#i hate religions and churches even more but thanks jesus for doing that shit apparently

[liberty-spiked]

thank you christian countries for giving me a long weekend at this time.

[shyshitter]

yea so i wrote a ficlet for this post bc i couldn’t stop thinking about it. also this really went off the rails bc it has been a phat second since ive written anything so enjoy i guess

Abigail likes Jack Kline. He’s quiet and sweet and doesn’t ask questions when she sometimes doesn’t bring lunch; he just subtly slides over his apple and chips with a smile. Sure, he’s a little odd sometimes (like how he talks like a thesaurus or says hi to everyone in the hallways) but she doesn’t believe he deserves the way the other kids make fun of him behind his back. They whisper about his mysterious and sudden appearance, how he’s been picked up after school by three different men, and his odd fascination with religion. He’s not like the other christian kids who are always trying to recruit kids for their church; he just--really likes Jesus and talks about Him like he knows Him personally. 

“My dad saved humanity,” he says constantly. “He’s died a few times but it’s never stuck. The most recent time was by nail but that was a misunderstanding.” 

So he’s an odd kid and Abby knows it but she just doesn’t care. Her friends have accepted this but even they are still confused by Jack’s odd behavior. Her friend Martha has history with him and talks about him all the time. 

“For the heritage project, he said his mother is dead and his father a son of God so he doesn’t have any ancestors to write about,” she says one day at lunch. “I think he thinks his biological father is Jesus Christ.”  

It takes a while but Abby finally works up the courage to ask him about it. Jack’s in the middle of a story about how his dad was healing someone when she interrupts him. 

“Do you think your dad is Jesus?” 

Jack frowns and tilts his head in confusion. “No Jesus is my cousin. My father hates him but my da doesn’t really care about him.”

Jack has two dads? 

“You have two dads?” she asks.

He pauses to think. “Technically I have four dads but my real father was killed by three of them because he was trying to take me to space.”

Abby’s head spins. “Your dads are murderers?” 

“No, they’re hunters.” 

“But you just said they killed your real father.” 

Jack frowns again. “Yeah but my real father was the devil.” 

Abby remembers a girl she met at camp who said the same thing about her dad. She later learned that the girl was taken by CPS and her father went to prison. Suddenly, images of Jack alone and scared in a group home flood her mind and she grabs his arm in alarm.

“Are you safe?” she asks desperately. 

He just smiles and pats her arm. “Of course; he’s dead now.” 

She shakes her head. “I mean are you safe with your dads now?” 

His eyes light up like they always do when he talks about his family. “Of course! My dad was prophesied to save humanity and has, my da is an angel, and my pa is the leader of an army of hunters so I’m in good hands.” 

By the time Abby’s processed this comment, Jack has already moved on to his favorite types of cars and the conversation is over. 

She forgets about Jack’s crazy family situation until Spring Formal. Abby and her friends are standing in line for the photo booth when she sees Jack across the gym with a beautiful girl on his arm, both of them talking to a giant man with floppy brown hair. Without explaining, she leaves her friends to walk over and gets a better look at the three of them. The girl has long curly blonde hair that bounces when she laughs but her eyes are sharp and harsh, constantly scanning the room as if looking for threats. The man is wearing a white button-down with blue jeans and just smiles warmly as Jack talks animatedly to him. The man spots her as she approaches and for a moment, the warmth in his eyes is replaced by cold suspicion but as soon as Jack notices her and smiles, the man relaxes. 

“Abby, this is my pa,” Jack says with a grin. 

Jack’s ‘pa’ offers a hand and Abby shakes it. “Sam,” he says politely. “Jack talks about you a lot.”  

“Yeah,” the girl cuts in. “I was wondering when I was gonna meet you.” Her eyes trail up and down Abby’s body distrustfully. “This punk never shuts up about you.” 

Jack just keeps smiling. “This is my sister Claire,” he introduces. “She’s in college!” 

Overwhelmed by the introductions, Abby just smiles and offers her hand to Claire as well. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says, relieved when Claire accepts the handshake. 

“Have you met Dean and Cas yet?” Claire asks. “You’re not officially accepted by the family until Dean okayes you.” 

Sam swats a scolding hand over Claire’s head. “Don’t scare her--my brother isn’t that bad.” He looks back at Abby with a smile. “Don’t let my niece worry you, Dean and Cas are gonna love you.” 

Trying to do mental gymnastics in her head, Abby attempts to figure out how Sam is both Jack’s dad and Claire’s uncle while Jack and Claire are siblings. Dean and Cas are the other two fathers who killed Jack’s real dad and apparently Dean is also Sam’s brother. 

She doesn’t finish her thought process before Jack is dragging Abby across the gym, leaving Sam and Claire. 

“Dad, da,” he calls out over the music. 

Abby tries to spot who responds to Jack’s call and notices two more giant men by the food table look up from their conversation. They’re even more intimidating than Sam and Claire. The taller man has broad shoulders and hard eyes like Claire and despite this being a formal dance, he’s wearing a green canvas jacket and jeans with holes in the knees. The shorter man is a tad more formal with his too-big suit and tan overcoat but he watches them approach with a blank face which is almost more threatening than the hostile look the other man has. 

“Da, dad, this is my friend Abby,” Jack says as soon as they’re in earshot. 

The taller man looks her up and down like Claire did earlier before nodding shortly. “Nice to finally put a face to the name,” he says gruffly. His voice is rough and low but not unkind so Abby relaxes slightly. 

The other man smiles and it suits him much more than the blank look did. “It’s lovely to meet you, Abigail,” he says and holy shit his voice is even lower and gravilier than the other guy’s. “Jack speaks very highly of you.” 

“Yeah, thanks to you he listens to shitty music,” the taller man gripes but Abby can tell it’s more teasing than genuinely upset. 

“Dean,” the other man scolds as he nudges him. “Megan Thee Stallion is not shitty music.” 

If the taller man is Dean, the other is Cas and as Abby watches them, she can see the resemblance between Dean and Sam in their sharp jaws and teasing smiles.  

She turns to Jack. “You listen to Megan Thee Stallion?”

Jack nods excitedly. “You were humming her songs in English and I liked it.”

Cas leans in to Abby. “I’ve been trying to get him to branch out from 70s rock for ages but he never wanted to disappoint Dean so thank you for helping him.” 

Abby nods, dazed. “Are you Jesus?” she blurts after failing to come up with a response. 

Dean barks out a loud laugh and doesn’t stop until Cas swats him. Once Dean settles, Cas turns back to Abby with an embarrassed smile. 

“That’s very flattering,” he says, “but no. I am simply Castiel. If anything, Dean shares more in common with the Messiah than I do.” 

Instead of elaborating, Dean just snorts and humbly shakes his head. “Babe, we’ve talked about this--” 

But before he can finish, Cha Cha Slide blasts through the speakers and the gym falls into pandemonium as all the students rush to the dance floor. Jack, confused but excited, grabs Abby’s hand and drags her over to join in, leaving Dean and Cas for the rest of the night. 

Abby doesn’t consider herself a selfish person but even she has never thought so much about another person’s life than Jack’s. Her confusion keeps her up and night and prevents her from being fully present whenever she talks to Jack. She’s tried talking to her friends about it but even they have moved on from the enigma that is Jack Kline. 

One month after the formal--after she met Jack’s family--she finally snaps. She’s at lunch with him in a cafe downtown and he’s telling her about how his brother Kevin is visiting from college and is teaching Jack how to talk to angels. 

“What the fuck is wrong with your family,” she interrupts. 

Jack stops talking and tilts his head in confusion. “What do you mean?” 

“You said you have four dads and one of them was murdered by the other three. Dean and Sam are brothers and Dean is with Cas. Claire is your sister but Sam is her uncle and your brother has a mom but none of you are related to her.” She takes a deep breath before continuing. “You keep saying your dads saved the world and that they’ve died and come back. You said one of your dads was an angel and now your brother is teaching you how to talk to angels? Are you lying or are you just plain crazy?” 

After the last sentence slips from her lips, she gasps and a cold dread fills her. Jack just stares, shocked at the outburst. 

“You think I’m crazy?” he asked softly. 

Abby feels a lump in her throat form. “No, no, no,” she babbles, “I didn’t mean that. I’m just confused that’s all.” 

Jack brightens. “That’s ok, life is confusing. Anyways, I tried shawarma for the first time yesterday--like in the superhero movie!”

Abby sighs and let’s Jack rant about shawarma, resigned to the fact that she’ll never get a straight answer from this confounding boy and his unnatural family. 

[madllamamomma]

I Think I Have a Problem.... (A personal true story).

So as the title suggests, I have a strange problem…. Just as a warning, this is about my view of my younger self. It is about religion, and gender identity. This is not how I see the world anymore. It was how I told how the world should look. If you are offended in any way, please know this is a vent post and nothing to hurt anyone else. This is just what happened to me as a child. Shit….. This is about to get very long winded, so buckle up and here we go… *takes deep breath*

So a little backstory on your Mother Llama: I was raised in a weird backward ass “Independent” Baptist church most of my young life. If you guys don’t know what those are, be thankful…. But I guess I should explain it the best way I can…. they are a borderline cult. Yes. I said it. I’m not sorry. It may sound like an extreme accusation, but hold on. Just listen to me.

Now, I have no problem with Christians, or religion. You should believe whatever you want to believe in…. I do however, have a problem when religion is used as an excuse to not educate minds about the real world, force them to not let them think for themselves, and when someone questions any of it, they are punished or shamed for it instead of thinking about an answer. If you can’t tell, I am still a little angry about that shit. Imma try to keep on topic here….

I wasn’t taught science (real science anyways, it was all about ‘creation’ bs—OH! And being anything but a cis straight person was compleltly unexceptable. Woman were the weaker sex and were made to raise babies and take care of the husband. Men were superior and should be taken care of.) nor about World history or about other cultures, other than biblical of course. And when they were mentioned, they made them look evil and behave like heathens because they didn’t believe the same as they did. Everything changed when I went to public school half of fourth grade when my family moved to a different state and there wasn’t any church school like I went to. I learned a lot those years, that ‘The World’ wasn’t as bad of a place as they said it was. It was vast and had many things to offer. (No, not the World, Dio’s stan power from Jojo’s bizarre adventures—that is what our pastors called anything outside of the Baptist approved realm. Something ‘Worldly’ was basically something sinful and ungodly and therefor was bad and wrong).

So this may seem like a strange Segway in to what I am actually getting at, but I had a huge crush on this boy back when I was young and it started when I was about 12 or 13 years old and ended when I was 16. He was the same age as me, and he was the son of a pastor of a small church of about 20 people, mostly military families— we will call him.... D.... for dick...

I thought for a long time that I ‘loved’ D. I thought that ‘God made him for me’ (yes I really said that and it hurt to even write it). I really thought I knew what love was back then, but I was very wrong.

D was homeschooled, he didn’t have many friends and was also a navy brat like I was. So, naturally, we got along very well, and I would hang out with him at his house sometimes. We mainly played video games I was terrible at and he would always bet me. But I liked hanging out with him, so I didn’t care if I won or not. My heart for some reason was totally head over heels over D. And he liked me too for a while… or at least I thought he did… He however never made a move. I always thought D was just too shy, and didn’t know how to ask me. Any time I tried holding his hand, I’d chicken out. It was a stalemate. But this particular church did a thing where people had to court. Yes... COURT someone, not DATE (Courting is where you had adult chaperones keeping an eye on you two, you were never really alone. Ever, because apparently you can’t be trusted?). When we both turned 15 yo, D started a private Christian school. Being the awkward girl I was, I never told him how I felt, I just waiting for him to say something. Time passed, and I still waited and waited for him to ask me out.

But here’s the thing! He didn’t know the real me.

I was in public school, in middle school, and I started to become a weeb. Like a super cringy weeb that didn’t like anything else but anime—I was also kinda emo/punk kid thought I was edgy. (Yeah rock music was bad too, it was ‘Worldly’).Not a very good mix for Baptist I know. At school, I was one person, and at church I was another.

Well, being an anime fan meant I was exposed to a lot of things like the LGTB+ community for the first time. A lot of my friends at the time started to come out other than straight and that was very new to me.

During that time, I soon was starting to secretly question my faith, my understanding of my own sexuality and gender. Like, maybe people liking the same sex or both is actually not a bad thing after all (if you haven’t seen any of my works, hopefully you guys know that I know better that what I was taught—I am a proud fuckin’ ally! I still consider myself cis-straight, but some days I feel like I’m bi-curious, and that’s ok! It took me a long time to realize that, but I’m here now. Gender roles are dead and stupid.)

So here is the kicker~ One faithful day we had a guest pastor join us for a few weeks from another church. This mother fuckin’ nasty ass old white man from Alabama came with his ‘perfect quiet godly’ wife. Who badly ever spoke a damn word. She always just sat in the corner all ‘ladylike’.

—Oh!!! Another fun fact, I didn’t wear pants for a year when I was 10 yo becasue that was considered “cross dressing”— I’m dead fucking serious. My parents then decided after attending sporting events and stuff like that to drop that ludicrous lifestyle, becasue it was stupid. So, Outside of church, my family and I still wore pants and shorts and whatever, but in church we pretended that we didn’t wear anything but modest skirts, dresses, and long culottes. (That’s a little damaging…. don’t you think? Telling people your one thing, when in reality you're not like that at all??)

Anyways— I hated skirts, especially wearing them in the state we lived in, it was way too hot and I’d get chafed (these had to be knee length or longer btw). And of course that guest preacher would preach about the sins of women wearing pants, but I didn’t care. I wore them for so long, it just made me angry anytime someone would bring that up. I liked my jeans and I was starting to become a rebel teen who gave less than a fuck and started to speak my mind. Which was dangerous to that community…. Also I had a bad tendency of not keeping my legs together when I bent down, and one time I accidently showed my underwear (that’s really embarrassing btw, it’s not cute, it’s not funny, it’s awful when you're 14 yo-- really any age actually).

So, one day I wore a long jean skirt for a youth outing with the church. I was required to wear it, but I always wore leggings underneath so I wouldn’t accidentally show my undies if I fell down or the wind blew it. This fucker had to say something about it. The old man turned to me with a wrinkled smirk as I was passing by him and dared to utter, “Now, don’t you feel most femine and ladylike in that skirt? I’m sure Jesus would like seeing you like that.”

My shoulders clench up tight, my brow furrows. All I can remember seeing is fucking red and actually trembling with fury. (This was happening in my pastor, D’s father’s, own living room mind you.) D was there watching as I blanched about ten shades of red in anger and embarrassed because that prick of an old man called me out in front of everyone. I turned to him and half shouted, “NO! I don’t!” I could see my pastor’s mouth drop to the floor as I began to completely obliterate this old man. But I couldn't stop myself as I started to further cut into him. “—I hate wearing skirts! I don’t feel ladylike! In fact, they make me feel vulnerable! What if some guy tries to rape me! They won’t have any problem getting to me!—Why is something with a whole on the bottom more ladylike than something that actually covers me?! I like pants! They are comfortable and they make me feel safe! Why is that a sin to wear something that is more covering?!?! I’m not cross dressing, my mom bought them in the girl’s session!! [Keep in mind that was a long time ago, I don’t feel like people should care about what section they get their clothes from, wear what you want] And what do you know about wearing a skirt?! You’re a man! You try wearing them! They suck! You need to stop telling me what I can and can’t wear! I’m not dressing like a whore for wearing something with a crotch!! SO LEAVE ME ALONE!!” Everyone in the living room was just stunned at my audacity to dare speak to this pastor like I did. But he was so fucking quiet after that. And I stormed out of the house and the guest pastor never spoke to me again about it. Luckily my mom came and picked me shortly after that. She was angry too after I told her what happened. That old fuck singled me out and I was pissed off. I was a teenager and that shit was embarrassing!

But I made the mistake of showing my true self. I think after that moment, D stopped liking me after that.

Some shit went down south with my parents behind closed doors of my household, and eventually they got divorced. They left the small church because the pastor didn’t approve of it. Pastor said that my parents just needed more counseling but he didn't understand that they just needed to not be together. Sometimes you can’t make things work. Especially when your dad is a toxic piece of shit that only cares about himself.

Anyways, everyone in my family left the church, but I stuck around that shit-hole just to see if D would ask me out. I was so desperate, I felt like I waited forever, but really it was like 2-3 years, and I felt like I couldn’t give up. Eventually D and I turned 16. He started to become distant and a little mean towards me and I became confused and started to realize the worst. Finally, I was tired of waiting so I asked his older sister if he liked me on the way back taking me home. I could see it in her face, that she didn’t want to have my heart broken, but reluctantly she told me no. He actually liked another girl at his new private school and was going to ask her parents to court her instead.

I was so devastated.... It hurt so much, I cried myself to sleep that night, and most of that week I was very sad.

Obviously, after that, I stopped going to church entirely, I couldn't show my face anymore. Finally let myself question my faith, sexuality, gender roles, and humanity all together. And realized that religion was stupid (in my opinion at the time) and I came u with the conclusion that people can be sheep. I was a sheep for a long time. And I refuse to be one ever again.

High school was very enjoyable after that, and I let myself grow and started to love other religions and world history, and tried to stop being so judgmental of others and what they felt like. I even got into a relationship with a sweet boy around my age.

Eventually in college, after a break-up with my high school sweetheart, I reconnected with D via FB. Apparently, the church went under and his parents moved away to Greece to be missionaries or something. D still lives in the same town I’m in, but graduated from a “Christian academy”—not Catholic, Christian. Catholic colleges are accredited at least. But he basically told me he was a secret “bad boy” now. He lost his virginity in highschool, (like I did) and he was totally trying to booty call me. Not even hiding it either! He was like, “Hey, Llama, you wanna fuck?”.

And I was like, “D! You broke my fucking heart when we were young! Don’t you remember that???”

And he was like, “Oh no! I had no idea! (the fuckin’ liar). Well, we can fuck now!~ *wink, wink*”

🤨

This is where I was a jerk.... Because he broke my heart. I led him on, told him I would meet up with him at his house to sleep with him, and just didn’t show up—ghosted him ever since. The worst part about that, is I still don’t regret doing that to him. I hope I hurt his feelings and felt like an ass like I did.

So years have passed, I consider myself as a rather successful woman now. I’m 27, I consider myself Buddhist (I am a terrible Buddhist I know), I am an Occupational Therapy Assistant and I have a great husband (I married the guy I was with in high school). And he loves the real me—the crazy closet weeb, cartoon watching, creative, expressive, me! The person who also writes fanfiction about a romance novel and he is fine with it. Because he is a huge nerd too and we are both nerds together.

My husband is my best friend and I don’t know what I’d do without him. When I write about Rhemi and Muriel, I draw a lot of inspiration with our conversation we have and how relationship dynamics are and I think it makes the writing more authentic and makes them feel a bit more real.

I love my husband more than anything… So why do I keep dreaming about that stupid asshole that just liked the fake me? D was and always will be a total tool. He is like the basic bitch of a man. And yet I still find him creeping in my dreams and I try to cheat on my husband with him in them. I wake up feeling totally terrible and weird after them too. D is a terrible fucking person—the worst person you can be in my opinion—The kind of person why lies and tells people one thing, but hides the fact that he’s really just a nasty fuck boy. If you are one, just be honest! Don’t tell another woman you're a good christan man, when really you’ve slept with not just one, but multiple girls! That how you get fucking STDs! I hate being lied to, and I’m sure other girls do too! So I guess that’s why I do, because I felt like I was lied to my entire life. Then again, why should I even care?! Why do I feel like I still obsess over him? I hate him so much now! So why do I even care? Why do I still find myself stalking him on social media? Why does it even matter? Why do I want him to see I’m happy without him? Why do I want him to see what he could have had with me? We were just stupid teenagers! Why did I care so much? Why did it hurt so much when I found out he didn’t like me?! It’s been over a decade, and we didn’t even really date! Why did this affect me so hard? …. FUCK!

So yeah. That’s my long ass rant for you all… thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[thewhumperinwhite]

Guardian Angel, part 4

Part One / Part Two / Part Three

(I’m gonna make a masterpost for this one later today cause I’ve got.... Some Plans for this one)

@whumpitywhumpwhump

TW for: religion/Christianity, including probably some mild blasphemy; mild body horror (reanimated corpse); referenced seriously ill parent.

----

The priest seems like a nice enough guy, based on the not-even-two-minutes of interaction Karim has had with him. He’s also looking at Karim with deep concern and not moving from his seat in the front pew, so at this moment he’s Karim’s least favorite person on earth.

“I can’t tell you why I need it,” Karim says through gritted teeth. “I just need it. It’s an emergency.”

The priest’s frown deepens, and Karim fights back a frustrated groan. “What emergency are you having that you think holy water will help with?” the priest says, in the kind of calm voice you use for children you think are idiots.

“None of your business,” Karim snaps, because he’s way, way too stressed to come up with a convincing lie, and not crazy enough yet to think this guy with his carefully-ironed cassock and his uber-sensible wire-rimmed spectacles will believe the truth.

The priest sighs and removes the glasses, slowly, like a teacher who thinks you’re making them tired on purpose.

“Young man,” the priest says. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t bless water and just give it to you. The Church sanctions the use of holy water for a limited number of purposes. Now.” He looks at Karim with an over-exaggerated kindly-old-man expression. “I’d be happy to accompany you and help you with whatever emergency you’re facing.”

Karim scowls, and points behind him toward the back of the sanctuary. “You can’t pretend it’s a, a controlled substance or something, you’ve got a big bowl of it just sitting back there.”

The priest looks over Karim’s shoulder. At the end of the sanctuary’s center aisle there’s a big glass bowl nestled in the top of a carved wooden stand. He looks back at Karim, looking patiently disapproving in a way Karim hates down to his bones. 

“The font is intended to remind parishioners of their baptism when not in use,” he says, a bit more severe, and then his face softens and he turns to face Karim fully, folding his hands in his lap. “Young man, I’m happy to help, if something is frightening you. I understand there are many things you might wish for holy protection from. Tell me, what is it that’s got you so upset?”

Karim stares at the man for a second. Then he says, “Oh, fuck this,” and turns on his heel to run.

By the grace of God— who he can apologize to later, if he thinks of it— the bowl that comprises the top of the font isn’t secured to the bottom, just like he hoped. It’s heavy, but now that he is actively sprinting out of a church he’s filled with enough adrenaline that the weight seems very manageable. A little of it slops over the front of his hoodie when he spins to shove the door of the church open with his butt, but it’s still more than half full by the time he skids to a stop next to his mom’s car, awkwardly repositions the bowl— it’s way too big to hold securely, but by some miracle he doesn’t drop it, maybe that means God is fine with it after all— and pulls the car door open by shoving the toe of his sneaker under the handle and yanking it towards him.

“What the Hell are you doing?” the priest squawks from behind him, and Karim laughs hysterically.

Whatever else this is, it’s a much better distraction than stealing his mom’s car ever would have been.

Art half-sits up in the back of the car, his eyes widening when he sees Karim holding an entire baptismal font balanced on his knee. “The fuck are you—?”

“What do I do with it?” Karim yells, because they don’t have time for this.

Art blinks at him at the same time that he hears the church door slam behind him, which means the priest is only the length of the parking lot away now.

“Wh— fuck, here,” Art says, and he leans forward, grabs the edge of the bowl with his good hand, and tips the bowl toward himself. Karim follows his momentum, pouring the entire contents of the font over Art’s ruined arm and leg, and incidentally also soaking the rest of him and practically flooding the backseat of Karim’s mom’s car, which he doesn’t have time to think about at the moment.

Karim slams the back door, turns, holds up the empty font, and sets it down on the asphalt next to the car, and blurts, “Thanks Father!” before he spins, throws himself back into the driver’s seat, jams the car into gear and peels out of the parking lot literally as fast as the car will go. He looks up once to see the bewildered form of the priest, holding the bowl and staring after them, and then he grips the steering wheel hard, feeling laughter bubble unstoppably up out of his chest. He can feel the hysterical edge to it, but he doesn’t try to stop it; this is the best he’s felt in—well, in six months, at least.

He hears Art laugh, too, from the back, though he mostly sounds confused, and meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, grinning. “Did it work?”

Art laughs again, breathing hard, and his answer sounds a bit strained. “It’s— in the process of working.” Karim can hear some deeply unpleasant cracking sounds from behind him. In the rearview he can just see Art stretched out on the back seat, his neck a tight painful arch, exposing his scarred throat. “Fucking— hate this part,” Art mutters.

Karim catches his breath, though his stomach hurts pretty bad from laughing. “You need me to pull over?” he says, trying to watch the road while also craning to see if he can see what’s happening any better in the rearview.

“No no, it’s—ah—it’s fine. I’m—” Art laughs, bitterly. “Used to it.”

Karim frowns at the rearview, where he can see Art’s eyes squeezed shut in obvious pain, and once he’s put another three blocks between them and the church, he pulls into an empty parking lot and turns around in his seat.

“Jesus,” he says, wincing back immediately.

Art’s leg seems to be almost done knitting itself back together, but Karim does get to see about three seconds of the bones snapping back into place. Art collapses back against the seat, panting.

“God,” Karim says. “I’m— um. I’m sorry, dude. About hitting you.”

Art waves his newly-repaired arm dismissively, then lets his hand drop onto his forehead, where Karim can see the cracks where he hit the windshield have closed up, too. 

They’re a bit harder to see, now, lit by street lights at an odd angle, but it doesn’t look like the scars on his throat and arms have gone anywhere.

“‘sfine,” Art says breathlessly. “You’re lucky it was me, actually. Would’ve killed anybody else.” Pushing his hair out of his face, he cracks one eye to squint at Karim. “What the fuck were you going so fast for, anyway? And is this— what, Farah’s car?”

Karim jerks backward hard enough to honk the horn with his spine, making them both jump badly. “You know my mom’s name?” he blurts. That’s the most terrifying thing Art has said so far.

Art raises an eyebrow at him, like that’s funny. “I know Farah, yes,” he says, smirking. “You could not pay me to try and steal her car, to be honest. What the fuck—is—” He trails off, the smirk sliding off his face, and he sits up, running his hand through his hair and no longer looking at Karim. “Wait,” he says, apparently to himself. “2009. Shit.” Then he turns his head and looks at Karim like Karim has just turned into a hurt puppy before his very eyes. “Your father,” Art says quietly, and Karim feels his stomach muscles tense painfully, like he’s waiting for a blow. “I’m sorry. I forgot about that.”

Karim looks at the dead boy, and his ears immediately start to buzz a little.

“Is that why?” Art says softly, looking at Karim with his dead eyes full of pity. “Are you—”

“No,” Karim snaps. Art blinks, surprised, and Karim shakes his head, stiffly. “That’s not what we’re doing. I don’t know you from shit, and I’m not talking about this.”

He isn’t sure what he’s expecting—more pity, maybe, or else a fight—but Art nods immediately, saying “Okay, right, yeah, absolutely,” so fast he trips over the syllables. Karim watches his shoulders relax, like he’s grateful for the out, and it soothes a little of the knee-jerk that was building bitter at the back of Karim’s throat, too. “Absolutely, dear, whatever you need.”

Karim breathes out, trying to come down from his immediate defensive position, and then he shakes his head, slowly. “Hold on,” he says. “Hold on, you—you noticed the year right off,” he accuses, frowning at Art, who jumps guiltily. “I said it was 2009 and you—swore, or something, like you knew it was bad. You must have known about,” he swallows hard, makes it come out, “about m-my dad from the beginning, or… you…”

He trails off. Art is looking away, chewing on his cracked and colorless lower lip. When he looks back at Karim, his face is hard to read—somewhere between discomfort and nervousness and maybe guilt, too.

“What?” Karim says, alarmed.

“It’s, um. It’s gonna be kind of a big year,” Art says.

[janiedean]

Dude you need to stop. OP hadn't even been aggressive, they just made a random statement on their own blog. It's a personal space. Why do you all have to feel personally offended when 1) it was ONE POST on someone's personal blog, and 2) you're the first whining about how everyone is always offended at nothing! How insensitive. Maybe they were being dramatic, but then what? Show a little compassion, if it bothers you so much just fucking ignore it and move on, jesus. Are you 12?

Also seriously, you're constantly whining about how fed up you are about wank and "Discourse™" in your fandoms, but then you're also continuously participating in said wank by upping it up and up. Ever heard it takes two to tango? Kettle, meet pot?

my dearest darling anon, wow, you really got irked over a post that has..... 50k notes and it’s not such a personal thing anymore at that point. I mean. 50k notes. it’s not just PERSONAL. but however, let’s go over this.

a) it’s my blog. I reblog what I want. If anything, assholes on tumblr who keep disguising their fairly immature rants as *venting* should stop, not me. also, that post has 50k notes and out of the reblogs on the version I reblogged, I didn’t even say the worst thing. did you send this message also to the previous three people in my reblog? :’)

b) one post? that reblog was already two, and if you go on that person’s blog there’s another three reblogs of that same OP with additions which are all OMG STRAIGHT PEOPLE SUCK SO MUCH. lol. venting. with fifty thousand notes. it’s not venting anymore when a post is that viral and they posted it on a public website most likely fully knowing that it would go viral since tumblr dot com is basically ‘straight is an insult but it’s okay to say it because who cares straight people can just take it *SHRUG*’. 

c) HOW INSENSITIVE! MAYBE THEY WERE BEING DRAMATIC! SHOW A LITTLE COMPASSION! okay, you know what?

I’m now going to take OP and reword it with my favorite subject when it comes to show you how this line of thinking is hypocritical af. and at least it’s something I am and I can relate to so y’all can’t accuse me of appropriating someone’s struggles.

good? good!

now let’s imagine this was the op:

Being in a room with religious people talking about religious things is so exhausting.

at that, someone asks me:

What the hell are ‘religious things’?

and I reply:

sunday school and reciting prayers and going to mass and confession talk and discussing about how saudi arabia is actually a very pro-feminist country (spoilers: I heard that irl myself) without being made to feel like you are making people uncomfortable and hearing catholic people talk about how horrible it is for them to talk to atheists and christians in western countries talk about how they are such victims and their lives are shit when what this really means is they are never told that they don’t have morals because of course they believe in a deity and so they are and homophobic and racist crap that drives me crazy like how the only true family is man and woman  and how great religion (ps: this was in the OP so thanks for assuming that all straight assholes in the world are also religious but okay) is and how the world is so lovely and kind and great because people have god watching out for them and he will always be with them and how religious people are like “this person is so lovely” when you know they think you’ll go to hell for being anything other than their religion or listening to religious people say atheists are the worst or talk about people who don’t want to attend religious ceremonies (ie. people who don’t want to go to masses held for dead people) as being weird or rude because WHY WOULDN’T YOU GO, or asking “but have you ever read the bible?” judgmentally as if the moment you read that you suddenly hear jesus speaking to you or getting annoyed at you when you tell them about how not nice it is to be asked all the damned time if you’re gonna kill someone one day just because you’re atheist is because it’s easy for them cause they are religious and wouldn’t know the first thing about it or having to tell people you ‘really don’t practice’ to people all the time cause they just assume you’re catholic and you’ll be getting weird looks if you don’t like, and ‘wait but really??? HOW???’ or “but you look so nice it’d be a pity if you went to hell just because you refuse to believe in god” or “well as long as you keep it for yourself but DON’T TELL YOUR GRANDMOTHER!!!” or having to hear religious people talk about how great christmas is or about the amazing shit they read in church or about how all holy books are ABSOLUTELY NOT WRITTEN BY MEN AND THEREFORE NOT FALLIBLE and about all the amazing movies about jesus or just watching people live super conventional lives and do really sexist old fashioned things just because no one is brave enough to question or think about anything… and worst of all knowing that if you were to say or talk about anything atheist everyone would get uncomfortable and not join in on the conversation and wish you had said nothing… and then people will be like “you hardly said anything”, “you’re so quiet”, “you don’t talk much”, “are you shy”, “you’re boring”.

No bitch I’m atheist and I don’t relate to nor am I really interested in any of the shit that you have been yelling to my face for the last hour.

now, I’ll tell you what would happen: ANY DECENT RELIGIOUS PERSON I FOLLOW WOULD ASK ME WHAT THE FUCK I WAS SMOKING AND IF I REALLY THINK ALL RELIGIOUS PEOPLE ARE LIKE THAT AND ALL RELIGIONS ARE LIKE THAT, AND EVERYONE WOULD ASSUME I WAS A PROPER FUCKING ASSHOLE BECAUSE I JUST GENERALIZED 70% OF THE PLANET IN A LONGWINDED RIDICULOUSLY EMBARRASSING RANT WHERE ON SOME THINGS I MIGHT BE RIGHT AND ON OTHERS I JUST SHOWED A HORRID AMOUNT OF IGNORANCE.

also, since atheists are all assholes, I’d just confirm their ideas that all atheists are assholes who think they’re so much better than anyone else.

does that post look so harmless, put like this? would it look harmless, if the category mocked was anything but straight people? let me tell you: it wouldn’t. not on here, anyway. and now we get to the best part of this frankly ridiculous ask that you of course sent on anon because like hell you’d say that to my face, hm?

Show a little compassion, if it bothers you so much just fucking ignore it and move on, jesus. Are you 12?

no, I’m 29. and OP of that post, who definitely fucking sounds like he’s twelve, because I could have written the above post about how religion sucks when I was in my dawkins phase and I was THIRTEEN and like two years later I already learned to be a little less dramatic, is twenty-seven. out of someone who’s almost thirty, I’d expect some maturity.

but never mind that. the point is: actually, I did it. I ignored a fucking shitload of posts like this since the year of the lord 2013 when they started becoming a thing on tumblr. I ignored posts saying that ‘the only good use straight allies have is getting thrown off a cliff’, I ignored posts about how horrid cishets are, I ignored posts about cishets ‘are like omg they want a cookie for being nice to us that should be the basics’ as if in some places just being pro-lgbt can’t get you fired or put you against your family or get yourself in a hospital, but of course hey, we’re straight, we’re the majority, we inherently oppress anyone who’s not, who cares, amrite? I had to watch this website spiral into a mentality where straight is an insult, basically, and so hey we have a post laughing about straight girls’s tastes, straight girls being into ***ugly boys***, straight girls being brainwashed by the patriarchy because they actually like men when they could be lesbians and be so much better off in tumblr’s amazing pastel unicorns and rainbows lesbian aesthetic where no one feels sexual attraction and everything is platonic and we don’t talk about bills because how fucking boring. I ignored all of that shit for years because y’all were VENTING and you could only do it online so hey what’s the harm in it, and guess what, I’m done. It bothers me so much because it normalizes a mentality where it’s okay to insult people for things they can’t change about themselves rather than aim at, like, HOMOPHOBES. WHO ARE THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM. but nah, hey, I just have to scroll by the umpteenth post insulting straight people because they talk about things also lgbt people talk about APPARENTLY, because is2g I can assure you that in my fandom group of friends where *I* am camp straight 90% of the time and everyone else is not we actually fucking talk about mortgages and bills and how much renovating a house sucks and how it costs and how it doesn’t and about taxes and about how poor we’re going to be when we retire.

but apparently to OP all this kinda shit is just STRAIGHT TALKING. yeah, lol. anyway, this is kindergarten level attitude and people should have been told to can it years ago, and honestly given that ‘scroll by and ignore’ is an attitude I had for years to avoid conflict and it only caused me trouble, excuse me if I’m done helping feeding a mentality that’s completely fucking useless, because this line of thinking just alienates people. also wow now that I read this post I should feel bad for talking to my non-hetero friends about pretty much anything according to OP? some straight kid younger than me and more impressionable who might actually buy into this website’s bullshit reads this and what will they think? that every time they discuss anything with a gay friend nearby that person is seething inside and hating all of them? could happen. anyway, point is: that post is ridiculous, it has 50k notes and I’m 99% sure most of them actually agree with OP and I wasn’t taught to keep my mouth shut if I hear people saying dumbass things and everyone agrees. that’s not how you do activism. enabling this way of thinking is not helping anyone, least of all OP.

other than that: 

you're constantly whining about how fed up you are about wank and "Discourse™" in your fandoms, but then you're also continuously participating in said wank by upping it up and up

so excuse me, telling people who are actually fucking wrong and spew and enable actually dangerous concepts like idk the fact that people up until eighteen years old have the same decisional capacity as five year olds, that you cannot consent to sex if you aren’t eighteen and one hour old, that you can’t date someone older or younger than you even if you’re both of age because PEDOPHILIA and that consuming problematic fiction is wrong is UPPING THE WANK?

ANON, WHAT THE FUCK. so now if donald trump does ridiculous things and says dumb shit people who disagree should just shut up and let him work and ignore it when the things he does are dangerous? anti thinking is dangerous and keeping your mouth shut and going like ‘they’ll grow out of it’ is not going to work, it’s going to make the situation worse and it’s going to get people hurt.

telling people to FUCKING CAN IT and explaining them a few basic concepts about the difference between fiction and real life is not upping the fucking wank, and calling people out on fucking dumb opinions is not the same as enabling toxic ways of thinking. good lord, if someone irl tells me that interracial marriages are wrong and disgusting what should I do, shrug and let them think I agree or MAYBE EXPLAIN THEM THAT IT’S REALLY RETROGRADE TO THINK SUCH A THING?

I mean, do you need a power point to get the difference?

kettle meet pot like hell. I never started any wank, I never posted one thing purposefully offending an entire category of people just to VENT, none of my posts ever got more than 3k notes - honest I think I had ONE that got that much and it was convention pictures of SPN actors so sure as hell I’m not getting seen by 50k people so OP actually has more leverage than me in this discourse - and assuming I’m actually doing the same thing as OP when everything I’m doing is pointing out that it’s not a healthy way of thinking and that this fucking website is turning into a worse dumpster with every passing moment since at this point the fact that I was born being fine with my sexual characteristic and liking dick is apparently enough to decide that I inherently oppress minorities just by existing and it’s not a line of thinking that activists anywhere should support, is intellectually dishonest and frankly fucking laughable especially coming from someone who doesn’t even put their face to what they ask.

and anyway, OP is a grown ass man and can take care of themselves and of a few disagreeing opinions if he wants to be on a public website where his posts go viral.

and I have absolutely no obligation to keep my mouth shut about things that are imo very fucking dangerous slip-slopes.

there. and now, since I am not going to keep my mouth shut just to make you or OP feel better, you can click the unfollow button if you dislike my opinions that much or you can stick around and learn that sometimes being an adult is a thing that should happen, especially if you frame shit as activism.

anyway, I don’t even know who you are so it’s not like I’ll miss you personally. :’)

[automatismoateo]

Reflections upon what it was like to grow up in the southern US as a girl surrounded by religion. Hint: very toxic and damaging. via /r/atheism

Submitted June 07, 2021 at 05:54PM by ThrowAwayIdk6 (Via reddit https://ift.tt/3x81Cfd) Reflections upon what it was like to grow up in the southern US as a girl surrounded by religion. Hint: very toxic and damaging.

My history with atheism:

Circa age 13, I “abused” my newfound ability to use my brain cells to think for myself. I came to the realization that religion makes zero sense and that it’s just a modern continuation of mythology. People will readily accept that ancient mythology was born as a way to explain things people couldn’t understand, so that’s exactly how I view Christianity (and all other religions as well). I don’t understand how anyone with a brain between their ears could continue to believe it but, whatever. That’s not even touching upon the infinitely more complex subjects of ethics, morals, and morality.

ANYWAY-

I’m grateful for coming to my senses at a young age because it’s given me a lot of time (a decade now) to reflect, think, and conclude that Christianity, the prominent religion in the southern US, is super toxic. (No shit, right?) That’s not a surprise to anyone, but I’m just here to share my personal experiences about that.

For starters, my parents would slip in and out of denominations depending on what they wanted to hear that month or even week. I was randomly dragged around from church to church involving Catholicism, Lutheran, and Methodist. I thought church was boring as hell and would rather do literally anything else with my weekend but I didn’t have a choice so I had to go. I befriended somebody in my daycare around age 4 and started hanging out with her and her family at their house on weekends. Her family were Super Baptist. If you’ve never met a true southern Baptist, I’m not even sure how to begin to describe it. They were no ordinary baptists. And in that household, even though they played the role of the “perfect family“, I can see now there were a lot of hoops to jump through to be accepted and “loved” by them. First of all, they hate gays and homosexuality. Openly, blatantly, unwaveringly. Even though I was just their child’s friend, they would preach and lecture to me about all of these rules and ideologies that I was expected to follow. I remember being about four or five still and I was wearing a spaghetti strap shirt at her house. Her father stormed over to me and began lecturing me about how I needed to be aware that they were men in the house and I need to be more modest. Modest… a four or five year old kid’s fucking shoulders were sexy!? He seriously told a little kid to be modest when men were home. Wasn’t even his kid, either. I would say that’s where the cultural and societal grooming began. Where I was obviously lesser than, and responsible for the actions and thoughts of men. Just by existing I always needed to be vigilant. As a 5 year old. And I became obsessed with being a “good girl” as that was clearly the best way to be accepted by the world.

Despite that, I had a dysfunctional and bad home life. You know how they say that for kids who don’t get any attention, any attention counts as good attention? Very true in my case. I became sexually active and promiscuous around age 10 or 11. I would act provocatively and pretty desperate for any form of male attention. Obviously this caused absolutely no man to respect me and it was an extremely failed attempt to get validation, security, attachment and love that I wasn’t getting at home. But since I had already internalized that sexuality was shameful, but sexuality also seems to be the only way for me to receive any love (or so I thought), I was a very conflicted, torn, and moody kid. I had no idea what my identity was and I had no idea where my place was in this world. Feeling lost, I felt vulnerable to any type of message that I was a horrible and incompetent person who needed forgiveness. I just wanted to belong somewhere. I wanted a family and a community.

Cue my parents deciding they didn’t want to take care of us during the summer (my mom was a housewife who had house keepers but apparently it was still too fucking hard to hang out with your own kids), so they sent me to a very expensive, elitist Christian summer camp for several weeks during the summer. I admit, It was really nice to be around so many peers and to have that sense of community and belonging. Since I felt safe here, I decided to open up to one of my camp counselors about how I was acting and that I was basically soliciting sex for love. As an adult… If a child who is barely pubescent told me she was already sexually active and had been for some time … I would be waving all of the the red Flags I could hold and insist on a deep investigation of that kids home life and family to find out who exactly was not taking care of this child properly. That whole conversation, to a normal person, would’ve been very disturbing and concerning. But this was the land of “good Christians” and they demanded I called my parents and tell them everything about my sexual history. Considering that me and my parents were not close and barely even spoke to each other, this was an awkward conversation to have, and they literally did not care. Literally, I was gasping through tears trying to explain the whole story as the counselor smirked over my shoulders as I called my parents and my mom literally was like “OK we’ll talk about this”, and of course it was never addressed.

Shortly thereafter is when I began to think for myself and became an atheist. But it wasn’t just me. I befriended another girl later on who was one of 11 children. She was absolutely miserable and confessed to me that she was secretly suicidal and had made suicide attempts because her parents decided that she could just be the second mom and take care of all the kids when they didn’t feel like it. Of course, her mom didn’t work either, since they were all a bunch of good Catholics, their church donated them a McMansion of a home and gave them a lot of handouts. Why budget only to have kids that you can actually afford when you can just keep popping them out knowing that the church will congratulate you for bringing more believers into the world? Of course, the church didn’t actually care about those children or else my friend would not have been forced to be secretly suicidal and conceal her misery. Because again, if she had spoken up and expressed that her parents had done a stupid thing and that she was tired of picking up the slack for their actions, who knows what kind of consequence she could’ve actually faced for that. That wouldn’t be “good Catholic” of her.

I had my own daughter a few years ago and the first question out of many people’s mouth’s was demanding to know if I was going to get her baptized, if I was going to allow her to have premarital sex, and if I was going to raise her up with Jesus in her heart. Those questions are very irritating and disturbing. Why the fuck do people feel entitled to know the future details of an actual infants potential sex life? Shit is so fucking weird. I put a stop to that and we are an atheist/secular home. If my kids want to question or pursue religion, they are more than welcome to. I won’t stand in their way. But they’re not going to pick up those toxic messages in their childhood. I have to go out of my way to defend them from things like that. But I won’t allow it. The rug sweeping, the forced happiness, the cultism. No thank you.

[liberty-spiked]

thank you christian countries for giving me a long weekend at this time.