still insanely funny to me that ortus nigenad has canonically written 18 volumes of epic poetry about a bodyguard who was, in fact, Just Some Guy, and regularly quotes himself out loud in conversations on the regular. man had to die at the start of gtn because he was too fucking powerful to live

so it’s. it’s like. man this is so hard without my laptop.

alright so Crassus is a weird guy, existentially. There’s a tendency to speculate, assign, and insert him into whatever places are conspiratorial and shadowy because he fits into those narrative places with ease. My personal favorite (aside from all of it) is the idea that he may have pulled strings wrt to Sulla and Caesar’s conflict to help get Caesar out of it.

The Defeat of Rome: Crassus, Carrhae and the Invasion of the East, Gareth C. Sampson

In the universe that exists in my head, he definitely had a hand in it, but he didn’t really intend for Caesar to figure out he played a part in it, but Caesar’s good at puzzles, and noticing someone goes both ways. Binding someone to yourself goes both ways.

Crassus: The First Tycoon, Peter Stothard

This scene takes place sometime relatively soon after Sulla’s death. Crassus has complicated feelings about it, Caesar less so. Veni, vidi, vici, baby!

Here’s a bonus thing that I keep thinking about with them.

The Roman Revolution, Ronald Syme

like, utang na loob. and it is DEEP between them.

babe would you still love me if we were superheroes and you were in danger and i went absolutely bonkers and crossed every moral boundary imaginable to protect you at literally any cost?

Would you mind if I drew this art in my style? (This is so beautiful, btw, it broke my heart!)

Permission is *always* granted to people wanting to do redraws! I am so touched you liked it enough!

Alright wise guy, what are your thoughts on the theme(s) of the first Mistborn book. This is literally an excuse for you to ramble about it, have fun.

VOID I LOVE YOU SM

So spoilers for Mistborn: The Final Empire! If you haven't read it, please beware because under the cut, Here There Be Spoilers (and also beware, Very Long post under the cut!)

The big running theme in The Final Empire is trust. Who can one really trust? Is it worth it to put your life in the hands of other people? What says they won't betray you as soon as it becomes favorable to do so?

Honestly this really is what Vin's character arc in the first book is about. At the beginning of the book, she's trapped in a low-level street gang where everyone is always out to get everyone else. Heck, the second time the audience ever sees her use her powers is when she is helping her boss betray a business partner.

Vin's brother has beaten into her the idea that she can trust nobody, not even him. Everyone is always out to hurt her or take advantage of her, and if she does not prove her immediate worth to her group, then at best she will be kicked out.

This, of course, is not helped by the fact that she is part of the literal slave class! Which is a whole nother essay tbh.

Then Kelsier takes her in and everything changes. There's a scene early on in the book, after vin formally joins the crew, where Kelsier and his men are all laughing and enjoying themselves while plotting their Big Plan™. And Vin, who does not trust any of them, is on the outside, quite literally. She's outside the room, watching them plan, wishing she could be included but not allowing herself to, because at this point in the book she still thinks they could betray her at any time.

I think now is a really good time to mention that being a Mistborn is built on secrecy and paranoia. Mistborn are literally the nobility's assassins. They hide their identities under hoods that blend into the mist so as not to be seen. So their powers cannot be used against them or their Noble Houses. In broad daylight they have to pretend to be normal people, or at best, regular Mistings. They can't trust anyone with the truth that they are Mistborn.

(Heck, even a quarter of their powerset- Copper and Bronze- create mistrust. With Bronze, after all, one can hear the allomantic pulses of burning another metal. Copper, on the other hand, blocks that; the use cases for these two metals lies in paranoia that someone else can use their Allomantic powers against you.)

Anyways! So we've explored some of the different aspects of mistrust in Mistborn, so what's the counterargument?

In a word: Kelsier.

Kelsier shakes up everything that Vin believes about how relationships work. He introduces his crew as something different- despite being a thieving crew, they operate under a principle of trust and camaraderie. "My crews rely on trust," Kelsier says at one point. In direct contrast to the dirty, paranoid crews Vin worked with before, Kelsier's crew is welcoming, understanding, and trusting of her.

But Kelsier's trust isn't just talk, either. When we learn that the crew believes Mare betrayed them in their last heist, Vin asks Kelsier how he could love Mare even though she betrayed him. Kelsier answers that given the choice between loving Mare and being betrayed or never knowing her, he would choose loving her. "I'd rather trust my men than worry about what will happen if they turn on me."

In the same passage as above, Kelsier poses a question to Vin: where has she been happier? with the old crews that we built on lies and suspicious, or with Kelsier's crew, who trusted each other and let their guards down? It's a rhetorical question, and the meaning is clear: Vin and Kelsier both are happier for risking themselves in order to be loved.

I don't think I've nearly done this topic justice. There are a million more points I could pull out and point to, but I want to end with my favorite quote from The Final Empire. It's from Vin, in Chapter 32. She says:

“Once I may have thought you a fool, but… well, that’s kind of what trust is, isn’t it? A willful self-delusion? You have to shut out that voice that whispers about betrayal, and just hope that your friends aren’t going to hurt you... Distrust is really the same thing, only on the other side. I can see how a person, given the choice of two assumptions, would choose to trust.”

If you're going to reblog my (admittedly very ADHD) post about, to borrow someone else's excellent summation, bees in the brain, to say 'OP check your medications', have you considered:

not doing that

don't worry about sleepy responses, or wait until the next day i don't mind and i'm sure other anons don't either! i'm too awkward to start posting myself but i've started having fun with asks :D

While he latched onto to trusting Pac pretty quickly. He hung out with Fit more, but it took him longer to be unwavering to him because Fit had secrets.

totally agree with this but also i was watching pac's stream the other day and he definitely recognizes fit as the one tubbo trusts the most. there have been a bunch of times where he's asked fit to go check on tubbo in the past, and this time he said something along the lines of "he always hears you". it was when pac and fit were using invis to check quackity's basement and pac ended up following along to listen but stayed hidden and didn't let them know he was there. i think all the islanders recognize that there are different levels and types of trust even among friends

Honestly I think pac has a lot of self confidence issues, while I do think Tubbo looks to Fit as the more grounding force therefore he’s more willing to listen him, plus him having to grow to trust Fit has really allowed him to learn through experience that Fit means well for him. I’ve always been under the impression that Tubbo trusts them both around the same amount its just that he considers Fit a lot safer, I think thats what Pacs been picking up on. Pac’s under the impression that he’s a bit useless so he pulls back a lot from tubbo even though he really doesn’t mean to, which has pushed their trust dynamic in a very different direction then the one they both have with fit.

happy birthday cwilbur 🫶🫶

阁下！不用理由就会相信、没有力量也要保护的人，阁下难道没有吗？ your excellency! someone you would believe regardless of reason and protect despite being powerless - does your excellency not have someone like that?

(how many clone ocs do you have? i do like that they’re animal themed)

(I like making OCs!!! Please do not tease me!!!

But really my list says 30, but there is probably more than that!!!

there are a lot of reasons i'm really, really impressed by how well sdmi portrayed the dynamic of an abusive relationship with pericles and ricky, and one of the big ones is how accurately they show what it looks like when abuse starts to escalate.

the extent of that is yet another thing that'll take a longpost of its own to go into, because it spans like.... the entire arc of their relationship in the show. but one thing that stands out to me in particular is their portrayal of the massive red flag that is a partner trotting out bigoted behavior against a group you're in. especially insults, and especially directed right at you.

this show has a LOT of fatphobia, jesus christ does it ever, and there are certainly some fatphobic tropes going on with ricky; but i've always been surprised and impressed by how many of the nastier ones they avoided, especially considering his role in the story and what his arc is about.

he is a major, nuanced character whose trauma is treated with full weight and sincerity. it's implied that his body type changed the way it did due to the trauma he went through when he was younger, and the ensuing mental illness, which is a pretty realistic experience for a lot of people. the things that happen to him are played for full tragedy and horror, when it would have been so, so easy for them to make light of it because Tee Hee Fat Guy and Tee Hee Male Abuse Victims Funnee. despite how his whole thing involves corporate greed, they don't go the route of portraying him as Gluttonous and Hedonistic; if anything he is very obviously not using all that money for even basic physical self-care, and the only time we ever see him eating anything it's when he's drinking wine grape juice with pericles. which, like, there's issues to be unpacked with that too, but jesus christ it's an improvement over what usually happens with characters like him.

he's a fat queer man who isn't degendered or made feminine in a mocking and/or predatory way. (there's nothing wrong with feminine fat queer men and they need more non-shitty rep, please and thank you god, but there is a lot of nastiness in the tropes they're often used for in mainstream media, and one of those tropes is when people consider 'fat queer man' and 'masc' to be oxymorons.) no one ever once calls him ugly; if anything multiple people in his life think he's attractive and desirable, for better or for worse. no one body-shames him. and no one ever mentions his weight.

except pericles.

'The Horrible Herd' and 'The Devouring' are two halves of a whole here, re: escalation of abuse. 'Devouring' is when the abuser goes full mask off and shit hits the fan; 'Horrible Herd' is the wind-up before the punch. HH is when ricky realizes things are getting Bad and he needs to put a stop to this now, and Devouring shows what happens when he tries, because by the point where it's gotten bad enough to give him a wakeup call it's already too late. it's how abusive relationships tend to go, and it's chillingly accurate.

and what's one of the things pericles says during Horrible Herd when that punch is winding up? something no one's ever said before now, including him? 'you pudding-faced dummkopf.'

he body-shames him. he insults his weight, and that's a major turning point. bigotry is something that's often there to some degree from the start, but not always, because some abusers are good at hiding things like that until they're confident they've got you where they want you. the message with ricky and pericles is loud and clear: when this happens, the walls are dripping blood. get out.

(if you can. and be careful when you try.)

when this show is good, it is really, truly good. god damn.

little people in my phone I love and miss you I am just being suffocated by the crushing & harrowing reality of life as a mentally ill neurodivergent girlie working full time <3

Hello

You spark joy

That is all

Good day

Marie Kondo can’t get rid of me now

i know you say youre not a rp acc and not kin, but i wanted to ask, your art of medic, are you depicting yourself? should i refer to medic in your art as you? example "i love how you drew yourself in this"? idkk i dont wanna poke around but i wanted to be sure im referring to you correctly??

this is a good question, just one that im not sure i will ever be able to give a satisfying answer to. i did answer something similar here that im definitely not an rp account but im neutral on kinning, because the term seems so broad that i cant say for certain if thats whats going on. maybe! or maybe not! hmm and then my art of medic.. yes it is depicting myself. but i also recognize that medic is a fictional character, so it doesnt bother me if people refer to medic as medic! im just drawing him, it doesnt have to be more complicated than that. if that makes sense. its all one in the same to me so it doesnt matter and you dont have to worry about it :]€

really really really enjoyed the “icon for good” he could have been/should have been/WAS to (frankly still iconic) “little bitch” pipleline that was Coriolanus’s journey. no way to choose evil and not shrink inside your own skin and become spiritually smaller than you’re supposed to be!