Random Thought Thread

So there's been this post going around on my Facebook wall about some Roman emperor named Gordian III (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_III) who was basically the youngest Roman emperor in the entirety of the unified Roman Empire, assuming the throne at age 13. His dad and uncle were among the Six Emperors that reigned in Rome during 238 AD.

Now I'm wondering just what the hell happened to Rome that caused this 'six emperors' thing.

 

This period was known as "The Crisis of the Third Century". After the Pax Romanum period of the "Five Good Emperors" which ended with Marcus Aurelius, Rome started to descend into a period where Emperors were routinely assassinated and replaced by ambitious army commanders who could gather enough support from the legions and crucially, the Praetorian guard. Rome didn't have a specifically patrilineal line of succession - in theory, the Emperor could choose anyone as his successor, or someone could simply seize the throne and be declared Emperor.

It all really went to hell in a handbasket with the reign of Elagabalus, who tried to alter the Roman religion and indulged in sex parties, mainly with men (he is conjectured to have been what we would consider "transgender"). The Crisis proper started with the death of his successor Severus Alexander in 235. There were both internal and external wars, the economy went belly up, and it didn't end until the rule of Diocletian, who divided the Roman Empire into four parts (the Tetrarchy), which stabilised it, and eventually led into what is now known as the Byzantium Empre, when the western half collapsed, but the eastern part endured.

If you think 13 is young, children routinely became Emperor of Japan, some as young as 8.

 

Free shipping or habeas de-liver-y?

 

Made some random America-related memes.

 

Spoiler: That coronavirus looks scary as hell!

 

Yolandi, I can relate.

 

YOLANDI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I've been thinking about Santa.
We tell kids not to accept sweets from strangers, but Santa giving them presents is ok.
We'll even encourage them to leave food out for him. But we would never condone that behaviour for any other stranger.
If you then overthink into actual criminal or just downright antisocial behaviours, things really get interesting. Trespassing when he comes down the chimney. I think using a key would technically be breaking and entering. Watching the children as they sleep? Major creep factor!
And we tell kids that Santa knows if they've been bad or good. So, we can safely add spying to the list, surely.

When it's all added up, makes you wonder what kinda conflicting messages we send children these days.

...I may have thought about this a bit too much...

 

Look what Long John Silver's gave me:

Spoiler: NSFW

For size reference, that's the big-ass family pack box.

And it's not even my birthday.

 

Shaved my beard into a new kind of style. It makes sense to call it Civil War General™. Not sure I like it. Not sure I don't.

 

Tell me it's an Ambrose Burnside!

 

That's what it's trying to be, yes.

 

I love watching Air Crash Disasters. The presenter has the classic "ominous foreshadowing voice", like the guy who narrates the opening of the Twilight Zone.

Can you imagine this guy saying "And today I had... a sandwich"?

 

I've always thought Götterdämmerung sounded like swearing.

 

When I was at the DLIFLC, a lot of the material had a heavy military lean, not just vocabulary, but even conversational instruction was filtered through a military uniform. You were forever creating syntaxes that began with "the soldier did..." or "the sailor was..."

In Russian (my language), "with the sailor" is "с моряком" (s moryakom) pronounced very, very, very much like the Spanish slur for a gay man. The syntax came up from time to time invariably followed by minutes worth of poorly squelched laughter.

 

Wrey! First post of yours I've seen in too long! Glad to know you're around!

 

I was on far-flung journeys and peregrinations.

I roamed lands of omegaverse and questioned the objective reality of all my parts.

I sank into literary smut, naked and slippery, inhaling testosterone, exhaling estrogen, and revelled in the titillation of toenail and nostril.

I forgot languages and learned new ones, ones made of light and the quivering aspect of quarks that tremble the substrate to this day.

And here I am again, new and strange.

 

Spoiler

This is a test

Edit: Ok. That’s how you do it. I’m all good.

 

Are you sure that's all you were inhaling?