#of course they killed julius caesar

[13thpythagoras]

[memories-of-ancients]

Just curious, why do you think Rome fell?

OMG do you really have to ask such a big question right before I was going to bed anon? Well, here are the primary reasons IMO as a Roman history buff.

Lots of Civil Wars --- The Romans going way back to the days of the Republic were constantly fighting over who was going to be boss. Sulla fought a civil war and took over Rome and declared himself dictator, ditto Julius Caesar, and of course Octavian did the same and became the first emperor. During the empire there were many civil wars over who would be emperor as the Imperial system often lacked rules for succession resulting in dynastic struggles and civil wars. Not that it would have mattered if they did, as they probably would have just ignored the rules. In the 3rd century the empire underwent a 50 year period of near constant civil war known as the Crises of the Third Century. Constantine became emperor after killing all his opponents in a civil war. The later half of the 4th century had more civil wars. Even in the 5th century factions were fighting each for control of an empire that was collapsing all around them. No side wins a civil war because they are bloody, destructive, there are no spoils of war. There is only self destruction, they are about as helpful to a country as would a person shooting himself in the foot. All the money and resources that went into fighting civil wars and rebuilding after the war was money and resources not being used to maintain infrastructure, maintain public works, regulate the economy, defend from outside threats, and maintain the government.

2. Political Instability --- Most emperors did not die of natural causes, most emperors were murdered, or committed suicide, or died in battle, or died in a prison cell. Roman government was chalk full of power hungry psychopaths who were willing to murder their way to the top. Sometimes emperors could come and go quickly, with reigns lasting 2-3 years or less in the 3rd century.

Roman political history was rife with intrigue, assassinations, and coups occurring all the time. It was like Game of Thrones except instead of lasting 8 seasons it lasted 500 years.

3. The Army Became a Powerful Interest Group --- If you were a Roman emperor the army was a double edged sword. They were good in that they maintained peace and order in the empire and protected it from invaders. They were bad for you in that they could revolt and murder you, replacing you with someone they liked more. Even your own guard, the Praetorian Guards, couldn't be trusted as they could easily slit your throat in your sleep and declare someone else as emperor. To make sure the army was happy, you gave them big pay bonuses called donatives. Basically official bribes paid to keep the soldiers of the army loyal and happy. With each successive emperor the annual donative became bigger and bigger and thus a greater strain on the Imperial Treasury. If an emperor didn't pay up, he could be murdered by his own soldiers. Thus a lot of public money was paid just to keep the army happy so they didn't end up starting another civil war.

4. A Fucked up Economy --- Maintaining a large standing army to defend a large empire is expensive. Fighting civil wars is expensive. Rebuilding after civil wars is expensive. Constant regime change is expensive. Political intrigue is expensive. Eventually it got to the point where there just wasn't enough money to pay for all that. So emperors just minted more money, decreasing the silver content and minting more copper coins until eventually Roman money became worthless.

Today Roman money is still worthless. Go on ebay and find the cheapest Roman coins you can buy. Except for rarer collectibles Roman coins are still very plentiful and thus very cheap to collect. Worthless money made trade and commerce difficult, and thus the economy suffered. Not to mention constant bloody and destructive civil wars were damaging the economy. Political instability also damaged the economy.

5. Growing Disparity in Wealth --- Over time with civil wars and political instability the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Eventually wealth became so concentrated in the upper class that the middle class disappeared entirely by the late 4th - 5th century. By then the average Roman was in a bad way. They had no opportunities and most Romans were forced to live as tenant farmers, essentially sharecroppers.

6. A Corrupt Tax System --- Meanwhile the wealthy became so powerful that they were able to wield that power so that they did not have to pay taxes. They could exploit loopholes, manipulate laws in their favor, or bribe their way out of paying. To try to make up the revenue, tax collectors attempted to squeeze the lower classes, which of course, didn't have any money. Thus by the late 4th - 5th century the empire was severely underfunded. This resulted in the degradation of infrastructure, public works, the army, the weakening of the government, and less investment in the economy and commerce.

7. Patronage --- By the 5th century the average Roman was out of opportunities and the middle class was gone entirely. More and more the lower class Roman was being squeezed for tax money, money which they didn't have. So in order to survive, Roman lower classes sold their services to a wealthy patron. The patron would house you and protect you and take care of your tax problems. If you were lucky and had special skills like a craftsman or artist you could make a good living under a patron. If not, you probably ended up a tenant farmer tied to the land of the patron, essentially a sharecropper, a serf, or a peasant. Due to this change in the socio economic system power was drawn away from the Imperial government and was redirected to the wealthy patrons. Thus the empire was becoming decentralized.

This would become the basis for medieval feudalism.

8. No One Wanted to Join the Army --- Why would you? You're dirt poor and have no opportunities. If you joined the army you may not even get the opportunity to defend the empire, as you're gonna get killed in a stupid civil war fighting a fellow Roman who is also dirt poor and has no opportunities. Your government is corrupt, your emperor is a snobbish entitled incompetent dipshit who was out of touch with reality, the tax man is trying to squeeze you for money you don't have, you have no rights, you've been forced to become a peasant to a proto-feudal lord, and it is clear the empire is dying. By the mid 5th century most Romans were like, "let it fucking die". As a result, the army suffered severe manpower shortages. Right at the time when Goths and Franks and Vandals and Huns are going to start swarming into the empire.

These to me are the primary reasons for the fall. Anyone have anything else to add in addition to this?

[simply-ivanka]

Are the Democrats trying to assassinate President Trump, or are they just rooting for it?

Shortly after Donald Trump was inaugurated after the 2016 election, a so-called comedienne posted a picture of herself holding Trump’s severed, bloodied head. That apparently passes for comedy among Democrats.

In a presentation of Julius Caesar in the venerable Shakespeare in the Park production in New York City a few months later, a likeness of Trump was cast in the role of Caesar. I don’t need to remind you what happens to Caesar in the end.

The violent rhetoric from Democrats just keeps on coming, through Trump’s first term, into this year’s re-election campaign, and right up to weeks before the election. And now, it’s predictably escalating from violent rhetoric and into violent acts.

A month ago, a would-be assassin missed Trump’s cranium by a quarter-inch with a bullet from an AR-15, only because Trump luckily turned at the last possible second. It came out that the Trump campaign had requested beefed-up security prior to the incident, and the White House had denied his request.

The Secret Service at the time was headed by a DEI hire, and the agents at the event were test-failing amateurs. They allowed the shooter within 130 yards of Trump on an unsecured rooftop. Even after they saw him there, with a gun, they failed to take him out and failed to alert Trump or his staff until he’d fired eight shots, killing one man, seriously wounding another, and grazing Trump’s ear.  

In an apparent admission of near-lethal negligence by the Service, five agents were later suspended.

Their replacements seem not much better. In yesterday’s attempt, a Democrat donor got within easy range of Trump on a golf course with a rifle equipped with a high-powered scope. The shooter was wearing a Go-Pro, apparently to post his assassination on YouTube where Democrats everywhere could cheer it. He was thwarted only because he was foolish enough to poke his rifle out of the bushes, where an agent happened to see it.

The shooter had been on the golf course for at least 12 hours. One must wonder, how did he know Trump’s golfing schedule at least 12 hours in advance?

Even now, after two assassination attempts that missed due only to incredible luck or Providence, President Trump is not afforded the level of protection that President Biden or even Vice President Harris receives.

Most recently, President Doofus again falsely accused Trump of saying that neo-Nazis are “fine people” even though that accusation has been thoroughly debunked even by leftist fact-checkers.

Kamala Harris repeated the lie in her debate with Trump – and was not corrected by the moderators even though the moderators purported to correct at least seven Trump statements (some of which were not factual claims, but mere opinions).

You might think the mainstream media would condemn these assassination attempts in the strongest words possible. But if you do think that, then you haven’t been paying attention to the mainstream media for the last ten years.

The mainstream media is implying – no, they’re outright stating – that Trump has all this coming because he’s a Republican who says nasty things. The Washington Post has already dismissed the assassination attempt and has framed it instead as Trump unfairly capitalizing on the incident politically.

The media take their cue from Biden and Harris. They routinely equate Trump with Adolf Hitler, the mass murderer of millions.

The Democrats let their rank and file connect the dots: Everyone has been taught, correctly, that killing Hitler would have been a heroic act that would have saved millions. So, the Democrats don’t exactly say “kill Trump” but they do suggest you’d be a hero if you did.

[lets-try-some-writing]

I had an ANGSTY idea

I imagine a scene where it's just a normal day at the base where the children are just hanging out and talking with their guardians (optimus and ratchet are over seeing decepticon activity)

somehow the topic of how long humans lives are comes up. The kids are oblivious to what they just revealed to the bots and seconds after this fact is shared all the bots freeze with realization and horror dawns on them.

Now whenever the bots are with the kids they act more happier and more willing to do what the kids want (and alot more protective) but under the facade is nothing but depression and sadness (the kids still oblivious)

Oh and optimus has a breakdown since he sees them as his own sparklings

Angst my old friend. I love this concept.

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙

It was not exactly a secret when it came to the short lives of organics compared to Cybertronians. The team were well aware that most organics tended to only live as long as a few centuries at best and possibly a millennia or two with technological adaptations. For them the lives of organics were still but a passing wind, but at least with a few centuries there was time for Cybertronians to grow close to their organic comrades. The team had each met other organics before and during the war, they knew how the organics near Cybertron worked for the most part. Thus they were not particularly concerned with the humans, although they did wonder why they grew so quickly and seemed to deteriorate with such swiftness when they had centuries left ahead of them.

The team largely did not think too much on the biological functioning of the humans and instead focused on their work. Despite that, eventually one particular Prime found himself uncertain.

Optimus found it particularly confusing how humans seemed to die so young all the time. In his free time he took joy in reading documents from Earth and learning their history. It seemed all of Earth's influential people died young. Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Plato, Socrates, Sun Tzu, George Washington, and so many other influential figures, all dead before their second century of life. It concerned the Prime greatly, especially upon noting how involved the children, June, and Fowler were becoming in their activities. If there was some sort of genetic issue or other ailment that killed off those with influence, he needed to know immediately.

He brought his concerns to Ratchet who in turn gathered the attention of the team. This concern quickly spread and so as one unit the team researched human lives and reasons for offlinement. Before too long they came to the startling conclusion that almost every recorded human life ended when the human in question was around a century old. Some older religious and mythological records indicated that once upon a time humanity could indeed live for centuries, but that seemed to no longer be the case. Seeing this, fear for their charges wormed its way into the sparks of the team. Why were the humans dying so young? What happened to humanity to shorten their lives so drastically? Were their young charges doomed to die in the same manner?

Those questions haunted the team and in the end they decided to simply ask the children to see if there was some form of cultural misunderstanding causing them distress. The children were of course a little confused and it ended up being June who had to explain as the team huddled around, eager to understand and see if there was any way to stop the impending deaths of their wards.

Optimus: I have studied your history and it seems in the last few millennia humanity has failed to live longer than a century at most. Why is that?

June: We only live so long Optimus. We aren't big metal aliens from space like you.

Ratchet: That is true, but we have met organics before. Those that interacted with Cybertron before the war generally lived at least two centuries.

June: I-

Bulkhead: Is there some sort of illness killing you off?

Arcee: Maybe a conspiracy? I've heard of some organic civilizations killing off the older members of their population.

Bumblebee: *Is someone hurting you? We will stop them in that case!*

Optimus: Bumblebee is correct. If your race is under threat, we will gladly assist in stopping the needless death.

June: What? No. What you read are old myths, stories made up by humanity during various ages. They aren't real, we don't live much longer than a century and we never have.

Ratchet: What? But your historical records-!

June: Stories Ratchet. Just stories. Humans usually live around ninety years before we die. That is just the way of things.

Bulkhead: Then the kids-

June: Just like every human before them, they will grow old, and then when their time is up, they will die.

Not a word was uttered at the team slowly scattered, each considering what had been revealed to them. Suddenly a great deal had changed, and not a spark could change things.

Arcee had lost plenty of partners over her long life, but a human? And to old age of all things? She was terrified of that end. She would have to watch as he deteriorated and his frame failed him. How could she look at Jack and not imagine the way his skin would gain wrinkles and how his youthful energy would fade away into the bone deep weariness she observed in the elder humans she noted from a distance. A century was not long, it was hardly the Cybertronian equivalent of a year. Her boy was going to perish before she knew it, and there was not a thing she could do to stop it. Tears were useless, and yet in the quiet of her quarters she wept until she steeled herself. She would give her boy all the affection and care she could over his lifetime, and hopefully in doing so, she could ease the ache of loss that was to come.

Bulkhead was left not as grieved and more saddened above all else. It was easier for him to handle the concept of youthful deaths in organics due to his long service with the wreckers and their allies. He was not upset at Miko dying long before him. No, what saddened him was that she would never have the chance to be a wrecker on a restored Cybertron. By the time their world was restored and things put into motion, he small body would have deteriorated enough to make being a wrecker near impossible for her, at least if she wished to be active. That chance was going to be denied to her because of her fleshy frame, and that above all else had him offering as much opportunity to let her be a wrecker as possible. She would not see the height of Cybertronian military and rescue efforts, but she would have a taste of it, that was his promise.

Bumblebee for his part panicked. He knew organics didn't live long, but he had not expected Rafael's life to come to an end so soon. If Rafael lived according to human standards, he would be dead before Bumblebee's next forging day. He had grown to care deeply for the child, and so while he was no fool and well used to death and the concept of it, his spark still panged with loss. Not knowing what else to do, he threw himself into spending time with Rafael as much as he could outside of patrols and battles. If his friend was going to die so soon, Bumblebee was going to try and be there as a comfort for as long as possible. He tried not to think about the fact that his human companion would perish and silenced any discussion of it when he could. He knew Rafael and every other living being would die eventually, he saw death, he was well acquainted with it, and yet still he was not fond of inviting it by considering it too deeply.

Ratchet was neither particularly shocked or upset, but he was somewhat saddened as he looked over June and the children. He was old, very old. He had been around far longer than even Optimus. Death was not a stranger to him, and he merely found himself nodding along when June spoke the truth. There was nothing to be done and he doubted the children would care for augmentations to extend their lives when all their peers would perish long before they would in that situation. He merely sighed and came to be more gentle with the children. They were incredibly young, even by the standards of their own species. They would not live to see their star go out, and that was likely for the best. To him it was best to let them live a life not burdened by the concept of eternity.

Optimus was quiet after the revelation. He kept to himself for a time, thinking, contemplating, and considering. He knew that his organic charges were not to last, but he had not expected their lives to be so short. His spark cried within him, saddened at what was in his mind, the imminent deaths of several sparklings. He knew of cases where sparklings came from the Well too weak to last. In those situations they were tended to with love and care until at last their small frames failed them and they returned to Primus. It was not the same since the humans would be able to live up to their full potential by their species' standards long before death came for them. But to a Cybertronian? They would not last longer than a Cybertronian year, and that brought him grief. There had been no young for so long, and now those he had come to care for were going to perish so soon? He did not like to consider it and so locked the sorrow away and followed Ratchet's lead, tending to the humans with gentleness and grace.

In response to the team's conflicting emotions, the children found themselves treated with far more kindness than before. Jack was given rights to ride with Arcee far more often and no longer did she try to dismiss him as much. Bulkhead, and later Wheeljack once he understood the situation, took every care to train Miko as a true wrecker, giving her weapons and opportunity she would never have otherwise. Bumblebee went out of his way to speak with Rafael, to tell him stories, and to otherwise speak of all he had seen in order to give his human ward a vision of that which he would never experience due to his short life. Ratchet did not change his behavior much, but he was less hasty in his wrath and spoke to June, more willing to learn human medicine and customs. Optimus fell to offering gifts and wisdom to the humans under his care. He could not be there for them as he would with normal sparklings, but he could show them wonders and offer the wisdom of ages long gone by.

The children found it strange but did not object to the additional attention until it started to grow somewhat suffocating. Only then did they ask why.

Jack: Look, as much as I like being able to go for rides whenever I want, why are you being so nice?

Miko: Yeah, and why are you being so... sad about everything?

Rafael: Is something wrong?

Arcee: Its nothing like that we just-

Ratchet, glaring at the rest of the team: You humans do not live long, at least not compared to us. You lives hardly make up one of our years. They are trying to treat you gently because they are upset about it.

Bulkhead: Well that's a bit of an exaggeration-

Ratchet: No its not.

Jack: Wait, so you mean that since we are going to die eventually, you are being nice to us?

Rafael: We are only teenagers, we aren't going to die anytime soon. There's no need to be sad.

Bumblebee, close to tears: *But there is! You are going to be dead in just over a year for us! And we can't do anything to stop it!*

Miko: Oh, so you are upset because we won't live as long as you.

Optimus: That would be correct... We have not had young of our own since Cybertron fell, and that was many vorns ago. To have you children in our lives has given us hope, and to now know you will not linger with us... we are sorrowful.

Ratchet: Don't stress yourselves over it.

There was little else to say after that revelation, but the children did what they could to comfort their functionally immortal guardians. It wasn't much, but a smile and a thank you every now and then eased the sorrow the team were blanketed in. The humans would die within the blink of an eye for a race from beyond the stars. But that did not stop them from enjoying what time they had.

[stinkw333d]

S2 Title Analysis

I had a lot of fun doing this, and now we're less than a week out from S3! Finally! I didn't notice until after posting last seasons' analysis that I didn't really find any connection to the adult timeline in those titles (not that they aren't there). It's harder to assign titles to just the one timeline this season. The adult survivors are together again, and it seems like the timelines are getting more muddled as they're forced to dive into their past.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen

-This is probably the most famous line from Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, and is said by Mark Antony 

- The next line is, “Lend me your ears” 

- The line obviously isn’t literal in the play, Mark is just telling everyone to listen to his funeral speech. Yellowjackets, on the other hand, said “oh we’ve got a spare ear to lend, homoerotically of course.” 

- The writers are honestly funny as fuck for this title, it’s just as clever and descriptive as St Transit Gloria Mundi. 

Edible Complex

-My brain almost always imagines a comma in this title, “edible, complex.” I almost wish they had put one in. The team is starving, the winter has driven off the animals, and… The wilderness slow-cooks Jackie. Jackie is… edible, and they’re obviously in… a complex scenario for that option to even be on the table. It’s almost like a caveman trying to explain the heaviness of the plot, “Jackie, edible! But, is complex…”

- I also just googled the phrase, and nothing came up besides an old article about an art installation at the BSU Burchfield Penney Art Center, with the same title (no comma). It seems unlikely that the writers were trying to connect the title of this episode with that installation, but there’s a quote from the article I read about it that I thought was worth adding, 

“These and other works in the exhibition offer a playful critique on the influences of what we consume. They explore connections that American society has to food, from the most basic need for survival and sustenance to the complicated behaviors of addiction, desire, manipulation and worship. Edible Complex helps us examine who we are, if we are what we eat.”

Digestif

- French for “digestive” 

- Bet they wished they had one this morning, eh?

- Essentially a fancy word for an alcoholic drink served after a meal. Typically some sort of liquor, or sherry. 

- RIP Jackie though you didn’t deserve all that

Old Wounds

- This is the first title that has anything to do with the adult timeline at all in my mind

- In the adult TL, Natalie is at Lottie's compound trying to get answers about Travis, trying to heal that decades old wound. She goes with Lisa to sell at the farmers market, and Lisa takes them on a detour to her mother’s house, to see her fish. Nat watches the two of them argue, tells Lisa’s mom to fuck off on her behalf, steals the fish, and then her and Lisa bond at a bar afterward. You have to assume Natalie sees herself in Lisa, I don’t think she’d do all that for just anybody (she probably also feels bad about, y’know, stabbing her). And then Lisa, with her piercings and dark eyeliner, asks her directly, “Do you still want to kill yourself?” to which Nat replies, “Not today!” and it does seem like the truth. Spending the day with Lisa really did seem to unexpectedly heal some wounds for Nat.

- Taissa, on the other hand, is reopening old wounds, violently. She’s fugue sleepwalking during the day, and whatever part of her is in charge, takes her to Van. I think as a collective fandom, we all always knew it was Tai who broke up with Van (and now we know for sure) so Tai is not only choosing to open her old wounds, but Van’s as well. Tai is honestly causing outrageous amounts of emotional and material distress for our poor sweet Van by searching her out. 

- Lottie too is reopening wounds, in a very literal sense. She’s hallucinating again, which, like Tai’s sleepwalking, hasn’t happened since the wilderness. She isn't satisfied with what her interim psychiatrist tells her about coping with her visions, and does what she knows she can trust to appease whatever she believes is causing them. She goes to an altar and offers blood, the cut she makes on her hand in the exact same place as what we saw teen Lottie do earlier in the episode. 

- Shauna and Jeff open and close wounds like it’s their job. Almost everything about their dynamic, and what they do throughout the show, is like putting bandaids on bullet wounds. Their entire marriage is built on the scar of a wound, they’re literally one of the best fail couples I’ve ever seen. 

Two Truths and A Lie

-Said it in the episode, Walter tries to start a game of two truths and a lie with Misty (where he chooses not to lie)

-There’s a lot of spilling truths and telling lies in this episode in general. It makes sense that Misty wasn’t into the game though, seeing what happened the last time she was overly truthful with someone.

Qui 

-We’re doing French again!

-It’s a relative pronoun, and when translated, can mean “who, which, or that” 

-I tend to skip this one in rewatches due to the heaviness of the content, but I did put it on in the background while I analyzed this seasons’ titles. No connection to the title really came to me until the end, when Shauna actually wakes up after labor, she starts accusing the rest of the team, “What did you do? Where is he?” Which, translated to French is, “Qu'est-ce que tu as fait? où est-il?” 

-I assumed there would be some sort of double meaning here, but it seems like it’s just a line from the episode title. “Qu’est” is just “Qui” conjugated, as far as I can remember from my HS French class. 

-God Sophie Nelisse staring the camera down in the last moments of the episode, sobbing, asking you, the viewer, “Why can’t you hear him crying?!” Wish she wouldn’t! 

Burial

- Pretty literal. The snow stops, and Shauna buries her baby. 

- She also takes all of her sorrow and rage out on Lottie, in the least helpful way for any of them, and beats the shit out of her. Lottie acknowledges that Shauna has barely processed everything that’s happened to her. What went down with Jackie, and now her baby is dead, there’s only so much she can take. She can’t keep everything buried inside her forever. We saw that Shauna is barely holding it together as is when she finally snapped at Jackie before she died. Once Shauna really truly snaps on Lottie, though, that scene almost functions as a prequel, a sneak peek into what Shauna really has going on behind her sad, haunted, brown eyes. 

-Obviously adult Shauna hasn’t worked past this pattern of behavior (Everything With Adam, taking the gun from the carjacker, seeking out and threatening the carjacker, Bruce the goat)

- Adult Nat talks about her own memories of the wilderness being hazy, and Tai finishes “Like they’ve been stuffed somewhere (buried) deep down?” 

-Tai is honestly lord supreme of burying emotions and exploding later, it’s just in a more slow-burn kind of way

- I got into this show pretty recently, but I wish I could have seen the fandom-wide reactions to Qui and this episode, as they came out. Like Shauna literally punched Misty and bit Van, all in one breath, before almost killing Lottie, what the fuck?? 

It Chooses

-A parallel episode to Doomcoming in my mind, due to it also being the penultimate episode of the season, and because of what plays out. 

-Doomcoming was obviously a sort of kick-start to the girls’ sanity, and regular societal reasoning chipping away out there, and we get a teaser of a hunt when they chase Travis down in the woods. 

-At this point, Lottie has told them that she doesn’t want to go to waste if she dies, so the rest of the girls essentially decide to trade one of their lives for hers. 

-Nat draws the queen, Javi dies in her place, because Misty saves Nat.

-(god everyone’s face when Nat draws the queen… Shauna putting the necklace on her… “you’re gonna have to look me in the eye,” it all makes me hold my breath.)

-I am a Misty apologist forever, and I will probably post about her soon, but I have a sort of headcannon that Misty is kind of treating her time in the wilderness like an experiment, or at least, like she’s a scientist observing one. At this point I don’t think she has any more faith in Lottie than Shauna or Nat do, but she’s participating anyway, observing. She says all the right things to Lottie and about Lottie in front of Mari, #1 member of the Wilderness Cult, knowing Mari already doesn’t like her. It's far easier for Misty to get Mari’s help caring for Lottie, if she believes Misty also believes that Lottie is the reason they’re all still alive (fuck Misty’s drag though, huh, Mari? Did Lottie take the red cross babysitters class, twice? Did you??)

-It’s also pretty clear in this episode that Misty knows what’s really going on with Lottie, she knows she’s not psychic, she’s mentally ill. 

-Adult Lottie also claims, to the other survivors, that they didn’t all just come back together by chance, “it chooses what It wants,” It chose to bring them all together again. 

Storytelling

-TLDR Misty to Lottie: “We both know what’s really happening to you, you can bullshit them, and keep with this wilderness nonsense, but you cannot bullshit me. They had this idea because of you, so you’d better be grateful I even had the foresight to save your girlfriend’s life on top of it.” 

-The adult survivors agree to a “traditional hunt” at Lottie’s request to “give It what It wants, It won’t stop until It gets what It wants.” We get to see that the events of the first hunt essentially established the ritual for the hunts that came after. The choice to submit or be hunted, established by Nat. The acceptance that the wilderness will always make the final choice. Nat was the first to choose the queen, and “It” chose Javi to die in her place. Shauna draws the queen in the current day hunt, but Lottie still accepts Nat’s death as what “It” wanted. 

-I am desperate to know what happens if you refuse the draw

-The episode is aptly named, it really establishes what the big secret has been the whole time, the story that only existed in the minds of the survivors and the pages of Shauna’s journals; the story the whole world wants to hear, that the Yellowjackets are desperate to keep hidden

[enlitment]

Some Julius Caesar x The Danton Case Parallels to Celebrate the Ides of March, Frev Style 🔪🥳

Firstly, both Przybyszewska’s Danton Case and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar are obviously (excellent!) tragedies that are set in a dying republic on the brink of collapse.

Here are some other interesting parallels I was able to trace:

1. Brutus and Robespierre:

Both of them are driven to execute an important figure even though they initially do not want to do it. They are both conflicted but feel like they have no other choice and have to commit the violent act for the good of the republic.

They are also arguably quite alike in terms of character: you have the „noble Brutus“ and then Robespierre, who is consistently referred to as „the Incorruptible“. Both are seen by others as selfless and committed to the good of the state (the people in the crowd very much emphasise this fact in both of the plays, I do have the receipts)

There is even the scene in which Brutus chastises Cassius for taking bribes, which plays into the idea of him as being (literally) “incorruptible” as well. And vice versa, traces of Brutus’ famed stoicism can then certainly be found in Maximilien.

2. Cassius and Saint-Just:

Both are characters who convince the protagonists (Brutus/Robespierre) to go along the violent act while not necessarily being portrayed as antagonists (at least Saint-Just definitely can't be seen as one in Przybyszewska’s play).

There are also parallels in the close relationship between Brutus and Cassius and Robespierre and Saint-Just, where they are very much portrayed as each other’s closest confidants. Of course, this idea can easily be pushed even further if one wishes to read between the lines. (There is no Camille Desmoulins in Shakespeare though)

3. Manipulating the Crowd:

I'm perhaps the most fascinated by how both Brutus and Mark Antony as well as Robespierre and Danton have the necessary rhetorical skills to manipulate the crowd of commoners (Robespierre being able to “play the crowd like an organ” very much came to my mind when I was reading Act 3 Scene 2 of the Shakespeare’s play).

Both Shakespeare and Przybyszewska portray “the court of public opinion” and how it can easily be manipulated - how opinions can be changed in the matter of minutes - in a way that is genuinely fascinating.

Specifically, the similarity between A3S2 in which people first listen to Brutus only to be immediately swayed by Mark Antony’s speech shortly after and the scene in the court in which Danton manipulates the crowd were in fact so similar in some respects that it was borderline uncanny.

The problem arises when looking for a mirror to Danton’s character in Shakespeare’s play.

4. The Case for Danton x Caesar:

It is Caesar who gets killed for being perceived as a danger to the republic

Both Caesar and Danton are portrayed as being very much beloved by the common people

Also, the idea of Danton being immortal is expressed at the end of Przybyszewka’s play, and while he does not come back literally as a ghost like Ceasar does, Robespierre nonetheless explains to Saint-Just that Danton’s spirit never truly dies.

5. The Case for Danton x Mark Antony:

If we see Danton and Robespierre as foils, Mark Antony makes more sense as a parallel to Danton (even though he does not die), since both Robespierre and Brutus as the classic ascetic/stoic archetype while Danton and Mark Antony’s are well-known for their appetite for drinking, women (or, you know, people, in the case of Mark Antony) , and the pleasures of life overall.

Both are also severely underestimated by their enemies at first, yet they prove to be quite cunning and are able to use their words skilfully to win over the public

Overall, reading both of the plays – especially the parts about manipulating the Roman public and the citizens of Paris just with the power of words – really makes me wonder if Przybyszewska read Shakespeare’s play and used it as a source of inspiration. It would make sense, especially given how the parallel between the French Republic and the Roman Republic was well-established long before her time (even, somewhat tragically, by the revolutionaries themselves).

I promise I think about Przybyszewska's and Shakespeare’s play and the Roman Republic along with the French Revolution a totally normal amount of time & that it definitely does not consume my every waking thought that should be very much going towards the exam preparation.

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 40: The Master, The Master, and The Master

oh my fucking gods how is it part 40 already....here have a lot of Master stuff to celebrate lol

The Delgado Master once allied himself with the Nurazh, a mind parasite. The could simultaneously control thousands of minds but ended up betrayed the Master because of course they did. While the Third Doctor was fighting the Nurazh, they fell off the roof of the building, causing him to begin to regenerate into his Fourth self. Trying to control the Doctor while he was technically two minds killed the Nurazh but not before they incidentally healed the Third Doctor of all his wounds, preventing his further regeneration. (Short story: The Touch of the Nurazh)

The Reborn Master was the one to disfigure the Decayed Master while working with the Cult of the Heretic. This cult then betrayed him by doing a body swap between the Reborn Master and the Decayed Master. (Audio: The Two Masters)

Missy considers the hijacking of the Concorde to be one of her least successful plans ever. (Audio: Two Monks, One Mistress)

After the Cheetah Planet ceased to exist, the Master was immediately deposited in the Doctor’s TARDIS because it was a piece of Gallifrey on Earth. He immediately stole the Identity Recognition Module and hijacked the TARDIS, meaning that the Seventh Doctor and Ace could only wait to see where the Master was planning on taking them. (Short story: How did this creep get in here, Professor?)

Scissor bugs are a common Gallifreyan pest. One time, when the Master was just a student, he watched happily as thousands of males tried to mate with a single queen, only to die because he had put the queen in a jelly jar. (Short story: The Duke of Dominoes)

In the same story, while scheming, the Delgado Master was gathering shards of the Godhead, a source of unlimited power, in Chicago. During this time, he gets mugged, works in a soup kitchen for several days, is betrayed by his allies, is chased by a giant statue of Abraham Lincoln, and is buried under building rubble. The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane then materialize in the TARDIS on top of him, take some of his stuff, and leave. (Short story: The Duke of Dominoes)

The Reborn Master once impersonated the Doctor to infiltrate UNIT. The actual impersonation bit was actually successful. (Audio: Dominion)

Teddy Sparkles appeared to be wish granting magical teddy bear, but he could alter timelines and the whole universe. Thus, Missy kidnapped him in an attempt to take over Earth. (Short story: Teddy Sparkles Must Die!)

The Delgado Master once kidnapped a pop group and used the power of music to hypnotize anyone who listened. (Short story: Smash Hit)

Julius Caesar once took the Tremas Master prisoner after he tried to poison him. Ace asked the Seventh Doctor what will become of the Master, and the Doctor is confident that his old friend would be back one day. And he wasn't wrong either - the Master did one day come back to rekindle their friendship but as Missy instead. (Comic: Crossing the Rubicon)

While in 49 BCE, the Doctor went by Septimus Doctus, which surprised the Tremas Master as he had expected the Doctor to use Theta Sigma. (Comic: Crossing the Rubicon)

While the Monk was disguised as Henry VIII, Missy agreed to marry him to call his bluff. (Audio: Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated)

While in the body of a Trakenite, the Master still possessed a binary vascular system. (Short story: A Master of Disguise)

In an aborted timeline, the final form the Master would take would be an entropy wave. (Audio: Masterful)

Also in this same aborted timeline, the Saxon Master killed the Thirteenth Doctor, throwing her into the heart of a star. He then invited many of his past selves - the Young Master, the Decayed Master, the Bruce Master, the Reborn Master, and the War Master to celebrate. Kamelion was there disguised as the Tremas Master, and when they tried to bring in the Delgado Master, they accidentally brought in Jo Grant instead. Missy also party-crashed, much to the Saxon Master's chagrin. (Audio: Masterful)

When the Thirteenth Doctor implied to Missy that she had met a future incarnation of the Master who was once again male presenting, Missy was horrified. (Novel: The Wonderful Doctor of Oz)

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[sregan]

On 'Megalopolis'

I have seen 'Megalopolis: A Fable'. My assessment in one word is that it's 'striking'. It's a striking film - which is not necessarily to say that it is a 'good' film. It may be an 'important' film, insofar as it's likely the last film by the creator of 'The Godfather', 'The Conversation' and 'Apocalypse Now', and self-funded.

It's also a very strange film. In almost every scene there's something bizarre - not necessarily in the sense of worldbuilding but in terms of the directorial choices made.

For some reason 'Megalopolis' was not marketed as a work of alternate history, which I think could have brought in more attention, but a 'fable', with a heavy-handed opening monologue about the similarities between the modern USA and Rome. It's ostensibly set in the 21st century in 'New Rome', a modern city with Roman affectations - though it's also mentioned at times that it's still in the United States of America and that Elvis existed in this reality.

The best analogy I can make is that it feels like one of those adaptations to film of a Shakespearean play but set in the modern day, where much of the dialogue has been updated but the main speeches have been left in the original language (indeed, sections of dialogue from Hamlet and The Tempest appear unmodified); but without the source play.

'Megalopolis' is - though few critics seem to be crediting this - a loose adaptation of the life of Lucius Sergius Catilina, somewhat annealed with Julius Caesar (furnishing protagonist Cesar Catalina as played by Adam Driver). The real Catalina is a rival of Cicero (here Mayor Cicero as played by Giancarlo Esposito), prosecuted for an affair with a vestal virgin by Publius Clodius Pulcher - here Clodius Pulcher as played by Shia Labeouf - and accused of killing his wife in order to marry Aurelia Orestilla, the daughter of the consol (who has been merged with Cicero to create Julia Cicero, the Mayor's daughter, as played by Nathalie Emmanuel). All this happens in the film.

The real historical Catalina, of course, was the mastermind behind the Catalinarian Conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow Cicero and Hybrida and seize power. In the first of many changes, Coppola changes this to make Clodius the leader of the plot and Cesar Catalina innocent. While the historical Crassus uncovered the plot and told the Senate, Jon Voight's Hamilton Crassus is betrayed by his unfaithful trophy wife (clearly a reference to Tertulla) and Clodius in a 'Dallas' spoof sideplot, but eventually gets the upper hand and backs Catalina with his wealth.

At this point we should address the elephant in the room. In 'Megalopolis: A Fable', Cesar Catalina is an architect who wishes to build a new shining city, the titular Megapolis, using a revolutionary new metal he has developed, Megalon. This makes startling sense when you realise Coppola has long dreamed of adapting Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'. Cesar is clearly intended to be a mix of Howard Roark and Henry Rearden from Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged', a visionary steelmaker who has developed 'Rearden Metal'.

However, Megalon may have a dark secret - Mayor Cicero says it's rumoured he used his dead wife's body to manufacture the metal. While the introduction of this rumour is cack-handed (Cicero just whispers it to Cesar at an event), it's at least an intriguing take based on a real historical rumour. This in combination with the source material - a scheming politician who launches a coup - might make you wonder if Coppola is playing Sympathy for the Devil here and will reveal Cesar as a villain protagonist (as far as I can tell, he doesn't intend this).

Cesar also has the ability to stop time. Very literally; he can talk to Time (capital T) and tell it to do things. The first scene of the film - which may be Cesar attempting suicide or testing this power for the same time - sees Driver's character on the roof of the Chrysler Building, teetering on the edge. As he begins to tip forward, he intones 'Time: stop!' and finds his body hovering in mid-air, allowing him to cautiously wuxia-float his way back onto the building (remember this).

This may all sound rather Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, but never fear - this power, which seems like it should be the metaphorical crux of the entire film (timestop as a metaphor for stagnation in a dying empire?), is largely irrelevant other than leading Julia to investigate him and then join his agency.

Oh yes, that's another thing that radically alters the dynamic from a hypothetical Francis Ford Coppola's Fountainhead; Cesar isn't a private architect but the head of a government agency, the Design Authority. We aren't told how he came into this role but he begins the film with his own staff, security, and lavish office, which makes him feel like much less of an underdog.

Cesar's Design Authority is pulling down slum buildings to replace them with his utopian Megalon developments - the plot can't quite decide whether he's doing this inside the law, but the result seems to be people forced onto the street - a clear nod, you might think, towards gentrification, although later plot points make this murkier.

Julia sees Cesar using his time stop ability during a demolition, seemingly to judge whether the collapse is safe (though what he would be able to do if it wasn't is unclear). Frustratingly we never see what this looks like to 'normal' people; Julia is the only person other than him to be able to manipulate time and we only ever see it from one of their perspectives. More on this later.

Esposito's Mayor Cicero is initially introduced as a hollow populist, who wants to use the demolished plots of land for crowd-pleasing moneymakers such as a casino. He shows off a slick model of the proposed pleasure palace, which seems to get the approval of the gathered journalists. Cesar, meanwhile, gives a philosophical speech urging grander ambitions ("Don't let the present get in the way of forever!") and offers to go through his design documents. I'm uncertain whether we are supposed to understand this to be what it looks like - that Cesar does not have people skills and finds it hard to communicate his genius - because Driver is given all sorts of quippy Tony Stark-like lines and business as he arrives to the meeting and otherwise reads as charming and personable.

This scene includes one of the most sophomoric film-school student lines in the film. When Cicero menacingly brings up Cesar's wife's death, he says: "Well, as you were the prosecutor in that case, you know I was found not guilty."

At this point Cesar is involved with Plaza's journalist femme fatale (name, I kid you not, 'Wow Platinum') but - I'm unsure whether we actually see them break up on screen - she falls for billionaire Crassus and Cesar becomes involved with Julia who, after mentioning she saw him stop time, receives work with his agency (much to her father's chagrin).

Before it's fully established that she has fallen for him, she follows him and sees him buy flowers and visit what I think is supposed to be his wife's home; we see him place them by her bedside and stroke her hair - she seems to be comatose rather than dead, but when Julia sees the same scene Cesar is alone, seemingly hallucinating. Julia somehow knows Cesar is hallucinating his wife and whispers "He still loves her!". This is one of many elements of 'Megalopolis' that make me think that despite being a self-funded auteur project, the narrative was muddled in the edit and a more coherent through-line must have existed at some point. If this scene came after Julia and Cesar were an item, it might have some emotional weight.

The chapters of the films are introduced with narration by Lawrence Fishburne, serving as Cesar's faithful chauffeur (an element that, perhaps, lets on that Coppola has been pitching this film for fifty years). The 'Bread and Circuses' chapter sees a lavish wedding for Crassus and Wow (sic.), with a Ben Hur-style chariot race and Pro Wrestling-themed gladiators. The effeminate villain Clodius appears, crossdressing after the style of the historical Caligula.

In a scene clearly intended to take aim at religious right virginity pledges, a 'vestal virgin' pop star is used to raise money by encouraging the wealthy to financially 'support' her pledge of virginity. However, as the bidding reaches 100 billion, Clodius bribes the AV technician to display on the jumbotron (!) a sex tape of the 'virgin' and Cesar, resulting in a scandal.

In a sequence clearly inspired by Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis', an intoxicated Cesar - presumably having seen the jumbotron but it's not entirely clear - hallucinates his arms moving in the shape of a clock. I initially thought this whole sequence (intercut with a gymnastic display which appears to go wrong) was intended to represent the aghast Cesar's powers going out of control and causing mayhem, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Instead his limo is stopped by police and he is arrested for corrupting a minor and statutory rape - a genuinely bold choice of peril for a protagonist and one I don't think would fly in any major studio production post-Harvey Weinstein!

Julia is oddly certain he must be innocent - again, the two are not clearly an item at this point; he's her boss - and investigates, finding that VanderWaal's vestal virgin's birth certificate was fabricated and she was in fact born out of the country six years earlier, meaning she was 23 at the time of the tape, not 17. Interestingly, in the newspaper montage showing Cesar being cleared, a voiceover also mentions the footage was found to be edited and fradulent, begging the question of why the birth certificate was even important - I can only think this VO was added after principal photography and originally the character did sleep with a girl he believed to be underage.

Again, an odd scene order - after being cleared, Julia finds a distraught Cesar on top of an under-construction building (what this is is unclear as none of his Megalon buildings use girders like this but it's a repeated location - put a pin in that). He has lost his confidence in his ability to command time and she coaxes him into regaining his mojo; he is able to stop time again with the formula 'For the sake of Julia, Time, please stop'. Again, this feels like it should have more narrative weight than it does; he 'loses' his powers for all of one scene and it doesn't impact his career or plans. It also feels like it should have come before the formal resolution of his legal woes. The hero losing his supernatural powers at the start of the second act and needing either to regain his confidence to use them or learning he must not rely on them is a well-worn superhero trope and it almost feels like Coppola felt compelled to include it since he had a super-powered protagonist but didn't understand or care to put it to any more significant use.

I forget where the scene takes place where he meets Wow again; she attempts to seduce him and offers him Crassus's bank, which she says she will steal away from him. He rebuffs her and in one of the worst pieces of professionally produced cinema I have ever seen, we fade to and from a closeup of the car's wheel driving over the coat he gives her. It wasn't even necessary to cut in - the coat is clearly visible and the audience expects the action from the way she throws it down - and the cut is executed horribly; it genuinely feels like a mistake, like a misplaced clip in Final Cut Pro.

Shortly thereafter, Cesar is approached by a young boy who asks him to sign an autograph. Utterly bafflingly, Nathalie Emmanuel is given the line of dialogue 'Cesar would never say no to a child'. This is a couple of scenes after he is accused of statutory rape; if it was meant to be delivered with wry humour, no-one told Emmanuel. In any case, the child shoots him in the face, having been revealed as an agent of Clodius.

We then get an abstract montage of what may be Cesar's dying hallucinations, with the repeated refrain (I think I remember this correctly:) "I will not give death dominion over my thoughts". It would not be unreasonable for one of the following to happen:

a.) Somehow Cesar is able to not just stop time but reverse it. We see a flower shrinking back into a bud and I was fully expecting to see the clip of his blood flowing on the street reversing. He has regained his powers and now has new incredible mastery. Or:

b.) The damage to his brain means Cesar cannot use his powers. Julia must step in and make the leap of faith - Cesar is injured now but was not so in the past. 'Time: Heal all wounds!').

Neither of these happen.

Instead, we see snippets of what seems to be a mostly cut scene where Julia and the scientist character replace the missing portions of Cesar's skull and brain with Megalon. This seems to be a triumphant return and we see him awake, bandaged but cogent.

In the next scenes, a slurring and seemingly brain-damaged, still bandaged Cesar who repeatedly shouts "No, no, no!" for some reason forces his way into Crassus's mansion to find out why the billionaire's bank has frozen his accounts. This is revealed to be a scheme of Wow at the behest of Clodius. She once again attempts to seduce Cesar (even after he reveals his horrific transparent gold skull-face) but is forced to stop when Crassus arrives.

After this, Wow turns her seductive attentions to Lebeouf's Clodius and persuades him to get Voight's character to sign over control of the bank in a rather shoddy bathhouse scene that I think is intended to show Crassus having a heart attack and aides rushing to his rescue, but which I initially believed showed him being stabbed by Clodius's accomplices. When Wow seduces Clodius she cuts his hair (something Crassus told Clodius to do) in silhouette which should clue you in she's playing the role of Delilah.

At this point we should mention that Clodius has his own sub-plot where he has been repeatedly seen trying to build cred among the mob protesting Cesar's project. The mob is, I would guess, the ultimate antagonist of the film, and Coppola is strikingly loose with his real-world targets here. The mob resembles Black Lives Matter and anti-gentrification protesters and Clodius says they are 'immigrants' whose vote can be bought; they carry SPQR flags that resemble the hammer and sickle; their slogans suggest far-left sympathies; but Clodius gives a literal stump speech on a tree stump which has been cut into the shape of a swastika (real subtle there) and his minion now has a forehead tattoo of the Black Sun, a real-world fascist symbol (I think he also said something along the lines of 'We will make New Rome great again', though I may be misremembering). You might be tempted to think that, given his historical intrigue with Rand's Objectivism, Coppola views the masses as generically 'collectivist', subsuming fascism and communism. If so, Cataline is a bizarre choice for a hero, as in the real world it was he who whipped up a mob to attack the Roman Senate, and Caesar who led the 'populists', while Cicero favoured the optimates (aristocracy). We'll talk more later about Cesar Catalina's philosophy, such as it is, in 'Megalopolis'.

As New Rome collapses in riots, Crassus, who is revealed to be less senile than previously suggested, confronts his wife and nephew in an absolutely hilarious scene where he lifts his suggestively tented blanket to reveal a tiny bow and arrow, which he uses to kill first Wow in a comedic spout of blood and then repeatedly plink a fleeing Clodius in the backside with arrows; each time it cuts back to Crassus he has another arrow (barely) drawn with no indication where they are coming from, like a YouTube Poop. I think, generously, this was meant to be slapstick comedy, even if the context is very dark (aging billionaire murders his cheating wife).

Mayor Cicero semi-reconciles with his daughter (who has since had Cesar's child) on the train as they are evacuated for their safety.

In the climax - I feel sure it's the climax - of the movie, the mob gathers at the gates of Megalopolis, but an apparently fully healed Cesar appears, projected on the golden leaves of his utopian city, and addresses them. The speech is every bit as dense, philosophical, and frankly unrousing as his opening debate, but this time it wins the crowd around and suddenly they are no longer the collectivist menace but the upstanding majority who are now delighted to live in his city as the gates open.

Crassus declares he is throwing his entire wealth (and 'the patents to Megalon', which I guess he somehow acquired when the bank froze Cesar's funds) behind the project, so all's well that ends well? The mob turn on Clodius when they find out 'he owns the bank' (except that no, we've just established he doesn't) and shockingly string him and his henchman up, Mussolini-style; while the camera cuts away quickly it's pretty clear they have stoned him to death.

As New Year dawns, Cesar persuades Julia to try stopping time herself for the first time. She does so, but surprisingly *everyone* freezes except the baby, who has clearly also inherited the power. The End. Someone in the row behind me chuckled.

To be clear, this lends the plot a degree of cogency you simply don't get in the theatre. It's clear to me much of the movie ended up on the cutting room floor - there are fully acted, costumed scenes with different dialogue that appear in the facets of the Megalon crystal as Cesar works but are not in the movie. I think the order of scenes may have been dramatically changed and possibly the ending altered, which is why Driver's character appears fully healed without explanation but only as a projection in the final speech.

The central conceit, time stop, is not used except indirectly as something one character sees to make her intrigued in Cesar, and later as evidence that he has his confidence back after a single scene where he can't use it. Losing it doesn't set back his plans and we barely get a sense of how he uses it in his work normally. An architect who literally has all the time in the world is an intriguing concept and one could easily imagine eyecatching scenes where buildings seem to erect themselves in a blink of an eye, or where from the perspective of a normal human he flashes around a room, drawing up plans and blueprints at seemingly superhuman speed. Indeed, I was fully expecting at least one scene where Driver appears where he shouldn't be, revealing he has been listening in on a conversation or confronting someone in a secure location, because he can stop time to get into any location or do anything.

But we don't see this - we don't even, unless I missed it, get a line like 'Cesar always finishes his projects ahead of schedule - what's his secret?'. Time stop also doesn't work consistently; the first time we see it, Cesar's own body is part of the timestop; he can seemingly think in normal time but his body is suspended on the brink of falling. But later, it's clear that people who use timestop move normally and are affected by gravity (when Julia drops her purse on the girder it slows and stops when it gets a certain distance from her).

The secondary conceit, Megalon, is barely defined. It's a miracle metal that allows things like flowing moving walkways and roofs that fold in like flower petals when it rains. It also bonds with living cells and is eventually replaced with healthy tissue. It sometimes reflects his wife's face, and in the medical montage I think they put some of the wife's hair into the implant, which suggests to me Megalon *is* partially a ghoulish necromantic substance that harnesses his wife's unquiet spirit - but incredibly this isn't addressed in the final narrative other than a dreamlike sequence where he hears his wife telling him 'Go to her', apparently permission for him to move on. Again, it feels like a late-era MCU production cut to hell by studio interference - except there's no studio.

There's also an ambiguous line where Mayor Cicero seems to admit *he*, not Cesar, killed her - I think the intent of this line is he is willing to publicly admit he tampered with evidence to convict Cesar if Cesar breaks up with his daughter. Cesar later tells Julia his wife killed herself because of his obsessive focus on work and we have no reason to doubt him.

It's all such a weird missed opportunity - clearly you're meant to initially wonder if Cesar did kill his wife. There's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it newspaper headline that says the death was a 'Hitchcockian mystery' - which suggests a locked-room murder. Now, who can enter a room, kill someone, and leave to have an alibi elsewhere, all in the blink of an eye? Surely, surely this was intended to be explored at some point; less Chekhov's gun being visible over the fireplace and more being shoved up your nostril in the first act.

The tertiary conceit - New Rome itself - is intriguing as a stylistic choice. It's overtly a fable so it would seem churlish to ask how this Roman city-state exists in a world where both the USA (of which it's seemingly a part) and USSR existed. The limits of the budget are visible in the lack of stylisation in some areas (extras' costumes, cars, offices) but I didn't find it too offensive. I did notice that the architecture we see associated with Cesar early in the film is clearly Art Deco, but the Megalon structures later in the film are postmodern sweeping leaf-life structures, as though Coppola changed his mind about what the future looks like some time in the fifty years since first conceiving the movie.

The central conflict of the film is thornier. You might assume that Cicero represents populist, 'need'-based politics ("People need help now," the mayor says, objecting to Cesar's grand vision of a better city), while Cesar is a Randian rugged individualist, except that's not quite what we're shown in the final cut.

The Mayor's character isn't consistent - by the midway point he's become a law and order figure while the sleazy collectivist mantle has been passed to Clodius and the anti-gentrification rioters. And Cesar being a government official mixes the message on 'lone genius architect' - where we do get an insight into the philosophy of Cesar Catalina, it's also not especially Randian. The character talks repeatedly about the need for 'debate' - that even starting to talk about what we should do, or agreeing that we should talk, is already utopia. He responds to the Mayor by suggesting that 'people's futures' are as important as their present. I also think at one point he says civilisation was a mistake, which is a startling remark from a protagonist but which seems to be something Coppola has floated in real life (seemingly believing there was a utopian matriarchy before history). So at best I think you can argue he takes a broadly long-term-self-interest rationalist view and is being contrasted with the short-term populist Mayor and the short-term instant-gratification rioters.

He also briefly (as in, a single line) advocates for debt nullification, which was a position of the real Cataline, but which doesn't really seem to gel with anything else in the movie - we never get the sense that Cesar hates Crassus lending money and aren't shown the effects of usury on the people.

The cast of actors - including John Voight, and DB Sweeney who starred in the ill-fated Atlas Shrugged adaptation - makes me think it was sold as a rightish-wing endeavour, but I can't imagine the apparent both-sidesism on display will satiate red-blooded culture war types.

Certain aspects of the film also felt quite dated - the use of sapphism to shock and titilate (and the curious line where Cesar, challenged by a gossip columnist to confirm he prefers women, insists 'Everyone prefers women. Even women prefer women'); contrasted with the effete, crossdressing villain Clodius.

What's most striking (I said it was the salient word) about 'Megalopolis' is how much potential each element has relative to how it's actually used on-screen. Some of this is the tight budget constraints necessitated by Coppola burning through his own money to fund the film - the SFX were generally decent though I noticed at least one truly shoddy effect where characters walk into an idyllic field which is clearly a separate plate, and their bodies are sliding left-to-right as though walking on ice.

How might I re-imagine 'Megalopolis'? Keeping most of the beats and trying to refine the message rather than changing it:

- Cesar as a private architect, not a government agency. Put Crassus in the role of a Gail Wynand; a wealthy man and potential patron.

- Cesar has built a reputation as the man who always has time - he finishes every project ahead of schedule and under budget; his demolitions always proceed flawlessly and his staff have no idea how he does it.

- The Mayor champions sweetheart deals with contractors for cheap, trashy buildings that will fall down in thirty years (this might have been in the script at some point as Cesar calls him a 'slum lord') while Cesar wants to use Megalon to create an Art Deco utopian development.

- Julia sees Cesar stop time and he offers her a job. He demonstrates how when his staff see him flash around at super-speed he is really doing all the laborious work of drawing up plans in real time, totally alone as he previously had no-one who could do what he did.

- The press casts doubt on Megalon, with the unions pushing for proven materials like concrete and steel. A ghastly rumour emerges that Megalon contains human DNA. Cesar gives a speech, asking what would happen if the first architects using steel had faced the same resistance. What about fire?

- Julia proves her worth by securing a contract for Cesar to redevelop a large slum after a devastating fire, elbowing out her father's friends who want to use the same cheap cladding that caused the fire in the first place (anticipates and deflects viewer criticism about safety).

- Romance develops with Julia and Cesar. Scenes where they go out into the city and stop time together. Julia is pregnant.

- Clodius undermines Cesar by throwing red tape in his way. Cesar appears in his home and confronts him, showing a sinister edge, but ultimately leaves. Clodius uses this to deduce Cesar's time powers.

- Crassus's wedding is a huge event with (as in the film), chariot races and gladiatorial games. Cesar, Mayor Cicero, Julia and Clodius all attend.

- Instead of the vestal virgin scandal, Cesar is publicly accused of killing his first wife and the shock causes him to lose his control over time, causing chaos throughout the city. Unable to continue his work he locks himself away in his office.

- Time is frozen throughout the city; Cesar is subconsciously holding everything together so it doesn't change or decay (timestop as metaphor for stagnation!). Time only passes for objects if someone is holding them and if you drop them they freeze in place. If someone dies they freeze in place. We see how the city is surviving in this odd apocalypse.

- Julia investigates with a more murder-mystery focus - it's a locked-room murder and Cesar has an ironclad alibi, but a time manipulator could easily make it happen.

- She keeps digging however and a financial motive emerges for Clodius. She confronts Crassus who admits he covered up for his nephew; everything that looked supernatural about the death was possible with enough money. Facing disgrace he throws himself from the top of his skyscraper and his body freezes on the point of impact.

- Julia finds Cesar who tells her he did use his wife's body to create Megalon but insists that he found her dead. Why? Because love holds everything together (we're leaning into the cheese; amazingly I don't think they try to explain this in the real movie). Having expiated himself, Time once again hears his entreaties and begins flowing normally ("You can move on").

- Julia and Cesar brave the streets to reach the Mayor to clear his name and a mugger shoots Cesar. However, with his new mastery, he is able with a 'kick start' from Julia to turn back time and repair his own damaged brain.

- Mayor Cicero is reconciled to his daughter and meets his granddaughter for the first time.

- Clodius learns of his uncle's death and, blaming Cesar, whips up a mob to storm the construction site, but in a flash of an eye the city is completed before them as Cesar's expanded powers let him include entire construction crews in his timestop.

- Cesar emerges and gives a speech; reflecting that every one of them wanted someone else to provide for them but were ready to use violence to take what wasn't theirs, trusting there existed someone who was willing to be robbed; the city is complete, but none of them will live in it. 'Others, who saw and believed, will come, and they are welcome'.

- Clodius and his most devoted followers attack but the city itself folds in to protect Cesar, showing his wife's spirit in the metal recognises her murderer, and Clodius sinks into the ground.

- New Year's, magic baby, yada yada.

[ducktoonsfanart]

Scrooge McDuck as Gaius Julius Caesar - Roman Empire - Conquerors - Real Ducks in History - History in Duckverse - Quack Pack, Ducktales and Duckverse

I'm posting some of my drawings that I've done before, this time related to history and one by one where our famous Duckverse ducks play famous historical figures. See more about it here: https://ducktoonsfanart.tumblr.com/post/749604818515050496/donald-duck-as-napoleon-bonaparte-scrooge-mcduck

This drawing is a redraw of a statue made by Nicolas Coustou at the end of the 17th century for the decoration of Versailles, which depicts the greatest Roman, Gaius Julius Caesar. Although he was not an emperor, certainly many presented him, but he was a dictator, consul, general, writer, historian, engineer, constructor, and a great military leader who changed the Roman Republic into an almost Roman Empire. His fights against the Gauls, as well as the conflict with Pompey and his love with Cleopatra, are known, but he also changed a lot in Rome and was extremely rich. And he lived during the first century BC. That’s why I drew Scrooge McDuck as Gaius Julius Caesar since Scrooge is a great leader and he also strived for fame and fortune and to be remembered in the future and he plays the role of the best Roman. Behind it are the Colosseum (built a century after him), the aqueduct (then irrigation) and the Pantheon (built two centuries after him), as well as a Roman temple that symbolizes Rome at that time, as well as the roads themselves. In addition, Topolino (Italian comics) are showed Scrooge as Caesar two or three times so that’s where my inspiration came from.

By the way, Gaius Julius Caesar was born on July 12, 100 BC, and was killed on March 15, 44 BC. Scrooge's birthday is July 8th, so the difference between Caesar's birthday and Scrooge's birthday is minimal, right? Coincidence? I don't think so. Certainly in my version of Duckverse history Scrooge plays Gaius Julius Caesar whether it's in the Civilization game, Asterix and Obelix or the Rome AU.

Yes, every day I think about the Roman Empire and the history of Rome, but also about ducks, so that I can connect them together into one. And this is my Roman Empire.

I certainly hope you like this drawing and this idea and that these characters have such historical roles. Of course, Duckverse in history I combine mostly everything related to Duckverse (Donald Duck comics, OG Ducktales, Three Caballeros, Darkwing Duck and Quack Pack) and it’s mostly my version and my idea. By all means if you like this and support these ideas, feel free to like and reblog this, but please don’t use these same ideas without mentioning me and without my permission. Thank you!

[girl4music]

KATHERINE FUGATE: “I came to Rob and R.J. with a very specific belief on their series. Their series touched me deeply because it was about a woman’s search for redemption based on something in her life that she felt was a bad choice or wrong. So she was righting a wrong for herself and that period is commonly referred to as the Evil Xena period. And I came to Rob and R.J. in a room and looked at them and said ‘what I’d like to do is have Xena realize that all of that was necessary. As opposed to hating that part of herself to look at life as a balance of all things.’

What I think so many people do is sit in judgement about the choices they’ve made instead of realizing they all led them somewhere. And the Warrior Princess that Xena became would have never come about had there not been the Evil Xena period in her life. And for her to see both of them I proposed an alternate timeline in which she never became the Evil Xena and chose a different path which then never led her to the Warrior Princess - which it didn’t. And as I started thinking about that I thought wouldn’t it be interesting to do each character that way. A twist on all of their fate and choices in life. And if I remember correctly Gabrielle had always wanted to be a playwright and dreamt of going to Greece and being a famous playwright. So I thought ‘well, we’ll give her that dream, give Xena the dream she had in ‘Destiny’ when she wanted to be an Empress and rule with Caesar. Give her that dream. But let’s see what they’re missing at the end of the day.’ So I made them both successful in what they thought they wanted career-wise and goal-wise only to find out they didn’t have each other and that was the greater thing that was meant to be. So by that lesson I was hoping Xena and everyone would apply to their lives sort of a kindness to themselves for realizing every step they made had a reason. And that’s kind of how I pitched it.

Paying attention to and accepting all of the bad things that you, or actually the things that you call bad, and realizing they got you where you needed to be and ultimately, for Xena, where she needed to be was a person who recognized Gabrielle. And that’s how being the Warrior Princess got her to recognize Gabrielle when she saw her.

When we went in there we realized that now you have a specific timeline if you take off from ‘Destiny’. And I also started thinking like who is most interested in power in this show other than Caesar? He was always about power and Xena of course in certain incarnations and Alti was the other person who actually sought power in every form. And that’s how we got Alti. And I also realized Alti was a better conduit between the two worlds. She was our mystic and our sharmaness in the series and she’s the only person who - through some sort of mystical power could get you to see both images and both lifetimes. So that’s how we used her.

I think the thing about Alti that was interesting to me was everyone’s lives were linked in this show. Caesar was going to crucify Xena in any lifetime, Xena was going to meet Gabrielle in any lifetime and Alti was going to die because of Xena in any lifetime. This was a big surprise to her. She thought she’d finally won and she conquered her own destiny so to speak, just like Caesar thought he conquered his destiny by killing Brutus, who had killed him in the regular life - in the real life I guess we could say - and yet that didn’t work because his destiny was to die by an unexpected hand. It was the irony of Caesar - Julius Caesar’s - life. So here comes Alti, the trusted person he didn’t suspect, just like Brutus was. Well, with Alti, she was going to die by Xena’s hand. This time she crucifies Xena and looks at her and thinks she finally won only to realize in the last second of her life that Gabrielle and Xena’s love still was her demise, just like was always meant to be.

I absolutely think Xena had an effect on the way shows were later portrayed with women. Especially women action heroes. They’re just all over the place now. Even Tomb Raider, you know came afterwards. Alias came afterwards. Charmed I think even came afterwards. I don’t want to misquote something. But certainly it’s much more common now and accepted now and women are kicking ass all over the place. Xena - I think later,… it will be one of those retrospect shows where people realize how groundbreaking it was because I don’t know that they quite get it yet.”

This show is ultimately about the strong and substantial themes of redemption, forgiveness, vengeance, love, balance and justice and it’s great when the writers for the episodes see that and do what they can to add to those themes ‘cause those episodes are honestly the best. They’re the ones that really work and hit hard because they’re profound in the ways in which they teach you so many lessons.

And to choose to wrap these reiterated themes around female characters and have female-driven narratives in which to tell incredibly in-depth and compelling stories all about these themes is just 👌

Katherine Fugate should have had more episodes.

What a mind this woman has. Wowzas. 👏👏👏

So good. And she’s right. People still don’t quite get it. While it’s a cult show - I feel a lot of the reasons as to why it should be more appreciated aren’t understood. This is a 20-something year old show and it’s still relevant to watch today. It’s a timeless show in this way because a lot of shows are still catching up to it. How it portrays women in leading or authoritative roles. Queer women at that. It really is very special.

Look I know I’m biased because my niche is always going to be women-led and WLW supernatural/fantasy. But I still have yet to come across anything that surpasses Xena in its educational storytelling period. Nevermind including women-led and WLW. Like there’s nothing that matches up to the substance I get out of this show - its Universe and its characters.

Imagine being taught something as profound as this through a TV show about badass female fighters.

About appreciating the balance of all things in life through two female characters deeply in love and righting wrongs by fighting the greater good fight.

But it’s not just the women-led and WLW representation that is what makes this show so groundbreaking and profound and a delight to watch.

It’s just absolutely insane to me that this show exists even today. I’m constantly in awe of its substance and I could cry a damn river for this generation of TV art/entertainment because they’ll never come close to it.

It’s the writing in general. It’s REALLY fucking GOOD. I could listen to these interviews by the writers all day. Their passion and conscientiousness just floors me.

Like where is any of this in the TV industry today?

Nowhere! And it’s because of how much the landscape of TV show making has changed. And it hasn’t changed in a good way. Not in my opinion. It’s almost a chore to slog through the shortest shows now because of how absolutely lifeless they are. How completely devoid of substance. Depth of meaning. Perhaps it’s largely because Xena let you create the meaning for yourself through personal interpretation. But nevertheless even the cannon and explicit stuff was just better in every way than what we have now.

TV art/entertainment really has took a huge dive bomb since Xena, Buffy and Charmed were airing.

As I said - It’s not just the representation. It’s the storytelling within that representation and vice versa. It’s all the exceptional writing for that representation.

I don’t know if that makes any sense.

I’ll stop rambling. I know what I mean.

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Credit: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/67875227#big_0

Guess I have to do all of them now.

//And I will walk through it as you ramble.

Shuichi is Ritsuka Fugimaru, male protagonist of Fgo. There's also an alternative of him of course being Sherlock Holmes. Not sure why he's the simple harem protagonist but ok. Sherlock is obvious tho.

//I mean, all of the protags have incredible harem energy, Makoto especially, but Shuichi too. It's not THAT weird to me.

Kaede is Nero Claudius (damn this would put her at really bad terms with Mahiru Boudica then). Not sure why Genderbent Nero Claudius is Kaede but I guess they are both busty blonde happy proud girls that are not actually so happy and proud deep down. Tho, I need to point out this is actually super ironic cuz Nero Claudius was historically tone deaf.

//That's funny.

Kokichi is James Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime. This fits so well. Both of them are basically asshole yet charismatic crimelords/troublemakers and are usually the cause of everyone's problems behind the scenes. Also, going with the alternative one for Shuichi as Holmes, this fits well cuz Moriarty and Holmes are actually canon rivals. Tho double suicide is obviously off the chart.

//Yeah, that fits a little too well actually.

Ryoma is Emiya Alter. Edgelord badasses with a death wish and a dark sense of justice and always suffer cuz of it. Fits the bill.

//Makes sense.

Kurumi is Emiya. Idk why at all. The non-alter version of Ryoma's. Hero of Justice who ended up hating his own dream cuz it made him constantly kill and kill and kill as the world's personal hitman. Made him question what it means to be a Hero. How the fuck does this fit Kurumi? And how does this parallel with Ryoma by Kurumi's side over there?

//That is strange to make KIRUMI of all characters Emiya. Isn't Emiya like, a big deal in this franchise? Surely that role should go to one of the protags.

Miu is Leonardo Da Vinci. Proud beauty super eccentric inventors. Makes perfect sense.

//Miu gives off big "DA VINKY!?" energy.

Gonta is Asterius/The Minotaur. Big animalistic muscular wild men with actual soft hearts and lovable personalities. Fits the bill.

//He looks cute too.

Tsumugi is Cleopatra (oh damn this would mean Twogami Julius Caesar and her are a thing). This is solely due to the meme of them looking like each other. Tsumugi is not that fabulous and proud beauty of herself. No way Tsumugi can weaponize her own beauty sparkles and glittering to make explosions.

//I disagree with this in the case of Survivor. Zetsubou Tsumugi is SO damn full of herself, it's painful. And while I wouldn't call it "weaponizing her own beauty," Tsumugi's own powers ARE related to her appearance too.

Keebo is Charles Babbage. Two robot men. Nuff said. Tho I need to ask how well Keebo is at programming compared to the actual Father of Computer Programming.

//I misread that as Charles Cabbage. Also, to answer this, the whole point of Keebo is that he's an advanced AI and fully functioning robot that's beyond the technological advancements of the state that V3's world is in. But him not being able to do anything like shoot lasers, fly around, and do super cool comic robot stuff; therefore leaving everyone disappointed despite how actually incredible he is as a creation, is the joke.

Kaito is Thomas Edison (damn this must mean Kazuichi and Kaito argue a lot). Idk why. What does Kaito have in common with a guy who invented the common lightbulb (he actually submitted it first. Someone in Russia invented the same exact lightbulb type at the same exact time as Edison but he turned in his papers the day later compared to Edison who rushed immediately to the offices) and, do not ask me why, fused with every American President from past, present, and future and with the Warner brothers Lion to be a Super President? Kaito got the short end of the draw.

//Miu said that Thomas Edison said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, and Kaito sure does perspire a lot.

Maki is Jack the Ripper. Loli Jack the Ripper. One of the possible Jack the Ripper's. Not really Jack the Ripper, is actually the spiritual incarnation/accumulation of all of the dead orphans/aborted children left for dead by the millions of prostitutes in London at the time. Maki is a damn good assassin and does have a strong love/hate relationship with kids, especially orphans, but this is a bit much.

//I mean, Maki being Jack The Ripper is what I expected, if we're likening her to any historical figure, but THIS iteration? The spirit of orphans stuff makes sense, but Jesussss!?

Tenko is Ushiwakamaru/Yoshitsune. Idk about this. Both of them may be dark hair sporty types but Tenko is definitely no military general and badass master swordsman (genderbent now) known for jumping across 8 ships in a row cutting everyone down. Doesn't seem to fit the bill here.

//Makes more sense than something like L'ouvature or whatever?

Himiko is Abigail Williams. Why the fuck would Himiko be the girl who essentially started the Salem Witch Trials by blaming everyone? Himiko would been murdered on the spot if she met historical Abigail. Sure, Fgo's version of Abigail is an absolutely precious little girl who'd you so want to protect as your daughter but also has very dark personality switch cuz she's actually connected to the actual Lovecraftian Elder God Yog Sothoth, but I need more than both of them being magical witch aesthetic little girls.

//There were many speculations going around after the end of the witch trials that Abigail Williams herself was a witch all along. So Himiko COULD fit into her shoes if she was a much nastier character.

Rantaro is motherfucking Merlin. No offense but Rantaro is not deserving of the meme king dick wizard who broke the meta more than any top tier waifu. I could explain why he's nicknamed the Dick Wizard but that's a hilarious other story.

//Yes he is. Yes. He. Is.

Korekiyo is Phantom of the Opera. Sociopath Serial Killers with obsessive behaviours towards a certain girl in their lives. Makes sense.

//Makes TOO MUCH sense.

And Angie is Xuanzang. This calls into question whether Angie has a pet horse, monkey, pig, and whatever animal that "sand demon" with a (trident?) spear was. (I'm Asian American and idolized Journey to the West and even I don't know). Regardless, both are super religious and I guess get into trouble all the damn time. I can kinda see it but it could be better.

//Yeah, kind of like what I said with Tenko. It doesn't make complete sense, but it makes more sense than most stuff.

-Mod

[myfairkatiecat]

Who's your least favorite KOTLC character and why?

OKAY.

So.

Least favorite IN UNIVERSE or least favorite AS A CHARACTER?

Because in universe, I have so much hatred for Lady Gisela that it isn’t even funny. How could you do ANY of this to your son. Like even Vespera, who is insanely ruthless, has the whole numb-empathy-making-it-so-nothing-feels-like-hurting-people thing making her 1% more sympathetic (she still sucks majorly—don’t get me started on the thing with the humans). But Gisela just does all of this to H E R. S O N. I dislike Cassius of course but Gisela was just cruel, especially for showing at least a little affection……and then always having been manipulating him and then CHANGING HIM WITHOUT HIS PERMISSION IN A WAY THAT COULD HAVE KILLED HIM??? Also who seals a creepy doorway with their tiny son’s blood that’s just SO MESSED UP. Like, NO. Stop being the way you are. Just stop. This isn’t even just because I love Keefe. Even if you hate Keefe you should despise Lady Gisela. I hope Keefe gets to stab her. Or Sophie. Or actually Fitz that could be so good, his act on behalf of his best friend who he hasn’t talked to enough lately. Actually all three of them could stab her. Actually the whole crew could do an Ides of March and just totally Julius Caesar her…. All of them get to stab her.

BUT. Gisela is a great character. So who do I hate as a character? Probably Timkin Heks actually. His existence just angers me and there isn’t any great redeeming value to him, other than the fact that he gives background to Stina’s family and that stuff gets a little interesting. Which probably means Shannon is doing a GREAT job with the way she write him cause we’re not supposed to like him. Or wait wait wait. Councillor Alina!! GET RID OF HER. We don’t need her. GONE. POOF. She serves a purpose in the story sure, but I don’t have to LIKE IT.

I would never choose to make Gisela vanish from the story—I would choose to let the Keeper crew get their revenge (especially Keefe) and destroy her entirely. But if I could never have to meet Timkin Heks and just know that he exists for plot reasons, I’d be chill with that. And if I could poof Councillor Alina out of existence, I totally would!! Sure there would have to be another council member being gross and annoying, but I have so much beef with this woman, like honestly I hope the rest of the council just banishes her.

Anyway those are my thoughts

[theantonian]

JULIUS CAESAR AND THE CILICIAN PIRATES

In 75 BC, on his way to Rhodes to study Oratory, Caesar had the misfortune to be captured by Cilician pirates near the little island of Pharmacusa (Fermaco) off the coast of Asia Minor. These men at once demanded a ransom of twenty talents, but with great bravado their elegant young captive laughed at their ignorance of his social importance, and, telling them that he was worth at least fifty, dispatched his attendants to raise the larger sum at Miletus and other not distant cities where his family was known* For five or six weeks he lived in the pirates' camp, treating his bloodthirsty captors with such a mixture of insolence and patronizing banter that it is a marvel his throat was not cut. He insisted upon joining in their sports and exercises, running races with them and jeering at them for not being able to beat him. Around the camp-fire at night he used to read them his own poetry, and when they did not applaud he smacked their heads and called them illiterate savages; or, when he wished to sleep, he sent them peremptory orders to make less noise. At length his messengers returned bringing the ransom-money; and thereupon Caesar bade the pirates goodbye, cheerily promising them that he would come back one day and have them all crucified, at which they laughed heartily, having conceived quite a liking for the audacious fellow. But he meant what he said, and having raised a small force at the port of Miletus, sailed back to the island, took the pirates by surprise, brought them in chains to Pergamus, and there, not waiting for authorization from the Roman governor, had them all crucified. But having gone to jeer at them as they hung on their forest of crosses on the hillside outside the city, he was unexpectedly touched by their sufferings which, in the ordinary course of events, would have lasted for several days until hunger, thirst, and exposure had slowly killed them; and he therefore very kindly ordered his men to get up on ladders and cut all their throats. He then went his way to Rhodes, where he entered the school of Apollonius the orator.

Source:

Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar, Encyclopædia Britannica

[graceshouldwrite]

How to Write Devastating Betrayals (Pt. 2)

[FIND PT. 1 on @ grace_should_write on IG, or by scrolling through my Tumblr profile!]

Here are more elements + tips on satisfying betrayals that will destroy both your characters AND your readers! Sorry for the wait... 😅 As usual, the examples all contain spoilers!

1. How does the TRAITOR feel?

This is first because I feel it's SO so undercovered. I've definitely seen lots of tips about viscerally describing the feelings of the betrayed, but...how does the traitor feel?

Let's use the example of cheating, universally recognized as one of the biggest forms of romantic betrayal. Obviously, the person getting cheated on will probably feel devastated, but this betrayal can be made even MORE gut-wrenching if the writer explores how the cheater feels.

Maybe there's guilt that occurs before, during, and after the cheating. It might build over time, going from a small tinge to absolutely crippling shame. The cheater will probably realize what they really lost after they get caught. Maybe they reminisce on all the good times they had with their proper partner and immediately feel thrown back into reality, asking themselves how they could ever have done what they did. Maybe, after all this, it still kills them to see their partner so hurt by their actions.

Guilt is one of the most common feelings traitors have after betrayals, but a portrayal of the flip side—a ruthless, pragmatic satisfaction—can also be interesting.

One of the best historical examples I've seen of this is the life of Joseph Fouché, a French politician active from the 1789 French Revolution all the way to 1816, during the Bourbon restoration. For reference, that's a crazy long period of time for any politician to hold so much (albeit behind the stage) power.

Aside from being a master at political scheming and intrigue plots, he was known as a "chameleon"—able to seamlessly and shamelessly shift his loyalties. He never really committed to a single group or person, always joining a group as soon as it became, or had the potential to become, influential, and leaving it (often actively working against it) as soon as the group was projected to lose power.

One of the biggest manifestations of this is the juxtaposition of his own childhood to his adulthood—he was raised and educated in the Church and even taught in a Catholic institution for a while during his young adulthood. He never harboured any sort of hatred against the Church.

Then, when the French Revolution rolled around and religion was seen as highly unpopular and ultra-traditional, he was one of the most enthusiastic church ransackers and dechristianizers. He wanted to "[abandon] the role of religion in society altogether" just one year after he'd advocated for "the role of the [Church] in education." He pulled this sort of turncoat trick on group after group, even including Napoleon.

While guilt is generally recognized as emotionally effective, the LACK of guilt in a traitor is a super underrated tool. Often, a lack of guilt can be even more surprising and jarring to the reader, eliciting not only sadness, but anger, or just pure shock at how depraved humans can be. If the context doesn't really call for those emotions, at least this type of betrayal will be quite memorable.

KEY POINT: If it's something 100% morally reprehensible, e.g. cheating in a safe relationship, a parent selling a child for money, a friend betraying another purely for power, etc., NEVER justify the traitor's actions.

Showing the side of the traitor doesn't exonerate them; it just allows the reader to get hit with the full complexity of both parties' emotions. Twice the turmoil!

Of course, in more morally complex cases, you could choose to mainly explore the traitor's actions and motivations. For example, Brutus betrayed his friend Julius Caesar because he thought Caesar was becoming a tyrant who would take away democracy from the Roman Republic.

Here, Brutus' betrayal could be condemned if you purely look at it as "a friend betraying a friend." However, it could also be justified if you see it more as "a person sacrificing a personal relationship for the greater good of a nation."

2. How does the BETRAYED feel?

This point is definitely covered more than the previous one, so it will be shorter. However, here are a few other ideas of how the betrayed character can feel/react instead of the typically seen, angry "WHAT THE HECK? No way! How dare you?!"

they had suspicions very early on, and the betrayal doesn't shock them as much as it confirms their beliefs -> emotions like sadness, disappointment, and generally less aggressive forms of resentment will probably come out. (e.g. I can't remember where I've seen this but I have lol...but have a meta example. Think of when YOU see a character with major betrayal flags actually betray! Isn't that feeling just...more quiet resentment than fury? Now, think of how a character would feel)

they are understanding. Even if they're surprised, they can see why the betrayed chose to do what they did and aren't as resentful as they are compassionate. (e.g. Il-nam when Gi-hun betrays him in the show Squid Game)

they accept it. Although similar, this is still different from "understanding" because the betrayed character doesn't necessarily sympathize with the traitor; they just acknowledge that they're powerless to do anything at the moment, and they won't waste any energy getting angry. (e.g. Jesus when Judas betrays him)

quiet horror. No room for aggressive resentment, just that slowly dawning feeling of fear or hurt when they realize it happened. (e.g. Lydia Rodarte-Quayle when Walter White betrays her at the very end of the show Breaking Bad)

A diverse range of reactions can help your reader be more emotionally receptive. Seeing the same type of reaction to fictional betrayals can be quite numbing—these less commonly used ideas can feel more like cutting open a fresh wound, instead of rubbing salt in an existing one, if you get what I mean...

3. Aftermath of the betrayal

I RARELY see this covered at all, so I'll slip this in here: Betrayal is MORE than just the moment, even more than the foreshadowing in events leading up to it.

One of the most important parts of betrayal is the aftermath. The key question to ask yourself is: what is left behind?

What is lost? What is left? Most importantly, WHAT HAS CHANGED?

Now's your chance to imply, or even show, how the betrayed person/people/party will recover. Will they do it healthily, or destructively? What does this mean for the future of their relationships (existing or potential), endeavours (are plans ruined or improved?), self-image, and anything else important?

For example, lots of characters go on their angsty, "I'll never open up to anyone ever again and I'll brood forever" arc after a betrayal. Still, others try to process the betrayal as it tanks their self-worth. Of course, there are characters who process their betrayal through healthier coping mechanisms. They might choose to continue trusting and being open in the future.

For bigger parties, it can be even more complicated. Was the traitor an important person in an organization? Will the organization collapse without them, or will it thrive because they were only in it because of non-skill-related reasons? How did other people in the organization see them? So many options!

The aftermath can amplify feelings of anger, sadness, emptiness, or anything else your readers feel after your betrayal. It also allows for a more satisfying story conclusion (if that's what you're going for). It will even help your readers be even MORE invested in your characters because a betrayal is another big milestone that they've now experienced along with your characters.

∘₊✧────── ☾☼☽ ──────✧₊∘

instagram: @ grace_should_write

WHEW! Took a while before I finally fished this one out of my drafts and continued it. I love LOVE media and historical analysis in general, so I hope the length of this post is kinda complemented by the information I tried to provide.

I hope everyone's doing well! I'm super excited for a grad trip to ITALY NEXT WEEK!!!! As such, I might miss a post over that weekend, but stay tuned for more posts that week before then! Thank you all so much for engaging with my posts, it means the world ❤️

Hope this was helpful, and let me know if you have any questions by commenting, re-blogging, or DMing me on IG. Any and all engagement is appreciated :)

Happy writing, and have a great day!

- grace <3

[itmightrain]

"There are a few reasons why we know so much about Julius Caesar's murder. The first is that the Romans themselves wrote about it a lot, and left us pleasingly detailed descriptions of the Ides of March and its aftermath. The second is that, in hindsight, as Caesar died he took the Republic with him, which they made quite a big deal about. And of course, the story is fabulously dramatic. The arrogant general who has announced himself dictator for life, ignores the soothsayers and his wife's dreams and weeping, and walks to his own death. He dies on the senate floor, at the feet of a statue of his greatest rival. His final conscious realization is the dawning horror and humiliation that his own closest friend has killed him, and that no one will come to help. His final act is to cover himself and his dignity with his toga. Always the showman to the last.

All this means that Julius Caesar is more myth than man. He is a story that is told. His murder is not remembered as a bloody human act conducted by 40 frightened dudes in ungainly dress who were so confused that they only got 23 stab wounds in (an almost 50% fail-rate, if you think about it). But Julius really was a man who lived and breathed and blinked and then one day felt a punch in his side that was suddenly cold and wet and very painful. And his murder was not a standalone incident, it was one of a series of astonishing political murders in the late Roman Republic that, together, show us how very odd political murder was in the Roman world at this time.

- A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome by Emma Southon (transcribed from the audiobook)

[literary-nose]

some thoughts on ‘if we were villains’.

before i begin, i warn you that this is not going to be a short post.

so, after two months, i finally finished “if we were villains”. for me, two months is a long time, despite the book having something of 400 pages. usually, i am able to get through a hundred of pages within a single evening, but that was not the case with this one. i would constantly read a maximum of 50 pages at best, only to close it shut and deciding to continue it on a different day.

the main reason behind this was truly none other than the magnificence of the descriptions of feelings in it. multiple times did i find myself unable to continue reading, sometimes even forced to take breaks worth days, because, while reading, i could nearly experience all the characters’ emotions myself, and sometimes the characters even expressed my own thoughts about the circumstances they were in.

leaving the general speech behind and moving on to more specific details, i cannot leave out the fact that, observing the dynamic between meredith and oliver, i could not help but feel uncomfortable - especially in the beginning, on the night of richard’s death and soon after it. never did i once experience such discomfort when any other couple was described - alexander and colin? marvellous. james and wren? excellent. james and oliver? stupefying, hell, not even meredith and richard made me feel like this (up until things started to get the way they got, of course), and i have yet to find a reasonable justification for this, except maybe for the fact that i, too, similarly to james, perceived the initiation, the start of all of this as “revenge-fucking”. i doubt my asexual identity is in any way linked to this, because i am mostly sex-indifferent. i have resorted to attributing this to the fact that, as we learn in the end, oliver had been and still is in love with james, while his situation with meredith, to me, really seemed like a typical case of being unable to tell the difference between romantic and aesthetic attraction.

what puzzled me further was the complete lack of participation in the story from wren’s side, and my confusion is only being reinforced by the fact that she is richard’s cousin. we barely get to see her at all, and every time we do, her participation is minimal. this i can attribute to her nature and her typecast as the ingénue, since typecasting clearly affects the characters quite considerably, but, even so, in my opinion, she deserved more than what she got.

now, regarding james’ motive in richard’s death - something i am most eager to talk about. as stated in the book, james did not have any intention to kill richard - in fact, he was ready to drag him out of the water, upon discovering that he was alive. and yet, something does not sit right. throughout the entire book, the idea that an actor’s thought process and feelings can easily get intertwined with those of the character they are portraying is commonly promoted, explicitly stated by both oliver and richard - in one of the prologues and during gwendolyn’s class respectively. 

taking that into consideration and putting it aside for the time being, i remind that on the night of richard’s death it had been “caesar” that the seven were performing, with james having the role of brutus, and richard, inevitably, being caesar himself. in shakespeare’s play, the death of julius caesar is mainly attributed to the mastermind of the conspiracy, caius cassius, who wants caesar dead due to his own envy. knowing that “brutus is an honourable man”, cassius manipulates him by calling out to his sense of honour and getting him to conspire against caesar as well, allegedly for the benefit of rome, despite the fact that, originally, brutus had no personal conflicts with caesar.

seeing as james is stated and portrayed to have a difficulty snapping out of character - as clearly seen when he confesses his crime to oliver by speaking in verse exclusively - i pose this question; why is it not possible that on the night of richard’s death, having followed him into the forest, he found his own thoughts intermingled with his role’s to such an extent, where he consciously decided that the death of caesar (richard) would be for the benefit of rome (the six of them, mainly, but also anyone else)? essentially, what could have happened is that he, blinded by the thoughts of brutus and not his own, intentionally killed richard, believing it to be in everyone’s best interests.

of course, this did not happen, and, in my own view, because such a key (justification of james’ actions) would not open the door to the ending we eventually got; under no circumstances would oliver have forgiven james this easily, let alone taken all the blame upon him, if the death of richard was a result of “brutus” getting too caught up in his character. on the contrary, james acting out of pure terror justifies his actions in oliver’s eyes, especially seeing as “and who would keep him from drowning me this time?”. thus, we reach the ending that we currently have.

obviously, i am not claiming that my view of this is correct; it is but a mere speculation, one of the countless thoughts i had while reading. and, most of all, i am entirely not unsatisfied with the fact that i was wrong, and that richard’s murder was not intentional. to be entirely truthful, the justification given to james’ actions by me would most likely lead to a far more tragic and saddening end, and, honestly? i am glad m.l.rio’s explanation differs from mine this much. i don’t think i would have handled it if my theory had proven to be true, lol.

lastly, the decision of the author to end the book in the way she did. personally, i have never been an avid fan of open endings; i prefer it when authors give their pieces a definite ending, one that the audience has to get over and learn to live with. as, however, every rule bears an exception to itself, this time, i was rather relieved to receive an open ending, an opportunity to believe or denounce the survival of james.

and, myself? i believe james to be alive. in fact, this specific aspect i find myself to share with james; he uses the words of characters to speak the truth about himself, concealing it, so to say, behind the masks of roles in such a way that, if one does not seek a hidden meaning behind a verse seemingly spoken out of the blue, they are bound never to find it. as such, under no circumstances would he have otherwise chosen that specific speech of pericles, which had been pronounced, as remarked by oliver, before what would have been his death, “if he had not asked for help”.

with that, i conclude my train of thought. when starting this book, having read a maximum of forty pages, i had a clear outline of what i believed was going to unfold, and, though i was right about certain aspects (i.e. richard’s death i had predicted from act I, and james’ involvement in it - instantly upon seeing his reaction to richard choking on his blood in the water.), other ones i could never have foreseen, and that makes me more than happy. though this was a fantastic experience, i do confess that i cannot envision myself re-reading this book - at least not anytime soon. it’s true that, perhaps, now knowing the story, i may not be affected by it to such an extent, but i think, if only for the time being, i would rather keep it on my shelf, maybe occasionally quoting it, as i find myself doing with most of the media i indulge in.

also, alexander vass i declare top tier gender. the amount gender envy this man was giving me while i was reading is entirely ludicrous.

a playlist based on the book, in case anyone is interested.