Big Yellow Jackets

☆ casey ☆ Most things here are posted by me (reblogs are tagged under reblog, for obvious reasons), therefore I don't update as often as I like. Posts appear sporadically as I rabbit hole in and out of various obsessions like brief flings. I've been here since 2014. please i have no energy

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not getting the show you were expecting:

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the Good Omens S3 play by play thought dump so i don't go insane (spoilers)

this got LONG. went insane. SPOILERS. SPOILERS!

they turned my boy angel into legolas. the stress of war destroyed his cherubic hairstyle. personal hygiene out the window. this is how you know it was Serious(tm).

nice touch on heaven's tartan so we know azi specifically made his own

what the hell honestly i can't take this seriously. this war look is so silly.

OKAY NOW I REEEEEALLY CAN'T TAKE ANY OF THIS SERIOUSLY. IM FEELING VERY DOCTOR WHO THE TF RN. bro. crowley. why did you take his sword if you're immediately going to roll over and give it back

crowley. crowley. i know you're dying. but girl you don't have to live like this (alley)

oh aziraphale. i really only heard the last two points of your 232000 point plan but it sounds terrible

i have no words on what crowley did to the bentley. bye

okay cool they just thanos snapped metatron out of nowhere? as jesus just said. quite on the nose.

what are the chances jesus asked for a redhead and people just know which one he's talking about.

okay im asking this late but why does jesus have a british RP accent

ah. heaven. hell. same building. same system. no escape

just like crowley a la the sword, the demons also gave up incredibly quickly after being refused once.

muriel, the only one with sense. get them together

i feel like everything is all over the place? why is mrs sandwich so mad at aziraphale. he didn't gentrify the place.

aziraphale the only person crowley wakes up immediately for. still angel :)

OKAY SO FIRST OFF. crowley lived in his car between s1 and s2 (and probably during s2). AND NOW. AZIRAPHALE ISN'T EVEN THERE HE COULD LIVE IN THE BOOKSHOP instead of waiting like a gargoyle knight RIGHT OUTSIDE

DO THE I WAS WRONG DANCE. DO THE I WAS WRONG DANCE FOR ETERNITY. FOREVER IW AS WRONG DANCE

crowley, again immediately backpedalling and just slithering back to him. idk i know this is in line with his character but with everything going on it just also feels weak, narrative wise.

ok i forgive crowley for the bentley. i knew he wouldn't do the darling dirty like this.

storming in holier than thou announcing "i'm a retired bookseller" to a crew of gangsters is one of the few moments so far i thought 'we're so back babes'. the angel finally gets to save the day! with over 6000 years of miscellaneous human knowledge! yay!

"i wouldn't need" "me, right" oooofffff

jehoshua touching the tip of harry's finger for a handshake like a small fish peck was so cute actually

"you're making me all flustered" yeaaaaaaaa

so they were just taking a little. joyride this whole time. round the block. and they didn't even talk about The Kiss(tm)

good GOD what is this EMO CLOWN DEMON

this is ridiculous

also why does everything feel so jumpy? just jumping all over the place

whhhhhy would you tell hell that you've lost entire departments lol

uriel was just as annoyed as michael was? they could've worked together - oh right. book makes you go cuckoo. very convenient.

crowley knows an awful lot about how the book works.

what is this jesus pizza moment. and it doesn't even mean anything??? they get thanos snapped right after???? i actually like jesus, incredibly underutilized character here

i don't understand. michael burned it all. but crowley and aziraphale are still around. are they. not in the book or smth. why are they still here. why is the end of creation so anticlimatic - oh yeah that does make sense i guess (no one to feel it)

DO THE DANCE.

honestly i thought they were definitely going to address the kiss here but ok

MY CHINESE LADY IS GOD THEORY DEBUNKED

BUT ALSO I NEVER WANTED TO SEE GOD

crowley asking his question. bit on the nose jesus. bit barbie movie america ferrera speech. lol

eh. you know. climax of the story. four characters left in the end of the world. no strong attachment to half of them.

i don't like where this is going.

"why make me complete then take it away" feels like a reference to how aziraphale and crowley were originally one character - oh i do NOT like where this is going.

when aziraphale looks at god when satan asks why he's here and the angel goes, "do you want to tell him", i'm getting major "we're all just in a story and none of this is real" vibes and i do NOT like this. god is the writer, or knows from the start they are a character. none of this is real. none of this matters. or god has been treating it all as a story from the start, and that's why every beginning needs an end. aziraphale would know, having read and collected books for centuries. if this is some meta shit im flipping the table

im definitely in an episode of doctor who right now which i normally wouldn't mind but this isn't where i expected to be or think is appropriate given the circumstances!!!

looking at the timer (there's 15 minutes left) is giving me the same foreboding i felt at the end of the last season when there were 5 minutes left and they weren't RECONCILING

im sorry they're in the bookshop of eden and i burst out "THIS IS DUMB" BECAUSE IT IS

"second best angel" "i only want one thing" michael aziraphale sheen about the only one here trying to keep it together and remember what the show was about. "but that's not what is about anymore" is right. "i want a real universe" THE LOOK OF DEAD DEVASTATION IN AZIRAPHALE'S EYES TO HEAR IT ISN'T HIM CROWLEY WANTS LOLOOLOLOLOL THIS IS THE THIRD TIME I WAS EXPECTING THEM TO ADDRESS THE ELEPHANT KISS IN THE ROOM BUT NO. AND IT'S THE SAME FUCKING ROOM EACH TIME!

this is just the ending of season 2 but the roles are reversed

i DO NOOOT like where this is GOING

booooo BOOOOO BOOOOOOOO IM BOOOOOING

"did i say the wrong thing"

when god asked "you two fully comprehend the cost?" i'd like to think it's her talking about this god awful ending

they don't even kiss. why are we here.

i hate this. i hate this. lol i don't care about this human bookshop au thing i hate this :)

so we're thanos snapping this finale right

one cannot help but wonder how the two actors feel about this.

do NOT time after time me. you don't deserve to time after time me.

for all intents and purposes these are whole ass different people wearing uncanny valley aziraphale and crowley skins. like full respect to the human aus out there i love you. but this? canonically butchering my boy (6000 years of love in all its forms that echoed down generations and fundamentally changed humanity, our love intertwined with their love for millennia that got us to where we are today)

i yelled, out loud, "I HATE THIS" when they showed the cottage. this is some imitation crab placebo you can't believe it's not butter shit!!! wearing a santa hat doesn't make you santa!!!

"i want to make a wish" to get the last 90 minutes back? that's my wish. not that anyone cares

i'm reacting to them talking about nightingales and living in south downs the way will smith reacted to chris rock's joke about jada smith. keep my wife's name out of your mouth, and all that

"i have everything i need" don't.

you facsimile of a character

is it me? is it me. do i just have no taste? if someone could just tell me how i'm wrong and this is good actually i'll be glad to hear it. maybe i need to digest this. maybe i'm not seeing the bigger picture. maybe i need a 6 hour video essay

mAYBE IM RIGHT AND THIS WAS A JUMPY ALL OVER THE PLACE EPISODE OF DOCTOR WHO IS MASQUERADING AS GOOD OMENS WHERE ONE OF THE MAJOR PLOT POINTS DON'T EVEN MATTER?

no maybe there was something sweet about it! they grew old together (they didn't even kiss) (OR ADDRESS THE FUCKING KISS) (it's understood!) (THEY DIDN'T EVEN UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER AT THE VERY END IT'S NOT UNDERSTOOD)

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Vincent Benitez, Olivia Rodrigo stan, busting moves to her song "drop dead" in St Peter's Basilica in the dead of night alone, singing to and leaning against the saints and martyrs and Biblical figures, and obviously thinking about english boy Thomas. That's it send post

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my humble contribution to the conclave fandom 🤲

https://archiveofourown.org/works/81141711#main

Glances at the Sun

Rating:

General Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationship:

Vincent Benítez/Thomas Lawrence (Conclave)

Summary:

Vincent considers why Thomas won't look at him.

[thowawayuntilfurthernotice]

Watching PB break down is fucking heartbreaking.

I know one of the major criticisms regarding her character in the original series is that she was too cold and uncaring, but I see that more of a character flaw than an example of bad writing.

She's always been someone who put science and her kingdom above everything else, of course she's going to be apathetic towards everyone.

But you do see her character develop as the series progresses. I mean, the fact that she spends this entire season trying to save Finn shows just how much she values their friendship. So when she does break down after she realizes that she almost ended up killing him, it hits that much harder from an emotional standpoint.

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Uuuuuughhhh I love her. I love her character so much. She gets so much flack for being so INTERESTING, as a CHARACTER. Like yes! She is morally grey! Shes introduced as your generic princess and she plays that front beautifully to the audience and then as you peel back you get all this other stuff and its a whole umami bomb onion with so many layers to analyse!!! A great Character!!

And i loved this scene so muuuucccch for all the above reasons and also like. This is how she cares. PB is a solution and result oriented person. She loves by trying to solve your problems. The main way, her default mode when it comes to loving someone or something, is by fixing whatever is their biggest issue, even if it comes at a significant or personal cost (exchanging marcy's band shirt for hambo, the responsibility of the candy kingdom, etc.). Her methods sometimes are... unconventional, to say the least, controlling, and some would say evil and dictator-y, but her intentions never are. Actions over intentions, but intentions are important to understand character. She cares so much that she doesn't let all that care and feeling get to her and get in the way of finding the solution. This is so instinctual for her (partly her own traits, partly probably because of all the traumatic things that happened to her and the weight she carries) that the weight of it all does not catch up to her until the threat is over, and then her mind and body finally lets her break down, and she crashes Hard, because that's how much she cares and loves Finn. We see a bit of this tendency when marcy was poisoned, and she cried after nothing seemed to work to fix it. She appears cold and callous, but that is because she jumps into problem solving mode immediately (which is, for her, especially with a kingdom to run and protect, a near constant state). This is not in place of love. This is because of love, and the more she loves, the more cold and callous she gets when the stakes are high. What adventure time has always done so well with long form storytelling is how they grow and humanize their characters, and they did a fantastic job with PB.

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The fact that elphaba could not believe fiyero would find her beautiful but glinda gives her this look:

And her instant reaction is of course you would find me beautiful, and good, and great, you love me, you look at me with the pinkest, rosiest glasses, you are incredibly biased, dont look at me as you but THEM - she doesn't even question it. She knows in her bones glinda loves her and finds her beautiful. Everybody else she's unsure, but glinda? Glinda, who lives her life in lavish beauty, never a hair out of place, and stares at elphaba, in complete disarray? Elphaba knows. She will find elphie good and beautiful.

[ahubofreadersandmagicians]

This is the woman who humiliated Elphaba for her skin color and called her “asparagus”. And got the whole school to make fun of her for her looks for weeks, or months, and only stopped when she got bored. Then when she got bored she decided Elphaba needed a makeover.

Glinda did not find Elphaba beautiful from the start. She found her hideous.

Firer never one - ONCE!- mocked her for her skin. “0 times” is a smaller # than “months of times”. Ideally, your partner never bullies you over your appearance!

(or seek to change you, really, which is all that Glenda seeks to do to Elphaba up until the very last song of the play)

[casebasket]

Yea! She absolutely was like that in the beginning. But then she started growing, and changing, and that is the whole point - she changed her perspective on elphaba and the world through her growing friendship with elphaba. When she tried to give elphaba a makeover and teach her about popularity and power, she was also changed in return when she realised elphaba was fine looking the way she did. She was changed For Good, and changed to the point where their bond was so strong it shifted the course of history. These are not perfect people, but they are capable of changing and loving and striving to do those things, and that's what I believe people should take away from it all so that they too can change for the better and be kinder on themselves and each other.

I also think it's incredibly meaningful that glinda didn't see elphaba as beautiful from the start, and elphaba wouldn't have trusted her if she said she did. But they both grew so much by the end that glinda couldn't see her any other way, and elphaba trusted her to her bones. That's a relationship that's been weathered and tested. That's growing up together. Fiyero is a great partner, and very complementary, but if people were jigsaw pieces then glinda fits next to elphie.

[ahubofreadersandmagicians]

So much of this post is beautiful, and I totally agree with it. But there’s no way that Glenda fits next to Alfie more than the man who sacrificed everything for her: starting with his privilege, and ending with his body and his life.

When he has the first chance to go with her, he goes. He just wants to be with her.

I do think Glinda loved Elphaba. But up until the very end, I think it was a selfish and confused kind of love. Not one that was ready to say “I will walk into the future with you, and I will give you everything, whatever it takes. We are a pair.”

 Honestly, in my earlier days, I used to ship Glenda and Elphaba But I really want Elphaba to be with somebody who would give her the love and support she deserves, and Glinda just won’t do that. Not until the very end, when it’s just too late. And it is tragic for Glinda, that she did not find her courage in time.

Fiyero knows Elphaba so well that she knows she sees the voice of society in her head. And he’s telling her “I am looking at you from a different point of view than that voice.”

Most of this post, I love though. I think it’s a beautiful analysis. I think that Glinda certainly changes and evolves!.

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I agree! I also don't like. Ship them ship them, in the sense that i think they're end game, but more that I think that relationship had a time and a place and they'll always mean much to each other, but their tragedy is that it's way too late by the time they've caught up. Elphaba can't stay in Oz if Glinda is to help make it a better place. They need the wicked witch narrative to exist - much like the wizard needed a villain - in order for Glinda to enact the changes both of them wanted, to create an inclusive place (honestly this part im not really buying, and has always been meh to me in the musical. Perhaps the book will be more enlightening. Someone send me the meta for this lol). I ship them as doomed Yuri lmaaaaaaaooo and i think both the Elphaba and glinda and elphaba and fiyero pairings are valid ships that can coexist. It's just that in this moment in time of this scene in particular, it's heartbreaking to see how far they've come in trusting each other and seeing the best in each other, to the point that elphaba knows immediately what glinda is thinking - that glinda loves her - in just one look. Contrasting it with her reaction to fiyero basically doing the same thing gives weight to both relationships and colours it with the same kind of romantic potential and/or highlights how important these relationships are. Also a great highlight you mentioned is that both these scenes have elphaba pointing out how fiyero/glinda isn't considering how society sees her. The way they react is a great parallel. I also like to think that in the end, glinda walking in elphaba's ideological footsteps is her way of walking into the future with elphaba, the only way to live up to her The Good title. She can't actually go with her like fiyero can because she alone has the power and influence to do what elphaba always wanted. Fiyero will always support her but Glinda can do what she can't. And she can only do it with elphie gone. They're parallels! Puzzle pieces doomed to never fit together!! Traggeeddddyyy, I'm telling you!!! Delicious stuff.

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The fact that elphaba could not believe fiyero would find her beautiful but glinda gives her this look:

And her instant reaction is of course you would find me beautiful, and good, and great, you love me, you look at me with the pinkest, rosiest glasses, you are incredibly biased, dont look at me as you but THEM - she doesn't even question it. She knows in her bones glinda loves her and finds her beautiful. Everybody else she's unsure, but glinda? Glinda, who lives her life in lavish beauty, never a hair out of place, and stares at elphaba, in complete disarray? Elphaba knows. She will find elphie good and beautiful.

[ahubofreadersandmagicians]

This is the woman who humiliated Elphaba for her skin color and called her “asparagus”. And got the whole school to make fun of her for her looks for weeks, or months, and only stopped when she got bored. Then when she got bored she decided Elphaba needed a makeover.

Glinda did not find Elphaba beautiful from the start. She found her hideous.

Firer never one - ONCE!- mocked her for her skin. “0 times” is a smaller # than “months of times”. Ideally, your partner never bullies you over your appearance!

(or seek to change you, really, which is all that Glenda seeks to do to Elphaba up until the very last song of the play)

[casebasket]

Yea! She absolutely was like that in the beginning. But then she started growing, and changing, and that is the whole point - she changed her perspective on elphaba and the world through her growing friendship with elphaba. When she tried to give elphaba a makeover and teach her about popularity and power, she was also changed in return when she realised elphaba was fine looking the way she did. She was changed For Good, and changed to the point where their bond was so strong it shifted the course of history. These are not perfect people, but they are capable of changing and loving and striving to do those things, and that's what I believe people should take away from it all so that they too can change for the better and be kinder on themselves and each other.

I also think it's incredibly meaningful that glinda didn't see elphaba as beautiful from the start, and elphaba wouldn't have trusted her if she said she did. But they both grew so much by the end that glinda couldn't see her any other way, and elphaba trusted her to her bones. That's a relationship that's been weathered and tested. That's growing up together. Fiyero is a great partner, and very complementary, but if people were jigsaw pieces then glinda fits next to elphie.

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My insane wicked headcanon is that since most of the movie is framed as glinda's flashback, scenes glinda is not in can technically be interpreted as her speculation/what she thinks happened based on observation and second or third hand accounts. By this logic, it means she is the one visualizing elphaba's joy in the "wizard and I", all her courage, determination, what she must've been up to during her time in exile - singing to animals, doing cool magic, studying hard, living in a crude but fairytale-esque tree (general disney princess shenanigans). It means she spends her days thinking of elphie pretty much constantly. Never even mind the fact that when elphaba tells her "i love you" her face lights up like a fantasy come true (this is an avenue q reference). It also means the whole "as long as your mine" scene can be read as what glinda imagined happened after fiyero ran off with elphaba. Further stretching this line of reasoning, one can interpret her mind going there because that is what she would do in his place. In this essay i will, and all that.

[casebasket]

The fact that elphaba could not believe fiyero would find her beautiful but glinda gives her this look:

And her instant reaction is of course you would find me beautiful, and good, and great, you love me, you look at me with the pinkest, rosiest glasses, you are incredibly biased, dont look at me as you but THEM - she doesn't even question it. She knows in her bones glinda loves her and finds her beautiful. Everybody else she's unsure, but glinda? Glinda, who lives her life in lavish beauty, never a hair out of place, and stares at elphaba, in complete disarray? Elphaba knows. She will find elphie good and beautiful.

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Like obviously Cynthia erivo's elphaba is amazing but Ariana Grande? Ariana is holding ON. Clinging for dear life on that cliff singing for good, desperately not wanting to actually cry and render herself unable to sing. Maybe it's also the fact that. The two leads themselves are huge fans of the musical, so they take it so seriously. They feel the weight of every lyric so heavily. It's compounding 20 years of legacy with their own growing personal history with this music and this story and you can feeeeeeeel the tapestry weaaavinnngggggg. Ariana Grande-Butera is on that cliff crying in character and crying for real. This is Glinda's movie about love and love lost and learning through love what it truly means to use her powers For Good. This is Glinda's world and everyone else is just living in it. Elphaba is Glinda's Chappell Roan subway and that's canon, i believe

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Robert harris: jacopo lomeli is going to repeatedly notice and bring up Vincent benitez's boyish features to sprinkle in clues for the reveal :)

The fandom: lomeli/lawrence repeatedly notices and brings up Vincent's boyish features because THE LAD'S DOWN BAAAAADD FOR THE BOYYYYY :)

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Idk why but there seems to be two nigh universal experiences in the conclave fandom:

You watched it once and thought it was p good and the rabbit holing didnt begin until months later. Belated hit

You are throwing these old catholic men together like rag dolls, or those smooth cylindricalish magnet things you throw in the air and they hit and make that swishing clashing sound of two magnets colliding with force and trying to part but cannot. These things. You are shipping them every which way. There are so many boats in the harbour yet miraculously none crash into each other. These characters are barbie dolls that go with every accessory (other barbie dolls, sometimes all together). Sure lawrenitez is the flagship but its up for modifications, and even the smallest rarepair boat has its voyagers, or people who go huh. Not my boat but I can see how it's structurally sound and I'll take a gander (this is me reading every fanfic regardless of the pairing lol and going you know what. Yeah sure this is possible).

Bonus: and most of them, if not all, and definitely always lomeli/lawrence, should be wet dog levels of sad and anxious, constantly. I mean. That part's canon anyway

Why? What is it about the book/film, and perhaps about the people who become fascinated by it? Why do enough people have this same experience that I've seen it mentioned multiple times? Give me qualitative data!! Opinions!! Experiences!! Personal affidavits!! Or maybe this didn't happen to you!! Idk!!

[slow-burn-sally]

I saw the film, thought, oooh I like it! Watched it a second time the next night, then it hit me like a freight train. I shipped Lawrenitez HARD, and Lawmalley a whole lot too, and, though I ship no one else with no one else, I can absolutely understand and respect all the other ships in the harbor, even the rarest.

I saw the film for Ralph Fiennes, then fell madly in love with Carlos Diehz's portrayal of Vincent, then read the book, and very much enjoyed Lomeli and Book Vincent, which gave me a lot more fun info to fold into my canon library. Lomeli is more interesting than Lawrence, with more backstory and more internal dialogue, and stick-thin, 67 year old pretty-boy Filipino Vincent will always have my heart.

Idk. There's something, from a fic writer's perspective (in my opinion) about attractive, old, repressed Catholic men pining after each other and being tortured by their vows of chastity, set against a backdrop of red and black silk and massive Renaissance paintings in gold rococo frames that just does it for me?

[casebasket]

I saw the film because i saw a star studded cast of veterans being pitted against each other and im like ooooooooohhhh! Drama! And then the actual conclave happening gave me the final push to watch it. And then i had a very fun time, and thought the movie was great, and got choked up with the hope it instills not just of the catholic church but the world in general and what values a leader should have, how we should prize compassion over antagonism, which was my main takeaway at the time. And then it percolated without my knowing at the back of my mind until one day, weeks later, I was like. Wait. Lawrence. The awe. The light. The turtle pond. There's something there. I wonder what the fanfic is like. and lo and behold down i tumbled.

And it got me, because one of the things i love is people finding love at old age. The idea that you've lived so much life, and know so much about the world and yourself (presumably), so that when you choose someone to let in you are choosing them with your full chest, backed with decades of every version of yourself that led to this moment, the knowledge of yourself and your habits and your virtues and vices, and an understanding that this person carries all that too - and yet you choose. That gets me.

And then there's the added spice to the stew of the whole dedication to something bigger than yourself, with belief and faith so strong one makes vows for it, and how you fit your own mortal, earthly love alongside an all encompassing divine love that you believe in. An idealism that, by group concensus, does not and will not validate the love you feel, despite the love it espouses, and the juicy tension that naturally bubbles from that. Torn between two loves. Make these elders sad and mope around priceless marble statues and pillars that constantly feel like being inside a gilded cage overlooked by every single personification of your guilty conscience. Adorned in white and red and gold and flummery, in a city inundated in so much tradition and history it feels like a boot to the neck sometimes :) but you can't let them down :)

Having read the book and having such a fun time with it, i do wish I had read it first before watching the movie, but oh well! On the other hand, i might've never read it if it wasn't for the film.

[casebasket]

Idk why but there seems to be two nigh universal experiences in the conclave fandom:

You watched it once and thought it was p good and the rabbit holing didnt begin until months later. Belated hit

You are throwing these old catholic men together like rag dolls, or those smooth cylindricalish magnet things you throw in the air and they hit and make that swishing clashing sound of two magnets colliding with force and trying to part but cannot. These things. You are shipping them every which way. There are so many boats in the harbour yet miraculously none crash into each other. These characters are barbie dolls that go with every accessory (other barbie dolls, sometimes all together). Sure lawrenitez is the flagship but its up for modifications, and even the smallest rarepair boat has its voyagers, or people who go huh. Not my boat but I can see how it's structurally sound and I'll take a gander (this is me reading every fanfic regardless of the pairing lol and going you know what. Yeah sure this is possible).

Bonus: and most of them, if not all, and definitely always lomeli/lawrence, should be wet dog levels of sad and anxious, constantly. I mean. That part's canon anyway

Why? What is it about the book/film, and perhaps about the people who become fascinated by it? Why do enough people have this same experience that I've seen it mentioned multiple times? Give me qualitative data!! Opinions!! Experiences!! Personal affidavits!! Or maybe this didn't happen to you!! Idk!!

[casebasket]

So happy for all you malamar fans out there, whoever you are, wherever you are, especially if you're in a "if malamar has no fans I'm dead" kind of situation

[casebasket]

no matter who becomes pope, the result would be tragic - either to the church or to themselves or both. No matter who sits on the throne, the papacy will run them ragged. They all lose themselves to the ideal. Thomas will die of stress. Aldo will die of stress. Tremblay will contribute nothing at best, and actively hurt the church at worst. Tedesco and Adeyemi will drag the church backwards. Even Vincent, the Jesus allegory, will be placed on a pedestal like a lamb for slaughter, sacrificed just like the holy metaphor he represents. He gave up everything he loved for a kingdom that will not appreciate his ways. The moment you are pope you are alone in a war against the world, and worse, against your own army.

[lawrellini]

i think the source material was pretty clear that it's not supposed to be a war. benitez tells tedesco not to speak of "sides, instead of speaking for every man and woman." aldo says it's a war and is humbled. tedesco says it's a war and is humbled. all that talk of tolerance and unity doesn't add up to a universal church waging war against the world it hopes to shelter, with a curia as an army.

sure the papacy is a sacrifice. priesthood is already a sacrifice. but is it really for an unappreciative kingdom? here's what book!benitez says about martyrs:

I have comforted them in their distress and I have buried them, and I can tell you that not one of them—not one—would have wished to see violence met by violence. They died in the love of, and for the love of, our Lord Jesus Christ.

his ministry is not about getting appreciated. it is not about war. it's as simple as his unbroken faith in christ's mission.

the thing about tragedies is that the curtain is set to fall on a bad end. it's fatalistic. where in conclave is that fatalism? "a pope who sins, and asks forgiveness, and carries on." the pope as a figurehead for the church. the church, which carries the broken vows of its constituents, and carries on.

(i make no claims about the real catholic church. the fictive one, however, is highly redemptive.)

[casebasket]

Me having a Aldo and tedesco moment and being humbled 😔

You're right. It's not about being appreciated, nor is it a war. But i think the antagonism likely still exists for anyone who becomes pope, and as the book continually brings up, the papacy is a lonely position. Whenever one of them comes close to getting it, they begin to feel the distance, other people pulling away. Hopefully the impact of that is not felt as strongly by those with close bonds - jacopo/Thomas, aldo, Vincent - and it is significant that Vincent's first act was to seek an ally in jacopo/Thomas - but there is likely still loss, and for Vincent the loss of never going back to his flock. The church may not fall on a bad end, and neither may the pope, but there is still something to grieve, I think.

[lawrellini]

thanks for your reply! it's true that the room of tears is called that for a reason. but (and maybe this makes it more tragic for you) it's strongly implied vincent can't go back anyway.

he's gone public as a cardinal

one of my favorite details in the book, vincent criticizing american imperialism:

There were one and a half million Christians in Iraq before the Americans attacked, and now there are one hundred and fifty thousand. My own diocese is almost empty.

he's left his flock, but for a long time his flock has been leaving him.

so in some ways vincent has already experienced this grief, even before his election. i wonder if he did cry in the room of tears, or if those tears had already been shed, and it doesn't hit him until months later that this is his life, for the rest of his life.

[casebasket]

Vincent already grieving his vanishing and lost flock, and now people won't even treat him like Vincent anymore :,( the papacy is already such a lonely position without him having gone through immense loss, and now people can't even see past the white to the flesh and blood underneath. In addition to the book continuously bringing up how the pope is a lonely figure from historical accounts, the moments that strike that sentiment the most is when lomeli himself witnesses other cardinals pulling away out of deference to whoever is nearest to the papacy, and then in turn experiencing it himself - how he relished in the small physical contact with ray and mandorf when they still saw him as their Dean and not someone a few votes shy of the two third majority, because they didn't feel the need to pull away, and how he notes a distance afterwards when the two find out he could be pope the next round and he's sad.

[casebasket]

no matter who becomes pope, the result would be tragic - either to the church or to themselves or both. No matter who sits on the throne, the papacy will run them ragged. They all lose themselves to the ideal. Thomas will die of stress. Aldo will die of stress. Tremblay will contribute nothing at best, and actively hurt the church at worst. Tedesco and Adeyemi will drag the church backwards. Even Vincent, the Jesus allegory, will be placed on a pedestal like a lamb for slaughter, sacrificed just like the holy metaphor he represents. He gave up everything he loved for a kingdom that will not appreciate his ways. The moment you are pope you are alone in a war against the world, and worse, against your own army.

[lawrellini]

i think the source material was pretty clear that it's not supposed to be a war. benitez tells tedesco not to speak of "sides, instead of speaking for every man and woman." aldo says it's a war and is humbled. tedesco says it's a war and is humbled. all that talk of tolerance and unity doesn't add up to a universal church waging war against the world it hopes to shelter, with a curia as an army.

sure the papacy is a sacrifice. priesthood is already a sacrifice. but is it really for an unappreciative kingdom? here's what book!benitez says about martyrs:

I have comforted them in their distress and I have buried them, and I can tell you that not one of them—not one—would have wished to see violence met by violence. They died in the love of, and for the love of, our Lord Jesus Christ.

his ministry is not about getting appreciated. it is not about war. it's as simple as his unbroken faith in christ's mission.

the thing about tragedies is that the curtain is set to fall on a bad end. it's fatalistic. where in conclave is that fatalism? "a pope who sins, and asks forgiveness, and carries on." the pope as a figurehead for the church. the church, which carries the broken vows of its constituents, and carries on.

(i make no claims about the real catholic church. the fictive one, however, is highly redemptive.)

[casebasket]

Me having a Aldo and tedesco moment and being humbled 😔

You're right. It's not about being appreciated, nor is it a war. But i think the antagonism likely still exists for anyone who becomes pope, and as the book continually brings up, the papacy is a lonely position. Whenever one of them comes close to getting it, they begin to feel the distance, other people pulling away. Hopefully the impact of that is not felt as strongly by those with close bonds - jacopo/Thomas, aldo, Vincent - and it is significant that Vincent's first act was to seek an ally in jacopo/Thomas - but there is likely still loss, and for Vincent the loss of never going back to his flock. The church may not fall on a bad end, and neither may the pope, but there is still something to grieve, I think.