#jesus christ i wrote this on my computer and i’m just realizing it’s very long on mobile

[boilbluedenim]

Mac and Dennis's relationship after season 12 is so insanely subtextually homosexual. more so dennis repressing his homosexuality because, once again, dennis is scared of monogamous relationships. he literally got divorced like a day after he got married and the reason he's so uncomfortable now that mac is out is because he's been with him for SO LONG and he's confused as to why he's been with him for so long. He realizes that mac being out infringes on their sort of ‘weird’ friendship. Dennis knows that when hes with mac he's himself, and that makes him uncomfortable because he cant justify it normally. A lot of people say "well dennis hates mac" and i genuinely understand why people think that but also their minds are too feeble to grasp the concept of subtext. dennis knowing that mac is sexually attracted to men and just HIM IN GENERAL and still not exploiting him is so telling for example in season 14 ‘the gang chokes’ 14/4. The whole episode is centered around frank choking in a restaurant. the subplot(s) of TGchokes is number 1 dennis and mac being extremely one sided (mac asking dennis for approval constantly and dennis being uncomfortable with being heavily depended on.) and dee just basically almost killing herself multiple times. The episode sort of leaves you with this conclusion that's.... not exactly resolving the underlying issues that the gang is currently facing, which tbh is common but basically at the end mac comes up with this plan to save frank from dying to win dennis back. dee ends up drinking a lethal powder and at the end there's a back and forth between mac and dennis where mac says something along the lines of "Ok i'm going to listen to myself now and not depend on you, Dennis." and Dennis is like "what!!!l! please save dee with the EpiPen" and mac refuses. The ending with Mac agreeing to stop being such a suck up to Dennis isn't resolving anything in their relationship. 

If anything the symbolism in TGescapes is insane.  they are left with a heart lock and charlie and frank have the heart key setting up this funny split up dumb-and-dumber group dynamic and maybe i'm reading too far into this but this whole episode shows how mac is sort of over sucking up to dennis but at the same time praises him calling him the "obvious choice for a group leader" AND KEEP IN MIND. mac has always praised and depended on dennis it's only after season 13 that dennis is outwardly uncomfortable and i really need them to have a talk about him being scared that mac is only with him for sex because it's SO CLEAR that that's how he feels. He feels idolized for a bad reason because his lifelong friend finally came out, and now he's scared that he's winning him back only to sleep with him and then leave him. Dennis is so vain but he actually just wants to be loved. Dennis cares SO MUCH, he literally just cant show it.

[yutaholic]

THAT SMASHING THE SIX ENDING?!? WTFFF

This is my one issue with asks - there is no tone. Are you angry shouting or excited shouting? hahaha (more asks under the cut with spoilers. once again if you have not read the final chapter of Smashing the Six, do not read below this line!)

anonymous asked: smashing. the. six. i don’t think i’ll ever be the same after reading that series. it’s one of the only ones i’ve tucked away in my mind to keep checking in on. and as a journalism student, the journalism student trope will always end me but MY GOD THIS WAS THE JOURNALISM STUDENT TROPE TO END ALL JOURNALISM STUDENT TROPES. the end? hello???? i was literally open mouthed staring at my screen. the different dynamics between each guy, the angst, oh my gosh it was all so !!!!! sorry for the ramble but i just wanted to let you know how much i enjoyed the series. i’m probably going to go read it all over again!!!

Hello journalism major I’m glad the story has your approval! Don’t apologize for the rambling I love rambles about my works! Thank you for supporting the story and I really hope you enjoy reading it again. I wonder if you will notice more clues on the second read through hehe

anonymous asked: jesus christ, you're a genius for writing smashing the six. at first i genuinely just thought it would be a fun and playful story about, you know, smashing the six, like a bunch of stories i would read at night for the familiar butterflies in my stomach before i sleep. but story by story went by and you just amazed me every time. it was all so well written and coherent, and every character was there for a purpose besides the one we would expect. you nailed every emotion, every bit of event, every turning point. i'm glad to say that if you ever wrote professionally i'll be supporting you. but for now, thank you. i'm so honored to have indulged everything you've generously put out for us. thank you so much.

Thank you! I honestly intended for this to be a very light and silly story but it took a deeper turn than I planned, but I ain’t mad about it lol I hope to one day write professionally, but I have no clue when that will be. My Mom of all people has been encouraging me to finish my novel recently so maybe I’ll have to 😂

@randomkpopfanatic asked: SMASHING THE SIX SPOILERS I’d like to imagine that Doyoung went through the same initiation process as the girls in order to run neonet. Also I just realized that I haven’t followed you since I’ve kept up with your stories without doing so anyway, but I’m following now

It is canon that SHINee’s Key was neonet before Doyoung and was his mentor, according to me. His initiation process was much different. Remember in the first chapter how reader said people pointed fingers at the computer science division as being involved with neonet because some of them like to be hackers on the side? And they all got busted and some had to leave town? That was the type of initiation the heads of neonet had to do. It would have to involve something with much higher stakes so you know he could handle that much power and pressure.

anonymous asked: SUCH an amazing series, you really outdid yourself!! I think it’s some of the best fanfic I’ve read in a long while. You write tension SO WELL it’s crazy. Again just a rly great series. I hope it’s something you feel really proud of!

I’m very proud of it and I’m also so grateful to you guys for interacting with me throughout the posting of the whole story! Yall gave me a boost every time I needed it. Thank you ❤️

anonymous asked: OHMYGOD DOYOUNG YOU SNEAKY LITTLE DEVIL! THAT WAS HONESTLY THE BEST THING I’VE READ IN A LONG WHILE! Well done! Super hands down! I’m gonna read the rest of your stories and I am VERY EXCITED FOR THE NEXT SERIES!

I was honestly cracking up when Doyoung won the poll and he’s been the biggest suspect since the first chapter dropped. I loved that yall suspected him. By the end of the story, all of you knew he was neonet, but no one in the story knows. I call that a power move hahaha

anonymous asked: smashing the six - an absolute rollercoaster ride of a series!! i love this series of yours so much and even if it's your first it's seriously so well connected and written. i loved how you kept your readers on their toes and guessing after every part and how you built up a sense of mystery around every character. thank you so much for this series and i can't wait to read more from you!!from, an anon who has been your devoted reader for AGES (even when you were still zenyukhei 🤩)

Thank you so much! On that subject I can’t believe my blog will be 2 years old in December! Yall need to start letting me know what you want me to do to celebrate. I really enjoyed keeping you guys on your toes! I usually avoid suspense or mystery in my works because I’m always worried I will spin too big a web that I can’t tie up all the loose ends (which is one of my biggest pet peeves in books/movies/shows) but Heathens gave me a taste of it lol I feel more comfortable writing suspense now 😂

anonymous asked: okay i’d tell you which anon i am but that would involve spoiling so i’ll just say this 😭😭😭 the fact that i was right about all my guesses is INSANE because i was literally pacing around my room eliminating people. and i came down to 2 options that made the most sense but i didn’t think i would be right….. you are a GENIUS luna

It’s such a satisfying feeling when you guess right haha this story was such a blast and I’m going to miss all the fun we had with it but because of that it has made me want to write short series more. Stay tuned! 😉

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 280: I Am Red Riot

Previously on BnHA: The pro heroes over at Gunga Mountain struggled against Gigantomachia and the League until finally Midnight was all, “fuck it, let’s just put the kids in charge.” Momo immediately got to work organizing a sophisticated counteroffensive involving an exploding swamp, a bunch of sedative cans, and a massive coordinated team attack. I gotta tell you guys, it’s really something to watch a large-scale group attack in which all of the team members are actually competent. I don’t know what Japan put in the water when all these sixteen-year-olds were growing up, but that shit has paid off big time, and basically the only reason Machia hasn’t gone down yet is because he cheated and was all “sneeze” and the kids all got blown away because they are little and because he is really, really big. Anyway so then Dabi set the forest on fire because he loves doing that, and the chapter ended with Mina using her Acid Man attack to make herself FUCKIN’ FIREPROOF so she could charge through the woods ready to save the day and stuff!

Today on BnHA: Mina launches herself straight at Machia like the beautiful corrosive wild child she is, but then everything goes to shit when she recognizes him from that one time she almost got murdered while giving a strange man directions. Just when it’s looking like she might get killed for real this time, KIRISHIMA SHOWS UP TO SAVE THE DAY AND SHOVES HER TO SAFETY AND IS ALL “BOTTOMS UP” AND HEAVES A LITERAL CAN OF WHOOPASS RIGHT IN MACHIA’S MOUTH. At this point the grown-ups are all “oh wow look at that, time for us to take over for you kids now, don’t worry we’ve got it all under control” because Oh Those Wacky Pros and all that, but at least Majestic finally deigns to show his face so that’s a plus! The chapter ends with us cutting back to the Jakku battle, where Tomura is curled up in a little ball all “curse you heroes, how dare you [checks notes] save people all the time”, which is a real take and a half. Anyway so things are looking up, which can only mean everyone is about to die. That’s how it works, right. Shit.

HOLY SHIT LOL

THIS IS MINA. SHE’S REALLY COOL AND SHE CAN MELT PEOPLE. um, the hell kind of tagline is that?? holy fucking shit?? “melt and succumb”?? IS THE SUCCUMB PART REALLY NECESSARY. IS THAT NOT ALREADY IMPLIED. it’s like saying “die and then perish”, which actually sounds really badass and I’m about to make it my new go-to threat actually so you know what never mind. where the fuck were we anyway

“IS EVERYONE SAFE” some absurdly bad-at-gauging-situations kid from class B is yelling while the forest is on fire and all the kids are recovering from having been catapulted fifty miles by King Dodongo’s windy yeet breath. of course they are safe, sweet child. of course everyone is absolutely fine, why the fuck would they possibly not be safe after something like that

KAMINARI NOOO MY POOR SWEET BABY

AT LEAST HE’S STILL CONSCIOUS ENOUGH TO MAKE STUPID JOKES. holy shit this baby got concussed to hell and back and then Machia turned him and the others into precipitation and he wasn’t in any kind of state to even try to land safely, I hope to god someone caught him

Sero is all “is there anyone still in range!” and damn, I like that he’s taking charge and trying to regain their momentum. he is so criminally underrated. I feel like he’s in the top six or seven of class 1-A kids who I would most trust to take charge. which is very high praise because that class has a lot of charge-taking kids

SPEAKING OF

it “probably” can’t get through her acid, she says. my god. sometimes the spirit of Plus Ultra just takes ahold of these kids and it’s like, I want to ruffle their hair proudly and then grab them by the shoulders and shake them vigorously because WHERE EVEN IS YOUR SELF-PRESERVATION WHY DO NONE OF YOU HAVE IT GODDAMMIT AIZAWA REALLY SHOULD HAVE EXPELLED YOU GUYS AFTER ALL

man. and yet I really do love this “be the one who can do it” stuff. what a heroic fucking attitude dfjfklks. I’ll just go put on my humongous sandwich board that reads GIANT FUCKING HYPOCRITE and go stand in the corner

damn it this week’s scan is annoyingly dark, it’s really hard to tell what’s going on but it looks like the pros are attacking Machia and the League at long last. way to go guys it only took you seven years but you finally hopped to it

MINA WHY IS THE ACID COMING OFF OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD. PUT IT BACK!!!

I KNOW SHE’S NOT GONNA DIE DAMMIT BUT AHHHHH AHHHHHH AHHHHHHHH

okay what the hell is up with these weird zen proverbs though

“your fear stricken heart”, “the shortest path”, what the fuck even is this. whose thoughts are these. normally these translations are honestly decent enough but I gotta say this time around I’m totally being thrown for a loop lmao

(ETA: FYI I’m only just now realizing that he was saying the shortest path to Master, as in Tomura, not “master” as in to master something fjkldjskf lol some delayed reading comprehension there. so basically he’s just bitching about how annoying these little “flies” are proving to be.)

JESUS CHRIST

okay is it just me, or is Gigantomachia suddenly showing intelligence in his eyes instead of mindless animal instinct the single most pants-shitting thing you’ve ever seen?!! holy shit. the way he just LOOKS at her out of nowhere all of a sudden?? holy fucking shit DO NOT HURT MT. LADY OH MY GOD I’M FREAKING THE FUCK OUT. AND DON’T YOU DARE HURT MINA EITHER!! JUST FUCKING DIE AND PERISH

but also though, is that recognition in Mina’s eyes?? because even though this dude is 80 feet tall now, her encounter with him a couple years back had to have been one of the more memorable experiences of her young life. damn I was wondering when this would finally come into play

OKAY YES THE NEXT PAGE IS A FLASHBACK OH SHIT

this has nothing to do with anything but Mina just has the prettiest hair, btw, and this “just woke up covered in acid” look is a particularly good one on her. it looks so soft and fluffy, like damn. this is like Shouto-hair-billowing-in-the-wind levels of pretty here

NOOOOO

oh my god holy shit?! putting her back in the school uniform to show the slip in her mentality is a PUNK MOVE, HORIKOSHI, and I respect the shit out of you for it you manipulative bastard. goddammit. bracing myself for the incoming wave of Mina feels... here they come... they’re a lot... let’s see if I can latch on to anything I can actually figure out how to describe in words

okay well here’s one, my respect for Mina’s bravery just went up like a thousand percent in this instant, because now we know this was actually such a traumatizing event for her that hearing Machia’s voice again years later immediately sent her into a full-blown flashback. she was that scared and yet she still stood up to him and didn’t hesitate. and now I’m remembering how her knees just buckled right afterwards, and just...

and this visual, though!! what a brutally effective way to show that in her mind she went right back to being that scared middle schooler again for a moment. god fucking damn. holy shit you guys is Kirishima fireproof because if he comes waltzing out of the woods next I don’t even know what I’m gonna do. lolo kids getting traumatized left and right this arc is fucking merciless

um eXCUSE ME!?!?!

YOU MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF SHIT LET GO OF HER RIGHT NOW OR I AM GONNA LOSE IT!!

THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!!

holy shit he could have fucking snapped her neck like that??! I don’t like this at ALL WHAT THE FUCK

OKAY SERIOUSLY

I’M GONNA NEED ANOTHER KID TO STEP IN HERE WITH A LAST MINUTE SAVE LIKE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW, OR I AM GOING TO THROW MY COMPUTER OFF A FUCKING CLIFF AND MOVE TO THE DESERT AND BECOME A HERMIT AND NEVER READ MANGA ON THE INTERNET AGAIN

OH THANK GOD

TODAY WE SPELL “REDEMPTION” K-I-R-I... ETC. THERE’S A LOT OF LETTERS BUT YOU GET THE DRIFT!!!

holy fucking shit y’all. I mean, it’s not like it came out of nowhere, like the setup could not have been more obvious, but let me assure you that none of the predictability lessened the actual impact of this moment in the SLIGHTEST. Horikoshi really wrote a flashback scene one hundred and thirty five chapters ago and planted it, watered it once a day, and patiently waited for THREE LONG YEARS until he could finally harvest the badass fruits of his labor in the midst of his most epic arc to date. I’m so fucking hyped I’ll even forgive him for sacrificing Mina’s big moment and having her get rescued, because it’s such a good reversal. he didn’t freeze up this time. he promised himself he’d never freeze again and he didn’t and he saved her and god fucking damn. anyways so now Machia is going to treat him like a fucking action figure though but he’s a solid little dude he can take it hopefully

NO WHAT IS THIS!!! STOP KILLING MY MOOD!!!

she better not be dead!! SHE BETTER NOT FUCKING BE DEAD I WILL RUN MY PC THROUGH A PAPER SHREDDER AND GO AND LIVE ALONE WITH MY FEELS ON A MOUNTAIN IN TIBET

CHINTETSU!!

well we know he’s fireproof. another callback at the least expected of times lmao

so Tetsu’s all “yeah Kirishima’s not really all that fireproof but he totally ran over here anyway to save you. oh wait that probably wasn’t very comforting of me to say.” maybe that’s why it seems like he might not have actually said it out loud, now that I’m reading this over again. good call Tetsu

ARE YOU STANDING UP AND CASUALLY STRETCHING OUT YOUR BACK

I CAN’T EVEN BELIEVE HOW MUCH I HATE THIS GUY RIGHT NOW. WE’RE REACHING LEVELS OF HATRED RESERVED FOR NAZIS AND PEOPLE WHO WALK TOO SLOWLY IN FRONT OF ME IN A GROUP SHOULDER TO SHOULDER INSTEAD OF SINGLE FILE SO I CAN PASS IN FRONT OF THEM. YOU’RE A FUCKING TOURIST IN NYC YOU PIECE OF SHIT

lmao he’s just dropping this random hero person and letting him fall to his doom wheeeeee

remind me to leave all of the League of Villains’ texts on read for the foreseeable future. goddamn. I still love you guys but also, fuck you so damn hard

OHO A LIL RED SCALY BOI ISN’T DONE YET!!

real talk, just between you and me, I’ll lower my voice so that Kirishima can’t hear. so uh. we all agree that even if Kiri is fireproof and squishproof, that little can of tranquilizer juice technically shouldn’t have been, right? but we’re all going to hush and pretend like it was anyway for the sake of not spoiling his big moment. even though I am crossing my arms and tapping my chin with my finger while doubtfully glancing to the side

anyway here he goes!

YEAH KIRI GO GETTIM [stage whisper] there it is, in his pocket. should’ve burned. we won’t discuss it

OH FOR FUCK’S

TOGA YOU LITTLE WIENER BUT WHAT’S THIS ABOUT “MY HALF” NOW????

DID HE GRAB MINA’S MID-AIR?? IS HE REALLY REACHING INTO HIS BACK POCKET AND FUCKING UNZIPPING IT RIGHT NOW WHILE HOLDING ON TO NOTHING AND PRESUMABLY FALLING THROUGH THE AIR. DID A LITTLE BIT OF OCHAKO’S QUIRK RUB OFF ON YOU OR WHAT

OH SNAP SON HE REALLY DID THE THING HOLY SHIT???

AND TOKAGE FLEW OVER AND SAVED HIM AND NOW TANKS ARE SHOOTING AT MACHIA, LMAO WHAT IS THIS. MOMO HOW MANY GUNS DID YOU MAKE

Shouji standing there trying to be useful any way he can. are eyeballs really that much more effective if you make them the size of tennis balls and hold them up above your head. legit question, I don’t really know how eyes work

okay after 45 seconds of googling this my impression is that no, they are not. well good on you for giving it the old college try anyway though Shouji

oH MY GODLKDLK?!?!

DID SHE SAY WHAT I THOUGHT SHE SAID, DID SHE SAY MAJESTIC, ARE WE GONNA SEE MASJKESLTKCI DSFLKJL

oh my god he really is the Magic Man dude??? TIME TO DUST OFF MY INVENTORY OF ADVENTURE TIME QUOTES

(ETA: AHH FATGUM AND GANG ORCA ARE THERE TOO YESSSS!)

“that’s enough depending on some interns” oh, okay. now that they’ve done all your work for you. I see, I see

so now Gigantomachia is LITERALLY UNHINGING HIS JAW I can’t fucking believe this dude you guys. everything he does is just like, ARE YOU SERIOUS

please go to sleep already. thanks to you I have my keyboard set to capslock as the default for the duration of this chapter

ARE YOU SERIOUS YOU FUCKING WAITED UNTIL MAGIC FUCKING MAN SHOWED UP TO TEACH US MAGICAL LIFE LESSONS AND NOW YOU’RE CUTTING BACK TO THE TOMURA FIGHT?? WHY DO WE KEEP LETTING THIS MAN GET AWAY WITH THIS

oh my god you guys they really fucking did it

I guess that Howitzer slash fire punch combo really was that potent huh

anyway so now Endeavor is standing there making a big speech instead of reaching into Tomura’s pocket and taking the bullets that he doesn’t know about and shooting him with one asap. dammit Endeavor

aaaaand Tomura is firing back with the wisdom of Shimura Fucking Kotaro of all people

well you sure convinced me. damn I don’t know what I was thinking. heroes suck you guys. how dare they help other people all the time

so now he’s all “PERIOD, EXCLAMATION POINT!!”

take that Endeavor. you heard the man. it’s not destruction without conviction, as god as his witness he will have you know it is destruction WITH conviction. something something the great sage Shimura “I hurt my family for absolutely no reason at all, fuck this ‘helping others’ bullshit” Kotaro. I hope you packed your textbooks because you just got SCHOOLED. I hope the person who ordered you signed up for delivery notifications because you just got SENT. I HOPE YOU LIKE CAPITALISM BECAUSE YOU JUST GOT OWNED. I HOPE YOU CHOSE PAPER AND NOT SCISSORS BECAUSE YOU JUST GOT ROCKED

what an absolutely, unreservedly bizarre place to end the chapter lol. we’re really just done with this week, just like that. Majestic showed up and Gigantomachia opened his chin like a garage door and Tomura is all “you may have won the battle but you suck” while he buys time for Aizawa to suddenly sneeze or something so he can make his terrible comeback and continue Horikoshi’s Traumatize Every Kid in Class 1-A 2020 campaign. what an arc this is my friends. what an arc

[gypsydanger01]

THE STORM - Part six

Fandom: The Boys (Amazon prime tv series)

Pairing: Black Noir x Reader

Disclaimer: I don’t own The Boys, only my OC characters and certain pieces of au plot.

Comments, reviews, constructive criticism, and other requests are always more than welcome!

      Posting new chapters every Wednesday and Friday!

          Getting to know you

While a certain member of the Seven entertained violent thoughts at the upper levels, Sarah sat at her desk filing papers. To be honest, she was studying more than she was doing her job, but there wasn’t much of a workload anyway. Keeping her textbook laid flat against her knees, she quickly went through the lines of text before typing away at her computer for a few minutes.

Martha was perched on her desk reading through some folders.

“You do know you’re not fooling anyone, right?”

Sarah sighed and finished the paragraph she was reading on molecular recognition.

“I know,” she conceded, before defending herself. “At least I’m doing something constructive.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and shot, “Look at Sierra, over there.”

Her friend moved naturally, looking over at the clock while noticing the young woman taking a string of selfies with her coffee. Martha grimaced, shaking her head.

“No girl, just no.”

“I know.”

“Someone needs to tell her, she won’t stop.”

Sarah laughed, “She’ll learn someday.”

Checking the clock herself, she found herself growing hot. She pressed her sweaty palms into the wood surface of her desk, letting her legs stretch out underneath it. Her fingers twitched slightly, and she masked her unease by bringing her hand back to her mouse, clicking away at the screen.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Sarah made a noncommittal sound, not letting her eyes move away from the screen in front of her.

“You look...” Martha trailed off before finding the right word, “squeamish.”

“Well that sounds lovely. Just what I like to hear.”

Martha sighed, her eyes narrowing at her friend. “You know I worry. You sure everything’s okay?”

The sight of Black Noir occupying her couch was seared into her mind. She could no longer hide. She could only face it and be smart about the information she disclosed.

Her friend was still watching her, and Sarah finally pushed away from the desk.

She pushed her glasses back up and, pinching the bridge of her nose, she bowed her head down.

With her hair falling around her face in soft curls, she murmured, “I’ve made a contact.”

Martha immediately put her papers down and turned to fully face her. “What do you mean?”

“Someone reached out. It’s dangerous, but it could be very rewarding.”

“Who is it?”

Sarah looked around and brought her hands back to the keyboard.

“I really can’t say.”

At Martha’s pointed look, she further explained. “I really can’t tell you. It’s someone—,” she wasn’t sure how she could describe Black Noir without giving it away. “It’s just someone really high up. Lots of info.”

“Oh my gosh, it’s B.N. isn’t it? You said he made contact.”

Sarah shrugged. “Maybe.”

Martha stared at her for a few moments before accepting her friend’s silence.

“Just be careful, okay?”

Sarah nodded, “You know I am.”

Her friend shook her head. “I know you are, but we’re getting closer. Things could get hot.”

The room grew even louder and more boisterous as lunch time rolled around. Sarah proceeded to close the files she’d been working on.

“Oh, and you’ll have to tell me all the deets, understood?”

The young woman laughed, wondering deep down if she’d be able to tell her anything at all. The dead don’t speak.

“I’m ready for lunch, let’s go find Annika.”

.

The hours after lunch were spent worrying and suffocating that same preoccupation with fool-proof schemes. It was an endless cycle, really. Every time she found a flaw in her set of questions, it sent her spiraling into self-doubt. Could she truly pull this off?

She was more and more convinced that he hadn’t been sent by Vought, simply because he was a trained assassin who didn’t need these long and ambiguous methods to extract the information he needed. He was more than capable of inflicting mind-blowing amounts of pain. And pain always loosened the tongue.

So maybe he wasn’t doing this for Vought. Maybe his fixation and stalkerish tendencies towards her could be chalked up as misguided and genuine. In that case, he was still a dangerous wild card since she wasn’t who he thought she was. If he’s truly loyal to the company, her identity might prove to be an issue.

And so, it went on and on. She went through potential questions she could ask, and questions she should steer clear of. She recalled all the tips and tricks Mallory had taught her, from the phrasing of the questions, to the body language she should maintain. The goal was to ask a series of common questions and sparsely slip an inquisitive one into the mix. But would this work on him?

She’d have to work much slower to access some, if any, information.

Most of all, she was afraid of her body giving her away: her fast heartbeat and shallow breathing, paired with the subtle interrogation could give it all away. And this terrified her.

Sarah watched the clock tick closer and closer to five o’clock with increasing dread.

When it arrived, she waved over to Martha, gathered her things and walked out the door with as much confidence as physically possible.

.

In his living quarters, Black Noir stood in front of a mirror. He remembered Sarah’s reaction. The woman apparently concealed it well, but he’d caught onto her fear, her state of agitation and turmoil. Was it because of his dark appearance, or was it something deeper, a reaction to the violence he represented? He tilted his head to the side. Or did it have to do with her file, something she’s hiding?

The tall man couldn’t think of any way to convince her of his good intentions towards her. All he could do was respect her boundaries and listen to her; hope she’d accept him.

He usually avoided the mirror in his room, not really needing it for any aesthetic reason. He wore the same armored suit every day and was almost always covered from head to toe in tough black material. And yet now, he stood tall in front of it and took in the sight. He was closed-off, impenetrable, dangerous and stealthy. He appreciated the simplicity of the reinforced suit. It wasn’t flashy like the ones his teammates wore. And it didn’t convey any light-hearted or patriotic meaning. It was functional and allowed him to blend into the shadows and kill. His skull-like mask was the last thing many men saw before he proceeded in tearing them apart. Seeing it in daylight had nothing on witnessing it come out of the shadows at night. Like a nightmare taking form right before their eyes.

And now Sarah had witnessed a small violence on his part, the skull he hid behind and the strength he possessed. It was perfectly normal for her to be afraid.

But the knife, a small part of him reminded. Yes, that was a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit. But he’d take his time, god knows he could be patient. Especially if it was for her. The mysterious Sarah Burns.

.

As eight o ‘clock crept closer, Sarah could be found in her kitchen, finishing up her dinner. The creamy pasta she’d made sat heavy in her stomach, the knowledge of her impending doom adding an extra ton. After quickly washing the dishes, she sat at the table and scrolled through the memes Martha had sent her. When she realized they revolved around Homelander, she grew interested. There was no way the Seven’s leader would accept this, and the inner conflict it would produce was the perfect cover for her plan to proceed.

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Sitting still, she tensed, ready to whip up and out of her chair. A dark clothed hand came up and over her shoulder moving towards her cell phone.

She almost jumped out of her skin as her mind thought of the worst possible outcome of having his hand so close to her neck. And yet, he simply leaned over and promptly pressed the heart icon below one of the memes. He liked the meme.

Sarah opened her mouth to speak and closed it a few times. He finally retreated from his spot hovering over her and went to stand at a respectful distance, his back to the wall.

She spun around and stood up, her heart still clogging her throat.

“Jesus Christ,” she hissed, eyes wide and a hand raised to her chest.

He simply watched her with that magnetic gaze she couldn’t seem to escape. She picked at the hem of her shirt, not knowing how to proceed. How had he even entered the house?

His gaze settled on the small notebook she’d left on the table for their upcoming meeting. He moved slowly and gave her wide birth as he took it up into his hands. He flipped to a blank page and wrote.

Are you afraid, he paused before adding, of me?

He passed the notebook to her. She took it hesitantly, and once she read his message, her eyes kept flicking from the page to his mask. You could snap me like a twig. She was indeed very much afraid.

“No,” she answered, with a slight shake of her head.

He tilted his head slightly to the left before raising his hand to his chest. He lightly tapped right over his heart. Sarah initially didn’t understand the meaning of the gesture, but soon realized he was referring to her heartbeat.

She brushed it aside, “Oh...” You probably have a dozen different instruments of death concealed in your suit. “That’s nothing, I’m just jumpy, I guess.”

She hummed, looking for a way to grow her confidence and gain control of the situation.

“Plus, you kind of came out of nowhere. In my house.”

He was still, unsure of how his sudden appearance would pan out. He almost wanted to hit himself for not thinking it through.

“How did you even get in here? I know everything was locked.”

He shrugged, almost imperceptibly, before offering his hand. She passed him the notebook and pen.

Trade secret. If I told you, I’d have to kill you :)

Her heart almost stopped cold before she regained composure. If it weren’t for the smiley face he’d added towards the end, she might have died right then and there. And she laughed, she actually laughed. Maybe it was the tension, or the insane fact that Black Noir was in her home, attempting to crack a joke.

“I guess I don’t really need to know,” she surmised with a small smile.

He nodded before adding more to the page.

Your day?

“How was my day?

He nodded, captivated by the fluid movements her hands naturally made as she spoke. He’d noticed it immediately the first night he’d seen her at the gala. Over the next week of watching her, he’d quickly filed it as one of her mannerisms.

“I can’t complain. Honestly, I don’t really like that job, it’s more something to keep the bills payed until I get the position I want.”

He wrote, PhD student. Applied Physiology

“That’s correct,” she confirmed. “Why am I not surprised you know that?”

I know some things. Not everything.

He wanted to apologize for making her uncomfortable but ultimately found it too difficult to actually write down. He wasn’t accustomed to apologizing; he’d never actually needed to. Not out loud, or on paper.

She accepted the quiet confession. “That’s okay. I’m not all that interesting, and there’s nothing to hide.”

They both knew it was a lie, but Black Noir understood her need to protect herself. She’d share the truth with him once he’d won her trust.

“How was your day?”

He straightened and thought of how to approach this question. Thinking on his toes, he went with the easiest, most believable story.

Meetings, promotional event. He added for emphasis. Boring. I slept.

There was no way he could tell her he’d spent most of the day fantasizing her ex-boyfriend’s murder, only to have it executed a few hours ago.

She laughed lightly, “Who knew, I thought you’d be off on some top-secret mission.”

Her hopes were crushed when he answered with a simple shake of the head. She hummed. He leaned against the wall, ever observant of the woman facing him.

“Oh, you can sit. Here let me—”

She got up to pull a chair out for him, but he stopped her with a raised hand. He crossed over to her side of the table and angled the chair she’d been previously occupying before abruptly standing and knocking it out of the way. She slowly sat and let him push her in. He calmly took a seat in front of her.

“Thank you”

I have manners :) 

She nodded, “Yes, you do.”

She squirmed under his stare, under the black mask she was starting to grow accustomed to.

Sarah broke the silence, “I wanted to thank you for the other day. I could’ve handled it, but I’m glad you intervened.”

He watched her and she continued, “It was a bad relationship, and seeing him really threw me off balance. Then you showed up, and I was just…,” she trailed off.

He reached out and briefly touched her hand before sharply retrieving it. It was what he’d seen other people do in society, or in the movies he watched in the privacy of his living quarters. As he understood, it was meant as a way to show affection and give comfort. But were they at a stage where he could do that? He honestly didn’t know.

He jotted down a line, I understand

“And thank you for the gifts, I mean, the flowers and the earrings—they’re all so beautiful but you really don’t have to go through all that trouble.”

I want to

She smiled reading the words. She leaned back in her chair and took him all in. Who was this man? The Black Noir she’d gathered intel on for Mallory was nothing like the man sitting in front of her. Well, maybe that was extreme, she had seen proof of his deadly work. And yet, she was not seeing the ferocious, sinister monster she’d come to imagine over the years.

He was a more complex sort of enigma, one that was maybe as complicated as her own. While she needed to maintain her guard around him, she found herself slightly relaxing in his presence. There were multiple layers to this man, and maybe she could appeal to the human, well-mannered side of him.

.

They spent the rest of the next hour exchanging questions. They mostly revolved around their likes and dislikes, jumping from books to foods, and finally to movies. She quickly realized he was well cultured on cinema, especially war and action movies which he clearly enjoyed.

“Hmm, how about Tears of the Sun?”

He nodded. A favorite.

“Black Hawk Down?”

The large man nodded with enthusiasm.

“What about Saving Private Ryan.”

He snorted. Don’t insult me

“What’s your favorite movie ever? Like the perfect mix of action, shooting and humor.”

He thought for a few seconds before deciding. Die Hard

When he pushed the notebook towards her for her to read, he emphasized his point by tapping on it and sitting back, arms crossed.

“Well, I like what I see. Yippee kay ye, am I right?” she said with mirth. “Yeah, I think that’s Bruce Willis’s best movie.”

He was glad she liked it as well. Early that morning, he’d made a rapid search on the Internet before having to attend meetings. He searched, “How do you know your first date is going well.” He wasn’t quite sure if it was an official date, but in his mind, it was as close to it as it could get. His search gave a wide range of answers. After reading through a bunch of them, he gathered that for it to go well they needed to click. There had to be a spark, whatever that meant.

More precisely, there had to be common topics, common likes and dislikes. The conversation should come easy, and awkward silences should be avoided at all costs because, while they might not disturb him, they may be uncomfortable for her. And while they’d gotten off to a rough start, things were now going quite smoothly.

Sarah thought long and hard, “What about Pearl Harbor? It isn’t as action-packed but it’s still a really good historical war movie.”

No

She nodded, and shyly added, “Well, if you’d like to, you could come over and watch it. Actually, we could watch Die Hard one time, and Pearl Harbor another.”

He watched her, the way she was so self-conscious. Sarah constantly touched her cheeks, her curly hair, her neck. If only she could see herself the way he saw her.

He wrote. I would like that

Checking her watch, she barely contained a yawn.

“I’m sorry, it’s not you, it’s just late for me,” she assured.

I’ll go

“No, it’s okay, really.”

He shook his head. I don’t need sleep. You do

I’ll be back for those movies

Sarah smiled, “All right.”

Black Noir rose to his full height and she watched him with a twinge of fascination. Who even was this man?

When can I see you

“Well, tomorrow night I’m going out with my friend, but we can definitely schedule Die Hard for the night after. Eight pm?”

I’ll be here.

She walked him to the door and leaned against the wood. The doorway seemed smaller as he walked through. He clicked the switch turning her porch lights out and quickly jotted a few lines down.

Turn them on when I leave. Safer

She nodded with a small smile. How could someone as dangerous as him be so concerned with her well-being, she didn’t know, but she found herself liking it regardless.

He quickly scribbled something down before shutting the notebook and handing it back over.

Facing her, he raised a hand as if he were about to wave. His hand twisted into a thumbs up before he took his leave. Walking away, he crossed under a single streetlight before disappearing into an alley.

She stayed there for a few more seconds, just peering into the darkness. Heeding his advice, she shut the door and switched the porch lights back on. Retreating further into her home, she flipped through the pages looking for his last note. It was a small smiley face he’d doodled on the edge of the page.

She steeled herself against feeling anything but contempt. She reminded herself of the danger he could pose to her. But as much as she wanted to suppress it, she couldn’t help the small smile on her face as she fell asleep.

Giulia

PART 7

Tag list: @ateliefloresdaprimavera @ellejo @dust-bun @coco724​  @proximio-5​ @damiminator

Let me know if you want to be tagged!! Or you can like this post and I’ll add you :)

[gilmores-glorious-blog]

Coder Boyfriends Quarantine Fic

-

I wrote this months ago and never finished it... so yeah take this somewhat complete work. Maybe if enough of y’all like it I’ll write more. Also I’m too lazy to come up with a real title :)

-

They were two weeks into quarantine, and Tobin was officially stuck with a ferret. And it wasn’t even his ferret.

“What are we going to do about this, dude?” He asked Leif one morning, flopping down at their kitchen table and staring at the stupid little creature in his cage across from them. 

“There’s nothing we can do. Colin is stuck with his family in New York, and we promised we would take care of him.” 

“Yeah, for a week! Not for six freaking months!”

“Tobes, you have a commitment to this thing. You have to watch out for it. So for now, you are officially a ferret daddy,” Leif said while holding back a smirk. 

Tobin just glared at his friend.

“I don’t think ferrets are supposed to live in bird cages for months on end.” Leif commented from his spot on the couch. Tobin was busy rearranging the ferret’s living space to accommodate for him being a long term resident. 

“Yeah, well, I don’t just have ferret cages laying around.” Tobin snapped. 

“Why do you have a bird cage laying around?!” 

“I-” Tobin started.

“Hold on.” Leif pulled out his phone. “I think I’m going to want this on tape.” 

“For your vlog?” Tobin asked mockingly.

“The viewers need to know.” Leif cleared his throat and put on a dramatic announcer voice. “So tell us, Tobin, why do you have a bird cage laying around?”

Tobin rolled his eyes. “A few years ago, I got a pet bird. After two weeks of having said bird, I decided I wasn’t cut out for bird ownership so I… I gave the bird away.” Tobin hoped his hesitation wasn’t visible on camera. He hadn’t actually given the bird away. He let it free, but moments after realized it was definitely not a native species. It’s haunted him ever since. 

Tobin snaps out of his bird-guilt to see Leif cackling on the couch. “I had forgotten about that! Dude, you were so bad at taking care of that stupid thing, I’m suprised it didn’t just die.” Leif glances over to where Greyskull the ferret was sitting. “Let’s hope the same thing won’t happen with the ferret.”

“It won’t.” He’s determined to make certain of that. 

“Good.” Leif turns off the camera and puts his phone away before leaning back and watching Tobin continue to move ferret equipment around. Tobin could feel his eyes tracking him, and he had to fight back a blush. He glanced over at his best friend, who was watching with a smile smile that Leif reserved only for Tobin. 

Tobin quickly turned around as he felt his cheeks warming. The beginning of months of quarantine probably wasn’t the greatest time for your best friend to find you’ve been in love with him for years. 

“Tobes hurry up!” Leif called. “The work call starts in five minutes!” 

“I still don’t see why we can’t do this from two different computers.” Tobin replied from his bedroom, rushing to make himself look presentable.

“Because it’s stupid, bro. Everyone knows we live together, and it’s going to get annoying if we’re just talking over each other from different rooms.”

“Okay, fair.” Tobin slides down the hallway and collapses on the couch. He very nearly crashes into Leif, but he manages to stop himself, luckily. 

They log on to the zoom meeting, and Tobin has to stop himself from thinking about how couple-y they look on the camera. Jesus christ dude, you need to stop pining, he tells himself. 

Joan lets them onto the call, and there’s an awkward minute where it’s just her and the two of them. Leif is staring at the ground and Joan staring at her wall. Against all better judgement, Tobin makes a sarcastic comments. 

“Lover’s quarrel, huh?” He regrets it as soon as Leif turns to look at him with hurt in his eyes. He’s about to apologize when Zoey and Max join the call. 

“Hey guys!” Zoey says, and suddenly Joan and Leif perk up.

“Hi Red, ‘sup Max!” Tobin says, ignoring Leif’s stiff body beside him.

“So Tobin, I hear you’re stuck with a ferret.” Max comments, holding back a laugh.

Tobin whips around, staring at Leif. “Max watches your vlog?!” 

Leif just shrugs. “I gave him the password a while back, figured it couldn’t hurt.” 

“Now the whole office gets a glimpse into my private life!” Tobin didn’t know why he was upset about this. He was a pretty open person, he barely shut up about his private life at work anyway.

“Hey, it’s my private life. You just happen to live with me. Why are mad about this?” Leif’s eyes flicked briefly to the computer screen, where it was still just Max, Zoey, and Joan, staring awkwardly at the interaction.

Just as the boys were staring daggers at each other, ready to keep fighting, Joan spoke up. 

“Lover’s quarrel, huh?” The sarcasm and pride in her voice was obvious.

“Wh- I- no!” Tobin stammered, not daring to look at Leif. He stared at the screen, where he saw Max mouth lovers? to Zoey, who promptly elbowed him in the ribs. 

Luckily, right then, a bunch of the other SPRQ point employees joined the call, and the five who were previously there ignored the argument from before as they talked about work things. 

Tobin payed no attention to what was happening, he was too busy staring at Leif from the corner of his eye. Leif didn’t seem mad anymore, just his normal awkward and nerdy self as he talked about the coding projects they were planning to start from home. He laughs at something Max says, and Tobin fights back a smile. Nothing makes him happier than hearing Leif laugh. He notices that his friend’s hair is already getting longer after three weeks stuck at home. It’s curlier, more floppy in the front. He also hasn’t shaved in a few days, and his mini-beard is adorable. Tobin briefly thinks about how much he wants to run his hands through that hair, but then remembers they’re on a work call and he should probably stop that train of thought right there. 

Before he knows it, the call is over. Hopefully he didn’t miss too much, but if he did, he can always ask Leif. 

Leif, however, gets up silently and moves toward the kitchen. Suddenly Tobin remembers the argument they were having. He shoots up from the couch and rushes towards the kitchen. 

“I’m sorry, bro.” 

“Sorry for what?” Leif asks, clearly playing dumb.

“For saying that thing about you and Joan. For getting upset about the vlog thing. For…” Tobin pauses before finishing, “... for what Joan said about us.”

“Ah,” Leif says, holding tight to the glass he’s grabbed from the counter. Neither of them say anything for a moment, and the silence is deafening to Tobin. 

“Look dude, I’m really sorry. I know I shouldn’t have brought up the thing with Joan, I know you’re still pining over her or whatever-”

“I’m not,” Leif interrupts. 

You’re not? There’s a flutter of hope in Tobin’s stomach, but he pushes it down. “Well, regardless, I shouldn’t have said that. And I don’t know why I got so upset about Max watching your vlog. I guess I’m just self-conscious sometimes, no matter how much I act the opposite. And I like having moments that are just between the two of us sometimes.” Tobin really hopes Leif didn’t read into that last part the way he just did as he said it. 

“That makes sense.” Leif bites his lower lip before adding, “what about the last part?”

“What?”

“The last part of your apology. About what Joan said.”

“Uh, I guess she just said it because she was mad at me for saying it about you guys? She saw an opportunity and she took it. She probably only said it because we were arguing like an old married couple. Not that we act like an old married couple. We don’t. It’s just, y’know, we live together, and we were arguing, so we’ve got those two key ‘old married couple’ traits down. But not any of the other ones, not like being in love or married or a couple-”

“Jesus, Tobes, take a breath.” Leif chuckled. “It’s totally fine that she said that, I just was wondering what you thought about it.”

“Oh?” Tobin fights the urge to melt into the floor as a way to forget everything he just said. 

“Yeah. Like you said, we live together, plus we’re both bi, so there’s not really any offense in the joke.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, totally.” Tobin still feels like melting into the floor. He’s saved from doing that, however, when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

“It’s from Zoey.” He says, mostly to himself. He’s a bit confused. Zoey doesn’t text him much, and when she does it definitely not to say We need to talk. “I think I should answer this.” Tobin walks into his room and locks the door, leaving a confused Leif behind him.

“Hey?” Tobin had barely begun to dial the phone when Zoey answered.

“Hi Tobin.”

“Hi?” Tobin’s even more confused than he was before.

“How are you doing?” Zoey’s voice is strained.

“I’m fine?” Tobin can deal with a few more polite greetings before he snaps and asks Zoey what the heck is up.

“How are things with Leif?” Zoey asks, sounding nervous, which makes Tobin nervous. What is she thinking about me and Leif?

“Good, good. Just chillin’ in quarantine, y’know.” Tobin’s started to pace around his room now. 

“Cool.” There’s a long silence from Zoey’s end.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, you know, sometimes when people, uh, spend a lot of time together…” Zoey trails off and Tobin can almost picture her gesturing vaguely.

“Yeah?” Tobin prompts.

“When people spend a lot of time together… sometimes feelings can develop.” Zoey finishes.

Tobin ignores the pit in his stomach and decides to play dumb. “I’m not going to murder Leif, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“What?! No! I mean…” He can hear Zoey take a deep breath. “Tobin are you in love with Leif?”

Tobin hangs up. 

She calls again. 

He declines.

She calls again.

He declines.

She texts him.

He blocks her number. 

Tobin collapses on his bed. How the hell did she know? It’s not like he and Zoey are best buds. There was that one time she helped him out with the Spelliversary drama, but that’s the extent of their close conversations. And now she hasn’t seen him in weeks, and it only takes one zoom call for her to figure out he’s been in love with Leif for fifteen years?! He screams into his pillow before flopping over and staring at his ceiling. His eyes trace the stars stuck to the wall, flitting over the sharpied-in constellations, and trying desperately not to think about Leif or Zoey.

There’s a knock on his door. “Tobes?” 

Tobin just groans.

The knocking intensifies. “Tobin, please open the door.” Tobin really doesn’t want to, but there’s a desperation in Leif’s voice that he can’t say no to.

He flops off the bed and unlocks the door. “What is it, bro?”

Leif hands his phone to Tobin. “Zoey ne-”

Tobin slams the door in his face.

Before he has time to lock it, however, Leif tries to open it again. Tobin makes a worthy fight against his weight and the door, but eventually his taller friend manages into the room. Leif closes and locks the door and hands the phone to Tobin. 

“Talk.” He says.

Tobin sighs. “Fine.” He gestures to the door. “Leave.” 

“What? No! Dude, you think I trust you to be alone with my phone? I don’t want you seeing everything that’s on there. Plus, you’ll just hang up again, and I for one don’t want my manager’s number blocked on my phone.”

Tobin tries desperately to think of something to say, any reason for Leif to leave other than the truth. But he can’t. And the longer he waits, the more suspicious he seems. So he puts the phone to his ear. 

“Oh hey Zoey, what’s up?” 

“Ok I really want to take the time to be mad at you for blocking my number, but I don’t have the time and Max is mouthing at me to get to the point.”

“Uh huh, okay.” Tobin is trying to act nonchalant. 

“So… are you in love with Leif?” She asks and Tobin prays to any and every existing deity that Leif can’t hear through the phone.

Tobin isn’t sure what to do. He’s strangely scared of Zoey, in all of her five foot tall, quarantined miles away from him, glory. Something about her is making him want to tell the truth. Time for Tobin to pull out those rusty acting skills from when Leif convinced him to do the high school play.

“Uh, yeah, I love watermelon. Why do you ask?” Tobin tries not to cringe as Leif looks at him confused. Watermelon?!

“Tobin, what the-”

He interrupts her. “Leif’s here too, do you wanna ask what he thinks?”

He hears Zoey gasp through the other line. “Ohhh. Um, so, you love Leif. Watermelon. Whatever. How long have you liked him? Are you gay? I didn’t know you were gay. I’m asking too many questions. Sorry. This is hard to do over the phone.”

Tobin sighs. “I’ve been a fan of watermelon since high school.”

“High school?! That’s a long time.” 

“It sure is.” Tobin tries not to stare at Leif, now distractedly fiddling with trinkets on Tobin’s cluttered desk. “Oh and since you asked, I don’t just… love watermelon. I’m also a fan of… grapes.” Tobin hopes this isn’t too confusing of a metaphor for bisexuality for Zoey to grasp.

“So you’re bi?” Zoey asks, catching on. Guess she’s smarter than Tobin thought, although considering she manages their company, he probably should have figured that out. 

“Yeah.” Tobin can’t believe he’s coming out to Zoey Clarke, of all people. And in the worst possible way, too. 

“Cool, cool. So are you planning on telling Leif?”

“No. Too much work, dude. Don’t want to fuck things up, y’know?”

“I know it’s not my place to say so-” Tobin scoffs. It wasn’t her place to ask about this in the first place. “- but I really think you should tell him. It might make things easier, you wouldn’t have to hide your feelings. Then you can… you can love him with no strings attached.”

Tobin freezes for a moment. That sounds familiar. But he can’t remember how right now, and he’s too concerned with other more pressing issues to think of it. 

“I’ll think about it.” He says, lying. He won’t even consider telling Leif. He’s gone on pining for fifteen years, where’s the fun in stopping now?

“Good. That’s good, Tobin. I’m glad you told me.”

“Didn’t have much of a choice, did I?” He mumbles. Zoey chooses to ignore this. 

“Hey, how about you unblock my number and we can talk some more when Leif’s not there. Only if you want to, of course.” She adds the last part on as an afterthought, seeming to remember that forcing people to talk about their secret gay crushes probably isn’t the smartest idea.

“Sure. Thanks, Zoey. Bye.” He hangs up. Scared, he looks up at Leif, now sitting on Tobin’s desk (that gay disaster). 

“What the hell was that about, bro?” Leif asks.

“Oh, just… y’know… girl things.” And with that, Tobin leaves his room.

Leif doesn’t bring up the phone call again until after dinner, when Tobin is preparing popcorn for their movie night.

“So dude,” Leif calls from the couch. “What was that call with Zoey about?”

“I told you already.”

“No you did not! ‘Girl things’ is not a valid answer.”

Tobin brings himself and the popcorn to the couch, sitting down. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Please…” Leif turns to Tobin and rests his head on his shoulder, giving him puppy dog eyes. 

Tobin shoves Leif off of him. “That’s not fair, man, you know I can’t resist you when you give me that face.”

Leif smiles. “Exactly. Come on, man, it can’t be that bad. And no matter how good of an actor you think you are, I know that it wasn’t about watermelon. There’s no way you blocked our boss’ number over watermelon.” 

Tobin tries desperately to think of something believable that’s not the truth. “She wanted help with relationship advice.”

Leif looks concerned. “Is everything ok with her and Max?”

“Oh yeah, they’re fine it was about… her brother.”

“I thought her brother was married?” 

Damn Leif for knowing so much about Zoey’s personal life. “He is! Her older brother, that is. Her younger brother is unmarried and struggling with dating.”

“And she asked you about this?”

“Don’t look so surprised, bro. There’s just something about me that makes people want to open up to me about romance.” Tobin waggles his eyebrows at his friend.

“I’ve known you since third grade and I’ve never once wanted to open up to you about romance.”

“That’s bullshit, man. I was the one who helped you realize you were bi. That’s helping you with romance if I ever saw it.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to. You were just my only friend, and therefore my only option. If I had a choice I would have chosen someone way cooler than you to open up to.”

Tobin glares at him. “Just shut up and watch this movie with me.”

***

Leif knew Tobin was lying. He knew Tobin, and he knew Zoey, and he knew that there was no way the two of them would join forces for relationship advice. But he also knew when Tobin was getting anxious, and he could tell his friend was not ready to tell Leif the truth. So he doesn’t press it.

Leif has an interesting relationship with movie night. On one hand, he loves it. Curling up on the couch with popcorn and his best friend to watch a cheesy movie? That’s basically heaven to Leif. Although heaven might have a few more sketchbooks, and Bob Ross videos, and cardigans, and pretty people complimenting his genius.

One the other hand, movie night was hell for Leif. Tobin always made obnoxious commentary, and threw popcorn at the screen, and laughed way too hard at funny scenes, and cried at emotional scenes. 

And it was simple things like this that made Leif fall more in love with Tobin. So movie night was basically a weekly reminder for Leif that he was absolutely whipped for his best friend and had done nothing about that fact for over ten years.

Halfway through the movie, Leif starts feeling tired. In all honesty, he’s only a little bit tired. But he always plays it up so that every movie night he’s overcome with exhaustion and has no choice but to fall asleep on Tobin’s lap or shoulder.

Okay, so maybe he has a bit of a problem. But hell, this is the only opportunity Leif has to cuddle with Tobin and he will exploit it to the best of his ability, damn it!

So Leif lays his head on his friend’s shoulder, smiling as he doses off, lost in the smell of Tobin’s hoodie.

 “Tobes, I’m going fucking insane.” Leif announces, collapsing on their kitchen table. 

“Ok. What else is new?” Tobin asks him from where he’s sitting eating cereal.

Leif lifts his head a bit. “I’m not kidding. It’s been six weeks of this shit and it’s still only the beginning. I’m way ahead in work so I have nothing to do, I’ve been drawing more than I ever have and my hand is cramping from filling two sketchbooks already, my hair is longer than I’ve ever wanted it to be, and this damn ferret is driving me crazy!”

Tobin nods. “I see. Well, this will take care of the hair problem for you.” He hands Leif what appears to be a hot pink sparkly scrunchie.

Leif takes it tentatively. “What on earth is this?”

“What does it look like? It’s a scrunchie. I’m already rocking one, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

Only then does Leif look up fully and realize that Tobin is, in fact, ‘rocking’ a scrunchie. His long brown hair is half-tied up in a weird Sokka-from-Avatar-the-Last-Airbender type look. 

“You look absolutely ridiculous.” Leif says. And cute, he thinks, but would never admit out loud. Because it’s weirdly true- the neon green hair tie look somehow makes Tobin even cuter. 

“And you can too! Just wear it, at least your hair will stop falling in your eyes.”

“I’m not wearing it. Why do you even have these?” Leif hands the scrunchie back to Tobin, who puts it around his wrist.

“Believe me, bro. You do not want to know.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Leif stands to get himself a bagel.

“Oh and by the way, don’t you dare disrespect my son, Sir Greyskull the Brave.” Tobin stares lovingly at the ferret.

Leif rolls his eyes. “I miss start of quarantine Tobin, who wouldn’t shut up about how much he hated the ferret.”

“Leif, don’t be rude. He’s grown on me, and he should grow on you too.”

“I’m never going to let a ferret grow on me.” Leif remarks as he returns to the table with his bagel. “But seriously, dude, I need things to do.” 

“Okay…” Tobin looks contemplative. “How about after we both finish work for the day, we play some old-fashioned, kids-sleepover party games, just the two of us. You know, truth or dare, two truths and a lie, never have I ever, stuff like that. But since we’re not kids, we can play it the fun way: with booze.”

Leif realizes the endless ways this could go wrong- getting drunk with your crush and playing truth or dare? That’s a high-school level bad decision right there. But he’s too bored to say no.

“Sounds good to me.”

Leif, of course, finishes work around four in the afternoon. Tobin, on the other hand, has been procrastinating his work for weeks and still isn’t done by seven. So Leif decides to fix dinner. Might as well have a nice meal together before they get absolutely wasted and Leif admits things he doesn’t want to admit. 

Tobin finally comes out of his room a little before eight, just as Leif is setting the stirfry he made on the table.

“Oh, sweet, food!” Tobin sits down and starts eating.

“Yes, I figured I might at least do something with the hours I’ve spent waiting for you to finish.”

“Hey!” Tobin says with a mouth full of food. “At least I did the work!”

“That’s true, but if you had done any of the work throughout the week, you wouldn’t have to spend so long on it.”

“Yeah, well, where’s the fun in that?”

Leif sits down and takes a bite. “Oh, of course, how could I forget. Nothing screams fun like putting work off until the last possible minute.”

“See, this is why you went to some fancy college while I went to jail!” 

Leif stares at him. “One of those things is considerably better than the other, and I’ll tell you right now, it’s not jail.”

“Doesn’t matter now, does it? We both have the same job, and you’re only a little bit higher ranking than me. But let’s be real, that’s probably only because you fucked the boss.”

“Shut up.” Leif says, and he means it. He hates when Tobin brings up his whole fling with Joan. It’s been over a year, and Leif has made it abundantly clear that he’s over it and doesn’t want to talk about it, but Tobin doesn’t listen. Nothing’s worse than the guy you love constantly bringing up your bad past relationships.

“I’m not wrong though-”

“Tobes.” Leif looks up from his plate. “Please just drop it.”

“Okay! I’m sorry I brought it up, I was just trying to make a joke.”

“Whatever. Just… don’t do it again.”

They eat in silence for a while, and Leif’s worried that he’s crushed the vibe of the evening.

“So, Tobes, how much are you planning to drink tonight?”

“All of it.” Tobin replies.

“All of our alcohol?” It’s not that it’s that much- they don’t keep a lot of drinks at home, since they usually just go out to bars. But they can’t do that anymore. 

“Yep. It’s been too long since I’ve been drunk.”

“Okay, you make a fair point, but I raise you this point: if you drink all we have right now, you have to suffer however many more months we’re stuck in here sober.” 

Tobin pauses for a minute- he clearly hadn’t thought of that. “Ah, fuck that. We can buy more online or something. Live in the moment, bro.”

Right. Live in the moment. Leif gulps. This isn’t going to end well. 

Well, Leif was definitely living in the moment. At least, that would explain why he’s opening his mouth and asking Tobin, “ok, ok. What’s… what’s a secret you’ve never told anyone before?”

Leif lifts his head from where it’s laying on the couch so he can judge Tobin’s reaction. It’s three hours after dinner and they’re both plastered.

“Uh…” Tobin takes a while to respond, and Leif can’t tell if he’s nervous about the question or just too drunk to think.

When Tobin still doesn’t respond, Leif starts to panic. He may be drunk but he can still remember how stupid a question that is to ask your crush. 

“Oh! I’ve got it!” Tobin finally answers. “So… y’know the bird I had? For two weeks?” His words are slurred.

“Yeah?” Leif is both relieved and disappointed that the answer is about a bird.

“I didn’t give it away.”

“Huh?”

“I didn’t give it away like I said I did. I set it free.”

Leif pauses for a moment, then bursts into laughter. “You set it free?! Dude, that’s an exotic bird!”

“Well I realize that now!”

“Tobes, what if you accidentally created a mutant species of a tropical bird and a-whatever birds live in San Francisco! You could be famous but for, like, a really bad reason.” Leif can’t stop laughing.

“I know that! I’ve been haunted by my actions for years! That’s why I’ve never told anyone!”

“Bro, how are you sober enough to say haunted by my actions? That’s fancier than you usually talk, let alone after however many drinks you’ve had.”

“Maybe the alcohol powers me. I should have it more often.”

“Yes, do, maybe you’ll admit more bird-related crimes.” Leif says, still through fits of giggles. He slowly sits up and flops on the other side of the couch, his head almost touching Tobin’s legs.

“I really hope you don’t remember this tomorrow morning.” 

“Oh I will. Trust me, I will.”

“It’s my turn to ask a question, right?” Tobin asks.

“Yeah, though I doubt you can get me to admit something that will top your bird confession.”

“Well, what about you?” Tobin asks suddenly.

“What about me?”

“What’s a secret you’ve never told anyone?”

And maybe it’s just for Leif, maybe the drink is going to his brain, but it seems to him that the whole mood shifts dramatically as Tobin says that.

He has an answer, of course. And the part of his brain that’s still sober knows he can’t say it out loud.

But a much larger part of his brain is drunk, and drunk Leif tends to speak impulsively. Drunk Leif tends to do things like sing an Air Supply song to his ex. 

Drunk Leif is opening his mouth. 

Drunk Leif is saying, “I’m in love with you.”

There’s a long pause, and the realization of what he just did is setting in. Leif sits up and turns so he’s face to face with Tobin, who has a blank expression.

Finally, he speaks. “... well that tops my bird confession.”

“Tobin, I-”

Leif doesn’t have time to finish before his friend is kissing him.

Sober Leif would pull away. Sober Leif would talk through his feelings, and ask Tobin how he felt, and take things slow.

But Sober Leif isn’t here.

Which possibly explains how the next thing he knows, it’s morning, and he’s still on the couch. And Tobin is sleeping on top of him. And neither of them are wearing a shirt.

Well, shit.

Leif tries to move out from under Tobin without waking him, because he’s currently far more concerned with his throbbing headache than the fact that he made out with his best friend last night.

Of course, Tobin wakes up anyway. He stares sleepy-eyed at Leif, who’s putting on his crumpled up shirt.

“Where- what-” Tobin looks around before running his hand through his bedhead. “Fuck, did we-”

“I’m going to get some food and water.” Leif says, not looking at Tobin. He goes to the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water, but Tobin is still talking despite Leif’s obvious signs that he doesn’t want to talk.

“Dude, come back here, we should tal-”

“I’m going to check my email.” Leif says, rushing into his room and locking the door behind him.

Leif falls on the bed and screams into a pillow. 

Fuck!

He’s tempted to just close his eyes and fall back asleep, ignoring the pain and the consequences of his actions.

And he may have done just that, had it not been for the incessant knocking at his door. 

“Go away!” Leif shouts, still muffled by the pillow. 

“Dude, just open the door. You’re acting immature.” Had Leif not been so hungover, he would have laughed at that. He’s the immature one?!

He continues to ignore Tobin, and once again almost dozes off but then he hears the door swing open.

He sits up very slowly and turns around. “How did you get in here? I locked the door!”

Tobin holds up a paper clip and grins. “I hacked into the CIA, do you really think I wouldn’t know how to pick a lock?”

“Well, you’ve never done it before, how was I to know?”

“That’s because,” Tobin sits on the corner of Leif’s bed. “I usually try to give you your privacy. But I thought that this situation was more important than your privacy.”

“Gee, thanks.” Leif sits up a bit more, clutching to the bedsheets to avoid getting dizzy. “You seem surprisingly sober.” Leif remarks.

“Yeah well, I handle my alcohol better than you. Plus I’ve been hungover way more than you, so I’m more used to it. Plus-” Tobin stops talking abruptly and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Plus what?” Leif asks, suddenly also feeling a lot more sober. Tobin doesn’t respond, and the longer the silence between them grows, the more Leif remembers last night’s events. “Tobes, plus what?” He asks again, more desperate this time.

Tobin takes a deep breath. “Plus having the love of your life say he likes you too and kiss you back tends to clear your mind.” 

“The… I… what?” Leif can’t process anything that Tobin just said to him.

Tobin looks up at Leif with fear in his eyes. “Okay, well maybe love of my life is a bit dramatic, but it has been fifteen years, so it’s not that far off.”

Leif still doesn’t respond.

“...Oh.” Tobin says in a small voice. “Well, if you don’t actually- if you- if that was just a drunk Leif thing, if you… didn’t mean it… that’s fine.” The way his voice cracks shows that it’s clearly not fine. 

Leif thinks his brain is broken. 

Tobin stands from the bed and shakily moves towards the door, but luckily Leif’s mind and ability to move kick back in right then.

“Wait!” He tries to stand up but falls on the floor. So much for that ‘ability to move’ thing. 

Tobin turns around and despite the hurt expression he’s still wearing, he laughs a bit. “Bro, are you ok?” 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Just hungover. And in shock.” Leif stands up again and rubs his head. “But please, wait. Sit back down.”

Tobin does so, even though he still looks like he desperately wants to leave.

“Tobes…” Leif starts. This would be a lot easier to do if he wasn’t in immense amounts of pain. “It wasn’t just a drunk Leif thing. I mean, sober Leif wouldn’t have done it, but that’s just because he’s a coward. It doesn’t mean I didn’t mean it.”

Tobin looks up, a small smile on his face. “Yeah?”

Leif smiles too. “Yeah.”

They both look down, smiles still on their faces, blushing.

“So…” Leif says after a while. “Fifteen years, huh?”

“I… uh, yep.” Tobin says. “Ever since eighth grade, when you showed up to that stupid school dance in that stupid baby blue suit, and tiny Tobin just went ‘shit, do I like guys?’ and then tiny Tobin grew into slightly larger Tobin and went ‘yep, I definitely like guys, specifically the guy who’s been my best friend since third grade’ and then slightly larger Tobin grew into an even bigger Tobin who decided that fact was very embarrassing and he should never tell it to anyone and then even bigger Tobin grew-”

Leif cut him off with a small kiss.  “I think I get the point, Even Bigger Tobin.” He says, laughing.

“Oh no, I’m not even bigger Tobin, I’m biggest Tobin. Even bigger Tobin was sometime around college.”

“Of course, my bad.” Leif laughs. He nudges Tobin with his knees. “You’re smitten, you loser.”

“Well you don’t seem very… whatever the opposite of smitten is yourself.”

Leif smiles at him. “I’m not. It’s been a bit over ten years on my end.”

Tobin does a double take. “Over ten years?!”

“Yes?” Leif answers, confused. 

“You’re telling me I could have been gettin’ some of this for over ten years?!” Tobin gestures to Leif’s whole body, and Leif tucks into himself, self-conscious. 

“I’m not quite sure I would word it like that, but… yeah? I guess?”

“Jesus.” Tobin shakes his head, looking disappointed. “I should have just said something.”

“I should have too.” Leif says quietly. “But hey, it only took me ten years, quarantine, and copious amounts of alcohol.”

“I should get you drunk more often.” 

“You don’t need to get me drunk anymore. You have me.”

Tobin smiles. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Tobes?” 

“What?”

Leif leans in and kisses him. “Let’s make up for lost time.”

***

“Hey,” Leif starts, sitting down at the table where Tobin is already eating. It’s the day after The Big Confession™, as Tobin has decided to call it.

“Hey?”

“Don’t think that just because we’re dating now it means I’ve forgotten about your secret life as a bird criminal.” Leif smirks at him. 

“Oh, geez.” Tobin forgot that he admitted that.

“And I will turn you into the authorities if need be.” Leif adds with a faux-serious face.

“Really? And betray your own boyfriend like that?!” Tobin doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to using that word.

“Sorry, babe. I care more about the good of bird-kind.” Leif stands to get food and stops to kiss Tobin’s forehead. It takes all of Tobin’s self control not to melt. 

“Hey, you know we have a work call in an hour, right?” Tobin asks, leaning his head back over his chair so he can see Leif.

“Yeah? What about it?”

“Well, I was just wondering how we act. Y’know, now that… yeah.”

“You have such a way with words.” Leif says sarcastically, returning to the table. “But since you asked, I wasn’t planning on saying anything. They’re our coworkers, they don’t need to know about our dating lives.”

“I just thought I should tell Zoey.”

Leif raises an eyebrow. “Zoey? Out of all the people we work with, Zoey would be the last one I would think to tell.”

“It’s just, she…” Tobin pauses. “Remember the watermelon call?”

“Of course.”

“It wasn’t about watermelon. And it wasn’t about her brother’s dating life, or whatever bullshit excuse I came up with. It was about us.”

“Us?”

“Yeah. Zoey asked if I liked you. I still have no idea how she knew, or why she thought it important enough to call me about, but she did. So I feel like I should tell her.”

Leif sighs. “If you want to tell her, go ahead. But I’m never sharing anything with Zoey Clarke unless I’m forced to.”

“Dude, she’s not really that bad, you know. When you and I were in that weird fight, she was actually pretty nice to me, in her own awkward way.”

Leif sighs again. “Yeah, but it’s been fun to have a workplace rivalry for as long as I have. I don’t want to give it up now.”

“Geez, babe, you’re petty.” 

“And you’re pretty.” Leif says, staring at him with fondness in his bright blue eyes. Tobin blushes.

“That was barely an opening.”

“And yet…” Leif grabs Tobin’s arm and pulls him in for a kiss. “I took it.”

Tobin doesn’t know why he’s nervous for the call. There’s nothing obviously different about the way he and Leif are sitting or how they look in the camera. It’s the same as last time, squished together awkwardly in front of the camera. Maybe that’s the difference. They don’t look awkward anymore. They look happy to be this close. Is it obvious to others or is Tobin just overanalyzing the situation?

“Tobes, chill out, I’m about to join the call.”

“I’m chill!”

Leif gives him a look. “No you’re not. You do realize it’s going to be way more obvious that something’s up with us if you’re visibly panicking.”

“Fine.” Tobin gestures at the computer. “Start the call.” 

Leif does, and this time the only people on are Zoey and Max, since Joan’s not involved with this particular meeting.

“Hi you two!” Zoey says, stopping whatever secret romantic conversation she was having with Max and paying attention to the new members of her call.

“Hi Zoey.” Tobin says tensely, and Leif nudges him subtly, another message for Tobin to chill.

“Hey.” Leif nods at them.

“Anything new with you guys?” Max asks, and Tobin mentally smacks his head, remembering that Max heard him and Zoey’s call, too. 

“Uhh…” Leif turns to Tobin and cocks his head. 

Tobin knows he said he wanted to tell Zoey about them, but he’s currently regretting saying that. 

He decides to go for a subtle approach.

“Not much.” Tobin says, winking, and taking Leif’s hand. He plops his head on Leif’s shoulder and feels his boyfriend relax. 

Zoey’s smile is wide. “Not much on our end either.” She says, although she presumably means it.

The rest of the call goes fine, Tobin lifts his head from Leif as soon as someone else joins, and although they keep holding hands under the view of the camera, no one seems to suspect anything.

“Hey,” Tobin says, once again putting his head on Leif’s shoulder as soon as the call is over.

“Hey what?” Leif asks.

“I just thought of a new way we can pass the time.” Tobin says with a smirk.

“Oh? What’s that?” 

“This.” Tobin says, moving so he’s sitting on Leif’s lap. 

“Oh?” Leif says again, blushing.

Tobin kisses him passionately. Like Leif said, they have a lot of time to make up for. And maybe, just maybe, they can make up fifteen years worth of missed kisses, and soft glances, and tender touches, and exploring each other’s bodies in the dark over the course of months stuck at home together.

***

“Two and a half months. Two and a half months!” Leif shouted to no one in particular. Tobin sticks his head out of their room- yes, their room. A week or so ago they decided it was pointless to have two rooms so Tobin’s room is more of a guest room/office now- and hollers to Leif. 

“I swear to god, if I come out there and you’re making more baked goods, I will throttle you!”

Leif smiles to himself. “Is that a threat or a promise?!” He calls back.

He can hear Tobin say. “There’s a time and place, dude.”

“Not in quarantine, there isn’t!”

“You are quite purposefully avoiding my baked goods accusation and I’m coming to the kitchen, so you better be hiding all evidence of cookies!”

Leif doesn’t bother trying to clean up the mess of a kitchen in front of him.

“I knew it!” Tobin shouts, startling Leif.

“I’m sorry, ok! It’s just, baking is fun, and very few things are fun anymore and I need something to do otherwise I’ll go crazy!” 

Tobin puts his hands over his ears. “I’m not listening! If I have to clean up flour from this kitchen one more time I’m going to lose it.”

Leif just crosses his arms. “What about that promised throttling?”

Tobin faux-lunges at him, and Leifs arms flash out and pull him in for a kiss.

Tobin pulls away after a moment. “You taste like cookie dough.” He kisses Leif again. “Could be worse, I guess.”

[inkyblacc]

Amazon is Run by Cowards

I have been a victim of an Amazon scam, and then a victim of the American site's worthless customer service (the Canadian customer service was pretty good). The scammers must have targeted my account because it is not eligible to post reviews, which is infuriating considering the shitty product I got as part of a brushing scam is MOSTLY fake reviews that somehow got verified. Because Amazon is run by Beezoos, the most cowardly coward of all, y'all on my Tumblr get to see my review of M35 BT 5.1 Wireless Earbuds. Beware the buds. You shall soon see why.

Note: I wrote this review in character as a good Christian wife (tm), and while I'm not not Christian, I'm deliberately aping the most insufferable kind of Christian alive. Good? Good.

We begin.

If I weren’t a believer in Christ, I would think that receiving a box of wireless headphones I didn’t pay for after loudly whining about wanting wireless earbuds to my dear husband was most serendipitous. However, as I am a believer in both Christ and logic, the fact that someone has sent me a box of wireless earbuds in a brushing scam has left me left with the sneaking suspicion that I have asked and received, but that the Lord protects me and not my data.

Thus there is no other choice than to write a review for these things. If my data is being used to help third-party scammers write fake reviews, then I have no choice but to do God’s work and write an honest review for these earbuds, as it will help keep the balance of paid reviews written with poor grammar and honest descriptions of actual products.

I opened the box of earbuds and immediately saw instructions written in a language I can’t read. This did not bode well. I flipped it over and saw a language I do read, which instructed me on how to charge the earbuds. I immediately dropped the charging case because I was not blessed with dexterity and because the plastic is very smooth and difficult to grip. It is the size and shape of a container of breath mints, and I anticipate popping one of these into my mouth by accident in the near future. It took me a few tries to insert the earbuds into the case, and that didn’t bode well either. The instructions weren’t exactly clear. Then I located the world’s shortest charging cord--it’s half the length of my short little 5'4 forearm and plugged it into my computer. While I was half-convinced it would upload some mysterious virus onto my computer, I am most disappointed that I won’t have the opportunity to clack at my keyboard like a movie hacker in an attempt to stop the virus. I’m assuming that the four dots indicate the level of charge to these things, and the final blue light couldn't quite figure out if the earbuds were adequately charged or not. In an effort to have this out post-haste, I decided to risk not having the full power of my earbuds. Full power = one hour. Sometimes, you really do get what you pay for. The lights on the minty fresh carrying case stay on for a few seconds after the things are pulled out, which seems like a colossal waste of battery for something that only holds an hour's worth of charge.

I attempted to connect the device to my laptop. It appears that my laptop is equally confused about how I came to be in possession of these earbuds because it couldn’t find them. I followed the instructions, which admittedly didn’t have very good grammar, and it still couldn’t find them. I heard “power off” in my ear so the things were on at some point. I had to put both back and then pop one out to see and start the discovery process over again. I’m not sure how they were powered off, as the instructions left no “remarks” (as they put it) on how to turn the earbuds on or off. When I stuck the other one in to evaluate the sound quality, it made a noise of protest, like it resented being out of the warm plastic cocoon and in my ear. I don’t like that. That’s an automatic star docked. I demand respect from my devices and tolerate no talk-back.

In truth, I resent this thing as much as it resents me.

It works. I can say that much. But the sound is tinny. I fear to see the sort of beastly ears these things are designed for because they do not fit in my good Christian ears at all. I suppose this is better for my ears long term, thank the Lord, but in the short term, I cannot hear my anime without cranking the volume on my laptop to the max, as the kids say. It sounds like I’m listening to someone watch Hunter x Hunter in the other room, and I want the sensual voice of Hisoka delivered right into my ear parts, so loud it’s like nothing else but Hisoka exists.

God forgive me, I am but a simple simp.

I disconnected the earbuds from my laptop and heard a voice, like from a garbled DVD rip of a foreign film, telling me I was disconnected. While I appreciated the notice, I couldn’t help but wonder why a robot from the seventies was shouting at me.

I did not have to restart the process of seeking the earbuds on my phone. It just took about seven minutes to do so. It then took two tries to pair them with my phone. Again, this did not bode well. But, I have never been one to acknowledge red flags, which is both how I met my ex-boyfriend and how I got banned from the local go-kart track. I made sure it was connected, though the name had changed from M35 to BTRAVE, like “betray”, and M35 had vanished just like the rum in that delightful pirate movie, and then I went to play the first YouTube video I saw. The earbuds had disconnected without the vintage robot telling me, and I was blasting book reviews for the entire house to hear, as my phone speakers work and these earbuds do not. In the spirit of second chances, just as Lord Jesus would do, I tried again. Once again, the robot voice of a bygone era graced my ears, and I went to Spotify instead. Well, wouldn’t you know it, but they had not connected either, and now everyone I live with knows that I enjoy emo music I should have grown out of ten years ago.

So, in short, the Lord works in mysterious ways and the devil grows ever more powerful. I asked and received diddly fricking squat. They worked with one device and not the other, thus making them slightly useless for taking calls as the poorly written instructions advertise. I have never felt such disappointment, not even when I grew out of my emo phase and realized that this is just my personality and all the adult contemporary in the world couldn’t change that. In short, I received this product for free, and it still isn’t worth what I paid for it. Sometimes, it really do be like that.

Praise be, and have a blessed day.

[johnhardinsawyer]

This is Love

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

4 / 18 / 21 – Third Sunday of Easter[1]

1 John 3:16-24

John 10:11-18

“This is Love”[2]

(Loving in Truth and Action)

My family and I recently went on a socially-distanced trip to a town near the ocean.  My wife and I were excited about going to the town.  But, our almost-four-year-old son was excited about to going to the ocean.  Guess whose excitement won out?  So, there we were, standing on a windy New England beach at 9:30 on a brisk April morning – jackets zipped up, layers of clothes on top, pants rolled up to our knees, and barefoot in the sand.  It was downright chilly, but our son was having a blast.  He just loves to dig and dig in the sand and doesn’t seem to mind the cold.  My wife and I, knowing that we might only get one shot with experiences like this, decided to go with the flow on the morning in question.  So, when my son grabbed my hand and said, “Let’s go in the water, daddy,” guess where I went?  I only went in up to my ankles, but the waves were so cold that it felt like the bones in my feet instantly turned into individual ice cubes.  I knew it wouldn’t last long, though, and my son’s shrieks of chilly glee warmed my heart as we ran back out of the water.  “Well,” I thought to myself in the moment, “This is love.”

“We know love by this,” writes the author of 1 John, “that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. . .  Let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” (1 John 3:16, 18)

She woke up early, just like she used to before the pandemic began.  It used to be that early in the morning was all the time she had for herself.  This was still the case, but instead of having a few quiet moments to collect her thoughts, she rolled out of bed and turned on the computer, nearby.  Her clients and coworkers needed her input and her undivided attention, and she knew that pretty soon, she would have to rouse her kids from bed and get them fed and ready for online school.  Single-mom parenting is hard enough, but single-mom parenting, and full-time working and full-time at-home-schooling is so much harder.  And yet, kids need to learn and a salary needs to be earned.  She finished an e-mail, closed her laptop – hoping she’d find some time to get back to those e-mails later in the day – and she went down the hall to wake her kids up.  Before she knocked on their door, she took a deep breath and thought, “This is love.”

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. . .  Let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” (1 John 3:16, 18)

It was so hot when he arrived at the detention center – not as hot as it had been the week before out in the desert of the borderlands, but it was still hot.  As an immigration and customs enforcement officer, he had seen plenty of children come through the detention center.  Some of them were very young.  The child he was looking for this morning was four years old.  She had been separated from her aunt and cousin after they had made the dangerous journey from Guatemala to the US border.  The little girl was alone, now, and would not stop crying for her mother who was already on this side of the border, seeking asylum from some horrific situation down in Guatemala.  She had come here for a better life and was hoping that her young daughter would have a better life, too.  The authorities were transferring the girl to a foster care home in Michigan for several days, after which the little girl would be released to her mother.  But it was hard for the officer to try to explain all of this to the little girl, even in the most gentle of ways.  Why was this job so hard?  There were thousands of children like this little girl.  Why did he care so much?  He wanted the best for his country and he really wanted to help people.  God, what on earth was this child’s mother thinking?  What on earth was he doing with his own life?  And then, in a moment of clarity, he realized that the answer to both of these complicated questions was the same:  “This is love.”[3]

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. . .  Let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” (1 John 3:16, 18)

For a whole year – shift after shift at the hospital – she had been intubating patients, holding their hands in fear, and zipping body bags in the ER.  And, for a whole year – Sunday after Sunday – she had been waiting to go to church with her children.  On the Sunday she finally went, no one – in a room of 200 people – was wearing a face mask, except for her family.  After church, she was so infuriated that she wrote:

I’m sorry that the majority of churches I’ve seen are failing their communities.  I’m sorry that the Body of Christ is not representing Him well in this area.  It’s heart-breaking and so disappointing.  Because what the church is saying is, “I don’t care that you buried your husband last month.  I don’t care that your grandmother is on her 50th day on the ventilator.  I don’t care that the rest of the world is doing a better job serving and protecting their community than the church.  I don’t care unless it directly affects me.”[4]

“Just because it hasn’t happened to them, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t care that it happens,” she thought, angrily.  And yet, shift after shift, she still kept going back to work at the hospital.  Her co-workers all felt the same way she did: physically and emotionally exhausted by the pandemic and the sick irony of some of their dying patients not believing that Covid-19 was still killing people.  And yet, as she donned two face masks, a gown, two pairs of gloves, and a face shield to walk into another patient’s room, she repeated the same phrase that had kept her going all these months:  “This is love.”[5]

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. . .  Let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” (1 John 3:16, 18)

Years ago, my daddy worked with a man named Gordon Davis.  One of the first things that I learned about Gordon, was that his brother, Rodney, had died in Vietnam in 1967.  Sergeant Rodney Maxwell Davis and his unit of Marines were attacked by the enemy and were pinned down by mortars and heavy gunfire.  Sergeant Davis crawled from man to man to encourage them.  But an enemy hand grenade fell in the trenches his men were fighting from, and without hesitation he threw himself upon the grenade.  Sergeant Davis’ Medal of Honor citation describes it in this way:

When an enemy grenade landed in the trench in the midst of his men, Sergeant Davis, realizing the gravity of the situation, and in a final valiant act of complete self-sacrifice, instantly threw himself upon the grenade, absorbing with his own body the full and terrific force of the explosion. Through his extraordinary initiative and inspiring valor in the face of almost certain death, Sergeant Davis saved his comrades from injury and possible loss of life. . .[6]

This is love.

Back in 1967, when Sergeant Davis was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, his hometown did not allow black people to be buried inside the city limits.  So, he was buried in an all-black cemetery, out of town.  In 2010, several Marines who were white, including one of the men who had been saved by Sergeant Davis, stopped by the cemetery and were appalled by the state of the rotten wooden monument on his grave.  So, they raised money to replace it.  This, too, is love.

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. . .  Let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” (1 John 3:16, 18)

I don’t know whether you know someone who has laid down their life for you, but chances are, you know someone who has made some kind of sacrifice for you – someone who has laid down part of their life or a whole way of life for you or for someone else. . .    This is love. . .  The man who visits his wife for hours, every day, even though she cannot remember his name.  The woman who gives someone the very thing they need, only to see it squandered, and yet she loves them still.  The parent who puts important plans on hold because their child made the playoffs.  The woman who lives so simply and frugally for so many years and surprises everyone by leaving a tremendous gift when she dies.  The person who says, “Whatever you need. . .” and means it.  The veteran of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the patient daughter, the loving and dutiful son, the co-worker going the extra mile, the caring Elder or Deacon on the phone, the friend, the stranger, the person who has something to offer and does not withhold it when they see the need is great, whoever it is that is giving themselves, and their time, and energy, and money, and skills, and gifts away because they love. . .  

This is love. . . in truth and action.

As the Bible tells us, if we have any doubt as to whether we are loving with enough truth and action, then maybe we could love more.  “But if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God. . .” (1 John 3:21)  

So, friends. . . love boldly in truth and action – not with mere words or speech.  Talk is cheap.  But giving your life by loving in truth and action?  This is the most precious gift we can give – a gift modeled after the example set by Jesus Christ, who, in his birth, and life, and ministry, and miracles, and teaching, and death, and resurrection shows us what it means to lay down our lives for others in truth and action.  

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. . . Let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” (1 John 3:16, 18)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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

[1] The readings for this week have been swapped with the Fourth Sunday of Easter to accommodate a guest preacher next week.

[2] A sermon in the style of Fred R. Craddock.

[3] Imagined, based on the following story:  https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/some-migrants-now-sending-their-kids-across-border-alone-so-n1261249.

[4] S in early March, 2021.

[5] Imagined and expanded, based on S’s story as well as radio interviews with nurses during the pandemic.  With gratitude for S and all hospital workers.

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Maxwell_Davis.

[pilot-boi]

Shouting In Cafes: Chapter Nine

Dorm Days

The search begins, and despite its rough beginnings, it ends up with optimal results. Or sub-optimal, if you asked Neptune.

AO3 LINK

Where was Neptune supposed to find a wandering frat boy in this giant school?

As soon as Neptune started looking, he realized just how little he knew about Sun Wukong. He knew he was twenty, he knew he went to Beacon, he knew he was tall. He was pretty sure he knew he was in a fraternity. He didn’t know what he majored in, what he liked, what he hated, if he was in any clubs.

Which meant Neptune was getting practically nowhere in his search.

He was freezing cold, too. The temperature had suddenly dropped overnight, letting the grass freeze over and puffs of breath crystallize in front of students as they walked to class despite October barely reaching its final stretch. It also let Neptune’s pants glue themselves to the metal bench he’d foolishly decided to situate himself on.

“This is stupid,” Neptune said, unwrapping his arms from around his torso and pulling his scarf more snuggly around his face. “Why am I doing this?”

He was talking to himself.

Stop talking to yourself.

What would he even say? Hi, I was stalking you. Want to be friends? No. Plus he had already insulted Sun too many times to count.

This was really stupid. This wasn’t going to get Neptune anywhere, and it would probably only succeed in driving Sun away. He didn’t really care, anyway. Jaune had dragged him into this in the first place. The dude really could get him to do anything.

But not this, not forever anyway. He was leaving. This was pointless, and he had homework.

Light spiky hair in the corner of his eye, about to head into a building.

Neptune was up before he knew what he was doing.

“Hey, Sun?” he asked as his feet carried him towards the doorway. His arm stretched out, ready to tap him if need be.

He didn’t turn around.

“Sen!” he called again. His hand met his shoulder.

Sun turned around.

Not Sun.

His jaw was too square, his eyes dark grey, matching his hair. His expression was too sour. Definitely not Sun.

“Oh. Sorry,” Neptune muttered and recoiled his hand quickly.

Not-Sun scoffed and rolled his eyes, pushing through open the glass door to go inside.

“My mistake.”

Neptune kicked off his shoes and peeled off his bomber jacket, setting both near his dorm room’s door. Soft yellow light and pictures of home greeted him along with a mound of paper on his desk next to his computer.

He should take care of those papers. He should get to work. He should definitely stop worrying about the forced-friend Jaune was trying to give him.

Why was he worrying so damn much?

Neptune collapsed in his chair, pushed his glasses up, and rubbed at his eyes. It had been a long day. Making a fool of himself in front of a stranger, making a fool of himself in front of Jaune, making a fool of himself in front of himself…

He could make friends. Friends that weren’t a frat boy he chatted to over a counter at his workspace.

Was he a frat boy?

Work. He needed to do work.

Neptune scooped a pen into his fingers and tugged the first paper off the stack. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to what the header actually said. No. this was a final draft of a paper he already wrote.

He pushed it away.

Next paper. No. He had done that assignment already as well.

Next paper. Nope.

Next paper. Done.

Nope. This wasn’t happening.

He needed to use the bathroom.

Neptune pushed off from his seat and stood to his feet, a yawn bubbling out from him. It had been a weird day. He was in a weird mood. He needed to occupy himself with whatever he could to keep his mind busy.

His hand reached for the doorknob and pulled it open.

A hand was raised in front of him.

The hand quickly pushed its way to its owner’s neck, rubbing at the hair there. Straw yellow, and flaring in every direction.

Sun Wukong looked extremely surprised to see a very drained Neptune standing before him.

Sun was the first to speak. “Neptune! Bro!” he exclaimed loud enough for the entire hall to hear, arms spread wide and eyes creasing as his smile fought for room on his face.

“Ah-” Neptune began.

“Good to see you here!”

“Sun, wha-”

“It feels like it’s been ages!” Sun just kept plowing on with his over-enthusiastic greetings, not even letting Neptune get a word in edgewise to respond.

“What the fu-”

“What are you doing in this neck of the woods?”

“I need to pee.”

They both stopped. Neptune’s mouth wasn’t obeying him, apparently switched off by the shock of the moment and pushed to its limits by Sun butting in.

Nice reintroduction, jackass.

“I, um,” Neptune said quickly. “I live here. This is my dorm.” Nice save. Nailed it.

“Which you were leaving to go to the bathroom.”

Before Neptune could respond, Sun popped his head right into Neptune’s dorm room, taking a wide look around at the mess before him. Messy floor. Messy desk. Messy bed. Oh Lord save him.

“You keep a tight ship, don’t you?” Sun said, shooting Neptune a sly glance.

“What? Stop looking! What the fuck dude-”

Neptune pushed against Sun’s chest in a vain attempt to evict him from his dorm room, but Sun braced himself against the door frame. Why was he wearing short sleeves? It was fucking freezing out! Why were his biceps the size of small golden retrievers?!

“The fairy lights are a nice touch. That’s a lot of books, dude, have you actually read all of those or are you just trying to look smart?”

“Get out!”

Neptune finally managed to muscle Sun out of the doorway, and Sun returned to his regular posture with slightly more ruffled hair.

“You look different when you’re not behind a counter,” Sun said, his clear blue eyes giving Neptune a once over. He suddenly remembered he was wearing a stretched-out sweater and sweatpants with stains on the hem from where they dragged on the ground. A little too big on him. He looked disgusting. Who let him go out like this?

“And you look very much the same,” Neptune said, and tried to make the drunk English professor look work.

“Haven’t seen you around in a while,” Sun said. The smile didn’t leave his face. Neptune let himself wonder if it hurt to smile that much or if his face muscles had just gotten used to the insane amount of stress.

“Yeah. That was part of the bet. Deal. Arrangement.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I honestly didn’t think you were going to keep your word.”

“What? Why?”

Neptune paused as he watched Sun’s eyes turn melty, starting to morph into the puppy face he liked to use. An ounce of compassion began to bleed into Neptune’s cold exhausted bones. He shook it off and tilted up his chin. “Because our first interaction was you screaming and threatening me. I didn’t believe you were the most rational person in the world.”

“Right! I forgot all about that,” Sun said, slipping out of the puppy-posture and instead letting out another laugh. “I thought you were an asshole, dude. Well, I mean…”

“Don’t try it, dude.”

“I’m just saying you’re kind of a tight ass,” Sun said and shrugged, crossing his arms. An mischievous smile spread across his face. “Except when you’re hungover.”

Neptune bristled in spite of himself. Why did he have to bring up their first meeting? Why? “That was an outlier. Doesn’t count.”

Sun stepped forward and pressed a finger against Neptune’s chest, not so much accusatory, more mocking. He literally knew nothing about personal space. Neptune could smell his cologne. “You totally said I was hot. Like, twice!” 

It would be easier if Sun didn’t have to sound so absolutely delighted about it. “My eyes were blurry.”

“Nonono, you said my pecs were nice.” He lowered his hand, but decided to trade that out for leaning closer to Neptune’s face and winking. “Honestly, I mean, they deserve to be complimented.”

Jesus Christ.

 God, Neptune wanted to wipe that fucking smile off his face. God, he was such a fucking idiot. Not even Neptune knew if he was referring to Sun or to himself when he said that. 

The hall that his dorm was in wasn’t known for having the best heating system, but he suddenly didn’t feel the chill anymore.

[bonnieisaway]

that dumb saiki k fanfic i wrote but chapter 2

chapter 1 | story on wattpad

chp. 2 - not my intention

There was one part of auras that had always confused Aiura.

See, she was born with the ability to see auras and into the future and all that. Ever since she could walk and talk she could remember trying to figure out people based off their auras, learning what they meant.. Not only did auras reflect someone's personality, but they could also reflect memories they held dear, emotions they felt strongly, and even then her fortune telling let her tell so much more about them.

But there was one thing she didn't entirely understand, even now as a second year in high school. When she was 6 or 7, she started seeing a new part of auras. A red string.

A red string, in most contexts, connects two soulmates together by an invincible string tied around their fingers. When she was around 7 she noticed that her parents had one tied to each other. Some times she'd watch people pass each other on the street and notice them form. Red strings were a part of your aura and they had only formed when you had actually met your soulmate. Aiura had this come easy to her but what always confused her was why it took so long for her to see them. Or maybe, why did it take so long for them to form?

°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.

Saiki sighed as he walked along behind his friends..and (L/n), who you could consider his friend, but it's up in the air if he'd say the same. As Kaido and Nendo bickered and Kuboyasu sided with Kaido, (L/n) fell back to walk next to Saiki. Her thoughts rang clear as she walked and scrolled through something on her phone.

'This feels kind of awkward..' (L/n) frets as she bites her bottom lip, momentarily glancing to Saiki. 'I wanna talk to him but he's giving off the "please let me go never interact with humanity ever again" vibe.' Oddly specific. Saiki almost wished other people could notice that as well. He supposed if he wanted to make a friend of this girl- get his likability up a bit- he'd have to take charge.

"Do you like the arcade?" Saiki asks her, turning his head to her.

"Yeah. I haven't been there in a while though.." (L/n) smiles and scratches the back of her head "Never have the time or money, haha.. how about you?"

"I used to go alot as a kid. But the games are all really easy now." Saiki shrugs, turning back towards the other boys yelling ahead of them as the arcade approached.

"Is that a challenge?" (L/n) grins. 'This could work perfectly..!'

Saiki smirks, looking at (L/n) at the corner of his eye. "Maybe." This could work perfectly...

"Hah, you're on!" (L/n) laughs as she begins to run ahead, dragging Saiki along by the wrist. Saiki shrugs to himself, letting her drag him along. (L/n) basically bursts into the arcade confidently.  "Alright! You seem confident so I'll let you choose a game."

"Ooh, you two are competing?!" Nendo asks, popping up behind the two "Let us choose the games! That way it'll be fair." He's dumb but he's right. Saiki cringes a bit- they're going to call attention if he wins too much. He'll have to moderate his powers.

"Here, let me choose first!" Kaido interjects. "(Y/n), follow me." His face turns red. 'Maybe she's good at shooting games! If I choose a game that she wins at, m-maybe..' Saiki didn't want to hear anything beyond that. It was pretty easy to see where that was going.

"O-Oh, okay! C'mon, Saiki!" (L/n) beckons as Kaido lead her toward some sort of zombie-shooter game. Generally, they were pretty easy as long as Saiki didn't get startled. Lord knows what happened when he used VR.

(L/n) grins and picks up the blue colored fake gun. "Come on! Longest one alive wins!" She smiles, bending down and inserting 200 yen. Saiki does the same and sets his bag down, picking up the toy gun.. it should be easy to moderate his powers and give her a fair fight here...

...is what he told himself. Saiki didn't necessarily play games like these very often, if ever, because he'll either jump and blow something up or he'll lose and nearly break a controller. Nendo stood behind Saiki basically screaming support in his ear as Kaido stood next to (L/n) with starry eyes.

And Saiki lost. Horribly. By horribly I mean he lasted about a full minute before dying when (L/n) kept going for another 3 just to tease Saiki. Which was fine. N̶o̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶. It was normal to loose at games. He'd just win at the next one so it'd seem normal.

He did not. Kuboyasu chose one of those racing games where the seat is the actual sort of motorcycle itself. The author doesn't need to explain herself here. They're pretty hard to cheat at with esp, but even then- Saiki and (L/n) alike were looking for a fair fight. Which they got. Which lead to Saiki losing horribly.

"Partner, come on, stop losing!" Nendo pats Saiki on the shoulder as he stands up off the seat with a face of- to say the least, discontent.

"Shut up." Saiki glares.

"Not so easy now, huh?!" (L/n) teases, shit-eating grin on her face. Saiki breathes out. He is a patient man. He is not going to get competitive over this. The only one that can beat him is him and he will win the next game.

..Why does he even care?

Kuboyasu chose the last game. It was one of those games where you threw basketballs into a hoop for a certain time limit.

...

...would you be surprised if I told you Saiki lost again?

Saiki huffed as the machine made some stupid loud sound as (L/n) best his score. This time it was not his fault. He is perfectly fine at throwing the balls and would've made all the shots if he wasn't distracted.

He wasn't sure why he was. But for a minute there.. he couldn't take his eyes off (L/n). The way she focused on the game and her face lit up brightly every time she scored...by the time Saiki had realized he was staring he had basically already lost. This wasn't like him to get distracted. Something was off today.

Kaido had pointed out (how horribly Saiki had lost, and-) that they should get going. They'd spent a while at the arcade. Everyone agreed- if reluctantly- and grabbed their bags.

Walking out the arcade and towards there homes Kaido and Nendo continue to bicker- probably about the latest Jump.

"Stop looking so smug." Saiki comments, irritated with the girl.

"Whaaaaat?~" She laughs. "I'll make it up to you. You like sweets?" She asks. Saiki nods (violently) causing (L/n) to laugh. "I've got some coffee jelly back at my apartment. You should stop by."

Saiki nods in agreement- mainly for the coffee jelly, only about 1/8 for (L/n)'s company- as she waves goodbye to the other boys. Her apartment was only a couple blocks from Saiki's place.

"Alright then! Oh, look, they're playing baseball in the park again.. Wonder if Satou's playing." (L/n) points out as the pair pass the baseball diamond along their trek home.

There's a loud 'clang' and an indistinguishable shout before Saiki realizes.

..That the ball hit his head. Right in the power limiter. Shit. If he were alone, he could just teleport home and have his dad or mom try and fix it but (L/n) is right here. He's got one choice, and he's gotta pray that it works...  

°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸

"Saiki!" You screeched, as the boy fell forward and you just ever so barely managed to catch him before he hits the pavement. The ball must've hit him hard.. it even broke one of those hairclips he has. You set him down gently, picking up his bag and throwing it over your shoulder. You slide your arms under him and pick him up, standing slowly.

Jesus Christ. You forgot how heavy guys are. The last time you carried a guy was when (F/n) passed out on field day in middle school. Saiki wasn't heavy necessarily but you weren't necessarily Hairo level strong. You wanted to take him back to his house and tell his parents but there was a small problem.

You had no clue where he lived. At all. You knew he only lived a couple blocks away from you because Kaido told you but you didn't know where. So the best option was to take him back to your apartment.

What became a 10 minute walk home became a 20 minute walk as you struggled to carry the boy. He was knocked out, hard.. whoever hit that ball had to have gotten a home run. You wouldn't be surprised if the guy got two.

So after struggling for 20 minutes, nearly dropping the knocked out boy when you tried to unlock your door, and just generally regretting your decisions, you finally were able to plop the boy on your couch. Your tablet that you generally used for drawing was blown up with notifications from (F/n). Whoops. You set the tablet on your coffee table, calling him as you take the broken hairpin out of Saiki's hair, wanting to fix it.

(F/n) picks up fast, halfway through his English screaming as the connection struggles. "WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU?! I'm losing sleep, woman!"

"I'm sorry!" You laugh, fiddling with the hairpin in your hand. The pink ball on top had come off and some of the pieces on the bottom of the inside fell out. "I was walking home with that Saiki guy and a ball hit him smack in the head. Broke his hairpin and he passed out. I'm trying to fix the hairpin now."

"...And the guy?" (F/n) hesitantly asks.

"Heavy as fuck." You snort. It looked like small computer pieces on the inside but, who are you to judge? The problem was now this was a jigsaw puzzle and you hated those things.

"(Y/n)!" (F/n) shouts, reprimanding you.

"Calm down, he's fine." You smile. "I gotta fix this damn hairpin though and you're gonna do your homework and sleep young man." You jokingly glare into the camera.

"Fine, MOM. Bye!" He waves and hangs up. You lean your back against the couch as you continued to sit on the floor, now too lazy to get up. There was 3 major computer looking chips which by some dumb luck, seemed to fit pretty well in certain spots. They 'click' in pretty easily and the small pink ball fits back on pretty easy.

"Well..that should be about right..!" You smile confidently to yourself as you hold up the hair clip in your vision. You stand slowly and hover over the sleeping boy before gently placing the hairpin back where it once was.

You observe him for a second as you stand up straight again. He looks.. peaceful while sleeping. He wasn't smiling but he wasn't necessarily frowning, either. Content, really. You smile as you take off his green lensed glasses and set them on your coffee table. They'll break if he sleeps in them all the time.

You wander off to your kitchen, finally picking up your school bad and setting it on your dinner table. You grab a snack out of the cabinet and begin looking through your bag, pulling out miscellaneous homework assignments. You catch a glimpse out your window- the sun was already setting..

You hear Saiki in the other room shuffle around as he seems to wake up. You grave a coffee jelly and spoon from your kitchen before wandering over to him.

The strawberry-headed boy had sat up on the couch, eyes looking around confused. Hey, that was a good nickname.

"Hey, Strawberry. You're awake." You grin. He looks up at you confused and you freeze for a second. His eyes..

You didn't usually see his eyes very clearly since, green glasses lenses. Even then you hadn't known him for long. But his eyes... they were a mesmerizing violet color that you couldn't take your eyes off of. Realistically speaking, they were as plain as ever. But for some reason you couldn't help feel your face go red. Who's the strawberry now, motherfucker?

"Where am I?" He asks you.

"My apartment. You knocked the hell out when that baseball hit you and I didn't know where you lived so I carried you here." You hold out the coffee jelly and spoon to him, hoping he'll get the gist. He does and takes the snack faster than you could blink twice.

°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸.·°¯°·.¸

Saiki took the coffee jelly from (L/n) greatfully, momentarily forgetting about his limiter that, as far as he last knew, was broken. He had knocked himself out when he was hit for a reason- he figured (L/n) would call one of his friends or someone else to help. He had better luck leaving it up to luck when passed out then staying awake and nearly starting a tsunami cause he breathed wrong.

"Oh, by the way," (L/n) starts, "I tried fixing your hairpin. I tried my best." Saiki looks at her a bit confused before taking out the power limiter, and looking at it carefully...it was put back together just about the exact same way it was before it got hit..

"Thank you." Saiki turns to (L/n). She smiles and nods. 'Oh thank god I didn't fuck up.'

"No problem." She smiles. Saiki loses his train of thought for a second as he watches the girl's face brighten. He turns to set down the now empty coffee jelly cup down on the coffee table. He blinks for a second. His glasses are set on the coffee table.

(L/n) must've taken them off, but why wasn't she turned to stone? She should be frozen in place a long while ago. He picks up his glasses and stands up, putting them over his eyes as he throws away the empty coffee jelly cup.

His mind was racing. Was this girl a physic? Why was she immune to so many of his powers? Why was she kinda cute?

(L/n) interested Saiki. She wasn't affected by nearly any of his powers and he wasn't sure how to feel about it. On one hand it confused him highly and made him want to be wary on the girl, but the other part of him was interested in this girl. She was someone who he saw as normal, she wasn't a nusience like the rest of his friends. His chest felt light with an emotion he wasn't quite familiar with. The ever intriguing girl had ignited something in him that he wasn't sure what it was.

"You okay?" She asks as Saiki stands in thought. He hesitates, but smiles. "Hey, Strawberry, it's getting late. Want me to walk you home?" She asks, now with a shit eating grin on her face. Saiki, yes, the strawberry, feels his face turn warm and his heart skip a beat at the nickname. He wasn't sure why. He sighs to himself. He's overthinking things today. His pyrokenisis must be acting up since his limiter was out earlier.

"...Sure..but what's with the nickname?" Saiki asks.

(L/n) shrugs as she stands, walking to her front door and bending down to put her shoes on. "I dunno. It fits."

Saiki sighs at this curious girl and grabs his own shoes, following her out the door.

The two walk in silence as the sun sets, darkening the world around them. (L/n)'s thoughts are generally quiet. 'Fuck, I'm cold. I should've brought a jac- or not?'

Don't get Saiki wrong here. He's only warming her up cause he feels bad. They continue to walk in silence, until they stop in front of Saiki's house.

"This is my h-" Before Saiki can finish his sentence none other than is mother, Kurumi Saiki, comes out the front door, fretful about her son.

"Oh, Ku~chan! Where have you been, I was so worried!" Kurumi frets as she hugs her son close. Saiki sighs and squints his eyes at (L/n), who has a shit-eating grin. Kurumi turns around and spots (L/n). "Oh, and who is this lovely lady?" She asks excitedly. Saiki about rolls his eyes into the back of his head.

"I'm (L/n)! I apologize for keeping your son out for so long. He passed out when we were walking home so I took him home cause I didn't know where you lived." (L/n) scratches the back of her head awkwardly. Kurumi's face lights up.

Saiki cringes as his mother pulls the poor girl into a hug. "Aah, thank you for looking after my boy you're just so sweet I'm his mom Kurumi Saiki thank you so much for befriending him!" Kurumi gushes so quickly the author forgot to write punctuation.

(L/n) finally gets to breathe again when Kurumi lets go of the hug. "It's nothing, really," She smiles. "He's cool."

Kurumi starts to gush once more when (L/n) laughs awkwardly. "You're really sweet, Mrs. Saiki, but I have to get going."

"Oh, of course! I'm sorry for keeping you! Have a good night." Kurumi smiles.

"It's alright. Bye!" (L/n) smiles as she walks off into the night. He walks inside with his mother and takes off his shoes before walking to his room, sighing as he sits at his desk.

Why does he have such a headache..?

.

i apologize for any spelling errors! i’ve been writing without my glasses because i’ve been sick

[brideofedoras]

The Loft: Redemption

Disclaimer: the usual.. 

Word count: 3000+

Warnings: Mentions of sexual abuse of minor, unwanted attention

Rating: 18+

Chapter 3 

Sam jerked awake, her chest heaving as she struggled to breathe.  She kicked off her covers and sat up.  It had been a long time since she'd had one of those flashback nightmares.  She scrubbed her hands over her face before she turned to look at her alarm clock.  3:47 a.m.  There was no point in trying to go back to sleep.  Not after a nightmare like that.

She leaned over and turned on her lamp.  Her old therapist had advised keeping a journal and writing things down.  Flashbacks.  Nightmares.  Triggers.  Dreams.  Desires.  She had given up on going to therapy halfway through college, when juggling classes, studying, working, and therapy sessions had proven to be too much.  But she never gave up on journaling.

Sam slipped her glasses on and pulled her notebook and pen out of the drawer on her night stand.  She twisted her lips as she skimmed the cover.  Journal #12.  Nearly a decade had passed since speaking up about her stepfather's abuse, but she still kept detailed track of every nightmare.  Every flashback.  Every dream.  Twelve journals. 

She closed her eyes for a moment, drawing in a deep breath before exhaling.  She propped up her pillows, opened the notebook to a new page, and settled down to write about the latest nightmare.

September 21, 2016--  I woke up at 3:47 a.m. after a vivid nightmare involving Terrance.  This one was about the tutoring sessions with my old tutor.  I still don't understand how she ever went along with the sex abuse. 

In the nightmare she wasn't tutoring me in pre-calculus like she used to.  She was tutoring me in how to masturbate while Terrance watched us.  She had a backpack full of different vibrators and other sex toys and lubricants, just like she did the first time she participated in Terrance's sick abuse.  She started off teaching me how to seductively strip off my clothes and spread out on the sofa, then on the chair, with Terrance filming every second...

Sam wrote down every detail of the dream, every disgusting act that her old mentor had performed and forced her to perform.  Tears dripped onto the lined paper.  Ink bled and blurred.  But she wrote until every last bit of the nightmare was documented.

She tossed the notebook aside and raked her hands through her hair.  What the hell triggered this nightmare?  She thought back over the day, what she did, who she spoke with.  Bakery.  Work.  Rearranging Vincent's schedule to fit in an on-site visit.  Lunch run.  Quiet afternoon.  Vincent's meeting with one of the contractors working on the Mason build.

Her stomach churned.  Derek Watson.  Of course.  That pervert had leered at her the moment he walked into the office.  Tried hitting on her before she had called Vincent to let him know his two-o-clock was there.  Watson had slipped her his business card after the meeting, his cell number and "let's meet for drinks sometime.  you won't regret it" scrawled on the back.  And had the nerve to wink at her as he strutted out the door.  Strutted. 

She'd thrown that card away immediately. 

With a sigh she slipped out of bed and walked over to the window.  She should have told Vincent about that, but what good would it have done?  Watson was apparently an old fraternity brother.  Frat brothers typically stuck together like glue, believed each other, backed each other up.  It would just be her word against his.  It had been best to just remain silent on that matter, throw the card in the trash, and pray like hell it never happened again. 

Sam turned away from the window and made her way to the bathroom.  "Might as well get my day started," she shook her head. 

 So much for getting a head start on the day.

It was raining heavily by the time she reached the bakery, and a traffic accident forced a traffic jam and a slow-going reroute.  She pulled into a spot in the parking garage just in time to see her boss exiting his black Highlander. 

Her eyes widened when she realized he was heading her way. 

He waited as she climbed out and reached into the back seat for the box of dirt bombs, his newest weakness.  "You got caught up in that accident on 38th?"

She nodded, looking up at him when he took the bakery box from her.  "Yeah."  She turned back to the car to grab her purse and the large cup.  She'd forgone her beloved hot chocolate for a toasted white chocolate mocha with caramel drizzle.  Caffeine was a necessity today. 

Vincent frowned at the drink.  "Since when do you drink mochas?"

She locked the car before slipping her keys into her purse.  "Couldn't sleep," she shrugged. 

"Could've called in, Monroe, I can run the office without you for a day, it won't kill me."

"You've got the meeting and a conference call today," she shook her head.  "And you're planning to visit the Taylor build."

"I can handle it, go home, Monroe."

She looked up at him.  "I'll be fine, Mr. Stevens," she managed a weary smile.  "I pulled all-nighters in college working on term papers and studying for finals.  I can function adequately on three hours sleep."

Vincent gave her a look that practically shouted he did not believe her, but he was wise enough to not try to argue with her.  "All right, Monroe," he shook his head with a resigned sigh.  "You win this time, but the moment you start falling asleep at your desk I will personally take you home.  I'm not going to risk letting you get behind the wheel if you're too exhausted to work."  His admonishing glare softened into one of concern, a rare expression on his handsome face.  "And if I do take you home, you're taking tomorrow off.  No arguments."

"You have a couple of site visits tomorrow."

"Yes, and I can route all office calls to my cell," he rolled his hazel eyes.  "I thought Linda was stubborn, but you've got her beat by a mile, Monroe."

The grin that teased at his lips left her feeling unsettled.  She caught her lower lip between her teeth and worried it for a moment.  "It's been a long time since anyone has called me stubborn," she said after releasing her lip.  She couldn't help her own smile. 

"I mean that in the best possible way, Monroe," he pointed out.

Her smile brightened.  "Is that a compliment, Mr. Stevens?"

He chuckled.  "Yeah, Monroe, it is."

 "C'mon, Monroe, I'm takin' ya home."

Sam startled at Vincent's low voice.  She winced as she straightened from her slouch against her left hand and quickly righted her glasses on her face.  "I wasn't sleeping, I swear!"

He shook his head with a wry chuckle.  "Sweetheart, you were snoring."

"I was not!"

"No, you weren't, but you were nodding off," he admitted.  "Let me take you home.  I'd let you take a nap on the couch in my office, but I've got that meeting."

Oh, no.  Bad idea.  BAD idea.  Very bad idea.  Ever since Linda had told her Vincent had spent several nights sleeping on that couch she'd had a few random dreams involving it.  

She quickly tore her eyes from his.  "I need to make sure you have everything ready for that meeting," she braced her hands and pushed to her feet.

"You did that yesterday, Monroe," he frowned.  "I know you're a stickler about making sure everything is perfect for any meeting I have, and I appreciate it more than I let on, but it's just a one-on-one, thirty minute meeting after lunch in my office."

"Am I supposed to call a cab in the morning?"

He shook his head.  "Remember what I said this morning in the parking garage?  If I take you home, you're taking tomorrow off."

"I don't need to take tomorrow off," she glowered at him.  "I don't need to take this afternoon off, I'll be fine."

"Not gonna argue with you, Monroe," he reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose.  "I knew these long hours you insist on putting in because of me were going to bite you in the ass," he muttered under his breath.  "I'm taking you home and I'm making you take tomorrow off.  I'll bribe you if I have to."

"I don't do bribes."

"Then what is it going to take to get you to take a damned day off for yourself?"

Her grey eyes widened at his frustrated growl.  "You need me here."

"Not if you're wearing yourself out, Monroe," his glare returned.  "I need you to take care of yourself first.  Get your stuff so I can drive you home."

Sam slumped back in her seat.  "All right," she acquiesced.  "I can drive myself."

"No," he leaned forward, bracing his palms on her desk.  "I can see the exhaustion in your eyes, Monroe.  You're not getting behind the wheel.  Not gonna take that chance that you'll wind up in a wreck in this storm."  His eyes were hard, his expression stony.  "I'll drive you home."

"You've got the--"

"Jesus Christ," he groaned.  "Get your stuff gathered up," he shoved away from the desk and disappeared into his office.

Sam shook her head wearily as she saved what she'd been working on and started shutting down the computer.  Once she completed her end of day tasks she stood up and grabbed her coat and purse and walked to Vincent's office door.

He was at his desk with a laptop open.  "C'mere," he held up his left hand and wiggled his pinky and ring fingers.  "Since you're stubborn and worried that I can't run this office without you," his lips curved in a slight grin, "you have wi-fi?"

She nodded.  "Yes."

"You can log onto this laptop with the same credentials as the desktops here," he said.  "But I want to make sure you can get in before I hand it over."

Sam set her coat and purse down on one corner of the leather couch before she joined Vincent at his desk.  When he angled the laptop toward her she leaned slightly to type in her password.  "I'm in."

"Make sure that you can access your documents."

"I keep everything on a thumb drive," she told him.  "I'll grab it before we leave."  She turned her head to look at him.  "I'll back that thumb drive up on here," she logged off the laptop and shut it down.

"I'm not doubting your abilities as an assistant, Monroe," he assured her.  "I just need you to be well-rested.  Come on, let's get you home."

The drive across town to her apartment was quiet, a little tense.  Sam was used to being alone with Vincent, but by alone she meant he in his office, her in hers.  Rarely in the same room.  Being in a car was a whole other ballgame.  She could feel his body heat emanating from across the console, she could smell his subtle cologne.  Oak and leather, a hint of spice.  Nothing overpowering yet still intoxicating. 

"I'll be visiting that site tomorrow," Vincent pointed out the steel framework of an office building, drawing her attention to him.  "The other one is on the riverfront."

"What about the one this afternoon?"

"That one's actually a mile from my place," he admitted.  "I'll go there before I head home."

Sam returned her tired gaze to the passenger window.  "You've got a follow-up meeting Thursday.  I need to get the conference room set up and the portfolios put together."

"I can manage those just fine, Sam," he glanced over at her.  "I ran that office for several months on my own before Linda came along."

She managed a smile.  "I know, I just...  I don't like not being able to do my job."

"You need to get some rest so you can," he told her as he slowed to turn into the parking lot next to her apartment complex. 

"You can drop me off at the door," she covered her mouth when she yawned.

"I'll walk you up," he parked in the nearest available space.  "You're my responsibility, Monroe."

Her eyes widened as she turned to look at him.  "I'm not going to fall asleep between the parking lot and my third floor apartment, Mr. Stevens."

"And I'll make sure of that," he winked.  "Quit being so damned stubborn."

Her face flushed as she stared at him as he climbed out of the SUV and made his way around to her door.  Her heart skipped, her breath hitched, her skin erupted into goosebumps.  All from that wink.

Why did he have to wink?

Vincent shook his head as he reached out to open the door.  "Better not get used to this, Monroe," he helped her out before leaning back in to grab the laptop case for her.  "Otherwise I'll have to dock your pay."

The teasing glint in his eyes gave him away and she smiled.  "Who are you, and what have you done with my boss?"

He chuckled.  "Don't spend all afternoon working," he nodded toward the laptop case.  "Get some rest, enjoy your day off tomorrow, and I'll pick you up Thursday.  What time do you normally leave?"

"Depending on the weather, anywhere between 6:45 and 7," she answered, leading the way to the building.  She pulled her key card from her purse when they reached the door.  "Don't... don't mind the interior," she warned quietly.  "The landlord is... he's a piece of work."

He frowned, taking the key card from her and swiping it through the reader.  "Doesn't sound promising."

"No, it's not," she admitted.  "I plan on finding a different place once my lease is up next year."

Vincent followed her inside, his eyes taking in the peeling wallpaper and the stained carpet.  He frowned at the sign on the elevator.  "Out of order, huh?"

"Hasn't worked in years, from what the neighbors tell me," she headed toward the stairwell.  "This building has so much potential."

He caught her wistful tone.  "Renovations for historic buildings are expensive, and would drive the cost of rent through the roof," he warned.

"I know," she looked over her shoulder at him.  "But it's a beautiful building, I'd hate to see it just deteriorate."  She fell silent as she continued the trek up the stairs to her third floor apartment.  "Or anyone else get hurt because something that several tenants have filed repair orders hasn't been fixed.  Or robbed because the locks are too easy to pick."  She shrugged.  "Several of us on my floor wound up buying knew door knobs and deadbolts and replacing them.  They're very easy to replace if you know how to do it."

"Any security in this place, other than the key card locks at the main entrances?"

She shook her head.  "Just a couple of dummy cameras in the downstairs lobby.  Even a fool can see those cameras aren't working.  They're the kind that are supposed to sweep every thirty seconds or so."

"Why'd you sign a lease here?"

"Right price range, decent neighborhood for the most part.  Yes, we have a couple of prostitutes and maybe even a drug dealer up on the fourth floor," she motioned down the open hallway.  "I have good neighbors, and the fact that the stairwell is not closed off was a big plus.  No worries about someone blocking access to the floors or hiding in the stairwell."  She slipped her apartment keys out of her purse as they walked down the corridor to 315.  "I've heard rumors that the building owner is thinking of selling the complex.  If he does, I hope the right person buys it, but I'm worried the wrong one will come along, kick us all out and demolish it to build something this neighborhood does not need."  She stopped and turned to face him.  "This is me."  She paused, worrying her lip between her teeth.  "Thank you... for making sure I got home safe."

Vincent shrugged.  "You're welcome, Monroe.  Get in there, lock that door, and get some rest.  And don't even think of calling a cab or someone to give you a ride tomorrow, you're taking the day off."  He took a step back.  "I'll see you Thursday morning."  He handed over the laptop. 

She shook her head as she reached for the bag.  "I still don't like taking time off."

"I need you to take care of yourself, Sam," he told her.  "I'm not a slave driver."

"The job isn't why I was awake half the night," she assured him.  "I had a bad dream and it... stuck with me."

He frowned.  "If you need to take more time off..."

"I'll be okay," she promised.  "I'll see you Thursday."

He touched two fingers to his forehead in a salute before turning and heading back down the hall toward the stairwell.  "Get some rest, Monroe."

"I will," she turned to her door.

Fifteen minutes later she was changed into a pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeved Henley and settling down on her bed.  She closed her eyes, unable to get the memory of seeing her boss smiling or that wink...

Or the way that simple gesture had made her blush like a teenager with a crush on the captain of the football team, leaving her flustered and a little hot.

She curled her fingers into her pillow.  "He was teasing me, not flirting," she sternly told herself.  "Didn't mean a thing to him, probably.  Like Watson yesterday."

She knew she was lying to herself.  Vincent Stevens was nothing like Derek Watson.  The wink Watson had given her had made her skin crawl and her stomach churn, and not in a good way, either.  But Vincent's wink...

Vincent's wink left her feeling vulnerable, raw, exposed, unsettled in a way that was frightening.

Frightening because before she’d laid eyes on Vincent Stevens, she’d never felt one tiny ounce of sexual attraction to a man before.

[letterboxd]

Family.

“We’re trying to say: stop thinking about Manson as the embodiment of all evil. If he got a record deal, maybe nobody would have died.”

Jack Moulton talks cults, Trump and noise-cancelling headphones with American actress and screenwriter Guinevere Turner. Charlie Says is her latest film with frequent collaborator, Canadian director Mary Harron.

Of the serial-killer films currently in release, Charlie Says is the one that puts a strong focus on the women who often remain in the background of these retellings. Leslie Van Houten (Hannah Murray), Patricia Krenwinkel (Sosie Bacon), and Susan Atkins (Marianne Rendón)—the three women who killed for Charles Manson (Matt Smith)—are imprisoned in isolation in a California penitentiary, as well as psychologically imprisoned by Manson’s delusional ideas.

Then graduate student Karlene Faith (Merritt Wever) is given the job of rehabilitating the young women—as long as they are prepared to confront the horrors of their actions.

Turner co-wrote the 90s urban indie lesbian feature Go Fish directed by Rose Troche, which preceded her meeting with Harron. Charlie Says is their most recent collaboration, having partnered previously on American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page.

What interested you in writing a film about Charles Manson? Guinevere Turner: When the producers met with me they said they wanted to focus on the women as we definitely never got a sense of a story told from their perspective before. Once I found Karlene Faith’s book The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten [Faith’s study of the rehabilitation process and elongated incarceration of the three Manson Family girls], I saw a whole side of the story that literally never gets represented.

I got very excited that I could make a good movie out of this and it would also be an interesting commentary on what it says about society that we always treated these women like they’re interchangeable. Nobody’s ever asked “what happened to them?”, “what made them do what they did?” and more importantly “why did we stop talking about them?”. We never stopped talking to Charlie! There was a real opportunity to talk about men and women, who and when we pay attention to historically.

Did you get the chance to work with Karlene Faith in person before she passed away [in May 2017]? Yes, she was fantastic. It took a while to persuade her into talking to me at first. I slowly gained her trust via email, then we would talk on the phone, and eventually I would be visiting her apartment in Vancouver and we became friends. For about two years we were as thick as thieves.

Her book was obviously a huge resource but she was also useful for research as she was a woman of that time. She gave me a great visual, listening to her activist life outside of prison. When she met the girls for the first time she had all these assumptions that they were gonna be freaky psycho-killers and she was blown away by how sweet they were. She was immediately turned by them and she wanted to help them.

What were some of the unexpected realities of living in a cult environment that you wanted to portray? So I grew up in a cult environment as you probably knew so I assume that’s why you ask that question. [Ms. Turner spent the first eleven years of her life as part of the Lyman Family. They were devotees of Mel Lyman who believed he and his commune members would eventually live on the planet Venus. Though parted from her mother after birth, she and her younger sister were ejected from the Family when her mother eventually decided to leave. Ms. Turner considered returning at eighteen but chose to go to college instead.]

Yes, I read the article in The New Yorker. For me, I was excited to bring this knowledge in my DNA of what it’s really like living in that environment to represent both the good and the bad parts. You have those semi-orgy scenes and people doing acid, but also scenes where everyone is sitting around for dinner. That grounds it a little more. At the end of the day, it is a family—albeit an infamously weird one—but it is a bunch of people trying to live together.

While there’s the “everyday” quality to it I also wanted to show the volatility. It can be beautifully tranquil one moment and then turn on the dime into something scary and destabilizing. I feel like those things were true of my childhood. Mary Harron heard me talking about my upbringing for decades and she would always say “you should write about it”. I didn’t want to write about it specifically, but when I found this movie I thought I could bring something personal to the project that no other screenwriter could.

We’re curious about how you like to write. What music do you listen to while you work and are there any films you used as inspiration? I can’t listen to anything when I’m writing. I have noise-cancelling headphones that don’t cancel noise enough. I could live in an actual sensory deprivation tank while I write and I would be so happy, but unfortunately you can’t bring computers underwater. So, no music.

I watched a lot of movies of the era, especially unconventional movies about Jesus such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). Those were interesting aesthetically.

There’s a shot in the movie where they’re walking up the side of this mountain and I just loved that iconography. We were short for time on the day and I pleaded with Mary to make it happen. It made me so happy that it became one of the images they use for the promotion of the film. It does feel like this biblical journey and we were trying to capture that vibe.

What do you do to ensure the female gaze is considered from the script? I find a lot of that is intuitive. For example in this script, there has to be nudity but you notice that every time someone is naked in this movie it’s really uncomfortable. That’s one thing in terms of subverting male gaze, is that there’s no way that any person could see those scenes as objectifying the body for more than a nanosecond because of what’s happening.

It’s all about power, so I like that it’s portrayed as being uneasy. Even when Matt Smith is naked, Charlie is exerting power over someone else and she’s repulsed by him. That’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

How does your acting background feed into the way you write your characters? I think because I’m an actor I deeply feel the reality of what’s available for the average female actor to play. There’s tons of “someone’s girlfriend” and all the tropes, so for me when I’m writing I’m asking myself what about this is going to make an actor say “yes please, let me play that part!”.

I need to present something complex and challenging that they don’t often see. As someone who’s auditioned for many characters that I thought were poorly written, I try and give even the small parts something that will make an actor excited to play them.

What makes your creative partnership with Mary Harron work so well? It’s funny because we’ve never really asked ourselves that. Of course in the last week we’ve been asked that a lot while we’re in the same room and we look at each other like confused animals going “why does it work?”.

We realize that we have a similar sense of humor so we laugh a lot even while we’re writing all this dark stuff. The main factor is that we really trust each other. One of the hardest things about collaborating is that you’re not sure if someone is shooting down your idea because it doesn’t work or they’re jealous that it’s good. You need to trust that you can test stupid ideas with them.

When we first met in 1996 [shortly after Harron’s directing debut I Shot Andy Warhol and Turner’s writing debut Go Fish] we immediately had an affinity for each other and started writing together. It was as easy the first time we tried it as it is now. There’s not even much of an evolution. I feel really lucky for that because as a screenwriter it certainly means I have a lot more access to the movie than usual because the director is always checking in with me.

Despite all of the bleakness, it’s clear in the film that these women just wanted to be loved. There’s such a deep sympathy for them. What interests you about the line of responsibility for those influenced by dangerous charismatic leaders? I’d say everything about that interests me.

I’m drawing parallels to politics today such as the alt-right people that Trump influences, for example. We’re seeing echoes where people are mindlessly following a person who is validating evil, dangerous, and disgusting ideas. For these women I had to constantly remind myself that they did commit these horrible crimes.

I feel like Charles Manson and Donald Trump are apples and oranges except for the fact that they strike me as people where their only real fuel is power and that half the time they don’t know what they’re doing or saying, they’re just terrified of losing it. They almost have no internal life. They just feel when they have the power and when the power may be taken away and what they do to keep it makes people do terrible things. It’s like an addiction.

Matt Smith as Charles Manson in ‘Charlie Says’.

I’m sure you’re painfully aware that we have four Charles Manson films coming out in a short space of time. There’s Tate, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, though I’m certain Charlie Says was conceived before all of these. How do you feel about being a part of this cycle? I started writing the movie in 2014 and most of the time movies are made two years later but that’s not how it worked out for various logistical reasons. So on the one hand, I cringe that it’s the 50th anniversary [of Sharon Tate’s murder] and that’s when our movie’s coming out—it feels tacky but it’s definitely not on purpose.

Which seems to be very deliberate on Tarantino’s part… But the way independent films work is that you try and get them made until you get them produced. You don’t have these luxuries of when exactly they’re going to come out. That said, we have landed in a zeitgeist moment which is nice in terms of people paying attention to the movie. I don’t know much about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but I’m sure Tarantino has a radically different approach from ours.

While they share some similarities, your depiction of Charles Manson doesn’t work in quite the same way as American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. How did you decide the ways you wanted to humanize Manson? I think the first thing that’s similar between how we portrayed these two characters is that while they’re these powerful frightening people, we’re demystifying them and grounding them in an essential pathetic loserness. Mary and I don’t talk about how we can make another movie that takes down toxic masculinity, that’s just where we end up sometimes.

With American Psycho the stakes of social responsibility were different. We were asking people to put your baggage with the book away, we’re women making this, and we are trying to turn it into something that’s a critique of masculinity in a funny and dark way.

For Charlie Says we’re trying to say: stop thinking about Manson as the embodiment of all evil. We want to stop giving him that power and show that he was a conman who was just a failed musician. If he got a record deal, maybe nobody would have died.

Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in ‘American Psycho’ (2000).

I have to say, American Psycho holds up really well for the Trump era. One could argue that it works better now than when it came out.

How do you respond to the way you’ve already satirized these sociopaths in power and how that affected the increasing appreciation for the film over the years? It’s gratifying, because [American Psycho] was not particularly well loved when it came out. That’s disheartening when you work hard on a project that you think is more worthy. That said, it being more relevant now is terrifying. I watched the movie again recently and there’s a little part of you that cringes when we make Trump jokes because Donald Trump was a different kind of funny at the time.

‘Charlie Says’ is in US cinemas now, and available on VOD and digital from May 17.

[shidiand]

How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.

[sonyasongwriter]

ON FEBRUARY 27,2017 9:44 AM THIS TROUBLED

NUCLEAR WAR IS COMING THIS WAS THE REVELATION ON FEBRUARY 27,2017 9:44 AM THIS TROUBLED ME NUCLEAR WAR IS COMING THIS WAS THE REVELATION THAT BURDENED ME! The Captcha Code image I received when logging into my Sprint Wireless account. Sprint administrations informed me that GOOGLE  does their CAPTCHA CODES.  This is the actual image untouched in any way

 NUCLEAR WAR IS COMING TO AMERICA, THIS IS WHAT WAS REVEALED TO ME AFTER  20 DAYS OF SEEKING AN ANSWER FOR THIS STRANGE CAPTCHA! I HAVE THE ABILITY TO PRAY, RECEIVE ANSWERS AND SEE THE MYSTERIES OF GOD IN THINGS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT SEE IT IS A WARNING, YES TECHNOLOGY GOOGLE DOING TO ALL OF THOSE

Who would send this, Who else has received this, but the Revelation behind it is even more profound. I have something really strange to share with you all today, I have thought about it to myself for three weeks and prayed to God for the revelation of what occurred to me on February 27, 2017, at approximately 9:44 am. On this particular date, I was sitting at my desk at my workstation where I write songs, work on Twitter, Facebook, Emails and whatever I need to do online. I was listening to one of my songs called Everlasting Love so that I could write out scenes to a music video for this particular song. (I guess you could say I was multitasking; I’m quite good at it.) So I went over to the SPRINT WIRLES website website to login and pay my cellular phone bill which was due in 3-4 days. Then Sprint/GOOGLE sent me a captcha code which is normal for them to do for security reasons. If you have Sprint cellular services or any type of service where you log in to do any form of online business banking or things of that nature, then you know the captcha codes are normal.

Holy Christ, what in the world was I looking at! God, Heaven knows the captcha that I received was anything but normal.

In front of my eyes, on my Mac desktop was a captcha code asking me to check the boxes for street signs on it. I work really fast and move quickly around the internet – you can see my mouse the blue check mark in the image. At the moment I saw this strange captcha code, I blinked my eyes and took a double take. Father God, what was this image that I had gotten from sprint.com It was a picture of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross! I gasped and did another double take rubbing my eyes, and it was still there. I don’t know if I expected it to disappear, go away or something, but thank God, I had enough thinking ability to snap several photos of it on my iPhone6 plus. In one of the pictures, I made sure that I captured my last name that is attached to my sprint account.

Now I will have to take a pic of the original picture from iPhone6

So that it will show you the original date and time. I have to be precise like this to let you know that this is authentic. If anyone out there has gotten something like this, please come forward and share your story so I will know that this is not rare and there are others that have experienced this!

I looked around my room, and immediately I loudly said in exclamatory fashion “Who is watching me?” Then I said “God, what is going on here?” I got no answer at that time. I got up and grabbed my keys and drove 5 miles up the road to the local Sprint store. When I got there, I asked them, “Hey, do you guys make and send out your own captcha codes?” They said “We think we do.” Then I requested to speak to the manager. He walked over, and I showed him the image on my phone. I asked him “Why would Sprint sent me such a captcha like this?” I’m a Christian and don’t know what to think of this. “What is going on here at Sprint?” I asked him. He replied to me “I don’t know what to tell you. I have never seen anything like this before either in my whole life.” Then he told me that I needed to contact the CEO of Sprint company.They asked me to verify my account, and I said “Okay.” They usually ask me for my ID, and that is good enough. This day, however, they stated that they had a new technology, and so I needed to thumbprint. Not only that, but they also scanned my driver license. Feeling disappointed, I asked them “When did you, start doing all this type of things?” They said, “Oh, we just started this, for security purposes.” I took a deep sigh, shook my head, and said “You know what? I’m just going to go. Thanks for your help, I will call the CEO of Sprint company.” I WROTE AN EMAIL AND THEY RESPONDED ON APRIL18, 2017 BY EMAIL AND THEN THE COMPANY PHONED ME ON APRIL 19,2017

I came back home very troubled by this image. I said “God, I need a revelation on this matter. Is this some type of sign or is someone just messing with me?” I thought if someone was just messing with me, I have been very violated by it. You would have to be a born again holy-Ghost-filled Christian to understand what I mean by being violated spiritually. I began to pray daily about the image, and I fasted, talking to myself and asking God for revelation. One-week-time passed, I was still in prayer, still keeping this to myself. After two weeks, answers began to come. God led me to my web browser to type in “Zone 30.” That was the number and words circled on the street sign.

I heard the Holy Spirit say to me, “Scroll down the page, remember what you saw. Copy and paste it.” I had gotten nowhere in this search and with this strange captcha image that was troubling my spirit so very much, or so I was feeling. I went to the second page of the search and heard the Holy Spirit say, “Look at that again.” I listened as the voice said “Scroll down.” So I did, and I stopped on the 5th result of the first search 2nd page  opened it more I looked I was so not wanting to have that Captcha Code relate to any of this, but it does very much so. And what gave me final confirmation is the image below with bares an eerie resemblance  point blank.  

Pictures: Chernobyl’s eerie exclusion zone 30 years on

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/23/wildlife-returns-to-radioactive-wasteland-of-chernobyl/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35824880

DIRECTLY ABOVE SLAUGHTERED LITTLE ONES THE SYRAN   NUCLER CHEMICAL WEAPONS ATTAK. LET US HERE IN AMERICA REALIZE THAT WE TO ARE NOT EXEMPT FROM NUCLEAR ATTACKS OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS 

https://youtu.be/btWBrVVJZck I WILL EXPLAIN THE REVELATION THAT I PERCEIVED FROM THE CAPTCHA IMAGE WHERE IT CAME FROM , THERE WAS SOME SORT OF KNOWLEDGE OF OF THESE ATTACKS . REMEMBER I RECEIVED THE CAPTCHA IMAGE ON FEBRUARY 27,2017 OVER 3 WEEKS AGO. I ONLY NOW PUT IT UP BECAUSE I WRESTLED WITH LOGIC AND MY THOUGHT OF WHAT IN WORLD WAS THIS THAT I HAD IN MY POSSESSION.

THE NUMBER 30 CIRCLED IN THE RED REPRESENTS AROUND THE 30TH OR SO YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF Chernobyl’s Vladimir Ilyich  Lenin Nuclear Power Station in the former Soviet Union.

THE WHITE SIGN ON THE CROSS READS TETELESTAI- WHICH MEANS IT IS FINISHED PAID IN FULL. THE RED CIRCLE AROUND THE NUMBER #30  ZONE  SYMBOLIZES WARNING “ SO WHAT EXACTLY IS THIS SAYING ABOUT THIS IMAGE HERE BELOW.   THIS IS TAHT IMAGE I CAME ACROSS THAT STARTLED ME    SIMILARITIES WHERE STRIKINGLY EERI  TO MUCH ALIKE TO IGNORE TP THAT CAPTCHA CODE THAT I WAS SENT. CHERNOBYL IS NOW KNOW A  EXCLUSION ZONE

THIS IS THE SONG IS THE SONG I WAS LISTENING TO THAT MORNING EXACTLY WHEN THE CAPTCHA CODE WAS SENT . THE LYRICS OF THE SONG ARE  (FAST FORWARD )  THE BRIDGE OF THE SONG @  TO 2MINS AND 54 SECONDS     This is a song that I wrote, arranged and did the vocals I named this particular song (Everlasting Love) sitting there I was writing out the scenes for a music video and how I wanted to portray this song to visuals. That is when this That is when I took a break to pay my spring bill because a notice came in on my phone that the bill was coming up in 3 days. So I logged in to pay and that is when this Captcha popped up on the screen, it was Ironic that I was listening to a song about Christ being Crucified. Could it be that artificial intelligence computers are monitoring us so closely that they are sending us things like this Could  it be that this was a nasty insult and mockery to Christ Jesus and his dying, could this be the beast system doing what it was put here to do Did I just experience  the future downfall of this world and what is to come concerning technology, computers and how they terrorize us there will be nothing that we do that they are not monitored  in real time by satellite and computers and phones. Sprint, NASA, Verizon wireless, the Government all working together as only a part of the Beast System. Well, my friends the answer is yes through Signs and Symbols God is speaking and we are asleep in the Church collection money building more churches and more churches. My God only if we knew what was in store for this world, America, we would do things differently and in a hurry.  

The Beast System is here slowly infiltrating its way into the souls of humanity those of us that are ASLEEP I CALL THEM THE WALKING DEAD, FOR THEY CLAIM TO KNOW AND LOVE CHRIST BUT INDEED THIER HEARTS ARE FAR FROM HIM. THEY SEEK MONEY AND WELATH LUXURY AND THINGS HOMES CARS ALL OF THESE THINGS. BUT THEY CARE NOT FOR THIER SOULS NOR DO THEY CARE FOR THE SOULS OF OTHERS AS CHRIST HAS TOLD US TO WIN SOULS FOR THIS IS A WAR A SPIRITUAL WAR. AND SOON THE MANIFESTATION OF WICKEDNESS IN HIGH PLACES OTHER REALMS WILL SHOW, IT’S SELF TO THOSE WHO ARE BLIND AND ASLEEP AND THEY WILL FAINT OF FEAR AND TERROR.

BLESSING BE UPON ALL OF YOU MY FRIENDS LET US BE AWARE OF THE SIGNS AND SYMBOLS THAT ARE ALL AROUND US SO THAT WE MAY ATTEMPT TO PREPARE OR AT LEAST BE READY AT ALL TIMEES. HAVE OUR SOULS IN THE RIGHT STANDING WITH GOD THE FATHER SO THAT WHEN ALL THESE THINGS COME TO PAST THAT WE BE NOT CAUGHT UNAWARE AND THAT WE KNOW THE DAY AND HOUR SHALL NOT BE LONG BEFORE OUR LORD AND SAVIOR CHRIST JESUS SHALL APPEAR IN HE CLOUDS AND EVERY MAN SHALL SEE HIM. AND KNOW THAT GOD IS INDEED THE CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH WORLDS SEEN AND UNSEEN THE ALPHA AND OMEGA.   MY MESSAGE TO US ALL (BE READY AT ALL TIMES)

 They removed all links to this video so when I shared it it would show a blank page, I’m simply an ordinary person but with the revelation and wisdom 

They are wicked and online they are gang stalking it is called cyber stalking

It is the new way of crime and many of us will be censored and watched

Even put on a list these are big corporations that have 3rd party access to your online profiles . The Analyst at Google did give me a personal call

And Apologize I told them this was demonic and a type of persecution

They agreed did they mean it, No, they did not, but I wanted them to know

That I was not afraid of the mess they had sent to me. Just  a word to the wise when you turn on your computer your camera off and put a piece of tape over the lens, it will give you a little privacy but still you have the 

Television on and through that they are watching from the satellite 

The only thing we can really do in this hour is pray and draw near to GOD

BECAUSE THE WORSE IS YET TO COME.

I’AM PROPHETESS SONYA TOWNSEND AND THIS IS FOR THOSE

WHO WANT TO BE AWAKENED?  I PRAY THAT IT DOES NOT FALL ON DEAF EARS.  TO GOD BE ALL THE GLORY EVERY BIT OF OF IT  4 EVER AND 4 EVER.

LYRICS  ( THE HUNG HIM HIGH, THEY STRETCHED, HE BOWED HIS HEAD AND THEN HE DIED FOR YOU AND I HE WAS CRUCIFIED EVERLASTING LOVE, EVERLASTING LOVE YOU CAN SEARCH A LIFETIME NO GREATER LOVE WILL YOU FIND

[poppyknitt]

Baby Steps (A JSE egos fanfiction + smol easter egg)

(Please note that this fanfiction is a slight deviation from the main storyline of my current line of fanfictions, and is still just as important, but also will not be totally necessary to read if all you wanna do is read the main story)

(Also, if you are triggered by even just the mental image of things like extremely loud noises, slight psychosis, and other things that can surface when dealing with post-coma brain issues and also Darkiplier type demons at the same time, I suggest not reading past the dog park scene. It gets real bad after that. Especially because i wrote this at fucking 10-11PM like an idiot.)

Seán sat on a bench in a dog park, his memories still blurred together. His doctor had recommended he get a dog or something to help ease the stress of not being able to remember anything from before he slipped into a coma, but honestly he felt like he didn’t have the time for it, so he just took daily trips down to the dog park, and hope that he was lucky enough to be able to pet one of the dogs there.

A few hours passed, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s the one and only Mark, who’s visiting for a few days, because he’s on tour.

“Oh! Hey buddy!” Mark yelled, and jogged over.

“Hey Mark.” Seán said. He would have to get used to being called “Jack” whenever he was with his youtube buddies, for whatever weird reason. He didn’t really understand why people didn’t just call him by his name now, since everyone already knows it.

“What’s going on pal? I heard about the coma thing. How long have you been back in it?” Mark was already bombarding him with questions.

“Agh, slow down! My head’s still getting used to the real world..” He said, gripping his head as another migraine started setting in.

“Oh, jeez-! God, I’m sorry, Jack. I forgot about the brain stuff that comes with comas... Man, if I knew you were haning out in dog parks, I would’a brought Chica with me!” Mark said, laughing at the last part.

“Ah, jeez... Who was Chica again..? Wasn’t that a yellow bird in a horror game..?” Seán trailed off.

“Well, yeah, kinda, but Chica’s the name of my golden retriever!” Mark replied.

“Oh! Yeah, right! I remember now! Aw, man, I miss ‘er! She looked so cute the last time I saw her!” He grinned.

“Anyways, since I’m here, wanna do a collab? Maybe stream a few things together? I dunno. Just.. Do something fun, I guess.” Mark suggested.

“Heh, yeah, maybe later though. I need to get home and take some painkillers or something.” Seán said.

“Oh. Well, alright then! See ya later, nerd!” Mark waved happily as Seán slowly walked off, and then muttered under his breath once his friend was out of earshot, “Ha. Painkillers. Fucking wuss.”(because this is actor! Mark. Not real Mark.)

Seán sighed to himself as he got into his car and drove home. God, missing out on a little over nine months of his life... What all even happened while he was out...? And why did everyone change..? Mark’s being weird and aloof, Henrik won’t tell him anything, Robin’s being quiet all of a sudden... God, he wished he knew what was happening. He arrived at his place, and went inside, shutting the door behind him. Jeez... maybe he should get a dog.

~~~~

Mark paced impatiently in front of his computer, waiting for Seán to call, “God damn it, where is he?!”

“Mark, don’t be a dick.” Amy huffed in annoyance.

“Well I’m sorry that I’ve been waiting for almost a whole day to do a collab with Jack, and he hasn’t even bothered to respond yet!” Mark said in his weird sassy voice.

——

Seán Jack woke up, and immediately felt a strange sense of dread in the back of his mind, which was abnormal, because this was his house, and if anything, he should be the one igniting fear into the hearts of anyone who tries to break in. He shrugged it off, and got up, looking at his computer instinctively.

“Oh, fuck! I forgot about the collab. Shit! Mark’s gonna be pissed!” He yelped, and immediately prepared himself for a collab video or two. When he was done, he hurried into his recording studio, and began the collab.

Mark joined the collab while Jack was still fumbling around in search of his headphones.

“Looking for these?” A sinister voice voice, much like Mark’s, echoed from the computer, sending chills down his spine. He slowly turned to see...

His headphones on his keyboard.

“Oh, there they are. Hey Maaaarrrrrkkkkkk- AH HOLY FUCK WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!” Jack screamed, jumping back from the monitor when he noticed it wasn’t Mark talking to him, but rather, his dark ego, Dark, so naturally, he played it “cool”, “Oh! Hahahaha! I-I see! You’re just fucking with me, aren’t ya, Mark? Yeah! I know your tricks! You can’t fool me!”

“Oh, I can assure you, this is not computer effects. I am very, very real, Jack.” The voice echoed throughout the apartment.

“What do you want from me?!” Jack exclaimed. The lights in his house all bursted, and Jack screamed, covering his head, as his ears began to ring, “Ahhhh! Why?! Why now?! God! No! This is a terrible time! I haven’t even taken any medications!”

“Jack! Jesus fucking christ! Where the hell are you?! Why are you screaming?!” Mark yelled, which, strangely enough, was comforting to hear.

“Mark! Oh thank fucking Christ! Dude! Your dark ego dude just fucking assaulted my house!” Jack yelled.

“What?! Dark ego? What the hell are you talking about? Wait, don’t tell me you believe the bullshit the community’s telling us!” Mark growled.

“I didn’t! I swear! But that fucking bastard just tapped into our conversation! He-He took over my computer! Please, Mark! For the love of god, I’m not crazy-!” Jack got cut off by his house’s alarms all going off, which caused his ears to ring again, his head’s pain to get worse, as he immediately started repeating “ow” and “oh fuck, oh god, oh no” over and over, as he started growing dizzy. Reality and fiction began to blurr as his pain only worsened, and soon he couldn’t tell what was in his head and what was actually happening, as he slowly fell to the ground.

The last thing he heard before passing out was Mark yell, “Amy! Call the fucking ambulance! Jack’s gone nuts or some shit and his house sounds like it’s gonna fucking explode!”

~~~~

Jack woke up on his way to the hospital, and jolted up, his whole mind filling with absolute terror as he recalled the previous events. Lights flashing. His computer screen was glitching the hell out. Alarms blaring. Mark screaming in either panic or anger. Worst of all, however, was that the last thing he could recall seeing was Dark looming over him as he lay on the ground, clutching his head in pain and screaming his ass off as his brain knocked itself out over all the noise and pandemonium that seiged his nerves and made it feel like his head was about to explode. As he realized he was now in a hospital room, he noted that he could also hear the distant sound of Henrik’s distressed voice as he snapped back to reality.

“Seán! Seán, you idiot! Vake zhe hell up! Vhat zhe hell happened?! Why are you back like zhis?!” Henrik bombarded him with questions.

“I-I don’t know! I-I was gonna do a-a collab with Mark but then that Darkiplier dude that tumblr obsesses over appeared on my screen and talked to me and all the lightbulbs exploded so my head was hurting and something happened, Mark was yelling at me, and then all my alarms went off and I-I blacked out but like just before I did, the Darkiplier dude appeared in my apartment?! I-I don’t know! Nothing makes sense! I-It’s all so blurry!” Jack rushed through his words in a blind panic, but that didn’t matter, because as soon as Henrik heard the word “Darkiplier”, he ran the fuck out.

Jack heard him screaming at Mark in the other room.

“Vhat zhe hell is vrong vith you, you idiot?! I zhought I said to not try to speak vith him until zhis all blows ovah!” Henrik yelled.

“I didn’t think you were fucking serious! I didn’t even know the asshole would attack Jack! I thought it would be fine!” Mark yelled back.

“Notzhing is evah fine vhen you are involved, Mark! Not anymore! You zhink you are helping vith your videos, but you are only making zhis situation vorse for zhose of us vhom have to be stuck in zhe damn crossfires of you and your stupid little var vith your stupid little dark egos! At least ve have zhe fucking decency to keep away from ozher youtubers vhen Anti attacks us! Zhose two are not vhat you zhink! Zhey have much more power zhan you can even imagine, and vhat do you do? You release them into zhe fucking vorld by recklessly involving ozher people in your stuff! Just fucking vait! You should be more worried about your stupid friends zhan keeping your channel relevant!” Henrik ranted.

“Alright! Alright! I get it! You think this is my fault! Fine! I’ll take the fucking blame then!” Mark yelled back.

“Don’t you get a fucking attitude wizh me, you bastard! Oh, I am so going have a vord vith zhe ozhers about zhis! And believe me, Mark! Zhis vill not happen again!”

Jack sighed, and closed his eyes, resting his head against the pillow. He didn’t understand anything they were discussing anymore.

~~~~

Jack opened his eyes, and froze. The world was glitching between normal colors and monotonous colors, like it had been when he fainted. He immediately shut his eyes, not wanting to deal with this again.

Why? Why him?! What the hell did he do?! He just wanted to hang out with his friend! Get back some of the time he lost while he was in comatose! Not this!

“Jack! Jack! I know you’re awake, you clueless bastard!” Mark said, and Jack opened his eyes to find the room was normal again.

... Oh god... What kind of demon did he unleash upon the world this time..?

[Sean #1/Darkilplier Prologue pt. 1]

Henrik #1

Marvin #1

JBM #1

Chase #1/Darkiplier Prologue pt. 2

JJ & Robbie #1

Anti #1

Sean #2

@antis-loyal-puppet

[discoveringthebible]

The Importance of Baptism Sermon

This past week I had a homework assignment that was to write a full-length sermon on Baptism. Although I probably will not preach this at my church, I wrote this with them in mind. (My grandma is excited to hear it, so I will be preaching it to her Monday, with a PowerPoint Slide) 

The title for this Sermon is called “The Importance of Baptism” and all of the Scripture passages are from the New Living Translation (NLT) except for John 3:16, which was from memory, and I could have very well mixed a few different translations together, humorously called the Cody Translation. 

“The Importance of Baptism”

Lord God, we thank you for this beautiful day, for the lovely birds, the flowers, our friends and our families. We thank you for your love, grace, and the sacrifice you made for each of us. Holy Spirit, open our hearts and minds, so we can learn more about what it means to be a child of God and the importance of baptism.

           God has been pressing on my heart and mind lately to speak about baptism. Although this is a subject most of us should be familiar with, I understand that some of you may not know what baptism is and why it’s a vital part of Christianity, and why it’s considered a Sacrament. Today I am attempting to explain just how sacramental baptism is and why it’s a necessary part of Christianity and why it’s just as important as the Eucharist, which we take every week. First, let’s take a look at a couple of New Testament Scriptural verses about baptism, from first John and Colossians.

           1 John 5:1-11: 1: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too. 2: We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey his commandments. 3: Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. 4: For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. 5: And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God. 6: And Jesus Christ was revealed as God’s Son by his baptism in water and by shedding his blood on the cross—not by water only, but by water and blood. And the Spirit, who is truth, confirms it with his testimony. 7: So we have these three witnesses—8: the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and all three agree. 9: Since we believe human testimony, surely we can believe the greater testimony that comes from God. And God has testified about his Son. 10: All who believe in the Son of God know in their hearts that this testimony is true. Those who don’t believe this are actually calling God a liar because they don’t believe what God has testified about his Son. 11: And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

           Colossians 2:11-15: 11: When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. 12: For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. 13: You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14: He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15: In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

                       Baptism is a wonderful, miraculous, Spirit-filling event and for those of you who have been baptized, I’m sure you can think back to that day in your own lives and agree. I remember when I first asked Jesus to be my Savior. I was seven years old. I was baptized in my church, in front of the congregation and my family. Obviously, I didn’t understand everything of what it would mean to be a Christian and to submit to God’s authority in my life. And I didn’t understand what it would mean to get baptized and to share my salvation with those in my church. I didn’t understand what it would mean to say yes to God. I didn’t understand the complexity and the challenges it would bring. It’s not all unicorns and fairies. Sometimes it’s muddy and slimy. But there are joy-filled days and experiences. I also didn’t yet understand the love and the humor of God I would experience and continue to experience every day.

           I say humor, because it seems that I see a lot of humor from God. Sometimes it’s unexpected. Sometimes it’s just a reminder from God not to take everything so seriously. Even when I was a young teenager, still reading and learning about the Bible, as well as many different things that the Bible talks about, I came across a word out of Exodus. Paul also wrote about it in the passage from Colossians: circumcision. I must have been 12 or so, and I went to my mom and asked her what it meant. I could see it embarrassed her, but I was curious. Google, still being a new thing, she said, “Why don’t you Google it, with images? I’m not sure I am the best one to explain what it is.” Although it was phasing out, we still had dial-up internet, too. And it took a while to load Google back then. For those already laughing, it gets even more embarrassing. Just as the page loaded for the first set of pictures, my father came home from work, to see me on the family computer. I got off the computer as quickly as I could, and ran to my room. My father went back outside the front door. And re-entered. For a long time, I refused to even talk about it because I was so embarrassed, but now, as I think about it, I find it funny, plus, it makes for a great sermon story.

           Baptism, like circumcision was to Abraham and the Israelites, is a way in which others know our relationship with God. God called Abraham to circumcision as a way to bind their covenant. God would make Abraham into a great nation, because of God’s blessing, but Abraham would need to bear the mark of that Covenant. And being baptized, we bear that mark in front of others and God, even though it is a Spiritual mark, rather than a physical one. If you would like to read more about Abraham and God’s Covenant with him, take a look at Genesis chapter 17.

                       There are many truths that we can pull from these passages, and I just wanted to go over a few of those with you. The first is that: “1: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God.” 1 John 5:1a. For those of us who have submitted to Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and who have committed to living a life like Jesus, we are a child of God. No matter what we might have done in the past, no matter what we might be going through right now, we are a child of God, the Creator, and Sustainer of the Universe, Earth and everything in them. When I feel down, or depressed, because even pastors experience depression and anxiety, this reminder brings a smile to my face, knowing that God is my Father and I am His child.

           The second truth I want to point out is that: “6: Jesus Christ was revealed as God’s Son by his baptism in water and by shedding his blood on the cross—not by water only, but by water and blood” (1 John 5:6a). This is one of the reasons why we partake in communion and baptism. They both represent the same thing: Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross. We partake in Communion, to share in Jesus’ last supper, to remind us of Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins. We also partake in baptism as not only something to share with others when we first become Christians, but we also partake in it to die with Christ and to be raised again with Christ—we die to ourselves and we live again, as the children of God.

           The third truth from 1 John 5:11 is: “11: And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” For us to have this eternal life, two things must happen. First, we acknowledge that Jesus died and was raised back to life. He died to take our place. He died for our mistakes-not His own mistakes. The second thing, is that we have to accept it. We have to accept Jesus’ invitation of salvation. Just because Jesus died for all of us, doesn’t necessarily mean all of us are granted salvation. We must be the ones who will accept it. My hope is that for anyone who has yet to accept it, please come talk to me at the end of the service today. Even if you still aren’t sure, but still would like to talk, get more information, etc., please see me, or any of the pastoral staff.

           The fourth truth I want to share with all of you today is this: “11: When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. 12: For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead” Colossians 2:11-12. Obviously, this is metaphorical, not a literal thing. When I was baptized, I didn’t physically die. But my own selfish desires did, or you know, at least as well as a seven-year-old understands those things. The older I have gotten and the more I understand the commitment I made, I realize just how important baptism is. It’s a public declaration that says to the Christian community: “Jesus is My Savior. He died for me and my sins. I will live from this day forward to do my best to live like Christ and what He calls me to do.”

                       If we love God, we should keep God’s commandments. 1 John 5:2-3 says, “2: We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey his commandments. 3: Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.” Part of loving God is also loving God’s children, even those who don’t yet know or understand the saving power of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “32: If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them!....35: Love your enemies! Do good to them…” (Luke 6:32, 35a).

           In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus was asked which commandment was the most important. Jesus responded, “37: ’You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38: This is the first and greatest commandment. 39: A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40: The entire law and all the prophets are based on these two commandments” (Here, Jesus was referencing back to Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, respectfully.”)

           If we believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, we should follow Jesus in baptism. Mark 16:14-16: “14: Still later he appeared to the eleven disciples as they were eating together. He rebuked them for their stubborn unbelief because they refused to believe those who had seen him after he had been raised from the dead. 15: And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone. 16: Anyone who believes AND is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned.” Jesus did a miraculous thing when He took the sins of the world. The sins that had been done, those that were currently being done, and those that would be done in the future. He took every one of those and died as a sacrifice, allowing us to be God’s children. This death, and resurrection of Christ, gave us the greatest gift humanity ever received: salvation. But it is our own personal choice to accept it, or not.

                       There are also a few things that we need to understand about God, the first to know about God is that God is the Father of Jesus Christ. Although this is something that we often say in church and is something Christians believe, not everyone understands this. It was God who sent His son to die for us as a sacrifice for our sins.

“9: Since we believe human testimony, surely we can believe the greater testimony that comes from God. And God has testified about his Son. 10: All who believe in the Son of God know in their hearts that this testimony is true…11: And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life and this life is in his Son (1 John 5:9-10a, 11). John 3:16 says, “16: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.”

           The second thing that we need to know about God is that God is also our Father, through our Faith in Jesus Christ. Galatians 3:26-29 says, “26: For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27: And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. 28: There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29: And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.”

           The third thing we need to understand about God is that God has forgiven us for all of our sins, through our belief and faith in Christ Jesus. Our slate is wiped clean of our consequences of sin. “13: You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14: He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).

                       Next, are a few more things that we need to know about Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 3:18-21 says, “18: Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit. 19: So he went and preached to the spirits in prison—20: those who disobeyed God long ago when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat. Only eight people were saved from drowning in that terrible flood. 21: And that water is a picture of baptism, which now saves you, not by removing dirt from your body, but as a response to God from a clean conscience. It is effective because of the resurrection of Christ.”

           Jesus Christ never sinned. He was sinless, but he took on the sins of the world, including all of our sin, so that we could live and be God’s children.

           Jesus Christ died for our sins, but the amazing this is, He didn’t stay dead! (Can I get an amen?!) Jesus could have never conquered the grave, if He had stayed dead. I will say it again: Jesus could have never conquered the grave if He had stayed dead.  

           Jesus Christ is God’s Son. Jesus points the way to God, the Father, and Jesus was willing to die for us to be able to be adopted by God and become a part of God’s family!

                       Speaking of family, here’s a few things to remember about the life of a Christian.

           Christianity is done is community, but we are united as one because of our faith in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 4:2-7 says, “2: Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3: Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4: For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. 5: There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6: one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all. 7: However, he has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ.” The gifts would be pointless if we didn’t share in what Christ has given us.

           We are also to love the community, as we love ourselves. The greatest commandment is to “Love God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” And if we don’t love the community, God’s creation, we really don’t love God.

           Third, we are to continue to learn and grow more like Christ, every day of our lives. Just because we become mature, doesn’t mean we have learned everything. Ephesians 4:15-16 says, “15: Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16: He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”

And as far as fellowship, we learn and grow from one another—not just the mature to the new, but those new to the faith can also teach those of us who are mature. I cannot even express just how much I have learned from those new to the faith, as well as those who have been on the journey much longer than I have been. It’s been a blessing to be a part of the community of Christ.

           When we are together, we don’t just worship and share in the joyous times, we are also called to share our burdens and hardships with others. Galatians 6:2-3 says, “2: Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. 3: If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.” A little blunt, but honest. We are not above helping someone else, especially in other people’s burdens.

                       A few things to understand about ourselves in this process, is that first, our natural instinct is to be self-centered. And we are called to love people in the ways that we love ourselves. Second, it takes work to focus less on ourselves and to focus more on Christ, and others. However, when we do fall short, there is much grace, mercy, and forgiveness that comes from God when we ask Him. When we choose to become baptized, we choose to become a part of God’s family. Although baptism is a symbolic act, we should never take it for granted.

                       To conclude, I wanted to read from Romans 6:1-4, Paul says, “1: Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2: Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3: Or have you forgotten that when we joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4: For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.”

Let us pray:

           Lord, God, as we continue in service today, let our hearts, minds and spirits continue to be open. Continue to show us new ways in which we can become closer to You, Father. Help us to focus a little less on ourselves, and focus more on You and those who You have put into our lives. As we leave this place, we ask for safe travels and mercies. Be with us, Lord, wherever we go. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

           As we get ready to share the Peace of Christ with one another, let me say a blessing, or Benediction over each one of you: This is from Ephesians 4:3-6, although read earlier, I believe this is a great message to send you out with: “3: Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4: For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. 5: There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6: one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all and living through all.” In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.