#I thought it would be fun bc I always enjoyed writing but it'd been years since I did

[meownotgood]

Can I ask what your ✨Aki journey✨ was like? I’m a Aki girlie but you clearly love Aki more than any blog I’ve ever seen (purrr) When did you start becoming interested in him? Was it an aHA moment or did it develop over time? I’m really curious!!! What inspired you to start this blog? I live, laugh, love backstories 🫶🏾❤️‍🔥

YES I would be so happy to answer this!!!!!!!

so before I read chainsaw man, I knew next to nothing about it, I wasn't really a manga reader in general to be honest but I started getting into it because I wanted to get caught up with jujutsu kaisen after finishing the anime. when I did, I really enjoyed jjk, I wanted to read more manga and a friend suggested I read chainsaw man because it's similar. I was like okay... a lot of people are into it... it looks cool... why not.

and when I started reading and I got to that third chapter and I saw aki... I literally said to myself: yeah, he is going to be my favorite. because he's exactly my type — the suit, the hair tied up so it's long and pretty when he takes it down, the SMOKING??? THE PIERCINGS????? I thought his hair was silly but adorable, his personality was stern but quirky and likable, his kon power was so cool. he was just so cute and hot and definitely my type of character.

but really, even though aki was always my favorite character from the start, my obsession truly began when I finished the manga. aki's arc is just so good... I fell in love with him the whole way through but especially after the manga was over... I loved watching him grow as a character, he just feels so real and relatable personality wise and story wise. he's immensely flawed but kindhearted to his core. he's so human. I love how he's emotional and soft and the conclusion to his arc is genuinely my favorite thing in any piece of media ever, it's so bittersweet and compelling. (and I'm a mess for that bittersweet shit okay)

anyway after I read chainsaw man for the first time I was feeling a mix of emotions between "wow that was the greatest thing ever" and "what the fuck did I just read" but more than anything I yearned for more aki, and so I read it a second time almost immediately after, and then the aki brain infection just grew worse and worse.... was screenshotting every panel of him... I read it a third time... a fourth time in the colored version to collect more panels......... I started my blog over a year ago to post fanfic and rant about aki and the rest is history

#I love this question #I also think it's important to say #albeit it's a bit silly #when I read chainsaw man I was going through a pretty hard time in my life #I'd gone through a bad breakup and I felt very lost #I was reading a lot of manga because I needed something to do to get my mind off things #I think that's part of the reason why I got attached to aki so quickly... #but he means a lot to me because of that #aki helped me to become myself again #also I'm sure I've said this before #but I started writing fanfic because I'd read all the fanfic of aki and #I still needed more #I thought it would be fun bc I always enjoyed writing but it'd been years since I did #suddenly on a random night at 3 in the morning I was like #you know what... I can't sleep... I know how to write... I can make my own aki content... let's do it #and I wrote that first fic like there was no tomorrow #(don't read it btw it sucked BAHAHA) #I posted it on ao3 for fun expecting no one to care but when just a handful of people read it and said they liked it I was overjoyed #I'm grateful I started writing again... I'm glad I get to do what I love and write about what makes me happy #and people actually enjoy it?? THAT'S CRAZY #sorry for ranting too much #can't wait to see where this journey will continue to take me #ask mags

[secrettastemakerland]

1, 5, 11 👀, 24 for the fic writer asks! 🎆

morning days and happy new year!!!! thank you for the ask! 💗💗💗

1) favorite fic you wrote this year

i'm gonna cheat and pick two haha i would have to say Ghost of You and ready or not are my favs. they were just very fun to write and oddly enough both based off of songs. (ghost of you by 5sos and ready for it by taylor swift respectively)

5) most popular fic this year

hits wise it'd be baby pardon my french (but only bc it's still incomplete 😔) new writing this year (last year/yesterday) would be let me count the ways (there are thousands)

11) fandom you enjoyed writing for the most this year

okay this year i like reverted back to my elementary school girl self that thought the two screaming chipmunks should kiss and since it looked like they weren't going to, i did it myself and have now written 3 alvin and the chipmunks fanfics. and while naruhina will always be my home, it was really fun trying out new character dynamics.

24) favorite fic you read this year

how could i choose just one?!? okay i'll try to narrow it down... Weird Hinata by @nightowl27-writer A New Dawn by madglow Things that Moan in the Night by @wickermayne and of course wildehopps mentions: Cause I've Been Thinking, You Know What They Say About Foxes (They'll Break Your Heart)

#if you noticed that all my favs are smut fics mind your business #that being said i think naruhina should have more sex this year #all the sex even #anyways just a thought #a little encouragement if you will #also being said i had a lot of favs and an extremely poor memory #so technically everything's my favorite <3 #okay that's enough rambling in the tags #ask game #fanfic end of the year asks #dayseternal-blog #days8

[egg-emperor]

it's awful liking eggman and self inserting bc i know he's toxic, but part of that feels like the reason i stay in the first place. i've been in relationships where it was hard to win their affection, and i feel like i'm just trying to replicate that with him and other villains i like. it's like, yeah i know i'll never "fix them" but it's fun (and self destructive probably lmao)

I can completely relate and I always wonder how or if I should say it because I thought people would think I was weird for portraying it that way, (years ago I actually got concerned asks about it 👉👈) even though it is the only way it'd be accurate after all and I care a lot about having him accurate as the same exact guy I fell in love with in the games. And I already think it shows a lot in the ways I write him acting in all kinds of relationships.

The way it's... familiar territory to me for various reasons, is strangely comforting to me to explore through fictional self insert shipping and I'm most attracted to characters where I can replicate it. That's part of why most of my favorite things about Eggman are the bad toxic parts and why I always keep them as part of the shipping stuff besides caring for character accuracy and finding it interesting and entertaining.

And all those reasons combined is why it's more than fine to me that he's irredeemable and I don't see the appeal in writing him becoming a better person when he has a partner because I don't want to fix him anyway. Him being a bad guy and a real villain is perfect to me and I don't see appeal in losing those things that pulled me in in the first place. His nasty angry selfish egotistical asshole side is alluring to me dhskgjkgjskg

I just like to think I could make him happy through stroking his ego and serving him and the empire well and getting to be with him as part of it, it would be rewarding enough because his happiness is what I'd like to try to earn and enjoy and it would make me feel useful. The idea of running away with him with the premise of him saying it can give me purpose and make me good for something makes me swoon XD

And yeah it may be a bit self destructive but I'm just masochistic and into degradation as a result and exploring the dynamic through him serves it and is better than being in that kind of situation again for real beyond just roleplay irl. And this time I get some power in from a writer perspective at least by deciding the events I imagine and right, it's the same dynamic but it makes that tiny difference ya know

So hey you're not alone. I feel like most cases it's the opposite with people, so I felt like the odd one out. It's just comforting and fun to love a horrible guy and know he is but still showing passionate devotion and it feeling familiar, and I find him so loveable and it's a lot more exciting and entertaining this time. It's a positive helpful experience that lets me honestly explore and express myself in a pleasant way 💜

#asks #dr eggman #eggman #dr robotnik #dr. eggman #self ship #self shipping #self ship community #self insert #ask to tag #my post

[koqabear]

i 🫶🏼 you too koqie (new nickname unlocked) 😭😭🙏🏼💔

anyways HAIII sorry i meant to reply to this earlier but Life caught up to me so i couldn't 😢 and ahh i'm so glad to know that you're picking up writing professionally!! i think it totally suits you given how complex oyd was, with characters even having their own back stories, it only feels natural that you've decided to do that! i'd definitely be like ...? 🧐 if writing just remained a hobby of yours bc what the hell were we gonna do with all this talent? kidding, ofc!

i've already complimented you on how good i think you are not just at writing, but also coming up with ideas for stories, so i think it's really great you chose this path! that being said, i really do hope you become successful and i wish you absolutely nothing but the best in your endeavor, whenever that may be of course! i might be a little sad when you graduate from koqabear because my god... all of my favorite writers have been leaving recently and that's already sad enough, but you're special 💔💔💔 i was so moved by your writing and thought 'i absolutely need to let this person know this', so now i'm ml anon!

anyways, when that day comes, and assuming i decide to pick up an actual book by then, i hope i'll still be able to recognize you through your writing and think, 'hey wait a minute... i know this person!' it'd kind of be like how yunjin or keeho were on stan twitter before becoming idols, or how johnny's classmates always have silly anecdotes about him as a student. either way, it's totally a long shot but i think it'd be a little fun to reflect on moments like these that essentially defined my teenage years like that. at the same time, it's kind of sad knowing one day it'll also just be another anecdote. that said, i'll definitely cherish the time we have while i can and hopefully by by then, i'm no longer ml but yk... my name. i'll need to graduate from my parasocial friendship with you one day 💔 /j

dw about taking long to respond btw! i don't mind 🙏🏼 but in regards to oyd and my review of it, i'm kind of touched ?? that you wanted to match my energy and replied to just about every point i'd brought up. getting a little insight into the characters and what could have happened was really fun and i enjoyed reading your responses 🤍🤍 so thank youu :3 – ml

KOQIE THATS SO CUTE RAHHHH

but yeah! It’s kinda crazy to think that one day all of this will just be a fond memory… my biggest fear however would be getting exposed of being this account because!!?? The stuff I write is so down bad I’m not that shameless yet

I’m so glad you feel the same way this parasocial friendship is hitting a little too hard 💔 I simply cannot move on from my silly anons

also I love giving insight on my stories,, it’s so fun I think I could go on for ages about each one so receiving those long reviews for oyd from everyone was like a dream come true

#online friendships just hit different… #I still think about the friends I made back when I was in middle school too #wonder how they’re doing #rambles #masterlist anon! #koqabear asks

[crestfallercanyon]

hii

fanfic asks for when you've settled down again for the holidays - no rush <3

-

favorite fic you wrote this year

(my fav of yours was the thomally safe haven 'genfic' (these heavy hands aren't sure) and the thomally safe haven smut (he goes down easy for me, read it if you want to make yourself happy), just saying <3)

longest completed fic you wrote this year

(bc ohmygod your word count in general is :0(impressed) )

fandom you enjoyed writing for the most this year

(say maze runner or else prepare for stabbing (bisexual))

most memorable comment/review

favorite fanfic author of the year (*sits here ready with my notepad to write down recs*)

and one last one that i think is fun:

shortest fic you read this year

-

right. as always tea is incapable of keeping it short. happy holidays crest, ly <33

tea you should do these too because I want to ask you questionss (and pay you compliments because I have loved reading your writing this year too)

So, these were questions from the fanfic end of the year asks, and it looks like I'm being asked about 1, 7, 11, 21, 27, and 29.

Okay, so for 1. favorite fanfic I wrote this year.

This is hard, because I already struggled narrowing it down to five, and now I've got to narrow it down to one.

Think I'm going to go with distract me from my last disaster.

This is a coldflash fic where I finally felt like the dynamic I wanted between the two of them played out. I think this one was the tipping point where I finally hit a stride and stopped doubting my portrayal of the characters. I genuinely think my coldflash post-this fic is much better than pre.

When I Say You Are Killing Me was a close second.

7. Longest COMPLETED fic I wrote this year.

Shuffle at 25,898 words. I was hoping it'd be Conflicts of Interest, but that got delayed the past month. But Shuffle it is!

11. Fandom I enjoyed writing most this year.

NOT DUE TO YOUR COERCION TEA but I would have to agree it is The Maze Runner.

The Maze Runner is my childhood playground that I know all the nooks and crannies in, and it's very easy for me to make up new worlds in the tunnels or dream big at the top of the slide. I read the books as a child, have watched the movies growing up, and I know most if not all the characters very well.

The Flash is a brand new city where I greatly enjoy one or two neighborhoods and the rest kind of intimidates me. Not that I don't want to explore, but it's just not easy. I do love writing Coldflash. However, I have fallen out of interest with the CW's DC shows. There's so many spin-offs, it's just kind of hard to keep up.

21. Most memorable comment or review.

(brief aside: sorry to everyone who I haven't responded to recently. I love you all. I'm just a little backlogged. I'll get to you I swear).

Most memorable? Y'know, there are so many people who kept coming back and talking to me. Not all of you have usernames that I know of, but I've had so many wonderful comments and encouragements, I really can't thank everyone enough. I was actually pretty new to fanfiction, and still feel very new to the fandoms I write in, but everyone's been super supportive. You hear these horror stories, but everyone is so nice! So thanks everyone, especially @sophiainspace, @its-tea-time-darling @sproutwings, @graeae, @un-ah, @qlala (special note to you because the first one I thought of was when you told me you read What's Mine is Yours on the floor), @onceuponabluemoon, @coldflasher, @mylittleangelxxx, @hoesaekyoongi, @dunne-ias, and anyone else who I did not tag -- you're all lovely people who have made my year.

27. Favorite Fanfic Author of the Year

So... terribly, I don't pay that much attention to authors when I read. Here's the three that come to mind and their fics I most frequented:

blacktreecle/towine -- Adagio (Fire Emblem: Awakening)

@un-ah -- a woman wert thou first created (The Maze Runner)

moondown -- get well (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)

29. shortest fic I read this year

I don't read a whole lot of fics under 1000 words. So this was hard for me to think of. I looked at this little tumblr post that @un-ah wrote and it clocks in at 115 words. I like this one, and all the discussions that proceeded.

Happy Holidays to you! Thank you so much for the asks! These were hard questions but I thoroughly enjoyed answering them -- and gosh knows there are probably responses I'll think of later and be like "darn" but rn, this is the vibe.

fanfic end of the year asks,

#memes and games #ficwriting fun #fanfic end of the year asks #tea being amazing #the maze runner #coldflash #the struggle to make decisions #Fire Emblem?? #That's right guys I'm a nerd #Also these fics are amazing #And so many more are amazing too but if I listed all the ones that caught my heart I'd take over the internet

[mjvnivsbrvtvs]

hi! so we have established at this point that you have A Lot Of thoughts about antony and brutus. but how does caesar (julius, not the little bitch octavian) play into that? bc like. my knowledge and impression of them is very limited and mainly constructed from watching hbo rome and idk. i think it'd be fun to throw caesar in the mix. love all the art and writing on your blog btw! have a nice day.

Hey, okay! So this used to be over 30 pages long (Machiavelli and Caligula got involved and that's when things got out of hand), but through the power of friendship and two late night writing dates fueled by coffee, I’ve cut it way down to under 10. Many thanks to the people who listened to me ramble about it at length, and also to a dear friend for helping me cut this down to under ten pages!

Also, thank you! I'm glad you enjoy the stuff I make! It makes me very happy to hear that!

And quickly, a Disclaimer: I’m not an academic, I’m not a classicist, I’m not a historian, and I spend a lot of time very stressed out that I’ve tricked people into thinking I’m someone who has any kind of merit in this area. It's probably best to treat this as an abstract character analysis!

On the other hand, I love talking about dead men, so, with enthusiasm, here we go!

For this, I’m going to cut Shakespeare and HBO Rome out of the framework and focus more on a historical spin.

Caesar is a combination of a manipulator and a catalyst. A Bad Omen. The remaining wound that’s poisoning Rome.

Cassius gets a lot of the blame for Brutus’ turn to assassination, but it overlooks that Brutus was already inclined towards political ambition, as were most men involved in the political landscape of the time.

Furthermore, although Sulla had actually raised the number of praetorships available from six to eight, there were still only two consulships available. There was always the chance that death or disgrace might remove some of the competition and hence ease the bottleneck. But, otherwise, it was at the top of the ladder that the competition was particularly fierce: whereas in previous years one in three praetors would have gone on to become consul, from the 80s BC onwards the chances were one in four. For the senators who had made it this far, it mattered that they should try to achieve their consulship in the earliest year allowed to them by law. To fail in this goal once was humiliating; to fail at the polls twice would be deemed a signal disgrace for a man like Brutus.

Kathryn Tempest, Brutus the Noble Conspirator

The way Caesar offered Brutus political power the way that he did, and Brutus accepting it, locked them into the assassination outcome.

Here is a man who’s built his entire image around honor and liberty and virtu, around being a staunch defender of morals and the republic

In these heated circumstances, Brutus composed a bitter tract On the Dictatorship of Pompey (De Dictatura Pompei), in which he staunchly opposed the idea of giving Pompey such a position of power. ‘It is better to rule no one than to be another man’s slave’, runs one of the only snippets of this composition to survive today: ‘for one can live honourably without power’, Brutus explained, ‘but to live as a slave is impossible’. In other words, Brutus believed it would be better for the Senate to have no imperial power at all than to have imperium and be subject to Pompey’s whim.

Kathryn Tempest, Brutus the Noble Conspirator

and you give him political advancement, but without the honor needed for this advancement to mean anything?

At the same time, however, Brutus had gained his position via extremely un-republican means: appointment by a dictator rather than election by the people. As the name of the famous career path, the cursus honorum, suggests, political office was perceived as an honour at Rome. But it was one which had to be bestowed by the populus Romanus in recognition of a man’s dignitas.69 In other words, a man’s ‘worth’ or ‘standing’ was only really demonstrated by his prior services to the state and his moral qualities, and that was what was needed to gain public recognition. Brutus had got it wrong. As Cicero not too subtly reminded him in the treatise he dedicated to Brutus: ‘Honour is the reward for virtue in the considered opinion of the citizenry.’ But the man who gains power (imperium) by some other circumstance, or even against the will of the people, he continues, ‘has laid his hands only on the title of honour, but it is not real honour’.70

Brutus may have secured political office, then, but he had not done so honourably; nor had he acted in a manner that would earn him a reputation for virtue or everlasting fame.

Kathryn Tempest, Brutus the Noble Conspirator

Brutus in the image that he fashioned for himself was not compatible with the way Caesar was setting him up to be a political successor, and there was really never going to be any other outcome than the one that happened.

The Brutus of Shakespeare and Plutarch’s greatest tragedy was that he was pushed into something he wouldn’t have done otherwise. The Brutus of history’s greatest tragedy was accepting Caesar’s forgiveness after the Caesar-Pompey conflict, and then selling out for political ambition, because Caesar's forgiveness is not benevolent.

Rather than have his enemies killed, he offered them mercy or clemency -- clementia in Latin. As Caesar wrote to his advisors, “Let this be our new method of conquering -- to fortify ourselves by mercy and generosity.” Caesar pardoned most of his enemies and forbore confiscating their property. He even promoted some of them to high public office.

This policy won him praise from no less a figure than Marcus Tullius Cicero, who described him in a letter to Aulus Caecina as “mild and merciful by nature.” But Caecina knew a thing or two about dictators, since he’d had to publish a flattering book about Caesar in order to win his pardon after having opposed him in the civil war. Caecina and other beneficiaries of Caesar’s unusual clemency took it in a far more ambivalent way. To begin with, most of them were, like Caesar, Roman nobles. Theirs was a culture of honor and status; asking a peer for a pardon was a serious humiliation. So Caesar’s “very power of granting favors weighed heavily on free people,” as Florus, a historian and panegyrist of Rome, wrote about two centuries after the dictator’s death. One prominent noble, in fact, ostentatiously refused Caesar’s clemency. Marcius Porcius Cato, also known as Cato the Younger, was a determined opponent of populist politics and Caesar’s most bitter foe. They had clashed years earlier over Caesar’s desire to show mercy to the Catiline conspirators; Cato argued vigorously for capital punishment and convinced the Senate to execute them. Now he preferred death to Caesar’s pardon. “I am unwilling to be under obligations to the tyrant for his illegal acts,” Cato said; he told his son, "I, who have been brought up in freedom, with the right of free speech, cannot in my old age change and learn slavery instead.

-Barry Strauss, Caesar and the Dangers of Forgiveness

something else that's a fun adjacent to the topic that's fun to think about:

The link between ‘sparing’ and ‘handing over’ is common in the ancient world.763 Paul also uses παραδίδωμι again, denoting ‘hand over, give up a person’ (Bauer et al. 2000:762).764 The verb παραδίδωμι especially occurs in connection with war (Eschner 2010b:197; Gaventa 2011:272).765 However, in Romans 8:32, Paul uses παραδίδωμι to focus on a court image (Eschner 2010b:201).766 Christina Eschner (2010b:197) convincingly argues that Paul’s use of παραδίδωμι refers to the ‘Hingabeformulierungen’ as the combination of the personal object of the handing over of a person in the violence of another person, especially the handing over of a person to an enemy.767 Moreover, Eschner (2009:676) convincingly argues that Isaiah 53 is not the pre-tradition for Romans 8:32.

Annette Potgieter, Contested Body: Metaphors of dominion in Romans 5-8

Along with the internal conflict of Pompey, the murderer of Brutus’ father, and Caesar, the figurehead for everything that goes against what Brutus stands for, Brutus accepting Caesar’s forgiveness isn’t an act of benevolence, regardless of Caesar’s intentions.

On wards, Caesar owns Brutus. Caesar benefits from having Brutus as his own, he inherits Brutus’ reputation, he inherits a better PR image in the eyes of the Roman people. On wards, nothing Brutus does is without the ugly stain of Caesar. His career is no longer his own, his life is no longer fully his own, his legacy is no longer entirely his. Brutus becomes a man divided.

And it’s not like it was an internal struggle, it was an entire spectacle. Hypocrisy is theatrical. Call yourself a man of honor and then you sell out? The people of Rome will remember that, and they’re going to make sure you know it.

After this certain men at the elections proposed for consuls the tribunes previously mentioned, and they not only privately approached Marcus Brutus and such other persons as were proud-spirited and attempted to persuade them, but also tried to incite them to action publicly. 12 1 Making the most of his having the same name as the great Brutus who overthrew the Tarquins, they scattered broadcast many pamphlets, declaring that he was not truly that man's descendant; for the older Brutus had put to death both his sons, the only ones he had, when they were mere lads, and left no offspring whatever. 2 Nevertheless, the majority pretended to accept such a relationship, in order that Brutus, as a kinsman of that famous man, might be induced to perform deeds as great. They kept continually calling upon him, shouting out "Brutus, Brutus!" and adding further "We need a Brutus." 3 Finally on the statue of the early Brutus they wrote "Would that thou wert living!" and upon the tribunal of the living Brutus (for he was praetor at the time and this is the name given to the seat on which the praetor sits in judgment) "Brutus, thou sleepest," and "Thou art not Brutus."

Cassius Dio

Brutus knew. Cassius knew. Caesar knew. You can’t escape your legacy when you’re the one who stamped it on coins.

Caesar turned Brutus into the dagger that would cut, and Brutus himself isn’t free from this injury. It’s a mutual betrayal, a mutual dooming.

By this time Caesar found himself being attacked from every side, and as he glanced around to see if he could force a way through his attackers, he saw Brutus closing in upon him with his dagger drawn. At this he let go of Casca’s hand which he had seized, muffled up his head in his robe, and yielded up his body to his murderers’ blows. Then the conspirators flung themselves upon him with such a frenzy of violence, as they hacked away with their daggers, that they even wounded one another. Brutus received a stab in the hand as he tried to play his part in the slaughter, and every one of them was drenched in blood.

Plutarch

For Antony, Caesar is a bad sign.

Brutus and Antony are fucked over by the generation they were born in, etc etc the cannibalization of Rome on itself, the Third Servile War was the match to the gasoline already on the streets of Rome, the last generation of Romans etc etc etc. They are counterparts to each other, displaced representatives of a time already gone by the time they were alive.

Rome spends its years in a state of civil war after civil war, political upheaval, and death. Neither Brutus or Antony will ever really know stability, as instability is hallmark of the times. Both of them are at something of a disadvantage, although Brutus has what Antony does not, and what Brutus has is what let’s him create his own career. Until Caesar, Brutus is owned by no one.

This is not the case for Antony.

You can track Antony’s life by who he’s attached to. Very rarely is he ever truly a man unto himself, there is always someone nearby.

In his youth, it is said, Antony gave promise of a brilliant future, but then he became a close friend of Curio and this association seems to have fallen like a blight upon his career. Curio was a man who had become wholly enslaved to the demands of pleasure, and in order to make Antony more pliable to his will, he plunged him into a life of drinking bouts, love-affairs, and reckless spending. The consequence was that Antony quickly ran up debts of an enormous size for so young a man, the sum involved being two hundred and fifty talents. Curio provided security for the whole of this amount, but his father heard of it and forbade Antony his house. Antony then attached himself for a short while to Clodius, the most notorious of all the demagogues of his time for his lawlessness and loose-living, and took part in the campaigns of violence which at that time were throwing political affairs at Rome into chaos.

Plutarch

(although, in contrast to Brutus, we rarely lose sight of Antony. As a person, we can see him with a kind of clarity, if one looks a little bit past the Augustan propaganda. He is, at all times, human.)

Antony being figuratively or literally attached to a person starts early, and continues politically. While Brutus has enough privilege to brute force his way into politics despite Cicero’s lamentation of a promising life being thrown off course, Antony will instead follow a different career path that echoes in his personal life and defines his relationships.

Whereas some young men often attached or indebted themselves to a patron or a military leader at the beginning of their political lives,

Kathryn Tempest, Brutus the Noble Conspirator

+

3. During his stay in Greece he was invited by Gabinius, a man of consular rank, to accompany the Roman force which was about to sail for Syria. Antony declined to join him in a private capacity, but when he was offered the command of the cavalry he agreed to serve in the campaign.

Plutarch

To take it a step further, it even defines how he’s perceived today looking back: it’s never just Antony, it’s always Antony and---

It can be read as someone being taken advantage of, in places, survival in others, especially in Antony's early life. Other times, it appears like Antony himself is the one who manipulates things to his favor, casting aside people and realigning himself back to an advantage.

or when he saw an opportunity for faster advancement, he was willing to place the blame on a convenient scapegoat or to disregard previous loyalties, however important they had been. His desertion of Fulvia's memory in 40, and, much later, of Lepidus, Sextus Pompey, and Octavia, produced significant political gains. This characteristic, which Caesar discovered to his cost in 47, gives the sharp edge to Antony's personality which Syme's portrait lacks, especially when he attributes Antony's actions to a 'sentiment of loyalty' or describes him as a 'frank and chivalrous soldier'. In this context, one wonders what became of Fadia.19

Kathryn E Welch , Antony, Fulvia, and the Ghost of Clodius in 47 B.C.

Caesar inherits Antony, and like Brutus, locks him in for a doomed ending.

The way Caesar writes about Antony smacks of someone viewing another person as something more akin to a dog, and it carries over until it’s bitter conclusion.

Caesar benefits from Antony immensely. The people love Antony, the military loves Antony. He’s charming, he’s self aware, he’s good at what he does. Above all of that, he has political ambitions of a similar passion as Brutus.

Antony drew some political benefit from his genial personality. Even Cicero, who from at least 49 did not like him,15 was prepared to regard some of his earlier misdemeanours as harmless.16 Bluff good humour, moderate intelligence, at least a passing interest in literature, and an ability to be the life and soul of a social gathering all contributed to make him a charming companion and to bind many important people to him. He had a lieutenant's ability to follow orders and a willingness to listen to advice, even (one might say especially) from intelligent women.17 These attributes made Antony able to handle some situations very well."1

There was a more important side to his personality, however, which contributed to his political survival. Antony was ruthless in his quest for pre-eminence

Kathryn E Welch , Antony, Fulvia, and the Ghost of Clodius in 477 B.C.

None of this matters, because after all Antony does for Caesar

Plutarch's comment that Curio brought Antony into Caesar's camp is surely mistaken.59 Anthony had been serving as Caesar's officer from perhaps as early as 53, after his return from Syria.60 He is described as legatus in late 52,61 and was later well known as Caesar's quaestor.62 It is more likely that the reverse of the statement is true, that Antony assisted in bringing Curio over to Caesar. If this were so, then he performed a signal service for Caesar, for gaining Curio meant attaching Fulvia, who provided direct access to the Clodian clientela in the city. Such valuable political connections served to increase Antony's standing with Caesar, and to set him apart from other officers in his army.63

Kathryn E Welch , Antony, Fulvia, and the Ghost of Clodius in 477 B.C.

Caesar still, for whatever reasons, fucks over Antony spectacularly with the will. Loyalty is repaid with dismissal, and it will bury the Republic for good.

It’s not enough for Caesar to screw him over just once, it becomes generational and ugly. Caesar lives on through Octavian: it becomes Octavian’s brand, his motif, propaganda wielded like a knife. Octavian, thanks to Caesar, will bring Antony to his bitter conclusion

And for my "bitter" conclusion, I’ll sign off by saying that there are actual scholars on Antony who are more well versed than I am who can go into depth about the Caesar-Octavian-Antony dynamic (and how it played out with Caligula) better than I can, and scholarship on Brutus consists mostly of looking at an outline of a man and trying to guess what the inside was like.

At the end of the day, Caesar was the instigator, active manipulator, and catalyst for the final act of the Republic.

I hope that this was at least entertaining to read!

#i cut out A Lot and its thanks to the patience of Friends that i got it down to the length that it is #like i cannot stress enough that i worked machiavelli into this and started dissecting the whole #brutus-cassius conflict with the framework that it was orchestrated by caesar #typically tho i tend to treat caesar as a symbolic device. a representation of something Very Wrong #this is a tag for asks

[groupkiller]

it's not that people don't see it. i LOVE johnlock, i check the tag! i see the content, i didn't think it'd happen bc the series made it clear those dialogues were nothing but a joke. at the beginning i was like hmm? but then it made me angry as fuck that they were playing it for the laughs, since it was obvious it didn't mean they'd be endgame. be angry at the writers for turning queerness into a joke. imo they did not queerbait: they made fun of queerness (also angry at what they did to irene)

____________________________________________________________I am actually curious as to how many people did see the romantic “sub” plot :) I know the johnlockers saw it of course. But how many of the casuals saw it? Maybe quite a lot saw the romance, but like you didn’t think it would happen.And I am sure a lot of people didn’t want it to happen(Which may or may not have been different, if either John or Sherlock had been a girl, and it had been the classic hetero normative boy-meets-girl).And I understand people who want a friendship story.

Personally I love friendship stories. I am a bit tired of the “boy-meets-girl” story, because I have seen it so many times. If creators can put a new spin on it, it’s fine. And it’s not like I didn’t cry by the end of Titanic and Forrest Gump. I like a good romance if I like the characters and the foreshadowing is good. I just often think friendship stories are more interesting, because I see fewer of them. (And because I can ship the bromances ^_~)So I don’t want to hate on the people who really wanted a friendship Sherlock story. 

I might go into a lengthy discussion with people who claim, I am mad for seeing a romance, but luckily I haven’t had to deal with many of those people :)And I would probably also shake my head in frustration if the only argument against a johnlock romance was: “But it’s not in the canon!” “Neither is the modern setting or Molly and loads of other things on the show. ARGH!” I like it when people take existing stories and give them a new twist. But I know that the more old versions seem alike, the harder it is to make a new version that will be accepted, because people want more of what they already like.I am a pastor, and if I ever tried to come up with new suggestions for Christmas carols for Christmas eve I would most likely not survive the shit storm. Tradition changing is very hard, when people love what they already have ^_^I am a slash fan girl, so I of course shipped johnlock from the start.

1) In the first season, I didn’t think johnlock would happen either. I just enjoyed the show with it’s humor. (I am straight, so gay jokes never bothered me personally, and my gay and bi friends don’t seem to mind. My queer friends have never uttered concern about queer baiting, so it came to my attention only years ago.)

2) In the second season I thought: “I still like the gay jokes, now it’s a running gag. Ha ha, still funny.” But then came John’s grave yard scene, and I thought: “Hmm it’s no longer JUST gay jokes or cleverly hidden subtext, now it’ in major scenes too… interesting. Because he already said that Sherlock was his best friend, so that wasn’t the thing John couldn’t say.” (It has been suggested to me, that what he couldn’t say was that Sherlock’s platonic friendship saved him from suicide, and I am open to interpretation-suggestions, but I think this is undercut by John “moving on” from Sherlock before his poposal in the next season)

3) In the third season I thought the romance got so blatant that I started thinking: “OK, Mark is gay, they might ACTUALLY be going for this. They didn’t just put it in for the humor, but as very clever foreshadowing, wow!” Here we got the “moving on after Sherlock before proposing”, the whole wedding episode with the sad-leaving-early-scene, and the Sherlock restarting his heart for John, and the tarmac scene. And I thought that since this again was major important scenes, this had to be a Chekhov gun, they were hanging on the wall. I still thought it was clever, because Sherlock COULD just be sad, that his best friend moved out, and he COULD just be trying to protect the only real friend he had without it being romantic, and in theory he COULD just be trying to cheer John up at the tarmac (Or well, no I didn’t think that for a second, and I don’t see how “moving on so soon after Sherlock” could ever be platonic, nor the look they give eachother on the dancefloor before Sherlock leaves, but since my sister didn’t see the romance, I racked my brain and came to the conclusion, that maybe there was a fair no-homo-interpretation, though I of course thought, that my queer-reading was the right one ^_^)

4) After The Abominable Bride I was getting very excited. I was starting to look forward to a 2017 where we would finally get a huge show with queer main characters. I had stopped even thinking about how casual viewers saw this as platonic.So many people said: “I don’t mind queerness.” So I thought: “Great, then no one will object if johnlock happens. If they claim it comes out of thin air, there is loads of subtext to support it, and they will realize that it WAS properly foreshadowed.”UNFORESEEN YET INEVITABLE are the best kinds of twists anyway.

And I asume that other people would support a romance between characters with chemestry if it is properly foreshadowed, like I do, even if it’s not my favorite ship :) (Just like I would support the friendship arch if that was what was foreshadowed the best, but yeah - clearly people don’t agree what the show foreshadowed here ^_^).

So yeah, I am of course very disappointed that johnlock hasn’t happened (yet?).

It is totally OK that writers are free to write what they want! They don’t cater to my wish fulfillment. And seeing as I am straight, I personally wont cry myself to sleep because I am not getting representation… or, well, the fact is that I actually DID end up crying myself to sleep three nights in a row.I am not sure if it’s because I was influenced by how sad queer people, who really relied on Sherlock to represent them, were. Or if it was just because I had invested so much time in this show and was so sure that the subtext was foreshadowing a romance, that I was just way more disappointed than I usually am, if I watch a movie that is great up until the ending, and then the ending is disappointing… Usually it’s only two hours I wasted. In this case it was many times 16,5 hours. (And they are not wasted, they just let to something that really disappointed me. That doesn’t take away the joy I have had until The Final Problem. But then there is the discussion about whether it is queer baiting. Because if it is, then that might actually force me to reevaluate the enjoyment I had the first times I watched the show.)

It is not fair to demand what you want of someone else, just because you want it, however I think it IS OK to be disappointed in a show/movie or book, if it makes promises to the reader/viewer and don’t deliver. Chekhov’s gun again.But the whole discussion is, whether or not those promises WERE made, and if they were intentional. 

When I write fiction, I always ask my beta-readers to point out EVERYWHERE I might make a promise to the reader, that I am not aware of myself, so I can address it later.

Many people are baffled that johnlockers think the show promised a romance, so is it fair to claim this is what the show was dangling in front of us?Personally I think the answer is YES: I think they MUST have known, they did know, hence the interviews. Many people expected a romance.And if johnlock really isn’t their endgame, I guess it’s fair to say, that in those many interviews they specifically said, Johnlock wasn’t going to happen. But since they lie about a lot of things, it’s difficult to know which interviews to trust and which not to. Therefore I think it should have been at least addressed in the show,I am now wondering: if johnlock isn’t endgame, is the hug scene their attempt to address it?Sherlock: “Romantic entanglement, while fulfilling for others…”John: “…would complete you as a human being.”

Sherlock: “That doesn’t even mean anything.”

John: “Just text her! Phone her! Do something while there is still a chance.”

I personally saw this as romantic foreshadowing and REALLY opening the possibility that this WAS end game, especially because I thought it obvious that this whole conversation was about John and Sherlock, not Sherlock and Irene.

Sherlock would out live God to have the last word, and his contradiction doesn’t stike me as very heartfelt. Others might see this differently, but I took it as a grammar correction more than contradicting the point/meaning/message about finding someone to love. Again I took this as clever foreshadowing, because it COULD be interpreted in a no-homo way as well. Because I have talked to people, who saw this as a way of showing how different John and Sherlock are.John thinks romance is important, Sherlock doesn’t.That is one way to interpret that scene, and it might have been the writers way to show, that a romance was going nowhere. 

Personally I think, if this is the case, it would have been wise to do it in reversed order, so that the writers’ message got the last word - not John.Thus I think the scene should have gone: John: “Sherlock, romance would complete you as a human being. I think you should call Irene, or if you really don’t text her back and aren’t interested, then find SOMEONE.”Sherlock: “John, romance might be fulfilling for you and others, but I am not interested in a romance with anyone.”This would have been much more clear, and would have send a clear message, that the romance wasn’t going to happen.I know johnlockers would still have hated that, but at least it would have been clear that this particular Chekhov gun was off the wall and out of ammo. (But if they wanted to leave that interpretation open, this IS the better way to do it… oh so many ifs >.

You mention both Irene and queer baiting.

I can see many problems with Irene. I really hope she isn’t flirting with Sherlock anymore, and that John’s deduction is accurate: She just wrote him a “happy birthday” without the “let’s have dinner”.

Because if she is a lesbian and in a nice relationship, then I find it very problematic if she also falls in love with Sherlock. 

To see her as some kind of lesbian cupid works a bit better for me, but yeah - there are maaaany problems with that character -_-* 

I am not sure I am the right person to talk about queerbaiting, since I am straight. The thing is, that I believe most people want to be good, and I doubt that many people actually wake up in the morning shouting: “MWA HA HA I WANT TO BE AN EVIL TROLL, I WILL DELIBERATELY HURT PEOPLE AND MAKE A PROFIT BY INCLUDING THESE THINGS IN MY SHOW AND LURE SLASH FAN GIRLS AND QUEER PEOPLE IN, ONLY TO SPIT THEM IN THE FACE IN THE END BWA HA HA HA!”

And I doubt that Mark and Steven did that. At least intentionally. (And since I am still a hopeful tin-foil-hatter waiting for extra content, I hope johnlock could still be canon.)But that doesn’t change that I think Mary’s conclusion to the series is annoying as hell.Not only because many queer people think it is a personal insult, and that the message is: “who you are and your queerness and the identity you have been fighting to create and preserve doesn’t matter. And the time you spend analyzing Sherlock was wasted you stupid idiot!”(And though this was actually what I felt myself. After three nights of crying I remembered that I don’t think anyone would be that evil, and maybe I am a bit full of myself if I think Mofftiss would actually sit down and plan this sort of thing against me personally or against a huge group of fans.)

I hear Mary tell me that the drama I had been watching, and expected to be a romance was actually not important. It was the cases and the detective-story-part of the show that was important.

That is what I hear. But casual viewers might hear it differently. They might think it is a fitting end for a new interpretation. A nice way to conclude the new origin story of a 130 year old legend. But it was annoying to me, because I enjoyed the show BOTH as a detective story and a drama. AND I invested so many hours analyzing the show, and it sounds to me a bit, like that analyzing time finding out who Sherlock and Watson are (queer or not) was a waste of time, if that "doesn't matter".

And I guess that not only johnlockers like me spent a lot of time watching the show again and again for details. I am not saying that casual viewers are less worthy or stupid because they like to see the show just once or twice and move to the next show. Not at all. I think shows are best if they can be enjoyed in different ways. But it seems unwise to piss off the viewers who rewatch for detail regardless of what they seek to confirm, be it johnlock, how Sherlock or Moriarty survived or easter eggs or whatever.

I felt that this ending told me that only the detective part mattered. And the drama and character arches I had been invested in, didn’t matter (be they romantic or platonic). But I guess the words “legend, stories and adventures” can be interpreted in many ways.

If this really is the end, I think they could have made it different in so many ways that would have pissed many people of less.Made John do the final voice over is just one of the suggestions. Different wording would have been nice too, if you ask me, and they could still have made it a clear friendship story, if that’s what they wanted.If they DID want to cater to more fan groups they could have made it more ambiguous too maybe? (I as a johnlocker would still be sad that the romance wasn’t stated outright - but there are so many casual fans who wanted a friendship ending, and who says my wishes are more important than their’s?)

Endings are tricky though. I would have loved to at least see a moving crate to indicate that John moved back in. Which could have been part of both a friendship story and a romance (at least until Rosie needed a room of her own, and John and Sherlock would have to share Sherlock’s bedroom ^_~).Playing with Rosie is ambiguous I guess, it can both be viewed as John and Sherlock raising her together, but it could also just be two no-homo friends entertaining Rosie when John comes to visit.Sigh, I have a very hard time being objective about the ending.If either John or Sherlock had been a woman I am sure many casuals would have been disappointed, that there was no clear romance.Sorry for the wall of text.Thank you for your comment. It is really nice to see other people’s perspectives, because I so easily forget, that not everyone watch the show the same way I do ^_^  

#johnlock #tjlc #tjlc is real #answer