#Definitely not Pompeii but I'm thinking maybe something else?

[duxfemina]

Hey i really loved your replies to previous asks. Can you please rank the ancient romans from best to worst for enemies to lover trope:

Catiline, cicero, Julius, Pompeii, crassus , brutus, agrippa, octavian, sulla and Marius.

This is tricky because I'm not as up on some of the beef or maybe you meant these individually rather than paired with their neighbors in the list. So I'll go with individually rating how susceptible they would be to the trope

Catiline - yeah he was DTF anything so yeah I could see him developing homoerotic passions for Cicero had he survived

Cicero - no he just does the reverse. It's only lovers to enemies for MT Chickpea because he's a petty peapod

Julius Caesar - he probably fucked some Gauls let's be real. He absolutely is susceptible to the trope and would find himself involved in it several times throughout his life

Pompeius Magnus - yes, absolutely, the man was so magnanimous with the people he defeated he absolutely probably caught the feelings for one or two of them. Of course paragon of conjugal virtue that he was, he didn't sleep with anyone besides his wife when he was married so it might just be a lot of pining and eye fucking but there's probably a couple princesses of peoples he beat who he had the hots for and of course they'd reciprocate, he's the new Alexander after all

Crassus - on the one hand he has about as much romance and yearning to him as a wax tablet on the other he DID team up with his most loathed rival Pompeius so who knows maybe under that cold exterior he was secretly dreaming of running his hands through the much lauded quaff of Pompeius Magnus

Brutus - all of Pompeius' enemies eventually end up in bed with him... politically that is. If Brutus can get past Pompeius whacking his dad I feel he could get past whatever made him enemies with someone in order to make way for growing feelings for them

Agrippa - his enemies don't live long enough to become lovers usually. But if anyone was gonna be his war torn paramour I'd put bets on Sextus. There's just something a little homoerotic about their naval rivalry.

Octavian - I mean he did marry someone he had previously exiled so yes he's susceptible to the trope. If nothing else he likes using sex to exert dominance on people (hence his sleeping with the wives of his rivals) so yeah whether directly or by proxy Octavian is definitely fucking his enemies. Don't think he loves any of them (maybe not even Livia, he respected her and she filled the image he needed) but they're certainly lovers in the coarsest sense

Sulla - like Cicero this only goes one way and it's lovers to enemies. He fucks and then quite likely ends up hating.

Marius - there is no strategy to his love life so like it might happen but not as likely because he's pretty straightforward and to the point and isn't about any kind of pining or long game. The first impression is what he's going with

[sinuheminem]

i’ve been too busy to make any essays recently, but here’s something i wrote instead of doing my AP Lang mock exam essay lol

first of all i just. i need to talk about john green. i think for most john green fans, our first experience with him was the fault in our stars. i watched the movie first, you can shame me for that if you want. i didn't even know that there was a book. my mom suggested the movie to me in the first place. i remember watching it very vividly. we piled together and honed in on our little 12 inch tv. i definitely cried when i watched it, and then i cried again several years later when i read the book.

(adult figure) asked me recently why i liked john green so much. i was telling him that i was struggling to pirate the anthropocene review (sorry (english teacher), i wasn't able to get to the library) and he offered to buy me the book instead. actually, he didn't offer. i told him no and that it was fine and i would figure it out, and then he did it anyway, bless his poor, unmedicated soul. the first time he asked me the question, i didn't really know what to say. why do i like john green? why do christians like the bible? why do jews like the torah or muslims the q'uran or buddhists buddha? i like john green because he's amazing.

but after thinking about it for approximately 2.5 seconds, i realized it was probably good to ask yourself this question. why do you like someone's writing? why do you like people at all? does the writing offer you anything? do the people fulfill you in the most basic form? so i told (adult figure) that i like john green because everything he says sounds wise. he states things simply and yet it leaves so much room for insight. it's like he plants the seeds directly into your brain and it flourishes without any other supplement.

there are a few quotes from the anthropocene review that i already have stuck in my head. one of them was uttered in the introduction. he was explaining that he was "writing in code" all of his career. everything had been some attempt at an elaborate maze to somehow reflect his inner self, turtles all the way down in OCD, the fault in our stars in love, finding alaska in loss, more and more and more. but he said "i realized then that i didn't want to write in code anymore."

it's such an interesting thing to say. "i don't want to write in code anymore." it feels almost like that's the entire point of some writer's existence. to find a most convoluted, secret, labyrinth (haha) composed way of saying "i'm here and i can be beautiful!" but john seemed to be suffocating underneath all of those layers. the layers of labyrinth. and it was even more evident by the fact that there was no veil at all in the introduction. his labyrinthitis was expressly not a metaphor. him talking about labrynthitis was simply not some convoluted, secret, labyrinth composed way to get at some big metaphorical idea. it was something else, something more important, i would say. it was a catalyst.

humans love to say "i was here." the graffiti in pompeii, the graffiti on the table i'm sitting at right now, revolutions, wars, art, the largest buddha ever that bankrupt an entire city by it's weight in copper. we love statements and we hate being forgotten. maybe that's what makes us human. maybe we started using language because we wanted to tell each other that we would not be forgotten. maybe those apes started grumbling at each other and what they meant to say was "i won't forget you, i love you, don't forget me." maybe language is another attempt to not be forgotten. and it stands today, and it's what i'm using to write to you now. i don't want to be forgotten, and i won't forget you, (english teacher.)

[desolationcleo]

So since we're in the endgame I'm gonna try to scrape together some coherency about this since I still can't be normal about it.

Imagine you're one of a certain four players. The next round starts, and you are gathered in a circle again, like how it's always been.

There's a huge statue. Looking at it immediately gives you deja vu. You never questioned its presence until someone else asked why there was a statue, but you definitely noticed the deja vu.

It's not like you haven't had it before. The bedrock exposed to the sky back in Last Life. Team BEST's castle made of snow, and Impulse and Bdubs' house made of snow after that. Everything to do with the Nosy Neighbours. But this screams you've been here before louder than any of the others.

It gives you little quests, and rewards for success. When you click one of those buttons, galactic letters appear in the air. These things are familiar to you somehow. There's reinforced deepslate. Dark colour, effectively impossible for humans to break or move, fits the bill for... something.

At the base under the cloak, behind the area where prizes are dropped, is a dark material. You can't tell what it is at a glance. You get closer. Looks like... maybe black concrete? That... sure. That makes sense. You have no idea why you thought it was obsidian.

Behind it are large mounds of rock, clearly part of the statue. The first thing that comes to your mind is that they're the tips of wings. It's not until you bring it up out loud that you realize you're not sure why. Well, the statue looks like someone coming out of the ground, right? ...That still doesn't explain why your mind jumped to wings when it could just be large rocks. There's not even two of them, there's three. Never seen an angel with three wings. You still think it's wings. Secret keeper having wings feels on brand.

Rumor has it that it speaks in rhyme when you reroll. That makes sense, and sets off your Pompeii by Bastille instincts. You almost want to reroll for a hard task just to see it for yourself. You won't, though. You've seen how those are practically designed to make you fail if not to kill you.

Moreso than anything, looking at its face makes you space out with deja vu. That symbol on it, that... sort of nether portal? Yeah, that's what it looks like. You've seen it, or something similar, before. You KNOW it. You don't remember your life before you were in whatever this is but you know you've seen this before.

That symbol takes up the statue's entire face, leaving no room for anything else. The secret keeper doesn't have eyes, but you can swear it's Watching you.

headcanon that the former evo members in the life series get a strange sense of deja vu at things like the base made of snow and the bedrock exposed to the sky at the circle in the ground they all gather around at the start of last life (all except grian, who remembers evo). someone points out how weird it is that there's bedrock where it shouldn't be and a few others agree and the evo players wonder why they never questioned it. martyn wanted to ally with jimmy in 3rd life and then they did in fact ally in last life simply because it felt right for some reason. pearl and bigb do their "always watching" thing and the deja vu hits and after a couple rounds of the phrase neither of them quite feels like they're talking about themselves anymore, though they're not sure what else they could be referring to. none of them know the others experience this too

HFJDJD ANONN

[scripted-downfall]

Robin anon here. I adore Ten and Donna's chaotic friendship. What do you think a meeting between Robin and Steve and Ten and Donna would look like?

Oh, that's an awesome thought experiment; thank you! I think that they'd get along really well. Ten and Robin would both be on the same side of the personality scale, given that they both have the same tendency to ramble, the same passion for languages and culture, similar wit (verging on casual rudeness at times... I love them both, but affectionate bluntness is definitely their mutual trait), etc. They'd probably mutually rant about anything they got started talking about, and the time would fly by without really being registered.

However, when you asked the question, the thing that impressed itself most upon me is that Donna would have a lot to say to Steve (in a wholesome way since I'm assuming this would be set sometime season three of ST or later, and his redemption arc, shall we say, has already been pretty heavily developed by then). I know in advance that I'm going to struggle to make this coherent, but here's my best attempt:

Donna is very much not set up to have it easy. She struggles in the show, from external expectations --- not having noticed the various signs of otherworldly activity happening around her, casually being put down by those around her (not Wilf, bless him, but everyone else), not being "conventionally successful" --- and from an internalization of those views --- calling herself "just a temp" and putting down her skills, "shouting at the world because no one's listening", etc. --- despite it being buried beneath her fiery personality. And yet she's an awesome companion --- she's my favorite, though I get that some people don't like her --- in pretty much every sense of the word. She has the practical know-how that the Doctor can sometimes get lost without (e.g. he's sitting there trying over and over again to sonic the wooden door in the Vashta Nerada ep, while she just kicks it down; searching the files in the Sontaaran two-parter; the typing skills that help her return the stolen planets). She's willing to stand up to him when he's wrong, and to agitate for change regardless (e.g. trying to save somebody, anybody from Pompeii, etc). And she's just caring, for everyone (e.g. helping the Ood, talking to and boosting Agatha Christie herself, befriending Miss Evangelista in the library, fighting against ridiculous odds in the "Turn Left" alternate reality, etc.)

And don't get me wrong: I love Robin, Dustin, and the others. But they do often tend on the... sharp... end of teasing. It certainly wouldn't be easy to be surrounded by child prodigies while having struggled in school, not gone to college, etc. I don't think people would disagree if I said that they often expect Steve to know stuff just because they know it --- I mean, Dustin even does that with the other party members, as shown through his "how do you not know this" tone in s1 when dealing with the compasses, on into s4 on a number of issues --- and shoot down his rather out-of-the-box (though not necessarily wrong) ideas whenever they come up (e.g. "maybe he's a clockmaker" "I think you cracked the case there, Steve"). And I know that a lot of this is intended affectionately, but even affectionate teasing can wear, and it's bound to take some degree of a toll.

So I think that Donna would look at Steve and see someone in a similar position. She'd see the way his smile sometimes strains whenever the others act like something he didn't understand was common knowledge, or the confused look in his eyes when they refer to something he doesn't get but he doesn't want to ask the question. And I think she'd have the objective view to see the ways in which he's more capable than they are (e.g. knowing the practical things, like Skull Rock's location, or protecting the party from the physical dangers) instead of just the ways in which they're more book-smart. And I think that he'd be able to help her in return, in much the same way. It's really easy to, if in Donna's/Steve's position, not notice when other people are being rude to them, but to notice it for other people; I think that they'd be able to provide an external opinion for each other on their treatment.

idk if this answers your question suitably --- it's just my first rambles, and isn't very plot-oriented... if you want elaboration or just a different answer, feel free to send another ask; I love the question, and I could probably go on long enough as to be excessive --- but I hope it was enjoyable nonetheless... Thank you for the ask :)

[harryfeatgaga]

i just bought a new perfume today and it smells sexy af so now i'm thinking: You're home in Harry's London house, it's November and a bit chilly so the heat's just barely up and you've got one of his long sleeves on and some comfy pj pants. He's working late so you're in the kitchen cooking up some pasta for when he gets home. There's some music playing in the background and you're singing along and swaying to the music, so you don't hear the door open or the keys clinking as they're dropped 1/?

into the bowl just by the door. Not even the sound of boots being kicked off and thudding against the hardwoods. When Harry’s warm body is suddenly pressed against your back you’re momentarily surprised but it only takes a second for you to realize it’s him and just as quickly you melt back into him. He wraps both arms around your waist and leaves a kiss on your cheek before dropping his chin onto your shoulder. “Hi baby,” he murmurs, “making dinner for us?”

You nod with a smile as you turn to look at his face, so close to yours. “I wanted to make something good for when you got home.” “Thank you sweetheart.” You both stand there like that, moving together lightly to the music as you keep stirring the sauce in the pot as the pasta cooks. Then you feel Harry turn his head, pressing his nose gently against your neck and breathing in softly. A gentle moan breaks into his deep voice rumbling “you smell so good love, ‘s it new?”

A small smirk is playing on your lips “Yeah babe, I bought it today… I thought of you when I put it on y’know. Was hoping you’d like it. Thought maybe it’d give you some… ideas.” “Oh really? Hmm, well I’ve definitely already got a couple of ideas of how I can show you how thankful I am… for thinking of me and all. And maybe if I treat you good enough you’ll think about wearing it all the time. Smelling so sexy for me, distracting me when we go out. I can’t think about anything else but touching you…” 

Harry starts pressing messy kisses against your neck, face buried on your skin. One of his hands creeping up the shirt your wearing and the other already dipping beneath your waistband, just teasing you for now. After a few deep breaths and harry nipping at your neck, just grazing the skin with his teeth, you shut off both burners and turn around. 

“I think dinner can wait. Why don’t we move to the bedroom and you can share some of your ideas with me?” A smirk graces his face as he sees just how flushed you already are and he doesn’t even bother with a response, just scoops you up and carries you to his bedroom. 

(I’m sorry this sucks and the dialogue is absolute garbage but umm i just had this thought and felt like sharing 🙈) seriously though harry thinking you smell sexy is uhh hot and the thought is killing me esp bc he smells sexy…also.. why isn’t there more talk about shower sex with harry like… 👀 asking for a friend (pompeii where you at??)

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BITCH WHAT THE FUCKKCJCKV THIS IS SO HOT IM SHOOOOOK