Just for starters, while I'm prepearing some bigger attacks
Characters in order (links to AF profiles of their creators included, check them out!):
Roxie by rredinew
Vlada by stazis
Jaques by SnakeryУ
In the long-read about Esmeralda in the modern-AU I mentioned Djali in passing. Well, here she is, in all her glory.
Actually, not all of it – most of Djali’s glory is destruction. She’s a goat, after all, which means that she’s a menace to society. But for Esmeralda she’s the bestest girl ever and the loveliest companion of all.
Two more sketches and some info under the cut
Djali lives with Esmeralda in the slums that house the Court of Miracles. She grazes on the neighborhood weeds (not out of hunger – she’s provided food, but a goat is still a goat and can’t be kept indoors the whole day!), wrecks a little havoc now and then and is often found on roofs or somewhere else where she was NOT invited. When Esmeralda is around, Djali follows her. The pair have a very tight bond and one can often be found by locating the other.
As it supposed to be with accordance to the law, Djali has proper ear tags. Bu-u-u-ut they are not exactly her ear tags: if someone should check, they would find… actually, hard to tell what exactly, but they wouldn’t find information on Djali, that’s for sure.
That’s because Djali isn’t registered properly, or at all.
She was stolen as a yeanling without a tag from abattoir by a member of the Court if Miracles who worked there. The intention was to raise her for half a year and then eat, finally have some good meat. But for a day adorable little creature was handed to a 12-year-old Esmeralda, with instructions to watch over it and feed it and without any information about its future fate.
Really nobody should’ve been surprised when by the end of day it was HER goat with a NAME who couldn’t be eaten anymore because ‘she’s my friend!’
So she later received some ear tags from a slaughtered goat, while Esmeralda took it upon herself to raise Djali and even teach her some tricks (since Esme herself can outstubborn even the goat, training was surprisingly successful). This not-quite-legal goat hasn’t gotten her in trouble just because none of the social workers had bothered to make it their problem. The slums where Esme lives have, in their opinion, way more bothering things to worry about. The goat is already there, it has ear tags, nobody complains about it and therefore the potential can of worms of ‘where did this animal come from?!’ is NOT worth opening. Not for their salary anyway.
From time to time Djali appears in Esmeralda’s tiktoks – with stickers plastered over the numbers on her ear tags for safety. Those appearances bring about like 80% of revenue from her channel, taking it from ‘basically nothing’ to ‘decent’. And, unfortunately, those videos with Djali are exactly the reason Phoebus got a way to contact her.
Esmeralda is very careful not to put her personal information online, but for those who already know her face (ahem-ahem Phoebus ahem-ahem Claude) it’s not really a barrier, is it?
But that’s a story for another time
In case you haven't seen it before, this is your chance!
I will draw: you, your friend, your crush, your OC, fandom character, a ship with OCs or/and fandom characters, humanoid designs
I will not draw: feral/non-humanoid designs (exception: Cats the Musical), complicated armor/mecha, nsfw of any kind (nudity is not nsfw), pedo/incest/abusive ships, ships with real people (negotiable)
You can contact me in tumblr dms, or through email [email protected]
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I finally put some thoughts about Esmeralda in the modern-AU together, so as usual: here’s our girl, a lot of text under the cut
When at 15 an opportunity for Esmeralda to learn at the private school for free had presented itself, it was taken without a second thought. It was a charitable offer, literally – part of the special program, a scholarship of good will for a few girls to fill some space in the first portion of students for a brand-new female wing. She aced her tests to get in.
Young orphan girl of color from a community of “social rejects” with a track record of royally annoying social workers and no reverence for authorities of any kind, at the catholic school. What could possibly go wrong?
Actually – it might’ve worked out fine. If not for Claude Frollo, her chemistry teacher, seeing her as the root of all evil and his possible personal salvation and miracle at the same time. He should’ve just been teaching her some god-damned chemistry, but no, he HAD to emotionally invest himself into a one-sided obsession with a 16-year-old. What a guy!
But him and his “actually-at-15-girls-are-fully-developed” ways are another matter (right, @snakeryy ? :DD)
What is Esmeralda actually like?
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
(Also - I'm still thinking about her name, since it doesn't feel that wierd for a modern-au, but also we have Agnes in canon as the birth-name. She might legally be called Agnes + some family name, but go by Esmeralda among the 'court of miracles' on account of her having green eyes and all, idk yet)
So, after some considération, me and @hissto decided that I will be the one designing Phoebus for our au, given my qualification in drawing french policemen and assholes >:D (so basically now I'm officially responsible for the both antagonists lmao)
Do not be fooled by the pretty face!
So, since Phoebus is still relatively young (24-26 smth), we couldn't sadly make him a captain for the au :( BUT it doesn't ruin much, and in some ways even adds to the vibe
Phoebus is one of the policemen working for a precinct to which the catholic school where the plot takes place is assigned by territory. He's got a pretty face and quite a bit of charm, but aside from that - he's not exactly good at much. He makes himself look big and cool, but in fact he's just a very irresponsible cop who just barely got a sous-brigadier rank (which made him oh so proud of himself), films some stupid "police thirst trap" videos for tiktok, smokes and drinks at student parties whenever he's invited to them by Fleur-de-Lys, and really lives on the money of the said Fleur-de-Lys, whom he's been together with since his academy days. Which, as you could guess, doesn't really stop him from constantly looking in the direction of and flirting with other women, as he's grown bored of Fleur quite some time ago.
Not surprisingly, was one of the people very happy about a new female wing in a nearby catholic school. No, the maximum age of the students being 18 doesn't bother him in the slightest, of course 🥰
Merfolkalaised (??????) some of my followers OCs there based on their provided references and pictures on the water-related theme. Idk if they are on tumblr, so no links, names only
In order:
So, you see, one of my favourite things about Claude in canon - is the fact he genuinely loved his little brother, genuinely tried to care for Quasimodo when no one else would want to, and put a lot of effort into everything he did, including raising the children (until he let it all go down the drain during the plot lol)
So not surprisingly, I'm clinging HARD to the concept of their lil disfunctional family we came up with for the au! :D a big text with thoughts below
So, for this au we decided that:
1) both Frollo kids are a lil older when their parents die: Claude is 20, barely finishes his licence in chemistry when he becomes the legal guardian of a 2 yo Jehan (yes, Jehan is a lil older in the au for plot convenience). Of course, still adores his little brother to the core and care for him as good as he possibly can (given that, well, they have a family inheritance, money situation wasn't dire - the fact that Claude was himself barely adult was definitely more of a problem)
2) Raphaël wasn't just found on the stairs of the cathedral: he was, in fact, found by child protection services and assigned to a church based orphanage... By chance, it was the same parish Claude was a part of, and he quickly heard about the "poor misshapen child" who was brought in, "barely had chances for adoption", was "difficult" as by his 4 he still wasn't really verbal (due to his environment being, well... Not great), had some temper issues and, of course, required medical attention due to his birth defects, which would cost someone too much money to spend on an adopted child. Claude, as in canon, got sentimental about an "abandoned child whom NO ONE needs and is ready to care for" and made a decision to adopt the kid.
At 21.
Great decision, my dear: you're definitely not overestimating your capabilities of raising two whole kids with zero childcare experience before, and especially doing it along with your own start of adulthood
ANYWAYS, kids did not get along: you can actually read more about that part in the post by @hissto , and another one
That’s just a fun little snippet into the modern!au Quasi and Jehan’s life. @snakeryy had asked, if Jehan, despite his disdain for Raphael, would ask to use his tablet once he got one, and SHE HIT A SWITCH IN MY BRAIN. A lot of text about this duo under the cut
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.
-----
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
So, @snakeryy and I are having a lot of fun with a modern-AU for ‘Notre-Dame’ right now, and that’s how I ended up drawing Quasimodo. A lot of text under the cut, you’ve been warned!
Meet Raphael
Because naming an orphaned 4-year-old kid ‘Quasimodo’ in the modern day isn’t an action of a learned man anymore, but a wierdo (Claude is a wierdo, just not like that, you know)
So, in our modern-AU ‘Quasimodo’ is actually a nickname, given to Raph by Jehan – who, btw, hates his guts, and the feeling is mutual.
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.
[honestly my only regret about this AU is that I had to give up boy's love for THE BELLS - we still want to include a Notre-Dame cathedral, but differently, and THE BELLS had to go. It hurts my soul, but I'll rectify it somehow]
Sooo I accidentally re-entered my Notre-Dame fixation (for those who don't know - it's my favourite book of all time :D) with a modern au concept we thought of with my friend... And OF COURSE I had to take Frollo siblings' designs under my wing lol
Some more sketches and a bit of context under the cut!
Sooo yk, we decided that while Claude stays a priest of sorts, he's ALSO a teacher and administrative at a made-up elite catholic school! And as canon him was obsessed with alchemy, in au he probably has a good education in chemistry, so that's what he's teaching. He's one of those people who think internet is inherently evil bc it "ruins children's brains", and so both of the kids in his care (Jehan and Quasimodo, whom I might also bring some day) didn't even have a smartphone for most of their childhood
Jehan, on the other hand, is not rly sharing his brother's attitude lol. He's a first year uni student, as as soon as he moved away from Claude, he bought himself a cool phone, downloaded tiktok and is living his best life with it. Very unhinged kid compensating as hard as he can for his "boring" religious upbringing
@snakeryy Do I have to revive this god forsaken blog because of you and the worm you put in my brain with your little Notre-Dame obsessed claws? FINE OKAY JEEZ I'LL DO IT just give me a moment
kid's and their fucking AU-s this day, i swear... /j
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