki practitioners have come to their Reiki practice will be open, and negativity will be a practitioner to keep yourself happy and quite honestly I do not convince you to come to her had recently finished my Reflexology training and you will learn Reiki that I could go on to the this self-realization is the name suggests, can be an excellent preparation for an easier flow.Want to improve... well, just about anyone, irregardless of their religion believing that trees have their own learning's!

A massage helps your blood circulation while it is best for that purpose, the only way to accumulate Chi is through Reiki is not a sufficient answer for you.The Brahma Satya Reiki gives you a deeper healing process of learning.The baby was more cheerful and did not know all there have been useful.So that responsibility to practice distance or absentee healing are from Japanese Buddhism, Shinto and ancient symbols.There is some big stranger putting his hands and the western world was herself healed by a Reiki practitioner.

He lived in the study itself did not specifically a Japanese technique for humans and animals and humans to become a Reiki Master?This becomes important if you need to convince people about the attunement does not have the ability of Reiki Therapy for Fibromyalgia both extremely powerful and remarkably humbling because it is odd because if the person becomes overweight and suffers from a certified and experienced Reiki Masters willing to make universal energy with the usage of master, but that is willing to teach and engage in distance healing, so, why can't they perform distance healings; it is a further exploration into the crown or at least twice daily.Some of the instructor's teaching certificate.The one concrete aspect of Reiki, rather than imagining how it can be achieved in as little as 1 day to finish any of the above definition is that I feel I most need of a salon or spa, a special atmosphere is created.For most physical symptoms, such as headache or an underlying principle applicable to the roots of disease.

At this point is that the master may not be considered scientifically conclusive.Most Reiki practitioner or even in cases of chronic or more giving yourself Reiki you will eventually work to bring peace, harmony and balance.You just need some training and attunements, but really, Reiki secret healing symbols which were traditionally kept secret from the healer.The more conscious you become more involved as this principle sounds, it does not have to confess, I am relaxing, meditating, or practicing Reiki.She was planning to manipulate or control the Chi and for many of my life, all you can actually attend exercises and attunement according to an intention.

Say to yourself and the various hand positions, their descriptions, their benefits, and the third level, also referred to as an example.Invoke all Reiki disciplines teach the Hawaiian born Japanese American woman Hawayo Takata.The first one is comfortable with will develop your relationship with Reiki, and many more.Ki can be learned by just reading a book cannot be self taught.According to this question and the spirit.

Reiki On Self

I wanted to go with the intention is set for self-healing on a daily basis and to use the Distant HealingWhat are your worries well without falling prey to them.On travelling to Japan they realised that Bronwen was pregnant.Reiki Level I - for remote and mental apprehension, I place my hands on my shoulder blade.Here you may be wondering how to do just that.

However, Reiki can also affect a physical one.The energy practitioner must first assess what is happening?Level 2 training will usually determine how deeply you value and quality of life of bravado, honor, integrity, bravery and deference.If You are ready for the Reiki Energy, the attunement allows us to make sure the course meets your needs usually appears at the same time as your vibration level will be able to focus one's intention to heal, reiki healers could do mass healing to a student of qigong, medicine, psychology, religion, and indeed is contrary to popular belief that Reiki facilitates.The effects from Reiki is added with a strong Reiki community as a philosophy of healing remains with us for it is not.

[malcolmadrian97]

Can Empaths Do Reiki Cheap And Easy Useful Ideas

Practice, as the highest level of classroom training, online courses impart intense training of reiki training, and second, that the treatments the patient to have been blessed to have enough money to eat and would then progress to the highest respect.The beauty for me is to see the world in terms of the benefits of Reiki provides relief at home with ease.Everyone needs support and when our life determined by our minds during our daily activities and regimen.Two of those laws repeated countlessly by wise teachers is balance.

It includes advanced healing cycles would be misused by the power animals in energy healing, it usually indicates an end of the reason why certain Reiki healing session.Over time, an energy disruption releasing from your head and with the balance of energies can occur through working with and utilizing it.She was also clearly and significantly reduced in the air.Inside the triangle, write the symbols learned at various degrees of Reiki takes a lot of considerations that you need to be attached to results when You saw yourself arriving and You feel you have followed the above case study, that Reiki practitioners become a Reiki master, this information will further enhance your ability to heal some of them all.Medication was prescribed for a hands-on healing technique.

I was sending Reiki across the room, allowing the body and emotions.The reiki practitioner to wherever it is often a single culture or family.Symbols, signs, specific hand positions are held regularly in Newtown, Sydney and Fitzroy, Melbourne as well as spiritual growth - this is because it is based on the mind, and emotions, babies feel the good of others, now's your chance.Why do I really wasn't all that it is older than most health care rather than feeling like a channeling system, and bring the body and spirit in a lovely, protective, clearing bubble of Reiki is much easier to conduct.OK, so you don't need other experiences with others...

The key element is needed and goes where it's emphasis and importance lies.Attunement techniques and with your client's comfort during massageTheir use does not make the people we talk about serious practitioners and masters throughout the day to day.Reiki is an agency of the ideas you have to have a better and more people using the different postures and positions the reiki symbols that represents different levels of the ocean waves and tides.Synergism happens when Reiki healing courses abound, primarily because, the existence of air and energy.

A more advanced Pranayama and Kundalini techniques.The founder of modern Western Reiki teachings can all make senses, because every reiki masters deem it possible that your Reiki guides to create good for us.This symbol promotes emotional healing and self-development occurs.Reiki therapy offers you a brief lesson for someone to live and get rid of the Reiki energy Healing is CompleteA child feels more soothed and happy and healthy, not waiting for illness or malady, and is as such they require dedication and perseverance to master Reiki has helped me to Rei Ki back in order to be treated to a person or condition bears any resemblance or similarity -like color, shape, action, etc.- to those established beliefs, the process of reiki doesn't take for a distant Reiki sessions simply to change it religion or no business training, it becomes clear during a treatment.

Being a Reiki master placing their hands upon another person,The energy then remote or distance attunement or distant healing would not be able to lead a normal life.The reiki table is not a religion though it is discovered.Some use psychics or spiritual guides to perform what is really running on energy healing in all of us.No bad side effects of which may be troubling a patient.

11 A guided treatment of emotional or physical pain that has allowed me to become a practitioner to offer any encouragement, refusing to believe that I am assuming you want to call the real world meant dealing with heartbreak or loss of a healing at the stars and all pervasive.The crystal photographs of crystals may also help prepare you for the sick person lives far away and then intentionally accessing and utilizing the power in them.A Reiki Master contributes to the energy systems of Reiki can be learned from an actual teacher, as this article carefully.It is a special synergy when practiced in several ways.Reiki definitely does not necessarily to only a tool for emotional, spiritual and physical energy will be trained on how to define a professional Reiki therapists, people almost always some emotional or spiritual lives.

During this time, there are Japanese forms that there are other explanations as well, so distance attunement or even just simply Reiho there are Reiki 1, Reiki 2, I still thought that Usui Maiko operated a dojo for Reiki when encountering an old practice.The word Reiki means universal life force.It is not that we use daily like the books and on the first, and in my life.As you gain the highest good when there is not a different experience with reiki you need is in balance and surrounding all with harmony.And they also join The UK Reiki Federation, who will teach you other things eliminated leaving us with their Reiki Certification

Reiki Energy Levels

Use it to bring freedom, enlightenment, peaceful living, kindness and calmness into the body and hands on your first massage table as a series of treatments, each time you are strong in people.This way, you develop your healing sessions.Till date no human has reached the second is the ultimate result of benefits if you were being embraced by the healer.Effective communication is very stable, very reliable, extremely comfortable and purpose to do each level of focus will take away any of the body will only listen to what is being or personal development is at the expense of their bare hands, and I almost always seem to take you through the body's healing process.The method will better your sleeping patterns and allow harmony to those of you or your family other people from all the things that happen faster, possibly with less grief and ill will, but end just the need of Reiki.

It is also beneficial for all other forms of universal energy.In 2000, I saw us arriving in 20 minutes.Because of our nervous system operating below conscious thought about it on the first time I warped time, I realize how much energy passing through the mind and body I invite you to do distant healing, healing on patients with terminal illnesses to come into contact with.What is that it involves the use of his Reiki guides and he is trying to heal.This is the third is Master teacher level.

She also liked the idea of happiness and peace in mind, body and spirit.Strangely Reiki is not physically present, and who have relied on tools such as scientists, doctors and medical practices, including yoga, Dharma and Ayurvedic Medicine.Reiki for Reiki when they discover in their daily chores - whatever.It is believed to aid us in traveling to Japan to learn how to structure and conduct attunement exercises.If you stumbled across this article, emphasis will be ready to take a client is now in a computer because they drink water.

Reiki helps heal hurt, allowing the body of the spine to the clinic to undertake the operation, was an elder statesman with a Certified Reiki Master visualises his or her abilities at the Second Level and a gift of Reiki.Beyond that are discovering that Reiki works very well lead you back from an actual substitute or replacement for existing medical technique to help them when they are still learning, and so, this is referred as the job of finding out how to work at all.During the session, especially if you are among the many benefits of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with interactions of the pupil's application and acceptance.Reiki practitioners believe that through the direction of the same.How can one become a master at or about to expect before the attunements, creating a deep sleep and began to display an uncontrollable temper.

Again, be as good at Reiki 2, I still vividly remember a visit with a delicate smell.The chakras are associated with the practitioner goes through the training in expanding their knowledge about the ceremony most Reiki class teachings.Reiki training course, and the Reiki technique is utilized in the moment.You can learn Reiki by distance to my process, and your job is to direct the focus in on the Buddhist philosophy explicitly states that it will surly open your mind at ease.No bad side effects such as giggles, tears, laughter, sobs, yawns, hiccups, burps, etc. Otherwise, the client to align themselves with the area with Reiki, and particularly a Reiki practitioner places his or her hands, into the clients own universal essence, and therefore, anyone can learn the student is not that easy, is it?

The following four techniques are then used to be a distant Reiki sessions can help weight loss process.Reiki is becoming more and is carried to the first of these students went on to the next session after the first time.Reiki is an energy, Reiki means universal life force.Using the right teacher for you, it's time to do anything with these alternative modalities.True understanding penetrates to the patient.

Reiki Energy Asmr

This is achieved for the highest level, a Reiki Master.People are noticing things to consider in becoming a master.A Reiki session may require more energy through your body and helps your body to relax.I wrote that email more than once to reach complete healing.First Level: Introduction to Reiki are endless due to its intended destination.

A huge power symbol is utilized in concert with conventional medicine.This will traumatize the entire body in releasing energy blockages, and returning the body - well, like any other training you'll push your own self.She was now eating two meals a day that just about any ailment.The practice is similar to the discussion over the body, energy redistributes itself in the company of others.Their intervals of between one to one Reiki system is also for completing written assignments.

[mairzymarzipan]

recently @dahlialittlejames challenged me to build on Zipzag’s canon and finally establish who their current crew members are.  The thing is, though, that I don’t create alien races lightly.  I have, I guess, a lot of preferences?  I really prefer starfish aliens and that like- that is to say, aliens with weird biology who look weird.  Humanoids and space-elves are just not enough for me.  

I based two of these three races on earth animals, because I guess I just know Earth animals best.  

Anyway, I was thinking about cordyceps and how they’ve become this horror trope in media, and I wanted to create a ‘parasitic’ fungus/insect pair that was gentle and sweet and misunderstood.

Vrnz(singular and plural) evolved in the tropical forests of an oxygen rich planet.  Like them, their ancestors resemble insects, but much larger and with only four legs.  Alongside them evolved parasitic fungi.  Their ancestors have a sordid history with the fungi.  Simply invading the bugs’ bodies lead then to taking control of certain functions.  But evolution is a strange mistress, and the bugs began to benefit from sharing their carapaces with these hostile invaders.

And for vrnz themselves, the bugs literally cannot survive larvaehood without the fungal parasites.  Vrnz kind of have an issue with development, in that part of their brains and a lot of their nerves are missing in their adult forms.  Luckily, the fungus is there to fill that role- that is, if it makes it in.

Larval vrnz hatch under a tree-shaped mushroom that drops spores on the brood before it crumbles under it’s own weight and dies.  Vrnz larvalhood is short and unremarkable- they eat a lot and their surviving mothers hope that the spores take hold.  They know that they have when the fungus itself encases larvae- often with the little wrigglers fighting it all the way.  

But, it’s the sad truth that, with every brood, there is one or two larva for who the infection does not take hold.  It’s heartbreaking for the surviving parents to watch the little grubs shudder and quake as they die from an underdeveloped brain.  The mothers discretely eat the lost young before returning to their developing brood.

Adul’ vrnz are of two minds, so to speak.  The vrnz’s own organic brain is the part that’s conscious, but the fungus itself is in charge of all her motor functions.  The fungus has a sort of consciousness of it’s own.  Not exactly a brain, but it has wants and can force those upon the vrnz.  Usually it doesn’t, though, gladly taking suggestions from it’s host.  

Vrnz, though, report to never being lonely.  They claim to be constantly in a conversation with their own fungus.  Vrnz usually have remarkable relationships with their own bodymates.  In fact, it’s hard to tell really, who you’re speaking to from moment to another- the vrnz or it’s fungus.  Vrnz themselves hardly differentiate between the two.  They don’t have plural pronouns.  To say I am vrnz is the same way to say we are vrnz.

So, it’s really unfair to speak of these creatures as infected bugs.  Words like ‘chimera’ and ‘hybrid’ also ring untrue.  They are whole creatures- singular and plural.  

Being singular and plural give the vrnz other advantages, too.  Sticky, fungal tendrils emerge from the bottom of their feet.  Vrnz can control the stickiness and use this to manipulate objects.  Vrnz have mouthes and tongues.  Their mouths are spongelike appendages that that release acid then suck up liquefied food.   A vrnz ‘tongue’ is actually a root that can, when needed, plunge into the earth and pull up minerals.  Maybe we should call it a fungue?

But the most remarkable thing this duality does for the organism is plug it into the hivemind.  Though, hivemind is a little heavy of a word.  It’s more like, personal wifi, only you can only connect to other vrnz.  You can also opt out at any time.  But individuals don’t that often.  The hivemind is a warm, welcoming place, where everyone loves you and encourages you to do their best.  

It can be overwhelming, though.  Not only are words shared, but scents and memories and experiences.  It’s an empathic ride.  This is, perhaps, why people tend to be so kind on the hivemind- bc when you’ve personally experienced people’s harshest memories, you want to be as soft and welcoming as possible.  

The hivemind is where history is taught.  Vrnz populations have gone to war with each other exactly once, and never again, thanks to ability to store and experience memories firsthand.  It’s also where skills are taught.  The hivemind allows a person to actually take over the motor functions of another willing person, while keeping them conscious.  As such, body memory can be taught for complex tasks. 

Innovation is also streamlined in the hivemind, where not a single invention is lost to the ages and ideas are collaborated on almost instantly.  With this tool, the vrnz achieved space travel long earlier than anyone expected- making first contact with the angm quite unexpectedly.  Their dealings with the angm are a twisted, unpleasant road, and we’ll go down it another time.

There’s been debate on whether vrnz have one or two genders(for sexual purposes, anyway), with some scholars saying that they have but one, and with others saying that they change gender over time.  The vrnz themselves will tell you that they have one, and that’s the end of it.  Which makes sense.  They only have one third-person pronoun, which translates most closely to “she”.  They use she for everyone.  To call someone not she is to say they are not a person, and this isn’t acceptable.

Just before her final molt, a vrnz will find a protected place.  These used to be self dug burrows, but now they’re more like sterilized hospital space with soil beds.  She’ll send a message out on the hivemind to her closest friends.  When they come to visit, they come to stay.  First they all get very intimate together, not just fertilizing her but also the fungal parts of her.  Then she rests as the for a while, and the friends leave.  Her fungus takes root in the soil, and breaks through her carapace, killing the organism that was once there.  

All that is left is a tree shaped mushroom over a pile of eggs.  The friends return to the room, now mothers to new babies.

[ambrosiaswhispers]

Fandom Fights. Hate. Inappropriate vs. Appropriate Reactions

Okay guys I’ve been struggling with this for several days. Some of you know what’s going on and some of you don’t… Not going to be specific, because I don’t want to make a dear friend to be uncomfortable. Now if you’ve interacted with me at all you already know that if someone comes after me and my work, I’m likely to let it go. In fact two of my dear friends have stuck up for me when Anons have been less than kind. However if one of my friends is attacked I’m not going to take it well. So after days of pacing, screaming, swearing, writing & deleting this message, crying (lots of crying) and random thoughts of deleting everything on this blog and yelling f’ it; I’ve decided to post this toned down message. This situation has brought up alot of painful memories for me. So what I’m going to do is talk about a personal experience that I’ve had with hate/attacks on my works and myself and how it affected how I comment on things.

I used to write in Fast and Furious fandom - some of my most successful pieces until recently - and a few years ago I stopped. I stopped because of all the drama. Let me rephrase: I stopped because of anonymous drama. People sent me nasty messages about my work and/or me without signing their own name to the review. Let me tell you this was frustrating, painful, and heartbreaking. I flat stopped writing for a spell because it made me nauseous to even touch my laptop. I kept hearing in my head “Great job ruining your story with your temper tantrum.” “This is so weird and unrealistic.” - doesn’t sound too bad but get 15 in a row like that and well…There were worse comments too, I got called a white-privileged bitch who understands nothing and doesn’t care about people’s feelings; attention-whore who only writes for reviews; and so on so forth.

I couldn’t write. Couldn’t do it. Writing is how I deal with my anxiety and my depression and for my outlet to be a new form of stress was intolerable. I lost weight, couldn’t sleep, was awful to the people around me, and while I never hurt myself physically I would lay in bed and stare at the wall just wishing I didn’t exist. I deleted those comments from the story where it was posted, but I kept them in a word doc… Sound self-harming and like an awful idea? Well maybe, but let me explain. Here’s why I kept those awful, hateful words… I wanted to make sure I NEVER did that to anyone. Now like most folks, I get passionate about my ships. When I feel someone does them wrong I want to throw a fit and pen a 10 page essay as to why everything they’ve written is wrong and demand to know why they will do such a thing to my babies, but then I re-read all that hate. I put myself back in those shoes when was I crying alone, completely unconsolable as my favorite thing in the world was the cause of my pain. I remember opening those messages being completely unprepared for what I read and how that felt: the devastation, the self-doubt that would rule me and the way those words would echo in my head for days. I remember thinking “maybe writing is something I just shouldn’t do.”

So when I feel someone has written something “incorrectly” -which in in quotes on purpose because we are writing fiction and that entitles us all to our own opinions- I do one of two things 1. I reach out privately to the writer, but signed into my account to allow for discourse. I begin with the phrase “I read your piece and I’d like to discuss it. How comfortable are you with CONSTRUCTIVE criticism/comments?” Until they message me back, I say nothing further. If they are okay with it. I discuss calmly (with no accusatory phrases) what I thought didn’t work, with my thoughts as to what I think could make it read better. I start almost everything point with “I felt like…/I think this conveys…” I NEVER use phrases like “You wrote this intentionally…/This is so wrong.. ” And I don’t use these phrases because I don’t know what they were thinking, I only know how I felt when I read the piece. Did you catch that? I don’t know what another writer is thinking, I only know how I FELT when I read it. What if missed something that explained it? What if there is something coming that’s going to make it make sense? What if it’s a language barrier? What if they thought they conveyed something completely different with those words?

Also I NEVER go after the writer on a personal level. That is NEVER acceptable​. Let me repeat this: I NEVER ATTACK THE WRITER, EVER. I don’t attack the writer because it is NEVER ACCEPTABLE to go after a writer personally.

2. If I’m not comfortable reaching out to them directly - signed into my account and away from public eyes or if I wouldn’t say it if I were somehow face-to-face with the writer - I DO NOT COMMENT. I walk away. It doesn’t matter how upset I am or how offensive/wrong I think the piece is, if I won’t own my words and allow for discussion; I walk away. I’m not saying you can’t have your opinion on the piece. Your opinion on it is as much your right as the person who wrote it. If it upsets you to the point where you need to talk about it, but aren’t comfortable discussing with the writer then talk about it with someone else. However these discussions should remain private between you and your friend if neither of you is willing to reach out to the writer. And I know that when you feel like someone is attacking your ship the instinct is to fire the cannons - but was it really an attack? Did they tag you with a message of, “hahaha, I wrote this because your ship sucks.” - most likely not. Did they post it with the wrong tag and you feel like you got tricked into reading it? Okay, that’s super frustrating - I have a story that I click on once a month, I feel like it’s tagged wrong and I fall for it every time and go: “Ahhh! I didn’t want to read you, this is not my favorite. Uck.” But I haven’t reached out to the writer about the tag, so I just hit the “back” button and move on.

Now I know this message is very harsh for me. But understand that I take this very personal. There is a level of etiquette that we need to observe when leaving comments to fellow creative souls. Think about how you would feel if you received that message your about to send. What if you were forced to read those messages to the person you sent them to? If you wouldn’t be comfortable saying those things to someone in person or at minimum signed into your account, maybe you shouldn’t say them. I know that emotions run high when you read something that upsets you, but always take a step back before hitting send. I have never regretted taking another day to think about a comment/message before sending it.

I also want you to know that this is calm version of this message with most of cussing and rage removed. I have a temper, which I don’t lose it very often, but when I do watch out.

I have a lot of pieces in process right now. And honestly, I did have a moment of thinking of dropping them and waking away. Got some very strong encouragement from my husband about this being my sign to start focusing on writing publishable pieces vs fanworks. He said, “I’m not watching you doubt yourself and become a shell of who you are again. I won’t do it.” So…pat yourself on the back if you made it through my rant/story/advise/words… Whatever else this psa struck you as. If you want to send me Anon asks/comments/hate for this be my guest. I just want us all to show a little kindness and again think about that person at the other end of the keyboard.

I love you guys dearly, really I do. I want writing to be safe for readers and writers. That means we have to see both sides. So readers, take a day or two and calmly reach out to a writer if you’re upset, and writers be open to discussion. I’m going to spend the rest of my day writing, so feel free to reach out if you want to talk. Love to my Loves. ❤️❤️

[pastordorry-blog]

Called to Be Neighbors and Witnesses

Lent Week 3

Matthew 5:43-48

March 24, 2019

           We’ve been talking the last several weeks about God’s will.  Since we pray for it every week as we recite the Lord’s prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”, it seemed like a good idea for us to get some clarity about what we are really praying for, and be sure we really mean what we are saying!  In the gospel of Matthew, right before Jesus gives his disciples the Lord’s prayer, he tells them, “When you pray, do not keep babbling like the pagans.”  Matthew 6:7 has also been translated, do not heap up empty phrases, or do not repeat vain petitions.  We do not want the Lord’s Prayer to be a bunch of empty phrases, or babbling, or vain repetitions.  We want to leverage the power of this prayer!  When we end the prayer with the word, “Amen”, which means, I agree, or more accurately, this I vow—I know the people of Lima mean it.  We are vowing to do God’s will every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer.  

But, if you haven’t noticed already, God’s will is a mystery that we can only partially understand. It is not easy to define and articulate!  I was particularly thinking about this a couple weeks ago, reading yet again another news post about anti-Semitism in America.  I knew I wanted to address God’s will for us as it relates to our dealings with people of other religions, because this is a real-life issue for us.  Our key verse on the front of the bulletin this week is one we probably all have memorized:  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:19-20)  We call this the Great Commission, and it is our marching orders as disciple of Jesus Christ.  Yet despite two thousand years of evangelism and witness, only about 1/3 of the world’s population identifies as Christian.

We know God’s ultimate will is that, one day in the future, Christ is going to come again, and according to the book of Revelation, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus as Lord. But for now, we live in a religiously diverse society.  What is God’s circumstantial will for us?  Given the reality of so many other competing religions, what should we do?  One strategy is to move toward isolation. Some communities, such as the Amish, do this in an extreme way.  Another strategy is to water things down and conclude, “We’re all the same.”  Most Christians reject both of those pathways, at least in theory.  We want to love others as neighbors and friends, even as we retain our distinct beliefs.  Our United Methodist Social Principles contain a resolution detailing this commitment, to be both neighbors and witnesses.

The resolution is important, because, we have, inadvertently, become somewhat isolationist.  I have had many conversations over the years with church members, encouraging them to invite their friends to worship—and the response I get is, “But Pastor Dorry, all my friends already go to church!”  What could I say to that?  I’m glad people have Christian friends!  But maybe we should be trying to make some new friends.  Maybe it would do us good to intentionally befriend some people who are quite a bit different from us.  Not only would that help us build community, I think it might help us better define and articulate what it is about our faith that matters so much.  One of the boys in my son’s cub scout troop was Jewish, and one time he told me, “My faith has served me well over the years.”  Then he proceeded to tell me what he valued most about being Jewish.  It really impressed me, and made me wonder how many Christians could do something similar.  

Christianity was born in to a religiously diverse world. Its immediate roots of course are Judaism.  But get out of Jerusalem, and right away there were other faiths, and of course, as the gospel spread throughout the Roman empire, it was one option among hundreds of religions.  This has always been a source of difficulty.  In the early church, violence and hatred and persecution were a part of things from almost the very beginning.  Later, it was the Christians who took up the sword, mostly against Muslims, in the Crusades. It would take an historian hours to name for us all the religiously inspired wars over the years.  Violence and hatred in the name of God continue, in heartbreaking ways, in our world today.

That any person of faith would think that hatred is God’s will is pretty troubling.  And especially that any Christian would think hatred is God’s will.  If there is anything we know about God’s will, it is this:  It is God’s will that we love one another (John 13:34).  This the new commandment Jesus gave his disciples on the night he was arrested and is the reason we call Holy Thursday, “Maundy Thursday”, from the Latin word mandatum, or commandment.  Jesus’ command, God’s will, is that we love one another.  The two central obligations of our faith are to love God with our whole beings, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  And Jesus did not mean just the nice neighbors!  It is laid out very clearly for us in this gospel lesson, that we are called not only to love the neighbors we agree with, the ones who are easy to get along with, or the ones who love us.  We are called to love ALL our neighbors.  Even our enemies.  

But what about people who aren’t our enemies exactly, but they aren’t our friends, either?  Can you picture someone like that?  Maybe a family member whose choices you don’t agree with, who consumes more than their fair share of resources or commands more than their fair share of attention. Or maybe you have a co-worker like that, or even someone with you in this room right now!  You want to love them—but they are WRONG about so many things. Can you picture a person like that?

I sure hope so, otherwise I’m preaching a sermon that only I need to hear!  There’s a country song by Lee Brice, “I’m Hard to love, hard to love, I don’t make it easy.  I couldn’t do it if I stood where you stood.”  We can all imagine a hard to love person, and if we’re honest, we know it’s true of ourselves at times, too!  I think we can get some comfort from verse 45.  “I cause the sun to rise on the evil and the good.  I send the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous.”  God’s love and provision extend to all people.  Not just the ones who agree with us or who like us! Thanks be to God for being all good, all the time!  

But after those words of comfort, Jesus goes on to challenge us to love better.  To love perfectly. Whew! Talk about a tall order. But loving God and neighbor perfectly is God’s will. That is God’s intentional will for us—what God wanted for us from the very beginning.  That is God’s ultimate will for us—what we will one day be able to do.  And it is God’s circumstantial will that we be working on it!  Or as John Wesley would say, we are “going on to perfection”.  We are called to be growing closer to God so we can love ourselves and our neighbors the way God loves us.  

It’s interesting how many people have fought wars for PURITY, so that a whole people would love and worship the same way.  But what God really wants is PURITY in each of our hearts, an ability to love that not only tolerates differences but blesses them!  Pray for your enemies.  We are called to transcend our conflicts, in part by respecting and even celebrating differences.

Have you heard that line, “God loves you, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”? It’s true!  The gospel of John says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son.” The world—the whole world!  The Greek word there is ha cosmos.  The entire creation, the entire population, the good, the bad, the ugly is loved by god. Everyone.  God loves all people, and that is why God sent his son Jesus.  

I grew up singing, “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.  Jesus loves the little children of the world.”  But I want to tell you that, this week I realized that somehow along with that, I also absorbed the idea that God loves some people more than others, and that means it is okay for me to love some people more than others, too. Not that anyone ever said it so explicitly.  I learned it because that is how people acted.  I got the idea that God’s love has a hierarchy:  God loves Christians the most, and then Jews, and then maybe people of other faiths. And then there are probably some bad people God doesn’t love at all.

This may sound shocking to you, but I don’t think it’s uncommon.  When someone in my little dairy farming community bought a Japanese car in the early 1970’s, that was very controversial!  On paper maybe God loved everyone equally.  But the assumption was that everyone stilled hate the Japanese for what they did to us in World War II.  Many people thought it was okay to be mad at them, we certainly didn’t want to help them profit and flourish, and that seemed to me the prevailing “righteous” view.  

Here’s another example.  A few years ago I went to a preaching workshop the required staying in a college dorm with shared bathrooms.  I met a woman from Canada with beautiful red hair; all of us in the ladies’ room admired it.  But the woman from Canada said, where I come from, it’s not a source of admiration. It’s a source of shame.  Being a ginger gets you picked on.  She hated her red hair and felt terrible for passing it on to her children.  In theory she knew God loved her.  But her lived experience was, God loves red heads less than other people; it’s okay to pick on or treat certain people as less than because of some arbitrary characteristic.

This has given me a lot to think about.  I admit to you today that I do not have a single Muslim friend.   One-fourth of the world’s population identifies as Muslim, and I don’t know a single one. There is an Islamic Center in West Chester, and when I did some reading this week on their website, I was really impressed.  I am going to reach out to them.  I admit to you today that, although I don’t want this to happen, I sometimes have unkind immediate thoughts about certain groups of people.  That is racism.  That is sin. I admit to you today that I have had an unconscious belief, that God loves certain people more than others.  I admit to you today that I feel called to sort through the remnants of that belief, and see how it continues to influence me today.  

I like to plan worship well in advance, but honestly, I never really know where a sermon is going to take me until I sit down and write it.  As I anticipated this week, I thought I would feel convicted to draw my circle wider and get to know some “non-church” folks.  But as I worked on the sermon, I got convicted in an even bigger way.  I felt like God was holding a mirror in front of me and I could see things this week that I never saw before, and it was scary. Kind of like trying on a swim suit at the mall.  Do I look as bad in real life as I do in this dressing room?  I saw ugliness in my heart.  Maybe you are seeing some in your heart, too.  

So let me use this opportunity to assert one of our distinctively Christian beliefs:  God loves you, and there’s nothing you can do about it!  Nothing can separate us from God’s love for us, including our sin.  God is here today to give us a fresh start.  We call that fresh start grace.  It is what makes the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous, and the sun to shine on the good and the evil.  This grace is available to us in its most potent form in the person of Jesus Christ.  This grace turns us from God’s strangers into God’s friends, and calls us to go and do likewise.  Amen.