#I'm not christian but i just think it's fun

[basedhighsenberg]

Okay, story time it is.

Outside of what happened with one of my close friends, two years ago I was going through a hard time over the summer and doing a lot of self reflection and genuinely feeling very lost.

After a particularly bad few weeks, I remember I was going through some of my things in storage when I found an older bible, a paraphrased "Living Bible" that I'd had for a while and completely forgot about.

Years before this (probably a decade), I used to work in a library system when I lived upstate New York. Of the many jobs I performed, one involved processing book donations at the main library branch in my county. There was a loading dock in the parking lot, where people would generally leave boxes of books, and we would all (staff) sometimes pick through them.

The library had policies about what kind of books it could take (newer, no stains or yellowed pages, no heavy damage, etc) and would send ones it couldn't take to a recycling plant. And I remember one day, picking this bible out of a box of books because it was yellowed and was destined for the mulcher.

Going back to a few years ago when I found it in my things, I decided then that it was as good a time as any to start reading it and see how I felt. When I opened the front cover, I found my mom's name written in it.

By some bizarre twist of fate, she had dropped some books off at the library to donate years before, and I had picked through them without ever knowing they were hers. I had never opened the bible up to that point and just had it in my things for years, mostly forgotten.

I can't quite put the experience into words other than it felt like I was flashbanged by God. And if that wasn't enough, as I was reading it I was also reading the highlights and notes my mom had written in it and realized that she had been going through something similar in her life at a similar time.

While I was reading it and connecting to it, I realized that there had been something inside of me that had been longing for Christ for a long time. I don't really have a good explanation as to why I denied Him for most of my life other than I thought it was a expectation of a what a rational person should do, and because of some misguided adolescent desire to be non-conforming and different.

After that happened, I started attending various church services online- although infrequently. It wasn't until the passing of my friend last year that I started attending more frequently, both for a desperate need for comfort & peace, and because I feel like I experienced things after her passing, that cannot be... explained away rationally. Things that shook me to my core, that I've discussed with very few people, it made me feel like I needed to "get right with God."

I don't know how my experiences truly relate to other Christians. All I know for sure is that Jesus has saved me from more things than I can count, both things I didn't want and things I thought I wanted. I don't think I would have gotten through last year at all especially if I hadn't turned to Him, my thoughts and my heart had gone to truly dark places and I was on the edge of some truly heinous actions involving the individual who took my friend's life.

That being said, I believe that everything in my life had to happen the way it did and couldn't have happened any other way because He deemed it so. Even recent events involving a certain Tumblr harpy, although not fun, have helped bring me closer to Him.

I try to read my Bible regularly (I have 2 more now in addition to my mom's), I go to church every Sunday, I pray every day and every night. I'm not baptized- yet. I have zero desire to be performative or to engage in any sort of theological debate, and I do not claim to be an expert about anything Christian.

Nevertheless, here I am, and here it is. I can feel Him reshaping me proundly for the better, I do not feel like I am worthy of any of it, and yet He still is there for me. And I am eternally grateful for that.

What led you to Christ?

Numerous things in the past few years, more than I care to go into detail about.

But, the strongest was probably the murder of one of my best friends last year.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

Aof Noppharnach motifs in the Ticket to Heaven Trailer:

1996/1997 makes its return! 1997 is the year P'Med died (and is that P'Med's walkman!?) and the year Torfun was born. It's also the year the Asian financial crisis began in Thailand and it's the year HAART for HIV AIDS was introduced in Thailand. 1996 is the year the first HAART studies were published and the multi-drug therapy was introduced.

Christian topics. Christmas has appeared in several Aof works. In Last Twilight, Day gets notified and rushed to the hospital over an available eye transplant; the transplant fails. In Moonlight Chicken, it's on Christmas that Li Ming takes Heart to connect with the deaf community but it's also when Alan, Jim, and Wen get into a physical fight that leaves Wen injured. And in Bad Buddy, Pran is interrupted in the middle of the Christmas concert and forced to transfer schools because his parents have observed him getting along too well with Pat. I think it's fair to say that Aof does not think Christianity is exactly beneficial to the gay experience.

The swimming pool. Listen, water and underwater shots are used across BLs and queer teen media (Skam and Booksmart, anyone?). And Aof doesn't have this as a motif in many works. BUT! The way he uses it in Dark Blue Kiss and Moonlight Chicken is super important because it subverts the way other series use it. In other shows, the water, whether underwater at a pool or at the beach, is private and away from society. It's a place to explore without commitment. In Dark Blue Kiss, it's a public pool and serves as the culmination of Kao's coming out! He kisses Pete for the first time unafraid of if they are seen and then they submerge while they kiss beneath the surface indicating that whether people see them or not, whether Kao made his love public or not, their love is still real and there deeper than what is seen and what is stated. Moonlight Chicken has Heart and Li Ming at the water's edge while visiting Li Ming's mom where the latter repairs his relationship with her while still choosing to stay with his guncle.

Faith. At the core of almost all of Aof's series is faith beyond the tangible world. We've got a gay ghost that only Thun can see in HCTM. We've got recurring motifs of flight, ascension, and separations (by death and by distance) in ATOTS. Last Twilight is almost vulgar with its theme of faith not by sight. Bad Buddy has its fake-out break-up ending and its antecedent in the beginning where the boys pretend to not know one another despite their former close ties; in other words, love that can't be seen or shared persisting despite. I could go on. Aof himself has stated explicitly that he always aims for his series to convey hope. And as any former Bible school child, like me and apparently Aof!?, might tell you, "These three remain: faith, hope, and love. And above all these is love." Be still my romantic Christian-raised heart.

The autobiography of it all! When Aof takes screenwriting credit, he seems to signal that the series includes aspects of his own life, which is why the year is significant, or why Moonlight Chicken's age-gap romance reflects Aof's own life-partner, etc.

[residentialsinyomakai]

HELLO!!!! mini art dump thingy for y'all,,,, haven't been in muuuch of a drawing mood but I have things I've made for other things! except the last two; those are for fun.

[gxlden-angels]

Christians are so weirdly obsessed with sex and also obsessed with the world being obsessed with sex

[outlying-hyppocrate]

i have officially returned. ask me anything.

[shinyboomboom]

16 year old girls and that one "friend" <<<

[ano-po]

I love revenge tropes, but I am also a believer of forgiveness, maybe that's why Joseph the Dreamer appeals to me so much.

You exact revenge towards your brothers, all of which have repented and have seen the wrong in their ways, then you proceeded to forgive them.

Revenge, check. Repentance, check. No bad karma points and everyone is happy. Fulfilling drama. Temple soldiers cried of happiness. Good ending.

[unhonestlymirror]

A bit strange feeling of living in Lithuania while looking like... Lithuania

[its-all-papaya]

none of you understand lando's weird anime positivity inspo instagram story like i understand it.

[boi-zizzoi]

My brain is a pendulum that goes back and forth between Ghost hail satan and "Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton" hail satan

[concerto-roblox]

wait you're telling me people are actually weirded out by doja cat dressing as a demon for a music video?? everyone is so boring 😭😭

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

peace and love on planet earth save me.... peace and love on planet earth.... save me peace and love on planet earth....

[gloriousmonsters]

remembering again the boom of authors bragging that THEIR kinky m/f romance was sooo much better than 50 Shades of Grey in the wake of it becoming popular. and then with the exception of more coherent writing every one my brother (valiantly trying to find good kinky books) tried managed to be worse in some way. god bless

[lemonduckisnowawake]

To be honest, horror stuff always gets cheapened and cringe when they add Christianity into it. Like, my man, you do not need to give me some idiotic afterlife theology loosely based in Christian mythos and ruin the decent scares you had going there.

[whysamwhy123]

Illness be damned, I finished this next OrangeHook fic, holla! Thank God this one's nowhere near as long as the first. It definitely got away from me though, didn't end up being about what I intended it to be about. But I don't think it's terrible? At least, not offensively so? I don't know. I'll see how I feel about it after I'm done editing. Maybe then I'll think about posting it sometime later this week?

[vonlipvig]

so, apparently eurovision started in the mid 50s, and the suzerainverse is set in the 50s in merkopa, which is the equivalent in their world of europe, so you know where i'm going with this.

they definitely have merkovision in the suzerainverse.