#problems of a side b catholic

[side-b-support-squad]

I would love so much to read Eve Tushnet's books but I can't think of any way to get them without my parents finding out and that'd lead to a conversation I would rather die than have 😅

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 1 - Side B

Propaganda below ⬇️

Matt

Matt's faith in the show is really important and well explored; one of the first scenes of the show is Matt going to confession (or, well, talking to his priest since he's not really confessing at that point). Matt struggles a lot with what he's supposed to do; everyone's telling him to kill the villain and he kinda wants to, but he literally says: "I know my soul is damned if I take his life". He struggles with his faith and goes with his doubts to his priest, and it's beautiful—also when he finally gets a costume for his vigilanteing he chooses to dress as the devil, lol. (His priest tells him that nothing makes people run to Church faster than the feeling of having the devil on their heels.)

a lot of the show is about how he justifies his vigilante actions with his faith, and whether he's doing the right thing in trying to help people or just using it as an outlet for his anger. the literal first scene of the show has him in a confession booth talking to his priest (who is a really interesting character too). this is not the scene I was talking about but it's such an excellent scene with matt talking to his priest: https://youtu.be/XHZ3NbEIDdw

canonically catholic but dresses like a demon to be quirky

honestly i dont wanna type too much but i feel that matt is a great example of someone who battles with his faith because he rarely loses his faith but rather fights with why he was made the way he was and put through what he was. He believes himself to have the devil inside him but believes that God put him there

ok in the comics barring the most current run matt has Mostly been a non-practicing Catholic that very rarely actually does any catholic Activities but ends up falling back into the Mindset and very occasionally dramatically taking confession (ex. in that one issue where he takes confession, basically tells the father that he is uniquely terrible and is thinking about violently murdering someone and when the father says "you can be forgiven" hes like "AUGFH-- NO!!!!!!!!!!" and runs out) when he's gone through some shit. and i love that its so relatable

hello its me cct organizer. i have to come clean, i made this tournament because i need matt to win something. i dont think hell win the sadboy and he lost the ginger tournament and >:( hes my favoritest guy ever. Also @ who said he has religious trauma is wrong and i will fight u about it (nicely) on my main @usaigi

This guy so catholic he spends an ungodly amount of time just chilling in the church. And goes there whenever there is a moral conundrum about killing people being Bad even though it would solve a lot of problems and stop said people from killing other people. This happens every other episode. Matt is the Catholic Guilt Guy. There's actually a lot of catholic stuff in the show as a whole. Just a compilation would be like three whole episodes long.

Hes great hes catholic enough to not outrught murder people but not catholic enough to not fuck before marriage hes a bisexual disaster at all times hes besties with a priest might i add hes great hes my special little guy

his catholicism is a huge piece of his characterisation he was raised by nuns in a catholic orphanage, the first scene we ever see him (as an adult and not a flashback) is him going to confession, he is good friend with his priest and has regular debates with him, etc also in s3 he has a huge crisis of faith after he lost A Lot where he stops believing for a while and it's linked to his identity crisis where he actually wants to kill another person (a hard line he previously chose never to cross) and wants to be only daredevil and not matt murdock, when he is both and needs both to exist also when he was a kid his grandmother used to say "watch out for the murdock boys, they've got the devil in them" and it created a surprising lot of his issues

So he's both catholic in the comics and the show but he's More Catholic in the show. Like, raised in a catholic orphanage by nuns (ONE OF WHICH IS HIS *MOTHER*), second scene in the show has him in a confession box kind. Matt Murdock goes out and gets the shit beaten out of him nightly and also beats the shit out of other people and purposefully leaned into devil iconography as his theme. When his nurse friend says, he takes a lot of punishment without one complaint he says "That part's the Catholicism." It is a Core Aspect of his character (at least in the show). He makes me insane. Also the same chemicals that blinded him created the teenage mutant ninja turtles and everyone should know that.

They went to confession to a priest who they had saved as their costumed counterpart and the guy recognized them by the voice, proving that it's possible and everyone else is just dumb

he takes "i wanna fight god" to new and incredibly violent levels, while also being a sweetheart and a goofball

Actually strictly WILL NOT kill criminals. Goes wayyy out of his way to avoid it. Fights with the Punisher about it. Goes to confession booth after nightly vigilante excursions. Feels so much guilt. "How have you been holding up?" "Like a good Caltholic boy" "that bad huh" - actual conversation with his priest

So Daredevil struggles with his mission as a crime fighter because killing criminals goes against his faith. He makes it a point to not kill criminals, believing that even bad people deserve a second chance. This philosophy puts him at odds against The Punisher, who is a relentless killer. As a Catholic myself, while I love the concept of a morally conflicted superhero, I think the worldbuilding around Daredevil is lacking. If he struggles with violence and killing, why doesn't he pray to warrior saints like Saint Michael, Saint Ignatius of Loyola (a former knight), or Saint Joan of Arc? Why isn't there a community of other Catholics he can turn to for guidance, considering New York City has a sizeable population of Catholics? And why are the churches he goes to always empty? Doesn't he know that the Catholic Church supports the just war theory? I think that would have made his burden more bearable.

He goes to church and confesses to punching people and says "imma do it again can i apologize in advance" and the father dude says "no you're meant to stop now" and Matt says "no" and they do this everyday. I'm not remembering it properly but this is a canon interaction i swear

HELLO HI YES I LOVE HIM AND WILL INFOR DUMP ok so. he is a vigalantty and he got named daredevil and he is an orphan and after the age of 12 was raised in an orphanage at a Catholic church and his therapist is his priest via confession abd. also his mother is a nun he has a whole mental breakdown over god and called Job a pussy because he liked god until he got better and liked god again he said "I'm dearedrvil and not even god can stop that now" and he's so cool

matt is a freakish little babygirl who was raised by nuns and definitely has religious trauma. i hate him so much (affectionately)

he’s literally fucking insane about it i don’t know what to say here. he thinks he’s chosen by god to go on some sort of holy quest to save hell’s kitchen. joan of arc ass.

i already know hes in by default j just wanted to give him a personal shout out i love this angsty catholic dweeb

how practicing he is depends on the run, but in my favorite he is quite literally confessing to a member of the last extant order millitant who happens to be a priest at a church in hells kitchen.

i love him for having the funniest version of a trope i usually hate (person gets into confession booth and asks forgiveness not for what they've done, but for what they're about to do). usually this trope just looks silly to me bc like. the priest would just say "i can't do that" and you would have to either awkwardly explain yourself or just Leave. it's funny when matt does it because fr. lantom is probably like "what are you gonna do???" and matt's like "lol. lmao. 😊 hehehe." anyway we love this angry catholic man who dresses up like the devil to beat people up in hell's kitchen

Harrowhark

I'm pretty sure you've already got plenty of submissions for her so I'll just say she was raised in what is basically a cult (technically a nunnery but let's be real) dedicated to keeping the body of the thing that will kill God behind the rock. One of their prayers is actually "I pray the rock is never rolled away". Harrow is extremely devout as penance for her earlier heretical actions in the tomb as a child (spoiler!) so the Catholic guilt really comes through

imagine being a catholic nun and you meet god, but it turns out he’s a twitch streamer from new zealand who became god because everything got a little bit out of hand. and just before you met him you gave yourself a diy grief-fuelled lobotomy with the help of your best frenemy. imagine how insane you’d be. now multiply that insanity by nine. that’s the fictional love of my life right there.

she meets god. she’s not inspired

she’s number one practitioner of space Catholicism. The locked tomb is chock full of Christian (catholic) imagery themes metaphors etc. just look at her she’s got a bone rosary

They're Catholicism with extra bones. Everyone is a nun. They have what is basically a rosary made from knuckle bones. They technically worship the same God as everyone else, but they're waaaay more focused on The Body in the Tomb (Mary) and we get a moment where we find out that while everyone else prays the equivilent of The Lords Prayer, they're doing the equivilent of Hail Mary. And they paint their faces with skulls.

She thinks leaving dry bread in a drawer is taking care of someone. She's in love with a 10,000 year old corpse (the same one they worship). She spent ALL NIGHT digging with her bare hands to make sure a field had bones every 5 feet so she could fight her girlfriend - I mean, greatest enemy. Spoiler territory: She's been puppeting her parents corpses since she was 8 years old. Instead of grieving her dead girlfriend, she gives herself a lobotomy. She makes soup with bone in it so she can use the bone IN THEIR STOMACH to try and kill them.

The author is/was Catholic and the entire series had heavy Catholic overtones. https://www.tor.com/2020/08/19/gideon-the-ninth-young-pope-and-the-new-pope-are-building-a-queer-catholic-speculative-fiction-canon/ A good breakdown of how it's Catholic

[tevanbuckley]

the writers were originally gonna pair tommy up with eddie (which i would have massively preferred btw) so it's not even like they looked at tommy and buck's characters and thought that they would be compatible they literally just went 'this ship is really popular but we're not gonna make TWO characters gay that's crazy, let's just bring back this old throwaway side character and give one of them a cliched coming out story with him, that'll get the queers off our back' and it's working because so many people have so little self respect. anyway i hope tommy dies and buck and eddie fuck nasty on his grave.

how are you going to sit there and say with your whole chest that eddie "catholic guilt comp-het" diaz would have the less cliche coming out arc?

sorry but a storyline about a character in his 30s discovering his bisexuality and struggling with the discomfort he's feeling because he doesn't have a problem with queer people so why is he weirded out by this? Is a much fresher take on a coming out storyline than "sexually repressed man with disapproving religious family realises he's gay", which as much as I love eddie (and that's 100% my reading of his character too) is a very well tread path. i could be wrong but tim's "I wasn't really interested in doing the bravest [coming out] episode of 1985," comment kinda makes me think that's why they decided against an eddie coming out arc.

maybe if you all weren't busy hunting for b*ddie clues you could've seen some of that.

"literally just went 'this ship is really popular but we're not gonna make TWO characters gay that's crazy", oh you were in the production meeting were you? big news if true.

you're the one spending your days watching a show you don't even seem to like and then sending anon hate about it like someone's paying you, out of the two of us who do you think lacks self respect here?

[intrulogical]

remus isn't dumb; a sanders sides essay

i've been struggling to make a cohesive post about this because i feel like most of what i want to say boils down to the same underlying message which is: remus isn't dumb.

i feel like a good chunk of this fandom understands what i mean, at least to a surface level point. but even then, i think too much of the fandom still misinterprets remus' character in a way that, they seem to understand different traits of his, but the way they execute it is still way off from what we see in canon.

(rest of the essay under the cut!)

for example, the biggest thing i see people get wrong would be the way they write remus "lol random" personality. it's true that remus tends to say whatever he wants at any given moment. but, the problem here is that people tend to think remus as random in function. i have no better way to describe this succinctly, so to expound: while remus tends to make left-field jokes a lot, he is shown to be incredibly deliberate, cunning, committed, and intelligent in very subtle ways.

truth is, remus is very goal-oriented, and when he has a goal, oh he strives for that goal. so far, i'm writing this with the last 5 years episode being the most recent substantial episode, so i can't really 100% say all my assumptions of remus are true. actually, i think the upcoming season finale will be the missing link when it comes to providing us with the whole picture of who remus is.

as for now, i just have to stick with my theory of; remus, as a side of thomas' heavily connected to insecurities and mental health issues, intends to shed light on the "darker" sides of thomas because he believes them to be beneficial. throughout dwit, we see remus continuously bolster the idea that his contributions are useful for thomas. this continues in wtit, but with the extra layer of remus wanting logan as well to be in touch with the darker parts of himself to get thomas in line.

it is also heavily implied that remus is well in on whatever janus' plan is to get thomas to be a.) more aware of his mental health issues, and b.) to get thomas to break out of his catholic black and white thinking. in forbidden fruit, it's janus who’s seen permitting remus to present himself to thomas. bigger evidence though, as i've mentioned in the previous paragraph, is the way remus seems to deliberately want logan to manifest his anger against thomas.

of course, we can always say that remus taunted logan "just for fun", but i feel like too much of what happened in wtit seem to point to remus having deeper reasons. for example, wtit exhibits how bad thomas' mental health is to the point that he gets irrationally angry at nico for not replying to his texts. this proves how thomas has been neglecting his mental health, and with the way patton, virgil, and roman held onto toxic selfless ideologies for the longest time, thomas would still, naturally, be lost on what to do. he would even seem to deny how bad things have gotten, especially with the way he acts like nothing bad is happening when he goes to his date with nico.

why am i emphasizing this? well, it's because something i find interesting about remus' character is how deeply cognizant he is of thomas' problems. what i mean by this is, no other side can call out thomas' issues more than remus can. i wrote an essay about this before if you want to check this out, but tldr: remus, as intrusive thoughts, is the most perceptive out of all the sides when it comes to calling out insecurities or problems. we see this come to fruition in wtit when all of the traps he laid out for thomas involved nico in some capacity.

while you can interpret his character as evil for preying on others’ insecurities, i think it's important to acknowledge that, in a sea of people who tend to refuse to talk about their issues, remus is the main guy who constantly brings them to the table. whether remus' intentions are good or not, there's no denying that remus' importance as a side lies in the fact that he serves as a mental health alarm clock for thomas. with the way none of the sides want to communicate with each other, we need someone like remus to cut the bullshit and say things as it is. 

again, we don't really know if he wants to help thomas. but i would like to emphasize that, yes, remus is not dumb. he does not merely make lewd jokes and calls it a day. he has the long-term goal of making everyone talk about more "taboo" topics with each other, and this includes talking about personal grievances the sides tend to suppress or refuse to talk about. lewd jokes are just part of the process.

i think this goal of his is also incredibly visible with the way remus treated logan in wtit. wtit is my favorite sanders sides episode because there's just so much to analyze between remus and logan, but you can check my other essays in regards to that. the main thing i wanted to point out is that what remus says to logan in the end, "woowee logan, now you're speaking my language. but who do you really want to scream that at?", proves he is more deliberate and cunning than he seems.

a lovely bit of analysis my friend orb (@orbmanson7) provided is that remus didn't just pop up in wtit to intervene with thomas' plans. he was there to intervene with logan's. if you've seen my other essays, i've talked about how logan as a side has been dwindling in terms of self-confidence and assertion. this has left a big problem of thomas being more reliant on his emotions, making him ignore the suggestions given by logan that may help with thomas' mental health in the long run. this is not to villainize thomas' mental health crisis, btw. all i want to say is that, remus recognizes how logan's self-restriction is doing no good and deliberately wants to push logan to become more assertive and angry.

that is why he says logan is speaking his language. he wants logan to recognize the merit in the way remus grabs thomas' attention. he wants logan to be like him and cause more havoc. again, we never know how much remus genuinely wants to help thomas, but we know that remus wants everyone to be more exposed to "taboo" things, and this includes logan being more in touch with his angrier side.

besides that, i'd like to mention how, in general, remus tends to be very committed to his goals more than how the fandom typically portrays him? in dwit, remus' main goal was to disturb thomas and the other sides. it's kind of just an introduction to his character. we're not sure if it's part of a bigger plan he and janus devised to get thomas to take care of himself better, but it is a possibility. the only time he gets too random is when logan begins picking apart his arguments. there we see remus only results to super left-field, continuous off-tangent jokes when he's desperate or placed in a lose-lose situation.

another, in wtit, we see how remus understands how to make very long, complicated traps. i think it's a perfect encapsulation of his personality, actually! throughout the episode, we see him make these multilayered traps with a ton of props and preparation just so he can bother thomas with it. it shows that remus is actually less impulsive-oriented as he seems. he even created a schedule he showed to logan detailing everything he wanted to do that day. again, deliberate! he is deliberate and very smart!

other thing i'd like to harken back to is the idea that he's in cahoots with the other dark sides to execute some Big Plan to break thomas out of his black and white thinking. while we don't know how orange acts like yet, we're Very familiar with janus by this point and we can see how long-drawn janus' plan of acceptance is. he's, again, sorry to use the word so many times, very deliberate. i don't even think his plan ends with svs.r, because it does seem like remus is well in on this plan too. in the 5 years video, he also seems to know more than thomas on what else is to come for the future of sanders sides, which implies he has some plans up his sleeve that no one else knows about. like i said, janus has the goal to break thomas out of his black and white thinking. and so far from what we've seen from remus, he also wants the same!

an important factor of remus' character besides his deliberateness is his general need to subvert what "goodness" means. "good and bad are all made up nonsense," he sings in forbidden fruit. throughout dwit he continuously criticizes everything thomas thinks is good or acceptable. in the 5 years video, he argues about how there's no "correct way of sitting". i think this also proves how remus is important as a side because, while not every single one of his beliefs are morally acceptable, he is still able to pick morality apart in a way the other sides are unable to. also, i just think this proves his character as just. generally smart? he's able to pick apart the status quo and moral philosophies, of course he's smart.

just to pick up on a previous point, remus is scarily perceptive. i mentioned this earlier with how remus is able to pick logan apart, but i'd like to add onto it more since i think a lot of people underestimate how crazily perceptive he is. for one, despite not being too close with a bunch of the other sides, he seems to be able to read their insecurities and play them against them really well. we see it in the way he uses virgil's insecurities of being an ex-dark side against him. we see it in the way he picks on patton and thomas' morality crisis against them. we see it in the way roman describes remus as someone being able to show him things he doesn't like about himself. and most importantly, we see it in the way remus constantly reaps the fact that logan isn't listened to to the point that logan snaps. as intrusive thoughts, remus' job is to see what deepest darkest secrets thomas and the sides suppress and use it against them.

at the moment, we don't really know if remus has any weaknesses, although wtit sort of implies that he himself is also quite irritated by the fact that thomas doesn't listen to him. he does a good way of hiding, though, how much of that problem is genuinely affecting him. it makes me think he's also smart in the way he's able to hide his vulnerabilities and true intentions from the other side. he's silly and goofy and lewd and because of that, everyone thinks he's harmless. the sides think he's unserious, and so does the fandom. but deep down, remus really isn't that stupid. 

and LASTLY, when beta reading this essay, orb also mentioned to me about how remus possesses cognitive flexibility in a way roman doesn’t. this isn’t meant to discredit roman of course, but i think it’s important to mention that remus is the side with the least amount of restrictions when it comes to creative liberties. orb mentioned to me how remus is able to connect concepts easily in a way roman doesn’t because remus doesn’t operate under the same self-restrictive mindset. while this obviously would help thomas become more innovative as a creative, i think it’s also important to recognize how much thomas kind of needs it in general. much of the latter half of the series shows thomas dealing with restrictions, especially when it comes to doing good. it would be great benefit for thomas to be able to listen to a side who generally wants to Have a Good Time, and doesn’t abide by rules imposed onto them.

and yes that is my essay on remus 100/10 best character and is not dumb at all. very excited to see him in the finale and i hope y’all’s get your characterizations straight because i need me some good fics 

[vampire-exgirlfriend]

So I’m just going to say it, understanding that people are not going to like it and will in turn, make that my problem. 

There is a right and a wrong way to engage with media. That is actually an inarguable fact. And there is specifically a right and a wrong way to engage with Fire & Blood/House of the Dragon. I feel like the divide between history geek tumblr and lit geek tumblr is only as obvious as it is because I spent years actively engaging in these conversations outside of the internet when I was having my ass handed to me in male-dominated academia. You cannot dismantle or properly critique F&B/HotD from a historical standpoint. It is not a history book. The only accurate way to critique this media is through the viewpoint of literary analysis - and there is plenty to critique through that lens! All media is imperfect, that is the point. The author’s preferences and icks and whatever else will shine through in their writing and opinions, which is what drives (or should drive) these conversations. 

We see so many people coming through taking F&B and holding it up to this idea of “this isn’t how it happened in history/the real world so I must fix it,” which is very much an interesting conversation, but not the one to accurately judge the writing through. It doesn’t matter that Empress Matilda was fighting her cousin for the throne during The Anarchy. Rhaenyra is fighting her brother and George outlines his clear preferences in the text - which is where people start losing their fucking minds. It’s fine that GRRM has a preference for a specific side of this family. You don’t have to agree with him! His whole schtick in the ASOIAF universe is magical women and succession crisis. We see it over and over with Visenya and Aegon, with Maegor and Aenys, with Rhaena and Aerea and Maegor, with Rhaegar and Viserys III, with Dany and Jon and Faegon. And the focus on the historical accuracy in regard to the time periods that inspired certain events in his story takes away imo from the real conversations that could be had about this content. Rhaenyra represents magic in Westeros (her fertility, her dragon’s fertility, etc), while Alicent and the Hightowers represent the active suppression of magic in this universe (the faith of the Seven being an obvious representation of the catholic church, the obvious church vs paganism element). At its core, ASOIAF is a story about magic! It’s fantasy. It’s not history porn. These conclusions can only really be drawn when you start engaging with the material from a literary standpoint as opposed to a historical one. We’re not meant to strip the magic away from this story - the magic is the story.

GRRM’s work is catnip for history nerds, and as a history nerd who is friends with tons of history nerds, and it’s so fun to discuss the intricacies of our history vs the history we see in Westeros. But to use history to tear apart the work and claim that GRRM is plain wrong for writing it this way is not what this should be about. This isn’t a historical text, it’s a fantasy series. GRRM gets things wrong and as an author asks “look the other way because this is fiction.” We can’t hold the events of the Dance to a historical standard because GRRM created the laws and traditions of Westeros as their own thing. Viserys was not breaking law by naming Rhaenyra heir, just as Jaehaerys was not breaking law by letting a bunch of feudal dork lords name his heir. They were both simply going against tradition and the consequences of those choices is what makes it fun. Embrace the whimsy, people. 

And then we have the introductions of headcanon as gospel. This is something that is absolutely rampant in this fandom (that’s what happens when you have two years between seasons and very little promo and people start getting bored and feral). Headcanons are fun. We love them. In a fandom that’s pushed forward during the drought by fic, they abound! But they aren’t an accurate way to judge and measure the canon material. So many people are falling into the boredom trap of a few BNFs pushing their headcanons in fic (which is the place for headcanons). But to take headcanons over canon, over the information that the original author has given us is…well it’s not fucking cool and it doesn’t help. It actively tears apart the fandom and grinds to dust any conversation we can have about the canon material. Canon is where the blorbo comes from, canon needs to be considered above the fun headcanons that are birthed in the boredom. You want to blame all the bad things on Daemon because he’s 100% evil and nothing but a menace? Okay, well, there’s no canon basis for that. You don’t have to like him, he can just be GRRM’s special little boy, that’s fine! But that is a headcanon and not based on the canon material. You blame Alicent for everything that happened in the Dance because she’s a proto-Cersei and it’s all her fault. Well, okay. Again, no basis for that in the text or the show. You’re actually crying on your lunchbreak over the idea of Aemond potentially betraying Aegon in s2 because your special boy that’s been manufactured in the fanfic factory would never. Well, F&B says differently. And the level of upset that comes when people disagree with these takes is just getting batshit bananas because we’re all understandable desperate for content. 

You have to have an understanding of the canon material. Without it, what are we even doing here? An understanding of how to engage with any kind of media is necessary. And guess what? It doesn’t take the fun out of it, it just lends to a deeper understanding of the themes that GRRM has been playing with for over 30 years at this point. And those themes, not just the history they are nebulously inspired by or the blorbo that gets you hottest under the collar, are the basis for the material we love and deserve to be treated with respect. 

Tl:dr ignoring canon in favor of history porn or headcanons is lame and irresponsible. No one can stop you, but we can judge you. 

[racefortheironthrone]

I saw not long ago that the Duke of Norfolk is still a thing, and he's the #1 Duke outside the ones who are made up for being the King's close family, and he's a Howard descended from the guy who died at Bosworth and the Howards have been the top Catholic family in the UK for centuries. How did that work when Catholicism was illegal, and also BOTH the wives Henry VIII killed were members of that family? Why didn't Henry or a devout king take them out? Why didn't they go down with the Stuarts?

Great question!

The Howards have always had a remarkable talent for getting themselves into and out of trouble - the former because they were ambitious noblemen who aspired to high office and dynastic marriage alliances with the royal family, the latter because they were rich and powerful noblemen who were good at laying low for a while and coming up with a good plan b.

So to take Thomas Howard, his father and grandfather had gambled heavily on Richard III and lost almost everything when the Tudors came to power. However, Thomas managed to marry Anne of York, which gave the Howards a blood tie to the Tudors, and a route back into power as Lord Admiral. Highly successful military service against the Scots made Thomas an Earl and thereafter he was the Tudors' go-to military man in Ireland and France.

Then Thomas gambled again with Anne Boleyn, and when that ended disastrously, he very carefully made sure he ended up on the right side of things by presiding as judge over the trials of Anne Boleyn's "lovers." His prestige nevertheless took a hit and he had to spend some time away from court before eventually being recalled to deal with the Pilgrimage of Grace. (Notably, despite being the leader of the Catholic faction, Thomas had no problem with promoting his Protestant niece or brutally suppressing the Catholic Pilgrimage.)

After bringing down Cromwell, Thomas achieved his zenith of power by bringing about Henry's marriage to Catherine Howard. That gamble ended disastrously when Catherine's adultery was found out, leading to Thomas being exiled from court. He later found his way back into power, only to be thrown into the Tower along with his son and the rest of the Catholic faction when the Seymours came to power. And so it went.

As to the issue with Catholicism, the thing to keep in mind is the "middle way" that the English Reformation pursued. When the dust had settled between the conflict between Edwardian Calvinists and Marian Catholics or crypto-Catholics, Elizabeth I's settlement didn't quite outlaw Catholicism. Catholic "recusants," as they were known in the statues, were fined for not attending Church of England services, but a wealthy family like the Norfolks could afford to pay. Now, it wasn't exactly safe - Thomas' son Henry Howard the Earl of Surray got himself executed by Henry VIII due to his extreme political stupidity, and his son Thomas got executed for trying to overthrow Elizabeth I in favor of Mary Queen of Scots, and his son Philip died of disease in the Tower of London, where he had been jailed for being a Catholic and plotting with Jesuits, although Philip's son actually did quite well as a diplomat and courtier under James I in part because the two shared interests in collecting art.

And so it went...

[findingrome1]

Peace be with you all friends, happy All Hallows Eve to you!! This will be a somewhat lengthy post because I think I have some ideas worth sharing.

So for those of you who don't know All Hallow's Eve is the day before all saints day. The day when the Church remembers her saints. The Catholic and Orthodox churches alongside high church protestants observe the day as to keep alive the memory of those who gave their lives to the faith, either working tirelessly to spread the Gospel, help us to understand the nature of God better, or literally gave their lives in witness for the Gospel.

A few saints outside of the Bible I think are worth sharing.

Saint Athanasius- 5x exiled for defending the divinity of Christ and kept fighting heresy.

Saint Anslem- Theologian who made the ontological argument of God.

Saint Patrick- Herald of God's kingdom to Ireland.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe- Took the place of a married Jewish man destined to be killed in WW2 at the cost of his life.

Saint Justin Martyr- Early Church Father who recklessly defended the Christain faith, to the point of writing letters to the Roman Emperor to debunk rumors. This cost him his life.

Sadly (at least to me) this day marks the anniversary of when Dr. Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses, which contained 95 points of protest against the perceived and real problems occurring within the Roman Catholic church. Ofc the indulgences scheme to build Saint Peter's Basicillia comes to mind yet there was plenty of clerical and liturgical abuses, inconsistentcy in training for the priesthood going on too. I am not going to talk about why I think the Catholic position is more correct. Plenty of smart people have done this before me. What I will offer are a few ideas to foster deeper unity.

Working in common interest- while having deep differences Catholics, Orthodox and Lutherans share a common foundation and values. For example Christian orthodoxy (just right belief, not the churches) rejects aborti0n. Think about how much more of a statement it would be if Catholics and Protestants if instead of holding separate marches were one big march at state capitals?

Learning from one another- As Thomas Aquinas said "All truth, is God's truth". While I don't believe God intended his beloved Church to fracture this to me seems very human. God works with human errors as he did with Israel when they fractured, God's grace and power works through all who strive to know him. While I am Catholic I still consume non-Catholic Christian media. For example on Youtube the Lutheran Pastor Jordan B. Cooper, makes videos about the Lutheran confession explaining it. These videos help inform me so I don't strawman Lutherans and I better understand the Catholic faith by seeing the differences. Furthermore he makes other videos especially on etiquette which is informative.

Talk to each other- similar to my first point, but different enough to be worth mentioning. If we talk to each other, it will do so much good. When we talk to each other it will break down prejudices and enlighten both parties quickly. We will see each other as more than souls 'on the wrong side' but friends who we value and care to learn more about.

I hope this post gives some helpful thoughts. May the love of Jesus Christ that surpasses all understanding br with you all.

[onbearfeet]

As requested, here are a few Monster Mash asks based on the "oc asks: not-so-nice edition" list. You decide which characters they're for.

What is a surprising thing your character hides?

What does your character do when they should be sleeping but can't?

What's the worst wound your character has experienced? It can be physical or emotional.

Mwahahahahahaaaaaaa. I think I'll do multiple characters. WARNING: There's mature content in this one, and it's not just canon-typical violence. See the tags if you're worried.

What is a surprising thing your character hides?

Ted has a really beautiful singing voice, even in Man-Thing form. He no longer has the physical equipment to form words in any human language, though, so he's sensitive about it and doesn't let on that he still enjoys singing. But he's sung more than a few lullabies to Jack when he's been asleep or in a coma or whatever. And Alpine gets funny little children's melodies or goofy love songs when it's just the two of them. She accepts this as no less than the worship she deserves, of course.

Elsa is shockingly generous and tells no one but her accountant about it. She inherited an absolutely stupid amount of money from her father's estate, and she IMMEDIATELY stopped using his fortune to fund his "crusade", so she's essentially sitting on a dragon's hoard. She took almost nothing with her when she ran away, so she's lived poor for most of her adult life and is deeply sympathetic to other people in that situation, not that she'll admit it. She had her finance pro shut down the murder-cult fund and set up a clean new fund to support whatever charity she damn well pleases. She's still trying to think of ideas and will probably ask the boys eventually, but just for a start, every public library in the state got a healthy donation, and every shelter she stayed in that treated its inhabitants halfway decently got a bigger one. She's also looking into funding--founding, if she has to--an organization defending the rights and interests of homeschooled children, especially those in high-control environments. Elsa was homeschooled for much of her education according to Ulysses' rather eccentric tastes, and she had to teach herself an awful lot of actual education out of the library. And that's before all the trouble she had as a non-emancipated minor who didn't have her own copies of her identity documents.

God, what DOESN'T Jack hide? He's been alive long enough that there's a huge gray zone of stuff he might have failed to mention because he doesn't want people to know OR because it just never came up. He obviously hasn't discussed his family of origin in detail, at least not with Elsa or Bucky, but I don't consider that surprising. I'm tempted to say his hidden side is something sweet and wholesome, but that's not surprising either. If I said he was hiding something terrible he or the wolf had done, that probably wouldn't surprise most people at all. If I had to guess ... the only SURPRISING thing I can think of is his spirituality, which is complex and deeply personal to him. His family might have been Orthodox, but he's got a lot of Catholic guilt written all over him, and the curse only complicates that more. I don't think he's talked to anyone about what he does or doesn't believe in a hundred years or more. He certainly hasn't talked to me.

Bucky was a sex worker in a time-displaced brothel. Okay, that's both a joke AND an oversimplification, but the first thing I thought of when I saw this question was that Bucky had the same problem as Jack: old, complicated, obviously full of both good traits and horrible trauma so nothing is SURPRISING. Then I remembered that around 2016, I handwrote a story establishing that Bucky had worked for a while as an artist at Lady Sally's. If you've never read Spider Robinson's Callahan books, they're a series of short SF stories and novels centered on a bar run by (spoiler alert) a time traveler who's trying to save the world retroactively by preventing the Cold War from going hot. They are brilliant and hilarious and they formed me as a person. There is also a spin-off series focusing on Callahan's wife, Lady Sally McGee, who does the same thing but with a brothel. The reasoning is complex, but the stories are delightful and some of the first positive, sympathetic, relatively clear-eyed depictions of sex workers (or artists, as they're called here and who am I to disagree?) I ever encountered. So it is my headcanon that young Bucky Barnes started washing dishes at Lady Sally's as a teenager, and she kept an eye on the kid because he had a lot of history ahead of him. He worked as an artist for at least a year before the war, not least because it was the only job in the late 30s that paid well enough to let him afford Steve's medicines. (Sally was keeping an eye on Buck's "roommate", too.) Bucky never told Steve, but he was actually quite a talented and popular artist, and he liked working there. He gave notice when he and Steve finally admitted their feelings for each other, wanting to be monogamous with the man he loved, but Sally insisted he come to her if he or Steve ever needed anything in the future, and she slipped him money from time to time via his former coworkers--who, as far as Steve knew, were just girls Bucky dated to keep up appearances. The connection came in handy, too, when the Winter Soldier was sent to kill a man at Lady Sally's and the staff were able to send him away again thanks to his half-remembered connection to the place. Lady Sally's is closed in our time, but you never know when Bucky might get a phone call from the Lady.

What does your character do when they should be sleeping but can't? I'll leave Ted out of this one on the grounds that his biology is different enough that "should be sleeping" may not apply.

So, on a sleepless night at Bloodstone Manor? Jack bakes. He's got access to a well-stocked kitchen now, anything he makes WILL get eaten, and baking is less likely to wake anyone else than playing his guitar or running endless zoomie laps. He also feels a little better when he can do something kind (and profoundly human) out of his emotional turmoil. Helping people helps Jack, and if there are no monsters to rescue or curses to break, he can at least make sure his people have something delicious for breakfast. (Or a midnight snack. Let's face it, somebody else will wake up from a nightmare in an hour.)

Elsa is currently the queen of maladaptive coping mechanisms. She's cut down on drinking since the boys moved in, much to everyone's relief, but she's still in rough shape emotionally. Although she sleeps better than the others thanks to her sleep-anywhere hunter training, she does occasionally have nights when her brain won't shut up, and her solution to that is to run herself into the ground. She'll hit the dojo for as many hours as it takes, usually. Bucky is trying to coax her into something less destructive in his unique sergeant-y way. The sentence "Your magic rock is not an excuse to bust your knuckles again, so wear some damn gloves!" has been uttered.

Bucky is actually the best adjusted on this front, mostly because his sleep disturbances are the worst. (Jack has more traumatic memories overall. Bucky’s are more concentrated, and he's had to heal brain damage on top of it.) Thanks to his time in Wakanda, he's learned some basic meditation techniques and some therapy exercises to help himself calm down a little. Alpine has some kind of extra sense for when Bucky is in distress, so on the rare occasion she's not already in bed with him when he wakes up screaming, she'll come running in immediately. He usually ends up either curled around her, doing breathing exercises, or settling down in bed with a book while she purrs on his chest until the tension finally melts out of him. Bucky isn't healed by any stretch of the imagination, but by God he's trying.

What's the worst wound your character has experienced? It can be physical or emotional.

Ted Sallis died of his injuries from a horrific accident, drowning in a swamp while his super-soldier serum burned him from the inside out after the so-called love of his life betrayed him. That's the worst for him. Only Jack knows about it, and even he doesn't know it all. Nothing else comes close.

Jack is pretty good at toughing out physical pain by now, so his worst wounds are definitely emotional. I think the worst one was finding out that his sister, Lissa, had died. It was a natural death, but he didn't find out until years later, and she was his last connection to who he was before the wolf. The wound has never fully healed.

Elsa's worst wound is what she told Bucky about in "Bucky Meets the Legion of Monsters": realizing that the monsters she'd been hunting, even without her father's input, had mostly been people. That's an identity-shattering experience that has fundamentally changed her.

Bucky’s worst physical wound was losing his arm. His worst emotional wound was either when he realized Steve wasn't coming to save him from Hydra a second time or when he realized Steve wasn't coming back from his time jaunt. Bucky is profoundly loyal and loving, and he is constantly disappointed by other people's failure to meet him where he is. Thus, he doesn't trust easily, but Steve has always had Bucky’s entire heart, and Steve's broken it twice now. It wasn't intentional the first time and we don't yet know what happened the second, but like Jack, Bucky is walking around with an unhealed wound in his soul. If Steve ever reappears in Bucky’s life, there will be Consequences. Even if Bucky will always forgive Steve and would take him back without hesitation, the rest of the squad will have serious concerns about a fella who'd abandon Bucky Barnes two whole times.

[consoleyourself]

Getting kinda tired of seeing my Catholic&Christian friends on here reblogging posts about how all trans folks are predatory, grooming perverts and then following up with how sad it is that dysphoric people are being tricked into irreversible surgery to try and solve their problems.

I'm sure there *is* some minority of trans adults out there that are predatory....just like there is a minority of priests, parents, teachers, etc. thst are predatory.

But the implication seems to be that trans folks are both scheming perpetrators and naive victims. But there is no thought or consideration given in these posts to the genuine anguish and suffering that people feel from dysphoria. Do any of you know how that feels? Do you know how it feels to be struggling with these feelings and then see your friends make thinly veiled accusations that "dysphoria isn't real, and actually you are just a disgusting pervert"? Do you know how dehumanizing it is to look past the suffering people experience and make blanket generalizations about how they actually feel and why they do what they do?

I get it. You think transitioning is wrong. It hurts people. You want to bring that to light. You want to have someone to blame. You want people to avoid harming themselves in ways that can't be undone. It's a noble and good thing to want to help people avoid doing harm to themselves. But please. Stop dismissing their struggles as an 'evil fetish' or a result of manipulation by the 'evil left.' Please have a bit more compassion and consideration, especially for your side B friends that *aren't* acting on these feelings, but still struggling with them.

I know you're not bad people. I know you are my loving friends that only intentionally seek the good of others. I don't mean to be condescending. But you're not going to reach people, especially people in the midst of transition, or post transition, or considering transition by demonizing or infantilizing them. Even if those blanket statements were true, they're not particularly helpful. If you want to make a difference in a trans friend's life (side b or otherwise)....take a minute to talk to them. Ask them how they're feeling. Ask how you can pray for them. Remember that they are people and not a nameless talking point.

Thanks for reading through my rant. God bless.

Comments, reblogs, and criticisms welcome.

[reyesstrand]

The way Carlos is acting in that sneak peek is the same way he acted during their fight in 2x04 (nonchalant and using comedy in a serious situation) You just know there’s some deep rooted shit coming at the end of this. Hopefully anyway 😅

everything is coming back to 2x04 and i’m so intrigued about that!! tarlos and marjan as main beats in the story and their problems kind of intersecting…love it!!

and anyway. exactly! carlos deflects. he makes jokes. he takes care of tk in a spiral but has no clue how to let someone else in when he’s having these really serious complicated moments of vulnerability. we don’t know much about carlos’ childhood, but we know he grew up in a catholic, likely traditional household with two sisters who appear to have fulfilled their parents’ expectations, and he lived his whole life thinking he never could. he came out to his parents and they didn’t talk about it for years. HE MARRIED HIS FEMALE BEST FRIEND BECAUSE HE THOUGHT HE’D NEVER GET TO LOVE A MAN!!! beyond that, we know carlos got the impression—likely from how he was raised—that he feels gabriel always saw him as soft. he has so many repressed thoughts about masculinity and sexuality. he probably always saw himself as this scared little boy and developed a hard exterior and never imagined wanting to bring a kid into his world because a) he never thought he’d truly get to find a real love and b) how was he supposed to be a father? with his own father issues and ideas about tradition? he didn’t even think he wasn’t broken/in need of fixing until he met tk.

so i think this will all come up and tk and carlos may have a bit of a spat beyond the clip we saw, bc it looks like they’re cleaning up after interviewing officiants or perhaps setting up for another meeting, but like in 2x04 when they just sit down and talk….i think they’ll do that here and sit down and talk and see each other’s sides, and in doing that carlos will begin to see how maybe he wouldn’t be a bad dad. maybe he could have a family—one that’s his—with the love of his life, and that’s a choice that’s theirs to make. it doesn’t have to happen the day after they get married; i think they should have at least a year or two before they bring them having kids into the show. being child free is absolutely valid but i think the writers are using this more as a way to dig deeper into carlos’ psyche rather than actually suggesting they wouldn’t agree on what their family would look like, because that wouldn’t be something they’d want an endgame couple like carlos to go through just for drama. it’s a way to see more of their mindsets. judging by the formula of 2x04 (and even something like 3x13)…it’ll happily resolve, and they’ll be stronger for it.

[mearcatsreturns]

i am deeply regretting agreeing to take time off work to go to texas for my aunt’s and uncle’s 50th anniversary celebration/family reunion that i leave for in two days. 

my extended family on my paternal side is. how do i say this. not great. maybe i’m being unfair--it certainly isn’t all of them. maybe i’m autistic and don’t understand unspoken rules, but to me the last few days have been unhinged behavior?

i decided to try to go, because it’s been 3 years since i’ve seen most of them (ie the length of my grad program). for background, when i go, i typically stay at my aunt’s and uncle’s and sleep on a couch in the boathouse or in one of the bunks in the bunk room. i usually help do dishes and things like that since i don’t pay anything. i am not wealthy (especially a couple months out from finishing grad school...i work two part-time jobs and still scrounge), and about half of my family is. going to this was a stretch for me, but i thought it would be good. one of my cousins sent me a text when planning started for the celebration, which said: 

please note that nothing about that mentioned payment or fees, especially since she owns that house. none of our subsequent texts mentioned it. we’re family, i figured i would just help out around keeping things clean, and i bought two nice bottles of wine from my one job that i was going to give her as a guest gift. 

then yesterday, i got a text from one of my other aunts, K (not the one whose anniversary it is...my dad’s parents were catholic. it’s a big family), to me and a couple of other numbers i didn’t know. basically, a “hey, you don’t have anywhere to stay, i found this airbnb nearby. it will costs $2000 for 4 days, and split between 4, that’s $500 each!” i. uh. i was about to throw up. i texted my cousin and was like “just wanted to touch base, i’m staying at your place, right?” 

she replied and said “hey, sorry, we filled the place up! you can probably stay with K!” like??? i told her i’d heard from K, but i couldn’t afford the option she sent me (genuinely, I am taking off unpaid time from work to go here, after buying a plane ticket. I cannot do half my rent for 4 days in Texas in July. that is crazy.) at this point I panicked and called my dad, because truly, I was going to need to cancel if I had to pay something like that. i talked to my dad, and he basically said, “don’t worry about it, we’ll figure something out, but yeah, this is usually why we stay on host aunt and uncle’s trailer across the street...it’s free.” so I texted my aunt K, politely thanking her for finding that place but that I can’t afford it, but my dad was going to help me find somewhere, and said I was looking forward to seeing her (she is not the problem, this is none of her business, and she was doing her best). i was upset, but willing to be like “okay, right, i’m related to a bunch of rich people who want to charge family to stay with them over a holiday weekend,” so i was already less excited, but still ok. i played some video games about it, and i figured i’ll just accept that i’m going to be in some uncomfortable hole for the time i’m there. 

then this morning, I had another text from my cousin. 

I did the heart thing because I genuinely didn’t know how to respond, and I still don’t know where to start. (a) this is so unnecessary, since I’m not staying with her anymore. why did you feel like you had to send this? (b) uh. you should maybe consider mentioning expectations like that when you invite people to stay with you. I did, as I previously mentioned, get some nice wine (and I work at a wine room) as a gift--that, in my experience, has been a pretty decent host gift in the past. (c) putting a vacation on a credit card when you don’t have the money or a pay bump coming to know you’ll be able to pay it off? UNHINGED. poor financial advice, and i’m sure if I’d done that, I’d get “hmm, is that fiscally responsible :/” bullshit. It’s not. I refuse to buy things I can’t afford? like? she then tried to make it better being like “I also have weed :D” and ngl, my first instinctual response (that I kept inside) was “oh, how much were you going to charge me for that? is it by puff or mg?” 

anyway. I don’t know if it’s undiagnosed autism to expect things like financial expectations to be discussed and communicated, or if they’re just being some kind of White Person Way. this isn’t the first time money-related things have happened, but the last time was a decade ago and with an entirely different person (who I have since had a strained relationship with). I have genuinely lost so much desire to interact with most of my family? if this is familial love, I’ll pass and find my own family, thanks. I can’t imagine inviting someone, then charging them for a couch or bed? this is insane, right?

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 1 - Side B

John Gaius art cred @exmakina

Propaganda below ⬇️

book quote from the chapters where he's relating how he got necromantic powers and people freaked out!! this is pre-apocalypse and resurrection so it's implied he took a lot of inspiration from this incident . He said, Then we took off. Thread after thread on message board after message board. People wanting proof. People asking what the fuck it meant. People talking about the LUCIFER telescope and saying we were aliens. People calling me the Antichrist, which was a trip. People writing up these long posts on how the trick was done, how I got the meat into the pie. Was I fake? Was I real? If I was real, what did it mean? Suddenly there were hundreds of people, all there at our front door. They came in caravans, they were sleeping in their cars or putting up tents. A hell of a lot of them had flown out internationally. He said, Some of them wanted to see the miracle. Some of them wanted my help, like, Oh, you’re the magical death man, can you do something about my body? Can you fix my fibromyalgia? Thing was, I could. That surprised me. I could take out their tumours. I could fix their macular degeneration. Big damage was easy, unless they’d actually lost the limb or whatever. Couldn’t grow those back. But I spent hours and hours a day playing Jesus. That was nice, those were some of the nicest hours I got to spend. He said, But when you’re doing the whole Go, my child, your knee cartilage is fixed, you’re going to get a lot of visitors. I had to turn people away because I had to eat, I had to sleep, even though I didn’t want to. M— had brought in her best friend, the nun, and I was worried I was going to get the Antichrist bit from her too, but she was just like: stop doing this! Read your Bible! This was Christ’s whole problem! I was like, What are you talking about, Jesus cured the lepers and everyone was all, Hooray, thanks man. M—’s nun was all, Are you kidding, Christ never said no and never asked anyone to pay and got way too much attention and brought the heat down on everybody. Christ didn’t keep to office hours, she said. Don’t do that. He said, So we limited Jesus stuff to one hour a day, and I always had to eat breakfast. But by then the whole world was on our doorstep.

look this is kind of weird but he is the only survivor after nuclear bombs destroy the earth and he has weird necromancy powers so he revives his friends and a few other people to be his subjects and basically makes himself a god to them. there's a lot of layers since he's literally the only character in the entire series who remembers the world before and has a concept of the religion he's copying for his own. he treats the other characters like toys he can push around for his own amusement and everything is a joke but he does this world-weary act that somehow gets the reader to kind of feel for him even when he's being atrocious. and he's the only one who remembers memes. which is a torture all of its own.

I said "yes" but to be more clear: he was canonically Catholic when he was still mortal, but that was 10,000 years ago and he kind of killed everybody on the planet. Just slightly. Some of them got better. Now he's the Emperor Undying and his empire is very Catholic-coded.

Frank

He was in training to become a priest and! Fun fact! Is second generation immigrant!

[centipedes-will-never-hurt-you]

[this is an apology btw]

ok um i realize now that i never should replied to mister-snickersnee's post, i did not realize how hurtful my ideas would be. sometimes i just say things without running them through a good enough filter, and i really apologize for that. i absolutely did not mean to victimblame sydney [i actually meant to blame jedidiah, but it really doesn't fucking matter]

i appreciate people talking about it b/c i obviously do not spend enough time talking about issues like these to know that i should not have said that. i also need to internalize the fact that my words can have an impact, even when i think it's obvious that i'm not the kind of person should listen to, even when i am talking about fictional characters. fiction affects reality, and reality affects fiction.

i have no idea how i could possibly rectify this and i don't even think i deserve that conclusion at this point.

[i go into reasons why i did what i did. you can just stop reading if you want]

i think the reason why posts like that bother me so much is because i felt the need to take sides for some reason when it came to jedidiah and elijah. my first reaction with jedidiah was geniune fear and it was jarring to see people give what he did a passing mention [his dynamic with sydney is much more domestic and much more familiar and that just fucked me up]. i was raised catholic + my family has way more problems on top of that, so i was able to forego that and absorb other people's takes on him. but sometimes i just lose it. yes, not all of sydney's problems are jedidiah's fault but he has the power to make his life more manageable and doesn't. he instead makes it harder. the way he treats sydney would hurt anyone, but it's even worse b/c of sydney's bpd and the fact that he is the only one he has, and has ever had, to be honest. and the situation forces sydney to keep it all down as well, which is not good on any level. and he acknowledges none of this. i could believe that he just doesn't have the emotional capacity to realize this, but still

i'm not saying that jedidiah deserves hate, but people should really acknowledge this more

i feel like people had the reaction that i had with jedidiah, with elijah. i never gave much thought to him, i've never been stalked or lovebombed or manipulated while drunk. i understand now that if you've experienced those things then obviously that would hit harder than what jedidiah did, even side by side. but yeah, i wrote elijah off as something much less harmful and i apologize. it led to some pretty distorted thinking and i see that now.

i think i need to take the time to ruminate on everything and replace what needs to be replaced

[soubrettc]

𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐀 𝐃𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄.

𝙿𝙸𝙽𝚃𝙴𝚁𝙴𝚂𝚃 .    𝙲𝙾𝙽𝙽𝙴𝙲𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽𝚂.  

𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐑𝐀  .  .  .

name ( s )  :  marie  sharon  connage   .   d . o . b .  august  3  ,  1994   .   in  :  los  angeles  ,  california   .   she  holds  citizenship  in  the  united  states   .    she  speaks  :  english  ,  phrases  via  songs  in  german  ,  italian  ,   .   religious  beliefs  :  raised  orthodox  catholic   .   educational ��achievements  :  opera  and  vocal  performance  degree  ,  new  england  conservatory   .   current  occupation  :  opera  singer  ,  dubbed  singing  voice  for  actresses   .   eye  colour  :  blue-green   .   hair  colour  :  blonde   .   height  :  5′6″   .   distinguishing  characteristic  :  a  spitting  image  of  her  mother  ,  a  late  film  actress   .

beverage  of  choice  :  sparkling  water  ,  champagne   .   preferred  holiday  :   dreaming  of  the  idea  of  paris   .   reading  choice   :   literary  classics  ,  namely  romance  novels   .   exercise  preference  :  walking  ,  dancing   .   watching  :  every  new  film  she  can  ,  she  loves  cinema   .   designers  :  valentino  is  pretty  but  paolo  sebastian  is  more  in  her  budget   .   accessory  :  always  carries  a  small  purse  she  puts  down  and  forgets  to  pick  up  before  leaving   .  prized  possession  :  her  mother’s  old  jewelry   .   random  :  she  loves  the  way  she  feels  after  drinking  champagne   .

inspo  ;    𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘥𝘢𝘩𝘭𝘪𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘦  ,  𝘴𝘢𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘢 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥  :  𝘴𝘢𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘢  ,  𝘤𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘺  :  𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘺𝘤𝘰𝘰𝘯  ,  𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘥   ,  𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦  :  𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘴  ,  𝘢𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘥  (  𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘮  )

𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄  .  .  .

𝘵𝘸  :  𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩  

⧽    in  ‘88  up  and  coming  hollywood  film  actress  marlene  collins  fell  in  love  with  the  wrong  person  ,  and  both  of  them  knew  it.  gardner  connage  was  a  stuntman  ,   and  at  best  he’d  amount  to  a  few  fancy  stunt  scenes  with  credit  given  to  another  before  an  injury  would  force  him  into  early  retirement.  he  was  a  bad  bet.  adrian  benjamin  was  not  a  bad  bet  ,  he  was  the  son  of  director  griffith  benjamin  with  the  promise  of  a  secured  future  for  marlene.

⧽    and  in  ‘94  that  unspoken  love  triangle  came  to  an  end  with  the  birth  of  her  child  ,   a daughter  ,  marie.  the  only  child  gardner  would  ever  call  his  own.  but  marlene  would  claim  marie  as  her  third  ,  that  tumultuous  love  afair  had  gifted  her  another  child  ,  a  son  ,  four  years  earlier.  marie  grew  up  in  los  angeles  ,  even  starring  alongside  her  mother  as  a  toddler  when  all  the  other  child  stars  proved  to  be  too  fussy  that  day.  she  has  two  acting  credits  to  her  name  because  of  this.  and  it  seemed  like  marie  might  be  one  for  stardom  like  her  mother  ,  the  ones  the  cameras  adored  with  her  name  in  lights.

⧽    by  2001  marlene  had  become  a  household  name  ,  or  the  start  of  one.  she  was  lined  up  to  star  in  a  new  film  set  in  italy  with  an  a-lister  co-star.  marie  was  ten  at  the  time  and  had  begged  her  mother  not  to  go  as  children  often  do  ,  but  maybe  she  should  have  listened.  plastered  all  over  the  headlines  a  month  into  filming  had  been  ‘  death  in  italy ’  her  mother  was  found  dead  on  set.

⧽    speculations  of  a  murder  circulated  for  a  few  weeks  ,  just  enough  to  sell  enough  tabloids  ,  before  the  police  put  that  rumor  to  rest  far  too  quickly  for  gardner’s  liking.  that’d  been  the  final  straw.  hollywood  had  never  been  kind  to  the  man  ,  and  it  hadn’t  been  kind  to  his  family  either.  to  save  marie  from  a  similar  fate  ,  they  left.

⧽    the  idea  of  hollywood  and  the  golden  lights  were  forever  banned  at  that  moment  ,  but  the  hope  hadn’t  been.  moved  across  to  the  other  side  of  the  country  ,  marie  would  find  herself  often  sneaking  every  old  film  she  could.  she  loved  them  and  the  idea  of  them  but  that  was  also  the  problem  ,  her  ideas  of  what  everything  was  like  came  from  them.  dare  say  marie  worshiped  the  romanticized  ideas  hollywood  gave  her.

⧽    in  spring  2013  she’d  graduated  high  school  and  went  on  to  study  opera  and  vocal  performance  at  the  new  england  conservatory  in  boston.  she  was  supposed  to  want  a  quiet  life  ,  away  from  the  hollywood  lights  ,  after  all  her  father  had  witnessed  the  worst  they  could  do  to  a  person  —  things  he  hadn’t  told  marie.

𝐋𝐎𝐒  𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒  .  .  .

⧽    new  york  would  have  been  the  logical  choice  ,   a  chance  at  broadway  ,  but  the  allure  called  to  her  and  in  2015  she’d  defied  her  father.  the  start  of  a  strained  relationship.  los  angeles  was  far  from  what  she  had  remembered  ,  that  child-like  wonder  stripped  by  the  realities  of  it  all  ,  but  she  wasn’t  only  there  for  the  dream  job  but  finding  the  truth  about  her  mother.  the  real  story  about  the  death  of  marlene  collins  that  was  a  case  closed  far  too  quickly.

⧽    her  way  towards  the  hollywood  lights  weren’t  easy  but  easier  than  some.  marie  was  a  ghost-like  image  of  her  mother  with  one  problem  —  she  didn’t  have  the  screen  presence  marlene  did  and  what   a  disappointment  that  had  been.  it  was  perhaps  the  cruelest  form  of  rejection  ,  that  she  was  a  shallow  copycat  of   the  late  marlene  collins  at  best.  her  acting  credits  reflected  that.

⧽    2017  felt  like  a  breath  of  fresh  air  however  as  marie  landed  an  uncredited  role  as  the  singing  voice  that  was  dubbed  for  the  character  of  singer  jenny  lind  in  the  greatest  showman.  since  then  her  film  credits  has  had  a  drastic  decline  ,  left  to  singing  her  classically  trained  opera  and  whatever  lounge  would  accept  her.  2023  has  ushered  in  the  rumors  of  a  remake  of  phantom  of  the  opera  but  who  would  dare  ruin  such  a  classic? and  would  marie  be  able  to  deal  with  the  strong  hatred  that’d  accompany  such  a  modernized  retelling.

[raindropsonroses123]

Books Read in 2022

rereads in italics, favorites in bold

1. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J K Rowling

2. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J K Rowling

3. Boxers by Gene Luen Yang

4. Saints by Gene Luen Yang

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J K Rowling

6. Topaz by Leon Uris

7. Politics and the English Language by George Orwell

8. The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov

9. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J K Rowling

10. A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

11. All Systems Red by Martha Wells

12. Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War by Charles B Dew

13. The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov

14. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J K Rowling

15. The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles’ Antigone by Seamus Heaney

16. The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

17. Hidden Mercy: Aids, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear by Michael J O’Loughlin

18. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

19. A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation by David W Blight

20. Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

21. Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

22. Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South by Stephanie McCurry

23. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J K Rowling

24. Desolation Island by Patrick O’Brian

25. Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay by James Alison

26. Richard III by William Shakespeare

27. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

28. An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott

29. A Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill

30. The Fortunes of War by Patrick O’Brian

31. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V E Schwab

32. Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

33. The PIllowman by Martin McDonagh

34. Free Thought and Official Propaganda by Bertrand Russell

35. The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

36. The Open Society and its Enemies, Volume One: Plato by Karl Popper

37. The Problem of Pain by C S Lewis

38. The Open Society and its Enemies, Volume Two: Hegel and Marx by Karl Popper

39. Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield

40. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer

41. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

42. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

43. Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

44. Persuasion by Jane Austen

45. Dead Cert by Dick Francis

46. Art by Yasmin Reza

47. His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik

48. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

49. The Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich A Hayek

50. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

51. Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

52. This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

53. Blackout by Simon Scarrow

54. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

55. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

56. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

57. The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol

58. This Hallowed Ground: The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War by Bruce Catton

59. The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde

60. Recitatif by Toni Morrison

61. Against All Odds: A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War II by Alex Kershaw

62. I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

63. How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell

64. The Trial by Franz Kafka

65. To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson

66. The City of Brass by S A Chakraborty

67. Niccolo Rising by Dorothy Dunnett

68. Common Sense by Thomas Paine

69. The Crisis by Thomas Paine

70. Dracula by Bram Stoker

71. The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States by Ronald Grigor Suny

72. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace

73. One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

74. Angels in America by Tony Kushner

75. Melmoth by Sarah Perry

76. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

77. How to Be a Pirate by Cressida Cowell

78. The Poverty of Historicism by Karl Popper

79. The Shepherd by Frederick Forsyth

80. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

81. The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche

82. Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease

[graysonshmayson]

ok not a character playlist BUT some from my batman playlist:

song that is pretty accurate to the character's story

Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls- Bruce + kids dynamic

All These Things That I’ve Done by The Killers- batkids,

Motion Sickness by Phoebe Bridgers- more batkids daddy issues

song that doesn't fit the character at all but i was thinking about them while listening to it on loop

Wonderwall by Oasis

Never Tear us Apart by INXS

Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger

My Own Worst Enemy by Lit

Renegade by Styx

Lukewarm by Penelope Scott

song that has one or two lines accurate to the character's story

august by Taylor Swift- Dick + Damian as batman and robin (specifically the parts about how "you were never mine" :( get it bc he's not dick's son)

Rose Colored Boy- Dick + Jason

Two Slow Dancers by Mitski- i think dick and bruce want to go back sometimes

Thumbs by Lucy Dacus- "You've been in his fist ever since you were a kid. But you don't owe him shit even if he said you did. You don't owe him shit even if he said you did". CMON!

mirrorball by Taylor Swift- dick grayson/tim drake trying to heal bruce "I'm still on that tightrope, I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me. I'm still a believer but I don't know why. I've never been a natural. All I do is try, try, try. I'm still on that trapeze, I'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me". I've never been a natural all i do is try is especially tim drake coded.

song that just kind of is the vibe of the character

Lil Boo Thang by Paul Russel- Dick

Yellow Brick Road by Elton John- Jason

Bug Like an Angel by Mitski- general batfam blues

Blue Hair by TV Girl- Tim

Paper Rings/Lover by Taylor Swift- dick + barbara

Alíen Blues by Vundabar- jason todd

Feels Blind by Bikini Kill- stephanie brown

song that i desperately wish they would listen to because i personally like it

Vampire Empire by Big Thief

Christmas Kids by Roar

champagne problems by Taylor Swift

Cruel Summer by Versus Me- dick would fuck with this so hard

Happy Together (feat. Ray Toro) by Gerard Way

Seventeen Going Under by Sam Fender- robins specifically!!

song that fits with the character so well its scary

Rule #4: Fish Inside a Birdcage by Fish Inside a Birdcage- SO DAMIAN AND DICK CODED WHAT THE HELL. LISTEN TO IT RN.

The Moon Will Sing by The Crane Wives- DICK GRAYSON ARE YOU KIDDING ME. "All those empty rooms, we could have been anywhere, anywhere else. Instead, I made a bed with apathy. My heart knew the weight, ten years worth of dust and neglect, we made our peace with weariness and let it be" is so good for like the harsher realities of being robin and being the son of an emotionally unavailable and mentally ill man. plus the whole concept? "I shine only with the light you gave me"? SO robin core because he gave them EVERYTHING and then they have to exist without them?

Wrecking Ball by Mother Mother- very jason todd but more importantly

Would’ve Could've Should’ve by Taylor Swift- EVERY LINE OF THIS SONG is about jason todd!!! idc if you don't like taylor, if you like jason (ESPECIALLY catholic guilt jason like i do) check this out. I can't even quote specific lines because its so him. maybe in another post. I'll just leave this: "God rest my soul, I miss who I used to be, the tomb won't close, stained glass windows in my mind, regret you all the time. I can't let this go, I fight with you in my sleep, the wound won't close, I keep on waiting for a sign. I regret you all the time"

unsure why this song is in the playlist but it's so ingrained in my mind as 'part of the playlist' that it would feel weird to remove it

Harness your Hopes (B-Side) by Pavement

Rät/Feel Better by Penelope Scott

Creep by Radiohead

an additional genre i’d like to include is:

“this song doesn’t canonically related to the storyline of this character but it matches perfectly with elements of their backstory i have made up”

18 by Anarbor- OK so this actually inspired so much by @duckytree's take on teenage dirtbag dick grayson but in my vision he dates roy after moving out in his teenage rebellion era and bruce does NOT like him dating roy lmao. "long hair and tattoos"... and roy gets that its a phase but is super into it anyway and they party hard together. this is canon and real to me. there is no alternative meaning to this song.

Moving in Place by Shauna Dean Cokeland- similar to the previous, this is teenage dirtbag titans!! fucking around on a beach in SF. check this OUT: "The world just ain't ready for us yet, that's it" says the guy to your left, you would die for that kid. Watch his eyes as they get sorta distant and different, and we're moving in place again, we're moving in place again. It sure is fun to hate something you'll love when it's gone. This time, it's everywhere and everyone at once. From moving in place to moving on, to moving on, to moving on, to moving on". Soooooso titan's coded.

right where you left me by Taylor Swift- to most people this is just another t swift song, but to me, it is actually about how bruce is frozen in time in his head after his parents death and cant move on

Tim I Wish You Were Born a Girl by of Montreal- i am ur average TimBer enjoyer but the merits of TimKon cannot be ignored and this sososo reads as Kon lamenting about Tim after he gets with Bernard, my poor boy...

character playlists always should have the following:

song that is pretty accurate to the character’s story

song that doesn’t fit the character at all but i was thinking about them while listening to it on loop

song that has one or two lines accurate to the character’s story

song that just kind of is the character’s vibe

song that i desperately wish they would listen to because i personally like it

song that fits the character so well that it’s scary

unsure why this song is in the playlist but it’s so ingrained in my mind as 'part of the playlist' that it would feel weird to remove it