florence after midnight

Figuring out how to present oc lore is such a mood honestly, I got some story ideas as well but perfectionism is a bihhh

Anyway. You're not obliged to take this request or anything but. Empress Theodora please 👀👀

Cheers! 🍷

You get it 🙏🙏🙏

oh yeah I'm going crazy

Tiny frescoes from a bedroom at the Ancient Roman Casa dell'Efebo.

A regular day in 1671

Ok I put it below the cut because I don't mean for this to come as, idk, virtue-signalling or anything, it's genuinely rooted in frustration and all, but ofc I'm also being pushed and motivated by the utter boredom I get from how… not diverse most of these protagonists are. Even moreso as it's not even representative of reality; sure, French noblemen and women were white (for the utmost part) but the court itself was diverse. It's just that, surprise surprise, people of color are rarely mentioned, much less named, so when focusing only on the named protagonists of the many stories of Louis XIV's court, it's easy to find yourself with a white only cast and it's just not my jam.

Soooo I wanna make a more conscious attempt of better representing court life and the many, many kinds of lives and people found there, even in Monsieur and Madame's very direct entourage, from diplomats and embassadors to merchants to the (paid) personnel, maids, pages, valets etc. Given how we're basically given almost zero names (aside from embassadors), they'll have to be OCs, whom will have to be to be interweaved with the others "officially named" characters, since I still prefer to stick to historical facts as closely as I can. It shouldn't be too hard, as many people gravitated around them and weren't just furniture.

Liselotte was very close to one of her personal maids, a young black woman she cites in her letters, whom unfortunately isn't named as most maids, valets and pages weren't named. I've read that Phil had good friends among merchants and embassadors from Turkey and Thailand among others, and there are multiple mentions of Indian and black pages in court, so I think that's quite a nice array of potential characters to work on and imagine, and just learn more about. Merchants and diplomats aside, of course, many of these people were educated, very cognisant of court life and rules, and there for far more than just holding doors open or fanning noble people (though those of course existed and deserve attention of their own as well, ideally……. but i'm just one guy unfortunately)