#catherine blogging

[frutigeraerosims]

played around in CAS today, made a redesign of Rin from the game Catherine.

(spoilers for that game, i'm gonna ramble about it)

the game catherine holds a special place in my heart, i really like it, though i haven't played it in years. i actually had a dream recently that they made a third installment (or second installment depending on how you view catherine: full body) and it was awesome. i wish my dream was real. i think i'm gonna replay the game soon, since i miss it, but playing it will probably stir up mixed feelings.

catherine: full body and i have a complicated relationship. when i played it i had a blast, but i also think it negates the unique themes and atmosphere of the original. likewise, i have conflicting feelings on rin. on one hand, i love him, and i eagerly did his route, but also, he's a poorly written character in my opinion.

anyway, redesign. why did i change rin's design? well, his original design is one of the worst things about him. he sticks out like a sore thumb in the game, he looks way too short and girly (yes i know that's the point but it's dumb), and i hate it. his concept art was better though still not perfect. not that my redesign is perfect, obviously, but it's an improvement according to my personal tastes.

for his redesign, i had one name in my mind, and that name is Song Liling. the character from the cronenberg film M. Butterfly. spoilers for that, btw. anyway, song liling, in my mind, is the perfect epitome of what they were going for with rin, in terms of that plotline. therefore, inspired by liling, i leaned into making rin look more elegant and mature, while retaining his youthfulness and colorfulness. i think this way, he looks less out of place. i also made an effort to keep rin's androgyny, but more... actual androgyny instead of what we got in the game.

i know the outfit is a far cry from rin's original aesthetic, but i honestly had no idea what to do with the kawaii look. it's nice, and i wanted to keep it, i just had no inspiration. i was hoping to do something decora-like, similar to his concept art, but it just didn't work, so i went with the more elegant look instead. well, i like it, at least.

i also wish rin's personality was just a touch different. he's great, but kinda moe for catherine, i think? i think he'd be better if his "cuteness" was turned down a bit in favor of him being more of vincent's friend, like actual friend, if that makes sense? atlus was going for friends to lovers, i think, but rin being so "helpless" and "adorable" kinda made him more of this stereotypical perfect love interest. if he was genuinely someone vincent became friends with through being neighbors and hanging out at the bar, rather than vincent liking rin because he's just so perfect, i think rin would be better, and the romance would be better. rin can definitely stay sweet and gentle, i think the alternative to Cat and Kat being a gentle person is perfect, but i wish rin was less childish and cutesy.

i don't know if any of that made sense, but it makes sense in my head.

lastly, "lore redesign". simply: rin is some kind of heavenly being, and i mean an actual heavenly being, not what they did in the game. he's a heavenly being whose mission was to stop catherine and the torture of the men. iirc that's the canon lore already, but i hate the space stuff, i'm sorry. the whole "catherine takes place on a space colony" thing was cute and fun when it was just an easter egg, but making catherine into a sci-fi game is horrible. just horrible to me. i can't stand it. so yeah, rin is an angel. it may be obvious and predictable but it just makes sense and makes the game flow better. catherine is a demon, katherine is a human, and rin is an angel. there. no aliens.

is that everything? yeah, that's my redesign of rin. i know the overlap of sims and catherine fans must be very small, so probably no one will like this, but i like it, and that's enough for me.

my game was crashing today and it was horrible. i think the cause was the venue change mod but i'm not sure. but regardless i didn't need the venue change mod anymore so taking it out was fine. hopefully my game is fine. i'm getting bored with sims 4 now though. my sim climbed the mountain so now it just feels blah. i have other goals of course but with that out of the way i'm just bored. i'm thinking i might boot up the sims 2 soon. i still don't really feel like going back to 3 yet, though i know i will in time. i go through phases with the sims, sometimes its 4, then 3, then 2. not necessarily in that order.

[anghraine]

I'm drafting a long semi-headcanon post as I try to phrase it properly, but I'm tired right now so I'll just leave you with the conclusion:

Mr Bennet has made Elizabeth into the closest feasible approximation of the son he wanted and never had, and relates to her through that framework as much as possible. Meanwhile, Lady Catherine can't quite acknowledge that her literal daughter is a disappointment to her, and instead just openly fantasizes about a totally unrecognizable version of Anne that has never existed. Her real spiritual daughter is Darcy.

[beanhusk]

OK LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS. they are & have always been each other's anchors. donna lost herself and the doctor went mad with grief when they parted. the universe draws them together time & time again. they know this. we, the audience, know this. so there's no more "what was that for?" "i don't know!" after a hug. now he kisses her hand to calm her. looks into her eyes. holds her hand to his hearts. maybe he's comforting himself just as much as he's comforting her. he's loved & lost so many & second chances are not a guarantee. grief may be love with no place to go, but she's here & she remembers & she's alive! so the love comes rushing out

[robertfrobisherslover]

[world-of-wales]

❥ The Princess of Wales's Lookbook : Catherine hosted the 'Together At Christmas' Carol Service at Westminster Abbey in London.

[wormboyfriendcentralstation]

heathcliff: i killed cathy...... im a horrible person in every timeline. my revenge killed her. my remorse literally broke through timelines.

catherine who got back at heathcliff by stealing a house to remodel into the Magic Cocaine Labyrinth after draining the financial assets of england's least tragically ill victorian man, making carmen contact her copyright lawyers by sealing her ambiguously dead body into a glass tank while her brain powers a building, and potentially hiring the Mueseumafia of Modern Art because if she pays them with cash she doesnt have to report her Green-Energy-Human-Tank Powered Hydrogen Bomb Basement Factory's earnings to the IRS or whatever the city uses: 'tis what you get for trying to boyfail without your girlboss, methinks 😇😇😇😇😇

[thebellekeys]

I love gratuitous acts of love and stupidity and obsession. Like, Mary Shelley losing her virginity to her man on her mother's grave in a churchyard and then keeping his preserved heart after her died? Metal. Heathcliff digging up Catherine's grave and forcing her to haunt him since he refuses to live without her? Iconic. Romeo and Juliet’s double suicide after three days of burning teenage passion? Felt.

[trickylie]

[d0omedtodestruction]

Catherine Zeta-Jones, 2001

[anghraine]

It's always been intriguing to me that, even when Elizabeth hates Darcy and thinks he's genuinely a monstrous, predatory human being, she does not ever perceive him as sexually predatory. In fact, literally no one in the novel suggests or believes he is sexually dangerous at any point. There's not the slightest hint of that as a factor in the rumors surrounding him, even though eighteenth-century fiction writers very often linked masculine villainy to a possibility of sexual predation in the subtext or just text*. Austen herself does this over and over when it comes to the true villains of her novels.

Even as a supposed villain, though, Darcy is broadly understood to be predatory and callous towards men who are weaker than him in status, power, and personality—with no real hint of sexual threat about it at all (certainly none towards women). Darcy's "villainy" is overwhelmingly about abusing his socioeconomic power over other men, like Wickham and Bingley. This can have secondhand effects on women's lives, but as collateral damage. Nobody thinks he's targeting women.

In addition, Elizabeth's interpretations of Darcy in the first half of the book tend to involve associating him with relatively prestigious women by contrast to the men in his life (he's seen as extremely dissimilar from his male friends and, as a villain, from his father). So Elizabeth understands Darcy-as-villain not in terms of the popular, often very sexualized images of masculine villainy at the time, but in terms of rich women she personally despises like Caroline Bingley and Lady Catherine de Bourgh (and even Georgiana Darcy; Elizabeth assumes a lot about Georgiana in service of her hatred of Darcy before ever meeting her).

The only people in Elizabeth's own community who side with Darcy at this time are, interestingly, both women, and likely the highest-status unmarried women in her community: Charlotte Lucas and Jane Bennet. Both have some temperamental affinities with Darcy, and while it's not clear if he recognizes this, he quietly approves of them without even knowing they've been sticking up for him behind the scenes.

This concept of Darcy-as-villain is not just Elizabeth's, either. Darcy is never seen by anyone as a sexual threat no matter how "bad" he's supposed to be. No one is concerned about any danger he might pose to their daughters or sisters. Kitty is afraid of him, but because she's easily intimidated rather than any sense of actual peril. Even another man, Mr Bennet, seems genuinely surprised to discover late in the novel that Darcy experiences attraction to anything other than his own ego.

I was thinking about this because of how often the concept of Darcy as an anti-hero before Elizabeth "fixes him" seems caught up in a hypermasculine, sexually dangerous, bad boy image of him that even people who actively hate him in the novel never subscribe to or remotely imply. Wickham doesn't suggest anything of the kind, Elizabeth doesn't, the various gossips of Meryton don't, Mr Bennet and the Gardiners don't, nobody does. If anything, he's perceived as cold and sexless.

Wickham in particular defines Darcy's villainy in opposition to the patriarchal ideal his father represented. Wickham's version of their history works to link Darcy to Lady Anne, Lady Catherine (primarily), and Georgiana rather than any kind of masculine sexuality. This version of Darcy is a villain who colludes with unsympathetic high-status women to harm men of less power than themselves, but villain!Darcy poses no direct threat to women of any kind.

It's always seemed to me that there's a very strong tendency among fans and academics to frame Darcy as this ultra-gendered figure with some kind of sexual menace going on, textually or subtextually. He's so often understood entirely in terms of masculinity and sexual desire, with his flaws closely tied to both (whether those flaws are his real ones, exaggerated, or entirely manufactured). Yet that doesn't seem to be his vibe to other characters in the story. There's a level at which he does not register to other characters as highly masculine in his affiliations, highly sexual, or in general as at all unsafe** to be around, even when they think he's a monster. And I kind of feel like this makes the revelations of his actual decency all along and his full-on heroism later easier to accept in the end.

------------

*The incompetently awful villain(?) in Sanditon, for instance, imagines himself another Lovelace (a reference to the famous rapist-villain of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa). Evelina's sheltered education and lack of protectors makes her vulnerable to sexual exploitation in Frances Burney's Evelina, though she ultimately manages to avoid it. There's frequently an element of sexual predation in Gothic novels even of very different kinds (e.g. Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Matthew Lewis's The Monk both lean into this, in their wildly dissimilar styles). William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams, a book mostly about the destructive evils of class hierarchies and landowning classes specifically, depicts the mutual obsession of the genteel villain Falkland and working class hero Caleb in notoriously homoerotic terms (Godwin himself added a preface in 1832 saying, "Falkland was my Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes ... Caleb Williams was the wife"). This list could go on for a very long time.

**Darcy is also not usually perceived by other characters as a particularly sexual, highly masculine person in a safe way, either, even once his true character is known. Elizabeth emphasizes the resilience of Darcy's love for her more than the passionate intensity they both evidently feel; in the later book, she does sometimes makes assumptions about his true feelings or intentions based on his gender, but these assumptions are pretty much invariably shown to be wrong. In general the cast is completely oblivious to the attraction he does feel; even Charlotte, who wonders about something in that quarter, ends up doubting her own suspicions and wonders if he's just very absent-minded.

The novel emphasizes that he is physically attractive, but it goes to pains to distinguish this from Wickham's sex appeal or the charisma of a Bingley or Fitzwilliam. Mr Bennet (as mentioned above) seems to have assumed Darcy is functionally asexual, insofar as he has a concept of that. Most of the fandom-beloved moments in which Darcy is framed as highly sexual, or where he himself is sexualized for the audience, are very significantly changed in adaptation or just invented altogether for the adaptations they appear in. Darcy watching Elizabeth after his bath in the 1995 is invented for that version, him snapping at Elizabeth in their debates out of UST is a persistent change from his smiling banter with her in the book, the fencing to purge his feelings is invented, the pond swim/wet shirt is invented. In the 2005 P&P, the instant reaction to Elizabeth is invented, the hand flex of repressed passion is invented, the Netherfield Ball dance as anything but an exercise in mutual frustration is invented, the near-kiss after the proposal in invented, etc. And in those as well, he's never presented as sexually predatory, not even as a "villain."

[anghraine]

Speaking of the social context of P&P and Austen in general, and also just literature of that era, I'm always interested in how things like precisely formulated hierarchies of precedence and tables of ranked social classes interact with the more complex and nuanced details of class-based status and consequence on a pragmatic day-to-day level. I remembered reading a social historian discussing the pragmatics of class wrt eighteenth-century English life many years ago and finally tracked down the source:

"In spite of the number of people who got their living from manufacture or trade, fundamentally it was a society in which the ownership of land alone conveyed social prestige and full political rights. ... The apex of this society was the nobility. In the eyes of the Law only members of the House of Lords, the peerage in the strictest use of the word, were a class apart, enjoying special privileges and composing one of the estates of the realm. Their families were commoners: even the eldest sons of peers could sit in the House of Commons. It was therefore in the social rather than in the legal sense of the word that English society was a class society. Before the law all English people except the peers were in theory equal. Legal concept and social practice were, however, very different. When men spoke of the nobility, they meant the sons and daughters, the brothers and sisters, the uncles and aunts and cousins of the peers. They were an extremely influential and wealthy group.

"The peers and their near relations almost monopolized high political office. From these great families came the wealthiest Church dignitaries, the higher ranks in the army and navy. Many of them found a career in law; some even did not disdain the money to be made in trade. What gave this class its particular importance in the political life of the day was the way in which it was organized on a basis of family and connection ... in eighteenth-century politics men rarely acted as isolated individuals. A man came into Parliament supported by his friends and relations who expected, in return for this support, that he would further their interests to the extent of his parliamentary influence.

"Next in both political and social importance came the gentry. Again it is not easy to define exactly who were covered by this term. The Law knew nothing of gentle birth but Society recognized it. Like the nobility this group too was as a class closely connected with land. Indeed, the border line between the two classes is at times almost impossible to define ... Often these men are described as the squirearchy, this term being used to cover the major landowning families in every county who were not connected by birth with the aristocracy. Between them and the local nobility there was often considerable jealousy. The country gentleman considered himself well qualified to manage the affairs of his county without aristocratic interference.

"...The next great layer in society is perhaps best described the contemporary term 'the Middling Sort'. As with all eighteenth-century groups it is difficult to draw a clear line of demarcation between them and their social superiors and inferiors. No economic line is possible, for a man with no pretensions to gentility might well be more prosperous than many a small squire. There was even on the fringe between the two classes some overlapping of activities ... The ambitious upstart who bought an estate and spent his income as a gentleman, might be either cold-shouldered by his better-born neighbours or treated by them with a certain contemptuous politeness. If however his daughters were presentable and well dowered, and if his sons received the education considered suitable for gentlemen, the next generation would see the obliteration of whatever distinction still remained. The solid mass of the middling sort had however no such aspirations, or considered them beyond their reach.

"...This term [the poor] was widely used to designate the great mass of the manual workers. Within their ranks differences of income and of outlook were as varied as those that characterized the middle class. Once again the line of demarcation is hard to draw..."

—Dorothy Marshall, Eighteenth Century England (29-34)

(There's plenty more interesting information in the full chapter, especially regarding "the poor," and the chapter itself is contracted from a lengthier version published earlier.)

[webby-mogai]

-jest

[pt: -jest /end pt]

The -jest suffix is a suffix that can be used for any part of identity as long as the intention is "because/when it's funny", "as a joke", etc. It can be used as a modifier for already existing labels or on its own as long as its for the sillies

Ex.

Chronojest(link), when one's age changes based on whatever is funniest. Girljest, when you only identify as a girl when it would be funny.

Flag stuff, symbol and disclaimer under the cut

[id: the first flag is a grayscale flag with 7 horizontal zig-zagging stripes. the outside stripes are the darkest, with them getting lighter towards the center. in the middle is a grey and white jester symbol with a two-toned hat ended in bells along with a frilly collar with bells at the end as well. there is white confetti in the background. /end id]

[id: the second flag is the same as first but without confetti /end id]

[id: the third flag is the same as second but with wavy stripes instead of zigzag /end id]

[id: the fourth flag is the same as third but with confetti /end id]

Flag base

[pt: Flag base /end pt]

[id: the first is a grayscale flag with 7 horizontal zig-zagging stripes. the outside stripes are the darkest, with them getting lighter towards the center. /end id]

[id: the second is the same as the first but the lines are wavy /end id]

Confetti

[pt: Confetti /end pt]

[id: white confetti on a transparent background /end id]

Symbol

[pt: Symbol /end pt]

[id: the first is a grey and white jester symbol with a two-toned hat ended in bells along with a frilly collar with bells at the end as well. /end id]

[id: the second is the same but is transparent instead of white /end id]

Disclaimer!!!

This is meant to describe a particular experience we and a few of our friends have shared where we only identify a particular way when it would be funny. This label was made in good faith and shouldn't be used to make fun of or belittle others experiences, labels or groups!

[murdrballad]

catherine

[dustykneed]

Hello! Random whipper snipper! Share a WIP of your work!

ooh, with pleasure. six the musical araleyn fanart? in the year 2k24? more likely than you think xDD

i realize this looks finished, but technically i'm still deciding whether to add a background or not lol. still, for the sake of sharing a proper WIP, here's a line or two from an araleyn brainworm WIP that i started reworking yesterday (mild tw for religious guilt and period-typical internalized homophobia from aragon's pov):

She remembers sharing her bed with Anne at Henry's behest, remembers the nights of tossing and turning and trying not to think about Anne asleep next to her-- remembers waking up to dark hair spilling across her pillow and the press of blood-warm bosoms against her own, softer than sin, as hot as the Devil, remembers lying still as death, mouthing prayers into the heat of Anne's neck like an act of penance.

[amarasletters]

* .𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 ; 𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒂 𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒆𝒓 ˚˖𓍢˚

. * amara catherine rosier

╰┈➤ rosier legacy's most beautiful contradiction

“It’s not just her family name. It’s the way she holds herself, like she’s seen it all and doesn’t care to pretend otherwise. She’s got that ‘I’m above all of this’ energy, but it’s not pretentious—it’s just… amara.”

trail of vanilla and smoke, basically a leather jacket with heirlooms stuck on, breaking the rosiers yet somehow only the one mending too, sarcasm is an art, romanticism at its peak - stormy skies to scrawled pages, perfectly arranged chaos, weight of a legacy carried with a shrug, walking kafka poem, ink-stained fingers.

★﹐．﹗﹑

origin. daughter to evan rosier and maya desmond, a blend of old magic and even older bloodlines. the rosiers are the kind of family you don’t talk about in polite company. their name comes with weight, history, and a legacy you can’t escape, no matter how hard you try.

... evan, was a man defined by his ambition and his deep ties to the darker corners of the wizarding world. He was brilliant, calculated, and destined for greatness—traits that left an indelible mark on Amara, even though she was only five when he passed away. His death left behind an absence that shaped much of her childhood.

... maya, was another force entirely. fiercely independent, intelligent, and determined, Maya had distanced herself from the pureblood world long before Amara was born, choosing instead to live on her own terms. But when Evan died, Maya found herself back within the fold, pulled by both duty and the complexity of her past.

★﹐．﹗﹑

home. its stone walls were weathered by centuries of secrets, its towers reaching up like silent sentinels against the horizon. The grand façade, though majestic, always carried an air of somberness, as if it were guarding more than just the family’s treasures. inside, the rosier manor was a labyrinth of old hallways, dimly lit by flickering candlelight and the occasional beam of sunlight breaking through the heavy curtains. the air was thick with the scent of aged wood and lingering incense, a blend of both comfort and foreboding.

.... more abt the manor

★﹐．﹗﹑

school life. from the moment she arrived, amara’s presence was felt. she was sorted into slytherin, not because she fit the mold, but because the house seemed to understand her best: ambitious, cunning, and fiercely independent. slytherin was a house where alliances were forged in whispers and secrets, and amara fit in effortlessly—her sharp wit and unyielding confidence made her someone to watch, even if she preferred to remain in the shadows.

despite her quiet rebellion, amara was no stranger to the classroom. she excelled in her studies, particularly in subjects like potions, charms, and transfiguration, where her attention to detail and natural affinity for magic stood out. But she wasn’t one to flaunt her intelligence—she preferred to work in the background, to quietly impress her professors and peers without ever seeking the spotlight.

but it wasn’t just academics that defined her time at hogwarts. there was the occasional mischief, the late-night wanderings, and the quiet moments spent by the Black Lake or in the Astronomy Tower, contemplating the vastness of the world beyond the castle walls.

★﹐．﹗﹑

her people. daphne was the sister amara never had but always needed. they clicked instantly when they met at hogwarts, their shared wit and cynicism forming the foundation of their bond.

mattheo was never just a friend to amara—he was a constant, an unspoken part of her life from the very beginning. they grew up together, and while their relationship was never labeled, it was always something deeper than friendship.

theodore was the calm to amara’s storm. they were the kind of friends who didn’t need to talk all the time to be understood. theo was quieter than the rest of their group, but there was a depth to him that amara admired.

lorenzo wasn’t one for deep, philosophical conversations, he had an uncanny ability to read the room, and he always seemed to know when amara needed a distraction or when she just needed to be pulled out of her head.

elizabeth was one of the few who saw through amara’s exterior and understood the vulnerability beneath. In return, amara appreciated the quiet resilience in liz—how she carried herself with such dignity, even when she was faced with her own struggles. (absolutely dream @wishicouldkeepconcentration)

౿  ׂ��  ִ     ⏳    ⁀   ˳ *

... a lot more to come.

xx,

amara.

[trickylie]