#A Gathering For Sinéad

[brian-in-finance]

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Sinead O'Connor at her home in County Wicklow, Republic of Ireland in 2012. David Corio/Redferns/Getty Images

Caitríona Balfe, Michael Stipe and more pay tribute to Sinéad O’Connor

On Wednesday, as the news of Sinéad O’Connor’s death broke, many celebrities took to social media to pay tribute to the music icon.

As reported by Irish broadcaster RTE earlier in the day, O’Connor’s death was confirmed by a family statement. No cause of death was immediately available.

“I hope you are at peace,” actor Caitríona Balfe wrote on her Instagram page, adding “and with your baby boy. Thank you for sharing your soul with us and soothing us with your incredible voice beautiful Sinéad.”

O’Connor contributed her vocals to the opening credits of Season 7 of acclaimed series “Outlander,” in which Balfe stars. The actor’s mention of O’Connor’s “baby boy” was in reference to the singer’s son Shane, who died by suicide at age 17 in 2022.

Michael Stipe, famed REM singer-songwriter, simply wrote on Instagram aongside a photo of him with O’Connor that “there are no words.” Stipe has spoken about how much he was influenced by O’Connor, telling the Washington Post in a 2020 interview that “so many people have lifted from her, from me to Miley Cyrus. She’s one of our great, living icons.”

Belinda Carlisle, lead vocalist of the all-girls 80s rock band The Go-Gos, wrote “may she find peace now. Forever loved,” on her Twitter page on Wednesday, while singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge wrote on her page that news of O’Connor’s death “is such a tragedy.”

“What a loss. She was haunted all her life. What a talent,” Etheridge continued. “I remember my first Grammy show meeting this small shy Irish girl.”

The Cranberries – who lost their lead singer, the Irishwoman Dolores O’Riordan, in 2018 – shared a tribute on their official Instagram account, writing that they “are shocked and saddened to hear of Sinead’s sudden passing. We have all been big fans for many years. Our thoughts are with her family.”

Shirley Manson, lead singer of Garbage, posted in honor of O’Connor to the band’s Instagram page, writing, “I’m heartbroken.”

“This disgusting world broke her and kept on breaking her. Godspeed dear fragile dove,” the post continued. “Thank you for all the beauty and all the wise teachings you offered up to us. I wish you nothing but peace and I will love you for all of time.”

O’Connor’s contemporary Annie Lennox shared a poem in the late singer’s memory on her Instagram, beginning it with, “You bared your soul… | Shared your brilliance | Through exquisite artistry”.

Oscar-winner Jamie Lee Curtis penned a lengthy tribute to O’Connor on her Instagram page, saying, “I once heard Sìnead (sic) sing acapella in an empty chapel in Ireland. It was under construction at the private home of our host. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“I loved her. Her music. Her life,” Curtis added, going on to reminisce about the time she spent with O’Connor at a music festival.

“Sixth Sense” actor Toni Collette also shared a personal memory with O’Connor, writing on Instagram, “I was lucky enough to hang out with her a few times in my twenties. On one occasion we all sang in the hills of Wicklow in Eire. I sang a Jane Siberry song and Sinead then asked/encouraged me to sing one of my own. Can you imagine the terror? The intimidation? The thrill?!”

“She was so talented, so generous, humble, resilient, courageous and true,” Collette continued. “What a voice. What a force. My heart breaks.”

Beyond those in the arts, O’Connor’s impact was felt in her home country of Ireland.

“What Ireland has lost at such a relatively young age is one of our greatest and most gifted composers, songwriters and performers of recent decades, one who had a unique talent and extraordinary connection with her audience, all of whom held such love and warmth for her,” Irish president Michael D. Higgins said in a statement sent to CNN.

“May her spirit find the peace she sought in so many different ways,” his statement concluded.

CNN

Remember… you bared your soul… shared your brilliance through exquisite artistry. — Annie Lennox

[dustedmagazine]

R.E. Seraphin — Fool’s Mate (Take A Turn/Safe Suburban Home)

R.E. Seraphin said of his new album, Fool’s Mate, that “on the surface, they are love songs but there's a suggestion of something more ominous.” To set aside the ominous for a moment, you can get a lot out of the surface alone. It’s an immediate, intricate record that satisfies with or without a deep listen. Take, for instance, the streaming “Lips Like Sugar” grandeur on “Virtue Of Being Wrong,” the warbling bass and sunny trumpets on “Argument Stand,” or the shaggy, shimmering guitar solo on “Fall.” The band displays a sure-handed coherence and magnetism developed and then recorded live – with the exception of piano overdubs. The result is a set of dynamic, buoyant tracks that snap together a wide enough rock and roll tent to encompass Tom Petty, The Clean and a dash of Mark Lanegan Band, among others. Taken as a whole, Fool’s Mate is also reminiscent of Wilco’s Summerteeth, another bright, powerful album with lurid desperation creeping in from the edges.

Seraphin’s voice holds the center, bending lines into hooks. It’s a quality he shares with great power pop annunciators like Michael Stipe and Matthew Sweet, though, as a vocalist, he more so evokes the melodic hush of The Clientele’s Alasdair MacLean, Lloyd Cole’s breathy deadpan or, at times, the muted viciousness of The Jesus & Mary Chain’s Jim Reid. Like Yo La Tengo’s Georgia Hubley, too, Seraphin wrings a great deal of energy and melancholic drama out of his stage whisper. In contrast to the mix of 2022’s more blown-out Swingshift EP, Seraphin’s voice is given a great deal of room on Fool’s Mate. For all the robust buzz of music around him, here Seraphin’s lightly-fuzzed words always stand out. And it’s in both what he says and how that we return to the ominous something underlying everything.

It’s put most succinctly on “Clock Without Hands” (not a Nancy Griffith cover): “The sun is big and bright but the clouds keep on rolling in” —  just one example of a preoccupation with a gathering storm. If that observation is a good working hypothesis for how the stories on Fool’s Mate are likely to unfold, then it’s the album’s more macabre lyrics that provide the most convincing evidence of how innocent tips into sinister. On the pleading “End Of The Start,” Seraphin twists and abrades familiar moments of pop song romance to grotesque and captivating effect. Rather than get lost in someone’s eyes, the narrator’s love has “a smile [they] really want to eat” and skin that isn’t just perfect, a la Cole, but “glistening” and, further, glistening with a “dew” they “wanna feel.” Consuming, somatic details like these, conveyed by Seraphin’s earnest, stricken delivery, leap up through the album’s gleaming surface to show the human weirdness wriggling underneath, and hint at trouble to come. The brief, sparkling “Bound,” an album highlight, works against type from another direction. Rather than strain against entrapment, the line “no matter what you do to me/I will not be bound” sounds, coming from Seraphin, arch, flirtatious even, a protest that is itself bound to submit, and happily, given the interplay between the song’s characters. Here, for once, the foreboding is stalked by the joyful.

The album closes with a cover of Sinéad O’Connor’s “Jump In The River.” It trades some of the ragged, gleeful openness of the original for a focus and a steady rhythm, driven by a melodic bassline, that foreground the lyrics and, in doing so, create a different kind of intensity. You get the same sense of abandon to a bad idea that O’Connor delivers but from, perhaps, a more calculating place. In Seraphin’s hands, it feels somehow more intimate. Less a fight you’re overhearing than a conversation, or relationship, you might want to get out of. Put another way, “on the surface, [it’s a love song] but there's a suggestion of something more ominous.” In discussing the conception of Fool’s Mate, Seraphin also noted that the “sense of corporeality [was] intended to unsettle the listener.” As a coda, “Jump In The River” completes that welcome intention and bolsters what came before — it’s not hard to imagine “like the times we did it so hard/there was blood on the wall” being a line of Seraphin’s own — and works just as well as an introduction as Fool’s Mate starts over, pulling you back in.

Alex Johnson

[krispyweiss]

Label, Estate: Sinéad O’Connor Would be “Disgusted, Hurt and Insulted” by Fascist’s Use of Her Song

- “We demand that (Rhymes with Fondled Dump) and his associates desist from using her music immediately,” they say

The late Sinéad O’Connor “would have been disgusted, hurt and insulted” by a Florida-based fascist using her music at his cult gatherings, O’Conner’s estate and Chrysalis Records said in a statement carried by Billboard magazine.

“As the guardians of her legacy, we demand that (Rhymes with Fondled Dump), and his associates desist from using her music immediately,” they said.

The “outrage(d)” keepers of O’Connor’s flame issued the statement after learning the twice-impeached former White House squatter who faces 91 felony counts played “Nothing Compares 2 U,” at recent fascist festivals in South Carolina and Maryland.

“Throughout her life, it is well known that Sinéad O’Connor lived by a fierce moral code defined by honesty, kindness, fairness and decency towards her fellow human beings,” it read.

“It is no exaggeration to say that Sinéad would have been disgusted, hurt and insulted to have her work misrepresented in this way by someone who she herself referred to as a ‘biblical devil.’”

O’Connor is just the latest artist - including Johnny Marr, Isaac Hayes, Linkin Park, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones, the family of Tom Petty and others - who’ve chaffed at Rhymes with Fondled Dump’s use of their songs.

3/4/24

[aquariumdrunkard]

Aquarium Drunkard Book Club :: Chapter 22

Welcome back to the stacks. It’s Aquarium Drunkard’s Book Club, our monthly gathering of recent (or not so recent) recommended reading. In this month’s stack: author Ben Wardle’s biography of Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis, a look at why Sinéad O’Connor matters, future music from Germany, and critic, musician and media theorist DeForrest Brown Jr’s Assembling A Black Counter Culture.

[richmondsway]

@tartt9    says ,        “   i    can    handle    that    myself,    you    know .  ”

paddy  sighs,  the  disapproval  clear  on  his  features.    he’d  shaken  his  head  at  jamie,  approached  him  without  a  word  and  started  fixing  his  tie.    he’d  been  muttering  the  steps  more  to  jamie  than  himself.    although  paddy  wears  his  trademark  frown  on  his  features,  his  hands  are  gentle  as  they  fasten  jamie’s  tie.    he  takes  a  step  back,  inspecting  jamie  from  head  to  toe,  shakes  his  head  once  again  when  he  notices  jamie’s  shoelaces  being  untied.        “    you’re  a  mess.    ”        paddy  gets  down  on  one  knee  and  begins  tying  jamie’s  shoelaces  for  him.        “    who  taught  you  how  to  dress  like  this,  hm?    ” he’s  not  one  to  speak,  he  knows    –    he  can  already  hear  sinéad  complain  about  him  kneeling  down  in  his  good  suit.    paddy  slaps  the  dirt  off  his  knee  when  he  gets  back  up,  at  least.

he  hates  these  posh  gatherings.    he’s  dreaded  them  from  the  moment  he’s  learned  it’s  something  that’s  considered  part  of  the  job,  except  paddy  had  to  learn  how  to  fix  his  tie  on  his  own.    he  gives  jamie  a  soft  pat  on  the�� shoulder,  at  last  joining  him  by  his  side  yet  again.    the  day  that  paddy’s  absence  during  fundraisers  like  these  would  be  excused  was  close,  perhaps  it  was  already  here,  but  there  was  no  way  he’d  let  jamie  walk  into  these  shitshows  on  his  own.        “ chin  up,  lad.    they’ll  be  watching.    ”

[uinterview]

On Tuesday, as the funeral car drove past her old residence in Bray, Country Wicklow, hundreds gathered in the streets of Ireland to bid an emotional goodbye to the late Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor. Follow @uinterview for the latest exclusive celebrity videos & news!

[nj-stone]

7-28-2023, Sunset in the Sunset District SF, CA. Tosh reminded me on 10-8-1989 I gave him my ticket to see Sinéad O'Connor in SF. Then

we saw her at the SF WOMAD gathering, 9-19-1993. Her 1988 poster is on the inside of my apt door. We loved her a long time. Stay safe & be well.

[lardedallwithsweetflowers]

On St. Patrick's Day 1986, we [Joan Plowright & Laurence Olivier] celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with a family lunch party at the Malthouse, and then drove to London where Edna O'Brien marked the occasion by giving us a wonderful dinner party. Harold Pinter, with whom I had just acted in his play, The Birthday Party, was one of the guests, together with his wife, Antonia Fraser. Alan Bates, Jeremy Irons and Sinéad Cusack, Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson from New York, Ian McKellen, Sean Mathias, and then-married Philip Roth and Claire Bloom were the other friends and colleagues gathered by Edna that night.

We feasted on oriental chicken with water chestnuts, purée of parsnips, potatoes dauphinoise, Russian meatballs, followed by apple charlotte (Larry's favourite) with dollops of crème fraiche. The campagne flowed and Larry made a speech on love and friends, and work and drink; and we sat around until late into the night catching up on each other's lives.

— Joan Plowright’s memoirs, "And That's Not All"

[jaynaneeya]

Sinéad Persaud as herself in various videos

Happy Birthday, Sinéad!!! Thank you for making so many fabulous projects! It’s clear that you make things that you love, rather than trying to cater to anyone else, and by doing so, you’ve gathered an audience who relates to you. We’re so engaged and loyal because we feel seen by you and the rest of Shipwrecked. So thank you for inspiring us quirky literature/mystery/comedy-loving introverts and making us feel less alone in the world. Love you and wishing you all the best, today and every day <3

[littlx-songbxrd]

I know this song is gonna make me so sad so you're the lucky recipient of my live reaction

"been sleepwalking since I was 14" ISNT THAT AROUND THE AGE YOU GO TO THE ACADEMY? AROUND THE AGE HE WAS WELL ENOUGH TO NOT NEED EXTRA CARE AND ABLE TO HIDE HIS NEEDS? HE HASNT BEEN HIMSELF SINCE HE WAS 14 THIS FITS SO WELL

"its easier to let myself forget" ITS EASIER TO FORGET HIS OWN PAIN TO NOT HURT ANYONE ELSE

"ive been less than half myself for more than half my life" ... I cannot explain the emotions in my chest right now I need to give this boy a hug STAT

"wake up, fall in love again" ALASTAIR HE LOVES ALASTAIR AGAIN AFTER THE ACADEMY HES WAKING UP AND LETTING HIMSELF FEEL

"it looks like empathy, to understand all sides, but i’m just trying to find myself through someone else’s eyes." - i..... i..... teArs I think you already know what im feeling

"remembering who you are." - BECAUSE HES BECOMING HIMSELF AGAIN

"a little at a time, i feel more alive. i let the scale tip and feel all of it, it’s uncomfortable but right." - zia ZIA I HAVE NO WORDS I CANT DO THIS ITS HIM ITS HIM ITS HIM

"we were born to try, to see each other through. to know and love ourselves and others well is the most difficult and meaningful work we’ll ever do." - I have no words but emphasis must be put on this I am sobbing oh MY GOD THIS SONF I JSUT - FIEWUBS:

THANK YOU FOR THIS I WANTED TO HAVE YOUR REACTIONS

(Ik it took me a day but djdjdn im sorry in my defense i sadly forgot but know i started happy shaking whek i saw it and then *sights* why am i like this)

YES AROUND 14 IS THE AGE HE ENTERED THE ACADEMY AND HE STARTED BEING ABLE TO NUMB HIS NEEDS IT WORKS IT WORKS AND IT HURTS

Also im adding the lyric before this "As i write *my songs* i retrace my steps, honestly its easier to let myself forget" BESIDES THE POINT THAT THOMAS DEALS WITH PAIN BY SIMPLY LETTING IT PASS BY HIM AND IGNORING IT

Pls the fact it has AS I WRITE MY SONGS

Song writer Thomas rise

YESYESYES LESS THAN HALF HIMSELF FOR MORE THAN HALF HIS LIFE IT HURTS

Tbh yes he loves Alastair but in my opinion "wake up, fall in love again" as in

Fall in love with your life again

Allow yourself to open up to the possibility of loving yourself and your life and doing things for *you* rather than anyone else

I KNOW WHAT YOURE FEELING YOU DONT NEED TO EXPLAIN IT HURTS

Also pls lets talk about "so show me what to do to restart this heart of mine, how do i forgive myself, for loosing so much time"

Cause babe crying over Thomas to that is a hoBBY LIKE OK HES LOST SO MUCH

AND AFTER CHOU I DO THINK LOOSING ALASTAIR IS HIS FINAL STRAW TO REALIZE HE CANT KEEP LIVING FOR OTHERS

But how does he do it??

HOW DOES HE FORGIVE HIMSELF

FOR SLOWLY LOOSING EVERYTHING HE WAS

HOW DOES HE GATHER THE COURAGE TO WAKE UP ONCE MORE AND START LIVING

*cries* ok im gonna stop or else ill break down again

HE IS BECOMING HIMSELF AGAIN

"Muscle memory remembering who you are" JUST IT TAKES TIME BUT THOMAS CAN BECONE HIMSELF AGAIN OK??? IM IN TEARS GIVE HIM ALL THE HUGS

PLS SINÉAD IKIK AND HOW RYAN SINGS IT

The slowness and gentleness of the words "its uncomfortable but right"

We are all sobbing

Thomas lightwood deserves the world and this is HIS SONG OK???

AND SEE WHAT I MEAN IT HURTS IN A DIFFERENT WAY THAN EIGHT??

Eight hurts in a way when you get a cut and it burns

Nine hurts like a deep ache

[the-overgrowth]

Ok so one of you asked for soft excerpts, another for more Sinéad, and another for Val/Sidra.

I’ve got this bit here that kinda sorta fits all three, buuut it’s also actually technically spoilers? So don’t read this if you don’t want to get spoiled for the ending chapters of the book.

  “Oh, is that a bird?”   I glanced up from the wood carving in my hands to find [Sinéad] looking at it. “It will be, yes.”   “What sort of bird?”   I turned the rough clump of wood over in my hands, running my thumb over the jutting piece that would eventually become the left wing. My lips pulled themselves into a joyless smile; I was being needlessly stupid and sentimental again.   “A magpie.”   “A magpie?” Sinéad blinked and promptly returned to her hoop and needle, suddenly fascinated by it. “That’s very sweet. I’m sure he will like it a lot.”   I scoffed and set the figure aside before gathering the shavings into a pile on the table. Of course Sinéad would just know, even without my having spoken about Valerien even once.   Wait, how did she know? Since we reunited two weeks ago, I hadn’t talked to her at all, and she only met Valerien when I was unconscious.   “You mean Reese?”   She looked out through the window beside the table. It was dark outside, so she was only trying to buy time.   “No, I mean Valerien.”   “Why would I give this to Valerien?”   “It’s a magpie, and he’s a magpie. I only thought …” She fiddled with the needle in her hands. “I’m not sure what I thought.”   We sat in confused silence for a moment. I quietly gathered the wood shavings in my hand and stood up to go throw them into the fire. When I returned to sit opposite her at the table again, she gave me a tiny, shy smile. “You know, you never told me what happened after he took me. Lord Valerien’s retelling of the events was, um, curt, but it was obvious he cares about you.”

[elluvians]

MUSIC TAG

I was tagged by @thebittervampire 🖤

Rules: You can tell a lot about someone by the type of music they listen to. Hit shuffle on your media player and write down the first 20 songs, then tag 10 people. No skipping!

I shuffled my whole music folder with thousands of songs for better results ^^

Anna von Hausswolff - Funeral for my Future Children

Brutus - Sugar Dragon

Chelsea Wolfe - Lone

Chelsea Wolfe - Iron Moon

Gackt - Vanilla (WOW that’s a classic)

The Loudest Silence - Acheron

Nine Inch Nails - Head like a hole

Exist Trace - RESONANCE

Within Temptation -  Sinéad

Anarchy Stone - Our World

Chelsea Wolfe - Pale on Pale

Phildel - Union Stone

Nightwish - Ghost Love Score

The GazettE - Saraba

DAI OST - Thedas Love Theme

Blackbriar - Until Eternity

FFXIV OST - The Burn

Buck-Tick - Kagerou

Trees of Eternity - The Passage

The Gathering - Saturnine

Tagging @lisaflowers @jerallmountains @thingsinlifeyoujustdo @ennochian @vesnaint @lavellens and everyone else who’d like to do it! <3

[aquariumdrunkard]

Aquarium Drunkard Book Club :: Chapter 16

Welcome back to the stacks. It’s Aquarium Drunkard’s Book Club, our monthly gathering of recent (or not so recent) recommended reading. In this installment: the roots of the enigmatic Elephant 6 Collective, Sinéad O’Connor, utopianism, a Kim Gordon edited compendium of music essays, and more…

[aion-rsa]

Warrior Nuns Through TV History

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

TV nunning is a broad church. Sometimes, it’s all gunfire, demon-dissolving punches and running through walls, as in Netflix’s latest comic book adaptation Warrior Nun. In that show, a mystical artifact gives a non-believing teen superpowers passed down the generations from holy sister to holy sister. Defeat the demons, protect the world, praise the Lord, and so on.

Other fictional TV nuns lead quieter, more cake-focused lives, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t also fighters. You might say that like superheroes, not all warrior nuns wear capes. You’d be wrong – nuns definitely wear capes. They’re called mantles and though roomy and practical, likely represent a significant time commitment with regard to ironing.

Warrior Nun‘s superpowered teen follows in the echoey footsteps of a whole conventful of fictional TV nuns remembered here – some good, some bad, some inordinately fond of biscuits, but all, in their own way, warriors.

Sister Mary Loquacious in Good Omens (2019)

Played by: Nina Sosanya

Allegiance: Satanic nuns of the Chattering Order of St Beryl

Warrior level: Novice

Weapon of choice: Infantilising baby talk of hoofikins and widdle demonic tails

Specialism: Biscuits with pink icing

Most likely to say: ‘Fancy me holding the Antichrist! Counting his little toesy-woesies!’

Getting into heaven? Absolutely not

Demon Crowley and angel Aziraphale may have been Good Omens’ major players, but Sister Mary Loquacious kicked off the whole mess by accidentally confusing the infant Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Prince of this World and Lord of Darkness with the human child of a couple from the Oxfordshire village of Tadfield. Easily done.

Sister Agatha in Dracula (2020)

Played by: Dolly Wells

Allegiance: The Army of the Faithful, St Mary’s Convent of Budapest

Warrior level: Intellectually? Top Tier. She’s Dracula’s ‘every nightmare at once: an educated woman in a crucifix’

Weapon of choice: Wooden stakes and double-barrel wit

Specialism: Scientific rigour and one-liners

Most likely to say: ‘A house of God is it? Well that’s good, we could do with a man about the place, eh sister?’

Getting into heaven? Ja, if she cared to grace it with her presence.

Unfazed, brave, funny and intellectually curious, Dutch-born Agatha put both her faith and folklore to the test when she took on Count Dracula, meticulously gathering research on his powers and learning the rules of the beast to try to use them against him. A true scientist and quite a woman.

Sister Michael in Derry Girls (2018)

Played by: Siobhan McSweeney

Allegiance: Our Lady Immaculate College/Rawhide

Warrior level: Untested in battle but doubtless lethal

Weapon of choice: Apathy, withering sarcasm and eye-rolls

Specialism: Judo (on Fridays)

Most likely to say: ‘Sweet suffering Jehovah’

Getting into heaven? I wouldn’t be the one to stop her.

You won’t find an ounce of sentiment beneath this wimple, Sister Michael’s dry disdain for the pupils at Our Lady Immaculate is expressed only through cutting remarks and declarations of boredom. Not a fan of priests, the French, love songs or… most things, she’s an authority figure for the Derry Girls. Every so often though, like when she turned a blind eye to Erin and co. distributing their banned lesbianism-focused edition of the school magazine, she’ll surprise you.

Sister Jane Ingalls in Orange is the New Black (2013)

Played by: Beth Fowler

Allegiance: Catholicism

Warrior level: Basically nil as she’s a committed pacifist, though she does punch Gloria in the mouth at one point for PR

Weapon of choice: Civil disobedience and the Good Book

Specialism: Activism

Most likely to say: ‘I was afraid nunning was going to be boring!’

Getting into heaven? Sure

As a young novice in the 1960s, Ingalls fell in with the bad nuns and got a taste for non-violent activism. A bunch of protests and a memoir later (full points for the title: Nun Shall Pass), and the church didn’t want anything to do with her, neglecting to cover her legal fees after she handcuffed herself to a nuclear facility, landing her in Litchfield.

Sister Harriet in Hunters (2019)

Played by: Kate Mulvany

Allegiance: Anti-Nazi, Pro-Quip

Warrior level: Top level. A highly capable operative.

Weapon of choice: Gun, blowtorch, you name it

Specialism: Threats of extreme violence delivered in the voice of a Downton Abbey marchioness.

Most likely to say: ‘I will set you aflame, child’

Getting into heaven? There’s some intrigue as to her real deal but she certainly seems to be on the right side of history.

This MI6 agent/Nazi-hunting nun from Amazon Prime’s Hunters is something of a Scary Poppins. She does an excellent line in death threats and action-movie quips. She’s deadly, has a shady backstory, speaks in a cut-glass English accent and is fond of biscuits. In other words: our kind of nun.

Matron Casp in Doctor Who ‘New Earth’ (2006)

Played by: Doña Croll

Allegiance: Sisters of Plenitude

Warrior level: Merciless eugenicist

Weapon of choice: Cat claws and science

Specialism: Incinerating conscious and begging-for-help human cloning experiments without a spark of fellow-feeling.

Most likely to say: ‘Who needs arms when we have claws’

Getting into heaven? Nah. Space prison more like.

The Sisters of Plenitude, healers on New Earth, may have called their work ‘the tender application of science’ but ‘the incredibly painful application of bastard cruelty’ better sums up their human cloning farm. This order takes a lifelong vow to help and mend, but clearly not to do no harm. And their hospital doesn’t even have a shop.

Abbess Hild in The Last Kingdom (2015-)

Played by: Eva Birthistle

Allegiance: Uhtred of Bebbanburg/the Lord

Warrior level: Advanced (but retired)

Weapon of choice: Dagger

Specialism: Throwing buckets of cold water on a sleeping Uhtred and sawing through the necks of dead Danes

Most likely to say: ‘I have killed, and I will kill again I’m sure, but hopefully not today’

Getting into heaven? Big yes.

Hild’s journey in The Last Kingdom took her from nun to warrior and back again. Rescued from attack by Uhtred, Leofric and Yseult, she swore to become a fighter and more-than earned the title. Eventually, her vocation called her back to the church, where she now remains as the Abbess with whom you don’t mess.

Sister Jude in American Horror Story: Asylum

Played by: Jessica Lange

Allegiance: Catholicism and the teachings of Monseigneur Timothy Howard

Warrior level: Complicated

Weapon of choice: Forced commitment to an insane asylum,

Specialism: Guilt

Most likely to say: ‘All monsters are human’

Getting into heaven? Bad things happened under her watch but she does try to atone

The head of Briarcliff, an institution for the criminally insane, Sister Jude is a complex character with a complicated trajectory. She mistreats, but is also also gravely mistreated.

Sister Monica Joan in Call the Midwife (2012-)

Played by: Judy Parfitt

Allegiance: Raymond Nonnatus, patron saint of childbirth

Warrior level: Yoda

Weapon of choice: Forceps and fey literary quotation

Specialism: Sniffing out and emptying hidden cake tins

Most likely to say: ‘My first responsibility is to ensure the consumption of this cake’

Getting into heaven? Hundo P

AKA the best Call The Midwife nun, and an OG resident of Nonnatus House ever since the BBC One series began. Owing to her advanced years and developing dementia, Sister Monica Joan is now retired from midwifery, but in her prime there wasn’t a birth canal in Poplar that hadn’t welcomed her up to the elbow. She’s highly educated and extremely well-read with an instinctive love of beauty, poetry, cake and Doctor Who, which makes her the patron saint of all our hearts.

Sister Sybil in Camelot (2011)

Played by: Sinéad Cusack

Allegiance: Shady but ultimately loyal to Morgan

Warrior level: Witch

Weapon of choice: Dark magicks

Specialism: Child sacrifice?

Getting into heaven? Nah.

When Uther Pendragon banished his daughter Morgan in Chris Chibnall’s 2011 Camelot, she was raised in a nunnery by a sister who was no stranger to the dark arts. When Morgan (played by Eva Green) returned to claim her birthright, Sister Sybil was the one whispering poison in her ear and teaching her how to channel her powers.

Sister Bertrille in The Flying Nun (1967)

Played by: Sally Field

Allegiance: El Convento San Tanco in San Juan

Warrior level: Negligible

Weapon of choice: Not so much a weapon, but her flight-enabling cornette was the big thing.

Specialism: As the title suggests, flight

Most likely to say: ‘When lift plus thrust is greater than load plus drag, anything can fly.’

Getting into heaven? Si señor.

A creation of Tere Ríos’ book The Fifteenth Pelican, Sister Bertrille was the fresh-faced nun-next-door whose cornette combined with the Puerto Rico coastal winds allowed her to fly in the 1960s TV series. According to Sally Field’s excellent memoir In Pieces, the whole experience was more drag than take-off.

Miss Clavel in Madeline (1988-2001)

Voiced by: Judith Orban & various

Allegiance: An old house in Paris/the Catholic church

Warrior level: more sentry than prize fighter

Weapon of choice: Education! (Read: day trips to the circus)

Specialism: Waking up in the middle of the night with a nagging sense that something’s off kilter with her young schoolgirl charges, then singing a song about it.

Most likely to say: ‘Vite, vite mes petits’

Getting into heaven? Mais oui

The headteacher at Madeline’s Parisian boarding school in the Ludwig Bemelmans’ books and their various TV and film adaptations, Miss Clavel is a kindly sort. She gives her young boarding school pupils warm moral instruction and generally manages to extract Madeline from the mouth of whatever tiger she’s crawled inside that week. Not ferocious, as warriors go, but kind and dependable.

Septa Unella in Game of Thrones (2015)

Played by: Hannah Waddingham

Allegiance: The Faith of the Seven

Warrior level: High Bastard

Weapon of choice: Wooden spoon and ignominy

Specialism: Torture and bell-ringing.  

Most likely to say: ‘Confess!’  

Getting into heaven? Not in one piece she won’t after what Cersei did to her

The Geneva Convention didn’t reach the Seven Kingdoms. If it had, then the supposedly holy Septa Unella wouldn’t have beaten Cersei Lannister with a water ladle and made her drink from the floor like a dog before parading her naked to jeering crowds around the city. Not a nun to mess with, unless you’re a Lannister.

Also-Nuns

Sister Assumpta in Father Ted (1995)

Sister Boniface in Father Brown (2013)

(Briefly) Olive in Pushing Daisies (2007)

Mother Superior in Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)

Kassia the Byzantine nun in Vikings (2019)

Warrior Nun is available to stream now on Netflix.

The post Warrior Nuns Through TV History appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2YVNZkS

[ren-val]

Quiet me - Gialinn calming Giralein down when Mordremoth tries to take over

Aesthetic, angst and healing, three of my favourite things! Thank you.Cw: blood, vomit, and overall horrid stuff. But then there is fluff. And a pic of Gialinn under the read more

They will remember you…

The poisoned whispered sounded sweetly against the static background of his own mind. Blood pooled under his nose and in his knuckles, the temptation of fratricide heavy as tar below his tongue.

They will see you…

The bitter taste of jealousy and vomit ran through the back of his throat, as air became fire in his lungs. His teeth raked as his anger bloomed in his guts, churning and turning and  b u r n i n g  everything in its wake.

They will obey you…

His nerves did not registered the pain of Canach’s fist crashing against his stomach, nor the searing feeling of fire leaving his mouth. He realized it was not the blue flame of his name, but a molten bile of fangs and murder, it was his own blood boiling and reeking of envy, of anger, of pure hatred.

Three knights and a crown of thorns. Two corpses and a guardian, alone. Riannoc will be reborn from the splinters and the agony of the waste of space who dares to push you to my absolute embrace. Trahearne will be saved, his body redone with the torn flesh of the she-leopard who stole everything from him. Three knights blessed with my zealous purpose.

“All steel breaks, but mine is the living will of the Corpse Grove“ his whispers taunted and tainted with the jarring echo of the dragon’s will “Servitude would be blissful freedom“. More blows came, cuts and bruises into his bark, the hidden fear in the eyes of his Secondborn brother giving him life, pushing his mind to the maw of Mordremoth. If only he could rip his heart out for the glory of the dragon, it would be a small sacrifice for the glory of vengeance.

Come to me, my General…

His eyes started to blur and darkness. But the last blow didn’t came, for time stood still around him. Everything was quiet but him. He was dazed, reeling, about to break…

Until he was banished, trapped in his own mind. Where no blood nor anger not hatred. Touched by the endless will of the dragon, but not yet corrupted. The sensations of his body felt foreign, as if his own fire was kept away from him by virtue of wind and ice, time and love and light.

Love and light.

He coughed, but it was his body, not him, the one who was falling into the spiral that led to the Heart of Thorns. He saw all around him the signals of his Mother’s love, for he was in the Dream of Dreams, laying in the fragrant soil of dawngleam pergola. Though he still tasted his own blood, there was a blessed silence, as if he was alone in his own mind. But he wasn’t.

“Dearheart, light of my life…“ another whisper, softer and kinder than any other, shimmered across the wind, a soothing breeze in the fragile dreamspace. Light and love took shape; a red rose blushing with fear and hope, blooming in a garden they have both made within the Dream. He knew her sweet scent and the warmth of her touch, but voice was held by the cruel claws of the dragon, only to come out as morbid bloodspittle.

“Fire of my heart…“

Tears like crystal fell down the cheeks of his beloved Gialinn, his dusk rose, she of fire and love and kindness. She who was the whisper of Pale Mother’s heart, loving and beloved, who held him together when dragon and time took away what they had loved once. Even in the dream her embrace was soft and sweet, her sadness echoing across his heart, stronger than any other voice.

“You are Giralein, the light of my days, born under the full moon of midnight sky. You do not belong to the dragon, and you do not need his power to be a knight.. for you already are one“ Her words gathered all the splintered pieces of his mind, mending it as if broken glass made anew. The air in his lungs became light again, and he trembled in both dream and reality, as seizures of dragon’s magic tried to fracture him once and for all.

“But what if Canach…“ he choked with his own voice “…is right. If I am a lie. I couldn’t save irene. I couldn’t stop Sinéad. And now… I cannot stop myself“ Shadows closed over the pergola, but his beloved held him close, bravery shielding her from the presence of the dragon.

“Fear not this night, dearheart, you will not go astray, though shadows fall still the stars find their way“ Her smile, her love, pure and endless and forever strong, flowed from her lips into his soul, reminding him of who he was, of who they were. The wind around them bringing memories of those countless moments where they had held strong, together. 

And the blessed silence of the dream, Giralein felt something stronger than his creator’s will. The love he held for his beloved, the warmth he shared with his friends, the countless whispers of other dreamers who loved him, who believed in him. And below all of that, the shining will of his Mother, the murmur of Riannoc’s memory, and the certainty that he could fall, but as long as he kept close to Gialinn, no dragon could reach him.

He opened his eyes, and welcomed the light of Tarir and the pain of his wounds. As in the dream, his love held him tight, crying and whispering the words of their mother. Warm and kind, strong and delicate as life itself. Giralein wiped her tears, smearing her face with his blood, sealing with a kiss and a sullen voice the truth that would save him from the dragon.

“I love you“