top five : characters you've written, characters you didn't write, videogames, old songs?
put “top 5” anything in my ask and i will answer ok go
i’m giving this the caveat of recently because oh boy am i an indecisive bean, and these are in no particular order! under the cut because this got lengthy.
CHARACTERS I’VE WRITTEN :
EDWARD: edie, my alien son. it was at once very strange and very fun to write a character who didn’t know how to connect on a human level, simply due to... not being human. i didn’t get to write him as often as i’d like to, given a lot of real life factors while retired was running, but i’m happy ( read: honestly kind of emo but satisfied ) with how his story turned out. the moment of bonding with dante after all those years? the confession to will that he’s been trying to be him for so long? the blue slushee left on eve’s doorstep before he left to go help somewhere else? i still think about all the little moments because they mean a lot to me.
CADELL: sometimes i like getting knee deep in lore and that was the case for cadell. i have loved the chronicles of prydain since i was a kid, so i this was true twice over. he fits into a mix of disney, alexander, and folklore canon and i had a lot of fun thinking about the implications of decaying magic on someone who was trying to live, as well as the relationship of power when tradition demands violent transitions. am i still mad about the fact that demilich means what it means when it should be called archlich? yes.
CHARLEY: charley is a character from a “ weird western ” dnd / written rpg hybrid i’m currently in ( it wasn’t intentionally so, but when you have a group of recent english major grads playing together sometimes the writing just... happens ). it’s set in a fantasy universe, with magic, but with the aesthetics of the old west, and charley is just.. honestly a gem. he’s a high wis / low int fighter who’s just trying his best to take care of his family, and is currently trying to deal with how he feels about discovering the fact that his sister is part of a notorious gang of bank robbers.
ALIZEH: i’ve only just started playing alizeh, but i really love her? this is another instance of me really enjoying digging into the research part of writing a character i believe, as i enjoyed spending time trying to weave together her current story with the story of the god she is personifying. additionally though, i like trying to get insider her head as she, someone who’s always in control, watches as the world changes into something she was unprepared for. she’s going to have to adjust, but she’s so obsessed with her own narrative that i’m not sure she will.
GREGOR: dr. adair really is a whole lot and i love him for it. i loved researching aliens and the related topics to play him, and i hope that he gets to a place where he’s more comfortable with himself soon.
CHARACTERS I DIDN’T WRITE :
KAEL’S ARTHUR: artie was fun, and sometimes that’s all a character really needs to be. however, kael did not stop there, because artie wasn’t just fun. it was very clear why artie was the way he was, and i just really appreciated that. pirates didn’t go as expected but artie was definetly a gem to come out of it.
KAY’S BETH: i wrote more with eve, but beth was so fascinating. the part that sticks with me is how you talked about what you expected beth to be, versus what she actually became, and i think she just felt very real because of it.
ROZ’S TANGO: i don’t think i’d ever seen a character like tango in a group before, and i’m glad that roz was the one i saw do this. i think it would be incredibly easy to take this and turn it into a bit of a gimic but i... i just loved tango. the fact that i got emotionally attached is evidence enough, but i think the thought that clearly went into the character should be acknolwedged as well.
LILAH’S JACKIE: so jackie existed for all of two minutes anywhere except our discord server and i don’t care, i love this woman so much? that is all, thank you.
and the fifth spot goes to all the fantastic characters i’ve written with this year but that i lack the brain power to remember cause my memory is shit.
VIDEO GAMES :
i’m not much of a videogame person, honestly! i pretty much exclusively play STARDEW VALLEY currently and not much else. i waste too much time on those idle phone games too.
OLD SONGS :
i wasn’t sure how we were qualifying old songs so i just did anything that was pre 2000!
THE PRETENDER by jackson browne
THE WANDERER by dion ( less for the song, but more for the fact that this past year i lived in an apartment with 7 people and one of the people there would always clean on saturday mornings and this song was on his playlist so i heard it a lot, and it’s like a nice memory of waking up to music playing, people being around, and the knowledge that we’d all be going to breakfast together soon. can you tell i miss social interaction? )
ANGEL FROM MONTGOMERY by bonnie raitt
WATERLOO by abba
LAYLA by eric clapton ( specifically the mtv unplugged version )
