#THE CHURCH CLEARLY IS RENTED OUT LIKE

[faunandfloraas]

looking at twt and seeing a tweet talk about a girl group and the way the post was worded i was thinking these girls had committed an atrocity, cut someones heart of on the hanteo red carpet or something, like the wording was just so serious and disgusted and then I look and ? they danced in a church for a music video. I'm meant to be offended by this?

[blueberrypancakesworld]

If you’re taking headcanon requests, I have a very specific idea for Frollo that’s been living rent free in my head for awhileeeeeee.

Imagine Frollo being summoned as a ghost into the modern world by a nonbinary spirit medium or witch. Just, let this man loose his entire mind as a FAR too lovely witch is running around chatting with ghosts, and trying to calm him tf down in the process XD

Probably doesn’t help that “nonbinary witch” would probably sound like evil itself to Frollo lol

The horror of the new day

Frollo x nb!reader

warning : just some funny things and a very confused Frollo

Info : Thanks for this request @add-a-bit-of-neurospice it was an interesting idea/concept but was like I said really,really fun to write. Frollo just in our time and dies again of the ,,sins" he sees everywhere :) I hope you like it and have fun reading ;)

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

Hell had been his home since he had fallen into the flames in front of Notre Dame, the stone had crushed his body and the flames had not left him as ashes, he had been in hell.

His faith was right after his soul had left his body he found himself in. The infinite inferno was burning again, an eternal flame that tormented him until he threatened to lose his mind.

Time was irrelevant and he no longer had any feeling for it except the pain of seeing the souls of his victims and enemies pass by, but he hardly paid any attention to them.

Until one day in infinite time he felt his body rise from the flames and was freed. It had to be God he was convinced as the flames around him. Around him became less and less.

The darkness enveloped him before he heard a distant voice calling out to him, saying his name. Looking around for the person, his soul coalesced into the image, his body easily visible around the ring that had suddenly appeared.

He was heavier than the flames, heavier than the pain and it held him. It held him until the darkness around him receded, his voice became clearer and when he lifted his gaze he was standing in a room. ,,What is this?" he asked, confused as to why his jellyfish had ended because when he ascended he was supposed to be in the clouds, singing and becoming an angel.

,,Oh my Lillith, it worked!" he heard the voice more clearly and saw the right person. The first thing he noticed was the pointed hat and the necklace with the pentagram. A witch someone he would have burned immediately if he still had the time.

But when he looked further at the she-devil, he saw pants instead of a dress and her hair was short. A demon. ,,Demon, why did you call me?" he asked, a hint of fear in his voice, it must be a powerful being if it could summon him with a ring. ,,Demon? Oh no, I'm a witch, a medium do you understand Frollo?" the person asked him and continued to walk around the room excitedly, collecting ingredients, clothes and books and muttering to themselves.

It was a sight that confused and unsettled him. It couldn't be his time, in his time there was no glowing sun on the ceiling, no clocks that seemed so small and thin.

And this glowing book on which his summoner was typing only confused him even more. Suddenly he felt the ring that had summoned him glow and he understood even less what was going on. ,,Okay, Frollo, listen. You are in the year 2023 and I have to ask you a few questions for a assignment," he listened to the demon and gradually realized that hundreds of years must have passed.

Hundreds of years in which he suffered that felt like the eternal time of an hourglass. The world and especially the church seemed to have changed.

The more he saw of this wonderful space, the more he realized that there was neither a cross nor a holy image of Jesus and Mary. ,,Two thousand and twenty-three... and you demon summoned me?" he asked hesitantly and stopped in front of a glass box with a sun in it and saw a snake inside.

The demon's soul animal. He turned back to the strange creature in disgust. ,,Yes, I did, to be more precise, my first summoning. How do you feel, or rather, what was it like to fall to your death like that?" The person asked again and the spirit looked down at the ring.

The world was strange to him things had changed and yet the hellfire had stopped. Talking was not a sin and if it meant staying away from the fire why not...nothing could be worse than hellfire. ,,I fell dear summoner creature, the flames had surrounded me but not caught me. It was the stone that broke my body before the fire could take me," he began to tell, walking around the room and seeing the interested look on his necromancer's face.

He saw how the summoner continued to make notes while he told his life story.

It felt good to talk again and not just think about pain. And the longer he talked, the more interested his counterpart became. Maybe he even told untruths, lies, but in order to be heard, to be right and not get caught in the fire, he would tell this witch, this demon everything.

Even after death, his justification and his guilt had not changed. But why should it? He had a listener who believed it and that was all that mattered in the here and now.

Even though he had to admit that the longer he looked around this strange room, told his story and listened to the witch, he was still interested in these new things around him. Maybe he would have to make a contract to take on this kind of witchcraft.

He even had to smile once when he managed to scare the stranger. When he showed him the picture when he died. However, this only led to the stranger turning on music or something similar on the glowing book and starting to pray wildly and say prayers.

It was very confusing and these words like cell phone, light bulb and non-binary were things he called divine and devil. But all this time he started to like the company when he sat down in the chair that was touched by the witch, giving him access.

Even if his gaze went to the suns around him, his gaze was always on his savior while Frollo strove over the ring…for a moment he was completely grateful to have been saved…maybe there was still hope…for his soul in the end.

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

Hope you enjoyed it @add-a-bit-of-neurospice

[shakesthewizard]

Imagine you're an ex-evangelical high schooler who's been out for all of one year and is living with your girlfriend's family because you got kicked out of your homophobic parents' house. This girlfriend is the one who helped you realize you're gay - she held your hand as you cut ties with your church.

As well as being gay, you're also a forgetful, impulsive kid who has a really hard time getting your mouth to agree with your brain. You have ADHD, but you aren't diagnosed and you'd probably deny the idea of it were brought up. Nonetheless, these traits have historically given you a hard time not just in school, but in terms of making and keeping friends, too.

Sophomore year, you go on a huge trip with your girlfriend, and after a lot of miscommunication, conflict, and reconciliation, she dumps you. It's on as good of terms as you could hope for; you know you'll be heartbroken for months, but it isn't a fight, and she doesn't hold anything against you. She tells you that it's because she needs a bit more stability in a partner; someone who's going to be better able to center her needs when the situation calls for it. This stings - you know you weren't the best partner on this trip. Like always, you said the wrong thing, and the stressful situations you found yourselves in exacerbated your fights. She's telling you the same thing everyone does; you don't try hard enough. You don't care.

You move on. You have a super busy summer with your best friends and they help you work through it, as best you can. Things get better, and you decide to start taking better care of yourself. You're still living with ex-gf's family, but ex-gf is out of the country getting into politics. She's trying to build a grassroots movement to help the members of her religion start divesting from their involvement with that evangelical church that raised you. It's a noble calling.

When junior year starts, you and your friends start getting bullied & harassed by this girl. There's a lot going on there, but whenever you confront her, all she does is talk about how little you care; how easy you have it; you lazy you are. All the worst versions of the things everyone always tells you, spar in your face. The nice teachers pity you, thinking of you like You're not a full person. The mean ones call you a slacker and a class clown. This girl combines the two; she snipe's at you about how easy your life must be because you've managed to trick your friends into thinking you give a shit. All this while you're in danger of being expelled, and tanking your friends' grades on your way down. All this while you attend school *solely* for their sake. All this while you're trying harder than you ever have before, and it's only barely working.

Over winter break your junior year, you decide to visit ex-gf with your friends. You feel better about things with her, and even though school and that bully are stressing you out, you think it'll be a nice time. When you get off the bus to the small town where she lives now, you're led to the center of her political movement - a megachurch.

Not an abandoned building. Not some old rundown thing they've commandeered, or a repurposed space they rent for their own ends. No; a brand new evangelical megachurch, that your ex gf had a hand in designing.

You question her about it, and she gets snippy with you. She asks what do you mean this is wrong? What do you mean she's clearly becoming the exact thing she set out trying to overthrow? This isn't a megachurch! It's just a sign that their movement is popular!

Then you meet her girlfriend. And you know something? She seems nice enough. She's a lot like you, actually - she's kind of forgetful, and impulsive. She has a hard time with words, like you. Thing is though - she's also the daughter of a famous evangelical minister. And guess who paid for this church.

Yeah, so it turns out your GF left you, citing your forgetfulness and lack of ability to demonstrate care to her satisfaction as reasons why. She then turned around and got together with someone who can be generously described as "you but rich," and then set about becoming a spokesperson for the same homophobic church she told you to become homeless running from.

Tracker is a hypocrite and a bootlicker, is what I'm saying.

[kooki914]

What do you think will Toriel's relationship with Mrs. Holiday be like? A foil situation maybe? It's kind of strange that for a family so closely tied to the Dreemurr Toriel never has talked about any of them. Wonder what she actually thinks about Noelle?

All good questions, honestly! I believe Toriel isn't really the type to seek out super close friendships with people to begin with (her friendship with Sans seems to almost be an accident in both worlds), and Rudy mentions how their families have drifted apart over the years. I feel like part of this can be attributed to her and Asgore's divorce (as him and Rudy are close, breaking up with Asgore probably made stuff awkward between Toriel and Rudy), but another part is also Dess' disappearance I think (her and Asriel were close, and it's been hinted that after she disappeared, Kris stopped hanging out with Noelle too, and it might've given the parents less incentive to stay in touch with each other overall).

On the question on mayor Holiday and Toriel specifically, I DO kind of see them as foils already? Toriel is a smothering and loving parent while mayor Holiday is strict and cold. The one thing they have in common is they're both reactionary (Noelle being afraid her mother would take away her console if she saw her crying over a game, contrasted to Toriel taking Asriel to church every day for a week because of a first kiss), and they both seem to have a need for control over nearly everything. With mayor Holiday it's not even subtle, while with Toriel it's less overtly "control freak" vibes and more specifically someone who's so used to having all responsibility on her shoulders alone, that she doesn't even notice she's doing it to herself most of the time.

If they were to be proper foils, I'd like if it were an extension of the themes around freedom and control, honestly, and not even in the parental sense. Deltarune seems like it has a lot to say on free will vs predeterminism, and I think marriage - holy matrimony - is an interesting vessel to explore that through. Toriel as someone who ended her marriage for personal reasons, which can be misconstrued as selfish if you don't take into account her feelings and needs as a person, contrasted to mayor Holiday who seems to have an iron grip on her family's dynamic, which can be misconstrued as people-oriented if we fail to take into account the effects that has on Noelle and Rudy (and possibly even Dess when she was around). The Holiday household seems pretty toxic, with Rudy constantly in the role of mediator, Noelle in the (psychological) role of "adaptive child" (see The Entire Snowgrave Route for why that's horrendous), and mayor Holiday seemingly in the role of judge, jury and executioner.

Basically, Toriel as someone who liberated herself and mayor Holiday as someone who refuses to let others be liberated, sort of. A hint of it can even be seen in how they treat someone like Asgore. Toriel privately shittalks him but isn't really cruel to him to his face (which gives him the wrong idea, sadly), while mayor Holiday is "lenient" with his rent payment while being clearly cold and cruel about his personal plights. Toriel is someone who wants to move on and make as little of a mess as she does so, while mayor Holiday could be someone who prioritises a "safe" stasis over any kind of change to the detriment of everyone around her. Toriel is "mean" but empathetic, mayor Holiday is "giving" but cruel - possibly another commentary about how being "nice" isn't always a good thing, how some people do it out of necessity (Toriel) while others do it as a manipulative tactic (mayor Holiday), and how overall issues are always more complicated than they seem. More complicated than someone who, say, just tells you to "sell more flowers" would think they are, based on her limited willingness to see from anyone else's point of view.

(This is offtopic but this is really interesting symbolism to me: if we look at Asgore giving people flowers as a metaphor for giving people love and attention, *selling* more flowers wouldn't even directly help him, in a narrative sense. He's giving Toriel flowers and she keeps throwing them away, EVERYONE does, because they fundamentally don't need or want them. Asgore is someone the community doesn't need anymore, and the mayor's solution to that is "put a price on it", because to her (I speculate) ALL relationships are transactional. She thinks his problem is that he's TOO loving, that he's TOO giving, rather than that hes throwing his love into an endless black hole that will never return the gesture. Anyway, that's enough rambling about Asgore on a Toriel post, sorry!)

Oh, and I nearly forgot to answer: I don't think Toriel would have particularly strong feelings towards Noelle? Toriel's nice to every kid she knows, but I think the inverse, what Noelle thinks of Toriel, is a more interesting question. Knowing Noelle's issues with mother figures, does she see Toriel as aspirational, or does she think Toriel is faking it and using kindness as manipulation (like mayor Holiday may be prone to doing)? Is Noelle weary of Kris' mom, hence not coming over to their house often, or is she nostalgic about the bond their families had and remembers Toriel more like an aunt than a mother? Since we know she's scared of her mom, is she vaguely hoping her own parents will separate, or did Toriel set a "bad precedent" in her eyes and she dreads her family being pulled apart further? All very very interesting questions, in my opinion, and I hope we see more of the Holiday/Dreemurr dynamics as the story goes on.

[dragoneyes618]

"Perhaps presenting all these facts has the opposite effect from what we think. Perhaps we are giving people ideas.

I don't mean giving people ideas about how to murder Jews. There is no shortage of ideas like that, going back to Pharaoh's decree in the Book of Exodus about drowning Hebrew baby boys in the Nile. I mean, rather, that perhaps we are giving people ideas about our standards. Yes, everyone must learn about the Holocaust aso as not to repeat it. But this has come to mean that anything short of the Holocaust is, well, not the Holocaust. The bar is rather high.

Shooting people in a synagogue in San Diego or Pittsburgh isn't "systemic"; it's an act of a "lone wolf." And it's not the Holocaust. The same is true for arson attacks against two different Boston-area synagogues, followed by similar simultaneous attacks on Jewish institutions in Chicago a few days later, along with physical assaults on religious Jews on the streets of New York - all of which happened within a week of my visit to the Auschwitz show.

Lobbing missiles at sleeping children in Israel's Kiryat Gat, where my husband's cousins spent the week of my museum visit dragging their kids to bomb shelters, isn't an attempt to bring "Death to the Jews," no matter how frequently the people lobbing the missiles broadcast those very words; the wily Jews there figured out how to prevent their children form dying in large piles, so it is clearly no big deal.

Doxxing Jewish journalists is definitely not the Holocaust. Harassing Jewish college students is also not the Holocaust. Trolling Jews on social media is not the Holocaust either, even when it involves photoshopping them into gas chambers. (Give the trolls credit: They have definitely heard of Auschwitz.) Even hounding ancient Jewish communities out of entire countries and seizing all their assets - which happened in a dozen Muslim nations whose Jewish communities predated the Islamic conquest, countries that are now all almost entirely Judenrein - is emphatically not the Holocaust. It is quite amazing how many things are not the Holocaust.

The day of my visit to the museum, the rabbi of my synagogue attended a meeting arranged by police for local clergy, including him and seven Christian ministers and priests. The topic of the meeting was security. Even before the Pittsburgh massacre, membership dues at my synagogue included security fees. But apparently these local churches do not charge their congregants security fees, or avail themselves of government funds for this purpose.. The rabbi later told me how he sat in stunned silence as church officials discussed whether to put a lock on a church door. "A lock on the door," the rabbi said to me afterward, stupefied.

He didn't have to say what I already knew from the emails the synagogue routinely sends: that they've increased the rent-a-cops' hours, that they've done active-shooter training with the nursery school staff, that further initiatives are in place that "cannot be made public." A lock on the door," re repeated, astounded. "They just have no idea."

He is young, this rabbi - younger than me. He was realizing the same thing I realized at the Auschwitz exhibition, about the specificity of our experience. I feel the need to apologize here, to acknowledge that yes, this rabbi and I both know that many non-Jewish houses of worship in other places also require rent-a-cops, to announce that yes, we both know that other groups have been persecuted too - and this degrading need to recite these middle-school-obvious facts is itself an illustration of the problem, which is that dead Jews are only worth discussing if they are part of something bigger, something more. Some other people might go to Holocaust museums to feel sad, and then to feel proud of themselves for feeling sad. They will have learned something officially important, discovered a fancy metaphor for the limits of Western civilization. The problem is that for us, dead Jews aren't a metaphor, but rather actual people that we do not want our children to become." 

- Dara Horn, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present

[bethanydelleman]

Who exactly belonged to the gentry? And how did you become part of it (apart from marrying into it if you were rich enough)?

I'm a bit confused because we have people with titles (like Sir Thomas, Sir Lucas and Lady Catherine) and those without (Mr. Allen, Mr. Woodhouse etc.). Some are insanely rich (Mr. Darcy), some are extremely poor (the Bates), there's old money and new money and sometimes no money.

Could you "fall out" of the gentry if you were too poor and couldn't keep up anymore? Because the Dashwoods worry about being able to live befitting to their rank.

I'm sorry about this big ask but I need someone to dumb it down for me a bit ._.'

Okay, so this seems simple but it is not and even if we just look at Jane Austen's novels there seems to be a lot of exceptions and complexities. For example, I've covered before that only certain types of lawyers were gentry and the rest were lower class.

But here is the thing: there are entire scenes in Jane Austen and other contemporary literature where members of the gentry are trying to decide who is gentry/worthy of visiting or not. One of the best examples of this in Jane Austen is Emma deciding to visit the Coles and the novel Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell goes deep into this issue. Anyone who tells you the class distinctions were simple, immovable lines that everyone understood is just wrong. There are examples of contemporary people trying to draw clear class distinctions and they don’t always resemble each other.

This answer will mostly rely on Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell. I’m not a scholar and I don’t claim to be, I’m just reporting what I’ve read.

Also, at the time Jane Austen was writing, things were already changing. The industrial revolution has already started. A class of gentleman farmers were rising up, like the Martins in Emma, who had enough money to get educations and act like gentry even if they didn't own land. There are also people like Gilbert Markham in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and the Hayter family in Persuasion, who own land but I guess don't own enough or don't act properly or don't come from an old enough family, so they are not exactly gentry (this category might include the Haywoods too but we don't have a completed Sandition). Yet they do interact with gentry in both novels. Confused yet?

Here is is the most basic definition: the gentry class consists of people who live off of either rents from land or investment income and do not work. 

However! This also includes a few very specific professions, the army and navy but ONLY if you are an officer, the church, and the law but only the good type of lawyer, and physicians but not apothecaries or surgeons. (Historical note: being a surgeon is not a respected profession until the invention of ether.)

Also, even the professions were dicey. Apparently men in the militia (it’s not the real army, they didn’t purchase commissions) were considered gentry while they were officers, but maybe not after if they didn’t deserve it. Wickham has no real claim to be a member of the gentry except being an officer, but his manners allow him to pass. Some men who rose through the ranks of the army or navy were originally from the very low classes and usually had to polish their manners to be promoted because no one wanted a vulgar officer.

As for women, that was difficult. A governess rides the line of gentry or not, they were often held above servants but below the family. They also made very little money, between £30-50 pounds/year. 

If you read books from the time period you can see that the social class of gentry seems far more fluid than the more clearly defined class of the aristocracy/peerage. The peerage consists of peers, who sit in the House of Lords and have a title, duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron. Their children sometimes have a title, usually the heir has a courtesy title, and the girls are either Lady Firstname (daughter of duke, marquess, or earl) or The Honourable Miss Lastname (daughter of viscount or baron). Thus we can easily tell that Lady Catherine and Lady Susan are the daughters of an earl or greater (because of her first name being included in her title) and that the Honourable Miss Morton (S&S) is the daughter of a viscount or baron. You are either a peer, a peer’s spouse, or a peer's child or not, though some peers raised their natural children and let them associate with this class.

This is a nice guide to who comes first in society which goes through the peerage to the gentry.

The gentry is below the aristocracy, though the top of gentry mixes with the above class. For example, Lady Anne and Lady Catherine have both married down, Sir Walter Elliot (Persuasion) is cousin to a viscount, Edward Ferrars almost marries Miss Morton, only daughter of Lord Morton (S&S), and Julia marries the younger son of a peer (the Honourable Mr. John Yates, MP). Also, members of the gentry can be knights, a title that only lasts one generation. This includes Sir William, Lady Russell's husband, and probably Sir Lewis de Bourgh. Their wife can have the title "Lady Lastname" (Lady Catherine keeps her better title). Gentry can also be baronets, which is a hereditary title but NOT a peerage. Sir Walter, Sir Thomas, and Sir John Middleton are all baronets and their wife is called "Lady Lastname". Their eldest son will become the next baronet. A baronet is not a peer because they sit in the House of Commons, not the House of Lords (among other things).

The top of the gentry class are baronets, knights, the richest landholders, and landholders with ties to the aristocracy. Darcy is extremely wealthy and has ties to the peerage, so he's super fancy pants. Mr. Bennet is rich, but he doesn't have good family ties, he's probably sitting in the middle, if not the low middle of the gentry. People who have to work (ew) are lower, like Mr. Collins and Mr. Elton. Though if you reached the top of your profession, like a General, Admiral, judge, or bishop, you would of course be higher in status.

Then we have the last rung of the gentry ladder, Women Clinging On by the Skin of Their Teeth (though the novel Wives & Daughters includes a gentry family falling into decline too). The Bates (Emma) and Mrs. Smith (Persuasion) are the best examples of this. Mrs. Bates knits and sells her wares, but everyone is probably discreetly ignoring this fact because as the widow of the former vicar, she's gentry. Mrs. Smith is also making little crafts and selling them, but when she talks about this she carefully also mentions that she uses the proceeds for charity. That's probably BS, but it's a cover to keep herself in the gentry class.

The novels Wives & Daughters and Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell as well as Emma give us the best picture of the small town dynamics of who is a member of the gentry. You can take yourself out of the gentry by marrying down or losing the ability to host visits. The Dashwoods maintain their place in society because they host the Middleton, it seems. In Emma, we even hear the term "half-gentlemen" (thanks this wasn't confusing enough) and we know that Mr. Weston is accepted even though he once engaged in trade. The Bates are respected for who they were once, the wife and daughter of a vicar. Mr. Gibson, who is a surgeon in W&D is accepted because he is wealthy enough and respectable, and because he associates with the peers. Gaskell even goes through the attributes which make the aristocratic family like him and invite him for dinner. As a surgeon, Mr. Gibson is more of a choice for the local gentry than an automatic member.

Quick note: The Bates aren’t really poor, they are living in genteel poverty, which means they still have a servant and don’t work (kind of), but they don’t have wealth. Most people assume Miss Bates has about £100/year which still around the income of a master blacksmith. The Price family is in the same sort of situation, they can afford to live and pay two servants, but they cannot really afford their children’s education or to have dowries for the daughters. Children of someone like Mr. Price are likely to fall into the working class, but may not experience what we would call real poverty.

Another Note: part of the problem with the Bennets is that they mix below their class, mostly because Mrs. Bennet is lower class. Lucy Steele (S&S) actually cuts all her lower class acquaintances when she marries, which would be awkward for the Bennets since they still live beside her family. The Bingleys probably also cut all these associations when they made the decision to move up.

The criteria are a mix of wealth, education, longevity of your family (The Hamleys of Hamley from W&D have had Hamley since God made the earth apparently, which is GOOD), your connections, your profession, and if you’ve made it past gatekeepers. Charles Bingley owns no estate, but is immediately accepted as a member of the Hertfordshire gentry circle. The Sucklings (Emma) are looked down on because they’ve only owned their estate for 10 years. Even though the Hamleys, a solid gentry family, have grown poor, they command respect as an ancient family. The Woodhouses in Emma own almost no land we are told, but their wealth and rank makes them important.

In Cranford, the widow of a peer marries a country surgeon and everyone is in a tizzy about what to call her and if she should be admitted among the gentry. They don’t allow the surgeon because his manners are bad and he doesn’t dress well. Which sounds a lot like a high school popularity contest to be frank. But it’s a nice small picture of how this all works, there is a ton of gatekeeping and networking. Some people are obviously gentry. Some people have bought their way in (Sir William Lucas, Mr. Suckling) and that purchase is remembered. Some people are only included because someone has decided to let them in, like the Hayters in Persuasion.

You last question, how do you get in? Well you get rich enough and either marry in or get past a gatekeeper. The Bingleys have clearly made it past, they are moving well in London. The Coles are still struggling to be accepted, as far as we know. Mrs. Jennings’ fortune is from trade, her daughters married in and kind of brought her with them. Again, this was changing. In North & South, we see society trying to decide what exactly a manufacturer is in society. Are they in trade? Should they be mixing with the gentry? Some people were becoming fabulously wealthy with new technology and the upper classes weren’t sure what to do about it.

And yet, it didn’t change that quickly. In Oscar Wilde’s plays, we see see a lot of very recognizable gentry who could have walked out of a Jane Austen novel. He tends to have more peers in his works than Jane Austen, but the gentry look so similar. They have servants, they sit in drawing rooms, and are not involved directly in trade. So even though things were changing it took a very long time. The biggest difference is that money has moved from land to investments, in The Importance of Being Earnest, John makes it clear that while he owns a large piece of land it isn’t his main source of income. The tenant farming system has significantly changed since Austen’s time.

Here I’ll make a graphic. Here is everyone:

and then we have the gentry:

So really, it’s the bottom of the gentry and the top slice of “everyone else” that is the confusing part and where social capital and gatekeeping plays a big role.

And I am dead serious about “that guy who Lord Whatever thought was cool”. Mr. Darcy Sr. basically gave Wickham a free ride into the gentry, which Wickham squandered. Nepotism was huge and if an important person liked you, that could be very very good.

Books I referenced: Jane Austen’s novels

Cranford, North & South, and Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

People who know more feel free to chime in. 

[kisskissbanggang]

Disavowed - pt. 1

[2k Words/10min. Read - [CENSORED] x Reader (Check Tags for Spoilers) - SFW/✨Mildly Spicy✨/Very Suggestive (Smut to Come) - Church, One Night Stands, Mutual Drinking, Hickeys/Love Bites, New to Town, Hot Mess MC]

Sister Judith was in firm judgment of your turtleneck on this sunny Saturday morning. Thankfully, she was seemingly satisfied once you explained you’d moved from somewhat warmer climates. Not to mention your heater in your rented room wasn’t working. Clearly, this was a reasonable clothing choice and not something you pulled on in the five minutes you were able to get into your closet. 

None of this was true, of course, but you couldn't afford to lose this job right after landing it and moving here for it.

It wasn’t like it was her fault you’d gotten carried away, so it wasn't like you needed to burden her with the frightful appearance you had driving like mad back to your apartment that morning before arriving just in time for your first formal meeting. 

Yes, instead of telling the truth, you sat in Sister Judith’s office in Pinewood Falls Prep, your back as straight as a board and your sweating hands demurely clasped on your knee. 

And for what it was worth, you’d almost questioned the sister yourself. All your correspondence, at least from what you remembered, had been with Jacqueline. You knew the school was in a religious area, but you naively hadn’t realized you’d actually be an office manager for a private Catholic school. Jacqueline had brightly greeted you from the empty reception desk when you’d arrived, with a picture of the Savior himself on the wall behind her. So now it was just you and Sister Judith. 

It was like she could see what you were hiding under your turtleneck. Perspiration was starting to gather under the band of your bra. 

“I hope you have hobbies,” Sister Judith clucked while she paged through the various paperwork and employment contracts she’d pulled out of a file for you. A permanent frown was etched into the lines of her surprisingly soft face, unhelpful to her eternally judgemental tone. “I can't say there's much of a night life here.”

“No, ma’am,” you hurriedly replied before realizing how confusing you were being. “I, er, I meant to say I do have hobbies. And it’s no problem, there not being any night life. That’s what I meant.”

You’d already figured out where there was night life, hence the turtleneck. If Pinewood Falls was the pretty and devout golden child, then Briar Bay was its hardened, spinster older sister. And if you hadn't been berating yourself the entire drive back to your rented room that morning, then you would've even been ecstatic that it was “just” a 30 minute drive away. Yes, there wasn’t a night life in Pinewood Falls, and you didn't know it yet but you would grow to wish you had gotten some hobbies instead. 

Sister Judith slid over your paperwork and a pen, but her hand remained on the writing utensil despite you reaching for it. 

“I’m not supposed to turn you away regardless of faith, so I’m not going to,” she gravely began. “However, I will say I do take stock in the spiritual well-being of my staff.”

You swallowed a thick ball of hot air. “I – it’s funny you mention that – because I was, er, actually was actually going to ask what time service begins tomorrow morning, ma’am.”

The tiniest hint of a proud smile pulled at the Sister’s tight line of a mouth. “Promptly at 9:00AM, child. You'll want to get there early for a good seat.”

You were running late.

As it would turn out, politely refusing your landlord’s offer of joining everyone for a homemade dinner in the communal living room in favor of accidentally getting tipsy on wine in your room was not a good recipe for a decent night’s sleep. 

You should've accepted the invitation and had a nice time, really get to meet Seungmin and your other housemates, but all you did instead was scour every dating app and social media outlet for whoever your elusive one-night-stand was.

Especially because your search was fruitless. 

Especially because it was still bothering you. You’d had rough nights before, ones where you didn’t quite remember all that happened, but you’d never not remembered what someone’s name or what they looked like before. It was unsettling at the very least. 

Having come too late to get a good seat, you walked up and down the outer sides of the pews in an excruciating horseshoe maneuver to look for an acceptable substitute until none other than Sister Judith met your eye. 

That may have actually been a blessing. Now that she saw you, you could've dipped. However, your hazy tryst in Briar Bay had mentioned one thing you did remember. 

“You live in Pinewood Falls? I'm moving there in a couple weeks. Have you seen the church there?”

“Do I look like I go to church?” you’d laughed. 

“You should try it,” he had teased back, “maybe we’ll run into each other.”

It was precisely this playful jab that had driven you nuts the previous night. You’d swiped through dating apps, clicked through webs of social media circles, trying like crazy to see if any of these local men jogged your memory. But, alas, there was no luck. Even though you hardly remembered anything after your umpteenth drink, no one sparked any recognition on your behalf. Too old, too young, too tall, too scruffy — you didn’t recall much, but you were positive you’d know him when you saw him. There were little, tiny bits of details you could almost sort of remember. His slight stubble had scraped into your neck before he left you a perfect de facto roadmap of hickeys. You recalled standing just as tall as him standing up on your toes – if not a little taller, judging by the way you could recount how it felt to wrap your arms around him. None of these men at mass seemed to ring any bells. Maybe his ominous little tease had been just that: a tease. 

To your benefit, sitting in the back few rows gave you a perfect view of the whole ritual of mass. It'd been years since you'd been to church. Your experience was mostly being dragged when you'd visit your grandmother, so now you watched the congregation in front of you to figure out when to sit, stand, kneel, or bow your head. Overall, it was a fairly harmless service. The old priest was pleasant enough, and his homily lacked any of the fearmongering or outright judgment you’d been dreading. In lieu of the small gaggle of altar servers you were accustomed to seeing, seated to the side of the pulpit were a deacon and an associate priest, two young men assigned to the church. This made sense, you figured. A seminary was just a few hours away, and there was a whole line of framed alumni portraits in the main corridor of Pinewood Falls Prep, all the young men and women who went on to serve Christ. You didn’t pay much attention to the names of either man amidst all the ritual, but to that matter you never even caught the name of the head priest himself. 

You honestly felt a bit at peace, at least until the priest began to prepare the body and blood of Christ. Your heart leapt into your throat again. There was no way you’d take communion. You only just started going to church again, it was way too public.

But wouldn’t Sister Judith see if you didn’t take communion? Wouldn’t she care?

The latter question practically answered itself. Of course she would care. 

Your mind raced. It wasn’t a big deal to get communion. It’d make a good impression and you could get a better view of the congregation, maybe spy your anonymous rendezvous. The thought of you two locking eyes and recognizing each other gave you butterflies, to be honest. He’d been so hot that it frankly felt unfair to hardly remember anything. You couldn’t even remember how you got back to his place, except your car was right outside in the morning. A small, bashful smile tugged at your lip as you did suddenly recall the way his belt had caught onto the waistband of your jeans. His solution had been to simultaneously unbutton your jeans with one hand and unbuckle his belt with the other, swift as the devil.

Great time to think of the devil, you almost laughed out loud to yourself. Your palms had gone sweaty. Great time to get distracted overall, really. The first row of churchgoers arose from their pews to line up for communion.   

Still, once you'd uncorked that bottle it was hard to close. Anything you could remember of the hazy night was playing at full volume in your head. The musk of his cologne mixing with the perspiration brought about by your fooling around, his pleading groan in your ear, the first time he'd nipped at your neck hard enough to leave a mark. You only vaguely remember goading him on to do it again and again. 

You were wearing another turtleneck despite doing everything you could to cover the marks. And even if you could confidently hide the ones on your neck, the ones on your cleavage were stubborn.

It was finally time for your row to get up for communion. Your hands were sweating for some reason. The breaths coursing through your lungs were made of razor blades.

This really wasn’t a big deal, you reassured yourself. You’d take communion and everyone would be happy with you starting as the perky new receptionist for Pinewood Falls Prep. Really, this was setting up a good image. You’d treat yourself to an expensive coffee or something after this.

By now, it was almost preferable to cling onto the few memories you had of the other night. You didn’t remember the first time you kissed, but you could recall the way he cursed when you first touched him. The whole night had felt like you were incredibly in sync.

Probably.

Oh jesus.

How were you even supposed to take communion? Your mind scrambled to remember how this was supposed to go, there was a whole back and forth and everything. 

Oh god you were so out of your element. This was such a terrible idea. What even compelled you to do this? You could’ve just stayed in your seat. You could’ve just stayed home. Did you even really need this job?

You swallowed a stiff breath and steadied yourself as you did your best to remember. First you were going to bow your head when you got up there, right? And you would raise your cupped hands for the priest, and he’d say something.

What would he say?

“The body of Christ.”

Your gaze snapped up from where it’d been focused on your shoes.

That voice. It was so familiar. Where had you heard it before?

The priest said it again to the next member of the congregation in line. You strained to hear better over the organ playing, maybe crane your head just right so you could see ahead of you. 

There was no way this was what you thought it was.

Dread filled you, starting from your feet and snaking its way up your throat. You were drowning in it already, no room to breathe and your heart beating so hard it could crack a rib.

What the hell did the old man say this guy’s name was at the beginning of service?

Up ahead, you’d finally traversed enough of the aisle of the church to begin to make out distinct features of the young priest. A mop of richly dark brown hair, the waves tamed into a respectable undercut, still failed to keep all the fringe out of the father’s eyes. Gentle chin, strong neck on broad shoulders, adorable nose to complement his gorgeous pout–

Father Chris. That’s what the older priest had said.

Chris?

Your mind flashed white.

No.

Fuck.

Yes?

Jesus Christ. 

You slept with a priest.

[To be continued.]

[theoddcatlady]

The Strangest Roommate I’ve Ever Had

This took place all about three years ago. I was going to college at the time and was living with two of my friends, Phoebe and Macie, along with Macie’s boyfriend Joe. I’d been friends with Phoebe since we were kids but only recently befriended Macie within like a year of agreeing to move in together, and Joe was sort of a last minute addition.

Well, to sum it all up so we’re not here all day, Joe was a jackass. He was a lousy roommate, but he was even worse to Macie, who’s a pretty meek person and a doormat for Jackass Joe. It was the third time Joe was caught sleeping around that Macie finally snapped and broke up with Joe. He responded by taking off and leaving us scrambling for a new roommate so we didn’t end up losing our place. I think it was Macie who posted the ad on our school’s Facebook page as a last ditch resort. It didn’t matter if they smelled like ham or were up all night blasting Marilyn Manson, we just needed someone to pitch in with the bills.

The next day I answered the door to Miss Dorothy Ball.  

I could already tell she was a weirdo off the bat- she was wearing a floor length navy colored dress with long sleeves and a high neck and didn’t seemed bothered at all by it considering it was almost ninety freaking degrees out. Not a blonde curl was out of place, not a drop of sweat on her paper white skin or rosy cheeks. Her large blue-green eyes stared at me as I stared at the trunk and suitcase she had behind her.  

Her head bowed down, speaking so quietly her lips barely moved.

“I’m Dorothy. I’m here about the roommate ad?”  

I only let her in because I felt bad about how hot she had to be in that get up. When she sat across from me I noticed she even had white gloves on, she seemed to be doing all she could to hide every inch of skin she could.  

“I have the money here.” Dorothy sat down an envelope on the table. “I intend on staying a full year, minus any unpredictable happenings. I would like to stay in a room by myself, and I promise that I will be silent as a church mouse and that the rent will always be on time. Will that be fine?”  

I cleared my throat. “I’ll have to talk to everyone else.” I opened up the envelope and nearly choked on my spit as the crisp one hundred dollar bills fell into my hand. “Is this for half the year?!”

“Just the first month.” Dorothy cocked her head to the side. “I found out the cost of rent, is this too little?”

“You’re only supposed to pitch in a quarter-” I cut myself off as I realized Dorothy knew exactly what she was offering. “You’re paying for all of it?”  

“The first month at least.” Dorothy laughed quietly, her lips not even twitching. “My family is quite wealthy. I would just like to live close to the campus and this is such a nice area, I want to show my appreciation for letting me board here.”

I had a meeting with the other roommates after introducing them to Dorothy. I showed them the cash. Phoebe’s eyes filled with dollar signs as she was clearly imagining what she’d do with all the spare cash she had while Macie seemed a bit more hesitant, but we’d not had any other offers. Most people by now had a place to call home while they went to college, and someone offering to pay all of this month’s rent? You’d be an idiot to say no to that.  

Dorothy was pleased as punch to be allowed to stay here, even giving us all a hug as she thanked us again and again. Phoebe tried to bolt from the hug but Dorothy insisted on it. We did have to move things around a bit, Macie moved into my room while Dorothy took her old one, but I didn’t mind since Macie and I basically had the same sleeping schedules anyway.  

You know how I said I wouldn’t have minded if we got a roommate from hell as long as they paid the bills? Well Dorothy was basically the roommate from heaven. She kept to her promise, she was so quiet she’d sometimes scare me because I didn’t even realize she was there. Not to mention she was a neat freak- there was never a dish in the sink or a speck of dust on the shelves. I swear it was how she had fun, well, that and shopping.  

There wasn’t a week that went by that we didn’t have a bunch of packages on the front porch. All cloth or dresses, Dorothy was quite the seamstress. Her closet quite literally overflowed with dresses, all long sleeved with floor length hems. The few that didn’t have high necks she’d pair with chokers or scarves, again, she didn’t want to show any skin. Not like she minded us dressing how we did, I think Phoebe nearly cried with Dorothy presented her with a crop top she made that was hot pink and had her name on the front. She made me something too, this summer themed dress printed with lemon and lime slices. I still wear it whenever I can, and it fits perfectly. She could guess a person’s measurements just by looking at them.  

Not to say I wasn’t still a bit offput by her. Something was just not right about this perfect roommate. Any time we’d ask a question about her family or her past, she’d give a half-answer and change the subject, usually by offering to buy us dinner. Even though she did that I never saw her eat, although she enjoyed tea twice a day, once at ten and once at three, like clockwork. I never caught her in the bathroom, although I did hear the shower run late at night when we’d all gone to bed, even Phoebe who’s a night owl and potential insomniac. Whenever she talked she’d bow her head down so I couldn’t see her mouth clearly, she’d never complain about being hot or cold, hell, she never complained at all. And her face was practically frozen. She’d blink, but she had no real expressions from what I could tell- again, she’d always bow her head down so I couldn’t get a clear view of her face past the curly hair.

Again, all of this is weird, but harmless. I chalked up my willies to just Dorothy’s weirdness and did all I could to be friendly to her. I never wanted to be an asshat.

Dorothy was closest with Macie. After Joe left her Macie was pretty messed up, she cried nearly every day and Phoebe said she was afraid Macie was going to drop out and leave us too.  

That changed after Dorothy moved in. I think Dorothy sensed how sensitive Macie was and focused a lot of her energy on becoming her friend. Macie never told me what they’d do when they hung out, but Dorothy made it a habit to enter our room and just… talk with her for hours. I’d usually just excuse myself to the living room to binge Netflix and well, whatever Dorothy did worked. Macie got out of her funk, her self esteem shot way up, and she even began going on dates. All the while Dorothy was just basking in her glow, just happy that Macie was happy.  

Of course, something did happen. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten Jackass Joe from the beginning of this story. For a little more context, Macie’s old room was on the ground floor, while my room that I now shared with Macie was on the second floor.  

Waking up to hearing Dorothy scream bloody murder at around three AM was not a welcome sound.  

I jumped the stairs three at a time to rush down there, and when we threw open the door I saw Macie was hiding under her quilts while Joe was sitting in the center of the room completely flummoxed.  

“I thought it was Macie!” He tried to explain as Phoebe dragged his ass out of there. Naturally, no one was interested, even if it was Macie it’s gross as hell to just crawl into bed with your ex girlfriend who wants nothing to do with your ass anymore.

I approached the bed, Dorothy still shaking and crying. I tried to draw the blankets back but the blanket bulge flinched back. “No! Don’t take away the blankets!” She screamed.  

So I just sat by the bed and waited for her to calm down. Her crying did slow but she refused to come out.

“Are you okay?” I finally asked.

“… He almost saw me.”  

The very top of Dorothy’s head peeked out from under the blankets, I did absentmindedly note how her eyes weren’t bloodshot and her face wasn’t red and blotchy, but she was still shaking. “I know… I know if anyone sees what I hide, they will never want to come near me again. And to suddenly have a man in my bed, I… I was frightened. I am so sorry for screaming.”

“Don’t be, I think most girls would freak out with a stranger suddenly climbing into their bed,” I rested my hand on the side of the bed. “It’s okay. You’re my friend, no matter what you’re hiding.” I meant it too. Sure, she was strange, but she was nice. And I prioritize nice.  

Dorothy slipped back under her blankets, but I heard a muffled ‘thank you’ as I exited the room.  

Of course Joe wasn’t going to stop being the worst because he accidentally got in bed with the wrong girl. He began harassing Macie, saying he was ‘sorry that she felt hurt’ and he’d ‘never do it again’. A quick Facebook check revealed that he was about to get kicked out of his dad’s place for being a shithead, so it made sense he’d go back to his doormat ex to get a new place.

Cept of course, in the few months Joe was gone, Macie had grown a backbone and she was just not interested. Neither were the rest of us, Dorothy especially. The first time I heard our strange roommate swear was when I heard her call Joe a bastard over breakfast, which nearly made Phoebe choke on her Cheerios. Joe could rot in hell. Joe probably sent over one hundred texts asking Macie to kick out ‘the weird chick in your room’ so he could move back in. Macie just ignored him, blocked his number and then every social media profile he tried to reach out to her on. She kept blowing him off, and we all figured sooner or later Joe would get bored and leave us alone.  

Oh boy. Not even close.

Phoebe was out that night. I just went out to go pick up some frozen pizzas at the corner store, I was probably gone for like ten minutes. When I got back my heart sunk in my chest when I recognized Joe’s truck out front. I didn’t even enter the house to hear them arguing.

I bolted up the stairs to see Macie and Joe screaming at each other. One of Joe’s friends was there too, a guy named Derek. From what I could make out apparently Joe did find another place, but they needed one more roommate to make it work, and apparently Joe was back to harassing Macie about it. Macie’s face was bright red as she yelled at them both to get the hell out of her house, she wasn’t interested in ever being near Joe again, and if he didn’t leave she’d call the police.

That police threat seemed to really rub Joe the wrong way as he grabbed her arm and squeezed it so tight I thought he was going to break it. I tried to step in, but Derek actually pushed me away, stepping between us so I couldn’t get to my friend to help her out. My cellphone was in my pocket and I was considering just running for it to call 911 when I heard someone walking up the stairs.

I turned to see Dorothy, her head bowed so I couldn’t see her face. She was dressed in a white nightgown that reached just past her calves, I could make out what I thought was scarring on her ankles and toes as she paused at the top of the stairs for only a moment. The next moment she stormed up to Joe and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him towards the stairs, clearly intent on throwing him out herself.

“Get out of this house. Right now. And never step near Macie again.”  

Her voice was cold and grating, far from the typically soft mumbles. Joe was probably frozen in shock at first, but he reacted with violence. He shoved Dorothy with all his might, Dorothy stumbling for a moment at the top of the steps before losing her balance and falling down the stairs.

When her body collided with the steps, it sounded like someone had taken a stack of china and thrown them down to the ground.

Dorothy rolled down the rest of the steps, the discordant sound of smashing glass causing all of us to freeze in our tracks. Dorothy finally hit the bottom step with her head and stayed all too still at the foot of the stairs.  

Joe shot us all a ‘what the fuck’ look before Dorothy stirred. With the rattle of broken glass, Dorothy got up on all fours. For a nauseating moment I thought the side of her nightgown had been pierced with a piece of bone, but with a sickening grinding sound, Dorothy grabbed onto her gown and ripped it down the side,  grabbed the loose shard of white porcelain in her hand, and began the painful looking process of crawling up the steps.  

Now I could see what Dorothy had been insistent on hiding, now that her gown had been ripped to ribbons thanks to her shattering. Each of her joints was like the ball joint on a doll, a dip in the skin that now made more disturbing grinding sounds as she hauled herself up the steps. Slivers and pieces of porcelain continued to fall from her body, the biggest missing part nearly taking up her entire right side. Inside of her I could make out incredibly lifelike imitations of ribs, lungs, all cracked and breaking apart. Her right cheek was horrifically cracked, her eyelid hanging half down, unable to fully shut or open. Her chin hung loosely open, her mouth a black, gaping hole. But that still open eye was focused right on Joe, and it was full of loathing.

Macie acted first, bolting into her room and turning the lock. Derek screamed in horror and shoved me forward to act as a shield. Dorothy hauled herself up that last step and I nearly fell on top of her, barely managing to catch myself as I stepped on another piece of porcelain and sliced my foot open like butter.  

Dorothy paid me no mind as she managed to push herself to her feet, swaying as she tried to regain her balance before she began to limp over to the terrified men. Joe looked at me and I think I remember him saying ‘help me’.  

I responded by crawling into Phoebe’s room and locking the door behind me.  

They weren’t screaming for much longer.  

I hid in there for hours, clamping my hands over my ears to block out the worst of the wet ripping and tearing. I didn’t leave until I heard Phoebe enter the house, call for us, and then shriek when she saw all the blood.

And there was a lot of blood. It soaked the carpet on the second floor, with bits of flesh and muscle embedded in the fibers. But other than that and the shards of porcelain scattered about the stairs, there was no sign of Joe, Derek, or Dorothy.

We never heard from Dorothy again. An envelope containing enough money to cover a few more months of rent did appear in our mailbox, but the police couldn’t even confirm Dorothy Ball was a real person outside of her school registry. I never even told Phoebe the entirety of the story, only that Dorothy had attacked both Joe and Derek.  

I still don’t know what I saw, not really. The image of her shattered body crawling up those stairs, the hate in her still working eye as she stared at Joe will never leave even as I try to rationalize how on earth that could happen. People don’t shatter like… like that.

But I do know Dorothy was real. I know she was.  

And I’m thankful for her. And she’s still my friend. Wherever she is.

[hide-in-imagination]

Heyy, i just read the oneshot of how Simonn proposes to Ambar so i was wondering how do you think their wedding is going to be like :)!

Omg people had asked this before and I never replied because my brain was dead and I couldn't think of anything— But here we go!

Okay, so, it would have to be in Buenos Aires because that's were most of the characters live. Yes, I know some of them are rich and could afford to go to a destination wedding (Cancún? París? Secret third thing?) BUT it's just way easier for everyone to just do it at their home country, and I think they would want to be considerate to their guests. (Sucks for Simón's family though, but again, they are rich, so they can afford to bring them over to Buenos Aires)

I don't think it would be an over the top wedding (because their lives by this point are already pretty over the top with Simón being a music start and Ámbar having whatever very successful job she chose to have) and I also don't think they would go for a church either (something Simón's most religious relatives would protest, but oh well)

So, I think they would go for an outdoor wedding with lots of flowers and just nature in general. They also wouldn't invite 400 people. They'd probably keep it to close family and friends (which would anyway amount to 100+ probably skdfn Simón's family is big)

As for the dress!!! I'm pretty sure Ámbar would choose something simple but elegant, and she seems pretty partial to the combination of lace and see-through fabric, so I imagine something like this:

(It was pretty much the first I found, if I find a better one I'll change it. Also, feel free to picture a completely different dress— I feel like someone's headcanons about their favorite characters' wedding is something that can be so personal and so sacred, so don't listen to me if you don't want to, just be happy with your own choices💖)

And, you know, she already rented this place once for a music video, why not also for her wedding?

You know why it would be beautiful?

BECAUSE IT'S THE SAME PLACE WHERE THEY HAD THEIR FIRST KISS

I MEAN, YOU CAN'T GET MORE MEANINGFUL THAN THAT

And it's also close to the water, which I'm sure Simón would like (even if this water is... clearly not as pretty as Cancún's crystalline waters sdkjfn)

(We're also going to ignore what this place is in real life— We're working only with in-universe information, people!)

BONUS POINTS IF SIMÓN'S WEARS A WHITE ROSE ON HIS JACKET— MORE MEANING!!

For their wedding cake, I'm pretty sure I already posted this picture before, but I'll do it again:

Again, elegant with touches of gold (very Ámbar) but also some Simón touches (the music notes). On top, they'd have little figures of themselves, OR, figures of their rollerskates one next to the other <3 (Or both, idk). And instead of that drawing of two heads, they would have "Á & S" 💕 (Also, the cake would have to be bigger, but you get the picture ksjfn)

So, yeah, they'd have the wedding outdoors, then they would head to a large marquee we're they would hold the reception (u know, the cocktails, the dinner, the party, etc etc). Simón and Ámbar would have their photoshoot first outside, around sunset, while everyone is enjoying the cocktails, and then join everyone else to give a toast and start the dinner.

The rest is pretty much like any other wedding. During the party, they would bring out some goods like costume hats, wigs, party glasses, stuff like that. I also once went to a wedding were they brought light up shoes for everyone sdkjnfn. I think Ámbar would really enjoy a light up cape— those are so fun. OH! And at some point, they would both bring out the CO2 guns😎 (everyone is absolutely drunk by this point)

So, yeah, they all have a blast ❤️

(Oh, and did I mention Simón teared up during the vows?)

(Well, technically, Ámbar cried, and seeing her cry made him cry, but who's counting?)

[i-hold-horrors-hand]

Two Is Better Than One, Three Is Better Than Two (Chapter 3)

The sweet and sexy epilogue.

(Submitting this chapter as a very-last-minute and slightly late part of @bisexual-horror-fan 's Multi-May 2024 event. Chapter 1 is here, Chapter 2 is here.)

It had been a year since your second time meeting up with Papa and Denise, and since then, you'd been having the time of your life.

Delicious dinners at fancy restaurants, early screenings to movies, prime tickets to musicals and concerts, the most beautiful and flattering clothes, a new apartment (and rent paid for it!) that you admittedly didn't spend too much time in, a new phone and laptop, extravagant vacations...these were just a few of the experiences and things you'd been enjoying since joining Papa and Denise as their beloved third. You'd become a kept woman, and you'd been loving every second of it.

Including now, at the beautiful Italian beach house, with an expensive drink in your hand and a sense of belonging in your heart.

You sip your drink, savouring the taste as you close your eyes and let the gentle sound of the waves carry you off for a few moments. It isn't just the expensive treats or vacations or even the (amazing) sex, that has you so happy. Those are great, to be sure, but it's more than that. It's the way Papa and Denise treat you to these things, the way they include you, the way they had welcomed you into their world.

A few months after your last "get-together", the two of them had finally fully informed you about themselves—they were Satanists, and very high up in their church's hierarchy. It had taken a while for you to get used to that, but you had. Papa and Denise has reassured you that there was no pressure whatsoever for you to convert, and that you could decide that you weren't into that and could end your relationship with them at any time.

But you hadn't. Of course you hadn't, why would you? You hadn't cared if they worshipped the Devil (especially if the Devil had been encouraging them to treat you as well as they had been). You had cared about them, as full and whole people.

And you still do. And they care about you, too. You can feel it, in everything they do with you, sexual and otherwise.

And you can feel it when they come up to join you on the balcony, one on either side of you. You don't even have to open your eyes, or hear them speak, you recognize their presence immediately.

"How's our dolcezza doing?" Papa's voice rumbles in your ear, and you sigh softly and happily as you open your eyes and turn to him.

"Io sto bene," you answer, proud of your ever-improving Italian, the various weeks you've been practising clearly paying off.

"That's good to hear," Denise hums, as she slides even closer to you, moving the strap of your sundress down to kiss at your shoulder.

"H-how are the two of you?" you ask, voice faltering a bit as you feel Denise's soft lips against your skin.

"Anche noi stiamo bene, dolcezza," Papa replies, now following Denise's lead and kissing your other shoulder.

You grip the top of the ornate railing on the balcony, letting out a soft "ah" as your two lovers work their way from your shoulders to the sides of your neck. You know where this is going, and you have no complaints whatsoever. On the contrary, you welcome it. Just like you'd welcomed everything else they'd given you this past year.

"Voi due...siete..." You take a moment to sigh yet again, and think of the word you want, your head spinning as Papa's and Denise's hands begin roaming your body over your sundress. You almost don't finish your sentence, getting lost in the anticipation and pleasure, but you do finally find the word you want and manage to get it out of your mouth, after a bit. "...fantastici."

"So are you, baby," Denise whispers in your ear, as her hand slides up your thigh, under your dress, and toys with the waistband of your panties. Papa hums in agreement, mirroring her movements.

You don't manage to get out another word before being overwhelmed with desire for the both of them, and you eagerly and immediately give in, getting lost in the love and pleasure between the three of you.

You can get used to this. In fact, you already have.

[leam1983]

Oblivion

So. Tomorrow, we're flying back home.

Seven days. A week spent with a small legion at my beck and call, bending to Walt's every whim, acceeding to Sarah's every request. One massive kitchen divided between four dining rooms, serving up everything from Americano-Mexican tentpoles to recomposed would-be Taino dishes, with a buffet where passable is the order of the day. Mornings were bland Continental breakfast affairs, but the evenings shone brightly, capstoned with the best cigars I've had in the last three years and the best damn Cappuccino in a decade.

Seven days realizing that an army is re-making my bed, giving me clean sheets every morning and fresh towels on the dot, showing extreme deference for my walker-using ass. A little cohort of maids paid Cheap Labor wages to smile, respond to everything with Es mi placer, señor, and pushed into treating USD tips in the single digits like they're Godly gifts.

You can bet that Walt was so appalled by this he starting leaving twenties. "These poor girls - cleaning up people's shit and vomit after the douchebags three doors down the hall spend the evening getting plastered on Mojitos - and not an ounce of gratitude!"

People started asking questions. Our passable Spanish led to us forming basic bonds with the staff, and turned our little bungalow in the Adults Only section into the talk of the resort. People with less manners started asking for drinks delivery and had to handle polite rebuffs, where we got the sense that the Room Service people were starting to network with the Pool Bar guys to figure out our schedule of preferred drinks.

Eventually, what had to happen happened. My feet were so swollen I couldn't put on my closed-toes shoes for the evening, as the dress code requests, but the staff didn't bat an eyelash when i wheeled in, looking like someone's favourite Math teacher, with socks and sandals. A Karen whose husband had completely overlooked the dress code was shocked.

"Why does he get to head inside dressed like this, and my husband can't?"

Yamilet, 23, born and raised in Santo Domingo and using the thankless job of the French Cuisine-oriented dining room's maître d' to pay her way through nursing school when she's not in church, gave her a Crest commercial-worthy smile.

Is un especial guest. Disculpe - see his legs. Mira?

For once in my life, I was happy to be singled out as disabled.

What really emerged from this is how gratitude really is crucial, when you're travelling. Everyone I heard who spouted variations on "having paid for the right to do whatever they wanted" received piss-poor service. Everyone who lowered their voice in a corridor, who showed basic deference and treated the staff like human beings received distinctly improved treatment. It wasn't just us - we noticed several other cultural groups in the resort, and I was actually thankful to draw a clear line between the nice Americans - and the douchebags.

In open spaces like the buffet, it's kind of impossible not to eavesdrop. If you're on vacation and you're still griping about your Democrat neighbours when you're halfway across the hemisphere from your point of origin, you're coloring your entire stay. The Trumptards who demanded service came in pissed off, stayed ornery and left irate. Anyone else, from anywhere else in the world, who politely asked, language barriers be damned, got what they asked for.

The Semester-Enders were hard to miss, too. Sixteen kids in total, barely in their twenties, who'd clearly pooled cash to rent swim-up suites together, and who turned the All-Ages section of the pool into a nightmare. There wasn't an inch of it that wasn't their private Football Toss area, and no resort-provided pool float that they just didn't claim for themselves.

It allowed for a sense of liminality to settle in. On one end of the more or less football-field-length of pool, you had pure chaos. On the other, placid waters, where the Adults Only club and our bungalow was located. I recovered the float I'd bought for myself, one of the Spring Breakers giving me a florid-faced and pleading look.

"Come on, bro!"

I gestured towards the back. "You've got seven other floats, over there, plus an inflatable mattress. I bought this one and brought it here. As it's my possession, I'd like to use it."

He chuckled meanly. "Nobody cares, man."

Christopher, 27, from Bàvàro, gave the guy a level look while climbing down from his lifeguard chair. "Everything okay, señores?"

"Me? Oh, everything's swell, Chris. It's the gentleman over there that's operating under weird delusions."

Chris nodded, his facial language obvious. Another one of those, huh? I nodded.

He smiled. No te preocupas, amigo.

The kid's response stuck with me. Nobody cares. Is this why some people work so much, hustle their way to a therapist and then book a week off to someplace where there's palapas, Afro-Cuban covers of Celine Dion classics and drinks that would make a medicated diabetes sufferer scream in abject terror? You put your ass to the grindstone and your only hope of recovery is to find a place, however theoretical, where nobody gives a shit?

Walt, Sarah and I brainstormed. We planned ahead. We rested aplenty, sure, and napped even more than we do back home - but this place energized us. We were free to create, and spent a week being the best versions of ourselves that we could possibly be.

For other people? It's apparently Adult Daycare. You get up at nine past the breakfast buffet's closure, complain that you can't get any service, throw yourself on yesterday evening's pizza, knock back cocktails starting at 11 AM and end up throwing up in the kiddie pool by 5 PM. You throw a fit because the pool boys had the gall to lift your limp ass out of the wading area before you could drown yourself while passed-out in a puddle-sized expanse of water. Because you're in your twenties, your brush with death is all but forgotten by 8 PM, and you head to the lobby's bar to knock back tequila shots with your fellow jabronis. The wee hours see you treating the public hallways like your personal hangout space, exchanging football huddle cries with equally-inebriated kids with no sense of their own mortality.

To all this should be added the resort's sense of liminality. If you forget your optimal route to your room, you'll end up in an entirely different resort. Pools look the same, everything's connected, and everyone feels transitory, obviously. It's the ersatz of a place. It's as impersonal as a hotel, except the staff are all stuck under a pall of fake-ass exoticism they can't shed. The equator line being so close means days are blisteringly hot and painfully short. By 7 PM, the sun's all but gone - and we're in May.

Nobody stays. Nobody leaves an impression. I've regaled Yamilet and Christopher with tales of La Banquise and of Schwartz' smoked meat or the bagel bakeries on St-Viateur - but I'll forget their faces just as they'll forget mine. We spent a week treating one another like culturally Latin brethren - Québécois deference having always meshed well with Cuban and Dominican confidence - but we won't remember one another in short order.

Single-serving friends, as Pahlaniuk once said.

I might as well head to the gift shop, swallow my pride and see if there's a tee-shirt on offer that reads I went to the Carribbean, and all I got for it was a lousy sunburn.

[bahbzxxx]

Before anybody gets confused…THIS IS NOT CANON IN THE SLIGHTEST.

THIS. 👏IS JUST. 👏AN EXCUSE. 👏TO SIMP FOR VENTI. 👏WHILE MAKING IT. 👏AS COMPLICATED. 👏AND DRAMATIC. 👏AND CONVOLUTED. 👏AS POSSIBLE.

In short, this is just a silly little au.

👏

I did this all in one sitting so yes thank you my grammar is atrocious

So let’s consider harbinger Venti’s situation.

Because in BarbzLANDIA, He’s canon now. Don’t @ me he moved into my silly little brain with his thousands of suitcases that he stuffs in his hat somehow and I kinda need his rent money🙄🤌💸

So consider the following:

How tf are people going to react to lord Barbatos then?

- The fatui would be petty, sis. The more mondstadt thinks they’ve been abandoned by their archon of freedom in exchange for this new wackadoodle OP harbinger, the more people will loose faith in him as their archon and not only will he lose power, but he will gain disappointment.

We Venti stans already know this poot likely Carries way more guilt and truama and depression than he lets even the traveler in on…so this is why it pleases the higher ups of the fatui and abyss to see this happen, especially since HES now the harbinger who’s ruining everything.

(Don’t you just want to spit on them and hurl sheakspearean insults at them?) (I know I would!!!!!and that’s just the start!!!)

(Why am I so mad at fanon depictions of characters I am making I will never know, but in the meantime, we tread on)

Timing? - what’s mondstadt like? What about our favorite characters? Tf they up to?

Like, it already had fatui and stuff so it would all just be blown way out of proportion. Like, imagine the fatui have been in there longer…(I think I made an imagine post a few months ago where mondstadt is suffering because Venti got *officially infected*, and because he’s the wind, the weather and much more is affected…so the fatui…they kinda just…infiltrate casually over decades, at least until they can catch the anemo archon at his lowest and have that power over him)

For the most part, at the point that I’m thinking the story would take place… fatui soldiers and the knights of favonius have basically melded into one group. Those who didn’t like the change and could leave left…but some people couldnt, for the good of Mondstadt.

The church of favonius, as time goes on, gets a lot of flack for supporting a god who clearly no longer cares or maybe even exists, in the eyes of the people who have seen it’s fall.

(It’s been rumored that, though it is rumored he is of mondstadt descent…the recent lord harbinger in residence has not stepped foot in that cathedral.-could he be ashamed of his actions…or is there something bigger behind this?)

(Maybe I’ll get to my ideas for other characters in a different post but y’all know where diluc is goin’)

(He’s going to the swimming pool. He’s gonna go swimming, and then will get a slushie. What he doesn’t finish he will give to his pet bird. His bird likes grape. He doesn’t. They will feud. He will appease the bird and give him grape. He will then get a la croix. Then he will go home and stream BNHA and act like hes todoroki, only to stop for obvious, blaringly obvious, reasons. That will be all. We tread on.)

What is the extent of Venti’s power in this? Would he have any at all?

Though he knows they do it to taunt him, he actually does.

His wishlist is simple-

1. Mondstadt is safe.

And those with power over him know that. They also know he may be more powerful than them…but he actually has class, and thinks before he acts.

So…they actually kind of trust him to be a good harbinger. They let him run mondstadt the way he see fit…he can’t just leave and give them freedom…

It Iitersll sucks cause he has to be the tyrant so that nobody else will be the tyrant and do worse things…

As long as it serves the Tsaritsa and her plans. If not…trust he will be dealt with 😥

(More on that here maybe)

Though many statues of the seven have been defunct for a while, he would still be able to gain his own power from at least one…because technically, they already have his gnosis. It just so happens that it’s still inside of him. They have him wrapped around their finger by this point…

Misc: necessary to include

Venti would be so trusted by the fatui at this point that they put him in charge of Childe. No…childe does not bump up a place. He’s still 11.

You can imagine how interesting their interactions would be.

(You can imagine how offended he is)

Diluc is the token fugitive before the traveler and posse(posse being paimon and the Windblume in question) shows up in mondstadt looking for their sibling

[jeanjauthor]

They may not have had a choice.

King County (the county containing Seattle, Washington, here in the USA) has some VERY STRICT guidelines for building new churches. Most newer church congregations find it far cheaper and easier to just rent & renovate an existing store in a strip mall, and if they get big enough, a box store like the one above.

And of course, King County isn't the only region-governing body to decide to be strict when it comes to building new churches. City ordinances across the US can also be quite restrictive. But honestly, it makes sense in the short to medium term. These buildings are not being used as stores anymore. They're just empty structures cluttering up the landscape. A lot of the bigger stores have switched heavily toward an online retail model and need less physical space. The "mini mall" construction boom of the 1990s has slowed down.

New construction is far more expensive than simply renting. With renting, you can keep your congregation going while saving up the money for that new construction. And as for churches that already have, well, established churches (the buildings)...many of them actually share their facilities with other denominations.

My mother's church, which is a bit of a sprawl of different building wings that's been added onto over the decades, has 3 different religious groups on top of her own (Methodists, the founding group). This includes Seventh Day Adventists (church on Saturday), Anglicans (holding services on Sunday at a slightly different time in the old church sanctuary while the Methodists use the new/modern one), and a Muslim community (services held on Friday in the community hall beneath the old sanctuary, where there aren't any seats set up; plenty of room for prayer mats that way).

Each one of these groups is not super-large, but at one time the Methodists had a big enough congregation to need to expand, but they still needed to conduct services, so they just kept the old sanctuary hall while building the new one more or less right next to it...and since the old building was merely small, not in bad condition, they kept it in place and started renting it out to other groups once they moved their congregation into the new hall.

For the other groups, it was far easier to just rent space in a facility that was already set up for worship services. And since my mother's church aren't jerks (they're a little conservative about some things, but they aren't bigots or sanctimonious by any means), they are perfectly fine with Islam services taking place within their facilities. It's a holy space, and both are Abrahamic religions; Islam acknowledges Christ as one of its great prophets, and that's 85% of everything right there. Plus, this decision to rent to Muslims was made back during the 9/11 era, when Muslims were being persecuted just for existing. Putting their mosque services inside of a clearly Christian church helped protect them from being attacked, and that was--and still is--A Very Good Thing To Do.

Frankly, with just that box store appearance alone to go on (I don't know what LCBC stands for), I would NOT have pegged it for a church of any kind. That could be serving as a sort of protective camouflage. It could be simply renting a building that already exists--a building that used to be a Pizza Hut or an IHOP will always look like a Pizza Hut or an IHOP, as they say. And they could be planning for the possibility of their congregation dwindling enough to the point where they might have to downsize their congregation...and don't want to try to sell a "lame duck" building that obviously looks like a church to...well, a group that isn't a church.

It's like how many new houses these days are made bland and boring in their construction, coloring, & details "so as not to hurt its resale value," as opposed to building a house meant to last for several generations in one family.

maybe it's because i was raised catholic but churches shouldn't look like furniture stores

[ledenews]

Santorine: Housing the Homeless Is Not the Issue

Much has been written about the homeless problem in Wheeling, and there are so many “claims of compassion” when it comes to dealing with the only growing part of our community. Before I talk about housing the homeless, it’s important to remember that you really have to work at being homeless and hungry in Wheeling. If you are homeless and have children, there are multiple programs for that life scenario. Veteran? There are programs for that, too. Need food? Social programs? How about healthcare? There are multiple organizations for all of it. More precisely, there are many programs available, and they are run by talented people who bring a wealth of knowledge and tremendous compassion. And a tremendous number of federal and state donated dollars are in place to “cure” this problem. There are federal programs, state programs, and church-based programs, all of which are run by knowledgeable and skilled people. It’s an incredible brain trust whose efforts are blunted by bureaucratic programs with a narrow scope. Legislation put in place spending the public treasury and making tiny improvements because “Congressman Big Spender” is looking for instant results. Straight up, if you’re hungry and homeless in Wheeling, something is really, really, really wrong. See, I’m a landlord. Our units occupy a niche between federal housing that you might be able to get into, and market-rate housing which you need a skilled job to afford. So, if you have been convicted of a felony, or can’t get gas, electricity or water in your name, there are landlords, like us, who can house you. The problem as of late, though, is the quality of the homeless tenant is in sharp decline. I’m using the term “quality” because it’s the only descriptor that seemed to fit. What should be viewed as a gift – the taxpayers paying for your security deposit and a couple of months of rent – is now viewed as an entitlement. They are “supposed to get” this or that, because why? It’s certainly not because of the taxes they didn’t pay. And with that entitlement, they are not going to listen to the agency paying their rent, or the landlord. They have rights, don’t you know. The plan is to get them housed and keep them housed, and this landlord wants that to come true. The agency working with the homeless wants that, too. It’ not about housing them for a couple of months and then finding them on the street again. The goal is to put them on a long-term trajectory that allows the homeless to transition to permanent housing and a being productive members of society. But no one seems to know what the homeless want, and they don’t want to listen to those who are attempting to help them in any way, shape or form. The apartments which are offered to them, I’ve heard, are not nearly deluxe enough, or in what they consider the right neighborhood.  When they don’t get their way, they do what they do on the street. That includes destroying what has been provided for them, with no understanding or respect for the fact that it costs them and their peers money. I have friends whose families rented apartments when they grew up. They treated the rental apartments well, because it was their home. They were not about to live in squalor. Their rented apartments were clean, squared away and proper. They didn’t ignore the trash that the raccoon pulled out of the trash can. They picked it up. Someone had to do that, and the renters did it. The progression today fairly clearly demonstrates that what worked yesterday won’t work today or tomorrow. Today, an agency gets the homeless housed. They pay the security deposit and some months of rent. Some even help the homeless find jobs, but the homeless can’t seem to show up for work. When dismissed, finding another job is just too difficult. But the homeless work overtime to get themselves evicted and the disconnect here is this – it seems to be the only thing they successfully work toward. Evicted because they invite 10 of their closest friends from the street to live with them, violating their lease and driving the other tenants in the building away. Evicted because their apartment is so filled with filth that they can’t pass either the government’s or the landlord’s most basic inspection. Evicted because they want to bring their homeless “street life” to wherever they are, and that includes starting a fire on the paved driveway. Evicted because they are entitled to pick an argument with their neighbor. Evicted because their couch-surfing nephew from Cleveland is dealing drugs from their living room. All this is indicative of a much deeper problem that is going to require old solutions. I believe that mental illness is the underlying problem. Today, society is prevented from addressing the problem in the way we did in the past. So, we have these people panhandling on our streets, destroying the valley’s rental apartment inventory, and utilizing a huge percentage or our police and emergency medical resources. So, how do we provide for the mentally ill in our community? Very poorly. This needs to be addressed, or the homelessness and the drugs will continue. The people running the agencies know how to fix this, but the bureaucrats and the legislators don’t choose to listen. It requires fundamental change that runs counter to the current narrative. The one that has been forced upon us demanding that we be gentler and kinder. The third rail that social services dances around because pointing to the real root cause will draw battle lines. It does not matter that they are incapable of making decisions, they have rights. This circle is driving the local landlords to a point of indifference. Renting to the homeless at one point was helping. Today, it’s a sure way to lose money and spend ridiculous amounts of time fixing an apartment that we had just repaired 60 days before. It’s going to make housing the homeless that much more difficult, if not impossible. But hey, maybe they could decide to set up a camp across the street from you. https://ledenews.com/novotney-this-is-sad-on-so-many-levels/ Read the full article

[mathsbian]

i hope you and nonbinary jakey lose the apartment ^__^

This would make me feel bad if I hadn’t seen this coming. This is why I waited so long to try and start raising money. Because I knew I’d get anons like this. About a post I made over a year ago and never think about outside of answering these ridiculous attempts at bullying.

Since you feel entitled to harass me, I feel entitled to trauma-dump in response.

We wouldn’t just be losing the apartment. We’d be losing all of our freedom. We would have to move in either with my abusive mother or my partner’s abusive father. Their father wants us to put a deposit on a new place in his town and pay rent on our own for 6 months before he’ll allow us to move in with him, which doesn’t make any sense because the reason we can’t afford rent here is because we can’t save any of our money because the cost of living is so high and I have no income to help offset that. So it would end up being my mother.

My mom found out I was gay on her own and confronted me about it while visiting me in my own home while my then-partner was out of the country for two weeks. She waited til I was alone and brought it up by saying she would still love me even if I murdered someone. So she sees being gay as the same as taking someone’s life. She does not approve of me living with my partner out of wedlock, even though if I get married I will lose half the benefits I am entitled to if I ever get approved for disability. If I had to move in with her, I’m not even sure she would allow my partner to come with me. On top of that, she does not have any clue about my self-medication and she would not approve of that either. So I would also be losing the one thing that keeps my pain manageable.

Not to mention that she barely believes I’m sick. That she forces me to help with difficult chores even when I am having a really bad flare. That she tries to guilt-trip me into attending a homophobic church with her every week. That she still lets my father come around and visit with barely any warning, a man I only speak to a couple times a year currently, and only because she keeps inviting him to holidays.

I would literally rather be homeless than have to put up with her again. And I can’t be homeless because I have two cats that need a shelter and safety. Maybe you don’t care about me having shelter, but what did my cats ever do to you assholes?

And there’s a third person in this equation who was not part of the post I made. Our roommate will also lose the apartment if we do. You really want three people to get evicted, maybe be homeless, along with their 3 cats, all because I said something you didn’t care for on fucking tungle.hell? There’s actually christofascists and militant transphobes hiding on this site and you’re really up in arms over me saying “assuming a straight-passing couple are both cishet is a dick move from the queer community” and “our goal is to end oppression not flip it around on the Straights”?

Not that I expect you to read this. You clearly don’t care at all. But at least I feel better getting all that off my chest.

[kisskissbanggang]

Disavowed - pt. 6

[1.7k Words/7min. Read - Han Jisung x Reader - SFW/No Smut - Church, Weird Dreams, What Just Happened?, Hickeys/Love Bites, Haven't We Done This Already? New to Town, Something Feels Different, Hot Mess MC]

[a/n: ty to @therhythmafterthesummer and @magicficwriting for beta reading and previewing 💗]

[Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Come Say Hi!]

Sister Judith was in firm judgment of your turtleneck on this sunny Saturday morning. Thankfully, she was seemingly satisfied once you explained you’d moved from somewhat warmer climates. Not to mention your heater in your rented room wasn’t working. Clearly, this was a reasonable clothing choice and not something you pulled on in the five minutes you were able to get into your closet. 

None of this was true, of course, but you couldn’t afford to lose this job right after landing it and moving here for it.

It wasn’t like it was her fault you’d slept in, so it wasn’t like you needed to burden her with the frightful appearance you witnessed in your mirror upon waking up. And for all your rushing, you were relieved to discover you were still five minutes early to your first formal meeting.

Yes, instead of telling the truth, you sat in Sister Judith’s office in Pinewood Falls Prep, your back as straight as a board and your sweating hands demurely clasped on your knee. 

And for what it was worth, you’d almost questioned the sister yourself. All your correspondence, at least from what you remembered, had been with Jacqueline. You knew the school was in a religious area, but you naively hadn’t realized you’d actually be an office manager for a private Catholic school. Jacqueline herself was nowhere to be seen, nor “Roberta,” whose name was on the plate sitting on the reception desk.

In the midst of your observations, a woman’s voice startled you where you were waiting, seated in the front office.

“You pig! I told you I am not doing this anymore!”

The woman, maybe only one or two years older than you, came sniffling from around the corner, entering the office. Behind her, an older, taller man followed, caught sight of you, and sheepishly ducked out of your view, hightailing it down the hallway. You’d only seen him long enough to register the clerical collar around his neck. Meanwhile, the woman’s wringing hands tried to stay occupied, smoothing out her dress before she pulled on a bright smile.

“Oh my god, you’re here!” she announced apologetically. “I’m so sorry if I kept you waiting. I’m Jacqueline.”

Jacqueline apologized and apologized, even between explaining that her desk was actually in Sister Judith’s office. However, because this was an onboarding meeting, she’d be sitting out so she could take care of some filing in peace. So now it was just you and Sister Judith. 

It was like the old woman could see what you were hiding under your turtleneck. Perspiration was starting to gather under the band of your bra. 

“I hope you have hobbies,” Sister Judith clucked while she paged through the various paperwork and employment contracts she’d pulled out of a file for you. A permanent frown was etched into the lines of her surprisingly soft face, unhelpful to her eternally judgemental tone. “I can’t say there’s much of a night life here.”

“No, ma’am,” you hurriedly replied before realizing how confusing you were being. “I, er, I meant to say I do have hobbies. And it’s no problem, there not being any night life. That’s what I meant.”

You’d already figured out where there was night life, according to your roommates at the boarding house. If Pinewood Falls was the pretty and devout golden child, then Briar Bay was its hardened, spinster older sister. According to your friends, there was a bar that was popular with the local fishermen and “just” a 30 minute drive away in the waterfront town. Yes, there wasn’t a night life in Pinewood Falls, and you didn’t know it yet but you would grow to wish you had gotten some hobbies instead. 

Sister Judith slid over your paperwork and a pen, but her hand remained on the writing utensil despite you reaching for it. 

“I’m not supposed to turn you away regardless of faith, so I’m not going to,” she gravely began. “However, I will say I do take stock in the spiritual well-being of my staff.”

You swallowed a thick ball of hot air. “I–it’s funny you mention that–because I was, er, actually was actually going to ask what time service begins tomorrow morning, ma’am.”

The tiniest hint of a proud smile pulled at the Sister’s tight line of a mouth. “Promptly at 9:00AM, child. You’ll want to get there early for a good seat.”

You were running late.

Just like the night before, you had another terrible dream. 

You were standing at the top of an impossibly tall tower like a lighthouse on a cliff, your feet sliding on the wet stone, teetering over the edge and the sharp rocks below.

Maybe it was something you ate. The owner of the boarding house, Seungmin, had prepared an impressive spread the previous night.

It felt so real, though. In the nightmare, every time you nearly fell, a pair of arms held you back. Back and forth, almost falling and not falling, each time just as terrifying and relieving as the time before. Although what really concerned you was that when you woke up, the sore between your breasts was stinging again. The mark had appeared the previous morning, after the first nightmare, and was the whole reason for your inappropriate turtleneck. An angry, purple mark between your breasts looked like a welt or bite or something and stung like crazy. It faded a little by the end of the day, and even looked like a scar when you went to bed, but this morning it was pulsing and hurting again.

You tried to get your bearings. Having come too late to get a good seat, you walked up and down the outer sides of the pews in an excruciating horseshoe maneuver to look for an acceptable substitute until none other than Sister Judith met your eye. 

That may have actually been a blessing. Now that she saw you, you could’ve dipped. However, to your benefit, sitting in the back few rows gave you a perfect view of the whole ritual of mass. It’d been years since you’d been to church. Your experience was mostly being dragged when you’d visit your grandmother, so now you watched the congregation in front of you to figure out when to sit, stand, kneel, or bow your head. Overall, it was a fairly harmless service. 

What was interesting was getting visual confirmation that the presiding priest was the old man from the previous day. Shame, too, because he was pleasant enough, and his homily lacked any of the fearmongering or outright judgment you’d been dreading. In lieu of the small gaggle of altar servers you were accustomed to seeing, seated to the side of the pulpit was a single deacon, a young man assigned to the church. This made sense, you figured. A seminary was just a few hours away, and there was a whole line of framed alumni portraits in the main corridor of Pinewood Falls Prep, all the young men and women who went on to serve Christ. You didn’t pay much attention to his name amidst all the ritual, but to that matter you never even caught the name of the head priest himself. 

You honestly felt a bit at peace, at least until the priest began to prepare the body and blood of Christ. Your heart leapt into your throat again. There was no way you’d take communion. You only just started going to church again, it was way too public.

But wouldn’t Sister Judith see if you didn’t take communion? Wouldn’t she care?

The latter question practically answered itself. Of course she would care. 

Your mind raced. It wasn’t a big deal to get communion. It’d make a good impression and you could get a better view of the congregation, maybe try to become more familiar with the residents of the town. Still, you were nervous. Your palms had gone sweaty. The first row of churchgoers arose from their pews to line up for communion.   

You were wearing another turtleneck despite doing everything you could to cover the mark on your chest. No matter how much you tried to think it through, you felt as though everyone could tell.

It was finally time for your row to get up for communion. Your hands were sweating for some reason. The breaths coursing through your lungs were made of razor blades.

This really wasn’t a big deal, you reassured yourself. You’d take communion and everyone would be happy with you starting as the perky new office manager for Pinewood Falls Prep. Really, this was setting up a good image. You’d treat yourself to an expensive coffee or something after this.

By now, it was almost preferable to think about the nightmare some more.

How were you even supposed to take communion? Your mind scrambled to remember how this was supposed to go, there was a whole back and forth and everything. 

Oh god you were so out of your element. This was such a terrible idea. What even compelled you to do this? You could’ve just stayed in your seat. You could’ve just stayed home. Did you even really need this job?

You swallowed a stiff breath and steadied yourself as you did your best to remember. First you were going to bow your head when you got up there, right? And you would raise your cupped hands for the priest or the reverend, and he’d say something.

What would he say?

“The body of Christ.”

Your gaze snapped up from where it’d been focused on your shoes.

That voice. It was so familiar. Where had you heard it before?

The reverend said it again to the next member of the congregation in line. You strained to hear better over the organ playing, maybe crane your head just right so you could see ahead of you. 

It was weird, this stranger’s voice sounding so familiar to you.

Up ahead, you’d finally traversed enough of the aisle of the church to begin to make out distinct features of the young deacon. A mop of richly dark brown hair, the straight, wispy tresses tamed into a respectable undercut, still failed to keep all the fringe out of the reverend’s eyes. Sharp chin, long neck on broad shoulders, full, round cheeks to complement his gorgeous pout–

Reverend Jisung. That’s what the older priest had said.

Your mind flashed white.

When you finally reached the front of the line, he looked down at you. Your eyes locked. His widened, and it felt like his expression mirrored yours.

Where had you met him before?