#brutus is an honourable man

[dashedwithromance]

BRUTUS IS AN HONOURABLE MAN — ix

well, here we are. last chapter. i know it’s just a silly little horror sw fic, but it’s meant a lot to me over the past two (2?!) years of writing. thank you to my dearest friends, ivy and evelyn, for lending kind eyes to my often weird and fucked up words.

i hope everyone enjoys. cheers x

[neighbourhoodtwo]

no thoughts just trans man cassius

[narniaandplowmen]

I might seem normal at work but there's always a little creature in my brain gnawing on something and going feral over a piece of literature

[certifiedcoffeeaddict]

going absolutely feral over julius caesar by shakespeare

[porciaenjoyer]

today? i am thinking about john wilkes booth and his brothers in an 1864 production of julius caesar

[eimearkuopio]

Elie Wiesel said prophets both reflect their time and are outside of time. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. That loss and suffering are a necessary part of the ego death that results in enlightenment. That every enlightened person has a role, a task, which suits them and their personal suffering so well that there must be a bigger picture, a bigger lid of the box; that there needs to be some way to justify how many more caterpillars there are than butterflies, even though the caterpillars fight each other and eat whatever butterflies they can find. Cocoons are protective during transformation but we're not meant to live in them. We need to learn how to tell the difference between true, free butterflies, and half-formed chrysalises holding their occupants back from true flight. Butterflies can fly away; but if they truly love the caterpillars, they will lure them out of their cages, and show them the world they were always meant to live in. Birds may eat them along the way, and that is a tragedy; but it is a smaller tragedy than losing the butterfly who was leading you to your goal before their time. It's all an ecosystem. It needs a health balance, including of predators; and sometimes predators evolve, and become humanity's best friend, and help the shepherds guide the sheep. (Yes I am mixing my metaphors; remember when I said language constrains ideas, and ideas constrain concepts, and that's why communicating the true nature of reality is hard? If you don't understand me, ask questions so you can learn better and I can teach better. If you choose to retain your ignorance because you think you already understand, that is a true sin, because it will perpetuate your misunderstandings. Yes, I will sin against you by perpetuating my own; but the first part of the message I ever wrote was "I might be wrong". If you must choose between the lesser of two evils, at least choose based on your understanding of outcomes, not your flawed axioms. Axioms are a necessary part of every conceptual model, but if we don't acknowledge the limitations of our assumptions, eventually we must inevitably do more harm than good. That's why prophets reflect their time and are outside it; they must see what is wrong in the world they live in, and then, they must have sufficient understanding to be able to convey the next version of the truth.)

[dashedwithromance]

BRUTUS IS AN HONOURABLE MAN — VIII

VIII — my heart is in the coffin

its brutus day! i feel a little weird putting this out into the world - this is ahsoka's big moment and i’ve been thinking about it for so long. have fun in the world baby chapter!

i hope you enjoy this chapter as much as i do! its my favourite of the whole fic - if that doesn't tell you what the core themes are, im not sure what will.

but anyway - i hope you enjoy, and thank you for your patience with me! <3

[hussyknee]

This is a beautifully conceived and delivered and deserves its view counts. But friendly reminder that this is not "Gen Z slang", it's African American Vernacular English, and what you're witnessing is the emotiveness and accessibility of Black American culture. A Black actor should be able to do something like this as a legitimate cross cultural translation of Shakespeare without being treated like a joke or meme, and the fact that it is speaks to the destructiveness of appropriating AAVE.

Nobody can stop you stealing Black people's language, but at least remember that it doesn't belong to you, that language is art, and removing art from its cultural context strips it of value and meaning.

this is targeted tumblr content

[ave-immaculata]

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men–

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it come back to me.

[regicide1997]

Now, I'm usually not one to cast doubt on another person's profession of their own gender, nor to judge anyone on when they choose to come out of the closet, but don't you think it's a little suspicious that the shooter didn't come out until after being arrested for five counts of murder at a queer club?

The graffiti photographed above includes a quote from the Bible; perhaps this should be taken as evidence that the graffiti artist is themself an LGBTQ-affirming Christian, at the very least, if not a queer Christian themself! In particular, the quoted passage is from the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 11, verses 14 and 15, in which St. Paul is warning the early church against the teachings of false apostles:

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

(English Standard Version, same as in the graffiti)

The particular choice of passage here seems to imply that not only is the graffiti artist a Christian, but also that they believe that Focus on the Family is in fact un-Christian, or at least that it engages in un-Christian behavior.

Personally, just like with gender, I usually don't like to cast doubt on another's professed faith; only God can judge what lies in each of our hearts. But having grown up forced to listen to Focus on the Family's radio broadcasts for the first seven years of my life, I'm inclined to say the graffiti artist has a pretty good point.

So, were the shooter's actions un-Christian? Arguably so—again, I don't like to play No True Scotsman. But if we wish to say the answer is "yes", then we must conclude that, to the same extent, so too have been Focus on the Family's decades of spouting violently homophobic and transphobic rhetoric and supporting likewise legislation—and if we are to be honest with ourselves and with each other, then the body count of Focus on the Family's "ministry" is far, far higher than the five individuals murdered in the parachurch's own backyard.

Was this an intra-community attack? The only evidence supporting that claim comes from a footnote on a document written by the defense attorneys well after the shooting. As it currently stands, it seems to me that that evidence is probably about as strong as the evidence for my claim that the anonymous graffiti artist is themself a Christian (which, if that does happen to be the case, would technically mean that the vandalism depicted here was another instance of intra-community crime; only this time, the scale is limited to property damage, and ironically enough, the community in question is that of the Christians, instead of the queers)—that is to say, it is flimsy at best, but moreover, it is completely irrelevant:

Regardless the identities or beliefs of the shooter or the vandal, five people were killed at a queer club on the eve of TDOR, and no matter how much Pontius Pilate tries to wash his hands of all this blood, the praises coming from the most vicious elements of the far right—praises which include encouragement of copycats—directly echo the programming that Focus on the Family and their ilk have distributed since before I was born; programming that pushes the idea that queer bodies and queer lives are inherently sexual in a manner far beyond that ascribed to cishet lives and cishet bodies, and therefore our very existence somehow constitutes sexual assault against anyone we interact with. That is the lie, that is the skandalon, that is the stumbling block, onto which, in an act of defiance, words of Holy Scripture were spray painted, photographed, and uploaded to tumblr dot com.

"Their blood is on your hands. Five lives taken."

Painted on the Colorado Springs headquarters of homophobic Christian organization "Focus on the Family".

The message is a reference to the mass shooting at Club Q, where five people died Saturday night.

[clockwayswrites]

Et Tu?

“Et tu, Brute?” Tim gasped, hand splayed over his chest as he swayed in his seat— perilously close to falling off it.

Duke just snorted. “I am so not Brutus here. No way. I am no where near stabby enough to be the Brutus of this family.”

Tim motioned, like the dramatic little bitch he was, at the stack of Draw 4s on the center pile.

“Man, I was not going to draw that! That’s like, twenty—”

“Twenty-four,” Cass corrected.

“—twenty-four cards. Not my fault you don’t have none.” Duke finished, crossing his arms.

“I had one,” Tim groused. “I just didn’t have two! But no. You, Brutus—”

“Still not the Brutus.” Duke said and rolled his yes. “Damian is a hundred percent the Brutus of the family.”

All of the siblings stopped to consider that, looking at Damian who just scowled back at them from behind his very large hand of Uno cards. It was oddly intimidating, or maybe that’s just how Duke felt. Dick looked close to cooing.

“…Damian did start the Draw 4 war too,” Dick pointed out after a beat.

“Et tu, Brute?” Tim gasped, playing his performance out again but this time directed at Damian.

“Tt. It was a strategic move; you have too few cards. Besides, it is only just for you being so certain you might win.” Damian said. Which was a bratty way to say it, sure, but Duke had to admit the little demon dude was right.

“Ah,” Jason started to grin that made Duke want to scoot his chair back. What he didn’t expect, as Jason folded his cards, was for the other to lean into his Crime Alley accent heavily as he adopted an obviously theatrical air. He motioned from Damian to Tim to the cards. “The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.”

“Oh no,” Dick said, softly horrified.

Jason leaned forward over the table as he moved to stand. “Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest— for Brutus is an honourable man.”

“You got him started on Shakespeare.”

“So are they all, all honourable men—” Jason swept his hand, motioning at all of them and then placed a closed fist on his chest. “Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.”

“What did you do, Tim?”

Tim, for his part, looked honestly distressed as Jason flung an arm over his shoulder and pulled him close.

“He was my friend, faithful and just to me!” Jason lamented, looking for the world as if he had just been crying.

Duke was admittedly impressed by the act.

Tim whispered, under Jason’s next line, “I’m so, so sorry.”

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

julius caesar but i've never watched it

...either the play or the actual man. I am not a time-travelling voyeur. Why does that give Doctor Who vibes? I haven't watched that either.

Anyway, happy Ides of March, tumblr. I am about as enthusiastic about the celebration as Neil Gaiman is, but here we are. Doing what I do worst, making a summary of things I have no authority to summarise... WAHOO LET'S GO. Whatever it is I know about the play:

Caesar was vibing sometime around the '40s. 0040s, not 1940s.

He has a wife named Calpurnia. A maggot wants to be her because and I quote 'no one ever listens to me either'.

She tells him not to go to some kind of coronation or speech or something on the Ides. He's like nah wifey 'sall gucci.

I regret saying that sentence. As did Caesar, because he went and got stabbed in 44. Spoiler alert.

People ship Mark Antony with Caesar but some ship Brutus and Caesar. *youtuber voice* Comment below with your favourite ship.

Don't do it I don't want to know. Anyway, he's also married to Cleopatra, who is killed by snake venom that may not have been snake venom or something.

Idk they were cute. They had a kid that ran away and Asterix and Obelix had to take care of him. Caesarian?

WAIT IS A C-SECTION CALLED A CAESARIAN BECAUSE YOU CUT IT OPEN AND CAESAR WAS STABBED? WHAT?

There is a soothsayer. He tries to soothwarn Caesar.

Caesar does not soothlisten. Caesar is a lil bitch.

On the Ides of March, Caesar goes up to the soothsayer who is lurking on the steps of the maybe-coronation place. He soothsays The Ides of March are come!

The soothsayer soothsighs and soothsays Aye, Caesar, but not gone.

The senators, otherwise known as the soothslayers, have been plotting for a while. Brutus is a very dear friend of Caesar. He thinks Caesar slays.

But the other senators convince him this is what's best for Rome. So he thinks Caesar should be slayed.

So now the soothslayers at the maybe-coronation gather around Caesar and start stabbing him. Et tu, Brute? and all that (though I remember something about that phrase not meaning the same thing as it does in popular context...).

The soothslayers are a bit extra. Like bro. One stab to the heart would have soothsufficed.

Anyway, Caesar is soothslayed like the soothsayer soothsaid.

There is a funeral thing. The People of Rome are cranky.

A maggot once said Moots, maggots, countrymen! and it lives rent-free in my head.

Anyway what Mark Antony actually says is a whole ass speech. FRIENDS, ROMANS, COUNTRYMEN, LEND ME YOUR EARS. I COME TO BURY CAESAR, NOT TO PRAISE HIM! THE EVIL THAT MEN DO LIVES AFTER THEM, THE GOOD IS INTERR'D WITH THEIR BONES (I THINK I HAVEN'T HEARD THE SPEECH IN A WHILE OK) SO LET IT BE WITH CAESAR.

So he gives the soothspeech and everyone is emotional. IF YOU HAVE TEARS, PREPARE TO SHED THEM NOW. Damn bro. It's like playing villain music just as the camera focuses on the villain.

Anyway then there is a lot of chaos and blah blah blah Mark Antony does some stuff Caesar's adoptive son Octavian does some stuff.

There's some bloke named Augustus who may or may not be Octavian (if he was sorry for the deadname Auggy my bad).

Brutus is killed? Or he kills Mark Antony? One of them die.

They were totally not fighting over who was a better lover to Caesar.

Roman Republic gone byebye as I say to Roxie. Roman Empire starts. The end.

Er.

That was a thing. I rather like summarising my homeboy Shakespeare haven't read him in a while and I only read his comedies. Maybe I should do more in honour of the Globe Theatre Maggots.

Happy Ides. Please don't soothslay me. I've been a good Maggot Prince to you, haven't I?

*runs just in soothcase*

[laserbeamss]

okay i know im like half a year too early to mention anything about this topic and also tumblr is raving mad about this topic and no one is actually gonna read this but. i read shakespeare's julius caesar for the first time yesterday and i need to be a pretentious fucker for a while. look the one thing i'm glad that tumblr agrees with me about is that the assassination of caesar was incredibly homoerotic like i felt like a madman for thinking that but then i discovered thousands of strangers on the internet are backing me up and i felt better.

i'm talking about the play version of events, not the historical version, by the way; though i will talk about the historical version shortly.

shakespeare really knows how to write his tragedies. that play has not left my mind since i finished reading it, which was, by the way, in one sitting about 24 hours ago. my mind has not stopped thinking about that play for an entire day and i am sure it will continue to do so in the near future.

i love the contrast between the ways caesar himself is portrayed. to some, he is a dead man walking. to some, he is the very anchor of society: the north star. to some, he is just a man, who needs to come home and rest sometimes. to himself, he is a mixture of all of those, but he only ever expresses one of those roles, because he is the dictator of rome, in his eyes, he is the rightful king, the one who has led and will continue to lead rome to glory for years to come, and there was no point in heeding the word of anyone else.

my favourite character, is, quite predictably, brutus. "not that i loved caesar less, but that i loved rome more" okay so what if i cried. (i somewhat shamelessly will admit that i have shed tears over this. as i said, the man knows how to write his tragedies.) on one hand, caesar is brutus' friend, the one who had elected him praetor of rome (i know it isn't directly mentioned in the play that caesar made brutus praetor but he is referred to as praetor and since historically caesar was indeed the one to elect brutus praetor, i think it is safe to assume the same within the context of the play), the one who had pardoned him after he sided with caesar's enemy pompey, the one whom he admitted several times that he loved. on the other hand, brutus was raised to bring honour to his family's name via bringing honour to rome; and thought himself morally righteous when he considered that he wasn't above betraying his friend to end a tyrranical rule, even if it meant allying himself with others who wanted to murder caesar for their own selfish gains. and after following through with what he perceived to be his utmost duty to his country, and his people, and his family, and himself, he is haunted by the ghost of his close friend, something which drives him into the point of his own sword.

betrayals have a special place in my heart because they are so entangled deep in conflicting emotions. to betray one is almost always to stand behind another, but inherently betrayals of others are also betrayals to yourself; there must have been a reason the betrayal was a betrayal and not a simple act of violence. because acts of violence can happen by anyone's hand, but betrayals can only happen by those who are most trusted.

cassius, that motherfucker. i feel the same way towards him as i felt toward lord henry wotton in the picture of dorian gray. egging my favourite character on to go against his homoerotic bestie, like fuck that.

i think i am most fascinated by how i do not know what i would have done if i was in brutus' place. would i have done what he has, plotted against and murdered my best friend who trusted me most, who dedicated his last words to me, who admitted defeat solely when it became apparent to him that i was among the conspirators? or would i have lived with the guilt of perpetuating tyrrany and lived with the guilt of, what in my conscience would have been, subjecting future generations of romans to suffer under a dictatorship, just to be able to greet my friend every day and not be haunted by what i have brought on against him?

that caesar truly did not expect brutus to be among the conspirators breaks my heart. that brutus acted out of duty and moral obligation only to fail miserably after having murdered his friend breaks my heart.

in my mind, these two got reincarnated somehow, in a calmer generation, and talked things through, and rode off together into the sunset.

i didn't ever think i would get so emotional over two dudes from a shakespeare play based on historical events that happened over two millenia ago but here we are. they make me want to cry like a baby.

but onto some actual history.

i'll start of with some nitpicking. when caesar is referred to as julius in the play, i physically cringed. as i cringe whenever anyone else assumes his first name to be julius. caesar's full name was gaius julius caesar (or caivs ivlivs caesar, if you will). caesar was the name with which 99% of people would have refered to him, as it was is cognomen, the name that was supposed to distinguish you from everyone else in roman society, and the one formally used to refer to you. if one were close to caesar, one would have called him gaius, which was his praenomen, of which there were only about twelve to choose from. julius, on the other hand, was his nomen, or the name passed down based on which clan he was decended from, in his case the julii. no one actually used the nomen to refer to anyone, as many, many men could be not in the least bit related anymore and yet share the same nomen. it would simply have been too confusing.

now, some common knowledge. "et tu, brute?" was never really uttered by caesar. the two most popular theories as to what caesar said after having been stabbed is that he either said nothing at all, which is what ancient scholars generally agreed upon, although it was expected of him to say something as he was expected to leave behind a legacy. some think he said "you too, child." in greek. initially, this may seem like it is a question that holds essentially the same meaning as "et tu, brute?": one of shocked betrayal, of the question of how even someone as close to caesar as brutus could do this to him. but it is more likely that it was instead a statement, and indeed the shortened version of a common roman proverb, essentially meaning "what goes around comes around". so what caesar would have meant by that is you too will meet your demise in a similar fashion, just you wait. which is very interesting to me

i think the historical relationship of caesar and brutus is very interesting (putting aside my homoerotic intepretation of the shakespeare characters for a moment). brutus' mother was a long-time mistress of caesar, and ancient scholars talked of a rumour that brutus was actually caesar's son, though they were sceptical, and modern historians also generally disagree with this. however, it is true that they were reported to have an affectionate relationship, caesar essentially teaching brutus all he knew like a father would to a son; brutus was raised by his uncle after his father was killed by pompey (also known as pompey the great), so he initially sided with caesar. however, already then, he saw how caesar was becoming overzealous and decided to switch sides and support pompey in the civil war. however, pompey was defeated by caesar in the battle of pharsalus, after which brutus was taken prisoner and eventually pardoned by caesar, granting him the ability to then build his political life in the roman senate. after that, he became one of caesar's closest friends and advisors, even being promoted to be the praetor and then proconsul of rome.

anyway, if you made it this far, have a knife (to stock up for the ides of march). take your pick: 🔪���⚔🪒