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General_BT

Blasted Conniving Roman
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Apr 20, 2007
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deardiary.png


WorldMarch281495copy.jpg

March 8th, 1495

Dear Diary,

I hate my father.

I turned 15 yesterday, and was introduced to all the court and the world as the new heir to the Empire. Everyone’s presents were grand—the Ragusans sent me a pony, the Serbs (or whatever they’re called) sent me a brilliant new tiara, and the Austrian ambassador was very kind and revealed a troupe of musicians sent by the Archduke. So naturally, I expected something GRAND from father!

And I, Helene Palialogos, got THIS.

Yes, you, you stupid little book.

I have only started this blasted thing because Father insists that it is important for the future ruler of Romanion to keep a record of his past life… and he does insist on using the pronoun ‘his,’ which irks me to no end. He’s just like those dynatoi and stuck up nobles that he claims he detests so much—saying I can’ rule!

I cannot divine the purpose of my spending time, scribbling away, when I could be doing other things—looking for silks and jewels to appropriately attire myself at state functions, or talking with Ariadne and Eirene. Father calls them gossips and layabouts, but they’re my friends! I had no choice but to threaten to cause a public scandal if he went ahead and stripped them from my chamber!

Just thinking about that makes me mad. I’m going to the Genoese District. Giancarlo usually has some new silks from Cathay this time of year.




March 13th

Dear Diary,

Father insists I need to keep writing in you. He yelled at me after seeing I’d only done one entry. I can’t believe he had the nerve to brush past my ladies in waiting to look at this stupid little book!

Seriously, what is the purpose of




March 14th

Dear Diary,

I am not to receive an allowance for any more dresses until I regularly complete a daily entry into you for a week. This is today’s entry. I hate my life.




March 15th

Dear Diary,

Look I wrote in it. I know you check up afterwards Father. Usually when you say you have ‘important meetings with the Muscovites.’ Stop being coy.




March 17th

Dear Diary,

I have decided I am going to Chrysopolis across the Marmara for Easter. Father has been very odious demanding I keep writing in this blasted thing. He’d only let me go across the Marmara if I promised I would take it and write in it. I think he also has ordered Eirene to make sure I do. Fine. I will. I just need out of this stuffy city and all of its political dramatics. Maybe it’ll let me escape my tutors as well.




March 18th, 1495

Dear Diary,

Father sent the tutors after me. I hate my life.




March 26th, 1495

Dear Diary,

The tutors continue to harass me. They insist that I spend all the day’s sun indoors, reading histories of my father and my grandfather, as well as old books on how the imperial economy functions. And for what? When I inherit my father’s throne, I will be Empress! I will have people bowing and scraping at my feet! Surely I can hire a few of them with the state treasury to attend to those tedious matters for me? Really, what is the purpose in knowing that Naples, Thrace and Astrakhan are the three principal trading centers of the empire? Or that my great-great grandfather Manuel ‘saved the empire from certain doom at the hands of the Turk?’ The Turks are backwards people stuck in Adana! Everyone knows that! This empire’s entire history is a long litany of so-and-so-saved-the-empire-from-certain-ruin! You’d think the people running things would learn their lesson and not let things get so ruinous to begin with!

Why should I know how my grandfather Demetrios ‘conquered lands from Italy to the Caucasus?’ Father has generals, they fight the wars for him! I don’t think I need to know how every campaign of grandfather’s went, mostly because the campaign accounts are filled with useless ninnery. I don’t need to know grandfather prayed here, or slept there. They call him Megas, but he’s worshiped almost like a saint! It’s beyond belief!

Side note. There is a stable boy that works at the villa of Ariadne’s uncle. Ariadne talked me into purposefully changing my mind when picking a horse to ride three times just to see him bend over. She giggled for HOURS afterwards about it! She says there are ‘things’ she wants to do with him. I asked her about said things. She laughed and said I would find out eventually. Damn her being sixteen already! I am determined to find out what these things are! Starting tomorrow!




March 27th

Dear Diary,

There’s some kind of uproar across the Marmara. Father has ordered my return from Chrysopolis. And I was going to march over and demand the stableboy do whatever Ariadne had in mind with me instead! I'm the Crown Princess, after all!



March 28th

Dear Diary,

Apparently Father has been declared Emperor of Muscovy. I’m confused as to why that is such an enormous honor. Aren’t the Muscovites some piddling little tract of barbarians to our north? I'm going to DEMAND from Father why he summoned me across the Marmara for this! Why should I care if he's the head of some little piddling tribe on paper? I cannot BELIEVE my family sometimes!




March 28th, second entry

Dear Diary,

Oh. That is why it’s an enormous honor. Literally.


PersonalUnion.jpg


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======*======

Had another AAR idea, and couldn't do anything till I cleared the writing buffer. For now, this is just gonna follow Helene's life... as the first potentially legitimate Byzantine Empress, as well as Tsarina of Muscovy...​
 
Interesting, and different from your other work BT. Good luck!
 
I hope you will still keep updating Rome AARisen at about that same rate you have been. I can hardly wait for each new update.

Hopefully this will be the same in regards to not being able to wait for each update. Best of luck to you with this. :)
 
Just as long as there are no screenies from the stable. ;)
 
Interesting concept. It reads fast. Good luck. :)
 
Neat little AAR in a nice concept, BT! It's very funny to see how you work all the little stuff of life into an AAr that's essentially supposed to be about major events.
 
The whole time I was reading it I was thinking of how it reminded me of Rome AARisen, only to realize by the end it was written by you! :rolleyes:

Excellent writing, as usual.
 
Zitanier - *smacks forehead* Oi, my masterful spelling strikes again! I'm so used to spelling "Komnenos" that "Palaiologos" just screws up my fingers on the keyboard! :)

Chamboozer - Yeah, this is officially my Writer's Block AAR--something I can work on that's easy on the mind to get the creative juices flowing once again.

Qorten- Well, at least this portion of the AAR is revolving around the diary entries of a spoiled teenage princess who doesn't know or care much about the world. So of course major things to her are an aside to the more important gossip amongst her and her friends...

JDMS - Good, that's what I was going for. My writing is kind of notorious for not being...concise. :rofl:

Morrell8 - I hope so too!

naggy - :rofl:

humancalculator - Oh I will. This AAR just came from a CK game I played with the 1337 scenario, that I then modded into HttT just to get the hang of trying to mod the new version. I played the HttT game, and got the urge to write an AAR... so I did. :)

Nikolai - Trying to keep it different!

deardiary.png



July 16th, 1496

Dear Diary,

I finally stamped my foot down and demanded from Ariadne what ‘doing it’ meant. I even used the “I’m the Crown Princess, you will tell me this instant!” line that Eirene recommended. It worked, and now I’m not so sure I wanted to know. Getting impaled by someone doesn’t sound that pleasant, and it sounds like Ariadne is screaming in pain whenever the stableboy visits her. I think I’m going to avoid ‘doing it’ as long as possible!

Which is fortunate, I suppose. Father has been attempting to arrange marriages for me, now that I am of age. Of course, as Crown Princess I can’t do what Ariadne does—apparently if it wasn’t bad enough, ‘doing it’ when one isn’t married is a sin as well. As I’m not sure I want to go through something as undoubtedly painful as ‘doing it,’ I’ve went out of my way to make a horrible boor out of myself whenever one of my father’s proposed suitors comes calling. Of course, it only helped that all the suitors were ugly, pompous gits. When the son of the King of Bohemia arrived in court, I threw peach pits at his face. When the son of the King of France arrived in Constantinople, I broke wind in his presence. Steadily the suitors have rejected my hand—all is well. Even the son of the piddling Serbian Zhupan, a vassal of mine father, turned me down!

heleneugly.jpg

Victory.



December 18th, 1496

Dear Diary,

I apologize for the amount of time that has gone by since my last entry. Various Muscovite nobles came to Constantinople at the end of July, and father has insisted I attend the endless meetings taking place. Not that I’ve paid much attention—talk of ‘personal unions,’ ‘dumas,’ ‘power arrangements’ and ‘fealty’ mean little to me. However, their arrival has meant the markets of the city are flooded with furs, and I’ve taken every opportunity to buy as many of them as I can find! Oh, the soft feel of mink!




January 18th, 1497

Dear Diary,

Something peculiar happened today. The son of one of the Russian nobles—boyars, they are called—was staring at me today. Not looking, but staring. I thought for a second I had something on my face, but when I looked at him, he looked away, face red. I’m puzzled. Most of the men of Constantinople are afraid to look on me… they are scared of what could happen if one got too close to the Emperor’s daughter.




January 25th, 1497

Dear Diary,

Ariadne says that I should go and talk to this young man. I asked around, it appears his name is Ivan Rurikovich. I think I shall say hello, and not be a boor for once. After all, he isn’t a suitor.




January 26th, 1497

Dear Diary,

Well. Prince Ivan doesn’t seem as red faced and quiet once you talk to him for a while. He was quiet at first, but soon he was talking faster than a rabbit jumps. His father has been assigned as ambassador to Constantinople from the city of Beloozero. I actually lost track of time talking to him today, and was late for my tutors. As punishment, they are making me write an essay on the history of the Palaiologid dynasty.

I hate them.

I could’ve written how my ancestor Andronikos II reconquered the Anatolian coasts, and so on and so forth. But that would have been boring. So, to thumb my nose at them, I submitted a drawing instead of an essay. They will accept it. It answers the question. And I’m the Crown Princess!

growthofempirecopy.jpg




February 20th, 1497

Dear Diary,

So I’ve discovered that Ivan likes long walks on the beach, like me! And crab meat, just like me! And cute puppies, just like me! We’ve been walking together for a few hours every day for the past four weeks with a chaperone. I like how he always asks what I like first, then agrees with whatever I say. He knows how to treat a princess!

He has very pretty eyes. Ariadne suggested maybe I should ‘do it’ with him. I scoffed at her. Me, a princess, doing it outside of marriage? After I foiled all those marriages to this pig-nosed, ugly trolls that Father set me up with?

But Ivan’s no troll though. He IS pretty to look at…

Oh, and apparently there’s some chaos in Italy of some kind (when are the Italians NOT causing chaos? They are the second most disorderly people on earth after the Germans!). Genoa has declared they aren’t Christian, or de-Christian, or protesting something… I didn’t hear all the details. I was too busy staring at Ivan.

protestantref.jpg




March 1st, 1497

Dear Diary,

I’m sad, and the world seems to be crashing down on me in all its fury!

Father grew annoyed at Ivan’s attentions to me! He confronted me, and said Ivan is “one step above pig slop” and not fit for me! How dare he! What does he know! He’s so deaf he probably couldn’t hear the clarion call of true love it was right in his ear! I yelled in that ear, and told father I’m IN LOVE, and there’s nothing he can do to separate us!

So father declared war on the Turks. I know it was because of Ivan, because Father commissioned him in the army he sent to Adana. I’ll be without my lovely Varangian for MONTHS! But we shall find some way. LOVE ALWAYS TRIUMPHS!

turkishwar.jpg




March 13th, 1497

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June 2nd, 1497

Dear Diary,

There was a battle of some kind in the war. I do hope my beloved is safe!

battleofadana.jpg




Dear Diary,

Last night was magical. I awoke to a noise hitting my window, and Ivan was on my balcony! He’d bought his way out of the commission—something about his brother’s children and a slave trader in Mus—and spirited back to the city to see me! He insisted I let him in, which of course I did! You always let your love into your apartments when they randomly show up despite being months away! I was so happy I offered to ‘do it!’

It was…confusing. I didn’t feel too much—not enough to justify Ariadne’s screaming. It was over in a minute, but Ivan enjoyed it a great deal! I think I should offer to ‘do it’ with him again. After all, I want to make my ONE TRUE LOVE always happy!


==========*==========​

Uh oh. Helene is doing ‘it’ with a man her father expressly forbade her from seeing, while the last of the Ottomans is being crushed…
 
Helene's innocence is hilarious. Great update. :)
 
Helene's innocence is hilarious.

And short-lived... :rolleyes:

Nice to see this spring bloom of diary-genre AARs, they are lighter reading than dense narratives but preserve the personal touch element.
 
Helena ought to have drawn that in Greek alphabets in the diary.

How did your Empire look like that in 1399??? :confused:

is this vanilla game?

In MEIOU having 1399 that kind of Empire would've been possible. :p

So Ivan was amongst those 9 fallen? :rofl:
 
wow first AAR i read in a long time and this AAR onlly leave me wanting more :)