#𝚅𝙰𝙴𝙽𝙶𝙸𝚁 : 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐬 of tj klune’s 2020 fantasy novel the house in the cerulean sea. 𝗠𝗨𝗟𝗧𝗜-𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗘, 𝗔𝗨, 𝗢𝗖, 𝗖𝗥𝗢𝗦𝗦𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥 𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗟𝗬. est 20220523 by ink ( she / her, 25+, aest ). everything by me unless otherwise stated. sporadic activity. this is a sideblog to afteribm, which does not follow first. please do not follow if you are not also going to follow joe. temp about under the cut, though i’ve left most of the spoilery stuff out. feel free to ask for a full character overview if you want !
NAME : arthur parnassus
KNOWN AS : arthur. please do not refer to him as ‘ mr. parnassus ’, it’s far too formal
BIRTHDAY : [ redacted ]
AGE : forty-five
GENDER : cis-male
ORIENTATION : homoromantic homosexual
ETHNICITY / SPECIES : white, english ( ? ) / human presenting
ZODIAC SIGN : [ redacted ]
PLACE OF BIRTH : unknown
CURRENT RESIDENCE : marsyas house
OCCUPATION : master of the house, overseer of the orphanage
EYE COLOUR : warm brown
HAIR COLOUR : blond
HEIGHT : 6′3+
FAMILY : parents unknown, presumed deceased. current wards : lucy ( antichrist, aged 6 ) ; theodore ( wyvern ), sal ( were-pomeranian ), phee ( forest sprite ), talia ( gnome ), chauncey ( known, possibly part jellyfish )
SIGNIFICANT OTHER : ( canonically linus baker, eventual fiancé ) verse dependent
FACECLAIM : lee pace
MORAL ALIGNMENT : chaotic good
MYERS-BRIGGS : infp probably but we’ll see
BACKSTORY : arthur is the warm, charming, & enigmatic master of the house of marsyas house. he looks after the children as if they’re his own ( something very frowned upon by the department in charge of magical youth - henceforth referred to as dicomy ), & is unusually calm & patient with the children, in comparison to other masters of other houses. he & his wards - along with zoe chapelwhite, island sprite - reside on marsyas island, away from the local village who despises their existence.
the wards of marsyas island are very different to the ‘ normal ’ magical children who perhaps have a tail, or can levitate items, or are selkies . . . but arthur seems to be able to take them all in stride & genuinely care for his charges.
PLOTLINE : linus baker, very good government employee, is sent to marsyas to make sure that arthur is capable of doing his job, with in-depth weekly reports to dicomy’s extremely upper management. if anything in those reports will ring alarm bells for dicomy, marsyas island will be shut down, the children shipped off to schools that couldn’t care less about them. & arthur very much has no intention of letting that happen.
DO YOU NEED TO WRITE IN MY VERSE ? no !! in fact, it would probably be rather difficult for super-canon things. however, unless otherwise stated, i will assume a sort of urban fantasy verse ( which is what the genre of thitcs is anyway ), & thus there will be mentions of fantastical creatures & magic. & yes, lucy is the legitimate antichrist, but he’s just a six year old kid really. but anw . u want a dad of six unruly kids ???? i got u <3
arthur smiled. “ oh yes. i took their huddled masses and gave them a home where they could breathe without fear of retaliation. ” his smile faded. “ i thought i had everything planned. and maybe i made mistakes. keeping the children on the island for one. that was born out of fear. i told myself they had enough. that the island and zoe and i could provide everything they could ever need. i love them more than anything in this world. and i convinced myself that love would be enough to sustain them. but i didn’t account for one thing. ( . . . ) you. ” • sideblog to @afteribm
* he was unlike anyone linus had seen before. … he was spindly. his light hair was a mess, sticking up at odd angles. it was starting to gray around his temple. his dark eyes were bright & glittering in the near-dark. his aquiline nose had a bump in the center, as if it’d been broken once long ago & never set right. he was smiling, hands clasped in front of him. his fingers were long & elegant as he twiddled his thumbs. ( . . . ) his slacks appeared too short for his long legs, the hems coming up above his ankles, revealing red socks. he wore black-&-white wingtip shoes.
expression is decidedly unimpressed, though his demeanour remains rather complacent. ❛ i understand that there are . . . orders - ❜ the word is said as though it left a rather sour taste in his mouth, ❛ from his real father, ❜ ( LUCY’S CHOICE OF WORDS, NOT ARTHUR’S. though he would be lying if he didn’t say warmth had spread through him like heated honey when j-bone had mentioned it in passing ), ❛ but i will repeat what i told that other one who came here looking for him. he is a child dealing with a very large & heavy weight of expectation & assumption put on him just because he happened to be born. he may act like he is ready to do what everyone expects of him, but then he has nightmares about it. whatever the two of you are trying to do --- i want it to stop. now. he’s six. let him be a child the way he wants. whatever he grows up to be is up to him, not OUTSIDE INFLUENCES manipulating him one way or the other. ❜ he levels crowley with an even stare, head held rather defiantly. ❛ if the two of you cannot agree to that, then it seems we are at an impassé, & zoe is well within her rights to refuse you entrance to our island any further. ❜
* @jorrhaellagon … "i'm trying my best and it's not good enough."
❛ but it is, rhaella, ❜ the tall man says patiently, one reassuring hand clasping her shoulder, warmth radiating from it. ❛ of course it’s good enough. how could it not be ? you’re doing your best --- that’s the most anyone can ever ask of you. ❜ you can’t ask someone to do BETTER THAN THEIR BEST, any more than one could ask a SELKIE not to seek out their seal skin, or a dragon to change its scales. ❛ these things simply take practice, ❜ he explains calmly, in a way that feels like he’s done this before. ❛ there is little in this world that comes naturally to everyone, be it a certain skill, a task, a career . . . & just think, every time you practice, your best will get JUST THAT LITTLE BIT BETTER. do you want to try again ? ❜
ok mild spoilers but when arthur shows up at linus’ door at like 10pm & is just ‘ we got u a gift ’ & linus is like ‘ ??? a what ? why ? ’ & arthur’s just ‘ well sometimes u get someone a gift to show u were thinking of them ’ & linus goes ‘ u were thinking of me ? ’ & arthur immediately just says ‘ constantly ’
also for context, all the kids pretty much look like kids except theodore who just straight up looks like a wyvern because he is one, & chauncey who looks like . . . a green the blob with snail eyes ? talia has a big ol’ beard & a round tummy, lucy’s eyes can take on a red tinge around the edges, & phee can show her wings when she wants. sal looks like a normal kid ( pretty big for his age ) but he shrinks down to a pomeranian when frightened . . . which is often
“ you should know there’s a chance that you’ll find chauncey under your bed at one point or another. ”
that startled linus. “ what ? why ? ”
“ because for the longest time, before he came here, he was called a monster, even by people who should have known better. he was told the stories of monsters hiding under beds whose calling in life was to frighten others. he thought that was who he was supposed to be. that it was his job to scare people, because it’d been ingrained in his … head that was all he was capable of. it wasn’t until he came here that he realized he could be something more. ”
