Amat Application
CHARACTER
» Name: Jan van Ruthberg
» Fandom: Animamundi: Dark Alchemist
» Reference: Wiki and Chesed ending video
» Canon Point: Post-Chesed (Mercy) ending
» Gender: Male
» Age: 19
» Orientation: Homosexual. There are two people Ruthberg has any sort of feelings for and both of them are men. He admits in one path that he is "smitten" with Count Sandwich, despite everything twisted and morally reprehensible about him, because without Sandwich, Ruthberg would probably be dead somewhere. The word choice is evidence that his feelings go beyond the devotion someone would have to a parent or another sort of protector.
The other man, Francis Dashwood, constantly flirts with Ruth, but Ruth shoots him down because, for most of the game, there's no reason to believe that he's serious about what he wants and Ruth is, if nothing else, a very serious person not given to being intimate with someone without good reason. But after Dashwood gets stabbed repeatedly and lies in a dungeon, slowly dying, he again states that he wants a kiss and this time Ruthberg believes it to be serious and grants that request, even though doing so means a quicker death. Ruthberg was fed wolfsbane in small doses throughout his life to the point where it exists in his saliva and a kiss is an execution.
But even that scene isn't enough proof that Ruthberg actually cares. It takes a different ending, one where Dashwood dies alone, to show it completely. On that path, after Dashwood's death, Ruthberg attempts to kiss, and by extension kill, the person Dashwood got stabbed to protect, out of anger that his friend's sacrifice meant nothing. When this fails because the other man, Georik, had ingested small doses of wolfsbane to become immune to it, he becomes hysterical and asks to be killed. The implications of that are taken by me to mean that, if he can't avenge Dashwood, he wants to join him in death. It takes a certain amount of feelings for someone to think like that after losing them.
» Personality: Ruthberg's life is completely due to Count Sandwich and he's very aware of that. He is, above everything else, dedicated to serving and protecting the man who raised him when his birth family abandoned him. When asked why he helps Sandwich willingly, he replies that he's never considered that there might be another way to live and in other paths, does whatever he can to protect Sandwich. Without that particular man around, he's likely to gravitate towards one who reminds him of Sandwich in hopes of getting similar protection from anyone who might find his interests or faith something worth killing over.
Most people never get to see that dedication, though. All they know is the gorgeous, soft-spoken, knowledgeable young man who runs a store selling herbs and other magical or alchemical supplies. And Ruth would prefer to keep it that way as long as possible. The store was simply an aid for his true purpose at home in Kamazene. Ruthberg is Cantarella, an assassin who eliminates every threat to Sandwich with a sweet, wolfsbane-infused kiss. When he is acting like that, he plays up his harmless appearance by flirting, acting coy, and doing whatever else he can think of to seduce the target into kissing him and removing them as a threat to Count Sandwich. But even being like that, he's not paranoid or the type to take everyone as a threat. His store runs on mutual trust between he and his customers, so he has to respect them and help out the ones who seem the most interested or skilled in mystical things.
Ruthberg is also religious to a certain degree. He begins his rune card readings with a small prayer and calls on the gods to help him banish restless, angry ghosts who wish to throw the country into even more turmoil, but he tells the priest near him for the latter vent to leave because this is a job only suitable for one outside of God's, that is the Christian God's, grace. On Atia, lacking these abilities will likely confuse him, as he is used to hearing the dead everywhere he goes. His faith is in something else and wrote a book that likens the relationship between human and deity to a marriage.
» Appearance: Reference. Ruthberg is one of the very average sized men in his series - I'll guess his height to be around 5'10. With soft features, a feminine voice, long, painted fingernails, and many rings on his hands, it wouldn't be impossible for someone to mistake Ruthberg for a woman. He is a delicate, pale man who's likely never worked hard in his life and the robes he wears make it possible that he could also be mistaken for a monk.
SAMPLES
» "amatomnes" Entry: Have I been kidnapped or am I dead and this is Hell, where I must somehow atone for my sins? I assume this jewelry is a way of marking me somehow by whoever or whatever took me here. Count Sandwich will not look favorably on anyone who would take me from him if it's the former. Your name will be on the top of the Black List for taking one under his protection. And if I am in Hell, how do I begin to earn God's forgiveness so that I might end up in Purgatory or eventually Heaven?
» "amatomneslogs" Entry: He wakes up to a silence he's not used to. Ruthberg has always been able to hear the dead chattering amongst themselves even when they aren't directly trying to get his attention and the sudden lack of that background noise unnerves him. It's not strange to wake up naked, since that's how he sleeps anyway, but this isn't his bed and his slender eyebrows arch as he sits up and takes in the room around him. Nothing here is familiar. It makes his heart pound quickly in his chest. Has a member of the Hell-Fire Club drugged him and taken him hostage to force Sandwich to do something?
Ruth notices that all of his jewelry is neatly stacked on the table next to this bed and takes slow breaths as he first slides the large, dangling turquoise earring through his right ear and then slides the rings on. His nails appear to be intact. If he'd been drugged, he wouldn't have been able to fight back, and seeing that adds weight to the kidnapping theory. But it doesn't explain the deafening silence around him. He steps lightly to the foot of the bed, intent on just exploring this room, but then comes across his clothes and pulls the neatly-folded robes on. Doing so makes him touch something new and strange around his neck. It feels like a necklace, yet it lacks a clasp. How did it get around his neck?
After another moment, he thinks that, if he's not kidnapped, he must be dead. Joining the voices he heard so constantly in life would make them quiet, since he'd no longer be able to serve as their liaison and quieter. This doesn't strike Ruthberg as the sort of Hell he'd always felt certain one as far outside of God's grace as he would end up in, though. He's sure that Dashwood is burning and he never killed or used forbidden magic, merely handled corpses and blackmailed.
If this is his Hell, it is a quiet, lonely one.