#it was also a byproduct of taking that semester off. no way i could do that now.

[orcelito]

Smth I sometimes do that always makes me laugh. When I have little bits of free time, I'll often spend them rereading over my current WIP chapter for minor edits & maybe doing a bit of writing if I can get into it enough. It's on my docs app, but it's essentially reading fic, so I'll sometimes switch apps for whatever reason, then to try to go back to reading... I'll click on my internet browser, rather than the docs app, bc that is the Place To Read Fics in my brain

Then I stare at a page that is NOT what I was just looking and. And I Remember.

[unwrittenlibrary]

Champagne Problems

Summary: a companion piece to What Kind of Man. Harry never meant for things to end up this way. 

Warnings: Cheating. Forgiveness after cheating. Don’t read if you don’t agree with that. 

Notes: some of the scenes from harry’s pov & some new scenes to dive deeper into harry. this is just march! so it’s a companion to the first piece only & is short!

-

Left you out there standing

Crestfallen on the landing 

Champagne Problems

-

March.

-

Harry wasn’t exactly sure when you and him had drifted apart. Logically he knew every relationship had points where things may feel repetitive or where both people struggle, but the two of you had never felt this cold. 

That doesn’t stop the guilt that sinks his stomach and causes his lungs to constrict when you hang the phone up. “Y/N?” He asks in response to the obvious dial tone. 

The guilt doesn’t stop him from staying at the pub. Niall had left hours ago with a hurried goodbye. Jennifer had declined going out at all, saying all she wanted was rest. All who was left was Mitch, Harry, Ally and their semester law intern, Hannah. 

“Everything okay at home?” Ally asks kindly as Harry slips into the booth. Mitch raises his eyebrows as Harry shrugs. “She sounds pissed, but no emergency.” 

“If she sounds pissed why are you still here?” Mitch laughs. It sounds uneasy to Harry as his friend looks him up and down confused. “I remember when you used to refuse going out with us because you didn’t want Y/N upset.” 

Harry takes a sip of his beer and looks away. The pub was mostly filled with other suits. More lawyers from the firm who worked in offices Harry never visited. Doctors from the hospital two blocks away.

He turns his head back to look at Mitch when he feels a hand graze his knee. “I think you deserve a break.” Hannah says quietly. Harry watches as Mitch shakes his head, but turns away before his friend can say anything else. 

(Because Mitch’s stare just forces the guilt up Harry’s throat and he’s afraid it’ll come out in vile. Things were never supposed to go this far with Hannah. It was supposed to be stupid flirting and compliments. Nothing that could break you. It was never supposed to break you.)

(Harry hadn’t done that good of a job.) 

- 

Harry wasn’t drunk. He hadn’t been drunk since law school. He was an adult. With a high paying position at a sought out law firm. He didn’t get drunk. 

You didn’t leave the porch light on though, so it’s a little hard for him to focus on getting the key in the door and also being quiet. But he’s not drunk, so he can do it. He does it. 

He pauses as he drops his keys onto the entry table. The entire first floor is dark. He slips his shoes off as well and leaves them by the door in order to avoid trying to find the correct cubby for them. 

You had left the hallway light on upstairs, so most of the staircase was illuminated enough for Harry to make it up them without missing a step. That didn’t stop him from stumbling up the last three though. 

He can see the bedroom light had been left on as well. He listens for the sound of you talking to Jack or even just the baby’s giggles, but when all he hears is silence, he assumes you had fallen asleep writing. He pushes the door open. 

You’re sitting on the edge of the bed and twisting your ring around your finger as you gnaw on your bottom lip. Your head shoots up when you hear the door open and Harry’s eyes widen. “Y/N?” He feels his eyes squint at the bright overhead light feeling much harsher with your glare. 

He ignores the pit in his stomach as he lifts his wrist the check the time, “Why are awake? It’s almost three in the morning. (He never meant for this happen. He was never supposed to be in this scene.) 

You shrug and let out a laugh that Harry could only describe as empty. The pit in his stomach grows as you whisper harsh words, “I’m well aware of how ridiculously late it is, Harry. I figure I should be awake though, it’s the only time I’ll see you.” 

Harry looks away as he pulls his jacket off and lays it on the bed beside where you were sitting. “What are you talking about?” In order to avoid your stare he focuses his attention to his white button up. He hands fumble and he notices you stand in his peripheral version. 

His hands pause for a moment, like he expects your hands to steady his shaking ones like they normally did. You almost do, he notices, but a look crosses your face and your arms cross over your chest defensively. 

“The kids missed you.” You say quietly. 

Harry knows what’s coming as his hands fall completely away from the shirt and he finally looks at you. He feels tears rush to his eyes as the guilt from earlier in the night returns tenfold. “I missed them too.” He says quietly. 

“Seph asked me if you were leaving us.” The words feel like a punch to the gut as you just watch him stand and process them. Seph asked that? Had he really been gone so often his first daughter, his best friend, was worried he wouldn’t come back one day? 

“She what?” Harry flinches when he hears his voice crack. “I would never leave you guys, I love you.” 

You look away. “Do you?” And if your words about Persephone had felt like a punch, these felt like a gunshot. Pain splintering from his chest throughout his entire body. 

“What?” He almost yells. But he knew the kids were asleep. He never wanted to wake his kids up to fighting. He feels like he’s sobering up fast and it’s making him nauseous. He takes a hesitant step towards you before placing his hand gently on your cheek. 

Or at least, attempting to. You flinch away and Harry’s hand falls to his side. “Y/N,” He starts quietly. “Don’t think-”

Your laughter cuts him off as your eyes flick angrily back to his. “if you wanted me to believe that, you wouldn’t come home smelling like another woman.” Harry’s heart freezes as his eyes widen. You pull his left hand up, “You wouldn’t leave your wedding ring out for me to see every time I was my hands.” 

Harry tries to pull his hand back, ashamed at the idea of his ring haunting you, but your grip only tightens. “You wouldn’t have a hickey. One I didn’t give you considering we haven’t had sex in months.” Your other hand is point hard into his chest to where a mark lays covered partially by his shirt. 

You let go of him as you fall onto the edge of the bed and look up at him with tears. He feels his chest constrict as he sits down next to you. He pulls both your hands into his, “Y/N...” He says quietly. “I am so sorry.” 

Tears threaten to spill from his eyes as you try to pull away from him. “Am I not good enough?” You ask quietly. He pulls you to him but you thrash in his arms. “Seventeen years of my life. Four kids. Everything. I gave you everything.” You’re crying but your voice is cold. 

You’re thrashing stops and it’s silent. Harry reluctantly lets go of you and you immediately stand up again. You look at him expectantly and Harry feels like he’s going to throw up as he looks down at his hands. 

“It didn’t mean anything.” he says quietly. Truthfully. “It never meant- I love you.” He stresses. He falls from the bed to his knees in front of you. “You’re the love of my life.” He thinks of college. His law school graduation. He thinks getting promoted and buying your home. 

He thinks of divorce papers as you look away from him. “How long?” You ask quietly. 

“Please.” Harry begs. Where would he go if you kicked him out? Mitch would tell him he was an idiot. He loved you. Would his mom take your side? She should, he thinks. Gemma would want to kill him. 

“How long?” You ask coldly. Your face has steeled itself. Harry can see the tension in your jaw and almost feels his dinner coming up. 

“A month.” He wraps his arms around you. He nuzzles his face into your stomach. He sees your hand twitch, almost like you want to run a hand through his hair. “It meant nothing. Y/N. I’ll end it right now.” 

Stupid. His head screams. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. 

“Okay.” You unwrap yourself from his arms and step away. Harry watches you confused as you move towards your side of the bed. “I’m going to bed.” You rub a hand over your face before laying down. 

Harry stands awkwardly unsure of what to do with himself. He knew he couldn’t sleep in the bed. That something like that was probably the last thing you wanted to do. 

“Take a shower. Sleep in the guest room.” Your back is facing him and he sees your arms wrapped around yourself. This bed is too big for one person, he thinks. That’s selfish of you; His conscious tells him. 

He moves quickly to get pajamas from the closet. He debates showering in the ensuite, maybe he’d be able to see you again before sleeping, but he turned out of the room. 

He would shower in the kids bathroom. 

-

The guest room was cold. It was the only bedroom downstairs and that made it felt ten times lonelier to Harry. It was rarely used too. Gemma would stay in it when she visited L.A, but she had gotten her own apartment in the city and it was no longer used frequently. 

Your parents lived only an hour away and had no need to spend nights at your house and his mother was rarely able to make the flight over the ocean. It felt like something staged for the sale of a house. 

Harry sighs as he sits on the edge of the bed. With his head in his hands he thinks over where he went wrong. He had never meant for this to happen. For any of this. 

The distance had been a byproduct of the stress. He was worried about the kids. He had done the numbers and sure you two were well off, but four kids was expensive. You had stored any more you’d made from your book in savings. A rainy day fund didn’t calm Harry’s nerves.  

So he worked more. And he went out after work for a drink or two. And he talked. That’s what it had started out as. Just talking numbers over with Hannah, who helped him work them out. She wanted to be a divorce lawyer. Or maybe it was just broad family law. 

Harry thought that was ironic now that his marriage would probably be over. It was running through numbers. Maybe there was a hand on the knee or feet that were just too class together. Things he had brushed off as accidents and completely unintentional. Then it had been him walking her to her car. Then she had kissed him and well- Harry isn’t blameless. 

It would be ridiculous for him to say he was. 

He falls back onto the bed and lets out a shaky breath. How had he been so stupid? 

He sits back up immediately and pulls out his cellphone. He hadn’t even saved her number. They almost never texted and would usually just see each other at the bar. It had only been two weeks since they had kissed by her car. They had only-

He can’t believe he had let it get this far. He can’t believe he’s sitting here justifying himself with onlys. 

He’s unsure of what to say. Should he apologize? It wasn’t anymore her fault than it was his own. 

I have kids and a wife I love. This was wrong. I’m sorry. 

Harry flinches. He felt gross and guilty. The shower hadn’t done anything but sobered him up. He felt everything over and over. Nausea, a headache bound to come on, guilt and just pain. 

He pulls up Mitch’s message strain. Won’t be in tomorrow. Not feeling great. 

He responds within minutes. Hope she doesn’t leave your ass. I’d take her side. 

Harry lets out an empty laugh. Wouldn’t everyone? His mother loved you. She had since the two of you had met in college. When you had found out you were pregnant a semester before graduation his mother had been nothing but supportive; Especially when your parents had poorly hidden their own disappointment. 

Gemma thought of you as the sister she never had. Her and Harry were close, but over the last almost twenty years you and her had grown closer. 

His mind drifts to the kids. How could he do this to the kids? Force them go through what had been devastating to him. He may not practice family law, but he knew how it worked. You worked from home all the time and had been taking care of them their entire lives. 

They would ask the kids where they wanted to go, they would refuse to leave their mother. Harry would too, you were home to everyone in the family. Life without you sounded meaningless. 

Why did you do it then? He shakes his head. He doesn’t know. It wasn’t like you had stopped giving him attention, there was no time for sex and work got in the way of dates. It was his fault. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The word repeats itself over and over again in his head. . Even if he could find ways you had ignored him or cast him to the side it would be pointless. It would be placing blame on a blameless person. It was his fault. 

He crawls under the comforter. It’s nowhere near as soft as the one you had chosen for the bedroom. The sheets weren’t slept in so they didn’t feel as soft and worn. Harry thinks of having to find his own sheets and bed, his heart drops. 

He doesn’t sleep. Unable to stop the back and forth of how do I fix this and will she even let me try? 

-

Harry’s fingers tap incessantly on the drivers wheel as he makes his way home from Serena and Oliver’s school. Persephone had been pretty silent to entire drive to her high school, but Oliver had done more than covered for her with his stories. 

How had it gone from breakfast together at least once a week and and family game nights to Oliver wanting nothing more than to be in his mother’s car and Persephone sitting in pure silence. 

Harry’s mind trails back to you as he drives. You had barely spared him a second glance as you sat down to join them at the breakfast table. He had felt his hesitant smile drop when you looked away from him. And even though talking to the kids all morning had caused his happiness to jump, there was still pain steadily flowing as he thought of what your plan was. 

Would you kick him out? Selfishly, he thought that was his biggest fear. Not having you and the kids to come home to everyday and losing the comfort it had always brought him. he had taken advantage of it and now that it could slip through his fingers at any moment he felt disgusting. 

The drive allows him to wallow in his thoughts, but pulling into the driveway is a far worse feeling. Knowing that you were inside and could give him news that would kill him.

Was he allowed to feel that way? He asks himself. Like you leaving him would kill him, when it would be because of his own choices. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to straighten himself out as he steps out of the car and begins the walk towards the front door.

He mumbles apologies and empty words as he walks up. Unsure of what he could say to you to break the silence. When he opens the door, you’re sitting with Jack as he babbles and plays with his toys on the floor. 

“Forgot how much Olly could talk.” Harry settles on starting with. He lets out an awkward laugh as you stand and lift Jack up before placing him in the play pen. You lean down and tickle him gently. “Please don’t escape, little Houdini.” Once you let him go and step away the young boy crawls away with a giggle. 

You make your way towards the kitchen silently and Harry walks behind you with a nervous buzzing feeling in his chest.

You take a deep breath and Harry watches as you slide a piece of paper over the counter and towards. As his eyes scan down the list he feels a sliver of hope creep into his heart.

“What’s this?” He asks quietly. It’s names and phone numbers that have his heart beating a million miles per second.

“A list of marriage counselors.” His eyes follow your finger as you point towards each name and number. “For us to see once a week.”

The hope in him is growing by the second as words keep coming out of your mouth. “You’re not leaving me?” He blurts out in shock.

Your stance turns defensive and Harry takes a deep breath trying to calm himself. “No.” You answer quietly. “Not yet anyways.” Harry can’t help the furrow of his brow as the words hit him. It wasn’t definite and this was a test. You sigh which forced Harry to move his attention back to you. “We have four kids together. A life. And no matter how much you hurt me, I still love you.”

Harry bites back the smile threatening to cross his face. Because despite everything, you love him. You still did. You both glance at your ring finger when he notices you twisting the ring around it. “You’re the love of my life. I don’t want to throw that all away without trying first.”

Harry can’t stop the smile this time as happiness bursts inside him. “Y/N.” He says quietly.

He kind of zones out as he watches you go over what you want to do from here. Counseling and cutting hours back at the firm. Neither a punishment in Harry’s mind.

“I’m not sure if you like, ended it with her.” You start and he nods hastily. “I have. I did last night. I’ll never talk to her again.” He promises. He feels guilt again but part of is held back by the unadulterated hope he has now.

He debates taking the steps towards you before finally deciding it was necessary. When you don’t move away, he pulls you into a cautious hug, one that he’s shocked to feel returned.

“Thank you.” He whispers and you nod.

He would fix this. He swore it. This wasn’t a maybe in his head, it was necessary.

-

Your heart was glass I dropped it.

Champagne Problems.

-

Notes:

Just a small piece while you all wait for third main part to wkm! thank you for the endless patience. hope you all are safe & healthy.

[hermannsthumb]

"newt isn’t sleazy and is also too busy wrestling with the ethics of hitting on his hot TA if the guy is 5 months older than him to even notice" pleeeease write this

Anonymous asked: "When I Kissed the Teacher" AU ft professor newt and his hot 5-month-older TA hermann

and coincidentally, this older one

Anonymous asked: i just rewatched mamma mia 2 and was wondering if i could request a "when i kissed the teacher" newmann fic?? love your writing!!!!!!

Ask And Ye Shall Receive. sorry ive been MIA 😔 concept from this post I made earlier this month. idk what class newt teaches that hermann would be qualified to TA for but just like, decide for yourselves

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

Newt’s never been a list-making kind of guy, or--for that matter--even really a planning ahead kind of guy, but certain circumstances have thrown his life more out of wack than usual lately, and he kind of needs the stability the like of things like lists offer. Desperate times and everything. Or, at the very least, Newt is desperate. 

So Newt plans, and plots, and deliberates, and he even agonizes a little, but most of all, he makes a list.

On one half of the page, he writes pros. On the other, he writes cons. On top, he writes--what else?--Hermann.

The problem started in late August. Newt knew for months he was going to be assigned a teaching assistant come that semester--it was him, after all, who’d suggested it to the dean in the first place--but the Hermann Gottlieb of extensive, impressive, overachieving CV and overly-former cover letter was a far cry from Hermann Gottlieb in the flesh. Newt expected a dork, frankly. Someone too socially awkward to feel brave enough to thank someone for holding a door open for him. He expected a PhD student so eager to please he’d cater to Newt’s every whim, whether it was grading horrendous freshman lab reports or fetching him a sandwich from the commissary between class sections. 

They met for the first time at the campus coffee shop. Hermann was dressed in an oversized pair of slacks, a threadbare green sweatervest, and honest-to-God saddle shoes; the buttons of his Oxford were done up all the way, from the collar to the cuffs, and an ornate cane was settled against his thigh. His haircut was tragic. “Dr. Geiszler,” he said, all clipped and English, and held his hand out to Newt. “Hermann Gottlieb. It is a great pleasure to meet you. I’m an admirer of your work.”

"Sup,” Newt said, and tried to bump their fists together.

Newt knew he was in deep shit then. It wasn’t just because Hermann was gorgeous (which he was, in a sort of weird, frumpy, ripped-outta-1945 way), or that the scowl he proceeded to level Newt with made his soul wither and his heart race a little bit too fast, but both of those things in conjunction with a big one: Newt was, and is, so fucking love-starved. It’s an unfortunate byproduct of being made a professor when he was as young as he was and completing a PhD before he completed puberty. His early twenties should’ve been spent dyeing his hair terrible colors and adding to his already impressive tattoo collection and having questionable hookups with other young twentysomethings; unfortunately, the only young twentysomethings Newt ever seems to come across are his students, and he has a very strict code of ethics. Not to mention it wasn’t like he was getting any action before that as a weird, gangly teenager with peers several years his senior. He was bound to latch onto the first genius hottie who crossed his path who wasn’t trying to flirt their way into bumping that B- to a B+. And better yet, Hermann is five whole months his senior!

The shit only got deeper when the semester started. No, Hermann was not the sort to fetch Newt sandwiches, or coffee, or Aspirin from his office, nor was he the sort to handle the dreaded lab reports (at least not unless Newt handled them with him), and he definitely wasn’t eager to please. Newt, anyway. If anything the opposite was true: he seemed to actively derive enjoyment from undermining Newt at every turn.

“Wrong,” he’d mutter during class if Newt screwed something up in a lecture, or “No, Geiszler, you’re doing it wrong again,” or “How in the blazes did you get three bloody PhDs when you can’t even do simple addition?” and snatch Newt’s dry erase marker away to scrawl his own answers on the whiteboard. It was less like having a TA and more like having...well, a bitchy, annoying co-teacher. Or, God help Newt, a colleague. And boy, did he wave those five months over Newt’s head like a fucking flag. Newt was immature; inexperienced; clearly not as serious about his studies--his completed studies--as Hermann. Meanwhile Newt’s class (bright young twenty somethings, taller than Newt, cooler than Newt, with more friends than Newt) would giggle and snicker, and Hermann would look smug.

It drove Newt fucking batty.

It also made him, like, super turned on.

The two can co-exist. Apparently. Hermann Gottlieb is already helping Newt discover new and existing concepts; what a fucking excellent TA he is. Someone give that man a raise.

So Newt draws up a list, and he writes Pros, and he writes Cons, and he writes Hermann. The pros are regrettably easy to come up with, because Hermann is Hermann, and (bitchiness and undermining of Newt aside) it’s unfair how many he has. Hot. Stupid sexy accent. Stupidly smart. This is crossed out and replaced with so smart he makes me feel stupid (in a good way), because it seems like an important distinction. Glasses on chain. Mysterious. (In a tall, dark, and handsome way. Sort of. Average height--which is tall to Newt, pale, and handsome. He still scowls more than he talks, which makes him feel mysterious. In a Bronte sort of way. Newt can picture Hermann drawing a billowing cloak around his shoulders and stalking some desolate moor in the moonlight, though in this case maybe’s more of a puffy parka than a cloak.) In tiniest font of all is makes me laugh, because Hermann does, goddamn it, with his snide asides and cutting remarks and sarcasm, often not even directed at Newt when it’s just the two of them alone in Newt’s office at night.

The placement of “is my TA” on the chart is acting as a particular annoyance to Newt, entirely on account of the fact that he can think of several pros and cons for that as well, and he’s not sure whether to nestle it between dark eyelashes and once called me a moron in front of my class and I got a hard-on or beneath sweaters smell like sweat and mothballs, has annoying tic of clearing throat when lost in thought, and the dick wins 86% of our arguments. Sexy forbidden fling. Abuse of power. Is older than me so it's not as weird as it could be? I’m his boss. The school’s paying Hermann though, not Newt, and it’s not like he’s going to scurry off to the dean and demand Hermann’s funding slashed if Hermann turns him down (which he’d most likely do). But it still feels like a breach of ethics.

On the other hand, Hermann is exactly the sort of guy he’d try to pick up at a bar if he still did things like that. (Tenure, rather than giving Newt breathing space to kick back and relax a little, has only increased his obsession with his work, and now when he gets a Friday night free to himself he mostly switches crap on the TV and falls asleep with his cat on the couch.) It’s about the experience, the impossible task of seducing someone who--by all accounts--is too straight-laced and tight-buttoned to indulge in something that debase. They were always the best in bed. Tension, Newt knows, has to snap at some point.

He’d like to wrap Hermann’s personal piano wire around his thumb and bang away at the keys until it snaps, too. Ethics, Newt thinks (folding up the list and stuffing it out of sight), his ass.

Newt sacrifices a Friday night with his cat and Unsolved Mysteries in favor of working on a solution to his Hermann Problem. Swamped with work, he tells Hermann over the phone, it fucking sucks, dude, I could really use your help in my office, and Hermann grumbles, and snaps that Newt should learn to be better prepared for his own damn classes, but declares he’ll be on campus in half an hour and that Newt will be ordering him takeaway for dinner as an apology.

The door swings open at half past five. Hermann is bundled in that heavy parka and scarf (which, even for a Boston November, still looks a little too warm), and his hair is damp. “Is it raining?” Newt says, perhaps stupidly, because there’s not a single droplet of water anywhere else on Hermann’s body.

Hermann makes a face at him and pushes the door shut with his cane. “No,” he says, tersely.

“Then why...” Newt touches his own hair.

“I was taking a bloody bath,” Hermann snaps. “I don’t work on Fridays, as you well know, Newton.”

The use of his full first name stings Newt oddly even as the notion of Hermann luxuriating in a bathtub excites him. “That’s Dr. Geiszler,” Newt snaps back, because goddamn it, he’s Hermann’s boss, he deserves respect, and then mentally adds a small, depressing tally to the Cons half of the board. Ethics, ethics. 

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Dr. Geiszler,” Hermann says. He throws his scarf and coat viciously at the small couch in the corner of Newt’s office, then takes his usual seat across from Newt. “Well? Where are those papers it’s so crucial we grade?”

Hermann in a bathtub, Newt thinks. Hermann naked. Papers, Newt thinks. “Papers,” Newt says, and he shoves a stack at Hermann with twice as much force as he means to, causing several to flutter to the ground. “We need...to grade them,” he says. Hermann naked, in a bathtub, maybe some candles lit around him, some nice music on, daydreaming about that wretched professor he works for. Damn it. “I have a pen,” he says. “To grade.”

“What on earth are you saying?” Hermann says. “Be quiet. I can’t concentrate with your abominable prattling on.” Then he mumbles something that sounds like incessant, rips the top paper off the stack, and begins to slash at it in red ink. He doesn’t bother gathering the two from the ground.

Why did Newt invite him here, again?

Oh, right. He pushes his glasses up his nose and feigns casualness, pulling out another paper for himself to grade. “A bath,” he says. “Just to, uh, relax? Or...?”

Hermann narrows his eyes. “Or?”

Newt shrugs. “It’s Friday. Were you getting ready for a date or something?”

This time, Hermann’s mouth twists down into a frown. Almost suspicious. “Why do you care?” he says.

“I don’t,” Newt says quickly. “Just making small talk.” God, he could picture some stud of a computer science PhD candidate winning Hermann over with techno babble--or maybe one of his fellow students, ugh, maybe they made a study group together that meets Friday nights, and Hermann was getting all gussied up, goddamn handsome astrophysics grad students--

“I was relaxing,” Hermann says. “You must be aware at this point you cause me a great deal of stress, Dr. Geiszler, on a daily basis.”

“Oh,” Newt says.

He gives up on the small talk after that. Hermann’s promised takeout arrives--a small carton of pad thai--as does Newt’s--a large carton of the spiciest thing they had on the menu--and they eat in silence. They have about three-quarters of the papers to go when Hermann suddenly sits back in his seat with a groan and rubs at his eyes under his granny glasses. “Bugger,” he says. “I can’t fathom this one for the life of me. I’m too tired.”

“It’s getting kinda late,” Newt agrees. “Maybe we should--”

“It’s not that,” Hermann says. “I had a glass of wine earlier, and--oh, it doesn’t matter. Your students need to learn how to write in a way that’s actually bloody legible--it’s like chicken scratch.”

Newt hops up and leans over his shoulder, squinting down at the page. Hermann’s hair smells nice, like something floral, and his skin has a small hint of what could almost be cologne. Why is Hermann wearing cologne? “Okay, let me see it,” Newt says, struggling to keep from getting lightheaded at the close proximity to Hermann. “I’m used to that kind of shit.”

“No,” Hermann says, drawing the paper close to his chest. “I am perfectly capable of managing it on my own.”

“Dude,” Newt says, “let me look at it, seriously. Hermann--”

He manages to tug it away from him. The handwriting is pretty bad, but the math seems to be worse. “Didn’t they do the readings?” Newt mutters under his breath. “That’s not even the right equation for the diameter. I gave them a cheat sheet, man.” They’re junior year engineering students--they should know this shit.

“I know what the equation is,” Hermann snaps. “I can grade it on my own. Give it back.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t know,” Newt says, “I said this kid--”

“It’s the radius squared--”

“Hermann, dude,” Newt says, “I know you’re--”

And that’s when Hermann grabs him by his skinny tie and kisses him, hard. 

They stare at each other afterwards. Hermann’s eyes are as wide as saucers; his mouth is hanging open. Newt’s tie slips from his fingers, which then fall limp to his lap. “Holy shit,” Newt squeaks.

Hermann is gone with a swish of his parka and a loud clack of his cane. And with a stack of papers Newt still has to somehow get through. Figures.

Their next few classes together are subdued. Hermann doesn’t interject any of his biting commentary or corrections, or even offer critiques of Newt’s lack of professionalism (when in the past his skinny jeans were such an easy target), and when the period is over, he practically sprints from the classroom before he and Newt can be alone together for even a second. It’s fine by Newt. Whatever. Maybe Hermann can get over it over Thanksgiving break, and Newt can try to get over the memory of Hermann’s strong fingers tugging him down, Hermann’s floral shampoo, Hermann’s chapped, wide lips against his, the little grunt of shock Hermann made as he did it, like he couldn’t believe his own audacity...

It’s not likely.

It’s December, the last week before finals, and Newt’s in his office bundled up in a sweatshirt (because the heat never seems to fucking work in here), revising a draft of an exam, and dreading the thought of trudging home in the snow, when there’s suddenly a knock at his door. Anticipating some overeager freshman here outside of office hours, he doesn’t look up as he says “Come in.”

A familiar clearing of a throat.

Newt shoots straight up to his feet. He knocks a mug of coffee to the floor in the process. “Hermann,” he says. “Uh. Hi. What--what are you doing here?”

Hermann shuts the door behind him, then takes a careful step forward. He’s back in his big dumb coat and big long scarf. “I thought I ought to tell you myself first,” he says, primly. “I’ve submitted a request to the dean to be reassigned to another professor next semester. Our research interests are far more in line, and I don’t imagine our personalities shall clash as much.”

“Oh,” Newt says, pretending his heart isn't sinking in his chest like a hunk of lead. Was he that bad of a kisser? He feels like he deserves a second shot at it--he wasn’t ready last time, you know, he bets he’d really wow Hermann if he had a fair heads up. “Are.. are those the only reasons why?”

“No,” Hermann admits. “They’re not.”

He crosses the room, and corners Newt against his desk before Newt even realizes what’s happening. “They’re not,” he says again, then adds in a murmur (lifting one hand to brush his fingers against Newt’s hair), “Dr. Geiszler.”

Neither of them talk much, after that.

[yourlocalenglishmajor]

Commonplace Book

Hello everyone! This is my first post on this blog, and it is going to be a project for my college English course! Feel free to read through it if you’re interested; if not, that’s okay, this is really just for my professor ^^

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Piece 1: “Big Guns, Small Dicks”

Unfortunately, this piece does not have a specific author or creator; I found it on State Street in Madison last summer. It is an anonymous piece of graffiti that speaks to the movement it was created during. For those who may be less familiar with Madison, Wisconsin, it is considered a very liberal and even leftist city, especially with how frequent and powerful the Black Lives Matter protests were. This was created during those protests, as well as hundreds of other works all along historic State Street. As ACAB - All Cops Are Bastards - protests went hand in hand (usually) with BLM protests, the phrase “Big guns, small dicks” is a jibe at the police and its racist foundations and use of excessive force.

It best relates to class through the conversations about race and equity we’ve had. Our readings have been centered around a diverse cast of authors instead of the one viewpoint of the cisgender, heterosexual white man, which is something the BLM movement also aimed to achieve. In addition, although it has not been a focal topic yet, we have talked about police brutality and how it impacts POC most; another key point of the BLM movement. Lastly, we talked about what mythic America, or the American Dream, really is, and why it is never realized for so many people. The Black Lives Matter movement is all about how the American Dream is something almost no one can truly achieve, and how it leads to othering and a sense of disillusionment with the effectiveness of our society.

Piece 2: Vonnegut’s Slapstick

For my second piece, I chose to utilize a work of a famous satire writer to draw comparisons to our coursework. As for the image, I took a picture of the copy I own and edited it. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slapstick centers around two twins who are geniuses together, but entirely stupid on their own; they are neglected by their parents, who are a family of renown and ashamed of having deformed children. Their parents look at them as if they are to be pitied for the very nature of their existence. They use this to sneak around and live lives of luxury, continuing this ruse of being entirely stupid so that they may live as freely as possible in their circumstances. 

In this work, the children are quite literally tossed in a house and locked away to prevent others from seeing them; this is something I personally connect to the concept of silencing, which happened frequently during the BLM movement. Protesters, peaceful or not, were arrested; protests were escalated by cops far more often than by protesters, but that was generally ignored and used as a way to disregard the protests as nothing more than “riots”; large platforms such as Twitter and Instagram incorrectly labelled some posts as “misinformation”. Voices were silenced all over the internet. In addition, some white allies were not using their platforms to actually help/spread information, but were using them to spew white guilt and accomplish very little. As L. Ayu Saraswati says in her textbook Introduction to Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Interdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches, “Guilt as a response to...racism...does very little to contribute to efforts toward social change as it recenters whiteness” (page 15), basically saying yes, these folks are speaking their mind and are at least partially aware of their privilege, but their feelings of guilt without taking action are not actually doing anything to help what they feel guilty for.

Piece 3: The Hymn to Demeter

My last selection will be an ancient work known as the Hymn to Demeter, and the version I am using is translated by Gregory Nagy. I am using this statue of Demeter and Persephone as the visual accompaniment to this analysis. This piece was originally written to be performed orally by a poet/performer as praise to Demeter. It details the kidnapping of Persephone, Demeter’s daughter, and the subsequent founding of the Cult of Demeter in the city Eleusis. 

When Persephone is first kidnapped, it is said that “she cried with a piercing voice, / Calling upon her father, the son of Kronos, the highest and the best. / But not one of the immortal ones, or of human mortals, / heard her voice” (lines 20-23). To me, this draws clear parallels with the silencing of victims of police brutality and their families. Public outrage did nothing to bring accountability to Breonna Taylor’s killers or the flawed justice system that let them get away with it. The victim’s family was silenced and the movement to convict her killers has died down since it happened almost a year ago. 

Additionally, it is later revealed to Demeter through Rhea that this kidnapping was not only endorsed by but planned by Zeus himself. As Greek households were patriarchal, it was not uncommon for a father to arrange a relationship/marriage without informing the daughter or allowing the daughter to meet her betrothed first. This endorsed act of violence can also be paralleled to the actions of the police; their brutality is actively supported by a flawed, racist justice system, just as the actions of Hades were actively supported by the all-powerful Zeus. What’s more, nobody stood up to Zeus or questioned his actions because of all the power he has, which is another perfect example of how this parallel functions.

Lastly, Demeter’s pure rage and grief is reminiscent of the rage and grief of the black mothers who lost their children to police brutality. Last semester, I attended a Theater of War performance known as “Antigone in Ferguson”, and after the performance was over, there was a discussion led by a panel of educators and victims of police brutality. Several of them were mothers who told painful stories of how their children, usually sons, were murdered and how they are still trying to find a way to keep living. Their powerful grief is parallel to Demeter’s; the only difference is that Demeter gets her child back.

A Meta-Commentary

My process in finding these works and deciding which would draw the best parallels was to find a bunch of subjects I thought would work well and then cut down on them. I knew the “big guns, small dicks” would be included for sure, as it was an image I took myself and had good parallels to draw right off the bat. It’s a good way to catch someone’s attention! And the message is powerful. Seeing all the graffiti on State Street last summer was impactful, but this simple phrase stood out to me and was (I believe) the only picture I took out of all the graffiti down there. The Kurt Vonnegut work I included because I like the comparison between how the twins are treated in the book and how folks who were active and open about their opinions were silenced; also, I’d be lying if I failed to mention that part of the reason is because I adore Kurt Vonnegut and wanted to find a way to bring a work of his into this. My third choice, the Hymn to Demeter, was chosen because it’s a cool way to connect one of my other classes to this one. In addition, it’s a good piece to reinterpret as an allegory for how the justice system enables the wrong people and fails the right ones.

Also, although I did not choose many direct quotes, I think the parallels I drew between the content of these works is substantial! I put a lot of thought into how I worded things and what content actually related best to the works of this class, specifically the themes we’ve discovered so far in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen. The heaviness of the book relates well to the power behind each of these pieces, especially the first one, as the message is plain and simple but impactful. The prose and structure of Rankine’s work is incredibly unique and not directly paralleled in any of the pieces I chose; however, the Hymn to Demeter is written in a very specific structure that is almost poetry? It’s a very confusing structure, because it does not seem to have any meter or consistency, but is still patterned in a specific way. This may be a result of translation, it may have been intentionally created this way by the original writer (who is not known; the transcript of this hymn was found in a stable in Moscow in 1777), or it could be a byproduct of the format itself as a hymn. The repetition Rankine takes advantage of in Citizen is actually something Vonnegut is known for as well. Several of his works have anaphoric phrases; Slaughterhouse V has both “po-tee-weet” and “and so it goes”, and Slapstick has the comedic “hi-ho”, used as a way to break the tension of the work, as it is supposed to be satire. This repetition and the more casual grammar these authors both share give their works a heavy feeling (cut far more frequently in Vonnegut’s than in Rankine’s) that also works as a conversational element, making both of the works feel like the audience is also in the narrative itself.

Commonplacing is a valuable step in making powerful literature more accessible to people! Providing unique and interesting analysis of a work makes it much easier for people to casually consume! Additionally, using platforms like Tumblr for this analysis makes things even more accessible, as anyone can see it and Tumblr allows posts to be any length! Opening thoughtful literature and analysis to the public like this also allows for good, guided conversation on a variety of subjects, and creates interest for the works in their entirety. This can easily inspire people to pick up a copy of their own of any of these works if someone is interested enough in how these can be interpreted! (If any of you are interested in the Hymn to Demeter, I used the one found at this website , it’s free ^-^)

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A big thank you to any of you who read this all the way through (including you, professor)! I’ll be doing more fun and less serious literary analysis on this account as well, so if that’s something you’re interested in, stay tuned!

[fly-underground]

six hundred and seventy five: 2019

The annual year in review entry. I’ve written this post nine times, one for every year of this decade. I reread the very first one, from 2010, aloud to my mother the other night. My writer’s voice is so chipper in it, so young. I had just started college. In so many ways, I had barely lived. I was about to list off all the things I hadn’t yet done, as an explanation. But the truth is, even now, having done at least a few of those things, I still have barely lived. I want to remember that, to bottle up that feeling of wistfulness for a younger self, that protective inclination to wait for things to get better and worse, because I know I still need it. There is still so much I haven’t done, so much I want to do. Ways to spend the next few decades, if I’m lucky enough to have them.

Last year at this time, I think I was home alone with Cory. I can’t remember it perfectly. The past few years have blurred together in that regard. Was this the year that Mariah Carey sang badly during Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve? I’ll look it up after I write this. The point is, I welcomed in the new year alone, but not really, and then received a flurry of text messages from my mother and brother and so many friends. January passed in New York for the most part. I went to my favorite bar every week, first with Liz and then with Vivian. I got bad news one night about a fellowship and the next night, I found out that my fellowship paper was selected for an academic conference. I felt like Even Steven, losing one thing, gaining another. By the time I made it back to Boston, for the spring semester, it was the end of the month. That last week became so important, especially in retrospect. I met a man from the past in one of my classes, someone I knew vaguely from my time at Swarthmore. February was about him. And so was March and April and May.

I used to keep details off my blog, because I was afraid of people reading and piecing together the truth. I wanted to be polite and coy. Now, I guess I don’t really know who is still reading this. And maybe I also don’t care. If you know me, really know me, you know what happened. If you don’t, well: in February, this blast from the past man sent me an email about coffee. I said yes and we spent hours together, walking around Cambridge, the pink sky of the new moon above our heads. Then he asked me to go to the Arnold Arboretum. We never went. Instead, we talked for hours in another coffee shop. Uncharacteristically, I asked to see his place and after I met his roommates, in-between bites of fig newtons, he leaned over and whispered: Can I kiss you? His tongue slipped into my mouth in the darkness of his living room. He kissed me again on his doorstep and my head spun on the lyft ride home. I threw up hours two hours later, from the hunger induced migraine. I didn’t eat at all that day, except for the cookies in his house and the lettuce wrapped in turkey at midnight in my bed. Of course I threw up. The next week, we went out again. Later, in my bed, wrapped up in his wiry, tattooed arms, I was just happy. That was when he told me, that he’s an alcoholic and an addict. It should have changed something for me, it should have set off an alarm. It didn’t.

Four days later, he relapsed. He had cancelled and then un-cancelled our date. I met him at a Starbucks and on the T back to his place, our legs touched. I felt bad, terrible in a way that I couldn’t name. We watched some Netflix original reality show and then, in his bed, we had sex. We kissed. He told me about his history of self harm and severe mental illness. I talked about my own trauma. It was not a good date. I couldn’t sleep after. In the morning, after he made me eggs and I realized he would not be going to his next AA meeting, I asked, trying not to cry, Will I see you again? He said of course, and then he backed me into a wall and kissed me with a boyish glee. I felt relieved and stupid. Three days later, he told me he couldn’t make it to my place for dinner. He said that he felt like he had encountered me in the wrong moment of his life, that he couldn’t stop drinking, that he was checking himself into a facility, that I meant something to him. I cried that whole weekend. I barely ate. No one could help me.

It was like this for months. Every interaction between us charmed and hurt me. When he was doing well, I was joyous. Otherwise, I was miserable. I skipped meals. I had nightmares. I cried alone in my room, on walks around campus. I lost weight and inches. I felt like I was dying. Somehow, in that strange internal darkness, I realized I was not okay. I wanted to be okay, more than anything. I felt bad all the time and I was tired of feeling bad. In April, I started seeing a therapist. In May, I started seeing a nutritionist.  I went to a support group meeting and read literature about codependency. I felt like it was my fault, my emotions, my own shit. I called my mother and Vivian and Michael. I was defensive about this guy. Addiction is a disease, an addict is not a Bad Person, but he can be a deeply troubled person. 

And then, after all of that, one day in May, he told me that he had gotten involved with someone. It was the way he said it. Two weeks before, in his bed, he had asked if he could undress me. I told him then, sitting outside the Harvard Square T stop, that he was a coward. He flinched, like I hit him. I said, I thought I loved you, but you aren’t who I thought you were. I guess, I didn’t really love you then. I also said, I’m sorry if that hurt you, I don’t mean to hurt you. And he told me, his eyes glassy, that I meant something to him. Of course, I knew that. Of course, it didn’t matter.

I skipped some stuff, or I made it seem small. In May, when I went to that support group meeting, I actually spoke in the group. I said, Every day I feel this intense pressure to try my best. I want to be kind and generous and patient and brave and good. But it’s so much work, being that way. Sometimes, I can’t do it. Sometimes, I just don’t have it in me. On those days, I want to give myself permission, to simply try. On those days, “best” is not the goal. The goal is to keep at it, whatever it is. So, I went to classes and socialized and asked for help. I told my therapist in April, that coming to therapy meant that I wasn’t hopeless, that I hadn’t given up on myself. In March, I presented my paper at an academic conference, as a single author. I was also on a poetry panel with Trista, Amanda, Cyrus, and Iain. How insane to be there with them, to be included in a family of poets.

In June, the man disappeared, moved away without a real goodbye. At the time, I was devastated. I can’t describe the feeling of abandonment, but I thought: love is not for me. I thought it through June and July. I went out with a series of inconsequential men. There’s a photo I saved on my phone, after one of those dates. He wasn’t a bad guy, just boring, just rude. I came home and cried until my mascara had spread across my face. I went back to New York in July, and in between visiting with friends and volunteering at camp, I had a hilarious summer fling, not a story just something for friends to gossip about. Even then, I was lonely. I didn’t run away from it, though. I recognized it. I thought, I should keep trying. Maybe I would find a good thing.

August had me dog-sitting and transliterating Sanskrit books and gearing up for the final year of my master’s degree and looking into various doctoral programs. It was also when I went on a first date with this handsome, funny, smart, and unbelievably kind man, who would eventually become my boyfriend— how weird that word looks here, how funny that it means something to me after all these years. It has felt like emotional whiplash, this year, loving two men. Looking back, it should be easy to say oh that wasn’t really love. But that’s not true. I loved two people this year, just so differently. If the first love made me nervous, the second makes me calm. I was on a bus back to Boston after Thanksgiving and the traffic was terrible and I felt an ugly irritation bubble inside me because of my seat neighbor. I thought about my boyfriend then, his easy smile, how he rubs my back when I cough. What a small thing, but I felt lighter just thinking about it. It sounds silly and cheesy, I know. But I don’t want to belittle it, not here. I don’t think I have ever really felt so good to be with someone before. It is so new to me, this joy, this stability. I don’t want to take it for granted.

I wrote in my journal a few days ago, that I’m not sure if this relationship is good because he is so good, or because I have done the work of trying to lead a healthier life. Is this just a byproduct of one or the other? Or, as Liz says, is this what happens when two Virgos come together? I don’t know, I loved a Virgo once before, and I don’t remember ever feeling this light. This is different. He is different.

In September, I went to Denmark for my ten year reunion camp reunion. I started this blog right after that iconic summer, 16 and strangely tan from all that northern sun. From October through December, I applied to doctoral programs. Yes, again. We’ll see what happens. For the first time, I don’t really know what I want in my future, but I’m trying to trust in the universe to guide me there. I know I want love. It’s hard for me to admit that. I used to scorn women who named that in their list of goals, but it’s important, as important as everything else. I want to feel close to someone. I want a life of meaning, even if it just means something to me. I want to write. I hate that I ever stopped doing that. I feel sometimes like I have wasted my potential there, in writing professionally. I hope that’s not true. I am not ready to give this up, this dream that could still turn into something.

Something that I said a lot this year: whatever happens, I’ll be okay. During a depressive episode a few weeks ago, I thought I was losing everyone in my life, that everyone secretly hated me. What I told myself then, was not that I was crazy or wrong, but that I could deal with it. It’s true. If that happened, I could deal with it. But I hate that response. I wish I fought more. I wish I didn’t turn over so easily. Not that I think I could change someone’s mind. But I wish I didn’t just accept the worst case scenario. Anyway, maybe it’s strange even to debate this. The truth is so far from the worst case scenario. In fact, right now the truth is I am so fucking lucky. Ten years ago, I was just a high school student whining on the internet. Today, I am a Harvard graduate student; I am an author; I have a publication list that makes professors raise their eyebrows; people care about what I write and think; there are people who love me, really love me; I am healthier and happier than I ever thought I deserved to be. I worked for this. I earned it. I didn’t give up on me.

I can’t predict anything about the future. I’m always so hilariously wrong. Mostly I hope I never stop trying. 2020 still sounds like a fiction, but it’s real, it’s happening, it’s here. It’s funny, I only ever feel that surprised by joy. I hope that never changes.

[gingerpeachtae]

Concentric [5]

masterlist

Words: 6.2k

Genres: fantasy!AU, angst, fluff, enemies to lovers, eventual smut (?)

Warnings: none

Summary: You had been ready for the end of the semester. You had been ready to spend time away from your best friend, Jimin, and finally move on from the feelings you harbored. Yet, after your friend was forced to reveal a secret, you found yourself in a new world that was chock full of magic, war, and wonder. So, here you were, basically thrown into your own fantasy novel, with your best friend on one side, and six male warriors on the other.

A/N: LMAO I said I cut this chapter in half but it’s still long as h e c k... why am I like this 😅 anywayysssss ENGOY 🥰

The light from the setting sun pierced your eyes as you emerged from the tent, causing you to squint. In an attempt to save your corneas, you raised a hand to shade your face. As you blinked to refocus your sight, you saw Jimin in what appeared to be an argument with Jungkook. Although it seemed that all of the actual arguing was only stemming from the former.

“Where is she!? Why didn’t she come out with you!?” You could hear the panic seeping into his voice.

Jimin went to move around his brother, but Jungkook stepped into his way.

“I told you she’s fine. Just give her a damn minute, okay?” Though you couldn’t see his face, you could still picture the roll of Jungkook’s green eyes.

“Why the fuck does she need a minute? I swear, if something happened-”

“For Exia’s sake, nothing happened! She’s okay, she’s safe, and she’ll come out when she’s ready.”

“When she’s ready? Why the hell does she need to get ‘ready?’” Jimin’s voice was now laced with anger. “Answer me, Jungkook!”

The rest of their argument faded into the background as you fully stepped out from the shadows of the tent, which caused the rest of the kiela to notice you. Their concerned faces shifted to relieved as they took you in, though some of their eyes lingered on your bloody hands. They looked at them curiously, wondering why Jungkook had been so messy in dispatching the male. He was usually clean with his kills. You saw them glance at your hands, so you nervously rubbed them against your legs, trying to remove the red stains. But you didn’t say anything. Instead, you glanced over them, doing a quick mental count. You counted up to four, five…

“Little scorja!” A weight suddenly plowed into your side and pulled you into a tight hug, squeezing the air from your lungs.

Six.

You smiled into the chest of the grey-haired Saeni, holding him just as tight as he swayed your bodies. Since you were smooshed against Tae, you missed the way Jimin’s head swiveled over, his non-swollen eye welling up with tears. He whispered your name like he was unsure if you were really there.

You let out a surprised grunt as another body slammed into you.

“Y/N!”

You shut your eyes, enjoying the moment. “Hey Hobi.” You tugged them both closer.

After a few seconds, you stepped back and gave each of them a serious, but happy look. “I’m really, really glad you’re okay.”

Then, your gaze shifted to over their shoulders. To where Jimin and Jungkook were watching. Jungkook merely gave you a nod before walking off. Jimin, on the other hand, quickly burst through the two Saeni and engulfed you in his arms.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry Y/N.” He almost sounded broken, both in tone and in his inability to say anything else.

You pulled back and gently took his face in your hands, slightly wincing at the busted state of his features. Seeing the tears falling down his right side and leaking down the other made your own eyes blur. Taking a deep breath to maintain your composure, you wiped his tears away with the pad of your thumb and let out a teasing chuckle.

“If you don’t stop, I’ll have no choice but to make a sweater with your tears.”

“A SpongeBob reference? Really, Y/N?” He let out a sad excuse of a laugh, which made him hiccup.

“Yeah, well, it got you to smile didn’t it?”

Pressing your forehead to his, you went on to whisper how you were okay. He was okay. The kiela was okay. You were all okay. Everything was going to be okay.

A hand came to rest softly against your shoulder. You looked out of the corner of your eye and saw Namjoon. He gave your shoulder a squeeze as you shifted your attention to him. Keeping one arm around Jimin, you turned to face the brown-haired Saeni. Right behind him, you saw Jin, who gave you a grateful smile before bowing his head.

The leader of the kiela raised his other hand to rest upon Jimin’s shoulder but kept his yellow eyes on you. “Thank you. Thank you for warning us, for risking your life to do so.” He then bowed his head before continuing.

“Without your help… I don’t want to imagine what might’ve happened.”

You offered him a sheepish smile. “You don’t have to thank me. You guys did all the work.”

Jin’s dark eyes met yours. “If you hadn’t given us that information, there wouldn’t have been anyone left to do work.”

“I just did what I had to do.” You shrugged.

“But that’s just the thing… You didn’t have to,” Jin replied.

“Why would you risk yourself for people you barely know?” Namjoon asked.

“Look, on a basic level, you’re Jimin’s family, so that makes you important to me too.” You felt Jimin’s hand around your waist give you a squeeze. “But beyond that, even though we just met a few days ago, I care about each and every member of this kiela. I’d be damned if I just let you die without trying to prevent it.”

Jimin hugged you closer, murmuring into your ear about how much of a Mama Bear you could be. He may have been teasing, but you knew that he really appreciated what you said. Namjoon and Jin both smiled at your declaration and nodded their understanding before backing away. Tae and Hobi, on the other hand, cooed at you and jumped in on your and Jimin’s hug, creating one, big cuddle huddle.

Up in a nearby tree, where you couldn’t see, was Jungkook. He hadn’t wanted to watch the others dote on you, so he had chosen to try to ignore you instead. Yet, as the Saeni listened among the bugs and the bark, he had to fight the corners of his lips from upturning at your words.

“…he was born during an eclipse, hence why he is able to do magic. Saeni born during eclipses, solstices, equinoxes, and similar phenomena are the ones who are able to manipulate Illain’s energy.”

You listened to Hobi attentively while he told you about his and Yoongi’s past as you made your way back to camp, where the mint-haired Saeni himself was waiting.  You couldn’t fathom how worried and anxious he must be.

You winced as you raised your right leg to step over a fallen tree. You were pretty sure you tweaked a muscle at some point during the day. Both your legs were sore, your arms were sore, hell your entire body was sore.

That’s what happens when you don’t stretch before running through the woods, dumbass. You chastised yourself.

After successfully hobbling over that damn tree, you glanced up to Jungkook. Not to check on him. He may have been somewhat gentle with you inside the tent earlier, but he was still a coconut-headed asshat. No, you were checking on the person strung across his shoulders. Your eyebrows lifted as you watched Jimin’s apricot head bob with Jungkook’s steps. Not long after you all began trekking back to camp, he had passed out. Because of course. What more could happen on this stupid, forsaken day? After he had collapsed, you had gawked at his unconscious body for the second time that day, wondering how you were going to carry him. Without a word, Jungkook had walked over and hoisted him over his shoulders without a second thought. Apparently, since he was the strongest out of the kiela he was also the designated carrier for whenever someone was unconscious... or at least that’s what Tae told you. But it was also Tae, so you weren’t sure how seriously you could take his comment.

After verifying that Jimin was still securely hanging from the male’s shoulders, you returned your attention to Hobi.

“Unfortunately, there is a… stigma around eclipse-born Saeni. They’re surrounded by a lot of superstition pertaining to bad luck.” The white-haired Saeni took a deep breath and started playing with one of his many knives. “Because of that, his parents didn’t want him and threw him out of their home.”

You look at him in shock as he continued.

“They just… didn’t care. They didn’t want him. He was only five.” Hobi’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, like he was trying to reel in his emotions.

When you saw him clenching his hand into a fist, you reached out, grabbed it, and gave it a squeeze. He let out a shaky breath. Tae, who had been listening in on Hobi’s other side, gently pried the knife out of his brother’s hand, returned it to its sheath, and took ahold of that hand so that Hobi was getting sandwiched in comfort.

“One day, my dad found this skinny, little Ilto kid hanging around the outskirts of our village. His clothes were in rags and he was all skin and bones, eyes basically sunk into the sockets.

“It took a long time for him to trust us, but eventually, we got him to move into our home and join our family. He’s been with me ever since. Since he was seven and I was six.”

You continued to hold his hand as he described how Yoongi transitioned from stranger to acquaintance to friend to best friend to brother over the years. He didn’t voice his… other feelings toward Yoongi. He really didn’t need to. It was evident that Hobi cared for the other Saeni beyond words.

A year after they joined each other’s lives, they both started training as BTS Saeni. At first, the other kids tried to antagonize Yoongi for starting a year later than usual, but they quickly learned he was not easily bullied due to his scrappiness in a fight. A byproduct of his time living on his own. And once they learned he was an eclipse baby, most did their best to avoid him. 

After just a few months of training, he started becoming quite skilled in hand-to-hand combat. Not to mention that he was also working on his control over Illain’s energy. The combination made him one of the most terrifying trainees, especially with his grumpy disposition.

Along the way, the mint-haired Saeni garnered a high level of control over his magic. After some tinkering, he found a way to teach Hobi how to harness small amounts of Illain’s energy too. Something the white-haired Saeni explained should not be impossible, since he was born on a regular, Opitax morning. It was even more strange, because Yoongi had tried teaching the other members of the kiela, but none of them were successful. Only Hobi was.

“Maybe you were conceived during an eclipse,” you joked.

You gave Hobi a nudge with your shoulder, which in turn, caused him to bump into Tae. The archer retaliated by giving Hobi a nudge of his own. But that brat made his so much more forceful than yours. The domino effect of Hobi then knocking into you most likely would have made you fall on your ass if it weren’t for Hobi tightly clutching your hand. You sent Tae a playful glare.

“Do you think that could be the reason, hyung?” Tae asked.

“Ewww. Stop. I don’t want to think about my parents doing… that.” The Saeni between you two visibly cringed.

You frowned, not at his words though, but because his voice sounded weird. It sounded muffled.

Deciding not to think anything of it, you teased, “Oh, ‘cum’ on! Don’t tell me sex embarrasses you?”

You were proud of yourself. You even think Jin would praise you for that one.

To the contrary of your smugness, Hobi’s light brown eyes slowly turned to you. He looked utterly humiliated, but whether it was because of (in your opinion, great) horrendous pun or because he was actually embarrassed that you were talking about… that, you weren’t sure.

The other Saeni, however, started cackling. But the sound was even quieter than before. It was like you were listening under water. Your confusion grew as the sound of Tae’s laughter faded even though it looked like it was still going strong.

What the hell?

“Uh… Hey guys?” You were beginning to get worried.

Both males gave you their attention, Tae even said something. Or at least you saw his mouth move. You couldn’t hear him anymore. Neither of them. But you could still hear the forest around you. Just not the two Saeni right next to you or the others walking nearby.

So apparently, more could happen on this stupid, forsaken day. Great.

Your walking companions’ eyebrows furrowed. Hobi’s mouth moved but you had no clue as to what he was trying to say.

Freaking out, you stopped walking and through your linked hands that meant you forced them to stop too. You brought your free hand to your ear and shook your head to indicate that you couldn’t hear them.

They stared at you blankly for a few moments until Hobi’s eyes light up. It was like you could literally see the lightbulb go off over his head. He wrestled his hand out of Tae’s grasp, who’s face looked betrayed, and started turning around while searching the forest floor. You let him yank you around until he finally stopped and pointed to a small flower then pointed at his tongue.

“You want me to eat that?” You inquired skeptically.

When he repeated the gesture, you repeated your question.

He rolled his eyes at you and pulled one of the petals off the flower and placed it on his tongue. It really reminded you of what you had to do every morning with-

My freaking petals wore off!

Seeing the lightbulb go off above your head, Hobi spit out the petal and gave you a dimpled grin. Walking you both back over to a pouting Tae, you could see Hobi begin to explain to him what was wrong. Once he understood, the grey-haired male scrunched his nose at you before reaching down to grab Hobi’s hand again. After the three of you were securely linked, he pulled you forward to start catching up with the others.

As your trio galivanted your way through the forest, you saw Jin look over his shoulder and shout something toward you. Obviously, you had no idea what the fuck he was saying, so you didn’t respond. After a couple seconds of silence from you, he fully turned around and shouted again. You looked to the Saeni next to you, hoping they would yell back for you about your predicament. But nope, they just snickered and kept their mouths closed.

Little shits.

You returned your gaze to the eldest Saeni who was just staring at you in bewilderment. By now, Namjoon and Jungkook had stopped moving as well. The leader looked at you with concern while Jungkook looked at you like you were the biggest dumbass on Illain. Sighing, you brought your free hand up to cradle your head to wonder what you ever did to deserve this shit today.

Finally, you dropped your hand and yelled to Namjoon, “My petals wore off, so I can’t hear any of you! Or, you know, speak Saeni anymore!”

Thankfully, Namjoon was a doll and informed Jin and Jungkook of the situation… unlike the two little shits next to you. You just thanked whatever higher being was out there that Hobi had only done a spell to conceal everyone’s voices. It would have been a real bitch if there had been a glamour too.

After another hour or so of dragging your legs while Tae and Hobi dragged you, the group finally made it back to camp. As you brushed a leafy branch out of your face you saw Yoongi pacing around and muttering, a scowl plastered on his face. He was so caught up in his head to even notice everyone’s return. That was okay, though, because as soon as he came into view, Hobi let go of both your and Tae’s hands to rush forward and yank the magic user into his arms. A bright, but brief, flash of mint-blue light erupted from Yoongi’s hands before he recognized who had pulled him close. The hands that had been about to perform some spell instead went around the white-haired Saeni and hugged him back. You couldn’t help but smile at the reunion.

Namjoon and Jin greeted Yoongi next, not by giving him a giant hug as Hobi had, but by clasping each other’s forearms. While Jungkook gently lowered Jimin down on to the ground, Tae made his way over to the mint-haired Saeni and gave him a hug despite the elder’s attempts at shoving him off. As the archer reluctantly retracted his arms to allow Jungkook to do the forearm clasping thing, Tae gestured back to you while speaking with Yoongi. The latter’s petal pink eyes darted over to you and you gave a tiny wave, not wanting to interrupt his moment with his kiela. He kept his eyes on you as he nodded at Tae’s words and brought his hands up, which began glowing.

Realizing that Tae had told Yoongi about the petal’s magic fading and that he was probably about to make more, you quickly shook your head and hands.

He paused, the light not fading but not glowing brighter either as you turned to Namjoon to say, “He doesn’t need to waste his energy making more right now. Please. I’m just going to sleep anyway. It can wait until morning.”

The yellow-eyed Saeni translated for you and you let out a sigh of relief as Yoongi shrugged and lowered his hands, their light completely fading away. Assured that he wouldn’t be wasting any energy on you, you approached the magic user. Ignoring his protests, you wrapped your arms around him to give him a careful hug. He was up and moving now, so he seemed to be all healed up, but you weren’t totally sure yet, so better safe than sorry. You let him go after glancing at his grumbling face. Once released, he shifted his gaze downward, though doing so didn’t fully hide the small smile that graced his lips. You let out a light laugh when you saw it, but still moved away to give him space.

While the kiela went about starting a fire and Jin took out his cooking utensils, you wandered over to where Jungkook had placed Jimin. You laid down next to your best friend, doing your best to ignore his beaten features as you looked at his face.

Love you Slim Jim. You thought fondly before closing your eyes and drifting off to the sound of rustling leaves and a crackling fire.

When you cracked your eyes open the next morning, you registered that you were laying on a mat instead of the dirty ground and that someone had placed a blanket over you. You wondered who had done that for you. You were definitely thankful. Sitting up and stretching, you glanced next to you to see Jimin curled into a ball, still snoozing away. Your lips quirked up while you looked at his softly snoring form. After brushing some of his orange hair back from his face, careful not to apply too much pressure to his injured face, you straightened and meandered over to where Yoongi, Tae, and Namjoon were sitting. You really wanted to talk to Jimin, but you didn’t want to disturb him from his rest.

“Morning.” You yawned when you reached the others.

“Good morning Y/N.” Namjoon said.

Yoongi extended a fist, which revealed a pink petal and a yellow petal resting in his palm when he opened it. You thanked him and popped them into your mouth, body locking up momentarily from the sensations they conjured. After your vision cleared, you thanked him again so that he could understand you. He hummed in response.

“Morning little scorja.” Tae handed you an apple when you sat next to him.

“Mmm good morning Tae Tae.” You said as you booped him on the nose, precisely on his mole.

He gave you a big, boxy smile at the nickname, blue eyes brightening with joy. As you finished your breakfast, he asked if you wanted to watch him shoot. Curious to see what he could do, you agreed. Plus, it would be a good way to pass the time while you waited for Jimin to wake up.

After walking a little way into the forest, you sat against the base of a tree while you observed Tae practice. It was hard to call it practice, though. The fluid and precise movements of the Saeni as he effortlessly notched arrows and sent them to his targets was pure art. He didn’t just stand still and fire at the same tree either. Instead, he ran around, constantly in motion. Jumping, diving, rolling. Anything to make the shot more challenging. And he still hit every one on the mark.

It distracted you for a good while. Until he had to stop to collect his arrows. That’s when THE question sprung back into your mind. The one you needed to talk to your snoozing friend about.

Unable to contain it any longer, you spoke in the most unsuccessful nonchalant voice to ever grace Illain, “So… Jimin’s a prince?”

Tae’s hand stilled as he went to grab the shaft of an arrow. “It’s, uh, probably better if he explains it.” He yanked the arrow out and didn’t look your way.

The fact that he refused to look at you now brought up another question you had been wanting to ask but you weren’t quite sure how to.

It was silent for a few heartbeats until…

“Hey Tae?”

“Yeah, little scorja?” He still didn’t look at you, choosing to focus on returning his arrows to his quiver.

“Do you hate me?”

That got his attention.

He instantly shot his head up. “What?”

“Well, um…” You still weren’t completely sure how to say it, but you decided to just rip the band aid off. “Jungkook said that I’m the reason your kiela isn’t whole. That I’m the reason your family is broken.”

Your head lowered to look at your twiddling fingers as you finished. You hoped he didn’t hate you, but with what Jungkook had said, you wouldn’t hold it against him. You still hoped he didn’t, though. You really, really hoped he didn’t.

“Y/N, look at me.” It shocked you to hear your real name from his mouth.

You lifted your gaze to him and flinched when you saw how serious his blue eyes were.

Here it comes… You thought glumly and braced yourself.

“I don’t hate you and the others don’t hate you. None of us do.”

Your jaw dropped. “But Jungkook-”

“Can be immature with his feelings since he’s the youngest. But please believe me when I say that what he said is not true. He just blames you because he thinks there needs to be someone to blame for Chim having to leave. It doesn’t make it right but just know that I don’t think he actually resents you.”

“You didn’t hear the things he said to me, Tae.”

He approached silently, plopped down next to you, and wrapped an arm around you. “I’m sure it was absolutely horrible… but also completely false.” The Saeni sighed. “Jungkook may seem like this strong, confident hard ass, but that’s because he’s been through a lot, so he feels like he needs to be a lot. If you get to know him, the real him, he’s not like that.”

“I don’t know... but you obviously know him better than I do, so…” You took a deep breath. “I’ll believe you. He’s still an asshat though.”

“Can’t completely disagree with you there.” Tae rose to his feet and pulled you up with him. “Enough of this sad talk. What’s something that makes you happy?”

Food. Discounts. Finding a fic I forgot the name of after an extensive search. Food.

“Oh! You’re a dancer too, right? Like Chim?”

“Yeah I am.” You smiled. “Dancing makes me really happy.”

“It’s decided then! Teach me some dances.”

You braced your hands on your knees as you watched Tae do the Soulja Boy dance as you sang the lyrics for him. Granted, your “singing” at this point was more like wheezing due to your heaving laughter, but whatever.

You had first taught him one of the simpler hip hop routines you knew, not wanting to make it too difficult for him. Turns out, that was unnecessary because the Saeni could easily keep up. And not only could he keep up, but he was also good. Sure, he had this weird, but oddly sexy, habit of sticking his tongue out as he did the routine, but to each their own.

Since he had gotten the steps down fairly quickly, you moved onto a more difficult routine, which he also mastered. After that, you decided to just teach him a few funny dances, the current one being the classic Soulja Boy.

Your laughing was interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat. You looked up from Tae’s boxy smile to see Jungkook standing several yards away looking rather awkward. His hands kept fidgeting, apparently not knowing what to do with them. He settled for crossing them over his chest.

You raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, hey Coco. What’s up?”

You watched his eye twitch at the nickname, but he didn’t comment on it. “What are you doing?”

“Teaching Tae some dances… wanna learn one?” You asked hesitantly.

The grey-haired Saeni had said that Jungkook truly wasn’t this aggravating “Chad” of a guy when you really got to know him. So, you decided to pull up your big girl panties and to try to extend an olive branch.

Tae gasped in excitement at your offer. “Come on Kookie! It’s so much fun!”

“I’d prefer not to get skinned alive by Hobi hyung when he finds out you’re dancing without him, so… no thanks.” Jungkook’s green eyes shuddered as if recalling some horrific memory.

Likewise, Tae immediately stopped his giggling and started to panic. “Shit, shit, shit. He got so mad last time!” He ran over to Jungkook and fell to his knees in front of him. “Kookie, please, please, don’t tell him. I’ll do anything!”

You blinked a couple times at the exchange.

Good lord, what did Hobi do to them!?

Jungkook tipped his chin toward you. “Give me a few minutes alone with Y/N and I won’t say shit.”

The Saeni archer dropped his exaggerated act and rose to his full height to stand evenly with Jungkook.

“Not if you’re going to yell at her. She doesn’t deserve that, and you know it.”

Your eyes ogled in disbelief as you watched Tae stand up to his own brother for you.

He really doesn’t hate me…

You felt like you could cry from happiness and relief. Yet, as honored as you were by Tae’s act, you also knew that something good could come from a talk with the burgundy head. Or you really hoped it would be good. You walked up behind Tae and placed a hand on his shoulder, telling him it was okay. He turned to look at you, but found you were facing forward, your eyes glued to the pea-green ones in front of you. Jungkook met your challenge and stared right back.

Neither of looked away even when Tae threatened, “If I hear any shouting, I’m coming back and kicking your ass Kookie.”

As he left the two of you alone, you copied the youngest Saeni and crossed your arms over your chest. Then you waited. And waited… and waited.

“So, are you just going to stare at me?”

His green orbs widened and he suddenly looked to the side then at the ground. He mumbled an answer, but it was too quiet to hear.

Geez. Who is this guy? What happened to the asshat?

“What was that?” You asked in a prodding tone.

Jungkook groaned, bringing his head up to look at the sky. “I-I just…”

“You just what?” Yes, you were sort of provoking him, but the boy needed a push if you’ve ever seen a need for it.

He shot his head down to look at you in annoyance. “Ijustwantedtothankyouforyesterdayyoudon’tneedtobesomean.” As soon as he finished his face heated up and his gaze darted away again.

You gaped at him. Both because of his thanks and because he had the audacity to call you mean. You!

“Excuse me?”

At your question, he raised a hand to rub the back of his neck while the other went over his mouth to cover a forced cough.

He still refused to look at you, but sighed and said, “I just wanted to say thank you for risking your neck for us yesterday.”

“Oh, um, you’re welcome. It’s really no big deal. I just did what I had to.” You rubbed your arms at the awkward tension in the air and pursed your lips.

“I want to offer you a deal.”

“Huh?”

“Look, your technique sucks, and you’ve obviously never been in a fight, but you helped us, and I can’t ignore that. I’m the best fighter here, so I can teach you if-”

“If you’re about to say something like suck your toes or worship the ground you walk on, it’s gonna be a no from me, dawg.”

“First Coco, now Dog?” The Saeni scoffed. “Make up your mind, human. Also no. I don’t want your mouth anywhere near me and I don’t need your worship. I already know how good I am.”

There’s the asshat.

“Riiiiight.” You drawled out. “So, what’s the ‘if?’”

He smirked. “I’ll teach you how to fight if you can last a single minute against me.”

You paused to weigh his offer. Yes, you wanted to learn how to protect yourself. You didn’t want to be a liability to others anymore. You wanted to prove yourself. Plus, it would also just be super badass. On the other hand, you also knew how extremely skilled Jungkook was. While you had only seen glimpses of him fighting, you had heard the others’ comments, so you knew that he was a force to be reckoned with. Which would probably make him a good teacher but...

“Just one minute?” You verified.

You weren’t an idiot. One minute in a fight may sound short, but it seemed like a long time. Granted, you’d never been in a fight, but Jimin made you watch a few MMA matches before and-HOLY SHIT!

Jungkook’s fist appeared out of the corner of your eye and you instinctively ducked, falling down on your butt. He didn’t even laugh at you, as he was already gearing up for another hit. You quickly rolled backwards over your shoulder and got up on your feet, squeaking when you felt the air of another punch, kick, or some other flying appendage miss you. Not bothering to waste time to look at the Saeni, you took off running. Weaving around trees and leaping over logs, you did your best to lose Jungkook in the forest. You couldn’t hear him, but you just knew he was right on your ass. The thought made you pump your sore legs faster.

“Ya! Little human!” He called out to you as you continued to scurry away like some rabbit evading a fox. “You’re supposed to be fighting me, you idiot!”

“You never said shit about fighting! Just that I had to last a minute, you dickhead!” You screeched in return.

You sprinted around another tree. Slid down into a ditch. Jumped over a tangle of roots and sharply veered to the left.

In the back of your mind, you knew that there was no way you should be standing right now. If he was really trying, he would have KO’d your ass on the first punch. He was going easy on you. Way easy. But why? While you were preoccupied trying to deduce why he wasn’t just finishing you off, you failed to notice his figure stepping out from a tree ahead of you. Not realizing his presence until you were basically on top of him, he reached out a hand and wrapped it around your throat as you ran past. 

The throat again? AGAIN!?

You did your best to dance out of the way, but it was absolutely futile. Your forward momentum came to a sudden halt as he threw you down. Landing straight on your back, all the air in your lungs was forced up and out.

Your mouth moved like a fish as you tried to get oxygen to return to your lungs. Jungkook glanced down at your heaving form before turning away.

“It’s only been 40 seconds… seems like you won’t make it.”

Like hell I won’t.

Before you could think twice, you rolled to your side and tripped him with your arms. As he stumbled, you got your ass up and ran off again. By now, you should only have 10 seconds remaining.

You went left around a tree, then right, then right again.

4… 3… 2… 1…

You rounded left around one last tree and folded your body due to there being a low branch at your head’s height. Unfortunately, that meant that the fist meant for your stomach connected directly with your face instead.

You heard Jungkook curse just before his fist made contact and then everything went black.

“What were you thinking Jungkook!?”

“Chim, I already said I’m sorry! It’s not like I was aiming for her fucking head!”

“Guys, if you’re going to scream at each other, can you at least do it somewhere else?”

“He knocked her out, hyung! How can you not be yelling at him!?”

“It was an accident!”

“And he already apologized… even though you’re not the person he owes it to.”

The delightful sound of yelling, angry, and frustrated voices infiltrated your ears as you became conscious. Groaning, you opened your eyes and tried to figure out what was going down.

You were laying down with your back on a mat, a blanket folded beneath your head. You were back at where you assumed was camp, due to the blackened and ashy wood that you could see piled nearby. Hovering over you was Yoongi, who gave your head a pat when he saw your y/e/c eyes open. Toward your feet was Jimin and Jungkook, glaring at each other.

Yoongi gave you a final pat before rising and walking into the trees. “Well, I’ll leave you children to figure this shit out.”

“Hyung! Where the hell are going? Y/N-”

“Is already awake, you dunce. I’m going to find Namjoon.” He sent a wave over his shoulder without looking behind him.

At his words and exit, Jimin whipped his head to you to find your eyes on him. You gave him a sheepish smile.

“See!? I told you she was going to be fine!”

No matter how badly you wanted to smack Jungkook in that moment, you had to do some damage control before Jimin literally went crazy. You hastily stood up, although that wasn’t the smartest move on your part. Immediately, you went dizzy and had to grab ahold of Jimin’s arm to steady yourself.

After collecting yourself, you said, “Slim Jim, it’s fine. It was an accident. If he had actually wanted to hurt me he would have done it on the first swing.”

“The first swing!?” Jimin was seething.

“You didn’t tell him about the deal?” You addressed Jungkook.

“Deal? What deal?”

Jungkook’s let out a nervous laugh as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I, uh, offered to teach her to fight if she could last one minute against me.”

Jimin slipped out of your gasp and got into his brother’s face again. “Are you insane!? You could’ve killed her!”

“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.” You stepped between them, putting a hand on each of their chests. “As much as I appreciate you looking out for me, Jimin, you don’t get to decide what I do or do not do. You’re my best friend, not my keeper.”

He dropped his head to look at your hand resting against his chest, apricot locks hanging over his forehead. “I-I know. I’m just worried about you.”

“And I’m thankful for that, but you also need to step back a bit, okay?” You patted his solid frame and he nodded.

“Okay.” You turned to face the other Saeni. “Now, you.”

His eyes widened at your “let’s get down to business” tone, but he didn’t back down.

“You seriously need to stop making me unconscious. It’s the second time in like four days, dude.”

The burgundy head tilted his head. “Maybe if you knew how to throw a punch you wouldn’t be so easy to beat.”

You rolled your eyes while Jimin growled. “Well, now it’s your job to teach me, Coco.”

“Seems like it.” Jungkook snorted. “You barely lasted the minute, so we’ll have to work on that.” He turned to leave but paused and looked over his shoulder.

“Hey, little human. You… you weren’t as helpless this time.” Emotion flashed in his green eyes but before you could determine exactly which, he faced away from you. “Just be up two hours earlier from now on to train.”

With that, he left. It was only you and Jimin now. Just as you went to say something to your best friend, a sudden revelation dawned on you.

“I don’t have an alarm! How the hell am I supposed to do that!?”

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[creativitytoexplore]

Everything Old Is New Again: An Interview With Co-Web Editor Adam Soto https://ift.tt/2WdSDbp

Writer and editor Adam Soto has long been a part of American Short Fiction‘s editorial team. As one of our assistant editors, he regularly read submission to the journal, wrote copious feedback for authors, and helped determine which stories would ultimately appear in our print edition. So, when we made the decision to bring on another web editor this spring, Adam was a natural choice for the role. This month, he joins our longtime web editor Erin McReynolds as our website’s co-editor, and together, they’ll determine which stories are published here at ASF Online. I recently emailed with Soto to ask about his work, his approach to editing, and his aspirations for the magazine.

—

Nate Brown: Adam, we’re so thrilled that after having served as an assistant editor with us for so long that you’re stepping up to the plate as a new web editor who’ll be working alongside web editor Erin McReynolds. While we know you around these parts—you’ve been a member of Austin’s literary community and of our team for years—I want to start by asking you about your own fiction writing. You’ve got a novel coming out next year. Can you tell us a bit about it?

Adam Soto: Joining ASF was one of the first things I did after coming to Austin, and it’s really been like being part of a family, so I’m really grateful for all the time I’ve had with organization, all the stories I’ve read through the years, and I’m really moved to have the opportunity to contribute more to what the journal is doing, which is something special. 

The novel is called This Weightless World, and it’s out on MCD/FSG fall 2021. It’s a sentimental sci-fi, a kind of Contact for misanthropic millennials. January 1, 2012, Earth detects an alien signal from a planet 75 lightyears away and a group of characters—a Chicago Public School teacher; one of his students, a musical prodigy; and his ex, a programmer who dumped him for a gig at Google—anticipate a major paradigm shift, an alternative to late stage capitalism, the neighborhood’s cycle of violence, an escape from their own personal guilt. I mean, aliens are supposed to be game changers, right? Habit, human nature, laziness, and fear, however, prove to be a greater obstacle than the 75 lightyears between us and them, and when the planet suddenly falls silent, leaving us alone in the universe once again, collapsing the distance between who we are and who we hope to be feels harder than ever. While the characters sort out their lives, our planet’s biological clock keeps ticking, our dependence on technology distorts our sense of reality, and our most vulnerable continue going mostly ignored. If all of that sounds too depressing, I should add that there are also loving pen-pal letters and lyrical dispatches from deep space woven throughout.    

NB: It’s funny, Adam, but I remember you from back in your Iowa City days, when you and my wife, Thea, were MFA students at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Was this a project you were working on back then, or is the novel more recent than that? And how does the novel compare to the work you were writing then? 

AS: I remember the two of you as well. I started the novel on January 1, 2012, so, right before the start of my last semester at Iowa. Marilynne Robinson was going to be teaching a novel workshop in the spring, we’d all been in a novella seminar with Peter Orner, so all of my friends had suddenly pivoted from writing short stories to writing novels, and I thought, I wanna get me some of that!

I was staying with my parents for the holidays, and I had a dream featuring an image and a wordless interpretation. I saw this fuchsia-colored planet and felt that not only I but the whole human race was being shunned and shamed by it, like the planet was Earth’s twin and we just weren’t going to be friends. With absolutely nothing else to go on, I set up my laptop in my parent’s kitchen, took a look around the room, and typed the first thing that came to mind. “So, this dude wakes up on Jan. 1, 2012…” Most of my work, up to that point, had focused on alienating readers. They were mainly plotless, kind of nihilistic, and tried really hard to redeem themselves with lots of catchy sentences. It had never occurred to me that I could cut back on my affect and keep alienation as subject matter. It took me three whole drafts (re-written, top to bottom) and four years to figure out what the story was about, three years working with my amazing agent, Marya Spence, to turn an 800+ page sprawling tome into an actual novel, and it’ll be another year and a half before my editor, Danny Vazquez, and the rest of the team at MCD/ FSG and I turn it over to the public.

NB: Did you have any particularly great workshops or instructors at Iowa? What ideas about writing have stuck with you? And for those considering an MFA program, do you have any advice on what they should expect to take away from the experience? 

AS: My very first workshop there was with the late James Alan McPherson. He was so funny, sage, and generous, and my workshop group became my best friends. Peter Orner was also very inspiring. He taught me a lot about teaching and reading. Teaching and writing were the natural byproducts of reading and paying attention to others for Peter, and this has proven vital to me as a middle-school English teacher. Michelle Huneven, however, changed my life. The way I saw it, I was just this kid who got into this really nice writing program for one reason or another, but, somehow, Michelle took me seriously and told me to take myself seriously. There’s no shortage of people taking themselves seriously in MFA programs, so, I guess my advice is to expect to find something out about yourself. A lot of people find out they don’t like teaching; hell, some people find out they don’t like writing that much, at least not enough to spend the rest of their lives trying to get published. Either way, no matter your age, or where you’re coming from, you’ve got to let the MFA years be formative in some way.

Back in the day, there used to be this expectation that you could join a program and graduate with a book deal, or at least a “cushy” teaching gig that’d hold you off until you got a book deal, and because it was more of a rite of passage, these programs could get away with being deeply unfeeling. I felt nurtured and supported, but I know a lot of people who didn’t and who don’t. But I think if everyone comes in expecting more, and if everyone is willing to accept that that something more probably isn’t going to be more book deals—taking on publishing is a whole other nightmare—then I think a lot of the criticisms of MFA programs could be addressed, and not just by faculty and directors but by the student communities that hold them accountable. Because there’s no real promise for what you can expect, especially from program to program, until you start laying out those expectations. For starters, funding and diversity.

NB: In addition to writing, a big part of editorial work is reading submissions. What kind of work grabs you? What excites you? What do you love coming across in submissions? 

AS: I like something that commits. Something that assures me that it wants to tell me something, even if it’s reluctant to, even if it fails to. Commitment is huge. To voice, a structural procedure, a deep study of character, a memory being pulled apart, a woolgathering.  

NB: Our web exclusive stories have long been capped at 2,000 words (though this is changing), and I’m wondering what you think the short form—whatever you may call them: flash fiction, micro fiction, short-shorts—offer that longer works do not? What are the advantages of really short work?  

AS: Whenever I get a new album, I always start with listening to the longest song. With short story collections, I always start with the shortest story. This is something I’ve done forever. Whatever they’re called, I’ve always been attracted to these brief things, and, over the years, reading them, writing them, I’ve come to appreciate their different intended effects. You read one of Babel’s Red Cavalry Stories and the story’s length isn’t really the first thing you notice. Similar to your feelings after a shorty by Chekhov, you’re struck by the wholeness of the experience, the funny asymmetry, the dropped details—as in the details the writer does and does not drop. Compare that to a sprint by Thomas Bernhard, one of Lydia Davis’s illuminating punchlines, or a haunting by Peter Orner, and I think you get a mixture of dedications to singular things, which is rare in our Wikipedic, FOMA world. And the fact that that one thing can be so many different things—grief’s manipulation of time, light’s impression on a memory, an anecdote, extensive alliteration—is really a gift. Such dedication taken to greater lengths is often awkward or dull until it ventures into the obsessive and becomes genius again.      

NB: Are there writers whose stories you find yourself returning to over time? If so, who are those folks, and which stories do you think demand re-reading? 

AS: Mavis Gallant, constantly, and especially her early and long story “The Cost of Living.” I love that long story for its failure to commit, for dragging out what it means to say for pages and pages, for pretty much being a 36-page novel. Leonard Michaels’s Nachman stories and his list story “In the Fifties.” Anything from Joy Williams’s Escapes, but especially “White” over and over again. Andrey Platonov’s “The Motherland of Electricity” (it teaches you how to build a generator), James Alan McPherson’s “The Silver Bullet,” and, more recently, Sara Majka’s “Saint Andrews Hotel,” “Especially Heinous” by Carmen Maria Machado, and Brandon Taylor’s ASF story, “As Though That Were Love.”  

NB: Jesus, there’s so much good work in there. That Brandon Taylor story has really stayed with me. I taught it at Johns Hopkins last semester, and it made a couple of students (and me) cry. Taylor has so much to say about loneliness and the unbridgeable spaces that exist between people, even those who are dear friends. Come to think of it, the Williams, McPherson, and Majka stories you mention are sort of about that, too. Would you say that the tension between isolation and collectivity, between personal spaces and social spaces are of interest to you? Based on what you’ve said about your own novel, that seems central in that work, too.  

AS: Yes, definitely, definitely, the isolated and the collective, isolated collectives, and, now that we’re all getting a taste, the collectively isolated. And that tension, too, I think you’re right, between the singular and the collective, I’ve always been fascinated by where it pops up, how places and moments of intimacy can leave us feeling so isolated, how fractured our alliances and coalitions can be, how hard it is to come together behind a common goal. But most of all, over the years I’ve become obsessed with characters who, against their better judgment, still seek community, and I’m really attracted to the tensions that arise when those seekers interrogate their intentions or test the authenticity of their communities. One of the unique features of our world today is our ability to not only witness but quantifiably measure the efforts being made by ourselves and others as we vie for each other’s communion—it’s something both beautiful and grotesque. And that reality really takes the characters in TWW for a ride, from pulling them out of their recessional depression to overloading them with worldly concerns to leaving them feel completely isolated. 

NB: American Short Fiction has been around since 1991. Why do you think that journals like ours—large and small, from all parts of the country and the world—abide? What role do you think we play in the broader literary culture, and has that role changed over time? 

AS: Like the few healthy corners of the internet, lit journals are places for spaceless communities, folks looking for a common thing; in our case, a certain flavor of fiction. With every issue, you’re excited to share in the discovery of someone new, eager to read someone familiar, and happy to sustain the practice of an old art form. And before the internet, and now through the internet, lit journals have always offered deeply reflective but also relatively immediate reactions to the worlds we live in, which is something I’m excited to play a part in as a web editor. As a utility, we broaden the spectrum of representation in culture, and although our nets require wider and wider casting, what we discover here increases the expectations we have for other literary institutions, as well as the world at large. 

    Adam Soto is a co-web editor at American Short Fiction. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a former Michener-Copernicus Foundation fellow. He lives with his wife in Austin, TX, where he is a teacher and a musician. His debut novel, This Weightless World, is forthcoming from MCD/ FSG fall 2021. 

[kristie-rp]

2. Redeeming Qualities

Who: Travis Coyte, Tyler Coyte, Vincent “Vince” Patterson, Olympias Rodriquez, Pandora Rodriquez, mentions Ethan Rodriquez. What: Travis didn’t actually want a roommate. He signed that particular form just to spite his families racism.

“Your college paperwork is here,” is what Travis’ father sneers at him when the envelope arrives. Travis would prefer to go over to Oly’s place and fill them out alongside her with Ethan’s guidance, Pandora leaning over their shoulders and being generally disruptive, but they ensured Oly’s paperwork was in early and are on a ski trip to the Alps to visit their grandmother. Travis was invited, as he usually is, but his father had been in a mood so he’d missed the window to ask.

Instead, he sits at the cramped desk in his bedroom while Tyler jabs at the DS she’s stolen from where it was charging. She’s taken it off the charger and the battery is pretty tragic, so he’s not surprised when she makes her fuck this noise and closes it a little harder than he’d like.

He’s more surprised when she leans over his shoulder to peer at his paperwork. The completed forms are stacked neatly on the right, but directly in front of him is the housing application form. He has filled in the basics for what feels like the seven hundredth time – he’s pretty sure that by the time he finishes these papers, he’ll be able to do this accurately with his eyes closed – and is about to tick the box for a single room when Tyler speaks up:

“Gross, humans. In a shared space, yuck. Who wants to deal with that? They smell, and even if they didn’t, they’re just – gross. The sweat and the tears and the waste,” Travis rolls his eyes at that, but he doesn’t comment to point out they produce plenty of unpleasant byproducts themselves, demonic or otherwise. He can see her reflection in the window in front of him, and over the dull grey of overcast Port Lyndon, she’s gesticulating wildly. It’s amusing to watch. “God, I don’t get what you see in that little pet of yours. Is it because she comes with a spare?”

That wipes the amused smile from Travis’ face. “Shut up,” he snaps, because there is more to Oly than her twin, thanks very much – it is true that he prefers Oly by herself so much of the time, but he isn’t going to say that to his little sister; she doesn’t need more ammunition in continuing their fathers racist crusade. And then he ticks the box for a double instead, not letting himself picture a tiny room with everything present in twos.

So really, it’s Tyler’s fault he ends up stuck with Vince.

*-*

“You’re late,” is what he’s greeted by, and it startles him into dropping the box. While he’s crashing about in the doorway, Oly pushes past him with her own box full of his stuff, and dumps it unceremoniously on his bed.

(“If you wanted a roommate, you could’ve asked me,” she had said when she’d found out he’d be rooming with some guy called Vincent Patterson. She’d been incredibly offended, since he knew full well she was moving to a flat by herself paid for by her fathers’ money, and that there’d be plenty of room for a roommate. Travis had ended up having to explain that he’d mostly applied out of spite towards his sister, which had gone a long way to getting his favourite person to stop with the damn adorable angry pout.)

“Nine thirty fits between eight and ten arrival,” Oly retorts, and when Travis finishes recollecting his dropped stuff, he finds her with her hand son her hips. He doesn’t have to look at her face to know she’s raising a challenging brow. He bites his lip as he looks at her, taking in her form the same way he always does, and ignores the thrill of want that’s familiar, too, and when he looks up, he meets the eyes of someone who is doubtlessly incredibly human, just like Tyler feared.

This Vincent guy is paler than Travis and Oly, is his first realization, closer to white than Oly’s olive skin. Dark hair and warm, friendly eyes light up his face, and there is a smirk on his lips as he responds to Oly. “Barely. You’d think you don’t wanna join in on the icebreakers Jayden has planned.”

“Who’s Jayden?” Oly asks, opening a drawer to make sure it’s empty. She removes something from it and cracks open the box to start putting away whatever is in the box Travis packed. He doesn’t complain; she knows him better than his own family, and he trusts her to put everything where he’ll be able to find it later.

“RA,” says the guy who must be Vincent, shifting focus from Oly to Trav. “I take it your lovely self isn’t Travis? Will you be here to visit?”

Oly snorts, and ignores the flirting. Travis bristles, because he usually does, and he’s well aware of the fact that she’s letting him deal with it – she could discourage unwanted attention if she wanted. “I’ll be visiting Oly just as much, if not more, than she’s here, not that it’s any of your business, thanks.”

“Woah, mate,” says probably-Vincent, and even raises his hands in surrender. “No need to get defensive. If you don’t want me hitting on your girlfriend, just say so.”

Any hope of a good first impression and a positive start to their roomatedom evaporates with that sentence. “Olympias isn’t my girlfriend,” Travis mutters, refusing to look at either of them. Oly doesn’t know about his gigantic crush that may or may not involve him being hopelessly in love with her, and he gets the feeling Vincent is the sort to spot it and see it as a weakness to be taken advantage of. Better to avoid that, he thinks.

Still, when Oly leaves him and Vince half an hour later – she isn’t supposed to be there for Irileth Dorm’s icebreakers, and he’s pretty sure she and Pandora have plans, anyway – he’s fully aware of the look Vince gives him.

“Not your girlfriend, huh?”

“Shut up.”

*-*

“So if she isn’t your girlfriend, does that mean you’re awkward, oblivious, paranoid, or gay?” Vincent-don’t-call-me-Vincent-I’m-Vince asks thirty minutes later. The two of them are tangled parts of a much larger whole, an attempt at a human knot that Travis resents the implications of – he can smell at least one other non-human in the bunch, a sickly-sweet tang he thinks ties back to a small blonde woman – and also resents the reality of: he’d assumed the icebreakers wouldn’t place him close to his roommate very often, but the guy is persistent. “Because I’m perfectly happy to offer myself up for your experimentation if you aren’t sure about that last one.”

“Can we maybe not have this conversation right now,” Travis requests. His voice is slightly higher than normal, but he just heard some person he doesn’t know squeal in excitement and he’s willing to bet it was based on Vince’s comment. Ladies nowadays have weird fetishes – a fact he learned thanks to Pan’s curiosity and Oly’s rants.

“Well, why not? Is it because you’re repressed?”

“We’re in public,” he snaps, instead of the actual response, which is that they’re strangers and he does not want to talk about this. “Stuck in this stupid knot.”

“Oh, right, this thing,” Vince seems to realize, and Travis watches in horrified fascination is the guy moves three times, maneuvering around people he chats with easily, and undoes the entire knot easily. “So can we talk now?” he asks, still holding Travis’ left hand, which he’d grabbed earlier.

Travis drops the hand the second the RA calls an end to the activity and leaves to find water. It’s a handy cover, and he can lose the roommate in what he hopes will be an easily repeatable fashion.

*-*

“Why,” Travis asks the room. It’s empty, he thinks, or at least there’s no one he can see, but it’s a mess. It looks like Pandora came in here like a whirlwind and then got chased by Oly when she was in a mood to trash everything worse than usual, too. Except he’s fairly sure neither Oly nor Pan have been here, but he’s been avoiding his roommate since the fiasco of their introduction.

The door opens again behind him, not that it had closed, and he turns quickly to come face to face with the guy he’s been avoiding.

It has only been a month, and yet the change in Vincent – Vince – is readily apparent. For one thing, there are shadows sprawled dark and heavy under hazel eyes that have lost the spark Travis remembers from the first meeting. Vince is tan, but now he looks a kind of washed out, like a vampire victim. “Shit,” Vince mutters under his breath, and as Travis watches, he manages to both draw himself taller and pull in on himself in one motion. “Sorry for the mess. I’ll – it’ll be taken care of.”

Travis stares at him for a moment longer. “Did someone bite you?”

Vince blinks slowly, and the next thought Travis has is to wonder if he’s taken something stupid: meth or pot or something, maybe, he hears those are weird on humans. “No. Is that an offer? Are you secretly a vampire?”

Travis’ eyes narrow, and he shakes his head. “Like I’d tell you if I was. ‘Sides, you’re the one who looks like a corpse.”

The roommate deflates, and sighs heavily. Travis almost wants to reach out to keep him from falling. “Family shit – my sister’s AWOL, like usual, and my parents are being dicks about it, not that that’s new. And the clubs I’m in are crap. I’m bored, man.”

“We’re not talking about the not sleeping thing?” Travis asks after waiting for the guy to add it in.

Vince, to Travis’ displeasure, laughs. It’s actually kind of nice to hear, warm and cheerful. Travis isn’t impressed. “That’s just the insomnia. It isn’t new, man, don’t worry about it.”

Travis is horrifically overprotective of the people he meets. It’s always been true: he defends humanity to his father, although that often ends badly and Oly’s suspicions that his old man is a terrible father shoot up whenever he turns up bruised. He would move the earth to protect Oly and Pan, and Ethan, too, if he would allow it. He’ll even pick a fight to defend a stranger in the street. And like it or not, he knows Vince, and although he can’t help with his personal demons, he knows how to treat insomnia. It’s what caused their semester of Pan on the track team, forced by Oly to see if she was right about exercise being a decent treatment for insomniac tendencies.

“Oly and me are meeting some people for a game of soccer,” Travis says reluctantly. “You want in?”

Vince’s eyes absolutely light up at the offer, and the nod is the closest he’s been to the annoying dick Travis met on day one in – well, a month, so far as Travis knows.

He refuses to feel guilty for it, but at least he can fix it.

*-*

There’s a dance for the people who live on campus late first semester. Travis finds out about it when Oly texts him.

Oly: Pan just came in gloating that she got me a date with that weird roommate of yours. She’s planning on continuing to fake me to trick him. Wants me to come along on the night to ruin his life, apparently. Travis: what? Oly: Oh, she was playing me to fuck with you and broke into your dorm – she has a copy of the key, sorry about that. Vince came home first, thought she was me, flirted like he tried when we met, and asked her to the dance. So. That’s happening. Travis: the fuck Travis: they’re both nuts, they’re made for each other Oly: Travis. Travis: I’ll apologize to pan with chocolate later Oly: Right. Oly: Anyway, are you up for smuggling me in so I can pull the ‘how could you’ routine? We can get burgers after. My treat, since we’ll probably have to dress up. Dad probably has a suit that’ll fit you. Trav: sure, I’m in Trav: how bad could it be

*-*

Turns out that there is something worse than Vince (and this is after they have, begrudgingly – at least on Travis’ end – started to get along) is Vince in cahoots with Pan.

Pandora is convinced that Oly and Travis should be together, and she shows it with passive aggressive commentary and infuriating asides. She has Travis’ number and ninety per cent of the texts the sends him are romcom friends-to-lovers plots, or links to date ideas she knows Oly would enjoy. Travis doesn’t need any of them, because he’d hate-watched countless friends-to-lovers movies in the hopes of convincing himself that telling Oly the full truth wouldn’t go badly, and because he has all of the date ideas and then some more bookmarked for ‘one day’.

Vince catches on way too quickly to what Pan is playing at, and now Travis can’t study in their room without being subjected to commentary and ideas.

“I think Morgan has a thing for the twins,” Vince says one day over the top of one of his engineering textbooks. He’s on Travis’ bed, because his own bed is an unmade mess beneath their combined laundry that needs to be folded and put away, while Travis is at his desk hunched over a borrowed laptop and grumbling about how the thing isn’t designed for left-handed use, with its trackpad aligned to the right of the damn thing.

“At least she has taste,” Travis says. It’s probably incriminating, but he will refuses to imply that Oly doesn’t deserve the attention. “She might have a chance with Pan, but Oly’s straight.”

Vince snorts; Travis gets a sense of satisfaction when he chokes on it. “In that case, I have a friend who’d fall in love with Oly in about ten seconds,” Vince goes on conversationally once he’s finished choking on his idiocy. “He’d treat her like an absolute queen.”

Travis’ hand freezes on the trackpad, and after a long moment, he forces himself to go on with his homework. “Anyone I know?”

“Your attempt at nonchalance isn’t fooling anyone. You sure there isn’t something else you’d like to say?”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe begging me not to ruin your chances with the girl you’ve been in love with since you met her in, like, elementary school?”

Pan’s theories are bullshit, is how Travis would usually respond to that. He doesn’t this time. He’s suddenly exhausted, tired of being teased and bullied for what hasn’t been a stupid crush since, yes, elementary school, a week after he accidentally stole Pandora’s seat when he was starting at a new school. He remembers watching Oly tear apart some jerk who’d tried to pick on Pan, and thinking that’s who I want to marry one day, and not knowing what to do with that information. “You know what?” he says instead, and it spills out of him: “You’re right. You and Pandora are right. I’m in love with Oly, and it’s the worst thing in the fucking world, because she’s my best friend and she’s so human, you know? She’s so sporty and brave and smart and she’d have to be stupid to want me as anything but a friend, and I can’t even tell her, because either it’d ruin our friendship or she’d feel obligated to date me so it wouldn’t be weird, or so it wouldn’t be over. And it’s the best thing ever, too, because Oly’s enough to remind me of why I even like people. You know, people say our family are cursed because my dad’s a racist asshole? And I’ve never been like that, I begged to go to school and then she was there and it’s just – it sucks, okay? Because I’m in love with her, and it’s the most amazing feeling, but I can’t do anything about it because it’ll either ruin everything or it won’t, but either way something will change, and I don’t want it to.”

Vince is silent for a long while after that, and Travis is breathing hard. He unpacks what he said, and his warm face – flushed red – turns white. He’s just told Vince he’s not human. He’s been told all his life to keep the secret – not even Oly knows – and he’s just told a guy he doesn’t even like tolerating the biggest secrets of his life.

“Dude,” Vince says at last, and Travis tenses as the guy puts a hand on his arm. “It sounds like you could use a drink.” He sidesteps the entire episode of word vomit, skips the psychoanalysis and judgement in favour of cutting right to what Travis could actually benefit from, even if they aren’t quite old enough to drink yet.

And Travis – Travis thinks that maybe, maybe, Vince might have one or two redeeming qualities.

[hottytoddynews]

Delta Streets Academy in Greenwood graduated its first senior class in May. The five seniors are all heading off to college, one of them to Mississippi State University on a full scholarship. The private school for young men, which is a member of the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools, was founded in 2012 by T. Mac Howard, a white guy who was a young twenty-something at the time and who caught a vision for what it meant to heed God’s call to do justice, to love mercy, and to sacrifice for others in the way Jesus sacrificed for him.

Mo Leverett, the founder of Desire Street Ministries in New Orleans, came to speak at T.Mac’s Reformed University Fellowship group during his freshman year at MSU. His stories of the poverty and the desperation of the people in the infamous urban housing project touched T. Mac in a profound way, and he asked Mo is he could do a summer internship there. The summer of 2005 opened T. Mac’s eyes to a world he had never experienced. Reading about squalor and dysfunction and lack of hope is one thing, but seeing it first hand, interacting with those who live it, is something altogether different. It broke his heart.

T.Mac and Meagan Howard are the parents of a three-year-old and almost 2-year-old twin boys!

After T. Mac graduated in 2008, he took a job at Greenwood High School teaching math and coaching baseball and football. He chose the Mississippi Delta because there weren’t a lot of established ministries trying to address the overwhelming problems that had morphed in the last few decades. He originally planned to teach and coach and use those as a way to build relationships and to share the gospel.

“The original idea was to do Bible studies in my house and disciple guys like that.” What he discovered was that teaching is exhausting in a classroom of 28 kids, all at different levels, where there are no consequences for misbehavior, tardiness, or skipping school, and where chaos is just the order of the day.”

At the end of the first year, he had not held one Bible study or shared the gospel with one kid. He was still committed, but he knew he had to come up with Plan B. He toyed with the idea of accepting a position with Fellowship of Christian Athletes as an area director in Northeast Mississippi, but he says, “God got hold of me and said, ‘If you leave now and try to come back they’re just going to expect you to leave again because that’s what so many white people do—they come in, lead a Bible study in the neighborhood, and then you never hear from them again.”

He taught at GHS for one more year, but in his mind, he was prepping to start the ministry before the next fall rolled around.

The following summer T.Mac offered a Christian day camp, complete with arts and crafts and sports instruction. He gathered his own interns who were mostly Reformed University Fellowship participants from MSU and Ole Miss. T. Mac had built a friendship with the pastor of Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church who offered his fellowship hall for an after-school tutoring program that started in fall 2011. It was a slow beginning, but it grew month to month.

Swayze Waters (far left) and T.Mac Howard (far right) teamed up to coach these aspiring young athletes at Delta Streets Academy.

When Delta Streets Academy opened in 2012, there were six young men enrolled. T.Mac says he can’t praise their parents enough for trusting their sons to “a white dude” who had never run a school. Each year has seen growth, and this past school year 58 boys in grades 7–12 completed the second semester.

At the present time, there are nine full-time staff and four part-time faculty members. First Baptist Church offers space rent free, and that is a great blessing. Cannon Motors has given the school the old Delta Chevrolet building in downtown, but the renovation price tag of $1.3 million has made renovation a distant dream for the time being. T.Mac wears many hats, from driving the bus to teaching to running the payroll, but one of his most important jobs is fundraiser in chief. “That’s the thing that keeps me up at night, but God has taught me a lot these past six years about his sufficiency.”

The first graduating class of Delta Streets Academy 2017.

“We’re not a great school yet,” he says. “But we are a good school right now. The sooner I can hand off some of my jobs, the better off we’ll be.” He adds, “The only thing I’m really good at is talking to people. But the day we have a $900,000 budget and 120 kids in school is the day we have the potential to be a great school.”

T.Mac believes they will get there. He wants to see his students competing with the strongest private schools in the state, signing Division 1 scholarships and being taught by a world-class faculty. He calls it a total “God thing” that it has come as far as it has in five years.

In the beginning, the great challenge for the boys who enroll at Delta Streets is the radical difference in the culture between the public and the private school. The structure and the discipline hit them hard at first because they have never had rules and consequences. Some push the boundaries, and some decide it’s not for them, but the ones who persevere flourish and will go on to bright futures and better lives than they have known.

Although T.Mac says the students themselves are pretty color-blind, he would very much like to attract minority staff. The racial reconciliation aspect of Delta Streets is just a beautiful byproduct of the Christian foundation. “It’s just in the culture at Delta Streets.”

Certificates of excellence presented to three young students.

When the Delta Streets students play other schools in the MAIS, the opposition is usually a private academy whose founding was all about preserving segregation. T.Mac could not be happier with the way his well-mannered students conduct themselves on the field or on the basketball court. He watches the walls come down.

Discipleship is a huge part of DSA. “We have an open enrollment,” he says. “Anybody can come here for $75 a month, but you have to choose to follow. I totally get that this is not for everybody, but our students are learning life skills that they would not be getting in the public school. They’re getting structure, discipline, work ethic, rules, and a sense of their worth and value as children of the God who loves them and desires the best for them.”

Changing Lives in Marks

About 70 miles north of Greenwood is the little town of Marks where the local economy was once dependent on the health and wealth of the large Delta farms. The radical transformation in farming operations hit Quitman County hard. Compounding that shrinking demand for an unskilled labor force was the effect of NAFTA, which closed small manufacturing plants taking those few jobs as well.

The railroad runs through the center of the once busy downtown. Many empty storefronts line the main street, and several beautiful old churches are in close proximity. Well-kept homes and lawns in the neighborhood hint that once upon a time this was a thriving Delta town.

Jaby Denton is a fourth generation Marks stakeholder. His family has forever owned a large farming operation in Quitman County. His entire life was lived right there until he moved his family to Oxford. When his children were in high school, he wanted them to have opportunities that were simply no longer there for them in Marks. He became a daily commuter between farm and home.

Although his children moved on to college, Jaby didn’t move back to Marks right away. Oxford was booming. He began attending a men’s weekly inspirational breakfast group at a local restaurant. Guest speakers each week discussed a myriad of topics. Jaby happened to attend one morning when T. Mac Howard was there to tell the story of Delta Streets Academy.

Either T. Mac or God spoke to Jaby in a big way. He wanted to spark the same kind of revival in Marks. And so he moved back to the farm and began to assess and plan. He found that in assessing the needs, they were even more overwhelming than he had imagined at first. Among one of the first things he discovered almost by accident was that a huge number of ninth and tenth graders in the local high school were not able to read.

Jaby Denton, a fourth-generation Marks resident shares his vision for a community park and sports fields with Marilyn Tinnin.

Meanwhile, Jason Stoker of Starkville, Executive Director of Reclaimed Project, spent an anniversary weekend in Greenwood. He was there to eat well, take a cooking class for fun at Viking Cooking School, and have some real downtime with Shannon, his wife. But they drove around enough to get an unvarnished picture in his mind of what poverty in the Delta looked like. It reminded him of what he saw on his visits to Africa.

He was thoroughly convinced that Reclaimed’s next ministry outreach needed to be in the Mississippi Delta—but where? Jason called Jill Freeze knowing she and Hugh had been great supporters of Reclaimed and he knew they had also been interested in some ministries in the Delta. Jill indirectly put him in touch with Jaby, who, in Jason’s words “has been the game changer.”

Local leadership and local “buy in” is, next to Jesus Christ, the most important factor in getting an effort off the ground and maintaining the momentum. Jaby has an “umbrella” vision for revitalizing Marks, and he has been able to do things that no outsider could possibly have done.

However, Reclaimed ministry’s piece of the pie is key. Reclaimed’s heart is for the children with a holistic and long-view approach. The strategy for “reclaiming” the Delta is not far removed from the strategy for “reclaiming” anybody anywhere. What are the short-term needs that will undergird the long term goals?

Will Overstreet, Pastor of First Baptist Church of Marks, points out the view of Marks Main Street from one of the loft apartments presently under renovation in a vintage downtown landmark.

The same ills that have affected public education across other parts of Mississippi have hit this Delta town especially hard. Finding and keeping teachers has been next to impossible. Aside from the run down facilities and the lack of family stability, teachers who might come to Marks had no options for places to live.

One of the first things Reclaimed did was to purchase a building in downtown Marks with the plan to repurpose it as a place for single teachers to live. It’s a very cool loft, apartment-style community of six private apartments sharing a common area, a kitchen, and a laundry room. Keeping its restoration true to the 1930 period of its origin means huge windows, high ceilings, old brick, and an aesthetic that would be enticing to most any 20 something! Rent-free and a commitment for two years seem like a generous contract.

The renovation of the building has been a real showcase for how the body of Christ works. The pro bono contributions in materials and time from contractors, electricians, and construction specialists have saved thousands and thousands of dollars. Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Ridgeland has a special group of volunteers who man their own construction ministry. They are all professionals whose day jobs involve building, but they usually take at least one trip a year giving their services for free to a cause that builds the body of Christ.

Tim Blocker, stewardship minister, with a lot of support from builders Ty Gardner and Jon Ramsay, has led a team of about 30 devoted volunteers who have spent many a Saturday in the last few months renovating the building that will house the teachers.

Reclaimed is about $40,000 shy of being able to finish the building debt-free. The plan is to have it complete and ready for move-in before the 2017 fall session begins.

Jason speaks highly of the leadership at the public school. There is a dedicated team who shares the vision for discipling and equipping students. There is an esprit de corps between Reclaimed and the school administration that is filled with hope for the immediate future.

Reclaimed is also about job creation. One thing that differentiates the Greenwood ministry from the Marks ministry is the presence of jobs. Not many jobs exist in Marks. Reclaimed wanted to do something about that, so taking their blueprint from their ministry in Lesotho and Botswana, they began looking for skills among the ladies of Marks.

Bethany Kuenzli, Director of Reclaimed Marketplace, came up with some patterns for aprons and pillows that the Marks ladies could sew. Many of them had worked in upholstery and garment factories and knew more than rudimentary things about sewing. The concept is much like the micro businesses that have helped support locals in third world countries. A volunteer from Jackson’s Fondren Church planned to teach a class for several Marks ladies on how to do more elaborate things – like bedding. It would be a gold mine for the ministry if a few moms decorating daughters’ dorm rooms let the Reclaimed ladies do their custom sewing.

When the instructor began her first class in Marks, she quickly discovered these ladies were already master seamstresses. They just needed the materials to put their skills to work. Mississippi Magazine was planning their Mercantile Shopping Event in early May. This was an opportunity to attract business. Premier Fabrics donated yards and yards of fabric. The Marks ladies worked their magic to create comforters, curtains, pillows, and dust ruffles. Hopefully, this will be an ongoing job-producing cottage industry to help the Reclaimed Project and the Marks revival.

Jason Stoker is definitely the kind of guy who can rally others to the vision. During spring break he took about 50 families from First Baptist Church in Starkville to Marks to do a four-day camp. (Let that sink in—a spring break vacation with no snow skiing, no beach, no place exotic, but going to Marks, MS to serve strangers)

The smiles on the faces of local children tell the story of happy times at the spring day camp conducted by the Reclaimed Project from Starkville.

The Starkville families took their children, and most of them stayed in the homes of the very grateful Marks families who wanted to be involved in the Reclaimed efforts. They wanted to bring black and white together, but they welcomed the know-how of Reclaimed.

First Baptist offered their facility for daytime activity, and First United Methodist took on feeding the volunteers every night. It was a week of bonding and learning and wrapping many heartstrings around the mission.

The locals and the children of the volunteers played side by side. They had a total blast, and they were completely color-blind. That in itself inspires hope.

Jason also learned that as the small town ages and the job market disintegrates, the young who go off to college, understandably do not return. The underclass continues to grow. They are children created in the image of an eternal God, and they need hope and a future.

Reclaimed longs to help create that.

The Heart of a Change Agent

Ole Miss alumnus Daniel Myrick, like T. Mac Howard, grew up in Brandon and attended Northwest Rankin. Jason Stoker had been his middle-school pastor at Pinelake Church. He had participated in mission trips through Pinelake and knew his calling was to be a coach and a teacher.

He signed on to teach in Marks his first year out of college. Expecting it to be hard, he found it to be even harder. There were some long days and some emotional lows. Teaching in Marks was about so much more than the classroom instruction.

As the assistant basketball coach, his team lost the first 14 games of the season. “That’s 14 post-game talks you have to have with the players, and after a while, you run out of things to say,” he says. Daniel persevered believing that his team wasn’t losing due to lack of talent. He continued to pour into the team, and they responded by working hard and trying harder. “Eventually we did win one, and then we won another. We kept winning, went to a district tournament, played the number one seed and won the district championship for the first time in twelve years.”

A very committed Daniel sees that win as symbolic of something more—something about hope and a future that is brighter than the one staring his players in the face today. He is coming back to Marks this fall and will be living in one of the Reclaimed apartments.

“If I can make a difference in just a few lives, those kids will change this community,” he says.

After all, wasn’t Jesus Christ all about relationships?

One of his brightest stars is a student named Daisia. She has a sister who is attending college at USM, and Daisia’s dream is to get there, too. Daniel has no doubt she can and will. These are her words and part of a letter she wrote in answer to Daniel’s question, “What would you want me to tell others about Marks?”

Dear Those Who I Believe Will Make a Change,

Where I’m from, I’m pretty sure everyone is familiar with the struggle. Whether it’s no lights or all you have is cold water, everyone is familiar with it. Everyone who ever had a chance to make it out of this place I call the “Waiting  Place” never comes back. It’s like escaping from a living hell.

The reason I like calling it the “Waiting Place” is because some just sit around thinking, not getting up doing nothing. But how can one take action when there is nothing around to take action about? … It’s like once you’re in the Waiting Place, you can’t get out because you don’t know which path to take.

But people like you are the only chance for my people to finally escape the Waiting Place. Every day and every night I pray for someone who actually believes in us to come and make a change…It would be such a blessing if you all took time out of your personal schedule to devote some of your time to help my people of Quitman County.

 What Is the Future?

 God, bless the T. Mac Howards and the Jason Stokers, the Daniel Myricks and the Jaby Dentons of the world. I asked them all if tackling the layers of issues in the Delta is a little like eating an elephant. That old cliché answers that it IS possible to eat an elephant one bite at a time.

Jason has a much better analogy. He compares tackling the problems in the Delta to peeling an onion. With every layer removed, the onion gets smaller.

No doubt, in the Delta, there are layers and layers of issues that have multiplied over several generations. What matters most at this intersection of time is that God’s people pay attention. In the kingdom of Light and Dark, there exists a great opportunity for impact at the moment.

The epistle of James is pretty clear. “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” James 2:15-17.

Lord, make us your vessels!

By Marilyn Tinnin, a former Miss University at Ole Miss. This story was originally published in Mississippi Christian Living Magazine 

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[mxadrian779]

I know you've seen me around a lot lately, with pretty much the same old stuff and some reiterations. If you're getting sick of me, I apologise.

A lot has been going on lately, both internally and externally, and I sometimes wonder if the two are related. I've been sick on-and-off since the summer. There's been some extreme red tide in my area that has just been knocking me and my family out. I fell back in class, but luckily managed to get a late withdrawal. I've been at basically a mental standstill, the best I can describe it, and I've had a lot of downtime, which means a lot of Sims, Neopets, and introspection. I've been evaluating my identity yet again. Nothing's changing, per se—I still identify as nonbinary demifemme/genderfluid/transmasculine. What's changing is that my transmasculinity is growing seriously stronger, which both excites and scares me.

I've always been pretty feminine, but with an internal tomboy edge. I enjoyed feminine expression while also enjoying crude humour and other “dude stuff.” I liked the idea of being ascribed “dudely” traits—crude, strong, tough. I liked the idea of being muscular (I've been doing the wheelchair since I was a kid). I remember when I was a kid being like obsessively convinced that my voice sounded like a boy's. A treasured moment was when my boyfriend, his buddies, and I would gather in our cafeteria on mornings and play a card game called “B.S.” I had a ballsy moment and used the actual curse (I was 15). I'm not sure whether I liked impressing my boyfriend or liked being “one of the guys”; maybe both. I collected die-cast cars as much as I collected dolls. I was never a baby-doll person—maybe my mother never bought that stuff for me, I don't remember—and I liked some sporty kids' shows like “Rocket Power.” I was so drawn to the concept of skateboarding and surfing. Later on, I would also become drawn to BMXing. I'm definitely not into sports, but I was attracted to the...what, the speed and adrenaline aspects or something? What would you call it?

Like many trans people, I sometimes feel fraudulent because there were no gender-defining moments in my childhood...and that is something I only realise as I type it now. I don't recall explicitly feeling like a girl or identifying with other girls (autonomously, anyway), although I certainly never identified with boys. I don't identify with the men I know; I don't feel like I'm in their camp, nor do I have any desire to be in their camp. The girls almost looked like me, so they were in my league, and we had some common interests until later on. I was never into specifically (maybe stereotypically) “girly” things like shopping, fashion, or, that I remember, boys. I've had crushes of all genders and all intensities, but I don't recall having the need to gush over them (save for the occasional writing of their names in my notebooks). I hated magazines aimed at teen girls and women; they struck me as so shallow and just one big marketing ploy. I felt like 'what, do you think all girls can do is gush over boys and makeup?' This is likely more a feminist and gay-female notion than a gender-identity notion, but it might have had some tints of identity.

Despite some tomboyishness, I never explicitly felt myself identified as masculine, but maybe I just didn't know I could. It was only this autumn that suddenly something changed—it was like the word “transmasculinity” just came up and slapped me in the face. Something seemed to have suddenly shifted, yet I still can't explain what. I just felt like a masculine identity was unlocked. It seemed like it would just be a phase, a fleeting feeling, but even so, I knew I had to explore it. I immersed myself in transmasculine/FTM culture, and found myself somehow more comfortable than ever. I loved the crowd. The people I saw, the stories I read, somehow resonated with me, and since then, my masculine streak has only been getting stronger. The best I could describe my gender blend is to break it down into percentages. Early on, I was about 50% female (or demifemme), 40% neutral, and 10% male (or transmasculine). These days, I would say that 50/40/10 has changed to about 25/40/35—a big and jarring shift for someone who's been feminine most of their life.

It's been almost two years since I first came to my nonbinary gender identity. My internal feelings hadn't changed; what changed was the realisation that I didn't have to be tied down to my assigned gender, but I still did largely identify with it, as much as I had before. I didn't really have a masculine side then. Now I do. I find myself completely puzzled by it, perplexed yet entranced yet scared...and also kind of doubtful.

I've always been quite severely disabled. Basically a lifelong wheelchair user. I grew up socialised differently. I was held apart from mainstream society. I still am. This is where doubt and confusion sometimes come in. A lot of trans narratives involve never feeling like you fit in, never feeling like you could fit the mold, never feeling like your body fits you. But I've had these all my life, and they revolve around disability, not gender. Here, I don't know where my disability ends and my gender begins—I don't know what feelings of unease, discomfort, and dysphoria I can ascribe to my disability and what I can ascribe to my gender. I always knew I could never fit the mold, no matter what gender it held. I never felt comfortable with my body—I get depressed and nauseous sometimes looking in the mirror. I can't reach back into my childhood, point to a man or a woman and say “I aspired to be them” because I knew I could never do so. I can't say I identified with anyone of any type or gender, as if I knew I was going to grow up like them, because I always knew my world was completely different than theirs. There are so many parts of society, so many physical, emotional, and social things that I don't have access to—I mean, how can I tell you what I've felt or aspired when I've never had access to a normal frame of reference, you know? How can I identify certain discrepancies in my identity when my whole existence is a discrepancy?

I also wonder how much of this sudden introspection isn't real and is just some strange byproduct of being sick. Maybe I've got too much time on my hands and I'm digging in too deeply; maybe the red tide neurotoxins are messing with my head again; maybe this masculine identity crisis is just a way to reboot my system since this semester went so terribly.

I've been checking out some trans books from my library. The first, “Gender: Your Guide” by nonbinary author Lee Airton, is a great book for both cisgender people and trans newbies. I personally didn't get much new out of it, but it was a good read. I'm currently on “Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity” by transwoman Arlene Stein, about transmasculinity. I almost returned it because I didn't like its tone regarding religion and politics, but when I picked it up again and started reading, it got more interesting. Although I never identified, and likely still won't, specifically as a transman, the transmale accounts resonate with me. One transman mentioned, among other things, the fact that he hated the word and ascription of “lesbian” (before he came out and transitioned). He said it was because he didn't like how it assigned him as female. I've had my own problems with the word, and wonder if that subconsciously might have been one of them. The word held me back considerably when I was coming to terms with my sexuality because I didn't like its oversexed association, its sound, or the fact that it felt like another way to hold women as separate—why are gay men “gay” but gay women have to be “lesbian”? But was there another reason for my trouble with the word? Was I resistant to it because of its gender implications? Possibly; as my transmasculinity strengthens, my conflict with the word lessens, as if because it's less applicable to me. What would my sexual identity become, then, with such a strong transmasculine gender identity? I'm still attracted to women, but also transmen—basically, anyone who isn't a cisman.

I've been pondering how to move forward with this. As strong as my transmasculine identity is, I want to hold onto my feminine identity, too (hence why one of my labels is “genderfluid”). I want to create a masc identity—find a name, figure out a look (both of which will probably just stay in my fantasy). How would I go about constructing a transmasculine identity that's slightly feminine? Or take a male name but keep my female pronouns? I really, really do not like “he/him” pronouns for myself. “They/them” are also not quite right for me, but I often use them online anyway, if only to signify my trans status. Neopronouns are not my thing, unless they're a derivative or blend of the traditional pronouns, like ey/em (“they” pronouns without “th”), shey/shem (blend of “she” and “they” pronouns), or, one I was thinking about before, hey/hem/heirs (blend of “he” and “they” pronouns), then maybe I can wrap my head around them. I've been reading about transitions and options, and I find myself conflicted. As someone severely disabled, I've had a lot of exposure to the medical field, surgeries and a lot of procedures, and I swore to myself that I would never submit to procedures that weren't 100% medically necessary. I read about top surgeries, and I have no plans to put myself through that. Hormones, however..I was opposed to them at first, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't incredibly curious about them, although I don't know how they would play with my system) and I've had more than enough needles, thank you).

This has become an incredibly long post, and I apologise. I've written essays shorter than this. This gender identity thing is just throwing me for a loop. I've been fine the last year, year-and-a-half, until summer came and shook things up, and left me God-knows-where now. A part of me loves this, loves self-exploration and finding new things, but what throws me off and makes me slightly uncomfortable is the fact that this transmasculine thing struck me so suddenly and so hard. I've never been masculine, never considered being masculine, nor could I even describe what I'm defining as masculine. It feels like it can't be real, and I'm almost afraid to think that it is. It just comes as a shock to me, and once again, I don't know what to do with it all.

I also feel a little uneasy because I would like to be able to share this with friends, but most won't understand, some might be phobic, but more than anything, it seems too personal to post on my page.

[stupidpianist]

10 October 2018

08:00: Woke extremely blearily. Was like, “Jesus, I feel like I didn’t get any sleep last night.” Was one of those nights where you’re sort of phasing in-and-out of sleep but you’re never fully asleep and never fully conscious. Remember distinctly thinking, at multiple moments throughout the night, that my pillow “felt inordinately uncomfortable,” without being able to cognize why, even after visual/tactile investigation of said pillow. First emotion I recall upon waking: extreme, almost shocking levels of stress/anxiety. Told myself, “breathe, just deep breathe, like you see in those meditation videos,” and rationalised that cortisol levels follow a strong diurnal rhythm, with “high levels in the morning that peak 30-45 minutes after waking, dropping rapidly for the next several hours and declining slowly throughout the rest of the day, until a low point of around midnight.” Deep breathing seemed to have an opposite effect, felt distinctly “out-of-breath” like I had been running for five-to-ten minutes, felt increasingly panicked.

08:55: Felt a sensation like I “might as well” get up, stood, walked to bathroom, splashed water on my face. Chose hair product I haven’t used in months to try and “switch things up,” feeling a little mischievous, or something. I usually use this Gatsby branded Asian hair product, but “went with” my pink Reuzel “heavy grease” one today, with pretty good results, maybe, possibly. Then walked to sink, where I made a G Fuel energy shake and drank it while standing and staring at my wall, feeling “extremely surprised” that I “somehow didn’t feel tired” despite not really sleeping the entire night.

09:10: Moved to bed and idly browsed Facebook while thinking, “do a ‘mix-and-match’ outfit today, go ahead, go crazy,” and chose slightly older jeans and a slightly newer jacket. Felt medium-to-high levels of panic re: entire future of my life, short-term tasks I hadn’t done yet, long term-tasks I hadn’t done yet. Attempted to force “positive thinking” on myself through unrelentingly repeating aphorisms in my head, and ceaselessly telling myself that “I can do it,” and that “I’ll get through it,” and will “feel better in an hour or two.”

09:35: Walked to “Animal Behaviour and Theory” lecture, vaguely annoyed that it was drizzling a little. Decided to be a “polite pedestrian,” a “law-abiding citizen” and didn’t jaywalk, despite sometimes being at intersections with no cars within eyeshot, waiting for the walk signal to illuminate. Felt strangely unable to decide what music to play from iPod, switching between bands before settling on Kero Kero Bonito.

10:04: Notes from margins of my notebook from lecture:

-Chose to write with “classic pen” over “fancy pen”

-Energy… fading…

-Seem unable to stop shaking left leg

-Is this a homemade carbonara sauce?

-Gosh I’m tired

For most of the lecture I actually felt, like, attentive and focused. I really like the professor who teaches this class, who I also took another psych course with over the summer. He’s my favourite professor this semester “by a long shot,” and I genuinely enjoy going to his classes. Distinctly remember a lot of the jokes he makes, and am also appreciative that he goes over denser topics at a reasonable rate, whilst not overdoing simpler ones. Another observation—he always has the same thermos, unfalliably, every class, and I’m pretty certain it’s filled with coffee. Seems like he drinks an egregious amount of coffee, like, more than almost anyone I’ve ever met. I looked him up on Facebook one night, just out of curiosity, and saw that he listens to thrash metal, which makes a lot of sense, ie. corroborates well with his general presence. He once made a small exclamation of astonishment that there are scientists who “study blue jays”; I felt similarly surprised.

11:36: Hardcore debating with myself whether or not to “stick it through” and just spend the rest of the day on campus practicing piano and studying, then going home, or if I should go back home for a bit and nap. Unsure if I have… the “stamina”... the “drive”... the “tactical know-how”... the “desire” to push on…

Okay, no, no, I’ve decided, I have to do this, I can’t break down on the second day of liveblogging, NOT ON THE SECOND DAY. My head is going “you can’t do this to yourself, George, you can’t quit now,” like, in a motivational, Will Smith-esque voice. Imagining Will Smith leaning over my shoulder, one arm around me, with slightly furrowed eyebrows going, “come on, man, you can do it, you can D-O I-T,” and really annunciating the last few consonants. Yes, yes, feeling “renewed energy,” feeling like I’m gonna go practice, then go to my last lecture, and “finish off the day,” just “tie it off in one fell swoop.”

12:07: Reading Megan’s Liveblog with the intent to stop reading it once my need to use the bathroom becomes “unavoidable.” Still listening to Kero Kero Bonito. Feel strongly that this is going to be the “vibe” for today, and felt immediate aversion towards using the word “vibe” in a viscerally disgusted manner.

Feel earnest and tear-inducing empathy towards song “Sometimes” by Kero Kero Bonito, semi-dancing to it with my torso and head in the library. Softly singing along to the lyrics:

“Sometimes, life gets you down

But you can turn it all around

The raindrops keep falling, you're soaking to the bone

And you can't see for the clouds

Sometimes, life isn't fair

But you can beat it, don't despair

You win some, you lose some

And then you lose some more

You even played your best

But just round the corner

The sun's looking dapper

And Lady Luck's his date

The happy days are coming again

Sometimes, life is a drag

But get that chin up, don't be sad

'Cause somebody up there is looking out for you

And now they're makin' plans

But just round the corner

Well, the real truth of it's that nobody really knows

Life sure doesn't make sense

But on your boots you can bet

That everybody gets the blues sometimes”

I feel like a major part of why I’ve been so endeared to this band for years is just its honest, down-to-earth, non-elaborated-nor-ornamented, non-pessimistic but non-optimistic, just truthful look at life. Feel like it “mixes well” with the slightly childlike, but forlorn instrumentals. Feel like this is definitely “intentional,” and I’m “nowhere near” the first person to point this out, but still feel good that personally observing this elicited such strong, benevolent emotional feedback.

12:25: Really, really considering going to Burger King for “Whopper Wednesday” and getting a cheapass Whopper meal… Feel my stomach “churning for that Whopper.” Brain is going, in sing-song-ey voice, “you want that Whopper, dontcha, big boy, you want that Whopper digesting in your big ol’ tummy huh big boy.”

12:34: Sent a Snapchat to best friend Felix while leaving library in direction of Burger King. The Snap read “Yo wanna hit up Burger King Whopper Wednesday today”. Meant it as a bit of a joke, as Felix lives in Ottawa (and I live in Montreal). Used to enjoy getting food with him to a significant, nearly unbelievable degree. Imagined him opening the Snap while on break at work and smiling, maybe even grinning a bit.

12:45: My internal voice just announced, “Now arriving at Burger King,” with a subway-announcer-like cadence and tone, as I entered the Burger King, slightly afraid that there would be a massive line, being that I was arriving around, or just after “peak lunch hours.” Well guess what?? Barely a line. Barely one at all. Must have taken just shy of five minutes to place an order. “One Whopper meal, please,” I said. It was a “smooth interaction.” No hiccups or speed bumps or unforseen conversation points brought up without proper preparation.

Ahead of me were two people who asked for “the spicy sauce,” and the person behind the counter placed “buffalo” sauce on their tray, which made me think, “why not, treat yourself, go for it, how many times can a man eat buffalo Burger King sauce?” and so I asked the lady for “some buffalo sauce, please.” Made me feel a little spoiled.

Chose “Cherry Coke” and almost immediately regretted it after first sip. Should have gone with “ol’ faithful,” the “OG” Coke, sans extra flavourings. An amateur mistake, and one that I’ll learn from in the future.

I sat near a window, and while eating, conspicuously stared outside and people-watched, and made direct, extended eye contact with thirty, maybe forty, maybe even fifty people?? A lot of them seemed to have actively depressed facial expressions, which, combined with the grey weather, made me feel slightly concerned for the general public as a whole.

Attempted to offset this feeling of desperation/dysphoria by strategising the most optimal way to consume french fries whilst also eating a burger. Tried a multitude of different “tactics,” including:

-pre-dipping and leaving the french fries in the sauce, so they could accumulate “sauce flavour” and be “ready for the picking” whenever you wanted one

-placing the fries inside the burger so as to eat both at the same time and sort-of do the whole “two birds one stone” thing

-assigning one hand as the “dedicated fry hand,” the other hand as the “dedicated burger hand,” and ensuring that, while taking bites of the burger, the other hand reached and grabbed more fries; this seemed to be a little complicated as the meal went on, given the messiness of the burger, which became increasingly sloppy with each bite

After these experiments I eventually just settled on holding the burger with both hands (still in the wrapper to minimise direct skin-on-food contact) and routinely putting it down on the papered tray to stuff some fries in my mouth. Sad.

13:05: Left Burger King. Walking to practice rooms. It’s a lot colder now than when it was when I first walked to campus. Like, much colder. Like, much, much colder.

13:13: Smelled pungent odour in basement of music building, seemed like a byproduct of Vietnamese banh mi/pho place in the music cafeteria?

13:18: Practiced Schubert “therapeutically,” Alkan “aggressively, then Thalberg “for maintenance.” Completely forgot about my previous tiredness, also temporarily forgot about ~90% of the external world for a good portion of the “practice session,” which surprised me. Made me want to “keep going.” Responded to Facebook messages from best friend Poppy, who lives in the same apartment complex as me, in response to how much colder the day had gotten since both of us woke up.

15:09: Practice session rudely interrupted by protesters outside on sidewalk blaring horn sounds. Didn’t notice them while practicing, but now that I’ve started fixating on them, I can’t hear anything except for their interminable squawking. ALERT!!! SHUT UP!!!! NOBODY CAN HEAR THEMSELVES!!!! YOUR PROTEST HAS FOUR PEOPLE!!!! WHAT ARE YOU PROTESTING!!!! YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE A SIGN!! I HATE YOU!!!

I don’t actually hate them I shoiuldn’t have typed that, “hate” is too strong a word to use 99.99% of the time, I feel, in any situation. Need to “get the hell out of here,” though, cannot possibly concentrate with this din.

15:15: Walking back to McLennan library to “work on things” on computer before next lecture, “Intro to Behavioural Neuroscience.” Reading music reviews of recently-released albums on phone while walking. Feel high spikes of excitement to listen to Marissa Nadler’s new album, For My Crimes, all my favourite music reviewers are unanimously praising it. Really loved her last album, Strangers. Reading Pitchfork blurb for this new one: “On her moody eighth album, the Boston singer-songwriter examines the icy terrain of marital strife through the lens of her habitual gothic folk.” Thinking, “yes, yes, yes, good, good, thank you, yes, amazing.” Also thinking, “Wait, she’s from Boston?”

15:25: Seated at desktop workstation in McLennan ground floor. Reading any articles on Marissa Nadler I can find, Megan Boyle’s Liveblog open in another tab, Spotify open in another tab, Marissa Nadler’s new album playing. Sounds so good so far.

Woman seated to the right of me is bobbing her head to a song with a similar rhythmic pattern to the song playing for me… We’re both bobbing our heads a little, we’re in sync… Looks like a miniature silent dance party in this corner of the library, in this corner of the library we really “know how to party,” we really “get it on.” We’re a “coupla party animals” up in THIS corner of the library, i tell you what.

16:03: Woman to my right packed up her supplies and left. Sad. Was studying some history course on France. Enjoyed our “moment” together. Feel strongly that anonymous, limited, spontaneous connections with strangers, often based on music, are immensely enjoyable, some of the most enjoyable interactions one can have, I feel.

Recalling “silent disco night”: showed up to the venue, everyone put on headphones and loaded up the pre-made mix, started the mix at the same time. At around ten pm, disco leader danced in front of us leading “the pack” through the streets as we all aggressively danced to mix nobody else could hear. A “life changing” experience. Please do it at least once in your life, you “owe it to yourself.”

Marissa Nadler album seeming to “sync up” perfectly to reading Megan’s Liveblog in an uncanny way. Unfortunately feel mounting dread over going to next lecture, knowing I will likely be nodding off for ~60-70% of it, not because the material is uninteresting, but the format of the lecture is unfortunately unconducive towards holding interest, I feel… Am trying not to “trash talk” anyone, feel distinctly worried that this could come across as “trash talking” to some of u, trust me, I am not trash talking this class, the problem is me, not the lectures, I am just a bad student, trust me, please, please…

Contemplated not going, then reverted back to my “no, George, you can’t just skip class willy nilly like this” thinking. Feeling this liveblog actively coercing me to do things like go to class in a beneficial manner. “Thank you, liveblog,” I’m thinking, softly, in my head.

16:31: Speedwalking to lecture. Feeling “determined,” almost recklessly so, to attempt to remain focused for the entirety of this class.

16:59: Notes scrawled while sitting in class:

-Oh my gosh i should just leave, eh?

-Sensory transduction

-Feel focus fading fast

-Reading Megan’s Liveblog in class via phone

-Need to go pee anyways

-Gonna leave after another ~30ish minutes, I think... That’s a “healthy medium,” right? Have I FAILED MYSELF? Ha ha. Na. 

-Just gotta rly catch up on these lectures

-Three other people left, thought, “three down,” classroom seems only 1/2 full since first day of class

-Jeez I gotta pee I’m so leaving gosh I’m so bad I’m so behind in this class anyways but all the lectures are recorded so I think I’ll be fine...

17:12: Couldn’t do it. That’s right, folks. I’ve “thrown in the towel.” Feel free to beat on my lazy dumb rump, just come up to me and backhand smack me across the face. Don’t be afraid to knock a few teeth loose, it’s been a long time coming. 

I am feeling “vaguely adventurous,” though, I’m going to use one of the bathrooms in the Leacock/Arts building underground tunnel that I almost never use; last time I used it was when I did the all day full reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost like almost a full year ago. That was really life changing, I don’t think the professor is doing it again this year, but I hope I can get an invite to Miltonmas again?

(You’re wondering what Miltonmas is. It’s hosted by the resident Milton expert professor here at McGill, and it’s this get together on Milton’s birthday, which always falls nicely and coincidentally near holiday break. I went last year and it was, like, super fun. Not very Milton-themed though, just a lot of wine, a lot of English students, and then at the end of the night there was caroling. Now you know what Miltonmas is, you’re welcome.)

UPDATE: used the bathroom. They had one of those newfangled Dyson Airblade V dryers that I always go crazy for (”Now 30% quieter & costs 69% less to run than other hand dryers. Free 5 year warranty available.”), though not as crazy as those Airblade dB ones you shove your hands down vertically into.

 Check this bad boy out: 

Bumped into one of the volunteers for the community piano program I help coordinate and he said he was about to take an organic chem midterm and I made an exaggeratedly concerned facial expression, then said, “good luck, man.” He responded, “see you” a few seconds later after I had already walked away a bit, and I spun around again said, “yea, see you soon,” then continued walking home. 

17:28: Y’all won’t even believe the kind of shenanigans I’m about to get myself into. Guess what I’m about to do? Take your wildest, I can almost guarantee you’re gonna be so so off the mark.

I’m getting grocery store sushi.

That’s right, I, George, a simple peon, am treating myself to TWO meals out in ONE day. I have no idea why I’m doing this. I was just walking home and my brain said, “you know what’d be good? Cheap, cold, bad grocery store sushi. Go get it, go, fetch, you dog, fetch for me, I want it.”

18:05: Ate the sushi while watching videos of people preparing sushi on YouTube. It was extremely unsatisfying and tremendously filling to the point where I regret even buying it. I should have known better. Filing this one in another one of “today’s failures,” and in the entire-orders-of-magnitude larger folder of “my life’s failures.” Shoot. 

[onlinecoachdan-blog]

What Is The Purpose Of Your Life?

I want my life to have a clear meaning.

Right now something's broken inside me. Boredom and sadness always come when I get disappointed in my hobbies, because sometimes, instead of offering me what I really want, they give anger and confusion (which if fine, but it does go over the top every few months). What is it that I really want?

Also, I don't have the courage to find the job while attending to the University: I have to complete the homework every week. Should I still try? I really-really want to buy the life purpose course, but I can't, because I don't have a job at the moment.

I'm currently a freshman in college and I am working towards being an actuary because I'm exceptional at mathematics and I want to earn a decent living. Recently though, I have been coming to realize what life is really about and its not really the size of your house that matters its the people inside it. With that being said, and with all the news as of late, I cant help but wonder what I truly want to do with my life. Even before this video I realized that being an actuary was only what other people wanted me to be, or so I perceived. Almost like some sort of socially constructed pathway for me and people intellectually like me.

But now that I am going through some sort of coming of age, I have a particular need/want to help people. Now this is where my problem lays:  Is helping people as a profession what I truly want to do? Or do I really want to find some career path that I love and help people as a byproduct or even as a hobby of mine? Either way I realize most people would take it as a noble pursuit and thats not why I do it. I would be doing it solely to make myself truly happy on the inside. Not some fake shit that can be sold to me from some greedy corporate manager. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I'm finishing a masters degree in engineering. Unsure what I want to do, but employment at this level requires high level of specialization. Can't travel, I have too many loans. I've had a decent amount of experiences outside academia in terms of the social realm but I can't seem to find anything tangible that I like. Any time I've seen what an engineer does in a corporation, it bores me. I find myself prodding my own brain and reading, I am almost dreading applying for jobs. 

How refreshing it is to know I was conscious enough to do this on my own. In college I excelled quickly and discovered I really like teaching and tutoring others. Out of college I became a web and app designer/developer. I once again excelled but the job became boring. I learned I hated sitting inside with little human interaction staring at a computer all day. However that career gave me the income to do a lot of new things like martial arts, fitness, and nutrition education. I'm now leaving the world of computers, I've started a fitness business to TEACH/TRAIN fitness and nutrition.

I just graduated from a community college last semester, and I am not sure what to do with my life at this moment, I currently work at a corporation warehouse. I don't like my job because it gets extremely hot in there. It pays well, but its hot and I get one day off now. I have been told by people at the job and my parents that I should go back to school. My plan was to work for a little more and take some time off from school for a semester. I don't want to go back and not take classes I am not interested, I wanted to pursue psychology, but my mind was in it for the money more then the enjoyment of the work. I didn't go further because I don't know how to handle helping people.

I am 45, with a post graduate degree and I have all the money I need. I have no passion whatsoever. I have reached a plateau. I guess I just wanted to make money and now that I have it, I don't feel like working at all. I have probably worked 2-3 days out of every 3 months for the past 4 yrs. and those times I worked, I had to force myself cuz things were starting to go south. I have lost a lot of time and money I could have had and enjoyed but I just don't want to do anything. Literally nothing! Changing my job is not an option and would make no difference, I still want to do nothing. How the heck do I find passion and motivation to get out of my resort like mansion?! My shopper buys my food; my cook makes the food; and my cleaning lady does the cleaning. Everything I want is right here. I don't think you'd want to leave if you were here. How do I find the hunger and the fire? How do I get out of the house and get back to society? I have no desire. Well actually, I do have the desire to have a passion. Can you help?

I was one of those guys that knew what he wanted at an early age. I was a musician from age 12 and all I could think about was being a great player. I tuned pro at 17, made   my living as a pro, at 30 it was over. I was done. But I had lived my dream. I was never happier, but I just couldn't do it anymore. I knew I was something more. I realized I did it all for ego. for that "approval"  That ego identity didn't fit anymore. So here I am 20 years later, There is nothing that gives my authentic self, motivation. I have tried everything. The things I love, I cannot make money at in known framework. I am almost ready to become a hermit, or monk. I have experienced the joy of passion. its like what do you do after you have been to the moon? what else is there?

I graduated and started working nearly 4 years ago. And I have changed 3 companies already. I also want to upgrade me, to allow myself to see new things, to learn, etc. But my history of changing job too many times impacts me badly right now. It seems that all recruiters do NOT like this, and I have been unemployed for 7 months, failing lots of interviews. Please share with your thinking and how to get out of this situation?

I'm 23 and looking for my purpose. I know for a fact I want to help people in some way. For the longest time I thought psychiatric work would be my career but whenever I truly think about it, I want to make a bigger impact in peoples lives. It's frustrating being so close but not being able to specifically know what it is I really want to do with my life. I'm definitely not settling for something small though.

I've been fortunate to have been able to do everything you've suggested except travel the world so far. Funny, but I'm happiest when I'm covered in paint. Doesn’t matter if I'm painting walls, furniture, or a painting. I need to make that into a steady income somehow!

I seriously have a problem with finding my passion. sometimes i'm passionate about something and sometimes I’m not. For example, I loved playing soccer like for my whole life and when I became the captain of the team and the best player there I felt like wanting to try something new despite having a great chance of being a successful soccer player. I left soccer for bodybuilding. I read a lot about nutrition and everything about gaining muscles and getting fit and I got the size I always wanted and same story looking for something new. That's really frustrating sometimes I'm crazy about something and sometimes I'm not.

I'm into arts but I'm already turning 17 so I feel like if I go to art school now I missed out on so much. And I'm in A school that is considered "smart" and I feel like if I go to art everyone in my school will find me stupid? I know this sounds stupid but these are my worries.

I'm a sophomore in High School but I have a a really big problem. I actually don't know what career to focus on I need to to come up with an idea fast I don't have time to explore I just need to know what I'm really good at. So I can choose the right courses for my career , I don't wanna end up choosing the wrong courses at the end of the day when I really find my passion I won't be able to pursue it because I didn't have the right foundation.

RESOURCES

https://psychcentral.com/lib/how-do-you-figure-out-your-lifes-purpose/

http://coachinginst.com/online

http://coachinginst.com/career/

https://www.bustle.com/articles/197962-12-life-coaches-give-you-their-best-career-advice-for-2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/business/smallbusiness/18webshifting.html

[podcastcoach]

Overcoming Impostor Syndrome

Seventy percent of people have impostor syndrome. While an interesting stat, that doesn't really help people who have impostor syndrome get over it. Today I have 12 strategies to help overcome Impostor syndrome

Because of My Podcast: I Got A Custom Wrestling Mat

01:26

Jason Bryan of www.mattalkonline.com shares the story how one of the top manufacturers of wrestling mats made a custom wrestling mat with Jason's Logo and microphone. HOW COOL IS THAT? You can hear more about how Jason is now doing podcasting as a career at http://schoolofpodcasting.com/jason-bryant-turned-his-experience-into-a-career-in-podcasting/

SPONSOR: Podcast Engineering School

Podcast Engineering School - next semester starts September 18th and runs through October 30th. The classes are live and Chris packs the 2-hour classes with tons of information

Program Includes:

LIVE Interactive Online Training

Two Mentoring Sessions with Chris Curran

Major Discounts on Software and Plugins

Lifetime Access to the PES closed community

Certificate of Completion

EARLY BIRD PRICING IS NOW - SIGN UP TODAY AND SAVE BIG

https://podcastengineeringschool.com/

We All Feed Like Imposters

Seth Godin wrote in The Icarus Deception that after a dozen bestsellers he still feels like a fraud all the time

"The beauty of the impostor syndrome is you vacillate between extreme egomania and a complete feeling of: 'I'm a fraud! Oh God, they're on to me! I'm a fraud!' So you just try to ride the egomania when it comes and enjoy it, and then slide through the idea of fraud." – Tina Fey

"Sometimes I wake up in the morning before going off to a shoot, and I think, I can't do this. I'm a fraud." – Kate Winslett

"I have written eleven books, but each time I think, 'uh oh, they're going to find out now. I've run a game on everybody, and they're going to find me out.' " – Maya Angelou

Jodie Foster was interviewed for the television show ‘60 Minutes’ she revealed how she feared she'd have to give back her Oscar after being voted best actor for her role in ‘The Accused’. “I thought it was a fluke,” she said in the interview. “I thought everybody would find out and they'd take the Oscar back. They'd come to my house, knocking on the door, ‘Excuse me, we meant to give that to someone else. That was going to Meryl Streep.'”

Ken Burns interviewed Meryl Streep, the most frequently nominated Academy Award and Golden Globe actor in history, she revealed her own insecurities "You think, ‘Why would anyone want to see me again in a movie? And I don't know how to act anyway, so why am I doing this?’”

If We are All Imposters - Than None of Us Are Imposters

I had a niece who for a while started to dress in a "Goth" style. The idea was she didn't want to look like everyone else. The problem was, "Goth" started to be cool. Soon, everybody started dressing Goth, and the result of "standing out" no longer was a byproduct of dressing Goth. If you are sitting there thinking, "I could never be like _____," guess what? That person is sitting there thinking the same thing too.

The only thing that separates you from anyone else in the world is time and effort. Anything that anyone else can do, you can do. It’s impossible to feel like an impostor once you accept that everyone else is an impostor too.

Imposter Syndrome Cycle

In the book, The Imposter Syndrome Remedy Dr. Estcio talks about an Imposter Syndrom Cycle. This cycle shows often that imposter syndrome leads to two responses:

Crippling Fear

Overworking

You are either crippled by fear which leads you to procrastinate. The second possibility is you are driven by fear of failure and you overwork. When you complete the task it may bring temporary relief. However, when it is time to evaluate performance, limiting beliefs associated with Imposter Syndrome may arise: If procrastination led to a successful outcome, then success is considered a fluke (“I was lucky things worked out in the end!”). If over-preparation led to success, then it reinforces the belief that working extra hard is needed, otherwise, there is no chance of success (“I’m not good at this. I just worked really hard.”). Thus, successful outcomes do not bring satisfaction. It only increases self-doubt, worry, and anxiety, with the thought that when either “luck” or “excessive hard work” wears off, they will finally be exposed as the incompetent fraud that they really are. And then, the cycle repeats itself. See The Imposter Syndrome Remedy by Dr E V Estacio.

Strategies to Overcome Imposter Syndrome

You feel like a fraud because of this huge opportunity that has been put in your lap. Maybe, it's not quite as important as you think. It's important to you, but you're not curing AIDS. It doesn't have to be perfect

You have had some successes in the past. You've done hard things in the past. Think of the hardest thing you have to overcome. You did it. You're still here. Don't ignore your successes.

DO NOT compare yourself to THAT person. There are always people "better" than you and people worse. You are never as good as your best review or as bad as your worst.

You are not defined by your mistakes. The "I must not fail mentality" can be crippling.

There is one person who really needs your message

Not everyone will like you, and that is OK.

Credentials don't always mean what you think they do.

Find one person you know and trust and let them know you feel like a fraud

Instead of saying, "I don't know anything" say, "I don’t know everything...yet. I’m still learning."

Yes, there is luck and timing, but there is also talent, dedication, and charisma.

While your feelings are real, this does not mean they are accurate.

Quit focusing on you, and instead focus on your audience and how you will deliver value.

  I'm Not Ready

I do not have children, but I know many people who do and in some cases, they got pregnant before "they were ready." Some got pregnant when the thought they were ready, but found out later they were nowhere near ready. Yet, their kids are fine. You’re never going to be ready. Act anyway. Acting before you are ready is like a penicillin shot for Impostor Syndrome. It helps you build up immunity against the Syndrome. The more you act before you’re ready, the more you’ll realize that you’re never really ready for anything. But neither is anyone else.

I Wonder What That Tastes Like

Maybe you are trying the new Keto diet. You see a keto recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies. It looks good. You see the ingredients and you have them. There is only one way to know if this recipe tastes good. You have to make the recipe.

The only way to really see something is to do it. You have to experience it. Reading about other people’s failures and successes only go so far. Sooner or later you have to start succeeding and failing first-first hand.

I'm Not That Good At It

So you record your first podcast and listen back and thinking, "Ugh, I'm not that good." You know what? You're not as bad as you think, but you are right there is room for improvement. There is always room for improvement.  Instead of saying to yourself, "I'm not that good. I shouldn't do this." Try, "I am not very good at this yet, but I will continue to learn and adapt as I go."

I Need to Know More Before I Get Started

You do NOT need to know everything. You probably have more than enough knowledge to get going. Instead of saying, "I don't know enough," say "I don't know everything but I will use what I know to learn more as I go." With that said, know this: Don't use soundlcoud.com, anchor.fm, squarespace.com (for a media host), or a Blue Yeti (there are better, less expensive options).

But I'm Scared

Being afraid has times when it's very handy. Fear is good when you are face to face with a bear. Fear is good when you are on the edge of a cliff. Ask yourself, "What is the worst thing that could happen?"

You might answer:

"I will be embarrassed." To this, I say nobody is listening to your show when you first start out. The odds of running into someone you are not related to that has actually heard your show are minimal. When I looked up the definition of embarrassed it said to be disconcerted. When I looked up disconcerted it said "ruffled." I hear to get don't get ruffled. I have said things in my podcasts that I'm really surprised did not have negative side effects, but they didn't.

I was scared my first day of JR High, of SR. High, but I walked through the doors anyway. So say to yourself "Yes, I’m scared, but I’ll get on with it anyway."

The Bright Side of Failure

Failure is fun. Think of it that way. If you’re failing, you’re doing it. You’re real. You can’t be fake and fail at the same time. And failure will eventually lead to victory. Failure is the only way to get to victory and it’s the only way to enjoy it because you can only enjoy something once you’ve tasted the opposite.

I leave near an amusement park called Cedar Point. It has tons of super spooky roller coasters. Some people refuse to get on them as they are often the tallest, fastest, spookiest coaster in the US if not the world. To ride these, you have to stand in line. This is often a long line. Some people get bored and leave the line. Other tough it out, and they get on the ride, strap themselves in and after waiting an hour (or more) in line, the ride lasts 30 seconds and you get off the ride thinking, "It was OK."  You make a mental note, and you know to the only ride that ride if the line is short.

With podcasting you are either going to have some positive outcomes or a story (which is also a positive outcome)

Just because you failed, doesn’t mean that you are a fraud. It only means that you are willing to do something, even if it means risking failure.

Another great book I read was Beyond Imposter Syndrome: Proven strategies for building confidence and finally feeling ‘good enough.

What will happen if you never change?

Podcasting leads to relationships which lead to opportunities. If you have a message, and a drive to reach people, you are missing at an opportunity to invest in yourself. There is NO WAY you start a podcast without learning something about yourself. Granted, one of the things you may learn is you hate podcasting, but I doubt it.

Update on Radio Public

Last week I talked about Radio Public. This is an app that pays you $20 per 1000 downloads as well as a $1 bonus for people who start to use their app. You can see what their player looks like and more at www.schoolofpodcasting.com/radiopublic I received an update:

"Thanks for the follow-up and for highlighting RadioPublic in your latest episode.

That's correct, right now only listens within the RadioPublic apps count toward Paid Listens. We’ll eventually include web listens down the road. The web presents some tough fraud detection problems we aren’t yet ready to address.

You raised a great point on being able to combine earnings across podcasters or within networks for multiple shows. I shared this with Matt MacDonald our Chief Product Officer to see what's possible.

We also recently expanded the guidelines of the program for shows to have their own sponsorships and still participate. The language on the site will likely be updated in the coming weeks but for now I at least wanted to pass along the update knowing there was a concern you brought up about one of your episodes including a midroll spot.

Let me know if any other questions come up. Paid Listens is just the first step in our efforts to transform the podcast marketplace, making it much easier for podcasters to make money for their work. We’re currently prototyping ways for listeners to directly support the podcasters they love. Would you be interested in talking with Matt about this?

We’ve updated our FAQ to address some of the questions and concerns discussed during the episode. Thank you for taking such a deep dive test run and pointing these out! We don’t touch the audio files by inserting ads into an episode, rather we place the ad spot before and/or after an episode - bookending it. (Updated here in our FAQ) The Loyal Listener bonus is a part of the Paid Listens payout, so with only 24 Loyal Listeners a podcaster would be eligible for the $25 minimum threshold for payout. (We updated this FAQ with clearer language around this as well as the math to get a podcaster to that understanding.) We also updated our “How do I get paid?” FAQ with clarification on what a podcaster can expect once their show is ready for a payout.

Hopefully we’ll get the chance to meet in a couple weeks at Podcast Movement.

Cheers, Joshua Rae

July Question of the Month

Do you have an email list, if so how big is it? What do you use? What strategies? If you send an email, please record something and attach it  (And use JULY QUESTION) as the headline. You can also call in your answer 888-563-3228 (don't forget to mention your show and website) The deadline is 7/27/18

Mentioned In This Podcast

Podcast Envy

Food Craftsmen

www.schoolofpodcasting.com/radiopublic

The Imposter Syndrome Remedy

Beyond Imposter Syndrome: Proven strategies for building confidence and finally feeling ‘good enough

  Ready to Start a Podcast?

I would love to work with you. Please visit www.schoolofpodcasting.com/workwithme

Check out this episode!

[morsmordrehasbeensaved]

CONGRATULATIONS HALEY, YOU HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED AS EDGAR BONES WITH THE FACECLAIM OF DIEGO BONETA!

We barely even had to read your application to know this would be a definite yes from us. The fact that he's incredibly self-critical as a byproduct of him being "perfect" just fit so well, his relationship with Amelia was wonderfully described by you and his friendships with Ted and Frank just warmed all of our hearts. It was the exact way we had pictured Edgar while we were writing his character, and we were truly blown away by your application, we can't wait to write with you.

Check out our acceptance checklist right here on what to do next!

♔ OUT OF CHARACTER INFO ♔

Name:

Haley

Age:

20! My birthday just passed, actually. It’s August 15th!

Pronouns:

She/Her

Timezone/Activity:

Standard Central Time! (I live in Texas, if that helps) And my activity typically depends on the activity of the roleplay as well as the muse I have for my character. In active roleplays where I love my character I tend to be online pretty much all day. I’m a nanny, so I have a lot of downtime to get online! In number form, I’d say 7/10!

Triggers:

None that I’m currently aware of.

Anything Else?:

Nothing in particular! Just that I appreciate this roleplay and hope that I get the chance to write with you all. :)

♔ IN CHARACTER INFO ♔

Full Name:

Edgar Elijah Bones. I think he’d also go by Ed, also.

Birthday and Age:

Edgar is 17 years old and his birthday is on September 8th, making him a Virgo!

Pronouns:

He/Him

Sexuality/Romantic Orientation:

If you ask him, he’ll tell you that he likes girls. But he’s actually fairly fluid with his sexuality, he’s just never met someone that has challenged the view he holds inside.

Extracurriculars:

He’s listed as a Prefect and a Chaser for his house. He’s also in the Chess Club, the Slug Club, and the Dueling Club. Those are all great with me and line up with my idea of him perfectly!

Personality Traits:

+ Thorough: Edgar makes sure to put careful thought into all of his decisions and actions. He takes into account every detail and leaves no task unfinished. He completes his duties with great care. This can easily be seen if one were to flip through the numerous pages of notes he takes for his classes and the bundle of carefully planned out to-do lists that he keeps in his book bag.

+ Brave: Edgar does not fear pain, nor is he scared of death. He has a fighting spirit and a desire to stand up for those who can’t do it himself. He will do anything the Order asks of him, without hesitation. On the other hand, he also does not mind telling people things that they might not want to hear. Bravery comes in many forms, and Edgar exemplifies a lot of them.

+ Decisive: It does not take Edgar long to come to a decision. He is logical, almost to a fault, and has no trouble coming to a conclusion quickly and effectively, whether or not it is the right one.

+ Charismatic: Edgar Bones is not called perfect for nothing. Perfect implies that someone excels in all aspects of life and this includes socially. He possesses a compelling charm and has perfected his fake smile. He can small talk with the best of them and typically has no problem getting people to like him.

- Stubborn: An unfortunate byproduct of his thoroughness has led Edgar to develop quite a bit of a stubborn streak. Because he tends to his decisions so carefully he resents being told to do otherwise and will dig his heels into the ground, only doing something if he considers it to be his own idea.

- Self-Critical: Perfect has been a large label to live up to and Edgar isn’t so sure if he’s doing a good job. When he does well on something, he attributes it to extremely hard work and good luck. When he fails, he takes it as a direct display of his true abilities. He fears that he will never live up to the expectations before him and if he is proven correct, even in the slightest, then he unleashes an onslaught of self hatred on his psyche.

- Bossy: Perhaps it’s because he’s the eldest, or perhaps it’s because he thinks every decision he makes is the correct one, but Edgar has a habit of telling other people what to do. He doesn’t mean anything wrong by it and most of the time he doesn’t even realize that he’s doing it. Still, he can come off as a bit domineering in certain circumstances, which is certainly not aided by his stubbornness.

- Impatient: It takes Edgar half a second to know what he wants so he can be a little bothered when other people choose to take more time with their choices. He forgets sometimes that not everyone is as decisive or sure as he is, which results in him annoying the others around him.

Biography:

It was a rainy day in Devonshire on September 3rd, when Adeline and Edward Bones welcomed their first child into the world. The boy was a tiny thing, hardly meeting 16inches. He was very quiet as well, which worried the midwife. Babies are supposed to wail when they’re born, they were told. Still, crying or not, the baby turned out to be just fine, even if he was a bit on the small side. They named him Edgar Elijah Bones and he quickly became the light of his parent’s life. He had quite the eventful first year. He was walking at nine months, and was beginning to string together words by ten months. Every day, his parents grew more and more impressed with their gifted son. It seemed the Bones’ had proved Adeline’s family wrong and produced a fine boy, regardless of her seemingly less than worthy match. It wasn’t too much longer that the Bones were welcoming another child into their fold, little Amelia. She was born on an unusually bright and sunny day which shone with the subtle beauty of fall, a stark contrast to the circumstances surrounding Edgar’s first day of life.

Though the weather on the day of their births were quite different, Edgar and Amelia turned out to be quite similar. Both were driven, ambitious, and cutthroat when it came to their success. Their parents taught them that there was nothing they couldn’t do, so Edgar tried to do everything. He read, he wrote, he painted, and he played Quidditch. Whatever he could do to expand his horizons, he did. – And he enjoyed it too, at least for awhile. He was around eight years old whenever he finally understood the pressure that was being rested upon his shoulders. He must do better. He must be better than those around him. His classmates, his friends, his enemies, and even his sister. He quickly realized that being Edgar Bones meant that you were to be the best. He certainly tried his hardest to meet these expectations. He read every book that his father gave him, perfected the manners that his mother tried to instill in him, and guided his sister in her endeavors. Whatever it took to make his parents proud.

A week before his twelfth birthday, Edgar said goodbye to his family and headed off to Hogwarts, where the real work started. It took the Sorting Hat half of a second to put him in Ravenclaw, so off he went to the Eagles. He had never been so excited. For his entire life he’d wanted to be sorted in the house of bronze and blue. They valued knowledge, wit, and intellect and there was no shortage of those things in the Bones household. Unfortunately, he found it difficult to make friends with his fellow housemates and fell into loneliness rather quickly. It felt as if he went weeks without having a genuine conversation with anybody and it was beginning to wear him down. Edgar wasn’t an especially social child, but even he wasn’t immune to the woes of solitude. One day, in his second month at school, this all changed. He was in Defense Against the Dark Arts, silently sitting next to Augustus Rookwood, when the Professor decided to rearrange the seating. They were in class with the Hufflepuffs and he was placed at a table next to one Ted Tonks. Ted was Edgar’s saving grace at Hogwarts. They became fast friends, spending many a weekend on the Pitch, practicing their throws. Ted introduced Edgar to Frank Longbottom and a trio was born. A year later, Amelia left home and followed her brother to Hogwarts. To Edgar’s delight, she was also sorted into Ravenclaw and the two siblings became nearly inseparable. Finally, he completely settled into life at Hogwarts.

Or, well, he settled as much as was possible. As the years slipped by and his school work became ever more difficult, Edgar found himself struggling to keep up. He’d done exceptionally well for his first four years, making his parents proud. However, when OWL’s rolled around, he found that it was no longer as easy as it had been in semesters past. He refused to let that stop him, though. He was Edgar Elijah Bones and he was supposed to be perfect. That’s what he’d been hearing his entire life. And it was true, he supposed. He smiled when he was supposed to, he made friends with good people, he was at the top of class, excelled at Quidditch, and was destined for a thriving Ministry career. What else could somebody want in a son? Edgar’s goal, for as long as he could remember, was to make his parents proud. And he’d succeeded thus far. His parents couldn’t be happier with their boy. Which is why he found it impossible to tell them that he wasn’t sure if he could do this. How could he let them down? How could he let his sister down? He was her older brother, he was supposed to pave the way. Although, it seemed Amelia needed little help with that. She seemed to thrive under the pressure, whereas he felt like he were drowning. Still, he persevered and made it through his exams with flying colors. Sixth year was much the same. Only now, NEWT’s were approaching and if he had struggled so hard with his exams years prior, how was he going to survive the Nastily Exhausting exams? He refused to admit it to anybody, but he was terrified.

He seemed to be terrified by a lot of things this year. Not only did the thought of the impending year fill him with a dreadful anxiety, but he also now had blood supremacists to contend to. It was an easy decision to sign up for the Order of the Pheonix. One of this best friends was muggleborn and the Bones believed in honor and dignity for all. He was quite passionate about the cause and was not one to stand for any such speak of Death Eater sympathies in his midst. There were not many things that pushed him to draw his wand, but prejudiced bigots ignited a fire inside of him. He was willing to lay down his wand and his life in service to those that needed him. Only time would tell if he would be required to.

Additional Info:

Some headcanons I thought of while making this app!

He’s been wearing a small leather bracelet for years because he considers it lucky.

He only owns three pairs of shoes. One for everyday wear, one for formal wear, and one for physical activity (labor, fighting, Quidditch, etc.)

He has a large collection of business cards.

Still has the comic book collection he started as a boy.

He’s a fanatic about Wizard’s Chess.

He has a nice singing voice, although he rarely shows anybody. Only the walls of his shower are lucky enough to hear.

He smokes cigarettes

Brave as he is, he’s vastly afraid of insects.

He has Virgo sun sign, but his moon sign is in Leo. His personality reflects this.

[hottytoddynews]

Delta Streets Academy in Greenwood graduated its first senior class in May. The five seniors are all heading off to college, one of them to Mississippi State University on a full scholarship. The private school for young men, which is a member of the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools, was founded in 2012 by T. Mac Howard, a white guy who was a young twenty-something at the time and who caught a vision for what it meant to heed God’s call to do justice, to love mercy, and to sacrifice for others in the way Jesus sacrificed for him.

Mo Leverett, the founder of Desire Street Ministries in New Orleans, came to speak at T.Mac’s Reformed University Fellowship group during his freshman year at MSU. His stories of the poverty and the desperation of the people in the infamous urban housing project touched T. Mac in a profound way, and he asked Mo is he could do a summer internship there. The summer of 2005 opened T. Mac’s eyes to a world he had never experienced. Reading about squalor and dysfunction and lack of hope is one thing, but seeing it first hand, interacting with those who live it, is something altogether different. It broke his heart.

T.Mac and Meagan Howard are the parents of a three-year-old and almost 2-year-old twin boys!

After T. Mac graduated in 2008, he took a job at Greenwood High School teaching math and coaching baseball and football. He chose the Mississippi Delta because there weren’t a lot of established ministries trying to address the overwhelming problems that had morphed in the last few decades. He originally planned to teach and coach and use those as a way to build relationships and to share the gospel.

“The original idea was to do Bible studies in my house and disciple guys like that.” What he discovered was that teaching is exhausting in a classroom of 28 kids, all at different levels, where there are no consequences for misbehavior, tardiness, or skipping school, and where chaos is just the order of the day.”

At the end of the first year, he had not held one Bible study or shared the gospel with one kid. He was still committed, but he knew he had to come up with Plan B. He toyed with the idea of accepting a position with Fellowship of Christian Athletes as an area director in Northeast Mississippi, but he says, “God got hold of me and said, ‘If you leave now and try to come back they’re just going to expect you to leave again because that’s what so many white people do—they come in, lead a Bible study in the neighborhood, and then you never hear from them again.”

He taught at GHS for one more year, but in his mind, he was prepping to start the ministry before the next fall rolled around.

The following summer T.Mac offered a Christian day camp, complete with arts and crafts and sports instruction. He gathered his own interns who were mostly Reformed University Fellowship participants from MSU and Ole Miss. T. Mac had built a friendship with the pastor of Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church who offered his fellowship hall for an after-school tutoring program that started in fall 2011. It was a slow beginning, but it grew month to month.

Swayze Waters (far left) and T.Mac Howard (far right) teamed up to coach these aspiring young athletes at Delta Streets Academy.

When Delta Streets Academy opened in 2012, there were six young men enrolled. T.Mac says he can’t praise their parents enough for trusting their sons to “a white dude” who had never run a school. Each year has seen growth, and this past school year 58 boys in grades 7–12 completed the second semester.

At the present time, there are nine full-time staff and four part-time faculty members. First Baptist Church offers space rent free, and that is a great blessing. Cannon Motors has given the school the old Delta Chevrolet building in downtown, but the renovation price tag of $1.3 million has made renovation a distant dream for the time being. T.Mac wears many hats, from driving the bus to teaching to running the payroll, but one of his most important jobs is fundraiser in chief. “That’s the thing that keeps me up at night, but God has taught me a lot these past six years about his sufficiency.”

The first graduating class of Delta Streets Academy 2017.

“We’re not a great school yet,” he says. “But we are a good school right now. The sooner I can hand off some of my jobs, the better off we’ll be.” He adds, “The only thing I’m really good at is talking to people. But the day we have a $900,000 budget and 120 kids in school is the day we have the potential to be a great school.”

T.Mac believes they will get there. He wants to see his students competing with the strongest private schools in the state, signing Division 1 scholarships and being taught by a world-class faculty. He calls it a total “God thing” that it has come as far as it has in five years.

In the beginning, the great challenge for the boys who enroll at Delta Streets is the radical difference in the culture between the public and the private school. The structure and the discipline hit them hard at first because they have never had rules and consequences. Some push the boundaries, and some decide it’s not for them, but the ones who persevere flourish and will go on to bright futures and better lives than they have known.

Although T.Mac says the students themselves are pretty color-blind, he would very much like to attract minority staff. The racial reconciliation aspect of Delta Streets is just a beautiful byproduct of the Christian foundation. “It’s just in the culture at Delta Streets.”

Certificates of excellence presented to three young students.

When the Delta Streets students play other schools in the MAIS, the opposition is usually a private academy whose founding was all about preserving segregation. T.Mac could not be happier with the way his well-mannered students conduct themselves on the field or on the basketball court. He watches the walls come down.

Discipleship is a huge part of DSA. “We have an open enrollment,” he says. “Anybody can come here for $75 a month, but you have to choose to follow. I totally get that this is not for everybody, but our students are learning life skills that they would not be getting in the public school. They’re getting structure, discipline, work ethic, rules, and a sense of their worth and value as children of the God who loves them and desires the best for them.”

Changing Lives in Marks

About 70 miles north of Greenwood is the little town of Marks where the local economy was once dependent on the health and wealth of the large Delta farms. The radical transformation in farming operations hit Quitman County hard. Compounding that shrinking demand for an unskilled labor force was the effect of NAFTA, which closed small manufacturing plants taking those few jobs as well.

The railroad runs through the center of the once busy downtown. Many empty storefronts line the main street, and several beautiful old churches are in close proximity. Well-kept homes and lawns in the neighborhood hint that once upon a time this was a thriving Delta town.

Jaby Denton is a fourth generation Marks stakeholder. His family has forever owned a large farming operation in Quitman County. His entire life was lived right there until he moved his family to Oxford. When his children were in high school, he wanted them to have opportunities that were simply no longer there for them in Marks. He became a daily commuter between farm and home.

Although his children moved on to college, Jaby didn’t move back to Marks right away. Oxford was booming. He began attending a men’s weekly inspirational breakfast group at a local restaurant. Guest speakers each week discussed a myriad of topics. Jaby happened to attend one morning when T. Mac Howard was there to tell the story of Delta Streets Academy.

Either T. Mac or God spoke to Jaby in a big way. He wanted to spark the same kind of revival in Marks. And so he moved back to the farm and began to assess and plan. He found that in assessing the needs, they were even more overwhelming than he had imagined at first. Among one of the first things he discovered almost by accident was that a huge number of ninth and tenth graders in the local high school were not able to read.

Jaby Denton, a fourth-generation Marks resident shares his vision for a community park and sports fields with Marilyn Tinnin.

Meanwhile, Jason Stoker of Starkville, Executive Director of Reclaimed Project, spent an anniversary weekend in Greenwood. He was there to eat well, take a cooking class for fun at Viking Cooking School, and have some real downtime with Shannon, his wife. But they drove around enough to get an unvarnished picture in his mind of what poverty in the Delta looked like. It reminded him of what he saw on his visits to Africa.

He was thoroughly convinced that Reclaimed’s next ministry outreach needed to be in the Mississippi Delta—but where? Jason called Jill Freeze knowing she and Hugh had been great supporters of Reclaimed and he knew they had also been interested in some ministries in the Delta. Jill indirectly put him in touch with Jaby, who, in Jason’s words “has been the game changer.”

Local leadership and local “buy in” is, next to Jesus Christ, the most important factor in getting an effort off the ground and maintaining the momentum. Jaby has an “umbrella” vision for revitalizing Marks, and he has been able to do things that no outsider could possibly have done.

However, Reclaimed ministry’s piece of the pie is key. Reclaimed’s heart is for the children with a holistic and long-view approach. The strategy for “reclaiming” the Delta is not far removed from the strategy for “reclaiming” anybody anywhere. What are the short-term needs that will undergird the long term goals?

Will Overstreet, Pastor of First Baptist Church of Marks, points out the view of Marks Main Street from one of the loft apartments presently under renovation in a vintage downtown landmark.

The same ills that have affected public education across other parts of Mississippi have hit this Delta town especially hard. Finding and keeping teachers has been next to impossible. Aside from the run down facilities and the lack of family stability, teachers who might come to Marks had no options for places to live.

One of the first things Reclaimed did was to purchase a building in downtown Marks with the plan to repurpose it as a place for single teachers to live. It’s a very cool loft, apartment-style community of six private apartments sharing a common area, a kitchen, and a laundry room. Keeping its restoration true to the 1930 period of its origin means huge windows, high ceilings, old brick, and an aesthetic that would be enticing to most any 20 something! Rent-free and a commitment for two years seem like a generous contract.

The renovation of the building has been a real showcase for how the body of Christ works. The pro bono contributions in materials and time from contractors, electricians, and construction specialists have saved thousands and thousands of dollars. Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Ridgeland has a special group of volunteers who man their own construction ministry. They are all professionals whose day jobs involve building, but they usually take at least one trip a year giving their services for free to a cause that builds the body of Christ.

Tim Blocker, stewardship minister, with a lot of support from builders Ty Gardner and Jon Ramsay, has led a team of about 30 devoted volunteers who have spent many a Saturday in the last few months renovating the building that will house the teachers.

Reclaimed is about $40,000 shy of being able to finish the building debt-free. The plan is to have it complete and ready for move-in before the 2017 fall session begins.

Jason speaks highly of the leadership at the public school. There is a dedicated team who shares the vision for discipling and equipping students. There is an esprit de corps between Reclaimed and the school administration that is filled with hope for the immediate future.

Reclaimed is also about job creation. One thing that differentiates the Greenwood ministry from the Marks ministry is the presence of jobs. Not many jobs exist in Marks. Reclaimed wanted to do something about that, so taking their blueprint from their ministry in Lesotho and Botswana, they began looking for skills among the ladies of Marks.

Bethany Kuenzli, Director of Reclaimed Marketplace, came up with some patterns for aprons and pillows that the Marks ladies could sew. Many of them had worked in upholstery and garment factories and knew more than rudimentary things about sewing. The concept is much like the micro businesses that have helped support locals in third world countries. A volunteer from Jackson’s Fondren Church planned to teach a class for several Marks ladies on how to do more elaborate things – like bedding. It would be a gold mine for the ministry if a few moms decorating daughters’ dorm rooms let the Reclaimed ladies do their custom sewing.

When the instructor began her first class in Marks, she quickly discovered these ladies were already master seamstresses. They just needed the materials to put their skills to work. Mississippi Magazine was planning their Mercantile Shopping Event in early May. This was an opportunity to attract business. Premier Fabrics donated yards and yards of fabric. The Marks ladies worked their magic to create comforters, curtains, pillows, and dust ruffles. Hopefully, this will be an ongoing job-producing cottage industry to help the Reclaimed Project and the Marks revival.

Jason Stoker is definitely the kind of guy who can rally others to the vision. During spring break he took about 50 families from First Baptist Church in Starkville to Marks to do a four-day camp. (Let that sink in—a spring break vacation with no snow skiing, no beach, no place exotic, but going to Marks, MS to serve strangers)

The smiles on the faces of local children tell the story of happy times at the spring day camp conducted by the Reclaimed Project from Starkville.

The Starkville families took their children, and most of them stayed in the homes of the very grateful Marks families who wanted to be involved in the Reclaimed efforts. They wanted to bring black and white together, but they welcomed the know-how of Reclaimed.

First Baptist offered their facility for daytime activity, and First United Methodist took on feeding the volunteers every night. It was a week of bonding and learning and wrapping many heartstrings around the mission.

The locals and the children of the volunteers played side by side. They had a total blast, and they were completely color-blind. That in itself inspires hope.

Jason also learned that as the small town ages and the job market disintegrates, the young who go off to college, understandably do not return. The underclass continues to grow. They are children created in the image of an eternal God, and they need hope and a future.

Reclaimed longs to help create that.

The Heart of a Change Agent

Ole Miss alumnus Daniel Myrick, like T. Mac Howard, grew up in Brandon and attended Northwest Rankin. Jason Stoker had been his middle-school pastor at Pinelake Church. He had participated in mission trips through Pinelake and knew his calling was to be a coach and a teacher.

He signed on to teach in Marks his first year out of college. Expecting it to be hard, he found it to be even harder. There were some long days and some emotional lows. Teaching in Marks was about so much more than the classroom instruction.

As the assistant basketball coach, his team lost the first 14 games of the season. “That’s 14 post-game talks you have to have with the players, and after a while, you run out of things to say,” he says. Daniel persevered believing that his team wasn’t losing due to lack of talent. He continued to pour into the team, and they responded by working hard and trying harder. “Eventually we did win one, and then we won another. We kept winning, went to a district tournament, played the number one seed and won the district championship for the first time in twelve years.”

A very committed Daniel sees that win as symbolic of something more—something about hope and a future that is brighter than the one staring his players in the face today. He is coming back to Marks this fall and will be living in one of the Reclaimed apartments.

“If I can make a difference in just a few lives, those kids will change this community,” he says.

After all, wasn’t Jesus Christ all about relationships?

One of his brightest stars is a student named Daisia. She has a sister who is attending college at USM, and Daisia’s dream is to get there, too. Daniel has no doubt she can and will. These are her words and part of a letter she wrote in answer to Daniel’s question, “What would you want me to tell others about Marks?”

Dear Those Who I Believe Will Make a Change,

Where I’m from, I’m pretty sure everyone is familiar with the struggle. Whether it’s no lights or all you have is cold water, everyone is familiar with it. Everyone who ever had a chance to make it out of this place I call the “Waiting  Place” never comes back. It’s like escaping from a living hell.

The reason I like calling it the “Waiting Place” is because some just sit around thinking, not getting up doing nothing. But how can one take action when there is nothing around to take action about? … It’s like once you’re in the Waiting Place, you can’t get out because you don’t know which path to take.

But people like you are the only chance for my people to finally escape the Waiting Place. Every day and every night I pray for someone who actually believes in us to come and make a change…It would be such a blessing if you all took time out of your personal schedule to devote some of your time to help my people of Quitman County.

 What Is the Future?

 God, bless the T. Mac Howards and the Jason Stokers, the Daniel Myricks and the Jaby Dentons of the world. I asked them all if tackling the layers of issues in the Delta is a little like eating an elephant. That old cliché answers that it IS possible to eat an elephant one bite at a time.

Jason has a much better analogy. He compares tackling the problems in the Delta to peeling an onion. With every layer removed, the onion gets smaller.

No doubt, in the Delta, there are layers and layers of issues that have multiplied over several generations. What matters most at this intersection of time is that God’s people pay attention. In the kingdom of Light and Dark, there exists a great opportunity for impact at the moment.

The epistle of James is pretty clear. “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” James 2:15-17.

Lord, make us your vessels!

By Marilyn Tinnin, a former Miss University at Ole Miss. This story was originally published in Mississippi Christian Living Magazine 

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