#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome
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SERVILIA What sort of man asks for mercy in the first place?
hbo rome + Masculinity, appearance, and sexuality: dandies in Roman antiquity, Kelly Olson
[the post for antony]
#like YEAH i know that the reason for the clothing choice is like. emphasis on class and etc. BUT CONSIDER THIS ALSO#i have an equivalent one for antony along with a thing about antony and caligula and the East#and another thing entirely about vorenus supposedly representing the Roman Ideal except for the part where he's punished#repeatedly by the narrative for it time and time again#and how it's v interesting how he's set next to Antony in s2 regarding: who gets to be the idealized roman#it is never ever vorenus no matter how strictly and devoutly he follows#and worships rome as an ideal as something to follow as something to fashion ones self out of#rome the republic doesn't love vorenus back. rome the republic dies with antony#etc etc etc#anyway#my sister (costume design and fashion major) + me (someone who uh. reads things) = whatever the fuck this is#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome
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ANTONY Tell the people I died well. I died Roman.
hbo rome + excerpts from Masculinity, appearance, and sexuality: dandies in Roman antiquity, Kelly Olson
[the post for brutus]
#this is! a queued post!#it's technically a scheduled post! im testing this out for a thing in june where im posting one thing a day for brutus leading up to#(jazz hands) my birthday or something#the way tumblr has you schedule posts makes my brain hurt#hbo rome#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome#me: frantically texting my sister scenes from the last screen cap to make sure i can call it silk#my sister: sending me an entire history lesson#mark antony tag
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it’s a party! loosen up a little, brutus
#this is! a queued post!#im doing a version with color but im Very Happy with how these pencils turned out (●'◡'●)#and a four three two one#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome#mating ritual meets fencing match
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it’s about the scribbling
#one more for the antony/brutus pile before i try and figure out how to draw an altmal and shaundes comic at the same time#I Need More Hands. Also Coffee#and a four three two one#im also somehow writing some kind of inbetween episodes fic where antony takes brutus to see a gladiator fight and immediately regrets it#again: more hands. more coffee.#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome
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in which antony arrives before brutus takes a dagger to caesar
[hbo rome AU for s1e12]
[reading order: / 1 / 2,3 / 4,5 /]
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all I know is that to me, you look like you’re lots of fun
or alternatively
brutus and antony get to know each other a little better
#and a four three two one#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome#hoo boy i watch one episode and immediately start drawing these two specifically again#what if i tried to write. what if. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. something to think about
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hbo rome s2e1 / brutus: the noble consiprator, kathryn tempest
(narrator voice: a few days later--)
#this is! a queued post!#hbo rome#dead romans blogging#you ever think about how hbo rome frames it so that antony's direct antagonist in this is actually servilia instead of brutus#anyway antony in this last screen cap lmao#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome
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Between Friends : Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli - Vettori Letters of 1513 - 1515 by John M Najemy
#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome#mating ritual meets fencing match#ive been physically restraining myself from doing this but actually vettori+virgil's eclogues killed me SO HERE WE GO
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hbo rome + albert camus’ caligula
HELICON: May I know what it is, this truth that you've discovered?
CALIGULA [his eyes averted, in a toneless voice]: Men die; and they are not happy.
#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome#it's about who dies in front of you. it's about who you die across from.#it's about getting ahold of the english translation of this play you actually like and immediately backing it up in three places
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man in the middle of a depressive episode gets life advice from a guy having a perpetual identity crisis
#you ever try to summarize character arcs in a show and end up saying incomprehensible nonsense like this#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome#and a four three two one#god i think i posted this sketch on twitter back in the early part in june and totally forgot to finish it#*finish: a word which here means 'add some questionable color choices to it'#coloring while wearing sunglasses and trying to remember what the fuck the color wheel looks like from memory. an Adventure
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#honestly this was the only part of a five page comic worth finishing so feel free to just (waves hands)#imagine whatever scenario makes you happiest#and now for! the tags#and a four three two one#if you love me it's not in a way i understand#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome
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>:(
#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome#and a four three two one#im watching s2 and feeling a LOT about it#i wish I WISH i could watch this season specifically and be casual about it but oh my god#there's just. the space between the narratives? the episodes? untapped AU potential#cannot stress enough that for one incredibly wild moment i almost made an RP account for brutus like it was 2012 again#THAT'S what this season has done to me. im on my knees. im reduced to thinking about (redacted) and (redacted) and you know#that one scene. in that one episode. with the river. that one.
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I’m watching s1 again and taking it very seriously™
#msdhgh i just wrote half a thing about how servilia and atia exhibit the same manipulative and abusive tendencies towards brutus and octavia#and i will now turn off my brain and admire tobias' arms like. hoo boy. his hands???? wow. if you need me i'll be watching#a bunch of men make increasingly bad decisions#and a four three two one#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome#if you love me it's not in a way i understand
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2000 words of (checks notes) hbo rome, but Antony captures Brutus alive and no one is quite sure what to do with that. mostly unedited, sort of heading in a direction for sure.
Cassius is dead.
And,
well.
Brutus is alive.
For whatever reason, Antony had decided to drag him back to his camp, and he sits in Antony’s tent like a child waiting to find out what punishment is going to get doled out while listening to Antony and Octavian shout at each other from some other place in the encampment.
Cassius is dead, and Brutus feels like he was cheated out of being able to take the honorable way out. Instead, he was ignobly marched back across a never-ending field of bodies, a prisoner, maybe something worse. To step between bodies of the men he commanded to their deaths felt like the worst kind of cowardice.
Cassius is dead, Brutus has the blood of his brother-in-law under his nails, and he feels inexplicably jealous.
The yelling stops, and after a moment, Antony steps back inside.
‘Great news!’ he says cheerfully. ‘You won’t be dying today!’
Brutus stares at him. Antony looks back expectantly.
In the back of his throat, the decorum that dictates social niceties threatens to claw its way out of his mouth, to show the appropriate gratefulness.
Cassius is dead, and Brutus wishes that was his fate as well, so he swallows hard and says nothing.
When it becomes clear that Brutus won’t say anything, Antony pulls a seat over and sits across from Brutus, uncharacteristically serious. ‘I know that this isn’t really ideal for anyone,’ he says, looking Brutus in the eye. ‘But it is better to survive. Think of your mother, how much better it will be for her to get a letter from you than to receive one from me announcing your death.’
It feels like Antony is attempting something like reassurance, like he’s worried Brutus might take the stylus off the desk and shove it through his own neck (he had thought about it, and immediately discarded the idea) but all Brutus can concentrate on is how much he doesn’t want to think of his mother.
Every personal betrayal, every manipulation at the hands of his own mother comes to the forefront of his mind and he can feel his expression twist into something bitter. ‘I’d consider it a personal favor if you would tell her that anyway,’ Brutus finds himself saying, and Antony laughs, sharp and surprised.
‘I didn’t think you had it in you to be cruel,’ he says, leaning forward.
‘You know, I never really wanted this?’ Brutus says, because now the words won’t stop spilling out of his mouth, ‘but she used my name, and Caesar couldn’t trust me after that.’
There is some emotion that Brutus can’t identify in Antony’s gaze, something quiet and calculating, not unlike a predator considering how to cast judgement.
‘You helped kill him,’ says Antony, tone neutral.
Brutus looks away, and back own at his hands. They aren’t shaking anymore, but on that day, he wasn’t sure they would ever stop. Cassius might have put the blade back into his hands, but he was the one who grasped it and drove it into the body of a man he had once considered to be like a father.
Abruptly, he wonders if Octavian is somewhere on the other side of the material of the tent, eavesdropping on them like some kind of ghost.
‘I did,’ agrees Brutus, because there’s no sense in denying it or trying to claim some kind of innocence to the act. It runs in the family, even if he tried to deny that legacy before. He won’t try to pass blame for the action now. ‘You should let Octavian do whatever it is he wants to do.’ He sits up a little straighter and narrows his eyes. ‘What do you gain from this anyway? What benefit am I to you?’
Antony leans back, posture open and lazy. It’s not sincere, Brutus knows. It’s the false nonchalance that Antony presents the world when he wants people to look a little less closely, to take him a little less seriously, all the while planning out a series of strategies in the back of his mind.
‘Do I have to have an ulterior motive?’ asks Antony. ‘Maybe I just want to ruin Octavian’s day for a bit.’
He stands up before Brutus can reply, and begins to walk back towards the tent flap. ‘You’ll be staying here,’ Antony informs Brutus. ‘There are soldiers on guard duty, so don’t think about trying to escape.’ He looks at his desk, to the stylus, and after a brief pause of consideration, crosses the space in two easy steps to grab it. ‘Remember!’ he says, grinning. ‘Tomorrow’s a new day!’
Then he’s gone.
And Brutus is once again left with his hands, and Cassius’s blood.
•
At some point in the night, Brutus falls asleep.
When he wakes up, he is in Antony’s bed, with absolutely no recollection of how he got there. His hands, Brutus notices as he sits upright and pushes the blankets off of him, are clean.
‘And he lives!’ says Antony. He’s sitting behind his desk, watching Brutus from over top the paper in his hand. His tone is jovial, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. ‘If you wanted to go back to sleep for another hour, I won’t tell: it might be the last time you’ll get the chance to sleep in.’
The entire exchange is baffling.
The expression on Brutus’ face must convey as much, because Antony laughs. ‘Just because you are my prisoner doesn’t mean it has to be painful for us both.’
Brutus arches an eyebrow at the use of the possessive and makes a note to eventually find out the specifics of what Antony and Octavian had been fighting about. ‘I think you'll find that sentiment goes against almost every expectation someone might have if they found themselves held captive by a political rival,’ points out Brutus.
‘I like to think of us as people who could have been political allies under different circumstances,’ counters Antony. ‘We did work together for some time.’
‘I think’ says Brutus slowly, ‘that you have some ulterior motive you’ve been angling towards for some time.’
Silence, except for the general ambience of a military encampment the day after a resounding victory. Conversation, men looking forward to returning home, the sharp crackle of an early morning fire. Life goes on. When the sun comes up in full, the bodies left on the battlefield will begin to stink and decay under the full force of the heat.
The fight in Brutus, the revulsion that he will be used for another person’s end goals again, fades out of him, replaced with a quiet grief at the thought of the men he led to their death.
Antony snaps his fingers.
‘You look like you’re thinking unhappy thoughts,’ says Antony. ‘Do not. It’s always better to live. If you must spiral into melancholia, wait until I’m gone.’
‘Besides!’ continues Antony. ‘Soon we will be back in Rome!’
Brutus can’t think of anything he’s looking forward to less.
•
Brutus wishes more than anything that Antony had just given him a sword so he could fall on it.
Currently, the feeling is driven less by a sense of duty (what kind of man begs for mercy? comes the voice of his mother. I didn’t beg this time, mother, he would say in reply) or the open wound of loss, but instead by an intense awareness that he does not belong in this place anymore but more importantly
annoyance.
If he thought he would have to wait around to see what Octavian and Antony were arguing about back in Philippi, he was wrong. The second Antony had set foot in Rome, with Brutus half a step behind him, Octavian immediately launched into an impassioned speech that started with, ‘You should be grateful to Antony, if it were up to me, I would have taken your head displayed it for all to see,’ (poetic in a grim sort of way, thinks Brutus) and ended with:
‘Don’t get too comfortable. You belong to Antony now, and he’ll do with you whatever he wants.’
It’s clearly meant to be some threat, but it’s laughable because Brutus knows this, everyone who’s heard about the outcome at Philippi knows this, there’s probably creative graffiti about it already going up on the walls of the city, and Octavian says it like Brutus hasn’t spent the last week trying to puzzle together why Antony wanted him alive so badly.
The facts of the world are as follow: the sun rises in the east, it sets in the west, Octavian has only become more insufferable over the years, and Brutus belongs to Antony now.
The only person who doesn’t seem to be aware of this is Antony, who continues to act as though Brutus is more of a peer that he had a minor disagreement and has subsequently forgiven.
‘It’s been nice catching up with you, Octavian,’ says Antony with a smile that conveys that the entire exchange has been anything but nice. ‘But I have things to do, matters to attend to.’
Brutus says nothing.
Octavian levels him with one last bitter look before turning around and leaving the room.
‘Well!’ says Antony after a moment. ‘That went as well as to be expected. I have a feeling he thought I’d have you executed somewhere along the way back.’
‘He’s not the only one,’ comments Brutus dryly, and Antony punches him in the shoulder good naturedly.
‘I love that grim sense of humor you have,’ he says. ‘Come on, let us go home. I’m fucking exhausted.’
•
Home, it turns out, is Pompey’s villa.
Or more accurately: it’s Antony’s now.
Brutus can see it on the walls, in the décor, in the choices of fabrics and design. It’s alive, it’s vibrant, it’s a complete antithesis of everything Pompey stood for.
He likes it.
‘So-’ Antony starts to say, at the exact moment Brutus says:
‘What’s your endgame here, Antony?’
It’s a recreation of the morning in Philippi: the open, if somewhat confusing, amicability that doesn’t quite meet the eyes. The sense that Antony is thinking of things in stratagem, planning for some kind of outcome no one has even thought to imagine, much less prepare for.
The villa is nice. Brutus likes what Antony’s done with the place.
He also feels very much like he’s walked into the open mouth of something with very sharp teeth, and if he must be assigned a role in whatever Antony is gearing up for, he would at least like an idea of what’s to come.
Whatever Antony is searching for in Brutus’ eyes, he must have found, because the tension in his jaw disappears.
‘Some other time,’ he says finally. ‘Not today.’
There’s a promise in between the words.
Brutus tries to feel grateful for that, at least. It’s hard, because once, before all of this, he used to be--
•
--a person.
Antony shows him to one of the rooms, makes some remark about not leaving the villa, with a side glance at Posca, who does his best not to meet Brutus’ eyes, which is understandable. Antony takes off, and in the absence of anything else to do, Brutus decides to try and reinvent himself.
He can no longer be Brutus, descendant of a king killers. He is no longer a reluctant, albeit talented, politician, following in the footsteps of all the other politicians that came before him. He’s not even entirely sure what his status as a citizen of Rome is. In lieu of death, Octavian might push for exile.
The only concrete fact about himself now is that Antony wanted him alive, and so he belongs to Antony.
The lack of solid ground to stand on makes exile a tempting thought.
At some point in the afternoon (no further along in the process of reinvention than when he started) a young woman stops by: Cynthia, if Brutus recalls correctly. One of Antony’s slaves. She asks if he’s hungry, if he’d like an apple and--
--for a moment, Brutus feels like he’s returned to Philippi, standing defeated, surrounded by bodies. The dead don’t eat, they need coins for the afterlife, not food, the dead don’t eat, and he’s not a person anymore--
--Brutus says yes and follows her.
•
Antony is exhausted.
Octavian, he knows, is planning something. There is something ugly and spiteful inside of that youth, Antony can’t stand to be around him, no matter how much Atia dotes on him.
When Antony returns back home late in the evening, he’s greeted with the sight of Brutus sitting on one of the couches, peeling an apple, while Cynthia stands nearby, slicing up a pear. He pulls the heavy fabric of the toga off his body and casts it across a chair, making his way towards the two.
Draping himself along the couch next to Brutus, he leans over and says, ‘Slice off a piece for me.’
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Posca watching the scene unfold from the quiet shadows of the evening.
Brutus cuts off a part of the apple so that the slice is stuck on the side of the blade, and holds it out to Antony, like this is an everyday occurrence, like Brutus isn’t pointing a knife at the person who owns his life.
He realizes it, a moment later, and freezes, but before he can course correct, pull back, apologize, Antony leans forward and bites the apple slice right off the sharp edge of the knife.
Brutus stares at him.
Or, more specifically, Antony is delighted to note, he stares at the line of Antony’s throat, his gaze lingering for just a second too long.
#politics as an eventual vehicle for unhinged flirting tbh#the apple thing is the set up for some light knife play#brutus: hm. this is closer to the stage and the blood would be real. do you want the blood to be real antony?#a tag for writing#i have absolutely no idea if i'll finish this but the longer i type in the tags the more fond i become of it so#magic 8 ball says: Very Likely#followed by: maybe when i get my laptop uh. working better???? i think ive discovered what's wrong#and again: i will be SO annoyed if i need to replace my graphics card#but i think it's just that something got corrupted somewhere and if i nuke that out of orbit i'll be good again#honestly i should probably defrag my laptop while im at it#just. get it all out of the way. spring cleaning maintenance in the middle of summer here we go#uhh. technically this should go in the#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome
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‘I am as Alexander the Great was to Greece. I will bring Rome to heights never seen before,’ Pompey yells, equal parts fury and righteous. ‘I am--’
‘A tyrant,’ says Brutus very quietly.
The entire room goes still.
#a tag for writing#tfw you realize that someone with a legacy of tyrant killers is in the same room as you when ur giving ur villain speech#we've done it fellas! we figured out how to make a pompey an interesting antagonist!#i still dont have a tag for the rome s1e6 au RIP to organization of any kind#the 'only tyrants need worry about tyrant killers' scene equivalent#ALRIGHT if you dont see me around for a few days: im still here. just getting work done#ive found that trying to act happy when i am In Fact Very Sad makes it worse so im working on simply taking a slight step back#instead of like. being around. like im here but im just vibing you know#but also: Work#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome
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you know, that look from hbo rome s1e1
#anyway i stayed up too late outlining the Brutus Sees Antony In Gaul Before Atia Does And Fucks Up Octavian's Plans AU#my body? feels like mud. my sketch folder? thriving#and a four three two one#hbo rome#or. hmmmm#gabriel fucks around with hbo rome#there we go!
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