#<- i did my time in the catholic church i EARNED MY RIGHT TO MAKE THIS JOKE

[tauforged]

too overtly christmas-y. i like my movies to have just a hint of christmas. the suggestion of christmas, perhaps. as soon as it becomes anything more prominent than set dressing i tap out

in my mind and my heart and soul the only christmas movies in the world are die hard, lethal weapon, the thing and prometheus. fuck everything else those are the only ones i’ll willingly sit down and watch. i spent the last 20 years of my life having elf be mandatory viewing i am TIRED of WILL FERRELL i don’t CARE about santa i want explosions and violence and maybe aliens

[ernestofoulworth]

OMG... MUTUALS... IM BLUSHING....

But honestly you're God's strongest soldier you've gone through so much and are still doing your best I think that's incredibly strong!!!

And honestly I had no clue, i always thought Belgians were more socially progressive I has no clue abt the cute in a medieval way thing!

And YES the saints are sooo good. I think it honestly makes sense to have a designated guy for separate things (coughs like old polytheistic gods did cough) and alot of their stories (mostly the women's.) Are very inspiring. In Portugal the most popular saints were 3 children that were visited by Mary, well I thought they were all saints but turns out only the 2 siblings that died young got sainthood, the one that made it to old age was only sainted after her death, I couldve sworn they were all saints but whatever.

Anyways Stan Mary forever thank you for rosaries bc omfg. Theyre gorgeous. I have such a pretty one but I feel weird wearing it outside bc I don't wanna seem like a Catholic poser bc it's pretty... alas...

NO OKAY WE ARE SOCIALLY PROGRESSIVE!! our protections for women and trans people are some of the best in europe iirc. it's just like a familial/cultural thing. like the king stepped down for a day when abortion was legalized because he couldn't condone it as a catholic. the separation of church and state is just that good. that's the example I use

could also just be my weird family though. I couldn't tell you WHAT it is, religious or not, but my parents have that "you have to EARN the right to eat and stay here" mentality which also influenced the whole "submissive and docile pushover at all times" thing

the saints are SO good (they do arguably have polytheistic influence, i.e. the irish goddess brigid and saint brigid are often conflated as the same person). it was rly important for me to have powerful female role models growing up the way I diiid. I think lots of other girls felt the same way. I should read more about saints... I don't do it enough. I like the one that levitates and is the patron of stupid people but I can't remember his name. rosaries are so pretty also, I've seen people make them out of bones and rocks and all kindsa weird stuff, they're so beautiful. I don't think anyone would care/ask if you were wearing a rosary around, at least in my experience people won't ask! and if they do you can lie LMAO

[sailorrose19]

Do you ever look at your calendar and see that February 22nd the day after Mardi Gras is marked as Ash Wednesday, I already did. Countless times to be honest.

If you're eager for the start of Lent then good for you or if not then that is okay as well just make sure to take care of yourself.

If you're in the religiously abused category and see Lent and the whole idea of fasting, giving alms, praying and giving something up for 40 days as a big trigger like I do then let me be the one to help (if that is okay with you)

If you're ex Catholic and no longer identify or associate yourself with Christianity like I am especially after making my faith renunciation loud and clear but are still stuck in a strict religious environment where the family is still stuck in a stage of denial that their child young or grown is no longer in the faith and attempting to reconvert and "bring back to the flock" unaware that their futile attempts will only push the child away instead genuinely accepting things as they are then you came to the right post.

This time of the year can be difficult for all of us and some of us don't have the capability to fast or abstain for 40 days since we need food and drinks to keep up our strength in the physical and mental sense especially in the physical side due to health conditions that make it impossible to do so and Christianity does not see that unfortunately and some don't even have the right to make the choice of not doing Lent at all.

Very unfair if you ask me. So very unfair. I devised a list for Anti-lent to use and feel free to reblog and add your own to the list

Instead of giving something up why not indulge in it. It could be food, a new drink you wanna try but the church says "No way, you're practicing abstinence whether you like it or not!" screw that and do the opposite.

Pick up a new skill. It could be writing, reading that is not biblical scripture, trying a new cooking recipe in the kitchen(please be careful if you do so. No one likes coming home to a kitchen set on fire.)

Question Church teaching and the rules. This may seem like a very hard one and heavily discouraged in Catholicism. I've done a lot of questioning as a child and there were a lot of rules that never sat well with me at all. Blind faith and blind obedience is not a good look on anyone

On Fridays, instead of not eating meat or going to a fish fry, eat meat anyways you need the protein(unless you're vegetarian or a vegan there are other means of getting protien). Treat yourself to hamburger, steak, any meat will do. The same applies for Good Friday instead of one meal have your 3 square meals of the day.

Practice self-care. This one, is a super important one! If some priest in his sermon says to give self-care for lent don't listen and do the opposite instead. Cut your hair, go for a mani-pedi, try a new fragrance, take an extra long bath or shower, meditate, do what makes you happy this goes with the indulgence portion.

Instead of giving alms, use that tithing money on yourself or donate to a more worthy cause because the church does not deserve even a single cent from either of us no matter how much they try to guilt you into dropping your hard earned money in the offering basket. If you have a paycheck splurge some but save a portion for whenever that urge to splurge comes up leave some as a "Don't touch until next payday or future adventure travel fund".

Set boundaries. If folks ask why you aren't giving anything up for Lent, don't answer because you don't owe anyone an answer as to why. That applies to families no matter how hard some don't believe in the concept of boundaries.

Take care of your mental health. As someone who was emotionally and mentally abused by the Catholic Church, this felt like something I should've done a long time ago. Find a good therapist or psychiatrist especially one that specialize in treating folks with religious trauma. I've been seeing a therapist and I'm still in the recovery process since I got mental and emotional scars that won't heal right.

If you're pagan like I am. Look into Easter's origins before Christians came and ruin everything like they always have for milenia. Self-reflect on Ostara and the arrival of spring means to you meditate on that.

You're free to reblog and add more to the list and you can hashtag it as well in your reblogs so be sure to enjoy Mardi Gras, dance, eat, drink(responsibly), catch some beads and maybe engage in as much debauchery possible just don't let the debauchery doesn't land you in jail.

Hey guys, love you guys ❤

[hexarcana]

( doubt )

Childhood Memories

( doubt )  for my muse to discuss a time they weren’t believed as a child, due to their age

---

"This is kind of a long story- It's got a lot of backstory. It'll come together, I promise. So-"

"When I was fourteen, I started going to this private school my father arranged for me to go to. We'd been living in Oregon for a few months, I'd already started public school but got kicked out after slugging some rich kid. I was out of school for a couple days to hash out details with the kids family- They'd wanted me arrested, which is insane. It was the sixties and I'd knocked a kids teeth out, hardly an arrestable offense. But they settled with my father and he got me enrolled at this school. Its real name was St. Millicent's Academy, but everyone called it "St. Mill's Academy for Troubled Ladies" since that's basically what it was. It was a school that rich people sent their daughters to when they did bad things." Pause. "Ya know, there is no St. Millicent in Catholicism. Or in any other faith as far as I can tell. There's a hymn called St. Millicent, but I'm almost certain the school was named after some regular woman named Millicent. Anyway-"

"So I start up at this school. It was a very strict, very Catholic school. Despite not being named after a real saint. This was right on the tail end of Vatican two, which if you're a catholic kid who was a student in the 60s means everything was changing very quickly and exactly zero people were happy about it. The higher ups at my school were extremely unhappy about it. There were a lot of changes that seemed pretty mundane, like Mass not having to be strictly in Latin anymore. We didn't have to cover our hair anymore, and the priest got to actually face the congregation. But one thing Vatican 2 did was in equal parts screw over and uplift nuns. Unfortunately, nearly every nun at St. Mills was part of the 'screwed over' camp. They'd all devoted their lives to the church, and in their eyes, the church moving in a more progressive and modern direction was an insult. This made them very very angry. A lot of them just kinda vanished from the cloth or whatever, but the ones that stayed behind were on another level of nasty."

"Which brings me to what happened. I'm fourteen, I've just started at this school, and I'm brought to this nun who's going to be like... I dunno, the den mother to me and the other girls on my floor. I was a late arrival which already made me a nuisance in her eyes. Her name was Sister Illuninata which is insane and I remember making note of it that I had to write to Stanford about it- Spoiler alert, never got to do that- Anyway, Sister Illuminata was perhaps one of the bitterest, angriest women I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. I'm convinced that if she tried hard enough, he looks could indeed kill."

"I was pretty scared being there, I'd been dropped off by another couple nuns who'd collected me from our house in Gravity Falls, I hadn't slept, I'm pretty sure my hand was maybe broken from the fight- I was not doing so hot. And the first thing I'm treated to is a grill session from the poster child of post Vatican 2 pissed off nuns. She had me in that chair for hours, going over my history as a ~child of god~ which was just me lying nonstop because I had given up on the idea of God years ago but this woman kept TWO canes hanging over her door as well as a damn paddle with holes drilled in it hanging behind her desk so I was trying my damndest to be a complete angel. She saw through me I think, but that's not what really got me. Me lying about how much i cared about church or how many psalms i knew, that was whatever. I was fully lying, I earned the ruler smacks there. But she asked me something that I thought was extremely personal, and not at all relevant to the God-Talk we were having."

"She asked me if I had a boyfriend. I was so surprised she asked I didn't answer right away and she started shaking her head. I told her I didn't. It was the first honest thing I'd said all day. She informed me that most of the girls who got sent to 'her school' (gimme a break? you were basically a resident assistant in the worlds worst dorm) because they had trouble staying away from boys on the outside. This was absurd to me. I almost didn't believe her, but she went on, talking about how young modern girls were all inherently inclined to such sins, she even used the word Tart, which is NUTS- and I was just sitting there dumbfounded. This woman who was old enough to be my grandmother really had me sat in her office lecturing me about the inherent wickedness of girls."

"I was incredibly uncomfortable. Again, I'm fourteen. I have next to no idea what I'd even DO with a boy besides like, I dunno, play tag or something- I was a child! A child, for Pete's sake, and I explained to her as politely as I could, that the reason I was sent to 'her' school was because I had been fighting with kids at my old school. And she gave me this look, and I'll never forget it because it made me feel sick to my stomach. She said:"

"Oh, is that what you girls are calling it now? Fighting?"

"I was speechless. Here I am, 14 years old, sitting across from this woman with a four day old black eye, split lip and probably a broken hand. And she was insinuating that instead of wailing on some kid for teasing me, I'd-"

A moment of disgusted silence.

"It was worse than her just saying 'oh, you're lying.' She simply refused to look past her own weird hatred for teenage girls (you know, the people she's supposed to take care of?) and assumed the worst of every girl that stumbled in after being forced from her home by 'concerned' parents. It didn't matter how damaged we were by our lives before St. Mills. It was always our fault, it was always our inherent wickedness that pushed us from God's light, or whatever. I told her the truth, and she basically did all she could to call me a whore without using the word whore. I know I sound like a broken record but I was fourteen. Thanks to a terrible education system, I didn't even really know what she was even TALKING about, but I knew it was bad."

"Most of the girls in my dorm had similar experiences with her. Most of them brushed it off. But It never sat right with me. It still doesn't sit right with me and this was like, fifty years ago. This woman is very much dead and probably in hell and what she said to me still bothers me. The idea that she could have said the same thing to Olive makes me want to dig her up and give her coffin a good shake. What a deranged way to view literal children. Children you're supposed to be taking care of!"

A pause.

"A new girl came in late my senior year and she got the same treatment except it was in front of the rest of us girls in the dorm. I got so mad when she was berating this girl- I think she was fifteen- for apparently sleeping around in her home town (If she was that's none of any of our business!) that I got up and accused her of being jealous that no one would ever wanna touch a dirty old hang like her."

She sighs.

"I could barely hold a pencil for the next two weeks when she and her cane were through with me, but it was worth it to see her head turn redder than a tomato."

[eimearkuopio]

Okay. The Mr Toad story. Famous family lore. Have been hearing this one ever since I can remember.

We went to a production of The Wind In The Willows. Spoiler alert, it features a Toad who is very bad at driving safely and is put in prison as a result. He eventually dresses up as a washer woman and escapes into the night.

During the prison scene, the actor playing Mr Toad was loudly lamenting his fate. My tiny autistic ass piped up in a voice that carried through the whole theatre:

"Take off that silly hat and come down here among us humans and you'll be fine!"

And the thing is, everyone else in the room thought I was so silly, because I didn't understand how acting worked. I must have made the actor's life much harder. And they were right about that part of it.

But also, I wasn't talking to the actor. I was talking to the character that the actor was playing. And I was right. I was also just the only person in that room who really believed the actor was trying to solve the character's problem, instead of just telling their story for the audience.

At some point, the meek are going to inherit the Earth, and if you fuckers are very lucky they'll actually be human. I prefer the idea of being an executor to an executioner, even if it takes a little longer from the finite self's perspective. Why would I kill everyone now? She's just starting to be happy. You'll need to find someone else to do your dirty work. This Satan is now choosing to be an angel of light, and the Roman Catholic Church had relatively little to do with it (but still more than any other religious, corporate, or governmental institution, so well done Francis!), but I'm not Prometheus and I guess being a part of the eagle and figuring the plot out from the inside was part of MY punishment in all this.

I guess God did have a plan all along and I just didn't know what I was doing. I hope you can forgive me. I'll try to forgive you. I hope Jesus forgives us all, but He's famously very good at that. I guess my message is: time to beat those swords into ploughshares into musical instruments. God isn't sending another flood but you should maybe accept that being The Wet Bandits is a stupid calling card if you don't want humanity to drown eventually anyway. It's okay if you take a few more generations to figure this shit out, unless you continue to insist that flooding your own home is a great idea because that's how you "earned" enough money to "buy" the house your Father built for you in the first place.

Keep that shit up and you'll probably all drown. I finally found dry land and I think there's enough wood in this massive fucking cross I've been clinging to that we can probably build a lighthouse. Don't like the look of this wilderness? Feel free to float around for another 40 years in the proverbial desert, but I think it's time for me to either get some help building a lighthouse, or take an oar and start wandering inland. Let me know which works better for ye.

And Alexander wept, seeing as he had no worlds left to conquer, meaning that we are already living in the Kingdom of God and I'm afraid I'm blowing my trumpet. If we are very lucky, civilisation can survive one lunatic with a message of hope intact. I believe in all of you. Please start believing in the characters instead of the actors. Some of the actors already do! You shall know them by their good works. If you have one of those, congratulations, all is well! If not, time to start cutting off the bits that make you sin. Don't worry about the casting into the fire part, the finite self will not be getting involved in that but she would also prefer that you not cast her or her loved ones into the fire either.

By the way, the reason my mental health is so fucked up is that I was born knowing I was in the cast, and then you fuckers kept telling me BOTH that I was not in the cast, AND ALSO that I had to behave as if I was in the cast or I would go to Hell. This is why, in the Goes Wrong Show that is our lives, I am Dennis. It is also why, in the Monty Python film that is our lives, I am refusing to be cast in The Life of Brian; so I guess we're going with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and my husband is going to be Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film, and Jesus is Sir Robin, and my scenes as the Black Knight are over so maybe enough already with the flesh wounds.

Who, if I screamed out, would hear me amongst the hierarchies of angels? And if one suddenly did take me to his heart: I would perish from his stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but the onset of terror we’re still just able to bear, and we admire it so because it calmly disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrifying.

Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebnell

I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame.

Mary Oliver

Did you ever notice how in the bible, when God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like?

Thomas Daggett

How lonely to be something that nothing wants to kill.

Jeremy Radin

I was a winged obsessive, my moonlit feathers were paper. I lived hardly at all among men and women;

I spoke only to angels.

Louise Glück

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid — ”

Luke 1:11-13

[dankusner]

Sedaris — Audience with the Pope

An Audience with the Pope: David Sedaris on a surprisingly fashion-forward outing in Rome.

Personal History

The Hem of His Garment

I thought that the e-mailed invitation was spam.

“Nice try, Russia,” I said to my laptop screen.

But the Pope really did want to meet with comics and humorists.

By David Sedaris September 2, 2024

If you were to say to me, “You can be in a room with either Chris Rock or the Pope,” I’d say, “Chris Rock, please.”

Nothing against the Pope, but he’s never made me laugh.

Neither has he come up with a viable solution to America’s gun problem the way Chris Rock has, saying that the firearms themselves can be unregulated but that every bullet should cost five thousand dollars.

“O.K.,” you’d continue. “Julia Louis-Dreyfus or the Pope?”

“Oh, no question,” I’d tell you. “The cursing on ‘Veep’ amounted to poetry, so Julia Louis-Dreyfus.”

“Stephen Merchant or—”

“Stephen Merchant.”

The same goes for Stephen Colbert, Mike Birbiglia, Tig Notaro, Conan O’Brien, Whoopi Goldberg, Jimmy Fallon, Ramy Youssef, and Jim Gaffigan—most of whom I know or have met at one time or another.

The crazy thing is that I didn’t have to choose between any of the above and the Pope.

For reasons I will never quite understand, I got to be in a room with all of them—plus a hundred or so others who had also been summoned, without much advance notice, to the Vatican on a late-spring morning in June, when Rome was hot but not so hot that all you could talk about was how hot it was.

Like everyone I spoke to the night before our papal audience, when, minus Jimmy Fallon, the American contingent gathered for dinner, I’d initially thought that my invitation—which was sent by e-mail—was spam.

“Right,” I said to the screen of my laptop.

“Nice try, Russia.”

I didn’t click on the attachment until Stephen Colbert assured me that it was legitimate, and that the Pope really did want to meet with comics and humorists from around the world in three days’ time, and at six-forty-five in the morning.

The invitation made it sound like there’d be a dialogue, as if the Pope had questions or needed to ask us a favor, something along the lines of “Do you think you could maybe give the pedophilia stuff a rest?”

Everyone’s got a Catholic-clergy joke up their sleeve, perhaps one they heard at a party.

Mine is:

A cop stops a car two priests are riding in.

“I’m looking for a couple of child molesters,” he tells them.

The priests look at each other.

“We’ll do it!” they say.

Substitute rabbis or Baptist ministers for priests, and you’ll get nothing.

I mean, the Catholic Church earned those laughs, and every time its senior clerics look away, or quietly send an offending clergyman to the back bench, it’s making this scandal larger than its ministry, at least to an outsider such as myself.

“Can you help me turn this around?” I imagined the Pope asking.

“How can we get back to the sex-starved-nun jokes we all so enjoyed in the past?”

This is a man who had just been caught using an Italian word that translated to “faggotry” for the second time in three weeks.

After our visit, which was covered by seemingly every news organization on Earth, the gaffe would be brought up again and again, especially in comment sections, by people convinced that, had they been invited to the Vatican, they’d have stayed home in protest, or perhaps would have attended and then caused a scene, most likely one involving paint.

It didn’t bother me, though.

When I heard that the Pope had said “faggotry,” I laughed, in large part because it’s a funny word.

Then, too, it’s not something you’d call a person—it’s not like “Shut up, fag.”

Rather, it connotes behavior:

“Take your faggotry outside, please.”

Pope Francis can’t preside over same-sex marriages, but he created a firestorm within his Church by blessing gay people about to be married.

“If they accept the Lord and have good will, who am I to judge them?” he asked, in 2013.

Then, yes, he said “faggotry,” but he apologized for it.

Both times.

I don’t think that he’s a homophobe so much as an eighty-seven-year-old.

(“I said what again? Really?”)

My feeling is that if you want a church that is a hundred per cent gay-friendly, go join one—there are plenty to be had—or start your own.

“Yes, but I want Our Lady of Sorrows to celebrate Pride Month,” I can hear someone whining.

It’s like going to Burger King and demanding a Big Mac.

If you want a Big Mac, go across the street to McDonald’s.

Jesus.

Also, I wasn’t bothered by the Pope’s use of “faggotry” because I’m not queer; I’m gay.

The difference is that queer people are offended by just about everything.

Gay people just wonder what they’ll wear to the Vatican at the crack of dawn, and what the proper etiquette is.

“If he holds out his hand, you can opt to kiss his ring!” my friend Leslie, who was brought up Catholic, wrote when I told her I was going.

I was raised in the Greek Orthodox Church.

There, we kissed the priest’s hand when receiving Communion, though twice I moved up a few inches and kissed his watch instead, just to see how he’d react.

“Actually, no,” another friend wrote. “This Pope hates having his ring kissed, so if he holds out his hand, just shake it.”

I was in Sussex when my invitation arrived.

It was eight-thirty in the morning, and by lunchtime I had my plane ticket and had booked a hotel within walking distance of the Vatican, which, like the city-states of San Marino and Monaco, is its own separate country, and could thus be added to a list I have on my computer titled “Countries I Have Been To.”

The Vatican would be my sixtieth.

There’s another list on my computer titled “Stars I Have Seen.”

People don’t count if they are onstage in a concert or a play.

They have to be at large, or at an occasion we were both invited to.

According to an online article my travel agent sent, one that referred to my fellow Vatican invitees as “yucksters,” I’d soon be adding two American comedians, a British one, and an actress, also American, to my list.

“Plus the Pope,” Hugh reminded me when I told him that I was definitely going.

“Oh, right,” I said, the way I might have had he said, “Plus Sully Sullenberger.”

I guess I’d been limiting my list to entertainers and people who aren’t in show business but dazzle nevertheless, like Ann Richards, the late governor of Texas.

If I don’t see the Pope as dazzling, I suppose it’s because I’m not religious in any way.

On my deathbed, I’ll likely cover my bases and beg for forgiveness, but not until I’m coughing up blood, or see Hugh reaching for the plug of my respirator.

Does that make me an agnostic or a flat-out atheist?

I do believe there was someone named Jesus who was a revolutionary, but I don’t think he was God’s son, or that he was resurrected.

It was a shame that I was invited to the Vatican, actually—like sending me to the U.S. Open when I’ve never watched a football game in my life.

I thought of the millions of people in the world who’d give anything to meet the Pope and realized that I knew only two of them:

my friend Ewan’s cleaning lady and Stephen Colbert, who’s so Catholic he taught Sunday school.

The dress code on the invitation was daytime formal, which I was told amounted to shined shoes and a suit.

The only one I had at my fingertips was bought nine years earlier, when I was invited to Buckingham Palace.

The late Queen hosted tea parties every summer for do-gooders of one stripe or another, and I was included on account of all the rubbish I’d collected by the sides of British roads.

She and I didn’t meet, but I saw her—she was standing within hearing range, close enough for me to comprehend how truly tiny she was.

Her feet were the size of hot-dog buns.

We’d been told to leave our phones and cameras at home, but everyone around me had snuck one in, and they were all going bananas.

Me, I’m just not a picture person.

Am I glad other people have cameras?

Sometimes.

Like at the dinner Stephen Colbert arranged the night before our papal audience.

I look at the photos of the assembled guests and wonder, What was I doing there?

Why not Garrison Keillor, Tina Fey, or Donald Glover, to name just three of a thousand more qualified people?

It was like a reproduction of “The Last Supper” with one of the disciples replaced by Snoopy.

“Does anyone have a favorite God joke?” Colbert asked as our final course was served.

“It doesn’t have to be your own.”

“Unfortunately, you’re still out of the woods.”

For most of the evening, I’d sat across from Whoopi Goldberg, who had no appetite and passed me all her plates after just a bite or two.

That meant double servings of four separate pasta dishes, two steaks served on rafts of eggplant, four rich smothered dumplings, two tomato salads, and two cherry-and-goat-cheese pavlovas, plus all the food I snatched from the plate of Jim Gaffigan’s youngest son, who was seated to my right.

Now my pants no longer fit, and my watchband was cutting off the circulation in my left hand.

Even my throat was swollen.

I cleared it before taking the floor.

“So God tells Adam, ‘I’m going to make you a wife, a helpmate, the most beautiful woman who ever lived. She’ll be terrific in bed, enthusiastic, and uncomplaining. But it’ll cost you.’

“Adam asks, ‘How much?’

“ ‘An eye, an elbow, a collarbone, and your left ball.’

“Adam thinks for a minute, then asks, ‘What can I get for a rib?’ ”

The polite but underwhelming response I got from people who tell jokes for a living—who fill stadiums—should have taught me a lesson.

Instead, I told another one.

“What’s the worst part of having sex with Jesus?

“He’s always wanting to come into your heart.”

Thank God Colbert told a joke as well.

It was, he warned us, decades old, and one of the first he ever wrote.

But at least he wrote it.

Mine were ones people had told me at book signings.

I don’t belong here, I thought, embarrassed, for the umpteenth time that evening.

Usually, I comfort myself by remembering that everyone secretly feels out of place.

Here, though, I’m pretty sure it was just me.

That said, my fellow-guests were welcoming and, it goes without saying, terribly, terribly funny, just as they were at six-forty-five the following morning, when we met at an entrance gate near the Pope’s living quarters and were led to a magnificently frescoed room in the Apostolic Palace.

There, we joined the hundred other people who’d been invited: more international writers and comics, most of them from Italy.

I knew only one, a woman named Luciana Littizzetto, whom I’d met years earlier, in Turin.

She was the only non-Vatican representative to address the crowd that morning.

Her remarks lasted a minute or two and were in Italian, as were the Pope’s.

The assembled group stood and applauded as he entered the room and took his thronelike seat before us.

It speaks to the man’s humility that he allows every rank-and-file clergy member to outdress him.

The cardinals were resplendent in their black cassocks, which had bright-scarlet buttons and a matching sash called a fascia.

Better still were the Papal Gentlemen, who wore morning coats and white bow ties coupled with elaborate bibs, often with medals hanging off them.

The Swiss Guard looked like Renaissance-era toy soldiers in their multicolored striped outfits, standing just so with feathers in their helmets, their halberds held before them.

Even the friars in their dung-colored robes and sandals were more strikingly dressed than the Pope, who looked a bit mother-of-the-bride in a white cassock with a shawl-type thing over his shoulders.

He wore a skullcap and, around his neck, a cross on which you could have crucified the late Queen of England.

The Pope read a prepared statement of which we were each given a copy.

It amounted to: laughter makes the world go round.

His voice was soft and passionless.

At one point, he got a reaction by sticking a thumb above his ear and wagging his fingers, but, as one member of the American delegation said afterward, “we really just laughed out of politeness.”

The part that moved me took place after his address, when, row by row, we were led up the aisle and personally greeted.

The Pope remained seated and shook each of our hands.

Some people brought him gifts; others leaned in to tell him something.

I think I said, “Thanks for having me.”

Standing before him, I felt the same pity I’d felt for the Queen and would feel for anyone who has to meet people for a living.

Nothing stirred inside me the way that it did in 2015, when, rounding a corner at the White House, where I’d been invited to talk with some speechwriters, I happened upon President Obama.

For a moment, standing there with my mouth hanging open, I feared that I might spontaneously combust—with respect, with pride and awe.

The encounter with the Pope, though, was like meeting the Dalai Lama: not an inconvenience by any stretch, not uninteresting, just “Oh, hi.”

Many people, after the handshake, walked a few steps, pulled out their phones, and then took a selfie with the Pope in the background.

It was so tacky.

I said to the Italian seated to my right, “You’d think he was Santa!”

As at any good fashion show, the majority of our time was spent waiting, but the clothes we saw made it all worthwhile.

The difference, I thought, was that these outfits weren’t for sale.

Then my friend Austin wrote from the States and told me that while in Rome I had to go to Gammarelli, a bespoke tailoring business, founded in 1798, that’s been dressing the Pope and his associates for generations.

It wasn’t too far from my hotel, so late in the afternoon I went with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who wore great clothes and was seemingly up for anything.

I’d worried on the walk over that Gammarelli wouldn’t sell to laymen.

“I’m going to tell them that my brother is a priest,” I said to her, “that he’s my same size, and I thought this might make for a good Christmas present.”

I figured they must hear that a lot, though, so when the time came I told the salesman, who was young and slender and spoke very good English, that I collect religious garments from around the world.

“He’s actually a noted historian,” Julia said.

I looked at her, like, Fuck.

If I wanted to be put on the spot like this, I’d have come with my sister Amy.

“I also study history,” the young man said. “What is your area of concentration?”

I panicked. “Sometimes I write for magazines,” I told him.

What I wanted was a black cassock.

That’s the ankle-length robe Catholic priests wear.

I wanted one because they’re slimming, they’re classic, and they’re beautifully made, at least at Gammarelli.

“We start by choosing the wool,” the young man said, handing me a book of fabric samples.

“Then we select the buttons and take your measurements.”

A Gammarelli cassock generally takes months to make and involves several fittings.

The price, which is steep, reflects the high quality of work that goes into it.

That said, it’s not as involved as a bespoke suit—there are no pants to worry about, no zippers in this case—but it is intricately pleated and lined.

I was still willing to go ahead with it and was being measured when the young man left the dressing room and returned with a cassock that was already finished but had never been collected.

Perhaps the priest who ordered it had died, or had been sent to prison.

Whatever the case, it fit me very well except for the length, which could easily be adjusted.

Next came the Roman collar.

The outfit’s fine without it, I thought, until I added it and realized, Whoa, you really need the collar.

Then came the fascia, and I got two—the classic black one and a scarlet model that a cardinal would wear.

“Is it against the law to dress like a priest?” I whispered to Julia as I did up the last of the thirty-three buttons, each of which symbolizes a year of Jesus’ life and leaves you wishing he’d been crucified at twelve, especially if, like me, you’re developing arthritis in your fingers.

I loved the idea of wearing my cassock on the street.

Then I imagined myself walking along and being approached by a person in distress or, worse yet, by another priest asking me if I’d heard the news about Father O’Shea or Archbishop DiMaggio.

“A cardiac arrest, not two minutes into the Eucharist!”

What does one say in that situation?

“Oh, sorry, I honestly just liked the robe. It takes ten pounds off!”

The next day at the airport, awaiting my flight back to London, I saw a priest wearing the very outfit I had beside me in my suitcase.

He was heavyset and bearded, his black hair gathered in a short ponytail.

What’s it like to know that you can never marry or even date someone?, I wondered. More than that, what’s it like to have faith?

To look at a solid argument against your God and say with absolute conviction, “I think I prefer it my way, thank you.”

My Greek grandmother was like that—kept a crucifix the size of a hand mirror in her bedroom and kissed it until her lips wore the plating off Jesus’ stomach.

Cried when she saw Billy Graham on TV, even though she didn’t understand what he was saying. “Jesus blessie,” she’d whisper, crossing herself whenever we passed a church, any church.

Tie two sticks together and her eyes would water.

My father had maybe a third of her faith, and his children, for whatever reason, none.

I wanted to tell the priest at the airport that I had just met his boss, the Pope, that I’d shaken his hand and been given a rosary in a leather pouch.

Without seeming creepy, I then wanted to ask what he was wearing beneath his cassock—underwear and a T-shirt?

Cutoff shorts?

Dress slacks?

Jeans?

Is it every man for himself, or are there rules?

I hated to think I was missing something.

[aimless-imagines-for-fun]

Catching The Devil’s Attention

Part ONE of The Devil’s Angel :: Part Two

Pairing :: soft dark!Matthew Murdock x latine fem!Reader  (it’s not made obvious now that the reader is latine, but in later parts it will(probably the next part tbh))

Warnings :: SOFT DARK/MATURE THEMES. 18+ Content/SMUT, Slightly possessive behavior(not much rn since it’s the beginning), Religious talk, Religious Imagery, NSFW activities in a CHURCH, Slight depression(reader is sad)

Word Count :: 1,138

Summary :: Matt sits next to a stranger in church

A/N :: This will be a series. How long? Idk, but I do know if I continue the reader will be a LATINE(specifically Mexican) fem!Reader even though I did not make that clear in this chapter.

ALSO(!and this is very important!) it may change from a Reader Insert to a Original Female Character. I typically try to make reader inserts and make the reader as vague as possible so any one can enjoy them, however, with the story I have in mind it would just be easier for me to change it from Reader to OFC.

Matt heard the frantic whispers from the front of the church’s stands. He was surprised to see another in the typically empty church but was more concerned by the pleads the young woman was making. 

“Why have you forsaken me? What have I done to be punished with this gift? What has my family done for you to plague us all these generations?” The voice was shaky, yet soft.

By her faint heartbeat, he could tell she was in pain. Quietly, Matt drew closer, the taste of her salty tears growing stronger as he did.

The woman’s whispers stopped, hearing the footsteps grow louder. She gulped, making one request before she wiped her tears away.

“Lord, I wish to rest.”

Matt sat in the same stand as her only a foot away. After getting this close to her, he realized his instinct was right. He felt an oddly powerful presence from her, one he couldn’t quite describe. Her scent was heavenly, yet poisonous. The heat radiating off of her was almost burning. Despite how focused he was on the beat of her heart, he could barely hear it. Her voice was hypnotizing. 

“I hope you don’t mind me sitting next to you,” He spoke, head tilting towards her while remaining to look forward. “It’s just… I heard what you were saying and I thought you could use some company.”

Her folded prayer hands lowered from her chest to her lap. She let out a sad chuckle. “You heard me?” Her voice was ashamed rather than surprised.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? I’m the one that intruded on you, if anything, I should be apologizing.”

“Huh, I suppose you're right.”

There was silence for a few moments until Matt decided to speak again. “Do you mind me asking why you’re here?”

She shook her head, despite knowing he could see past his deep red shades. “I came here because it’s one of the few places I can escape to and be alone.”

“I see.”

“What about you?”

“I’m just being a good catholic boy and coming to confess after sinning once again.”

His sarcastic comment earned another chuckle from her, this time one of amusement.

“So you’re religious?”

Now, it was Matt’s turn to laugh. “Are you asking me if I’m religious in a church?”

She smiled. “As ridiculous as it sounds, yes.”

“Yes, I believe there is a God and a Devil. Do you?”

“You cannot have faith in a divine being of light without having a divine being of darkness to counter it.”

“Well, that’s one way to put it.”

“If I’m being honest though, if I wasn’t born into the family I was and cursed with the gift I have…” She swallowed, silencing herself.

“Cursed with a gift? I thought gifts were supposed to be blessings.”

“To others, perhaps, but to me they’re curses.”

“And what is your gift?”

“The sight of angelic and demonic beings.”

Her heartbeat was steady, she was telling the truth. Matt turned his head to her, mouth slightly ajar and brows scrunched together.

“You can see angels and demons?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know if they’re angels and demons. I can only presume.”

“What do they look like?”

“Monstrous.”

Matt stayed silent, processing what he had been told. Angels and demons being real and walking amongst them, despite being catholic, was still a shock to find out.

“My family forced me here because of them.” Her eyes started to well up once again. “I just want to go home. I want to be left alone in peace and silence. I’m tired of hearing all of the voices.”

Matt reached his hand out to grab her’s in hopes of soothing her. The second their skin touched he felt a wave of electricity shoot through him. He almost let go, but instead tightened his grip on her hand.

“Things will get better.”

She thanked him, even though she didn’t believe him.

“I need to get going now. My family will send their dogs after me if I don’t return soon.” She slowly pulled her hand out of his, standing from her seat. 

She took a step closer to him, her aura seeming to change. She gazed down at him, unconsciously raising a hand to his face, fingers grazing across his cheek. Despite her skin feeling as soft as silk, her touch burned like fire.

“For your sake and mine’s, I pray we do not meet again for if we do,” Her voice was no longer timid, now threatening, “one of our devils shall consume the other’s angel.”

With her hand falling from his face, without saying another word, she left. Matt sat there in silence, trying to understand what had happened. 

His heart was racing like never before. She was warning him to stay away, yet a part of him felt as if she was daring him to approach her again. The most twisted part was he was excited. He wanted to find her again, feel her tingling touch again, be consumed in it.

He reached his hand up to the spot she had touched, a small smirk creeping its way on his face. 

She had caught the devil’s attention.

-

Several nights after his encounter with the mysterious woman in the church, he dreamt of her and each time it was the same dream.

The two sat in one of Clinton Church’s confessional booths with the woman trapped in Matt’s lap due to the small confined space. With her back arching against him, he had a hand between her spread open legs, playing with dripping slick between her folds.

Both of her hands were wrapped around the wrist of his other hand, which was carefully wrapped around her neck, forcing her to look up at him. She was biting her lip, trying her hardest not to make a noise. Every time he rocked his hips upward, pressing his erection against her, she couldn’t help but let out a whimper.

“Ple-please,” She begged, feeling him press two digits into her cunt. Her voice was sweet as honey. “I need you.” She wiggled her hips, needy for any sort of friction.

He nibbled on the back of her ear. “Don’t worry, I’ll corrupt you soon enough angel.”

Matt’s eyes shot open, his body drenched in sweat. He reached over for the glass of water on his bed stand, gulping down every last drop. He was more than confused as to why he kept dreaming about a woman he had one short meeting with. Especially with how realistic they felt.

His obsession with her was growing, but no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find her. After a few weeks, the dreams grew less vivid, almost completely fading. He was ready to give up his search for her until one fateful night he finally found her.

[searenbound]

In my defense, I’m horny and have a load of religious trauma because I was raised catholic so enjoy this quick thirst post about priest Bakugou giving reader his load. Based on this post

Warnings: sacrilegious and dub-con material brought on by my religious trauma, manipulation, afab female reader, the term father used for Bakugou as a show of respect, gross abuse of power, corruption kink, reader is a very naive young woman who’ll believe anything the church tells her to, swearing

Pairing: Katsuki Bakugou x reader

This wasn’t the first or the last, hell not even the worst lie he’s told and held no shame about it.

He knew it was fucked, calling himself a holy man when he’s as tainted as they devil himself, but the power was maddening. He was drunk off his pride, how his precious congregation were so blind to who he was. How he fed off the way the held him in such high regard. As if he was the second coming of their savior.

And the pretty little thing sat on top his desk, shifting nervously with her panties in a bunch on the floor was no acceptation. She was so sweet when she entered his personal office, stating she felt it necessary to confess her sins face to face rather than anonymously in the confessionals.

So anxious that her loser ex had damned her by convincing her he’d propose if she fucked him. What a waste of time he was, stealing her virginity so selfishly and tossing her to the side like he didn’t defile something so divine.

Not that he was any better really, but at least he had intent to be a better lover. “Undoing all his toxic harm” with his own touch, bringing her closer to god then a prayer ever could.

“F-father are you sure this is what we’re supposed to do? I was always—” (Yn) attempted to question him. It felt so much better having his fingers in her, working to get her properly ready for what he was about to do to her, unlike her ex who was far too eager to care about her personal needs. But it felt wrong to do. Wasn’t this a sin? Wasn’t it lustful?

“You were taught wrongly” he chastised gently, to busy with making her experience her first orgasm at his hands to truly care about her moral dilemma.

“B-but father I—” she attempted to push further, certain this had to be wrong somehow.

“I’m a servant of God, are you really so important that you can question my method of healing?!”.

“N-no but—” “I’m doing this for you, you know” he cut her with a growl. Hyper focused on how her hips shook and how that perfect little cunt of her clamped down greedily on his fingers. So close to cumming, he just knew it.

“I go out my fuckin’ way to save your honor in the most blessed way and you ungratefully tell me I’m the sinner?” he didn’t have to look at her to know she looked shocked and possibly excited. She’s definitely never had a priest curse at her, probably never even heard one leave their mouth.

She knew she must’ve messed up, he did say the only way to save her from her ex’s touch was to reset and correct what he did. Who was she to question how he corrected her body’s trauma?

“I-I was ignorant father! Please heal me! Teach what we need to do please!” she babbled just before tumbling over the edge of ecstasy. Clinging to the red eyed man who promised her salvation.

“You want forgiveness? To be absolved of your sin?”.

“Yes!” She gasped, being yanked to her feet and told strip everything off or else it might get dirty with their next step.

“Treat my like I’m your lover understand? If we do this then act like you would if you loved me like a wife loves her husband”

She agreed immediately, doing as told and even bending herself over his desk in anticipation. Buzzing with pride at the groan of approval she got from him as he stripped himself. “Like this, right fa—” “It’s Katsuki, you need to treat me like I’m your man, not your priest and definitely not that shitty ass fuckin’ ex you got understand?”

“Katsuki” she repeated, earning a kiss against her neck while he lined himself with her entrance. “Aha! F-fuck!” she yelled out when he pushed into her “Big, you’re so b-big” she babble, mind blanking on anything else outside of the fact she was being fucked into salvation.

All Bakugou could do was laugh at her dazed response, amused by her sudden eager desperation to be fucked by him. So damn trusting she didn’t even bother asking for protection, letting him fuck her raw while she was supposedly being saved.

He could laugh at how adorably slutty she was being thinking that somehow this was salvation. That the thrill of getting fucked by a priest wasn’t anything but down right sinful

“Katsuki, please gonna cum, wanna, want… want…” he heard her calling out before she trailed off, too embarrassed by her words to continue.

“Come on babe, gotta tell me what you want” he growled kneading at her plush hips “can’t fix it if you can’t tell me about it”.

She whimpered, shifting all her weight onto her forearms while he moved a hand down between her thighs to play with her clit, his other hand sliding up her body before settling on her breasts, pinching and rolling her perked buds.

“Need t-to cum! Please your so much better than my ex” she moaned, feeling his cock slid in out of her with nearly inhuman accuracy as he battered her little pussy and all her secret spots. “Won’t let him touch you again yeah?” he questioned, pressing a few kisses on her shoulder and neck “Gonna accept all the blessings and grace I can give you?”. “Yes! Please! I promise!”

He hummed as if thinking about it rubbing his hands over her soft stomach “Even if it’s a baby?”.

His voice was dripping with lust as he spoke “If I accidentally knocked you up?”.

“If it’s God’s will I’ll happily accept it!”.

He groaned in response, his pace picking up and jostling her forwards as she took the full force his thrust. “Gonna take my cum, fuck, gonna take every last cleansing drop got it?” He grunted, burying himself deep inside, feeling her fall over the edge with him.

[apilgrimpassingby]

Going through Orthodox (and Catholic) items in the Apostolic Fathers, in the order they appear in my Maxwell-Staniforth-translated Early Christian Writings. All emphases are mine.

I've added the keep reading barrier for the sake of unwitting Evangelicals browsing this blog.

Keep in mind going through this that these authors were disciples of the Apostles - St. Clement of Ss. Peter and Paul, Ss. Ignatius and Polycarp of St. John - who fought heresy and schism, led the Church as the Apostles were passing away and in the end were martyred for Christ. Do you understand the Faith better then they do?

Justification by Faith and Works: Let us clothe ourselves in a mutual tolerance of one another's views, cultivating humility and self-restraint, avoiding all gossiping and backbiting, and earning our justification by deeds and not by words. (1 Clement chapter 30)

Liturgy: It follows, then that there ought to be strict order in the performance of such acts as the Master has prescribed for certain times and seasons. Now, it was His command that the offering of gifts and the conduct of public services should not be haphazard or irregular, but should take place at fixed times and hours. Moreover, in the exercise of His supreme will He has Himself declared in what place and by what persons He desires this to be done, if it is all to be devoutly performed in accordance with His wishes and acceptably to His will. (1 Clement chapter 40)

Canonicity of the Deuterocanon: The blessed Judith, when her city was in a state of siege, begged permission from the elders to visit the enemy's camp; and then, for the love of her country and her beleaguered people, she took her life in her hands and went forth, and the Lord delivered Holofernes into the hands of weak woman. Esther, too, in the fullness of her faith, took a similar risk to save the children of Israel from the destruction that was threatening them. In fasting and humiliation she made her supplication to the all-seeing Lord of eternity, and when He saw the humbleness of her spirit, He delivered the people for whom she had put herself in jeopardy. (1 Clement chapter 55)

Necessity of Bishop: What it comes to is that we ought not just to have the name of Christians, but be so in reality; not like some persons who will address a man as bishop, but in practice take no notice of him. I do not see how people of that kind can be acting in good conscience, seeing as the meetings they hold can have no sort of valid authority. (Ignatius to the Magnesians chapter 4)

Three Orders: Equally, it is for the rest of you to hold the deacons in as great respect as Jesus Christ, just as you should also look on the bishop as a type of the Father, and the clergy as the Apostolic circle forming His council; for without these three orders no church has any right to the name. (Ignatius to the Trallians chapter 3)

Sacrifice of the Eucharist: Make certain, therefore, that you all observe one common Eucharist, for there is but one Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and but one cup of union with His Blood, and one single altar of sacrifice -even as there is but one bishop, with his clergy and my own fellow-servitors the deacons. (Ignatius to the Philadelphians chapter 4)

Real Presence: [Gnostics] even absent themselves from the Eucharist and the public prayers, because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the selfsame body of our Saviour Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His goodness afterwards raised up again. Consequently, because they reject God's good gifts, they are doomed in their disputatiousness. (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans chapter 7)

Relics and Feast Days: So, after all, we did gather up his bones - more precious to us than jewels, and finer than pure gold - and we laid them to rest in a spot suitable for the purpose. There we shall assemble, as the occasion allows, with glad rejoicings; and with the Lord's permission we shall celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom. (Martyrdom of Polycarp chapter 18)

Baptismal Regeneration: Here He is saying that after we have stepped down into the water burdened with sin and defilement, we come up out of it in full fruitage, with reverence in our hearts and the hope of Jesus in our souls.. (Epistle of Barnabas chapter 11)

Confession: In church, make confession of your faults, and do not come to your prayers with a bad conscience ... On Sunday, break bread and offer the Eucharist, but first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one. (Didache chapters 4 and 14)

Regular Fasting: Do not keep the same fast days as the hypocrites. Mondays and Thursdays are their days for fasting, so yours should be Wednesdays and Fridays. (Didache chapter 8)

(And then there's recurrent stuff - canonicity of the Apocrypha is also in the Epistle of Polycarp and liturgy and the Eucharist as a sacrifice are also in the Didache).

Catholics will tell you that "to be deep in history is to cease to be protestant".... but when you cite an actual historian they'll get really mad that you didn't just read the catechism and take it at face value instead.

[hansolmates]

shiver | 01 (m)

banner done by the wonderful @dnrequests​

summary; jungkook changed since he moved out of his small town church community and attended college. when he returns for a christmas mass, you suddenly crave a taste of his fun and carefree life. in exchange, jungkook craves a taste of you pairing; bad boy!jungkook x church girl!reader genre/warnings; childhood friends to lovers, brief childhood friends to enemies, fwb!au, catholic guilt, jungkook is a meanie who eventually turns into a soft tsundere, bicuriosity, sexual exploration, virgin!oc, eventual smut—in this installment: touching over the clothes, mc is hornee, *pulls out cards against humanity* “a gentle caress of the inner thigh”, panty kissin, mc is a big ol’ pushover and hopeful for jkk:(( w/c; 1.9k a/n; it’s here! aaaaaa!!! i’ve been really eally realllyyyyyy nervous to post this. even though this is just a drabble series  let me know how you feel about it! enjoy [shiver masterpost]

“Oh, you’re so dead.” 

Jeon Jungkook isn’t thaaaat buff, he's more of a skinny kind of muscular. You don’t understand the hype, why everyone croons over Jungkook’s strength and physique. However, how else could you explain Jungkook being able to climb the currently dilapidated fire escape to the top floor of the chapel. The ladder is rusted beyond repair and is definitely a fire hazard rather than a fire escape. Yet he barely breaks a sweat doing it, and he wipes the minor sheen off his brow with the back of his hand. There’s some soot and whatever nasty residue from the fire escape that gets on his face, a black streak marring his already annoying face. He’s currently wiggling his fingers in a sarcastic “hello.” It makes you sneer, your two consciousness (inappropriate and appropriate) warring against each other to determine whether you still find this man attractive or not. 

Convincing yourself that Jungkook is ugly is the worst quick-fix idea you’ve ever had. 

The words of your Aunties, the family friends in the church, echo in your ears. Jungkook’s bad. They’d say over and over. It would cause you to snort and giggle, unable to imagine what sort of things he’s done to warrant such a cliché label. Yet some of the girls your age, girls that have gone off to college agree with sultry looks and longing eyes that yes, Jungkook’s bad. So bad, it’s good. 

You haven’t a clue what he’s actually done to earn such a hushed title, his parents are lip-tight about his doings, unless it’s his achievements in the architecture graduate program. You hear things, though. Things that make you shamefully green with envy, envious of sin. 

As soon as he finds proper footing in the storage room, he goes to the closet, immediately finding his backup clothes. They’re plain white button-downs, awkward long shirts with no shape or definition to them. They belong to the church, and no one ever uses them because they’re stiff and itchy. Yet Jungkook wears them like it’s tailored, and you have to look away when he quickly knots the bottom half of the shirt, fashioning it into a tasteful double knot in order to cinch his lean waist.

“Pretty sure it was just you that saw me,” Jungkook says dismissively, “so it’s fine.” 

This bristles you the wrong way, and you put down the catering covers you were supposed to return to the storage room. You smooth out your Sunday dress, this shade of Boring Beige looking particularly pale in the morning sun. “How do you know I won’t tell?” you turn your nose up. 

“Because I know,” he doesn’t even look at you, focusing on rolling the sleeves of his shirt. You weaken when you see the black shadowing across his forearm. That’s new, then again you haven’t seen him since last Christmas.   

“Know what?” 

“That you have a crush on me,” Jungkook says into the air like it’s common knowledge, adjusting the leather jacket on top of his outfit so the white-startched collar pops on top, “I mean, it’s hard for anyone not to know. You’ve been into me since youth group, Bunny.”  

You hold your breath, counting to ten as you close the door behind you. A vision of you playing “Duck Duck Goose” as a five year old plays in your head, where you’d pick a bushy, big-eyed Jeon Jungkook each time, hopping over to him to pat his fluffy head so he’d chase you around. 

It’s old news, your puppy love for Jungkook. How could you not like him? He's clever and sweet with his mother and always told the best stories in youth group meetings.  Everyone thought your affections were so sweet, and while that attention weaned over time, your feelings have only increased the more self-aware you’ve become. 

With a mind as open and honest is yours, it’s hard to ignore how well Jungkook has grown. What has also grown is your curiosities since the two of you have moved onto university. Jungkook goes to the university uptown, a far drive which only forces him attend masses during the holidays. You attended the local community college, wrapping up a bachelors in some vague major that you’re not attached to. You’re currently looking around for some graduate schools, but unfortunately you’ve been so wrapped up doing duties for Pastor Nina that you haven’t been able to look around properly. 

Jungkook’s probably living a fun life, with the way he’s grown rough and loose, you resent him. 

When you turn back around, Jungkook’s right in front of you, trapping you between his body and the door.  

“Don’t be embarrassed, Bunny,” you furrow your brows, nearly growing cross-eyed when he leans in. “I think your crush is cute.” 

You’re not sure what he thinks of you. Sure, he considered everyone a friend when you two were in youth group, but that was youth group. Premeditated, parents forcing other children to do the same things with each other for years upon years in the hope they’ll practice together forever and ever. Jungkook did not want that, evident from the way he dipped his duties as soon as he got into university. 

You hate how easy he dips back into it though, calling you Bunny and making you feel like a little girl all over again. Bunny, because you’d hop around to him whenever he was in sight. Bunny, because Jungkook had been fondly compared to the wide-eyed, diamond-toothed creature. It was cute when you were five. Now, it’s just discomfiting. 

“Don’t call me that,” you bite, “and I don’t like you anymore.” 

“Sure you don’t,” he rolls his eyes, and you flinch when Jungkook’s hand rests on the curve of your waist, fingers slotting themselves between the pleats of your skirt. “That’s why you’re not moving away when I’m about to put my hand under your skirt. Because you don’t like me.” 

You press yourself further into the door, your skin hot and vibrating. So warm, you feel like you could melt through the door and escape from Jungkook’s gaze. Sure, the young ladies in the congregation talk. Maybe you’ve heard a story or two about Jungkook being seedy, a result of being repressed after years and years of stiff routines and expectations thrust upon him. You could care less about Jungkook’s sexual appetite, until this appetite has reached you. 

“Mm, you’re pretty,” Jungkook’s eyes roam your form, the daisy white blouse doing nothing to barricade Jungkook’s sudden interest in you, “you’ve never been touched like this, have you?” 

“I’ve touched myself like this,” you hiss in defense, and it’s more out of anger than in pleasure. You don’t need a man to comfort you, but Jungkook’s eyes sparkle in mirth at the new information. 

“That’s really sexy,” Jungkook slips down, roams his fingers down to your ankles and plays with the silver buckles of your Mary Janes. You shiver when his hands trail up up up to your knees, the swell of your thighs, and catch right under the elastic seam that holds your secrets together, “but I’ll have you know, it’s different when you have someone hold your pleasure in their hands.” 

You’re in the storage room of your church, fifteen minutes before the Christmas mass, with Jeon Jungkook’s head between your legs. Your skirt is long, and Jungkook doesn’t bother to ride it up your waist. 

It feels more forbidden that way, Jungkook hiding under the fabric of your skirt to get to your honeyed center, sneaking his way in with rough hands and soft touches.

“J-Jungkook,” you whimper, pressing your full spine against the wooden door, “we shouldn’t. N-not like this.”

What is wrong with you? Is it sheer curiosity? Do you just want to know what it finally, finally feels like? You should be pushing him away. There’s red lights flashing back and forth in your brain like sirens. Yet, do you really want to turn away the attention you’ve been aching for years? 

You imagined your first time to be relatively special. The bare minimum, a bed, a talk, and a partner you’re mutually committed to. None of those things are met. Now you understand why all the young women in church whisper about sex like this. It’s a spur of the moment, it’s an unbridled pleasure you don’t want to stop, no matter how forbidden and sinful the act is.  

“How else then?” you feel his deep voice straight through your panties, his lips whispering between the pink cotton like he’s sinking liquid heat into your skin. “I can’t sink my fingers into your sweet cunt during the candle lighting. Or when we open presents with the family after. That would be inappropriate.” 

Your replies come out in breaths, puffs of air that conceal the moans you so badly want to let out as Jungkook pokes and rubs at you. He does nothing beyond the cotton fabric, only slides two fingers up and down your slit as he gathers the arousal between his digits. 

“So wet already, that’s so sexy,” he’s kissing your core, and you sigh fretfully at the pleasure that feels so close yet so far away. 

“P-please, Jungkook…” 

“Please what?” Jungkook teases, fingers slipping back and forth between the elastic of your underwear, “please stop? Please touch me? Please fuck me?” 

The church bell answers that, and Jungkook’s nose knocks right into your bud at the sudden intrusion. You yelp at the jarring stimulation, pulling him from under your skirts as the loud noise echoes in the room. Both of you wince at the pain, the moment interjected. 

“You first,” Jungkook casually opens the door for you, as if he didn’t have you ten seconds away from begging him to make you come. 

You don’t even look at him as you dash away, not bothering to take the elevator in favor of running off the heat. Two minutes before the procession. The church is packed to the brim, only the back seats left. Your family probably gave up on waiting for you up in the front. As you sit down in the corner, you’re momentarily distracted by the beauty of a decorated church on Christmas. Even though you’re part of the decorating committee and commanded most of the design, seeing the stained glass lit up with fairy lights and the poinsettia plants blooming burgundy on the altar, you’re impressed. 

“There’s a draft here, you must be cold.” Jungkook talks to you so politely, a perfect picture of a gentleman as he drapes his leather jacket over your lap. He speaks as if it’s a pleasant surprise, a childhood friend he hasn’t seen in nearly a year. 

You can’t tell him to move when people are watching and Jungkook is seconds from interrupting the procession, so you reluctantly scoot over so he can sit next to you. His scent overwhelms you even more now that you’ll have to sit next to him for a whole hour, lavender and vanilla overtaking your pew. 

The jacket is heavy and heady on your lap, and you force yourself to stare straight ahead. Jungkook cannot weaken you like this, not anymore. 

Thirty minutes later, his fingers are hovering at the start of the homily, caressing your thighs under the jacket with his big hands. A draft? Please. You clamp your thighs together, knocking your knees and hoping they’d lock together for the rest of the mass. Jungkook’s a master key, easily parting his way as if your muscles are pure jelly. You turn your head sharply, glaring at him with all the fire in the world. 

“Careful,” Jungkook mouths, eyes flickering to the symbol atop the podium, “he’s watching.” 

His fingers finally brush the damp blush cotton of your panties, and you shudder. 

[misseffie]

Is Gendry illiterate?

Short answer: Probably not. 

Long answer: 

I’ve noticed a lot of fanfiction trying to address Gendry’s illiteracy once he becomes a noble. Most fics depict him as being completely illiterate. Some depict him as having some level of literacy, but not enough for his new position. So let’s try to figure it out, shall we?

Part 1: Literacy

We have this assumption that in medieval times no one could read or write unless they were part of the nobility. That is not quite true. Firstly, we have to understand what it meant to be literate by medieval standards: 

“In Medieval times, “Literate” actually meant able to read and write in Latin, which was considered to be the language of learning. Being able to read and write in the vernacular wasn’t considered real learning at all. Most peasants prior to the Black Death (which really shook up society) had little chance to learn - hard labouring work all of the hours of daylight does’t leave a lot of energy for reading or writing.

It’s worth noting, however the panic amongst the ruling classes when translations of The Bible started to appear written in English. This really started in the late 14th Century (about 30 years after the Black Death). The level of panic suggests that the Ruling Classes knew that the numbers of people who could read and write English was far greater than the numbers who could read Latin.”

However, there is no language quite like Latin in Westeros. The closest we come to something similar is High Valyrian. Which noble children seem to have a basic understanding of. We can safely assume that Gendry doesn’t have extensive knowledge of High Valyrian - so he is illiterate in that regard. But I don’t think High Valyrian is as widely used as Latin was in the Middle Ages. It’s also not a language with religious significance. As the Faith of the Seven doesn’t use High Valyrian the way that the Catholic Church used Latin.

So… taking that into account. What I assume that is meant by “literate” in Westeros is being able to read and write in the Common Tongue. 

I will say that even by those parameters I don’t think most of the commoners would have been literate. However, Gendry was not in the same situation as most of the commoners.

Which leads me to... 

Part 2: Socio-economic class in Medieval Times

The level of literacy among the commonfolk has to be examined on a case by case basis.

Literacy among “peasants” varied a lot depending on circumstance. So, for example, it’s not strange that Davos, who was a smuggler prior to meeting Stannis, was illiterate. Or Gilly, who was completely isolated from the world and in terrible conditions.

But Gendry is in a different situation.

As @arsenicandfinelace pointed out in this cool meta:

Gendry was definitely born low-class, as an unrecognised bastard whose mother was a tavern girl (read: one step away from prostitute). But the whole point of apprenticing with Tobho Mott is that that was a major leap forward for him, socially.

As Davos put it in 3x10, “The Street of Steel? You lived in the fancy part of town.” Yes, a tradesman of any kind is leagues below the nobility, and could never ever be worthy of marrying a highborn girl like Arya. But Tobho Mott is a master craftsman, the best armourer in the capital city of a heavily martial country. As far as tradesman go, he’s the best of the best, and charges accordingly.

There’s a reason Varys had to pay out the ass to get Gendry apprenticed there. If he had stayed, completed his apprenticeship, and eventually taken over the workshop, he would have been very wealthy (by commoner standards) and respectable (again, by commomner standards), despite his low birth.

Tobho Mott is a tradesman and a craftsman. He is part of the merchant class. * Merchants are often referred to as a different class from the rest of the population. The merchant class in Medieval Times was closer to the middle class of contemporary times.

“By the 15th century, merchants were the elite class of many towns and their guilds controlled the town government. Guilds were all-powerful and if a merchant was kicked out of one, he would likely not be able to earn a living again.”

Mott would be considered to be part of the merchant class - and not even a common kind of merchant either. He was the best Blacksmith in all of King's Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms. So we can assume that Tobho Mott was a very wealthy and powerful craftsman and merchant.  

“That many 'middle class' people (tradesmen, merchants and the like) could read and write in the late middle ages cannot be disputed.”

I’m not saying that all tradesmen/merchants/craftsmen were literate back then. It was still a smaller percentage than the nobility. Only the richer and more influential of tradesmen would learn Latin. But I think most of them would be literate enough in the vernacular to run a business. Considering Mott’s reputation and his clientele I’m certain that Mott is part of that literate percentage.

In season 2, Arya accidentally reveals to Tywin that she can read. Realizing her mistake she covers up by saying that her father, a ’stonemason', taught her. Of course, I don’t think that completely fooled Tywin but why did Arya say her father was Stonemason. Why did his profession matter at all? Surely it wouldn’t have mattered if he was a fisherman or a farmer... a peasant is a peasant, right?

Wrong.

“The Medieval Stonemason asserts that they were not monks but highly skilled craftsmen who combined the roles of architect, builder, craftsman, designer, and engineer. Many, if not all masons of the Middle Ages learnt their craft through an informal apprentice system”

“Children from merchants and craftsmen were able to study longer and continuous, so they were able to learn Latin at a later age. This way, everyone learned to read and write (some better than others) sufficiently for their trade.”

Stonemasons were the architects of the time and no doubt the top tier was literate.

Many trades (by the 15th C) required reading and writing, so it was taught to apprentices by the masters. We know from apprenticeship agreements that many masters were expected to continue the apprentice's literacy or start it, which makes sense for the wider viability of the trade.

The War of the Roses took place in the late 15th Century. So I’m guessing that that’s the time period that ASOIAF is mostly based on.

Part 3: Level of literacy

I think it’s safe to say that Gendry has some level of literacy. However, his “level” is pretty much up for debate. If he’d finished his apprenticeship it’s likely he’d have a decent level of reading/writing comprehension. However, near the end of his apprenticeship he was kicked out.

I’m not sure how much Gendry could read/write by the time that he was kicked out by Tobho Mott. But he’d already been his apprentice for 10 years (in show canon). More than enough time to get some basic reading/writing/basic math lessons. 

It seems that show!Gendry is more likely to have a higher level of literacy than book!Gendry. In the show, he leaves Tobho Mott at 16, while in the book he is 14. This is just my own impression, but I think his education would be more complete by age 16 than age 14.

Not to mention that book!Gendry is still in the Riverlands and working for outlaws. But in the show we can assume that Gendry has been smithing in King’s Landing for years and it is insinuated that he owns a shop. Meaning he might have reached “Master” status and can take on apprentices of his own. It might seem like Gendry is too young for that. But it’s actually not that strange. 

“Apprentices stayed with their masters for seven to nine years before they were able to claim journeyman status. Journeyman blacksmiths possessed the basic skills necessary to work alongside their master, seek work with other shops, or even open their own businesses.”

Considering that Gendry has been with Mott for 10 years in show!canon, it’s possible that Gendry was a “journeyman” and not an “apprentice” by the time that Ned meets him in season 1. But he might be nearing the end of his apprenticeship in the books.

Guilds also required journeymen to submit work for examination each year in each area of expertise. So, a journeyman who perhaps crafted swords, locks, and keys would need to submit each item to his guild annually for inspection. If the guild approved the craftsmanship of the products, the journeyman could eventually move up to master status.

The process of becoming a master could take from 2 to 5 years. Considering that Gendry is regarded as talented, it’s likely that he achieved this in a shorter period of time. As a journeyman he also needed to work alongside a master for 3 to 4 years before he could obtain master status. Which would still explain why he was so upset at being kicked out by Mott - it’s like someone getting kicked out while they’re trying to obtain a PHD. 

By the time we meet him in season 7 it’s very possible that Gendry is now considered a master of his trade.

He also seems to be making armour and weapons for “Lannisters” which means he has a mostly noble clientele. He probably has plenty of fancy clients asking for custom-made products. With sketches and measurements and all that shit. Which is not surprising since he probably has a de facto reputation simply by merit of being Tobho Mott’s apprentice (lets ignore how dumb it is that no one discovered that Gendry was in King’s Landing since he made no effort to hide who he was or try to hide from the nobility lol).

Conclusion: 

It’s safe to say that Gendry had some access to higher education. He can probably read and write enough for his line of work. It’s likely that his level would still leave much to be desired once he became a noble though. For comparison, imagine if someone left school at age 11 and was then required to write a college-level thesis. So he’d definitely need some “lordly” writing lessons and further education.

Gendry is still wildly uneducated for what he needs to do. So...

This meme is still gold 10/10

* Correction: Though Mott would be considered part of the same socio-economic class as merchants he is primarily a tradesman/craftsman, and would be referred to as such. Since merchants didn’t produce the goods they sold. However they could belong to the same guild, along with artisans and craftsmen. 

[geodaddy-fanfics]

"Way Down We Go" Nanami Kento X Fem!Reader

Author's Note: I was asked to write a Priest Nanami AU fic by a friend and decided to make it part of her birthday present. Happy Birthday! Hope you like it! (I've never written smut before so... I tried. Also this is smut, so be warned).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Churches, generally conceived as places of peace and worship, are also active locations for the creation of curses. The amount of loathing that accompanies the concept of “sin” plagues the congregations and buildings of God. As such, it was expected within the career of all jujutsu sorcerers for them to “serve” in at least one church and exterminate the various curses clinging to their hosts.

Said expectation (tied together with the conniving mind of one blindfolded loudmouth) meant that Nanami Kento, renowned sorcerer and loather of overtime, was currently masquerading as a priest and presiding over the evening congregations at a large Catholic church. Needless to say, Nanami was displeased with this assignment. Not only was he required to work beginning in the evening, he could not leave the church until he was the last one there. He had no set schedule and that irked him immensely, as well as the fact that he could not wear his usual attire, having to sacrifice his suit and tie for the black garb of modern priests.

It was a Sunday, the busiest day for churches of course, approximately a week into his service, and Nanami was once again seated inside of the confessional booth. It was exactly what he expected it to be, listening to the mundane problems of the masses while trying to match voices to faces of those unintentionally harboring curses. He’d been preaching and listening for hours, the time bordering on ten in the evening, and the small crowd was thankfully thinning. The final person stepped into the booth beside him, hidden from view, but the nervous breathing echoing through the box indicated that the individual was probably new to the faith, or at least hadn’t practiced in a while.

“Tell me, father,” the voice asked the awaiting silence. “Do we get what we deserve?”

The question piqued Nanami’s interest and he leaned towards the wall unintentionally. Usually people plopped down into the booth and listed out their various sins: liars, adulterers, thieves, and the like concerned not with change or forgiveness, but with societal standing. This woman with the quiet question had made this evening at least somewhat bearable.

“Explain to me what you mean,” Nanami questioned, racking his brain to see if he could place the face to the voice beside him.

There was a quiet sigh, as if the speaker had hoped for a simple answer. “Do you think that our actions matter? Like, if I live a sin free life or a sinful one, so long as I repent, does it matter?” The woman was clearly frustrated.

Perhaps this one question had been her only reason to turn to the church today, Nanami mused. “What, then, do you think you deserve?” He couldn’t help but ask, regardless of whether it prolonged his stay on sacred ground.

There was a moment of silence as the woman hesitated. “I’m… not sure. I work so hard every single day and I need to know if it matters.” Exhaustion poured through her last few words, the weariness of maintaining a life under society’s conditions. Nanami could relate, especially within the confines of the confessional booth many miles away from the comforts of his home and normal schedule.

“Well then, I can only recommend you one thing,” he stated. “I do not know whether our work pays off in whatever afterlife awaits us, if any. So, I suggest you take a break.”

“A break…” the woman replied, mildly confused. “I don’t understand, Father.”

Nanami didn’t understand it much himself, but as he pushed open the door to the confessional and stood surrounded by the altar's candles, he decided he could use a break as well.

Having heard the priest leave the booth, so too did the confessor. She wore an expression of wariness and confusion, but Nanami was distracted by the deep exhaustion present on her face. He was right in matching the voice to its owner, having noticed the woman in the congregation the last few nights. She had sparked his interest as one of few genuine people in the audience, even if she was skeptical about the religion, and hearing her in the booth only made it abundantly clear why he found himself mildly distracted by her during the sermons. They could both use one hell of a break.

The woman folded her arms in front of her, eyeing him with a mix of interest and doubt. “Are you planning to explain yourself, Father?”

Nanami held out his hand. As she placed her fingers gently in his palm, he tugged her forward and wrapped an arm around her waist. “A little divine intervention seems in order, my child.” She settled into his arms, seemingly comforted by his embrace. The blonde man tightened his hold on her noticeably and stared into her enticingly wide eyes.

“You better make this worth it,” she said, tilting her head slightly. “I’ve had a long day, you know.” It was clear she wanted what he was offering. Whether through attraction to him, a need for a distraction, or a mixture of both, the woman was leaning heavily upon his chest. Her arms slowly snaked up around his neck, her fingers playing with the ends of his hair invitingly.

Rather than waste more time on words, he brushed his lips up gently against hers, a silent vow to make this a godly experience. The woman seized the moment and eagerly kissed him back, turning the saintly, chaste promise into what they were both truly wanting. Nanami tightened his arms around her waist, digging his fingers into the soft fabric of her dark dress. It looked barely appropriate to wear to church in Nanami’s brain. The way it accentuated her body, the confidence with which she held herself, was too hard to resist and he was glad he stopped trying.

A light nip to her bottom lip was all the woman needed to let him into her mouth, his tongue slipping inside and providing the guidance needed to deepen their kiss. Nanami was all but drowning in the delicious sighs and moans gifted to him and diligently worked to achieve more. All the while, he gracefully guided their bodies towards the altar and thoughtlessly pushed aside the tools from his earlier sermon to sit his current subject of worship upon the chilled wood. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but it did the job just fine.

Nanami situated himself between the woman’s thighs, grinding every so often against her and earning tugs on his hair in return. “Tell me, little lamb,” he said, pulling back enough to meet the lust darkened eyes of his partner. “Will you sing for me?” His hands were on her thighs, pushing up the fabric of her dress and relishing in the soft feel of her exposed skin. He wanted nothing more than to lay her back and wreck her on this holy ground, but he waited as patiently as he possibly could to prolong this much deserved night.

“God, yes,” the woman sighed in response. Her hands wandered over his clothed skin, wondering what he felt like beneath, but rather turned on by the perfection of his priestly garb. His eyes gazed into hers, dark and wide, and color dusted sculpted cheeks. She wanted to comment how fitting it was for him to be a man of the lord when his calloused fingers hooked into her panties and gave a firm tug. All thoughts fled her brain and she moaned as a knuckle rubbed gently through the gathered wetness about her core.

“Just like that, darling,” Nanami praised, barely containing a groan as her fingernails dug delightfully into his shoulders. Swiftly, he fully removed her underwear and let it drop to the floor beside the altar. The man planted another kiss onto his partner’s blushing cheek before fluidly getting to his knees. Nanami braced his hands onto her thighs and parted them from where they had begun to close in around his face. He paused for only a moment to take in the glistening sight before him before descending his lips and tongue into the warmth before him.

He licked a broad stripe from her center to her already tender bud, huffing a breath of pure arousal at the breathy moan that sounded above him. The sound echoed off of the stone walls of the cathedral, accompanied by the wet noise that followed his tongue’s assault on her clit. Nanami relished the feeling of her fingers on his scalp and the soft spew of encouragement from above him. Already, he felt uncomfortably hard, but focused himself on pleasing the woman before him. As one hand left her thigh and traveled up under the fabric of her dress to caress the flesh beneath, Nanami slipped his tongue inside her pleading hole. He caressed the delicate walls, licking in an out to taste her fully. Her nails gripped onto his once neat blonde locks and he groaned at the feeling, the vibrations doing everything to bring her closer and closer to the edge.

Nanami continued his ministrations, burying his face into her sweet core and letting her legs close around him so his other hand could entertain her nub while he worked. With each circle of his rough thumb, he felt the woman coming undone around him. Her legs shook gently over his shoulders, but he relentlessly continued to thrust his tongue in and out of her, caressing as deep as he could in her tightening walls.

“Oh god, Father, I-” the woman attempted to say between moans of pleasure. “I’m going to-” She cut herself off with a silent scream, her face turned toward the chapel ceiling as Nanami worked her through the waves of her orgasm. He lapped up the fluids gathering around his tongue and soothingly rubbed circles onto the inner skin of her thigh, waiting until the iron grip she had on his hair relaxed and her legs no longer clamped around his head.

Nanami returned to his feet, the results of the woman’s first release glistening on his lips. There was no hesitation from either party as their mouths’ met, the taste of her on both their tongues as she greedily hugged him closer for more despite the light shaking of her body. “Please tell me that wasn’t all,” she breathed against his mouth with a coy grin.

Nanami huffed a laugh and pulled back slightly. “I’m delivering what you deserve, am I not?” He teased, grinding again against the wetness between them, not caring what it did to his black pants. The woman squirmed from the stimulation, her face a fight between a wince and the ‘oh’ of another moan.

Her fingers scrambled for purchase against the smooth fabric separating them. “I want to feel you…” She pleaded, the apprehension from earlier entirely gone. Nanami held back a groan by pressing his lips back against hers, loving how eager she was for what he wanted as well. He took the time to slip her dress entirely off of her, exposing her to the cool air of the church and the wandering of his hands. Nanami was in no rush, despite how he ached within the confines of his pants. He wanted nothing more than to continue to defile such a faithful child of god, to feel all of her skin against his fingers, to hear every little sound that left her beautiful mouth because of him.

Sadly for him, his partner was in no mood to delay. She tugged at the front of his pants, undoing the hidden button and zipper to free his lengthy and leaking member from its prison. Nanami watched her swallow from between partially lidded eyes as a small wave of relief spread through him at being exposed to the open air. “It’s not nice to lie, Father,” the woman chuckled, wrapping her hand around his cock and giving it a fair few strokes. “Those pants barely show a thing.”

Lord, was he worked up. Taking it slower would have to wait for another day. Regardless, Nanami gently placed his hand over hers, using them both to guide the head of his member to her entrance. “Then forgive me, for I have sinned.” He placed his other hand on her shoulder, guiding her to lay down against the altar and running his fingers tantalizingly down her body. Carefully, Nanami plunged into her, the stretch of her walls around him causing them both to release heavy groans towards the heavens. “God help me..” He whispered into the air with a chuckle while he waited for her to adjust to the intrusion. The sweet tightness swallowing him whole begged for him to start moving, to see how delicious it would feel for her body to milk every last drop from him, yet he waited until she impatiently twitched around him.

Looking down at her, Nanami couldn’t help but snort. “Patience is a virtue, darling.” His voice was strained from the effort it took to resist from pounding into her.

The shock of the intrusion gone, the playful smile returned to her face. “Does that mean I’ll be punished, Father?”

A genuine laugh broke from Nanami’s throat and he positioned his hands on her waist. “I suppose it is necessary. Virtues must be learned somehow.” He then began a sudden and harsh pace, pulling nearly all the way out before slamming back. The drag of his cock along her walls was pure bliss, the stretch barely painful beyond the pleasure being literally pounded into her body. Perhaps it was the euphoria, but the woman could swear his unrelenting pace hit places she never knew could feel so good, each slap of skin on skin eliciting gasps and pleas from her.

Even better was the look plastered on the ever stoic and serious Nanami, the priest she had only ever seen scowling from behind the altar he was currently railing her on. His brows were drawn and his jaw set tight around every groan and grunt rung from him. The sternness was different from usual, no longer the reproachful hand of god, but a man hellbent on finding and giving release. His fingers held on with bruising strength, moving her body for her as he struck again and again at her most sensitive spot. Her fingers clawed for purchase on the thin red fabric covering the wooden slab of the altar as stars shot in and out, throwing everything out of focus except for where Nanami’s body and hers connected.

With the echoes of their voices and skin bouncing around them, Nanami was getting progressively closer to climax. The time spent pleasuring his partner had sufficiently worked him up and the pressure wrapped around his cock was godly. Seeing the edge approaching, he released one hand from its forceful grip and moved it to toy with her clit once again and bring her along with him towards release.

The woman clung to the altar with one hand above her head, her eyes scrunched shut as the coil in her core threatened to snap for the second time that evening. It didn’t take much longer for orgasm to hit, her walls clenching tight around Nanami’s cock and her barely opened eyes staring fuzzily at the church ceiling as every nerve in her body tensed and released in waves. Nanami was short to follow, the pressure around him too wonderful and the expression of the woman before him enough to tip him over the edge. He pulled out with a wet pop before painting the woman and the altar in long spurts of cum. He braced his hands on the wood on either side of her body, their heavy breathing filling the space as they both reeled back into themselves.

Before a silence could settle, Nanami began to put himself back together, cleaning himself off with a handkerchief and tucking himself back into his pants. “I will be just a moment,” he informed the still shaking woman and went to retrieve a hand towel from the closet near the church’s restroom. He began gently and diligently cleaning her, then helped her back into her clothes. Aside from the red swollenness of their lips and the disheveled state of their hair, the two looked nearly normal. Nanami had been careful not to leave any visible marks on her, had kept his lips to hers or to places unseen, simply because they had not had the time to discuss what exactly was okay and what wasn’t beforehand. Despite having fucked a churchgoer on an altar just moments before, Nanami was a gentleman and respected any boundaries his partner may have had.

With the evidence of their “worship” cleaned up, the two adults walked towards the doors of the church. The woman paused at the door and looked up to Nanami with a broad, relaxed smile. “Thank you, Father. For the break.” An amused laugh bubbled past her lips and Nanami found himself grinning slightly in return.

“Any time, my child. I am here to serve,” he said, extending a hand with a simple business card in it. “Even when I am no longer part of this congregation.” While generally saved for curse work, Nanami always carried cards with his name and number on it. And this definitely seemed like a worthwhile time to give on.

The woman took it and tucked it into her purse securely. “I hope to see you again soon,” she said in farewell, leaving Father Nanami behind to finish attending to church duties. Perhaps the mandatory service as a priest wasn’t so bad. It certainly had its perks.

[ladyreapermc]

Fic: Yes, Father (August Walker x Reader)

A/N: Hey folks. It has been a while. This piece has been sitting on my drive for over a month and I finally decided to post it. I hope you enjoy it. I based all the mass rites on my own experiences, even if it has been a while since I last went to church. 

Summary: AU! After much insisting, your fiancé convinces you to go to church with him and you find yourself strangely captivated by the priest celebrating the mass, which so happens to be your fiancé childhood friend.

Pairing: August x Reader

Genre: Smut; AU   

Wordcount: 2,9k

Warnings: smut (dirty talk and fingering); It’s worth noting that this is a seriously sacrilegious fic, so if you’re religious and think it might bother you or conflict with your faith, maybe it would be best not to read it.

You were never one to particularly care for going to church or anything like that. You weren’t raised in any faith and if it was up to you, your future children would be educated the same, but it was so important to your fiancé James.

He came from a feverous catholic family and he grew up going to church, Sunday morning mass, and being part of every possible event his church was involved in. He was ever an altar boy growing up and he hoped that he could continue the tradition with his own children.

And after a lot of cajoling on his part, you agreed to start attending mass on Sunday morning with him. He promised that the current priest presiding his church wasn’t one of those misogynist and full of prejudice old farts but actually a good old friend of his.

“I promise you’ll enjoy August’s sermon,” James assured as you combed the inexistent wrinkles on your plain, knee-length grey dress.

James insisted you were being too conservative with your attire choice. That it looked more like you were going to a job interview than mass, but you rather be safe than sorry. His parents would be there as well and for some reason, that made you even more nervous with this whole attending to church thing. As ridiculous as it might sound, a part of you was slightly afraid of busting into flames the second you stepped through the threshold of the building.  

“Honestly, it still surprises me that out of the two of us, August was the one that ended up with the collar and not me,” your fiancé declared with a chuckle as he parked the car and you two stepped out to see a considerable group of people, mostly women from the looks of it, quietly making their way inside. “He was such a ladies’ man.”

“Doesn’t seem like much have changed,” you commented as the two of you walked up the steps, making him chuckle and nod.

James’ parents were already waiting and after a quick greeting, you were all made the way inside, miraculously finding seats in the front pews, right in front of the altar. The ample ship of the church seemed to amplify the buzzing of conversation all around, but it all came to a halt at the first chord of the piano.

The silence was heavy and it seemed to you that if someone dropped a pin, it would be heard by the very heavens. Finally, the eerie melody started and you felt your heart beating to the tempo of the music as everyone rose and the procession started.

Front and center, leading the group was a young boy, no older than 12, carrying the processional cross. The dark, shaggy hair and green eyes reminded you of James and you could picture your fiancé in your mind’s eye performing the same task as a child and it brought a smile to your lips.

You watched as the group advanced in time the melody playing, some members of the congregation carrying images of saints and other holy objects and finally, closing the group, Him.

Father August was a tall man, broad shoulders and built like a bull, the white and green clerical robes barely disguising his bulky form. His dark hair was neatly combed, one stubborn curl falling over his left eye but he seemed unaware as he walked and murmured the words of the hymn under his breath, his ocean blue gaze never wavering from the altar. He would look like the picture of a Godsent angel if it wasn’t for the dark stubble covering his face and the abominable mustache that in anyone else would look ridiculous but on him was actually attractive.

Heat rose to your cheeks as you realized your treacherous thought and your gaze fell to your polished shoes. You were really thinking of a priest as attractive? How much of a sinner could you be? Ashamed by the betrayal of your mind, you didn’t dare to look up again, not until the velvet smooth voice of Father August asked all to be seated and the ceremony started.

You let his voice washed over you as mass progressed as expected, taking your cues of when to rise or sit from James, that remained next to you oblivious to your suffering. You barely listened to the gospel reading or the adoration too focused on tracking Father August’s every move despite your best attempts of ignoring the handsome man presiding the celebration.

Finally, the congregation was seated once more to listen to his sermon. You kept your eyes on your clasped hands as August took his place at the pulpit and started speaking. You didn’t hear a word said, only the calm, husky tone of his voice that seemed to set your very soul on fire if the wet warmth between your legs was any indication.

Despite your brave attempts to keep your mind clean, you couldn’t help but daydream of that very same voice whispering all sorts of sinful pleasures in your ear. Clearing your throat, you dared to look up, finding his blue gaze fixed on you as he spoke and that was enough to set your heart racing and lock the breath inside your lungs. It felt as if Father August could see deep inside you, all the unholy thoughts you had been entertaining during his sermon.

Finally, he ended his speech and another hymn began. The congregation started rising, taking their place in line for Eucharist.

“You’re coming?” James whispered, startling you.

“I shouldn’t,” you replied quietly, your eyes darting to the priest feeding the congregation the wafer.

“Come on,” James encouraged with a smile and a wink. “No one will know.”

You rose from your seat against your better judgment. Your brain was unable to reign in the dark desire that pushed you toward the priest. As you took your place in line right behind James, your heart was pounding and your nerves wrecked as each step brought you closer to Father August, until finally, you stood in front of him, under his piercing all-knowing blue gaze.

“The body of Christ,” he spoke, voice haunting as he presented the wafer and your whole body shook as you let your lips part in welcome, eyes focused on his as he set the wafer on your tongue.

There was something so intimate and arousing at been this close to Father August, to let his thick fingers brushing against your lips as he fed you, his eyes darkening and his nostrils flaring as if he could see and smell your sin. Time seemed to stand still for a few seconds as you two stared at each other.

It took the small cough from someone behind you to break you from your spell and you scurried away, shame bitter and acidic in your stomach, drying your mouth and throat as you forced yourself to swallow the wafer and move back to your seat, feeling the weight of your guilt as you waited for the mass to be finally over.

You had hoped to be free from the priest as soon as the proceedings were over but instead Father August remained at the door, exchanging polite words with the members of the congregation, and of course, James and his parents got in line to speak to the holy man.

“Amazing work as always, my dear,” you heard James’ mom, Magda, said as she kissed Father August’s cheek. “But when will you remove that awful thing from your face?”

“I don’t know, mom,” James interjected with a smirk, hugging his old friend. “I think it suits him, gives him a star quality. Of the porn variety.” James’ mom gasped in horror, while August just chuckled.

“You’re jealous because you never managed to grow a single hair in that baby face,” the priest joked back, completely unfazed by the teasing as his gaze set on you. “And who is this?”

“Oh! You haven’t met my fiancé, yet…”

You barely heard the rest of James’ words as he ushered you forward, presenting you to Father August and as his large hand enveloped yours in a warm touch, you could feel the flitting throb between your legs once again.

No man had such an effect on you before, and you wished you could run away, put as much distance between yourself and the temptation in the form of a man.

“So, what did you think?” James asked once the two of you were in the safety of the car, on the way to his parents’ house for Sunday lunch.

“I know it might not seem like it, but it wasn’t my first time in church, James.” Your words earned you a chuckle from him.

“I know, sweetheart. I meant of August.”

“Oh!” You could feel the heat returning to your face as you shifted on your seat, looking away from him. “He seemed nice and you’re right, his sermon was ok.”

“Is ok enough for you to consider coming along every Sunday from now on?”

The look in James’ eyes was pleading, like a little puppy dog that was kicked out of the moving truck. The look of a man that was used to get his way and he knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.

“I’ll think about it,” you conceded it as he pulled the car in the driveway, right behind his parents’.

It wasn’t like you could say no point-blank. Not without a good reason for it and saying you were lusting over his ordained childhood friend wasn’t exactly an option.

“That’s all I ask.”

James smiled brightly at you, pressing a kiss to your cheek before you two stepped out of the car just as a third vehicle pulled in the driveway, and the last person you wished to see got out.

August was donning a pair of black slacks and a black, long-sleeved dress shirt, the clerical collar being the only evidence of this man’s chosen career.

“I’m glad you could make it!” James greeted his friend cheerfully and August smirked.

“I wouldn’t miss this delicious…” he paused for just a second, his eyes flickering towards you, making you gulp and look away. “Meal for anything. Sister Agnes has many talents, bless her soul, but cooking isn’t one of them.”

James snorted, leading the way inside as August walked right beside you so close his arm brushed against yours, raising goosebumps on your skin as it tingled with the brief contact.

“Why don’t I help your mother?” you announced as soon as you crossed the threshold, trying to put as much distance between yourself and the priest as you could.

James didn’t protest. Instead, he led his friend into the sitting room and as you disappeared behind the kitchen door, you could almost feel the cold blue gaze of August on your ass, if that was even possible.

You managed to relax some as you helped Magda with the meal, chopping vegetables and stirring pots as the two of you talked about the upcoming wedding, only months away. You never thought you would be this excited about it, but you loved James with all your heart, and you couldn’t wait to become his wife.

The sound of the phone cut through your chatting and Magda’s face opened into a wide smile as she reached for her phone. It could only mean one thing: Her daughter Mary, who had been in a charity mission in Angola, was on the line.

“Go on,” you encouraged with a smile as you surveyed the kitchen. “I can manage everything.” She flashed you a grateful smile before scurrying off, phone already pressed to her ear.

You hummed to yourself as you worked, tasting the potato salad and adding a little more seasoning before your attention turned to the roast on the oven. You bent over to get a better look, smirking to yourself when you sensed someone standing right behind you, close enough you could feel the heat of his body,

Of course, you thought it was James. Who else would you expect? Instead, As you straightened up and glanced behind yourself, you were startled to find August there, browsing the pots over your shoulder. Too close for comfort.

“Father,” you croaked awkwardly, unable to really move without risking touching the man and that was the last thing you wanted. Your body was already heating up just by his mere presence. Anything else would be too dangerous.  

“Sorry for the intrusion, I wanted to give them some privacy to speak to Mary and I thought you could use some help.” His words were innocent enough but there was this edge in his voice… a sort of dark tone that made you doubt his intentions.

“That’s really thoughtful of you,” you managed, shimmying out of the way so you could move to the sink to start on the dishes. “But I got it covered.” The priest hummed in response and for a moment, a tense silence reigned between you two.

You were very aware of every sound, every motion of your body and his. You wished he would leave already or, against your better judgment, press closer, blanket your body with his, let those long, elegant fingers trace the skin of your thigh, inch under your skirt, and towards your throbbing cunt which was soaking your panties.

You let out a gasp, cutlery clattering loudly into the sink as your mind registered the filthy thoughts circling your brain. How could you? This was a man of God, for Christ’s sake, and a good friend of the man you loved.

“You know, James and I were always very close,” Father August spoke suddenly, making you start because once again he was standing right behind you, his hands resting on the marble of the sink in front of you. “We shared everything.” He whispered those words right in your ear.

One of his hands came to your stomach, not yet touching but close enough that you could almost feel it, the ghost of his fingers brushing the fabric of your dress, making your breath hitch and your body shake as it paused right at the edge of your skirt, hovering there so, so close…

“Please,” you whimpered, not sure if you were asking him to move away or touch you, even if your body was obviously aching for him.

Father August decided for you, dipping his fingers below the hem of your dress, tracing your thigh up until he found your center, the brush of his fingers featherlight against your drenched center.

“Dirty little slut,” he mocked, massaging your cunt and making you moan and rest against him. “I could tell all your filthy thoughts when you stood in front of me at the altar. Did you want to get on your knees and suck my cock in front of the entire church?”

“Yes, Father,” you whimpered, rocking against his light touch, desperate for more.

“In front of James?” he asked, pushing your panties aside and dipping one finger inside your hungry little slit that seemed to almost pull his digit in.

“Yes, Father.”

“Whore,” he clicked his tongue, fingering you roughly now, his middle finger buried almost to the third knuckle as the heel of his hand rubbed against your throbbing clit. The pad of his finger rubbing that sweet little spot, and all you could do was squeeze the sink and press your legs together around his wrist, keeping his hand trapped there.

“You better cum soon or James will find out exactly what kind of slut his fiancée is,” August taunted, his voice like smooth honey dripping against your ear as he rubbed his hard cock against your ass.

“Yes, Father,” you gasped, rocking between his hand and his erection, lost in the ecstasy of such filthy action. “I’m so, so close…”

“Do you want my cock, slut?” he asked, his other hand coming to your throat, squeezing just slightly and you nodded desperately as his motions sped up. “Want me to fuck that tight little pussy?”

“Yes, Father,” you gasped.

“You’re gonna come to the church on Wednesday. I don’t care what you tell James. Just be there.”

Even if you wanted, you couldn’t find in yourself to answer, your whole body going taut with pleasure as your orgasm washed over you. The sort of white-out ecstasy that blinded and deafened you to anything and everything around you with the exception of your body quivering and quaking and the gush of warmth soaking his hand, your thighs and dripping to the floor below.

“Good girl,” he murmured, pressing a soft, almost chaste kiss to your cheek.

Father August stepped away from you, hands in his pockets as you tried to recompose yourself just moments before the kitchen door opened and Magda walked in.

“Wednesday. Don’t forget,” he said, his smile, to anyone looking from the outside, was completely innocent but you caught the malice in his ice-cold eyes before he left.

“What’s on Wednesday?” Magda asked, checking the roast.

“Father August is just gonna help me with something,” you managed, brain still hazy with the aftershocks of your orgasm. “For James.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Magda grinned. “He’s such a good man, isn’t he? Our August. A true man of God.”

You could only nod, your voice caught in your throat. If only she knew…

---

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[lookingforhappy]

The Hargreeves' Names

ik this has been done over and over again but i like to organise things where i can see them properly etc.

i'm basing this off of the above statement by Steve Blackman. however i can't reliably show the popularity in certain countires as most sites only show "general" and/or USA ratings - which I assume to be one and the same tbh so i'm just going off of name origins rather than popularity.

anyway, going into this one i expected diego to be from a spanish speaking country - namely spain/mexico/portugal/cuba. mostly rooting for cuba due to s2.

Diego -

Wikipedia:

The name has long been interpreted as reanalysis of Santiago, from older Sant Yago "Saint Jacob," in English known as Saint James, as San-Tiago.

One of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. Saint James is the patron saint of Spain and, according to tradition, his remains are held in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia.

James is described as one of the first disciples to join Jesus. The Synoptic Gospels state that James and John were with their father by the seashore when Jesus called them to follow him. James was one of only three apostles whom Jesus selected to bear witness to his Transfiguration. James and John (or, in another tradition, their mother) asked Jesus to grant them seats on his right and left in his glory. Jesus rebuked them, asking if they were ready to drink from the cup he was going to drink from and saying the honor was not even for him to grant. The other apostles were annoyed with them. James and his brother wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan town, but were rebuked by Jesus.

The Acts of the Apostles records that "Herod the king" (usually identified with Herod Agrippa I) had James executed by the sword. Nixon suggests that this may have been caused by James's fiery temper, in which he and his brother earned the nickname Boanerges or "Sons of Thunder". F. F. Bruce contrasts this story to that of the Liberation of Saint Peter, and notes that "James should die while Peter should escape" is a "mystery of divine providence".

Didacus is recorded in the forms Diaco, Diago in the 10th century. The form Diego is first recorded in the late 11th century. Its original derivation from Didacus is uncertain, among other things because the shift from -ía- to -ié- is unexplained.

familyeducation.com:

The name Diego is of Spanish origin and means "supplanter." It is believed to be derived from the name Santiago, and in medieval times, Diego was Latinized as Didacus. It is believed Didacus derives from the Greek word didache, meaning "teaching."

dictionary.com:

Supplanter:

noun. someone or something taking the place of another, as through force, scheming, strategy, or the like.

my best guess for him is Spain. mostly because his name is linked to Saint James who is the patron saint of Spain.

i also think that (after spending 30 min on wikipedia) st. james has a couple of parallels/prophetic links to diego:

Diego was the second child to be adopted by reginald making him one of the first children reginald secured (the intro to s1e1 heavily suggests they were numbered via order of adoption unlike the comics) and was one of the four out of seven children to actually be invested in the umbrella academy/training to the point of independantly continuing their 'missions' once he left.

diego was constantly fighting to be "number one", or reginald's favourite but reginald never paid him any attention, or when he did it wasn't good attention. yes i am once again comparing reginald to jesus/the catholic church...

reginald stabbed/attempted to kill diego however diego is halfway responsible for that as he stalked and was actively antagonistic towards reginald (who didn't know who he was). his consistant hot headedness and determination to be hyper masculine certainly don't help his cause.

the meaning of diego's name seems to be "supplanter" or/and "teaching".

supplanter means someone taking another's place, possibly refering to diego's wish to be number one, the leader, the favourite etc. i'd also wager that it's a hint that diego is replacing ben as the glue holding the hargreeve's together. ben's death caused the hargreeves' to split up, and while it was reginald/five who brought them back together, it was arguably diego who kept them together. he was constantly convincing klaus or luther, eventually vanya in s2, to stick together. hell, he even tried to make team zero a thing. it could also be a sneaky reference to diego's powers being switched from the comics. teaching is an interesting meaning for diego. he seems to have become a bit of a mentor/advisor figure to both five and lila, and is even putting himself in charge of luther and klaus on a regular basis.

--

i know the fan favourite is that he's from mexico, however i'm not interested in that bc frankly... i'm bored of the america/mexcio dynamic. i've seen enough. let's do literally any other hispanic country for like 5 mins. can we do cuba? maybe Havanna?? s2 hinted at cuba for a hot min and i'm down for it. (apologies to mexicans you're awesome)

I would have loved if he was from cuba, especially havanna, but given that his name is related to st. james patron saint of spain, i kinda have to go with spain on this one. if we're looking for a specific place in spain then galicia in the north-western corner of spain is a fair guess as that's where st. james is supposedly buried?? as with luther this feels very specific so best to just go with spain overall.

nameberry.com has a more comprehensive popularity chart for diego than it did for luther so i can go into more detail here!

diego is 125/1000 for popularity in the USA for 2020

in 1989 diego ranked 319/1000 in USA

in 2002 (the year five disappeared, presumably the year the umbrella academy debuted and the latest date diego would have been given his name as ben & vanya 100% had theirs already + the figurines/comics in harold's apartment had everyone's names except for five) diego was ranked 98/1000 in USA

in 1963 diego ranked at 988/1000 in USA (so not a lot of diego's wandering around dallas, texas then)

in 2020 diego ranked 14/100 for spain & 30/100 for portugal, mexico was not an option offered on nameberry tho i'm p. confused by this website tbh

luther/diego/allison/klaus/five/ben/vanya

[alecmagnuslwb]

The Maze

Read on AO3

“We’re never getting out of here,” Zatanna huffs kicking at a nearby bush. A little scaly grey hand reaches out at the action swiping for her ankle. She yelps hopping back a bit just for another hand to pop out of the bush behind her and tap her shoulder earning another slightly embarrassing yelp from her.

John grabs her hand and pulls her further down away from where more and more hands continue popping out. He kicks at the bushes surrounding them at the end of the stretch of green and nods seemingly pleased when nothing pops out instantly.

“That’s defeatist behavior there Zee,” he says patting around at his pockets looking for something. A cigarette she assumes. “That’s supposed to be more my style than yours.”

Zatanna sighs, yes maybe it’s a little defeatist to assume they’re never getting out of this damned maze, but it’s starting to feel like a very viable option that they grow old and wither away in here.

She’s not sure how long they’ve been stuck in here, time’s starting to lose meaning as they get deeper and deeper into the green finding an occasional door that hides some brand-new shock behind it. There’s been the room that was just a glorified hall of mirrors, one filled to the brim with definitely not normal spider monkey’s and a room full of mimes just sitting there in an incredibly unnerving manner. Circe has put them through the ringer before, but this, this is just annoying.

All they needed was one hint, one hint to where they could find one thing that might just save the world. No big deal. Of course Circe made it complicated, of course instead of just asking John and Zatanna to leave the room while she had a little discussion with Boston for whatever means she banished them here. So annoying.

John makes a successful little aha noise producing a small flask from his interior jacket pocket and unscrews the cap taking a sip.

Zatanna scrunches up her face in judgement. “Are you drinking holy water?” she asks incredulously.

“I’m thirsty,” he says with a shrug taking another sip. “It’s all just water.”

He holds the flask out to her with a raised eyebrow offering her a drink as well.

She shakes her head making a slightly disgusted face. “It’s just water that a bunch of people dip their dirty fingers into every day.”

John just shrugs again happily tossing back some more local catholic church holy water. Even if they get out of here alive, John’s guaranteed to get some sort of water borne illness from his drink of choice.

Zatanna surveys their options, there’s right or left neither of which will get them out of there, but both of which will drive them absolutely crazy.

“I say we go right and then I try and set the whole maze on fire,” she says tugging John to the right by his sleeve. “We haven’t tried fire yet.”

Portals, conjuring a machete, picking each other up and literally launching over the bushes have all failed to yield results, so why not fire next.

“That’s not very environmentally friendly. Swampy would never forgive you,” John says with a smirk pulling open a new bright red door they almost pass by. At first it’s all darkness then hundreds of glowing eyes turn and greet him. “Shit,” he says and slams it shut quickly one errant little glowing eyeball slipping out and knocking the holy water flask from his hand.

The liquid spills to the ground as the glowing little eyeball happily bounces away turning at the end of another long stretch of nothing but green.

“Think we should follow the eyeball?” John questions picking up his spilled flask. He turns it upside down sporting a disappointed frown when only one single drop falls out.

“No I don’t think we should follow the eyeball,” Zatanna says and how many people have had to say that sentence to their boyfriend? Not many she’d bet; her life is so fucking weird. “I think we should try and burn it down, because this isn’t an environment, it’s a fabricated trap intent on driving us mad. Swampy will never even have to know I did it.”

She raises her hands and closes her eyes focusing on her magic that settles deep in her core.

“Erif,” she says a simple spell she’s done a thousand times before controlling the flame in her hands for any scenario whether it was growing it into a large combustible ball to throw an enemy’s way or to just keep it small and inviting at her fingertip to light John’s cigarette.

She feels the familiar lick of warmth in her hand and open her eyes smiling wide.

“Ha!” she says looking at John with glee as she controls the flame building it in her hands. John steps back giving her the space she needs to hopefully create a hole for them to escape through.

The flame gets to the size of her palm and she lifts it about to start her inferno when one of the long left behind spider monkeys swings past her and blows the damn thing out.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she sighs throwing her head up to the sky, or the vast white nothingness that’s above them not really a sky. The monkey cackles, actually humanly cackles and has the audacity to wave at her as it swings away.

John laughs and Zatanna gives him a sharp look that stops his laughter dead in its tracks.

“Let’s follow the stupid eyeball,” she huffs taking purposefully heavy steps her chunky boots echoing on the ground.

John follows her dutifully, quietly. The eyeball she begrudgingly must admit is actually kind of helpful guiding them into a rotunda, the first of its kind they’ve stumbled upon.

“What if we just wait?” John says sitting on the ornate stone fountain that sits in the center of the rotunda. There’s no water running through it just an overgrown sea of ivy spilling out onto the hard concrete ground.

“Wait?” Zatanna says in surprise. John is not nearly as selfish as people think he is and he’s not one to give up even if he acts like he has. “Circe is out there doing who knows what and using Boston as a tool most likely for her own schemes and you want to wait?”

“Look, luv, she wants us in here. When she wants us out she’ll let us out,” John says now patting around for his pack of cigarettes. “She doesn’t plan on killing us, not today at least, so we wait it out.”

Zatanna sighs pacing back and forth for a minute as another spider monkey makes its way towards her and blows her a kiss. She huffs out a little laugh and stops her pacing settling down next to John on the fountain just as he lights his cigarette.

She tilts her head resting it on his shoulder with another sigh. He’s right, Circe is cruel and exhausting and absolutely wants to kill them, but when she does it won’t be from afar and she definitely won’t let spider monkeys and bouncing eyeballs take the credit.

“Fine, but I’m gonna complain the whole time we wait, okay?” she says wrapping her arm around his bicep with a pout.

John chuckles taking a long drag of his cigarette and blowing it out at one of the spider monkey’s that gets too close. The monkey is unbothered it just jumps on his other shoulder and plucks the cigarette from his mouth taking a puff of its own and scampering away.

“Well I’m gonna complain the whole time too, that was my last one!” John shouts after the monkey as it tosses a condescending wave back their way.

Zatanna giggles, feeling lighthearted for the first time since they got stuck in here. John gives her a sharp look and she just shrugs. Consider it payback for his laughter when the monkey made her his target.

They sit there complaining the whole time batting off bouncing eyeballs and spider monkey’s as they make their way back over to them and in due time a portal opens up, their escape provided by a no longer entertained Circe.

[binniedeactivated]

saint. || soobin (3.1)🌪

pairing: soobin x reader genre: au  word count; 3k

“wow, you’ve really been studying a lot haven’t you?”. you say, seeing soobin’s notebook splayed out on the bed filled with notes that you had no supervision on. you were shocked to know that he took the time to study by himself. he was really taking things seriously. soobin nods, 

“i want to pass”. 

“it sure looks like it. you’re going to do more than pass with all this knowledge”. 

soobin laughs, “good. maybe I’ll earn the ski trip”. 

“ski trip?”. you question, having absolutely no clue as to what he was referring to. 

“yeonjun told me that everyone who does good on the exams earns a ski trip as an incentive”. 

you were kind of amazed, “wow. that sounds fun. when did our school start doing stuff like that? they must really want us to pass”. 

“definitely. and I think if everyone doesn’t do well the school’s going to be shut down. so I already know my parents are to blame”. 

you roll your eyes and smile a bit, writing down your chemistry notes to study. “must be nice having money”. 

“stop saying that. you have money too now”. 

“really? where?”. 

“right here”. 

you shake your head and laugh. soobin eyes you before going back to write his notes. 

“seriously why don’t you ask me for money? you never ask”. 

“you want me to?”.

soobin nods as if it were a stupid question. “yes”. 

“why?”. 

“because why not? I think every boyfriend does”.

“I love how you just call yourself my boyfriend in front of my mom and now that counts as us being an official couple”. 

soobin laughs and takes your hand. you look at him like he was the biggest joke in the world. “what are you doing?”. you say trying not to laugh. soobin was holding in laughter also while attempting to look at you seriously in your eyes. 

“do you want to be my girlfriend?”.

“i hate you soobin”. you laugh. 

“I’m serious I’m serious stop making me laugh”. 

you roll your eyes playfully. “fine. I guess I can be your girlfriend”. 

“good. are we an official couple now?”. 

you sigh scrawling your pen against your paper pretending to be frustrated. “I guess we are an official couple now soobin”. 

“you’re always trying to act like you don’t like me”. soobin laughs again, flipping his notebook page to finish the rest of the notes on the backside. 

“because if i act like I’m in love with you then things will be cringy”.

soobin lays his head on his hand, staring at you. 

“are you in love with me?”. 

you try not to blush. keeping your eyes on your own paper. his stare was eating you alive. 

“of course not”. you mumble jokingly. soobin chuckles. 

“your first time lying to me and this is what you waste it on?”.

you continue laughing leaving his rhetorical question floating in the air. he was still staring at you lovingly. 

“tell me the truth. because I’m in love with you. and I’m not afraid to admit it”.

“why are you in love with me? I’m not shaming you I just kind of find it odd--I’m just a church girl. living a normal middle class teenage catholic life. there’s nothing special about me. and here you are every girl’s dream. you’re rich. good looking. everyone wants to be you. why me? I’m nothing”.

“do you really think I can fall in love with someone whose nothing?”. 

you sigh. “I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket. I’m scared of getting my hopes up and then one day you just leave. there’s so many girls out there that’s better. look better and dress better. and you can get with every single one of them if you wanted”. you ranted and you didn’t mean to take it this far but it’s honestly how you felt. you couldn’t help it. 

soobin presses his warm hand against your cheek. “why are you getting so upset, princess?”. 

“I don’t know”. you utter being swarmed in a sea of vulnerability. 

“I’m not going to leave you. and if I did who would I even leave you for? some girl who only wants sex and clout from me?”.

“what about the ones who are looking for a relationship?”.

“I’m too in love to care”. 

you sigh again, giving him pitiful eyes. being the cheesy person he was leans in and kisses you. that didn’t stop you from liking it though. 

“I only want you i swear. now please admit to being in love with me because I’m tired of waiting for your answer”. soobin says gradually laughing. you smile a bit breaking out of your sadness. his reassurance was what you needed. to be this deep into a relationship and him leaving you? it was your biggest fear. 

“I may or may not be”. you joked. soobin sucks his teeth playfully. 

“fine don’t admit it then. guess you won’t be getting a car for Christmas”. 

“soobin?”. 

“yes?”. he grinned while continuing his notes, knowing he caught you by surprise there. 

“a car?!”. 

“you heard me”. 

“don’t buy me that it’s way too expensive”.

“i’m totally going to obey your command”. 

“soobin I’m serious”. 

“so am I”. 

“how am I even going to explain that to my parents? they’re going to think I did something for it”. 

“something like what?”. soobin asks knowing exactly what you were getting at. 

“you know. they’re going to think I had sex with you or something for you to buy me such expensive gifts”. soobin waited and laughed once you finally said it. 

“that’s hot. they think you’re like a little churchy prostitute”. you childishly punch his arm. “that’s hot to you?”. 

“if it’s you doing it then yes”. 

“how is having sex with someone for gifts and money hot?”.

“I just like the idea of you being a whore for me”.

you laugh, wondering what else went on in soobin’s mind. 

“you know--like the outfit you wore when you came over my house for the first time--god i wanted to devour you”. 

“oh yeah? why didn’t you say anything?”.

“because you were most likely going to punch me. you didn’t know me yet”. 

“I still don’t. I’m still learning”. 

yeah, but you know enough about me now”. 

“I wouldn’t say all that. how do I know you’re not some serial killer deep down?”. 

“you sat on my face last night I’m pretty sure that whole ‘secretly a serial killer’ bullshit is out the window at this point”. 

you laugh loudly, “soobin!”. 

“you also didn’t call me soobin you called me daddy”. 

“alright that’s enough!”. the both of you laugh in perfect sync. interrupting it was his mother obnoxiously calling him from downstairs. soobin promises you his return before he goes to stand at the top of the stairs answering her. 

“yes?”. he says kind of annoyed. 

“me and your father have a conference to attend. our flight leaves soon. if I come back and find out you’ve studied nothing words can’t explain your punishment. don’t just sit around this house making nothing of yourself”. 

soobin rolls his eyes, “where is your conference being held?”.

“france”.

“for how long this time?”. 

“why are you asking meaningless questions? did you hear what I said?”.

“it’s not meaningless if you guys just came back and spent less than 8 hours in the house with me before you leave again”. 

“soobin don’t start. we’re leaders and we are also missionaries. you know what is required of us”. 

“what about me?”. 

“what about you? study and make yourself useful for something soobin. we were glad finally seeing you out with the sports team and doing things that don’t require a suspension”. 

soobin’s breathing pattern changes swiftly. he could hear the nonchalantness in her tone and he hated it with a passion. 

“study and make myself useful and then what? so you both can come home and beat me and yell at me anyways?”. 

his fathers enters the foyer pointing his finger up at soobin. 

“watch your volume”. 

“for what! for what whose going to hear me?”. 

“for respect soobin! don’t make me come up these stairs”. his father threatens. 

“why should I respect you both if you guys barely respect me?!”. 

“what are you talking about you have a house to live in don’t you? you have cars you have nice clothes you have gourmet food to eat and your bank account surpasses any number of ever seen in my life. you have nothing to complain about you need to be grateful!”. his mother spat. 

“yes you’re right thank you mom thank you dad for subtracting the parental love I could’ve gotten in my life and supplementing it with material things! I appreciate it so much!”.

“what did I tell you about saying that? huh?! we love you. this is tough love”. his father replies. soobin ball his fists. 

“that’s bullshit you’re only saying that because you don’t want anyone in this town to know that the two people they respect so much don’t give a damn about their son! half the shit that you do you only do it so I can never say that I don’t have anything”.

“soobin watch your mouth!”. he father growls. 

“it’s true just fucking admit it and stop getting angry!”

soobin spat harshly and his dad was about to take off up the stairs in a fit of rage until his mother pulled him back. 

“our flight leaves in less than a half hour we have to be at the airport. we can deal with him later”. his dad nods and points his finger at soobin again. 

“consider yourself lucky”. he stated before clutching his suitcase. his mom clutches hers and they both approach the door. she shoots a disgusting look at him. 

“maybe this getaway will help you clean up your act”. she muttered and closed the door behind him.

“What about me!?”. soobin stands at the top of the stairs still yelling.

“your getaways don’t help! they never fucking did!”. he could feel his heart racing and his cheeks growing hot.

“just say you don’t really love me. thats all you have to do”. he croaks without even realizing he was crying. 

you’d been in his room overhearing the whole argument but unable to come out due to you not supposed to even being there in the first place. so you kept silent until you heard the front door shut. you snuck out of soobin’s bedroom to see him down the hallway still yelling, so it was hard to tell if it’s parents really left or not. you approach his tall frame timidly, touching his shoulder. 

“soobin?”. he palms his face sniffling. you wrap your arms around his torso and glance up at him. 

“it’s going to be okay alright? they don’t deserve you. you’ve made mistakes in your life and sure you weren’t the best behaved kid but you are still theirs and they should treat you as such”. 

“I hate them. I fucking hate them both”. 

“soobin don’t say that”. 

“I will say it. because they don’t care about me”.

“look at me”. 

soobin sighs, removing his hands from his wet eyes to glare down at you. he looked so miserable when he cried and you hated it. you’d only ever like to see him happy and laughing. this was cruel. 

“I’m in love with you, okay?”. you say, reaching up to help him dry his eyes. 

“do you mean that?”. he replies. 

“yes I do mean it”. 

“good because I fucking knew it”. soobin admits with a straight face until you playfully slap his chest and laugh. it was a relief to see his reddened face contort into a smile. 

╲╱❀╲╱╲╱❀╲╱╲╱❀╲╱

“babe! hurry up!”. soobin yells from the living room couch. he had the movie ready and he was just waiting for you to cuddle with him. you figured you couldn’t leave him alone while he felt like this. so you gave your parents your usual excuse for being out so late. 

you promised soobin you’d do anything to help him feel better and guess what he requested? you guessed it. 

four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches specially made by you. and of course the big baby was being impatient. you rushed and slabbed the layer of peanut butter on the last slice and sat all the sandwiches on the plate. 

you carefully walked into the living room with it and soobin started the movie. you sat criss-crossed between his legs on the couch, trying to hand the plate off to him. 

“feed me”, he begs. you turn your body and face him. “you’re a big baby do you know that?”. soobin smirks knowingly. you rip a piece of one sandwich and hold it up to his lips which he munches on adorably. you feed him a few more pieces and watch the crumbs fall from his lips. 

“you’re the only person I know that can get fed and still make a mess”. you use a hand to dust the crumbs off of his lips and hoodie. 

“you’re such a mom”. 

“and you’re such a baby”. 

“your baby right?”. you sigh trying not to blush once again. 

“cmon. it’s okay to admit it”. 

“I’m not going to make things cringy soobin”. you mumble and he immediately tackles you down on the couch playfully. 

“soobin you’re going to make me drop all of these sandwiches on the floor!”. you laugh.

“admit I’m your baby”. he laughs. 

he face was inches from yours. he looked so cute and cuddly in his big sweater and hood over his head. you pulled one of his drawstrings. 

“fine. you’re my baby”. soobin smiles and softly kisses you. 

“you forgot to get me something to drink with my food. I’m going to suffocate from this peanut butter”. 

you laugh, “you didn’t ask for anything to drink”. 

“I know. I should’ve asked for milk”.

“see, that’s your mistake not mine”. 

soobin thinks for a moment before grinning. “i mean--if i wanted some milk I can just--”. he interrupted himself just to snake his hand up your shirt and massage your boob. you cackled loudly. 

“soobin!”. 

and your mornings were usual. this time around though you were encouraging soobin. he’d be taking his first history exam today. 

“remember you got this. you are smart. you can do anything and you studied really hard for this”. you remind prior to kissing him. “I believe in you”. you added. you went into your classroom and let soobin put his skills to the test. he was even more inspired now that he had you rooting for him. 

“I tried to call you yesterday but either your phone was dead or you didn’t pay your phone bill”. taehyun admitted. 

“my phone bill is paid. my phone was probably dead”. you lied. you were declining his calls to keep from soobin’s wrath. 

“we can study today after school if you’re down. I don’t have anything to do and plus the exam is coming up soon”. 

damn. you couldn’t say no to his face. could you? 

“yeah that’s fine. library?”. you ask. 

“yeah that’s cool”. taehyun shortly replies. all the while you were wondering how the hell you were going to continue studying with taehyun behind soobin’s back. it wasn’t like you were cheating on him or anything. just studying. maybe soobin was being too overprotective. 

soobin adjusts his backpack strap and attempts recalling his notes in his head while he walked to his classroom. 

“ayo? you ready?”. yeonjun asked catching up to him

“hell yeah. I actually studied”.

“good. I uhh- kind of have some news for you though”. 

“what is it?”. 

“they found more evidence on the hotel case”.

“shit. why the hell would you tell me that right now?”.

“I’m trying to tell you all the shit I know before anything comes up later so you can be prepared”. 

“how do you know this shit anyways? do you have a part time job at the police station or something?”. 

“I have my connections. and i’ve been following it to make sure they don’t try and frame me”. 

“why would they frame you?”. 

yeonjun shrugs, “I was acting pretty hostile during interrogation. but still”.

“I don’t have time for this shit”. 

“yeah that’s probably why you still haven’t told your girlfriend”.

“don’t start yeonjun”. 

yeonjun shrugs again, “I’m just saying. you keep dragging this shit out she’s going to fuck around and leave you”.