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Clarity within Madness

🕑 Added 2025-08-01 21:08:22 +0000 UTC

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io

eeee i finally finished, i picked “insane” to my romanus, florian, nothing is shared. he is a mask, every emotion hidden behind either a snarky remark or a swing of his spear. and lately, he can’t discern who’s behind the mask. he finds himself giving too easily into corruption. he’s now paranoid and terrified that he’s no longer his own master and he’s afraid he’s losing himself more and more as time goes on :3c

AM VB

I chose "I think I'm dangerous," because it fits my Romanus in so many ways; dangerous because of the vision she saw of Nero, consumed by madness- i headcanon my Romanus to be very merciful, but to also be drawn to violence, to 'letting go'. Being merciful and not killing is a very conscious decision and ideal that Romanus sticks to. The fight with Roan(?was that the guards name???) ended with Romanus simply leaving, but in my mind she felt a sick satisfaction at seeing the guard so broken, and starting the fight at all was her letting go of her self control a bit, letting that desire for violence bubble up. And after seeing Nero consumed by the mark, she's scared that this (to her) shameful desire for blood comes from the mark. And that it's growth means she's going to lose more and more control. How will that affect those she loves? Innocents? She doesn't want to become a cold-blooded murderer. And second (I'll keep this short because i do not want to flood anyone with paragraphs of my thoughts haha) the mark growing means that it becomes harder to hide. If the inquisition gets her, it won't be only her who suffers. She loves Hadrian and Alessa so much. The thought of them being tortured and dying because of her is unbearable.

Sydney Marsing

I was drawn instinctively to "I think I'm dying" as a catch-all; as a Yes, as an Any/All Of The Above. Even in the moment, I don't know if they honestly believed it was literally, physically killing them, but it feels like *something* vital is slipping away forever. Their mind, their agency, their ability to function around other people, their ability to function at all without screaming in agony, all of them feel like a kind of death. And it's not like losing any one of them bodes well for their continued survival, given who and where they are.