#marking 50 years on the throne | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ancientcharm · 6 months

Text

Claudius: The fool of the dynasty.

Claudius was born in Lugdunum, Gaul on August 1, 10 BC. On his mother's side, he was the grandson of the legendary Mark Antony and great-nephew of emperor Augustus. His father was the son of the Empress Livia and brother of emperor Tiberius. He also had blood ties with Julius Caesar.

According to historical sources: His sister, Livilla, after hearing an Augur say that her younger brother would be emperor, exclaimed: "May the gods save Rome from such misfortune. That would be the end of the empire." His grandmother, Livia, avoided talking to him because "when he was a child, the empress felt uncomfortable seeing and hearing him." During his childhood, the family avoided taking him to public events so as not to be seen. All this drama just because Claudius was lame, stuttered and had a tic.

During the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, that is, for almost his entire life, he was prohibited from holding public office because of his "defects." From a very young age it was determined that he could never be heir to the throne. This was determined by his family but not by his destiny.

Three wives, three troubles.

Year 9: The Empress Livia convinced a senator who was a close friend of her family, to marry her daughter, Plautia Urgulanilla, to her 18-year-old grandson. They had a son, Claudius Drusus, who died at 14-15 years old when he threw a piece of pear into the air to catch it in his mouth and the piece got stuck in his throat. Years before the son's death, a girl was born. But months later, Claudius noticed that the baby looked more like one of his freedmen than him. Claudius publicly declared that the girl was not his daughter. This scandal occurred at the same time that her brother-in-law, Plautia's brother, murdered her wife by throwing her out of a window. After this, Claudius immediately divorced.

Year 28: The prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Sejanus, was plotting to occupy the throne. Knowing that no one would accept an emperor who was not related to the dynasty, he married his sister, Elia Paetina, to Claudius. They had a daughter named Antonia. In the year 31 the plots and murders of Sejanus were discovered; Emperor Tiberius sentenced him to death. Claudius was forced to divorce the relative of the traitor but he never abandoned his daughter Antonia.

Year 38: During the reign of his nephew Caligula, Claudius married a woman member of the dynasty. The young and beautiful Valeria Messalina was the granddaughter of Antonia the Elder, Claudius's aunt. Antonia the Elder was the first daughter that Mark Antony had with Augustus's sister. Ten years later, this third marriage will end in worse circumstances than the first two.

Interestingly, the “mad" emperor Caligula was the first to recognize that Claudius had the skills to hold an important position. Claudius at 46 years old had the well-deserved important office thanks to his nephew. He was appointed consul.

The less thought day

On January 24, 41, the emperor was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard in collusion with several senators. Minutes later, the emperor's wife and daughter were also murdered.

And what no one would have thought possible happened: At the age of 50 Claudius became Caesar. The fourth emperor of Rome.

According to the historians Flavius Josephus and Cassius Dion, Claudius, terrified, thinking that the senators' plan was to exterminate all the members of the imperial family to restore the republic, hid behind a curtain. A Praetorian soldier found him and immediately proclaimed him emperor because he was the only male in the dynasty who could rule, the other remaining member being his 3-year-old grandnephew Lucio Domitius, whom 9 years later Claudio himself would give the famous name Nero.

Claudius the Conquer

Claudius surprised Rome by proving to be not only an intelligent emperor but also a conqueror who would make the empire greater. In 43, Claudius begins the campaign to conquer Britannia. Circa 50 the Romans founded the city Londinium /London.

Although this was his most famous conquest and territorial expansion, it was not the only one. Noricum: Present-day central Austria (west of Vienna), part of Bavaria (Germany), northeastern Slovenia, and part of the Italian Alps. Thrace (Bulgaria), and he made the Danube River a new border of the Roman Empire.

Claudius the Emperor

He distinguished himself for his policy of Meritocracy. He rewarded for ability , not for personal sympathies. He allowed men from of non-aristocratic origin access to the Senate. Claudius gained the respect of the Senate, the army and the people at the same time, something that had not been seen in Rome since the time of Augustus.

He had two children with his third wife: Octavia, born late year 39, and Tiberius Claudius, later nicknamed Britanicus due the conquest of Britannia, born 19 days after Claudius' accession to the throne.

He wrote many works, most during the reign of Tiberius. In addition to a history of the reign of Augustus and some treatises on the game of dice, his great passion, among his main works are a History of Etruscan civilization in twenty books, a History of Carthage in eight volumes, and a dictionary of the Etruscan language.

Pliny the Elder refers to Claudius as "One of the best writers". Evidently, Claudius learned a lot from his teacher, the most prestigious Roman historian, Titus Livius (Livy), author of the extraordinary work Ab Urbe Condita.

In the year 47 Claudius celebrated the Ludi Saeculares of the eighth centenary of the founding of Rome.

The tragic end of the empress.

Empress Valeria Messalina becomes the lover of Senator Gaius Silius. Taking advantage of her lineage as a woman of the Julius Claudia dynasty, she convinced that man that together they could take the throne from Claudius. In 48, while Claudius was in Ostia, Messalina divorced him and married Silius. Three freedmen arrived in Ostia to give the incredible news to the emperor.

According to Tacitus: "Claudius, having returned to the palace, ordered that Messalina be brought to him, but the freedman Narcissus, fearing that the emperor would forgive her, ordered a freedman, a centurion, and some tribunes to proceed with the execution. The woman was overtaken in the gardens and executed; informed of his wife's death while he was at the table, Claudio would not have asked any more questions."

The senator and his group of accomplices and supporters were also executed.

Seven years earlier: Claudius ordered the return of his nieces, daughters of his deceased brother Germanicus:, Livilla and Agrippina the Younger, both exiled by Caligula in 39. Livilla was highly favored by Claudius, and Agrippina the Younger was ver loved by the people. This situation caused Messalina worry and jealousy.

Messalina, through intrigue, in a very short time managed to send Livilla back into exile, along with the philosopher Seneca -a close friend and ally of Agrippina the Younger- accusing them of being lovers and conspiring. Livilla died in exile shortly after arriving, which leads to suspicion that she was murdered.

But Mesalina could not make Agrippina the Younger disappear, who was extremely cunning and more dangerous than Livilla because she had a son, that is, a candidate for the throne who, to make matters worse, he had more blue blood than Britannicus. In all likelihood, this could be the reason Messalina attempted to overthrow Claudius.

The fourth wife, and the death.

If Senator Gaius Silius was able to use Messalina's lineage to try to overthrow Claudius by marrying her, what could another do who marries the widow Agrippina, a direct descendant of Divine Augustus? This was the reason for Claudio's incredible decision to marry his niece: simply so that no other man could marry her. Agrippina immediately accepted the proposal to become empress of Rome.

The marriage between an uncle and his niece was considered incest and a crime in Rome. However, this was not an incestuous relationship but a political union. Even so, dispensations had to be presented to the Senate and religious authorities, and there were endless ceremonies.

Finally, in the year 49, in an unprecedented event in Roman history, the Emperor married his own niece. Immediately she gets Claudius to bring her close friend Seneca from exile. Agrippina appoints Seneca as her son's tutor and teacher. Claudius granted Agrippina the title of Augusta. Curiously, he did not grant that title to empress Messalina when they both ascended the throne, but to his deceased mother Antonia the Younger.

In 50 Claudius adopted his great-nephew Lucius as son and changed his name to Nero Claudius. Agrippina's son become the heir to the throne, instead Emperor's own son. Many historians believe that this was because in the Dynasty, when choosing the successor it was more important to take into account who he was descended from in a direct line. Nero, unlike Britannicus, was a direct descendant of Augustus (great-great-grandson).

Later, Agrippina convinces Claudius to marry his daughter Octavia to Nero. At that time Nero and Octavia are around 14 and 12 years old respectively.

In October 13 of 54, at age 64, the emperor died suddenly during a banquet, after having eaten mushrooms, according to Juvenal's version.

There are several versions about his death, however they all agree on the theory that the emperor was poisoned. Personally, I want to believe that his death was due to natural causes.

Below, a text that is not mine but from a very important site with an extensive article on the death of Emperor Claudius. I copy and paste the final part that I was happy to read.

However, as Levick points out, those present at the banquet do not seem to have suspected poisoning of any sort; moreover, the eunuch Halotus, whose job was to taste the Emperor's food, kept his job when Nero assumed the throne—evidence that nobody wanted to put him out of the way, either as an accomplice or as a witness to assassination. We see no reason to believe that Claudius was murdered. All the features are consistent with sudden death from cerebrovascular disease, which was common in Roman times. Towards the end of 52 AD, at the age of 62, Claudius had a serious illness and spoke of approaching death. Around that time there were changes in his depiction in busts, cameos and coins—with thick neck, narrow shoulders and flat chest. The Apocolocyntosis, addressed to an audience some of whom were present at the death, makes clear that there is no need to postulate poisoning, accidental or otherwise.

The Divine Claudius

Sculpture of Claudius deified (1st Century) Vatican Museums.

After his death, like Augustus, he was deified.

The boy who was said to never achieve anything not only became an one of the best writers of Rome, emperor and conqueror but also a god.

#history #ancient rome #roman empire #roman emperors

164 notes · View notes

ayeforscotland · 7 months

Text

It's my birthday coming up next week - I will be 27 on the 27th, and 2023 also marks 10 years since I've been running this blog. Fucking hell. For those who've followed me since the start - I am so, so sorry for what you have had to endure. Anyway, if you like what I do either here or on stream then please consider supporting me. My wishlist is a few things that are crowdfunded (So you can't contribute rather than purchasing outright) and also food for the cats if you want to buy Aoife and Faolan a snack. You can also suggest items that I can add - which tends to be chaos. There's only so many maid costumes people can ask to send me.

On Ko-Fi you can do a one-off donation or sign up for a small monthly support which unlocks shiny Discord roles for you. My commissions are also open on there so check it out.

And, of course, you can support me on Twitch as well. Ko-Fi is better value as the money goes directly to me, but if you'd like to give Jeff Bezos 50% then you can subscribe on Twitch. Also if you have Amazon Prime, you actually have a free Prime Twitch subscription you can use each month to support a creator of your choice. Unfortunately it is a manual thing so you can't set it automatically be used on my channel, if you'd like to use it for me I'd be super grateful.

#AyeforScotland

88 notes · View notes

case-of-traxits · 4 months

Note

50 Random Character Asks:

Tseng, 1 - 50

You know you had this coming.

50 Random Character Asks: Tseng Edition

I can't even pretend to be surprised here, can I? Well, I got your second ask with your choices as well, so they're in here. 💖

50 questions. Whew. I'll give you guys a sampler on the first one, but the rest are going to be under a cut. This took me SO LONG to do. I've literally been working on it since the 17th! All together, there's 4934 words in this bad boy, excluding the questions.

So uh. Enjoy nearly 5k of meta about Tseng. XD

That said, please keep in mind that all of my answers are specific to how I personally write Tseng. I'm not going to necessarily distinguish every piece of canon from headcanon.

[For this ask game!] || [Still accepting]

1. Canon I outright reject

That Tseng knew Zack was being kept in Nibelheim. For me, it just doesn't work with the rest of Tseng's arc regarding Zack and Aerith and him keeping all of those letters. So. No. Technically, in BC, Tseng is aware that Zack and Cloud are both alive and badly injured, and Hojo orders for him to "prepare the mansion," but never actually says what he's going to be doing there. Tseng sends the Player Turk to clear it out, and then Veld shows up and sends all of the Turks to work on handling the townspeople and everything instead of the mansion. So it's entirely possible that Tseng never knew, according to BC, that Zack and Cloud were placed in those tubes in the basement.

2. A canon or headcanon hill I will die on

Tseng is absolutely capable of slapping Aerith. I realize that they took that out of the Remake, but I just feel like it's critical for his character for you to know that he is absolutely capable of that level of violence, even against someone he cares about.

3. Obscure headcanon

Tseng is the third (and youngest) son of Kisaragi Godo's older brother, who was emperor during the Wutaian War. He was brought up in one of the Leviathan Temples to keep him as an effective (and safe) spare to the throne before he defected to Shinra. His forehead marking is a holdover from his time in the Temple, and he'll never admit to a single soul that sometimes, he feels the guiding hand of destiny (or fate or whatever you want to call it) in his life.

4. Favorite line

"It must have been a real thrill for you… Did you enjoy it?" I think this is everyone's favorite canon line. With the possible exception of the "Mr. President," line from the Remake. That one's pretty damn good, but it requires actual explanation, doesn't it? XD I will say, he also has the canon line of, "I put everyone else at risk because I feared feeling guilty," in BC. Which is... telling.

5. Best personality trait

Tseng's loyalty is easily his best personality trait, in my opinion. We see a lot of it in BC, with his dedication to trying to help and save both Veld and the department, as well as in CC, with his devotion to getting those letters to Zack.

6. Worst personality trait

Tseng's devotion to doing things "correctly" is definitely his worst personality trait. I am firmly of the opinion that this is the thing that's held him back on just killing the President and installing Rufus early. I mean, I have no doubt that there is technically more to it, including the fact that we have no idea what kind of succession clause might have been put in place for Rufus to inherit.

7. Age/height/weight headcanon

Age // Born in 1975, so he is 8 years older than Rufus and Reno, 2 years older than Sephiroth, and 3 years younger than Reeve. Height // I usually go with 5'8", but I'm a little flexible on this. I'll go up to 5'10". He cannot, however, be taller than Rufus for me. Weight // Eh, I don't really do weight HCs.

8. Unpopular opinion about them

Hm... Do I have an unpopular opinion about Tseng..? I don't know that I interact with enough Tseng fans to know. Maybe my insistence on him being fairly easy-going when he isn't at work? I see Tseng as the sort who can go with the flow to some extent, mostly because I don't think he'd work as well with Reno if he wasn't.

9. Scene that first made me love (or hate) the character

Oh man, honestly? This might be my unpopular opinion, but his "death" scene in the OG. With Sephiroth. And no, not just because of my ship goggles. But there's just so much implied trust there, at a point where Tseng probably shouldn't trust Sephiroth. He just... He talks to Sephiroth like he's still sane, and Sephiroth cuts him down during it, and then he still drags himself back through the entire Temple of the Ancients to get to the entrance so that he can let AVALANCHE in.

10. Best moment on screen (or in the book)

See above. I just... I love that scene. It's easily his best scene.

11. Faceclaim for the role

Satoh Takeru.

12. Crack headcanon

So, I don't think I have a straight "crack" headcanon for Tseng. I do have some crack-treated-seriously headcanons, including that he doesn't heal well magically (explaining why he spends so much more time in bandages and recovery than basically everyone else), and that if he's not friends with Reeve or in a romantic relationship with a partner who insists otherwise, he would live entirely on takeout. Tseng does not cook, in my opinion. He's perfectly capable, but why? He's spent years curating an extensive collection of takeout menus he considers acceptable food, and he eats exclusively from restaurants that have passed his very exacting standards. Ooh! And this: Tseng drives a small black sportscar at possibly dangerous speeds in Midgar. It also has no plates, but there's not a cop in Midgar stupid enough to try to ticket it.

13. Dumbest thing they’ve ever done

Possibly trusting Sephiroth when he ran into him at the Temple of the Ancients, but honestly, there was probably no way he was walking out of that anyway, right? So excluding that... Probably, the actual 'dumbest' thing he canonically does is in BC, when he chooses to rescue a single lone reactor guard instead of destroying a ship full of weapons that Shinra can't afford to let get out. That's definitely treated as his dumbest choice by the canon.

14. Most heroic moment

When he literally, while dying, drags himself through the Temple to make sure Aerith gets the keystone.

15. Worst thing they’ve ever done

I mean. He canonically murders people for his paycheck. So probably that? Unless you're more offended by the 'abandoning his country' backstory, of course.

16. Deepest darkest secret they won’t even admit to themselves

He will always wonder if he could have made a difference for Wutai if he'd fought for them instead of going to Midgar. Not that he regrets leaving. He is fairly sure that he was always meant to be at Rufus' side. But there's always that small, lingering thought.

17. Quotes, songs, poems, etc. that I associate with them

I actually have an old fanmix that more or less I still use. That said, you can also add "Secret (Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists Theme)," covered by Denmark + Winter.

18. What they’d go to see a therapist about

I am going to read this is what he should see a therapist about because I'm pretty sure if he had to go see one, he would spend the entire session silent, watching the therapist and making them horribly uncomfortable. (Unless it's Angel, but she's one of @ladykf-writes' OCs that I gleefully borrow whenever I can. She's a counselor specifically for Turks, and Tseng knows better than to try to argue with her.) Honestly though. If Tseng were up to date on mental health, I think he'd need to see a therapist about his inability to be settled with anything less than perfection from himself. And, you know, probably talk to them about the killing people thing.

19. Vices/bad habits

Tseng smokes. It wasn't a habit he was in before Midgar, but while he was being 'debriefed,' he discovered that asking for a cigarette meant he got to go outside and see the sky and breathe the (admittedly not great) air. However, due to him not healing super well magically and needing to actually recover naturally, he did eventually notice a cough and slight shortness of breath that he couldn't shake. So he tries not to smoke as much anymore. Still, he does keep a pack of his clove cigarettes on him at all times.

20. Scars

Oh plenty. All the Turks have them, and Tseng has a few more than most given his difficulties in healing.

21. Drink of choice (not just alcoholic)

Alcoholic // Junami sake, served warm. He has a few brands that he likes, most of which need to be imported from Wutai. Non-alcoholic // Caramel Macchiato with extra caramel and extra whip. Not that he'd let anyone catch him ordering it. He has a single barista that he goes to in the coffee shop in the Tower (her name is Peony), and she knows better than to call his order out. Tseng's sweet tooth is something he keeps very much under wraps.

22. Best physical feature

I mean. How do you pick? He's gorgeous. Maybe his hair, but I have a weakness for beautiful hair.

23. If they were a scented candle, what would they smell like?

Vetiver. But that's probably just because I HC his cologne as having notes of vetiver in it.

24. Most annoying habit

According to Reeve, it's Tseng's uncanny way of reading you. There's nothing more frustrating to him than Tseng's little, "And is that all?" sort of question because he knows that Tseng means, 'I know there's something else and here's your opportunity to tell me what it is before I go digging.'

25. 3 things they’d want to take with them if they were dropped off in the middle of nowhere

Assuming he is not allowed to bring his phone, and assuming that a backpack full of his usual supplies (he has one in his apartment, one in his car, and one in his office; he finds it unlikely he'd be caught somewhere without it) doesn't count as a single item, and assuming that he's not stripped of his usual clothes/gear when he's dropped off... 1 // A survival radio with a rechargeable battery. 2 // A waterproof map. 3 // A first aid kit. Really, he'd probably be fine even if dropped off with absolutely nothing, but trust me, he would not be happy about it.

26. What they would do if stuck in an elevator with [Lazard]

At first, there would be a long stretch of silence as they both studied the number display and then the elevator panel itself. Lazard would be the first one to move, leaning forward to punch a few of the buttons, but once it was clear that the elevator was not moving, Tseng would sigh and tip his head back and study the ceiling. He's cataloging everything he needs to do, wondering briefly what he can hand off, what he could text some of the others about to ensure it's done in time. Then he looks over at Lazard, who is sighing and pushing his hand through his hair. There's another few moments of silence before Lazard pushes the emergency call button, and after they're both reassured by the voice on the other end that maintenance is aware of the issue and working to restore functionality, Tseng slides down to sit. Lazard looks over at him, then sighs and takes that as an invitation to do the same. "Do you think it's inappropriate to text Reeve?" And Tseng looks up at Lazard, a small, knowing smile on his lips. "That depends," he murmurs. "Do you actually want to get to that meeting?" Lazard chuckles, reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose slightly, and he looks back down at his phone. After a moment, he lays it face down on his leg and tips his head back against the glass wall of the elevator, and he looks out over the city on display behind Tseng. Tseng notices he doesn't start texting. The silence is comfortable. Companionable. Neither of them have any stake in impressing one another, and there's no need to fill the silence with talking only for the sake of talking. Tseng supposes that they're lucky that it isn't winter. Else they would have to sit much, much closer. A glance over at Lazard, who has taken off his glasses briefly to rub one of his eyes, and a little smile touches Tseng's lips. Not, he decides after a minute, that it would be a bad thing, necessarily.

27. Their guilty pleasure

Tseng loves sweets. Basically all kinds, but he does have a particular weakness for good chocolate and good caramel. His secret indulgence that he'll never admit to anyone who knows him is that sometimes, during the winter, he'll order a large hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and get a caramel drizzle on it from the coffee shop in the Tower. But only if his usual barista (Peony) is working. Since she already knows his coffee order is something equally ridiculously sweet, he finds that to be less humiliating than adding someone else in on the loop.

28. How they feel about [Reeve]

Complicated. On the one hand, Tseng and Reeve are always, always good friends when I write. One of Tseng's first long, solo missions with the Turks (and I really should rewrite that fic with my current Tseng's backstory and clean up the prose a little) was to function as Reeve's escort on a reactor tour. That's a minimum of two weeks if they're taking advantage of helicopters periodically, more often three full weeks of travel when Reeve drives the whole thing. And of course, the driving is definitely Reeve's preference. Reactor tours are practically the only vacation he takes. But there's no way you don't spend three weeks on a cross-planet roadtrip and don't end up very close to the person you spent all that time with in the car (unless, of course, it's terrible and you just want to murder them). But at the same time, there are secrets between them that they both know they can't know about one another. Reeve can't know all the gory details about Tseng's life as a Turk, and Tseng can't know about Reeve's... let's call it his uncanny knack with the reactors. Now, do I ship them? Honestly, yes, sometimes. I mean, I usually pair off Tseng with Sephiroth and Reeve with either Lazard (if I want canon to happen for something later) or Genesis (if I'm wanting a fix-it), but I can absolutely ship Tseng with Reeve. Honestly though, that's kind of an unfair question. I can ship Tseng and Reeve with nearly anyone.

29. Eating habits

If it weren't for Reeve's insistence on a weekly meal with him and Reeve's occasional order of groceries simply arriving at Tseng's apartment unannounced (he only really sends dry goods these days; produce and dairy get delivered by Reeve himself when Tseng invites him over), Tseng would live exclusively on takeout. Expensive takeout. But takeout nonetheless.

30. Sleeping habits

Tseng slept in a Midgardian style bed for about a week while he was in debriefing after he defected, but eventually, he took all of his blankets and everything and just started sleeping on the floor instead. Now, in his apartment in Upper Eight in the middle of Little Wutai, he's found someone who can make him a gloriously oversized futon, and his one "concession" to the Midgardian way of doing things is that he no longer puts his futon up every morning. He has four futons to rotate between, with a veritable army of sheets and blankets for them that he's gotten as what he suspects is something akin to 'tribute' from some of the Little Wutai locals. He's done his best to make it clear that he's to be treated as anyone else in the community, but he's hardly going to refuse these things. Tseng sleeps lightly, waking up at basically any sort of unexpected sound, but he has the enviable ability to drift right back off.

31. If the had a tumblr what would it look like?

Honestly? It would be all precisely curated images/gifs of nature. Probably of waterfalls and rivers and creeks. But it would be immaculate. Perfectly tagged and maintained.

32. Something guaranteed to make them smile/laugh

I don't know that it is guaranteed, but Reno's antics often get a smile or a chuckle out of Tseng; particularly so when someone is underestimating Reno in some way. He has a tendency to find amusement in watching someone walk right into something they should have seen coming. That said, both Reeve and Rufus are also able to routinely get a smile out of him; Reeve because he's just so warm that Tseng can't help but to smile back and Rufus because, well, to be perfectly frank, he's a sassy little shit sometimes and Tseng loves that about him. (For the record, Aerith also often fits in that "sassy little shit" box, but Tseng does his best not to let her see him smile, or else she'll take it as encouragement.) If we're talking about something other than people though, the sort of thing that will routinely get a smile out of Tseng is people watching. He likes sitting on a bench in the Tower or in Midgar in general and just... watching people go by. It helps him feel grounded in the world.

33. Something guaranteed to make them cry

I don't know that anything specific is guaranteed to make him cry. He's very much a 'buckle down and take care of things,' sort of guy instead of the emotional reaction sort of guy. That said, he doesn't handle it well after Nibelheim. Even if he's not in a relationship with Sephiroth, the whole mess of 'handling' the survivors and realizing just how far the President will go to keep himself in power and the uncertainty of what's going on with Veld and with AVALANCHE and just... It's isn't pretty.

34. How they react when they are feeling [excited]

Tseng has, as a general rule, muted outward emotional tells for anything he's feeling. It was trained into him when he was at the Temple, both as a potential heir to the throne as well as because he was being trained to be a priest. That said, when he's genuinely excited about something and not just 'looking forward' to it, someone who knows him can tell. He's distracted from other things. And sometimes, if you're talking to him and he's excited about something, he might ask you to repeat yourself. Not like, "Oh, I didn't hear you, what?" But you'll get a lot more of those little noncommittal "Mm?" sounds out of him. Unless you're talking about the thing he's excited about. In that case, you'll have his complete attention, and his usually small, amused smiles (the smug ones; you know the ones) are a bit bigger, more genuine and, dare I say it, softer.

35. Their idea of a perfect day

Tseng's idea of a perfect day... well, to some extent, that varies based on where we are in the timeline and if he's in a romantic relationship, but in general, his idea of the perfect day is as follows: Nothing disastrous happens. Barring that, he'll settle for: Anything disastrous that did happen was handled. Appropriately. In all seriousness, Tseng is very much the sort who focuses on living each day as though he won't have another, and he doesn't let himself indulge much in idle fantasies. He's much more interested in perfect moments. A good morning run with someone he likes. An effective training session with one of the other Turks. Watching someone grasp something that he's been teaching them. An evening walk with someone he loves. Sharing a ridiculously rich chocolate cake with them afterwards. That sort of thing.

36. Their favorite season

Tseng's favorite season in Midgar is fall, when there's a near constant wind coming off the mountains. It can be difficult to track the seasons in Midgar, since there's not much by way of greenery, but fall means a cool wind that helps disperse some of the excess heat that comes off the Plate under his feet. Back in Wutai, his favorite season was summer. He liked watching the fireflies in the dusk at the Temple, and no small part of him misses that.

37. What they really think about themselves

Deep down, no matter what else, Tseng knows that he is an oathbreaker. He can justify it to himself or dress it up all he wants, but he knows that his father, that his brothers, that his country counted on him, and he walked away. He abandoned everything he'd ever known and walked into the camp of the enemy and swore to help them instead. It's part of why his loyalty is so fiercely held now, and part of why he's so careful to be as pristine and perfect at what he does as is possible. He knows what his family— had they survived the war— would have said. Once an oathbreaker, always an oathbreaker, and now, he's tied to the oaths he has made in a way that he wouldn't be if he hadn't defected, because he's terrified that they would be right. That puts him in the position of conflicting loyalties, and why he is so careful not to make promises once he's in Midgar. His first loyalty is to Rufus now, his second to the rest of the Turks, and if there's anything that keeps him awake at night, it's how he's supposed to juggle the additional loyalties that he's found himself collecting (Aerith, Reeve, Zack, Sephiroth, Veld, Reno, etc.).

38. Favorite holiday

Valentine's Day. Or, to be more exact, the day after. When Tseng can get a box of very nice chocolates for extremely cheap. XD No, in all seriousness, Tseng quite likes the Midgar celebration of the dead, All Hallow's Eve, with the fixation on costumes and frightening people. He finds it fascinating for a culture that spends so much of its time not talking about the dead.

39. Favorite game

Tseng likes card games. He's good at them for the most part, and in fact, when he first defected and arrived in the SOLDIER camp, he realized very quickly that his traditional Wutaian garb was only going to keep him Othered. So he learned to play poker from watching several hands, and he won himself gil and spare clothing alike off those SOLDIERs who heard his— at the time— thick accent and thought he'd be an easy mark. He still has a soft spot for poker.

40. Favorite book

Have two of Tseng's favorites. Both titles have been translated from the original Wutaian for your convenience, but Tseng only has the Wutaian copies in his home. "When the Sun Rises in the West," by Yurieva Aiko. This is a collection of poetry made from the letters recovered from the belongings of Wutaian soldiers after the war. "The Sleeve Cost Me Nothing Compared to You," by Sato Ivan. This is a collection of short stories and poetry about love and the fleeting nature of romance.

41. If they could have lunch with anyone in the world (living or dead, from any fictional universe or the real world), who would it be?

Before he defects // Tseng would like to have lunch with one of the previous emperors at this point, just to try to get some perspective on what's happening with his country. Particularly, he desperately wishes he had someone to ask for advice from. He's torn on what he sees going on, and he wonders what's wrong with him that he seems to be the only one who sees that there's no possible way for them to win this engagement with Shinra. After he defects // During his time in Shinra, given the option to have lunch with literally anyone, Tseng would like one more lunch with someone he loves. He's very much of the opinion that the best thing to do is to savor every moment you get with someone, no matter how mundane or fleeting. Post-canon // He would like one more lunch with Aerith and Zack. Just to see them again, and to convince himself to let their ghosts go.

42. 3 comfort items

1 // Tseng has kept, over the years, exactly one kimono from his time in Wutai, and while he never wears it anymore, sometimes, when he's feeling nostalgic, he'll go and run his hands over the silk. 2 // After he completed his training to be accepted into the Turks, before he left the Academy in Junon to go back to Midgar full time, the Acting Director of Operations in The Junon Branch of the Administrative Research, Anya (also one of @ladykf-writes' OCs), gave him an inlaid bone and black alloy knife with a blade cleaning kit. This is the knife that Tseng wears strapped to his left thigh (the left pocket is cut open in every pair of his pants so that he can reach it). 3 // When Rufus was fifteen, he gifted Tseng a solid black watch with no markers on it besides a pair of mythril white hands and a single mythril accent on the face that marked the twelve. Rufus never intended for Tseng to keep it as a staple, but while Rufus has gifted him other watches since then, this is the one that Tseng wears as his every day watch.

43. 3 favorite foods and 3 they despise

Favorite Food 1 // Sushi from a tiny hole-in-the-wall place in Little Wutai. And when he says hole-in-the-wall, he means this woman literally just sells bentos out of her kitchen. Favorite Food 2 // Fiola's in Upper Six is one of his favorites. They have excellent Mideelan pasta and even better bread. The bread is, in fact, good enough that while Tseng usually doesn't eat bread with his meals, he'll make an exception for Fiola's. Favorite Food 3 // There is a tiny bakery in Upper Three that sells the absolute best chocolate cake that Tseng has ever had. Despised Food 1 // The "sushi" for sale in the Midgar cafeteria. One of them had mayonnaise in it. Despised Food 2 // Pork rinds, a surprisingly popular snack in Midgar. Tseng suspects it's a holdover from when the area was much more farming-oriented. As it stands, every sector, Above and Below, has their own 'special' flavoring for them, and Tseng has yet to find anything redeeming about them. Despised Food 3 // Tseng doesn't despise bread exactly, but he fails to find it enjoyable to eat most of the time. He'd prefer his carbs come in sugar, pasta, or rice, given the choice.

44. Their happiest memory

Tseng has a couple. The first one is of one of the last times he saw his mother. He was about eleven, and he was brought to her rooms so that she could see him. They spent the evening reading poetry and him showing off his sword forms and her telling him how proud of him she was. He helped her brush out her hair and braid it for bed, and then she returned the favor and kissed his forehead and sent him on back to his own rooms. He has a small jade comb that he found in a secondhand shop in Little Wutai that makes him think of her. His second happiest memory is nearly always with Reeve, of their drive around the planet on that first reactor tour. It was the first time Tseng traveled that he could just enjoy the process, and he has fond memories of the times they rolled the windows down and Tseng could let his hand hang out of the car and just... feel the breeze. Reeve had been content to talk about nothing or put on an audiobook— and those had been something delightful to learn about, something that Tseng had immediately invested in because that was a great way to listen to the language— and let them just ride.

45. Their favorite celebrity

Tseng is embarrassed to admit it, but when he first arrived in Midgar and Junon, his Standard was not nearly as good as he'd thought it was. The tutors he'd had in Wutai hadn't been native speakers, after all, and while he'd learned very well from them, there was no way he'd be mistaken for a natural speaker. So he'd immediately immersed himself, watching the news and reading everything he could get his hands on, and eventually, he'd discovered what were called 'soaps.' He never really followed a lot of the plot lines— he felt sometimes like they had put several novels in a blender and poured the resulting concoction on the screen— but he did eventually decide there was one actress, Gabrielle Cooper, that he enjoyed watching. She had one of the most neutral accents he'd ever heard, and he followed her from show to show faithfully. Even long after he'd stopped watching soaps to help with his Standard, long after he'd more or less shed his own accent completely, he would catch himself picking up a magazine or a tabloid if she was featured on the cover.

46. The person they most admire

For a long, long time, it was Veld. And then everything with Felicia happened. And it isn't that he no longer admires Veld, but he certainly seems more human now. What Tseng admires most about Veld now isn't the seemingly perfect Turk persona that he presents, but his dedication to what he thinks is right. Post-canon, the person he probably actually admires most is Rufus. Rufus Shinra, who was brought up to rule the world and has been barred from the throne. Rufus Shinra, who should have had everything and instead has had to cobble something together from the ruins left behind. In that vein, Reeve is an extremely close second. Reeve was never intended to be the one in charge, and Tseng knows that Reeve would like nothing more than to hand it all off to someone else and go back to designing houses and buildings and parks. But there's literally no one else to hand it off to. So he trudges on, running the now-largest military force in the world, making decisions that shape the entire world with almost no oversight.

47. Their dream job

If Tseng wasn't a Turk and hadn't been brought up in the Temple and was just an average Midgar citizen? He'd be a restaurant critic. He'd write the most detailed and possibly scathing reviews possible, and restaurants would fear him.

48. Scariest moment of their life

A few months before he defected, during a ritual for Leviathan at the Temple, Tseng nearly drowned. This was one of his big catalyst moments for abandoning Wutai, as he realized in that moment that no matter what anyone told him about how important he was, they all saw him as expendable. After Advent Children, the scariest moment in Tseng's life was watching Rufus jump from that building.

49. Favorite toy as a child

Tseng was given a wooden training sword very young that he absolutely used to menace every Temple Guardian he ran across until he was big enough for proper training, and he cherished it right up until he left the temple. He didn't take it with him, but he made sure to polish it and leave it in a respectful place when he left. He is sure that it was broken and/or burned upon discovery that he had chosen to side with Shinra.

50. A memory they’ve blocked out

I don't know that Tseng has very many memories that he's blocked out. Tseng is very unflinching when it comes to facing who he is and what he's done and what's been done to him. He believes in facing things head-on and in dealing with the consequences that brings.

Congratulations on making it all the way down here, omg. IT WAS SO LONG!!

All of the love. 💖

#ff7 #final fantasy vii #tseng of the turks #meta #I cannot believe I wrote damn near 5k on this thing #BUT HERE YOU GO.

40 notes · View notes

far-side-skies · 24 days

Text

Cyclonis and the Cyclonian Royal Family

Aka I gave this girl a family and then had to figure out why so many of them are absent from the show. This was the second most popular option in that poll I posted, so here we go.

I headcanon Cyclonia to be a matriarchy. Every ruler of the Empire since its founding has been a woman, with rare exceptions when the men take the position of regents for one reason or another. Even if the firstborn of a generation is a boy, they will never have a claim to the throne.

Queen Alyka Prosperis was the second ruler of Cyclonia after its founding as a kingdom. She was gifted the throne by First Queen Marinia, as they were close friends prior to Marinia's death. Since then Alyka's descendants have ruled Cyclonia and its expanding empire in one of the longest-running bloodlines in recorded history. No one is entirely sure who her partner was, who helped father the bloodline.

Master Polaris is a black mark on the royal family's history. Many say she cursed all the men in her family to take the form of monsters, in a fit of jealousy towards her brother Hemlock. Ever since then, the men of Cyclonia's royal family have been sickly and weak.

Cyclonis's great-grandmother is Master Roburis. Originally the youngest of four sisters, Roburis was not expected to rise to power. Then a plague hit Cyclonia, devastating the royal family and leaving her as the last survivor of her sisters. She wasn't a particularly attentive mother to her daughter, Morrigan, and some sources say she's the one to blame for instigating war with the Free Atmos, only to palm off the fallout onto the next generation.

Empress Morrigan Anarchis started her reign with the goal of doing better than her mother. Instead, she lead Cyclonia into a 50 year war that didn't end with her death, and repeated history by handing it off to Cyclonis. There are rumours that she orchestrated the assassination of her own husband and let the Sky Knights take blame for it in an incident that almost killed her only child, Cyclamen. She wasn't particularly popular as a ruler when she died, in fact it was no secret that the public greatly favoured Dark Ace over her.

Delphinium Cyclonis was seen as a symbol of hope for Cyclonia. A chance to finally end the war one way or another, but unfortunately she proved to be just as bullheaded as her grandmother. More concerned with learning new magical secrets and accessing the far side than actually ruling her Empire, it all ended in disaster after Cyclonia Rising. Now her brothers Larkspur and Cardin (Cardin largely belongs to @ashe-alter, thank you for helping me figure out these brothers :3) are struggling to pick up the pieces.

#storm hawks #storm hawks headcanons #storm hawks lore #sunny's headcanons #sunnyverse headcanons #sunnyverse lore #sunny's storm hawks headcanons #storm hawks headcanon #cyclonis #master cyclonis #storm hawks cyclonis #cyclonia #anarchis #master anarchis

19 notes · View notes

tomboy014 · 1 year

Text

My Misery Vex redesign

May I present for the Phandom’s consideration: my redesign of Misery Vex, the Weaver

For her physical appearance, I kept the spider theme (that Fartman vomited all over his own horrible design) and made her Egyptian for backstory reasons listed below. I also decided to make her form a solid black shadow like Spectra, but rather than looking like flame like Spectra or Shadow, I wanted her form to be something flowing and ever changing, a form made of incense smoke and shadow. Think Eris from the animated Sinbad movie.

The really hard part was trying to some up with something that would be acceptable for TV because Ancient Egypt was A LOT more comfortable with nudity than early 2000’s Nickelodeon.

Backstory and more art under the cut

In life, she was an Egyptian (or Nubian*) woman from Waset (aka Thebes) during the New Kingdom and daughter of the High Priest in the temple of Amun. She’d been betrothed to the Pharoah’s son since childhood as part of a political marriage, meant to eventually be queen and named as the God’s Wife of Amun.

To prepare her for her role, she was well educated in history, politics, literature, language, and more. And as a priestess, she was taught about medicine, the gods, and of course, magic, becoming a powerful sorceress in her own right.

She is his Cleopatra before Cleopatra: well-educated, witty, charming, and politically brilliant.

But before she could marry, she was assassinated, poisoned by a rival.

Even in death, she can’t let go of her desire for power, and after about 50 years, she met a young, but powerful, ghost of a recently slain Sherden Warrior (Pariah Dark). Seeing an opportunity to seize the power she was denied in life, she approached and formed an alliance with him.

Misery Vex uses her magics and convinces Pariah Dark to sacrifice his eye in ritual, mirroring the gods, in exchange for power. Pariah steals the eyes of his most powerful opponents as well to absorb their wisdom, power, and most importantly, to create a protective charm against them, leaving many powerful Ancients unable to act directly against him.

Over the next few centuries, they skyrocket in power. He, through his physical power and military might, becomes the new Ghost King, ruler of the Infinite Realms. She, through her political savvy and cunning, becomes his queen and confidant, his advisor, influencing his decisions and policies as a literal and metaphorical shadow ruler.

And for the first millennium, it’s good. She is the Isis to his Osiris and have a love for the ages that puts even Cleopatra and Mark Antony to shame. Their power continues to grow, and she creates the Crown of Fire and Ring of Rage from the power of fallen enemies. But as centuries pass, Pariah becomes violent and cruel, corrupted by his power, as he fights to keep his throne.

He becomes paranoid, never knowing where the next usurper or uprising will come from, and Misery Vex comes under suspicion. He’s known of her lust for power since the beginning. Who’s to say that she’ll stay satisfied with her current position. When will she decide that she wants to rule directly? Without his “interference?”

And so, he casts her out.

How dare he?! All those years by his side. Always loyal. Always supporting him, calming his rage and his worries, and this is how he repays her?!

Heartbroken and furious, she begins planning her vengeance and approaches the Ancients. She’s no fool; she can see what his growing madness is doing to the Realms. The Ancients don’t trust her, but they have little choice. Even if they all worked together, he’s still too powerful for them to destroy, and her own magic prevents many of them from attacking him.

She creates the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep, using all the magic she’s gained over the millennia, and finally, she inscribes the sarcophagus with Pariah Dark’s secret name, his true name that he carried in life. A name only she remembers.

With Misery’s assistance, the Ancients manage to overthrow Pariah and seal him away.

However, Misery Vex is too dangerous to leave loose, and the Ancients lock her away while she’s too weak to fight back. It’s nothing as complete as the Sarcophagus, but it limits her power and influence over the Realm.

Still, she is patient, and she is endless, so she waits.

And waits.

And waits, until news reaches her of a young boy who managed to defeat Pariah is single combat. He former husband is not destroyed, only contained, but the Realms are abuzz with talk of this new heir presumptive.

And so, she begins to stir again, making plans within plans within plans, as she moves the pieces of her senet board into place. She’s waited centuries; what’s a few more years?

After all, what’s a young king without his Queen Mother?

* I modeled her appearance after Nyakim Gatwech who is Sudanese, so Nubian might be more appropriate or accurate. But she was definitely a black woman who lived in Egypt.

Personality:

She’s extremely intelligent and cunning. She’s unafraid to use any tool at her disposal to her advantage, whether that be her wit, knowledge, magic or sexuality and is extremely manipulative. There are very few times she acts directly, preferring to operate through subterfuge or a cat’s paw.

What makes her truly dangerous isn’t that she’s evil, but that she’s self-serving. She’ll work with whatever side best serves her own ambitions best at the moment, so there’s never a surefire way to know who’s side she’d truly on since she left Pariah.

She’s also more fluid in her appearance than most ghosts, changing her wardrobe every decade or so to keep up with the latest fashion, and then going back to her original look for a while. She also has a fondness for wigs and has amassed an impressive collection of them throughout the years.

#danny phantom #character redesign #misery vex #long post

77 notes · View notes

duchessofostergotlands · 2 years

Text

In 2023, King Carl XVI Gustaf will celebrate his Golden Jubilee (50 years on the throne). The 500th anniversary of the election of the King’s ancestor Gustav Vasa as King of Sweden is also marked during the year. The outline of the programme and an official logo have been released by the palace

January - The anniversary year begins with a Swedish dinner at The Royal Palace. During the dinner, representatives from all of Sweden's counties will be invited.

February - September - The King and Queen will travel to every major Swedish city

6th June - National Day celebrations will be extended to mark the Jubilee and Gustav Vasa, with a larger reception in the evening.

15th September - A Te Deum will be held in the Royal Palace Church. During the day, The King also oversees a changing of the guard. The same evening, a large anniversary dinner will be held.

16th September - The King and Queen will travel in a carriage procession through the capital

There will also be a series of exhibitions on the King, Gustav Vasa , and the Bernadotte dynasty throughout the year

#upcoming #2023 #jubilee #king carl gustaf #king carl xvi gustaf #swedish royal family

152 notes · View notes

blackswaneuroparedux · 1 year

Photo

I consider myself King of the Hellenes and sole expression of legality in my country until the Greek people freely decide otherwise. I fully expected that the military regime would depose me eventually. They are frightened of the Crown because it is a unifying force among the people.

- King Constantine II of the Hellenes

An important chapter of Greek history ended on 11 January 2023, in Athens, with a deafening silence. The former king Constantine II died at the age of 82 in Athens. Some Greek media outlets referred to him as Constantine Glücksburg, not wishing to mention the royal title of the former monarch who was deposed in 1974.

The last member of the Danish dynasty to rule from 1863 until the return of the Parliamentary Republic was the cousin of the British monarch Charles III and one of the godparents of his son, Prince William, and the brother of Queen Sofia of Spain. But his death caused barely a rustle in Greece, a country that has been riven by divisions between royalists and democrats since its creation.

He was not given the state funeral he had so much desired. Neither the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, nor the President of the Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, were present at his funeral on 16 January. His death "marks the formal epilogue (...) of a chapter that was definitively closed with the 1974 referendum," when Greeks voted by 70% to abolish the monarchy, said the prime minister in a terse message of condolence. The conservative leader also recalled "the eventful journey of former King Constantine, marked and punctuated by turbulent moments in the contemporary history of Greece." "History now has the floor. It will judge fairly and severely the Constantine of public life," he concluded.

The legacy of King Constantine II of the Hellenes remains a mixed one and mirrors the divided feelings of Greeks have to this day about their last king.

In many ways, Constantine was a victim of the vicious political infighting that had characterised Greek politics and its society for much of the period since the second world war. It perhaps needed a stronger, more experienced and more resolute approach to surmount the crises of his three-year reign than the young man in his early 20s could manage. In later life he said in an interview that he might have liked to be an actor or a journalist, but his fate was to spend his life as an ex-king, harried by Greek politicians and in turn harassing them in a prolonged legal fight for compensation for his family’s lost property, eventually through the European court of human rights.

Born in Athens, Constantine was the son of the Greek crown prince, Paul, the younger brother of King George II, and his German-born wife Princess Frederica, and was taken into exile as a baby following the Italian and then Nazi invasions of the country in 1940-41. His early years were spent first in Egypt and then in South Africa, before the family returned to Greece following the referendum that restored George to the throne in 1946. George died the following year, and Paul became king.

Constantine was educated at a private high school in Athens, modelled on the same lines as the German educationist Kurt Hahn’s principles at Gordonstoun, and afterwards attended Athens University to study law. A keen sailor, Constantine was a member of Greece’s winning sailing team at the 1960 Rome Olympics – the country’s first gold medal in nearly 50 years.

He succeeded to the throne aged 23 on his father’s death in March 1964, becoming head of state in a country that had not got over the civil war between communists and the Greek government of 1946-49, and where political tensions and divisions continued to run deep. The CIA, desperate to avoid Greece falling into communist hands, was also active in Athens. Greece was a strategic pawn between the US and the Soviet Union, each anxious to pull the country into its sphere of influence in the eastern Mediterranean. At the same time, it was attempting to modernise with social and economic reforms as an associate member and applicant to join the Common Market.

The month before Constantine came to the throne, a general election had produced a leftwing government under George Papandreou, following eleven years of rightwing government. Within a year, relations between the king and his prime minister were breaking down. Conservative army officers were alarmed by a perceived leftwards drift among the junior ranks, who were supported by Papandreou’s Harvard-educated son Andreas. When George Papandreou announced that he would take over the defence ministry himself, Constantine refused to allow him to do so, and the government resigned. In the hiatus that followed, the king attempted to appoint a government without holding an election and was accused of acting unconstitutionally.

When elections were finally called in April 1967, the likely re-election of Papandreou was forestalled by an army coup led by colonels. Constantine initially appeared to go along with the insurgents. He argued later that he had had no choice as the palace was surrounded by army tanks, but there were also persistent suggestions that he had been urged by the American embassy to do so in order to avoid another radical government. Many Greeks and civilian politicians never forgave the king for acceding to the coup, but within months he attempted a counter-coup of his own, fleeing to loyalist troops in the northern city of Kavala that December in an attempt to create a rival military support and force the junta to resign.

The operation was poorly organised and, although the air force and navy declared their support, the army and its officers rallied to the coup leaders. Support for the king melted away within 24 hours. Fearing bloodshed if it came to a military confrontation, Constantine and his family fled into exile, first in Rome and then a few years later in London.

There was no going back for the king. The junta, led by Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos, brutally consolidated their regime using censorship, mass arrests of opponents, torture and imprisonments, and were not going to reinstate Constantine after his attempted coup. When monarchist navy officers unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow the colonels in June 1973, Papadopoulos declared the country a republic, endorsed subsequently in a plebiscite widely assumed to have been rigged.

Nonetheless, when the regime fell following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, to be succeeded by a civilian government, a further referendum was held to determine whether the king should be restored. Constantine was not allowed to return in order to campaign on his own behalf, though he was allowed to broadcast an address from London in which he apologised for his previous errors. But his maladroit interference with the civilian governments before the coup was held against him and the outcome of the vote in December 1974 was heavily in favour of a republic: by 69% to 31%.

Thereafter, for decades, Constantine was prevented from visiting Greece except briefly and on rare occasions: for his mother’s funeral in 1981 and for an attempted holiday in 1993, when he found his yacht was constantly harried by torpedo boats and aeroplanes. The following year, the Greek government revoked his citizenship and passport and seized the royal family’s property. “The law basically said that I had to go out and acquire a name. The problem is that my family originates from Denmark and the Danish royal family haven’t got a surname,” he said, adding that Glücksburg was the name of a place not a family: “I might as well call myself Mr Kensington.”

In 2000, the court of human rights found for the king in relation to the property, though it could only order compensation, not the return of his extensive estates nor the royal palace at Tatoi and awarded him only 12m euros (around £10m), rather than the 500m he had asked for: a reduction that the Greek government counted as a triumphant vindication. It nevertheless took another two years to pay the money and, when it did so, the government took it from its extraordinary natural disasters fund rather than general reserves. In retaliation, Constantine used the money to set up a charitable foundation in the name of his wife to assist Greeks suffering from natural disasters. He said: “I feel the Greek government have acted unjustly and vindictively. They treat me sometimes as if I am their enemy – I am not the enemy. I consider it the greatest insult in the world for a Greek to be told he is not a Greek.”

Generally, while expressing a wish to be allowed to live in Greece, which was granted in 2013, Constantine seemed equable about his fate and did not attempt to regain the throne. “All I want is to have my home back and to be able to travel in and out of Greece like every other Greek. I don’t have to be in Greece as head of state. I am quite happy to be there as a private citizen,” he told the news media in 2000. “Forget the past, we are a republic now. Let’s get on with the future.”

By the standards of the hapless Greek monarchy, Constantine II, the last king of the Hellenes, who died aged 82 on 10 January 2023, led a comfortable life in exile after a brief and turbulent reign. Of the seven Greek monarchs of the 19th and 20th centuries, three were deposed, one assassinated, two abdicated and one died of septicaemia after being bitten by a barbary ape in the royal gardens.

The Glücksburg monarchy was German-Danish in origin, imposed on Greece in the 1830s. During prolonged wrangling after Constantine’s deposition, the Greek government refused to give him a passport until he acknowledged that he was Mr Glücksburg, whereas he insisted he was just plain Constantine. As the last of Greece’s deposed monarchs he escaped lightly. But decades of exile in London, as one thing the Greeks did not want back from Britain, were not how he would have chosen to spend his life. For more than 20 years he was careful not to stir up anti-monarchist feeling in Greece, though he never relinquished his claim to the throne.

But Greeks have long memories. When the Greek colonels seized power in 1967, instigating seven years of tyranny, it was King Constantine who tried to stand up to them and rally the forces of democracy; but he did so rather naively and feebly.

Had Constantine succeeded, as did his brother-in-law Juan Carlos of Spain, he might have been a hero to his people. As it was, in the eyes of many Greeks, he remained tainted by family history and by his own clumsy mishandling of the political crisis that had brought about his exile. It’s a mistake he has freely acknowledged during the long 46 years of exile from his homeland.

There are Greeks still today who have always felt the referendum to depose him as King was rigged. For his part, Constantine, always continued to support democracy and the republic. Except with one caveat. According to many, Constantine never accepted his deposition. His Danish diplomatic passport still read "Constantine, King of Greece." In an interview with the television channel Skai in 2016, he even said: "I am not the former King Constantine, I am King Constantine, period."

In public at least, his fidelity to the republic bore fruit when he was allowed to come back to Greece and reside there. By all accounts his return from exile was a happy one where his home in Peloponnese coast gave him the peace he so long craved to live and eventually die in his own homeland. "All Greeks who live in exile want to return. It's in their blood," And so he got his wish. He was buried as a Greek, if not as a king.

RIP King Constantine II of the Hellenes (1940-2023)

#king constantine II of the hellenes #constantine II #greece #quote #royalty #monarchy #history #politics #coup #exile #king constantine II of greece

44 notes · View notes

catofadifferentcolor · 11 months

Text

Terrible Fic Ideas #50: Jon Snow, but make him the Rogue Prince

Daemon Targaryen is a fascinating character. Admired, beloved, capable, cruel, reviled, and often times vile, he is such a clash of personality traits it almost feels as if he's a multifaceted jewel more than a person, and you have to spend days just turning and turning him around to capture his essence.

So, naturally, I thought: what if Jon Snow was the second coming of the Rogue Prince? Not necessarily his reincarnation - though that could be fascinating - but the inheritor of all his ancestor's best and worst traits.

Aka: The Daemon the Destroyer Fic

Just imagine it:

Everything follows canon except the dragonblood burns just a bit hotter in Jon Snow. Catelyn's treatment leaves him more defiant than downtrodden - less willing to dim his light to please others and more determined to prove his worth.

Jon proves himself a capable swordsman and leader of men from a young age, taking charge of the training of Winterfell's newest men-at-arms until Catelyn forces Ned to put a stop to it, fearing that Winterfell's soldiers will be more loyal to Ned's bastard than his trueborn heir.

He's then placed beneath Steward Poole. Caitlyn hopes that his incompetence as an under-steward will cause Ned to send him away, but Jon defies expectations by excelling in this position. When Poole starts to speak of formally training Jon to be his replacement, Caitlyn should demand Jon be sent to the Wall.

Jon refuses to go. Robb has promised Jon a position of honor at his side once he becomes Lord and Jon means to take him up on it...

...but Ned, seeing much of the Targaryens in his nephew and seeking to keep peace in both his household and the realm, commands him to take the Black regardless. Escaping those ordered to see him to Castle Black, Jon travels to Essos and joins the Second Sons. He rises high in that organization, seizing command from Mero a year or so before Daenerys encounters them outside of Yunkai.

By this point Jon is starting to be touted as The Second Daemon and The Rogue Prince Reborn. Though his coloring marks him clearly as a Northerner, there's very much something blood of the dragon that the Essosi recognize in him. Dashing, daring, dangerous, mercurial and ambitious, he, like Daemon, is the wonder and terror of his age. He should have just enough Northern honor to keep from being despicable and just enough ruthless practicality to succeed in all things.

Naturally, Daenerys is intrigued.

Jon and Dany begin a wildfire romance against the backdrop of her conquests in Essos. They bring out the best and worst of each other, and while there's clearly love there their motivations work against them. Jon doesn't understand why Dany is so desperate to take the Iron Throne when she's built such a successful empire in Essos - and resents that she'll happily keep him as a lover, but refuses to wed him so as to keep her diplomatic options open. For her part, Dany can't understand his indifference to what she sees as her birthright and resents that he wants more from her than she's willing to give.

Nonetheless, Jon and the Second Sons follow Dany across the Narrow Sea and help her retake Dragonstone.

Meanwhile things have been going according to canon in Westeros, with the exception that Ned was sentenced to take the Black rather than executed. He has much of Jon's beyond the Wall plot line, and after taking Winterfell back from the Boltons heads to treat with the Dragon Queen after her forces have retaken most of the south.

Ned doesn't immediately recognize Jon - and when he does he's angered beyond all belief, seeing most of Jon's actions in Essos as betraying the ideals Ned fought to instill in him. (Or, at the very least, betraying his cousins by not returning to fight by their side.) This should turn into a massive public argument during which the words I knew you had too much of your father in you slip out.

The truth of Jon's birth comes out, but doesn't solve anything - in fact, in should make things worse, with Jon angry that it's this that makes Dany consider him a viable husband for the first time and not any of the many deeds he's done in her name.

Things end in one of two ways, with either 1) Dany and Jon putting aside their differences, uniting their claims, and having the kind of contentious marriage that only dragons can have, or 2) Dany takes the throne on her own after making a diplomatic marriage, Jon being made Lord Paramount of the Vale, and having the kind of contentious relationship that portends future civil wars in other houses, nevermind that all of Dany's heirs are born nine months after her nephew's visits.

Bonuses include: 1) Everything about Jon echoing the Rogue Prince, intentionally or unintentionally, minus the rampant whoring and ill-treatment of non-Valyrian women; 2) More concentration given to Dany's actions in Essos, to the extent that she leaves behind a functioning government run by former slaves that's not likely to disintegrate the moment her ships sail out of sight. This should be a battleground of Dany's idealism and Jon's ruthless practicality - to the extent that half the reason Dany refuses to marry him should be her fear that the people prefer him to her, and that any marriage they have will turn her into a figurehead alone; and 3) A relationship that never quite slips into destructive romance but, like all Targaryen relationships, dances merrily about its edge. Jon should make Dany a better ruler, Dany should give him the sense of noble purpose he's lacked since becoming a mercenary - yet ultimately they are so similar they either have to really work to make a relationship work or let it fall apart and let the shrapnel destroy all they have built.

And that's all I have. As always, feel free to adopt this bun, just link back if you do anything with it.

More Terrible Fic Ideas

#plot bunny #fic ideas #game of thrones #a song of ice and fire #got #asoiaf #jon snow #jon snow is a targaryen #daenerys targeryan #jon x daenerys #house targaryen

22 notes · View notes

aheathen-conceivably · 1 year

Note

Hello! Hope you’re doing well 😄 I’m absolutely adoring your legacy, and I was wondering how you manage aging/timing? Like, how many days is a year for your gameplay, what lifespans do you use, and how long are seasons in your game? You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to I’m just super curious 😅

Hello there! Thanks so much, and I hope all is well for you too! ☺️

I’m very glad to answer, because I’ve spent a good deal of time sorting this system out for myself. When I first read The Decades Challenge, I knew that I wanted a more realistic passing of time. Of course, that’s difficult in The Sims, but I tried my best to make the sims’ lifespans flow through the decades the same way that they would in real life.

So in essence, 4 in-game sim days=1 IRL year. This means that every sim day is 3 months, and 40 sim days is one decade. When I first started, I had this at 3 in-game days, but I recently bumped it up to 4 (which meant redoing the math for the entire thing….yaaaay 🥲).

Using the calculation of 4 in-game sim days I set my MCC aging spans as follows:

Toddler is 20 days (0-5 years old)

Child 24 days (5-11 years old)

Preteen 12 days (11-14 years old)

Teen 16 days (14-18 years old)

Young Adult 64 days (18-34 years old)

Adult 64 days (34-50 years old)

Elder 40 days (50-60 years old)

I do regularly tweak the details of these both to accommodate age span as it lengthens through history, and for more realistic aging (like moving the preteen category up a year).

Now with all that math behind us (praise the lord), I don’t really have a complex spreadsheet or anything to keep track of birthdays or years. I just use the in-game calendar to mark when a new year starts every 4 days, to make sure that I don’t lose track of time. With MCC set up properly as listed above, people’s birthdays fall where they’re meant to. However after updates, I will go and check on the main family to make sure nothing got mixed around in regards to their aging.

My seasons are set to 1 week. This does bother me greatly, because it means that it takes almost 2 IRL years for the season to turn in the Darlington universe. However, I just pretend it’s like a game of thrones situation where the seasons last longer than they do IRL 🤷🏻‍♀️

#whew that was a long one #so if you made it through the math and all kudos to you #can anyone tell I’m a liberal arts brained gal though? 🤣#ask #answered #resources

31 notes · View notes

religion-is-a-mental-illness · 8 months

Note

hi! fellow atheist here :)

i wanna know, since u dont believe in afterlife and such, do u just feel ok with death? i know this sounds silly and like something a crazy religious person would say but it's genuine! maybe it's cause i have severe depression ans its all i think about but have u come to terms with death and are ok with it? if so how, cause i wish i could just accept it instead of being depressed about it

Straight to the big questions.

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” -- Mark Twain

I'm not looking forward to the actual process of dying; whether it's painful or scary or confusing or whatever. But I already have billions of years of experience with non-existence.

“You did not exist for about 14 billion years. You exist now and when you die you will not exist again. Forever. Enjoy your existing years.” -- Ricky Gervais

What you have is that you won the lottery. There are billions of billions of billions of people who could have existed but never did. Two people, among the billions on the planet, were born and survived up to the point of meeting each other. And then the right sperm met the right egg under the right conditions and resulted in you.

Now, while you shouldn't feel guilty about the fact you got to exist, or be duped by the notion that you owe somebody for something you didn't choose, nor should you feel entitled or arrogant for something that isn't an accomplishment of your own skill or merit.

You got to exist when billions and billions of potential people did not. And you got to exist at a time of extraordinary comfort and privilege, where the majority of our really big problems have been solved, and services, tools and technologies that were unimaginable only 100, 50 or even 20 years ago, and which would be seen as witchcraft or sorcery further back than that. Billions of people lived and died at a time when you were more likely to die before the age of 2 than to live beyond the age of 60.

“We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?” -- Richard Dawkins

One of the ways you can resolve this is by truly considering the alternative. Which is that unlike every other creature which is subject to birth and death, including the stars and planets themselves, humans are somehow uniquely entitled to exist forever. This kind of arrogance places us outside of nature.

People can't wrap their minds around death, and religion is a coping mechanism. But I feel it is arrogant to notice that every form of life eventually meets it's death, and claim that you will not be participating. -- James Cowden

Believers describe the afterlife as being "perfect." This in itself is concerning, raising questions of why you would even want it. Anything that is perfect is unchangeable. It's perfect before you arrive and it's perfect after. You don't, and can't, affect it or improve it. You can't discover anything, you can't invent anything.

"Now, I can hold a note for a long time. - Actually, I can hold a note forever. - But eventually, that's just noise. It's the change we're listening for. The note coming after and the one after that. That's what makes it music." -- Lorne, "Angel"

An eternity of unchangingness would be hell.

Even worse for the Xian conception of heaven, in which there is only one eternal activity: praising their god. Hitchens described it as "Celestial North Korea."

Revelation 4:10-11

The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Revelation 7:15

Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

The reward in heaven isn't for the believer, it's for god. He rewards himself for his awesomeness by finding the people who want to do nothing but tell him how awesome he is for eternity.

Also, it's filled with Xians.

And it's no better for Islam.

Thank goodness the whole thing is a horrific myth.

"On paper this is paradise. All your desires and needs are met. But it's infinite. And when perfection goes on forever you become this glassy-eyed mush person." -- Patty, "The Good Place"

“Whoever invented heaven and made it eternal forgot that wonderful eventually becomes ordinary, ordinary becomes tedious, tedious becomes unbearable. And you have to bear it. Forever.” -- Bill Flavell

Every trope of eternal life or immortality casts it as a curse rather than a blessing. Every vampire becomes weary, every immortal becomes jaded.

"It doesn't seem like this is paradise for you. You've basically been on a never-ending vacation, and vacations are only special because they end." -- Eleanor, "The Good Place"

Eleanor: "Remember what I said to you when you were going through your mid-life crisis, one earring, red convertible phase?" Michael: "You said that every human is a little bit sad all the time because you know you're gonna die. But that knowledge is what gives life meaning." Eleanor: "The way to restore meaning to the people in the Good Place is to let them leave." -- "The Good Place"

It's okay to be a little bit sad about the fact that life will end. It means you recognize how fortunate we are, how lucky we are to exist, how little time we get, and how when others die, that's it.

Xians think that this life is just the welcome mat on the front door to a palace of eternal life. They can't wait to get through the door. Many of them are rooting for Jesus to return and end it all for everyone, so they can get past the doormat into the palace.

The problem is fixating on it, because you're burning time. Just as you're a bit sad that a vacation will end. But that just means you have to make the most of it.

When there's an infinite supply of something, it doesn't become more valuable, it becomes worthless. When there's never a risk of running out of something or being without it, it loses value. It's only things that are rare, temporary or fragile that are valuable.

It seems like what you're depressed about is that you have this valuable product, Life™, and it's bothering you that one day you won't have it any more. But the reason you value it is because it's temporary and you won't always have it. If you had more of it or knew you'd never run out of it, you wouldn't value it and you wouldn't be concerned about being without it. It's not so much that you're unhappy with the quality of the product, just that it only has a limited shelf-life. If you're depressed about being without it, about inevitably losing it, in a way you've already accepted that you won't have it forever.

You have a jar of Life™ and while it's essentially bottomless, it does have a Use By sticker on it with an illegible date. At some point it's going to expire. The real question is what are you going to do with it while you have it? If you like the taste of it, eat it at every meal. If you don't, mix it with something to improve it.

I don't know if this helps you in any way. I've written before about the "myth of an afterlife," "heaven would be hell," and "fear of death" which may also be helpful.

#ask #religion is a mental illness

7 notes · View notes