hey !!! i’m wolvie, but you can also call me charles or jude!! i’ll be mainly be posting here abt judblanc !! :D [ you might know me from twitter, (@W0LVlE) or tiktok (@lqkiusfilms) (where i mainly post about cherik). ] :)
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[REALLY NORMAL AND WELL-ADJUSTED VOICE] well you never know maybe it COULD have saved me. if i ever actually achieved perfection. it could have happened then. if i was actually ever enough. Which i was not
Something that always comes to mind when discussing Jud’s backstory is the ambiguous way Jud talks about his history with addiction and poverty in the prayer meeting scene.
The specifics of it are kept vague but one detail that I keep coming back to in particular is the fact that Jud never actually said he was sober. When he talks about facing addiction in the past he says, "Christ saved me" but he doesn't actually mention sobriety or the process of recovery.
It makes sense that he wouldn't straight up say he's recovered because addiction isn't that simple and neither is the process of recovery. The distinctions between recovered vs recovering are hard to define bc it doesn’t always align with how addictions actually work in the medical sense (elaboration under the cut)
He could've said ‘recovering from addiction and X years sober’ but he doesn't. Jud chooses his words very carefully and I think it’s an interesting dialogue choice if nothing else.
Obviously I’m not suggesting that Jud never went through recovery or whatever, because this part would just disprove that immediately.
Whilst battling addiction isn’t the overarching theme of the movie, it's definitely there and I think there are a number of details that are worth pointing out because it's a great foundation for exploring his past in fics or character analysis, even if he doesn’t live like that anymore.
If we suspend our disbelief for a moment and pretend the prayer meeting scene is real life instead of a movie, I don't think it's weird for him to brush over the details. It doesn't really raise any red flags or questions about his personality because he's literally at work.
Generally speaking, nobody would be expected to share such intimate details about their personal lives at work, especially in regards to private medical information. However, Perpetual Fortitude is not exactly known for being a well functioning workplace. The fact that Jud was able to just casually access Wicks' medical bills and find out about his radical prostatectomy is just insane on its own, so I can see why Jud might become cautious over time, if not a little paranoid.
(There's also the added element of the fact that Jud is a priest which is important to consider when disclosing details of his medical history because a Catholic church is obviously going to be held to very different HR standards than the typical rules you'd expect working at a Taco Bell or smth but I digress)
It's interesting how he uses this anecdote about his past to try to connect with people because it's quite a risky move, especially for a priest. The stigma of poverty alone is enough to make a lot of people uncomfortable at the the idea of 'a homeless guy' being their priest, let alone the fact that Jud struggles with addiction or that he killed someone.
I think he knows how taboo his very presence in the church is already, so he uses this story about his past to humanise himself and show his community that he's grounded and imperfect, just like they are. It's especially clear in this part:
He acknowledges his past struggles as being a crucial part of who he is now. He shows how he didn’t leave it all behind when he joined the seminary, and he chooses to carry it with him.
You can call that growth/maturity/trauma or even serendipity. Whatever it is, it’s important to him and he speaks about it with enough confidence and deliberate ambiguity to keep up his image of being an open book.
In the prayer meeting, he's attempting to emotionally engage with the flock and do some good priest work without inviting too many follow questions about his circumstances. Especially those that could make them question if he even deserved to be a priest to begin with.
Anyway my point is that when you have this context in mind, I think you could use a lot of these elements to infer that his relationship with addiction is much more loaded than he let on.
If done right, you could easily imply that substance abuse/risk of relapse is still an active struggle for him and it would be interesting to explore the how his role in the priesthood impacts this dynamic. And it has even more potential if you compare Jud's past to Samson and Wicks’ subplot about alcoholism.
Elaboration: It’s complex and this is a very simplified explanation but the reason "Recovered" vs "Recovering" is a hard to distinguish is because in real life, addictions don't really go away. So it's kind of hard to measure progress through recovery with such black and white terms.
Despite the stereotypes, addiction isn't just about willpower. People aren’t always addicts because they’re reckless and careless with their lives, it’s a chemistry thing more often than not. People can be sober for decades and not be tempted to turn back, but relapsing is still a huge risk bc addictions don’t really care about what we want.
In simple terms, the difference between an 'addict' and a 'non-addict' is that the non-addict’s brain could consume a substance casually and have no problems stopping, but an addicted brain doesn't have consistent and reliable control over this even if the person has strong willpower and no desire to use substances again. That's how stuff like accidental consumption (spiking etc) or casual consumption can reignite the addiction again. So basically, addiction recovery isn’t about being cured by forcing the brain to stop being addicted to a substance as much as it is about the person developing healthy coping mechanisms and learning how to live a balanced life whilst managing an addiction.
i can "it's not that deep" myself out of most things but with judblanc it's impossible like oh sorry was it casual when they kept equating trusting each other to believing in god. was it casual when blanc was the answer to jud's prayers. was it casual when jud's grace made lifelong scales fall from blanc's eyes. was it casual when they (re)defined the concept of a miracle for each other. was it casual when blanc believed in jud's innocence even when jud didn't. was it casual when jud said "god loves me when i'm guilty" and then blanc taught himself how to do that too. was it casual when jud zeroed in on blanc's mommy issues 30 seconds into knowing him. was it casual when jud lashed out in fear because the thrill of blanc's game distracted him from his duties. was it casual when blanc let a man die just to stop jud from turning himself in. was it casual when one conversation with blanc made jud cry because he suddenly felt closer to his purpose again. was it casual when blanc tore into jud's stories by the fireplace demanding honesty and jud was for once speechless. was it casual when they sat on jud's tiny bed together. was it casual when jud said "what do i do" and blanc said "what you were born to do. be her priest" and jud, terrified, got on his knees and tried to save a guilty woman's soul under blanc's guidance. was it casual when they hid an eighty million dollar jewel together for a year, lying to the law's face and then snickering about it. was it casual at the end when "neither knew what to say" so instead they embraced. i could go on.
“always an angel never a god” or judblanc x not strong enough by boygenius because it IS them coded. (i hope you guys accept the return from my hiatus with this edit as a peace offering)
me when i feel safe enough w/ the strange man that's yelling at me to conk out in my bed for the first time in 36 hours
(...like yes he's incredibly sleep deprived but this is a man who's had to keep his guard up around volatile men for a good portion of his life + the wicks of it all)
i knowww and this also points to jud writing all that for blanc and waiting for blanc to dissect it being a really intense form of intimacy bc dude passed out the moment he and blanc finally saw eye to eye again
