I Hate When People Find Out I Read A Lot And Automatically Assume I'm Some Sort Of Philosopher. I Read

I hate when people find out I read a lot and automatically assume I'm some sort of philosopher. I read a niche selection of romance and psychological thrillers. I am not knowledgeable at all. 😭

I'm trying to gain the motivation to write a slow burn moral orel fic but woe is me! I'm not religious so I feel obligated to do a ton of research so I can make it somewhat accurate. Research drains me!

As you keep writing, you see that your first fanfic is getting farther and farther away. It's kinda sad.

When you start liking fanart for different fandoms you aren't even apart of because good art is good art. Only for the ship to flood your for you page. Girl, I have no idea who these people are!

you should make a fic involving stephanie, just putting it out there

So, this fic might be ooc but I actually like how it turned out. This is somewhat more wholesome and cutesy vs the other fics I've written but Stephanie deserves it. Anyway, I present, "Oh Stefany, Stefanie, Stephany"

Stephanie knows she should be crying. After all funerals are meant to be sad, that is unless you were having a celebration of life. But in her case this couldn’t be any farther from the truth. The person in question was her mother but even knowing this would be the last time she’d see her didn’t change her attitude.

It was a rather small affair, with less than 20 people. Her mother was never one for friends. Stephanie was in no way in charge of setting up the funeral despite being the daughter of the deceased. It was up to the rest of the small family to take over, whether that be because they wanted to help ease the burden or because they thought that she was going to ruin it she doesn’t know.

Her hands grip down on the obituary, an ugly pastel purple. She looks down to read it and see what brilliant lies they wrote about her mother. Because heaven forbid that people write about how people were actually like. Not everyone lights up a room or would give someone the shirt off their back, especially not her mom.

In Loving Memory

-Gladys Foamwire-

Gladys was a sweet woman taken far too soon. She spent her last days alongside her daughter Stefany…

‘Stefany’?

They couldn’t even be bothered to spell her name correctly. Sure, the feeling stung, but what more could she expect. No one knows the real her, the real Stephanie. She’ll just have to learn to be ok with that.

“Hi, I’m Stephanie, here to sign the lease.”

A balding man grins at her. He opens the door wider and ushers her in.

“Of course, Of course! Follow me this way.”

After the death of her Mom, she had to do some soul searching. For so long she had been tied down to her mother that now that she was finally free she didn’t know what to do. But she’s made her decision now. She’s ready to start a new chapter in her life.

She was going to buy this rusty old building and turn it into something of her own. Redecorate it from the ground up and prove that she has what it takes to stand out from the crowd. It was going to be perfect, and even better yet, she’s sure that her Mom would be rolling over in her grave if she found out.

“Well, it’s great to see you! I have all the paperwork filled out already. Feel free to look it over and make sure everything is correct and then sign away!”

Stephanie’s eyes skim the paper. Date of birth, correct. Today’s date, correct. Name, corr-

Buyer: Stefanie

“Um… my name is Stephanie as in ‘S t e p h a n i e’, not with a f.”

“Oh, my apologies, Stephanie. I’ll have a new paper printed right away. Do you mind coming back a little bit later?”

She holds back the urge to sigh. Was it that hard to spell her name? But she shouldn’t care anyway. She won’t have to deal with this man for very much longer anyway.

“Sure, that’s fine.”

Moralton isn’t a place for the youth. There are very few things to do and even fewer for those non church going. That’s why every once in a while Stephanie ventures out of her comfort zone and leaves for the night. It’s how she ended up in this situation to begin with.

“Hey!”

The woman beside her practically yells in her ear. It was already a loud atmosphere, obviously in a club, but the girl's voice wasn’t helping matters.

She was short with reddish brown hair draped over her shoulder. They’d talked off and on throughout the night saying her name is Victoria but it was clear that she’d had more drinks than she could handle.

“I’m about to leave but here take this! I’ll see you later babe!”

The woman stubbles forward and shoves a napkin in her hands. A person who she could only assume was her friend waves at her apologetically. Apparently this was Victoria’s usual drunk behavior.

“Byeeee!”

The napkin was written on with plain black ink with a subtle mark of red lipstick. It reads ‘Call me Stephany, it’s your girl Vic xoxo’ with a hastily written phone number on the side.

She had spelled her name wrong. Typical. It’s no big deal. Besides she’d much rather have a true connection with someone rather than whatever this was. She’ll be ok, she always was.

“Do you think that getting a cross tattoo would be blasphemous?” Orel asks in his usual innocent way.

“Orel, you know that I don’t know about these things. Why do you want a tattoo anyway?”

The boy clasps his hands together “Well, some kid at school told me tha-”

“Orel, please don’t let what other people say dictate your life. You’re too short, shortie, to be worried about what other people think. What until you're a bit taller.”

“Fine, I guess you're right. Well, I’ve to get to church bef-. I almost forgot! We were talking about how we all need to be appreciative and giving in church the other week. How it’s important for us to let go of all our worldly possessions. So, I have a gift for you since I won’t be needing it anymore. I’ve become one with nature!”

He throws a little box up on the counter with a smile and takes a look at the clock.

“Sorry, but I’ve really got to get going, Bye!”

Orel runs out the door leaving Stephanie alone with only the box with her. The note on top of it says From Orel to Stephanie. She couldn’t help but laugh, at least someone spelled it right.

Stephanie used to think that no one cared to know the real her. But maybe she was wrong, she was just looking in all the wrong places.

She delicately peels off the paper and opens the box to see a shiny gold key. How strange. On further inspection she sees a keychain attached to it reading ‘Orel’s house key’. What had that boy gotten into this time. Had he been sleeping outside for the last week?

“OREL! Get back here you can’t give this to me!”

I love your fics and I have a prompt for you. It’s fine if you don’t want to take it. It’s Christina/Orel fic idea. Basically one day Reverend Putty comes across a grisly sight of Christina and Orel wrapped in each other arms lying dead. He find out they drowned but the weird part is that they drowned in sea water but Moralton is pretty far from the ocean. Putty decides to solve the mystery by looking back over the previous weeks remember Orel asking about love and sacrifice. He then discovers the Posabules were under a curse that could only be lifted with an act of love.

Hey, I will go ahead and say that I lowkey didn't know what to write for this for multiple reasons lol. Mainly, I'm not particularly enthralled with Reverend Putty. So this might be OOC. Another being, I decided to take a more realistic route rather than lean to heavily into it being a hardcore curse. Anyway, I present to you "The Truth Will Set You Free"

Death is all around. From the highest points to the deepest depths. It’s a fate so inevitable that it might as well be a comfort. No matter what you do in life, even your biggest missteps will be erased in due time. That is why Reverend Putty places little thought in the matter. When it happens all around you, you become numb to it. It was just another thing that happens just as the moon proceeding the sun. Just as God intended it to be, and after all who was he to question God, he was simply his spokesperson.

But that doesn’t mean that all death is pleasant. No, some are taken in gruesome ways while others are far too young. It just so happens that the sight before him was a mixture of both. 

The sun had barely come up into the sky by the time the Reverend made it to the church. He wanted to get there extra early to rehearse what quick whipped jokes he’d tell and it’s not like anyone would miss him back at home. 

When the creaky door fully opens, it wasn’t the sight he had become accustomed to. There laying in the middle of the building sat two people. A boy and a girl. Orel and Christy, Christian, Kristina Whatever that new girl’s name was. Their arms were wrapped around each other as though to shield each other from harm. It would have been a wholesome sight if they were just sleeping.

…if only they were just sleeping.

Their faces were still submerged deep within two buckets. One a beach pail and the other a mop bucket. Probably swiped by the two. The water within them couldn’t be just regular water from the tap. No, this had the familiar stench of the wilderness. The piss of the animals and the salt of the sea. But how’d they get it anyway?

Taking a closer look he sees a simple note laid like a small blanket over the two. 

Hello to whoever’s found me. If I have yet to wake, that must mean that the curse is lifted! I’m sorry but we couldn’t find a mass amount of holy water so this will have to do instead. The boy beside me is Orel. He kinda helped me with this plan. Don’t worry, he’s going to be ok too. We both think he has the curse too. We’ll be just fine,  for in God’s hands everything goes to plan.

-Love Christina Posabule and Orel Puppington

He knows exactly where to go.

“Hiya Reverend!”

-2 Weeks Earlier-

It was a late Sunday afternoon. The service had come to an end, and all he wanted to do was get home and rest, but as they say there’s seemingly no rest for the wicked. Orel came barreling through the door with a joyful expression on his face.

“Ugh, Orel, don’t you have anything better to do?”

Orel’s face didn’t change, instead he deflected. “What’s more important than talking about God?”

The boy held his eye contact until he was forced to give in.

“What is it now, Orel?”

“Well, I’m glad you asked! What if you love someo-”

He quickly cuts the boy off. ‘Love’? Why would he be asking about that of all things? There was no room for things like love in a town like Moralton.

“Orel, I know nothing about love so you might as well cut it off there.”

“Come on Reverend, everyone knows about love at least a little bit. I mean you have to love God something fierce to devote your time to be a Reverend! I might know a lot about it but I know that I love that I can go to school, and my brothers, and christmas, and apple pie, and going to church, and hav-”

“OK! Fine, I get it, everyone knows about love. Now what is it you need?”

Orel let out a sigh of relief and rambled, “Oh, well, I need to help someone else. They need to sacrifice for someone they love but how do you do that? Shouldn’t they want the best for you? Not want you to sacrifice anything?”

“Orel, Orel, Orel. People make small sacrifices everyday, it doesn’t even have to be for someone they love. Take your Mom and Dad for example, they’ve stayed together all these years for appearances. Danielle continues to coach you crazy kids for money. And I’m talking to you to keep face. We all must sacrifice some of our happiness to survive in this world, Orel.”

For the first time since he’d arrived Orel’s bright eyed gaze shifts. “But… this person isn’t very happy as it is.”

“You know, when something gets too hard, it's easier to just give up. Like writing an essay an hour before the deadline. It would be easier to not do it at all than try to scramble to get it finished. So, I’d say you should just end-”

Orel jumped up from the pew with a new wave of excitement. He had to give it to the kid, nothing could take him down for too long.

“Great! Thanks so much Reverend! You always know what to say!” He smiled at him and ran to the door.

“Hello, I’m Rev-

“...the relationship.”

“I know who you are. It hasn’t been that long, you old geezer.”

The person who came to the door was no other than Poppit Posabule. When he first thought of abruptly showing up to her house he refrained. He needed to give the police time to inform the family and to let them grieve. It’s been 3 days since he’s found them but the woman before him looks as though nothing was amiss. Three days is a long time for a lot of things but three days wasn’t enough to get over the loss of a child.

“Well, I just came here to talk about Christina if you don’t mind.”

The woman leaves the door, opting to walk deeper inside the house. She takes off her shoes and walks on the plush carpet and he takes this as a sign to follow.

“What’s there to talk about?”

“Surely you know that Christina has passed aw-”

“I know she’s dead.”

He stills right in his place. It was such an abrupt way to speak of someone much less their own child.

“She’s dead so there isn’t much left to talk about is there?”

“Maybe I can talk about this to your husband?”

“He’s not here.”

“When will he be back?”

“We divorced, he’s never coming back. I’m getting tired of your questions. Can’t you see I’m a newly freed woman? I’m trying to enjoy myself for the first time in years! In solitude.”

“Fine! I’m just here to find out why they did it! You know she did it with Orel too right? That kid really knew how to get under my skin but he was still a kid. A kid who now will never get to grow up! Do you know why she did it? Why try an-”

“BECAUSE I TOLD HER TO! Because she'd become the bane of my existence. Because I wanted a way out! So what if I made up some story for her? Parents do it all the time. The story of a poor little girl named Christina, who was cursed when she was a baby. She made everyone around her miserable but all she had to do was make a sacrifice. The curse was sure to be her family's downfall if she didn’t reverse it. And look at her now! It’s reversed!”

Living in Moralton has caused him to hear plenty of fucked up things but this… this might take the cake.

“It wasn’t hard either, she was so gullible. Oh so very gullible. It’s not like flat out told her to do it. She could have left the family any way she pleased but you know how kids are Reverend. So full of imagination.”

It’s not uncommon for families to have that one member that they’d rather avoid. The one that you only include out of obligation. The one that sticks around plaguing the family like a curse. For the Posabules, that person was Christina. And now he knows the unfortunate truth.

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. – John 8:32