#she's so so conservative but she only interacts with other conservative catholics | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hannieehaee · 9 months ago

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HELLFIRE

18+ / mdi

summary: whenever he was at a crossroads, seokmin always knew he could turn to god. however, with the recent thoughts you've been putting in his head, he's not sure god will show him the answer this time around.

content: virgin!seokmin, catholic!seokmin, religious repression, old fashioned and exaggerated catholic beliefs, very brief mention of homophobia, very conservative beliefs, a lowkey cult-ish view of catolicism oops, seokmin is veryyy socially awkward and not used to socialization outside of religion, his parents are super overbearing, lots of family tensions, seokmin has an estranged brother (jeonghan), conflicting emotions about god, sexual repression, reader is an atheist, afab reader, smut, dry humping, oral (m and f receiving), handjob, penetrative sex, loss of virginity, etc.

wc: 13k

a/n: she's here!! i didnt write an outline for this and i kinda only focused on seokmin's pov for this which makes reader kinda look like she's trying to corrupt him for no reason lol but i promise its still fluffy and cute <3

masterlist | kofi/patreon

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Normalcy for Seokmin had always equated to the church. It was what he'd known since childhood and what he grew up surrounded by up until his current age.

His upbringing had been good by all accounts. Although he had an estranged brother who he didn't get to see too often, he had a father and a mother who cherished him like no one else. His financial means were also to be envied, as he was raised in a wealthy part of town and had always been surrounded by an upper class community – a heavily religious community.

This community was one that Seokmin always respected and cherished. Being brought up going from one private catholic school onto the next as he aged, Seokmin never knew anything other than the constant supervision of nuns and religious figures who would constantly guide him in the right direction (at least according to the bible). While others may think this lifestyle to be restricting, Seokmin knew it to be the proper path for a young man to follow. He never complained about the bi-weekly mass he had to attend with his parents, nor about the separation by gender that was mandated by his school. Seokmin knew all his prayers by heart and was sure of what his role in society must be. In short, Seokmin knew and did all things proper and by the letter.

As a young man (at the ripe age of 20), Seokmin finally found himself in a society that was not of catholic background. After transferring from a two year college in town (one centered around catholic studies, of course), Seokmin was now readying himself to move away from home in order to finalize his education in a fully co-ed institution for the following two years.

It wasn't like Seokmin had never interacted with people outside of the church (or with women in general). He was simply a bit on the shier side when it came to non-religious endeavors and usually only stuck by his religious community, which often abided by old-fashioned rules found in the bible. For instance, Seokmin had been so dedicated to the church that he would usually spend his free time volunteering at the church's food drive or performing with his church group at various family-friendly events around town. This meant that Seokmin's inner circle always consisted of people who had an almost identical ideology as that of his own.

Seokmin felt bad at admitting this (which was why he never vocalized these thoughts), but he could sometimes get a bit tired of the consistency of his life. It was a constant repetition of events surrounded by the same exact people time and time again. He never had any opportunity to be challenged or observe outside opinions, specially not with the constant supervision his community gave youth like him (something about wanting him to follow the right path unlike his older brother). Seokmin knew and trusted his beliefs, so he felt a bit infantilized whenever his own family would become overbearing while ensuring Seokmin didn't go off the rails like his brother had – his brother, who was still a quite a sore subject for him.

And now, Seokmin felt excitement. Knowing he would finally be able to explore the outside world and experience the last couple of years of his college life not under the watchful eye of his church. However, as a strong believer himself, Seokmin had still ensured he would have time to attend mass every week and maybe join a religious club on campus. Although he sometimes felt scrutinized by his family and community, Seokmin had never once faked his belief in God. I mean, it was all he had known thus far and all he felt he could really count on no matter what.

When the day to move into his dorms finally arrived, Seokmin had a difficult time hiding his excitement. His community had thrown him a goodbye party, allowing him to be the main focus of the night as one by one, every adult figure in his life bid their farewells accompanied by thinly veiled warnings to not fall into the bad habits sometimes found in non-religious communities. Seokmin was pure-minded at heart, so he took these warnings with a warm and heartfelt gratitude, knowing that despite his desire to expand his horizons, it was important he kept his beliefs safe.

Thanks to his parents, Seokmin had the fortune of being able to rent a room away from the dorms. His parents had insisted, claiming that dorm life could get quite rowdy and that a roommate who had not been pre-approved by them may give him a bad influence and lead him towards an unholy path. Seokmin, already slightly nervous about heading into the world on his own, agreed in order to give himself a safe space of solitude in case he needed it.

The apartment was pretty close to the dorms themselves, allowing Seokmin a calm commute in his bike every day for his classes. Thus far, he had been in the city for a week, still having a few days before school actually began. He had attended his church club already, meeting all the other members and scouting out who he may be able to befriend in the near future. Everyone seemed pretty much like the preppy rich kids he had grown up with all throughout his years of catholic school. There was a bit more of variety among the people in the club than back home, with the club allowing for co-ed inclusion of members (something which was quite common in church groups, though Seokmin had grown too accustomed by his non co-ed upbringing). They also seemed to come from different backgrounds, but ultimately Seokmin could tell that just like him, they were very likely brought up in a very coddled and comfortable way. This was how your presence in the club first stood out to him.

While everyone seemed very put together and happy to be there, you caught Seokmin's attention right away. Your visible discomfort was the first thing Seokmin noticed. Though you looked as nice and welcoming as anyone else, Seokmin could see that you seemed like a closed book. Your eyes did not light up the same as the rest of the members, nor did you actively participate in the icebreaker activities set up by the club. Seokmin also caught onto the fact that the other members already knew each other (likely from previous years at the college), while they treated you like a black sheep. And of course, Seokmin couldn't help but notice your appearance, which made it difficult for him to look away from you.

Of course, Seokmin had had female friends in the past. It's not like his church separated the pews by gender or anything like that. Seokmin was just slightly reserved. With his constant attendance at institutions that insisted upon gender separation at all times and very overbearing parents, Seokmin never really had the chance to form any type of relationship with any girl throughout his youth. He had teamed up with other female volunteers while working at charities and had even been in charge of showing new girls in the community around the church's premises. However, these were very isolated instances.

As of the past twenty years, Seokmin was yet to ever really think about women liberally. He was always taught that time for those things would come eventually, whatever that meant. It was something that had been repeated to him by both his parents, neighbors, the reverend, and even at some point by his brother (though his brother had said it in a sarcastic tone, which confused Seokmin even further).

And now here he was, sitting quietly across the room from you as he watched you in silence, barely paying attention to whichever new activity the group leaders were discussing for the first charity event they'd hold during the upcoming semester.

You were pretty. Seokmin could tell that much. His mind did not process anything other than your features for almost the entirety of the meeting, being far too occupied by analyzing every inch of your person as he unknowingly held his breath.

His eyes on you did not seem to catch your attention at any point, but they did catch the attention of a fellow member of the group who was sitting near him.

"You know her?", asked the nameless member.

"Oh, uh, what? No, I was just– "

"She's not really a member here, you know. Just kind of an honorary one, I guess."

"What do you mean?", he finally took his eyes off you due to his sudden interest in the conversation.

"Her parents pay for her tuition as long as she can prove she's an active member of the local catholic community. Apparently she just pretends for them, but her parents still somehow bought her way into the club", the guy lowered his voice to a whisper, "I heard she's an atheist, man. We just have to kinda ignore she's there."

Though Seokmin knew that his parents' immediate reaction to such gossip would be shock at the blatant disrespect you were showing towards your parents who clearly just wanted you to not stray away from the path of God, Seokmin was more annoyed at the guy who found it so easy to talk about you behind your back completely unprompted.

While Seokmin couldn't understand why someone would claim themselves atheist when it was so clear to him how life had been created, he still saw it wrong to judge someone for their beliefs. It was oftentimes that churchgoers back home would exhibit malicious intentions such as what he'd just witnessed from his fellow group member. You were clearly not bothering anyone and even looked pretty aware of the alienation the members were putting you through, so Seokmin couldn't help but feel sad for you.

He shyly shrugged off the guy who had made him privy to your information and went back to staring at you as you sat back and seemingly waited for the bi-weekly meeting to end.

Despite catching his curiosity that day, Seokmin did not end up having any contact with you, being way too shy to even hold eye contact with you as the meeting ended.

Days passed and Seokmin finally started school. He had to admit, he felt completely out of his league. Thanks to his parents, he was never properly socialized as a child. While most members of the church would have active social lives outside of their ministry (even going to public schools and participating in non-catholic leisure activities), Seokmin had always been confined into a box that only allowed him to interact with other heavily religious people. This was never a problem to Seokmin, who was happy to dedicate his life to the lord. Except now it was proving troublesome.

Since professors had a tendency to get liberal during discussions at times, he felt scandalized by many of the subjects spoken about during class. He also felt awkward interacting with other people his age, who would share very different beliefs from his own. Seokmin had even attempted to dabble into social media at some point now that he was not under his parent's' watchful eye, but even that had him feeling unseemly.

Overall, Seokmin felt embarrassed at how little life experience he had due to having dedicated his entire life thus far to serving both God and his parents. He was beginning to understand why his brother Jeonghan had left home as soon as he turned of age. He had always judged him for it, but his judgment was beginning to fade away.

Now that he no longer had his parents nor community around (much less his brother), the only comfort he could turn to was that of his nightly prayers.

His struggles continued for the following weeks, with Seokmin becoming a bit of an outcast in most social situations. He was quite outgoing in the church, but this was a completely different environment in which he felt ridiculous every time he tried to interact with people who had had far more social advantages and freedom than he did growing up.

Keeping a low profile had been easy to achieve for Seokmin. He decided after a few very awkward interactions that he would simply become an outcast and stick to himself, only ever interacting with his church club the few times a week they'd meet (though unfortunately never having the courage to interact with you). This seemed to work up until the second week of school, in which Seokmin's women's studies teacher informed the class they'd be doing a partner project for the entirety of the semester.

Seokmin had taken the class against his parents' wishes, feeding them with a white lie that it was part of the necessary curriculum in order to graduate. He argued to himself that this was a subject he would never be exposed to in his community, knowing his community to be slightly ... old-fashioned. This part of his life always made him embarrassed, – not really sharing many of the beliefs his community had tried to drill into him – so he wanted to atone for his lack of knowledge now that he was in a completely independent environment.

Teaming up with someone back home was always easy, as he was quite popular both in church and at school. Here, however, he had already given himself the reputation of awkward and overly dedicated to God – he had stated his devotion to God during the individual introductions they'd done on week 1, leading to low chuckles and uncomfortable looks from his classmates – which was something that the general population did not seem to like. He was avoided by his fellow women's studies classmates since then.

Sure, Seokmin did share a few old-fashioned catholic beliefs such as the necessity devotion to God and the importance of one's purity being kept until marriage, but he did not agree with any other bigoted beliefs shared by many catholic communities. He had genuinely taken this class with the hope to learn and expand his horizons, but most people in it had already decided that he must be a close-minded weirdo.

By some struck of luck, as Seokmin sat back, completely defeated while he watched other people stand up and enthusiastically find a partner, he suddenly heard someone clear their throat to call his attention.

It was you.

He hadn't realized you were taking this class too due to the high mass of students (about 100, give or take). And now he found himself looking up at you from his seat as you gave him what seemed to him like a confident grin.

"Hi, Seokmin," you sat next to him without so much as asking.

Your sitting position was troublesome for Seokmin, as he noticed the way in which your short skirt rid up as you crossed your legs and leaned towards him. You were wearing more revealing clothing today than any other time in which he'd seen you at the bi-weekly meetings. Your attire wasn't provocative by any means, it was just that you were always more covered up at the meetings. Seokmin assumed it might've been due to some scrutiny you may have faced by the members. This made him frown internally.

"Oh ... hi. Y-you know my name?", he sat up from his slouched position and faced his body towards yours, though he was too shy to meet your eyes for too long.

"Of course I do, Seokmin. We're in a church group together, remember?"

You carried a very confident and laid back air to you despite having only spoken to him for the first time just now. You also seemed much livelier than back at the confined room where his fellow church group members gathered. This was likely due to the lack of scrutiny you usually received completely unwarranted while at his church group's meetings.

"Ah, yeah, just, uh, didn't realize you noticed me."

"C'mon, Seokmin. You're the only person in there who doesn't look at me like I killed their dog. Of course I'd notice you."

He wasn't sure how to respond, but that at least answered the question as to whether or not you were aware of the gossip a few of the other members had let him in on.

"I'm sure that's not true ... I– "

"It's fine, really. Anyways, I just wanted to ask you if you'd like to partner up?", you suggested, completely unfazed by the mention of your judgmental group mates.

"O-oh. You want to? I mean, yeah! Of course," he couldn't help but feel relieved at the prospect of not having to meet with the professor after class to let her know he'd need her assistance finding a partner.

"Great. Here, put your number in my phone and I'll let you know when I can stop by your place so we can brainstorm," you handed him your phone as if nothing; as if you weren't suggesting going over alone to his apartment unsupervised.

He hesitated but gave you his number, flinching a bit when your hands accidentally touched.

"Thanks. I was thinking this Friday. Is that okay with you?"

"Oh, y-yeah. Sure," he mustered a toothy smile for you.

You giggled under your breath, "Okay, Seokmin. Looking forward to seeing you," there was a permanent smile in your eyes as you spoke to him, making him a bit giddy.

He bid his goodbyes back and finally let out a puff of air when you parted ways.

The rest of the class period was completely wasted to Seokmin. His mind was too giddy and preoccupied with thoughts of seeing you again, this time in a more intimate setting. The thought made him anxious, though he also felt some weird tingling he wasn't fully sure how to describe.

Did this mean you had noticed him too? Had he stood out to you in this huge hall? The thought made him shudder before regaining control of himself and starting to anxiously doodle on his notebook.

He snuck a glance over at the direction in which you left, now localizing your seat. You were talking to a few friends, which confused Seokmin greatly. This meant that you already had friends in this class, so why would you go out of your way to team up with him? Was his curiosity about you maybe mutual? This question would surely be all Seokmin thought about for the next two days until the two of you finally met up to discuss your project.

Seokmin saw you again the following day at second bi-weekly meeting of the week.

Once more, you sat back and said nothing, only bothering to sign your name on the attendance board at the start of the meeting and taking your usual seat away from everyone else.

Your attire was different from what you had been wearing in your women's studies class just a few hours ago. You had donned a long skirt and a long sleeve too instead of the tiny shorts he had seen you wearing previously. This change in attire made no difference to Seokmin, however, since he already knew what your bare legs looked like and could not prevent himself in picturing them as he stared.

Your presence had yet again proved to be incredibly distracting to Seokmin, who had already been thinking about you ever since you had suggested to meet at his place.

There was no one he could ask for advice about what to wear or what to do. His friends back home would frown at the thought of Seokmin even considering an unchaperoned gathering with a girl – especially an self-declared atheist who was simply pretending to be catholic for her parents.

His parents were also not a good option. Seokmin could just picture the gasp in surprise at the revelation that his women's studies class (one which his parents had called 'useless' and 'made up') had enticed him into bringing a girl home while no one else was around. He cringed at the mere thought of them attempting to intercept the situation by barging in and lecturing both you and him on proper relations between man and woman.

Seokmin knew he was overthinking all of this, but he had an internal conflict. On one side, he knew that this was just a regular meeting between classmates to discuss a project, but this was his first time alone with a girl (one he had a bit of a crush on, at that!) On the other side, Seokmin couldn't help but feel like he was breaking his parents' trust. They had explicitly forbid him from ever engaging in any type of relationship with any girl unless she was pre-approved by them (something which they'd already tried and failed at doing with Jeonghan). And on a secret third side of things, Seokmin felt like now that he was alone and untrained on what life was like in the real world, it'd be easy for him to fall susceptible to desire and betray God's word. He hadn't had any unbecoming feelings thus far, but his crush on you was enough for this fear to be instilled in him.

For now, Seokmin had the rest of his school day to worry about, so he pushed these thoughts aside and tried to draw his eyes away from your figure as he attempted to pay attention to whichever biblical lesson the group's assigned leader read from.

This was yet another biblical lesson Seokmin had heard time and time again. Despite his strong devotion to God, Seokmin always felt a little belittled at the constant repetition of teachings he had been hearing since childhood. Were his personal beliefs and devotion to God not enough? Why did he need other people to give him their own ideas of religion when he himself was an expert at all of God's teachings by now?

He related to your current situation in this aspect. Even if he felt comfortable in his religious stance, he had to join this club in order to prove to his parents that he was an active participant in the local religious community. He had to constantly deal with his parents' paranoia that he may stray away from God in the way his brother had. His constant assurance that his relationship with God was too strong for breaking was not enough for them; they simply couldn't help showing up in every corner of his life even as far away as he currently was.

Seokmin sighed at these thoughts and drew them away as much as he could. His mind was already preoccupied with thoughts of you coming over tomorrow evening.

That night he went home and prayed his anxieties away, turning to the only being he could possibly trust with his grievances.

"Hi", you smiled brightly at Seokmin, hands holding onto the handles of your backpack as you stood in front of his open apartment door.

"H-hey."

He stepped aside to let you in, wincing internally as he noticed the short length of the white dress you were wearing. He could tell by now that your personal style was more revealing than what you chose to wear at religious gatherings. He couldn't blame you, but he wished you'd cover up more for his poor sanity.

"Do you wanna do it here or did you wanna do it in your bedroom?", you broke him out of his train of thought.

"H-huh ? D-do what? Oh, oh! Yeah. I mean, here is fine. Unless you want to do it in my bedroom? I mean, do the work in my bed– yeah!"

He physically winced at his stupid thoughts; the dumb paranoia that this was more than a platonic study date had gotten to him despite having prayed to calm his nerves just minutes before your arrival.

Luckily for him, all you did was giggle under your breath and take a seat on his couch before taking off your backpack and settling your stuff on his table.

Dumbly, he stood there just watching you, catching sight of your dress riding up yet again in the same way it had two days ago in class.

You patted the space on the couch next to you, telling him to come sit, that you 'didn't bite.' The best response he could muster to that was an awkward chuckle and a follow-up on your instruction.

He made sure to leave ample space between the two of you, even making sure to avoid eye contact as he also pulled out a few notes of his own.

Without saying anything, you scoot closer to him, even turning to face him further, though still facing forward for the most part. Your knees were now bumping into his and your scent was near enough to invade his senses.

"Is this okay? Am I too close?", you asked when you noticed him stiffen.

"N-no. I'm sorry. I ... I'm being dumb. You're fine."

"Then how come you won't look this way?", you leaned even further towards him, making sure his eyes couldn't miss yours from his position.

He braved it and turned to face you, though his eyes were trained on your chin rather than your eyes. He now realized there was less distance between you than he thought.

"I'm sorry, I ..."

You interrupted him but grabbing his chin and gesturing him to look into your eyes.

"Do I make you nervous, Seokmin? You can look at me. You know that, right? It's not a sin to look into a girl's eyes", though your words sounded like mockery, your tone was as soft as your eyes.

He gulped and finally allowed himself to look at you. You were far too close now. Things had progressed too quickly, and in ways that Seokmin had thought were ridiculous to assume when he'd been going over the possibilities of your visit today. Yet here he was, eyes nervously staring into yours, trying their hardest to not lower to your lips or cleavage.

"You're exactly as I thought you would be," you started, hand moving from his chin to softly run your thumb on his cheek, "You're not like them. You're sweet ... But you're scared, aren't you?"

He didn't know where this was going, but your tone was soft and your words sweet so he nodded silently.

"It's okay to want things, Seokmin. Doesn't make you a bad person. You wanna please Him, though, don't you? Don't wanna disappoint Him?"

You were seeing right through him. It made him feel both understood but also like he was just as superficial as he thought the judgmental members of your church group to be.

"I just ..."

"It's okay, Seokmin. He'd want you to be happy. I ... I know it's meaningless hearing it from me, but He wouldn't want you to face this turmoil. You can give in. It's okay, I promise", your last words were said in the form of a whisper against his lips.

You were so close he could breathe you in, but his lips were unfortunately still not touching your own. This frustrated Seokmin, though it also relieved him. He felt way too heated to even engage in something as innocent as a kiss.

He knew that his first kiss would only lead to more. He had been so pent up all this years, shaming any desire away from his mind at every opportunity. He had never even pleasured himself, knowing it was frowned upon by God – at least that's the thought that was hammered into him since way too young an age.

He remembered the various conversations in which any thought of a relationship were verbally beaten out of him. He remembered the reaction of his parents when he had let it slip in kindergarten (his last year in a non-catholic institution) that he had a crush on the girl who'd been assigned as his new desk mate. He recalled the way his mom talked down on the four-year old girl, claiming her parents were not catholic and that she would be a bad influence on him. He remembered when his first phone was confiscated from him at fifteen when his father caught him watching the latest Twice music video at the time, claiming such things would lead him to impure thoughts. He remembered the last day he saw his brother two years ago right after a screaming match with his parents who had insulted and demeaned Jeonghan's partner, claiming he would burn in hell for his decisions against the lord's word.

With all these thoughts plaguing his mind, Seokmin let himself become numb to any spiritual consequences that would come from letting himself go. He found himself internally damning anything that wasn't your lips or the feeling of your hand on his cheek and sighed against you when you finally closed the gap.

Seokmin couldn't help himself in whining into your mouth when he felt your tongue tease his mouth open and begin intertwining with his own.

His arms were stiff against his sides and his lips far too shy and sloppy. It worried him that maybe he was not pleasing you in the way you did him, specially when you pulled away and spoke to him.

Your eyes were still on his lips and the distance between you remained small as you spoke up, "Follow my lead, okay Minnie? Let me show you .."

You kissed him again, this time slower and more sensual. It made his eyes roll back.

He took the hint and began moving his tongue in the same way yours did. He also shyly ran his hands up and down your back upon your wordless insistence that his arms wrap around your form. Following your instructions felt natural, though what you did next caught him completely off guard.

Your hands had snuck away from his cheek, with one now pulling at his hair (and making his eyes roll even further back in the process) and your other hand sneaking into his pants, touching him softly through his boxers.

He jumped back and accidentally disconnected your lips, gasping at the sudden intrusion.

"I ... I cant, I don't ..."

"It's okay if you don't want to, Minnie. I should've asked," you drew back a little, making Seokmin jump once again, but this time to make sure you stayed close.

"It's not that, I just ... I don't– "

"It's okay to want me. It's okay if you want this. We can stop if you want to, but ... you can want me ... You won't get in trouble, I promise."

Your lips were still close enough for him to reach, making him hesitantly grace them with his own. Thankfully you took the hint, giving him a wanton kiss that had him feeling dizzy.

He thoughtlessly kissed you back, whining any time you did something he particularly liked. You didn't attempt touching under his pants again, now simply sticking to running your hands up and down his clothed chest while his shyly caressed your back.

The kiss got heated pretty quickly, making him extremely light headed. He didn't know where this was going nor how he would feel afterwards, but he couldn't find it in himself to care.

His thoughts were interrupted when your lips left his own and trailed from his cheek to his ear, licking and nibbling at his lobe before whispering in it.

"Is this okay?"

"Y– yes. Please ..."

Your kisses against his neck had him throwing his head back. If he was mindless before, he was fully without a care now. Even if his community ever found out what he was up to during his first month away from home, he didn't care in this moment. His guilt may come later, but for now all he could do was enjoy your kiss.

"Can I play with you, Minnie?", you pulled away and gave him a sweet peck before asking.

"You ... It's wrong, I– He'll ..."

"He won't know, Minnie. It's okay. It'll feel so good."

You hesitantly snuck your hand under his trousers once more, slowly enough to allow him to deny you should he wish to. His sinful desire for you prevented him from moving, so you continued until your hand was wrapped around him.

"A– ah ... Y– you ... I've never ..." he sighed.

"Never touched yourself like this before?"

"'s not allowed, I ... I shouldn't ..."

"It's okay. I'm just taking care of you. Nothing wrong with taking care of your needs, right Minnie?"

He felt mocked by how ridiculous it sounded coming out of your mouth. But he still felt guilt. Guilt at every moan that left his mouth as you slowly rubbed up and down his length. Guilt at the way he wanted your lips back on his. Guilt at how difficult it was for him to drag his gaze away from your soft mounds peaking from your cleavage.

One thing was betraying everything his parents had always warned him about, but betraying God's word made him feel like he'd burn up until the day he faced his punishment.

Except he couldn't bring you to stop. He couldn't prevent himself in mindlessly nodding at you and asking you to please not stop.

Suddenly you grabbed his arm, directing it towards your chest. You must've noticed his heavy eyes eyeing your cleavage and realized what thoughts had been going through his perverted mind.

"Wanna touch them? It's okay, just ... just squeeze, yeah? That's it, fuck ... You're so pretty, Minnie," you sighed oh so prettily as soon as he followed your direction and experimentally squeezed at your clothed breasts.

He moaned and moaned at both your touch on him and his on yours. But he began to panic when he felt himself heating up more and more, feeling like he would soon reach a crescendo that he would never be able to fall back from.

"It's okay, Minnie. Let go. Let go for me, pretty. I'll take care of you," you must've sensed his panic and shut him up with your tongue in his mouth, swallowing his whines of pleasure as his end took over him.

He had never felt such pleasure before. Every touch you gave him was better than the last, making him wonder what other sinful acts with you would end up feeling like. He shuddered at the thought and went back to the blissful state his high was giving him.

You kept whispering soft praises to him, telling him that it was okay and that he could let go. He hadn't realized that he was crying until one of your hands softly wiped the tears from his cheeks and kissed softly at them. He felt more loved by your care than he ever had before. The seed of doubt was then planted into his head; why would such a loving an intimate act ever be seen as anything but holy?

He began to feel corrupted, but also conflicted on his thoughts on the matter. One thing he knew for sure, however; this would not be enough – he would seek you again and again.

After even more caring words from you, the two of you parted ways with no work done. You kissed him goodbye and told him you'd see him again soon. He responded shyly but you accepted it with yet another kiss and finally left his apartment.

That night Seokmin attempted to pray his conflicting thoughts away once more, but even then, Seokmin left mention of you out of his prayers, fearing that acknowledging your sudden and rapid effect on him would be the downfall of his purity and of the already strained relationship with his parents.

The following Monday, Seokmin saw you again at the first of the two bi-weekly meetings of your church group. As per usual, you sat alone on a corner while the rest of the club engaged in conversation with one another.

Seokmin chose to sit back once again, deciding to watch you from afar rather than participate in the conversation like he usually did, except this time you began to occasionally look back at him with a sweet smile. Your eye contact would cause him to look down with a blush, but after enough instances of catching your eye, he decided to shyly smile back at you. This proved to be fruitful, as you suddenly stood up and quietly walked your way over to him. Due to the conversation being led by the other group members, your new seat next to Seokmin went unnoticed, causing Seokmin's nerves to not flare up too much.

It was wordless but soft, the way in which you shared a seat with him and offered him yet another sweet smile. He felt giddy at having your attention in such a way. He was aware that he barely knew you, but having you become part of his life (in any way you may have wanted) made him feel a sense of pride he had never felt before.

The two of you spent the rest of the meeting giving each other shy smiles and playing tick tack toe on his notebook. When it was time to part ways, you finally spoke up and told Seokmin you needed to head back first, as your next class was far away. Seokmin wanted to offer to walk you, but was interrupted by another member of the group who called his attention – the same guy who had previously warned him about you. Due to the standoffish manner in which other group members behaved around you, you left awkwardly while Seokmin frowned and stayed back.

Slightly frustrated at not being able to bid you a proper goodbye (or walk with you as he had wished to offer), Seokmin's demeanor to his group mate was less polite than usual.

"What, are you two friends?", asked the member in a somewhat accusatory tone.

"I ... Yeah, maybe. Why?"

"I wouldn't advise that, Seokmin. She's a bad influence. I mean, you haven't been participating as much as when you first got here. It starts when you least expect it. Just don't want you to fall down a bad path."

"What bad path?"

"She was part of our faith at some point. Until she got corrupted, and now she just infiltrates our spaces like a nuance. She'll corrupt you in the same way if you're not careful. Take the advice, brother. Just don't get too close," and with that, he gave Seokmin a condescending nod and made his way out.

Since leaving home, Seokmin had forgotten how many churchgoers would cross boundaries without much care. How they would use the excuse of being 'sons and daughters' of God to be judgmental.

He saw no issue with your behavior. Maybe you had kissed Seokmin and maybe you had ... done other stuff to him. But you weren't a bad person for that. It wasn't like Seokmin stopped you (or even wanted to stop you). He wasn't sure why he felt so defensive over his groupmate's advice, but he couldn't help but be peeved off by this interaction for the rest of the day.

His mood stayed so sour towards his groupmate's harsh judgment of you that he had forgotten to do his nightly prayer before going to sleep, even forgetting to send a message with his blessings to his parents like he usually did.

The next morning he awoke to some overbearing messages from his parents inquiring why he had not messaged them the night prior. Seokmin was surprised at himself when his first reaction to their myriad of messages was to roll his eyes and lock his phone back up. He loved his parents, but his separation from them had quickly showed him how controlling they tended to be. But Seokmin realized it wasn't only them; it was the entirety of the puritanical and judgmental community he had grown up with.

Despite having only hung out with you once, you were already a breath of fresh air to Seokmin. You didn't judge him over his shy and socially awkward demeanor. He had a hunch that since you two belonged to the same church group and had likely had similar upbringings, you probably understood why he was the way that he was. Unlike everyone else he had met at this school so far (other than the other members of the church group), you weren't mean to him nor did you ever ignore him. You had seeked him out! The thought still gave him butterflies.

The two of you continued to casually hang out like this over the next week or so, though it usually tended to be only while on meetings with your church group or during your women's studies class.

Contrasting with your previous meeting, any time the two of you would hang out now mostly consisted of working on your project or getting to know each other. He had come to find out that you were here on a scholarship and that, as the nosy guy in your church group had stated, you were only attending the church group to appease your parents' belief that you should maintain some type of connection to God regardless of your beliefs in catholicism. You didn't get too much into it, but you also informed Seokmin that despite what the group members believed, you did not have a bad relationship with your parents due to your contrasting beliefs. This made Seokmin envious, pondering about how his parents would react should he ever find himself changing his faith.

Through the few times you saw each other in class, Seokmin grew to like you more and more. He knew now that he felt something for you that he had never before. He had a crush, for arguably one of the first times in his life. There were also more sinister feelings dwelling in his mind, however. Sometimes he would think back to that day alone in his apartment, when you took his innocence (though only partially). He wanted more, but he felt like he was simultaneously sinning and disrespecting you by even thinking about it. He still felt conflicted about last time, thinking himself a sinner and a bad son for disobeying both God and his parents, but he couldn't help himself in wanting more.

A few days later, Seokmin saw you yet again at your shared women's studies class.

Seokmin was completely unable to pay any attention to class today. Unfortunately for his sanity, you had recently begun to sit next to him every time the two of you shared this class. Seokmin had grown accustomed to sitting alone at the very back row of the auditorium in which your women's class was given. The first day he had sat next to a few people, but after mentioning his devotion to God during his personal introduction, he found people not only avoiding his eye and snickering at him but even going out of their way to sit away from him. You had been the sole exception, deciding to sit with him a few days after your meeting at his apartment, now smiling at him as you sat side by side.

Today, you have him more trouble than usual. You sent him flirtatious smiles during the entirety of class, even occasionally gracing your hand slowly on his leg. This had him shuddering and completely distracted, but he couldn't bring himself to stop you. You gave him a thrill he had never experienced before. While his mind before meeting you had always been dedicated to thinking of God and his duties as a member of the church, his mind was now fully occupied by you. As silly as it sounded, he had never felt the thrill of a crush before (specially not one that was reciprocated like this), and now he didn't know how to act.

"Hey, Minnie," you whispered to him as your professor lectured in the background.

"Y- yeah?"

"Wanna meet at my apartment after class today to study?", you now whispered right against his ear, finger drawing figures on his thigh.

"Oh, I– Of course," he coughed out.

You only giggled quietly in response and went back to paying attention to class (though still occasionally doodling cute hearts in Seokmin's notebook).

After class, the two of you walked together. Only a few minutes into your walk through campus, you slipped your hand into his. He was surprised by this, but allowed himself to squeeze yours back. His heart soared when you started swinging your intertwined hands back and forth.

Was this what romance felt like? The thought alone made Seokmin feel giddier than he had ever before. He relished in the simple act of holding your hand and felt pride any time you'd stop for a few seconds to say hi to some friends, never once letting go of his hand and even giving a quick introduction of his name.

You were quite literally heaven on Earth to Seokmin. He couldn't wait to get to know you even further.

Walking to your place took about half an hour, but it was worth it the moment the two of you stepped in and you immediately pushed Seokmin against the wall, stealing a kiss from him.

"Minnie ... Been thinking about you since last time ..." you kissed at his neck, pulling his collared neckline out of the way.

"Me too ..."

"Yeah? What'd you think about?", you paused to pull back and look at him, "You don't regret it, do you? Was I too much?", your tone was genuine, more genuine than he had ever heard anyone direct themselves to him.

"N-no, of course not. I've, uh, I wanted more ... Just .. was too shy to ask."

"Aw, Minnie. You don't have to be shy with me. We can do anything you're comfortable with," you shared a sweet smile with him before pulling him back in for a heated kiss.

This was only Seokmin's second instance in kissing you, – last time having been only over a week back – but he now found it easier to match your rhythm and play with your tongue in ways that had you humming against his lips. He wanted to give you pleasure in the way you'd given it to him. So far he felt like he'd been doing well with the kissing. You somehow walked him over to your bedroom without disconnecting your lips, making his heart speed up at the thought of what was coming up next.

He yelped against your lips when you pushed and straddled him on the bed, hands too shy to know where to touch. Fortunately, you didn't leave him hanging for long and positioned them on your waist for him.

"Minnie ... I don't wanna pressure you. So we're gonna do something similar to last time, yeah?"

He was of course in agreement, but ...

"I ... I wanna make you feel good too ... Please?", he almost winced at how pathetic he sounded. He also had absolutely no idea of how to please you. He had never even considered watching porn (being told he'd go to hell for even entertaining such thoughts), nor had he ever received any type of sexual education. As lame as it sounded, Seokmin was completely clueless as to what women did for pleasure. He had been clueless as to how male pleasure worked up until you had shown him.

"Do you want me to teach you how, Minnie?", you asked while unbuttoning his shirt.

"Please ..."

You kissed him again in response, wordlessly taking off both his and your clothes. When you finished, Seokmin couldn't help but feel exposed. However, the thought of his own nudity (sans his boxers) left his mind as soon as he realized you were also down to just your underwear.

With his mouth agape and his arms not knowing where to go, Seokmin simply sat under you and sweat bullets as he attempted not to stare anywhere below your chin.

Noticing his nervous demeanor, you giggled at him and put your hand on his cheek while the other remained on his shoulder.

"Oh, Minnie ... So pretty. Do you even know how pretty you are?", you ran your hands up and down his chest in a sweet manner, "And I'm the only one who gets to see it, hmm? All mine?",

"Y-your .... yes ... for you."

"Fuck. I'm gonna have so much fun with you. Gonna teach you everything."

Despite your words' effect on him, his main focus right now was your almost bare body and its proximity to him. He could feel the heat of your skin against his. His mind kept thinking about what you must look like beneath your underwear, with his eyes heavy and glued to your covered breasts.

"Want me to take off my bra, Minnie? You just have to ask. I'll go as far as you want to go," you pecked his lips yet again, still running your hands up and down his chest.

"Y-yeah. Wanna see you. Is that ... is that okay? Just wanna make you feel as- as good as you did me ..."

Your breath hitched, "Oh, angel ... So sweet and selfless. I'll show you. Fuck, I'll show you everything."

You separated yourself from him a bit in order to give him a full view. Then, in slow and sensual movements, you threw off your bra, proceeding to caress your own breasts as you gave Seokmin a sultry look.

Fuck.

What type of teachings were preventing him from seeing you in your barest of forms? You were nothing lesser than art itself. You were so warm and beautiful; so soft and perfect – both inside and out. Seokmin couldn't believe he had ever considered such things to be scandalous (which admittedly, he still kind of believed). At the same time, he was kind of glad he had never engaged in such acts before, because it allowed for you to be the first (and hopefully last) woman he would ever see in such an intimate setting.

Those thoughts aside, Seokmin was short-circuiting. He was so distracted he didn't even notice you removing your panties and settling back on his lap until you verbally called his attention again.

"Minnie? Wanna feel them? Hmm?", your hands were already on his, leading them directly to your soft mounds.

"F-fuck," he couldn't help but groan upon feeling the weight of them on his hands, "you're so beautiful ... Y-you're, oh fuck-"

Words could not express the unimaginable beauty he was witnessing, nor the arousal he felt at having you so bare and willing in front of him. He didn't know what to do or how he was supposed to react. He felt kind of bad at his wordless state, but he couldn't help being speechless at feeling such pleasure from merely seeing you.

"Like this, Minnie. Just- fuck ... yeah, like that ..." you instructed for his thumbs to play with your nipples, even making him pinch at them. Your sighs and the way you arched your back were enough for Seokmin to want to leave everything behind and dedicate his life to your pleasure.

"K- kiss them? Please, Minnie ..."

He took your order immediately, leaning down to kiss around your nipples, glasses fogging from the close proximity to your skin.

Your sighs intensified and your hand moved to angle his head so that his lips would land on your nipple. Taking the hint, he enveloped your pert nipple in between his lips and sucked, licking and nibbling at it as he saw fit. Eventually he lost himself a bit, allowing his hands to fondle your breasts desperately as he whined into your breast. Your whines for more made him lose his mind, leading to his mind fogging up even more.

This progressed for a while until you finally moved his head away from your tits and stole a wet kiss from his lips.

"You're so good, Minnie. So obedient ... Such a good boy for me," you breathed against his lips, wiping his foggy glasses before slipping them back on.

He physically keened at your praise, not at all used to being praised for such filthy behavior but still extremely pleased he was making you feel good.

"Now ... now I'm gonna show you how to make me feel good, yeah? Still wanna try that, angel?"

He nodded too enthusiastically, glasses coming out of place due to his enthusiasm.

"Okay, baby," you giggled, "Need you to kneel on the floor for me, okay? Right between my legs ..."

Oh. You wanted him to-

He had never explored his sexual desires in any way, so he was fully unaware where exactly this was going, but the thought of looking up at you while he made you feel good between your legs sounded like the holiest act known to human.

He followed your direction, groaning when he saw the hidden space between your legs glisten.

"Oh, God ..."

"Shh, don't use the lord's name in vain, Minnie", you were just teasing, but somehow the reminder of his lord made Seokmin feel a small pang of guilt at the thought of the sin he had been actively committing with you thus far. He decided to push it aside and continue on his path. Nothing mattered to him more right now than your utmost pleasure.

"Lick it?" you used your fingers to open up your folds, letting out even more honey for Seokmin to gawk at.

Wordlessly he got closer and closer, up until his tongue was able to flick at the length of your folds. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding at the taste of your essence, becoming instantly obsessed with its warmth. What he was even more obsessed with, however, was the whine you let out at such a simple touch.

Was it possible for him – an inexperienced and sheltered boy – to make someone like you – a gorgeous and clearly knowledgeable girl – feel this good? He needed to test the theory so he kept licking to his heart's contentment, following the directions your hand gave him as you guided his head against you.

He licked shyly at first, only sucking every now and then as he did his best to act accordingly to the sounds you were making. It didn't help that his mind was plagued by your taste, smell, and the warmth between your legs – not to mention your mewls of pleasure.

"My clit, baby ... Your tongue, angle it here- oh ... fuck, right there, Minnie ..." you angled him so that he could flick his tongue at a tiny little pearl found between your legs.

With all the newfound knowledge he had on how to deliver your pleasure, Seokmin did the best he could to repeat the movements you seemed to really enjoy (at least based on how prettily you'd cry his name after). Despite his mind being completely clouded by the entirety of your person, Seokmin continued to moan and cry against your cunt as he silently begged for more of your cunt against his face.

"M-minnie! Oh ... Fuck. Such a g-good boy ... All mine, shit ... Your tongue, oh ... just like that, angel ... Y-your nose, Minnie, please! Your nose, just- oh! Fuck", you cried for him, at some point taking full control and just grinding against his face as his nose and tongue poked into your most sensitive spots.

Seokmin felt incredibly proud at your mindless state, knowing it was him who had achieved that. Nothing mattered more in that moment than your pleasure; pleasure which only Seokmin could give you.

"Gonna cum for you, angel. Lick it all for me? Be a good boy and take it for me, yeah? Shit!", you practically vibrated against him as your high took over you.

Seokmin kept his face between your legs as you came, doing his best to lick at every single drop of essence and moaning at the taste of you. He allowed you to use his face as you saw fit, reveling in the knowledge that he had given you such other-worldly pleasure.

He didn't know it was possible for him to feel such pleasure from just watching you, but now he understood. If anyone asked, this was what heaven was supposed to look like – a beautiful girl losing herself to Seokmin's touch as he himself tried not to lose his own mind.

Throughout the entirety of your orgasm, Seokmin couldn't control his hips as they ground against the bed with a complete lack of rhythm, simply humping animalistically at you taking over every single one of his senses.

After a few moments of aftershock, you suddenly pulled Seokmin up and attacked him with a filthy kiss; filthier than any you'd shared before.

Your kiss alone had Seokmin struggling to keep himself from cumming in his boxers. You had been testing his self-control from the moment you teased him in class earlier today and he just wasn't sure how much longer he could take until pleasure took over him once again.

"Want me to try it on you, Minnie?", you asked once you pulled away from the kiss.

"That? O-on me?"

"Mhmm. My mouth on you? Is that okay?", you pecked his lips again, seemingly unable to disconnect from him for too long (which Seokmin thoroughly related to).

"Yes", he deadpanned, still out of breath from being suffocated by your thighs and then your lips just moments ago.

You wasted no time in removing his boxers. Seokmin felt slightly shy at this, having never let anyone ever see him nude before. Even last time he had been with you, you had pleasured him through his clothes and not seen past his shirtless state thus far.

But you praised him as soon as he was fully nude, kissing up and down his thighs as you told him how beautiful he was, how pretty and deserving of praise you believed him to be. His whole body heat up at your soft words, with goosebumps forming at your soft kisses that led up closer and closer to where he was aching the most.

He gasped when you finally took a hold of his member, bringing your face close enough to give the weeping tip a kiss.

"O-oh ..." he threw his head back at the sweet yet filthy gesture.

You giggled under your breath and began kitten licking at his tip, sucking lightly every so often. He felt like he had finally arrived to heaven. All those stories about what awaited his good behavior while on earth must've been lies, because he found the greatest reward of all in the form of your mouth wrapped around him.

Getting braver by the second, you put almost the entirety of him in your mouth, doing things with your tongue and lips that his poor brain couldn't even process. He whined and cried at your movements, not able to understand how easily you could bring him to tears.

As he quickly neared his high, his mind turned into mush, not allowing him to register what was going on with his body. All he knew was that his cries got louder by the second, his cheeks now damp with the tears that wouldn't stop falling from his eyes. His hips were uncontrollable, having to be restrained by your hands as he chased for his high with the utmost desperation.

"P-please! I need ... Fuck, please ..." he begged for nothing in particular as his high completely took over.

He felt dirty and disrespectful as he did it, but he came inside your mouth, wincing at the way your moans vibrated while he was still in your mouth. He couldn't help himself; his thoughts had been completely overtaken by the pleasure.

His cries had not stopped as of yet, even rendering him emotional as the high of his orgasm wore down. Now was the moment of regret, knowing he had broken his unspoken oath of celibacy yet again.

This was something all people in his community swore to. It was rarely ever spoken about, but Seokmin knew that he was supposed to save himself for marriage – in every sense. Despite already having quite strong feelings towards you and the things you did to him, Seokmin still felt like he had somehow disrespected you by engaging in such acts with you. But more than anything, he felt like he had disappointed God.

So he cried. He cried into his hands despite how embarrassed he felt at doing such thing in front of you, specially after having shared such intimacy.

"Oh, Minnie ..." you coo'd at him, getting up to hold his large frame in your arms.

You allowed him to exhaust his cries as he quietly asked for forgiveness. He didn't have to explain himself, as you understood. You made your understanding evident by reassuring him that he had done nothing wrong, and that he was still such a good man.

He believed your words and thanked you, eventually calming down enough to stop crying and speak coherently.

"Do you ... do you think He'd be disappointed in me?", he knew it was a stupid question to ask considering your lack of religion. The two of you had never thoroughly discussed religion with one another, but he knew you at least understood where he was coming from.

You pouted at him, cooing at him as you responded, "Of course not, Minnie. He loves you. You're such a good boy; treat everyone so kindly even when they don't deserve it. Treat me so kindly ... No matter what anyone ever tells you, what we just did is no sin", you explained.

"B- but the bible-"

"Shhh. Your faith is your own. No one can take that away from you, Minnie. Even if I don't share those beliefs anymore, I know an amazing person when I see one. You've done nothing wrong, okay?", you caressed his cheek and pecked his lips to drive your point home.

He nodded as he tried not to tear up at your kindness.

Him even questioning his actions' consequences on his faith would've provided him with a scolding from his parents or a look in disapproval from his reverend. But in turn you gave him acceptance and love. There was no way in his mind to believe that being with you – feeling good with you – was anything other than the holiest act he could engage in.

"Do you regret it?", you interrupted his thoughts.

"N-no, of course not ... It's just ..."

"I'd never want to make you do something you don't wanna do. I ... I know we haven't known each other for long, but I like you, Seokmin. I don't want you to think I'm just trying to ... corrupt you."

"You're not!," in a change of pace, he grabbed onto your hands and looked directly into your eyes as he spoke, "Everything you've taught me, I've wanted it too. I ... I like you too."

You smiled at this, squeezing his hands affectionately, "Yeah? Does that mean you wanna keep hanging out?"

"Yeah, I'd love that."

Unfortunately, time for Seokmin to go home eventually came and he bid his goodbyes to you.

The two of you spent a few hours after your heart to heart actually working on your project and later watching a few episodes of a show you said you'd been watching on Hulu. It was a nice time for Seokmin to get to know you outside of school, and it only reinstated how much he liked you already.

It was about 10PM by the time he got home, which was usually around the time he went to sleep due to the early hours of his classes the following day. Almost as soon as he finished his nightly skincare and prepared himself to go to sleep, he suddenly got a call.

It was odd for him to get calls in general, but this time around he knew who it'd be before even checking his phone.

It was his parents.

Seokmin had seen this coming. He had gotten too into his head this past week; too into you. Not only had he neglected contacting his parents as frequently as they had agreed (re: every night in order to 'keep a close eye on him'), but he had also been neglecting his religious duties. He had not kept contact with any of his religious friends from back home nor had he even attended church as of late. And surprisingly ... Seokmin had not minded these recent developments. He felt freer than ever. For the first time in his life, he was not under constant surveillance, receiving judgment for any instance in which his parents believed him to step out of line in his religious lifestyle.

Back home, a single absence from bi-weekly mass would be met with passive aggressive disapproval. Any instance in which Seokmin expressed interest in anything outside of the church (such as non catholic music and dance – both of which his parents had immediately shut down), he felt as if he was breaking a law at the way in which his parents would scold him for ever even considering such 'perverted' hobbies.

Upon moving away, Seokmin had begun to realize that his upbringing hadn't been as perfect as he had thought it to be, that his parents didn't love him as unconditionally as he first thought. He thought back to his brother's estrangement from his family and felt regret at not standing up for him, knowing that his parents would turn on him just as fast as they did Jeonghan.

With a sigh, he picked up the call, mustering as much interest as he could. He made some excuse as to why he had been unable to keep in contact and promised to be better moving forward. He faked a smile in his voice and forced his way through a peaceful call (sans the few passive aggressive comments his parents threw his way) and called it a night.

For the first time in his life, he put religion and his parents aside to give himself a restful sleep, only looking forward to seeing you the next morning and going to sleep with the remembrance of what the two of you did fresh in his mind.

"Oh ... I- please ..."

"Just like that, Minnie, fuck ... Don't move, angel. Just let me do all the work, yeah?", you ground against him even faster, angling your hips so that his member would grace against your clothed folds.

It seemed like the dam had broken for you at the same time as it had for Seokmin, because you had jumped him the very next time he made his way through the threshold of your apartment.

The two of you kissed until exhausting yourselves, leading Seokmin to beg you to undress both you and him (with pleading eyes rather than verbally, as he was still too shy to beg for such things with words).

It was only one day after you had given Seokmin oral (a concept which you had introduced him to), which somehow made Seokmin even more desperate to have you. Even after his parents' call ruining his mood, you had managed to bring it back up immediately after when you messaged him late at night suggesting the two of you meet up today. After spending the entire day together, Seokmin walked you home yet again, only to be jumped by you (once again) upon entering your apartment.

One thing led to another and Seokmin found himself fully unclothed under you as you ground against him through the thin layer of your panties. Seokmin was completely weightless under you, becoming a shell of his old self as he desperately guided your hips to grind against him. He wasn't sure where this would lead, but he felt the usual conflict that always arose when the two of you were alone like this. Even through all your reassurance, Seokmin felt as if he was betraying an oath by engaging with his sexual desires for you. However, these thoughts were immediately pushed aside when you leaned back down to kiss him again.

The kiss was nasty, for lack of a better word. Seokmin didn't fully realize it, but his desperation for your touch would sometimes render him into a sloppy kisser, but you seemed to not mind it as you moaned and licked into his mouth any time his kisses got a bit messy. Your grinding got more and more intense by the second, throwing your head back at the way Seokmin senselessly canted his hips against your own.

"M-minnie ... Want more ... Is that okay? Just need to feel you so bad ... Please ..."

"M-more?"

"Do you want it too, Minnie? Wanna know what it feels like?"

"Show me? Wh- Oh ..."

"You want it too, don't you? Hmm? You're so hard against me, angel. Don't you wanna feel me?"

"I just ..."

Before he could formulate a response through the lust that was clouding his mind, you suddenly brought one of his hands between your bodies, going behind the forbidden threshold of your underwear. Anxious but also incredibly turned on, Seokmin fell limp and allowed you to do whatever you wanted. You grabbed his middle and pointer fingers, angling them so that they could seamlessly slip between your folds. Though Seokmin had already felt the wetness between your legs the day prior, he had not properly felt just how warm and tight you could be.

"Oh, it's so ... Fuck," he moaned when you began guiding his hand so his fingers could go in and out.

"Shit, Minnie ... So good ... Wanna feel it now, angel? Will you give it to me?", you slipped his fingers out after proving your point, now going back to caressing his cheek with your own hand.

"B-but ... It's a sin ..." he let out before even realizing. Even with your constant reassurance up to this point, Seokmin still felt ties to his faith that made him second-guess himself.

He knew that he had already gone past certain point with you, and that having sex with you wouldn't make much difference in his morality, but he still thought of all the teachings of celibacy and all the censorship his community had forced onto him. Was this the right choice? His body was screaming at him to let himself go and seek his high from you. His mind was telling him similar things, though there was also emphasis on the fact that doing this with you, of all people, would be the best choice he could ever make.

"Angel ... It's okay to want it. You don't have to be scared ... I'll take care of you. Just wanna be close to you, Minnie. Don't you want that too? Hmm? Just like you so much, angel," you kisses softly at his chest as you said this, breaking his resolve.

And you were right. He wanted this so badly. He wanted to be as close to you as possible, to give himself to you in the most intimate way he could.

"Y-yes. Want you so much ..." he was shy as he said it, but he meant it to the fullest extent.

You proceeded to sensually remove your underwear, sitting back down above Seokmin's dick as you made a show of grinding your nude pelvises against one another, making Seokmin cry out in desperation.

Any doubts he had left him as soon as you allowed his tip to slip in, throwing his head back as he finally felt your warmth envelop him. You let out a variety of expletives at the feelings, all while clawing at Seokmin's chest, something that had his back arching in unexpected pleasure.

"Oh, Minnie ... So full, f-fuck ..." you moaned out, taking on a slow yet deep pace that made Seokmin shut his eyes and scrunch his nose.

Seokmin couldn't describe the pleasure you were giving him. He was practically frozen in place, the only part of his body still conscious were his hands, which were likely bruising your hips from how hard he was digging his fingers onto them. He needed to keep himself grounded, but he truly felt like today was judgment day, and he had gone to heaven.

"Open your eyes, angel. Wanna see you," your hand reached over to his cheek, angling his head so he could look your way rather than keep his head in its thrown back state.

He opened his eyes to find you smiling down at him with the light hanging on your ceiling providing the best view of you possible. You looked like an angel gazing down at him, like you came down to give him the greatest ruin and drag him back up with you. You had corrupted him in the best way possible.

"Oh, Minnie ... So beautiful. My prettiest boy ... Does it feel good, angel?", he nodded and let out a whine at your soft inquiries, "Yeah? How's it feel when I do this?", you squeezed around him, now bouncing rather than grinding against him, making him close his eyes back up and cry out your name.

"I- Please! I need ...", his nails clawed at your hips and back, begging for something unknown to him. He needed more, but he wasn't sure of what.

"I know, pretty. Gonna give it to you, just- fuck ... Just need you to be good for me, yeah?," you hiccuped, leaning down to kiss him again.

He cried against your lips, eyes rolling back when your tongue began dancing with his own, your hands reaching down to toy with his nipples. You were giving him too many things at once, making the overstimulation take over his already hazy brain. He didn't care about any moral repercussions to what you were doing together. Every time you touched him further solidified how right being with you felt.

Only a few moments of your ministrations were enough for Seokmin to feel that familiar coil begin to tighten. He knew his end was near, causing him to grow restless as he planted his legs on the bed and humped against you. Despite his lack of proper technique and the sloppiness of his movements, you matched his own and wailed his name.

Your hands came down to bring his up and pin them above his head, grinding deeper and deeper against him as the two of you crazily chased your highs. The bed shook against the wall at the intensity of your actions, with nothing but nasty sounds of your muffled moans and your arousal filling up the silence. Eventually you disconnected your lips, eyeing the string of spit that connected you before burying your head in the crook of his neck.

"I- I like you so much," he groaned out, high-pitched and breathless.

"Like you so fucking m-much! You have no idea ..." you reciprocated his words as you clamped down around him and let yourself be taken by your high. Your high was more than enough to trigger his own, leaving him in a practically astral state for a few moments as his hands ran frantically up and down your body, squeezing and scratching every so often.

When your highs finally wore down, you laid yourself beside him, cuddling him near you so you could wrap your legs around him and bring him as close as possible. You faced each other as you caught your breaths, running your hands along the length of his back as his own rubbed at your hips. The moment was pure bliss.

"Do you regret it?"

"No. I could never regret anything we've done. I- I'm sorry if I made you feel that way," he looked away from your eyes.

You nudged him to look at you once more, "Don't apologize, Minnie. I understand. I'm happy I was your first. Maybe one day I'll teach you even more fun things," you flirted through a giggle.

"Oh, I- Hah, yeah", he was caught off guard by your flirting, but still laughed along.

Yeah, he wouldn't mind that.

Over the following weeks, Seokmin did a better job of keeping up with his parents. He kept a safe distance while still giving them the belief that he was still fully engaged in the religious spaces they had envisioned for him. However, he could not help but lie when it came to what occupied his day to day life – you. He didn't bring you up, which you agreed upon after a tearful conversation in which Seokmin detailed his upbringing, leading you to spend the night up with him as you comforted him. He was also yet to attend mass again, and he even occasionally skipped the bi-weekly meetings of his church group – though only when you skipped also. These were a few of the things he kept secret from his family – advice from his brother Jeonghan, who he had recently gotten in contact with again.

Seokmin's faith was still standing; his relationship with God was slightly injured by his internal conflict about your sexual relationship, though he was now sure that he felt no regrets at anything the two of you had engaged in. To him, being with you felt like the biggest reward he could have ever hoped for. Seokmin realized quickly that his issue really laid with the catholic community in which he had been brought up, rather than his relationship with God itself. He disagreed with the judgmental and overbearing way in which certain catholics circles ran, something which he distanced himself from upon meeting you.

You had even introduced him to a few of your friends, some which were even catholic like him. Your buddy Joshua was one of the chillest guys he had ever met, yet his faith was pretty intact. This made Seokmin feel less guilt, though his balance between what was right and wrong in the eyes of God was still a bit of a mess. Luckily he had you help him navigate his way through that.

Along with all these developments, Seokmin had also begun speaking to his brother Jeonghan again (behind his parents' backs, of course). It made him happy to know that despite his brother straying away from his community, he had ended up happy with his life, leading a steady relationship and being happy away from his parents' constant religious persecution.

And you ... You had become official in these past few weeks, making Seokmin constantly have to pinch himself to confirm whether or not he was imagining all this. He was still a very shy and awkward individual, usually opting to hang out alone with you in either of your apartments. He appreciated how patient you were with him, never judging him for being a bit different and even teaching him the pleasures he had been missing out on during his very restricted upbringing. You had become a piece of heaven on earth to Seokmin, corrupting him, but only in the best of ways.

a/n: i left so many things unresolved here oops but all i cared about was seokmin's character development and we got there in the end so! anyways hope u guys enjoyed!!

To read short 2k word continuation u can go join my monthly tier on kofi or patreon!

content:

wc: 587 (teaser); 2080 (full drabble)

sneak peak:

Seokmin was, yet again, at a crossroads. Though this time it wasn't anything too serious, or maybe it was.

By current time, it had now been four months since the two of you had begun dating. 'I love you's' were shared and multiple sleep overs were had. Your relationship had been everything anyone could hope for a first relationship, and Seokmin now felt way more at ease whenever the two of you did anything sexual.

Admittedly, Seokmin was still slightly awkward about it, still never allowing himself to start sexual interactions and simply following your lead. Which was the crux of his current predicament.

He was unsure if he had done something wrong, if he had maybe insulted you or maybe there was some other unknown reason behind, but it had been over a week since the two of you had slept together. Over the past four months, the two of you spent most of your nights together, taking on a very domestic routine within the first two months of your relationship. Though you obviously didn't get down to sexual activities every day, it was common for it to happen a few times a week (at the least).

It usually began with you cornering Seokmin against the wall after a tiring day of college, or sometimes it began during a movie night in which you couldn't keep your hands to yourself. Whatever it was, you were always giving Seokmin an opening to entertain his sexual desires with you whenever he pleased. Even though he was always too shy to ask, it was almost as if you were able to read his mind and always incite him when he needed it most.

His sexual desires for you had grown quite a lot, making Seokmin worry at times. Was it normal how badly he wanted you at all times? Was this a consequence of having never before received pleasure until meeting you? He felt like a degenerate sometimes, from how badly he wanted you. Which was the main reason as to why he grew antsy so quickly after not having sex with you for the past week or so.

In contrast to these past months, this past week and a half (nine days to be exact; not that Seokmin was keeping count or anything), you had not given Seokmin anything further than a sweet peck on the lips whenever the two of you fell asleep next to each other. You didn't act any differently past that, still showering him with love and spending as much time as you could with him.

It wasn't that Seokmin expected sex from you or anything, but ever since you had taught him how pleasurable it could be to have a romantic partner, he could not see himself ever going back to his old, puritan lifestyle. Seokmin had become, for lack of a better word, an addict. He couldn't help himself in desiring you every time he caught an inch of your bare legs or the soft skin of your breasts through your cleavage. He had deprived himself of sex for far too long and now he could no longer live without it.

He didn't want to seem desperate, or as if he only valued you for sex, but he needed to get to the bottom of this and find a way to get you to touch him again. He was far too shy to ever ask you directly, but he would work his hardest to entice you into letting him have you again

...

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#seventeen fanfic #seventeen x reader #svt fanfic #svt x reader #seventeen #svt #seventeen imagine #seventeen oneshot #seventeen smut #svt smut #seokmin x reader #seokmin smut #seokmin scenarios #seokmin imagines #dokyeom smut #dokyeom scenarios #dokyeom imagines #dokyeom x reader #dokyeom fanfic

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 1 year ago

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Would I be the Asshole if I told my parents about my sister’s drinking habits

So I (18F) have a sister who I’ll call A(16, almost 17F) who is having issues with our parents. She has a boyfriend around the same age and they have had sex and my parents found out about it. This greatly damaged the relationship between my sister and our catholic mother who is also a conservative. I was mostly unaware to all of this because I don’t really talk to anyone in my family outside of basic conversations. I watched them all fight with each other and figured out that the only real way to avoid these confrontations was to make avoid any possible conflict, which involved as little interaction as possible.

I am still in high school (like I turned 18 this month) and I still live with my family. I only found out about all of this because one night around two months ago my sister had a two of her friends over and was drinking. She called me around 11 pm and was very drunk. I went downstairs to the basement and she told me about how she had sex and how our parents are angry. She said that her boyfriend’s mom feels more like a mother than our mom does. Anyway they tried and failed to go get more alcohol (my sister was the only drunk one at this point) and a few hours later (1 am to 2 am) she called me again and convinced me to drive her to a friends house to get more alcohol. They were all at least a little drunk at this point and I agreed because they were going to get this shit one way or another and I would rather it be with a sober person driving then any other alternative. I know this was a bad idea and decision and that I suck for actually doing it and enabling this.

Well it’s now October and she’s going to a party that she helped plan. To get in you would need to bring alcohol. She’s bringing a shit ton (their is a place that won’t check for ID’s near us) and so far the strongest thing I know that they have is Fireball. I know that a lot of people are going to this party and I’m worried about her, less so because of the people and more because she’s a fucking alcoholic. My friend said that I should tell my parents but I don’t want to make the situation between them worse.

I don’t think that my words mean much to my sister. If I asked her to stop drinking I don’t think she would. If I told my parents then their is only one real person who would have been able to give them that information and it is me. I don’t know the location of the party or the address and I want to avoid getting any authorities involved because that would be so much worse than anything else I could do. But I don’t know what to do. I don’t want my sister to get hurt and this isn’t healthy but I don’t know how my parents would react. If I tell her to stop or tell her that if she doesn’t stop I’ll tell our parents then she will just stop telling me and I don’t want her to get hurt.

My parents also didn’t fully care that she has been drunk before. My mom is the only one that really knows about her being at parties in the past with alcohol and she definitely doesn’t know the extent of all of this, but again Catholics. My great grandma’s(or aunt? I don’t know how I’m related to these people) reaction to me, my sister, and out cousin’s drinking her wine was “your just like me!” and my grandpa on my dad’s side has given us shots in front of my mom.

Their is a, very small, chance that my parents know a small amount of what is happening. And I don’t want to make things worse, but this isn’t good and it’s not getting better.

So, WIBTA if I told my parents about my sister’s drinking habits?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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alpaca-clouds · 2 months ago

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I keep thinking recently about how kinda unlikely it is, that I grew up in fairly rural Germany in a very conservative home and ended up as radically left wing as I did. I spent the first 8 years of my life in a very catholic rural village. After that we moved to a small town, also very catholic. My mother was hyper catholic. More catholic then most people. I only was allowed to go to private catholic schools. The kinds of schools that did not allow non-christian children to attent. (Yes, that is legal in Germany.)

To some regard I think I was very much saved by anime and manga. Because through this I got the information that yeah, queer people exist. There are other cultures that exist. Those cultures are not christian in fact.

But I also keep thinking about this other one fact.

When I was living in that village, there was a refugee center there. And at the time (in the early 90s) there were a lot of Afghan refugees living there... And here is the thing: We moved there when I was tiny, but we moved there because my parents had gotten divorced. And a conservative rural little village did not take well to a single divorced woman and her (very clearly, though undiagnosed) child moving there. So most parents would not allow me in their homes. At least not the catholic parents.

As such... Pretty much all my friends - with one exception - were refugee kids. Most of them were Muslim. And I do remember that my mother at times was upset about it. And I never understood it.

I also did not understand at my 7th birthday how cruel my mother was, as I invited my mostly Muslim friends over, and she made a cake that involved gelantine made from pork bone. I did not know that they were not allowed to eat it until that day, because I never really wondered about it. It ended up in an argument between my Muslim friends, because of them had a father who did not take it all that serious, so she - well meaning - tried to talk the others into eating the cake. And let's face it. We were all that young, the others also did not understand why they were not allowed to eat it. So... it ended up rather dramatic.

But you know what? Whenever someone told me about how horrible Muslim men were supposedly. I always thought about this one girl's father. He only spoke broken German, but as long as I was living there and they were living there, he was so nice and caring for literally every child.

When I was an adult, I learned that this family stayed in Germany. I met that friend's two older brothers when I was 21. Even though they last saw me when I was 11 years old, they somehow recognized me. They owned a small restaurant in the next city and invited me for a meal. And I am kinda sad that I lost contact with them since.

But yeah... I just... I think in some way that saved me from becoming a big asshole in some regard. Because it turns out, if you grow up around people who are not from your culture and actually interact with them, you will not become as racist.

I still wonder though, what became of them.

I know one of my other friends - her family was from Iran, though her mother was half-American - ended up moving to New York. But I never know what happened to this one Afghan friend.

#childhood memories #rural germany #germany

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19orionis · 10 months ago

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Emoji OC asks: Ben and Reid 🥛🍷🌶️🧇🥔

Benedikt:

🥛 [MILK] What is your OC's relationship with their biological parents like? What about their relationship with any non-biological parental figures?

Whew. His relationship with his mom is bad. They've been no-contact ever since he was kicked out by her in his late teens. She's been a pretty self-centered individual for as long as he's known her and also was generally never equipped to properly care for him. He was kinda parentified, had to spend a lot of time caring for his little sisters (and expected to grow up to be a wife and mother, too) and very limited in his self-expression as a closeted trans boy in a Catholic household. Religion loomed over him for a long time and it heavily affected how he saw his magic. His mother feared him for it and very much thought it was ungodly, but he feared her, too. She also had a weird jealousy thing over his hair (which he gets from his bio dad, more on that later), but didn't know everything about how to treat even moderately curly hair like his, so he fought with her a lot when he was little about brushing it. It's why he cropped his hair very short in his early twenties and only let it get truly long again sometime in his mid-thirties. Living with her just sucked. Ben's bio dad is some Finnish wizard guy who has no idea he exists. His mother had an affair with said Finnish wizard guy, without knowing he was a wizard, and the dad Ben grew up with/his mom's husband figured it out on his own some months after Ben was born and his suspicion caused him to go snooping. Ben really wishes his parents divorced each other over it, honestly, but they never did and often their dynamic seemed more like roommates than a married couple. Because of all this, Ben's known dad did not like interacting with Ben all that much. Ben preferred that to the way his mother would breathe down his neck, though.

🍷 [WINE] Where on the 'wine aunt scale' is your OC?

Ben is less of a wine aunt and more of an Uncle Acid ;)

🌶️ [HOT PEPPER] Who would your OC declare their sworn enemy if they could meet them?

IF he could meet them? I'm assuming this question is asking about famous people. If so, then it's gotta be Ronald Reagan. Really, Ben, in his middle age, is SO mellow compared to when he was younger. It's pretty hard for him to really consider any regular people his enemy. Maybe his mom, but he doesn't even fully count that anymore since he'll never have to interact with her again. He did have some insane beef with a past student that had some extremely conservative ideals, and keeping himself composed and professional when this kid would say his takes about art during class was a struggle. In the end, though, that student turned in genuinely shit work and the satisfaction of giving him a deserved failing grade was the end of it.

🧇 [WAFFLE] Using shape language, how would you redesign your OC?

I already use shape language a lot, so I don't fully know if I can answer this for either Ben or Reid! But I'll try. I could explain why I use the shapes I do in my current designs... I think Ben being made up of mostly round shapes, combined with the context of his character, kinda helps convey his laidback-ness and flexibility. Him being really lanky and made of limbs like I used to draw him did too, but there's just something about the way I draw him now that's really fitting. He's not rigid, and especially never severe, though with his height, he is capable of having a quietly intimidating presence. His nose, eyebrows, and eyes have some fun angles and I think that draws some attention to them. Having his hair be kinda cloud-shaped is fun, too, I want (and hope) elements of his design (like the dark clothes) come together to evoke smoke, and one of his tattoos does that directly.

🥔 [POTATO] What do they have that others see as a flaw, but they don't care about?

Ben falls more under the pop definition of hedonism than the actual, modest, Epicurean one talked about in philosophy (so he does know about OG hedonism and what it really means), and not everybody is down with that way of living. He loves having fun and feeling good-- the words "I shouldn't" aren't in his vocabulary. He's also a pretty frequent stoner, but doesn't really see anything wrong with his current usage, though he did have an issue with overuse, psychological dependence, and poor money management while in undergrad, and he will admit that. The wrong kind of people, I'm sure, would also see an issue with his polyamory, maybe call him indecisive or disloyal, but the people who would react like that don't even know he's polyamorous. It's something he's pretty discerning about when it comes to bringing it up.

Reid:

🥛 [MILK] What is your OC's relationship with their biological parents like? What about their relationship with any non-biological parental figures?

...Also bad. I'm really compelled by bad parents, which is interesting, because mine aren't bad. I heard lots of questionable tales about each of their parents, though, and plenty from some of my friends, and I guess it's rubbed off. Reid's dad was straight-up an abusive, homophobic dick, without any religious component, and both of their parents touted their little brother Jack as the golden child-- Jack happened to be the least defiant, and also the most gender-conforming, so everything was Reid and especially Lou's fault instead (Lou is their older sister). Reid's a middle child, by the way, which is a part of their desperation for literally any kind of attention that's followed them throughout their life. Crime and swindling have been a part of Reid's family for a few generations now, and Reid and their siblings were sometimes put in dangerous situations-- or more often neglected while their parents were out-- as a result. They found peace playing outside, stomping through the woods of Appalachia. Having so little guidance growing up definitely affected their view of other people and how they relate to them, and they went decades seeing no problem with taking from others because it's what was modeled to them.

🍷 [WINE] Where on the 'wine aunt scale' is your OC?

Oh she is SUCH a wine aunt! Wine aunt. That is where she is.

🌶️ [HOT PEPPER] Who would your OC declare their sworn enemy if they could meet them?

ALSO Reagan! They lived through that shit! Ben was born in 1970 and didn't move to the US until '92, so he hates Reagan for the aftermath, but Reid was an adult LGBT person in the US during his presidency, so their hatred is firey and it is personal. She's still far from leftist, economically, but he was just too shitty in all respects.

🧇 [WAFFLE] Using shape language, how would you redesign your OC?

Reid's shape is meant to emulate and evoke other chaotic or con artist-y characters throughout other media (or interpretations... remember how people would draw human!Bill back in the day? LMAO), and also to look very animated, wiggly, and expressive. SHE is all limbs, and her eyebrows are simple curves that can be pushed and exaggerated a lot in her expressions. She's got a rounder eye shape and a generally more alert look to her than Ben does (and smaller pupils, usually), but her other features are very sharp and bold. SHE wants to look memorable, and dresses and wears makeup in a way that pushes that even further.

🥔 [POTATO] What do they have that others see as a flaw, but they don't care about?

This one is very dependent on at what point in Reid's life this is being asked at, so I'll just go with the biggest/most interesting one. During the height of their scheming days, they really don't see it as an issue, and think everyone else is the problem. They push a lot of blame onto other people when they're disliked or their hustles don't go their way. When asked why, they'd go "everybody does it! Er-- not everybody, but enough of 'em! What's the point of playin' by the rules if there's always gonna be some other asshole who doesn't?"

#i'm writing this in one of the university libraries and wouldn't you know it #as i'm finishing up there's now an old man at the front desk asking about history and he just mentioned reagan #this was a LOT TO WRITE but it was FUN I hope you like it :)#dr. ignatov phd #reid joy wilder #ardate #answered

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kiraridertime03 · 7 months ago

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Finding my Visibility: A Ramble-y Writing

I hope you don’t mind this post here, it’s a bit personal, but I’ve needed to crystallize some thoughts, especially given what today is. I hope you don’t mind.

I created this little blog to act as a way to express myself properly. My realization of, well, being trans in some way, has only come very recently, within the past few months, really. It has been a long, awkward process. About 3 years worth of on and off questioning has led me to this conclusion, with some especially interesting breakthroughs getting me here. However, I am not really in a position where I can easily just come out to those around me. Making little bits online like this, even if I’m not especially social about it, has been especially affirming for me.

You know, it’s funny. Like many others I’ve seen, I did do little affirming things before “figuring it out.” Back when I first got to High School, I decided to start growing out my hair. In part, it was a pre existing bit of rebellion, what little I could do. I was taken to Catholic schooling all my life, and in my combined elementary and middle school, part of the dress code was hair length. Girls had to have long hair and boys had to have short hair, excluding certain cultural things that would probably get them sued. This did lead to a funny childhood slip where I determined gender primarily on hair length, leading to me being really confused by girls with short hair. However, my High School, while still being Catholic, let up on long hair. Therefore, on a whim, I decided to grow my hair out, spurred on further by seeing one senior with extremely long hair. I rationalized it by saying I didn’t like haircuts, mainly the prickly feeling I would have for the rest of the day around my collar. Now I see that it was more so that I found more negatives than positives in going to get my hair cut short at SportsClips.

I say this because, towards the start of my questioning, there was this one interaction that has really stuck with me. I was in this honors physics class I took in my senior year of high school. It was a small class, there were only, like, 10 of us, made up mostly of my friends and their friends. Also, this one short soccer playing guy, but he doesn’t really matter. One of these people was this one trans girl. She was really the first trans person I ever encountered, and one of the first times I had ever encountered the concept of transness, outside of shitty conservative joke (singular) that I had inherently encountered growing up in a very conservative setting. Initially, she intimidated me, a lot. I didn’t know how to interact with her. For someone who made their entire personality “BEING GOOD AT ACADEMICS,” as I eschewed the entire concept of emotional fulfillment in any way, it didn’t compute. After Covid, I became more chill, but still felt that intimidation (all of which came internally, by the way, she was very nice). In this physics class, we had even begun interacting a little. This brings us to one random interaction in the end of one class. Us, as a class, are messing around, having a fun conversation. Then, for some reason, she says something like, “I grew out my hair because of my gender, you just kind of did it.” It was in a joking context, and I know the conversation led naturally there, but I don’t remember much of it, because my mind was preoccupied by the emotional panic of having my recently started questioning being clocked. It was a brief, yet intense panic, as I was still heavily denying myself, even still. After a bit, I eventually responded with my usual response when something came about for my appearance, “Oh yeah, It’s just because I’m lazy. I don’t really care how I look.” Usually, that was a good response, as it was often true.

Not with my hair length, though.

Cut to now, where I continue to let my hair be long, despite the hardships, a good 6 years on from my decision to let it grow out. I have a hard time of imagining my existence with short hair. I’m not 100% content with it, I wish I knew how to care for it better, something I am trying to learn better. However, I still do it because it, overall, gives me a sense of pure, positive emotion that I had lost for a long time. That’s been a lot of what has led me down figuring out my gender. I have tried to follow what has given me that emotional fulfillment, that sense of true feeling that I lost in youth. I mean, it’s not something that being in a religious family necessary perpetuates. I’ve found Catholicism, at least how it has been expressed around me, celebrates fear and repression. It especially doesn’t go well in a family with specific, traumatic losses, which become rationalized as “God’s Plan for Us.” Seeing that, seeing my grief and sadness as “God’s Plan,” I think, ultimately led me to repress all positive emotion, only allowing for sadness, panic, or the pure apathy I felt with masculinity.

However, finding my gender, or at least, the parts of it I have found, has given me an indescribable sense of emotion that I can only rationalize as “Joy,” I guess. I think it goes deeper than that, but I don’t think any language would have the proper words for what I feel. Yes, there has been sadness for what I’ve lost and fear for what hurdles may come my way, but the Joy is also there, a joy that I only associated with guilt before, thanks to all of that Catholic guilt. I found that joy thanks to other trans people being visible.

I think that is why today is so important. Being able to see other trans people be happy, be who they are, regardless, is what led me to detangle my guilt from who I truly was. I think it can do this for so many others, too. I have found that, even while having to be closeted in life, even the little bits where I can both see people like me and express myself gives me so much joy, that I can keep going on in my day, my week, my year, and I thank all those who were there, unintentionally, to help me figure out who I am. I am posting this in part to act as that expression, to find that joy through that apathy and pain, and also, hopefully, to help people like me.

So, as I sit here, typing this out in my funnily trans colored JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind T Shirt, that yes, I’m trans. I may have some shakiness in the exact specifics, but I know that I identify as more femme than I do as my assigned masculinity. I am Allison Marie, you can call me KiraRider, though. I hope you all can find yourself as I’ve found myself.

Now, I need to go back to getting deeply into Pirate media for some reason.

#transfem #transgender #trans

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owltypical · 2 years ago

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super long dump post about various irl things

a coworker of mine passed away at the beginning of the week. he’d actually left the company back in september, so i hadn’t seen him in several months, and i wouldn’t say we were super close, but. he was on my team, and we saw each other and talked and interacted and spent time together at work hangouts pretty much constantly over several years.

he was only 29. not sure how it happened, just that we heard from his family that it had, and his memorial page and viewing/funeral times were shared with us. it was definitely a great shock to us, i hid myself in the bathroom for a bit and cried. hadn’t cried properly in a long time due to my brain meds, so i had a sadness headache for a couple days.

he was a very pleasant, polite, and nice young dude. politics rarely come up at work though i knew he came from a religious catholic conservative background, but he was pretty socially conscious and angry/disillusioned about a lot of the shit he saw going on; i saw him grow from those roots over that time and i wonder how he’d turn out in the end if he’d been given proper time to finish growing. one of the kindest, most patient phone voices i ever heard.

it sucks so extra hard when somebody suddenly dies young like that. technically he was already out of my life when it happened, but that’s the closest to someone’s death i’ve been in ages, possibly ever, other than i suppose my cousin who passed away a few years ago. i’ve never been to a funeral, the few deaths i’ve encountered have been very distant and slightly unreal, even with family. but this was someone i knew and saw irl and who was part of my everyday life for quite a while; now he’s just suddenly gone, he’s ceased to exist. just memories and pictures.

literally the next morning after that another of our team members had some sort of medical episode at work; paramedics came and took her away in an ambulance. not sure what happened, she seems to be fine now thank god, but it was very scary at the time. that one-two punch in less than 24 hours made for a very mentally and emotionally strained week for us; so far 2023 for me has been kind of muted and spent grieving.

speaking of brain meds: started a new mixed dosage of stuff just today. the previous prescription was helping, but not enough, and had side effects that i felt were hampering my progress elsewhere. hopefully this new combo works out! i want more energy during the day, i want to sleep better at night, i want to have this dumb brain in a more orderly shape. i want to feel artistic and draw again.

not sure what i’ll do if i start feeling better about art again, though. i keep fretting that i just don’t have it in me to do big detailed print-ready longform comic stories, and never really have, despite how many times i’ve tried over the years. maybe i really do just need a partner to work with, i don’t know. i’m also second-guesing myself about the overall setting of outliers. i was always very tickled by weird/background stuff in comic book superhero settings since my youth, but the last few years i’ve completely soured on exactly that; the absolute glut of comic book movies and tv series have been overwhelming and tiring and obnoxious, it’s made me very jaded about the whole thing. and i don’t want to be seen as part of riding on that particular bandwagon either.

kind of trying to figure out what the hell to do in general. i make enough to survive just fine, but not enough to actually grow or go anywhere or make any real changes. affordable housing is nonexistent these days, absolutely everywhere, not just the places i would actually be interested in moving to. wages suck, everything costs way more now, good luck getting where you’d like to go without selling a few organs and cramming into some hole with three other equally desperate roommates. i’d donate plasma but apparently one of my arms has bad invisible veins so i got told to go away.

it’s real existential crisis times over here, i guess. i’m less than two years away from 40 now; i thought i had more time to figure some things out but an injury and good ol’ covid stole a large chunk of my prime 30s away from me. i want to move and improve my station in life, but how? i want a partner, but dating’s hard, especially the older you get and especially when you’re ace. i want to draw, but i worry that i don’t truly have the stamina and time to do everything i want to do, and that i’m running out of time in general. it’s stupid, i know it’s just youth-oriented culture and the world’s aggressive ageism messing with me, but it’s hard to feel like the countdown to 40 isn’t some sort of doomsday clock terror. too late for love, too late for family, too late for careers and making something of myself artistically. brains are stupid.

well. here’s to the brain in question getting better via updated meds, and here’s to 2023 having something good happen during it, i suppose. i hope.

#the illustrious life of owltypical #long post #very long post #death //

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gabriel-corona · 5 months ago

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500 6.23.24

[Carmen: did you burn something in here…

disgusting ]

This is why we dont spend time with these people anymore

They want to inflict pain on you,

Even if she is your family member

she does not want what is best for you, she is actively seeking to harm you

Your best course of action is the grey rock method/ do not interact / do not feed the anger/ unless absolutely necessary do not reciprocate aggression unless it involves your immediate safety/

Play the long game of getting out of here and thrive

In this toxic system your best course of action/ is being happy and healthy/

They want you either sick or dead

You dont have to play that game anymore

Most of the damage , she can do to you is the damage you allow her to do

Be strong/ you are strong/ you are loved

When you leave this system/ you can cleanse your soul of this carrying all the shame that is not yours

The instability of your absence/ will scramble their aim towards each other

Even if only temporarily

///

Shadow work

What about you brings her to say “disgusting”

I look physically ok at the moment

She has to whisper it under her breadth

So on some level she does not feel able to challenge you outright/ is she afraid of you?

Possible

likely answer? An Aversion to gayness/ fatness/ femininity

She is from a conservative catholic hegemonic society

Your ease with you various forms with queerness

Might upset her with her own uneasiness at her perceived inadequacy

Tangent she is also violently racist against black people/ she uses the n word/ she said “dekalb is full of them” and who knows what else

If i use rockford speech, she’s just a nasty person//

She is a nurse/

So a female cop

Your sister is a cop

( not all nurses are cops, but this one is)

A pig/ as in a creature not uncomfortable dealing in filth/ an instrument of the industrial police state

/ corrupt/ devoid of moral/ showing no sign of compassion towards you but more importantly towards those more vulnerable than her

her job is to take care of people

I don't think I've ever ever seen her be nuturing/

When my nephew fell on the back door steps / and was left with a small cut on his shin/ all she said was “make sure it doesn't get infected”

Shes had a difficult life there is no denying that, but she never healed/ she never received any or sought out real help/

So the poison slowly ate away at her soul/ now venomous herself she seeks to inject misery into those around her

Maybe during your second psychotic episode in 2014 the one where you thought she had been pulled over

her arm pulled out through the car window/ then violently twisted and broken, silent tears streaming down her face maybe

Maybe Your sister did die/ your twin companion from you childhood now lost

Now overtaken by this final dark sister

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riot-grrlboy · 5 months ago

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Christianity is built on spreading itself. It is a missionizing religion. As someone who is culturally Christian (celebrates secular Christmas, Easter, most of my family still attends church weekly; I stopped when I was 12), it is supposed to stick around and become the “default”. This is on purpose. My parents talk about how I’m going to “come back” to Christianity when I’m older. My sister, who for years was on the not-practicing, not-believing train with me, has recently started attending church again and becoming more religiously Christian, because she lives a Christian lifestyle and believes in Christian morals and has Christian friends, even if they don’t attend church

It’s. The point. Christianity imbeds itself in culture, in life, in your head, to the point that Christians get upset when they aren’t the ONLY ones represented in a group. You can see it with “Happy Holidays” conservative panics and you can hear it interacting with older Christians who act like it’s the *only* real religion (and, that the sects are so distinct that some don’t “count” as Christianity because it differs too far from their worldview). They love to be the default, the obvious choice, the “taken for granted” religion because that passive participation pushes their goals. I’m not going to raise my children Christian, but we’re probably going to celebrate something similar to Christmas (I’m a latin nerd so it might be more like Saturnalia) and Easter. My family will proselytize to them when I’m not there and I won’t be able to stop it. They still proselytize to me, act like I’ll come back to it, even though I’ve been to church once in the past 10 years and found it jarring and bizarre

The first time I took a religious anthro class, we debunked the use of “belief” as a tenet of religion because “belief” is such a loaded term that erases symbolic meaning, passive acceptance of (or mandated practice of) religion and, notably, ethnoreligion. As someone who is culturally Christian, it felt preposterous at first. We discussed it in small groups and all muttered “obviously belief is necessary”, but understood how narrow that perspective was only after learning about other religions and their practices. It took time, patience and many, many, many counter-examples to hammer it into our brains, because it feels obvious that belief is necessary— because otherwise, by every other definition of a religion, I would be a Christian.

Christianity also teaches that there can be “fake” Christians, a concept I haven’t heard from my non-Christian friends, but have also heard from my “not Christian” friends (Mormans, Jehovahs Withesses, the Amish, 7th day adventists and, by evangelist Protestants, Catholics are usually mentioned as “fake” or “not really Christian” because they don’t subscribe to the same TYPE of Christian worship)

Christianity is a brain worm that sits in your head and whispers “Hell” and “Heaven” your whole life, and that affects your worldview— even if you don’t “believe” in it. You still celebrate Christmas even if you don’t “believe” in it. You still talk about and know the Bible even if you don’t “believe” in it. Your family still gives you sermons and godly advice even if you don’t “believe” in it. You can still be Christian even if you don’t “believe” in it. Christianity takes over culture, morals, even opinions and tells you how to feel, and that takes a lot of unlearning, but the first step is to acknowledge and understand how deeply a Christian upbringing (even a good one! My church performed gay weddings in Tennessee before 2015, which was a huge deal!) can affect your worldview!

Sorry for the rant and the length but I felt the holy urge to yap for a minute about Christianity (because it still takes up a lot of brain space for me)

It's interesting to me that growing up Jewish seems to have given me a fundamentally different understanding of religion from my Christian friends. For me, I think that your religion (or ethnicity, since Judaism is an ethnicity) is not something you can get rid of. You can convert to another religion, but I never understood friends of mine who said that they weren't Christian, but Atheist.

"But you celebrate Christmas, right?" I asked them.

"Well, yeah," they said, "but we don't celebrate Christian Christmas. I'm atheist."

That didn't make any sense to me. Sure, maybe the version of Christmas they celebrated in their house looked more like treats and presents and less like nativity scenes and prayers, but it was still the same holiday.

So, I came up with the concept of the difference between "Not Christian" and "non-Christian". Which of course my "not christian" friends didn't understand. But my idea was that there are people who are "not christian" - mainly culturally christian atheists - and people who are "non-christian", like Jews, Hindus, Muslims, or others.

Because while both groups generally don't identify as Christian, we have different experiences. As a Jew, my experience as a religious minority is not the same as that of a culturally Christian atheist. They're not Christian, and I'm not Christian, but in different ways.

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cloud9in · 4 years ago

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The Half of It

A Mc x Poppy fic inspired by the film

Summary: Bea, the town’s outcast is recruited by the school jock to win Poppy’s heart. But what happens when she starts falling for her as well?

Author’s Note: So this will be a multiple part series that includes scenes heavily inspired from the movie “The Half of It”. I certainly recommend watching it. My version will have different twists and a different ending, and definitely more angst. It will include mature themes as the story progresses.

Warnings for this chapter: Swearing. This is a good thing for now.

Chapter 1-

“Love is simply the name for desire and pursuit of the whole.”

- Plato, The Symposium

It is said that when one half finds its other, there’s an unspoken understanding. A unity. And each would know no greater joy....than this.

...Except this is highschool. And in my opinion, there is no other half. Maybe the other half is a paper on Greek God philosophy due at midnight. But make that four papers, including mine.

My name is Bea Hughes and let’s just say...this is not a very happy story. Well maybe some parts are, but you’ll have to read to find out. I come from a small town called Farmsville, and when I mean small, I mean really small. Except the highschool seems fucking huge, with never ending hallways and when you do somehow find the end, there’s usually two inbreds eating each others mouths off. Lucky for me I am the epitome of antisocial, reserved, an introvert, or whatever the inferior beings, aka every other senior, calls me when they think I can’t hear. But I hear everything, including that one time Bradley Denbrough, upcoming hotshot actor, or so he claims, found out about a crush a poor unsuspecting freshman had on him. Everybody knew what Bradley and his goons did to that boy, even the adults, but no charges were pressed. This town is as conservative as it gets, but no one knows of my secret. I carry this school on my back when it comes to having everyone graduate, but that’s all I am to them, a pawn. And that’s all I wanted to be, nothing more and nothing less. I preferred to be in the shadows.

***

...Except the mandatory Senior Talent Show forced Bea out of her hibernation hole. The thought haunted her as she sat in the dance studio, the last fucking place she wanted to be. Dance was so not a Bea kinda thing, but the blonde knew exactly why she granted herself the misery of picking the class. Poppy Min Sinclair, the golden girl of Farmsville High, the preacher’s daughter on a more serious note. She is...the most fascinating girl Bea ever laid her eyes on even if her boyfriend was a complete asshole who sermonized his duties as her future husband. Like seriously? Poppy has got to have some screws loose to date such a fake loser who plagiarizes all of his speeches at sunday church, and once literally begged Bea to write an apology letter to his father for him after completely upending their summer cabin. Except the blonde wrote the opposite of an apology, it went something like this…

Dear beloved donkey, I mean dad,

I am terribly sorry for inviting 20 hookers to the summer cabin. I have these strange impulses and you should at least be grateful I didn’t invite the big boss as well. His wife came though, in many, many ways. You should get the carpet changed.

Sincerely, your STD free son

It was safe to say that Mr. Denbrough had a near heart attack after reading it, and Bea did kinda feel bad, kinda. He never mentioned the letter to Bradley though, instead silently calling up the owner of Teopoli Catholic Summer Camp and essentially deporting the boy to Canada for the summer. No son of his would end up in hell was what the old man preached everyday from then on. It was the quietest summer Bea had ever experienced.

Being the towns outcast, Bea could have her fun when she so chooses to, but that didn’t pay the bills. In fact, the multiple essays that people paid her to write was her way of surviving and taking care of her mother. They weren’t very rich but Bea worked with what she had, helping her mother manage the farm, which included getting on her knees and wrestling the pigs. And that’s how she was gifted the name “pig girl”, stupid Bradley and his fake friends just had to wander too far and catch Bea in the act. She swore a remixed video of her hog calling surfaced the web at one point and that gave the blonde her five minutes of fame. Boy was it an awful time in her life.

Bea worked her mother’s previous job as station master or signalman for the trains that passed through, even if it barely paid her shit. The secluded feeling of sitting in that booth and having a moment with her thoughts was enough to give her purpose. Bea was fond of poetry and it usually helped her come up with song lyrics.

Song lyrics…

That she would have to sing at the talent show. A huge sigh escaped her lips as she slumped further into the ground, maybe hoping she could bury herself six feet under. It wasn’t that Bea hated singing, no she absolutely loved it. Playing her guitar at night and belting out lyrics that only resulted in her mother banging on the ceiling below in efforts to shut the blonde up. But the mere fact that she’d have to sing in front of the ruthless seniors rubbed her the wrong way. Something would go wrong, it always did. Bea was shaken out of her thoughts when Poppy crossed the center of the room, moving her hips slowly to the sound of Rihanna’s voice. The class chose a slow r&b song to choreograph today and of course all eyes were on Poppy.

If i’m your girl say my name boy

let me know i'm in control

Her silky blonde locks swayed as she danced to the beat, hands thrusting sensually along her sides. Bea stared in awe, almost like Poppy was the only one in the room and a spotlight illuminated every movement, every curve. Except she definitely wasn’t the only one picturing Poppy in that way. Carter, the school quarterback leaned against the railing, arms crossed and eyes trailing the rise and fall of her chest.

Got me wondering, I’m wondering if i'm on your mind

Bea sat up straighter but nearly lost her bodily functions when Poppy locked eyes with her before spinning away. It was simple eye contact Bea, don’t let it get to your head. You already have multiple lyrics inspired by Poppy offering the bare minimum in human interaction. She doesn’t actually like you. Poppy is popular and has the perfect life...and boyfriend, even if Bea heavily disagrees. Poppy was a bitch of course, but not a bitch bitch. Unlike the other wannabe mean girls, the blonde didn’t give Bea hell, well that was because the girl paid her zero attention. She seemed distant, off in her own world, or well in her parents world learning the strategies of business. Poppy was expected to follow in her parents footsteps and keep up with her reputation of being the richest in town, and of course a faithful future wife. So fun. But the blonde had other prosperous dreams of travelling and following her passion of music and dance. Highschool was her only outlet and she took advantage of it any chance she’d get. Bea knew this because she would ride her bike every friday night to the school and watch Poppy dance from outside the glass window. Maybe Bea realized it was kinda creepy, but she’s dumb enough to not realize her obvious growing attraction. I mean who pedals miles just to watch someone trip on their feet?

***

The sound of the bell caught everyone's attention and the teacher slowly lowered the music. Bea watched as Bradley approached Poppy and smothered her with kisses and praises. She rolled her eyes painfully, this kind of PDA definitely wasn’t it, she could have gone her whole life without seeing that. She walked silently through the crowd of kids in the hall, everyone was laughing and talking to their friends. All Bea could allow her mind to focus on was the very intimidating billboard of names a few feet across from her.

Winter Talent Show Sign-Ups (Mandatory For Seniors)

Bea glared at it quietly before signing her name on the sheet, sealing her inevitable fate. Through the hustle of students, Carter watched the blonde with a yearning look from afar. This should be great…

The next few classes were a blur and Bea eventually found herself getting up to hand Ms. Kingsley her paper. The older woman looked at her with a knowing glance as she took a generous sip of her coffee, which was 75% tequila.

“6 different interpretations on Plato? Colour me impressed Miss Hughes.”

Bea shrugs nonchalant, “yeah well would you rather read their actual essays?”

“Oh hell no.” Kingsley feigns shock as she looks at the stack of papers with a comical expression. She takes another sip, watching her younger, prodigy of a student carefully. “You know there are places outside of this godforsaken town where you can put your talents to use... Real use. I teach at Belvoire University occasionally.” Ina winks and slides Bea an application, studying her initial reaction. “It’s...in New York.”

“Damn right! The Big Apple.”

“Kingsley you know I have to stay here. It’ll be easier for me to manage the farm and be close to home”, Bea says confidently even though her body language displays otherwise. She predicted the big sigh filling her ears before it actually happened and it still managed to faze her. “Who ever said you had to do anything? What about what you want to do?” Bea doesn’t make eye contact with Ina, that woman could convince you to do just about anything with a certain look. “No we are not doing this. You can take your reverse psychology and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. I’m outta here.” The blonde stomps out of the classroom, the sound of Ina’s chuckles still ringing in her ears.

“Hey! Everyone in this town fears God, but you know what God fears? My ability to hide a bottle of Don Julio in my left boot.” Ina pulls out the newly bought bottle and cradles it. “Come to mama.”

***

Bea rode her bike alongside the dirt road, Kingsley’s words on replay the entire ride. Maybe she did deserve to experience something more than what this town had to offer. But would her mother manage without her? Sacrifices, sacrifices. Bea was used to making those for her mother after her father’s death. What would her dad think of all of this?

“Hey!”

He’d surely smack Bea upside the head for the little antics she pulled occasionally. And then he’d buy her vanilla coconut ice cream and ask for every single detail of what happened as they sat and laughed together. That’s the kind of relationship Bea would have had with her father, she liked to assume so. She also liked to assume that she’d get home safely everyday without a scratch, but then there’s Carter.

“Hey wait up!”

The jock seemed to be running ridiculously fast and crashed right into the rear end of Bea’s bicycle, sending her face first into a mount of dirt. The initial impact was enough to boost the blonde straight back up like nothing happened and into a fighting stance, fists out and eyes wild. Very scary Bea. When she realized it was him...well it only pissed her off even more. “What the fuck Carter! You asshole!”

“I’m sorry Bea! Here let me help-”

“No! Move away! You- my bike- I…” Bea groans frustratingly, stepping away from the wreck as she tries to catch her breath. Carter watches her sheepishly, rubbing an envelope between his fingers awkwardly. After a few minutes of painfully uneasy silence he speaks up, “Okay...I didn’t want to ask you this way but I was wonder-”

“Oh, so you practically break my ass and now you want me to do you a favour? Real nice way of communication you have there Mr. Quarterback. What is with you and those freakishly large muscles anyways? Maybe it’s my fault I didn’t hear your avalanche built ass coming from behind.”

“Hey! They are not freakishly large!”

“I hate to break it to you Jackson but mine are significantly more appealing to look at.” Bea smirks widely, flexing her arm as best as she could. It’s a work in progress… just bare with her.

It didn’t take much effort for Carter to break out into a smile and look at her fondly. Maybe there was more to this girl than just being a human dictionary. Well that’s what people called her, and he maybe believed it at first.

Bea noticed the lack of response and shifted awkwardly, clearing her throat. “Listen, its $10 for three pages, $20 for three to ten, I'm not in the over-ten-page biz.”

“No..no I’m not here to cheat!” Carter blurts out. “But I’ll let you know if I do plan on- anyways. I uh..” He hesitates before handing her the envelope. “What’s this?

“Well you see it’s a letter..”

“Yeah but who writes letters these days?”

“I thought it seemed romantic..”

“And I thought women writing Jeffrey Dahmer letters in jail seemed romantic”, Bea says sarcastically, her smile dropping instantly after catching a glimpse of Poppy’s name at the top of the paper. It was like the blood stopped flowing through her body for a few seconds as her mouth went dry. This had to be the work of the so-called God everyone praised in this town, or it was one cruel coincidence. Bea wasn’t sure why seeing her name made her heart beat ten times harder, but it also wasn’t a necessarily uncomfortable feeling…

“I- I can’t help you.”

“But if you just add a few more words-”

“I’m not writing a letter to Poppy Min Sincla- to..to some girl for you. Letters are supposed to be authentic, from the heart, your own words, your...feelings.” Bea hurriedly turns to grab her bike, suddenly losing all interest in being social.

Carter was afraid this would happen. But he was stubborn. “But I can pay more for authentic!”

Too bad Bea was stubborn as well. “Just get a thesaurus...Good luck, Romeo.”

***

Bea sat in her room, strumming away softly at the strings of her guitar. Some of the keys were off but the old thing still worked, and that was good enough for her. She could hear the tv blasting downstairs, her mother most likely watching the news. There’s something about old people and news, were they secretly ogling the news anchors? Just like Bea ogled Poppy any chance she could. The blonde frowned to herself, her eyebrows crunching together in question. What so hard about writing a letter to Poppy? It’s not like it's coming from her. Well it technically is, but Carter is taking the credit and Bea never had a problem with people taking credit for her words. So why did this very thought prove to be such an inconvenience? Lucky for Bea, her mind drifted elsewhere when she heard a painful snap. Even if it wasn’t physically connected to her body, she felt a horrible ache. Slowly peering down at the guitar in her hand, Bea found that the neck of the guitar had miraculously split almost clean off, a splinter of wood just holding it intact. She wanted to scream but nothing really came out, except air of course. Much to her disapproval, this was definitely a result of her strength. Stupid muscles couldn’t contain themselves at the thought of Carter being with Poppy. Now how could that be?

But now she had no guitar. And no guitar means no strings to strum, and no lyrics to sing, and no talent to show at the talent show. Now she was in trouble. Probably because she knew that the only way to get the money to replace the guitar would be through sealing the deal with Carter. Oh fuck it!

***

“One letter. And enough money to buy a new guitar.”

“Deal!”

Bea turns away with a sigh, completely ignoring Carter’s high five. Now all she had to do was write this letter, and pray that Poppy wouldn’t completely consume every fiber of her being in the process.

-------------------------------------------

End note: So how we feelin’? Carter and Bea Brotp??

Tags: @samanthadalton @somewillwin @clowneryme @baexpoppy @zigxryanz @uselesslesbianfr @aleiramacaii @thedaft1 @alexlabhont @iamsimpforpoppy

#queen b #poppy min sinclair #poppy x mc #mc x poppy #playchoices #I couldn't come up with a unique title #throw some ideas if you have #do share your opinion on this #it is valued #oblivious bea is a pain in the ass #but certainly fun to write

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malikmata · 3 years ago

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Notes from a Brown Boy - Kansas Diaries

*Author’s Note: Some people’s names have been changed to protect their identities

The rain was the first thing to greet me when I landed in Wichita. Overhead the gray clouds loomed, shadowing the farmland that yawned in the distance. Distance. At first glance, the city seemed like one long stretch of prairies and cracked parking lots, occasionally punctuated by billboards of grinning injury lawyers and lit up restaurant road signs.

If you spend enough time here amid the crumbling old buildings, watching the weeds sway in the vacant lots, you’ll feel the slow, inevitable creep of dread or something like it.

It’s easy to feel lonely here.

But, if you’re receptive enough, you’ll run into many friendly folks. Sometimes too friendly.

For example: During my first week, I went to Freddy’s, a local fast food chain, and ordered a crispy chicken sandwich with fries. The cashier, a young woman with glasses and short blonde hair, suddenly started confessing her fear that her 8-year old chihuahua wouldn’t live a long life.

“I still think of him as a teenager,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “He’s a chihuahua. They live long lives.”

Out here, in the most middle-of-the-road cities, you sometimes get a chance to show an act of passing kindness. While waiting in line at one of the hip, new cafes downtown, a place called Milkfloat, a tall elderly gentleman recommended which coffee and pastry to get.

“My wife says this place has the best cold brew in town.” Afterwards, grabbing his pastry and coffee, he wished me a good day. Most folks here always do and you better hope it comes true. Because here, like elsewhere, a day is filled with ordinary heartbreaks.

I will simply call her “Tita.” She works as a tailor at a department store, the only tailor working there, hemming and tapering racks full of suit pants under fluorescent lights. The nature of the job requires exact measurements and a keen eye for detail. She works hard, often skips lunch, and comes home dead tired. Her husband is recovering from 4 broken ribs after a car repair job went awry. Nothing can be done but wait until he gets better.

They live in a languid suburb on Wichita’s east side, a street with few sidewalks but plenty of lawn.

And noise. Plenty of noise. The neighborhood sits next to a car dealership. The skies overhead rumble continuously with airplanes and thunderstorms. Dogs bark at anyone who gets too close. A pickup truck blasts a corny country song as the cicadas and frogs belt out their lonely mating calls. Occasionally, a child’s laughter rises above it all.

Gossip is one of the great pastimes in towns like these. Even if you shut yourself up in your home, stories trickle in.

The neighbor across the street shot himself in the head.

The elderly couple that used to live next door got committed to a nursing home.

A fellow around the corner is on his third attempt to grow weed.

A college student starves himself morning to night so that he can save money for college.

Down the street, a kid lifts weights and punches the heavy bag hanging on his front porch.

Here, dumb luck seems, more so than in the big cities, the providence of God.

A man told me he got a job installing new carpets at a friend’s house. He was in desperate need of money, having sent most of it to his mother back home, who proceeded to gamble it away. When he ripped out the old carpet, he found a bundle of $10,000 dollars just lying there. His co-worker said, “We should split it.”

“No, no, we can’t take it.” the man said. He gave the money to his friend.

Sometime later, he went to the casino and couldn’t stop winning jackpot after jackpot. He brought home close to $16,000 in one night.

“So, if you do something good,” he told me, “God will remember that.”

Many people have come to live and die here, all of them wrapped up in the melancholic churning of faded ambitions and familial obligations.

Some people here have found something that returns them to the placidity they once felt in their youth. Sometimes that’s enough to keep them going.

For example:

I met Phil Uhlik, the namesake of the music store on E Douglas. He heard me playing an old Martin acoustic in one of the rooms. He shuffled in slightly hunched over, wearing a blue paisley shirt and brown shorts. He looked at the sunburst guitar in my hands and said, “It’s got a little beauty mark there.” He pointed to a small nick just above the sound hole. “All girls have beauty marks.” He pointed to his cheeks and smiled.

Uhlik started this music store 51 years ago and enjoys every moment of it.

“When you go to work for Boeing, that’s work,” he said. “But this, it doesn’t feel like work.” He motioned to the instruments all around him.

“How’d you get started?” I asked.

“I started off playing one of these,” he said, taking one of the accordions off a nearby shelf. As he strapped it on, all the years seemed to disappear. With a big crooked-teeth grin, he breathed life into the old accordion, his hands dancing up and down the keys. The smile never left his face as we bid farewell to each other.

I wish everyone in this world were as lucky as Phil.

I’m always seeking indie bookstores when I travel. Eighth Day Books provides much needed shelter from the summer heat. The shop was built 33 years ago and used to be located about half a mile east, in Clifton Square Village. About 17 years ago they moved to their current location, a 1920 Dutch-style colonial house on the corner of E Douglas and N Erie. Its blue trimmed windows peek through the foliage of neighboring trees.

When you walk in, you’ll see shelves of books on Christianity and Theological studies, most notably in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. I’ve never seen a bookshop with a section dedicated to Iconography.

Wichita, despite its size, feels like a small place. And with that cramped spaciousness, you’re likely to run into someone you may remember or who may remember you. Here I ran into my girlfriend’s 8th grade English teacher. A bald, bespectacled man with a gentle demeanor. After a bit of catching up, he said to us with a smile, “I hope all your dreams come true.”

The short story writer, Raymond Carver, once wrote: “Dreams… are what you wake up from.”

Wichita is a land that hypnotizes you; it makes you dream, dream of something beyond the miles of strip malls and airplane factories, beyond the shocks of wheat and windswept plains, beyond the doldrums and ennui. But it also shakes you awake, reminds you that you’re in it, that you better stop dreaming.

I’m not the religious sort anymore, having survived the regime laid down by my Catholic parents. But there is something enthralling, maybe even inspirational, when I look at the rows of beautifully painted portraits of saints and martyrs. Such solemn faces surrounded by golden halos. According to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, such paintings transcend art; they’re supposed to be windows through which you can glimpse the divine. They remind me of my grandparents with their judging eyes and moral seriousness.

My book haul for the day:

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

The Diary of Anne Frank

Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries by Marina Tsvetaeva

Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector

In that last book, I found this lovely little passage:

…”in the Revolution, as always, the weight of everyday life falls on women: previously--in sheaves, now in sacks. Everyday life is a sack with holes. And you carry it anyway.”

From Earthly Signs, P. 40

According to the 2019 United States census bureau, 15.9% of Wichita's population lives below the poverty line. That’s higher than the state average, which hovers around 11.4%. That’s not the lowest nor is it the highest in the country. As befitting its location, Kansas is right in the middle.

The minimum wage in Kansas is still $7.25 despite efforts to increase it to $15. When Covid-19 hit, city and service workers bore the brunt of the impact. You can keep all your empty slogans like “We Love Our Frontline Workers.” Congratulate me all you want for my hard work but where’s my pay?

When you see that business here has returned to normal--people freely walking around without masks, no longer socially distancing--it still feels all too strange; we spent an entire year under lockdown. There’s still a pandemic by the way.

Loved ones fell ill, died alone, hooked up to ventilators in closed off hospital rooms. I believe every interaction now carries the weight of all those deaths. My family, like so many others, didn’t escape unscathed from the pandemic. My grandpa, Amang, caught Covid. Since he was an elderly citizen (and suffering from emphysema to boot), he was among those considered most at risk. We all feared the worst. Somehow he survived. The doctors called him a “trailblazer.”

Now, with businesses back to 100% capacity, I’m afraid that, just like the 1918 Flu epidemic, the past will fade like a nightmare upon waking. But it was so much more than that; it was an avoidable tragedy.

If you want to know what this pandemic has done to people and their livelihoods, is still doing to them, take a ride through downtown.

Things were already going bad before Covid hit. Back in 2004, the writer Thomas Frank wrote,

“There were so many closed shops in Wichita… that you could drive for blocks without ever leaving their empty parking lots, running parallel to the city streets past the shut-down sporting goods stores and toy stores and farm implement stores.”

What’s the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, P. 75

What led to all this blight? Frank attributes the decline to:

“the conservatives’ beloved free market capitalism, a system that, at its most unrestrained, has little use for smalltown merchants or the agricultural system that supported the small towns in the first place.”

-P. 79

The same story happens in a lot of places. A megacorporation keeps eating everything around it and leaves nothing else at the table.

The people are left hurting, a pit in their stomachs, and some asshole somewhere profits off of it.

While at the DMV, I overheard this:

“You have a good day now,” the security guard said.

“I’ll try my best,” a woman said.

My girlfriend heard them too and laughed.

“You really do have to try your best in order to have a good day here.”

At some point, we hit the town with a couple friends: Monica, and her boyfriend Will. Both are musicians trying to carve out their niche in a place that, on the surface, seems apathetic to creative pursuits.

It’s impossible to not be captured by their energy. As soon as we walk into their house, Monica, with her dark blonde hair draped over her shoulders, reached in for a hug. Will, a tall and bearded fellow with a bear-like presence, also went in for the hug.

“Ready to experience some Wichita nightlife?” Monica asked.

What is the nightlife here like? A group of high school punks wanted to fight us over a couple movie theater seats. Bored kids play rounds of “Chinese Fire Drill” at stop lights. I heard a nazi biker gang rolled into town at some point during my stay. Regular things like that.

At a low-key bar downtown called Luckys, I met a guy named Cory. He told me how he met a 15 year old kid loitering here, looking lost and forlorn.

“I don’t know what kind of advice I can give you but I’ll do the best I can,” Cory said.

This is the spirit I’ve often come across during my stay: A sort of slightly intrusive compassion. For a cynical Californian like me, the behavior seems a little strange, maybe even a little annoying. But I’ve come to appreciate the candor of it.

“Guaranteed we’ll know half the people here,” Will said.

Right away, he shook hands with the bartender—a high school friend of his—and asked him how his band was doing. Afterwards, we sat down and talked. Talking, after a year of pandemic lockdown, has become a lost art to me. But a little alcohol loosened the lips and suddenly I talked as though I’d known these people my whole life.

Will sipped his whisky on the rocks and told me:

“If everything in this world is meant to break down eventually, then any act of creation becomes an act of defiance.”

It may sound naive but to me, it’s true. I think about the words of the writer, John Berger:

Compassion defies the laws of necessity. To forget yourself and identify with a stranger has a power that defies the supposed natural order of things.

--The Shape of a Pocket, P. 179

Making art has to be, in some way, a compassion act, because it involves letting the environment and the people you meet speak for themselves, allowing a collaboration.

“When a painting is lifeless it is the result of the painter not having the nerve to get close enough for a collaboration to start… Every authentic painting demonstrates a collaboration.”

--The Shape of a Pocket, P. 16

You need to open yourself up, feel what someone is saying behind their words, and hopefully, feel what they feel.

Art, like Compassion, is defiant.

Among the 4 or so Asian markets here, you can find all the ingredients you need to cook up something good. During my first week, I stopped at a place called Grace Market. Like a lot of small Asian markets, it’s family run. A father from Taiwan. A mother from Korea. The son usually helps out when he can. Today (June 23), On this warm Wednesday morning, the son is manning the cash register.

“You’re from California? I’m from there too,” he said.

“Where at?” I asked.

“Sacramento. How about you? So Cal?”

“Nah, Bay Area.”

“Funny. That’s where my parents met.”

“Small world.”

On a different day, we met the father, a jovial man who never fails to say hi when you walk in. He came here over a couple decades ago from California, doing work for the US Army in Garden City. Once his service was over, he decided to stay in Kansas.

“I think you know why,” he said.

More and more young folks these days are leaving California. The high cost of living is presumably what’s driving this exodus. I told him I was also thinking of leaving the Golden State, as much as I love the place.

“Well, a town like this has a lot of potential if you want to save money,” he said. “If I tried to start this business in California, I don’t think I could’ve done it.”

The summer heat can, with the suddenness of a lightning flash, give way to thunderous storms. Speaking as someone from California, whose home has gone through excruciating periods of drought and wildfire, these nightly downpours are a startling yet relaxing sight.

The distant boom of thunder in the distance reminds you of how much of our lives depend on the weather, how small we are in comparison, how we are never separate from the goings-on of nature. The rain doesn’t come down lightly here. At night, it smacks and drums against the window pane with all the force of an animal trying to get inside.

But I don’t find myself frightened by it so much as awed by the combined power of wind and rain colliding against our rickety old house.

Kansas lies in the Great Plains, where layers of cool and warm air often combine into a low-level jet stream. Unimpeded by any natural obstacles on the wide flat plains, the wind roars across the expanse. Thunder growls over the prairie. And lightning flashes on the horizon in a fearsome red tinge.

The storm rages throughout the night, the only source of light in an ocean-sized plain.

“In general, the gods of the Wichita are spoken of as "dreams," and they are divided into four groups: Dreams-that-are-Above (Itskasanakatadiwaha), or, as the Skidi would say, the heavenly gods; and (2) Dreams-down-Here (Howwitsnetskasade), which, according to the Skidi terminology, are the earthly gods. The latter "dreams" in turn are divided into two groups: Dreams-living-in-Water (Itska-sanidwaha), and the Dreams-closest-to-Man (Tedetskasade)”

From The Mythology of the Wichita, P. 33

If you go downtown, you’ll see a sculpture called “The Keeper of the Plains.”

It’s almost 9 o’ clock when I get there, so large crowds have gathered to watch the ring of fire lit around its perimeter.

The statue was designed by indigenous artist and craftsman, Blackbear Bosin. Born in Cyril, Oklahoma, but living much of his adult life in Wichita, Kansas, Bosin was of Comanche and Kiowa descent and almost entirely self-taught as an artist.

When you come upon the Keeper of the Plains, standing tall on the fork of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas Rivers, you can’t help but feel a mix of admiration and sadness. It’s a striking statue, especially when set against the beautiful orange and lavender hues of the setting sun. But monuments like these end up reminding you of the Wichita peoples who were killed, displaced, driven from their land, and left to die in reservations, forgotten. The tribes that once lived here along the southern plains still show traces of their culture but now, you’ll see it mostly as a memory in a museum or as art hanging on the walls of a library.

I learned from a video by the Wichita Eagle that the last speaker of the Wichita language, Doris Jean Lamar, died back in 2016. It must be indescribably lonely to be the last speaker of a language. There is no one to have a conversation with, no one to whom you can confess your hopes or your regrets. But in the video, Lamar, even knowing that she is the last speaker, expresses hope that future generations will know what the language sounded like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ScPkN_xGRI

Is forgiveness even possible when injustices are still committed today against native peoples everywhere?

Not enough can be said about the skies here, which seem at times so brilliantly marbled with peach and lavender colors that you begin to walk with your head perpetually craned upwards.

It’s this aspect, the overwhelming sense of the sublime, that will probably stay with me long after I’ve left Kansas.

I think again about the nature of dreams. It isn’t such a sin to dream about things, about things that haven’t happened yet, and about things that have happened. To quit dreaming seems too cynical, like admitting from the outset that everything is screwed, that you should stop trying.

During my stay here, I’ve met many people who aren’t so irony poisoned yet, people who are achingly sincere and kind. They haven’t stopped trying. There isn’t much room for cynicism here. I appreciate that a lot.

Farewell to you, Kansas, you and your clumps of cumulus and vast fields of cows and grass. I’ll see you again.

Check out Will’s music! It’s gloomy, melancholy, and LOUD!: https://teamtremolo.bandcamp.com/album/intruder

#diary #photoblog #photo diary #midwest #kansas #travel diaries

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