Crassus, Caelius, Cicero, Catiline, Conspiracy
boy howdy these four sure are something. not featured in this soup of C names, Caesar! what on earth happened here.
Plutarch, Crassus
Sallust on Crassus, Ronald Syme
Patron and Client, Father and Son in Cicero's "Pro Caelio"
Crassus' New Friends and Pompey's Return, Eve J. Parrish
Catullus and His World, T.P. Wiseman
Cicero's Catilinarians, D.H. Berry
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a friend of mine sold me a cello for $100* and I'm literally so stoked about it I'm not even sure like. I don't know what to do with it. what do I do first
* for context the only cello I could find for $100 on Facebook marketplace or craigslist was actually an upright bass and it was broken in half
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ok this is gonna sound dumb as hell but. taisho era. how are people holding onto potable water in their household
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Mmm one of the amazing things about IDW Optimus is that he feels like a real person to me. And imo, that's because instead of being portrayed as this universally benevolent and kind leader who always has a noble response to everything... He actually reacts to stress and makes bad decisions and loses his cool a lot of the time. It's just sad because almost, if not every time IDW OP does something "jerkish," there's literally a perfectly logical reason behind why he would feel/react the way he did, except the fandom either simplifies it to "he's an asshole" or straight up repeats/believes in outright misinterpretation or ignorance of the actual facts of the story. :/
But annoying fandom takes aside, I do just feel like... It's not that the "quietly sad, forlorn, lonely Optimus" characterization is bad, because IDW OP is very much like that too. I just think that his anger and righteousness and fuck-ups make him much more endearing because... I feel like I'm stating the obvious, but it's because real people are complicated. Real people aren't always diplomatic and kind. Real people snap under stress and lash out. Real people get into arguments with others about how far they're willing to go for their beliefs. Real people make mistakes and/or have backgrounds that haunt them for the rest of their lives.
And quite frankly, I think it's cool as fuck how IDW Optimus has some bite to him when he interacts with others. For example, I like it when IDW OP gets pissed at Dai Atlas for leaving Cybertron and abandoning the war (Monstrosity) because his anger and frustration reveals things about him. How much he cares about Cybertron as their homeland. How much pressure he feels to be a perfect leader and protect everyone. His bravery and responsibility making him feel that the right thing to do is fight for what's left, not cut their losses and leave. Also Dai Atlas is a hypocritical cunt and I will stand by this as far as his actions during the Metzen trilogy lmao, but that's besides the point.
But what I'm saying is that that conflict with other characters reveals things about Optimus' character: his history, regrets, values, goals. And if you reduce those complicated actions to just "he's an asshole", or outright ignore/remove them as fandom tends to do, what you end up with is a flattened character. A character having a strong personality/motivations/beliefs/etc necessarily means that they have conflict with others. Conflict is what makes stories interesting. IDW Optimus has conflicts with others and with himself and that's why he's cool as fuck. Because I came into IDW expecting just, "oh Optimus is the cool leader guy, he's iconic, he's heroic" and what I actually got was a character who's all of those things, but also conflicted, tragic, and controversial in relation to the people and environments he's surrounded by.
Because what some people think is "being an asshole" is what I'd rather call "having perfectly understandable emotional reactions under the given circumstances and ending up conflicting with people because that's how life works."
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Self indulgent self ship time?
Self indulgent self ship time.
Wally only has half of an idea of why Simon gets all drowsy and ready for naptime when he sings like that and hugs them close while looking at them, but he knows it helps late at night when his dear friend can't sleep. And Simon agrees to it every time. It seems like a good little arrangement to help Simon calm down after his usual nightmares... And it's relaxing for both of them. So... What's a little comforting trancing between friends?
This also reveals a tidbit about Simon: His little collar buttons change based on his mood! Looks like he's ready for bed!
(I did this as a self indulgent comfort thing, tbh. I've had insomnia nearly my whole life, so I often use comforting sleep hypnosis files or singing with subliminals to help me get to bed. Wally's voice was really nice, and that combined with the spirals he draws made me think of this self indulgent little scenario. Here's hoping I can sleep without any nasty nightmares, right?)
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[smash cut to finding out that Mel’s mom was in fact hired by the bad guys to do some accounting]
This is paraphrased from a semi-in-character conversation Justin and I had right after the session where we scried on Mel's assumed kidnapped parents and found them apparently living comfortably in the palais; I started this doodle over a year ago, shortly after learning more about their situation, because I suddenly remembered having had this 'and what's gonna keep my extremely normal parents from being completely expendable?? ACCOUNTING???' conversation and that was really funny to me, lmao.
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Omgggg idbejene storyish time ig lmao.
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"only other Hawaiians ever make me feel not Hawaiian enough--"
"Hawaiians from the islands are racist--"
"Hawaiians from the mainland have REAL aloha spirit everyone up here is just Hawaiian, no matter how much blood you got--"
okay but you understand that every single portion of what you just said is rooted in colonialism&the attempted murder of our people+culture, right. like you GET why kānaka from the islands have to be so protective of things as they are on the frontlines watching both our culture&our land get chunked for the proft of those who have no right to any of it, right. like you KNOW that hawaiian homelands requires a 50% blood quota to even get on the list&a 25% quota from anyone you leave that land to post mortem, &that the list is STILL decades long because the vast majority of the homeless kānaka back home MEET that requirement, right-- that the homeless demographic in the islands has the largest percentage of us left in one grouping in the world&it isn't surprising the families who maintained a higher blood percentage are also too poor to leave the islands even while dying on the streets, right. like you are CAPABLE of conceptualizing what all of that would do when confronted with someone from the diaspora who "doesn't understand why the aloha spirit is dead in the islands". right. like you can SEE&HEAR how it sounds when you say the nonhawaiian people&legacy of the colonizers that tried to obliterate your ancestors are the only ones who make you feel hawaiian now that they as a group have successfully taken up the primary position on what makes a good hawaiian. right. like you KNOW why there's even a push to properly exemplify kānaka maoli after literally hundreds of years of our people having to save us from cultural obliteration, &that the push to be a "real hawaiian" definitely didn't start with us, the people who you are trying to reconnect to&identify with. right.
like, i get feeling like the expectations are too high-- there isn't any right way to be kānaka, &there are most definitely kānaka who are shitty about that-- but coming back with, "BUT THE HAOLES VALIDATE MY HAWAIIAN-NESS" is just fucking WILD, like i don't know how to explain to you the haoles thinking they have a right to validate fucking anything in relation to us&our struggle&our people is just...
blood doesn't matter, but obviously not in the way you seem to think, lmao.
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not to be a horrible shipper all over your plotfic but what would the ships look like in your ageswap au?
The sample I posted does rather invite the question!
I should put out there, as a general rule, I'm not all that interested in Mike/Will and I don't have plans to write it anywhere. I don't really vibe with it, generally, and I believe I've mentioned previously (but maybe only in tags) that I really hate the way the Duffers conceived of and have been handling the possibility that Will might be gay. And many of the ways parts of the fandom have acted in response. I get that it's important to some people, and I don't want to rain on anybody's parade, but I've seen so much bad behaviour from the showrunners all the way down that it's pretty firmly put me off.
With that said, though. This fic was undertaken before I'd had much exposure to the fandom, and also, the roleswap plays...well, a role. I'm a sucker for a good triad relationship, especially the Monster Hunting Trio, and in this version of things, that's Mike and El and Will. So this is probably the only time you're ever going to see me writing reciprocated romantic feelings between Mike and Will. It's just that El is also there. And the entire context of their previous relationships with each other has changed. It feels different. I don't know. I'm operating on vibes, here.
Also because of the roleswap, this is one of those rare places where I'm not mashing Steve and Nancy and Jonathan's faces all together. Nancy and Jonathan are the Hopper and Joyce of this fic, and Steve is the Karen Wheeler. He'll be fine in his loveless marriage while the other two are off having fantastic post-saving-the-world sex. Maybe he'll have an ill-advised affair in the future. Who can say.
(Also Nancy and Barb had a brief on-again-off-again fling post-Nancy's-divorce, which has been over for some time as of the action taking place. Long enough for Barb to find a more stable relationship with the other local lesbian...)
I'm pretty sure that's it, as far as romance goes. Apart from the teen squad, it's pretty secondary to the plot in season 1, and I'm sticking with that. (Also, I need lots of time and space to fully mine the hilarity of Steve being Mike's literal actual father.)
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OK real talk but did anyone else find wakanda forever to be Incredibly uncomfortable? like idk man watching two marginalized groups go to all out war over colonizers wanting to strip them of their resources, WITH EACH OTHER AND NOT THE COLONIZERS, seems a bit wrong somehow
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That thread with the most lukewarm and again, commonly seen critique about the wind rises is driving me up a wall BC it's such an example of "how dare you say we piss on the poor" and everyone's reblogging it as if it's a lesson about media literacy. Also all the notes dunking on the chn person for voicing mild discomfort about the film. As if this opinion (which again, such critiques of the film have existed since the film released where have you all been), whether you agree or not, came from nowhere. Head in hands.
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what is this fucking culture where when some people feel like their friends or family has wronged them in some way they think "what i'll do instead of communicating like a normal fucking person is record myself confronting them and post it online because people love content with conflict in it and i can milk this situation to my advantage"
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remembering how i not only filled my school folders with drawings, but also i drew elaborate things on my desk all the time out of boredom, and i actually met the girl who went to the afternoon shift in the same classroom and spot i sat at during that year as she was a cosplayer i briefly met for being in the local anime con scene.
i once tried to talk to her to maybe make friends with her, but she was very dismissive of me, and at a later date she just left me a message on our desk telling me to stop drawing stupid things and erased most of it, at which point i just felt really bad and never bothered or saw her again.
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c***unitytwt, and specifically a**d fans, are getting on my NERVES. i made a pretty flippant joke that theyre never explicit abt him being autistic despite how everyone talks abt him, and you would think i waterboarded three puppies w their reactions.
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