theebiscuits

[theebiscuits]

OK, but listen:

Aldo Bellini as the Vatican's ultimate Gay Elder.

Both Aldo's friends and his critics have noted that he surrounds himself with young men who tend to be exceptionally good looking, in addition to being exceptionally smart and dedicated to their work. The personal chaplains that he's employed over the years might just as well have been models. Everybody knows that it's A Thing. The more perspicacious of his colleagues in the Curia can tell from a mile away whether a young cleric is a Bellini staffer or not.

So there are whispers - concerned ones on the part of his friends, and vindictive ones on the part of his opponents.

But nothing ever happens. There's not a whiff of scandal, ever. No drama, no evidence of anything going on that the Church would frown upon. Nobody is found crying in a bathroom, nobody ever quits before the appointed time, nobody leaks anything to the media, nothing.

On the contrary - for most of the young men, having worked on Bellini's staff is a real career booster, whether within the Vatican or in the Church outside of Rome. And none of those careers smack of favouritism or nepotism either. The lads that Bellini sends forth into the world to serve God after their stint under his patronage are all exceptionally well-balanced, level-headed, stable and very competent people who do a lot of good and who truly do the Church proud.

That's because Bellini - who has been through all that crap in his own time, the doubts, the guilt, the unsubtle propositioning, the groping, the grooming, the abuse, the secrecy, the soul-destroying toxicity of it all - has made it his life's work to make a true home in the Church and be a safe haven for as many gay young priests as he can.

Sure, he'd have to be a saint to not enjoy the company of a fine-looking man. But that's all. He makes it perfectly clear that he wants and expects nothing from them, except for them to accept themselves as they are and find a way of being OK with being both gay and a priest. He himself has struggled with this all his life. He just wants to break the cycle.

He listens when they need to talk, whether it's about rejections, loneliness, their struggle with celibacy, or doubts about their vocation. He advises them when they need support (and yes, it's true that he keeps an emergency PEP supply in a locked desk drawer). He makes no bones about how difficult their situation is, but he makes sure they know they’re not alone.

He hears their confessions, too, and he is particularly good at filtering out the cases where the man blaming himself is actually a victim. (Rumour has it that over the years, Aldo has, with his penitents' permission, single-handedly killed the careers of no fewer than one archbishop, three professors of theology, five seminary rectors, twenty-four senior priests and two abbots who all definitely didn’t deserve any better.)

And it works. Slowly but surely, a new generation of church leaders emerges from under Aldo's tutelage, who don’t wield power over their fellow human beings with fear and guilt and hypocrisy, simply because their own lives are no longer governed by fear and guilt and hypocrisy. And everyone is the better for it.

And nowadays, when Aldo takes a break and leans back in the arms of his own man and they reminisce together, he feels an inner peace that he'd never have thought he'd be able to attain. Thank you, Lord, he always thinks then. Because if that isn’t God at work, then what is?

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Have some Goffredos

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i dislike when trans men defend being trans by saying “oh well not all of us are skinny white boy twinks with dyed fluffy hair that love listening to cavetown.” while that’s true and we desperately need to uplift and listen to and give more representation to fat trans men, poc trans men, etc, we also need to realize that some transmasc people are skinny white boy twinks with dyed fluffy hair that love listening to cavetown. and you know what? they’re valid too. no matter how “cringey,” no matter how stereotypical or unstereotypical, no matter literally anything, you are valid.

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gotta give credit to gravity falls for having a cartoon explicitly set during the summer but going

“hey we wanna do a halloween episode” “but it’s summer” “the town has a regional not!halloween called summerween fuck you”

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Hey don't cry, okay? We just found Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, a species thought to be extinct for the past 60 years.

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Some Pope Innocent merch designs….print, sticker and keychain.

It’s now open for preorders——check here on my kofi shop! (Open until 7/2 midnight GMT+8)

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uhhh okay it's time for angry takes but i hate how society treats vaginal variations that make intercourse difficult or impossible. like the whole talks are always about how to stretch vagina to make intercourse possible/easier and uhh

i know for some people it may be important, even crucial

but like

there is no single word how it's okay to just not have intercourse. how it's possible to do nothing with vagina. (implying that there is some kind of opening that allows menstrual discharge leave the uterus. because if menstrual discharge can't leave the body, it can cause inflammation, endometriosis, pain, and other problems. but there also is the problem that the only suggested solution is "create/stretch the opening" and never "would you like to have menstruations?").

i'm angry. every resourse mentions dilation and pelvic exercises, and most of them never mention that it's ok to just leave it be if you're not interested in intercourse.

maybe i understate the value of intercourse for average person because i'm asexual and was never interested in it and generally don't like when someone interacts with my genitals but like. really? not even mention? not even slightly?

and even in progressive spaces, in feminist resources that are all for non-conformant sexual practices and queerness, the most we can get is one paragraph from a long material that basically says "but you can don't do it if you don't like intercourse!" and i'm glad that they put it there and acknowledge this possibility, but i want more? i want more visibility. i want more talks about how it's ok to have vagina and not use it. how people don't owe their genitals to each other. how there are sexual practices that don't include intercourse. how it's okay to not have sex at all. how it's okay to have sex and not use genitals in it. how lack of intercourse ≠ failed sexual life.

idk maybe it sounds too picky but it feels like the world is extremely entitled to vaginas and can't comprehend that vaginas can exist not for fucking purposes.

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i am STILL sick and ended up consuming many different stanley-sergio media and continuing with the bellesco devil wears prada au or whatever just bc I miss nigel and because i can i guess

(+ me yapping under the cut)

in short this is technically a runaway magazine au where Bellini is a stylist and also a higher authority in the fashion publishing company and meets the new (indifferent) assistant from the italian branch, Goffredo and is forced to work with him for a few months

(if you're wondering why I drew Tedesco so calm here is because I based him a bit off of sergio's other character, Arturo, From Il Grande Cocomero + probably mixing up those two personalities)

Bellini despises sneers at his new assistants' more practical and less thought out outfits and with this sentiment decides to give him a hard time adapting in classic Tucci-Character fashion

Aldo BOSSES him around but Tedesco just doesn't budge or does it begrudgingly

well to be honest he just happen to always see him at his worst + his terrible smoking habits absolutely annoys him he needs to ban vapes or cigs from ever reaching the office

Slowly I guess their apathy towards each other becomes so clear they started from talking shit behind each other's backs to insulting each other in the function while EVERYONE watches

They both ARE passionate abt fashion though, which is reason why they always butt-heads sometimes because their tastes are so different (Bellini would NOT trust someone who wears a simple white shirt and outer to work and calls it fashion) but is ALSO reason why they meet in the middle and get along so well

bonus: moments where they get along is only during OVERTIME where no one can see or attest to it bc no one will ever believe these two will ever agree on something

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Cudjo Lewis, the last surviving captive of the last slave ship to bring Africans to the U.S. 

https://www.history.com/news/zora-neale-hurston-barracoon-slave-clotilda-survivor?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1525373347

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Balcony smooches part one thousand

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the part of intersex experience that is rarely discussed is all the difficulties with urinating and sexual/related activities. some of which may be caused by variations themselves and some may be caused by igm.

anatomy and physiology of variations itself, nerve damage from igm, poor results of igm because doctors care more about creating typical look than about quality of life, ptsd and its psychosomatic effects, and more stuff.

also co-occuring conditions! because some intersex variations have increased rates of kidney & urinal tract anomalies.

but we can't talk about it because 1) the topics themselves are stigmatized; 2) intersex bodies are seen as gross and weird and "too much"; 3) every our word can be twisted in "that's why intersex variations are actually always medical problems and should be 'corrected'."

like for me these issues are the part of intersexness that is constantly on my nose but i can't even talk about it without extreme shame and fear. and i spend years thinking that it's all my fault.

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I don't know how long this will last, but all I hear is: Iran, Israel, America... as if Gaza doesn't exist, as if the world has forgotten the people suffering there.

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Kinda horrified at all the people talking about using scratched up non-stick pans and not realising that Teflon and other coatings are so very carcinogenic. PFAS (carcinogenic forever chemicals) build up in your body like lead or mercury.

^ Don't fucking use this ^

I need young people and the older ones too apparently, to invest in at least one good thick based stainless steel pan. It's better for cooking and it won't give you cancer.

Stainless steel pan? You can scrub that shit with a steel scourer... If stuff won't come off? You can soak it in a laundry active oxygen cleaner for an hour or two and it will come right off, then rinse with clean water and you're golden. You want to whisk your eggs in the pan? Literally no downside, but in a non-stick pan you get CANCER flakes.

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You don't have to make them fuck but they're not allowed to be normal about each other.