ENTER NAME ::

A young aristocrat stands in his bedroom.

What will the name of this young man be?

[insert animation here]

You are the aristocrat. Unfortunately, CHARLES SAINT-EVRÉMONDE, CHEVALIER, SEIGNEUR DE MONTATAIRE really is your name. You think that it is OSTENTATIOUSLY LONG and has some UNFORTUNATE IMPLICATIONS.

BOOKS and PAPERS are scattered around your bedroom. The door is UNLOCKED; you know this because you just checked.

You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for ENLIGHTENMENT PHILOSOPHY, but rarely have opportunity to discuss it with anyone because you live with your uncle IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. You are conversant in French and English LITERATURE. You also like to TRAVEL. Sometimes you try to do so in secret, but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT.

What will you do?

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I’ve been working on a project about an alternate plot for A Tale of Two Cities, in which the Marquis isn’t murdered. The story mainly focuses on this guy, who is trying (and of course failing) to be a proper aristocrat without being a bad person, because his uncle (the aforementioned Marquis) is blackmailing him into staying home instead of running away to England.

The story is going to be told in letters and records, and occasionally comics of Charles’ memories about the letters and records. It occurred to me that this might make it second-person on a meta level, since you’re looking through his files and then seeing his memories. So I thought of Homestuck (or specifically Prequel Adventure, which has the same storytelling style), and this happened.

Charles’ overly long name comes from a combination of things in the original story, research, and artistic license. “Chevalier” is a rank within the nobility, which means that one is part of an order of chivalry, the descendant of a knight, or from a family that has been noble for a very long time. (In this case, it’s probably one or both of the second two.)

Charles isn’t “Marquis Saint-Evrémonde” yet, because his uncle is still alive and only one person can have a title at one time. Younger family members would usually go by one of the family’s less prestigious titles, even though it wasn’t technically theirs. The Marquis title is probably a courtesty title (as in, the land the title is attached to is not actually a Marq), so one of the family’s lesser titles would be the actual name of their fief. And Montataire is a real village that I’m using as the setting of this story. Hence, Seigneur de Montataire. Seigneur isn’t technically a title, but that’s what untitled nobility would go by, and… artistic license.

Marquis’ full name is really funny. [whatever-his-first-name-is] Saint-Evrémonde, chevalier, Marquis de Saint-Evrémonde. There is no piece of land called Saint-Evrémonde, and the Marquis would be wealthier and more popular than he is if he owned a fief the size of a marq, so it’s probably a courtesy title. So what would’ve happened is, the king said to one of his ancestors, “hey bro, you want to be a Marquis?”, and he said “yeah bro, can I be Marquis of my last name”, and the king thought he was weird but let him do it anyway.