#in order to get medical treatment he had to return home to the abusive living situation he was trying to flee from

[scorpio-marionette]

Dave York

Pairing: Dave York x F!Reader (first aid)

Rating: This chapter is rated T for Teen, any following chapters may change in rating

Warnings: Dave gets his own warning, brief mentions of abuse, wounds, medical treatment, shady people, explosions, dead bodies, and illusions to the Equalizer 2

Summary: You have been picked up by some government agent and taken to a remote location. This place has been roped off by police and no one else has been permitted to enter. It was just a storm. What could've happened to warrant this kind of reaction?

A/N: Welcome to the first Meeting Him prompt! Your adventure begins here where it all ended for your chosen man. More choices will come as my mutuals write to this, and if we get more writers, then more choices will come!

Hurricane season has always been horrible. You’d seen the devastation in the south. Heard of the monstrous typhoons to hit Asia. The death toles. The calls for action. That’s why you became a volunteer for the Red Cross. Aside from having a love for helping people, being a first responder or medical aid was in your blood so to speak. Your mother was a RN in your local hospital, your grandfather a medical officer in the military. They taught you everything you know. 

What you don’t understand is why you were escorted to this specific location, and why no one else was allowed to know what was going on. The skies above the island have yet to begin to clear. Thankfully the wind has died down at least. The creaking of the sodden wood bridge bodes no confidence to you that it will hold together long enough for your venture. Neither does the town if you’re being honest with yourself. The open face of the small strip of landscape left everything upon its sand open to the brutal attack of the wind and rain. While the majority of the structures still stand, immense amounts of repairs will have to be done. You had heard from some police that not only had there been damage from the storm winds, but the old bakery exploded after the evacuation. They seemed unsure if it was a gas line or an old generator, and unwilling to talk to you about it. They did assure you that you were safe to go ashore though. 

After having stood at one end of a long bridge, your mysterious escort returns to you after speaking with local authorities. You continue to comply with the orders they give you as you continue to pretend to ignore the body bag you can see in the ambulance behind them. You re-enter their clearly government issued car, you cross the still churning water, and continue into the little seaside town. What you see is no longer a surprise until you see what the police were talking about. No wonder they didn’t want to talk about it. That building didn’t explode by accident from what you could tell. Passing the wrecked husk of a building your car stops outside of a simple home. You can imagine a loving couple living here, maybe with their children and pets. A happy family until the storm came and they left for better shelter.

Your escort comes around to open your door. You step out with your medical bag and wait for more orders. The agent walks you to the door of the home where it opens to reveal a man inside. He’s an older gentleman, maybe mid to late fifties. He looks tired and worn down from years of hard work. He must be very dedicated to his job. He welcomes you both into what you learn is his home and are shown to the sitting room. There a young man sits with his leg wrapped. Ok! This makes sense for you to be here. This kid obviously needs help. Perhaps he got hurt trying to get in during the storm. Maybe he was clumsy. Your understanding again evaded you as you saw the kid’s wound. This is a gunshot wound. Clean shot, in and out. He’ll keep his leg and have one hell of a story to tell. But why can he tell this story?

Your first thought is that he’s being abused. The man you met first could be his father or uncle. They got mad for nothing and took it out on him. If so then why all the secrecy? Child and domestic abuse cases aren’t things the government tries to hide. As you work on the kid you can see the agent and the man speaking. They keep glancing over to a spot you can’t see from where you’re crouched. Perhaps that is the true secret. When you finish with the kid the agent brings you over. The man begins explaining why you’re here as you patch him up.

You were chosen from among the Red Cross volunteers for your dedication to helping the injured and for your strength of character. You work well under pressure and do not hold back your opinions of others unless one hundred percent necessary. You’re here to treat three patients. One child and two adults. Nothing critical or requiring surgery. 

Upon hearing that there’s a third patient you stop in your tracks. Who else could be here? Hell, the two you’ve seen shouldn’t be here considering there was a mandatory evacuation for the island. The man sees your hesitation and stands. He moves to a door that was behind you. He opens it to reveal another man, bound and gagged, sitting on the floor. He looks up at you through squinted eyes, no longer used to the bright sunshine. He has visible lacerations across his chest and bruises from blunt force trauma blooming where you can see his skin. Someone has patched him already, but it needs to be redone because -

Is he wet?

You look to the agent for permission to approach. He assures it’s safe, figuring you can guess why he’s tied up at all. As you near him you can see he is in fact soaked through all layers of clothes. His short brown hair sticks to his forehead or frizzes out in different directions. His dark orbs track each of your movements as if hunting prey. He flinches when you reach out to touch. To push you away or to grab you, your unsure.  Reflexes from some kind of training you guess. Judging by his clothes, he’s military of some kind. You peel his layers and expose his skin. A smattering of chest hair greets you but the red angry cuts steal your attention. You request a change of clothes for the man then begin to clean his wounds. 

It's difficult to not stare. He's clearly fit under all his tactical gear. A little soft around his stomach though. Accompanying his burning gaze is also a tired, but more frustrated shadow. One he seems content to throw your way. He quietly huffs and grunts as you clean him up. Your mind quickly goes into the gutter the longer you listen. He's married, you remind yourself. He has a wedding ring in his hand. 

A couple hours later, you’re filled in on the series of events that lead to this moment. Assassinations, cover ups, old friends, mid storm rescues. It’s almost too much. You take a moment to breathe. Stepping outside, you’re met with another government issued vehicle. This one an SUV instead of a sedan. Two agents exit the vehicle to enter the home. They leave the home with whom you now know as Dave York in custody. He stares at you as you watch everything unfold. Never shifting away from your frozen form. A trained assassin, a contract killer, and he has his eyes on you.

Choose Your Fate: (more coming soon)

Escape Remember Convict

[rwood2477]

Dude has been in office for 3 years.... what has he done? Other than dodging the darts the media and Pelosi have thrown?!?

what has PRESIDENT TRUMP and his cabinet accomplished.....

Here you go.

* Trump recently signed 3 bills to benefit Native people. One gives compensation to the Spokane tribe for loss of their lands in the mid-1900s, one funds Native language programs, and the third gives federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana.

* Trump finalized the creation of Space Force as our 6th Military branch.

* Trump signed a law to make cruelty to animals a federal felony so that animal abusers face tougher consequences.👀👀

* Violent crime has fallen every year he’s been in office after rising during the 2 years before he was elected.

* Trump signed a bill making CBD and Hemp legal.👀👀

* Trump’s EPA gave $100 million to fix the water infrastructure problem in Flint, Michigan.

* Under Trump’s leadership, in 2018 the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil.

* Trump signed a law ending the gag orders on Pharmacists that prevented them from sharing money-saving information.

* Trump signed the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), which includes the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) which both give law enforcement and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking.👀👀

* Trump signed a bill to require airports to provide spaces for breastfeeding Moms.

* The 25% lowest-paid Americans enjoyed a 4.5% income boost in November 2019, which outpaces a 2.9% gain in earnings for the country's highest-paid workers.

* Low-wage workers are benefiting from higher minimum wages and from corporations that are increasing entry-level pay.

* Trump signed the biggest wilderness protection & conservation bill in a decade and designated 375,000 acres as protected land.

* Trump signed the Save our Seas Act which funds $10 million per year to clean tons of plastic & garbage from the ocean.👀👀

* He signed a bill this year allowing some drug imports from Canada so that prescription prices would go down.

* Trump signed an executive order this year that forces all healthcare providers to disclose the cost of their services so that Americans can comparison shop and know how much less providers charge insurance companies.

* When signing that bill he said no American should be blindsided by bills for medical services they never agreed to in advance.

* Hospitals will now be required to post their standard charges for services, which include the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept.

* In the eight years prior to President Trump’s inauguration, prescription drug prices increased by an average of 3.6% per year. Under Trump, drug prices have seen year-over-year declines in nine of the last ten months, with a 1.1% drop as of the most recent month.

* He created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.👀👀

* VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.

* Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.

* Because of a bill signed and championed by Trump, In 2020, most federal employees will see their pay increase by an average of 3.1% — the largest raise in more than 10 years.

* Trump signed into a law up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for millions of federal workers.

* Trump administration will provide HIV prevention drugs for free to 200,000 uninsured patients per year for 11 years.👀👀

* All-time record sales during the 2019 holidays.

* Trump signed an order allowing small businesses to group together when buying insurance to get a better price👀👀

* President Trump signed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act that provides funding for states to develop maternal mortality reviews to better understand maternal complications and identify solutions & largely focuses on reducing the higher mortality rates for Black Americans.

* In 2018, President Trump signed the groundbreaking First Step Act, a criminal justice bill which enacted reforms that make our justice system fairer and help former inmates successfully return to society.

* The First Step Act’s reforms addressed inequities in sentencing laws that disproportionately harmed Black Americans and reformed mandatory minimums that created unfair outcomes.👀👀

* The First Step Act expanded judicial discretion in sentencing of non-violent crimes.

* Over 90% of those benefitting from the retroactive sentencing reductions in the First Step Act are Black Americans.

* The First Step Act provides rehabilitative programs to inmates, helping them successfully rejoin society and not return to crime.

* Trump increased funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by more than 14%.👀👀

* Trump signed legislation forgiving Hurricane Katrina debt that threatened HBCUs.

* New single-family home sales are up 31.6% in October 2019 compared to just one year ago.

* Made HBCUs a priority by creating the position of executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs.

* Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award at a historically black college for his criminal justice reform accomplishments.

* The poverty rate fell to a 17-year low of 11.8% under the Trump administration as a result of a jobs-rich environment.👀👀

* Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels since the U.S. began collecting such data.

* President Trump signed a bill that creates five national monuments, expands several national parks, adds 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

* Trump’s USDA committed $124 Million to rebuild rural water infrastructure.👀👀

* Consumer confidence & small business confidence is at an all time high.

* More than 7 million jobs created since election.

* More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.

* More than 400,000 manufacturing jobs created since his election.

* Trump appointed 5 openly gay ambassadors.👀👀

* Trump ordered Ric Grenell, his openly gay ambassador to Germany, to lead a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality across the globe.

* Through Trump’s Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam) initiative, Federal law enforcement more than doubled convictions of human traffickers and increased the number of defendants charged by 75% in ACTeam districts.

* In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismantled an organization that was the internet’s leading source of prostitution-related advertisements resulting in sex trafficking.

* Trump’s OMB published new anti-trafficking guidance for government procurement officials to more effectively combat human trafficking.

* Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested 1,588 criminals associated with Human Trafficking.

* Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services provided funding to support the National Human Trafficking Hotline to identify perpetrators and give victims the help they need.

* The hotline identified 16,862 potential human trafficking cases.

* Trump’s DOJ provided grants to organizations that support human trafficking victims – serving nearly 9,000 cases from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.👀👀

* The Department of Homeland Security has hired more victim assistance specialists, helping victims get resources and support.

* President Trump has called on Congress to pass school choice legislation so that no child is trapped in a failing school because of his or her zip code.👀👀

* The President signed funding legislation in September 2018 that increased funding for school choice by $42 million.

* The tax cuts signed into law by President Trump promote school choice by allowing families to use 529 college savings plans for elementary and secondary education.👀👀

* Under his leadership ISIS has lost most of their territory and been largely dismantled.

* ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed.

* Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorization since 2006, authorizing more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.

* Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.

* Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith.

* Signed an executive order that allows the government to withhold money from college campuses deemed to be anti-Semitic and who fail to combat anti-Semitism.

* President Trump ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.

* Trump imposed sanctions on the socialists in Venezuela who have killed their citizens.

* Finalized new trade agreement with South Korea.

* Made a deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.👀👀

* Withdrew the U.S. from the job killing TPP deal.

* Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.

* Okay’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.👀👀

* Has had over a dozen US hostages freed, including those Obama could not get freed.

* Trump signed the Music Modernization Act, the biggest change to copyright law in decades.

* Trump secured Billions that will fund the building of a wall at our southern border.

* The Trump Administration is promoting second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.

* Trump’s DOJ and the Board Of Prisons launched a new “Ready to Work Initiative” to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.👀👀

* President Trump’s historic tax cut legislation included new Opportunity Zone Incentives to promote investment in low-income communities across the country.

* 8,764 communities across the country have been designated as Opportunity Zones.

* Opportunity Zones are expected to spur $100 billion in long-term private capital investment in economically distressed communities across the country.

* Trump directed the Education Secretary to end Common Core.👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

* Trump signed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund into law.

* Trump signed measure funding prevention programs for Veteran suicide.👀👀

* Companies have brought back over a TRILLION dollars from overseas because of the TCJA bill that Trump signed.

* Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than 30 years.

* Stock Market has reached record highs.

* Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.

* African-American unemployment is at an all time low.

* Hispanic-American unemployment is at an all time low.

* Asian-American unemployment is at an all time low.

* Women’s unemployment rate is at a 65-year low.

* Youth unemployment is at a 50-year low.

* We have the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.

* The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans.

* 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future— the highest ever.

* As a result of the Republican tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.👀👀

* Record number of regulations eliminated that hurt small businesses.

* Signed welfare reform requiring able-bodied adults who don’t have children to work or look for work if they’re on welfare.🙌🙌

* Under Trump, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history.

* Reformed Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors 100’s of millions of $$$ this year alone.👀👀

* Signed Right-To-Try legislation allowing terminally ill patients to try experimental treatment that wasn’t allowed before.

* Secured $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.❤️❤️

* Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.👀👀

* U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high so we are less dependent on oil from the Middle East.

* The U.S. is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.

* NATO allies increased their defense spending because of his pressure campaign.

* Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord in 2017 and that same year the U.S. still led the world by having the largest reduction in Carbon emissions.👀👀

* Has his circuit court judge nominees being confirmed faster than any other new administration.

* Had his Supreme Court Justice’s Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh confirmed.

* Moved U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.👀👀

* Agreed to a new trade deal with Mexico & Canada that will increase jobs here and $$$ coming in.

* Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.

* Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices, has agreed to a Part One trade deal with China.

* Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.👀👀

* Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.

* The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump doubled the maximum amount of the child tax credit available to parents and lifted the income limits so more people could claim it.

* It also created a new tax credit for other dependents.

* In 2018, President Trump signed into law a $2.4 billion funding increase for the Child Care and Development Fund, providing a total of $8.1 billion to States to fund child care for low-income families.

* The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) signed into law by Trump provides a tax credit equal to 20-35% of child care expenses, $3,000 per child & $6,000 per family + Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) allow you to set aside up to $5,000 in pre-tax $ to use for child care.

* In 2019 President Donald Trump signed the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act (CARES) into law which allocates $1.8 billion in funding over the next five years to help people with autism spectrum disorder and to help their families.👀👀

* In 2019 President Trump signed into law two funding packages providing nearly $19 million in new funding for Lupus specific research and education programs, as well an additional $41.7 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the most Lupus funding EVER.

* Another upcoming accomplishment to add: In the next week or two Trump will be signing the first major anti-robocall law in decades called the TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.) Once it’s thelaw, the TRACED Act will extend the period of time the FCC has to catch & punish those who intentionally break telemarketing restrictions. The bill also requires voice service providers to develop a framework to verify calls are legitimate before they reach your phone.

* US stock market continually hits all-time record highs.

* Because so many people asked for a document with all of this listed in one place, here it is. No links provided to remove bias as Google search is easy. Print this out for family, friends, neighbors, etc. I encourage you to drop this list off to voters before the 2020 election too!

*Trump did all of this while fighting flagrant abuse and impeachment charges.

——-please explain to me why you have a problem with OUR president? Because he has misspoke a few times? Tell me when you find a perfect person, please....I’ll wait! I’ll tell you why, because the media has skewed him in such a negative light and unfairly report his accomplishments to undermined those achievements! Why? Because the media is complicit in every single thing this man is trying to undo! Start thinking for yourself!

🇺🇸WWG1WGA🇺🇸

🇺🇸🇺🇸Are you tired of winning yet?🇺🇸🇺🇸

❤️SHARE THIS❤️

[originalhybridloverfics]

Bodyguard CH10

A/N: No, your eyes do not deceive you. This is in fact a new chapter. I'm sorry about not updating in what feels like 87 years. I found my way down the Edser rabbit hole and can't find my way back out. I hope you like this chapter.

Felicity looked up as she heard voices and saw Oliver and Digg talking in front of her door.

Her chest tightened at the sight of Oliver.

Over the past few days, she had tried distancing herself from Oliver once she realized her feelings for him were anything but platonic or professional and were growing stronger by the day.

However, it was harder to do than she anticipated. Especially when she was living with him, temporarily, and spent all her time with him.

Still, she did her best to create a distance between them. She made sure whenever they were at the shelter that they were never alone, and when they were at his place, she was careful to not spend any time with him with just the two of them that wasn’t necessary.

She refused group dinners and drinks, she ate breakfast on the go and she kept their talks short and strictly business.

Oliver was persistent of course but she more than held her ground and stuck to her conviction of shutting him out as much as possible.

She knew Oliver didn’t understand why she was pushing him away but she had to do whatever it took to protect herself and right now every survival instinct was telling her she needed to protect every part of herself especially her heart.

Fear was a monster. It was ugly and it was consuming. It crept beneath your skin, shook you to your core, and made you question everything, every decision you make, everyone around you.

It whispered doubts in your head.

Felicity feared the connection between Oliver and herself. It felt stronger every single day he was at her side.

It terrified her.

She was scared that the connection between them would grow strong enough for him to completely break her and she couldn’t shatter again.

It took her forever to pick up the pieces of herself that Cooper had broken.

And even then she was never able to fit her pieces back together perfectly.

Felicity, she was Fractured. Scarred. Damaged.

Oliver deserved better than what she could offer him.

He just hasn’t realized it yet but he will. She was saving them from pain in the long run.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Oliver clenched and unclenched his fist repeatedly, looking toward the door impatiently, sitting on a hospital bed.

He had spent half the day trying and failing to figure out why Felicity was suddenly shutting him out and the other half in the gym, training while John took over being Felicity’s full-time guard. Pair her orders.

Had he offended her in some way? Did his concern for her come across as too overbearing?

God, it bothered him that she was pulling away from him. It was like a sledgehammer was slammed into his chest and the feeling wouldn’t go away.

It was awkward as hell when they returned to his home. Felicity barely spoke a full sentence to him or stayed in a room alone with him for more than five minutes.

If he didn’t know better he would think she was afraid of him but that was crazy.

He would never hurt her. She had to know that, right?

His thoughts were going to drive him crazy.

The door to the room opened and in walked Tommy Merlyn. “When I saw your name in my folder, I thought I was seeing things. You hate hospitals.” Tommy looked his friend over. “You don’t look like you require emergency medical treatment.”

Oliver lifted his hands. “They might be broken.”

Oliver fought to keep a straight face. He knew his hands weren’t broken but he wanted an excuse to come to see his friend when he knew Tommy was busy working in the emergency room in the hospital.

Tommy sent him a doubtful look, setting his clipboard down, he pulled on a pair of gloves and reached for Oliver’s hands inspecting them.

“You have some abrasions, and your hands are pretty banged up but they’re not broken.” Tommy started cleaning the blood from his knuckles and applying a healing and disinfectant ointment. “You want to tell me what you’re really doing here?”

“I needed to talk to someone. I need an outsider’s perspective.” Oliver told him.

“And this couldn’t wait till my shift ended?” Tommy inquired, wrapping Oliver’s hands up.

“It could have but I can’t promise I wouldn’t have gone at least a little bit insane from not talking to someone,” Oliver responded.

“Okay,” Tommy laughed. “If you’re that desperate to talk to someone I can spare a little time. What’s on your mind, Ollie?”

“I’ve been working this new job.” Oliver started.

“The bodyguard job for some client or another.” Tommy supplied.

“Right, “ said Oliver. “Anyway, I met this woman and she’s amazing, she’s beautiful, kind, smart and her strength astounds me and it’s complicated, cause she’s the client,”

“Wait, you’re sleeping with your boss?” Tommy said surprised. Oliver had always taken his job seriously and didn’t like to mix his personal life with his business life.

“No, it’s not like that.” Oliver protested. “We’ve never-”

“But you want to?” Tommy interjected.

Of course, Oliver wanted to. He had to be blind and idiot not to but what he felt for Felicity was more than an attraction. He had feelings for her.

And it was so real for him. Maybe the realist thing he’s ever felt for a woman.

The problem was he didn’t know how Felicity felt about him. He knew she was attracted to him but was that all it was for her? He hoped not.

“I like her a lot.” Oliver finally answered.

“If you don’t care that’s she your boss then what’s the problem?” Tommy inquired.

“I think...I think she might be afraid of me.” Oliver hated having to say the words. He hated thinking it but lately, he felt like Felicity was shutting him out to protect herself. From him.

The notion was a jagged blade twisting in his chest, carving him from the inside. ‘

“Afraid of you?” Tommy repeated incredulously. “You would never hurt a woman.”

“I know that but I’m not sure she does,” Oliver confessed. “She’s been hurt before her.”

“Oh,” Tommy said.

“Oh?” Oliver repeated. “Why do you say it like that?”

“Like there’s more meaning behind that one little word.” Oliver insisted.

“When you say hurt, do you mean physically or emotionally?” Tommy questioned.

“Both,” Oliver said after a moment.

“Then I can see why she’s not open to growing closer with you.” At Oliver’s continued look of confusion, Tommy elaborated. “Women with a history of an abusive relationship have a harder time letting any man close again because the last time they did they didn’t just have their heart broken. In most cases, the woman was hurt, emotionally, physically, and mentally. The physical wounds? Those heal if they’re lucky enough to get out but what stays with them the most are the mental wounds.”

“How do you know so much about this?” Oliver questioned in surprise.

“I’ve seen more than a few women come in here after being tossed around by someone they love since working in the ER for the last two years,” Tommy said. “Your girl, Felicity, if she’s purposely creating a distance between you, pushing you away then it is more than like self-preservation on her part. She’s doing whatever she can to protect herself and being alone is probably the only way she knows how to protect her heart.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Oliver asked.

“First, it’s important, you don’t push her,” Tommy advised. “Second, have a frank discussion about your feelings but you have to take her feelings into account, too. Tell her what’s on your mind, find out if she’s scared of you or of getting hurt, try and reassure as much as you can that you would never push her and finally, let her make the first move.”

Oliver nodded. “Okay,” Oliver grabbed up his coat, pulling it on. “Tommy, do you still get women coming in here recently who have been abused.”

“All the time,” Tommy admitted sadly.

Oliver pulled out his wallet and pulled out the business card for the shelter. “Give this to any of the abused women that come in here. It’s a place that can help them. They’ll be protected. Give them a chance at something better.”

Tommy accepted the card. “Do I want to know?”

Oliver patted his friend on the chest. “Thanks for the advice, Tommy.”

“Anytime, now get out of here. I have real emergencies to tend to.” Tommy walked out of the room, calling over his shoulder that a nurse would be in shortly with his discharge papers.

Oliver decided he wasn’t going to wait around for that and walked on out. He had a strategy forming in his mind, now he needed to get a plan together and make it happen.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Felicity was surprised when Oliver called asking for the rest of the night off but she allowed calling in one of the recruits to fill in for him.

She wasn’t sure what he was doing but it wasn’t her business what he did with his free time or what he considered important to take time off work for. It didn’t stop her from being curious about it, though.

She didn’t even know if he would be home when Digg drove her back to the apartment at the end of the day.

She said goodnight to Digg who walked her to Oliver’s door and didn’t leave till Felicity was safely inside using the key Oliver had given her.

Felicity shut the door and locked it behind her. Oliver didn’t have one of those state of art security systems which she knew because he believed he was his own security system. Who better to defend his home than himself.

“Oliver?” Felicity called out, walking into his living room. She tossed her bag on the couch took off her coat, throwing it over the back of the couch. She held onto the back as she toed off her shoes.

The smell of food filled the apartment, a delicious aroma that made her stomach grumble with hunger.

“In the kitchen,” Oliver called out.

Felicity walked into the kitchen to find the counter, set nicely for dinner as Oliver set a pan he pulled from the oven in the center, followed by a pan of bread.

“Did you make us dinner?” Felicity asked in surprise.

“I did,” Oliver smiled at her. “And I got you this,” Oliver turned and pulled out a bottle of wine from a container of ice. “Red is your favorite, right?”

“It is.” Felicity felt a flutter in her stomach, a light feeling spreading across her chest. “You didn’t have to do all this for me.”

“I wanted to,” Oliver said, voice soft. “Sit please, everything is almost done.”

Felicity took the seat and watch him move around the kitchen a quiet smile on her lips, momentarily forgetting that she was doing her best to avoid him.

Sometimes the pull to him was just too strong to resist. Like right now.

He was always so at home in the kitchen. There was always this weight he carried on his shoulders, this alertness about him like he was prepared to be attacked at any moment, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing since it was his job to be ready to fend off an attack but it made Felicity want to pull him in her arms and tell him it was okay to let his guard down sometimes.

That need to assure him everything was fine always left a flash of fear behind. She shouldn’t feel this away about him.

Watching him now, it was like all of that weighed him down and kept alert fell away and she got to see Oliver the man and not Oliver Queen the bodyguard.

“How everything go today? Any new problems?” Oliver asked as he set the table with their filled plates.

“No new problems,” Felicity answered as he poured them some whine. “What did you do today?”

“Let off some steam, visited my friend Tommy, I believe I’ve mentioned him a few times.” Oliver took the seat across from her.

“You did,” Felicity confirmed, she lifted the glass of wine to her lips, tasting the liquid on her tongue, she hummed quietly to herself. “He’s a doctor right?”

Oliver nodded, taking a bite of the bread he made. “He is. Works in the ED.”

“This is the same Tommy from Thea’s stories?” Felicity asked. “Because I gotta say I was still expecting to be more of a wild card.”

“He’s both.” Oliver gave a small laugh. “He’s serious when he needs to be but he lets out that other side of himself after a few drinks but he’s a good man.”

“Much mike yourself,” Felicity said, taking a bite of her food.

Something warmed in Oliver’s chest that Felicity believed him to be a good man. That had to help his case in the larger scheme of things. He opens his mouth to reply but snapped it shut, listening as a sound of pleasure escape Felicity’s lips.

Her eyes were closed as if she was savoring the taste and there was a flush to her cheeks that wasn’t there before, her tongue darted to chase the taste on her lips.

He tightened his hand on his fork as desire shot through him, wanting to hear the sounds she was making, the look of pleasure on her face for a different reason, involving him, and absolutely zero clothing.

Felicity’s eyes fluttered open slow. “Wow, that is really good. I know I said before I really didn’t expect you to be such a good cook. It’s like dining at a five-star restaurant.”

Oliver laughed. He knew his cooking was good but it wasn’t that good. “You don’t have to flatter me, Felicity.”

“This is not flattery, it is fact,” Felicity argued, pointing her fork at him warning him. “Don’t knock what I say. If I say it's the best meal I had in years then it is.”

Oliver held his hands up in surrender, a carefree smile pulling at his lips. “Got it, it’s utterly delicious.”

“Exactly,” Felicity took another bite, her eyes closing as she savored the food.

Oliver wasn’t sure if he was turned on by her utter enjoyment or amused that she was so vehement that it was as good as she thought.

Oliver spent most of the meal just gazing at Felicity, enjoying just being in her presence. Felicity excluded this light and he felt it cut through his darkness.

Felicity offered to clear the table and do the clean-up. Oliver was quick to tell her she didn’t have to, he would take care of it but Felicity insisted in the end they compromised and ended up, doing it together.

“So, I was thinking that tomorrow I was going to go out and look for something bigger for everyone to move to, I figured I take you and Digg with me. I could use both of your expertise because we want somewhere that’s fortified, somewhere that’s big, something that can give them home and not feel like they're being locked away for their safety.”

“We can have Slade looked after everyone while we’re out.” Oliver agreed as they washed dishes. “I think I might have an idea about where we can look. I need to make some calls first.”

Felicity place the last dish in the cabinet and dried her hands. “Really? That’s great. The sooner we find somewhere the better.”

“I agree,” Oliver said. “Now that we have business out of way, I was hoping we could talk.”

“Talk about what?” Felicity's brow furrowed.

“I know things have gotten a bit tense between us,” Oliver began, turning toward Felicity, he took her hand in his and stepped closer. “I know you think I’m being over-protective but that’s not it, it’s more than that. This job isn’t a job for me. I want to protect you, I want to help people. it’s who I am.”

“I know,” Felicity nodded, looking up at his earnest blue eyes. “Who you are is why I feel like I can trust you and trust isn’t easy for me. I trust you more than I thought was possible.”

But still, there were things she would never trust in a man again. It wasn’t Oliver's fault. It is what it is.

Oliver copper her cheek and his warmth soaked into her skin, making her feel at home. “Do you trust that you mean more to me than a job?”

Felicity’s heart skipped a beat in her chest. “Oliver,” she whispered. She didn’t think he would address this thing between them so head-on.

Oliver fell to the look in her eyes, the way she said his name. Like a prayer.

He closed the distance between and pressed his mouth to Felicity’s. He felt her tense, her body freezing up and he cursed himself.

He shouldn’t have done that.

But then suddenly, he felt Felicity’s lips pressing back against his.

He pulled back to look into her eyes, see her reaction.

Her cheeks were flushed, eyes bright.

“Felicity,” he whispered, voice low.

Felicity surged forward grasping his face in her hands and pulled his mouth back to hers.

Oliver groaned, he wrapped his arms around, pulling her flush against his front.

She was so small in his arms but so perfect, he licked at the seam of her lips. His tongue sweeping inside when she opened for him, tasting her mouth as her hands fisted his shirt and smooth up his arms, gripping his biceps.

He secured his hand across her waist and lifted her, sitting her on the counter.

He tilted her head back deepening their kiss, pulling her hair free from her ponytail and running his hands through her long strands.

Felicity’s hand moved over his back, hiking her legs up to wrap around his waist, pushing him closer.

Her hands dove into his hair, beneath slipping beneath his shirt. He didn’t care that her fingers trail across his skin. All he could think about was her skin pressed against his, her hands exploring her body.

He slipped one hand beneath her shirt, her skin was soft as he slid up her ribs, and gripped her pulling her forward and grounding his hips against her, desiring shooting through him.

Felicity gave a gasp and then she was placing her hand on his chest and pushing him back. “Stop, we can’t do this.”

Her words like ice on his skin. He stopped immediately, removing his hands from her body. “Felicity, I-”

“We can’t do this,” Felicity repeated, she pushed at him again and he took a step back giving her the space she wanted.

Felicity jumped down from the counter and ran her hand through her hair. “This can’t happen, Oliver. It’s important that we keep this professional.”

Oliver could see the way her hand shook, and how she avoided looking at him. Everything inside of him was telling him that she was scared. Scared of feeling something for someone? Scared of feeling something real. Scard to give her heart to someone again.

“I don’t think I can do that. It’s hard to be professional when you want to be with someone.” Oliver said, wanting Felicity to know how he felt. “I feel like we’ve been skirting around the attraction between us and I’m tired of pretending that I don’t have feelings for you.”

Felicity shook her head. “Oliver, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Yes, I do. I know how I feel about you and no one can tell me what I feel. I think I know my own heart.”

“You don’t want me, Oliver,” Felicity felt tears gather in her eyes but she refused to cry. “I’m damaged. I won’t ever be good for you. You are amazing and can do so much better than someone who still has nightmares about a piece of shit ex.”

“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” Oliver said vehemently. “You're the most amazing woman I have ever known. You're beautiful and smart and resilient and have a strength inside of you that I have never known, Any man in the world would be lucky to have you. I want to be that man.”

“No, you don’t.” Felicity shook her head and took a step away from him.

Oliver wanted to pull her closer but it was clear by the way she wrapped her arms around herself she didn’t want to be touch in any way and he was going to respect that.

“I get it you’re scared, you’ve been heart in ways I can’t imagine, you were betrayed by someone you loved and nothing I say will change that but you don’t have to be afraid of me. I would never hurt you. I would rather die than to ever see you hurt let alone be the cause of your pain. Please, don’t turn away from this because you're scared I’ll be like him. I could never be like him.”

Felicity’s heart clenched painfully. Oliver’s words while meant to be reassuring were the opposite. He was making very clear how deeply he cared for her and it only made this harder for her.

“I know you won’t hurt me.” Felicity's voice shook with the effort not to cry, to stay strong. “I know you’re not like Cooper but I can’t let you get close. I can’t care about you so much that I let you have power over me.”

If Cooper taught her anything it was love meant having power over someone and she couldn’t let that happen again no matter what she felt for Oliver.

“I can’t do it.” Felicity felt herself breaking inside and was becoming increasingly difficult to keep it together. “I won’t.”

Oliver shook his head. Love wasn’t having power over someone. It was giving yourself to someone, it was caring for someone, it was putting their wellbeing and happiness before your own. It was trusting them with all you have. Your heart, your body, your soul, everything that made you who you are.

“I don’t want to have power over you, Felicity,” Oliver said earnestly. He needed to be open with her but he also had to let her make the choice of what happened next. “I want to be your strength. I want to be the pillar that holds you up when you need some help. I want to be the person you turn to but more than anything I want to love you and I want you to let me.”

His words were so beautiful and God, Felicity wanted to let Oliver be all those things but she couldn’t. “I’m sorry but I can’t. I just can’t.” She could no longer keep her tears in as they slide down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

A/N: I hope you like the chapter. The next Olicity update will be I Can't Let Her Die.

Thank you to everyone still here, reading my fics even though I take forever to update.

Tags: @mariestark @memcjo

Sorry about the lack tags but I lost my tag list for this story and can't remember all who wanted to be tag for this. Feel free to remind me if you want to be tagged so I can create a new list accordingly.

[sserpente]

A/N: May the Forth be with you, my lovelies! Kylo isn’t exactly nice in this one and I have no idea why it got so dark. Definitely no fluff. Well. Dark side and cookies and stuff. 🍪 Requests from @mitsuhkai (I changed it up just a tiny little bit so it made sense for the story) and two anons.

Words: 3989 Warnings: violence, abuse (somewhat) and lack of aftercare, smut, angst

“Can I get you anything? Some water? Food?”

You shook your head mutely, hugging yourself in an attempt to stay warm. It was the adrenaline in your veins that was slowly wearing off. You wanted nothing. Nothing but to go home—you did not want to be in the middle of a war.

“I’ll go get you a blanket.” His name was Poe Dameron. He was nice—considerate. He had been among the group that had saved you before the planet evaporated, turned into a pile of dust floating in the galaxy. You had known it would happen sooner or later. Living in this place had been worse than trading garbage on Jakku. Now, at long last, someone had taken revenge. You only wished it could have happened without countless innocent lives being taken. You had been lucky to survive and now you wanted nothing more than to find your way back to your own home planet.

“So… who are they?” You asked with a quiet and exhausted voice when Poe returned, wrapping a dark red wool blanket around you. “The people who blew up the planet?”

“You really don’t know?”

You shook your head.

“They call themselves the First Order. They are a radical group aiming to bring the entire galaxy under their control. Their leader is called Kylo Ren, he is… was Leia’s son.”

Your lips parted. You had met Leia earlier. You could hardly believe she was fighting her own flesh and blood.

“How… how would they accomplish that? Rule everything? That is impossible.” And ridiculous, you added mutely. This entire war was ridiculous. You wanted to go home so bad it physically ached.

“He is looking for force-sensitives. The more of them he succeeds in pulling to the dark side, the more dangerous the First Order gets for us. We are looking for them too, we’re bringing them to Leia before he can find them.”

“When can I go home?”

Poe smiled weakly. “Soon. We needed a device that is called a wayfinder. It will take you and the other survivors straight to your home planet.” It was lightyears away—in a world where Kylo Ren, the First Order and the Resistance did not exist. A world where the Force was but a peaceful companion to those who wielded it. Nothing was just black and white but at least, no one had started a war over control and power.

“Poe! They’re here.” It was a young woman, a redhead with blue eyes. Undoubtedly another member of the Resistance. A blaster was dangling from her brown belt. She was carrying a tiny black box.

“What?!” The pilot jumped up from his seat opposite you, alarmed and ready to attack. “How many ships?”

“Just one, Poe. Look at us. There’s only a handful of us left. I don’t think they came to kill us. Leia said they are searching for the wayfinder too.”

The wayfinder you need to get home. Your face fell as it went white, just when the redhead turned to you.

“Will you stay here and watch this?” She said, holding up the box. “We can barricade the doors to give you as much protection as possible.”

With an eager nod, you took it, the blanket sliding from your shoulders and to the ground. If necessary, you would protect this wayfinder—however it worked—with your life if only it meant you would be home again soon. You should have never left in the first place, looking for adventure. It seemed so absurd to you for now, adventure had found you.

Poe and his friend left, the metal doors sliding shut, locked. If you didn’t know better, it would have felt like being trapped. Nothing prepared you for when the ship you were on was shook by some massive impact and sent its construction shattering to pieces. You screamed when the room began to collapse in on itself, a large chunk of debris burying you underneath it. The box fell from your grasp in but a second, clattering to the ground a few feet away from you.

Panting, you came up for fresh air, coughing when you accidentally inhaled the dust practically steaming up from the broken furniture like moist fog. Your right leg was jammed. You winced when you looked down and attempted to pull yourself free only to draw blood scraping against the sharp end of whatever kept you glued to the ground. It hurt. Overwhelmed by the burning pain, you lied back down, taking a deep breath.

It was then somebody entered whatever was left of this control room full of panels and buttons broken beyond repair now—your breath caught in your throat. A tall figure, male judging by his frame, wearing a black cloak and a terrifying mask scanned the destruction around him with clenched fists. Your eyes widened. A lightsaber was dangling from his black belt. Was this Kylo Ren?

He strutted further into the room, his gaze—entirely hidden by the mask—presumably catching sight of the small box. Your heart skipped a beat, unsure of what was more horrifying. Being alone with a very dangerous man who sought to control the galaxy or the fact he was about to steal from you the only way to return home. He had not noticed you yet. It was likely that to him, you were no more than an unconscious body, a victim of his triumph over the Resistance. Right until your instinct sealed your fate forever.

“No!” You screamed when his gloved fingers reached for the box, stretching your arm out in a desperate attempt to prevent him from bringing it into his possession, willing it to be flung out of his reach—when suddenly, the box bid your will. It practically flew away from him, landing on the ground and slithering across the metal tiles. In shock, you looked down at your shaking hands. What had you done? Was this… had you used the Force?

Kylo Ren’s head turned in your direction so fast your blood ran cold. Breathing heavily, you gaped at his expressionless mask, struggling to break free from your prison of debris. The throbbing pain in your leg was still excruciating and yet you could not even begin with comparing it to the ice cold fear washing over your helpless form on the ground when he stood, tilted his head slightly and marched over to you. You could already feel the heat of his lightsaber singeing your skin, the hot blade slashing through your guts, killing you fast.

A strike which would spell doom for you, however, never came. Instead, when you dared look up at him again, Kylo Ren was offering you his hand. He was using the Force to move the metal from your leg, finally freeing it and providing you instant relief. Carefully, you moved your ankle. It hurt—but nothing appeared to be broken.

“(Y/N)!” The last thing you remembered was falling unconscious, right into somebody’s arms.

-

The room in which you awoke was dark and intimidating. Another ship, you figured. More panels, more metal, this room, however, resembled a medical station. Drowsily, you sat up to find a handful of droids moving back and forth on wheels. Your leg had been bandaged.

“Ah, Miss. You are awake. We will alert the Supreme Leader at once.” You flinched when one of them addressed you, its silver body reflecting the dim light.

“No, wait!” But the droid was already wandering off. Where were you? What was happening? What had happened already? You remembered using the Force. The Force! This was impossible. Another flinch when the metal doors slid open and revealed lights coming from the hallway. You shielded yourself from the sudden brightness—and it was then you discovered the blaster on a shelf next to a white helmet. It must have belonged to one of their soldiers and been deposited here during his treatment. Without any hesitation, you took it. You had been defenceless the first time you had met the First Order. You would not be so again now.

Kylo Ren’s gloved fists were clenched again when he entered the medical station, straight towards you. He had offered you his hand… but for what? Surely, he was hostile! You did not think. All you did was aim at him. Next thing you knew you were already being flung through the air, smashing against the wall. You sank to the ground with a groan. Wherever the blaster had landed, it was now out of your reach.

“What do you want from me?” You screamed at him before you could even see him. Kylo Ren did not utter a word until he was hovering above you like a giant, forcing you to tilt your head back to face his mask. “I’m not with the Resistance!” You continued helplessly. “If that is why you took me you might as well let me go again!”

“Let you go?” He finally spoke a little amused, sending a shiver down your spine. His voice was being modulated behind that mask. You swallowed thickly. “I don’t think so. You are force-sensitive. I am not letting one of the most powerful individuals off of my ship.”

It occurred to you only then. Force-sensitive. If you had truly used the Force and Kylo Ren had seen it, you were done for. The dark side… well, you didn’t even know that the light side was all about!

You snorted indignantly. “Powerful? I… I didn’t even get to pull the trigger before you threw me against the wall, which hurt by the way!”

“You tried to shoot me.” He stated matter-of-factly, bending down further to study your face.

“Well… how would you feel if a man in a mask and that… that lightsaber started at you like a berserker?”

Kylo simply ignored your protest. “I will train you. You will learn to control your powers, and use them.”

Desperately, you shook your head. “No. Please, just let me go home. I don’t want to be part of any of this.” You paused. “What happened to Poe?” He had yelled your name before you passed out, you remembered this much. It had been his voice.

“Poe Dameron, the Resistance pilot? I have no idea. I will not let you go. You need a teacher.”

“I don’t need anything except for that wayfinder.”

Kylo coldly ignored you. “The droids will show you to your new living quarters.” And just like that, he stood again, turned on his heel and left you.

-

The living quarters Kylo Ren had provided you with were impressive, to say the least—or perhaps you were merely used to worse back on your home planet. They were spacious, equipped with a double bed and your own attached washing room. If only you were here by your own free will.

Nearly two months had passed since your arrival on the Finalizer and you had no idea where Kylo had hidden the wayfinder. He was intimidating you for sure but over the last weeks… something had changed.

First off, he had showed you his face. Then, he had showed you emotions.

Focused, you brought your stick—a lame excuse for a weapon, for Ren did not trust you with a real lightsaber just yet—against the Stormtrooper armour before you, swirling around in a lightheaded manner. You were a natural. He would never admit it but he admired the way you fought, watching you in awe, hands clasped behind his back. You made it look like art. Your body was passionate—only your mind was not. He could feel it. You were shielding yourself from the Force even after all of his endeavours and to be truly honest, it was driving him crazy.

“You could be so much stronger. You should have smashed that dummy to pieces by now. You are hardly using any of what I have taught you.” His words stung all the more without the modulation of his mask. You sighed. “You are weak.”

“I am not weak.” You spat, glaring at him with dismay and disappointment. What did he expect? You had never wanted this. The fact you were starting to develop feelings for him did not help. Kylo Ren was not the monster the Resistance had made him out to be—not to you. Besides, he was still here as opposed to them. Were they even trying to find you? Had they given up on you, would they risk for you to become a Sith?

Well, you did not want to become a Sith, or a Jedi. Kylo had forced you into the middle of a war that was not yours to fight. He did not see it. He did not want to see it.

“Yes, you are.”

You growled. “Well, have you ever considered why?! You would have killed me had I refused to become your stupid student!”

Kylo’s eye twitched. He did not object—of course not. It was the truth. The only reason you stayed with him was that you had no one else left. So far away from home, you were alone. Kylo Ren was the only one who took care of you, albeit in his very own way. You should despise him for making you so dependent on him.

Blinking away the tears in your eyes, you dropped the stupid stick and fled out of the room. You knew the ship well by now and as long as you were as far away from him as possible, you would be content with sulking away in a quiet corner where nobody could see you, to take some time wrangling with your own emotions.

What were you even doing here? You should have done anything in your power to flee, steal a ship or an emergency capsule. Instead, you had let him web you into his schemes like a spider its dinner. Why did part of him have to be so… human? So vulnerable even? It made despising him all the harder.

Sobbing quietly, you wiped your tears away. But it was only then you realised that you were not alone anymore. Somebody was watching you. Great. From smoke to smother. It was Hux. The General had a thing for you. At first, you had been certain he only meant to provoke Kylo here and then but there seemed to be more, much more. He was usually there first whenever the two of you fought and you ran from him, almost as if he was downright waiting for you to argue so he could be your shoulder to lean on. At least that felt nice from time to time.

“Did he hurt you?” When you said nothing, Hux pressed his lips together to a thin line. Well yes, all the time. It felt like being in an abusive relationship when in reality, you hadn’t even kissed. Not that you wouldn’t want to. Kylo was a handsome man, you… growling, you stopped your thoughts from escalating.

“You deserve better, (Y/N). Unlike him, I would treat you with respect.” You smiled bitterly. You liked his accent. Everything he said sounded so graceful and yet… Hux would never be more to you than another good-looking and powerful man with a passion for the First Order. “If you truly think that, find me that wayfinder. I want to go home.”

He was taken aback, without a doubt. Blinking, he took a moment to reply.

“You are not leaving this ship, (Y/N).”

You snorted. “Of course not…”

Silence spread between you. Hux was not one for showing a lot of emotion—yet you tensed when his hand came up in a hesitant attempt to touch you and provide comfort.

“Is there a problem, General?” Kylo’s voice, without the helmet this time, buzzed through your ears like the bass of a guitar. You closed your eyes. Here we go—acting like a jealous boyfriend after a dramatic breakup.

Hux gulped. He was afraid of him now that Kylo was the Supreme Leader, ever since he almost choked him to death. You scoffed. His cowardice was one of the reasons you two could never work out. Kylo Ren on the other hand… no, stop.

He spoke up before Hux was out of sight, hurrying away with a murderous expression on his face. “If you ever speak to him again, I will make you regret it.”

“Excuse me? He is the General, what do you expect me to do, ignore him?”

“He has no authority over you. The only one you will take orders from is me.”

“I beg to differ.”

Kylo’s head snapped in your direction so fast you almost flinched. Now you had made him angry. He hated it when you questioned his abilities as a leader.

“What are you doing?” You spat. “You’ve said enough. I’m done.”

“Get back to the training room.”

“No! Did you listen to a word I just said? You just don’t get it, do you? I will never be as determined as you because I don’t care! I don’t care about the Force, I don’t care about this stupid war and I hate you! I bloody hate you!” You did not hate him but you ought to. That was the problem. You were not even in a relationship. The Stormtroopers as well as every other damned employee on this godforsaken ship all shared their theories, of course… but they were all lies, nonsense. So why did it feel like you were breaking up? Was it because he was providing for you when no one else did all the while forbidding you to leave his custody?

“Good! Let your anger out finally! Let it consume you! I know you can feel the Force pulsing through your veins, I can feel it pulsing inside of you!” He hissed, a few drops of his saliva landing on your face.

Screaming bloody murder, you lunged at him, determined to thrash him with the only weapon you had—in this case, your bare fists. You were too caught up in your rage to realise you actually hit him repeatedly until he waved his hand and snatched your wrists to immobilise you, pressing you against the metal column. You grunted in pain as it shot up your spine, pairing with hot desire pulsing through your veins.

You knew the moment his lips came crashing down on yours and your force-sensitivity melted together like molten silver and gold, cracking the pillar he had smashed you against that he had defeated you. His gloved fingers were forcing their way under your skirt, tearing your underwear in two only to elicit an indignant scream from you. His only response was his tongue sliding into your mouth and claiming it for a passionate kiss knocking all air from your lungs yet again. The pain in your back had subsided to a dull throbbing by the time he had freed his already hard cock from layers and layers of dark fabric, the pink tip leaking precum pressing against your bare folds and his lips still devouring yours in a most dominant manner.

Your own body was betraying you, arousal running down your inner thighs and staining his black coat as he bucked his hips and lifted you up effortlessly, making you feel tiny and fragile in his grasp. There would have been no time to protest even if you had wanted to, the most depraved parts of your mind struggling against the rational one as he sheathed himself deep inside of you without a warning and began thrusting into you frantically without granting you even a chance of getting used to his intrusion, or his girth.

Finally, Kylo released your mouth and instead tended to your neck. He was nibbling on your sensitive skin gently first before sinking his teeth into your flesh so hard he drew blood and you screamed, digging your fingernails into his clothed shoulders as he rutted into you like a wild wolf whose mind had been taken by rabies.

Perhaps he had. Perhaps he had forgotten in this very moment that he was your master and that you were his apprentice and he would instead realise that he couldn’t cage you like a female lioness just waiting to scratch her captors’ eyes out.

But against all reason, having him fuck you against the metal pillar felt amazing, liberating even—almost as if all the aggressive tension between had finally found a vent to escape through and make mindless prey out of you—prey which enjoyed being taken thoroughly by him.

Kylo growled, picking up his pace. His cock grazed your g-spot with every powerful thrust, making your eyes roll to the back of your head. It was not quite enough to toss you over that delicious edge taking your thoughts miles away from the Finalizer, if only for a few moments; and yet you moaned when he retreated almost entirely and pumped into you one last time, as deep as he possibly could, to fill you up with his warm seed. You could feel ropes of his cum like an endless stream coating your tight walls as he throbbed and pulsed, riding out his orgasm all the while you fought back your tears of exhaustion… and disappointment.

No emotion, no love. Passion, maybe, though not the kind you were so desperate for.

Kylo Ren might have needed you—but not in the way you needed him. You gasped when he pulled out, the proof of his strong climax slowly dribbling down your naked thighs. Without a single word but shaking digits nonetheless, he tucked his softening member back into his black trousers and watched you lean against the pillar in fear your knees would cease to support you.

“I’m leaving.” You said breathlessly, a wet stream of hot tears rolling down your cheeks and worsening your sight.

He scoffed in response. “You’re dismissed for the night. Get some rest for tomorrow. I want to see if your technique has improved.”

In his very own twisted and inexplicable way, he did not want you to leave him. It came to you only then. He could have killed you the moment you had admitted you would never truly commit to the dark side, must have felt it even, your imbalance, your indecisiveness, your lack of ambition and yet… you were still here. You were alive—and just a moment ago, his dick had been inside of you.

“It’s over, Kylo. I said I’m leaving.”

“You’re not leaving.”

“Oh yes, I am.” You retorted bitterly.

“I said you’re not leaving!” His command echoed through the entire hallway, about as loud as his fist colliding with the metal wall next to your head to leave a dent. “You’re mine!” Sparks erupted from it as he yelled, leading to the assumption he had broken some mechanism.

“S-Supreme Leader?”

“What?!” He spun around to face an officer, likely aware of the fact his last hour had struck in this very moment.

“We… we’re under attack. The Resistance, they have—“ An explosion interrupted him, followed by the entire ship shaken by what felt like a merciless earthquake. Kylo gave you a brief look. For just a second, you thought to be seeing remorse in his brown eyes—remorse, along with a silent plead not to leave.

It was gone so fast you regretted considering to miss this chance. Your way out of here. Your way back home, with or without the wayfinder. The Resistance might have abandoned you all those weeks ago but at least, they would pose as your means to escape, for you to return to your life.

“Supreme Leader, please, we need you in the control room now!”

You sobbed—and then you turned around and fled, his hot gaze seemingly burning holes into your back; without looking behind. And just this once, you did not feel the Force stopping you.

-

A/N: Check out my blog to find more Imagines and take a glimpse at my  first (to be) published novel! If you enjoyed this story, I would  appreciate so much if you supported me on Kofi! ko-fi.com/sserpente ♥

[blouisparadise]

Upon request, here is part two of our mpreg Louis fic rec list. The first part of this rec list was done a while ago and can be found here. Happy reading!

1) Always Coming Back To You | Explicit | 4749 words

Harry's been missing Louis for eight days, and eight days without his Omega feels like decades in his pre-rut state.

Louis happens to come back to him earlier than planned.

2) Through The Storm | Mature | 6497 words

Note: This fic has no smut, but it is MPreg Louis so we included it.

Harry and Louis' marriage has hit a rough patch. A much needed week vacation in Jamaica just may be the second chance their relationship needs. What could possibly go wrong?

The answer?

Everything.

3) You Can Show Me Your Heart | Explicit | 6935 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

Everyone knows about the unsinkable Titanic, which tragically did just that in April of 1912. However, not many people know the story of the Carpathia - the ship that raced to rescue and aid the survivors of the Titanic when the distress call came through. This is the story of the events leading up to the luxury liner crashing into an iceberg on that fateful spring night. More than that, this is the story of how two of Carpathia’s passengers - Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson - met, fell in love and helped over 700 people in the cold Atlantic water.

4) Cooking with Styles | Explicit | 9119 words

Anyone can cook— or so they say.

5) Something To Prove | Explicit | 9425 words

Louis is the first and only omega to work at Red Valley Medical Center. Despite being more than qualified, he still faces prejudice for his career choice everyday. From patients refusing his treatment to condescending alpha doctors intervening with his work, practicing medicine in Boston is more challenging than Louis had ever thought it would be.

6) We Will Get Through This | Explicit | 11219 words

Because of quarantine, Louis has to stay home with his roommate, Harry, who he's never really hung out with before. He's a sweet alpha who seems to really care and that annoys the hell out of Louis. But as he gets to know the alpha, he realizes it might not be dislike that he's feeling.

7) Easily | Explicit | 13588 words

Note: This fic is a sequel to this fic.

Years later, Harry and Louis are as strong as ever and more than ready to take the next step in the story of their lives. It gets a little weird, a little confusing, but at the end of the day, it is as easy as can be.

8) Baby Honey | Explicit | 14744 words

Note: The pairing in this fic is Alex/Louis.

When the next great war strikes, all alphas have to ship out. Alex leaves a little more behind than some of the others.

9) The Post-War BP | Explicit | 17732 words

The eight year war has left the country's birthrate severely stunted with a lack of virile alphas left to bring it back up. To ensure the survival of the country, the government opens The Breeding Program where young omegas can apply to carry an alpha's child in exchange for benefits.  Louis' family is struggling and the BP is one of the only ways to secure a roof over their heads.  Harry was drafted at the age of eighteen and spent six years of his life defending a country he doesn't recognize when he returns home.  The government made the bed but it's Harry that has to lie in it.

10) Souls; Plural, Parallel | Teen & Up | 19679 words

Note: This fic has no smut, but it is MPreg Louis so we included it.

Soulmates are rare, the sort of rare that means everyone has a story about a friend's sister's coworker or a brother's roommate's cousin. But the fact of the matter is that most people never meet theirs. It's unfortunate then, that Louis finds out the hard way that he met his soulmate in a club, and the guy never texted him back.

11) Be Mine, Dear | Not Rated | 20104 words

It really wasn’t fair. He was the oldest of all of them. He’s the one who dreamed about being bonded his whole life, while Liam laughed at the idea, until he met Sophia. Niall had always been indifferent, but when he met Heather six months ago, everything changed for him. He quickly went from being the only omega around two alpha’s, to the odd omega out. And it really wasn’t fair, because Liam and Niall both still protected him just as much as the did before, just as much they do their new mates now, but he was still bitter about it, so he’d pity himself as much as he wanted.

12) Oops, Baby, I Love You (In That Order) | Explicit | 25344 words

The minute Louis Tomlinson decides he don’t need no man to start a family, Harry Styles literally falls into his arms.

13) I’m Having Your Baby (It's None of Your Business) | Mature | 26383 words

A bet can cost you a lot. Harry learns this in the weirdest of ways.

Louis just wanted a baby, and he got so much more.

14) The Things I'd Do To Wake Up Next To You | Mature | 36109 words

AU. Harry wakes up to a pregnant Louis Tomlinson and a wedding band on his finger.

15) If I Stay | Mature | 37226 words

Harry and Louis agree to a temporary arrangement that Harry can't seem to walk away from no matter how many times he tries.

16) You Put the Sun in Sunday | Mature | 42319 words

Louis is a love-brainwashed-teenager of hope drenched in dreams, clad in oversized clothes damaged with holes, and standing waist-high in novels. Harry is a selfish closeted football captain with a head too big for his heart, and a bad habit of not thinking before he opens his mouth. No one ever said love was easy, Louis learned the hard way.

17) Flash Forward (We’re Taking On The World Together) | Explicit | 44273 words

In which Omega Louis and Alpha Harry are absolutely perfect for each other and say I love you too much.

18) Every Story Has Its Scars, Ours Is A Brand New Start | Mature |  62859 words

Life as a devoted husband and an amazing father turned out to be a little different than Louis had expected. Everyone tells him it doesn't have to be that way; that he's worth more and that he's so much stronger than any one person trying to keep him down. It's all just words though until he meets the one person who makes him truly believe it.

19) Such Good Luck | Explicit | 66205 words

An Edwardian AU where Harry is a young aristocratic lord and Louis is a working class dairy farmer. Secrets are a necessary part of their relationship, but Louis has one that could topple their whole world.

20) Things I Can't | Not Rated | 67495 words

Louis has a plan for his life. He’s going to be the first in his family to finish college. He’s going to be a doctor - the best damn doctor in the country. And he’s going to work his ass off to make sure his younger siblings never have to wonder whether they have the means to pursue their dreams.

He doesn’t have space in his plan for a relationship with an effortlessly alluring musician, and certainly not for the child that unexpectedly results from that union. Louis is at a crossroads he never thought to plan for, and now he must make a decision: between what he wants now, and what he wants most.

21) I’m Still Learning To Love | General Audiences | 74695 words

Note: This fic has no smut, but it is MPreg Louis so we included it.

An AU where Harry has almost everything in the world except for the will to move on.

22) I Want You So Much (But I Hate Your Guts) | Mature | 83648 words

AU in which Louis gets accepted to play for the Manchester University Alpha-Beta Football Team. The only problem: Louis is actually an Omega. He is determined to make it big in the football world, though, and he can't do that bound to an Omega team. With the help of a faked doctor's certificate and some pretty strong suppressants he is ready to fight for his dream.

That Harry Styles (Alpha, second year and youngest football captain of the A-B team in ages) doesn't seem to like him complicates matters, though.

23) Fucking Animals | Explicit | 116688 words

Louis is the frontman of an equal rights-movement, author of a book about beta-omega marriage and the struggles of being born and boxed into a personality you don’t necessarily feel you fit. The notion that an omega must want to be with an alpha or else he or she’s just settling for less, is bullshit.

But, fucking hell.

24) Be My Omega | Mature | 138372 words

It all started when the alpha laid eyes on the short curvy omega and he knew at that moment that his life would never be the same, in a good way of course.

25) Cold Little Heart | Teen & Up | 194600 words

Louis is a soft omega with an abusive past and an alpha child. A few months after getting a divorce, Louis meets Harry, an ex-military alpha wolf that offers him something -odd.

In exchange for teaching him how to cook, Harry will babysit his son, Abraham. Louis really could use the help.

26) Love Me Until The End | Mature | 207130 words

AU where Louis, an Omega, is the head nurse of the hospital in charge of running the nursing staff. Harry, an Alpha, is a highly respected surgeon working at the same hospital. They also happen to fall in love.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.

[southeastasianists]

It had been two days since Hafiz last heard from Iani.

He knew that Iani’s parents had a history of abusing them [Note 1], and was worried for their safety. He’d tried everything — text messages, WhatsApp messages, voice calls — but received no response from Iani. It was as if they’d suddenly upped and left. Now his last resort was to make an unannounced visit to Iani’s house to make sure they’re safe.

Hafiz had a plan in mind. He would bring food to Iani’s house and pretend that they’d made dinner plans. It was something they did often, so he thought that that would make for a believable cover. At the back of his mind, however, Hafiz knew that this cover would be blown if something bad had really happened. Yet a half-baked plan was better than none at all.

Hafiz knocked on Iani’s house door and waited for someone to answer it. He heard some voices behind the door, but before he could make out what they were saying, the door cracked open. Iani’s mother greeted him with a strained smile, and Hafiz could see Iani’s father peering at him behind her. Hafiz knew that something’s not right.

“Hello aunty, uncle! I bought dinner for Iani, are they at home?” Hafiz said.

“No, but come in first,” Iani’s mother said, and ushered him into the living room. Iani’s father opened a Qur’an and started reciting a few lines of scripture to Hafiz. Once he was done, he passed the Qur’an to Hafiz and asked him to recite the same verses. It was an odd request, but Hafiz obliged; he knew why they were making him do that. After the ritual was completed, Iani’s parents told Hafiz that Iani had been admitted to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for emergency treatment of a psychotic breakdown. What they left out was that Iani’s breakdown was caused by “conversion therapy” sessions they forced upon Iani.

Hafiz rushed down to the hospital immediately. After two days of radio silence, he finally saw Iani again. But his feeling of relief was soon washed over by a commotion that erupted from Iani’s family members — they weren’t expecting any visitors. Iani winced at the noise and pulled Hafiz aside.

“Help me,” they whispered to him. “Break me out of here.”

Iani had been close with their parents since they were young. But things turned quickly and unexpectedly when Iani was 16. They were accidentally outed as lesbian [Note 2] to their parents, and before they knew it, the elders in Iani’s extended family started getting involved in organising “conversion therapy” sessions.

Iani’s grandmother and uncle came over to their house one day. It was clear right away that this wasn’t just a normal social visit; Iani only saw their uncle at larger family gatherings and celebrations. Their uncle is an Ustaz — a male Islamic religious teacher — and he made Iani sit in the corner of the living room. He then began calling out to an “evil spirit” in the room, and asked it to speak with the group.

It was a confusing experience for Iani, because while he made it look as if he were speaking with an “evil spirit”, it soon became clear that he was speaking directly to Iani. He asked a range of questions, and most of them were phrased to get the answers that he wanted to hear.

“Are you sad often?” he asked.

“Yes,” Iani, who had a medical history of anxiety and depression, answered.

“Do you feel like your parents don’t understand you?” he followed up.

“Yes,” Iani, whose parents wanted to put them through “conversion therapy”, replied.

The questioning went on for a while, but he never asked Iani (or the “evil spirit”, for that matter) anything about being lesbian. Instead, the questions were generic enough — as if by intention — that most teenagers at Iani’s age would answer the exact same way.

At the end of the session, he declared that Iani was possessed by a jinn — an evil spirit in Islamic mythology. The jinn, he explained to Iani’s parents, was responsible for influencing Iani’s sexuality and needed to be expelled from their body for them to become “normal”.

The session was mentally exhausting for Iani, because they had to suppress a multitude of emotions. First was anger: they felt that their uncle’s mixing of his superstitious beliefs with Islam was insulting to the religion. Then disbelief: Iani didn’t expect their father, who was well-educated, to be so easily swayed by his claims. Finally, betrayal: Iani had just witnessed first-hand how quickly their entire family turned on them.

But the benignity of the first session made Iani let their guard down. In a way, nothing could have prepared them for what’s about to come.

Around a week later, Iani’s uncle returned to perform ruqyah (an exorcism) on Iani. He made Iani memorise and recite verses from the Qur’an, and whenever the recital wasn’t to his liking — whether it’s done too loudly, too softly, or “not smoothly enough” — he would whip Iani with a rattan cane. Iani’s parents draped a heavy blanket over Iani’s body before letting their uncle beat them; they were careful to ensure that he wouldn’t leave visible bruises.

Iani’s uncle also made them perform sujud — a low bow, where one gets on their knees and has their head touch the ground. He then held a lighter to each of Iani’s feet as he recited Qur’anic verses to “cast the jinn away”. Iani screamed in pain from the searing heat of the fire, but their parents only saw that as a sign that the exorcism was working. At the end of the ruqyah, Iani’s sexuality remained unchanged, but their trust in their family shattered completely.

It soon became clear to Iani that the ruqyahs that their parents arranged were meticulously planned to ensure that the perpetrators could get away without consequences. When Iani suffered from a mental breakdown, their parents decided to call in an Ustaz for a ruqyah instead of seeking medical help. The Ustaz came over and restrained Iani while he performed his ritual. But when Iani’s father saw the bruises on Iani’s wrists, he immediately scolded the Ustaz.

“Jangan eh! Nanti orang report police! (Don’t do that, what if they report this to the police!)” Iani’s father shouted.

At the end of the session, the Ustaz told Iani’s parents that the jinn possessing Iani was there to destroy their family. This was a test of the strength of their family’s Islamic faith, the Ustaz said. He added that Iani really wasn’t lesbian, but only became so because of the evil influence of the jinn. This line of reasoning — a repetition of what Iani’s uncle previously mentioned — reinforced the idea that LGBTQ+ identities are inherently “unnatural” and can be changed. The Ustaz went on to instruct Iani’s parents to read the Qur’an together every night, and pray together as a family at least once a day in order to drive the jinn away.

Iani’s parents took his advice to heart and began intensifying their “conversion therapy” practices. Every day, Iani’s mother would force them to listen to syarahan (religious sermons) that focused on the “right” ways women should act, and how they should go about finding “good” husbands. Every evening since the visit from the Ustaz, the azan (Islamic call to prayer) at home would blast louder than before.

Iani’s mother also started performing her own exorcisms on Iani: she would put a metal bowl over an open flame, and claim that doing so would hurt the jinn. The metal bowl in itself had no effect on Iani, but over time, it started triggering memories of previous ruqyahs, and would cause anxiety attacks to set in. It appears that Iani’s mother never realised that she was psychologically torturing her already mentally unwell child. Instead, she earnestly engaged in anxiety-triggering activities, thinking that her rituals were working, and that they were somehow helping her child “get better”.

Soon after, Iani’s father made them watch a documentary about the story of Lut [Note 3]. The story of Lut is often quoted by Muslims to demonstrate God’s disapproval of homosexuality. At the end of the documentary, Iani’s father told them that being gay is wrong. This was the first time he made his stance so explicit. Iani was enraged, and argued that Allah also warned against rape in the story of Lut.

“Rape is everywhere, but being gay isn’t,” Iani’s father responded. “That’s why being gay will always be the biggest sin.”

As a survivor of childhood sexual assault, Iani felt like a knife was plunged into their chest. Iani’s father knew about their childhood trauma and how much it affected their mental health. Yet it seemed like he still believed that sexually violating someone else was more acceptable than being gay.

Iani’s existing mental issues, coupled with their parents’ relentless “conversion therapy” practices, meant that they spent considerable time with therapists at IMH. And even though Iani had been vocal about their parents’ abusive behaviours — even telling their therapists that their parents should be the ones receiving treatment — no serious action was taken against their parents. The responses Iani heard back were often along the lines of: “They only act like that because they’re muslims”; “They’re doing this for your own good”; “Some parents are like that”.

Even when a therapist was willing to talk to Iani’s parents about their “conversion therapy” practices, they would find themselves powerless in countering their beliefs.

“I’ve told your parents about sexuality and how it can’t be changed,” the therapist told Iani. “They know that what they’re doing is wrong.”

“So why won’t they stop?” Iani asked. “Why do they keep doing it?”

“They told me that they’re not stopping because they want to be better muslims.”

Iani is much older now, and no longer lives with their parents. They never reconciled with each other, and their relationship remains strained. Though it’s been many years since their last “conversion therapy” encounter, Iani hasn’t fully recovered from the trauma. Listening to azans could trigger anxiety attacks. Hearing someone say “Allah” would bring back memories of being beaten up by their uncle.

The concept of a jinn causing homosexuality might sound unique to Islam, but its main tenets are very similar to other “conversion therapy” beliefs. For one, a core idea behind the jinn’s possession is that people aren’t naturally LGBTQ+, but are influenced by external forces to be so. On top of that, the exorcism of the jinn is just another way of asserting that people’s sexualities can be changed. In those regards, “conversion therapy” practices across religions [Note 4] are more similar than they are different.

It’s important for us to understand that there is medical consensus that “conversion therapy” practices don’t work, and can cause long-term harm on participants (page 115). As we can see from Iani’s story, “conversion therapy” can lead to trauma that deeply affects the mental health of participants.

Many countries have taken action to protect people from the harms of “conversion therapy”. Taiwan has fully banned “conversion therapy” practices, while Germany has done so for minors. Other countries such as Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and the UK are considering legislation that would make them illegal.

Yet “conversion therapy” remains legal in Singapore. Many other teenagers like Iani may continue to be subjected to abusive ruqyahs and face long-term psychological damage. On top of that, Singapore’s domestic abuse laws allow parents to punish their child, so long as it’s done to “correct” the child’s behaviour (s64). This legal loophole means that many parents may be able to continue enlisting the help of Ustazs for “conversion therapy” with no consequence.

[shinymoonbird]

05.01.2021 - The Jayanthi of Mahan Sri Seshadri Swamigal.

Sri Seshadri Swamigal, well known as the "Saint with a golden hand", is one of the greatest Indian saints who lived in Thiruvannamalai. He is revered as a religious guru by many people throughout the world. Of the word 'Seshadri' - 'Sesha' means 'remainder', that is the 'sat' which remains after having rejected everything else as 'not existing'; 'Adri' means 'mountain', that is bigger than the biggest - all-pervading. Thus the name Seshadri is equivalent to 'Parabrahman' - the all-pervading and self-illuminating 'sat'. Sri Vidya Cult There is a part in South India called Thondai Mandalam with its capital of Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. In ancient times at Kanchipuram Sri Adi Sankara Acharya established the cult of Sri Vidya, for the welfare of the world. In this connection he went to Central India and brought about thirty families of Devi bhaktas to Kanchipuram. These families were called Kamakoti Vamsa and spread the Sri Vidya cult throughout India. Everyone of the Kamakoti family was like a rishi. Kamakoti Sastri In 1790, Kamakoti Sastri was born into one of these families. Even though he had a daughter he also adopted one of his brother's (Chidambaram) daughters, a girl named Maragatham. At the appropriate time, Kamakoti Sastri started to search for a husband for this beautiful, learned girl and selected Varadarajar, one of his own students. Although the couple had good health and abundant wealth they were sad as they were childless. Finally, one day, heeding the prayers of this pious family, the Goddess Sri Kamakshi gave a dream to the daughter's adoptive father, Kamakoti Sastrigal. In due course, on January 22, 1870 a child was born. People around said the radiant child was an ornament of Sri Kamakshi Devi - a pet child of the Goddess and born because of the parents’ tapas. Birth Even from his earliest years the child Seshadri would perform pujas, sing prayers with concentrated devotion, sit in meditation and go off into spontaneous trances. He was neither interested in games nor displayed negative characteristics. Everyone regarded the boy as a Divine child. It was about this time an incident occurred that thereafter gave Seshadri his nickname, ‘Golden Hand'. One day four year old Seshadri and his mother stopped at a shop full of bronze castings of the Gods. While at the shop the young lad picked up a statue of Krishna and asked his mother to buy it so he could perform Krishna puja. The trader, thinking that the radiant child himself resembled the Lord Krishna, gave the idol and refused payment. The next day the trader proclaimed the boy to be most lucky as the whole consignment of 1,000 statues (because of the young boy's touch), had been sold in one day. News of the incident spread quickly through the town and from that moment on the young boy was known as, 'The one with the golden hand'. This gave him the name "Thanga Kai" (golden hand). Upanayanam In his fifth year young Seshadri was initiated at an auspicious ceremony attended by many scholars and on the same day started to attend Patashalas in Kanchi. Quickly he showed an almost superhuman intellect and memory and exhibited extraordinary debating skills. In this way years went by until the time Sri Seshadri reached his fourteenth year and his father Sri Varadarajar died unexpectedly. Kamakoti Sastrigal arrived to pacify the bereaved family and took them to live at Vazhur. It was there that Swamiji completed his education and mastered various texts in Sanskrit and Tamil – the whole Vedanta with three primary texts – Gita, Upanishads and Brahma Sutras, besides Vedas, Nyaya and Vyakarana. He had also mastered music and astrology. Marriage With his education now complete, Seshadri's mother, the pious widow Maragatham tried to arrange a marriage between her 17 year old son and the daughter of a relative, but when it was discovered (by examining Seshadri's horoscope) that he was destined to become a sanyasi and yogi, the marriage plans were swiftly cancelled. His mother, becoming more self-absorbed started to lose interest in worldly affairs and became increasingly weak - ignoring food and medical treatment. One day she called her son to her and predicted her death for the next day, and arranged for him to attend. The following day at her bed, she called her child to her and repeated a sloka [1] from Adi Sankara's Bhaja Govindam then together they sang the song 'Ambasive' after which keeping her hand on his chest she called out, 'Arunachala! [2] Arunachala! Arunachala!' and laid herself on his lap and died. Induction into Devi Worship After both his parents had died, Seshadri's uncle (who was childless) gladly took charge of Seshadri and the younger brother Narasimha Josiar. In his room Seshadri did numerous pujas and continuous japa to pictures of Sri Kamakshi, Lord Ram and to one of his own drawings of Arunachala Hill. He would lock himself up in his room at five in the morning and refuse to come out before noon. He regularly fasted and could often be heard shouting Arunachala Shonadrinatha or reciting Vedic hymns late at night. His uncle and aunt were frightened by his strange worship and begged him to stop. But Seshadri would not listen. Balaji Swamigal and Induction into Sanyashram At the age of 19, he met Sri Balaji Swamigal, a wandering saint from North India, who gave Seshadri sanyas and instructed him in the Mahavakyas. This was the only guru and formal diksha Seshadri is known to have had. Shortly after Seshadri started to travel to various spots in Tamil Nadu eventually ending up at Thiruvannamalai. He arrived at Arunachala at the age of 19 in Thiruvannamalai When he first arrived at Arunachala his uncle and brother Narasimha Josiar came to see him. Both were overwhelmed with grief on seeing him in rags with matted hair and a thin dirty body. They entreated him to return home immediately, but Swamiji refused to leave. Appearance Swamiji was handsome of medium height and fair countenance. His hair hung in short ringlets to the nape of his neck. His voice was soft and his smile was as sweet and sunny as a child. His body would not be at rest for a moment. Even, when sitting he would catch something, put it down, lift it and then repeat it all over again a hundred times. He walked fast and those following had to run to keep up with him. No sound emanated from his walking or running, it was as if his body was light like a ball. He would seldom bathe, but occasionally pour a pint of oil on himself and roam in the streets with oil still glistening on his head. If he allowed himself to be shaved he would often stop it abruptly, with half of his face or head unshaved and appear in public with equanimity and total disregard for public opinion. He discarded rules and observances of caste, sanctity, prudence and decency but always avoided animal food and intoxicants. Conduct Seshadri Swamigal moved about in Tiruvannamalai for forty years, an ascetic with a total disregard for either name or form. He had no home, dependents, property or any fixed habit or system. He would often conduct himself like a mad man and roam around in the heat of the day and stare up at the hot midday sun and, at night, rest in some nook or deserted hall. He would be delighted when it rained and play in the streams on the street, sit in the water and only go indoors when the rain had stopped. His acts were dramatic and deeply impressive. He would avoid rich food from wealthy persons but beg for cold gruel at a poor man's house. Sometimes he would take no food at all and on other occasions consume enough for ten people. He would eat and drink like one swallowing medicine or one being forcibly fed. Although he did not accept money he would sometimes receive expensive clothes but immediately transfer them to a poor person or tear the clothes into pieces and garland the tail and horns of a calf. If he was given plain new clothes, within a couple of hours, they would reach the state of his original clothes. He wore only a dhoti which would cover his toes and another piece of cloth swathed over his back and shoulders. He would squat anywhere regardless whether it was slush, dirt or refuse. When sitting, it was always in his favourite swastika asana. Swamigal utilised a strange manner of speech to ward off crowds building up around him. He would go on speaking very fast, without any respite and with no end or meaning. Sometimes if someone spoke to him, he would reply in Sanskrit, not caring if he was understood or not. He was a tapasvi of a very high order. One result of the mantras and sadhanas he practiced from his earliest years was the development of various siddhis and psychic powers. He could tell about the past and the future and read minds with ease. With this power, he fulfilled the desires of people by showing visions they wanted to see, both in dreams and while being awake. His miraculous touch is said to have cured many of those who came to him with devotion. Often when people saw him in the streets they would prostrate before him and he would get near to enable them to touch his feet. But, he would never allow bad characters to touch his feet. He would run away and if they forced themselves on him, he would abuse them or even pelt them with stones. Seeing this, many people did not go near him. But when he knew about the good qualities of a person, he would himself catch their hands and play. He would joke and run with young children. Swamigal's interaction with the world was very strange. A person couldn't take advantage of previous proximity—every moment was a new moment. People loved him, but some fearing they might be beaten, were frightened to come close. Generally, he would not call people by name, ask them how they were doing and suggest they come or question why a person did not come. He would neither talk sarcastically nor show intimacy on account of a past connection. He loved music, delighting his devotees with songs. If one asked, he would break forth into melodious song often drumming rhythms on nearby surfaces. Sometimes he would place his hands on his hips and dance. He was often taken to be a lunatic and at times purposely simulated madness. It was difficult to explain his general behaviour and impossible to account for the course of his conduct. He was always original and free, an ascetic who maintained a thorough control of his mind and senses up to the end of his life. He was always playing pranks. Suddenly he would laugh without stopping and those who witnessed his fun would be reduced to hilarity. Sri Seshadri blessed his devotees and helped cure their illnesses with his wonderful touch. While roaming the streets of Thiruvannamalai, he would sometimes enter a shop and dump the cash from a cashbox or throw the articles from the shops. The shops he entered used to do good business on that day and so shop keepers would eagerly await his arrival. To this day, the shops in Thiruvannamalai have his photos as a symbol of good luck and prosperity. Teachings Sri Seshadri Swamigal had deep devotion to God especially in the form of the Goddess Kamakshi, Lord Ram and Arunachala. Sri Seshadri was a great worshipper of Shakti. In the practice of concentration (for days in his boyhood at Tindivanam and at Thiruvannamalai), he sat steeped in samadhi, oblivious of his body. Seshadri Swamigal would meditate at Draupadi Amman Koil and Easanyan Mutt and in the corridor surrounding the Inner Sanctorum at the Durgai Amman Temple and he would also do tapas at Kambathu Ilayanar, Pathala Lingam and Arunachala Yogiswarar Mandapam. He did not do tapas on the top of the Mountain and instead would go onto the slopes of Arunachala to pray. Glory of Arunachala He often talked about the unique aspects of the Arunachala kshetra. He would say: 'This is the place where Swamy and Ambal invite all and confer liberation', and 'Lord Krishna leaving aside his sudarshana chakra (wheel) is playing on his flute. On hearing it Lord Siva who is inside the mountain comes out and dances' Throughout his life and teachings Sri Seshadri continuously emphasised the glory of Arunachala: 'This is Siva Lingam. It is enough to worship this. One can become spiritually enlightened and attain liberation'. And illustrating the similarity of the Annamalaiyar-Unnamalai Temple to Arunachala he said to those wasting their time discussing worldly affairs and neglecting God: 'He spreads his shop in the morning. Closes it at night. He does not see Lord Arunachaleswara. What is the use? Visit the temple. Visit the temple. Visit the temple'. He was ever emphasising the inestimable value of giripradakshina instructing: 'One should pray to Lord Arunachaleswara all the time. In particular perambulation of the hills should be done on Tuesdays. Deep devotion will arise'. Social Service He loved service and by his own example showed it as a noble ideal to live up to. He was regarded with great respect and he was thought to be a sage People would say, 'He is a talking God,' 'A divine incarnation, a great yogi, a great siddha'. Seshadri Swamigal and Ramana Maharshi Seshadri Swamigal and Ramana Maharshi (Seshadri actually arrived at Arunachala six years earlier than Ramana) were contemporaries. When Ramana Maharshi came to Tiruvannamalai seven years after Seshadri Swamigal's arrival, Seshadri was immediately aware of the young swami's state of Self-abidance and he felt a motherly love for him. Sri Ramana spent his time then immersed in the bliss of the Self in the thousand-pillared hall in the front portion of the Arunachaleswara Temple. Urchins, not understanding his state, pelted him with stones. Sri Seshadri tried to protect the young swami who seemed quite unaware of his body and surroundings, but the urchins continued their harassment. To avoid this unwanted attention, Sri Ramana moved into the Patalalingam, an underground vault in the temple. He remained there, in deep meditation, for many days, oblivious to the ants, vermin, and mosquitoes who were feasting on him. Sri Seshadri found him there and asked his (Sri Seshadri's) devotee Venkatachala Mudaliar to lift "his child" out. He cleansed Ramana's blood-oozing wounds and revealed Ramana as a [saint] to the world. Locals used to call Sri Seshadri, Mother Parvathi and Sri Ramana, Skanda (Lord Subramanya). Sometimes Sri Seshadri Swamigal, the older by ten years would be called 'elder Seshadri' (anna) and Sri Ramana 'younger Seshadri' (thambi). One time a devotee told Sri Ramana that everyone called Seshadri a mad man. Ramana smilingly replied that there were three mad men in Arunachala. One was Seshadri, the second was Arunachaleswarar and the third was himself. Sri Ramana said of Swamji, 'Sri Seshadri does not allow people to come near him. Here all are coming'. Others would say there were three lingas in Tiruvannamalai: One, Lord Arunachala, another Ramana Maharshi and the third Seshadri Swamigal. Death Having lived at Arunachala continuously for forty years and helping all kinds of people Sri Seshadri decided to finally shed his body. One day in 1928 during the month of Karthigai, he asked a devotee, 'Shall I build a new house and go away?' Meaning, 'I have completed my task, shall I now depart?' At first the devotee thought the question a prank but finally after many days and constant repetition of the question, she answered, that, 'He should construct a new house and practise yoga'. Sri Seshadri accepted Subbalakshmi's words as representative of Parasakthi's approval and satisfied he replied, 'Yes, yes, it shall be done!'. Some days later his devotees, who wanted to photograph him, gave him an oil bath and then bathed, dressed, scented, garlanded and photographed him. Immediately Seshadri caught a fever. For forty days his condition worsened and on the forty-first day he found the strength to visit Arunachaleswara one last time. On returning from the temple he sat down in a puddle of water and refused to change his wet clothes when he got back to the house. Within days, on January 4, 1929, Sri Seshadri Swamigal left his body and Thiruvannamalai was engulfed in sorrow. After preparation his body was brought out in procession which is said to have been so splendid that the entire stock of camphor in the shops of Thiruvannamalai was exhausted and all incoming buses were full and overcrowded. The streets were jammed with devotees and the night seemed like bright day as it was so brilliantly illuminated by the burning camphor. The air was filled with group-singing, devotional songs and the music of instrument players. It was at Agni Theertham that Sri Ramana Maharshi joined the procession. Further on a samadhi was constructed and Sri Swamigal's body interred. That samadhi tomb is now enshrined within the grounds of Sri Seshadri Ashram on Chengam Road, Thiruvannamalai. His body was not cremated but buried, as is the custom in the case of a saint. It is believed that Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi was present at the place silently observing the rituals till it was completed.

ૐ

Kailasha SivaSesha

Arunachala SivaSesha

Om Sathguru Sri Seshadri Swamigal Thiruvadikkae

[enthusiasticsobrietyabuse]

Bob Meehan - Times Advocate, Wednesday November 14, 1984

Two East County couples say they have "lost" their daughters to a controversial Escondido-area drug-treatment program which they claim tries to alienate children from their families.

Don and Joyce Ceplenski of La Mesa said Tuesday they decided to speak out about their family situation because they have lost contact with their 19-year-old daughter, Jill, a former drug addict who worked at SLIC (Sober Live-In Center) Ranch. They fear they may also lose touch with their 17-year-old daughter, Tracy, who was treated at SLIC in 1983.

The second couple, Scott and Michelle Williams of El Cajon, said a similar fate befell their family. Their 17-year-old daughter, Deana, was treated at SLIC Ranch in February and has not returned home.

The couples say they also want to counter upbeat claims about other children who have been treated at SLIC Ranch. The praise for the center has come in recent weeks from parents who have rallied around the program's attempt to relocate in Valley Center.

Robert Meehan, director of SLIC Ranch, said the two families represent a small faction of those whose children have been treated at the ranch. He said most of the young clients return home after their experience at SLIC.

"Some families take longer (to reunite) than others," he said. "Very few take this kind of time."

"I don't want to hurt these people, but they are trying to hurt a program that is helping more people than any other program," Meehan said.

Meehan, a former drug addict and alcoholic, said parents must be willing to work closely with their children in order for them to recover from their addictions, Meehan said. Often, they must also enter counseling on their own. SLIC does not provide parent counseling. Meehan, who charges $4,000a month for youngsters to stay SLIC, said he would have to boost his fee in order to include counseling for families.

See SLIC, Page B2

However, Meehan said he urged the Ceplenskis to attend parent counseling sessions at Freeway, a self-help drug treatment program which Meehan helped found and which is closely associated with SLIC Ranch. The couple didn't do that, he said.

"The work really has to happen at home," Meehan added.

He called the Celpenski's allegations "flat-out lies from some people who somehow feel I have stolen their daughter."

The Ceplenskis are "paranoid," Meehan said. "Other families would be tickled pink (to have their child off drugs)," he said.

Ceplenski, a San Diego attorney, claims that Meehan commands undue influence over his young, vulnerable charges. Often, he added, Meehan and other workers at SLIC Ranch and Freeway advise the youngsters to stay away from their families and drop out of school. Ceplenski said he is worried that the youngsters are captured by Meehan's self-admitted charisma.

"They do get them off drugs and alcohol. But this is an addiction that is much worse than drugs and alcohol," said Ceplenski, who said he also owes Meehan $5,000 for treating his daughter.

Meehan admits he has great influence over his young clients, but he says he uses it to an advantage.

"Yeah, it scares me," Meehan told the Times-Advocate in an interview this summer. "You get into a real guru (situation). This is where cults can begin."

Jill Ceplenski, who began working as a counselor for Freeway after leaving SLIC Ranch, disputed her parents' claim, saying she alone made the decision to separate from her family.

"My parents and I don't get along," she said. "In no way have they (Meehan and other SLIC workers) ever said not to see my family. It was my decision to leave."

Jill was treated by Meehan in early 1982 at Center City Hospital in San Diego, where she had sought help for her dependence on alcohol and amphetamines, also known as speed. Meehan worked briefly for the hospital, which is now Harbor-view Hospital, helping officials there establish a drug-abuse program.

Meehan in 1972 founded the Palmer Drug Abuse Program in Houston. The program has had 30,000 participants, Meehan said. Palmer drew national publicity in the late 1970s, when actress Carol Burnett sent her daughter, Carrie Hamilton, there for treatment.

Meehan's claims that Palmer has a cure rate of 75 percent to 80 percent also attracted some intense scrutiny. The center was featured in January 1980 on CBS' "60 Minutes" TV program. According to a transcript of the broadcast, Meehan conceded that he did not have documentation to back up his vaunted success rate.

Following the "60 Minutes" broadcast, Meehan left Palmer and moved to San Diego, where he founded SLIC in 1982.

Meehan is attempting to move the program to Valley Center because it is in violation of county zoning ordinances at its present site near Lake Wohlford.

The center also has been operating without an appropriate state license. State officials have threatened to shut down the center unless it qualifies for a so-called residential license. SLIC officials have yet to apply for the license, according to the San Diego office of the state's Community Care Licensing Division.

To obtain a license, the center would have to meet fire safety standards, provide a medical checkup for new clients and keep records of client's progress. The center would also have to refrain from mixing clients younger than 18 with those older, as it does now.

Many of the ranch's clients are referred by Freeway, which has branches in some of the most affluent communities of the county including Coronado, Point Loma, Solana Beach and Fallbrook.

The youngsters live at the ranch, but spend most of their days in counseling sessions at an Escondido home. And in the evenings and on weekends, the youngsters attend group-counseling sessions at Freeway.

After 30 days of intensive counseling at SLIC, virtually all his clients are drug-free, Meehan said. However, some are not ready to return to their homes and schools, where pressures may drive them back to drugs, he said.

Those youngsters are referred to families supportive of Freeway's counseling style, Meehan said. While staying with the families, the youngsters regularly attend Freeway meetings.

Scott Williams said his daughter, Deanna, is living with a "Freeway family" in San Diego. Several attempts to have Deanna return home have been fruitless.

"She says she's not at the point in the program where she could even think of coming home," said Williams, a postal worker, who says he still owes Meehan $5,000 for the seven weeks his daughter spent at SLIC Ranch.

Williams said he attended Freeway's parent group religiously for eight months, hoping that it would help reunite him with his daughter. In addition to ignoring her family, Williams said his daughter has also cut herself off from her friends.

"Their job is to get kids off drugs and make them a useful part of society," Williams said. "All they do is get them off drugs. My daughter is not part of society. She is part of Freeway's society. We were a closer family when she was on drugs."

Not all families are displeased with SLIC's program. At a recent meeting with county officials, who were considering SLIC's relocation request, several families whose children were treated at the center praised Meehan.

Jamie Conway, the teenage son of comedian Tim Conway, said he stopped using drugs after being treated at SLIC. Young Conway also played a tape from his father, lauding Meehan and SLIC.

The Ceplenskis and the Williams plan to voice their concerns about SLIC's practices at a public meeting Monday in Valley Center, where the local planning group will consider SLIC's request to move into their community.

[jme-crocodile]

(TW: my catholic school trauma)

Reading “The Boy Who Could Change the World”

It’s difficult to even imagine what America was like before the industrial revolution. Their notion of freedom was far stronger than the one we have today. For many Americans, life wasn’t about showing up at a job at a specified hour, following orders all day, and returning home for a couple hours of “free time”—that would be considered slavery. A free American was one who worked on their own or with their family, worked from home, worked whatever hours they liked, and got paid based on what they accomplished.

Under the putting-out system, for example, merchants would deliver raw materials like cotton to your house. When you felt like it, you’d card, spin, and weave the raw cotton into cloth. And then the next week the merchant would come by to buy from you whatever cloth you had produced.

He goes on to discuss mill workers in New England, who were mostly young girls, some around the age of 10. This was before our modern day labor laws, so the girls were working fourteen hour days. They still found time to read & discuss books/ideas, though. 

And through all that thinking and learning and discussing, they began to question the less pleasant aspects of their situation. When, in 1836, the Lowell mill owners decided to cut their employees’ pay, the girls walked out.

What these young girls accomplished is truly amazing. They organized their own newspaper, the Voice of Industry, which they wrote, edited, printed, and sold themselves. Through it they organized more protests and strikes, as well as organized their own slate of candidates in the state elections to fight for better working conditions and a ten-hour day. Amazingly, their slate won. The owners, outraged, got their legislators to declare the election results invalid and hold a revote. Before the revote, large signs were posted threatening that anyone who voted for the ten-hour slate would be fired. And yet the slate won again.

[..]

But their writing in the Voice shows that they wanted much more than simply better working conditions. They saw themselves as slaves—wage slaves—and concluded that the solution was not simply to demand that the bosses be nicer to them or pay them more, but to abolish the bosses entirely.

Their bosses didn't like this, at all. The mill owners fired the girls, blacklisted their names, and then did something strange: they sent girls to school.

The schools they built—the common schools—would be easily recognizable by any modern student. “The door [of each school] shall be closed precisely at the time fixed for the opening of the school, and in the morning religious exercises will be performed, for which purpose 10 minutes are allowed.” (Today we just say the pledge of allegiance.) “Each teacher shall call the roll call of his or her classes … in the morning and afternoon, and shall keep an accurate record of all absences.” The day was then divided into separate lessons, allowing “30 minutes for the study of each lesson and 10 minutes for each recitation.”

Instead of corporal punishment, teachers were encouraged to secure order “by the mildest possible means” to instill “a regard for right, and thus a standard of self-government in the minds of the children themselves.”* Students were tested on how much they learned and, just like today, working coordinating other students was considered “cheating” and punished. (Perhaps they were worried that if students learned to coordinate they might be more likely to foment strikes once in the mills.)"

[...]

Careful records kept by the mill owners allow us to compare mill workers who did and did not go to school. Just as with modern students, there is no evidence of any impact of increased education on worker productivity.*

So why did the mill owners spend so much money building and running these schools? They were quite clear about their intent. The classes were justified not for their usefulness but because memorizing them was a form of “moral education” leading to “industrious habits … and the consequent high moral influence which it exerts upon society at large.”

As one Lowell manager explained it, “I have never considered mere knowledge, valuable as it is in itself to the laborer, as the only advantage derived from a good common-school education. I have uniformly found the better educated, as a class, possessing a higher and better state of morals, more orderly and respectful in their deportment, and more ready to comply with the wholesome and necessary regulations of an establishment.”"

As the Lowell School Committee summarized their findings: “The proprietors find the training of the schools admirably adapted to prepare the children for the labors of the mills.” Why? “When [their laborers] are well educated … controversies and strikes can never occur, nor can the minds of the masses be prejudiced by demagogues and controlled by temporary and factitious considerations.”*

Indeed, school was so important that the mill owners quickly decided to make it mandatory. “No language of ours can convey too strongly our sense of the dangers which wait us from [those who] are not and have never been members of our public schools,” warned the Lowell School Committee. Universal schooling is “our surest safety against internal commotions.”‡ The children who didn’t attend school “constitute an army more to be feared than war, pestilence and famine,” warned the committee. “Unsuccessful attempts, during the past year, to burn two of our school-houses … are an index to the evils which threaten from such sources.”

More accurately, such burnings were an index of public resistance to such coercion. In 1837, 300 teachers were forced to flee their classrooms by riotous and violent students.║ In 1844, the Irish population went on strike from the schools, reducing attendance by 80%. The School Committee stepped up their anti-truancy efforts to force them and others back to school."

And so the spread of schools and factories destroys the American model of freedom. Instead of being independent farmers or self-employed manufacturers, Americans are herded into factories enmasse, forced to work for someone else because they cannot earn a living any other way. But thanks to schools, this seems normal, even natural. After all, isn’t that just the way the world works?

The effect on the students is almost heartbreaking. Taught that reading is simply about searching contrived stories for particular “text features,” they learn to hate reading. Taught that answering questions is simply about cycling through the multiple-choice answers to find the most plausible ones, they begin to stop thinking altogether and just spout random combinations of test buzzwords whenever they’re asked a question.  “The joy of finding things out” is banished from the classroom. Testing is in session.”

School hasn’t seemed to have changed much since the early 1800s, at least the not sort of schooling geared for the masses. As a child, I was strongly discouraged from risk taking, ridiculed by teachers when I gave the wrong answer, punished for asking questions, had to ask permission to use the bathroom (and was often refused), refused permission to get a drink of water (the school had no air conditioning & it was June in Pennsylvania. Yes, multiple children got heat exhaustion, daily. Our parents commiserated, but thought this was normal. Teachers treated this as normal. We were told to “toughen up” and respect our elders when we complained.) We were taught to need someone’s permission to get medical attention. 

I was once refused when I needed to see the nurse (I was going to vomit.) The teacher accused me of lying & told me to sit down. I sat down, and about two minutes later threw up. I half expected to get a demerit for dirtying the floor. I burst into tears, blubbering out humiliated apologies to my classmates and to the teacher. Above my concern for my dignity and health had been placed my teacher. That was my mentality as a kid.

(Normal is whatever you’re used to, but people shouldn’t be used to this.)

The thing that stands out in all of this, now, was how the other students remained frozen. I don’t know how to interpret their freeze -- they didn’t move to get me a tissue, or towels, or anything. The teacher had forbade me from moving to clean up myself, so I had to wait for the nurse to arrive in a puddle of my own vomit. I obeyed. My classmates were staring at their desks, at the wall, anywhere but the teacher or myself. Maybe they were suffering second-hand embarrassment, or pity, or even fear that the teacher would lash out at them, next. 

That was the sort of environment we grew up in, for 14 years of our lives. 

In all of this, I notice this kind of moral fragmentation that society today seems to encourage. There’s a sense that people have abrogated all responsibility: “oh, that’s not my department, I’m not the one who makes the rules.” So we ignore people in pain, and accept on an instinctive level that there’s nothing we can do. 

Except that isn’t true, even that asshole Lowell said, “The children who didn’t attend school “constitute an army more to be feared than war, pestilence and famine.””

This submissive attitude people have comes from fear, from an underestimation of our own strength and compassion. 

---

Like, do people get what this does to a person’s self-esteem? Maybe not, because they’re all suffering from the same blindness.

Last week during the heat wave, I started experiencing heat exhaustion and  my instinctive thoughts were to move as little as possible, and wait for it to be over.

I mean, what does that sound like to you?

Like, maybe my experiences at school were unusually bad, but it looks to me a lot like our society is systematically abusing kids into submissively accepting poor treatment by their superiors. 

[twistytwine]

Vietnamese Fantasy Universe: “Tóc Tiên”

Trigger warnings: Child abuse (emotional and physical), eye trauma, injury, self-harm, mentions of suicide, trauma, childhood trauma, stalking, medical operations, lobotomy

Tóc Tiên's mother didn't have a fair childhood. When she was younger, her mentally ill mother, with little to no proper care or treatment from medical services, dunked her own head into a boiling pot of water, and her young five-year-old daughter had to drag her outside for the doctors who spoke of "magic" to "heal" her wounds. 

She returned to their home to lay on the single bamboo bed, her head wrapped in bandages, and from that day on, she did not stand up to walk, nor did she manage to cook much food for her and her child. The young girl that lived with her fed her, took her to the bathroom, and even groomed what was left of her hair. One day, the mother was taken by the same doctors who "healed" the burns on her face to a bamboo tent. 

The girl sat outside and waited. When her mother came out, she no longer had bandages on her head, but instead she wore a scar on her forehead, and that was when the girl realized she'd truly lost her mother forever. When she cried, the mother gave her soulless hugs, and when she was hungry, the mother wouldn't even notice the growling of her stomach or soft whines. She offered cuddles and kisses on the head, but they never felt the same as before.

The girl grew up through money earned from years of working at an empress' palace, and she fell in love with a noble lord who'd scammed his way up to the rich class. She got pregnant, and the lord, noticing her severe mental health issues, tried to convince her to give the baby up for adoption, for she was not well enough to care for a child as of yet. 

But she dreamed of giving a child a future that she couldn't have, so she ran away from the noble's home at night to give birth to the baby on her own. The first thing she noticed of the baby was its wonderful locks of hair that appeared upon birth, so she named her Tóc Tiên, which translates to Vietnamese as “magic hair.”

Tóc Tiên and her mother lived in a faraway abandoned tower, high above the mossy swamps and forests of villagers and townspeople on their floating markets and houses stilted deep water. The mother adored Tóc Tiên's hair, and so she let it grow out, longer and longer until the hair was a waterfall of several feet at the age of ten. And around ages 13 to 14, Tóc Tiên started developing her own personal urges and identity. She wanted to see outside. Her mother would visit the markets of the swampy village to get food and all the luxuries she could afford for her daughter, but she never invited Tóc Tiên herself to visit the village with her.

So she was curious. Of course, the mother was absolutely terrified of the possibility of losing her child, so she denied Tóc Tiên of ever leaving their isolated home. 

But through the years, Tóc Tiên continued to develop her own opinions, her own wants and needs. And through the months, her mother became more and more oppressive to her daughter's own will without realizing it. She was horrified at the thought of Tóc Tiên escaping and leaving her, for that would mean a failure as a mother, someone meant to take care of something so precious. But the emotional abuse and neglect got worse.

Their only times of silence and cooperation was when they were doing chores together or when the mother ran her fingers through Tóc Tiên's enormous length of hair, combing it so there wasn't a single knot.   

Until one day, Tóc Tiên suggested the thought of moving out to live on her own next year. Her mother erupted in sadness and rage. Tóc Tiên spoke against her, speaking of how for so long she became so hurt and felt as if she couldn't breathe whenever her mother ignored her own identity. Her mother cries that she should be grateful for having a mother, for her own became empty and broken when she was so young as a child.

At the age of 18, Tóc Tiên ends up trying to escape the tower. Her mother tugs her back in and lectures her angrily before sending her to her room. Tóc Tiên, distressed, ends up pulling and cutting all of her hair out -- her mother enters the room to find this ocean of black strands surrounding her daughter, and Tóc Tiên mutters, "I'm tired of feeling your hands running through my hair. It sickens me. It haunts me. I want it to stop."

Her mother loses it. She forces Tóc Tiên into her own wardrobe and ends up tying her wrists and ankles together with her own cut-off hair before doing the same to the knobs of the closet.

Around the same day, she goes out to the market to try and control herself. She's nearly having a breakdown when she finds the noble lord she fell in love with long ago, now living as a peasant because he was found out to be a scammer of the rich. They catch up, and the mother accidentally reveals that she did not give up that baby for adoption, but instead has been raising it for 18 years.

The ex-noble (who will now be referred to as father from here on out) is horrified and deeply concerned, but the mother pushes him away and leaves in a deep anxiety with swarming guilt circling her head like a pack of mosquitoes.

The father stalks her until she leads the way to the tower, in which she enters. The father stays there and waits until he's sure she's asleep, and then he sneaks in. Tóc Tiên is released from her bounds, but after quiet conversation, he convinces her to try and escape with him. 

They attempt to, but the mother finds them trying to sneak out, in which in a fit of rage, she accidentally shoves him over the open window of the tower where he falls and his face crashes into a bush of thorns, where he permanently becomes blind due to the injuries. He limps away and blindly wanders into the swampy village where peasants help him recover.

The mother wilts in guilt and shame but hardheaded emotions, and she lives another two years with her daughter. Until Tóc Tiên tries to physically attack her mother in order to escape, in which they get into a fight and she brings Tóc Tiên to "doctors" -- and after their operation is done, Tóc Tiên leaves the medical tent with a scar on her forehead. The mother expects for their relationship to get better, but it only gets worse.

A long while later, the father returns to that same tower, except with help, mostly from a dog that helps him navigate. The mother is exhausted and contemplating taking her own life, but somethow she doesn't want to leave Tóc Tiên here. She could never. 

When she finds the father waiting at the bottom of the tower, she has no strength to keep her daughter with her. It took her so long, but she finally realizes she is not fit to be a mother. So she gives Tóc Tiên to the blind father, and even when circumstances are utterly bitter, cruel, and depressing, Tóc Tiên bids goodbye to her mother, saying an empty, "I love you" when she can no longer truly remember what it means, and the mother returning, "I love you, too," when she realizes the damage she's inflicted onto the child. 

Tóc Tiên and the blind father leave, leaving the mother alone by herself in the tower. She does nothing to herself. She just waits for the day she can feel again.

[becomewings]

Shadows of My Childhood

Analysis: ON Children + Shadows of the Past (BU/HYYH)

Note: All names herein refer to fictional characters in BU (BTS Universe/HYYH/The Notes). The events described are entirely fictional and not representative of the members' real lives.

Content warning: contains mentions of abuse, abandonment, trauma, and suicide; images of blood 

Some of the most compelling aspects of the ON official MV, and indeed most of BTS’s cinematic repertoire, are the multiple layers of meaning and opportunity for interpretation woven throughout the video. While this version of ON has not been confirmed as part of BU canon, it contains enough explicit references to visual material in other BU videos to merit analysis of the deeper thematic connections between the two.

In this post, I will specifically look through the lens of the pairing of child figures with BTS members in ON to address possible implications within the context of their corresponding BU characters. If the children of ON represent the shadows of the characters’ pasts that continue to haunt and shape them, then the relationships and interactions of the video pairings map to each character’s coping mechanism for handling these ghosts: JiMin’s denial of trauma; YoonGi’s self-inflicted destruction; and TaeHyung’s spiral of violence that starts within him yet increasingly splinters outward. But they also shed light on the future’s hope for moving forward and healing.

The blindfolded girl + TaeHyung

The child with the most screen time and arguably the most significance in the unfolding of ON’s cinematic narrative is paired with TaeHyung. But taken in the context of BU, why is the child a girl and why does she wear a blindfold? Blood ties and violence are the roots of TaeHyung’s shadows. Yet it is impossible to address the years of his suffering without acknowledging the individual who bore it alongside him, the person one may interpret as represented by the blindfolded girl: his sister.

This portrayal does not reflect their true age difference. She is depicted as a child because, as a protective brother, he views it as his duty to safeguard her innocence. The blindfold reinforces the symbolism that he is trying to protect her from the atrocities and darkness of the world. In ON, it is the aftermath of a bloody war (a battlefield upon which he possibly fell and was reborn, given the grave marker of gathered objects and the cross-like pose of his awakening). In the BU narrative, the darkness is domestic violence and their father.

As young children, TaeHyung and his sister were abandoned by their mother,  who was pushed to terrible extremes by her husband's treatment, and left to fend for themselves in the home of an abusive alcoholic. Violence is perpetuated throughout their childhood and into adulthood. Every time she suffers, he suffers too, whether by his father's hand or the guilt that he is powerless to stop him.

“Then. That night. That night ten years ago when Mom left home. That night when Mom, my sister, and I were beaten to a pulp by Dad and we cried ourselves to sleep. … My sister is weeping quietly. It was even more distressing to hear it today.” — TaeHyung, 24 July Year 22. The Notes 1.

This cycle of violence traps TaeHyung in a private nightmare, making him afraid of his own nature's potential: vengeful fantasies (and half-remembered events from parallel timelines) of killing his father; lashing out physically at his friends in moments of conflict. Perhaps more than anything, he fears turning into his father (20 May Year 22, The Notes: Her). Denial is a disease. The more he withholds the truth of his pain and fear, the deeper the darkness takes root in his heart. The pressure threatens to break outward, consuming the people closest to him, or shatter him from within. At his most desperate, TaeHyung views suicide, an act of violence against oneself, as the only way to break free of this cycle.

“I almost killed Dad who brought me into this world and who beat me every day. I almost killed him. No, I actually killed him. Countless times. I killed him countless times in my head. I want to kill him. I want to die. I don’t know what to do. I’m lost.” — TaeHyung, 20 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

Outside, TaeHyung dons a mask to conceal the circumstances of his home life, even around his closest friends. Despite his grinning and loud-mouthed persona, this mask is cracked. His friends see the signs: bruises on his face and back, the emotional marks that run deeper than skin. They follow his lead and do not speak openly of the abuse. TaeHyung refuses to acknowledge that they can see through his mask. They all skirt the uncomfortable truth:

“TaeHyung laughed sheepishly, taking off his torn shirt. Under the dim light hanging on the trailer box, for a second, I saw his bruised back. HoSeok looked at me in shock. TaeHyung looked at himself in the mirror wearing my T-shirt. And he laughed.” — NamJoon, 11 April Year 22. The Notes: Her (translation credit: KRN - ENG © ktaebwi).

“I couldn’t imagine how he must be feeling when I felt this chilly inside. His heart must’ve felt ripped and torn. Or, does he have a heart left at all? How much anguish has he endured? … I first saw the scar on TaeHyung’s back in NamJoon’s container. I couldn’t bring myself to ask about it when he was smiling so broadly with his new T-shirt present.” — HoSeok, 20 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

He cannot seek help from his friends, because that would admit his powerlessness and give voice to the truth of his suffering. And if his pain is real, then so is his sister's.

TaeHyung cannot protect her from the brutality of their father's abuse. He cannot shield her from the cruel reality of their world. The gateway to healing will never open while he turns a blind eye to the ramifications of the violence committed within his family. In ON, acceptance of these truths is embodied in his removal of the girl's blindfold. She gazes forward, unafraid, at the wall toward which she has been looking the whole time. Standing, he takes her hand and discovers that the once-impenetrable wall is in fact a gate. With open eyes, he can see the blossoming land beyond. The future has hope, if only he can face the reality of his family’s violent history.

The drummer boy + JiMin

This is not the first time a blindfold has been employed as a significant visual symbol in BTS’s MVs. Blindfolds, in the form of silk or other members’ hands, figured prominently in Wings-era BU content, particularly in association with JiMin. Therefore, it is all the more noteworthy that in ON, he is not the one paired with the blindfolded child. However, there are several cuts from TaeHyung and his blindfolded partner to JiMin and the drummer boy, or vice versa, that feel like a deliberate choice to draw attention to this absence and the contrast against previous representations. 

In the BU narrative, JiMin suffers from seizures likely caused by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as the result of an as-yet-unspecified traumatic childhood event that he has tried, and often failed, to repress. He is forced into extended hospitalizations by his parents, who seem unwilling to face the reality that something happened to their child and seek to bury his “abnormal behavior” behind doctors and drugs to preserve the family’s appearance of normalcy.

“When I was taken to the hospital after they found me unconscious at the Grass Flower Arboretum, my parents didn’t ask any questions. They ignored the fact that I had blacked out there. It was the same when I developed seizures. They hospitalized me, discharged me after some time, and transferred me to another school. Family reputation was important to them. A son with mental illness was unacceptable.” — JiMin, 11 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

JiMin, for his part, wants to live a normal life by attending school and cultivating friendships. Maintaining both presents challenges that he struggles to overcome, doubting his own fortitude and questioning the lie that he perpetuates to save himself: nothing ever happened to him. When his seizures are triggered by stimuli that resurface memories of the past, he winds up in the hospital again and again. Donning a metaphorical blindfold to deny the truth of his trauma, he attempts to convince the medical staff of the same lie.

“When the doctor asked me about it in a concerned tone, I trembled and apologized at first. I repeatedly said that I was sorry. It was all my fault. Please let me forget all about it. Then, I tried to pretend nothing had happened. I didn’t remember anything.” — JiMin, 11 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

After HoSeok and his friends help break him out of the hospital (15 May Year 22, The Notes 1), JiMin recognizes that in order to keep his freedom, he must prove both to his family and to himself that he is “okay” and will not relapse. 

“I had to return to the Grass Flower Arboretum. I had to stop lying about not remembering what I’d seen there. It was time to stop hiding in the hospital and put an end to my seizures. To do that, I had to go back there. But, for days, I went to the shuttle bus stop and failed to get on the bus.

After I watched the third bus of the day pull away, YoonGi suddenly appeared and plunked down next to me. … Then he asked what I was doing here. I kept my head bent low and kicked the ground with the toe of my sneaker. I was sitting there because I didn’t have courage. I wanted to pretend that I was OK now, that I knew enough, and that I could easily overcome this. But I was afraid. I was afraid of not knowing what I was about to face, whether I would be able to endure it, and whether I would have a seizure again.

… The bus stopped and the door opened. The driver stared at me. I asked YoonGi. ‘Will you go with me?’” — JiMin, 19 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

The drummer boy in ON may represent, in part, JiMin’s childhood: his real younger self, the one who experienced an event with long-reaching, traumatic consequences, just as the drummer boy marched into the horrors of war. User @cinnaminsvga​ points out that the boy’s striped pants (and I will add, shaved head) may refer to the common style of uniform assigned in Holocaust concentration camps, drawing in additional themes of imprisonment and persecution. In JiMin’s case, the violence against his true identity is committed by himself, in the attempted act of self-preservation, and his family, in turning a blind eye and forcing his hospitalization.

JiMin has spent years of his life denying the truth of what happened in the arboretum, hiding behind a blindfold of denial and lies. Embarking on the arboretum shuttle with YoonGi marks his first conscious effort to remove that blindfold. This is paralleled by his interaction with ON’s drummer boy. For the first time, he reaches out to that boy of his past, in a striking visual homage to Blood, Sweat, & Tears. Instead of running away, he chooses to face the reality of his trauma, in the hope of walking a new path toward acceptance and healing. 

Later events in the Notes and BU films remind us that the path to recovery is not easy or straightforward. It is riddled with pitfalls and switchbacks, challenges and missteps that threaten to drag oneself into relapse. When JiMin accidentally stumbles into his dance studio partner and they fall, the sight of his own blood once again triggers him.

“The blood reminded me of the Grass Flower Arboretum. I felt suffocated. I couldn’t remember how I got up, ran out of the practice room, and made it to the restroom. I scrubbed and washed the scrape like crazy, becoming more and more frightened at seeing the blood sucked down the drain. I thought I’d overcome this. I thought I was OK. But I wasn’t. I had to flee. I had to wash it off. I had to look the other way. 

… On that day, I’d run away from the Grass Flower Arboretum. My body was covered with mud that looked like blood. I hadn’t grown up one bit from that little eight-year-old kid.” — JiMin, 4 July Year 22. The Notes 1.

The road to the future will be paved with hardship and setbacks for JiMin. However, the act of reaching toward the drummer boy in ON may further represent the acceptance that he has more challenges to overcome. Although the young age of military drummers has been exaggerated and romanticized over the years, their role is uncontested: drums helped the formations march in step, and a language of rudiments (basic rhythmic patterns) relayed commands from officers to soldiers. Despite the danger to their lives, they accompanied the troops to war and played on the battlefield. JiMin’s partnership with the drummer boy in ON signifies his willingness to brave the conflicts, personal and external, ahead. Though his private battles to survive his trauma are far from over, if he does not surrender again to denial, he will one day see light breaking through the storm.

The candle girls + YoonGi

In ON, YoonGi is connected with not just one child, but an entire congregation. The scene appears as a kind of candlelight vigil or memorial service, likely composed of girls because all the men and boys have been summoned to the war. Fire has been one of the most significant, recurring elements since the very beginning of BU content, especially in association with YoonGi, so the choice of imagery is impossible to miss. Fire is the root of his obsessions, the heart of his torment, the means to his self-destruction.

YoonGi has never truly come to terms with his mother's death, locking away the suspicion that she was responsible for setting the fire that took her life. His love for music is bound by the painful memories of his mother and the piano. Love and pain are inextricable. His mother's love for him and for music were not enough to save her life. Again and again, in countless timelines, he plays out that same act of self-violence, throwing himself into the flames.

“I tried to imagine what was going on in YoonGi’s head. Once, I followed him secretly for hours. His footsteps were insecure and unpredictable. He staggered through the night streets and tried to fling himself into the fire. He sometimes squatted on the ground and listened to music that flowed out of somewhere inside an underground shopping arcade. … The suffering he must have endured, going from one extreme to the other, were beyond my imagination. All I could do was watch him stagger on.” — SeokJin, 2 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

Like TaeHyung, YoonGi attempts to hide the true depths of his despair from his group of friends: the wildly uncontrolled mood swings from fits of creative passion to destructive tendencies of alcoholism and self-harm. Though he finds a kindred spirit in JungKook, his own internal conflicts and fears repeatedly force him away when they get too close. When they are reunited physically at key moments throughout the BU narrative, he cannot bridge the emotional gap. YoonGi’s mother abandoned him to an inheritance of grief and mental health struggles, neither of which he is capable of working through alone. But he recognizes that his self-destructive habits spin out of control, and he does not want to inflict that pain upon others through their closeness.

“I turned my eyes away. I didn’t want to get involved in someone else’s life. I didn’t want to try to console someone who was lonely. I didn’t want to be important for someone. I wasn’t sure I could protect that someone till the end. I wasn’t confident I could stand by that someone till the end. I didn’t want to hurt that someone. I didn’t want to get hurt. It’s hard enough for us to try to save ourselves when the last moment comes, let alone someone else.” — YoonGi, 7 April Year 22. The Notes 1.

“‘Why didn’t you go see JungKook? Don’t you know what you mean to him?’ Of course I knew. Maybe that was why I couldn’t go into his room. I was distorted and thorny. Anyone who tried to come near me was bound to get hurt.

… I’d inflicted pain on others as I suffered greater pain. I looked away from their wounds. I didn’t want to take any responsibility. I didn’t want to get involved. That was who I was.” — YoonGi, 25 July Year 22. The Notes 1.

YoonGi is eventually driven to understand that he cannot survive alone. When he fears that he pushes away HoSeok, the “one who always pave[s] the way for [him] to come back no matter how far astray” he has gone (28 July Year 22, The Notes 1), for good this time, HoSeok later texts him privately to ask if he is okay. In between those two points of contact, YoonGi discovers a new purpose for living: completing the melody that has nearly driven him to madness, as it haunts him across many parallel timelines in tantalizing and ungraspable fragments. 

“I completed the piece several days ago. I changed the version I sent to HoSeok a few more times. I gave it the title ‘Hope.’ To be honest, the title didn’t actually match the piece. It contained my fear, cowardice, and inferiority. It contained all the moments I tried to avoid, get away from, and reprimanded myself for. But I couldn’t think of any other word that could encompass it all.” — YoonGi, 30 August Year 22. The Notes 1.

In sharing this musical representation of his innermost self, YoonGi opens himself to vulnerability. This is a step forward in accepting the turmoil of his heart and allowing others inside to see his true self, too. It is particularly striking to see YoonGi, who has forbidden himself emotional proximity to others for so long, emerging from isolation to participate in ON’s candlelight service. Linking him to a community of children, rather than the solo partners of TaeHyung and JiMin, signifies his progress in growing beyond the shadows of his past and exploring new ways to manage his grief. Even the cuts to him alone in this sacred, ceremonial space reflect his development. He is not torn by anger or despair, but given to reflection. He does not stare obsessively into the flames, but instead gazes outward at a beam of sunlight. Despite the somber undertones, this scene in ON is one of the rare instances of YoonGi associated with fire in a positive light: not one of violence and self-destruction, but reflection and healing through the allowance of both private and shared grief. 

Bonus: HoSeok + the bag girl

While all seven characters of the BU narrative are influenced by their pasts, the ones whose lives are most acutely shaped by the ongoing traumas and conflicts that are rooted in their youths are the characters reflected here: TaeHyung, JiMin, YoonGi. And, I am inclined to say at first pass, HoSeok. Like TaeHyung, he was abandoned by his mother, but this left him without any family and he was consigned to an orphanage. He carries the weight of his abandonment with him into adulthood, influencing multiple aspects of his health and manifesting an unconscious obsession with seeing his mother in other women.

So where is his child representation in the ON video? It is entirely plausible that another pairing included was not included for timing reasons. Another possible reason is that he has made considerable progress in his personal growth by the end of the Notes 1, and therefore the shackles of his past have loosened: he confesses to JiMin that his narcolepsy is fake (16 May Year 22, The Notes 1) and in later months recognizes the problematic nature of seeing his mother, whose face he can no longer remember, in other women in his life, strangers and friends alike. 

That being said, the presence of the girl with the bright yellow bag in the shot of everyone looking beyond the wall (included in the first photoset) might be a coincidence… or it might be a small nod to the shoulder bag carried on tour by the real-life HoSeok and gifted to a fan during the New York Citi Field performance in October 2018. The one in ON is not red (although the girl standing next to her has one with red embellishments), but the yellow is a surprising pop of color amid the subdued color palette in the rest of the shot. She does not stand near HoSeok (although neither does the drummer boy near JiMin)... But perhaps, if we are inclined to read into it, we may find a dash of hope in the separation of this mother/child reference, as HoSeok gazes forward with the others at the opportunities and dreams promised by the future.

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

If you made it this far, I sincerely thank you for coming on this little journey with me. Please do not repost this analysis on other platforms. If you have any questions, comments, or wild theories of your own… send them my way! I would love to hear from you. -- wings

Added Note: This was written before I read actress Rina Johnson’s statement about playing the role of Taehyung’s sister and prior to the release of the ON behind-the-scenes video.

[ahamay79]

President has been in office for 3 years and what has he done? Other than dodging the vile, fake news media, and Pelosi?!?

What have PRESIDENT TRUMP and his cabinet accomplished you ask? Since the liberal media won't tell you, we will.

Here you go.

* Trump recently signed 3 bills to benefit Native people. One gives compensation to the Spokane tribe for loss of their lands in the mid-1900s, one funds Native language programs, and the third gives federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana.

* Trump finalized the creation of Space Force as our 6th Military branch.

* Trump signed a law to make cruelty to animals a federal felony so that animal abusers face tougher consequences.👀👀

* Violent crime has fallen every year he’s been in office after rising during the 2 years before he was elected.

* Trump signed a bill making CBD and Hemp legal.👀👀

* Trump’s EPA gave $100 million to fix the water infrastructure problem in Flint, Michigan.

* Under Trump’s leadership, in 2018 the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil.

* Trump signed a law ending the gag orders on Pharmacists that prevented them from sharing money-saving information.

* Trump signed the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), which includes the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) which both give law enforcement and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking.👀👀

* Trump signed a bill to require airports to provide spaces for breastfeeding Moms.

* The 25% lowest-paid Americans enjoyed a 4.5% income boost in November 2019, which outpaces a 2.9% gain in earnings for the country's highest-paid workers.

* Low-wage workers are benefiting from higher minimum wages and from corporations that are increasing entry-level pay.

* Trump signed the biggest wilderness protection & conservation bill in a decade and designated 375,000 acres as protected land.

* Trump signed the Save our Seas Act which funds $10 million per year to clean tons of plastic & garbage from the ocean.👀👀

* He signed a bill this year allowing some drug imports from Canada so that prescription prices would go down.

* Trump signed an executive order this year that forces all healthcare providers to disclose the cost of their services so that Americans can comparison shop and know how much fewer providers charge insurance companies.

* When signing that bill he said no American should be blindsided by bills for medical services they never agreed to in advance.

* Hospitals will now be required to post their standard charges for services, which include the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept.

* In the eight years prior to President Trump’s inauguration, prescription drug prices increased by an average of 3.6% per year. Under Trump, drug prices have seen year-over-year declines in nine of the last ten months, with a 1.1% drop as of the most recent month.

* He created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.👀👀

* VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.

* Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.

* Because of a bill signed and championed by Trump, In 2020, most federal employees will see their pay increase by an average of 3.1% — the largest raise in more than 10 years.

* Trump signed into law up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for millions of federal workers.

* Trump administration will provide HIV prevention drugs for free to 200,000 uninsured patients per year for 11 years.👀👀

* All-time record sales during the 2019 holidays.

* Trump signed an order allowing small businesses to group together when buying insurance to get a better price👀👀

* President Trump signed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act that provides funding for states to develop maternal mortality reviews to better understand maternal complications and identify solutions & largely focuses on reducing the higher mortality rates for Black Americans.

* In 2018, President Trump signed the groundbreaking First Step Act, a criminal justice bill that enacted reforms that make our justice system fairer and help former inmates successfully return to society.

* The First Step Act’s reforms addressed inequities in sentencing laws that disproportionately harmed Black Americans and reformed mandatory minimums that created unfair outcomes.👀👀

* The First Step Act expanded judicial discretion in the sentencing of non-violent crimes.

* Over 90% of those benefitting from the retroactive sentencing reductions in the First Step Act are Black Americans.

* The First Step Act provides rehabilitative programs to inmates, helping them successfully rejoin society and not return to crime.

* Trump increased funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by more than 14%.👀👀

* Trump signed legislation forgiving Hurricane Katrina debt that threatened HBCUs.

* New single-family home sales are up 31.6% in October 2019 compared to just one year ago.

* Made HBCUs a priority by creating the position of executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs.

* Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award at a historically black college for his criminal justice reform accomplishments.

* The poverty rate fell to a 17-year low of 11.8% under the Trump administration as a result of a jobs-rich environment.👀👀

* Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels since the U.S. began collecting such data.

* President Trump signed a bill that creates five national monuments, expands several national parks, adds 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water, Conservation Fund.

* Trump’s USDA committed $124 Million to rebuild rural water infrastructure.👀👀

* Consumer confidence & small business confidence is at an all-time high.

* More than 7 million jobs created since the election.

* More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.

* More than 400,000 manufacturing jobs created since his election.

* Trump appointed 5 openly gay ambassadors.👀👀

* Trump ordered Ric Grenell, his openly gay ambassador to Germany, to lead a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality across the globe.

* Through Trump’s Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam) initiative, Federal law enforcement more than doubled convictions of human traffickers and increased the number of defendants charged by 75% in ACTeam districts.

* In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismantled an organization that was the internet’s leading source of prostitution-related advertisements resulting in sex trafficking.

* Trump’s OMB published new anti-trafficking guidance for government procurement officials to more effectively combat human trafficking.

* Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested 1,588 criminals associated with Human Trafficking.

* Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services provided funding to support the National Human Trafficking Hotline to identify perpetrators and give victims the help they need.

* The hotline identified 16,862 potential human trafficking cases.

* Trump’s DOJ provided grants to organizations that support human trafficking victims – serving nearly 9,000 cases from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.👀👀

* The Department of Homeland Security has hired more victim assistance specialists, helping victims get resources and support.

* President Trump has called on Congress to pass school choice legislation so that no child is trapped in a failing school because of his or her zip code.👀👀

* The President signed funding legislation in September 2018 that increased funding for school choice by $42 million.

* The tax cuts signed into law by President Trump promote school choice by allowing families to use 529 college savings plans for elementary and secondary education.👀👀

* Under his leadership, ISIS has lost most of its territory and been largely dismantled.

* ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed.

* Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorization since 2006, authorizing more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.

* Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.

* Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith.

* Signed an executive order that allows the government to withhold money from college campuses deemed to be anti-Semitic and who fail to combat anti-Semitism.

* President Trump ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.

* Trump imposed sanctions on the socialists in Venezuela who have killed their citizens.

* Finalized new trade agreement with South Korea.

* Made a deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.👀👀

* Withdrew the U.S. from the job-killing TPP deal.

* Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.

* Okay’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.👀👀

* Has had over a dozen US hostages freed, including those Obama could not get freed.

* Trump signed the Music Modernization Act, the biggest change to copyright law in decades.

* Trump secured Billions that will fund the building of a wall at our southern border.

* The Trump Administration is promoting second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.

* Trump’s DOJ and the Board Of Prisons launched a new “Ready to Work Initiative” to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.👀👀

* President Trump’s historic tax cut legislation included new Opportunity Zone Incentives to promote investment in low-income communities across the country.

* 8,764 communities across the country have been designated as Opportunity Zones.

* Opportunity Zones are expected to spur $100 billion in long-term private capital investment in economically distressed communities across the country.

* Trump directed the Education Secretary to end Common Core.👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

* Trump signed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund into law.

* Trump signed measure funding prevention programs for Veteran suicide.👀👀

* Companies have brought back over a TRILLION dollars from overseas because of the TCJA bill that Trump signed.

* Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than 30 years.

* Stock Market has reached record highs.

* Median household income has hit the highest level ever recorded.

* African-American unemployment is at an all-time low.

* Hispanic-American unemployment is at an all-time low.

* Asian-American unemployment is at an all-time low.

* Women’s unemployment rate is at a 65-year low.

* Youth unemployment is at a 50-year low.

* We have the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.

* The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans.

* 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future— the highest ever.

* As a result of the Republican tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.👀👀

* Record number of regulations eliminated that hurt small businesses.

* Signed welfare reform requiring able-bodied adults who don’t have children to work or look for work if they’re on welfare.🙌🙌

* Under Trump, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history.

* Reformed Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors 100’s of millions of $$$ this year alone.👀👀

* Signed Right-To-Try legislation allowing terminally ill patients to try an experimental treatment that wasn’t allowed before.

* Secured $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.❤️❤️

* Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.👀👀

* U.S. oil production recently reached an all-time high so we are less dependent on oil from the Middle East.

* The U.S. is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.

* NATO allies increased their defense spending because of his pressure campaign.

* Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord in 2017 and that same year the U.S. still led the world by having the largest reduction in carbon emissions.👀👀

* Has his circuit court judge nominees being confirmed faster than any other new administration.

* Had his Supreme Court Justice’s Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh confirmed.

* Moved U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.👀👀

* Agreed to a new trade deal with Mexico & Canada that will increase jobs here and $$$ coming in.

* Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.

* Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices, has agreed to a Part One trade deal with China.

* Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.👀👀

* Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.

* The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump doubled the maximum amount of the child tax credit available to parents and lifted the income limits so more people could claim it.

* It also created a new tax credit for other dependents.

* In 2018, President Trump signed into law a $2.4 billion funding increase for the Child Care and Development Fund, providing a total of $8.1 billion to states to fund child care for low-income families.

* The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) signed into law by Trump provides a tax credit equal to 20-35% of child care expenses, $3,000 per child & $6,000 per family + Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) allow you to set aside up to $5,000 in pre-tax $ to use for child care.

* In 2019 President Donald Trump signed the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act (CARES) into law which allocates $1.8 billion in funding over the next five years to help people with autism spectrum disorder and to help their families.👀👀

* In 2019 President Trump signed into law two funding packages providing nearly $19 million in new funding for Lupus specific research and education programs, as well an additional $41.7 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the most Lupus funding EVER.

* Another upcoming accomplishment to add: In the next week or two Trump will be signing the first major anti-robocall law in decades called the TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.) Once it’s the law, the TRACED Act will extend the period of time the FCC has to catch & punish those who intentionally break telemarketing restrictions. The bill also requires voice service providers to develop a framework to verify calls are legitimate before they reach your phone.

* US stock market continually hits all-time record highs.

* Because so many people asked for a document with all of this listed in one place, here it is. No links provided to remove bias as Google search is easy. Print this out for family, friends, neighbors, etc. I encourage you to drop this list off to voters before the 2020 election too!

*Trump did all of this while fighting flagrant abuse and impeachment charges.

——-please explain to me why you have a problem with OUR president? Because he has misspoken a few times? Tell me when you find a perfect person, please....I’ll wait!

I’ll tell you why because the media has skewed him in such a negative light and unfairly report his accomplishments to undermined those achievements!

Why? Because the media is complicit in every single thing this man is trying to undo! Start thinking for yourself!

🇺🇸WWG1WGA🇺🇸

🇺🇸🇺🇸Are you tired of winning yet?🇺🇸🇺🇸

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[itiswhattitis]

Dude has been in office for 3 years.... what has he done? Other than dodging the darts the media and Pelosi have thrown?!?

what have PRESIDENT TRUMP and his cabinet accomplished.....

Here you go.

* Trump recently signed 3 bills to benefit Native people. One gives compensation to the Spokane tribe for loss of their lands in the mid-1900s, one funds Native language programs, and the third gives federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana.

* Trump finalized the creation of Space Force as our 6th Military branch.

* Trump signed a law to make cruelty to animals a federal felony so that animal abusers face tougher consequences.👀👀

* Violent crime has fallen every year he’s been in office after rising during the 2 years before he was elected.

* Trump signed a bill making CBD and Hemp legal.👀👀

* Trump’s EPA gave $100 million to fix the water infrastructure problem in Flint, Michigan.

* Under Trump’s leadership, in 2018 the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil.

* Trump signed a law ending the gag orders on Pharmacists that prevented them from sharing money-saving information.

* Trump signed the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), which includes the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) which both give law enforcement and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking.👀👀

* Trump signed a bill to require airports to provide spaces for breastfeeding Moms.

* The 25% lowest-paid Americans enjoyed a 4.5% income boost in November 2019, which outpaces a 2.9% gain in earnings for the country's highest-paid workers.

* Low-wage workers are benefiting from higher minimum wages and from corporations that are increasing entry-level pay.

* Trump signed the biggest wilderness protection & conservation bill in a decade and designated 375,000 acres as protected land.

* Trump signed the Save our Seas Act which funds $10 million per year to clean tons of plastic & garbage from the ocean.👀👀

* He signed a bill this year allowing some drug imports from Canada so that prescription prices would go down.

* Trump signed an executive order this year that forces all healthcare providers to disclose the cost of their services so that Americans can comparison shop and know how much less providers charge insurance companies.

* When signing that bill he said no American should be blindsided by bills for medical services they never agreed to in advance.

* Hospitals will now be required to post their standard charges for services, which include the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept.

* In the eight years prior to President Trump’s inauguration, prescription drug prices increased by an average of 3.6% per year. Under Trump, drug prices have seen year-over-year declines in nine of the last ten months, with a 1.1% drop as of the most recent month.

* He created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.👀👀

* VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.

* Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.

* Because of a bill signed and championed by Trump, In 2020, most federal employees will see their pay increase by an average of 3.1% — the largest raise in more than 10 years.

* Trump signed into a law up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for millions of federal workers.

* Trump administration will provide HIV prevention drugs for free to 200,000 uninsured patients per year for 11 years.👀👀

* All-time record sales during the 2019 holidays.

* Trump signed an order allowing small businesses to group together when buying insurance to get a better price👀👀

* President Trump signed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act that provides funding for states to develop maternal mortality reviews to better understand maternal complications and identify solutions & largely focuses on reducing the higher mortality rates for Black Americans.

* In 2018, President Trump signed the groundbreaking First Step Act, a criminal justice bill which enacted reforms that make our justice system fairer and help former inmates successfully return to society.

* The First Step Act’s reforms addressed inequities in sentencing laws that disproportionately harmed Black Americans and reformed mandatory minimums that created unfair outcomes.👀👀

* The First Step Act expanded judicial discretion in sentencing of non-violent crimes.

* Over 90% of those benefitting from the retroactive sentencing reductions in the First Step Act are Black Americans.

* The First Step Act provides rehabilitative programs to inmates, helping them successfully rejoin society and not return to crime.

* Trump increased funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by more than 14%.👀👀

* Trump signed legislation forgiving Hurricane Katrina debt that threatened HBCUs.

* New single-family home sales are up 31.6% in October 2019 compared to just one year ago.

* Made HBCUs a priority by creating the position of executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs.

* Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award at a historically black college for his criminal justice reform accomplishments.

* The poverty rate fell to a 17-year low of 11.8% under the Trump administration as a result of a jobs-rich environment.👀👀

* Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels since the U.S. began collecting such data.

* President Trump signed a bill that creates five national monuments, expands several national parks, adds 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

* Trump’s USDA committed $124 Million to rebuild rural water infrastructure.👀👀

* Consumer confidence & small business confidence is at an all time high.

* More than 7 million jobs created since election.

* More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.

* More than 400,000 manufacturing jobs created since his election.

* Trump appointed 5 openly gay ambassadors.👀👀

* Trump ordered Ric Grenell, his openly gay ambassador to Germany, to lead a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality across the globe.

* Through Trump’s Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam) initiative, Federal law enforcement more than doubled convictions of human traffickers and increased the number of defendants charged by 75% in ACTeam districts.

* In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismantled an organization that was the internet’s leading source of prostitution-related advertisements resulting in sex trafficking.

* Trump’s OMB published new anti-trafficking guidance for government procurement officials to more effectively combat human trafficking.

* Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested 1,588 criminals associated with Human Trafficking.

* Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services provided funding to support the National Human Trafficking Hotline to identify perpetrators and give victims the help they need.

* The hotline identified 16,862 potential human trafficking cases.

* Trump’s DOJ provided grants to organizations that support human trafficking victims – serving nearly 9,000 cases from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.👀👀

* The Department of Homeland Security has hired more victim assistance specialists, helping victims get resources and support.

* President Trump has called on Congress to pass school choice legislation so that no child is trapped in a failing school because of his or her zip code.👀👀

* The President signed funding legislation in September 2018 that increased funding for school choice by $42 million.

* The tax cuts signed into law by President Trump promote school choice by allowing families to use 529 college savings plans for elementary and secondary education.👀👀

* Under his leadership ISIS has lost most of their territory and been largely dismantled.

* ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed.

* Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorization since 2006, authorizing more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.

* Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.

* Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith.

* Signed an executive order that allows the government to withhold money from college campuses deemed to be anti-Semitic and who fail to combat anti-Semitism.

* President Trump ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.

* Trump imposed sanctions on the socialists in Venezuela who have killed their citizens.

* Finalized new trade agreement with South Korea.

* Made a deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.👀👀

* Withdrew the U.S. from the job killing TPP deal.

* Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.

* Okay’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.👀👀

* Has had over a dozen US hostages freed, including those Obama could not get freed.

* Trump signed the Music Modernization Act, the biggest change to copyright law in decades.

* Trump secured Billions that will fund the building of a wall at our southern border.

* The Trump Administration is promoting second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.

* Trump’s DOJ and the Board Of Prisons launched a new “Ready to Work Initiative” to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.👀👀

* President Trump’s historic tax cut legislation included new Opportunity Zone Incentives to promote investment in low-income communities across the country.

* 8,764 communities across the country have been designated as Opportunity Zones.

* Opportunity Zones are expected to spur $100 billion in long-term private capital investment in economically distressed communities across the country.

* Trump directed the Education Secretary to end Common Core.👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

* Trump signed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund into law.

* Trump signed measure funding prevention programs for Veteran suicide.👀👀

* Companies have brought back over a TRILLION dollars from overseas because of the TCJA bill that Trump signed.

* Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than 30 years.

* Stock Market has reached record highs.

* Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.

* African-American unemployment is at an all time low.

* Hispanic-American unemployment is at an all time low.

* Asian-American unemployment is at an all time low.

* Women’s unemployment rate is at a 65-year low.

* Youth unemployment is at a 50-year low.

* We have the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.

* The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans.

* 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future— the highest ever.

* As a result of the Republican tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.👀👀

* Record number of regulations eliminated that hurt small businesses.

* Signed welfare reform requiring able-bodied adults who don’t have children to work or look for work if they’re on welfare.🙌🙌

* Under Trump, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history.

* Reformed Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors 100’s of millions of $$$ this year alone.👀👀

* Signed Right-To-Try legislation allowing terminally ill patients to try experimental treatment that wasn’t allowed before.

* Secured $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.❤️❤️

* Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.👀👀

* U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high so we are less dependent on oil from the Middle East.

* The U.S. is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.

* NATO allies increased their defense spending because of his pressure campaign.

* Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord in 2017 and that same year the U.S. still led the world by having the largest reduction in Carbon emissions.👀👀

* Has his circuit court judge nominees being confirmed faster than any other new administration.

* Had his Supreme Court Justice’s Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh confirmed.

* Moved U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.👀👀

* Agreed to a new trade deal with Mexico & Canada that will increase jobs here and $$$ coming in.

* Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.

* Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices, has agreed to a Part One trade deal with China.

* Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.👀👀

* Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.

* The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump doubled the maximum amount of the child tax credit available to parents and lifted the income limits so more people could claim it.

* It also created a new tax credit for other dependents.

* In 2018, President Trump signed into law a $2.4 billion funding increase for the Child Care and Development Fund, providing a total of $8.1 billion to States to fund child care for low-income families.

* The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) signed into law by Trump provides a tax credit equal to 20-35% of child care expenses, $3,000 per child & $6,000 per family + Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) allow you to set aside up to $5,000 in pre-tax $ to use for child care.

* In 2019 President Donald Trump signed the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act (CARES) into law which allocates $1.8 billion in funding over the next five years to help people with autism spectrum disorder and to help their families.👀👀

* In 2019 President Trump signed into law two funding packages providing nearly $19 million in new funding for Lupus specific research and education programs, as well an additional $41.7 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the most Lupus funding EVER.

* Another upcoming accomplishment to add: In the next week or two Trump will be signing the first major anti-robocall law in decades called the TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.) Once it’s thelaw, the TRACED Act will extend the period of time the FCC has to catch & punish those who intentionally break telemarketing restrictions. The bill also requires voice service providers to develop a framework to verify calls are legitimate before they reach your phone.

* US stock market continually hits all-time record highs.

* Because so many people asked for a document with all of this listed in one place, here it is. No links provided to remove bias as Google search is easy. Print this out for family, friends, neighbors, etc. I encourage you to drop this list off to voters before the 2020 election too!

*Trump did all of this while fighting flagrant abuse and impeachment charges.

——-please explain to me why you have a problem with OUR president? Because he has misspoke a few times? Tell me when you find a perfect person, please....I’ll wait! I’ll tell you why, because the media has skewed him in such a negative light and unfairly report his accomplishments to undermined those achievements! Why? Because the media is complicit in every single thing this man is trying to undo! Start thinking for yourself!

[girlmeetsliv3]

Boundaries II

Warning: The following story contains mentions of mental health disorders, depression, anxiety, manipulation, abuse, and vivid descriptions of abusive acts. The behavior and mindset of the characters in this will be incredibly yandere and toxic. This is a work of fiction and doesn’t represent the character of bangtan sonyeondan. Enjoy ~~~ 

Kim Taehyung had always known the kind of life he would live. The prodigal son of a sick woman and a bastard of a man. At three years of age, his psychiatrist had deemed him an exceptionally bright boy with a tendency to apply those wits to methods of extreme torture and weaponize them as a mean of instant gratification. His mother had managed to convince his father that the young boy's odd tendencies could not be beaten out of him, but required medical treatment; of course, that had cost her a swollen lip and injured wrist. After his diagnosis, treatment began immediately. First, the doctor ordered the removal of any emotional or physical triggers in the Taehyung’s life. He was immediately placed into a foster home and banned from having any contact with his biological parents. Second, understanding where and when it was acceptable to release his darker urges as a mean of stress relief. Various scenarios were discussed with the young boy, only when he was in danger or when his rage aided others could he utilize it. Lastly, a support system with means of controlling and understanding him. It was supposed to be his psychiatrist, the nurses, or even his parents; but Taehyung found his support system in you.

When the time to enroll in primary school had rolled around, it was a unanimous decision that the only way to test if Taehyung could function in society was to allow him to participate in it. Neither the school administrators nor his teachers were informed, for they wanted fair treatment. When the first day of school rolled around, the boy began to experience something he never had: nerves. Most of his early years were spent in a clean sterile environment surrounded by people twice or three times his age. How exactly was he to behave like a normal child, when he himself didn’t know what a child was. It didn’t take him long to figure it out though. By the time the teacher had announced it was break time, Taehyung found that being a child consisted of being presumptuous, picking on others, and forming distinctive cliques of friends. His distaste may have also been that once he stepped into class, one of the taller boys had made fun of his dialect and since then no one had dared talk to him.

Taehyung had taken it as a threat and planned to hurt the boy after class had concluded. So, he sat alone in the corner letting his mind wander into all the different ways he could harm him. He rationalized it was acceptable, for he was only allowed to hurt others when he was in danger and the boy had practically threatened him. He failed to notice the small girl in pigtails with matching red scrunchies walking towards him until she stood right in front of him. When he finally looked at her, he noticed she was different: her cheeks, eyes, lip shape, and complexion were entirely different from his and everyone else’s. She stood out and it intrigued him, for he related to her. When she spoke, her mouth moved oddly and her words were a string of Korean and gibberish interlaced. Had he not been able to pick up on social cues, he would’ve assumed she was making fun of him like the others - but it was her outstretched hand that let him know differently.

It was a gesture he had learned to associate with ‘hello’ or ‘help.’ Whenever the nurses gave Taehyung his medicine they would hold out their hands so he could squeeze it tightly, transferring the pain from him to them. He had also witnessed that whenever people met they held hands, only if for a moment. He had been analyzing your palm, its length, width, and size when he noticed it began to shake. Afraid that you would take it away, that you would abandon him, he grasped it painfully tight. He failed to notice you wince at his strength due to how happy he was, that he was not alone anymore. That you, a stranger, were there to help him when so many others had judged him and alienated him. After being alone in the dark for so long, he longed for the light you seemed to have in you. He wanted to bask in the sunlight with you, and if you refused to share then he would ensure both of you rot in the dark.

His obsession with you was obvious to those around him in his personal life. All he ever spoke about to parents, nurses, and doctors was you: your smile, your hair, your clothes, your smell. He was excited and genuinely happy. But when he misbehaved by trying to sneak into the girl’s bathroom, the doctor threatened to not allow the two of you to be friends anymore he understood that he must keep you a secret. In order to make sure, no one would separate you. That day after the visit, he’d come home crying to his parents and told him all the supposed things his psychiatrist had done to him during the time they were alone and he was never taken there again. It was better, for it meant he could spend more time with you, but without his medicine or emotional relievers, he found dark urges returning to him more frequently and he indulged in them like never before.

Pigeons, lizards, insects, and other small things became a good way to hurt without creating too much of a mess or drawing too much attention. That stopped once you caught him in the act though, and he grasped that just because you were best friends didn’t mean you accepted all of him. You would come to, however, that he was sure of. As he got older, he began to experiment with different alternatives to subside him: news articles, torture porn, crime documentaries, and his imagination. None proved effective and Taehyung was a ticking time bomb. He was reaching his limit and needed a release or he was going to snap and anyone or anything in his proximity would be collateral. His prayers were answered in the form of Park Jimin getting beat up in an ally. It was a beautiful sensation. Taehyung also discovered that it was not just the feeling of flesh and bones breaking, but the expressions one would display before death that elated him.

It was a pity that you had to bear witness to it. After that moment you had begun to change around him. No longer would you hold him, treat him with warm affection, and claim the two of you would never stop being friends. You now looked at him with fear, there was a hesitation in every one of your movements around him, and whenever he kissed your cheek or caressed your face goosebumps appeared on your arms. When you had asked for boundaries, he had agreed if only because he believed it would make you grow fond of him. The two of you were soulmates and spending time with regular people would make you realize how superior the two of you were to the rest of them. The opposite happened. More boundaries were created and you seemed determined to trap him inside all the yellow lines he could not cross until he could no longer reach you. His feelings for you began to change from want to need, love to desire, and an insatiable bloodlust formed within him.

The girls he fucked looked like you or sounded like you. He watched you and counted down the seconds until you spoke to him again. He was desperate for you. Even his friends began to notice his behavior and after a particularly angsty night, they suggested he get back at you by sleeping with your best friend. Easier said than done, but he had a plan. He had casually mentioned the party the last time you both had been together. It was in your living room when your mom had finally left for work. It had been a while since you had hung out in public with him. He was reduced to short visitations once or twice a month; as if he was some distant unliked relative. You responded with mild interest, but when he poked fun at you for never going out he knew his plan was set in motion. The party was typical. the only excitement was getting to observe you from a comfortable corner on the couch instead of underneath your bushes or through an obstructed window as he was used to.

Once you placed down the red solo cup and headed upstairs, he quickly activated his charm mode and made his way to the girl dancing sloppily in the middle of the dance floor. She was beyond inebriated, but he couldn’t care less. It was pathetic to him how all he had to do was whisper a couple compliments in her ear and she already began to drag him upstairs. With his guidance, they ended up in the master bedroom, where he heard the faucet in the bathroom running. Instantly, Taehyung latched his lips onto her neck and drew out a throaty moan from her. He was riled up. He wanted you to come out and see them together, hell he would even fuck her just to see your shocked expression. But as the seconds passed and you made no effort to make your presence known, he became angry. How dare you not play with him?! How dare you refuse to be his anymore?! How dare you remain in that stupid bathroom, when it should be you underneath him panting his name?! How dare she not be you?!

Taehyung failed to notice how his hands had crawled up to the girl’s throat, nor did he pick up on when gasps of pleasure turned to that of pain. It wasn’t until she clawed at his hands that he noticed, still his anger had consumed him by that point and he figured that if you didn’t love him - you should fear him. He continued to apply pressure until the gurl’s breathing shallowed and she passed out then, he stood up and left. Making sure to slam the door loud enough for you to hear, so you would come out and see the present he had left for you. He was certain once morning rolled around, you would come to him begging for forgiveness and eager to please. The exact opposite occurred. You had misunderstood his message as an omen, leading to the conclusion that the two of you could be no more. Or as you had phrased it, “Perhaps none of the boundaries worked, because there wasn’t a physical one.” He lost it.

As you drove off, he stood frozen staring off into space trying to comprehend where everything went wrong. For days on end, he racked his brain trying to decipher everything until he landed on one word: boundaries. Ever since he could recall, everyone around him had placed boundaries on his emotions, behavior, and thoughts. Telling him what he can or can’t do. What is or is not acceptable. In following those boundaries, he had not been his true self but a persona around everyone including you. That explained your behavior: you were confused as to who he really was and upset that he lied to you - concealed himself. Due to this, you had set boundaries around yourself, in order to understand him more. It all made sense. But there would be no need for that anymore. Between Taehyung and you, there were to be no more boundaries; emotionally, mentally, and/or physically. The two of you would give yourself to each other unconditionally so that nothing could ever tear you apart.

Taehyung knew that you needed time and he granted you what you desired. That doesn’t mean he needed to stop being a part of your life, it just meant you had to remain unaware that he was. It was quite easy. The city was full of people and after spending months there you too picked up on the habit of walking facing the ground and only paying attention to things directly in your line of vision. It aided a lot. He knew about everything: your university, internship, job, social life (or lack thereof), and even your sleeping problems. Taehyung found himself enjoying the city, it was full of people like him and they all blended so well into the society that they need not hide. He knew that this type of environment, however, was killing you. Still, where he lived no one would question if he came in carrying an unconscious girl or if he was soaked in blood, it was nice.

Finally, the day came, he had called human resources in your job anonymously threatening to file a report since in the three years you had been working there you’d never had a day off. He knew why you did it. It was a distraction from your thoughts and him, but it would be more suspicious if you suddenly didn’t show up to work the next day. He planned to break in the middle of the night, but he thought that if there was any possibility you would be awake he’d take it just to see your reaction. It was perfect. It reminded him of the first time the two of you met and had him longing for the old days. So much so that when he grasped you in his arms he whispered the words that had started it all. The ones that made him fall for you. The ones that sealed your fate. Taehyung lifted you in his arms and carried you out of the apartment, heading to your new home excited for what would occur once he got there.

-

You awoke nude on a bed with your limbs tied forcefully apart. Your senses were still muddled as you tried to grasp what had happened and then you saw him. He entered in stark naked with a smile adorning his features, it was like his first smile so long ago. Once he saw that you were awake he rushed towards, jumping on the bed to straddle you and planting harsh unwanted kisses all over your face. “I’m so glad you’re awake y/n. Now we can get started.” His tone was light and playful, which only caused terror to grow in you. “Get started with what?” you asked softly, tears brimming your eyes as the devilish man leaned closer to you. He chuckled, “We’re getting rid of all the boundaries that have ever plagued us and stopped us from being truly happy.” His hands ran along your entire body and vile rose in your throat as the tears spilled. He didn’t notice or didn’t care. “First, we begin with emotional boundaries where we’ll be completely open and honest with each other. Then, the societal boundaries where we can indulge in our darkest desires. Finally, we’ll destroy your support system. Since your mind seems so keen on making you resist me, I’ll break it.”

You were openly sobbing now and thrashing against him, whilst he looked to be in heaven. His hands wrapped tightly around your throat constricting the air supply to some shallow breaths, “And if life is persistent in keeping us apart, then we’ll be together forever in death.” He squeezed until he felt your breathing halt and your eyes roll into the back of your head. You weren’t dead, merely in a temporary state of unconsciousness. When you woke up again - the real fun would begin.

[phoebewallerbrigde]

All For Us, (a Reddie x Euphoria HBO) fanfiction

"It was the end of summer, back-to-school was coming up, I had no intention of staying clean and Richie Trashmouth Tozier was back in Derry." 

Without any filter but with humor and franchise, here's the harsh coming of age story of Derry's youth through the eyes of Eddie Kaspbrak, 17, fresh out of rehab.

read it on AO3 || Explicit || 8k || 1/?

Hope you like it guys !

There was a time in my life where everything was fine, but that, that was before I was ripped out of my mother’s womb. Since then, it’s been shit.

Chapter 1 : Screwed.

I was born on September 3rd, 2002 in a world post 9/11 completely overwhelmed by the mourning and the duty of memory. It has been four months since Sam Raimi's Spiderman was at the top of the world box office and that Peter Parker had managed to give hope to America and New York. Far from everything and from New York, there was my mother and my father, and I was their Spiderman. Nice, huh? I don’t think so.

---

My life begins without warning with a childhood in a big house in the depths of America's asshole. Derry, Maine. A small town so small that everyone knows each other and knows everything. That’s where the problems start. My father became ill when I was 9 years old and my overprotective mother was already beginning to fall into what I call "parental and marital abuse". Life at home was absolutely not great, especially because of my "not fitting" behavior.

"Eddie-bear, is everything okay?" asked Sonia Kaspbrak worried.

A 10-year-old Eddie was still staring at the front door counting seconds every time he heard the clock tick of the dining room.

"Eddie-bear, look at me." she added in a calm voice. "You did not even touch your .."

Eddie turned her head to Sonia and began to cry at once. Sonia and Frank looked at each other in amazement, feeling completely helpless.

They did what every healthy-minded parent would do, choosing to consult several doctors, a psychologist and a children's psychiatrist. I wasn't physically abused, I always drank at least a liter of water a day, my mother prepared me good dishes, my father did not hit me... 

"Your son has OCD, ADHD and anxiety. He has a higher brain activity than the average child for his age, probably due to hypersensitivity and perhaps also to behavioral disorders... But he’s still too young to tell."

The psychiatrist's voice left a blank in the room and Sonia Kaspbrak burst into tears. Frank stroked his wife's back for reassurance and Eddie turned to his mother without understanding what was happening.

So why do I have this?

---

"Neuroatypical, you are neuroatypical, Eddie-bear."

Eddie mimicked his mother while eating his cereal bowl, she glanced him, he stopped and sighed.

"Show me your phone, I'll check your alarms."

An 11-year-old Eddie contemplated the capsules, pills and other medications that his mother was carefully distributing in each compartment of his medicine box. He handed him his yellow iPhone 5c that he had already unlocked on the alarms page.

"You have to take all your medicine, at the times indicated."

"I know, Ma."

Sonia looked at her son, who continued to eat with a peeved look on his face. She sat down beside him, putting down his cellphone and the box of compartmentalized tablets.

"You know ... there are lots of famous people like you - famous people, super creative and smart." She managed to catch Eddie's attention and then continued. "Look, your favorite actor who plays in The Truman Show for example."

"Jim Carrey?" 

"Yes!" exclaimed Sonia with a smile.

Yeah, and we all remember Jim Carrey during the 00s New Year Eve on David Letterman's set.

"A genius." ended Eddie with a smile before getting up and packing his box in his fanny pack.

I don’t really remember my pre-adolescence and all that time when I was 10 to 12. I mean, I remember my friends, how meaningless life was, how fast everything was falling apart for us because of daddy’s pneumonia, and how the world was going way too fast for my brain. And that sometimes, if I happened to think too much about everything, to concentrate too much on an smell or on the number of germs present under the table on which I wrote or on the strange way that I breathed ... I had a violent asthma attack. The space of a moment. But very quickly the space of a moment became all the time and all the time became a fight to fight these crises. And frankly...

"So this day, son?" Frank asked with a smile as Eddie walked into his room still dressed with his backpack.

He could hear his father listen to Queen and David Bowie's Under Pressure, one of his favorite songs who became one of his. That made him sketch a small smile.

"I'm fucking done with it."

--- 

I’m not necessarily proud of the choices I’ve made, but it wasn’t really like my mom didn’t push me. The house was full of meds. Meds here, meds there, meds in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the guest room, in the garage. My mother ordered meds profusely but gave me "gazebos" when I was perhaps the one who needed treatment the most. A treatment, I needed a treatment. I got it. It was there in front of me, everywhere, I knew every name and every dose of what the psychiatrist was giving me, it was not hard to remember, so I took it. I took but nothing. I did not feel any difference, the asthma attacks, the tremors, the sadness were still there. I took again and again and always more. When I went to the doctors, they increased the doses and I changed my mother's gazebos with my real meds. It made me feel something in the end, but it was too late, I was already addicted. But after all, is it really my fault? Oh, and I think we say "placebos".

12 years old and already on medication dependence. 13 years old and I stole my father’s morphine and other painkillers. 14 years old and I was asking for more with my psychotropics. 15 years old, I took my 1st taz and smoked my first joint. 16 years old and I sniffed my first rail, the first among others. That's why Georgie Denbrough found me unconscious in my own vomit. I had become a junkie ? I don’t know. I just liked the feeling. The feeling that it gave me, the nothingness. For once on earth, for as long as I can remember, I felt something new every time. It was this need that had led Georgie to scream with fear, which alerted Bill Denbrough to run to discover the disaster and tell him to look for my mother as he tried to wake me up. Poor Big Bill, he thought I was dead. I believed it, too.

I spent the whole summer in rehab after that, I never understood why. Well, I did but I didn’t think I was addicted to drugs. Drugs filled the gap that meds sometimes leave when it’s over. But I’ve learned that meds, too, are drugs.

"Eddie!"

"Georgie!"

Georgie ran into Eddie's arms, Eddie couldn’t help laughing and making remarks about how Georgie was almost ahead of him now. This made Bill laugh when he came to give him their secret handshake before taking the smallest in his arms.

"Hey!" whispered Eddie with a big smile.

Sonia in the distance watched her son squeeze the only two friends she had allowed to come with her to pick up Eddie, since they had been present and saved him with the accident. They ended up taking the road with them to their house. 

"I'm so happy you're back home, Eddie-darling, I missed you so much, never do that again, you gave me up for 3 long months, you realize, I could not to do nothing without you, I was so lonely and you know how much I hate it, never do that again, I made an appointment with the hospital for full exams and we will change you your doses, I will take good care of you my ... "

Eddie stopped paying attention to his mother, he looked around, Georgie and Bill cheerfully discussed everything Bill had planned to do to make up for lost time with Eddie. Not to mention the Losers, but Eddie figured out they were in. The brunette one landed on the windowsill and let the wind caress his face. He noticed in the distance a boy on a bicycle, this long and thin figure was telling him something. Brown curls, an alternative style between neglected but sought after, worn out converses, pale skin to death. Eddie’s eyes marveled at his sight when the car passed him. He felt his heartbeat accelerate and his heart pounding.

And that’s when the beginning of the end really began. It was the end of summer, back-to-school was coming up, I had no intention of staying clean and Richard Trashmouth Tozier was back in Derry. I had to talk to the one person who knew everything about everything.

---

"So ... How long have you been back among us? You have completely hidden your return." Mike asked, eating his salad.

"A week and I didn’t hide everything! I was in quarantine between the hospital and at home all week, thanks Ma. Bill didn’t tell you?" said Eddie watching Mike eat.

"Bill and I don’t really talk right now when we see each other. You know that."

Mike is probably the smartest person I know, yet he still didn’t dare tell the love of his life that he loved him. At the same time, he was living on a planet other than ours and didn’t really have time to be a normal high school student. It was easier to fuck Bill and continue to just be his bro than become his significant other. 

"Richie is back, by the way."

"Ah."

"Yup, he went to the farm and got a 50$ of weed. He didn’t even want me to give him a price."

"D'you know more?" "Hm... He’s already been here for two weeks. He seemed pretty happy to be back, California changes you a man." said Mike laughing what made Eddie smile. "We’ll see when we get back to school."

Eddie nodded at Mike.

"How are you feeling ?" Mike asked, carefully watching Eddie.

"Great since I gave my life to abstinence and I stopped jerking off." Eddie answered seriously.

"Oh ...... Cool, cool, cool, I'm really happy for you."

"Mike, I’m messing with you. You should see your face." Eddie laughed while Mike gave him a pat on the shoulder. " Anyway, that’s not all, but is your grandfather here, Vegemike?"

"Are you serious bro?"

"Hey, it's not because I'm doing a rehab that I'm going to stay clean."

"But.... Isn’t that the point of a rehab? I won’t let you do something stupid again."

"Come on, just weed."

"You do not like weed, Kaspbrak."

"Fine but can I at least have your cherry tomatoes?"

Mike nodded and smiled at his best friend who continued to eat his salad with him.

Something I missed this summer? My trips to the Hanlon farm. Mike being a divine cook and plus a vegan, obviously, his food was safe and harmless to me. And the Hanlon house was the best hostess for parties, it was big, rebuilt in recent years and far enough to be quiet. I must have missed a lot of parties, but if there was one coming up, Stanley Uris'. And if you thought I was gonna miss it, the last big party before school, so the most important one of the summer, you can suck my dick. That’s probably why that piece of shit of Henry Bowers brought his ass back to the farm. It’s a good thing the Hanlons were selling him their wares for twice as much.

"Yo, there you go! That’s his mama’s boy!" he cried as he entered the storefront. "I thought you were dead. Good, because my knife will be able to tate the ground."

"Go get your shit and get off him, dude."

"You’re lucky I haven’t touched you since you’re the best drug dealer in town, but don’t trust me, nig.."

Mike rose sharply and faced Bowers. His eyes were black and Bowers backed away.

"All right, all right, I’ll go."

I never liked Henry Bowers, and I truly believe no one has ever loved him. Even his father hates him. If you were looking for someone to identify as the rich cis hit white man in this city, it was him. He was "untouchable" or rather believed himself untouchable because his father was the most influential guy in the city. He had been sheriff but had ended up building his business and it had taken. It was quite unbelievable, however, now Bowers was living his best life and did not think he had to be accountable to anyone when he still had a mullet cut in 2019 and that he should clearly shut up the fuck up. Before, he harassed me as well as the rest of the Losers club, for my part I was entitled to homophobic insults in profusion. But one day we humiliated him front of his friends. Since then he has left us alone and yesterday’s nerds his become today’s popular. Karma, as they say.

 ---

It was about to get dark in a few hours, a young man was cycling in the streets of Derry. He was tall, fine and handsome. A car passed by him and he was destabilized.

"Back among us, motherfucker, this is my secret sauce as a welcome gift, Tozier!"

Bowers' voice was loud and Hockstetter's laugh had not failed him. Richie had managed to avoid the milkshake he had sent him. He gave him fingers as he went away and Richie sighed on his way home. He passed by the kitchen and dropped off his racing bag and went to his room where he threw himself into his bed. He took out his phone and went straight to Grindr. Richie was scrolling, watching nudes, messages, chatting with people, going from Grindr to Tinder, and finally finding happiness. For tonight, anyway, then took a nap.

If there was anyone that nobody expected to see again in Derry, it was Richie fucking  Tozier. He told me he was back from his parents' divorce. His father had kept the old family house in which he lived in Derry. Something must have happened with his mother in California because Richie preferred to come and live with his father in our good ol' Derry, but he refused to tell me what happened. That Tozier really is a moron.

Richie awoke. It was already 7 pm. He sighed, got up, went downstairs to eat with his father who had prepared some homemade pizzas and then went back to his room. It was 8 pm. He got motivated, launched his "Party times" playlist which debuted on Plus Putes Que Toutes Les Putes from the French band Orties. He took a shower and picked out an outfit. When he found the right one, he couldn’t help but smile. A black wide sweater with a yellow stripe in the middle and "The villa hopes" written on it, simple black slim jeans, red socks and its Converses x 70 x OFF Springs Velour Patchwork. He rolled up his sleeves, made himself up by putting on black, blue, yellow and red eyeliner to make an editiorial makeup, nothing too dramatic. He was dancing in front of his mirror and laughing. He passed his hands several times without his brown curls, put big silver rings on his fingers and finally put on his necklaces including his favorite, the one with a red balloon pendant. He took his Lacoste fanny pack and while looking at it, he had a little smile thinking of the one person who had never stopped wearing these before it became trendy again. He went down the stairs and fell on his father.

"Oh, look at yourself ! So, where are you going?" asked Wenthworth Tozier while observing his son.

Richie arrived in front of his father after crossing the living room. They lived in a beautiful house, quite luxurious from the outside as well as the inside. Richie hugged his father to reassure him.

"To a party, with friends."

"Friends ?"

"Yes, my old friends, dad."

Wenthworth nodded and Richie waved his hand with his index finger and middle finger at his temple before moving them away.

"Watch out, have fun and protect yourself, Rich!"

Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Tozier, Richie was sure to protect himself properly with those Saint Laurent condoms in his bag.

Richie smiled at his father before taking his bike and leaving.

Richie did not want his return to make too much noise. Yet it was all the opposite effect. Everyone who had lived in Derry between 2002 and 2016, so everyone, knew Richie Trashmouth Tozier. The first to know about Richie's return was Ben. Simply because the two were following the same two-week artistic summer course that the school had organized. It was a little stupid because Richie was a little genius despite appearances and Ben was just good at everything without having to force. At least Ben had been able to reconnect with Richie and pass the information to the rest of Losers, but except me, of course.

When he arrived in front of a hotel in the city, he smiled at the message of the chosen one and sent a message to Ben.

[Forget me for tonight, I have a date.]

Ben glanced at his phone, and then at Beverly. Both exchanged suspicious looks.

"What’s going on?" Beverly asked.

"It’s Richie. He says he’s not coming tonight."

"What did you told him?" Beverly looked at herself in the mirror.

"Nothing! He’s just gonna do his little business with someone."

"Oh okay, chill, he’ll come later. Why you scare us like that!" replied Beverly getting close to Ben to give him a kiss on the cheek.

Ben went red in action and Betty Ripsom made a disgusting sound. Beverly stopped to look at the brunette, she had completely forgotten her presence. After all, it was her who'll dropped them off at Stanley’s. "Stop. You’ll do the same thing tonight and even more," she said looking at her.

In case you're wondering, yes, Ben is in love with Bev. For far too long for me to remember. For Bev, however, nobody really knows. Bev is a mystery to everyone, I still wonder why she's friends with us. She's a cheerleader, she's so popular, much more than Mike or Bill or Stan. She has a reputation behind her, yet it has never stopped her from being the baddest bitch in town. A real rolemodel to the twink that I am. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that she was fake dated for a month with Bowers just for a bet and it lasted until today, well, until two days ago. She still made 200 dollars on it every month.

"You slept with Bowers, you do not have the right to speak." Betty retorted.

"A hand job. It was a hand job and it happened once during the 3 months of the bet. Then anyway, Bowers is a clown. It’s not Penny Wise who’s gonna say otherwise. I was able to take away as much as I could before I dumped him. And tonight, we move on." she said, turning to Ben.

"Yes, that’s what everyone wants to hear! Shit Ben, tonight you have to fuck! Not just a handjob or a blowjob! It’s not the '80s anymore, you have to catch some pussy."

Ben smiled slightly embarrassed and turned to Beverly who grinned while listening to Betty. He totally ignored Betty’s words, then lowered his head, a little disappointed. He really wanted to disappear underground at this very moment.

In his place, I’d like to, too. Thank you, Betty.

 ---

"Ma ? I’m leaving."

"Where, Eddie-bear? And so late? You can’t leave me like this." Sonia said as her son came into the living room. "And dressed like that? You look like a bad boy, I don’t like it."

"That’s my usual style, Ma. It’s only 10 pm and I’m going to Bill’s. Don’t wait for me and don’t panic. And yes, I took my medicine with me and my insulin just in case. See you, Ma."

A 16-year-old Eddie closed the front door and leaned back against it, looking down the street and sighing. He was divinely handsome, he had combed his hair, put glitter on his eyes and mascara which gave him an even more intense look. He had put on a silk shirt with patterns like the rich women's scarves, the colors were soft and pastel like salmon, beige, yellow or baby blue but it contrasted with his lame bomber and his slightly tanned and brilliant skin. With that, he had put some necklaces and he also let see his chest. He was wearing his white low converses and black skinny ripped jeans. He took a puff from his inhaler and looked at his bike lying on the ground. He turned his head away and began to walk. He took out his airpods and launched one of his Daily Mix on Spotify, he closed his eyes at Alphaville's Forever Young.

It is never easy to leave this house with a mother as unbearable as mine. In fact, I lied. I’m not going to go to Bill’s, it would be too much of a detour. We’ll meet at the party. I preferred to walk because when I drink, I don’t take the road because...

All the times he passed out, in the middle of the road completely drunk, kept coming to his mind as a nightmare.

You got it, anyway. I know, you're surprised that I drink, but alcohol is pretty much the same as my meds. Except for beer, I hate beer.

Eddie was quietly walking around, dancing, listening to Rubberband Man from the Spinners, and clearly living his best life. When a noisy car because of the music made itself heard more and more as it passed by. The passengers listened to Dang! of Mac Miller and that made Eddie smile, he loved Mac Miller.

"Oh my god, stop the car." exclaimed Beverly. "I said stop the car, Betty."

"Why ?" Betty asked, slowing down.

"We just passed Eddie Kaspbrak!" said Ben looking in through the back window.

"Oh my God! I think he was dead." Betty laughed.

"Shut up. You should be the one to die, Ripsom." Ben replied.

Eddie walked in front of them, not paying attention.

"Yo, the comeback!" yelled Beverly what pulled Eddie out of his music.

He turned to her and looked at her with a smile. She had a big smile and he leaned towards her.

"It’s good to see you again, we missed you." she said in all sincerity.

Ben nodded, which made Eddie smile, he almost had tears in his eyes. His best friends had not forgotten him.

"Are you being dropped somewhere?" Betty Ripsom asked.

"Well, thank you !"

Eddie waved to him and Ben opened the back door. He got into beautiful Betty's Volvo and Bev turned to him.

"What the hell are you listening to? Certainly not the New Kids On The Block." She said looking at Ben who shook his head negatively by squinting his eyes.

Eddie looked at his iPhone 8, Rubberband Man was finished, he pouted at the next song.

"London Calling." he answered hesitantly.

"Perfect."

The music started in the car, all four began to jam in the car while singing.

The party was already in full swing when I arrived with the others. Stan’s house was shining from the outside and eclipsing all the other houses, it was beautiful to see. From the inside, it looked like it was going to explode. In every room, chaos. A kind of stifling heat emanated as Megan Thee Stallion’s Hot Girl Summer filled the house. The minute Stan’s eyes crossed mine, he left Patricia for my arms. It was nice, it wasn’t every day that Staniel gave you a hug.

"Oh, fuck, Edward Kaspbrak himself, that's crazy, I .. I'm so happy to see you!" Stan shouted in his arms. Stan held him so tight that Eddie felt he was going to choke him. He must have been a little drunk. He was wearing a stretch short-sleeved shirt in washed jeans with black pants and chelsea boots. It was divine.

He had always been, it was Stan, he could afford it. He was smart, mature, funny, an excellent counselor, the mom of the group and he also organized the best parties in high school. How having money is really cool.

"Hey everyone! Look who’s back! To Eddie!" shouted Bev while lifting up her shot of tequila in the air.

The people present in the room did the same and repeated these two words at the same time. Bill raised his glass in my direction, he gave me a big smile and I was a little embarrassed. Everyone drank their glasses. Bev gave me a shot of tequila, everyone was looking at me now. It was weird. Being the center of attention is clearly not my stuff. But, I drank that shot and after that, everyone screamed for joy. Bev gave me a hug, then Mike just added himself to the hug, then Bill and then Stan. The Losers were together and I could clearly hear Billie Eilish’s Bellyache in my head.

---

The hotel was rather classy, the room too, thought Richie. He did not know that places like this existed in Derry. The chosen one was therefore fortunate. When he returned from a room that served as a kitchen with two glasses of champagne. Richie looked at him carefully, he liked to sleep with older men, but he never imagined that Butch Bowers was that kind of man.

Thank you." he said, looking at the man standing in front of him.

"Your face is familiar to me, have we ever seen each other?" Butch asked, looking at Richie.

Later, Riche told me that at the moment he wanted to say yes. He really should have done it.

"Not that I remember."

Butch nodded and drank his glass of champagne.

Richie had said he was 18, technically he was not lying, he was actually going to have them. The knowledge. And Richie was consenting.

Butch watched Richie.

"We will not fuck, you're too young."

Richie nodded, he avoided swallowing.

"I envy your generation, however. When I see you, I see two life choices."

He stroked Richie's cheek, then his lips with his thumb. Richie was looking at him almost religiously. There was a kind of tension in the room. They were not going to sleep together, but it was almost as if. In a parallel dimension, it was happening.

"You can leave, live an extremely beautiful life elsewhere, be fully yourself, find love, or you can stay here and end up like me, hanging out in fancy hotels." Butch continued looking at Richie's eyes.

"Both choices are possible." retorted Richie.

Butch's thumb sank into Richie's mouth.

"If only I could, I'd smash you." he said in a low voice.

Richie closed his eyes. He could not really say what he was looking for in this kind of completely barge plan. But there was so much he was looking for. One was definitely that special bond he had once bonded with a unique person in his life. When both made leave of this vocal flirtation, this visual fuck. Richie put California by Lana Del Rey in his ears. 

He looked at the door of the closed bathroom because the chosen one was taking a shower, he must have met someone before him and shoot his shot. Richie looked at his phone and left the room without making a noise. Once outside the hotel, he lit a cigarette. He took a few steps to his bike, when the song ended, the cigarette was too. He changed his song and went straight to Stan's house.

And there. The evening went fucking nuts.

The huge stairs in Stan's house were flooded and mobilized by people kissing, drinking or whatever. The music was in full swing, Eddie did not know the song, but he would have sworn it was one of the songs that Mike composed during his free time. He pushed people a bit to pass and went to the nearest toilet. He closed the door and looked at himself in the mirror before taking a breath of his ventoline. He kept looking in his bag with a tiny vial of white powder inside. There was almost nothing, but it did not matter because Eddie knew it was extremely strong. He spread it on a small spatula attached to his keychain which he had disinfected before and sniffed everything. He ran a hand through his hair and left the room. The sensations becoming stronger, his brain seemed to be reviving.

Blackbear’s Hot Girl Bummer burst into his ears. Suddenly, the world around him seemed to be totally out of sync with him. He almost lost his balance. Standing on the wall, clinging to people, Eddie laughed. The world revolved around him and he danced on the music that filled his brain.

All you need to know is that there are several versions of what happened tonight. It all depends on who tells you the story and... I’m not necessarily the most reliable narrator for this evening. But what I can assure you is that Bowers screwed up.

Bowers had been drinking since before with the party. He spent the night looking for Beverly and she wasn’t that hard to find she was in the Uris pool. Even wet, she was still the most beautiful girl of the party. She made a fairly simple make up. You’d think she had nothing if you didn’t know the basics of makeup. She was having fun with Betty and Audra Phillips, Bill’s ex, by doing a water fight and singing along on to Russ’s Do It Myself. And who knows why, Bowers as the fragile man that he is, wanted to break the moment.

"Slut!" he shouted as he reached the terrace.

He pointed to Beverly who turned to him.

"Yes ?" she replied, with a great deal of irony, a smile on her lips.

Everyone laughed and scolded Beverly's name. Bowers turned speechless. Beverly's smile widens.

"Well then, 2 minutes 30 lost his big mouth?" she said, coming out of the water and facing Bowers. "That is what I thought."

Everyone was watching the confrontation carefully. The first one since Beverly dumped Bowers and announced that it was all just a bet between her and Stan.

"Shut the fuck up, you only suck anyway."

"How could you know that since I would never suck you Henry Bowers? Now, please stop humiliating yourself in public. Go back to Greta Keene and forget about me, okay."

Bowers wanted to fight back but Beverly pushed him into the water and Georgie grabbed his leg to make it easier for him to fall. Everyone shouted and laughed. Stanley stood up and turned away from Mike, Bill and Eddie and apologized to see what was going on with Beverly.

"Really ?" He asked.

"You'll pay me Losers." he said as he stepped out of the pool and back inside.

Losers: 1. Bowers: 0. The school year is starting well.

Bill and Mike were laughing and Eddie smiled at Beverly.

It was at that moment that they concluded. The funny thing is that Bill, when he's alcoholic, totally loses his stuttering. So it was amazing to hear him speak clearly to Mike, especially when it was a rim job. I would have preferred not to be here to hear that. But I'm sure I heard a "I love you Mikey" so finally it was worth it.

"Everything's okay, bro?" asked Mike, noticing his presence again.

"Yeah.. Yeah, that’s fine... Glad to see you two are okay." he said, smiling and watching Bill blush.

At the same time, there was another one for whom things were going well. Ben Hanscom. Ben was playing truth or dare in one of the upstairs rooms with several of the Cheerios like Myra Stonehart or some of the guys from our class. Normally, truth or dare was the game we used to play when we were playing between us only, but here, it turned into a conversation about sex. And Ben Hanscom wasn’t a pro on the subject.

"What are you really virgin?" asked one of the guys in the discussion. "And do not say that a pipe, that counts."

"It counts." retorted Myra.

"You know nothing about it Myra. You're the one who wants to fuck Eddie Kaspbrak while everyone knows he's gay and clearly not interested."

Myra looked up at the skies with a grin.

"Who are you saving yourself for, man?" asked another one of the guys.

Beverly Marsh.

"No one. I’m just waiting for the right moment." Ben replied.

"Like, now’s not a good time?" asked another cheerleader. "If, I asked you to sleep with me tonight, what would you say?"

Ben blinked several times at Anna’s question and remained speechless.

Of course, Ben is an eternal romantic. He writes rose water's poems, appreciates courteous love stories and is much stronger when it comes to putting his thoughts on paper than saying it out loud. But, Ben Hanscom was definitely not a coward. He was just a virgin in a society where we wanted boys to breathe and eat porn all day long.

Anna leaned back to Ben.

"You’re super cute, Ben. You used to be before you started working out. In 5 years you’ll be a sex bomb and I want my cut now." she said in a rather serious tone.

The whole room was breathless, Anna was one of the sexiest girls in high school. Ben nodded softly and Anna smiled.

"Everybody clear this room now!"

---

While Ben surely lived what would be one of the most memorable evenings of his life. Richie Tozier had arrived at the party, and I was sprawled on that couch by the pool watching Mike and Bill be in love. Shit, I want what they have. At the same time, Beverly was playing in the pool with Audra and Betty, but you already know the rest.

"By the way, Eddie, you owe me 120 bucks." Mike said looking at his friend.

"Yeah, but I thought our friendship and the fact that I'm alive made up for that." Eddie replied.

"If you say so." Bill replied.

Stan came to join them.

"Frankly, Eddie, I missed you, we missed you all, it was not the same this summer without you, your drug stories make me feel bad."

"Aw Stan, don’t be sentimental."

"No, that’s not it. I love you, man, but... you really scared us." he said, taking a break before turning to Eddie.

Mike and Bill nodded in agreement with Stan.

"We thought you were dead. And seriously, Eddie, I’ve seen a lot of people die, but I would never agree to see you die for that. I’ve seen a lot of people die, but not people like you." Mike added. "I don’t know exactly what’s going on with your brain, but I can tell you one thing, drugs and getting high is not your solution."

A blank settled in between these four. He was not unpleasant, on the contrary. It was peaceful. They watched Beverly and Bowers fight.

"There’s one thing I remember... it happened when I was nine years old, shortly after my father was diagnosed. We were told that he was going to get better, I mean, that he had a chance of getting better. So, we celebrated it, we went to New York, seven hours back and forth. One of the best moments of my life. I told my dad that when I grew up, I would go to New York and live there."

Eddie’s voice started shaking and Stan gently shook his hand.

"Then we came home and I remember... that night, I slept with my parents and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. As if there was no oxygen in the world. My parents called the ambulance thinking I had a violent asthma attack. At the hospital, they gave me opium. Liquid. To calm me down and... then I thought, 'Okay, so that’s what I need'. Not mom’s medicine. That. Because all of a sudden, it was as if everything had become simpler. The noise, the voices in my head, everything was gone. Everything. Being in my head wasn’t a problem anymore. Four years later, he passed away and the asthma attacks that were actually anxiety and panic attacks continued. But that’s okay. I found a way to survive. I have you, guys. I have my psychiatrist. My medecine. Maybe it will kill me..."

Stan kissed Eddie's hand in support then got up and went to see the mess with Bev.

"Hey! Don’t say that!" yelled Bill slowly to Eddie before giving him a pat on his head.

"Touch me again in that ugly mustard buffalo shirt and I’ll kill you, Big Bill." Eddie laughed.

The three friends focused on the story of Bev and Bowers. Then Eddie stood up to give his best friends more privacy. Bowers had stormed into Stan’s apartment in the kitchen to get drunk. Blur’s Girls and Boys was in full swing throughout the house and the first thing Bowers did was not to drink, but to sweep a few bottles here and there with the back of his arm. Eddie and Stan followed Bowers wanting to throw him out of the party and Beverly Marsh had left the pool to annoy Mike and Bill that she had dragged inside after getting dressed.

"Get out of the kitchen!" screamed Bowers scaring everyone. " Get the fuck out."

The people around him backed back carefully to avoid getting a piece of glass, while watching Bowers lose it. Richie dug himself into a corner of the kitchen staring at Bowers totally destabilized by his behavior. Eddie, Stan, Mike, Bill and Bev entered the crowd.

"What's your fucking problem?" he said looking at Richie.

Richie looked at the sides and then looked at Bowers, he didn’t know what to say.

"Why are you here?" he says, moving forward and sticking to him. "Huh? You can't speak ? Aren't you Trashmouth Tozier for nothing?"

At the Trashmouth name agreement, Eddie’s attention got bigger. Shit, what is Richie doing here ?

"Can I know who invited you? You don’t even have any friends here. Everyone forgot you."

"Listen, uh. I don’t want any trouble, I just want to spend a chill night in my corner." Richie said, looking him in the eye.

He didn’t even blink.

"People like you are not here to stay in their corners. You are a problem here, you see, nobody answers. Nobody!" he shouted at Richie.

Richie grabbed the first kitchen knife and pointed it at Bowers, who backed away.

"You think you scare me? You think you scare me, Bowers? You know what we do to sons of cops like you in California?" yelled Richie in turn as he moved towards Bowers. "Back the fuck up!"

"I was fucking kidding. I was fucking kidding !"

"I’m not afraid of you, Bowers."

"W-put the knife down, okay? Put it down! I was laughing."

"You want to hurt me? You have no idea who I am." Richie yelled when he put the knife down.

At the same time he cut his hand without intentionally doing with one of the glass pieces of broken bottles. The spectators cried out in complete shock at this spectacle.

"You see. I absolutely don’t feel pain."

"Are you fucking crazy or something, Loser !?" added Bowers.

Bowers stood in his trembling corner, everyone watching the scene between confusion, admiration, shock and total chaos.

"No, I’m Richie Tozier. And it’s good to be home. Great party tho, Stan the man !" he said while smiling before leaving the room.

Oh yeah... fuck me.

Eddie quietly left his friends after that.

Ben came back down the stairs and saw Richie leave the party in fury.

"What did I miss?" Ben asked Mike.

"Where were you, man? You missed the craziest thing ever !" Mike asked Ben.

"I took care of my business."

Mike stares at Ben not fully understanding what Ben meant.

"I’ve lost my virginity."

"What? With whom?" asked Mike.

"Anna Addams."

"Wow. The Anna Addams?" he said with a smile. Ben confirmed by nodding his head, then Mike took him in his arms. "Well! Congratulations! How was it?"

"You should ask her."

Mike laughed and joined Stan in the kitchen. Stan gave Bowers a broom, cleaning supplies and a shovel.

"Clean up, or I’m going to get Richie." Stan said with a black look and a cold, stern voice.

Bowers took them and resigned himself. He glanced at Mike, Mike supported him, and Bowers resigned himself.

"I will stay in case you botch the job. Oh, after that, you and your friends will leave the party. Thank you." added Stan who was joined by Patricia, his girlfriend.

---

Eddie came out of the Uris house looking for Richie Tozier. He found him quite quickly getting his bike back.

"Hm... is everything all right?" Eddie asked while watching Richie.

Oh my God.

"Uh, yeah, it's good, don’t worry, m... Eddie Spaghetti?"

Richie smiled and blinked several times before moistening his lips. His smile came back, but this time in a corner one. He watched Eddie attentively, capturing every detail of his face. His hair was slightly unscrewed, his mascara had dripped a little and mixed with the glitter on his eyes. His pink lips, his freckles, his smile. Richie hugged him.

Wow. I think I’m getting hard.

"Yes yes, it’s m... Hey, don’t call me that!"

"You look good. It just smelled like trouble in here."

Eddie opened his eyes and began to blush slightly.

"Thank you, you’re not bad either... Yes! Yes, I understand your action. It’s just what you did... It was deadly classy."

The two stared at each other for a moment. Richie noticed the necklace on Eddie’s red balloon pendant.

"You still have it! That’s so cool."

"Oh the necklace? Yes! I’m not leaving it. You too, from what I see! You... you’re going somewhere?"

"At my place." Richie replied.

"I.. Can I come?"

"Yeah, of course! But your mother ? How is she since the last time I fucked her ?" Richie asked while mocking Eddie.

"Fuck my mother."

Yeah, fuck my mom. I found back the only boy I’ve ever loved in my entire life, looking like a fucking greek god and I still have to think about my mom ? Not today, Ma, not today.

The two took the road on Richie’s bike. Bowie’s Heroes passed on Eddie’s little JBL bluetooth speaker. Then, Richie suggested him to put Eddy de Preto's Fête de Trop. He was thrilled, clinging to Richie’s waist and resting his head on his back. He had strangely waited for this moment all week. It may not have happened the way he hoped, but Eddie was appeased.

Once they entered the Tozier house, they both went up to Richie’s room. Not much had changed compared to before, it was perhaps closer and more harmonious. Richie undressed and changed into pajamas, Eddie did his best not to look and Richie laughed at him. He gave her one of his sweaters that turned out to be too big for him, but anyway, he loved it and Richie loved seeing Eddie like that. He was just so...

"Cute. You’re so cute, Eds!"

"Stop it, won't you ?!"

Eddie rushed to clean Richie’s wound and apply a bandage with his first aid kit. Richie teased him by calling him Doctor K. and it was like Richie never left Derry. Richie had always been there somewhere and Eddie had seen him become a young man. Once the wound was cleaned and dressed. They took off their makeup and then the two men went face to face in Richie’s bed. They didn’t really need to talk to each other to say all the things they had on their hearts. They both laughed and Eddie snuggled in Richie’s arms. Nothing has changed. They still liked sleeping together. They still loved each other.

Mike, Bill and Georgie went home to the Denbroughs, Georgie fell asleep in the car, but Bill took him to his room quietly and then brought Mike in, then in his room where for the first time they spent the night talking when they were only the two of them.

Bev had gone home in the early morning and managed to miraculously avoid her father. She took off her makeup and changed her clothes at Stan’s after helping her clean everything up.

Ben had slept at Stan’s with Anna and had also cleaned everything with Betty, Patricia, Myra and others who had planned a sleepover at his house.

Bowers didn’t go home after cleaning up Stan’s kitchen, he went to Hockstetter’s to get drunk until the morning. Humiliated, uprooted, and completely high. He was severely taken back by his father and mother but especially by his father and went to his bedroom having already found his future victim for the year.

The next day, Richie and Eddie woke up early. Richie stopped by to brush his teeth and wash himself because Eddie forced him to do it and then Eddie did the same. Once back in Richie’s room, Eddie stared at him as he sat on his bed.

"I have an idea." he said softly.

"What?" Richie asked while stroking his hair softly.

"Wanna get high?"

[strike-back-now-info]

TRUMP DID WHAT?? 🤔

Dude has been in office for 3 years…. what has he done? Other than dodging the darts the media and Pelosi have thrown?!? what have PRESIDENT TRUMP and his cabinet accomplished…..

Here you go.

* Trump recently signed 3 bills to benefit Native people. One gives compensation to the Spokane tribe for loss of their lands in the mid-1900s, one funds Native language programs, and the third gives federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana.

* Trump finalized the creation of Space Force as our 6th Military branch.

* Trump signed a law to make cruelty to animals a federal felony so that animal abusers face tougher consequences.👀👀

* Violent crime has fallen every year he’s been in office after rising during the 2 years before he was elected.

* Trump signed a bill making CBD and Hemp legal.👀👀

* Trump’s EPA gave $100 million to fix the water infrastructure problem in Flint, Michigan.

* Under Trump’s leadership, in 2018 the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil.

* Trump signed a law ending the gag orders on Pharmacists that prevented them from sharing money-saving information.

* Trump signed the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), which includes the “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) which both give law enforcement and victims new tools to fight sex trafficking.👀👀

* Trump signed a bill to require airports to provide spaces for breastfeeding Moms.

* The 25% lowest-paid Americans enjoyed a 4.5% income boost in November 2019, which outpaces a 2.9% gain in earnings for the country’s highest-paid workers.

* Low-wage workers are benefiting from higher minimum wages and from corporations that are increasing entry-level pay.

* Trump signed the biggest wilderness protection & conservation bill in a decade and designated 375,000 acres as protected land.

* Trump signed the Save our Seas Act which funds $10 million per year to clean tons of plastic & garbage from the ocean.👀👀

* He signed a bill this year allowing some drug imports from Canada so that prescription prices would go down.

* Trump signed an executive order this year that forces all healthcare providers to disclose the cost of their services so that Americans can comparison shop and know how much less providers charge insurance companies.

* When signing that bill he said no American should be blindsided by bills for medical services they never agreed to in advance.

* Hospitals will now be required to post their standard charges for services, which include the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept.

* In the eight years prior to President Trump’s inauguration, prescription drug prices increased by an average of 3.6% per year. Under Trump, drug prices have seen year-over-year declines in nine of the last ten months, with a 1.1% drop as of the most recent month.

* He created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.👀👀

* VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.

* Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.

* Because of a bill signed and championed by Trump, In 2020, most federal employees will see their pay increase by an average of 3.1% — the largest raise in more than 10 years.

* Trump signed into a law up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave for millions of federal workers.

* Trump administration will provide HIV prevention drugs for free to 200,000 uninsured patients per year for 11 years.👀👀

* All-time record sales during the 2019 holidays.

* Trump signed an order allowing small businesses to group together when buying insurance to get a better price👀👀

* President Trump signed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act that provides funding for states to develop maternal mortality reviews to better understand maternal complications and identify solutions & largely focuses on reducing the higher mortality rates for Black Americans.

* In 2018, President Trump signed the groundbreaking First Step Act, a criminal justice bill which enacted reforms that make our justice system fairer and help former inmates successfully return to society.

* The First Step Act’s reforms addressed inequities in sentencing laws that disproportionately harmed Black Americans and reformed mandatory minimums that created unfair outcomes.👀👀

* The First Step Act expanded judicial discretion in sentencing of non-violent crimes.

* Over 90% of those benefiting from the retroactive sentencing reductions in the First Step Act are Black Americans.

* The First Step Act provides rehabilitative programs to inmates, helping them successfully rejoin society and not return to crime.

* Trump increased funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by more than 14%.👀👀

* Trump signed legislation forgiving Hurricane Katrina debt that threatened HBCUs.

* New single-family home sales are up 31.6% in October 2019 compared to just one year ago.

* Made HBCUs a priority by creating the position of executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs.

* Trump received the Bipartisan Justice Award at a historically black college for his criminal justice reform accomplishments.

* The poverty rate fell to a 17-year low of 11.8% under the Trump administration as a result of a jobs-rich environment.👀👀

* Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels since the U.S. began collecting such data.

* President Trump signed a bill that creates five national monuments, expands several national parks, adds 1.3 million acres of wilderness, and permanently reauthorises the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

* Trump’s USDA committed $124 Million to rebuild rural water infrastructure.👀👀

* Consumer confidence & small business confidence is at an all time high.

* More than 7 million jobs created since election.

* More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.

* More than 400,000 manufacturing jobs created since his election.

* Trump appointed 5 openly gay ambassadors.👀👀

* Trump ordered Ric Grenell, his openly gay ambassador to Germany, to lead a global initiative to decriminalise homosexuality across the globe.

* Through Trump’s Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam) initiative, Federal law enforcement more than doubled convictions of human traffickers and increased the number of defendants charged by 75% in ACTeam districts.

* In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismantled an organization that was the internet’s leading source of prostitution-related advertisements resulting in sex trafficking.

* Trump’s OMB published new anti-trafficking guidance for government procurement officials to more effectively combat human trafficking.

* Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arrested 1,588 criminals associated with Human Trafficking.

* Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services provided funding to support the National Human Trafficking Hotline to identify perpetrators and give victims the help they need.

* The hotline identified 16,862 potential human trafficking cases.

* Trump’s DOJ provided grants to organizations that support human trafficking victims – serving nearly 9,000 cases from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.👀👀

* The Department of Homeland Security has hired more victim assistance specialists, helping victims get resources and support.

* President Trump has called on Congress to pass school choice legislation so that no child is trapped in a failing school because of his or her zip code.👀👀

* The President signed funding legislation in September 2018 that increased funding for school choice by $42 million.

* The tax cuts signed into law by President Trump promote school choice by allowing families to use 529 college savings plans for elementary and secondary education.👀👀

* Under his leadership ISIS has lost most of their territory and been largely dismantled.

* ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed.

* Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorizing since 2006, authorising more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.

* Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.

* Trump issued an Executive Order prohibiting the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith.

* Signed an executive order that allows the government to withhold money from college campuses deemed to be anti-Semitic and who fail to combat anti-Semitism.

* President Trump ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.

* Trump imposed sanctions on the socialists in Venezuela who have killed their citizens.

* Finalised new trade agreement with South Korea.

* Made a deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.👀👀

* Withdrew the U.S. from the job killing TPP deal.

* Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.

* Okay’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.👀👀

* Has had over a dozen US hostages freed, including those Obama could not get freed.

* Trump signed the Music Modernisation Act, the biggest change to copyright law in decades.

* Trump secured Billions that will fund the building of a wall at our southern border.

* The Trump Administration is promoting second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.

* Trump’s DOJ and the Board Of Prisons launched a new “Ready to Work Initiative” to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.👀👀

* President Trump’s historic tax cut legislation included new Opportunity Zone Incentives to promote investment in low-income communities across the country.

* 8,764 communities across the country have been designated as Opportunity Zones.

* Opportunity Zones are expected to spur $100 billion in long-term private capital investment in economically distressed communities across the country.

* Trump directed the Education Secretary to end Common Core.👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

* Trump signed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund into law.

* Trump signed measure funding prevention programs for Veteran suicide.👀👀

* Companies have brought back over a TRILLION dollars from overseas because of the TCJA bill that Trump signed.

* Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than 30 years.

* Stock Market has reached record highs.

* Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.

* African-American unemployment is at an all time low.

* Hispanic-American unemployment is at an all time low.

* Asian-American unemployment is at an all time low.

* Women’s unemployment rate is at a 65-year low.

* Youth unemployment is at a 50-year low.

* We have the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.

* The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans.

* 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future— the highest ever.

* As a result of the Republican tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.👀👀

* Record number of regulations eliminated that hurt small businesses.

* Signed welfare reform requiring able-bodied adults who don’t have children to work or look for work if they’re on welfare.🙌🙌

* Under Trump, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history.

* Reformed Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs—saving seniors 100’s of millions of $$$ this year alone.👀👀

* Signed Right-To-Try legislation allowing terminally ill patients to try experimental treatment that wasn’t allowed before.

* Secured $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.❤️❤️

* Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.👀👀

* U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high so we are less dependent on oil from the Middle East.

* The U.S. is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.

* NATO allies increased their defense spending because of his pressure campaign.

* Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord in 2017 and that same year the U.S. still led the world by having the largest reduction in Carbon emissions.👀👀

* Has his circuit court judge nominees being confirmed faster than any other new administration.

* Had his Supreme Court Justice’s Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh confirmed.

* Moved U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.👀👀

* Agreed to a new trade deal with Mexico & Canada that will increase jobs here and $$$ coming in.

* Reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports.

* Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices, has agreed to a Part One trade deal with China.

* Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.👀👀

* Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.

* The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump doubled the maximum amount of the child tax credit available to parents and lifted the income limits so more people could claim it.

* It also created a new tax credit for other dependents.

* In 2018, President Trump signed into law a $2.4 billion funding increase for the Child Care and Development Fund, providing a total of $8.1 billion to States to fund child care for low-income families.

* The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) signed into law by Trump provides a tax credit equal to 20-35% of child care expenses, $3,000 per child & $6,000 per family + Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) allow you to set aside up to $5,000 in pre-tax $ to use for child care.

* In 2019 President Donald Trump signed the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act (CARES) into law which allocates $1.8 billion in funding over the next five years to help people with autism spectrum disorder and to help their families.👀👀

* In 2019 President Trump signed into law two funding packages providing nearly $19 million in new funding for Lupus specific research and education programs, as well an additional $41.7 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the most Lupus funding EVER.

* Another upcoming accomplishment to add: In the next week or two Trump will be signing the first major anti-robocall law in decades called the TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.) Once it’s thelaw, the TRACED Act will extend the period of time the FCC has to catch & punish those who intentionally break telemarketing restrictions. The bill also requires voice service providers to develop a framework to verify calls are legitimate before they reach your phone.