World Development, in terms of Jilitse ... or rather, Self Development
A few months earlier, in order to be a helpful Mizahar citizen, I decided to take up Embalming and Undertaking. I had a short while of wanting to be an undertaker in-game, which I eventually had to let go, as I became busy and was unable to provide proper attention. My reason for it is that as a Nuit, I am eventually going to do Embalming, and if there's no wiki article about it, I'll be groping in the dark. Instead of having a thread about it, why not write a lore? So I applied to take on Embalming and Undertaking. Taking on these two (one) wiki articles sent me to the depths of my then school library. I learned things about decaying human bodies that I never knew before, and saw pictures of rotting things that I still want to unsee. Writing lore is like that, especially if you're taking up technical skill. Jen wrote something along the lines of "you can't write about something if you aren't deeply interested in it" and I agree. However, I think that deep interest when married to desire to learn and research can be quite the tandem. Plus creativity and imagination and you'll get awesome ideas. Anyway, many months forward and the article is still in development. It's hard to get the proper critique in World Development, and sometimes people will go over it and give you a nod. While those pat-in-the-backs are much needed, it doesn't contribute to the writing process itself. Sometimes your ego even gets bashed. Having experienced that in Mizahar, I think I have the right to raise brows on people who ignore other people's advice - thinking that they got it right. I think writing for World Development taught me a lot about perspective, how people won't always agree with you, and that there might be a way to reconcile. There is always a way to reconcile things. If you don't think so, if you feel like you've got it all figured out, chances are you're too self-absorbed. And you'll never be able to move forward.
My character, as many people know, is after the death of Sagallius. I can give you a long list of reasons why. One of them (among the petty ones) is that it would be pretty cool to kill a God. The Founders have hinted that it is possible for a player to kill a god, and GP himself had hinted that he is "willing to let go" of his NPCs at the right time. Many people, at the start of this quest, had been skeptic about this. I am among those people who say "it'd be cool to kill a God and imma do just that". It was nice when people said that they were interested, and it was even better when they saw that "omg she's really gondoit". Now I have Priskil's mark after losing a magical book, angering a friend and getting skewered by a sword. Sure I have epic adventures to tell, but there is something missing in Jilitse's central development.
Her magic.
I have always been more close to GP than any other founder, perhaps because he created the Nuit race, and he answers all my questions about magic. Not that I have never spoken to the other founders, I have consulted a few times with them when it mattered. Perhaps the reason why I talk with GP the most is because he is concerned with my PC development. I have been having mod threads with him since I started. He is very fun to be with, and pushes my PC to forkroads that I absolutely hate but must decide upon. He deviously suggested that Jil should learn summoning so that I could write Worlds for Miz. (Something about it still sound highly suspicious) I took him on this challenge, and my first world, after all the past months, is now up for Founder review.
My Nuit is a useless mage in the popular sense of the word. Many times now GP had made fun of Jilitse's "one-sidedness" - knowing only Animation, with no way of protecting herself. Typical animation mage played to a "T". Twice now in my threads with him I came this close to dying \o_o/ and I want to cry how I do not have any means to protect myself. Problem is, Jilitse was created in such a way that very little would ever convince her to veer away from what she's used to. It's hard to just suddenly pick up a book on say, Shielding, or suddenly learn Summoning. Jilitse won't do that. Just the way that Jilitse didn't choose Stitch's kids over Marie Suzanne.
Dear Morality,
Where are you?
Jilitse
Developing one PC takes a lot of time. If anyone would bother to know how I'm doing it, it's simple: Jilitse's decisions have been decided since day 1. Making a Nuit meant that I will have to forego the many fine things one could RP about. Sleeping and dreaming, eating and drinking, breathing air, fast heartbeats. It's an undead. Do you know how weary it gets to play a 500 year old character? It's really hard. I have to always put myself in Jilitse's perspective, what would a Nuit do? So I took inspiration from (haha laugh if you must) one of Harry Potter's villains - Snape, who was built like an evil wizard, but is later revealed to be a cheesy hopeless romantic. I based Jilitse from Yuuko Ichihara of XXXholic, one of Clamp's popular manga/anime. I still envision my Nuit as a pasty pale tall woman with long black hair and excessive eyeliner - and the only picture I have found close to this is Shanoa from Castlevania: Order of Ecclessia (the DS game, not the Wii).
She would be loyal to Mashaen and her quest, which is her reason for being. I was not supposed to be really in love with the archwizard, but Tarot picked up on that "joke" and eventually it became a puzzle piece that fit into the big picture. It is really easy to come up with Jilitse's reactions to most things: though she is curious about the world and wishes to learn, she already has a preconceived opinion on everything. Including Sagallius. I'm sure Tarot will have more interesting things to tell about his Benshira, but Jilitse will not ever "have a change of heart" - at most she will question her motives, but she'll pursue them anyway. The Benshira must die.
How exactly, is the question I have asked for so long. I think part of my long term quest is my search for the predecessors of Drainira. This means that I might need to create a new Supervisor, and my PC's animation's stuck at 35. Minus that, there's the matter of as mentioned earlier, not having any offensive magic. For the record, Jil doesn't have defensive magic either.
Dear Jil,
Y u so useless?
-Me
So I went back to the other ideas I had for Worlds, hoping to see where I left off and remember what got me worked up about learning Summoning, and found there a conversation I had with Puck, back when he was still around.
"GP rejected my pony ideas" - Me to Jake (Nimvahlis/Puck/Alistair), when we talked about creating Worlds for Mizahar.
I am pretty sure those ponies were magical and are commonly called as unicorns.
But kidding aside, I am hoping that by preparing "Worlds" to summon from, I'll kick up the dust and start becoming a real Summoner. And that I will eventually train Jilitse to be a good mage. I need to practice Animation and make useful items, and I have to learn Summoning.
This purposeful, driven, keep-your-eye-on-the-goal attitude, I learned from my Nuit. Now if I could carry it on to real life... |