#Not this post

[lady-selenee]

Morrigan vs Julia the Elder

So, I'm currently re-reading Acotar (didn't manage to finish the first book yet) and I'm also reading the Daughters of the Palatine Hill. And I've been thinking about Julia the Elder and noticing some similarities between her and Morrigan.

For the record, I do not like Morrigan. This is just me pointing out some similarities between them.

For those who don't know Julia the Elder is the daughter (and only biological child) of Augustus, the first Roman Emperor.

Childhood

So, we all know who Mor is. Keir's daughter, Rhysand's cousin. We know her, I don't think I need to explain on this as much of her childhood isn't even mentioned (from what I remember).

As I've said, Julia is the only biological child of Augustus. She is the daughter of his second wife, Scribonia. We can say that her life was unfortunate from the moment she was born. Why? Because, on the very day she was born, Augustus divorced her mother (most likely not because Scribonia had given birth to a daughter but because he wanted to marry Livia Drusilla, who helped him more in his political career, even though she was also married at that time and pregnant). As Roman law dictated, Julia was raised by her father, meaning in Livia's household. Now, Livia was a rather conservative woman (and extremely smart), and, despite literally being the most powerful family in Rome, the members of Augustus' family did not live lavishly.

Engagement / Marriage(s)

So, we all know Mor was supposed to marry Eris. However, to prevent that from happening, she slept with Cassian and managed to get out of the engagement. Of course, this generated a backlash from Hewn City, as Mor was seen as having sullied herself with an Illyrian bastard. Still, she managed to end the engagement. In the end, she was free.

Julia, though? Julia was not that lucky.

Again, she was the only child of the man who was Rome's Emperor in all but title (Augustus held the title of First Citizen because declaring himself Emperor would have given him the same fate as Julius Caeser). So, of course, Julia's future husband would be Augustus' heir.

And who was this future husband? None other than Marcellus, her own cousin (not even a distant cousin, his mother was Augustus' sister). Julia and Marcellus married but had not children. Eventually, just two years later, he died of a sickness (some theories claim that Livia, Julia's stepmother, killed him in an attempt to make the heir one of her own sons (with her first husband, not Augustus), but there is no evidence). Another few years passed, and the problem remained. Who would be Augustus' heir?

This time, Augustus, who had wanted Marcellus to be his heir (even prepared him for that role) when it became clear that he would have no son with Livia, made a very different choice. He chose Marcus Agrippa, one of his closest advisors, his most trusted general, and his best friend from boyhood. Meaning Julia married a man her father's age.

Not much is known about their marriage. Agrippa was often away, and this is when Julia started numerous affairs. It is recorded that, when asked how was it possible for all her children to look so much like Agrippa (meaning that she had no bastards), Julia said: “I take on a passenger only when the ship’s hold is full.”

It is believed that, despite her numerous affairs, she and Agrippa got along well enough, as they often travelled together. There was also an incident when Julia almost drowned in Ilium, and Agrippa heavily fined the citizens (although he withdrew the fine eventually). So, we can say they did not hate each other. And they did have five kids.

Agrippa did eventually die, falling ill, and Julia became once again a widow. After Marcellus' death, Agrippa had been the expected heir, but now he was also dead. And Julia's sons were too young, while Augustus' health was fragile. So, Augustus needed a new heir.

And this was Tiberius, his stepson (Livia's son), whom he adopted. So, Julia married her adopted/ stepbrother. Do you want to know another messed up thing about this? Tiberius had been forced to divorce his wife to marry Julia, and who was his wife? Agrippa's daughter (You haven't forgotten Agrippa yet, yes?), Vipsania Agrippina, Julia's stepdaughter. As you can imagine, this marriage was anything but happy.

Morrigan's Escape / Julia's Exile

We know that Morrigan leaves Hewn City to live in Velaris with Rhysand and the inner circle. In a way, we can say that things worked out for her in the end.

However, things did not work out for Julia.

Tiberius and Julia were deeply unhappy. It's also believed (it's more of a theory, really) that Julia's lifeline was Agrippa, meaning that he kept her from doing a lot of things which would cause her falling out of her father's graces. Now, Julia started even more affairs and possibly held a party in the Forum that wasn't your typical Roman party (more of an orgy, some think). Eventually, Augustus found out. And, when this accusation was joined by one saying that Julia was plotting against him, Augustus exiled Julia on an island, and her mother (Scribonia) accompanied her voluntarily. After a few years, he allowed Julia to return to the mainland to live in a villa, although men and wine were completely forbidden.

Julia's death

Augustus eventually died, and Tiberius came into power. At the same time, Julia's youngest son with Agrippa, Agrippa Postumus was killed. It is believed that this was Tiberius' doing, as he eliminated his only true rival. Unfortunately, after her father's life, Julia's fate took an even darker turn. You see, Augustus allowed her a certain amount of money, most likely for food, clothes and the like. Tiberius, however, did not. During the same year her youngest son died, Julia also passed away, possibly starving to death.

A moment for the irony, please. The daughter of the most powerful man in Rome died of starvation. Poor Julia. She deserved so much better.

I don't want to hear: she cheated on her husbands, she deserved it. She was raised in a very restrictive house (Augustus kept people away from her) and was married three times: first to her own cousin, then to a man her father's age, and then to her stepbrother.

Their relationship with their fathers

We know Mor's relationship with Kier. It's not good. Not even cordial. Can't blame her, though (not on this). We can clearly assume that Keir is a terrible father from what we see of his relationship with Morrigan.

It's clear that Julia and Augustus' relationship was very complex. Once, he declared: “There are two wayward daughters that I have to put up with: the Roman commonwealth and Julia.”

I think that (and remember this is my opinion, not a fact) Augustus did love Julia. However, he did not have much time for her. For example, he should have been the one to give her away at her wedding with Marcellus but couldn't do so, as he was away fighting in Spain (he asked Agrippa to oversee wedding preparations and to give Julia away, (yes, the same Agrippa she eventually married)). I also think that Augustus had a hard time deciding what exactly to do with Julia. Clearly, her affairs weren't very secret. At that time, Augustus was trying to pass some new marriage laws, making adultery punishable and divorce harder (probably one of the reasons he himself didn't divorce Livia, plus her political influence and, perhaps, even his love for her). It did not reflect well on him if his daughter was going around, cheating on her husbands. There was also the fact that Julia might have plotted against her father (one of her lovers was Iullus Antonius, Mark Anthony's son, whose father was perhaps Augustus' greatest enemy). From all we know, exile could have been the only solution Augustus found as to not be forced to execute his own daughter.

Conclusion

I do not know if Sjm inspired Morrigan from Julia. I've never seen people saying anything like this, mostly because Julia isn't very known. Women of her time (especially Livia herself (her stepmother)) are overshadowed by Cleopatra's existence (even Cleopatra Selene, who was raised by Julia's aunt after Augustus conquered Egypt).

As we can see, there are definitely some parallels here, although they may have not been intention. However, I think we can say that Morrigan can be considered (in my opinion, at least) a luckier Julia.

Yes, I did all of this because I love all the Julio-Claudian women (especially Julia and Livia, they're my faves). And they're all so underrated. They deserve more recognition, and I want to tell people so much about them that I made this post.

(This image of Julia is from the TV show Domina, where she is played by Liah O'Prey)

[faceless-ghostt]

I laid down thinking I was so full of energy and then clocked out for 2 hours only to wake up, eat cake, type this, and now go back to sleep

my body is a filthy liar and a fraud :(

[ronearoundblindly]

sending this w love but it's really hard to read ur comments if they're purple *and* tiny

First and foremost, thank you. That is good to know, that is a great example of constructive criticism, and I appreciate you helping me make what I write more user-friendly for readers.

Second, this has stirred something in me that I cannot tamp down, and so here goes a well-meaning rant. Sorry in advance (especially if this is one of my moots on anon).

There are several reasons I do the tiny, purple text; among them are personal esthetics, good conditioning, and bad conditioning.

I don't know why I've sorta chosen purple/lavender/etc as a theme for a while, but meh, I like it, and to have purple text show up works with the theme. Speaking of themes, Tumblr has various ways you can see your dash, called 'palettes' I think, and mine is set to idk 'goth rave' or something which has purple text on black as the default. It's easier on my eyes and makes the tiny, purple text stand out nicely in my draft posts. Because that's how I see them when formatting, I didn't notice it might be much harder on a white background or any of the other palettes. Thank you for pointing it out! I hadn't thought of that.

This might also be me as a distracted person, but the visual of a divider such as this:

...doesn't seem like enough of an end-cap to the actual story portion of the post, so I change the way the A/N looks afterward to really separate the two. (Special shoutout to the fact that the divider's message seems utterly useless in encouraging/reminding readers to leave comments or reblog. You've all heard that tirade. Let's just say I know the reminder is ignored, so I gotta try something else as a transition.)

Writing/posting on this platform, as you may have heard, is a bit of a crapshoot mixed bag. Readers feel limited both in number and in time, so we creators tend to try various things to make our posts stand out, to make them appealing. Color or text variation is one of those ways. Now, I have no flippin' idea how to get rainbow or gradient text; I barely figured out how to put hyperlinks into my bio, bless my heart, so there's little chance of my blog looking super unique or fancy. Instead I vary the look between actual prose and my notes/warnings/summaries, which leads me to the sad bit.

I am conditioned by this site and others to understand that you are here to consume content. That content is the writing that I have curated and edited into a story which doesn't involve me, just the character of 'you' and other OCs or canon IP, so my thoughts and opinions are not and never have been the reason anyone follows me. Those are quite literally small compared to the actual work I generate.

I still think of comment reblogs as flooding your dash with stuff most of you have already seen. I think I'm being annoying--even though I know it's the only way to have my writing go farther on this site--and because I will do so very, very much IRL to *not* annoy anyone, I put opinion and random side comments and little thoughts in small text that is color-coded so you can ignore it as "not-story bits."

It is taking everything in me to NOT make this small text or purple. Honestly, my palms are sweating so badly, I've wiped my computer keyboard four times.

No, I don't want anything to be hard for you to see or read. Yes, I am really grateful you pointed this out. *Do* please remember that we are all doing the best we can to get the experience we want from Tumblr by customizing what we can.

*

The comment I posted in tiny, purple text immediately before this was sent to me has been changed to regular, default color. Hopefully that helps, and I will try to keep in mind how things will look in the future.

**

I did purposefully choose to not put a readmore in this post fwiw.

[nudityandnerdery]

I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

Edit! It's been blazed by now. Thank you, though!

[huffy-the-bicycle-slayer]

If you mess up a social interaction you can say "Failed Experiment" and move on

[gingerdusk]

Reblog to give a trans person a fresh and perfectly ripe mango wait huh

It's the wikipedia image??? How big could it be

What

Huh???

[frontmansdog]

mentally taking a drag of my mental cigarette because I don’t smoke but life has been very smokable lately

[pokeballvictim]

I am a grown ass adult and I still get nausea when I feel like I'm in trouble. They're gonna send me to the principals office and take away my toys for a week. Can you just fucking kill me instead of making me stew in my fucking anxiety

[gayvampyr]

the generational gap between me and the people my age who use chat gpt

[mikkaeus]

[ampersketch-art]

Your friends watching something for the first time and getting to that scene VS you, the knower.

[omtai]

i had a dream i worked in an underwater restaurant and people kept ordering ice in their drinks and then getting mad at me when it would float away. and i’d tell them beforehand that the ice would float away & they’d be like lol no that’s not how it works just give me the ice. I’m fighting customer service battles never seen before

[nattousan]

*doom music starts to play* I actually kindof like scheduling these kinds of appointments now...

but seriously Fellas, don't forget to schedule a pap smear every couple of years just in case. If you still have a cervix you can still get cervical cancer. ilu

this has been a psa

[chipper-smol]

Damn bro....