SPQR Blues Chapter IV: CCLXI

[spqrblues]

10kd Countdown: 5005.

End of chapter: Imminent.






 

Comments

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

We are going to be tough.

We are going to be the practical woman we have watched grow up all these years.

Beautiful use of space, intruding across four panels.

Dr. Phil

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I'm so glad that so much came across in how Iusta is changing/growing.

She did get those pillows.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Special Roman pillows for managing hysteria!

Seriously, this is ANOTHER beautiful, spare strip. Well done.

[zeus67.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the poppy juice.

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

The pillows clearly did their job. She's doesn't seem to be hysterical at all.

(Also, thanks.)

[spidersweb.livejournal.com]

I'm so engrossed in this story, I'll be sad to see the end.

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

As folks have speculated, the story of Herculaneum is ending. But... (see more replies shortly below)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_w_o_o_d_/]

I'm pretty sad already !

The End?

[esmerelda-ogg.livejournal.com]

End of the chapter is one thing...but is this the end of the story? Will we ever find out what happens to Mus, and whether Justa and Felix locate him? Will we ever learn the kitten's name? I'll miss these characters so very much...

Re: The End?

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

I confess, I feel that what happens post-Vesuvius is too much to leave hanging.

Re: The End?

[zeus67.livejournal.com]

The open threads are:

Felix and Domitian. For me the best end would be for Domitian to consider Felix dead and forget about him. On the other hand it would be poetic justice if Venus protects Felix from Domitian to the point that Domitian avoid him like the plague.
Mus final fate. That one is tough.
Iusta's future. As I said in the previous thread, I would like for Iusta to become Felix's wife and have a future together.
Both Felix and Iusta deserve a break. Felix's dreams have always turn to dust and I feel that he at least deserves his happy ending after struggling, and failing, to protect his loved ones to the point of standing up against the most powerful people in the empire and making enemies of them.

Re: The End?

[esmerelda-ogg.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[zeus67.livejournal.com]

Since some people are thinking End of Chapter == End of Story. I gotta ask: How many chapters are left?

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

There will be at least a Chapter V.

Because Domitian is still alive.

And that's just irritating.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

But what of Sweetums?

Dr. Phil

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

See, there HAS to be another chapter, to find out what happens to Sweetums!

[kit-the-brave.livejournal.com]

That white space makes my heart hurt.

Also, I keep (as in, off and on for the past few weeks) thinking about Menander. He's such a great character and his story was very meaningful for me. I'll miss him. "Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

I'm so very glad that he came together as a good--and meaningful--character.

Actually, I realised at one point that he's a character who's been trying to "happen" in a couple of unfinished or unseen stories, who finally found his footing, and his proper story, and his steadfastness, here.

Speaking of Menander... The Sunday Extra Comic was drawn a bit quickly and scribbly, but it fills in one of the skipped-over pieces of plot.

I'm going to miss him too.

[kit-the-brave.livejournal.com]

I so love that Sunday one! You can see all that he is, which is so much more than his lot in life tells him he can be.

[sforzie.livejournal.com]

Poor Iusta is going through such a weird time, isn't she? Everything that mattered before the eruption has more or less been wiped away, and she's left with this 'well what now' feeling. Except, I'm not really sure if it has all been wiped off? I mean, obviously property concerns in Herculaneum are less... relevant now, but other things might still be needing resolution.

Shoulder vampires have stolen all the garum and no longer of any help.

[esmerelda-ogg.livejournal.com]

And she doesn't really know for sure yet who survived and who didn't. She knows Felix and little Felicia and Damon and the kitten and Irenaeus are okay, and she believes Mus is dead - but the rest of them?

For all Iusta knows, Mus' father might show up and take her under his wing as a daughter-in-law (possibly pregnant with a new family heir, for all he knows). For all she knows, Calatoria Themis will storm in and start insisting once more that she's really a slave.

She's been raised to take action, but how can she plan when there are so many open questions?

[zeus67.livejournal.com]

By this time, and thanks to the excellent Roman bureaucracy, she already has an idea of who survived or not. Lists of survivors from as far as Alexandria have probably arrived and the ominous absence of any family name has already told them what they needed to know.

So it is time to leave Misenum and restart their lives.

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

Isn't that just like shoulder vampires...

[amedia.livejournal.com]

I really, really love the stark simplicity and beauty of this one.