If you're not willing to participate in tipping, don't go to places where the workers depend on tips! Refusing to tip is just *you* extracting labor without pay. Like, Jesus fucking Christ!

(This is a little uncharitable, and could fairly be said to be in some measure bitterness from years of Online, but also, not for nothing, I have those experiences)

This also isn't a "Hell hath no fury" situation and her interest and involvement in the case is entirely justifiable by their stations in the Empire

She is, maybe, lying a bit to herself when she says it's only professional, though

Well, and as much as I'm joking about not answering your questions, the thing consuming my thoughts is, "What if the future were knowable and fixed like history?" and so don't worry, I feel like I'm in the spirit of your questions

And internal/external view of timelines is a whole thing!

Kira, doing a great prompt series: So what is the past?
Me, a gremlin: So, time is pretzel-shaped so let me tell you about the future, which the characters remember like the past

Time travel being time travel, the 11th Century uprising is not contained to the 11th Century, though most of the events that aren't are clandestine

Perhaps a different complaint, but I think they are intimately related: As a reader, I actively resent being marketed at like the only thoughts I can form about a work are AO3 tags

Yeah, we've all been there I think

Answering the literal question, I haven't had needed to get into the fine-grained politics before the Empire and create any leaders yet, though it is quite possible I will. (There is prequel potential in the invasion from the future by the Empire, but its kind of bleak, even for a bleak story)

In true time traveler fashion, Pericles admires a leader who won't be born for many, many centuries after his home time, and who will articulate the precepts of Time Republicanism

Given that bleak, wet settings are a running motif, I am going to turn over the possibility of a meeting in ruins, either from the societies that were conquered by the time travelers, or their own precursors

Now, if ancient means going back even more "turns" than just the one, I have some scattered notes about the major language families on the various archipelagos, but I simply have not had need to richly explore much older cultures because the effects are a very light touch on the story

I probably won't make it text, but I feel like Ajax has paid for sex since disappearing into the criminal underworld, but is not big on affection. Minerva is ice cold. I do not write her like she's pining for touch of any kind