It’s tempting to think of Jillian as an atheist given her connexion to science, her confrontation with the church in s1 and simply as a counterpoint to all the religious characters around her. I’ve used the word for her myself in fic before, but I did it fully knowing that Jillian is perhaps the character who most wants to believe.
There’s an implication that she speaks from experience when she tells Kristian one doesn’t ever really leave the church…
… And her firm principle of proving faith and science can coexist shows she has no intention of dismantling faith in itself or the value people find in spirituality.
When Luther supposedly nailed his objections to that fateful church door, he didn't intend to shake the core of what faith actually is—quite the contrary, one could argue.
Neither is Jillian trying to destabilise faith in itself... The difference is that she just decided to build her own door instead.
The church might stand in her way, yes, but one could could make a case about how it is more due to their keeping of divinium than to the criticism she directs at Vincent on the subject of Hell and the subjugation of women. She might well believe it—or any part of her performance during most of season one, really—but her conflict with the institution lies less in the way of ideology than in matters of practical consequences.
Were it not so, wouldn’t she have been a little more resistant to her son’s visions of an angel? Why believe in a child’s prophetic drawings otherwise? Even if she by any chance didn’t consider the giver of those visions an angel, the very fact of taking a vision seriously would suggest some degree of fidelity to the very idea of there being something more, something else than the life we know in this plane of existence.
If she doesn’t admit the existence of a god outright, she at least lends credence to the idea that there is something. We might not be able to take her fully at her word in the scenes where she’s playing her part as a seeker of knowledge maligned by the Vatican, but there is some amount of truth to what she says. She might not have truly found Heaven, she might not be able to prove her portal actually leads there...
… But she most certainly wants to be right. For Michael’s sake, there must be something else, even if not precisely what has been foreseen by scripture.
And, even so, she finds worth in that very scripture she doubts.
Perhaps she’s being honest when she tells Vincent she likes the stories—there’s a lot of knowledge to be found in even the simplest of them to she who knows how to seek it.
Perhaps there’s an underlying attachment of hers to the Bible, a past she cannot really abandon. It’s not all that common for people with absolutely no ties to Catholicism to have something like the image of a saint as decoration hanging in the background.
Sure, there are other religious elements scattered in her workplace including a Buddha, but it’s a man who used to be an archivist at the Vatican she hires, not a defected monk or rabbi.
Yes, she will work with anyone who is equally willing to work with her. It’s not from the goodness of her heart as there is a component of selfishness in such cooperation—one to which she admits herself—but her attitude is also a testament to the openness she has concerning the results she might obtain. Maybe the OCS is right, maybe there’s a God and saints and Heaven and Hell…
It doesn’t really matter as long as there is something, something to work towards, something to seek.
Or it didn’t matter—while Michael was alive.
She has had her proof of there being more... And she has paid a high price for learning of it.
It’s a pity we don’t know what she would have done with this information. How do we react when what we believe is confirmed to be true but not in the way we expected or desired?
Whatever shock the nuns have experienced to their faith in this business with Adriel, the perversion of the power of prayer and all else they've survived during season two, Jillian is likely to have felt the very same blow right alongside them.
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gendervapor's 2023 Fanfiction Review ✍
i saw @chromatic-lamina put something like this together and thought it was really cool!! a lot of artists do year-in-reviews, (myself included) but i haven't seen anything for fanfiction yet. so i decided to give this a go! template is from here!! i'll throw a "read more" at the bottom with links to these fics, ratings, and warnings, if applicable. i'm pretty shocked i was able to write at least one fic a month! for some months, i had a bit of an internal conflict deciding which fics to advertise 😅 hopefully i captured a good range!
01746 ~ M, canon compliant, check tags for warnings
how to bed your captain ~ T, canon compliant
all bark and no bite ~ T, modern AU
doflaminBROS week 2023 ficlet collection ~ T, canon compliant
last trip to the county fair ~ gen, modern AU
façade ~ T, canon compliant, check tags for warnings
life of a paper shredder ~ gen, canon compliant
the duties of a pool boy ~ M, modern AU, check tags for warnings
let me kill your demons ~ M, canon compliant, check tags for warnings
words cut deeper ~ gen, canon compliant
heavy-handed ~ T, canon compliant, check tags for warnings
speechless ~ E, modern AU
i was busy this year, huh? i'll put some 2023 stats on display, too!
this is just, insane to me!! i could have NEVER expected this much support!! it's downright absurd. it's not like i'm writing very popular ships or concepts (aside from the donquixote bros, they're somewhat popular to my knowledge) BUT STILL. ya'll have always been so sweet and helpful and just, so supportive. i could never have imagined i'd be this into a fandom for so long, and i think part of the reason is because of the love in this community. i've noticed my writing improving drastically! so thank you. thank all of you. thank you kudos-givers and commenters and mutuals and followers. thank you guests and lurkers and all the folks who opened my fics in a new tab to save 'em for later. i'm giving you all a hug and a treat of your choice. i couldn't have created this much beautiful work without your love ♥♥♥
looking forward to creating even more in the new year!! 💖
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Latest Writing Blog Post is Live
The Rogue’s Scribe: The Conclusion of CB vs RUST... Oh yeah... and I wrote Stuff, Too
Juuuuuuust squeaking this in at flippin’ 11:30pm on the 31st, but I did it! I kept my goal to post at least one blog update per month.
I will admit that the VAST majority of the post (25min read out of 34min total estimated read time) is me recapping the finale of the Raymond Romanov vs Lang Buddha conflict from NoPixel. That said, the opening 8min IS me talking about my writing!
Yeah! I wrote something this month! Check out what via my blog post.
The Rogue’s Scribe: The Conclusion of CB vs RUST... Oh yeah... and I wrote Stuff, Too
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