#but I was like ‘if his mother was canonically Irish Catholic then he probably is too’

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

so Michael Knowles did a religion-themed trivia game on his show in which one of the questions was, “Which Avenger is Protestant?”

and I was like “well it’s not Steve bc Steve is Catholic”

but the answer was Steve

so I looked up his dog tags from The First Avenger and it’s true

this whole dang time Steve Rogers has been Protestant???

[intothedysphoria]

What I have chosen to do instead of starting my history/film studies essay

Billy Hargrove is a deeply complicated character who was born of two white mens’ want to get out of the very real and valid accusations of racism following the way they wrote Lucas’s character in series 1. However, because this is fandom and The Duffers, there is a tendency to simplify him. And that is fucking boring. This is why (in a very brief form) Billy Hargrove acts the way he does from the perspective of history, politics and sociology.

(Discussing topics less touched on because analysis of Billy in relation to queerness or abuse have been done FAR better than I would explain them)

Even just his name tells us a lot about him as a character. The surname Hargrove originates in Cheshire, in the north west of England. Based on historical context, the Hargrove’s likely moved from Cheshire to Liverpool sometime after 1770, looking for work in Liverpool’s ports, possibly making the move to America sometime post 1850. His mothers side are very clearly Catholic, possibly Irish-Americans. And the first name Billy is a traditional blue collar, working class name. Probably coincidental but a name popular in Liverpool.

Neil and the absolute piece of steaming shit that he is fits in chronologically with the rise of Californian conservatism in the 1960s and 1970s, and the ���plain folk” stance that politicians like Nixon took in order to appeal to the white working to upper working class. This type of plain folk outlook blamed both the upper class from the north but also relied on the racist and classist politics of blaming African Americans and those in poverty for all societal ills.

Significantly, Billy in canon was living through a time of globalisation where exposure to the international was becoming more accessible than it had ever been. Just though watching the news it would have been easy to become disillusioned. The Troubles, Brazil’s military dictatorship, The Miners Strike, Israel’s colonisation of Palestine, Cold War propaganda, the AIDS pandemic. It would be very easy to drop into a counter culture subculture.

Do we have any proof that he cared about these issues? Not really. Do we have any proof that he DIDN’T care about these issues though- I’m going to say no to that as well.

Billy represents a more demonised figure than both Eddie and Jonathan for one simple reason though. He is the most stereotypical portrayal of a working class man. Jonathan and Eddie both have tangible connections to interests read as more middle class but Billy’s hyper masculinist presentation and relationship with his car makes him the perfect Proletariat villain.

In relation to why it is so popular to hate Billy in comparison to literally every other character in stranger things, even Neil and Karen, who were objectively terrible people, there could be a lot of different reasons.

One thing is undoubtedly true though.

You can’t ignore Billy Hargrove

[kiddbegins]

Ooooooooooh please do a character study on Will Halstead please 🙏🏼

Will Halstead is a lot of things. He’s arrogant. Loyal. Hot-headed. But he’s also so filled with love and other things that make him so interesting. I’m gonna try and keep this as organized as possible but I will apologize now if things get jumbled.

Personal / Early Life:

Will is an older brother. That is the canon that both his actor (Nick Gehlfuss) and Jay’s actor (Jesse Lee Soffer) have agreed on and it’s the one I also agree on. It makes sense for it to be this way, and this isn’t just me pushing the oldest child label onto him in a self-satisfying way. 

He’s a doctor. Sure he isn’t because it was forced on him but him taking on the role of caretaker for others fits the mold for what the eldest child deals with. We see him standing up for others, Maggie of course comes to mind first, but she’s not the only one. Natalie, Jay, etc. Anybody he cares about comes out and ends up being a person under his wing.

Let’s get to his childhood life. We canonically know so little about the Halsteads lives which honestly sucks and is crazy since we met Jay back in 2012? 2013? Whichever and then Will in 2015. Jesse (Jay) left in 2022 and Nick (Will) left in 2023. That’s roughly ten years of the Halsteads and this is what we know about their parents:

Their mom died

Their dad’s name is Patrick and he valued blue collar work over what both his sons did

Their mom said whoever found the right girl first got her ring

That’s it. Patrick Halstead was killed off before we could really get a look into what their relationship was like to the full extent. We know Will and his dad had a better relationship than Jay but still. That isn’t much.

One thing that really irks me is that we never even got a name for their mother. All the talk about her ring, the mentions of how her dying of cancer affected the boys and yet we never even get to put a name or face to the woman. Hell, we don’t even know what type of cancer killed her.

As we get a little older in Will’s life, we know he was bullied but that never seemed to have affected him. He was still so outgoing and willing to put his piece in regardless of what the stakes are. 

A few years further in and he’s in college. That’s when his mom gets sick. Jay comes home to help out, Will doesn’t. We never really get an explanation about that either. Was he too wrapped up in school? Was he really too busy partying and drinking like Jay said that one time? We. Don’t. Know. And I hate it.

Because that is not the Will Halstead we know. The Will we knew would have been by his mother’s side as long as he could be. The only way he wouldn’t would be if he was out there trying to find a cure to her sickness. 

We know he’s religious as well. That can be assumed to be connected to their mother. Patrick never seemed too religious in our 3-4 brief interactions with him so I can only imagine that it was Mrs. Halstead that got them into the church, made them into altar boys, etc. That it’s her doing that Will has a cross tattoo on his left middle finger and proudly wears a gold chain with (most likely) a religious pendant on it.

Though I still can’t find out / figure out 100% for sure what it is, my belief is that the pendant is a celtic knot for the fact it is an Irish Catholic symbol (also an old pagan symbol so… Will Halstead we are one). Anyway, I know for a fact he still holds ties to his catholicism but I do believe it is probably in the way of honoring and showing love to his late mother type of way rather than how he truly feels.

Pre - One Chicago:

All we really know about the time post college and pre-med is that he did a stint in Sudan before he moved to New York City and he was a plastic surgeon there for 7 years. There he was fired but again, we don’t know why.

Granted, do we need to know why? No. But it gives a small crumb to the cookie that is Will Halstead as an entire person. From the fact he was a surgeon in NYC, I can do my best to assume that in Sudan he was probably a field medic of some sort. Maybe someone that does all the stitching on injuries? But truthfully I don’t know enough about what was going on there at that time (if anything since it is a television show) to make a good guess.

But in NYC, I like to think that he had a nice enough apartment, probably lived smack in the middle of the city with (possible) a partner, maybe had a dog? A cat even if he was working a lot and his partner was too.

Also, I’m saying partner because I am a firm believer and supporter of the bisexual Will Halstead agenda. This man lived in NYC in the early 2000s + he went to college there. Even if he isn’t the entire fruitcake, he is still an ingredient.

Love life:

To jump into that, I fear my man has no game. He’s hot, he can kinda flirt but I feel like he can only do it when he’s already got feelings for you; ie. Natalie. He probably dated one girl in high school maybe since he was bullied, dated a girl for a few months at the beginning of college before having an entire epiphany later that year/the next with a boy that lived in his dorm and they had a (secret) thing that actually lasted pretty long.

After that though, aside from maybe a couple dates (going out for drinks) and hook-ups, I think Will’s next really big relationship was Natalie.

Relationships:

Will is amazing at creating tight and strong friendships, relationships, any connection really. I feel like he’s the type of person to actively try and make himself as warm and welcoming as he possibly can

He’ll give a small and short smile to make sure that a woman passing him on the street doesn’t think he’s horrible, he’ll help a kid reach something on a taller shelf because he’s literally 6’1 so he has height for days. 

And that’s just the baseline because I’m writing this at almost 1am and other ways of helping people and being there for them aren’t coming to my mind.

This is definitely shown in his relationship with maggie specifically. He is always there for her, so much to the extent that he is invited to her family cookouts/parties. He’s there for her and her sister when everything that happens happens.

Obviously this goes without saying but he is so respectful of Maggie’s sister and her being trans which is just refreshing as a whole because on television you don’t always trans representation and sometimes it’s half assed. Sure one chicago could do better in general on their LGBT rep but then letting a main and loved character treat it so normally is just so nice and refreshing to me.

I don’t know what else to really say about Will except that he is just such an emotionally driven man and we don’t see male characters driven by emotions other than rage much and I adore it and him.

Teddy x

does this even count as what you wanted?

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 3 - Catholic Character Tournament

Propaganda below ⬇️

Angel

I don’t remember if he was Catholic as a human (he was Irish like a few hundred years ago so probably) but his guilt complex as a vampire is so fucking massive it has to be Catholic lbr

well he's from 1700s ireland so. theres that. he's (for most of the series) the only vampire with a soul and he uses that soul to feel really guilty for everything all the time. he moves to LA and starts saving people from demons to try and atone for everything he did while he was a soulless vampire

he makes exactly one facial expression and its |:<

Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler Propaganda:

good lord where do i start. in the animated series he converts logan to catholisism and then fucks off basically thats the main thing he did there. i think one time they tried to make him a demon to explain how he looked but everyone hated that. he sold his soul one time to help his friends out after he died. he and logan have a weird little gay thing. he was a priest one time but he was made a priest by a fake bishop from a religion that hates mutants iirc so he just wasnt a priest. like 3 people have written him in a way i like and one of those is my friend just talking about how they view him.

wow marvel loves making catholic characters dress/look like demons

Kurt is a mutant who was born to mystique who looks a LOT like a devil (technically is half one but that cannon truth isn’t real go back to bed), his mother dropped him off a cliff when he was born and he was picked up by a Romani group/circus (fuck old comics man) however he then narrowly escaped being sold to a freak show and found himself in a small German town. There he met a kind priest, who showed him God, and he quickly grew attached to the idea- However, it wasn’t long before people began labeling him a demon and soon the whole town was against him with pitchforks and fire. Cornered and injured, Kurt thought this might be the end for him- maybe he would see heaven so long after finding it- but he was then saved by Charles Xavier who invited him to the X-Men. AND ITS BEEN SO MANY YEARS AND HE HAS BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH THERE. SO MUCH. SO GOD DAMN MUCH. BUT THE MOST AAAA THING TO ME CONCERNING HIS FAITH HE WHEN HE LITERALLY DIED AND WENT TO HEAVEN BUT THEN BECAUSE OF DRAMA WITH HIS FATHER HAD TO BRING HIS FRIENDS IN WITH HIM FROM THE BEYOND. THEN WITH ALOT OF TROUBLE THEY FOUGHT HIS FATHER AND THE ONLY WAY KURT SAW TO STOP HIM WAS IN A MOVE THAT STRIPPED THEM BOTH OF THEIR SOULS AND PUT THEM BACK ON EARTH. SO KURT CANONICALLY HAS NOW LOST HIS ABILITY FOR ETERNAL PEACE, LOST HIS VERY SOUL, TO SAVE PEOPLE- AND ALSO TOLD NO ONE NOT EVEN HIS GAY LOVER WOLVERINE.

Nightcrawler is a mutant vigilante who looks like a classical demon. He can’t even go to church without people panicking and trying to exorcize him. Despite it all, he’s so full of faith and hope and compassion, and he wants to believe the best of everyone. Also, he’s bffs with an extremely angry Jewish sword lesbian. That has nothing to do with anything, but it’s important to me that you all know that.

What if you were a devout christian and literally looked like the devil? He nearly became the pope, which was a plot by some supervillains that also involved faking a rapture? There is nothing like comics I swear to god.

A catholic who is half demon I don’t think I can better explain a struggle than that. But his character is so relatable to people who feel unwelcome with their congregation because of something that is a part of them but still feeling a connection to the faith. Kurt actively engaged in his faith and shares how his faith helps him through all the things he has faced in life and how he found a home with those of the church who leave the judging to God.

so they made kurt a priest briefly before deciding to retcon it, resulting in nightcrawler actually being part of a plan by villains to promote him to pope then reveal to the world that the pope is a demon. wild.

I have a side blog and a tattoo about him and i really really want him to win

Wisecracking devil-appearing devout Catholic with the Best superpower (teleportation)? HECK YES

German Catholic circus acrobat who looks like a demon & can teleport through a hellish alternate dimension with a puff of sulfur. Character of all time.

hes catholic and his dad is the devil. what could be funnier than that. also hes my silly little guy.

Nightcrawler is the world’s most fun catholic priest. I first was introduced to this kindhearted teleporting acrobat while he saved a boat full of stowaway refugees from inter dimensional pirates with swashbuckling gusto!

[notquitetwilight]

Would you mind sharing some headcanons for Irish/American Emmett?? 🥺 What do you think is the story of his parents or like what connection does he have with his identity? Both in Cullanos or in canon?

Irish-American culture seems quite different to Irish culture in a lot of ways (when I was in the US I first heard the term “an Irish goodbye”, which apparently means leaving a place without saying goodbye, and that was so bizarre to me because actual Irish people say goodbye about four times and are still there talking an hour after saying their first 💀) so I’m not entirely sure but I’m gonna project as someone who lived in the US for a period of time and wondered how I’d keep my kids close to my culture if I was to settle there!!!!!! Lol

I know that while a lot of plastic Paddys claim heritage without knowing anything about where their ancestors came from, the country itself, or the culture and instead perpetuate cringe stereotypes about The Old Country™️, there are plenty of Irish-Americans who are closer to their roots, especially when their parents or grandparents were Irish and so an actual Irish person from Ireland had a hand in how they were raised. Given the time and place Canon Emmett is from (Tennessee, 1915), he’s probably more likely to be a descendant of immigrants or indentured servants to the Appalachian region in the 18th Century.

But I like to pretend he was born in NYC or Boston to fresh-off-the-boat parents from Cork (where the McCarthy with a T surname hails from). Cities on the coastal East make a lot of sense, given how many Irish construction workers sailed across the Atlantic there for a better life at that time bc of how poverty-stricken Ireland was while under British rule. And his English forename would still make sense bc English would’ve been widely spoken in Ireland by that point, plus many Irish immigrants would’ve given their American-born kids English names for assimilation purposes.

I like to think of first-gen Emmett’s bedtime stories coming from Irish legends and folklore; his mother telling him about Oisín and Niamh in Tír na nÓg, the Children of Lir, the Salmon of Knowledge and so much more. My personal lil headcanon is that Emmett truly respects the wolf pack and is actually happy when the Cullens finally get to work with them, because they remind him of the stories he grew up listening to about shapeshifters who took the form of wolves (this is a really common thing in Irish mythology).

His surname suggests he’s also Irish Catholic so I find the idea of his mother dragging him to mass or confession hilarious. I can literally picture him in the confession box mumbling “bless me Father for I have sinned” and the priest recognising his voice and smelling the stale alcohol and being like “Christ above, Emmett, what have you done this time?”

We know he was into his drinking, gambling and womanising as a human so I’d say he was consistently threatened with this Irish Mammy favourite:

👆🏻This also fits perfectly with the fandom canon that Emmett calls Esme “Ma”, it’s what many Irish people call their mothers (as fans of Derry Girls will know). Irish mothers also worship their first-born son so I’d say he was such a mama’s boy who adored her and that’s why he adores Esme — he loves that maternal dynamic.

The eldest kids in large Irish families also would’ve had quite a few responsibilities when it came to looking after the younger kids (taking them to school, minding them etc) because both parents had to work to make ends meet and/or bc there were so many kids to be looked after! So I imagine Emmett as a loving older brother who was surprisingly responsible in his care-taking duties. With both this and what I hc about his mother, I find it very hard to get on board with the idea that he just took to his new vampire life with no questions or hesitations. I hc him and Rose having a much more slow-burning romance than they were given, and that they bonded while she grieved her humanity and he grieved his family.

I think it’s really sweet to imagine them spending one of their honeymoons in Ireland, given how his parents likely wouldn’t have been able to ever afford going back once they immigrated. So he’d never have seen the country he heard so much about growing up while human, and I think he’d make it his business to do so as a vampire. Plus it’s such a small island that it’d probably take them 5 mins to run from one side of the coast to the other, meaning they’d fit lots of different parts of the country in on their visit!!!! There’s this Celtic wedding tradition called handfasting which symbolises the binding of two lives by tying the couples’ hands together with knots of cloth (it’s actually where the phrase “tie the knot” comes from!), so I also hc them having an extra lil ceremony to do that while they’re there, maybe in Cork as a nod to his parents. 🥺🥰

[tortoisesshells]

wait ok just saw your post about rewatching Downton so I'm sending two more mashup prompts lol. Sybil x Tom, mutual pining + arranged marriage (just to flip canon on its head). AND Thomas x happiness (could include whoever he ends up with in the movie, which I didn't watch), detective AU + noir AU. (noir was not one of the prompts but it should have been!)

It is a truth universally accepted that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife –

Miss Austen was right about a lot of things, but a still truer statement could have started Pride and Prejudice: a single man without a fortune was even more in need of a wife. That’s why he’s here in Newport, isn’t it? Tom Branson, second son of an impoverished, eccentric Anglo-Irish baronet (and a good Catholic mother, thank you very much) was perfectly happy with piecing together his living as a writer and reporter in Dublin, reporting on Lady Gregory and the theater and, when he was lucky, the Irish Republican Brotherhood – until a series of unfortunate events (his father’s passing, his irritatingly Anglo brother taking the title, and kicking the wrong political hornet’s nest several times (and whacking it with a stick to boot)) got him packed off to America with Grandmother Boyle to find a rich American heiress – or just stay out of Sir John Branson’s thinning hair.

He’s pretty determined to do neither, but the United States provides distractions in spades: on the one hand, it’s a land of social unrest and economic upheaval; on the other hand, there’s Sybil Crawley – third daughter of a shipping-turned-railroad family (presumably– her poor cousin, Matthew, helpfully remarks – they own what the Vanderbilts and the Wideners and the Garretts don’t) who’s got ideas of her own – and whose parents would probably account it a blessing if the only unconventional thing she does is either take a degree at a women’s college or run off and work at a settlement house.

As luck would have it, Grandmother Boyle and Sybil’s grandmother, Mrs. Levinson, get along like the proverbial house fire. As luck would further have it, so do he and Sybil, swapping pamphlets and confidences in the interminable afternoons, between outings to Bailey’s Beach, endless rounds of croquet and tennis, and marveling at the fine-hulled Herreschoff yachts bobbing off Station Number 6 of the New York Yacht Club. But Sybil doesn’t want marriage, not right away – she wants her education, she wants to be of use, she doesn’t just want to help pass her Papa’s money from one generation to the next –

Not that her parents listen. After knowing Sybil for only a month, Tom is surprised to be approached by her mother, who wants her settled and is willing to overlook Tom’s empty pockets and Catholicism for his good pedigree; when he puts the question to Sybil, she defers – until the Crawleys lose everything nearly overnight, in the scandal of the decade. The money’s gone. Of course, she must marry; and, unlike others, Tom never cared about the inheritance in the first place. But the hasty marriage sets Sybil’s teeth on edge, and neither of them ever felt so alone as they did leaving the church as man and wife. Can they move past a marriage that both hoped for, but neither wanted in this particular way?

[Thomas AU under the cut]

Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.

Corporal Thomas Barrow wakes up hungover in a handsome stranger’s bed on VE Day, + 1, and takes stock: his hand’s not getting any better, his hair’s not getting any less gray, and – given that he’s not truly interested in staying in the Army any longer than he has to, and given that he’s not too keen on going back up to Yorkshire to play footman to the irritatingly unsinkable Crawleys – he’s definitely in the market for a new life. Why not London? Sure, half of it’s a smoking ruin, and sure, a lot of people in London are like people everywhere else, but London’s going to have to rebuild somehow, and there’ll be money in that, maybe even a life, too, if he’s clever – and Thomas Barrow’s always been clever before he was anything else.

Eventually he gets mustered out. Eventually, he makes his way back to London, and finds a place to rest his head at night. It’s pretty easy to find a way around postwar rationing, when you’re used to finding a way to hide more than half your life; and pretty soon, Thomas feels almost comfortable with his black-market trade and his tidy little flat and the discrete pubs and clubs – it’s much more space, much more safety than he’s ever had before.

So he really should have seen it coming, when a metaphorical doodlebug lands smack in the middle of his new life: Dr. Sybil Branson, black-sheep daughter of his one-time employer, standing red-eyed and silent on the landing outside his little flat: Gwen Dawson, maid turned secretary, now Sybil & Tom’s partner & flatmate, has gone missing after receiving a troubling letter about her cousin, Ethel, who was supposed to have been killed during the Blitz. Sybil promises she’d never have troubled him with this, only – only it’s got something to do with the black market and war-time malfeasance, and she and Tom have gone as far as they can go under their own power. He was always the cleverest soul in Downton - she’ll pay him for his trouble, of course – can he help?

Well, why not? How different is tracking down a person from a sack of sugar?

Pretty goddamn different, that’s for sure. For one: it’s not the black market in goods but an entirely different kind of back alley dealings that Ethel, an unmarried secretary who’d been suspiciously sick before the fateful raid, was involved in. For two: she’d made a complaint of assault in 1940, but the records seem to have vanished. For three: Ethel’s friend and long-ago neighbor, the one-time Sergeant Charlie Metcalf, is only too happy to help – something Thomas doesn’t mind so much, as he’s a Leyendecker illustration come to life, not to mention the sharpest barman at his favorite pub, but he’s quickly beginning to feel like this is all more than he – or Sybil and Tom, or Gwen – ever bargained for. Can Thomas find Gwen? Who sent the letter in the first place? Was it Ethel’s work as a government secretary that put her in danger, or the as-yet unnamed man who assaulted her? When the dust of all this settles, will Charlie still look at Thomas like he’s something fine and wonderful?

[thethistlegirlwrites]

1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 15, 16, 20.

For Robin, John, Aspen and Brooke

(And if you would like to share something else for any of your other OCs, feel free to do this for them as well 😉)

When did you create your muse?

Robin & John: Summer of 2019. When I decided to make my vampire/fae universe into an original novel!

Brooke & Aspen: Literally YESTERDAY. 

Are there parts of your muse that resemble parts of yourself?

Robin: Definitely. Being good at becoming whatever people need, showing people what they want to see. Hiding parts of himself to fit in. There’s a lot of projection in Robin.

John: Yes! Especially the often bullheaded and brash approach to situations. And struggling to grasp why someone might choose another path than what looks like their duty. 

How many face claims do you have or have you had for your muse?

A few. One primary and then a few others to work off, often the primary being the only one that I can attach to a reasonably easy to find actor. And then I work from there. Brooke is proving to be the most difficult for a working picture. Which makes sense, given her aesthetic and her vitiligo, but is still a struggle. 

How did you choose the name for your muse? 

Robin: I needed a last name that could shorten into a nickname, and Robinson was sort of just…there for the taking. Quickly, I realized the name meant a LOT more than I’d been initially assuming, and he’s so very much ROBIN now, that I can’t see anything else.

John Stoker: John is short for Johnathan, he was named after one of the characters in Dracula, and Stoker…I was playing around with names and then it just happened and I decided to roll with the full implications of that!

Brooke: I knew from the start I was going to be associating her with water, so the name just sort of happened.

Aspen: Aspen is named for his resemblance to an aspen tree. Slender, pale, and with hair that looks a lot like the yellow autumn leaves. 

If your muse could be a canon character in any fandom, which fandom would you choose?

OHHHH…that’s hard because I have them so solidly set into their worlds. Although John and Robin could make a fun little cameo in something as ordinary humans…and Brooke and Aspen technically exist in a world where they could be part of a lot of other stories…I’m not sure actually! It would be really fun to see them show up in each OTHER’s stories...

Share a random headcanon about your muse!

Robin: Robin associates some of his origami creations with specific people, especially the wolf’s head that he now makes specifically for John. 

John: John enjoys Mexican soda, and his favorite kind is the tamarind flavor. No one else in his team likes that one, which works out well for him. 

Brooke: Brooke is fond of winter. She likes the crisp clarity of the snow and the fact that through the trees without leaves, she can see all the way to the boundary fence that separates the Borderland woods from the magical parts of it. She feels safer knowing she could see danger coming. Summer, with the thick leaves and undergrowth, is actually more disturbing. 

Aspen: Aspen wears his hair reasonably long and pulls it back in a ponytail when he’s working on his herbs. 

Is your muse religious? 

Robin: As is typical with fae, Robin was raised to accept the cycles of nature, and life and death, and to embrace natural forces greater than himself. His grandfather believed in fate and destiny, but after everything that’s happened, Robin thinks that fate, if it exists is cruel. 

John: He is indeed. His mother’s family is Mexican Catholic, and his father’s is Irish Catholic, and the holidays and traditions, especially Dia de los Muertos, mean a lot to him. He was more ambivalent when he was younger, but after losing his brother, that’s changed. He believes deeply that everything happens for a reason and in forgiveness and redemption. (Probably because he’s well aware of his own need for that) 

Brooke: Brooke claims she only believes in strength and determination to survive her life, but the truth is, she’s mostly putting up a facade and does in fact think that there’s probably more to the world than she can see. Mostly because the idea of not being in control of her own destiny is terrifying to her. She’s not so sure she believes in the magic either…until she encounters it.

Aspen: Aspen definitely believes in something greater than human understanding, and in miracles. He’s seen a few, as a healer, and the things he can’t explain stick with him, as do the things Will says to them about what he believes. 

This or that according to your muse: morning or evening? Marvel or DC? Mayonnaise or ketchup? Books or movies? Red or blue? Black or white? Halloween or Christmas? 

Robin: Morning, DC (because they have a Robin, and that’s basically all he knows about comics), Neither, Books, Red, White, Christmas because Halloween is the WORST time for hunters

John: Morning, He’s got his favorites in both, Ketchup, Books, Red, Black, Christmas (For both the family time and the reason in Robin’s answer)

Brooke: Evening, WHAT? WHAT? Books…but moving around is good instead of just sitting and reading all day I guess? Blue, Black, Halloween (Because of Will’s stories)

Aspen: Morning, what’s that? What? Books, what’s a MOVIE? Blue, Black, Christmas. 

Thanks for the ask! Those last ones were FUN with Brooke and Aspen...

[dragonnan]

This is faaaar from a complete list and will be spotty at best but I’ve been pondering MCU characters a lot as I’ve been getting slowly back to work on my mega-fic.  I LOVE minor head canons.  Simple stuff like favorite foods or what music they listen to or were they ever a smoker or whatever whatever.  So I’m gonna give myself the challenge of crafting some head canon and anyone else is very welcome to dive in! (some things are already established via canon)

~ Ethnicity ~ Faith ~ Smoker ~ Alcohol ~ Favorite food ~ Favorite cookie ~ Favorite animal(s) ~ Favorite music ~

Tony Stark:  Ethnicity: Mixed European-American-Jewish (he refers to himself as a “mutt”) Faith: “No thanks” being the initial answer but if he feels like opening up he’ll admit to believing there’s likely “something” out there but at the same time figures that “something” stopped caring about humanity a long long time ago.  Smoker?  Never liked cigarettes but smoked a few cigars when he was younger due to Obie’s influence.  He never was a big fan but wanted to fit in with his mentor.  Alcohol: Influenced both by his father and Obie, Tony started drinking hard liquor semi-regularly as young as 14 (his Dad let him try his first sip at the age of 6).  He pretty much sticks with Scotch or Bourbon but is not opposed to cheap beer at a ball game.  In fact the cheaper the better - a requirement for any self-respecting American.  Favorite food: hot dogs.  Neither one of his parents cooked.  Breakfast and lunch were whatever whenever for all three of them but dinner? You better be sure you were at that table before the plates were set down or you could go without (and Tony got a slap from his father when he’d observed that rule only seemed to apply to him).  But on the nights he was sent to his room, Jarvis would slip upstairs, later, with a sandwich or, on really rough nights, a couple of hotdogs.  Favorite cookie: Those Christmas wreath ones made with cereal and marshmallow with the cinnamon candies.  Favorite animal(s): he likes all animals but if he had to pick one for a pet he’d get an iguana.  Favorite music: well duh lolol.   

Stephen Strange: Ethnicity: Mixed European-American (borrowed from Benedict Cumberbatch’s ethnicity and adding the American) Faith: Originally atheist but now closer to Buddhist.  Smoker:  Never.  Even prior to becoming a sorcerer he has always been conscious of what he takes into his body; especially given the history of cancer on his mother’s side of the family.  Alcohol:  Wine, occasionally, though he isn’t really a social drinker per-say.  Favorite food:  The spicy shrimp and pork dumplings from a Thai place in Midtown.  Favorite cookie: Hmmm.... not a big sweets guy but he won’t turn away a few ginger-pecan cookies with coffee.  Favorite animal(s): dogs - unequivocally.  He had a border collie growing up on his family farm in Nebraska.  Favorite music: please don’t make this poor man actually have to choose.  

Steve Rogers: Ethnicity: Irish (as per comics) Faith? Irish-Catholic (as per the comics).  Smoker? Prior to the serum there was no way he could safely do so with his health issues.  After he started traveling with the performers all of the girls in the group smoked and he tried it out a few times but never developed a taste for it.  Alcohol: he drank A LOT - easy enough to do as it never had any real effect on him.  He enjoys scotch and bourbon (a taste he picked up from hanging around Howard Stark).  Steve seems to low-key always have the munchies (like most enhanced) and once Tony picked up on that there are always a variety of snacks scattered here and there throughout the compound (also of benefit for Bruce, Peter, Thor, and, later, Bucky).  Steve’s favorite foods typically remind him of his mother’s cooking.  While they’d never had much (especially after his father died) his mom could do a lot with limited supplies.  She used to make a fantastic meat pie with ground beef or tongue.  He hates SPAM.  They ate it in the Army, constantly, and just the smell will occasionally send him back to those days and not in a good way.  Favorite cookie?  Oreos.  He can clean up a family sized pack in like 10 minutes.  Steve loves animals but is especially fond of horses and dogs.  There was a dog in his unit in WW2 and Steve, like most of the other men, would share bites of his rations with it.  Steve is nostalgic about music from the 40s but finds that 70s rock really resonates with him.      

Bucky Barnes: Ethnicity: Romanian-American (borrowing a little from Sebastian Stan’s ethnicity) Faith? Possibly agnostic.  Smoker? Heck yes - both cigarettes and cigars.  Like Steve, the serum he received (via Hydra’s experimentation) means he gets to dodge the detrimental side effects of smoking.  Alcohol: He likes to drink but is almost exclusively a beer drinker.  He has a big appetite but refuses to eat around others if he can at all help it.  His favorite food is corned beef with cabbage.  Steve’s grandmother was an Irish immigrant and would make it every Sunday before the war impacted rations.  Since both Bucky’s parents were dead he’d often have dinner with his best friend.  Also, unlike Steve, he actually likes SPAM.  But then, arguably, he isn’t terribly picky about food in general.  Favorite cookie: molasses.  Favorite animal(s): birds - eagles in particular - though he doesn’t look too deeply at the psychology of their ability to just fly away.  Needless to say a crafty observer might spot a former Winter Soldier tossing seeds towards the pigeons.  Favorite music: He’s pretty eclectic though he shies away from anything too loud like death metal.  He finds classical very soothing.       

Peter Parker: Ethnicity: Mixed American-Scandinavian-German-ish Faith: Protestant upbringing but unsure where he currently stands. If pressed he’d say he’s “leaving his options open” Smoker?  “Oh gross!” Alcohol: “Um, too young to drink, thanks! But if I WERE to... you know, try it just to taste it there was this mudslide at one of Flash’s parties that was super good...” Favorite food: spaghetti and meatballs.  Lots of meatballs.  Favorite cookie: chocolate chocolate chip with chunks.  Favorite animal(s): NOT spiders.  And NOT birds given how many rooftops he’s traversed layered in pigeon ick.  He’d probably say cats.  Favorite music: The B side of techno rock - especially Depeche Mode.

Peter Quill: Ethnicity:  Half mixed American and half celestial.  Faith: His Dad was a god and he killed him so he figures he probably isn’t on the best terms with the Big G God should He... or She... or Them... be out there.  Look he just wants to do his thing and cause a little trouble without mixing it up with any other celestial types but if they DO wanna throw down he’d like to point out that he’s 1 for 1 and willing to rumble.  Smoker: He would not say no to a really good cigar and may have possibly lifted a case from Yondu’s stash when he struck out on his own.  Alcohol:  Anywhere any time and in large quantities.  Favorite food:  A thick steakhouse bacon burger with potato chips right on the patty.  Extra cheese please!  Favorite cookie: He’s a simple guy with simple tastes.  classic chocolate chip no frills no fuss and fresh from the oven.  Favorite animal(s):  He likes dogs - who doesn’t like dogs?  But he really likes cows.  Just maybe don’t mention the burger thing.  Favorite music:    

Thor: He’s a Norse god of legend so I figure we can forego the ethnicity/faith questions lol.  Smoker: He has never understood this human custom nor has he felt any inclination to try it himself  Alcohol: Beer, mead, and anything capable of knocking him on his ass.  Favorite food:  chili with ghost peppers.  Though nowhere near as hot as the fire chilies of Muspelheim (which would be instantly fatal for humans so its just as well).  Favorite cookie: strawberry cheesecake with macadamia nuts.  Favorite animal(s):  It’s a tossup between bilgesnipe and whales.  Favorite music:  The mighty horns of battle!  He also enjoys old school country, much to Tony’s disgust.  The story aspect of that music is what appeals to him.

Bruce Banner: Ethnicity: Italian-American  Faith: Catholic in his childhood; currently Atheist or maybe agnostic.  Smoker: He tends to avoid any substances for, you know, obvious reasons.  Alcohol: See previous.  Favorite food:  Waffles with sliced mango.  Favorite cookie: Oatmeal.  Favorite animal(s):  Mantis shrimp - “did you know they can generate so much power in their attacks that they can briefly super-heat the water up to 7,700 °C??”  Favorite music:  Indian- especially Krishna Bhajan.    

Clint Barton: Ethnicity:  Mixed European-American and Panamanian.  Faith:  His parents were both Protestant but he’s never latched on to any specific faith and hasn’t really devoted a lot of thought on the matter.  He has a sorta loose idea of “maybe something out there” but that’s all the further he’s gotten on the subject.  What he tells anyone who asks it’s that his religion is coffee.  Smoker: Briefly when he was a teen.  Alcohol:  Beer - he’s a fan of dark lager.  Favorite food:  Coney Island dogs, Pizza, and pickle flavored potato chips.  Favorite cookie:   Monster cookies with the mini M&Ms.  Favorite animal(s): Dogs  Favorite music:  80s rock and some country.

Natasha Romanoff: Ethnicity:  Russian.  Faith:  She was not given much choice when younger and was raised as “state atheist” (per comics).  In the years since escaping that life, however, she has tried to discover more about herself.  Her parents were both Russian Jewish and there has been a pull to discover more about that faith - especially since meeting Wanda - who is Jewish.  Smoker:  No.  Alcohol: Some vodka - that’s a given.  But she actually prefers wine; and honestly her favorites are wine spritzers.  Favorite food:   Favorite cookie: Krumkake filled with creme and berries.  Favorite animal(s): Favorite music:  Overall she listens to a pile of little-known bands and whomever is playing at whatever bar in whatever city she happens to be in.  She also is a huge fan of old school Spice Girls.

[cruger2984]

Twisted Wonderland and its Saints - Diasomnia

The last part of this series is with the horned guys from Diasomnia Looks like I need to re-watch Sleeping Beauty again.

January 18 - Malleus Draconia

St. Margaret of Hungary: Croatian virgin and nun from the Dominican order who is the daughter of King Béla IV of Hungary and Maria Laskarina. She was the younger sister of Kinga of Poland (Kunegunda) and Yolanda of Poland and, through her father, the niece of the famed Elizabeth of Hungary. In art, Margaret is usually depicted in a Dominican nun's religious habit, holding a white lily and a book.

January 1 - Lilia Vanrouge

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God: One of the most important Marian feasts days to start the New Year. It is to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary under the aspect of her motherhood of Jesus Christ, whom Christians see as the Lord, Son of God, and it is celebrated by the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church on 1 January, the Octave (8th) day of Christmastide.

May 15 - Silver

St. Isidore the Laborer: Spanish confessor known for his piety toward the poor and animals. In the morning before going to work, Isidore would usually attend Mass at one of the churches in Madrid. One day, his fellow farm workers complained to their master that Isidore was always late for work in the morning. Upon investigation the master found Isidore at prayer while an angel was doing the ploughing for him. Beatified by Pope Paul V in 1619 and canonized as a saint three years later by Pope Gregory XV, Isidore is widely venerated as the patron saint of farmers, peasants, day laborers and agriculture in general, as well as brick layers.

March 17 - Sebek Zigvolt

St. Patrick: Irish missionary and bishop who is known as the 'Apostle of Ireland', who credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and probably responsible in part for the Christianization of the Picts and Anglo-Saxons. When he was about sixteen, he was captured by Irish pirates from his home in Britain and taken as a slave to Ireland, looking after animals; he lived there for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After becoming a cleric, he returned to northern and western Ireland. In later life, he served as a bishop, but little is known about the places where he worked. By the seventh century, he had already come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. It is celebrated inside and outside Ireland as a religious and cultural holiday. In the dioceses of Ireland, it is both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation; it is also a celebration of Ireland itself. Patrick is the primary patron saint of Ireland, the other patron saints being Brigid of Kildare and Columba.

[motherhenna]

16 24 25 37 43 for both Simon + Tulsi? (i just started reading your story on wattpad and im in love with your work!!!)

Ah thanks so much I love u ╥﹏╥  

16. What makes their stomach turn?

Simon despises anything bitter: he spent his whole childhood swallowing spoonfulls of medicine, chalky vitamin supplements, pills, etc. so anything remotely evocative of those dates disgusts him. 

Tulsi hates the taste of most beers as well as rum, and refuses to eat any fish not deep-fried. She can’t even look at calamari or oysters.

24. Is sex something that they’re comfortable speaking about? To whom? 

Nope, not really either of them. Simon was brought up mostly by his stern Irish-Catholic immigrant grandmother, so sex was never really an open subject at the dinner table. Tulsi, in modern terminology, would probably identify as asexual, and is generally disinterested in and even put off by it as a concept.

25. What are their thoughts on marriage? 

Simon comes from a...complicated family situation, so his views can’t be as cut-and-dry as a typical Irish Catholic tends to be. His gran fled from an abusive husband back in County Cork with her baby girl in tow in the late 30s. Even Simon’s mother herself has no clue who his dad is, as Simon was inadvertently conceived while she was in a drug-fueled haze in the 60s. Thus, Simon doesn’t really know what to think of marriage, though likes the thought of it as a concept, seeing as he has a tendency to romanticize everything. For much of his life, he never considered it a likely option, as medical professionals were convinced he’d die before he hit his teens. However, he does dream of settling down with someone and adopting and raising children with them.

Tulsi rarely thinks of it: she’s a thoroughly unromantic person, most of the time, though sees it as a practical decision as far as insurance and finance go. She found out her father wasn’t faithful to her mother a few years after she passed away, which put a huge dent in what Tulsi had thought was a happy, functioning marriage. 

37. Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)? 

Simon has an uncannily vivid memory, so he rarely has to struggle to remember things: facts and phone numbers and addresses just lie dormant in the back of his brain, waiting to be dug up at will. 

Tulsi, however, is very forgetful, and covers her workspace and fills her purse with post-it-notes and notebooks. She has to put them in really obvious places, but often forgets and overlooks them anyway. Frequently used anagrams while studying for medical school. 

43. If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so? 

Simon I’d call “straight but not narrow”--while almost exclusively attracted to women, he’s fully willing to admit when a man is attractive, and would probably kiss James Dean if given the option of time travel. 

I’ve based much of Tulsi’s sexuality on my own: she’s bisexual, but also ace as well. These terms are more modern, of course, so she probably wouldn’t know to define herself as such in the 80s canon of the story. Her childhood best friend, Sara, was kind of her “one that got away” in that sense. 

[qqueenofhades]

Women and “medieval cruelty and ignorance”

Okay. So. We could probably have guessed that this tweet was like waving a red flag in front of a bull, but here we are anyway.

(Tagging @artielu​ because I know she enjoys my history smackdowns and this is right in her wheelhouse of interest.)

First: nobody denies that the Alabama bill and similar efforts are absolutely heinous, are designed to be test cases to get Roe v. Wade overturned, and are deliberately gratuitous in their constitutional overreach and general horrible Handmaid’s Tale nature. But for well-meaning liberals, such as above, calling them representative of “medieval cruelty and ignorance” is a) not accurate and b) counterproductive. If we insist on using “the medieval” as a conceptual category inferior to “the modern,” these recent bills bear a complicated, at best, resemblance to medieval canon law and social practice. And there was never, I promise you, any law that prescribed a 99-year jail term for abortionists. So if we want to point out how the modern Republican party is actually much worse than their medieval counterparts, we can do that, but also: trust me, this is thoroughly modern cruelty and ignorance, and we should insist on that distinction.

First, obviously, women’s bodies have always been subject to a social discourse of power, control, gendered anxiety, and attendant responses. This was certainly the case in the medieval era, but our modern interpretations of that discourse can be... iffy, at best. In discussing the feminization of witchcraft in the late 15th century, M.D. Bailey critiques how scholars have tended to take the Malleus Maleficarum, the famous witch-hunting handbook, as representative of a self-evident and endemic medieval and clerical misogyny. In fact, the Malleus was the equivalent of the extreme right wing today, was relatively quickly condemned even by the church itself, and was largely reworked from earlier ecclesiastical anti-sodomy polemics, because the idea of “disordered gender” was certainly one that occupied medieval moralists and theorists. I have discussed the Malleus in other posts, but while it certainly is virulently and systematically misogynist, it also was a work of rhetoric rather than a reflection of historical reality. Medieval misogyny absolutely and obviously existed, and it impacted women’s lives, but we also really need to get rid of The Medieval Era Was Bad For Women, (tm), Therefore Everything Was Worse Back Then.

The possibility of magic being used to cause impotence/loss of fertility was another concern, and one of the main anxieties about the practice of witchcraft was that it would bring “sterility” and irregular sexual activity (usually with the devil). However, an extensive corpus of contraceptive and abortifacient knowledge has existed since antiquity, and in tracing the representation of unborn children in medieval theological thought, Danuta Shanzer notes:

My findings suggest that it is overstatement to claim that from the start Christianity considered the fetus a living being from conception. Augustine is a major agonized and agnostic counter-example.

Hence, contrary to right-wing claims that the church has “always” thought that life began at conception (spoiler alert: the church has never once “always” thought the same thing on anything), it was almost never the case in medieval legal or theoretical practice. Thomas Aquinas and other medieval theologians argued that “ensoulment” or the separation of the fetus into a living being happened at quickening, when the baby could move on its own (which medieval medical treatises had various standards for measuring, but it would be the equivalent of about 20 weeks of pregnancy). Monica Green, a leading medieval medical and gender historian, has examined a vast corpus of obstetric and gynecological Middle English texts, and in “Making Motherhood,” argues:

Texts on women’s medicine might also be concerned to “unmake” or prevent motherhood, either by preventing conception in the first place or expelling a dead foetus that would not emerge spontaneously. Abortion per se was almost never mentioned.

In other words: abortion was not paid attention to in nearly the same way we do today, and while canon law, in theory, prescribed penalties for contraception and abortion, historians have consistently (surprise!) discovered a disconnect between this and secular law and everyday practice. And while some twelfth-century (male) jurists did attempt to equate miscarriage with homicide, and to install it in canon law, these laws were almost never practically used or prosecuted. In Divisions of Labor: Gender, Power, and Later Medieval Childbirth, c. 1200-1500, Rebecca Wynne Jones surveys the extant literature and notes:

In his 2012 book The Criminalization of Abortion in the West, Wolfgang Müller documents how 12th‐century jurists' increasing tendency to equate violence resulting in miscarriage with homicide was institutionalized in canon law. Though this development led to the widespread criminalization of abortion in ecclesiastical jurisdictions, Müller has little to say about gender relations on the ground. Rather, by highlighting local communities' reluctance to prosecute, he presents laws that might once have been seen as proof of a medieval “war on women” as legislative enactments whose practical power remained limited.

Once again: medieval ecclesiastical proscriptions against abortion were, at best, sporadically enforced, communities were reluctant to actually prosecute women or to criminalize early-term pregnancy loss, and church law was not identical with secular law, which was the standard ordinary people used and were subject to. This concords with what Fiona Harris-Stoertz has found in her survey of pregnancy and childbirth in twelfth and thirteenth-century French and English law:

It is striking that in these thirteenth-century English texts, no penalty was assigned for the loss of less developed fetuses. This absence flew in the face of high medieval church legislation, which, in theory at least, took all contraception and abortion seriously. John Riddle finds that the idea that early-term abortion is less serious than late-term abortion occurred in the work of Aristotle and appeared occasionally throughout the early Middle Ages, particularly in church penitentials, although it also appeared in the early medieval Visigothic code.

While late-term abortion of potentially viable fetuses was still a crime, secular law still essentially held to quickening as the moment at which a pregnancy could not be terminated. Before that, however -- anywhere in the first 4-5 months of pregnancy -- it could often be dealt with, if desired, without any penalty. Anne L. McClanan has investigated the material culture of abortion and contraception in the early Byzantine period. And Ireland, which as recently as last year remained one of the last European countries to outlaw abortion, had a medieval hagiography that actively canonized abortionist saints:

Medieval hagiographers told of Irish Catholics par excellence, the saints themselves, performing abortions as well as of “bastards” becoming bishops and saints. In hagiography and the penitentials, virginal status depended more on a woman’s relationship with the church than with a man. To my knowledge, no other country in Christendom, medieval or modern, produced abortionist saints or restored virgins, apart from the nun of Watton. Why Ireland is among the few European countries to maintain severely restrictive policies on reproduction remains an unanswered question, but it clearly cannot be attributed to its medieval Catholicism.

Last part bolded because important. Modern bans on abortion don’t relate to how these notions were conceptualized or used in the past, and they are not holdovers from The Medieval Era (tm). They don’t represent medieval concerns or medieval ideas of gender, or at least certainly not in a direct genealogy. Even as late as the seventeenth century, when ideas of childbirth, marriage, and reproduction were more strictly controlled, the period prior to quickening, or the movement of the baby, was still generally not penalized or subject to legal control or coercion. So in sum: while religious moralists and canonical lawyers absolutely did object to abortion (aka right-wing men, the same ones who object to it today, funnily enough), in secular law and daily practice, a pregnancy that was terminated prior to quickening was not subject to practical prosecution or legal punishment, and medieval women had access to a vast corpus of gynecological texts, medical practices, herbal recipes, rituals, and charms intended to accomplish a wide range of fertility goals: conception, contraception, abortion, a healthy pregnancy and delivery, and so forth. I also answered an ask a while ago that discussed all this in detail.

Also: abortion was explicitly mobilized as a wedge issue in the 1970s and 1980s with the rise of the religious right in American politics, and that happened not because of abortion, but in resistance to the IRS penalizing them for refusing to racially integrate evangelical schools and colleges. Randall Balmer has written about the history of the “abortion myth”; do yourself a favor and read it. The Southern Baptist Convention campaigned in 1971 for the liberalization of American abortion laws, and hailed the 1973 Roe decision as a win for the rights of the mother. (Oh how the mighty have fallen?) The right wing came together as a political force to resist racial integration, exemplified by their loss in the 1983 Supreme Court case Bob Jones University v. United States. But since it was not a winning political strategy (yet, at least) to fly the flag of “let us be racist in peace,” they, as Balmer discusses, created the “abortion myth” to make themselves look better and to present a narrative of holy/moral concern for the lives of the unborn. The reason abortion is as huge as it is in the present American political landscape owes to modern religious conservatism and extremism, resistance to racial equality, ideological control over women, and other bigotry, and (again) not to medievalism or medieval practices.

So, yes. Let us call the Alabama bill and other heinousness exactly what it is: a modern effort by a lot of terrible modern people to do terrible things to modern women. We don’t need to qualify it by fallacious equivalences to so-called “medieval cruelty” -- especially, again, when medieval practice and perspective on these issues was nowhere near the stereotype, and certainly nowhere near this “99 years in prison for performing an abortion” dystopian nightmare. If we want to shame the GOP, by all means, do so. But we should not resort to distorting and simplifying history to do it, and using the imagined “bad medieval” as a straw man to club them with. There’s plenty on its own. The modern world needs to take responsibility for its own misogyny, and stop trying to frame it as a historical issue that only existed in the past, and that any manifestations of it must be medieval in nature. Because it’s not.

[morethanonepage]

thoughts on Keanu Reeves Constantine?

y’know this is an interesting question bc i actually have a lot of….if not affection for the movie, at least respect for some of the adaptation choices made. Like the most common line in re: film!Constantine is that it’s a good movie but it’s not a good Hellblazer movie and in a sense that’s right, it’s not – but it’s interesting. A noble failure, definitely.

What I think it hinges on is that it’s an American setting so they went full blown American with it – which is a mistake in my mind bc the point of Hellblazer is that it’s a quintessentially English story, and that’s why every run with an American writer in the comics is meh for me – but in the sense of “American AU Constantine” I think there were some really interesting/clever choices made.

Like starting with their John – Keanu is all wrong for original brand Constantine. His John is broody, he’s brunet, he’s Good At Magic. And comics!John is the opposite of all those things. And while comics!John can be broody, the important thing is the comics themselves tend to undercut that – there’s a lot of kind of snarky takes about John being in a sulk for whatever reason, some of it even from John himself. You get very little of that in the movie, and the movie itself is very TAKE THIS MAN’S PAIN SERIOUSLY about it, so. BUT in a sense that loner self flagellating thing is an American Male Archetype the way comic John has a very English & self deprecating sense of humor, so: ok, I can kinda see it, more as a translation (to American audiences) than an adaptation. 

[READ MORE BC OMG WHY DID I CARE SO MUCH???]

They make John Catholic in the movie, which is another kind of interesting choice – in the comics he’s not anything specifically though I would imagine he would’ve been raised Church of England as likely as anything else. But they kind of commit to John’s Catholicism in the movie, most likely because it has more ~mysticism~ (and the association with exorcism in general) behind it. But it also kind of sets John up as An Other, because it’s the religion of a lot of the second class immigrants (like, the Irish initially, then Latinx Americans, etc). White Catholics have a bit of a different rep, but given that the film is set in LA in the late 20th century, for me it set up more of those associations than anything else. It’s also so much more about the SUFFERING and the MARTYRDOM and the REDEMPTION NARRATIVE, which is not so much a thing in the comics (where John often does/tries to do good things but usually NOT for the explicit purpose of ~cleansing his soul~, so it’s kind of notable/interesting that both American-based adaptations [TV and Movie] focus on that a lot more. It’s may also make more sense as an arc for the medium but y’know) but IS notably a big thing in the movie. 

And the thing about John, even in the comics, is that he’s an Other but Normal Passing – with comics he presents in a very Proper English Man (which is why it’s SO IMPORTANT for me that he starts off on his adventures with his shirt properly done up and his tie right, and then as the day/his bullshit unfurls he gets sloppier) way, he’s white, he’s blond, he’s handsome etc, but he’s also a bisexual mess/working class disaster mage with a progressive bent, and in the movie he’s kind of a traditional American anti hero but also has his own stuff going on. It’s not as well executed as it could be – there’s not a lot of subversion in the film version, which is kind of the point of John – but at least you get hints of his potential sexuality and they go into his mental health issues (suicide attempt, etc) and his smoking, etc. 

So John is an interesting translation – not perfect, but interesting. I would even argue that he’s the weakest point in the movie as a translation-not-adaptation (tho lol baby bear Chas Kramer is up there), bc he’s very basic supernatural protagonist with no flourish. Which is not the case for the rest of the film, which COMMITS to the genre it is and does it honestly very well.

For instance I love their conception of Ravenscar, the mental hospital John has A Bad History with – in the comics it’s got an old, spooky, mad house aesthetic from the 19th century, which fits the comics and John’s history and vibe really well. The movie version goes what I feel is a very modern American direction with it: one of the 20th century industrial monsters, a huge grey building, with the fear of mental health coming from that very specific post-war fear of anything ABNORMAL (including sexuality but y’know). 

The setting of LA is great – a couple of (American) comic writers have given John’s arcs there, probably for the irony of CITY OF ANGELS etc, but I think it’s a really interesting choice/contrast to everything London (where John’s mostly based in comics, tho he does sometimes roam the countryside fucking things up) represents: superficial, modern, bright days, beauty, opulence vs the grey gritty grunginess of John’s London life, etc. So for that to be movie!John’s homebase is kinda neat, frankly, esp because of the cases John gets to work on there. The set design is also great – very colorful, very willing to pull in the florescent glare of a modern city, with the Latinx Catholic touches on the streets (look the votive candles and shrines are SUCH an easy go to for ~creepy urban flavor~ and it’s probably at least a little problematic for this film featuring some other really questionable racial choices I will get to later, but) in general it LOOKS great. Their conception of hell is also fascinating and very well executed imo. 

I also think there’s ONE (1) thing I think the movie does better than the tv show: the setting is WAY more dug into the working class/legit poverty of LA behind the shiny surface Hollywood stuff. The show really only hit that point in the New Orleans ep and even then….didn’t fully commit to it, but it’s SUCH a key part of the comic universe. Like Chas himself (in the show) is pitch perfect but in the ep about his family they’re LIVING IN A BROOKLYN BROWNSTONE which, real talk, is worth millions of dollars. Literally millions. On a cab driver’s salary???? Ridic. Still mad about it w/e w/e. Baby Bear Chas Kramer with his shitty cab and probably shitty apartment, following John around like a stunned duckling, is way more comics canon accurate, probably. 

Rachel Weiz’s character has a lot of potential – they make her Catholic too, to have some sort of connection with John, which is eh, and they also make her a twin, whose sister kills herself at Ravenscar. Given how much John’s early backstory issue are focused around HIM being a twin (whose birth killed both his mother and his (theoretically stronger) brother) that could’ve been a cool thing to allude to, but they don’t touch on it. And Angela (ANOTHER ANGEL THING) is p cool as a character – she’s unconvinced about the ~spooky shit~ stuff until she sees evidence of it, and then believes it, as a normal average human likely would. She’s brave, she asks questions, etc. She’s not just Love Interest tho there’s a bit of that. And anyway I love Rachel Weiz generally, she’s great, could’ve had more to do though.

Tilda Swinton shows up a lot in the gifs and it was a cool choice to cast her as Gabriel – they play up the androgyny and make her less obvious of a dick than comics Gabriel is (though she ends up being…probably more of one, or at least more effective). I think their Lucifer is good too – oily and weird and creepily gentle at times. He also doesn’t get a lot to do, but he doesn’t need to – he doesn’t in the comics, usually, either. 

BUT the racial stuff – the supernatural macguffin that’s supposed to bring about the end of the world is found IN A MEXICAN DESERT and then SMUGGLED OVER THE BORDER to LA to bring about the end of the world, like, who wrote this, Donald J. Trump?? – is generally #bad. But this is something it shares with the show (GOD THOSE MEXICO EPS, I LEGIT ALMOST QUIT THE SHOW BC OF IT), tho at least they had an actual Mexican actress to temper that nonsense. NO SUCH LUCK from the movie – just lots of creepy zombish brown people trying to bring around an apocalypse, super cool.

And not only is meh as a metaphor, to impute such a conservative metaphor into a the Hellblazer Verse, with its infamous/classic DEMON YUPPIES FROM HELL and in general tips toward the progressive/pro immigrant ethos, is BAFFLING to me. I mean maybe more in tune with American sentiments about everything, which I have argued above is an interesting choice, but still, boooo.

Also the fact that John quits smoking at the end of the movie is such Hollywood garbage it almost outweighs the positives. I mostly imagine he and Angela date for like a month, he’s such a bitch when going through withdrawal that she dumps his ass, and then he goes back to smoking/sulking around LA doing bad exorcisms. That’s the real John Constantine, babey!!!

[sextonsharpwinhalstead]

Chicago Med Review 4x03 Heavy Is the Head

It looks like Chicago Med is back to following it’s every other episode pattern. Last episode was the crossover, and, in my opinion, it was weaker than the premiere. This episode did NOT disappoint.

On One Chicago Day Brian Tee hinted that this was his favorite episode for Ethan to date and honestly, I can understand why. I wasn’t sure how they were going to play out the gun/dad hostage situation and truthfully, I was worried Med was entering bootleg John Q territory but the climax to that resolution was shocking! Like Med WENT there. They showed that guy blowing his brains out to save his son’s life, because profits matter more than patients (I’ll get back to that a minute). Every step, every decision, Ethan made he had to wonder if he was making the right call, handling things the only way he knows how. And he wasn’t without his critics.

April did not want him to immediately call the police and I can understand why. But he did, and the situation unfolded in a way he didn’t count on. To add insult to injury for whatever reason the writers have decided to make Emily mentally challenged cause some how she has no idea how to work a microwave and burned something which cause Ethan to fly-off the handle and yell at her. A move April caught and judged him on too. (Real quick are these two together? On a break? Or broken up?) I’m confused and so is Ethan. He snapped on her and to be honest, it was a valid assessment of the situation. April clams up when she is angry and frustrated instead of voicing her feelings about why she feels the way she does. But to be fair; that’s the writers’ fault. April has lacked agency since this show began. We don’t really know who she is. We know she’s stubborn, soft hearted, naturally nurturing, and bends over backwards for others but that’s not personality. Not really, it robs her of intellect, so we never get a rebuttal to Choi and we won’t; because they have no idea why April does what April does. Their inconsistencies don’t lend her to be a woman with nuanced thought who understands that every situation does not require the same response. That could be an answer to Choi. But like I said; it won’t.

In the end we got the same tired ass dynamics of her comforting him and us not knowing her motives or feelings about ALSO witnessing someone blow his brains out in front of them. Med do better by your women!

Let’s talk about the women in this episode because this was a heavily feminized episode if you didn’t notice. (Not necessarily executed in respect but women outnumbered the men 2:1).

First let’s start with Sharon and Gwen.

Did anyone else wonder when Stohl’s contract was up? He was gone two episodes later and in a sad new way that Med’s been doing lately his departure wasn’t even announced. In steps Dr. Lanik and out steps all protocol and common decency. I get the Lanik is Gwen’s “man” but when the hell does the COO start making the decisions she was making? The whole situation reeked and in my opinion a hospital would start asking why they needed Sharon’s position at all when nothing was put through her. Gwen is shaping up to be the Robert Haywood shaped hole in my canonical villain life. Cause she’s going to bounce out of this tragedy like it’s any other day and keep her on agenda. Watch. Lanik…I don’t know. He was shook. And to be honest he doesn’t come across nearly villainous enough to continue fostering the current climate in the ED.

Natalie, Elsa, and Daniel.

First things first. I was raised Christian for the first twenty years of my life. I don’t practice the faith anymore but when I did I never met any Christians as disillusioned as the ones Med writes. To be honest it’s ridiculous. There are few modern women, who are trying to have babies, who aren’t privy to what an ectopic pregnancy is. They are always fatal to the baby and almost always fatal to the mother if left untreated. There is no new way to be re-planted into the uterus and thus the pregnancy is not viable. I know Catholics who know and honor this too. So why they felt the need to go all the way there was lazy and took away from what could’ve been an even more impactful and frankly frightening story. Did Elsa misuse the machine, so she could fudge the test results and save the mother’s life? I’m leaning towards probably. Does Daniel have a fucking leg to stand when it comes to being manipulative when trying to control the outcome of situation? Y’all already know the answer to that question. The fact is that she didn’t bow down to the sage knowledge of Daniel Charles when he approached her in the dining hall. He assessed she was an intelligent woman who really didn’t care about patient medicine and already had her future mapped out. What Med still won’t do is allow her to be truly aloof about it. Elsa wouldn’t care if the patient decided to basically die instead of getting the surgery, she would’ve pulled an Okafor, shrugged her shoulders and walked out to find the next case. Natalie was there to play up the narrative of why what Elsa was doing and HOW she was doing it was wrong but, in all honesty, when the fuck has anyone on this show gave the patients the respect of their autonomy? Especially Natalie, but maybe she’s learned from past? If she had than they should have had her mention it (like with the orthorexic mom).

But this isn’t about that; this is about making sure that no woman on Med dares to be the smartest one in the room and it will punish any of them that attempts to own it too. The men on the show play God all the time and aside from Will none of them have gotten the jilting or stern wake-up call to cool it like the women have. Too many of the women’s arcs on this show prove they are either frauds, or indecisive. I don’t think Elsa is either, and it’ll be hard for Dr. Charles to find mistakes she’s made because her personality type is A, and those types don’t make mistakes.

The last woman I’m going to mention is Ava. Oh, how the mighty have been dragged to the ground. Did anyone else catch the way her eyes slightly watered with rage when she talked about advocating for Connor for the hybrid surgery room. Yeah…I’m calling it, she fucked his dad. All so he could kick her out of the OR. This is not what I wanted out of this character and it’s a disservice if they want her to be a fully-fleshed out lead (which they don’t). Ava is a prop for Connor and it’s an unfair and sexist storyline I’m frankly tired of. Also, how is going from an OR scrub nurse to a Charge nurse a demotion? I did appreciate the little Maggie tidbit of history. Maybe that’s how she and Sharon became close. Anyway, this story was secondary only to the growing size of Connor’s ego. Boy I miss season one Connor. This douchebag is the worst.

Finally, was the Halsteads story. I enjoyed it for several reasons; mainly leaving the hospital. I loved all the little Irish bits of history and culture weaved into the memorial. That saying “May you be in heaven a half-hour before the devil knows your dead” still runs a chill down by my spine. But they brought a light-heartedness to it that I appreciated. I personally do not see Will giving up the venue for the wedding and it’ll end up being some messy crossover event that’ll split the Halstead brothers further…only time will tell.

I will say this; the episode was good but I’m not sure who is wearing the crown that holds the weight.

[selfwrittenstars]

Larry fanfiction masterpost

Some of my favourite long fics that I’ve come across during the many hours that I’ve spent reading (if I’m not mistaken they all are at least 90k words long).🌈💝💛💚💜💙

1) Dress you up in my love.

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6135802/chapters/14060698

Summary: Harry is single, and more than anything wants to find love. Agreeing to sign up to a dating website was a bad, bad idea. Niall’s bad, bad idea. Louis is single, but has no interest in relationships. Or so he tells himself. 

Harry is a lawyer whose boss, Nick, happens to give him a bonus, which he decides to splurge on a new work wardrobe. Louis is a frustrated designer, working as a personal shopper at Selfridges. Louis happens to be working on the day a very beautiful, but out of his depth, new customer ambles into their department in need of advice. Louis might have just found the muse he never knew he was looking for.  

2)  Shake me down

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3331958/chapters/7285322

Summary: Harry’s new to college, fresh out of Catholic school and conversion therapy camp, and Louis runs the campus LGBTQIA organization.

3) Fading

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/629683/chapters/1138549

Summary: Louis knows about beauty; the combination of qualities that pleases the aesthetic senses. He creates that combination every day in the garments he designs while studying fashion at uni. The cut of the design, the color of the fabric, the intricacy of the stitching; it all comes together to create something beautiful. When the science student with the long legs and dimpled smile agrees to model for him, Louis decides he’s found beauty personified. Harry just thinks Louis needs someone to show him how beautiful he is.

4) And then a bit

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1415272/chapters/2972746

Summary: “We’d like to give the fans what they want.” Magee states, placing his hand on the table in front of him and leaning forward. “We want to give them Larry Stylinson.”   Or, take a parallel universe where Louis and Harry were never together, mix in a two year hiatus and an impending comeback, pour in a dash of lost fans, two tablespoons of strong friendship and a Modest! employee with a good idea. Add a squeeze of pretending to be a couple, lots of kisses and a tattoo or two. Stir. Serve: the mother of all publicity stunts. (aka Harry and Louis fake a relationship for publicity. Eventually it becomes a lot less fake and a lot more real.)

5) Young & beautiful 

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/838537/chapters/1597776

Summary: Louis, to his horror, attends an elitist university in which the name Zayn Malik means something, Niall Horan doesn’t stop talking, there are pianos everywhere, and Harry Styles, only son of a drug-addled, clinically insane ex-rocker, has a perfect smile and empty eyes.

6) You are in love

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5299295/chapters/12594848?view_adult=true

Summary: The one to cry your eyeballs out. Harry is first with Xander Ritz. Larry go from friends, to something more than friends, to lovers, to something more than friends, to nothing, to lovers again. Uni AU.

7) Nobody shines the way that you do

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3374579/chapters/7381043

Summary: “We might as well just date.”Harry froze in his arms, his body stilled as he slowly lifted his head up at Louis to give him the most confused expression he’d ever worn. Louis literally wanted to fuck him into the next century. “What?” Harry asked. “Are you–.”“No,” Louis said, shaking his head before Harry could go far with that idea and trap Louis into confessing his own feelings. “I mean…like I think I have a plan?”“A plan?” Harry said slowly. “A plan other than me going to Peter’s tomorrow and groveling for hours; maybe even days?”The thought of Harry doing that made Louis’ skin burn, but he schooled his expression well and nodded swiftly. “There will be no groveling. Well, there will be, but not on your end.”orLouis pretends to be Harry’s boyfriend to help him win back his douchebag ex-boyfriend, but things don’t go according to plan.

8) Empty skies

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1261096/chapters/2599474

Summary: For three years, Harry has been running from his past. Now, he is moving to London and pledges to fulfil his only dream – making it big in the music industry. Not everyone has a place, though, and the competition is tough. As is his past catching up on him.Louis is part of the biggest boy band of the world, and getting there had meant a lot of hard work, as well as sacrificing parts of his heart and soul. He’s still happy. Maybe not as happy as he could be, but who is he to complain?Featuring Perrie as Harry’s adorable flatmate, Niall as his manager, and Liam and Zayn as Louis’ bandmates. ESCAPADE

9) In circles of you and me

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12266679

Summary: Louis pulls Harry closer by the belt loops. Harry could feel his breath warm against his neck as he brushes his lips against his skin. “You know… I don’t care if you kiss other people.” Harry smiles as he feels Louis’ stubble scratch against his neck. “I know you don’t, but-”He stifles a moan as Louis bites down gently on the soft surface of his skin. “You can kiss other people too-” Louis pauses to look at him pointedly. “I know I can.”“Well, have you?” Harry asks, his brows furrowed. “What’s it to you?” Louis retorts with a smirk. “You’re the one I’m kissing now.”–Or, Louis and Harry keep running into each other at parties. It doesn’t mean anything, until it does.

10) Relief next to me

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1117942/chapters/2251923

Summary: AU. What happens when a baker and a graphic designer meet via a very specific Craigslist post? Fate, friendship, food, and maybe more.

11) Play the odds

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8948758

Summary: Harry and Louis are best friends since childhood who, after a night of drinking, find themselves locked in a bet: first one to kiss the other a thousand times wins. Wins what? They don’t know. Glory, Harry supposes. Bragging rights, though those don’t do much in this economy. All Harry knows is that this is one bet he can finally win. What he doesn’t expect, though, is what happens when he starts kissing his best friend on a daily basis. Namely, he doesn’t expect falling head over heels in love with his best friend. Now all he has to do is make sure the bet never ends, so he never has to stop kissing Louis.

12) Time bomb

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3641511/chapters/8044863

Summary: “Why exactly are you here?” Louis asked, feigning annoyance and failing pathetically at it. “My publicist told me I can’t go anywhere near you.” Harry said, eyes still smudged with last night’s eye liner. “That makes you my favorite person in the world.” Or the one where Louis has everything: a lead role in a giant Hollywood franchise, a glittering new house with an entertaining Irish neighbor, and a steady, normal boyfriend who he probably loves. Louis never expected to become a household name among young Hollywood overnight. He also never expected to find something endearing about the enigmatic rockstar who keeps showing up on his back porch.

13) Hiding place

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4858376/chapters/11133491

Summary: Louis never wanted a soulmate, didn’t really care for the whole Bonding thing at all, really. Enter Harry Styles, who’s wanted to be Bonded for as long as he could remember. With one fateful meeting in an X Factor bathroom, Louis gets a dagger on his arm and the realization that just because Harry is his soulmate doesn’t mean it’s mutual.From the X Factor house to Madison Square Garden, from the Fountain Studios stage to stadiums across the world, Louis has to learn to love without losing himself completely, because someday his best friend will Bond to someone and replace Louis as the center of his universe. Meanwhile, Harry begins to think that maybe fate doesn’t actually know what it’s doing after all, because his other half has clearly been right in front of him the whole time. All he has to do now is convince Louis to give them a chance.    Or, the canon compliant Harry and Louis love story from the very beginning, where the only difference is that the love between them is literally written on their skin, and there’s only so much they can hide.

14) You You You

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846690/chapters/1617212

Summary: “Infamous boybander leaves club together with unknown,” read the headline. Underneath were pictures of a boy with dark curls, green eyes and very tight pants. They both studied the article for a moment, reading it through quickly. “Is that…?” Louis frowned. That guy almost looked exactly like… “HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” “Louis,” Niall said, looking absolutely fucked over. “You just fucked the most wanted guy on earth. You just fucked Harry Styles of One Direction."Or, the one where Harry and Louis meet at a club and Louis takes Harry home, only for him to realize that the boy who just made him breakfast half naked is Harry Styles from One Direction.

15) Never Be

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8318785/chapters/19050769

Summary: Monica: You’ve got to see her again. Ross: And why do you care so much? Monica: Because! You could get to live out my fantasy! Ross: You had fantasies about Emily? Monica: No! Y’know, the fantasy! Meet someone from a strange land, fall madly in love, and spend the rest of your lives together.  The one where Harry Styles moves to Connecticut from England for nine months as a part of a study abroad program, and he just so happens to move in with Louis Tomlinson and family.

16) Unbelievers

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3592992/chapters/7924602

Summary: It’s Louis’ senior year, and he’s dead set on doing it right. However, along with his pair of cleats, a healthy dose of sarcasm and his ridiculous best friend, he’s also got a complicated family, a terrifyingly uncertain future, and a mortal enemy making his life just that much worse. Mortal enemies “with benefits” was not exactly the plan.Or: The one where Louis and Harry definitely aren’t friends, and football is everything.

17) Into The Blue

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035822/chapters/2065499

Summary: AU. In which Louis is Harry’s scuba instructor and quite happy to provide the requested special treatment, pun fully intended. It can’t be all that difficult to convince Harry that they’re on the same page, right? Also, Niall and Liam may or may not be dating, and Zayn is surrounded by emotionally stunted idiots. He bears it with dignity.

18) We’re okay

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635292/chapters/1150082

Summary: It’s funny, really, that their lives hadn’t intercepted before that point. That all it took was one little thing that set off a chain reaction of circumstances which led them all to each other. But it was for the best, really, because in the end, with each other, they were all okay.And if you asked them, the whole thing could be blamed on Liam sleeping in, for once in his life.

19) Don’t Look Down

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738944/chapters/1375483

Summary: AU. In which Louis is a solicitor at one of London’s most prestigious law firms and Harry happens to apply for the position as his trainee. And everyone else is around, too.

20) got the sunshine on my shoulders

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10785375/chapters/23922933

Summary: five years ago, harry styles left his tiny home town to make it big as a recording artist. he didn’t have much regard for what he left behind - a life, a family, and a husband, who woke up one morning to find him gone.now, harry has everything he could possibly want: he’s rich, famous, and adored by everyone he meets, including his boyfriend. but when said boyfriend proposes to him, he’s forced to face the uncomfortable facts of his past - and louis, who’s spent the last five years returning every set of divorce papers harry sent him.(or, an au based on the movie sweet home alabama.)

21) Love is a Rebellious Bird

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162438/chapters/2362331

Summary: AU in which the boys still make music.  Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who "has made Mozart cool again” according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best.  Zayn and Liam are around too. Don’t hum Bolero.

22) Wear it like a crown

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1816771/chapters/3900322

Summary: AU. As part of a team of fixers hired to handle a gay scandal in Buckingham Palace, Louis expects Prince Harry to be a lot of things—most notably a royally spoilt brat. Never mind that the very same Prince Harry used to star in quite a number of Louis' teenage fantasies.

23) Lonesome when you go

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11032023/chapters/24588318

Summary: Harry, Louis, Niall, and Liam are surgeons-in-training at the most prestigious program in the United States.More than that, Harry and Louis have a history unknown to the others, a history that involves dogs and God, anatomy lessons, food fights, vinyl jazz records, and one hell of an oyster tour. A story of trust and friendship, of poetry and rock and roll, pink-tinged dawns and the darkest nights. A tale of portraits, tattoos, and everlasting love.

24) You watched me sink

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6896620

Summary: They've discussed it a few times - the boyfriend thing. It's not like it's some forbidden, horrific, abandon hope all ye who talk about furthering the relationship sort of subject. They're mature adults. They're in tune with their feelings, their hearts' desires, the way those butterflies swoop in their bellies whenever they so much as hold each other's hands. They like each other. A lot. It's mutual, they know. But for now, they're just content to enjoy the simplicity of what they have, and what they have is great.  When dating in secret stops being enough, then they'll discuss that too. Or, the one where Harry teaches Sex Ed and sneaks around with the drama teacher, and doesn't realize how out of tune he is with his true feelings until everyone else figures it out for him.

25) we’re not friends, we could be anything

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7873252/chapters/17980723

Summary: The next second, Harry is firing back, “If I wanted to kill you I could have just poisoned your fajitas.”Louis rolls his eyes. “Clever boy.”Harry feels his skin start to prickle with irritation. The way Louis talks to him, so condescending... Like he’s smarter than Harry… Fuck that.“I don’t have time for this,” Harry says. “Some of us have schoolwork to do. And jobs to get to. So if you’ll excuse me.”Harry doesn’t wait for a reply before he pushes past Louis, hoisting his bag further up his shoulder and rushing towards the door. No, not rushing. That would imply Louis is chasing him out. He walks to the door hastily.He’s not sure, but he thinks he hears Louis mutter “Fucking wanker” before the door to the flat clicks shut behind him. ...Or, the one where Harry and Louis are unlikely uni flatmates who definitely don't like each other and definitely won't fall in love (even if Liam and Niall think otherwise).

26) Nameless night

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3467966/chapters/7611533

Summary: For their 18th birthday, every person receives a letter that reads a simple date. That is the date you'll meet your soulmate. Harry and Louis have different beliefs, live in different worlds and have different dreams, hopes and fears. Yet, they're not so different from each other when it comes to love. When their paths cross, there is no doubt they belong together. Except for that one, essential difference: they didn't receive the same date. Or, a fic about differences that make no difference at all: Harry and Louis are soulmates. In every way possible. Featuring Niall as a role model, and Liam and Zayn as a different kind of role models.

Happy reading!!

[lorenfangor]

I’m going to politely disagree here - I think it’s definitely possible, and the reason why it’s possible is because of California’s climate and demographics at the time. It was significantly more racially diverse than popular culture reflects, and black Americans, Asian immigrants, white settlers, indigenous people, Mexican immigrants, and Mexican-Americans whose families had been here since before it was California all lived together. The social order was nowhere near as strict as it was in other places, and the centralized government you saw on the East Coast just wasn’t there - it was literally the Wild West, after all, and brimming with potential and diversity.

so. if the Animorphs were alive in the 1800s, what would they look like?

(Let’s say just for the sake of convenience that this is taking place in San Francisco in 1896; as per usual a heartfelt thank you to @nikosheba​ - in this case because she grew up in California and I did not)

Jacob Berenson is the son of Stephen Berenson, a doctor, and Jeanne Berenson (née Fonsèque; her family immigrated from France in the early 1800s), who has written some novels under a pen name and is something of an unwilling socialite. His family is relatively wealthy but not so wealthy they can be the idle rich. He’s attending school, and it’s expected that he’ll follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, probably going to medical school at the University of the Pacific. His older brother Thomas is attending the same school, studying law.

Rachel Berenson is the son of Daniel Berenson, a newspaper editor, and Naomi Berenson, the socialite daughter of a magistrate. (It’s an open secret she used to help him on most of his cases, but her wit and energy are put to use throwing many famed parties.) She is attending an academy for young ladies and is destined for Mills College, per her mother, who wants her to get an education. She’s incredibly popular at school, but has a bit of a cruel and bitter edge and a nasty temper.

Tobias, who doesn’t know his last name, lives with his uncle in a room rented in downtown San Francisco. His uncle is an alcoholic who berates Tobias for being born and being a burden. His mother is in an asylum and has been there ever since she gave birth to him out of wedlock - she was trampled by a horse and as she recovered she insisted she’d seen fantastical creatures like something out of an L. Frank Baum story or a Jules Verne novel. He does odd jobs to bring in money; he’s the main breadwinner. He can read, but only a little; he’s never been to school.

Cassandra Walker is the daughter of Walter Walker, a homesteader and farmer who lives outside of town. His father (I’m calling him George) brought the family out West for the gold rush, made good money selling gear to hopeful prospectors, set up a few general stores, got very rich, sold the stores, and took the money and put it into a farm. Walter was sent back East to the Institute for Colored Youth (America’s first HBCU, now called Cheyney University of Pennsylvania) to study agriculture. He brought home his wife Michelle, the daughter of one of the faculty there; they had Cassie on the farm.

Mark Gallagher, whose mother calls him Marco, is the son of Eva “Eve” Gallagher and Peter Gallagher. Eva is a Mexican girl whose family has lived in California since before it was American, and Peter works for the railroads as an engineer and designer. The two of them attend the same church - Peter is an Irish Catholic who came West to look for work. Mark, like Jake and Rachel, is well off but not incredibly wealthy, shielded from much of the racism aimed at Mexicans by his father’s career and the neighborhood they live in.

Unlike in canon, the five kids don’t really have a common ground of public school to bind them together. I’m going to say that Mark probably knows Jacob because they grew up together, though, so they’re still best friends. Rachel knows Mark because she and Jacob are neighbors, but doesn’t spend much time with the boys beyond what’s socially appropriate. I’m going to say that Tobias does either domestic work of some kind or deliveries to the kitchen of the school that Rachel attends; she’s familiar with him and might even have snuck a few conversations with him if she felt particularly rebellious. Cassandra knows Rachel and Jacob, but not Mark or Tobias - Walter is nicknamed “Doc” for his talent at treating horses, and when one of Stephen Berenson’s carriage horses was lame, Walter was called in to help treat the animal. Cassandra came along, and that’s how she and Jacob met. Rachel knows Cassandra the same way - Walter’s done work for her family, and Cassandra’s a very good vet tech.

I’m going to say that the series starts in basically the same way.

(long post, more below the cut, as always)

Mark and Jacob are in town at a gaming parlor - they’re old enough, even if they’re not old enough for serious drinking and carousing. Jacob is frustrated because since starting this semester of university Thomas has seemed different - he’s joined a society on campus that seems strange, and he’s become secretive and moody. Mark is still grieving the death of his mother, who went out for a swim one night and never returned - it’s nearing two years since her loss, and Jacob intended to try and cheer him up with a few rounds of cards and some music hall songs. They go home, and run into Rachel, Cassandra, and Tobias. Cassandra came to help a horse in a stable where Tobias sometimes sleeps deliver a difficult foal, and Rachel has been sneaking around with this boy her mother would disapprove of. 

Jacob and Mark offer to walk Rachel home through an in-progress railroad construction site, Rachel lightly mocks them for assuming she can’t take care of herself, and Tobias offers to help Cassandra carry the bags she brought to help the horse. All five of them are going the same way at first, so all five of them are together when strange lights descend out of the sky and a metal vessel unlike anything they’ve ever seen crashes into unused steel railroad ties. The door opens, Elfangor stumbles out, and the adventure begins.

The biggest challenge isn’t “would all these people realistically exist in the same space and be on speaking terms” - they would, it’s very possible. What’s different is that there are very real barriers that make hanging out difficult. The kids in canon make a point of talking about how they’re not real friends, but that doesn’t really pan out? In #1, they all walk home together like friends, and by #29 they’re goofing off together at a school dance. Here, though, there are genuine social obstacles - Rachel’s expected to be a proper lady, Jacob’s being groomed for college in a couple of years when he’s fifteen and so is Mark, Tobias is a practically homeless orphan, and Cassandra has a community of her own that’s disconnected from the others. They’re going to become friends as they fight this war, in a way that’s much more obvious than in canon.

Jacob and Cassandra are probably still going to fall in love. There were antiracist activists who weren’t black in the 1800s, and abolitionists and civil rights progressives existed in California. They would have to be more subtle about it, and there would be conversations about their own biases (both internalized and otherwise) as well as the risks they’d be taking in going public, but I don’t think it’s impossible at all, and I don’t think it’s a guaranteed fact that Jacob and Rachel and their families would be racists in a way that stopped Cassandra from real friendship and intimacy with them. 

The biggest morality change here is that I’m pretty confident Cassandra would acquire a Frolis maneuvered human morph for espionage purposes - a ‘whitesona’, if you will. I could see her and Jacob going on dates like that, but demorphing in a powder room would be significantly more risky. You’d also have the added dynamics of who the Yeerks infested and where and why - Cassie being black and Marco being Mexican would mean they might have an in with social underclasses, to see what’s going on from the POV of the household staff if 1890s Joseph Robert Fenestre shows up, something like that.

Rachel and Tobias are the ones with history here, rather than Jacob and Cassandra - Rachel’s been sneaking around with a hot guy to spite her mother and rebel a little bit, and she knows it’s scandalous and she doesn’t care. Mark is, as always, regrettably single.

there’s also a lot to consider when it comes to the Yeerks’ attempts to invade - there’s not a mass media machine the way there is in the 90s, and the government is not nearly as omnipresent here. They’d probably target industry rather than media and government, as a result - the focus would be on the oil barons and the steel magnates, the Carnegies and DuPonts of the world. I’d say what brings them to San Francisco is the railroads and the chance to build this city in their own image, more than anything else. They could test run the invasion on a small scale.

y'know i see all these different time periods for animorph AUs but here me out: what about an even older era, like say the victorian era? how would things go if it happened in the 1800s?

Hate to say it, but I think 1800s U.S. is too racist for a team like the Animorphs to get off the ground. Anyone who has lived in non-U.S. countries long-term wanna take a stab at this one in their own (hopefully less racist) country?

[hallsp]

The Case against the Catholic Church

In his recent address to Pope Francis in Dublin Castle, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar stated that:

Magdalene Laundries, mother and baby homes, industrial schools, illegal adoptions, and clerical child abuse, are stains on our state, our society and also the church.

Ultimately, though, it must be viewed primarily as a stain on the church.

The Church in Ireland gradually gained in power after emancipation in 1829, becoming almost omnipotent in its control of social policy after independence in 1922. If not genuinely pious themselves, such was the extent of Church power among the people, politicians were careful to show, at least outwardly, a subservient devotion to the Church.

The old unionist concern that Home Rule meant Rome Rule was not entirely unfounded. Our constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, which was written in 1937, defined the state as explicitly secular, and, quite remarkably, provided recognition to the “Jewish congregations,” then under increasing attack in Europe. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church had inordinate influence on social policy.

This was the case from the foundation of the Free State, and would drive a wedge into the midst of the nation, to paraphrase W. B. Yeats. A 1925 prohibition on divorce prompted Yeats, then a senator in Seanad Éireann, to give an impressive speech:

I think it is tragic that within three years of this country gaining its independence we should be discussing a measure which a minority of this nation considers to be grossly oppressive.

The Church’s teachings on sexual morality, contraception, homosexuality, censorship, and divorce were woven directly into law, and at the urging of the Church.

When the inter-party government came to power in 1948, Taoiseach John A. Costello sent a telegram to Pope Pius XII:

On the occasion of our assumption of office, and of the first Cabinet meeting, my colleagues and myself desire to repose at the feet of Your Holiness the assurance of our filial loyalty and our devotion to your August Person, as well as our firm resolve to be guided in all our work by the teaching of Christ, and to strive for the attainment of social order in Ireland based on Christian principles.

He was obstinate on this issue. In 1949, for example, Costello and all the Catholic members of government, except Dr. Noel Browne, remained outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin during the funeral of President Douglas Hyde. Catholics at this time were not permitted to enter Protestant houses of worship.

In the 1950s, when the government attempted to introduce a basic form of “socialised” medicine for mothers and their children up to sixteen years, the “controversial” Mother and Child Scheme, it led directly to the collapse of government. The Catholic Church viewed the scheme as contrary to Catholic social teaching. The lesson here was that, even when the state did try to wrestle back some control over social services, it was going to be blocked.

In the wake of this scandal, which witnessed overt interference from the Catholic Church in the affairs of a supposedly secular state, and following the resignation of the courageous Dr. Noel Browne, then Minister of Health, Taoiseach John A. Costello was bold enough to state:

I am an Irishman second, I am Catholic first, and I accept without qualification in all respects the teaching of the hierarchy and the church to which I belong.

This is quite shocking now, but perfectly in keeping with being a Catholic at this period of time.

Indeed, Martin Luther King Sr., a Baptist pastor and the father of the great civil rights leader, could not bring himself to support John F. Kennedy in the presidential race of 1960 solely because he was a Catholic.

Kennedy eventually settled this matter once and for all in a brilliant speech to an antagonistic audience, all members of the Protestant Greater Houston Ministerial Association. He gave, in essence, a complete repudiation of the position taken by John A. Costello.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.

He continued:

I do not speak for my church on public matters; and the church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may come before me as President, if I should be elected, on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject, I will make my decision in accordance with these views -- in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

This attitude was quite contrary to Catholic teaching, however. Fr. John Courtney Murray, S.J., probably America’s foremost Catholic political thinker wrote: “To make religion merely a private matter was idiocy.”

Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors, which had been published in 1869, officially rejected the concept of church and state separation, condemned modern liberal civilization, and the idea that human reason ought to be applied in searching for the truths of religion.

The attitude of the Church to lay people, including government leaders, is best understood by reference to Vehementer Nos, the 1906 encyclical response of Pope Pius X to the declaration of separation of church and state in France:

The Scripture teaches us, and the tradition of the Fathers confirms the teaching, that the Church is the mystical body of Christ, ruled by the Pastors and Doctors - a society of men containing within its own fold chiefs who have full and perfect powers for ruling, teaching and judging. It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of persons, the Pastors and the flock, those who occupy a rank in the different degrees of the hierarchy and the multitude of the faithful. So distinct are these categories that with the pastoral body only rests the necessary right and authority for promoting the end of the society and directing all its members towards that end; the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors.

Like a docile flock, follow the Pastors! Roma locuta est, causa finita est. That is what was demanded of a faithful Catholic.

Remember also that it was because of disobedience that sin entered into the world in the first place, and the whole edifice of Catholic teaching rests on the coming of the Son of God to atone for that original sin.

Children ought to be obedient to their parents, wives to their husbands (”Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord”). Lay people ought to be obedient to Church, priests to Bishops, and all looking to Rome. What mattered was obedience. Obedience to authority. Obedience to Church hierarchy. Obedience, obedience, obedience.

Who, ultimately, then, was to blame for the guilt associated with human sexuality, and the stigma of sex outside of marriage? Who was it that deemed birth control anathema? Indeed, who was to blame for unmarried mothers being put into homes? Who was to blame for forced adoptions, immoral and often illegal, to good Catholic homes in the US? Who was to blame for Magdalene Laundries? Who was to blame for scandalous attitudes towards divorce? Who was to blame for the institutional cover-up, if not the perpetration, of child rape and torture?

I ask you: where did Irish people source their moral framework if not entirely from Holy Mother Church? It’s only now, when we’ve thrown off the yoke of Catholic morality, that we can truly see the error of our ways.

Certainly, the people and the state share in some portion of the blame, but the lion’s share ought to go to the Catholic Church, its social teachings, its doctrines, and its demand for unquestioning obedience.

Lastly, and this is an important point, when it came time to acknowledge all of these faults, the state did so. It set up multiple commissions of investigation. It established redress schemes. It passed laws, including mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse.

The Church, and other religious institutions, on the other hand, refuse to fully come to terms with what has happened, have hindered investigations, have sought indemnity from prosecution, have negotiated reduced compensation deals which have yet to be paid in full, and have not yet implemented changes to canon law to protect children’s safety worldwide.

Yes, the Catholic Church has much to answer for in this mess.