Character Development Thread--Discussion

I love this concept! This John Smith would be a good character to rein in my Web of Friendship characters if they acted on their mischievous impulses (e.g. setting up a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax with Arilay impersonating Slenderman).

PS: repeating this question

edited 24th May '18 8:36:56 AM by Miss_Desperado

I certainly think the concept has potential, and I'm definitely interested in seeing him take notice of Explorer's unique "location" descriptions.

@Millership: Well, our distances are nowhere near that bad. Normally it's only a 2-hour and 10-20-minute commute from Palmerston North to Wellington by train. The delay and having to travel the 69km from Otaki to Palmerston North by bus in the midst of a severe storm just made it a lot longer and more tiring than it needed to be.

I feel really sorry for my Project Manager: he was up at 3am that day (dunno why - I live over 20km from the train station and I get up at 5am to catch the train at 6:15), attended the same lengthy forum I did and came home on the same ill-fated train. We didn't get back to our cars until 9pm. He looked dead on his feet before we even got out of Otaki.

Fortunately for me, I had gone to Wellington 2 days earlier and was staying in a hotel down there, so I didn't get up until 7, that morning.

You know, I also have a nondescript, man in black John Smith character. Who I just (as in writing this post) made into an avatar of one of Aria's deities.

As for how well Arilay is doing at being a dog, both Cynthia and Moobly think Arilay is a dog. Moobly may or may not be noticing something off about her.

Got part of a post done for the Frontier Sporting Goods group, will work on the rest after work tomorrow.

edited 24th May '18 5:54:20 PM by WillDeRegio

RE: Smith. Alice will hate this, and I thus approve.

Desperately trying to think of a reason to make Jamie go with the cart instead of going with Wolf's characters. He may be mah boi but I really need to start adventuring with others.

Been making good progress on the intro post. I think I should be joined in by much later today.

Glad you guys like the concept.

@kkutwar, however, the idea is to only use John Smith within the Town's borders, to not give way to Deus ex Machina, so Explorer currently would be out of his reach, if the concept takes off the way I envision it (as always, it's open for suggestions).

@Will De Regio, interesting. Earlier you have mentioned a concept of an Airship Girl character that is quite similar to one of the Shattered World characters (that I didn't introduce in her current state to any of the CDT's yet). Are you sure you're not me when I'm sleeping?

@Miss_Desperado, browsing this thread, I only just noticed your question about the Tame One's gait. If you still need an answer, then no, the Inquisitor's horse is just a regular horse, not trained in any artificial gaits.

Speaking of storms, three days ago, after almost half a year of cold-as-fuck winter, and the following "wet and dirty" season, the weather suddenly presented us with an actual summer: cloudless sky, +25 C, and dry ground ... which turned out to be just a meteorological foreplay, since this kind of weather lasted for about 4 hours, then came the downpour, which quickly turned into a sidepour because of the wind, which then proceeded to drag cast iron benches around, tear the pieces of roof off the old Soviet buildings on Yesil river's right shore, tear the pieces of porcelain tiles off the facades of new buildings on the left shore and ultimately, topple a fucking construction crane, making the old Kazakh saying that "The spring winds can knock a mature camel out" an understatement. Result of the day: 13 injured in a really battered city. Thankfully, no deaths.

The next two days went past with the occasional hail, not-as-strong gusts of wind and accompanying blackouts and water shortages. Today it's calm again, +28 Celsius - a weather I (and no one here, actually) was totally unprepared for, with the result being that I'm suffering from a slight heatstroke now. So probably I'm not going to be in a condition for creative writing 'till Sunday. Killer Clowns, Miss_desperado, I'm aware that you're waiting for my response.

If I missed any other questions aimed at me, please PM me.

edited 25th May '18 6:35:55 AM by Millership

@Millership, @kkutwar, Explorer of Unknowns can just wander around wherever and Moquoql will basically follow her around like a puppy dog. That includes going to the transporter room and beaming down somewhere if kkutwar so chooses.

Oh, and yikes about the weather.

edited 25th May '18 8:25:33 AM by Miss_Desperado

Finally got enough time on my hands to make another post. Tomorrow my dad's coming by for the Han Solo movie, and I think I'll have the next day off as well.

Well, that was a tense moment for Rosalind. It took me a couple of tries to write her dialogue. I ended up playing a little bit loose and fuzzy with time to portray her talking her way out of what she thought was an imminent clobbering.

And joined!

I'm throwing a few things at the wall here, so if anyone wants to follow up on the Forest sounds or anything else that might be lurking in all those trees, please, do feel free! Just note that they're both very mundane, so maybe try not to completely murderize them in one go.

Haven't had many opportunities to draw, but here's a decent sketch of Henry and the second traveler, respectively.

I'll get to adding them to the thread page asap.

I am directing an intense glare of envy in your direction.

Did I do something well? Honestly I feel like I've been overthinking and undercooking this whole thing, but it's just a start, and I've been out of it for a few months. Had to delete a bunch of overwrought pontifications about echoes, which I think I only wrote 'cause I hadn't introduced the characters yet, and I wanted a lead in, but it was a little too abstract. Probably not interesting, and maybe kind of pretentious.

Sorry to ramble. I can't help but stew over strange compliments. Harshest critic and all that.

Uh, actually I'm just envious of you for posting. I've been trying to motivate myself to join Adventure for some time now - but I've had no work ethic when it comes to writing lately.

Oh, right, that.

Usually I use the wee hours of the morning to turn off my hangups and filters and just try writing something. Sometimes just a sentence or two. It also helps to give myself deadlines, even if they're just estimates. Like back on Monday, I had just plowed through a bunch of school work for the semester and I really didn't feel like writing, but I said this, so I figured I may as well meet the loosest definition of what I'd said, and I wrote that fragment of a sentence I was so happy about. Then it was just some more sleepless nights typing this or that until last night, when I made a concentrated effort to get the thing done.

I can't in good conscience recommend that you make an effort to not get any sleep, but it helps to find and seize upon those moments where there's really not much else to do but write.

And now it's 5 AM and I'm just getting tired. But... you know... uh... worth it and all... yeah... really

I still don't know how to feel about when my brain get suddenly attacked by a swarm of ideas in the middle of the night. So far the consensus I have is that it's frustrating.

And posted. Everyone, meet John Smith, Security Service.

Did I read your post right? Does John Smith have Self-Duplication powers?

Hey, I'm re-reconsidering having my villain show up in the thread. In the meantime, I've set up the page for the villains of Chaos if your interested.

I'll introduce him once we get to the Warpfields, unless someone needs a character to talk to right now.

PS. Dreamselfy is great cause I can't draw for shit and it has a lot of options for me, lol.

edited 26th May '18 7:29:32 PM by Masterofchaos

But not a lot of options for people whose cast is less anime and more aliens, hrgle grumble rrrrrrgh.

That's true.

Well, there's also Rinmaru!

@Miss_desperado, correct.

Sweet! That means multiple authors can be piloting different iterations of John Smith, no room shuffles or piloting switches necessary!

@Killer Clowns, I request to have John Smith teleport Alice to the interrogation room, to make things quicker.

Also, just in case, have you noticed what phrasing did he use to greet her?

Hah, totally missed that echo there. Well played. It's not something Alice's memory is perfect enough to notice, but I like that it does add to the irony of Alice loathing being treated exactly the same way she had Chaudhari treat someone.

EDIT: Quick cultural heads-up. If ever dealing with the Ace of Spades, Smith may find it easier to appear as Jane Smith; Graveyarders have trouble respecting men in positions of authority.

edited 26th May '18 10:07:24 PM by KillerClowns