Could you do one for the Alarming Scholar. I realize of course that they are very similar to Thurlow, but Failbetter does seem to have deviated from the original character to make the Scholar something a bit unique. Got any cool interpretations of how the Scholar is presented and might differ from your cranky teeth nerd of an OC?
I’m not gonna do the whole meme for them because half of it is about shipping and the Scholar doesn’t seem to have many visible personal relationships and appears to be in love with a Fluke or something and have eyes for no one else. I’m just gonna ramble.
I generally picture the backer characters known to be based on OCs as alternate universe counterparts of those OCs; they’re made of the same stuff, probably, but have led different lives. The Alarming Scholar is quite similar, the Voracious Diplomat and the Irrepressible Cannoneer are more divergent but still bear a resemblance, and the Merciless Modiste appears to be Ms N. Brite’s evil mirror self from a parallel dimension. They might know each other, since their OC counterparts do. (I do headcanon the Scholar and the Diplomat as being cousins like Thurlow and Alexis. As family, they... tolerate each other.) I basically think of Sunless Sea as a close parallel universe of FL anyway, since the timeline doesn’t quite match up. (Don’t ask how this works with the SSea RP characters. I guess in my model of the EBZverse, either they get quietly pushed one universe over for RP purposes or they’re their own counterparts.)
The first difference is that the Scholar is a proper full-fledged employee of the University, not just an academic freelancer type of thing like Thurlow. The second is that they don’t seem aromantic so much as uninterested in other humanoids, as the Fluke thing indicates, assuming that is love and not being creepily affectionate before they ate it. (Love does not necessarily preclude eating it. Maybe that’s how the Scholar and the Fluke wanted their love affair to end.)
They also seem to have a different collection of eccentricities and weird hobbies; the Scholar likes growing flowers in skulls and pickling things for fun. (Thurlow isn’t much of a gardener or a taxidermist.) The Scholar is perhaps a bit more chipper than Thurlow, as a baseline -- Thurlow is more deadpan and prickly -- but maybe it’s not so much an actual difference in disposition as because you bring them so many interesting bits of nautical junk and therefore they’re usually in OOH A SHINY mode when you meet up. I figure plenty of the things you bring them get sent on to the University, since the University is the one paying for them to buy your stuff, but the less important/valuable stuff goes into their personal collection of weird things. (Like Thurlow, they have a collection of weird things. That’s either canon or practically canon.) Most of the time the University gets the good stuff, at least. I bet the University never found out about the fluke core.
