#catholic psa

[queerprayers]

the speed with which i change into cozy clothes and lie on the kitchen floor after church is quite remarkable

[defensivelee]

mary is kinder than I am god bless bc if my father was sending me that kind of bullshit in his letters I'd tell my husband that he deserves to die, actually. go get em, baby!

[daincrediblegg]

Guy Ritchie is just a clown director to me.

[xzazzletheclownx]

Sexualizing nuns is 🙅‍♀️NOT🙅‍♀️ sexy

[soulprompts]

hi my loves! so i'm working on the list of wedding planning prompts, but i'd love to get some ideas and feedback from you all! if you have any traditions or religious elements that you'd love to see in this list, please comment them here OR send them into my inbox via anon! i won't respond, but i will be adding them all to the list to make as inclusive a prompt list as possible!

[jgvfhl]

🫵 NOBLE

TIS TRUE I DO HAVE NOBLE BLOOD IN ME 😳😳🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 .... or maybe 🇫🇷????

[eyespyespi]

STOP SAYING LMAO IF YOU ARE NOT LAUGHING YOUR ASS OFF

LYING IS A SIN

[mallahanmoxie]

typing 'what do adult women dress like' on the pinterest search bar with the vague distress of an undercover alien spy whose reconnaissance files only span up to the nineteenth century

[ahopefulbromantic]

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for this addition, it's a fascinating read! I love it so much!!!

And it makes so much sense! It is intimacy indeed, just thinking about how physically close you have to be to someone to breathe their breath when talking to them.

It also makes me think of St. Bernard of Clairvaux likening receiving God's Word to a kiss from God, and this adds to the bridal image i had of Moses wearing a veil after speaking with God privately. It makes sense in the context of Exodus 33,11 , too (God speaking to Moses as one speaks to a friend). If i'm not mistaken, it was customary in Israel for male friends to greet each other with a kiss on the mouth so God greeting Moses this way, even if metaphorically, would imply a close and intimate friendship.

More importantly still, as a medic, i can't not be reminded of mouth-to-mouth rescue breaths (nota bene sometimes called "a kiss of life" as well). In fact, God's breath literally representing His life-giving, saving Spirit, many times given to people either spiritually or literally dead (like in Genesis 2,7 , or John 20,22 after the Resurrection, the list goes on), it's such a clear image to me that i kid you not every time i read how Jesus or His Dad breathed on someone in the Bible i automatically imagine it as Them giving a rescue breath

(^ i was imagining them as standing in this scene though)

In other words, i'm totally reading "face to face" as "mouth to mouth" from now on, this is great

No please you don't get it you don't get how heart-wrenchingly sad the golden calf thing was

Remember the conversation right before it? in which God tells Moses all about the ark and the offerings and the tent and the rituals and the garments and the Sabbath? The conversation that everybody thought was boring (fight me. FIGHT me this instant)?

The conversation in which God excitedly says, "Okay Moses, my Love, this is gonna be so great! I will live among you, among my people! I'm so happy!!! So here's the plans I've made while I was up here, you will build me a little house! That I will dwell in! Here's how I want it to look, I thought about the exact measurements and ornaments so you could build it for Me and we can live together! I will be your God and you will be My people and I love you all, I love you so much. And here's what I will eat, here's what I like so you can cook it and we can have meals together! And here's how we'll be spending our holidays together and here's how we will all be dressed, I thought about everything! And, and-"

And suddenly His face drops.

"Moses," He says quietly. "I think you should go back down."

"...Why?" asks Moses, his heart already sinking.

"They've made themselves a new god to worship. They... didn't want Me."

Can you imagine? All this holiest excitement doused, all this going out of His way for the Almighty to be family with humans crushed in one moment when God maybe suddenly realizes He isn't loved back? How heartbroken, how utterly crushed must He have been that the Boundless Love could even think about just killing Their people then and there?

Good thing Moses still couldn't see His face. No human would be able to handle so much sorrow.

[rednightmare18]

oh, fine. let's talk about sin.

This is a note about religion and KCD2—particularly how it applies to Hans & Henry’s relationship development.

It isn’t my intention to write the definitive post on this subject, and this is certainly not an academic summary, a Tumblr History Lesson, or a thesis statement on why you can’t write whatever the hell you please. But as much as I detest fandom discourse, I also dislike seeing my words misused as a bludgeon against fan writers, and so I am stepping in to provide what I hope will be some useful CliffsNotes to everyone.

Take them or leave them, they are here with the intention to help fic writers make (briefly) informed decisions about how to embark on their creative research. KCD2 spoilers under the cut. PSA: If I see you using this nastily to harass fanfic writers you don't like, I will be very upset with you.

The medieval Catholic Church's doctrines were not representative of a homogeneous, mythical One Medieval Worldview on everyday life—nor was the MCC a monolith of its own. It is important to differentiate the Catholic institution from “the average medieval person’s ideas about daily life.” A quick foray into documents and moral treatises written by church officials at the time will reveal that the clergy was also not a monolith, but a hierarchy of individuals with vastly different ideas and recommendations on how humans should live. We simply cannot stamp a single religious document, decree, or interpretation (that was successfully published and preserved for hundreds of years; the vast majority were not) as a one-size-fits-all primer on what your average village blacksmith thought about things. I would certainly bristle were a historian from 2800 to suggest my country’s government & preeminent religious institutions painted an accurate picture of my (or my neighbors’) moral opinions on every subject under the sun. I bet you would, too. Critically, this does not mean all the common people embraced same-sex romance and all the religious officials reviled it. Indeed, it means people are people and their opinions will differ based on their personal experience, environment, personality, and priorities. Christianity profoundly affected the medieval world and mentality in ways both conscious and unconscious, much as any major global religion does, but it does not and did not make Europe into a dystopian Christian hivemind that thoughtlessly parroted a single unified view of every topic under the sun.

Religious opposition vs. religious guilt. Remembering that “people are people,” it is likewise important to differentiate religious opposition from religious guilt. Male lovers, particularly those in a position of high status (who were expected to produce heirs), would certainly face opposition to their desire to fuck off into the woods and kiss their boyfriend forever. It would certainly not be prudent or safe for a minor lord like Hans Capon to openly flaunt his romantic love for his squire; religiosity-fueled accusations of sodomy were useful as political bludgeons to threaten enemies and de-legitimize rivals. Caution is required. However, I find it is also important to note that Hans and Henry seem to express no personal guilt over their love for each other, religious or otherwise. It is telling that they do not step back from their relationship after consummating it under duress; on the contrary, both of them immediately seem to take it for granted that they will continue sharing their lives without any further negotiation required, and admitting their romantic feelings for each other has changed little of this, save for bringing them closer and providing relief. It is also telling that if Henry chooses to confess to his dream-parents that his devotion to Hans is romantic in nature, they react with surprise, but do not lecture him about sin. (In fact, his mother immediately leaps to Henry’s defense after his father reacts with shock.) Henry himself expresses no grief to them beyond a vague acknowledgement that hearing this must be a surprise. This is important—Henry’s parents appear in his dreams as representations of Henry’s inner doubts, guilt, grief, and misgivings. They do not throw up any real opposition or disgust to his intention to “settle down” with Hans. (Which is frankly a bonkers thing for Henry to say in any sense.) Despite the opposition they face from their environment and the expectations of status placed upon them—and despite Hans’s anxiety about being forced into a betrothal and how this may frustrate his intention to spend every waking moment with Henry—Henry and Hans both seem to feel completely positive about consummating their romantic relationship. For all intents and purposes, they canonically provide each other with comfort, love, and certainty. Not a shred of guilt or self-hate bubbles up into the canon text where each other is concerned. (This isn’t to say you can’t add this element in your fanworks if you choose. I’m not your dream-Martin!) NOTE: There is one moment during The Kiss scene in which Henry shows clear inner conflict. After Hans initiates a kiss (that Henry visibly rushes to accept), Henry turns his face away from him briefly, which causes Hans to perceive rejection and scurry away. Henry's expression is visibly troubled before he turns to the door. I see a valid argument for interpreting this brief expression of distress as gut-reaction frustration or revulsion, either at himself or even to the physical kiss, but we don’t really have enough canon input to say for certain what causes this flash of doubt. In any case, when it’s gone, it’s gone. At least for the purposes of KCD2 where it left us. You can’t “break up” with Hans after this or back out of the romance; Henry has decided for himself that the only way to go is forward.

Everything’s the same—but different. Homophobia in the 1400s was a different beast from homophobia in the 2000s. I will not dive into this here because I've written about it elsewhere to share background research on my own monastery fic, and because the topic is far too large to summarize in a bullet-pointed list. Simply, the medieval world did not codify sex acts or romantic feelings as identity markers in the way we do; while sodomy was certainly a taboo, this was a classification of non-reproductive sex acts, not slang for “gay man.” We cannot, in essence, “backport” our contemporary homophobia into the Middle Ages; it doesn’t make sense. Similarly, we cannot backport our bizarre late-1900s+ anxiety about pregnancy termination into 1403, but if you think I'm going to dive into that here except by way of brief comparison, you are cuh-razy. Worth noting that taboo also does not mean alien... or secret. More on that below.

Normalcy, Secrecy, and Taboo. One thing KCD2 (and KCD1, to a lesser extent) does very well is dismiss the Victorianized pseudo-history that same-sex romance, sex, and affection were some sort of widely-kept secret from society that did not dawn upon people until the second half of the thousands. In KCD, no one is surprised or bewildered by stories, both fictional and local, of same-sex lovers. Yes, medieval people knew about gay sex and no, “discovering” that it exists would not have shocked them—because a taboo is not necessarily an unknown. While NPCs react with different shades of opinion to conversations about same-sex romance, the world does not treat this as alien; it wasn’t. It is discussed casually, albeit with some discretion depending on context and company. KCD2 even enables you to play a Henry who has had prior sexual experience with men (see the Black Bartosch interactions) and has already embraced his own same-sex attraction to the extent he can confidently, casually sexually advance on men.

The Elephant in the Room: Class. Remember that the class divide at hand provides as much—if not more—opposition than the religiosity. Feudalism itself was built into medieval Catholicism. I sometimes think KCD downplays the importance of class, especially in KCD1, as it allows Henry to openly speak to Hans in ways that are unthinkably inappropriate given the feudal consciousness of the time, with almost no punishment or reaction from those around them. Not just because these interactions might indeed arouse suspicions of same-sex romance, but because a commoner risks severe punishment (or death!) for putting his hands on a lord, interrupting him, and insulting him in public. (Yes, including a noble’s bastard, a designation which is more harmful than not in many ways.) That's not to say Hans himself would not allow Henry to speak to him in this way; it's clear he desperately enjoys the novelty of someone who speaks to him freely, even in the earliest hours of KCD1, before they are tightly bonded. But it is strange there is so little blowback or external punishment for Henry when he baps His Lordship upside the head and calls him a buffoon in front of a gaggle of His Lordship's soldiers, on the precipice of dangerous military action, with Captain Bernard no doubt on the verge of apoplexy nearby. For this reason more than any other, I would argue, Henry and Hans’s relationship spits in the face of feudal order—and it does so even without the romantic consummation.

That's enough of that now, Jesus. I hope someone finds this to be a helpful bullet-point summary and it facilitates a more confident venture into historical fiction research! So TLDR; regarding the fandom's current anxiety of, "Am I making the Sin of it all too big of a deal?" my ultimate answer is yes, but also no, for it deeply depends on the context and the creator's intention. Love you lady, buhbye.

[fandomfluffandfuck]

NOT YOU DOING STEVE'S PSA BACK AT HIM HAHA

steve pushing it too far in fights and finding that the moment of pressure and almost-asphyxiation feels so good and he doesn't know where else to get that feeling from until someone introduces it to him in the bedroom .. wait this is kind of the plot of isozyme's the least difficult of men

related to my tags on Cassie's post, "#fuck yeahhh #but also steve i swear to fuck i will do the awkward dad sit-backwards-on-a-chair so you got detention talk to you if you don't quit #LEARN for the love of Fuck about BDSM like a GROWN UP and stop making your enemies (and bucky) choke you instead #steve rogers"

also, if you like pain slut Steve there's (and I know this is a stucky blog, but if you're enough of a slut for pain slut Steve, you will likely still be down for this stony pairing), "The Least Difficult of Men" by isozyme

I HAVE TO

Lmao, what else could I do? Clearly, the man needs an intervention. Either, someone has to sit him down or we gotta stick him in front of a flat-screen TV and play him copious amounts of porn that involves choking to show him there is literally no difference (especially in nonethical porn that doesn't ever include acknowledgment of consent but that's a different story we're not talking about right now, lol)

Personally, since that post, I can't fucking quit thinking about a universe in which Steve and Bucky have been pining for each other since before the war but never actually bucked up the courage to do anything besides homoerotically wrestle and stare so hungrily and longingly at each other that it made everyone around them on the front uncomfortable, so sex is unknown and awkward and painful for Steve. He doesn't know what to do about it. The person he most wanted to do it with, to him, died. What the fuck does he do with that?

Well...

He gets fixated on things.

He transfers all that sensitivity and shivering and wanting to pain. Surely, the high, hazy sensation he gets after being choked is as close as he'll get to the feeling of orgasm at the hands of another person. Right? Someone else touching him... that drifting yet heavy headspace... how he tingles afterward... yeah? Yeah.

That's sex.

Sex hurts.

He likes it when it hurts.

And I'd like to think Steve puts it together a tiny bit himself, like, after he's choked the first time by the Winter Soldier (before he realizes it's Bucky), and he wakes up the next day with a perfect hand imprint around his throat. Steve presses on it in the mirror and his vision goes white, his dick suddenly way too fucking hard and--and, and he's thought about being fucked before, he's thought about being sucked before, he's thought about fucking before. Now, he's just suddenly thinking about the choking and the fucking happening at the same time and he's hard dizzyingly fast but he's cumming faster. It's mortifying.

He can't think about it after.

He, just, totally consciously blocks it out. Because. What the fuck is wrong with him? He knows he's not normal but all that catholic guilt and internalized homophobia are tangled up so deep inside him tell him that he's tripped and fallen over a line that's too far. He's beyond fucked up.

...Right?

Bucky has to set an intervention with him, later, when he realizes that Steve stares at his metal arm all the fucking time, blushing down to the base of his pretty, pale throat and swallowing thickly. Steve doesn't even know he's doing it. If he did, he wouldn't do it. He's been trying so, so hard (ha) to show Bucky that there's nothing wrong with his prosthetic. It's not terrible, it's not great, it just is. Make peace with it. Yet--

"Got something you wanna share with the class, Rogers?" Bucky finds himself drawling one day, smiling crookedly as he watches Steve start to squirm. His Brooklyn accent is coming back, day by day, and, apparently, that has its advantages.

[i-am-grell]

[Insert Clever Anime Poll Title]

All goes well, I should be caught up with the Blue Exorcist dub tomorrow (last 2 episodes of Blue Night Saga will be watched when they're dubbed), so poll time. Also PSA for anyone who didn't read the tags on that li'l Black Butler post last night: I will be watching that as it's dubbed. I'm not polling Black Butler. I'm using the "it's literally my url" clause and just watching it. (This perk will only be abused for Black Butler and also if we somehow manage to manifest or summon with dark magic more Ouran High School Host Club. Everything else gets shoved in a poll eventually.)

Wow, long intro aside: Hello! I like watching anime and hate making choices, so followers, mutuals, and strangers on the internet get to decide what I watch for me.

Propaganda* (*yapping) below the cut. You're allowed to reblog to yap in the tags, for reach, or third reason. You do not have to know me, follow me, like me, or like/know/have watched any of the options to hit a button.

Propaganda:

One Piece - Please. I miss him. He is my favourite non-Straw Hat character. Give me my slutty Catholic. *grabby hands* This poll option counts for Seasons 14 and 15 / Marineford and Fishman Island (457-578).

Vampire Dormitory - Cross-dressers just love smashing vases, huh?

Romantic Killer - The ace gamer anime of my dreams <3

A Sign of Affection - I've heard that Itsuomi Nagi is such a green flag, and I am so excited to learn why. Also we love positive disability rep in anime <3 (and in media in general).

Your Lie in April - Ngl I'll probably be putting the April Trauma Anime in, like, every other poll this month. You don't have to vote for it if you don't want to, but it's thematic and who am I to ignore a Theme? Anyway, to make it enticing: I've never watched this, idk why it's traumatizing, and I'm ready to go in super blind and find out.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End - Is it a good button phrase? No. Will I ever pass up a chance to reference Elf Practice, the Best Tumblr Meme? Also no.

[ineffable-opinions]

Kaathal – The Core

[ Available for streaming on Amazon Prime. This is an appreciation post. A proper criticism by experts linked at the bottom of this post.

CW: heterosexism PSA: Hema Committee Report

This post is my 2nd contribution (1st can be found here) to the conversation regarding Indian queer media that started in October 2024. I recommend this post by @neuroticbookworm and this post by @nihilisticcondensedmilk as well as this compilation by @starryalpacasstuff before reading this.

Throughout this post by the term Nasrani, I mean Roman Catholic Syrian Christians.]

Love, the Core

The title of the movie is very interesting. Kaathal (കാതല്‍) in Malayalam refers to the heartwood of a tree. Hence, it can mean pith or core (as the subtitle suggests). It is homophonous with the Tamil word kaathal (காதல்) which means love. Average Malayali audience is familiar enough with the word kaathal as love to make that association faster than with heartwood. This bit of word play conveys that it is love that’s at the core of the movie. And that the queerness central to the movie is practically essential.

Catholic Background

The movie opens on a Sunday Mass and we get first glimpse of several important characters as the camera pans through the crowd to the accompaniment of the continuation of the third g’hanta prayer, the one that follows the Institution Narrative, that praises the grace bestowed upon the human kind. The order in which we get a glimpse of the characters is also important, I think, especially considering the distance from alter. While this scene is easy to forget, it establishes which community they belong to - Nasranis as indicated by the East Syriac Rite liturgy. The particular prayer choice is interesting:

Forgiving our debts, You sanctified us sinners, enlightened our minds, defeated our enemies, and glorified our frail nature by Your immense grace.

Tight-knit & Rurban

 In the next scene we get a glimpse of how tight-knit their community is through a conversation about pork sharing[1]. This is followed by Femy, Mathew's daughter, hitching a ride on someone’s scooter indicating she studies out of town and is back home to spend whatever is left of the weekend. The scene between Omana and Femy foreshadows that Omana’s silence on the matter of divorce is going to be a thorn in the upcoming election campaign.

Sibin drags Mathew to try and break off an inter-class heterosexual couple whose love affair is disapproved by the woman’s family, for the man is a migrant worker. The intention is to secure Mathew four votes from the family through Mathew’s intervention. Sibin informs that the Local Committee has decided that Mathew would be their party’s candidate in the by-election in ward 3. When Mathew inquires if that’s their party's stand on love, Sibin doesn’t sugar-coat the fact that on the ground the party has to appease the conservative politics of their core vote bank (working-class folks like Rajan) in spite of their more liberal views online. Ironically, Mathew stands up for the couple and right behind him stands his own paramour, Thankan.

Less-Discussed Facets of Queer Life – The Wife*

Kaathal focuses on Omana, who was unwittingly married to an androphilic man, as much as it focuses on queerness, outing and heterosexism in general. While it's not rare for movies to have queer characters in Malayalam, it's very rare to have movies which focus on queer characters and even rarer for the focus to be on their spouses. My Life Partner (2014) and the bio-pic about the poet Kamala Das, Aami (2018) are the only other such Malayalam movies as far as I can remember and the married man in both these movies were ambiphilic (aka bisexual).

Omana struggles in their marital life for two decades and we meet her when she's trying to get a divorce from Mathew. In an unfortunate twist of events, her submission to the court which was supposed to be a private thing, becomes public knowledge and topic of discussion since Mathew is a candidate in the by-election to ward 3 of Teekoy panchayath**. Since there is no other election happening at that time, all energy and gossip is focused on this particular candidate’s scandalous divorce procedure. It becomes public knowledge way too fast and even before she could explain herself, everything basically goes out of control. While Mathew is reasonably upset with her, we learn during the court procedure that he was always reluctant to discuss divorce.

Omana is a stand-in for all the women who are married to men who are not gynephilic and therefore have to struggle in the marriage because their emotional and sexual needs are not met. Kaathal is not the only movie discussing this in the recent years. We have seen two very famous movies Dear Ex (2018) and The Blue Caftan (2022) which talks about the same topic but from very different angles.

Dear Ex is about the relationship between a woman and her husband’s paramour after her husband is dead and the insurance money goes to that male lover. The male lover has been the one who was taking care of her husband when he was very ill and she reels from the doubt whether her husband ever loved her.

In The Blue Caftan, the wife is about to die and she implicitly gives permission for her husband to pursue the young apprentice whom she did not like in the first part of the movie but later warms up to when she realise she mistook him and accused him of things that he didn't do (for which she feels guilty) as well as the support he offers when he finds out that she is ill and helps her husband take care of her despite the husband backing off when things got murky between them. The young apprentice returns to take care of her and their shop - their dreams and legacy.

In Kaathal, no-one is dying. The movie is very idyllic in an odd, tearful way despite the drama. (Probably Malayali folks are moved to tears just by seeing Mammootty cry and the effect might not be the same on non-Malayalis.) It is about the woman getting divorce and the couple moving on with their lives. This sort of happy ending which is a little too unrealistic considering overall tone leans towards realism.

Adultery Situation

While it is not okay for Omana's affidavit to have leaked and for Thankan to be outed, there are very few precedents to the legal battle she was entering. Daniel Crasto vs The State of Maharashtra (an actual case referenced in the movie) is what inspired advocate Ameera to move the court in a manner that would allow for divorce proceedings to not take a decade as it did with the case referenced (filed in 2009, final judgement in 2019). The courtroom sequences in the movie are set up to be informational and gives answers to a lot of questions that are obvious to arise. I wish the movie had mentioned the circumstances of decriminalization of adultery (Joseph Shine v. Union of India (2018)) in India and how that too plays into the divorce procedure.

Omana had already discussed the matter with her daughter as well as with her mother. But the men in her life are kept out of the conversation before filing the case since the previous experience are not exactly confidence inspiring. Having discussed it with her father and not getting any support or reassurance, Omana is set up to be the 21st century foil to Alice from K. G. George’s iconic movie Adaminte Vaariyellu (1984) where interestingly, Mammooty’s character was the paramour.

Malayali Christian Masculinities

While Omana’s father, Philip, is only mentioned, his presence looms large in spite of him being dead and gone. He is a reflection of the type of Nasrani hyper-masculinity that had been dissected through many Malayalam movies including RDX, Joji, Appan and Aarkkariyam in recent years. Omana’s brother, Tomy, struggles to break out of the mold he was raised in and tries to be a supportive elder towards the end.

Given the kind of patriarchy she was raised under, it is not surprising Omana had kept quiet for so long, raised their child together and put in effort to hide their marital troubles and to lead a harmonious seeming life in front of others.

An important dimension to Omana, comes from her relationship with her father-in-law, Devassy***. The depiction of their relationship is inline with a trend in recent Malayalam cinema, where characters’ relationships with their parent(s)-in-law outwears those with their spouses and lovers. In The Teacher (2022), the woman’s mother-in-law (a local Communist leader) supports her decision to separate from her son as well as enlists the help of a thug (one of my favourite queer side characters who has the most delightful pairing with a super jealous, law-bending cop) to help her exact revenge. Meanwhile, in Ullozhukku (2024) the woman decides to leave her paramour for her mother-in-law.

Devassy represents a different type of masculinity which we also see reflected in Mathew. This form of Nasrani masculinity too is a familiar flavour in Malayalam cinema, like in the excellent Maheshinte Prathikaaram (2016). Omana finds in him a father whom she did not have but dearly wished for. They partake in the same pain ever since Femy was born and Mathew did not show up to bring Omana home as he was busy taking care of Thankan. (It is customary for women to return to their native home (Omana’s native home is in Meppara) when they are pregnant, especially during their first pregnancy, and to return to their patrilocal or neolocal residence after the baby is born.) Devassy’s political leanings, especially him abandoning centrist UDP (stand-in for the Indian National Congress-led UDF alliance) during the days of Emergency and joining CRP (stand-in for the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led LDF alliance), is also indicative of the left-leaning values he held. It is also interesting to note that Devassy had thought to take Mathew to a doctor when he learned that he is androphilic (an approach indicative of the time as it was before homosexuality was depathologized).

Another brand of Christian masculinity get a passing mention when Mathew's sister calls Devassy to complain about the loss of social capital her probably un(der)employed husband faces abroad who has to renegotiate his masculinity at every step as a migrant. Men lose their purpose when they move abroad with their bread-winner wives since they are raised with certain values and motivations that are difficult to unlearn. They seek and find solace in their community gatherings. Loss of social capital gets reflected in their lives abroad too and social auditing would make their lives difficult.

Husband, Lover, Wife

Omana loves Mathew deeply. They have actually found companionship in each other. The platonic love between them is hinging on mendacity and selfishness. They have been with each other for a good chunk of their lives and Mathew is reluctant to let go of Omana. When she chooses to free herself from their entanglement, it is also to liberate Mathew from the shackles they have bound themselves with.

Thankan on the other hand is completely disempowered in this particular scenario. As his friend, Rajan Mesthiri points out Matthew has wealth that he would inherit from his father whereas he has nothing. Because of this scandal, he was losing social capital and has to survive cruel homophobia everywhere - in the junction, at his place of work and even on the wall of his yard where miscreants engrave slur (kundan). This is on top of him struggling with loneliness and deprivation of love. A particularly harrowing sequence is of him packing snacks on behalf of the shopkeeper to give to Devassy who dotes on his daughter-in-law and buys her favorite snacks daily. Among the love denied to Thankan is that fatherly affection reserved for one's child's spouse.

 Thankan is all on his own. He is a working-class man who lives by himself before his nephew, Kuttayi, took refuge there. There isn't any other familial support system. People are willing to send their daughters for driving classes with him due to a twisted form of benevolent heterosexism.

Meanwhile, Mathew has lots of people offering him support and stand with him, denying allegations and supporting him as a queer candidate, even though he doesn’t appreciate that.

Mathew doesn't hang out with Thankan in the public eye. He sticks to the story that they are just acquaintances and people would believe that since their dalliances happen in Pullikkanam (a village in Kottayam-Idukki border) and in Teekoy they are just acquaintance. The only visible connection between them other than longing stares and campaign notice is a framed school photo of them that hangs in their respective homes. They have been lovers since their school days and have been hiding that fact as much as they could.

It is like Thankan is being left behind. The kind of deprivation of social capital along with childlessness indicates that no one is going to take care of him in his hour of need. Mathew receives a lot of support from party members and others and lot of people come to his rescue, partly due to him having served in their service co-operative bank for more than two and half decades.

Co-operative banks, unlike commercial banks, are run locally by elected members and provide financing that the community requires. Since those involves a lot of trust and relies on social capital, the discretion exercised by bankers is crucial in risk-assessment and in securing credit to those who need it. In November, you could find co-operative societies and banks in Kerala decorated with rainbow flags (the ones with seven colour, different from the queer-pride rainbow flags).

Progressive versus Realpolitik

There is strong anti-incumbency in ward 3 as indicated by displeasure over lack of infrastructural development, a bridge in a notable case. Tomy's construction job dreams hinge on Mathew's victory. Moreover, in the challenging times (rise of Hindutva), CRP needs to strengthen itself.

The realpolitik is in how the Communist party, CRP, sides with Mathew and doesn't reach out to Thankan, one among proletariat they supposedly stand with. It is also in how they pander to the conservative views of their vote bank. It is there in choosing Mathew, a Catholic, to represent party in the election in hopes of winning over Nasrani voters in their ward. It is in asking Mathew to speak to the vicar about this matter. It is also in their attempt to demonstrate their stance on personal liberty by insisting Mathew should contest and they are making a statement by fielding ‘a candidate like him’ in the election. It is in how the party is politicizing and employing an outed man’s identity without consulting with him first while knowing that it is putting so much additional pressure on him. This can be seen as a critique of leftist political movements in Kerala from leftist creators including Jeo Baby and Mammooty.

Owning the Narrative

The movie has a member of Queerla meet with Mathew outside of the family court. (Queerla is one of Kerala’s organisations focused on the welfare of sexual and gender minorities. The others are Queerythm and Sahayathrika.) But under those circumstances, he is not in a position to welcome the help the organisation could offer him. Eventually, after reconciliation with his father, after having to confront the fact that he was losing the case and Omana, that he comes to his senses and allows himself to realise that he might not be on the right track and that he can come out, that too with Omana insisting that he should also be free for she cares and loves him. So, he lets her go, accompanies her to Meppara, to her native home and invites Thankan fully into his life. Omana and Mathew continue to support each other.

When Mathew comes out through a video that Femy shoots for him, it becomes a state-level news. The fact is that Kerala is yet to have any openly (there have been closet cases) queer candidates win elections. Maybe we will have such a candidate in the future. The actor who plays the role of Femy in the movie is openly bisexual.

Church, the non-Monolithic Presence

Teekoy vicar is presented as an open-minded person. But, he is an exception. Bishop House and the church committee do not share his opinions on the matter of divorce and non-heterosexual union. However, the bible verses and prayers place emphasis on truly open-minded and all-embracing religiosity.

Trivia

There are multiple reasons why this movie is to Little Hearts (2024) what Great Indian Kitchen is to Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey and would make for an excellent pair watching.

There has been complaints that we missed out on a chance to watch Mammooty romance with a man. So, here's the kiss scene between Mammooty and Mohanlal in Nanayam (1983).

[* Chinese use the term tongqi (同妻) to refer to a woman married to a gay man. Beard is a close enough term but doesn't convey the information asymmetry. There are no such popular terms in Malayalam.]

[** Administration in India is divided between union government, state governments/union territories and panchayat/municipalities/municipal corporations. Teekoy (and all other locations in the movie are real locations in Kerala) is an actual panchayat (a village consisting of sub-divisions called wards) in the state of Kerala. The elected representative (referred to as member) of ward 3 was Kurian (of UDP) and it is to fill his seat after his passing that the ward is facing a by-election soon.

While Kerala has multiple parties with varying ideologies, most important among them are those which form part of the two alliances that have ruled the state: Left Democratic Front and United Democratic Front. CRP and UDP are stand-ins for these two in the movie. Biggest political part in the world, BJP, although is part of the ruling collision (NDA) in the union government as well as in several state governments, is not as significant as the others in Kerala, especially in state legislature. BJP is represented by DJP in postures. In places such as Teekoy their influence is even less significant and remains so in the movie too.]

[*** Devassy is the Malayalam variant of name Sebastian.]

[1] Pig being a large enough animal to involve more than a family to finish it off.

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I am yet to choose between Gaami (2024) and Moothon (2019) for my next appreciation post. If you decide to watch Gaami, please feel to ask about content warnings. I think it is better to watch the movie without reading about it.

Indian Queer Media: Little Hearts | Kaathal the Core | Gaami | Mumbai Police |

[mallahanmoxie]

the stage lights. the big screen. it looks like an apple product presentation. amazing.

[aryastark-valarmorghulis]

I love making lists, so I decided to make an IWTV / VC Fic Rec 🖤(Psa: I tend to avoid Wips unless I trust the author 100% and I usually prefer one shots). 

I’m still fairly new to the fandom, so this will be an odd mix of old and new stories. In no particular order:

AMC IWTV

Loustat: 

Go Fetch God by bluebloodbruise (E): everyone knows and loves this one, and with good reason.

someone buy me roses by indigostohelit (E): catholic guilt and smut and dry humour, what more can you want.

wilting, withering by baberainbow @baberainbowao3 (E) and a simmering pot of resentments by louisredsuit @louisredsuit (E): emotional sex and angst set during ep. 5. On the same theme, also “You just need to put it somewhere” by  Komilk (E)

vein by vein by morian @nonagethimus (M): meditative and artsy, my fav kind of fic.

It must be by his death by undecimber @undecimber-of-joy (M): why Lestat must die + great prose.

Human AUs: pocketsun’s @thefairylights Coffee shop fic (E) and prouvaireafterdark’s @prouvaireafterdark Ethic Professor Louis (E)fic

Armand/Daniel:

Enough to Turn a Body to Stone by Nothing_But_Paisley (E) and platform double suede by inthebelltower (E): sex, drugs and rock’n roll in the 70s 

Perfection by bandedbulbussnarfblat @bandedbulbussnarfblat (E) & I love you like an alcoholic by quensty (E) & all I got left by flowerplots (E) & show you mine by circlegame @appleisms (M): armand seeking out middle-aged daniel to fuck and then making him forget afterwards era (cit. flowerplots)

VC Books

Armand/Daniel:

Literally everything by apoptoses but especially Pale Shelter (E, Devil’s Minion era) and Blood Sanation (E, post Prince Lestat)

The Lotus Eater by monstersinthecosmos (E): Devil’s Minion at its best/worst.

Loustat: A Private Exhibition by Emileesaurus (E): it’s a classic for very good reasons.

Note: I also like Lesmand and Loumand but, like I said, I’m still fairly new and I haven’t read that much. If you have any good recs, please send them to me 🖤

[moxie-starre]

Ok I’m not posting the next design today cuz ya boi is tired so how about I lore dump instead? Cool? Cool.

(Btw this AU was brought on by a long hyperfixation on the GUILTY TEARS AU by NotExactlyLaborious so go watch that and I’ll be trying make it as different from that as possible I promise 😅)

VIRGIL/ANXIETY:

Design Inspired by: honestly idk I just thought the mask was cool

Videos would be inspired by: LaceyGames or maybe The Painter (except not done completely awfully/imo)

Virgil is 100% convinced Thomas is a horrible person, but is now untrusting towards anyone’s ideas on how to improve him. He desperately tries to warn Thomas of what he’s ‘becoming,’ but isn’t sure how to make him listen except fear. Logan isn’t around to help Virgil anymore so he’s on his own.

PATTON/VIRTUE

Design: Old rubber hose/ horror mascots like The Cartoon Cat with some Spinel inspiration , as well as general Priest-wear

Videos: imagine old black and white PSAs or those fucked-up church/cult cartoons. Obviously, spooks ensue

Patton is also convinced that Thomas is a bad person, which make him go full catholic. He tries to convince Thomas using the imagery of heaven and hell, which only fuels his anxiety (virgil is always suffering:)). All the while, Patton is trying to act as Thomas’s Temporary Logic, which means he had even MORE control, which means Virgil is a gust of wind away from a nervous breakdown.

ROMAN/pride

Design: alternates/doplgangers (Mandela catalogue)

Videos: I’m not 100% sure rn but I’ll think of something soon

Reminder: Thomas(in universe) is a content creator, so a lot of his LIVELIHOOD depends on his creativity and his ability to make. Roman, however, has deemed himself unworthy of having the title “creativity” after Thomas learns about Remus. He thinks Thomas is going to replace him, that he has no further role as creativity. Janus has convinced him that he’s the reason Thomas is a bad person, and so he’s distracted himself with trying to prove his worth as a good person, while also trying to reclaim the role of Creativity, even though Thomas never said he wasn’t (cuz even in horror, he’s still extra). All of the stress causes his body to break, becoming abstract art.

Playlist for this AU:

Virgil-

AMYGDALAS RAGDOLL-Ghost

YGIO-MiaRissy

IRREVERENT GIRL-WeevilDoing

Patton-

HAPPY DAYS-Ghost

LOVE-Creepp

MISS MISERYGUTS-the Rip

Roman-

CALIBER GIRL-Weevidoing

KARAKURI PIERO-40mp

GOMENNE-Kikuo

Also I’m calling this AU INNOCENCE LOST if anyone was wondering lol