Thoughts on a New Character

Meh. I need something immediate too.
I had the idea of him crashing his car. Which appeals to me. Possibly banging it into a tree outside the tavern.
But who is this guy? Is it just some guy? He can't be just some guy. Or why not? We're just some guy to someone.
So I ask again. Who is this guy?
He's a guy that would own an El Camino, or similar looking car.
  - Is he a car enthusiast, or is just his first car.
I kinda imagine him as having been given it as a hand-me-down. A used car, that he does his best to take care of, and is proud of. Given it to him for his eighteenth birthday.
   -It's a 1968 El Camino. It needs to be getting close to a decade and a half old. So, he's from 1981 or so. His Dad's driven it as long as he can remember.
   - His Dad's in the trades. Not a mechanic, not a plumber or a contractor. My gut says something towards linework, but perhaps a millwright.
   - Yes. A millwright, working for General Motors in Flint Michigan. Layoffs are a-coming, but he's got seniority, so it'll be some time before his job is gone.
   - His mom? His mom's a teacher. A high school chemistry teacher. His parents went to high school together.
Okay, so what's the kid do?
 - First of all, his dad would like him to follow in the trades, but there's been a lot of talk lately about how there might be layoffs a coming, and his older brother's already apprenticing, so he's going to univer... No.
  - You are falling into the same trap as always. Kids who aren't confident. What does the town /need/ that it does not currently have? Make him be that. So first thing's first. He's not eighteen. He's twenty three.
 - THe car's old by now. Nearly twenty years. But the old man knows a thing or two about how to take care of a car, and he's taught you a few things, and between the two of you, you've kept it running way longer than should have been reasonable. The year is 1985. You were born in 1962, making you twenty-three. Dad bought that car back in '68, and kept it in damned fine shape all these years. You've had it since 1980, since you turned 18, since you announced you were going off.
- You went to the University of Michigan. You got decent grades, which helped, and you were captain of the high school lacrosse team, which also helped, what with the scholarship you got. Then you went and got a job, and took on student debt, which helped the rest of the way. You got a job.
My god, he's not gonna be a dentist. What a boring son of a bitch that would be. You want something /interesting/. Something engaging.
My god, this guy is stepping out of his car after hitting a tree, and thinking what the hell is going on? He's not gonna be a fucking dentist, get real.
I mean, this guy's not a fighter, but he's no wuss. He plays lacrosse in an adult league. He was on the university team. He was captain of the high school lacrosse team. Guy's not a wimp. He's built well.
His older brother's a millwright. He'd bought his first car, something of a beater.
First up. He's a she. This is a woman we're making
Second up? Not lacrosse. Either field hockey or cross country. Something of a marathonner. That appeals to me. A lot.
  -Okay, no. Field hockey. She was a field hockey player, and gave it up after university, and keeps active by running. She's done a marathon since university, and still keeps in good shape.
She was something of a tomboy growing up. Took an interest in cars, which her dad was glad to oblige. He'd initially worried that she wasn't quite right, but her mom assuaged his fears, and she ended up dating a few guys in high school and university. She's lost her virginity, to a guy in one of her classes.

Thoughts on Creating a Mage

I'm making a new character!
He is not from the past.
  Though, he may be from the future. Or a future. Or from a past with magic. Or from something similar to a fantasy realm.
He is not a pacifist.
   Labels are stupid. Avoid them. Drew was a pacifist, and you felt constrained by it.
He knows how to speak English completely. He can speak it clearly.
   Number 1 reason Drew failed. Felt constrained by the damnable speaking.
   Maybe he has an accent. Accents are cool.
I want a mage. I really do.
   I want a mage that's... kinda sorta not from Earth. I don't want to create a new society completely, but yeah.
   Something like Fiskworld. Or RantEarth. But keep in mind that you have to consider how magic is going to have changed the development of things.
   If you want a modern mage, there are several routes to go with it.
1) Magic is a secret.
- Go the Callie/Tunc route. Have it be something you channel and learn to work with. That can either be through the idea that anyone can do it if they worked with it long enough, like it seems Callie/Tunc did, or there can be a veil in play, and some people are just inherently more gifted with it than others, a la Dresden.
   - If you go the Dresden route, two rules. One. Molly is a better choice than Harry. Work the technical side rather than the brute force side. Better to work with mental magic, and help folks down that route, and working veils, and working with fiddly technical aspects and be empathetic, than try to make a combat mage. Specialize. Because Niixa will always be the battle mage.
   - Similarly, Callie is the abjurer.
      - The goal is extended character longevity. They can't just be a mage.
           - By that token, they can't just be learning to be a mage, either. Everyone continues to develop and intermix their skills throughout life, but Alban was a bad way to go with it. Despite being a teacher, he was /just/ a mage. I liked his system. Maybe revisit it, with someone who uses their skills for something apart from just magery. Because it can't just be a mage. Or a teacher of magic.
I mean, I'm not just a retail drone. I'm into D&D, and I want to be an engineer, and I'm good at math, and I read a tonne, fantasy and sci-fi. And I'm into trivia. And, I board game. Which all somewhat lends itself well to character longevity. They're non-active things that can be portrayed easily in the textual setting of RP without too much trouble.
  -Advance things a century or two. Throw in a reference to Alban somewhere. Perhaps in a method used or something. That'd be neat.


Obviously, this is something of a mess. I'm just trying to get into a writing mood at the moment, and this is what I got on the subject of mages.

I Don't Know What the Fuck is Wrong with Me Today

I'd left to calm down once already, having admitted that I was feeling irrationally mad today. I have no idea why I was feeling that way, but I'd thought my brain had decided to smarten up, so I ventured back forth.

I was wrong. When I realized I was getting worked up over nothing again, I admitted it. I did this hoping that people would simply stop talking to me. Instead of that happening though, people kept pointing out the irrational behaviour, and called me on it repeatedly. In an effort to stop myself before I did something I would regret, I left, going upstairs into seclusion.

People kept asking: "Why is he acting like that. It's the fault of the computer! It's cause he's on something! That kid needs to be on some medication"

I'm not on something. Stop adding fuel to the fire. It's not the computer. Stop adding fuel to the fire. Maybe I do need to be on some medication, I don't know, I'm not a fucking psychiatrist. But all the same, neither are any of you. Stop adding fuel to the fire. If I knew why I was acting that way, I would stop. Because I don't like the feeling of acting irrationally. It makes me feel awful. Simply awful.

But no. Don't stop there. Please continue. Please don't just keep throwing fuel on that fire. Please, start a whole new separate fire. Rekindle old arguments. Such as how my life isn't in the order I would like it. Please. Do that. That seems like a really solid plan.

At that point, you are /trying/ to hurt me. You're trying to get me to say something I'll regret. I apologize for telling you to fuck off, but my God, if you look at what you said objectively, given that I was already acting irrationally (by my own admission), you cannot possibly be surprised by my reaction.

When I admit that I'm acting irrationally, continually bringing up that point like it's somehow news is just irritating. You're not helping. I'm trying to help by sequestering myself, I'm not asking you to tiptoe around me. I'm asking you to leave me alone. Just that. Yes. I'm acting like a fucking lunatic. I don't know why. Leave me be, and I'll try to address that problem. Don't keep yelling at me. Let me calm the fuck down, and I'll try to fix things.

Now people are upset, and I can't fix this, because I'm still acting nutty. I just want to not talk to anyone.

An Open Letter to the Federal Government

Dear Mr. Flaherty,

It has recently come to my attention that evil wizards continue to roam the countryside. I understand your position as a conservative Member of Parliament, in having to determine good witches from bad witches and whatnot, but when I must exercise such care in the purchase of laptop computing devices, I know that my government is not working for me effectively. Please rectify this serious problem.

Sincerely, Robert Clark

Memetic Virus

People start writing the gibberish I usually write (take a picture of it) whenever they're not actively thinking about not doing it, and they have a means to. They feel compelled to do it, as if it were relieving them of some level of stress, just in the action. Viewing said writings, or hearing them spoken carry a chance of spreading the virus to others.

Progression of the virus. This is how something will come of it. Perhaps introduce a TF element into the memetic virus, so that over time, they start shifting into something else.

How would this be solved by mortal man? Possibilities include burning the documents. Or perhaps having a slightly more advanced staged person tell them what's written. You will have to provide a translation, so that people know what's being written. Once this is done, perhaps there is a simple ritual that can be done. Especially effective if done by non-mages. benefit to that is that a non-mage is coming up with a magical solution. Problem is that this solution may be too easy.

On a side note, perhaps a TP link could be set up with one of the victims, then relay the informations. Of course, that would spread the virus all the quicker and worse. Again though, handing away the solution is a bad thing. Perhaps embed it as a riddle. Or seeming like a riddle. Maybe they will need some sort of countermeme. LOLcats. The salvation of the multiverse will clearly depend on LOLcats. Or the ability to distract these people in general.

What would they shift into? This thing is definitely either some sort of weapon, or an attempt of some sort to salvage an alien civilization/species/whathaveyou.

If it's the former, you'd want to go for something incapacitating. Perhaps inflict a debilitating OCD or more writing as time goes on. Or perhaps they transition into writing out the entire works of the species just to keep them going. If the latter, then there should be personality shifts over time. Have cultural stuff change, give them new infoes, or a change in what they view to be right or wrong, or make them focus on other things in life. Try to make them seem alien, without being shock characters. Pendra's a good upper limit for shock-value. A notch or two lower than her. She's a good example of alien though. Maybe not so much lower, as a lateral shift to being 'alien' in a different way. Have them lose their English as time goes on.

You should write out a very long script of what they're writing. have there be a preset number of times they write it out before they reach each stage, perhaps? Of course, having someone in a more advanced stage read it out to them is just going to run the risk of spreading the virus, and advancing it within themselves.

Random Thing I Wrote

Allison Morgan, a trim girl with fair features was the star pupil of Alexander Bell middle school in Jackson, Ohio. The son of a Mormon father and a somewhat agnostic mother, she saw much of the Mormon culture. Her father, Henry, came from a fairly religious family. One that largely saw her mother, Charlotte (neé Reimer as a negative influence on Allison. It wasn't really a fair statement either. For some reason, the family had gotten the impression somewhere along the line that Charlotte was one of those militant atheists. A woman that would have no to-do with God, when really the case was that she just didn't give a shit. Whatever the reason, it left poor Charlotte with dirty looks and gossip spread behind her back, about where she came from.

Funnily enough, that was from a Presbyterian background. Her grandfather, a Presbyterian minister that to this day at the ripe old age of seventy-eight preaches the good word to his flock that has grown smaller in recent years. A decent man, though with a whiplike temper when provoked, George Rogers, Charlotte's maternal grandfather, greatly disapproved of Charlotte having, what he feels, slipped through the cracks. Charlotte faces this disapproval from her grandfather and grandmother without even having her mother anymore to shelter her as she might have.

Her mother, Rachel, had passed away when birthing her youngest brother, Jacob, fourteen years Charlotte's junior. What's more, Jacob was not even the youngest of the bunch, his father Trevor having remarried a few years after Rachel's early death. Alexis Farrow was only four years older than Charlotte, and she never warmed to her at all. It wasn't by any fault of Alexis' either, having never tried to be anything but a friend to Charlotte, but unfortunately they never really got on. Or more to say that Charlotte never got on with Alexis.

It was never that Charlotte would treat her badly. She just wanted nothing to do with the woman. She was glad her Dad was happy, sure. It's not that she wanted him to be unhappy, or for them to break up... It's just... She didn't want Alexis to be there. Being her stepmother. Having taken that place. That was all. But there wasn't much to be done, and in her mind, the ship hand long since sailed on making amends with the woman and making friends. Not much to be done about it really.