the plan originally: "Dr. Ashveil has no friends. he is continually finding more and more exciting ways to lose himself to his obsession. the closest person he has to a friend is enabling this because it makes the good doctor into a steady source of fun and unique nightmares"

how it's going: "despite his best attempts, the good doctor has friends"

see, I tried to make him miserable. I tried to isolate him so he would become more extreme and obsessive and terrible. instead he's made FRIENDS and is learning to handle his grief CONSTRUCTIVELY, smh

I only have myself to blame considering Rafael, Nathaniel, Lady Lemures, and Nova are all Also my OCs though

the doctor is the kind of healthcare provider the transphobes quake in fear at. the kind where if you tell him you want titties he'll not only say yes but ask how many

just as with the OG SGE!Lucent, Dr. Ashveil is ostensibly cis but it just feels wrong to use that word for him. this is a man who thinks it would be awesome and neat to turn himself into a shambling thing of eyes, mouths, and hands, and he mostly refrains from doing so because it would scare the fuck out of the normies and make it much harder for him to get things done

his attitude towards his gender is a shruggy "yeah, I guess I am a man" with a dash of "believe what you want about me," but the whole "enamoured with the idea of transforming himself in ways that are horrific and taboo to mainstream sensibilities" is the bigger aspect here

every so often the good doctor just casually comments on how it's such a shame that Londoners aren't open to the idea of having more than two arms and hands. think of the added utility! the additional dexterity! surely the tailors at least should be on his side - would this not be a fascinating outlet for their skills?

like it's okay that angels have six limbs but the moment you change those extra two limbs from wings into arms noooo it's "grotesque" and "nightmare-inducing." but wings are just specialized arms?!?! smh

I have decided that the Savoulain expy's name is Nathan, short for Nathaniel. except that whenever the good doctor refers to him it's with his full first name and a not-entirely-fair amount of exasperation. the letters he writes back to Nathan are 10% insulting him, 20% insulting Summerset, 40% expounding on the evils of the upper class, and 30% deeply detailed and genuinely thoughtful answers to Nathan's questions and theories regarding the Correspondence. they are at least 5 pages long, not counting the books he sends alongside them.

Nathan's letters, meanwhile, never cease to be polite and kind, as if he's writing to a friend. he describes his own research on the scholarly paradigm of the Correspondence in great detail, from his theories to the everyday happenings of his studies. he engages with Dr. Ashveil's theories with both respect and curiosity, asking questions and probing weak points with no trace of malice. often he sends books of his own.

and the good doctor, of course, drops everything to reply whenever he gets a letter.

I have gone from "what if Nathan invited the good doctor to translate a box of sunlight with him" to "what if I wrote a whole thing in the style of an in-game storyline where you get to play queerplatonic matchmaker to these two"