Terrarium

Well, she likes wearing skirts (although a school one is a bit short for her liking) and pretty dresses, bold colors, jewelry and nail polish. She is clever, proud, at times defiant, and also surprisingly selfless and generous. She lives alone at the shabby flat in the slums with her not-so-legally-kept goat Djali grazing on the neighborhood weeds, and makes some money from her tiktok channel. She helps her community, knows all her neighbors and is visited often by her guardian, Clopin, and she’s doing fine at school, all things considered.

She loves dancing, her found family in the ‘Court of Miracles’, and her goat.

And she has been annoying and defying authorities her whole life – sometimes intentionally and sometimes – through no fault of her own.  

It’s started even before her birth.

Her mom had run away from home and found shelter in the ‘Court of Miracles’ – a ragtag community including convicts, homeless, addicts, poor people, immigrants, runaway teens (like herself) and all other sorts of ‘undesirables’, who had slipped through the cracks and were trying to make by on the daily basis. They clung together and made life bearable for each other, since no one else would. Their unofficial leader, Clopin Trouillefou, had no problem taking another stray under his wing and hiding her from the police. It was just one panicked teen with nowhere to go, after all. And also – she was pregnant.

 Which in fact turned out to be a problem. Police is one thing, but giving birth is a VERY dangerous process. Made only worse by the fact that the girl had hidden the start of it to avoid going to the hospital, terrified of being discovered there or reported to her parents. Still – with a lot of fear, confusion and in not-so-good conditions for it, – they’ve managed to pull through and everyone, including the newborn Esmeralda, made it out fine… Or so it seemed.

 The health of the new mother started to rapidly decline. She hid it, until she couldn’t. She allowed herself to finally be taken to the hospital on one condition – her baby would stay with Clopin, unregistered and hidden, until she returns. And then… who knows, maybe she’ll take her girl and leave France entirely.

Esmeralda doesn’t remember her mom – just some vague feeling of warmth and hands gently caressing her forhead and kisses on her feet and whispers in her ear. She knows three things about her:

1. Mom was beloved by everyone at the Court of Miracles 2. She loved her daughter fiercely and left her with the people she trusted 3. She died at the hospital

The fact that her mom didn’t trust any authorities who might have helped in this situation seems only natural to Esmeralda. Especially since her own meeting with such authorities, as far as she’s concerned, has done her no good.

The young unregistered orphaned girl suddenly found in the middle of the ‘unsafe’ district among the people, who’s relationships with the law are questionable at best, is a really good cause to turn everything upside down and lock someone up.

From the POV of the social workers and the police they have just discovered a child who didn’t have any documents whatsoever and who-knows-what could’ve been done to her while she was basically invisible to the law!

From the POV of the Esmeralda herself she was suddenly taken away from her home her friends and the people she trusted by some strange adults who made her go through the exhausting array of doctors and answer weird questions repeatedly. Questions that made her sad and uncomfortable, and also were often concerning people she believed to be her family, and put in a way as if they, adults she loved, may have hurt her somehow? Even though she's time and time again told that nothing of the sort had happened and asked to go home.

(Only when she truly becomes an adult Esmeralda would realize that she’s got very lucky THRICE: once with the Court of Miracles, who really wanted what’s best for her, then with psychiatrists, who listened and hadn’t implanted convenient trauma and false memories into a child, and then with the people, who made the decisions based on the reports of those psychiatrists and not on their own biases. For now though she’s still a teen feeling mistreated and wronged, and honestly – who could blame her?)

And then came a long line of foster homes and families, all stays following the same pattern: a girl behaves like an angel for some time, and then the angel suddenly disappears into thin air (often taking with her a small amount of cash) just to reappear some months later at the ‘court of miracles’.

At first Clopin (who narrowly escaped prison for the whole affair – someone was incarcerated, but not him) had suspected that a certain someone just avoids the chore of education. But when he put some books in front of her with the ultimatum ‘learn, or we’re ratting you out’, Esmeralda had devoured them with frightening determination, and it became clear that the education wasn’t really a problem. That’s when Clopin started to try and get custody of this girl – he was first to realize that she wouldn’t give up on him and his people, and who was he to give up on her?

 He finally got it after especially big scandal, when Esmeralda was sent away from Paris and had still escaped and returned on her own. A very good lawyer, protecting Clopin’s and Esmeralda’s interests, had to explain in his speech that increasing distance between Esmeralda and her chosen family will only increase the time she spends outside of school and the amount of danger she puts herself in while she’s returning.

 Since then she lives how she wants and with whom she wants on two conditions:

She has to get proper education, not simply attending school and passing time, but actually learning

She has to stay away from ANY illegal activity as far as possible. Even petty theft from a supermarket would not be tolerated

If she’s got expelled from school or caught committing some crime, no matter how small – God help her, Clopin and everyone involved. Because no one, and I mean NO ONE has any patience for them anymore

1. My OC, Hellequin

2. Veresk (by TENEBRAUM)

3. Shira (by The Darkest Hour Art)

4. Digital sculptor (by Luka Craft)

5. Étienne (by strum)

So, Jehan and Raphael (whom he calls Quasimodo) hate each other. No surprises there.

This hatred has started as a simple childhood jealousy and dislike for someone so ‘ugly’, but had only grown, once Jehan was old enough to understand that Claude spends their inheritance on rehabilitating this kid who had a lot of special needs and wasn’t even a family.

 Raphael was older, stronger, and was easily getting violent once provoked. First such case happened when they both were just babies: Jehan (3-year-old at the moment) had annoyed 5-year-old Raphael to the point where Raph snapped – and broke Jehan’s arm as the result. Terrified for his brother’s safety, Claude had moved Raphael from his house to the school, where he teaches and spends a lot of time anyway. Ironically it made him spend more time with Raphael then with his own brother (who was watched by the nanny and, once old enough, had the whole ass house to himself most of the time).

(And yes, we aged Jehan up a bit from the canon, so we could send him to the university :D)

 Claude had to ban the nickname, it was getting out of control.

 They didn’t interact much after that (if at all) until Jehan turned 11 and started attending classes at the school Raphael lived at. That’s when the nickname Quasimodo first came about – a tame one, as far as the bullying nicknames go, but it’s not the words that hurt. It’s the fact of being bullied.

 Presumably, they weren’t just babies anymore and should have developed some brain. In practice, they were teenagers (who are arguably even more dumb then babies), Raph just recently lost his hearing, and having Jehan paint some shit in latin around him and clearly laugh about it was NOT pleasant for a 13-year-old. Raphael was lashing out at Jehan and his friends left and right, even knocking some of their teeth out, and his clear anger only fueled the bullying more.

 It had gotten a little better when their guardian intervened and had a long talk with Raphael (and another one of his -not really that effective- lectures for Jehan), but not much. They managed to interact less, but despised each other still. The real change came, when Raphael (17) got a tablet at the charity lottery and was allowed to keep it.

Until then they both had brick phones and were allowed near computers only for education purposes. The balance had shifted – Raphael had something that Jehan (15 and feeling behind his peers, who all had ‘smartphones and shit’) needed. Needed, perhaps, even more, than to hurt Raphael.

Gaining his trust wasn’t easy. It’s not like Raph has been fooled either – but he liked the attention, the feeling of power. In exchange for favors he let Jehan use his tablet from time to time, watching like a hawk, so he wouldn’t break it.

The pair got found out by Claude immediately. None of them even knew how to clean their browser history – it wasn’t hard. But Jehan managed to convince his brother that it was “a bonding experience”, and after a bit of persuasion and a lot of puppy-dog eyes it was finally allowed for him to use the tablet – only with Raphael’s permission.

(A bummer, honestly – Jehan had hoped that his brother may take the ultimate privilege away from Raph and divide their screen time evenly, but no)

The power quickly ran to Raph’s head and Jehan was not pleased, but they both had to fake friendship in front of Claude and make it believable, so the precious tablet wouldn’t be taken from them entirely. In doing so they ended up spending a lot of time together: Jehan with the tablet, Raph watching behind his shoulder. It was Jehan who first started to look for a way of sabotaging Claude’s restrictions on their internet access, and even though Raph protested at first, they quickly became partners-in-crime, watching age-restricted videos and ‘sinful’ movies on pirate websites.

(Note: there wasn’t any actual porn! Not because Jehan didn’t tried – he did, but quickly realized that with Raph for a company that wouldn’t work for just so. many. reasons.

Also Jehan once registered an account for Raph on a cite as ‘Quasimodo’, because old habits die hard. But since Raph was calmer, older and knew what it meant already, he just smacked Jehan on the back of the head once – and not even that hard)

The transactional staff had eventually disappeared. Raphael started letting Jehan use the tablet without any payment and sometimes even without close supervision, just staying in the same room and cleaning up, while Jehan was doing something on the internet.

Given another year or two, It might’ve grown into an actual friendship – but Jehan finished school and got into the university. Once he moved out and ‘lost’ his brick phone, got his own smartphone and access to the internet, he began to hate ‘Quasimodo’ again, remembering old grievances with a new passion. Perhaps even more so, since the time he spent dependent on Raphael’s favor was gnawing at his ego painfully.

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Raph: What are you watching?

Jehan: *absent-mindedly hands him an earpice*

Raph: *clearly upset* Ha-ha, very funny!

Jehan: Shit, I forgot for a moment how fucked-up you are *turns the subtitles on* Here

After an accident, which resulted in 5-year-old Raphael breaking 3-year-old Jehan’s arm, Raph was moved to live at the (made-up) catholic school where Frollo teaches chemistry, since Claude spends most of his time there anyway. It was supposed to be a temporary measure, but it stuck and Raphael never actually moved out.

As a kid, Raph was put in the gymnastics section by Claude – first as a part of the many correction curriculums for his body’s development, then it became a passion. At the age of 12 he had an accident at the gym and got hurt, losing his hearing almost entirely as the result. Which, unfortunately, destroyed his grades in classes he barely got to attend for a year and killed his already poor socialization, forcing him to rely on the private tutors for basic education since nobody else, besides Frollo, was willing to accommodate for him. Still, he grew up at the school and was eventually put to work there as a groundskeeper of sorts, because… well, where else could he go?

Despite Claude’s best efforts, Raph had found his way to the internet at 17, winning a tablet at the charity lottery. Frollo had let him keep it under a lot of restrictions and with parental control on, but all his precautions proved insufficient when Jehan got involved. The pair had made a fragile truce for a change and quickly learned to bypass restrictions on their screen time.

Once Raphael had found a video of himself at the gymnastics class with the inspirational captions about ‘defying the limitations of one’s body’, which lead him down a rabbit hole. First he saw all the positive reactions from people and was ecstatic, feeling himself somewhat of a star for a moment, and then he found… the comments from the ‘lower’ internet, so to speak. Drowning in the eugenics forums and incel subreaddits he got bullied to the point of quitting gymnastics by 18 and hating almost everything and everyone, most of all – himself. Now he’s 20 and is seen by the students of the school as the ‘Frollo’s lapdog’, the omnipresent scary groundkeeper, the Ultimate End Of All Fun, who’s only saving grace in their eyes is that he’s deaf and therefore not omniscient.