#is actual roman empire

[cannibalvegetarian]

okay, here’s a thing. my friend and i, we have some ocs and as if it wasn’t bad enough, we also happen to have an inexhaustible urge to make them suffer. the scene takes place somewhere in the midst of 70–78 AD, after whatever-the-hell-nero-did-to-rome, but before vesuvius had erupted.

art: @its0berenice (right twix bar of the tandem)

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“it’s over,” antony says, lips curving into a smile, light, and thin, and colourless. “we lost.”

vincentius feels sick.

“so- what, that’s it?” he laughs bitterly. “you’re just going to give up. now, after everything. unbelievable.”

antony shrugs. the blade glitters ever so slightly as he tosses it and casually catches the handle halfway to the floor. he smiles again.

“i suppose so.”

the torn throat of the sun sheds its blood, turning everything bright red. it’s over, right. it’s all over.

his grand demise.

“why are you here, then?” he tries weakly.

“you know why, phil—“

“don’t.”

antony frowns, seemingly perplexed with a sudden change of mood, but decides against whatever he was thinking of and just shrugs again, “alright.”

nausea rises in his guts. it’s over. he tries to swallow the lump that is slowly thickening in his throat, but all in vain. instead, he bursts into laughter, loud and frantic, hardly sane at all.

“yeah,” he hides the trembling in his voice behind laughing spasms. “yeah, i suppose i do know.”

antony does not respond. he doesn’t have to.

there is a moment of silence, thick and tense, albeit most welcome, and vincentius seizes it to calm his nerves, strained to the point when it could snap in the worst possible time. he heads back and fishes out a carafe of wine, cramped on the shelf, assortment of which was mainly preserved for brighter occasions, but it doesn’t matter anymore. it’s all the same in the greater scheme of things. all the same.

antony chuckles knowingly, an obscure emotion flickers across his face as vincentius pours two goblets and offers him one. he doesn’t reach for it, and it takes only a few seconds to formulate a guess as to why.

“oh, for the love of— i would not,” he snaps, rolling his eyes with such an obvious annoyance that it must be leaking through the mask of feigned benevolence.

antony laughs gleefully, “i know. you wouldn’t try to poison me.” with a couple of light cat-like steps, he gets closer, until only a few unciae separate them. “you wouldn’t do that to a jug of fine wine,” he laughs, and this laughter, this ominous, dreadful laughter makes vincentius squirm.

it isn’t about the wine, he means to say, but the words stick in his parched throat.

“and even if you would,” antony resumes with a soft smile, “i don’t mind. i’d take it willingly.”

and he’s there, and vincentius makes the mistake of letting him be there, of allowing him close enough to have an opportunity to fulfill his vow, his eerie prophecy. although there is every likelihood that it wouldn’t make much difference anyway. he simply doesn’t stand a chance, not against someone with professional competence of an experienced massacrer. so he’s there, and it is all so damn over.

“i love you.” the worst part is that it’s not even a lie.

the skin tears, letting the cold steel in. he gulps for air, suddenly finding himself unable to breathe, and barely bites down a scream, when antony pulls the blade out of the wound. his moist eyes glisten in the reddish rays of sunset. almost tender. almost fond.

he tries to focus his vision but fails—and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts so much—everything blurs, shrouded in a veil of agony, roundelay of smudgy colours, swimming before eyes.

he doesn’t want to go. please. he—

“there, there,” antony nuzzles his forehead, pressing dry lips to vincentius’ cold perspiring skin. “shh, ‘s alright. you’re good, you’re good,” hands slippers soothingly over his crouched back. “i’ve got you.”

exactly, thinks vincentius, gathering the very shreds of his inflamed mind, that’s exactly the problem.

his bleared gaze slides down, and here he is, once more, about to throw up. his hands are slick, and wet, and all covered in red—gods, so much red, so much—he clutches desperately at the fabric of antony’s tunic, but it’s just no help. he sobs brokenly, choking on a breath, and he cries, and weeps, and it’s all so utterly disgraceful that he’s nearly willing to die instantly, just to skip all this degrading misery.

antony grabs his chin, preventing from looking any longer, “sh, sh, sh… i know, i know. it’ll pass soon.” the grip tightens, his torn guts pierced by the blooming flower of excruciating pain. “i promise,” he says through the mouth of a liar, and vincentius wants to believe him so badly it’s almost laughable.

there comes a sound of dripping, slow and rhythmic, and with a sudden strike of clarity vincentius reckons that it might actually be his blood. that he won’t make it this time. his legs weaken, bending down. antony murmurs softly, almost intelligibly, with his head buried into dump sweat-soaked hair, all tangled and messy, slowly guiding them to the floor.

and the dying sun leaves bloody smears of light on the carpet pile. he should’ve changed it. many, many moons ago. yeah, he thinks absentmindedly, i’ll give the order to burn this hideous thing.

the sun is dying, and so is he.

“farewell, philtatos,” antony whispers, but the sound is stolen by the shuddering thump behind his back. something breaks, shards of whatever it was flash before eyes, and a shouting crowd fills the room.

antony stands up, leaving him on the floor, with palms above head in a sign of mock surrender. the feeling of his calloused hands and firm, steady grip, in which antony had cradled him, is no longer here, and vincentius hates the way it makes him feel.

his fingers, numb and soaked in blood, clamp over the wounded stomach. it’s all over.

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[hamletthedane]

My conspiracy theory is that one of the reasons they fired Stephanie J. Block for the role of Elphaba in 2000 and replaced her with Idina Menzel at the end of the OBC workshops is because SJB played the role SO gay that it was quickly crossing the line of plausible deniability. Like she doesn't seem to be able to help herself.

And thank god she eventually got to play the role on Broadway (arguably one of the best - if not THE best - actresses who ever did), because we finally got to see her get super fucking handsy and stare lovingly into Glinda's eyes inches away from her face for three hours:

Like holy shit why do you keep looking at Annaleigh Ashford like you want to eat her alive??

Plus I cannot emphasize enough just how effective and moving this particular version of For Good is. Straight up feels like wedding vows.

(Ironically, she also has the best chemistry with Fiyero's character, and arguably the very sweetest performance of As Long As You're Mine in the entire slime tutorial universe.* So I'm just reading this as a Thropple Truther performance.)

*But that's just because she was (and still is) literally married to him. So they get uh. A little carried away in their performance. *cut to Sebastian Arcelus holding lantern up, his face covered in green makeup from aggressively making out with his wife on stage for several minutes* Apparently the makeup team HATED that song for them.

[mohntilyet]

caterina's datamined character description calling her korean-italian and early lucanis designs having him look east asian . i'll just do everything myself i guess

assorted thoughts: caterina is fully 'korean' or whatever the thedas equivalent would be in this design, and clawed her way to the top of the crow food chain after years of work. their armor is something caterina forcibly incorporated to distinguish house dellamorte from the other crows, and a symbol of their status because they get it custom made or imported. of course race-equivalents do not really exist in thedas or this world but i also will never forget how gaider just implied (east) asian people don't exist in thedas because it just so happens that there are no asians on the continent of thedas (guy who forgot about boats) . explode and die. there's not the same kind of discrimination as exists irl ofc (and the dellamortes are actually treated fine, much better than a mage or elf) but a level of xenophobia against foreigners from a different continent. illario looks the least like her, and passes for being fully antivan, which changes how he is recieved by the other crows.

and sorry if the korean is bad please actually let me know if it's horribly translated i relied on google translate . if you are one of ten asian dragon age fans feel free to talk to me at any given moment.

[glossc1]

OSIRIS-ANTINOUS. antinous enters the nile human, and leaves a statue 🪷

[taehyunghobi]

boyfriend vibes 🐿️💕 (10/∞)

[dryya-doesnt]

Hi guys…. I’m being extremely cringe and rewatching Minecraft diaries…. Here are some doodles…mostly self indulgent color practice

Garroth!!! The helmet guy himself go white boy go… love him I rlly liked early s1 garroth he was so serious 💀💀💀 actually hilarious

Laurence was done so dirty with that fire engine red hair…also his howl pendragon arc was rlly cringe then and still now LOLLL

Zane 🙁🙁 (he’s having a tantrum) still hate him he’s insufferable

[figuringthengsout]

My Roman Empire is Andrew's decision to stay in the car with Tilda during the crash. I think he could have done any other way, but he decided to do it in a way that could harm both instead of harming just her. And I think he did it because deep down he hoped he wouldn't survive either. We all know he's already passively suicidal and, if he hadn't made it, he wouldn't have had to face Aaron during the aftermath. It would have been easier to leave him and Nicky to sort themselves out, after all

[corvus-divum]

Wanted to try colouring something so ! @thatsthat24 's Roman dress photoshoot was so nice aaaa so I wanted to doodle a little something for fun :DD

[daisydood]

I know my standards are a bit high but if you don't love me like this I don't want it

THEM OHMYGOD

[keepin-it-on-the-d-l]

Something something, Henry giving Lark unconditional forgiveness and Lark wanting nothing but to be found at fault VS Henry placing Sparrow at fault for code purple and Sparrow hoping for forgiveness when they reunite.

[nicolloyd]

childs's play aftermath

[caspervi]

Nothing like drawing starchaser while hearing Phoebe Bridgers the entire time

[daiziesssart]

happy jilytober ♥️

[viserya-firstofhername]

I'm fine. It's fine. Everything is fine.

[liltaireissocute]

[PERC'ILDAN]

kiss meme :D

I headcanon Percy as someone who has no experience neither in kissing neither in relationships, and Vax as an experienced one who definitely knows how to kiss so their first kiss is very awkward (and at the same time very sweet and gentle)

[ignitesthestxrs]

there's something about the way people talk about john gaius (incl the way the author writes him) that is like. so absent of any connection to te ao māori that it's really discomforting. like even in posts that acknowledge him as not being white, they still talk about him like a white, american leftist guy in a way that makes it clear people just AREN'T perceiving him as a māori man from aotearoa.

and it's just really serves to hammer home how powerful and pervasive whiteness and american hegemony is. because TLT is probably the single most Kiwi series in years to explode on the global stage, and all the things i find fraught about it as a pākehā woman reading a series by a pākehā author are illegible to a greater fandom of americans discoursing about whether or not memes are a valid way of portraying queer love.

idk the part of my brain that lights up every time i see a capital Z printed somewhere because of the New Zealand Mentioned??? instinct will always be proud of these books and muir. but i find myself caught in this midpoint of excitement and validation over my culture finding a place on the global stage, frustration at how kiwi humour and means of conveying emotion is misinterpreted or declared facile by an international audience, frustrated also by how that international audience runs the characters in this book through a filter of american whiteness before it bothers to interpret them, and ESPECIALLY frustrated by how muir has done a pretty middling job of portraying te ao māori and the māoriness of her characters, but tht conversation doesn't circulate in the same way* because a big part of the audience doesn't even realise the conversation is there to be had.

which is not to say that muir has done a huge glaring racism that non-kiwis haven't noticed or anything, but rather that there are very definitely things that she has done well, things that she has done poorly, things that she didn't think about in the first book that she has tacked on or expanded upon in the later books, that are all worthy of discussion and critique that can't happen when the popular posts that float past my dash are about how this indigenous man is 'guy who won't shut up about having gone to oxford'

*to be clear here, i'm not saying these conversations have never happened, just that in terms of like, ambient posts that float round my very dykey dash, the discussions and meta that circulate on this the lesbian social media, are overwhelmingly stripped of any connection to aotearoa in general, let alone te ao māori in specific. and because of the nature of american internet hegemony this just,,,isn't noticed, because how does a fish know it's in the ocean u know? i have seen discussions along these lines come up, and it's there if i specifically go looking for it, but it's not present in the bulk of tlt content that has its own circulatory life and i jut find that grim and a part of why the fandom is difficult to engage with.