Riv's Plotter

[Riv]

ANTONIA VITELLIA

App

40 | BISEXUAL| EQUITE| ROME

Friends

Antonia is known for being not just a social climber, but also has been known to travel within the Imperial circle.  Specifically, for a long while, she was Lucilla's lover and she assisted Claudia Caesaris in her escape from Rome.  She also apparently gave Flavia the knife to kill Manius (sorry, bro).   Since then, Antonia has continued her ties with Lucilla's surviving children, treating them often as her own.  

 Antonia likely has friends that continue within that circle and beyond.  She owns high end courtesan service more akin to hetaerae than other prostitutional services (which allows her to meet many important men) and secretly runs the Lovers of Eris  (which allows her to meet their corpses later).  She takes a very active role in the Lovers, recruiting from orphaned children and then setting forth their education and training herself.  Many of the Lovers consider her a mother they never had and respect her deeply.

Antonia has likely made herself known to wealthy or well-connected women with teenage sons so that she can start vetting marriage prospects for her daughter, Livia Caelia, and potentially for her son, Renius Suetonius Metellus Minor.  Antonia is quite a loyal friend and quite warm once she decides she likes you.  Age hasn't diminished her playful side, though it has found her becoming more an advisor to others than she thought before.  Antonia is also quite passionate about the value of women and a solid advocate for any young woman attempting to make her way in the world.  She's also known for being fair to her slaves and for granting their freedom after five years of service with her.

Enemies

As an active presence in Rome, Antonia likely has a few enemies (though the ones she made in the past often met with...unfortunate...ends).  There's certainly enough "odd" happenings around her that someone could figure out that Antonia has a less than kosher way of making things happen to her advantage.  While some secrets are dead and buried (quite literally), it is possible to find others to enable quite a rip-roaring fight throughout Rome!  Additionally, Antonia is a staunch Imperialist and likely will chafe whoever has opposing views.

Lovers

At forty years old, Antonia is more than happy to stop pretending like marriage is on the table for her.  She very much values her independence and freedom.  She's been married two times before, both of which ended in disaster.  I don't doubt she's had lovers in the last ten years (which I'm happy to plot out with someone!) and she likely will continue to have lovers.  However, whoever it is needs to spark and then keep her interest for it to have any longevity.  She's had both male and female lovers, but often has a serial monogamy side.  She demands fidelity in both herself and her partner, though she does consider it "faithful" to maintain one lover of each gender and doesn't care if her lover does either.

 

Additional plot potential: intrigue, her secrets (past and present), murders, people who need a master or a patron, etc.  She's quite the schemer, able to get her hands on (almost) anything due to money and connections, and protective of children of all types due to her own fertility issues.

Edited August 27, 2020 by Riv

[Gothic]

*raises hand*

Pick me! Pick me!

I have Claudia who would love to chat with her sometime. I think it would be fun to have either a back in time thread before she fled from Rome or we could equally do things in the current day. 

I also have the walking salty salt-mine Corinthia who would likely irritate each other considerably so it would be a lot of fun. I have other characters available if you're interested in taking them on. Although those two are the main two that I can see a lot of plots for. 

[Sara]

Hey @Riv!

I have a few people that I think could work for some plots!

There's my human golden retriever, Lucius Cassius Longinus (app here, detailed history here). He served in Britannia for ten years, and was thrice a legate - well decorated and all. Usually he's upbeat, boundlessly energetic and cheerful. At the moment he's fairly morose; the woman he was due to marry left him virtually at the altar and miscarried their (illicitly gotten) child and fled back to her family in Carthage. He's a widower besides that, and really thought he'd hit the love-jackpot but sadly not. Whilst he's undeniably skilled in all things war and military, his friends often comment that he lacks some basic common sense so he may well be incidentally embroiled in one of her schemes. He could well have used the Lovers of Eris over the years, or now that he's alone again so they could always have met/meet now that way. 

There's also Vibia, who is a prostitute at the Venus but also actually run by the Servian Collegium. Double gang fun. I'm not up for triple-gang fun, I think her head would explode, but she might have chanced across Antonia! 

Besides those two, there's Zia who has just started a marijuana ring in Rome (the Dacian's loved their flower) who could probably match your lovely lady for intellect, but not position as she's currently a slave. But if Antonia needs some of the good kush, she can hit up Zia. There's also Didia who is my happy go lucky market seller pleb. She doesn't have any high ambition in life, but is always around the back streets where she could run into your lady. 

Besides those four I also have Horatia Justina - the perfectionist wife of a soon to be Consul, and Charis - a sweet but hopeless slave to Atrice's Tertius. 

If you fancy any plots with any of them, just let me know! :) 

[Chris]

Well hello! For old time's sake, we definitely need to get some threads rolling. Here's who I have, and some ideas.

Quintus Caesar: They'd certainly know each other, and I daresay he would trust Antonia, simply for the role she played in supporting his family throughout the turbulent years prior to his rise to power, not to mention everything else. I could see them working together - although unofficially - in respect to her power in the underbelly of Rome and how that could help a Caesar. No great ideas beyond that atm.

Eppitacos: Former warlord in Britannia/former champion gladiator/former slave, and now just a freedman who apprentices as a blacksmith. He mostly is used as the courier to deliver goods for his 'master' (master in the master/apprentice sense) because, thanks to his fame, if he's the delivery man the forge can charge more for their wares. A bit of a juicy backstory for him is that his former betrothed (in Britannia) came to Rome and tried to have him killed by hired thugs. Could be that maybe Antonia is the one who facilitated that? Just an idea.

Manius Aemilius Scaurus Pius: Son to the 'great' scion of Republicanism (to some), Marcus Scaurus who opposed and was defeated by Quintus Caesar during the brief civil war. Manius was crippled at a young age, and through two decades of study and healthy habits and physical training has managed to regain mobility. He's extremely wealthy, and very well-spoken and educated. He's a moderate politically, and isn't overly ambitious; he supports the principate, but has ideas on how it could be improved. Personally, he's lonely. He's a widower, and has an adopted newphew/son (who's in Germania). Quick idea for him is as a potential betrothed - even though you mentioned Antonia not wanting that. The hitch would be him offering to adopt her son because Manius' biggest obsession is continuing the family line (and he can't have his own kids).

Also just a thought: Are you looking for someone to play Renius Minor? Slightly intrigued by the thought of that haha.

[Riv]

@Gothic  I need a Claudia/Antonia thread like NOW.  Let's do a present-day thread.  If you'd set it up, I can have a reply to you by the end of today!  Let me check out Corinthia and get back to you on that bae.

 

@SaraWe should have a thread between Lucius Cassius Longinus where Antonia's "recalibrating" his desires for a Lover from her business.  Sort of like a matchmaking, but not for marriage, haha!  We can also have it where because he's used the Lovers before, he and Antonia are already fun acquaintances.  The kind that don't openly acknowledge how they know each other but sometimes she gives a cheeky wink and he gives a nod, especially at parties.  I could see her sidling up to him at an event and pointing out his "type" in the crowd and mentioning that type while joking about a future marriage.  

I'm also thinking with Horatia Justina, Antonia could reach out.  Antonia is a staunch Imperial (obviously), but her family's business makes it so she can traverse the circles between Republic and Imperial easily enough.  Plus, they seem to have children roughly around the same age.  I feel like Antonia would have noted Horatia's son and been like, "Hmm, yes, maybe for my daughter" awhile ago.

 

@ChrisYO! I won't try to kill you this time, haha!  I'm with you on Quintus.  I also think Antonia, if she comes across any information that proves useful to the continuation of the Imperial family, can pass that along slyly whenever she comes to visit Claudia and them. 

I'd be down for the Eppitacos line of murder thought, if the thugs were female!  If they were all female, then they very could have been Lovers.  Another thought to play with would be someone utilizing an all female assassin group for him making him THINK it's the Lovers and to clear the hell out of town, but in truth, Antonia and the Lovers have no idea about this contract.  Antonia could then work with him to figure it out (because, damn it, her business's reputation is on the line!)  

For Manius, I think we should have them meet and enjoy a fun political idea swap together.  I feel like Antonia probably doesn't often get challenged or even discussed heavily about "where do you think the principate should adjust itself to enhance it's longevity".  If nothing else, it'd intrigue her and she'd probably seek him out for further discussion.  That could lead them to a betrothal-debate plot.  She'd fight him on the kid part because (even though she can still have them) because she's slightly...uh...possessive of Renius Suetonius Metellus Minor.  Even though logically she knows it's not really Renius's son, she views him as the last tie she has to her first husband and that time in her life was filled with such regret for her that she views her son almost as her atonement for what she did.  Her brother, Titus, also attempted to adopt Minor and she put a stop to it immediately.

I'm open to people playing Minor if you're interested!  I was debating taking him if Antonia was dead at this point in time (she wasn't).  In my head canon, Antonia had tried to instill in him the best qualities that an ideal Roman should have including honor, duty (to family and the Empire), respect (for family, wife, mother, father, Emperor), and also a sense of fairness/justice.  She honestly thinks she might have overdone it because while Minor picked up on those traits, she's now aware, since he's older, that she has to hide the less "best Roman qualities" of herself (like, you know, casual murder, patricide, and fratricide).  Meanwhile, her daughter, Livia Caelia, is naïve and innocent to a point where Antonia thinks she spent so much energy making sure Minor turned into a great person that she forgot to pour more into making Caelia a practical, rational woman-to-be.  Arguably, Minor is her favorite for all his good qualities whereas Caelia is her headache-child.