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jadepetals · 3 years

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so this is part 5 of the fics that i’ve read and have stayed with me for a looong time, hope they make you feel the same way.

Happy Valentine's Day, You Cockroach / 2048 words

Harry Styles, new director of the Milltown Zoo, has a great idea for a Valentine's Day themed fundraiser. For a donation, they'll name cockroaches after people's exes and then feed them to the meerkats on a live stream. He just didn't foresee how many cockroaches would end up with his name...

tall stories on the page / 5705 words

harry's tired of being interviewed by people that only care about the same pointless gossip.

louis is a nice change of pace.

Visceral Heat & Carnal Highs / 17523 words

Louis is a demon at a house party prowling for a meal, indulging in horrendous sins to satisfy his hunger. Harry is the talk of the night, beckoning all eyes on him and the reason why Louis’s plan goes awry.

the dead things we carry / 25316 words

He hasn’t seen him since that day in France, that horrible muddy day where for one terrifyingly long second, Louis really thought he was going to die. He winces with the phantom pain, the hand not holding his cane going to his stomach automatically, remembering the franticness, the tenderness, of Harry’s hands while Louis was bleeding out.

This is the man who saved Louis’ life.

For one second, Louis fears Harry won’t recognise him, but his eyes widen when he turns to his left and they meet Louis’. He takes a step forward, reaching for him with a shaky hand before stopping himself.

“Louis,’ Harry says with a shudder and Louis doesn’t think his name has ever carried more weight.

This is the only man Louis ever thought about kissing for real.

“Oh,” Mrs. Padley says, clearly taken aback. “You two know each other?”

Runaway Darling / 26725 words

Louis hates weddings, Harry loves them, and together they help bride skip hers.

This World’s Ashes / 34633 words

Harry, battling his past as he survives in the woods, has learnt not to trust anyone except his dog. Then Louis crashes into his life, with his bright spirit and soft lips, pulling Harry from the depths of a loneliness he hadn’t realised he was drowning in. But there is danger lurking, and Harry’s not the only one wrestling with his past.

The Things I'd Do To Wake Up Next To You / 36109 words

Harry wakes up to a pregnant Louis Tomlinson and a wedding band on his finger.

Tell Me How To Feel About You Now / 38220 words

Harry has been trying to convince Louis to date him for years, but Louis has always been wary of Harry’s fairly obvious commitment issues. Louis eventually gives him a chance, opening his heart up to the one thing he fears.

Spoonful of Sugar / 42900 words

Louis Tomlinson cares for his family above all else, a fact that’s led him on a twisted path peddling drugs to support them. Just as he’s made the decision to jump ship, Louis gets snared between the two largest crime syndicates in the city. To keep his family safe he’s forced to trust the man that failed to keep his promise two years ago, the resident drug lord he’s unknowingly been working for, Harry Styles.

tastes like summer, smiles like may / 47519 words

A cold prince, an alpha with nothing left to lose and a kingdom with a secret.

social cues / 55860 words

To Harry, Louis was becoming as tangible and essential as music in his life. He still was a mystery but at the same time, he was one of the most real things Harry had. He just hoped he could live up to the image Louis probably had in his mind of him.

He could play the part, after all, what was published of him wasn’t as detached from reality. He didn’t think of himself as a rockstar cliche, although he couldn't deny he did sleep around, partied a lot, and did some drugs. But then again, wasn’t that what the majority of his friends back in his hometown were doing at college?

Harry wanted to impress Louis, he didn’t want to disappoint or leave his expectations unfulfilled, so he’d give him the full rockstar experience.

It was a very simple plan, what could possibly go wrong?

try to not remember (rather than forget) / 60979 words

*this is the spanish version since the author deleted their account*

Liberté / 64603 words

Pretending you don’t have a heart is not the best way to not get it broken. It’s just the easiest.

where they glow / 70511 words

Tangled AU where Louis dreams, Harry runs, and the sun prince has been missing for almost nineteen years.

shelter as we go / 75094 words

Louis looks at him like his words might break him, glass about to splinter, one wrong footfall away from shattering into a million tiny pieces.

“Hey,” Harry breathes, and he knows, meeting Louis’ eyes, that his words could break him easy as anything. He almost wants Louis to bring his boot down.

somewhere in between lightning / 99647 words

A summer gone wrong (or very right) when, under Liam’s persuasion, Louis finds himself drunkenly applying for Love Island, and getting accepted. Oh, well. A summer spent on an island paradise couldn’t be all that bad, right?

Imagine his surprise when Louis arrives in sunny Majorca to find that his first love and ex-boyfriend, Harry, is another contestant, about to capture the hearts of everyone in the villa. Most normal people don’t have to face their ex on an otherwise straight TV show. Most normal people don’t fall for their ex again in front of the whole nation, either. Too bad this whole situation isn’t normal.

A Taste of Desire / 104414 words

Harry is the owner of the most successful cotton mill in Manchester, and Louis is an opinionated social activist about to disrupt Harry’s world.

Mine Would Be You / 114697 words

Louis returns to New York City five years after he left it – and the love of his life – behind. He didn't intend to see Harry again, but fate has a funny way of pulling them together, whether they like it or not. After making a begrudging truce, they both start to wonder: Would it be so bad if history repeated itself?

Queen of Arizella / 277919 words

Stealing from Royalty is punishable by death.

Louis starts over, doing his best to keep his hands at his sides

but he is hungry and he tries stealing from the wrong Royal.

Harry is King of Arizella, he needs a Queen and who better than an omega on the run from death?

Louis will learn to become the perfect Queen -the perfect fake Queen, but only for a few months.

A fake lover, a fake Queen, but a real bond.

all we can do is keep breathing / 310000 words

A fated story of two broken and battered boys who barely survived the unimaginable and how the love of one little brave girl defies all the odds and somehow puts them back together.

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5

#self indulgent i just wanna be able to find them fast #larry fic rec #fic rec list #larry #fic rec #larry stylinson #april fic recs #i'm back

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biotchthatmeows · 3 years

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#tw #suicideawarness #triggering #depression #suicide #substanceabuse

Ah! So suicide awareness month eh. Well I don't know where to burst out exactly because people don't really care about it but ok let's try it here at good ol' Tumblr.

So, where I live we don't have any suicide helpline or any awareness programs or anything at all regarding mental health. I mean don't get me wrong we would adapt western media full fledge when it's Valentine's Day or some other ridiculous thing but no one wants to talk about suicide because it doesn't bring trp and people are already sad and I agree it's true.

But we gotta talk about suicide, man, come on. I am sorry but at least I think I should.

I have never really openly said it but I have given hints many times. But I am openly saying it that I suffer from very severe depression and anxiety plus Bipolar personality disorder. Which means I am either going through maniac episode or depressive episode almost everyday (you can Google them).

And yes, I have tried to kill myself multiple times. And turns out like most things in my life I am not really good at it. Since, I am writing this. Which is why whoever is reading this, I am taking your time (thanks btw).

I was always a little different since my childhood as compared to others. I liked being alone a lot and writing things instead of talking to a person. Because whenever I tried to make a friend I would do something wrong and they go away. So, at one point I stopped trying and I realized something that people around me dont really like me.

Even my teachers kind of didn't like me because I would just randomly ask the most peculiar questions. For example when we were reading *book spoiler* George Orwell's 1984, everyone in the class was worried for the hero when he was being tortured but I asked or told my teacher that 'okay so, his fear for the mouse was bigger than the love for the girl and it okay to betray her?' and everyone was like that was not the point. I am sorry, I got districted and I am sure most people wouldn't get the reference.

Anyway, my point is that I always had and have questions about things when people should keep their mouth shut. At least one shouldn't questioned these things.

But that is still the thing with me, when you or someone makes a prominent statement there should be a reason or at least an explanation behind it but I was called blasphemous for questioning them. And that was fine with me but calling me blasphemous didn't get you out of the position of not able to justify your statement.

So, throughout my life I was called many things, spoiled, brat, weird, drama queen, actress, attention seeker. I can go on and on.

I don't know about rest of the names but I am pretty sure I wasn't spoiled. My parents were never the type to hand over the money because you asked for it. They were kind of people who wouldn't even give you money even when you actually need and beg for it. They would give you the thing instead that you need the money for or you don't get it at all for example school picnics and events or the bag you really really wanted.

So, well when you don't get things. You eventually start doing bad things such lying a lot and stealing stuff. And it keeps growing and growing and even though deep down you know how wrong you are but then you don't know how to stop because you are getting things you want.

Okay, off the topic again. What I am trying to say that I was maybe lot of things that people said but I wasn't spoiled. I was physically abused and eventually realize mentally abused too. And things weren't really okay with me. I won't take it like most people do.

My brain wouldn't stop thinking about them and I was becoming more and more irrational as days goes by. And I was thinking what if I was dead and that would make things lot more easier for me and the people around me.

Eventually, that idea became more and more intense and growing around I always heard people say that if a person kills themself they would never be forgiven and it was the greatest sin ever.

But then those people would also say that not praying is the greatest sin and you won't be forgiven for that ever.

And then not believing in one God is also the biggest is of all sin and you won't be forgiven for that ever.

And then saying hurtful things to people is also the biggest sin and you won't forgiven until that person forgives you.

So, which one was the biggest sin? All of them? Because then those same people would say that God would forgive you for all your sins if you repent and because God is most forgiving. Even more forgiving then your own mother.

So, my curious brain once again started asking questions. For which again I was told that I shouldn't because it was wrong and blasphemy.

Meanwhile, my mental health was decling day after day but no one really noticed because in our society their is no such thing as mental health. Either you are crazy or lazy, hey that rhymes.

I was pretty much deemed both.

Mostly, lazy but then there is a solution for that in our society for as well. Get married! Tada! Because when you are married it fixes everything! And anything.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that I obviously despiced the marriage thing. Because I knew I couldn't do it.

Someone who can barely keep themself put together, cannot handle the responsibility of the marriage and of course I wasn't interested in anyone. I mean of course I had crushes and stuff but unlike most girls/women my age I never went as far as thinking about marriage all the time. Which was happening at that time all around me.

People were keen to get married or getting married.

And I don't know why people thought it's about time I should get married too and everytime the situation like that came along I would have the worst kind of panic attacks. I couldn't eat or drink or sleep and I had to fight and fight to make the situation go away.

But you can't win every time now, can you? Eventually, I was forced into getting engaged and I can't explain how horrible each second for me during that time was. But once got lucky enough get out of it and it was happiest day of entire life. Well just for me of course. Everyone around me was pretty bumped but I was selfish because I got out of it.

And the worst part of the whole thing that bugged me was that guy was honestly horrible. He called me fat and then his family came around to inspect me like a cattle because my family told them I wasn't fat. What a wonderful thing to your child. Really helped my self esteem.

He couldn't even spell aunty right. Yeah he wrote 'unty' and apparently his parents bragged he went and study in Australia. So, if Australians wrote aunty like that, then I suppose I was being a little judgy.

Anyhow, I was so relieved. It was like I could breathe again. But obviously it wasn't the end of it.

Things like that don't don't just end for people in our society. Situations like that kept happening and my parents was getting desperate at this point because duh! I was growing old and who would marry an old girl even when like they 10 years older her.

During the period of my engagement my mental health was at its worse and it was getting worse everyday. I was constantly having panic attacks and one day out pity I was finally taken to the doctor not a psychologist or psychiatrist but just a normal doctor.

Lucky for me that guy prescribed a magical pill which fixed everything, for a while and I loved it. The minute I would take that pill everything would become normal. I would even stopped caring about the engagement thing till that pill lasted.

I didn't know at first what it was but then I figured it out and I would go out buy shit ton of them because it fixed things for a while.

In short I was addicted to vallium and then I found out there are other pills like that such as Xanax and plenty of other and as long as I had money no one cared who they selling these pills too and it wasn't like I was buying them from some shady person. I was actually buying them from legit pharmaceutical shops.

So, whenever situations like those came around or at that any other point I faced problems I would take those pills but then I realized that eventually that they stopped working so I increased the doses for them to work and the doses increased and increased. At one point I was taking a box each day just for a moment of calm. And years went by and so did the amount of pills I was literally throwing my whole month of salary on them.

Then my family finally noticed that something was off because I never had money and I wasn't exactly

buying anything so where was the money going? Also I was sleeping a lot and starting to forget things which was pretty out character for me.

I was confronted and given an ultimatum. So, for a week or more I think I didn't take any pills but then I was taking them for years now and you are not supposed to suddenly stop them. But I didn't know that at that time.

And that was my first attempt to kill myself. But then things happen, bad things, and they kept happening and happening. Finally came a point where no one was to stop me from taking pills or trying to kill myself.

By then I had committed multiple attempts to kill myself. I was self harming long before that but after that it had gotten much worse. And my last attempt was this year but instead of dying I went into a seizure which lasted 48 hours and even after that I wasn't able move my tounge properly and certain part of my body for a month.

That was the first time I was scared of suicide. Because I was not able to do anything on my own. I bit tounge so hard that it bled and broke a teeth. It worse than dying.

I was finally taken to the hospital and a real psychiatrist who finally diagnosed me with my illness.

Yet still, some people think I make things up because I did them in the past but that shit was real and anyone who say I act crazy to get attention, then I swear to you that you wouldn't wish that condition on your worst enemy.

Talking about all this wasn't to let my heart out or anything. I just want to tell you and anyone who understands to realise that mental illness is very very real and it's a nightmare that doesn't go away. That only problem it is not visible like other diseases. It's just like having a cancer but imagine you can't see that cancer.

And being suicidal is not a joke, no one wants to end their lives on purpose. Everyone wants to live.

But just think for a moment from prespective of the person that their brain had been through enough that it thought that life is not worth living anymore. And if it's a sin then they are ready to go to hell because imagine life being worse than hell.

I know this is already a really long post but I needed to bring this up because recently I was having conversation with colleagues about what we should about suicide awareness month and I was like maybe make post to empathize with people who go through this horrible rough path but my colleagues suggested that they should put this religious script which says that anyone commits suicide will never be forgiven and will forever be in hell.

And this was coming from the person who doesn't pray at all. I was like what about you? I wasn't judging him. I was like so you won't go to hell and be there forever?

And he was like I will be forgiven but people who commits suicide they will not be. And he was so confident that he even said that you will see on the day of judgment that people who didn't pray will be eventually forgiven but there is no way for people who had committed suicide to be forgiven.

And I was like okay, wow! Because there is literally no point with arguing or trying to make people like them understand because they won't. And I know many, actually forget many but most people would agree with him. Because they don't even accept mental illness as illness at all and if you are sad/depressed you must not be praying or need to pray more.

But, I pray for those ignorants who make fun of mental illness and suicide and call it attention seekers or actors when it is desperate cry for help.

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helenarlett-rex · 5 years

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The Story of The Lady Liandra, or, When your D&D party is too stupid to live...

Years ago I started my great campaign. I felt it was a stroke of brilliance. It was a campaign in which I was the DM but no one knew I was the DM. I wrote every session and handed it off to a proxy DM to run while I posed as a player filling in the part of the party’s rogue. But what the other players never realized was that my character was actually a succubus. The Lady Liandra. I spent my time fighting along side the party as we dealt with a false wizard running a underground drug ring and later an evil Rakshasa. And never once did I do anything evil. I truly was their friend and ally. But I was always watching them. Always paying close attention to their actions. I was waiting. Waiting for them to commit the three sins of thought, word,and deed. Which for this game, meant saying something, thinking something, and doing something against their alignments. And eventually enough of them had committed the three sins that that poor little succubus just couldn’t sit back and watch anymore. They were gift wrapping their souls and handing them to her. What was she supposed to do? She was a lawful character. Lawful evil, but still lawful. And according to the laws a succubus had every right to their souls once they committed the three sins. And that was when I relieved myself and took over as the true DM, while my proxy DM stepped down and joined the party as his favorite NPC.

This led to a grand adventure where the party traveled to hell and broke into a law office to retrieve the contracts for their souls. But there was a slight problem with this. I had a way for them to get their souls back the proper way, but they didn’t take it. Instead, my party of mostly lawful good heroes, who lost their souls by doing things that were far from lawful good, broke into a law office, slaughtered an army of filing clerks, and stole the contracts for their souls which Liandra had acquired through entirely legitimate means.

The poor succubus didn’t know what to do. These were her friends. She had fought and bled alongside them. They had saved towns and villages together. She had even developed a drug addiction in the line of duty helping them take down a horrible drug lord who was addicting the masses to a new substance refined from demon spit. She had done that for them. She didn’t make them commit the three sins. They had all done that on their own. If they were going to throw their souls away then they should at least be collected by someone who cared about them and would take care of them in their eternal damnation. She had to sacrifice her ability to continue adventuring with them just to make sure that when they did die, their eternal torment would be the least horrible she could make it. And this was how they repaid her? Killing her staff, burning her law firm to the ground, and stealing from her? But they were supposed to be the good guys... Why would they do this to their friend?

So with a heavy heart, Liandra cut all ties with her former companions and let them go on their way. She didn’t even press charges and try to retrieve her stolen property. If they were just going to reject her help then she wouldn’t interfere. And if they lost their souls to someone who didn’t have their best interest in mind, there was nothing she could do about it. She had been rejected.

In her grief, Liandra returned home to be with her brother, the half breed, Maldekore The Demon Child. But upon returning home she found that her brother had started a war with the kingdom of Ulria. A war that was close to bringing about the kingdom’s destruction. Still the legal minded sort, Liandra brokered a peace treaty between the warring kingdoms in which she would marry the prince of Ulria and unite their two families instead of watching them destroy each other. But then along came her former companions once again...

They were at once against the wedding and set out to find a magic ring that would protect the prince from her influence. That was a little disappointing. Liandra had rather hoped to have her new husband wrapped around her little finger, but whatever... Even if they managed to retrieve the ring from the wraith of Sinner’s Island and give it to the prince, she would still be in line to become the next queen, even if her power wasn’t absolute. And she would still have saved both kingdoms from the ravages of war. That was something.

But then a third party decided to interfere. A band of dwarves who were unhappy with Ulria’s decision kidnapped Liandra and attempted to convince both sides that the other had been behind it. The war was going to be back on and Liandra was powerless to stop it.

But her former companions! They would surely uncover the truth. They knew a war like this would destroy both sides. Surely they would rescue her! Sure, they’d had their differences in the past, but this was bigger than any of that. They had to know that rescuing her was the only way, right?

Well... no... Instead her former companions... the “heroes”, took the advice of a certain drug lord she had once helped them remove from power, and traveled to the Realm of Madness to recruit a Jabberwock in a last ditch effort to storm her brother’s castle. And Liandra? She was left in a dwarven prison to rot. Alone and forgotten.

Years later the dwarves befell a great calamity at the hands of their master, a Corrupted Monger who her former “friends” had never bothered to remove from power, and Liandra was able to escape. But what she found when she did shocked her. Not only had her former companions put an end to the war by bringing a Jabberwock over from the Realm of Madness and using it to kill her brother, but they had apparently promised the beast her brother’s kingdom in exchange for his service, only to double cross him and banish him back to the Realm of Madness the moment the job was done.

And other tails were being told as well... Tales of Icewind Dale being completely overrun with vampires, which her former companions had tricked into migrating there so they wouldn’t have to deal with them in Ulria. Tales of them aiding a cult in summoning the dread planet, Allabar, the Opener of the Way, from the Far Realm. And even tales of them altering the very fabric of time, resulting in the eldritch abomination, Lenore, becoming the goddess of what was now the most popular religion in the land. Were these really the deeds of the people she had once called her friends? How had the party she once fought along side, who had prided themselves on their precieved goodness, changed so much? She was a succubus. A fiend. Lawful evil... And even she had never done anything that bad...

And where were they now? Happily settled down and retired from adventures. Enjoying the spoils of the exclusive shipping rights for the entire Kingdom of Ulria, which they had apparently swindled the King out of in exchange for their services in killing her brother. Liandra was disgusted. She wanted nothing more to do with them. But apparently fate would not allow it...

It seemed that with her brother’s death, she had come into an inheritance. An adamantine mine located on Dis, the second circle of The Nine Hells. It had once supplied adamantine to the material plane through a pass within a mountain cavern that connected Dis to the material plane. She could use the profits from such a thing to get back on her feet after her law firm was destroyed and her brother’s kingdom concurred in the name of Ulria. But with the kingdom now under Ulria’s banner that meant all shipments would have to go through the shipping company now owned by her former companions.

Not wanting to deal with them again, Liandra reached out to a younger group who had apprenticed under her former companions and now worked for the company. Asking them to handle the shipments of adamantine to the material plane. She even warned them that there were recent reports of trouble in the mountain pass they would have to use and they may have to clear out whatever had decided to nest in there during the time the mine was out of service.

This new group of adventurers seemed promising and she had hoped that maybe she could establish a new sort of friendship with them to replace the one she had regrettably lost with the old group. But trust was going to be hard to build, because they had apprenticed under her former companions, and as such has been told of her. Though obviously tales colored through her former companions’ warped perspectives. This was only made worse when the trouble in the mountain pass turned out to be far greater than she had anticipated.

It turned out the mountain pass was now being used as a staging ground for a heretical cabal of demons and devils working together towards the goal of freeing Tiamat from her prison in the hopes of unleashing her upon the Nine Hells. When the new group of adventurers stumbled into their lair they were quickly taken prisoner and transported back to Dis to serve as slaves for the cabal.

Liandra quickly began working on a plan to rescue them and help them put a stop to this cabal. After all, Dis was her home now. She had even had to sign a contract promising not to leave Dis just to convince their shipping company to take her on as a client. She certainly didn’t want a very angry Tiamat laying waste to it. But her plan was all for naught. The party was only there for three days and before Liandra could even put her plan to rescue them into motion they had already escaped, blamed her for their capture, and unleashed a plague of Brown Mold upon Dis which rapidly spread and engulfed the entire second circle of hell.

They knew Liandra was lawful. They knew that the contract she had signed would bind her to Dis without means of escape. And they covered the entire plane in deadly Brown Mold. It was an assassination attempt. She hadn’t even been a part of what happened to them and they blamed her without any proof and wiped out an entire plane of existence just to kill her. This group was even worse than the ones who had trained them...

Thankfully Liandra was able to escape. An emergency evacuation was put into effect for the entire plane of Dis, and because many of the higher ups who made the rules in Dis were likewise bound to the realm, they voted to lift all binding contracts restricting anyone from leaving under emergency evacuation protocol. Even Tiamat was set free in light of the situation. So it was no problem at all for someone as insignificant as Liandra to breach her contract and flee.

After that she spent a great deal of time as a refugee in one of the great undead cities in the Shadowfell with many of the other evacuees from Dis. She didn’t dare step foot back in the material plane again. Both her former companions and their pupils were deranged psychopaths who committed great atrocities while proclaiming how “good” they were, and they all held a serious vendetta against her. They didn’t even know she had been trying to save them and they weren’t about to listen now.

But after a year in the Shadowfell news reached Liandra of new trouble in Ulria. A band of kobolds had somehow managed to assassinate the king, and at the same time a visiting king from an orcish kingdom across the sea who was visiting on a diplomatic mission. Both sides were now blaming the other and war was once again coming to Ulria. And to make matters worse, that last group of adventurers she had dealt with had somehow managed to destroy Ulria’s economy, amassed all the land’s wealth on their own micro-nation, and was now declaring neutrality in the coming conflict. Ulria would not survive this war on their own.

But Liandra was still a noblewoman with some degree of power. Even if her lands had been taken or destroyed, the orcs didn’t know that. And the new King of Ulria had been her feancè once, so many years ago. Perhaps a political marriage would be enough to give the orcs second thought and hold off the war until things could be sorted out. After all... who wanted to go to war with a kingdom that had just united with the forces of hell? Maybe... Just maybe... their bluff would save Ulria.

And so Liandra and the new king were finally married. He still had that magic ring that protected him from the influence of a succubus, but Liandra didn’t care about that anymore. That was in the past. Now her only concern was in saving the kingdom she had once fought to protect all those many years ago. And she had her work cut out for her. Her new husband was not a very good king. He’d never had much of a mind for politics. She’d known that even back when she tired to marry him the first time. But with Liandra taking over the courtly duties and allowing her husband to serve as king in name only, things were finally starting to improve. They were able to hold off the orc invasion. The lives of Ulria’s people were beginning to improve. Things were finally looking up. Liandra was actually happy. She even converted to her husband’s faith as a worshiper of Odin. She was the first fiend to ever turn her back on hell and convert to the service of a good god.

And then it all fell apart.

A member of the party she had once tried to employ broke into the castle in a drunken stupor, and through a feat of unbelievable luck, managed to make his way to her husband’s bed chambers where he slit the King’s throat in his sleep and stole one of the magic rings from the King’s collection.

Liandra was now the widowed Queen of Ulria, but she had lost the husband she had actually come to love. And now she feared that her former companion’s apprentices would be coming for her next.

But there was another problem. Her husband had been a worshiper of Odin. And Odin had a rule. No king who followed him would be denied death on the battlefield without retribution. But her husband had had his throat slit in his sleep. The rule had been broken. And before Liandra could do anything about it, the castle was suddenly full of valkyrie sent to enact Odin’s retribution. They would have blood. They would have the blood of the one who killed the king and everyone associated with him.

Hoping to hold off the needless slaughter of innocent people who had nothing to do with her husband’s murder, Liandra convinced the valkyrie to stay in the castle as her bodyguards. Telling them that if they stayed with her, the guilty party would come to them when they came back to kill her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to save the foolish party at this point, but at the very least maybe she could limit the deaths the valkyrie would deal out to only them, and spare the lives of their families.

And just as Liandra had expected, the party did come back for her. Now that the King was dead, they had come to kill her and place one of her husband’s illegitimate daughters on the throne as a puppet Queen, loyal to them.

For a fleeting moment, Liandra hoped that upon seeing the valkyrie protecting her, the party would second guess their actions. Maybe they would realize they had gone astray and were no longer doing works of good. But the moment quickly passed when upon seeing the valkyrie the party declared that “Odin must have turned evil if he is protecting a demon!”

In their self delusions they still insisted that she was an evil demon and they were the virtuous heroes. But Liandra wasn’t a demon. She was a succubus. A fiend, neither devil nor demon, and not beholden to the rules of either. She could be whatever she wanted, and that included being good. And those were Liandra’s final thoughts as she and her valkyrie bodyguards were viciously slaughtered in her own bedchamber. She never even fought back.

Over the course of my campaign Liandra’s alignment shifted from Lawful Evil to Chaotic Good. My players, who played out two different parties over the course of the campaign, shifted from Lawful Good to Neutral Evil both times. Although they are still in denial about this and will argue right to my face, that I, the DM, am wrong. But I think the sad tale of the Lady Liandra speaks for itself.

And now I have to find a way to TPK a high level party who has just stupidly declared war on Odin and unleashed the wrath of the entire Norse pantheon. Because at this point they are just too stupid to live.

#d&d #d&d story

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tastethegrace · 3 years

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The God Who Chooses

So it’s been a long time since I’ve posted here, and that’s okay.

I had a wonderful conversation with Jesse tonight. I just need to stop and say how absolutely profound it is to me that we’re still friends, in many ways closer than ever. Our whole friend group has remained in constant contact. This community of people, though spread across the country, has been an incredible blessing to me over the past 12 years. We’ve been through some really difficult times, but then we’ve also had moments like this conversation. Great segue, right?

I had asked him to chat because I was asked to come onto a podcast and discuss the problem of evil with another friend of mine. Such a vast theological conundrum deserves practice. So Jesse and I chatted about it, discussing our understanding of the difference between evil and wickedness, the character of God, and examples in Jesus, Job, and God’s dealings with humans in the Old Testament. We discussed what we knew from Scripture, and we kept coming back to the fact that when it comes down that question -- “How could an all-powerful, all-loving God allow such evil and wickedness in the world?” -- the earnest pursuit of an answer was nearly pointless.

What was important, however, was the character of God. When we ask that question, we are doing two things: judging God by our standards and assuming we know him well enough to do so. The only real biblical discussion of this is the story of Job.

First of all, there’s this back story where God and Satan make a bet on Job’s faithfulness. Then, when one terrible thing after another happens to Job (all of this attributed to Satan, of course -- allowed by God), he cries out to the Lord, touting his own faithfulness to God and asking why this all happened. Job’s “friends” speculate, eventually urging him to curse God, and yet Job still defends God so that he would continue to be blameless before him. Then God actually shows up.

At this point in the story, God does two things: 1) He praises Job for choosing to be faithful and 2) He asks Job who he is in the face of His own power. Job then basically says, “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

While the ending to the story speaks truth that is important for us to remember when it comes to judging God by own standards, what really stops me is the fact that God actually decided to show up and answer him in person. When God is displaying his power before Job, listing all of the things he’s done and who he is, the point of all of that is that his presence is vast and infinite. He’s not just making himself known by speaking words; he’s making himself known by being there at all. God heard him, and he came. And so the answer to Job’s “Why did this happen?” wasn’t “Because this,” it was God’s presence itself. And in the presence of God, with all of who He is on display, Job falls down and relents.

Pondering this story made me think of CS Lewis’ Till We Have Faces. Orual, considered ugly by the world, is given an opportunity to air her grievances against the gods. I’ll let Lewis’ writing speak for itself:

“The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, 'Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.' A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”...

...“I ended my first book with the words 'no answer.' I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words.”

Now, as beautiful a thought as this is, it might make no difference to someone who can’t accept the logical conclusions. Faith is not an easy thing. But it’s okay. It’s up to each of us to choose. It’s our own story to tell. The fact is that God will be a part of every human’s story, whether they walk away from Him or not, because he has not forgotten or abandoned us.

That’s a very long answer to this question, but it’s the answer at the heart of my own story. It was God’s presence in my hour of anger and sorrow that opened my eyes to who He is, and in so doing, I saw myself as He saw me. I saw his relentlessness in his love for me, his desire to have deep communion with me, to be one with me. It was enough. My questions faded away into wonder at the mystery and vastness of who He is.

Back to the conversation with Jesse. At this point we went into speculation about God’s character. After considering the creation narrative and the temptation of Jesus, Jesse asked as a hypothetical, “What if God was actually capable of wickedness?”

It’s a long honored orthodox tradition to say that God is unchangeable, eternally loving, and eternally good. It’s his state of being. We were raised to believe that he was incapable of anything but this. So Jesse’s hypothetical could cause some to fear the answer. Thankfully, neither of us were afraid to entertain it.

If God were capable of wickedness -- meaning he had the capacity to choose to do wicked things -- it would mean that for eternity, according to Scripture, he has chosen the good every single time. It would also certainly mean that he could, at any moment, choose to use his power for wickedness. He has certainly used it for evil, which in this case means chaos and destruction. After all, much to the chagrin of many a conservative theologian, death has always been part of creation, even before the fall.

Adam and Eve were given the fruit of the tree of life to keep them alive; this means that death would have been on the table for them. The natural cycle, as evidence not only on Earth itself, but in the whole universe, is birth, life, death, and rebirth. The only thing the Fall did was 1) prove that Adam and Eve, like God, could make a choice, and chose the wrong, making them smaller and weaker than God, and 2) cursed the earth so that it would be less fruitful.

But the comforting thing here is that Jesus himself, the perfect image of God, was tempted, and chose the good every single time. And God has promised that He would always make the same choices. He has proved himself to be trustworthy.

Scripture says that God is love. Love is not a state of being. It is an action. It requires choice. To say that God is incapable of wickedness actually takes away from who He is. He has always chosen the good, the path of love. Why? When you factor in the doctrine of the Trinity -- that God is three Persons in eternal communion -- and the arc of the Scriptural meta-narrative -- that over the course of human history, God has steadily moved closer and closer to human beings, being before us as our King, to being with us as our brother, to being in us as the Spirit -- I would speculate that his motivations are pretty clear. He did it all for the sake of the community. Any act of wickedness would destroy it. But He would do anything to keep communion, both within the Trinity and with us.

Jesse brought up the moments in the Old Testament where God changes his mind, or where he had the potential to commit an act of wickedness. He brought up the story in Exodus when God was going to kill Moses because he didn’t circumcise his sons. Zipporah, his wife, quickly does the deed and throws the foreskins at his feet. Only then does God relent.

I had to ask myself, why was this ritual so important? The symbolism? Surely not. No symbolic act in and of itself would be the cause of such anger. But then why? What does the act mean? The rite of circumcision, as would be detailed later in the law, was God’s way of setting his people apart from other nations. He was already building his community, and he would do anything, even killing Moses, his chosen mouthpiece to Pharaoh, to mark his people as his own. It was never about just Moses’ disobedience. It was about what he was ultimately fighting for: to bring us to himself.

In my mind, whether or not this idea that God is capable of wickedness is actually true, albeit completely unorthodox, it makes the story of God’s work in the universe palpably personal, revealing not only just how relentless God is to bring us into communion with Him, but also just how much like Him we actually are. If Jesus, who has been called the Second Adam, was the “image of the invisible God,” then all of him, both his spirit and his flesh, represented him. That includes his ability to choose. The fact that even in the Garden, when he was terribly afraid and begged God to not let him die such a horrible death or experience the weight and pain of the world’s sin, he still chose to do it, speaks to his immense capacity and resolve. Love and fellowship matter most to God. If He is capable of wickedness, and yet has consistently proven that He will choose the path of love every single time, then I trust that He will continue to be who He is in the future, keeping his promises. If this is true, then He is unchanging, but because of his actions, not because of his being.

This paints such a powerful picture to me. What if He has accumulated all that He is from continually choosing Love? What if, with every decision we make that is righteous and true and good, we gain a little more wisdom and insight into ourselves, the nature of creation, and even into God himself? It gives me the hope and desire that when people look at me, they might see a bit of Him: relentless in choosing love, no matter the cost.

As Lewis wrote in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"... "Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

He says, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he is. And that’s enough.

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amc589-blog · 6 years

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God is Good in the Affliction

I have been itchy all over my entire body for the last 3 months, if not more. The week before hurricane Irma hit landfall in Florida was when it started. I do not recall any drastic changes spiritually, physically, situationally or anything that may have caused the itching to begin. I have been to many doctors in attempt to find out whether it is allergies, stress related, biological, etc. I have been seeking answers.

After much prayer and rebuking of my itching on Friday night, it went crazy. I had never been so itchy and it was all over. There was no escape. Finally, I decided that it must be the Lord afflicting me for some reason, but He is not revealing why at this time. I texted my closest friend and lead disciple about what was going on. She prayed and sent me some verses she ran into while praying. What I interpreted through these verses was that rather than praying for my affliction to be removed, I should begin praying for endurance.

When I arrived home from spending this Saturday with my family, I pulled up to the house as a song was finishing. A turned the car off and felt led to acknowledge my affliction and verbally accept it and the challenges it would bring. In doing so, I began to speak the Gospel to myself.

Going into great detail, I began to verbally preach the Gospel to myself as if I were speaking to someone else. Specifically, I spoke as if the other person shared in some form of affliction that they felt they could not endure or desired to be removed. I began to speak about what Jesus had done. It went something like this:

Jesus Christ lived a perfect life. He never sinned. He followed every single command of the Father without hesitation or question. He lived for us.

Jesus Christ was treated in ways He did not deserve by humans. His own creation, because He is one with the Father, treated Him so wrong. Because mankind is sinful, there is no way we could have treated Jesus as He deserved. Jesus suffered for us.

Jesus Christ was taken by Roman soldiers and beaten so badly. He was tortured beyond what any person should endure. Remember, He was innocent. Jesus was blamed for crimes that were not true and that He did not commit. He allowed these men to whip Him until His flesh was ripped away. Jesus allowed these people to drive nails into His hands and feet. With every single hit of the hammer, Jesus knew that He was allowing this for their own good.

Side note: The palms of our hands and the tops of our feet are so sensitive. If we compare these to other parts of our body, can we imagine the pain this must have caused Jesus? He endured physical pain for us.

Jesus Christ took on the beating for doing what was right because the world lost sight of what was actually right. He had to go into the world that was supposed to be created for His glory and endure the pain of His creation treating Him so horribly.

Jesus Christ felt the separation of the Father. He went into the outer darkness and was separated from the Father. The absolute worst pain and absence of anything that could ever be is this very separation...

When I reached this point, I began to realize just how well Jesus can relate to my lowest point. I began to go through my testimony...

When I try to recollect anything from the past, I have to think very hard to remember. Specifically, I cannot remember much of high school. However, there was one day that I can never forget.

My freshman year of high school, I gave away my purity to my boyfriend. In the midst of the act, I acknowledged the presence of God. I knew what I was doing was not okay. This was the one thing that I never imagined I would be capable of doing. I acknowledged that the Lord was telling me that I was not being obedient and I refused to change my course of action.

I remembered that my boyfriend’s mom made us chocolate chip pancakes that day. The fact that I remember that minor, and quite irrelevant detail proves as to how big of an impact this day had on my life.

When I was getting ready for bed that night, I thought that I should cover up my sin by reading some scripture or a devotional of some sort. I could not focus on any of the words that I was reading. Eventually, I gave up and went to sleep.

In the middle of the night, I got up to use the bathroom. I sat down, looked down at my feet and I went empty. I began to breathe heavily. I began to panic. I tried to think. I tried to pray. I could not grasp the feeling. I was completely empty. My heart was pounding slowly. I did not know what had happened.

I have been given revelation of what exactly happened in that moment over the years. The only way I can describe if that God took His presence away from me. He did not forsake me. He did not leave, but I was no longer able to feel His presence. I could not experience the Holy Spirit.

The conviction I was experiencing was the deepest I have ever felt. There was no lower point. There is no point in my life that will ever be worse than that exact moment. Being separated from the presence of God is the worst experience any person could ever have.

Jesus Christ was separated from the presence of God for us.

Jesus Christ went to hell and endured the horrible place of the absence of God. People think that hell is the worst earthly experiences possible, but it is actually so much worse. It is the entire separation from God for all of eternity and there is no chance of ever having a choice to return to His presence. Absolute separation from God for all of eternity is the worst experience anyone could ever endure. That is exactly what hell is. Jesus endured that for us.

Jesus Christ overcame death and separation. He was resurrected and came back to earth for us. He witnessed to people of His sacrifice and His love for us. He shared His wisdom with people so that they could share with each other. Even though we are not capable of being perfect, we can still share Jesus’ perfection with others.

Jesus Christ ascended into heaven to sit next to the Father and represent us and intercede on our behalf. When we sin, we are unable to seek that Father fully because we have chosen to separate ourselves. When we repent, Jesus is the sacrifice that God sees. He does not see our sin. He sees that Jesus has died and atoned for our sin.

God called for living sacrifices of animals to atone for sin. These animals had to be free of blemish. How much more perfect was Jesus as a human sacrifice who was free of any blemish? God placed Himself within a human to sacrifice Himself for our atonement.

Not only did He die, but He was resurrected and came back to life. Jesus Christ returned to life and eventually ascended back to heaven. He promised He would see down His Holy Spirit to dwell within those who believe in all He has done.

The fact that the creator of existence itself sacrificed Himself for the sake of mankind is beyond imagination. To even begin to describe the very being of God is impossible. He just is. He is the I Am. He is so Great.

Once we have fully contemplated the entire truth of the Gospel, how can we possibly complain? How can we possibly feel the need to desire anything other than Jesus? How can we do anything except worship God?

God is good. In my affliction, I can endure because He has endured far greater affliction.

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tinnefoil · 7 years

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Some thoughts on the fixxer upper concept

A while ago somebody posted an article that complained about Karamel following a fixxer-upper storyline structure and those are creepy and pretty sexist.

Now, I actually do agree with many of these concepts.

But what struck me about the argument was that I personally differentiate between:

1.) Fixxer Upper

2.) Lovable oaf

3.) Badboy redeemed

(and lovable/angsty badboy)

For example, I don’t see Homer Simpson and most of the “Sitcom where the wife is attractive and the husband is not” as fixxer uppers. Because I don’t think that the Homer is ever going to change. The implication to me is more that Homer has a (in his case huuuuuuge) set of unappealing and awful traits, but he has some traits that Marge likes and that in her hand make up for it. [or: Homer “changes” mostly in such that the writers sometimes throw in a nicer episode because they worry the watchers will get sick of it, note, I haven’t watched the Simpsons regularly anymore for ages, maybe my info is outdated]

The “friendly” version lovable idiot is probably something like “accept people who they are” or “we are all flawed” etc.

As for the difference between fixxer upper and badboy redeemed. I guess I would say the gravity of the crimes? And that badboy redeemed maybe has a bigger focus on paying for your sins versus changing? Or a bigger focus on “only she understands his real pain”.

I actually find most of these elements are at least so far relatively absent in Karamel and if they exist, they are not a huge focus. (like Kara doesn’t spend a ton of time trying to understand Mon-El’s manpain and cuddling him over it, or at least not on screen)

Anyway, I think one aspect is the different treatment of crimes versus habits. In society if you commit a murder you are expected to go to jail. We can talk very long and detail about the philosophy of jail, but let’s agree that in the public consciousness this is often thought of as “paying” for you crime. (in fandom paying usually comes in a bunch of different forms, having bad things happen to you and suffering (karma justice/paying in pain, sometimes bleeding over bad childhood as both payment and excuse), trying to do good things to “make up for it”, direct compensation to the people who you have hurt, forgiveness from the people you have hurt)

But you don’t “pay” for chewing with your mouth open (well at least I hope you don’t). You just either learn to stop it or you don’t.

The other thing about fixxer upper, or rather what I picture under fixxer upper is that:

1.) Fixxer uppers are imo relatively frequent in real life

2.) Fixxer uppers are by comparison imo relatively rare in fiction

3.) I personally believe the main reason for 2 is because men really hate fixxer upper as a concept

Again, I do think that fixxer upper as a concept are is based on sexist ideas about roles. I think it is best personified by the saying “Women marry a guy hoping they can change him, men marry a woman hoping that she will never change” (ie never gain weight, never get a better job, never want less sex than before, never have less time for him)

It’s this whole idea that women have to do all the impressing work upfront or that relationships are more front loaded for men (ie the good parts are the beginning and it goes downhill from there). Excluding the idea that there for example might be non-domestic women or men who really do get something out of domesticity.

I think the male perspective on the fixxer upper is the vision of the nagging shrew who always tries to push you into things you don’t want and can’t just let you live in peace and accept you who you are. I think we see a slightly sanitized version of this in the various “men who never want to grow up” comedies, where the women are portrayed as spoilsports but maybe with some underlying “okay, maybe she is kinda sorta right in principle, I have to grow up eventually”.

In real life the fixxer upper relationships I’ve seen usually centered around:

1.) Losing weight

2.) Eating more healthy

3.) Dressing better

4.) Getting rid of sucky friends

5.) Getting a job

6.) Asking for a promotion

(so this is what I’m picturing when somebody says fixxer upper, more like the slobby guy, the “well he is not as fit or well dressed or rich as I would like him to be, but those things I can fix”, and not the wifebeater/drug addict/5th stint in jail guy and his handwringing long suffering wife)

I can’t say how happy or unhappy these real life fixxer uppers are, though a decent amount of them seem to last a decent amount of time, and at least some women come off almost if they are bragging about it, almost like it is some kind of hobby.

In real life I always kind of fascinating because in real life the joke on this is often that men have to be molded/have no will of their own (like jokes that one has to unlearn him any bad habits that his mother or last girlfriend taught him or jokes that the previous girlfriend did a good job in breaking him in). Which again I think is the reason why men don’t really care for seeing this portrayed in fiction.

So the female negative perspective on Fixxer Upper is that it means that good women have to marry slobs and improve them because men are not taught to fix themselves up for relationships to the same extent as women are and the male perspective is something like that women are shrews who care about the wrong things, don’t accept you for who you are, and always try to push you into a direction you don’t want.

In real life I suspect men go into this because well, most of these things are usually can be argued to have some sort of benefit or are not too end of the world awful.

I’m guessing the romanticized version of fixxer upper from the women’s side is that she isn’t really forcing him into it, that he has this inner need anyway.

And I guess the romanticized version from the man’s POV is supposed to be that somebody saw their true potential and supported them all the way through. (kind of like a slightly more down to earth “chosen one” narrative, based on this idea that most normal people probably at least sometimes feel that they are wasting their potential, but procrastination or maybe even self confidence is a hard thing to shake).

Which brings me to another aspect, namely that fixxer upper as a construct is like really taboo in real life when it goes into the other direction. A woman wanting her boyfriend to lose weight is her caring about his health. A man wanting his girlfriend to lose weight makes him an horrible shallow person. Because we trust women to not just be superficial and visually oriented and to be nurturing, but we don’t trust men to be the same. Because for a woman to be beautiful has a very different meaning and value in a social context than it has for a man. And because for a long time the tools men had to try to affect their spouse’s life were very different than the other way around (like the man having the right to decide whether the woman can have a job or a bank account).

The original article also talked about, what about the other side. What about female fixxer uppers?

I think there are male fantasy versions that are kind of related to this concept. I think the male version of fixxer upper/badboy redeemed tends to bleed over more into a hero fantasy. It’s basically “the girl with ‘issues’”. Falling for the drug addict girl and trying to get her to come clean. Falling for the girl whose boyfriend beats her and always goes back to him (bleeding into nice guy (tm) and “if she only came to her senses and saw that I’m so much better for her”).

So back to fixxer upper versus lovable oaf versus angsty badboy. Now I do think that there’s a reason why they tend to bleed over into each other. Because I’m sure a lot of characters are a mix between them.

Like, most redeeming badboys probably also suffers from habits that need fixing that were responsible for him doing the crimes in the first place (I guess maybe there are some exceptions where it’s more like “basically good guy in character who did bad things in the past that he feels guilty over”, but I would put that more under “goodguy with a dark and tragic past” rather than “badboy redeemed”). So he needs to do both, unlearn the old habits and pay for the crimes. Or it might be decided that it’s wrong for the woman to try to fix a guy or at least to try and fix all habits, so in regards to those habits he turns into the lovable oaf. He still retains some bad habits, but he’s still lovable due to other traits.

Btw, it gets further complicated that what fandom considers crimes doesn’t necessarily overlap 100% with actual crimes, like fandom tends to see cheating as a crime-crime and is much more likely to make excuses for “I was violent/murdered somebody to protect my loves ones”. It creates some interesting situations when for example cheating gets treated more like a crime that you pay for (like by being beaten up and crying a lot) rather than habit you have to fight/get rid of, with like psychological help.

One last thing, I think both fixxer upper and badboy redeemed are often a type of power fantasy. Now this doesn’t mean that it’s good or healthy (like one can argue that this power fantasy is attractive because it comes from a person of powerless or otherwise one wouldn’t have to fantasize about it), it just means that that is what it feels like to the people who like it. Because to shape a person or to deeply affect their lives, are examples of having power over a person.

The other example of course is people who like badboy redeemed from the perspective of the angsty badboy. I think this blends into the fantasy of the chosen one, of we know we suck/are less than our perfect selves, but then somebody comes and sees our potential and helps us develop it. It makes me wonder if this is related the other version, the one with the fixxer upper girl, being so taboo in society. That outside of some teacher/mentor relationships, the true equivalent of badboy redeemed, where the person is really shit, has give into her feelings, be rebuilt, see that they are shit and strive to become better is considered much more creepy with the genders reversed. Because we assume men are more controlling, because the mental image of a girl running to gain a guy’s approval is much more scary to us, because the push for women to take care of the changing without prompting is bigger/the criticism on fictional relationships like that would be harsher. Or maybe seeing it with a girl as the one to redeemed hits too close to home, so it is “safer” to project those feelings on a guy.

To get back to the original topic: I think Kara/Mon-El so far shares the most traits with Fixxer Upper and fewer traits with traditional badboy redeemed. We might end up with some elements of lovable oaf, but it’s too soon to tell.

#supergirl meta #mon-el

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princessclawdia-blog · 6 years

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Call of the Wild

Now from the time I was a little kid, I could remember my parents would spank me for whatever nonsense or foolishness I had gotten into. Afterwards I remember feeling some shame, but the older I got it turned to more of an excitement. Like any kid at the time when I knew I was about to get my ass beat I would kick, fight back, run away, but afterwards it was such a turn on. The older I got when I finally had discovered masturbation and how if I rubbed my crotch hard enough how amazingly good it would feel, it was the same kind of excitement I would feel after being spanked. When I got close to adolescence I ended up stringing the two together. After I got my ass busted, once I was alone in my room, my cherry red cheeks throbbing I'd lay down onto my bed face down, put my headphones on and grind on top of my hand or a pillow. Now growing up in a Christian household with Christian parents, and my mother who at times was fanatical about her beliefs, I often felt ashamed like as if there was something wrong with me.

Homosexuality was a sin, masturbation was a sin, dirty or impure thoughts was a sin, rock n roll music was a device of the devil and pretty much anything else I enjoyed was a sin. I felt as if I were defective and a deviant. I would have nightmares about going to hell. My mother would blame our "sins" as the reason why she or my father had an illness, or the house needed repairs, financially they were struggling with bills or an unexpected expense that had come up that they weren't prepared for, because we were bad children. We were sinful children who didn't love God and so therefore God was punishing her and us because of our sins. I as a small child lived in fear of doing anything wrong or making mistakes because I was afraid God would punish me and or my family. No person could ever live up my mother's incredibly unreasonable expectations, regardless if God had a hand in it or not.

I truly believed this irrational nonsense until I was about thirteen and lived in a state of fear and constant anxiety. I loved reading to escape from the drama and I loved history too. Watching documentaries about the Nazis, about how the SS policed everything everyone said and did so as not to deviate from the ideal the Nazi party had set forth. Documentaries on the vietnam war and the fear of the rising threat of communism. I felt I could identify with the accounts people gave. They would give interviews and tell stories, remembering how scared and anxious they would be, living in fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, the paranoia and how it would bring about a horrible end. All of that would change once I discovered the heavens that lie beyond, in the internet.

Once I had access to the internet and had built my own first computer from odds and ends of other ones that had since been upgraded in the computer lab at school and then happened upon a local computer store that was happy to have a young eager mind willing to learn and donate their spare parts towards my cause I was on my way to opening a whole new world. Now in the days of dial up internet if you knew how to link into a phone line and swipe the AOL demos from the local Wal Mart in multiples so you'd have a supply of the free trial codes, you would have unlimited access, unless the phone lines were down. I found a plethora of free porn, which was completely foreign to me up until that point. There was so much available, from girls sucking horse cocks, to gangbangs, gaping holes, spanking which of course was my immediate favorite and it was then like I had discovered Valhalla.

I had, had dreams before of being spanked and at this point coming into transitioning from being a little kid and I was now twelve years old which meant moving up into junior high school and soon I'd be a teenager and all teens think they are the shit and know it all. For me though once I stumbled upon four letters BDSM: bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadism and masochism. Now, I had heard the term sadist before, on tv when reporters would be referring to some terrible serial killer and the horrible crimes they had committed, but the rest really didn't mean much to me. I would comb through pages and pages of pictures, videos, women tied up, being fucked with dildos and vibrators, clamps and the popular clothespins hanging from throbbing nipples and I discovered my panties would be so wet after a little while of viewing.

So just like any other young, stupid kid I began experimenting. I would find clothespins, shoelaces, nylon rope in the garage and I would try to bind my still growing breasts just like in the pictures online and clamp clothespins to my tiny pink nipples. It hurt of course at first, but it was a good kind of pain. Not like the kind of pain when I fell rollerblading trying to grind across a handrail at the local church on an angle too steep to start with, but a pleasurable kind of pain. Then I moved to finding whatever I could find to fuck myself with. The big fat coloring markers, tampons still in the plastic applicator, vegetables, my hairbrush handle and my fingers. It all felt so good and it was addictive, like who doesn't want to masturbate every fucking day if they can right?

I suppose this is probably also how I ended up starting to fuck at an early age. I wasn't a complete idiot, I had taken sex education in school so I knew about STDS. My mother being a nurse and had a library of educational books in the house. When I ran out of books to read from the local library and it donned on me the wealth of knowledge in those anatomy books I began to devour them page by page. I had always loved to read since I was really little, I could read, write and spell before I hit kindergarten, but now I had a new motivation to learn. By age thirteen my mother had decided I was old enough to go to the gynecologist since my periods much like hers were getting terribly heavy and almost unbearable. Some days she would let me skip school and ride along with her to her job, and we would go to the mall for lunch sometimes when she could afford it. So by eighth grade and going on fourteen years old I was already on the pill, reading all I could about male and female anatomy and a porn fiend. When I started dating guys who were of course always a grade or two older than me and the opportunity arose after making out to fool around I thought I know exactly how to do this, I had watched so many videos online.

Even now as a grown woman I have always prided myself on giving blowjobs. I have had a lot of practice and when the first few times I had the opportunity as a teen I did what I saw online and to my surprise when I got complimented on how much he enjoyed it, it lit a fire. So when I started dating a guy who wanted to have sex, it was like my mind and body was in auto pilot. I would sneak out at night meet him in the local park, sometimes there against the silky lining on his leather trench coat in the dark under the moonlight, sometimes when his mom would be out of town and his little sister was fast asleep in her room he would let me into his bed, sometimes in his car if we could find somewhere hidden to park for a while. He was one of the first, others it would become sneaking in a quickie in their bedrooms knowing the parents were nearby. The ginger one when I got to high school, the local coffeehouse bathroom because it was quite spacious for a public restroom plus the aroma of chocolate pastries with caffeine just added to the experience.

By the time I got to college and I had friends who were just learning how to get good at fucking, their first few times in high school usually were awkward and not something they cared to remember or they were virgins waiting for it finally to be their turn I had already been through several "boyfriends". I referred to them as that, because there is not really any better term. They were boys, we were friends to some degree and we did stuff together.

Later on as an adult and into my twenties porn was something anymore I'd watch when bored or just dry up on available "boyfriend" options to pass the time. When I moved to another state and a much bigger city, my new girlfriends would talk about their boyfriends wanting to do things they just didn't enjoy. Like having her the woman get on top of him, doggie style or trying anal. Now in high school the first guy, yeah the one I met in the park at night, loved when he finally could sneak me into his bedroom and after he donned a glow in the dark condom he procured from the local gas station vending machine and I mounted on top of him. He had black lights all around his room, those tacky posters from Spencer's to match and White Zombie turned down low, thumping from his shelf stereo and it was a straight up party to the two of us. Probably one of the best reasons was while I was bouncing away on his cock to orgasm after orgasm he could lay back and we could both smoke the fat blunt he had just rolled. Sometimes his friends would come spend the night too, they would lay on either side of us on his bed, singing along to the music, passing the joint and eventually I would take my turn with each of them.

Of course my inner circle of closest friends back then, my fellow " juggalettes" (yeah, yeah I know I.C.P is so lame now, but back in the day they were the shit), the outcasts, drama and theatre nerds, the band geeks, only a few of them knew of my wild habits. They were the same few who I'd bump into at a house party or at the local coffeehouse where all the middle and lower class kids who didn't have Wranglers, Land Rovers, or tricked out pick up trucks to cruise around in at the mall, this where we went to hang out.

The few of my closer girlfriends I admit we were total sluts by definition. We would swap notes in classes, trying to one up one another about our raunchy tales from the weekend before. We would swap condoms and other goodies we purchased from various vending machines at truck stops and gas stations. Chewing on the flavored ones in class like they were fucking bubble gum. I'd swap my banana for strawberry which matched my wildly colored pillarbox red hair, as Manic Panic called it. In our minds, we felt grown up and badass as fuck. It was as if we knew a little secret the rest of our classmates had not yet figured out. Sex felt fucking awesome, it was fun and we fucking loved it. We loved to fuck every chance we got. Some of us like myself loved to fuck every chance I could with guys of course and girls too. I would salivate and get wet thinking about some of my girlfriends in their low slung hip hugger flare jeans, thong poking out in the back, spaghetti strap tops with their nipples showing through the cheap polyester fabric and the cheesy Playboy bunny glitter logo planted front and center, between their firm tits. Now that I think about this as an adult it all sounds so stupid and it is embarassing.

I still remember always feeling just a little bit off though from my friends. I would go back home, look at the darker side of porn and in the internet world I didn't feel so much as an outcast and a freak. I did eventually get a cheap webcam and I had accounts on AIM, YAHOO, and ICQ by now. I eventually late one night, at home and alone got bored and adventurous and discovered chat rooms. This wasn't like usual bullshit kiddie fun I had with my school friends, this was before emoticons were a thing too, you had to know the keystrokes to make each face. I of course found the over 18 chat rooms, quickly created an alternate profile with a fake name, address, age, and went to town. I got a cheap headset too, and I would spend hours talking to men and women from all over the world. I would exchange short videos and pictures with them. Clothespins on my nipples, tied up breasts, my fingers sloshing away at my puffy slippery wet pussy. It was in this world that I didn't feel I was an outcast, a defective, and certainly not a deviant. How could I be? There was a world of people out there just like me and enjoyed the things that I did. In this realm I felt like I belonged, like I had become part of some sort of kinky tribe. I at the time didn't know the definition of the word kink or that there was a name for these interests, just that they seemed to only come natural to me.

Now I don't know if this is the way other people have been introduced to the world of kink, but for me that is my earliest memory. As an adult now it seems to me that what I discovered was by happen stance, but if I hadn't discovered kink through the internet I would have eventually through another avenue in time. I now have piercings, tattoos, I change my hair color often on a whim and while some of these things are still considered even today in 2018 "alternative" or "wild" to me it just seems completely normal. Like my piercings and my tattoos I look at them everyday no different than the freckles on my skin. They are part of who I am, speak about me and I find them aesthetically beautiful. I don't think you can define or explain why it is some things are just attractive to some people and repulsive to others. The same with kink, it's just a turn on for many and for many others just seems bizarre and somehow unhealthy or there must be something wrong with you to enjoy such a thing. For those of us it speaks to, it's on a whole other level beyond just the physical sensations. There is a level of intimacy deeper than sex that's hard to describe, you just have to experience it.

Really and truly what it is at the core, for me at least, is an experience even when there is no sex involved. It does bring about that same kind of high you get after an intense orgasm, or at the end of a thrilling roller coaster ride. I get a high just from trying something new, it is for me a personal challenge, something new I hadn't tried before. It feels sometimes daunting, nerve wracking as fuck at times, even the feeling of danger maybe an element to it, and I have to self talk myself away from my fears of judgement or misunderstanding rooted in my conditioning since I was a child that this is not "normal behavior" and I am somehow a twisted deviant to derive such massive pleasure from participating in such things. Each new high, with each new experience it becomes cemented in my brain as a pleasant memory that brings a smile to my face. After so many years now it has become welded to my being. It is truly a part of me, of who I am, of who I was always meant to be.

I have in the past tried to supress it for one reason or another. Whether it was from a lack of time, the lack of motivation or simply just trying to fit in with a people or place, to belong where I was in life then, but after a time the hunger comes back. Like an insatiable thirst and there's only one way I know how to quench and relieve it. A call back to the wild is what I feel. Without it I don't feel whole, it is a part of my soul. Alongside my studies into the bdsm world I have also changed religious beliefs and philosophy over the years too and have come to find paganism and wicca to speak to my inner core like no other belief system could before.

My present day belief system is a fusion from different pagan practices, yes mostly from wicca, but nature and animals speak to my inner being and provide a peace I never found in christianity. I had read the Bible committed much of it to memory, I had read the Koran, books on buddhism, hinduism, jainism, back again to different versions of the bible and catholicism, but it I just didn't "feel" it. Something just wasn't right and so I continued my search until I found what I was looking for to end my hunger and thirst. Wicca and much of the other pagan beliefs centered around nature, just touched my soul in every right way possible. I felt the same kind of calm and peace when strolling down a trail on a cool fall day, admiring the colors of the fallen leaves, feeling the breeze through my hair, the fall sun warm on my cheeks, and I am one with the nature in the world around me. This is my religion, this is my spirituality, it was always there and all around me I just didn't know it until that moment.

My willingness to throw my whole self into the bdsm world and with every opportunity I can find, the closest analogy I can think of to explain why, is how I became a pagan over the years. It just clicks with me. It just speaks to who I am and to who I have always wanted to be deep down inside of myself. I had always been angry, self destructive even and at war with my inner self. I had grown tired and weary and longed for peace, for soildarity, for quiet, and to calm the storm inside of me.

The experience when I am into my subspace, participating in whatever activity I have chosen to experience, is what I like to think of as a call back to the wild. It is a call to just be, to let go of the many inhibitions that hold us back from experiencing the body and soul the way it is meant to be felt.

Life they say is meant to be lived. If you are "living" but not with feeling, with a passion, with a fire burning, with a sense of feeling free and enjoying the whole experience then to me that isn't really living. For me, I know I had heard the call of the wild many times before and I didn't fully understand it or I chose to repress it and pretend I couldn't hear it. It sounded like a lone wolf crying at the moon in search of its brethren.

I heard the call of the wild again and again and I had decided to follow it and now I know I am home. I feel the peace and solidarity with my soul that I had longed for. I am one with the wild. I am one with the wild fire burning inside and while I am learning how to master it still, I am one of the wild and no longer scared to be true to myself. I am no longer ashamed of what I am, to remain faithful and loyal to who I am. I want to become the call of the wild now to others who are willing to hear its message and want to come home to the pack. Come home my brethren, listen to the call of the wild inside of you. Do not be afraid. This is the call to love yourself, of self discovery. This is how I am learning to love and trust myself. I am one of the wild now and I will never look back.

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