[attr="class","pie"]Where was your character when they successfully summoned their familiar for the first time? What happened?[break][break]

falling out of a tree, actually. he hadn't really planned on it ( the familiar bit, not the climbing. he's well aware of that bad decision. ) and instead of falling relatively-safely onto some cushy vegetation, ended up body-slammed by an irate harpy eagle. it injured them both, of course, and lyra berated him the entire way through. it's roughly the same energy as dropping your phone and panic-smacking it so it hits the wall instead.[break][break]

the start of a delightfully dysfunctional partnership, as you can see. don't worry, the next few attempts went about as poorly as the first.

02. Rosalie, rather triumphantly, decided to name herself. This was in her days of acting far more of a nuisance than she does now, of course -- she wouldn't do a single thing Milo asked of her without some quip or the other. And when he wanted to give her the name Rosie, well, she didn't know if she liked it or not but certainly didn't want to give him the satisfaction of her approval. As with all things, she made him work for it. (Did you even try? Come up with at least ten more, Lord Tremerie, I believe in you.) Milo replied in kind: thirty different variations of the same Rose name, so much so that at the end he got sick of his original idea. But he wouldn't give her that satisfaction. And so they struck a bargain.

01. How did your character's familiar initially interact with them versus how they do now?

McKenna used to be a very silent, actions not words sort of familiar that would send Aiden vibes more so than actually speak to him or quite literally nudge him in the right direction but then disappear. She'd materialize at will, only tiredly relenting if Aiden asked too many times. Nowadays though, she's quite literally the voice of reason in his head telling him to absolutely NOT punch the aristocrats in the face. Except for this one time where its ok. She is the more mature voice in his head but she has her flaws and being so intimately connected to him is fallible and will jump to his defense and validation. She also is much more present now and quite enjoys being spoiled. She is the often the big spoon or the living blanket that drapes over Aiden when he's tired but refuses to sleep.


03. Where was your character when they successfully summoned their familiar for the first time? What happened?
He thought she was a fucking demon cause she came outta the fucking shadows all misty and junk and he ran like hell, much like the big kids chasing him to beat the crap out of him. And she still wasn't on speaking terms with him so she would literally just disappear and reappear like his sleep paralysis demon except awake. He didn't sleep well for a week.

...gonna answer three (3) now & perhaps i'll come back for the others, later. i'm actually a clown for dev questions --

06. Is your character big on celebrations (birthdays/christmas/festivals)? How do they celebrate?

tentatively going to say yes under the assumption that celebrations in delphi bridge easy access to like, booze and etc. fancy foods he probably wouldn't be able to otherwise afford? and uh. he generally celebrates by turning into a bit of a mess. like that one katy perry song yknow

01. How did your character's familiar initially interact with them versus how they do now?

tl;dr — they were ( more or less ) always besties. she was sweet and a little cruel back then; still is, in the current day.

MIYAVI was luckily a bit ... odd from the get-go, so she wasn't too concerned over little finch staining his hands with ... /vaguely gestures to enfant terrible trope/. i think she came into this world with a predilection towards mischief and mayhem and may have actually been the little voice in his head reassuring him that everything was okay, and he only need worry for himself and his own. she still does this.

03. Where was your character when they successfully summoned their familiar for the first time? What happened?

i'm a huge fan of dramatic scenarios so ( if this isn't lore-breaking ofc ) maybe she was summoned by accident, in the midst of a job. like, little finch meant to sling a spell towards the guy he needed to Take Down but ended up slinging his new familiar bird instead? idk

i think it'd also be cute if he mistook her for a fairy of sorts at first. xo

Why did your character give their familiar that particular name?

PERRY NEWTON is named after the illustrious Perry Maxmillian Walter Walters Newton, formerly known as simply Perry, and now, to the average contemporary citizen, best known as the father of Maxmillian Newton and Bea Newton, and grandfather to Emilia Newton and Theodore Newton. He had Maxmillian very late in his life, and having no other heirs to speak of, would later spend the rest of his years in the younger Newton household until his passing.

But make no mistake, the name of Theodore's familiar is not a demonstration of affection.

Theodore Newton is not fundamentally incapable of things like love, or empathy, or simply care on some deeper human level, but as a young boy — which he was when naming Perry (the otter) — he cavorted about the world with a distinct lack of tact or sensibility. He embarrassed his parents by loudly announcing to the world who he thought was ugly when he passed them on the street. He proclaimed many strangers “old” when shopping for groceries. On many notable occasions, he shouted, “Ew!” at other passerby seemingly for no reason at all, and would run away if confronted.

But surely, you may think, it must be different with one’s grandfather? After all, the Newtons all lived together: with a grandfatherly figure present in Theodore’s life, it wouldn’t have been strange for them to have established some kind of rapport. At the very least, he couldn’t have avoided him. (The Newtons lived in a very compact home: the kind that could barely survive through one teenager’s adolescence, and that nearly made the Newtons religious when it braved through two rebellious phases.)

However, Theodore’s relationship with his grandfather cannot be measured by an idea like “sentiment”. It cannot be talked about in the realm of words like “familial affection” or “a love of kin”. For most of his formative years, he had no idea that Perry Maxmillian Walter Walters Newton was his grandfather at all. After all, everyone in his family just called the elderly man ‘Perry’, and no one had bothered to explain their relationship to him.* And Theodore had certainly never asked. He simply assumed that for some reason or another, there was a strange old man living in their house, and that everyone was okay with that.

Theodore had not been prepared to have a familiar. He took the then unnamed otter back home, preparing for his parents to tell him to kick it out (he had brought several “pets” home before this point including but not limited several lizards, a chipmunk, two squirrels, four frogs, a cockroach, and a jar of wasps to poor reception), but everyone was perfectly fine with the otter, who had no blood relation to any of them, living with them.

Wow, thought Theodore. That’s exactly like what happened with Perry.

So he named his familiar Perry.

*Bea and Max Newton, Theodore’s parents, had wrongfully assumed that Theodore would know that they were related from the many family heirlooms they had around the house, the fact that they had the same surname, and the fact that Max called Perry Maxmillian Walter Walters Newton ‘dad’. When Max asked his son later about how he had managed to stay ignorant of their relationship for years, Theodore memorably said, “I just thought you called every guy who was older than you ‘dad’, dad.”