#dapper ocs: hugo

[dapper-ships-herself]

The circus does the hands free boba challenge

[skips-corner]

More OFF oc stuff cause I recently watched my buddy play CONFINIUM and it gave me Emotion™.

I might draw Jean more; useless good boy deserves a resurgence.

[dapper-ships-herself]

Le Cirque des Désenchantés

Greetings one and all! I welcome you to our humble circus! Look around you at the world outside, be not fooled by the glamorous blanket they will try and throw over your heads. Out there is a cruel world of misery and despair, a place where the downtrodden find no purchase and are left under heel, it is a gem covered in grim and dust. But, must we lay down and weep over this fact? Here, in this tent, we see the world for the way it truly is, and so we add our own color! The world will not give us the luster we seek, so we shall create it for our selves! Join us on this night, where even we can create our own best of all possible worlds!

Allow me to introduce myself~ I am your ringmaster, Voltaire!

 I have been told I’m a bit of an optimist, even in the face of this cruel world. I adore this circus with my entire being, having founded it and recruited each member myself. My special ability is called Candide, and it allows me to read the mind of an individual I make eye contact with.

Now, allow me to introduce some of our members~

This man is Martin, a friend of mine since childhood. He’s not actually a performer, but he is essential to us. I suppose you could call him our strategist, he manages much of our back stage and helps keep me in check, This circus wouldn’t run nearly as smoothly without him. He’s a bit of a glass half empty kind of fellow, pragmatic through and through; I’ve tried to tell him he should lighten up a bit more for as long as I’ve known him.

Jane de la Vaudere is our fortune teller. She carries with her an aura of mystique, but she is truly warm and motherly, especially caring to those of us in this circus. Her special ability is called La Sorcière d'Ecbatane, when her left eye is covered, she can see a limited glimpse of a person’s future, and when her right eye is covered she is capable of producing a myriad of fantastic magical effects, mostly harmless shows of light and such that we use in our performances, but she does have a few trickier spells up her sleeve.

Stendhal is our master magician! As talented as he is with slight of hand, he’s an extremely shy fellow. The mask he wears is not only for the sake of his costume, it’s also a sort of security blanket for him, and he rarely takes it off. His ability is called Le Rouge et le Noir, which allows him to control playing cards.

Renee Vivien is one of our performers. She loves luxury and relaxation more than pretty much anything, and adores a good celebration. Her ability is called Le Club de l'Enfer, allowing her to summon a group of tiny devil like creatures to do her bidding.

  Gaston Leroux is a performer with us. Mysterious, quite, and aloof, those words work well to describe our precious Gaston. Be not deterred by his mannerisms and general lack of social skills, he dedicates himself in his entirety to this circus and truly cares. His ability is called Le fantôme de l'Opéra, from his body he can secrete an inky substance that he can manipulate at will, and is also able to to sprout eyes within this substance to look around an area remotely.

Rachilde is our beast tamer. Truly a gentle girl, she prefers to lead our animal performers through a kind touch rather than through whips as is traditional. Though she is very kind and gentle, she is not incapable of showing a, shall we say crueler side to herself; this rarely comes out though and only in the face of a threat to our family. Her ability is called Face à la Peur, letting her see her target’s greatest fear and then trap them in a mental space with an embodiment of that fear, the target is physically asleep until either she releases them or they somehow manage to defeat this fear.

Albert Camus acts as our clown. Many people are put off by his face and admittedly very creepy demeanor, but that’s all surface level, inside he is a caring, sweet man who simply wants to make people smile and wishes others could see his intentions better than they often do. His ability is called L'Étranger, which allows him to induce temporary memory loss upon a target, making them a complete stranger to them self for up to a day.

 Charles Baudelaire is a dancer for us. Calm and graceful in everything he does, he is quite the fan of teasing his fellow circus members, but it all comes from a place of love truly. His ability is called Les Paradis Artificiels, he can create a special powder which he blows out of his pipe and into the air, effecting the ambiance of an area, usually used to either relax people so they let down their guard, or excite them.  

 Victor Hugo is our strongman. He is the true definition of a gentle giant, and you can’ help but trust him despite his imposingly large frame. He’s an expert at controlling his incredible strength and is surprisingly dexterous with his hands, he loves to whittle wood as his hobby. His ability is called Les Misérables he is able to blanket an area in apathy, making it difficult for those within to muster up the energy to fight or even move.

And last, but certainly never the least, we have

Gillian, our star acrobat. She is a master of the aerial silks and a sight to see on the trapeze, her balance upon the tightrope leaves audiences on the edge of their seats. She has a penchant for sarcasm and mischief with a sharp smile to match; beyond that, though, she is very easy to fluster with words, the only place she’s never lost her composure is in the air. She adores our circus family more than anything, seeing it as the only thing worth truly caring about for the most part. Her ability is known as l'Essence de l'Humanité, an ability that greatly increases the strength of other abilities; it works best through physical contact, but if she puts her full concentration on an ability user and so long as she keeps that concentration and they remain within her line of sight then it will also take effect.   

Dear disillusioned, we hope to see you come around to enjoy our spectacular performance some day, where you can forget your troubles for one night and enjoy an enchanted world~

---------

So yeah, this is the french group of circus OCs for Bungou Stray Dogs I’ve been talking about for a while now! 

They are a very popular performance across Europe, though most audience members have no clue about the, hm, shadier jobs they take low-key.

These authors were chosen either because they’re famous and the first ones I thought of with the prompt of “French authors”, or they are from the decadence movement of French writing, which was a movement characterized by “self-disgust, revulsion at the world, skepticism, delight in the perverse, and belief in the superiority of human creativity over logic and nature”. I thought that fit in with the theme of this being a group of people who have come together after being looked down upon, beaten by, and exposed to the darker parts of the world, they are disillusioned from seeing a perfect world. But they have also decided not to be totally jaded depressos about this, instead for the most part adopting an attitude of “yeah, lots of things suck, but we can have fun together in a little world of our own creation”, which is the circus. 

The circus is an extremely tight knit family and they all love each other dearly, all believing that they have to look out for each other since no one else will.

Story wise, I think they enter in between seasons 2 and 3 and would have their own season where they are actually the antagonists. Fyodor wants to continue to poke at the agency and try another approach at retrieving the book before he gets his own hands dirty by becoming more directly involved. So, he approaches Voltaire and tells him about a special book that can make anything come true, and that this book can be used to create the “best of all possible worlds” he so desires for his circus family. Under the guise of branching out in touring, the circus heads to Yokohama, Japan.

I have a bit of a plot worked out from there, but mostly pertaining to how the arc wraps up. This post is getting long, but I’d be happy to talk about that more later~

Anyway, please love my circus children, I worked hard on them.   

Picrews: o, o, o, o, o, o, o, o, o

[dapper-ships-herself]

How old is everyone in the troupe?

Jane: "Allow me to answer this~"

"I am 25.

Voltaire is 26.

Martin is 28.

Stendhal is 21.

Gaston is 25.

Renee is 23.

Charles is 22.

Rachilde is 21.

Albert is 23.

Hugo is 27.

And Gillian is the youngest at 20."

[dapper-ships-herself]

Martin: What's the easiest way to steal a man's wallet?

Gillian: Knife to the throat?

Voltaire: Gun to the back?

Charles: Poison in his cup?

Hugo: You're all horrible.

[dapper-ships-herself]

Hugo: You shouldn't be using a straw.

Gillian: I know, it's bad for the environment and whatever.

Hugo: No, it's a weird way to eat spaghetti, is all.

[dapper-ships-herself]

Hugo: Why is there blood all over the floor?

Gillian: I may have aggressively poked someone with a knife.

Hugo: You stabbed someone?!

Gillian: No, no, I said I aggressively poked them with a knife, are you even listening to me?

[dapper-ships-herself]

In the bios for the Circus of the Disillusioned, I described Jane as motherly; and while that is true, she does have a very warm, gentle, and caring demeanor, the real mother of the circus is Martin. While Jane is the mom friend who bakes cookies and shit, Martin will smack ya upside the head for doing something dumb and is only the mom in the way he realized "ah shit, I guess I have to keep an eye on these idiots otherwise they're all going to accidentally kill themselves somehow" because he's basically the only one in the troupe with any brain cells. Jane and Hugo each have one, Voltaire has negative, who let this man start a business.

[dapper-ships-herself]

What's your favorite place you've ever performed? Who's the best with foreign languages?

Voltaire: "Most of our performances have been in France, but we have toured into some neighboring countries. Personally, I enjoy when we get the chance to play in smaller towns and cities."

Martin: "It's less of a hassle to play in France than to travel to other countries, especially since I'm the one who gets stuck with the paper work.

Gillian: "We've put on a show in Rome before! That's a cool city!"

Charles: "Yes, I quite enjoyed Italy myself."

Hugo: "Germany was fun, too."

Gaston: "Paris."

Renee: "Monaco is where it's at!"

Rachilde: "Switzerland! Their chocolates are the best! Some patrons even gave me some for free because they liked our performance so much!"

Jane: "Rachilde, how many times must I tell you not to take candy from strangers? But, Switzerland does have lovely scenery, so I can agree with that."

Albert: "The people in Spain... Were very nice... When we went there."

Gillian: "What about you, Stendhal? ... Stendhal?"

Jane: "Oh dear, he's hiding again. Will you go find him while we answer the second part?"

Gillian: "So I'm the Stendhal wrangler today? Alright, hold on."

Voltaire: "We are all at least somewhat well versed with foreign languages, we have to be with all the traveling we do,but the two best with them are Martin and Gaston."

Gaston: "Yeah."

Martin: "It's only natural as the circus's manager, I have to meet with all kinds of people to arrange venues and the like."

Gillian: "I found him!"

Stendhal: "P-Put me down, please!"

Voltaire: "There's our magician! Care to answer the question?"

Stendhal: "I liked p-performing in Switzerland, it was pretty and c-calm."