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The Lament for Icarus 2020, Miao He

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I finished my Rome book and have now begun one about Pompeii. I’m 65 pages in and I already love it: yes, it covers the volcano, but most of the book is about “this is what the town and daily life of it would have been like, actually.” Fascinating stuff. Things I’ve learned so far:

- The streets in Pompeii have sidewalks sometimes a meter higher than the road, with stepping stones to hop across as “crosswalks.” I’d seen some photos before. The book points out that, duh, Pompeii had no underground drainage, was built on a fairly steep incline, and the roads were more or less drainage systems and water channels in the rain.

- Unlike today, where “dining out” is expensive and considered wasteful on a budget, most people in Pompeii straight up didn’t have kitchens. You had to eat out if you were poor; only the wealthy could afford to eat at home.

- Most importantly, and I can’t believe in all the pop culture of Pompeii this had never clicked for me: Pompeii had a population between 6-35,000 people. Perhaps 2,000 died in the volcano. Contemporary sources talk about the bay being full of fleeing ships. Most people got the hell out when the eruption started. The number who died are still a lot, and it’s still gruesome and morbid, but it’s not “an entire town and everyone in it.” This also makes it difficult for archeologists, apparently (and logically): those who remained weren’t acting “normally,” they were sheltering or fleeing a volcano. One famous example is a wealthy woman covered in jewelry found in the bedroom in the glaridator barracks. Scandal! She must have been having an affair and had it immortalized in ash! The book points out that 17 other people and several dogs were also crowded in that one small room: far more likely, they were all trying to shelter together. Another example: Houses are weirdly devoid of furniture, and archeologists find objects in odd places. (Gardening supplies in a formal dining room, for example.) But then you remember that there were several hours of people evacuating, packing their belongings, loading up carts and getting out… maybe the gardening supplies were brought to the dining room to be packed and abandoned, instead of some deeper esoteric meaning. The book argues that this all makes it much harder to get an accurate read on normal life in a Roman town, because while Pompeii is a brilliant snapshot, it’s actually a snapshot of a town undergoing major evacuation and disaster, not an average day.

- Oh, another great one. Outside of a random laundry place in Pompeii, someone painted a mural with two scenes. One of them referenced Virgil’s Aeneid. Underneath that scene, someone graffiti’d a reference to a famous line from that play, except tweaked it to be about laundry. This is really cool, the book points out, because it implies that a) literacy and education was high enough that one could paint a reference and have it recognized, and b) that someone else could recognize it and make a dumb play on words about it and c) the whole thing, again, means that there’s a certain amount of literacy and familiarity with “Roman pop culture” even among fairly normal people at the time.

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How To Draw A Horse - a comic by Emma Hunsinger

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Absolutely obsessed with the names Terry Pratchett gives to his characters

“You Bastard”

“Moist von Lipwig”

“Cut me own throat dibbler”

“Medium Dave”

“Carrot Ironfoundersson”

Like, ok king

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Original post by @yeeeem

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Sometimes reading Arthuriana feels like reading Alice in Wonderland.

“Well,” said Alice, “these are a dreadfully strange assortment of objects!”

“They all symbolize different aspects of Our Lord’s martyrdom,” said the Fisher King, casting a line into his teacup.

“Indeed. I am sure everything symbolizes something else, for if everything was only itself I should be very confused. Might I ask what the point of the bleeding lance is?”

Alice regretted asking the question as soon as she had done so, for she saw the pun that would likely be made about the word point. Instead, however, the room erupted in applause and shouts of “The Grail! She has achieved the Grail!”

The next castle she visited, Alice resolved to herself as the inhabitants of this one danced for joy, would be more sensible.

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i watched burlesque and now i think i can burlesque but i’m too tired to get up so i’m just kind of shimmying.

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The wanna be leader who has to cheat because he knows he’s unworthy.

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“hi, I’m not from the US” ask set

given how Americanized this site is, it’s important to celebrate all our countries and nationalities - with all their quirks and vices and ridiculousness, and all that might seem strange to outsiders.

1. favourite place in your country?

2. do you prefer spending your holidays in your country or travel abroad?

3. does your country have access to sea?

4. favourite dish specific for your country?

5. favourite song in your native language?

6. most hated song in your native language?

7. three words from your native language that you like the most?

8. do you get confused with other nationalities? if so, which ones and by whom?

9. which of your neighbouring countries would you like to visit most/know best?

10. most enjoyable swear word in your native language?

11. favourite native writer/poet?

12. what do you think about English translations of your favourite native prose/poem?

13. does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions or traditions that might seem strange to outsiders?

14. do you enjoy your country’s cinema and/or TV?

15. a saying, joke, or hermetic meme that only people from your country will get?

16. which stereotype about your country you hate the most and which one you somewhat agree with?

17. are you interested in your country’s history?

18. do you speak with a dialect of your native language?

19. do you like your country’s flag and/or emblem? what about the national anthem?

20. which sport is The Sport in your country?

21. if you could send two things from your country into space, what would they be?

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed?

23. which alcoholic beverage is the favoured one in your country?

24. what other nation is joked about most often in your country?

25. would you like to come from another place, be born in another country?

26. does your nationality get portrayed in Hollywood/American media? what do you think about the portrayal?

27. favourite national celebrity?

28. does your country have a lot of lakes, mountains, rivers? do you have favourites?

29. does your region/city have a beef with another place in your country?

30. do you have people of different nationalities in your family?

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Ernest Hemingway would have died rather than have syntax. Or semicolons. I use a whole lot of half-assed semicolons; there was one of them just now; that was a semicolon after “semicolons,” and another one after “now.” And another thing. Ernest Hemingway would have died rather than get old. And he did. He shot himself. A short sentence. Anything rather than a long sentence, a life sentence. Death sentences are short and very, very manly. Life sentences aren’t. They go on and on, all full of syntax and qualifying clauses and confusing references and getting old. And that brings up the real proof of what a mess I have made of being a man.

Ursula K. Le Guin on being a man – the finest, sharpest thing I’ve read in ages 

(via explore-blog )

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a d&d group who have only ever played virtually are forced to meet up and join forces when it seems their dm has gone missing. the group is comprised of beautiful popular athlete pretending to be a dork online, a dork pretending to be a beautiful popular athlete online, a stereotypical lives-in-his-mother’s-basement gamer who’s secretly rich, and the dm’s brother who doesn’t know the dm is his sister – they’ve never even exchanged real names online. halfway through their search they realize the dm sent them on a wild goose chase on purpose to give them the thrill of a real-life adventure. three quarters of the way through they realize that through the actions the dm set up for them to take, they’re actually being framed for a crime she committed. 

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Last year, in Suessical, one girl really got what a Who was just absolutely nailed the essence of the type and didn’t stop acting for a single moment on stage. She couldn’t sing but ended up being put in every single Who scene because she was magnetic.

Share a moment from a play or musical you’ve seen where a MINOR character (not a supporting character, but like a small cameo role) or ensemble member did something really memorable! I like proving that even small roles can leave a great impression on people.

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Way Down Hadestown // Anais Mitchell

Much Ado About Nothing reading Part II // @socialshakespeare

Hotel California // Eagles

Whistle While You Wait // Marian Call

Easter // Patti Smith

Love Fool // The Cardigans

Shake It Off (Trap Remix) // Taylor Swift (ish)

1996 // The Wombats

Judy Blume // Amanda Palmer

Pathetic // Mathilda the Musical

Shuffle Tag

I was tagged by @thnks-fr-th-fndms 

Rules: put your music library on shuffle and list the first ten songs that come on then tag 20 other people to do it.

1) Almost Here // Brian McFadden ft. Delta Goodrem

2) Demons // Imagine Dragons

3) Runnin’ // Adam Lambert

4) Beautiful Word // Coldplay

5) Drown // Bring Me The Horizon

6) Can’t Help Falling in Love // Elvis Presley

7) Lovely Bones // Dead and Divine

8) The Great Divide // Rebecca Black

9) Young Volcanoes // Fall Out Boy

10) Believer // Imagine Dragons

@fandom-in-abyss @asexualcas @catarinalosss @queen-anna-lightwood @imagine-marvell @potatolikesmarvel @taiey @knoxska @fandoms-save-my-life @fatherofmurder @pretentious-git @thebookkeeperslibrary @silverstone819 @tmi-blackstairs @lynchemon @stormylove2002 @ginette-de-gallifrey  and that’s everyone I can think of

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there’s going to be a cover reveal for destiny’s new book in a fortnight and i got all excited and was like haha what if i made one of those tumblr fake cover posts with the four covers with misty black and white pictures and teensy font and then i failed. anyway i am super excited about it.

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Are you a “can’t write dialogue” writer or a “can’t describe anything” writer