#catholic conversion story

[paularoseauthor]

Navigating the Threshold: The Fear of Disclosing a Journey to Catholicism to Protestant Friends

I want to share my innermost thoughts with you and ask myself why on earth I fear sharing them with family and friends?

I want to share my innermost thoughts with you and also ask myself ‘why on earth I fear sharing my desire to be Catholic with family and friends?’ I am a Protestant minister of 40 years looking to convert to Catholicism and I am beginning shared this. However I still feel fear when sharing it with friends, colleagues and family, which is causing me anxiety . In this article are a few reasons why…

[austin-friars]

Short Story Snippet - Of Natural Sin

A conversation in 1542, between a soon to be married woman, and her friend and priest - who is gay and a bastard.

[angels-heap]

I know my Half Life blog is not the place for this conversation, so I'm holding back from posting a fucking dissertation here, but goddamn, the lack of nuance and empathy in the conversations surrounding the Nickelodeon documentary is appalling.

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

people online will be like “haha i will make 9/11 jokes because the american reaction to the event had many levels of irrationality” but will not confront the massive amounts of internalised islamophobia that arose from american propaganda justifying the ‘war on terror’ and the iran and iraq wars which was then compounded by a culturally christian society that portrays Islam to be inhumane and oppressive resulting in them now hearing that a muslim group is targeting a fanfic website for ‘degeneracy’ and ‘being usa based’ and then believing it without a second thought

[transmascchiato]

being latino means youll end up knowing some catholic lore you like it or not kinda like having a mutual from a different fandom on tumblr

as in i know i know some of that stuff but i cant tell if its actually canon or just a few assumptions i gathered from what was shoved on my face without a say in the matter

[melangedmess]

Can't wait for Christmas fever to be over it's too exhausting

[thebirdandhersong]

Well, I honestly never thought about Mary outside of the context of Christmas before I became an Anglican but my WORD WHY DIDN'T I!!

[paularoseauthor]

My Journey from Protestantism to Catholicism: A Personal Reflection

It was a crisp Australian autumn morning in 1976 when I experienced a dramatic conversion to Protestantism. At the time, I had little knowledge of the specific beliefs and practices of the Protestant church. Little did I know that this moment would set me on a path that would span over 40 years, taking me from serving as an ordained Minister in Australia, the USA, and the UK, to where I find…

[mrsterlingeverything]

I’ll share my story of being sent to conversion therapy by accident by my father!

So, basically my dad is a loving but stupid person, businessmen are just like that I suppose. I came out to my parents around 13 years old and both my parents were supportive, I was also attending a Catholic school and my parents told me not to discuss it until I finish the school year and I can choose a different school to attend in the next school year but summer was approaching and I was also interested in going to camps or something. My dad was talking to my neighbor and casually mentioned I came out as gay and the neighbor said he knew a camp for “kids like me” my dad being my dad didn’t really do his due diligence and just wrote a check to the camp and a few weeks later my parents dropped me off at some rural camp. I had bad vibes about the place after they took our cellphones away, and started touting all this religious nonsense and psychological manipulation, some kid was telling me he wanted to be cured of his homosexuality so his parents would love him. I was like what the fuck?? I couldn’t call my dad or mom because they took my phone away. Felt really weird they even watched us shower to make sure we weren’t engaging in “immoral acts” they fucked up when they let me call my mom for a weekly check-in. I simply told her, I feel unsafe, and somethings really bothering me. Well, within 2 hours I heard this engine revving and it was my mother driving at least 60mph on a dirt road in a Volvo suv, she took me out of there so fucking fast. Got Dairy Queen that afternoon. She almost divorced my father over it. He was very upset at himself. They made me speak to a psychiatrist just in case. Yeah… anyway love your tumblr horse boy.

U have awesome parents

[transtheology]

According to Matson, 39, his “disclosing,” as he describes it, is a moment years in the making. He offered his story as indicative of the often difficult path for trans Catholics, including those seeking life as a religious — a category that includes brothers and nuns.

“I am currently based in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky,” he wrote in an email to friends and supporters on Sunday. “I live in a hermitage at the top of a wooded hill, which I share with my German Shepherd rescue, Odie, and with the Blessed Sacrament, which was installed in my oratory shortly before Christmas.”

[...] Matson approached a canon lawyer to discuss his options and was told that only two aspects of Catholic life were categorically off the table: marriage and the priesthood. According to Matson, the canon lawyer recommended being upfront about his status as a transgender man in any vocational conversations with church leaders and mentioned the role of a diocesan hermit, which could prove less challenging than enlisting with an existing religious order.

[...] What followed was roughly a decade of searching and no small amount of rejection. Living in the United Kingdom while pursuing a master’s degree, and later a Ph.D. in theology, Matson entered a vocational discernment program and approached the Jesuit order to ask if he could join.

“They said, ‘No, we just don’t see how this would work for us,’ which was crushing, because that’s where I felt called,” Matson said.

[...] “I thought, well, if I can’t find a religious community to sponsor me, maybe what I need is a bishop,” Matson said.

A priest friend recommended different bishops to contact, beginning with Stowe, who was emerging as a leading voice among Catholics calling for a more tolerant approach to LGBTQ+ people. In 2020, Matson sent Stowe a letter, conveying his status as a transgender man, his vision for an artists’ community and his pull to religious life.

Stowe wrote back immediately, expressing his openness.

“It was an enormous relief,” Matson said. “I was in tears. I felt my hope revive.”

[...] Matson vented his frustrations to Stowe and his spiritual director, saying he wanted to speak out. But he said he was advised to first “build a foundation” in religious life for several years.

During that time, Matson had an experience that shook him. Attending a friend’s play in his religious habit, he was approached by a student who identified as trans and nonbinary. After asking if Matson was a monk, the student said they were raised Catholic, but that their parents had rejected their identity, and the student felt like they “don’t have a place in the church anymore.”

Matson responded by saying there were people in the church who would support the student, and Matson prayed with them, asking God to show the student how they are “wonderful the way you’ve made them.” The student, Matson said, grew emotional, thanking the hermit profusely and saying, “No one from the church has ever affirmed me for who I am.”

[...] As for ever leaving Catholicism itself, Matson bristled at the idea, calling the church “my family.” “I’m Catholic,” he said. “I became Catholic after I transitioned because of the Catholic understanding — the sacramental understanding — of the body, of creation, of the desirability of the visible unity of the church and primarily because of the Eucharist.”

At the very least, Matson said, he hopes going public will spark dialogue about his fellow transgender Catholics, a discussion he believes can enhance unity among the body of believers.

“You’ve got to deal with us, because God has called us into this church,” he said. “It’s not your church to kick us out of — this is God’s church, and God has called us and engrafted us into it.”

[blackownersseekingsuccess]

Remembering Bayard Rustin: The Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

written by Levi Wise Kenneth Catoe Jr.

August 1, 2024 - Growing up as a Black boy in Paterson, NJ, and attending Roman and Irish Catholic Parochial schools, Black history was not very familiar to me. I grew up in a religious Southern Baptist family and participated in the church choir. In this context, Martin Luther King, Jr., was all that I knew about Black history until I became a teenage Madonna fanatic. Ironically, Madonna made me aware of Black activists and radicals such as Nina Simone, Jean-Michel Basquiat, James Baldwin, and Bayard Rustin. Bayard Rustin was an African American activist who believed in civil disobedience. Rustin felt that Black people should deliberately break unjust laws but do it non-violently to bring about change and this would play a key role in the Civil Rights movement. He also advocated for LGBTQ rights. Rustin moved to Harlem in 1937 and began studying at City College of New York. It’s interesting to note that at the time CCNY was an all-male college once regarded as ‘Jewish Harvard’ which did not accept Black men—Rustin was an unusual exception. While Rustin was at CCNY he became involved in efforts to defend and free the Scottsboro Boys, nine young black men in Alabama who were accused of raping two white women. Activism for Rustin was something that came naturally. He later became a mentor to Martin Luther King.

Rustin is one of my all-time idols. I have been enamored of him since I learned about him, so I was excited to attend an event dedicated to his life and legacy at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, “Between the Lines: Bayard Rustin, A Legacy of Protest and Politics.” The event was a conversation between Michael G. Long and Jafari Allen, who edited the book of the same name. Their exchange sparked many revelations and I left the event more aware than when I entered. I felt so much pity for the life that Rustin had to live, including the attack on his character that was rallied against him by other Black people and the distance that Martin Luther King placed between himself and Rustin out of fear of people assuming that he was also gay. I also learned that it was Coretta Scott King who introduced King to Rustin. Scott-King met Rustin during her college years as a fellow activist who practiced civil disobedience. She would ultimately introduce her husband King to civil disobedience tactics. Rustin recalled that his first time meeting King he was strapped with a handgun and that he never traveled without his gun. It was Rustin who told King that if he represented civil disobedience he would have to be willing to put away his firearm, which eventually he did. Nevertheless, this raises the question, who was King really? The “I Have A Dream” pacifist or the “Beyond Vietnam” radical? We will never truly know.

All in all what I did learn was that according to Rustin, King had no idea how to organize an event. Instead, it was Rustin who developed the blueprint for King’s early Civil Rights movement, at least until the day that King removed Rustin from his inner circle.

Nevertheless, Rustin returned to organize the March on Washington, despite everything leveled against him by Adam Clayton Powel and Roy Wilkins. Someone noted during the discussion that “it’s funny how karma works given the fact that nobody remembers Wilkins's legacy in comparison to the sudden interest in Rustin.'' If I remember correctly, the comment was made by the moderator, NYU professor Dr. Jarafi Allen, based on the fact that the venue was standing room only, or that the Hollywood lens is now fixated on Rustin’s story, with an Academy Award-nominated movie based upon his life currently in theaters. Wilkins has not received the same interest from Hollywood, perhaps indicating that he is less marketable in the mainstream. Meanwhile, Rustin’s role as an activist for the LGTBQ community is also important for newer generations. Until recently, this legacy and all that he accomplished was invisible, but he has since become a symbol of the “others” and most notably the “forgotten others”. While in his lifetime he was shunned, rallied against, and betrayed by those that he benefitted, history has allowed his legacy the final word.

[sad-ghost-of-garbage]

Nicknames with the Lost Boys

Affectionate and Goofy nicknames for and from the boys

Author: SadGhostofGarbage Warnings: this is a crackfic! It’s only semi serious. There is some NSFW headcannons so MDNI!

David:

David’s nicknames for reader: Kitten, Kitty, Kit Cat, Doll face, Beloved, and My Queen (Yes even as a male reader, David believes himself the King so naturally his partner is his other half despite gender. He regards his partner as the chess Queen to his King; here is a lil blurb of how I see the conversation going, the first time it happens.

Male reader x David: “Um David, why did you call me your Queen? I am a whole grown ass man?” “Beloved, you are the most important piece on my chess board, since I'm clearly the King, you are my other half.” The bastard has the audacity to say condescendingly as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You do realize that means I should be protecting you right?” That wipes the smirk right off his face, and he narrows his eyes at you. “Absolutely not happening”. He says with teeth grit in a firm line. “You are not putting yourself in any danger ever.” “Then by chess standards that makes you the Queen”. It was your turn for the shit eating grin, the expression on his face was priceless. It is definitely one of your favorite ways to tease him from that moment on. If however it causes you discomfort he will refrain from using it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still tease him with it. You will be punished accordingly after every instance you jokingly call him “my Queen”, but teasing him is half the fun. Side note, Paul tries to help by suggesting you combine the two, “One of you can be, Quee-ing, and the other can be Ki-een. BOOM! Problem solved, you’re welcome!” Spoiler… It does not solve the problem.

Things that David secretly loves being called, its a “secret” because he “doesn’t do nicknames”: Handsome, Cowboy, My King, My one, My love, basically anything that has a possessive edge implying that David is readers everything (Daddy loves to be needed)

Things reader (and the boys) call him that he “hates”: Daviey (Paul’s go to mostly), Marko calls him Daddy as if he were confessing to a Catholic priest during confession; “Daddy I’ve been naughty” instead of “forgive me father for I have sinned”. Chaos ensues and you will catch David chasing Marko around the cave on multiple occasions for this very reason. David won’t admit out loud that he’s okay with his partner calling him Daddy but he does prefer Sir, but if it revs your engines then he will graciously allow you to call him Daddy. Moral of the story… David is a butthead.

Names David actually hates being called: Baby, And any nickname that is overly obnoxious like : Stud muffin, or Pookie.

Dwayne:

Dwayne’s nicknames for reader; Darling, Sweetheart, Baby/Babygirl/Babyboy (if it is Babyboy, just know Paul is jealous), Mama or Nobi for a non gendered version (of a parental name that both he and Laddie call a parental figure reader), Prince/Princess/Princex

Dwayne’s nicknames from the reader and the boys, they are all fair game for D-man: Papa, Big man, D, Snuggle bear, Big Cat, Baby Daddy

Nicknames that are affectionate when it comes from reader, and jokingly when coming from the boys: Gigantus, Tall Dark and Dracula, Skater boy, Dork

Paul:

Paul’s nicknames for Reader: Sugar, babe, bug, Beautiful/Handsome/Gorgeous, Hot Stuff, My cute lil capri sun! If you're still human. Bit will continue to call you that after you become a vamp as well, he just likes biting. (fun fact I looked up when capri-sun came out, the answer? 1969! its cannon!)

Paul’s nicknames from reader and the boys: Paulie, Puppy, Pretty boy, jellybelly~ Paul got high af and cried because his blood wasn’t jelly bean flavored after he ate 12 bags of them. “I wanna be a jellybean damn it” 😭 NSFW: I saw a post going around about sucking Paul’s dick and my brain went… ah a Paulie pop… and now it lives rent free in my head so have that too

Marko:

Marko’s nicknames for reader: Angel, Dove, Love, precious one, Sunshine, Tesoro / my treasure (if you headcannon him as an Italian, as many do 😉) the Juliet to his Romeo if you're a fem reader (until you point out that Juliet was like 13 and Romeo was 16. And comparing your love to that of children was not as romantic as he assumed it was. Those names quickly get abandoned)

Nicknames for Marko: Cassanova, Italian Stallion, Stud, Angel (the first time reader calls him angel you both argue over who gets to call the other angel, and it ends with an intervention from David. “You are both little devils, you brats!” you both continue to call each other angel, and David continues to call you both little devils.)

Nicknames that will get get you (or the boys) in trouble and not the good kind: Cherub, bird boy.

side note, I'd love to hear what nicknames you guys think the boys like being called and call their partners

Taglist: @ria-coolgirl, @britany1997, @henhouse-horrors. If you want added to my Lost Boys taglist lemme know!

[thesunfyre4446]

Rhaenys reaction to Corlys infidelity is so disappointing. This wasn’t Corlys sleeping with some whore, barmaid or camp follower once. Corlys had an actual bond and prolonged relationship with this woman. He made a baby with her and then did it again. He was playing house with her and the babies for a time.

Rhaenys is now childless, she lost her 2 children- really because of Corlys ambitions. Then she sees that Corlys has 2 more children? She should’ve raged.

Rhaenys is way more passive than she and team black accuse Alicent of being. In the end there’s nothing a woman can do about her husband’s infidelity and bastards in their society like divorce. They have rights over your body, you can’t withhold sex. The only thing she is allowed is to show her displeasure and anger about the situation and fans are applauding Rhaenys for not embracing that tiny bit of resistance??

The writers fail every time they refuse to let team black have any inner conflict when they have just as many issues as the greens. Everything is solved by good faith and some self righteous speech.

Everything must be neatly packaged with a bow on top by the end of the episode, while they have TG carrying generational trauma and several ongoing plot.

I suppose Jace’s issue with Rhaenyra is solved because she told him that irrelevant ass bedtime story that will soon be lost to history. He’s now a grown man and his mother has never had an honest discussion about his father’s. There is no anger or resentment towards her for the situation she put him and his brothers in. Team Black collectively blame Alicent more for not pretending to be blind than they do Rhaenyra for making an immensely dangerous decision 3 times, 1 time was after an 8 year age gap.

Rhaena now fully accepts her claim to Driftmark died with the pretender Luke. She’s now reconsidered her original feelings about becoming a nursemaid to Rhaenyra and her father’s children (because Rhaena is never treated like family, Rhaenyra never appeals to her by calling them her brothers. Poor Rhaena has had to live the last 6 years of her life as an outsider looking in on her “family”) because Rhaenyra gave her a task to make her more pliant and agreeable like you do with little kids when you hand them a shopping list because you want them to behave and stay out of the way.

Daemyra isn’t even over, he is still tb’s tortured misunderstood devoted malewife “babygirl”. Eventually Daemyra will reunite and talk about twin flames, burning together, a dragon alone in the world or some fake deep shit like that. Rhaenyra is going to accept him back into her heart. He’ll be magically cured of his jealousy and tendency towards domestic violence because Alys sent him some dreams at Harrenhal. While on the other side you have Alicole taking the blame from the writers and the fandom for the murder of their grandchild that Babygirl- Daemon had committed, entrenched in Catholic guilt, fucking and fighting and having secret abortions.

This is why watching team black scenes is like watching white paint drip down a wall. When a team black scene comes on, I can look away from the screen, have a conversation, go online shopping, zone out a little and answer texts or scroll the socials.

They’re dreadfully boring. I saw something yesterday that I never thought I would see from team righteous. The comment section of a promo video HBO posted on IG, a lot of people who said they are team black admitting to finding team green characters more interesting because they have flaws. Saying that they enjoy team green scenes more because the blacks are boring.

literally why i'm team green. anon ATE and left no crumbs. that was amazing please let's be mutuals

[copperbadge]

I use Google Tasks to run pretty much my whole life, but because it's easily accessible and I know it's the thing I will look at multiple times a day, I also sometimes use it to take notes. If I'm in conversation with someone at a party and they recommend a book, for example, I'll drop the title into Google Tasks and the next day I'll check my to-do list, see the book title, and add it to my library queue.

Last night I took an edible and had a relaxing evening, and this morning I woke up to find a line item in Google Tasks reading:

"What if Askazer-Shivadlakia had a royal poisoner?"

Which I will say did make me laugh.

Obviously neither Michaelis nor Gregory kept an assassin on retainer (we can't be sure of Jason). And one does have to be careful when introducing plotlines to do with subterfuge when you are discussing a predominantly Jewish country with a Jewish royal family. So I'm not even saying that the royal poisoner was ever a poisoner. Besides, that's much more a Catholic thing (see: Borgias, Medicis).

But I do think it would be funny to do a story eventually about someone whose job is basically to quietly and without fuss solve difficult, time-consuming problems for the Palace -- some issue that is bothering Gregory but Alanna doesn't have time for and Jerry isn't equipped to fix, so they call in a specific staff member who exists to do the legal and necessary but unpleasant work to solve it.

Realistically their job title would be something like Director of Technical Operations for the Office of the King but whoever holds the job absolutely refers to themself dramatically as the Royal Poisoner.

"I take care of whatever is bothering the king, quietly and discreetly, and I leave no trace behind."

Eddie's like "Gregory, I love and trust you so this is not a dealbreaker for the marriage, but who have you had murdered," and Gregory's like "One, thrilled to know murder isn't a dealbreaker for you. Two, I have never had anyone murdered, the last thing they did for me was sorting out a voting scandal in one of the northern districts to prevent someone stealing an election."

[nerdy-frog98]

Okay I’ve had several days to think about it, and I’m not upset about Eddie’s cheating storyline anymore.

Nobody asked, but HERE’S why.

Eddie is an incredibly traumatized character. The military experiences (+ his dead friends), losing his wife so suddenly & without closure, and a couple near death experiences will do that to you! Add that to parents trying to take his child away ON TOP OF feeling like he needs to give Christopher a mother at any and all costs…? Maybe a little bit of Catholic guilt sprinkled in there too.

Season 5 was not my favorite for a myriad of reasons, but one thing I did like about it was Eddie’s complete mental breakdown. It felt like a long time coming... BUT. His mental breakdown didn’t even really scratch the surface of his issues, and there are still a lot of things he needs to face before he can truly be at peace. One of those things is Shannon.

The effect that Shannon’s loss had on Eddie has, in my opinion, never been explored properly. We got a little of it in season 3 with the illegal fighting, and then hints of it again when he was with Ana, but it never felt like closure to me. It felt like season 6 tried to give him closure (through Marisol), but it wasn’t satisfying because it was more or less a duller version of what happened with Ana. “Moving on” for his sake, but with no real emotional repercussions. Maybe this is just a personal opinion, but his story has felt like a ticking time bomb to me since the moment he broke up with Ana. His breakdown in s5 wasn’t the real bomb though.

Now imagine being Eddie, a guy with a lot of unresolved guilt and feelings for a woman who died right in front of him. Imagine you see a woman with that dead wife’s exact face. I can honestly say I have no fucking clue what I would do in his position. What he did- erasing Marisol in his first conversation with this lookalike Kim, then later lying to Buck to meet up with Kim- is morally not okay. Sure. Would any of us act in a rational way though?

I’m not meaning to justify cheating, but I do genuinely believe this is one of the only ways that stubborn ass was going to figure out his issues in a way that might actually help him move on. He’s being delusional with Kim, and once the ball drops, I believe there’s a great big breakdown waiting for him on the other end.

People often accuse Eddie of being the most boring of the 118, and I hate that assessment so goddamn much. Eddie is probably one of theee most complex characters (besides Buck) in the entire show. He’s self-destructive, kind, loyal, patient and impatient- he’s a good father and a good friend, and he’s FLAWED. That is why I love him so much.

My initial disappointment with him partially stems from me wanting him to have a singular season of PEACE, which…I realized wasn’t possible without blowing up the bomb first (would’ve preferred to disarm the bomb but I’ll take what I can get).

[bakasara]

Trying to parse my thoughts on Izzy's death and why I had a different reaction to it than I thought I would. To summarize: I thought I wouldn't like it, but also that they wouldn't do it; the opposite happened– they did it but I'm ok with it.

I'm also feeling like talking through some mourning for an amazing character, so follow along if that's you, too 😌

(I should probably clarify the following thoughts are coming from someone who deeply enjoyed this season.)

I first wondered what would be of Izzy around the end of season 1. I expected him to have a heel-face turn – which I object to calling a redemption arc and I'll get into why, because the distinction ties into his death imo. A lot of antagonistic characters' changes of heart end directly in death, but I thought they'd subvert that trope. And they... did, actually, despite Izzy dying. Not an option I had imagined.

What the show avoided is the logic, the set of tropes attached to the deaths of this kind of character. These deaths usually come as a consequence of the character's changed ethics or "redemption". My being against that scenario came from the diverging natures of traditional redemption arcs and OFMD's rhetoric.

A traditional redemption arc functions by a kind of catholic logic, if you will: the villain can become one of the good guys by balancing out his "sins"/bad deeds with enough good deeds to tip a moral scale. This often involves a purifying suffering, which acts as an agent to expiate one's faults. To the viewer, this suffering can serve to activate our empathy and make the character more sympathetic. It can also legitimize his quest: our trust in the character's good intentions comes from seeing that the character is ready to make sacrifices to become better and he isn't deterred by the hardships of doing the right thing.

The death occurring at the end of a traditional redemption arc acts as the ultimate sacrifice and/or purification. A number of ideas might be at play behind it, depending on each story: only in death can the soul become fully pure, or a final sacrifice is "needed" to demonstrate the change once and for all, or change was only possible up to a point after which there is no viable/acceptable future – the character deserves moral points for changing, but not so many that he also deserves a full life, or past crimes make him more expendable, etc.

But these are all ideas that aren't evoked in any of the crew's journey in OFMD. For starters, the show isn't interested in "catholic" redemption; its focus is on reintegration/rehabilitation into the community. Rather than appealing to the more traditional (in Western media) and more christian principle of "purification of the soul through mortification of the body", it plays with notions of restorative justice.

We see it especially this season with Ed and Izzy. Ed's arc is a whole little lab for it. We have the community being made to decide whether he can stay or should leave; catbell!Ed is made to apologize to the people affected – which he initially does abysmally, with what fandom has dubbed his "CEO's/YouTube apology". Later, he's given the opportunity to have a more honest and genuine conversation with Fang where he learns about how he hurt him. He's made to repair some of the material damage his behavior caused. Some members feel repaid by the idea that they did to him the same he did to them (Fang) while others don't (Lucius), and the show touches on what this means for each/legitimizes both feelings. Arguably, Ed using his treasure to throw Calypso's birthday party – a much needed refrain and moment of social (re-)connection within the community – is an additional form of reparation. While Stede's belief in Ed has a clear role in helping Ed change for the better, Izzy's s2 journey focuses even more intensely on the role of social support within an individual's constructive (re-)integration into their community. The show is condensed by choice of format, but the beats are all there.

With that kind of rhetoric set up, I'd never be able to accept Izzy dying in a way that feels like a punishment for his past crimes, nor in a way that should "confirm" his positive change/"purify" him for good. And he doesn't! By the time he dies, we know full well he's deeply changed, it's already established to completion. How it happens has nothing to do with proving himself – he's randomly shot in battle. It's never questioned that the time he got to live surrounded by affection mattered. The speech he gives Ed is only possible because he's changed, accessing a completely different perspective on piracy/life than before, like we see when he talks to Ricky earlier. The reason the whole crew is paying respect and crying is because he became "the new unicorn", a treasured member with a defined role. But his death itself is the show going back to the initial symbolism of Izzy as ultimate pirate. The narrative function of his death is underscoring that the age of piracy has come to an end. It's nothing to do with his change. It's posited as the "natural conclusion" (again, by symbolic function) of a character that represented piracy through-and-through, not the "natural conclusion" of a process of becoming better.

And for me, that difference changes everything. I can see and accept the logic behind it, even as I mourn Izzy as a character. It makes the grief feel like a catharsis I experience within the context of the story I'm watching, rather than a grief I feel from a show "betraying" me.

It's also a difference that completely changes how Izzy's death relates to his queerness. Izzy's change is intertwined with being able to express queer affection openly. Becoming "a unicorn" is this extremely queer imagery already – a magical rainbow creature. His role becomes akin to a mother to the crew (the mother hen!Izzy many headcanoned last season, tapping into his potential), a position that isn't extraneous to older queens, including our honored real-life mean-old-queer men. Last season he threatened another queer man for showing too much delicacy, effeminacy, vulnerability. Now, his change is a process that culminates in him singing a tender love song among the crew in drag. He's given the privilege of playing the soundtrack to our protagonists making love for the first time, which ties him symbolically to the event in a way it does no other crew member. Suffice it to say that insinuating his process of change should end in death would have been disastrous, as far as I'm concerned. Antithetical to the show's supporting ideology.

But that's not how it went. Grief occupies a big role in the queer community, but it's so rare that we get to experience it cathartically. In real life, we often have to contend with the ways queerphobia causes us trauma or even shortens our lives, or the lives of our friends. In fictional narratives, a lot of characters that get to express queerness unabashedly still die for the transgression. They're still usually the only queer character with relevant screen time or at all, at best one of two that formed a tragic couple.

We almost never have the opportunity to just mourn some motherfucker who died because they meant something else as well that was central to their character. To mourn and know we're mourning someone who wasn't ever punished for being queer-as-in-fuck-you and going all out. To mourn and not feel like it's another message of queer doom, because for once the character is surrounded by an entire crew of other queer characters that go on to live and be happy. To know the story is saying something about life, not about being queer. To know this kind of crafting was deliberate, too, because the creator has talked about working to avoid those tropes. I struggle to remember another time I had the opportunity to grieve for a queer character like they're a human being, without the implication that it's queerness itself that's a death sentence.

And honestly? It feels good. It feels like a form of catharsis I do not dislike. That I'm maybe kinda glad for. OFMD is and stays a magical world. Beyond that, in a show full of queers, one of them dies after getting some extraordinarily meaningful happiness, and it's peaceful, and I get to just be sad for the fucker without the gutting of being reminded that if you're gay, better not shoot too high. It feels like a completely different emotion that no other show, for now, would give me, but OFMD. To me, it's yet another thing it's pulled off.

As it's been known to do.