Calliope

Classics. Still mourning the death of the Republic. Vivamus et amemus. Instagram: @calliopeinthegarden bluesky: https: @ourania67.bsky.social

[moonlady101]

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR GOOD OMENS SEASON 3!! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK...

So I watched the Good Omens finale and the first thing I have to say is that, to me, it was absolutely bloody fantastic. Did it make me cry? Yes. Did I wish that we had more time to get to see the story of Jesus developing? Yes. And would I have wanted to see more interactions between God and Satan? Absolutely. But all we had was 90 minutes and for such a short screen time I believe they did a pretty great job.

The core of this show is the fact that it is lead by the worst angel and the worst demon there is. While Aziraphale is selfish and has to literally pull himself away from everything he loves (including Crowley) not to fall into temptation (although he fails miserably every single time); Crowley is absolutely selfless, even willing to lose the Bentley for the bookshop and to let his angel go. That is exactly the reason why Aziraphale let Crowley choose, because he would have made the selfish choice, because he wouldn't let Crowley be taken from him again. It hit me so hard, to see them say what had been quite obvious from season 1: they are not on hell or heaven's side, they are on humanity's side, because they are the only ones who truly care about people.

And then I get to Tumblr, and I am left absolutely flabbergasted and shocked with the fandom's response to the finale. Queerbaiting??? Kill your gays?? Have we actually watched the same ending?? You complain that there wasn't even a kiss. Not a traditional one, no, but we got something even better, we got a moment we're a single gaze between those two and a small gesture from Aziraphale meant absolutely everything. They love each other and that's for certain. And if that wasn't enough we got to see them grow old AS HUMANS. No heaven, no hell, no ineffable plan, just them together, getting to live the life they wanted. It doesn't matter that they don't know who they used to be. That last scene was not for them but for us, because we do know who they were, we know what they went through and what they sacrificed and I thought that was beautiful.

And don't get me even started with the tribute to Terry Pratchett because I will start crying again. It actually pains me a little bit to see how the fandoms respond nowadays, some people seem not to even care about what they are watching; the amount of effort and love that is put together to make stories like this come to life. They just start complaining about the fact that they didn't make out, that they didn't get the ending they thought they would get. Well, that's what FanFiction is for, isn't it? But one thing is to say that you didn't expect that ending and a very different one is to claim that the ending was straight up terrible. So complain all you want, because that is what free will is all about, but I will recommend that, before you launch into a raging rampage the second you realize that the show is not exactly what you expected it to be, you think for a second if you are mad because it was bad or because you didn't get precisely the thing you wanted. Maybe just go write a fanfic if you're so eager for it to be different, as I said before, that's what it is for.

As Joshua said: Be kind to each other and go eat some pizza, perhaps you're all just hungry 🍕.

[moonlady101]

Happy Ides of March!!

Here are some pictures of me properly celebrating the occasion, thanks to my dad for being an awesome photographer.

[moonlady101]

Today, my mythology teacher just said that the renaissance was an amazing and beautiful period because the middle ages were just dark time were all knowledge and education was lost and also people did not bathe. She does not listen to the podcast gone medieval...and it shows.

Oh! She also said that she knew for real that Homer was real because she felt his vibes when she sat on his stone in Daskalopetra (Chios).

This is definitely going to be an interesting semester

[moonlady101]

I finally posted the fanfic with my favourite romans! If you like drama, suspense and just Roman women being amazing, then this one might be for you! I decided to make it into a multichapter because it was becoming longer than I expected it to be...

It is a what if Curio had survived the civil war fic, I'm having the time of my life writing it.

Here's the link.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/76222381/chapters/199479926

[moonlady101]

Reading Hamlet and I can't still get over the fact that Shakespeare is even worse than I am when it comes to throwing references about the ancient Greco Roman world.

I mean... His uncle's name is Claudius. And his best friend is Horatio, and Ophelia's brother's name is Laertes... Very subtle indeed.

[moonlady101]

Ah yes, I did miss sitting down with the star wars soundtrack retracing the etymology of the word paradise with a cup of chai... life is good.

Also, getting ready for another fucking cold wave... Guess who's hibernating once more?

[moonlady101]

I'm still processing yesterday's evening. The musical was absolutely insane, Grantaire sobbing while holding Gavroche, Eponine smiling at Marius while she is dying, Enjolras screaming and climbing on top of the barricade just to get shot right away... I spent half of the time sobbing.

I have been dragged back into this fandom and I don't think I'm getting out any time soon.

Also! I told a friend I needed a Grantaire and he said he might help me...

Also, shout out to the best cast who made me even forget the songs were not even in English, but in Spanish...

Here's an enjolras "helping" R not to drink so much wine by drinking it himself...

[moonlady101]

Happy New year to everyone!! Here's to another year of fighting against the people who want to step on everyone else around them! Here's to another year of defending everyone's right to be treated equally! Here's to another year of denouncing violence and war!

I'm seeing Les mis today with my dad and decided to become Enjolras for a day. Here's the graphic proof of it.

[moonlady101]

Despite the mad weekend I had, I feel the need to share the new plant my dad (surprisingly) bought on Saturday... Also the amazing Christmas advent tea calendar I bought and forgot to post.

[moonlady101]

I have to admit that this semester at uni hasn't been the best (some classes have been quite terrible and they made me feel either like I wasn't learning anything or like I didn't know anything). But, they let me do a presentation on the queer reception of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and tomorrow I'm going to have the time of my life with it...

[moonlady101]

I never would have thought that I would need a retelling of the Illiad with lesbian Cassandra and Helen, and yet here I am. No but, seriously, this is absolutely amazing, I'm loving this book even more than the Girl, Goddess, Queen one... I will make a full review once I finish it.

[moonlady101]

Today on things I did not expect to learn at uni. The German language refuses to use greek and Latin roots and instead translates words like hippopotamus into Flusspferd (literally river horse).

They are still fighting the Romans, even in the language, and I think that's awesome.

[moonlady101]

I have been MIA since this summer because of a lot of life stuff happening at once... BUT

I'm back and I still have quite a lot of stuff to share here, starting with a brand new fanfic that ended up being way longer than I intended and that almost drove me insane by trying to get into the mind of a certain Caesar's heir.

If you want an Octavian with an extra dose of anxiety, an angry Antony and a Cleopatra that is getting too old to deal with male egos go on and take a look, there is an extra cameo at the end ;)

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Also I've already started my master's degree and I'm just so happy to have a subject on classics receptions, I could cry. Today we spent an hour and a half just talking about superheroes. I will make a post on this because I have quite a lot to talk about.

[libdibs]

If You Were a Fictional Character

I've seen a few moots doing this and it looked fun!

* Make this picrew of yourself

* Take this uquiz (How Fandom Would See You If You Were A Fictional Character)

...yeah that seems about right 😅🫠

Not sure who's done this already so tagging the besties @thetumblingmoron @redheadsramblings @woundedsoul12 @the-bear-and-his-sunbird @aurorabiggs @thepalehorsevictoria @kiir-do-faal-rahhe and anyone else who would like to play!

[dreamsofarachne]

It's great that in a fictional universe, I'm just as out of place as I am in real life... Thanks I guess :)

Tagging @xxmarvelouslifexx, @kallistoriae, @pharsalianostra, @moonlady101, @eatcoals, @fatalemostro if you want <3

[moonlady101]

A bastard? Unexpected, I had never been called a little shit before🤣.

[moonlady101]

I kept on reading Fulvia by Kaarina Parker and this has got to be the best retelling on Roman history I have ever read. Cicero is insufferable, Antony is the king of bisexuality and now I am equally in love with my girl Fulvia and the menace she has for a husband...

[moonlady101]

Thank you so much @dreamsofarachne for tagging me on this. I have been meaning to bring my Tumblr back to life, but the heat weave here in Madrid is melting away my energy to do anything but reading and going to the pool... I will say that I am also writing a new fic, but it's coming a bit slower than I expected...

1.Favourite color: I can't choose just one! Maybe emerald green is the one I like the most, but as a person who used to wear almost all black clothes, I appreciate colours a lot more right now.

2.Last song: Take me to war. I have been obsessed with the crane wives for the past year, they are just so good. I have also been listening to the Epic soundtrack because a friend of mine started singing wouldn't you like over and over.

3.Currently watching: Stranger things! I finally decided to watch it after two years of saying I should and it is completely worth it! I'm only on episode three, but I have already grown quite fond of some of the characters (Eleven).

4.Currently reading: I am currently reading Fulvia by Kaarina Parker, which is slowly becoming one of my favourite books ever. I'm also listening to six of crows and it is also quite good (I like heists and thieves, to nobody's suprise after seeing me become obsessed with leverage).

5. Currently craving: Iced matcha! I have learned to make it at home and now I need at least one a day, especially taking into account that it's 40 degrees Celsius outside... Also peaches.🍑

[moonlady101]

I went to the theatre last night, but, unfortunately, the play was not exactly what I had expected it to be.

First of all, for context, this was a play loosely based on the book The Persian boy by Mary Renault, which I read several years ago. This was already based on a fictional novel, so I expected it to be somewhat different from the historical facts (and even those are not exactly true to what really happened because they were not written at the same time that the events were taking place). Anyways, when the play started I knew that they were going to portray Alexander and Bagoas having a sexual and kind of romantic relationship, as well as Alexander and Hephaistion; I also knew that Roxanna and Alexander would get married in the end. What I did not expect was to see the king of the Macedonians and of the greatest empires in the ancient world talking about love for two hours, about how love for the Greeks was based on beauty and that if someone was beautiful then that meant that you should love that person. I didn't expect either for Alexander to form some sort of consensual policule with Bagoas, Hephaistion, Barsine and Roxanna, in which they all cared and loved each other having absolutely zero problems because they cared so much about their perfect king that nothing he ever did could be wrong.

Now, please don't get me wrong, I know people can write whatever the hell they want, and I am not criticising poliamory relationships. What I do not like is that, with the excuse of being queer media, the story does not matter. Yesterday I spent two full hours in the theatre watching a play in which a guy with black straight hair and tall as he was said to a lot of people that they were beautiful, about how Persians got love wrong (with the exception of how they prepare themselves to have sex), and how Greek gods are so much better because they do not care about loving whomever you want... See what I mean?

The play had flaws in so many ways that it didn't even compensate that Hephaistion and Alexander made out on stage, and they were the first ship I ever had on the ancient world. (And guess what? Hephaistion was short and had curly blonde hair and some really strong temper).

They talked about war, yes, but they justified everything with "but Alexander cares about his men and had mercy on the prisoners", he was a conqueror, he brought two entire cities to the ground, he was a bloody soldier!!

I like that historians reconsider relationships in the past, I love it when they admit that the term "friend" does not work with everything. But there is a difference between that and justifying what a historical character did because "he was a homosexual".

Hadrian also did some pretty terrible stuff, Alkibiades was good at war because he had flexibile morality and Sapho...no, that I can't, Sapho was amazing. My point is: make art for it to be good, not pleasing, not to fit a trend, not to not get cancelled.

It pissed me off to hear stuff like: "Roxanna O only marry you because I love you" or to watch Kleitus not getting killed because that would make Alexander the softie look bad. To say that I'm disappointed wouldn't be enough. I have seen fanfics better than yesterday's play...

I must give them some credit though, they did manage to get a horse on the stage, and he was prettier than anyone else. Bucefalus stole the show...