Disabilities: AuADHD, Anxiety, undiagnosed chronic muscle spasms, severe dairy allergy
I tag personal things under # reys rants
Interests: anything music related honestly, I play piano, and sing. I am currently trying to learn the bass guitar, and am trying to procure a theremin, and a hurdy gurdy. I love metal and rock music, but also have a soft spot for musicals, and opera.
Iโm sure there will be more added as I think of them, but if you want to know anything more about me just ask!
cardinal copia: *supplies own theme music while walking in, apparent workaholic, probably apologized for sneezing on a bug 5 minutes ago* oh geez thatโs me!
Yes, following upon my Secondo and Cardi posts, time for me to yap about the Olde One himself.
This post is 90% about Papa Emeritus I, but also about some personal/family stuff for me because of how I relate to the character, and ALSO about my tendency to take a welder to canon and fanon and try to fashion something that honors both instead of discarding either.
We see two versions of this man in fan spaces. One, I think, is a projection of a lot of people's wishes: a nice old man who raised his brothers and cares for the congregation and likes to garden. The other is based on canon sources where it is to be remembered that the lore wasn't fully Serious Business (not that it's ever been) at the time: a misanthropic monster who can compare himself to genocidal dictators and porn stars in the same breath who wants to bring about the end times and would eat a panda and may or may not be undead.
My scorching hot take is that both can be true at once.
And my personal shit is where I get that take from - though I do like welding canon and fanon (and retconned and previous versions of canon) together in general. But no. One of the people who has loved me the most in my life, a person who was a third parent to me - my grandmother - is an avid gardener and music fan who loves her family to the exclusion of all else. She is also one of the most hateful, joyless, stubborn human beings to ever exist. Legitimately, we fear her - my husband likened Nana to "the Don" of our family and he is not wrong. The entire world could burn to the ground and her main complaint would be that it's now too hot.
When I see Primo I see Nana (not literally that'd be kind of horrifying). I can't be upset by the apparent "contradiction" between the two versions of him because I grew up under the care of a woman who fed me cinnamon toast and grew giant tomatoes and threw a frying pan at her husband and told her own son to go to hell in the first and only text message she ever sent. There's no contradiction. One old person can contain multitudes.
That said, I admit I was heartbroken to find out that the photo at the root of all the gardener Primo fanon
is a cosplay. It's not TF or anyone affiliated with Ghost. It's literally just a guy. This right here is the whole reason we get people associating him with flowers and gardens and it's a fan having fun. The long hair fanon came from the same place - I don't have photo evidence of that but it also originated in a cosplay. fucking crazy, yeah? We collectively assigned a man hair.
Another thing I want people to remember when they concern themselves about what's canon or fanon for Primo is this - when Ghost started, they weren't painstakingly crafting a story (and it could be argued they still aren't). They were doing a bit. So a lot of the more outrageous answers given in interviews about pissing on ghouls or inviting comparisons to Hitler or having a giant cock, while acceptable as true - are also just as likely to be humorous exaggerations with a core of truth in them.
All that prelim aside, here's some Primo takes and feelings. In keeping with being a man who contains multitudes and contradictions: he is an intellectual and also has forgotten more than he has ever learned or absorbed. In interviews you see him making niche references to church doctrine, smartly completing trivia challenges, speaking in very formal language. Primo is erudite. He is urbane. He says please and thank you. He is sophisticated the way the Devil is - the charming facade hiding the binding deal and poisoned offer. He also can't fully remember parts of his past. There's pieces missing. Or he remembers the facts but not the feelings - or the other way around.
I think in general for him thoughts are easier than feelings, and memories often have feelings attached but facts don't - so memories are harder. Also - IMHO this man like his (nephew? brother?...his Cardi) is definitely On the Spectrum somewhere. Us folks with the 'tism are often stereotyped as misanthropes but the dude also has special interests - he can rattle off facts about serial killers and obscure bands with little trouble. And the very few times he's been seen outside of robes (the half glimpse in chapter III) he's dressed Very Cozy - Primo's cultivating his sensory experience.
He is the Most Devout of all the Papas by a mile, and possibly one of the most devout satanists who has ever existed. The pure devotion to Satan in everything he says, and in the way he leads the congregation when he performs, is evident. I don't think he relishes being a showman like most of his successors - he is there to be a priest. His calling is (un)holy. He yearns for the day when this world is ended and bathed in fire and his Lord is reigning supreme on earth. And if singing to music he enjoys is gonna expedite that, he'll do it. I think he would have been just as happy working for the Ministry as either a scholar or in a pastoral capacity - the Ghost Project doesn't matter to him for its own sake, just its mission. And thus, I do think he cares about his flock - even if in an abstract, impersonal way. Would he sacrifice you for one corn chip? Yes. But if you're one of his satanists, he'll take good care of you between now and then. It's his job and he is damn good at his job.
But oh does he hate the rest of humanity. His contempt is evident in interviews, if sometimes hidden behind polished manners and good humor - and he does have a sense of humor, black as the void, but he has it. However in contrast to this hate - I made this argument in my Secondo post, that the Red Uno Game itself is evidence of brotherly love between the original three Papas for its mere existence. They cared enough to show up, and to do so regularly enough that it was a predictable ambush point. Furthermore, Primo doesn't engage in frivolous nonsense, and he's gamely playing cards - because he cares about his brothers. Because he wants to spend time with them. His emotions about the rest of humanity may be abstract when they're not dismissive, but his family are His. And that matters. One of my favorite fanons, one I absolutely adore and won't let go of, is the idea that Nihil is such a shit Dad that the younger brothers were raised, at least in part, by Primo. I cherish that. Gods, he would have been an awful Dad in his own way too but he'd be a Present one and that makes a difference.
Also - Is Primo's Nihil's son? Is he his brother? I lean towards son but for no good reason...I simply like that better. Tobibble Fribble needs to stop retconning shit. I've seen a good take that Primo is a brother close in age to Nihil that Nihil had to adopt or raise - a gap bridging headcanon. I also like the idea that relationships are so ambiguous in Nihil and Marika's family because maternity can be proven but paternity can't (until more modern times) so in a large quasi-incestuous enclave where who knows who was fucking who - you can't be one hundred percent certain how you're related to someone unless you came out of the same womb. I think the family tree in that circus is a shrub.
Speaking of who is fucking who - he spoke up in an interview to emphasize the size of his dick. Primo fucks. This is canon. Whether or not you take the 13 inches implication as gospel or not is up to you I suppose. I may not want to fuck the old man but the old man be fucking. Also - MAN IS A SIMP. Not as bad as Nihil (no one is as bad as Nihil) but the tone of Elizabeth and some of the imagery we've gotten on Merch...
Primo feels about Elizabeth Bathory the way girls who binge true crime and then start writing love letters to serial killers feel about their murder blorbo. He is IN LOVE with her and I will not accept dissenting opinions on this. In general I think his type is people who are as Evil as Him.
Though speaking of Primo and attitudes towards women - I don't think Prime Mover should be taken as evidence of him being sexist (nor the Hitler thing as him being racist). I saw a headcanon I enjoyed that it's just Primo's weird kink, and sure I could go for that, but I think that both Primo and Tobias see it as commentary. I believe that he would find the idea of hating any group of people for the type of person they are to be ridiculous. If they're not family or ministry members, they're beneath contempt - none of them get special extra spicy hate.
I'm running out of things to say so I want to end with one thing that I covered in in the tags of a nice piece of fan art once - I think the embalming and the VIP tour are a wretched injustice to Primo especially. Primo of all the papas would have most celebrated his own decay, returning to the earth, the morbidity of his own death. The fact that he was robbed of this and turned into an embalmed creation of forced eternity is cruel on a level that I feel like equals the severing of Terzo's head. Primo is something of a revenant I think. He would have been damn hard to kill - early sources had him as already undead. They did the one thing - preserving him - that would have kept him from either coming back or moving on. And it fucks me up to think about it like that. Zero intentionality on Tobias' part, but the implications are there. So many of the coolest things in Ghost lore I think are in the holes between the stitches, like lace.
I am not really covering new ground with my Primo takes I don't think. I think most people pick fanon or canon Primo, or try to blend both while heavily favoring one side or the other - I'm not revolutionary with my 4 months of being a Ghestie. I just feel strongly about it because of the way he echoes my own loved ones. I love this old man. This murderous monster. This silly goober. This wise hierophant. This ghoul with a face and a name. This brother. (but unlike his brothernephews he'd better stay TF out of my bed and I don't welcome him as a sleep paralysis demon)
