#I used to watch this in my teens and recently rediscovered it when I was I’ll

[beastlyworlds]

The power of three will set you free ✨

#charmed #charmed original #fanart #illustration #witches #cats #phoebe halliwell #piper halliwell #prue halliwell #artists on tumblr #doodling #drawing #procreateapp #I used to watch this in my teens and recently rediscovered it when I was I’ll #kind of perfect to watch when you’re feeling out of it

[davidmariottecomics]

Best of 2023

Hi there, 

This week, we're celebrating the 2 year anniversary of my website and blog (well, just under 2 years, it officially launched on Jan 1). So, to round out this year with the blog and in general, I thought I'd do a little roundup of my personal "Best of" 2023. This is more a list of stuff I really dug this year than a formal ranking of any sort, and a lot of this isn't necessarily new in 2023, so much as stuff I discovered (and rediscovered) this year! Some things will get a little extra blurb, some things will just be listed. Alright, without further ado, my best of 2023! 

PODCASTS: Dungeons & Daddies - Legitimately, 90% of my podcast listening this year was either Dungeons & Daddies or Blank Check. I don't even think I meant for it to be like that, it's just how it happened. As a work of collaborative fiction, I really love Dungeons & Daddies. It's a super funny show and this past week-ish, I've been relistening to Season 2 so far and have just been delighting in it.  Blank Check My Year in MENSA Solve This Murder The Real Housewives of Dungeons & Dragons Abandoning the Premise - Haven't heard of it? Well so far, there's only one episode and it's exclusive to my Patreon! But it was fun and I'd like to revisit in the future! 

VIDEO GAMES:  Reverse 1999 Honkai Star Rail - I am very bad at playing updating video games. It doesn't come naturally to me. I am not someone who completes a lot of games--if I am really gripped by something, I'll finish the story, but I'm not very good about new game plus and 100% runs or anything like that. So, what usually happens with games like this is I get to a point where I am caught up and then I take a break because something else catches my eye or I have less time or I just feel like there's not a lot to do with where I'm at in the game and when I next try to dip in, I feel too far behind. That's definitely where I am with HSR right now, but I'm hoping to take some of my remaining time off to actually try to play and enjoy it again.  The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog Detective Pikachu Returns - This was a Christmas gift and it's delightful! A lot of the puzzle-solving is very easy, but, I dunno, I like hanging out with my friends the Pokemon. 

COMICS:  Nancy Chainsaw Man Milky Way by Miguel Vila - Another Christmas gift, this book is beautifully ugly. It is a semi-erotic relationship-thriller that I think does a very good job of balancing the grotesqueness of human nature and interpersonal relations with a sort of soft loving lens of what compels us toward each other, even when it's at our expense. There's deception and injury and fetishization presented in ways that remind you why they're often treated as morally repugnant, but also are so attractive to us so often.  Superman Kaguya-Sama: Love is War 17-21 The Rock Cocks Witch Watch - Every Sunday morning, I read through my "webcomics" of the week. I hit up Webtoon and catch up on anything there, then hop to Shonen Jump and read my new stuff there. Consistently, Witch Watch is probably my favorite read each Sunday morning, just because it almost never misses weeks and the characters are all just so delightful. Even with the current storyline being kinda weird (one of the main characters has been turned from a teen into a toddler and is being kinda raised by her romantic interest...) there's such a solid core of thoughtfulness and care and humor that I think it just always works.  Spy x Famiy  Lore Olympus Girl Taking Over: A Lois Lane Story Birds of Prey Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville - I recently talked on my Patreon about how I think playing backseat editor and coming up with "a book that would really get readers to the shop regularly again" isn't practical because I think there are other things that could bolster comic sales in longer-lasting, better ways and I think particularly with the current state of the readership, "comics readers" aren't looking for a unifying title, they're looking for the stuff they find personally compelling. I'm a guy in comics, I have a lot to say on that and how to improve things, but that's for another day. Why I bring it up here is between Birds of Prey and Fire & Ice, those are the books that if there was justice in this world would bring all the boys to the yard. These are the exact kind of superhero titles I wanna read all the time. Poison Ivy: Thorns Superman: The Harvests of Youth Dumbing of Age One Piece Crimehot - Crimehot #4 came out this year and includes the Cassidy and Butch to our main group's Jessie and James (That's a Team Rocket reference), the way more competent counterparts who all have weirdly deep backstories with the main cast. And let me tell you... like the name says, they're hot. And they do hot stuff. It's a good comic.  Steamy Dandadan - I was recently gushing about Dandadan to some friends and described it as really hitting me as a comic that is so very much a book about whatever interests the creator at the moment (similar to Witch Watch in that way). If you read the pitch, it's like "she believes in ghosts and not aliens, and he believes in aliens and not ghosts and then wacky stuff happens to make a believer out of both of them" but it's really a light rom-com with just bonkers stuff happening and I love that about it.  Three Rocks: The story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created Nancy  It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth  What Happens Next - This is a webcomic I discovered not too long ago and there are content warnings on the very first page that I think are very helpful to make sure you're in the right headspace for it. I am a big fan of stories about younger adults finding their place in the world--not a coming of age "taking your first steps into real life" kind of thing, but a "you've been around for a while and life is hard and even if you're doing the right things, or nothing at all, why isn't it better and what comes next" types of stoires. This totally fits that. And it reads incredibly quickly since it's usually 1-2 panels per page. 

BOOKS:  Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror - I look at my comics list and I look at the things I didn't place on either list and I know I read plenty this year, but it does feel strange having such a short list for traditional books. There's a lot to that: I spent like 6 weeks spending all my free reading time catching up on 1100 chapters of One Piece. I started a handful of books that I was enjoying but for one reason or another paused and didn't really pick back up. And so while this is the most recent release on the list, Out There Screaming was a major help for me because it was something I could pick up and read in short bursts and leave satisfied and wanting to come back for more. Every story--even the ones that I didn't like as much, was compelling and fun and left me thinking about it afterwards.  House of Leaves  Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs - Book of the year. I don't even eat hot dogs, but I loved this book!  I'm Glad My Mom Died  The Broken Room 

TV SHOWS:  Poker Face Craig of the Creek  Rise of the TMNT  Transformers: Earthspark  I Think You Should Leave - Out of everything we've consumed this year, I think ITYSL is the most quoted show in our household (though Real Housewives of Beverly Hills/Vanderpump Rules are close contenders). So much of this show is so funny and strange.  The Rehersal Barry  My Adventures with Superman Praise Petey - Without a doubt, Praise Petey is the least known show on this list. And because of that, as I just found out, it was canceled after a single season which sucks. The premise is after her cult leader dad dies, a down-on-her-luck New Yorker moves to the countryside and becomes a cult leader... whether she wants to or not and her own feelings on that differ minute-by-minute. Despite the broad premise, it's pretty in line with other animated sitcoms like Bob's Burgers or King of the Hill (it is a Mike Judge co-production) that I think speaks in an authentic, funny voice of the 18-35 demographic. If you like Only Murders in the Building, I think this has a similar energy, but hornier and with more of the concerns of youth than of old men.  Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake Sex Education - Okay, I know I said I wasn't doing rankings, but as an overall piece of media, I think Sex Education is my show of the year. The last season, the one that came out this year, isn't my favorite of the series, but when so many shows flub their endings, this one really found a way to nail it (and to roll with the more major cast/location changes) in a way that felt real. This is one of those shows that, if it was available on DVD, I would buy to add to my "regular rotation", but much like Freaks and Geeks, I'd only ever be able to watch some of it again because as it got closer to the end, I don't know that I'd be able to emotionally take that on a regular basis.  Joe Pera Talks with You Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

MOVIES:  The Boy and the Heron The Fablemans - I have very complicated feelings about this movie. On the one hand, I really loved it on first viewing. It hit me emotionally in a major way. I've talked on the blog before about crying multiple times in the theater. And if you had asked me in the first half of the year what my favorite movie of the year was, it'd probably be this (even though it's technically a 2022 film). But I also have my issues with Steven Spielberg and... it is a film where I'm still navigating my own emotional catharsis with it relative to Spielberg as an artist/creator/subject of the film. Not to get too far into real issues of death of the author and separation of the art and artist, this is the sort of hyper-personal work that even moreso than usual I think cannot be separated from the creator and so my changing feelings on him means I'm still figuring out my new relationship with the work.  M3GAN Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem - Up until recently, this probably would've moved into the movie of the year spot. I just thought it was so much fun. It's a visual feast. I like that it's a full story (Sorry, Spider-Verse). I love the world and the enthusiasm of the turtles and just really tuned in.  Robocop Phantom of the Paradise - Becca watched this for the first time with me and we both marveled on how this kind of forgotten cult film actually informed so much of all pop culture for decades to come. I am happy to say that overall, still slaps.  Venture Bros: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart Blue Beetle Gone Girl - I ended up watching a lot of Fincher movies this year, largely influenced by Blank Check. And Gone Girl has to be my favorite of his, and, on this rewatch, one of my favorite films of the 2010s.  Oldboy Josee, the Tiger and the Fish Godzilla: Minus One - Again, not to rank things so much, but if Minus One did an Oscars sweep and took home (checks notes) every award, I'd be happy. Even the ones that don't make sense. Best Documentary Short? Give it to Godzilla, cowards! An absolute masterpiece on every level. 

MUSIC:  The Loveliest Time - Look, we got a new CRJ album. What else do you want from me? 

OTHER STUFF:  A smooth transition from IDW into the holidays (and into my new thing soon) Making a Discord for my friends and the feeling that I can spend a little time making my friendships stronger with some folks while we aren't also coworkers/collaborators. Bluesky (and not being on Twitter). Remaining boosted on my vaccines and not having any serious illness of my own. Becca's first year on Twitch.  My first year on Patreon.  WaifuExpo (now KimochiiCon) and generally being more open in my interest in consuming and creating adult material.  Having some good experiences at shows and doing so many (will not be doing so many in 2024).  Having good times with the people I love.  All the comics I edited, all the blogs I posted, and just being at an end to that for the year. 

Not to be a bummer at the end, but it has been a long, strange, difficult year. There is so much wrong in the world and so many are struggling. So, it's nice that there is also so much that I found enjoyment and comfort in. I hope you've had some real bright spots in this year too, and I look forward to next year with you. 

I am not much for resolutions. I usually don't do a good job of them, if I bother to make them at all. But I do have some things I'll briefly say I'm excited for in the coming year. 

I am excited to get married and to figure out what celebrations we can do around that.  I am excited to start this new job and tell you all about it when I can.  I am excited to make more comics. Besides my little self-drawn things that you can find on this blog, I didn't release any comics this year and I am very much looking forward to that not being the case in 2024.  I am excited to grow my friendships.  I am excited to continue this blog. 

Thanks for reading. Happy new year! 

New Releases next week (1/3/2024): Sonic the Hedgehog #68 (Editor)

Pic of the Week: A little thing about where else to find me online that I made. 

#comics #dungeons and daddies #honkai star rail #detective pikachu returns #milky way #witch watch #fire & ice: welcome to smallville #crimehot #dandadan #what happens next #out there screaming #raw dog #i think you should leave #praise petey #sex education #tmnt mutant mayhem #gone girl #phantom of the paradise #godzilla minus one #crj

[clatoera]

Hi! I just saw your reply from the anon asking about your thg story! I'm not usually one to send asks or even post on tumblr (never was tbh), but this just hit so close I felt the need to say, me too! That's why I followed you initially, I just gasped at your bio and thought "there's more people like me on here!" and pressed follow!

I too was that insufferable 14 year old. I could not get away with wearing any form of braided hairstyle without being teased that I was trying to be Katniss (I probably was half the time haha). My friends, family, school teachers, everyone knew I was obsessed with the Hunger Games.

It fizzled out gradually for me too. I think it was just the natural progression with the films coming to an end etc etc. It never left though, obviously.

I re read the books before reading the prequel. I'm so with you on these books being a whole different experience now that we're closer to Finnick's age than Katniss and Peeta's. 16 seemed so so old to me, so imagine what i thought of characters like Finnick and Johanna. I can't even comprehend having gone through something like they did at my age now, let alone at 16.

I think back then, the main draw for me was definitely Katniss and Peeta's relationship. It still is one of my favourite things about the books, but after rereading them and the prequel, I agree that there is so much we missed, just by simply being too young to fully comprehend it. I find that I now have a larger interest in the political scope of everything and just the world in general (like...how tf did they rebuild the whole country after mockingay? need to discuss!!)

anyway, sorry for the long "ask". i'm so excited to see another tumblr returner on here! i've been coming back every so often to get content for other things i love, and have only recently taken the plunge and become a little more active.

I suppose there is a sense of shame a lot of us were made to feel about liking the things we like and coming on the internet to form passionate communities around it. I feel the same, it very much is a service to my teen self to come on here and find joy in rediscovering the things I love as well as using this site to explore my new interests. A reclamation, I suppose. I'm a bit more confident now. Back then, I would never, ever have sent asks or made my own posts. I think my 14 year old self is very happy for me, for this little

hope you're having a good day/night, whatever time, where ever you are in the world! :)

Hi hello! I read this as soon as it came in this morning, and wanted to respond, but wanted to be sure to give it the enthusiastic and lengthy response it deserved, that my brain could not formulate at 4 am when I read it.

I am so glad others feel the same. I remember in the early days, I was on Tumblr ( my main blog has existed since 2012 lol), but not active in fandom spaces. I was a fanfic writer. And on Facebook I was REALLY active in fandom and was literally participating in like..Hunger Games RP in Facebook comments. Wild. I was so into it.

Whats really settled with me, as a 25 year old woman, is like..the way mentors had to feel. My baby brother is 17 years old. He is a baby to me. He is just a child to me. I cannot imagine being Johanna or Finnick or Annie, mentoring at my age (or younger, actually), to kids my brothers age. Teenagers feel like Kids and I feel such an immense sisterly, guiding, mentor-ly role to them. Even college kids, I've been a mentor for pre-medicine students in my sorority for years, and those 18 year olds vs me, at 25? massive difference. I cannot imagine watching someone my little brother's age fight to the death. I cannot imagine someone my baby cousin's age, who is 12, fighting someone my brother's age. I cannot imagine watching someone my brother's age lead a war, lead a rebellion, and go through the things Katniss does. I can only imagine the horrors the past Victors learned to feel, and the emotions attached to their tributes every year.

more things that I am horrified by?

Katniss and Peeta. 16 years old. About to be MARRIED in the Capitol.

Gale, 18, working in the mines.

Again, Katniss and Peeta, with the (albeit fake) baby. 17 with a child? I remember being 16 years old, my best friend in the world had a baby. I was there. I remember watching her become a mother far too young, and I have watched ever since the way she has struggled and what it did to her mental health. Two 16/17 year old kids, having a baby, is a horror that should be addressed beyond what I at 16 thought it was. I was so team yes let there be a baby! as a child. But now? Now I see the horror of that. I Have delivered the babies of girls that age. I have held their hands as they are alone in the world. I'm going into a field specifically to help girls and women, in this position especially.

I think to that letter Plutarch wrote Katniss, where he literally says he would put her all through it again for the same outcome.

The youth of these tributes is haunting. If there were capitol doctors around they would be pediatricians. Let that sink in. The things these Victors would need is a pediatrician (also a psychiatrist and a surgeon probably).

Please message me (anyone can actually to talk about this) to talk about these things. The hidden horrors that are missed at 15, that stare you in the face as you reexamine as an adult. I'd love to talk about it in depth. I'd love to talk about how it has shaped me.

But seriously HMU because I want to talk about that most mockingjay rebuilding :)

#thank you so much! #answered asks

[persephonaddams]

Random ask! What kind of stuff do you like to do in your free time?

And how has your music taste changed from when you were younger to now?

🖤🖤🖤

Hi! 💕

I like watching movies, playing a couple of videogames, listening to podcasts, reading, and I'm trying to get back to writing and painting, I've been going through a long creative slump lately.

I'd say my music taste has kind of expanded while still listening to a lot of music I liked when I was younger. Like in my early teens I became obsessed with 70s punk as well as Green Day and My Chemical Romance, in my middle teens, with Blur, and in my late teens I became a kpop fan. I don't listen to kpop anymore, and in the following years I went back to listening mostly rock, both bands I used to listen to when I was younger and others I didn't. For example, lately I'm listening to The Clash and Led Zeppelin on loop. I used to listen to The Clash when I was in middle school but until recently I'd only listened to a few Led Zeppelin songs. Discovering bands you love is an amazing feeling, and rediscovering bands you used to love might be even more amazing tbh. Also according to Spotify, my most listened band of this year is Weezer, which I absolutely loved when I was in high school!

🖤💕🖤💕🖤💕

[love-arah]

kpop

For years now I’ve wondered what it is about this genre that millions of people around the world have gravitated to. As someone who has consumed this genre in my early teens and then stopped - I’ve recently gotten back into it in my mid 20s. All I can say is that it has evolved into a life of its own and it is quality content. That’s what we do nowadays, we consume. We consume food, content, air - I would say actively participating are things like physical activities (working out, etc), events and socialising. When Covid hit and all we could really do is consume, we all started raising our standards. Not just for what we consume but for our values and what everything stands for. How can we make the world a better place after such a devastating turmoil? I started looking at the things I consumed. The food I ate, the content I watched and listened to. I started raising my standards. While I’m not putting a culture divide between Korean/Asian and western content because you shouldn’t really compare those two things. I started broadening my horizons. I was settling for repetitive, tone-dead content anymore. Kpop came in like a breath of fresh air to me. It woke me up. Not just kpop but krnb, kfashion, kdrama and even Japanese content. I spent my whole life growing up on Westeen culture because that what was available to me as an immigrant second generation child in Hong Kong that predominantly speaks Cantonese and Mandarine.

Content in Hong Kong remained bland for years and have only begun opening up. There have been points of light (especially early Hong Kong cinema) and music. But creativity is almost banned in Hong Kong in favour of stem. But even then, they’re corporate STEM that refuses to acknowledge and nurture growth. It’s disappointing. Specifically Kpop has been so encouraging in rediscovering myself and making my reality more fun. It’s so welcoming and while I don’t fully agree with idol culture and the kpop industry as a whole, especially some management companies specifically - I can’t deny their values of hard-work, creativity and passion. Traits that I feel like I never grew up encouraged with and have lost greatly due to the pandemic. We all need vision, things to look forward to and people to inspire us. But the greatest art comes from within that’s awakened by the apple of our eye. I am grateful.

[miraculousdoodlebugsblog]

A03 ain't working so...

Book 1 : Loved U For A Long Time

A LadyNoir story

Teen and up lol

            Chapter 1: Simple plan

He stared at the box while shaking it steadily which made him sneeze even more. 

“Milady I still don’t understand the purpose of me holding the feathers. You know I'm allergic to ThAh-Achoo” His sneeze nearly tilted it more where a couple feathers fell gently on the ground. Oh chat, she giggled abundantly to herself knowing he was unaware of how foolish he looked in the akumatized getup. Though he was her fool and she was content with that.

 “ It’s simple really,” She began for the fifth time, "Your outfit in feathers is almost Identical to the head guard so you can swap in his place in enough time to save the prisoners.” She pointed to the small flock of bird people all affected by the akuma, A famous ornithologist who was recently defunded due to a bird seed poisoning incident. 

“Once that’s done” she continued “ I can go to the nest and considering she’ll send out more guards Come from behind say lucky charm hopefully use it to destroy her visor, the akuma, and Hawkmoth’s chances of controlling paris. You got that Chat?”  

“You are so beautiful, strong, and smart it makes my heart ache.”

“Um...pardon?” LB stared at him blushing in confusion.

“Marry me please.” Chat Noir handing her a paper mache flower which seems to be handmade by him.

“Chat were you even listening we are in the middle of fighting an akuma”

“ I know. I listen, I watch, I feel even when you don't know I do.” 

“Alright then listen,”She breathed trying not to break his heart “I cannot answer you chat cause we have a situation, I like someone else, and we can't get married because we just turned 18!”

He took a minute considering his next words carefully.

“You wanna know something bugaboo.”

“What?” She asked questionaly playing along.

“I love you too much, you're my safe haven, a precious piece of my life and that's why I keep coming back to you.”

Ugh why was he so persistent. Wait was her heart … pounding? Yes. Was she really thinking about kissing him again right now? Maybe. Would the akuma give them time for that?

Ha, No.

“Okay Chat your starting to sound really clingy” She laughed half-heartedly. 

“It is better chance of me not cheating.” he winked in a less heavy tone.

True...She thought as she took the flower and gazed at it in awe at all the effort and details shining off its petals.

“Now, I'm only accepting this because it would look nice on my windowsill” She teased haughtily. 

She kissed him on the cheek. 

“Are you ready to take on this akuma Chaton?”

“Are you ready to answer my question?”

She rolled her eyes and leaped to the opposite roof.

Maybe some typos I wrote this in 7th grade and rediscovered it today rip 💀

more to come... - liz

Chapter 2

#its the undying devotion for me #jk i love them #happy 6 years! been here for 3 #miraculous ladybug #miraculous #ml #chat noir #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #ladybug #ladybug and chat noir #ml ladybug #ladynoir #miraculous ladynoir #ml fic #ml fic rec

[kyokyo866]

Im gonna get sappy here for a sec if thats okay. Feel free to not post this if you want, i dont mind it being posted though.

Recently having started college and getting into new things its been really hard for me to enjoy things i used to enjoy like writing fanfics and liking shows people think are "cringe" now. Ive only just started getting back my style of writing from when i didnt care what people thought of me, and i decided id watch some shows i used to really love. Then i remembered loving dreamtalia (and hetalia obviously) and how i kinda just stopped playing it. So im now replaying the game and rewatching hetalia. I also rediscovered your tumblr and youtube! (Took me a sec cause i forgot how to spell it haha) So thanks for being such a huge part of my childhood (or i guess teen/preteen-hood?) and for just being cool and fun in general! :)

my love tank has been filled thats so sweet of you to say aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[shirtlesssammy]

15x15: Gimme Shelter

Then:

Dean used his words to save the world once

Now:

At a food bank community center, three teens dole out food while stressing out about one attendant who’s breaking their cleanliness rules. Connor heads over to talk to the woman, but is stopped by the center’s pastor. The pastor challenges Connor’s motivation. ”We have rules, but we also have spirit too, right?” The pastor tells Connor to lead with compassion, so Connor brings the woman food instead of kicking her out of the building. 

Later, Connor walks home. Much like all other cold open walks, this one also involves a solitary alley. He hears someone calling his name. Trying to find the source of the voice, he trips and finds a talking teddy bear, and a metal hook around his neck.

Dean and Sam discuss research. Sam’s found a non-case, while Dean’s hit the jackpot in Atlantic City. Specifically, an unexplained blackout has him thinking that Amara’s enjoying her new gambling addiction on the East Coast. 

Cas pops up and thinks he should go with the brothers, but they tell him to stay put and babysit Jack. I say TFW is just better together, but I’m not writing this episode. Hrmph. The brothers are packed and ready to go, but Jack stops them in the war room to ask about the case Sam found.

Sam tells him it’s nothing. Dean encourages Cas and Jack to investigate --to keep Jack busy. Cas seems skeptical, but Dean insists.

Agents Swift and Lovato meet with the local law enforcement to learn more about the case. Sweet Jesus is it cute that Cas continues to use pop-star names. It’s cute that Jack takes after his father with the upside down badge. It’s cute that Jack recognizes the teddy bear and says he has one (Did Cas buy it for him? He has a history of buying stuffed animals for his quasi-children.) 

The sheriff tells them about the victim, and how the word ‘Liar’ was carved into him. 

Jack posits that this all seems demonic. 

Cut to Cas digging into the ground at a crossroads. Time to get some information. Cas buries a picture of himself that Dean took when he was wearing a cowboy hat (Don’t worry, Dean still has his copy, and keeps it safe…. for reasons.) and Jack sets up a social media account. He’s WAY under 13 years old, so he needs a parent’s permission. Cas grants it easily. (Also, ALSO!! ALSO, there are NOT too many cats on the internet. This writing is so OOC, smh.) 

A demon appears. 

He’s channeling his inner Crowley, and I suddenly miss the bugger for a moment. Zach, the demon, is very bored and desperately wants something to do. He’s not really British and tells the duo that no one's making demon deals right now. Rowena’s of the philosophy that “people will end up where they belong.” Cas realizes their mistake and moves to leave.  “Sam was right, it’s not a monster,” Jack laments. “He was half right. Sometimes humans can be the worst kind of monsters,” Cas adds. 

At the community center, a woman locks up, and grabs a whole lotta cash from the donation box before she bails. Once outside, she hears a voice call her name. She looks around but sees nothing. She turns back to her car to find a masked individual. A weird editing choice cuts back to her...and commercial. 

Cas checks in with the brothers. Dean tells Cas to be wary of those “Hallelujah types” and I’m like, wha? Cas is an ANGEL OF THE LORD. He’s been around the block, Dean. Lol for looking out for your BFF, tho. Also, second awkward moment of the episode when Dean just hangs up on Cas? I’m…

Sam voices his reservations about the whole finding Amara --lying to Amara --killing Amara plan. Say it louder for the brother in the seat next to you, Sam! 

(Boris: I’m just going to insert this in the middle of this recap and never mention it again. Can we trust Billie? Is her plan actually something that is GOOD for our TFW 2.0? What is her agenda and does it align with what we want? What if what SHE wants is as equally bad as what Chuck wants? What if we as an audience are getting played right now??) (Natasha: What if the strings she’s pulling are emotional and she’s playing a dangerous game of chicken with Dean’s rage and Chuck’s entitlement?)

Jack joins the community center. He watches Dr. Sexy the pastor in a prayer circle, and talks to a disillusioned young woman who asks him to fill out a form before walking away. 

Cas walks in separately and wanders over to Dr. Sexy the pastor praying with a parishioner, and tells him about the cash stealing Valerie. She never made it home. 

Cut to Valerie tied and gagged. Her hands are in an elaborate guillotine. She wakes. Her screams are muffled. A TV turns on and flashes the word ‘Thief’. And one of her fingers gets chopped off. A timer starts on the TV. AND WE ALL RECOIL. 

Jack finishes the paperwork and tries to talk to the girls working the food line. The one girl storms off, upset. Jack follows her and tells her that he didn’t mean to upset her. 

She tells him that Connor and her dated. Well, they watched a lot of old movies together.  (AHEM! AHEM! AHEM! “I’m your Huckleberry.” AHEM. Please stop the clowning, it hurts so much.) 

Jack confesses to the girl that he lost his mother. The girl tells Jack that her mom died three years ago, and now it’s just her and her emotionally unavailable father, the pastor. “I have more dads than most, and I’m always just feeling like I’m letting all of them down.” JACK!!!! The girl tells Jack to trust God, not people. 

And we laugh, and laugh, and, guh, laugh. 

Cas, meanwhile, meets with Dr. Sexy the pastor. 

Cas interrogates Dr. Sexy Pastor about whether anyone else has gone missing recently. Well, there was one guy who used to work for the “faith-based community” but they parted ways. Cas and the pastor enjoy a little god talk. Cas, the weary angel, opines that God just doesn’t care. The pastor has a different take on faith - it’s about the people of his church doing what they can to take care of each other. We learn that this church recently changed from a fundamentalist branch to something more welcoming. Connor was able to come out as gay due to the changes, so some good happened. (Hindsight thoughts: this makes his death and the “Liar” all the more awful.) “A saint is a sinner who keeps trying,” the pastor concludes...and if that ain’t the truth about Cas!

Sam and Dean are on the too-slow train to Atlantic City when Amara drops in during a gas stop and invites them out for pierogi. 

At Patchwork, the pastor asks Jack to share his journey of faith during a prayer circle. Jack falters, and Cas steps in. “I do know what blind faith is. I used to just follow orders. Without question. And I did some pretty terrible things. I would never look beyond the plan. Then, of course, when it all came crashing down I found myself lost. I didn’t know what my purpose was anymore. And then one day something changed. Something amazing. I guess I found a family. And I became a father. And in that, I rediscovered my faith. I rediscovered who I am.” BRB crying!

Later in the cafeteria, Jack asks Sexy Pastor, M.D. how he brought together so many people with different ideas of religion. “It’s not about what they believe. It’s what they do,” he reiterates. (I imagine, for a moment, an ending where Jack calls out to the whole world and all living creatures and Heaven and Hell unite to win the final confrontation and make a better world together.)

The tranquil moment is interrupted by the TV turning on to security feed footage of the victim. The timer runs out and she loses another finger and screams and screams. Jack rushes over to the TV and pulls out a USB stick from the back.

Meanwhile, the Winchesters dine with Amara.

They bring up Chuck’s destruction of the other universes and tell her they have a plan to stop him. They’ve got a nephilim on their side AND he’s super powerful. All they need is for Amara to help them trap Chuck and...WHAMMO. Amara gently refuses to betray her brother. She lays some new mythology on them. She and Chuck are twins - creation and destruction - and their splitting apart first brought life into the world. 

Cas and Jack barge into the church’s ex-AV tech’s room. And by that, I mean, Jack gets hurled through another door? Um. Okay. The part of me that grew up with 3 Stooges is HERE FOR IT, tbh. 

They discover the guy is dead, chained up in bed with cuffs, with the word “lust” painted above him.

Getting ready to leave town, Sam’s ready to accept Amara’s choice. Dean “Fuck Acceptance” Winchester heads back inside and corners Amara. He asks why she brought back Mary. 

Amara tells him that she wanted him to see that the apple pie dream life he’s always striving for isn’t real - that Mary was only human - and BETTER because of that. Amara thought that would help him to accept his life. Amara also thought that having Mary back would release Dean from his anger. 

He leans forward and lets her know that he’s furious. Everyone in this universe is trapped, he tells her - including her. And she’s doing nothing. Amara falters in the face of this, and then asks him if she can trust him. “I would never hurt you,” he LIES TO HER FACE. She tells him she’ll think about it.

That evening Sylvia, the pastor’s daughter, listens to her friend gush over the social media attention she’s getting after posting about the torture video. In a flash of rage, Sylvia stabs her friend and races away. Dr. Sexy Pastor finds the current (still alive) victim just as Sylvia catches up to him. She accuses him of laughing at her mother after her mother died from trying to heal by prayer rather than medical science. She accuses him of changing the church that her mother grew up in. Jack jumps into the fray and gets stabbed for his trouble. When Cas arrives, Sylvia is quickly subdued by his Vulcan forehead tap of slumber.

Cas yanks away the restraints from the victim (SOOOO strong) and then heals her fingers back on while the pastor looks on in wonder. 

For So Strong Science:

Later, they gather outside while Sylvia gets taken away in cuffs. The pastor still cares about his daughter and vows to get her help. The driver of the car is Zach the crossroads demon? Oookay. 

Cas and Jack drive home. In the truck of feelings, Cas asks Jack why he couldn’t share during the prayer circle. Jack confesses that he’s been lying. The spell Billie is doing with him is turning him into a bomb to be used against Chuck and Amara. It’ll work - they’ll cease to exist. But Jack will be obliterated too. “This is the only way they’ll ever forgive me,” he tells Cas. 

Cas is horrified. He can’t watch Jack die again! Cas refuses to watch Jack die again, but Jack seems to have fully embraced this as his necessary fate.

Back at the bunker, Dean heads for the whiskey bottle late at night when he spots Cas shuffling towards the exit. Jack’s settled in his room, Cas reports. Cas then tells Dean he’s going to look for “another way.” 

Oh AND, “In case something goes wrong and I don’t make it back, there’s something you and Sam need to know…” 

FADE. TO. BLACK.  

The Se7en Deadly Quotes:

You guys go Highway to Heaven that bitch

You look greener than Baby Yoda

“Did anyone find any tiny bags with chicken bones inside?” “Did anyone smell sulfur?” “Did anyone feel cold?”

There were too many cats

Where can I find the Kool-Aid?

I wanted you to see that your mother was just a person

It was a gift, Dean. Not a trial

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

#spn recap #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #cas #jack kline #spn 15x15 #gimme shelter #supernatural season 15

[dbzebra]

A Son Family Christmas

A/N: Ok so this was originally a secret santa present from years ago, that I recently rediscovered and made some new additions and cleaned up some things. As usual this takes place in the End of Z era, this time 9 years after Majin Buu. And lots of cute family+ship fluff. might need to go to the dentist afterwards lmao

Words: 3721 (i got carried away lol)

Pairings: little bits of Gochi, HanVi, MarTen and K18. 

Mostly a Pan focused fic though! 

enjoy :)

Christmas Eve; Age 783. 

A blizzard howled and whistled from outside, covering the grassy mountain in a sparkling sheet of white snow. 

Mt. Paozu was pitch-dark, except for the lights that came from a small cottage deep in the woods. 

This was the home of Earth’s greatest hero.

The Son family decided to throw a Christmas party for themselves at their little mountain cottage. Goku invited Krillin and his family as well. The former monk was already pretty much family to Goku anyway, only more so when Goku and Krillin’s kids started dating each other the previous year. 

It was the day everyone was looking forward to, but nobody was more excited than Son Pan. 

Pan was three years old now, and could finally understand the concept of the holiday, as well as the magic and excitement behind waking up the next morning to find presents underneath the Christmas tree.

The toddler stared around at her grandparents’ fully decorated house in wide-eyed wonder. Garland wrapped around the railings and banisters; little models of Santa and reindeer on the countertops, a wreath on their front door, and so much more. Chi-Chi always loved going all out, it was her favorite holiday. 

But what really had young Pan’s attention was the big, beautiful Christmas tree sitting in the foyer, filling the house with the strong but familiar scent of the forest.  It dwarfed little Pan by several feet, but she wasn’t scared.  She loved it.  Lush green branches were adorned with ornaments of all shapes and colors. Rainbow lights twinkled in mesmerizing fashion. High above her head, at the very top of the tree, sat a big, shining golden star -- a decoration she got to add herself.

Every year, the Son family had a tradition to go out on Mt. Paozu and cut down the perfect tree. Goku knew the best spots. He always did -- even as far back as before Gohan was born. But nowadays they had to find two trees. One for Goku and Chi-Chi’s house, and the other for Gohan and Videl’s next door. 

Pan sighed. She just wanted it to be bedtime so it could be tomorrow! She wanted presents! Every minute felt like an hour to her. The little girl tiptoed around, looking for any hidden presents but found no luck. She frowned. How was she even sure Santa would really come?! She had to keep her mind off that tree and the eventual presents somehow or she’d go crazy! 

The three-year-old trotted into the kitchen to see what everyone else was up to. 

The adults were all hard at work preparing the feast. Chi-Chi, Videl, 18, and Gohan busied back and forth to create the feast. Krillin and Goku did what they could, but usually ended up making things worse so they were ordered to stay put at the dining room table. If Goku was out in the wilderness, he could cook meat or fish just fine. But using a stove and all those utensils just wasn’t his thing. 

Goku spotted his granddaughter looking around and called her over. “Pssst… Panny…”

The toddler tilted her head curiously to the side and went over to him, smiling as wide as could be. “Hi, Grandpa!” 

Goku flashed one of his signature grins in response. He then put a finger to his mouth, still smiling, signaling the little one to be quiet. Pan covered her mouth to stop from giggling. Secrets were fun!

Pan blinked as Goku momentarily glanced to his wife to see if she was watching. Luckily, she was too preoccupied. When the coast was clear, he reached into his pockets. 

“I got somethin’ for ya.”

Pan’s eyes sparkled with wonder. “What?”

 “Don’t tell Grandma, okay? It’s a secret…” Goku grinned mischievously as he pulled out a small bag of cookies. He had stolen a few when Chi-Chi wasn’t looking; the wait for the food combined with how good everything smelled was too much for him. Krillin just shook his head with a smile.

She happily took them from her grandpa and stuffed them all in her mouth in one bite. With her full cheeks puffed out, she grinned back at her grandpa and Goku returned it.

The toddler hugged Goku and smiled before trotting over the counter where Chi-Chi was cutting food and occasionally stirring something in a pot. Pan tugged on her dress lightly, peering up at her. “Grandma?”

“Yes sweetie?” Chi-Chi cooed, stopping what she was doing to face her darling granddaughter.

“Can I helps you?”

Gohan ruffled his daughter’s hair as he helped make a dish. “Pan, don’t bother Grandma when she’s cooking; we’re all working really hard on this meal for everyone. Why don’t you see what Marron and Uncle Goten are doing?” He felt bad, and spoke calmly to not upset his young daughter, but he knew more than anyone that Goten was better equipped to preoccupy her right now.

Pan pouted. “Fine.”

“Oh hush, Gohan. Everything’s on schedule,” Chi-ChI replied, making her granddaughter smile again. “And of course you can help, Panny. You can help stir for me!”

Pan floated up and gently stirred the hotpot, happily singing ‘la la la’ like she had heard her grandmother do in the past. “How long does this take? All the food is in this big bucket?” As it turned out, this wasn’t nearly as fun as she thought. 

“Should be all done in about thirty minutes.” Chi-Chi said, gently patting her head.

Pan’s mouth went into a small ‘o’ shape, trying to count how long that was on her fingers. It took her a bit to get to thirty “That takes too long. This is boring!” Pan replied.

Goku and Krillin tried not to laugh as she floated back down to the wooden floor. Their wives shot them a quick look and they both turned away, innocently whistling like they didn’t make a sound. Two peas in a pod, those two. 18 and Chi-Chi just giggled to themselves. 

Pan shrugged her shoulders, scurrying back to the living room to see if she could find her uncle. Goten always had the best video games to play! 

“Uncle Goten!! Where are ya!!?” Pan called out to him. 

No answer. Pan frowned. “Is he hidin’ from me?” She noticed the television was still on, and his phone sat on the couch. But no Uncle Goten. But then, she caught something out of the corner of her eye from the other side of the Christmas tree. 

Pan tiptoed around the tree, when she finally saw them right in the middle of a soft, tender kiss. Above their heads was a small mistletoe, hanging over the archway. In that moment nothing else mattered to them except each other.

Until...                     

CLICK

“Great shot, man.” 

The sound of a camera shuttering followed by the voice of Krillin broke the two teens out of their tender embrace. Goten’s jaw dropped, and then he just facepalmed with both hands. Marron followed his line of sight to see his father standing there, camera in hand. She should’ve expected this...

“Dad!! W-What are you doing?!” Marron practically shrieked. The blonde’s whole face went red from ear to ear, shoulders shaking. Steam was practically coming off her face. It was embarrassing enough her parents were so lovey-dovey on a regular basis, but now she got caught in the middle of her most awaited special moment with her Goten of the holiday season! 

“What does it look like? I’m capturing a special Christmas moment of my daughter!”

CLICK

Krillin  got another picture at their flustered reactions. “But that one was just for fun.”

“Your mother will get a kick out of this!” Goku added, sporting a wide grin similar to his oldest friend. 

“Grandpa! What’s that leaf over Uncle Goten’s head? Why were him and Aunt Marron playing kissy-face?” Pan asked eagerly. It looked like something she’d find on the ground before the snow came. She didn’t get why it was so special.

“It’s called a mistletoe, Pan. When two people get caught under it, they have to do that.”

“Misty Toe? That’s a dumb name!!” Pan broke into giggles again. “Uncle Goten is under a big toe!” 

Eighteen came out to the living room, ignoring the two former Turtle School fighters who were still carrying on about their kids. Marron and Goten didn’t find it so funny! 

“Marron, could you help me in here for a moment?”

“Sure!” Marron said, finally shaking off her flustered state and went to the kitchen. Any way to be away from this scenario. 

Shrugging, Goten turned on the PlayStation to kill some time. The familiar start up sound soothed his ears and he sat down to play. He let Pan play on his phone in the meantime.

“Hey Uncle Goten…?” Pan climbed up on the other side of the couch after getting bored rather quickly. 

“What’s up, squirt?”

“Is Santa Claus really comin’ tonight?”

“Definitely.” He grinned at her childlike innocence; it reminded Goten of himself at that age. “You gotta be asleep, though. He won’t come if you’re awake!”

“How does he know?”

Goten patted his niece’s head. “It’s ‘cause he’s magic, Panny.”

“Magic? Is that like how Grandma always knows when Grandpa does something bad?”

“Somethin’ like that.” Goten chuckled. For a three year old, Pan was much more aware of things than she let on. 

Coming back to the living room, Marron plopped down next to Goten, leaning against his arm. Now that she was over the embarrassment of getting caught by her father and Goku, the blonde wanted to make up for lost time. She watched him play for a bit, and then turned to him with a sly smirk. “Bet I can beat you.”

“Yeah you probably can, cause you’re a big cheater.” Goten replied with a cheeky grin, not keeping his eyes off the screen. 

“Hey! I am not a cheater!” Marron huffed, her bright blue eyes narrowing at him. “It’s not my fault you just get so easily distracted!”

“That’s why it’s cheating! You always play dirty by kissing me right when I’m about to win!!” 

“You call it cheating, I call it strategy.” 

Goten normally would never say no to a kiss from his beautiful girlfriend, but she’d always steal the win while he was still reeling from the kiss! It wasn’t fair! One time, Goten tried the same trick on her, but it didn’t quite work the way he intended. It backfired entirely, actually. As she just kissed him back and they both ended up completely  forgetting about the video game soon after that.  

Marron’s frown turned into a sly grin. If that’s how he wanted to play, fine. She knew exactly what buttons to push. “Fine. I just won’t kiss you ever again. How does that sound?”

“N-No, w-wait! I, uh...” Goten gulped. His mouth became dry, the words getting caught in his throat. He really did this time. Was this his worst fear coming true?!

The blonde giggled at his adorable panic-stricken face, satisfied with herself. “That’s what I thought, dummy. But still, lucky for you, I don’t think I could ever give this up~” Marron kissed his cheek again, leaving her boyfriend reeling as she went to the bathroom to freshen up before dinner. 

Goten put his head in his hands and let out an audible sigh of relief. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand girls…”

From across the couch, Pan started giggling. “Uncle Goten did something bad!” She didn’t really get what the big deal about kissy kissy was to begin with, but seeing her uncle all flustered like that had the toddler tickled pink.                                                  

The next twenty minutes rolled by quicker than ever, and finally, it was time to eat. 

The adults all came out carrying multiple trays and large bowls. The plates and silverware had already been set as the ever-growing Son family all took their seats around the table.

“Wait, Dad’s not here yet.” Chi-Chi said, looking worried. “Do you think he got stuck in the blizzard?”

“He’ll be here. I can sense his energy. Besides, he’s the Great Ox King! No way some storm is gonna stop him.” Goku confirmed, easing his wife’s worries. He winked at her and Chi-Chi smiled. 

And like clockwork, a few minutes later the door swung open. The cold wind blew snow onto the floor of the house, when in came a giant, jolly looking man with a grayish beard. He wore a large red coat and carrying lots of presents. “Merry Christmas, everyone!”

Pan gasped, practically standing up in her chair. A large jolly man with a big belly. Red coat. A beard. And carrying presents. That could only mean one thing… 

“Santa!!!?”

But she thought she had to be asleep! 

Chi-Chi hurried to the door to greet the man.  “Dad! You made it!”

“Hi, pumpkin!” Ox King hugged his daughter.  “Am I late? Sorry I missed the cooking, it’s like a blizzard out there! Can’t see a thing.”

Goku grinned. “You’re just on time. ” He went up to his father-in-law who brought the Saiyan into a big bear hug, followed by doing the same with his two grandchildren. 

Pan tilted her head to the side, more than a little confused. “...That’s not Santa?”

“No, honey. It’s your Great Grandpa Ox! You remember him, right?” Videl told her. Pan thought about it for a second, and the name was familiar! Her expression lightened when she remembered. Pan flew over to him and gave him a big hug.

As the adults got Ox King set up, Pan the conversation no mind as she stared at the pile of presents on the floor in awe. She gently tried to shake each box to try to guess what was inside but didn’t have much luck. 

“Mama, Papa, can I open them now??” She asked, barely containing her joy.

Gohan and Videl exchanged a look and sighed. “You can open Grandma and Grandpa’s present after dinner. The rest will have to wait ‘till tomorrow morning.”

“Okay!” Pan replied. That was good enough for her!

                                                                   And so with everyone in attendance, the feast could finally begin. 

In typical Saiyan fashion, the Son boys filled their plates far above regular capacity. Little Pan tried to mimic her grandpa and uncle and put as much food on her plate as her little hands could grab.

Krillin did his impression of Yajirobe for the others, especially Pan who never heard it before. 18 spoke her new job as a school teacher, and Videl’s new case as Satan City’s top detective, with her right hand man Great Saiyaman.

Meanwhile, In record time, Goku finished his plate and went back for more. Goten wasn’t far behind him. 

“More please!” 

“Me too!”

Father and son respectively said.

“I wants more too!” Pan said, and then remembered the thing to say that her parents taught her. “Um, peas!!”

Chi-Chi smiled. “Of course, angel.” And then turned her gaze to her younger son. “Oh, and Goten, you really should behave yourself in front of your future wife. It’s not polite to eat like that!” 

Gohan cracked a grin. “Yeah, Goten. Listen to Mom.”

“Not helping!”

Videl lightly slapped Gohan’s arm. “Oh stop. You’re one to talk, aren’t you? I distinctly remember a time when you were the one getting flustered whenever someone brought up our relationship.”

“Well that’s-”

“No excuses. You were a nervous wreck on our first date, remember? You wore your pants inside out!” Videl playfully poked his shoulder. She turned to Goten and winked. 

At least somebody was on his side….

Chi-Chi suddenly gasped. “Oh, I forgot the wine! Excuse me for a second.” She got up and went into the kitchen. She returned a moment later with a large bottle. She poured a glass for each of the adults, minus Goku and Gohan. Goku didn’t like the taste, but Gohan wanted to try it.  

“Mom, can I have some?” Gohan asked.

“Absolutely not, mister! You know what happened last time. You dressed up as Saiyaman and put a performance on for everyone!  And you have Pan now, you need to be a better influence!” Chi-Chi scolded him, but the smile never left her face.

Gohan hung his head as Goku patted him on the back while Goten snickered.  “I’m sorry. I got carried away last time because everyone was having so much fun.”

“I for one loved it.” Videl gushed. “It reminded me of when we were still teenagers~”

“R-Really?!” Gohan said, blushing. 

“Oh fine, here.” Chi-Chi caved and handed her older son a glass. After a story like that, she couldn’t say no. 

When Goten went to reach for the bottle afterward, Chi-Chi gave a stern look to her younger son that practically screamed ‘don’t even think about it!’ 

Goten frowned, dejected. Every time he tried that, and every time he failed. And now it was Gohan’s turn to snicker.

Chi-Chi couldn’t help but laugh. Even though they were grown, her sons still had that little brotherly competition. 

“Boys will be boys...” Videl said and Chi-Chi nodded in affirmation. Especially her boys. 

Krillin took the bottle next. He put too much in his glass and then downed it. 

“Okay, lisssten up! I haaaave to make an announcement!!” Krillin declared and then burped.

Eighteen sighed. “Here we go…”

Everyone stopped to listen to him, with various degrees of amusement written all over their faces. Goku most of all. He  put down his food to give his best friend his full attention. Oh, he had been waiting for this. 

“Oh no, not again....” Marron said with a fearful expression, preparing for the worst. She was already embarrassed by him once. But twice? She’d rather bury her head in the snow outside. 

“What’s the matter?”

“When my dad drinks, he gets a little too happy and starts blurting out embarrassing things.” 

Krillin cleared his throat and began to speak. “I...I looove my wife!!”

“Huh?!” Eighteen was caught off guard by his confession as if it were the first time hearing it. 

“She’s sooo pretty… And so n-nice… And so cool!” Krillin hiccuped, putting his empty glass on the table. He hiccuped again, his goofy smile only getting larger. “She acts real tough, but… she’s a.. She’s a biiiiig softie! Like a---”

Eighteen covered her husband’s mouth before he could finish, her face turning the same crimson as her daughters did earlier as everyone laughed. “Krillin, s-stop it you idiot! W-We’re in public!”

“S-Stooop what? The party’s just getting started.”

Eighteen handed him a glass of water to get him to sober up before he blurted out something else. It didn’t take much to get Krillin loosened up, but he sobered up quickly as well. 

That big dork, blurting out something so embarrassing like that. She had a reputation to uphold! How was she supposed to freak Trunks and Goten out if they knew her ‘stone cold’ persona was just a big act?! In her own mind though, Eighteen swooned. But she wasn’t about to let anyone know! In public at least. 

Dinner wrapped up soon after. Not a single morsel was left over. 

“Time for presents!!” Pan said and then plopped down on the carpet in front of the tree, 

At the sight of her daughter, Videl’s couldn’t help but feel giddy. She was the same way at Pan’s age, and Pan’s joy was absolutely infectious. 

“This is a special present from me and Grandma.” Goku handed his granddaughter a large box. He wrapped his other arm around Chi-Chi and she rested her head on his shoulder as he kissed the top of her head. Nothing was better than being altogether as a family, watching her granddaughter open a present on Christmas Eve 

Pan ripped off the wrapping to find a plain white box inside. She curiously stared at it, and even shook it to try to hear what was inside. It didn’t sound like a toy, for one. Hearing nothing, she slowly took off the lid. 

Instantly Pan gasped. 

It was a small, red colored martial arts gi with matching belt and wristbands, and small blue fighting boots. 

Pan’s first gi. 

“This is the bestest present ever!” Pan’s entire face lit up like a star. “Can I go try it on?” 

Pan flew upstairs with her new gi, returning a few minutes later wearing it, still beaming. “Look at me, Papa! I look like Grandpa!”

Pan couldn’t be happier which made Gohan and Videl happy. 

“Oh, Pan, look, there’s something else in here.” Gohan pointed to the red object poking up of extra wrapping paper.

Pan then came face to face with a small red pole inside a sheathe, tied with a fresh rope. “What is this?” She stared at the mysterious item, confused. She liked it; it felt familiar. “Is it a baseball  bat?”

“No, sweetie, this is the Power Pole.” 

“Power Pole?”

“It used to be my grandpa’s. He gave it to me when I was little. And I took it all over the world looking for the Dragon Balls. I almost lost it a few times, but it always found it’s way back to me. One way or another. It was only natural to pass it onto you.”

Pan put the Power Pole around her shoulder. With a puff of her cheeks, Pan flexed her muscles. For the first time, Pan felt like a true fighter. 

“You look just like me!” Goku knelt down and held out his open hands. “Give it a shot.” 

Pan looked to her father, who nodded. Smiling, the toddler punched Goku’s open palm. 

“Yup, she's my granddaughter alright.” Goku grinned. “She’s got some serious power behind that punch.”

“Next present!” Pan exclaimed.

“Nope. Sorry, Pan. The rest have to wait till tomorrow, remember?” Gohan said.

“Aww, okay. But I bet those wont top this!” She waved the Power Pole around. It was best they didn't tell her it could grow just yet. 

Throughout the night, the sound of laughter could be heard coming from a small house deep in the woods. It could still be heard echoing in the valley, late into the night. Inside, the room was aglow with the love that is shared between family and friends. 

Pan’s first Christmas Eve was truly a night to remember for them all. And one she would never forget.

#dragon ball #son family #marten #pan #goku #chichi #goten #gohan #videl #krillin #18 #marron #ox king #fluff

[goindownshipping]

‘ focus on my voice. ’ - will you please do Stucky where Steve and Bucky don't go to Wakanda after Civil War?

And time's forever frozen still

Pairing: Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes (Stucky)

Rating: Teen (T)

Notes: Yet again, thanks for your patience with this one, @ohwereusingourmadeupnames​! This canon divergence was tough, but I so loved writing it!

Warnings: Stucky fluff and rediscovering their love post Civil War. Let’s just pretend Bucky didn’t lose his metal arm in the fight in Siberia and neither of them are too injured :)

Word count: 6.5k

Summary:

Bucky goes home with Steve after the fight in Siberia. Even though Bucky doesn't quite trust himself, something tells him to trust Steve. They learn a lot together and Bucky discovers parts of his past he never knew existed.

Leaving Tony on the cold, hard ground in Siberia was one of the most difficult things Steve Rogers had faced in recent years, but it was certainly not the worst he’d faced. The worst was when he thought Bucky had been killed in Azzano; then it was watching Bucky fall from the train and not being able to save him; then it was coming face to face with Bucky decades later only to find out he had no idea who Steve Rogers was. So yes, fighting Tony and leaving him in Siberia wasn’t his finest moment, but he was sure as hell not about to let Bucky slip through his fingers again.

 Both men had been quiet upon boarding the quinjet, still shaken from the fight at the airport and then in Siberia. Bucky sat still, trying to differentiate among a plethora of memories and images flashing behind his eyes. Being back in that facility sent him deep within his own mind, flashes of atrocities reminding him of who he was. What he was. 

 “Where are you taking me?” Bucky asked quietly. His head was vibrating, he needed something to focus on besides the scene they left behind.

 Steve hesitated. “Fury helped me set up a safe house a few years back. I haven’t needed it until now, but it’ll be a good place for us to settle down for a bit.”

 “Steve,” Bucky started.

 “No, don’t,” Steve said firmly.

 Bucky stopped, knowing how stubborn Steve could be. That realization surprised Bucky a bit. Over the past couple of years, he’d come to trust himself little by little, but his memories were still foreign. Most of them felt like dreams that he could just barely remember the premise of. At that moment, he knew not to argue with Steve. He didn’t know exactly why, but somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, he knew the argument wouldn’t be worth it.

 The realization was somewhat comforting, but he knew how easily his mind could betray him, how quickly the switch could flip on him. He let out a long sigh, knowing nothing productive would come from a fight on the jet. Bucky settled back, closing his eyes and wishing for sleep for the long flight to wherever Steve’s safe house was. 

 With the autopilot engaged, Steve looked over his shoulder to where Bucky was dozing behind him. He covered his mouth when a sob threatened to escape from his chest, wracking his entire body where he sat. Just seeing Bucky safe in front of him was enough to send him into a full spiral, thinking back to the number of times Bucky had protected him when they were kids. Bucky may not remember everything, hell he might not remember anything, but Steve did. Steve couldn’t, wouldn’t, forget anything.

 He wouldn’t let Bucky down this time. He couldn’t fail him again. Steve finally had a chance to take care of the person that meant more to him than anyone in the world and he wouldn’t squander it. He tried not to think about all the memories that had surely been burned out of Bucky’s brain by this point. He knew his resolve would crumble the second he let himself relive those moments.

 He shook his head, hoping to physically dislodge the images swirling in his head, and instead focused on how to stay under the radar when the whole world was supposedly on the lookout for Captain America and his no-longer-dead best friend. He thought about Tony and the look in his eye when Steve dropped his shield. He knew he had to fix it, he had to fix everything. 

 But right now, right now he had to take care of Bucky. That was it. That was his mission, and come hell or high water, he would do right by him.

 Bucky managed to sleep for most of the long flight, only waking when the quinjet hit a couple unexpected bumps.

 “We almost there, Stevie?” he asked sleepily.

 Steve’s breath caught in his throat at the nickname and softness in Bucky’s tone.

 “We still have a long way to go. You can go back to sleep Buck,” Steve managed to choke out.

 When Steve glanced back, Bucky was already fast asleep again, a small smile on his face. Steve hadn’t heard that nickname in decades, and he certainly didn’t expect to hear it from Bucky ever again. Ignoring the inkling of hope in his gut, Steve refocused on their flight path, noting the several hours until their final approach. At that, he decided to get some sleep himself before landing at the house. 

 A while later, Steve awoke to a soft beeping from the controls, alerting him that they were approaching their landing. Quickly wiping the sleep from his eyes, Steve switched off autopilot to guide the jet down toward the massive field adjacent to the house. By the time the jet came to rest, and the engines had come to a stop, Bucky was awake and trying to get a glimpse of their surroundings.

 “Where are we?”

 “Home, for the time being. But specifically, we’re somewhere in Kansas. Come on, let’s get inside.”

Steve and Bucky exited the jet and made their way to a modest looking farmhouse. Steve entered a lengthy pin on the keypad at the front door before gesturing for Bucky to step inside. Bucky made his way inside, glancing around as he made his way down the front hall. For a house that had supposedly never been used, it was awfully homey. Steve seemed to notice the appraisal.

 “I wanted it to feel like home if I ever came here. Besides, where else was I going to keep my things?” Steve shrugged.

 Most of Steve’s personal belongings were long gone after he put the Valkyrie in the ice, but the few boxes that SHIELD managed to hang on to now lived here. He had a few family photos hanging, several of which contained Bucky. Neither man acknowledged it, but Steve noticed Bucky’s gaze lingering on a few select photos.

 “Ma always wanted you in the family photos,” Steve admitted.

 Bucky smiled but it didn’t quite meet his eyes.

 “Steve, are you sure this is a good idea? I’m putting you in more danger just being here.”

 “Bucky,” Steve said slowly, stepping toward him. “Where else are you gonna go?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky admitted. “The Wakandan prince said something about his sister knowing what to do, maybe it would be best if I went out there. They can get my mind back.”

 Steve shook his head violently. “No, I can’t let you do that Bucky.”

 “Steve this is a terrible idea, I’m just gonna hurt you if we stay here.”

 “Bucky, you’re not going to hurt me. I’m not letting you go out in the world and try to deal with this on your own again, I can’t do that.”

 “I don’t want to hurt you.”

 Steve took one final step toward Bucky, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t spook him. “I know you don’t believe me yet, but we’re gonna be okay. Alright? You always took care of me when we were kids and now it’s my turn. You hear me?”

 “But Steve, I don’t, I could-”

 “No Buck, don’t go there. I’m not letting you go through this on your own,” Steve said firmly.

 Bucky paused, looking up at Steve’s face directly in front of him. Steve’s face was hard, determined. But his eyes were wide with fear and the slightest bit of hurt. Taking in Steve’s expression, Bucky took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

 “Listening to you helps. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s not like I just remember things all of a sudden, but hearing you talk is safe, it blocks out the bad stuff. It was what gave me a hint that I knew you on the bridge, and then again on the helicarrier. I don’t know how, but I just knew. Even when I can’t trust my own mind, something tells me to trust you.”

 “We can handle that. You just tell me when it’s getting bad and focus on my voice. Think you can do that?”

 “I can try.”

 “Good. Then we’re good.”

 Steve gave Bucky’s shoulder one final squeeze before taking a step back.

 “It’s late Buck, let me show you where the guest room is and get you settled.”

 Bucky nodded and trailed after Steve like a puppy. Once again, Bucky was surprised by the sheer amount of belongings Steve had in the house. Steve got him situated with some clothes, toiletries, and towels and showed him his room with an attached bathroom. Once Steve had shown Bucky to his room, he paused in the doorway.

 “My room is just down the hall,” Steve gestured to a doorway to his left. “You can always come get me if you need anything, Buck,” Steve said softly.

 Steve looked conflicted, as if he was considering saying something else. His eyes flitted around, settling anywhere but Bucky’s face.

 “Thank you, Steve.”

 Steve’s eyes snapped up to Bucky’s. “You don’t have to thank me. This is what you do for someone you-”

 Steve and Bucky just blinked at each other. 

 “This is what you do for someone important to you,” Steve finished quietly.

 Bucky just nodded, the faintest hint of a smile on his face. “Goodnight, Steve.”

 “Goodnight Bucky.”

 If Bucky didn’t close the door until after he saw Steve disappear into his own room, no one had to know. When Steve pulled his own door shut, he smiled softly at the click he heard from down the hall.

 What could have been minutes or hours later, Bucky awoke with a start, his throat raw, and his entire body tremoring. It took him a moment to register the hands on his shoulders, shaking him awake. Instinctively he shoved the attacker in chest, his metal arm causing enough force to create plenty of distance between them.

 “Buck, Bucky it’s me, it’s Steve,” he heard through the darkness.

 He took a shuddering breath, quickly remembering his surroundings and current circumstances. Steve. Steve is good, Steve helps.

 “Steve,” he wheezed.

 He sat up in bed, his back pressed against the headboard as he watched Steve carefully approach from the other side of the room, where his shove had thrown him.

 “Can I sit next to you?” Steve asked carefully.

 With his eyes now pressed shut, Bucky just nodded, trying to focus on Steve’s voice and the memories he knew were real. He thought about Steve taking him to Siberia, their trip here in the quinjet, Steve getting him settled. It was all real. He held on to those little bits of certainty with everything he had.

 He felt the bed dip and assumed Steve had sat down on the edge of the bed. He didn’t dare open his eyes yet.

 “I’m sorry I scared you Buck, I heard you yelling from down the hall and it scared the shit outta me,” Steve said soothingly. “I just wanted to come and make sure you’re alright, I’m sorry I scared you,” he repeated. 

 “It’s okay,” Bucky said tightly. “Just keep talking, please. Anything.”

 “Alright, Buck, it’s alright.” Steve placed a tentative hand on Bucky’s knee through the blankets and squeezed, hoping the minimal physical contact wouldn’t be too much for Bucky.

 “When we were kids, I stayed the night at your house a lot, especially if my Ma was working the night shift. Sometimes, your Ma would let us pull all the couch cushions down onto the floor and we’d make our own little fort with blankets and chairs and stuff.” Steve smiled at the memory, remembering their muffled laughter and whispered conversations into the wee hours of the morning.

 “This one time in high school though, it’d been years since we’d done that, and in the middle of the night, we decided to set up camp on the floor. I guess we didn’t realize how uncomfortable couch cushions were when they were on the floor when we were in grade school, because, God, I don’t think either of us got a wink of sleep that night. At some point, we just gave up and put the cushions back on the couch and just fell straight to sleep. Your Ma came out in the morning and found us knocked out on the sofa, blankets and chairs all over the room.”

 Steve looked up to find Bucky watching him with a familiar smile. 

 “I think I remember that,” Bucky said slowly.

 “It’s okay if you don’t, Buck” Steve reminded.

 Bucky shook his head and furrowed his brow, clearly focusing on something in the recesses of his mind.

 “I remember that night. After we went to sleep on the couch, you shoved me on the floor at some point. I remember waking up and you were sprawled across the whole damn sofa. I must have shoved you right back so I could lay back down.”

 The faraway look in Bucky’s eyes had lifted, leaving him with clear, bright, blue eyes and a determined look on his face. His lips twitched a bit, fighting a smile at the memory.

 “I told you your voice helps.”

 Steve smiled, grateful that he’d been able to help Bucky through whatever nightmare he faced. He thought back to that night, his face breaking into a grin. He’d never forget Mrs. Barnes’ face when she emerged that morning to find Steve and Bucky wrapped around each other on the couch. Her smile said everything when Steve and Bucky eventually roused from their slumber. They didn’t know it yet, but she did.

 “I’m glad I can help, Buck. You wanna try to get some more sleep?”

 Bucky nodded, “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

 “Okay,” Steve hesitated.

 “You alright Steve?”

 “Is it okay that I came in here when I heard you?” Steve whispered.

 Bucky paused. Instinctively, he wanted to say no, to hide his pain from Steve, the one person who actually believed there was still good in him. But he also knew that he couldn’t do this by himself. If Steve was insisting on helping him through this, he had to let him.

 “Yeah, Steve, it’s just fine. Just maybe don’t shake me next time? I don’t want to put you through a wall,” Bucky chuckled.

 “Alright, good,” Steve sighed. “I don’t think I could’ve left you in here when I woke up.”

 There was an awkward pause then, neither man quite knowing what to say. Steve wanted to say so much, reveal the cracked remnants of his heart and memories of him and Bucky. But he couldn’t do that, it wasn’t fair to Bucky to lay everything out there. So he sat and took a few deep breaths before slowly rising to his feet.

 “I’ll be in my room if you need anything.”

 “Thank you, Steve. I’ll see you in the morning,” Bucky said gratefully.

 Steve nodded and shut the door softly before he padded down the hallway, willing the tears not to fall yet. He shut his bedroom door behind him and immediately sank to the floor, his back against the door. With his head in his hands, he let the tears fall silently, hoping his shuddering breath couldn’t be heard down the hall. The fear he’d heard in Bucky’s cries and seen in his eyes was burned into his eyes. He couldn’t bear the thought of how bad Bucky’s episodes must have been just a few years prior. 

 When he finally looked toward his nightstand, the alarm clock alerted him that it was still the middle of the night, no time to be awake. Dragging himself back to his bed, Steve eventually fell asleep to images of the past flashing in his mind. 

 Bucky woke up with a jump the next morning, startled by the unfamiliar surroundings and the softness of the bed. He took in the room and memories flooded back to him. He was at Steve’s safehouse, where Steve insisted they go after escaping Siberia. He glanced at the bedroom door, surprised to see it cracked instead of firmly shut, which he distinctly remembered doing the night before.

 Suddenly, he remembered the nightmare, which must have had him screaming if Steve’s reaction was anything to go by. He took stock of everything, pleased to feel like his head wasn’t splitting down the middle, like he didn’t have another consciousness fighting to come to the surface. He sat in bed for a moment, expecting to hear Steve moving about the house somewhere, but all was quiet. Bucky wasn’t sure whether it was comforting or disheartening to think that Steve had left him home alone on the first morning.

 Shaking those thoughts away, Bucky slid out of bed, the need for coffee overtaking his concern for the moment. Following the hallway to the open living room and kitchen, Bucky was again confronted with all things Steve. Photos, candles, pillows, it all screamed Steve Rogers. Bucky wasn’t sure how exactly he knew that, but he did. He could feel it.

 He meandered into the kitchen, his nose leading him toward the strong coffee he could smell from his room. On the counter next to the coffee pot he found a large mug and a note from Steve.

 Went into town for some groceries, I should be back in the early afternoon. There’s some food in the freezer, but not much. If you need any clothes or anything, there’s extras in my closet. Home phone is on the side table next to the couch, my cell is on speed dial if you need me.

-Steve

 With a large cup of coffee in hand, Bucky headed back to the living room where a large plush sofa was calling his name. He was surprised to find that it was already almost noon, so Steve would likely be back soon. Once settled, he looked around. The cozy room was comforting, nothing like the holding facilities he was used to or the crappy apartments he’d been crashing in for the last few years. This was different. His instincts had him checking for sightlines and mapping out exit strategies, but he tried to push those away and focus on the photos surrounding him. 

 He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised to see himself in so many of the photos given how close he and Steve had been before the fall. Even so, he’d never come face to face with so many reminders of a life he couldn’t remember living. He wondered how many of his own photos and memories would have Steve in them if he ever got his hands on them. 

 Wrapping a blanket around himself, he reached for the television remote, hoping something could distract him from the sudden sadness washing over him. After scrolling through the entire guide several times, Bucky gave up, settling on drinking his coffee in silence. Once he reached the bottom of his mug, he figured it was time for a shower. He quickly realized just how much grime had settled into his skin since Siberia and he was itching for water just hot enough to burn a bit.

 Upon entering his room, he realized Steve had given him towels and toiletries, but only one set of clothes. He hesitated, nervous to snoop through Steve’s space even though his note made it clear he could look for anything he needed. Glancing down at his now dirt and sweat covered clothes, he knew he didn’t have much of a choice.

 Reluctantly, Bucky made his way toward Steve’s room. Upon entering, he was overcome with a sense of comfort. The whole room smelled like coming home after a long day. Bucky always knew that smells could trigger memories that he didn’t know he had, but this was different. This wasn’t a specific memory; it was this innate gut feeling that this was home. That Steve was home.

 Bucky took a deep breath, soaking in the comfort, feeling the safety wrap around him. Call him crazy, but he finally found something that felt right, that felt like it belonged to the version of himself that he was still clawing his way back toward. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t connect all the dots or recall all the specific memories. All that mattered was that he finally had something to latch on to. All that mattered was that Steve trusted him enough to bring him here. All that mattered was Steve.

 He shook that last thought out of his head, unsure of where exactly it came from and headed for the closet on the far side of the bedroom. Sliding the door open, he was faced with what seemed to be Steve’s entire civilian wardrobe. The shelves and hangers were full of everything from soft sweaters and henleys to fitted button-downs and khakis. The very top shelf was what caught Bucky’s attention though.

 The top shelf had several stacks of thick, cable knit sweaters that looked cozy enough for Bucky to bundle up in for the next several weeks. They looked homey and warm - perfect. He reached up, his heart set on a deep blue piece, and his fingers scrabbled to secure the fabric. When he finally grabbed it and yanked it down, the angle brought down several sweaters along with the blue one he was aiming for.

 Bucky shook his head at his clumsiness, knowing that was something that would never leave him. He quickly grabbed the sweaters to refold them and hoist them back up on the shelf. He was on the second to last one, a light sky-blue colored sweater when he felt something stiff inside the fabric. He reached into the sleeve to move whatever had gotten stuck when it fell and came out with a small stack of old photos, clearly printed before Steve went into the ice.

 Bucky looked down and felt all the air rush out of him. He immediately fell to his knees, his entire being knocked off balance by what he saw in the photos. His eyes filled with tears against his will, but through the blur, he could still clearly make out the images.

 The first one in the stack was a photo of him and Steve, clearly taken without them knowing. A young Steve, probably just a matter of months before the serum, was perched on Bucky’s knee with one of Bucky’s arms firmly around his waist. Steve’s head was resting against Bucky’s shoulder, love drunk smiles pasted across both of their faces. Steve was looking up at Bucky, Bucky glancing down at Steve and it was impossible to miss the love evident in their eyes. 

 Bucky collapsed down from his knees, hitting the floor with a thud, but paid no mind to the discomfort as he pulled up the next picture in the stack. The next photo was in a similar vein as the first one but must have been taken during their time as part of the Howling Commandos. How that was possible, Bucky didn’t know. All he knew was that this photo showed Steve in his Captain American uniform, covered in dirt, with his arms wrapped tightly around Bucky in what must have been a bone crushing hug. Bucky’s face was tucked into the crook of Steve’s neck while Steve pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

 Bucky spread out the dozen or so photos on the floor in front of him, each of them indicating just how in love he and Steve must have been back then. In every single photo, they were touching in some way; an arm around the other person, hands held between them, a kiss on the cheek. Even in photos that included their friends or family, it was evident that Steve and Bucky were drawn to each other like magnets, always revolving around each other and finding their way into contact. It appeared that was still true to this day, given that the universe had somehow kept them both alive despite believing the other must be long dead or simply not knowing the other existed, in Bucky’s case.

 He sat on the floor of Steve’s closet just staring at the photos, willing himself to remember just one of these instances. Hating himself for forgetting something so vastly important in his life and for ripping this way from Steve. God, Steve. How could Bucky ever forgive himself for depriving Steve of the love he so clearly deserved. Deserves.

 Sitting there on the floor, for god knows how long, Bucky came to a startling realization. He may not be able to play back these memories like movies in his head, but he damn well knew that he could trust Steve, that he knew him when everything else was foreign and terrifying. That had to mean something right? His mind and heart hadn’t completely betrayed him if he knew that Steve felt like home, that he smelled familiar, that something within him just knew.

 As Bucky crouched there, lost in thought and emotion, his well-trained instincts didn’t alert him to Steve’s arrival. He missed the loud thud of the car door, the minor tremor of the house when Steve shut the front door, and even the loud shuffling as Steve entered the kitchen.

 “Buck?” Steve called loudly.

 Bucky couldn’t bring himself to answer and he certainly couldn't bring himself to move from his place on the floor. He didn’t even have a moment to panic before Steve came through the door and was suddenly standing across the room, eyes fixed on the photos on the floor. 

 “Shit, Buck,” Steve breathed out. He quickly crossed the room, dropping to his knees next to Bucky.

 “I’m so sorry, Steve,” Bucky sobbed.

 “What? Bucky, no, this isn’t your fault at all. Dammit I-,” Steve took a shuddering breath in, his emotions coming to boil seeing those photos and knowing what Bucky had figured out.

 “These past few years, I didn’t know, Steve.”

 “I know you didn’t, and I never wanted you to find out like this.”

 Bucky was still staring at the photos, unable to look up at the man next to him. He didn’t know what he’d do if he saw that same love in the photos directed at him now.

 “Bucky, please, can we talk about this?”

 “What is there to talk about? I ruined everything for you, I took it all away,” Bucky sobbed.

 “No! God, Buck, please just come here.”

 Bucky looked over to Steve, surprised to see the sheer vulnerability reflected in his grey-blue eyes. There wasn’t a hint of anger or resentment there, but maybe just a touch of fear.

 Without thinking, Bucky scooted over just enough to collapse into Steve’s arms, his entire body breaking down into shuddering sobs.

 “Why can’t I just remember?” he cried, desperate for relief from the constant reminders that his mind wasn’t his own.

 Steve wrapped him up in a tight hug and pulled him closer, rearranging their limbs until they were in a more comfortable position on the floor.

 “Shh, it’s okay Buck, it’s gonna be okay, I promise. That’s why we’re here, right? To do this together,” Steve murmured into his ear.

 Bucky just continued to cry, years (decades) of emotion boiling over at that moment. Steve just held him close and continued whispering in his ear, reassuring him, letting him know it would all be okay.

 “I’m not letting you do this alone, Buck, I promise,” Steve said firmly.

 When Bucky finally felt like he had himself under control, he pulled back from Steve’s grip but didn’t dare move any further away. No matter what had been burned out of his head by HYDRA, his heart needed to be close to Steve. Everything from the last few years started to make more sense when he realized that.

 “Why didn’t you tell me?” Bucky asked quietly.

 “And when exactly was I supposed to do that?” Steve asked with a chuckle.

 “Fair enough,” Bucky sighed.

 “Let’s go into the kitchen. We should eat before we do this.”

 Bucky hesitated but nodded when he felt his stomach knotting in on itself. When Steve stood and reached a hand out for Bucky, he didn’t hesitate to take it. He didn’t think twice when neither of them let go until they were in the kitchen plating up the takeout Steve had brought back.

 They ate their sandwiches and chips in silence, mostly due to how hungry they quickly realized they were. Bucky was grateful that Steve also had the appetite of a super soldier and brought close to a dozen sandwiches back for them. By the time they finished stuffing their faces and Steve had cleared away the scattered wrappers, Bucky knew they were faced with a difficult conversation.

 “Want to get comfy in the living room for this?” Steve asked.

 Bucky nodded, “Sure.”

 Steve let Bucky lead the way to the living room and waited for him to pick a spot first, not wanting to crowd his space too much. Bucky’s face pulled into a confused frown when Steve settled in the chair across from him, rather than on the couch cushion at his side. Bucky glanced at the empty seat next to him and Steve took the hint, quickly moving close enough that their thighs pressed together.

 Steve’s gaze was fixed on the carpet. He could feel Bucky’s eyes boring into the side of his head, but he couldn’t bring himself to meet his gaze. The guilt was already eating away at him, making his lunch sit uneasily in his stomach. After too much silence, he took a deep breath, steeling himself for the conversation at hand.

 “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Bucky. It was so wrong for me to-”

 “Steve, don’t. This isn’t your fault, there’s no reason for you to apologize,” Bucky interrupted.

 Steve shook his head, still staring down at his feet.

 “But Buck, I-”

 “Dammit Steve, will you look at me please?”

 Steve lifted his head and turned slightly to face Bucky. He was met with open, curious eyes with just a hint of anger.

 “You have every right to be angry,” Steve whispered.

 “Yeah,” Bucky nodded. “But not at you. This isn’t your fault,” he repeated. His face softened a bit, the hard edge disappearing as he watched for Steve’s reaction.

 “I just don’t know what to say.”

 “Let’s start from the beginning. Can I ask a question?”

 “Of course.”

 “How long?” Bucky asked simply.

 “What do you-”

 “How long, Steve?” he repeated.

 Steve sighed, his gaze quickly drifting to the several photos littering the living room walls. “Since I was sixteen, you were seventeen. That’s when things changed.”

 “What do you mean, changed?”

 “That’s when we finally realized that best friends don’t normally cuddle on the couch and sleep in the same bed during sleepovers,” Steve laughed.

 Bucky smiled at the distant, hazy memories of tangled limbs and sleep warm touches. It wasn’t in focus, but the memory was there. Somewhere deep in his heart and mind, he knew what Steve was saying; it almost felt like his own memories.

 “So, all that time? When I left for the war, when you came and found me? All of that?”

 “Yeah, Buck, the whole time.” Steve had a small smile on his face, the happy memories overtaking their current situation for just a split second. “I’m sorry,” Steve continued. “It’s not fair for me to dump this on you and I really didn’t mean for you to find out. At least not like this.”

 “And what do you want?” Bucky questioned.

 “What do you mean?” Steve was surprised by the question, his gaze immediately snapped back to Bucky’s inquisitive face.

 “Exactly what I said, Steve. What do you want to happen now?”

 “I want you to be okay. I was us to be okay,” Steve murmured so quietly, Bucky nearly missed it. “I know I can’t ask you to pretend to remember it all, I know that. But selfishly, god Buck, I would give anything, everything to have it all back.”

 Steve’s eyes were fixed so intently on Bucky’s, he couldn’t tear his gaze away. Hesitantly, Bucky reached for Steve’s thigh and squeezed tightly as he smiled up at him. 

 “You’re right. I can’t pretend to remember everything. But I do know that these distant, fuzzy memories are mine. They all involve you. All of them Steve. I know I loved you. Love you, really. I can feel it. I might not have the same memories and things certainly aren’t normal, but I can feel it Stevie, I really can. I don’t want to lose that again,” Bucky admitted.

 Steve stayed silent, partially to let Bucky continue but mostly in disbelief.

 “Like I said, I can feel it. The pictures, the memories, those times in high school. It’s all still there. If you want to give this a shot, give me a shot, I think that’s really all I want.”

 “If I want- Buck,” Steve trailed off. He carefully placed his hand over Bucky’s on his own thigh, barely squeezing for fear of startling him. He held Bucky’s gaze, unable to look away from those eyes that held so much and yet revealed nothing. When Bucky didn’t interject, Steve continued on.

 “Bucky, not a single day has gone by that I haven’t wanted you. Not once, I swear,” Steve resounded. “If this is what you want, I’m right here.”

 “You’re the only thing that feels familiar, Steve.”

 “I don’t want you to want this just because you think it’s what I want, Buck. I’ll be here no matter what, I promise you that.”

 Bucky shook his head vehemently, immediately cutting Steve off. “No,” Bucky said firmly. “It’s not that and it’s not just because you’re safe. I just- I know we were each other’s everything and we can’t just jump back into that, but I’d really like to take it one day at a time. With you,” Bucky finished softly.

 Steve raised a gentle hand to Bucky’s cheek, unable to keep himself from touching at this point. He couldn’t help the way his chin trembled or the tears that welled up in his eyes as he looked at the man he’d loved and lost so many times. Steve needed the reassurance that Bucky was actually there, that he could reach out and touch him, feel his warmth and security while keeping him safe.

 “You want this?” Steve confirmed.

 “Steve, I swear, if you ask me that one more time, I might change my mind,” Bucky sassed.

 “Alright alright, there you are,” Steve laughed.

 They sat in silence for a moment longer. Bucky’s hand still squeezing Steve’s thigh with Steve’s hand pressed over his own. Steve’s opposite hand held Bucky’s cheek as he let his eyes wander over Bucky’s face. It was the same face that Steve came home to in high school, the same one he found staring up at him in Azanno, and the same one that haunted his dreams for the years after the war. He never imagined he’d see it again; not as the Winter Solider and not as the love of his life.

 Eventually, Steve let go of Bucky and slumped back against the couch, spreading his arms for Bucky to settle into. Bucky quirked an eyebrow for a split-second before folding himself into Steve’s grip, his back pressed to Steve’s front. The strong arms that wrapped around him felt like coming home. Bucky never thought he could feel like that again, he didn’t know he had a home to come back to. But this, this was it.

 “When did you know?” Steve whispered against his neck.

 Bucky paused for a minute, trying to comb through the jagged memories and mismatched pictures in his head. At this point, he had enough of his own mind back that he could see so many of his own experiences but didn’t quite know where they fit into his life. It was hard to differentiate among all the years that swirled in his head.

 “When was the bridge?” Bucky asked.

 “You knew on the bridge?”

 “Yeah. Well, no, not really. But after. I started getting these flashes of what I now realize are memories. The moment I fell was just on replay in my head, I just kept hearing you yell for me.”

 Steve squeezed him tightly and buried his nose in Bucky’s long hair, willing himself to stay strong for Bucky.

 “I told them I knew you, but, you know,” Bucky trailed off.

 “I know, Buck. I’m so sorry.”

 Bucky shifted in Steve’s arms, rolling over to face him. They were nose to nose, their breath immediately mingling between them.

 “Not your fault, Stevie. We’re here now, yeah?”

 “Yeah, we are. But we can always talk about that stuff, whenever you need to. That’s why we’re here, remember?”

 “As long as you’re here with me to figure it all out, Steve. I know I can’t do it without you.”

 As Steve nodded in agreement, his nose bumped against Bucky’s causing them both to gasp at how close they hadn’t realized they were. Steve’s gaze dropped to Bucky’s lips out of habit and Bucky’s tongue swiped over his plump bottom lip on impulse.

 “Buck,” Steve breathed, unable to stop himself.

 Bucky stared back at Steve for what should have been an awkward length of time, but neither man noticed. After a few long breaths, Bucky nodded, signaling for Steve to go ahead. One of Steve’s hands crept up from his waist to cradle his face, his thumb dragging along his cheekbone as Bucky’s eyes fluttered shut.

 Steve barely had to move with how close they already were. He merely angled his face to the right and immediately felt Bucky’s warm breath directly against his lips. Before he could do anything, Bucky closed the final hint of space between them and captured Steve’s lips in a feather-light kiss. Steve couldn’t help the rush of emotion that filled his heart the moment he felt those all-too-familiar lips against his again. 

 He let his lips lead him in rediscovering Bucky, pleased that the same flick of his tongue and caress of his neck brought out the softest whimpers, just like when they were in another life. When he felt tears fall from his eyes, he pulled back ever so slightly. 

 “Wow,” Bucky murmured.

 Steve sniffled quietly but knew he couldn’t hide his emotion from the man in his arms.

 “Yeah, wow is right.”

 “So, we’ll figure this out?”

 “Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Just like we always have, baby.” 

 Bucky couldn’t help the way he burrowed into Steve’s chest, and Steve couldn’t stop the smile on his face as he felt Bucky press a kiss to his chest. 

 “Did you know you always used to do that before you fell asleep?” Steve whispered.

 When he looked down, Bucky’s eyes were closed and his breathing was even, his face squished against Steve’s shirt. Steve shook his head fondly, and pulled Bucky even closer, silently vowing to never let him go again.

#stucky #steve rogers x bucky barnes #stucky fic #mine

[artsietango]

30 questions tag

Alright why not XD I was tagged to do the thirty questions tag game by @crystallized-ink and @teasenpaiwrites , so here it is (but on my main blog)

1. name/nickname: Aimee

2. gender: I’m cool with she/her/they/them pronouns and I love being called dude and bro

3. star sign: Libra

4. height: five/five

5. time: 5:40 pm

6. birthday: Sept. 27th

7. favorite bands: I’m really into Still Woozy rn, uuh 5SOS has some good music on their recent album, @bearsintreesofficial , the Decemberists (my music taste wildly ranges)

8. favorite solo artists: Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Hozier, Lindsey Stirling, Bad Bunny

9. song stuck in my head: Ikea by Jonathan Coulton (I’ve been to Ikea alot recently)

10. last movie: The Dark Knight

11. last show: shoot I don’t know. I don’t end up watching a whole lot of TV, unless I’m on break. It’s a tie between Schitt’s Creek and B99

12. when did i make this blog: approximately April 2017

13. what i post: this blog was meant to be an art blog, and I still occasionally post my art? I have a backlog that I still need to post but really I just reblog whatever I feel like

14. last thing i googled: lets do it again but good this time meme

15. other blogs: @authortango is my wildly more successful and active writing blog and @raeda-magetale is my undertale side blog created for an AU I made that I may continue working on (jury’s still out)

16. do i get asks: I’ve gotten a couple accidental asks on this blog directed towards my writing blog. I used to get asks, and all the sweet ones I have permanently saved in my inbox

17. why i chose my url: I knew I wanted art and I wanted it to be memorable and catchy because I was going to start a youtube channel (I was around 17 so obviously the channel flopped). The name really stuck though. 

18. following: I don’t know and I’m not gonna look lol

19. followers: Last time I checked it was around 335? idk, but the writing blog has around 80 which is cool.

20. average hours of sleep: Uhm, I try to go to bed around 10-11 and I end up waking at 9 most days... so around 10-11 on a good day. Still tired though. 

21. lucky number: 3

22. instruments: Uh I played piano as a kid, but otherwise I’m really into the physical instrument known as my voice

23. what am i wearing rn: a dark green sweatpant with polar bears on it and a very light blue, long sleeved, college shirt.

24. dream trip: England, or my birth state. New Zealand.

25. favorite food: I think it’s still mac and cheese, but you can also never go wrong with a pizza. I’m also rediscovering my love for hot dogs.

26. nationality: *shrugs* American

27. favorite song: They’re on rotation baby, I don’t know

28. last book read: I’m currently reading Twilight because I didn’t get to as a teen.

29. top three fictional universes: MCU, Barbie, and whatever Alex Hirsch has going on. Considering that he references Gravity Falls in everything else he does, I’m inclined to think it’s all in the same universe. 

30. favorite color: I’m a pink and yellow kinda gal rn. 

Thanks again for tagging me October and Tea! I hope you liked learning about me. :) I’m not sure who to tag, especially this is my main blog, so if you see this and you want to do it go ahead. <3

#tag game #30 questions tag game #about me #a look at the artist

[leiascully]

5 Conversations Between Maggie and Mulder

By @agirlcalledNarelle - I think Maggie and Mulder had a complicated relationship. Here’s my take on a few shared moments between them….

4,7k words. Here on AO3. 

1. 1995

The Glasgow room, otherwise known as events room B, is empty and cavernous when he arrives. Sound bounces off the walls from the other early guests and is presented back to them in an awkward offering.  Helium balloons dance timidly from their weights along the outskirt of the room. Mulder slinks in like a cat and nurses a beer as he watches the room fill. He did not go to the graveyard.

Thankfully the event grows into the space, and the hum of conversation encourages more of the same. There is laughter. Recent friends wear brightly coloured outfits, paisley shirts and ethereal skirts. The family wear black, but wicked humour sparkles through their sad smiles. Scully and Maggie arrive, accompanied by a smattering of aunts, uncles, cousins. It’s strange to see Scully with a support network which excludes him. He doesn’t feel like he can approach her; he will wait for her. They make eye contact briefly, and she moves towards him before being intercepted by someone. Maggie smiles as she speaks, but he sees her glance frequently around the room for her remaining daughter as if proving to herself that she is still here, that she hasn’t lost Dana too. 

There is never enough food at events like this. Out of some misguided sense of chivalry which no one witnesses, he is late to the buffet and picks at the remaining trays. Having made small talk with some cousins from Wisconsin, he sits furtively at a table for two, hoping his vibes deter anyone from making any further effort.

‘Fox.’ He looks up, mid-room temperature shrimp half-way to his mouth, to see Maggie standing at his elbow with Scully behind her. Mulder can see foundation gathering in the creases around her eyes. Her cheeks have has sunk, no longer blooming from happy memories. Mulder stands and wipes his mouth on a napkin.

‘Mrs Scully,’ he kisses Maggie on the cheek. ‘I’m so very sorry about Melissa.’

‘Thank you.’ Her eyes are shiny pebbles from the bottom of a stream, clear and hard. Mulder gulps, his mouth dry, and wipes his hands on his napkin, frustrated he has nothing of value to offer when she suddenly speaks, low and forcefully. ‘Tell me, Fox. Was it worth it? Was what you found worth it?’

‘Come on, Mom, let’s go say hi to the Denman’s. I see them over there.’ Scully puts her hand on her mother’s arm and pushes her gently away. He watches them, relieved to avoid further interrogation, and considers making a quiet exit when Scully turns and mouths ‘don’t go.’ Damn. Suddenly no longer hungry, he pushes his plate to the opposite place setting and waits. He watches.

Scully and Maggie work the room, sometimes together, sometimes apart. They are the only members of the immediate Scully family representing Melissa to her mourners. The extended family, comprising of short women and tall men, make sure that Scully’s wine glass never fully empties. Maggie favours brandy. She remembers the names of Melissa’s childhood friends and greets her adult friends with generous hugs. Laughter abounds as family reacquaints and friends rediscover commonalities.  Each table hosts a framed photo of Melissa, and on this table, there is a photo of the Scully children in front of a big fish that Bill Junior has caught. Melissa is tall, beautiful with early-teen self-consciousness, smiling without teeth. Dana is at least 6 inches smaller, her face chubby and framed with bangs, and excitedly pointing at the fish with her two index fingers, her mouth open in a perfect ‘o’.

The sun takes polite grief with it as it sets, and the mood of the room shifts towards a more frantic, unrestrained celebration. Ties are loosened, music starts to play, and voices grow louder as the guests realise their hours for remembering Melissa together will soon draw to a close. Scully sits opposite him, pushing aside the remaining plate of food. Her eyes are glassy, her cheeks pink. A tissue peeks out of her cardigan sleeve, and her mascara is slightly smudged under her left eye. She smiles languidly and rests her chin in her hand. They hear Maggie laugh across the room with the cousins from Wisconsin. They are both taller than her, and one wraps her into a bear hug. She has the effusiveness of a dinner party host, eager to inform everyone where the food is and to help themselves to drinks. In the gap between conversation, Mulder sees Maggie staring into the middle distance, steeling herself to share the next anecdote.

‘I don’t know how she does it,’ Mulder remarks.

‘This is the fun part,’ Scully says, her s’s slightly stretched. ‘Remembering Missy with all her favourite people. And some of her not-so-favourite people.’ They watch Maggie take another brandy from the waitress. ‘She’ll crash later once we’re in the cab. I’m staying with her tonight.’

‘Can I take you both home?’ Mulder asks, suddenly wanting to do at least this for Scully and her mother.

‘Thank you, but that’s not necessary, Mulder.’

‘Please, I’d like to.

Scully appraises him, draining her wine. ‘She’s not herself today, you know. Don’t give it another thought.’

No apology, Mulder notes.

‘I know. She was right to ask. She has the right to ask, I mean. She should ask.’

‘She does. She should.’ Scully gazes lovingly at her mom, eyes misting with tears before someone else catches her eye, causing her to giggle into her hand like a schoolgirl. ‘Oh no. Missy would be devastated to know that Sam Charleston is here. She had the biggest crush on him when she started her first job, and he kept her well and truly in the friend zone.’

‘Go say hi. Go mingle.’

She leans on her knuckles to steady herself as she stands. ‘If that offer is still open…. That would be nice. We would love a lift back.’

‘Of course.’

‘Oh, and Mulder,’ she says as she starts to totter away. ‘We’re Irish. This is going to be a late one.’

‘I’ll be here.’

2. 1997

Mulder wakes to the shadow of someone standing over him. Blinking, his back burns as he sits up in his plastic chair.

‘Go home, Fox,’ Maggie says. ‘You should get some rest. In a proper bed.’

Her eyes are bright, too wide, like a child who has eaten all their Halloween candy in one sitting, twitchy and hyper. The hall is quiet, the bustle of the day replaced with a cloak of calm inevitability as some patients gather their strength for another day, and some succumb to the everlasting sleep which floats through these rooms like a genie, offering to grant the most desperate wishes.

‘Uh, I can’t seem to leave.’ He rubs his neck. ‘Is Scully ok?’

‘She’s just fallen asleep.’ Maggie sits beside him. She rubs her hands over her face and reaches for his hand. It’s an intimate move, but a hospital at 3am is an intimate, almost holy place and those who witness it are bound by their understanding of this. He covers her hand with his, a silent gesture of solidarity.

Maggie, Bill and Mulder haven’t slept properly in days; Scully sleeps too much for all of them. She can’t smell, can’t taste, doesn’t eat. Her headaches are sudden and vicious, the only respite being ever-stronger painkillers and sleep. Suddenly her teeth start to grind. She loses track of conversation, eyes, fingers and face all clenched, and Mulder presses her painkiller button in frustration that this is all he can do. All the road signs are pointing towards morphine. No one mentions it explicitly, knowing it will likely be the last landmark for Scully.

‘Where’s Bill?’

‘He’s gone back. To pick up some clothes, pick up my copy of Little Women for Dana.’ Maggie rests her head against the wall and closes her eyes. ‘When she’s awake I’m worried that she’s not getting enough rest, and when she’s asleep I just want to wake her. It’s like she’s 2 weeks old all over again.’

Mulder stays quiet.

‘She’s stopped arguing with me, have you noticed? She doesn’t have the energy. I just want to see her eyes flash at me again, I want that ‘here we go again’ feeling one more time. I’m trying to remember the last time we did that. I’m trying to remember.’

‘Mrs Scully, you can’t give up hope, not yet.’ Mulder teeters of the edge of acceptance but hasn’t fallen into that hole just yet: its depth is too deep, too dark, and he’s not sure he would recognise the man who comes out the other side. He needs his anger to stay on track for Scully, to keep going, and more importantly in this moment now, to stay awake.

‘Fox, I haven’t given up hope, far from it,’ Maggie’s voice is tired and resigned. ‘But you can’t deny what we’re seeing. We can’t expect things from Dana that she can’t give us. Then it’s not fair on her.’

Mulder feels this new perspective like a splash of cold water on his face. He hadn’t considered the impact of his unending fight on Scully. Did she feel like she had to perform for him? Did she gather her strength every time he entered the room to protect him from what was happening, to allow him his little charade? Does the energy needed for his visits mean more frequent headaches, more pain? His shoulders slump further as more guilt settles across them.

Maggie’s head suddenly brushes his shoulder, and she looks up in surprise, blinking. A microsleep.

‘Mrs Scully, you should take your own advice.’ He squeezes her hand where it still rests in his. ‘Get some proper rest.’

Maggie shakes her head. ‘There’s the meeting with Dana’s doctor first thing. And then the Priest is stopping by.’

The meeting is to learn the consultant recommendation after examining the chip that Mulder had offered him like frankincense. They had scanned it, taken photos, made notes, but the chip itself remained in Mulder’s pocket at his insistence.

‘I hope you know I respect the work of the priest.’ Mulder clears his throat, not sure of his next words. ‘I’m not exactly what you’d call a good disciple, but I’m willing to try anything at this point. And I know what it means to Dana.’

‘I won’t lie, I don’t like the idea of this chip, Fox. But you’ve earned the right to an opinion here. And anyway, Dana will do what she thinks is best: she won’t have anyone else make this choice for her.’

‘I know. I just wanted you to know that … I just want to make sure we’ve tried everything.’

Maggie stands and puts a hand to his cheek, her hand soft against his stubble. It’s a move he’s done to Scully before, but he had underestimated how much comfort it brings. He wants to nuzzle into her hand, to close his eyes and rest in the warmth.

‘I know you love her, Fox. You love her as she deserves to be loved. I do wish you might show it with roses instead of computer chips,’ she smiles ruefully. ‘But there aren’t words to convey how grateful I’ve been to see your love for my daughter over these past few weeks.’

He watches her go back into Scully’s dark room. They both wait, in different rooms, for the sun to rise on the day when Scully’s holy trinity of faith, family and work will entwine around her like the roots of a tree in a final attempt to nourish her back to health.

3. 1998

It is still dark when they pull up outside the house, but someone has clocked their arrival and the front door flings open. Maggie waves, wrapping her cardigan around her, and gestures inwards.

‘You have to come in now, you realise,’ Scully says as she unbuckles her belt.

‘Oh, no, Scully, I don’t want to do that. You be with your family. It’s 6:30am.’

‘Come on, you’ll offend her. You don’t want to offend my mother on Christmas morning, do you Mulder?’ Scully teases. ‘Or do you? Is that what you want?’

He sighs and walks with her towards the house. Modest fairy lights twinkle on the porch, and the Christmas tree glows from the front window. Mulder can see tasteful, coordinated ornaments and the outline of people in the front room. Already the Scully Christmas is in stark contrast to Christmas at his mother’s house: a quiet affair with two lonely presents under a tree that never seems to stand straight, decorated with all Fox and Samantha’s homemade decorations from over the years. A roast chicken that would invariably burn as Teena became engrossed in a Christmas movie and Mulder slept on the couch. They would end the day with a quiet game of Scrabble. He feels a protective pang in his chest: it’s not much of a Christmas, but it’s their Christmas. Teena is never outwardly demonstrative, but he knows he is loved. She has saved all his crafts, every homemade Mother’s Day and Christmas card. I’ll call her later, he promises to himself as he walks to the porch, swallowing the bitter taste of treachery as he crosses another mother’s threshold on Christmas morning.

‘Come in, come in! Merry Christmas!’ Maggie exclaims as they stamp the snow from their shoes. They are her first gifts of the day as she unwraps their coats and scarves. ‘Fox, what an unexpected surprise.’

‘Uh, Scully’s car didn’t start, so I gave her a lift,’ he said lamely, hoping the explanation doesn’t lead to more questions.

‘Well, you can at least stay for breakfast.’ She stands on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. He is uncomfortable, unused to meeting Maggie outside of a crisis. He doesn’t have anything to offer her, not even a Christmas card, and he almost regrets offering Scully a lift this morning. He had been high on infatuation, waking after their late-night ghost hunt to find Scully snuffling under the covers next to him like a grumpy guinea pig, her scruffy red hair poking out from under the covers.

‘Thank you, Mrs Scully, that would be great. I’m sorry I didn’t bring anything.’

‘Please, Fox, it’s a last-minute invite. It’s enough that you’re here.’ Mulder smiles, and sends a thought remembering his mother at the Vineyard on her own. It might be called a prayer, if he was a man of any sort of religious faith.

‘Sorry we’re late, Mom.’

‘Don’t be silly, Dana, I don’t know why we have to meet at such an ungodly time anyway.’ She ushers them into the living room. Bill sits in front of the tree wearing a Santa hat, his son perched in his lap lifting and shaking any gift in his proximity. Scully hugs her sister-in-law affectionately, and Mulder notes that something has thawed between them since San Diego.

‘What’s he doing here?’ Bill asks in surprise, quickly removing his Santa hat.

‘Hush now, Bill,’ Maggie says easily, entering with a tray of mugs and a cafetière full of coffee. ‘It’s too early to be so contrary.’

‘I just think it’s odd that her work colleague is in our living room at 6:30am.‘

‘Bill, please. Fox is Dana’s partner, and they get to decide the context of that. Not us.’

Mulder glances at Scully. He’s not sure what Maggie has just insinuated, or what Scully has been saying to make Maggie to make her think that way. They’re still walking this path cautiously, and yet Mulder feels like Maggie has just confirmed something fundamental that neither had fully acknowledged yet.  Scully reflects his surprise, raising an eyebrow before looking back at her brother.

‘Admit it, Bill,’ Scully says, ‘you’re just embarrassed that Mulder’s seen you in your jimmy jams.’

There is a pause in the room before Bill spreads his hands and laughs.

‘Guilty. Grab a seat, Mulder, let’s see if there’s a lump of coal under here somewhere for you.’ Scully squeezes his arm in solidarity. Mulder sees the steel under Bill’s smile and nods, accepting the tentative olive branch.

‘Excellent.’ Maggie sits beside the tree and pulls Matthew onto her lap, who desperately reaches towards the tree. ‘My grandson has been patient enough. Now that we’re all here, and caffeinated, how about we open some presents?’

4. 2001

Mulder stares through the nursery glass at the eight babies wriggling in their little beds. It’s like a very small and very strange zoo exhibition. I’m sorry guys, he thinks, visiting hours have just started for you. His baby is back row left, wearing a blue hat and sleeping with his mouth slightly open, oblivious to all the motion and emotion surrounding him.

Scully needed stitches. The doctors were not happy with her delivery in general, and Mulder felt them glance suspiciously in his direction when he wasn’t looking. They had also given Scully a sedative: she had been shaking with shock and exhaustion, having had no sleep during the 16 hours since the delivery. In the helicopter she had gripped her son with a haunted look in her eyes, only reluctantly handing him to the nurse when the desire to have him checked over outweighed her instinct to hold tight. Go with him, she’d begged, the force of his hand squashing his fingers, don’t leave him alone. Make sure he’s ok. Please, Mulder. He’d wanted to stay until she slept, but his continued presence only made her more anxious. He had left her, weak and weepy with her legs in stirrups, as exposed and vulnerable as a person could find themselves. The nurse had offered to bring the baby to Mulder to hold, but without Scully it feels like a betrayal somehow. He is satisfied just peering through the window, admiring his perfect lips and nose.

‘Fox,’ he turns to see Maggie standing at his shoulder. Her face is tight, her clenched teeth barely restraining her anger. His stomach drops as he feels himself ride over the crest of a rollercoaster.

‘Mrs Scully. Did you just arrive?’

‘I tried to visit Dana but they said she’s sleeping.’ Maggie has yet to put her overnight bag down, her knuckles white as she grips the handles. ‘Do you mind telling me what happened? How my daughter got to Georgia?’

‘Scully, uh, she was in danger and so we thought it safest if she left DC.’ Maggie purses her lips. Mulder’s palms are sweaty. What had made perfect sense at the time was now sounding reckless and stupid.

‘I see. And why Georgia?’

‘We needed somewhere unexpected, somewhere that no one would know.’

‘How exactly did she get here?’

‘One of her colleagues drove her. Special Agent Reyes, you may have met her, she’s been working with Scully for the last, well really for the last 6 months now.’ Mulder felt with each answer Maggie was coiling tighter and tighter, preparing to strike.  ‘Scully likes her, trusts her, so it seemed like the best choice.’

‘I see. Where were you?’

‘I was trying to make sure that the people who were trying to get Scully didn’t. Couldn’t.

‘And did you succeed?’

‘No, no I didn’t. But they didn’t get her, thank god.’

‘You didn’t succeed,’ Maggie says, shaking her head slowly. ‘You sent my little girl to some abandoned town in the middle of nowhere, with no electricity, running water, or even any antibacterial spray, to give birth on her own with only a colleague she’s known for 6 months for support. Is any of this inaccurate?’

‘No, it’s not.’ Mulder’s voice is quiet in contrast to Maggie’s increasing volume.

‘Do you mind telling me what on earth you were thinking?’ Maggie finally shouts, throwing her jacket at him. He catches it clumsily. ‘How could you do this, Fox? In what possible way was this the best solution?’

The tiredness, anxiety and fear which Mulder had been suppressing for the last 72 hours bursts forth, and he is suddenly possessed by rage.

‘Excuse me, Maggie, can I call you Maggie? I think it’s about time, don’t you?’ His voice is quiet but violent. Maggie blinks in surprise and takes a step back. ‘This is my son we’re talking about here. My –‘ he falters as he thinks of Scully in the third room down the corridor, sleeping while her injuries are stitched. His chest hurts with the ferocity of his love for her. ‘This is my whole world. I didn’t just send them away for a jaunt down South. It wasn’t for the fun of it. If we hadn’t have sent them away, in all likelihood we wouldn’t have either of them right now.’

Maggie presses her fingers to her lips as tears slide down her cheeks. Mulder immediately hates himself for shouting at her, she who has already lost so much as a result of Scully’s dogged insistence to stay by his side. He too blinks away tears as he realises what is about to happen next: Scully isn’t going to see her mother meet her grandchild, Scully’s miracle son. She will miss their introduction.

‘I daresay you’re right,’ Maggie mutters. ‘Everything you’ve said matches what Mr Skinner told me. I know you had no choice. But, my god Fox, another phone call, another panicked rush to a hospital, this time in Georgia. I don’t know how many more times I can do this.’

‘I know, Mrs Scully,’ Mulder rubs her shoulder tentatively, taking her bag from her.

‘Please, you’re right, you should call me Maggie,’ she huffs, wiping her eyes. ‘I know you did what you thought was best. But I can’t pretend I understand or agree with it. I think I have to ask you for a little more time before we’re in the same room together.’

Mulder nods. ‘I understand, Maggie. I want to check on Scully anyway, make sure she’s ok. Before I go, let me show you your grandson. There he is: he’s the champ in the top left. See him?’

Mulder sees her face soften, and she places her fingers lightly on the glass window, drinking in every detail of the baby.

‘Oh Fox…’, she murmurs, ‘he’s beautiful. Look at him. He looks like you, you know.’

‘You think?’

‘That bottom lip, there’s no doubt.’ She sighs. ‘He’s wonderful.’

‘Do you want to hold him?’

‘Can I? Have you?’

‘No… no. I’m going to wait for Scully… But you really should. You know how angry she’ll be if she wakes up to learn that neither of us held him this whole time. She would want you to.’

Maggie nods. Without speaking, without eye contact, she holds his hand briefly in thanks. Mulder recognises her resolve; he knows Maggie is happier now she has something practical to focus on. Her face betrays her excitement as she flags down a nurse. He carries her bag with him and opens the third door down the corridor where he is greeted by Scully’s pale face, her anxiety having vanished in sleep.

5. 2005

Mulder hears the gravel crunch under the car as Scully pulls up into the drive. He turns on the grill but stubbornly keeps his back turned as Scully and her mother enter the house. This is Maggie’s first visit to their unremarkable house, their little haven. For the last six months, Scully has met her in the city, at neutral settings or at Maggie’s place. They told each other it was for safety, that it was better for both Mulder and Maggie that they didn’t put Maggie in a position of consorting with a fugitive, but they both knew the truth: they were scared of what Maggie might say. Of how she might react to seeing Mulder again, after so many years on the run.

Scully arrived home from her first meeting with Maggie with red eyes and a stuffy nose.

How was it? Mulder had asked.

It was great. Amazing. It was so good to see her again. Her replies were short, and Mulder heard her unspoken words. They had gone to bed without speaking any further that night.

After six months, Maggie had finally asked to see where Dana and her outlaw partner were living. A Fourth of July barbeque seemed like a good occasion, the external focus distracting from any tension. Scully bought fireworks and s’mores ingredients; Mulder built a bonfire ready for the evening.

He hears footsteps on the deck and turns to see Maggie. They study each other quietly: her white hair, wrists tightly covered by crepe-paper skin, his lined face and wider jaw. He’s been waiting for this moment since Scully floated the idea with him. Now it had arrived, he realised how many lost years sat between them. Maggie stands a metre away, but the distance is a metal spring that stretches wider and wider and wider.

‘Hello Fox,’ she says, and her voice takes him back to hospitals, to phone calls, to missing people and conversations haunted by death.

‘Hi Maggie.’ He doesn’t move, and neither does she. He wants to tell her he’s sorry, but he doesn’t want to accept sole responsibility. He wants to ask for forgiveness, but he isn’t afraid of defending his choices. He wants to ask how she’s been, what their absence felt like for her, but surely the hole they left in her life is too great for him to think about patching up now. Behind him, the barbeque hisses as the fat drips from the meat.

‘Dana tells me you built this deck.’

‘I did, yes. It was my first project when we moved in. Where is Scully?’

‘She’s getting the potato salad ready.’ Mulder looks towards the house and cringes inwardly when he sees no sign of her. ‘It’s lovely out here.’

‘It is.’ Suddenly he’s sick of this dance. ‘Maggie, I want you to know –‘

‘Fox, I think we’ve had enough.’ Her assertiveness catches him unawares and he stops. ‘Don’t you agree? Enough anger, enough apologies, enough guilt.’

He nods cautiously.

‘What did Scully say about our time away?’ He asks. Maggie sighs and looks at her hands.

‘She didn’t say a lot. She mentioned motels, some kitchen work. You know how she is. She stopped talking before she got in over her head.’

‘Are you…. Mad?’

‘Oh, I’ve been mad alright. Father McCue can attest to that.’ Mulder turns back to the meat, and Maggie stands beside him. She looks so like her daughter out of the corner of his eye; there’s a familiarity between Mulder and Maggie that he’d forgotten about. All the fear they’ve shared together sits within a current of energy between them. ‘But I don’t want to be mad anymore.’

The spring suddenly snaps back into shape.

‘That’s good to hear,’ Mulder turns the meat. ‘I was afraid I was going to get my ass kicked.’

Maggie chuckles and Mulder suddenly sees that their bonfire, fireworks and s’mores will be genuinely delightful.

‘Just stay, though, please?’ She asks tentatively. He realises that their détente is quick but delicate, in need of nurture. ‘Stay here. Let me visit occasionally. Maybe there’s a room that I might one day come to think of as being mine. Just let me see you both.’

‘Maggie… Of course we will. You’re welcome here any time. At any time.’

‘What are you two talking about?’ They both turn to see Scully approaching with a tray of salad and iced tea. Her small smile is cautious and there’s apprehension in her eyes.

‘I was just about to ask Fox why the deck slants to the left.’ Maggie takes the tray from Scully and kisses her cheek.

‘Maggie, I’ll have you know this is excellent craftsmanship. It slants so the water can drain off effectively.’ They sit at the table together, with Scully looking from her mother and her partner. Her face glows in a way he hasn’t seen for years, and he squeezes her hand under the table. He is pleased to have brought her back, happy to have given her a home. She is starting to thrive. She looks at him, her eyes shiny with tears.

‘Look at me, I’m being ridiculous,’ she laughs, wiping her eyes.  ‘I’m just so glad we’re all here together.’

#submitted #submission #submission summer 2k20

[exxar1]

Episode 11: New Believer, New Faith, and a New Vow

2/7/2021

- 1 -

Good morning! It’s a beautiful Sunday here in Las Vegas. I have much to talk about so I’m just going to get right into it.

           It’s hard to believe we’re already a full month into the new year. This year for me has been very rewarding thus far. For starters, I have had no trouble keeping up with resolutions 1 and 4. (For a refresher, you can scroll back through my previous posts to the one from New Year’s Eve.) I have found time each day to read my Bible and pray, and I have had little difficulty in maintaining a pleasant attitude and a smile in my daily encounters with my co-workers and customers. As expected, though, that latter one has been tested a few times by the occasional sour apples that woke up on the wrong side of the bed. But I’ve surprised myself every time by my patience and my ability to keep a calm and pleasant demeanor. (Those of you who have known me for a long time will understand how truly remarkable that is for me.) It’s simply another testament to the power of God to change our basic attitudes when we are willing to let Him.

           I’ve also made great strides in resolution #3, and that’s where I’m going to spend the bulk of my time on this post.

           Have you ever sought something – therapy, a particular medication, advice from a friend or colleague – thinking that it might help with one problem, only to be pleasantly surprised that one, the result helped in many other ways you hadn’t anticipated; and two, that the change/outcome/counseling exceeded your initial expectations by such a great magnitude that you couldn’t believe you hadn’t sought this help long ago? That feeling has been with me for over three weeks now, and it’s only getting better with each session.

           One of my first tasks in tackling resolution #3 was to consult a pastor on this issue of homosexuality and the Bible. I needed to know what God really said in His Word on this controversial topic, and since I have yet to find a home church here in Las Vegas the only pastor that I am casually acquainted with is Mark Sjostrom of the church in which I was born and raised back in Twin Falls, Idaho.

           For those of you unfamiliar with Twin Falls or this particular church, allow me to forge a brief rabbit trail here to give you a short history. Grace Baptist Church was founded in 1975, and, back then, it was just a one-story, oblong, red-bricked building, its main auditorium forming a bubble at one end, at the intersection of Eastland Drive and Falls Avenue on the eastern edge of town. It’s still that same building today, only now there’s a massive, two-story gymnasium/classroom on the other side of the back parking lot, and a third, smaller, two-room annex that sits behind the gym. The first of those latter two structures was needed in the early eighties when the church launched its own private school, Twin Falls Christian Academy. I was in kindergarten when the gymnasium was under construction. I have many memories of watching my dad and some of the other men in church up on the scaffolds, putting together the walls, while I waited for my mom to pick me up after school, which was held in the various Sunday school rooms in the church. A few years later, I would be attending high school in the classrooms above that gym.

           In the years since I have grown and left Twin Falls, I have come back to that church on the occasional Sunday morning worship service when I’m home for a vacation visit. I’ve always had mixed feelings every time I set foot beyond the threshold of its main doors (see my previous posts about my struggles during my teen years.) It’s the same feeling you get when you come back to something that is at once familiar and strangely comforting, but also brings with it unpleasant memories and the pain of old wounds that have never quite healed.

           Grace’s pastor since 2005 has been Mark Sjostrom (pronounced ‘shos-trum’), and I didn’t know him that well when I decided to consult him on this issue. Our only interaction thus far had been a brief handshake and a greeting after those sporadic Sunday morning worship services, and I wasn’t sure he would even remember me when I nervously texted him a brief ‘Hello’ a month ago. He responded within a few minutes, and I re-introduced myself and then gave a short explanation of what I needed. We agreed on a time and date for a phone call, and I emailed him the next day with a longer explanation of what I needed to talk about with him.

           That letter was a  somewhat detailed account of what most of you are already familiar with: my struggle in high school with keeping my secret of being gay while trying to fit in socially and eventually declaring myself an Atheist after being expelled from school my senior year a month before graduation. It was probably about 2 pages, and I was now very nervous after clicking the ‘Send’ button. I suppose now is a good time to tell you something else about me.

           I have been one of ‘those people’ for all of my adult life. You know who I’m talking about: the people who silently judge the other customers in the book store who pause to browse the Self Help section; or the people who quietly scoff when anyone talks about their latest therapy session with their friends or coworkers at lunch in the break room. I’m glad I don’t need self-help or therapy, I’ve always thought. But, then again, good for them, I guess. I’m glad I have all my issues worked out, and I’m a stable, normal adult. I’ve never had any issues that were so bad I needed to get help from an armchair counselor’s latest best seller or a psychiatrist’s couch.

            Hhmmm. My life, lately, has been chock full of irony.

           When the time came to dial Pastor Sjostrom’s number my level of nervousness was up to a ten out of ten on the anxiety scale. I hadn’t felt like this since high school when it was opening night of our Agatha Christie play, and I was one of the main cast. I had prepared a detailed outline of what I wanted to discuss, and, after a few initial pleasantries, Mark quickly put me at ease. I was pleasantly caught off guard by his relaxed, casual personality. I found immediately that he was very easy to talk to, and my anxiety level dropped to a ‘three’ in the first five minutes. Pastor Sjostrom is definitely one of those people who has found the right calling. His warm, personable demeanor made me feel like I was talking to an old friend over coffee at Starbucks, and after about ten minutes of getting to know one another, he brought the conversation back around to my letter.

           Here’s where my second surprise occurred. Mark was bluntly honest. I had told him that I believed I was saved in 1985, when I was seven, after the evening service of one of our church’s mid-summer week long revival meetings. “Neal,” Mark said rather pointedly, “after reading your description of your life after high school, I gotta say that it doesn’t sound like you were saved. Your behavior and your atheism doesn’t reflect the change that is described in the Bible.” He went on to explain that salvation is a change brought about the presence of the Holy Spirit in the new believer. There is a desire to learn more about God and His Word. There is a desire to serve him and to live one’s life in surrender to Him.

           I had to pause and think about that. And, doggone it, you know what? He was right. And the reason I knew that was because I had only to look at the last four months of my life, even more so since I had returned from Christmas vacation. That desire – that hunger – to know God had never been present in my life until September 17, 2020. That was the night I surrendered to Christ in an awkward, fumbling prayer on the way home from work. Ever since, I have had nothing but a desire to read my Bible and change my life. I told pastor this, and he agreed. It was evident now that I was truly saved. That evidence was lacking in my youth and my adult life up to this point.

           My third major surprise of that initial counseling session – yes, that was what is was – was when pastor told me he was assigning me homework for our next weekly conversation. He wanted me to read the book of 1 John. He explained that we would eventually get to the issue of homosexuality, but that we needed to cover this ground first. I agreed  to the assignment, and we hung up. I glanced at the clock in the upper corner of my computer screen. We had talked for almost an hour. I immediately reached for my Bible and opened it to 1 John. I read the whole book in about ten minutes.

           1 John is a primer for the new believer. John states clearly and succinctly what makes a Christian a Christian. Chapter 1:9 was immediately familiar to me from my Sunday School days: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So was chapter 2:9: “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness, even until now.” John goes to say in chapter 5:2: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments.” And, finally, verse 20 of that same chapter: “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”

           Yep. All of that book made perfect sense. Part of that was because I had absorbed so much of God’s Word in my youth that it had sat in the deep recesses of my brain for all of my life, and much of it had begun floating to the surface in the last several months – like debris from an ancient wartime submarine that has been recently dislodged from its ocean grave. Except that these artifacts – Bible verses, fragments of sermons, some of Mr. Walker’s proverbs from Bible class – were not dirty, soggy, disgusting relics. They were bits of priceless treasure, and I’ve been rediscovering them in dribs and drabs ever since.

           I have had three sessions with Pastor Sjostrom, and they are each the highlight of my week. I very nearly broke down after hanging up from our first talk. I felt a combination of immense relief, peace and calm. Not to be overly melodramatic, but it was if something had dislodged in my very soul, like a sliver of wood just beneath the skin that has never quite come all the way out. I realized with immediate clarity that I was getting far more than just a pastor’s opinion on a particular issue for my book. I had stumbled on to something else, something I needed far more: spiritual counseling and guidance for my new life as a child of God.

           I am a new believer.

That seems so strange to say out loud. I was raised in the church. I had at least a third of the Bible memorized by the time I was twelve. I knew all the major stories from the Old Testament – the creation of the world; God’s covenant with Abraham; Jacob, Esau and Isaac; Joseph sold into slavery into Egypt and God’s eventual deliverance of the Israelites from their captivity there; the introduction of the ten commandments and the Mosaic Law; Esther, Ruth, King Saul, David, the Book of Psalms, the prophet Isaiah – I knew all of it by heart by the end of my days in elementary school. Same for the New Testament – the birth of Christ; all of His teachings and parables; His death on the cross; His resurrection after three days; the founding of His church after His ascension back to Heaven – it was all as familiar to me by the time I walked away from high school as the mathematical precepts of basic addition, subtraction, division and multiplication.

           I had assumed all this time that I was still saved. I thought I had really, genuinely believed in Jesus as my savior that long ago night in 1985 when I was seven years old. And maybe I did. But, for whatever reason, the Holy Spirit had not come into me back then. I was not truly saved. (This is perhaps worthy of a more detailed discussion and analysis later on down the road.) Whatever the case, I am most definitely a new believer now. The Holy Spirit is alive and well within me, and I have only a single desire and purpose: to know the God that created me, and to serve him with all my heart, soul and mind.

           Pastor and I did discuss my homosexuality issue in our second talk, and that, along with the extracurricular reading I’ve been doing on this topic, has enabled me to finally reconcile what I couldn’t in my teen years when I first fought with this problem.

 - 2 -

If I am gay, and God – through His written word – has condemned what I am as a sin, how can I be His child and serve Him as he commanded me to do? That’s the question I’ve been wrestling with anew for the last few months. I began this new journey in last September with the premise that I was born gay. I’ve believed that my whole adult life. I proceeded from that assumption through all of my reading and research these last few weeks. But if God made me this way, why would He then condemn as an abomination the very thing that I am? Is He not contradicting Himself? How can this be?

           Pastor Sjostrom asked that very question in our second talk. He then went on to answer it by explaining that my unnatural desire for the same sex was a cause of the Fall, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is what led their descendants to the sins of idolatry, fornication, sexual perversion, and many, many others. Yes, I was born gay. But that’s not how God made me. There’s a very distinct difference.

           His explanation corroborated what I have come to discover in the last couple weeks as I’ve read Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church from the Counterpoints series. Author and editor Preston Sprinkle gathered four prominent Christian authors, scholars, and theologians to discuss this issue – two for and two against. I will not go into great detail of what these authors debate and discuss, mainly for the sake of page and time, but also because this issue is not anywhere near as complicated as it seems.

           All four of the contributing authors to the Two Views book have used the following Bible verses/passages as the foundation of their arguments:

1.)   The creation story in Genesis 1 and 2.

2.)  Genesis 19:4-11 (Sodom & Gomorrah)

3.) Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13

4.) 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

5.) 2 Corinthians 5:17

6.) Romans 1:18-32, emphasis on verses 26-28

7.) 1 Timothy 1:9-10

Those authors have also drawn from extra-Biblical material such as the writings of Philo, a Jewish historian who was a contemporary of the apostle Paul; the Apocrypha; the writings of Saint Augustine; and various other books – most written in the last 50 years – on sociology, sexuality and anthropology in the ancient world.

Here’s an example of one of one of the arguments for the church’s endorsement of homosexuality. One of Two Views’ contributors, Megan Defranza argues that there were many people in Biblical times that were born with no distinct male or female genitalia or other defining sexual characteristics. These “intersex individuals” were often referred to as eunuchs by the people of that time, and many of them were used as sex slaves. Megan claims that Genesis 1 is “…a theological account describing creation in broad categories, not an exact scientific inventory of all of God’s good creatures.” She goes on to say that Adam and Eve were not the exclusive, ideal models for all of man and womankind. They were, rather, just the broad categories; that the birth of eunuchs and other such of types of intersex people prove that God would welcome the church’s acceptance of gays, lesbians and transgenders since they have been born that way, and their sexual desires are natural to them. She claims that God was not condemning the eunuchs and other similar people in those verses/passages I listed above. Those condemnations were for the ones who had turned deliberately turned away from God to worship idols and indulge their sinful lusts.

There’s a lot more detail to Megan’s argument, especially regarding the eunuchs and their forced sexual slavery to their male masters, but it’s not worth going into here. The other three contributing authors give similar arguments, citing external sources in addition to scripture, to support their particular view. Wesley Hill and Stephen Holmes, the two that are opposed to the church’s condoning of homosexuality and gay marriage, give the stronger of the four arguments. Two Views opens with Megan’s and William Loader’s essays (the other author who falls on the affirming and open acceptance side of this debate), but by the time I reached the end of their arguments, I already knew which side of this issue I was going to fall on.

Wesley Hill and Stephen Holmes – as well as Pastor Sjostrom – present a much stronger, sounder case for why the Christian church, no matter the denomination, should be condemning ALL forms of homosexuality as clearly as God does. My own Bible reading and prayer showed me this after only a few weeks. I don’t really need to read all the other books on this topic to know the truth. To be completely honest, I had a pretty good idea of what the end of this journey would look like before I even started it. All the verses from Genesis, Leviticus, Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and 1st Timothy that deal with this specific issue are quite clear. It is stated over and over: homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God. Paul stated it best in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

That word “effeminate” in the KJV is translated from the original Greek word that Paul used: arsenokoitai. This is a compound word: arsen – male; koite – bed. “Male bedders”, in other words; those men who sleep with other men. In the NIV translation, the word “effeminate” is replaced with the phrase “men who sleep with other men”. The only other passage that Paul uses that word is in 1 Timothy 1:8-10 (NKJV):

“But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine…”

The meaning of these two passages is quite clear: those that practice any or all of those sins listed will not inherit the kingdom of God. They are not true believers and followers of Christ. And thus, any church that not only allows its homosexual members to remain in their sin, but also performs gay marriage, is not a true church of God.

And such were some of you.

God has commanded those that follow Him and declare His name to turn from their wickedness and be transformed. Those that believe on His name and repent of their sins will no longer practice those sins listed in the passages I quoted above. That’s the meaning of the phrase, “…and such were some of you.” Well, I have definitely been transformed. I can feel the Holy Spirit working in me. And, because of that, I have no other choice. If I am to be faithful to my Lord and Creator, if I surrender myself completely to His will, I must take a vow to turn away from my sin nature. I cannot indulge in the “lusts of the flesh”, as Paul says in Romans, if I am to call myself a true Christian. I am now a child of God, and His will alone must govern all I say and do.

But, even more important than those passages I listed and quoted above, is the book of Genesis, chapter two. God created Adam first and then He decided it wasn’t good for man to be alone. So God made the woman out of Adam’s rib, and he called her ‘Eve”. Then, in verse twenty-four, God said, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” This chapter, more than any other passage in the Bible, clearly and explicitly demonstrates what God had intended from the very beginning. The only natural desire of the flesh was for the opposite sex: man for woman and woman for man. That was God’s original plan.

Unfortunately for us, Adam and Eve did not resist the serpent’s temptation to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After the Fall, their perfect, pure natures were corrupted by sin, and that corruption was passed unto their children, and their children’s children. Part of that corruption was the perversion of the natural, normal sexual desire. Men lusted after men and women for women. Even though the subsequent passages in Genesis which describe mankind’s deplorable state before the Great Flood never state it specifically, it is not unreasonable to assume that more than just homosexuality was a problem. Bestiality, pedophilia, rape and incest were very likely abundant among the first few generations of man, as well as the worship of false idols and complete rejection of God. Why else would God have felt the need to punish his creation by wiping them from the face of the Earth, save for Noah and his family?

As the old saying goes, ‘God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’. I’ve always hated that pithy, snarky retort whenever I had to defend my sexuality to anyone who tried to tell me I was living in sin. But it’s true. God created only Adam and Eve; not Adam and Steve; not Melissa and Eve; not Adam, Eve, and some other non-gender, non-binary person.

Just Adam and Eve.

Man and woman were joined in holy matrimony and, until the Fall, they lived in perfect peace and union with their Lord and Creator. Anything that deviates from that original, holy standard that God still demands of His children today, is a sin. That includes homosexuality, bestiality, pedophilia, incest, idolatry and devil worship, to name a few. Anyone that willfully practices or engages in any of those things and does not repent cannot call himself a true believer in Christ. Nor can any church that not only openly endorses homosexuality but also performs gay marriage can call themselves a true church of Christ.

So then, what now? If I accept that my sexuality is a byproduct of my sin nature, and that God, in fact, did not make me this way, how can I best serve Him? I’m still gay. That hasn’t changed. (And, yes, I’m sure. I’m watching last week’s episode of The Resident as I write this. Matt Czuchry and Manish Dayal are among the best male eye candy on TV right now.) I still desire a physical relationship with another man. (Either of the aforementioned actors would be especially nice.) But that desire – as well as the act – is a sin. God has made that clear in his Word. After some more talk with Pastor Sjostrom, I finally came to an answer – or, at least, part of one.

 - 3 -

I mistakenly assumed that after I asked Christ into my heart, after I surrendered myself to God, that my sin nature would be transformed. I thought what many torn, conflicted gay Christians and their family have thought: with enough prayer, genuine repentance, and strong faith I would no longer be a homosexual. God would change my unnatural desire, and I would be sexually attracted to women instead of men. I would throw out all the symbols of my gay pride that I had collected over the years – t-shirts, bracelets, baseball caps, the rainbow colored Apple watch bands – and I would begin my new life as a heterosexual man. 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Yes, it would be hard at first, but God and I would make this work, glory hallelujah amen!

But that’s not how salvation works. Yes, there was a transformation, but not quite the kind that I was expecting. It’s hard to put into words exactly what I felt in the weeks and months following that quiet prayer on that car ride home from work late the night of September 17, 2020. I knew for sure that something was different. To begin with, there was an almost instant peace and calm that settled over my entire being. All the anxiety, the fear, and the worry about the state of the world around me that had been plaguing me for many weeks melted away. In its place was a quiet, firm assurance that, no matter what happened from then on, I was in the hands of God. He would take care of me.

And then, in the days and weeks that followed that moment of salvation, I began to feel more than just spiritual peace and tranquility. The first was a hunger – an insatiable, ravenous desire to read my Bible. I had only the app on my iPad, and I started with Genesis 1. Every night, before bed, I would read two or three chapters. And then I would pray. It was awkward and nothing like the prayers that I heard time and again from my dad or my teachers in high school or my pastor back then. I stumbled over my words, I repeated myself, I kept forgetting what I wanted to say. And I still felt weird doing it. It was like I was talking to myself. But I kept praying nonetheless.

Gradually, as Christmas loomed closer and closer, and the more I read my Bible and talked to God, I felt something stronger inside of me. But it wasn’t anything physical, like an emotion. It was…something else, something in my soul. I imagined this new feeling as a few drops of red ink falling into a bowl of clear water. At first, the drops fall straight down, coloring only a little bit of the water. But then the ink begins to slowly spread, crimson tendrils that stretch outwards, eventually turning the whole water into the color of blood. That’s what it felt like was happening inside of me. My soul – the very thing that made me me was being changed from the inside out. And it felt damn good!

It was after my Christmas vacation, after ten days of rest and relaxation with my family in Idaho, that I noticed an even bigger change. When I returned to the daily grind of my two jobs, I realized that my whole attitude – and, by extension, my whole outlook on life – had been transformed. I was no longer the angry, anxious, frustrated, fearful man that was always pissed about something – usually the people who were my customers. Before, I was short tempered, impatient, always inwardly complaining whenever those around me were being difficult or annoying me in some way. Now, however, I was at peace. The difference in my new attitude from the old was as glaring as night from day. I greeted my customers with a smile. It was no longer an effort for me to be patient with the difficult ones. Nor did I feel the need to rant and rage on social media about the problems of the world, as I had been doing practically non-stop before I became saved.

It was like being wrapped inside joy, as if joy was something tangible – like a big, soft, warm blanket fresh from the dryer. I had to constantly check my reflection because I was sure I had a giant, stupid grin on my face all day long. And that feeling only got stronger the more I continued to read my Bible – now an actual book that I had bought from Amazon – and pray. That, too, was getting better. I no longer stumbled over my words or forgot what I wanted to say. The hunger to know God, to build a new relationship with my Creator, overshadowed everything else in my life. I lost interest in many of the things that had once taken up all my time, like watching TV or playing video games. All I wanted to do every night when I got home from a busy day was to open God’s Word and keep reading.

But there was one thing that didn’t change during all of that wonderful transformation. I’m still gay. The desire for that sin is still there, as strong and lustful as ever. Everything else about me seems different. I am, indeed, a new creature in Christ. So why am I still gay? Why is this particular thorn still lodged firmly deep in my flesh?

I still don’t have an answer. But I do have a theory. The transformation of the new believer in Christ is not like wiping the old operating system of your ten year old iMac. With a computer you can install a whole new operating system that’s free of the bugs, viruses and malware that plagued the old system. The hardware is still the same old hardware, but the software is brand new. Your computer has been transformed. It performs and operates like a new machine.

But we humans are not machines. We are creatures born of the Fall. Being saved in Christ has made us like new, but the old self – the old, corrupt nature – is still there. The old operating system hasn’t been wiped away. Rather, the new OS is now installed, and the two systems are at war with one another. Why is that, I wonder? Why doesn’t God simply transform our sin nature by wiping it way when He fills us with the Holy Spirit? Wouldn’t that be easier – and more complete – than  forcing us to constantly battle our old selves in order to remain faithful and obedient to Him?

The honest answer is, I don’t know.

What I do know is that God, in His infinite wisdom, has chosen not to remove this particular thorn in my flesh. I am still gay.

           The thorn in my flesh. Yeah, that phrase sounds familiar. In fact, it’s been rolling around in the back of my brain for several weeks now.

In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul writes of the “thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan sent to buffet me.” Those four verses, more than any other Bible passages that I’ve read and also read about, have continued to echo within me ever since the beginning of this journey. Many pastors and scholars agree that that the thorn Paul speaks of was of a spiritual nature, not a physical. Paul says that he “…besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.”

The thorn in my flesh.

What if I am in the same seat as Paul? What if my sexuality is the ‘thorn’ in my own flesh?

I think that part of the reason that God doesn’t just snap his fingers and wipe away our old self is because, without those old, sinful desires and temptations, we wouldn’t continually come back to Him for mercy, grace and forgiveness. It might have taken a little longer for me to surrender if the outside world hadn’t melted down last year, but I have no doubt now that God has always been working in my life, and He wants my love, worship and obedience. My homosexuality is a reminder from Him that I have a choice: I can give in to my sin nature and indulge my own desires, or I can turn from the flesh, take up my cross daily, and follow Him.

God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our sin nature, and He knows that when times are good, when everything is going our way, we often forget Him – just as the Israelites did over and over in the Old Testament. We get wrapped up in our daily lives, turn away from Him, and give our worship to false idols instead; or we just pay Him our weekly rituals and sacrifice on Sunday, and then put aside our Bibles until the following week. But it’s during the times of adversity, when God allows the trials and tribulations of life to afflict us, that we come to Him. We seek Him because He is our only source of comfort and peace. The storms in our lives remind us that God alone can save us, can heal us. Our afflictions draw us closer to Him. And, if we remain faithful to Him, there is much reward for our devotion and service. When the storm has passed, we often find a rainbow.

The rainbow was God’s covenant with Noah and his descendants that God would never again destroy the world with a flood. In our modern world the homosexual revolution of fifty years ago took the rainbow as a symbol of pride and diversity. When I entered my adult life as an out and proud gay man, I, too, adopted the rainbow as a symbol of pride in myself. I vowed to live my life on my terms, and I wouldn’t be cowered or ashamed into silence about who I was, of what I had been born as. But, of course, I have renounced all of that since becoming a new child of God. It is NOT my life, but His as a gift to me. I live now in complete service to Him, and Him alone.

But I’m not quite ready to throw away my rainbow bracelet that I wear on my right wrist every day. It is still a symbol to me – and to everyone I meet in daily life – but not the one that it used to be. I have found a new place beneath the rainbow created by God in the aftermath of that flood in Genesis. The peace and reconciliation I have long sought has been found at last, and the rainbow is a symbol of both my old life and my new one in God’s service. I don’t find that conflicting at all, just as I have no problem calling myself a gay Christian. Until such time as God, in his perfect timing and wisdom, decides to change my unnatural desire completely, I will always be a gay Christian, and the rainbow will be a sign of my personal covenant with Him.

The process of reconciling this issue, the spiritual traveling and soul searching that I have done over the last few months, has shown me clearly that God is my Lord and Savior. He has allowed this affliction so that I would do the work that I needed to reconcile what appeared to be a crisis of faith. I wouldn’t have experienced personal growth in my life – and my faith – without this conflict and pain. Yes, it has been painful. Peeling back the faded scars of old wounds wasn’t not all pleasant. I had to go back to that fifteen-year-old kid and have a long talk with him. (See section 5 of this post.) I wrote letters to my parents and my three brothers, apologizing for the way I treated them all those years ago. I have recognized how selfishly I have been living my adult life, and the pride of my old nature has screamed fiercely whenever I bow my knee and my heart every morning in prayer. There is now a fight within me – the old nature vs. the new self – that will never let up until I die. And, sometimes, that fight will be painful. And yes, I already know that there are times when I will fail, when I will give in to the temptation to break my new vow with God. But that failure is not as important to God as whether or not I stay in the fight. And I will stay. I’m in this for the long haul, and I know without a shred of doubt that God is on my side. He wants me to succeed.

Hallelujah, amen!

 - 4 -

           Most of you have seen my post on Facebook from three days ago. My only answer from God to this twenty-four-year-old conflict has been a call to celibacy. Until such time as he chooses to change my sin nature, to change my unnatural desire into a natural one, I have made the following vow to Him:

           I take a vow of celibacy before God; that I have surrendered my life and my will unto Him; that I will not give in to the temptations of my sinful flesh; that I recognize my homosexual desire as a sin in His eyes, an abomination caused by the Fall; that He has saved my soul from eternal damnation, and I owe him nothing less than my whole heart, soul and mind.

           I take this vow on the 3rd of February, 2021.

           Amen.

 - 5 -

           I read a long time ago – probably in a textbook somewhere in college – that one of the tools therapists and psychiatrists use in their counseling of patients is to have their patients write a letter to their past selves. As I mentioned earlier in this post, I wrote letters to my family to apologize for how I had wronged them in the past. After some more thought and deliberation I decided to write one more letter, this time to that fifteen year old kid that used to be me.

           At first, I thought this a stupid idea. I mean, how much more clichéd can one get? Plus, I’ve already treaded into dangerously melodramatic waters in this post. Is yet one more emotional, sappy passage needed?

           Ehhhh…yes and no. Turns out, I had a lot more to say to myself than I thought at first, and, son-of-a-gun, I did feel remarkably better afterwards. Guess there was some genuine, therapeutic value to this little exercise after all.

           So…here it is.

 Hello.

It's been a long time.

Yes, I see you. You've been there all along, but only recently have I begun to really see you. You've been with me my whole adult life, affecting me, shaping me in ways I never realized until now. I thought I left you behind when I left high school. At various times in my life since, I've judged you, shunned you, tried to erase you, or just simply ignored you. I could never understand why you never had the courage to speak up, to ask for help. There were a few adults – or even your friends – who would have very likely sympathized and tried to help you. All you had to do was say something! But you didn't. You kept your secret, protecting it, guarding it like Gollum with his precious ring. I was the one who eventually had to reveal the secret to those around me when I was old enough and no longer ashamed of what I was.

           But now I realize that instead of judging you and blaming you, there's one thing that I should have done long ago. I never said, “Thank you.” Thank you for giving me the strength and courage to step into the world as a confident, independent adult. It was because of you, what you went through silently as a teenager, that I developed the strength and resolve to live my truth as an adult. It was because of you that I knew what I wanted in life. It was never my desire to just go with the flow, to blend into the crowd and do whatever everyone else was doing. I did my own thing. And yes, it would have been better if I had been living that truth within God's will, but God, in His infinite wisdom, decided not to work His will just yet. He chose to wait while I forged my own path.

           Part of me wishes that I could go back in time and be the adult that you needed. I would have embraced you, told you that you weren't a mistake; that God loves you just the way you are, including being gay. And, deep down inside, you knew that you were loved. Your parents told you that every day. But you always had that sliver of doubt in the back of your mind.

“Would you still love me if you knew my secret? Would you still accept me if I was gay?”

I, the adult looking back at you across the gulf of years between us, know the answer to that is a resounding “Yes! They have always loved you, no matter what!”

           Part of me also wonders how our life would have been different if you had reached out to the one person that understood what you were going through; the one that knew your pain – and your secret. It was He that made you, after all. What I can see so clearly now is that it never occurred to you to reach out to God. You only knew Him through the church, through your teachers, through your parents, through all the endless rules, and restrictions, and demands that they all placed on you. That's what you rebelled against. God, to you, was just a system, an institution that governed every corner of your life. That institution would never understand your secret, would never accept you for the real you.

           But He was there all along. He was there on those nights when you cried yourself to sleep. You were struggling to understand your pain, to understand the turmoil inside you, but you didn't have the words or the wisdom or the experience to fully realize it all. All that you knew was anger, frustration and fear. But God understood you, and He was there in the darkness, crying with you.

           I want so badly to be there now, to wrap you in my arms and wipe away your tears and tell you that everything will be okay. Because it will be. You can’t see it now, but things will get better. You will find a way through this, and you will emerge on the other side with a strength and resolve that you never knew you had within you. The rest of your life is an as-yet-unwritten map of joys and blessings, failures and setbacks, triumphs and successes that will make all of this suffering worthwhile. You will know happiness that you couldn’t dream of – most of it found within the family that you don’t understand or get along with now. (There are 10 nieces and nephews that think you’re the greatest uncle ever, for example.) God has a plan for you, and, like the father of the prodigal son, He will be there with open arms when you finally come back home. He will accept you, just as you are.

           But all of that is for later. For now, just know this: the storm will pass, and there will be peace.

           You will find your rainbow.

#christianity #life #personal growth #homosexuality #gay

[takaraphoenix]

Taki Taki!! It's missing you o'clock!! So, tell me, what shows are you watching rn at this hopeless (and Arrowverseless) hours??

Aaaaw, Luuu! *hugs*

I have completely reverted into rewatching shit I trust these days, actually. xD

I don’t know, too many shows have been... disappointments lately - and by lately I mean “when Game of Thrones ended in that shitshow and The Magicians fucked me up real bad, both in like the same fucking month”, it’s honestly been a downhill battle since with ongoing and new shows that disappointed or fucked with me. So after uuuh a few more recent ones, I decided I needed a break from new things that can hurt/disappoint me. :D

I’m rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for at least the 15th time, because it’s just my ultimate TV show comfort food. Rewatching it again for the first time since I started being obsessed with Shadowhunters and I gotta admit, I have a type (...in more ways than one. Show wise, because supernatural demon hunter is just the ultimate genre. But also “actor I will obsess with” wise because Dominic Sherwood and James Marsters... I... I’m weak. And favorite female character wise - look at that cute, sweet, dorky total badass blonde who kicks butt! *side-eyes Kara Danvers*)

Aaand since I got my amazing best friend @kimmycup and my wonderful lovely girlfriend @kunfyouzed to watch Once Upon a Time, I got really eager to rewatch it too and holy shit I forgot just HOW good it is. Like, I knew it was good, because it’s not one of my three favorite shows just because “people pretty, fairy tales real :D”, but I forgot just how good it is?

I have also convinced my parents to give BBC’s Merlin a chance. Because I felt like another rewatch and after all three of us came out of The Witcher utterly bewildered and overly disappointed, I figured the next show we could watch together should be a fun fantasy show! Granted, this one is a very slow going rewatch because yeah, watching with parents is an irregular and a one or two episodes at a time kinda deal. But it’s fun! (Mom likes ‘the pretty boy’, aka Lancelot, and keeps going “Where do I know x from?”, to which I get to play the “Uther is Giles from Buffy, Morgana is Lena from Supergirl, yes that girl from episode one you know her from Torchwood remember that, that was the show where Spike wanted to fuck a poodle, Gwaine’s from Nightshift, Percy is from Umbrella Academy - he was the one with the gorilla body.” :D)

Even anime wise, after the last new anime I had given a chance was just a completely mortifying and disturbing disaster that made me feel uncomfortable in my own skin, I’ve decided to rewatch Cardcaptor Sakura. Though I have now reached the new territory on that show, because I’ve never actually gotten around to watching the Clear Card arc since it was released in 2018, I always pushed it off with “with the next rewatch” so here we are. I hope it’s not going to hurt me. :D”

The only type of media I consume that I still allow new stuff is cartoons, honestly. I’ve recently watched Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - which, if you haven’t seen, I’d definitely recommend based on knowing you like both Kara and Adora, because Kipo is that same brand of protagonist and it is honestly really sweet!

And The Last Kids on Earth, which... zombies... but aside from the zombies it’s a cute found family cartoon set during the apocalypse.

And Owl House!! You should give that a try too, because also total sweetheart protagonist. A girl who learns magic after accidentally walking into a magic realm through a portal. Also very found family-ish.

The latest was Glitch Tech in the past two days, which was really cute? Bit weird - because it’s like... glitches in video games that manifest in the real world and these teens have to take care of them - but weird in a fun way and I love the characters.

So, I highly recommend all the things I just said. The cartoons are all only 1/2 seasons in, so consider checking those out for a short-term commitment and aside from that, I genuinely advise “go rewatch something you love”, not just because most current shows are disappointments but also because there is just... such a sense of comfort in revisiting characters you cherish, rediscovering ships you love and knowing what’s going to happen, if only to the extend that you remember it pleased you, because that’s comfort-knowledge, really.

(But you mentioning Arrowverseless makes me remember that I do have plans of making a Leonard Snart Appreciation Day, where I will binge a playlist of all The Flash episodes with Lenny, because I miss him. ;^;)

#TV Shows #Recommendations #light-miracles

[joi-in-the-tardis]

Top 10 of the 2010′s

I was tagged by both @megabadbunny and @jemsauce to list off my Top Ten of the 2010′s.  So... here goes!

I got my first real job all on my own.  I had had a job previously doing daycare for a friend (who was actually in the process of shutting down her home business).  While that was technically a real job- I had to be finger-printed!- it was pretty much handed to me.  In 2010, I started my baking job.  I know I do a lot of complaining about it... and it’s mostly earned... But, this job was my first step to real freedom.  As angry as I get with the company, they were the only company to call me back in a year of submitting applications.

A few months later I got my first apartment all on my own, also.  I had never lived on my own, having moved from my parents house to living with my best friend and her hubby and then to his parents’ house.  I remember how nervous I was at the thought of spending so much time alone.  What would it be like not to come home to people?  I’m an introvert, but I was used to having people.  I’ve loved the hell out of living by myself.  Sure, I would love to find a partner (for lots of reasons) but this time to myself has taught me how to relax and just be.  Coming home to a space that is all mine was exactly what I needed.  I sometimes wonder if I can being re-domesticated. lol

I took out a loan on a car almost all by myself (my dad co-signed my loan) and paid it off all by myself and when it quit on me recently I bought a brand new car on my own (for real this time).  So much adulting!

I got a kitty of my own.  I’ve had kitty companions all my life, but this one is all mine (and she doesn’t really like anyone else so it’s for the best! ha!).  I won’t sully my previous companions by saying she’s the best kitty ever, but she is the best kitty of this decade.  She’s exactly who I need- smart, sassy, and incredibly cuddly.

I fell in love and got my heart broken.  I know that sounds sad and on my worst days I wonder if it was worth it.  But on all the other days I’m grateful that I know what it felt like- that I was capable of such a strong feeling for someone.

Because I fell in love I wound up on Tumblr!  When those bad days hit I sit and think of all you guys... I wouldn’t know any of you if it weren’t for the heartbreak and you guys are more than worth it.  In my Tumblr time I: fell in love with Doctor Who, discovered David Tennant and subsequently fell for him too, learned that there’s drama in an social setting no matter how nice everyone may seem, but that even in the midst of that you can forge lasting bonds that are worth the trouble.  

Through Tumblr I also discovered a whole new queer vocabulary.  I went through a number of labels before settling on biro ace enby (and I still hold the right to change my mind, all things being fluid).  Bonding with other queer folks here has been a godsend that I hope I repay by trying to pass on all the encouragement that they’ve given me (and that I desperately needed when I was younger).  Special shout out to @skyler10fic who taught me ace labels I didn’t even know existed and who’s transparency and authenticity on this site made me want to be more open, both to myself and others.

I discovered two of the people that I consider my dearest friends: I think my first real chat with @jemsauce centered around accidentally coming out to my best friend as an enby and omg-I-needed-to-talk-to-someone-about-it!  Though, I think there was mutual blog commenting before that.  In any case, it’s spawned what I consider an epic friendship that’s only gotten stronger in the interim.  Jem you’re sharp, strong, funny and supportive in all the best measures.  Your creativity never ceases to amaze me and watching your art continue to bloom/improve has been a pleasure (and especially awesome when it’s mine ngl! haha!).  Our chats are a highlight of my week and each visit with you has been a highlight of the 2010s.  When I’m with you and yours I feel like I’m part of the family.  The other person is @onthedriftinthetardis: from Sour Blob, to my showing up a bit schnockered and upset in your chatbox, to nerding out over dinosaurs (and anything else we find interesting!), to your uncanny ability to curate amazing goodie-boxes...  You are one of the most accepting, supportive, generous, clever (especially with awful puns lol), unfailingly-kind people I know.  I love our serious and silly moments.  Visiting with you and seeing baby turtles (!!!!!) was such a fun time and attending your wedding was an absolute honor.

I rediscovered my love of baking from scratch and sculpting.  I’ve done both all of my life in one form or another... But things really took off this decade.  I discovered that I rather like abstract sculpting thanks to my Bestie’s Art Party Prompts.  I hope to play with more clay in the coming year.  As for the baking... Doing it for a living helped me learn new things and realize some things I thought were hard, just aren’t.  The 2010′s saw me learn how to make bread, bagels, muffins, and oodles of different cookies.  I’m hoping in the next decade I can successfully tackle pastry!

I learned who I was.  I was 24 at the beginning of this decade.  I was dragging around a lot of labels from my teens and early twenties... Things that people told me I was.  Half-baked ideas of who I might be.  Crippling fears and uncertainties abounded.  But, really?  My life as something that was wholly mine started in 2010.  My job, my car, my home, my cat, my art, my found family.  I hope to walk in to the 2020′s with all that to bolster me as I find more self-discovery and keep working towards improvement.

Some other names I would like to drop (please if you’re not listed... assume I’m a doof before you assume I don’t love you!): @davinasgirlfriend // @wordsintimeandspace // @draco9236 // @creativebec // @ktrosesworld // @chocolatequeennk // @fleurdeneuf // @maitre-kuroneko // @acreasy1 // @stupidsatsuma // @pellaaearien // @darthtella // @courtxxvincent // @aapicula // @spiritwho // @getbacktoblogwarts // @blueboxesandtrafficcones // @colourinside // @caricature-of-a-witch // @fracturedmind // @lastbluetardis // @thedoctorofsteel // @emeraldlady // @bad-----wolf // @sequencefairy

Also, if I’ve tagged you then you have an excuse to do the thing.  Or if you’re reading it, bless your heart. lols

#top 10 of the 2010's #joi rambles #thanks for the tags!

[lolita-tips]

Where have I been?

I originally wrote this up as a script intended for a youtube video explaining where I’ve been and why I haven’t been keeping up with things very well but I haven’t been able to bring myself to get in front of a camera. I thought I would at least make it into a post to sort of give you all an idea of what’s going on. I’ll put it all under a read-more though since it turned out pretty long.

Hi, I’m Averie. I’m 26 years old and I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about my life lately. I’ve been running Lolita Tips for eight years now but in the last year or so I’ve been a bit removed from it, definitely more than I’d like to be and I sort of feel guilty about it. I keep trying to tell myself that I shouldn’t feel bad, but it’s important to me and there are a lot of people I feel like I’m letting down by not posting more regularly. I guess I just want to talk a bit about where I’ve been and what I’ve been going through. 

Last year I officially moved out of my parents’ place and into my boyfriend’s house. Really it was his parents’ house and for the first few months we actually lived here with them which was a bit of a nightmare for a while, but as of April we’ve officially taken on the mortgage and they moved to Florida. When I moved in I started my first ever full-time job and it has really tested me. It’s nowhere near what I’d like to be doing with my life but as they say, it puts food on the table. I’m a claims adjuster for an auto insurance company which means my job consists of sitting in a cubical making phone calls all day and paying people to fix their cars after accidents. This job has really been putting me under a lot of stress. First of all, I’ve always had pretty bad anxiety when it comes to making phone calls, and after over a year at this job, that still hasn’t changed. Having to spend most of my day doing something that makes me so anxious leaves me really drained by the end of it. Add to it the facts that a lot of the people I have to talk to are in a bad mood, often times I’m calling to give them bad news (“You’re at fault for this accident”, “Your car is a total loss,” etc.), and I’m handling over 100 claims at any given time. So most of the time all I want to do when I get home is lay on the couch and do nothing. I wish I was in a position right now to quit this job but I’ve searched up and down for something else and there’s just nothing close to me that would make any sort of financial sense.

When I do have days where I feel like I can actually get something done, a lot of my time is spent working on the house. As I said before, we bought this house from my boyfriend’s parents and it was pretty dated. I’m someone who likes old things, I collect antiques and often dress in vintage styles, but dingy carpet from the 80s and floral wallpaper that’s probably even older aren’t exactly our taste. So we’ve been taking on a lot of home improvement projects and a lot of the time we sort of feel like we’ve bitten off more than we can chew, particularly when it comes to our budget and stamina. As artsy as I may be, I’ve learned that I hate painting walls so even though we started in December, our living room is only about a third of the way painted. I’m also learning that one of the biggest struggles of being a homeowner is just keeping up with the mess, especially with a dog and two cats, all of whom shed like crazy. And it would be easier if we could do all of this together, but my boyfriend and I have such different work schedules that it’s rare for us to have a same day off to work together. It also just seems like this house has one problem after another. A few months ago we had a leak and had to replace the roof. Now our basement is flooding and we have to tear out the walls of what is supposed to become our craft room. It’s hard to make the house beautiful when you keep having to spend all your resources making it functional.

Everything that has been going on in my life has left me feeling very overwhelmed. It may not seem like a lot from the outside, but when your head is constantly full of “Paint this, sweep this, scrub this, shit I forgot to send that check, how many boxes do I still have to unpack? Is this ours or his parents? Did I schedule an appraiser to look at that car? Holy shit the garden is overgrown where did all these weeds come from I swear we just pulled them out a week ago!” It’s daunting. And it has really had a negative impact on my mental health. I thought my life was going to be grand when I moved out of my parents’ house! I was going to be close to a big city, living with the person I love, and finally feeling like a real adult. But this really is more than I bargained for. It feels like all I really did was trade in the stress and anxiety of a long-distance relationship for the stress of a terrible job and a house that still doesn’t feel like my own. People keep telling me things like “That’s life!” and “Welcome to adulthood!” but I know adulthood isn’t all suffering! I know plenty of adults who have jobs they love and free time to  do stuff that makes them happy, but I feel like I’m stuck in an endless cycle of five-day work weeks, evenings where I’m too depressed and tired to leave the couch, and weekends where I try to cram in as many chores as possible. And thinking about it makes me more depressed! I studied theatre in college, I wanted to be a playwright, I STILL want to be a playwright. I also want to own an antique store, make and sell clothes, travel the country working renaissance faires, any number of things would make me happy; but it feels like any time I have some time to work toward one of my dreams there’s always something more important. 

A few months ago I went to a convention in Pittsburgh. It was the first time I’ve worn Lolita in a long time and it was exciting because there were going to be some big Lolita guests. I told myself I was going to face my fears. I was going to introduce myself to members of my new local Lolita community for the first time since moving here, but I came to the con by myself and the longer it went on, the more alone I felt. I thought it would be great going to all the panels I wanted to see and not basing my schedule on anyone else, but seeing everyone with their friends having a good time brought all these ugly thoughts into my head. I thought, “I’ll never be able to have close Lolita friends like that”, “I’ll never be able to make a living doing the things I love like these designers and Youtubers”, “What kind of Lolita blogger am I if I can’t even go up to other lolitas and introduce myself?” At one point after a panel I went to the bathroom and I heard a group of lolitas whos voices and names I recognized come in. All at once my brain was flooded with “Not good enough”s. I’m not pretty enough, my coord isn’t cute enough, I can’t possibly go out there and interact with these queens. So I locked myself in the stall and waited until everyone left while I cried quietly.

A few hours later there was another lolita panel that was a lot of fun and I had a good laugh and actually sort of felt like I was part of something for a moment. But after that was the J-fashion social. I spent all day trying to convince myself to be brave and not let my anxiety get the better of me, but that was a battle that I quickly lost. I went out onto one of the balconies of the convention center, pacing back and forth while I tried to gather my courage, but the “not good enough”s just came flooding back and I cried harder than I had cried in a long time. The meetup came and went in a panel room behind me as I stared into the night sky of the city that didn’t know I existed. No friends to comfort me, boyfriend at another convention working a booth, and family hours away. I felt completely and utterly alone. But that night I told myself that I was going to make a change. Something, anything, to make my life better.

I know that I can’t cure my depression, or my anxiety. I know that there’s something wrong with my brain and that I’m always going to have bad days and good days, but I also know that I at least owe it to myself to try and turn things around. I may be depressed, but I’d rather be depressed and do things that I love than allow things to continue on the way they have been. After all, I’m the most important person in my life. Nobody will ever be more fundamental to my own happiness than myself.  

I can’t exactly say that I have a plan, but I can say that I’ve been trying. I’ve actually spent a lot of time lately rediscovering things that once brought me joy that I fell out of for one reason or another. For example, I’ve recently started listening to My Chemical Romance again. I remember listening to them as a moody teen who just wanted to seem dark and edgy but going back and listening to the same songs as an adult hits me in a different way. They’re so full of emotion and passion and words that my mind likes to cling to like “I am not afraid to keep on living.” I also recently started watching the Vlog Brothers again. Their channel and pretty much everything they were part of were huge influences on me in high school and early in college so I was really happy to see that they’re still doing stuff. They always help me to remember that even though the world may be a big dumpster fire right now, there are still good people doing good things and there are still a lot of things worth living for. I’ve been working a lot on bettering my life in a lot of ways; I’ve been trying to embrace the Konmari method while working on our house and I’ve been watching a lot of youtube channels about being better with money and spending a lot of time watching ASMR to just try and relax. 

I still have a long way to go, and I know I’m still going to struggle, but I’m thankful to those of you who have stuck with me and will continue to be with me on this journey. Whenever I get on tumblr and see that I still get messages in my inbox it helps me to remember that I am not entirely alone. I know this was sort of a lot, I’m not someone who normally pours my heart out like this, to be honest talking about my mental health makes me worry that I’ll come off as whiney and it makes me pretty nervous, but I felt that I owed it to all of you to explain what’s been going on and I felt that I owed it to myself to get it all out there. Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me through it all. I hope to start making changes in my life get back to making this blog something worth sticking around for.

#personal