#religion makes a good excuse but it’s not the root problem the root problem is that people are kind of dicks

[soath]

shut up about killing the gods, shut up about killing the gods, the only character who deserves a handwritten apology from every civic leader in exandria and a basket of fruit is Miss Evoroa Bormodo. imagine having to listen to the rulers of your blue promise discuss slaughtering your entire world for the crime of existing in proximity to what is dangerous to them! angel you shouldn’t have had to grovel like that and make the case for your own civilization’s right to survive. the mvp of first contact, no one is doing it like her and no one should have to.

[germiyahu]

I would like to politely request that if you find yourself not understanding the point of my posts, don't engage with them. Don't embarrass yourself.

Because I certainly don't want to have to point out the irony of a person reacting to my (long winded) wry post about how uninformed uninterested Americans project and misinterpret the motivations, on a societal level, of Israelis and Palestinians... in a way that completely confirms that. You don't understand Zionism, point blank. You have not done your research, you do not understand why Jews for their entire history have yearned to return to Eretz Yisrael, and so you lie about that history, or you uncritically regurgitate other people's lies that you've heard about it.

You don't expect better of Muslims either, and there's a reason I only mentioned how people like you interpret this conflict to be about Jews vs Muslims, so do not pretend you care about the maybe 10% of Palestinians who are Christians. I note that the antizionist crowd routinely erases Bedouins, Druze, Samaritans, Circassians, Christian and Muslim Arabs who choose an Israeli identity over a Palestinian one. Not a single antizionist can mention the actual diversity of Israeli society without acting like their teeth are being pulled. So spare me.

My post was a (long winded and wry) assessment of what I have seen and what I think the general slacktivist Left conceive of Israel and Palestine. That it's a conflict between enlightened secular Christian-Lite white people who should know better, who should be over things like wanting a return to Zion... and what you see as noble savage barbaric Muslims who at least live a good honest non capitalist life, and we as the West owe them whatever they want because the War on Terror was horrific, yes.

But in the process you 1) erase the Jewish heritage and connection to their indigenous homeland, and replaces every single motivation for Zionism as racist imperialist bloodthirsty greed. Have fun gaslighting all of us as to how that's not blood libel. And you 2) excuse suicide bombing, targeting civilians, stabbing and driving over random people, mass shootings, war rape, hostage taking, torture, making fun little games out of torture... you'll excuse everything Hamas and their allied groups do in the name of "resistance," not just because you dehumanize Jews, but because I believe you really don't think Muslims are capable of being better than that. And because yeah, they're attacking Jews, who you view as privileged and annoying and the root of all problems in the world, so that's another reason not to expect better of them.

It ignores that there are tens of millions of Muslims who care about democracy, human rights, coexistence, peace... a lot of them are Palestinians. But you don't listen to them, you don't let them take the lead in their own liberation movement. You cheer on fascists because that's what a Muslim is in your head. Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, now the Houthis: masked insurgents who have no regard for the sanctity of human life, no regard for their own people, sadistic manchildren who are only interested in enriching themselves and causing pain in the world, thinly scaffolded with the most cruel interpretations of a religion that a billion people follow. The only difference between you and your conservative racist parents is that you think the terrorists are the good guys now.

But thanks for stopping by :)

[kienansidhe]

hi, im kienan! im the current host of the disaster hearts system. we are a korean american body with dissociative identity disorder and have had multiple diff hosts over the course of this blogs run. i or some variation of me have been host since around 2017-18ish. for transparencys sake, the body is 25+. do not ask abt age specifics please.

we are a survivor of csa trauma, parental abuse, religious and cult abuse, and generally very traumatized, and our experience of life is irrevocably colored by that lens.

we are disabled and unable to hold a job ever since we got long covid in april of 2020. we are fully dependent on our partners, working on our disability application, and still coming to terms with the reality of being probably permanently disabled.

unless otherwise specified it is probably some variation of kienan speaking.

-♡♡♡-

i, kienan, am queer and i prefer to be addressed by strangers with he/they/it or fae/faeself pronouns. i dont rlly care which of those you use, tho, no need to rotate or anything.

some other labels that generally describe me: nonbinary, transmasc, gnc, cuntboy, [redacted], [redacted], femme, femboy, genderweird, bi, aro/ace with a couple exceptions, sex favorable, kink obligate, freak, degenerate, pervert.

i currently have 4 partners, referred to here as prettyboyfriend, nesting boyfriend, girlfriend/daddy, and moirail.

no dni, i think theyre stupid and the only ppl i would not want to interact would not respect dnis anyways lmao. if i have a problem with you i will just say so or block you or whatever.

some of my beliefs and what to expect on this blog are under the cut.

i believe in rehabilitation and compassion, full stop. yes, even for those people. i think that othering and dehumanizing others sucks, that thoughts do not define you (yes, even those thoughts), and that the only thing that matters is your actions.

i think callouts are never helpful, ever. ive literally never seen one do anything helpful or good.

i try my best to interact with others in good faith, and i expect the same in return.

we were homeschooled in a cult and our education was heavily ~moderated~ to keep us brainwashed, and every time i think ive rooted out all the misinfo new stuff comes up. please be patient with me if i ask stupid questions, i literally am stupid. i have so much literal actual brain damage. i will do my best to be open minded, i rlly want to learn!

i believe that the best ways to combat csa are better sex education, breaking down the sanctity of the nuclear family, youth liberation (more legal rights and self advocacy for children), and not clogging child abuse report portals with fucking fictional art, jesus h christ.

medicalization of identities sucks. sysmeds, transmeds, im sorry youre miserable but thats not an excuse for trying to make everyone else miserable with you.

labels are only useful insofar as they help you connect with others like you and form solidarity in order to combat systemic oppression. if labels make you angry or miserable, consider not taking them so seriously.

its okay to just dislike ppl. its not always that deep. trying to come up with moral reasons to justify disliking ppl is rlly fucking catholic.

dont talk to me abt christianity. im aware that my trauma affects my ability to be compassionate in this area, so im staying in my lane. in fact probably dont talk to me abt religion in general.

im not a proshipper or an anti i touch grass <3, HOWEVER:

antishipping / purity politics / anti-kink / whatever you wanna call it, ppl equating fictional depictions of Obvious Bad Things with condoning, supporting, or normalizing them in real life are fucking stupid and have done unbelievable amounts of damage that has now reached far beyond fandom and kink circles. get a life, for fucks sake.

ppl who call themselves proshippers and then go around harassing antis are fucking stupid and have lost the original spirit of the term proship / anti-anti, which hinged around not harassing or harming others over fiction. get a life, for fucks sake.

just be kind. dont be a dick. treat others how you wanna be treated. we are all traumatized but thats not an excuse to be cruel. leave the world better than you found it.

youre gonna make mistakes. you just are. youre not perfect and also the world is complex. remember that you cant help everyone. try your best but dont lose yourself in the process.

art is everything. the act of creation is holy. more progress is made by creating -- building communities, making art, growing plants, building houses, building relationships -- than by tearing things down. there is probably a time and place for violence, destroying oppressive systems, bombing weapons factories, but if we arent creating a positive, healthy society alongside the destruction we are just leaving fertile ground for new oppressive structures to take root. create. create. create.

-♡♡♡-

many hosts has left a chaotic mess of tags on this blog but here are some we use pretty consistently:

#headspace: original posts. diary rambling, random thoughts, actual semi coherent opinions, anything

#my face: the body

#humans are good actually: reminders

#recovery things: mental health help

#important: there is so much stuff in this tag

#bookmark: too much here too lol

#feel better: just fluffy stuff

#vine: general funny video tag

#about, #me kin id, #i ghostwrote this post: stuff we relate to rlly hard + uquiz tags lol

#posts that are funnier when plural

[aka-click]

A Conversation on Trans-phobia

My friend came to me with an honest question, and it led to great a conversation. She gave me permission to share it because it is a very important conversation.

Friend: Not work related question. Do you think I'm transphobic because I don't want to be called a cis-woman?

Me: Specifically no, but I wonder why you have an issue with a straightforward technical term. Could the issues be rooted in transphobic rhetoric, possibly. I don't know that.

Friend: I don't think so. I just figure that if other people can be called what they want why can't I.

Me: Cis is a prefix simply meaning same as… You identify as the gender you were assigned at birth, the cis. Same as.

Friend: I know what it means.

Me: That is literally all you mean. Technically, if you aren't cis, then you are trans. It's just a part of the conversation to keep things clear. When some people say "Women" they only mean cis-gendered women.

When some people say it, they mean anyone who identifies as a woman.

It clarifies the conversation.

I mean, you can say "I don't want to be called a homosapien", but that doesn't change the fact that you are one.

However, as I said, without closer examination, there is no way to know if the fact that you don't like it stems from transphobic roots are not. If it does, then you likely have some unconscious bias towards transphobia. However, knowing that and what you do with it make all the difference in the world.

Unfortunately, all these isms aren't as black and white a topic as the media and some people make out.

Unconscious bias isn't really talked about a lot. And while, overtly we do not display phobic or ism behaviors and may actually actively fight as allies, it doesn't stop us from being a part of the problem through microaggressions that come from the biases we are not always aware of

Me: So I guess the important thing here is to find out the why. Multiple times. Until you're sick of asking yourself why. Cause the first answer is never the root. lol

Friend: Maybe I do have an unconscious bias. I'm not making up excuses, but a lot of it has to do with how I was raised. But when someone calls me out on something (politely) I will take a look at myself. And that comes with different religions, ethnicities etc. as well. I have done a lot of soul searching, especially when I moved out west away from my family and around more open people.

But I still want to be called a woman not a cis-woman.

Me: Exactly. And, to be honest, the most common reason people don't like being called cis is because the opposite word is trans, and they view that as a slur. (not saying this is your reason, just that it is a common one).

And I am sure there are some trans woman who feel the same way, They just want to be called a woman.

Friend: No I don't look at trans as a slur, but I do look at cis as a slur. I know that it isn't. I think it is because the people that I see saying it are obnoxious, rude and insulting.

If a transwoman tells me they don't want to be called trans then I won't call them trans. I will probably call them by their name anyway.

Me: You probably hear it more as a slur because it is most often used in conversation when talking about TERFs - the "feminists" who think only cis women are real women. And that is where seeing cis as a slur starts. And while I know you don't feel that way, that is where the conversation starts. It's an insult to them and they also treat it that way because to them, there is no other definition of a woman.

Friend: I guess so.

Me: It's just food for thought. I know you, I know you're a good person and you are not transphobic, but these conversations are good to have.

Friend: I completely agree with that.

[hearthgender-hub]

Hearthgender System (Coining Post)

Please do not archive elsewhere without asking, I don't want anything lost in translation, I am okay with people molding it to fit their needs but I'd like the original definition to stay somewhat intact for archive purposes.

Welcome to the coining post for the Hearthgender system. It will have a carrd soon! This gender system has been several years in the writing and is very personal to me. I hope others can enjoy it as well and it might apply to them too.

A gender system centered around being at your core, the hearth of a home. Connected to loyalty, kindness, genuineness, as well as family (However you define the above, and this gender is not tied to morality). This system is also paternal/maternal(or any family variants of any gender or lack thereof) in nature, as well as feeling gentle and fair but still strong. But you can pick and choose why it applies to you if it resonates with you! It can be used as a gender descriptor umbrella or a gender in itself. (Much like Transgender/Nonbinary/Genderquer etc)

Misc things/aesthetics associated with the gender system: Fire, hearths, flint, mantles, baking, cooking, plants, roots, full tables, full houses, full tables, the sounds of laughter, camaraderie, peace, hospitality.

You can add anything before/after hearth to better describe yourself. “Hearthqueer” “Hearthboy” “Hearthfemme” "demihearth" etc.

Gender terms and pronouns:

You can use any sort of gender or person descriptors, but feel free to play around with fireplace/hearth terms or den/den dwelling animals to find some terms that fit you!

Who might be interested in this gender system?

Those who feel their gender is Paternal/Maternal or any other gendered/non-gendered variants, including but not limited to: brotherly, sisterly, siblingly. Any gender terms can be used as the head, hub, or glue of a family does not have to be a parent(s) or any specific family member. Family is whatever you make it and whatever you call it. This gender is just very "family homemaker" in nature.

Someone who feels a connection to the heart of homes.

Those who feel a connection to hearths.

Someone who's genders feels homey.

This gender might also be a good replacement for former hp fans who felt a gender tie to hufflpuff house!

Personally, I identify as Hearthboy/hearthbxy because I feel like my gender is related to being father and a brother but not a man or a boy, but also like my gender is related to being a hearth of a home and a homemaker.

This gender system will NOT be gate-kept in any way. It is not exclusive to any one race, religion, gender, sexuality, ability, etc. You can mix and match and do what you'd like.

However, to be clear this gender is not, and was never intended to be:

An excuse to push “Nuclear family is best” or "blood family is better" crap you decide your family and a family can be anything. 

Heteronormative/cisnormative.

Enforcing gender roles.

Also not an excuse to judge people who do not want any kinds of human connection.

Anyone using this to be hateful or harmful has their own problems to sort out.

Current flag: The stripes do not have meanings on their own. The flag itself represents a hearth inside of a den. Under the sky and the ground there is a fire, and the design is mirrored. Another version includes a daisy with a stylized flaming ring to reference roots/putting down roots into a hearth. The flag is muted in an attempt to give a non-offensive(to the eyes) homey feel. I did not go with a tree due to wanting to use different plants. If the flag feels too similar to something else let me know.

[florenceisfalling]

y'know there is something to be said about how many atheist circles (including those that rub elbows with occultism/witchcraft) that pride themselves in being anti-religion are built on an inflated sense of superiority over the Delusional Mass Of Religious Sheep where these atheists and those like them Are The Only Rational People and the way those circles will always, invariably, devolve into being vaguely pro-eugenics, religious intolerant as fuck (while claiming religious intolerance is the proof religion is the root of all evil) and espousing white supremacist talking points (not to mention the like actual white supremacists lol)

okay attempting to answer this TWO! because tumblr hates me :(

YEAH

tbh i am v frustrated by the tendency of some ppl on both sides (not tryin to be generalizing, this isnt abt everyone just Certain People) to be aggressively moralizing about atheism. like Obviously people are gonna think their own beliefs are superior, thats why they believe em in the first place. but it drives me bonkers whenever some ~progressive agnostics~ who claim to believe in religious freedom turn around and shit on atheists for "not being spiritual or emotional enough" which is stupid bc the whole point of religious freedom is that you have the liberty to NOT be religious too! and then you have some atheists who act like they're right because everyone else is sooo stupid while ignoring the many many reasons someone might be religious other than just "make-believe"!! reminds me of when ppl talk about how crazy it is that anyone could fall for "obvious" cult tactics bc they have no understanding of how cult behaviors can exist outside of the stereotype of a spooky commune with a fake jesus leader

and goodness gracious atheism is just as fucking fine as anything else Obviously. and tbh i respect it enough if someone being straightup anti-theist on a political level if they genuinely believe that religion is the root of the problem and Acknowledge That after genuine thought . but some ppl will do shit like take a snippet of religious text and strip it from all context/interpretation/etc while waving it around like Evidence that Religion Is Silly and thats it

there is also this annoying divide between ppl who are chill with big religion and not with more niche personal beliefs and vice versa. like u get ppl who think christianity, islam, etc are fine and excusable (regardless of whether they believe in it or not) bc they have "cultural value" but dunk on peoples less popular practices bc they think it must be some mental problem or just "too weird!" ... and on the flip side youve got people who are fine with the personal beliefs they think will always remain harmless while opposing bigger religions under the assumption that every single believer's practice of them must fit neatly into the category of Oppressor. but that is somewhat a less relevant conversation and im starting to experience very weird vertigo shit rn so im gonna stop staring at a screen god bless

[powertrumpeter]

Root Causes Of Ethnic Conflicts And Civil Wars.

Tribalism, nepotism, and religious bigotry of country’s rulers, are the major causes of ethnic conflicts or civil wars. For instance in African, puppet rulers are discriminatory in their style of governance. They use divide-and-rule tactics. They focus much more attention to their tribesmen, and people of same religion. These they believe will perpetuate them in power, even if they are empting the treasury. They do the bidding of their so-called colonial masters, who thrive in conflicts.

It’s a well known fact that these self-imposed colonial masters, fuel crisis in their former colonies, for their selfish reasons. Through crisis or wars, they supply arms and ammunition; making millions, and plundering the natural resources of those countries. Colonial masters like Britain and France, aid and abet; tribalism, nepotism, and religious bigotry, of mostly aging civilian dictators in African countries. Some of them have been in power foe decades. They wipe up tribal and religious sentiments to rig elections, and remain in office perpetually.

Colonial overlords are war mongers. They stir up and magnify crisis in other countries; in order to enable them export their deadly weapons, to the country rulers to kill their own citizens. Britain is not known to have mineral resources, or a major manufacturer of goods. It relies mostly for its survival, on stealing by tricks of other countries’ natural resources, and supply of killer weapons at exorbitant prices. It makes gains by cheating on others. That imperialist nation will go bankrupt, if there’re no wars or conflicts in other nations.

This has given impetus to dictators, and ill-educated rulers across the continent, to oppress their own people. They are assured of military support, in case of any rebellion against their government. Therefore, they divide and rule the people along ethnic and religious lines. That’s why in Nigeria, authoritarian rulers oppress and subjugate minority tribes with impunity. The latter are scarcely represented in governance. Civilian dictators and military juntas, are also religious fanatics. They condone religious and ethnic cleansing, terrorism, banditry, and killings all over the place. They have confidence of support from Britain, the traditional supplier of weapons to them, will suppress any opposition to their authority. Those opposed to their high-handedness are tagged rebels or guerillas.

They shuttle London for one flimsy excuse or the other. Britain is a safe haven, for African dictators who loot their countries’ treasuries and kill their perceived enemies with impunity. They flee there to hide their stolen wealth, in the guise of medical treatment. These rogues can spend millions to treat common ear problem or stomach pain; while their people a dying daily of hunger, related ailment, and lack of medical care. They are partners with that imperialist country, in siphoning our purse.

Our tribal and illiterate rulers, have devised another means of siphoning our oil money. They enrich their idle and lazy kinsmen, through ransom paying in kidnapping business. These unscrupulous Presidents, back proliferation of ethnic-based terrorist groups. The latter adopt innocent and law-abiding citizens, and demand for ransom running into millions. Government officials promptly pay the millions to their kinsmen, and the captive are released. Many of them suffer a lot in the hands of their captors. Some get raped and killed. Those terrorist officials, are in the business of negotiating, and sharing of ransom, with those kidnappers/ritual killers. None of them has ever been arrested, prosecuted and convicted. Terrorism and banditry in Nigeria, are essentially conflicts between Fulanis the terrorists, and the rest of the country.

Fulani terrorist/Jihadists, are in the business of invading and taking over people’s ancestral lands. They invade Plateau, Benue and other places in Middle Belt States regularly. And nobody does anything about it. As well, they have taken over some forests in Yoruba land. But, they are finding it very hot and difficult in Biafra land. They have practically been chased out of our forests.

Those disguised Fulani cattle rearers, are on primitive Jihad war. Of course, they are being financed by their Northern elite; who have fifty percent share of their ransom money. Most of their sponsors are top government functionaries. They are on a mission to take over people’s land, after killing and displacing them. They will fail in their expansionist mission.

The conflict going on in Biafra is multi-dimensional one. The immediate past, Fulani illiterate dictator and impostor, introduced religious dimension to it. He gathered terrorists, including the ones from neighbouring countries like Niger and Chad. Then, he armed and sent them to Biafra, on a killing spree. Also he massively recruited terrorists into the Armed Forces, and sent them Biafra land to fight us. Their mission was to capture our land, kidnap, kill and receive ransom. Part of the ransom will be used to purchase sophisticated weapons. Then, they will fight and conquer Biafra; and turn it to Fulani colony, with the backing of Nigerian Armed Forces.

That is why terrorists, Jihadists, and other criminally minded gangs, work hand in hand with the armed forces. But, they are not finding it funny in Biafra. This is because our people have organized themselves into formidable self-defence against our enemies. Our people have learnt their lessons from the previous civil war. No amount of assistance from Britain and others, will enable them to turn our land to Fulani colony, and refugee camps…https://powertrumpeter.org/blog1/the-lord-of-host-watches-over-earth/

[thatmcgwords]

Constantly, creative people find it extremely difficult to complete what they start, they are usually distracted by the numerous ideas occasionally flowing through their minds. ~ Marie Forleo

“Identify thought patterns of the mind that prevent one from learning something new and vaccinate against them. The first thought virus is “I know this already” and the second thought virus is “This won't work for me.””

Instead of I know this already, think more of What can I learn from this? And instead of This won't work for me, think more of How can this work for me? ~ Marie Forleo

“Rule 1: All problems (or dreams) are figureoutable

Rule 2: If a problem is not figureoutable, then it is either a fact of life or a law of nature

Rule 3: The problem or dream you want to figure out must be something you are passionate about for Rule 1 to apply

Quantum theorist David Deutsch says, “Everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge.” So, test it, apply it, experience it, and live it.”

“The movies, stories, and books we've come across have taken a journey from the world of unmanifest to manifest. From formless ideas to concrete reality. The mind is a piece of magical creation machinery and is the birthplace of every extraordinary idea we've come across and even major breakthroughs encountered in human history.”

Everything in the material world is initially created on the level of thought. ~ Marie Forleo

“Everything that exists in our world exists in our minds first. That is the universal gift that's been bestowed upon us to help shape our lives, and collectively the world that surrounds us. The creation process starts from thoughts, then moves on to the feeling. Subsequently, feeling begets behavior and behavior produces results.

Deep inside our thoughts lies an even deeper and more rooted force that directs and takes control of our lives. This deeply rooted commanding force is our beliefs. They are the hidden scripts that run our lives. It is something you know totally and with absolute certainty. A thought you've consciously or unconsciously decided is the Truth.”

“The environment we live in programs our brain with beliefs about almost everything, ranging from love, health, sex, our bodies, money, religion, beauty, relationships, other people, and the world at large. Close experiences to further cement those beliefs about ourselves, others and the world at large.

And naturally, all these beliefs are sometimes influenced by hand-me-down beliefs, both positive and negative, which stacks up over time and begin to become stronger and deeply rooted, transforming who we are, and what makes up our reality.”

“Find inspiring examples through biographies, whether alive or dead, famous or unknown, watch movies, listen to interviews, or even simply pay attention to the good people in your life.

You may have no examples in looking for inspiration, yet there is the belief in what possibly burns so brightly in your heart thereby devoting your life to making it a reality.”

Research has shown how belief affects our physical well-being and our cognitive performance. ~ Marie Forleo

You are 100% responsible for your life. ~ Marie Forleo

You have more power than you think. ~ Marie Forleo

“If you allow them, excuses can be dream killers. They can keep you locked in a prison of your own making. As the adage goes, if you argue your limitations, you get to keep them. We can always find something to blame for our lack of results if we want to, but nothing is more detrimental to our long term success than an untrained mind.

Do not allow any excuse space in your head or heart. Use the stories of those who can become touchstones for your mental and emotional strength, people whose stories of relentlessness and determination of you, use to keep your life in perspective.”

“There are cognitive strategies that can transform fear into a productive and creative fuel. Some of them are:

• Explore fear as your GPS

• Leverage your language

• Think about a specific time you failed and mine the gold from that. What are the three good things that came from it? What lessons were learned? What valuable understanding did you now have that you wouldn't have otherwise?

Be curious and listen to your fear, the helpful positive signals your fears might be sending you.”

I win or I learn, but I never lose. ~ Marie Forleo

“Writing down your dreams forces you to be clear and specific about what you want, even as basic as it is, most people still haven't cultivated the habit of writing down what is most important to them. Ambiguity is the greatest enemy of accomplishment.”

“Focus and get real about your dreams, select the dream you feel most drawn to from the list you've made, circle it, and ask yourself how important the dream is to you at that moment. Note that you have to be honest with yourself when answering that question.

If perhaps you were able to circle more than one dream, narrow it down to one because it is important to narrow it down. That single dream will serve as the training ground to mastering the figureoutable philosophy. Develop the ability to focus and concentrate and in doing so, you are cultivating a set of mental strengths and behavioral habits that will assist you in accomplishing your goals. Trying to multitask at this stage is a recipe for failure and frustration.

Convert your dream into something specific, measurable, and actionable.”

Take small consistent steps towards your goals Instead of procrastinating because progress is better than waiting for perfection. ~ Marie Forleo

“Determining your next 3 steps and getting started on them. What are those 3 simple actions to take in getting closer to that eventual goal of figuring it out? What could be done in 10 minutes or less, the first of which could be done right?.

Focusing on small active steps like making a phone call or setting up an appointment and if you must research, how you can make that research more hands-on. Train yourself to move towards discomfort, put yourself in scary and intimidating situations because that is where the figureoutable magic lies.”

Always direct your energy, attention, and efforts to what you can control and not what you can't. ~ Marie Forleo

“Here are what will always be in your control: your words, actions, behavior, attitude, perspective, focus, effort, and every. Also, you are in control of how you respond to certain events and circumstances as they occur, whether you like them or not.

Here's what's never within your control: other people and their words, actions, behaviors, attitudes e.t.c. you are not in control of the weather, acts of God, or natural laws that govern our existence (e.g, gravitational force).

Making a lifelong commitment to cultivating social intelligence because, at some point, all dreams require cooperation or at least harmonious interaction with others. This includes learnable disciplines like the act of persuasion, influence, marketing, and sales, even when you think you might not need those skills.”

You can do whatever you set your mind to if you just roll up your sleeves, get in there and do it. Everything is figureoutable. ~ Marie Forleo

“Most times we are struggling with how to try and fit into the societal construct rather than figuring out what works for us. Long before becoming a fully functioning adult, you are expected to choose one well-paying thing to be, incur debts to get educated on that one thing, and therefore stick to that choice for the next forty-plus years, praying you'll earn enough to one day retire and not die broke. Not only is this idea gross, it is dangerous in many ways being that many of us aren't built for that kind of narrow, long-term focus. While some people are happy and devoted to a single field, some of us are multi-passionate creatives.

Progress begins with making a brave decision to start even before you are ready, this will therefore fast track your learning and growth. Action spawn courage, not the other way round. It generates motivation, so instead of waiting for inspiration to strike, action implores you to keep going. Value growth and learning over comfort and certainty, do not mistake procrastination for extensive research and planning.

Where you will gain new skills and capabilities is the growth zone. It is where you will acquire strength and expertise, and produce new results. Then the growth zone becomes your comfort zone.

Confidence increases and all the things that once terrified you no longer scare you, your conviction is strengthened to tackle new sets of challenges and you begin to embrace the uncertainty, vulnerability, and humility inside every learning process. All these cycles are fundamental to mastering the figureoutable philosophy.”

My highlight from Everything is Figureoutable on the Headway app. Start making yours 👇

https://headway.onelink.me/9USK?pid=app_referral&af_web_dp=https%3A%2F%2Fweb.get-headway.com%2Fbook%2Feverything-is-figureoutable&c=highlight&af_siteid=highlights

I wanted to share this thought-provoking idea with you 🤗

Start discovering thousands of them on the Headway app today 👇

https://headway.onelink.me/9USK?pid=app_referral&af_web_dp=https%3A%2F%2Fweb.get-headway.com%2Fbook%2Feverything-is-figureoutable&c=quote&af_siteid=summary_text

My highlight from Everything is Figureoutable on the Headway app. Start making yours 👇

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[dopaminepump]

I wanted to add my pyat' kopeek to this.

The thing is, the books were never that good. They were never even meant to be good. Anne Rice has written "Interview with the Vampire" in a episode of drunkenness prompted by her daughter's tragic passing due to leukemia.

Yes, Anne is far from illiterate and people who found value in her work (which includes me), in my experience, find it in the emotional depth of the prose. You can definitely see that Catholic American background from New Orleans duke it out with Kierkegaard and Sartre in the themes she choses to focus on.

At the same time, her prose is deeply affected by her era and her background. She has been politically active and spoke in support of USA's democratic candidates for presidency on numerous occasions, but is not known for her in-depth manifestos on the nature of it, if you know what I mean.

Moreover, I'm sure her infamy in the fandom endures. After all, she is most infamous as someone who has persecuted people creating transformative works based on her books with avid dedication.

Her problems with white-skin fetishism, under-researching history and focusing on a egotistical male lead to the point of it undermining other stories and narratives are just the tip of the iceberg of the problems in her books that older readers in the fanbase are usually aware of.

This wave of people retroactively coming back to the books, in rise of the show's popularity is in light of this all the more bizarre and unpleasant.

More so given the show has given me the slap in the face I have not expected from this story that I only love selectively. But I do.

Because in the books, the stupid silly vampire Armand is maybe one of the few slavic characters that are genuinely struggling with how it felt to grow Orthodox Christian and then feel like he cannot return home because he has been corrupted by the hedonism of the west. Anne may not have intended these themes to be there, but this felt important and profound to me. There are very few characters that are from slavic roots in the USA media that are not transformed into boogeymans for The Empire. And Armand became dear to me because of it.

As an example that even with all the capitalist empire propaganda, there is an inherent possibility for people, even unwittingly, to catch something more genuine that a scary reflection in a mirror maze.

So, the TV show, given its promise before release to show serious consideration towards racial and ethnic representation made me hopeful. A foolish and undue expectation given the ethnographic agenda that USA knows becomes blind when it comes to any ethnicity that is also tied to the "barbarian socialism" (read: political and civilizational rivals with means of productions not tied to their capital).

And so Armand becomes, I believe, hindi or azerbaijani in origin, and masquarades as a Muslim, whilst his main relationship with religion remains nebulous to the story.

I felt betrayed and furious. You are erazing his story, and, for what? To have an excuse to cast an actor that isn't percieved as "white" in America? Because slavic boy from Kivan Rus is not an ethnic minority enough for you? You want to have a hindi or Muslim or azer character? Bloody make one! This completely disconnects him from the majority of the story's deeper themes that were written into him, too, and given how he was portrayed in the show for it — this is an entirely different character now.

I really shouldn't be mad, this is to be expected from USA production. But the fansom made me madder.

Because when I went searching for opinions, a lot of people were happy about the change because they felt that making him Muslim doesn't really change anything because it's basically "the same" as Christian Orthodoxy. And representing him as a brown man for these people was "so much better than a white actor".

They didn't have to hire a white actor. They just had to finally hire a slavic actor for a slavic character that isn't evil or a criminal.

But, let's give the show all the headpats for being "progressive" and inclusive, when it throws those inclusions out to pander to the mainstream "liberal" propaganda that is in fact as racist and colorist as its alleged opposite.

it's curious how iwtv is so praised for progressive and diverse exploration of homosexuality/racism/etc themes yet i heard no big criticisms of it's chauvinist and anticommunist portrayal of eastern europe. and you wonder why so many former 'second' world citizens buy into 'lgbt people are agents of western imperialism' nonsense so easily when most of lgbt imperial core media promotes rainbow imperialism narratives of such sort and almost no one among viewers cares.

[howaboutcastiel-personal]

Okay so

I didn’t technically have an episode. Mostly because I was in public and didn’t have any tools. However there was still some stuff, but I think it might be gone before morning so we will say it doesn’t count.

Honestly there’s something bittersweet about this not happening until now. If it happened while I was a teenager I would have been edgy and an attention seeker. Now it’s just happening for me. My parents don’t know. No one really knows.

Not that they would have noticed then, either. I used to be mad that they were distant but I’m secretly happy about it I think. I would have been so much worse off if they would have been paying attention.

I want people to stop feeling sorry for my mom. Because I know they would do the same to me if they knew and it’s all superficial. And they would just talk behind my back. I feel like they already do because I’m the weird kid who never learned that southern hospitality and is half-mute and doesn’t hug people back. At this point I just wish I’d have an autism diagnosis so I would have an excuse to be the mistake. I don’t get an excuse though I guess. I’m just wrong.

I had the thoughts tonight and I haven’t had them in a while. I haven’t even had to actively try not to have them. But I don’t know. I had them. Maybe it was because of mom or maybe it was just because of me. Maybe it was because of church. I don’t feel like I can really talk to anyone about religion anymore. And honestly it’s just my problem. But anyway. I just thought it would be easier if I wasn’t here anymore. And now that thought won’t go away and neither will this awful headache. I don’t ever want to really do it but it still comes around in my head.

I don’t have a future anymore. The big plan I had is working out at a whopping 0/10. No house, no car, no job, no partner, and honestly no friends at this point. All the roots I have are family and those are the roots I’ve been trying to tear up in the first place. I just think it would be so much more appropriate if I wasn’t in the picture. All I’m capable of is burdening people right now.

And also I am still getting bigger. I don’t know how. I’m just getting bigger. I’m not eating too much food. All the food I AM eating is just making me sick anyway. I guess I’m more sedentary at home, but not enough to be like this. Every time I look in the mirror lately I just want to punch it. It’s like there’s nothing I can do. Even when I am in control all I can do is make myself the kind of good looking that other people want. So that men can ogle me and hopefully I will feel something. And when I dress for me, I just look like a fat bum. I’m so disgusted with my body and all the good things about it are only good for men. Not good for me.

I don’t think I’m ever gonna get better. And I don’t think anyone worth being with is going to ever tolerate me. The fanfiction does more to hurt me now than help me I guess. Why do the words on the paper get to be happy? They’re not real. The more I write them out the less tangible they seem to be. They’ll never be real.

[reidslibrarybook]

For No Good Reason

Pairing - Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Warnings - language, alcohol consumption, fingering, use of pet name (sweetheart, good girl, sweet girl), unprotected penetration, oral sex (female receiving), slight hair pulling, sorta dom!spencer and sorta sub!reader (lmk if i missed anything lmao)

Summary - A little jealousy never hurt anyone, especially not you.

Category - fluff, smut (18+) MINORS DNI

Word Count - 5.5k

A/N - sheesh my second smut fic, this one is supposed to be a little rougher than the last lmao. this is also unedited cuz writing this shit fried my brain, plz excuse my mistakes lmaooooo. also thank you to @samuel-de-champagne-problems for helping me and just being there to support me while i wrote this lmao, ily so much love! enjoy <333

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——————————————

A man of science.

That was who Spencer was.

He respected every religion and cultural belief, but he himself was one to believe in things he could see— things he could feel and touch and smell.

His beliefs were rooted in the tangible, things he could prove to be real.

That was… until he met you.

He could have sworn that you had descended from the sky right in front of him, a divine glow surrounding your body and a brilliant radiance that undulated from your addicting smile. Had he not been seated in his swivel chair, his knees would have given way and hit the floors in complete praise.

All his beliefs and theorems and empirical experiments were thrown out the window with one single glance in your direction, but not all of them were discarded.

Every day for months on end, he’d watch you in complete secrecy— scoping out your favorite things and routine so he could subtly become acclimated to your incandescence. Little did he know that hiding his borderline stalker behavior from you was the least of his problems, ironically forgetting that the nosiest person in the unit had access to all the security cameras. Soon enough, Garcia confronted Spencer and blackmailed him into asking you out a good five months after you ended things with your ex-boyfriend. It was then that every single thing he knew before was useless in his clueless endeavor of navigating a relationship with you.

Everything was different with you, you accepted him for him no matter how talkative he was. Contrary to his former beliefs, he didn’t need to slowly introduce his quirks to you— you loved him and the weird and the bad and the good parts. That was when he realized that science was of no use to him anymore, not when the unfathomable fantasy became his treasured reality.

And as you turned into the parking lot of the rundown bar the team had chosen to converse in, illuminated by the headache-inducing neon lights, he felt the same malfunction in his mind. He was left speechless even by the simplest of things you’d do, one of the minor side effects of being in love with you.

Irresistible, he leaned over the center console as you parked the car and kissed your cheek gently— making his way down to your neck. You giggled, shaking your head in utter disbelief in his shenanigans.

“Spence,” you laughed, “Please…”

He mumbled something into your skin, continuing to attack you with hungry kisses and greedy hands.

“You can’t be doing this right as we’re about to go in for drinks with our friends.” Unbothered, he pushed aside the hair covering your jaw with his hungry fingers. “Why not?”

“Because… I don’t want our colleagues to see all the hickeys you might leave if we continue,” you gasped as he reached the particularly sensitive part of your skin, gulping nervously as your resistance to his temptation waned.

“Well,” his breath spread across your ear as he nipped at it lightly, “They wouldn’t have to see anything if we had just stayed home like I so kindly suggested earlier.”

“Funny,” you huffed sarcastically, “This is the first time in a while that we finally get to spend time with our friends, not our colleagues. Can we have a night where we just hang out with them, please?”

You pushed him off gently, Spencer moving off the center console and slinking back into the passenger seat. His face had contorted into a sweet pout, pursing his lips like he always did when he didn’t get his way. You smiled at his defeatedness and leaned over to give him a sweet kiss on the cheek, a hint of red brushed across his sharp facial features.

“I promise,” you whispered into his ear, brushing his hair back with your fingers and tugging gently, “I’ll be all yours once this is over and you know I never break my promises… right?”

He nodded eagerly, meeting your lips for another kiss before quickly hopping out of the car. The sooner you left, the sooner he’d get his on you at home.

Spencer opened the car door for you, offering his hand for you to take as you stepped out. Before he let you leave his grasp, he brushed the pieces of your hair that covered your splendorous glow and kissed your face gently. A gentle smile graced his face, a look of love and admiration proudly worn.

You took his hand in yours, the two of you walking towards the glass doors. He looked around the bar, since he had the height advantage, spotting what looked to be Emily sitting at the bar with the rest of the team— minus Hotch, JJ, and Rossi.

He led you across the bar, holding you close against his body to keep you away from the prying hands of the monstrous drunks whose eyes you caught. With his hand planted on the small of your back, you reached the counter and called out to Emily who was nursing a large glass of margarita.

You exchanged your greetings, Spencer standing behind you with his eyes alert for any menace that might be coming your way. You were the apple of his eye and there was no way he was letting anyone dull your shine, at least, not with him around.

He pulled the stool out for you, sitting down on his own right next to you after ordering himself a club soda and your usual drink. You shook your head, ordering an iced water instead.

You were keeping yourself completely sober, something he was sure was in preparation for the amorous events that would come into fruition that night. Spencer could barely focus on the conversation that had grown to include the rest of the team, mesmerized by you and eagerly awaiting his imminent downfall as soon as the night was over.

You gave him a smile, his hand wrapping around your thigh to ward off anyone that would come to harass you. Even in the most deplorable of settings, as dark and musty as it was, you were always the most beautiful person he had ever seen.

You were God's way of showing that he was real, something to believe in.

It wasn’t until your name came up in the conversation did he finally tune in and temporarily mute his endless thoughts about you.

“I actually didn’t think you guys would come tonight,” Emily admitted, sipping her drink as Derek and Penelope nodded along, “And if we’re being honest? I sort of wish you hadn’t come.”

Spencer furrowed his brow. “Why?”

“The two of you were more than handsy when we got off the jet,” Derek shrugged.

“A- and,” Penelope hiccuped slightly from the copious amount of liquor she had already ingested, “And Y/N would come back with the wildest stories when she was still with, you know, A-D-A-M about the night before. So we were thinking that if you hadn’t come, she might come back tomorrow with some more.”

“What kind of stories?” He asked, turning to look at you. You shook your head. “It was nothing, Spence. Really.”

“Do better, Reid,” Derek joked before dragging Emily and Penelope to the dance floor.

They left, allowing the two of you some privacy, he turned back to you. “What kind of stories?” He asked, a curious smile on his face.

You shrugged, “It’s really nothing, Spence.”

“I don’t think it’s ‘nothing’ if Penelope’s going on about it,” he laughed.

“You know her, she likes to gossip,” you giggled, amused by his dead-set intent on finding out what you told them about Adam specifically.

He raised his eyebrows at you, skeptical of your answer and what you were keeping from him. “So you won’t tell me about these stories?”

“Like I said,” you sighed, kissing him on the lips before you continued to ease him, “There’s nothing to tell. Plus, I like keeping you on your toes.”

You hopped off the stool, Spencer’s hand stopping you before you could walk any further from him. He pulled you back to him, your faces inches away from the other. His hand gripped your waist, a burning fire lit behind his eyes as you stared into them with a playful stubbornness.

“I love you,” you giggled, distracting him with a kiss before slipping out of his grasp and towards the dance floor with the rest of your friends.

He shook his head with a smirk on his face, watching you saunter off to Penelope who immediately grabbed your arms, rushing you into the horde of sweaty people to sway to some upbeat music.

His curiosity got the best of him, trying to think back to when you were still with Adam— digging up every single piece of information about him that you’ve ever told him. He couldn’t think of a single thing sexual in nature, which was his best educated guess on what the stories were about. A nagging feeling of jealousy spurred within him, he could’ve sworn that green began to creep up his neck.

According to your friends, these stories stopped when you and Spencer started something new. He didn’t think that your sex life was lacking in any way considering the sounds that came out of your mouth and the way you squirmed under him when he touched you.

But maybe what he was doing wasn’t on par with what Adam did, which only served to make him more envious. What was he missing?

You wouldn’t tell him?

That was fine.

He’d just have to find out for himself.

——————————————

You got back from the dance floor, breathless, smiling wide and hopping into Spencer’s arms in utter bliss. You had a great time dancing and all you wanted was a kiss from him, but it appeared that he had something else in mind.

Gently pushing you off his lap, he called the rest of the team— stumbling drunk out of their minds— leading them to the cab he ordered. Confused, you stood quietly behind him and followed him towards the car.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he mocked your denying words you spoke earlier, opening the car door and closing it shut when you hopped in.

“Spencer,” you leaned over, caressing his face sincerely, “Is everything alright?”

He looked over, his darkened gaze and desirous expression washed away with a gentle smile. “I’m fine, I just wanted to go home.”

You nodded, slinking back into your seat and taking small glances in his direction every once in a while.

There was something off about, something he was hiding from you. It was apparent that the cogs in his brain were working on overdrive, his mind’s eternal churning working even faster than they were before. You couldn’t put your finger on the tension that filled the air around you, but your intuition was telling you it had to do with Adam.

It was a quiet drive, the silence keeping you from moving or speaking to him. You took a brave glance in his direction, his hands gripping the steering wheel and his jaw clenches slightly.

He was mad.

You figured it was because of what Penelope said; or rather, what you didn’t say.

The anger coursing through him was obvious, his veins in his hand and forehead more prominent than usual. You were anxious, shifting uncomfortably in your seat to which Spencer placed his hand on your knee.

Your eyes flicked to him immediately, the warmth of his hands radiating a sense of serenity in your callous waters. The tension in the air cleared up slightly but there was still something he wasn’t saying.

He parked in the parking garage, exiting the car and walking over to your side to open the door for you as he always did. Even when he was mad or upset, he still loved you and you knew that.

You couldn’t help but feel your heart beating at an untimely rate for some inane reason, a tightness in your chest almost sent you running.

The two of you made it up to the seventh floor, where your homely apartment resided. You walked in as soon as he stuck the key in the lock, waiting for him to say something… anything.

“What?” He questioned, looking at you with his brows strewn together after locking the door behind him.

You set your bags down, working up the courage to ask him what you had been dying to know since you left the bar.

“Nothing…” You trailed off.

He scoffed playfully, “‘Nothing’ seems to be your new favorite word. Isn’t that right, love?” The look in his eyes evolved to one of hunger, desire. Every single thing around you stilled, your pounding heart quieting amidst the new wave of tension that imbued into the air… one that was sexual.

“You really won’t tell me about these stories that Garcia seems to think so highly of?”

“It’s nothin-” you stopped yourself before you could give into his sly accusation, a smirk playing on his lips, “They’re not important, Spence.”

The two of you paused in a wave of uncertainty, wondering what you’d be doing next. Was it a fair move to forget about what happened and push it in the closet as your first and only skeleton, or was he adamant enough to push for a conversation of uncharted waters?

A moment of silence settled between you, his eyes scoping your body and quickly flicking to your lips before he pushed you against the closest wall. His hands cornered you in between the backing behind you as he pushed against you flush up against his body.

“Spencer… w- what um,” you gasped, the words unable to tumble from your lips like they usually did, “W- what are you doing?”

“I’m going to make you scream like he never did,” he admitted in a low hush, his lips working to close the distance between you. He connected with you, electrified by the contact and melting right into his touch. Your fingers tangled themselves in his messy curls, tugging like you did in the car earlier in the night.

He left one hand on the wall while the other traveled down your body aimlessly, feeling you up and down while they left burning fires in their wake. Not once did his lips disconnect, sucking and nipping at your skin as he desecrated your body in ways no one ever has.

He struggled to unbutton your blouse, his impatience getting the best of him right when he ripped your shirt off your body— exposing the lacy bra you wore just for him. He stopped to look at you, taking his bottom lip in between his teeth and licking slowly.

A slight smile graced your face, reaching around your back to unclasp your bra. The useless garment slid down your arms, his jaw gone slack as he stared at your body ready for him to ravage. He stepped closer to you, his fingers brushing up the sides of your body painstakingly slow. You looked up at him with your pupils dilated, your tongue licking your lips as your gaze dripped with impatient longing.

Before you knew it, he was on you again. But this time, he wasted no time in taking everything off of you. His greedy hands pulled down your tight skirt along with your black underwear he had no interest in toying with like he usually did.

He caressed your thighs with his roaming hands, your skin raised with goosebumps. Butterflies roamed your stomach, his evocative moans of satisfaction from your responsive motions. You wrapped your arms around his neck, your hands grasping for his shirt while he licked at your sensitive skin.

There you were, your wet cunt laid bare in front of him as he attacked you from above— planting ravenous kiss after kiss on your neck all the way to the top of your breasts. Eventually, he began to toy with your nipples, taking one in between his teeth as your other breast was kept company by his hands. You couldn’t help but fling your head back against the wall, mouth wide open in pleasure from his hot breath on your body.

“Spencer,” you moaned, tugging at his hair to anchor yourself.

He laughed against your skin, leaving impassioned marks all around you. “You won’t tell me these stories of yours so I guess the only way I can find out is through process of elimination,” he chuckled, “I’ll do every single thing to you until you can’t even talk anymore, since you weren’t so keen on telling me anyways… understand?”

You huffed heavily, nodding while scrunching your face in bliss.

He slowly dropped to his knees, planting voracious kisses along your inner thigh. His hands snaked around your body to grab your ass, his breath ghosting over your pussy dripping with your arousal. He smiled into you, his bold tongue licking from your thigh until he reached your cunt.

He used two of his fingers to open your lips, sucking at your clit until all that could be heard were your pleas for mercy— taking the bundle of nerves in between his teeth gently and sending surges of energy up your body. Your hands grasped his curls, pushing him up forcefully as you craved the feeling of his tongue inside of you.

The vibrations of his cocky laughs made your knees buckle, the strength you had to stand disappearing just as quick as your clothes did. Your thoughts were clouded by the feeling of him beneath you, slowly raising one of your legs and setting it on his shoulder to allow him more access to your core.

You reached for anything around you to grab, lascivious moans and whines tumbling from your mouth. Your fingers felt for the bookshelf, knocking over a couple of his books in your pleasure-drunken state— grasping the wood in utter desperation.

He could taste every inch of you, your pussy throbbing around his tongue. He moaned into you, his hands leaving red scratch marks on your ass as he swirled his tongue inside of you.

You could feel your orgasm coming, unable to say anything aside from profane words and the name of the only man who rendered you speechless. He chuckled, knowing full well what he was doing to you and how close you were.

You opened your eyes, meeting his from below you. You could see the arrogant smile from the crinkle of his eyes, enjoying the noises that he elicited from you.

He gave into your frenzied race for fulfillment, slipping in two of his fingers and curling them upward to hit your g-spot. Tears of pleasure rolled down your face, grinding your cunt into his face as you strode towards your high.

Soon enough, you had come undone right on his fingers— his tongue moving to lap up your cum.

He stood up, his hands cupping your cheeks and placing soft kisses to your tear-stained, mascara-ridden face. He pouted, feigning sympathy as he pressed himself up against you— his painfully hard dick indenting your thigh.

“Are you okay?” He asked. Beneath his tough, angry exterior was still the tender man that loved you.

You nodded, placing your lips on his eager for more. He chuckled as you jumped up onto his body, carrying you into the room and tossing you on the bed. You sat up, leaning down on your elbows as your panting subsides, briefly.

He unbuttons his shirt slowly, letting the fabric hit the ground as his hands reached for his belt. He managed to unbuckle it, unzipping his pants that were uncomfortably tight around his erect dick. Your eyes widened, the breath from your lungs sucked out as you saw the outline of his cock straining against the confines of his underwear.

You heard his low, breathy chuckle, feeling a wave of heat wash over your cheeks. You couldn’t help but take another look at him, his body glistening under the dimmer lights of your room from his sweat. He pulled down his underwear, stepping out of the fabric bunching up at his ankles and walking over to the bed.

You were antsy from the anticipation, your eyes glued to his dick that glistened from the precum conjured by your harmonic laments.

“Turn around,” he whispered, to which you obliged— waiting on your hands and knees for him to take you.

His hands grasped your hair, using it to pull your head back gently as your exposed neck was left for him to conquer. You whined at the feeling of his tip brushing up against your wet pussy, stuck in a state of waiting as he teased you some more by sliding himself between your lips without pushing himself in.

“Spencer…” you breathed, his wet breath tickling your neck and his impudent smile plaguing your thoughts, “Please, I need you.”

“Is that right?” He laughed huskily, “Are you sure you don’t want me to call Adam instead?” He knew what he was doing to you, entertained by your intense ardor for him— not anyone else. With one hand still in your hair, the other slid up your back and around to your tits. “Are you sure you want me? Because I can go and let you-”

“No!” You screamed, pushing yourself up against his dick, “Please, Spencer. I need you.”

He smiled, placing kisses on your neck and cheek before whispering in your ear, “Say it again, sweet girl.”

You turned your head to look at him, eyes half-lidded in ecstasy. “I need you… and only you.”

He groaned into your ear, content with your answer. You could feel him position himself at your entrance, his hands that were once around your breasts were gone— used to give himself a few pumps before pushing himself inside you. You whined at his size, leaning your head backwards as he began to thrust into you slowly. His hand was still stuck in your hair, tugging with every snap of his hips.

You took him in inch by inch, your cunt clenching around him from the sensitivity left by your last high. The lewd sound of your bare ass slapping against him filled the room, your bed frame banging against the wall as your neighbors were no doubt groaning into their pillows in order to block the vulgar noise being produced.

“Spence…” you moaned, feeling every bit of him hit the deepest parts within you. Your body was electrified, every single cell inside you shaking with excitement and nearly bursting with pleasure. Your hands grasped at the sheets, your knuckles stark white as you tried to make up for the uncontainable feeling of miraculous rapture blooming in your chest.

Spencer leaned forward to give your kisses along your shoulder, his unrelenting pace rendering your mind useless as the words were wrung out of your brain. His hand granted your hair liberation, instead holding you upright knowing that you were using your ability to hold yourself up was fading.

Eventually, your strength gave way, your face landing on the plush bedding as he continued to fuck you into oblivion. Out of courtesy for your neighbors and an inkling of embarrassment, you bit your lip to keep your rolling cries dormant.

His hands wandered around your body, feeling the way your body reacted to the feeling of his dick.

It was then that he realized why he loved the tangible. As much as he adored the idea of hope and belief in a higher being, there was always something that held him back on earth.

Feeling you.

Touching you.

Hearing you.

Tasting you.

There was nothing that wasn’t real about you, being able to know that you were 100% veridical.

For so long you had been the subject of his dreams, but now his dreams had become a fateful reality he indulged himself in every single day. How good were fantasies if they were just that, a fantasy?

You were real. You were his. Every stroke inside you, every euphoric moan he elicited proved as much.

“I want to hear you,” he wrapped your hair around the palm of his hand, pulling the both of you up so you were standing on your knees, “I want to hear you tell me who makes you feel this way.”

You whined, head resting on his shoulder as he continued to pound into you with the little space he had to move.

His fingers traced the marks he left on your neck that had deepened into a dark purple color, each touch of his finger tips sending a cocktail of chemicals straight to your brain.

“Y- y- I-” you stuttered, struggling to speak coherently, “I-”

“What’s wrong?” He teased, your body squirming under his touch, “Can’t speak?”

“Sp- Spencer,” you sputtered, “Y- you.”

“What’s that? I couldn’t hear you.” His finger found its way back to your clit, moving in small agonizing circles.

He was making it even harder for you to think, to speak. You could barely focus on what he was doing, let alone focus on his questions. All you could think about was the way he was making you feel. Every single moment that led up to your sexual endeavors were long forgotten, the only thing in the forefront of your mind was him. The way he slammed into you with every inch of himself buried inside you, every moan and call of your name filling your ears and making your heart flutter. His tempestuous pace left you exposed and bare, not just your body but your heart. You were his and he needed to be reminded of the fact, lost in the fog of jealousy and envy of your ex. It wasn’t the same and it would never be the same. Spencer was different in every way. “You,” you moaned, burying your face deeper into his neck from the unbearable buzz of passion, “Y- you make me feel this way. O- only you, Spence. Only you…”

An all-consuming lust filled his once bitter green heart. Satisfied with your words, he pulled out gently— a small petulant whine coming from you. “Don’t worry, love,” he laughed at your fervor, “I’m not done just yet.” You nodded as he turned your around slowly, laying you down onto the bed with your back against the blankets wet with sweat. He brought his fingers up from the bottom of your stomach, leaving light red marks with his nails before touching your face lovingly.

The jealousy had dispersed, replaced with the same sweetness present at the beginning of the night. He slid into you again, the resistance he felt in the beginning long gone as the remnants of your last orgasm slicking your throbbing pussy.

Your moans mixed together with his hips hitting your thighs, his face pressed against your as he tried to muffle his growing volume through wet kisses and hungry nips.

You fit perfectly together, every one of your dips and crevices filled with his body.

Spencer developed a steady rhythm, thrusting himself into you with a force driven by his burning love and desire to satisfy you. Every stroke of his dick caused your back to arch more and more, his eyes mesmerized by the movement of your tits and the way you buried your face into the pillows.

He rocked in and out of you, your walls clenching around him after every in and out. The kisses and nips and licks were endless, your body never catching a break from his merciless lips. The smell of your shampoo and feel of your body flush up against his overrode all his senses, he lost all control and inhibition he worked to maintain. The sensation of you around him coupled with the crude sound of your moans and his dick slipping in and out of you was almost enough to send him over the edge. Quickening his speed, he gripped onto you harder than he had before. The whole bed shook with the driving force of his cock inside you, your screams of pleasure growing louder and heightening the ripples of passion.

Spencer’s movements faltered, his dick twitching inside of you as he filled you up with his cum. He laid on top of you panting for the air that he refused to let in as he lost all control.

He looked up slightly, your eyes still closed from the endless feelings of ecstasy. He used his hand to tilt your head towards him.

“One more time, sweetheart,” he cooed, “You can do it just one more time.”

You shook your head. “I- I can’t, Spence. I-”

“Yes, you can. You’re so so close,” his hand moving to touch your face lightly, “I know you can. You’re my good girl, aren’t you?”

You nodded, still completely inebriated from your imminent orgasm. “Yours,” you whispered breathlessly.

“Good,” he smiled, pulling out of you slowly. He tried to comfort you as you winced at the feeling, distracting you with kisses up and down your neck and shoulder.

His fingers caught the cum that threatened to spill out of you, pushing it back in and using it to slick his fingers as he entered you. You gasped, your hands grappling at his back and tugging at his tangled curls from the mixture of pain and pleasure. Your lips connected with his, your tongue slipping into his mouth as he curled his fingers inside you. You gasped, pulling away from him in order to throw your head back against the pillows and closing your eyes as you took in the euphoric feelings radiating from your core. The tell-tale knot in your stomach formed after Spencer decided to tamper with your insanity— using his thumb to rub your clit which seemed to double your pleasure.

The tingles that came from his touch ricocheted across your body as you felt every inch of you transcended physical pleasure. The look on your face, the sounds that came from your— every part of you— was his proof, his evidence that you were his.

You thrust your hips up into his hand, his fingers fucking you with no clemency or sympathy. He defiled you, the once gorgeous angel that descended from heaven in his eyes became putty in his hands with a single touch. The room spun in the midst of your disorienting thoughts, your breath captured by his carnal tendencies. Soon enough, you came undone in a spasm of pure, unadulterated lust— the aftermath of his jealousy and your playful teasing came to an end as you came down from your high.

He placed loving kisses on your forehead and brushed the hair off your face, reaching over for a tissue on your nightstand. He wiped you off, continuing to plant kiss after kiss as you recovered from his voracious takings.

He laid down across from you, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you closer to his chest.

“Jealous much?” You giggled, playing with his hair in between your fingers.

He cleared his throat, shifting as you moved out of his grasp and onto his chest. “N- no…”

You giggled, kissing him tenderly, “It’s alright if you were, I’m not complaining.”

He chuckled along with you, the same admiration for you still stuck in his chest. “I was um, I was a bit,” he admitted, “I just- you don’t talk about us at work and I guess that just made me insecure about this part of our relationship… the sex part?”

“Spence,” you sighed, “I don’t talk about this part of our relationship at work because I don’t want to embarrass either of us.”

“Not because I’m too boring for you?”

You shook your head, placing your lips on every part of his face until he turned bright red. “No, of course not. You are anything but boring, Dr. Reid.”

“I just want to be enough for you,” he pouted, pressing his lips into a thin line and wrapping his arms around you tighter than before— afraid that holding you any less would result in his very own angel disappearing before his eyes.

“You are more than enough,” you chuckled at his needy behavior after you were the one that had their brains fucked out, “You were worrying for no good reason.”

“So…you’ll start telling those stories again?” You laughed, “Do you want me to?”

“Of course,” he sat up, a playfully serious expression on his face, “I want them to know everything.”

“Alright,” you giggled.

He leaned forward, whispering into your ear and taking you flush up against his body once again, “The ins and the outs, everything…”

“Spencer,” you yelled as he attacked you with kisses, his fingers brushing up against your side to tickle you beneath him.

Maybe there was a threshold for him, a happy balance between belief and the tangible— but all he knew was that you were the impossible, his impossible.

A dream and a reality wrapped up in one.

——————————————

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[that-spider-witch]

On “Dead” Cultures and Closed Spiritual Practices: Why Colonialism Is Still A Problem.

Let me start this by saying that, as far as my knowledge of Paganism and Polytheism as a whole goes, I’m what the internet witch community calls a “Baby Witch”. I’m stating this out of the gate because I know there will be lots of people, including witches who have more experience on the craft than me, who might decide to ignore what I have to say based on that fact alone, stating that I’m not knowledgeable enough to give my opinion about this.

Here’s the kicker: I’m a ‘baby witch’, yes, but I’m also a twenty-six year old Venezuelan woman. I’m an adult. I’m Latina. I’m a Christian-raised Pagan,but I’m also a Latinoamerican woman over all other things including that. I grew up on this culture, these are my roots. It is because of this background than I’m writing this post today.

Looking through the “Paganism” and “Witchcraft” tags of this website, I’ve seen a few posts throwing indigenous deities and spirits’ names around on lists alongside deties of open cultures. Yes, you can know better by doing your own research and not going by what just a random Tumblr user wrote on one post (as I hope its the case with everyone on this website), but the fact that pagan beginners are still getting fed misinformation is still worrisome to me.

There’s nothing like reading a so-called expert putting Ixchen (Maya), Xolotl (Nahuatl) and Papa Legba (Vodou) on the same damn list as Norse, Hellenic and Kemetic deities and tagging it on the tags aimed at beginners who might not know better to truly ruin your morning. I’m not mentioning user names here: If you know then you know.

To quote @the-illuminated-witch on her very good post about Cultural Appropriation: 

“Cultural appropriation is a huge issue in modern witchcraft. When you have witches using white sage to “smudge” their altars, doing meditations to balance their chakras, and calling on Santa Muerte in spells, all without making any effort to understand the cultural roots of those practices, you have a serious problem.

When trying to understand cultural appropriation in witchcraft, it’s important to understand the difference between open and closed magic systems. An open system is one that is open to exchange with outsiders �� both sharing ideas/practices and taking in new ones. In terms of religion, spirituality, and witchcraft, a completely open system has no restrictions on who can practice its teachings. A closed system is one that is isolated from outside influences — usually, there is some kind of restriction on who can practice within these systems.”

A counter-argument I’ve seen towards this when someone wants to appropiate indigenous deities and spirits is to use the “dead culture” argument: Extinct cultures are more eligible for use by modern people of all stirpes. It is a dead culture and dead religion. It would be one thing if some part of the culture or religion was still alive, being used by modern descendants, but the culture died out in its entirety and was replaced, right? They were all killed by colonization, they are ancient history now, right?

Example: “If white people are worshipping Egyptian deities now, then why can’t I worship [Insert Aborigen Deity Here]?”

To which I have two things to say:

Ancient Egypt’s culture was open and imperialistic, meaning they wanted their religion to be spread. This is why Kemetism is not Cultural Appropriation, despite what some misinformed people might tell you. Similar arguments can also be made for the Hellenic and the Norse branches of Paganism, both practiced by people who aren’t Greek/Norse.

Who are you to say which cultures are “dead” and which are not?

Religious practices such as Vodou and Santería certainly aren’t dead, not that it keeps some Tumblr users from adding Erzuli as a “goddess” on their Baby Witch post, something that actual Vodou practitioners have warned against.

Indigenous cultures such as the Maya and the Mapuche aren’t dead, despite what the goverment of their countries might tell you. The Mapuche in particular have a rich culture and not one, but two witchcraft branches (The Machi and the Kalku/Calcu). Both are closed pagan practices that the local Catholic Church has continuously failed to assimilate and erase, though sadly not for lack of trying:

“The missionaries who followed the Spanish conquistadors to America incorrectly interpreted the Mapuche beliefs regarding both wekufes and gualichos. They used the word wekufe as a synonym for ideas of the devil, demons, and other evil or diabolical forces. This has caused misunderstanding of the original symbolism and has changed the idea of wekufe right up to the present day, even amongst the Mapuche people.”

For context, the Wefuke are the Calcu’s equivalent of the Familiar, as well as reportedly having more in common with the Fae than with demons anyway.

This and other indigenous religions are Closed because it is wrong for foreigners to just come and take elements from marginalized groups whom are still fighting to survive and that they weren’t born into. To just approppiate those things would be like spitting in their faces, treating them and their culture like a commodity, a shiny thing, a unique thing to be used like paint to spruce up your life or be special.

I know some of you are allergic to the word “Privilege”, but on this situation there really ain’t a better word to explain it. You weren’t born here, you don’t know what it is like, you are only able to see the struggle from an outsider’s point of view.

If a belief or practice is part of a closed system, outsiders should not take part in it. And with how many practices there are out there which are open for people of all races, there is really no excuse for you to do it.

Why Colonization Is Not “Ancient History”

If you have kept reading all this so far, you are probably wondering “Ok, but what does Colonization has to do with any of this?”

The answer? Everything.

With the general context of culture appropriation out of the way, let me tell you about why the whole “dead culture” argument rubs me the wrong way: Here in Venezuela, we have a goddess called Santa Maria de la Onza, or Maria Lionza for short, whom’s idol statue I have been using to illustrate this little rant. If you happen to know any Spanish, you might recognize the name as a derivative of Santa Maria, aka the Virgin Mary, and you are mostly correct: Her true indigenous name is theorized to have been Yara.

And I say “theorized” because it is a subject of hot debate whether she was really ever called that or not: Her original name, the name by which she was adored and worshipped by our ancestors, might have been forever lost to history.

That’s the legacy of colonization for you: Our cultures were stolen from us, and what they couldn’t erase they instead tried to assimilate. Our ancestors were enslaved, their lands and homes stolen, their artwork and literary works destroyed: The Maya and the Aztec Empire were rich in written works of all kinds, ranging from poetry to history records to medicine, and the Spaniards burned 99% of it, on what is probably one of the most tragic examples of book burning in history and one that people rarely ever talk about. 

People couldn’t even worship their own gods or pass their knowledge of them to their children. That’s why Maria Lionza has such a Spanish Catholic-sounding name, and that’s why we can’t even be sure if Yara was her name or not: The Conquistadors couldn’t steal our goddess from us, so they stole her name instead. Catholics really have a thing with trying to assimilate indigenous goddesses with the Virgin Mary, as they tried to do the same with the Pachamama.

On witchy terms, I’d define Maria Lionza as both a deity and a land spirit: Most internet pages explaining her mention the Sorte mountain as her holy place, but it is more along the lines that she is the mountain. 

You’d think that, with Venezuela and other Latinoamerican countries no longer being colonies, we’d be able to worship our own deities including her, right?

As far as a lot of Catholics seem to think and act, apparently we are not.

The Catholics here like to go out of their way to shame us, to call us “cultists”, to ostracize us, with a general call to “refrain from those pagan beliefs” because they go against the Catholic principles. Yes, the goddess with the Catholic-sounding name, a name she happens to share with a Catholic deity, apparently goes “against Catholic principles”. You really can’t make this shit up. (Linked article is in Spanish)

This is just an act of colonization out of many, of not wanting to stop until the culture they want to destroy is gone. Don’t believe for a second that this is really their God’s will or anything like that, they are just trying to finish what years of enslavement and murder couldn’t. They might not be actively killing us anymore, but they still want us dead.

So no, colonization is not some thing that has long passed and now only exist on history textbooks: It is still happening to this day. It is by treating it as old history that they can keep doing it, and it is by pushing the narrative that our indigenous cultures are “dead cultures” that they try to erase our heritage.

Because we are not dead. We are still here, we are alive, we have survived and we’ll keep on surviving, and our gods and goddesses are not yours to take.

¡Chao! 🐈

[el-smacko]

I’ve been looking for an excuse to talk about this for a while. There’s a certain amount of presentism that must accompany conservative atheism (atheism that makes no allowances for truth outside of an atheistic schema) because it is generally dismissive of past religiosity as folly. But “if only they had known” isn’t the best lens with which to view history. I called it presentism, but it is probably more accurately called a sociological great chain of being. It’s a common belief on the left—for good reason! conservatives brand themselves as regressive traditionalists—but the belief in social superiority over the past accepts that the traditionalist/fascist interpretation of the past is correct. The right have made history cisheteronormative by overemphasizing patriarchic structures and associating them with cisheteronormativity and whiteness, the latter two of them recent products of modern empire. This presents a problem to leftist historians, because it puts them in the position of refuting the “tradition” of conservatives while also having to caution the left against projecting “progressive” paradigms onto history. That is, we do not “know better now” and can assign modern identities to historical figures. People who might identify as LGBTQIA+ if they were born today are not “lost” and in need of “reclamation.” An appeal to history or tradition does not become less of a logical fallacy simply because you think the people on “the right side of history” are the ones making the appeal. History is not a vector of morality, it is history. As for religion, Christianity has ruined everything like always. The Roman Empire represented the largest centralization of authority in history. Officially adopting Christianity was a move toward the centralization of authority in the context of religion and Roman emperors accordingly demanded orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and scriptural canon. The greatest centralization accomplished by Christianity was the belief that there was a “correct” way to believe. Before Christianity, there was a basic universalism held by all people, regardless of their faith or even lack thereof. After the emperors demanded it, the Christian faith was right and everyone else was wrong. Modern science and skepticism have their roots in church patronage of the sciences and accordingly there is Fact and then there is Fiction. The logic becomes simple: there is a such thing as objective truth and religions are wrong if they aren’t true, so any degree of falsifiability in religion makes it false. But why am I giving you the hard sell? If I wanted to illustrate that atheism is culturally Christian all I’d have to do is point to the deeply Christian anti-Christian Church of Satan. Religion and morality are social machines and everybody regardless of the complexity has that machinery built into the foundations of their psyche because humans are the most social organisms ever. The solipsism of individuality when confronted with social machinery can either buy into it (defeat solipsism by constructing truth outside of the self, making objective reality not only real but approachable) or acknowledge the futility of trying to objectify something as big as reality itself and with humility say “who can say?” The latter is pagan and therefore dead, but can be found alive in Koheleth (Ecclesiastes) or Buddhism, but as someone who is culturally Christian myself I have claim to neither. Anyway, you’re right that morality exists either way, but I generally object to having the power to say that any assessment of truth in a spiritual context is appropriate, much less “wrong.”

@argumate how do you justify moralism in an atheistic universe?

How does the Pope? (Other than by denying reality, of course).

Basically all moral traditions are a mix of built-in human intuitions (murder bad) rationalisations and logic (if this bad, then that also bad) mixed in with a bunch of political compromises (slavery okay if they’re black/pagan/whatever) and a generous helping of cultural-specific weirdness (marriage taboos, food taboos, menstruation taboos, circumcision, clothing requirements, etc.)

Once you have correctly noted that you live in an atheistic universe, you can take human moral intuitions, try to tighten up the logic a little and make them more universal, try to ensure the political compromises have some democratic legitimacy, oversight, and review, and critically evaluate the cultural weirdness to see where it comes from and what it means.

The end result tends to be a lot less burning people alive for disrespecting the priests or kissing the wrong person, which is fine by me.

Now if some wiseass acts like a dick and ends up on trial and says but wait, morality is socially constructed! How can you punish me simply for taking these particular actions in a universe without god?? Well, yes, morality is socially constructed, and that’s exactly why you’re on trial; if you think you haven’t been a dick then you can make a case for that, that’s exactly how it works.

Morality without god works exactly the same as morality with god, you just have one less bullshit excuse to do nasty things.

[makerofmadness]

(For your cookie run AU) I'd like to know more about the town milk grew up in like traditions and stuff

(Warning: I typed out A Lot Of Stuff and it's almost 3am so I hope this is coherent enough djdjdjdjjd)

well like I said this AU is basically "Milk is raised in a cult"

and I'm not entirely sure how I ended up going with this specifically (idk it was midnight and I was playing minecraft) but somehow I just went "fxck it they worship a tree now" and you know what I'm sticking with that

I'm gonna hope this isn't two stupid 'cus the two people I've talked to about this so far haven't thought that soooooooo basically i misremembered this one detail about the milk village in kingdom that this is based on (though to clarify: yes this is an ovenbreak au) where I remembered there was a mention of the milk tribe there being known for their special milk that has like healing properties. Somehow I thought they got it from a well though I don't think that was mentioned on the wiki page I read about this on (I haven't gotten far enough in kingdom yet djdjdjdn). I think I just thought it was from a well because that's how you get milk in your kingdom.

Screenshot from my own kingdom.

I still don't know how a tree got into this but I ended up with "they think the tree's magic and its roots somehow give the ground extra special nutrients (basically the opposite of what roots actually do djdjdjjdkdmd) and that's what makes the milk so good"

though in this AU it may just be regular milk that they're convinced must have healing properties idk I haven't decided yet

either way they worship the tree because of that

There's a LOT more to it (like they believe the tree is sentient and can be communicated with but that it will only have active conversations with the select few village elders who are basically in charge) but that's like. The origins of this so far.

Oh yeah and another tidbit: they still enforce that if you are to confess something to the tree you have to write it down on paper and sign your name and put it in a box next to it (the excuse they use is basically that you will only be forgiven if you are fully admitting to the crime) but the elders often just read the papers and in certain cases will confront those who wrote the notes about it depending on what they confessed (they claim that the tree told them) and more often than not this will end in punishment

(yeah reminder that this is a cult and manipulation and behavior control and shxt are all over the place. If it were just "haha funny tree worship whispy woods religion" this wouldn't be a problem)

[ihopesocomic]

Beliefs about mythological heroes, even if they are not gods, can be considered a religion. Is there another reason you didn't want to represent the Great King and the Traveler in this way? Also, do you think fictional religions that have punishments and prohibitions (and cults) are necessarily a bad thing in a story?

Not at all. There's a couple things here, 1) Commentary in religion is good. It just needs to be handled respectfully. Because while there is crooked people using their religion as an excuse to oppress people, that is not what the vast majority of religion in the world. 2) We're both atheists and while I have no problem including commentary on oppressive religion in my personal work, we wanted to take a philosophical approach to lion (and/or cat) beliefs instead. It being considered a religion is actually something that can be a philosophical debate. Because there's some things that people consider religion that I believe wouldn't. And there's some things that people don't consider religion that I would. - Cat

-

I also gotta say it’s a hard disagree on your first point. People can have philosophies and beliefs and not be religious. Like I’m an atheist, but I buy into the concept of reincarnation because it’s a philosophy as well as a religious belief.

Trying to make everything a religion in terms of storytelling can be part of the problem. I just feel it oversimplifies what a religion actually is. I feel there’s a difference between folklore heroes who represent a way of life or a philosophy and gods. Like Robin Hood vs Hermes.

The core reason why we didn’t want to make The Great King and the Traveller actual gods is because too many people fall into the trap of representing all religion as bad by way of indicating that it controls a populace when actual religion is not about that and actually makes it clear that religion being used in this way is the way of the sinner. Such a thing can easily be done with man-made laws and statutes that seem to serve a purpose and appear like a good thing but are deeply flawed because... they’re man-made. Which is how the laws and statutes of IHS work.

Do that with religion and yeah, you’re in danger of coming across as pretty offensive. Like ‘yeah, I know your religion is deeply rooted into your culture but I - a white atheist - thinks its literally made to control people and it’s therefore not actually real’.

Doesn’t sound great. - RJ

[lokilickedme]

The Way

I’m writing horror again.  I guess it’s that time, you know, that time that has nothing to do with Halloween or the seasons or whatever, that time when it just hits me for some reason.  And just like I always do, I’ll say I don’t know why.

Even though I know why, and you know I know why.

Because the truth is always so much weirder and worse and more disquieting than any excuse I could make up for it, and sometimes I just feel the need.

Today I felt the need, and I couldn’t make it go away.

And so I sat down, and words I didn’t want to write were written.

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8592 words I would rate this Mature 18+ if it was a fic, strictly because of the subject matter.

Warnings: Death, mostly.  Religious trauma, brief descriptions of abuse, mentions of mental illness, domestic violence, grief, familial dysfunction, religious abuse, emotional abuse, medical conditions, brief mentions of drug use/abuse, mild gore in reference to corpse decomposition, psychological unease and mild terror, child abuse (mental/emotional/psychological), brief allusion to physical child abuse, cult references, loss of faith, attempted murder, possible actual murder.

A Note:  I love you guys, you’re always so quick and willing to be helpful and offer advice and suggestions and such, and I adore that about you.  But on this piece of work I ask that nobody offer any theories about what happened to my brother - medical, criminal, or otherwise - and please no suggestions on things we could do to pursue investigation, that ship has long sailed.  It’s been 23 years and he’s a cold case.  We spent years trying to sort it out but in the end it’s just something that happened, and we moved on because we had to.  There are a lot of open ends, a lot of question marks, a lot of suspicious details that never connected to anything - and we tried, we truly did.  If anyone out there knows the truth, they’ve never shown themselves to us.  We do have our theories, but my brother was a secretive person living a life none of us knew about, and the people he knew weren’t people we knew.  Everyone involved is either dead or moved on or got away with whatever it was they did, and there are only three of us who still care.  It’s over.

Until today, I’ve never put these events into words.

It was something I needed to do, finally.

This is PART ONE.  There may not be a part two, unless doing this ends up making me feel better.

Please feel free to comment if you wish.  As you can see, pretty much nothing triggers me.  I just ask that you please refrain from the type of comments noted above.

And thank you.

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This is, regrettably, a true story.  Nothing has been changed but the names, because the dead don’t like being talked about, and James was just enough of a shit to haunt me for it.

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They made up their minds And they started packing They left before the sun came up that day An exit to eternal summer slacking But where were they going without ever knowing the way

They drank up the wine And they got to talking They now had more important things to say And when the car broke down They started walking Where were they going without ever knowing the way

Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold And it's always summer They'll never get cold They'll never get hungry They'll never get old and gray You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today

Their children woke up And they couldn't find them They left before the sun came up that day They just drove off and left it all behind them But where were they going without ever knowing the way?

Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold And it's always summer They'll never get cold They'll never get hungry They'll never get old and gray You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today

You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today

- The Way, Fastball, 1998

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That was the year James died in his sleep.

Or that’s what they say, anyway.  Asthma, the likely cause based on his medical history, our first and least disturbing assumption.  Undetermined, the official determination based on the hastily scraped-together autopsy, the best that could be done under the circumstances.  We tell people he had breathing problems, and they nod their heads and agree because they knew he did, and now he’s been gone so long that nobody asks.  Most of the people who ever met him have long moved on or disappeared or died themselves, or just remember him as the enigmatic middle son from the Keithley family that nobody really knew very well.  You know, the odd one, the one that showed up at meetings maybe once a year and smiled nervously but didn’t really talk to anyone and always seemed anxious to leave?  The one who died under mysterious circumstances?  That one.

He left the way he always came in.  Quietly, unexpected, without anyone being aware of either his entrance or his exit.

But me and mom know some things, and she’s not talking.  She probably never will.

So maybe it’s time I did.

December 1998.  I’d gotten married two years previous and moved back to the family land with my new husband.  He hated it there, but we had an affordable place to live.  It wasn’t bad.  He’d tell you otherwise.  The land never sat right with him, but I’d lived there too many years to see it.  I’d been fifteen when my father uprooted his large family from the city and hauled us out to the great back door to nowhere, and even though I’d left several times to wander elsewhere, I always came back.

I didn’t realize why at the time, at any of the multiple times.  But now I know.  That place gets you, and it holds you, and unless you’re goddamned devoted to staying gone you will always be pulled back.  It took me till I was 49 to funnel the necessary amount of devotion away from the religious dedication I’d had jackbooted into me and turn it toward getting out, but against a great number of overwhelming odds I finally did it.

But this isn’t about that, not yet anyway.  This is about my brother James, and how he went to sleep one night and found his own way out.

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It was snowing, had been for days, a bit unusual but not unheard of.  The part of the state we lived in was notorious for extended ice storms and we knew a bad one was coming, but until it hit we played in the snow like it was a gift and we were deprived children who knew it was all going to be taken away soon.  My brothers and I were adults but you wouldn’t know it, watching us sneak around in the woods staging elaborate commando attacks on each other.  James was the best of us, a stealth king who could stand in the middle of a room for an hour without a single soul seeing him.  Perception bias, he said.  Your brain ignores me because I obviously don’t belong, like those puzzles where you circle what’s wrong but it takes you forever to find them.

He crept around in the forest scaring the shit out of people, dropping his long tall self out of trees, appearing from nowhere to administer a well aimed snowball to the face of whoever happened to cross his path and then disappearing just as quickly.  We called him a wraith and it wasn’t a good natured jibe.  We meant it.  He made people nervous.  He was the stealthy kind of quiet you associate with danger, and he knew how to do things an average person doesn’t ever have any need to know.  It was a quiet cool that we admired him for, because none of the rest of us had it.

The religion we were raised in kept a tight lid on us, but me and James, we never really let it get into our bones.  We were the smart ones, in retrospect.  I went through the motions by force of habit and a sense of self preservation, doing what was expected and demanded of me, following the rules and making myself a perfect example of a young member of the church so I wouldn’t bring shame on the congregation and my family.  But mostly the congregation.  It was always more important than anything else.  And I had behaving down to an art form, but mostly when people were looking.  Usually also when they weren’t.

But sometimes, not quite.

And then I prayed for forgiveness about it later because God was supposed to forgive you if you asked him to, right?  The tenet of willful sin being unforgivable never took root with me even though that was what the church conditioned into us through fear and constant repetition.  They said it from the stage two nights a week and again on Sunday to hammer it home.  Two nights a week and again on Sunday my head silently disagreed.  God’s not like that.  And then I did the praying for forgiveness thing even though I knew I was right, because I was disagreeing with the church, and the church was God’s channel here on Earth, wasn’t it?  I committed a mortal sin at least three times a week on that subject alone, and though the dread of divine punishment was hardwired into me, I never could reconcile the concept of a loving and forgiving God destroying me simply for knowing better.

I’m not sure the comprehension of an overwatching deity ever actually established itself in James’ brain.  A moral code, yes.  But isn’t that what God is, really?  Maybe he understood more about God and forgiveness than the rest of us.  But he was considered an unapproved fringe member of the church because he couldn’t suffer people and noise and being looked at and he refused to preach, and he was soft-shunned as a result.  Because if you weren’t all in to the point of being willing to die at any moment for your faith, you were as good as faithless.

And faithless meant condemned.  And the congregation couldn’t be bothered with condemned people, regardless of their reasons for not having both feet in the water.  The first and only option on their list was to put the person out and let them find their own way back once they realized they had nobody left in the world who cared about them.

James escaped that somehow.  He was supposed to be shunned whole scale, but he wasn’t trying to convince anyone to leave the faith and he presented no threat to anyone’s strength of belief, and so far as anyone knew he’d committed no grave sins other than disinterest.  So the rule that dictated we cast him out was bent enough to allow him to remain living on the family land, though at one point during a fit of overzealous righteousness my mother had tried to have a family meeting to vote on whether or not we were going to let him stay.  I refused to vote and when I walked out of the house the meeting fell apart.

I’ve never forgiven her for that.  Her son’s life being put to a vote with her presiding over the proceedings, vengeful and unfeeling and devoid of compassion on behalf of God himself.  It takes my breath away, the anger, still to this day.  The only thing I ever truly learned from my mother about parenting was a long and intensely detailed list of what not to do to my own children, and I suppose I should be grateful for that.  It’s a bitter thank-you to have to give, but it’s something.

We knew James as much as he would allow us to, and not an inch further.  Which meant the extent of our knowledge of him pretty much stretched to include the singular fact that he was different.  What that meant, I still don’t really know - but it was there from the day he was born, that slight off-ness, the oddly off center calibration that you can’t really see so much as sense in a person.  I know now he was likely on the autism spectrum and he walked through life seeing and reacting to everything differently than most of us, but that wasn’t a thing back then.  You were just weird, or you weren’t.  And I’m not convinced that was a bad thing for him, strictly speaking.  But in the confines of our religion and our family’s devout and sometimes violent dedication to it, it took its toll almost daily.

He stood out, and he was very much a person who didn’t want to.  He wanted to fade into the background, to not be seen, to not be known.  And our religion didn’t tolerate that kind of nonsense, because we were commanded to be bold bearers of The Word Of God, and no exceptions were made.

None.

I’m going to stop calling it a religion now.  I beg your indulgence as I shift to calling it what it is, because calling it a religion is an insult to actual religions that don’t destroy peoples’ lives with callous indifference and murderous glee.

We were raised in a doomsday death cult.  There’s no other name that fits.

And we were trapped in it and its ugly cycle of neverending mental and emotional manipulation and abuse until we were adults, and some of us are still bound to it.  My oldest brother worked his way up to the upper levels of oversight in the local congregation and was solidly entrenched in it until his death, which is a story for later.  My youngest brother, the last remaining living blood sibling I have, is still deeply in it to this day and will likely never leave it.

I took the hard way out, three years ago, by walking away.

James, though.  He took the easy way.  He simply closed his eyes, and he was free.

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December 22, 1998.  Three days before Christmas, though that meant nothing to us.  The cult told us Christmas was a filthy demonic pagan ritual that was condemned by God, so to us the season was just a nice chilly time of year with lots of time off from work.  We’d had an unusual amount of snow, the most we’d had in years.  The roads were impassable and everyone was home except my husband, who worked close enough that his boss at the glass shop came and picked him up that morning with chains on his tires.  Lots of windshields had shattered from the sudden violent cold that had struck the previous night and Scott had the only glass shop for sixty miles.

I think it must have been around noon, and likely my mother had sent my dad up the hill to see if James wanted to come down for the lunch she was making.  He and his wife had split up against the strict rules of the church after a few years of suffering through an ill advised marriage, an important detail to this story that will come into the tale later, and he was alone up there at the top of the hill a lot.  Sometimes he forgot to eat, or he got so busy that he just didn’t bother, so our mother always made something for him because even though he was in his 20′s he was still a kid who needed looking after and her zealous fervor against him had died down with time.  I think he let her believe he was helpless because it worked in his favor and there was always lunch waiting for him in her kitchen as a result.

He was different, he wasn’t dumb.

We all lived on the hill back then with the exception of our youngest brother.  He’d moved to the city with his new wife not long prior.  The locals jokingly called the place a commune, and I guess they weren’t completely wrong.  Thirty-eight acres of wooded land far beyond the city limits that we’d painstakingly spent years carving a livable space into, with five houses, all built from the ground up and inhabited by an extended family of well known culties from a well known cult.  It’s almost comical, looking back on it, knowing now how they kept an eye on us for years to make sure we weren’t doing anything weird up there.

They should have run us off with pitchforks and burning stakes at the very beginning.

Things might have ended differently for us if they had.

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My grandparents lived at one end of the property, an old couple as simple and solid as salted soup, devoutly religious and devoted to the cult and very much cut from the can survive anything and probably will cloth like so many old country folks of their generation.  They were waiting out the end of days up there in their little wooden house, expecting the final hour of this old system to come long before their own demise.  I liked my grandmother, she had a sweet smile and fell asleep every time granddad started talking about the Bible and she paid me five dollars every Wednesday to drive her into town to get groceries, and years later, when she was dying, she told me she’d had a dream where she met my unborn son.  I was four months pregnant and didn’t know yet that I was having a boy.  She died before he was born, but to this day, fifteen years later, he tells me he’s sure he met her, he just can’t remember when.

I was scared of my grandfather.  Not terrified, but there was nothing grandfatherly to him and I always suspected he never actually liked kids much.  He’d once told us a story about the great Fort Worth flood that wiped out most of the city when my mom was a baby, and how he had told my grandmother to let go of my 2-year-old mother while he was struggling to get them across a rushing flooded creek in water up to their shoulders.  My grandmother couldn’t swim.  We could make another Ruthie, he said.  But I couldn’t get another ‘Nita.

He said it proudly, like he was to be admired for his choice.  I was young when he told that story, but it settled into me that this was evil.

Even when he was old as dirt and dying of a brain tumor in hospice care, he made me uneasy.  I was never close to him.  But for some reason, in his final days, he forgot who everyone was except me.  I had been living in another state for years and he hadn’t seen me since before the tumor started taking his life.  But when I walked into the room he turned his head and looked at me, and he mouthed my name.

He couldn’t speak.  I don’t know what he was trying to say, struggling with words that nobody could hear.  And I felt bad.  I didn’t want to be the last person he recognized.  My cousins adored him and had spent the last few years constantly at his side, and they were angry, maybe justifiably, that I was the one he reached for.

I didn’t want that at all.

I don’t believe he was a bad man, but he never spoke of anything except the cult’s interpretation of the Bible, and it was as tiresome as it was terrifying.  Granddads are supposed to be fun.  Ours quoted doctrine at us in a deep loud commanding voice that you couldn’t interrupt and you couldn’t tune out, and once he got going you had to just settle in and wait for him to run out of zealous steam.  And then he would suddenly stop and command grandmother to turn on a John Wayne movie and bring him some ice cream, and it was over until the next time.

I know my mother resented him.  She knew grandmother was the one that had refused to let her go, the one that had held onto her even though she almost drowned by the simple act of holding on.  She knew her father had been willing to let her wash away and drown.  That he thought she was interchangeable with whatever baby they would have next.  How she could spend her entire life with that knowledge and not be deeply affected by it was something that never made sense to me, but now, when she’s in her 70′s and I’m in my 50′s, I finally understand.  It affected her.  She’ll just be damned if she’ll let anyone see it.  And she had stood there in that hospice room watching him mouth my name with resentment burning in her eyes, though she would have rather died than let anyone know what it was for.  He’d forgotten her weeks ago.

The house in the center of the hill was mom and dad.  The homestead.  The house we’d all lived in together, that we’d built with our own hands, the first thing that marked that wild overgrown hill as a place where people actually lived.  A long path through the woods connected it to the grandparents’ house, and it was the epicenter of everything in our lives.  James and I had lived in the upstairs rooms of that house until we both moved out and married our respective mates years later, a reprehensible act on our part that was never okay with my mother and that she never forgave either of us for.  She’d wanted us all to stay.  We can all live here together until the New System comes, she always said.  That’s how the Bible says it’s supposed to be.  We can all keep each other safe and on the right path until the end comes, and then we’ll all be here together forever.

A decade later when I sat up on the hill watching that house burn to the ground, there was as much relief as grief billowing into the sky with the black smoke.  It was the end of an era, and it was far beyond time for it.

Nobody saw it but me.  James was dead, had been for years.  Robbie was dead now too.  Dad was gone, so was granddad.  Me and my youngest brother David were the last two left of the kids, but he had moved to a neighboring city when he got married and he has never seen things the way I see them.  We were of different generations, we weren’t raised the same way, and he’d never experienced the abuse I lived with for the first half of my life.  And he had dedicated his own life to the cult with all the honesty and lack of guile that I didn’t have when I’d made my own dedication vows at the too-young age of sixteen.

It was the end of an era, but apparently only for me.

James’ house was up the hill, past a clearing where my dad used to keep old cars that he cannibalized for parts.  Our oldest brother Robbie, long married with kids of his own, lived at the bottom on the farthest corner of the land.  And my house was on the slope to the west, built on the spot where we’d cleared off an old half-fallen homestead from the late 1800′s, dutifully paying no mind to the fact that a grave was nestled into the slope, right where the yellow daffodils grew.  The cult told us superstition was tied up with the demons and false religion, so we didn’t have the built-in human instinct that tells most people to stay the hell away from certain things.

We just pretended it wasn’t there, and put no importance on it.  It was just an old grave.  The soil was good and the garden I planted next to it did well, though those strange daffodils always wound themselves through everything I put in the ground.  My husband said something wasn’t right about it, but I didn’t pay any attention to him.  He hadn’t been raised as devout as me.

My dad knocked on my door around lunchtime and I opened it.  He backed up, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, the fancy leather coat the dealership had awarded him when he was designated a five-star Chrysler technician and given the state’s first and only license to work on the new Vipers that had recently rolled off the prototype line.  It was a cool jacket.  Made him look like the old pictures my other grandmother had shown me of him from the early 1960′s, when he was young and very much a product of a fancier era.  He’d never stopped greasing his hair back and was still so thin that he and I wore the same size jeans.

I’ve never understood the look on his face when I opened the door.  To this day I can’t sort it.  It wasn’t a blankness like so many people who’ve seen death wear without awareness.  It wasn’t grief.  It wasn’t even shock.

He was sorry.

Those were the first words out of his mouth.

I’m sorry.

I stood there, not knowing what he was sorry for.  It was cold.  I couldn’t push the screen door open very far because of the snow blocking it.  And my father was standing at the bottom of the steps James had helped my husband build, his hands shoved down far into his pockets like a penitent child about to get in trouble, telling me he was sorry.

James is dead, he finally said.  He’s in his house.  I went up there and he’s dead.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I do now - just now, this very moment in fact, I know that I was the first person he told.  He came straight from James’ house to mine and told me my brother was dead.

I don’t know what I said back to him, I just remember sitting down on the top step and feeling the cold bite of the snow through my pajama pants.  There’s a vague recollection of putting my face in my hands, and the embarrassing knowledge that I did that simply because I didn’t know what else to do.  And dad just stood there, nervously stepping from foot to foot in the snow, because he didn’t know what else to do either.

I think I asked How at some point.  He said he didn’t know.  He had something in his pocket but to this day I don’t know what it was.

I don’t know if it was important.  Something tells me it was.  Or maybe it was just the eternally present handkerchief he always kept on him.

I’m sorry, he said again.  He seemed to feel like it was his fault somehow.  I’m sorry.

What do we do?  I asked him.  I’ve never felt more blank.  What are we supposed to do?

I don’t remember what he said, other than he was going to get my older brother.  I remember thinking that was a good idea.  Robbie would know what to do.  He always did.  Brash and blustery and bigmouthed, he got things done while other people stood around debating how to do them.  He would get on it, whatever needed doing.  He would figure it out.

I went back in the house and dad walked away, headed down the path through the woods that connected my house to Robbie’s, hands still shoved deep in his pockets, the big retro vintage Chrysler emblem on the back of his jacket the last thing I saw before I pulled the screen door shut.  I stared down for a minute at the mound of snow it had scooped into my livingroom, still with no clue what I was supposed to do.

No clue at all.

I kicked the snow back outside and shut the door.

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It’s an odd thing, watching the coroner’s van drive away with someone you know inside it.  Someone you saw just yesterday.  Someone who was alive.  Someone who should still be alive but isn’t, somehow.  And since there’s really no way to earn a ride in a coroner’s van without dying, there’s an awful unsettling sensation to it that you can’t get away from.  The last time I saw James he was laughing that devious little laugh of his, his eyes red and bloodshot from the ever present asthma he’d suffered with his entire life.  I don’t count the sight of the coroner’s van leaving the hill via our long steep driveway with his cold corpse tucked into a black zippered bag, because I didn’t see him.  I never saw him.  I didn’t see him dead in his house and I didn’t see them carry him out, I didn’t see them put him in the van.  I didn’t see him later, when it was all over with.  And if I try hard enough I can imagine that van empty, with that long black bag tossed crumpled in the back without a body in it, and James somewhere else living his life however the hell he pleases.

I hold onto that.  Some days it helps.  And some days I think I see him, walking by the side of the road or getting out of a car in the post office parking lot, and it makes me happy thinking he escaped.  I see him in every hitchhiker, in every wandering traveler making his way down the interstate, in every tall thin man I glimpse from the corner of my eye as I go about my business in town.

He’s out there.

I hope he’s happy.

The ice storm hit the next day.

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For the next two weeks we were stuck on our hill.  Power out, no electricity, no heat, no lights, roads iced over and impassable.  We all piled up in mom and dad’s house, quietly grieving James, trying to stay warm.  Most of the state lost power for days, including the city 150 miles away where his body had been taken to the state coroner’s office.  There was no apparent cause of death, so the state ordered an autopsy.

His body had just been placed into cold storage to wait its turn when the power grid went down.  And then, by some unholy stroke of nightmarish luck, the facility’s generators failed.

Nobody could make it in to work because of the ice.  By the time someone finally got into the morgue the cold storage had been down for four days.

Six bodies melted, including James.

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No viable autopsy could be done, though they tried their best I suppose.  The end report was obtained two months later.  It was mostly inconclusive due to the long delay and resultant decomposition of tissue.  There was apparent scarring on James’ heart, but it was old scarring and had nothing to do with his death.  His lungs were scarred as well, but that was no surprise, he’d had severe asthma his entire life.  There was no determinable cause of death, no inflicted trauma, no presence of illicit drugs as far as they could tell from the limited toxicology report they managed with what they had to work with.

No reason.

He’d simply died.

It seemed fitting, to me at least, that the end of him be enshrouded in an unsolvable mystery.  He was a secretive person, intensely private.  He would have loved knowing nobody had a clue what happened to him.

And so we drew our own conclusion as a family.  He’d had an asthma attack in his sleep.  There had been an inhaler next to his bed, but it was new and still in the box.  He simply hadn’t woken up to use it.  Dad didn’t participate in the drawing of this conclusion, his input kept stoically to himself, like he knew something the rest of us didn’t.

We pretended not to see it.

He and mom braved the last of the ice a few days later to make the 150 mile drive to see James one last time.

They came back different.

You couldn’t tell it was him, my mother said.  He was melted, literally.  It was like one of those science fiction movies where they melt you with a laser beam and you turn to goo.

Dad had nothing to say.  He went to bed and stayed there until the next day.

You can go see him, mom told me.  I’ll go with you if you want to go.  But I don’t recommend it.

I decided not to go.

And so I never saw my brother dead.  I never saw any proof that he was gone.  He just wasn’t there anymore.  There was no funeral, he was cremated and his ashes were sent home weeks later, and I went on with my life with the image in my head of James, alive, somewhere else.

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Dad was different from that day on.  He’d always been stoic, terse, strict.  My childhood had been spent in fear of him, an eternal dread of making him mad and feeling his temper erupt keeping me from showing any hint of a personality during my formative years.  The cult had forced him to abide by the violent tenet of Spare the rod, spoil the child and there was never any risk of me being spoiled.

James being gone flipped a switch in him.  He was nicer suddenly.  Mellow.  Kind.  After the trauma wore off his humor discovered itself and he was funny.  The dour angry demeanor fell off and revealed a man that I was sad never to have known before.  He and I became friends.  I could sense in his new attitude toward me that he regretted how he’d raised me and respected the way I’d always stood up and been my own person despite it.  But my mother was falling off the deep end and for all the newfound easygoingness of my father, she counterbalanced it with an extremism born of the religious fervor of a mother determined to gain enough favor with God to see her dead child again.  And she was going to make sure the rest of us did too.

We all had to get good and straight on the path, get completely right and stay that way, or we’d never see James again.  He’d be in the New World and we wouldn’t, and how would she explain that to him?  She and I worked together in a law office at the time and as she became more unhinged and unpleasant, I reacted by becoming more outgoing and accomplished.  Our boss changed my work designation from receptionist to Executive Assistant and started teaching me how to do everything from filing papers at the courthouse to photographing accident scenes.  I no longer answered to my mother, the office manager.  I answered directly to the boss.

That didn’t go over well.  She was a control freak with heavy untreated trauma, and the one person in the world she felt the most obsessive need to control was suddenly no longer under her thumb in a workspace where she considered herself the supreme authority.  She countermanded every order the boss gave me and tried to load me up with general office chores that left me no time to do the important assignments he’d given me.  I had no choice but to tell her she wasn’t my superior anymore.

She chose that day to have her nervous breakdown over James, jumping out of my car at a red light on the way home and storming angrily through a shopping mall with me trailing frantically along behind her, yelling for security to arrest me while I tried to get her to calm down.  I ended up telling her she wasn’t the only person who lost James but that none of the rest of us were allowed to experience our own grief because we were too busy catering to hers.

She sat down on a bench outside the sporting goods store and glared at me with a cold hatred I’ve seen on very few other faces, ever.

I knew it would be you, she hissed at me.

That moment changed our relationship forever.  It changed me forever.  That was the day I decided my life was my own, that she not only didn’t have authority over me at work, she didn’t have authority over me anywhere else either.  She could no longer dictate my actions, my behavior, my thoughts and feelings.

For this she disowned me.  It was the first of several disownings over the next few years.  I got used to it.  We went to work the next day like nothing had happened, and I didn’t do a single thing on the task list she slapped down on my desk.  It was a metaphor for the rest of my life, but I didn’t know it yet.

My husband and I moved out of state a couple of months later, away from that hill, away from her increasingly controlling paranoia and bitterness, the first of many small steps toward freedom.

As we were driving away with our trailer full of personal belongings behind us, he said one thing that I tried to argue against, but that somewhere deep inside I knew was probably right.

That land is cursed, he said.

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A few weeks before we moved my youngest brother came to town and we went into James’ house together.  It was exactly like it had been the day my dad found him.  The only thing that stood out as different was the bare mattress on the bed - the men from the coroner had wrapped him up in the sheet he’d been laying on and took it with them, leaving just the naked springform mattress James had bought for Jessica right before her final breakdown and their subsequent separation.

It took me a while to go in the bedroom, but I knew from the moment I walked into the house that I was going to end up there.  I needed to see it, the place where James had closed his eyes and left us.

There was a small puddle of dried blood near the foot of the bed, brown and stained into the fabric.  James always slept backwards, with his head at the wrong end.  The blood had come from his nose.

I touched it.  I don’t know why.  It was dry.

He was gone.

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David and I laughed a lot that day.  James had been funny in a way that was distinctly him, quiet and of few words, but those words had always counted.  And as we sorted through his things and talked about him and moved some of his stuff into boxes to be stored away, I felt as much awed respect as befuddlement at what was around me.  He’d never been a conformist, which I knew was why the cult had never gotten a firm grasp on him.  He was unknowable and therefore unbindable.  But his house was proof that he didn’t conform to any human expectations either, and nothing in it made sense unless you’d spent time around him.

There was an engine in the bathtub.  I’m not sure what it went to.  Another engine, in the beginning stages of disassemblage, rested on a blue tarp in the center of the livingroom floor, obviously the last project he’d been working on.  There wasn’t much furniture - his wife had taken most of it when she left and it would have never entered his mind to replace any of it.  Jessica’s cookware was in the kitchen cabinets, unused, some of it still in the original boxes, some not even fully unwrapped from their wedding shower years before.  Jessica didn’t cook, she microwaved.  David asked me if I thought it would be okay for him to take a glass Pyrex measuring cup because he’d broken his.  I told him to take it.  It had never been used.

I didn’t want anything, but knew I needed to take something.  One of my husband’s solo CDs was sitting on the entertainment center and the cover, the cover I’d designed, caught my eye and brought me to the CD player to pop the tray open.

Inside was a CD single of The Way.

It was the only thing I took.

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My husband told me some time later that my dad and older brother had altered the scene before the police arrived.  After the phonecall from me his boss had rushed him home and he’d gone up to James’ house without my knowledge.  He’d thought it strange that he’d had to step around at least a dozen empty compressed air cans scattered haphazardly around the place as he entered, like they’d been used and tossed aside one after another.  There had been several more on the floor around the bed.  My father had told him to go back down and see how mom and I were doing, and when he returned to James’ house after the coroner’s departure, the cans were gone.  Other than that he said things seemed different, but he couldn’t say quite how.  Just not the same.

He told me my dad didn’t call the police until after he and Robbie had been in there at least an hour, alone with the body.

It’s not something we’ve talked about often, because there’s no satisfactory explanation for it that either of us can come up with.  My mother says they probably didn’t want the police to assume the cans meant he was huffing compression fluid and accidentally killed himself, because Look at the shame and reproach that would bring on the congregation if anyone thought such a thing!  We all knew he used the compressed air to clear the valves on the engines he was working on, all mechanics do, it’s common.  Wouldn’t the police have accepted that explanation?  Dad was the only one that spoke to them.  They wrote down whatever he said, and then they left, and then the coroner came and took James away and that was that.  My father, the most upright straight-and-narrow devoutly dedicated man I’ve ever known in my life, misled the police for a reason that he took with him to his own grave.

The only other person in the world who knew the truth about it took it to his grave too.

At the same time.

In the same car.

Four years later, on October 18, 2002.

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The big garbage bag of empty air cans and whatever else that was removed from James’ house that morning had been stashed in my dad’s garage and stayed there until a few weeks after he and Robbie’s joint funeral, when my mother asked my husband’s old boss to come and dispose of it.  Scott was a man who knew people who could do things.

The evidence, whatever it was evidence of, vanished.

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The mystery around James never dissolved and eventually no one talked about it anymore, I guess because there was no way we could ever truly find out what happened without him here to tell us.  There were a lot of details that we could never find a way to weave together into anything that made sense and a lot of it was probably inconsequential anyway.  There was a girlfriend that he’d tried to keep hidden from us, a woman that was quite a bit older than him who wasn’t a member of the cult and therefore needed to be kept a secret.  In the end she had convinced him to stop hiding their relationship and he’d bought her a ring.  We met her all of twice before he died, and within days of his passing she left town with her brother and never came back, taking whatever she might have known with her.

James’ ex Jessica had sneaked onto the hill and broken into his house to put a dead raccoon in his kitchen sink a few days prior to his death.  We were shocked when he told us she trespassed on the land often without anyone knowing, and my mother made my father fix the electric gate down at the road so that it wouldn’t open without one of three clickers in the possession of herself, my father, and me.  James would have to come to her house and get hers any time he needed to leave the hill, an arrangement he agreed to because Jessica stole things from his house all the time, she would absolutely take a gate opener if she saw it.

He told us the gate wouldn’t keep her out though, and that she didn’t come in that way anyway.  The only way to protect ourselves from her was to lock her up and he doubted even that would do it.

He died less than a week later, and twenty three years later we still don’t know how or why.

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We never felt safe on the hill again.  Jessica was deranged in the worst possible way, we’d known it for a while, and James was her obsession.  She’d threatened to kill him multiple times and had tried twice.  We hadn’t known this, because James, big strong stoic Clint Eastwood type that he was, wasn’t about to tell anyone he was violently abused for years by a skinny little woman that everyone believed was not much more than a meek dormouse with shyness issues and a case of painful awkwardness.  But we knew she was evil.  We just didn’t have any proof.

The first thing my mother said after the initial emotional breakdown of finding her son dead was Jessica did this, I don’t know how but I know she did it.

I believe she was probably right.  But if Jessica was anything she was wily and devious with a strong survival instinct and an uncanny ability to lie convincingly and draw sympathy onto herself.  She’d convinced us for years that she was the perfect combination of sweetly harmless and endearingly clueless, but that only lasted until the day she called 911 screaming that James was beating her and then threw herself face first into a tree in their front yard and sat, calmly singing and coloring in a coloring book on the porch with blood running down her forehead, waiting for the police to arrive.  The act she put on when they got there was one for the Academy, but the officers didn’t buy it.

James calmly rolled up his sleeves and showed them his scars where she’d burned him and slashed him with a kitchen knife.  He pulled up his shirt and pointed out the marks she’d left on him with her teeth and nails.  He hooked a finger into his mouth and showed them the empty hole where she’d knocked one of his teeth out with a baseball bat.  One of the officers asked him why he hadn’t killed her and buried her somewhere on the land already.

She left in the back of the squad car, and my mother took James to the courthouse to get divorce papers started two days later.

Jessica came to his memorial service when we finally had it, several weeks after his death.  She wasn’t invited but we couldn’t keep her from coming.  She wore black like a widow and created a dramatic disruption complete with loud wailing and declarations of undying love, and afterward she stood to one side of the room, smirking at us with the kind of icy malice that you only see on the dangerously deranged, and then usually only in the movies.  Several people commented in hushed voices, asking why she’d been allowed to come.  At one point she started wailing They killed him!!, but everyone with the exception of her mother ignored her.

Her mother, who was still in our congregation, flitted around the room chatting with everyone, sobbing her heart out like it was her own son we’d just memorialized.  She was an ER nurse and had been famously fired from her job at the hospital for taking locked-cabinet medications home by the purse load.  She claimed she put them in her pocket to use on her shift and forgot to return them to the cabinet before leaving.

Jessica had been staying with her for a while.

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We fed the crowd at mom’s later that afternoon with my husband and his boss guarding the gate, making sure she didn’t try to come into my mother’s house.  The police were called preemptively, and because this was a town of 300 with not much of anything else to do, a squad car was dispatched and stationed near the inlet to the main drive.

Jessica showed up not much later, like we knew she would.  She drove past the police and parked a few yards down from them in plain sight, just sitting there by the side of the road, far enough away from our property that we couldn’t legally do anything about it.  The officers got out and talked to her, warned her not to cause us any problems, and she fed them a woeful tale about being banned from her beloved husband’s memorial service and denied the right to say goodbye to him.

The officers knew there was no body at that service to say goodbye to.  They also knew her.

My husband came up the hill and told us she was down at the road and that Scott was blocking the driveway with his truck to keep her out.  I told my mother it was time to file a restraining order against her.  She was living in fear and Jessica was known to be trespassing on our property frequently.  No, she told me with tears in her eyes but not a sign of distress on her face.  It was a look I knew, because my mother rarely showed emotion unless she was angry and the rest of the time it was this cold detachment.  That would bring reproach on the congregation because everyone knows what we are.  I can’t do that.  I won’t let her win that way.  I won’t let her cause us to bring shame on God’s name.

God’s name.  I took it in vain that day.

More than once.

I was leaving in a few weeks, moving a thousand miles away.  My husband and I weren’t going to be there to help her keep an eye out, and thirty eight acres of heavily wooded land is impossible to protect and easy to sneak onto from a hundred different directions, James had shown us proof of that.

God will protect us as long as we do the right thing and leave it to him, she said.  He knows what she is.

I think it was just a coincidence that nothing terrible happened in the following weeks, because my faith was getting tenuous and a lot of prayers were going unanswered.  But Jessica quietly disappeared back to her own world after a couple of infuriating weeks of putting herself in our paths every chance she got, and not long after that my husband and I moved away, and as we left the driveway for what we thought would be the last time he sighed and shook his head with the exasperation of a man about to say I told you so.

“That land is cursed,” he said.

I tried to disagree, though I don’t know why.

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Less than a mile up the road we passed a man walking.  He was tall and thin and covered in the dust of a long journey with a ratty backpack strapped to his back, and as we passed him I caught his reflection in the side mirror.

It was James, I knew it in my heart every bit as strongly as I knew it couldn’t be.

He was walking away from the hill, toward the west.  The way we were going.  And I swear on whatever holy relic you wish to place under my hand that he raised his head and met eyes with me in the mirror, and he smiled.

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Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold And it's always summer They'll never get cold They'll never get hungry They'll never get old and gray You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today

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