The floggings festivity will continue until morale merriment improves.
Angel and Devil (Christmas Version)
Would it be fair to say Ambroys is not as dumb as people assume, but also not as smart as he thinks?
There is a ruthless cunning when he's pursuing a goal, like securing his inheritance, but his complete disinterest in anything that doesn't directly affect him appears to have left substantial gaps in his general knowledge.
Oh yes, Ambroys’ overestimation of his own cunning got him into serious trouble, particularly with respect to Hyden. To use an extremely tortured metaphor: the bicycle of his life has always had training wheels on, but he didn’t realize that and thought of himself as a master stunt biker because he was never allowed to fall over, and once his support was removed he crashed. Just replace “biking” with “politicking.”
He may not be intellectually impaired per se, but he is short-sighted, self-obsessed, lacking in common sense, easily bored and becomes so skin-crawlingly distressed when faced with his own inadequacy that he would rather completely avoid anything he’s not immediately good at instead of admitting fault or ignorance. Getting tutored is boring and embarrassing? Ignored, get your little brother to do your schoolwork for you. Father lecturing you about the political discourse du jour before going to the capitol? Don’t need to know that, all you need to do at parties is dance good and look handsome.
Plus he’s spoiled as shit and there is so much that is taken care of for him without him even considering it, so he doesn’t even know that he doesn’t know how grain is turned into bread, how clothes get clean, what his horses eat, etcetera.
It’s only when the old kingdoms fall and the tower of servants that were previously supporting him collapses that he realizes it is, in fact, kind of a big problem that he doesn’t know how to cook his own food.
I'm leaving for Midwest FurFest tomorrow.... exciting stuff! Swing by my table at C-15 if you're there! Look for the table that looks like a big piece of yellow cake with chocolate frosting~
I've also got some bunny wizard stickers I'm giving out as a little bonus treat for "fans"! They're not part of the display, so you do have to ask for 'em. Supplies are limited!
WE ARE HERE... come by table C-15 to say hi!
Not an ask but i keep forgeting Theos full name is theopolis and being like Oh look is Theodore! :)
He could never be a Theodore. That name isn't ridiculous antiquated noble enough for the woman saddled blessed with the name "Jocosa."
How did Jocosa and Leonard end up making Theo come to the world exactly ? And I don’t mean the act itself of course, I mean how they ended up in such a situation. I already picked up from how much they seem to despise eachother that their union wasn’t very enjoyable or fun for either parties. Jo mentions that alike to deities, she still had to procreate with a «lower being» (referring to Leonard) to make a child. Was doing that her idea, did she just want a child and didn’t care from whom ? Or was their union forced by a third party that we do not know of yet ?
Jocosa and the whole deal surrounding the North family fascinates me so much…
I've touched on this a bit in a big ask compilation from a while ago, but I wouldn't blame anyone for missing it because it's down at the bottom of a deluge of 10,000 words and from over a year ago besides! That's just linked for bonus info.
To answer the question: much like how in the late 19th century of our world, the British peerage began marrying their children to American sons and daughters of industry and finance as estates' funds dwindled and the nouveau riche sought social status, Leonard's marriage to Jocosa was one of practical rather than sentimental matters.
The Norths were an ancient noble family of dwindling means. Leonard was enriched by his share of his family business, but his political ambitions were greater than being the middle son of a cannery owner.
As was the way for many marriages of the upper crust, spousal decisions were in the patriarch's hands. Leonard charmed Jocosa's father (a Lord William Hyperion North, you can see a tiny portrait of him here) into agreeing to marry off his daughter to Leonard, with the understanding that Leonard's money would go to enriching the North coffers first, and in exchange they would smooth his way into high society.
Jocosa was very dutiful to her parents, and only a girl of 19 when she was married, so she did not quarrel. She never wanted to marry, and she did not like Leonard, but want and like are such fragile things, and she could quash them under the iron weight of obligation.
It was Jocosa's sense of obligation and Leonard's cautious adherence to his gentleman's agreement that kept both of them following the commands of Lord North, up until the man dropped dead of cardiac arrest.
Then they both looked to the estate, wealth and power left to them with the singular sentiment of:
It soon became clear that neither would bend to the other, and thus began a bitter, acrimonious and extremely passive-aggressive power struggle.
Is there a plausible reason why Theopolis has so many feral tendencies?
If he had been around other children would he still be as prone to such behavior or would he have been uncomfortably forced to get in the habit of masking his urges?
Would it depend on the children?
I honestly think he would have thrived in a gang of filthy street urchins.
They'd have called him "Bitey" and he would be living the freakiest truth of himself.
"Plausible reason" UM... WELL...
There are definitely reasons... but they're more for the sake of characterization and personal taste instead of "hunting small animals is a dominant allele in the world of Amaranthine" or anything.
Theo's character was born out of grappling with the feeling of being a hopeless outsider, feeling less-than-human but needing to try to function in human society anyway. So he has feral tendencies because it's a way of expressing the feeling of "I can't ever truly fit in with other people" in a highly dramatized way. Could you create the same feeling with something less dramatic? Oh, certainly! But Theo wasn't built that way. You could call this choice something borrowed from his capital-g Gothic and campy horror character influences, or you could call it stupid and self-indulgent, either way works.
Okay @kwillow I just had to draw our snarly boys together now after that ask about animal-like traits haha
What might have made them snap at each other? They're both rather easy to anger, but I think actually they would kinda "get along"... even if only in a "they stay out of each other's way so there's little opportunity for conflict" sort of way, heh. Verloren doesn't usually go out of his way to pick fights so as long as other people respect his personal space and leave him alone, he's mostly non-hostile.
Has Theo ever faced someone else growling and snarling back at him, especially someone so completely unashamed of it? How would he react to Verloren growling at him with such conviction, like this is a totally normal way to act (because to his people it kind of is)?
Verloren isn't really being overly aggressive here though, it's more like a defensive "back off or else" sort of thing, but he keeps his hands ready to drop to all fours and pounce into an attack if necessary.
It was fun to think about how Theo would react to someone growling back at him -- he's never encountered anyone who does that before! Unfortunately, rather than feeling a sense of kinship, he would react with the Victorian gentleman's equivalent of "dude wtf"
It's like seeing someone do some embarrassing and gross habit you have in public. Sure, you also do that, but you're not supposed to do it OPENLY and PROUDLY! Where's your sense of shame?
I think there'd also be an element of awkwardness where Verloren seems to have a sophisticated grasp of animalistic communication through his vocalizations and body language, where Theo wouldn't understand the subtlety of those signals at all because everyone around him just uses words (and he's not even good at reading "human" body language besides). So he wouldn't read this as "we're chill but back off, seriously" he would read it as "I AM ABOUT TO BITE YOUR FUCKING HAND OFF" because that's what Theo means when he starts growling. Like what happens when you release an animal raised too closely by humans into the wild and all the wild animals find it weird and socially inept.
The long awaited second episode is here! Play for free on mobile or desktop.
do you have a voice claim for your ocs?
I've talked about voices a few times before, HOWEVER I am always happy to babble on about my OCs even on repeated topics (because I can never run out of things to say about them, haha)
I can't really have concrete voice claims for my characters (in that I think they're perfect matches) but I do have *~*vibes*~*
The vibes I've used for Theo are Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, this particular Doc Ock -- he's equal parts vintage horror and cartoonish nerd supervillain, so I think that fits.
I imagine Ambroys to have pretty incredible variation in his voice. He changes his pitch, vocabulary, tone and volume depending on the situation and his company, to the point where if you first heard his voice bugling over the din of a party and later overheard him when he was speaking to Lou in his family's stables, it might take some time to realize the same man was speaking. As a general-purpose "base" of his voice, though, I've pointed to Hulce's portrayal of Mozart as a giggling dipshit and a friend of mine recommended Tamaki Souh's dub voice, which... yeah, this is the same type of guy.
Jocosa has a low, cold, elegant voice. Very posh, very controlled. I've used Maleficent and Michelle Dockery as similar examples.
I don't really have voice examples for other characters! People are welcome to share if they have ideas. \o/
Another invasive question prompt -- this one's 7/10 uncomfortable because he's starting to get really worried that he's coming off dumb like a dumbass instead of dumb like a silly puppy.
△ Theo, who were that one individual that you gored with pen and gave you ear scar, in your past? Wad them your worst bully, or just that was one and only bad incident with them?
For reference this asker is referring to this incident.
This is perhaps going from 6/10 uncomfortable to 3/10 via the soothing recollection of vengeance. Theo does not enjoy recalling his years being battered and harassed by fellow sons of high society, nor how the act that got him out of that place was a major stressor on his and his family's good name.
Still, nothing can take away the joy of seeing an enemy's face permanently mutilated by your hand, nor the look of hatred in his eyes eye that shows you have turned from victim to threat.
Apologies if you've covered this elsewhere, haven't dug through the archives uh, -too- extensively. But I've seen you mention Jo's passing and Theo going into years of isolation and mourning. I'm curious what she passed of and what Theo's immediate reaction was to the news? (I'm assuming he wasn't present of course)
Jocosa passed of a long-term illness. She was always of ill health (poor constitution ran in the family) but her health deteriorated rapidly in her late forties and she required continuous care in the last year of her life.
Theo spent several years as her caregiver. In her final months he only ever left her bedside to prepare food and attend to other necessities of life. Thus, he did not hear of her passing after the fact - he was right at her side, holding her hand until it lost its warmth.
His immediate reaction was to cry. Then shutter up his house and spend months mentally deteriorating, wandering aimlessly through the manor's dark, moldering hallways. Then he decided to take control of life through necromancy.
