goodtime-not-alongtime

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

like.

lawrence's thing about being clocked by the old pope as a manager and not a shepherd, about being taken as inoffensive and unambitious and politically-unmotivated by most anyone at the beginning of the conclave. is that.

okay, he's a manager, he's the backstage admin making sure the curia goes on, he's a paper pusher. but you can't convince me this guy didn't paper push a whole lot of insane papers.

you don't end up with a reputation for dogged integrity, easily forgotten influence and selfless reliability as the second most influential person in the vatican like that by being boring or normal. or at least boring in a normal way.

innocent xiv in his second first day of office being given the super secret cardinal cvs and nodding along to everything, with a few surprises. until he gets to t. lawrence, dean of the college. and it's just. this gigantic fold out of stapled documents that goes over his knees and keeps unrolling on the floor.

he's merely a manager, alright. it's just that he's been managing literally everything, step by step, all the way up the ladder.

this man could bring down the church in half an hour w a few phone calls. this man could bring down several establishments, and it is not entirely clear, reading between the lines, that he hasn't, indirectly, unveiled a number of scandals in his time.

and it's not that lawrence thinks of himself as a bona fide politician, as anyone influential. it's not that he seeks out power, exactly, that he hunts down corruption on purpose. he's not a detective; he's not a cynic.

it's just that he is competent. that's his calling, in a sense; it has been his calling, to be competent for god, in god's service.

he is very, very, very good at his job, which has, from what the paperwork relies, been that of middle-upper management everywhere he has ever been, from his catholic youth scouting group days, to his seminary years, to canon law teaching, to bishorship, and beyond.

his loss of faith is threatening enough, at the start of the movie, that he has come to a point where he wants to leave his work. he cannot do, without faith, because it is his faith. without prayer to guide him, how can he possible do it?

everything that happens during the conclave is like a nightmare build custom made for him. the culmination of a career built on the foundations of pretending to himself he is keeping well out any undue influence to correct procedure, while in fact determining what correct procedure should look like.

there is a difference, a fine difference, between making sure events and places and concepts as vague and complex as the bride of christ run smoothly; and then there is infighting, which is petty, and political, and not any of his business.

any accountability review process will simply have to wait, and ideally be someone else's responsibility. there's a time and there's a place, and lawrence has lived his life very much keeping to his own time and place.

this determination, as it happens, does not last very long. lawrence has live his life keeping to his time, and place, and that is, unfortunately for his peace of mind, wherever and whenever there is something wrong with the machinal workings of the responsibility in his charge.

the cognitive dissonance + all revealed secrets + the continued choice to take part in the world of politics is at last strong enough to unbalance his belief in his own mediocrity. which had, while being a decisive part of his sense of self, also been chocking him w resentment a bit.

turns out, he is as able of holding a desire as anyone else, just because he refuses to hold to an agenda beyond his obligations.

he is neither beneath nor above; being discreet about the power he holds does not make it any less real, or any less his responsibility to wield it openly to break tradition and make sure there is a structure. checks and balances. that what is rotten is not hidden beneath gilt, that the bride of christ is not cheated or lied to.

that the living principles they swear to are upheld in truth and not just in ideal, that the weaknesses of men in power are admitted. and that includes his own ambitions, his own hypocrisies and human frailties.

he is, after all, a manager. this work is what he is for.

it is possible he is dealing with this growing self-awareness received via exploding sistine chapel to the face with some grace. possible! perhaps not likely.

what is clear, to innocent, is that the church as it stands has been quietly, diligently, unassumingly managed over the decades into the shape of what thomas lawrence's church ought to be. in the image of his integrity, the mark his service leaves behind. no one has noticed; it is possible his predecessor made sure no one noticed.

the late holy father, it has to be said, was quite fond of his secret weapons hidden in plain sight.

a more suspicious man would think that the fact that he went underestimated for so long was part of a deliberate farce.

but no. he's not a great tactical genius, he's just like that. t. lawrence, there it is on paper. through the years, a whole bursting folder of different grains and colours of cheap office paper, a long scroll of good works, of work as faith, all the way to cardinal-dean of the college of cardinals. and now?

and now he's innocent's extremely competent manager to manage, and it is not entirely clear how well the curia might hold on, without him. possibly it might not.

no pressure tho. it's not like he's asked to retire before or anything.

his scouts group is recorded as having organized a fully-functioning food kitchen during his administration, btw. it's still open, and funded by the dean of the college of cardinals. if you even care. innocent cares so much.

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

I saw an otter briefly hop on top of a babirusa at the zoo and when the stranger standing next to me heard my camera shutter click he turned to me with this look of immense relief, put his hand to his chest, and said in a dead serious tone “oh thank christ someone caught that on film”

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

They are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough.

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

hope is a skill

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

jesus and his crown of thorns / jesus and st john the beloved

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

real italiana mama

youtube link

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

Judas - Conclave (2024) edit

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

LET’S HAVE A CONCLAVE

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

ever-present

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

i love writing porn and i wont feel bad about it. understanding the eroticism of a character is character analysis if u are enlightened.

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

“Leo,” linoleum block print. Dragon with Sacred Datura

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

thinking post conclave and someone (tedesco) trying to undermine innocent xiv's papacy (tedesco) and hitting his administration with a vast and exhausting number of accusations (as tedesco has done, and has bellini accused him of doing in such a way as to literally cause the old pope to die of stress).

now, whoever is doing that (tedesco) already has a very large folder of blackmail, accusation, drafts for anonymous sources to the press and little napkins scratched through with aldo bellini's name.

and a tiny drawn aldo bellini (a bald blob in a cassock with a cartoon bubble full of BLAH BLAH BLAH sono aldo e penso di essere così intelligente! BLAH above his head) being pieced by several arrows in an aggressive and vaguely st.sebastianesque fashion.

whatever. if it were tedesco doing it, he and bellini would be their own thing. some people wonder still why didn't the holy spirit's mysterious workings pick bellini, and what is he even doing these days, but that is irrelevant. that's old news to the opposition, they don't care about that.

they go after cardinal lawrence instead.

it is, unfortunately for the opposition, very hard to come after cardinal lawrence. mostly because cardinal lawrence is a very strange and very boring man who has the inconvenient habit of being largely decent.

he has loved and been loved by men and women, yes: in the most boring platonic way imaginable. you couldn't wring a sex scandal out of him if you tried.

he doesn't take bribes. he doesn't buy things, besides mystery books and sometimes tiny figurines of kitchy saints he gives cardinal bellini. if only they were sexy statues of saints! alas. that's a dead end. obviously whatever is going on between and bellini is weird as fuck, but again, probably not sex.

why does the leader of the malicious opposition know the decorations in cardinal bellini's private rooms? irrelevant.

lawrence did break the papal seal during the conclave! the thing with adeyemi could, kind of, be spun into blackmail or coercion to get him to step back as a candidate! he hid information on several cardinals taking bribes and indirectly influenced their votes!

unfortunately the only person who could reasonably punish him for any of it is pope innocent, who wouldn't, and it wouldn't even be hard to argue as the greatest living in the vatican at the time lawrence acted in accordance with his obligations.

and innocent clearly thinks lawrence is the sweetest most wonderful most capable funniest man in the vatican. and maybe on earth. presumably that's why he's raised him up to secretary of state, when the previous title holder was, anyone would admit, not wholly incompetent.

which is favoritism, obviously. besides being incorrect - aldo bellini may have retired from all current positions, but he was still a cardinal, and still, as far as tedesco's network of spies could tell, living in the apostolic palace.

even if he did not leave his apartments much - presumably, he was still there. lounging around in his slutty blue robe, probably. moping. reading spinoza and drinking too much red wine, the way he does when he's indulging in a spot of melancholia.

or maybe just working from home. who knows. who cares?

innocent's favoritism, however - he was not being very open at all to hearing the conservative wing of the vatican at all. even if can't prove it is sexual, partiality is a sin on a pope!

unfortunately spreading rumors about innocent's sinful and possibly-maybe sexual connection to his closest advisor doesn't get many people convinced. a subtle inquiry of the first round of whispers brings back unsatisfying results. general opinion in the vatican goes along the lines of:

'i don't think lawrence knows how to fuck'

'i don't think innocent knows how to fuck'

'isn't lawrence too old to fuck?'

'how would that even work, i mean, which name would he even use in bed, or is it all a your holiness kind of thing? is that kinky or just blasphemous? is it more blasphemous not to use his title?'

'do you think he ever, y'know, holds lawrence tenderly in his white vestments after an ardent round of confessional atonement?'

'no,' said the patriarch of venice to his monsignor minion. 'are you an idiot? we're not going with that. innocent is an old-man fucker who likes to cuddle after an ardent round of confessional sodomy, obviously, just look at him. but tommaso wouldn't get the vestments dirty. that's the secretary of state of the catholic church, have some fucking respect.'

his vape is held in a white-knuckled grip. people are so stupid about these things. it's like they've never met the man or had a weirdly charged not-friendship with him for thirty years, jesus.

well, whatever. goffredo tedesco has married plenty of couples and then bullied several of them out of the path of divorce.

he's set up his siblings and nephews and nieces with the least unobjectionable and most well-connected members of his congregation plenty of times, and if it never worked out that was because they were ungrateful idiots who got upset too easily and had ridiculous politics.

anyhow, at least benítez and lawrence were both men, he could hardly be accused of being misogynistic about this.

if he has to go to rome and match-make the pope and the secretary of state into a compromising situation, by God he'll do it. a truth everyone who isn't naive knows: if you can't find or invent a reasonable scandal, self-made is fine.

he passes the ugly tourist shop by the channel, the one with the vacuous-eyed st. sebastian in the window display. for no reason. irrelevant. it was better than whatever stupid gift lawrence might get bellini, anyway. might as well knock on his apartment's while he's in rome. maybe. not like tedesco cares.

his venetian idol is objectively superior to any ugly figurine of st. george slaying a dragon, by the way.

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

thinkin' abt a little john wick conclave au where thomas lawrence is an aging assassin who keeps trying to retire but then is forcibly brought back for "one last hit" (first said to him half a dozen hits ago). lawrence is tired and depressed and he might be really good at his job (and that might be the only thing he's good at) but that Saddens him. because is his only purpose in life to be a Butcher?

not to mention he just recovered from prostate cancer and is now thinking a lot about the afterlife and god and sin etc etc. he's sure he's destined for hell no matter what he does now. is there even any point in changing?

one day he's in rome, surrounded by all these churches. and he enters one. he goes into a confession booth. every week, he confesses minor sins that turn into lovely but frivolous discussions with the anonymous priest, who lawrence can only identify through his gentle voice and bright, easily elicited laugh that reminds lawrence of morning birdsongs. over the weeks, this blossoms into a strange kind of friendship.

finally during a discussion about their favorite kinds of tea, lawrence interrupts the priest's recommendation of kahwah, which they had so often in their time in kabul, and was so delicious, and they just can't find anything close to what they had here, isn't that a shame, and i beg your pardon, what??

i kill people, lawrence repeats. all the time. i want to stop but i can't. i want to retire but they won't let me. i'm afraid being a murderer is how i spent most of my life, and i'm afraid it's how i'll spend the rest of my years, too. i'm the lowliest of sinners. i'm the evil that should be wiped clean from the earth. if god cast me down into the fires of hell for eternity, again and again, i would gladly welcome it.

and there is a heavy silence during which lawrence tenses, waiting for a horrified outburst or some rage.

but the priest says, with infinite compassion in his tone, you are still here on earth with us. and so god, in his mercy, has given you time to beg forgiveness and find redemption. make amends, however you can. take no more life, not for any reason. you say you want to stop. then stop. i believe you have good in your heart. you would not have come here if you did not.

thomas says, yes, yes i will, i swear on His name. i'm sorry for having wasted all your time these past weeks, i should not have done so.

and finally he says, goodbye. because there's no point in returning and attempting to continue this friendship, not when the priest must be so disgusted and would want nothing to do with lawrence any longer.

the priest says nothing in return and it hurts but lawrence knows he deserves it. he deserves far, far worse, and god, why can't he be punished now or just die and suffer eternal torment, and then, maybe, maybe, his soul could feel some bloody relief. but the priest said, make amends. can't make amends if you're dead.

so lawrence returns to his miserable apartment, to try and make amends, whatever that means. he decides to leave rome and begins to pack. he wanders the streets in a daze and gives all the euros he has on him to a beggar. on saturday, the day he would've gone to confession, he buys kahwah from a bemused shopkeeper.

he returns to find his next assignment on his kitchen counter in the form of a usb stick. he doesn't want to open it. but if he leaves it alone for too long, they'll send agents to track him down and he'll get an earful from aldo. better to open the assignment and fool them now. he'll disappear from rome right after.

lawrence plugs in the usb stick. there's a name he doesn't recognize. he clicks through the research on his next victim that ray had meticulously assembled. there is a video. he hits play. a voice starts speaking. and lawrence spills his hot cup of kahwah all over his keyboard and trousers but he doesn't care because fuck it all, he does know his victim after all.

it's the priest he sat next to week after week, chatting about the merits of herbal medicine and whether agatha christie or arthur conan doyle wrote better mystery novels and about the incompetence of world governments. it's the priest he just confessed to about his true nature, that he wasn't just some englishman adrift in rome, but a cold-blooded killer. it's the priest that heard this and offered him a way out, anyways.

it's vincent benitez.

the video continues, as benitez smiles and waves at a young child, his dark eyes luminescent and kind.

now he has a face and name to the voice, lawrence first thinks, in a daze. he’s even more beautiful than i imagined him to be.

his second thought: what the hell did benitez do to somebody off that badly that they want him dead?

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

Hi! Not new to tumblr but new acc to migrate some of my d20 stuff + edits from tiktok since im american- looking for more d20 fans <3

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

Catastrophe is next to Godliness - Franny Choi

[goodtime-not-alongtime]

Mr Edward Berger i’m going to eat your wall paint

wait wtf what if Cardinal Benitez was the Christ and Holy Mary figure. what if the acceptance scene can be read as an annunciation analogy. the virgin birth of Christ but it’s the birth of a new Catholic Church. the blessèd womb of it all