#sometimes it’s hard to articulate all the grief and longing for something somewhere someone sometime

[undisclosed-serendipity]

I've got a slideshow inside my head

Of 'might've done's' and 'what could've been's'

If it's a purely hypothetical love

Tell me why I gotta miss it so much?

- Unfinished, Noah Cyrus

#she’s got the sad little sister energy that is same as me #recently discovered that I love like 90% of her songs #still can’t get the Jesus so high song #but the rest is just perfection #noah Cyrus #sometimes it’s hard to articulate all the grief and longing for something somewhere someone sometime #and there’s songs like this that exists #it shouldn’t hurt anymore and it shouldn’t matter anymore but somehow it does #writing endless tags just trying to avoid saying I am thinking about you #because I do #listen #Spotify

[sachigram]

Decorticate and Dehiscence

((click here to read on ao3!!))

There's an entire language spoken with only flowers. Shizuo doesn't understand it, but he's curious now that he's been exposed. Before Ami, he never once thought about what flowers could represent aside from a present between couples, or something pretty to look at on a walk.

Ami told him his flower was a gladiolus once, and then she'd smiled in such a sincere way, and Shizuo found himself looking up what the hell that could possibly mean. “Strength of character, faithfulness, and honor.” Yeah, Shizuo doesn't think that's the least bit accurate, and Ami is no longer a part of his life, or ever really was at all, but he does have her to think for teaching him to look for hidden meanings.

When Izaya went to Ami and confronted her, he came back with marigolds. Shizuo almost didn't think anything of it, because Izaya can be very distracting, but eventually he looked up what marigolds could mean, too. “Passion and creativity” was his first result, but underneath, a hidden meaning. “Cruelty, grief, and jealousy.” Izaya only laughed it off and said he bought the first flowers he could find. Shizuo knew better than to believe him.

Shizuo is aware he isn't the smartest person in the world, a fact of which Izaya always reminds him of, but Shizuo is instinctual, and he thinks being the latter is better for him in reading someone like Izaya. Being smart like Izaya would only result in the two of them always speaking in riddles and lies. Instead, Shizuo has the power to see through Izaya's lies, and Shizuo doesn't give a fuck about riddles enough to even attempt to solve them in the first place. Shizuo likes to think he keeps Izaya in check, but at the same time, the darkness in Izaya's eyes or the sharpest glint of his smile will have Shizuo knowing he's as powerless in stopping Izaya as Izaya is in stopping Shizuo.

They're the most dangerous men in the city for a reason, after all.

Still, Shizuo can brush off every warning from his friends and even his own pinpricks of intuition when Izaya is under him, next to him, opening for Shizuo's cock and demanding more and more. Bad things are still happening in the city, just like they always are, and likely always will be, and even knowing Izaya is involved in it somewhere doesn't bother Shizuo like it used to. Something inside him has steadily been growing more and more, unraveling and tangling and festering in his soul in a way that can only be associated with Izaya.

Shizuo knows he loves Izaya. Shizuo loves Izaya so much that it blinds him, fools him, keeps him wrapped in the cocoon of contentment that Izaya made for them both. And underneath it all, Shizuo knows Izaya loves him, too. Izaya admitted as much when he said he would do anything, anything to keep Shizuo with him.

Sometimes Shizuo wonders if Izaya would have killed Ami, had she not heeded the warning and left Shizuo alone. The thought makes him sick to his stomach, especially because he thinks...maybe Izaya would have. No, he knows Izaya would have. Maybe not directly, maybe not himself, but she would have been removed from the picture entirely, one way or another, and Shizuo feels even sicker to know he still wouldn't be able to stay away from Izaya after something like that had happened.

When Shizuo arrives at Izaya's place, he can tell immediately Izaya isn't there. It's more than the lack of Izaya's coat and shoes— It's a lack of presence. Izaya is an electric energy in the air, one that can't possibly be ignored. Likely, Izaya is off wreaking havoc somewhere. Shizuo frowns at the thought, but he still kicks his shoes off and goes about his usual routine instead of going off to find Izaya and stop whatever it is he's doing.

He's only just gotten out of the shower when he senses Izaya's returned. Shizuo hurries and dresses, eager to see Izaya, as he always is. He'd never say it to Izaya, of course, but Shizuo doesn't feel at home until Izaya is next to him, within reach.

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya purrs, holding up a bag as he hangs his coat up. “I got dinner. I hope you weren't waiting long for me.”

“I only just got back,” Shizuo says, crossing the room and pulling Izaya to him, yanking him into a bruising, hungry kiss. Like this, it's almost easy to piece together Izaya's day. Shizuo can smell it on him, the different parts of the city. He knows no one else has touched Izaya today, not even brushing against him in passing. Izaya smells only of himself, and of Shizuo, like he always does. Shizuo growls lowly, knowing in his heart this means Izaya was safe all day, but more than that, others weren't likely safe from Izaya, who does his work in the shadows.

“Are you and your nose eavesdropping on me again?” Izaya asks, one of his hands on Shizuo's cheek. “You could just ask what I've been up to.”

“You're a liar,” Shizuo says easily. “I can't ask you anything.”

“How cruel of you. I always tell you the truth.”

“No, you tell me some bullshit version of the truth. There's a difference.”

“If it's deep-seated in the truth, then it's truth all the same,” Izaya says, pulling back from Shizuo and licking his lips. “You're only trying to smell other people on me. Making sure I'm staying faithful to you?”

“Of course,” Shizuo says, snatching up the bag to see what Izaya brought home. “Everyone knows you're mine.”

“Mm,” Izaya hums, looking pleased. “But some people have a death wish all the same.”

Shizuo tears into the bag, happy to see a steak for himself. He never told Izaya how he likes his steak cooked, but of course it's right. Sometimes he wonders just how long Izaya has been studying him, wonders if it was even before Shinra introduced them. He's long since decided he doesn't want to know the answer.

Izaya has a salad for himself, topped with seared tuna that's not cooked through. He sits next to Shizuo, sipping from a glass of expensive red wine. Shizuo thinks to himself this takeout was likely pricey as well, as the name on the bag is from a place he doesn't recognize.

“So,” Izaya says pleasantly, “how was your day, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo snorts. Izaya making small talk with him over dinner is as surreal as anything else they do together that isn't destroying the city or fucking, but it's always welcomed, because Shizuo loves to hear Izaya talk. Another thing he'd never admit to.

“It was the same as every day. Tom-san let me go a little early, though. He said he had some personal things to sort out.” Shizuo reaches over and takes Izaya's wine glass, trying a small sip. He doesn't like wine really, but he likes to share with Izaya, who always lets him.

“Personal things. Hmmm. Maybe a lucky lady.” Izaya rests his chin in his hand, observes Shizuo. “Speaking of luck, what has your little inner circle been saying about your increased time here? Have you told them about me?”

“They don't like you. You know that.”

“I do. In all honesty, they have good reasons, don't they? But here you are.” Izaya spears a big piece of lettuce, nibbles at it almost thoughtfully before he continues. “I'm honored, Shizu-chan, that you would choose me over the opinions of your friends.”

“Shut up. It's not like that. You're just—“ You. He wishes he had more articulate ways to express what he's thinking, but it's almost impossible for him to do so with words. “I like being here,” he says instead. “I like being here with you.”

“I like you being here with me.” Izaya's words seem to be sincere, and the way he's looking at Shizuo is nothing short of loving.

Shizuo blushes, looks down at his dinner. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“What do your...uh. Friends say about me?” He pauses. “Do you have friends?”

Izaya doesn't even look offended. It's actually hard to offend Izaya, unlike Shizuo, who gets angry at everything. Izaya seems immune to most insults, and the only way Shizuo has found to actually hurt him has been to imply someone else's importance is above Izaya's own.

“Just Shinra, who likes you only a little less than me.” Izaya smiles, takes another sip of wine. “You're far more popular than I am.”

“You could have friends,” Shizuo says, trying to imagine it. Izaya has always been around people, but then... Shizuo doesn't think he's seen Izaya interact in a way that wasn't antagonistic.

“I probably could, but I don't want them.” Izaya's gaze sharpens, bores into Shizuo's. “I only want you.”

“Only me? Won't you get bored?”

“No. You never bore me, even when you're not doing anything at all. Even when you're only sleeping. I always only want you.”

Izaya has a tendency to go from saying the most mundane, simple things to saying something that knocks Shizuo sideways, either from intensity or audacity—usually both. Izaya doesn't speak often of feelings, and the two of them haven't even worked out what they are to each other, but it's easy not to be worried about such things when Izaya is watching Shizuo playfully from over the rim of a wine glass, smirk on his face because he knows exactly what Shizuo is thinking about.

“And how did you want me, Izaya?” Shizuo asks, eyes locked on Izaya's throat bobbing as he swallows the last of the wine.

“You know exactly how.”

Shizuo sets his utensils down, not hungry anymore, not for food, at least. He craves Izaya as much as always does, more and more, no matter how many times he's had him. He stands, leaning over Izaya in his chair, tangling his hand in Izaya's hair as he yanks Izaya into another kiss.

“Were you done?” Izaya asks softly. He motions to the counter. “I brought you dessert.”

“You're dessert,” Shizuo says, lifting Izaya into his arms and carrying him up the stairs to the bedroom. They've had sex all over the apartment by this point, but Shizuo still likes it best in Izaya's bed, in those expensive as shit sheets with Izaya underneath him, perfect hands clenched in the silky smooth fabric.

Undressing Izaya never loses its luster. Izaya is gorgeous, and he always allows Shizuo to go as slowly or as quickly as he likes. Shizuo can get lost in just looking at Izaya's body. He's never found anything so beautiful before, has also never wanted to mark and bruise anything so badly in his entire life. He's wondered if it was leftover aggression from their past, but lately he's been thinking it's because Izaya is his. Only his. And everyone should fucking know it.

“I've been thinking,” Izaya says as Shizuo lays him out on the mattress, fully bared and spread out. He hisses when Shizuo's tongue swirls around his nipple. “How many times in a row do you think you can fuck me?”

“Huh?” Shizuo asks stupidly, lifting his head from where it was buried in Izaya's chest. He wipes drool off his chin. “What's the normal amount?”

“Less than you can give me, I'm sure.” Izaya arches under him, capturing Shizuo's attention once more with his body. “You're a monster, after all. If your sexual stamina can match your strength, I'd be under you for hours, right?”

“Wouldn't that...uh...” Shizuo's mouth waters at the thought of Izaya's body filled with Shizuo's dick and his come, so much that it'd be leaking out of him, seeping in between his thighs. “It wouldn't hurt you?”

“Let's find out,” Izaya says simply, handing Shizuo a new bottle of lube. They go through them frequently. “And stop drooling over me long enough to undress yourself. I want to see you, too.”

“Right,” Shizuo says, already eager to be inside Izaya, to push himself to his limit and fill Izaya until Izaya is wrecked. He thinks of something, pauses. “Should we...have a safe word?”

“As if words have ever stopped you.” Izaya laughs, pulling Shizuo's shirt up and off, tossing it to the side. “No. No matter what I say, I want all you have. I don't want you to stop.”

“Izaya...” Shizuo growls, leans down and licks into Izaya's mouth as Izaya focuses on undoing Shizuo's pants, pushes them down with his feet while Shizuo coats his fingers with the lube. It's quick, frantic. It's always this way until Shizuo is finally pushing a finger inside.

“Hurry it up,” Izaya hisses, clenching around Shizuo's finger. “One isn't anything to me anymore.”

“I know, I know, I just— I want to do it right. You could still tear, you know. If I'm too rough once, that's all it takes.” Despite his words, Shizuo adds another finger, giving Izaya what he wants. “I don't want to hurt you.”

“Don't you?” Izaya presses his hips down against Shizuo's fingers, driving them inside deeper. “Haven't I earned you hurting me? I certainly want you to.”

Shizuo hisses, looking down over the scratches, bites, and bruises all over Izaya's body. It should sicken him to see them and know he's the one who did it, but it only adds fuel to the fire inside his veins, makes him want to tear Izaya apart and be the only one who can hurt him, the only one who can pleasure him. Shizuo wants Izaya to be his in every way entirely, wants Izaya to think of nothing else but being opened and fucked out on Shizuo's dick, wants Izaya desperate for it.

“See?” Izaya asks, looking so smug it makes Shizuo's teeth grind together. “You want to. You want to ruin me for everyone else, admit it.”

“I do,” Shizuo says, hating himself as he says it. He adds a third finger, picks up his pace, fucks Izaya with them until Izaya is gasping and writhing. “I only want you to look at me.”

“Shizu— Nnn! Hurry up, hurry up, I want it!”

“I know what you want.” Shizuo glares down at him, at his fingers disappearing inside Izaya's body. He purrs at the sight, loving the way Izaya looks like this, flushed and trembling with desire. “I want you to say it anyway.”

“Ha...! Trying your hand...at being...forceful...Shizu-chan?” Izaya asks, laughing shortly, his hips twitching and pressing down against Shizuo's fingers.

“It's only right, isn't it?” Shizuo asks. He could be angry at how far Izaya has dragged him down and corrupted him, but deep down Shizuo knows he was always corrupted, every bit as bad as Izaya already. It was easier to hate Izaya before than to hate himself, but he's always known he would follow that sly smirk and narrow frame anywhere, into Hell itself if he had to.

“I want...you inside me!” Izaya breathes, whining in his throat when Shizuo drives his fingers in as deeply as they can go, pressing hard against Izaya's prostate and not letting up on the pressure.

“I'm already inside you,” Shizuo says, his eyes still focused on the way Izaya's body opens for him, the way it seems to always pulls Shizuo inside further, to egg him on until Shizuo can't hold back anymore, just like always.

“Shizuo—fuck, you're—!” Izaya's legs thrash around from their place on either side of Shizuo, his eyes full of tears as the most sensitive part of him is abused mercilessly. Shizuo doesn't let up, presses harder, and grins in cruel satisfaction when Izaya comes hard, just from this.

“Look at you,” Shizuo murmurs, keeping his hand moving even while Izaya spasms and sobs under him. “You always cling so greedily to whatever I put inside you. You just love being filled.”

“Shizu-chan...” Izaya manages, whining again when Shizuo pulls his fingers out abruptly, using his free hand to coat his dick in lube.

“Shh. I know it's not enough. You asked me for all I have, right?” Shizuo doesn't waste any more time. He lines himself up with Izaya's entrance, pressing against, but not in. Not yet. “Tell me what you want.”

Izaya laughs again, though it sounds more unhinged and broken than anything. “So cruel to me, Shizu-chan. Always so cruel.” Izaya's legs curl around Shizuo's waist, not so subtly pulling him forward until the head of his dick is pressing into Izaya. “Oh— This, this is what I want. Your dick, Shizu-chan, it's all I ever want.”

“Yeah?” Shizuo asks. He leans down, licks the few tears that fell onto Izaya's cheek as he pushes his hips forward, sliding home where he belongs in one fluid motion. Izaya's body welcomes him. It always does. “You love me inside you. I thought at first it was the novelty of it, but you really won't relax until I'm in you as deeply as I can go.”

“I can't...can't focus without it...” Izaya gasps, his nails digging into Shizuo's shoulders. “Even when I...have you, it's never enough. I want all you have, everything, only for me, until...until there's nothing left...for anyone else!”

“You love it. You're so fucking greedy for it.” Shizuo laughs softly, pulling his hips backwards before jerking forward once more, addicted to the heat of Izaya around him. He sets a pace, each time fucking as deeply into Izaya as he can go.

“I do, I love it, I love—“ You. Izaya doesn't say it, but they both feel it. That strange thing inside Shizuo, that sticky, festering, dark feeling grows, grows, grows until it's all Shizuo can feel, all he can think about, and he knows all the things he hates about Izaya, those underhanded things, those terrible things, they're a fraction of what Shizuo would do to anyone who ever tried to take Izaya from him.

“Me too,” Shizuo says, and then he's speeding up, holding Izaya's hips and pulling Izaya down to meet him when he thrusts forward until he's coming inside Izaya, pressing as deeply as he can go and watching Izaya's eyes widen at the feeling. Shizuo doesn't so much as hesitate before resuming his pace, already hard and wanting again. He finds it much easier to work himself inside with the added lubrication, with the way Izaya is already so lax around him.

“Yes, yes, fuck,” Izaya groans, hard and panting under Shizuo. “Keep going, give me everything.”

“I will,” Shizuo says, and he means it. Everything he is, everything he has, good and bad, he wants Izaya to have it. “Take me, Izaya.”

“I am...!” Izaya seizes, writhing once more in an orgasm, his hole fluttering and tightening around Shizuo's dick, milking it until Shizuo is coming once more as well, his mouth open and drooling on the pillow next to Izaya's head.

Again, Shizuo's hips start to move almost without his permission, and Shizuo loves the sound of their bodies meeting between his thrusts, loves the way Izaya's breathing mingles in with it.

“Monster, you're a monster,” Izaya moans, a delirious smile on his face as Shizuo keeps fucking into him.

“Take me, Izaya, all I have, like you said,” Shizuo growls into Izaya's ear. He pulls out, relishing the way Izaya whimpers and garbles out some half-formed complaints at the loss. Shizuo puts a hand on Izaya's hip, turns him, rolling him until Izaya's back is pressed flushed to Shizuo's chest. Shizuo reaches out, takes Izaya's thigh, lifts it up and sideways as he guides his dick back inside Izaya, able to rock even deeper from this new angle.

“Oh, fuck, Shizu-chan...” Izaya's head tips back against Shizuo's shoulder as Shizuo picks up the pace.

“You like it?” Shizuo asks, using his strength to move Izaya's entire body backwards and onto his dick. “Feels so fuckin' good inside you, Izaya... You feel good, too?”

“Yes, yes, just keep going, please, give me more...!”

Izaya's never pleaded for him like this. Shizuo goes harder, well aware he's the only reason they're still moving, Izaya useless in front of him. One of Izaya's hands reaches back until it's tangling in Shizuo's hair, his other curling around and gripping Shizuo's ass, weakly trying to pull him in harder.

“God, hnn, you're so...so deep inside me... Shizu-chan, it's so much...”

“Mm...” Shizuo releases Izaya's thigh, presses his hand down against Izaya's lower stomach, growling lowly when he can almost feel himself moving inside Izaya, can feel Izaya's body yielding and submitting to him, even if Izaya himself never would. Izaya is emitting breathy gasps between every thrust, tiny “ah, ah, ah” noises of pleasure, the occasional whimper. Shizuo doesn't know why he ever thought Izaya would be quiet during sex. Izaya never shuts up, and this is no different.

“Tell me how it feels...” Shizuo demands, loving how honest Izaya is like this. He can never stop asking question, demanding answers. Izaya is never more honest than when he's stretched out around Shizuo's body, covered and filled with come.

“So good, so good, Shizu-chan...!”

“Gonna buy you a plug, Izaya,” Shizuo growls into Izaya's ear, moans at the feeling of Izaya clenching around him in answer. “Gonna fill you and—hnnn—plug you up...keep you ready for me...”

“Yes, fuck, Shizuo, yes!”

“You're mine, Izaya,” Shizuo hisses, resisting the urge to do something crazy like bite Izaya as hard as he can, to really hurt him, tear his skin, anything to keep Izaya focused on him, always. “No one else will ever—fuck you like this. No one else can do it like I do, right? No one else could make you this fucked out, could fill you up the way you love like me.”

“I do love it... Oh, fuck, Shizuo, I love it...!”

“Say you're mine.” Shizuo presses forward harder, does bite Izaya, can't help it, but he holds back from hurting Izaya too badly. “Say it...or I'm stopping...!”

“Yours, I'm yours, I only want you! I only—ah...!” Izaya comes, his body tightening once more around Shizuo's.

Satisfied with Izaya's words and with Izaya's hole spasming around him, Shizuo pulls Izaya closer and comes inside him again, watching Izaya's lashes flutter and Izaya's mouth drop open. Tired of not being able to see Izaya clearly, Shizuo rearranges them to their earlier position, Izaya underneath him, legs spread wide. Shizuo groans at the sight of himself leaking out of Izaya's abused hole.

“More?” Izaya asks breathlessly. Shizuo licks the small line of drool on Izaya's chin, pecks sweetly at Izaya's lips.

“Gonna fill you up,” Shizuo pants, already pressing his dick back inside.

“I'm...already...so full of you...” Izaya gasps, and Shizuo loves the sound of that, can't stop himself from pounding inside Izaya harder than he ever has before. Izaya howls under him, isn't getting hard again, but that's okay. Izaya asked for all Shizuo has, no matter what.

Again and again, Shizuo fills Izaya, each time pausing only long enough to kiss Izaya lovingly, to stroke his bangs off his sweaty forehead. Izaya is a blissful, fucked out mess under Shizuo, his eyes half-lidded and barely cognizant anymore. Shizuo loses count of how many times he comes, but the inside of Izaya's thighs are slick, painted with Shizuo's come that can no longer fit inside Izaya's body.

“You want more?” Shizuo asks, barely recognizing his own voice anymore. He's already moving again, not waiting for Izaya's answer, but Izaya nods anyway, his jaw slack and covered with his own drool by this point. Shizuo grins down at him, reaches up, presses a finger inside Izaya's mouth, watching with hungry eyes as Izaya curls his tongue around it, sucks at it while looking up at Shizuo. “Fuck, Izaya. You're so beautiful... The most...beautiful thing I've seen...!”

When Shizuo comes again, he flops onto Izaya, pulling his finger from Izaya's mouth, reaching down to curl his hand around Izaya's dick.

“N-no, Shizu-chan, I can't—“ Izaya starts, pawing weakly at Shizuo.

“Shut up. You can. You will.” Shizuo pumps Izaya quickly, watching as Izaya's eyes roll back and his body starts to convulse. When Izaya comes for him, it's clearly painful, but Izaya moans all the same, going lax under Shizuo and breathing heavily, his eyes unfocused and dazed.

They lay together, still joined, Izaya's hands petting through Shizuo's hair and Shizuo struggling to stay conscious. Izaya is always so agreeable after getting fucked. It's one of the best times to talk to him, second only to demanding truth from Izaya while fucking him.

“Hey, Izaya... I've been thinking...”

“Hmm?”

“What flower do you think I'm like?” It's a stupid question, but Shizuo is curious. Ami didn't know him, not really. Didn't know how awful he can be, how dark and twisted. Izaya knows. And Izaya loves him anyway.

“What?” Izaya giggles, tugs playfully at Shizuo's hair. “What's brought this on?”

“You reminded me flowers have this entire...language. I'm just curious. What am I like, to you?”

Izaya doesn't answer for a while, and Shizuo worries Izaya is pissed, thinking of Ami, but then Izaya hums thoughtfully and wraps his arms around Shizuo's neck, hugging him tightly.

“Kudzu.”

“Kudzu? Those aren't flowers!” Shizuo huffs, lifting on his elbows to glower down at Izaya.

“Kudzu is in the vine family, but there is a flower. Look it up.” Izaya stretches under Shizuo, sighing happily when his joints pop. “That's what you are. Hard to kill, stubborn, overtaking any and everything in your path until you're all that's left. It's very fitting.”

“Annoying. You're annoying.”

“I'm only being honest! Come on, what am I like then? Surely you have some ideas, if you're asking me what I think you are.”

“But I don't know all the stuff! It's not gonna be...right.”

“This is all speculative. There is no right or wrong.”

“I'm not saying. You're gonna make fun of me.”

“You won't tell me?” Izaya pouts, reaches up to pinch Shizuo's nose. “Not even for a Scooby Snack, Shizu-chan?”

“HAH?!”

Izaya cackles under him, doesn't so much as flinch at Shizuo's growls and threats. Shizuo gives up being angry, likes the looks of happiness on Izaya's face. Even after their rough, biting sex, Shizuo still finds himself wrapped around Izaya's pinky.

“Well,” Shizuo says, swatting at Izaya for good measure and settling back over him so he can bury his head in Izaya's pillow. “I thought of a rose, because roses are pretty, and because they're thorny and hard to be around. But that didn't seem right.”

“Mm,” Izaya agrees.

“So then I thought of dangerous flowers. Poisonous ones, and the best of those would be the foxglove, which can also mean insincerity, and you're pretty insincere. Or a lily of the valley or something awful like that.”

Izaya laughs, tugging at Shizuo's hair. “You're so flattering, Shizu-chan.”

“Shut up, Im not done. And anyway, you called me an invasive vine, so fuck you.”

“Okay. Continue, then.” Shizuo can tell from Izaya's voice that Izaya is still smiling.

“But those didn't seem right. I read that the more beautiful something is, the more dangerous it is in the wild. So then, you'd be something else entirely. Something undiscovered yet.”

“Ah,” Izaya says. “So you don't have an exact answer, after all.”

“I do. My answer is that you're beyond comprehension.”

Izaya laughs again, and Shizuo loves how unhindered Izaya sounds, how happy.

“I love that. Beyond comprehension. It's almost poetic, until you realize the source.”

“Hey.”

“So the two of us are an invasive, pesky vine, and a vicious, poisonous flower that hasn't yet been classified. How unfortunate for everyone that we've found each other, don't you think?” Izaya asks, and Shizuo smiles.

“But fortunate for us.”

“Yes,” Izaya agrees, and Shizuo doesn't have to dig deep to find a hidden meaning in his words. “Fortunate for us.”

#shizaya #love in bloom series #drrr!! #Izaya Orihara #Shizuo Heiwajima #multiple orgasms #lots of sex #happy shizaya day y'all

[elliepassmore]

House of Earth and Blood Review

3.5/5 stars Recommended for people who like: fantasy, urban fantasy, revenge, mysteries, multiple POVs I cannot believe my rating for this. It's what I think, but it's surprising considering I've liked every other book by Maas that I've read. It's also super surprising that I didn't exactly read the entire book, only most of it. Part of the problem is that this book wasn't what I was going in expecting it to be, so that was a massive surprise once I got into it. The first third and the last third of the book are good, I liked those parts and if that's nearly all it had been, I would've been fine with that. But the parts I read of the middle....no. The investigation sort of dragged on longer than I think it should've. Obviously it can't be solved in a day or a week, but this is a nearly 800 page book when it could've been half that. I've read other fantasy books with mysteries that clock in around 400-500 pages and don't feel rushed (in fact, Throne of Glass is one such fantasy/mystery). I think this is going to be part of a series, but in all actuality, the ending wrapped up a lot of stuff. Sure, there was that epilogue that leaves it open, but if you wanted you can just take it as an answer to some additional questions and leave it at that instead of letting it lead into the next book. As mentioned, I liked the beginning. I loved Danika and the Pack of Devils and their relationships with one another and with Bryce. And Danika and Bryce are pretty much the reason I like the ending as well. I would've liked to see more of them and their OG friendship group with Juniper and Fury. But of course that doesn't happen and everything gets fucked up within the first several chapters. The ending to the first part of the book was predictable and I saw it coming from pretty much the minute characters other than Bryce were introduced. Also, the mystery of where the Horn is was something I figured out pretty quickly once someone mentioned who stole it. Something positive I will say for the mystery and how shit hit the fan the first time is that it is so painful but masterful. Like, if you want to torture someone that's how you do it. So I hate it, but also respect Maas' choice. Bryce was an okay character, I actually liked her. She was loyal and protective, but she was also wrecked, which I think made her a better character. It was kind of annoying how Maas isolated her from her friends--Fury I could understand, but Juniper? And what the hell happened with Ithan? We never get an explanation for those two--but I suppose it was for Plot Reasons. I also wasn't a huge fan of Hunt. He was okay, he had some funny lines, but just as a character he was 'meh.' I'm not really sure the stuff that happened at the end needed to happen, necessarily (*SPOILER* if Aelin Ashryver Galathynius was one of the most powerful ToG Fae and she can't come back from the dead with more than a drop of magic, then Bryce, who had only a drop of magic to begin with, can't come back one of the most powerful half-Fae. I know they're two different worlds, but really? Bug off *SPOILER END*. Okay, okay, so I know Maas has gotten heat for plagiarizing herself before, but I feel it's usually minor enough for it to not be a big issue. Usually. Weird how the kristallos in this book reads so similarly to the ridderak in ToG. And how it's up to the protagonist to figure out what's going on while being guarded by some moody 'best of the guard' character who ends up being a love interest *SPOILER* who also ends up betraying her and ends up with a bloody face because of it *SPOILER END*, you know, not at all like Celaena and Chaol in ToG. And this is totally the first we've seen of glowing starlight magic, right? Or a city getting unexpectedly sacked? And asshole Autumn Kings? Or what about the coincidence that best friends keep getting into remarkably similar tragic accidents that leave the characters describing themselves in grief as having an internal 'light go out' *SPOILER* and then having those best friends come back to aid as ghosts *SPOILER END*? Or that line somewhere toward the end of the book about how Bryce will "bow to no one"? Maas is a good writer. She has some issues, yes, but she's a good writer and I'm sure that she can come up with a book that doesn't blatantly rip off her other ones the way this one does, because while it won't matter to people who only read this series, it will matter to fans who've read her other stuff and find this one $25 worth of repetition. One thing I will say, she's getting better with the LGBTQ+ representation. It's still more in the background than it should be, but at least it's stated from the beginning this time...which is a sorry comment on the state of previous books. I was super surprised when Danika and Bryce weren't revealed to have (or have had) a thing. They're best friends and Bryce is obviously gunning for Connor in the beginning, but parts of the book made it seem like they'd dated or been lovers at one point, but if they did it wasn't mentioned. I do not think she's getting better with racial/ethnic representation. Maybe I just missed it, but I'm fairly certain 95-99% of character in this book are white. Especially the main characters. It's a fantasy world. There are people whose skin is blue (maybe not in this one, but in some of her others), why aren't there people whose skin tone is black or brown? It isn't hard to write representation, all it takes is one or two lines during a character's introduction and some follow-through, something that's easy to fit into an 800-page book. I do like Maas' writing, but I don't think I'll be reading more of Crescent City. While this is her only completely new project right now, if she writes more completely new stuff I don't know if I'll read that either. I think I'll have to settle for rereads and hope that the remaining ACoTaR books will eventually be published. If you haven't read any of her other books (or you don't remember them well), this one is probably fine for you. This is also probably the book for people who like long mystery novels, since that's basically what it is (or maybe not, since it is a tad predictable). As a side note: I might edit/rereview this book later as it can sometimes be hard on the first read-through of something to completely articulate my thoughts on it (and I also might be hoping my opinion changes)

#book #book review #house of earth and blood #sarah j maas #fantasy #new adult #urban fantasy #bryce quinlan #hunt athalar #danika fendyr

[loonriderx]

Now for something completely different! Sorrynotsorry. I’ve been hyperfixated on Saiyuki lately.

Where is this?

That was Konzen's question, but amongst the void he found himself in, there was no one to ask. His surroundings were hazy... not empty, but hazy. There were no details he could make out. Even his body, when he looked down at his hands, seemed to only half exist. There was mercy in that, at least. He could feel none of the pain or fatigue from the injuries he'd taken before he died.

Wait... he'd died.

"What's going on?" The question left his mouth and drifted away, not even echoing in the space around him. Then, his hazy surroundings rippled. Nothing was entirely clear, but shapes began to make themselves visible: trees, roads, houses... people? Humans and demons, denizens of the lower world, wandered about in a still-blurry sea of shapes... but Konzen's eye caught on one that was clearer than the rest. A small blonde child, walking with one hand held by a woman and the other hand clutching a frozen treat.

Konzen realized what this was. What it had to be. "That's me."

He was no longer questioning, and the simple scene disappeared into haze again. His surroundings became a whirl of events and scenes, each one with a single individual clearer than the rest: a farmer's son proposed to his sweetheart, a little girl chased butterflies in a field, a baby wailed hunger while the mother hurried to the cradle, a politician laughed a false laugh in a meeting.

The last one would've made Konzen chuckle if he wasn't working so hard on tracking everything he could of what was going on. Everything felt out of order, somehow. He'd see an old woman in her bed, and then he'd see a middle-aged man chasing his children, and then he'd see a young girl he'd swear was the same person as the old woman.

Life after life, death and birth and death and birth, these people carried his soul through time. Sometimes he swore he recognized other people, but the image always shifted before he could be certain.

Everything slowed down, as if whatever was doing this was saying "pay attention." Konzen watched a man, in the robes of a Buddhist monk, approach the door to a small house. This scene was the clearest it had been so far, and Konzen could see slivers of light across the monk's face as the door cracked open so the home's resident could look out.

"Kenren...!" He covered his mouth a second after the name left it, but of course his voice couldn't reach the men: a gap of time held them apart. The man who'd answered the door had long, red hair, and though Konzen couldn't see much of him, he knew beyond a doubt whose soul resided there, as surely as he knew that his rested with the monk.

The scene continued in silence, Kenren's future stepping out of the house to speak to Konzen's. Even in this strange preview, the tension was obvious in both of them, though what they were at odds over, Konzen couldn't— the redhead grabbed the monk's arm, and in the next second took a knee to the solar plexus for his trouble.

Well, at least this guy was more competent in a fight than Konzen was. Even if he did get punched in the jaw right afterward.

The next few seconds went by hazily, but resolved into the monk holding a gun on the man Kenren would become. Konzen barely had time to worry before the door pushed open again, revealing a man who looked more worried than someone with Tenpou's face ever should. This man instantly became the gun's new target, but the redhead knocked it away before the trigger could be pulled. The monk was knocked to the ground. The scene began to fade, but before it was lost completely, a fourth person dropped in. Konzen caught a glimpse of long, brown hair, and his throat tightened before the scene vanished completely.

What was the point of this? Was there some will that wished to show him these things, or was it just something that happened naturally...? These men wouldn't exist for years, and surely wouldn't bear much resemblance to the gods whose souls they carried.

... Okay, Konzen couldn't say he'd never wanted to try knocking Kenren's lights out. But besides that..

Things were still out of order. When the images returned, a younger version of the monk walked the wilderness, climbing a mountain path with an irritated look on his face. Konzen didn't have to move to follow him: the vision did it naturally.

The path eventually ended at a small cave, barred naturally by stone, and Konzen forgot the monk entirely. Sitting in the cave, wrists chained and ankle shackled to a heavy iron ball, was Goku.

His heart broke, the ethereal nature of his form not protecting him from emotional pain as it did physical. How far into the future was this vision? How long would Goku spend locked away in solitude?

"I'm sorry..." For what, he couldn't articulate, and he knew Goku couldn't hear him. But he had to say something, give some voice to the pain tearing at his soul.

Goku's eyes held none of the grief and desperation Konzen remembered last seeing in them. Indeed, the little monkey was looking up at the monk with a face strikingly similar to how he'd first looked at Konzen what felt like a lifetime ago.

He looked back at the monk, who'd lost all of the ire he'd been carrying up the mountain. He deflated in a visible sigh, one hand against his hair, and then the hand lowered, but not to his side. The monk's hand extended out to Goku, through the bars of his cell. Goku reached up in turn, and the chain on his wrist disintegrated as he clasped the hand offered to him.

It took a minute for Konzen to realize the absurd sob-laugh he heard had come from him, and he shook his head at his own ridiculous reaction. The scene before him faded away, and he was left with nothing but that sensation of grief and happiness and something closer to hope than he'd felt since starting on the path to the dimension gate.

Nothing replaced the last scene he'd witnessed, and he sighed, closing his eyes.

It would be centuries before a nameless baby, rescued from a river, would grow to become the highest ranked priest in China. It would be years more before that priest followed the voice in his mind to the remote mountaintop.

But here, now, as the god called Konzen relinquished his being to eternity, he found comfort in the knowledge that somewhere, somehow, he would keep the promise he'd made.

#saiyuki #saiyuki gaiden #loon writes #konzen #goku #genjyo sanzo

[avasilvugh]

karolina dean + 8 pls

quick heads up!  i use some slurs here!  but ive also tagged accordingly

8.  Bad memories/experiences

when karolina is eleven, she’s shopping with her mother and they stop for lunch.  when they come out, there are protesters.  a whole sea of them, screaming, raging, telling her mother that she’ll burn in hell for what she’s doing.  they say that she’s worse than the faggots, that god himself will strike her and everything she cares about down.  they say that the church will burn and damn them all.

and then they turn on karolina

she’s blocked out most of what they screamed at her - repression is a hell of a drug.  she can’t always repress the images - the red, contorted faces scream at her silently in her dreams and, over the years, start parroting whatever awful things she hears at school or thinks about herself.  when she wakes up from those nightmares, she can hardly get back to sleep, not for a very long time

she was the last to know when amy died, the last to arrive.  it’s not the delivery of the news that’s crystallized in her mind, it’s walking into the pool house and seeing the empty space where amy usually sat.  it’s nico not bouncing up to greet her like she normally would.  it’s molly, subdued and silent, curled up against gert.  it’s chase, looking very young, knees to his chest.  it’s alex - missing.  the wrongness of it all.  she hadn’t gone to sit beside her best friend; she’d looked very small, adrift, alone in her grief.  the next time karolina had seen her, she was in all black and wouldn’t look anyone in the eye.

karolina never forgives herself for that night, for not going to nico, for not trying harder in the weeks and months that followed.  sometimes she feels so entirely guilty it’s hard to process.  hard to breathe.

what almost happened at the party.  it’s a black spot in her memory, nothing there to fill in the blanks beyond what she drags out of chase in a frantic, desperate plea for him to tell her anything, anything.  there’s still too much blank space though.  there’s still too much open for her mind to play with, to fill in awful, awful blanks.  how do you process something that didn’t happen, but could have?  how to do process something that you don’t even remember?

but because of this, karolina doesn’t like sleeping in places where she’s not meant to be sleeping.  and she hates it when there’s really no other option, like when she’s so tired she passes out in the booth seat of the diner they stop at as they’re running from her evil alien siblings.  she’ll wake with a start, with a jolt of panic as she looks around frantically until she recognizes the faces around, until her brain catches up with the circumstances under which she fell asleep.  

still.  it sticks with her.

they’re somewhere in middle america, three weeks after she and chase were rescued.  karolina’s finally strong enough to do more than walk from the van to the motel and back again, so she volunteers to go with nico to the grocery store to stock up on non-perishables and they’re in the canned food aisle when karolina stumbles, finds herself steadied by nico’s warm hands at her waist and she can’t help herself, can’t help by lean down and kiss her and feel really, truly happy for the first time since she was taken

someone hisses from behind them, “god hates dykes,” and karolina freezes.  gets thrown back to being eleven and terrified and her mother isn’t here to step between her and them anymore.  nico whips around and snarls out, “god hates hypocrites,” quickly enough, positioning herself between karolina and the other woman, drawing herself to her full height (a full five feet and two inches lmao)

the woman gets red in the face and leaves quickly and they finish their shopping, but karolina can’t articulate why she’s so unsettled, can’t put words to the feeling that’s pressing up against her ribs.  her hands shake the entire time

#runaways #karolina dean #can u tell i got called a dyke in walmart in arkansas #d slur #f slur #sorry for the angst but ya asked for it #anonymous #human interaction

[regular-lord-reckoner]

So, I just heard about a situation I need to like...rant about for a second because my blood is fucking boiling 

I was watching drama YouTube (it’s a not-so-guilty secret that I enjoy that type of shit, I’m a Scorpio what can I say?) and I just watched a video about a recent concert at the O2. 

It was Hayley Kiyoko and basically like...she kept stopping her songs and even starting over because she wanted everyone to stand up, including the people up in the balcony and the security kept telling them to sit down. 

Sounds like a non-issue, right? Sounds like she was just trying to be good to her fans and shit, right? 

The problem was...the balcony section had A LOT of disabled people in it and beforehand they could see perfectly fine and were enjoying themselves, but the second she told everyone to stand up like...game over. They couldn’t see shit. 

And like...I get it, man. I get that people who don’t have disabilities will literally just....never understand this and that’s fine, I don’t expect anyone to. 

But man oh MAN does it feel like shit. 

I’ve been in that situation so many times where like...I just cannot stand up, I know I don’t have the energy and it’s already breaking my heart enough that I can’t and then my view gets blocked by people standing and you don’t want to be a dick and rain on anyone’s parade, especially when asking someone to move or sit down usually just gets you dirty looks and sneers because I think people honestly think that like...disabled people don’t go to places like that ??

And granted, a lot of us don’t specifically for reasons like this, because we don’t want to cause anyone problems or be a wet blanket or need even more special accommodations. We already know we don’t belong and we’re not wanted, but sometimes, crazily enough, we like to have fun just like everyone else. 

I’ve already gone through the processes of grief just accepting that I’m pretty sure my days of standing close to stages is over. When I was younger I could kiiind of manage it. It was tough and I’d have to pretty much be carried out by whoever I came with and then felt drained for days, but anymore it’s just really hard so I either have to have it be somewhere that has seating or somewhere I know I can at least hug a wall and sit down if I need to and that fucking SUCKS. I HATE that. I hate it so fucking much and I watched a video of someone’s footage from the concert the moment they weren’t able to see and it’s absolutely heart breaking. 

The fact of the matter is, the security were trying to help those people so they could still see. They were keeping everyone in their seats to be NICE (and also because it’s apparently just...not safe to have a bunch of people enjoying a concert and probably drinking to be standing up and dancing around a balcony barrier but ANYWAY) 

Because of the noise and because it’s a fucking concert, security were having to wave their lights at people to get their attention and I guess when Hayley saw that (combined with the fact that this evil security team kept making people sit down) she pitched a fit on stage and got the whole crowd booing the security guards and calling them assholes and shit. 

And then in just...the most upsetting thing I’ve seen yet, one person manages to make her way to the front of the balcony, holding their fucking walking aid, and tries to tell Hayley that there’s disabled people in the back and that’s why security wanted everyone to sit down and she just...doesn’t seem to give a fuck 

And later she “apologizes” for it by putting out some bullshit statement about how she just wanted everyone to have a good time and she didn’t really know the whole situation, blah blah blah but like...doesn’t just straight up say, “Hey, sorry to all my disabled fans for the misunderstanding, I’ll do better in the future to make sure you guys are able to see” or something like that. Nope just...Heeeey man, I wanted there to be good vibes, sorry for misreading the energy~ 

Fuck ALL the way off. 

I know this probably isn’t that big of a deal, but it just...really hit me right where it hurt. 

A few years back I went to see AFI for like the billionth time and...here again, I used to be capable of just being in the crowd like normal, their shows that I’ve been too haven’t been like...stadium shows, by any means, it’s just kind of been a big room with a lot of people and a stage and it’s kinda nice because it’s so close, really. 

But I thought I’d at least try for as long as I could to be where I usually am, sort of in the middle with a good view of the stage, but not so close I’d be constantly getting crushed 

I wanna say they had two opening acts that show, which isn’t uncommon for them at least the times I’ve seen them, but I realized pretty early on I should try to conserve my energy as much as possible so I figured in between sets I’d just...sit on the ground for a minute. 

I tried to take up as little space as possible, but mind you like...this was the time people were leaving to go to the bathroom or go get drinks or go do whatever so it’s not like we were all in our perfect places where we planned on being once the next thing started up.

I had every intention of standing back up once the lights went out again, I just...needed a moment and I didn’t want to lose my place in the crowd completely, so I just sat where I was. Figured it wouldn’t be a huge deal, but...much like Hayley, a group of girls started yelling at me to stand up and I think maybe at first they thought they were just...being cute, I guess? Like, “Hey, it’s a concert, stand up!” and shit, but...no, man I’m good. 

I tried to just kind of wave it off and ignore it, but they kept on so I snapped and said something to the effect of, “I’m sitting down for a second because I’m disabled, is that okay with you?!” I think. 

Which...y’know, was fucking HILARIOUS, apparently. I honestly don’t even remember what all else they said, I know they kept taunting me and being assholes and there was something in there about like...was I just gonna have a picnic there on the floor and because they were just the worst kind of people they had to push past not just me, but a bunch of other people to be even closer and as they stepped over me like the piece of trash I am, apparently, one of them pretended to offer me a picnic basket and they just kept laughing about it. 

Like...I’ve had people have some pretty shitty reactions to me before and have dealt with discrimination, but there’s something soul-crushing about being in a place you thought was somehow apart from all of that and being treated like that. 

I know music’s a safe haven for a lot of people and a source of comfort and even a life support and that’s no different for people with disabilities. To go somewhere that you already felt out of place at to begin with because you know you’re not able to enjoy this experience the same was as everyone else is already hard enough, but on top of that to be treated like complete dog shit is just...really upsetting. 

And like, at least in my case it was just other concert goers being mean to me. I can’t imagine how shitty I’d have felt if Davey Havok was the one standing on stage ring leading that shit, regardless of what he thought was happening and then if on TOP of that he got on social media later and couldn’t even apologize for it? 

I dunno, man.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone who just wanted to enjoy a concert and is now having the entire crowd boo and scream insults at the only people who were looking out for your best interest.

I dunno if other disabled people get this feeling, but...I want to VANISH on the spot whenever it’s called to attention that I need something. Asking for help is HARD. Having to need something is DIFFICULT. 

And I know to anyone else that sounds silly and just like regular-old-anxiety issues but it’s...it’s not. I really don’t know how to articulate it or put it into words and maybe it is just me, but like...I dunno. 

Point is, it’s just...hard to be singled out for needing something, even if it’s something you need to just function, and I can’t imagine an entire crowd of people like...yelling in my direction all because some people were trying to look out for me. 

Apparently someone even started having a panic attack up in the balcony because of it all and the fact that there are still people online treating this like...Hero Hayley Kiyoko bravely stood up for her fans when security told them to sit down!!! just really fucking sucks. 

Just...real bad shit all around and I’m sure eventually the whole story will get out and I hope maybe if nothing else people will just...kinda think next time? Maybe be a little more considerate? 

I get that you can’t possibility anticipate every person’s individuals needs in any given situation, especially if it’s something outside of your norm and not something you personally have to experience or deal with, but like...fuck, man. I just feel so bad after watching that. 

#cw ableism //////

[datingadviceonreddit]

Being rejected by the person you’re always thinking about truly hurts. I actually don’t think we put enough focus into how hurtful being rejected can feel. A lot of people are quick to give advice on how to overcome those painful feelings, and I plan to do the same, but first, I want you to understand something. What you feel, anytime you begin to think about them; That hurt you can’t exactly articulate into words? It’s okay to feel those feelings. It’s okay to hurt. If necessary, it’s okay to cry. You won’t be any less of a person because you’re experiencing strong emotions. On the contrary, actually. The more you try to repress those feelings, those emotions, the worse off you’ll be. It’s important for us as people to not be led by our emotions in a lot of different circumstances, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t experience and feel them. When you’re feeling overwhelming grief, pain, sorrow, and loss, let those emotions flow through you. Perhaps not when you’re at school, work, or with friends, but make sure you find time to be alone somewhere, and just feel. Cry, shake, convulse. Speak whatever negative feelings you have within, and get them out. Express how you feel. Don’t say unhealthy things like “I’m not good enough for her.”, or “I’m unwanted.” Say how you feel. “I feel like I’m not good enough for him.”, or “I feel unwanted.” It’s important to make that distinction. You aren’t ugly, unwanted, worthless, powerless, or unlovable. You simply feel that way, in this moment. Express and express, until you feel like everything is out. It may take a moment, it may take an hour or two. It doesn’t matter how long the process takes. The first step in overcoming strong negative feeling, is to experience it fully. Get it out of your body, your heart, your soul. Do this now. Don’t worry. When you come back, you can continue reading what I have to share with you. It’ll help you to truly overcome all the damage that rejection can cause.  Now, when it comes to dealing with feelings of rejection from someone you like, you have that negative reaction because you don’t understand 3 important facts of life, love, and relationships. The fact that you don’t know those 3 things isn’t your fault. You were probably never taught what they were, and again, that’s okay. Those 3 important facts are as follows:Everybody has their own value system and perspective on life.Not everybody will be a match for you.Your value isn’t determined by the people you don’t match with. Now that you know the 3 facts, I’ll explain why each is important, so you can truly understand what each means, and so you’ll have a brand-new understanding for how social interactions, dating, and relationships truly work.  1. Everybody Has Their Own Value System Nobody has all the answers. Nobody knows what the right thing to do in all situations is. We can guess, we can measure, and we can study what’s in front of us, but often times, we’ll come to a different conclusion. This doesn’t mean that one of us is right, and the other is wrong. It means we share different values. Just because someone likes rock music, while you like hip-hop, doesn’t mean their taste in music sucks. Just because someone loves studying equations, while you enjoy playing basketball, doesn’t make you better than the other person. Just because someone is traveling the world, while you’re sitting on your ass at home, doesn’t mean you’re meant for anything less than the other person. All of these things are a reflection of our values. What’s important to us. What we feel matters. These values of ours are developed and shaped throughout our life. They begin taking shape during our childhood, and continue to morph and mold until we’re adults. From there, it’s harder to change them, but it’s still possible with a little work and persistence. ”What does this have to do with getting over that girl/guy I like?” Well, ask yourself; Why didn’t it work out? Why did they reject you? Did they find your lack of drinking and partying boring?Were you not mysterious enough for them?Were you too available and open for them?Were they turned off by your interest in anime and manga?Did they hate how dirty your car or room looked?Were they unimpressed with your current job?Did they hate the way your teeth looked?Did they feel you didn’t earn enough money for them?Did they just ghost you? On the other side of the spectrum: Did they find you too outgoing and extroverted?Was your energy too high for them?Did they feel you were too into fitness and health?Did they think you earned too much money?Did they feel inadequate compared to your friends?Did they feel you were too proper and mature? When people don’t mirror our values, and we aren’t open minded enough to accept their differing perspectives, we tend to do one of two things. First, is aiming to change or alter their values to be more in line with our own. Second, is to be repulsed by them, because we see their challenging values as wrong or below ours.  2. Not Everybody Will Be a Match for You Because people having different values, it should be obvious that some people will click better than others. Sometimes, you’ll come across a woman who seems to embody all of your own values, but she’ll have one deal breaker that you just can’t agree with, so the relationship fails. Other times, you’ll have a guy who hardly matches your values, but the values he doesn’t match with aren’t the most important for you, so you compromise and accept him as is. The relationship isn’t as strong as it could be, but you manage just fine. And other times, you’ll find someone who matches many of your values to a T. There are few here and there that you don’t agree with 100%, but they’re so minuscule and mundane, they’re easy to overlook or even accept. The idea in creating lasting and strong connections with people, is finding out what their values are. Figuring out what they think of the world and the people within it. What they think of themselves, and how they interact with everything in the present moment. Issues arise in dating and relationship building, when you come across someone who doesn’t share your values, and you try to ignore the fact, or worse, try to change the person into what you ideally want them to be. She’s perfect, physically. Great body, big boobs, nice butt, and a smile to die for. But she loves to party and get drunk. When she’s drunk, she does questionable things with other guys, and that makes you uncomfortable. But since she’s so hot, and you’re so drawn to her outgoing and carefree attitude, you try to stick it out and see if she’ll change. This is usually the approach people take when they come across someone that doesn’t click with them. They’re drawn to certain characteristics and values, but repulsed by others. But because they’re so desperate to be with someone, anyone that can give them what they’re looking for, they’ll settle, in hopes of changing the person later on down the line. This will only ever lead to pain and suffering. As you’re forcing yourself to click with someone who’s values you don’t agree with. You’re settling for what you’re being given, instead of looking for what you truly want. And, the person you’re trying to change slowly grows resentment for you, for trying to change who they are and what they view as important. It’s a bad situation for everybody involved. You can’t try and change someone because they aren’t what you want them to be. You must simply accept them for who they are, and if they aren’t a match for you, move on. They won’t change for you, they’ll only change for themselves. They aren’t meant to click with you, they’re meant to click with someone else. This leads to the third and final point.  3. Your Value Isn’t Determined by The People Who You Don’t Match With. Too many people face rejection in their lives by a person they want to be with, and look towards themselves as the reason things didn’t work out. They think they didn’t do enough, didn’t try hard enough, or simply weren’t good enough. All that happened, was a conflict in values. You didn’t match with the person, because your values weren’t compatible. It wouldn’t have mattered how many scenarios you played in your head, the relationship wouldn’t have worked out. Not because you weren’t good enough, and not because they weren’t good enough, but because your values weren’t aligned. There wasn’t anything you could have done to prevent them from rejecting you, ghosting you, cheating on you, or breaking up with you. If it was meant to last, it would have lasted, and if it wasn’t meant to last, it would have ended. Does this mean you’re worthless? Not worth the energy it takes to love and hold? That you’ll be lonely for the rest of your life? Of course not. It simply means that person wasn’t the person for you. They didn’t click with your values like someone else will. When things don’t work out with a particular person, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you, or something is wrong with them. It only means that your values didn’t match enough to spark a flame. Don’t look down on them, don’t bad mouth them, don’t forsake yourself to a life of seclusion and loneliness. All that is unnecessary and damaging in the long run. Simply accept that you two weren’t meant to be. That there are other people out there that’ll match with you in ways you can’t imagine. There are better friendships out there for you. There are better relationships out there for you. There are better overall connections out there for you. You simply found someone with whom the connection isn’t right. Keep Searching. :) via /r/dating_advice

#dating #dating advice #reddit

[siliconscrolls]

Narcissus and Narcissism

Extensive quotes, Chapter 3: Self-Love and it’s Myth, from Care Of The Soul by Thomas Moore

…Narcissus was the son of a river god and a nymph… there is something essentially liquid or watery about Narcissus… when we are narcissistic… we are dreamlike, fluid, not clearly formed, more immersed in a stream of fantasy than secure in a firm identity.

One nymph who falls in love with him, Echo… can only speak words and phrases she has just heard from someone else. One day Narcissus loses sight of his friends and cries out, ‘Is anyone here?’ 'Here’, Echo answers. …But when she approaches him, Narcissus backs away. 'I would die before I give my power to you’, he says. 'I would give my power to you’, she says… In her grief… Echo loses her body and becomes a mere voice. …Here we see the symptom: a self-absorption and containment that allows no connections of the heart… The echoing aspect of narcissism -the feeling that everything in the world is only a reflection of oneself- didn’t want to give away any power. To respond to another or to an object in the outside world would endanger the fragile sense of power which that tight, defensive insistence on oneself maintains. Like all symptomatic behavior, narcissism reveals, in the very things that it insists on, exactly what it lacks… the narcissists Display of self-love is in itself a sign that he can’t find a way adequately to love himself. In Jungian language we could recognize the Puer or boyish side of the psyche in Narcissus -distant, cold, self contained. Echo is the anima, the soul in desperate need of attachment to the boyish beauty. But in the presence of Narcissus the soul shrivels into an echoing voice. Narcissism has no soul…

Narcissism will not give its power to anything as nymphlike as the soul.

One of the young people scorned by Narcissus offers a curse: 'May he fall in live and not have what he loves’… which… is actually a blessing in disguise.

…the next phase of the story… looks as though it concerns punishment for pride.

The intervention of a god, [Nemesis] however, may signal a breaking up of symptomatic behavior, the neurosis beginning to dissolve in painful disorientation. The divine breaking up of narcissism may be expected to center on self-knowledge and self-love. Identity may become even more confused and fluid.

…Narcissus… fascinated by this visage that looks as though it were carved from marble, and especially by the ivory neck. (Notice the imagery of hardness, a key quality in narcissism) Like the young people who desired him before, Narcissus feels a great yearning to possess this form. He reaches into the water but can’t get hold of it. 'What you are looking for’, says Ovid, 'is nowhere. Turn your head away and what you love will be lost.’

For the first time the narcissist reflects… on himself… In symptomatic narcissism there is no reflection and no wander.

The image in which narcissism is fulfilled is not a literal one. It is not an image one sees in a mirror, not the 'image’… that you want to project, not the self-concept… The image Narcissus sees is a new one… something 'other’, and he is mesmerized by it, charmed. Ovid says, 'the image you seek is nowhere’. It cannot be found intentionally. One comes upon it unexpectedly in a pool in the woods where the sun doesn’t shine brightly and where human touch is absent. What the narcissist does not understand is that the self-acceptance he craves can’t be forced or manufactured. It has to be discovered, in a place more introverted than the usual haunts of the narcissist.There has to be some inner questioning, and maybe even confusion.

It’s particularly suggestive that Narcissus finds this new vision of himself in water. In this element that is his special essence, his birth-right, he finds something of himself.

…Is there something in me that is like this pool?… Do my feelings and thoughts pool somewhere off the beaten path that is utterly still and untouched? Is there someplace wet in me, not the place of dry intellectualism but rather of moist feeling and green, fertile, shady imagination, far from human influence?

The story then tells how Narcissus feels the longing to be united with the image he has found. Now, like the lovers he spurned, he pines and suffers… He talks to the trees, saying, 'Has anyone ever had as much longing as I have?’… his grief is giving him a new connection to the soul. When soul is present, nature is alive. I suspect that this is a very concrete part of curing narcissism… Not all consciousness is human. That in itself is a narcissistic belief. Whenever a psychologist says that we are projecting personality in the world when we talk to it, that psychologist is speaking narcissistically, as though personality and soul belong only to the human subject. But if all we are doing in imagination is bumping into ourselves as in a house of mirrors, then there is no soul, only 'me’ and 'me products’ -projections. Then our longings are not articulated but only acted out in endless, fruitless satisfying of desire.

James Hillman has written about longing as an important activity of the soul, especially the young soul, Puer. That which is young in us pines and yearns. It feels separation keenly and painfully desires attachment. So, the myth suggests that we are on our way toward healing narcissism when we feel an overwhelming desire to be the person we newly imagine ourselves to be.

Narcissism gets stuck on certain familiar images of self.

The cure for narcissism… is to be open to… other images. Narcissism… is hard and impenetrable. But Narcissus at the pool recovers his natural moisture. As with the flower, he becomes flexible, beautiful, planted. A subtle point: Narcissus becomes able to love himself only when he learns to love that self as an object. He now has a view of himself as someone else. This is not ego loving ego; this is ego loving the soul, loving a face the soul presents… narcissism breaking up invites us to expand the boundaries of who we think we are. Discovering the face in the pool is his own, Narcissus exclaims, 'What I long for I have.’

Narcissism is not going to be cured by literal fulfillment of the grandiose expectations for oneself entertained in fantasy. That has to fail so that an 'other’ may appear.

Sometimes the pool may appear in another person. In that person I might recognize an image I could love and be… Narcissism is like a carrot leading us through life from one desirable 'self’ to another.

Art can be a cure for narcissism. The words 'curator’ and 'cure’ are essentially the same. By being the curator of our images, we care for our souls.

The story begins with rigid self-containment and ends with the flowering of a personality… knowing the mythology, we are able to embrace the symptom, glimpsing something of the mysterious rule by which a disease of the psyche can be its own cure.

…psychologically we have many different claims made on us from a deep place. It is not possible, nor is it desirable, to get all of these impulses together under a single focus. Rather than strive for unity of personality, the idea of polytheism suggests living within multiplicity… we allow ourselves to experience the tensions that arise from different moral claims.

…the narcissistic person has become fixed on a single idea of who he is, and other possibilities are automatically rejected. We can read the myth, especially the discovery of the 'other’ face in the pool, as a lesson in polytheism. We can see narcissism, then, as an opportunity rather than as a problem: not a personality defect, but the soul trying to find its otherness. Narcissism is less a simple focus on ego and more a manifestation of the need for a paradoxical sense of self, one that includes both the ego and the non-ego.

This… suggests… that it is wrong to be negative toward the ego and even egotism. The ego needs to be loved, requires attention, and wants exposure… Every figure of the psyche has needs that seem distasteful, even outrageous… People go to workshops to 'discover the child within’, but do they go to these events to reawaken the child who cries, is needy, pouts… and dirties his pants?… The ego… also has its less than appealing needs.

Narcissism is not about giving this 'I’ to much attention… The narcissistic person simply does not know how profound and interesting his nature is. In his narcissism he is condemned to carry the weight of lifes’ responsibilities on his own shoulders. But once he discovers that there are other figures who surround the 'I’ personality, he can let them do some of the work of life. Narcissism may look like an indulgent pleasure, but beneath the facade of satisfaction lies an oppressive burden. The narcissistic person tries very hard to be loved, but he never succeeds because he doesn’t realize yet that he has to love himself as other before he himself can be loved.

Some psychologists argue that the soaring, idealistic puer cries out for grounding. He needs to experience life and tether his fanciful thoughts to a humbler life. He needs to be pulled down to where the rest of us live… We could take a more homeopathic approach, accepting what is given in the symptom while at the same time deepening it. In the myth, Narcissus’s own nature flowers, literally [he turns into a daffodil] … the motif of the boy in the underworld eternally mediating on his image suggests that narcissism is healed when it is invited into the very essence of the personality… In general, behavior is symptomatic when it is not brought home and honored as a legitimate part of our nature… Idealism, winged with narcissism, does not need forced grounding; it requires acceptance and mediation and close embrace, so that it can turn naturally from hard ivory expectations to soft, beautiful, earthly life.

Often we are blocked from seeing a possible positive outcome in narcissism because it generates such strong shadow feelings… Narcissism is the shadow of… humility, and so we try to pull it down to an acceptable level. But narcissism… suggests that what we need is not humility, especially the false kind that arises from repression of ambition, but great dreams, high ideals, and pleasure in our own talent and abilities. The problem with narcissism is not the high ideals and ambitions, it’s the difficulty one encounters when trying to give them body… But the solution to narcissism is not 'growing up’. On the contrary, the solution… is to give the myth as much realization as possible, to the point where a tiny bud appears indicating the flowering of personality through its narcissism.

Narcissism is a condition in which a person does Not love himself. This failure in love comes through as its opposite because the person tries so hard to find self-acceptance… It’s clear to all around that narcissism’s love is shallow. We know instinctively that someone who talks about himself all the time must not have a very strong sense of self. To the individual caught up in this myth, the failure to find self-love is felt as a kind of masochism, and, whenever masochism comes into play, a sadistic element is not far behind. The two attitudes are polar elements in a split power archetype. The narcissist is clearly sadistic in his rejection of others and his feelings of superiority. Masochism, on the other hand, appears with particular clarity in what I call 'negative narcissism’. Some people think they avoid narcissism by constantly judging and berating themselves. Even though it may look like the opposite of self-love, it is still narcissism: a focus, albeit negative, not on life and objects, but on self. The masochism may appear as a habit of self-criticism.

Putting oneself down is narcissism in reverse. It robs the soul of its attachment to the world.

Soul always includes an element of attachment, but narcissism, as we have seen from the myth, is the failure to make oneself available for attachment. In our narcissism, we are as if made of ivory -beautiful, but also cold and hard.

False humility denies the ego the attention that it craves, but the denial itself is narcissistic, since it is a negative focus on ego rather than on the pleasurable possibilities of life. The healing of narcissism, the fulfillment of its symptomatic hunger, is achieved by giving the ego what it needs -pleasure in accomplishment, acceptance, and some degree of recognition. Masochistic refusal of the ego’s desire is no way to care for the soul. On the contrary, it is an ascetic bargain that buys a false sense of virtue at the cost of the soul’s need. Motivated by thoughts of purity and self-control, a person can deny the ego all kinds of comforts, and narcissism may abound. Spiritual programs are filled with concerns for individual progress, acceptance by authorities, and the wish for sainthood or some other high position. An alternative approach is to hear the soul’s complaint and give it love and attention where it most needs it, even where we are most suspicious. The secret in healing narcissism is not to heal it at all, but to listen to it. Narcissism is a signal that the soul is not being loved sufficiently…. This myth is extraordinarily subtle. Narcissus falls in love with his image, but he doesn’t know it is he that is loved. He discovers by his own experience that he is lovable. Further, he loves himself as an object… we can examine the stuff of our lives and personalities as material separate from the 'I’. I am stuff. I am made up of things and qualities, and in loving these things I love myself.

When we recognize the objective nature of the soul… we can love ourselves as Narcissus did, as Other. Even the ego can be experienced this way. We know our habits, our weaknesses, our strengths, our quirks. Looking at them with interest and love does not have to be narcissistic. In fact… the distance Narcissus feels from his love object… may help transform narcissism into a genuine love of self.

…all to often our symptoms go unworked. Metamorphosis doesn’t happen without our artful participation… Symptoms are transformed by imagination… The circumstances, the timing, and the particular language of my narcissism tells me exactly where to look and what to do. Oddly, I can be thankful for my narcissism… It contains the seeds of self acceptance and a loving attachment to the broad world.

#thomasmoore #narcissus #narcissism #self love #self-love #love #discussion

[stars-forever-dwell-blog1]

Blinded by the Light: Part Two

(So this post is turning out to be really hard to write, because I’ve spent more than ten years trying not to think about all this stuff, so suddenly trying to remember it all is kind of a challenge. So forgive me if I bounce back and forth, and if you think that I’m not really going in any sensible order, you’re probably right. Just thought I’d add that in.)

At our first Rainbow Gathering, or should I say on our way there, my sister and I met up with two guys around our age. They were from Ontario, and they had been friends for a long time. The thing about these gatherings is that most everyone is open and wanting to talk, share stories and adventures. I think we met up with them hitch hiking there, and all four of us kind of instantly clicked. I honestly don’t remember the other guy’s name, but the one that factors mostly into this story was named Patrick. Actually, that’s totally not his real name, but I guess I’d rather people not know who I’m talking about, in the very off chance that someone reading this actually knows who I’m talking about. So. Patrick he is. But his story isn’t exactly the kind you hear every day, so maybe all my attempted diplomacy is for nothing. Oh well, I tried.

Anyway, he was this really nice guy who I sort of sensed had a deep wounding to him, and damn, if I didn’t turn out to be right. It didn’t take long for him to share his story with us, and I, like you will be once you read this, was skeptical as to if it were true, but he seemed pretty honest. He told us that his entire family – his mother, father, brother and sister – were all killed in separate car crashes. After they all died, he decided to come out to B.C. to start fresh, to live simply. He had a ring on a chain around his neck that he said had belonged to his brother, and he always wore it to remember him by. So the four of us joined up, and we all went to the gathering together. My sister, I think, really felt for him, and she did a lot of “counseling” for him while we all hung out. It really seemed like he was shedding the pain of all his loss during the Gathering, and though I tried to align myself with my sister’s attitude (I was supposed to be enlightened by now, after all), his losses and the intensity of his emotion scared the shit out of me. I had never met anyone with as much pain, and I knew he was developing feelings for me. I thought he was cute, but like I said, it was really intense. I could feel these waves of emotion rolling off him and crashing into me; I sensed, even back then in my naiveté, that he was giving all the emotion he used to have for his family to me. . .and along with it came all the expectations and need for a safe harbour, a haven from the loneliness he had been going through. Call me shallow, but I was 17, had never been in a relationship, and I was ready to run for the hills. I’m certainly not saying that it wasn’t shallow; I’m just saying it’s how I felt. But I guess the more compassionate, mothering side of me wanted to help him, because his story was heartbreaking. And back then I didn’t know the difference between compassion and passion (thank you to my friend Lou’s ex-husband for articulating this for me; I’ve never forgotten it), or that feeling empathy for someone who needs a mommy does not a good relationship make. (I needed to learn this several times before I got it. Now that I get it, I don’t want kids anymore. Not sure what this means.)

Anyway, this Gathering was at the end of July, a few weeks after I had arrived in “paradise,” and I think that my sister and I both knew that the time was coming when I would have to leave the shelter of her presence and strike out on my own, do my own thing, find my independence. Since Patrick and I were sort of a couple and he and I both wanted to explore Vancouver Island, and my sis had to go back to Whistler for work, the writing was sort of on the tie-dye. So once the moon was waning and we all packed up to leave the Gathering, I knew that my time on my own was soon to begin.

We all hitch hiked out together, and I remember we got a ride in the back of a pickup truck. We were all sitting down, feeling the wind and the sun and soaking up the experience of the last few days, and at one point Patrick stood up, and we saw that he had his brother’s ring in his hand. He paused, said something like, “I love you, bro,” and flung it into the forest as hard as he could. My sister and I exchanged a look and a smile. It was pretty cool to see his heart healing, letting go of the pain.

So we got to our “parting ways” spot, and I’m pretty sure my sister gave Patrick a “take-care-of-her-or-I’ll-hunt-you-down-and-kill-you” hug as we said our goodbyes. I was already getting pretty proficient at wearing my glazed “all-is-one-and-all-is-good-and-I-am-so-beatific-you-could-twist-my-limbs-into-a-pretzel-and-stick-me-in-a-piece-of-Vedic-pottery” mask, but inside I was pretty freaked out to be On My Own for the first time in my life, even if it was with a nice boy who I felt intuitively okay about (who I had only known for about a week and who had some serious problems that were way over my head to fix).

So with a huge lump in my throat and my knees shaking under my bellbottoms, Patrick and I hitch hiked into Victoria, with no other intention than to explore it.

Our time there really wasn’t that exciting; we somehow always ate and found places to pitch our tent, and we did some exploring, but my actual memories beyond a few awkward kisses are pretty blurry. Knowing myself as I do now, knowing I have anxiety and am an HSP (highly sensitive person), so much makes sense that back then just made me feel scared and wonder what the hell was wrong with me. I just remember feeling panicky and in over my head as he would talk about losing his family and the depth of grief he had, and how he had wanted to commit suicide, but didn’t now that he had met me. It was becoming more and more clear that I had become his “salvation,” the place where he wanted to bury himself and all his pain, love and fear. . .and I wasn’t okay with that. At the time I thought maybe it was just in my head, that I was just being selfish and lacking compassion, but a couple months later, it turned out I had been right.

I think I lasted a little over a week with him, and I just somehow knew that I needed to break, that it was becoming a drain on me. He started calling me Jelly Bean, which was not a nickname I appreciated. Seriously. Blech. (That’s where the Belly Jean came from in Belly Jean Sticky Fingers, by the way. My friend Peter switched the letters around for reasons of silliness.) Call me selfish, but I was there to have fun and explore, not be tied down to a person who needed me to be his everything, and save him. I remember I needed to go to the bank so I could get fare for the ferry to get back to the mainland and my sister, and I kept hitting snags. I didn’t have a drivers’ license or a bank card, and because the branch I went to wasn’t my home branch they couldn’t access my account until they verified my signature, blah, blah, blah. Then I went back the next morning and they were closed because they had been robbed. I remember Patrick turning to me and saying, “It seems like something is telling you to stay here with me,” and I just remember thinking, “Like hell it is.” I knew I needed to get away from him. I finally got my shit together, and when we said our goodbyes he cried inconsolably, but I just felt it in my bones that I had to go; it was way too much.

Obviously we didn’t exchange phone numbers or addresses because neither of us had a phone or an address, and email wasn’t really an everybody-has-one thing back then, particularly among people who were living off the grid in various capacities. So parting ways was kind of a, “If we’re meant to meet up again, we will” sort of thing then. I knew that I could have suggested we meet up sometime and somewhere down the road, but quite frankly I didn’t want to. So I left, feeling really guilty but really relieved, too.

Now here comes another one of those kind of crazy moments in the story again. It was a couple months later, and I was still on the mainland, in downtown Vancouver. I’m not sure what I was doing there, but I was with a few people I knew, and we were just passing through. I was standing on a street corner talking with someone, and I just had this strange feeling. I looked up at one point, almost like I sensed something, and where I was looking down the street, I saw Patrick. I had no idea he was in the city, and he had no idea I was on that street corner on that day, at that moment. He was staring at me with disbelief, then he ran up, buried his face in my shoulder, and started wailing. In between sobs, he told me how he had missed me so much that he had gone on a crystal meth binge, and had kind of lost it for a while. Ummm. . .yeah. Once again, I was at a loss for words. I don’t even remember what I said to him, but I basically left as soon as I could. I don’t know what he ended up doing, and I never saw him again. Am I a bitch? Maybe.

It’s interesting, looking back, because at that time I was really getting into intuition and wanting to tap into my “sixth sense,” that knowing-without-knowing, and I always felt frustrated because I wasn’t as advanced or as far along as I wanted to be. Yet writing this, it occurs to me that sometimes we just kind of know that we can’t be what someone wants or needs us to be, that maybe they need something that’s beyond our skill or our energy to give them, and that maybe, even if we care deeply for them, it would be a detriment to us in some way to remain around that person, even when their need is deep and raw, but we need to take care of ourselves, otherwise we have nothing to give anyone. It’s obvious that Patrick needed something, some kind of healing, but I knew back then, despite my lack of wisdom and life experience, that I wasn’t the one to give it to him. So my point is, maybe I was more intuitive than I thought I was back then, even if I wasn’t seeing dead people yet; I just didn’t quite understand the whole scope of what intuition is. And maybe I wasn’t wholly without the ability to set boundaries; I just beat myself up every time I did it, telling myself I was a heartless bitch, or a weak person who just “didn’t have her shit together.” Interesting. . .

Another person that deserves to be mentioned here is a lad I’ll call Peter, though that isn’t his real name either. But it suits him. . .

Peter was a Metis guy who I met through my sister, and there was something otherworldly about him. When I met him, I was very much swayed by other peoples’ opinions, so I can’t honestly say what I would think of him if I met him today, but at the time I got very much sucked into the Peter-buzz. Everyone kind of loved the guy, because there was something, as I said, otherworldly and maybe unattainable, untouchable about him. Not to mention that he was incredibly sexy in his own way. But really, it was more the light that seemed to shine out of him that drew me to him. I ended up getting a huge crush on his best friend once I realized that in Peter’s eyes I would always be my big sister’s little sister and that’s all, but that’s basically a boring story that doesn’t deserve much space here. But I will say that Best Friend Guy and I fooled around in the basement of a church once, and it still makes me giggle. I am definitely going to hell.

Anyway, one night shortly after I met Peter, my sister and I were in his tent with him on a beach in Nelson, the town we were hanging out in before our second Rainbow Gathering. We were doing bottle tokes of hash, a first for me, and to say that I got kind of stoned would be like saying that it would kind of suck if you were walking through the forest one day and a crazed squirrel jumped out of the trees and attacked your face with his long pointy teeth. (I know squirrels don’t really have pointy teeth, but it sounded more dramatic that way.)

In other words, I was over the moon and then some.

When we had completed our hot box, we all came outside and stood around for a minute. I’m not sure what they were doing, but I was getting really, really high really, really fast, and I was having a hard time keeping up. I remember looking at my sister in the moonlight, and there were some bushes behind her, and behind her and all around her I could see these pictures of stuff – like cars and microwaves and McDonald’s and just the general shit that clutters up our minds and lives. It was spewing everywhere, even though we were on a deserted beach far from town and in nature, it was still prevalent, the materialism of our culture. The interesting thing is, when my sister and I talked the following day, she said she was seeing the exact same thing at the same time. I’ve always believed that drugs can open one’s mind to other faces of reality. . .but the problem is, sometimes you’re just really stoned, and it can be hard to tell the difference between a genuine awakening experience and just being gibbled. Which is why I choose, nowadays, to attain these experiences without the use of mind altering substances, for the most part.

So my sis and Peter wandered down to the water to watch the moon on the waves (he always had a thing for her, but he was my age, so I think it was weird for her), and I went back to my tent to go to sleep. This was what I decided to do because I wasn’t sure what else to do. I was feeling mighty weird, and as I lay there, it quickly became apparent that sleep was not coming anytime soon.

One of the biggest problems, as I see now, in my ideology at that time was that I refused to see things as anything less, or more than “One hundred percent positive, amazing, beautiful, meaningful, spiritual awesomeness!” Everything that happened was good, meaningful, and designed just for me to learn and gain positivity from. Because, after all, I lived in paradise now, remember? But how, you might be wondering, could you possibly live like that for any length of time? Sometimes things happen that are painful, or scary, or just plain piss you off. What would you do then? And to you I offer a really good quote from a really good movie: Never underestimate the power of denial.

I think the tragic flaw in my understanding at that time was that I had heard the whole “always-learn-from-your-mistakes-and-take-something-positive-out-of-every-bad-experience” philosophy, and maybe had taken it way too literally. Somehow I ended up thinking that it wasn’t so much that it’s good to find positives in all situations, but rather that, once I attained utopia, everything would be positive and magical and perfect. (Needless to say, I had a lot to learn about magic.) I think I wanted to believe perfection, safety, peace and beauty existed, that there was somewhere in the world where life was still magical. Maybe that’s a part of the seemingly inevitable disillusionment of adulthood; that things just don’t seem as magical as they did when we were kids. It took me a little while to realize that the magic from childhood is never lost; it’s just that being an adult really kind of sucks, so you have to get creative if you want to hold onto that childhood magic, and find it in different places than you used to.

So back to me tripping in my tent.

I lay on my back and closed my eyes, trying to quiet my mind, which turned out to be impossible. (That’s one thing I’ve realized, that every time I smoked pot or hash or did mushrooms or anything, my mind would race like crazy, and there was no stopping it, only changing its course, to a point, but never controlling it. I see now that this was part of my depression and anxiety, which is why I don’t smoke or do mushrooms anymore. Not fun.) I opened my eyes and was still seeing these loopy pictures floating by, and for the first few minutes (hours? Who knows) it was actually kind of cool. But then one negative, worrisome thought came creeping in; I don’t remember what it was, and suddenly the whole “vibe” changed, and I felt like I was plummeting, way, way down. And again, there was no stopping it.

Then things started getting kind of scary. I felt a weird sucking sensation between my eyes and up on my forehead, what some would call the place of my third eye. My first impression of this feeling would have been “bad,” but because everything that happened in my world at the time was “good,” I couldn’t accept that, so I told myself that my third eye chakra was opening, and I started to get all excited. I focused on the feeling, wanting it to expand, and it did. It seemed to move down my body to my throat, then my heart area, then on down.

By this point I was still telling myself that I was having a chakra / spiritual opening / awakening thing, that it was good and light and amazing, but something deeper and smarter in me finally stepped up and said, “This is fucking scary!” so I got up and opened my tent door and called my sister’s name out into the darkness.

She came to my tent and I was crying and blubbering and shaky-breathing, trying to explain what it felt like, and I really don’t think I did a good job of explaining it. She asked if I wanted to go sleep in her tent, and I said yes. What I really wanted was to not be alone, but I was afraid to admit it; after all, I was in utopia now, where bad and scary things never happened. I didn’t want to appear unenlightened, after all. Perish the thought.

So I went to her tent and lay there for a few minutes, but I couldn’t sleep, though the weird sucking feeling had stopped. I got up and went outside, still wrapped in my sleeping bag.

Peter was on the beach, spinning a staff he had made for himself under the moon. I watched him for a minute, again struggling against my shyness. The truth was, I felt like I had had some kind of weird spiritually violating experience, and for whatever reason I felt safe around him.

I asked, “Can I have a hug?”

He replied, “I would love to give you a hug.” I tried explaining what had happened, and he asked me if I felt good around him. When I replied with a yes, he let me go and reached around his neck to take off the necklace he wore. He told me it was something he had made for himself out or random things he had found, and that it was a piece of him that I could wear for the night if it would help me feel strong again. Pretty cool. I did wear it all night, and I did feel better.

To this day, I can’t say if what I experienced was some kind of negative spiritual experience, or if it was just a really bad trip, if one can trip after smoking hash. (I can, apparently.)

In the morning I woke up and, remembering the experience, it was hard to process how I felt. Emotionally exhausted, I would say, and not much else. Scared and confused. But, typical of my state of mind at the time, I started to try and convince myself it really had been a spiritually awakening experience. Maybe I didn’t know how to deal with whatever it really had been, whatever that was.

This was the point, I would say, when my adventure started to turn into a misadventure.

The beach we had camped on was actually a popular hippie spot just outside of Nelson. You had to walk down a set of railroad tracks for about twenty minutes to get to it, and even though we were on the railway’s private land, the police never came to kick us off. I’m still not sure why. By the time we left, there was a whole little village of smelly hippies living down there in their tents, feeling smug and superior as we looked from our beach at the lights of Nelson. We were so much more enlightened than all the drones living in town and not questioning reality the way we were, after all.

So as this beach started to fill up with more and more hippies, on the day after my weird experience a man showed up whose real name I will gladly use here, because if he’s still around being a pervert, maybe some young girl will read this and know to watch out for a gross old dude with weird blue eyes that kind of swim, like he’s done way too much acid, named Chester, who carries around an arsenal of crystals and calls himself a shaman. You’ve been warned, young hippie chicks. It doesn’t matter if you’re underage; he prefers that. He will try to have sex with you. He was at least in his fifties when I met him, and that was over ten years ago. He will tell you that you are the living embodiment of the Goddess and he the God, and that all of nature wants you to join together in the Sacred Marriage. For the good of the earth and all of humanity, you know. And what’s really scary is that I think a part of him truly believes it.

Anyhoo, I saw him that morning, all decked out in his “shaman gear,” crystal headdress and all that, and being the naïve person that I was, I found myself telling him what had happened to me, and he told me (like he knew) that it had, in fact, been a spiritual opening, and it was positive, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, right. Bluffing can get you pretty far when your audience / congregation is really fixed on believing a certain thing to be true. (Isn’t that right, all you pastors and preachers out there? Sorry for breaking away from the story, but it needed to be said.)

And I admit I was drawn to him, because back then I hadn’t learned that just because someone claims to be something doesn’t mean that they are. So many shameful admissions in this here post. But I know I’ve learned from it all and grown immensely, so I feel a little better about myself.

I remember a couple days after my weird experience on hash, I was walking down the main street in Nelson with a friend, and this dreaded hippie who was sitting on the sidewalk stopped me and asked if I was Rainbow. I said yes, and he said something like, “You’re that girl that Chester was saying is really spiritual!” I was like, “Oh, um, okay.” He asked me a couple questions about my experience and I answered him, and I remember as I was talking he was looking up at me with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open, and I got this strange feeling that he saw me as a spiritual guru or something. It made me really uncomfortable, but it was also a wake-up call to the total gullibility of these people. I mean, I could have been anyone, spouting pure garbage.

It was around the time that I started hanging out with this creeper that my sister decided to leave and go home to Whistler, and I noticed Peter sort of watching me from the sidelines. Not judging, just observing. And maybe it speaks to the connection I had with both of them that a part of me took a step back and went, “What am I doing? Can I really trust the people I’ve started associating with?” Which was of course answered with, “Of course you can! This is paradise, remember? These are all good people!”

So yes, I got sucked in, but not so far that I was beyond help, since I broke free eventually. And Chester (Chester the Molester we called him, not fondly) tried his whole “Oh-Goddess-join-with-me” routine, which I can happily say I didn’t fall for; I was still a virgin at this point, and I had vowed to myself that I was going to wait until I was in love. So ha ha, you old perv, I win!

It was around this time that I started calling myself Rainbow; it had been floating around in my head for a while that I wanted to change my name; the name I was given when I was born just somehow wasn’t feeling like me anymore; I felt like I was expanding beyond the limits that it imposed, and I couldn’t break the chains of what it meant to live under that name. A lot of it was some painful stuff from my childhood that was brought rushing back to me with force every time I heard the name, and my stomach would turn over, kind of like I had been kicked in the gut. So I started doing research, looking up all sorts of different names, and I chose Rainbow for the deep and meaningful reason that I thought it sounded pretty. Yeah. Needless to say, it didn’t last all too long. I went through quite a few names during that time; sometimes I would meet someone new, and just tell them a name that popped into my head that sounded cool, just to see what it felt like. It was like trying on a pair of jeans in a dressing room. Some fit better than others. I can’t remember them all, but some I still do. . .Rainbow, Sky, Rain, Starling, Errantry. Once I had left “utopia” in 2001, the urge to change it never left me, and I continued going through names, trying them on, though with less frequency and more thought. Fiamma lasted for quite a while; it’s Italian and it means “flame.” I discovered it when listening to this wicked band from Italy called Fiamma Fumana, at a summer folk festival in 2004. The name means “flame and fog.” Air to fire to earth. Snowden, Taryn, Nevada, Eowyn. . .too many to count.

So began my Rainbow phase, and I should note here that Peter never once called me by that name. He knew better. He knew it wasn’t me. But it was something I had to walk through to learn better. I believe that. It’s kind of been a process of elimination.

I stayed in Nelson for about three weeks, and at that time, that was an eternity. For me to stay somewhere longer than a few days meant it had to be pretty damn awesome, at least in my opinion. A lot of it had to do with Peter’s best friend, who I developed a mad crush on at the time. Go figure. We spent a night cuddling, one of the first times I ever did that, but we never kissed; I’m not sure why. Maybe my sister warned Peter and he warned his friend that I was off limits. But at any rate, I was a hardcore romantic, and Best Friend Guy was a manwhore, as I learned later. He ended up leaving town before I did, so that’s the end of that for now. It’s pretty boring anyway.

During the course of my stay there, I discovered that I had something of a knack for shoplifting groceries. I would strut (that’s right; I strutted) into the grocery store with an empty backpack, fill it with food (I mean fill it), and walk out without looking back. And I never got caught. Until I did. It was ironic. I had gone into that store every day for about two weeks and walked out with $60 plus of stolen food, and never got caught. Then one day, that fateful day, I walked in, took three apples and a croissant, and got caught, marched to the back room, had my picture taken, handcuffed, and taken to the police station, fingerprinted, given a court date, the whole thing. I was freaking terrified. All that cockiness was gone, and I was just a scared little suburban girl again. The court date was set for the end of August, which was about a month away, which meant I would have to either stay in town until then, or leave and then hitch hike back for the date. The idea of being restrained because of something like a court date railed against my wandering ways, and I somehow knew that I wouldn’t be able to hitch hike back for the court date. Too scared, maybe. So I made the totally awesome decision of leaving town and skipping the court date because I was scared of going to jail. Which meant there was a warrant out for my arrest in that province. How bizarre. And scary. And stupid.

After that day, I tried shoplifting one more time. Stupid, you might say, seeing as there was a warrant out for my arrest. And yes, you would be right, it was incredibly stupid. More so since because I got caught again, only this store owner just told me to never come back; if they had called the police my goose would have been cooked, with no red wine sauce on the side. And after that day, I have never, ever stolen anything again, and I never will. Not worth it, folks.

There were these two girls I met there, Justine and Nikki, and the three of us just connected in a way I can’t describe. I remember walking around town with them, down the railroad tracks, intimidating all the boys we passed, and there was this timeless beauty about the whole thing. The three of us only spent one day together, but we ate organic summer fruit and let the juice drip down our chins and our arms. We giggled and talked girl talk, and at one point we figured out that we were the Magician (me), the High Priestess (Justine), and the Empress (Nikki) from the Tarot deck. I never learned their last names so I have no way of knowing what became of them, but if I ever saw them again, walking towards me on some railroad ties in the summer sun, I would run to them with massive hugs and organic apricots to share.

Summer was slowly drawing to a close, and I had been in Nelson for a few weeks. I had started to think about leaving, but was waiting for something to tell me it was time to leave. I really was bad at making decisions, and still am, but at least I know that now and don’t try to pretend it’s a good thing. I ended up meeting a girl named Melissa who had bought a VW microbus from the ���60’s and was going to pack it full of hippies and drive down to the coast. I got the official invite about ten minutes before they were leaving, the bus already full of eight other people and a dog, plus backpacks. I basically went, “Sure!” packed up my tent and my pack, and climbed in. We named the van Smaug because it was red, and we called ourselves the Dragon Dwellers.

I was headed oceanward once more.