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#and probably cw for religious trauma

whatimdoing-here · 10 months

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All my life I'd been telling people I loved them. I'd been so careful with those three words, careful to say them too much, too, to mean them. But maybe it wasn't those three words that even mattered at all; maybe it was the 'because' that was the important part, the real part. I'd been leaving that part unspoken, assuming people knew why or how I loved them, but how could they ever know?

If Tomorrow Doesn't Come by Jen St. Jude

#if tomorrow doesn't come #jen st jude #me out here recommending this not well known book left and right so I'm not the only one crying over it #cw for depression and suicide #and probably cw for religious trauma #queer storyline #books #quotes

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murdrdocs · 2 months

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religious themes; allusions to sex; def incorrect religious interpertations MDNI 18+ inspo from @swiftiekisses's post w/ LUKE CASTELLAN

the pastors voice booms throughout the small church even without the microphone as assistance. his words, preachings about the dangers of premarital sex, run down luke's spine. they stick themselves there, forced to remain relevant and exist permanently within his body even if his mind dared to forget it.

because he knows his feeble, easily persuaded mind will forget it. when he's inevitably balls deep in you later this afternoon, when your parents have retired to the kitchen for his moms cooking, he would have already forgotten the elated cheers of agreement from the churchgoers. he knows that when you're running your hands through his hair, your pristinely manicured nails scratching his scalp, he would have forgotten what this mornings sermon was even about.

but you, you won't forget. you sit beside him now, staring straight ahead, supposedly unaffected by the way luke's knee touches yours. he can delude himself into believing you were pretending to not care about luke's presence next to his, but your attitude might be soaked in truth. you're in charge here, and luke knows it.

you're human personification of temptation, the rotten apple disguised as fresh and ripe and ready for the picking. you've dragged him under, deep into a pit of bittersweet arousal and warm insides that he never ever wants to leave.

the sweetness of your perfume wafts towards luke's nose as you clap to what the pastor has said. his words must have been important, they must have been grandiose, because his mother is standing next to him and shouting "amen!". but luke can only focus on the way you turn your head and smile at him, a sweet grin that is the image of innocence to outsiders.

but luke knows your smile to be anything but. you knows you to be anything but. and he can tell himself lies all he wants to, but at the end of the day, when judgement comes, he knows that his actions have damned him. the ones he chose to participate in. he has chosen to continuously sheathe himself into your pretty pussy. he has chosen to lay before the altar of your thighs and give offerings. he has chosen to take what his false god has given him, lessons and signs that cloud his mind instead of clear it.

the worst part is, he wouldn't have it any other way.

#premarital sex is fun #cw religious themes #cw religious trauma #? probably idk hes brainwashed fr #mind u im barely religious #i do not know the bible #lukesworld!#luke castellan x reader #luke castellan x you #celeste writes pjo

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lilac-multifandom-multishipper · 5 months

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if you weren’t raised christian, then you will never understand the instinctual fear that courses through me every time i reblog a post about judas or even consider the idea that judas didn’t suffer eternal damnation. and god forbid i start thinking about the inherent homoeroticism of betraying jesus with a kiss, because at that point you might as well just bathe me in hellfire now

#…you can kind of tell when i’ve been reading jesus christ superstar fanfiction can’t you #cw christianity #christianity tw #religion tw #tw religion #religion #religious trauma #question mark???#i mean i guess an instinctual fear of damnation probably falls under that yeah

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thenatezone · 1 year

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You can be a loving parent and still ruin your child's life. I constantly have to reconcile the fact that my conservative southern Baptist parents did genuinely love me and my siblings while also saying and doing horrible things throughout our childhood.

"They did the best they could!"

Sure but, like, when I was nine they told us if the government ever outlawed Christianity they would choose their religion over their lives and ours and they expected us to do the same

#cw religious trauma #exvangelical #tbh that's why I will probably never have kids #I know you can have the best of intentions and still fuck up so

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bewarethefairhairedchild · 2 years

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What I really think is missing from religious horror is the conversations with nice little old ladies where you abruptly go from talking about how well the event is going and how lovely the service was to how she thinks queer people are responsible for the collapse of society because she noticed someone wearing jeans to this funeral

It's a real gripping gut dropping moment to find yourself in lemme tell you

#Religion cw #It's possibly because a lot of religious horror focuses on what it's like growing up in these people's power #Whereas I didn't HAVE a childhood In Church the same way bc my mom didn't make us go until I was a bit older #Probably bc of my grandpa dying when he did tbh #So I don't have a childhood trauma surrounding Church because my religious education consisted of a Bible printed on recycled paper #My horror surrounding churches is they're Like That so often yet there is nothing to replace certain of the social service they provide

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godzexperiment · 1 year

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okay but the brain rot also made me think- one of nix's tasks/an punishment 100% was to get rerouted prayers and nix just like so miserable probably Begging within seconds for it to just stop being the case (when you're kind of created to Listen/absorb what you hear... that sort of thing is just so much more hellish than it's already unbelievable levels of suffering)

#religious cw #trauma cw #torture cw #<< falling apart at the seams i cant deny >> headcanons #(very much one of the major things he would rather not address to anybody else)#(no way to mention it without the other party probably like that's actually so fucked up and your joking about it?)#(if he was lucky got most of it cleansed from his head... if not sure is an ever constant ouch)

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ipromiseimawriter · 1 year

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it’s funny how you can realize so much about yourself in the middle of the night. in your old bedroom. not your old old bedroom, that’s the guest room now. it’s your sister’s old room which became your room which became a box to collect dust in when you left (ran) and then it became a point of transition and a storage closet.

and once again, it is your room. for a while.

it’s funny what you realize about yourself when you let yourself process. sketch had asked me "what would need to change?" and "what would it look like to forgive myself?”

i’ve been thinking about it.

i think it would start with accepting that i have in fact lived a whole life filled with love, despite the shadows that hang around all those hearts. i find old letters from friends, mementos from moments gone by, programs and thank you cards and notes and journals, and i think holy shit this kid lived and lived and they could barely see right in front of their nose. they did so much, they learned so much through failures and successes and weird little things in the middle. there is so much that i don’t remember or i do or i kind of do, and it’s all a part of the grander picture.

i’m sure this has something to do with the whole (wavy hand gesture) derealization thing/trauma thing/whatever you wanna call it. i don’t have a strict name for it and i don’t even think that’s the point right now. i’ve stared it down enough times with enough therapists who kind of understood, and around people who maybe weren’t supposed to see how it really went but did anyway. it’s a strange thing, to realize i can finally refer to myself in the first person and it doesn’t feel forced. i feel like i’ve been doing it for years, staring at myself through a weird little objective lens.

i think it also starts with looking at what guilt means. what it means to move on from everything i cannot possibly change. what it means to not call myself a fuck-up every time i do something a little out-of-step, slip up my words and let the mask crack (the pandemic cracked it and destroyed it, and rebuilding one isn’t something i even wanted to do, but that’s life innit). call it catholic guilt, call it residual pain from a critical childhood, call it whatever you wanna call it, i know it’s something that’s stuck with me. it lives in every word i’ve ever written -- always signed off with this is a sinner, this is a sinner, this is someone who needs to be saved but won’t be saved because they don’t deserve it.

and i gotta say! don’t love that!

i have a lot of people who i don’t talk to anymore. i collect guilt inside of my chest like it’s rainwater from a leaking roof, and i’m the bucket. it has to go somewhere (it was my fault, i failed them, i lost contact, i really fucked up that one night and it’s never been the same, i just stopped being someone they would wanna be around,,,,). but the reality is that life is bigger than my guilt. so, so much bigger. their lives are probably juggling so much, and maybe they have guilt, too. shame, too. all of that and more.

i have people who i love now. whether i talked to them hours ago, or we haven’t spoken in years, or maybe some wobbly little thing in the middle, i love them and i hold shared memories dear. i think about them on their birthday even if i forget to reach out. i think about their favorite little frozen custard spot, or the way they used to recklessly drive their car; how they like their boba orders, or what they’re hyperfixating on this week/month/year. it’s such a lovely thing to be alive, to know people as they are and to hold space for them.

i don’t know if any of this hold the answers to those questions. i don’t know if i’ve even stayed on track. but i know why i’m like this -- at least, enough. i’ll always have questions there. the main point is the whats, the what’s next, the action after years of waiting for when things were finally going to get better.

they got better the moment i chose to live. every single moment that i chose to keep living, call my mom again, do the laundry, go to bed and wake up and try again. i’ve been going through that cycle for years and i come out with something new each time. that has to count for something.

i will make it count for something.

#elliot rambles #after hours journal #(I'LL GO TO BED PROBABLY I'M JUST THINKING.)#cw trauma mention #cw religious mention #personal

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pithyorangecurd · 2 years

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My work schedule is changing from monday tuesday days off to sunday monday days off, which means my family is going to force me to go to church again, which will cause me an understandable amount of mental anguish as I return to like. Being ritually told to burn in literal hell for being gay by a guy who doesn't even know I am and claims to love me and want the best for me and like etc etc religious trauma that makes me so violently miserable I have to puke three times a day to get through it, but I get to leave my full day of church at 9 30 at night to go to work and take sommelier classes for free and 😏😏 kinda sexy

#personal #dont look etc etc etc #religion cw #religious trauma cw #emetophilia #fucking whatever else I guess I'll probably have more of this from now on as a well intentioned bigot tells me he loves me and #it makes me feel good until he reminds me that he only loves the idea of a docile (1) well dressed (2) and respectable (3) christian girl(4 #not counting all my grievances with this and explaining them but 4 is not a girl #going in and screaming and coming to work cutely to be hinged #homophobia cw

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redr0sewrites · 2 months

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HI HI!!!! if you do ever decide to write for the archangels i would LOVE sum michael hcs.!!.!!.! i would gobble him up yum yum

jumped skipped and hopped over all my other requests to get to this one LMAO- considering he's non-canon i just went off my own hcs soo yea!!!!

🥀Cw: fluff, smut, bible lore™️, possible religious trauma?

🥀minors dni with the nsfw portion

Sfw:

Michael has lived a long, long time, he's been alive since before earth was even created and has definitely seen some things

he knows that many mortals experience love, yet he never really felt such a strong connection until he met you. of course he loved his "family", but michael was a stranger to true love

HES SUCH A GENTLEMAN! michael definitely puts your needs before his, and i hc his love languages to be quality time and acts of service. he loves having you by his side more than anything, and is always spending time with you.

he's the type to give you lots and lots of flowers! you two probably have a garden that he goes to get flowers from, because he just loves how happy you get at such a seemingly simple gesture

michael is very protective, but not in a limiting way, he just wants to make sure your safe. after lucifer fell from heaven and created original sin, michael had to step up and take on even more heavenly duties. he knows how important it is to keep you safe and he loves you a lot, so he worries about you a lot

he honestly misses lucifer a lot, but he would never admit it. he talks to you a lot about his other siblings and family, and tells you stories about the beginning of earth and heaven's creation. he definitely introduces you to the other archangels, seraphims, and heavenly virtues, and loves that you get along with them. i definitely think you'd become buddies with azrael or gabriel, and y'all would cause shenanigans together (much to michaels dismay)

michael is literally so patient with you, and it's genuinely so sweet. everyone can tell he's WHIPPED, and he honestly doesn't mind. he'll listen to you ramble for hours on end, he'll try more modern food for you, he'll even adopt your music taste once he starts dating you! michael loves you as a whole and wants to enjoy everything you're interested in

HUSBAND MATERIAL. he definitely takes it upon himself to cook for you, he helps you clean, anything you need help with he volunteers to assist you.

michael is SUCH a morning person you can not tell me im wrong. he wakes up really early, and loves watching you sleep peacefully. he makes you breakfast in the morning and when its time for you to wake up, he always wakes you up with kisses or tickles or both! he loves holding you in the morning, but he's a little strict about getting up on time, he does have heavenly duties to attend to after all. if you do manage to wake up before him, you might manage to convince him to stay in bed with you for just a few more minutes. he honestly has such a soft spot for you

you are one of the few people allowed to touch his wings, which is a HUGE sign of trust on michael's part. he usually keeps his wings hidden, but there comes a time when they get so irritating that they just need to be preened. he gets all huffy about it because its "such an inconvenience", and you get to laugh at his pouty face while you gently preen his wings!

i think all the archangels have 6 wings, so it definitely takes a while. michael probably falls asleep halfway through, the feeling of your soft, smaller hands on his wings just makes him feel soft and drowsy. preening often transitions to.... other activities if yk what i mean bc of how sensitive angels' wings are. because michael keeps his wings hidden so often, his wings are especially sensitive and its one of the few times you'lll ever see him blush hehe

he has a really soft, smooth voice, and you LOVE listening to him speak. michael will definitely read to you if you ask, and you can't help but nod off to the sound of his melodic voice. i definitely think most abgels are very musical or at least enjoy music, and if you beg, you may get him to sing for you. his voice is lovely, and he'll sing you soft lullabies in old languages that you can't understand but know are loving

you two very rarely argue, and whenever you do come to a disagreement, michael adamantly refuses to raise his voice at you. he would never yell at you or say anything harsh, and is more likely to opt to just spend some time apart to think on the disagreement. he never lets you two go to bed upset, and will always sit down to have a conversation with you about any clashes you two have. i dont see him as too stubborn and i think he's willing to compromise on most accounts, but its very rare that you two argue anyway because he's so sweet all the time

Nsfw:

michael is 100% a giver in bed. he loves giving you oral and always prioritizes your pleasure over his own. he's always focused on making you cum first and really enjoys pleasing you

i see him as a switch, he could definitely be a pleasure dom but i also see him as a bit of a sub as well. sometimes all of his work and overall stress gets to his head, and he trusts you enough to let you take the reins and get him out of his own head. when he subs, he's definitely much louder and a lot whinier. he's definitely not a brat and would probably do anything you ask him to

he has a praise kink both ways, and loves showering you in praise. michael definitely likes mirror sex, and will tell you to call yourself beautiful of pretty or handsome as he fucks you.

"darling, look at how pretty you are. c'mon, i want to hear you say it. look in the mirror, don't you see how pretty you are?"

eye contact is important to him, and he enjoys a lot of basic positions like missionary and things like that, but i also see him being into lotus position because he loves being so close to you.

michael isn't very loud when it comes to sex, but he is big on talking to you. he loves whispering sweet nothings to you as you cum, and praising you in how well you took him

he isn't ridiculously vanilla, but he hasn't been very adventurous either. while i don't think he's had any official relationships before you, i dont see him as a virgin. he's probably slept with a few people, so he has some experience, but he's still learning as well. i think he's down to try most things as long as you're into them, but he wouldn't want to hurt you too much

michael may feel a bit awkward about sex, sure he knows its not a big deal, but a part of him doesn't want to overstep any of your boundaries either. he wants you to know that he's with you because he loves you, not just for sex and will make that abundantly clear. y'all definitely have a serious conversation about it before the first time you have sex, and you definitely have a safeword

GUYS HEAR ME OUT but i think he'd have a bit of a corruption kink. he'd never admit it but the thought of him being your first is SUCH a turn on, and he really loves when you get so fucked-put that you're incoherent. i think he'd be down for a bit of role play, but only if you're into it and it would definitely relate to some sort of corruption or religious corruption

i don't think he'd degrade you too much, but i do think he might mock you a bit. "oh, you were such a devout little thing, i wonder what the others would think of you now darling. sucking in my cock like a vice, you really aren't so innocent after all, aren't you dear?"

he loves overstimulating you until you're incoherent, but i don't think he's big on orgasm denial. he loves pleasuring you and he loves rewarding you more than anything. the only time i see him really denying your orgasms is if you've been a major brat and have pushed him over the edge, or if you ask him to. either way he's gonna mock you a bit on how filthy you are, but will still praise you for taking it so well

he has definitely bought you a lot of pretty little necklaces and loves seeing you in nothing but the gifts he bought you. the way the charm bounces against your chest as he fucks you, it drives him crazy! especially if theyre gold or if theyre cross necklaces, bc its so similar to his color scheme

he likes holding your hand during sex. its very intimate, and he always gives your hand a little squeeze as he's coming

i think one of the few things he's against during sex is hurting you. sure, he'll mock you here and there, but hurting you? no, its just a turnoff for him. your the most precious thing in his life, he'd never want to hurt you even in jest. if you really, really wanted him to you might get him to tie you down or maybe hold your throat/face while he fucks you, but he would never go as far as to hurt you

when it comes to you fucking him, he loves to be praised and pampered. its a bit embarrassing, but he's often so overworked and pent up that he really loves being treated sweetly. he might cry a bit during sex, trust me he's ok, he just gets overstimulated really easily. michael definitely enjoys it tho!

speaking of overstimulation, PLEASE touch his wings during sex! you'll get the sweetest moans and whimpers from him, and he'll get so whiny. its one of the few times he'll beg, and he both loves and hates when you make him cum untouched by only stroking his wings

aftercare is very important to michael, and he always takes time to clean you both up. it's an unspoken agreement that whoever tops cleans up the other first and starts the bath while the person who subbed takes a minute to catch their breath. he always wipes down your thighs and cleans you off, and when it comes to baths, he'll always make sure everything is ready before carrying you to the tub. when he's subbing, he'll probably try his best to help you but may push himself a bit too hard because he's so tired. PLEASE kiss him and pamper him in the tub, tell him how much you love him!!!!

hes genuinely just so sweet in bed and during aftercare, and overall cares about you a lot

PLSSS THE HYPWRFIXATION IS INSANE. I LOVE ALL THE ARCHANGELS AND HEAVEN AUS SM!!!!!!!!! CRYING BEGGING PLEEEADING FOR YALL TO SEND IN REQUESTS FOR ANYONE FROM THE HEAVEN AUS. the one im most familiar with is @esbellesantos au and my fav is azrael so PLSSS feel free to send in azrael reqs 😇 anyways hope yall enjoyed!!! i loved writing this sm!!!!

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ghosttotheparty · 9 months

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a mess of holy things 1 also on ao3 // next cw: implied religious trauma/abuse

It feels weird to be in this room.

It’s so… empty.

Not that Steve’s room at his parents’ house back home is full. His walls were always void of photos and art and everything people on TV had, still are now that he’s gone, always covered in that wallpaper his mother picked when he was eleven. He was never allowed to talk badly about it, not that he would have had he been granted permission. But these walls don’t have wallpaper on them. They’re bare, white, empty.

He stares at them when his parents leave.

He sits on the edge of his bed, which is smaller than his bed back home, and naked except for the two blue suitcases he brought with him, and he looks across the room. At the bare wall. He doesn’t really feel the urge to cover it with anything, but it still feels sort of unnerving to look at. Like there’s something wrong with it.

But Steve doesn’t think the walls are what his father is worried about with him living here for college.

He’d had to listen to him for weeks after getting the acceptance letter in the mail. The school is popular for its business course, which of course is the reason Steve applied in the first place, despite his indifference when it comes to business, but it’s in the city. Steve had never been to a city before today.

It’s noisier than it is back home, he thinks as he turns to look out his window. From where he’s sitting he can only see the tops of trees; he got lucky in that his room faces away from the other dorm buildings around his, and he takes a moment to watch the leaves blow in the wind for a moment. He can hear voices from downstairs, muffled but still audible. It sounds like they’re arguing, but Steve can’t tell if they are or not; he had the same issue back home when he could hear his parents’ voices from his room upstairs. Though they were usually arguing when he cracked his door open.

He can hear cars from outside, a motorcycle revving, a distant siren that fades after a few moments. Some laughter that somehow feels more distant than anything else.

He stands after another second, crossing the small distance to his desk that’s in front of the window, setting his hands on the chair as he leans over it to look outside. He’s on the third floor. When he leans over farther he can see some people gathered in a circle in the grass. One is laying on his back, his hands on his belly as he laughs, and as Steve watches, a girl next to him reaches over to smack his leg. One boy in the group is smoking a cigarette. Steve looks away.

There’s a corkboard on the other side of the bed, next to some shelving. Steve looks at it, listening to the boy laugh. He doesn’t think he has anything to put on it, but maybe he can get a calendar or something.

It feels so quiet in here. Even with the noises outside.

But he’s never minded the silence.

He unpacks slowly. He does the cardboard boxes first. There isn’t much, just some old textbooks from his father, textbooks he used when he went to business school. Steve tried to tell him that they probably use different textbooks now, especially considering he goes to a different school than the one his father went to, but he insisted these books are the best, so Steve stayed quiet. He doesn’t like to argue, especially with his father. The books are padded with his bedding, which he tosses onto one of the suitcases while he unpacks, as he stacks the books on one of the shelves next to his desk.

His winter clothes go into the wardrobe, his towel and soaps into the bathroom, and when he finds his paper and post-it notes and stationary, he makes a note to buy toilet paper and a bathmat. He knew he’d forget some things.

When he unpacks the suitcases, he does so slowly. He won’t admit it to himself, but it kind of feels like he’s procrastinating as he does it, like he doesn’t want to get to it.

He knows what he’s looking for, what he’s avoiding. It’s in the second suitcase, carefully wrapped in one of his favorite sweaters, and when he spots the red knit, he pauses, standing up straight and just looking for a moment.

He unpacks everything around it. It’s hot in his room when he finishes, and he’s sweating through the shirt he’s wearing. He opens his window and plugs in the fan his father packed for him before he pauses and cracks open the window above his desk. The group of people has left, probably because the sun is going down now, but he can still smell the cigarette smoke lingering in the air. But he can’t tell if it’s just his mind providing the smell because he knows it was there or not.

That’s happened before, him smelling or hearing things that he knows aren’t really there. Lingering cigarette smoke or weed smoke, the remnants of secular music that rattle around in his head like it’s empty except for echoing drum beats. It’s frustrating. He doesn’t want to hear the music, or smell those smells, and he knows he’s not supposed to. He’s caught himself humming along to songs that he doesn’t even know more times than he can count, and every time he just lets his head fall. He recites prayers that tend to take the place of the music.

His suitcase is empty except for the sweater. He supposes he should just finish so he can make his bed.

He kneels on the mattress, reaching over into the suitcase to pull it out, holding it with both hands like it might break even though he’s had it for as long as he can remember, and he knows that it won’t shatter to pieces in his hands. He still kind of feels like his hands have that ability. To break anything.

Especially something like this.

He unwraps the crucifix, and he doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath. The cross is wood. Jesus is gold. Steve doesn’t think it’s real gold, but it’s gleaming at him nonetheless. He drops the sweater on the bed again, and with a shaking hand, he sets the crucifix on one of the shelves next to his desk. It’s up high, looking down at the rest of the room in judgement.

Steve looks away, exhaling.

He puts the sweater in his wardrobe, folded carefully so he doesn’t stretch the yarn. And then he makes his bed. It’s hard to get the corners of the mattress right because of how the room is laid out, but he manages it, and when he’s done, he takes a shower. He’s grateful to his parents for paying for him to have his own bathroom, grateful that he doesn’t have to wait for showers to be available or risk having to talk to people in the hallways.

He thinks that might be part of why they paid for it. They, meaning his father specifically. He makes the decisions. Steve’s mom just agrees and stays quiet.

His dad doesn’t like the idea of Steve being in the city.

Not because of the noise, or the trash, or because it’s something that’s foreign to Steve, somewhere that he doesn’t feel particularly, entirely safe, but because of the people that Steve is surrounded by. In his words, heathens and hippies, chain-smokers and Satanists. Steve had to very carefully tell him that he’s responsible for who he spends time with, and he’s always been conscious of his friends’ mindsets and focuses and goals. Which is the truth. His only friends from home he met in church as a child.

Though met may be generous; their mothers had been friends and they had been stuck together in the playroom when they were small, but as soon as they were old enough to sit still, even when they didn’t want to, they were separated to sit with their families. But they were all Steve knew, so they stayed together in school, even when Steve decided he didn’t really like them that much. Which is why he’s kind of glad he’s here in the city; it’s so much less likely that he’ll run into a familiar face, someone he went to school with. He feels just inches closer to escaping.

Escaping.

He shouldn’t be thinking about that.

He shouldn’t be thinking about leaving home. He shouldn’t be happy about being here in this empty room instead of in his parents’ house.

It’s highlighted in his copy of the Bible, the one he got when he was ten that he’s kept on his bedside for almost a decade. It’s highlighted in yellow. Important.

Ephesians 6:1-3.

1 aChildren, bobey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. 2 aHonour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) 3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

It’s hard sometimes. But he tries. And he likes to think that that’s enough for now.

He doesn’t have anything to eat. His parents didn’t get anything for him on the way to his dorm, and then they left right after helping him move everything into his room and lecturing him about being mindful of who he’s friends with. So he just takes a shower and says his nighttime prayer, and he goes to bed.

His room isn’t as dark as his room at his parents’ house. There are lights outside, lining the sidewalk his room overlooks, and they peer through the windows when he pulls them shut. He stares at the ceiling. He kind of wishes there was something to see on it instead of white paint. But when he closes his eyes, he can pretend he’s facing the sky full of stars.

He manages to drift off after a while, but he wakes up around midnight to the smell of weed. He wrinkles his nose, blinking his eyes open and squinting as his eyes adjust to the darkness. He rolls over, furrowing his eyebrows as he looks across the room to his open window, and he sighs heavily. His limbs are sore as he gets up heavily. He’s pretty sure he has a bruise or two on his legs but carrying in the boxes.

He’s still squinting as he leans over his desk to look out the window. There’s another group of people where the others had been earlier, and of course Steve would get stuck with the room right above a popular smoking spot. There are fewer people in this group than there had been in the other, but two of them are smoking, watching a third as she spins at the center of their little circle. Her skirt fans around her legs, and another person starts clapping. The girl giggles and sits back down heavily, reaching for her friend’s cigarette. Steve watches for another moment before he pulls his window shut. He moves his fan closer to his bed.

It’s not that it’s particularly weird to not have friends.

But he doesn’t speak at all without anyone he knows around, and his throat starts to feel weird after about a week. He didn’t realize how little he spoke when he wasn’t with his friends. He knew he didn’t talk much at home, but that’s… different.

It’s not necessarily that he wasn’t allowed to talk at home. He just wasn’t supposed to. He didn’t have to.

And now he doesn’t have to because there’s no one to hear him. Attendance is taken in the form of a sheet of paper by the door, every student’s name typed out neatly, waiting for a signature next to it, and Steve isn’t to volunteer answers when his professors pose questions to the class. He listens quietly. Takes notes.

He supposes he’s avoiding the others’ eyes after a while. He doesn’t know why; it’s like he’s scared that they’ll look into him, that they’ll find something he doesn’t want them to. A few of them offer friendly smiles, polite waves, and Steve reciprocates, but in a way that lets them know he won’t be joining them, or making conversation, or any of the things normal people do. Steve doesn’t really think he counts as a normal person. His parents would say that he isn’t like the others, because he’s enlightened, because he’s saved.

But he’s starting to wonder if that’s exactly what it is, just… Maybe not in the way his parents think.

He doesn’t know if he feels lonely. If he knows what it feels like to be lonely. It’s an odd feeling, this uncertainty, but he doesn’t think it’s a bad feeling. The solitude is nice sometimes. The quiet. But he does wonder if this is what his life is going to be like from now on, so quiet and slow and…

Boring.

It’s boring.

He’ll barely admit it to himself, but he’s bored in his dorm room. Bored of the white walls and plain blankets, of his textbooks and his professors’ droning voices. Bored of the same breakfast every morning (eggs and toast, a cup of black coffee), of the same walk to his lectures (past the other dorm building and two lecture halls, through a pathway that cuts across a park that’s spotted with benches and trash cans). Bored of his degree. Already.

He doesn’t tell his parents all of this during their weekly phone calls, of course. His voice is rough as he speaks to them, but they don’t question it. Of course they don’t. Steve doesn’t think they even notice. Their calls are always filled with the same conversations:

My classes are going well.

Everything is turned in on time.

I have an essay due in a few weeks.

The outline is already done.

My hallway has been quiet.

My professors seem nice.

I haven’t made any friends.

I’ve been focussing on my schoolwork.

Friends aren’t my priority right now.

They let it slide. As long as he’s passing his classes, as long as he’s praying. They don’t ask if he’s been to church since he started college. (He hasn’t. He doesn’t know if he wants to, even though he knows where the church is in the city, even though he knows what times services start and end. He practically has the schedule memorized.)

And he’s bored.

Bored.

The library in the city is better than the one on campus in Steve’s opinion.

It’s a bit noisier with the city outside, with cars and trucks and motorcycles, sirens and construction and shouting, but it’s not just students there, which Steve thinks is what he likes. On campus, every room is filled with people his age, people he should know how to talk to, people he should be spending time with and chatting with and becoming friends with, and there’s this pressure on his chest the whole time. Like he’s doing something wrong as he’s looking through his textbooks and analyzing his notes.

In the city, there are a few people that Steve would recognize as students at his college, but there are also children carrying picturebooks, whispering loudly to their parents, and teenagers doing their homework, and elderly people looking through shelves of books, and Steve somehow feels less lonely here.

He starts going to the public library a few weeks into the school year on a whim; at first it was just to see what the library was like, just to get out of his dorm room and finally explore a little after so much boredom, but it’s become a common thing for him. It’s nice to see the city, even if there’s a sense of wrongness that follows him around as he looks at the other people. At the women in their short skirts, at the couples making out against the walls of buildings. All the people his parents would scoff at and turn toward Steve to give him a lecture because they can’t give it to the person they’re actually judging.

But for some reason, Steve likes seeing these people. He doesn’t know if it’s a sense of adventure that he gets in seeing these people and not hearing a whole spiel about how they’ll end up in Hell and how God is watching them, and oh, may God lead them to the light, despite the fact that they tend to look pretty happy with themselves as and where they are. There aren’t as many of these people in the library (save for the couple Steve saw making out behind a bookshelf; he managed to get away before they noticed him there.), but he still likes it there. There are so many more people in this public library than the one in his hometown, but it’s still just as quiet.

There are more study rooms in this library than the one back home. There’s one on the second floor that Steve likes: it’s small and sort of tucked away into a corner, the door creaky and a little hard to push open. The table is wobbly the same way his desks were in high school, and there are old doodles on it, some in ink or smudged graphite, others carved into the wood and smoothed down over time.

Every time Steve reaches for the door, he says a little prayer that there’s no one inside, and so far, he hasn’t walked in on anybody. He always anticipates it, stepping inside and making wide-eyed eye contact with a stranger, mumbling an apology in his rough, barely-used voice before he leaves and never comes back just because he can’t handle it. But maybe his prayers are working. Or maybe he’s just lucky.

He thinks he’s just lucky.

He’s also lucky that no one has come in while he’s working. Maybe because it’s so tucked away, hidden in some bookshelves, nobody really sees it.

The quiet city sounds are even quieter when he’s in this room, the vehicles and sirens and loud laughter all muffled behind the walls, and the sounds of his studying seem unusually loud in turn, the scratching of his pencil, the turning of his pages, and soft thuds of the table leg tapping the ground as he works, wobbling back and forth and back and forth. He likes it here. It might be his favorite place that he’s found since he started college, quiet and peaceful and away from it all.

He hears a truck pass outside as he turns the page in his textbook. It’s a second-hand book, one he bought after reading the supply list for one of his classes, and some of the lines are already marked, highlighted in a fading yellow or circled with smudged pencil. He ignores the annotations at first, copying down the text that he thinks is important, and then he goes back to see what the book’s previous owners thought was important. He hesitates, then writes it all down too.

He startles when the door opens abruptly, jumping and looking up, his hand fumbling with his pen. He drops it as a man enters the room, carrying a backpack. He’s got long hair that seems to obstruct his vision until he tosses his head, flicking his hair out of the way, and he closes the door behind himself, letting out a breath before he looks up and his eyes meet Steve’s.

“Jesus Christ—”

Steve’s eyes widen as he watches the man startle, turning to hide his face as he presses a ring-clad hand to his chest.

“Sorry,” the man says breathily, flinging his hair away again. “Shit. Uh.” He takes another breath, awkwardly running a hand through his hair, pushing it back, facing Steve. It’s longer than Steve’s ever seen on a man, past his shoulders and wavy, frizzy like it should be curly. There are bits of metal on his face, piercings in places Steve’s never seen: on the bridge of his nose between his eyes, on his eyebrows, his mouth. “There usually isn’t, uhm, anyone in here.”

“Oh,” Steve says finally, blinking at him. His eyes flick up and down the man’s body, scanning the angel on his t-shirt, patches and pins on his denim jacket, the rips in his jeans. He’s never seen anyone dressed like this before, so… dark. Even his boots are intimidating. The rings on his fingers look heavy, and Steve has to tear his eyes away from them.

“I’m just… I’m just studying,” he says finally. “If you… wanna share.”

“Okay,” the man says, and he’s smiling awkwardly now. He has a nice smile. It digs lines into his cheeks and makes his eyes squint, but Steve can still see how dark and shiny they are. Like a deer’s.

He watches the man sit at the other end of the table, watches him set his bag on the ground and pull some books out of it to set them on the table. Steve glances at the books and stops, staring. Atop one book that's plain brown, untitled, the spine bare, are a few colorful ones, reading Dungeons & Dragons above various illustrations of monsters. Steve feels the man glance over at him, and he looks away sharply, back down at his textbook and notebook.

It’s suddenly too quiet, even though there’s more noise than there was a minute ago. Steve listens to him rifle through his bag and glances out of the corner of his eye to watch him pull a pen out of the biggest pocket.

Steve looks away again. Finishes the sentence he’d been writing when the man came in. Turns the page of his textbook and tries to read the next paragraph.

It’s not a minute later that he looks up at the man again. He’s sitting funnily. One leg brought up onto his chair, arm around it, his cheek almost resting on his knee. The rip in his jeans shows his skin under it, and he looks even paler against the dark fabric. He’s writing in the brown book, and Steve’s eyes skim down to his hands. He’s right-handed, and his nails are painted black. The polish is chipping.

Steve looks back and forth between him and his notebook, glancing and staring, noticing something new every time he looks. There’s a tattoo covering the back of his hand. It looks like some kind of flower.

When he leans back in his seat, looking down at his book, he lifts a hand to his mouth and nibbles at his nail for a moment before he grimaces and lowers his hand. When he lowers his hand, Steve can see the tattoo that’s covering his neck and throat; it’s a bat, its wings outstretched, its mouth in some grotesque expression. Steve looks away.

He feels nervous, somehow.

The man seems nice enough. He smiled at Steve. Apologized for his reaction. He’s being quiet, respectful of their shared space. Keeping all of his things on his side of the table.

But the angel on his t-shirt has a skull instead of a face. He’s wearing at least three necklaces, silver chains and one with a charm that Steve can’t quite identify. There are tattoos on his fingers, partially hidden under his heavy rings that click every time he does something with his hands. The patches on his jacket have symbols on them that would prompt Steve’s parents into prayer.

And Steve isn’t sure how to feel about him.

He knows he isn’t supposed to like him.

But it feels odd to dislike someone because of their hair, their clothes, the art on their skin.

And he has a nice smile.

Steve faces his notebook but can’t tear his eyes away from the man. He watches him write, glancing back and forth between the colorful Dungeons & Dragons books and his brown notebook, watches him twist one of his rings around his finger, watches his lips twist as he thinks. It’s a while that Steve sits here, watching and staring, looking at his tattoos, at his piercings, at his hair (which he keeps re-tucking behind his ear).

“I can feel you looking at me,” the man says finally, and Steve drops his pen, his face flushing with heat.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, eyes wide, but the man just smiles at his notebook, scribbling something down before he looks up at Steve again. And Steve can see his piercings clearly now, two through both of his eyebrows, one through the bridge of his nose, one on either side of his bottom lip. They’re silver studs, and they gleam in the sunlight coming in through the window.

“‘S okay,” he says lightly, gently, smiling. “I get it a lot.”

It’s quiet for a moment as they look at each other, and Steve feels oddly self-conscious as the man’s eyes flick over him, like he’s analysing the shirt Steve is wearing, the way his hair is pushed back. But the man’s smile doesn’t waver, even as he leans over his notebook and gestures to Steve with a jerk of his chin.

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Uhm.” Steve finally looks away, glances down at where his handwriting has lifted up off the lines of his notebook, distracted. “…Business management and administration.”

“Sounds exciting,” the man says dryly, and Steve just shakes his head, which prompts a laugh from him. “I’m assuming you go to college here?”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve says awkwardly, crossing his arms over the table. “I’m a freshman.”

“How are you liking it?”

“Uh,” Steve says again. “…I like it.”

He just raises an eyebrow like he’s amused, silently promoting Steve, like he’s poking him in the side.

“It’s kinda lonely,” Steve says with a light shrug.

“You don’t have friends?”

“I…” He shrugs again. “I’m not… very social, I guess. I had friends in high school, but I think…” He hesitates, oddly unfamiliar with the sound of his voice after being silent for so long, but the man looks so patient, listening closely like he actually wants to hear what Steve has to say. “I think I didn’t really like them that much,” he says finally. “I took a gap year after grad and they all left for college and it was like I… I could breathe without them.”

He shrugs again, but the man is just smiling now. Like he gets it. He has a really nice smile. Steve looks at it, at the way his piercings shift slightly as his lips curve.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Steve blinks. Looks back into his eyes. (They’re so dark.)

“Sorry,” he says, cheeks flushing with heat again. “I just… I’ve never seen anyone like you before.”

The man’s smile turns sly, and he sets his chin on his palm, resting his elbow on the table.

“Never seen a freak?” he says smoothly.

“I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use,” Steve says hesitantly. The man laughs brightly, almost childishly, and Steve can’t suppress his own smile.

“What’s, uhm. What’s Slayer?” Steve asks, glancing at the man’s shirt, watching him lean back to look at his own chest like he’s forgotten what he’s wearing.

“It’s a band,” he says. “One of my favorites.”

“What kind of music is it?” Steve asks curiously, and he doesn’t think he'd never be talking this much if it were anyone else, but the man’s eyes are trained on him so kindly. Steve knows he should be avoiding him at all costs, but he seems sweet in a way that Steve can’t really describe.

“Metal,” the man says lightly.

Steve looks at him blankly, and he starts to smile again, pressing his lips together.

“What kind of music do you listen to?”

“I don’t listen to music.”

“At all?”

Steve shakes his head, squeezing his upper arm.

“My father says media distracts the soul from its righteous duties.”

He looks up at him nervously, because that’s such a weird thing to say, isn’t it? But the man’s eyes are sparkling at him, and he’s still smiling.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Steve raises an eyebrow.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You look righteous.”

“You don’t.”

A laugh bursts out of him, and Steve finally cracks a smile, tilting his head at him.

“Yeah, I know,” he says finally, still beaming at Steve.

And then they fall quiet, just looking at each other. Like they’re both studying each other, taking note of what’s different. His long frizzy curls, Steve’s carefully tamed hair. His painted, chipped nails, Steve’s bare ones that he’s never really thought twice about. His worn t-shirt and patched jacket and Steve’s collared shirt that’s tucked into his pants.

“I, uhm…” the man finally says, hesitating, tapping a finger on the table lightly. “I live really close to here, if you wanna give Slayer a listen.”

Steve blinks, taken aback by the invitation, but before he can respond, the man gestures to Steve’s books.

“Unless you’re too busy with business management.”

Steve flips his notebook shut silently. The man laughs brightly.

“Sure,” Steve says, surprising himself. His parents would kill him.

But it feels kind of exciting, putting his books in his bag as the man does the same, still smiling. Steve thinks he must smile a lot.

permanent taglist: @estrellami-1 @theplantscientist @spectrum-spectre @carlprocastinator1000 @starman-jpg <3 holy things taglist: @stevesbipanic @pearynice @ao3whore @slowandsteddie <3 (comment to be added/removed to/from either list!!)

♡ buy me a coffee ♡

#and so it begins #lmk if you want to be added or removed from either taglist!!#some aspects of this fic might be kinda heavy so its no problem at all if you want to be removed :)#very very excited about this fic tho im so stoked #steddie #steddie fanfic #steve harrington #steve harrington fanfic #eddie munson #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things #stranger things fanfic #a mess of holy things

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angelpuns · 9 months

Text

CW FOR DISCUSSION OF RELIGON, RELIGOUS THEMES, RELIGOUS TRAUMA, SPECIFICALLY CATHOLICISM.

CW FOR MULTIPLE EYES/MANY EYES

I said I'd work on some villain sketches tonight so I did!!! I'm not totally in love with my Shredder design just yet- mostly just the armor. I can't reveal his actual face jus tyet cause spoilers and all that big teehee

Baron Draxum, however, I put a lot of thought into his design and I actually really like what I've got so far. I decided yes actually I am going to lean into the Catholicism fuckery cause it's my religious trauma and I can get silly if I want to. Anyway his motivations have changed (not really actually)

His main goal is still to get the turtles back ( he created them with research funded by the government - they also fund the church but without proof of his research going places they've decided to no longer fund him)

It's kind of like in FMA:Brotherhood where the state alchemists have annual tests to determine whether or not their research is worth pursuing otherwise they lose their state alchemist title. It's sort of like that. Baron Draxum is a 'Catholic' priest, it's a bit warped due to being in the hidden city, but it's still definitely a Catholic church. He's also a scientist, I think in this warped version specifically they have kind of combined science and religon?

I'm still working on it.

Anyway, Baron Draxum created the turtles because he was experimenting with the mutagen, which he created.

( created from a mystery substance that the sort of underworld creatures - not sure if I wanna call em yokai yet, probably not- that birthed the hidden city creatures/mutated them way way wayyyy far back ?? again, wip onthat front) .

He originally used it to further advance his botanical studies, but then got a little silly an thought ' hmm wonder if this can change animals/humans' and yeah it can, but there's a very specific DNA trait you have to have (wip) or else it will just sort of destroy your system :/ that bit's a wip as well. Lots of this is wip stuff cause I never planned on getting so into this iteration LMAO

ANYWAY- he wasn't too impressed by Splinter because he initially didn't transform, but the turtles showed signs that they had been significantly changed. Splinter managed to escape with the turtles to the surface. He then transformed into a rat :/

Then Splinter fucking goes back to the hidden city o purpose because he knows he can have a social life there smh. Local rat man lonely so he goes back to the place where he got turned into said rat man. He's got his own issues tho-

There's more, but it's too loose to talk about soooo yeah.

I originally was gonna make Draxum a wolf, but HOW COOL WOULD IT BE IF HE WERE A WOLF/GOAT SORT OF CREATURE RIGHT????

TMNT:HME MASTERPOST

#art #fanart #digital art #comic #character design #TMNT:HME #TMNT:HME Villains #tmnt:hme info #tmnt iteration #tmnt au #tmnt #tmnt fanart #tmnt baron draxum #baron draxum design #angelpuns art #cw religon #cw religious themes #cw religion #cw religious trauma

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simplyemm · 6 months

Text

Okay so I've had this Gale brainrot that will not leave me alone (not enough to write it myself, but maybe someone else will appreciate this particular thought).

Imagine a Cleric of Mystra Tav. Probably raised in the temple, not a particularly exciting or impressive person, but dedicated to her Goddess as much as someone who was raised to be is.

And then she pulls her goddess's former Chosen out of a portal and they both have brain worms.

More under the cut because THOUGHTS (also spoilers for the game) CW: discussions of religious deconstruction/trauma, mentions of Mystra being a creepy groomer

The temple definitely knew Gale was Mystra's Chosen, and maybe there was some whispering in the corners about The Incident, but I'm not sure how much the rank and file would know.

So Tav pulls this guy out of a portal and he's all like "Hello, I'm Gale of Waterdeep" and she's just like "oh shit, you're Gale of Waterdeep." Which I'm sure definitely inflates his ego just a teeny-tiny bit. And I definitely think Tav probably has a "oh no, he's hot" kind of moment before she squishes that down, at least initially.

Of course finding out about The Orb and the whole "oh yeah I definitely fucked our goddess" thing makes things slightly awkward. Like how does one deal with having a crush on your literal goddess's ex-lover? (the implications are delicious though). And I could maybe see Astarion or Shadowheart making a comment about Tav taking her goddess's sloppy seconds (jokingly, though I could see a Glare definitely putting a stop to those jokes).

They would still have their little Moment in the Weave after the tiefling party of course, with Tav definitely expressing Interest (even subconsciously) because Of Course. Probably with a healthy heaping of religious guilt, cause like how dare she, he betrayed Mystra blah blah blah.

But then Elminster comes with his message from Mystra asking Gale to blow himself up, which brings us to the part that makes me absolutely fucking feral. Tav is furious that Mystra would ask this of Gale, and even more so that he's considering it.

To the point that (at least using game mechanics) would go to Withers and demand a class change. Story wise I'm imagining that she straight up just like starts training with Lae'zel and gets even better at fighting and just straight up stops using magic. Cue the religious deconstruction and Tav coming to terms with the fact that the goddess she had dedicated her life to is actually a horrid fucking bitch who arguably groomed Gale and all that gross shit.

And I'm sure Gale would have FEELINGS about this, especially if he just happened to find Tav wrapping her holy symbol around a smokepowder bomb and just throwing it into oblivion. But also like, how romantic is it that someone would love you enough to straight up abandon their goddess? And I'm sure they'd have a "What the hells are you doing?" "Nothing." "That wasn't nothing" that devolves into something of an argument that ends with Tav shouting something along the lines of "I'm not going to continue to serve a goddess who demands someone I love blow himself up!" (which of course is A Confession).

And then his scene where he confesses would just be SO GOOD because like, how can you not fall in love with someone who has already shown such love the way Tav has?

And then even more if they go to the Stormshore Tabernacle and some of the clerics there knew Tav and there's even more stuff with that. Just a sprinkling of angst because I mean, of course.

Maybe it's my own religious deconstruction talking, but I just think that dynamic would be *chef's kiss*

#gale bg3 #bg 3 gale #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #baldur's gate 3 #bg 3 #slight bg 3 spoilers #we will fight mystra behind a Denny's with our bare hands #this has been living in my head rent free for over a week #baldurs gate gale #gale x tav #gale romance spoilers

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