#Krishna needs to help me get my shit together

[kimbapeukidding]

jitendra kumar is so 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

[bookoformon]

Ether Chapter 6: 20-30. "The Breather of Light."

The next section discusses something we must deal with in the current era: how to elect or crown a leader we can trust will not enslave or oppress the people. The world is panicking because a handful of corrupt leaders are attacking the rest with greater resolve than the ones who are supposed to protect it.

It should have been gravy for Joe Biden to rid us of Donald Trump, the Republicans, Family Research Council and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on his first day in office in 2021. Their long list of infractions was way prohibitive of their continued roles in public and also private American life. But he did not and now America is a shit show of abortions and civil rights struggles, organized crime, gunfights, and the fuckups have even been caught supporting Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. None of this happened yesterday, it had been happening for over a decade. There were many signs.

We could have helped Ukraine repel the Russians and then ended the reign of Vladimir Putin, and stopped debating the role of NATO and NATO membership in the service of humanity. NATO stepped up to the plate on the challenges facing the world unlike its premier member, the Government of the USA which waffled.

Every time there is a disaster or a war or a shooting some talking head condemns it while journalists continue to document the decline of modern civilization. Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, first published aorund 450 BCE warned humanity "do not allow passive and corrupt persons to mix."

He cautions about public servants in Chapter 3:

"You should also perform your duties to set an example for the good of the world. Whatever actions great persons perform, common people follow. Whatever standards they set, all the world pursues. There is no duty for Me to do in all the three worlds, nor do I have anything to gain or attain. Yet, I am engaged in prescribed duties. For if I did not carefully perform the prescribed duties, all men would follow My path in all respects. If I ceased to perform prescribed actions, all these worlds would perish. I would be responsible for the pandemonium that would prevail, and would thereby destroy the peace of the human race. As ignorant people perform their duties with attachment to the results, O scion of Bharat, so should the wise act without attachment, for the sake of leading people on the right path."

Joe Biden needs to stand up like a man in front of the human race and explain just exactly what he is going to do about the corruption in his government, how he is going to instrumentalize his people in repairing the damage it has done domestically and abroad, and reassure the human race its fate is not sealed in the darkness he allowed to fall upon us.

The RVW overturn, for example, should have gotten caught by jurisprudence long since. Now, little kids are getting pregnant and there have been deaths. There is a reason the UN outlawed Pro-Life a long time ago and we signed on the dotted line of the Rome Statute.

All Pro-Life organizations and governors, legislators and SCOTUS Justices who overturned RVW and banned abortions in the states, therefore, need to be placed under arrest under Article 7 of the Rome Statute.

For this reason and others, Donald Trump needs to be contained alongside his accomplices, the same with that freak in Iran and Vladimir Putin in Russia. Anywhere a despot has taken power from his people and exploited them and shortened their lives, he must be put to death. This is how it has always been done.

Now the debate in the Book of Mormon pertains to the which model of government is more ideally suited to the operations of a civil society- a democracy or a monarchy. As Krishna states the model does not matter, only the nature of duty matters. Ether says avoiding captivity is the goal and indeed it is:

20 And accordingly the people were gathered together. Now the number of the sons and the daughters of the brother of Jared were twenty and two souls; and the number of sons and daughters of Jared were twelve, he having four sons.

21 And it came to pass that they did number their people; and after that they had numbered them, they did desire of them the things which they would that they should do before they went down to their graves.

22 And it came to pass that the people desired of them that they should anoint one of their sons to be a king over them.

23 And now behold, this was grievous unto them. And the brother of Jared said unto them: Surely this thing leadeth into captivity.

24 But Jared said unto his brother: Suffer them that they may have a king. And therefore he said unto them: Choose ye out from among our sons a king, even whom ye will.

25 And it came to pass that they chose even the firstborn of the brother of Jared; and his name was Pagag. And it came to pass that he refused and would not be their king. And the people would that his father should constrain him, but his father would not; and he commanded them that they should constrain no man to be their king.

A Pagag is a premature baby. An immature people that are running amok do not need to pluck an unripe fruit from among them and stow him in their kingdom's throneroom.

Pagag was the Nephew of Jared, the son of Mahonri Moriancumer, the Management Board, another word for the Rabbinate or the Yeshiva. An immature man or priest cannot be the king.

The chapter goes on to say how the people dealt with this:

26 And it came to pass that they chose all the brothers of Pagag, and they would not.

27 And it came to pass that neither would the sons of Jared, even all save it were one; and Orihah was anointed to be king over the people.

28 And he began to reign, and the people began to prosper; and they became exceedingly rich.

29 And it came to pass that Jared died, and his brother also.

30 And it came to pass that Orihah did walk humbly before the Lord, and did remember how great things the Lord had done for his father, and also taught his people how great things the Lord had done for their fathers.

Orihah "the light breather who restores life by bringing people together in understanding", is chosen to be the king and everything turns out just fine.

The secret to the success of this is found in the Gematria of those 34 Names I mentioned, the ones that run parallel to the Jaredite Plates, in which there are 34 on one side and 34 on the other.

The Number associated with this series found in verse 20 is 14519, ידהאט, yadhat, "you will reject."

No one wants dismay and neither did the persons who wrote this book. Verse 21 goes on to say:

"And it came to pass that they did number their people; and after that they had numbered them, they did desire of them the things which they would that they should do before they went down to their graves."

We are like these hopeful persons who wrote this Book of Mormon in 1830. We don't want slavery or oppression in our country or in this world. We know we can trust God to illuminate the way out of the dreadful and dire circumstances.

The Number is 11755, יאז‎‎הה, "you will recognize."

And it came to pass that the people desired of them that they should anoint one of their sons to be a king over them.

The Number is 4661, דוו‎‎א‎, "pray."

Ether says to be careful what you pray for, lest you fall into captivity in verse 23. The Value in Gematria is חזהב‎, hazav, "the wolf."

v. 24 says we should give the right person a chance to lead, not the wolf: Choose ye out from among our sons a king, even whom ye will. The Value in Gematria is י‎דגאֶפֶס‎, yodgapes, "the hand that jots the peace."

To jot is to write fast. Man never has as much time as he thinks. As the Prophet says, everyone on this planet, every man woman and child should jot down how they want to live and how they want to die. Then we need to find leaders that will act like they give a shit about this.

To complete this frame, we need to add a thought on the twice mentioned Number of 34. The first mention are the Limhi, "The people that went out of Egypt." The second are the Sons of Jared and his brother, the "Descendants and their Management Board" are also 34.

Together they complete what are called the Jaredite Plates, which reflect the Spirit of God's earnest advice and hopes for mankind after the publication of the Book of Mormon= us.

"The place of the pure skull is Israel. If there you [the unenlightened] gather and are hooked together, the season will change, it will follow the stencil and become enlightened.

Do not be cold, do not be naive be the corps of the skilled artist's auger, the central furnace of cheer, like Aaron, who was the harness of the heart.

Get wired, build a Quorum, the Heart of Israel, the greatest in existence. Just like Moses, the most potent teacher, lure people in and heal them.

When times are sour milk, without simplicity, speak the utterance of the words belonging to the mighty, the Brotherhood of the Light of Instruction, called the Torah.

Know the things you wish to experience before the day you die and recognize the signs of captivity. Reject them and their wolves, and pray to the Holy Spirit to publish the peace upon the sons of all mankind instead."

[weedamka]

To be honest, I'm not a good person. I make mistakes, maybe I commit a crime many times, but I think everyone is like that. Here is the opportunity in front of us, the internet gives us many opportunities to be bad people, of course we are also good, we help where we can, especially if it is in our interests, or we give a pizza to the homeless (who is perhaps just one of our family members dressed up, for the duration of the play ) but only if our friend's phone is not dead, he videos it and we get a million likes on TikTok about how good people we are. Goodness is relative. Goodness has become corrupted because being good has become mandatory. You don't have to be good, guys. Being good is the goal of our own life. Of secular life, and let's let go of religious dogmas now. Not a Christian, not a Jew. Simply as a person, good. As a person, what is good is what does not hurt others. Anyway, I digress… so many people have already talked about goodness. You make mistakes, we make mistakes, I make mistakes. I am not a good person because the really good people have long since moved away from the consumer society and are somewhere in the mountains chanting the Hare Krishna Mantra. I didn't get there. There was no one to deliver it, and there was no one I could deliver it to. I struggle alone with my problems, my addictions, my frustrations, even though I think I'm not alone with these things. Perhaps a psychologist could help with the matter, but according to my friends and group members, many people would veto, condemn, and everything would just go to shit. I do not want this. Those who could understand would flee elsewhere, to alcohol, sex, anywhere, which is not the real solution. He doesn't understand, or he didn't expect this when we met. He doesn't understand because he can't understand. He doesn't live in it. If I made a mistake, if I was wrong, I'm sorry. From God. From someone who doesn't judge, but condones that I'm fallible, but I want, believe me, I fucking want to be different, I'd do anything. Evil tempts everyone from time to time. I am alone, no greetings, no hugs, no family, no personal encounters, just my dark room. Anyway, I totally went astray. I didn't spoil this holiday, it was my mother. I did everything. I bought presents, decorated the house, hugged my grandmother, but try living with a toxic person and you will understand everything. My setbacks, my mistakes. I would break out if I could. But without a breaking point, it's hard, and I don't need a breaking point for half an hour, who can hardly stand a coffee next to me, and then tells his friends that he's finally over coffee. On me… I need someone who can also articulate what he wants, tell me about his human frailties, to whom I can also tell what's wrong, and with whom we can get out of all this crap together. I want human relationships, I'm used to using things that help with empathy and motivation, but people don't see my effort, but that even this is not enough. I'm never enough. Not even if I become addicted to you, even though I do it so that I can love and be loved. I think that even if I was bad, if I made a mistake, it could have been solved with love. There would have been no mistakes, and I would have liked honest looks and attention; if I receive sincere love.

[thebladeblaster]

Rebirth of A Samurai (Part 3)

Summary: This fic is a what if scenario to SMT4 Apocalypse. I would go into more detail, but I don’t want to spoil too much of what this fic entails. If this fic gains traction I may continue the story on from this one-shot. Warning: This is a long one.

This may be the last I write for awhile with college right around the corner. I won’t stop completely, but it will become a lot slower.

“Shhh...don’t say that Flynn is supposed to be having a nice dream.”, Flynn’s mother said.

“Who the fuck are you? Your not my mother she might have been controlling and overbearing, but she had a good heart. She was never a colossal bitch even to Issachar.”, Walter questioned.

“Your mother? Are you Flynn’s…? No he’s not he’s...we’re...I-I’m not Issachar!”, Issachar said.

“What are you saying of course your Issachar!”, Not-Flynn’s mother said.

“No, I’m not Issachar! And their not Jonathan, Walter, and Isabeau! We’re the fifth son, Flynn Alexander!”, Not-Issachar rebuked.

The prentices eyes widened.

“I’m not…? I’m not Jonathan?”, not-Jonathan questioned.

“Think! Do you know your parents' names? What’s the first thing that springs to your mind? How about where you live?”, not-Issachar questioned.

“I-I...Why am I imagining…? Wait, I don’t know where Jonathan lives. I've never been there. Not even before or after he became Merkabah I just never had time to.”, not-Jonathan said.

“Merkabah? Why does that…? That’s right Jonathan became Merkabah and Walter became Lucifer! I fought them!”, not-Isabeau said as her eyes widened.

“Hoy?! What are you guys...Wait I fought Merkabah too but I didn’t fight Lucifer I helped him!”, not-Walter said.

“That’s right, we're the fifth son. You who looks like Jonathan you chose preservation. You who looks like Walter you chose upheaval. You who looks like Isabeau you chose neutrality. And I who looks like Issachar...I chose to unmake the world. I chose nihilism.”, not-Issachar revealed, after he did there was an audible crack in seemingly reality.

“Hoy, that means there’s a version of me that chose law? Ah gross…”, Not-Walter said.

“The feeling is mutual.”, Not-Jonathan said with disgust in his eyes looking at not-Walter.

“No wonder I thought you guys really were Jonathan and Walter. You sure butt heads like they eventually did.”, Not-Isabeau responded with a light chuckle.

Not-Flynn’s mom’s eyes were shadowed as the world around them went silent. Everyone around them froze in place before turning on them.

“You shouldn’t be here, interlopers.”, Not-Flynn’s mom said.

“I know we shouldn’t normally. Our memories of the previous cycle’s are usually mostly dormant in our subconscious, but you’re tampering with the current Flynn’s mind has called us here, Krishina!”, Not-Issachar explained.

A demonic smile identical to the one on Flynn’s face when he was possessed appeared on not-Flynn’s mom’s face. He dropped the disguise revealing himself as Krishina.

“Get away from us! I mean Flynn! I mean stop!”, Not-Issachar said as he pulled a samurai said as he pulled out a samurai sword from thin air and the others drew theirs.

Flynn's past lives memories were normally kept in his subconscious to prevent them from driving him insane. They are basically the embodiment of his memories of those past lives. He remembers they awakened when Krishna started messing with the current Flynn’s mind. They were awakened to stop him from turning him into a mindless puppet. However, when then entered the illusion their minds were tampered with like the current Flynn’s made to believe they were other people so Flynn didn’t instantly realize something was wrong. He could tell by looking in Flynn’s eyes those times. He was slowly losing his own will. He could feel he was dangerously close to losing what’s left of it. That’s why Krishna had so much power in his mind now. He created this illusion after his fellow Divine Powers tortured him for days to break him.

“My kalki is almost ready for our fight with YHVH and I’m afraid I don’t have much time for you since I’m dealing with another interloper right now. Let’s see if you can defeat your own mind. Well I won’t but...well see you later kalkis.”, Krishna said before disappearing.

“Pfft! Is this the best you can do Krishna? You should know better than to underestimate the king of Tokyo! I can beat this entire village alone!”, Not-Walter boasted.

As if Krishna heard him, demons, angels , gods, and even humans appeared from all around them. Every single person or creature they had ever fought throughout the cycles was here, even the likes of Lucifer, Merkabah, Ancient of Days, Sanat, and Masakado.

“You just had to say that didn’t you?”, Not-Jonathan questioned, with a priceless look on his face.

“Aww man...this is gonna be awesome!”, Not-Walter said.

Not-Jonathan’s eyebrow twitched incredulously.

“How in YHVH’s name did I become you?”, Not-Jonathan questioned in complete disgust.

“You probably got sick of that pole up your ass and decided to actually live a little in your next life.”, Not-Walter replied.

“Simmer down guys, we gotta work together for now. Even if it’s just a temporary truce.”, Not-Isabeau said getting between the two.

“For now, after all it would be a tragedy if I was forced to fight my lord.”, Not-Jonathan replied.

“Your lord is the reason we’re in this freaky time loop. But, I guess I’ll tolerate your high strungness for a bit longer. I’d hate to lose my free will.”, Not-Walter replied.

“Just uh wow…”, Not-Issachar said, amazed to see how extreme some of his other selves were.

“I guess this is what we would have been like had we fallen into ‘monolithic extremes’ as Isabeau called it. But, now is not the time for that, the people need us.”, Not-Isabeau said.

“Uh yeah…!”, Not-Issachar replied, feeling awkward since he chose nihilism.

Even now not-Issachar regretted his cowardice in choosing that choice. Unlike the other Flynn’s he did fervently believe in the path he chose.

They called upon their own demons from their respective cycles. Not-Walter rushed into a horde of demons with reckless abandon, slicing them into bits. Not-Jonathan swiftly beheaded Hope without any emotion. He then stayed back observing their enemies and exploiting their weaknesses. Not-Isabeau used Antichthon which was effective against basically everything, vaporizing low to mid and even some lower high tier demons instantly. For those it didn’t it lowered their overall performance crippling their offense and defense. Not-Issachar rushed to Flynn now that Krishna was nowhere in sight. However as he did he was stopped by his dad.

Not-Issachar froze facing his father still remembering finding his mangled form on that fateful day.

“Sorry dad.”, Not-Issachar apologized, before instantly vaporizing him with Antichthon.

He looked all over for Flynn before finding him unconscious. He ran over to him, shaking him awake. Not-Issachar looked relieved as he started to stir.

“Issachar?”, Flynn questioned sleepily.

That relief faded when he felt a sword get thrust through his chest. He knew that was a bit too easy. What he did expect was for him to transform into a giant fiery snake.

“I-I don’t remember that happening?! It must have been Krishna. You're a decoy.”, Not-Issachar said.

“I am Shesha. I fooled you like I fooled your little dim witted Tokyo.”, Not-Flynn said.

“You did what…”, Shesha nearly flinched when he heard the low angered tone of Not-Isabeau.

He could practically feel the anger radiating off her umm...him? Well he was Isabeau right now kinda. Anyway, Not-Isabeau practically launched herself at Shesha. They flew through the building creating a massive hole in the house.

“Then where’s Flynn?”, Not-Issachar questioned.

He looked around the remains of the house and ran through the battlefield making sure to punch Tayama when he saw him. Throughout the carnage he noticed a calm spot like the eye of a storm. That was it he rush through to see an unconscious Flynn guarded by Odin, Maitreya, and Great Innana. They haven’t personally fought them like Shesha so this was more of Krishna’s manipulation. His demons came to his side Quetzalcoatl, Tiamat, and Orochi. He was having a tougher time than the others due to having weaker demons since his cycle ended prematurely. He was able to defeat Innanna and greatly wound Matrieya, but he was tiring and Odin killed off his demons.

“Heh, despite not being the first, you're definitely the weakest incarnation of our godslayer.”, Odin taunted as he prepared to finish him off.

He closed his eyes as Odin thrust his spear forward and a loud crackle of lightning rippled through the air.

“Odin! You bastard, you embarrassed my current self by knocking him out and kidnapping him! I’m going to tear your head off like I did to the Odin of my cycle!”, Not-Walter yelled as he jumped out from a horde of dead demons and launched himself at Odin like a madman.

Odin was too low to turn his attention to not-Walter as he was nailed in the gut by Deadly Wind. He gasped in pain, flinching and dropping his spear as not-Walter smiled devilishly. Matrieya tried to attack but not-Walter grabbed his face and vaporized him with Antichthon.

“Hoy, get up Flynn!”, Not-Walter said as he kicked the unconscious Flynn much to not-Issachar’s horror.

He cringed as he heard Flynn wince.

“Argh!!! Walter stop! Wait Walter? How do I know your name?”, Flynn questioned.

“Because none of this is real and you’ve gotta get your ass up and kick the shit out of that fedora wearing god!”, Not-Walter explained poorly.

“I-I what?!”, Flynn questioned, reasonably confused.

Not-Issachar tried to explain the situation to Flynn properly, leaving out anything about his past lives letting him believe they were just versions of his friends created by his mind. Reasonably Flynn looked shocked and skeptical, but he also saw Kiccigiori was now a massive battleground full of demons, angels, gods, and humans.

“T-there’s no way it c-can’t…”, Flynn mumbled, tears forming in his eyes looking around at the battle.

“Tough shit! That’s the truth Flynn! Our family is dead, Issachar’s dead, Jonathan’s dead, Walter’s dead and now Isabeau!”, Not-Walter said harshly.

Flynn stepped back looking incredibly shaken to his core.

“Have some tact!”, Not-Issachar yelled at not-Walter.

“We don’t have time for tact! He has to man up and wake the fuck up now or we’re done for good!”, Not-Walter yelled back angrily.

Flynn’s head hung low, covered by his bangs. Not-Issachar put a reassuring hand on Flynn’s shoulder.

“It may seem all dark now, but don’t give into despair like I did.”, Not-Issachar told him.

“You can’t go Flynn! You have to stay here with us! That’s what you want right Flynn? That’s what you always wanted! You never wanted to make the tough decisions! You just wanted to be a follower!”, another Not-Flynn’s mom said with another fake version of his dad by her side.

Tears fell from Flynn's face as he met his fake mom’s gaze. She opened up her arms to welcome him. Flynn shook, walking over to their side.

“You can’t be serious! You're even weaker than that quitter over there!”, Not-Walter roared in rage.

“I’m sorry…”, Flynn apologized quietly.

“Flynn…”, Not-Issachar murmured, sinking his head in defeat.

“...Mom...Dad...But there's nothing left for me here. You guys are dead, so is Issachar, and the village is in tatters. I let myself fall victim to this illusion because I wanted it to be real. I wanted your deaths to all be a horrible nightmare, but it’s not. It’s real and because I bought into this illusion more people...people I was supposed to protect are dead. I have to go back.”, Flynn said, with a steely resolve turning from his fake parents.

“No! Don’t abandon us again! I didn’t raise you to be heartless man who would walk out on his own family!”, his fake father yelled.

“Kiss our ass Krishna!”, Not-Walter yelled back smugly, flaunting Odin’s decapitated head as a trophy as Flynn walked towards them slowly picking up speed.

His clothes started to flicker out from his peasant garb to his samurai garb. Suddenly everything went white.

“Haha! He has spoken! You have now regained your right to create a world messiah Flynn! Let’s see if you fight to keep that right!”, the voice from his dream at the beginning of his adventure said.

When he reopened his eyes he saw a familiar teen with a half shaved head of brown hair and eerie glowing green eyes. He wore a green jumpsuit and had glowing green celtic tattoos, Nanashi. By his side were his own demons Anubis, Shiva, and his own Odin. It seemed he was in the middle of battle with him. He felt the weight of a pink lotus in his hands making him realize he was transformed like before. He was doubled over as Nanashi prepared to strike him down.

“Isabeau...what happened to Isabeau?”, he asked.

“Huh? Why are you asking, didn't I tell you, Krishna?”, Nanashi asked.

Vishnu-Flynn’s eyes were shadowed as he asked and Dadga’s eyes widened in realization.

“Wait there kid!”, Dadga tried to warn in his odd accent.

“I killed her like I did to the others before facing you. Heh, she called out Flynn’s name till the end. She was just another useless bitch like Asahi.”, Nanashi taunted, thinking he’d won.

He didn’t fully mean that he felt a bit bad about killing the others after everything, especially after actually carrying out their deaths, but it was far too late to turn back now.

“Heh, he’s shaking. Krishna must be scared now knowing I beat the others.”, Nanashi thought.

Honestly the whole point of telling him of his betrayal was meant to intimidate him. After all, he knew his former friends weren’t complete slouches. To be fair he died a few times fighting them. He killed them because he knew they would oppose the path he took.

However, Vishnu-Flynn was not shaking from fear...it was unbridled rage. The entire area around them was filled with a powerful aura of bloodlust. Nanashi was going to swing down at him with Masakado’s katana, but he couldn’t feel his arm. He looked over only to gaping in horror when he saw his hand had been severed without him even noticing. His hand still holding the katana stabbed into the ground behind him. Nanashi’s eyes widened in absolute shock.

“You fucked up there kid. That’s not Krishna.”, Dadga said.

Before he could even react his body his head was cut clean off by Vishnu-Flynn’s next strike. Nanashi tried to bite back the intense pain circulating throughout him. Normally no one would know the pain of their head being severed due to dying instantly, but since Nanashi was immortal he felt all of it and he howled in pain.

“You!!! How dare you! I saved you! I trusted you! And you killed one of the only people I had left!”, Vishnu-Flynn roared full of venom.

He stood up to his full towering height with two new detached arms and four new red laser swords.

“Ah, Flynn! He’s Flynn. Did he have to go for my head?”, Nanashi thought as his body started to regrow itself.

Nanashi gasped in pain as he was torn apart by Vishnu-Flynn’s blades again before he could regrow his body fully. A loud crackle of thunder slammed down at Vishnu-Flynn which he blocked with his swords. Which hummed only powered up by the lightning. He turned his attention to Nanashi’s demons. He dodged a Mamudoon launched by Anubis. He swiped his arms not releasing his full magical power which was dormant while under Krishna’s control and used Antichthon on Anubis nearly vaporizing him on the spot and severely crippling him. He finished off the god with a single strike to his blade. Shiva launched himself at him and the two were locked in a dangerous dance of blades. Shiva was skilled certainly, known as the destroyer in the polytheistic religion he was technically apart of right now as Vishnu-Flynn. However, Flynn was very very pissed off. When he was pissed off he didn’t slip up no...he became more skilled and more merciless in combat. Besides he’s already fought Shiva before and he knows the way he fights. Vishnu-Flynn turned the tide against Shiva putting him on the back burner as Odin tried to shoot lightning at him.

Dadga gaped genuinely impressed as Vishnu-Flynn danced around Odin’s lightning and fought Shiva at the same time. The difference between Flynn and Krishna fighting was like the difference between Heaven and Earth. Krishna certainly wasn’t a slouch, but he was primarily a schemer who used what most would consider more underhanded tactics and trickery to win fights. Flynn however was a godslayer in every meaning of the world. Dadga felt he truly understood what exactly made someone a godslayer when he saw Flynn fight. Flynn reacted to and attacked on pure instinct like a demon. However, he attacked with the skill and precision of a human. His skill in question was truly staggering on the level of no...even surpassing the best warrior gods as he was completely overpowering and nearly toying with Nanashi’s demons.

He finished healing up his godslayer who took a deep inhale as his body finally reformed after being mangled badly by Vishnu-Flynn. Nanashi tried to regain his bearings and prepared to attack Vishnu-Flynn. It took much longer and was much more draining for Dadga than usual because usually not as much of Nanashi had to be healed when he revived him. Usually the kid might get stabbed in the heart, decapitated, or even instant killed, but those weren’t as hard for him to fix.

“That man is a real monster.”, Dadga thought, feeling nervous for the first time he started his campaign to kill all the gods and recreate the universe.

This man didn’t have the ability to revive as he pleased and he was merely a human. Well...he wasn’t right now, but he usually was. At least Krishna had good taste that’s exactly why he planned to steal his godslayer from him.

Vishnu-Flynn dodged Odin’s spear strike causing him to pierce Shiva. With a swipe of his hands Vishu-Flynn obliterated the two with Shine More like Anubis not even leaving a trace behind for Nanashi to revive. Nanashi concentrated and launched a Deadly Wind at Vishnu-Flynn. More demons had replaced his fallen ones: Great Innanna, Isanami, and Xi Wangmu.

Vishnu-Flynn dodged his attack shot forward faster than Nanashi could comprehend and sliced him into bits again this time using Dark Nandaka on his bits. His demons turned to Vishnu-Flynn completely stunned at his speed. Before Great Innanna could even act she was decapitated. Xi Wangmu shot a Ziodyne at him which he easily dodged before cleaving both her and Izanami into bits. With a swipe on his hands he vaporized their remains with Shine More.

Fear grew within Dagda as Nanashi hadn’t even fully regrown himself before Flynn slashed him into bits mercilessly. He knew Nanashi didn’t have many demons left to use and Flynn was killing all of them permanently. His slashes grew so fast all Dagda saw was a storm of blades. Before that he could count about 10000 strikes per millisecond, but now all he saw was a blur. He was killing Nanashi faster than he could revive him. Dadga had a hard time keeping track of if Nanashi was dead or alive since he died so fast.

Krishna was extremely pleased. While his kalki had broken free of his contract he was now completely embarrassing Nanashi and his forces which gave him no small amount of satisfaction. As well as having a front row seat to the true magnificence of his kalki. He was content to sit back and let his godslayer do the work in killing Nanashi. Of course, there was the obvious problem that he was no longer in control of Flynn, but he could fix that in time. For all he knows Flynn can go ahead and kill YHVH while he’s at it, then he can swoop in at the right time, steal control, and achieve salvation. So, yeah Krishna was pretty content sitting back and munching on imaginary popcorn while his kalki went berserk.

Dadga was sweating now as he was greatly drained by how many times he had to revive Nanashi in this fight alone. When he told his godslayer he could die as many times as he wanted he was joking. He never thought he would actually have to revive him this much consecutively against anyone besides YHVH. Dagda was a god, but even he had his limits. A limit he was dangerously close to hitting. Even his reserves weren’t infinite.

Nanashi hardly had a second to think before he was continuously violently torn apart by the man his more naive self once idolized. He had time to feel though. Absolute horror and terror. He had honestly thought he was up to Flynn’s level by now after all he’s killed many gods, demons, and angels at this point. Confident he could beat him if Krishna happened to seduce him to his cause like Dadga to him. Defeating his former friends and beating down Vishnu-Flynn only further bolstered his confidence that he was truly unbeatable. However, he now realized how completely wrong he was. He had never been anywhere near Flynn’s level. He was beating down Vishnu-Flynn because that fop with a flute was in control, not the true Flynn. He had his power no...not even all of that he swore when he sensed his magic power earlier it had nearly doubled. Though, that may be because how enraged Flynn currently was. His intense rage may be boosting his magic to ridiculous heights. Finally, his skill...was absolutely monstrous. He thought Isabeau and Gaston were pretty good, but this man was on a completely different dimension of skill from the both of them. He wasn’t exactly educated in such things, honestly he relied more on magic than anything, but he understood that he was kicking his ass worse than anything has in his whole life with freaking swords alone. He shuttered from deep within his soul with unparalleled fear. He wasn’t sure he could get out of this especially since he didn’t look like he was tiring. Tiring was an easy thing for someone like him to exploit. He was basically a zombie so he never got exhausted and Dadga healed his wounds upon death. Stamina and his immortality was his overwhelming advantage against everyone he faced. However, now he was honestly cursing it. This is what he imagined hell was like continuously dying infinitely and instantly with absolutely nothing he could do to get out of it. For an immortal like him this is exactly what hell was like. This was one of the best arguments against having immortality, endless suffering.

A deeper part of him...Akira shuttered in horror at the sight...no the very idea of Flynn’s rampage. What had he done to Ryou? He wasn’t like this. Ryou was always a kind, gentle soul. He was skilled, yes, but not to this...to such an inhuman degree. He remembered how Ryou would feel bad about even killing demons. He was a complete wreck after killing Kiyoharu and Kenji to stop their insane plans. He most certainly wasn’t ever the type to anger. He was more often than not a mediator between the more hot-headed members of the Counter-Demon Force. For such a kind, loving soul to be reduced to this blind bloodlusted demonic rage...It broke Akira’s heart to see his dear friend like this. Any sense of mercy and kindness was gone from the eyes of his incarnation replaced with anger and bloodlust. He still remembered the day he lost him. The day he sacrificed himself not unlike his current incarnation did to save Asahi. He knew then that he was truly his old friend reborn. But now that was all gone...Because of his own actions he turned Ryou into this monster before him. He unsealed Krishna who stole him away and merged with him. He made him completely snap by killing that girl Isabeau. He felt the worst chill down his spine when he heard Vishnu-Flynn start to chuckle. He was enjoying this?! The pure hearted self sacrificing idiot Ryou was enjoying this?!

“What the fuck have I done?”, Akira thought in complete horror from deep within Nanashi.

“Ryou! Ryou! Stop, please! Snap out of this! This isn’t you!”, Akira begged his voice cracking as he did so, knowing full well he couldn’t hear his begging.

No no someone had to stop him before he completely lost his humanity.

Flynn was beyond being enraged that word hardly encapsulated the fire he felt from within his soul. Even before all of this he had lost so many people close to him, his parents and Issachar. He still remembered the deep horror he felt when he realized...he killed his own mother without even realizing it. Once that guy apologized about not being able to help his parents his mind went completely blank. He killed every demon in his way without an ounce of mercy as he desperately searched for them. He didn’t know that one of the camazotzs was his mother. He didn’t know any of the demons in the forest were his fellow villagers at that point. When he found out he completely broke down. It was difficult to hide from the others he had to put on his own iron mask so they didn’t see him completely break down. He realized it when he finally found his father. He was still human, a bit mangled and in serious need of medical attention, but he was alive. But, then his hopes were completely dashed…

Flashback

It was after their first encounter with the black samurai, Lilith. Extreme relief entered his eyes when he saw one of the medics had his father. His fellows were off to themselves right now. He practically ran over to him when he saw him hope that his mother may be alive too bubbled up inside him. He didn’t expect his father. His strong, loving father to look absolutely terrified when he saw him. He was extremely confused when his father jumped back squirming away from the doctor when he saw him. That’s when he knew something was horribly wrong. He looked over his uniform checking for blood which may have spooked him. He gasped when he realized he had quite a lot on him. How did he not notice? He was just so focused he completely blotted out everything else.

“W-wait dad I can explain-“, He stuttered.

“S-stay away from me! Y-you turned into a-a m-monster like your mother did didn’t y-you?! Y-you here to finish me off!”, his father accused completely hysterical.

“M-my mother?! Mom...she….”, He muttered before he completely froze.

He pulled out a wooden sword guard shaped not unlike a flower from his pocket. It was badly worn, cracked, and had blood spattered on it. He recognized it as the one from the toy sword his mother made from him which he used to use to spar with Issachar. His mother may have disliked his friend, but she acknowledged that Flynn as a kid needed a friend to play with. Despite her distaste she made that toy sword full of love hoping he’d have lots of fun with it. He found it after he killed a demon which at the time confused him. He remembered the demon rushing up to him, but it wasn’t attacking strangely. He was too out of it though...when he fought he entered this state where he completely lost control over himself...He was just fighting blindly not thinking of anything else. He had no idea how it happened...it just did. He remembers coldly cutting down the demon that approached him without remorse. Thinking about it now he felt deeply sickened and revulsed by himself. Especially after realizing only now he was covered in blood. This feeling only worsened when he put two and two together.

That demon was his mother. He killed his mother.

He felt extremely lightheaded and nauseous now. His breathing became extremely heavy. His eyes widened at the realization.

“Ah! Ah!”, he gasped in complete horror.

He felt like he was about to have a panic attack as he clutched chest. He shook uncontrollably, hardly able to form coherent words as he imagined his mother’s warm smile. The doctor looked alarmed hearing the incoherent distressed noises he was making. For the first time he felt his soul wail. He completely collapsed on the ground. His father was right, he was a monster. He killed his own mother!

Flashback end

His father was deemed to be under demonic possession and had an exorcism performed on him which killed him. He wasn’t possessed, he was driven insane by seeing the woman he loved turn into a demon and thought the same thing happened to his son when he came over to him covered in blood! He killed Issachar too; he begged him to do so, but he didn’t want to lead his best friend to only suffer more. Then, Jonathan and Walter he knew they were dead from his illusionary Walter’s words. He still wishes he could have done something like awaken them from inside the beings that stole their bodies. However, he couldn’t they died as Lucifer and Merkabah twisted embodiments of their ideals. Isabeau...He didn’t kill her directly, but it was his fault she died. If he had woken up sooner rather than letting himself fall prey to Krishna’s illusion he could have saved her. No he should have never let himself be captured by the Divine Powers! He should have found another way to save Asahi and escape...Everything that has happened over these past few days, everyone who died because of the Divine Powers and Nanashi, they were all on his hands. H-he felt like he was close to snapping a morbid chuckle was coming from his lips as he tore Nanashi apart. Surely he didn’t deserve this even with the horrible things he’s done. He was just a kid, for all he knew that being that made him like this manipulated him into doing all this.

A deep part of Flynn...Ryou didn’t want to believe Akira would do something so horrible. Surely not? It had to be a mistake. Akira would never do something so heartless…right? But...Kiyoharu and Kenji did. They were his best friends since childhood he knew them so well yet they changed into something unrecognizable from their former selves. Then, they committed horrible atrocities for what they believed in before he struck them down himself. He personally saw through Flynn’s eyes the horrible words he would have created if he sided with them. Even that deep part of him didn’t seem sure of anything anymore. Nothing seemed to work. He remembers more than Flynn does. He remembers his past lives where he followed four different paths. He despised most of them except the third path, the neutral path which for some odd reason was going very differently in this cycle. He chose that third path again, but it seems like everything has only gotten worse for some reason. If Flynn didn’t wake up sooner then everything...everything he had fought for, sacrificed himself for would be gone. He knew more than Flynn, he could see Krishna’s memories; he knew the depravity of Dadga’s selfish plan. It was...Childish. He understood defeating YHVH, but that’s where it ended. Destroying the entire world, the world people had out there heart and soul into bettering and protecting just because you wanted the world to be ‘your’ ideal it was...beyond selfish. That plan spat on all the hard work and sacrifices humanity has made to better their world. Krishna wasn’t a saint either; he was nearly just as bad with his forced salvation plan. At least he had some love for humanity...even if it was twisted. But, Dadga’s plan was undoubtedly worse. This foolish god seriously believed that all a person needed was themselves. That’s completely wrong for a god of knowledge he sure didn’t know much. Humans were social creatures by nature; they needed each other to survive. No one is perfect and his world would be undoubtedly polluted by his own biases and cruel beliefs. Besides how was Ryou supposed to honestly believe that someone willing to sacrifice their allies and even the whole universe was going to be a more benevolent ruler than YHVH? He already was like YHVH, manipulating and sacrificing people for his own ends. They were exactly the same...It would be the same cruel world YHVH created just with a new face in control. It completely tore him up that Akira was actually a part of this depraved plan. He wanted to cling onto the idea he was manipulated and controlled but...He remembers destroying Tokyo he sacrificed himself for with his own hands alongside the angels. He remembers filling the world with demons and ruling over the hell on Earth he created. He remembers unmaking the world in a moment of weakness. He made these same horrible mistakes and he did those same horrible atrocities as the others. He had become the same if not worse than them.

Ryou still wanted to forgive, but he could hardly forgive even himself anymore. He felt bad for his current self; he was just as distressed and confused as he was, except he didn’t fully understand why. Despite his past lives memories being locked up he still had feelings and echoes of those lives within himself. From his law cycle he had obtained the ability to completely shut everything else out and focus on a singular goal no matter how depraved. His magic power had carried over and growled continuously stronger with every cycle. His inhuman level of sword skill was also for that life mostly from strangely after his death. After his death he became an angel for a confusing amount of time not even he was sure how long. Something that still deeply revulsed him. He remembers having a divine sword then YHVH gave him. Honestly, he didn’t remember the name, but honestly he just wanted to forget any of that happened. He became YHVH’s sword, cutting down anything that opposed him, even fellow messiahs for other worlds. He understood it was a long time, but he wasn’t sure how long than his ‘forgiving’ god shoved him back into the cycle he decided on as his punishment for saving Tokyo from his wrath as soon as he was done with him. Unbelievable...If there’s one being he truly hated it was YHVH. From his chaos cycle he gained the ability to completely give into his instincts and battle using instinct alone. Along with that rage he didn’t remember having. That alone has caused many troubles for the current Flynn especially what’s...currently transpiring. It even affected him. Making him go completely berserk at times if he felt really angry or got too into a battle. Without that cycle he would have never...Not even in his law cycle enjoyed hurting others. The king of Tokyo enjoyed a lot of things he disagreed with because he didn’t care. His heart had been turned rotten by Lucifer and he stopped caring about anyone, but himself. Honestly, his nihilism cycle didn’t contribute much, but his revulsion with his previous cycles unknowingly affected Flynn’s decision in that cycle to unmake the world. From his neutral cycle he combined his law cycle’s skill with his chaos cycle’s instinct to create a deadly combination in battle. He didn’t have as much time to refine his combat as his law cycle, but he still did improve it in the lifetime he had along with his magic like his other cycles. That first time he chose neutral was the happiest one that he hoped would stick; however, that hope was dashed when after a long and fulfilled life he woke back up at Lake Mikado again. However , that life influenced this Flynn to choose neutral again. He guessed he was still trapped because YHVH wasn’t done with him yet. He suspects YHVH wasn’t happy with him having an enjoyable cycle even if it wasn’t perfect. So, this time things changed he was prevented from removing the firmament and he was captured by the Divine Powers. Now, Akira was trying to destroy the world he once defended like he did. He could practically imagine YHVH laughing in his face while they killed each other.

“Please stop this Akira! We shouldn’t be fighting each other! Please forgive him Flynn! I know you’re hurting I can feel your pain! Please!”, Ryou begged, sobbing uncontrollably.

A less forgiving part of him couldn’t help but take pleasure in tearing Nanashi to shreds. He is the one who killed Isabeau, the last of his original prentice group. His heart hurt more than he expected when she was killed. He was the one who released Krishna and put him into this whole mess. He...He!

“Kill him! Kill him! Make him regret ruining things for us!”, that angered voice in his mind said which reminded him of the illusionary Walter.

[shyampyari]

What if our asshole listened to Krishna and kunti and headcanons for arjuna and karna hating each other but still fighting together.

If this had happened the war would have ended much earlier, like maybe 7 days?but the destruction, however, wouldn't would have been any less. The whole revealing and confronting had made someone like karna's heart weak, what would it do to arjuna? When the truth was revealed, it was yudhishthir that had mourned the most (i always felt that it was a little exaggerated) but Arjuna? he was shocked but quite until he finally opened his mouth only to ask yudhishtir to shut up, he tried to put some sense of artha and dand in him. Why? Imagine loosing (more like killing) your granddad, who had offered them shelter after the lose of their fater, your guru who had treated you no more or less than his own child, a son so dear to him, his other son and so many other. Don't you think a person will go numb after this much of grief? Maybe that's what happened to him. But now imagine this being told to him before such a feeling of sadness had already abandoned him, before he had become a heigher being, before Krishna had provided him the knowledge of gita, he would have been broken (this poor boi). That been said, let me provide you what a gem the pandavs would have been if karna was a part of the pandavs. However, i don’t think they would have hated each other so much after know what they were like,

Karna would drop him stubbornness to prove himself as the greatest archer. Why? would you really want to prove yourself better at something than your younger sibling?

Pandavs would have obviously won but the confidence of the kauravs would have reduced by like 1/4th. Resulting, Duryodhan would have been more frustrated and would be taking more dumb decisions. He had lost the person that would counter Arjuna, moreover, now he would need to counter 2 such ppl. He would probably just cry in Shakuni’s lap

Arjuna would have still needed the gita gyan (this boy is v soft and needs to be protected, now he has karna to do so).

Karna’s sons would probably also be killed by Ashwattama, so now they would need another heir for Indraprastha.

But wait

Karna would be the crowned king (being the eldest) and as Krishna had bribed him, Draupadi would be his wife. This is the part that i don’t find so pretty about this headcanon. The guy who insulted you is now your husband? In my head, I hope Karna would have rejected that part.(but it’s still debatable) (Karna x Draupadi shippers are not invited)

Karna and Arjuna would have been salty to each other at the start but then maybe at some time, alone preferably, they would have a heart to heart conversation, where karna would tell him that he no longer wanted to be the greatest archer in the world and that

“You, my little brother Arjuna, are the greatest archer this world will ever witness. Little brother, I am proud of” 

To this Arjuna starts to cry and curses himself and then karna joins in and they both are just this cutie ball of crying mess. Krishna is watching them from a distance with a smile on his lips and tears in his eyes.

These two are inevitable. 

And the purest bond ever. 

Karna would have been a just ruler with yudhishthir as his prime advisor while Krishna is now gone to Dwarka to live his remaining life with his children and wives.

Oh and the curse

I have a feeling that Gandhari would have also cursed Karna because you see, he was Duryodhan’s support systems (they shared 2 brain cells, both of them belonging to Karna) and with him gone, Duryoudhan’s doom was waiting for him.

What’s interesting is how will she curse him? He already has two curses to work with.

Anyway I don’t want to end on sad note.

So Parikshit

This boy is gonna be THE GREATEST warrior ever, cause imagine being the son of Abhimanyu and then being thought by Arjuna and Karna themselves.

like dayum

I think he would die before the whole Swarga-Prasthan, like he will have 4 curses to catch up on. 

And this will add upto the pandava’s grief 

However

I think things would have been better if they had the shadow of Karna on them Rather than that of Yudhishthir.

There you go bb @1nsaankahanhai-bkr 

@chaanv put some more gyan to this post?

@incorrectmahabharatquotes so maybe this gets exposed to more ppl. sorry im an attention hoe

Edit: because i have a very dumb and malfunctioning, mortal brain and also the fact that i had to attend a Calculus class in between writing this post, I forgot to add a few things so lemme just-

The war would have obviously suffer a huge impact on it due to the change in the density of power now.

I think Karna would have let the Pandavas handle the whole Bheeshma situation because they had a deeper connection and deeper emotions with the old man.

I also can’t see him interfering in the death of Drona. 

I have a feeling that he would be responsible for keeping track of Ashwatthama but maybe not killing him. Krishna guessed everyone’s faith, I think he might have know what was to come from Ashwatthama too so he would have saved him for that, besides, it was Arjuna who had done penance to defeat an army containing someone who is a partial incarnation of lord Shiva himself. So I guess he would have helped tackle ppl like Drona and Bheeshma when they were still alive

oh and also the narayani sena

 why is Narayani  sena so underrated? 

Coming to Abhimanyu’s death. With Karna gone, I think there would have been no one to counter Abhimayu’s young and fast moves. They would have injured him, sure, but end him? i don’t think so. Karna would have helped him, of course, but then again, Shakuni would have found a way to keep him away but for how long? Jayadrath would have been kept alive till the sunset and just as Arjuna would have showed up, a very injured Abhimanyu with a proud Karna on his side would have been waiting for him to finish off this asshole who was now lying on the ground and begging for mercy.

And did Abhimanyu survive? I don’t think so. He would have been slain in the silence of the night with his cousins. He would have still died a death caused by cheating.

Duryodhan’s Death would have been the most painful one for Karna. After all, they were such dear friends. I have a feeling that an injured Duryodhan, moments away from his death, would have refused to talk to Karna. Karna would have stayed at a very far distance, watching with mournful eyes what had become of his friend.

‘this wouldn’t would have happened if I had taken his side’

but then all the unjust and adharma would have flashed in front of his eyes almost at once. Krishna’s voice in his head, he couldn’t hear them, but he could feel it. The terror of realization.

and when he would look up again to see the person that caused it all, his sight would be blocked by a very grieve struck Ashwatthama, hunching over his dear friend’s almost lifeless body.

He could see Duryodhan whispering something to Aswatthama. Even from this distance one could see Ashwatthama trembling from anger and vengeance. You could almost see his aura go completely black

As Ashatthama left the, now lifeless, body of his childhood companion, he knew that it had been

His legs, however felt frozen from this still new sense of responsibility that he held of being elder to 5 pandavas now.

so he would kneel to the ground and weep. 

If he wasn’t much broken already amidst the fractured sense of celebration that the pandavas had held in the air, he might have let a tear drop for his sons. 

oh shit

sorry this just got really sad

anyway, I made some additions @1nsaankahanhai-bkr  @chaanv@incorrectmahabharatquotes 

[picsofsannyas]

OSHO, ARE YOU INFALLIBLE?

OSHO, ARE YOU INFALLIBLE?

Thomas V. Kempis, I am infallibly fallible! First, I am not a perfectionist because to me perfectionism is the root cause of all neurosis. Unless humanity gets rid of the idea of perfection it is never going to be sane. The very idea of perfection has driven the whole of mankind to a state of madness. To think in terms of perfection means you are thinking in terms of ideology, goals, values, shoulds, should-nots. You have a certain pattern to fulfill and if you fall from the pattern you will feel immensely guilty, a sinner. And the pattern is bound to be such that you cannot achieve it. If you can achieve it then it will not be of much value to the ego.

So the intrinsic quality of the perfectionist ideal is that it should be unattainable, only then is it worth attaining. You see the contradiction? And that contradiction creates a schizophrenia: you are trying to do the impossible, which you know perfectly well is not going to happen -- it cannot happen in the very nature of things. If it can happen then it is not much of a perfection; then anybody can do it. Then there is not much ego nourishment in it: your ego cannot chew on it, cannot grow on it. The ego needs the impossible -- and the impossible, by its very nature, is not going to happen. So only two alternatives are left: one is, you start feeling guilty. If you are innocent, simple, intelligent, you will start feeling guilty -- and guilt is a state of sickness.

I am not here to create any guilt in you. My whole effort is to help you to get rid of all guilt. The moment you are free of guilt, rejoicing bursts forth. And guilt is rooted in the idea of perfection.

The second alternative is: if you are cunning then you will become a hypocrite, you will start pretending that you have achieved it. You will deceive others and you will even try to deceive yourself. You will start living in illusions, hallucinations, and that is very unholy, very irreligious, very unwholesome. To pretend, to live a life of pretensions is far worse than the life of a guilty man. The guilty man at least is simple, but the pretender, the hypocrite, the saint, the so-called sage, the mahatma, is a crook. He is basically inhuman -- inhuman to himself because he is repressing; that's the only way to pretend. Whatsoever he finds in himself which goes against perfection has to be repressed. He will be boiling within, he will be full of anger and rage. His anger and rage will come out in thousands of ways; in subtle ways, indirect ways, it will surface. Even people like Jesus -- nice, good -- are full of anger, rage: and they are against such innocent things -- you cannot believe.

Jesus comes followed by his followers -- that bunch of fools they call apostles. He is hungry, that whole bunch is hungry. They come to a fig tree, and the fig tree is not in season. It is not its fault, but Jesus gets so angry that he condemns the fig tree, he curses the fig tree. Now, how is this possible? On the one hand he says, "Love thy enemy as thyself." On the other hand he cannot even forgive a fig tree which has no fruits because it is not the season.

This dichotomy, this schizophrenia has prevailed in humanity for thousands of years.

He says, "God is love," but still God manages a hell. If God is love, the first thing to be destroyed should be hell; hell should be immediately burnt, removed. The very idea of hell is of a very jealous God. But Jesus was born a Jew, lived a Jew, died a Jew; he was not a Christian, he had never heard the word "Christian." And the Jewish idea of God is not a very beautiful idea.

The Talmud says -- the declaration is made in God's own words -- "I am a jealous God, very jealous. I am not nice! I am not your uncle!" This God is bound to create hell. In fact, to live even in heaven with such a God -- who is not your uncle, who is not nice, who is jealous -- will be hell. What kind of paradise will you have attained by living with him? There will be a despotic, dictatorial atmosphere -- no freedom, no love. Jealousy and love cannot exist together. So even the so-called good people have been causes of human misery. It hurts because we have never pondered over these things. We have never tried to excavate our past, and all the root causes of our misery are in our past. And, remember perfectly well, your past is more dominated by Jesus, Mahavira, Confucius, Krishna, Rama, Buddha, than by Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Tamburlaine, Genghis Khan, Nadir Shah. History books talk about these people, but they are not part of your unconscious. They may be part of history, but they don't make up your personality; your personality is formed by so-called good people. Certainly, they had a few good qualities in them, but side by side there was a duality, and the duality arose from the idea of perfection.

Jainas say that Mahavira never perspired. How can a perfect man perspire? I can perspire -- I am not a perfect man! And perspiration in summer is so beautiful that I would rather choose perspiration than perfection! Because a man who does not perspire simply has a plastic body, synthetic, non-breathing, non-porous. The whole body breathes, that's why you perspire; perspiration is a natural process of keeping your body temperature constantly the same. Now, Mahavira must be burning inside like hell! How will he manage to keep his body temperature constant? Without perspiration it cannot be done, it is impossible. Jainas say that when a snake wounded Mahavira's feet, not blood but milk flowed out of the feet. Now, milk is possible only if Mahavira's feet were not feet but breasts -- and a man who has breasts on his feet should be put in a circus! This is their idea of perfection: a perfect man cannot have a dirty thing like blood, a bloody thing like blood, he is full of milk and honey. But just imagine: a man full of milk and honey will stink! Milk will turn into curd and the honey will attract all kinds of mosquitoes and flies; he will be completely covered with flies! I don't like this kind of perfection.

Mahavira is so perfect that he does not urinate, does not defecate; these things are for imperfect human beings. You cannot imagine Mahavira sitting on a toilet seat -- impossible -- but then where does all his shit disappear to? Then he must be the shittiest man in the world.

I have read in the medical journals about a man -- the longest case of constipation: eighteen months. But these medical people are not aware of Mahavira -- this is nothing -- FORTY years! This is the longest period that any man has been able to control his bowels. This is real yoga! The greatest case of constipation in the whole history of man... and I don't think anybody is going to defeat him.

These stupid ideas have been perpetuated just to make humanity suffer. If you have these ideas in your mind then you will feel guilty about everything. Pissing, you are guilty -- what are you doing? Sitting on a toilet, and you are falling into hell! If blood comes out of your body -- a deep humiliation.

Jesus walks on water, tries to revive a dead friend, but cannot himself survive on the cross; tries to cure blind people, deaf people, but cannot make a single stupid man enlightened, cannot help a single fool to come out of his foolishness, cannot save a single human being by hitting him hard on the head and saying, "See, the goose is out!"

Thomas V. Kempis, I am very fallible because I am not a neurotic, I am not psychotic, I am not a perfectionist. And I love my imperfections... I love this world because it is imperfect. It is imperfect, and that's why it is growing; if it was perfect it would have been dead. Growth is possible only if there is imperfection. Perfection means a full stop, perfection means ultimate death; then there is no way to go beyond it.

I would like you to remember again and again, I am imperfect, the whole universe is imperfect, and to love this imperfection, to rejoice in this imperfection is my whole message.

The psychiatrist leaned back and placed the tips of his fingers together while he soothed the deeply-troubled man who stood before him. "Calm yourself, my good fellow," he gently urged. "I have helped a great many others with fixations far more serious than yours. Now, let me see if I understand the problem correctly. You indicate that in moments of great emotional stress you believe that you are a dog. A fox terrier, is that not so?" "Yes, sir," mumbled the patient. "A small fox terrier with black and brown spots. Oh, please tell me you can help me, doctor. If this keeps up much longer, I don't know what I'll do...." The doctor gestured toward the couch. "Now, now," he soothed, "the first thing to do is lie down here, and we'll see if we can't get to the root of your delusion." "Oh, I couldn't do that, doctor," said the patient. "I'm not allowed up on the furniture."

Once you get an idea deep-rooted in you it starts becoming a reality. Perfectionism is a neurotic idea. Infallibility is good for stupid Polack popes but not for intelligent people. An intelligent person will understand that life is an adventure, a constant exploration through trial and error. That's its very joy, its very juice!

I don't want you to be perfect. I want you to be just as perfectly imperfect as possible. Rejoice in your imperfections! Rejoice in your very ordinariness! Beware of so-called "His Holinesses" -- they are all "His Phoninesses." If you like such big words like "His Holiness" then make a title such as "His Very Ordinariness" -- HVO, not HH! I preach ordinariness. I make no claims for any miracles; I am a simple man. And I would like you also to be very simple so that you can get rid of these two polarities: that of guilt and that of hypocrisy. Exactly in the middle is sanity.

St Peter challenged the Archangel Gabriel to a game of golf. St. Peter's first drive resulted in a hole-in-one. Gabriel's first drive produced the same result The same thing happened at the next shot. St. Peter looked at Gabriel thoughtfully and then said, "What do you say we cut out the miracles and play some golf?"

I am not infallible, and I would never like to be infallible either, because that is suicidal. I would like to commit as many mistakes as possible and I would like to go on committing mistakes to the very end of my last breath, because that means life. If you are capable of committing mistakes even at the very last breath you have conquered death.

A Zen Master was dying... and I have a deep love for the Zen approach for the simple reason that they also rejoice in ordinariness. That's the beauty of Zen: no religion has been able to rise to such heights of ordinariness.

The Master was very old, nearabout eighty. He gathered his disciples and said, "Now this is my last day. I don't think I will be able to see the sunset, and the sun is setting on the horizon. I have called you all to suggest some new way to die." They were a little puzzled. They said, "What do you mean by 'new way'?" He said, "People have died in bed, people have died in the bathroom, people have died this way and that. All those things have been done before, and I always like to do things in a new way, in my own way. Can you suggest something? Have you ever heard of somebody dying in a standing posture?" There was silence. One man said, "Yes, I have heard about a Zen Master who died standing." He said, "Then that is dropped! Have you heard of anybody dying standing upside-down, on his head, doing a SIRSHASAN, a headstand?" Everybody said, "We have not heard of such a thing, we have not even imagined such a thing, that anybody would die standing on his head!" So he said, "That will do!" The old man stood on his head, and it is said that there were all the visible signs that he was dead. But there was a difficulty; the difficulty was that the Zen disciples were in a very puzzling situation: what to do with this old man now? They had never heard of any ritual for somebody dying standing on his head. What had to be done? They knew perfectly well what had to be done when somebody died in bed, but what to do with this man? And he was standing there dead on his head! Somebody suggested: "We should run.... His old sister lives just close by; she is a nun. She may be able to do something or suggest something. And she is even crazier than this old man!" So they ran. The sister came and shouted at her brother and said, "Look, your whole life you have been a trouble! At least die peacefully, don't make much fuss about it! And why are you driving these poor disciples crazy? Get up and lie down on the bed!" The old man laughed, got up and lay down on the bed, and he said, "Who has brought this crazy sister of mine here? She won't even let me die in an improper way!" But he said, "Okay, you be happy. This is your last desire, and I have never followed any advice of yours. At least this much I can do before I depart." But the woman did not stay there to see him depart. She said, "You just lie down there. I am going. And die on the bed in a proper way. No more trouble." And she left, and the old man died in the bed in a proper way.

This is how life should be lived. I am not a saint, I am not a sage. All those hocus-pocus words don't mean anything to me. I am certainly a little bit crazy, but it is because of my craziness that you can rely on me! Never rely on saints, never rely on sages -- they will drive you nuts!

It was teatime in the pad, and the air hung heavy in thick blue folds as the beat bunch and their tourist friends lit up. Suddenly, a loud voice in the hall demanded that they open the door in the name of legality. The smokers frantically gathered their still-smoking weeds and stuffed them in the cuckoo clock. The police entered, searched diligently, found nothing and left. The bunch breathed a sigh of relief and made for the cuckoo clock just as the clock's hands announced 3 a.m. The little door popped open, the bird poked his head out and said, "Hey, man, what time is it?"

Osho.

The Goose is out.

Ch 5

[faveficarchive]

Ways to Be Wicked

Part 2 of Vivian Darkbloom’s White Trash series

By Vivian Darkbloom

Pairing: Xena/Gabrielle

Rating: Mature

Synopsis: Callie finds the Lord, Zina’s past comes back to harass her, and Gabrielle is there for love and support (and burgers). 

I never claimed to be your savior. I said I had a dirty mouth. —Garbage, "Dumb"

The trailer formerly known as Zina's sat contentedly on its concrete foundations, sporting a new paint job on its exterior—a blazing red to dazzle and blind the hapless occupants of the trailer park, to let them know that the reticent firefighter who once lived there—and who had quite successfully entertained a string of blondes, one after another, stray housewives on "vacation," waitresses, recent fire victims, high school cheerleaders, the manager of the local Uni-Mart, and finally the factory girl-cum-poet who stole her heart—was no longer the mistress of said dwelling.

Its lone tenant sat inside the fire-red mobile home twirling locks of her white-blonde hair and watched, for the twelfth time in twenty minutes, a little Chihuahua mouth the words "Yo quiero Taco Bell." She gritted her teeth and her flat tummy rumbled. Once again the baseball bat of commercialism had smashed against the addled brow of another complicit, blissfully unaware TV viewer. With a growl she jumped up, snatched the keys to her Camaro off the table, and went off into the night.

An hour later she sat stuffed with the bounty of Taco Bell, and her mind, always chattering, chattering, chattering…well, finally the synapses gave out and she fell asleep.

And she dreamed. A voice, disembodied, spoke to her. Callie, it whispered fervently. Listen. She tossed her head about, hoping to shake the annoying voice. "No, stop," she moaned in her sleep.

Callie! Don't resist me, my child! Who was that? It sounded like…

Callie, you must change your life. Zina has shown you forgiveness, you can show her the same…you must release the rage in your soul, you must purify yourself again.

It was…Charlton Heston! Wasn't he the old guy who played Moses in that movie? And he was speaking to her—the foggy image grew clearer—through the Taco Bell Chihuahua.

You must give yourself over to the Lord, Callie. Let Jesus Christ into your heart.

"No!" she cried aloud again. Silence. She was grateful, and started to drift into a deeper level of unconsciousness…then…

Why not? the voice demanded petulantly.

"I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy!" she wailed.

Ah, but you are, my child. You are worth saving. That's why I'm here. You have the fire within you, Callie.

"I do, I do!"

You must accept Jesus as your own personal savior. And you must go forth into the world and spread my word, for I am the light and the way to salvation. Do you know what to do now?

"I do, I do!"

Callie woke up. Aside from the massive, almost crippling pain in her stomach, she felt great. She rose from her bed, ran to the door and flung it open. A breeze blew back her hair, and the moon glowed.

"Lord, I hear you!" she screamed into the night. "I shall do as you say! From this moment I am born again!!!"

The crickets cackled their approval. The stars twinkled benignly. And a lone male voice, from two trailers away, shouted, "Shut up, you crazy bitch!"

***

Gabrielle laid on the couch and read aloud from the book she held: " 'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…' " She paused and closed her eyes. "Oh, wow…you were so right about this…the more I read it, the clearer and clearer it becomes…" she said to her companion, as she clutched the thin paperback of Howl to her chest.

Cyrene, sitting on the floor, leaned over and handed the joint to Gabrielle, their second one of the day. "See, honey, I told you…you just needed to relax and let your mind open up…" she waved her hands around, and her jewelry chink-ed in affirmation.

"Yeah…" Gabrielle sucked on the joint with a hiss. "When they assigned this to us in class, I just thought it was a bunch of bullshit written by some crazy hippie…uh, no offense, Cyrene."

"None taken, honey." She took the cigarette back from Gabrielle. "Cause you know something?" She took a hit.

"Hmmm?"

"It is a bunch of bullshit written by some crazy hippie!"

They dissolved into giggles, which turned into hysterical laughter once Gabrielle looked at the back cover photo of Allen Ginsburg again.

"Did you know—he was gay?" Cyrene informed Gabrielle, pointing at the photo.

"Really? Wow!" Gabrielle was still at the stage of her young life when one is continually astonished to learn that others in the wide world share one's inclinations.

"The 60s were a great time, Gabrielle." Here she goes again, Gabrielle thought. "Like, you could be gay and no one would care. No labels, man. You could experiment with sex and no one would care…I mean, I am not ashamed to say I had an encounter with another woman." She placed her hand over her heart to signify her sincerity.

"You did, Cyrene?" Gabrielle was impressed.

"Yeah. It was after I broke up with the drummer of Strawberry Alarm Clock. Man, that was a bad scene. Anyway, I kinda didn't want to deal with guys for a while, so I got involved with a chick. It was a beautiful, healing experience."

Gabrielle had ingested enough talk show fodder over the course of many years to know that "beautiful healing experiences" were usually pretty boring ones you could do without. Nonetheless she nodded solemnly at Cyrene. Then she heard a faint rumble. At first she thought it was her stomach. Man, I just ate two burritos half an hour ago….Then the sound grew louder, and more distinct. It was Zina's Harley. She sat bolt upright. "Shit! Zina's home!"

"Damn!" Cyrene crushed the lit end of the joint against the floor using her beer can. Then, in a panicky fit, she used the copy of Howl to brush the roach and all the ashes under the couch.

"Get the Lysol!" Gabrielle cried as she ran to the window. She and Cyrene had been sitting upstairs in her "study." She hoped that if she opened the window it would fumigate the room before Zina's hypersensitive nostrils could detect any aroma.

She flung open the window and looked down. She yelped again. The one flaw in her plan was that the room overlooked the front of the farm house; in fact, it was directly under where Zina usually parked her bike. The noise of the opened window caused her firefighter girlfriend to look up at her in surprise.

"Hi honey!" Gabrielle shouted, at a loss.

"Hey," Zina called up with a smile. She climbed off the Harley. "Anything wrong?"

"No! Nothing! Not at all."

"Why'd ya open the window?" It was cold out.

"I just wanted to say hi to you, baby!"

"You coulda done that inside." Zina was strangely logical at the oddest times.

"I know but, baby, I just love you so much I couldn't wait!" Gabrielle heard Cyrene behind her, her jewelry making the middle-aged woman sound like the percussion section of a Hare Krishna contingent as she waved around the hissing can of Lysol.

"Uh huh," Zina grunted skeptically. Carrying her fire helmet, she headed for the front door. Probably smoking reefer with Mom again, she thought, casting a look at Cyrene's powder-blue Volkswagen bug. As she entered the house she saw Gabrielle coming down the stairs with Cyrene. The little blonde ran right at her and jumped into her arms, smothering her lips with a kiss. The fire helmet dropped to the floor with a clang.

"Man, the honeymoon is never over with you two!" Cyrene said. It had been almost eight months since they had moved in together, six since they had been living at the farmhouse at Effie's behest; Effie, her new paramour, Hank, and her band, the Amazons, were all in Memphis, recording a new rockabilly album.

"How was your day, stud? Want some chicken pot pie?" Gabrielle cooed.

"Yes, please. Let me help you…" Zina carried Gabrielle into the kitchen. Cyrene shook her head. "Crazy kids," she muttered, then dashed upstairs to retrieve the roach she left under the couch.

***

Callie careened down Chakram Creek Road in her Camaro. She sang loudly with the radio: "I fell down, down, down into a burning ring of fire…down, down, down and the flames, they ran higher…and it BURNED BURNED BURNED, this burning ring of fire…" She was on her way to see the one person she was certain could help her in her mission to serve the Lord and save Zina. She had to save Zina, she realized, for the woman, corrupt as hellfire as she was, started her on her Journey to Jesus by giving her a home to live in.

She pulled into the parking lot of the Morpheus Mini-Mall, a desolate little stretch of under-utilized stores and buildings. There was a liquor store, a video store with a yellowed poster of "Ernest Goes to Jail" in the window, a frozen yogurt shop, a fabric store, and, near the end of the complex, a plain white sign on a door, which read "Ares Ministries, Inc."

Callie, of course, expected him to be alone, and he was. Artie, Zina's former friend, ex-sometimes-boyfriend, and maybe sorta either her first cousin or half-brother (Cyrene wasn't talking), sat at a desk in his fake-wood-paneled office reading "Guns and Ammo." He wore a scratchy looking light gray suit he bought at K-Mart for $29.95, and his green and brown knit tie was loosened at his throat. When Callie entered he looked up at her in utter shock, and, disbelieving, ran his hand through his long dark hair and then stroked his goatee. "Callie," he murmured.

"Artie." They stared at each other.

"I can't say I'm surprised to see you here. I always knew you'd find your way to me and the Lord."

Callie blinked. "Really?" She wanted to believe, oh so much…

He nodded solemnly. "My prayers have been answered, Callie. You are here, and I know why. "

"You do?" Callie said impatiently.

"Yes!" he stated firmly. He tried not to look too closely at the cutoff shorts she wore…even in February. He hoped she wasn't here to borrow money again, but he had a feeling, this morning, as he prayed…that God would send her to him. "You are ready to serve with me at the head of Christ's Army, Callie."

"I am, Artie! I truly am! I had a vision last night. The Lord spoke to me, and—"

"—and what did he sound like?" Artie narrowed his eyes and his voice lowered a register.

"Like…oh, that old dude, what's-his-face....You know, Ben-Hur." Wisely she omitted the part about how He looked.

Artie nodded with approval. He knew then her vision was real. "Go on."

"And God said I must spread the word! And I knew, Artie, I knew you were the only soul to help me. And…God said I must save Zina."

"Zina?" His interest piqued at the mention of his ex-lover's/cousin's/half-sister's name. He cursed himself at the hold this devil still had over him. Zina was his cross to bear, she was a test from the Lord, and sweet baby Jesus she looked divine when she was working out. (Sorry, Lord.) He stroked his goatee again. He knew the incredible guilt Zina felt about Callie, about the house in Cirra. Technically, he had been involved in that whole mess, but Callie didn't need to know that—it would only confuse her and detract from her mission. Besides, he'd paid his debt to his Savior. If Callie could use that guilt against her, she could bring Zina into the fold, and they would lead the Lord's Army of Love together! He could do it, with Zina at his side…the cable show would be revitalized, he'd get another book deal, he might even be asked to be a guest host on the 700 Club.…

He stood up and walked to Callie. Grasping her thin shoulders, he said, "Sister, it shall be done. I shall send you on your first mission. I shall send you to save that poor backslidden soul."

"Praise God, Artie!"

"But first…we go shopping."

***

Callie pulled at the tight collar of her white frilly blouse. She wasn't used to wearing something so close to her neck. But, she thought with a sigh, her body was no longer just something to flaunt, to use mindlessly—no, her body was sacred as a church, and it needed to be covered and protected as such. She adjusted the skirt of the light pink suit that Artie had selected for her at Sears. Drawing a deep breath and clutching the new Bible that he had given her as well, she opened the door of the parked Camaro and walked warily toward the farmhouse, the den of iniquity. How much sin has gone on in this place? she thought righteously, remembering its former occupants. Of course, Zina lived here now with that little tart…Callie's nostrils flared at the mere thought of the slut. She stopped. Then she took a deep, cleansing breath. "In with love, out with anger…" she muttered to herself. Steadying herself once again, she walked toward the farmhouse. I am a pillar of strength, I am filled and blessed with love, I shall be strong in the face of evil…she drew another deep breath and rang the doorbell. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall…

Zina opened the door. She wore nothing but a sleeveless white under-shirt which clung to her broad shoulders, muscled torso, and perfect breasts; black lycra shorts clung even more ferociously to her firm, luscious thighs. She cradled a barbell in one hand; a sheen of sweat covered her exposed skin, making her entire body glow and glisten. She shook her damp black hair and fixed her luminous blue eyes on Callie.

…want. She maketh me to lie down in black satin sheets, and…stop stop stop!!!

All thoughts of God had flown from Callie's head, except a brief fleeting thanks to the Almighty for making such a magnificent creature.

"Callie?" Zina said, utterly confused at the presence of her arch enemy. "Uh, is somethin' wrong with the trailer?"

"…zugzug…" She tried to speak but could not. But what were these noises? Hey, I'm speaking in tongues! Cool!

Zina looked her over, taking in the suit. "You got a job interview or something?"

Lord, I am fading fast. Help me! Send me a sign!

Zina shifted a little nervously; in doing so, she gripped her barbell tighter, causing a perfect bicep to flex. Her eyebrow twitched.

It was all too much.

"Oh Zina!" Callie cried. She flung her arms around the firefighter's neck and planted a wet kiss on her lips. Her wildly flailing tongue sought to break the barrier of Zina's warm mouth, but alas, her lips were in as good a shape as the rest of her (thanks to Gabrielle), and withstood the onslaught. She placed the tip of the barbell on Callie's chin in an effort to pry away the born-again beast. Callie didn't know how it happened, but before she knew it she was kissing a barbell. She withdrew, sputtering.

"What the hell's gotten into you?" Zina growled.

"Oh Zina," Callie moaned at the memory of those perfect lips on her own, "I have been sent here to save you, my child." She thrust the Bible into the firefighter's face.

Zina was so shocked at the turn of events that her barbell slipped from her sweaty grasp and fell onto Callie's foot, shod in a pair of pumps from Payless.

"Oh Zina!" This time it was a howl of agony.

***

Gabrielle burst through the door of the farmhouse, expertly carrying a pizza, a six-pack, two bags of Doritos, a two-liter bottle of 7-UP, and a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey...with most of said items balanced on top of the pizza. "Honey, I'm home!!" she bellowed. She heard the radio from upstairs, and figured Zina was in her weight room, working out. Her assumption grew even stronger when she tripped over the barbell near the door and sent the precariously balanced food sailing merrily off the top of the pizza as she fell to the floor. She landed on her stomach, the weight of her backpack pinning her down (why did I have to take Fat Novel 101 this semester?). However, she managed to keep the pizza upright. Turning, she glared at the offending object and shouted, "Goddammit Zina, I told you not to leave your weights lying around down here!" Last week she had stubbed her toe on a hand weight that had been on the kitchen floor, for Christ's sake.

The guilty party sauntered down the steps. "Hiya, baby. Sorry 'bout that." Zina proceeded to pick up the scattered groceries. "How was school?"

"Uh…good." Zina noticed that Gabrielle hadn't moved; she laid there on the carpet, staring into space.

"Didja hurt yourself?" she asked, padding over to Gabrielle.

"Zina?" The tone was icy. It was that tone Gabrielle used when she was either really pissed or PMSing big time.

The firefighter gulped. "Uh, yeah, baby, what is it?"

"Why is there lipstick on your barbell?"

***

"Arise from your numb existence, readers. Awash yourself in Christ's beautiful and healing waters, awake in forgetfulness of the sins of the past. For the chariots of war are upon us, Satan's deceptive dreamworkers will rob you of your cradle of hope. Together, we shall embark on a quest for our destiny, to repay a debt and to sacrifice our wrongdoings for the greater good."

—Rev. Callie de Ash, from her book I Didn't Find God, But He Sure Did Find Me, p. 25

Callie awoke from her painkiller-induced slumber. Her dreams had been pleasant enough—she dreamt she owned a Porsche and had won the Indy 500, and then she drove through a huge daisy-filled meadow crushing every single daisy and ran over Gabrielle and a bunch of silly bunny rabbits too and grabbed Zina and threw her in the car and…

…then she was fully awake and staring into Artie's faintly disapproving and totally condescending face. The minister sat at the foot of her hospital bed. "You poor child," he sighed. He moved his chair closer to her, and took her hand. "The demon proved too much for you, didn't she?"

Defeated, Callie nodded sadly. Zina's barbell had broken innumerable bones in her foot and then, while she limped to the car (refusing any assistance from Satan's Handmaiden) her heel got tangled in some weeds and she fell, spraining her ankle.

"Callie," Artie clucked, "this is just as much my fault. I never should've sent you to her. She's a powerful one, Zina is. I have no doubt she will be dragged kicking and screaming into salvation. I know you wanted to be the one to bring her to God, but perhaps…" He stroked his chin. "…perhaps I need to try. At any rate I must confront her, after what she did to you." Callie had told him that the sadistic firefighter had jumped up and down on her foot with her shit-stomping boots, and had even trod upon her pristine Bible!

"I reckon you're right, Artie. I was too weak—too tempted by her. Don't believe anything she says, though!"

"Don't worry, child. I am prepared to battle the devil."

***

Cyrene turned off her sputtering Volkswagen. She grabbed the grocery bag, which contained organic yogurt and tofu burgers (she had been much horrified by the spectacle of Zina devouring a Spamburger last week and began anew her campaign to make her daughter a vegetarian). She got out of the car and headed to the house. With some confusion she noticed that the Harley was there but the Escort was not—she was supposed to be "studying" this evening with Gabrielle—in fact, she had brought her best bong, knowing that they would be tackling Modernism and that Gabrielle would need all the help she could get.

She entered the farmhouse and found Zina sulking in front of the TV, watching NASCAR.

"Hey honey," Cyrene called.

Her daughter grunted.

Trouble in paradise, Cyrene thought. "Where's Gabrielle?" she asked gently.

"At Lila's."

"Oh. Will she be back soon?"

"Nope."

"Aw come on, honey, spill it. Did you two have a fight?"

"Yeah."

Cyrene sighed. It was going to be a long night. "I'll be back in a few minutes." She definitely needed to have a few tokes before dealing with this. Patting her macramé purse, she retreated to the bathroom.

***

"I told you your unnatural relationship would fall apart," Lila said. She held a squalling baby—her daughter, named Tiffani Amber.

Gabrielle sat at her kitchen table, arms crossed. "Shaddup," she snarled at her sister.

Lila blew a stand of hair out of her face; shaking her head sadly, she took the baby into the bedroom for her nap.

Purdy, who had moved in with Lila after Gabrielle moved out, stood awkwardly in the kitchen. He had just got home from work to find his former girlfriend sulking in the kitchen with Lila, his current one, who was berating her sister at every turn. He actually felt sorry for Gabrielle—and he even liked Zina once he got to know her. Every time he saw her they had pretty cool conversations about motorcycles. He pulled two cans of Bud out of the fridge and handed one to Gabrielle. "C'mon, Gab, it'll make you feel better."

"Thanks," she said, taking the can from him. She popped it open and took a big gulp. "Purdy, you don't think I'm…weird or unnatural, do you?" Her green eyes begged for understanding, while her upper lip was covered in beer foam.

Was she weird? He had been surprised by it all, but not too—he remembered that when they were dating he made the mistake of looking through her diary and had read a rather detailed and explicit sexual fantasy involving Kate Jackson. He had found it very…interesting, in a stimulating kinda way. No wonder she always rushed home from school to watch Charlie's Angels. "What? Naw, hell no, Gab. It's your life. Not for me to judge. 'Sides," he added shyly, "Zina's pretty cute."

Gabrielle smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

"Wanna go down to the Saddle and get wasted?"

"Sure!"

***

"Trust me, honey, I had two years' worth of EST seminars."

Zina shifted nervously in her chair. Her mother's attempts to help in these significant arenas of her life left much to be desired. She recalled when, at the age of 12, she began menstruating; she had the typical feelings of confusion and ambivalence about it that most teenage girls encountered. Cyrene chose to mark the occasion with what she called a "feminist ritual": When Zina came home from school one day, sanitary napkin chafing, she found their house dark and eerie, lit only with candles, and "White Rabbit" echoing ominously from the stereo. Cyrene, wearing a purple-red muumuu, blathered something about how Zina will drink her own menstrual blood "because Germaine Greer said it's the true test of a woman." Zina didn't know who the fuck Germaine Greer was, but it was all weird enough to make her think her mother was involved in some cult and so she ran screaming from the house, spending the next month living with Artie and his family, until she made her mother swear that (1) she was not in a cult, and (2) she would cut down on the hallucinogens for a while.

So here she was, sitting at the dining room table with Cyrene, who said that her "under-emoting" child needed to get in touch with her feelings and she would be happy to help her do so. She said it would improve her "communication skills" with Gabrielle…whatever that meant…and that she would learn to "take responsibility" for her actions…even though IT WASN'T HER FAULT that Callie went insane and kissed her, it wasn't her fault that Gabrielle didn't understand this and had hit her…unconsciously she touched her cheek. Never had she been so frightened—not even in a crumbling, burning building—than when Gabrielle had pulled out of her knapsack the thickest paperback book Zina had ever seen, stalked over to her, and swung the mighty Modernist tome—Zina barely had the chance to read the name Ulysses—against the side of her head.

Cyrene sat across from her with a paper and pencil. "Now, I want you to tell me all the things you love about Gabrielle. Be as specific as you like."

The firefighter dropped her dark head against her strong forearms, which were propped on the table. Just like she used to do in high school.

What I do love about Gabrielle? Well, she's got a nice smile…her hair is pretty…she smells good…she makes a great chicken pot pie…yum!…I love her abs, the way they ripple when she's about to come…oh, and the meatloaf is pretty awesome…her skin is so soft…and she's a great kisser…and…and…I love how smart she is, how she figures things out so quickly…I love it that she's so kind…so gentle…like how she cried when she heard about baby seals getting clubbed…I love it when I hear her sticking up for herself and screaming "Fuck you!" at that dumbass sister of hers…I even love it when she recites stupid poetry to me that I don't get at all…

"Sure you don't want a little...?" Cyrene mimicked puffing on a joint. "It might help."

"No," Zina snapped. She sighed in frustration. "Aw, fuck, Mom, I love everything about her," she growled reluctantly. She hated getting all mushy.

Cyrene smiled and scribbled something down on the pad..

***

It was almost 3 in the morning. Zina had slept fitfully since midnight, when her mother had left. However, she was in a decidedly deeper state of consciousness when a noise brutally ripped her from a pleasant dream about becoming the first female quarterback for the Broncos:

"SMOKE ON THE WATER! A FIRE IN THE SKY!"

The entire house pulsated to the sound of Deep Purple. She sat upright, eyes bulging. She groped under the bed for her baseball bat, although it was doubtful the intruders were really thieves. Nonetheless, she thought evilly as she hefted the bat, I'm gonna fuckin' kill whoever is down there.

As she bolted out of the bedroom and approached the top of the stairs, she heard a figure treading lightly toward the top, oblivious to her presence. She snapped on the hall light.

Ed looked up at her, John Deere hat backwards and a little askew on his head. More than slightly trashed, he swayed on the steps. "Z!" he cried in greeting. "Hope we didn't wake you."

The long reach of Zina snared his flannel shirt and hauled him up the remaining few steps, until her snarling face was within an inch of his. "What the fuck are you doing here?" she said in her lowest voice.

"Hey, chill out! We brought Gabby home."

"We?"

She released him and he staggered against the steps, almost falling down until she grabbed him again. He giggled. "Me and Purdy. They're downstairs." He regained his balance and she released him tentatively. "But man…I gotta tell ya…I, uh, got into a little trouble with the truck, Z…"

She leaned on the baseball bat as if it were a walking stick and sighed in resignation. "Don't tell me you wrecked it again."

"Well, not exactly…I hit something."

"A deer?"

He shook his head.

"What? Someone's dog? Cat?"

Again, his head responded no.

She was losing patience. "What then, Ed?"

"A cow," he mumbled apologetically.

She grabbed him by the shirt again. "A cow? Is Gabrielle all right?"

He nodded in the affirmative.

"How the hell did you hit a cow?"

"I tried a shortcut," he moaned. "Look Z, I really gotta piss."

She released him again. "Go, then," she growled, giving him a shove toward the bathroom. She stomped downstairs.

She saw Gabrielle's red-gold hair splayed across the arm of the couch. "Gabrielle?" she called gently as she approached.

The young woman was curled up fetally, clutching an empty mason jar which reeked of beer. She was snoring. Zina took the afghan from the back of the couch and tucked it around her sleeping form.

Purdy was standing in front of the stereo playing air guitar when he spotted Zina. "Hey old buddy!" he shouted, stumbling over to her. He was even drunker than Ed. He flung an arm around her. "We brought your woman home!" he said proudly. With a burp.

"That's great, Purdy. Thanks," Zina replied sincerely, while flinching from the smell of the burp.

Suddenly he started to cry and hugged her. "I love you, man!"

"I love you too," she replied, whatever thread of patience she possessed threatening to snap. "Now get the hell out of here."

***

Alas, she had not gotten Ed and Purdy to leave for another hour; she felt obligated to help Ed wipe cow blood and gore off the front of his Ford pickup (apparently his "shortcut" was through Farmer Draco's pasture). There was a huge dent across the front of it, but she checked out everything under the hood and it seemed to be running fine. When Ed was sober enough to drive, she sent the boys on their way.

Gabrielle was still passed out on the couch when she dragged herself off to bed at 4:30. She had considered carrying the girl up to bed, but didn't want to disturb her sleep. And, frankly, she was pretty tired and had to get up for work in less than 3 hours.

Zina hadn't slept for more than 2 hours when she felt something heavy lying across her body. A sickly sweet breeze, smelling like cough medicine (like Jagermeister, she thought later), trickled across her face. Then she felt something warm and wet against her cheek, like a dog licking her.

She opened her eyes. In the fuzzy light of predawn, she made out Gabrielle's grinning face above her. "Pumpkin pie!" Gabrielle burbled happily.

Zina did not know if this was an endearment or a craving.

"Gabrielle?" she mumbled sleepily.

"Baby, I'm really sorry about yesterday…I got so jealous. I didn't want to come home at all, but Ed and Purdy got me too drunk so I couldn't protest much. Then I read what you wrote on the fridge."

"Huh?"

"You know!" Playfully she slapped Zina on the arm. Then Zina remembered: Her mother had posted the results of their "therapeutic session"—the message that "Zina loves everything about Gabrielle"—on the refrigerator with a Coke magnet.

"It's true," Zina said. It was, and didn't matter who wrote it, she figured.

"Ooooh, I love you, stud muffin!"

***

If you want to woo her

You will surely delight her

With a sweet tasting kiss

From a big ol' firefighter!

--"A Fire in the House of Love," performed by Effie and the Amazons. Music by Effie Phantes, lyrics by Gabrielle Hockenberry

The hangover was so atrocious that to even listen to anything on the radio was horrible. Especially Celine Dion. The lung-devouring wails of the woman were like a hang nail being torn across her consciousness. Maybe I kinda understand now why Zina doesn't like her, Gabrielle thought, switching off the radio with one hand and clutching her head with another.

She was sitting in the kitchen, wincing at the bitter taste of the instant coffee, when the doorbell rang. Still cradling her head, she wandered to the door, wearing her Olympus County Community College t-shirt and the baggy plaid boxer shorts she wore around the house.

A handsome man stood at the door, dressed in a dark suit and tie. His long dark hair touched his shoulders and he had a goatee. He was very striking, she thought, and vaguely familiar. Her mind raced and in her excitement the hangover lessened.

"Oh my GOD," she squealed, taking him by surprise, "you're the lead singer from Metallica, aren't you??"

His dark eyes grew wide with horror. "What?" he said.

"You are! Wow, this is SO cool! Are you lost or something? Hey, my girlfriend LOVES Metallica!! Would you autograph something?" Before he could respond she ran into the living room and retrieved one of her notebooks and a pen. "Okay, could you just write something like, 'Zina, you are an awesome chick' and sign it?"

He rolled his eyes. "I am not the lead singer of Metallica!" he growled. "I'm Artie Guerre. An old friend of Zina's..."

Gabrielle's excitement dissipated and was replaced by mistrust. So this was the infamous Artie. "You're Xena's cousin," she stated flatly, green eyes glinting suspiciously, "or is it half-brother?" she added accusingly.

"Nobody's even proven that," he said, shaking a finger into her face. "Where is Zina? I want to talk to her."

"She's at work, duh. D'ya see her cycle anywhere?" Gabrielle waved her arm around.

"Look, young lady, don't you take that tone with me. I am minister," Artie said proudly.

Gabrielle cackled in disbelief.

"You may laugh all you like, Satan's strumpet, but I know the nature of your relationship with our dear Zina is less than pure."

"Pure?" she snorted. "You're a fine one to talk about pure, Artie. You set fire to a house and slept with someone who might be your sister. So don't you lecture me. I love Zina."

"Love her enough to see her go to jail again, missy? 'Cause that's what's gonna happen unless I get to speak with her!" Artie demanded.

"What the hell are you talkin' about?"

"Zina assaulted one of my disciples. Callie."

"Bullshit! The crazy slut assaulted Zina!"

Artie raised one of his black brows. "Really?" asked smoothly. "Well, who do you think a court of law would believe—a follower of God or some dyke with a record?"

***

All Zina knew was that one minute she was looking at a rerun of the Simpsons, and the next she was staring at Gabrielle's midriff. Her little companion, in an effort to get attention, had planted herself in front of the TV. This meant either one of three things:

Gabrielle was horny. (Unlikely, thought the firefighter, scanning the scowl on the young poet's face.)

Gabrielle wanted to have a Sensitive Chat. (Again, that scowl. Nope, she usually gets all puppy-eyed, so that's not it.)

Gabrielle was pissed about something. (Yeah, I think this is the one. Did I leave another weight on a floor somewhere? Tracked mud on the carpet? Did she finally notice the ring of soot I left on the lip of the milk carton the other day?)

Zina was a brave woman, and resigned to her fate. "Okay, what did I do now?" she sighed.

"How come," Gabrielle began slowly, her hands on hips, "everyone you sleep with either dies or goes crazy?"

"Huh?"

"Come on, tell me."

"It's not true…I mean, I slept with Hank, and he's alive and pretty normal, don't you think?"

"Well, he's the exception to the rule, I guess. Although who knows, maybe listening to Effie and the Amazons 24/7 might just push him over the edge."

"...and there was Ed, he's kinda normal..."

Gabrielle blinked in shock. "Ed? You slept with Ed?"

"It was only once, Gabrielle. I just did it to make Hank jealous." She grinned with sheepish pride. "Worked, too."

Gabrielle moaned and shook her head. "I met Artie today, Zina."

"Artie? Where?"

"He came out here looking for you. What a fuckin' nutjob he is."

"No shit, Sherlock. What did he want?"

"He's very pissed about Callie. Went on about how you assaulted her, said he was going to get her to press charges against you…"

Zina threw up her hands (after placing her can of Rolling Rock on the end table) in disbelief. "Fine, let 'em press charges! I didn't do anything wrong!"

"He said he and Callie are willing to let bygones be bygones if you come on his cable access show. He wants you to repent on TV, accept Christ into your heart, and ask for some pledges."

The firefighter's blue eyes grew icy. Which both chilled and thrilled Gabrielle. "I always knew it would come down to this," she muttered.

***

Gabrielle grabbed the ringing phone. "Den of iniquity!" she cried in greeting.

"Jesus H. Christ, you sure are learning big words in school," Effie’s voice responded.

"Effie!!" The squeal reverberated around the house, causing Zina to wince and grind her teeth, and a village of termites to vacate the premises. "How the hell are you! I MISS YOU!!!"

"I’m great, Gab honey. Our new album is coming out next week, with your song on it, of course! Hank loved it."

"Cool. How’re Pony and Sally?"

"Well, they had a rough time of it recently…"

"Uh oh. What happened?"

"Well, uh, promise not to tell anyone…"

"Okay. What?"

"Well, Sally had an affair with Wynonna Judd…"

"No!"

"Yeah! It was wild. But they worked it all out."

"How?" Gabrielle asked, mystified. Pony was not the most reasonable creature on God’s green earth.

"Well, then Pony slept with Wynonna and they decided to call it even."

"Can I tell Zina?"

"Oh sure, what the hell. Can’t quite see Tall, Dark, and Sullen running around telling people."

Gabrielle saw Zina in the kitchen, pulling on her leather jacket. "Eff, I gotta go. I hafta go help Tall, Dark, and Sullen with something…"

"And knowing you two, it’s something in the bedroom. Okay, Gab, I’ll talk to you later."

She hung the phone and ran into the kitchen. "Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go."

Zina gave her a blank stare. "Gabrielle, I don’t want you to come. It might get ugly." She was on her way to meet Artie at Roy Roger’s, in the hopes that they could reach an amicable solution to the Callie problem.

"Oh no, bitch. You’re not leaving me behind. We’re a team, remember? You may need me. And I promised you I’d always support you no matter what." She paused and gazed into her beloved’s deep blue eyes. "I may have been stoned when I said it, but I still meant it."

Zina broke into one of her lovely lop-sided grins. "Okay, baby."

"Besides, I really want a Triggerburger."

***

Artie sat at a table at Roy’s. His tray was littered with the ruins of his dinner. Arms folded, he glared up at Zina and Gabrielle, who were walking toward him. Zina was sucking on a shake, Gabrielle held a tray piled with three burgers and an order of fries.

They sat down across from him.

"You’re late," he growled.

Zina shrugged. Her ravenous small companion ripped the paper wrapper off a burger and started to devour it.

"Dear Lord, what a savage," Artie said condescendingly, looking at Gabrielle’s puffed out cheeks.

"Look Artie, knock off the bullshit. Gabrielle told me what you want. I’m not gonna do it. I’m sorry about Callie’s foot, but it was an accident."

"Hold your tongue, sinner!" Artie raised his hand. "I’ve had just enough of your lies and deception, Zina. You injured a member of my flock. A woman who has turned out to be more valuable to me than I ever could have imagined. I have placed my trust so thoroughly in Callie that I have given over to her the leadership of my ex-gay ministry, Homo Helpers."

***

Callie reached out and gently grasped the shoulders of the young man. "We’ll start out slowly, okay? No nudity at first. I just want you to get an appreciation of the female form."

The young man, terrified, nodded quickly. One minute he had been sitting in the office space of the Gay & Lesbian Student Union at the Olympus County Community College Student Center, then the next thing he knew this crazy chick in a pink suit, with a big cast on her foot, comes in, hits him over the head with a big black Bible, and he passed out. Then he woke up in this strange office with the crazy chick who started babbling to him about being saved, changing his ways, and so on….and he was tied to a chair, the ropes cutting into his thin little torso, clad only in an old Absolutely Fabulous t-shirt. Boy, if I get rope burns on this, Patrick is going to get really suspicious, he fretted.

The crazy blonde, who said her name was Callie, sat on the desk in front of him. She had a stack of photos by her side. "Now don’t be scared…what’s your name again, kid?"

"Chad," he whispered.

"Chad! See, no wonder you’re gay, with a name like that. Okay, Chad, take a deep breath…"

He did.

She held up a photo of Gillian Anderson, wearing a black bra. "Take it all in, Chad. Doin’ anything for ya?"

He stared at the photo.

"Talk to me, Chad. What do you like about her?"

"Uh…that’s a fabulous bra she’s wearing."

"Like to see more, huh?"

"Yeah, like I’d love to see her all in black lingerie. I’m sure it’d be a really kicky outfit. My friend Kevin is majoring in fashion design…"

"No!! Dammit, kid, stop being a fairy and focus on her body! Her face! Whaddya see?"

"They did a good makeup job on her. Her lipstick is perfect. It’s a good shade for her."

"You’re doing this deliberately to drive me crazy, you little brat. Look at her! She’s gorgeous! Look at those knockers! They’re lovely! They’re perfect!" Callie peeked at the photo herself. And became mesmerized. "They’re…oh Lord, they’re divine," she moaned. Defeated once again, she buried her face in her hands.

"Uh…Callie, is it?" Chad ventured gently.

"Yeah, what?"

"Sweetie, I don’t think this is working. Look, it’s Gay Night at Dahak’s Temple. Why don’t we go have a nice drinkie together…"

She looked up.

"Margaritas are half-price," he added hopefully.

***

"Baby, are you okay?" Zina asked anxiously, peering down at Gabrielle. At the mention of the Homo Helpers the little poet had laughed so hard that she spat half-eaten burger all over Artie’s best suit (from Sears) and fell off the seat in a fit of hysterics. Zina’s reaction, given her personality, was more subdued; she had merely blown out some milkshake from her nose.

"Homo Helpers," Gabrielle giggled helplessly.

"What’s so darn funny?" Artie demanded as Gabrielle climbed back into the booth.

"I think you should think ‘bout changing that name, Artie," Zina guffawed. "Have you been getting a lot of calls from people wanting to know where the nearest gay bar is?"

Artie glared at her suspiciously. "How did you know?"

"Just a wild guess."

"It was the best I could do under the circumstances! Nonetheless, Zina, I have Callie all prepared to press charges against you. She can hardly get around at all. It was a very serious injury."

At that moment they saw, from their window booth at Roy’s, Callie’s red Camaro pull up to the stoplight. The crazed blonde took the opportunity to stand up in the car and dance to the throbbing beat of the Pet Shop Boys which emanated from the car stereo. A young man, seated beside her, did the same. The light changed. A pickup behind them blared its horn. Callie flipped him the bird. After another minute of frantic dancing, she finally put the vehicle in drive and they were gone.

The trio sat in stunned silence.

"Who was that dude with Callie?" Zina asked no-one in particular.

"Oh, it looked like Chad. He’s president of the gay student union at OCCC," Gabrielle said. She merrily returned to the task of eating.

"Hell’s bells," muttered Artie. "The Lord is making my work very difficult indeed." He thrust a finger into Zina’s face. "I blame you for this, Zina. Obviously the injury has affected her judgment."

Zina flicked a French fry at him.

"Watch the suit!" he cried. "it’s bad enough your little tart spewed half-eaten cow all over it."

"Fuck off, Artie," Zina drawled in a bored manner.

"You haven’t heard the last of me yet!" He rose from his seat and stalked off. He half-turned to give Zina one last glare and tripped over a poorly placed mop and bucket. He snarled and staggered off.

"Man, he’s just like Snidely Whiplash," Gabrielle complained.

The firefighter laughed. "So which one of us is Dudley Do-Right?"

"You, of course, stud muffin." Gabrielle paused. "Although you’re smarter than Dudley Do-Right…and not quite as goody-two-shoes. You’re more a classic anti-hero."

"A…what?" Zina scrunched up her angular face. "I dunno if I like the sound of that."

"It’s a good thing, baby. Trust me. I learned it in school."

"School? You’re learning about cartoons in school?"

"No," replied Gabrielle haughtily, "I am merely learning how to apply my analytic skills in other fields of interest and art forms."

"Shit…if I knew college was all about cartoons and smoking dope, I woulda gone."

"You don’t need to go to college, baby. You already have many skills."

The firefighter lounged back in her seat. "I have many skills," she murmured to herself, although her beaming companion heard her as well. "I kinda like the sound of that."

THE END

[philosomommy]

Things I want to remember from podcast...“How to Human with Sam Lamott: Be Free of that Bullshit with Duncan Trussell”

Sam: “If you start trying to find purpose in your work, you’ll become someone that someone else wants you to be.”

Duncan: “It’s one of the dangers. Also another danger is assigning purpose. Think of a waterfall. Imagine you go up to the waterfall to get your big pic* and you look over and there’s some dude and he’s looking over at the waterfall and he’s kinda bummed out. And you look at that dude and you’re like ‘what’s wrong man?’ and he’s like ‘this fucking waterfall is failing.’ And you’re like ‘wait what do you mean?’ <-(DT says while laughing) Guy says ‘don’t you know what it’s for?’ You’re like ‘what?’ ..’well there’s supposed to be a wheel there in front of the waterfall to use all that energy to fucking fuel a sawmill, and it’s just going to waste. Waterfalls are for energy. We gotta harvest that fucking energy.’ You’d feel really sad for that guy cuz you’d think man that sucks to do that to a waterfall. That’s just a waterfall. What’s it for? It’s free of that bullshit. Right? It’s free. That waterfall is free. You’re the one applying the quantifying to the waterfall. And that’s a miserable condition-not for the waterfall..cuz the waterfall doesn’t give a shit-but it’s a miserable condition for that person who doesn’t see waterfalls, he just sees failed sawmill locations. So that assigning of purpose to ourselves, boy, it can be dangerous. It can be dangerous in the sense of like I don’t know maybe at some point I don’t want to be that thing anymore.”

(*in reference to an earlier conversation about people going to waterfalls for a big social media picture opportunity to get likes/dopamine rush. Used to be that people just went to waterfalls for the exercise, view, etc.-the experience. Now many just go for a picture- which is a small glimpse of what it’s like. It’s a happy couple moment-and that’s true- but you also are missing the 6 hour flight and long walk and arguments that may have ensued on the way to the waterfall.)

Sam: “yeah, I believe in results. A lot of people are really hung up over objective truth, like what is true of that situation. I don’t. Like I don’t worry about if god’s true or not. I know that if I like have a problem that I can’t fix-I told you, I’m like an atheist who believes in god because it works. So I don’t care. I don’t care if there is or is not a god. I know that when I have a problem that is bigger than myself, that is not in my power, and I just give it away to the universe-or it’s been the ocean at times or the moon or a christian god, it’s changed, whatever- I know that I do better. I can be free of that problem. So if purpose helps, I’m all for it. But I love what you’re saying, that- I think there’s a tool in there too of not having a specific purpose, especially for the point of honoring that spirit inside you.”

Jack Kornfield said stop trying to be more together or more kind or more productive. Stop changing. That person that you want to be is actually your eternal soul and you’ve just added all this shit onto it. So it’s not about growing in this direction, it’s actually about removing the shit you put on it.

Stop asking why.

Strip away agendas. Allow the moment to happen.

I don’t know what my place is.

You don’t need to.

Sam: “I’ve had this crazy thing happen recently where-over the course of talking to these amazing humans- I am no longer able to motivate myself with abuse. There’s been a consistent enough message-talking to these awesome heroes of mine-that I am no longer able to say to myself like, ‘you gotta get this done you sack of shit’-which is the way I would talk to myself-or like, ‘somebody is out there working harder than you, you gotta do it.’ These are the ways I would talk to myself subconsciously. I am re-learning how to work effectively, and it’s slow and it means I’m not as productive as I want to be. I’m re-learning how to work hard while still being ridiculously kind to myself.”

Awesome term they discussed: gender neutral love transmission (in place of god perhaps)

Sam: say you hit your head and forgot everything you know about yourself, about your life, about living life. You have this opportunity right now to record a message right now that you can save and I can play for you if that were to happen. What do you say?

Duncan: you don’t have to be right all the time. you’re gonna want to be right . That doesn’t help you. It’s okay to not be right. You don’t have to win every argument. Let people win arguments and love them. See what happens. Don’t be selfish. You’re cool. And so is everybody else. Just forgive yourself if you do anything dumb over the next few decades as you recover your memory. You don’t even have to recover your memory. This sucks. Don’t listen to me. Don’t listen to your own podcast. (Asks Sam if he can do another take or send his answer in later). Don’t drink. Book of John- that was your favorite book in the Bible. Your mom was awesome. Love is the most important thing and You don’t have to win every argument. Chant Hare Krishna.

[mazqueen]

I’ve seen a handful of posts/some replies to me/etc explaining why people think she’s a lesbian and not bisexual, but I haven’t really seen anyone talk about why Petra is bisexual and not a lesbian even though I see a lot of people who do think she’s bi, like I do. So I’ve volunteered to do the honors because I have a lot of feelings about Petra Solano and I have no life. And obviously I’m not claiming I’m right, or anyone is wrong? But this is really just the way I see it, how I feel about it.

I’ll start from an outside perspective and why I think Petra as bisexual is important: bi visibility.

We already have three confirmed lesbians in canon. Rose, Luisa and Krishna. All of whom have been around throughout seasons despite not being regulars. Granted, so far it’s been poor representation overall but regardless of how they’re written, they’re there. People are pretty much assuming JR is also a lesbian. I don’t know if this is something they’ll confirm but regardless. So I’m thinking what are the chances the writers would add another lesbian onto the list when bisexual is a very clear (and for me makes more sense) option for Petra? Plus they’d have to re-explain Petra’s past with men both romantically and sexually into something less than what it’s been already canonically portrayed in order for them to portray her as a lesbian. I don’t know how they’d do that without veering into bi erasure because that’s certainly how it’s going to feel for me and I’ll get into that more later when I talk about why I think Petra being bisexual fits her story within JTV’s narrative.

The only bi character we’ve had is Adam, who is not a main/recurring over a long span of time the way Rose, Luisa and Krishna are. I’ve seen/talked to some people suggesting the episode was also in some way a precursor to Petra’s biwakening. They knew they were going toward that direction with Petra’s character, so they inserted Adam correcting misassumptions including and specifically focusing on: that bisexuality isn’t a pitstop to being gay. I initially felt the timing of Adam’s departure was insulting, given he left not two seconds after it was revealed he’s bi, but if it’s true that the episode was at the same time a precursor to what’s happening with Petra right now, everything actually kind of fits into place. This way they can tell Petra’s story with hopefully the chunk of misinformed audiences’ misconceptions about bisexuality already corrected as well, and it makes sense for it to have been Adam and not Petra do so especially because Adam will have had time to understand this more than Petra would at the place she’s at right now. He’s definitely in a better position than Petra to clarify bi misconceptions since this would be new territory for Petra that she’s only starting to explore and might not have a full understanding of yet.

(Also mildly significant, Gina Rodriguez retweeted bisexual Petra and while that isn’t an official confirmation, they’re filmed up to 4x13 by now soooo… she knows more than we do, there’s that to consider.)

Petra as bisexual would be such a good representation. Petra as a lesbian would be good representation for lesbians but personally, I feel would deadass be horrible for bisexuals especially the bi erasure that would happen, imo, which is already such a problem for bi’s to begin with. So I don’t see how that could possibly end well.

Now, I’ll talk about why apart from being good bi representation, I also think bisexuality fits into Petra’s narrative and doesn’t clash with what’s already canon as opposed to her being a lesbian.

I’ve seen some suggest Petra’s a closeted lesbian. Closeted suggests she’s aware, but that she’s keeping her sexuality a secret. I don’t think this is the case because first, Petra doesn’t strike me as the type to hide something like that and deny herself. In the last episode, she tells Jane in one of her voice memos that if you want something, you go get it or something similar. I can see her being in denial over a short amount of time at best, or confused. But denying herself for a long period of time? Not very Petra-like for me. Second, and I suppose more significantly. The narrator said ‘sexual awakening’ in the last episode after she woke up from her JR dream, confirming that it was… well, an awakening. Which means she wasn’t aware she was attracted to women before. That’s already canon, confirmed.

Moving from that, I’ve seen a few others suggest she’s a lesbian because of her problematic relationships with men in the past. And while I know this has been the experience of some and that’s valid, in Petra’s situation in particular, I truly feel that her unhealthy/problematic relationships have more to do with (1) who and how Petra is and how she treats people in general and/or (2) her being gullible and her inability to judge people whether they’re good or bad / their intentions, etc in general (not just people she’s dated) rather than the gender of the people she’s dated. Why? Because Petra doesn’t only have problematic romantic relationships with men. Petra has had problematic relationships with literally every single person at one point or another in every aspect of her life (familial, platonic, romantic) so far, save for the twins.

This is a list of all the people in or have been Petra’s life that we’ve seen her interact with: Magda, Milos, Lachlan, Rafael, Roman, Jane, Chuck, Krishna, Anezka, Luisa, JR.

Let’s start with Magda. Her mother. That relationship was problematic as hell. Manipulation, lies, death threats, you name it. This is self explanatory and has less to do with Petra and more to do with Magda though I do think her mother is the root cause of a lot of her problematic ways because she played such a huge role in Petra’s development as a child. This problematic relationship lasted because Magda’s been lying for her for years and she had no clue. Because as I’ve mentioned before, Petra can be very gullible when it comes to people. She likes to think she’s a good judge of character but she’s honestly just… not. Take a look at Milos (turned out to be an abusive pos), Lachlan (she believed him in s1 and thought she was playing him, turns out he played her), Roman (turned out to be a kidnapper working for Sin Rostro), Chuck (not as bad as the others but still a liar), Anezka (do I even need to get into this), and finally JR (who has been pardoned now and proven herself...so far, but I’m not just gonna ignore the fact that she started out with the intention of framing Petra and Petra totally missed that). These are problematic men and women she let into her life. I’ll reiterate that it’s a common theme for Petra to do so in all aspects of her life, not just in romantic relationships with males.

Krishna, Jane, Rafael and Luisa are all different relationships but I do think all of them fall under problematic relationships in the first category I mentioned : that it has to do with who and how Petra is, the way she acts etc. She doesn’t really treat Krishna well. Luisa… not exactly either. She’s tried to manipulate Luisa several times on the show now. Her relationship with Jane, as much as my Jetra heart hurts to say? Is rocky at best. Petra’s done a lot of shit to Jane, and if Jane wasn’t such a forgiving person they’d never have reached what they are now. And I’d like to point out that what they are now? Uh. Not exactly something I’d describe as healthy either (though less problematic than others yeah). As for Rafael, I’d say this is more both of them contributing to the occasional problematic af nature of their relationship.

Bottomline: Problematic and/or unhealthy relationships for Petra has been, like I said, with LITERALLY every person in her life at one point or another, in all types of relationships she’s had. Not just with men, not just romantically with men. So I can’t attribute her problematic romantic relationships with men to her being a lesbian subconsciously, or unconsciously. If she actually had a healthy relationship in any other aspect with someone? Anyone? Any one person then yeah, I’d consider it. But there isn’t. And the closest we’ve gotten to Petra having a healthy romantic relationship with anyone is with Raf. So let’s talk about that and bi erasure.

Rafael was (is) the most prominent man in her life. Rafael, whom she married. Rafael, whom she fell so deeply in love with, and I do believe that Petra loved him as much as she was capable of, as much as she knew how to, all things, especially her problematic past, considered. Rafael, whom we’ve seen flashbacks of Petra in the happiest we’ve seen her throughout anything we’ve seen on the show so far. (We see her smiling at JR the same way as Raf!) At the very least, in the flashbacks we’ve been given (since s1 gets a bit complicated), I’ve always felt like the love she felt for Rafael was real. Genuine. It never felt forced, it never felt fake. Let me list a few instances that explicitly show Petra’s feelings for Raf were real and not forced, not fake: I remember in s1, she admitted how hard it was to see Rafael and Jane together, building a family. And that was something that she and Rafael were supposed to have. The heartache there was real. When she told Rafael ‘I never stopped loving you.’ That felt real to me. And it wasn’t just me. The narrator confirmed it was real, ‘Turns out, it's easy to give a good performance when what you are saying is actually true.’ Petra, who told Zaz she hasn’t cried since she was a child, Petra who rarely breaks down in front of other people, Petra, who thinks crying would mean embarrassing herself couldn’t help but cry anyway. Even when they were no longer together, and Petra was still lowkey in love with him? I remember she made that one stupid decision about the alcohol license permit because she let her feelings for Rafael get in the way. She caved and let Raf have his way, even though she had nothing to gain from it. A lot of us have done stupid things for love. And there are more but the point is, her romantic relationship with Rafael has always felt real to me.

Petra and Rafael fell apart because of two outside circumstances that they weren’t able to handle as a couple: miscarriage, cancer. Before that? They were happy. Building a family together. But those are huge things for people to go through and they were young. They didn’t know better, I don’t think they knew how to handle things when it came to it. The people giving them advice? Magda, whom we know is trash I mean come on, she basically tells Petra to use sex to her advantage and Luisa, whom I recall was encouraging Raf to leave Petra and be honest (without malice though!) but idk? No one ever tried giving them an advice I feel would be more appropriate for a marriage like: How about they give the relationship a try, actually make an effort and try to make things work. Maybe go to couples therapy. Something, anything that involves at least an attempt at fixing things. Because the fact is they fell apart and they never tried to mend it until 1x02/3 but it was too late by then. Like I said, they didn’t know better. And I think the fact that those two grew up with trash parents also contributes to how they handled problems when they arose. Parents are crucial to a child’s development. But just because they fell apart, doesn’t mean the time that they were happy and in love doesn’t count. They do count. Her relationship, marriage with Rafael, a male, counts. Just because it fell apart, doesn’t mean Petra wasn’t in love with him. I know JTV likes to pretend sometimes that all Petrael ever were was problematic but they weren’t always.There are scenes to prove it. External forces caused them to crumble, yes. After that, it was a roller coaster, yes. But that relationship, the feelings they had, more importantly that Petra had was genuine, romantically, sexually. To say that it isn’t when the narrator has confirmed it was or to lessen it or whatever, personally? is bi erasure to me. And while in s4 Petra realizes Raf isn’t what she wants anymore, it doesn’t change the fact that he was exactly what she wanted in the past. People ARE capable of having real feelings for someone in the past and then moving on. To negate her feelings in the past because she feels differently romantically now, is bi erasure.

…especially when literally in the last episode she talks about her sexual attraction for Raf. So much so that she gets herself worked up : look at her in the scene once she starts talking about sex, you can see how it affects her. That scene was the build up for Petra having that sex dream. Her JR dream was a combination of Petra working herself up with thoughts of how good Raf is in bed along with her attraction to JR she wasn’t fully aware of. Bi.Sexual. It also isn’t the first time they’ve touched on Petra and Raf’s sex life. s3, the narrator thought it was noteworthy they had sex thrice, Raf whispering to Petra about Paris? felt sexual to me too. Petra’s relationship with Roman? Significant in its sexual aspect too. Petra’s sexual attraction to men? Real. As real as her sexual attraction to women. (Briefly bringing up the way Petra looked at Luisa’s boobs early s4, which I now think was put there intentionally.) If Petra having sex with JR in the future turns out to be the most amazing sex she’s had? It doesn’t make her not bisexual. If Petra falls in love with JR and her love is deeper for JR than it was with Raf?  It doesn’t make her not bisexual.

And so yeah. With all of that, if Petra doesn’t turn out to be bisexual in canon? It’ll feel like bi erasure to me. It’s been outrightly conveyed more than once that her feelings, romantic and sexual, for her male partners (not all of them because she was just using some lol) were real. Taking that back to fit a narrative where Petra is a lesbian would feel like rewriting it (and I can see how it can be done, for sure) and would leave loopholes, imo. That’s just me. Anyway, I’ve yet to read other theories that have made me believe otherwise sooo. But until JTV confirms it, it’s hard to conclude anything, really.

[lockedstuck]

they have covered my sky with crystal

2021, 04/08 - Sollux Captor

Dr. Vandayar is not the clinician who sees you today. Instead, it’s Dr. Cao, who keeps squinting at the light as if he’s got either a hangover or a migraine.

“So, Krishna tells me that you’ve made up your mind about ECT,” he says.

“I have.”

“And?”

“I want to do it,” you say. “On one condition.”

“And that is?” Dr. Cao asks smoothly, as if he’s accustomed to bartering with patients over undesirable treatments.

“If there isn’t any improvement by the seventh treatment, you let me go home. I’d be giving up almost three weeks of my life for this, but I have a lot to do. No doubt that Dr. V has told you about my living situation and responsibilities to my family.”

“As a matter of fact, he has.” Dr. Cao pours himself another coffee, from the pot on his desk. “But I have conditions for you as well, Mr. Captor.”

“Yeah? What are they?”

“If you do improve within seven treatments, I’d like you to stay for at least twelve, so we can get the most out of this modality. I’d also prefer if you went for maintenance ECT twice a week, once you can be managed in an outpatient setting.”

“Fine,” you reply.

“Alright, then.” Dr. Cao flips through your chart for a moment until he finds what he’s looking for. “Dolores said you wrote a 72 hour letter earlier this morning? Are you retracting it, or…?”

“Yes, I am. I actually retracted it about an hour after I wrote it. I worry about my family a lot. And my mother had gone missing again. My dad found her a couple blocks away, but she had no clue why she’d walked out, or what she had gone out to get. She’s got really bad schizophrenia, and her meds barely work. My sibling, they keep an eye on her, but they’re also mentally ill and not always there either.”

“Who takes care of them when you aren’t in the picture?”

“My dad, sir. But he works a lot, and he can’t always be around when some shit goes down.”

“Have you considered getting a home health aide for your mother in order to ease the burden of caring for her?”

“I mean, yeah, but it’s already hard for her to trust anyone in the family,” you explain. “I don’t know how she’d react to a stranger.”

“If that’s an issue, perhaps one of your extended family members could step in? There are programs where they can collect an income to care for her. I’ll be honest with you, Sollux. I feel like a decent amount of your depression stems from having so many responsibilities.”

“You can say that again.”

“I’m serious, Sollux. The ECT will help you to establish a baseline that isn’t crushing depression, but only you can make modifications to your life situation that will ease the burden of responsibility.”

Is he really suggesting that you let some rando or some dipshit cousin who’ll only be there for the paycheck watch your mother? Does he really think that’ll stress you out less?

“I can see the skepticism in your eyes,” he adds. “Go to your 10 AM group and I’ll be around to get things settled so you can start ECT by either Friday or next Monday.”

Instead of going straight to group, you take about fifteen minutes to shower the grime and dirt off your body. This is only the fourth shower you’ve taken in thirteen days. You hate looking at all the self-injury scars, so you lather up and wash as carefully as you can in ten of those minutes.

Your 10 AM group is DBT with Marisol Perez, the extern. She’s got a vision impairment but that doesn’t stop her from leading the group, or doing her job in general. And she doesn’t miss a beat despite your being twenty minutes late. She nods at you and hands you a worksheet. 

“Today, we’re discussing interpersonal effectiveness, through the application of the ‘DEAR MAN’ skill, Sollux.”

Yeah, you remember that skill. You take a seat with June, Porrim, Eridan and Latula. June looks uncharacteristically solemn today. 

You want to wish her a happy birthday, but you don’t want to upset her further. 

Latula waves at you, Porrim smiles, and Eridan gives you a jaunty little half-salute. You try to take notes on the last few minutes of group, but your discussion with Dr. Cao has left you nervous and jittery. What if your mother runs away from home and doesn’t come back while you’re here doing ECT? Are you really willing to take that chance?

You get up from your spot in the group and jog over to the nurses’ station. Dolores sits inside the charting room typing something up. You wave her over.

“Yes, Sollux?” she asks. “What can I do for you?”

“Can I get something for anxiety?”

“Of course you can,” she says. She checks the nearby computer. “Okay, let’s see what you can have.” A pause. “Do you want the lorazepam or the hydroxyzine?”

“Both.”

“You sure that you want both? Both will probably make you sleepy.”

“I know.”

By the time she gets both out of the machine, June has taken the spot immediately behind you, and Roxy behind her. You suppose you’re not the only one who is anxious today. However, behind you, June insists on switching places with Roxy. Sweat gleams off Roxy’s forehead as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

Once Dolores gives you your meds, she walks out of the nurses’ station and gives Roxy a once-over.

“Here, let me get a set of vitals on you,” she says, while the blonde girl shivers. You know you’re not supposed to stick around, that Roxy’s medical data is between her and Dolores, but Roxy looks genuinely sick. You’re not close to her like Porrim, June, and Eridan are, but you’re still worried, and you are her friend.

So is Dolores, once she gets a look at Roxy’s blood pressure.

“181/97,” Dolores murmurs. “That’s way too high. You’re in withdrawal.”

“No shit,” Roxy mutters through gritted teeth, and then apologizes for cursing at Dolores, who quickly checks the computer. 

“Okay, you’re due for Ativan in an hour and a half, but right this second, you’re due for clonidine and your methadone. Do you want those, and then I can call Dr. Cao and see about giving you the Ativan a little early?”

Roxy nods hastily and takes a seat on a chair not far from the nurse’s station.

As Dolores goes into the medication room, she calls for June. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, I just have to deal with this situation first.”

Dolores brings the medication to where Roxy sits. Roxy uses the liquid methadone in a styrofoam cup to swallow her clonidine. When she’s done, she gives both the medication cup and the larger cup back to Dolores.

“Okay, my dear. Sit tight and we’ll see about the Ativan when Dr. Cao calls back,” she says. She turns to June. “What was it that you wanted?”

“Anxiety meds.”

Dolores gives a little snort. “Is everyone coming to me because of anxiety? Are all of you okay? Bad group or something?”

“No, not at all. Marisol’s group was nice, but Roxy’s been anxious since before group started, Sollux was in a meeting with Dr. Cao, and I’ve been trying to manage my anxiety since right after breakfast.”

“You’re doing well, then, my dear,” Dolores replies. “And that was a kind thing you did, letting Roxy go before you.”

“It’s no problem. I’ve been waiting for something since before nine in the morning. Another couple minutes won’t hurt me.”

Dolores goes into the nurses’ station a final time and gets June’s medication together. A phone call from who only knows stalls her for a couple of minutes, and then she goes back into the med room. By the time she emerges, she has two medication cups.

“Okay, Roxy? I have your meds and June’s meds,” she calls. 

Roxy has been curled up into a ball on the bench for the last five minutes. You had given her a couple of napkins to wipe her face off, but she still looks sweaty.

“Right, June, you get two milligrams of lorazepam, and Roxy, you get… two miligrams of lorazepam,” she says. The pause makes Roxy giggle. She and June take their meds. Roxy asks Dolores if she can shower, and the latter goes into sharps to hand her her body wash, and her shampoo. 

“Make sure to give it back to me when you’re done, my dear” 

That’s when Dirk decides to walk by, and unlock the door to the outside enclosure.

“Fresh air break, everyone!” he calls. “C’mon y’all, come out and get that Vitamin D.”

“Hey Dirk!” Roxy calls, seeming slightly better. “Can you give me some of that that Vitamin D? Like, one on one?”

Dirk rolls his eyes and says something like, “They really need to up your mood stabilizers.”

You and June go outside to take in the cool air. It’s maybe sixty seven degrees outside, which isn’t bad at all. 

June takes off her hair tie and unbraids her hair. You watch several inches of almost ruler straight hair cascade down her back. Your mouth goes dry for a moment. You always had a knack for crushing on girls with long hair. June notices you looking at her and cocks her head to one side.

“Is there something on my face?”

“No, no, not at all,” you reply. “Your hair looks cute like that, though.”

Much to your surprise, June blushes. You had expected some joking nonchalance, but not that. You decide to change the subject.

“Thank you for talking to me late last night,” you tell her. “It helped more than you understand.”

You hadn’t meant to have June watch you cry at two in the morning, but she and Roxy were up in the dayroom, conducting a quiet conversation. Apparently, Roxy woke up with a bad stomach ache and muscle cramps, and that June woke up to keep her company until Ignacio could get in touch with a doctor and get Roxy a one-time late-night dose of something for pain and agitation.

While Roxy was at the nurses’ station waiting for Ignacio to finish paging the on-call doctor, you and June started shooting the shit. You told her about your father’s insistence on seeing you every single day during visiting hours, unless Aradia was visiting, since you could only have one visitor at a time. 

“I don’t understand it, June,” you told her, stray tears running down your face. “He’s sixty-three and he has diabetes and hypertension. He needs to take it easy, but he still shows up every day, after work. I wish he wouldn’t.”

“Your father loves you,” June said. “That much should be obvious.”

“Yeah, but why? I’m a waste of space. I dropped out of my master’s degree program, I barely help around the house, and I spent a week in bed, not moving. Just lazing around and hating myself. Then, I tried to cut my throat in our upstairs bathroom.”

June shook her head. 

“Unconditional love doesn’t only exist when you’re doing well. People who really love you will love you even when you’re not feeling up to do anything, even when you’re stuck in a vortex of depression. I barely left my room for a few months. And forget about going outside. I was so agoraphobic and depressed that even when my friends called me to hang out, I stayed in my room and didn’t leave.”

June rolled up her sleeves and showed you several straight-line scars covering her wrists and arms.

“My dad was shocked when he saw these. He couldn’t understand why anyone would do that. I guess that he and I both thought that once I started transitioning a couple years ago, I would never be depressed again. I told him I was suicidal, that my antidepressants had stopped working, and he brought me here. He’s not young either. He’ll be fifty-eight in a week. He has congestive heart failure. I’ve given up on telling him not to come see me every day. It’s a choice that he makes, because he loves me, and he worries about me.”

“What about your mom, though? You said a couple days ago that she was younger than your dad,” Sollux asked. “Why doesn’t she come to see you? My mom won’t come because she’s scared of psych wards.”

“My mother left when I was two. As it turns out, she wasn’t ready for the responsibility of parenting.”

Nervous, you scratched the back of your head. “Oh, wow. That’s awful. I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

“No worries. You didn’t know.”

You awkwardly ambled back to your room, where Gamzee lay in a sound sleep on the opposite bed. For some reason, sleep came easily back to you, and you awoke again at 6:40, feeling more rested than you had for a while.

Here and now, you peer into June’s bright blue eyes. She’s got a deck of cards in her hand that she arranges according to suit, to make sure none are missing. After she’s done, she sighs, annoyed.

“Someone took the three and the nine of spades, and never put them back.” She groans. “You can’t have a decent game of anything without these cards.”

“Maybe blackjack,” you suggest. “Or crazy eights.”

“We’d need more players for either one.”

[samingtonwilson]

Marriage Material - Part 11 - Jim Kirk

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10

Summary: in this chapter, just some dinner between friends.

Warnings: language

A/N: nothing really happens here, there’s just a lot of love n a lot denying love. forgive any typos, i’ve been without sleep for like 2 days now

Tucked into your favorite corner of the commissary, you turned in your seat and stretched your legs out to place atop the chair beside yours. You crossed them at the ankle, leaning your back against the wall behind you. You tipped your nose to the ceiling, your head softly hitting the wall as well. Your heavy eyelids slipped a centimeter lower.

A loud snort had you lurching forward, your hand set on your chest so you could feel your quickened heartbeat against each of your fingertips. Eyes wide, you turned your head to be met by the facial expression that haunted you in your dreams each time you forgot to catch-up on charting. Nostrils flared, single dark eyebrow raised, eyes narrowed, mouth pulled down by the weight of burden you couldn’t even imagine.

“S’what happens,” Leonard began, a hint of amusement illuminating his hazel irises, “when you take naps in the mess hall, sweetheart.”

You frowned, sitting back once more as he set his tray down on the table and fell into the seat across yours. Your eyes grew hooded and slid shut once more. “I wasn’t taking a nap.”

“What d’you call what you’re doin’ right now?” You didn’t need to open your eyes to know his expression only grew more sarcastic.

You shrugged a shoulder. “Resting my eyes, breathing evenly.”

You could almost hear him roll his eyes, opening your own to catch a glimpse. “You sound exhausted.”

“Yeah, but I look fantastic,” your words came out with less gusto than you would have hoped, your lips struggling to quirk up like you’d originally intended. “Being on-call for the last week has ruined me— I’m averaging three hours of sleep a night. And it’s broken sleep, not continuous.”

“Stop blamin’ being on-call. What’s really ruined you is sleepin’ with that husband of yours every fuckin’ night and tellin’ me about it,” he quipped, stabbing a fork into a piece of chicken with a little too much force. “Maybe you’d get more sleep if you kept your damn hands to yourself.”

You clicked your tongue and shook your head, looking straight ahead at one of the many windows lining the walls rather than at Leonard. You didn’t want him to catch the slight smile you weren’t too tired to let spread over your lips. “Sleeping with my husband is what’s put me back together, Len— nothing says stress relief like an orgasm. The real problems here are the gamma shift red shirts.”

“They were behavin’ a month ago.”

“Apparently that notion is obsolete. I think they’re in cahoots with the alpha shift red shirts— I can’t explain the sudden surge of injuries in the middle of the fucking night on anything else.” You turned your head back to Leonard, narrowing your eyes. “It’s a conspiracy to take us down, to take down the hypo-wielding medics that are perpetually angry.”

His left eyebrow rose once more. “You got a problem with my attitude, sugar?”

“S’not just you,” you said with a shake of your head. “It’s me, too. You may be a bush of thorns, but I’m still a shrub of ‘em.”

“‘Least we look like roses,” he added with a loud chuckle, winking when he caught your eye. “You ever thought of delegatin’? The gamma shift physician can take care of some burns and the nurses are more than competent.”

“Doctor Krishna’s constantly overwhelmed. Whatever hair he’s got left was standing up every which way when he called me yesterday.” You reached over and took the apple of Leonard’s tray, ignoring his yelp of protest. You rolled the red fruit in your hands. “The man’s older than the Federation, he’s got a leg and a half in the grave— he can’t handle the burns on his own. Plus the nurses need a break, we can’t dump everything on them all the time.”

“Amen. S’only a week more anyway.”

You nodded. “Let’s hope I can take another week of all the running from my dark quarters to the brightest fucking portion of this godforsaken ship without my head bursting.”

“Sweetheart, I want to tell you I caught all of that,” he began, a smile pulling at his lips, “but I can only remember hearin’ you callin’ Jim’s quarters your own.”

You smiled sarcastically. “Of course that’s all you remember.” You held the apple at your lips. “I have to live there for the next couple of years so, for all intents and purposes, it’s my place, too.”

He hummed out a sigh as you bit into the apple he had been looking forward to eating. “I suppose it is. Speakin’ of your better half, though, —”

“Better half? I’m not half a person on my own, Len,” you interjected. “And, if I was, he would be my worse half. I’m the better half.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the best thing to happen to the universe since the Big Bang.”

You nodded once, slumping back against the wall. “Thank you for finally seeing the truth. What about him?”

“I was goin’ to ask where he is. Y’all eat together everyday— it’s disgustin’.”

You snorted. “It was your idea.”

“I didn’t know suggesting somethin’ to you oversharin’ toddlers would lead to all’a this.”

“Oh, you knew it would lead to Jim and I having sex,” you said with a scoff. “You practically pushed us together.”

“I thought it’d lead to y’all talkin’ to each other. Instead you’ve got me feelin’ like a fucking shrink that gets paid jack shit.”

“I mean, I’d think me appreciating you for being one of the many reasons I’m getting laid practically every night should be payment enough.”

“That actually feels like you’re takin’ something from me.”

You laughed, looking down at the apple in your hands. “Jim had a meeting with the rest of the bridge crew— something about keeping crew morale up. He’s basically giving out gold star stickers and hoping it makes everyone happy.”

“He thinks everyone’s a toddler like he is.”

You smiled. “Careful, Len. That’s my husband you’re talking about.”

Before the chair beside Leonard could scrape against the deck plating, there was a sigh of contentment and, when you looked over, you saw a smile that did away with some of your exhaustion. “I love when you defend my honor, starlight.”

“S’what I’m here for, pati mere,” you replied, sighing out in frustration when Uhura pushed your legs from the chair they rested atop to sit in their place. “Come on, Ny!”

She shook her head, narrowing her deep brown eyes at you. “You come on. You can’t hog every chair in here like you own the place.”

“I’m married to the captain, I do basically own the place.”

Jim continued smiling, raising his eyebrows when he turned to Leonard. “I love marriage.”

Leonard frowned back, leaning toward Jim so he could mumble, “You love somethin’ else, too. Might as well say it while you’re on this little kick.”

His smile instantly fell to reveal a stern look. “Bones.”

Leonard held his hands up in surrender. “Just tryin’ to help.”

“S’not really helping,” Jim said as he shook his head. He glanced at you listening to Uhura, watching you nod and bite your lip with wide eyes of concentration. He lowered his volume even more, “I tell her I love her and she’ll take the first shuttle off this ship. We’ve got a good thing going right now.”

“Acting like everythin’ y’all do means nothing ain’t a ‘good thing,’ Jim.”

Jim continued staring at you, tilting his head when you did, smiling when you did. “Yeah, but it’s a small price to pay.”

You turned in your seat, meeting Jim’s eyes and narrowing your own at the ocean blue that could drown you if you let it. You nodded upwards questioningly and smiled when he averted his gaze and cleared his throat. “Sunshine?”

He looked at you once again and blinked in surprise as you tossed the apple to him, his chair scooting back several inches as he swung back to catch it.

“Sunshine?” Leonard repeated, eyebrows almost touching his hairline.

Uhura made a gagging noise. “I’m disgusted.”

“You an’ me both, sugar,” he nodded, looking between you and Jim. “Is there anythin’ about y’all that won’t have me losin’ my dinner?”

“I say it ironically,” you explained, smiling at an unconvinced Uhura. “Oh, come on, Ny. You know me, I know me— the day I go around using terms of endearment is the day I—”

“You fell in love, (Y/N),” she said as she rolled her eyes. “We didn’t think that would happen either.”

Jim’s eyes, wide and unwavering, only saw you and his mouth fell open slightly.

You glanced at him for a split second, clearing your throat and nodding. “Right. I did, that’s why Jim and I are married. Because we love each other.”

Right. It was part of the charade.

He closed his mouth, he took a deep breath. He would’ve been grateful had the hammering in his chest ceased, had the flipping of his stomach ceased. But it didn’t.

He knew it was strange— that his body reacted so dramatically each time he thought you may feel the same way he did. Not only when Uhura said what she did but each time your eyes stayed in his while he was nestled so deeply inside of you he could feel your heartbeat, each time your breath hitched when his lips made contact with your skin, each time your hold on him got a little bit tighter.

It was strange. It was so strange that at just the prospect of you feeling for him even a fraction of what he felt for you, everything grew hazy, everything became unimportant. It was so strange that the idea of you having an ounce of love for him made his affections increase tenfold, made his body fill with the most inexplicable contradictions of nervousness and blissfulness, fullness and emptiness, calmness and anxiety. It was unbelievably strange.

He swallowed thickly, humming questioningly at something you’d said.

“I asked if we could leave,” you told him, nodding your head in the direction of the exit. “I’m tired and I’m on-call again tonight because someone,” you said pointedly with a glare in Leonard’s direction, “won’t relieve me of my misery.”

“You’re the one not wantin’ to delegate shit to Krishna.”

“He’s three minutes from death, Len.”

“Y’all gonna treat me like this when I’m Krishna’s age?”

Uhura frowned in consideration. “That’s a legitimate concern considering you’re not far off.”

You laughed as you rose from your chair, shaking your head as Leonard grimaced with a dry, “Glad you and I get to spend more time with each other, darlin’. S’a real treat.”

You held your hand out to Jim when you made it to his side. “Let’s go.”

He stared at your hand for a second, hesitating before lacing his fingers through yours and standing up. He didn’t bother sending goodbyes to the two remaining at the table, instead focusing on pulling you into his side so you could feel the warmth rolling from his body.

The walk to the closest turbolift was short, conversation flowing easily as it always did. You were smiling as you slipped into the lift, turning to face him once the door slid shut and it was just the two of you.

You smiled a little wider. “You know, Nyota’s not letting up on this party idea.”

“You hate parties,” he said, taking a step towards you so you took a step back.

You nodded, taking another step back. “But she said she wants an excuse to drink. I’d never take that opportunity away from someone.”

A side of his lips quirked up, he took another step. “Mostly because you want that opportunity for yourself.”

Your back hit the wall and an involuntary gasp left your lips. “I won’t argue with you on that. We should’ve registered,” your voice was soft, your breathing rate increasing as his hand sat against your neck, thumb sitting on your jaw. “At least we’d get something out of—”

“This marriage?”

You shook your head, your eyes slipping shut when he leaned in closer. “I’m clearly getting plenty out of this marriage already.”

He hummed, pressing his lips to yours softly and clicking his tongue when you pulled back.

“I meant out of the party. I would’ve liked a nice, retro-looking teal stand mixer for all my trouble.”

He leant his forehead against yours. “You don’t cook.”

“Yeah, but stand mixers are for baking.”

“You don’t do that either.”

You smiled, joining your lips once more.

As if the universe was against him, the turbolift chimed and the door slid open. He groaned loudly, refusing to let go of you. “Let’s stay in here.”

Your eyebrows rose. “We’re not going to have sex in a turbolift, Jim.”

“It’s a big turbolift.”

“Absolutely not.” You tugged on his arm and he let himself be towed behind you. “Control yourself.”

He pouted when you turned to glance at him. He then traced your every curve, your every edge, everything he could see before clearing his throat for what felt like the millionth time that night. “Tell me again why you won’t date me.”

“Because we’re married.”

“All the more reason to date.”

“No, it’s not,” you practically sang, entering the code against the control pad. You pulled Jim inside the living space, whirling around to face him. “Jim, we don’t— We can’t actually date each other. When you date, you have an out— we don’t have that luxury. We’re stuck with each other for at least a few years, there’s no out.”

“Starlight, —”

“We shouldn’t have to stay together out of obligation and helplessness, we shouldn’t have to continue to live together if we decide to break-up.”

You let go of his hand and smiled, wagging your eyebrows prior to walking to the closet and pulling comfortable clothes from the pile of clean laundry. “Besides, this way, we can do whatever we want, with whoever we want when we’re on leave.”

“I don’t want to do anything with anyone that isn’t you.”

You looked over your shoulder, nodding upwards. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Now, come here— Spock got on my nerves earlier and I have some frustrations to work out.”

You bit down on your bottom lip, tilting your head and nodding so the sea of contradictions almost took him under entirely. “Yes, Captain.”

PART 12

lil tag list: (tell me if you’d like to be tagged): @feelmyroarrrr @to-pick-ourselves-up-7@star-trekkin-across-theuniverse @webhoard @dirajunara @the-space-goddess-16@whiteandblackkeys @sugarshai @goodnightwife @anyakinamidala @iwillstaywiththemforever @majisean @bbparker @heyjess-marie@kirkaholic123@thepjofanqueen@buckybuckling @da1120 @dudahmautner @purelittleblueberry @insposcollective @our-chaoticwhispers @procrastinace 

[srinithyananda]

4 SEPTEMBER 2020 II 8.05 PM, IST II NITHYANANDA SATSANG GIST IN ENGLISH II *PARAMASHIVA’S MESSAGE DIRECTLY FROM KAILASA: *INTENSE WILL PERSISTENCE RAISES YOU FROM YOUR WAKEFUL STATE (JAGRAT) TO AWAKENED STATE, AND FROM AWAKENED STATE TO ALIVE STATE. *THERE ARE 5 STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS: WAKING STATE (JAGRAT) WHICH ALL OF YOU ARE NOW IN BELOW THIS WAKING STATE IS THE DREAM STATE (SWAPNA) BELOW THE SWAPNA STATE IS THE DEEP SLEEP STATE (SUSHUPTI) ABOVE THE WAKING STATE IS THE AWAKENED STATE (TURIYA) AND FINALLY THE ALIVE STATE (TURIYATITA) *THESE 5 LEVELS OF STATES OF YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS IS YOUR LIFE. *INTENSELY AWAKENED STATE LEADS TO THE ALIVE STATE (TURIYATITA) IN YOU. *NEITHER WHAT YOU CONSIDER AS EXTERNAL ACHIEVEMENTS, NOR THE EXTERNAL CAPABILITIES CAN DEFINE YOU. THEY CAN ALL BE ONE OF YOUR GLORIES, BUT THEY CANNOT BE THE DEFINITION OF YOU. *DEFINITION OF YOU IS IN WHICH STATE YOU FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU. IN WHICH STATE YOU FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU IS ALL THAT MATTERS. DO YOU FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU SLEEPING ALL THE TIME? DO YOU FEEL VERY CUTE ABOUT YOUR DREAM STATE? OR DO YOU FEEL VERY CUTE ABOUT YOUR AWAKENED STATE? DO YOU FEEL VERY CUTE ABOUT YOUR ALIVE, ALL POWERFUL STATE? *STOP WASTING YOUR ENERGY IN MAKING THE WORLD FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU. *THE WHOLE WORLD IS FRUSTRATED! NOBODY FEELS CUTE ABOUT THEMSELVES. WHY WILL THEY FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU? JUST DUMP THE SHIT OF PUTTING ENERGY, TIME, TREASURE, TALENT IN MAKING PEOPLE FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU! *DECIDE IN WHICH STATE YOU FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU, THAT'S ALL IS LIFE! *LET YOUR TASTE GET MATURED. *YOUR TASTE - IN WHICH STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS YOU FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU , SHOULD GET MATURED. *IN THE INITIAL STAGE, YOU FEEL VERY CUTE ABOUT SLEEP. ROLLING ON YOUR BED IS LIKE ANGAPRADAKSHINA (SACRED CIRCUMAMBULATION). OR THE DREAM STATE WHERE YOU FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU. THAT IS WHY LAZINESS IS NOT PART OF YOUR LIFE, BUT PART AND PARCEL OF YOUR LIFE! IT IS A LIFESTYLE. *A MATURED PERSON IS A PERSON WHO FEELS CUTE ABOUT HIS HIGHER STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. EVEN IF IT IS JUST FEW MINUTES, IF YOU FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOUR AWAKENED AND ALIVE STATE, IT IS ENOUGH. *WHENEVER I SIT FOR MY MORNING PUJA, I FEEL SO CUTE ABOUT ME. I WILL TELL YOU EXACTLY HOW I FEEL IN MY PUJA: I FEEL LIKE ME, SITTING IN THIS BODY AND AS PARAMASHIVA. IT IS BOTH ME. WORSHIPPING, CELEBRATING MY OWN EXISTENCE. MY VYAKTA, MANIFEST IS WORSHIPPING MY UNMANIFEST, AVYAKTHA. *MY PART IS WORSHIPPING MY WHOLE. SO I WILL SIT SOMETIMES EVEN 5 - 6 HOURS EVEN UNTIL NOW. I WILL SIT CASUALLY, ONE BY ONE, I WILL TALK TO EACH GOD ELABORATELY. MORE THAN THE IDEA THAT IT IS EACH GOD, THEY ARE MANIFESTATIONS OF PARAMASHIVA! *THE 5 STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS: THE PERMUTATION AND COMBINATION OF THESE 5 STATES LEAD TO ANOTHER 25 STATES. BUT THESE 5 ARE THE BASIC UNIQUE STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. *YOUR CONCEPT OF LIFE, DEATH, SEX, WEALTH, PURPOSE OF LIFE, GOAL OF LIFE, METHOLODOLOGY OF LIFE - EVERYTHING CHANGES BASED ON THE STATE YOU START CELEBRATING YOUR EXISTENCE. *IF YOU CELEBRATE YOUR DREAM STATE AS THE BEST WAY OF EXISTENCE, THEN MORE AND MORE YOU WILL BE ADDICTED TO DRUGS AND PORNOGRAPHY. THIS DELUSION INDUCING LIFESTYLE. *YOU WILL GET MORE AND MORE ADDICTED TO DELUSION INDUCING PRODUCTS, GOODS, SERVICES, PORN AND DRUGS. DON’T THINK IT IS A COINCIDENCE. BOTH OF THEM ARE ALWAYS TOGETHER. BOTH ARE DREAM INDUCING. BOTH INDUCE THE SAME KIND OF STATE - DRUGS AND PORNOGRAPHY. THE STATE YOU ENJOY DECIDES THE PRODUCTS, THE LIFESTYLE, THE PURPOSE, THE GOAL - ALL THESE YOU ARE GOING TO ENTERTAIN AND ENGAGE IN YOUR LIFE. *THE PERSON WHO ENJOYS HIS DREAM AND DEEP SLEEP STATE CAN NEVER TOLERATE NEEM JUICE AND CASTOR OIL. IF YOU START ENJOYING NEEM JUICE AND CASTOR OIL, YOUR BODY WILL NEVER LET YOU ENJOY DEEP SLEEP AND DREAM STATE. *YOUR BODY WILL LET YOU ENJOY MAXIMUM HOW MUCH YOU NEED. MAXIMUM 3 - 4 HOURS SLEEP. *IF YOU TAKE REGULARLY, THESE FEW HERBS ATI MADHURAM NEEM JUICE CASTOR OIL MALIC ACID YOU DON'T NEED 3 - 4 HOURS OF DREAM STATE. *ATI MADHURAM AND MALIC ACID REBUILD YOUR MUSCLES SO POWERFULLY. YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM WILL BE SO ALIVE. *I INSIST AT LEAST ALL MY DISCIPLES TO ADD THESE FEW ITEMS IN YOUR FOOD DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY. EVEN IF YOU CAN'T TAKE NEEM JUICE, TAKE NEEM TABLETS WHICH ARE ORGANIC. *YOU WILL SEE THAT THE QUALITY OF YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS STARTS RAISING. FOOD IS DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE QUALITY OF YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS. *I AM WORKING IN A LARGE SCALE, ORGANISING ALL THE ANCIENT SCRIPTURES MY GURU TAUGHT ME ON THIS ALCHEMY SCIENCE. *HINDUS HAVE A GREAT THING TO CONTRIBUTE TO HUMANITY. *THE ALCHEMY SCIENCE OF THE VARIOUS STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS IS UNIQUE TO HINDU TRADITION. JUST BY HERBS, THE HIGHER STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS IS INDUCED IN YOU, NOT DRUGS! *THROUGH PURE MEDITATION AND HERBS, THE HIGHER STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS IS INDUCED IN YOU, AND WHATEVER YOU SEE IN THE HIGHER STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS WILL DIRECTLY MANIFEST IN YOU AS POWERS. *I ALREADY HAVE A LIST OF MY SANYASIS WHO ARE DOCTORS AND THE FIRST CIRCLE OF DEVOTEES AND DISCIPLES, SITTING AND DOCUMENTING ALL THE HAPPENINGS. *ATI MADHURAM MAKES YOU SO ENERGETIC. I AM ALREADY LIKE A HYPER BABY. WITH ATI MADHURAM WHAT WILL HAPPEN?! *EVEN IF I REST FOR 2 - 3 HOURS, MY TEAM KNOWS SOME BIG 6 - 7 PROJECTS ARE GOING TO BE DOWNLOADED AND REVEALED TO THEM! *WEALTH IS ALL ABOUT THE TIME YOU SPEND IN HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS. IN HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS YOU JUST KNOW HOW TO WORK WITH THE SYSTEM. WHETHER YOU WANT TO HAVE MONEY, HAVE WEALTH, INFLUENCE OF ANYTHING, YOU JUST KNOW THE SIMPLE STRAIGHT METHODOLOGY. *THE STRENGTH OF HINDUS IS THEIR ABILITY TO RETAIN THE HIGHER STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS FOR MORE NUMBER OF HOURS PER DAY. THAT IS WHY ANYWHERE THEY GO, HINDUS ARE THE RICHEST ETHNIC COMMUNITY. *EVERYDAY START SLEEPING WITH THE WET TOWEL ON THE STOMACH. EVEN THAT WILL HELP YOU IN A BIG WAY TO LIVE IN HIGHER STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. EITHER KEEP ICE CUBES OR WET TOWEL ON YOUR STOMACH BEFORE YOU FALL ASLEEP AND DON'T EAT ANYTHING AFTER SUNSET. *IF YOU FOLLOW THIS, THE RAISE IN YOUR SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS WILL HAPPEN. *I WANT THE HUMAN BEINGS WHO START LIVING IN THE AWAKENED STATE - TURIYA, AND ALIVE STATE - TURIYATITA THE WHOLE DAY - ONLY THOSE KIND OF PEOPLE I WANT AS VIDYESHWARAS, MANTRESWARAS, LOKESHWARAS, ASTRESHWARAS, MINISTERS, E-DIPLOMATS. *THAT IS WHY I AM TEACHING THIS SCIENCE CONTINUOUSLY SO THAT YOU CAN BECOME PART OF KAILASA ADMINISTRATION. *EVERY ACTION I DO, EVERY SATSANG I AM GIVING, I HAVE A REASON! *I AM SERIOUSLY LOOKING FOR THE PEOPLE WHO WILL BE PART OF KAILASA ADMINISTRATION, KAILASA GOVERNMENT. *KAILASA GOVERNMENT HAS HUGE RESPONSIBILITY OF ORGANISING AND ADMINISTERING THE RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL NEEDS OF THE WHOLE WORLD, ESPECIALLY FOCUSSING ON THE 2 BILLION (200 CRORE) HINDUS. IT IS A HUGE RESPONSIBILITY! *BORN AND PRACTISING HINDUS, I ROUGHLY CALCULATE AS 2 BILLION ALL OVER THE WORLD. IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO SUPPORT ALL THE SPIRITUAL AND RELIGIOUS NEEDS IN A VERY ORGANIZED WAY. *IT IS A LARGE SCALE WORK! SO WE NEED PEOPLE WHO ARE VERY VERY VERY ACTIVE AND ALIVE 24X7, WHO WANT TO HELP HUMAN BEINGS, WHO WANT TO ENRICH THE WORLD. *I AM ALSO SEGREGATING THE KAILASA PROJECT INTO SECULAR NATURE AND SPIRITUAL NATURE. *SPIRITUAL NATURE: TEACHING POWERFUL COGNITIONS AND HELPING PEOPLE MANIFEST POWERS. *SECULAR NATURE: BUILDING WEBSITE, RAISING THE ORGANISATION STRUCTURE, MAKING ENTITIES ALL OVER THE WORLD. ALL THESE ARE SECULAR NATURE WORK WHICH CAN BE DONE EVEN BY THE EMPLOYED PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR SALARY - THE RECRUITED PEOPLE. *BUT THE SPIRITUAL WORK CAN BE DONE ONLY BY SANYASIS OR THE FULL TIME DEDICATED KAILAYAVASIS. I AM EVOLVING A VERY POWERFUL LONG TERM STRUCTURE. *WE NEED LOTS OF PEOPLE WHO EXPERIENCE AWAKENED AND ALIVE STATES - SANYASIS AND GRIHASTHA; FULL TIME KAILAYAVASIS TO DO THE SPIRITUAL WORK. MANDUKYA UPANISHAD, 7TH VERSE SAYS: शान्तं शिवमद्वैतं चतुर्थं मन्यन्ते स आत्मा स विज्ञेयः ŚĀNTAṂ ŚIVAMADVAITAṂ CATURTHAṂ MANYANTE SA ĀTMĀ SA VIJÑEYAḤ TRANSLATION - THE TURIYA IS THE STATE OF PEACE, STATE OF SHIVA, STATE OF ONENESS. THAT IS CONSIDERED TO BE THE STATE OF TURIYA. THAT IS THE REAL SELF. IT HAS TO BE REALIZED, EXPERIENCED. *WE NEED MORE AND MORE PEOPLE WHO REALIZE THIS STATE, WHO ARE WORKING ON THIS STATE, WHO DEVELOP TASTE FOR THIS STATE, TO ADMINISTER KAILASA. *I WANT ALL THE APAT SANYASIS, BRAHMACHARIS, BRAHMACHARINIS, BALASANTS WHO WANT TO BE PART OF THIS SPIRITUAL ADMINISTRATION, TO START PRACTISING WHEREVER YOU ARE AS ON NOW. START! BECAUSE SOON I WILL GATHER ALL OF YOU FOR THE TRAINING. *WE NEED 10,000 PEOPLE TO DO JUST THE SPIRITUAL WORK, TO DO THE BUILDING OF THE WEBSITE, BANK, INFRASTRUCTURE. WE CAN HIRE AND WE CAN EVEN FRANCHISE. *BUT THE SPIRITUAL WORK WE CAN’T FRANCHISE, WE CAN'T HIRE. *WE REALLY REALLY REALLY NEED THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WHO TASTE THIS TURIYA AND TURIYATITA STATE TO BE PART OF THE HINDU PARLIAMENT AND ADMINISTER KAILASA - THE SPIRITUAL NEEDS OF HINDUS. *THESE 3 BOOKS ARE GOING TO BE THE BASIC INTRODUCTION BOOKS: 108 UPANISHAD COMPILED BY SRI RAMA CHANDRA PRABHU BHAGAVAD GITA COMPILED BY SRI KRISHNA BRAHMASUTRAS COMPILED BY VYASA *THESE 3 ARE GOING TO FORM THE BASIS, INTRODUCTION BOOKS OF KAILASA. *ALL THE 3 ARE ROOTED AND CENTERED ON VEDAS AND AGAMAS. THESE 3 ARE THE INTRODUCTION TO KAILASA AND HINDUISM. *WE NEED LARGE PEOPLE WHO EXPERIENCE THIS SCIENCE SO THAT IT CAN BE SHARED WITH THE WORLD. *NATION BUILDING CAN BE DONE BY HIRED STAFF, BUT ENLIGHTENED CIVILIZATION BUILDING CAN BE DONE ONLY BY ENLIGHTENED BEINGS. *KAILASA HAS 2 LAYERS: ENLIGHTENED CIVILIZATION AND NATION. *FROM THE TIME I AM BORN, I AM WORKING ON REVIVING THE ENLIGHTENED CIVILIZATION, AND LAST 26 YEARS, FROM THE AGE OF 16, I AM WORKING ON REVIVING THE KAILASA NATION. *KAILASA - THE NATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, CAN BE BUILT EVEN BY THE HIRED PEOPLE. *BUT KAILASA - THE ENLIGHTENED CIVILIZATION CAN BE BUILT ONLY BY PEOPLE WHO EXPERIENCE TURIYA AND TURIYATITA WITHIN THEMSELVES. *SO STOP FEELING, STOP WORKING TO MAKE OTHERS FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU. STOP EXPECTING TO MAKE OTHERS FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU. FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOUR OWN TURIYA AND TURIYATITA STATE. WORK FOR THAT. STOP WORKING, STOP FEELING, STOP EXPECTING THAT OTHERS SHOULD FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU. NO! DON’T WASTE TIME! *ALL THE HUMAN BEINGS ARE SO FRUSTRATED IN NECK DEEP SHIT. THEY DON'T FEEL CUTE EVEN ABOUT THEMSELVES, WHY WILL THEY FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOU? *DUMP THE OPINION OF OTHERS. YOU DECIDE TO FEEL CUTE ABOUT YOUR HIGHER STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS, AND START RAISING YOUR STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. THAT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU WILL ACHIEVE THE ULTIMATE. TO WATCH THE SATSANGH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42YT-HcIpA4 . LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, SUBSCRIBE AND HIT THE BELL ICON TO STAY CONNECTED IMMEDIATELY. https://bit.ly/3h3RpI6

[aslaton8-blog]

Mood

Happy Birthday to me...

Well, my birthday was yesterday but I didn't get to enjoy it at all. Ryan is out sick with the flu... I didn't plan any celebration because those never turn out well. Last time I threw a birthday party this girl Ashley made it all about herself. She tripped out on mushrooms and started screaming at the top of her lungs just because she wanted to, then invited us to her party in her head "you should come see this!!!"

That was almost 6 years ago and I haven't had a birthday party ever since. Really the only birthday party I can remember that I actually enjoyed was when my father surprise me by taking me to the fire station and surprising me with my first bicycle. I was 7 years old...

All I fucking wanted this year was to spend my birthday with my husband because we haven't been as intimate lately due to my sexual abuse and being pregnant. Really that's all I really wanted besides that donation for the baby Penguin which I got before my birthday when in came in the mail labeled with the WWF organization as the sender. That's never a problem; receiving gifts before my birthday. I only care that I don't receive gifts on Christmas or in Christmas wrapping paper. I love my little plush penguin but I love my husband a whole lot more. I can't even spend the weekend with him. I mean we spend weekends together but this is my birthday weekend, this is the day that is supposed to remind me that I belong here and that I'm not a mistake and that I matter and have purpose.

I've been invited to Christmas parties and to Winter Solstice parties but none of which I feel like celebrates my existence. With 8+ billion people on this planet, I need to feel like my tiny little flower bud of impact is meaningful. I almost see this as a reflection from the world that I'm dead inside and unrecognized as a part of life. A man who is dead and no longer with us is very important this time of year. Mother Earth gets recognized this time of year. But Ashley... Well she's just a piece of rock that fell down that mountain and hit someone in the head. Just here, existing for everyone else to stand on.

I know this is my depressed brain talking. When my husband feels better I'm sure I'll bounce back like I always do, but that isn't the point. I know everything will be okay eventually but while it's not, I should be allowed to express my anger without someone taking responsibility for it. It's a virus. I want to blame planet Earth or God or Allah or Krishna but that's the human brain always looking for something to blame.

I don't blame myself for my mood. I always feel like I have guns pointing at me and I'm helpless to defend myself. I can't make my husband take vitamins. I can't suggest anything for his health, he's a nurse. There is really nothing I could have done. So I get to sit here writing a pessimistic blog about how lonely I am this weekend. It's my fucking birthday weekend. I can't even feel angry because I'm pregnant and on Lexapro. I need to get it out somehow. I'm sick of feeling down by one fucking silent battle or another.

All I wanted was to be with my husband on my birthday. Why do people win things so much that just don't matter enough in the long run and I actually ask for things that matter and I not only get denied what I want, I also get spit in the face by one of my friends telling me I should do something for Ryan on my birthday.

Direct Message:

"Hey, you can completely disregard this, but maybe instead of you getting something for yourself, you can get something for Ryan. I know it's not perfect, and you're completely entitled to your anger, but it's just a thought"

In response to a post I wrote complaining that Ryan wanted to give me money so I could go shopping to replace his absence. 😭😭😭 I felt like throwing a tantrum. I hate this society. I do and have done things for other people my entire life. Here I am trying to make a life for myself and care about myself for once and I get all this backlash from my environment that I'm not putting out or helping other people enough and that's why I deserve this lonely birthday. Fuck you planet Earth. I'm killing you in my story. You're an asshole to me. You have been from the get go. Everything I have now is because of ME! and my hard work on all the mental damage you did. I deserve better.

I won't help you anymore until I see you working on your own darkness. Stop dumping it all on me. You created this mess, now take some responsibility for it mom and dad... Whatever that means... they weren't parents... they were assholes. I mean my dad killed himself and ran away and couldn't even face the damage he did to me when I confronted him. What a coward. Own up to your shit people. I mean I did. I wasn't always the best person, I didn't start with breaking the cycle. But I confronted what I've done. I didn't get met with love and forgiveness. But that's the point of actually caring about what you did to somebody. You're not going to want to complain about how they react. You can't, you damaged them. This is concerning my ex-husband. I was extremely verbally abusive to him calling him stupid and all sorts of names well kind of like my father used to do to me. That's no excuse, though.

I faced the consequences, I dealt with them and now I'm trying to move forward. I haven't been in that relationship in seven years so I don't know why I'm still paying for it while that sociopath gets clean away from it. I'm sick of fighting your demons for you. Go fight your own God damn demons.

[spiderboywanab]

Request: hey darling,could I please have a ship? My name is Krishna, im an Indian girl with long black curly hair, glasses and im pretty short. I am a bit of a nerd (love science a lot among other things), swear like a sailor ,love love love dogs and hugs and cuddles. I play piano and flute but im pretty shit lol. Im bubbly ,sarcastic, super clumsy, bit of a perfectionist and a sensitive lil bitch lol. Thanks in advance and congrats darling :))) - @cmon-spiderling

YA BOI PETER IS IN DA HOUSE

You love birds met in Chemistry class when he was making his web fluid and accidentally spilled the chemicals.

When the teacher asked what happened you covered up for him.

The table got stained because he grabbed the wrong chemicals.

The teacher made you stay behind and clean it up.

That’s where the questioning started.

“Since when do you work with Spiderman? I mean, I’ve heard the rumors but O didn’t think you were the one to make most of his equipment. It’s pretty cool. I guess you designed his web shooter. Assuming that he uses them because he can’t produce his webs with his own body...”

He just stares at you and stays quite for a while.

“What?”

“Krishna... you’re very smart”

“I know, I’m at the top of the class”

“Wait... what?”

“You’ve been going downhill lately Parker but that’s because you’re busy doing your Spiderman things”

“My what?”

“Helping Spiderman...”

“Right”

Him being so paranoid about you knowing his secret that he can’t even catch the major butterflies he’s having at the moment.

He starts asking you to hang out with him more.

According to him it was to keep and eye on you in case you figured it out.

But he wasn’t even aware of his own intentions.

After a few lunches together you were finally invited to movie night.

And when Ned when to pee you just had to confront him about his sudden interest.

“How come we’ve been in the same places all along and never talked to each other?

“What do you mean Krishna?”

“We used to be in the band together, academic decathlon and we’ve had math and history together for two years.”

“Well... I guess I am a very oblivious person Krishna”

“I know dumbass but still if I had known we had a shit ton in common I would’ve tried to be your friend”

“Krishna, I was kind of scared of talking to you”

You stare at him in silence for a while.

“Look, you’ve always been super nice and everyone knows who you are but you’re out of my league. I was actually impressed that you even accepted to hang out with me. Look, Krishna, after that day in the Chemistry lab I just...”

“Shut up spidey boy”

His eyes widen as he felt your lips on his.

“I didn’t want me to tell anyone your secret”

He smiled at how you could always read his mind.

“Stop using my name so much, it’s going to get old”

“I like your name, Krishna”

omg Krishna I got so excited I think I might make this a fic message me, I need to talk about this with someone

[kunalkarankapoor]

Viewers feedback on Kunal Karan Kapoor’s character as Angad Yadav.

Played very well indeed....! i love him mean .....lol whereas if u've seen angad's previous shows...u wld never in ur faintest dream think of him in this role...i am bowled over.. rochella_22 

i love to Hate Angad thats why .. enjoyed his and krishna's act a lot !!! these two share a marvellous chemistry together .... all of their encounters are superb .. ImmaculateDream

I dont think that everyone is bashing the actor or character...they just expressing their feelings abt this character...which i must say that the actor is playing very well to get this kind of negativity...which is remarkable...the guy is doing his job well....and how !!!! rochella_22 

I loved it wen Angad said tum toh dhare ke dhare reh gaye aur sara mazaa woh kutte ka bachcha leh gaya.... (scene with Pragya and dog) Auditi

What added spice in the end was Angad's dialogue when he asked his mate "Tumare bhaiya soh gaye ka?" (scene with Pragya and dog) Unnati

Superb mindblowing acting by arhaan n kunal karan kapoor WOW (restaurant scene) ArhainAshiah

Today angad wa d way he came to nitin langur LOL aaaker jaise aankh maaareyit was a cutee n sweett scenee..angad wa is very funnnyy yet a goon n he was standing leaning langur nitin's car n his boyss r beating langur nitinkaa styleee hai bayyy ArhainAshiah

wonderful acting by Kunal, and yes that wink made an impact! Kunal is such a brilliant actor dkmystery

yaaaaa, even i loved his wink ;) .... and that wink means beta buhat parne wali hain tumhain yasmeeneee

angad is vry funny...drata b hai or wink b krta hai... bt he is cute yaar.... Shivani_4u

Kunal's character changed a lot...last time I saw him was in Remix....n there he was totally a innocent n in this he is a goon.....wow....he changed a lot....but still he got some gud acting skills.... frndship_trust

eally .....thats cute i like him in lrl...n cant believe that he is the same guy. kunal is a gr8 actor Sweet_sona

i also lik him in LRL...bt nw he is totally changed Yudi se Mr. Yadav bann gya hai. Superb actor... Shivani_4u

I enjoy watching him on screen.. He's so convincing as a ghunda.. Mahabhootini

oh god! poor boy! par he plays his character vry well ... though da guy is pretty gud lukin  ... he manages to play da character of villain vry well n forces all of us to HATE HIM! lol LuvKriya

angad is super bad ! love to hate him..... rochella_22

The guy who plays Angad...he is a brilliant actor. Anjalg

totally agree that he is just too bad and creepy, but he actually makes this show more exciting, Limits

he is quiet gud looking and is doing a great job playing a gunda cloud123

me too......his character is horrible but kunal is 😍 i love u kunal!!!! serialmaniac 

hez cute. i lovd him in LEft right left.... Almas

Spin_off show with Angad

Ok i love how everyone is so involved with getting a lady love for Angad, maybe there should be a spin off show with Angad as the lead.........I've already thought of the story.........so we all know that Angad has a sick mother in gawo (village)...maa maati nahi aur jeeti nahi hai

so the story is that the sick mum asks Angad to marry and chooses a bride for him and he marries her even though we know he has no interest in that and that's where the story starts??????????Now it won't be like the story of Pratigya where she fights for the rights of women in the Singh household......but i guess the story depends on who he would marryso which lucky girl should it be and what kind of life would they have??????

Rolli......she is strong and brave and will try to change him....make him more like Adarsh, get a job, stop hanging around with Lucky and Jugnu (poor guys) and maybe quit paan

Komal..........this sherni will try to be the male dominant in the relationship would be hilarious to watch, consant nonsense arguments, and threats that Krishna will beat him up

Arushi...........maybe she's too cute and sweet personality for him, she'll be too scared????

That's all the female characters.....maybe someone else???

Anyway what do you guys think?????????

Angad Wah Wah And Angad is back he made me laugh when he was talking about his sick mother Amma na jeeti hai na marti hai Xxxjrae

Since Rohli now looks set to be parted from Adarsh, I'd REALLY like her to be paired with Angad  They'd work so well! She's civlized and gentle but she still speaks up for herself so she'd be perfect for Angad. Kunal's a real asset to the show since he's one of the best actors on it so they shouldn't just let him go on being the obstacle in the Kriya relationship and then just leave him by the roadside.... shi_no_tenshi

pehle b kaha tha aur abhi b keh rahi hun .... ANGAD N KOMAL .... will wrk wonders .... un logon ki khatti meethi kahani will be a treat to watch wd loads of masti + masala +khoob saara daraana dhamkaana - romance .... LuvKriya

kunal is so handsome and cute and arushi is cute too....they perfectly matched....but damn he is a gunda....all my dreams shattered in pieces.  i hope they make angad good and arushi-angad track.....i am tired of his schemeing....he is a hot schemer Mages

oh u brought back long lost memories. i was an ardent fan of lrl. after a gap of 4 yrs i am now hooked on to pratigya. i remember him dressed as a girl in lrl.  angad aka kunal kapoor played the role of an army cadet. he does not get a date so goes to the army ball dressed as madonna the hot girl along with his roommate. kunal acts damn well . even his tragic scenes make the audience cry. his role was just the opposite of angadwa. he was cadet yadhuvansh but the cool dude hated his name so cut it to yudi. i loved his role and i love his new desi look in pratigya too. he is an extremely versatile actor and can give any lead pair a run for their money.  he may appear only at times in pratigya but angadwa ki wajah se hi pratigya aage badh rahi hain

hats off to kunal for his choice of roles. ofcourse madonna ko toh mein kabhi nahin bhool sakthi. i still watch those epis in my computer anujkpjk

kunal karan is undoubtedly very very shweeettt as a person hes a really nyc n shweet guy hes rockin as angadwa n i lubbb anagdwa n krishu wen dere aamney saaamney tooo hotttt n dey sizzle d screen tgdr..i actually miss angadwa wen hes not in d drama:( ArhainAshish

i mean the way he speaks and acts. what did you think? LOL seriosly if it weren't for him this SHOW would anther sas bhu shit! LOVE_DMG

yaa angad is the villan of the show and he is a very good actor too so i also don't want him to die CHHAYA007

i like kunal but angad iam not a huge fun of his khusboo16

I love kunal's acting... i mean he has to be a good actor to make us all want to collectively bash him up. kudos to his acting. he does not need to scream or overact. just those eyes slant and u want to throw something at him. Ek.Romantique

ohm y goddddddddddddd!!!! terrible yaar!! i personally HATE angad but i wud never wnt him to die coz he's da only one whcih helps maintain balance happiness n sorrow in pratigya's life , i LOVE kunalll nd wud never wnt this to happennn luv_kriya

i will miss kunal karan kapoor,no doubt.... i just LUBBED his acting....and i just LUBBED to hate angad.... today a trmendously good actor took farewell frm the serial..... now whu is gonna add to the mirchi masala of the serial? i will truly miss paanwala..... i like kunal immensely.....he is my "purana pyaar”  kasturika_kashu

He was a wonderful actor Binny

I'm sure that either Kunal has taken up a new show or again going for a vacation... but he has to come back! I'll also miss him dkmystery

Im soo goin 2 miss kunal & angad he's my fave actor/character in pratigya hope he has a gud vacation DEENCH

yeah i thought he was a good actr aswell, he was very funny in some scenes and evn though he was bad, i diddnt hate him, mayb jst a bt annoyng at tmes! i wsh he cums in a show and hes a positive character, tht would be very good Mazzy101

Honestly, this show not just belong to kriya, but also to angad. Prabhkallu

yeah, n I'm not happy... I'll miss him yar paan khaye angadwa hamar dkmystery

i just hate thttttttttttttt.. i want angad back........he always put masala in the show n i just love tht.................Neha_angel

no no no ANOTHER ANGAD.....i want THIS angad back...........he is the best villain....and without villain u have no masqala....take two three mnths watevr possible bt bring angu back.... kasturika_kashu

3-4 months without my kunal ..............i cant live serialmaniac

ahahaha hmmm...kunal is a shweet guyy..hes a total gal wen it cums to shoppin awww ahaha cuteee..n awww he spends n dosent really cares abt investing..guddd hes young he shud travel n do shopping n enjoyy lyfff...awww he worked at a call centre hmm..kunal is reallly shweett anagdwa ko pataa nai kia hai lol..y is he after my krishu n his happiness:((but i dunno y i miss angadwa wen hes not in d drama m lukin forward lets c wht krishu does with him this tym;)ahahahahan kunal is a gr8 photographer as well..he has put on reallly beautiful pics on fb..d scenry n d places where he goes r beautiful..travel kertey kertey bhul jataa hai k anagdwa ki shootin b kerney hai:(i lyk him with krishu dey rockk tgdr although dey're fighting most of d tym ahaha:p ArhainAshish

angad's scenes was much better den dis curent boring track! Shashi2011

A veritable Iago as some people described him. The actor definitely played the role to the hilt. He was really quite outstanding I thought and entertaining as well. Nayak29

the actor is great... TonsOfWishes

pls add me too , he is a brilliant actor Binny

hey i am also a big fan of kunal i really like his acting from the serial left right and he also do great work in pratigya serial he is a very gud actor chhaya007

I miss Angad and his typical bihari dialgoues...I simply love the way..he used to say...aiyee professor. I loved his dialogues..made me laugh..typical bihari style..he pulled off his role very well,I must say...his chamches ran away..lol chits1

he is a superb actor. whenever his scenes come up there is no boriyat, he makes u sit up and watch. u are always waiting and wondering "ab kaa karega be".

jitni galiyan angad khata hai ees forum pe usi say pata chalta hai what a superb actor he is. no screaming, no special ticks, nothing... just his "tirchi" aankh ka slanted look and u r worried what he is going to do now. Keep it up Kunal.!! Ek.Romantique

Just now..i am chatting with Kunal bhaiya and he says that Angad and his friends will be back in August...for TRP....jisse khush hona hain hoo..jisse dhukhi hona ho.....thanks to him...aur kuch pataa chala toh likhoongi........ Anaya_kgp

He says Krishna will die next week....OMG.... Anaya_kgp

arey....abhi woh keh rahe hain..it was a joke...mazak tha..my heart came out..yeh kaisa mazak tha?? Anaya_kgp

Meri pyaari behen...vo aapke jiju hai bhaiyya nahi!!! Aur meri izzazat ke bina himmat kese hui unse chat karne kii (i'm very possesive like krishna about my kunal serialmaniac

he is laughing...main sunke paglaa gayi... Anaya_kgp

Good second lead roles.

Now a days show writers are giving equal importance to other lead roles to make an impact amongst the audiences by their acting, though it may be a cameo but still their role is remembered. We take a look at few such roles.

Kunal Karan Kapoor in Pratigya He popularly known as Yudi of Left Right Left show, but now is more famous as Angad, the bad guy of Pratigya show. Whenever he is in the scene he takes all the credit by his acting style especially his style of having betel leaves.

LINK: http://www.indya.com/gallery/indyagallery.aspx?p=Good-second-lead-roles&aid=1518

I'm so proud of Angad, i really miss him on the show, i really like his character and his acting!!!Glad he's getting credit and recognition. Xxxjrae 

yes mima beta!!!!!! Kunal is a superb actor. I lik hiz acting....bt where is he?? Ye Instalment me kyu aata hai.. Shivani_4u

tht tatto he has on his arm..my cousin has the same tatttoo must have hurt him like hell..my cousin was hurt like hell..n i love angad's (kunal's) hair..nice..wht shampoo does he use. daisyluv

aw...he is looking so cute...he deserve better character yaar... shumi

i miss angad/kunal soo much hope he cames back. DEEENCH

But must say both Kunal & Arhaan are doing a good job ..their characters add spice to the show. Unnati

Angad...our new competition (NBT airing same time slot as Pratigya)

y competition Poojie????since he was also part of MKAP and was a deserving artist,who actually got acting skills he surely deserves good wishes.All the best 2 him. KP Marina

and he is a brilliant actor as well.. Poojamenon

Good luck to him as he is a talented actor..:) Sheena

angad used to rock in MKAP! that time MKAP was the BEST!! bugsbunny

All d best 2 Kunal coz he's a fab actor Eden_luvskriya

I dont know how many of u are aware but our 'new guy' is called SUKHI in the show...his real name is KUNAL KARAN KAPOOR....he is a nice actor and i loved him in LEFT RIGHT LEFT as YUDI...he was there in REMIX too as karan wahi's best friend(dont remember his name)...I LOVE HIS STYLE and its a treat to watch him in maayka...i think he brings freshness to the show...there is this great scene of his from left right left where he is tryin to commit suicide...i tried to post it here but apparently i cant...its there under yudi suicide attempt...do watch it if u guys can...its awesome! rochella_22 

i love SUKHI...very captivating... u gotta see the scene where SUKHI gets in the tempo lookin at tina had me all..."awww....he's lookin so cuteeeeeeeee".... i still cant take my eyes off the screen....and u r rite....both of them do look really cute...i dare say...the sub-plot is better than the main track...lol rochella_22

their chemistry really adds 2 whats going on around them it makes it so interesting and sweet ILUVPREM

[inadarkdarkroom]

Psycho Roommate

This one isn’t a ghost story it’s a real life story although I would not be surprised if this guy was possessed by a demon. I spoke briefly about this experience once on an article about losing friends but I’ll tell the WHOLE THING because it still scares me to think about it and think about HIM.

So, the story begins with my now-fiancé, M, and his friend Tim. Tim doesn’t deserve anonymity and should be locked up before he can hurt anyone. Tim and my fiancé had been friends for only about a year but they became really close and like brothers. Tim had on and off dated this girl, E, forever. Whenever they were broken up, they’d date other people and end up back together. At one point, they broke up and Tim started dating this other girl for a while. She will be now known as V for victim for the story and also because I can’t remember her name. V had a young son and I had heard some stories from M and from Tim about her, nothing bad just stories that come out when you’re reminiscing. Through this I found out that V had loaned Tim about 700$ to make a trip to Mexico for his archeology class and had bought him a laptop and all this shit. They ended up breaking up before I started dating M and Tim was back to dating his on again off again gf when I first met him.

Tim was a vegan, straight edge, hare Krishna - aka a party pooper. JK he was actually pretty fun and didn’t care what others were doing and would always be the DD. he usually had some humor about it too and didn’t even get mad when my brother thought it was really hilarious to throw empty beer cans at him at a barbecue. My brother is an asshole - but one of those fun assholes you know?

So I met Tim pretty quick after I started dating M and at that time M was living in a big rooming house in a college town that was mostly empty for the summer because most of his old roommates had graduated and didn’t do sublets for the rest of the lease. Tim is short and fat and looks like s gremlin. He was nice enough and was always joking around and was just kind of one of those “weird guys” like harmless seeming but just kind of weird. M would have get togethers and bbqs at his house semi frequently over the summer and Tim would usually come. I started to get to know him better and better but for some reason I was always uncomfortable being around him. I am a HUGE JOKESTER so I make jokes all the time and Tim would always joke back to me but would make them kind of weirdly sexual? But we didn’t put much into it because we figured he was just being that weird funny guy and he wasn’t serious about it and plus my fiancé trusted him completely.

At one of these parties, everyone else was on the porch and I had gone in the house to use the bathroom or something and Tim was coming out of the kitchen so we started joking around and kind of like play fighting and I bet Tim that I could kick over his head. I’m tall and have long legs and can kick really high and Tim was the size of a hobgoblin. So I go to do it in an arc like fashion - starting low then sweeping over his head and then coming down on the other side. When I was starting to end the kick, he pushed me, and I fell backward into the front door which was that cheap treated glass type door. THANK HEAVEN ABOVE it didn’t shatter and slice me to bits but I left a great big cobweb shatter thing from where my ass hit the door. Right after it happens, M , comes rushing in to see if I’m alright and Tim started apologizing to him and not to me. He played it off like we were just fooling around and I THOUGHT we were too at the time. Looking back on it, I remember the look on his face right before he pushed me and he had this creepy smile. Thinking back on it there’s no way you wouldn’t know that pushing me would push me into the glass door. SO everything was fine and no one was hurt so we laughed it off and continued about our night.

Tim would always make those jokes that all friends do like “if you hurt him I’ll kill you” and one time I was like “yeah haha I’m not planning on it” and was just trying to laugh it off but he would NOT LET IT GO. He kept saying he’d kill me if I hurt M and I just kept trying to laugh it off and he finally stopped when M came back from the bathroom (we were getting lunch at a restaurant)

So once again I just chalk it up to him being a fucking weirdo and I tell M about it later and he thinks the same. That summer continued on being the best thing ever. Tim and E ended up breaking up for good this time, me and M got engaged and everything ruled. Toward the end of the summer Tim started dating a new girl named A. A was so cool and funny and she rescued and trained dogs and was just awesome. And way too cute for Tim and they’re STILL TOGETHER NOW BARFFFFF.

Anyway, M and Tim end up moving into this shitty ass townhouse in the ghetto together when both of their leases were up in August. Tim had lived in the apartments across the street and claimed he could get s discount on rent (lie) and things were getting down the wire so they just moved in there. BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER.

Anyway things are fine at first but M starts getting more and more annoyed with Tim. It’s just roommate things like Tim never cleaned and never bought anything for the place and if he did he’d buy like the shittiest stuff - like dollar store brand 1 ply toilet paper. And also his fucking cats had fleas and gave one of our ferrets fleas. She had never had fleas ever and she had a white coat so we noticed them pretty quick. He said it was IMPOSSIBLE for the fleas to have come from his cats (lie) but the fleas would NOT GO AWAY no matter how many flea treatments we gave poor little Chloe. The fleas actually probably came from Tim because he is disgusting.

Anyway things are like okay for a few months and Tim is still dating A. During this time, my fiancé ended up buying a (LEGAL) sawed-off shotgun to keep in his closet for protection. There was a dealer that just dealt right over the fence in our backyard and people were constantly being robbed and jumped and stabbed and a few murders had happened on our street SO whatever, it made him feel better before we had gotten our dog.

He had told Tim about it just so that he knew because I mean they were living together but it was always kept in Ms closet on a rack. The weekend before Halloween last year, we were all hanging out, me, M, Tim, and his new gf. We were watching the hills have eyes in the living room and just kind of goofing off. Tim and A were going to a Halloween party the next day and Tim was dressing up as ash from evil dead two - you know the bloody shirt the gun missing hand all that. He kept talking about how he should just use the shotgun as a prop and we just kept laughing it off but he kept bringing it up over and over and over whenever he could. Watching the movie - oh if that were me I’d just take the shotgun and kill the mutant. Shit like that. Eventually he starts bringing up the girl he had dated a long time ago the VICTIM (V) And he just keeps bringing her up for no reason and we were just like....okay? And ignored it. We called it a night probably around 430 am and the next morning when we woke up M Had all of these Facebook messages from V and they were all super urgent and she sounded really freaked out. She left her number for M to give her a call so he did. Turns out the night before, Tim was texting her the entire night, while we were all watching he movie, while he was with his NEW GF, and saying stuff like he’s been making himself better for her and all he wants to do is marry her and take care of her and her son. She was really worried about him and sent us the screen caps of the conversation because after she told Tim she had a new boyfriend he started saying he was going to kill himself because if she didn’t want him life wasn’t worth living. He told her he had gotten the shotgun and he was in the basement and was making a countdown until he was going to pull the trigger. He said the gun was in his mouth and he was going to pull the trigger at 335 or something. Which none of this was true because at that time we were all in the living room watching a movie together.

Tim and his gf were out for the day and we were worried for Tim and M had planned on talking to him when he got home. In the meantime I went out to the sporting goods store and bought a locking gun case and we ended up having a friend of ours who had a gun safe come and grab it for safe keeping. Tim came back and M told him he needed to get help and that he was worried. He tried to play it off like it was some joke and he was just messing around but the texts proved he was serious. M tells him he needs to get help and talk to his parents and that if he didn’t by the end of the weekend, M was going to call his parents and talk to them. We were just worried about our friend at this point. BUT

The next day we wake up to more texts. Screenshots from the night before when Tim was at the party with his new girlfriend. The texts had taken a different turn. He started saying he was on his way across the state with the gun and was going to take care of V, her son, and her new boyfriend. He sent her texts all night threatening to kill her and her son and her boyfriend in various ways. We freak out and M sends me to my dads house and talks to Tim and let’s him know what he knows. He tells Tim that the ex girlfriend has already called the police and made a restraining order and that M was going to call the police on Tim for this if he didn’t go into the hospital for a psych evaluation. In my state, you get put on a 72 hour psychiatric hold if you come forward and say you are going to hurt yourself or someone else. M made it clear that they wouldn’t be living together anymore and that someone would have to move out and told Tim that if he came back to the house before 72 hours were up he would call the police on him and tell them what had gone down.

So blah blah blah, Tim ends up moving out and fucking us over forever with the townhouse from ghetto hell. He comes back one night to “talk” and get his things and I have never been so scared of someone in my entire life. His eyes were black and lifeless and he had almost a hypnotizing effect when he talked (pure sociopath) and he was starting to kind of get M to go along with being friends again and I was pissed. I said “you two will never be friends again, I never want to see your face again, I don’t want to talk to you again, I want you out of our lives forever. You can’t be trusted and you tricked us for this long”

He then says “it’s funny that you don’t want to see me again cuz imagine how I feel about you”. Scared me to death. He goes to gather some of his things and M and I go out for a cigarette and I ask him what the fuck happened. He had no idea and said he just felt hypnotized by Tim when he was talking and he thanked me for snapping him out of it. We barricaded ourselves in Ms room for the night and didn’t sleep. For the few hours Tim was there we could hear him softly chanting Hare Krishna the entire time.

A few weeks later we were sick of so much of his shit still lying around so we packed up his stuff and moved it into the basement. I found a notebook that he had written a poem story thing in. I can’t remember it exactly but I’ll do my best :

“I walk home past the houses and see lives and lights

I make it to my dark door and open it waiting to see my love my life

I go down to the basement where I left her she still looks the same

Her hair is perfect and her lips are still stretched in a final scream

She looks so good in red

I turn the record player on and I sing”