lopoddity
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He Heals the Sick
🕑 Added 2025-05-18 23:07:16 +0000 UTCI fear I might’ve shielded y’all from Eleanor’s more unpleasant qualities, and that’s because I really like Eleanor and I want y’all to like her too. But in truth, well…..Ellie is kinda shitty sometimes. :/
As might be expected to someone who was married to Merry Meadowsweet for 2 decades- while Maple just sorta tolerates her relationship with Merry, Eleanor thrived within her life with her former husband, and that’s because she’s a lot like him. Eleanor is ambitious, ruthless, and entirely self-assured, using her religion as a means to justify her every action, good and bad. She loved being the church’s First Lady because of the luxury and authority it afforded her. While she is kind and compassionate, it is often couched in her religious beliefs, with Eleanor believing that one simply can NOT be a good person without god. Worse yet, during her time with Merry, her kindness was largely conditional, with the end goal of recruiting people to the church and helping them see the way, the light, and the truth ✨
Eleanor was aggressively homophobic and contributed heavily to her children’s feelings of alienation and loneliness. No argument they could muster was enough to sway her convinction. Post-divorce, still reeling with her disgust and fury at Merry’s sexual immorality, she told Toffee point-blank that she would never accept a queer as a son, leading him to suppress himself and seek comfort in places he shouldn’t have. The only reason Eleanor changed was because her dogmatic religious fervor ultimately blew up in her face. When Toffee’s secret affair with Don inevitably collapses, he spins out of control, landing comatose in the hospital from a near-fatal case of alcohol poisoning. This would be the worst night of Eleanor’s life, made worse by the ambiguity on whether or not it was an accident. Toffee will not elaborate- won’t even look her in the eye- and Eleanor realizes that something has to give.
So Eleanor changes. She becomes kinder, more compassionate, more tolerant- letting go of her anger at Merry, at the church, and at herself. She spares Topher of the queerphobia she aimed at Toffee, and is instead gingerly supportive when he comes out as trans. She apologizes to Toffee, and they spend a long time rebuilding their lost bond. In the end, she and her sons come out of the divorce as a restored, unbreakable family of three.
All this said….we all know the saying about teaching an old dog new tricks. Eleanor is old-school, and she is still devout, and that means that her response to most problems is “pray”. In psychological terms, this is called “spiritual bypassing”, and it is a defense mechanism that allows Eleanor to gloss over issues while believing she’s promoting harmony and faith. For a long time she views Topher’s atheism as a personal insult and didn’t speak to him for months upon discovering it. Even now, she subtly (or in this case, unsubtly) tries to push him toward faith as a solution, which Topher of course resents, as so many of his problems (anxiety, depression, mood swings) are the direct result of religious trauma. Eleanor struggles to be tolerant of other religions, perceives most struggles as trials from god, and insists on unflinching positivity and blind faith. Topher finds it unhelpful, as does Toffee, to an extent (Ellie gets along well with his husband Bob, buuuuut she sometimes tries to evangelize to Bob and it makes everyone uncomfortable). Eleanor’s faith even harms herself, as she frequently denies her less pleasant emotions, insisting that everything is fine when things are clearly not. Eleanor isn’t about to take pills or see a therapist, she’s gonna raw-dog her trauma and mental issues the way the good lord intended! 😤
Comments
Cerulean
I'm gonna say flat-out, I'm an odd case here; Catholic AND Lgbt+. Funky combo I know. I'm asexual, demiromantic and genderfluid. Years ago in my early twenties I wasn't pro lgbt+ at all. Why? I have no idea; no one told me to be that way, no one around me influenced my thoughts either, the church I go to didn't ever mention it. I used to be angry over lgbt+ people; thinking it was "unnatural" or "gross" and disliked it all and was just mad. I have no idea how or why, but one day I asked myself "How do these people you don't even know or hurting you, affecting you???" And I slowly became Neutral, then accepting. Something in me just changed over the course of asking myself that question and I felt anger leave my body and it felt good to learn and become accepting. Then hooty-hoo silly me, I found out I was Asexual! Then after thinking back on things, didn't always feel female despite being afab. I used to think it would be neat to be a guy, or have guy... stuff. Cis people don't really think those things or question their sexuality... "But how are you Catholic and Lgbt+???" Easy. LOVE EVERYONE AND TREAT THEM LIKE GOD WOULD. Love thy neighbor, don't judge and mind ya business of others. Be open-minded and don't worry who random person is sleeping with... or if they're like me eating all the ice cream and drawing faces on things.
Amanda Stidham
I'm thankful I don't have much (or any) religious trauma apart from one instance: So my dad died from a heart attack when I was 10, and being that young I didn't really understand why he died at the time. I was Presbyterian Christian then (because I didn't question what adults told me. They said God exists so I believed them), but when I asked why God took my dad away the only answer I got was "God needed someone tall in heaven." Which. Just seems like such a shitty answer to say to a 10 year old. And honestly it just made me angry. I think that contributed to my atheism, like the first chip in the armor against Christianity. I don't have anything against people who believe (like my mom) but I don't want people to shove it down my throat. I believe in things I can physically see and touch and interact with with my senses. I'll cross the bridge of there actually being a God when I die.
Lopoddity
Eva is an atheist-leaning agnostic, however she knows her client base (largely religious conservative older folk) and knows it's not in her best interest to discose her lack of belief. She instead employs a tactical spiritual smokescreen, nodding along when people talk about god's plan or their prayers or what-have-you. She can talk the talk, countering folk that are resistant to divorce on religious grounds with religious reasoning of her own (eg. "God gives certain duties to husbands and he's failing at all of them hunny, it's your duty to free yourself of this insult to the covenant of marriage"). To her, it's wiser to play at a vague sort of spirituality than ever disclose her atheism to Eleanor and risk starting an argument. She listens to Ellie's gospel CDs, but always has a handy excuse not to come to church. Eleanor doesn't push it because she kinda likes having Eva as the hedonistic friend. It gives her an excuse to go out drinking and flirting with men together, but it's all okay in the eyes of the lord because in the end, Eva's a woman of faith just like her! :) Meanwhile Eva and Topher have a sort of *wink* secret solidarity on being non-believers
owlcoholik
Seeing her say “let go let god” reminds me of when Vinny from Jersey Shore had an anxiety attack on set and left for like three episodes and then came back with that tatt’d across his chest https://starcasm.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/139.jpg Also extremely funny to me whenever what I call the American™ sects of Christianity pull this kinda stuff. Like your whole religion is cribbed from Catholicism which is cribbed from Judaism…both of which were actually very involved in the advancement of modern medicine. Don’t even get me started on JW and Mormons who are doing straight up blasphemy according to original religious texts. USA really is a crazy place where you can do whatever you want for better or worse 😭
Lopoddity
Yep! Kinda their world's version of a crucifix, it represents the "divine spark" also known as the divine light, or the divine breath, whatever you wanna call it. Their scripture says that in the beginning, god created people, but they were stupid, mindless things, following only basic instinct, like well, animals. God, presumably lonely, breathed a divine spark into his creations, a soul, a shining light within responsible for their sapience, empathy, and emotions. His creations immediately this newfound sapience to start sinning all over the place, and the lord did sigh. Followers of the Meadowsweets religions typical wear a diamond-star to represent their gratitude for god's gift of the divine spark, and to separate themselves from the rest of the godless heathens
Lourenzo Dasilva
Has she tried pushing religion on her buddy Eva. Eva strikes me as an athiest. So might that be an argument between friends?
marsh_beast
I’m sure someone’s asked this before me, but I noticed that all the religious pups (Toffee, Ellie, Merry) sometimes wear a similarly shaped star pendant. Is that a religious symbol?
