#PennedPossibilities 330 — How does your MC go about expressing or not expressing their sexuality?
Suetonius, like many gladiators, is pimped out by his lanista -- and he's very popular with the clients. When he falls hard for Drusilla, his experience is translated into tenderness.
Graffiti of #gladiators apparently made by children who had seen such scenes at #Pompeii’s amphitheatre are among the latest discoveries in the ruins of the ancient Roman city:
This is the 3rd of my images honoring the unknown artists of Pompeii. This excavated Pompeiian painting of a beautiful woman shows her with a stylus delicately pointed to her lips. I have placed a dried orange rose in the foreground; her eyes are drawn to it in contemplation.
Drusilla's father leaves her, at age 6, to be fostered by Julia Felix in Pompeii. She's lost her mother in the 62 AD earthquake, and now her father's disappearing as well -- because he doesn't want to be hampered by a little girl while he establishes a new business (and life) in nearby, wealthy Herculaneum. Drusilla's only companion for the moment is Invictus, her puppy ... but she becomes friends with Julia's daughter Claudia. Still, she's effectively orphaned for convenience.
#WordWeavers 20: How did you settle on your antagonists' appearances?
In "Pompeii Fire," my antagonist is an actual, documented person: Stephanus, the fuller. Now, he may have been the nicest guy in town for all any of us know ... but not in my book. He's way older than my female protagonist (he's her father's age), and wants to marry her. He's not particularly good-looking, and he's always trying to hide that his hair is thinning. But the worst part of him really is his odious personality.
This is the first in a series of a tribute to #Pompeii Dried flowers against a backdrop of photos of paintings and mosaics that have been unearthed at the site. This first one is a black and white with a slight sepia tone. I'm working on others in color. Enjoy.
"The oecus (banquet hall) is part of a large domus whose architectural style dates it to the middle of the 1st century B.C. It is 48 feet long and 20 feet wide, a huge room covering more than 950 square feet in area."