#imagine some Christian looking at the Jesus tag and finding this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

a-queer-seminarian · 3 years

Note

Hello, you seem to be knowledgeable about god. Do you know where to find him and what his weaknesses are? I have dedicated my life to hunting him down and killing him for the indescribable amount of suffering he has directly or indirectly caused.

cw: violent language, including about fighting / killing God; as well as discussion of the Shoah / Holocaust later on in the post

(gonna start this long-ass response by saying that yes, i know this anon is probably joking about dedicating their life to hunting down God, but i’m gonna answer it like they’re serious because that’s the kind of person i am haha)

honestly anon, all power to ya! it sounds like my own understanding of God is quite different from yours (for instance, i would claim that God’s main weakness is actually Their best strength, which is compassion and steadfast solidarity) -- but the question of why God allows suffering is one i come back to all the damn time.

if you do track God down -- if God turns out to be a Being that can be tracked down to one location and time -- please do deliver my regards and my sincerest “WTF??”

you’re not the first to demand God answer for the suffering that’s happened on Their watch --

for if God is truly omnipotent, and truly all-loving, why don’t they do something about all this pain??? Indeed, the Bible is rich with similar demands -- from the psalmists to Job to Jesus himself from the cross (quoting a psalm, he cries, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me??”).

You might already know all this, but if not, the question of God’s place in suffering is often referred to as theodicy, at least in Christian circles.

That term comes from the Greek for god + justice, so what it literally means is “justifying (or vindicating) God”....which I’m not a huge fan of, because it implies that when we explore this question of where God is in suffering, we already know the result will be that God will be proven innocent (or at least “not guilty”).

But do we know that?? See the bottom of this post for an example of a time people of great faith found God guilty!

Anyway, theodicy describes intellectual efforts “to jerry-rig three mutually exclusive terms into harmony: divine power, goodness, and the experiences of evil.“ - Wendy Farley

If you want to learn more about theodicy and the way some theologians have “made sense” of suffering, check out this introductory post I’ve got.

Or wander through my whole #theodicy tag over on my other blog.

I invite you to explore theodicy not in any attempt to convince you of anything, but so you know some of the arguments you’re up against! Honestly, the more i explore theodicy, the less satisfied i am with any justifications for why God doesn’t intervene in the face of so much suffering...so if you do the reading and still conclude God is guilty, i’m not gonna tell you you’re definitely wrong.

Anyway. Like i said, you’re not alone in wanting answers for why God -- however, i don’t know that i’ve seen anyone else with your determination to find and kill God!

(Except, and i hate that i know this lol, that’s apparently the plot of the final season of Supernatural -- they find out God’s a total ass who not only is guilty of negligence but also directly responsible for a lot of suffering for his own sadistic enjoyment. so. they kill the bastard.)

Still, while i don’t know that i’ve seen too many people who want to take God out, the idea of wrestling God is pervasive -- especially within Judaism, but also among some Christians.

i’m very into wrestling God, myself, finding it far more faithful to the God who gifted us free will and invites us into true, mutual relationship than unquestioning obedience.

i have a whole #wrestling God tag over on my other blog.

For the most intense example of wrestling with God i’ve yet seen, with God put on trial and found guilty, keep reading.

_________

cw: discussion of the Shoah / Holocaust below

You might connect to Elie Wiesel’s play The Trial of God, or the movie that was made based off it. Wiesel survived Nazi concentration camps but ceased to believe in God after what he suffered. His play was inspired by something he witnessed while a teen at Auschwitz:

"I witnessed a strange trial. Three rabbis—all erudite and pious men—decided one winter evening to indict God for allowing his children to be massacred. I remember: I was there, and I felt like crying. But nobody cried."

Robert McAfee Brown wrote more about this trial Wiesel witnessed:

“The trial lasted several nights. Witnesses were heard, evidence was gathered, conclusions were drawn, all of which issued finally in a unanimous verdict: the Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, was found guilty of crimes against creation and humankind.”

Note that in 2008 when commenting on this event, Wiesel clarified that “At the end of the trial, they used the word chayav, rather than ‘guilty.’ It means ‘He owes us something.’”

In the chapter “No God, Only Auschwitz” of his book Embracing Hopelessness, Miguel A. De La Torre comments on this verdict by explaining that if God wasn’t going to intervene, then God must at the least speak -- but instead, God was silent:

“God must be held accountable for refusing to speak to those yearning for God’s voice. Something. Anything. A note of solidarity. A testament of love, accompaniment. But they hear and receive nothing. The trial...ends with God owing us something.

De La Torre goes on to describe the play Wiesel wrote based on this memory, which actually takes place in a 1649 Ukranian village, rather than at Auschwitz. The Cossacks raid the village and kill all but two of its Jewish residents.

“In Wiesel’s play, he has the inkeeper Berish voice the same questions those sitting in death camps centuries later asked, if not audibly, then silently:

‘To mention God’s mercy in Shamgorod [Auschwitz] is an insult. Speak of his cruelty instead. ...I want to understand why. He is giving strength to the killers and nothing but tears and the shame of helplessness to the victims. ...Either he is responsible or He is not. If He is, let’s judge him; if He is not, let him stop judging us. ...

‘[I] accuse Him of hostility, cruelty and indifference. ...Either He knows what’s happening to us, or He doesn’t wish to know! In both cases He is...guilty! Would a father stand by, quietly, silently, and watch his children being slaughtered?’”

De La Torre continues with his own thoughts on all this:

“The horrors humanity faces indict God as being less loving and attentive than sinful parents. I hesitate to make any pronouncements as to the character of God because in the final analysis, I lack any empirical knowledge upon which to base my study. Still with all my heart and being I want to say: my God is the God of the oppressed who incarnates Godself among the least of these.

I want to make this bold claim based on the testimony of the gospel witness. But in the midst of the dark night, I confess this hopeful belief is at best a tenet accepted by faith, lacking any means of proving the truth or falsehood of the claim. In the shadow of Auschwitz, though I am not Jewish, nonetheless I am left wondering if the precious Deity who notices the fall of a sparrow is blind to God’s children crushed in the winepress. Do I dare wonder if God is the God of the oppressors?

...Or maybe this is a God who really wants to do good, but lacks the power to do anything in the face of inhumanity. ..."

There’s one more piece to this tale of Wiesel’s witness of the trial of God at Auschwitz. And that is that, after declaring God guilty (or chayav)...

...after what Wiesel describes as an "infinity of silence", the Talmudic scholar looked at the sky and said "It's time for evening prayers", and the members of the tribunal recited Maariv, the evening service. (McAfee Brown)

...That ending is the part that astounds and awes me. These Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz find God guilty -- and then proceed to pray as they always do. I am reminded of what my Jewish friends as well as various Jewish scholars have told me: that Judaism is totally compatible with wrestling with God and even with disbelief. Whether these Jewish prisoners believed God even existed, they prayed -- because that tradition of prayer is what unites them to one another, to their people.

As De La Torre closes his telling of Wiesel’s story,

“At the conclusion of the movie God on Trial, based on the events Wiesel described, shortly after the barrack inmates find God guilty, and those chosen are marched to the gas chamber, they cover their heads and pray. ...

Believers and unbelievers who took the audacious act of placing God on trial do what is totally illogical -- in the midst of their hopelessness they demonstrate their faith as they march toward the gas chambers, or they defiantly embrace who they are while still remaining in heated conversation, damning God. It matters not if God still hears their prayers, or if there even is a God to hear; they still pray, they still debate -- not for God’s sake, but for their own.”

And that brings me to the one bit of actual advice I’ll give you, anon:

If you want to spend your life “hunting God down,” as I said, all power to you! But I do suggest you ponder for whose sake you do so -- and whether you do so for justice or just revenge. What good does such a quest do for those who are suffering now? Are their other paths you could follow that would bring more good? What about your own healing? I imagine you’re not interested in repairing any relationship with religion -- would walking away from God rather than hounding God be a more healing and fruitful path for your finite life?

I’ll close with one more quote from De La Torre, from the very end of his chapter:

“As I stroll through what was once the concentration camp of Dachau, I am cognizant that this space witnessed the unspeakable horrors that befell God’s children at the hands of Christians hoping for a better, purer society and future. ...So do not offer me your words of hope; offer me your praxis for justice. ...In the midst of unfathomable suffering, the earth’s marginalized no longer need pious pontifications about rewards in some hereafter. Nor do they need their oppressors providing the answers for their salvation. What is needed is disruption of the norm to push humanity toward an unachievable justice.

When there is nothing to lose, when work does not set you free, not only are multiple possibilities opened up with new opportunities for radical change unimaginable to those playing it safe; but also a venue is provided by which to get real with whatever this God signifies. ...”

#theodicy #god's silence #god's absence #god on trial #wrestling god #...literally #suffering #embracing hopelessness #essays #Anonymous #holocaust /#shoah /#elie wiesel #yes yes i know this is a troll but hey. i like to talk about theodicy SO thanks for the chance to talk about theodicy at its most extreme

56 notes · View notes

rpd-rookie · 4 years

Text

He Shouldn’t Have Done That (PART 2) - Leon S. Kennedy x Reader

Summary: Ever wondered what happened after your terrible fight with Leon in part 1. Well here is your answer.

Author’s Note: After receiving some messages telling me to write a sequel for "He Shouldn't Have Done That", there it is. But I must warn you, the angst is strong with this one. So get ready to cry! Oh, and I must warn you, that this chapter revolves around the theme of religion in addition to the theme of alcoholism and it also contain strong sexual terms. So if you're not okay with that, please don't read.

Tags: Angst / Alcohol Abuse; Alcoholism / Anxiety / Depression / Language / Explicit Sexual Content / Religion / Death and mourning.

When Leon was a kid, his mother would take him to church every Sunday, dressed in his Sunday best, which was a fancy white shirt and a pair of trousers he was only allowed to wear on Sunday. Needless to say, he hated Sundays. But his mother was such a good Christian, always wearing a silver cross around her neck, always having a Bible under her pillow. She’s the one who had told him to believe. She had told him to believe in God, in Jesus and Mary, in the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. She had told him to believe there was someone up there watching over him, judging him, someone capable of punishing him if he would ever misbehave, sin. Someone powerful, so powerful he could decide his destiny, his fate, his life, his death, and even his beyond. Someone who would accompany him to an heavenly residence after death, that sweet oh so beautiful paradise. Yes, that’s what his mother had told him. And he had listened and followed her teachings to the letter, maybe even longer that he could remember. He had done it because nothing could bring his mother more happiness than him behaving like the sweet choirboy from the suburbs, and that’s all he wanted back then, make his mother happy. But with all the horrors he had seen, Leon Scott Kennedy could not believe in any god anymore. He had buried all his belief, all his teachings - much to his sweet mother’s regrets - in the ashes of Raccoon City a long time ago. And with time, he even wondered if he had ever really believed in the first place.

“That city changed me, in more ways that I can think of. It turned me into the man I am today and sometimes I wonder who I would have become if I had just stayed home on that day instead of driving right into the hellish nightmare that was expecting me there. Possibly, some city cop whose worst worry would have been to know if there was enough paper in the printer. Maybe it wouldn’t have been that bad, who knows? After all, that dude would have never become the mess I am today, that’s for sure. That dude would have never found comfort in alcohol. He would have never cast God away in favour of something able to help him reach some ephemeral paradise, something that just needed a glass to be worshipped, something that preferred cheers to amen. No, that dude would have had a nice quiet life in the suburbs with a lovely wife, two beautiful kids and a dog. And like my mother, he would have taken his charming perfect family to Church on Sunday. Would it have been better for me? For us? Maybe, cause surely, he wouldn’t have done the same mistakes I did”

7 weeks ago - D.S.O Headquarters – Washington DC

You couldn’t help but focus on the fancy pen relentlessly tapping against the glass table. Sitting at the end of the table, perfectly still, his old face appearing somewhat more rigid than usual, the President looked very impatient. And his annoyance was for once more than justified. Leon was terribly late, and by ‘terribly’ you meant ‘almost fifty minutes late’ to be more precise. But the real problem was that he usually was never late. On the contrary, Leon was always the first person to arrive at morning meetings, most of the time carrying cups of coffee for each D.S.O agents including a special one for you: a large black coffee with extra foam on top and a small heart drawn next to your name on the cup, perfect to make you smile like an idiot - Your heart ached as you thought about it and realised there would be no more hearts drawn on your coffee cup now.

You discreetly glimpsed at your watch again, worried and imagining the worse. What if something happened to Leon? What if he drank too much again and fainted at home? Or worse, what if he had a car accident? After all, last time you heard him on your voicemail he sounded devastated and drunker than ever. “I am sure Agent Kennedy must be stuck in traffic, Mr President.” Ingrid Hunnigan dared say in his defence. “Then why isn’t he answering his bloody phone?” The President slammed the pen against the table and let out an angry growl. Hunnigan mumbled, trying to find something to say but the President cut her off before she could even pronounce a word. “Let’s start without him.” “Of course, Mr President.” She stood up and handed out a case file to each agent sitting at the table. When she got to you, she whispered, “Where is Leon?” You briefly looked at her and shook your head. She certainly didn’t know Leon and you had broken up. After all, it had only been a couple of days. “I don’t know.” You mouthed, trying to keep the nascent tears in your eyes. She probably noticed how sad and worried sick you were since she pressed her hand on your shoulder before taking her place back next to the President to explain the content of the documents on the table. “An informer from the BSAA has recently sent us information concerning a possible …”

All of a sudden, the door of the meeting room opened widely, interrupting Hunnigan in her explanations. Leon had finally arrived. Seeing him instantly took a weight off your mind and you sighed, definitely relieved. But the relief was short. “Sorry, I’m late.” His voice sounded off and rather somnolent. Hand still on the doorknob he looked at all of the persons around the table with half-lidded eyes. “Oh, seems like everyone is here. Must be a pretty damn important meeting then.” Oh no. Not now. Not here. Leon. “Agent Kennedy. Thank you for finally honouring us with your presence.” The president declared with a cutting tone that cast a new chill in the meeting room. “You’re welcome” Leon replied, definitely too drowsy to get the sarcasm. You almost gasped, refusing to believe it was actually happening, and watched Leon stagger towards his usual seat next to Hunnigan. She silently gave him a file and discreetly poured him a glass of water to help him sober up a little since she had noticed – just like everyone else in this room – that your ex-boyfriend was mighty drunk. Then, she resumed her monologue, ignoring Leon’s grimace as he drank his water contrary to the President, who was glaring at him, and you, who were staring at his face, completely eating up by guilt and sorrow. Were you the one responsible for this? You thought that leaving him would probably help him realise his alcoholism not fall deeper in it.

Despite the huge level of alcohol running in his blood, Leon was astonishingly listening to the reunion with the biggest care. Actually, he was paying so much attention that when Ingrid Hunnigan pronounced his name and the words “Los Illuminados” in the same sentence he almost hit the roof. “This again? Seriously?” He cut her off, surprising everyone. “You want me to deal with that Spanish bullshit again? Is that what you’re going to say, Hunnigan? Like I haven’t done enough, already.” Ingrid suddenly didn’t know what to do with herself, shocked by Leon’s sudden anger towards her. He had never talked to her like that. That was not in his nature. “Leon, please just let her finish before...” You whispered to calm him down, hoping he would cooperate. “Excuse me. You’re talking to me? You? Really.” He sneered, clearly angry. “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me anymore. After all, you haven’t been answering my calls since you dumped me.” You wanted to reply. But you knew that it would only aggravate the situation and make Leon angrier than he already was and the last thing you wanted was to make a scene or cause him more trouble.

“Is this a joke, Agent Kennedy?” The President growled and glared, definitely irritated by Leon’s behaviour. “No. The joke was your election, sir!” Oh God! Tell me he didn’t say that. There was a sudden heavy silence. Everyone exchanged some aghast quick looks as the President was staring at Leon, his face reddened by anger, ready to burst. “Get out of here, Agent Kennedy. You are furloughed.” But Leon didn’t move and, with an air of defiance, simply replied “Whom are you going to send on your suicide mission if you kick me out? I’m the only one who can do the job here and you fucking know it.” “Out! Out! Get out of here! I’ve had enough of you!” The President shouted, menacingly pointing his finger at Leon who remained still without batting an eyelid. “Leave this building now, Kennedy!” You decided to get up and grabbed Leon’s arm to lead him out. “Come on, Leon. You’re drunk. Let’s get you out to sober up a bit.” You said with an incredible calm but he refused to follow you “Of course I’m drunk. What else can I be? You left me. My job fucked me up. And I’m working with selfish assholes who clearly don’t care about that and want me to continue this fucking job till the day I die. So yeah, what else can I be if not drunk?”

“Gosh, if only I had known back then what the consequences of my actions would be, I would have never said those things or behaved like this. But regrets don’t matter. They don’t matter because it doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself I shouldn’t have done that, I know that there’s no turning back. I know that you will never come back. And I don’t blame you. I can’t blame you because the only person to blame here is me. And I don’t expect your forgiveness either. I know I don’t deserve it and how could you forgive me when even I can’t forgive myself? No, I expect nothing for you.”

3 weeks ago – In a bar somewhere in New York

He didn’t know her name and he was quite sure he hadn’t even asked before locking himself with her in the toilet. And truth to be told, he couldn’t care less. He didn’t need to know her name to take his pants down and he didn’t even need to hear a single word coming from a pretty mouth either. Actually, all he wanted that mouth of hers to do was to keep sucking him off right now. Yes, that’s all he wanted. Hand in her black hair, his head against the dirty wall, he was feeling dizzy with pleasure … and alcohol, especially alcohol. A routine he had grown even fonder of since he had been furloughed. “Yeah, right, suck that cock, you dirty slut.” How many glasses had he had since he entered that bar? Six? Eight? Meh, better not thinking about it right now. “That’s it.”

His cell phone suddenly vibrated on the floor, the blue light of the screen catching his weak attention. He managed to read “Hunnigan” and sighed. “What the hell does she want?” He mumbled, annoyed. “What did you say?” The girl asked but he chose not to answer and instead shove his cock back in her mouth. But the phone kept on buzzing on the grimy tiles and Leon couldn’t take his mind or his eyes off it, his professionalism getting the better of his drunken self. “Fuck” He cursed as he bent to grab the device, pushing the girl away from him, making her lose her balance and fall on her rear. “Better be important, Hunnigan.” He immediately said, annoyance tinting his drunken voice. “Leon.” Her voice was strangled and trembling. It didn’t take a genius to get she had been crying. And Leon knew that if Hunnigan was crying then something terrible had certainly happened. “Give me a second, Hunnigan.”

He quickly pulled his jeans back up and pushed the door of the toilet, leaving his brief conquest high and dry on the floor. “Where are you going?” She squealed but he didn’t listen. He got out of the bar to find a quiet place, phone still against his ear, listening to his partner sniff on the other side of the line. “Alright. What’s going on? Do you need anything?” He was worried. Maybe something had happened to her. “No” She said, her voice shuddering even more than before. “Where are you? Are you alone?” She asked. “Yeah. I’m outside a bar, in New York. Why?” He dared ask, impatient yet apprehensive to know what was actually going on. “Sit” He frowned and froze. That didn’t sound good. Nothing is ever good when someone tells you to sit down. “Hunnigan.” “ Y/N is dead.”

It was as if someone heavy and massive had instantly dropped on him, as if something had punched his stomach and crushed his chest in a single move, preventing him from breathing, preventing his heart from beating, preventing all his members from moving. That was not possible. This couldn’t be happening. This was a dream, a nightmare or a perhaps hallucination cast by alcohol. But as soon as Leon heard Hunnigan saying his name again, he knew this was too real for this to be the mere fruit of his imagination or his subconscious. “How?” It was the only word that he managed to say, feeling too numb to make a complete sentence right now. “Leon that wasn’t your fault.” “How?” He insisted. He wanted to know. He needed to know. He needed to know why you would never come back to him, why he would never see you again, kiss you again. But foremost, he needed to know who was the son of a bitch responsible for it. “ In a mission in Spain.”

His phone immediately fell to the humid ground, breaking in a thousand pieces just like Leon’s whole body. His knees bent under the sudden weight of pain, anger and guilt and soon he collapsed to the sidewalk, completely appalled, tears flooding his blue eyes.

He had done this. It was his fault. All his fault.

Disoriented and panting, he started looking all around him for something, anything that could help him get out of this hell. But there was nothing and he was alone. He would forever be alone now.

He had killed you. You were dead because of him.

Leon screamed, face reddened by rage, angry tears flowing down his face. His fists hit the ground repeatedly, hard, so hard, his knuckles started bleeding. But he didn’t care. He didn’t even see it. He couldn’t feel that pain either. The only pain he could feel right now was the one from his heart being torn out from his chest, a pain that would ultimately leave an emptiness he would never be able to fill ever again. But he wanted to feel pain. He wanted to feel that precise pain, finding it a fitting punishment for everything he had done that had lead to this moment, that had led to your death.

Was it God punishing him? Was his mother right all along? Was He making him pay for what the pain he had brought you, for all the mistakes he had done, for choosing to worship a fucking bottle of whisky instead of Him? Was it his plan all along?

“IS THAT WHAT YOU FUCKING WANTED?” Leon shouted on his knees, looking at the menacing stormy sky.

He bent over the sidewalk, head in his arms, sobbing and sniffing loudly, moaning your name, begging you to come back. “Please don’t leave me here.” But just like God, when Leon was a little boy praying with his mother at the Sunday mass, you didn’t answer. “I’m sorry.” He had never wanted this to happen to you. He had never wanted your life to end like this. All he had ever wanted for you was your happiness even if it meant a long and beautiful life without him. Because if a bottle of whisky smashed against the wall had made him realise one thing is that you deserved to find the person that could love you better than him, a person to worship you just as his mother worshipped God and he worshipped his liquor. Because you were the only thing worth worshipping in this goddamn world, the only thing he would gladly believe in. Because, if religion was meant to bring comfort, if God was truly there to watch over him, judge him and punish him as his mother had told him then you were his God all along. After all, who if not you brought him the comfort when he needed it? Who if not you watched over him when he was in a very bad way? Who if not you judged him when he needed to be judged and no one dared to do it? Who if not you can make him fall on his knees like a pilgrim and wish for a paradise just to have the hope he would one day see you again?

He stayed on that sidewalk for at least an hour on that night, still and quiet, completely empty, feeling the rain pour on him, until two policemen sent by Hunnigan went to look for him. “Are you okay, sir?” No, no he was not. And he wasn’t even sure he would be okay ever again. But he eventually got better.

“ I haven’t had a single drink in three weeks. Hunnigan says that I should feel proud but I don’t. Because look what I needed to quit.”

Leon looked at the flowered marble tomb at his feet, staring at your name with an intense sadness and melancholy he would never be able to get rid of. He had taken him a while to come here, refusing to step a foot in this cemetery even for you funeral because that would be admitting your death and he couldn’t do that. But that he was here, he couldn’t help but acknowledge how cathartic talking to you was.

“ I’m leaving for Spain tomorrow. President’s order. I guess that despite being a complete asshole he is not very resentful. I have no idea what’s expecting me there but I promise you, I’ll find whoever is responsible your death and I’ll make them pay. They will learn they shouldn’t have done that.”

#leon s kennedy #leon kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy x reader #fanfic #resident evil #resident evil vendetta

197 notes · View notes

tuanhood · 4 years

Text

gamma

pairing: christian frat!park jinyoung x sorority!reader

genre: lil angst at the beginning and a LOT of fluff at the end

warnings: some language, also a bit of slut shaming/yugyeom kind of being terrible :( i’m sorry!

word count: 8,900+

summary: you’ve always thought the christian frat on campus was judgmental towards you and your friends in greek life, but when you somehow find yourself at their “water on the row” event, you realize there’s one alpha gamma omega boy that may just change your mind.

a/n: hello guys! so I just want to do a disclaimer in case and say that i don’t think christianity or all christian organizations/entities are judgmental or act like this. this is purely for narrative purposes and based on one conversation i heard once! so please take with a grain of salt as you read! also for my smut lovers all three of the next parts will include smut! this takes place inside the same universe as lambda so enjoy! :) please let me know what you guys think! even if it’s in the tags!!

“Okay so spill, did you kiss him or WHAT?” your friend Katie slurred as you both stumbled back and forth on the sidewalk. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep walking back home, you were starting to enter the phase of drunk where you just wanted to sit down for a while and drift to sleep.

“Who do you think I am?” You asked her in fake shock, “of course I did.”

At your words, you had to stop her from falling down to the ground at how hard she was laughing and squealing, “I knew it! I knew it!”

The two of you had spent the last few hours at a local club in town. It was certainly a risky bet by going there considering most of its customers were people you probably knew or someone you’d at the very least share a mutual friend with. But you go to frat parties with guys we know, many of the sisters in your sorority pointed out. Which was very true, but for some reason it felt different hooking up with a frat guy you knew at his house versus hooking up with him in town at the local bar. You wanted to lead separate lives.

You laughed along with her and attempted to ultimately calm her down so you could keep walking back towards the house. It was a little early to already be heading back on a Friday night, but the two of you had drank a lot in a short amount of time, already going through the mode of intoxication between drunk and sleepy.

“I’m starving,” Katie suddenly mumbled, taking ahold of her stomach and stopping in her tracks, pulling you back towards her, “I need something to eat.” Despite your overly intoxicated state, you were still coherent enough to be annoyed at your friend’s sudden whining, “we’re already close to the row, I’m not going back into town.”

She pouted and you could tell by the methodical look on her face that she was calculating in her mind some sort of plan. Suddenly she snapped her fingers together – or at least tried to considering the alcohol she had consumed earlier – and pointed at you.

“Water on the row!”

Immediately you began to shake your head at her idea. You didn’t care how hungry she was, there was no way you were making a stop at the AGO house.

Water on the row was an event or “thing” put on by the brothers at Alpha Gamma Omega – the Christian centered frat. Every Friday night some of the members would pass out pancakes and water to drunk people that were coming home from their night out or even still in the middle of it.

The boys from Alpha Gamma Omega had always been… disconnected from the rest of the fraternities and sororities on Greek row. Which was why they started “Water on the Row.” So it would give them more opportunities to interact with other orgs but still keep up their “alcohol-free” house lifestyle.

In theory it was a nice thing to do, but you had your own personal vendetta against AGO. You had no issue with their beliefs, religion or what their frat stood for in general, but many of the interactions you and others you knew had with their members were not positive. They tended to look down on other fraternities and sororities due to their “lifestyles” which didn’t exactly make them the most popular on the row. However, when most people were drunk out of their minds, hungry and dehydrated they would willingly take all the pancakes and water they could.

You scoffed, “I don’t want anything from those judgmental Jesus lovers.” Even the thought of passing by them as they handed out their pancakes and water thinking they were saints made your skin crawl.

“Are you really still upset about that guy from recruitment in the plaza? That was like over a year ago.”

“It doesn’t matter how long ago it was, it’s still annoying and hurtful to me.”

Often times words didn’t really get to you. Being in Greek life and involved in all aspects of it you were used to catty and hurtful things being said or thrown around, but roughly a year ago you had let your guard slip down.

It had been a warm September day and you had been assigned to run the table for your sorority that day in an effort to get underclassmen – primarily freshmen – to sign up to rush to be in the Fall pledge class. You had already been in a bad mood since when you showed up to your school’s plaza to be assigned a spot to set up, the student union had decided to give you a location that was not highly desirable. You were squashed in between one of the medical professional sororities and the Christian fraternity Alpha Gamma Omega.

Compared to the other sororities you were getting less prospective members coming over to your table. When many glanced over in your direction, they would see who you were stuck next to and automatically assume you weren’t a top tier sorority on campus. It irked you. Roughly an hour and a half into tabling and recruitment, your friend Mark from Lambda Chi Alpha had come to visit you.

“Not a great day, huh?”

You had scoffed and looked up at him from your seat, “I’m pretty sure Ben from student union has it out for me because I wouldn’t sleep with him.”

Mark had thrown his head back and laughed, grabbing the boy at the Alpha Gamma Omega table’s attention.

“You know next time you just have to let me know and I’ll set you up really well. I’m pretty sure Jennifer from student union wants to sleep with me so I could put in a word for you.”

Your eyebrows had furrowed in confusion, “don’t you have a girlfriend?”

“Yes! And I’ve told Jennifer that six times!”

Then it was your turn to laugh, “guess she’s committed to waiting around. Can’t say the same about Ben though. Said no to him once and now I’m stuck back here in the shadows.”

Mark had frowned, “if I see any girls come my way while I’m up there, I’ll be sure to tell them to come back here. Don’t worry.”

“Thanks Mark, you’re the best.”

Mark had always been like a big brother to you. You had met him very early on at a party where weirdly enough you had tried to hit on him. Looking back it was embarrassing considering the fact at how now you could never see dating him. He was a year older and always looked out for you in the hectic system that was Greek life.

He leaned forward to rub your shoulder comfortingly, “any time sis.” As you had watched him walk away back to his table in a prime location, you sighed hoping that he would keep up his promise of sending girls to your corner of the plaza.

“Slut.”

At first you had thought it was some kind of mirage or hallucination as the temperature was arriving at heatwave level, but as you whipped your head to the Alpha Gamma Omega table you were met with almost venomous eyes staring you down. You looked at him with mouth agape, unsure of how to answer his completely incorrect and uncalled for assessment of you.

“Excuse me?” You had been able to muster through a somewhat shaky tone.

The boy in AGO letters suddenly looked at you cluelessly, “what?”

You blinked a few times to wonder if you had indeed imagined being called a slut, but you realized that you hadn’t come out here in hot weather on a Tuesday afternoon to be gaslit.

“You just called me a slut and I’d like a fucking apology.”

The boy looked taken aback, as if he hadn’t intended on you saying anything or confronting him. His eyes remained blank, but for a moment you can catch a flicker of acknowledgment behind them – he had known exactly what you were talking about. “Sorry, but I think you must have misheard. I would never say that.”

“Uh like hell I misheard you. I know what you said and I want you to apologize.”

He leaned back in his chair and looked around, surveying if anyone had been paying attention to the spat between you two. “I’m not apologizing for something that’s the truth,” he said under his breath. Despite the attempt for you not to hear him, the look on his face was loud enough for you to detect his answer.

Ever since that day you looked at AGO differently and tried your best to avoid everything and anything that had to do with them.

With the current conversation, you could feel yourself sobering up and suddenly realized that you didn’t want to. If Katie was going to make you go over to Alpha Gamma Omega, you were going to give them what they wanted which was an intoxicated hoe.

“Do you have anything left in the flask?”

Your friend looked at you surprised, “I think so. You want more?” She pulled the silver flask out from inside her coat and shook it to see what was left. Without a word you grabbed it from her and poured all of the liquid into your mouth. The burn in your throat was just what you need to get through this.

“AGO house it is…” you mumbled, wiping the vodka that had dribbled onto your chin and grabbing Katie’s hand. She continued to thank you for being such a good friend all the way to Greek row and until you’re both standing in a line in front of Alpha Gamma Omega.

At a glance at the lengthy line – full of people you recognized – you heard Katie whine beside you. Suddenly you felt that feeling you only got when you were drunk and feel the need to sober up because someone more wasted than you was in trouble. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” You asked her.

She turned to you with a scowl on her face, “I don’t want to stand in this line, I just want to go home… call Jaebeom over or something.”

You shrugged your shoulders, “I mean you’re the one who wanted food. I’m fine with just going back,” you began but she immediately shook her head, “no I still want the pancakes. You can just bring them to me at the house once you get to the front of the line.”

“What? Are you joking? I’m not standing in this line alone when you’re the one who wanted food.”

As much as you loved the girls in your sorority especially Katie, you had to admit there was a huge difference between your friendships in the chapter versus your friends who were unaffiliated. For example, you were pretty sure your nonaffiliated friends wouldn’t leave you slightly intoxicated in line for pancakes from the Christian frat that once called you a slut to go home to hook up with her “are they, aren’t they” boyfriend.

She shrugged, “I’m sorry Y/N… Just in one of those moods and you know Jaebeom is the only one who can bring me down.”

You opened your mouth to protest, to call her out and tell her how annoying and infuriating she was being, but nothing came out. She took this as your approval and smiled brightly, leaning forward to kiss you on the cheek, “thank you! You’re the absolute best!! Just knock three times on my door when you get back to the house with the pancakes. Ya know just in case…” with a wink she’s gone down the street, pulling out her phone most likely to call Jaebeom.

After about ten minutes in line, it occured to you that you could have just said no and gone with her, but at that point you realized two important things. You were a pushover and you were already at the front of the line.

“Here you go.”

When you looked up at the guy, you felt yourself freeze. The man in front of you gave you a pleasant smile, his hand extended towards you with a plate of pancakes and a water bottle. He looked at you unemotionally, waiting for you to take it out of your hands, but you can’t. You couldn’t move. He was the most gorgeous man you had ever seen in probably your entire life. He looked like a prince or an actor. He looked like someone who deserved to be stared at and adored all day. You weren’t a photographer but you would become one just so you could take photos of him and open up an exhibit where everyone else could be exposed to his beauty.

You were already calculating in your head who you knew with an art gallery connection.

It was clear the man felt uneasy or at least from your point of view he did. He shuffled over to the side so the next person in line could be helped by one of the other AGO guys. “Are you okay?”

With his concern, you suddenly remembered why you weren’t a fan of this frat. His questioning of whether or not you were okay probably wasn’t genuine or authentic. He most likely was thinking about it from a stand point that he’s the virtuous one who’s giving out food and water, while you’re the drunk one, therefore you must not be okay.

Rolling your eyes, you moved to the side with him, “yeah I’m fine thanks.”

It’s clear he’s thrown off by your tone and instead of ignoring it, handing you the pancakes and sending you on your way, he continued, “sorry… I just wanted to see if you were alright. You were kind of not moving for a while.”

“And what? I have to move every second to make people think I’m okay? FYI just because you’re drunk doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you.” Your feisty attitude was a clear tell-tale that the vodka from the flask was hitting you.

The guy looked at you curiously. He had his fair share of interactions with drunk people on the Friday nights he did Water on the Row, but this felt different. It was almost as though what he had said you had taken as a threat or a personal attack and he wasn’t sure why.

“I-I know that,” he stuttered a bit. Despite him standing over you and being much broader, he felt intimidated by your presence – but not necessarily in a negative way.

“I am drunk okay and the only thing that’s difficult is dealing with you right now.”

Even you were surprised at the words you were spitting out at him. You’ve had your cruel drunk moments, but you had never acted like this with a complete stranger before.

This time he didn’t have a reaction for your words. Instead, he looked from you to the rest of the guys next to him and then back to you, “are you here with anyone?”

You snorted, thinking about how Katie had just left you to fend for the two of you.

“No.”

Once again, he looked between you and the other guys. It made you shuffle in place of where you’re standing, feeling uncertain for the first time since you’d laid eyes on him.

“Why don’t I walk you back to your house?”

The first thought in your mind was that he was just offering to take you home as an AGO move to prove that he was a saint, better than any of the other countless frat guys that had been with you at the end of the night while you were drunk. It’s the softness of his eyes and the nervous biting of his bottom lip that made you realize he’s actually being genuine. You don’t know why, but you start to feel nervous, even after alcohol which usually makes you confrontation and confident.

“I don’t typically go home with strangers so… I’ll need your identification.”

He laughed at your formality and you almost feel your heart jump out of your chest when you see the crinkles that appear near his eyes when he smiles. You tried your best to push your feelings down when you realize it wouldn’t be so bad keep making him laugh.

Playing along, he reached towards his back pocket to pull out his wallet. Surprisingly, he handed his driver’s license to you which you accepted willingly.

You get annoyed at first glance when you see how good he looks in the photo because you’ve truly never seen anyone look that good in an image meant for an ID of any kind.

“Park Jinyoung,” you read off the license, and Jinyoung almost feels his own heart stop. Handing it back to him quickly you shrugged your shoulders in a nonchalant way, “I trust you.”

“Wow is that all it takes these days?” You rolled your eyes to stop yourself from smiling at his joke, you didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, “I guess for little old intoxicated me on a Friday night it is. Now come on,” you waved your hand taking a step onto the pavement but he held a finger out to stop you.

“Let me just let the guys know I’m going.”

You almost want to laugh at him but you nodded instead. Usually the people you surrounded yourself with would just drift off and disappear, not bothering to let anyone know where they were going. You couldn’t understand if it was an AGO thing or if it was just a Jinyoung thing. You hoped it was just a Jinyoung thing.

Taking a few steps further away from the AGO house, you watched as Jinyoung spoke to some of the members at the table passing out food and water to the line that hasn’t shrank in size. The guy he’s talking to looked at you and you gave a small wave; he didn’t return it but turned back to Jinyoung. The discussion between them seemed more heated than it should be, it immediately makes your mind go to the headspace of being judged.

After a moment, Jinyoung reunited with you on the sidewalk and smiled, “all good to go,” gesturing, you go in front of him and lead the way.

Being back on the sidewalk, you felt more of the physical effects of the alcohol. Every part of your body wants to start walking from side to side for some reason, but with every piece of strength you have, you forced yourself to walk forward. You really didn’t want this Jinyoung guy to think you were that much more of a mess.

At first the two of you walked in silence, carrying your plate of pancakes in one hand and your water bottle in the other. You took a glance at the AGO boy at your side, wondering if he thought this whole thing was as ridiculous as you did.

“I like your shoes.” His comment catches you off guard. Somehow it made you even more skeptical of his motives.

Calm down, he’s just trying to be nice.

“Thanks…” You wanted to leave it at just that and have the remainder of the time the two of you spend together be silent, but drunk you wanted to play games. Looking at how innocent he was, the clear fiddling of his hands in his hoodie’s pocket and the nervous clicking of his tongue set you off, “the guy I was with tonight didn’t really think so.”

When you hear Jinyoung inhale strongly, you smiled. It was a clear signal of him being uncomfortable. You thought that now was where the real silence between you and Jinyoung could begin, but you were surprised to hear him urge you to continue on.

“Oh… why not?”

Even though you didn’t have sex with the guy from the club tonight – clearly – you felt like you would have to play it off that way to get the maximum reaction from this goody two shoes who probably had never even touched a girl before. When your eyes narrowed in on his arms through his sweatshirt, however, you realized that maybe that was an outlandish assumption.

“Too much work for him to take them off.”

It’s almost as though Jinyoung has to take a moment to calculate in his head what exactly you’re referring to. When he finally got it, you heard him kick rocks underneath his feet. For some reason this pleased you.

“Ah I see. I guess it could be kind of…” he cleared his throat again, looking down at your shoes “complicated in those situations.”

“Especially in the bathroom,” as soon as the words are out of your mouth you regretted them. So caught up in your fake antics of making Jinyoung uncomfortable, you didn’t even think about what you were saying. Sex in the bathroom? And you wanted to take your shoes off? Just doesn’t make sense.

You hoped Jinyoung didn’t think about it too much.

“So, you had a fun night?” He questioned. For some reason it made you stop in your tracks and begin to laugh. You almost dropped the pancakes completely. Jinyoung on the other hand looked at you as if you were crazy. He felt embarrassed, he knows that he’s probably not the coolest guy or the first choice to walk you home, but he certainly didn’t think he was the worst option, “did I say something wrong?”

When you finally caught your breath, you looked at him and noticed how he’s begun to bite his lip again. Most of the frat guys you knew had this cocky attitude to them – you were friends with many of them of course – but they didn’t have whatever it was you were seeing in Jinyoung. From the outside he looked like someone who was so sure of themselves – one would with those looks – but you could see the insecurities or the naivety that laid behind his exterior.

“No, you didn’t say anything wrong… To be honest I don’t even know why it’s that funny. I guess just typically when people drink on Friday nights, they have fun.”

He nodded his head as if you had just explained a math equation and continued to follow you down the street, “Right… but not necessarily all the time. You know you can have just as good of a time without drinking.”

You snorted, “please spare me any of your AGO lectures.”

“I don’t intend on lecturing you. I’m just saying…”

“You know it really pisses me off how you guys think you’re better than the rest of us. Why? Just because you’re a Christian frat? Just because you guys don’t drink or go to parties? Just because you guys spend your Fridays passing out breakfast to wasted kids? That doesn’t make you any better, just so you know.” He didn’t say anything and for a second you felt bad, as if you’d struck a nerve with him, but then you’re taken back to that moment in the plaza. He was probably like that guy.

“I know it doesn’t make us any better. We just wanted to…” he paused, trying to find the right word, “help and be a better part of the community. We know what you guys think of us and we’re trying to change that. That’s all.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, “That’s… understandable. Maybe you guys would be more connected if you didn’t ridicule us…” you snorted in the middle of your suggestion, “or maybe did a shot or two.”

Jinyoung laughed and you continued to push the thought of wanting to make him laugh forever out of your head, “you know… I have had alcohol before. AGO just doesn’t do parties and stuff like that. It’s an alcohol-free house, but it doesn’t stop members from doing stuff outside of that.”

“But most of you probably don’t.”

He sucked a breath in, you had gotten him there. Most of the guys didn’t bother with drinking, not even socially. “Well… yeah lots of the guys don’t, but some of them do.”

“Like you?”

“Like me,” he confirmed.

You stopped again, this time to place your hands out and in front of Jinyoung, stopping him as well. “Okay, but have you ever even been drunk before?”

Jinyoung pursed his lips. At first, he considers lying to you, but if he was already going to act out of character tonight, he wasn’t going to add lying to the list. “No…”

You suddenly get an idea. The picture in your head is of you and Jinyoung – the Christian sweetheart you barely knew – sitting on the floor of your room giggling about how stupid Greek life reputations were. You would show him your favorite song they play at your favorite club and he could read you Bible verses or… something? You weren’t really sure if that’s what they did all day at the AGO house, but the bottom line was you would show him a piece of your world and he would show you his.

“We can change that tonight. I have an entire bottle of Ciroc under my bed,” you have to stop your hand from grabbing his.

His heart raced at your suggestion and he felt the two sides of him battle with one another. Ultimately, the AGO side won, “N-No… I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

You pouted. Drunk you was truly insane. You led him to believe that you had sex with some stranger in a bathroom and now he probably thought you were trying to get him into bed as well.

“Why not? I’m even offering you the good stuff. Not any of the watered-down shit.” He flinched at your cursing and it makes you annoyed and swoon all in one.

Jinyoung couldn’t help but notice how painfully beautiful you looked under the glow of the dim street-lamps that lit the sidewalk. He swallowed thinking about how much he disagreed with his words, “I just really don’t think it’s a good idea.”

You turned away from him to hide the embarrassment you felt. He probably thought you were suggesting a promiscuous evening, but you didn’t want that from him. For some reason you just felt a want to talk to him and pick his brain – he was a lot different than the typical Alpha Gamma Omega members and you wanted to know why. You wanted to know why he is the way he is. Apparently Jinyoung didn’t want that from you.

Wordlessly, you continued your walk home and Jinyoung followed close behind feeling like an absolute jerk. Caught up in your thoughts, when you finally looked around at your surroundings, you realized you had arrived at your front door.

“This is me.” Jinyoung looked up at the house, taking in the letters and once again nodding his head thoughtfully, “thanks for letting me walk you home.”

You looked at him confused, “why are you thanking me?”

Tightly smiling, Jinyoung feels his stomach flip. He’s never needed approval from someone, especially not someone he just met, but he feels like he wants to convince you he’s actually a good person. That he’s not pretending. It almost feels suffocating with how much he wants to prove himself. “I just liked walking you home.”

“Even despite my rude and drunk behavior?”

Jinyoung shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his AGO hoodie, “you don’t seem drunk anymore.”

“Trust me… I am,” since Jinyoung clearly didn’t have an interest in speaking to you any further than this moment, you felt as though you could say whatever you wanted to him. You figured that the best thing to do was reveal his attraction level since he already thought you were trying to fuck him.

“If I wasn’t drunk, I wouldn’t be thinking about how handsome you are,” Jinyoung looked down to hide his smile and you continued, “not just in a normal way but in a classic Hollywood kind of way… but I guess that happens with good Christian boys. For some reason they usually end up hot.”

Again, those eye crinkles appeared as he started to laugh, his cheeks even going as far as turning a light pink color. It looked really good on him.

“If you ever need me to set up a Tinder account for you, just let me know… I’m an expert, I’ve done all of my friends’ profiles. My success rate is a hundred percent,” your hand settled down on the door knob. The next obvious step was to turn it, but you just wanted to suck this moment dry and take as much as you could before you two went your separate ways. “Nah… not Tinder you’re a Bumble or Hinge guy for sure. I can still offer my services… I know how tough it must be living in a house of all boys all the time.”

“Thanks for… the compliment? And offer?” He questioned. He probably wasn’t used to the girls he was usually around commenting on his appearance or saying such things. It made you roll your eyes again, “yes I was complimenting you so just take it AGO.”

Turning around, you went to unlock the front door and head inside. Jinyoung mindlessly watched you until it dawned on him that he missed something important. Your name.

“Wait!” He called from behind you. It caused you to turn around, waiting. “You never told me your name.” He looked so cute, kicking his feet on the ground and biting his bottom lip again, patiently waiting for you to reveal yourself to him, but you can’t shake the feeling that’s bubbling up inside of you. Before you could stop yourself, you’re shaking your head at him, “let’s be honest… you’re not going to need it.”

Jinyoung furrowed his eyebrows, confused by the rejection of just being told your name. With a final frown on your face, he watched you go inside and shut the door behind you. On his walk back to the AGO house all he could think about was that frown.

“You can’t possibly still be thinking about that girl from Friday night,” Yugyeom snorted.

Unfortunately, he very much was thinking about the girl from Friday night, even though he knew all the guys would ridicule him for it. The fact that this comes across as his first thought makes him wonder if you were right about them.

Just as Yugyeom finished his sentence, Jackson settled down at the table next to Jinyoung, already devouring his fries.

“What girl?” Jackson asked both of them, a speck of fry coming from his mouth and onto the table when he speaks. It makes Jinyoung want to vomit.

Almost annoyingly, Yugyeom turned to Jackson, “A girl Jinyoung met at ‘Water on the Row’.” The way he said it is almost venomous, as if he’s ultimately disgusted at the thought and mere situation. Jinyoung wanted to say something, to defend the girl - but he doesn’t even really know her.

Jackson stopped chewing for a moment, thinking, “oh...”

“Yeah,” Yugyeom paused, turning to glance back at Jinyoung, shooting daggers at him that practically tell him not to do anything stupid, “I know...”

“Don’t you think you’re kind of being judgmental? And isn’t that kind of our whole thing? To not judge, but to serve others?”

His outburst seemed to surprise his friends at the table, both of them looking at one another at Jinyoung’s out of character behavior. Usually he maintained composure and silence in conversations such as this and in the past, he’d definitely been the contributor to the judgements. But for some reason this particular conversation about this particular girl was rubbing him the wrong way.

“I mean yeah… but Jinyoung, come on… you can’t be with a girl like that. The drinking, the partying and the sleeping around? It’s just kind of too much, don’t you think?”

“Yugyeom, dude… you don’t know if she’s like that,” Jackson piped up, going back to eating his fries.

“Let me repeat the fact that he met her at Water on the Row… so she’s exactly like that. She probably has like a Tinder or something too.”

“What’s wrong with Tinder?” Both Jinyoung and Yugyeom look at Jackson who suddenly opened his mouth quickly to defend himself, “I mean I don’t have it or anything, but I’m just wondering what’s wrong.”

“No one on there is looking for an actual committed relationship Jacks, it’s just people who want to hook up. Like most of the girls who show up on Friday nights.”

Jinyoung wanted to agree with Yugyeom and put this all to bed. That would be the easiest thing for him, if he just concurred that the girl from Friday night was not right for him and the fact that she liked to drink and go out disqualified her from ever being someone he wants to get to know. However, he didn’t want to. For some reason, for once he wanted the complicated option. The option most of his friends in Alpha Omega wouldn’t agree with.

You had no idea why your room was the “hangout” room in the house. Or at least it was for Katie and Jaebeom. One would think that they would want to be alone together, but instead they loved coming up to your room and laying on the floor whenever Jaebeom came over to the house. Usually people didn’t like having a third wheel intrude on time with their “significant” other – or whatever it was that these two were doing – but they loved being in your room.

“I think we need to get Y/N a boyfriend…” Jaebeom said very suddenly, throwing down the magazine he was reading. Why he wanted to read your old Cosmos from freshman year? You had no clue.

Katie squealed in delight, fascinated by this plan that had yet to be approved by you. However, knowing her she already had at least five guys in mind. “How about Ryan from Sigma Chi?”

You let out a response to convey your disgust at the same time Jaebeom clenched his jaw.

“He’s literally been with everyone,” you rolled your eyes, trying to focus on the work on your desk that you had diligently been doing before Jaebeom’s quest to end your single life.

“Not to mention he’s a misogynist who displays sociopathic tendencies,” Jaebeom scowled, surprising you so much so that you turned around to face him.

Katie looked at him with big eyes, as if she were about to jump him at any moment, “Babe, I didn’t know you knew words like that.” He shrugged in response, “Mark’s girlfriend teaches me well.”

You smiled, “I like her more and more every day.”

The room is filled with silence and you realized that they were both waiting for you to say something about Jaebeom’s overall statement of getting you a boyfriend. They wanted your feedback, your questions, comments and concerns – they wanted to play the role of matchmaker, that much was clear.

You shuffled uncomfortably in your seat, “I don’t need a boyfriend.” Jaebeom tried to reason with you, “okay but you want one.”

Sometimes your friends really didn’t get you. You’d never been successful with commitment and long-term boyfriends in the past, why was it suddenly going to work out any differently just because Jaebeom and Katie were trying to set you up?

“We’ll get you a really good one. Someone in Greek life, but someone loyal…” Katie paused to turn to Jaebeom, “who do you think the most loyal frat on campus is? Lambda?”

He brought his hand underneath his chin and tapped it slowly, considering. “Hm… I mean Lambda is good, of course,” he smiled at the acknowledgement of his own frat, “but actually… I feel like the most responsible frat is AGO.”

Katie immediately burst out into giggles, Jaebeom soon following. “Y/N could never be with an AGO. My accountant stepdad is more interesting than any of the guys over there. She would go crazy dating one of them. If any of them even talk to girls that is.”

For some reason her words made your skin crawl. AGO was the subject of a lot of jokes on Greek row and in fact, you were used to being the one that made them, but for some reason you felt sick. You couldn’t help but think about Jinyoung.

He was genuinely nice to you and although he had rejected your offer, he was a decent guy. Not feeding you any of his bullshit lectures that the AGO guys were known to give. He didn’t even really fight back with you when drunk you pretty much called him fake.

Oh god you had lectured him. It felt like it was all coming back now.

You had asked him to get drunk with you and invited him to your room. You had told him he was handsome. You had offered to make him a Tinder profile.

“Y/N are you okay? You don’t look good…” Jaebeom pointed out, “we won’t get you a boyfriend if the thought of it makes you this sick.”

Why did you care that you had drunkenly embarrassed yourself in front of Park Jinyoung? You barely knew the guy; you didn’t agree with most of his frat’s values and outlook on others in the Greek system. Hell, he was probably friends with the guy that called you a slut.

As if you had been stuck in a trance, you blinked and looked at the two friends sat in front of you. They look as though they’re about to admit you to the local hospital.

Clearing your throat, “do you guys think that they have the same guys working at Water on the Row every Friday?” Katie squinted at you, “how are we supposed to know that? I mean… probably not.” You nodded and turned back to your desk in silence, staring at the schoolwork in front of you blankly.

He probably wouldn’t be there. You probably didn’t need to go. It was probably a sign.

A sign that you probably just… shouldn’t.

Another week rolled around and it soon became Friday again.

Jinyoung wasn’t supposed to be on pancakes and water duty this week, but he had told Jackson he would take his shift. At first Jackson was reluctant to give it up after what the three of them had talked about when they went out for dinner, but when he looked at Jinyoung’s sad pleading face he knew he couldn’t say no.

He knew there wasn’t a guarantee that you would be returning to the house, but he figured that this would be his only opportunity to see you again. If Jinyoung had to spend another Friday night passing out pancakes and water to drunk people just for the small chance of you showing up, he’d take it.

“Dude ya’ll are like the sober crew,” some guy from Lambda said grabbing the plate of pancakes from Jinyoung, the guy’s arm wrapped tightly around a girl who looked annoyed.

“Come on Mark,” the girl groaned, dragging him out of line.

They both stumbled down the steps and to the sidewalk, Jinyoung watching them go carefully. “I love you so much,” Mark told the girl. She threw her head back laughing, still trying to carry Mark’s weight, “I know you idiot. I love you too.”

When they kiss, Jinyoung looked away not wanting to intrude on their moment. He felt a strange knot in his stomach as he thinks about the two. They both seemed wildly different, but you didn’t have to be an expert on love and romance to understand the affection and fondness that was between the two of them.

Jinyoung’s mind quickly went to you, but he shoved it to the back of his thoughts when he reminds himself that he didn’t know anything about you. He had just met you.

“Any luck?” Yugyeom asked, coming up on Jinyoung’s side to surprise him, “don’t act dumb… I know why you took Jackson’s shift tonight. I know why you’re here.”

Jinyoung rolled his eyes, turning away from the boy and grabbing another water bottle to hand to the next person in line. He used this opportunity to scan the queue and see if you were in it – no luck.

“Just be careful man… I mean knowing her type she’ll probably back, but just remember what I said.” The grasp of Jinyoung’s hand on the water bottle tightened with Yugyeom’s words and he felt like something inside of him was going to snap soon. He wasn’t sure what he had done or said to welcome unsolicited advice from those around him. The reason he joined Alpha Gamma Omega was to be a part of a likeminded community with similar beliefs to his own. Never did he anticipate whatever this was.

“Girls like her… they’re sluts you know.”

Jinyoung turned to Yugyeom and shoved the water bottle into his hands almost violently, “what did you say?”

Yugyeom looked at him with wide eyes, as if not expecting this kind of reaction, “Jinyou-”

“Save it,” He spat.

Jinyoung didn’t want to be anywhere near Yugyeom or the AGO house. Maybe you were right when you alluded to him putting on a nice guy act. He probably had been for the last two years he was a part of the org – judging others, thinking he was better than others involved in Greek life, just because he was in a Christian frat. For some reason meeting you and having you question his “goodness” caused him to finally wake up from the fantasy of the person who he had thought he was all along.

By the time Jinyoung reached the end of his self-loathing thoughts, he realized he had carried himself all the way over to your sorority house. He knew he probably shouldn’t even be standing on your front doorstep, but something in him stopped him from turning around. Instead, he reached out to ring the doorbell.

“Can I help you?” a girl asked, poking her head out through the door.

He cleared his throat, “yeah actually… I’m looking for-” that’s when Jinyoung cut himself off and realized that he actually didn’t know who he was looking for. He had never got your name… All he knew about you was were you lived… and that’s pretty much it.

The girl looked at Jinyoung in confusion, glancing at the letters he was wearing and sighed, “You’re from AGO?”

He nodded, “I actually don’t know her name…”

She waved her hand as if this was a usual thing and opened the door more to welcome him inside, “let me see what I can do for you… Just wait here.” The girl begins to head up the stairs of the house, then Jinyoung suddenly remembers a detail, “she went out last Friday night if that helps.”

She laughed at him and shook her head, continuing her walk up the stairs, “typical AGO,” she muttered. For once in his career at Alpha Gamma Omega, Jinyoung doesn’t feel hurt or annoyed by her assessment of him. She was right.

“Hey do any of you guys fuck an AGO?” you heard one of your sorority sisters, Melanie ask through your headphones. Taking the music listening devices out of your ears you went to your open doorway, “what did you say?”

Melanie glanced over in your direction as she thanked one of the other open rooms for participating in what sounds like a very strange survey.

“There’s a guy downstairs from AGO and it’s pretty sad, he’s looking for someone in the house but doesn’t even know her name. He’s here’s so late I’m just assuming that he must be looking for someone he slept with,” she gets a panicked look on her face, “fuck do you think one of us took the dude’s virginity and now he’s here to kill us all?”

You smiled tightly at Melanie. Some of the girls in the house were not the brightest.

“Don’t jump to conclusions like that Melanie… I doubt most girls in the house would go even within ten feet of a guy from Alpha Gamma Omega.”

“Well… what about you? Do you know anyone from AGO?”

You were about to shake your head no and deny knowing anyone over there, but then you stopped yourself. It couldn’t be… could it?

“Why don’t I just go down there and take care of this?” Somehow your words made her exhale and she looked instantly relieved, “thanks so much Y/N. Also do be warned… he is kinda good looking. Ugh I can’t believe I just said that.”

Nodding at her, she thanked you a final time before disappearing down the hallway to her bedroom.

There was no way it could be Jinyoung… right?

Despite your initial thought that it couldn’t be Jinyoung, when you reached the bottom of the stairs, you’re met with the back of the same boy you met a week ago. It was creepy but you could tell it was him just by the way he stood, with his shoulders back and posture erect. You don’t say anything, not wanting to sneak up on him, but you took notice of the way he seemed to be talking to himself. For a moment you swear you heard him ask himself what he was doing here.

That would make two of you.

“Jinyoung?” You said to grab his attention. He quickly turned around to face you and it’s easy to sense how weird he feels just being in your sorority house. It made you even more confused as to why he’s there.

“H-hey… you…” He wished he could greet you properly, but he still doesn’t know your name. That detail isn’t lost on you, but as you had told him before, you weren’t really sure if there was a reason to give him your name. The two of you didn’t really “mix” well.

“What’s up?”

For some reason this response to Jinyoung showing up at your house annoyed him. Sure, he hadn’t originally intended in coming here after his outburst with Yugyeom, his feet made the final decision to arrive at your home this late at night, but the nonchalant “what’s up” irked him.

He decided to take a risk by asking you what had been his mind for the last few hours he had been stationed at the AGO house handing out pancakes. “Why didn’t you come by the house tonight?” The tone shocked you. Rather than the gentleness he had spoken to you last week when he walked you home, this was something else entirely.

Unsure of what the acceptable answer would be to please him, you went with the obvious response – the truth, “I just didn’t need to go over there tonight… You know despite what you and your brothers might think, I don’t get wasted every single weekend.”

There was also the fact that tonight you had thought about going over there many, many times. You had even got dressed three different times and considered pretending like you had gone out tonight, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. You were too scared of what your friends would think, what the AGO members would think and most importantly what Jinyoung would think.

At your words, once again Jinyoung felt attacked. He didn’t know why it was so important to prove himself to you or why it mattered so much that you didn’t show up at the house tonight. Now you probably had an even worse impression of him for coming over to your place at nearly two in the morning. Something that would never be condoned by the guys he lives with.

“I know that. I was just hoping that…” he drifted off and your breath hitches. You think that maybe you know what he’s alluding to, but you want to hear him say it.

In any other situation, Jinyoung knows he wouldn’t say it. He would be too afraid or too stuck on what – once again – others would think. Instead, Jinyoung surprises both you and himself. He says it.

“I was hoping that you would want to see me again as much as I wanted to see you,” Jinyoung takes a step towards you and it feels as though you’re about to fall apart at any moment, “I don’t really understand or know why… but I feel this weird pull towards you.” You could tell he was getting shy from the way he looked down at his feet and dragged them against the hardwood floor of the foyer.

Nervously, you tapped your fingers against your thigh to distract you from instantly agreeing with him – to tell him that you knew exactly what pull he was referring to. Alternately, you fill the conversation with more doubt, “then why did you reject me that night?”

His mouth hung wide open and he became perplexed, unsure of what you were talking about.

“What do you mean rejected you?”

You brought your hands up from your thighs and crossed your arms against your chest, “I asked you to come up and drink with me.”

Jinyoung’s eyes fluttered closed as if thinking about something. As quick as he shut them, he opened them at the same suddenness, “I didn’t mean it as a rejection. I just didn’t think it would be a good idea…”

Shrugging your shoulders, “In normal Greek life that’s rejection Jinyoung.”

He brings his hand to massage the back of his neck, “I really didn’t realize it was that… complex. Sorry. You’ll have to be patient with me about those kinds of things. It’s true what they say about AGO, we really don’t pick up on social cues very well.”

You’ll have to be patient with me.

His words rang in your ears and you swore you heard a Harry Styles song play in your head as you looked at him smile sheepishly at you.

“I…” somehow the words are hard to get out, you’re not used to being this candid with a guy – especially not sober, “I know what you mean about a pull.”

Jinyoung took another step forward towards you and you exhaled deeply at his closeness. He was just close enough to-

“C-can I kiss you?” he stuttered and you felt your heart skip a beat. You would be lying if you said that you hadn’t been thinking about Jinyoung all week. The eye crinkles, his pink lips and the softness of his tone, it had all played on repeat in your mind. The stupid rejection thing didn’t even matter anymore.

When you didn’t answer right away, you heard him take a deep breath in, “I know it’s kind of forward, but I really want to kiss you.”

Your eyes flickered down to his lips and you wet your own instinctively. A thought suddenly enters your head and you begin to wonder how many times he’d done this before. Was he a rookie just as he had been when it came to drinking? Not that it mattered to you… you were just curious and-

“I have kissed girls before you know… I’m not a prude. Now please just let me.” His desperation to put his lips on yours makes you realize that you’re just as desperate if not more to feel his mouth move against yours.

“Please,” you murmured.

He leaned his head forward closer into you until his lips just ghosted over yours. Bringing his hand in between your faces, he traced the line of your cheekbone until your cheek laid in the palm of his hand and he cupped it gently. Finally, he closed the space between your lips and connects them softly. It’s clear that he feels hesitant, scared and excited all at the same time, but you let him control the pace not wanting to push him.

Soon you felt him relax more into the kiss and you could sense how delicate he was being as his lips moved softly against yours, treating you like a china doll that he wanted to protect. You’d had many kisses with many guys before, but none like this. Those were just kisses and this was much more than a kiss. Behind this kiss you could sense Jinyoung’s fondness for you, his intrigue, his longing and his desperation for the two of you to be in a different time, a different place and a different space. You felt it all from him. Every single emotion. It made you feel dizzy, the moment blurring satisfaction that you had never felt from just a kiss. You had never wanted anyone like this before.

You sighed into the kiss and Jinyoung pressed you even closer to him, kissing you harder and more feverishly. It was a side of him you hadn’t been expecting you, but it made you smile against his lips, wanting him closer, closer and closer.

When you finally break apart, Jinyoung breathed heavily and you’re surprised you can let out any air at all. It felt like he had taken all the breath out of you and consumed every piece of you. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but simply stared at you until you broke out into giggles, looking down shyly.

“Y/N,” you whispered, finally telling him your name and he felt his heart flip.

He grinned, “Well Y/N... I could definitely do that again.”

So he does and your mind becomes dazed once again, not thinking about the rest of the world or what anyone thought about the two of you.

For right now it was just you and Jinyoung, and somehow that was enough.

#got7 fanfic #got7 #park jinyoung fanfic #jinyoung fanfic #park jinyoung #got7 fic

108 notes · View notes

welcometohighwater · 3 years

Note

I'm not the anon who messaged you before about your religious melancholia tag, but I have noticed that in the past and always felt fascinated by and drawn to it. I come from a pretty religious family and I used to have a very strong, dedicated belief in Christianity. I wouldn't say I'm not a Christian anymore, but my belief has relaxed and expanded to what I'd now call contemplative mysticism, or maybe panentheism. If you've seen Midnight Mass, everything that the character Erin says in her final scene is what I mean when I use the word mysticism. And I think that leaves room for everything, while still being able to see the good and healthy things in every faith as well as everywhere in the natural world. Anyway, long way of saying, I like that you have that tag and always find the posts in that tag fascinating.

ahh, thanks dude! i think there's a lot of complicated baggage to religion in general, and christianity specifically (all of this, of course, as seen through my very limited, sheltered perspective as an american). there's been so much hypocrisy in american christianity, so much twisting of the basic tenant of being good to other people (which is what i feel like is the best interpretation of the actual teachings of jesus christ say) to justify violence and hate and fear of the different, the other, the lives of people whose experiences are different. it's a lot to reckon with, it's a lot to stomach when you can plainly see what people have done with what seems like such a good thing. to an extent i think a lot of my "religious melancholia" tag stuff is trying to figure out a lot of this, culturally as a american southerner. there's a sort of violent judgement in the christianity i've seen in the baptist church (they tell you that only god can judge, but the weight of the preacher's eye seems heavier in its consequences). there's a sort of fatalism in the proclamations of hellfire and brimstone on the signs along the road and on the sides of barns (my mother's always been a little obsessive about the prophesied End of Times, and i think i've inherited something of that fascination). i'm trying to make sense of it all in that tag, reckon what i've read and what i've experienced.

there's times when, as much as i'd like to, i just can't believe that everything in our world resulted from sheer cosmic randomness. i don't see how consciousness, the immensity of human imagination and the complexity of our internal experiences and relationships with others, could have just organically happened, without the guiding hand of some creator or higher power or something beyond our current level of understanding. and i know i'm not nearly smart enough to figure that shit out, and i know that i haven't done nearly enough thinking and definitely reading and learning about all these tihings, either, because i'm kind of like a june bug stupidly, reckless bouncing off the same ideas again and again but getting nowhere.

i like your perspective a lot. i like the idea of contemplative mysticism, and panentheism (i'd never heard that particular term before, but after looking it up really quick, i'm curious to learn more). i have not seen midnight mass yet although i'm really curious about it (sounds like it'd be up my alley), but i've got a weak stomach for depictions of violence. i might check it out soon

anyway, all of this is a really long way of saying thanks. i love hearing the perspectives of others on issues of religion, particularly christianity. (i love hearing about other religions too, but that's strictly a learning process, i have nothing to contribute to the conversation since i wasn't raised in any other faith tradition). religion is intensely personal, but it's also been such a driving force in the development of the world, and there's so much to learn about and from what people believe in

#asks #religious melancholia #damn i don't know how to shut up huh #long post

2 notes · View notes

conaionaru · 4 years

Text

He is complicated

Synopsis:��Vanya spends some alone time with Ivar again.

Warning: Angst, forced marriage, mentions of rape, dark thoughts, Ivar, fluff (because why not)

Tagged:

@youbloodymadgenius @xbellaxcarolinax @heavenly1927

I don't own the gifs. Also, thank you for your support. I really appreciate it.

After supper, Vanya steeled herself for what's to come. She kept imagining all worst-case scenarios and preying that she was just paranoid.

She hid the needle in her dress like planned and waited on the chair by the fire for everything to grow silent. The redhead sat in the same chair she sat yesterday. The chair to her left was empty, yet it still felt like he sat there watching her. Just like he did in the morning, he didn't compliment her as everybody else did.

With one last deep breath and double-check that the weapon was hidden, she made her way to Ivar's chambers. She kept looking over her shoulder as if one of his brothers would jump out and ask her where she was going.

Gathering all the courage she had left in her, she knocked on his door. "Come in." She opened the door and looked into his room. It wasn't that different from hers. A bed, chairs by a fireplace, and a desk. He sat by the fire with something in his hands.

"Come sit, why are you standing there?" He urged her forward with a wave of his hand. He looked excited, which made her curious. So she complied and sat down next to him—the same position as yesterday, only in a different room.

"How was your day, Ivar?" She asked politely. They talked at the table, but it was in Norse, so she didn't get much out of the conversation.

"We caught a boar, some rabbits, and fish." Ivar kept looking at his hands. That's when she noticed a knife in them. She stiffened, scared for what he would do. Slowly she moved her hand to the place where she hid the needle.

He looked at her from the corner of his eyes and drew in a deep breath before extending his hand to her. But not the one that was holding the knife. "Take it." He urged her, opening up his palm.

Vanya couldn't believe her eyes. Inside his outstretched hand laid a wood carving of a wolf with its mouth open. It was beautiful. "You made this?" She questioned just to be sure she didn't imagine it.

The ginger reached for the figure and clasped it in her hand, looking it over with adoration in her eyes.

Ivar nodded his head and looked away from her supporting his chin on his palm. His right hand played with the knife that he used to craft her gift. "I did it while my brothers went fishing. It's Fenrir."

Vanya looked up at him curiously, all thought of danger in the back of her mind. "Who is Fenrir?"

The youngest son of Ragnar slowly blinked like he didn't understand the question. "Fenrir is a giant wolf who will swallow the sun during Ragnarok."

"And what is Ragnarok."

"The end of everything."

Vanya watched him in shock. It was a sweet gesture to give her a gift. On the other hand, a giant wolf from the end of the world is not that romantic. Despite her thoughts did she smile at him.

The smile made him pause. It was broad and made Vanya's blue eyes shine. She looked breathtaking at that moment. She radiated pure happiness, wore a dress that complimented her, and made her red hair stand out. And the glow from the fire made her look like a goddess to him. Freya.

"It is beautiful. Thank you very much, Ivar." Even her voice was perfect. Ivar shook his head to rid himself of those thoughts and cleared his throat.

"You are welcome. I like your dress." Ubbe told him to pay her compliments, so he did. The dress does look great on her.

"Thank you. You inspired me to wear it." Vanya admitted shyly, looking away from him with rosy cheeks.

The prince's brows furrowed. His head tilted to the side, thinking about everything he told her yesterday. "And how did I do that?"

She wanted to dig her own grave at that exact moment. Why did she say that? What happened to being cautious of him?"Your eyes." She whispered, refusing o look at him., which works for Ivar.

His stony face was shocked, and his mouth was open. He didn't expect that. Neither of them said anything. An awkward silence overtook them. She needed to think of anything to say. "Can you tell me more? Of your gods?"

Ivar eyed the fire in front of him, not trusting himself to look at her. So he talked of his gods. Of Odin and his wife, Frigg, of their son Baldur and his death. Or the God of mischief Loki and his three children. He talked of Thor and his mighty hammer, Mjolnir. He told her about Freya and her brother Freyr. After she kept asking, he even told her how the world would end.

It was all so different from her religion. There were so many powerful gods and great stories. Their lying snake was Loki and not Satan; they had no Virgin Mary, no Jesus. It was so foreign, but so intriguing she couldn't stop listening. Recounting her faith is a sin that she will have to commit to the man before her. But God never listened to her. Maybe Ivar's gods will.

He talked of them with such passion and belief it made her envious. She was Christian because it was the right thing to do. To live a holy life as God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost command. Yet she never viewed her faith the way Ivar sees his. Perhaps the pagan gods are her destiny.

"Wait. Loki gave birth to a horse?"

"Yes. Sleipnir. It had eight legs." The seriousness in his face made her pause. He wasn't joking.

"How does that even work. I know he can change forms, but that is insane." She shook her head in disbelief, causing Ivar to laugh. She shot him a weak glare. "Are you laughing at me, Ivar?"

"Oh, I would not dare. You must have imagined it." He was teasing her, and she liked it. This Ivar before her was nothing like the one Sigurd spoke of. How could this man be a monster? She was right all along. He is only pretending. She is sure of it.

"To be honest, I was worried about what you would do today." This made him stop laughing. The stone-cold face was back as was the hardness of his eyes.

He stared at her for a long time before he looked away, offended. Whatever he was looking for in her eyes, he didn't find it. "I saw you talking to Sigurd. He told you bad things about me, didn't he?"

Vanya gulped and bobbed her head up and down slowly. Her hand twitched to reach for the needle. He still held the knife in his hand. It would only be fair if she were armed herself. Granted, his weapon was more dangerous than hers. And he was a trained warrior. "He told me you killed a boy when you were a child. He said how you treated slaves. He said to beware of you. I told him that I don't see you as a monster."

The last sentence made him pause. "Why?" He wanted to know the answer so badly. Everyone saw him as a monster. A crippled, crude thing that no one loved except his mother.

The Saxon Princess mulled her next words over. He wanted her to be more confident. Say what she meant to say. She hopes he isn't regretting that choice now. "You don't seem like an evil man to me. You talk to me, encourage me, compliment me, and give me gifts. That doesn't look monstrous to me."

Ivar looked at her with an unreadable expression on his face. The stare took to long for her liking and made her feel uneasy all over again. He was reading her face like an open book. Looking for a sign, she was lying and saying these things to save her skin. "I am not a good man."

"Maybe not. But no one is truly good. Everybody sins. And you are a Viking. Your people are different."

"And what do you know of my people?" The question started her. It was simple, yet so complicated, just like him.

She nervously twiddled with her fingers. If Ivar didn't regret telling her to be confident, she sure was. "I know somethings from the attacks on our countries. How you steal, murder, and rape. That is why I was so terrified of what you would do. I know you promised not to hurt me. But... Not every promise is to be kept."

"Is that all?" Did he have enough of her? "What else did you hear?" Oh. Well that she could answer.

"You sacrifice humans for your gods. You share your women. You are descendants of the devil. Barely human. You eat human flesh and drink the blood of newborn children." Ivar sorted out a laugh at that shocking her.

"You think we drink child blood?" His chuckles were not what she expected at all. "You people are so creative."

After he calmed down, he threw his knife away and fixed her with a look. His eyes were shining. He shifted in his seat and exhaled. "I did what Sigurd said I did. But I would not hurt you. I told you I would protect you. And I keep my promises. I swear it on my gods."

Vanya nodded, feeling guilty. She shouldn't. She had every right to doubt him. He is a savage—a heathen who hurts everybody in his path. Yet her chest felt heavy. "I didn't mean to offend you. I... I am scared. Kattegat is so different. I don't fit in. I don't understand what you speak of. Your traditions and gods are new to me. I am afraid."

"You are going to be the wife of a son of Ragnar Lothbrok. No one will dare to do anything to you. You will no longer be a Christian a get used to our traditions."

"I want to learn your language. So I can talk to you. Talk to the people of Kattegat." Vanya leaned towards him eagerly as he raised an eyebrow at her confession.

"Why?" As proud as he was about her desire to learn his language, he and his brothers understood her. That was enough. There was no need for her to talk to anybody else.

"You said it yourself. I am to be the wife of a son of Ragnar Lothbrok. The wife of a prince should be able to talk to her people. Understand them to understand their problems. I don't want to sit by your side and look pretty. I want to help people. If I am to be your wife, then I want them to love me."

Ivar smirked at her and leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes for a moment before he tilted his head towards her. He locked gazes with her and nodded. "Fine. I will teach you." Vanya smiled at him again with that brilliant smile and blush.

"Thank you, Ivar." The said man only waved his hand in dismissal. It didn't bother him to teach her. At least he had an excuse to spend time with her during the day. He could try books so that she could read the language as well. It was worth a try.

"I should probably go back to bed. The sun will rise soon." How quick time passes when she is around him. Ivar looked out of the window to confirm her words for himself. And indeed, the sky was changing colors already.

"Good night, then, Vanya."

"Good night, Ivar." And so she retreated to her chambers and laid in her bed with Fenrir in her hand.

#vikings #ivar lothbrok #ivar the boneless #ivar x oc #original female character #original character #oc

73 notes · View notes

rosesareviolentlyread · 4 years

Text

WIJ Day 3: Love

WOO the first actual prompt is here. This is a modern magic world heavily inspired by @0idril0 and @whumpywhumper‘s Nico & Markus/Lucien series respectively. I HIGHLY recommend you check them out. So this is meant to be an introduction to Pastor John/The Reverend, who is my first attempt at an intimate whumper. Thanks to @ashintheairlikesnow for inspiring the Reverend with Bram, def check out all her stuff if you haven’t

CW: religious whump, creepy whumper, whumper who doesn’t think they’re a whumper, kinda abusive relationship vibes, drugging, taking advantage of someone’s emotional state

John sits, listening to the record player in the corner crackle with the sounds of a congregation’s singing. His students tease him for being a ‘hipster’, but there’s something satisfying about their amateur voices, captured imperfectly, naturally, using a technology that reminds him of pottery, or weaving. Sound pressed into something physical, ethereality brought to his fingertips, his ears, across time.

It’s a pleasant evening all around. John savors every detail as he takes a sip of scotch - a gift from a colleague in Edinburgh - settling into the thick leather chair by the fireplace, just musing in his mind while he waits for the brownies to be done. Perhaps he should grade, or write a lecture, or work on his sermon. But these moments in time, of being in his body, of feeling fire in his throat as sparks flick out as his toes, these are God’s moments, moments of perfect creation and harmony.

But still, he isn’t bothered by the knock on his door, despite the late hour. The students know his door is always open. He’s become used to them coming to his couch after a late temptation, or perhaps a lapse in their faith. Perhaps just a personal dilemma. The community too, though they typically take the ‘door unlocked’ policy as is.

No, the timidness of the youngest in his flock always brings a smile. It seems no matter how many departmental or congregational dinners he hosts, how many times they come knocking, they always knock. It is part of their youth, not cemented in their beliefs, in knowing that God will provide. So he provides, until they can become sure, can understand how a trinity of a different kind, God, his Son, and their Pastor, will be there for them. They are lambs, learning to stand on their own legs, which is why this is his favorite place to shepherd.

“Coming!” He calls out, setting the glass carefully on a coaster before opening the thick door to the cottage. It takes a few blinks to clear his eyes from the rush of cold air that assaults them. The weather always seems to surprise him, just one of many things in this beautiful world.

But what doesn’t necessarily surprise him is to see, red-rimmed eyes, a flushed tear-tracked face delicately wrought in its complexion, set upon a lithe frame that hides immense strength, an immense spirit that positively glows normally with ash-blonde hair and bright gray-blue eyes. Faith. A sense of calm comes over him, a release of tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding for days.

“Oh, my girl, I was hoping you’d come by” Before she can get a word out, John wraps strong arms around her, enveloping her in a warm hug. Immediately he feels the telltale shake of her shoulders, small hands gripping the back of his sweater tightly, a damp spot right near his heart growing.

Yes, John expected this. For how long, he isn’t entirely sure. Perhaps, always. Perhaps, because somewhere in him, he knew God had bigger plans for them both.

Faith had been a special student to him, from her first year intro course in the Theology department. A bright girl, a good girl, who believed with her heart and soul in Jesus’ saving grace for even the most dastardly of sinners. He hadn’t recognized it well at the time, but even he had fallen prey to the negativity within the church, the ones who said Supernaturals were truly the devil incarnate, incapable of being saved.

But Faith, she took it upon herself to prove them all wrong. She’d been hesitant to propose her thesis to him, as her advisor. A piece to study the beliefs and communities of Supernaturals locally, from a theological and sociological perspective, in order to understand how those beliefs might be reconciled with modern Christianity. A piece that would allow for the Evangelical church she came from to see the same possibility of salvation she did. To choose love.

“It’s alright, shhh. Why don’t you come in? The brownies for tomorrow’s potluck are almost done. I’ll put on some tea, dandelion right?” Gently, he pried her away from him, thumbing tears as she sniffled away the last of her outburst.

“Thank you, Reverend. I just...I didn’t know where else to go. Yet.” The downcast of her eyes nearly breaks his heart at the cruelty of this world. For his fellow Christians had chosen to hate, to cast her out of their flock, after she bared her thesis, her work, no matter how unfinished. All because of what she was.

Peter 1 4:8 comes to his mind: Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.

So what if she was truly born Fae, a natural sinner of the largest proportions. Does her desire to be saved, to save others, to feel Jesus’ healing light not garner love in them?

Her desire, her faith, does in John’s chest, a warm feeling better than the finest scotch as he gently leads her to couch, leaving her with some tissues to compose herself.

The moment feels so right the longer he’s in it. The brownie timer goes off right as he enters the kitchen, and he pulls them out. Perfect. He leaves them to cool as he flicks on the kettle, fingers moving through his vast collection for just the right blend. Dandelion, reminiscent of shortbread cookies, Faith’s favorite. They’ve shared so many cups over late night thesis meetings, church group meetings, dinner meetings that the box has only one left. Pulling out the last packet, he tucks away in his mind to buy more boxes.

They’ll go through a lot he imagines, in the next few months. It’s easy to prepare, like a moment meant to be, as he lets the tea steep, adds two spoonfuls of sugar, and drops in the pills, stirring until they dissolve evenly.

He brings it all out, tea, brownies, to the couch, where she’s already claimed a throw. It’s good, he thinks, that she already feels at home here. It’ll be easier that way.

“Thank you,” her hands grip the warm mug, breathing in the steam, and he watches attentively as she takes a sip. “It’s been...I was scared. That you’d turn me away too”

“My dear, you have never had anything but love for Jesus and God in your heart. Why would I believe something like this would change that?”

Of course he had been worried, in the beginning of her thesis, that she would be swayed. That they would convince her with their wicked tongues, guile her with magic and false miracles, false idols. Yes, now that he looks back, perhaps he did see it all coming. No, she hadn’t been swayed.

But she’d swayed him. To believe in the possibility of truly saving those damned souls. So much that he’d begun his own research, his own plans, prepared for the possibility. And now, it appeared God’s plan was working perfectly, dropping her right on his doorstep on the eve of her transformation between worlds, an apostle for a new era

“Everyone else seems to think that, that this is wrong. How though? How can being who I am, the person God made me, be wrong?” Her voice is quiet in the night, barely above the crackling fire in its hoarseness, tinged still with tears.

“He does nothing wrong. He made you this way for a reason, so that you may show others. Think of it, your work, is this not His plan?” John tries to keep the excitement out of his voice, to remain calm, collected. Gentle. Yes, he must be gentle, to do this in love for the Lord.

She pauses, sipping more. “I...I don’t know. I just, I need some time, I think. I was walking to the bus stop when I passed your house and thought...I don’t know. I guess I hoped there’d be something I could come back to, when I was ready” Her eyes stare into the surface of the tea, growing distant. Tired. It’s working fast, he knows, likely due to her exhaustion from the past few days.

“It’s alright to not know. The Bible does not have all the answers, but it leads us to where we need to find them. Perhaps that’s why you came here. Why don’t you get some rest, stay here tonight. Tomorrow is a new day, a new chance for you to find your way.”

“Thank you, Reverend. That..that sounds nice. You’re right, I need to-o-o-o” the sentence is interrupted by a yawn and he chuckles.

“It sounds like the only thing you need right now is a good night’s rest. Come on, I promise this couch may be old, but she’ll service you well. She’s saved me from several late night grading sessions” Taking the tea, he lets her settle down, and grabs a quilt from the closet - a gift from an older parishioner - and tucks it around her.

“Goodnight, Faith. Sleep well, tomorrow will be a busy day” she mumbles something slurred, incomprehensible under the effect of the drug. Still, he sits and waits, gently petting the silky hair until her breathing fully evens out, deepens into a rhythm that could be a lullaby to itself in his ears.

So beautiful, so wonderful, so perfect. Truly, this is his and her purpose: to show that the souls of the supernatural can be saved through Jesus’ light.

It is with that thought that he picks up the limp bundle of girl, and carries her down into the basement.

Tags: @sableflynn @bleedingandfeverish @starry-whump @whumpmasinjuly(let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from the tag list for this series)

20 notes · View notes

apenitentialprayer · 4 years

Text

So, I took a shower; but I’m still mad, so let’s talk about this. As a Christian, obviously I view Satanists as ideological enemies. I think they’re deluded by a suicidal egomaniac who will drag them down with him. And I’m sure they look at me as a slave of a tyrant who remains in power because we give Him that power. That’s fine; we believe in different things, and we can still be friendly (or at least civil) when interacting with each other. Normally, when I see a post about Satanism, I roll my eyes and keep moving unless its specifically tagged with one of the three Abrahamic faiths (which I view as an invitation for further dialogue; that’s why I will tag this Satanism at the end); I imagine most Satanists do the same thing, seeing how many posts I see decrying the devil without any input from them. That’s part of being civil; not seeking conflict everywhere. But I broke that rule by reblogging that post, which I don’t think was actually labelled Christianity or Judaism. And I’ll tell you why. That post, being an exposition of Satanic theology, is clearly an attack on Christianity and Judaism. But those attacks have a subtle but important distinction. Christians are stupid because they have equated Good Guy Jesus with the evil demiurgic El; Jews simply serve the evil demiurgic El. This is a millennia old form of anti-Judaic rhetoric, and that poster went right along with it. Being critical of Judaism as a religion is not inherently antisemitic. Finding God distasteful, or disgusting, or petty, or whatever negative thing you want to attribute to Him is not inherently antisemitic. But when you’re viciously condemning El and bending over backwards to exonerate Good Guy Jesus in the same post... well, I have some bad news for you, buddy. You’re antisemitic.

#Antisemitism #Satanism #Marcion of Sinope

46 notes · View notes

blessedarethebinarybreakers · 3 years

Note

Answer asap (I feel bad saying that, but I'm stuck). Do you have any resources for dating/not dating non-christians? A dear friend of mine told me they care for me, and I feel the same for them, but... all the resources online warn again and again not to date non-christians lest they endanger my faith. I feel like going forward with this would be ignorant at best and would set us both up for heartbreak. And I fear my fear itself would lead to me trying to convert them. But I still care for them.

Hey, anon! Thanks for reaching out -- the rhetoric among many Christians against interfaith relationships, particularly with the argument that they’re “unequally yoked,” is something I haven’t addressed in years, and have been meaning to discuss again.

Little disclaimer at the start that this stuff is so contextual, and it’s personal -- I don’t know your life as well as you do, or this friend of yours like you do. Maybe what i say doesn’t fit you and your situation.

_____________

To begin, I firmly believe that interfaith relationships can be and often are truly beautiful, holy partnerships. (This includes relationships in which one or multiple members identifies as an atheist / otherwise doesn’t ascribe to a particular religion.)

When both (or all) members are respectful of one another’s beliefs, and find as much joy in learning as in teaching their partner(s), their unique perspectives can deeply enrich one another. You can bear good fruit together that glorifies God and nourishes others.

This being said, you definitely want to at least begin working through your worries and fears before starting to date this person. If you enter the relationship overwhelmed with fear or guilt about dating them, it’ll bring a lot of resentment and angst. The rest of this post points out things you’ll want to reflect on and read up on before entering this or any interfaith relationship -- and offers resources that can help.

_________

Interfaith Partners: Always “Unequally Yoked”?

I’m sure you’ve seen a certain phrase on those websites you mentioned, drawn from 2 Corinthians 6:14 -- “unequally yoked.” I’m going to end this post with some alternative ways of interpreting this verse, but what Christians who advise against interfaith relationships take it to mean is something like this:

Just as two animals yoked to the same plow should be of equal strength and on the same page so that one doesn’t do more of the work, or get tugged away from the work by the other one, two partners should also be of equal “spiritual” strength and on the same page when it comes to their faith...

And of course, these people will say, a person who is Christian is definitely spiritually stronger than any non-Christian -- and a non-Christian might just pull them away from The Way, getting them to skip church or prayers or even stop being Christian entirely.

But there are a lot of assumptions there that don’t hold true in every relationship, right? First off, who says every Christian is necessarily “spiritually stronger” than every non-Christian? To claim that is to assume that non-Christians don’t also have access to spirituality or to the Divine -- which I’m going to push against throughout this post.

Furthermore, the assumption that a non-Christian partner will definitely harm your own Christian faith doesn’t have to be true, as I’ll get to in a second.

So yeah, keeping these assumptions about an interfaith relationship being inherently “unequally yoked” in mind, and with a plan on returning to this phrase at the end, let’s move on to specific things you should think about before entering an interfaith relationship.

______________

Must a non-Christian partner “endanger” your faith -- or can they enrich it?

If being open to learning about how our fellow human beings perceive the world, humanity, and the divine “endangers one’s faith,” perhaps that kind of faith was not made to last. Perhaps it has to give way in order to birth a new, deeper faith -- a faith that is bold enough to wrestle with God as Jacob did; broad enough to survive questions and doubts and times of grief; and wise enough to perceive the Spirit blowing wherever She will (John 3:8), not only among Christians.

If your partner truly respects you and your faith even if it’s different from theirs, they’ll do what they can to help you be the best Christian you can be -- or at the very least, they will give you the space and time you need to go to church, pray, etc. And you will do the same, helping them to be the best Muslim, Buddhist, or simply person they can be.

I highly recommend asking this friend of yours before you start dating what their thoughts are on your being a Christian, and/or on Christianity in general.

Is it something that makes them happy for you? is it something that makes them deeply uncomfortable? or something that they don’t have strong feelings one way or the other on? .

How “involved” would they be open to being in your faith? Would they be interested in going to church with you, as long as they could trust you weren’t trying to force them into anything? Would they enjoy talking about your varying beliefs together and how they impact your lives? Or would they never ever want you to bring up Christianity (which I imagine for you would be a deal breaker)? .

Be open and honest with one another about what expectations you each have about things like boundaries around discussing faith, about time and space you each want for practicing your faith, etc. As you seem aware, it’s better to get all this clear before you start dating, to avoid problems later down the road!

For an example of what such discussions might look like, I found this story from Robert Repta, a Christian man married to a Jewish man. Their union, he says, has included working out what it means not only to be gay persons of faith, but also persons of two different faiths:

“Ultimately, what happened was that in our struggles to find ourselves, we ended up growing closer together. We both supported and challenged each other. We began asking each other bigger life questions and talking about religion, God, science. Both of our lives were evolving, and what started to happen was that we started seeing the similarities in our core beliefs more than the differences. Some of those beliefs even evolved along the way.

We both believed in God. We both believed that God is love. We volunteered together. He would occasionally come with me to church, and I would occasionally go with him to the synagogue. Eventually, I could see that the common thread between us was unconditional love. The same unconditional love of God.”

_____________

On pressuring a non-Christian partner to convert -- assumptions about Christian superiority & fearing for their afterlife destination

It’s really good you recognize that it might end up being hard for you not to try to get this person to convert! Before dating them, you should keep reflecting on this and decide whether that’s something you can let go of or not. If it’s not, then you’re probably right in thinking this relationship won’t work out.

It would be highly disrespectful to this person you care about to pressure them to become a Christian in order for you to feel okay about being with them. (And for more thoughts on how evangelism and conversion as carried out by many Christians isn’t what Jesus had in mind, see this post.) Doing so would imply a lot of things, including that you don’t think they’re a worthy or equal partner unless they make this big change, that whatever beliefs or ideologies they currently hold are inferior to yours, etc.

In order for your interfaith relationship to go well, you would need to come to understand non-Christians as being equally made in God’s image, equally worthy of dignity, equally capable of doing good in the world. You’d have to come to believe that there is much of value within their own religion / ideology that you as a Christian could learn from.

Let’s bring in our lovely Christian/Jewish couple from before: as his relationship with David developed, Robert discovered that

“God is not conformed to this world we live in; God does not belong solely to the Pentecostals or the Baptists, to the Jews or Gentiles, to Muslims or Zoroastrians. Two of the most profound self-identifiers God calls himself in the Bible is “love” and “I am.””

Here are a few resources that can help you explore the idea that other religions are as valid as Christianity and also have much wisdom to bring to the world:

I highly recommend you check out the book Holy Envy by Barbara Brown Taylor to help you explore how you can be a devout Christian and learn from and form mutual relationships with persons who are not Christian. You can check out passages from the book in my tag here. .

You might also like my two podcast episodes on interfaith relationships (in general, not romantic ones, but the same material applies) -- episode 30, “No One Owns God: Readying yourself for respectful interfaith encounters” and episode 31, “It's good to have wings, but you have to have roots too": Cultivating your faith while embracing religious pluralism.” You can find links to both episodes as well as their transcripts over on this webpage. .

There might also be some helpful stuff in my #interfaith tag or #other faiths tag if you wander around. .

Simply getting to know whatever religion this friend does belong to (or what ideologies and value systems they maintain if they’re atheist / non-religious) can also be super helpful. Ask them what resources they can think of that can help get to know their religion as they experience it. Attend worship service (virtually works!), seek out folks on social media who share their religion, etc. I bet you’ll find a lot that you have in common -- and hopefully you’ll find some of the differences thought-provoking and enriching to your own understandings of Divinity!

I’m guessing a lot of your worry stems from the assumption that non-Christians don’t go to heaven. If you believe that not being a Christian leads to hell after death, it’s very hard to view non-Christians and their beliefs as equal to your own!

That Holy Envy book discusses this genuine fear many Christians have on behalf of non-Christians, and how to let it go. .

Here’s a post with links to other posts describing the belief that many faithful and serious Christians hold that non-Christians don’t all get whisked to hell. .

And a post on the harm done by fearmongering about hell. .

Finally, a little more on the academic side but if you’re interested in some history behind Christian views of hell that can help you see that there really is no one “true” belief here, check out the links in this post.

_______

Reinterpreting “unequally yoked”

I said we’d get back to this, and here we are! While the easiest to find interpretation of 2 Corinthians 6:14′s “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers” is that it argues against interfaith marriage, there are other ways to read this text.

I adore this article I found on the passage from a Christian minister who is married to a Hindu monk -- “Unequally Yoked”: How Christians Get Interfaith Marriage Wrong.” Incredibly, Rev. J. Dana Trent writes that when she and her now-husband dug into 2 Corinthians 6:14 to see what it was all about, she found that

“An ancient scripture meant to deter us from getting involved with each other actually brought us together. Our core beliefs in God became the focus of our study and relationship, not the issues that divided us.”

She also explains that biblical scholars say this verse isn’t even specifically about interfaith marriage -- which becomes clear when you read the full chapter surrounding it! It’s more general -- about the hazards of “working with” an unbeliever.

And what exactly is an unbeliever? Paul and other “believers” of these very early days of Christianity had a different definition than we might today -- an “unbeliever” wasn’t synonymous with “non-Christian,” because Christianity hadn’t even solidified into an actual religion yet! Instead, a nonbeliever was "anyone exposed to but was not faithful to Christ’s teachings—someone not characterized by devotion, love, peace, mercy, and forgiveness.”

In other words, if a person in those early days was told about the good news of Jesus that entailed things like liberation of the oppressed and love of neighbor, they didn’t have to “become a Christian” to accept that good news. And thus, Rev. Trent continues,

“Today, my husband’s deep Hindu faith has taught me to dig deeper into what Jesus would have me do. Perhaps Paul might have even considered me an “unbeliever,” as I claimed to be a baptized Christian, but my life did not inwardly and outwardly reflect the Gospel. Since marrying Fred, I re-attuned my life to Christian spiritual practices: spending more time in contemplative prayer, practicing non-violence through a vegetarian diet, limiting my consumption, and increasing my service to others.

Much to many Christians’ dismay, it took a person of another faith—a seemingly “unequally yoked” partner, to strengthen my Christian walk.”

Isn’t it beautiful to hear how this relationship between a Christian minister and Hindu monk has born good fruit for both of them? They help one another become the best Christian and best Hindu they can be, respectively. They are both so deeply committed to faith -- that doesn’t sound like an “unequal yoking” to me.

______

Whew, this got long! But it’s a big topic, and one I hope you’ll take the time to explore. Bring God into it; bring your friend into as much as they’re comfortable. And feel free to come back and ask me more questions as you go.

If anyone knows of other articles or other resources that explore the good fruit that can come from an interfaith partnership, please share!

#interfaith relationships #unequally yoked #progressive christians #interfaith dating #Anonymous #relationship tag

61 notes · View notes

culturaldorksist · 4 years

Text

to love me

It is Class Eleven. We are in a small, cramped makeshift classroom because our usual room is being fumigated for bed bugs. I am in a complicated relationship with a girl, who I like desperately and cloyingly as I tend to do and who doesn’t, I think, feel the same way about me. She calls me over to help her with understanding something from the textbook and looks at me for a while as I gesticulate to try and explain. “You know,” she says. “There’s something about the way your hands move. It just…feels really gay, sometimes.”

This happened five years ago.

A body, like being, is a little complicated to explain. For Descartes, who I immediately admired for breaking everything down and building it all back up again, there are three substances in the world: there is God who is unknowable but creates and sustains all things, there is mind, the attribute of which is thought and there is body, the attribute of which is extension. For him to prove that the body is distinct from the mind is a long, uphill battle but it is one he fights tooth and nail, even if it doesn’t make sense. The word soul flits in, eventually. There has to be something, something other than a bag of bones that will ultimately rise to the heavens or sink beneath the sea.

I remember playing a lot of imaginary games when I was a child. I remember being a cook, a soldier, a spy, an explorer, a villain. These were malleable times and not a lot was required to entertain myself. I didn’t really need props or costumes. In a pinch, I could curl up on the sofa with my eyes closed and imagine all sorts of things. I have been trying to remember what I thought about my own body. I don’t remember thinking about it very much. This never fails to make me nostalgic.

I also don’t remember when I began to eat so much. I always ate fast, never savouring anything. Food was a comforting thing to work my way through as I did something else. It made me feel distracted and safe. By the time I was twelve, I was fat.

I remember looking at myself in the bathroom once, at the swell of my stomach that distended even at the sides and the loose flabs of my cheeks and chest. Rolls of fat would bounce distinctly from my body as I jumped a few times, like a soul. I don’t remember if I was disgusted just yet but I wasn’t happy.

For the Christians, there is no rationalising about the soul. It obviously exists. Everything about the body is mired in a materiality that is not only temporary but malignant and hostile. Material existence for the Christian is a wasteland we deserve for the sinners we are where every little shred of beauty is grace: a free gift from God. Every flower, every tree.

And beautiful people? They were gifts to be given to each other, I supposed. Do not covet your neighbour’s house.

For the Christian, self hatred is a given. It is a more honest position to be in than those who have been blinded by common grace. If we see ourselves as ugly, our bodies and our surroundings, we can see the absolute necessity of giving ourselves to Christ who will take us to a new world where all things are beautiful.

This calls for a different kind of self love. A love we give ourselves through Christ. The only reason we love ourselves now is to be because Christ loves us, a love that is absolute and unconditional and, according to the Christian, the only love that is true.

When I was eight or nine, everyone around me transitioned from playing the sorts of games I liked, like tag or hide-and-seek, to the sorts of games I found out I wasn’t particularly good at, like football and cricket. I couldn’t coordinate my movements with what I needed to do and what I was seeing, I was slow and not particularly graceful and on top of everything, I wasn’t particularly interested. It didn’t seem fun.

I wasn’t bullied for this, not by that group of friends. But a very pragmatic system came into being. I was made to be goalie whenever possible but when everyone wanted a real game, they’d make me the referee or the umpire. I won a football through a lucky draw and it was the best one in the colony. They had to call me. I had to go. I realised very soon that being a referee was consolation. I leaned against the wall and watched. I remember wanting to cry, sometimes.

Once, for losing an eraser or something, my father told me I wasn’t to go down and play for a week. Everyone came up to the house to find out why I wasn’t there. My father explained to them and I listened from my door. “Oh,” one of them said. “Can we have the ball, then?”

I really hit it off with someone I matched with on Bumble. We couldn’t stop talking. She’d send me little photos from her day: oranges in the sunshine, flowers, trees and other things like that. We met soon and only ordered drinks because neither of us was very hungry and we talked for a good couple of hours. I dropped her off where she needed to go and went back thinking things went fabulously.

She became terse after that, responding almost monosyllabically. I dropped it almost immediately, not wanting to be annoying. It had to be because of my body. She had to have been absolutely disappointed by it.

If there is mind and body, thought and extension, I am absolutely assured about my mind. I have never been nervous about my ability to speak and write coherently, lucidly and on my best days, beautifully. I am confident in being able to be witty and appropriate. I have never been assured about my body. The best I’ve been able to hope for is that I am somehow just impressive enough on all the other counts for my body to be tolerated. For it to be ignored. For a ‘yes, but he’s alright, all things considered’.

It is Class Eight and a free period. Most of the class is empty, for some reason or the other, except for a small group of people. I am reading a book and occasionally participating in whatever conversation they’re having. One of them from across the room suddenly says “David, walk from here to the front of the room and back.”

I ask why.

“Just do it, you’ll see.” I look around. I haven’t been paying attention to the conversation for a while. Everyone is watching me, smiling.

I slowly get up and comply. They laugh and nod. “See, I told you,” she says. “He walks funny.”

They make me run as well, which is even funnier. I cannot for the life of me remember why I submitted to this, why this was something I was willing to do.

“It’s his hands as well, he’s so weird with them.”

The problem with the love of Jesus is that it is generalised. You are encouraged to reach out to Him with your specific problems through prayer and he responds through what you read from a collection of different literature, the latest of which was written two-thousand years ago by a Jewish man addressing a number of churches in what is modern-day Turkey. You can rest assured in Jesus’ unconditional love for you but He cannot delight in your condition.

He cannot admire your arms, the way you walk, the way you speak. But to seek this sort of admiration is shallow. It is, in the words of C.S. Lewis, ‘like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea’.

So you’re stuck.

Once in school, a friend of mine from band was telling me that I should practice more. “See, we’re not like those other guys. We’re ugly. If we don’t have skills we can’t depend on them to want us around for any other reason.” I wanted to tell him I never thought he was ugly. I didn’t. I agreed. I thought maybe he needed me to, that If I excluded myself from the class he so casually put us in, that he placed himself so absolutely into, that it would break him.

In the end, when I went home, I believed I was ugly too.

In college, the girl I was dating once complimented my t-shirt. “You have nice arms,” she said, and then moved on to something else.

That was two years ago. Sometimes, when I want to cry, I hold on to that memory and it makes things better.

Objectivity and subjectivity are important parts of this discussion. I’m sure philosophers have a lot to say about aesthetics but it is too difficult and cyclical to read through all of that. And people in science are just philosophers who’ve prohibited themselves from talking about souls. So, they give me heuristics I can actually use.

There is a golden ratio, apparently, that makes things beautiful. Things like pinecones and paintings and faces.

And the cold logic of it makes sense. A lean body, a pared down one, one not burdened by excess, one that is strong and capable is obviously an attractive one. This must be objectively true.

But there are so many other things I tend to like. The curve of someone’s neck, their arms in the sun, their teeth, their cheeks. These bodies may not fit any sort of objective mold, they may all even be different. But I like them and am attracted to them. Can I believe that this might extend back to me too?

The problem, then, is one of empathy. Do other people think the same way I think? What is going on inside your head?

In college, the girl I was dating once told me: “You know, there’s a lot of things you can fix if you tried?”

“Fix?”

“Yeah, like your weird walk and your posture and things like that. I’m sure if you think about it you can do it properly.”

She has never met the group of people from Class Eight who told me the same thing. She doesn’t even know they exist. So, this thing about my walk, it must be an objectively true thing.

This was two years ago.

Along with how a body looks comes what a body does: presentation. The way you hold your hands akimbo, the way you tilt to the side, the way you use gestures, the way you walk. Masculinity is essentially a bar to jump over: one that requires you to pare down anything that might portray weakness. Because, weakness is feminine and the farther you get from the edge of the binary the lower you’ve cleared the bar.

Gender is woven almost inextricably with sexual orientation. Heterosexuality is only permitted to those who do not deviate from the edge of the binary. To be homosexual is to be like a woman: weak.

I am so tired and I just want to be. My presentation has not been a conscious effort towards anything. I don’t know what it means that ‘a lot of the things I do seem really gay’. Harry Styles helped me massively. To see him with nailpolish, floral shirts and fishnets on while still being allowed to be attracted to and, almost essentially, being attractive to women reassured me. I want to dress like that sometimes. I want to be like that sometimes.

I don’t know if I’m allowed to be while still being straight. I don’t know what that makes me.

Empathy is complicated for people with self and body image problems. The things that plague me, the little lines of speech, the looks, being beaten up, being bullied, might seem almost incomprehensibly trivial to someone else. It’s not easy to explain whyI remember these things from as long as eight years ago and why they still haunt me. It is even often more difficult for people with body image problems of their own.

I have heard other people’s stories about their self-image and done the same thing. ‘That’s not so bad,’ I’ve thought. It is almost impossible to understand.

Every romantic rejection of me becomes about my body or my presentation, in my head. The way I deal with these rejections is by working wherever bodies are needed. Wherever they’ll have me.

I’m not like other guys. I’m ugly. If I don’t have skills, I can’t depend on them to want me around for any other reason.

After my breakup in college, I took up key roles in three different events that all stacked on top of each other. I was supposed to be in four places on the same day at the same hour. I nearly collapsed from exhaustion.

After that Bumble date, I took up work I didn’t need to take up, stayed longer than what I knew was healthy for me and contracted some sort of stomach infection that put me down for nearly a week.

Photographs of myself terrify me. I cannot believe I look like that. That I am that big. When I look at my friends and then at myself, I am disgusted. From an odd angle, every once in a while, I think I look alright. I look passable. I put those up on every online platform and I hope for the best.

I was once on my way from my room to the bathroom. “Please put a shirt on,” a friend who I dearly love said. “Your tits are disgusting.”

In print, as words on a screen, this is shocking. As a lived experience, it is not. It is the sort of thing men say to each other.

Last week, I moved into a room where there is a full length mirror. It is the first full length mirror I have had the liberty to be naked in front of. I like the way my legs curve upwards into my back and how my hips dip into my stomach. In the early sunlight, I am proportionate.

This is trivial. It is, after all, just a man looking into a mirror. This is also earth shattering.

Last week, I made a tweet about wanting to wear nail polish in college. In a world where a global pandemic is baying at the doors and where human rights violations abound in every city, a heterosexual man wanting to put nail polish on and expressing this is trivial. It is also earth shattering.

I once complimented my mother on the dress she was wearing. I told her it looked great on her. I don’t know why, I just did. I saw her face change, I saw her smile and she told me her day was made. I don’t know if she was telling the truth. But I do know she has struggled with diet, weight-loss and cravings for a long time. It was an easy thing to say but it was also not prompted. She did not ask me for a compliment. It was freely given, like grace, like all the beautiful things in the world. And so, it mattered.

Maybe, if we work very hard, there’ll be a world where compliments between men, where validation and acceptance is normal. Maybe we can break everything down and build everything back up again. It’s only bodies, after all.

I am thirteen and lying in bed next to my father. It is the afternoon. He is asking me what is happening in school and I tell him about all the different activities that are happening.

“You should try theatre,” he says.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because you’re tall and handsome and you have a great voice and they need people like that for theatre.” He turns away and falls asleep.

That was eight years ago.

#body image #self image #self #sexuality #fat shaming #personal #philosophy #christianity #personal essay

9 notes · View notes