“Andromeda: Mother of thy household, for the sake of getting children.
Perseus: As surely as Trivia, Titan’s daughter, will grant you off-spring of children.”
There are a lot of lost ancient plays, a famous one being Euripides Andromeda, but he wasn’t the only one to write about Andromeda, a Roman writer, Ennius wrote his own play about her, likely inspired by Euripides to some degree. One fragment that stood out to me due to how amusing it was, is the one we’re Andromeda very boldly asks Perseus to be the mother of his children.
So…care to tell me about your OC? I forgot their name, but I’m interested to learn about them and their lore (if they have some).
Yes!!! I'd love to talk about Ennius. I do have 4 other fleshed out OC's and a few more floating about in my brain.
There is Ennius, Melody (Mel), Jinger, Chogengo (Cho), and Isis. All of them have a canon partner (or partners in Jinger's case, though Ennius is also poly, but he only has one canon partner right now). Ennius, Mel, Jinger, and Cho all have AU's with my friends OC's too! Funnily enough I actually enjoy their OC match ups better than their canon ones, though they are all amazing.
I'll talk about Ennius here, since his lore is the most in-depth one I have. The others have quite deep lore too, but not like him. This is my rendition of him using the Baldur's Gate 3 Character builder. MY PFP is a piece done my Attytrocious here on Tumblr. The only difference is that the scar on his face is on the left side, but the character builder wouldn't let me do it on the left side.
CW/TW on Ennius' backstory: Murder, brainwashing, domestic violence, child abuse, slavery. These are all mentioned but not written in detail, just wanted to put the TQ just in case.
Buckle in for this poor man's very tragic story.
He was born around the time of Nolan the Liar (didn't know him, just from that time period).
He had a older sister and brother and loving parents. They were fairly poor, just barely able to sustain a small farm to feed themselves.
His father died when he was a child to an illness they were too poor to get medicine for.
His mother remarried, mainly to be able to have someone to tend to the fields as she couldn't do it all herself and continue to bring in the tiny bit of income she could.
Her new husband was a bastard and was abusive. He ended up selling Ennius' sister to an auction house where she was eventually bought by a Celestial Dragon. His brother was sold into the Marines as a soldier. He then sold Ennius to Cipher Pol.
Ennius had a knack for learning things unusually quickly, usually only after one showing. That was what Cipher Pol wanted him for, to train him to be the best spy. He could adapt quickly, learn languages, dialects, combat skills, and any other skills that would help him blend into his environment as a spy.
He was brainwashed and lied to about being able to see his mother and siblings again.
Once he mastered the skills to be a spy (at the age of 16), he was given a devil fruit that would aid him in his duties; both for combat and for interrogation. The Pain-Pain Fruit. It manipulates they way a bodies nerves work increasing or decreasing pain and eventually pleasure.
By the age of 22 he had mastered the pain side of his DF (not realizing there was a pleasure side yet). He then became the personal spy and assassin for the 5 Elders and Imu. He was a perfect tool for them.
A few years later he was injured badly and was unable to contact HQ to get an extraction. A woman found him and nursed him back to health. A day or two after being found he was able to check in and lied to the Elders for the first time since he was 6. He said he was getting himself healed up and would make it back to HQ when he was physically able.
That time away from them allowed some of the brainwashing to diminish and he began to feel things again.
He fell in love with the woman over time (he was there a month to heal up, but would return on his sabbaticals to visit her). He also found a way to avoid further brainwashing, but used his expert lying skills to fall back into his "old self".
He was eventually married in secret and they had 2 kids.
After his second kids was born, the 5 Elders decided they wanted their beloved assassin for all time. They had the perpetual life surgery done on him (he wasn't fully aware that he would be immortal or that someone would die to make him so). The Elders also didn't want his DF falling back into circulation since it was one of the few devil fruits that could be harmful to them. It wouldn't kill them, but they could be made to be in such excruciating pain that they would not be able to defend themselves.
A few months after the procedure, Ennius was asked to do something that he refused to do, the first time ever. He was sent on the mission but was instructed to come up with a different solution then. When he returned his family was dead and he knew who ordered it.
Distraught, he went to the Elders and Imu and used his power on them, the effects lasting one hour. He told them that he was done and to leave him be. If they sent anyone after them, he'd use his abyss portal to come here and finish the job. Realizing that they made the perfect assassin that could kill them, they agreed. The Marines and CP are forbidden to ever put a bounty on Ennius' head.
He knew the importance of the Op-OP fruit, so he took the newest user with him and fled. He's taken it upon himself to keep the Op-OP fruit from reaching anyone else's hands.
He's lived for over 400 years and has had some really dark times, but now in the current timeline (and for quite some time before) he enjoys life. He loves to help people and is kind of a travelling jack-of-all-trades.
He has deep shame and guilt for the horrible things he'd done as a CP agent and has spent the last 400 years trying to make up for it. (No matter how much he does he is still ridden with guilt over it).
Current timeline, he was how the Barrels' Pirates got the Op-Op fruit. He was ambushed and knocked out. They found the fruit on him and took it. By the time he awoke, the events with Cora and Law already happened.
He eventually spent time with all the big pirate crews, thus getting to know Whitebeard (back when he was on Rock's crew) and again after Oden joined Whitebeard's crew. They went separate ways and met back up in the present.
He met Thatch on board and the two fell for each other, hard. Ennius' story with Thatch is an AU where Thatch lives. There could be one that follows the canon story, but Blackbeard would have been dead before he left the ship, lol.
Now-a-days, Ennius is cheerful and charming. He loves to see his friends happy and is sometimes a people pleaser, not wanting to have conflict. He's also a horny bastard and due to his regeneration from his immortality he has stamina for days.
He eventual goal is to find Joyboy's inheritor and help them take down the Elders and Imu. Although he could have done it a long time ago, there was no one to fill the void that their absence would make and someone just as bad or worse could take their place. He wants to make sure the world is in the right spot to fill that void properly.
With all the "waves" Luffy has been making, he knows he's found the right time and when the end game happens, he will be right there helping to take down the Elders and Imu. Once that is done, he will either find a way to reverse his immortality or find someone he trusts to behead him (my HC as the only way to actually kill someone who's had the perpetual life surgery done on them) and he could be laid to rest with Thatch (this would be done after Thatch passes of old age).
I know that was A LOT, but I thought about his story for years now. I just love him so much.
CASSANDRA: Mother, woman wiser far than the best of women,
driven was I by superstitious soothsayings, and Apollo by foretellings told stirs me to madness — not against my wish. Yet I shrink from maidens of my own age, and my father, best of men, is ashamed of what I do. Mother mine, I pity you, I grieve for me; to Priam you have born blessed bairns — apart from me. That's painful. Ah! That I should be a hindrance, those brothers a help! That I should stand against you, they stand with you! That's painful, pitiful, sorrowful!
Roman statue of Ennius and Virgil, likely dated to between the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. The double portrait represents the passage of knowledge from Ennius (sometimes called the 'father of Latin poetry') to Virgil (author of the Aeneid), who was born a century after Ennius died. Currently located in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.