SOAP'S DOODLES

So human names and what roles they have.

T.C. – Tom Catz: Originally I had Tom Catz as a placeholder, but it was too funny at a certain point, so I had to keep it. Yes, it’s an awful pun on tomcat, but at the same time I wanted to highlight a bit his Jewish heritage, so it’s Catz (even if the name Tom isn’t really a Jewish name, but whatever). In the AU’s current timeline T.C. considers himself a businessman when in actuality he’s a professional gambler, and made all of his money on horses, cards, dice you name it, and of course only when the odds were in his favor (by that I mean cheating). He’s also expanding his empire by getting in on early the liquor business and is one of the head of the mob houses.

Choo-Choo – Csongor Csokonai: In the fanfics I already had Chooch explain how he got his nickname, with it slowly evolving from Csócsó (Hungarian for table football to tie him in a bit with bar games and keep him on theme with T.C.) to Choo-Choo as his father was in the railway business. From the name alone I feel it should be obvious that he is Hungarian, it came from one of the wikis where Lola Glamour aka Gertie was listed as Hungarian and I like the idea of the two being together, so they had to know each other from the old country. Plus Chooch’s constant need to off himself feels very on brand for us Hungarians. He has that Sad Sunday depression. He’s also T.C.’s secretary, but most of his job just involves to tell people if he is in or not.

Benny the Ball - Benjamin Balkovitz: The name is pretty self-explanatory. Benny is T.C.’s best friend and yes-man and just for constantly enabling him and serving as a morality pet he can get whatever he wants, let it be food, show girls, money, he only needs to ask.

Fancy-Fancy – Fulgencio Fernández Arnaz: I think I already mentioned in one of the notes that Fulgencio came from General Batista as he was heavily involved with the American mafia in Cuba, Fernández also comes from Batista’s wife, and Arnaz is of course a nod to Desi Arnaz, because I love I love Lucy. From the start I wanted Fancy to be Latino and in the end he is from Cuba again due to the association with the mafia and liquor trade, and later on with gambling. Fancy in the current timeline serves as part of the entertainers/eye-candy at T.C.’s bar, most often getting the ladies to bet all of their money and jewelry on cards or roulette.

Brain – María del Cerebro Fernández Arnaz: So María del Cerebro (Maria of the Brain) is actually not a title of the Virgin Mary, but in this case we just gotta play pretend, because I couldn’t get the nickname Brain to work otherwise. From the name it should be obvious that Brain and Fancy are siblings, they do have similar fur colors and ears, and in Jellystone! they do give off a bit of a sibling energy. Another obvious fact is that yes I am going with the Jellystone genderbent version, as there are way too many men already and I need some diversity. I also mixed in a bit of Brain’s comic counterpart where the nickname makes a bit more sense and T.C. usually turns to Brain for advise whenever they are in a jam. Here she’s also part of the entertainment crew, but most of the time she just helps with the numbers and figures.

Spook – Leopold “Leo” Bertholf: I wanted to give Spook a bit of a nod to his VA, so Leopold/Leo comes from Leo de Lyon, while Bertholf is the birthname of jazz musician Willie “the Lion” Smith (yes he gets to be named after two lions lol). I also like the reference to Bertholf, because my original idea was to have Spook be black, but with the nickname it might have come off as offensive, so much like most of the cat gang aside from the Latinos he’s Jewish, and Willie Smith also found out that he has Jewish heritage from his father’s side and converted to Judaism, and with Spook being the opposite where he is already Jewish, but hung out with the black musicians at the Lower East and learning from them. And yes that’s how he got the nickname as well, whitest boy in the band. With that it should be no surprise he is the master of ceremonies/band leader at T.C.’s club and doesn’t really get involved with the criminal side of things.