#founding rome

[mythosblogging]

Today marks the anniversary of Sandro Botticelli’s death. Botticelli was a Renaissance painter and one of his most famous works was, of course, The Birth of Venus. The painting depicted the Roman Goddess Venus emerging fully grown from the ocean. 

In Myth, Venus was the daughter of Jupiter and ancestress to the Roman people. Her half-human son, Aeneas, was said to have survived the sacking of Troy and gone on to found Rome.

More Myths

[dellamoore]

Romulus aesthetic from the myth of Remus and Romulus founding the city of Rome.

[mutopians]

could you add @decentsanders (my tss blog) to the Founding Rome taglist, if you don’t mind? I’m really enjoying it so far!! 💚 have a wonderful day!!

sure thing!! thanks for asking :) i cant promise I'll update it soon, but I'll definitely tag u when I do!

[mutopians]

Founding Rome

A Sanders Sides Fic

Creativity splits. While the other sides grapple with what that means for them, the newly separated Creativity decides that being two people isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds.

( Leave a reply or send me an ask if you want to be added to the currently nonexistent tag list!

And inspiration for this fic can be found in this post, which should also double as a masterlist once I have more chapters up. )

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

They were ignoring him-

-just like they always did.

He usually didn’t mind-

-but the thoughts were so hard to fight right now.

He couldn’t stand around any longer. He had to leave. He had to get away from a discussion that made him out to be a liar, and a discussion that made him feel like his entire world was falling apart around him.

So he went to the world that would always provide him comfort. It wasn’t the same anymore. He could feel that, as he fought back against the doubt and the chaos in his mind.

He walked down a worn stone path, conjuring up tree after tree as he walked into the darkness. A heavy silence hung over the air. He knew he could conjure up a bird or two if he wanted, but he couldn’t find the strength in him.

A tower stood over the forest. The tower wasn’t right. He was trying to make it dark-

-but the pristine white bricks kept being corrupted by darkness. The vines that curled around its base and reached towards the sky kept becoming gnarled and withered no matter how much he thought about them becoming something else.

He was Creativity. This was supposed to be his domain. No one could ever create like he could. Something inside of him must have been horribly wrong if his own powers were failing to work the way they should.

They were wrong to doubt him. They were wrong to think he wasn’t who he said he was, and wrong to worry. This wasn’t some trick. He didn’t know what had happened to him, but he would fix it. How could he call himself the creative side if he didn’t solve this minor inconvenience?

He entered through a rotten door and climbed up a crumbling set of steps.

The rope bit at his hands as he climbed up the ladder dangling down from the highest floor. He would find the damsel he was supposed to rescue earlier there-

-and would be able to see the dragon approach from the wide, clear window that looked out into the forests below.

He needed to change how he looked. Not because he didn’t like how unfamiliar his clothes and own face were right now-

-but because he had a role he needed to fit.

So he made himself the finest armor most befitting of the most valiant knight-

-and reached the final floor.

The princess was standing there in all of her maidenly beauty. Her long golden locks, blue eyes and flowing dress were straight out of a fairy tale.

He could see the dragon in the distance, flapping its wings in powerful gusts.

But the princess wasn’t alone in the tower. There was another person standing there as well. Someone that, no matter how hard he tried to remember making them, simply hadn’t been conjured by his imagination. They were a knight, but different than him: their armor was the deepest, darkest black.

The knight’s glinted as he moved away from the princess. He hadn’t even noticed the rope ladder when he entered the castle. Maybe it had been another thought he had been desperate to push away - just one in many. The knight hesitantly raised their sword, as if they didn’t quite know why they were there.

The intruder’s movements were familiar as the two began to circle around one another. There was something about how they held their sword and watched him that reminded him of someone else, but he couldn’t figure out who that someone was.

He could easily run his sword through them. He was itching to do just that. The dragon had stopped its approach, and the damsel had gone still. But when he went to push the sword through the knight’s armor, he found that they were blocking his attack with an ease that should have been impossible.

It wasn’t supposed to be this hard to wage a fight against an imaginary foe. He could have blamed any of the other sides, but none of them ever had stayed in his realm long enough to pick something like this up.

They danced across the tower’s floor, blades clashing as they tried to best one another. They alternated between defensive and offensive. Neither one could gain the upper hand. Victories were just momentary.

They had said there was another side. Maybe this was that mysterious side. And if he could prove that there was another side besides him, then he could reclaim his role as the true Creativity. He had to go on the offensive.

He had to do something unexpected.

He plunged his sword forward-

-pushing past metal into fragile human skin.

The sword hurt as he rushed down its blade. But his opponent never saw the lunge coming, even as they mirrored his attack in every way.

He wrapped his hands around the other knight’s helmet and gave it a hard, strong jerk.

Throwing the helmet to the ground and hearing it clatter off to the side of the room, he pulled back from the knight and his sword. He was too close and too caught up in the adrenaline of it all to register the face that looked back at him.

His sword clattered to the ground.

“You’re me,” he whispered, eyes widening in shock. Their voices spoke in an eerie, startled unison.

“No,” he snarled. “You can’t be me. I’m Creativity.”

“They said there was another side,” he insisted. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to disprove the imposter standing before him, or trying to prove to himself that everything was still right in the fragile world he had created for himself. “You have to be that other side. Because you can’t be Thomas’s creativity if I am.”

His arms fell limply to his side, and he gave the boy in front of him a long look. He looked like a hero, standing there with his beautiful white outfit and sash the color of blood. He didn’t even have the white streak in his hair.

What if Thomas thought his creativity had to change? What if the side before him was the one meant to be Creativity now, and he was just some reject? Some pale imitation of the much better, much more improved version. All of his ideas were bland right now compared to what he was usually able to think of.

He picked up his sword-

-and started to walk towards the way he came.

But then he paused and looked back at his mirror image, distorted yet clearly him all the same.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered. “I did everything right.”

“I thought Thomas liked my ideas,” he muttered, only to realize that the new Creativity was talking at the same time as him. He fell silent and stared at him.

“...You thought Thomas liked your ideas?” he hesitantly asked. “But you’re new. How could you have time to make new ideas-”

“I’m not new,” he protested. “You’re the new one. I’m the one who was here first.”

They studied each other.

He rested the tip of his sword on the ground, the other side doing the same.

He wasn’t Logic. He didn’t have an explanation already dancing at the tip of his tongue. But the beginning of an idea was starting to come to - a strange, absurd idea that didn’t make much sense, but also made more sense than this conversation. “What did you create last before this?”

“Poison fangs!” he impulsively replied. The other side took a step back - he was afraid, just like Deceit and Anxiety had been. He reveled in that reaction, even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to. He was supposed to be the hero. Not a villain.

He blinked.

“I was the one who made those,” he said. “You couldn’t have made them...”

“Unless we’re the same person!” he finished.

“I was rescuing a damsel-”

“-and fighting a man-eating dragon.”

“Deceit came to ask where Anxiety was-”

“-but I didn’t know. And everything hurt so, so much, like my head was just about to burst open!”

“He thought I just didn’t care.”

“I did! But the headache made it so hard to think.”

“And then I passed out.”

“Dee found me in the woods! I couldn’t stop all of the thoughts rushing through my head. They’re so dark and scary, but I like them. Isn’t that funny?”

“That’s where they went!” he exclaimed. “All of my ideas are boring. I like them, but they’re just…”

“G to my R?”

He snapped. “Exactly!”

They fell back into silence.

Without actually saying what they were planning on doing, the two returned to the window. They looked out at the dragon, frozen mid-air, and watched as the world they had created began to fade away. Soon, they were standing in a slightly glorified version of Thomas’s bedroom. It looked like his old room had, back before whatever had happened to them, but it just felt wrong sharing it with another person.

“We need another bed,” he decided. “Because the thought of sharing a bed is giving me thoughts I really don’t like. I don’t want to do any of that with…” He faltered, a dismissive yet confused look flickering across his face. “...whatever you are to me.”

“Hey!” he protested. The other him just smirked. Pushing aside his irritation at the tone, he mulled over the solution. “What about a bunk bed?”

“I call bottom bunk!” he announced as the bed sprung into existence. “Then I can be the monster under the bed!”

He gave a grin at the joke. He was starting to like the idea of having another him. After all, everyone already came in pairs: Logic and Morality, Deceit and Anxiety, and now-

“...What do we call ourselves now?”

“We can’t both be called Creativity,” he said. “That would just get confusing.”

He plopped himself down on the bottom bunk. They needed Logic for this, but he didn’t feel like leaving his room right now.

He sat down next to the other him. As he kicked his legs against the side of the bed, an idea suddenly popped into his head. It was something he hadn’t thought much about at the time, but something that really needed addressing.

“Logic called Morality Patton before they realized I was awake,” the other him said. “What if we gave each other actual names?”

He leaned back and watched as the other Creativity mulled it over. From the downright evil grin on his face, it seemed like he approved of the idea. Now, just to think of something that fit them both! They were essentially the same person, and reminded him of how Thomas interacted with his brothers, so it would be fun to name each other after twins-

“I got it!” he announced, jumping up and immediately hitting his head against the top bunk. Clutching the top of his head - though it didn’t actually hurt - he put a hand on his chest. “I’ll be Remus, and you’ll be Roman!”

The names sounded familiar. Thomas had just heard the story of Romulus and Remus the other day - they were the twins who had founded Rome. (if he had asked Logic, Logic would have said that Romulus was the one who did the actual founding, but the thought didn’t occur to him.) “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I be Romulus?”

He held out both of his hands. Wiggling his fingers, he said, “Creativity has ten letters! Roman has five, and Remus has five. It’s like we split our name in two!”

“Roman it is, then!”

Remus grinned - even though he remembered what the other side didn’t. It just made sense for him to be the lesser of the two. After all, who would ever want the darker, more annoying half of creativity?

Remus gave a mock salute.

“Roman and Remus, reporting for duty!” he shouted.

There was a pause.

A snicker escaped Remus. A second later, one escaped Roman, too. It wasn’t long before they were doubled over in laughter.

And Roman, who was used to laughing by himself, quickly decided he liked laughing with someone else.

[mutopians]

i have two new chapters of founding rome up on ao3! i won't be able to post them on here until sometime tomorrow, but i'm excited and wanted to post about it tonight.

i did something really cool with the fourth chapter. i won't spoil what, but it involves some fun formatting :)

[mutopians]

eagerly awaits likes/kudos, comments/replies, and bookmarks/taglist requests on my fic

( but mainly the comments )

[mutopians]

Founding Rome

A Sanders Sides Fic

( Leave a reply or send me an ask if you want to be added to the currently nonexistent tag list!

And inspiration for this fic can be found in this post, which should also double as a masterlist once I have more chapters up. )

-

Thomas Sanders had come to a decision.

It was the kind of decision you don’t spend hours upon hours agonizing - it was natural, quick and just made sense given a variety of factors. The factors don’t entirely matter. Thomas, even, doesn’t entirely matter. Because while this is a story about the complexity of Thomas Sanders, it is about the complexity. Not Thomas.

When the decision was made, Thomas was just barely in high school. It was a hot, scorching summer day in Florida, and Thomas was lounging in his bedroom. He had plenty of things to occupy him, and plenty of things to occupy the many facets of his personality: his morality, his logic, his deceit, his creativity and his anxiety. There was another side, too, but that side was that kind of side that enjoyed solitude.

Thomas was sitting in his bed when the thought came to him. As mentioned before, it wasn’t a moment of great realization. It was him thinking about his old childhood stories - childhood being only a few years before, and even a few months before - and thinking about how much his creative tastes had changed since then. It was a time before Vine, so these stories, while something that could be shared, were something deeply personal.

The decision wasn’t really a decision. It was a stray thought that would go on to shape how he defined himself as a person: the idea that maybe, just maybe, some of his stories weren’t the kind of stories that he wanted to tell now that he was older. It’s important to stress that none of these stories were inherently bad. Thomas wasn’t inherently bad. But there was something cringeworthy about the gore he tossed around because he could, the inappropriate humor that he still found a little entertaining, and all of the taboo words and ideas that were fun to share when first granted the freedom to but not as funny farther down the road.

And, in that single moment, Thomas changed the lives of the sides he didn’t even know existed.

 xXx  

Farther down the road, a certain side would decide that “dark sides” was an appropriate title for a good chunk of Thomas’s personality. It’s hard to tell if this was out of repressed feelings, a desire for conflict, or just the plain drama of good versus evil, but the dark sides weren’t technically an entity on that summer day. There was just “us” and “them”. Who us and who them was depended on which side you asked. Deceit would insist that the better pair was Anxiety and him, while Morality would be quick to side with Logic. There was the “other” as well; neither pair liked to claim companionship with the side who generally got on all of their nerves.

But then there was the prince.

The prince wasn’t really on anyone’s side, but they’d love him regardless. Creativity is something that can’t be confined or defined by nature. Creativity would help Deceit with his most creative lies -- never wanting Thomas to get in trouble, especially when there were stories to create! When Anxiety was feeling particularly anxious, Creativity would be there to help create even more terrible scenarios.

(Misery likes company, and those increasingly more horrific scenarios ran the surprising effect of calming Anxiety down when he realized how outlandish and impossible Creativity’s ideas were.)

Creativity was Morality’s right hand man when coming up with something particularly nice to do; all of the best gifts came from his imagination. And though Logic and Creativity argued on principle, Creativity needed Logic for worldbuilding and Logic needed Creativity for problem solving. And Creativity would occasionally help the “other” as well, but that was admittedly a rarity.

Still, it would be hard to call Creativity “good” or “evil”. Creativity just was. Creativity was rescuing a damsel in distress from a hungry, man-eating dragon, but Creativity also was creating the dragon and the tower the princess was locked inside in the first place.

(Creativity had no interest in damsels, obviously, but there was something to be said for rescuing them.)

And while the damsel in distress, locked away in the tower by a hungry, man-eating dragon would have been a metaphor on most days: it wasn’t today. Morality and Logic were dictating Thomas’s actions right now, with a hint of Anxiety. Creativity could enjoy himself by conjuring up a good old adventure in Thomas’s mind. He was bruised and battered after defending the damsel from the hot blasts of air and flame once he got her down from the tower, but the injuries were just temporary. And they were temporary enough for him to get a really good idea.

“Poison fangs!” Creativity shouted, with an excited snap and maniacal grin. The damsel, who bore a striking resemblance to one of Thomas’s classmates, had a blank look on her face at this realization - Creativity was so caught up in improving the dragon that he had forgotten to make her react.

That was quickly rectified, and she adopted an appropriate look of horror when oozing green liquid started dripping from the noticeably larger fangs in the dragon’s mouth.

Now, the poison had to do something, or the quest wouldn’t be worthwhile. So Creativity really shouldn’t have been surprised when the poison hurt like hell, seeing that he had been the one to create the poison in the first place, but he had been distracted by improving his sword. A handsome hero, after all, had to have an equally glorious sword when slaying a dragon.

Creativity hissed in pain and retreated, glaring down at the wound festering through the cut in his sleeve. “That was a great idea,” Creativity hissed, voice dripping with sarcasm. It was only after the words left his lips that he realized he wasn’t really sure who the sarcasm was directed to. After all, he hadn’t dragged any of the other sides into his escapades today. The damsel was just a damsel; he hadn’t given her any other part to play than looking scared.

“All good dragons need poison,” he told himself, though his voice was a little bit uncertain. He wasn’t exactly comforting himself; it felt more like a one-sided argument. The dragon stopped, the damsel stood still and Creativity mused over a problem he didn’t quite understand. Maybe he had been cursed by some witch during the adventure, and then cursed to forget her existence. It could have been the Dragon-Witch; he loved adding her into his quests.

But that explanation didn’t feel right.

And a dull, throbbing headache appeared to accompany the uncertainty and confusion.

“Creativity,” a voice said. It was a stern kind of voice, but also slightly worried. And while the sides technically had the same voice on most days, save for when they felt like changing up their appearances for the heck of it - Creativity being the worst offender - it was still easy to tell who was talking without seeing them. So Creativity knew that it was Deceit who had just interrupted his crisis and battle, even before he turned to see the other side folding his arms besides the dragon.

(A dragon who notably had the same color scales as Deceit someday would.)

“Yes?” Creativity replied. His head was still throbbing, and he was struggling to stand now. But Creativity was just as good as faking being alright as Deceit could, so Deceit wasn’t any the wiser. “What’s up...pants-on-fire?”

Deceit frowned.

“That’s the best you can do today?” Deceit asked, his false condescension hiding his surprise. Deceit, though seemingly dark, was a facet of Thomas’s personality, and was therefore not a malicious side. He did have a heart.

He just did his best to hide it.

Creativity gave a strained grin, a searing pain shooting through his skull.

Deceit shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Have you seen Anxiety?”

Creativity scoffed.

“Anxiety doesn’t like to come here,” he reminded the other side. “He says it’s too dangerous. Go ask Morality and Logic - I have dragons to slay, damsels to save, and kingdoms to rule-”

“Creativity,” Deceit interrupted, with an urgency that didn’t match the nonchalance of him readjusting his gloves. “If he’s not with you, then he’s with Morality and Logic. Do you remember the last time he was left alone with them?”

Creativity, in fact, didn’t, but the pain was so much that he couldn’t come up with a good retort to hide his lack of knowledge. He gave a meek, pitiful shrug. Even the damsel and the dragon looked concerned at his lack of a spoken answer.

Deceit gave Creativity a long, hard look before sighing and storming off to other parts of Thomas’s mind. In Deceit’s defense, Creativity was the type of person who could be chaotic one moment and orderly the next. Useful ideas were typically balanced out with less useful ones, and Deceit simply thought that Creativity was too off in his own little world to care about the ramifications of Anxiety interacting with any other side.

If Deceit had stayed a little longer, he might have seen Creativity go crashing to the ground as the pain became too much to handle.

A fantastical world faded into nothingness.

And then, something.

[mutopians]

i don’t usually post my own content in this tag, but hey there! i just started impulsively writing a fic after seeing this post by @ask-us-sanderssides, and i wanted to share it on here too. i’ll post it on tumblr and on ao3, but it’s currently just on ao3

here’s the ao3 link!