Theodore

In Life

Theodore was born in 1878 to a working class family, and was the middle child out of 7 siblings. He worked as a shoeshiner, where he would make conversation with his clients and hear tons of stories. He died of typhoid fever at age 8 in 1886.

After Death

For some unknown reason, he was unable to pass on and his ghost got stuck in the apartment building where he and his family lived. People quickly became aware of his presence and the place got a reputation for being haunted. After his family moved away, he was left there alone. Some new families that didn't know the apartment was haunted would occasionally move in, but they would all leave sooner or later. Theodore spent most of his afterlife alone.

In 2013 he met Emma who had just died and become a ghost stuck to the apartment. They immediately became friends, he was glad to not be alone anymore and Emma was glad to have support and a listening ear. And listen he did. Emma taught him everything he knows and that's how he ended up with forbidden knowledge of internet culture and slash pairings.

By the time Grace moved in, no one had lived in the apartent for decades. He was initially wary but very intrigued by her and everything she did. He tried not to let her notice him but she did and became terrified. After a proper introduction and an apology, they started to get along.

Theodore is very sweet and polite, and will always go out of his way to try to help others feel better. He's also really honest, and while he always has good intentions, he can be very blunt in the way children often are and come off as rude.

He’s very curious and fascinated by this modern world around him that he barely knows, he's always looking to learn new things about it. He prefers doing the listening rather than the talking. He's a good listener and a fast learner, and will remember everything you tell him for better or for worse.

Emma

Emma is Theodore's long time roommate and best friend. They met when Emma died and was stuck haunting the same building. They quickly became friends as Theodore was very glad to finally have some company from another ghost.

Though they argue sometimes, Theodore looks up to Emma and sees her as an older sister. He loves listening to her stories, theories and headcanons even though at first he had no idea what any of them meant. But since they literally had all the time in the world, Emma explained everything he asked about as thoroughly as possible. So all of Theo's understanding of history, pop culture, media, technology and the contemporary world in general comes from Emma.

Similarly, Emma sees Theodore as a little brother. She's also turned him into her de facto beta reader and has him give her feedback on her fanfiction, a role he takes very seriously.

They've also adopted a lot of each other's lingo, making them nearly unintelligible to outsiders.

Grace

Theodore sees Grace as a parental figure of sorts. He's very curious about everything she does and is constantly asking her questions and watching her go about her day. Sometimes he likes to just be in her general vicinity while she does things, and she enjoys his company a lot since he's very peaceful when he's not in question-asking-mode.

She feels somewhat maternal towards him and is very easily manipulated when he asks to use the printer. Or the computer. Or to get a box of donuts from Dunkin.

Grace always knew she was an old soul but she never imagined she would have so much in common with a little Victorian boy. Sometimes they just sit around having a morning coffee and talking about the most boring stuff known to man, but it's entertaining to them.

Grace loves thrifting and has a major trinket-buying problem which is severely worsened by Theo, who is fascinated by every useless knick knack she brings into the house.

• Grace and Emma like to play this game called "how would a victorian child react". They feed him stuff like 4loko or make him watch love island and document his reactions like scientists studying an unknown specimen. To varying degrees of success of course, because they fail to consider that Theo used to get cocaine prescribed for a common cold.
• He got his picture taken post mortem, and they found it at the thrift store selling for 15 cents.
• Grace gave him and Emma her old iPad and they fight over it constantly. He loves youtube let's plays but Grace won't let him watch youtube shorts under any circumstances. She doesn't think she could handle gen alpha slang entering the mix.
• Everything he does is unintentionally a little bit terrifying. He tries to make a nice drawing and it ends up looking like something straight out of a horror movie. But Grace will still display it on the fridge though.