❀ *◦ taz skylar. cis male. he/him. pansexual panromantic. ⇝ hey, isn’t that naji harper? i think that the thirty year old from anchorage, alaska, works as a firefighter, youth soccer coach, and a retired professional soccer player, but outside of that people describe them as old t-shirts ruined by bleach splatters; working through the excruciating pain to punish yourself for weakness; being the father figure for your younger sibling; a scrapbook full of handmade cards and letters in kids' handwriting; beaten old soccer boots with mud and grass encrusted between the spikes; sticking up for your friends and family without a second thought; and the waves of heat radiating off a winter bonfire, protecting you from the cold. i hear they are hotheaded & gullible, but they are also known to be dedicated & fun-loving. consider giving them a visit at their home in delilah's den and get to know why they’re called the ardent.
➙ the character may express attraction to people of any gender, though the writer is most comfortable writing romantic & sexual relationships if they are mlm or nblm with a masc-presenting enby!
full name: naji maruf harper
nicknames: his name is already so short, what else would you do with it? he won't fight against 'naj' though. former teammates and eventually fans would call him 'harp' for short sometimes
dob: 11 october 1994
place of birth: anchorage, alaska
languages: english (native); arabic (basic—he didn't grow up with the lebanese part of his family so he's been trying to connect to that part of himself); swedish (basic—he played in sweden for a couple of soccer seasons)
education: high school diploma
strengths: dedicated; confident; daring; good-natured; self-reliant; resilient; enthusiastic; supportive; assertive
weaknesses: gullible; hotheaded; abrasive; impatient; vindictive; reactionary; conceited; argumentative
hobbies: video games (particularly grand theft auto); pickup basketball; scrapbooking; watching tv and movies (he didn't see much when he was growing up or during his soccer career, so he's catching up); collecting seashells; rock climbing; yoga
likes: pretty much all animals; pretty much all kids; being outdoors; dancing (even if he's not very good); most food
dislikes: confined spaces; seltzer (hard and regular); vodka; turtlenecks; hot tea;
disabilities & health: he shattered his knee a couple years ago and had it replaced, so he does have some occasional recurring pain and still goes to physical therapy; undiagnosed adhd; tinnitus
a click signifies the beginning of a tape playing in a vhs; and a career highlight reel plays, beginning with grainy handheld camcorder footage of a youth recreational soccer game. the camera zooms in on a boy with a mop of dark hair, playing striker. the next clip is a reel of high school games over four years, following a boy with floppy dark hair, playing striker, running faster than everyone else. next is a clip from sports news coverage, announcing naji harper, 18, from anchorage, alaska, being drafted to the vancouver whitecaps. clip after clip plays of flashy goals, and assists too, following changes of team colors and kits.
the excitement dies down with a clip of referees and a team trainer surrounding a downed player in the middle of a match. the paramedics are entering the field with the board, ready to carry off the injured man. being carried off is a dishonor—even if you’re injured, even if you need assistance to walk, you want to be able to walk yourself off the pitch. the bodies part, and naji harper, the striker wearing kit number 10, is grimacing, tears running down his face, but shaking his head. he makes attempts to sit up by himself, but everyone watches on in horror. it’s clear he can’t get himself up. he’s quickly loaded onto the board, strapped down, and transported out of the stadium.
the penultimate clip is from a podcast discussing naji harper’s season-ending injury: shattering his knee against the outer post of the goal.
the final clip is news coverage from a week later, announcing the forceful retirement of naji harper, only twenty-seven, whose knee needed to be replaced entirely.
the boy was never expected to amount to much, judging by his origins. he only has a few blurry memories of his father; but for most of his childhood it was just naji and his mom, julie harper. julie worked two jobs, sometimes three, to keep them afloat in low-income housing. recreational soccer cost a bit of money, but it gave naji something to do while julie was busy working to keep food on the table. and early on, naji lived for the beautiful game. his stubbornness and audacity made him perfect for the position of forward—although it started a years-long career of earning cautions for aggression and fouls.
by the time he reached high school, it became increasingly clear that the boy was bound for greatness. he didn’t care much for school itself, skating by with grades just high enough to keep him on the team. he was also marked by coaching staff as perhaps not the best example of a leader, due to his temper and occasional selfishness. so he never got to be captain of the team, but he was still a star and everyone knew it.
while he was in high school, julie became pregnant by her boyfriend at the time. she wasn’t quite yet forty, but it was still a shock. julie was never the best at picking out men, unfortunately, and the father ghosted her before the baby was even born. naji’s little sister was named isabelle. he was tasked with helping his mom take care of the baby, which he was resentful of at first; but he soon grew to bond with her. julie and izzy were always the most important people in naji’s life: he wanted to do well and be able to support them, so julie didn’t have to work so hard and izzy could follow her own dreams someday.
being drafted into major league soccer straight out of high school was a dream come true, even if he wasn’t starting for his first season and only ended up on the bench a handful of times. his professional debut came as a late-game substitute, when his team had already scored four goals to the visitor’s single one; it was a surefire win, so the veterans got to rest their legs and the rookie filled out the rest of the ninety minutes. naji didn’t get to do much; but that was only the beginning for the shooting star. in his second season in vancouver, he was on the bench far more often; and he even got to start a few times when the starting forwards were injured or resting, giving naji the opportunity to show the loyal fans—and the world—what he was really capable of.
naji harper became the name on many fans’ lips, the hotshot rookie with something to prove. he cut his hair short and bleached it practically white, creating his signature look that he still wears now, contrasting neatly with his tan skin and his brilliant blue eyes. he was always a difficult one to forget, between his looks and his aggressive style of playing. he was a target for every opposing team, on a collision course to foul the high-flying striker, earning naji lots of bumps and bruises and nose bleeds over the years.
five beautiful years in vancouver came to a bittersweet ending when naji was transferred to djurgårdens IF fotbollsförening, a top-flight club in stockholm, sweden. still hungry to prove himself in an entirely new continent, naji became well-known, if a bit controversial for his rougher style of play, labeling him as a brutish american. he scored goals, though, and kids loved watching him; and just like in vancouver, he was many children’s hero.
two seasons of fun in stockholm passed, and naji’s contract was over with; but his agent landed him a spot in san antonio, texas, on the united soccer league team, in the second tier of the american men’s soccer pyramid. it was unusual for a player like him to “step down,” so to speak, but he was offered a good deal and all but guaranteed a spot on the starting roster. the acquisition was a popular news story, and the fans were excited to have him there representing their city. and the supernova continued to burn bright, scoring one of the highest numbers of goals in a season in the league.
it was another one of those goals that took him out. in his third season in san antonio, his team was rewarded with a corner kick, and naji was lined up near the goal ready to help get the ball into the net. it had been a chippy game, with tensions rising between both teams. when the kick was taken, there was more shoving and a scuffle, and the flurry of activity happened so fast: naji found himself in excruciating pain while the crowd was cheering, though everything died down quickly when attention was brought to him laying on the pitch, paralyzed in pain. the goalkeeper of the opposing team called for help, god bless him, and the rest of naji’s team surrounded him until their trainer came out to check him out.
he had scored the goal, but in the process, his knee had slammed into the post, shattering it. there was no fixing it, of course, meaning a knee replacement at the tender age of twenty-seven. it was definitely a season-ender for him: no way he’d have enough time to heal from surgery and then get through enough therapy to render him fit enough to play again that season. but the prognosis quickly turned much worse, thanks to all the wear and tear his body had taken before. he was so determined to overcome the injury, to fight against his weakness. he couldn’t give up the game: who would he be without it? and how would he support his mother and his sister? despite his ferocious arguments, he had people all around him advising him not to try playing anymore.
as he wallowed in his hospital bed, his san antonio teammates came to check on him. and then came in letters and cards from canada; and after that, the ones all the way from sweden, postmarked everywhere from stockholm to tiny towns up north he’d never heard of. everyone wishing him well. it made his heart ache. there was nothing more that he wanted than to get back out on the pitch; but he was advised that continuing his rough style of play would end in an even bigger disaster for him, as it had already taken such a toll on his body, independent of the knee injury. the previous broken bones, the torn muscles—he had burned too brightly far too soon.
with his footballer career surely over, once he was free from the hospital in texas, naji packed up and moved back up to anchorage and in with his mom and his sister, into the cozy delilah’s den house he had helped julie purchase. he moped a while in between going to physical therapy and keeping an eye on izzy while julie was at work; but a gentle nudge from his mom sparked something alight in naji again: he focused his energy on therapy and getting better, and began training to become a firefighter, which had been his “backup plan” as a kid. he was most nervous about passing the physical, as the knee injury and replacement and subsequent therapy could have rendered him ineligible. his tenacity, though, helped him in the end; and he's been a firefighter for a bit more than a year now.
his sexual orientation has been a little bit of an issue for him—everybody is well aware of the toxic masculinity that is deeply ingrained within men’s sports. naji had begun feeling dread in high school when he realized he liked looking at his teammates a little too much in the locker room, or even on the pitch. he kept himself inside the closet during his pro career out of fear, occasionally hooking up on the down-low. now, he’s inching out of the closet, no longer feeling the fear of ostracization among teammates or fans or coaching staff. confident and flirtatious with women, the habit hasn’t quite translated over to other people he’s attracted to just yet, often being a little demure and sweet. he’s always hated confined spaces, though, and he’s ready to come barreling out.
another lucrative offer landed in naji's lap. well, more of a question: he was invited to fill in an opening for a coach in the youth soccer league he'd played in as a kid. it wouldn’t be paid, so they understood if he turned it down. but it was a connection back to the beautiful game, the one that still ran through his veins. so now he also gets to coach the nine and ten year olds, who might be a little too young to remember his original career as a star; but the opportunity has helped him from the depression he was going through after his forcible retirement. he loves those damn kids, who like climbing all over him like a big brother.
(the parents also fawn over him, too, whether they're fans of him or just think he's pretty.)
he still lives with his mom and his sister. izzy is thirteen now; and naji is the one picking her up from school and helping her with homework, and going to izzy's school events when julie can't, making sure she's healthy and cared for.
the VHS tape ends, but there's a scrapbook open on the table. pasted inside are crayon drawings of himself in soccer uniforms, polaroids of parties and old team members goofing off, photos of naji in his firefighter uniform with kids visiting the firehouse—some of them being kids he coaches—and photos of himself and isabelle over the years, starting with the day she was born, her dressed up for school plays, her dressed in a soccer kit in the rec league, and the family of three enjoying the summer midnight sun.
