#anyways. need to go find out if my cousins in another timezone have heard yet and if I need to call them

[joytoasheshq]

below is my sample application for robert baratheon-lannister. apps won’t be posted with acceptances. this is an example to give you an idea of what i’m looking for in apps, but there is not an exception that applicants write each part in the same style or of the same length as me; i’m self-aware enough to know this sample is a lot! hope this is helpful and enjoy!!

OOC.

name: roman

age: 26

pronouns: they/them

timezone: est

triggers: {omitted}

in the game of thrones you win or you die, would you be open to your character dying?: he’s gotta die for things to get better, kill this motherfucker, but only once he’s served his purpose and i’ve had some fun with him

anything else: i smell like beef

IN CHARACTER.

full name: Robert Steffan Baratheon-Lannister

gender + pronouns: cis man + he/him

age & dob: 35 years old, July 25, 1983

faceclaim: Oliver Jackson-Cohen

personality:

Those who’ve known Robert his whole life will tell you what he was like in his youth with something of a wistful smile. That he’s always been CHARISMATIC, a natural people person, who somehow attracts loyalty from anyone who gives him the chance. Maybe it’s a little different now, a little less charming, and a little more entitled, but it’s a charisma that still exists, one that he still turns on when he wants something or needs to get something done. One a lot of the people of Westeros are still charmed by, if not the elite.

There’s PASSION to everything he does, every little choice full of so much intensity that at times it’s overwhelming. Everything he does, he does fully, whether it’s good or bad. There’s no such thing as middle ground in his world, he cares deeply, or he doesn’t care at all. And that comes with the BOLDNESS. In a way, it always felt like he had to be bold, had to make choices strongly and quickly, without fear. After all, he was barely nineteen when his father died, leaving him with not only a business to look after, but also a family.

More often than not, though, he’s RASH about what he does, not giving anything much thought, but letting explosive emotions rule action, without considering consequences. STUBBORN and NARROW-SIGHTED, unwilling to consider any other option once he’s made his mind up. He willfully blinds himself to the problems around him, because he doesn’t think there’s any point in trying to change things if it’s not going to work, in his mind.

There’s an unwillingness to acknowledge mistakes, or accept consequences when the choices do lead to bad outcomes. It leads to a lot of anger, and that’s something he’s never dealt with properly. In his mind, it’s much easier to deal with pretty much any problem with a PHYSICAL solution; it’s something he is very good at, but rarely is the appropriate response to a problem, especially now that the fighting’s been done for so many years.

headcanons:

storm’s end & the eyrie (cw death)

Family has always been about a name in Westeros, a person’s whole identity inexplicably wrapped up in something they can’t even control. It’s fucked up, at least to him. It’s fucked up, but he’s aware, even if most people think he’s too much of an idiot to be, how caught up in it he is, too.

Appearance is everything, after all, and even if he hasn’t managed to keep up his own public appearance, he cares about the name, even if the people he considers his family don’t share a surname with him.

He loves his brothers, of course. That is something he will always argue, no matter what it seems to the outside world, no matter what it seems to either of them. But he’s never been able to bring himself to feel truly connected to either of them. Stannis is too different at his very core, almost as if they didn’t share a father at all, for how utterly unlike both of them he was. And Renly, well, he was already a teenager when his youngest brother was born, and he ended up more like an amusing plaything than a brother before their parents’ deaths. After, he was a burden, passed off to be raised by close family friends instead of looked after by his own brother. Robert already found someone who actually felt like what a brother should be in a way Stannis never quite had, and Renly couldn’t by then, after all.

So he loves his family, yes. But his family hasn’t been anyone with solely Baratheon at the end of their name in quite the way it should be for a long, long time.

He was so caught up in it all, so caught up in his own life, that he hadn’t considered the idea that things could change.

It was all going fantastically after all. They lived lavishly, and his parents were good, genuinely good. His mother and father and their partners ran the business, Stag Realty Group, ran the real estate market of Westeros. They’d made sure he was set up with a good future, one that he chose, and that started with finding a mentor in his mother’s close friend, Jon Arryn. And that’s where he found the people he would come to consider his family, that’s where he met Ned.

The thing is, it actually wasn’t going fantastically, but he didn’t notice until it was too late to try to help. His father didn’t have quite as much time, as years passed by, to devote to his children, Aerys asking more and more of him as he deteriorated himself. Not as much time, either, for the love they’d all built. More strain, less openness, Robert didn’t even realize he’d been making up for it by spending more and more time at the Eyrie with the ones who still had time for him.

And then the family he’d let himself forget was gone, a storm breaking it completely. A shipwreck with his parents and their partners on it, returning from a business trip on Aerys’s behalf across the Narrow Sea. And he watched, he stood there with Stannis on the docks, there to greet them after a few weeks away, and instead saw them all die. Somehow, it was harder to look at Stannis than to look at the wreckage together, to identify the bodies together, to go through belongings, to go through wills together.

It’s hard to look in the eye of someone who looks like the death of your childhood, after all.

It’s hard to look at someone who thinks the same of you.

the trident (cw violence, blood, murder)

The thing is, it wasn’t self-defense. Maybe for a moment, at the beginning, when he’d tried to ask him why he’d done it all, when they stood there, the riots raging on the other side of the river, looking at each other. He couldn’t help but remember how they had played together, laughed together, way back when as kids, when names meant nothing, and something as silly as love couldn’t get in the way of things.

Love.

That was only a moment, though, because Rhaegar smiled. Had said so simply, voice somehow clear over the din of the riots...

You don’t understand love, cousin. If you did, we wouldn’t be standing here, you would’ve let her go a long time ago.

No. No part of what he did to Rhaegar could be considered what the court ruled it, not before those words, and certainly not after. When he went to the Trident to meet him, he knew exactly what he was going to do, one way or another. The words just sent him over the edge, forcing him to take action sooner. But he had already decided.

Why else would he have had the brass knuckles gripped in his pocket?

Dozens of witnesses, and yet not one of them was able to say for sure how it had started, although most swore it was Rhaegar. He still wonders how many of them Jon had bribed with power or safety, how many of them were threatened to lie under oath to guarantee he’d walk free. How many of the jurors were gifted generously afterward for their verdicts with Lannister money. And yet he doesn’t ask, even though he knows he could easily find out. Because he knows it was him who began it. He had to do something about that smile, had to prove him wrong by fighting for the love he seemed to think he didn’t understand.

It was lucky that his cousin had had the same plan. Lucky, oddly enough, that he’d pulled the knife so soon, had caught him just under the collar bone with the blade, before he’d pulled his decorated fist from his pocket. That was enough to put it on him.

Robert Baratheon would’ve died instead, Jon had insisted, if he hadn’t defended himself from Rhaegar Targaryen’s vicious attack.

He hardly remembers most of it, just the smell of copper, his own grunts of pain mixed with Rhaegar’s, the sear of the blade cutting any part of him he could find as they struggled. And the blood, he remembers the blood blooming from broken skin as he kept hitting, over and over again, long after he should’ve stopped.

He’d never admit to anyone now just how convinced he was that he would end up locked away for the rest of his life. He’d never admit how much sleep he’s lost thinking of what he did, or worse, not regretting it at all. Would never admit how he still hears those words now, and wonders what they meant.

How selfish, that after everything, that was the only time he truly felt fear. Not even when he heard that Lyanna had been kidnapped, not when he had helped in the fighting, not when he stared down the cousin he used to love. No, dying would’ve been easy; he’s so intimate with death already.

Living is much worse.

And now he’s not so sure that he hasn’t been punished anyway, even though he walked free. He thinks maybe the power is his real punishment in the end. What is the realm, anyway, when what he had been fighting for was his love, his humanity?

There was a gun, he’d had a gun somewhere, and he learned during the trial that Rhagaer did, too. And yet, neither of them had used them.

No, it wasn’t self-defense. It was something much more personal.

king’s landing

He changed his middle name when he changed his last name. It was a two-for-one deal, after all; since he already had to change his last name, then why not do another while he was already at the courthouse signing the paperwork? It was a whim, but it felt right, and that’s really all it’s ever taken to get him to do something, an urge and some confidence.

He always hated his middle name, anyway, first because it sounded stupid, and then later because it attached him to the Targaryens. Aegon, after his great-grandfather. Who throws Aegon on their kid, even smashed between two semi-normal names? No, he shed the weight of a name like that as soon as he had the chance, having always conveniently left out his middle name even before the betrayal that led to the rebellion. He used to tell people his parents just forgot to choose one. That was easier.

He’d rather just be a Baratheon, anyway.

So that’s what he chose. Steffan was his late father’s name, and it only felt right to pay tribute to him. He was a good man, a good leader, the sort of person Robert always hoped he could be. Maybe he thought somewhere in the back of his mind that taking his name might make that easier. But it didn’t work.

Because he’s a fucking Lannister, too, apparently.

Here he is, with the stupid fucking hyphenated surname on every official document he has to sign. Hell, it still looks like a third grader learning cursive for the first time is writing the Lannister part, tacked onto the signature he’d already perfected. The issue of the last name still makes him roll his eyes to this day. Even knowing her well, he’d foolishly assumed Cersei would take his surname. But he should’ve known, because hasn’t he done things equally as wicked as every other Lannister in history?

“Why should I have to be the one to take on your identity? We’re getting married, it’s not some life changing thing.”

“I’d disagree with that, but fine, I’ll bite. It’s not fair to lose your name. Hyphenate it.”

“You hyphenate it, if it’s such a throwaway thing.”

“As much as I like you, sometimes you really just make me want to punch myself in the face, did you know that? I’ll hyphenate, if you hyphenate, too. Fair’s fair.”

“Alright then, Lannister-Baratheon it is.”

“No, no, no, how the fuck do you think it’ll look to the realm if I’m Robert Lannister suddenly? Besides, it sounds better alphabetically. Baratheon comes first.”

“No, it doesn’t, Lannister does.”

Silence.

“There’s no law saying we have to match, and if there is, well, I can get rid of it...”

blacktyde (cw alcohol, drugs)

It’s not something he ever planned on becoming, somehow who relies on escapism to get through one fucking day, one fucking night, but here he is.

It’s not like he ever imagined his life as any of this, anyway. And that’s the problem, it’s always been the problem. He never wanted to rule, not really, all he wanted was to bring her home safely, to be together, to have a life. But he couldn’t even do that right, and now that life is gone for good, just like Lyanna.

Before, it was always just something those around him laughed at, or rolled their eyes at. It was a joke, the way he never tried to reel in any of his appetites. When he was younger, it was something amusing, to see how he literally charmed the pants off of anyone he wanted so easily, and never hung around much longer than that, it was impressive the way he could drink anyone under the table, it was cool how he never backed down from a fight, and always won.

Boys will be boys, that’s what they say.

No, boys will be men who have no fucking clue how to cope with any hint of emotion; who have to keep drinking, and fighting, and fucking to even try to deal with reality when things don’t go their way.

Now it’s just depressing. But he can’t stop, doesn’t know how, or maybe worse, is too afraid to confront any of what happened to stop.

There’s been too much loss, and he’s tried too hard to fill in the gaps that can never be filled. So that’s what he keeps doing, because what the fuck else is there? It’s easier to be halfway to drunk at any given moment to keep the thoughts hazy, easier to find a pair or two of random arms to keep him warm in the hard moments than to let himself risk a heartbreak, easier to get to sleep if he’s sent off with a sip of the evening than to wake up thinking he’s smelling the copper of his blood mixed with his cousin’s.

It was nice, for a while. He knows, even if they all think he’s too fucking stupid to realize. He knows that they’re all tired of the act, knows that they see through it. For a while, it was excusable. Maybe even further than that, the city was glad to have a Protector so human, one who was as unafraid of standing against injustice, as he was to show his vices. But that ended years ago. He knows they whisper about how incompetent he is.

The funny thing is, though, that they think he doesn’t agree. Because he does, truly. He knows he’s been a horrible Protector, maybe as bad as Aerys, in a different way. He knows, but somehow he can’t bring himself to do much about it.

It’s always been easier to ignore a problem, after all, until it’s taken care of, or it consumes him whole.

INTERVIEW

ii. what’s your morning routine?

“Morning routine? Is this a personal interest piece you’re writing?” he laughs, shaking his head as he runs through the truth, crafting a lie.

Wake up late hungover from shade of the evening, coffee with whiskey (mostly the latter), scalding shower to try to feel less dirty, another drink, listen to messages, ignore messages, swipe through Tinder, swipe through Grindr, lie on bed for half an hour thinking of every mistake you’ve made, get up, get dressed, look in the mirror, hate yourself, wait for someone to tell you what to do.

“It’s like anyone else’s. Alarm wakes me up, I’ll go through messages before I even make it out of the bedroom. Sometimes I’ll go for a run if I manage to wake up early enough. Stop on the way back and get Cersei her venti iced almond milk cappuccino with cold foam, extra shot of espresso, and three pumps of hazelnut. Or whatever. Drink half of it myself before I can make it to the Red Keep,” a wave of his hand brushes that one off. People like that sort of thing, a little humanity thrown into it. Not that that matters anymore, not that the whole city doesn’t know how horribly human he is.

“Usually, though, I’ll go through the news with some coffee, then take a nice hot shower, wake myself up. Breakfast with the family, sometimes Jon comes up early and goes through the day, then I get ready and head to work. Work being downstairs, but you know, nice to forget that sometimes. Simple.”

vii. have you ever lost someone you loved?

“What a cruel question. Who hasn’t in this damn city? To death, to circumstances, to life. If there’s one common thread in my life, it’s that. Loss. But I’m not special in that. Any of us who lived through the riots share that. I think that’s why it hasn’t gotten to that point again, in over a decade, no matter how much we all disagree. It’s not me, that’s stopping it––I’m not an idiot, no matter what the people think––it’s knowing how it feels to lose what you love. We can’t bear the thought of doing it again.”

ix. who was your last text to, and what did it say?

“You know I probably can’t tell you, right? Like, it was probably something important. There’s a council meeting tomorrow,” he says raising an eyebrow, but shifting to pull his phone out of his back pocket.

“Are you saying you run Westeros through text messages?”

He stops where he was, looks up as his thumbprint unlocks it with an amused smile, before looking back down as he goes on.

“Are you saying you wouldn’t if you had the option? What year do you think this is? Texting is faster than emailing, I’m not going to get on a fuckin’ conference call with them, and gods know I don’t want to see their faces every day,” he laughs, a hint of something bitter to the words.

Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, thumb finally stops. He goes on before the reporter can question it. “It was to Ned. I said: ‘knock, knock, motherfucker, I’m outside with a dozen boston creme donuts with your name written on them, and yes, I do need something in return.’”

A long pause.

“Are you saying you were bribing Eddard Stark?”

EXTRAS (OPTIONAL):

pinterest board!

character tag!

old playlist! (yes, it is exclusively fall out boy songs because bobby b is a walking emo song)

likes: Being surrounded by people, expensive clothes, Ned Stark, being shirtless, drinking, an intricate skincare routine, Cersei’s voice, using his Alexa for anything at all, beautiful people, being praised, making fun of Littlefinger to anyone, too-sweet coffee, sleeping in, skin-on-skin contact, a well-placed punch, a life of luxury, fucking with Stannis, Davos’s onion rings, shade of the evening, candles that smell like men (you know the ones), bubble baths with other people

dislikes: Targaryens, wearing suits, aging, responsibility, council meetings, the cold, storms especially on the coast, monogamy, sailing, the smell of blood, the justice system, board rooms, listening to Tywin, being alone, being sober, the Narrow Sea, having to be serious, thinking critically about his actions, dealing with the Martells, having every action judged, sharing a bathroom with Cersei, conversely having to go downstairs to take a shower when she’s taking too long

random hcs:

He still has the brass knuckles he killed Rhaegar with. He knows he shouldn’t, knows that if the public found out, it would look even worse for him than it already does, and yet. After the trial was over, after the council had chosen him to lead, he used that power to get that piece of evidence back, even if it is an illegal weapon. He hasn’t used them since, but it’s a comfort, knowing he has them. It’s a small thing, to have a tangible reminder that he got the revenge he needed, even if it was too late.

In all honesty, Robert doesn’t really have many true friends. He has plenty of acquaintances, plenty of people who try their best to act the part, to get something from him. But there’s only one person he really considers his friend and trusts wholly, and that’s Ned Stark.

His favorite drink at Hightower is their version of Pink Drink, and you’d be hard pressed to get him to have a coffee when that’s an option.

His favorite alcoholic drink is any. Literally just whatever’s closest.

Even though after his parents’ deaths he was put in charge of Stag Realty Group and Storm’s End, it was never going to be his business. He was more interested in what he learned from Jon Arryn, ended up with a degree in law instead, using it for his political motivations. He wanted to be loved. Instead, he put his parents’ close family friends, the Penroses, in charge of the real estate group on his behalf until Renly is old enough to take over, and he worked his way into politics, taking over his father’s empty council seat a few years later. He didn’t even bother to offer Storm’s End to Stannis.

His passion for law and politics has long since cooled into indifference, though, now that he’s seen how royally fucked the whole system is, and knows it doesn’t matter, anyway, that the people with enough money can do what they want, run the city from their high horses, and that the people’s love doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

The only person he has ever been in love with is Lyanna Stark. He loved her for years and years and years, and did everything he could to win her love, too, which was easy, because of how well they fit together. They gave each other the adventure and excitement they needed, and he looked forward to every moment spent with her, every moment apart like a small eternity. She made him want to be better, because she deserved someone who was good. And it feels a whole lot like the good parts of him died with her, like she was the only thing keeping him from becoming what he is now.

Well, maybe he’s a little in love with Ned, and maybe he always will be, but that’s neither here nor there, since Ned’s happily married having built what Robert considers the greatest family in the world, and he knows he isn’t interested in being married to two people at once. (He knows, because he asked.)

Cersei does mean the world to him, even if not in the way a spouse necessarily should. He respects her deeply, and at this point feels more comfortable with her than without. The thing about her is that not for a minute did she ever expect anything else from him, but exactly what he was. Even from that first night spent together, in which they both hesitated to leave, a change of events in which they both stayed and slept next to each other, there was never any illusion. She’s the only one who’s ever been able to handle how he is, and he feels that he could say the same vice versa. He’s not in love with her, but maybe he loves her, in his own strange way, without realizing it.

Thanks in part to the unconventional family situation he was raised it, Robert finds it nearly impossible to even fathom monogamy. To him, it’s not cheating, because he knows Cersei knows, even if it’s not always him who tells her. Even if he were married to someone he was in love with, he would still crave the openness of polyamory. And it’s easier now, too, to indulge in his desires with whoever he wants, because it keeps him from getting too close to any one person, and the potential of losing love again.

As such, he’s bisexual as fuck, and would never let something as silly as gender keep him from having fun with someone. Are you attractive and consenting? Then you’re Robert’s type.