#she is still pure if i disengage myself from the act!!

[kingsmoot]

the thing is that rhaenyra loves herself too much to have repressed catholic shamesex. why do you think she and laenor never fucked not even for the good of the realm? she and alicent would get as far as the edge of the royal bed and alicent would start wailing about the shame she brings upon herself and her house and rhaenyra's already on the balcony with a pack of menthols and uncle daemon on speed dial. they do not match each other's freak, i fear!!!! criston cole incel extraordinaire to the rescue!!

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space orcs, “Revelation.”

Hey guys, I had a bunch of trouble writing last night for some reason, but I managed to get something out, so I hope you like it :) 

“So what do you think, am I more of a Han Solo type or a Captain Kirk type because you know if I am being honest it really depends. I think I would like to think of myself as a Han Solo type, you know dashing and sarcastic, the hero you want to have come in to save the day, but Captain Kirk I can also see. You see I make dumb decisions sometimes and get everyone into trouble. Oh oh oh!! wait ! How about Captain Malcom Renylds. I feel like he is just enough of an idiot and just enough of a badass to work, what do you think detective?”

The Detective groaned loudly and took a long slow breath, “Admiral, listen to m-”

“You know I was also thinking about other parallels. You know how about that old animated movie Titan EA. I think I kind of look like Cale, and Sunny acts just a bit like Stith, you know, the angry chick with big legs. I liked captain Korso of course, just for simple aesthetic reasons, than he had to go and be a bad guy, but damn that redemption arc was surprising and well timed, at least I think, others may disagree.”

“ADMIRAL VIR I-”

“You know I have seen every space related science fiction movie and TV show that ever existed, and I am totally cool to keep talking. I mean I have to pass the time somehow until my lawyer gets here. You see my mother always said I liked to talk. I talked early, in fact, my brothers don’t like the fact that I talk so much, they say I talk TOO much, can you believe that.”

With an angry yawl like a Cat who just got their tail stepped on, the detective rose to his feet, hands to his head, “That is IT, that is IT. We will continue this interrogation LATER.” He turned on his heels and stormed out of the room muttering to himself the entire way, “I need a break.”

Adam Vir watched him go with an expression of pure innocence on his face as the door closed, only to morph into an expression of devilish amusement not dissimilar to that of the grinch in his original animated form. He leaned back in his chair resting his hands behind his head. The Detective had seen fit to undue his cuffs as it might make him more cooperative. The irony being that he would totally love to cooperate if someone was willing to cooperate with him, and actually believe his story.

He cleared his throat wishing he had accepted the drink of water offered to him earlier. He had been talking for about five hours now, straight. Apparently a filibuster isn’t just something you can use in politics. It is apparently a very effective way of driving young and inexperienced detectives insane.

He smugly leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

Interrogation techniques were designed to work on the guilty, or, if done wrong, on the slow, but he was neither of those things. Granted he was kind of an idiot, but he was more of an idiot in the way of his idols like captain Kirk and Malclom reynolds and less of an idiot like every disney villain’s cronies. He was smart just…. Selectively.

He cracked an eye as the door opened opposite.

At first he expected to see the detective ready to go another round already, but instead a group of Drev guards walked in. He smiled his best winning smile at them and rose from his seat, “Back to the cells boys.”

The Drev didn’t say anything.

He tried a different tactic, “Zhad chal dana tsa najastich.” May the sun watch over you: A traditional, and respectful, Drev greeting 

The two creatures pulled up in their tracks.

“Tsa Dzhal cheeych” You speak Drev

“Yid.” Yes 

His little greeting had the desired effect, and soon he had the two Drev warriors conversing like two Rundi at a political debate. They laughed together as they walked down the halls of the precinct.

Still in Drev, the three of them continued to converse, Adam talking animatedly, “So then I told him that I can’t hit kids right,  and he was all like. Then you can fight me.”

“What happened.”

“Got my ass beat. You don’t just challenge a sentinel to open combat as a rookie, and you know, at only six feet tall.”

The Drev chirped with laughter, coming around the corner to nearly run face first into the Detective who was open mouthed and staring, holding a fresh mug of coffee before him. The Drev’s laughter died down seconds to late, and the man narrowed his eyes, glowering at them.

“What are you doing?”

Adam turned to look at the other drev, “Tin Najastich.” watch this.

HE turned to look back at the Detective, “Ne’e j’ya eeneenat nehtehich.” He can’t understand us.  He didn’t do much, but he could tell by the face the detective made, he had done it right. 

It was a little trick he had learned from Sunny, a Drev dialect that tended to cause breaks in the middle of words as if adding a apostrophe, while simultaneously pronouncing all the ts and ks as clicks, the ts as a forward mouth clicks and the ks glottal clicks at the back of the throat. Either way, it was like putting on a thick southern accent to confuse an alien translator, and it seemed, it simultaneously worked for Drev.

The Drev began to laugh and babble at each other in the dialect as the detective sat there in frustrated anger, “What are they saying!” He demanded.

Adam frowned allowing his face to go straight as he deadpanned, “I wouldn’t know. I am xenopobic and would never dane to learn an alien language, you know, like Drev, or Vrul, or.” he leaned towards the Dredv, “I am currently working on learning tesraki.”

The Drev continued to laugh as they pulled him back towards his cell.:

Adam grinned and waved at the Tesraki guard as he walked past, “You know I have it on good authority that stock prices are about to go way up for holywood inc. They are working on becoming intergalactic. I would suggest getting on that bandwagon”

The Tesraki looked surprised, but grinned and waved at him as he was moved into the other room.

Behind him, the Detective was practically blowing steam out of his ears as the door slammed shut.

***

The human glanced over at Krill for the fifteenth time eyes wide in an expression of barely concealed terror.

Krill would have rolled his eyes if his eyes could roll.

Catching the look, Sunny frowned and leaned in, “You did threaten to eat him.”

Krill scoffed, “I don’t even have TEETH sunny, how was I supposed to eat him!” He turned to glance over at the man who was still giving him a bit of a side eye. He frowned, “Well, I suppose blending him up and turning him into a meat smoothie could work.”

It became pretty evident in the next few seconds that they hadn’t been speaking quietly enough, at least when it came to the comment about a meat smoothie.

Krill waved him off with a hand, “Oh just ignore us, now when is this meeting supposed to take place.”

“Ten minutes, maybe.”

Sunny tilted her head back, looking overhead at the darkened sky and approaching rain. 

It was just beginning to drizzle when the man nodded and pointed forward into the darkness, “There.”

Sunny squinted hard, just barely able to make out a shadowy shape slipping through the darkness.

Sunny nudged him forward, “Well, go on. If you do this for us, I won’t let captain cannibal hurt you.”

WIth that urging, it didn’t take long for the man to vanish off into the dark, boots slapping on the wet concrete.

Krill turned to look at her in annoyance, “Its only considered cannibalism if you eat your own species.”

“Whatever,” She muttered, moving into a low crouch and slipping into the shadows off to the side. She managed to parallel the movement of their man for a few streets by ducking behind dumpsters and concealing herself within dark alcoves. At one time in her life she might have considered such actions to be heretical against her beliefs, but her opinions on such things had changed as of recently, and she continued to inch forward through the darkness.

Besides, this was about saving Adam.

Didn’t matter what she had to do, she was going to do it.

The human was close now stopping a few feet away from the shadow. The way the rain fell, it almost concealed the two figures as they spoke. Any bystander just passing by might not have noticed them, but Sunny was not just any bystander.

As the two figures disengaged, she had eyes only for one.

The human, likely scared out of his skin went sprinting off into the darkness likely thinking about krill and his meat blender, but his escape didn’t matter to Sunny. She could find him later if she had to, they had his name after all. What they didn’t have was knowledge about this strange hooded figure in black. The one who had paid the humans to incriminate adam, and themselves by proxy. 

Sunny didn’t know much about stealth as a general rule, but She, still, somehow managed to make it up the street without being seen, tailing the small dark figure. That was her first clue, whoever it was was either a very short human, or not human at all. Now that didn’t really narrow things down as there were several species who could fit into that category, burg iotins even some rundi, or a finnari to name a few. Not that she would ever assume a finnari of doing something like this.

She watched as the figure slipping into one of the large buildings, door shutting quietly behind it. She might have worried about losing the tail if she hadn’t already considered that, and lowjacked the package.

She crouched in the darkness her hands resting on the ground before her, eyes narrowed,

A soft rustling behind her, and she turned nearly jumping out of her skin as a figure scuttled from the darkness, its movements disjointed and aggressive.

“SHHH!” Krill hissed

She snorted fuming, “What the fuck, krill you scared the shit out of me.”

“What, why.”

“Oh I dont know, maybe it has been your recent pension for violence, or the fact that you keep talking about eating people, or your uncanny ability to sneak up behind me.”

“You know, I find all of this to be very insulting. You can stab people in the face, and adam can threaten to punch people in the trachea, but the moment I do something that is even slightly off color, it bothers everyone, and then people get all uppity.”

Sunny sighed, pulling her hood up over her head to block out the deluge, “Generally Adam and I don’t threaten to eat people, Krill. That is the difference.”

“Well no one ever told me there were rules.” He said, gripping onto sunny’s cloak as they inched forward into the darkness, following the signal towards the dark building. They didn’t take the same entrance as the cloaked figure, instead going for a more discreet entrance, finding themselves in a maintenance tunnel lined with pipes and power boxes.

The only illumination they got was afforded to them by the glowing dimness of red lights above and the occasional emergency strip. Somewhere, a distant roar alerted them to the presence of some sort of generator. 

They moved up the hall in near silence as the rumbling continued, and Sunny was forced to stop a few times, listening to the distant echoes of footsteps up the hallway though none of them ever came close enough to cause a real problem.

KRill followed at her back.

Soon enough, they had made it out of the maintenance corridors, following a set of slim metal steps upward and into a nice, tiled hallway. The make was very modern for Tesraki, emulating human style which was rather popular in the galaxy these days, and signified wealth despite the fact that humans were hardly the wealthiest of species.

Fake plants, or maybe real ones --sunny didn’t know-- lined the hallways as little fountains of water trickled through artificial streams on the floor.

The aesthetic was rather pleasing, giving an almost outdoor field inside a city that hadn’t seen green in over a thousand years.

They were almost to the end of the hall when sunny went very still freezing in her tracks fast enough to cause krill to plow into her open back.

“What are you doing.” krill hissed glancing over her shoulder, pausing when a pointed finger motioned him to the target.

“No. That can’t be right.

“I am afraid it is.” ***

Adam woke that night not knowing why.

It was almost as if he had hard a strange noise somewhere in the darkness, but when he sat up, the only thing he could see was the glowing blue/purple wall of the containment field.

He tried rolling over and going back to sleep, but something just felt wrong.

Eventually he forced himself to sit up and look around. In the galaxy, human intuition was nothing more than mere myth, but, despite what others said, he believed in it, and wasn’t about to ignore it’s prodding as it moved him up towards the edge of the containment field to peer into the darkness.

His eyes were almost immediately drawn to one of the other cells -- the one where his attackers had been staying--. Squinting past the glowing surface and into the darkness, he thought he could sense movement.

It was at that moment, that the containment field went down, and he was left blinking into the darkness backing away into his little field of light. When nothing happened, he inched forward and out into the darkness.

Had the containment field malfunctioned?

He took another step into the darkness before turning on the infrared on his mechanical eye and flipping up his eyepatch.

He immediately froze in palace gasping in shock.

“NO!”

[c-atm]

--Fighting flirty short--

  He opened the door, and within is a room that shouldn't be possible. Created via gem magic similar to the gem temple, was a Dojo, a football field long with a bamboo-like floor, walls adorned with melee weaponry of all types, and it's own artificial atmosphere to match the actual weather; and In the center, she stood.

  She was wearing her usual outfit of A royal blue halter top leotard, a pair of mid-thigh yoga shorts of the same color with red trim. Steven raised an eyebrow and grinned as he watched his berry slip into her ready stance… Red orbs by her feet.

  Connie's body lowered, her left foot pointed forward in front of her with her right following.  While she held her hands in the same position, they were open-palmed, straight up as if acting as blades themselves

  "Activate assault spheres Avatar mode." The researcher commanded. 

  Similar to a gem, a light in the form of a human-like being envelopes the sphere. Its shape is built like a quartz with a large torso, thick limbs, broad shoulders; the light fades as the body solidifies, revealing a masculine square-shaped head with no features, towering overall with its nine feet of crimson height. Standing in a low ready stance, with the orb safely within the depth of it's being. There were four in all.

  "Attack."

-

The first swung its arm towards her head,  only to have her jump back to another, which attempted to grab her. She ducked and flanked to the left before getting behind it and slamming a palm into its back, disengaging it.

  She started to charge forward only to leap up to catch the first one in a lock between her legs; using the momentum, she flipped her body backward, throwing off its feet and putting its chest under her ass before she punched its stomach, Dissipate it.

  " Stars, wish that was me under her butt." He said in a low, teasing voice

   The third and fourth hardlight opponent attacked simultaneously. Putting her on guard and leaving no opening. For  every  punch she back, there was a kick to Dodge., but she held her  own and was able to lay to hits on the  drones knocking them back but still operational  "tsch!" She grinned before hopping back and getting low again. Unaware that she was a foot away from Mister.  Her form was sweaty and damped.

  Heartberry brow arched, and she bit her lips as she felt a spank on her butt.

"Encouragement?" She asked in a teasing voice, swaying her hips about.

  "Yeah, kick their ass." Mister teased, kissing towards her.

   She returned the air kiss before charging forward at her opponents. As they both tied to grab her, she ducked into a full split.

  "Oh, now you're just showing off your body control," Mister yelled.

  "And it turns you on," Connie called back as she rolled on her left arm with her legs out, tripping them both before stomping on each of them, dissipating their forms, leaving her alone in the dojo center.

-

  "Oooh, that was so good," Heartberry said with a stretch before feeling the giant palms of Steven Universe, squeezing thighs and pulling her close to his front. "Well, someone enjoyed watching." She jest impishly,  giving him her neck as he laid sensual nips on the left of her collar, " is that for me?" She inquired with carnal intent swaying her 'Heart' upon his thighs, sighing slightly as he began to use his teeth.

  "Good job," Mister mumbled through muffles as he continued his oral play on her collar.

"Bisky, I'm so sweaty." She swooned.

  "Flavoring."

   "Really?"

  "Umm-hmm."

  She giggled before turning around with a grin, the sun in the room giving her a glow. "Was I cool?"

  Mister grinned. "You're too hot to be cool."  He answered as he draped a towel over her shoulders, kissing her and evoking a moan as she returned.

  "Well, -chu- lucky, we -chu- have a -chu- excellent cleansing section.-chu- at R&D." Connie finished by slipping her tongue into his mouth, resulting in a chorus of clipping and popping between their mouths. 

  Connie pulled away suddenly, laughing at his love-stricken face, booking his snoot. "One that you will be using to cleaned my sweaty, 'basted' body." She half-joke, as she pulled on a loop of his jeans pants, "A dip in the essence spring, sounds nice right about now."

  "Really now?" Steven teased as he ran his fingers up and down her spine, getting a purr and nod.

  "Yes, you missed training, so penance is to be provided." Heartberry said impishly,  that legendary teasing flame of hers blazing in those raven eyes as she led him through the Western door. "and since my sweaty body did such a good job. I deserve a prize, and after a sweltering session like that, there's nothing better than..." She paused l, taking his left hand and putting it on her shoulder.

  "Having you soap.." She guided his hand down to her breast.

"Soak..." To her stomach.

"Roam.." To waist

And pat me dry.." She gave off a sensual moan as his hand graced her hips and ass. "Seems like an appropriate reward from a liege to their lioness." She ended with a bit lip glance towards him, being coquettish and trying to hold in her laughter.

  Her Mister's hair was standing straight up, and his skin was bright pink except for his cheeks with were almost glowing red. 

   'OH, that's adorable!' The minx thought as she pressed against him fully, almost shivering at warmth, dear God how it melts her. "Sounds like a fun time, right?"

  'Stars and diamonds!' Steven mind was on fire at the feel of her body, 'This teasing little...' He thought as a snarl escaped his nose. He was not going to lose in this game.

"You know," Steven started as he held her close, lips to her ear,  "if you want, I could always give you a nice tongue bath, like a true lion to their lioness."

  "Now, why would I want you to..."  Connie stopped as his heated tongue graced the back of her ear, her first balled as her toes curled, " w-w-hmm! No! You gonna listen," She huffed through flared nostrils, despite holding his head in place, "why would I-I-I- Hiiii-YAhahaha..You're in..ohh...You're in my ear now. Ok. Um," She gulped with a tremble, broken breath. Her hands running through his hair as her hips sway against him.

  "Yyyuuuppah!" 

  "Shiva!" Connie eye twitched as he popped his lips in her now sensitive ear canal, standing on her toes as she calmed down. "C-compromise?" She breathed out.

  "If you can...thoroughly clean... me without, breaking...focus..." She gulped but managed a teasing smirk. "You can give me that 'tongue bath.' Not only that. We can have a 'pamper' night tonight." 

  The look of pure enthusiasm on her Mister's face at the thought of a 'pamper night' knocked the lust down a peg for a more intimate fondness feeling that swelled her chest.

  "Seriously," His grin big and stunning as he looked at his partner, who nodded before nuzzling in tandem with him against the bridge of his nose.

  "Like I can say no to that smile, but you have to win first." She grinned at the cheeky, challenging smirk on his face.

  "Let me guess; you get to be all hot and teasing as I do." He muttered, nipping at her neck, getting a swooning sigh from Connie.

  "Um-Hmm." She nodded as they entered a room with an indoor spring, diamond essence infused water spilling into it, giving off a fragrant scent and rainbow-like mist. "Will you make me your clean girl..." she broke from his grasp to undo her shorts, back towards him. Leaving Connie in only her leotard.

"Or will I make you my dirty, dirty boy?" 

'I'm your dirty, DIRTY MAN!' Steven announced proudly in his mind as he drunk in her visage. He had never seen her with just the leotard, so his mind was shooting off like fireworks.  The tightness of the leotard against her skin played like a second skin and accentuated her bust, muscles, and curves in a way no other attire had before. The seat was more a small bikini, allowing a little of the supple flesh to be seen, and it was a bit high-cut, letting her whole legs on display. It was thrilling in a way, and he very much appreciated the cloth's hard work, especially around the hips and the shine the fabric had.

  "Three minutes and counting." 

  Steven turned his head up towards Connie, who, despite blushing, was smiling like a fox. "What?"

  "Three and a half minutes, that's how long you been eyeing me." She declared with an imps persona. "Does it really look that good on me?"

  "Truthfully, yes."  Steven instincts took over his words. " You're always enticing, but this..."he let out a breath "Whhhhoooo, you're completely titillating." He praised.

  Connie felt her face glow and her smile widened, "thank you. I..I made it myself..for you to see...Cospheres and all." She rubbed the back of her head at his surprised look. 

  "This is hard-light!?" Steven reached and rubbed on her back, getting a pleasant hum from her. "Hmm...Now that I really pay attention, it does feel like Garnet outfit.."

  "The shorts are hard-light too." She mentioned, enjoying his pride and surprise. "Can't even tell if you're not used to it."

  "How many times we sparred, and I never knew." He grinned, standing up and cupping her cheeks before raining peck's along her face, making her squeal. "You're amazing, Heartberry."

  "You're amazing, Mister." She grinned, kissing his palm before taking her face back and turning away, pointing to the clasp at the leotards' nape. "Mind helping me and then joining me?"

  Steven chuckled as he undid the clasp,  revealing zipper. "and what of our game?" He asked as he slowly unzipped her kissing her bare back as he did, evoking shivers throughout her body, 

  "Bisky..." She shook her head, getting focus, "well, how can we play if we don't both don't get in." 

  "But, I'm not dirt-" His words was left dead as he watched Connie slipped off the clothing, revealing that she actually had nothing under but a high cut, cheeky 'Connie' colored panty. 

  He has seen her in many forms of undress before; hell, recently, she began sleeping in nothing but one of his shirts...That's' it.

  So he's seen her body, but the visage of her climbing out and peeling away the leotard was art in motion.

  The detailed movements of her legs, arms, and torso muscles; when she bent over, pulled off, and climbed out of the fabric. The slight bounce of her bust and 'heart' when it bloomed from the cloth before she shimmers the rest off and kicked it away, making her assets romp a bit more. She was a song of love and sensuality, personified—a sweaty and sweet one.

  "You ok, back there?" His temptress of a partner inquired with that tell-tale tease on her tongue. "See something you like?"  She swayed to the left.

 "Something you want?" She swayed to the right before pressing her back to his stomach, "Or maybe you want to give me something," She kissed under his chin, "my dirty, dirty Mister."

  "You.." He growled deeply as he took her lips with hers, leaning her head towards him.

  "Not even -chu- trying to -chu- hide it, huh? Hehe." 

  "We're not -Chu- playing yet -chu-, right?"

  She nodded, "good point -chu- after we -chu- stop. Game -chu- start."

  Steven nodded as they deepened their oral exploration, popping and rejoining every few seconds.  After a few minutes, the two nuzzled against each other, basking in affection.

  "Go, Mister." Connie slowly and reluctantly pushed him toward the door on the right side of the entrance. "Towels, soap, and such are in there." She told him as she nipped the top of his ear. "Don't keep me waiting, Bisky." She teased lusciously before backing up and jumping into the body of water, completely submerging herself. 

  Steven grinned as he watched her, disappeared under before turning into the room.

  A few moments passed before Steven returned with soap, shampoo, and towels, and paused when he saw her at the end leaning on the edge, her boy submerged up to her mid cleavage, smirking with her wet hair framing her

Face and hanging over her left eye.

  "What's that smile for?" He grinned.

  "I won."

  "Confident, aren't we? What makes you so sure?"

  She nodded to his feet, causing him to look down. She bit her lip when he grinned and breathed deeply. "Umm-hmm," she breathed vivaciously, trailing her finger across her cleavage.

  "yeah..yeah. you win, You dirty, dirty lioness." He nodded with a smirk as he breath deeply.

  "Come here, my dirty-dirty Mister."  Connie laughed as she watched him shred his clothes and dived in.

[toshikosatos]

where I’ve been

trigger warnings for mention of suicidal ideation, and very nonspecific mention of sexual intrusive thoughts. brief mention of fear of starting a fire and contamination fears. (there is also a link to an article which I provide warnings for later, but here’s an advance warning that the article at that link mentions pedophilia.)

alternative title: “OCD: It’s More Than Just Hand Washing! (And Yet I Am Also Singlehandedly Keeping the Body Shop in Business with My Frequent Purchases of Hand Cream in a Desperate Attempt to Undo that Self-Inflicted Damage, As Well.)”

2016 was when it really started to get bad.

there was no real, or at least good, reason for this. my friend had just flown across the Atlantic and moved in with me and my parents, and it was so nice living with a friend and having that constant companionship. I had just finished my first year back in school after deciding to go back and finish my degree following a four year gap, in which I’d bounced between part-time service industry jobs, unemployment, and periods of severe mental illness. it was hard, but I got through that first year. I was 25.

things that sucked, though: season 5 of Person of Interest was happening, and after a year of anticipation, I wound up really disappointed by it. I have a tendency to fixate really unhealthily on my current favourite media, pretty much invest my entire emotional wellbeing in it, and then get totally crushed when it winds up disappointing me in some way. I still feel this cycle happening and don’t quite know how to break out of it, but it was worse back then. and the fandom was also full of REALLY toxic drama at the time that I couldn’t see clearly enough to disengage myself from (although it did ultimately lead to me quitting Tumblr). it wound up really triggering what I now understand to be my OCD, but I didn’t get that back then.

but maybe I should have seen it. I remember weird little things that popped up when I was younger. I went through a time for a few days as a tween when I couldn’t stop flaring my nostrils, or focusing on my blinking, and getting increasingly stressed out by it. later in my teens, I got more anxious about checking all the lights in my house to make sure none of them were about to burst into flames before I went to bed. I also had a bedtime ritual where I’d look at the moon and wish for my loved ones’ wellbeing, and it got more and more ritualized, in this way where I couldn’t step away and go to bed until I felt I’d looked at the moon just Enough, or done certain physical gestures by the window enough times. then I did a school project on OCD at 17 and thought, oh, hey, a lot of this sounds familiar! it made me so aware of my compulsions, but I also started doing them more and getting more stressed out by them as a result, somehow. but a little while after finishing the project, things calmed down again.

these were the things I understood to be related to OCD. I didn’t know WHAT was happening to me when I couldn’t pull myself away from Twitter arguments at 25, couldn’t stop going over the same topics with friends and explaining how I felt and getting reassurance that my friends didn’t judge my opinions, or didn’t judge me for having had a different opinion in the past. I didn’t know why I was losing hours of my life to stress over The Discourse going on on my Twitter feed. I just thought, geez, my anxiety is a mess.

then I went back to school in the fall, and it got worse. one day I remembered something offensive I’d said to be ~edgy when I was 14. read: 11 years prior. I became overcome with anxiety for the next few days, convinced that if I ever told a friend about this, they’d disown me for being an awful person. finally, I told them, and they did not care one bit. they just started listing other 14 year olds they’d known who’d done the same kind of shit. I breathed a sigh of relief. for the time being.

then I wrote an essay that led me down a questionable Youtube rabbit hole. I wound up getting very triggered by a video I saw of something that probably should have been removed from Youtube, but I also convinced myself that I was a horrible person for having looked at it and not immediately looked away. I worried about this for about a month.

then in December 2016, it got much worse. I remembered something similarly inappropriate that I’d seen online when I was 15. again: 10 years earlier. I had looked the thing up out of morbid curiosity, thought it was inappropriate, and never looked at it again. now, 10 years later, I was suddenly overwhelmingly convinced that I was a HORRIBLE person for having looked at this, and that any of my friends would agree and would leave me forever if they knew. within a few days, it became so overwhelming I told a friend, and she did not care. I felt better, for a moment. but it came back. the fear always came back. reassurance from any one person was never enough. I always knew that some remaining friend WOULD hate me for one thing or another I’d done, and it WOULD be proof that I was a terrible person.

I didn’t see how it could get any worse until January 2017. somehow, it did. my thoughts were out of control. I triggered myself eight ways till Sunday, and that January and February was one of the hardest times of my entire life. I was never suicidal - I always knew I would never actually kill myself - but I imagined myself dead every single day, and thought about how much better off we’d all be if I’d never been born. (I remember feeling this way when I took the picture I included at the top of this post.) I felt like there was no point in me living anymore because I was such a horrible person, but that I HAD to keep living, so I was just stuck in a pointless existence, not allowed to feel fulfilled anymore. it was probably the lowest I’ve ever felt. it was the worst feeling. I was anxious and afraid, but that isolating fear made me deeply depressed, too.

but it was pretty early on in all this that I tried to google what I was feeling, and was led to this famous article by Rose Cartwright about pure O OCD. (MAJOR trigger warnings on that article: she talks in detail about sexual intrusive thoughts about pedophilia as well as sexual orientation). honestly, having a name for what I was going through didn’t make me feel much better, but at least I had some idea what was happening to me, now. and it was that knowledge that EVENTUALLY helped me to help myself. it gave me the language to use with the doctors I met, an understanding of how to explain what I was going through, which eventually helped me through evaluations and got me into an OCD treatment program in the fall of 2018. and it did show me that I wasn’t alone.

but there was a sense of, “how did I never realize what this was until now?” I’d referred to myself as having OCD tendencies for a long time. “OCD habits.” I didn’t think any of it was severe enough to actually call OCD. then I found out all the different ways OCD can manifest: intrusive thoughts about sexual topics, violence, morality. I’d had them all. even back in 2013, when I first started seeing a psychotherapist, I went through a phase where I couldn’t stop having a particular intrusive sexual thought that made me feel like a monster. I told my therapist about it, desperate. she reassured me that I wasn’t a freak, and I felt a whole lot better. but she never even used the term OCD. she just said it was strange that I was having these thoughts when I didn’t have a history of abuse. but that’s not strange: it’s just how OCD works sometimes. she didn’t Get It. (I have read that psychotherapists often don’t get it, because they’re quite focused on analyzing the reasons why you feel a certain way, and OCD sufferers already do that too much. we don’t need to analyze: we need to learn to live with our bad thoughts, and not act out compulsions in response to them.) so I went on not knowing until it got much, much worse. and that is why people really need to start building a better understanding of all the different things that OCD entails.

I have intrusive sexual thoughts. I worry CONSTANTLY about everything I’ve ever done wrong and that I’m a bad person, and every single day I fight the urge to seek reassurance from my friends that every single one of those things isn’t It, the thing that will finally make them realize that I’m a horrible person and leave me forever. I second guess every decision I make to the point that I wind up frozen by my own anxiety. I obsess over contamination and harm, too. I wash my hands too much because I’m afraid if I don’t, and then I touch something someone else will touch, I might contaminate them in some way, and that would make me a horrible person. it all comes down to “this will make me a horrible person.” all my other obsessions come back to morality, in the end. I had one doctor who evaluated me tell me I was wrong to connect my sexuality obsessions to my morality obsessions, but I think she was wrong. they are absolutely connected. it is ALL about this for me, in the end.

when I was cleaning my room last year, during my treatment, I got distracted by a notebook I wrote in when I was 12, and I found a page where I wrote, in 2003, “My obsessive compulsive habits are getting out of hand.” I didn’t even remember knowing the term when I was 12. I saw it that long ago, but it took me until I was 27 to get treated for it. there’s no such thing as too late, but when I read that, I wished I could have told my younger self to get help and why. I wished I could show my 17 year old self, or my 21 year old self, or my 25 year old self that page, and let her know, “this is what’s going on. this is what you need to tell a doctor you’re dealing with.” but maybe now I can help someone else figure that out, like Rose Cartwright has helped me with her OCD activism and writing.

my treatment ended a year ago, and I haven’t been using the tools they gave me very diligently since. I’ve been really struggling as a result, but executive dysfunction is a bitch. I hope I can start working on it again soon, because I already know what I need to do to feel better.

a book we used in therapy that I found incredibly helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Over-OCD-Second-Self-Help/dp/1462529704

Rose’s book: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0118ITJUY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

[blacklistzine-blog]

Meet the Mods

Name: Mix

Pronouns: They/Them

Age: 23

What is my experience with zines/leadership positions in general?

I’ve moderated/am moderating several other zines, and among the current zines are Please, Bokuto-san Zine, Aite Zine, and My Love, My Life Zine. I’m acting in a head moderator capacity for PBS and Aite, and for all my zine projects I have a specialization in finances, audits, and budgets as a result of my job.

I’ve worked as a bookkeeper/night auditor for a profitable restaurant/sports bar since Spring of 2014 and, on any given night I work, I handle and balance between $20,000-$25,000 (sometimes more, depending on how busy that audit day was). Through past work with zines, I’ve established relationships with manufacturers and I’m familiar with leading/organizing large groups of people. Some of my most recent experience with this, outside of zines, is through my University’s marching band, where I’ve been Student Leadership (Personnel Manager, Uniform Manager, and Section Leader) for three years and in charge of working with groups of people to help a 150 person band reach its goals.

Why am I heading this zine?

For a fairly well-written explanation regarding censorship that I support, you can click the link [Here]. For my personal opinions, keep reading. (Content warning for references to past sexual trauma, nothing explicit)

(Following section under Read More for length)

I grew up— and still live— in a conservative, rural area (I’m poor). There are many things I love about where I live. It’s quiet, it’s peaceful, I can see the stars and the Milky Way at night, and the full moon hanging over the mountains and illuminating the valley is so ethereal that it still makes it hard to breathe, even after almost 16 years of living here.

That being said, there are many other aspects of this area that I hate, and among them is the idea that some topics are inappropriate and thus not to be discussed, not to be brought up, not to be considered at all. My high school never offered a comprehensive sex education. I was never taught how to use a condom, or what types of birth control existed. In our Musical Theater class, the one (openly) gay kid in our school wanted to play the role of the heroine in a melodrama that maybe 30 people would attend, but was told he couldn’t because “some of the student’s parents wouldn’t like it”. Our theater department as a whole was stuck using musicals from the 50s (and then only select ones) because our schoolboard wouldn’t approve anything else as “appropriate” for high school students to perform. At one point, I wasn’t even allowed to say “Pour the wine” when performing a piece for an assignment because it wasn’t “appropriate” for a high school student to discuss alcohol, even when playing a character in a skit. I did competitive speech and debate, and my senior year I wanted to do an original oratory about gay marriage (then not legalized in my state) and the LGBT+ Community as a whole, but my coach told me that “judges wouldn’t like it,” so I backed down and got myself stuck with an Oratory that was dispassionate and lackluster.

I’m not campaigning that we should be talking about sex around five year olds, or showing porn in schools, but to try to police content, especially when its creators have been very clear in tagging that content with appropriate warnings and ratings, is abhorrent to me. Let me make my stance crystal clear: Censorship is a conservative agenda to police minds and thoughts, and to disengage critical thinking. Censorship breeds Authoritarianism and I refuse to live my life afraid of the hammer of a new age McCarthyism.

We don’t purchase tickets for an R-Rated horror film only to stand up in the middle of the film and start accusing its viewers and/or director as being murderers or serial killers. My mother loves Silence of the Lambs, but she is not a cannibal. I enjoy Pretty Woman, but I am not a sex worker, and I’m sure as hell not a billionaire (my student loans wouldn’t be quite so pressing if I were). Humans have a natural curiosity about the world in which we live, and other worlds in which we do not, and it is physically (and sometimes morally) impossible to actually experience every story, every sensation, every perspective that creative media allows us to.

Sometimes the stories are dark, but humans have dark thoughts, that’s inescapable. No one wants to have a serial killer after them, but every year hundreds of thousands of people sit down to watch Halloween or Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street because we want to experience the rush and the adrenaline and the question of “What happens next?” in a controlled environment where we are, ultimately, safe.

Sometimes stories don’t have any deep meaning, and exist only to make the audience feel some sort of emotion, be it fear, sadness, happiness, humor, or anger. Sometimes stories involve sexual, physical, or mental abuse, and sometimes stories don’t have happy endings. Sometimes dark stories are created as outlets, or mediums, for the pain and suffering a creator has gone through.

If you are an audience member who has gone through some form of trauma or abuse in your life, and you don’t want to engage with these stories then that’s okay. If you are an audience member who has gone through some form of trauma or abuse in your life and you do want to engage with these stories, then that’s also okay. How you choose to process trauma is your prerogative, and no one else’s.

I am a victim of Child Sexual Assault, and my assaulter was a member of my family who was trusted to babysit me for the night. I was four years old. He never faced any legal consequences for his action, and my family hushed it up and swept it under the rug. To this day, I’ve convinced my family that I don’t remember this happening to me— that I was too young and the memory didn’t stick— but I remember. I remember, and I am 23 years old now, but I am still not ready to tell my story in detail. I’m not ready to tell my story, but I don’t want my story trapped inside my head, and I’m not the only person in the world who feels like this— far from it.

Maybe some creative media involving sensitive topics is just porn, pure and simple, and— well— so what? Porn exists, and it’s never going to stop existing. The Sex Industry is home to the oldest professions in the world and people have been trying to stamp out the sex industry for thousands of years on account of its obscenity. However, they’ve never been successful, and they never will, because, while Asexual individuals absolutely exist (I should know, I’m on the Ace Spectrum), the majority of humans have sex and enjoy it.

However, there is too large a percentage of creative media intended (and marked for) adult audiences that isn’t just about sex, and to ban one is to ban the other— to open people and creators up to questions of “artistic quality” and “social relevance” that are subjective to the individual and can never be anything but.

Stories, artwork, film, literature— they’re all ideas, not actions, and when we try to censor ideas or behave like they have the same weight as an action, we have allowed Authoritarianism to rise, and critical thinking and engagement with media to fall by the wayside.

This is the reason I choose to work on Blacklist, and why I’m determined to see this through. I don’t want to live in a world where ideas are policed, and where adult spaces that have been marked as such are invaded and told they shouldn’t exist. No one deserves to be told their story isn’t okay to tell.

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

In Your Hands

Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition Pairing: Solavellan Characters: Solas, Tallin Lavallen (OC) Rating: Mature Words: ~4300 Alt. Site: AO3

Summary: Tallin ruminates on the first time Solas and her acted upon their urges. It hadn't been her original intent to seduce him on that fateful day, she swears by the gods it hadn't..

I still think about it, the first time you touched me. In bed, I mean.

It's shameful, I know, to hold it so close, to value it like I do. But I can't let it go, I can't.

I still don't know what I did that inspired you to do such a thing. All I know is that we were in the rotunda and I said something and then your eyes seemed to darken.

I was naive: I mistook it for anger, and I winced and looked away. As was habit when I was nervous, I began to gnaw on the second knuckle of my pointer finger. "Ah, sorry, if I said something wrong..I mean.." I murmured, my voice dying helplessly.

I heard you inhale, sharp. You pushed yourself off from the cluttered surface of your research table, rounded one of its corners and walked—stalked—no you didn't, you didn't frighten me, you wouldn't hurt me, I didn't mean to i-imply—no, I trust you, only you—walked up to me until we were only inches apart. My chest paused in its breath as I looked up into your face with unsure eyes and watched as your hard expression dissipated like storm clouds breaking away from the horizon. Somehow your features, strong and regal—like a prince, like a prince, you are like a prince but more than that!—could shift so subtly from stone to skin, tense and soften.

But stone, yes, stone was replaced by teacher, yes, teacher. Your eyes glanced down to my mouth and you gently took my finger from it. I let you, blushing hard in embarrassment, stammering out a weak apology. For what? For what. Was it exhausting, having to take care of me like this all the time? Having to mind me because I was not suited towards all - all of this?

"There are better ways to work off nerves, da'len." You intoned smoothly before lifting it to your own mouth to kiss the abrasions. Your lips were soft, warm, and I suddenly found myself wanting them on mine, but you had called me "da'len" and I felt shame overrule and flood me. It would be wrong to pursue you, to entertain such a childish need, when you were wearing the robe of mentor. Incestuous. You continued to speak, the sound far away like an echo. "Would you allow me to join you in your chambers?"

I swear to you I didn't know what you meant at first, I swear. Please believe me. I'm not..like that, I never - I never planned—! I-I didn't me-I didn't mean to entice you in that way. It was never my intent. Never. I - if you thought that, then - then, aha, you must think me smarter than I am. No, no I'm not...

I hadn't read the mood correctly. Would you think less of me if I said I was happy that I was wrong? About what eventually occurred?

My heart had lodged itself in my throat.

I was terrified, and you were so patient, so quiet, so gentle.

With trepidation I climbed the steps to my quarters with you following silently behind. I sensed a quiet energy from you, a sense of purpose that I was afraid to identify by name.

You did not assail me or sweep me off my feet when we got to the top of the stairs and rounded the banister. I would have screamed in fear, I think, and your plans would have been ruined. I surprise others before they surprise me because it is all too easy for them to do so. It's the reason why I tried to avoid Cole the first few weeks, you know.

I stood with my hands squeezed tightly at my sides, trying to remain calm, trying to take deep breaths as quietly as possible. Pressure on my sternum, against my cheeks, on the top of my head.

There was fear, there was real fear when you lifted my chin and quietly asked me if I would like to try out a method for relaxation.

It was at that point that I almost surely knew what you meant, and while one bubble in my chest began to quietly deflate—disappointment — another began to quietly swell—excitement — and yet another one quickly alongside it, nervousness.

Your smile did me no favors. Inviting and open and genial and with just a shade of mischief, the same darkness in your eyes that I now recognized as lust, not anger. I swallowed, parted my mouth to speak, and decided that I should kiss you instead.

It became another reason why I've come to the conclusion that I am insane.

I found myself in bed with you, us lying side by side, you leaning over me to cup my face and brush at my hair while we kissed. We kissed so much that my lips began to numb.

You met my mouth with staid practice. Before you I had never kissed anyone the way we did, and you taught me how to project my pleasure, my enjoyment of the act, to my partner. Giving in the act of receiving.

I wanted us to stay just like that, forever. Immature of me, foolish, but...

You didn't remove all my clothes, but did coax me out of my jacket.

Your other hand began to roam across my body, stroking down my side, my arm, my thigh. It didn't scare me, it didn't grope or demand but seemed to smooth over what I possessed, what seemed to attract you to me for some reason. Even though it was innocent, I felt heat pool between my legs. I tried so hard not to shift, not to let you know I was being affected so easily, that I was so desperate for us to be together like this.

You asked permission if you could touch me beneath my clothes. When I hesitated you kissed my forehead and said it was alright if I said no, you were perfectly fine with just this. You weren't. No man is. No man, no elf, no dwarf can possibly be fine with 'just this'.

And I wanted to, wanted to give you everything, to prove I trusted you, to show how much I loved you because I couldn't..I can't think of a better way..than to let you take from me, take everything you wanted. That's love, isn't it? Isn't it? Right? I had taken so much from you. Your attention, your time, your patience, your patience, your patience. You had early on established yourself as the fourth unmentioned adviser to the Inquisition, to me, and I never even asked.

But was this all a personal test by you? To see if I could ignore the heat in my cheeks and my loins that only served to distract me from the Breach? To determine if I would dirty myself by indulging in such base desires while you remained pure as a spirit, above such things..would I cut myself off from you like a blood mage from the Fade?..what would happen if I said 'yes'? Tempter, exam proctor, parent.

I didn't know what answer you wanted. I didn't know.

But I said yes, and you hesitated, asked if I was sure. I didn't expect you to ask a second time, I wasn't prepared...

"Please.." I whispered, "please..."

Your eyes were so kind. They reminded me of Mother. Gods, I am sick, depraved.

You slid your arm beneath my neck as you loomed over me, looked down upon me.

Your rightful place, rightful place.

You brushed a strand of hair from my pink face, traced the vallaslin that committed me to Dirthamen with your thumb, and asked me to open my mouth. I did and you slipped your tongue inside without resistance. I thought at the time this was how it should be.

You swallowed down my gasp and tolerated the way trembling fingers gripped the home-spun fabric on your shoulders when your hand quietly slipped inside my smallclothes.

Against my cheek you murmured, "Breathe, vhen'an. I won't hurt you."

I know, I remember thinking, I know it won't, but - but you are about to - to - touch - to touch—

Your fingers, pressed together, swept down in one motion, and in surprise I jolted as the act served to spread around the warm wetness I didn't realize had begun to collect between my legs.

I shook and shivered beneath you as terror and panic and pleasure and excitement swirled within me.

I wasn't ready...

..yet I wanted this..

I've waited so long..

But for what?

You picked up on the fearful note that stung a whimper I let out, and you disengaged yourself from sucking on my buzzing tongue. You did not hide your concern and bemusement. "What is wrong, vhen'an? Tell me."

How could I when I wasn't even rightly sure?

An old spark of mischief flashed in your eyes, then. I tried not to flinch. "Have you never touched yourself in this manner before?" You stroked up and down a few more times, slow and firm and heavy. Lewd sounds of slippery skin against slippery skin. Your teeth found my ear, nibbled.

"N-no, ne-never.."

A pleased hum. "Yet your body is so hungry for it." Why had you considered that a good thing? I don't understand.

You continued to purr similar, embarrassing things as you teased my body. Of how slick I was, of how your fingers were absolutely drenched, of how it would do me good if we were to schedule these sorts of private meetings more often. "I think twice a day would be sufficient, wouldn't you say?" Your thumb brushed up against what you later informed me was my clitoris and my hips bucked high, a shock of pleasure I didn't know was possible flaring up like a firecracker in my brain as I gasped.

You chuckled darkly and I wondered if I had been caught in a trap.

If I was, I didn't know how to escape.

If I was, I didn't know if I could.  

So for what seemed like years we listened to the heavy rhythm of my breathing as your fingers slowly circled upon that small bead. Such a simple motion, like stirring the surface of a pool of water. Every so often two sparks within me connected to make an overwhelming twinge of pleasure that had me momentarily stiffening with a silent gasp; your arm would tighten around me as a reminder that it was you and no one else here.

I wanted to curl up into a ball and hide from your gaze, and you must have intuited my lingering hesitation because your hand then gradually picked up speed. I began to whimper louder as you played with this part of me, and in pushing against it, you repeatedly lifted my lower body up briefly into the air. It was if I was being controlled by a puppeteer. It stole my breath, truly. I had never felt this before, I told you. I couldn't..couldn't stop. I don't think you wanted me to.

I was terrified of how swiftly my modesty was slipping away but...I wanted this. How needy and desperate had I been for this sort of touch? From you? No one else. I still can't pinpoint when the thought of you being a partner to me in this secret, private way was conceived.

But even then, how could I have told you that the one you called da'len—the one you were now calling vhen'an—had pined for you for some time, since near the beginning. How could I have told you of her initial efforts to strip her heart of tainting weeds out of fear they would rot away the bond of elder and pupil, of how after a time her hand purposely faltered, her eyes were consciously shielded by her hand and she allowed them to grow untouched until they had bore thick, confusing roots that constricted and choked.

I turned my head to find refuge in your chest, to hide my shame. I thought I could calm myself with the scent that clung to your sweater—moss, old papers, something metal that settled on my tongue. I thought I could somehow will away the throbbing, the ball of heat that had long since nestled deep in my hips and only seemed to grow larger with your efforts. I was so embarrassed, so so so embarrassed of how - how - how—I can barely say it, even now—wet I was, how obvious and pathetic.

But if I didn't see your face, I could pretend it was my hand, even though I had never touched myself in such a way before. Do you believe me? It's true. I swear. You were my first in everything. Everything.

Despite wanting, despite wanting wanting wanting, I held my body as stiff as I could, mortified that it was so easily responding like this to you, lewd and begging. Self-control, that's what you always preached, what you always practiced. You never drank more than a glass at meal times, you did not return cruelty with cruelty, you rarely if ever spoke in anger.

I was failing. You were measured and precise in your touches, your breathing hadn't changed its pace, not by much, and yet I had begun fraying immediately from less than nothing. I was failing in my desire to avoid being seen as indulgent, fulsome even though I wanted this, wanted this so much.

'What are you afraid of, Tallin?" You spoke directly into my ear, husky in its warm darkness. Wicked promises, intentions, that were forming as I breathed. You were transforming just as I was. Something stiff was pressing against my outer thigh, something frightening and strange. In the back of my mind, dread began to fall and fill like black blood.

I had been turning you, tempting you all this time, hadn't I? Had I? I never - I never intended - I'm so sorry-

"Do not apologize," I winced at your scolding tone, and then whimpered when I realized I had spoken that apology out loud. "Never apologize when we're like this."

I tried to explain, I tried so hard, but you proceeded to interrupt my train of thought with expertly-timed swirls around my clitoris. It seemed every time I was about to complete a word your middle finger was there to press down and wiggle on that small bud like you were worrying a string on a zither fret, persisting until I abandoned my efforts to speak. "Should-ohh-dn't - I shou—ahh, should—aah! You—mmm! I'm sor-ahh, so- ahaaah ahh! Ahh! Ahh!!"

You managed to make yourself heard over my moans, your tone lilting now with compassion. "You have not been honest with me or yourself since we began." Your hand paused as you leaned down to tenderly kiss away my frustrated tears. "Don't hide yourself, Tallin. This is alright, you are allowed to feel this. There is no shame in it."

I felt my face twist up and I brought my hand up to prevent a sob from escaping. How were you always able to pin despair and graciousness to my heart?

I found myself whispering, babbling really. "You're giving..you're always giving..I - I'm - I can't.." The words died. I couldn't save them.

You held my face and kissed me. Against my lips you implored, "Tell me."

My teeth were chattering, yet my face burned, felt so hot I was surprised I wasn't steaming. "—I'm afraid, I'm afraid that - that—"

Kiss. "Tell me."

"I love you, Solas. I love you, but I..."

Kiss. "Tell me."

I didn't. Not everything. Not even a sliver of anything. I couldn't. I tried, please believe me when I say I tried.

"Please, pl-please, please Solas, pl-e-ase..do you feel the same? Truly? I love you so much and I can't—please, I need to know. I can't - I can't - I'm not like this - it's only you - the one I want. I love you, IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.." I sucked in a lungful of air, yet it didn't seem to make any difference. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe. "..so mu-u-ch. So much. And I trust you but—"

"But?" Soft and smooth.

"Don't—" My hands clenched, my jaw practically creaked as I crushed down what felt like the birth of a hysterical wail before it could leave my mouth. "Please. Don't do this if you don't feel the same. Please."

You listened—you always listen—as I threw out what I could to make you understand. I didn't think, then and now, that I did myself justice. It has crossed my mind that you would be here right now holding me had I said nothing...I don't eat much anymore for fear of retching at the idea.

You stared in that way of yours, that gravely serious way that felt like your eyes were chisels and I was a block of stone to be broken to pieces. Not breaking my gaze, you took one of my hands—your fingers were wet, the scent of me now wafted in the air—and guided it to your crotch. I couldn't help it, I shuddered. My hand trembled as it registered through the fabric how hard you were. This part of you that remained obscure, that I knew of in vague theory but not practice.

"I do." you answered. "This—" you pressed my hand harder against yourself and I was struck by the heat that emanated from it, "—is but one symptom of many. Believe me, for both our sakes, when I say I love you. Deeply. Truly."

You kissed away the new set of tears that then began to fall, ones of overwhelming relief.

"Oh, S-Solas, I—" and in my effort to better find your mouth, I unthinkingly pressed the heel of my hand against your groin for leverage. It was clumsy of me, and the growl in your throat made me shrink back. I had never heard you make that sound before, guttural and low, animalistic. You turned away and closed your eyes tightly, working your jaw as if mentally overcoming some indescribable pain.

I retracted my hand as if burned. "I'm sorry," I whispered quickly, "did I—"

"No!" I recoiled from the severity of your voice, the harshness it bore upon me. Near-fatal silence except for the sound of you taking air into your lungs. Fighting off something, something I had caused..

Before the pieces could fall into place—did you ever find my ignorance insufferable?—your face smoothed over, consternation dripping away. "I am alright." A rueful smile that didn't quite reach your eyes as you tipped your chin down to look back at me. "One day I will teach you how to reciprocate your feelings, if you so desire.." As you spoke your face hardened again into a predatory facade, the one that still sends chills down my spine when I think back on this time. "..tonight, however, I devote myself solely to your deserved pleasure."

And with that you once again crashed your mouth against mine and now there was urgency, almost desperation. Had you wanted to prove your altruism that badly?

Your hand remained stoic as it returned to that place between my legs to manipulate me as before, but I was so alight and so keen that I had was stripped of the capacity to care if my hips rose up to greet your fingers with the enthusiasm you must have been waiting for me to surrender to all this time.

My moan buzzed in your mouth when you eventually slipped them inside of me, first one, then a second joining in just as effortlessly when you received no initial semblance of protest from me and or my body. You pushed in until your palm would allow you to go no further. There was no time to ask how you knew to do such a thing at that exact moment. It was a new but welcome feeling. A new and gratifying feeling that I wanted to expand into forever.

Another pained groan from you when my body contracted reflexively to better accommodate you. "Fenedhis." You cursed. "So hot..so tight." Your admiration had been tinged with bitterness. You regretted making the promise not to go further with me than that. I know. I wish I had been brave enough to encourage you otherwise.

You pulled your hand back, and I shuddered as the pads of your fingers dragged heavily against the parts of me we could not behold except through touch: I was soft. I was wet. I was swollen.

Your arm around me squeezed, and upon receiving a nod from me, you slid them back in, and then out and in, and then out and in and out until direction became meaningless, until my mind had devolved into nothing but a sponge fervent in its need for nothing but more.

More. More. More. More. More. More. More. More.

"M-More," I pleaded, and I had enough sense to regret it as soon as the request left my lips. To ask for such a thing when you had already indulged such greed and conceit within me. Even so, my throat tightened at the possibility that you might stop. Oh gods, I would die if you stopped then. I would die, just die. I had to tell you, I had to continue to be selfish and shameless to prevent myself from suffering. "M-more, please..Solas, p-please. Please do-don't sto-o-p.."

"Shh shh." Another heavy kiss before you located my ear and began to spill hurried reassurances into it. "I won't, I won't. Trust me, I won't. Shh, my love, shh." You mirrored your promise in earnest, quickly setting a steady, pleasurable rhythm that filled the room with the sloppy sounds you were making against my folds, the way your palm sent light shocks to my clit as it lightly slapped against my mound with a trusted repetition.

More than that, there was something inside me that you were brushing against. You seemed to know where to look for it and you were focusing all your attentions on making sure your fingers were passing against it with every thrust. My head had fallen back onto the pillow. Chin tilted up, I had begun to pant.

"Beautiful." I recall you murmuring that against my throat at some point. I don't know how I could have possibly heard: I was breathing so hard, my blood was pounding so loudly in my ears. "You are so beautiful. My beautiful—my most precious.." Why had your voice carried such notes of guilt? "Ar lath, 'ma vhen'an. Lathan na.. Deeply, truly..."

And all the while, this whole time, something was building. Something I instinctively knew I wanted to reach, something that whispered promises of good. But what was it? What were you searching for within me?

My legs were shaking, I was shaking. I was incoherently mewling. I was so close. "Ah! Solas - Solas-it's - I'm -"

"Garas." you commanded before your teeth gently clamped down on the point where my shoulder and neck connected. You pressed hard and firm on my clit with your thumb for emphasis.

My back bowed and I gasped. One second there was nothing, absolutely nothing, and the next I was wailing as I was barraged by a tidal wave of ecstasy. Heat that wasn't heat but bloomed throughout me like a spring flower, or the rays of the sun. It was almost too much, this bliss, and I made it well known to you.

I can't describe it better, I'm sorry, I'm not as poetic as Cole.

In one smooth motion you slipped your fingers out of me and then pressed down on my hips when they bucked instinctively at the loss. "Ohh..!"

As my—I'm sorry I can't say the word, I just, I just can't—as my..core continued to throb, my whole body twinged with it, but in its wake I felt such a warmth, such fuzziness begin to replace it.

As your hand slid up my form, caressing, lightly kneading out the remaining twitches, a sleepy melancholy loomed, threatening to consume the euphoria you had gifted me.

I wanted..I wanted..

"Solas.."

Your voice was so quiet and you were already kissing my face all over. "What do you need of me, what is it?"

I sighed, my eyes briefly fluttering closed. My fears had been rendered silent for the moment. Everything felt so clear, and yet there was a hazy ball of yearning and exhaustion I was tempted to sate.

My hand reached up to stroke along your cheekbone. You returned the faint smile I somehow managed to make, and oh, oh your eyes..there was such quiet adoration. Of me. Like Mother.

"Stay here..with, with me." I glanced away, wincing at my directness. Force of habit. "Please."

Your soft laugh wrapped around me like a blanket. Secure. Safe.

"I will."

Then, my worn epithet: "I love you, Solas."

Your eyes—Mother's eyes—drank me in. There was an Antivan word Josephine taught me, I forgot what it was I'm sorry, that translated to 'loving-kindness'. I'm sorry, the thought came to me.

"I love you, Tallin Lavellan."

Do you remember?

You guided my head to your chest and laughed again when I nestled myself as close to you as possible, uncharacteristically eager. "Always." You promised. You promised. You promised.

The odd necklace you wore, the jawbone of some creature with fangs, stuck between our chests. Hard, like what continued to press against the inside of your breeches and my leg. You pretended it didn't exist, and so I did the same.

I fell asleep while you murmured repeated praises of me in my hair. Some of them Common, some Elvhen. But you used words I had never heard of, words that barely resembled the speech of my people. Old and archaic, it felt like.

If I were to approach you now, would you tell me what they meant?

[jaeheekangisimportant]

what's your top six of the routes and why? :o

Okay this is going under a read more cause it’s surprisingly long sorry I kind of went off more then I planned to.

Also, I discuss sexual misconduct and assault toward the end of this, it’s not too detailed but I did want to give people some warning just in case

1. Yoosung – It was my first route so it’s always been a bitspecial to me, but even putting that aside I just really like his route. I knowa lot of people fixate on the whole “just like Rika” thing and take issue withit but honestly, I could never bring myself to care about it that much. Like,no I didn’t exactly like being compared to his dead cousin, but I didn’t getangry or annoyed at Yoosung for it. I understood that it was coming from aplace of grief. He was in a deep depression because of Rika’s supposed deathand he never got the closure he needed for it, and no one else seemed to betaking him or his feelings seriously. It’s not surprising that he would clingto the first person (MC) who showed genuine interest in him and try to findwhat he lost (Rika) in her. It’s not right for him to do that, of course, but Icould understand and empathize and so I was willing to be patient. And it’s notlike he does it the whole route anyway, he stops the Rika comparisons within afew days, and from them on he sees MC as her own person and likes her for whoshe is, though he’s of course still dealing with his grief. I thought it waswell-written, honestly. I guess I can understand not wanting a romance thatfocuses so much on your love interest grieving someone else but… yeah I justcouldn’t be bothered by it in the same way everyone else seemed to be. I lovedYoosung’s character development and I enjoyed every minute of it. Plus, sinceit was my first route and I knew absolute nothing going into this game,everything was genuinely surprising and fresh and felt real to me, a feeling Islowly lost as I did more routes. Plus, Yoosung’s endings are the best?His good ending is so beautiful and his normal ending is just super cute. Andhis bad endings… well they certainly live up to being bad endings lmao. They were interesting at least and they got astrong emotional response out of me so, that’s saying something at least.

2. Jumin – Okay so everyone seems to have pretty strongopinions about Jumin’s route one way or the other. For the people who are onthe side of not liking it, let me just say… I get it. Really, I do. I also kindof, um, don’t care? Okay that sounds bad just hold on. I’m not reallyinterested in writing out a big defense of why Jumin’s route isn’t Problematicbecause for one thing, plenty of people have done that already and for anotherthing, I don’t necessarily disagree with the people who don’t like Jumin’sroute. I get where they’re coming from, parts of his route are veryuncomfortable. I don’t think he’s as bad as certain people make him out to be,but he undeniably crosses the line at some points of his route, and I candefinitely understand not liking it because of that. As for why I like it, well, part of it again camedown to how much I empathized with Jumin, which was a lot. Much like Yoosung,no one else in the game seems to take Jumin very seriously. They write him offas unfeeling and no one really tries to understand or sympathize with him. So,I got why Jumin acted out the way he did in his route, though of courseunderstanding is not the same thing as excusing. But the other thing is… I thinkhis route is wildly entertaining. It was the only one, aside from Yoosung’s,where I genuinely had no idea where it was going. Jaehee’s route, thoughenjoyable, was easy for me to predict, as was Zen’s route. And Seven’s route Igot spoiled for long before I even got to it. I liked that Jumin’s route was sounpredictable to me, it made it really fun to go through, and I thought Juminwas a really interesting character and I liked getting into his head and learningmore about him. It was still fun to play even after the first time. So, since Iliked Jumin’s route so much purely for the entertainment factor of it, it waseasy for me to forgive the more “wtf” parts of it. And listen guys, Jumin mademe strawberry pancakes and read me to sleep, why would I ever want to leave hishouse to begin with?? (Also, fun fact: it was Jumin’s route that made merealize Jaehee was my favorite character.)

3. Jaehee – I’ve already talked a lot about her route here, andhow I don’t like the ambiguity of it and the weird pseudo-romance between herand Zen that only serves to placate the people who don’t want Jaehee/MCromance. It breaks my heart that my favorite character in the game and of alltime is only my third favorite route, but I mean, her route is still good and Istill enjoyed it a lot. It’s just unfortunate that I don’t love it quite asmuch as I love her. But enough negatives. In general, I don’t see a lot ofsimilarities between myself and Jaehee, but what she said about how she holdsherself back from being happy because she’s afraid of it disappearing? Boy thathit me hard. I really loved Jaehee’sgrowth throughout her route, seeing her realize her own worth and that it’sokay to take risks sometimes and she doesn’t always have to play it safe,seeing her find a true place in the RFA and in the world, it was all sobeautiful! I think Jaehee’s route is interesting in how it deals withloneliness and self-worth, and plus Jaehee herself is just so cute?? The textsshe sends and the responses you can give are just so adorable I love how muchJaehee opens up she really is so charming and fun. So yeah very solid route, Ijust wish certain things had been handleddifferently but y’all know that already I don’t need to go into it again.

4. Seven – Uuuuh boy. Hm. I’m not a huge fan of Seven’sroute. Particularly, I don’t care for the actual romance in Seven’s route.Which is kind of a big deal. But I’ll get to that. A lot of the “reveals” inSeven’s route were spoiled for me back when I was still only on my second route,so there were very few surprises when I actually got to Seven’s. To befair, a lot of these things I probably would have guessed myself anyway becausethe hints aren’t exactly subtle, but I didn’t even get the satisfaction ofwatching my guesses be proven correct myself because I didn’t get to make thoseguesses at all, I was spoiled too early. My fault for following a lot of MMblogs so early on in my playing, but still annoying. Not everythingwas spoiled for me at least, there was still a lot I didn’t know about Sevenand Saeran’s past and that was interesting to learn about. I also loved that littlesubplot in Seven’s route with Yoosung and Jumin lmao. As I’ve said tho, theweakest part of Seven’s route for me was the romance with him. I didn’t likehow mean he is to MC, and I had a difficult time placing myself in MC’s shoesbecause I couldn’t find any reason that I would want to keep pursuing someonewho was treating me and acting the way Seven was, so I felt really disconnectedfrom the whole thing. Probably super hypocritical of me to take issue with theway Seven treated MC when I didn’t take issue with the way Jumin treated her,but I simply wasn’t as invested in romancing Seven. I always seem to have that problemwith Seven. Even in his Christmas route and even in his Valentine’s afterending, I just… didn’t care. Like, they were objectively cute, and I swear I actuallylike Seven, but somehow when it comes to romance with him I disengage almostentirely. So idk man, maybe I only like Seven as a friend?? It’s weird. Sevenis such a strange character for me for a lot of reasons I won’t go into but thepoint is, since a lot of the mystery around Seven was ruined for me early on,his route didn’t hold as much interest for me as it should have, and the factthat I wasn’t invested in the romance part of it didn’t help. I don’t hate hisroute or anything, but I have a hard time saying I like it.

5. Zen – I don’t like Zen so there was very little chance of meliking his route anyway. Even if that wasn’t the case, tho, it stillwould have ranked very low because of the whole Echo Girl thing. I just… reallydon’t like stories that are like “girl ruins guy’s life with false sexualmisconduct accusations” because it pretty much never happens like that in reallife and it only perpetuates the idea that victims of assault and harassmentare lying and dramatic, and that makes it more difficult for people to come forward when ithappens to them. Zen’s route makes a big thing out of Echo Girl accusing him “withoutproof”, and of course we know that she was in fact lying, but the way it’spresented it’s like… look, I’m always going to be inclined to believe thevictim, with or without proof, because the consequences of me believing themand being proven wrong will do far less damage than if I didn’t believe them,and they were telling the truth. It’s not immoral for people to have believedEcho Girl’s story even if she didn’t have “proof” (which, what would that looklike anyway?). Also the way they disprove her claims is pretty gross too,because they disprove it by showing that Echo Girl was attracted to Zen and saidthings about wanting to have sex with him before the alleged incident, sotherefore she must be lying. That’s not how that fucking works. And again, weknow that Echo Girl was lying, and that she was in fact the one harassing him, but think about what this is implying. Thatbecause Echo Girl is attracted to Zen, he couldn’t have assaulted her? Thatbecause she said before that she would like to have sex with him, she couldn’t possibly have changed her mind and therefore he couldn’t have assaultedher? That because she expressed interest in him, it’s impossible that anyadvances he made could have been inappropriate and therefore he couldn’t haveassaulted her? Echo Girl being attracted to Zen has absolutely nothing to dowith whether or not she could have been harassed or assaulted by him! Saying that herinterest in him is enough to disprove her claims is really gross! It doesn’tmatter that they were false, the implications of all this is still bad! Theycould have and should have handled all of this differently, the route wouldhave been better off for it, but the way it’s written is just so bad and perpetuatesall kinds of awful ideas.

6. V – ahaha ahhsha alskd I’ve already said enough about V andhis route I don’t think I need to say more

[vanishing-hour]

7:15, upon the sounding of Weiss’ Passacaglia:

You are not the person you used to be - you cannot become the person you once were. You are you as you wake up each day — you are you as you choose to live and through how you choose to create and depict yourself.

A SELF-FASHIONED MASS OF CREATION. STOP.

TAKE IT AS IT COMES. STOP.

8:37, upon receiving a text message:

If we conceive of products of industry as armaments designed to further alienate us from society, then the following becomes clear:

We speak more than ever, but no longer to each other. All our voices become lost in the mediating process, refracted and abstracted via industrially formed communicative mediums. These mediums operate under the veneer of connectedness, but are ultimately concerned with seeking power and control; their overseers shape and direct our discourse, establishing parameters within which the illusory conceptions of freedom of expression and individuality arise. From what was once the lack of ego, there is now the “I” of power; “I” speaks power and “I” is power. To speak as a subject, to converse and relay opinions is necessarily to universalise one’s own subjectivity. To have an opinion is necessarily to disengage, to dislike, to negate the world from which we arise. What “I” say, what the “I” speaks applies to all. To remove the I, however, to remove the subject is to remove ourselves. If one is to stand around a corner, the other side of the wall does not exist until one has taken the steps towards it. No, but this depends on experience not the reality (?) that exists within the mind. What would then happen, say, if another is standing around the corner? The confrontation of two universalised subjectivities - four in a house. Two-hundred on any given street. One-thousand in a neighbourhood. Intersection. Six billion possible confrontations.

10:33, upon stepping outside, a sketch, a sensation, sensibility:

Are we not gifted with some unique kind of spatial memory that transcends temporal borderlines? What else can explain a certain area or city as feeling like ‘home’ or a place where one can entirely belong and melt away into the sounds of passing cars, doors opening, and a jug falling off the side of a ruined outdoor table setting?

Barthes paraphrases Socrates and mentions the atopos — the undefinable, the unclassifiable, but if there is more than one place that will feel like home in the course of one’s life, then is there a classifiable type that appeals to an individual’s disposition?

10:35, upon the viewing of a poster:

A humanely humorous work of anti-war sentiment operating under the veneer of poetry.

11:44, noticing my thoughts to be distinct from my words:

It is an indescribable feeling that looms over me; almost resembling a visceral feeling of dread and utter helplessness. It has overcome me before, but this is noticeably different; a hollowness, a constricting echo chamber. While for the moment I am relatively pain free, I am fearful that it is only a transitory and furtive moment of respite in and amongst the vicissitudes of life. I feel as if a friendship that is true and pure should not bog itself down with the kinds of preconceptions regarding their own natures.

For the moment, all that keeps me alive is the hope that I may one day experience something other than the Black.

Why must I not speak? What have I allowed myself to become? Poor, poor Lion of the West - dethroned and thrown into the wilderness to fend, naked and alone! Woe!

15:13, a storm approaches, looking forward toward a night without stars:

When looked at from a glance of time above,

Our births are but a sleepy forgetting

Our lives, a brief wait in the drawing room

Our deaths, the final debts we all must pay.

To seek below that which rests in the heart of Man,

Wait only you can thro the pangs and darts

That life so readily inflicts.

Wait you must, no other choice you have,

Till the hour at which you will greet our Artifex.

16:21, on the remembrance and return of pain:

The following applies to all things: when we lose something, it is not the absence of the thing in itself that grieves us, but how the object itself made us feel. Once more, it is the return of the ego. Εγώ. The subject-object relation. Unbreakable. “To grieve something is inherently a selfish act” it has been said.

The same can be said of illness and the loss of one’s bodily autonomy.

But how to deal with it, then?

Remember that what you have control over are your thoughts, opinions, and perceptions regarding external events. What if I am self-contained? Existing solely within myself?

Find new ways to relive those emotional sensations and impressions, but remember them for what they are: ephemeral, fleeting, and passing moments of time that plague the one who forgets we are caught in a position of vulnerability that is not quite possessive of tomorrow yet certain of our time in the yesterday.

Unbound.

16:50, the key is to read and apply both:

YB BH MJ GN AC UC BH AH AC GI IZ. STOP.

20:55, the night music of the streets of the city:

It is night; the street is filled with the sounds of music emanating from small windows above the bar opposite. It sounds terrible. A mass of offensive white noise. Perhaps Adorno could decipher its meaning. I just shudder at the thought. Boisterous chatter from the tables beside me, it is the season of Advent, after all. At once, the chair is pushed, sirens rush past, and the raucous screams of inebriated youths pierce my own version of silence.

Heart rate increases. Throat closes. Hands cover the forehead and slide down the face. The body trembles. Overstimulation does not equate to the overwhelming feeling of sensory overload. I take a stand, though an unconfident one. Back streets get me home. I get into bed (notice the iceberg). Perhaps with sleep the new morning will bring solace (?).

12:35, upon regarding the seeping moonlight dimly illuminating the form of my immediate surroundings:

I read somewhere that if we are to exist as foils for the world, to capture and measure its bounds and edges, then it must first be shown that the world itself possesses its very own form. I lift my knee and the blanket itself changes material form, but does not lose its blanketing quality. There are far too many facets to understand. What of the unreliability of the senses? I can barely see through the darkness, yet my mind knows there to be a form to the room, to the outside. But what of conceivability as probability? In the moment before I open my front door, there is sunshine, hail, rain, and darkness all simultaneously occurring on the planes of (meta)physical existence. But what of the open door? What of he who knocks at the door? I have not seen them, but my mind knows someone to be there. Can I trust it?

4:53, the sun is due to rise in opposition to the Moon which remains luminary and steadfast. Two eternal glows.

A fumble in the dark.

The postcard from her reads “c’est la nuit qu’il est beau de croire à la lumière”. It is from Edmond Rostand, from which book I still do not know. I have not asked. I have never needed to know. I am understanding the evolution of myself, of my mind. Reading those lines seven months ago instilled in me a feeling of expansive ease, as if the distance travelled by the postcard was the unit of measurement by which I could measure and quantify my own sentiments.

Sudden elation.

The heart warms, mellows in this body (this mass of self-fashioned creation).

Now I am not so sure I’d agree.

It is still night and I am seeing this light she speaks about, it is beautiful to witness, pretty to think about. The illumination of form, of my form, of the bed, of the room, of the outside. To witness the celestial brilliance of both heavenly glows should surely bring solace.

7:15, upon the sounding of Weiss’ Passacaglia:

I am reminded of the guilt — of those I have hurt in some way, of those I continue to hurt in thinking such things, in allowing such thoughts to persuade my actions. To go on living as feeling undeserving of the quiet elation one encounters in life — to disbelieve in the possibility of satisfaction and doing well by and for others. My back seizes as I try to lift my torso from out of the bed which for the last nine months has come to represent the antithesis of sleepy forgetting and nightly respite and rejuvenation. Instead, the idea of sleep only guarantees the swiftness of the passing night and the subsequent resurrection of feeling.

“Surely the work of demons! What else?”

Is this to be looked forward to?

[tannerahonesti95]

Reiki Energy Gouda Top Useful Ideas

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Reiki Energy Healing Atlanta

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Want to feel even more so with local doctors.You may be necessary to become after that.Karuna Reiki Master is a self-meditative practice which triggers basics bio-electrical flows within the body.Sometimes the image is vague other times it's the seat of your intuition, or for blocking energy are always happy, they always smile, and they are needed to obtain Reiki master in Reiki, you ask?Or the session or a wave, like a healing energy is low, our body so you should first begin with an online course.

[datingadviceonreddit]

To sum up - my boyfriend of a month started off by sweeping my off my feet and now already seems to comfortable. It’s also questionable whether he’s over his ex, but has many demons to face that I’d like to help him with without hurting him. I’ve been in a similar position to him and it sucks.(This is a bit of a long one but I’m trying to be unbiased here with both the lovely things about this guy and the red flags, and show how his character began to change after I said yes to dating him)So I met a guy, about three weeks ago now. I’d recently made the decision to stay single for a while, as only a couple of months ago, I got out of a year long relationship in which I slowly realised I was a rebound. I wanted to clear my head, regain the confidence I had lost and convince myself that I am worth much more than a stop gap for someone’s loneliness.But then I met (we’ll use an alias for the sake of this story) Jacob. (Disclaimer, this was before the COVID-19 epidemic blew up, Im now in isolation) I bumped into Jacob accidentally at a house party. Honest to god when I arrived, flirting with anyone was the last thing on my mind; I just wanted to drink, have fun and socialise. But then he caught my eye. He subtly but charmingly made advances to make conversation with me and we hit it off almost immediately. What I liked most about him is the deep conversations we could have, even on the night we first met. Not once did he make any psychical advances - it seemed as if he really was just interested in what i was saying, which I’ve never really experienced before with men.My friend even sent me a video the next day from the party, of both me and Jacob singing drunkenly. I hadn’t noticed at the time, but every now and then he would glance at me wistfully (not in a “I wanna bang her” kind of way, but a gentle, innocent “she’s pretty” glance). Of course this further enhanced my crush, feeling as if his intentions were pure, and that he wasn’t just looking for some action at the party. He added me on social media the morning after the party, and we started talking as if we had always known each other.A couple days later, I was ditched by a friend in London after getting the train down to see a band I liked live. I was messaging Jacob and briefly mentioned I had been ditched, and he insisted that he come down to meet me to make sure I got home safe. Normally, I would have refused this given he had just finished a 12 hour shift at his work, and that I’d like to feel I’m pretty streetwise, but this specific area of London was a little seedy, and I didn’t object to the company. I paid for his train ticket as he was going me a favour. So he came up to meet me, and despite everything had closed by the time he arrived, he didn’t complain once and we talked all the way home. Although simple, it was probably one of the most genuine and courteous things a guy had ever done for me.Several days after that, he asked me on a date. He took me for dinner and was the most amazing gentlemen I’d ever met. I felt like a princess; he did everything you see in the movies, from pulling out my chair for me to tipping the waiter generously. We again talked over dinner as if we had always known each other. I made sure to mention to him there and then that I wasn’t really ready to rush into anything serious, and that I had recently gotten out of a relationship. He said he completely understood and was happy to take things slow. Later on that day, we decided to meet up for drinks with some of the friends from the house party, along with a couple of his close friends. They were all friendly and welcoming, and I chatted away to them all night. They were very good at being wingmen, telling me that Jacob “hadn’t stopped smiling” since he met me, etc.We all started to get a little drunk as the night progressed. Conversations got deeper as they often do with alcohol and he Jacob began to open up about his past relationship. He had been with someone for 7 years - they broke up 9 months ago. Alarm bells went off for me immediately. I understand that the heart heals at a different pace for everyone, but I find it very unlikely that you can move on form such a long relationship in a measly 9 months. (I know it sounds hypocritical given I am very recently single also, but I’d like to point out that it was a very mutual break up and we both admitted that any feelings we thought we had fizzled out and therefore it hadn’t effected me a lot - we were better friends than partners and still talk occasionally to check on each other). I did ask him about this gently, and his response was “I love her to bits, but I don’t want to be with her anymore. I want to move on”. I was a little on edge with this answer, and don’t feel like it’s something you would say when you were over someone. I tried to push it to the back of my mind and have fun, and told myself that we had Already made clear we were seeing each other casually anyways. It got later, and with more alcohol in our systems, we started to get more flirty. (Only verbally, not physically.) I asked him something stupid about why he was attracted to me at the house party and he blurted out, “because I fell in love with you”.I know he was drunk, but I was super taken aback. I briskly walked away without an answer and talked to some other friends outside. His friends came to chase me up a couple minutes later, explaining that he didn’t mean what he had said and he was just very drunk. He came out shortly after and repeated the same thing, saying that it was the first time he had met someone that he clicked with so well after the relationship and his drunken mind had uttered words he didn’t mean. I reiterated that I didn’t want anything serious and that we should just see how things go, especially with the newfound information on feelings towards his ex. He apologised for being so creepy and we forgot about it and danced the night away.Later on, I ended up making a move on him and the butterflies in my stomach were unbelievable. He seemed really happy also, and he took me home in the early hours of the morning, again without making any further advances which I really really appreciated.So everything went a little quicker from there. We met up a couple more dates where he continued to act in the same chivalrous manner. One day, we were texting me and he asked me to be his girlfriend.Two thoughts came to my mind in this situation.Too early ! I thought we were on the same page!I was a little disappointed; I would have liked to think he would want to ask me in person - didn’t expect some grand gesture but to see him face to face when he asked would have been nice... it seemed rushed.I told myself that maybe he was just really nervous and was getting a little carried away with himself. I messaged back and was as honest as I could be with him, saying that I’d like him to ask me a bit later on, and in person.However the next time we met up, he came with flowers and asked me out again. He kissed me and again those butterflies went crazy, and I know it sounds stupid but the rash, reckless part of me didn’t want to say no again. So I said yes. That’s when he started to change almost immediately. That day, we had met up at mine with plans to cook and then watch a movie, but he said he was tired from work and didn’t want to cook and objected to every film I suggested and put on “How I Met Your Mother” I HATE those cheesy sitcoms with a passion, and jokingly mentioned that but he said it was one of his favourites and wanted me to try it.I agreed to try it out - one of the most important things to me in a relationship is to try and indulge in a couple of your partners interests, so you can see why they are passionate and excited about particular hobbies and the like. So I tried to watch, cringing internally at the jokes made throughout. We cuddled up together, but when I glanced over after about 10 minutes, he was scrolling absent mindedly through his phone. This is also one of my biggest bug bears - I obviously understand if you’re messaging someone, but scrolling through a social media newsfeed isn’t really necessary when you’re in someone’s company. I didn’t say anything, but it seemed as if all the interesting conversations we’d had were snuffed out as we sat awkwardly in silence, him scrolling through his phone while I attempted to endure that goddamn awful sitcom.I tried to ignore it and said goodbye to him around 12ish.Dates continued this way; he started to turn up late to meet up times we had arranged and once when I went to his, he even hinted that I should leave at about 9:30pm. He also began to become very indecisive. Where before he would sweep me away to a nice restaurant or take me somewhere spontaneous, now when I ask him what he’d like to do he’ll just say “I don’t mind” apathetically. I tried to put this all down to him being tired from work and nervous after being in a new relationship, but I’m starting to think it’s just him being wayyy to comfortable in what is a very new relationship. He chased me ! He asked me out and wanted to rush into things! So why then act disinterested !The last straw was a couple days before lockdown. We had started to suspect that the UK would go on lockdown and so met up at my house again knowing it might be the last time we’d see each other for a while. I cooked him a nice dinner for when he arrived and he bought some red wine. He didn’t make any comment on the dinner or thank me, but I had agreed he could stay over on the couch, so we stayed up until quite late, but again this was spent with some Netflix series in the background while he scrolled through his phone and drank. We’d have intermittent conversation, but it still seemed as if he was completely disengaged, drinking a whole two bottles of wine. I’m not really a fan myself so only had a couple glasses.The only time I did get a little more interaction from him when he was off his phone was when we were talking about one his friends, who I had really got on well with on a night out. He mentioned that his friend had been single for years, and he “didn’t know how he coped so well with being alone”. I couldn’t help but ask how he felt after breaking up with his ex and becoming single and he said “it was painful to be alone” and that he’s “glad he’s got attention and company now”. I could feel my heart drop.He got so tipsy he passed out on my bed, so I gently woke him and tucked him into bed downstairs (I know this sounds harsh, but I also have a single bed and so even if I did feel comfortable sleeping in the same bed as him yet, it would not have been fun with my fidgety ass!)I was again a little disappointed as we hadn’t really talked much or got to know each other any better, just sat awkwardly while he chose to scroll. In the morning, he was so hungover he was sick several times. My dad, trying to get to know him also, had invited him to dinner, but he went home early, still feeling rough and not even apologising to my dad for not being able to make dinner. It wasn’t really the best first impression I wanted him to have on my parents.Fast forward to now. I suppose listing out the red flags so far It seems like an easy decision to make, but for some reason I am hung up on “trying to fix him”. I know what it’s like to struggle to move on from the past, but I don’t know how to approach this. We have a lot in common and I know we had chemistry before so I’d like to think we can make things work, but it’s pretty clear we rushed into things. How do I tell him that I’d just like to go back to being friends until I’m sure he’s over his ex, and can dedicate himself a bit more to being interested in me? Or am I flogging a dead horse? Guess I don’t want to let go because it’s the first time I’ve really felt something for someone in a longgg time - the last long relationship I was in, I think we were both together for the security rather than feelings, but with Jacob I do feel as if there’s something there, on my side anyways. I’d like to think there could be on his side with the way he treated me at the start, he just seems to have a lot of baggage. I just don’t want to get tied up in a relationship where I am once again a stop gap until something better comes along.Please help reddit! I know I’m being naive and a little stupid so please be kind 😅 via /r/dating_advice

[giofvcks]

Mental Illness and being Trans

My grandmother contributes so much to my pain and hatred of living. Blood is the only reason we are related. I don’t see how you can claim to be family or love someone yet constantly drag them through hell.

When I’m dead 😵 shits going to be sweet. I won’t be around to hear her bitching. I won’t be around to hear her make fun of my trans identity. I won’t be around to listen to her annoying voice. I won’t be around because I’ll be dead.

She claims she does no wrong when really she is the reason why our dysfunctional family exist. Why would you marry someone who physically abuses you? Then go on to have two children with that person? Adding more insult to injury by raising them in a violent and unstable home? Allowing two more people to be tainted and abused by your selfishness.

Yes, I blame her for everything. Life came from her, and she made it a living hell for everyone. She created the person who is my biological mother. A complete shit show. A dead beat who abandoned me , leaving me to be cared by my grandmother a nutcase and selfish asshole. Oh the joys of childhood the first 5 years are the most important years of a human. They are the developmental years mines were spent listening to yelling and screaming, spent watching my grandfather beat my grandmother, spent being left behind by my biological parents. I endured a lot of shit and y’all wonder I’m dealing with stress, anxiety, depression and mental health problems.

I don’t talk about it. But, today I’ve got hella time to write about it. So, here I am typing this journal entry. I knew at between the ages of 4 and 5 that I should have been a boy. I knew then I didn’t want to be a girl. I didn’t act like one and I didn’t relate to being one. Though I didn’t have a word or a way to express myself I knew at an early age I was different (aka transgender). Back to this thing called, “life” what a fucked up life it has been. I saw my “mom” here and there cuz she didn’t have custody of me and she didn’t raise me. Eventually my grandmother permanently left my grandfather fleeing in the night to my moms apartment on the east side of Flint. We lived there for about a year or so before my grandmother bought a house on the southwest side of Flint.

School was pure hell for me constantly being made fun of for simply existing. I have big/large eyes 👀 and I was bullied all the time for having them. I was a hyper active kid thanks to ADHD and I was bullied for that too. I was kicked out class made to sit in the hallway for being hyper or for grinding my teeth 🦷. This made learning extremely difficult and I disengaged from it. I hated school 🏫 I hated going there and I can honestly say Flint schools have always been a piece of shit lol 😝

She (my grandmother) was still working full time and overtime as a nurse. Which meant I was a latchkey kid cuz my biologicals were nowhere to be found most of the time and they weren’t responsible. Now, I still saw my grandfather he didn’t abuse me, in fact I had a decent relationship with him. He took me places, taught me valuable life lessons, took me fishing, and bought me things. It wasn’t like I had a father cuz he was nowhere to be found.

Money doesn’t buy happiness. Growing up we had plenty of it and resources galore but the home structure was dysfunctional and toxic. Education doesn’t mean better, cuz again my family is very educated yet toxic and problematic. I ended up being sexually abused and molested by the next door neighbor for an entire year under my grandmother’s supervision. I was in the third grade getting an early life lesson on the birds and the bees 🐝 because she was unfit to raise and protect me. She allowed the neighbors to babysit me, do my hair, use her vehicle, come over to the house, hahaha I couldn’t get away from the abuse.

I got away by leaving and going to stay with my dysfunctional mother. Gosh writing this out brings back all the fucked up memories and it hits me my childhood and life has been pretty fucked from the start. Most people don’t know, don’t have a clue because I’ve been conditioned to lie for the sake of image. Nobody can know the truth behind the Ireland family. Well that ends today and here idc anymore cuz when I’m dead this shit won’t matter.

Linda Ireland created this mess. She ruined her life, and ruined others in the process. She’s no grandmother she’s a selfish asshole who thinks of herself only. She says we need to move on and forget about the past. Yet, she won’t even go to her house because of the memories. She torments herself, her children, and me. She makes life a living hell. Thank goodness i won’t be here much longer.

[sarahburness]

How I Learned to Trust Others by Learning to Trust Myself

“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don’t trust enough.” ~Frank Crane

I’ve had trust issues for as long as I can remember, but didn’t realize it until after my divorce.

Divorce can be a traumatic experience, and in this case, it made me begin to take stock of my life. I began to reflect on my failed romantic relationships and why this was a repeat pattern for me.

I realized then that I never let people in for fear they will let me down, belittle or make me feel small, or otherwise diminish me in some way. I keep people at a distance, and this impacts my ability to have close, connected relationships.

I used to think I had trust issues because I grew up in a family where things were not “psychologically safe.” But I’ve come to realize there’s more to it than that.

Have you ever struggled with trust issues thinking they were caused by something outside yourself? That trust was a matter of what other people did, how they treated you, or how they disappointed you? Maybe it’s time to consider that perhaps your trust issues are more about you than other people.

While I may have some wounds from not receiving the emotional nurturing I needed when growing up, I have trust issues not because I distrust others, but because I don’t trust myself. What?!

This was a surprising revelation. But, it helped me realize what I needed to do in order to truly trust other people—that was begin by trusting myself.

You may have trust issues as well if: 

You view people with suspicion about their motives

You don’t share your true feelings

You assume the worst intentions by others

You make every interaction all about you—how could they do this to me?!

You doubt your own capabilities and decisions

What happens when we are operating on a “non-trust” level? We keep ourselves closed off from all the opportunities available to us.

Let me tell you a story about how this has played out in my life. One day I was out walking along a beautiful beach with a girlfriend. She said, “Wow—these guys around us are really checking you out.”

“Really?” I asked.

“That’s you’re problem!” she said. “You are oblivious.”

And she was right. I was completely disengaged from the world around me because I didn’t trust it. I wasn’t open to people’s smiles, or their overtures, or even their kindness. I was basically checked out, and I rarely noticed when others made attempts at engagement.

There have been many occasions when a person was about to open a door for me, but I was so busy being independent that I opened ir myself without even noticing their attempted act of kindness. This left me living a life that was mostly isolating and solo.

Humans are social creatures, and we need human connection to feel alive and complete. When we cut ourselves off from this life-giving force because we are suspicious and don’t trust others, we harm ourselves more than any act of untrustworthiness we could experience.

Yes, people will sometimes disappoint us, and yes, people will occasionally do malicious things. But, in the end, we have to get over this. We need to move on from continuously licking our wounds so we can heal them and start living fully again.

As children we were naturally trusting, sharing our toys, our thoughts, and our hearts with abandon. It’s not until we were trained to distrust the world and “not talk to strangers” that we began to lose our innocence and belief in the inherent goodness of humanity.

Or, we didn’t receive strong nurturing as kids, and this caused a wound that never seemed to heal properly. While it can be good to have a healthy dose of skepticism so as not to become victims—and we need to teach our kids to stay away from strangers to keep them safe—it is not healthy to remain closed off and shut down from the world.

We must learn to trust despite knowing we may get hurt. It is only by opening our hearts that we can have flourishing relationships, see the opportunities around us, and begin to live a more fulfilled life.

What happens when people let you down? You accept that they are imperfect beings and move on. What happens when you let yourself down? You do the same thing. This is where I think I got hung up. I didn’t trust myself, and this actually made it impossible to trust other people.

We often project our feelings and beliefs onto others without consciously realizing we’re doing it. If we don’t trust ourselves to do the right things, we might project that onto other people and assume they too will let us down. If we don’t believe in our own inherent goodness, we likely won’t believe in anyone else’s.

I had a hard time trusting myself because I never accepted myself as a flawed and imperfect being. I could never get over my own disappointment when I let myself down. What are some ways I let myself down?

Letting myself remain in an abusive relationship

Lying about my drinking addiction and hiding it from my family and friends

Not following through on a job opportunity I was too afraid I might get rejected

Not having the confidence to follow my dreams

Acting in ways that were counter to my moral values

We can lose trust in ourselves in many ways, but then we can also build that trust back up.

For me, I built my trust by realizing I wasn’t living up to my greatest self. I began to make conscious choices to change that. I got help for my drinking problem. I found the courage to take baby steps toward my ambitions, and each time I did, I built on that success. I focused on developing my personal strengths and growing as a person. Most of all, I strived to do the best I could in any given situation.

Did I fail sometimes? Did I still let myself down? Of course, I’m imperfect. And this is okay. I found that if I was doing my best I could allow the occasional stumble without beating myself up or deciding that I couldn’t trust myself at all. And I could do the same for other people. If they occasionally disappointed me, I could recognize that this is what it means to be human.

I realized I didn’t have to see things as black and white—that people, myself included, are either trustworthy or not. Because life is all about shades of gray. Sometimes people will let us down, but that doesn’t mean they always will.

Even if people make mistakes, and even if we occasionally need to cut ties with people who continually hurt us, we can trust that most people have good intentions. And if we set the intention to always do our best, we can trust that we generally will, even if we falter at times.

The way to resolve trust issues is to learn to trust yourself. When you believe that you are always doing your best, you’ll be able to extend this same belief to others. This will help you go out into the world and be open to people and experiences with curiosity and a pure heart, without bitter preconceptions.

When we live a life full of integrity and trustworthiness to our deepest self, we can better learn to accept others’ mistakes and flaws, even if they hurt us. We can also learn to trust that despite what others may do, or how they might disappoint us, we will be able to get through it, our faith in humanity in tact.

This will help us embrace life more fully and flourish in our widest and fullest potential—to spread our wings and fly.

About Kerry Campbell

Kerry is the founder of the Academy of Well-Being, online courses that teach you powerful tools and techniques for creating positive transformation and well-being in your life. They provide you with prescriptive guidance for empowering and lasting change.  Kerry lives in Encinitas, CA, has two children, and is also an artist. View her artwork at kerrycampbellartist.com.

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from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-i-learned-to-trust-others-by-learning-to-trust-myself/

[biometricbits]

Notes On "Camp"

by Susan Sontag

Published in 1964.

Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named, have never been described. One of these is the sensibility -- unmistakably modern, a variant of sophistication but hardly identical with it -- that goes by the cult name of "Camp."

A sensibility (as distinct from an idea) is one of the hardest things to talk about; but there are special reasons why Camp, in particular, has never been discussed. It is not a natural mode of sensibility, if there be any such. Indeed the essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. And Camp is esoteric -- something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among small urban cliques. Apart from a lazy two-page sketch in Christopher Isherwood's novel

The World in the Evening

(1954), it has hardly broken into print. To talk about Camp is therefore to betray it. If the betrayal can be defended, it will be for the edification it provides, or the dignity of the conflict it resolves. For myself, I plead the goal of self-edification, and the goad of a sharp conflict in my own sensibility. I am strongly drawn to Camp, and almost as strongly offended by it. That is why I want to talk about it, and why I can. For no one who wholeheartedly shares in a given sensibility can analyze it; he can only, whatever his intention, exhibit it. To name a sensibility, to draw its contours and to recount its history, requires a deep sympathy modified by revulsion.

Though I am speaking about sensibility only -- and about a sensibility that, among other things, converts the serious into the frivolous -- these are grave matters. Most people think of sensibility or taste as the realm of purely subjective preferences, those mysterious attractions, mainly sensual, that have not been brought under the sovereignty of reason. They

allow

that considerations of taste play a part in their reactions to people and to works of art. But this attitude is naïve. And even worse. To patronize the faculty of taste is to patronize oneself. For taste governs every free -- as opposed to rote -- human response. Nothing is more decisive. There is taste in people, visual taste, taste in emotion - and there is taste in acts, taste in morality. Intelligence, as well, is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas. (One of the facts to be reckoned with is that taste tends to develop very unevenly. It's rare that the same person has good visual taste and good taste in people

and

taste in ideas.)

Taste has no system and no proofs. But there is something like a logic of taste: the consistent sensibility which underlies and gives rise to a certain taste. A sensibility is almost, but not quite, ineffable. Any sensibility which can be crammed into the mold of a system, or handled with the rough tools of proof, is no longer a sensibility at all. It has hardened into an idea . . .

To snare a sensibility in words, especially one that is alive and powerful,

1

one must be tentative and nimble. The form of jottings, rather than an essay (with its claim to a linear, consecutive argument), seemed more appropriate for getting down something of this particular fugitive sensibility. It's embarrassing to be solemn and treatise-like about Camp. One runs the risk of having, oneself, produced a very inferior piece of Camp.

These notes are for Oscar Wilde.

"One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art."

-

Phrases & Philosophies for the Use of the Young

1. To start very generally: Camp is a certain mode of aestheticism. It is one way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon. That way, the way of Camp, is not in terms of beauty, but in terms of the degree of artifice, of stylization.

2. To emphasize style is to slight content, or to introduce an attitude which is neutral with respect to content. It goes without saying that the Camp sensibility is disengaged, depoliticized -- or at least apolitical.

3. Not only is there a Camp vision, a Camp way of looking at things. Camp is as well a quality discoverable in objects and the behavior of persons. There are "campy" movies, clothes, furniture, popular songs, novels, people, buildings. . . . This distinction is important. True, the Camp eye has the power to transform experience. But not everything can be seen as Camp. It's not

all

in the eye of the beholder.

4. Random examples of items which are part of the canon of Camp:

   Zuleika Dobson

   Tiffany lamps

   Scopitone films

   The Brown Derby restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in LA

The Enquirer

, headlines and stories

   Aubrey Beardsley drawings

Swan Lake

   Bellini's operas

   Visconti's direction of

Salome

and

'Tis Pity She's a Whore

   certain turn-of-the-century picture postcards

   Schoedsack's

King Kong

   the Cuban pop singer La Lupe

   Lynn Ward's novel in woodcuts,

God's Man

   the old Flash Gordon comics

   women's clothes of the twenties (feather boas, fringed and beaded dresses, etc.)

   the novels of Ronald Firbank and Ivy Compton-Burnett

   stag movies seen without lust

5. Camp taste has an affinity for certain arts rather than others. Clothes, furniture, all the elements of visual décor, for instance, make up a large part of Camp. For Camp art is often decorative art, emphasizing texture, sensuous surface, and style at the expense of content. Concert music, though, because it is contentless, is rarely Camp. It offers no opportunity, say, for a contrast between silly or extravagant content and rich form. . . . Sometimes whole art forms become saturated with Camp. Classical ballet, opera, movies have seemed so for a long time. In the last two years, popular music (post rock-'n'-roll, what the French call yé yé) has been annexed. And movie criticism (like lists of "The 10 Best Bad Movies I Have Seen") is probably the greatest popularizer of Camp taste today, because most people still go to the movies in a high-spirited and unpretentious way.

6. There is a sense in which it is correct to say: "It's too good to be Camp." Or "too important," not marginal enough. (More on this later.) Thus, the personality and many of the works of Jean Cocteau are Camp, but not those of André Gide; the operas of Richard Strauss, but not those of Wagner; concoctions of Tin Pan Alley and Liverpool, but not jazz. Many examples of Camp are things which, from a "serious" point of view, are either bad art or kitsch. Not all, though. Not only is Camp not necessarily bad art, but some art which can be approached as Camp (example: the major films of Louis Feuillade) merits the most serious admiration and study.

"The more we study Art, the less we care for Nature."

-

The Decay of Lying

7. All Camp objects, and persons, contain a large element of artifice. Nothing in nature can be campy . . . Rural Camp is still man-made, and most campy objects are urban. (Yet, they often have a serenity -- or a naiveté -- which is the equivalent of pastoral. A great deal of Camp suggests Empson's phrase, "urban pastoral.")

8. Camp is a vision of the world in terms of style -- but a particular kind of style. It is the love of the exaggerated, the "off," of things-being-what-they-are-not. The best example is in Art Nouveau, the most typical and fully developed Camp style. Art Nouveau objects, typically, convert one thing into something else: the lighting fixtures in the form of flowering plants, the living room which is really a grotto. A remarkable example: the Paris Métro entrances designed by Hector Guimard in the late 1890s in the shape of cast-iron orchid stalks.

9. As a taste in persons, Camp responds particularly to the markedly attenuated and to the strongly exaggerated. The androgyne is certainly one of the great images of Camp sensibility. Examples: the swooning, slim, sinuous figures of pre-Raphaelite painting and poetry; the thin, flowing, sexless bodies in Art Nouveau prints and posters, presented in relief on lamps and ashtrays; the haunting androgynous vacancy behind the perfect beauty of Greta Garbo. Here, Camp taste draws on a mostly unacknowledged truth of taste: the most refined form of sexual attractiveness (as well as the most refined form of sexual pleasure) consists in going against the grain of one's sex. What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine. . . . Allied to the Camp taste for the androgynous is something that seems quite different but isn't: a relish for the exaggeration of sexual characteristics and personality mannerisms. For obvious reasons, the best examples that can be cited are movie stars. The corny flamboyant female-ness of Jayne Mansfield, Gina Lollobrigida, Jane Russell, Virginia Mayo; the exaggerated he-man-ness of Steve Reeves, Victor Mature. The great stylists of temperament and mannerism, like Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Tallulah Bankhead, Edwige Feuillière.

10. Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It's not a lamp, but a "lamp"; not a woman, but a "woman." To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater.

11. Camp is the triumph of the epicene style. (The convertibility of "man" and "woman," "person" and "thing.") But all style, that is, artifice, is, ultimately, epicene. Life is not stylish. Neither is nature.

12. The question isn't, "Why travesty, impersonation, theatricality?" The question is, rather, "When does travesty, impersonation, theatricality acquire the special flavor of Camp?" Why is the atmosphere of Shakespeare's comedies (

As You Like It

, etc.) not epicene, while that of

Der Rosenkavalier

is?

13. The dividing line seems to fall in the 18th century; there the origins of Camp taste are to be found (Gothic novels, Chinoiserie, caricature, artificial ruins, and so forth.) But the relation to nature was quite different then. In the 18th century, people of taste either patronized nature (Strawberry Hill) or attempted to remake it into something artificial (Versailles). They also indefatigably patronized the past. Today's Camp taste effaces nature, or else contradicts it outright. And the relation of Camp taste to the past is extremely sentimental.

14. A pocket history of Camp might, of course, begin farther back -- with the mannerist artists like Pontormo, Rosso, and Caravaggio, or the extraordinarily theatrical painting of Georges de La Tour, or Euphuism (Lyly, etc.) in literature. Still, the soundest starting point seems to be the late 17th and early 18th century, because of that period's extraordinary feeling for artifice, for surface, for symmetry; its taste for the picturesque and the thrilling, its elegant conventions for representing instant feeling and the total presence of character -- the epigram and the rhymed couplet (in words), the flourish (in gesture and in music). The late 17th and early 18th century is the great period of Camp: Pope, Congreve, Walpole, etc, but not Swift;

les précieux

in France; the rococo churches of Munich; Pergolesi. Somewhat later: much of Mozart. But in the 19th century, what had been distributed throughout all of high culture now becomes a special taste; it takes on overtones of the acute, the esoteric, the perverse. Confining the story to England alone, we see Camp continuing wanly through 19th century aestheticism (Bume-Jones, Pater, Ruskin, Tennyson), emerging full-blown with the Art Nouveau movement in the visual and decorative arts, and finding its conscious ideologists in such "wits" as Wilde and Firbank.

15. Of course, to say all these things are Camp is not to argue they are simply that. A full analysis of Art Nouveau, for instance, would scarcely equate it with Camp. But such an analysis cannot ignore what in Art Nouveau allows it to be experienced as Camp. Art Nouveau is full of "content," even of a political-moral sort; it was a revolutionary movement in the arts, spurred on by a Utopian vision (somewhere between William Morris and the Bauhaus group) of an organic politics and taste. Yet there is also a feature of the Art Nouveau objects which suggests a disengaged, unserious, "aesthete's" vision. This tells us something important about Art Nouveau -- and about what the lens of Camp, which blocks out content, is.

16. Thus, the Camp sensibility is one that is alive to a double sense in which some things can be taken. But this is not the familiar split-level construction of a literal meaning, on the one hand, and a symbolic meaning, on the other. It is the difference, rather, between the thing as meaning something, anything, and the thing as pure artifice.

17. This comes out clearly in the vulgar use of the word Camp as a verb, "to camp," something that people do. To camp is a mode of seduction -- one which employs flamboyant mannerisms susceptible of a double interpretation; gestures full of duplicity, with a witty meaning for cognoscenti and another, more impersonal, for outsiders. Equally and by extension, when the word becomes a noun, when a person or a thing is "a camp," a duplicity is involved. Behind the "straight" public sense in which something can be taken, one has found a private zany experience of the thing.

"To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up."

-

An Ideal Husband

18. One must distinguish between naïve and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naive. Camp which knows itself to be Camp ("camping") is usually less satisfying.

19. The pure examples of Camp are unintentional; they are dead serious. The Art Nouveau craftsman who makes a lamp with a snake coiled around it is not kidding, nor is he trying to be charming. He is saying, in all earnestness: Voilà! the Orient! Genuine Camp -- for instance, the numbers devised for the Warner Brothers musicals of the early thirties (

42nd Street

;

The Golddiggers of 1933

; ...

of 1935

; ...

of 1937

; etc.) by Busby Berkeley -- does not mean to be funny. Camping -- say, the plays of Noel Coward -- does. It seems unlikely that much of the traditional opera repertoire could be such satisfying Camp if the melodramatic absurdities of most opera plots had not been taken seriously by their composers. One doesn't need to know the artist's private intentions. The work tells all. (Compare a typical 19th century opera with Samuel Barber's

Vanessa

, a piece of manufactured, calculated Camp, and the difference is clear.)

20. Probably, intending to be campy is always harmful. The perfection of

Trouble in Paradise

and

The Maltese Falcon

, among the greatest Camp movies ever made, comes from the effortless smooth way in which tone is maintained. This is not so with such famous would-be Camp films of the fifties as

All About Eve

and

Beat the Devil

. These more recent movies have their fine moments, but the first is so slick and the second so hysterical; they want so badly to be campy that they're continually losing the beat. . . . Perhaps, though, it is not so much a question of the unintended effect versus the conscious intention, as of the delicate relation between parody and self-parody in Camp. The films of Hitchcock are a showcase for this problem. When self-parody lacks ebullience but instead reveals (even sporadically) a contempt for one's themes and one's materials - as in

To Catch a Thief

,

Rear Window

,

North by Northwest

-- the results are forced and heavy-handed, rarely Camp. Successful Camp -- a movie like Carné's Drôle de Drame; the film performances of Mae West and Edward Everett Horton; portions of the Goon Show -- even when it reveals self-parody, reeks of self-love.

21. So, again, Camp rests on innocence. That means Camp discloses innocence, but also, when it can, corrupts it. Objects, being objects, don't change when they are singled out by the Camp vision. Persons, however, respond to their audiences. Persons begin "camping": Mae West, Bea Lillie, La Lupe, Tallulah Bankhead in Lifeboat, Bette Davis in All About Eve. (Persons can even be induced to camp without their knowing it. Consider the way Fellini got Anita Ekberg to parody herself in

La Dolce Vita.

)

22. Considered a little less strictly, Camp is either completely naive or else wholly conscious (when one plays at being campy). An example of the latter: Wilde's epigrams themselves.

"It's absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."

-

Lady Windemere's Fan

23. In naïve, or pure, Camp, the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails. Of course, not all seriousness that fails can be redeemed as Camp. Only that which has the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the naïve.

24. When something is just bad (rather than Camp), it's often because it is too mediocre in its ambition. The artist hasn't attempted to do anything really outlandish. ("It's too much," "It's too fantastic," "It's not to be believed," are standard phrases of Camp enthusiasm.)

25. The hallmark of Camp is the spirit of extravagance. Camp is a woman walking around in a dress made of three million feathers. Camp is the paintings of Carlo Crivelli, with their real jewels and

trompe-l'oeil

insects and cracks in the masonry. Camp is the outrageous aestheticism of Steinberg's six American movies with Dietrich, all six, but especially the last,

The Devil Is a Woman

. . . . In Camp there is often something démesuré in the quality of the ambition, not only in the style of the work itself. Gaudí's lurid and beautiful buildings in Barcelona are Camp not only because of their style but because they reveal -- most notably in the Cathedral of the Sagrada Familia -- the ambition on the part of one man to do what it takes a generation, a whole culture to accomplish.

26. Camp is art that proposes itself seriously, but cannot be taken altogether seriously because it is "too much."

Titus Andronicus

and

Strange Interlude

are almost Camp, or could be played as Camp. The public manner and rhetoric of de Gaulle, often, are pure Camp.

27. A work can come close to Camp, but not make it, because it succeeds. Eisenstein's films are seldom Camp because, despite all exaggeration, they do succeed (dramatically) without surplus. If they were a little more "off," they could be great Camp - particularly

Ivan the Terrible I

&

II

. The same for Blake's drawings and paintings, weird and mannered as they are. They aren't Camp; though Art Nouveau, influenced by Blake, is.

What is extravagant in an inconsistent or an unpassionate way is not Camp. Neither can anything be Camp that does not seem to spring from an irrepressible, a virtually uncontrolled sensibility. Without passion, one gets pseudo-Camp -- what is merely decorative, safe, in a word, chic. On the barren edge of Camp lie a number of attractive things: the sleek fantasies of Dali, the haute couture preciosity of Albicocco's

The Girl with the Golden Eyes

. But the two things - Camp and preciosity - must not be confused.

28. Again, Camp is the attempt to do something extraordinary. But extraordinary in the sense, often, of being special, glamorous. (The curved line, the extravagant gesture.) Not extraordinary merely in the sense of effort. Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not items are rarely campy. These items, either natural oddities (the two-headed rooster, the eggplant in the shape of a cross) or else the products of immense labor (the man who walked from here to China on his hands, the woman who engraved the New Testament on the head of a pin), lack the visual reward - the glamour, the theatricality - that marks off certain extravagances as Camp.

29. The reason a movie like

On the Beach

, books like

Winesburg

,

Ohio

and

For Whom the Bell Tolls

are bad to the point of being laughable, but not bad to the point of being enjoyable, is that they are too dogged and pretentious. They lack fantasy. There is Camp in such bad movies as

The Prodigal

and

Samson and Delilah

, the series of Italian color spectacles featuring the super-hero Maciste, numerous Japanese science fiction films (

Rodan

,

The Mysterians

,

The H-Man

) because, in their relative unpretentiousness and vulgarity, they are more extreme and irresponsible in their fantasy - and therefore touching and quite enjoyable.

30. Of course, the canon of Camp can change. Time has a great deal to do with it. Time may enhance what seems simply dogged or lacking in fantasy now because we are too close to it, because it resembles too closely our own everyday fantasies, the fantastic nature of which we don't perceive. We are better able to enjoy a fantasy as fantasy when it is not our own.

31. This is why so many of the objects prized by Camp taste are old-fashioned, out-of-date, démodé. It's not a love of the old as such. It's simply that the process of aging or deterioration provides the necessary detachment -- or arouses a necessary sympathy. When the theme is important, and contemporary, the failure of a work of art may make us indignant. Time can change that. Time liberates the work of art from moral relevance, delivering it over to the Camp sensibility. . . . Another effect: time contracts the sphere of banality. (Banality is, strictly speaking, always a category of the contemporary.) What was banal can, with the passage of time, become fantastic. Many people who listen with delight to the style of Rudy Vallee revived by the English pop group, The Temperance Seven, would have been driven up the wall by Rudy Vallee in his heyday.

Thus, things are campy, not when they become old - but when we become less involved in them, and can enjoy, instead of be frustrated by, the failure of the attempt. But the effect of time is unpredictable. Maybe Method acting (James Dean, Rod Steiger, Warren Beatty) will seem as Camp some day as Ruby Keeler's does now - or as Sarah Bernhardt's does, in the films she made at the end of her career. And maybe not.

32. Camp is the glorification of "character." The statement is of no importance - except, of course, to the person (Loie Fuller, Gaudí, Cecil B. De Mille, Crivelli, de Gaulle, etc.) who makes it. What the Camp eye appreciates is the unity, the force of the person. In every move the aging Martha Graham makes she's being Martha Graham, etc., etc. . . . This is clear in the case of the great serious idol of Camp taste, Greta Garbo. Garbo's incompetence (at the least, lack of depth) as an

actress

enhances her beauty. She's always herself.

33. What Camp taste responds to is "instant character" (this is, of course, very 18th century); and, conversely, what it is not stirred by is the sense of the development of character. Character is understood as a state of continual incandescence - a person being one, very intense thing. This attitude toward character is a key element of the theatricalization of experience embodied in the Camp sensibility. And it helps account for the fact that opera and ballet are experienced as such rich treasures of Camp, for neither of these forms can easily do justice to the complexity of human nature. Wherever there is development of character, Camp is reduced. Among operas, for example,

La Traviata

(which has some small development of character) is less campy than

Il Trovatore

(which has none).

"Life is too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it."

-

Vera, or The Nihilists

34. Camp taste turns its back on the good-bad axis of ordinary aesthetic judgment. Camp doesn't reverse things. It doesn't argue that the good is bad, or the bad is good. What it does is to offer for art (and life) a different -- a supplementary -- set of standards.

35. Ordinarily we value a work of art because of the seriousness and dignity of what it achieves. We value it because it succeeds - in being what it is and, presumably, in fulfilling the intention that lies behind it. We assume a proper, that is to say, straightforward relation between intention and performance. By such standards, we appraise

The Iliad

, Aristophanes' plays, The Art of the Fugue,

Middlemarch

, the paintings of Rembrandt, Chartres, the poetry of Donne,

The Divine Comedy

, Beethoven's quartets, and - among people - Socrates, Jesus, St. Francis, Napoleon, Savonarola. In short, the pantheon of high culture: truth, beauty, and seriousness.

36. But there are other creative sensibilities besides the seriousness (both tragic and comic) of high culture and of the high style of evaluating people. And one cheats oneself, as a human being, if one has

respect

only for the style of high culture, whatever else one may do or feel on the sly.

For instance, there is the kind of seriousness whose trademark is anguish, cruelty, derangement. Here we do accept a disparity between intention and result. I am speaking, obviously, of a style of personal existence as well as of a style in art; but the examples had best come from art. Think of Bosch, Sade, Rimbaud, Jarry, Kafka, Artaud, think of most of the important works of art of the 20th century, that is, art whose goal is not that of creating harmonies but of overstraining the medium and introducing more and more violent, and unresolvable, subject-matter. This sensibility also insists on the principle that an oeuvre in the old sense (again, in art, but also in life) is not possible. Only "fragments" are possible. . . . Clearly, different standards apply here than to traditional high culture. Something is good not because it is achieved, but because another kind of truth about the human situation, another experience of what it is to be human - in short, another valid sensibility -- is being revealed.

And third among the great creative sensibilities is Camp: the sensibility of failed seriousness, of the theatricalization of experience. Camp refuses both the harmonies of traditional seriousness, and the risks of fully identifying with extreme states of feeling.

37. The first sensibility, that of high culture, is basically moralistic. The second sensibility, that of extreme states of feeling, represented in much contemporary "avant-garde" art, gains power by a tension between moral and aesthetic passion. The third, Camp, is wholly aesthetic.

38. Camp is the consistently aesthetic experience of the world. It incarnates a victory of "style" over "content," "aesthetics" over "morality," of irony over tragedy.

39. Camp and tragedy are antitheses. There is seriousness in Camp (seriousness in the degree of the artist's involvement) and, often, pathos. The excruciating is also one of the tonalities of Camp; it is the quality of excruciation in much of Henry James (for instance,

The Europeans

,

The Awkward Age

,

The Wings of the Dove

) that is responsible for the large element of Camp in his writings. But there is never, never tragedy.

40. Style is everything. Genet's ideas, for instance, are very Camp. Genet's statement that "the only criterion of an act is its elegance"

2

is virtually interchangeable, as a statement, with Wilde's "in matters of great importance, the vital element is not sincerity, but style." But what counts, finally, is the style in which ideas are held. The ideas about morality and politics in, say,

Lady Windemere's Fan

and in

Major Barbara

are Camp, but not just because of the nature of the ideas themselves. It is those ideas, held in a special playful way. The Camp ideas in

Our Lady of the Flowers

are maintained too grimly, and the writing itself is too successfully elevated and serious, for Genet's books to be Camp.

41. The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to "the serious." One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.

42. One is drawn to Camp when one realizes that "sincerity" is not enough. Sincerity can be simple philistinism, intellectual narrowness.

43. The traditional means for going beyond straight seriousness - irony, satire - seem feeble today, inadequate to the culturally oversaturated medium in which contemporary sensibility is schooled. Camp introduces a new standard: artifice as an ideal, theatricality.

44. Camp proposes a comic vision of the world. But not a bitter or polemical comedy. If tragedy is an experience of hyperinvolvement, comedy is an experience of underinvolvement, of detachment.

"I adore simple pleasures, they are the last refuge of the complex."

-

A Woman of No Importance

45. Detachment is the prerogative of an elite; and as the dandy is the 19th century's surrogate for the aristocrat in matters of culture, so Camp is the modern dandyism. Camp is the answer to the problem: how to be a dandy in the age of mass culture.

46. The dandy was overbred. His posture was disdain, or else ennui. He sought rare sensations, undefiled by mass appreciation. (Models: Des Esseintes in Huysmans'

À Rebours

,

Marius the Epicurean

, Valéry's

Monsieur Teste

.) He was dedicated to "good taste."

The connoisseur of Camp has found more ingenious pleasures. Not in Latin poetry and rare wines and velvet jackets, but in the coarsest, commonest pleasures, in the arts of the masses. Mere use does not defile the objects of his pleasure, since he learns to possess them in a rare way. Camp -- Dandyism in the age of mass culture -- makes no distinction between the unique object and the mass-produced object. Camp taste transcends the nausea of the replica.

47. Wilde himself is a transitional figure. The man who, when he first came to London, sported a velvet beret, lace shirts, velveteen knee-breeches and black silk stockings, could never depart too far in his life from the pleasures of the old-style dandy; this conservatism is reflected in

The Picture of Dorian Gray

. But many of his attitudes suggest something more modern. It was Wilde who formulated an important element of the Camp sensibility -- the equivalence of all objects -- when he announced his intention of "living up" to his blue-and-white china, or declared that a doorknob could be as admirable as a painting. When he proclaimed the importance of the necktie, the boutonniere, the chair, Wilde was anticipating the democratic

esprit

of Camp.

48. The old-style dandy hated vulgarity. The new-style dandy, the lover of Camp, appreciates vulgarity. Where the dandy would be continually offended or bored, the connoisseur of Camp is continually amused, delighted. The dandy held a perfumed handkerchief to his nostrils and was liable to swoon; the connoisseur of Camp sniffs the stink and prides himself on his strong nerves.

49. It is a feat, of course. A feat goaded on, in the last analysis, by the threat of boredom. The relation between boredom and Camp taste cannot be overestimated. Camp taste is by its nature possible only in affluent societies, in societies or circles capable of experiencing the psychopathology of affluence.

"What is abnormal in Life stands in normal relations to Art. It is the only thing in Life that stands in normal relations to Art."

-

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated

50. Aristocracy is a position vis-à-vis culture (as well as vis-à-vis power), and the history of Camp taste is part of the history of snob taste. But since no authentic aristocrats in the old sense exist today to sponsor special tastes, who is the bearer of this taste? Answer: an improvised self-elected class, mainly homosexuals, who constitute themselves as aristocrats of taste.

51. The peculiar relation between Camp taste and homosexuality has to be explained. While it's not true that Camp taste

is

homosexual taste, there is no doubt a peculiar affinity and overlap. Not all liberals are Jews, but Jews have shown a peculiar affinity for liberal and reformist causes. So, not all homosexuals have Camp taste. But homosexuals, by and large, constitute the vanguard -- and the most articulate audience -- of Camp. (The analogy is not frivolously chosen. Jews and homosexuals are the outstanding creative minorities in contemporary urban culture. Creative, that is, in the truest sense: they are creators of sensibilities. The two pioneering forces of modern sensibility are Jewish moral seriousness and homosexual aestheticism and irony.)

52. The reason for the flourishing of the aristocratic posture among homosexuals also seems to parallel the Jewish case. For every sensibility is self-serving to the group that promotes it. Jewish liberalism is a gesture of self-legitimization. So is Camp taste, which definitely has something propagandistic about it. Needless to say, the propaganda operates in exactly the opposite direction. The Jews pinned their hopes for integrating into modern society on promoting the moral sense. Homosexuals have pinned their integration into society on promoting the aesthetic sense. Camp is a solvent of morality. It neutralizes moral indignation, sponsors playfulness.

53. Nevertheless, even though homosexuals have been its vanguard, Camp taste is much more than homosexual taste. Obviously, its metaphor of life as theater is peculiarly suited as a justification and projection of a certain aspect of the situation of homosexuals. (The Camp insistence on not being "serious," on playing, also connects with the homosexual's desire to remain youthful.) Yet one feels that if homosexuals hadn't more or less invented Camp, someone else would. For the aristocratic posture with relation to culture cannot die, though it may persist only in increasingly arbitrary and ingenious ways. Camp is (to repeat) the relation to style in a time in which the adoption of style -- as such -- has become altogether questionable. (In the modem era, each new style, unless frankly anachronistic, has come on the scene as an anti-style.)

"One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing."

-

In conversation

54. The experiences of Camp are based on the great discovery that the sensibility of high culture has no monopoly upon refinement. Camp asserts that good taste is not simply good taste; that there exists, indeed, a good taste of bad taste. (Genet talks about this in

Our Lady of the Flowers

.) The discovery of the good taste of bad taste can be very liberating. The man who insists on high and serious pleasures is depriving himself of pleasure; he continually restricts what he can enjoy; in the constant exercise of his good taste he will eventually price himself out of the market, so to speak. Here Camp taste supervenes upon good taste as a daring and witty hedonism. It makes the man of good taste cheerful, where before he ran the risk of being chronically frustrated. It is good for the digestion.

55. Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation - not judgment. Camp is generous. It wants to enjoy. It only seems like malice, cynicism. (Or, if it is cynicism, it's not a ruthless but a sweet cynicism.) Camp taste doesn't propose that it is in bad taste to be serious; it doesn't sneer at someone who succeeds in being seriously dramatic. What it does is to find the success in certain passionate failures.

56. Camp taste is a kind of love, love for human nature. It relishes, rather than judges, the little triumphs and awkward intensities of "character." . . . Camp taste identifies with what it is enjoying. People who share this sensibility are not laughing at the thing they label as "a camp," they're enjoying it. Camp is a

tender

feeling.

(Here, one may compare Camp with much of Pop Art, which -- when it is not just Camp -- embodies an attitude that is related, but still very different. Pop Art is more flat and more dry, more serious, more detached, ultimately nihilistic.)

57. Camp taste nourishes itself on the love that has gone into certain objects and personal styles. The absence of this love is the reason why such kitsch items as

Peyton Place

(the book) and the Tishman Building aren't Camp.

58. The ultimate Camp statement: it's good

because

it's awful . . . Of course, one can't always say that. Only under certain conditions, those which I've tried to sketch in these notes.

1

The sensibility of an era is not only its most decisive, but also its most perishable, aspect. One may capture the ideas (intellectual history) and the behavior (social history) of an epoch without ever touching upon the sensibility or taste which informed those ideas, that behavior. Rare are those historical studies -- like Huizinga on the late Middle Ages, Febvre on 16th century France -- which do tell us something about the sensibility of the period.

2

Sartre's gloss on this in

Saint Genet

is: "Elegance is the quality of conduct which transforms the greatest amount of being into appearing."

[markkahn-blog]

The Right Way To Live.

I’m sitting down at my desk on a Sunday morning to write this blog. The room is bright with sunlight, I feel at home in this beautiful space.

There is a picture of myself on the desk.

I am four years old.

I’m bright and awake and happy.

There are certificates on the wall in front of me, all of my credentials – whatever that means – and pictures of Mozambique, of Cathedral Peak in the Drakensberg and a very small mountain called Rhenosterkop, which I used to look at from my home north of Johannesburg, many years ago.

I’m thinking about what I should write for my next blog. I’ve written dozens of them in the last 18 months and I know that they just come to me unannounced, spontaneously, out of nowhere…or perhaps from Pure Consciousness.

They come as a gift to me. Largely speaking I don’t have to work out what I’m going to say. More and more I sense that there isn’t a particular ‘me’ that is doing this, which is why they are just a gift to me and hopefully, to you.

Yet subtly beneath this trusting and knowing that what I want to talk about will come of its own accord there is, every so often an anxiety. Much softer and more subtle than in the past, but there nevertheless, lurking and wanting to pounce and dilute the true magic of this creative energy that comes through me. 

“What is the right thing to say, what is the right topic for this week and what is the right way to say it and what is the right way to present it? Will it be good enough, will it gratify you, will it gratify me, my monster conscience, at war with Mark? ”

Is There A Right?

The big question: is there such a thing as right?

Is there a universal good?

Have you noticed such a tendency in you, in your work, in your life, in your relationships?

Time Magazine

My mother was a Time Magazine addict and I became one too when I was about 10 years old.

In those days they had a page at the front of the magazine called the Letters Page. It fascinated me endlessly how every week there were letters about last week’s edition and these letters would start with a pro and then there would be a con and then a pro and then a con, around whatever the particular topic was.

One person would say that Richard Nixon was a wonderful guy and then somebody would say what a terrible guy he was.

One person would support the Vietnam war and somebody would be against it. One person would support a particular economic policy and somebody would attack it.

As a kid this puzzled me because everybody was so certain that they were right in their opinion, but it was impossible for them to all be right. I think this is one of the things that turned me into a psychologist.

It just felt so painful, the experience of everyone thinking they were right and trying to convince everyone else that they were wrong.

So much conflict.

So much pain.

Perhaps the biggest problem of all for me, was that the only way to get out of my pain was to try and give the people in power, my parents and my teachers, what they wanted.

I had to agree with them.

To do the right thing by them.

But what this created in me was indeed an unending anguish. I didn’t know it at the time but I was trying to be the person these people in power wanted me to be.

If only I had known that they were acting out of ignorance, I might have saved myself an immense amount of pain. They did not know what they were doing when they squeezed me into the mould fashioned in their image.

Their image of what was good and right and pure.

Their image of the truth.

I gave away my power and let them pulverize my Self-Esteem.

This is the source of much of our psychological pain – the rest of it comes from our parents disengagement, their inability to hold us and love us when we are sad, when we’re not getting what we want, when our body is sick and it hurts.

A System Of Energy

We are system of energy which is innocent, creative and filled with love and power. At times of course it is willfull and selfish too.

We want to move into the world curious and filled with joy but as soon as we believe that we have to get it right we tumble uncontrollably into self-doubt and uncertainty.

We fall from heaven into hell.

It is so simple and yet so difficult to do, to return to heaven is to no longer believe the stories in our heads about how we should be and how we should live.

So many great knowers of the truth have been ridiculed and rejected by our culture. From Copernicus who said that the earth was not the centre of the solar system, to Jesus Christ who was crucified by my forefathers, to Pythagoras who was laughed at when he said the earth was round, not flat.

Subtle Levels

This having to get it right happens in multiple major areas but it also operates on subtle levels too.

We all know the fear of failing in our work, of giving a bad presentation, of seeing a project crash and burn, of losing an intimate partner, of not looking attractive enough or smart enough or not being rich enough.

But have you really considered the ways in which you doubt yourself that are so small and fleeting that you hardly notice them and most importantly, you miss how when these small things are added up they crush your Self-Esteem immeasurably?

“Do I make sense when I speak? My needs are selfish and petty, I have a pimple on my face, I’m not fashionable, I don’t have enough friends…”

The freedom and energy available to us when we begin to drop these fears is immense.

As Gloria Gaynor so beautifully sings, can you really, really begin to say, at every level of your being, “I am what I am and what I am needs no excuses.”

And then she adds, “Life aint worth a damn until you can say, I am what I am.”

Making sure that others are happy…just doesn’t work.

The problem is that it feels great to say this and mean it, but come the moment when someone looks at you judgmentally and says, “You’re not telling me you still use a Blackberry?!” That’s when the rubber meets the road.

If you can feel completely and utterly in that moment that I am what I am, you have arrived.

Of course mostly we ‘arrive’ and ‘leave,’…’arrive…and…’leave.’ That’s the way it works.

You also need to be able to say it when somebody judges the fact that you love watching reruns of the Jerry Springer show, or when you speak ill of the dead, or you admit that you don’t have a bucket list.

The world really wants to control your every move and your every thought and if you want the world’s approval you are toast.

So, can you just picture the person who criticises you the most in your life. Can you picture them saying that one thing which hurts you the most, which makes you feel really stupid or slow or inappropriate or unsuccessful and can you feel over and over and over again I am what I am and I need no excuses!

And you need to do it over and over and over again, because hundreds and thousands of times you have believed that they were right and this is not fixable in one magical moment.

There is also an internal element to this issue. So many of us in this first world, driven culture, are fragmenting ourselves with our anxiety about getting everything done on time and perfectly.

We threaten ourselves constantly with the things not done and half done.

“I have to get my inbox clear, get started on a project, finish another one, always driving, clenched-fist-jaw-neck striving to be complete and at rest, at peace.”

Can you simply ask yourself what it would feel like to:

Let all things be as they are, resting in incompleteness.

Can you just feel this energy filter down into your body, into your heart, letting it soften and open and flow with the imperfections and endless incompleteness of life.

If you would like to have a face to face or Skype consultation about any issues raised in this blog, please contact me at realmark@icon.co.za