this is so so optional but 🐖 for a character of your choice
Spitroasting Dolcetto! WAIT-
Ask Game for someone’s OCs
✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?
Okay, this is going to be batshit, strap in. So anyone remember Fullmetal Alchemist? Anyone remember Greed's Posse of Chimeras? Remember how one of them was named Dolcetto? Yeah.
I was so obsessed with Greed and Dolcetto (another story, another OC entirely) that the name stuck with me. Once I had moved on from FMA and gotten into Hetalia, for some reason that name had stuck with me. Somewhere I had found out that it means "little sweet one" and thought 'Wouldn't that be a funny name for an angry, short character?'. I hadn't bothered to check at this stage whether any of the names I had salvaged from somewhere else were actually names. Sorry Dolco, teenage me was careless and now your parents named you after a grape.
🌼 - How old are they? (Or approximate age range)
Born 20th of May 1994. He's 19 in Italian Affairs, the first book of the mainstory he crops up in. He tends to be around that age for all AUs, too.
🌺- Do they have any love interest(s)?
The one and only motherfucker unlimited Francesco Belfari. Francesco is his first kiss, too, due to Dolcetto's atrocious social skills and thusly resulting disinterest in mingling with people.
🍕 - What is their favorite food?
He's a ghiottone! He has a sweet tooth and especially can't get his fill of chocolate!
💼 - What do they do for a living?
Babysitting Feli and being a ruthless bastard! Like many of my characters, he's part of the mob, in this case as a right hand of the Vargas' Bros.
🎹 - Do they have any hobbies?
Already answered here! However, I do want to draw attention to the tags by outright stating - I think wanking should count as a hobby when you are as horny and suppressed as this goblin.
🎯 -What do they do best?
Keeping others on track. Don't get me wrong, he is quite hot-headed and can lose sight of things that are important and chronically overworks himself, but he's a perfect fit as Feli's right hand for a reason. He truly is ruthless in the sense that he sees a way that goes from A to B and is not interested in any frilly side-adventures. He's dependable as all hell and while not as creative as the Bontade twins, actually a good match for them in terms of thinking on his feet.
🥊 -What do they love to do? What do they hate to do?
Francesco. He loves to see plan work out and reap the rewards. He loves to achieve either a physical feat (like rock-wall climbing and reaching the top) or a logistical one (getting one over the Bontades) and get a pat on the back. If it involves hurting people, so be it, good way to get his aggression out, if it involves hurting himself, all the more so be it.
He absolutely loathes having to play along to someone else's games. I bet you he's exploding everyone and himself internally every time he goes to France. At least the Germans are just either as awkward as he is, whatever Gilbert got going on or straight up assholes. He's not good at playing nice, he's not enjoying anyone's attention, he has no interest in being charming at all. He's that Francis Crozier at a party - "Tell us about birdshit island again, that's a capital story." It's the worst part about caring about Feliciano honestly, having to participate in what comes so easily to Franci and Feli.
❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?
I think he does remember Gabriella very fondly from their childhood. And he also misses Venice sometimes, especially when the tourist crowds weren't around in the old city on rainy, gloomy days. Being landlocked in Rome makes him yearn for seaside.
✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?
Perhaps when he realized his parents don't care much for him. When they wouldn't intervene with the bullying at school, wouldn't help him much and reach out to him at all. When all his cries for help by acting out got him written off as never making something out of himself. He wasn't the 'little sweet one' they had hoped for, so he was on his own.
🧊 - Is their current design the first one?
Yep! Wiry, corkscrew curls, Short - always been my boooy.
🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?
Can't tell you for the life of me, honestly. It's been a long time ...
🌂 - What genre do they belong in?
He should have been in actual gritty gangster drama, to be honest. Not his clownshow, but he is still excelling at it. He's also slaying in nigh every historical AU I have, so he was just made for the drama.
💚 - What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?
Cis man and the flop bisexual nobody wants.
🙌 - How many sibling does your OC have?
One! His beloved older sister Gabriella, with who he has an absolutely terrible relationship for many years, because he's pushing her away to not hurt her and she keeps pulling him back so he won't hurt himself.
🍎 - What is the OC’s relationship w/their parents like?
Bad and now non-existent. As I said, the Acerbis (Martina and Bernardo) didn't really know how to handle Dolcetto after Gabriella was such a poster-child of success. They were probably also fairly conservative and saw Dolcetto as someone unwilling to work/who needed to straighten out. Honestly? Lie to them about the mob thing and hide her queerness, they'd take Gabriella back with open arms alongside with her well-to-do Milanese boyfriend. Dolcetto? If he wasn't dead to them before, he'd be now, queer troublemaker with a Neapolitan ne'er-do-well as a partner.
🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?
I like how much Dolcetto's heart is both in the right and the wrong place. He reminds me a lot of my younger self, hell, even of me now at times. He's so focused on having to be useful or otherwise no one will want to have him around that he's willing to destroy himself over it. He thinks if he's not delivering, no one would tolerate him. He IS a bastard, he IS callous often, but he does love and appreciate those around him and I love his journey recognizing that. I love that he finally gains self-worth and not just ego.
✏️ - How often do you draw/write about the OC?
Not as much as I'd like to! I recently drew a tiny headshot of him because I've watched Hazbin and he'd make an excellent exorcist - Plus I cannot resist anything where Dolcetto has a high social status that is yet precarious and along comes Francesco, completely untethered from societal opinion and completely fucking all that up for Dolcetto. But since I've been rewriting Irish Problems for two years now, baby boy isn't as present as I'd like him to be.
💎 - Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?
I mean, I can't imagine Dolcetto growing old, but that's none of my business.
💀 - Does your OC have any phobias?
Nothing I can think of from the top of my head.
🍩 -Who is your OC’s arch-nemesis or rival?
Marco and Lorenzo! The Bontade twins are one year older than Dolcetto and very much everything he's not. Social butterflies, totally confident in all of their skills, completely sexually open ... To be fair, Dolcetto also looks down upon them and, much like his sister, finds them rather grating and more hot air than skill. In his eyes, with he entire Vargas-Vento rivalry creating this enmity in the first place, them seementitled to something that isn't theirs. So while these two are definitely bullying him, Dolcetto is absolutely not the bigger person.
Marco: How could he be?
Lorenzo: He'd need stilts!
🎓 - How long have you had the OC?
I was definitely still in middle school. So probably since 11 or 10 years, I don't know how quickly I came up with more characters to populate the LFLS world back then.
🍥 - What age were you when you created the OC?
14 or 15. Absolutely wild to think a 19 year old would be too much meaningfully different from his creator at that age. I'm six years older now than he is in IA.
I haven't talked about Francetto a lot lately (BUT only 5 chapters away from a finished IP rewrite, so Watch Out), but I haven't thought in a loooooong time about their weird fighting kink. Like, how they just love to sratch and bite and push and shove and actually wrestle for the upper hand, because it gives Dolco a sense of worth and superiority AND he likes Franci being evil and Franci likes harsh physicality and he likes em feisty. Plus, whatever makes Dolco happy and helps him cope. (No matter how unhealthy.)
Still the best thing to come out of this is like. The rest of Team Italy kind of knowing. Doesn't matter if Franci told any of them, they like. Know. and while Rella and Fabio tactfully, if slightly concerned at times, ignore it, the Vargas are just like. "You've got to stop fucking like that, you're gonna cost me a good man one day, Cicci." - Lovi. "Yeah, there's only so much flesh on those bones, he bruises easily!" - Feli. And Dolco is just there like "STATE ZITTI STATE ZITTI STATE ZITTI, AMMAZZOVI!!!". About to commit incredibly unsexy murder.
🌙☀️📣💡👑📦🚆☄️💘 for francesco ! (i love information i need more)
And how could I deny you!
Here's some fun bonus information, a panel taken from this comic by @cinalilli with Francesco smack dab in the middle of Team Italy. Shows his height relations to the rest quite well #shortking.
OC Emoji Questions
🌙 MOON - what is your oc's greatest wish? how far are they willing to go for it?
His greatest wish is too see as much of the world as possible and meet the most interesting people on this earth - which are most people to him - and see all the extremes this human world has to offer.
And he's willing to go far for it. Lie and steal to make it possible, break into areas no one is supposed to be, e.g. climbing on top of the Collosseum at night. Toy with other people's life to see how they react under pressure, with only so much regard of how much harm it causes. You have to break geodes to see the pretty insides, after all.
☀️ SUN - are they a morning person? what is the first thing they do in the morning?
Considering how much he gets up to at night, I think he tends to wake up at 9 am or sleep in even further, depending on when he went to bed. He usually wakes up, goes to the bathroom and grabs breakfast before he actually gets ready and dressed. Depends of course if he gets breakfast at home or at work/at a bar.
📣 MEGAPHONE - how loud are they? what do they speak like? got a voice claim?
LOUD. To be fair, he doesn't come into a room unaware that he's booming, he's doing that a lot on purpose. Most of the time he's got an average volume and speaks as the situation calls for it, but when he gets excited or upset, he does get louder.
He has a very noticeable Neapolitan accent in Italian, when he isn't speaking Neapolitan outright to himself - his English is accented as well, even if less so. He tends to, again, speak to people in their language/in the way he wants to be perceived by them, but tends to stay more on the informal side or poetic waxing rather than overly stilted or clinically to the point.
💡 LIGHTBULB - is your oc a planner? do they write down every small detail or just wing it?
Francesco lives in the moment, but he does plan - in the sense that he calculates outcomes and the necessary parts to achieve them. He never writes anything down, it all stays in his head, but when he works with others, the other person usually writes down the plan they hash out. (If it's Fabio or Dolcetto at least - Gabriella and Lovino sometimes write things down, but Lovi also rather lets others do this and when he's with Feli, Franci has to jot some things down because of Feli's adhd.)
👑 CROWN - what does your oc want to be remembered as? why?
He enjoys the notoriety he has achieved in parts of the European underground, but he doesn't have many plans for cultural and social immortality. What he really wants to be remembered as is 'that magnetically charming weirdo you met on your holiday once.' He wants that plenty of versions of him, his zest for life, lives on other people's life, even if they're complete strangers. It meshes with his philosophy that from the micro to the macro, you can find the beauty and fascination of humanity in everything. As time goes on with him as part of Team Italy, he also wants to be remembered as a good friend and lover to those closest to him.
📦 PACKAGE - what's some "most likely to..." that can apply to them?
Most likely to smooch the enemy, much to Lovino's dismay. (He wants to fuck Michele so bad, just because Miché hates his guts and Franci likes his gusto). Most likely also to end up in the deepest shit, at the same time most likely to get away with most troublesome behaviour without having to pay the price. Who could be angry with this guuuuy?
☄️ COMET - what do people assume about them? are they right?
A lot of people assume Francesco is just a loving macho who runs his mouth but can't or wouldn't back it up. They are mistaken about the backing it up part but right about everything else. Others think that his happy, earnest joy and whimsy is simply a façade that covers up a cruel cunt of an overly curious manipulator. They are mistaken about his joy and whimsy being fake, but right there there IS an overly curious manipulator as well.
💘 HEART W/ ARROW - what traits do they look for in a relationship? do they believe in love at first sight?
Excitement! Francesco has never earnestly dated (not counting teenage school romances) before Dolcetto, but he loves loving. He doesn't have a physical type nor really one when it comes to personality, though someone stubborn in one way or another can always be a fun challenge. And someone horny's always good, because my god, he's horny too. To be in love, to indulge what you become when you tie yourself to someone else, and be it only for a night, is part of being human, which he loves!
In Italian, there's the expression of colpo di fulmine (a bolt of lightning/lightningstruck) and I think he does believe in love on first sight in that way. There's just people you feel immediately drawn to, there's a spark - whether you want to call that love isn't that important to him. That's the way he feels about Feliciano, one of his bosses and the man he acts as right hand and bodyguard to. Something about Feliciano's upbeat nature draws him in.
Dolcetto was cheated out of being an overly ambitious senator with a name far too big for his statue but so so so eager to fill it. Instead he doesn't even get to be fully human and has to discreetly eat his tunic when he sees the man he loves pursue power and ambition and keeps fucking around. There is a beautiful alternate world to ours where everything is the same EXCEPT Res Publica AU has young senator Dolco and shady but insanely effective freedman Franci as his campaign manager.
Well, at least Mister Acerbi gets to be a Pretorian Guard in the Imperial one.
Thinking about when Dolcetto realized that not only could he let Francesco's kindness AND deviousness warm his cold, neglected heart, but he could collar this monstrum, this sign of a man. That this is something Franci wants, even when he doesn't realize and won't admit it.
You know me soooo well. You know that I was looking at that list and twirled my hair, thinking about 1 for Franciiii.
Weirdly Specific but Helpful Character Building Questions
1.What’s the lie your character says most often?
"I told you everything I know." After years, even Gabriella and the Vargas are half-buying that one, deep down. Fabio rarely does - Dolcetto only does when he thinks he can be sure he mined everything out of the man he loves. (Before they dated, he either did believe it, because other things to worry about or he didn't buy shit that Franci was selling. No in between, really).
OR
"You know me." Do we, Francesco? Do we know you? Do you know yourself? I know this isn't so much even a lie as it is a very empty, very useful phrase that's used to either reassure or unsettle, depending on the context. Mostly to hide his canines from friend and foe alike.
A lot of what he says isn't so much lies as half-truths and truths that will let him steer whoever's opposite him, let's him anticipate the emotional reaction and actions, getting them where he wants them. He does a lot of lying by omission as well. And, to be fair, a lot of the time he does say the truth, because why not? He's just here to have a good time, everyone is allowed to know! And when people think you're genuine, the lies are so much harder to catch.
FINALLY GETTING AROUND FOR THIS, TUTTI SIETE PRONTI PER LA RAGAZZAAAAAA.
Edgy/Misc OC Asks
7. What's one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them?
The way she cares for Dolcetto is different. When I first came up with the Acerbi siblings, like, pre-Italian Affairs, in a vacuum, in like summer of 2014, she was way more concerned with Dolcetto's grumpyness and overall his entire demeanour. I can vaguely remember that she babied him a lot more than she still does.
These days, the Acerbi siblings are a lot more well-rounded and realistic in their relationship with each other and all their issues. Gabriella thinks she has to protect her little brother from harm, which includes all the one he causes himself. She thinks she has to save him from himself or she won't have a brother anymore. She thinks she has to undo all the damage her parents have done. Dolcetto, meanwhile, thinks he just has to thrive on his own, be independent and deliver results. He's the reason Rella threw her life away, so she shouldn't care for him anymore. If he distances himself from her, then he can't hurt her.
15. Does your OC have a faceclaim? If so, who?
Never had a faceclaim for Rella. Most of my OCs don't, unless I need a reference as a starting off point.
22. What character alignment would you consider your OC to be?
Iiii do not know enough about DND or wherever that stuff came from to answer this correctly, I'm afraid. I mean, they are all on a spectrum of evil for the mafia thing, right? In other AUs, where I can judge her more by character ... Lawful Good/Lawful Neutral to Neutral Good?
23. What emotion is the hardest for your OC to process? How about express?
It may be disappointment for both. It is certainly the hardest to express - Rella can rage, Rella can cry, Rella can admit she is upset but. The cold and harsh void of admitting to yourself and voicing to yourself and others: 'This is not what I wanted. I wanted something else and I now I grief what I can not have. I had expectations and they were not met, wishes and they didn't come true.' If disappointment is easier for her to process and admit to herself, then she struggles a lot with indifference. I think it confuses and scares her greatly to realize she just doesn't care about things she feels everyone should care about. Having that reaction to indifference is not great for a gangster! Which is why everything gets sublimated into righteous rage and love!!!
Rotating Dolcetto in my head and more specifically his rivalry with the twins.
Had to think about how Dolcetto is not a public display of affections person, does not like to flirt in front of people and much less be raunchy.
Which is so, so different to the twins. And I am thinking about gender and age as a construct, and how they probably tease Dolcetto for being a boy and not a man. Dolcetto, inside, is afraid that being dependent on his boyfriend/trying to seduce him would make him seem 'unmanly', someone not getting by on merits but seduction, the power of that being 'weak' and 'womanly'. Nevermind that Francesco's Succubus face is an absolute powerhouse and acknowledged as such within Team Italy.
And the twins, the raunchy little shits who are not afraid to be open and obnoxious about desire? They respond with 100% self-confidence: "There is nothing unmanly about having someone by the balls."
Now, it is evident in Irish Problems, that the twins struggle with the exact same problems as Dolcetto does, being seen as boys and not men. But they do figure out their masculinity and it is very much not in conflict with their sexuality and expression thereof. Like everything they do, it's something very fluid and adaptable to them, so they have no problem presenting every which way and selling it the way they need.
