#but this made me more interested in digging into the Roman empire than anything else

[my-name-is-apollo]

OKAY so I read "The Caesars" by emperor Julian and y'all, if you love Lucian's satires this is absolutely for you.

Here are some of my favorite parts from it:

A quick summary: Romulus (who has now attained the status of a god, like Heracles) once hosted a Saturnalia and invited the Greek gods and the Roman emperors to the banquet. A contest between the Roman emperors ensued, with Alexander the Great called in as an extra contestant upon Heracles' request.

Silenus is the star of the show, doing most of the jesting. But I really like the way his bond with Dionysus is highlighted

And it's no joke, he really does roast these emperors till they're sizzling lol starting with Julius Caesar himself:

Next comes Augustus Octavius, whose entry is so pretentious and pompous that it becomes repulsive

Apollo gets a bit defensive over his "nursling" (a nod to the belief that Octavius was actually Apollo's son) and goes *insert Barbie meme "it's really not that bad! it just needs a little... shaping. To the salon!!"* ft Zenon the Philosopher who casts some spells of philosophy to make Octavius less obnoxious

And it works because Octavius is mostly humble and well mannered for the rest of the day lol

Heracles grabs this opportunity to fanboy over Alexander the great.

Like, "my beloved Alexander"?? It's cute when the gods gush over their mortal descendants.

Now, a shoutout to the emperors who didn't even get a chance to sit in the assembly because they were the worst of the lot apparently. We have:

Caligula, so terrible that the gods didn't wanna even look at him and he straight away was sent to Tartarus

Nero, who tried to be an Apollo wannabe and promptly got taken to the underworld

Commodus, whom Silenus didn't even bother to roast (and he tripped and fell anyway, what a loser)

There are more but these were the funniest

Anyway, the gods decide on how to choose the best amongst the Emperors. Apollo and Hermes have differing opinions on this, but Zeus decides to entertain the suggestions of both of his sons :3 (finally, one instance where he treats Apollo and Hermes equally)

All the emperors talk about their achievements first, then Hermes cross examines them to see if their motives were worthy enough and oh boy, it does not go well for Alexander who is brought to the verge of tears by Dionysus lmaooo

Anyway, in the end the gods vote and Emperor Marcus Aurelius wins the contest. But after that, Zeus asks each emperor to choose a god to spend the rest of their evening with

Ares and Aphrodite kind of just adopt Caesar LOL and yes, Cronus is present, sitting beside Zeus, with Rhea and Hera also sitting with them. He is the one who nominates Marcus Aurelius.

but here's the most crack part of this whole thing:

Like who invited Jesus bro skdjsndn 😭

Anyway, the story ends with Hermes giving some generic advice to the author, Emperor Julian and ending the story. Also, Julian lets us know that this whole story was told to him by none other than Hermes himself, and gives a disclaimer that he doesn't know if it's is true or just a lie fabricated by Hermes, or a mixture of both LMAO

Here's the link PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE THING

[ta-ether]

So You Want to Study the Middle Ages

A Few Disclaimers: I am not a medievalist yet, but that is the path I’m on at the moment with goals to go to grad school for Medieval Studies. Also, this is mainly if you want to go into European Medieval Studies. I will only be limited help for outside of Europe, but I am more than willing to ask around for help if you want. Also this will probably best work for people going into college or already in college.

This sucker’s just over 4 pages with 12p Times New Roman and 1.15 spacing, so the rest of this is under the cut. 

My sweet summer child. You are in for a ride. Buckle up, because this is gonna be hard. (Not the best words to start out on but this is not for the faint of heart, trust me.)

First thing’s first. Choose a region. Just one. For me, it’s England. Now if you’re scared that choosing one region will not let you learn a lot about the general world at that time, you’re wrong. England interacts with France, who interacts with the Holy Roman Empire/ Germany, who interacts with Italy, and they all have contact with the Near East, and then they all interact with Iberia. And when I say “interact” I mean “fought.” Trust me, it will cascade, and if you don’t have a “home base” you will get far too overwhelmed.

This is where it goes into what I personally have done. After I chose England, I went into the Renaissance there – specifically Elizabeth I. It’s useful to start in the Renaissance because there’s more accessible knowledge about that period. I started super young, so I also read a lot of historical fiction at this point. This isn’t reliable for facts, but it’s not bad if you’re just starting out and want to dip your toe in the water.

From there I took a brief hiatus into Classics. This is helpful because with this you can go down from Classics and up from Renaissance and meet in the middle. Also this is the part where you’re going to want to learn at least a little bit of Latin. It’s honestly invaluable. I had the amazing fortune of taking Latin since 7th grade, but if you’re going into college, you can probably take the gen-ed requirement for language and you’ll be fine. You only need about 2 years of good Latin, because Medieval Latin is… how you say… not that complicated. The hard part is mostly the vocab, and you have dictionaries for that.

Now that you’ve made yourself at least familiar with Classics and the Renaissance, you can actually dive into the Middle Ages! Why don’t we do this earlier? Well I’ll tell you. There’s so much bullshit about the Medieval Period online, and even in books. Seriously, Sturgeon's Law is a THING with Medieval Studies online – 90-95% of what you find at first is going to be false. This is why you wait, so you don’t get bamboozled. Personally – I’d start with a “pop history” book. These are books that you can find in like, Barnes and Noble in the “History” section. Now, these books are not well regarded in the academic communities, but fuck em look, everybody needs to start somewhere. Personally, I read Dan Jones’ The Plantagenets super early in my “Medieval career” and it gave me an overview of the period and new places to look for things I was then interested in (The Anarchy!). Also, it had a family tree. Never underestimate the usefulness of a family tree.

So now you hopefully have a place you want to focus on, and also a rough time period, event, or person you want to focus on. Now, because academic books are expensive, you’re going to go to the primary sources, which are free online. You don’t need to panic! Primary sources are hard but not impossible, and I believe in you! You’re gonna go to the Medieval Sourcebook from Fordham and you’re going to poke around a little and look for your little niche. You don’t need to spend a ton of time on this. A day or two should suffice.

Once you’ve read some sources you should pretty much know if you still want to go into Medieval Studies. If you’re not having fun with the sources, you may want to reconsider. Trust me, from here on out if you don’t love it, you will not be having a good time. I respect your decision if you want to bow out. This is not for everybody.

If you had a blast with the sources, congrats! You’ll probably have fun with everything else. Maybe. Next you’re gonna go and look at the academic side of things. Don’t worry if you don’t have access to databases. You can survive – I know I did. My suggestion: go to Google Scholar and type in what you want to see and poke around. If you’re young, you may not understand their language, but that’s ok. You can learn. If you’re really into it, you can look at their sources and dig in further! Bibliographies and work cited’s are a fucking gold mine. Google Books can also be amazing and always check to see if they have a book you find. If the book’s old, archive.org might have it in full. So Google’s mostly free and easy to access, but you can also use JSTOR a limited amount. With a free account you can access 3 papers every 2 weeks or something. Yeah, it’s kinda bullshit but it’s not bad. If you’re scared of wasting your free papers on something you won’t like, feel free to message me and I can look for you as well, and download papers for you or something. I’m not an amazing resource, but I’m willing to be a resource.

I haven’t talked about libraries yet, which is so typical of me. Part of how I work is that I’m likely to check the internet and forget the library, which is stupid. Pro-tip: check the library. Always check the library. Your local library will probably not have academic books, but they might have databases. Look at your local library’s website to see if they have databases for patrons to use, and if you’re up to it, ask the librarians. This may be hard if you have social anxiety (trust me I know), but librarians are up there with teachers as being underrated, underpaid helpful people. 85% of them will be more than willing to help, and they might even ship a book in for you or something. If you can use them, do. Also, if you live in a college town and can physically get to the college library, you can look around there. If you’re local you should be able to check books out, but even if you can’t you should be able to look at the books there or make copies.

This basically marks the end of what you can do on your own, and believe me I wish you could do more without help, but the truth of the matter is to do anything further you’re going to need to go to college and take classes.

There are more schools with medieval programs than you think. Big schools, small schools, rural schools, city schools – I go to a super small rural women’s college and we have a MARS (Medieval and Renaissance Studies) program, but I’m pretty sure we’re an exception. Point is, you can find a school. From there I suggest you get in contact with a professor there and try to get a meeting with them, which is what I did. Try and wow them with your tenacity and what you’ve done already or something. If you can’t get a meeting, just email or perhaps call. (*shakes fist* Networking!) Then take some classes.

Once you take some classes and you still want to go into this… you have incredible fortitude. Congrats. Now, this is where I am now, so I can’t help beyond this, but I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to. This summer I was able to get an Summer Honors Research fellowship at my school where I am being paid to do my own research with my professor. I’m studying 14th century English Coroner Rolls, am learning Medieval Handwriting, and am beginning to work with actual Medieval documents. Seriously. I’m living the dream. (If you want pictures of my documents ASK ME I love showing them off they are my babies. My lovely, wonderful, unreadable babies.) In the coming years I am planning to try and get my ass to England.

Some words of encouragement: Look, it’s notoriously hard to get into Medieval Studies. It’s just not accessible and I hate that about it. You have to want it. You can’t wander into being a Medievalist. It’s hard and a slog and it’s so easy to be discouraged, and everyone will tell you that what you’re doing doesn’t matter, and somehow you have to just keep going.

I’m writing this essay with tips on how to get into Medieval Studies because I wish I had more guidance before I hit college. I was flying in the dark for a while, and I basically bumped into doing useful things by accident.

If you want to go into Medieval Studies, I want you to know that I’m rooting for you and if you’ve read this entire thing, you probably do want to try at least. Know that I have access to a pretty damn good college library with inter-library loan privileges, a scanner, and a really smart professor. If you need a book or an article and you don’t have the means to get it, please message or ask me. If you just need a place to start, ask me! If you’ve read this entire thing, message me. I love to talk Medieval with people and I have like… one person to talk to, and she’s my professor. I would include a list of books I read that were helpful, but this essay is starting to become a novella at this point so you can ask. I sound super lonely – “ask me, message me!” Ha! You would be right. I am lonely.

<3

[nemrut]

Web-Series Novel: A Practical Guide to Evil by Erraticerrata

Title: A Practical Guide to Evil Author: Erraticerrata Status: Work in Progress 

Link: wordpress

Summary: The Empire stands triumphant.

For twenty years the Dread Empress has ruled over the lands that were once the Kingdom of Callow, but behind the scenes of this dawning golden age threats to the crown are rising. The nobles of the Wasteland, denied the power they crave, weave their plots behind pleasant smiles. In the north the Forever King eyes the ever-expanding borders of the Empire and ponders war. The greatest danger lies to the west, where the First Prince of Procer has finally claimed her throne: her people sundered, she wonders if a crusade might not be the way to secure her reign. Yet none of this matters, for in the heart of the conquered lands the most dangerous man alive sat across an orphan girl and offered her a knife.

Her name is Catherine Foundling, and she has a plan.

Words from the author: A Practical Guide to Evil is a YA fantasy novel about a young girl named Catherine Foundling making her way through the world – though, in a departure from the norm, not on the side of the heroes. Is there such a thing as doing bad things for good reasons, or is she just rationalizing her desire for control? Good and Evil are tricky concepts, and the more power you get the blurrier the lines between them become.

Updates every Monday and Wednesday, as of the latest Patreon goal.

So I burned through this in 4 days or so and yeah, there is a lot to love about it. Guess the initial similarities in its premise to Worm can't be denied, what with being a teenage girl who joins the villains in the hopes to do good and is pretty ruthless in order to reach her goal, while she befriends people on the side of the villains where some aren't that unreasonably while the people on the side of good aren't necessarily all nice or good either. Still, make no mistake, it very much does its own thing. The concept with the Names is just fascinating and really, really cool. The way the rules of storytelling influence the world and characters and the different ways the various characters have found to interact with them is really creative and interesting

I love the setting. It's a an awesome fantasy setting with the familiar faces that I want to see, like Roman legions, orcs, goblins, dwarves, gnomes and so on but also given a creative fresh spin that it doesn't feel like an unimaginative D&D or LotR rip-off. The fact that the dwarves and gnomes seem to be by all accounts the heavy hitters of the setting with whom no one dares to fuck with is a nice change, for example. The geopolitical snippets that we see where the different nations, cultures and coalitions clash and unfold has been one of the stories bigger strengths. The racial and cultural clashes between characters hailing from different nations and social classes has also been explored in a rather good manner. It also has a certain anime feel to it, in a good way, that just makes it even more enjoyable to be me. I also love the fact that gender barely plays a role in this. Whatever role, job, class or function, in all facets in nearly all cultures, everything basically has a roughly equal split in terms of genders, with the goblins being the sole exception with their matriarchal society, which in turn was already alien enough, being goblins and all. No token girl or token boy characters in anything and no "you can't because you're a girl" story line either, it's rare to see it like that. Just enjoyment of the journey the character is on. Same with sexuality, it doesn't matter to anyone in the setting which way you swing or if you swing at all, so various things can be explored without taking over the plot. The lead girl is bisexual, btw, with a leaning towards girls. One of my favorite things have got to be the quotes at the beginning of the chapters. They can be hilarious and many of them have this distinct Magic the gathering flavor text feeling to them. I love them. Quotes like   “Always mistrust these three: a battle that seems won, a chancellor who smiles and a ruler calling you friend.” – Extract from the personal journals of Dread Emperor Terribilis II

“I’ll be honest, Chancellor – revenge is the motivation for over half the decrees I’ve made.” – Dread Empress Sanguinia II, best known for outlawing cats and being taller than her”

or “Now kneel, fools, and witness my ascension to GODHOOD!” – Last words of Dread Empress Sinistra IV, the Erroneous

They generally crack me up and I am genuinely impressed that the author managed to come up with so many of them that are honestly lough out loud funny, well, at least to me. The dialog and witty banter has been consistently funny and energetic. I have laughed countless times and a lot of the side characters are lovable because of it. The good lines are not reserved for the main character alone but virtually everyone gets at least a few, it's rather balanced on that account. And it never becomes muddled enough that it makes the characters indistinguishable from each other, even if they share the same type of dark humor. By seeing when and on whose accounts they make the jokes, their characters still shine through. The fight scenes are decent, and the quirks and strengths of the setting and the dialog allow them to punch outside their weight-class. The meta aspects of the story itself are worked very well into the scenes and I believe that that is a very difficult thing to do. Here is a scene relatively early on: “We can get to that later,” I dismissed. “Evidently you’re the gritty type, but how far up the antihero scale are you?” 

“As far as I need to be,” he responded gravely. I pushed down my urge to make something out of that. Crossbow Tamika had already finished reloading, and the pair of them seemed to be considering their next target. I really wasn’t liking the way Spear Tamika was beginning to angle towards me.   “Are you the kind of gritty that works with enemies?” I probed. “You know, for the greater good and such.” A lesser author would have made me hate this but he pulled it off and made this fun.

More after the break but for anyone who wants to avoid even minor spoilers, give it a read, it’s awesome. Not perfect or anything as it does have its weaknesses but very well worth the read.

The side cast is funny and interesting. The 15th legion has some fun characters who are likable and enjoyable throughout. When talking about the Calamities and some others, things become downright amazing. The way they are introduced and then explored in their interludes on how they've built their legends meshes wonderfully with the more intimate and casual moments they share with each other when they just bicker and enjoy their company. I always hated the "if you lose you are dead to me" kinda villains and even though they are all very much villains, they also love and care for each other and generally having a personality allows for characters to have more depth, to have them care for more than just power. The Calamaties are larger than life, fun and epic. Which kinda flows into one of the not so much strengths of the story. Heiress is, as far as villains go...not exactly top notch. It doesn't help that while I do believe that she is a serious threat and annoyance, and that her plans are appropriately “oh shit” level, I still can't respect her because in her core, she is the stupid kind of villain, the short sighted backstabber who, as a character archetype, just isn’t that interesting, at least to me.     The clash of ideologies that very much defined books 1 and 2 between the Lone Swordsman, the Heiress and the Squire suffered under the fact that both the Lone Swordsman and the Heiress upheld positions that, well, sucked. It wasn't a matter of who was right because it was abundantly clear who was and that's the main character. The Lone Swordsman was a partly mindfucked/brainwashed zealot with few redeeming qualities and the Heiress just wants to be properly evil and hates all this efficiency, stability and success that the villain faction had for a while now. What is there to ponder? I guess I would have preferred antagonists who also had good paths/plans rather than just being flat-out wrong/evil. Heiress especially, who at all times has been the bigger danger simply because she cares only about being evil in the right way and is unable to prioritize anything else. Still, she isn’t terrible, she has interesting/fun aspects, it is fun to hate her even if I roll my eyes a lot and her dynamic with her father is fun, even if only for the inevitable scene where Cat will do something horrible to him in order to punish the Heiress. Catherine is a character who has some weaknesses but in general she is fun to follow, entertaining and someone who knows how to end a fight. She has good lines, one gets a good feel for her as the story goes along and it’s interesting if a bit frustrating when her own, culturally biased morals shine through. Like her inherent dislike and condemnation of human sacrifice despite the fact that she has about committed nearly every atrocity but since she is from Callow, that kinda thing is a no-no. It’s the arbitrary if not contradictory moral position of a true person.   I enjoy her journey and character and appreciate the way she deconstructs several conventions that are typical to the "want to save a society/nation/people" archetype. The story contained several digs at other stories, like this quote when they learn that the Heiress set her slave soldiers free.   Nominally granting the Stygian war-slaves their freedom meant absolutely nothing, when they’d been indoctrinated from birth to obey their orders of their owners without fail.

Which is basically the biggest "take that" I've seen in a while, directed at Dany's freeing of the Unsullied who in turn then moved by her actions chose to follow her nonetheless. And of course, Cat is absolutely correct. That one act of liberation probably didn't really mean that much to those who, in her words, had been indoctrinated from birth to obey and fight. Later on, when the Lone Swordsman comes upon them, he is also aware of this dilemma. His solution was to not ask them to fight, to give them that freedom but that more than anything was what convinced them to fight for him anyway, and thus he unwillingly manipulated them into doing it anyway. I really loved that touch, especially since it was a plot point that was well set up in advance, touched upon over several chapters and then had a rather satisfying resolution. Or the general theme of the shonen protag/hero of the story taking umbrage with the lesser methods of his enemies and saying that's not the right way because it's wrong. It's a conversation that that crops up all the time, and that the hero will find a better way, only never saying what that better way is, mainly because he hasn't one until he pulls unlimited power out of his ass.   Cat isn't like that and hates people like that and this inherent struggle against story conventions, especially with regards to the Black Knight is fascinating to me. Having the Calamaties and the Empress scheme and work around these inherent story elements is just cool. The romance in the story was rather lowkey which isn't bad per se,   but Killian didn't exactly leave a big impact so far but I'm hoping this will change with the recent developments. Either strike out with someone more interesting or have Killian become more interesting and defined. So far, it was pleasant and cute but not exactly much substance. One more minor point of complaint would be the relatively steady amount of typos, missing words and the like, which happen about once or twice per chapter. Nothing tragic but definitely noticeable. Author also uses adverbs a bit too much, especially the "-ly" modifiers for the verbs instead of showing it through action and dialog how they feel but it works for the most part.  Think that’s about it.  The writing is overall rather good and I enjoy the story format, what with the interludes and all. So yeah, really loving the story. Story got its hooks in me and I powered through and it was a blast from start to the latest available chapter. Supposed to be five books, and we're in the first third of the third one so, this story will be going on for a while and I'm looking forward to it.  4/5

[ordersreality]

Thomas “Grey-Muzzle” Walden.

A study of a role-playing Character and sorcery.

My birth was uneventful. The midwife, a skilled Sorceress could mediate almost any birth. She expressed some concern at my natal divination. Trouble would be my gift, but was this trouble for me, or for the village? She could not say.

My parents were uneventful. Our heritage is special enough. Me ma was the great-great-granddaughter of Queen Boudica herself. Our Ychen Celt women had more guts than any Roman soldier, ever. Sure, it’s something to boast about, when the crops are in the ground, the children have enough to eat, and the Romans are no where in sight.

My hamlet was uneventful. Our people were forced to move here by the Provencal governors. Taken from Briton to the south-east of Gaul were our ancestors knew no one, not even their language. I have reflected on why that was done, and think it was to break us somehow. The soil was not so good, but the Romans built an aqueduct so we had plenty of water, and with our talents we made the best of it. And it was largely out of the way of Rome.

The other thing that happened was the slaughter of my village.

My hamlet was uneventful…until Attila the Hun went in search of his bride in Rome. No, Attila didn’t even notice the Hamlet until a Roman Centurio passed through on their way to the hunt. That month two things happened. One soldier was an awakened Vampire. He found me, a youth of maybe thirteen years, and woke me up.

The Contubernio who woke me had taken me “Fishing.” Being Greek, the others members of the Centurio thought they knew what that meant. He simply taught me what I am. I always saw and smelled and heard things my friends could not. They thought I was daydreaming. The old man showed me how to use those senses, showed me I had a sort of, preternatural sense for things. He lent me a short sword and taught me some maneuvers, I found this quite to my liking. That night, he showed me something else. I had a physical and mental strength I had only heard of in legend. We went hunting for an elk, a young buck not more than four years. He taught me to use my mind to overwhelm the beast’s instinct to run. Then encouraged me to break the animal’s neck. It wasn’t easy, but I did it.

That is when the old sergeant showed me what I am.

“Open your mouth, boy.”

“What?”

“Let me see your teeth.” I showed him. They had just erupted this last winter, my canines, and they were still growing. They were sharper than any of my friends, but I had not thought anything about it. The soldier told be to bite into the elk’s neck, just where the vein was close to the surface. I reeled at the thought at first.

“Hurry, or he’ll be dead and the blood will die with him!” So, I did. My teeth tore into the hide with some effort, then the blood. Ecstasy! Life! Death! Glory! I drank until I could drink no more.

“You, my boy, are a Vampire. Don’t get me wrong, there are two sorts, Human and Daemonic. We are related in a way, like sun and shadow. Yet they are jealous of us, because we can walk in the sunlight, we can eat solid food, we can even enjoy the cold. You will live long just so long as you get some blood every so often.”

“Human blood?”

“Blood is blood; The rest is taste, and personally, I find humans to be bitter. I think it is their mindless existence.”

Cries. Faint, I thought I was experiencing some new facet of my newly discovered powers. The soldier then grabbed me by the arms, and latched onto my neck with his mouth. No, he didn’t bite, but I felt something leave me, like life flowing from my body into his. Just as I swooned, it all came rushing back into me. He had shredded me open, ripped me apart, cleaned my bones and dried my innards. Then he put them all back again, leaving some things out, and adding some things in. I was reborn in that moment, or was it the world that was born. Screaming rose with the smell of fresh blood. Was that mother?

The sergeant slumped on the ground next to me, tired, spent like a pentathlete after a Stephanic Game. The yells and the smell of smoke mingled with the blood. I was still in ecstasy when they came toward us. The Centurio running after the villagers, swords drawn, lances at ready.

Rage. I had never felt such rage in my life. I grabbed the roman short sword my mentor had given me. Thirteen years old, I should not have done what came next. The first soldier fell at my hand without effort. The next spilled his guts for me. They started to notice my handy work and turned their attentions to me.

“Soldier, what the Hades is going on?” my mentor demanded of the Centurio.

“Just a little sport, kill the boy and join us!”

“No, we are not here for this! The Huns must be engaged tomorrow or march on Rome they will!” The centurio readied his lance and hurtled it at the soldier. He was still week from the earlier effort, but he knocked the lance out of the air as if it were made of straw.

Together we fought the Romans. Down they went like flies. No, this centurion will not be engaging the Huns in this life time.

We saved most of them, but they feared their savior. I kissed my mother and sister farewell, and wandered the greater world. None will ever know the name of that hamlet, after three hundred some-odd years I have to dig to remember it. And Damned be the Pope who has blessed such slaughters for his benefit!

I wander now. The Greek went his way after showing me most of what I needed to know. I ran into an old Magan wizard who taught me a thing to two. I wander as much to stay anonymous as to keep myself interested. Sometimes I help another in their awakening; it’s only fair to pass on a gift received so freely. And yes, the Daemonic Vampires are jealous of us, but they, too, play fairly when the powers are equal.

I wander, but this year I am on the hunt. Rome has fallen, good riddance, and a new empire has risen. I have heard of a resistance in the North; they call themselves Norsk, Erlings, Dans. Their profession is Víking. I would ride with them for a while.

So into a village I descend. I will take my time, learn the customs, gain their trust, hear their news. “Fortunes fall to them who aren’t afraid to be audacious,” they say. “All is open to the gracious who remain alert and quick to grasp.”