[Seven's Scrapbook!] Uncensored Aspersions

[Seven Xu]

Uncensored Aspersions
and that's just what they are.

[Seven Xu]

Character Essay

My character has flaws, and so do I.

I metagamed; it was a mistake, and when I realized I was taking creative license too far I very abruptly corrected my mistake and made the appropriate apologies to the appropriate people—person. Some things are vague and unfinished, it doesn’t mean that I can fill in the blanks and benefit from it in-character. If I had realized I was doing it, I would have stopped much earlier.

If anyone thinks I’m the type of person to consciously take advantage of other peoples’ creations for my own advantage, please speak up, tell me that I offend you and that I’m terrible, and be done with it. Please don’t complain to other people about how much of a jerkface I am, I’d rather hear it and correct the problem and not waste my time and yours. Good? Good.

Every believable character should have flaws. If not, you’re going to be cast into the lava pit and labeled forever ‘Mary Sue’. That’s something I’m genuinely afraid of, especially from the skimmers and the second-handers. I shouldn’t care, but deep down I do. I think we all do. I mean, that’s a lot of work being criticized; if you’re going to throw negative words my way, at least take some time and some brainpower to read what you’re bashing and offer up some helpful advice, too. I like constructive criticism. I respond well to it.

This is now an essay about Seven’s flaws. Bam. Trap. Got you. It’s about Seven. He is admittedly my first role-play character, and has evolved with me over time. I’m pretty attached to him. He’s gone from a copy of myself (because it’s easiest to make a character that is essentially yourself in a fantasy world) to another person entirely. It’s been a fun journey; he’s even changed a ton in the past year of my experience on Mizahar: my first forum-based collaborative writing site.

First of all, he’s a pretty average person. Not a flaw? In a world where every other player-character is championing a cause or a god or themselves, I take pride in playing someone that would generally fall into the backdrop of a fantasy story: a secondary character, not a hero. He’s got some skeletons; he killed his own father; he knifed a poor innocent Kelvic to appease his best friend. Murder really isn’t ground-breaking, in Mizahar. Has it affected him? Not as much as it should, he thinks, and that bothers him more than the acts themselves.

He has fears. I’m not talking about fearing fear itself. Everyone fears fear it’s why it’s fear. He has normal, tangible people fears: he’s afraid of dying; he’s afraid of crowds; he’s afraid of spiders (yep); he’s afraid of Ionu’s illusions; he’s probably afraid of heights, but where every building is three stories tall at the highest he hasn’t really had the opportunity to turn to jelly when he looks down. He is by no means brave; in fact, he’s a bit of a coward who prefers to run and hide at the first sign of trouble.

Seven isn’t the sort of person you want to have around if you need someone to defend you. Not only is he craven, he’s weak. He’s five-foot-six and a hundred pounds soaking wet. His bones are brittle and his genes are screwed up. Draw a bunch of Punnett squares you’ll see what I mean. Every one spells out ‘borderline cripple’. Punch him too hard and he’s like to break. I feel this isn’t stressed very much in my writing, especially with a friend like Victor: he’s always covered in bruises from a grab here, a push there. Seven’s even limited to what he can and cannot eat. Red meat is out of the question; chicken and fish are nearly as bad. Seven exists on bread and lentils and fruit and all of it he has to thoroughly chew because his venom is too weak to break it down properly.

His mind is nearly as weak as his stomach. He’s smart as a whip, but he’s easily manipulated, changed, and twisted. Alvadas has done a bang-up job of drawing out the bitterness and frustration beneath his calm exterior. It hasn’t driven him insane; he has no mental disorders to speak of. But, when your best friend is a psychopath, and you would do anything for them without question, things tend to get a little out of hand.

When it comes down to it, Seven doesn’t have any extraordinary flaws or plot hooks. He’s an ordinary person, and reacts to things as an ordinary person would. Some would say that I’m a weak writer; I would say that I always have room to improve.

[Seven Xu]

Dysfunctional & Abusive: Still a better romance than Twilight

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[Victor Lark]

Oh baby, you know I love it when you make that :/ face.

[Seven Xu]

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“I can't believe she killed Dobby! This is such a tear jerker!”

“Oh, my sweet summer child, what do you know of character death?

“Death is for the hardened readers, whose dreams are swept away by the hand of the author like an ice wind that comes howling out of the north.
Death is for the long night, when chapters last for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the readers grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.”
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[Seven Xu]

Swears

Do you use “real world” curses, or do you prefer to stick to Mizahar’s list of colorful swear words? Are you adamant about your own and other people’s characters sticking to these curses or do you not care?

Personally, I flip-flop depending on the mood of what I’m writing. Sometimes, petch just doesn’t cut it for me when I want my angry character to scream obscenities—it doesn’t have the flavor or feeling that comes along with words we’re used to. It may break a fourth wall, and some profanity purists would say it’s not creative and that we should take advantage of the dirty words given to us. They often make a perfectly valid point, being that real world curse words have real world origins that deviate from a fantasy world such as Mizahar. I can’t argue that, but it doesn’t change my mind.

What’s your opinion?

[Elhaym]

I generally avoid cursing if I can, because for me the words we have (while nice) don't always apply. I like the entirely homebrew ones like deyhan and azo, for me those work perfectly. But petch and shyke are distracting to me, because they have real world equivalents that I essentially stop and replace them with mid thought. That can really distract me, especially if a PC uses them often.

I'll drop an F bomb or say shit if it fits the mood, but I try not to overdo it just to play as if I'm foul mouthed. For me these words have more impact if used sparingly to the reader because they are the words we use, and honestly that's more important to me than anachronisms.

[Seven Xu]

I think that's exactly what throws me off about petch, too, is the fact that it has a real-life equivalent.

Caetszo, on the other hand, is an awesome swear.

In other news, I love this song so much. Thanks GoT trailer.

... Makes me wanna throw people from cliffs in slow motion.

[Ronan]

The whole 'Ceremonial's' album is absolutely fantastic. My favourite is What the Water Gave Me. Oh, how I love Florence!

[Seven Xu]