Happy Sunday, Boundlings! 💜

It’s been awhile since I’ve done an Itty Bitty Winnies post! I got some less than stellar news this weekend and could use a pick me up! 🙌🏻

I want to hear your micro wins! The small victories that would maybe go unnoticed by others, but felt powerful to you! 👏🏻

Happy pride everyone! I hope its a really great month for those who celebrate. What is the best lgbtq+ book you've read this year?

just wanted to point out that the Historia Augusta, a collection of imperial roman biographies that the authors use as a source, is a pretty debatable source when looking at its reliability, and that in general ancient biographies have to be handled with care, because the goal of the ancient biography was different than what it is now (they often had very moralistic goals, e.g. Suetonius, and often invent information to further their ideological aims). i’m not saying that you can't use them as historical sources, as we often don’t have any other options, and they still can contain accurate information, but a roman emperor’s sexuality/sexual practices (and gender identity) is exactly the sort of thing ancient biographers, who didn’t like said emperor, would have created stories about to ruin his reputation or spread gossip about. especially the Historia Augusta is debatable, since it was written near the end of the fourth century, so 100-150 years after the facts recorded in it, and the author pretends to be writing as multiple people, though there is only one author for all the biographies. some academics have deemed Hadrian's biography to be one of the more reliable ones, though. we do know that the author used some historical sources, like Marius Maximus, but it's best to stay skeptical. it's basically as if you used Bad Gays as the definitive historical source for someone's biography: sure, most things might be true, but be careful! i kind of want to assume that the authors have engaged carefully with this source, but i'm not super sure, since their handling of other elements has seemed a bit superficial, and they also did not disclose any of the difficulties that come with handling it as a historical source.