listen. listen, there's a kind of intimacy in having a dedicated rivalry, okay. who else is going to know you like this!!! also it's funny
Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini
Julius II: The Warrior Pope, Christine Shaw
and on della rovere’s soldier comment:
Popes, Cardinals and War: The Military Church in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe, D.S. Chambers
and finally! regarding the delightful Mess of political-family relationships, including the marriage comment (altho the montefeltro family that giovanni married into did have sforza family ties, since giovanna's mother was battista sforza, but this is about the more immediate alliance based relationship and della rovere's hand in the rejection of a milanese match for his brother. and. this is not even remotely a serious comic, but now I am once again thinking about insular all these families are. the fucking medicis are here too, if you go half a step to the left on della rovere's family tree)
Julius II: The Warrior Pope, Christine Shaw
Giulio II, Il papa del Rinascimento, Giulio Busi (Bianca Maria Visconti is Ascanio's mom. btw)
panel inserts of the cards they're playing with are all from the Visconti-Sforza tarot deck! (I used public domain scans/photos for the comic itself)
ko-fi!⭐ bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost ⭐ cara.app
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Waking up to music screeching in the inside of his head a half-hour before sunrise every single day is, frankly, hell. Especially when he has the day off. That’s the worst.
But there is, on those rare days off, one benefit — so good it might, although Will shall never in a million years admit it, make the whole ordeal worth it.
On morning shift days, he spends the first ten minutes after he wakes up with his face down into his pillow, praying for the sun to hit the Earth. His prayers have yet to be answered. He spends the next ten minutes sitting, bleary-eyed, at the edge of his bed, waiting for his brain to boot-up and imagining his neurons are making little dial-up internet noises to amuse himself. The final ten minutes before sunrise he spends sprinting silently around the cabin, trying to brush his teeth and put his shorts on at the same time and generally failing at being a person.
Mornings are not fun.
But on his days off, he can afford to be slower. He can’t go back to sleep, true, but he can take the time to let his brain catch up with the rest of him, to breathe, to actually, genuinely wake up, not just be forced to be awake. And then as the sun rises, golden rays bleeding through the window, he bears witness to the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen.
Nico is gorgeous, swathed in sunlight.
Some might say Will is biased. But Will, these same people might forget, is the son of the god of truth, the god of beauty. He sees these things in the world as easily as some mighty see colour — he can see the Nico is beautiful, and he can see that this is true.
He always is beautiful. Even when he was halfway to dying and twisted in rage in sorrow, he was beautiful. Aside from high cheekbones and a devilish smile and fine, gorgeous hair, he stands in divinity. There is something wholly powerful in the set of his shoulders, the rigidness of his spine; the same kind of beauty in a staggered mountain, in a gnarled tree. A sturdiness, a timelessness, an I have been tested, I have been challenged, I have been beaten; still, I am here. Gracefully, I am here.
Now, Will watches, back to the headboard, as the first few lines of yellow-golden sun filter through the open window above Nico’s bed. They climb slowly, started at his sheet-covered feet, travelling in time up the curve of his cast, stuttering at each fold in the linen, to the crest of his hip. By the time the sunlight crawls over the ridge of the end of the sheet, in bleeds through the window in full, bathing his bare torso in light: his scars, curving like sparkling rivers, his freckles and moles, flicking like dappled light through leafy branches. A forest floor of beauty, in the twisting roots of muscles under his skin, rock-dark bruises over the square of his scapula, the valleys and hills of his ribs. Thousands of miles in which Will loses himself, following the path of the light.
He stirs, slightly, at the brush of his lips against the blurred line of daylight and shadow, tickling the line of his shoulders.
“W’ll?”
“Go back to sleep,” Will murmurs, breathing the words into sleep-warmed skin, raised with goose-flesh.
Nico hums. A small smile tugs the pink curves of his lips, making the corner of his eyes crinkle, the fan of his lashes flutter. Will is awestruck.
“‘Kay.”
He’s out again in seconds, sighing as he settles back against the pillows. His hand, acting out his dreams, drags across the mattress until it spans the curve of Will’s thigh and stills, gripping loosely. Will wraps his own fingers around it and squeezes.
“I love you,” he says softly. He holds his breath, waiting for Nico to stir again, and sighs in relief when he doesn’t. “It scares me.”
A breath of air blows a strand of Nico’s hair across his forehead, almost copper in the early morning sun. Will brushes it easily out of his face, lingering as he tucks it behind his ear.
“I’ll tell you,” he promises, risking another, softer, kiss to his lips. Barely a murmur of touch. “Soon. Sleep well, darlin’.”
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