Not a prompt exactly (could be tho if you're interested 👀👀) but I'm chewing on ideas about an au where it could be possible for the twins and Commodus to meet and I want your ideas. Like what kinds of laws of physics and time would have to be bent? For them to meet and be approximately the same age I mean. And what would happen if they did meet?
The roleswap general au taken even further could be something? Like Commodus is not yet Emperor, no patricide has happened yet. Septimiums Severus is an important general and wants to be Emperor. Idk if it would be better if they meet somewhere on the same kind of situation as took place at the beginning of gladiator 1 where they've been on the battlefield settlement for a thousand years and Commodus flies in after everything is already done. Would the twins do the same, would they also be fancy boys playing dress up or would they actually be there already because their dad has trained them better? Or would it be better if they met at Rome in some kind of celebrations maybe? I don't know but I just need them to meet (and maybe get into some kind of conflict because it would be funny and very unbecoming but it doesn't need to be a physical fight just a verbal or even unverbal one just tension lmao) ((also Caracalla seeing young Lucilla)) (((also why do I keep thinking Commodus and Geta are same height when they are not Geta is actually the tallest of these three and I'm going to throw up about it)))
Okay no an AU where all four sibs are in the same generation is killing me. First off just imagining what an utter disaster it would be if Commodus, Caracalla and Geta put their idiot heads together about literally anything. Also rip pre-emptively to Lucilla in specific I cannot imagine that ending well for her AT ALL. Like just Commodus or Caracalla individually and not at once is bad enough but both of them, and whatever sick shit they come up with about her, I don't fucking know. Can't decide if they'd be more likely to be disgusting about this together or end up in a to death duel about it. Love that neither of them is sane enough to care that Commodus is literally Lucilla's brother so that holds zero weight in this equation.
Sorry I'm getting so off the track on this already but this whole concept is horrendous. Though maybe Caracalla wouldn't be into her as much if she was younger LOL. He's definitely getting at her from the MILF angle, but also Lucilla's never not been impressive and straight-spined and frightening so like. I don't think she'd not interest him, either.
Anyway, back from Lucilla. Sorry, Lucilla. Literally just leave the whole empire at this stage I don't know. Save yourself.
I think laws of physics and time can just be outmanouvred if you assume some minor timeline differences happen earlier. Just speeding up the reproduction times of the Severan ancestors by literally just minutes will eventually catch up with them being born at the right time, there's not a lot of justifying that needs to be done there. Meanwhile,
... so basically Geta and Caracalla could be the sons of a senator, since Commodus is still alive and there's no massive civil war happening with 50 different emperors chair-hopping the throne and allowing their father to climb to power. If you want to kill off all dads in the story, they could be senators.
Gods. LOL the concept. Fuck.
For your scenario, Septimius Severus can just carry on his path down into the military, and have the boys be raised straight up as military men. They'd be young for higher positions, though - generals tended to be promoted around the age of 40 or so - but when did that ever stop fanfiction from happening. And even if they weren't in high positions themselves, being the sons of a high-ranking general could easily put them around the same table with Commodus and, well. Go from there. Honestly, them all being a bunch of show-off no-skills is hilarious and I could definitely see them forming the worst, most entitled gang known to history where they get to have unhingedly high opinions of themselves wrapped around the central knowledge that they're all fucking losers together and just... try to cover that up by bullying everybody. Severus being alive at this stage, though? Looking at the seat of the emperor once Marcus Aurelius is gone? The twins would be his prime method of getting to the soft bits of Commodus for his own benefit.
Both the "swooping in from left field after a battle" and "meeting at some sort of celebrations" could be true at once: have them first meeting for campaign reasons, all boys there for the purpose of heeding their fathers' summons and just getting the barest first taste of being in each others' presence, but then properly getting to brush up during celebrations in Rome, and becoming whatever the hell you want to make of them.
Legitimately they could go either extreme: either they would love each other in a way that is unhealthy to everybody around them the same way a toxic sludge is, or they would go to great lengths to off each other from the playing field at any cost. There's no neutralcy here. I'm still team school yard bullies personally, they're all disgusting.
Also not Geta being the tallest of them, lmfao. Might be because he has the most capacity for brain function, not that he shows any, and would NOT under this peer pressure. But Commodus somehow manages to be as unhinged as Caracalla is sick, so the bar is REALLY low there. And it better be because they're all short as shit somehow. I don't care if that's untrue in centimetres they just have short energy so bad
