Ao3
[ᯓ⛧⋆₊*.⁺𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙]
warnings: religious trauma (nothing particularly detailed) + mild hints at body horror
note: in honour of this awesome event put together by @lycanthra... i've decided to resurrect some of my favourite hcs and offer them to the congregation.
overview: a mix of character-centric rant/analysis bits and typical bullet point hcs. last year saw me trying to find balance in the way i portrayed perpetua's eldritch traits in my main fic. this is more gothic-adjacent/odd-leaning than opently monstrous. i wanted him to be uncanny and unsettling without making him fully monstrous or inhuman. in the end, i'm quite happy with the end results, so here they are! just bear in mind that this is my main characterisation of the babadook prince, not the only one I've got up my sleeve, so keep an eye out for more creatureposting!
I think all the previous Papas have had some non-human traits of sorts—not necessarily due to bloodline magic or inheritance, but mainly because the Infernal seems to relish in playing favourites and Sister Imperator's circle is definitely a part of that group.
The issue is that V's predecessors were raised around ghouls and the Satanic clergy; they had the time and resources to learn about and embrace their individual hell-given blessings. He, on another hand, spent majority of his life without even knowing that he'd been noticed by the Infernal. More than that—he grew up under the bonds of the very opposite of his family's religion, having been raised in a Catholic orphanage and then going on to pursue "regular" priesthood.
Despite that, the signs have been there all along, stretching all the way back to V's childhood; even suppressed by his Catholic baptism, the Devil's light still managed to shine through in glimpses.
𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔩𝔶 𝔬𝔫
V's eye didn't need to bear the silver mark for those around him to consider him an odd child from the very beginning. He would hear things sometimes—neither human whispers nor clear voices; strange hums in tones and language V could never pinpoint, yet understood in fragments he would forget not long after. They would slip from his memory like remnants of some fading yet complex dream, leaving V with little more than a feeling of strange absence in the place of clarity.
On other ocassions, he would sense the presence of something, even in empty rooms, as if it called to something in him, beckoning him closer.
None of these things would happen regularly to properly disturb the rhythm of his life, but they took plac often enough that he'd started to notice.
The first few times he brought it up to the sisters who ran the orphanage, with all the trust of a small child who hadn't yet learned how to fully suppress questions and fear. Naturally, the nuns brushed it off as typical make-believe. But the more the pattern persisted, the less it made sense to keep blaming V's overactive imagination, and soon the culprits ranged from the boy's bad dreams overstaying their welcome, to straight-up demonic possession.
That quickly taught him to keep quiet and try to resolve the matter himself. He would find himself internalising the adults' feedback; It's just your brain acting up. This is what you get from reading so many books, from asking so many questions. La curiosità è figlia del peccato.
He would try to pray it all away or (briefly) convince himself that perhaps those were some kind saints or guardian angels leaving him little signs—but that assumption felt arrogant, too dangerous to make. So he just let the signs pass—let them happen, let them disturb him sometimes, and then let them fade into monotony. It's not like they happened everyday, after all. It's just that some days proved more challenging than others.
Perhaps everyone experienced something of that sort at least a few times in their life, he tried to tell himself, and they simply felt too ashamed to tell anyone. Or perhaps he was cursed. Perhaps he really was imagining things. Or perhaps those were all symptoms of his soul's unrest and the need for holy healing. Or nothing, or nonsense.
He ended up traversing his previous life more or less accustomed to that weirdness. It never genuinely interrupted anything of importance anyway; it merely remained, the way some currents may be temporarily halted, yet refuse to properly shift.
𝔭𝔬𝔰𝔱-𝔲𝔫𝔟𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔦𝔰𝔪
Imagine V's surprise upon discovering a religion, an entire community, that doesn't negate or simply acknowledge those odd traits of his, but openly celebrates them. Considers them blessings, signs of favour.
He begins to learn how to tune into them, or how to tune them out on occassion, but this time without the harshness of his younger years. And after his unbaptism, after having his soul torn open anew and letting the black light in… the signs amplify. Mutate. Unspool. They seep in bit by bit, extremely subtle until they're too apparent to ignore—and yet, they always feel like they were meant to take place. Like nothing has been added nor taken away, only illuminated.
The subtler ones are usually fairly easy to disregard, or even just miss—unless you're around him often enough and pay close attention: his skin being two or three degrees colder than most humans' (very useful during heatwaves...); his silver eye not only reflecting light but seemingly glowing with one ot its own; shadows moving and bending oddly in his proximity.
Corvids are oddly aware of his presence. It's something people only realise after having spent more time around him. Sometimes there's a crow or two perched nearby, just staring. Every now and then, they may bring him little trinkets: tiny bones, weirdly shaped beads that could be rocks or disassembled jewellery or merely glass shards smoothed out by time and rain.
Other changes V experiences more deeply just because they happen within his body rather than around it.
For example, one day someone notices that his pulse feels… delayed. It beats just a moment slower than expected, or may sometimes be felt in the wrong place (temple, wrist, but faint and misaligned).
Also, his wounds don’t bleed at first; there's a strange pause, followed by a slow oozing, as if his vessel's reluctant. Afterwards his skin might knit oddly, cleanly but without the sense of urgency.
I think the best way to summarise how I want to write "creature" V is uncanny valley? Hardly any of that is intentional and honestly the first few times the "bigger" changes happen the poor man is genuinely unsettled.
They, to quote my dear friend, "make his adjustment to the Church twice as complicated—he's not just adjusting to a new belief system, environment, and people. He's also adjusting to a new way of being him. Of how his body works, how he interacts with the world."
Imagine accidentally nicking someone mid-kiss because suddenly your fangs have grown. What if they don't always retreat back to normal right away? What if at one point they just stop mid-transformation and stay that way, and now you're stuck with your teeth forever suspended between human and something else entirely—
On that note, I don't think V needs blood, but he may want to drink it. Whether because he's not fully human or just because he's a sicko is completely up to you.
I think his choice of costumes is a blend of living finally out his gothic diva dream and also embracing those non-human aspects of himself, even if he doesn't necessarily have all the features we've seen in the photoshoots, such as an actual tail or wings. Probably.
His claws do make an appearance every now and then! They're just a rarer instance than the literal demon teeth + not something he can control particularly well yet. They're also shorter than what we've seen in the promo pics, though their length varies.
That's the thing: V's most noticeable physical creatre-shifts aren't consistent and are mostly temporary. Unlike a typical werewolf or kelpie transformation, there is no specific set of features that appear every single time a change takes place, because the process itself is not as much about shapeshifting as it is about the human body bending the rules of how it should function, in order to make space for something else.
Anyway, he purrs sometimes. It doesn't sounds exactly like a cat's purr, but it's not too dissimilar either. Have you ever heard a bat purr? Yeah, it's a little like that. Predictably, it happens when he feels safe and content, away from strangers' ears or eyes. It's also easier for him to get under wraps compared to some of the other changes, so if he notices his partner finds the sound soothing or pleasant, he may bring it out/emphasize it to some degree.
Another sound he sometimes makes: chittering. Clicking. It tends to veer into insectile or resemble the whisper of a rattlesnake's tail, and thus can be rather disturbing. It's also pretty much beyond V's control, especially since it happens in much different settings than the purrs. The circumstances primarily involve layered overwhelm of some sort (be it physical, emotional or spiritual) + more often than not appear alongside claws, oddly shifting eyes, various distortions: splintered voice, bones bendt at unnatural angles; breath turning freezing like a gust of catacomb air; shadows pooling along his skin in a way that's just not right.
He fixates in that state sometimes. Might not fully realise what's happening. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's best for the right person to be nearby until it passes.
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some united clergy of ghost (ghurch...) headcanons that just make sense to me || worldbuilding
summary: i think about the ucog/the ministry/the tobias-made satanic church and the way it could possibly function as a legitimate religious organisation just a bit too much. below's a collection of more or less random headcanons from my giant pile of made-up lore. kind of a relative to my post explaining the way clerical hierarchy works. but this time entirely ghost-centric and focusing on the church as a functioning religious organisation.
notes: in this post i refer to the united clergy of ghost in multiple ways; "the cult"/"the church"/"ministry"/the abbreviated ucog.
[ᯓ⛧⋆₊*.⁺𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙]
administration/structure
It doesn't consist of just the HQ + handful of abbeys (it's kinda canon already, since we know that the Cracovian branch exists). Instead, the Ministry is spread all over the globe in the form of archdioceses, dioceses, parishes and cloisters, many of which are much older than the main branch established by Sister Imperator.
The aforementioned segments used to be their own religious institutions before joining the Ghurch — and they didn't join all at once, it was a gradual process (with the Ministry of Linköping being one of the first ones). Other Satanist cults have been joining in the more recent years. It's all conducted similarly to how irl cults sometimes merge to gain wider access to potential recruits, presence in different regions, etc.
Some countries have no archdiocese. Instead, they house a handful of dioceses, or simply just one. In that case, the dioceses are not part of any larger provinces and report directly to the Unholy See, rather than to a metropolitan archbishop [reference/explanation of how that could work].
In certain regions, such as the Bible Belt, it's not unusual for local members of the UCoG to form village-/town-communes, self-sufficient and providing a bit of a cultural bubble for local Satanists to be able to (more or less) safely function in. That does, however, make it easier for the Ministry to indoctrinate these communities, providing them with their own radio stations and newspapers (crediting @textsfromhannibal for this idea because the portrayal of a multigenerational conservative Satanic family in one of her fics has sparked Many Thoughts In My Brain <33).
different approaches, inner conflicts, heresies
The Church's diversity means that some of its branches don't have much in common — besides general devil-worship, clerical hierarchy, universal rites and laws. This tends to result in religious discourse, infighting, forming of opposing political circles and schools of thought.
It's not unusual for some or the more charismatic/recognisable leaders to gain in popularity, their interpretations of the catechism attracting their own followers.
There have been multiple attempts at fracturing in the past. Sects being banished or splitting off on their own; self-declared prophets disavowing papal authority; rogue bishops openly challenging the Ministry's decisions, etc.
It's the duty of the main branch and Papa's closest circle to deal with these problems, recognising genuine blessings from the Pit in contrast with manmade delusions. It's still part of the political play, partly, but at the same the Ministry does have some genuine prophets/Satan's mouthpieces (canon as far as we're concerned — Sister Imperator has been mentioned multiple times to have visions and be able to directly communicate with the devil).
As is the case with any major religious organisation, the UCoG laws and regulations remain ever-changing to make managing the branches easier and to ensure that they function more or less in sync with one another.
common vs local characteristics
Some of the shared aspects of the Ministry (enforced globally) include: major holidays/celebrations, sacraments, the traditional cardinal make-up, basic mass formula, consistent clerical hierarchy, the expectation for all clergy to have at least a basic grasp on ecclesiastical Latin (as you can imagine the fluency levels differ depending on rank), some common phrasing (usually in Latin and used amidst the clergy).
The colours attributed to each clergy group remain largely consistent, though the Ministry is not against giving the uniform a personal spin (within reason), so for example the way the mozzetta of a Romanian bishop is decorated will probably differ from that of a Mexican bishop.
Other differences that are permitted include: regional rites and local observances that have been given the Infernal See's official approval + local symbols that don't directly mirror the "traditional" Satanic ones (example: the Milanese branch doesn’t just have a serpent for its patron, but the city's own biscione instead).
general church politics/some loose ideas
The Church's visibility in a given region is largely dependent on local culture and political scene, hence why many branches operate from behind a façade.
Some of the abbeys, regular churches and episcopal sees are located in regular religious buildings, more often deserted and refurbished by the Ministry rather than built from scratch — but many have made their home in abandoned and repurposed townhouses, hotels, libraries, cinemas, operas and school buildings.
For example: in the wonderful fic by @anamelessfool, the Cracovian Diocese is registered as a hotel in order to evade the local government's restrictions (I love that idea and will yap about it at any given opportunity).
In my own fic, Campania doesn’t even have its own diocese because of how much of a hold Catholicism has had on the region's cultural identity. Despite many previous attempts, something would always get in the way of the Ministry establishing a more solid presence in the region, and so instead of having its own branch, Campania (along with Abruzzo and Molise) has to answer to Lazio/the Roman branch.
There are conservative factions within the Ghurch. It is what it is. (You'd be surprised how regressive many famous roots of modern day Satanism are!)
For the cult's own safety, it takes a little more than just signing up at your local convent/abbey/diocese in order to join the clergy. Depending on the branch, you may even have to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
WOMEN AND AFAB PEOPLE ARE ABSOLUTELY PERMITTED TO PURSUE PRIESTHOOD. In theory. In practice, not every branch is equally enthusiastic about it, lol.
Just like the Catholic Church, the Ministry, too, has its own seminary schools, which obviously train the clergy. You can’t become a priest nor an abbess, let alone a bishop, without getting the proper education first.
.⋆♱ random ex-catholic priest perpetua hcs because i can.
[ᯓ⛧⋆₊*.⁺𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙]
yes he can speak latin. in a way. ecclesiastical because it was required but he's probably picked up some vernacular and classic along the way, too, out of the sheer interest of it.
he actually tried learning aramaic in an attempt at getting closer to the "core" of the faith (most assume aramaic was the language jesus spoke and taught in). did it work or has he retained much? uhm, no.
got found out and got shit for listening to ozzy and other "ungodly and disturbing" music multiple times.
not a virgin, has probably had his awkward first with someone he's never seen again and later on has slept with a fellow seminarian.
probably wore contacts and/or shades and/or maybe even a damn eyepatch to avoid unnecessary questions and suspicion.
yes, he had to change parishes at least twice after getting accused of being possessed or directly related to the devil. not as much of a stretch as he thought back then.
has had a fascination with reliquaries since childhood. didn't fully understand how they could be sacred or definitely contain that specific long-dead saint's bones for real, no lie, though.
has a strained relationship with "nearer my god to thee". no notes here, it is what it is.
and a strained relationship with his body, still. all those "eldritch" additions and character creation he can do as papa now has probably been of some help. easier to reclaim one's vessel through comparison to demons (if all your life you've been accused of being one) than martyrs.
still gets that uncomfortable itch to kneel in front of the altar if he happens to visit a church. it's not a personal struggle, it's resisting a trained response. he'll get better at it as time goes on.
does he own at least one of his old rosaries? has it been disassembled and is it in the process of being put together to make something new, even if he doesn't yet know what exactly? maybe.
Ao3
[ᯓ⛧⋆₊*.⁺𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙]
summary: Papa V is not enjoying V Day as much as one would perhaps imagine. Luckily, a perfectly dull secular holiday following a successful music video premiere might just get better thanks to the visit of a special someone.
warnings: absolutely none! (sorry?)
word count: 2,745
note 1: this is extremely mild. the reader is hinted at being a part of the upper clergy. could be read as vincentverse-adjacent (beloved rosia stans shall get their special version if they so demand). and yah, the title is a hozier ref.
note 2: y'all i knew i would fail to write, let alone post it, on valentine's day. but then i started (around two days ago), and then it felt like a waste to just stop and throw this away. not to mention i'm trying to murder my writer's block.
Discontent has been following him like a shadow since morning, nearly subtle enough to ignore, just the right amount of persistent to keep shrouding V’s day.
It doesn’t have any particular flavour to it, nor a singular source—which, tragically, makes it all the more difficult to brush off.
Because it doesn’t claw, or sting, or even accuse. Instead, it simply lingers.
It keeps pace.
In theory, nothing has gone wrong. Quite the opposite.
The music video’s premiere has detonated exactly as it was meant to; the numbers are climbing, the comments blooming, the feedback almost embarrassingly complimentary, not to mention the fans dissecting every second frame with ardent enthusiasm.
His inbox remains a merciful desert (save for the thirty-ish e-mails he refuses to open and considers, for now, clergy spam).
There’s been no frantic calls from the Ministry, no last-minute venue-related tragedies. Tonight’s ritual is set to proceed without interruptions. All the gears are turning. All the lights are green.
But it’s the little things.
The curtains in the hotel suite are drawn, but the pale February sun seeps around their edges anyway, washing the room in a diluted gray that feels neither comforting nor properly bleak. Just… flat. It flattens. In a weirdly dissecting, needling way.
When he'd woken up, the sheets had smelled clean, like industrial detergent specific for those places that host many guests at once, but remember none of them. But something about the texture had irritated him immediately, both too stiff and too synthetic.
He’d shifted once. Twice. Finally shoved them down to his hips in silent annoyance, staring at the ceiling with petulance that only irritated him further.
He knew, he knows, that the staff had done nothing but their jobs. He knows he should be grateful. But that does nothing to soothe the irritation.
He had risen with a headache that felt like a thin metal band drawn around his skull, tightening with patient cruelty. It hasn’t split him open but it has persisted. It's steady, a needling pressure behind his eyes that now makes the winter light feel invasive.
His knee is clicking again.
It’s not enough to alarm him, but it sure as hell does the job at reminding him that he has been standing under lights night after night, throwing himself into ritual with an intensity that refuses to age as gracefully as he pretends to.
Click.
A faint, treacherous punctuation.
He rolls it experimentally.
Click, again.
“Wonderful,” he mutters to the empty room.
He considers reading. The book rests on the desk in the corner, ribbon marker poised mid-chapter.
He walks over to it, sits down, ignores the knee.
Stares at a singular page for too long before admitting that the words refuse to stay still long enough in his mind to be worth the effort.
His brain feels like it has been wrapped in wool, or worse. Heavy. Sluggish.
He could smoke—he wants to smoke, the urge flickering briefly—but he cannot while touring. Not if he wishes to preserve his voice, and definitely not if he wishes to maintain the pretence of effortless stamina.
He could sleep, but sleep feels like surrender, or weakness. Like admitting that something is wrong when everything is, by every objective measure, gloriously right.
Perpetua exhales through his nose.
He wonders if Copia has seen the numbers. He probably has. The buzz around the premiere has been loud. It hums through social feeds and Ministry halls alike.
A piece of him still thinks, will forever think and perhaps be correct, that he does not compare to his twin’s musical legacy.
Yet in this case, he recognises that for Copia it’s not the artistic quality that matters as much as the attention. At least right now.
He wonders if his brother is angry. If he’s annoyed, perhaps in a way similar to his own discomfort. Or entirely different, but still—close enough in nature for V to imagine the feeling stretch like an invisible thread, across forests and state lines, and bind the two of them in something, despite the lingering quiet and left-on-read messages.
The thought drifts in uninvited, as it so often does. He can almost hear his brother’s silence from across an ocean.
He tells himself he should not care. Knows himself well enough to understand that he’s going to, anyway.
The headache pulses in agreement.
He presses the heel of his hand against his brow and exhales slowly through his nose, as if he can physically expel the worry.
He fails.
Instead, he moves to the window. The glass is cool beneath his fingers.
Outside, the weather stays decent. Clear enough skies, no threat of another cancellation. That alone feels like a small mercy.
He knows the spectacle will rip him open and fill him with something indescribable and wonderful. That is simply how these things are. But for now, the dull winter light stays relentless.
There is an ache beneath the headache, subtler but more biting; a sense of displacement that no clear skies, no glittering premiere can quite disguise.
It is Valentine’s Day. Thousands of miles stretch between him and home.
He had known the date was approaching. Had marked it with a private, almost amused acknowledgment when the schedule was finalised. It had seemed trivial then. Maybe a bit sentimental. A secular indulgence. It does not feel trivial now.
His knee clicks again as he shifts his weight. He scowls at it like it has personally offended him.
The man reflected in the window feels like a child who has been handed everything he asked for and still wants to go home.
The ghouls had burst in earlier after a knock so brief it he could have as well imagined it.
Chatter first, then glitter. They crowded the doorway, and he couldn’t help but let out a quiet, confused laugh. The headache had receded for a fleeting second under their sheer affection.
One of the cards had been nearly mangled—clearly fought over before presentation—its edges bent, doodled over, annotated. The other was pristine by comparison, though aggressively adorned with rhinestones and signatures of different shapes and sizes, fighting for the limited space. There was also a heart-shaped box of chocolates. And an absurdly large bouquet, thrust into his arms before V could blink.
His hands had filled quickly—with the cards, the bouquet, the box—and his heart had followed suit.
And, last but definitely not least, there was the invitation, direct as any simple business proposal within his new Church.
“Collaborative fun,” Haze grinned sweetly, nodding as if the innuendo was entirely obvious.
“She means fucking,” Dew supplied helpfully.
Before the concert, if V dared. After, if he still had the stamina.
“You’re incorrigible,” he’d told them, smiling.
They’d preened under the praise.
He had thanked them profusely. Kissed a cheek, booped a nose, squeezed a shoulder, promised nothing explicitly, but left the door open in a way he has been trying to master—suggestive without binding himself to an outcome.
And then he had retreated, softly closing the door.
Now the bouquet sits next to the abandoned book on the desk, an explosion of colour against the muted hotel palette. The chocolates remain unopened. The cards lie side by side against the lamp; he has read them both twice already. The mangled one makes him smile.
His phone rests near his hand. He could call. The time difference is inconvenient but not insurmountable. He calculates it automatically: Europe is several hours ahead. You may already be deep into evening obligations or perhaps have carved out a quiet space in anticipation of his message.
Either way, he misses you with a physicality that surprises him. The way you would smooth your thumb beneath his eye if you saw the tension there. The way you would tell him, without condescension, that headaches are not moral failures. The way you would tease him for sulking over hotel linens while simultaneously ordering better ones next time.
He leans back in the chair and closes his eyes.
For a moment, he allows himself to feel it fully: the homesickness, the irritation, the low thrum of pride and fatigue tangled together. That fucking headache.
The shadow does not vanish when acknowledged, but it becomes less amorphous. Or something. It feels like one of the dramatic wisdoms he'd find scrawled in the margins of one of the older Satanic scrolls you'd taught him how to handle. Or in his own notebook, maybe.
You’d be proud of him for that, Perpetua thinks. Or tease him for it. Either way, what bliss.
“I am not pathetic,” he murmurs to the empty room, as if daring it to contradict him.
He rolls his knee again. Click.
Later on, he will lean into the lights, the buzz, the theatrics of ritual, the swell of thousands breathing as one. The headache will likely dissolve under the heat of it, burned away by adrenaline, and he will become larger than the room, larger than the doubt, larger than the distance.
But for now, in the thin winter light of a foreign city, he hopes to survive the discomfort of missing home more than usual.
Minutes pass, or perhaps only seconds; time has a way of warping in hotel rooms. It has become viscous, stretched thin and slow, clinging to him like the headache behind his eyes.
He is still hovering near the window when the knock comes.
It’s neither the polite tap of room service not the chaotic pounding of ghouls eager to deliver their gifts.
It’s just three raps, but he exhales tiredly anyway, already weary of whatever performance might be required of him next.
“Coming,” he calls, voice steady enough.
His knee protests when he moves. Click. The headache pulses once in irritation at the shift in light as he crosses the room.
He runs a hand over his hair, smooths the front of his sweater out of habit, though he is in nothing ceremonial—just black trousers, dark sleeves rolled carelessly to his forearms. Civilian enough.
He composes his face, or assumes he does, because expressions still refuse to obey him sometimes.
If it’s the band again, he will endure whatever glittered ambush they have devised next. If it’s hotel service, he will apologise preemptively for whatever they believe he requires.
Another knock, slightly softer this time.
He opens the door. And the world—quite frankly—misfires.
For a second he thinks his mind has fractured under the pressure of distance and winter light.
You stand there in a simple dark coat, nothing ecclesiastical about you; your hair is loosened by travel, the faint flush of cold still clings to your cheeks. There is a smaller bouquet in your hands; it's deliberate, almost understated compared to the floral beast currently colonising his desk. At your ankle sits a modest suitcase, the handle tilted toward you like a conspirator.
The hallway hums with the distant sound of an elevator. The world continues.
And Perpetua just stares.
His brain, already wrapped in wool, refuses to process what his eyes insist on. For a fragile second he considers that the headache has finally tipped him into hallucination and this is the logical result of irritation and longing and too little sleep.
He says your name more like a question, and in response you smile in that particular way that feels victorious. Like you’ve just commited a crime most delightful.
“Glorious leader,” your greet him with faux gravitas. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
He does not answer. He simply blinks.
You tilt your head slightly, amusement flickering in your eyes.
“V,” you prompt gently. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“You’re—” His voice falters, uncharacteristically thin. He clears it. “Right, sorry. Please, come in.”
Your smile turns gentler, reassuring, and something in his chest gives way. The headache recedes, not fully, but enough that he notices the absence.
He steps back automatically, making space without quite realising he has done so, and you cross the threshold. Perpetua closes the doors behind you with deliberate care.
You halt in the centre of the room and turn to him first before setting anything down. The bouquet shifts in your hands; dark roses, and not dark roses, but he will make sure to decipher the rest of it later.
“Thank you.” He accepts the flowers automatically, still dazed.
For a moment, your gaze travels over him with unhurried assessment, noting the rolled sleeves, the slight pallor, the tightness around Perpetua's eyes.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says, though the protest lacks conviction.
“I’m aware,” you agree, entirely unapologetic. “Which makes this infinitely more satisfying.”
He laughs then, the sound soft and incredulous.
He steps aside briefly to set the bouquet carefully beside the larger one on the desk.
“I watched the premiere before boarding,” you say from behind him, smile shining through every word. “I’m so proud of you.”
The words land somewhere warm in V’s chest.
He turns and reaches for you, hands settling at your waist, thumbs pressing gently into the fabric of your coat as if to test solidity.
“You planned this,” he says.
Your arms hook loosely around his neck, the gesture near-instinctive by now. “But naturally.”
Your palm shifts, pressing lightly against the base of his skull where you know tension usually gathers.
For a heartbeat, Perpetua simply looks at you, tilting his head towards your touch. He realizes, in that small silence, that the shadow which has followed him all day has retreated a full step.
“You’re tired,” you state, as if having read his mind.
He huffs a soft laugh. “I’m fine.”
You lift your brows.
“Really,” he insists, brushing it away with a small shake of his head. “It’s nothing. A headache. Bad sheets. Existential melodrama.”
You don’t look convinced, but you don’t press either. Your thumb strokes once at the base of his skull.
“You’re overstimulated,” you hum. “And you haven’t rested.”
He could lie. He considers it. Instead, he shrugs one shoulder.
“It’s Valentine’s Day,” he says, as if that explains everything.
“So it is.”
“You flew all this way,” he adds, as if to redirect. “For this?”
“The flock will survive a few days without my hovering.”
He smiles faintly. “You delight in hovering.”
“I do,” you agree, one hand moving to trace the skin under his eye now. “But I also delight in surprises.”
He leans into your touch without thinking.
You take that moment to study him up close once more, calculating whether he needs silence, space or grounding.
He solves the dilemma for you.
His hand slides from your waist to the small of your back, pulling you closer.
He bends, pressing his mouth to yours with a softness that carries relief. Your lips are tinged with the faint chill of winter air. Your thumb brushes over his cheek and you can almost feel the beginning hum of a purr begin somewhere deep in his chest.
Once you break for air, he rests his forehead against your shoulder, then nuzzles into your collarbone.
“You have impeccable timing,” he mutters.
Your other hand moves from his nape to stroke over his locks. “I know.”
“You could have warned me.”
“And ruin the spectacle?” You shake your head. “Never.”
He lifts his head, studying you with renewed clarity. “You flew across an ocean to ambush me on a secular holiday.”
You smile like a crime again. “I flew across an ocean because you sounded restless on the phone last night. The holiday was convenient.”
He huffs a breath that almost becomes another laugh.
The tiredness is still there, woven into the corners of his eyes, the way he holds himself, but it is no longer devouring him. It’s become manageable, he realises with no small relief. Even his knee, traitorous thing that it is, fades from immediate awareness.
“You've probably just saved the day,” he sighs, moving his hand to cradle your chin, drawing you even closer.
Your eyes flutter briefly, a lazy smile curving your lips before you press them to his. “Mhm. That was the intention.”
The ritual still awaits, with all of its physical strain. The charged silence between him and his twin still lingers, unspoken hurt and something more complex flickering somewhere distant. His knee will likely click again. The winter light is not going to change. Sensory troubles are unavoidable.
But you're here now. And as he kisses you once more, longer this time, with a low, relieved sound in his throat—he thinks, with a quiet certainty, that the day may, indeed, be salvageable.
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story context: v has thought himself long past martyrdom, let alone bringing it upon anyone else. at least until his partner asks him to help fulfil their decades-old wish of obtaining the blessing of the silver eye. the only issue? most blessings come at a price.
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excerpt summary: v having to face the architecture of his catholic past. quite literally. a.k.a the author having far too much fun describing the way religious trauma lingers in sacred spaces. yes, there is gothic porn in the actual fic.
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quick explanation: remember this post? well, here is a sneak peek. v is in a loving long-term relationship with a zealot and the two of them end up conducting a bloody murder-resurrection sex ritual in a recently purchased ex-catholic chapel, but not without a fair share of character dissection and the big religious three: delusions, symbolism and trauma, lol. it takes place in my main fic's universe (coming to y'all soon).
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notes: the current title of the entire work is "to a madonna", as a direct reference to this poem, which basically reads like a hornier, even more openly blasphemous version of umbra's lyrics. i intended to post the whole thing during easter (it's a three-parter, so one on good friday, one on holy saturday, and then the epilogue on easter sunday) and, though irl stuff prevented that, that fact remains important! what began as a blurb to celebrate the umbra mv premiere has quickly turned into a pwp character analysis heavy with the big religious three: delusions, symbolism, and trauma, lol. i hope to post the entire thing soon...
The scent meets them first: a faint chill threaded through with mildew and the oily trace of hardened wax, exactly as he’s predicted. Beneath it all lingers something metallic and forgotten, akin to resin or the vinegar of old wood polish.
The interior is dim and still, lit by what natural light the thin narrow windows allow to pass through. He can see the vague shapes of leftover furniture from where he stands, and the faint, distant glow of muted colours at the end of the aisle.
V has half-expected the familiar arrangement to quieten some of his unease.
Instead, it feels like standing at the mouth of a tomb, tasting the cold, stagnant air of things long dead and better left buried.
Something in him recoils at the comparison the second it settles into his conscience. The guilt of double-meanings and parallels found in the worst places.
It dawns on him, then, that she has not moved, quietly waiting for him to cross the threshold on his own volition.
Once more, he fights the urge to find her hand.
Some part of him feels like a fool for the delay—another part knows very well that she’d disapprove of the needless guilt. He has learnt better.
He steps inside, ignoring the quiet creak of old boards shifting beneath his shoes.
Indeed, the place has not yet been reduced to a proper ruin; the roof has withstood many rainy nights and the air inside is mildly damp, but not nearly enough to force them out.
The pews stand in semi-orderly rows, a bit crooked, two of them randomly missing, the illusion of symmetry ruined. He can see their surfaces clearer now; the way dust has settled into a velvet pelt over kneeling benches worn by years of supplication. The kind that creak when one shifts their weight, forcing them to kneel carefully lest the entire congregation hear.
Farther back and to the side, there is a hymn board empty of numbers.
V briefly wonders what was the last hymn these walls have heard.
Though mostly shrouded by darkness, one of them still holds a shredded banner, hanging from a rusted rod like the skin of Saint Bartholomew.
The space is not as cramped as the exterior suggested, but it doesn’t quite have the grandeur to pull the soul upwards, either. It seems to have been pieced together from the dozen tiny chapels he has visited, yet resembles none of them at the same time. It’s inoffensive. It reminds him of a hollowed-out ribcage of roadkill, where shadows don’t pool so much as they crouch in the corners. It’s a collage of nightmare scraps gathered from the attic edges of his memory.
There are no lamps nor modest chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Dust motes turn lazily in the air, illuminated by what little passes through.
V takes note of all that for the sake of future improvement. Or so he tells himself.
In all sincerity, he knows he is stalling.
He has stood under higher ceilings. Here, the narrow walls press inward, funneling everything toward the modest altar stone at the far end.
Above it looms the eye of a stained glass window, a red-and-blue oval choked by the cataract of silt and spiderwebs. It grants a backdrop of dimmed colour to the simple crucifix suspended over the altar.
let me know if you want to be tagged ♡ (make sure to specify whether you'd like to be a part of my general tag list, the one for worldbuilding and hcs, or just the one for fics or specific characters!)
.⋆♱ more random ex-catholic priest perpetua hcs because y'all asked so nicely
[ᯓ⛧⋆₊*.⁺𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙]
Like many ex-catholics, he might go out of his way to include meat in his meals on fridays. For my vampirism enthusiasts — yes, I think drinking blood would very much count as going against the restrictions of his old faith lol
Once he does actually warm up to his new role and community, guiding the flock comes more naturally than he's expected. He has his uncanny mannerisms and a few odd traits that just cannot be masked, sure, but other than that he's just a really good shepherd lmao.
For those unaware; catholic relics don't have to be bones. They might be scraps of fabric that people swear are confirmed to have been worn by the saint. Or a splinter of wood from under their fucking foot lmfao. V doesn’t care about those. If he's to humour the concept of a relic, let it be solid. Centuries old blood, heart tissues, teeth, hands—if it's not true, let it pretend via the way it looks.
Those two vastly different lyrics:
And speaking of music, he feels genuinely grateful that none of Ghost's songs sound anything like the hymns sung during catholic mass (melody-wise).
Favourite book of the Old Testament? Job, probably. Maybe not favourite. Just one that had never let him rest.
Maybe the same way Spillways would be his favourite song (or one of them, at least). Not that he'd admit that to his twin. And maybe not favourite favourite, just... painfully familiar in the way music makes you feel heard. Because the song orbits the motif of anger even when it feels wrong or ugly. That being said, you know he froze on the spot the first time he watched the spillways MV because!! I feel like we do not talk about this often enough—
I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.
And that part of the Book of Job opens an excerpt that goes hard. Because past that verse, Job doesn't just declare "I am unhappy and this sucks"—he carries on to rightfully accuse god and name every torment he has unjustly put him through.
I say to God: Do not declare me guilty, but tell me what charges you have against me.
Does it please you to oppress me,
to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the plans of the wicked.
Do you have eyes of flesh?
Do you see as a mortal sees?
Are your days like those of a mortal
or your years like those of a strong man, that you must search out my faults
and probe after my sin though you know that I am not guilty and that no one can rescue me from your hand?
Your hands shaped me and made me.
Will you now turn and destroy me?
Because by that point, Job, despite all of his devotion, has lost everything. For a fucking bet. Between the god and the devil, assumedly. And for the first time, he just lets god have it. "I hate my life now. You have made it this way. You have taken everything and I don't think you're even capable of comprehending the weight of that—I don't think you see how cruel it is for you to expect me to bear it and punish my slightest wince when I can't escape your will and you have made me this way."
And it's one of the very few examples when someone who dares question or call god out on his bullshit finishes their story still standing. Either way, I think V would appreciate the song very much, but perhaps not feel ready or able to ever perform it himself.
Likes St Francis :) or rather used to like, back when that still mattered. He visited the Basilica di San Francesco d'Assisi before his ordination. It was a warm autumn and the gardens were quieter. Seeing Giotto's frescoes moved him in ways he would not admit.
Fucking haaates Thomas Aquinas.
Would bite Paul the Apostle. Or burn his letters. Loathed having to memorise them, let alone interpret them to the faithful in a way he himself believed to be helpful and not laced with the author's personal bias and/or sense of superiority.
Probably has an unofficial list of his favourite churches. Not on paper, just internally, and mostly not for any sentimental reason, just the buildings he's really liked or found pretty.
Might also have a little imagined list of the sacred places he'd give the Umbra treatment lmao—
thinking about the emeritus twins and the way they may both approach lying.
note: this is all based on my ex-catholic v headcanons. i'm not tobias forge, that man is twice my age and also much shorter. i just have things rattling around in my mind.
copia has been raised by imperator's close circle, most likely being subtly groomed into eventually becoming the face of the cult, though more of a puppet than an actual leader, clever of a cardinal as he was. i don't think the ministry vilifies lying itself even half as much as most other religions would. there may be some subtle hint that it's, in the eyes of the outside world, not preferable to lie, but it's not as if the gods below would care.
and so copia grows up navigating half-truths with half-instinct, half the precision he's picked up from older clergy. it's simply what people do in order to survive or climb the ranks.
there may be flickers of guilt? but i think it's safe to assume that this man is prone to denial and playing hide and seek with his emotions/the reality of some of his actions.
v is... a different matter altogether.
where the church of ghost recognises how easily the lines between truth and half-fact, half-fact and lying can blur, and simply shrugs at most of it, the catholic church, as per usual, desperately attempts to put a name to everything, set artificially made boundaries. both of those approaches produce different issues.
catholicism forces you to paint in absolutes, at least at face value. you make the sign of a cross at three heights: your forehead, your mouth, your heart. you swear to keep watch of your thought, your word and your feelings, to ensure that all of them are as pure and close to god as can be. that includes absolute sincerity. (in reality it's obviously simply a disguise for the bite model.)
therefore, since his formative years and long into adulthood, perpetua has to grapple to divide his thoughts and feelings and actions into two simple groups: this is right, this is wrong, this is true, this is false, i lied, i remained honest, yes, yes, no, no — there is no maybe.
as can be expected, that pressure results in the faithful growing more and more fixated on whether they're being not only true to their environment and god, but to themselves. it successfully teaches them to endlessly question everything they do, speak, and are, because what if they are secretly lying to themselves, what if they are secretly evil?
the catholic church thrives on fueling that never-ending loop of uncertain and self-doubt in its members. at the same time, its teachings remain beyond contradictory.
you don't tell your faithful everything as a priest. it's not that you lie to them, it's just that... some things are better processed at a different time. some matters have to be worded more... gently.
you learn to make excuses. you do not learn self-forgiveness. you push away the growing guilt, you dull it. you convince yourself that checking yourself into the confessional booth whenever the weight of it all gets unbearable will grant you a blank slate. and the cycle repeats.
you're both trained to self-invigilate and make up excuses for the inconsistencies of a faith that offers little space for doubt or hesitation but demands absolute trust.
i have already gone on about my headcanons concerning v and clerical manipulation, but sometimes this comes back to me because idk, being the face of a cult, some sort of a leader, even if only half-factual, demands wielding facts a certain way if you want to garner the flock's trust. and perhaps not all lies are created equal. sometimes, they're simply withholding information for the sake of one's safety or the peace of mind of the larger group.
is having a stage persona a lie? is it pretending, or simply curating one's personality in order to elicit a specific response from the crowd? and wouldn't that be manipulation? but then again, does that harm anybody? aren't human interactions largely based on that? is navigating them a lie? is a lie always bad?
see, in the end, none of it matters. luciferianism/satanism allows for a maybe. is it good? is it bad? you define it. you decide.
to someone raised to make up answers just to have something to cling to, that uncertainty would probably be maddening.
Your Perpetua hcs are killing me! I need to know more! Like, what is her like as Papa? How does he interact with the lay, the clergy etc. How does he handle anyone who tries to undermine him as Papa?
thank you so much for your question and sorry it's taken me so long to respond!
this is actually a topic that plays a large role in the Big Fic I'm Working On and is just overall something i really enjoy exploring, so i'm not only going to answer through the lense of personal headcanons, but also include a few snippets from the story itself. <3
his approach to the papal duties, the laity and the clergy || papa v (char. study + headcanons + excerpts/some scenes)
notes: let me reiterate, this is based solely on my personal headcanons, and ones tied to the story i'm working on at that. there'll be clerical rambling and just a touch of church politics + i did my best to provide some context for each of the scenes.
[ᯓ⛧⋆₊*.⁺𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙]
✶ approach to conflict
Back when he was still a part of the Catholic clergy, V has once almost become a bishop, so, while he did get sabotaged, he still retains all the education and training necessary to be ordained to the episcopacy. Which means he is fairly aware of how to oversee congregations, and beyond that — how church politics are likely to work, despite the obvious differences between the Ministry and what he knows from his past.
In the story, he is also technically made Papa before the “external” world even gets to see him, and before Skeletá even becomes a thing. So before he's allowed to handle the stage, he has to handle all sorts of Ministry affairs, both "simpler"/local ones at the Headquarters, as well as more complex ones that concern international branches. There is still a learning curve and plenty of preparation to it all, but his previous experiences certainly come in handy.
context for the scene below:
As an example, in the fic there is a moment when V has to handle a delegation from a particularly self-sufficient and defiant (to the point of having almost caused a schism in the past) branch that is rooted in a more “fire and brimstone”/severe type of Satanism (akin to the 1st Era). It's mostly due to cultural and historical differences, and the branch's leaders aren't too fond of the Ghost Project as a way of spreading the Dark One's message.
So one of the things V does is lean into some of the older traditions that he has managed to learn about thus far; using a half-archaic phrase to greet the delegates, avoiding in-depth discussion of the still-developing album, only mentioning that the titles will remain mostly in Latin as a way of honouring tradition.
He basically gaslights them into believing that he is definitely not a silver-sparkling funky guy in the making, but instead a very serious spiritual leader who is definitely aware of the weight of the mitre. And I mean... he is. But he has his own ideas for how to use it, and he is not above twisting the truth/lying, by omission or otherwise, to get the delegates on his good side.
“And the future, then?” Cardinal Samael pressed, his gaze heavy on Papa, his tone a touch more measured but still not softened. “What of the Ghost project? The upcoming tours, the messages to the faithful… or have those become trade shows instead?”
(...) Perpetua let the question linger. It would have been easier to lie, if the lie was fully formed, but the truth… his truth, at least, was still molting in the shadows, heavy with synth and sequins. Skeletá, for now, remained a phantom in his lungs.
So he chose the shape that kept him safe.
“Ghost remains,” he said, picking through the careful narratives he'd used in his past sermons, “a vessel for Lucifer's voice. Its message, like scripture, adapts to the tongue that delivers it — but the flame it carries is the same.”
╰┈➤ Is he lying in that scene? Not really. But is he also bullshitting them? SORT OF, YEAH. It's more like avoiding a direct response clergy-style, in a way that utilises some Satanic-adjacent verbiage and comes across as full understanding of the infernal mission, lol. The choice to say “a vessel for Lucifer's voice” instead of “a vessel for the Ministry's voice” is deliberate because that particular delegation would not be above questioning whether the Ministry itself has not strayed from the "right path".
✶ approach to the clergy
When it comes to interacting with the clergy in general, he's, as we've already established, not unfamiliar it. I like to imagine that the Ministry (while nowhere near similar to its size) is not that different from the Catholic Church in terms of its structure; it has its own smaller sects and orders, doctrinal and ideological factions.
Some, for obvious reasons, will never grant V their full approval. Others will need more time to eventually warm up to him.
At first it's all probably more of a challenge to handle, since, without Sister Imperator's direct guidance and given Copia's disarrayed state, the Ministry is… less than properly organised, at least for a while.
But on the long run, despite some factions or clergymen's scepticism, I think Perpetua manages to prove himself capable sooner than he's expected. He is, from what we have seen so far, nowhere near as “heretical” as Terzo, so perhaps he'll stay intact for some time lol.
And he is not above asking questions, admitting when some things evade him and leaning on his closest circle for help when he falters! Especially during the first stages of his papacy.
That's more or less how I imagine the dynamics between him and the upper clergy/religious orders in general. When it comes to one-on-one spiritual guidance or his approach to the lower clergy, I think it's far less strained in comparison, even at the very beginning.
Unlike Copia, who I think used to be more of a cog within the institution rather than someone naturally inclined to lead (before Sister put him in that position, that is), Perpetua would come around to shepherding the flock with more ease, given the almost-bishop context and all. He'd still have to have been introduced to some customs (guess what the fic is about... lol exactly that), and of course the way he'd handle certain situations during his first few months of papacy would be different than, say, three years into it.
context for the scene below:
This one takes place before the album has even been finalised, but in the story V has already been named the next Papa and tries to spend some of his spare time near the faithful, so that he can understand their troubles and perspectives better, and be a better listener. Sometimes (in the first year more often than not) he still feels like an utter hypocrite when offering guidance.
They entered the nave as a group but Papa slowed down, lingering a few steps behind.
He looked around, taking in the cool air and the dim space — vaster than the building let on from the outside.
With hands folded behind his back, he let his steps lead him towards the side altar shaped like a serpent’s spine. There, a young Brother of Blasphemy was adjusting a series of taper candles, bare-handed, with his gloves laid neatly next to his bent knees.
He was focused, unaware, until a second shadow lengthened beside him, a touch muted by the distance but enough to make him look up sharply, then scramble upright, nearly bowing himself out of the kneeler.
“Your Unholiness—I'm sorry, I—”
Perpetua raised a hand, not in blessing but to halt the anxious formality.
“Don’t stand on my account,” he said, trying for a small smile.
The brother froze mid-motion, then folded himself back into the kneeler, awkwardly resting his hands atop an opened prayer text. There was anxiety in his posture — deference, yes, but also some internal, more human quiver.
“Forgive me— I didn’t know the space was reserved,” he tried again.
But Papa just shook his head, lowering his hand as he approached.
“It isn’t,” he assured. “This space belongs to the prayer.” And he meant that not as a set phrase, but because he knew the unease of feeling unwelcome in a space that was supposed to be for everyone.
He crouched beside the brother slowly and without grandeur. The warm light touched his profile as he fixed his gaze on the candles.
He let the silence linger for a breath or two before asking quietly:
“Something troubling you?”
It took a moment, someone's heels clicking distantly in the nave, a door creaking softly.
The younger man opened his mouth, closed it again, swallowed whatever unease still lingered, before finally admitting:
“I am trying not to fear what I want.”
Perpetua didn't flinch — at least not outwardly. But he did feel the echo of something sharp pulling behind his ribs.
His eyes softened as he glanced sideways at the young clergyman.
“Desire isn’t shameful,” he said, hoping to keep his voice even, now repeating more what he had learnt and still tried to accept rather than what he fully followed. “It’s what we do with it that shapes us.”
“I know that, in scripture.” The brother nodded, eyes flickering from the flames to the open text, then back up again. “But there is… this woman." He hesitated minutely, then continued, "She comes around every Wednesday— I mean, for the mass. But I feel like she lingers?” He tried to shrug it off. His palms fidgeted. “Our eyes... keep meeting. I know it sounds stupid, but it feels deliberate? And she—she smiles at me. Not always, but usually. And, I don't know… It’s dumb.” He looked down once more, ashamed of the softness. “It's not just lust. It’s not even that I want her, I— I think want to know her? Or maybe I want to be seen?” He shook his head as if the possibility was foolish. “But if she sees me, that'll probably ruin it.”
Perpetua stayed quiet for a moment, making the young man still in his pew.
“There is nothing wrong with wanting to be seen,” V spoke finally, low, but this time from his own conviction. “And it's normal to stress about that. But you are not hurting anyone just because you want to know them. You are not hurting anyone by hoping for a connection.” He turns to look at the brother directly now. “You don't even have to name it right away. You can just let it breathe. Let it turn into something more. Or to pass. Just… don’t punish yourself for the hope.”
The brother blinked — then exhaled, letting his shoulders lower and his breath even out.
“Thank you, Unholy Father,” he replied quietly. “That helps.”
Perpetua simply nodded, rose, and stepped back without flourish. He didn’t say more, but something behind his eyes shifted. Uncoiled, if only just a tad.
╰┈➤ He is not providing faux comfort, even if he doesn't feel fully honest (not like a hypocrite, that is) while giving that advice. It's not politics, not even meant to sway the lesser clergy towards him. He's sharing what he knows from his past, perhaps what he wishes someone would have said to him back when he was around the brother's age. I think, at the end of the day, Perpetua has little issue being honest and open about discussing emotions (even difficult ones) with the flock.
✶ approach to the laity/flock
Despite everything I've already stated, I think it does still take him a moment longer to just get used to being the face of the Ghost Project and not just the Ministry's symbolic leader. because… sure, both of those roles come with being admired (idealised, even) and bringing the masses closer to the infernal, but one of them makes it far easier for the flock and fans to focus on the Papa himself rather than, you know, Lucifer and the religion.
Maybe it's a silly shorthand, but basically being the face of the band = megachurch preacher vibes, meanwhile being the symbolic leader of the cult = being more like the actual Pope (or at least that's how I view it, since I lean heavily on the Catholic Church's structures in my interpretation, though that's probably beyond obvious at this point lol).
So he is familiar with performing priestly duties, preaching, etc. He's just (at first) not used to the attention focusing directly on him and not some grander ideals!
It's not that he dislikes it, at least not entirely. He simply doesn't sure what to do with it at the start. I do believe that he's a performer at heart! I mean, as most charismatic pastors/priests tend to be. You just have to love yapping at the masses and eliciting all types of responses to fit the bill (and I am only partly joking). 🙂↕️
context for the scene below:
This one takes place during the European leg of Skeletour. The band is being hosted by the Milanese branch of the Ministry and its members might have... sort of swarmed V and the ghouls in the gardens. Done so lovingly and out of pure enthusiasm, but still, he's a touch overwhelmed. They're not necessarily pushy, mostly proud and eager to let him know that. It makes some more sense within the context of the story, since he is no stranger to that particular crowd and has spent several months at their Archdiocese before he's been made Papa.
“Papa!” grinned a dark-haired Sister of Sin, approaching quickly, already gesturing for her friend to take a photo. “You’re more beautiful in person than in the music videos, I swear—”
“Oh, no—” He laughed quietly, hands up, backing half a step — but it was too late.
Another Sibling had him by the sleeve.
“Is it true you've added both Majesty and Monstrance Clock to the setlist? We’ve argued about it for days.”
“I—yes," he admitted before thinking, and then, as if to salvage the mystery, "I might have.”
“May I ask about your silver spine? Does the tail wag?” someone else chimed in, their fingers fluttering like birds to draw the shape in the air.
“It— Sort of?” he answered, blinking. “Sorry, I didn’t think you’d know to ask that.”
A delighted murmur followed.
V had been adored before, if only just a little, or not even half as much as during the most recent weeks. He had been applauded after certain meetings and followed with something close to curiosity in many halls — but this was different.
Because these were hers — her bishops, her scholars, her acolytes. Because they, to some degree, knew him better than the chance parishioners or vast crowds, and instead of wariness, they had given him home; offered him admiration without a hook, kindness without calculation. Or, well, so it seemed.
It was unnerving.
An older deacon reached for his hand and pressed something into it: a handmade card with Lucifer's sigil carefully drawn with silver ink.
"You have brought the Ministry His light, you know,” the woman said with utmost conviction. “I don’t think you realise what you’ve done already.”
Perpetua's breath halted minutely.
“I’m not sure I do,” he murmured as his thumb brushed the edge of the card.
The cardinal stood by the central archway, arms folded but not closed, sunglasses on. Observing, monitoring, making sure no one crowded Papa too hard. She smiled slightly when she caught him glancing at her between questions, his gaze still a little stunned.
Pioggia's tail flicked against one of the marble pillars as she leaned slightly towards her Padrona.
“His Unholiness looks like he’s about to pass out," the ghoulette remarked with brazen delight, fangs flashing in a smirk.
Cardinal Lucente sent her a look that could cut glass, thought the dimmed shades dulled its impact severely.
“Basta," she replied, low and dry, though not harsh nor unkind. "He looks like he’s been handed an entire heart. He'll be kind with it.”
The ghoulette just sighed and nodded, but gave no response.
A few minutes later, the cardinal felt her phone buzz in her hand. The screen lit up with a message from Perpetua.
She glanced his way; he had texted her from a seat behind an oak tree, half-hidden by a cluster of enamoured archivists:
They know more about me than I do.
How do you bear being loved like this?
And, because just then she felt Nebbia gently usher her back into the building, the Eminenza's reply arrived an hour later, between a briefing and some minor chaos in the dining hall:
I don’t bear it. I let it feed me. Or try to, though I know it can get overwhelming.
Let them believe in you even if you don’t.
They mean it.
He didn’t respond right away. Just tucked his phone away, breathed deeply, and turned back to answer another question from the awaiting crowd.
Seeing how this tour has shaped him so far, I think it wouldn't be wrong to assume he'd come back from it with a significant confidence boost. Something something... neurodivergent theatre kid and finding joy in the creation and then embodiment of an artistic/performative persona... But beyond that, also the fact that he has not failed, y'know? He's proven himself out there performing for entire ventues time and time again shortly after having been thrust directly into spotlight! That is a huge feat.
Leaning on the post-tour WIPs in my collection (the farthest one that's not an AU takes place three years into his papacy), I'd say that he grows to approach his duties with far less anxiousness. The more he settles into them, into his new life, the more himself he allows, well, himself to be.
He's still a little mischievous but nowhere near as smug/sassy as he is onstage. He likes reminding the congregates not to take everything with such seriousness at all times, though not in a shallow "live laugh love" manner, lmao.
He still enjoys lingering in common spaces when he's not too overwhelmed and has some free time, in order to see what the flock is up to and to possibly interact.
It's not a common occurence, but once in a while he might even leave little notes (nothing his own, simply underlined little excerpts from various books he thinks the person might find useful in their given situation, or just somethink that may speak to them) for some of the clergy or laity members that seem particularly worried or lost or just dealing with someting. He doesn't do that in order to mark his own presence, he doesn't sign the note. He just places/hides it somewhere where it's likely the person will find it. So that they feel a bit more seen and significant and a little less alone. He's weirdly Gothic like that.
