Post by Urthdigger on Mar 23, 2007 5:50:00 GMT -5
Hrm, another post that made me nervous as all hell to post it... but I got a reply from someone saying they liked it, so it's all good
Yes, Max is a girl, and that was decided from the start. I picked her name from Max Cheugavera (no idea how to spell it, it's the name of the cuban guy on all those T-shirts) and Logan Kale from Dark Angel, taking advantage of how Max is used as a girl's name there. Originally, I was going to avoid all pronouns involving Max, but first off that was too difficult and secondly I wanted to get people to assume she was a guy. As each part I'm writing is from the perspective of whoever it's focusing on, I could get away with it since Urth thought she was a guy. I did do my best to drop as many hints as possible though, the most obvious being his form picking up on the slight details and as a result being attracted. She's also mentioned as having a gentle voice, tells Urth not to call her Sir, and none of the other characters ever use a pronoun about her (even just refraining from having the characters say he or she was a pain... I used General and Max a lot in the previous post)
I had a little trouble deciding the wording when Urth grabs Max. One of the unique difficulties with humanoid animals, especially ones that are mostly animal, is breasts. While humans generally have 2 large ones, animals usually have a lot of little ones so it can be difficult where to draw the line. Honestly, I want to err on the animal side partly due to arakuns being mostly animal and also actually to be LESS perverted (topless arakun = who cares?). It also makes more sense for why Urth wouldn't be able to tell from the start (I suppose you can say her cloak's folds did the trick). However, any mention of that and chances are most people would be wonder what the heck is up with that. So in the end I took advantage of my liberties as a writer and decided "f**k it" and dodged describing anything in any detail whatsoever.
BTW, Un-Gifted Ones are, in a nutshell, my word for the characters in RPs that don't follow the game rules. They stay dead, they have all sorts of abilities, and just in general aren't bound by the rules. Something I wanted to do in the last post was explain each of the Un-Gifted Ones. Supposedly, Procyon had the ability to access any information concerning his mission, but in the end I scrapped that, but lost my excuse to go on length about the Un-Gifteds. First off, an Un-Gifted either chooses to become one, or has no choice. Those who choose usually go under traumatic stress and choose to give up their immortality for a chance to make a difference in the world. There are a number of ways to involuntarily become one, all of which involve a major change to one's life. Non-Gifteds tend to live their life more or less the same as life goes on: Rick teaches the same class to the same students every year, Ralph and Melissa are perpetually taking care of Bert, Powint and Ciang will always be doing the same job in the guild. Essentially, they're unaware of the passage of time and will forget anything that would cause them to notice something odd: Someone dies and they just think the person was sick for a week when they come back, Rick forgets those kids are the same students, people don't notice they've had 5000 18th birthdays. However, some things such as childbirth, (it'd have to be with an Un-Gifted or Gifted, Non-Gifteds together always have a miscarriage), someone extremely close becoming an Un-Gifted, or other similar events simply make it so they cannot carry on as they always have. In those cases the individual is forced to become an Un-Gifted One. Also, of course being the child of an Un-Gifted One automatically makes you one as well
In addition, of those that choose to give up their immortality some choose to give up even more. Here's a small list of the Un-Gifteds so far.
Karren Lockheart: Gave up nothing extra, but studied under Mastir. Being able to train past race max is an innate ability of Un-Gifted due to their ability to just force themselves to learn it.
Mastir <no last name>: Became barren and gained complete mastery of the biomantic arts. Taught biomantic manipulation to Karren.
Max Kale: Gave up nothing extra, has learned spells from a number of spiritual guilds.
Terrence Gonzalez: Gave up his attention span and capability of keeping still (he's always fidgeting) in exchange for great speed.
Sakura Arbor: Gave up her sanity in exchange for great strength.
Natsuki Arbor: Gained great psionic ability in exchange for her emotions. Her emotions are based purely on empathy from those around her (if people are happy around her, she's happy, if they're sad, she's sad. As for earlier, well, we already know Terrence and Ara were horny as hell...)
Ara Evergreen: Became sterile in exchange for great musical ability.
Procyon <no last name>: Has a fellblade way beyond what normal people can wield. Maxed stats, can be imbued at a moment's notice, and can absorb the entirety of a Gifted or Non-Gifted's soul, keeping them from ever coming back. It'll be explained why he has it later. However, his mission is to absorb Urth's soul and his hatred for him is the only reason he's alive. As a result, once he's done he'll die.
?: I've yet to get a name for him, he's the grand winner of the tournament Max held and as such was given acting command while she's gone. His sacrifice is that although he knows the passage of time, nothing he does will change his skills or strength. This does mean he's free to sleep in and drink all day without wasting his muscle away. His power is that he has a powerful magical sword that becomes even more powerful as it becomes coated in blood (Drakengard reference). It needs to be a deep cut though, so he's hesitant to cut himself to improve his sword as he'd rather not die.
Both Un-Gifteds with no last name are that way because they made up their own names and didn't have any before their change. Also, you may notice the things given up are minor: This is intentional. First off, the idea of them giving stuff up (originally some were just luckier than others) was inspired by Drakengard, where all those that have a pact-beast give up some small thing: Their voice, the ability to sing, the ability to age, or in the funniest example, his hair. All of them are small sacrifices that may even come in handy (I'm sure Ara loves his sacrifice, and Seere's sacrifice in Drakengard comes in handy), but in the long run they're a pain in the ass (Ara is eventually going to have the urge to be responsible and raise a family... too bad for him). Overall, the sacrifices help, they just make the person occasionally wish they hadn't given them up.
Yes, Max is a girl, and that was decided from the start. I picked her name from Max Cheugavera (no idea how to spell it, it's the name of the cuban guy on all those T-shirts) and Logan Kale from Dark Angel, taking advantage of how Max is used as a girl's name there. Originally, I was going to avoid all pronouns involving Max, but first off that was too difficult and secondly I wanted to get people to assume she was a guy. As each part I'm writing is from the perspective of whoever it's focusing on, I could get away with it since Urth thought she was a guy. I did do my best to drop as many hints as possible though, the most obvious being his form picking up on the slight details and as a result being attracted. She's also mentioned as having a gentle voice, tells Urth not to call her Sir, and none of the other characters ever use a pronoun about her (even just refraining from having the characters say he or she was a pain... I used General and Max a lot in the previous post)
I had a little trouble deciding the wording when Urth grabs Max. One of the unique difficulties with humanoid animals, especially ones that are mostly animal, is breasts. While humans generally have 2 large ones, animals usually have a lot of little ones so it can be difficult where to draw the line. Honestly, I want to err on the animal side partly due to arakuns being mostly animal and also actually to be LESS perverted (topless arakun = who cares?). It also makes more sense for why Urth wouldn't be able to tell from the start (I suppose you can say her cloak's folds did the trick). However, any mention of that and chances are most people would be wonder what the heck is up with that. So in the end I took advantage of my liberties as a writer and decided "f**k it" and dodged describing anything in any detail whatsoever.
BTW, Un-Gifted Ones are, in a nutshell, my word for the characters in RPs that don't follow the game rules. They stay dead, they have all sorts of abilities, and just in general aren't bound by the rules. Something I wanted to do in the last post was explain each of the Un-Gifted Ones. Supposedly, Procyon had the ability to access any information concerning his mission, but in the end I scrapped that, but lost my excuse to go on length about the Un-Gifteds. First off, an Un-Gifted either chooses to become one, or has no choice. Those who choose usually go under traumatic stress and choose to give up their immortality for a chance to make a difference in the world. There are a number of ways to involuntarily become one, all of which involve a major change to one's life. Non-Gifteds tend to live their life more or less the same as life goes on: Rick teaches the same class to the same students every year, Ralph and Melissa are perpetually taking care of Bert, Powint and Ciang will always be doing the same job in the guild. Essentially, they're unaware of the passage of time and will forget anything that would cause them to notice something odd: Someone dies and they just think the person was sick for a week when they come back, Rick forgets those kids are the same students, people don't notice they've had 5000 18th birthdays. However, some things such as childbirth, (it'd have to be with an Un-Gifted or Gifted, Non-Gifteds together always have a miscarriage), someone extremely close becoming an Un-Gifted, or other similar events simply make it so they cannot carry on as they always have. In those cases the individual is forced to become an Un-Gifted One. Also, of course being the child of an Un-Gifted One automatically makes you one as well
In addition, of those that choose to give up their immortality some choose to give up even more. Here's a small list of the Un-Gifteds so far.
Karren Lockheart: Gave up nothing extra, but studied under Mastir. Being able to train past race max is an innate ability of Un-Gifted due to their ability to just force themselves to learn it.
Mastir <no last name>: Became barren and gained complete mastery of the biomantic arts. Taught biomantic manipulation to Karren.
Max Kale: Gave up nothing extra, has learned spells from a number of spiritual guilds.
Terrence Gonzalez: Gave up his attention span and capability of keeping still (he's always fidgeting) in exchange for great speed.
Sakura Arbor: Gave up her sanity in exchange for great strength.
Natsuki Arbor: Gained great psionic ability in exchange for her emotions. Her emotions are based purely on empathy from those around her (if people are happy around her, she's happy, if they're sad, she's sad. As for earlier, well, we already know Terrence and Ara were horny as hell...)
Ara Evergreen: Became sterile in exchange for great musical ability.
Procyon <no last name>: Has a fellblade way beyond what normal people can wield. Maxed stats, can be imbued at a moment's notice, and can absorb the entirety of a Gifted or Non-Gifted's soul, keeping them from ever coming back. It'll be explained why he has it later. However, his mission is to absorb Urth's soul and his hatred for him is the only reason he's alive. As a result, once he's done he'll die.
?: I've yet to get a name for him, he's the grand winner of the tournament Max held and as such was given acting command while she's gone. His sacrifice is that although he knows the passage of time, nothing he does will change his skills or strength. This does mean he's free to sleep in and drink all day without wasting his muscle away. His power is that he has a powerful magical sword that becomes even more powerful as it becomes coated in blood (Drakengard reference). It needs to be a deep cut though, so he's hesitant to cut himself to improve his sword as he'd rather not die.
Both Un-Gifteds with no last name are that way because they made up their own names and didn't have any before their change. Also, you may notice the things given up are minor: This is intentional. First off, the idea of them giving stuff up (originally some were just luckier than others) was inspired by Drakengard, where all those that have a pact-beast give up some small thing: Their voice, the ability to sing, the ability to age, or in the funniest example, his hair. All of them are small sacrifices that may even come in handy (I'm sure Ara loves his sacrifice, and Seere's sacrifice in Drakengard comes in handy), but in the long run they're a pain in the ass (Ara is eventually going to have the urge to be responsible and raise a family... too bad for him). Overall, the sacrifices help, they just make the person occasionally wish they hadn't given them up.