#Write for Revolution

[somerandomcockroach]

A large burning canvas could be seen in the distance.

The neat fingers, full of small dents from the friction of the sword handle, caught a small flame, which immediately went out from faint pressure.

There was silence, a living silence, one of those that strains with its sound. A warm wind heated his battered, but carefully polished armor.

"You want to say something"

"I want" Blurr answered, turning sharply to the dark silhouette behind him that was quietly watching him until now. He clenched his fist with a grinding sound, where the spark died out, and demonstratively opened it towards the darkness. "And this is how you are paid for making the world freer! This is what remains of your legacy, and you react as if it doesn’t concern you at all!"

"It does not concern me anymore" the figure answered him calmly.

"Shockwave, stop!"

"Is that an order?"

"It's a request” His angry expression made it clear that this request was an obligation. “I just don't recognize you for these few months." His hand shook slightly with anger. Black smoke seeped through the cracks in his armor.

"I don't recognize myself for even longer time." Blurr visibly trembled at these words, realizing where the dialogue was leading. Shockwave slowly approached, his long, deformed fingers, three times longer than one of Blurr's fingers, carefully reached out to his hand and wrapped his palms in his huge paws, kneeling down to be on the same level with him. "Blurr, I-"

Blurr turned his head away so as not to see one piercing, but such a swampy dim light of his terrifying eye, which had become more precious to him than his weekly knightly brigandage. "Shut up. It's too early, we haven't agreed on when exactly to do this"

The dull mass of metal, which was only a tangible casing, after some hope of catching at least a spark of doubt, only lowered its head heavily. The crackling of the fire continued to be heard around. The soot reached them, gifting them with at least some warm light among the shades of cold before dying. Realization, regret, reluctance were not reflected in the knight's optics. His armor, always proudly looking into the face of danger, now reflected only the cowardly lights of the fire from behind. Despite this, he did not remove his hand from the strong lock until the blades themselves parted. Shockwave disappeared. Disappeared as he had done for the past few months.

Blurr turned back to the burning wall. From afar were heard screams, squeals, grinding, clanking. The column of fire did not subside, as if it was fed by fuel from secret reserves. It had been burning like that for hours, as if to show the greatness of this building over others that would have left only a column of smoke long ago.

Shockwave's last school of dark magic was burning out, as was the will of its creator to live.

[theorahsart]

My Frev comic gained traction on Instagram. Earlier today I was so happy, and I thought

"Yay! Now I can correct some myths about Robespierre to more people!"

Then I got these comments:

And now I'm like "Oh...I have to correct some myths to more people..."

I was trying so hard to keep my cool and just recommend books as I read this comment lmao

[letters-to-rosie]

timebomb headcanons 💚

(doing this because my fic talk revolution to me is over 15k hits on ao3! it reached that a while ago it's 23k now but I'm slow ahhhh it's a long story)

Jinx is the better cook. She learned the basics while living at The Last Drop and can canonically bake, so it's not too much of a stretch. Ekko's not a disaster in the kitchen, but he follows her lead

both of them suffer pretty bad nightmares; for Jinx, she finds that Ekko holding onto her helps calm her down, but Ekko is more likely to want to get up and clear his head

any shared living space gradually becomes covered in doodles

they are both very cuddly

Jinx's attachment style is more anxious while Ekko tends to be avoidant. typically, this isn't the best mix, but they work together to accommodate each other

they call each other their partner. idk why but I insist on this one lol it just fits

the biggest obstacle in their relationship (be it canon or an AU resembling canon events) is dealing with the harm Jinx caused many of Ekko's friends while they were apart. I think if she were able to get to a healthier place, she'd take the process of reconciliation seriously not only for Ekko's sake but for her own, as part of a process of coming to terms with everything

but I think that would work for her because Jinx, as we see hinted with season 2, has political goals that align with Ekko's and give them plenty of reason to work together. I doubt the Firelights would all love her, but there are certainly ways to imagine them reaching some kind of understanding. Ekko would also find this political Jinx very hot lol

despite their flairs for the dramatic, they have a lot of quiet moments together. they calm each other down, paradoxically. this idea is mostly based on them sitting together on the bed looking super cute in Act I lol

Jinx makes the first move. she says I love you first, too.

[dear-ao3]

omg wait you study bones??? i'm a biological anthropology major and i'm very into skeletal anatomy (primarily of primates, but honestly mammalian bone structure is all very similar)...

what's your favorite bone or bone feature? :D

i'm personally very partial to the zygoma, and i'm a big fan of processes (olecranon process my beloved)

ok okay correction to everyone. i dont like study bones as a career. im a fool in an anatomy class. and by a fool i mean i have three separate liberal arts bachelors degrees and have decided to take a stem class. and well. its going about as well as one can expect.

though!!! on the way to said class i have to walk up a staircase with a handrail that looks like the olecranon process/trochlear notch area of the arm and it makes me giggle

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Smell Check [Easy: Failure]

MDZS Disco Elysium AU part 1 (part 2 - part 3)

[astriiformes]

Hi, i just learned about the scientific revolution in europe at school. Can you tell me why you dont think scientific revolutions exist? im curious!

So I feel like I have to lead with the fact that I'm kind of arguing two different points when I say scientific revolutions aren't really a thing

One is that I'm objecting to a specific, extremely foundational theory of scientific revolutions that was put forth by the philosopher Thomas Kuhn, which I think really misrepresents how science is actually practiced in the name of fitting things to a nice model. The other is that I think the fundamental problem with the idea is that it's too vague to effectively describe an actual process that happens.

It's certainly true that there are important advances in science that get referred to as "revolutions" that fundamentally changed their fields -- the shift from the Ptolemaic model of the Solar System to the Copernican one, Darwin's theory of evolution, etc. But there are historians of science (who I tend to agree with) that feel that terming these advances "revolutions" ignores the fact that science is an continuous, accretional process, and somewhat sensationalizes the process of scientific change in the name of celebrating particular scientists or theories over others.

Kuhn's model that he put forth in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (which is one of those books that itself stirred a great deal of activity in a number of fields) suggests science evolves via what he called "paradigm shifts," where new ideas become fundamentally incompatible with the old model or way of doing things, causing a total overturn in the way scientists see the world, and establishing a new paradigm -- which will eventually cave to another when it, too, ceases to function effectively as a model. This theory became extraordinarily popular when it was published, but it's somewhat telling who it's remained popular with. Economists, political scientists, and literary theorists still use Kuhn, but historians of science, in my experience at least, see his work as historically significant but incompatible with how history is actually studied.

Kuhn posits that between paradigm shifts there are periods of "normal science" where paradigms are unquestioned and anomalies in the current model are largely ignored, until they reach a critical mass and cause a scientific revolution. In reality though, there is often real discussion of those anomalies, and I think the scientific process is not nearly so content to ignore them as Kuhn thinks. Throughout history, we see people expressing a real discontent with unsolved mysteries the current scientific model fails to explain, and glossing over those simply because the individuals in question didn't manage to formulate breakthrough theories to "solve" those problems props up the somewhat infamous "great men" model of history of science, where we focus only on the most famous people in the field as significant instead of acknowledging that science is a social enterprise and no research happens in a vacuum!

Beyond disagreeing with Kuhn specifically though, I think the idea of scientific revolutions vastly simplifies how science evolves and changes, and is ultimately a really ahistorical way of thinking about shifts in thinking. Take the example of the shift from Ptolemaic, geocentric thought to the heliocentric Copernican model of the solar system. When does this supposed "revolution" in thought actually start, and when does it "end" by becoming firmly established? You could argue that the publication of Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543 was the beginning of the shift in thinking -- but of course, then you have the problem of asking where Copernicus' ideas came from in the first place.

The "great men" model of history would suggest Copernicus was a uniquely talented individual who managed to suggest something no one else had ever put forth, but realistically, he was influenced by the scientists who came before him, just like anyone else. There were real objections to the Ptolemaic model during the medieval era! One of the most famous problems in medieval astronomy was the fact that assuming a geocentric model makes the behavior of the planets seem really weird to an observer on Earth, referred to as retrograde motion, which had to be solved with a complicated system of epicycles that people knew wasn't quite working, even if they weren't able to put together exactly why. There were even ancient Greek astronomers who suggested that the sun was at the center of the solar system, going all the way back to Aristarchus of Samos who lived from around 310-230 BCE!

Putting an end point to the Copernican revolution poses similar challenges. Some people opt to suggest that what Copernicus started, either Galileo or Newton finished (which in and of itself means the "revolution" lasted around 100-150 years), but are we defining the shift in terms of new theories, or the consensus of the scientific community? The latter is much harder to pinpoint, and in my opinion as an aspiring historian of science, also much more important. Again, science doesn't happen in a vacuum. Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton may be more famous than their peers, but that doesn't mean the rest of the Renaissance scientific community didn't matter.

Ultimately it's a matter of simple models like Kuhn's (or other definitions of scientific revolutions) being insufficient to explain the complexity of history. Both because science is a complex endeavor, and because it isn't independent from the rest of history. Sure, it's genuinely amazing to consider that Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium and the anatomist Andreas Vesalius' similarly influential De humani corporis fabrica were published the same year, and it says something about the intellectual climate of the time. But does it say something about science only, or is it also worth remembering that the introduction of typographic printing a century prior drastically changed how scientists communicated and whose ideas stuck and were remembered? On a similar note, we credit Darwin with suggesting the theory of evolution (and I could write a similarly long response just on the many, many influences in geology and biology both that went into his formulation of said theory), but what does it say that Alfred Russel Wallace independently came up with the theory of natural selection around the same time? Is it sheer coincidence, or does it have more to do with conversations that were already happening in the scientific community both men belonged to that predated the publication of the Origin?

I think that the concept of scientific revolutions is an important part of the history of the history of science, and has its place when talking about how we conceive of certain periods of history. But I'm a skeptic of it being a particularly accurate model, largely on the grounds of objecting to the "great men" model of history and the idea that shifts in thinking can be boiled down to a few important names and dates.

There's a famous Isaac Newton quote (which, fittingly, did not originate with Newton himself, but can be traced back even further to several medieval thinkers) in which he states "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." I would argue that science, as an endeavor, is far more like standing on the shoulder of several hundred thousand other people in a trenchcoat. This social element of research is exactly why it's so hard to pull apart any one particular revolution, even when fairly revolutionary theories change the direction of the research that's happening. Ideas belong to a long evolutionary chain, and even if it occasionally goes through periods of punctuated equilibrium, dividing that history into periods of revolution and stagnancy ignores the rich scientific tradition of the "in-between" periods, and the contributions of scientists who never became famous for their work.

[otaku553]

Thinking very hard about an AU idea of mine. Reluctant king Sabo AU!

In which Sabo isn’t saved by Dragon, but survives long enough to drift ashore and be saved by the doctors of Goa Kingdom, who do so only to ransom his medical bills from Sabo’s parents. Sabo’s parents take him back, thinking that his amnesia makes him a clean slate, but Sabo, young and stubborn and unsure of his entire identity, knows that everything is wrong and runs again, and again, and again.

Until at some point, he meets the Revolutionaries, and realizes that he can be useful to them, provide them information, make something good of an inescapable situation. From then on, he starts acting the noble that he was born as, in order to be a more useful informant to the Revolutionaries, until sunk cost fallacy hits and he believes that being a noble is the only way that he can be useful to the Revolutionaries. So at that point, why not take it all the way?

At 17, Sabo becomes one of Princess Sarie’s suitors, and at 17, he has doubts about using the princess for his own goals. Sarie is a romantic, and she wants a dramatic fairy tale of a romance, and she was already charmed, but the moment Sabo opens up to her about not wanting to use her to get to the throne, having lofty ambitions of helping the people (just not the people she thinks he’s talking about), Sabo becomes the one she simply must marry, because surely if she tries hard enough, she can make him love her back.

Soon after, the king and his son die. Sarie’s father and brother die. And while Sabo conveniently ascends to the throne, he also swiftly implicates his father, Outlook, in the assassination of all heirs to the throne, resulting in Outlook’s arrest and subsequent execution. And thus, at 18, Sabo becomes king, and begins to gradually institute great changes to Goa Kingdom.

Design-wise, Sabo wears an eyepatch because his damaged eye is considered a grotesque sight by nobles’ standards. Under the eyepatch, he wears heavy makeup to hide the burn scar. These are both at the behest of his birth parents, who spin a story about Sabo having been born half blind to hide the fact that Sabo had been shot by a Celestial Dragon and save face. To those who have seen his scar, they fabricate a second secret story that he was unfortunately kidnapped as a child. Sabo never does find out, until he regains his memories, where the burn scar is actually from.

[inonibird]

“What if I told you that there was a way for you to fight again?”

_

Chapter 3 of Part Six - Grievous of the Sahuldeem series is up!

[novella-november]

Here's a reblog game for Novella November:

What is the worst possible way you can describe what inspired your story?

I'll go first:

"My story was inspired by a subgenre of ancient hp fanfiction, except its actually going to tackle the really big problems in that subgenre and take them seriously while multiplying the Creature Factor by ten so it can tackle a million other xenofiction tropes. Also Megatron from Transformers may or may not have inspired a background character as of my last writing session."

[thewhumpcaretaker]

do you think sébastien lacroix has went into torpor against his will and had to relive some distasteful memories of being in a war as a young adult

Why yes! I do. Be forewarned, I had a long week and got a little overzealous so this is like 90% hurt and only 10% comfort, oops. I was BRUTAL.

Image Source | TW: claustrophobia, starvation, war PTSD, animal death

⚜ FAILED INVASIONS ⚜

The attempt on the Paris crown was the first real mistake LaCroix had made in his unlife. More than a mistake – a whole misadventure.

Things had gone decently up until that point. He had travelled widely, networking all the while. He’d accumulated allies, and leverage, and servants, all of whom were formidable but none of whom he trusted, as was only wise. But this city was too big a leap in power too soon, even for him. He made one too many enemies in addition to all those friends, and his little coup was revealed. In the end, the would-be Prince of Paris was separated from his followers and forced to flee, hunted through the catacombs under the city for two nights and days. The local Nosferatu knew those tunnels better than anyone, of course, and he never really stood a chance.

It was only because of one particular Nosferatu’s bitterness towards him that he happened to survive. The man found him already wounded and nearly bloodless, cowering against a wall. He seemed to enjoy hauling Sebastian around by the frills of his collar (the height of fashion at the time) while he begged desperately. “Non, non, je ne t'épargnerai pas. Mais vous êtes un véritable fléau avec vos intrigues depuis une demi-décennie maintenant. Ce ne serait pas amusant de te livrer à une mort finale rapide et agréable. [No, no, I won’t be sparing you. But you’ve been such a pest with your scheming for half a decade now. It would be no fun just hand you over to a nice quick Final Death.]” And, grinning wickedly with his uneven fangs, the man threw LaCroix into a secret side tunnel, and locked the entrance.

So there he was, trapped. He was in total darkness, but by feeling his way along the walls, he could tell he was in a narrow, claustrophobic, low-ceilinged tunnel, hardly more than a crawlspace between two larger rooms. The doors on either end were heavy slabs that could only be lifted by an apparatus on the other side. A few hours of examining the walls told him with more or less total certainty that there was no way out. Even trying to dig would be futile, as the walls were solid stone. The ceiling was too low to permit standing to his full height, yet there was nowhere comfortable to even lie down for the day, just dusty, cold cobblestones.

Well, no matter – he had no real desire to sleep anyway. His dreams lately had been even worse nightmares than usual, no doubt intensified by the stress of his plans. And now all that stress had been for nothing, too. He sighed, settled gingerly onto the floor with his knees curled against his chest, and waited.

It’s alright, he tried to tell himself. It won’t be long. People are coming for me. Definitely. Some of them are backstabbers, but someone must be loyal.

But as the hours turned to what must be days, he felt a creeping dread take hold. There were no markers of time down here, but it certainly felt too long. Maybe that man had told everyone he was already dead. Maybe he’d shown off some random heap of ashes and said it was LaCroix. Or even told them that he was alive and locked up, and they all thought it was a good joke. Times came when the frustration and humiliation inside him burned so terribly that he just started flinging himself at the door, threatening whoever might be outside that if they’d didn’t let him out soon they’d – they’d…they’d what? He was totally powerless, and eventually sank down again, defeated. Other times came when he just couldn’t take it anymore – the total darkness, the closeness of the walls, the abject misery. He pounded against the doors then too, begging for release, promising anything in return.

But it seemed that this area of the catacombs was not commonly frequented even by the Nosferatu, or else they heard him and didn’t care. There was never even the smallest sound in answer to his.

A bigger problem was already at hand: he was getting hungry. He hadn’t fed in a while even before this whole debacle began. And now the ache in his stomach was turning to an ache in his veins as his body spent up its blood on healing his own starvation. He felt sluggish. Tired. He would have slept but his mind was so frazzled that he didn’t think he could take the awful dreams it would produce. By that point, he’d been awake for many, many days. He just needed a drop of blood for energy, just a drop. He would eat absolutely anything, he thought.

What was most maddening was that he could hear things moving around him in the dark, squealing and skittering, presenting a plentiful source of blood. Rats. They smelled foul. They seemed to come from the door on the north end of the passage, from a small crack in the stone that they were just tiny enough to squeeze through (lucky bastards). They came and went as they pleased, and he was alternately disgusted and tempted by their presence.

He was quick enough to grab one once, and even held it up to his fangs, mouth open. But it smelled so repugnant he was almost sick just from the scent, and in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to bite. He just let it patter its way back through that little crack. With a whine of disappointment, Sebastian slumped over onto his side and let himself cry. Or he almost cried. There was no water left in him, he realized. He was just making pitiful, dry-throated keening noises without tears and he was too miserable to care.

In the last hours of his awareness, he was still lying there, on his side, staring into the blackness. His muscles had already ceased to cooperate, lacking enough blood flow to flex as they should. Something about being this hungry made the cold of his undead bones seem even more unbearable. A memory flickered through his mind, a familiar bone-deep cold... Such an unpleasant memory that he shied away from it physically, managing to jerk his head slightly. Don’t think about that. Not now. Please. Think about warmth. Anything for warmth in his veins… He almost wished his undead body would shiver, and eventually it did – from fear.

Torpor was almost upon him, he could feel it. He’d never experienced it before, nor talked to anyone in detail about what it was like. Would it be dreamless? He hoped so…

꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷

No dream had ever been as vivid as this. No nightmare. There were no distractions. His body was not at the edge of his consciousness grounding him, waiting to welcome him back again. No, there was only the memory, encompassing him on all sides. It was ancient and familiar and forever. Some part of him always lived in that time…

It was cold, a cold that painted itself across the horizon in icy blue-grey as the sun descended over the retreating Russian campaign. Where the black trees gave out onto white fields, sky and snow merged into one along that horizon. And why shouldn’t they? Why should the Earth and heaven be separated when so many of the sick and starved and freezing hovered on the point of crossing over? Didn’t he too, hover on the point of crossing over? It was cold, and Sebastian was so hungry, and not for the scraps of half-rotten smoked meat on which he had been surviving for so many weeks now. He felt the hideous weakness of his body driving him towards some survival frenzy. No, no, I am not on the point of death. Defiantly he turned his eyes to the sky, half grateful that the tears froze on his lashes before they could fall. I will be a general. A general does not die like this. I will be important. Too important to die.

He struggled with the terrible feeling that rose up in response: a feeling of just wanting to lie down somewhere warm and be held. He didn’t feel at all like a general. He was barely 18. Two years ago, he was a schoolboy at the École Militaire, marveling at history paintings of old battles. His Maman wouldn’t have wanted this for him, even as she wished him glory. She didn’t know. He didn’t know. How could anyone comprehend this without experiencing it?

But here he was, and there was nowhere warm to lie down for a hundred miles, and no one to hold him. Already, he had been promoted when his own commanding officer fell in Smolensk, and again when the next officer above him fell in Moscow. He was alive, and they weren’t. That was what mattered. His determination, it was all because of his own determination. Because of that, he had a horse and they didn’t. There weren’t many horses left in their column. Most had been eaten in desperation for food. But Sebastian had one, because he was high enough ranked, and so he kept his strength instead of marching.

It was then that a shot exploded from the distant trees. Chaos. Everyone scattered, screaming. “Cossacks! Cossacks!” There was hardly any hope of returning fire. They were already so devastated, and the Cossacks knew the terrain perfectly. He had to take cover.

But Sebastian couldn’t move. He was facing the open, white sky. He didn’t know how he got there. But his horse was sideways, on top of him. In a moment, he realized it wasn’t moving either. He’d been thrown a little ways into the snow, far enough that his legs weren’t fully crushed, only an ankle. But he couldn’t feel any pain. Some sort of total shock had dulled everything. He dragged himself out, wondering why he was shaking now, when his shivering had stopped hours ago. Wondering, as he sometimes did during battles, if any of this was real. He couldn’t hear himself speaking as he shouted at the mare to get up, shaking worse by the second.

It’s not enough to earn a place on a horse. It’ll be shot out from under you the moment you allow yourself to enjoy it. It’s not enough to attain power. One must maintain it, too. He came to himself and staggered away from the mare, shouting orders now. Leading. Miraculously, he was not hit today. Not yet. But it was coming. He knew it was coming if he let his guard down for even a moment.

Onward they marched, scattered and vulnerable on the open plain, into the blank of winter without end.

꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷

There was blood in his mouth. Warm, fresh, real, honest blood. Someone was pressing it to his lips, hand-feeding him. Sebastian felt the heat seep gradually through his limbs. Even when his body felt strong enough to move, the relief, the gratitude, and the lingering horror that still lurked at the edges of his mind overwhelmed him, and he lay limp against the rock, with someone’s enormous hand resting gently on his shoulder.

When he was finally able to open his eyes, he would see five drained blood bags scattered around him. He would learn that he’d been in a torpor for over a month, reliving the horrors of the Russian campaign again and again while his rescuer secured a complete map of the catacombs and then searched them systematically, refusing to believe he was dead. That person was an associate he had met during his travels, one of many he employed and the only one who did not defect from him when the coup failed. And he would one day be LaCroix’s new Sheriff.

The man could have killed him. He could have brought LaCroix’s shriveled body to the Prince of Paris, and earned a handsome reward. Instead, he lifted LaCroix in his huge, tree-trunk arms like a precious doll, snuggled him safely into the folds of massive coat, and carried him safely through the catacombs, out of the city, and out of the country to begin the next chapter of his life in London.

There were so few moments in which Sebastian LaCroix ever felt that the world might show him mercy, that anyone at all could keep him safe if he late his guard down. But that rescue was one of them. A part of him would always live in that moment, as eternal as any memory of hunger and cold.

[kebriones]

*cracks knuckles* well maybe I will draw some early 19th century greeks. Maybe i will. Nobody can stop me.

[theorahsart]

Incorruptible pt 19

Everyone else on Tumblr this week: *draws beautiful serious saddening art of Camille Desmoulins*

Me: *draws Camille being a dramatique little brat*

[sforzesco]

 Then, on his arrival in Constantinople, after much counsel with himself, considering that he was already unequal to the amount of pressing business and believing that there was no room for delay, on the twenty-eighth of March he brought the aforesaid Valens into one of the suburbs​ and with the consent of all (for no one ventured to oppose) proclaimed him Augustus. Then he adorned him with the imperial insignia and put a diadem on his head, and brought him back in his own carriage, thus having indeed a lawful partner in his power, but, as the further course of our narrative will show, one who was as compliant as a subordinate. No sooner were these arrangements perfected without disturbance than both emperors were seized with violent and lingering fevers--

AM 26.4.3-4

this was one of those illustrations that was originally supposed to be a 5 page comic until I realized I don't know anything about later roman empire architecture or visuals or art or anything, so we'll revisit that later. maybe

for right now though, these two are fascinating. we have two brothers acting as one body, even becoming ill in tandem with each other, it's giving This Throne Is Cursed. like, the last time I read about emperors coming down with life threatening illnesses, it was Caligula, and that moment in his biography marked a very specific tone shift. I spent the rest of the (first) time reading about Valens and Valentinian waiting for something comparable to Caligula's reign to happen lmao (Dio 59. 8. 1-2)

and since Caligula was already on the mind, I started thinking about Tiberius: I think he would've loved these two since he had a whole thing about twin-ification and brothers and etc etc etc. ofc, Rome is both a Mouth and a Tomb, so it's going to go badly for someone/everyone eventually, but honestly I think that Valentinian and Valens were the best we could've hoped for. like it could've been so much worse

Tiberius and the Heavenly Twins, Edward Champlin

Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century A.D, Noel Lenski

⭐ I have a tip jar (ko-fi)!

⭐ and other places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app

[plrle]

Idk if you still have requests open but if yes can you draw Prieur wearing a choker with a π shaped charm (like this: https://www.amazon.com/necklace-mathematics-jewelry-math-teacher/dp/B01FLW687U) ? 🥺

sorry for the long reply! finally made it to your request :]

it seems that Prieur likes it!!

[silviakundera]

Are You The One very spoilery drama review

"Do you remember the archenemy I mentioned? ...Three years ago I played against (him). I lost that time. It was my first defeat in life. Strangely, I didn't feel sorrowful. Instead, I felt a kind of joy in meeting a worthy opponent. Since then, I've played against (him) several times. We're almost even. Each game is a battle of wits and courage, thrilling and intense. Rather than seeing him as an arch enemy, I consider him a close friend. I enjoy each game against (him). As long as he's my rival, the result doesn't matter."

Imagine you're a protagonist making THAT speech about his nemesis... then encountering said nemesis with injuries & amnesia, presuming this person is actually your nemesis's lover (because rumors/secret identity/sexism), and fake marrying them as a pretense to draw out and capture..... the person who is now your fake wife that you're falling in love with! Cause you were half in love with your nemesis already lmao. 🤡🤡🤡

Welcome to the set up of Are You The One, a costume drama romance with situational comedy and a dark under belly (as both ML and FL are ruthless schemers with blood on their hands).

The circumstances are inherently hilarious and the comedy revolves around the Shakespearean absurdity of the situation the characters find themselves in. This tends to be my preferred style of humor, in comparision to the comedy stylings of pratfalls, pranks, and goofy insults. Anyone who read my fanfics back in the day knows that I enjoy throwing my couples into ridiculous situations and then watching them have to deal with it in all seriousness (and fall in love in the meantime.)

Per usual for me in a narrative that's primary-romance, what matters most is that A) I understand why these 2 people match each other; B) by the time we reach the end, the otp are equal partners; C) BLOOD LUST (look I just enjoy an otp who will both stab an enemy in the gut, it is very sexy of them ok? ok)

Things that make me rabid about this drama:

At first he doesn't even register how beautiful she is, while canonically people are staring at her in the street, she's so lovely. This is because he is so fixated on this rival that he admires, who he has been battling for 3 years, that he only registers her as a pawn in their game

Very romantic & sexy to me that his connection & attraction to her build from him growing to understand her personality and admiring her qualities

Zhang Wanyi handles situational comedy tbh much better than I expected (having previously enjoyed him in a tragic role and then an angsty melo). Both Zhang Wanyi and Wang Churan very much embodied their characters, both the dark and light sides.

True enemies to lovers because he falls in love with all the qualities that he'd admired in his respected enemy: her decisiveness, her clever scheming, her loyalty, her meticulous nature. He is drawn to her as someone who is his equal and could be a true confidant - the same thing she sees in him.

By episode 7, he's started falling for her and the audience can see how it happened and why.

It was so good for me that when her memories secretly awaken, he senses this by observing, "Lately, I've always felt that there is someone who understands my thoughts, spies on my actions, and constantly leads me by the nose. Even if I gain something like today, it's because (he) made me this way. I haven't felt this way for a long time." / "When did you last have this feeling?" / "The last time was when I dealt with Lu Wen. Lu Wen should have returned."

We can also see why FL is falling for this person who lets her take charge and likes it, who enjoys her wits and starts backing her play.

The narrative structure is not just in medias res... It's truly atypical: we're dropped into this story 3 years in and because the perspective in the first third of the drama is the ML's, we share his narrow viewpoint and naturally presume that he's the protagonist hero of this tale, the morally grey but capable prince who is defending his province against bandits while fending off a royal court threatened by his military power.

But oops, what if it turns out that basically you're the sheriff of Nottingham and you've been battling Robinhood, who's actually your hot & brilliant fake-wife. And when you unknowingly captured Robinhood, it was too late -- she'd already been secretly supporting The Rightful King™ for years, and now she's a hero who helped the monarch rise to the thrown, and to an outsider you would be considered the dastardly scoundrel in this tale. 🤡

So IS he a villain? No, not really. He can coldly have his enemies killed and he certainly originally intended to kill FL, and then dispose of her bloodlessly, and then... (ANYWAY, yeah bro is Going Thru It™)

But everything he does is within the rights & privileges of his role, as ruler of the province and subject only to the emperor/empress dowager.

A man accostomed to wealth & power who was jaded and obviously just going thru the motions, fulfilling his responsibilities and resigned to being suspected by a weak ruler & conniving court, marrying a cousin who just wants his title, and protecting his borders out of duty. Until 3 years ago, when he starts battling against bandit leader Lu Wen. Now he's awake, he's excited, he has news to look forward to.

It's hilarious how he doesn't even see it in the initial episodes, the way he's accidentally moved that person in and now he's having to constantly maneuver around this person's decisive actions, and it's invigorating him. It's emotionally and mentally stimulating.

And then it's flipped where FL now has to come to the realization that life is more rewarding when she has ML to plan with, more satisfying than going it alone.

As a hater of amnesia plotlines, why didn't it repel me? 1) when we meet the character, she already has the memory loss; it's a defining trait and 2) she doesn't lose her intellgence with the memory loss and become pliant and just malleable like portrayed in other dramas - what makes the first 17 episodes a cat vs mouse cat game is that even with her memories stripped away, this person who's been told she's a merchant's sickly wife is still clever, conniving, and assertive... and we even see the willingness to get ruthless & violent if needed.

She's understandably infuriated & resentful upon regaining her memories -- such a proud & capable & independant person with big plans just manipulated for a year, tricked into giving care and affection to her enemy. But when she dismisses ML's now sincere feelings as, "What he wants to marry is not me, but the canary he has raised." ....the script has provided substantial evidence that in actuality he has a total complex about his mysterious nemesis; the real her inside, that couldn't be erased, is what he has always liked.

And then he gets the chance to prove it and finally openly express that to her.

After 17 episodes of her under the thumb of manipulation, the drama provides another 15 or so where she is in control of her own life and given the agency to decide if they could work, and she waits to be certain that ML doesn't want the canary in a cage after all. �� 👌

I just very much appreciate dramas that show instead of tell, and earn the relationship. Convince me! The screenwriter shows their work not just on the main ship and secondary ships, but also the friendship between FL and the He merchant daughter. (The way they shift her from 'love rival' to empathizing w each other and actual friends was great - lol reminds me of Qin Zhenzhen from Princess Royal; sorry not sorry, my love rival actually likes me best now 😜)

Also also the emperor and empress slow burn ship in the 2nd arc of the drama was good stuff, I quite liked them.

Also also ALSO the main otp get 20+ minutes devoted to their (real) wedding in the final episodes. We get a proposal, marriage certificate signing, and one of the longest wedding ceremonies I've seen in a cdrama. Giving the people what they want!

[enlitment]

Frev Halloween I. 🦇

As we are getting into the spooky season, I remembered @robespapier 's great idea to do a Frev Community Halloween event .

I thought the concept was super fun, so I wrote a little something. French Revolution meets Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in a way, just with more blood and less electricity. It's only a start, but I'll do my best to keep at it.

Hope you enjoy & I wish everyone a great start of the Halloween season!