TRY AGAIN LATER

it's like. well. its several things.

(Plutarch's Crassus, trans. Warner)

and also this

(ibid.)

that compliment sounds like an insult, baby.

anyway, there's a fun kind of eroticism in being given everything, in taking things that aren't yours without any real consequence, in climbing towards becoming a Roman Alexander, only for one man to deny you, over and over and over again, at every turn. Sulla tried, Crassus did it better. who would put a butcher in their place? who else knows you well enough to do it? who else can match you step for step like this? doesn't it feel like a kind of intimacy, a kind of—

it's also about the 'even sulla kissed my sword/so you want me on my knees too?' innuendo was too good to pass up. that was actually the first line I wrote, I figured out the rest of this to justify making a comic with it

and finally! the sword line is referencing/playing off of Lucan's Pharsalia a little bit because it fucks hard

(Lucan's Pharsalia, trans. Jane Wilson Joyce)

EDIT: oh, and that's a public domain anatomical illustration of a heart. you know how it is with love and hate.

absolutely delicious flavour of edizzy is where theyre Actually Married but neither of them know it, while also being acutely aware of everything-

they celebrated 25 years of their matelotage. they are having sex on the regular. both of them think the other thinks their contract is purely for financial reasons and the sex is just fun + convenience.

solomon clearly wants to marry mc and man better do it before they get back to the present or else the brothers are never gonna let him be alone with mc again

I'm not an aro!Eddie girlie because he very obviously experiences romantic love and experiences it deeply, but sometimes the way people talk to him about his life and about his love makes me want to be just so they can fuck off

I do think like at least half the reason I find mclennon so compelling is how insane Paul has been since John died. Like I know it makes me a bad person or whatever but it's just so fascinating to observe. Like you'd think he'd get normaler after literal decades but no he's literally just gotten worse...

my most evil inquisitor lore is that my trevelyan has a sister who died in the kirkwall circle just before the chantry explosion and cullen had a massive crush on her. she looked just like her. many implications.

you know how Dazai makes references to the princesses? he should now make one about Chuuya and the Little Mermaid:

her natural habitat is water

she's ginger

she lost her voice (and Chuuya is under sb's control now)

she became a different species at one point in her life

she was used for her voice (and Chuuya for his ability)

also Dazai'd laugh his ass off if he called Chuuya 'little'

They should make dating apps for aroace people where we can find others to platonically be with either for QPPs or because we're being pressured to be married or want a relationship without romance / sex with someone who wants the same thing

got the tldr of the vid that I'm Not Watching All That & somewhat amusing how the straw breaking the camel's back for people over James Somerton is his blatant and unashamed plagiarism (as it should be genuinely i don't think you can nor should recover from this) like he hasn't regurgitated for years vile, unempathetic, ahistorical and Purely Just Wrong information about gay history including about the fight for legal same-sex marriage in the US and the AIDS crisis. like an alarming amount of people truly heard his ass say "all the good fun funky artistic and radical gays died of aids and all those who were left were unfun stuck-up prudes and conservatives also the fight for legal same-sex marriage was an assimilationist ploy by the latter who just wanted big gay weddings" as if the gay men who survived the epidemic didn't literally lose lovers and friends and entire communities and long-term partners who they shared a life with and who were denied any crumb of this previous life at their death because there was no legal recognition for same-sex cohabitation and unions and their homophobic family could tear everything from the surviving partner thanks to this lack of recognition and let it slide.

some people out there were truly so eager to shit on the boring assimilationist prude gays who survived aids by being stuck-up prudes and who just wanted "big gay weddings" they made up in their minds to get mad at that they turned their brains off and let it slide. they could've used their smoothed-out brains for ONE minute & found out that surviving took 1) plain boring luck and 2) radical, loud, proud gay activists campaigning for safe/safer sex and the information campaigns they led, as well as the protests and demonstrations they undertook to make the government fucking care for once. and that legally-recognized unions [be they civil or religious] were a matter of survival for the partner left behind. some people out there truly let a business major with a turtleneck (possibly the definition of boring) passing himself off as cool and radical and an intellectual tell them homophobic bullshit. and did not blink. like OF COURSE this guy's gonna be a plagiarist. he needs to get his information from SOMEWHERE. because when he tries to formulate his own stuff it's complete fabrications or the frankensteining of multiple sources that he manages to misunderstand/misrepresent threefold over. trying to fit a knit sock over the foot with the inside out and wonder why that itches.

i know many people in his audience are likely very young and also likely american and as such did most of their growing up in a world where their country (1 out of 195. give or take.) had legalized gay marriage but i cannot even begin to describe 1) how Young legalized gay wedding is, even in ""the west"" and 2) how many. other countries there are. my country legalized same-sex marriage before the US did. i am not even 25 and i still remember the hordes of catholics marching down the streets chanting homophobic slogans, implying the only reason two mommies or two daddies would want to raise a child together is for nefarious, vile purposes. i still remember families having to drag their asses into court to argue that, yes, a woman who raised a child for its whole life with another woman she's in a long-term committed cohabitated relationship with should have the right to be considered a direct guardian even if she's not biologically related to the child, and spending thousands of bucks having to argue their case in court. this might be shocking to some, but there are countries where homosexuality is punishable by death. in others, not by death, but by imprisonment. in others, not by imprisonment, but by ""medical intervention"". in others, not by ""medical intervention" but by fines. and in some others still, you can be gay (yay!) but you still cannot get married or civil-unioned, and the very same shit that was discussed in the 80s is still discussed now. the right to stay a guardian of your partner's child if your partner dies or is ill, so the kid does not go into foster care. the right to inherit your partner's property according to married rights instead of having through long annoying time- and money-consuming legal processes. the right to arrange your partner's funeral or have a say in their medical choices if they're incapacitated instead of their (potentially homophobic) families.

like We Are Not There Yet. we are not in a world where any homosexual can truly, fully, wholeheartedly assimilate, whether you consider it a good thing or not. fun gay artists and boring uninteresting gay office workers die the same death that we all do. the one you don't wake from. and guess what. all types of homosexuals, regardless of which ones you pick and choose to be mad at, are affected by homophobic legislation. not just the ones you think should be spared because they're oh so fun. and oh so radical.

donate to the rainbow railroad org if you can. they help LGBT+ people escape state-sponsored violence. a singular nail on one of their members' hand does more activism and real-life good than any mfer making video essays could do in his entire life.

people often assume when we all go out together that I'm my half brothers mom (I'm 20 years older than him) & that his parents are his grandparents & it's so funny bc I know it bothers them. old ass idiots

old n grumpy sexyman bkg #5ever✌️

#ALL2023!!! he makes me want to sing... literally...............

all scrunkly looking in the morning, puffy eyes and silvery yellow hair all messy bc he just woke up, but still SO handsome standing in the kitchen shirtless, scratching his happy trail and waiting for his (your) morning drink to brew.

he tucks you under his arm when you greet him (cuz you're still warm from being under the blankets)... but then pretends you're not even there, not bc he’s not happy to see u but because he wants attention, to soak up all ur kisses and love without any disturbances.

and sometimes that’s nice when ur tired and just wanna be held and rocked for a bit... but sometimes it's like... you give him a kiss on his cheek and he's basically purring like a cat... you give him another and he's practically looking like ☺️😯... but then when u ask for one back, he's just, "shhh. i'm trying to enjoy this"

like....... HELLO? OLD MAN?????? (you need to buy him one of those shirts/mugs that's like "don't talk to me until i've had my preworkout coffee." he'd be mad abt it but still use it LMAOO)

AND AT NIGHT TOO... after work and dinner, he falls into bed or onto the couch, and gets so rude if you don't wanna lay with him. pouting and squinting at you:

"come cuddle."

you're like, "hold on, i'm finishing something."

"i said i wanna see you now."

"you can come over here if you want."

"you're really gonna make your old husband w/ a bad back and prosthetic get up? withhold a simple, easy kindness? i just wanted to love on you but now i guess i'm gonna go to bed lonely and—"

and you gotta be like. asdjfkaklsdhfkadafds "bakugo. i love you. just give me one second. please."

And he can't complain cuz u said the special words but he's just sitting there with his arms crossed, pouting and tapping his feet together under the blankets cuz he misses youuuu but won't say it.

like... forty five years old and still doing the most... but it really only gets even worse from there adjkadsjlk.

listen,, i am Not defending all of sky's actions or his personality but he's genuinely just not as bad as the fandom makes him out to be.

a lot of y'all forget that sky is a prince with extremely overbearing and downright abusive parents that refuse to listen to him or treat him with any ounce of respect. and that the whole diaspro vs bloom situation was started directly because his parents forced an arranged marriage between diaspro and sky, constantly telling her parents that it would work out and never listening to sky the hundreds of times he tried to stop it. like again, he's not great, he's my least favorite specialist. but that situation was never in his favor. he was a 16 year old that dealt with strict, emotionally abusive parents his entire life and got forced into an arranged marriage with someone he never loved and was constantly told that it Needed to happen for the kingdom. trying to play it out like he's a serial cheater with some nefarious master plan is like,, really weird. again! not a great person he does a lot of shitty things. but blaming that specific situation on him, a teen with absolutely no say in his life who just met someone he genuinely likes and could love, instead of his parents is incredibly weird to me.

(i haven't read Whole Cake in a while, and i never really watched it, so bear with me)

I'd love to write a fic with Usopp on Whole Cake. it'd be sooo fucking long and i'd need to refresh myself on the entire arc, but god i'd probably be so satisfied when it's done. specifically for having brought a single moment in my head to life, but we'll get to that.

On Zou, he insists to be taken along on the Sanji rescue team and has worked himself up with a whole bunch of very good reasons as to why he should go there instead of helping in Wano, but of course Luffy just immediately accepts with a "yeah sure"

With Whole Cake, I think he'd be flipping between having fun as part of the idiot trio/quartet (Luffy, Chopper, Carrot), and being terrified with Nami. There wouldn't be that many differences in the arc as a whole, though; some things would be easier/better and some things would be worse- I don't necessarily think Usopp's presence would be overall an advantage or disadvantage, just different. Like, major events would stay mostly the same, but little details would change and maybe those little details would build to a far more drastic change-

for example, maybe one of Big Mom's kids considers themself a great sniper and wants a match with Usopp, or is motivated to work harder because Usopp is around and they want to take him out and boast about it. Maybe it means Sunny takes more damage than canon, or maybe Usopp's help means less damage to Sunny. (idk if i'd really do smth like this, but it's just an example)

skjdhf fuck i'm really not equipped to try and figure this out when i don't remember shit from Whole Cake aaaa

I do know that, despite his penchant for talking and rambling, I'd probably have Usopp be dead silent after his initial shock when Sanji fights Luffy. Everything about that is the same, except Usopp is just watching Sanji the whole time- not panicking, not moving, and not speaking. He doesn't say a word the entire time, doesn't even make a sound, and that, along with Luffy's words and Nami's begging, stick with Sanji.

(Usopp is thinking of his own fight with Luffy in Water 7, he's partially wondering if this was what it was like- if it was this painful to watch from the sidelines- and partially knowing he doesn't have to say a word, because he knew, like he knew back then, that it didn't matter what was said. It wasn't quite the same, but he could tell in the way Sanji moved, in the way he spoke and held himself, that he was putting on a front, trying to be brave in all the wrong ways. Usopp didn't say a word to Sanji because there was nothing he could say that Sanji himself didn't already know. Should've known. And his quiet, direct stare, was more than enough.)

the singular moment i really wanna write, is a scene where Sanji is apologizing for dragging them into his mess- either during the big meeting in Bege's castle or some other time- and Usopp's like "I'll do what you can't, you do what I can't, right?" and Sanji pauses, a little confused, until he remembers Enies Lobby and a stupid mask and cape and-

and tears are gathering in his eyes now, fuck, but he laughs a little. It sounds wet and his face is itchy and they're surrounded by tentative allies, but he- he laughs again and he says, "Fuck, you remembered that?"

Usopp shrugs, a little smile on his face. "They were some wise words from a wise man."

Sanji laughs a third time. "You think I'm wise?"

And they banter a little more before Bege tells them to quit it since they're on a time constraint or something. Quietly, Usopp will ask, "It-it helps. On bad days. And I figured, 'what's a worse day than this?' Ah, not that you getting married would ever be bad per se-"

"Usopp," Sanji says, looking more relaxed and settled. He smiles fondly and grabs his friend in a one armed hug, crushing him to his side. "Thanks."

And yeah, don't remember much beyond that, except the whole "hiding and then busting out of the cake" bit, which would mean Usopp in a cute little tuxedo or smth- maybe with a fedora aaaaaa <- loves fedoras- helping out with the fighting and eventually sailing with everyone to Wano.

He would be so distressed about fixing up Sunny now that the whole thing with Whole Cake is over. Maybe there'd be a gag about him promising Franky to take good care of Sunny while they were gone and being confident, after being Franky's tinkering partner and learning from him over time, that he could handle minor repair work much better than he did the first time around with Merry. And so when he finally takes in all the very-not-minor repairs he has to do, he's certain Franky is gonna strangle him for not keeping his promise. Probably also try to write in some nostalgic 'repairman Usopp' vibes from pre-Water 7.

Also something something, Sanji, wanting to do more for the crew bc he still feels guilty about Whole Cake, decides to take it upon himself to help Usopp not fall into a whole anxiety spiral about the ship. In turn, Usopp ends up helping Sanji not feel so guilty- usually by handing his own words back to him on a silver platter. And, yknow, having the two of them bonding and being buddies again like they so rarely get to be in canon nowadays qwq

Amanda Grayson with her Hubby and Stepson

ok but consider: Holly knew Will pretty much her whole life, he visits the Wheelers so often that he sometimes ends up helping Mike babysit her. and well little Holly loves him of course! he's always so kind and gentle and she loves and admires his art and so he always helps her to get better and he always compliments no matter what she draws and she just loves him so much!

so much that little Holly starts talking about how she's gonna marry him when she grows up.

and Mike ..well he's Mike ...so of course he's jealous. he knows it's stupid but also hey if Will is going to marry any Wheeler it's going to be him you little shit-

simon peter is the funniest apostle to work with because in theory he's the most loyal, most by-the-book of the apostles so you'd expect him to be the most logical and collected one but 80% of his concerns (pre crucifixion then everything went downhill and they all died) are that he has a crush on every person he encounters