#heavy is the cross to bear

[respectthepetty]

Gosh I’m so curious about your insight into why Juyeong removed his cross again in episode 6 and how Dohoe noticed it and became upset. I am so confused

IT'S ABOUT GOD!

Okay, gather 'round, you heathens (affectionately)! Let me school you in religious righteousness and shame.

Although I questioned if what Ju Yeong wore was a cross,

If it is a cross, Ju Yeong took it off BEFORE he confessed to Do Hoe.

He was using that moment to confess not only his love for Do Hoe, but also his sin.

So now, act like you were raised in a super religious family and truly believe that Jesus Christ is your Lord and savior who died horribly on the cross, so YOU could get into heaven one day.

That's right! God sacrificed his only son, so YOU wouldn't have to go to hell.

It's a heavy cross to bear, the weight of knowing someone died for your sins. Someone scarified their child, so you could have eternal happiness. God condemned his only son to be executed for you.

However, the catch is that you cannot sin in order to get into heaven.

You have to obey your parents.

You can't commit murder.

You can't idolize anyone above God for there is only one God, and he willingly allowed his son to be killed FOR YOU!

Oh, and you cannot lie because that's a slippy slope to hell.

So, once again, imagine you are that boy who wears a cross necklace and truly believes you will go to hell for your sins, so when you confess to the boy you like, you take off the necklace, because God should not bear witness to this offense.

But then, you sacrifice your body for that boy to be happy. You also take care of that boy's father to make up for the sin. You become the prodigal son, so the boy you like can live in eternal happiness even if it's without you.

And you keep wearing the cross, so God is with you in all you do and He will see the good in your heart.

God is with you always, in everything you do because the necklace is always on as a reminder of the one time you liked a boy and almost sent both of you to an earthly and eternal hell.

But the thing is, we know Ju Yeong takes the necklace off, and so does Do Hoe.

So how must that feel to Do Hoe to know that Ju Yeong removes his necklace when he is with him? How must that come across? Probably as if Ju Yeong carries shame about Do Hoe, or specifically about their relationship with each other and that Ju Yeong does not see what is between them as godly, but rather sinful, shameful, and even more, wrong.

When Do Hoe told the truth about the night of the incident, he looked at Ju Yeong's neck.

And it could come across as sexual, like he wants to kiss or touch Ju Yeong after such a brutally honest moment or when it's snowing, but in the context of the argument, that is an odd time to fantasize about wanting someone in such a sexual way.

But it's because Do Hoe is looking for the necklace. And it's there.

Ju Yeong had it on the first time he kissed Do Hoe, but he didn't wear it when they kissed in the van nor during their first time, so Do Hoe is checking to see if it's okay to kiss him now, with the necklace on.

Because if the necklace is off, he knows Ju Yeong will allow himself to be selfish, abandon God, and accept the sin.

But that has to be a fucking awful feeling, no?

To believe that you, a person who probably lied about your schooling and now sit in a fancy apartment with your nice car and cushy job because of that lie, are in love with a man who is so morally righteous that even your relationship with him is so sinful that he has to take off his cross and forsake God to be near you.

Once again, Ju Yeong could not be wearing a cross, but imagine being a liar in love with a saint.

Hell, I'd hate myself too.

@heretherebedork, @benkaben, @chicademartinica, @anxiouswannabe90skid

[mike----wazowski]

me when kiryu talks to daigo

[savoryhoneybear]

you know. we may have the sexyman poll for giggles but like. i want to know which sans au actually had the most smutty content made about them. maybe im just not on that side of things but i barely see geno outside of afterdeath, and errink is popular but hey, you know what i see a TON of?? Dream. getting railed. absolutely ruined. fucking obliterated-

[tartintart]

Saw this thing & decided to give it a shot.

[kienansidhe]

i desperately need more ppl to sexualize altar servers what do you MEAN there are no cheap costumes in existence what do you MEAN if i wanna dress up as an altar server for sexy heresy reasons i have to either 1) pay the Bigotry Club for the real thing (unacceptable), or 2) make my own damn costume??? homophobia. oppression. i have the hardest life in the world btw

[sarcoptid]

I'd like to see a paranormal investigation where they don't turn all the lights out in the house. Would I do that? No, duh, it'dbe less spooky. But someone should, because we all know it's totally unnecessary to be shuffling around in the dark just to take some voice recordings

[bulletblessed]

tags

[ryuseitai]

i just dug around in my closet for so long i feel like i was in the mines. didnt even find hamtaro

[gambitandrogues]

so much gender stored in the leather bomber jacket

[mmescarlette]

Favorite Books Read in January 2023

Since I thought it might be fun to turn this blog into a space to talk about books I've read, here's a roundup of books I particularly liked this month! There may be spoilers for each so feel free to skip between the titles if you like.

The Heir and the Spare - Kate Stradling (personal rating: 4/5)

This was, in fact, the very first book I read this year, a straggler that I started on NYE but put aside so I could read it more at my leisure after my previous challenge was fulfilled, and I'm so glad I did! I SNAPPED this book up. I can't tell you a great deal of what it's about because I kind of liked going into it essentially blind, actually, but it is not a retelling (I somehow thought it was a Prince and the Pauper retelling which it clearly is not but I think that was purely based on the title and not, you know, facts) and it's at my perfect intersection of fantasy, which is the kind of low-stakes sword-and-sorcery tales that I generally tend to write myself.

I believe what I enjoyed and got out of this book most was that it forced me to confront my own relationship with suffering, much like Thorn did two years ago; tw for the main character going through some fairly intense emotional abuse, but for me as a reader, I found it more cathartic and able to make me understand myself more closely, and thus well worth the read for me in particular. I also LOVED the choice to have a second lead who is essentially antagonistic from the start, much in the vein of QoA which I am always weak for. I would say this is low on themes, but high on character work, so if you're looking for an introspective read this is a lovely choice!

The Stolen Heir - Holly Black (personal rating: 4.5/5)

Holly basically OWNS me at this point. There's a high likelihood just based on this book alone that this duology will capture me in its clutches even MORE than Folk of the Air could, simply based on the fact that I love the two leads (and Wren in particular) like there's no tomorrow. For one thing, I think it's such an interesting and quite frankly beautiful and touching change to have both the leads be so downright kind people to their core, as opposed to the chaos gremlins (affectionate) of the previous trilogy. But for another thing, the particular theme that my dash is sucking me into loving this year is that of shared history of love of all along between people, and I looove that is very present here! FotA was very much about learning to love but I'm pretty badly invested in how much this story leans on how to trust even when the love was already there.

The reality also of Wren being this bleeding heart being who will undo bonds and chains and ties simply because it's the right thing to do is something that makes me feel insane! Everything about Oak coming from a family he can never abandon or leave behind because he cherishes them so deeply makes me sob! The entire theme that lingers from it all being "I have never had the true luxury of being free in any way that matters to me so I have the compulsion to save every person I possibly can even if it is at great personal cost" is something that can be so personal and dear to me and I LOVE it so much.

(Also I had a great time wailing at Wren every time she talks about Jude to be like "JUDE WAS SORRY FOR YOU WREEEN SHE FREED YOU ON PURPOSE BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T LIKE PEOPLE BEING BOUND EITHER" and whilst I have no doubt there will be angry Jude in the next book I love that there's this tie of fae-nurtured human and raised-by-humans fae between the protagonist of both the series! There's so much richness of kindness in that dichotomy and I'm so intrigued about where she'll take it.)

Thirst - Mary Oliver (personal rating: 5/5)

I'm always on the hunt for more Mary books to read, and this one is a stirringly beautiful example of her work. Very few things have made me cry like the titular poem does.

Part of the reason why I glommed onto this book so much is because, at its heart, it is a book about grief; from what I can tell, this was Mary's first book she wrote after the death of her partner, and because of that it is so deeply infused through and through with love and light and sorrow and tenderness that it seems almost impossible that I, at least, could not love it. But perhaps more than anything, the reason why it struck me so much is because it filled me with that which I am most on the search for in my life right now, wonder.

Mary's work makes me see the stars, the sun and the moon and the sky, all whilst I'm tucked away in my house, in my reading chair at one in the morning without moving a muscle. It makes me glad to live, but more than that it gives me reason to live, that most tricky part of staying alive and being glad for it. She always finds a way to lead me back to the emotion I am best at and struggle most with, that of gratitude of being here and being well with what I am given, that even when the tossing and turning of life tears at my soul I can always say a prayer in thanks for it and find my way back to something simple and still and true, and that-- is always worth the effort for me.

And while that is me talking about her work at large, I will simply say, this book made me see the stars at night and the rosebuds in late spring and the shadows of the geese making their way across the fragile sky, and for that alone I love it dearly. Also The Messenger is only the poem I have in full pasted on my wall which to me is the biggest peer-review test of all.

Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel (personal rating: 4/5)

A read that I embarked on because a dearly loved friend (hi Lu!!) adores this book, so I wanted to take a peek because the themes appealed to me. I'm a big lover of post-apocalyptic media that focuses in on what relationships look like between people in the aftermath and how often it is love, in the end. While this is not my favorite example of that particular genre, it is an extremely competent entry, and a good introduction if you're never dipped into the genre before.

Beautiful, dark, and luminous, Station Eleven is what I would call a slow amble through the book's contents. It neither tumbles you along with the impetus of its own story and pace (as a YA book does), nor does it urge you forward with the hastening steps of its plot that grow louder and louder over time (as speculative fiction often wants to do) but it is quiet, self-contained and self-possessed. From what I can gather, this is the kind of book that either resonates with you deeply, or doesn't whatsoever, but for me in particular I found it scattered with such moments of gentle beauty that made me have to close my eyes and hold them close to myself that I found it worth the read, despite the fact that it is also littered with enough violence and sorrow that it's not truly as comforting as I had expected it to be.

In its heart, this book is very simply about a girl who is part of a wandering troupe of actors in the world after an apocalyptic event whose life is shown in tandem and parallel to an actor who she worked with as a child; but it is also deeply about kindness, friendship, love and loss and the search for beauty when the surface of the earth has been so ravaged that it seems almost impossible that it could still be there. More than anything, Station Eleven is a book about care-- it's about Kirsten's care for her work, for her friends and the rare moments of beauty she carries about, it's about what goodness we can save and spare when all else is lost, it's about me weeping over the joy of electricity casting its light on the sky when that seems impossible. The longer I sit with it, the more I can find to love in it, because what lingers from this story is the love that stays within it through and through.

[schnuffel-danny]

I try so hard to be normal about Jack/Vlad but it’s literally impossible for me I’m sorry folks

[mifithemuffin]

wrote an entire outline of a fic idea set in time period i have zero knowledge of

[nonhumen]

i stare right into the fucking camera

[admort4tem]

its so scary  interacting with mutuals ... ooouh i am terrified 

[ghost-hotel]

haiiii can u guess what im about to ask

yeah.

[lesbicastagna]

i really want to watch more funger (can't play cause im a terminal noob at videogames like you think bad. i'm worse) but also its the kind of thing where looking up a random guy talking about it sounds like a torture from hell. so