#and yeah i'm super aware of the shitty stuff the church did in these very same time periods and i can talk about that too if you want

[dualityvn]

i am giving myself a brain break from my other obligations by writing you another unhinged theory post. (and because i miss sending you these wait who said that) enjoy <3

ight so, i was close last time and my main points then were [redacted] and [redacted] (bc i don't know if this is gonna be closer or not so i dunno if ur gonna post it) since one of those points has been all but confirmed due to recent ask answers and you not posting my theory, im gonna skip right over top of it. ( i am trying to be vague you'll get the picture)

So instead were gonna talk about the part im pretty sure i got wrong, or at least not close, which is where Tenebris/ maybe Keith? still up in the air on if Keith is aware when he's not in direct control, go when not physically present in the world. Due to being able to give ask answers more weight now i do think Tenebris is at least visible to most other people. It could be that as they've both grown, Tenebris has become able to hide his presence a little bit better, resulting in Keith being able to have negative relationships with his exs because why else would anyone think to hurt the poor flower boy when he has a literal monster standing behind him. unless they were just stupid, which is a very real possibility because of the aforementioned being mean to the sweet and adorable Keith. Tenebris' general existence provides some reasoning behind Keiths' parents actions, once again not excusing them because they suck and i hate them, but in one of the asks you said that their relationship with Keith would probably have at least been better if they had only had Keith alone, they didn't want Tenebris too. (which once again sucks i get that its not the ideal situation to have some sort of violent 'monster' living a very attached life with your son but maybe if you had treated them both with human decency and they wouldn't be such 'monsters' huh? bet you didn't think about that did you. god i hate them)

Moving on.

Sudden thought that was Not planned for this, but what if the line "he is speaking, speaking for me" from the song means like, Tenebris can see the world when he's not physically present but cant talk, he has to talk through Keith. and Keith is just like, a prisoner in his own body when this happens. oooo that's neat. i had something else planned but that's a cool concept im gonna rock with that.

im fairly certain this isnt going to get posted so hi nightmare how are you. hope ur feeling better, shitty life stuff sucks, but it'll get better i pwomise mwah (that and the heart earlier are platonic btw i wouldn't wanna step on Tads creators toes and get excommunicated from the church of Tad that would be very unradical)

Speaking of Tad since this is just me talking to you now apparently, i saw the outcry for a Tad theory and while I do have Thoughts i don't have anything super concrete yet. Plus notamonsterfucker wanted to work with me on theory stuff sometime and i lov them so we're thinking about Tad Together so it'll be a bit unless your boyfriend wants to feed us some more crumbs. Thatd be pretty cool, but no pressure obviously. This isn't a Tad blog and i as much as i enjoy Tad, i enjoy Keith and Tenebris more so keep making what you wanna make and i will continue to stew on your vagueness.

uuhh not much theory there at the end but yeah. also this received even less than my usual amount of proofreading because it is nearly midnight here and i am Tired so if its is unreadable that is why.

goodnight

I'm gonna show this, cause it still doesn't mention their explicit situation. Last one had something that was spot on, hehe. But yeah, you're doing good, but some things are still not quite there yet

And hello, I'm doing better today, thank you for asking :D

I'm glad you guys are bonding over Tad lore, lmao. I know my bf is cooking something, cause that ending to the restaurant ad had a sus end. Or maybe he has no idea what he's doing, who knows? He's definitely enjoying the attention Tad is getting though.

[corpora-caelestia]

the reason i like medieval catholicism so much is because of its affective obsessions with christ, pain/violence/torture as a beautiful/good thing, and complete Resurrection.  i don’t think i’ve ever written it out or said it all so i guess this is me doing that, in case anyone is curious since my obsession with jesus and biblical stuff is all over my tumblr lol

1) obsession with christ -- there are literally too many for me to cover here bc people write books upon books about it, but medieval christians really went hard for jesus.  jesus as “beau dieu” (handsome god), christ as mother, bodiless christ, jesus as semi-erotic subject of desire, christ as mystic vision.  it goes on and on, and it’s all so interesting.  it blurs the gender binary, blurs assumptions about what bodies look like, how they function, it rearranges desire, transcends and connects.  i write a lot about queer jesus, i have some stuff over at @jesusruleslovehisbook which is aptly named lol

2) pain/violence/torture as beautiful/good -- again, this one is a big one, and contested and there are a lot of scholarly opinions about the role and meaning of torture and capital punishment in medieval society.  i’m in mitchell merback’s ideological camp, which he talks about in “the thief, the cross and the wheel” which if anyone is interested they can read.  anyways, capital punishment is how jesus himself died, and violence against his body and that of martyrs is depicted everywhere.  high to late middle ages gets buck wild with the intensity and accuracy of that violence, especially in germany.  that time and location was my specialty.  but yeah instead of violence being a senseless act, something too painful to process, the church makes it aesthetic and gruesome, sure, but good.  a quick marker for saved souls.  mini cults, like what there were for martyrs and saints, popped up for executed criminals who would repent theatrically before their death and that’s freaking wild.  medieval christianity took something that erases identity, self, life, and made it into something exalted and identifying and holy.  which is interesting for me bc it’s a way of dealing with violence that me and others i love experience as marginalized folks, violence from random people and from the state, which we honestly can’t avoid or escape.  but that we can make beautiful and make meaning out of for our own purposes.

3) complete Resurrection -- this takes the weird cake, trust me.  medieval christians believed that at final judgment, people would be resurrected from the dead, like their literal fleshy bodies, and be rejoined with their souls, into a complete, “perfect,” version of themselves and be judged, either going to the physical heaven or dying the final death (not going to hell, just straight up not existing).  that’s WILD.  medieval scholars debated what parts become ours at final judgment, like if we take all our fingernail clippings with us, or the food we ate, and all that shit.  like, it raises the question, where do our bodies begin and end?  what is us, and what is not us?  that’s something we still don’t have a good answer for to this day!  and it’s something queer and crip theorists talk about a lot.  it’s real shit, y’all.  they also had to figure out what  perfect body looked like, like what age?  what if we were born with “defects?”  do we have to have 10 fingers and toes?  do we have 20/20 vision?  or are we like we were on earth?  the bible doesn’t! fucking!! say!!!  and moreover, Resurrection puts back together the bodies which have experienced loss and dismemberment through violence.  heads put back on necks, bones mended, gouges closed.  it’s the goal behind making violence look good -- to emulate Resurrection in a way before we actually get there.  

considering all of this, and trying to think of it both like how medieval people might have as well as how we can think of it as modern people, literally changed my life.  switched my perspective around.  made me feel like the trauma and pain i’ve experienced can be crafted, through actual effort on my part and through art and through connecting to these other texts and writers and jesus, could be made into something beautiful - something whole - something with salvation in it.  that’s some powerful stuff.

to see how you can be queer, scorn gender, get hurt, even die, and still come back to life, be a saint, be happy, be kind, take your pain into your own hands and love it for how it has reshaped who you are -- that’s what it’s all about, in my eyes.  

and medieval catholicism showed me that (along with heavy doses of queer and crip theory and my own personal musings of course)

also, hmu if you want articles or sources on whatever i’ve said in this post.  i got so many readings.  and i can explain it better too.  or explain what my thesis was about (or send you a pdf of it).