The Terenevs
Feb. 21st, 2009 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jessara40k_ljI've got some background on my Terenev Family from Hilary, if anyone's interested.
The Terenevs were originaly a bastard line of a royal family, given some fairly extensive lands, thanks to their first Family head, the Terenev Anya, who lived in a time and place where all consorts were women, but they switched to developing a business when the industrial revolution took off and are now a corporate Family, of one of the companies that finds it economical to create purpose-bred.
Ibrahim is straight, which is unusual enough, but his taste in women is much more restricted than most people have. He only likes women who are petite with dark hair and dark eyes, and he also tends towards the monogamous. Once he signed his contract with Midoriko he stopped sleeping with his pleasure slave Jasmine, and only kept her with him for long enough to keep up appearances, releasing her from her contract when his first child was born. He wanted to get 'back to the Family's roots', hence his choice of names for his children, and why he forced them all to learn Cyric, even though he barely spoke it himself.
Natalya is in love with Jerome, who was her pleasure slave before he became her second consort. When she first took Francics as her consort she was...considerate, and restricted herself to sex where she couldn't get pregnant with Jerome as she'd stopped her contraception. Once she was pregnant with her first child however, because Francis was cruel to Jerome, and she found out about it, she made Jerome her second consort, somewhat earlier than she'd planned, and stopped taking precautions with him. She's more permissive that she really should be with Francis and she allowed him to name all of her children because she feels guilty for not even really liking Francis and letting him know that. Francis didn't speak much Ardisch when he became Natalya's consort, and she tends to speak Goulais when she's just speaking to him, Catalyan when she's just speaking to Jerome and Ardisch when she's speaking to both of them. She refused to speak Cyric after she became Family Head, and never spoke it around her children, although she did try to teach them Nauhonese, her mother's language.
Jerome was actually bred to be a gladiator, but since he wasn't considered agressive enough none ofhis trainers objected when Ibrahim's father, the Terenev at the time, bought him to be trained as his granddaughter's pleasure slave. He is enhanced at a genetic level and he's passed that enhanced strength on to Antoinette in full measure, and partly to Armand, but his growth was deliberately stunted at the Heccubi Facility making him shorter and weaker than he would have been if he'd been allowed to grow up as a gladiator. Natalya had him learn Xinian dialects when she found out how good he was at languages and recognised his affinity for that family of languages, he tried to teach at least one Xinian dialect, the most common one, to all of her children.
I don't know that much about Francis, but he's fairly spoiled, with the resulting huge entitlement complex, and rather cruel and petty in a lot of ways, especially if he has or feels he has power over someone. He is submissive, mostly, but he's also rather...I almost want to say helpless, learned helplessness. He's used to having other people take care of things for him, tidying up after him, managing the household he lives in and generally keeping order. So he had almost nothing to do wih raising Natalya's children - weirdly even less than she had to do with raising the children - and is mostly a pretty ornament for her.
Jean is a bit of a slut, and totally irresponsible. He never got any qualifications beyond a basic diploma with a Goulais bias (meaning he's better at Goulais as a foreign language than a basic diploma requires but worse at all the other aspects) and Goulais is the only language he's fluent in besides Ardisch, while the rest of Natalya's childen speak at least four languages (fluently enough to be mistaken for native speakers). He's a playboy, partying and gambling a lot - although he does tend to win more than he loses. Natalya offered to authorise him to draw a full half the income from his trust fund, rather than only the quarter he's entitled to draw having only gained his basic diploma, if he agreed to be sterilised, and he accepted. Armand doesn't know about this, but it is something the Terenev offers to any of the Family who prove unsuitable to take a consort, espouse, or consort.
Gwen(dolyn) is a typical pleasure slave/trophy wife in a lot of ways. She is smart, but she doesn't want to bother using her brains, or thinking about the future. She's managed to get Jean to give her a fairly large allowance but she spends most of it rather than trying to save anything, a mistake since Jean doesn't put more than the bare annual minimum into her trust fund, and while her trust fund is managed by the same firm as Jean's it's pretty small. This means when Jean releases her from her contract (actually sells her to the Family which will then release her from her contract) she won't be able to live independantly the way most freed Terenev pleasure slaves could in theory, and she's illiterate, so she won't have any qualifications.
Marie removed herself as a candidate heir by espousing outside the Family and changing her name to create a new Family. She mortgaged her trust fund for start-up capital (Terenevs get full access to their trust funds at the age of fifty, and if they haven't paid the loan and the interest back by then the remainder owed will be taken from the fund.) The capital was used to start a company with a focus on the new technology being developed to go into space, and the new Family is very minor. Marie's children and grandchildren will receive trust funds from the Terenew accounts (two thirds the size of hers for her children, and one third the size of hers for grandchildren), and may return to the Terenev Family if they choose to do so as adults, but her great-grandchildren will recieve no Terenev money and will remain Savatevs unless their parents or grandparents chose to return to the Terenev Family.
Marie managed to get Jocelin a position in the chorus of an opera company, one that offers remedial tutoring for the often poorly educated younger members of the company. She used her name and made a donation to get a tax rebate in order to secure the position for him - he didn't have the experience and he doesn't have enough pure talent to get his position without the experience of coming up through a theatrical school. Half of his salary after tax goes into his trust fund, making up the annual contributions Marie is required to make to it (actually significantly more than she's required to put into it, as he was bought as a child, for a lot less than a fully trained pleasure slave usually costs so her required contributions are very low), a fifth of what is left is kept by the company to pay for his remedial lessons, and the rest is Jocelin's allowance. This is a lot more generous than it seems, as Marie provides all the necessities of life for Jocelin, and she would be within her rights to have all his salary paid to her instead of paid into an account she set up for him.
Armand is...reactive sexually, he can take a dominant, equal or submissive role, but he prefers to let his lover make the first move and adapt to what his lover enjoys. He has a slight preference for men over women and a marked personal distaste for castratos. He speaks Ardisch, the common language where Natalya lives, and six other languages fluently as well as another four well enough to achieve secondary certificates in them. The six languages he speaks fluently are three dialects of Xinian, Nauhonese, Goulais and Catalyan. The other four langauges he gained secondary certificates in were Khemite, Pictan, Truscan and Farsish. He's also a pretty good leader, he can take advice without letting it interfere with his authority, and he's willing to recognise when he doesn't know something. He did a masters degree in business and management at university, taking the full four years to do it, just so that he'd have time to get in some technical courses, and since then he's managed to get through the rest of the requirements for his second, technical, masters degree by home study and taking part time courses at the nearest university - pretty much the same way a military officer would.
Antoinette is functionally a lesbian. Theoretically she's bisexual, but she prefers men who are taller and more muscular than she is, which hasn't actually happened with any man she's ever met. Her taste in women runs to the curvy, and ideally near a foot shorter than her as well. She does NOT want to become Family Head, and intends to take a woman as her consort as soon as either Armand is confirmed as heir or Terese proves herself unsuited. She works in the advertising department of one of the Terenev companies, mostly writing press releases and advertising copy, but she's also written and sold a book and signed a contract to write another two books set in the same world - although the contract gives her a lot more leeway than it would give another newbie writer because of her name, even though she published under a pen-name. If she did end up as the Terenev she'd probably do a good enough job, not as good as Marie or Armand would do, but better than Terese, even if not by as much as she thinks she would. Unlesss Armand disqualifies himself Natalya plans to find a female consort for Antoinette, which would make for a weaker alliance, but it is done, just never with the heir, and finding a buxom woman among the Families is a lot easier than trying to find a man who Antoinette would be willing to sleep with, especially a man who'd accept the role of consort.
Terese is very ambitious, and would love to become the Terenev. She'd do an adequate job, but not a good one, because she's too arrogant and self-assured to take any advice. She loves dancing, and being in control - I know for a fact that Natalya will be negotiating a consort from one of the most matriarchal Families for her, because Terese simply couldn't handle a man who expected her to treat him as more than breeding stock, at least not on intimate terms. Terese is also probably the smartest of Natalya's children, and she did two separate technical degrees at university, simultaneously, over four years, as she preferred an informal apprenticeship combined with self-study, starting even before she went to university, to learn about business. She'll be disqualified as a potential heir because she isn't as keen on making sure the people around her are properly educated as Armand is, so while she'll take the hint and teach her pleasure slave to read she won't think about pushing him to get any formal qualifications, or any education beyond making sure he can read.
Louis is sweet, submissive and trained to be the perfect consort. He's also pretty passive, and not at all assertive. On some level I think he's convinced that saying 'no' is rarely an option for him, and when it is an option to him it's usually because he's being asked or pressured to do something he sees as very wrong, or very important (dancing for instance isn't important enough to say 'no' to, unless he's responsible for someone else, but he's learned that 'have another drink' when he's already as drunk as he wants to be is wrong enough to refuse). His refusal to get a secondary certificate is more a case of an odd sense of proprietry and a reluctance to go to all that trouble for no real reason; if Armand had suggested that he might want to get secondary certificates in his languages at the same time as he got his basic diploma he'd have agreed happily, but he doesn't want to 'waste' a teacher's time on something he 'doesn't need' and 'would never use' (although he probably would use some of it the formal qualification isn't necessary for him). He's good with children but he still lives with Natalya because he isn't confident of his ability to manage a household. He is a bit spoiled, because personality wise he reminds Natalya of her mother and he's what Francis likes to think he is, but Jerome doesn't have a weakness for him, and he's the one in charge of Natalya's household. Jerome is quietly assigning him tasks to perform to help with managing Natalya's household, so that he learns what to do, and he understands that he'll have to move out when he's twenty-five and get a bit of experience in managing for himself and his pleasure slave.
The Terenevs were originaly a bastard line of a royal family, given some fairly extensive lands, thanks to their first Family head, the Terenev Anya, who lived in a time and place where all consorts were women, but they switched to developing a business when the industrial revolution took off and are now a corporate Family, of one of the companies that finds it economical to create purpose-bred.
Ibrahim is straight, which is unusual enough, but his taste in women is much more restricted than most people have. He only likes women who are petite with dark hair and dark eyes, and he also tends towards the monogamous. Once he signed his contract with Midoriko he stopped sleeping with his pleasure slave Jasmine, and only kept her with him for long enough to keep up appearances, releasing her from her contract when his first child was born. He wanted to get 'back to the Family's roots', hence his choice of names for his children, and why he forced them all to learn Cyric, even though he barely spoke it himself.
Natalya is in love with Jerome, who was her pleasure slave before he became her second consort. When she first took Francics as her consort she was...considerate, and restricted herself to sex where she couldn't get pregnant with Jerome as she'd stopped her contraception. Once she was pregnant with her first child however, because Francis was cruel to Jerome, and she found out about it, she made Jerome her second consort, somewhat earlier than she'd planned, and stopped taking precautions with him. She's more permissive that she really should be with Francis and she allowed him to name all of her children because she feels guilty for not even really liking Francis and letting him know that. Francis didn't speak much Ardisch when he became Natalya's consort, and she tends to speak Goulais when she's just speaking to him, Catalyan when she's just speaking to Jerome and Ardisch when she's speaking to both of them. She refused to speak Cyric after she became Family Head, and never spoke it around her children, although she did try to teach them Nauhonese, her mother's language.
Jerome was actually bred to be a gladiator, but since he wasn't considered agressive enough none ofhis trainers objected when Ibrahim's father, the Terenev at the time, bought him to be trained as his granddaughter's pleasure slave. He is enhanced at a genetic level and he's passed that enhanced strength on to Antoinette in full measure, and partly to Armand, but his growth was deliberately stunted at the Heccubi Facility making him shorter and weaker than he would have been if he'd been allowed to grow up as a gladiator. Natalya had him learn Xinian dialects when she found out how good he was at languages and recognised his affinity for that family of languages, he tried to teach at least one Xinian dialect, the most common one, to all of her children.
I don't know that much about Francis, but he's fairly spoiled, with the resulting huge entitlement complex, and rather cruel and petty in a lot of ways, especially if he has or feels he has power over someone. He is submissive, mostly, but he's also rather...I almost want to say helpless, learned helplessness. He's used to having other people take care of things for him, tidying up after him, managing the household he lives in and generally keeping order. So he had almost nothing to do wih raising Natalya's children - weirdly even less than she had to do with raising the children - and is mostly a pretty ornament for her.
Jean is a bit of a slut, and totally irresponsible. He never got any qualifications beyond a basic diploma with a Goulais bias (meaning he's better at Goulais as a foreign language than a basic diploma requires but worse at all the other aspects) and Goulais is the only language he's fluent in besides Ardisch, while the rest of Natalya's childen speak at least four languages (fluently enough to be mistaken for native speakers). He's a playboy, partying and gambling a lot - although he does tend to win more than he loses. Natalya offered to authorise him to draw a full half the income from his trust fund, rather than only the quarter he's entitled to draw having only gained his basic diploma, if he agreed to be sterilised, and he accepted. Armand doesn't know about this, but it is something the Terenev offers to any of the Family who prove unsuitable to take a consort, espouse, or consort.
Gwen(dolyn) is a typical pleasure slave/trophy wife in a lot of ways. She is smart, but she doesn't want to bother using her brains, or thinking about the future. She's managed to get Jean to give her a fairly large allowance but she spends most of it rather than trying to save anything, a mistake since Jean doesn't put more than the bare annual minimum into her trust fund, and while her trust fund is managed by the same firm as Jean's it's pretty small. This means when Jean releases her from her contract (actually sells her to the Family which will then release her from her contract) she won't be able to live independantly the way most freed Terenev pleasure slaves could in theory, and she's illiterate, so she won't have any qualifications.
Marie removed herself as a candidate heir by espousing outside the Family and changing her name to create a new Family. She mortgaged her trust fund for start-up capital (Terenevs get full access to their trust funds at the age of fifty, and if they haven't paid the loan and the interest back by then the remainder owed will be taken from the fund.) The capital was used to start a company with a focus on the new technology being developed to go into space, and the new Family is very minor. Marie's children and grandchildren will receive trust funds from the Terenew accounts (two thirds the size of hers for her children, and one third the size of hers for grandchildren), and may return to the Terenev Family if they choose to do so as adults, but her great-grandchildren will recieve no Terenev money and will remain Savatevs unless their parents or grandparents chose to return to the Terenev Family.
Marie managed to get Jocelin a position in the chorus of an opera company, one that offers remedial tutoring for the often poorly educated younger members of the company. She used her name and made a donation to get a tax rebate in order to secure the position for him - he didn't have the experience and he doesn't have enough pure talent to get his position without the experience of coming up through a theatrical school. Half of his salary after tax goes into his trust fund, making up the annual contributions Marie is required to make to it (actually significantly more than she's required to put into it, as he was bought as a child, for a lot less than a fully trained pleasure slave usually costs so her required contributions are very low), a fifth of what is left is kept by the company to pay for his remedial lessons, and the rest is Jocelin's allowance. This is a lot more generous than it seems, as Marie provides all the necessities of life for Jocelin, and she would be within her rights to have all his salary paid to her instead of paid into an account she set up for him.
Armand is...reactive sexually, he can take a dominant, equal or submissive role, but he prefers to let his lover make the first move and adapt to what his lover enjoys. He has a slight preference for men over women and a marked personal distaste for castratos. He speaks Ardisch, the common language where Natalya lives, and six other languages fluently as well as another four well enough to achieve secondary certificates in them. The six languages he speaks fluently are three dialects of Xinian, Nauhonese, Goulais and Catalyan. The other four langauges he gained secondary certificates in were Khemite, Pictan, Truscan and Farsish. He's also a pretty good leader, he can take advice without letting it interfere with his authority, and he's willing to recognise when he doesn't know something. He did a masters degree in business and management at university, taking the full four years to do it, just so that he'd have time to get in some technical courses, and since then he's managed to get through the rest of the requirements for his second, technical, masters degree by home study and taking part time courses at the nearest university - pretty much the same way a military officer would.
Antoinette is functionally a lesbian. Theoretically she's bisexual, but she prefers men who are taller and more muscular than she is, which hasn't actually happened with any man she's ever met. Her taste in women runs to the curvy, and ideally near a foot shorter than her as well. She does NOT want to become Family Head, and intends to take a woman as her consort as soon as either Armand is confirmed as heir or Terese proves herself unsuited. She works in the advertising department of one of the Terenev companies, mostly writing press releases and advertising copy, but she's also written and sold a book and signed a contract to write another two books set in the same world - although the contract gives her a lot more leeway than it would give another newbie writer because of her name, even though she published under a pen-name. If she did end up as the Terenev she'd probably do a good enough job, not as good as Marie or Armand would do, but better than Terese, even if not by as much as she thinks she would. Unlesss Armand disqualifies himself Natalya plans to find a female consort for Antoinette, which would make for a weaker alliance, but it is done, just never with the heir, and finding a buxom woman among the Families is a lot easier than trying to find a man who Antoinette would be willing to sleep with, especially a man who'd accept the role of consort.
Terese is very ambitious, and would love to become the Terenev. She'd do an adequate job, but not a good one, because she's too arrogant and self-assured to take any advice. She loves dancing, and being in control - I know for a fact that Natalya will be negotiating a consort from one of the most matriarchal Families for her, because Terese simply couldn't handle a man who expected her to treat him as more than breeding stock, at least not on intimate terms. Terese is also probably the smartest of Natalya's children, and she did two separate technical degrees at university, simultaneously, over four years, as she preferred an informal apprenticeship combined with self-study, starting even before she went to university, to learn about business. She'll be disqualified as a potential heir because she isn't as keen on making sure the people around her are properly educated as Armand is, so while she'll take the hint and teach her pleasure slave to read she won't think about pushing him to get any formal qualifications, or any education beyond making sure he can read.
Louis is sweet, submissive and trained to be the perfect consort. He's also pretty passive, and not at all assertive. On some level I think he's convinced that saying 'no' is rarely an option for him, and when it is an option to him it's usually because he's being asked or pressured to do something he sees as very wrong, or very important (dancing for instance isn't important enough to say 'no' to, unless he's responsible for someone else, but he's learned that 'have another drink' when he's already as drunk as he wants to be is wrong enough to refuse). His refusal to get a secondary certificate is more a case of an odd sense of proprietry and a reluctance to go to all that trouble for no real reason; if Armand had suggested that he might want to get secondary certificates in his languages at the same time as he got his basic diploma he'd have agreed happily, but he doesn't want to 'waste' a teacher's time on something he 'doesn't need' and 'would never use' (although he probably would use some of it the formal qualification isn't necessary for him). He's good with children but he still lives with Natalya because he isn't confident of his ability to manage a household. He is a bit spoiled, because personality wise he reminds Natalya of her mother and he's what Francis likes to think he is, but Jerome doesn't have a weakness for him, and he's the one in charge of Natalya's household. Jerome is quietly assigning him tasks to perform to help with managing Natalya's household, so that he learns what to do, and he understands that he'll have to move out when he's twenty-five and get a bit of experience in managing for himself and his pleasure slave.
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Date: 2009-03-16 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-17 09:46 am (UTC)