#i have a starter in my drafts that i'm working on but!

[byanyan]

been picking at the stuff at the top of my drafts this evening..... got five lil things in the queue rn that i think i'm gonna set to post tomorrow, but i'm also like. gonna keep going for a bit longer, see if i can't get a few more done too uvu

#i feel bad for going for the newest stuff when i have such oldddd things at the bottom of my drafts... #but they're the freshest in my mind and like. i have.... a LOT of starters to reply to...... lmao;; #i'm gonna feel bad no matter where i start so w/e if starting with newest stuff is easiest it's what i'm gonna do #anyway yeah i have my counselling appointment tomorrow and i'm betting i'll be p exhausted after it #so i think letting the queue post tomorrow will work out nicely #if i get anything else done i might set it to post tomorrow also..... but might let it post friday instead idk #LOVE Y'ALL thank you yet again for putting up with meeee ♡♡♡ #━━ ˟ ⊰ ✰ ooc ⋮ don't @ me.

[yeonban]

*Permanent interactions call.

I've been thinking about it for a while now, but like or comment on this post if you're alright with me sending you asks either unprompted or from prompts you've reblogged ages ago whenever I feel like it & if you're alright with receiving random starters if I ever have the ideas for them! You're never going to be obligated to reply to them though, so they'll just be possibilities for interactions in case you ever have the inspo for them!

#* ooc. / psa. #I'm still going to send the things from my current sc & inbox calls but I might not do inbox calls anymore after this interactions call! #And scs will probs only be once every 10 full moons if I happen to have the muse for a certain chara & in that way it'd be chara specific #I know some of you guys' preferences bc I've bombarded you with asks from a million years ago before <3 but I don't know Everyone's #so if you're alright w me sending u asks & possibly starters out of nowhere lmk through this post! #No need to specify muses for this post but if you want to/have a preference for certain muses then feel free to tell me! #I'll rb this through the week... and continue working on new tags... and on the 10 drafts I've started replying to... #ALSO if you'd rather only get asks but not starters (or vice versa) you can comment that!

[acourtcfmuses]

Consider this a small starter call for Fourth Wing muses!

Please specify who you'd like - brownie point and my eternal love if you want Violet!

#☀️ [ starter call ] #[ it's 2 am so these will be done after my eye appointment later today ] #[ but i'm off work until tuesday for easter so hoping to get things done ] #[ still have some other starters to do and meme's to send as well as drafts - so more to come i guess xD ]

[decimatlas]

places this little starter call here. please specify who you want a starter from + if you want me to use icons. thank u.

#sc. #these will mostly go in my queue #please do not just like this post though #i would appreciate a comment so i know what i'm doing for u #xx #i realize i still do not have enough stuff to fill my queue #until the bar #and i would like to have it as filled as possible #i am always working on drafts and asks #but sometimes it's fun to toss a starter in there #and it's nice to let off a little steam after a long day of studying #my activity will still be sparse so don't expect an excessive amount of posting but #yeah!

[insurged]

just some random thoughts and rambling on explaining ascended! astarion because i find him interesting.

his humanity, it feels like in visual terms, has been dropped into the middle of a vast and infinite ocean. he's trying to stay afloat but he can't as wave comes after wave. and in very rare moments, he resurfaces and that tiny glimpse of the person he was before is visible before it goes back under. i think it's fair to say that vampire lords are slaves to their vampiric instincts that naturally eats away at the remaining bits of humanity that vampires have left but on a stronger scale than that of spawns. i think it also amplifies his negative traits: aesthetic beauty, envy, jealousy, rage, it's almost as if he can't control these emotions at all and he has outbursts of one emotion to another. he is much more venomous and extremely arrogant, looking down on everyone whether they're his friends or not.

ascended! astarion also seems to have a different... laugh ? than astarion. it's deeper, hollow, and almost empty, as if he's at a wealthy party, just forcing out a laugh to fit in. i'm not sure he even remembers what genuinely laughing feels like anymore. 😭 ascended astarion in his modern verse is similar to his modern day verse, as an actor with a lot of power and influence who have changed other people in power to be his vampire spawns. unlike his normal modern verse, he is not under the control of cazador but he is cold and terrifying. i won't write this version of astarion unless specifically asked for, since he has all the red flags of a toxic relationship, whether it's platonic or romantic. he'll be condescending, bitter, cruel and controlling and i'm not going to hold back on it. he's terrible and awful but it's interesting to explore considering the possibility of him ascending. i've also decided that modern verse or not, i won't change the way astarion speaks. :)

#the brain rot is real and i'm sorry but not sorry :') #i do find ascended astarion absolutely awful #but he is also extremely interesting #i would say he's the worst out of all the villains i write #i usually do like morally grey villains where #they do have bits of pieces of humanity left #but ascended astarion almost does not because #his humanity is almost completely swallowed up #i'm still hiatus but i had to get this out of my drafts #because.... reasons #and again the default astarion is who i will write #unless someone specifically asks for ascended astarion :) #i will work on those astarion starters when i get back :') #* ⟢ 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒 ( astarion )

[warsrage]

instead of a starter call, LIKE THIS FOR MEMES and i'll send you some. if you specify what muses you want, i'll kiss you on the mouth as a bonus.

#i thought about posting a starter call but i'm having a REAL hard time getting my brain to work with memes and starters #we're working up to it and i'll get there in a few days i think with some momentum #but also ... i have VERY old drafts sitting around that many of you have been patient about so maybe it's good my brain wants to start ther

[kamipyre]

hello! i did some drafts and since i don't feel like mass posting them clogging up the dash, i put them in queue- they'll be coming out while i'm asleep :D

this is all to say, like this for a oneliner/small starter - length will vary! multimuses, specify or i go random!!

#( starter call. ) #( i also changed my formatting....basically short replies i'll do the bold and italics stuff but if it's a long one ) #( i'm forgoing it :'D i don't have the energy for that anymore </3 ) #( also if you want to specify the verse feel free to since her personality has slight ( or major ) variations depending on where she is ) #( in her timeline <3 ) #( will be working on more drafts here and elsewhere tmrrw :DD )

[erabundus]

spent most of my time today remaking my answered banner and some dividers, but i'm happy with how they turned out. ✨

#𝟎𝟎𝟏 : 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧-𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. ◟ ooc .◝ #tbd . #( tomorrow i want to work on drafts & get more starters done... i have ideas written down for a few i just have to write them out ) #( the old answered banners were bothering me bc my graphics are all very blue themed whereas the banner had a lot of warm tones ) #( i love the icon edit milla made i wanted something that looked nice w/ it... 🥺) #( i want to work on my carrd next bc i have to update the mains page ) #( i swear i haven't forgotten about that DJSKDS ) #( but i'm going to have to remake the entire section from scratch probably due to carrd's recent formatting crimes sobs )

[aviiatrix-archived]

// this turned out a lot cooler with that PSD than I thought it would, and now it's by far my favorite picture of her manga fc.

#♘ ❛ᴠɪɴᴛᴀɢᴇ ᴘɪʟᴏᴛ❜【visage】 #// have this while I continue working because it was in my drafts vibing #// makes brain go brrrr #// I'm doing my best to get everything done but I'm keeping most things in drafts #// only things I'm auto posting are things like starters and asks I have yet to reply to as well as starters and my own asks #// replies are being yeeted in the queue because I know I'll be mostly MIA tomorrow LOL

[unladielike]

( it’s incredibly telling when someone only cares about you if you constantly churn out replies or are a thread-writing machine, because as soon as you complain about a lack of engagement ooc or ic, they softblock. and the real kicker is that they’ll state they’ll unfollow if you also complain about having more than 80 drafts as well, which i… don’t do. if anything, i honestly complain more about lacking drafts, and if you have been following me for a while now, you know i don’t post excessive ooc unless you count headcanon posts and things still related to my muse.

but at this point, i’m very tired, because i simply just can’t win with people in the rpc… )

#negative tw #salt tw #tbd #⸾ ❖︎ ⸾ ( OUT OF ) ⤹ •• 𝕗𝕒𝕟𝕗𝕚𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟. #[ tbh i'm salty because i had written them a starter on my multi ] #[ and it's just... 'why would you waste my time like that??' ] #[ seriously though how are you gonna demonize people for complaining about having lots of unreplied to drafts ] #[ and then casually drop a fast rp partner for complaining about having no drafts/people engaging with them?? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE ] #[ i mean... you can't even argue i didn't put in effort to interact with others ] #[ because I'M OFTEN ALWAYS TRYING HARDER THAN THE AVERAGE FLAKY RPER ] #[ and i think my effort speaks for itself from the various asks i continued into threads but never end up being replied to ] #[ so i think i'm allowed to complain when people treat me like a number to their follower count ] #[ when that (1) ooc post i made ended up being ignored for days (despite me queuing it more than once) ] #[ nobody acknowledged the picrew edits i worked so hard on until i queued it again ] #[ and all i received was crickets when i last reblogged a meme on my multi (despite me changing my queue time) ] #[ so who in their right mind would NOT feel shitty/unimportant after experiencing that for literal days?? ] #[ BUT YEAH when i say i'm an unpopular fav... i really mean it because i'm usually always getting the short end of the stick ] #[ for some reason to the point where i never ask people to send me positivity or even reblog a positivity meme ] #[ because i get terrified i'll get nOTHING ]

[clown-demon]

Interact for a starter!

#starter call #I'm gonna be working on drafts in a few #rn thinking about food... #I actually have my appetite back and it's really nice

[strongxsurvivors]

closed starter ft. kas!eddie. // @razorcrst​ / @drnkdazed​ / @pckdrop​

eddie followed the other for a short while by their scent alone, hunger completely consuming him. he didn’t care about anything else nor did he think he should. he waited until they’d gone into their home and into bed, easily scaling the side of the home and through the window without making a sound. he saw nothing but a meal — one he knew he deserved for some time now. he used his body to pin them down, hands holding their hands above their head. “i’m sure this is the last thing you want to see, but we all don’t get what we want in life.”

#scripted: eddie #i have no idea of imma navigate this guy well so you just tell me if i am lame #i'm also putting my starters for you in queue for now while you're working on drafts

[soracities]

what are your suggestions for starter poetry for people who dont have strong reading/analysis backgrounds

I've answered this a few times so I'm going to compile and expand them all into one post here.

I think if you haven't read much poetry before or aren't sure of your own tastes yet, then poetry anthologies are a great place to start: many of them will have a unifying theme so you can hone in based on a subject that interests you, or pick your way through something more general. I haven't read all of the ones below, but I have read most of them; the rest I came across in my own readings and added to my list either because I like the concept or am familiar with the editor(s) / their work:

Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times (ed. Nick Astley) & Being Alive: The Sequel to Staying Alive (there's two more books in this series, but I'm recommending these two just because it's where I started)

The Rattlebag (ed. Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes)

The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (ed. Ilya Kaminsky & Susan Harris)

The Essential Haiku, Versions of Basho, Buson and Issa (ed. Robert Hass)

A Book of Luminous Things (ed. Czesław Miłosz )

Now and Then: The Poet's Choice Columns by Robert Hass (this may be a good place to start if you're also looking for commentary on the poems themselves)

Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World(ed. Pádraig Ó'Tuama)

African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song (ed. Kevin Young)

The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing (ed. Kevin Young)

Lifelines: Letters from Famous People about their Favourite Poems

The following lists are authors I love in one regard or another and is a small mix of different styles / time periods which I think are still fairly accessible regardless of what your reading background is! It's be no means exhaustice but hopefully it gives you even just a small glimpse of the range that's available so you can branch off and explore for yourself if any particular work speaks to you.

But in any case, for individual collections, I would try:

anything by Sara Teasdale

Devotions / Wild Geese / Felicity by Mary Oliver

Selected Poems and Prose by Christina Rossetti

Collected Poems by Langston Hughes

Where the Sidewalk Endsby Shel Silverstein

Morning Haiku by Sonia Sanchez

Revolutionary Letters, Diane di Prima

Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved by Gregory Orr

Rose: Poems by Li-Young Lee

A Red Cherry on a White-Tiled Floor / Barefoot Souls by Maram al-Masri

Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky

Tell Me: Poems / What is This Thing Called Love? by Kim Addonizio

The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins (Billy Collins is THE go-to for accessible / beginner poetry in my view so I think any of his collections would probably do)

Crush by Richard Siken

Rapture / The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy

The War Works Hard by Dunya Mikhail

Selected Poems by Walt Whitman

View with a Grain of Sand by Wislawa Szymborska

Collected Poems by Vasko Popa

Under Milkwood by Dylan Thomas (this is a play, but Thomas is a poet and the language & structure is definitely poetic to me)

Bright Dead Things: Poems by Ada Limón

Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire,

Nostalgia, My Enemy: Selected Poems by Saadi Youssef

As for individual poems:

“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

[Dear The Vatican] erasure poem by Pádraig Ó'Tuama // "The Pedagogy of Conflict"

"Good Bones" by Maggie Smith

"The Author Writes the First Draft of His Weddings Vows (An erasure of Virginia Woolf's suicide letter to her husband, Leonard)" by Hanif Abdurraqib

"I Can Tell You a Story" by Chuck Carlise

"The Sciences Sing a Lullabye" by Albert Goldbarth

"One Last Poem for Richard" by Sandra Cisneros

"We Lived Happily During the War" by Ilya Kaminsky

“I’m Explaining a Few Things”by Pablo Neruda

"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" //"Nothing Gold Can Stay"//"Out, Out--" by Robert Frost

"Tablets: I // II // III"by Dunya Mikhail

"What Were They Like?" by Denise Levertov

"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden,

"The Patience of Ordinary Things" by Pat Schneider

“I, too” // "The Negro Speaks of Rivers” // "Harlem” // “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes

“The Mower” // "The Trees" // "High Windows" by Philip Larkin

“The Leash” // “Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance” // "Downhearted" by Ada Limón

“The Flea” by John Donne

"The Last Rose of Summer" by Thomas Moore

"Beauty" // "Please don't" // "How it Adds Up" by Tony Hoagland

“My Friend Yeshi” by Alice Walker

"De Humanis Corporis Fabrica"byJohn Burnside

“What Do Women Want?” // “For Desire” // "Stolen Moments" // "The Numbers" by Kim Addonizio

“Hummingbird” // "For Tess" by Raymond Carver

"The Two-Headed Calf" by Laura Gilpin

“Bleecker Street, Summer” by Derek Walcott

“Dirge Without Music” // "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

“Digging” // “Mid-Term Break” // “The Rain Stick” // "Blackberry Picking" // "Twice Shy" by Seamus Heaney

“Dulce Et Decorum Est”by Wilfred Owen

“Notes from a Nonexistent Himalayan Expedition”by Wislawa Szymborska

"Hour" //"Medusa" byCarol Ann Duffy

“The More Loving One” // “Musée des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden

“Small Kindnesses” // "Feeding the Worms" by Danusha Laméris

"Down by the Salley Gardens” // “The Stolen Child” by W.B. Yeats

"The Thing Is" by Ellen Bass

"The Last Love Letter from an Entymologist" by Jared Singer

"[i like my body when it is with your]" by e.e. cummings

"Try to Praise the Mutilated World" by Adam Zagajewski

"The Cinnamon Peeler" by Michael Ondaatje

"Last Night I Dreamed I Made Myself" by Paige Lewis

"A Dream Within a Dream" // "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (highly recommend reading the last one out loud or listening to it recited)

"Ars Poetica?" // "Encounter" // "A Song on the End of the World"by Czeslaw Milosz

"Wandering Around an Albequerque Airport Terminal” // "Two Countries” // "Kindness” by Naoimi Shihab Nye

"Slow Dance” by Matthew Dickman

"The Archipelago of Kisses" // "The Quiet World" by Jeffrey McDaniel

"Mimesis" by Fady Joudah

"The Great Fires" // "The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart" // "Failing and Flying" by Jack Gilbert

"The Mermaid" // "Virtuosi" by Lisel Mueller

"Macrophobia (Fear of Waiting)" by Jamaal May

"Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong" by Ocean Vuong

"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou

I would also recommend spending some times with essays, interviews, or other non-fiction, creative or otherwise (especially by other poets) if you want to broaden and improve how you read poetry; they can help give you a wider idea of the landscape behind and beyond the actual poems themselves, or even just let you acquaint yourself with how particular writers see and describe things in the world around them. The following are some of my favourites:

Upstream: Essays by Mary Oliver

"Theory and Play of the Duende" by Federico García Lorca

"The White Bird" and "Some Notes on Song" by John Berger

In That Great River: A Notebook by Anna Kamienska

A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib

The Book of Delights by Ross Gay

"Of Strangeness That Wakes Us" and "Still Dancing: An Interview with Ilya Kaminsky" by Ilya Kaminsky

"The Sentence is a Lonely Place" by Garielle Lutz

Still Life with Oysters and Lemon by Mark Doty

Paris, When It's Naked by Etel Adnan

#ask #anonymous #beginner guides

[astralnymphh]

okay so for starters i am working on ALL these fics currently + i have many asks in my drafts— so by no means are these NOT being written, but what fic would you guys like uploaded first (when they finish) from this lineup??

+ PLUS a ghost hunting in an abandoned asylum gone sexual (NOT WITH THE GHOSTS) fic is in that lineup too I just haven't made the draft yet, I talked about it like yesterday— it also has a fun twist of ellie recording a sex tape there so. ya.

honey is for healing— that's my next upcoming angst piece which I'm excited for cause it's set in the 18th century. it's like the reader is a healer/medic and ellie is a priests daughter who works for the readers wealthier family but they end up falling in love when ellie starts poking around and apprenticing under your wing, helping u around the surgery room. just pure romance, and probably more romantical sex rather than my filthy smutty ones. butttttt the readers' practices and beliefs catch wind and plop right into the priests ears— uh oh, a witch hunt is on the rise?? you know what that means..

the other two have summaries too, kinda, they're linked in my pinned if you want to see all the choices fully.

IK Y'ALL WANT SMUT BUT JUST THINK ABT THE ANGST. GIVE IT A CHANCE!!

#ellie williams #⋆' upcoming #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams smut #ellie tlou #ellie x reader #lesbian #sapphic #ellie williams x fem!reader #ellie williams fic #ellie williams fanfic #ellie williams fanfiction #ellie williams angst

[surfclangen]

Good and Bad news

Howdy guys! I don't talk to y'all one on one too much, but I want to keep you in the loop.

To start off, I am so super thankful for the support this comic has received!! This is my first real venture into comic making, I am so incredibly grateful to have such a positive reception.

Onto the bad news, y'all may have noticed my posting speed has slowed. I'm very busy in college (graduating with my AA this summer!) between a radio show, being president of the creative writing club, and keeping up with homework, which means I don't have a ton of time to work on personal projects, and when I do, I try to chase what gives me the most dopamine. This isn't super relevant, however, just a peek into my creative process.

The Bad News

Surfclan is going to go onto hiatus after the next two posts so I can work on the overarching story I want to portray. These two posts will finish Arc 1 of Surfclan, which I am happy with and have ironed out, but the draft I have for the rest of the series is kind of cobbled together and not satisfying, certainly not work I'm proud of. If I'm going to dedicate so much time to something, I want it to be work that I am proud of. As a writing student too, it's not right to put so little effort into the writing.

I went into Surfclan without a plan. I wanted a coastal set of clans to worldbuild with, but I had no idea for plot. I let the generator decide what that plot would be, which is fine! But I wasn't given much besides a clan that grew at a decently steady rate and got into occasional shenanigans. I need to put those pieces together properly and figure out how to best portray the themes I want in a respectful manner (right now, there's a heavy theme of colonialism that I just don't think I'm quite ready to handle tactfully.)

If you aren't using Surfclan, can I?

Absolutely! Please feel free to use Surfclan as background characters or cats to fill out gatherings. I am always happy to organize plots in DMs and weave it into Surfclan's eventual finalized script. As long as my babies are kept relatively in character, I have no issues with making it canon. If they aren't, no worries! It just won't be canon to Surfclan. Think of it like an AU!

When will you be back?

I'm not sure, but I'm always happy to answer DMs if you want to chit chat, and I will make a post announcing Surfclan's return when I am ready.

What's the good news then?

Surfclan was always designed to be a "for fun" project that I didn't put too much effort into, hence the scattered upload schedule and art styles, but now that I've experimented a bit, I'm ready to get into comic making more seriously. While I brainstorm ideas for Surfclan I will be shifting focus towards a new Clangen blog loosely based on marshmallow_cat3's Dark Forest challenge and @gray-thistleclan .

Cottonmouth Clan has distinct win and lose conditions and a solidified plot with mysteries to discover. I'm currently working on world building and character design that will be posted to my main blog, @antlermoss. I will have a post up there when I have my details organized with the rules for the challenge, of which you are welcome to use in your own games and comics!

I will reblog Cottonmouth's starter post here when I am ready.

I appreciate your patience and understanding, and hope you guys enjoy the new project (:

#warriors cats ocs #clangen #warriors cats #clangen comic #surfclan #ooc

[jeannereames]

Hi there! I've really enjoyed your blog-- there's a lot of good information on it. In fact, I just wrote a novel set in ancient Thebes, set in 335 BCE, right before Alexander's attack. However, I'm a little scared to write the sequel, because Alex is going to show up in it as a major character. He is SO famous, and there's so many books about him, that I hardly know where to begin.

So, do you have any specific books you recommend, like any good starter bios or anything else that would be good for this specific setting? (Specifically against the destruction of Thebes and right before the invasion of Persia.)

Thank you so much!

Some Useful Bibliography on Alexander (and Thebes)

Thank you! And sorry for the delay. The queries in my inbox tend to be feast or famine. LOL

In terms of information on Alexander, I would start with the brand new Cambridge Companion to Alexander the Great, edited by Daniel Ogden. It has many of the leading scholars. On Alexander and the Greeks in particular, see my dear friend Borja Antela’s chapter. This is now what I’d consider the best intro resource on Alexander for the interested non-specialist, especially as it’s reasonably priced. The bibliography will help a lot. For Macedonia itself, Carol Thomas has Alexander and His World (which I’ve used teaching) and Carol King has Ancient Macedonia. Both are good, one-book introductions.

If you’ve not already, you’ll want to consult Mark Munn’s chapter “Thebes and Central Greece” in The Greek World in the Fourth Century, Larry Tritle, ed. Paul Cartledge also has a book Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece, but he’s a Spartan specialist. Lately, publishers have had him write on other subjects—not always to good effect, as per his book on Alexander, imo. But I’ve not read this one so can’t comment. I think Thebes is closer to his usual bailiwick.

James Romm did a book The Sacred Band., although like Cartledge Romm is all over the place. Same cautions apply. And I’ll also offer the counter-proposal that the band was not pairs of lovers, by David Leitao, "The Legend of the Sacred Band," in The Sleep of Reason by Martha Nussbaum and Juha Sihvola, eds. His view is not a homophobic diss; it’s a source problem. Plutarch is our sole source for the lovers bit, and he’s notoriously unreliable on some facts, especially when he has an ulterior message.

The more I study Plutarch, the less I trust him. LOL

Last, another friend and colleague, Jenn Finn has written a bang-up chapter on the destructions of both Thebes and Persepolis, for the upcoming collection I edited, so I got a preview. “Urbicide, Memory Sanctions, and the Perso-Macedonian Dynasty.” I’m not sure when the collection will be out, but certainly not before late 2024, and more likely 2025. She might be willing to share the draft, however, if you need it immediately. She’s at Loyola U. in Chicago. As always, Jenn does fantastic work.

#asks #alexander the great #alexander the great bibliography #ancient Thebes #Greek Thebes #The Sacred Band #books on Alexander the Great #ancient macedonia #ancient greece #Classics #tagamemnon