#//this man cannot comprehend people being nice to him! he remains confused as fuck to this day!

[mechahero]

@dragvnsovl asked- ⊙﹏☉（；へ：） headcanons! (accepting)

⊙﹏☉ = What flusters the character

It'd be easier to list off the things that don't fluster him, to be honest. Whatever flusters him is relatively basic (or kind of pathetic from whatever way you choose to view it). That would be things like compliments or nice words in general directed towards him, small gestures of kindness, maybe even the occasional gentle touch or kiss.

He can't quite wrap his head around it and yet it embarrasses him nonetheless.

（；へ：） = What makes the character cry

Sad moments in movies, sad songs of any kind, love related or otherwise, people failing to understand what he's saying to the point where if he gets so frustrated he'll either start shouting or end up crying out of said frustration depending on the day. Lambda also does tend to cry over hurt animals as well.

He cries about a lot of things, actually. He's a bleeding heart like that.

[pennyserenade]

tags: nameless female oc x javier peña, nameless female oc x javier pena. rating: e ( explicit ) warnings: smut, language, talks of violence, unprotected sex, heavy angst, mentions of death, guns, pregnancy.  word count: 3k+ summary: not everything can be spoken the way it can be felt.  notes: i somehow managed to do this despite feeling entirely unmotivated all day, so that’s nice. this takes place during episode 3, season 2, near the halfway mark.   original gif by: @javierian

una guerra sin piedad 

scene eight, scenes from a marriage

Javier is a good husband, or at least he tries to be. He doesn’t mean to do this--probably doesn’t even recognize that she knows he’s doing it. He is faced with so many objectives in a day's time, Javier doesn’t realize how easy it is to catch on to his lies. They are hardly coated, though, obvious to anyone who pays attention to him as much as she does, but that’s just it--he doesn’t pay attention at all.

He’s unaware that his fingers are shaking right now. It is a subtle act, a tremble hardly notable to the untrained eye, but these are the fingers that have been touching her for twelve years; she has seen them and felt them and come to know them better than her own. They have remained steady and nimble even after too many cups of coffee and one too many pieces of harrowing news, because they are trained to be fingers that don’t give way to anxiety. A stone body, a man meant to be unflinching in the face of the most awful of tragedies, but here with her, it allows his lies to leak out without his consent. It’s pleading, this body, asking for respite because he won’t go easier on it.

She holds his hands, keeping them steady before they can reach out and lay flat against her growing stomach. Javier looks at her and confusion sprinkles across features that are too pale to be normal, even to him. His eyes reveal an undeniable sadness, too, some sort of impact from war that he’s on the verge of losing simply because he refuses to ask for help. He is all alone in there.

“Me estás mintiendo, Javi,” she tells him, voice level and collected. “Te mientes a ti mismo también.”

He looks startled, and perhaps it is warranted. The glass case he enclosed himself in wasn’t so transparent or frail to him, after all. 

He takes his hands away slowly. 

“No,” he responds. “About what?”

“No sé. Not completely,” she shakes her head. “That’s why I said it.”

“I’m not lying about anything.”

“Javi.”

“What?”

“The cigarettes.” 

She watches his face fall. 

“You smoke them when you think I’m asleep but I do your laundry, and I can smell them when you get back in bed,” she shrugs. “You don’t hang out the window far enough either, and you always get ashes on the ground.”

“I can’t quit,” he confesses. “Not now.”

“I never asked you to.”

“Yo sé, pero…” he begins, but falters. “I wanted to.”

“I would rather you smoke than you lie.”

“Okay, but that’s all,” he confirms. “Only the cigarettes.”

“Javi.”

“I’m telling the truth.”

“You of all people should know withholding information is just as incriminating,” she huffs, “I’m stronger than you ever give me credit for. You aren’t the only one who sees the blood in the streets, you know. I saw it too, still do, because we live here and that’s the reality and I’m sick of having to deny it.”

“Baby,” he groans. “Please. I don’t ever ask you to postpone these things, but I cannot do this tonight. I cannot.” 

“What happened tonight, Jav?”

He shakes his head. Lips straighten into a tight line and his Adam’s apple bops. 

“It was nothing.”

“Please,” she pleads, in the same vein as his own. “You don’t know how bad I need to know what is happening in your mind.”

“Nothing.”

His eyes start going blank again, despite the small smile he forces onto his lips. It has gone quicker than it had come. 

She frowns. 

He senses that his control over this situation is ebbing away. Lies, denial, the cruel act of simply not telling—it oozes out of him. 

Deception ages poorly, if this is anything to go by. It is grotesque what the truth can do to something beautifully fabricated as their marriage has been the past few months. Those tiny cuts that had existed before are now bloody wounds, infected with the spoils of their selfishness.

He cups her face in his hand; she lets him. He swipes the pad of his thumb over the warm skin, and looks into her eyes; she lets him. He leans forward to kiss her; she does not let him.

She’s never done that. It hollows him out, digging deeper in the already sensitive heart he’s carrying around.  

“Te amo mucho,” she begins, taking the hand that cradled her face in her own, “but you are hiding from me and it hurts to see.”

He face twitches, as if he’s going to say something, but he grows hesitant. He realizes what he might lose, realizes what’s at stake. 

It is not that she hasn’t seen the violence, or that he thinks her too weak to handle it. He knows what she can bear, knows that before he ever met her she was reporting on what he found. Anyone in Colombia, reporter or not, knows, because this is what happens. Violence. She can’t not know. 

What she can avoid knowing is his involvement in it. Withholding the truth is just as incriminating, she is right, but she’s been here long enough to know that crime runs rampant. It infects the entire country with its allure—that promise of getting to better places faster—and he is someone who has been swept dangerously up in its tide. 

She does not need to know. Some things shouldn’t be told, just as those things shouldn’t have been done. 

Doesn’t need to know it had been a boy. Just a fucking mouthy kid who had been washed into a war he didn’t deserve to comprehend let alone contribute to. 

The gun was held by someone who should’ve protected him, too. Noble American hero he was, Javi stood by and watched. He hadn’t even wanted to tell Steve—was coerced out the way he refused to be with her. 

He swallows harshly and thinks once more about the line of English he muttered before it had happened. It was a plea the boy wouldn’t have understood or grasped, said because deep down Javier knew what was about to happen. He didn’t say it in Spanish, though. He has to reconcile with the fact that the plea was more for himself than it was the boy with the gun in his face. Has to reconcile with the fact that he won’t speak about it again, too, even though he knows it’s wrong. She doesn’t need to know that, does she?

“I’m not going to tell you,” he speaks with a harsh finality. Maybe it’s not so harsh; maybe it’s just the fact that it’s so final that really hurts.

She holds her breath, the pain of his answer sharp and sudden and irrevocably real regardless. 

“I can’t,” he repeats. 

There’s no way he doesn’t know he’s hurting her now, and she supposes he’s doing this for a good reason, but the ache of it still burns just as bad. 

“I know,” she says. Then, a sacrifice, “S’okay.”

Javier’s eyes shift down to her stomach. He has found an increasing need to keep his hands and arms wrapped around her nearly all of the time lately. Given, he has always loved the way she melts into his body when he wraps himself around her, but this is different; it is a sort of comfort that stems beyond liking the warmth of her. This is a need to protect. 

His feelings about the child still lean more towards confusion than they do anything else, but he’s begun to accept the fact that it is real. It’s hard to deny such a thing as her stomach begins to grow, but a part of him sort of likes knowing that it’s there now. He has given her something that isn’t pain, something that will be beautiful and innocent. He watches her, too, sees the way she holds her stomach and hears the way she speaks to it when she thinks he’s in a different room.

He remembers when she had told him that she was meant to be so much more than just someone’s mother or just someone’s wife. That felt like a century ago, those two people entirely different than the ones that lay here now and talk with each other. He doesn’t mourn for it, that time and those people, but he does think about them. 

She is still so much more than a wife and a mother, to be fair. Maybe she never accomplished everything she had envisioned when she had told him that, but there’s something so fiercely independent about her still, something entirely separate from anyone, even the one who grows inside her. 

She kept her last name. She reads all the time and piles books all over the house, adding personality in a way he never favored beyond his own shit until she came. She still writes. She’s compiled an entire record collection, full of artists and bands he’s never heard, and sometimes ones he has, the special sort that remind him of being a kid. She can sew. She is good at puzzles. She always burns her own toast but never his. She is good at oral because in the same way she had dedicated herself to a lot of things in life, she had also dedicated herself to learning how to suck a cock (her words, not his). She is filthy in a way that makes him ache sometimes, it’s so goddamn hot. She is kind. She is his everything. 

He isn’t happy or proud of the fact that he cannot find it in himself to admit what he has done. He knows she doesn’t deserve to be in a relationship filled with lies, ones so concealed she can’t even begin to find out what they are. Cigarettes are nothing in comparison to the things he witnessed tonight, and even those break her heart. 

His love for her is selfish, but it is still the very best part of him. 

“Let me touch you,” he whispers, hands ghosting lightly over her bare arms. “I just wanna make you feel good right now. Will you let me do that?”

She nods, and then, without him asking, she raises the slip she wears over her head, leaving her perfectly naked on top of him. He leans forward soon after and takes a nipple in his mouth. Her fingers rake through his hair as he runs his tongue against the sensitive flesh, but this time they do not tug. There is no rush or hunger in the way they are choosing to be with one other right now. Their bodies are too weak from emotional ware and tear, and their minds too numb from resisting the confrontation of the heaviness tonight has brought upon them. 

His fingers travel down to her core and when they find her clit, she pulls her back from her chest and kisses him, stealing a moan from his mouth. She breathes into him. After she pulls back, she rests her forehead against his own. Javi focuses more intently on her pleasure, measuring his success from the way her breath begins to quicken and the way her hips begin to rock up into his hand, desperate for more. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and she bites down gently at the skin of his shoulder, muffling herself as his fingers quicken the pace. She’s getting close, he knows. 

“That’s it, mi amor,” he tells her as she works herself on his fingers. “Use me, baby.”

It doesn’t take long until her lips part from his skin and find themselves letting out sharp moans, hips coming to a slow halt as she finishes working herself through the wave of her orgasm on his fingers. 

She presses her lips onto his, panting gently as she does so. When she allows herself to rest against him, he can feel how wet she is through the fabric of his boxers. 

He grabs onto the back of her neck and deepens the kiss. She wraps her arms around his neck and begins to rub herself against him, and he lets her for a few moments, enjoying what he can of her like this, before he rests a hand on her hip to stop it. 

“I want to taste you,” he tells her. She just looks at him. “Por favor.”

She nods, beginning to get off of him, but he grabs at her again, stilling her. Her eyebrows raise in confusion. 

“Sit on my face.”

“Javi, I’m too—“

“No you’re not,” he assures. He begins to lay down, pushing a pillow beneath his head. “C’mon, you like it.”

“Baby,” she hesitates. 

Javi tugs gently on her hand, urging her forward. She sighs, but caves in. 

He helps her, guiding her forward on his chest and she goes, but he can feel how nervous she is still.

He nips at her thighs before he adjusts herself over him. “I like doing this,” he tells her before he guides her forward the last few inches, and immediately he can feel all the tension ease from her as his tongue dips into her. 

She grabs a handful of his hair and licks between her folds, lapping up the last bit of her previous arousal. His nose grazes gently over her clit every so often and she cannot help the moan that escapes from her when it does. He is losing himself in her, transforming all the lies into nothing even for the briefest moments. 

He may not be the best husband, but he can make her feel good. He likes it too, genuinely enjoys the taste of her on his tongue and the accomplished, satisfying feeling of knowing he makes her legs weak and is the cause of the moans that part from her when she truly gets lost in this. And God, how they fall now as he sucks her clit. She unintentionally moves her hips forward. 

“Sorry,” she says, but Javi is quick to gently shake his head, not wanting to lose her. His hands wrap around her ass and he encourages it, going as far as moaning into her when she begins to develop a good pace. He gropes at her ass and she cums again, twitching gently this time. Javi cannot help the grin that forms on his lips as she does this. 

She guides herself off of him, collapsing next to him in the bed. Before he has the chance to wipe her arousal off his lips, she’s pulling him into a kiss. 

She loves this man. He may hurt her and hide from her, but she never feels unloved in his presence. Maybe that is enough. Maybe asking for any more than that is wrong. He is a good man. 

She kisses a trail down his chest, moving back in between his legs before she reaches the halfway point. 

“No,” he says, holding out his hand. 

“Why?” she questions.

“You don’t need to just because I did,” he says. “You don’t have to touch me at all.”

“I want to, Javi,” she tells him, hands shimming down his underwear. 

She kisses down his happy trail, then peppers light kisses around the base of his cock. His breath hitches, anticipating her next move, and he is delighted to find it is her tongue licking the underside of his sensitive member. He nearly jolts out of her hand, the sensation of her feels so good. 

He cannot help but tell her, saying, “Fuck, you do it just right.”

Despite all the ache still present in her, she manages a soft, unaffected laugh. He notes that, feels just as moved by that as he does the way her mouth wraps around his member and begins to be worked. 

She twirls her tongue around the top each time she comes back up, and she moves back down slowly, drawing multiple moans and “fucks” from his lips. He cannot look at her while she does it, unable to refrain from coming in her mouth if he does. He’s already dangerously on the edge as she includes her tongue when she’s going back down on his choke, running across each vein and causing his hips to twitch just as hers did. 

“I’m gonna—“ he pauses, fighting the urge to release with all he has in him. “I’m going to cum soon and I want it to be in you. You—“ he pauses again, breath leveling, “—you gotta stop or I won’t make it.”

“I don’t want you to,” she manages, before returning to his cock, going up and down at an increased rate. His fingers clench the sheets beneath him as she does this, losing it when she moans against him. He can’t stop it, can’t resist the urge any longer and doesn’t truly want to, knowing she’s not going to let him. 

He opens his eyes and watches her wipe a line of his arousal from her chin before she swallows down the rest of it. Tired and spent as he is, he still manages to rise from his back quickly to kiss her. He can taste himself on her lips, but he does not mind it. The kisses are not as lust filled, more tender and caring, and he is all the more pleased when she guides him backwards again, before settling next to him and wrapping one of her legs around his. His heart beats rapidly and his mind is not yet void of thought (he isn’t sure if it will ever be), but the tension between them has dissipated. Even if it is temporary, and even if it is something that is going to come back ten times worse, Javi values this for what is now and appreciates her submission once more into this fantasy land with him. 

She herself wonders, despite all the unspoken heartbreak, and despite all the unknown truths, what their baby might look like and what qualities it might possess from him as she lies silently next to him. Wonders because what she has learned is that the future is her friend and that imagining it does no harm.

It is a place where nothing is broken or harmed, the future. A place where she can cling to the vestiges of hope she’s granted even when he holds her and doesn’t tell her what he’s done or seen. It’s a place beautifully untouched by the unfair quality of truth and pain; a place where he stands in the doorframe of their bedroom with a small, newly born child and looks happy in a way she hasn’t seen in so long; a place where she will never have to fret about whether she will ever get that from him or not, because it is hers and she does. 

The future has always been kind to her, kind in the way the present never, ever seems to be. She clings onto Javi and even manages a sad sort of grin at the thought of a child who’s hair curls the same way his does when it gets too long. 

She doesn’t share these thoughts with him, though—hardly ever does—because she needs things for herself. Admitting these notions into the world is to corrupt them, or to corrode the meaning they have to her now. She loves him, but these are her thoughts the way whatever he battles are his. 

This is a scene of a war without mercy; this is scene eight from a marriage. 

javi tag list : @wyn-dixie , @rosiefridayrogersunday , @disgruntledspacedad , @melaniermblt , @walt-breslin , @theorganasolo , @amneris21 , @over300books

forever/everything tag list : @astroboots , @frannyzooey , @wyn-dixie , @rosiefridayrogersunday , @melaniermblt , @theorganasolo​ , @amneris21​

scenes tags: @gravegoth​ , @sarahjkl82-blog​ , @cmonkeepmoving​

[spacemiddenzz]

so i was watching @super-metroid's stream of Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass (highly recommend by the way) and she fought Imaginary Numbers this time. I guess I just wanted to share my thoughts on it, since it's my favorite boss and all. This is gonna be a longpost and it's gonna have spoilers so the whole thing can be found under the cut.

So, to put it simply, this dungeon is about stress and confusion. It's about Jimmy's mind frantically trying to comprehend the high-level math that Andrew is teaching him on top of his schoolwork. Jimmy thinks that his dad is the smartest man in the world- this is hyperbole for sure, but the fact that Andrew is quite intelligent remains clear. Jimmy looks up to Andrew because of his intelligence- and because of this it means a lot to Jimmy to be praised by Andrew. He wants his dad to view him as intelligent as well, because, if a man as smart as Andrew thinks Jimmy is smart, he can't be wrong! And hell, it feels nice to be validated by your parents.

Clearly, Andrew has already recognized Jimmy's talent with numbers and has started teaching him concepts beyond the second-grade curriculum, something that we see in the flashbacks in the Symmetrical Cavern. However if Imaginary Numbers' design is anything to go by, these concepts may be at or above the high school level. They're too much for Jimmy to understand. He's only eight, and his mind just isn't ready for that yet. Still, he feels the pressure to keep up with- and understand- the work that Andrew gives him. Why? Because he fears failure. He worries that if he admits to his father that the work is too hard, Andrew won't see him as a "smart boy" any longer- and that praise and validation means a lot to Jimmy. He doesn't want to lose it.

Let's start with the song that plays during this nightmare dungeon- Counting Backwards From Infinity. From the erratic bassline to the random samples of people shouting numbers in no particular order over and over again, this song simply screams disorder and panic. As a person who has always struggled with math, it's incredibly relatable. Counting Backwards From Infinity always reminded me of taking math tests in high school. I was so slow that I almost never could finish a test in a single class period. The frantic, wild bass and the cacophony of people screaming numbers out of order reminded me of trying desperately to remember how to solve a type of problem- and do it quickly enough so that I could hand the test in before the bell rang. I imagine that this is how Jimmy feels when Andrew places in front of him a concept that the boy does not fully understand. Perhaps he's had it explained to him several times but still can't fully grasp it (likely because, again, the kid is eight). The wild confusion and stress he feels when he doesnt fucking understand what's in front of him and doesnt want to look like an idiot in front of his dad. Even the name of the song is a reference to the fact that at this stage of his life this stuff may be an insurmountable task.

The dungeon itself is also set up in an incredibly confusing way. There's a bunch of bizarre-looking purple structures and winding paths. You teleport all over the place with no particular rhyme or reason. The enemies in this area, too, are deformed geometrical shapes that are almost Lovecraftian in the way that they cannot be understood. To Jimmy, Andrew's teachings might as be as comprehensible as a Lumpagon or a Squiggles, and that's definitely the idea that one gets here. The confusion, the pressure, the panic.

At one point in the dungeon you're teleported to a fakeout area that looks like the Path of Enlightenment. This is my favorite thing about the Asymmetrical Cavern, because of the fact that it has so many cool secrets, but also because it gave me a feeling that I could (once again) relate to. Jimmy's teleportation to the Path of Enlightenment isn't random. It represents familiarity in a sea of confusion. Jimmy sees something he recognizes during Andrew's lessons. Maybe he thinks that he's finally got the hang of it- that he's studied hard enough and now all of this jargon makes sense- only to be rudely awakened by the fact that he's been doing it wrong and never understood the concept in the first place. Even the secrets kind of hint at this. If you speak to pointman in this part of the dungeon he says "I am the blood of numbers leaking from your ears. The nails of ignorance are already being driven into your brain. What point is there in giving voice to madness?" (which is metal as fuck by the way)

Jimmy just thinks that his inability to understand makes him an idiot. His lack of understanding- the nails of ignorance- are being driven into his brain. If he can't understand all of Andrew's teachings, maybe he was never a smart boy after all.

And finally let's talk about Imaginary Numbers itself. First of all, it's an amalgamation of a bunch of different mathematical symbols, including a tombstone, a slashed epsilon, and a sigma. I'm sure there are more, but those are the only ones I recognized, honestly. Given that dreams don't really make things up, instead just taking things that you have seen/experienced before, it looks like Jimmy has encountered some... seriously advanced shit. Tombstones are used in geometric proofs. I only started doing proofs in high school geometry, meaning that Jimmy may very well be learning concepts meant for kids twice his age. No wonder the poor kid is stressed.

Oh yeah, also the boss sucks ass to fight. I've heard some people call that bad game design, but I'm not sure that's how I'd classify it. Sure, like I said, the boss sucks complete ass to fight and is almost entirely RNG-dependent. From a gameplay standpoint, this is wack as hell, yeah. Fucking 30% chance to deflect any magical or physical attack with a 30% chance to dodge a physical attack on top of that? Definitely bad game design. But from an artistic standpoint? Not at all. In fact, the futility of this fight adds to it. It really drills into your head that the only thing on your side here is pure fucking luck. And the odds aren't in your favor.

The feeling of futility- of the fact that this may in fact be, by all definitions, an insurmountable task for Jimmy, really struck home the situation. The battle would not be nearly as impactful without this. And personally, I'm all for it. Imagine walking into the Asymmetrical Cavern for the first time, not knowing what to expect. You get your ass handed to you on a silver platter by Imaginary Numbers after it chains Program Omega at you five times in a row.

That's the feeling Kasey wanted to give you. And it's critical. It's just... so perfect, I honestly don't know how to put it into words. It was supposed to represent the confusion and turmoil of a task nigh insurmountable. And it did the job pretty damn well, if I do say so myself.

I know Jimmy is good at numbers and this wasn't supposed to represent a real struggle with the subject of math/the concept of numbers in general, but hot damn if I didn't feel seen. Except Jimmy is eight but I was like 17 struggling in precalc with the same shit. I guess we know Jimmy's smarter than I am rip

TLDR; andrew please stop putting unnecessary stress on your kid youre freaking him out

anyway if you guys have any thoughts about this boss or this dungeon in general i would love to hear them. but where im at its like 2 AM so im probably gonna it the mf sack for now. later dudes

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

Do you think you could do headcanons for if Richie got a woman pregnant on a one-night-stand, and the woman just ended up dropping the baby on his doorstep, and how the losers, including Richie, would react?

- let’s say this happens a few months after Derry 2.0

- because before that Richie was still very deep in the closet and he trying to prove to everyone around him that he’s very heterosexual.

- The woman he has a one night stand with is friends with Steve, mostly because he is secretly hoping she tell Steve about their night

- (Richie thinks Steve is suspecting that he’s gay and want to nip it in the bud)

- They go back to Richie’s place on evening after getting McDonald’s and it’s fine, obviously Richie doesn’t feel anything for her but she’s nice enough that he likes talking to her

- One thing leads to another and they spend the night together

- The next day things aren’t hostile between them but it is akward because Richie is nervously fluttering hoping she’ll go home soon

- She does and they don’t keep in touch, which is fine for Richie. He doesn’t want to feel the guilt every time he looks at her knowing that he used her for his own gain.

- Richie mostly forgets about that night and her, and after Derry he’s too busy to pay that night any thought

- His head over heels for Eddie now, and he’s gearing up to tell him soon.

- He’s waiting for Eddie’s divorce to come through. He doesn’t want to add pressure on Eddie during such a demanding time but, he’s excited for what will happen after.

- So they’re not yet dating, but they’re getting there. It’s just a matter of time.

- And then Steve shows up with his baby one morning.

- He’s pale white, and the hand of which he’s hold the maxicosi is trembling

- Of course, Richie being the trash mouth that he is, starts making fun of him.

- He doesn’t understand why Steve would have a baby with him (as far as he’s heard Steve didn’t want kids) but the comedy gold is right there for grabbing.

- ‘What’s the baby for Steve? Did you father a baby I didn’t know anything about?’

- Uno reverse card

- When Steve bashfully admits that it’s not his kid, but Richie’s, the latter laughs.

- At first he’s convinced it’s just Steve messing with him, but Steve would never go as far as to kidnap a baby.

- He still continues to chuckle even after apprehension starts to take hold him off

- ‘It’s not a joke Richie, this is your daughter.’

- Instead of becoming serious as the situation calls for it, Richie begins to cackle.

- Not laugh, not chuckle or snort, cackle.

- He’s so confused, and flabbergasted and he can’t believe this tiny human thing crying in her crib is his.

- ‘I’m just the messenger man,’ Steve placates, slowly sinking the carrier to the ground.

- When Richie is finally done laughing ( it goes on for a very long time) Steve is itching to get out of there.

- He leaves with very little more explanation other than; ‘it was your one night stand from a few months ago, she doesn’t have a name yet, and her mother is refusing to take care of her.

- Richie finds himself just staring at this tiny little thing that’s beginning to cry and whimper as she kicks her tiny feet in the air.

- She starts to cry earnestly after about five minutes, not to fond of not being payed attention too for so long

- Richie tries to shush her gently, but it’s a baby and they don’t listen to what anyone tells them too.

- The cries grow in intensity, and Richie’s slowly losing his mind.

- He’s pacing his apartment, in a daze. He’s working on automatic pilot, because he can’t comprehend the fact that he just became a father, he’s clueless about what to do

- His own daughters birthday remains a mystery to him for god sake.

- If Richie were thinking logically, he’d call Steve and ask him to come back and explain everything in a better way, but he’s not, and he can only think with his emotions.

- He ends up calling Ben and Bev.

- His first instinct was to call Eddie, seeing as Eddie is his best friend and all, but Eddie would panicked just as much as him and that would be of no help.

- Reaching out to Stan also pops up in his mind, but he can’t deal with cynical saying right now. He needs people who will be sympathetic towards him and hopefully tell him what to do.

- On the phone he barely explains anything to bev and Ben, but he does tell them to hurry up.

- When they get to the apartment, Ben and Bev are shocked at seeing the little baby, and get concerned after Richie fails to give them an answer about how or why she’s in his house.

- Regardless, they step up up to the task and do their best to take care of the girl they know nothing about.

- Ben drives to the store to get formula and blankets and diapers, while Bev fishes her out of her crib and begins to slowly rock her. They’re both calm and collected.

- Richie on the other hand is snapping out of his haze, and the reality of the situation begins to dawn on him.

- Bev tries to console him but it’s hard when she has zero background information.

- Ben comes back and heats up her formula, but she refuses to drink and lets out a piercing cry in refusal.

- Even Bev’s rocking isn’t doing anything the south the baby, and out of desperation, Richie begins to cry.

- Because Bev is out of option herself, and doesn’t have a clue on how to help Richie, she passes him the baby.

- Richie is terrified of holding this petit thing that fits just exactly right in his arms. He’s scared of crushing her or dropping her and messing her up for life.

- But miraculously, as soon as she’s snuggled in his arms, she stops crying.

- She’s just content to lay there with her dad, who eventually tries to bottle feed her and it works. She eagerly drinks from it.

- First crisis evaded

- But, after everyone has processed the first major shock, Richie needs to give Ben and Bev the answers they deserve now.

- Richie tries to be as straight forward as he can, but he hasn’t had the details yet himself.

- The two losers insists that he tells the others of their group right away. It’s too big of a secret to hide, and they need all the help they can get.

- Again, none of the losers are informed as to why they have to go to Richie’s house ASAP, but they still do, because he’s there best friend and they wouldn’t be called if it wasn’t important.

- It’s Stan and Patty that arrive after Bev and Ben.

- Stan and Patty are less astounded for some reason.

- Patty doesn’t even inquire, she just goes straight into cooing over the baby fase.

- She’ll sit next to Richie (still holding his daughter) and begins talking gibberish to the baby about how beautiful she is.

- Richie agrees.

- Stan follows her lead, but he simply observes the two of them together and then sits near touching to Richie.

- ‘I should have know you’d be the first one with a kid Trashmouth.’

- But he doesn’t lecture Richie, or starts to interrogate him about anything.

- He must have sensed that Richie wasn’t up to it at the moment.

- Bill and Mike are next.

- Within stepping one food inside the place, and spotting Richie with a baby, Bill laughs, and asks him who he knocked up.

- He intends it as a joke, obviously, but when no one else laughs, he realises how right he is.

- ‘Richie... have you been keeping your baby from us for three months?’ Mike asks, a little offended.

- ‘What do you mean three months?’

- ‘She’s clearly three months old. You can tell by her development.’ When everyone just stares at him, Mike explains further. ‘I had a lot of time on my my hands after you all left Derry. Maybe I spend that time reading children books.’

- He doesn’t more time to elaborate, because that’s the moment Eddie arrives.

- It’s his reaction Richie is most frightened off.

- He’s in love with Eddie, loves him with all his heart, but he can’t ask Eddie to date a man that just became a father. That would mean not only choosing him, but also his child.

- Eddie looks at the baby, at Richie and then back, and follows it up by cursing;’what the fuck’. loudly.

- The harsh sound startles the baby, but with a gentle kiss on the forehead that Richie gives her, she’s pacified back into sleep.

- ‘Oh shit, oh no. I need an explanation, right now.’

- Richie explains the story yet again, and hopes that none of his friends will label him as an asshole at the end of it.

- Of course they don’t, but Eddie is headed up over the whole situation.

- ‘I know a lot of lawyers after my divorce with Myra, I could hook you up someone.’

- ‘She can’t just dump her baby on you without any of the proper paperwork. What if she has a deadly disease and needs to get continuos treatment?’

- Eddie’s ‘advice’ turns Richie’s complexion green, and his stomach in knots. He’s never had to thought of that stuff before, and now he has a whole human being that depends on him for everything.

- Stan snaps at Eddie to stop him from adding more stress onto Richie, which Eddie does with a guilty apologie.

- ‘Look Richie,’ Stan says to him with full seriousness. ‘You need to decide what you’re going to do,and unfortunately you do not have a lot of time. You cannot put this off, she needs a name, and a crib and everything she needs to survive. You need to make a decision if you’re keeping her.’

- Richie gazes down upon his baby. The same baby he hasn’t let go off from the second he held her. He’s so scared, beyond explanation or able to put it in words, but this is his daughter. He could give her up for adoption, and he live would remain the same, but he knows she excites now, and to give her away to strangers? He don’t think he could have the heart.

- But...

- ‘I can’t do it by myself’, he admits, voice small and honest.

- ‘You’d never have to.’ Eddie responds, one of his fingers stroking over the ring babies head. He looks absolutely smitten.

- His life was uprooted once again, but last time the change wasn’t bad at all. Richie is confident, this won’t be bad either.

- Barely a month later Eddie moves in with them full time, and becomes pops to Maggie lover Tozier.

[cbk1000]

samcarter34 yes Ok, but this story interprets their relationship in an overtly gay way, so I hope you’re ok with that.

I’ve read this over a couple of times, btw, but haven’t technically proofread it yet. Just FYI. 

It befell in the time of Uther Pendragon that there was born a boy who would be called The Once and Future King, and a boy who would be called Emrys; but for the moment they were only called Arthur and Merlin, respectively. And the boy Arthur was sometimes called Wart, but not often, for Uther did not remember that a son can have many names of various affectionate origins, and a Prince may only have one.  

Now you may be thinking that the wizard Merlin was not begot in the time of Uther, because after all Merlin is a very old man, of the sort which a polite society calls ‘eccentric’ and a candid one ‘mad as a shithouse rat’, with rather a lot of beard and unfortunate hoarding practices so far as dead beasts are concerned.

But this is not the case. Arthur was given a tutor (a great many tutors, actually) as you remember, but it was a tutor who was not Merlin, because Merlin was still a boy in Ealdor making cracking good sport of his magic, as he was a child, and children do not yet know that Man is the only beast who has learned to fear what is innocent, and pervert it accordingly, and then, having quite thoroughly ruined it, kill it with the worst of their weapons, known even to this day as Justice. So he made rather a lot of cats levitate, and prided himself on a nuanced understanding of when to let loose the elders’ belt buckles when they most required their dignity and their trousers.

No, this Merlin is not old, nor does he announce himself as a wizard by spelling his name with a ‘y’ and going about in distinctly wizard-y robes with a layer of must from his Cottage of Oddities, because already at this point of the story magic has been outlawed; and so his mother forbid the robes, which was rather a great letdown for a boy who has come early to the understanding of how wonderfully authoritative it is to have something flapping after your heels in the rising morning.

But in the case of the boy who was sometimes called Wart (but only rarely, by a governess who may have muddled her astrolabe, but was otherwise lovely), it is true indeed that Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were devoted to Court Hand and Summulae Logicales, and the remainder of the week to Organon, Repetition, and Astrology. This was in the mornings. In the afternoons, the schedule was thus: Mondays and Fridays, tilting and horsemanship; Tuesdays, hawking; Wednesdays; fencing; Thursdays, archery; Saturdays, the theory of chivalry, terminology of the chase and hunting etiquette.

You may have noticed that the boy who was sometimes called Wart (but whom we shall heretofore refer to as ‘Arthur’, for the sake of concision) had nothing so pedestrian as ‘play time’ or How To Win Friends and Influence the Castle Dogs (who we are sad to say liked him well enough, but were too caught up in their hunting pursuits to bond overly much with him) earmarked in this programme. This is because the good people of Camelot were not his friends, they were his subjects; they loved him for being handsome, and well turned-out, but it was more the way all humans love anything that is blonde and well-spoken: a brittle sort of love, with a lot of cracks in it. It would not pass muster in a kiln, where anything that is to be hardened in it must first be checked thoroughly for flaws, and accordingly accepted or discarded. When you do not check a human for his defects before updating your status to Besotted, he knows your love will not survive the things that life means for it to pass through, even when he is a boy.

A child, even one who has been raised in a gilded crib, with a servant never farther than his chubby arms breadth, does not really understand why a stranger would bow to him, when he has seen how other boys are treated; when other boys want a strawberry tart, they get their knuckles rapped and are sent to bed; and when he wants a strawberry tart, the cook sends out a scullion to pick strawberries from the densest bit of wood, where noseless Wat lurks in his skins, terrorizing hapless kitchen lads who after all never asked to work in a castle, with a little twat of a prince who wants strawberry tarts like clockwork after his hawking, and never shares them neither. But we hardly need to comprehend why to understand that we are Different. Some children will tell you that Different is bad, but only if they are obnoxious little beasts; and of course there were none of those about, or if there were, they certainly kept their tendencies to beastliness under rein in the presence of this boy whose father controlled their taxes.

And so having everything handed to him, and being constantly reminded of his beauty and wit, and many other nice things besides (we cannot itemize these compliments, firstly because it’s rather unnecessary, and secondly because the author has some need of time for those occasional fundamentals of life such as dinner and wanking), Arthur’s chivalry slunk out of the whole affair a bit withered, and his Nobility was perhaps a little soured, like milk gone off. But his heart was very large, and a heart can talk any of these attributes back to heel.

We must address another misunderstanding. It has been said by some that he had ‘fair hair and a stupid face’, but this is not true either. He was a towheaded boy, the way princes should be, with a great lot of eyes underneath his bangs which would have enslaved his mother, and occasionally prompted his father to smile, when he was not remembering that he must be hard on any boy, and harder still on a motherless one, who might whinge about how the other boys, even the poor ones, had mothers, and he had none. He grew into a towheaded youth, with the same great lot of eyes, and muscles beside. And when he was a man, the muscles (and other things) were bigger, and the eyes not quite so great, but they had a knowledge the maidservants (and some of the manservants) interpreted as they wished, though we must note (because he will imply otherwise) that the knowledge was not at all carnal in nature, unless you count a certain familiarity with his left hand which shall remain unmentioned, for the sake of the children.

So it must be understood that he was very handsome when the boy who would be called Emrys met him, because he comes off rather poorly in the whole thing, and the reader mustn’t judge the boy who would be called Emrys too harshly for noticing his...forearms. And anyway, the boy who would be called Emrys but at the time was merely Merlin liked girls awfully well, thanks muchly.

It must be supposed that the reader knows their journey was a Perilous and Fraught one, with many dangers, and pretty girls besides. So we shan’t linger on that. No one likes to be condescended to. No, the general outline of their story is very well-known indeed, and while there may be some confusion thanks to some surely well-intentioned mucking about in the history books, and at some point we must address that unpleasant bit about fucking his sister, what must be understood at the outset, for it’s not entirely proper, since doubtless you’re still rather stuck on the Merlin (that is Merlyn) which you have been led to believe was an old man with spiders in his beard and bird shit all over his shoulders, is that the boy who would be called The Once and Future King and the boy who would be called Emrys loved one another.

Unfortunately we must be explicit, if we wish to clear up this little misconception of the platonic tenderness between tutor and ward.

The boy we are heretofore calling Arthur and the boy we are heretofore calling Merlin (for that is what he will be for a very long time, and to a great many people) loved one another platonically, the way close mates are allowed, with long gazes, and a great many accidental hand grazes which were not accidental at all, if they thought  about it; but they also loved one another in the biblical sense, though Arthur in particular, if you were to ask him, would scoff even at the first, and as proof of his indifference have an immediate go at Merlin’s intelligence, general hygiene, and effeminate thinness, in that precise order. And the reason for it was this: he did not know he loved Merlin, for a very long time. That is to say, he did not want to know it, because he knew people did not love him, but rather revered him, and that is not the same at all. We do not mean to excuse him; but princes cannot be lonely. They can be insufferable, because the populace expects that of rich men; but the populace does not want to know that his gold has not bought him content, and they do not want to know that his future crown is already too heavy, and no one has told him how better to distribute it.

Anyway, we have laid out the introduction and body, and now for the concluding paragraph: they were both acutely interested in fucking, and they were both acutely interested in the other never knowing it, and in fact they were both acutely interested in never knowing it themselves.

[somedaypast-thesunset]

i feel neutrally tired about all of this. you know, i’m not angry or sad or stressed, i’m just kind of tired of this whole routine. it’s become glaringly obvious that this man is very very spoiled and ungrateful. 

yesterday was a fine day. he took me to the farm to get a pumpkin like i asked. he bought me food and was overall really nice and in a good mood - he was focused on pei and the things he would do or need for his trip. i felt comfortable and relaxed despite not even having weed and not having much sleep. 

this morning when we woke up, we had sex and i went about my morning - made a tea, had a smoke and he had a shower. he asked his mother for the survey plans for their cottage in pei so he knew what to prepare for when he wanted to build this garage (the whole 6 month master plan’s goal). she said she would have to look. this set off a chain reaction - he went to look for a crock pot the family owned but he had never used ad couldnt find it immediately, when his mother offered cookig advice he freaked out ad then when she asked him about a few set of chores he was supposed to do, he freaked out again.

at this point i had literally spoken no words from when we had sex. i was just passively floatig throughout the house, gathering my things just to be organized. i went to look at what he was actually making and he said something like “i’m going to drive you home after this i want to do my own thing and i dont want to be around you”. to be fair, he couldve said “people” - i’m ot entirely sure what i heard but it more likely sounded like you. i simply turned around, got my bag from downstairs, got my stuff from outside and walked home. i did not even reply or say goodbye - theres not even a point. like i would get either some argument about how he said he would drive me home or a grunt goodbye; both still equally rude replies. 

but i was kind of proud of how i reacted very immediately and without hesistation. i didt think like ~what would he want or ~whats appropriate to do. i just did what i wanted to do which was leave. it wasnt like oh i think id like to sped the day alone, do you wat a ride home - it was just ‘fuck off’ without being ‘fuck off’. and i don’t deserve that. 

on top of this, during sex he asked outright if anyone else has touched me. not like ~oh no one else ca touch you or ~would you let anyone touch you - just outright ‘have you let anyone’ and its not a light thing. its not joking. if i said yes it would hurt and we’d probably stop. but the parameters he stil puts forth is that he “cant” cheat. but what about me? and why am i used like this? i literally spoke _no words_. 

its very unhealthy. and i dont believe its about me. i’m glad ive come so far in personal relationships that i am able to seperate myself from them and not take things personally.and like i do feel “used” but its not like this is the absolute worst part of it. he said to me, “you havent been around long enough - this is what i do, im excited about something until im not and then i drop everything and go to the next thing” -- as if i havet been witnessing this the entire time weve been together. its all one exciting thing to the next and nothig is ever what its hoped to be. 

and hes very negative. which i guess is a bit ironic coming from me. but everything - everything sucks. and like to its greatest pit of whatever terrible thing it could have. you know - “king of the losers”. acknowledging that “i’m” okay but its really just being on top of a pile of shit. 

its just.. its getting too hard to remain optimistic about a future with him. whatever my life is doesnt affect him nearly as much as his does me. my whole life is built around being available to him and i was okay with this becuse it was like “investing” in a future i wanted to have. or i do want to have. i want a partner. some “family”. but i just dont feel optimistic like this is going to lead to idyllic happiness. not the way he sees it. and why should i spend my time following such a volatile perso who is unable to commit to anything. i guess it was easy to walk away because i thought like - what if i was across the country? what if i coulnt just walk away from this rude person and i was _stuck_? i dont want that and i guess if i dont want that, i dont want him. i’m just... too scared to live with him. like i want to live with him. i reall really do but everything in my being says omg no. no no no no. anyone i told that this was a thing would tell me absolutely do not move across the country with this person. its not like.. dont change. dont live somewhere else. its that this particular person is very ... not the right person to do this with. maybe i need to be a ifferent person too. maybe i need to be a very strong indpendent individual who works super hard and hustles lots of cash an then its all just fun and games and wooo life. but i cannot be dependent on this person. they are not dependable in any way shape or form. they are a fucking prayer. and in order for me to make such huge changes in life i would be very dependent on this person. especially right now. maybe in two years ill be a better version of me but the me right now would need a lot of hand holding an encouragement to make such drastic life changes and decisions. 

if it was plausible to just get a nice apartment in this city together - great. thank you. not even long term, lets just exist with each other before making giant life decisions. thats a marriage. with no commitment. i cant. i just cant. 

and you know - i’m very sympathetic. i know exactly what it feels like. to have no fucking clue what you want, where to go, what to do, who to be friends with, who to have a relationship with - i get it. i’m really confused too. and this is such a shitty time - i dont know if other times have been more shitty but this seems like a pretty shitty time after society going through so many wars in the past 100 years that have grown more powerful under the advancements and like we, collectively, are different people from 50 years ago so what was “right” and “good” 50 years ago is not relevant to today and we are floating without guidance. how do we survive now? weve evolved to a different mental state and we dont know how to nourish this. its like falling into great advancements with no mental capacity to understand their affect on the social psyche. 

theyre right.  the colective “they” - your parents have little to do with your chances. their social standing and coping amongst evolution to bring them to such standing has a lot more to do with your chances but if along the line you figure out your way of coping in evolution then you may rise above or find your own level of “happiness” which is mostly fulfilling basic personal needs. but when evolution continually transitions through different ways to fulfill these basic needs or possibly gives you even more ways to do this, it becomes more difficult to realize how you will find your way to cope in evolution. milennials are realy seen as weak and a joke; like re-branded hippies but focused on mental health and emotions, “refusing” employment to ‘feel better’ in life when there was a time when people just took any job because the only way to cope within that evolution was to exhance your service for money or boarding itself. thats not the case anymore. society evolved in such a way that this generation is capable of fulfilling may basic personal needs sometimes by just existing; perhaps their parents pay for food and shelter and provide them with clothing well into their “adult” years. many older generations started working to SURVIVE at 12 - 14 years old. our generation worked because “thats what you do” or to save up for an iphone. most of our grandparents worked to buy bottles of milk or to help the family or for their own vehicle but why save for one when your parents let you drive theirs anyways?

and again - it’s not the parents fault. it’s now easy in society for parents to do this. a large majority of parents, nd the majority leads the collective society. could my parents? no. but a lot of people around me did have parents that did this and my parents cared for me in other ways. society allowed them to breed children who would become introspective because they were no longer in such dire straits for survival. and older generations are upset about this - dont you know they had to want to die regularly to survive? why shouldt we? 

so as we gain this introspective into ourselves and “new” psychological ideas come up and vast people are “diagnosed”, it becomes harder to accept things which harm our psyche. so we get a big rise in racial inequality and gay rights and things which seem “liberal” but is simply termed this way because some people - maybe a large amount even, could not refuse employment and worked to survive even in this era. that was the generational hand down - exchange your service for money or starve. and theyre not “in the wrong”. other things affect how you build your coping tools - where you live, the climate of politics etc. maybe you realy just had to do that and there wasnt time to invest in this modern evolution of introspection. you dont have time to look within when youre starving on the outside. so this resentmet and bitterness builds between these two sides which may even exist in the same generation but neither of them is wrong. should one work to survive? probably. animals hunt most of their lives. we should probably work to survive. no one can just be handed food ad shelter forever unless you’re a very unique and special person in royalty. and 99.9% of us are not. but should we also kill our psyche? animals dont deal with smart phones and insurance rates and credit scores and bankruptcy. they just go out and take what they want and our society has evolved past this. so we cannot just assume you just work to survive when survival has been complicated. it takes a higher level of thinking which wemay not fully even comprehend at this stage in the evolution. 

i think psychology is very important because we dont understand why people are people. we dont know. we know why the sky is blue but we dont know why we are people. and not just psychology but science and the belief of how our being, our physical being on this planet came to be. we collectively have not agreed despite the very obvious misgivings of current theological theories. 

how or in what way should you survive on this planet? why are we required to exist as we are in this society upon birth. like all of these rules and obligations an responsibilities of being a “good human” are placed on you for the rest of your life and all you did was be born. all you want are basic needs fulfilled but you cant even do that until you acknowledge the land you were popped out on to does not belong to you so you abide by these rules now whether you want to or not. and thats just government and law but on this deeper spectrum its an obligation to be a ‘good child’ a ‘good citizen’ - pay your taxes, go to work, have children, buy a house; these are the quest objectives. but why? i think our generation is not the first to ask why but the first in a very long long time to ask why are we doing it this way. not so much why are we here. many of us have decided for ourselves. but why are we livingin society in this particular way and what can we do to survive in a society which is not designed to really benefit anyone. its not about that homeless man geting up and feeding himself, its about taking responsibility to feed that person. animals do a better job at this and we feel we’re in evolved thinking. 

society has become very convoluted and confused which has bred confusion in its most recent generation. ive lived a very unique life and yet feel the same way abou these things as my peers because the “temperature” of the environment is the same. its hot, we all know its hot an we’re trying to figure out ways to deal whether its running through a sprinkler, going to a public pool or looking ridiculous in a kiddie pool on your front lawn. it’s gross, it’s not a good time, no one wants to do anything and we’re not feeling it. and this evolution is like climate change. there is absolutely still people capable of coping under this stress, farmers still work, lumberjack still cut wood but theyre fucking miserable and they do it because theyre used to feeling like they want to die to survive. but its getting hotter and its getting harder and even though they feel it the only thing they know is to keep working until they cant anymore then die crippled and miserable. being popped out inexperienced and then thrown into a change which even the experienced are struggling with creates a lot of unrest. a lot of anxious and depressed people. 

what do we do? what should we do? you cant change society you can only follow the ebb and flow like flock of birds or schools of fish. this is how we cope as humans, to live as a society. and if society is in upheaval it directly affects the ability to easily obtain our basic needs. 

i used to feel envious of stupid people. like atleast they didnt ~know this shit. because this felt depressing. like being stupi would be easier and id be happier but those who choose to remain ignorant or passive hurt a lot and they struggle through some of the barest traps society has created durig this shitty time and now i feel sorry for them. spinning your wheels over and over, dragging yourself through the mud, throwing away money, living extravagantly and ignorantly but going absolutely no where. not going up, down, side ways - no where. i’m there too. i’m right there too on the train stopped at the station waiting to fucking go and we’re here nd we’re buying shit from the dining car and we’re chatting and excited but we’re not goig and we’re not really sure why and we’re all talking about why we’re not going but we’re still not going but hey atleast hey still got cookies. 

no one person is driving the train either. its like a group effort where everyone on the train has to believe youre moving forward for it to start but if one jack ass thinks youre not, then its a complete halt. 

life is hard but i dont think alot of people realize exactly how hard it is. im trying to learn to appreciate the little things. people with greater minds who had better understanding and less luxuries of the era coped with appreciating little things. taking bike rides in the fall in the nice downtown streets; it’s been a highlight of the season. painting in a studio this week; sure it was not glamorous or anything but i actively went out and created art with others. my room is neat and clean and organized. i did laundry with ease on my own time for free. 

i wasnt upset i “had to” walk home. i apreciated the fall weather & buzz of halloween approaching, time to think without screens of distraction, exersize and activity, the ability to buy cat food & cat litter. im not angry about it. i’m tired of being angry about a train im not really driving. if i can never truly conceptualize what i want because of society why keep trying. why cry over spilled milk. 

[river-fawn]

1.7.17 on 2016 in retrospect

I’m realizing that 2016 was a catapult for me. It challenged me in ways that were so vital for me to be able to get to this point. Working on a farm made it very easy to naturally become present without even realizing it. There were SO MANY DAYS I would just stare at the sky or the trees or a crate of fucking carrots and almost cry because I was in complete awe of this life. I didn’t know what I was experiencing. I didn’t comprehend that I was growing closer to Being (or God as some call it). I also met Jesse who truly opened my eyes to stillness and oneness. I joked at first that he was my life coach and we talked about oneness and it seemed like a very hippie non-religious thing to believe in and I ate that shit up. I fucking loved believing in that. It made me feel earthy like yes I pray to trees. But, as we sat one day in the woods looking up at the trees - not thinking - staring into the sky as snow fell all around us, I knew it. It wasn’t just something cool to believe in anymore. I knew it was real, but I didn’t know that I knew. I just felt it. I felt that eternal life coursing through me. I wanted to keep that feeling but it soon fleeted and I was left wondering how to get it back. I wanted to feel like that every single day, but it didn’t seem possible. It became nothing more than a happy moment in my memory and my mind full of negativity took me back. It told me those moments were an illusion, but I remained confident they were not.

When Louie was hit by a car, it forced me to pray. This felt very foreign and I did not want to pray to God because that felt hypocritical of my entire life. So I prayed to the trees, the wind, the sky, the mountains, and my dead dog. I didn’t know it, BUT I WAS PRAYING TO GOD BECAUSE GOD IS ALL OF THESE THINGS.

After he was healed and home with me, I sat staring at him breathing. I found myself feeling it again. I felt the eternal life that was my dog and myself and EVERYTHING. I could not believe what was happening. It was confusing. I thought “he is an object filled with life.” And it was the most bizarre thing. I couldn’t comprehend it. I realized that it was my brain trying to comprehend it and it could not be comprehended . So I sat silent and let myself feel this for a long long time.

I had found it. I could access the unmanifested on my own through silence and stillness.

Quotes that have always been beautiful to my mind, now have so much meaning. The easiest example I can think of is: “Your body is a temple.” Great. Sounds beautiful. Yes it is. It deserves respect and worship. Yes, it does. I’m not negating this. But it also is LITERALLY YOUR TEMPLE. It is the only place you can go to become conscious. It is the only place to know eternal life of love, joy, and peace. It is the portal. Your portal to “God.”

I used to wonder how people could believe in God when the world is so terrible. Now i know that it is humans as a species that are sick. The divine mother (God) only has love, joy, and peace to offer. God cannot hate - it is impossible. Only people and their minds and their unwillingness to surrender can hate. The world feels lighter to me. I know it will continue to become lighter. I am so free.

You see how the word “God” is so interchangeable? Language has messed people up and left them confused as to how to find “God.” God is just a word. God is not a he. God is not a bearded old man in the clouds. Once you can get past that (it is difficult for some because of your brain’s experiences with religion - it was for me at least), then you will realize God is the term for everything that is. Find God in the stillness and in the silence. Find God in the empty spaces - the space between planets, the space between earth and clouds, the space between your ceiling and floor, the space between your cells, and the vast space within your cells.

I bought The Power of Now over 2 years ago. I read the introduction and thought, “wow I mean it’s a nice thought and all, but I will never be able to believe in something like that because science and stuff.” I put it down and never gave it a second glance until now. And now it is completely changing everything for me. Thank you 2016 for preparing me for this book. Thank you to my friend Jesse for being my own personal spiritual guide even if you don’t know that you were. Thank you Eckhart Tolle for bringing it home. Thank you universe for being a vast empty space of love in which things can be.

I still cannot believe I am here. I have a ways to go (I have a very active and stubborn mind), but I’m excited for the journey of the rest of forever.