#linda: i'm a giver

[sforzesco]

ANTONY: if Caesar doesn't set Sextius Baculus up in a house worthy of Lucullus for all that he did, I'll kill him myself.

so the fun thing about the Caesarians is that there is. weird stuff happening in there. a lot of focus seems to go towards non Caesarian dissent, specifically with the conspiracy of Cassius and Brutus, but there's like. stuff going on in Caesar's own camp that's very Intriguing.

There's a couple places where you can see some clear points that would be grounds for a conspiratorial falling out between Caesar and Trebonius, but from the way that Trebonius tries to seduce Antony over to conspiracy, I wonder if there was a secret third thing that was going on since Antony turned him down but. didn't snitch intriguing!

anyway, all of this is to say that this means I get to invent some shit. like, I'm drawing comics which is already invention, but this is one where I get to really start throwing stuff into the narrative soup because it has to set up three different character arcs (Trebonius, and then Antony twice)

(in theory, this would be explained in the story itself if I did the entirety of the Gallic Wars out as a comic. which I have not done because I do not want to draw horses. I wanted to fuck around with some panel layouts and not draw a single horse, so now I will provide the context and revisit this in the future)

Antony's comment about Trebonius running himself into a grave has to do with the Caesar's Gallic Wars have a lot of men doing a whole lot for Caesar that has me going. hey. hey guys. uh.

specifically, Sextius Baculus:

The War for Gaul, Julius Caesar (trans James J. O'Donnell)

and the closing comment from Antony is playing on several things: romans claiming gods on their family tree (see: Legendary Genealogies in Late-Republican Rome, T.P. Wiseman for more on this) and then divinization arc of Caesar and Octavian. Antony himself will later be taking part the same kind of god-association that has prompted his disdain in this scene

At any rate, when Antony made his entry into Ephesus, women arrayed like Bacchanals, and men and boys like Satyrs and Pans, led the way before him, and the city was full of ivy and thyrsus-wands and harps and pipes and flutes, the people hailing him as Dionysus Giver of Joy and Beneficent. For he was such, undoubtedly, to some; but to the greater part he was Dionysus Carnivorous and Savage.

Plutarch, Antony 24

and the second layer of thematic fun: Antony's later relationship with his soldiers is something similar to what Caesar had with his here, but ultimately: decayed. Antony's love affair with his military makes his failure to lead well at the end a worse betrayal. at some point I'll talk about Antony's Tormentous Military Nightmare and cite some academic sources, but Linda Bamber's description of the final tragedy of Antony and his men lives in my head rent free

Cleopatra and Antony, Linda Bamber

where's the fun in doing identity focused tragedy if you don't become unrecognizable to yourself later on! isn't that right mark antony

ko-fi⭐ bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost ⭐ cara.app

[nellie-elizabeth]

Bob's Burgers: Advice Things Are Ad-Nice (15x10)

Going to rapid-fire this one, I'm on a bit of a time crunch today.

Cons:

I wasn't particularly interested in the Teddy subplot this week, it felt very paint by numbers to me... Teddy gets in too deep with some shenanigans, and then succeeds at the last second but only kinda sorta? I guess I wanted to see more of this secret society and maybe meet some fun and wild side characters that populate that world. Maybe we'll circle back to this concept another time and get some of that.

Pros:

The core plot this week involves Tina being volun-told to run an advice column in the school paper. She immediately tells her siblings that she's the anonymous advice-giver, but her big secret doesn't really lead to much at first, because nobody writes in. Then Louise, feeling bad for her sister, steals Tina's journal and uses it to fabricate messages from an insecure eighth grader. Linda gets roped in to making the messages sound more authentic.

I just thought the central conceit of this one was delightfully insane. We get a scenario where Tina is writing heart-felt messages with sincere advice to a person who ends up being, not only her sister and her mother, but actually a fictionalized version of herself, because it's her own insecurities being parroted back to her. And the loving and charming dialogue between them ends up capturing the hearts of the whole school, as people hear their insecurities aired out in the open and responded to with kindness. And then Tammy claims that the anonymous advice-seeker is herself, wanting to ride high on the attention of the moment, but then immediately doesn't want to lay claim to all of the gross things this anonymous person was confessing.

I love episodes that allow Tina to be the winner, and this one totally qualified, as she not only got to be the secret star of the school for a while, but also got to stand up to Tammy and take back the credit for something that's rightfully hers. I love the "I am Spartacus" thing that starts up, saving the Belchers from humiliation. Such silly fun!

That's all I've got for now on this one, see ya for the next!

8/10

[holyshit]

Firstly, when you get this, you have to answer with 5 things you like about yourself, publically. Then, send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers (non negotionable, positivity is cool) <3

aww tysm linda, that's so sweet 🥺🫶 i am definitely not in the best of frames of mind about myself rn rip but let's seeee

i think i'm a pretty good listener/advice giver and a trustworthy friend! i think my friends know they can trust me with their emotions and confide in me without judgement so they will often come to me with things they feel they can't talk to other friends about, which i appreciate a lot a lot

i like that i am an overall positive person and do not hold grudges or passive aggression often at all

physically, i like my hair and my legs most of the time

i like my emotional intelligence- i think i can relatively easily pick out where my emotions and other's emotions are coming from in order to deal with issues from the ground-up constructively and see others' points of views and emotions with compassion even when i am disagreeing with them

i like how easily i love and how i have become much more comfortable with telling and showing people i love them instead of trying to put on a cool front. it can bite me in the ass sometimes, but ultimately it's worth it.

[goddamnwebcomics]

I hate seeing pages like this because these are like a view into an alternate universe where this comic isn't dogshit. This page would also hit more if Soulkat ever decided to follow up on that abandoned Sarah stalker plotline...or maybe it would've been another plotline that wastes our time I dunno.

The biggest problem of Las Lindas isn't fanservice, the biggest problem is that Soulkat is a dimwitted idiot who probably has never had proper social life and his understanding of "good storytelling" is romance-focused garbage like Love Hina and Oh My Goddess. And his friends and co-workers continue to, apologies for the zoomer word I'm about to use, enable his shitty writing which makes Soulkat think he is doing something right when he really isn't.

Look, amidst all the endless twatterbirds squawking "looks like shit lol", there are genuine feedback givers who want the story and the characters to become better. I admit I tend to lean more towards "looks like shit lol" at times, but trust me, I enjoy riffing these stories but I would enjoy them even more if they were actually good.

If Soulkat listened to feedback, if Kraw listened to feedback, if Albert listened to feedback (while he was alive), they could've become great storytellers. I would argue Soulkat's situation is even sadder than Kraw's because he has multiple writers, ID_Fox and Curran and even Chalo are probably giving him ideas all the time, but they care more about their own ideas than if people actually like the comic.

So yeah, pages like this prove that Las Lindas isn't irredeemable, it just has long way to go before it can even be considered decent.

[elizabetholsens]

LINDA: Judy’s a giver, I like to think of myself as somebody who, in a relationship, is a giver, so, I mean...

CHRISTINA: Or a receiver, I mean...

LINDA: I mean, you know, depending on what somebody else wants!