Character monologues

[bblackmoor]

One of the ways I get inside the heads of my characters is by writing a few paragraphs from their point of view. Since I do not generally discuss what my character is thinking during a game (it happens from time to time, but it's not normally something I do, and players who make a habit of doing so irritate me), this is one of the few ways other players can get a picture of what my character's internal landscape looks like (if they want to know). It's also useful for the GM to get an idea of what my character's goals and motivations are.

So I'll post a couple of such monologues here, and invite others to do the same. Maybe it will be interesting.

[bblackmoor]

Darknight

A storm is coming; I can feel it in the wind that whips around me and tugs at my cloak. The night is cool and alive and I revel in it. Soon the sun will rise and I must again rejoin the humanity huddled at the feet of these steel and glass colossi, but for now I am free to scale these heights beneath the crescent moon.

O Mother Night! Why do these I serve understand me so little? Look at them sprawled around me on the earth below - it is *they* I protect, *they* I defend, with their hopes and dreams! Fools they are, that seek to impede me in my purpose!

- You judge them too harshly. You are unknown, and they fear the unknown; it is their nature, just as you serve your nature. -

But can they not see? How can they defend the filth and vermin that I hunt? I am vengeance for those who cannot avenge themselves, and punishment for those who prey on the innocent. How can they condone these thugs and rapists, and tolerate the evil that freely walks these streets below me? What good do their laws do?

- Their laws serve a purpose. For most of them, the law is the only protection of the powerless from the powerful. -

But they seek to impose these laws on *me*!

- And their laws do not apply to you. My child, do not be angry with them. They seek to contain what they perceive as a power beyond their control. They fear that which is uncontrolled. -

Why are they so afraid?

- Long ago, these little ones became estranged from the Truth. They are adrift, unaware of their Purpose. How can they not be afraid? -

But I protect them! Certainly they have nothing to fear from me!

- You have given little thought to their weaknesses. You have taken life without explanation. You have instilled fear and loathing in those you wished to bring peace. You have been your own worst enemy by your ignorance. -

I... did not realize. I am ashamed.

- Be at peace, my child. The past cannot be undone, but there may still be time to correct your errors. Try to ease their fears; they need reasons to trust you, and you must give them those reasons. Seek an audience with one of their leaders; perhaps you can make a truce with the servants of their law. -

I do not think that is possible.

- And it may be too late. Nonetheless, it would be to the advantage of all concerned if you could reach some understanding with them. -

If they refuse?

- Alas, that is all too probable. If they refuse, you must continue undaunted in your purpose. Do not let them stop you, but carry no ill will toward them for making the attempt. Above all, remember whom you serve; perhaps one day they will understand. -

I hear the wisdom in your words. In my zeal to cleanse my city of this plague of evil, I sometimes forget for whom I am fighting. I will seek to come to an agreement with them.

- You have chosen well, my child. You are one of the last of us living among humankind; one of the few strong enough to survive in their world of machines and death. Be true to your purpose, and serve them well, and remember we are always with you. -

* * *

The upper stories were a wealth of ledges and crevasses. It was a remnant from a time when architecture had artistry as well as function. If any had seen the shadow lurking there, they would have seen it turn its opalescent eyes to the crescent moon above, as if searching for some answer to this tortured existence. And as the figure stood, as if the answer found was satisfactory, and he faded into the night, it may have occurred to our observer that we each make our own reasons for existing.

[bblackmoor]

Blueshift

My name is Jeannette, but my professional name is Blueshift. My profession, of course, is to be a hero. It has not always been so. I was a terrorist for a while. Oh, my motives were good (mostly), I never really hurt anyone, and I didn't really have much choice, but all rationalizations aside, I was a terrorist. This was before anyone in this country had a real clue what a terrorist was, of course. Back then, a terrorist was like a Nazi, or the devil -- everyone had heard of them, and knew they were evil, but no one had actually seen one.

Before that, my life was spent in a series of prisons. Some were physical, some psychological. Really, most of them were psychological.

I don't know exactly when I realized I was different. I was about ten when I put the pieces together, I think, but it was more a gradual awareness than a sudden realization. I read faster, wrote faster, ran faster than anyone I knew. I could walk on the top of a fence blindfolded, and I never got hit in dodge ball. I was something more than human. I was sixteen when I told my father my "secret", but I have decided since then that he already knew. In retrospect, it's the only explanation for some of his behavior: our long runs together in the woods behind our house, his stubborn refusal to let me participate in high school athletics, his consuming interest in games of skill or speed. Whenever he found a new sport, he'd spend every weekend with me playing it, and he'd inevitably lose. When he pleaded with me not to tell my mother how badly he'd lost, he said it was because she'd use it to humiliate him. While that was probably true, I now think he was trying to protect me.

I never liked my mother, nor she me. She was a cold, bitter woman whose only passions were collecting porcelain dolls and hating my father. I would lay awake, listening to her scream at him, thinking that I was the root of their problems. Later, after my father had died and I had escaped her malevolent influence, I convinced myself that I had been just a convenient bone of contention, and that they would have been just as miserable without me. Looking back, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. My father's attention to me probably accelerated the destruction of an already-decaying relationship. I'm not sorry.

After Daddy died, I left home. Mom objected, but I'm not sure why. There was no love between us at all, by then. But object she did, and we argued for hours until she just lost her temper and slapped me. I don't know why I didn't stop her -- I saw her hand coming in the slow-motion that passes for quick with normal people, but I let her hit me. I guess I was looking for an excuse.

All of the misery she'd heaped on Daddy's head, all of the frustration and abuse I'd felt at her hands, and, most of all, all the pain of knowing that she didn't love me, exploded in me in that moment. I must have hit her a hundred times, but I wasn't counting. I left her bruised and battered, huddled in a corner, her wide eyes staring, staring. Which is how I told my mother my "secret".

I regret that, now. I'm ashamed that I brutalized someone who was essentially defenseless. Being bitter and cold are their own punishments; I should have left her alone. Perhaps she realized that, and that's why she wanted me to stay.

I was punished in my turn. In fact, I can trace most of the hell I have been through back to that one rash act. You see, she sent people after me. Not the authorities, although they'd seek me for their own reasons, in time. She contacted an independent organization proficient in dealing with "my kind". I was hunted and hounded for months, city to city, state to state. They captured me a few times, but I always managed to escape, eventually. I was lucky: they always underestimated how fast I was.

[bblackmoor]

Not even a single response? I can't believe I am the only person who does this.

[OddHat]

Not even a single response? I can't believe I am the only person who does this.

I do lengthy character origins, but I'll rarely write a monologue. I'll give it a shot. :)

[OddHat]

Flesh Gordon

Wow. She really looks good in that costume. Excellent body. She must do dead-lifts.

Damn, she hit me with a truck. Well that shirt is gone.

“Hey, baby! Why don’t you calm down and we’ll talk about this. Put the car down!”

Ow. OK, this isn’t going well. Time for a Magnificent Move!

Got her! I looked good too! She feels good. Nice.

“So what’s your name? I’m Flesh. Mmmm. Your hair smells great.”

Ow. She is way stronger than me. We’re never going to get anywhere if she keeps hitting me like this.

“You know, I really like your costume. Very nice color choices. Would you like a drink? I know a little place near here.”

Ow. I felt that. As soon as I dig myself out of the side of this building, I’m gonna have to find some way of calming her down.

Oh, she’s gone.

“You say her name was Viperia? I think I’ve heard of her. Didn’t she do a movie with Hoffman? No?”

I wonder where she gets her hair done. She looked fine.

[S7Michelle]

Not even a single response? I can't believe I am the only person who does this.

Its not a monolog exactly, but I do have two dreams that I wrote for Sailor Io. Dreams are another good way to get into a character's head. Both of the following dreams occurred at approximately the same time. Io was having to make some very hard decisions, had lost a few team mates, and was basically having a difficult time. These things are reflected in the dreams.


~The dream opens with Mina sitting in a library at a large table covered with stacks of large leather bound hardcover history and mythology books. She turns to the shelves behind her and pulls out a huge and dusty leather book with the words “History of the Moon Kingdom” written on the cover in large tarnished gilt letters. She struggles with its weight slightly as she turns and places it on the table in front of her and then opens the book. The ornately written text inside is in an odd language which can not be clearly read and there is an elaborate picture on the other page which is the same as in the sphinx’s vision. The images begin to move and speak. You are standing in a grand courtyard surrounded on all sides by white marble columns and pastel rose bushes. The air smells of fresh baked bread and of jasmine. Light music fills the air as you stand upon polished gray marble flecked with veins of gold. Several people stand around an open double door. A beautiful woman steps through the doorway and they back away to let her pass. Her long raven hair hangs to her waist and a garland of flowers frame her delicate face. She smiles at the group gathered there. Their faces are the mirror images of the scouts and knights, only older, and somehow infinitely wiser. A man enters. He is large of build but not overpoweringly so. He seems wise but weathered as he enters the courtyard. As he does, everyone drops to one knee in reverence - except the Queen, who bows her head to him. He gestures for them all to stand and his clear voice rings out across the courtyard. "It is good you have all been able to survive this latest threat. I know the battles have been long and arduous. And the people of the Kingdom of Earth thank you." His face grows serious as he continues. "But, the battle is far from over. Nemesis and his Mah-Ki are regrouping. I can see only one outcome of this battle - this final battle. It will end only with our destruction or his." The Queen takes her place beside the man who takes her hand in his. "My gentle wife has found a way to end this without so much blood shed. She believes that by combining our Golden crystal, with your Silver crystal, and with your Platinum crystal, along with the aid of our Outer allies, we can combine our powers to entrap Nemesis and his minions on a planet near here." The Queen nods. "Yes, this is not the outcome we had wished. As you know all attempts at a peaceful agreement met with disastrous consequences and unwelcome bloodshed. We believe at least this way, neither Nemesis nor his followers are killed but rather exiled from further harming the people of Earth. The assembled group remains silent for a few minutes before one of them speaks. "You are right, this is the only way. We will stand behind you - fail or triumph - and try our best." Both the King and Queen smile.~ Mina murmurs something in her sleep and tosses and turns a bit.

~A sheet of flame obscures the images for a moment and when it fades, the focus of the dream has shifted. The viewer seems to be floating over the action, looking down upon it. The scene is one of battle and blood and flame. Images flicker past at a dizzying pace. Groups of men on horseback and carrying swords face off against Mah-Ki. But as you look closer it is clear that at least some of the Mah-ki are trying to run or to protect the wives and children cowering behind them. Other Mah-ki scream out in agony as they are burned at stakes. The images are of carnage, humans and Mah-ki both fighting, bleeding, dying. A group of scouts and knights appear surrounded by a burning aura looking like avenging angels. Some of the Mah-ki look towards them with hope in their eyes which dies as the Scouts and Knights stand beside they humans, throwing blast upon blast at the fighting Mah-ki. More and more fighters drop, human, Senshi, Mah-ki~ Mina murmurs “no” and her tossing and turning becomes a bit more violent.

~The images are obscured by flame and blood as once again the scene shifts. The King and Queen stand together alone on the field. Ten bodies lay crumpled at their feet, while the Queen cradles the eleventh. "My son," she cries. "No. Please, stay with us." Nearby a booming voice is heard from a rolling black cloud. The cloud, with a life of its own swirls together and forms a face that pushes from its inky blackness. "Your kingdom is doomed. Your Knights and Senate are all dead, your son is dying. You have nothing left and no one to help you. Your deaths will be quick but painful, I assure you." The King steps before his wife. "No!" he shouts as he holds up a familiar sword, its Golden Crystal shining brightly. "We will not allow you to win." The Queen sets her son down gently and stands beside her husband. She holds up a staff, crowned by a disembodied floating Silver Crystal. The power from the two combined crystals drives back the black cloud but it soon becomes apparent even the massive power from both crystals is not enough to keep Nemesis at bay. He counterattacks and both King and Queen fall to their knees. Suddenly a beam of light - of platinum light - shines out and joins the battle. This time Nemesis screams in pain and seems to shatter into glass. The fragments are swept into a black hole that forms in the sky that also sweeps up his screaming minions. In moments the air is clear, but the damage remains. The image shifts momentarily to show the Mah-ki and their families landing upon a dead moon drained of energy and nearly dead gazing up at the now closed portal.~ Mina’s tossing becomes even more violet as she pulls the sheets lose from her bed continuing to murmur “no.”

~The sheet of flame obscures the scene once again and now Sailor Io and the other Senshi are standing in a courtroom, a judges podium towering over them. Written on a bronze plaque before them is “Judge not lest ye be Judged.” The sound of a gavel banging down can be heard along with a booming and deep voice saying “Guilty.” A portal opens and the scouts and knights are forced towards it at sword point by figures whose features are obscured by shadow. Somehow everyone’s family members are there too, and are being forced into the portal as well. As the Senshi look through the portal they can see that it leads to the Negaverse realm. The scouts and knights attempt to fight their way free, to protect their families, but are quickly overwhelmed. A sword slices into Bladestar and he cries out in agony. Blood red energy strikes out at Io, but Norio shoves her aside and takes the blast himself, falling to the ground in lifelessly.~ Mina awakens with a scream.

[S7Michelle]

~The dream opens with Mina standing on the stage of the school auditorium. The spotlights are on her, though the sounds of an audience can be heard in the darkened room—soft whispers, the rustling of papers, people moving. She is dressed in her usual school uniform and is juggling three clear glass balls that appear to have some type of images within them. The background behind her shows a stylized image of Tokyo with the primary focus being on the school and areas Mina is familiar with. A dry-ice type fog is gradually covering the floor of the stage. As the camera moves closer, the images in the glass globes become more clear, one contains an image of text books, one a picture of Mina’s family, and one a picture of an elaborate looking machine. Mina is juggling them all easily. Then from somewhere in the shadows to the side of the stage, another glass ball, this one light green and containing an image of Jade is tossed to Mina. She catches it and continues juggling. A second, smoky gray with a streak of lightening follows shortly thereafter. She continues to juggle them readily. After a moment, a rainbow colored series of glass balls each containing an image of one of her friends are tossed from the shadows—Mitzy, Regin, Jiro, Seb, Demi, Taro, Hotaru, Usagi, Zane, Tonya, Lynn, Ken. Mina struggles to keep all the balls in the air and intact but the globe containing Demi’s image slips and crashes to the ground shattering into glittering shards of glass. Another ball is tossed from the side, blood red and containing the image of Anubis. It crashes into Hotaru’s globe fracturing it, but Mina is able to keep the globe containing Hotaru from falling as the Anubis globe hits the stage and shatters as well, the blood red glass mixing with Demi’s black. Though Mina struggles to keep the balls in the air, another one—Jiro’s—drops, but while cracks mar its surface, it remains intact as it rolls from the stage followed almost immediately after by Tonya’s. The other balls continue to flash through the air in an elaborate pattern as Mina gradually finds a rhythm yet again—a rainbow of glowing colors and images. She seems to relax slightly, only to be distracted by another globe hurtling towards her from the sidelines. Globes crash against each other, cracking, as yet another, this time Regin’s, falls and rolls from the stage. Barely, just barely, Mina manages to catch the incoming globe—this one containing the image of Vash flanked by Shalia and Lilith—and incorporate it into the now wavering pattern. All of the balls are showing signs of damage now—chips, cracks, some of the colors are growing a bit darker and more cloudy. Mina attempts to regain her rhythm but the pattern is slowly destabilizing. The ball containing Vash’s image seems to have a mind of its own, twisting and turning in unexpected directions. Other globes bump against each other deflecting them from their planned course. The ball containing Ken’s image drops and vanishes into the fog that continues to cover the stage making it impossible to tell if it remained intact or not. Mina manages to gain control momentarily but yet another ball—Lynn’s—drops and disappears into the fog. The pattern is chaotic now, Mina’s focus on trying to keep all of the balls from falling rather than on trying to keep any order. But even that isn’t working as she just barely manages to catch the various balls and throw them upwards again and again. Strain and exhaustion are becoming more and more pronounced on her face as she struggles. The fog has completely covered the floor of the stage now obscuring the shards of glass at her feet. Suddenly, one of the balls seems to twist in her hands and she losses her footing as she tries to reach for it. She slips and begins to fall as all of the glass balls begin to plummet to the floor around her with the sounds of shattering glass.~ Mina tosses and turns in the bed, pulling the covers loose as she murmurs “no.”

[Chuckg]

Baron von Darien

Dweomer says that to reveal magic to the general populace would be more irresponsible than distributing loaded pistols to schoolchildren. The rest of the Council agrees with him. They say that knowledge about the mystic arts must be held as closely as possible, as obscurely as possible, to minimize the risk that people might do with it.

Fools.

The Circle of the Scarlet Moon continues to recruit. DEMON finds more peons to indoctrinate into its cult every month. Dark Seraph and his fellow Crowns prove that even the stupidest dilettante can find the keys to dark power. Sir Giles de Morphant rises from his tomb to walk the Earth again.

And I don't even want to /think/ about Takofanes.

And yet, the Council still says 'We must not tell the world.' The Council still says 'We must hold the ancient knowledge closely'.

Fools and sons of fools.

We, the servants of White Magick, hold /our/ knowledge closely. And they, the servants of the Dark, let /their/ knowledge leak out as serves them best. When a credulous high school girl moves beyond the book rack at Borders to get her first glimpse at a true grimoire, it is their words she reads. When an aspiring magickal talent finds a mentor to show him the path, it is one of their recruiters who has scouted him. When some random innocent finds a mystical artifact or bound spirit-focus and accidentally unleashes it, it is one of their toys that he will have dug up.

Yes, we keep our knowledge secret. We are good at secrets. Far too good.

And thus, we deny the common man the chance to learn from our mistakes. Instead, every new generation is free to make the same mistakes yet again, for themselves. To yet again learn via black trial and bloody error, because those who could remove the need for such deliberately choose to stay obscure.

I am the last of the founders of the Trismegistus. I swore to keep their ways and traditions, and I never break my word. My unlife has stripped away all else from me that was the man I once was, that was good about the man I once was. I cannot let that last be stripped away as well.

But just once, I wish I could break a sworn vow. Just once, I wish I could cry out to the world, for all to hear -- 'Magick exists! The supernatural exists! Intent counts for as much as deed! What you hold in your heart can damn you just as surely as what you work with your hands or your mind! You must respect this, you who would work with the arcane, lest you be lost before you even know what you have done!'

Just once, I wish I could let young ones come to the mystic world with fair warning of its dangers, and its requirements. Without having to wait until /after/ they have called up that which they cannot put down, before I am allowed to reveal myself to them. Without having to wait until /after/ they have let loose demon or revenant or some other such horror, and I arrive in my wrath to root out the loosed beast and its summoner with fire and sword.

Just once, I wish I could speak to those whom the Dark would corrupt /before/ it's too late to do anything other than fight them. To speak to them before they take that last step, the step that means I have to kill them.

Just once.

[Acroyear]

I'll give it a whirl :)

We used to get xp bonuses for writing in character stories, so it's not really a new thing for me. Usually, I wrote stuff happening between the story arcs.

[Acroyear]

Omega Man

Archaeology kind of loses its attraction when you already know the answers. I mean, I lived it... after a fashion. That's why I decided to do it, really, change to politics. You know, do some good in this world without slinging around the power. Working in the system to do some good. I dont know why, but so many people have lost faith in the system and it's not as bad as all that.

I don't think it's blurring the lines either. I can be a good example and get some positive things done just like I can when I call on the power. It makes sense for me, too. I mean, I am who I am no matter what form I take and I already have the building blocks here, in school, to set things in motion. Just do things one step at a time like everyone else.

I know I'm a good guy. I can make good decisions. Heck, maybe even moreso than anyone else on the planet I have reason to move things forward and do right by the people. Lots of people are behind me, too. Mr Gilchrist was certainly right about that. Just stick to my guns and make the decisions I would make, anyway, and people will get behind me.

Things might be a little more difficult when I need the power, but I've already established that slipping in and out... even of secure places... won't be difficult. I don't necessarily have to go all the way to the top, either, like Mr Gilchrist thinks I should. I might like it lower down on the ladder. I might be able to get more done and, as an example, others will follow suit.

Well, it's too early to be thinking about that. Fifteen-twenty years, anyway. One step at a time. But it makes me wonder... what would the country think if their leader was that guy in the cape who flies around keeping the bad guys in check? Heck, what would they think if their leader was a god?

That part has always concerned me. I mean, what would anyone think if I flew around saying 'Hi, I'm the god of this world' anyway? What would they think if they even knew that the mark I wear on my chest is just half of what it really is supposed to be. Probably no different than before. Things get crazy when you mix men with gods. The first one couldn't handle it, that's for sure. Maybe he didn't want to. I don't know how he could have had access to the knowledge and not willingly set aside the necessary amount of the power needed to fend off the darkness...

I won't end up like that, though. A tyrant so feared he was wiped from history. I'll do my best to guide this world in a positive way. One day, I hope, maybe even thousands of years from now, it'll make me happy to look back at the world and see that I did some real good and my people have prospered because of it. Who knows, maybe by then I'll have passed the power on.

Yeah. It didn't take much to change from Archaeology. My folks took it much better than I thought they would, too. What more can a guy ask for?

[John T]

Not even a single response? I can't believe I am the only person who does this.
Will definitely give it a whirl when I've had time to mull it over, but it'll be a bit before I can hammer out a monologue for a half-demon. ;)

John T

[Hex]

Flesh Gordon

“You know, I really like your costume. Very nice color choices. Would you like a drink? I know a little place near here.”

Ow. I felt that. As soon as I dig myself out of the side of this building, I’m gonna have to find some way of calming her down.


ROFL! I'd love to see that played out. Hilarious.

I do similar writing exercises to get a better idea of character developement and how my character would react to different scenarios. I'll post my own soon... :bounce:

[bblackmoor]

Flesh Gordon...

This is very funny, but I have to ask: is this a real character?

[bblackmoor]

Good stuff, guys.

Maybe the dead sorcerer could give the overburdened sailor girl some tips on task management. ;)

[OddHat]

This is very funny, but I have to ask: is this a real character?

Yes.

Fun to play as well. :)

[Chuckg]

Maybe the dead sorcerer could give the overburdened sailor girl some tips on task management. ;)

Well, actually, the Baron isn't a sorcerer -- he's an elder vampire, and a master warrior. His contribution towards demon slaying and defense against the dark arts involves melee combat. You know, sort of like a vampiric vampire slayer. :D

In the game continuity in which he exists, he's a member of the Trismegistus largely due to:

a) material resources he can contribute
b) large amounts of knowledge and experience he can contribute
c) he's the only surviving member of the /original/ Trisgmegistus, back when the membership requirements were a lot looser. (According to Mystic World, the Council is about 200 years old... the Baron is about 1100.)

He doesn't have any actual spellcasting, though, merely his vampiric powers.

[Veavitdpoh]

The specific stats haven't been approved yet, but here's the first rough for a new character's backstory. It's a little random, but life doesn't always provide straightforward narrative... and, yes, I love giving GMs hooks to screw me over with.

The following is a transcription of a partial manuscript found at a crime scene. The manuscript appears to be complete, but pages are missing throughout. The remaining pages are blue ink on old facsimiles. As of yet, the manuscript's author has not been verified - we can't be held responsible if this is another hoax.

pg 1

My given name is Ian Green. I was born as the ninth member of the Green creche on March 17th, 1978. What follows is a record of certain events in which I took part between the years 1978 and 2004, as a part of what we all called Project Remus.
You have to understand, we were the innocents. If you believe in predestination, if you can believe the word of a mutie and a wanted criminal, then grok this - when the latex glove opened the stopcocks on our wombs, drained the amniotic fluid and gave us our first breaths of pure unadulterated atmosphere, we were destined to end up a footnote for those that changed history.
We were important, yeah.
By the time Green creche went operational, they had it down to a routine. Pre-emptively sterilize the twelve percent furthest from specs, undock the rest and align for post-natal processing. Seperate the whites from the yolks... "unclogging the valves", they called it.
Do you remember being a baby? I don't, so I can't say as I miss the nurturing warmth and care. That came later. There were muscular weave surgeries and epidermal protein treatments, but forget that. Listen - it wasn't so bad. I don't know what it's like to have your small nuclear family unit, but with twenty-two sibs cluttering up the incubators, I think we

pg 3

you might call a "classical" education, though I'm not really sure what that's supposed to mean either. I get this image of Van Gogh teaching wood shop, Wernher Von Braun discussing current events. It wasn't like that, though - they were nice, but they didn't provide a real foundation, kind of left us alone as long as we behaved.
For a long time, the schedule was this - get up. Some light exercise to get the blood moving, we were still just children and they weren't at the point of TRAINING yet. Light schooling, most of which was basically "this is how to brush your teeth", "this is how you write your name", "this is how you don't shoot yourself in the face with the nice guard's gun". It was basic, it was all right, they gave us breaks and free time. They never gave us any real creative outlets, but we found them anyway and nobody minded. If someone really misbehaved, they'd just throw us all back in the barracks, let's start again tomorrow. Since our barracks consisted of A) bunks and B) a toilet, it worked pretty well.
It went on like this for a few years. Every few weeks, they'd force a chemical cocktail down our throats or into our veins or through our pores, and no one really minded because that's just the way it was. Like I said, you have to understand, it just wasn't a big deal.
Things didn't get "interesting" until later.
We could tell the favored from the black sheep. Alliances and cliques formed, uneasy borders drawn

pg 6

should have known better than to cut in front of one of Bernard's crew, but I was only ten or so - diplomacy didn't come until later, I didn't appreciate the finer points of lettings others get your own way yet.
I have to admit, most of this is in retrospect. I don't remember a lot of the incident itself. Words were said, shoulders were pushed, and then Leo pushed HARD. Full strength, just the way they always told us not to do. Leo wasn't the tank of the group, but he had more than enough to punch me through the door.
The guards were running over, but they were on the wrong side and shell-shocked... I wasn't supposed to stand up after that. Bernard just stood there, staring. Then Leo slugged me across the hall, into the metal wall, and when I stood up again - I think I scared him, enough to go for a guard's gun.
It was the first time I got shot, the second time too. One bullet just squashed itself out against my chest, the other caught the high plane of my skull and ricocheted up into the ceiling. That's when they turned on the tanglefield and put us all down, but it would've been too late and too little if I hadn't been the unbreakable of the group. 'Course, they didn't know that until THEN - but they knew it now.
Things kind of accelerated after that. I think I'd been written off as a dead loss thanks to not benching eight hundred pounds, but suddenly

pg 10

had a point. You have to understand, at the time I wasn't paranoid enough to take it seriously.
"When's the last time they taught us anything useful?"
"There was the part with the clown -"
"Listen, Ian! We deal with adults every day, we see them work. Doctors, engineers, biologists. They poke us and study us and do THINGS to us that make us stronger. They made you harder than anyone else. How many volts did they shoot through you last time?"
"I'm just a motherfucking tough out."
"Right, but the point is - how do you think they learned all this? Someone taught them. They had to learn how to make the programs and build this place and keep the machines running. I'm not ready to learn that - none of us are. All we know is how to keep tidy and follow directions."
"You have to walk before you can run, you know."
"We're CRAWLING, Ian. Listen - I met someone."
"Someone?"
"From Indigo creche. A different family. She managed to sneak out... it's different there. They're learning a lot more. They're training on how to drive the carts and use computers - not just SimCity, getting into the system itself! Ian, she said they're going to learn how to use GUNS."
"No!"
"Guns. Why are they holding us back?"
"Maybe we're not ready."
"They aren't being hardened like we are, like you are. I think this is just what the adults want. Listen - I'm going to try and see her again. When

pg 13

the first time I really realized our creche was all male. Yeah, that was pretty sobering.

The new trial runs were starting to get to me. Before, they'd strap me down and inject me or coat me or submerge me and I'd go through convulsions in mind-searing agony, but it passed and there was ice cream - when you're young, ice cream makes up for a lot.
It had become different. They'd give me some puzzles to do or play a game of cards, and then - I'd lost a few hours. Then a few days, the fugues were growing longer and deeper. It was happening to all of us, but I was gone for a week once - I don't know anyone else that happened to.
I didn't really take notice until It happened. It was in one morning in the shower, I almost didn't think about it. There was a fleck of blood under a fingernail. Yeah, it happens, but you have to understand - it DOESN'T HAPPEN TO ME. I've got blood in there, a heart and a pulse and capillaries, all packed away beneath skin that would put DuPont out of business. I have never, ever seen my own blood.
It was the only explanation that made sense, I didn't like it, but I sat there and felt the spray and stared at my hands because at some point in that fugue state - they'd drawn blood. Things were starting to come back to me, not from the trial runs but things other people had said and done, that vaguely-rebellious Jeremiah from a few years back who was transferred out - where to? The creche is always kept together. Things were starting to fit

pg 16

You have to understand, I was happy at that point, even relieved. I'd been sneaking around for weeks, and grok this - I knew this was my best chance, this was the one moment I'd have. I distinctly remember humming as I went through every cabinet there was and sorted through labels - inflammable (useless), flammable (useful), pressurized (useful). I didn't have a cookbook and a cruise ship's stateroom kind of doesn't come standard with explosives, but you can't go wrong with flammable warning labels.
I'll cut it short. I hadn't done anything this dangerous in a while, not that I'd been awake for, but waiting there in the raging inferno was like a warm summer breeze - then the EMT smashed the door in and it was go time. Yeah, that night the angels were with me. I burned my way down the hall, my feet could do no wrong - made it over the railing, fifteen meters to the deck below, was up and running in two seconds flat.
I read up on Columbus later, how he decided he'd made it to India at last. Turns out we were running much slower than I'd anticipated - the coastline I glimpsed before strangling the flames with a seawater garrote was Venezuelan jungle, not Florida - don?t laugh, I didn?t have an atlas and I didn?t have a solid background in comparative biology. I think I did pretty well, for going off of ?Florida oranges? on the menu.
The point is I made it. I was off the ship, I?d escaped InGen and whoever was pulling my strings

pg 20

would never complain about that time. I was still shocked - I'd spent HOW long? They threw a birthday party in 1999, yeah, and it made me realize two things. First, I was too old to be depending on them. You have to understand - I wasn't being a leech, I was helping out and I was a part of the village, but they never ASKED, they never EXPECTED. If I didn't feel like helping, I wouldn't have had to. Kind of strange how the lack of expectation made me feel like I shouldn't be there.
I left part of myself behind in Aldeia de Agua. Yeah, it's melodrama, but I really kinda did - Fortunato has my monolinguism, Aurelio kept my lack of education, and Celia borrowed my virginity but never gave it back. She told me she keeps it in a box and shows it to all her girlfriends. I'm not putting on paper what I said back. What it comes down to is I'm a child of Aldeia, too, not just InGen.
But children grow up and I knnew enough by then to not want to abuse their sanctuary any longer. I represented a sizeable investment, back then, and I didn't want to drag them into that - didn't want to end up a simple handyman either. So I shouldered a bag, stocked up on a few cans - I left my snake eater days behind in Delta Amacuro - kissed them all goodbye and told them "Eu nunca perderei o sangue porque seu sangue funciona em minhas veias. Eu não desperdiçarei seu sangue." It loses something in the translation.

photographs:
http://pay.lalista.org/veavius/bp01.jpg
http://pay.lalista.org/veavius/bp02.jpg
http://pay.lalista.org/veavius/bp03.jpg

pg 22

rapidly learning something about America - it's hard to start living when you haven't had a running start. The gringos on the way up gave me a fast, if somewhat incoherent rundown of green cards and citizenship, but that still left me looking for work without any official existence whatsoever. Didn't go so well. People weren't very polite about it, yeah, but that wasn't the turning point.
The turning point is, I walked into a bank. I've read the bios, I've seen the talk shows but one thing almost everyone misses is I didn't start in 2001. It started in 2000, when I just happened to walk into a New Mexico bank in the middle of an armed robbery.
I'd learned to keep my mutations low-profile, so I played it cool - being a hostage is easy, probably easier than getting an unsecured loan or a job coach without an identity. But they started pushing it, and then someone got shot, someone else wouldn't stop screaming, one of them clocked me with the butt of his gun - it was a nasty shot, right under his floating ribs.
He shot me, of course, they all did. One thing I never learned in the lab is that when it's uncontrolled, when someone lets loose with a submachinegun at point-blank range and you try to grip the barrel and it's jerking around and tearing your secondhand shirt to shreds

pg 24

hot at first, and I found out the hard way to pour the nitric into the sulphuric instead of the other way around. Once cool, add four parts glycerine by dribbling down the sides of the container. Stir with a glass rod for fifteen seconds, then carefully pour into twenty times its volume in water. This substance is nitroglycerine.
Mixing with baking soda will prevent immediate combustion, some parafine and cotton works as a quick-and-dirty package. If you have more time, calcium carbonate and wood dust or wood pulp creates trinitrotoluene, commonly known as dynamite - but dynamite and other nitrous explosives aren't very stable. They're sensitive to heat, extremely flammable and highly volatile in liquid form. Nitroglycerin itself is extremely sensitive to decomposition, heating, dropping, or jarring, and may explode even if left undisturbed and cool.
I walked in, humming Luck Be A Lady - after My Way was on the muzak that first bank, Sinatra had become a part of the tradition - stashed my spare clothes by the entrance, hopped the counter, set the nitro down in front of the vault and place-kicked the mutha.
Until now, they'd never caught me in time - my turnaround was too fast for that. But this time, I ended up under the door

pg 26

because I had regrets. You have to understand, I had my own reasons for stopping - not the least of which were the local Champions. The biggest one was a phone call I received one day in the library.
The bank hits stopped because I was hired. Even now, just in case someone finds this, I'm not going to go into too many details. But at long last, I was living the South American dream - make it across the border, find a job, get some money. I did it in a different order, but it all balances out.
Like I said, I don't know how much of this you can believe, it's only my word against FOX Network's - but that's what happened. Born a meat puppet to a natural born killer, cut my own strings, found my own path.
So fuck you, InGen. I did it my way.

----

Evidence recovered at crime scene. Considered "need to know".

---

(scribbled) spook central's on the warpath, man the battle stations

to: mjacobson
cc: mfargo, rsingh, dtellaz
re: incident Green 78.192
attachment: GIR78192.PRJ

Eyewitness reports mediocre, but ballistics is pretty conclusive and
forensics show unmistakable carbon residue on the clavicle and parietal.
G9 took a pair of 9mms without penetration or capillary disturbance.
Let me state that again for the folks at home, specimen G9 was just
shot twice at point-blank range and walked away without a scratch. I
don't need to remind anyone that You-Know-Who wasn't bulletproof in
third-stage development.

I've been going through the archives on Green, apparently he's written
off to the delta labs in the next quarter. Doc, I'm looking at you on
this. Maybe he's slow on the active performance, but we're about to
throw away the baby with the dishwater here - reassess his standings
and run some passive trials ASAP.

P.S. I want that fucking guard reassigned to cryo duty yesterday.

Marcus Jacobson, rumor control

---

trial run 4: Chapare region, Bolivia, unsanctioned counterinsurgency op
transcript of communications at waypoint charlie

+++TRANSMISSION BEGINS

Dammit! Control to base, the neural link is still jacked.

Control - the memory block. Is it still intact?

Your little mindjob is still in place and working. Everything reads fine. Except for my HEAD.

It's nothing, Control, just a ghost in the machine. The others won't have these problems. And after this is done, you'll be getting an upgrade... something a lot better.

A second version? Sign me up now. These headaches are killing me.

Just focus and concentrate on the mission. We're almost finished here.

+++TRANSMISSION ENDS

---

Trying 37.1.168.35...
Connected to news.ingen.br.
Escape character is '^]'.
200 news.ingen.br InterNetNews NNRP server INN 1.5.1
17-Dec-1992 ready
(posting ok).
group stage4.trials
211 4 1 4 stage4.trials
xhdr subject 1-4
221 subject fields follow
1 I12/V7
2 Failure count rising?
3 Re: I12/V7
4 G9/R5
article 4
Path: newshost.ingen.br!news-ingen.br!newsfeeds.ingen.br!philabs
From: dtellaz@ingen.br (Diego Tellaz)
Newsgroups: stage4.trials
Subject: G9/R5
Date: 21 Apr 1992
...

> The G9/R5 complex is performing
> above the bar, but G9?s resistance
> is building an early immunity to the
> cortical suppressant. Recommend we
> infect with the advanced strain
> early, before the Iceland trials -
> give it a chance to interface before
> catalytic activation.

On your head be it; it?ll go in his next supplement.

Are we still on for badminton Thursday?

QUIT
205 .

---

INGEN PROJECT REMUS / SUBJECTS / G9 / OVERVIEW

1966. With the cold war in full swing, InGen decides that two minds are better than one and begins advanced research into telepathy and empathic connections, both naturally occurring (twins) and artificially induced (mutates). The goal is to create strike teams that act in concert, out-thinking and outmaneuvering their solo enemies.
1970. Progress is slow. While mental communication can be induced, a drawback in the methodology is forcing the putative "team" into a dominant and a submissive, the submissive having little to no free will. The research is split into two factions, one continuing along the original project guidelines and the other delving further into the dom/sub telepathic complex.
1974. A breakthrough occurs on the dom/sub project when the dom is able to establish complete control over the sub, effectively becoming a human puppetteer. The other faction is relocated to a different department and the core research team begins to exploit the new methods.
1976. Through 1982, several batches of clones are processed, each designed to explore a different possibility and discover the most efficient and effective use of the dom/sub complex.
1978. Green creche, a generation designed to be effective physical complements to complete mental control - perfect meat puppets - is hatched. The ninth member (ninth letter being I) is given, for the sake of record-keeping, the name Ian Green.
1988. Ian Green's development, considered slow and unsuitable in the strength department, is reconsidered as an incident in the gymnasium ends up giving evidence that he is in fact far ahead of the curve in his soak potential. Reassessment begins.
1990. Ian Green is considered a stage-four specimen, ready for introduction to a controller. Advanced training begins and proceeds apace. The dom partner, R5, seems pleased with the specimen, claiming him as a favorite.
1995. While being transferred from Brazil to Iceland for advanced environment handling, Ian Green unexpectedly exploits his own strength by setting fire to his stateroom without leaving beforehand. When the emergency crew arrives, he takes advantage of the confusion to escape, diving over the side. Recovery is unsuccessful.
1996. Upon learning of his submissive partner's disappearance, the dominant controller goes rogue, presumably to recapture his puppet of choice. Ian Green is in retrospect deep in the Brazilian jungle, travelling north towards Mexico and civilization.
1999. Ian Green is finally found, resurfacing as he departs a rural agricultural community, having endeared himself to local inhabitants. He crosses the border with other illegal immigrants and disappears into New Mexico. A report briefly surfaces of an armed bank robbery being suppressed by a seemingly-invincible stranger.
2001. A string of bank robberies occurs, each after-hours, involving large amounts of explosives with little to no regard for the bank robber's safety. In every case, forensics determine the culprit could not have survived the blast. Cash continues to turn up missing each time.
2003. Reports are confirmed of a mutant vaultcracker, apparently impervious to harm. InGen internally identifies him as Ian Green, following eyewitness reports. Police fail to capture him, their weapons useless; despite this, a low priority is given as no serious harm is ever done to any innocent, bystander or policeman. A superhero briefly attempts a sting operation, but following the police confrontation, Ian Green goes low-profile.
2004. Having researched the situation, Adam approaches InGen and buys out Ian Green's "contract" before approaching Ian directly and offering sanctuary. The dominant controller is still rogue.

INGEN PROJECT REMUS / SUBJECTS / G9 / STATUS

+++FILE CLOSED

[zornwil]

Great thread idea, bblackmoor. I don't do monologues too often but usually a diary or such. But it varies. Here's something from my Photos character for GGU:

2. Memories – Wallace Gold AKA Photos

Wallace opened the unassuming unmarked canvass notebook, the one he’d casually left on the top shelf of the bookcase along with various other personal effects. He briefly thought of how foolish it was to leave there, how his father would certainly – and even correctly, Wallace thought (and then went on to think, “nothing worse than that”) – chide him for such thoughtlessness. But who would even look in his things? Until moments ago, he’d thought surely no one. Since the news of the tragedy, he wasn’t so sure. And so he had picked up the notebook to put it away. To ensure it wouldn’t fall into the “wrong hands” (and he thought of how silly that sounded but that it was true). But as happens so often when one grazes the past, it hurts. A stray paper sticking out of the notebook stuck into Wallace’s flesh, cutting surprisingly deep. A tiny bit of blood came to light – “to light”, the phrase echoed in his head. The blood, the notebook, “to light” – his past in a few words. So he opened the notebook…

The pages were yellow with age. He smiled, despite himself (he hadn’t even intended to open it, let alone admit to even the slightest pleasure in doing so). He became a little annoyed at himself for feeling such foolish sentimentality, particularly because… and then he mentally fell silent, unable to think the next thought except for a jumble of images and events that he still couldn’t properly put together. And then he thought to himself, “That’s the thing, it’s not my life. It’s my father’s, that’s why I don’t get it. I just…did what he wanted. That’s what he doesn’t get. I never ran away from it – I was never in it in the first place.”

Still, Wallace ran through the pages, turning them. The first few pages were silly attempts at fiction writing. He’d wanted to be a writer when he was a little kid, something he’d long since scoffed at. It had no practicality and besides, he thought to himself, it wasn’t anything he was good at, anyway. He wasn’t the creative type, he thought, not like “what’s-her-name” on the team. He almost slapped himself for not remembering her name – he’d even had a crush on her back then! Such a silly kid, he thought.

Then the worst of it happened – that swelling in his chest, those butterflies in his stomach. “Damn this is so…CHILDISH!” he thought. Then he remembered one thing he could never deny, no matter how he tried. “I was a super hero.” He looked around the cramped library of his condo, embarrassed, and then said it aloud, not out of pride but entirely out of wonder. “I was a super hero,” quietly, softly he said it.

And he turned the pages of the notebook.

This was “the” notebook. He never did write about how he felt when he found out he had powers, but this was the notebook he was writing his “notes” (he never called it a journal or diary) in at the time. He saw the entry that reminded him vividly:


October 12, 1967

Bobby took my money again. I don’t care, I know he’s not better than I am. I’m not afraid of him. He’s just a lost soul, he’s more afraid than the other kids, and that’s why he’s a bully.

The thing is, I don’t know what to tell dad about needing more money. He just told me I can’t have anymore. He’ll kill me if he knows I let Bobby take money from me. He doesn’t understand, I don’t want to solve this with fighting. I am a pacifist. I believe in the ways of Mahatma Gandhi.

Wallace grimaced as he read this. Now he knew what a lie it was. He remembered clearly what happened on October 13th. Bobby met him in front of his house, threatening to beat him up right there. You had to say one thing for Bobby, he had incredible nerve. And he knew human nature – nothing whatsoever could have embarrassed Wallace more than being beaten up right in front of his house with the possibility of his mother or father finding out by witnessing it.

He remembered it like yesterday. Bobby echoed something he’d foolishly given up, saying, “Come on ‘Gandhi’, little wussy-boy, come on, let’s see your ‘passive resistance’ in action. Come on!” Then Bobby shoved him to the ground. Wallace remembered the panic he felt. He’d been in fights here and there as a younger kid but by this time thought he’d out-grown fighting, and, besides, those fights had all been “kid stuff”, just messing around. This time someone was really going to beat him up. And the truth was that he was afraid, no matter what he’d written in his notebook.

“’Panic’, yes, that’s the word,” Wallace thought. He didn’t cry though. He remained in control of his emotions externally even though he really thought something was going wrong inside as he became dizzy. Still, he stood up, turned to Bobby, and calmly said, “We have to do this somewhere else.”

It was Bobby’s laugh that set it off. That laugh, he just stood there, laughing at Wallace. Wallace couldn’t even remember what Bobby exactly said. It didn’t matter, he was being made fun of right there in front of his house even as he tried to reason through the situation. Wallace remembers his thoughts at that moment, ugly thoughts, condemning Bobby as a “beast” and wishing horrible things on him. He lifted his hand, shaking his fist at Bobby. It would have been ineffectual but somehow something happened, and all his childhood embarrassment and rage focused through that fist, and then it happened…

A bright flash of light shot out from his fist, striking Bobby in the face and knocking him over. It happened so fast – especially the next part, as his father, just pulling up into the driveway, screeched to a halt and jumped so fast out of the car Wallace swore his father was flying. Actually, he was, as Wallace would later find out. Horatio Gold, Wallace’s father, self-made millionaire and toast of the town, was a superhero. A mutant, even. And so was Wallace.

Horatio sent Wallace to his room brusquely, where Wallace fled to uncertainly and sat awaiting what surely must be punishment, he thought at the time. The father made sure Bobby was okay and sent him home. Bobby was so dazed he apparently never knew what hit him. And when his father came into the house Wallace learned the whole truth. His father was Captain Photon, the shining (literally) hero of Chicago.

The pages turned…


November 24, 1967

This is so weird. I met “Teen Angel” and the other three kids. I’m the youngest; dad says I’ll be the toughest, though. I wish he wouldn’t say things like that. And I wish we didn’t have to lie to mom, but I understand. Still, I wished he hadn’t brought me in like that and introduced me as “Private Photon.” I feel like a creep.

Anyway, she’s…something else! She’s pretty. She’s smart. She’s I don’t know. I don’t even know what to think.

It’s cool – the kids actually have their own meetings without any adults around. Dad let me join in and they talked about actually going out and fighting crime. The other kids all have started or been working with others. Kid Shadow got them together. He’s pretty cool. I think Teen Angel likes him. They probably like each other.

Wallace sometimes wondered why he didn’t write down more of what he felt. He knew what he felt then – mild jealousy. Nothing serious, just a symptom of puppy love. But he really did like Teen Angel from when he first met her. Then again, most kids did. She was just that sweet, let alone anything else. Wallace now remembered why he couldn’t remember her name at first – to him and all the others Teen Angel was more her real name than any other. Now…she was really an angel. Despite himself, Wallace started to tear up. He choked back a lump in his throat. He wanted to put the book back down. He wished he’d never answered the phone. He thought to himself, “DAMNIT THIS IS NOT MY LIFE ANYMORE!” Then he corrected himself, “It never was, really.”

Yet the page turned still…


January 25th, 1968

We NAILED those gangsters! NAILED THEM! And we saved that woman. She was so happy, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone that grateful.

We did it as a team – there was a whole bunch of them, at least 30 in that gang. I guess some of us were scared. I wasn’t, but Kid Shadow sure knew what to do. He gave a speech beforehand, like he was a coach or something. Kinda wordy, kinda went on and on, but I have to admit he did get everyone going. I guess it rubbed off on me.

I didn’t think I’d even be able to move. After those “light drills” today that dad had me doing I was so sore I could barely move. I know it’s not a game or anything, but dad takes it too seriously. I talked to Kid Shadow; he says his dad doesn’t even care about what he does. Maybe that’s why he’s so cool. But then he told me that he’s pretty lonely actually. I would never have guessed.

Anyway, it was pretty cool when dad dropped me off to go out with the Sidekicks. I wish I could hit as hard as Kid Shadow or move as fast as Teen Angel. I’m sure I will, though, I’m still learning, like dad says.

I wish I had more time to write, I have to finish this paper now.

Wallace thought, “Was I really that naïve?” And then he came across another entry and his eyes froze, locked into the writing…


August 20th, 1969

Today was not good.

Fire Child joined us, like the plan. We went after that bank robber, Big Money, the one that got away from dad a few weeks ago. We were all set to nail him – Kid Shadow was all excited for me. I guess I should have acted more excited, but I just don’t like to act like a kid.

Anyway, Fire Child was with us. And we all managed to get set in the right places, we knew just where Big Money was hiding. Kid Shadow was about to give the signal, and I was about to lead the assault.

I don’t know what happened. He said he gave the signal, but I didn’t see it. Then Fire Child burst into action – he was all in flames and stuff. He grabbed Big Money, the other kids fighting off the bank robbers. I cast a blinding light on some of the mobsters and they stopped. But that was about it.

In seconds Fire Child brought Big Money out and the police were already there. He handed Big Money over. I was inside. I just went home, I snuck off.

Then Teen Angel called me and yelled at me, saying how mad they were and scared they were that I was hurt or something happened to me. They’re so stupid, where could I have been? I just left. What was I going to hang around for? Fire Child can do it all anyway.

I don’t even really like those guys much anyway. They’re okay, I mean, but they’re all stupid kids, acting like superheroes. I have more important things to do. I am going to be a scientist. I am going to be an expert in photosynthesis.

PS – early AM August 21st, 1969

My father saw the news. He was all mad that Fire Child picked up “his” bad guy. Then he asked why I wasn’t in the picture with the other kids and where was I. I just told him I had to go home early. I hate my life.

Well I would anyway. But I guess that’s stupid. Kid Shadow came up to my window tonight to talk. I was in no mood but he wouldn’t go away. I tried to blind him but then we got into a tussle, nothing serious, but then we had to be quiet when dad yelled, I told him I was practicing. He was pretty surprised so he shut up! I’ll have to remember that one!

Anyway, Kid Shadow talked to me about things. I didn’t think about how he feels and how the other guys feel. I know they’re my friends. I know Fire Child was just new to the team and didn’t give me an extra second to go.

I still think Fire Child’s a jerk, though.

Wallace grinned. He rarely wrote anything with that much emotion, before or since. Then he flipped, without thinking, through the pages. They stopped cold where he had embedded a picture of Teen Angel, autographed. Next to it was the news story, preserved in Mylar, and the diary entry from that fateful day in 1972:


December 14th, 1972

It’s all my fault.

We were helping out the older heroes in a tough battle with those ghoulish grave robbers and they’re “who knows what they’re up to” plot-of-the-week. (I swear, sometimes this is goofier than those 1930s comic books).

I set off a bright light to blind them, the usual trick, then recede into the shadows and go all light myself so I can sneak up and pick off the real losers. Ho-hum…but it’s what I do well.

Well it’s what I DID well.

It went haywire – I couldn’t control it. I’m just too – I’m not a fighter. I’m a thinker. I was thinking of an equation regarding a nuclear reaction, and then it just went haywire –

My blast went off but it didn’t focus, the particles hit everyone in their eyes, almost everyone anyway. Teen Angel got it, so did that greasy kid with the lisp. They, those “ghouls”, they also mostly got hit, but a few weren’t.

One of them pasted Teen Angel. She laid there for a while. I couldn’t even get over to her. I tried to pick her up but my hands – it’s like they weren’t working, I don’t know what happened. I tried but ….

I’m just going to get out of this soon. I have to go to college anyway.

The thing is – the thing is she laid there and one of those things jumped in front of me and clawed her – she bled, she bled, blood spurted up. It went right next to me. Then everything got – I don’t know, fast. I was back in action and then I realized the blood was on me. All over me. I grabbed her and…

I ran.

I ran fast. Far away. I woke her up. She was actually okay. She was mad I took her from the battle. She said she wasn’t some weakling.

A weakling like me is what she meant, I guess, whether she knew it or not.

That hurt. He remembered that night. But what he remembered most, what he didn’t write – and he wondered why not – was how afraid he was of her wound and that he was afraid of his own mortality. If he hadn’t been so afraid – then or now…

He looked at her picture. He remembered her lying there in his arms, bleeding while he felt helpless. And he thought of what her final moments may have been like.

Then the sobbing began and he could not stop it. It didn’t end until nothing was left.

And then he knew what he had to do. He didn’t care it was 2 AM. He didn’t care at all. He picked up the phone – he had to call an old friend. One of those left alive anyway…

[st barbara]

I can't think of any "monologues"that "St Barbara"has done. I do however remember one short conversation that took place between her and a bunch of theives at a university. It went a bit like this "St B"was in civvies helping a professor to prepare exams (she was doing the copies of the papers) when she was distracted by someone faking an accident. While she was distracted someone grabbed the papers and ran off around the side of the building. Seing this "St Barbara"took off (on her usual rooster tail of multi coloured flame) OVER the top of the building and coasted lightly to earth directly in front of the miscreants holding out her hand and saying "May I have those back please ?" Not being used to flying girls (and having just had an anime style "gratuitous panty shot")the theives obliged and "St Barbara"was able to go back to what she was doing. I guess that isn't a monologue, but it was a funny incident.

[bblackmoor]

This is not really a monologue, but I suppose it still fits. If not, please accept my apologies.

Willowind's Story

Mr. Ishida Akira was a Japanese gardener living in pre-WW2 Japan.
Seeing that Japan was gearing up for war, he packed up his meager
belongings and moved to the United States. Among his belongings were
several seeds of ancient Chinese ornamental river grass. When he
arrived in the USA, he planted these seeds on the banks of the great
lake beside which he made his home.

As the years went by, he tended his garden faithfully. One day he
found a young girl playing in his garden. This was Willowind, a
spirit of the grass. He taught her of her Chinese heritage and
raised her like his own daughter (other than the fact she lived on
the bank among the river grass). He named her Willowind, for the
sound the grass made in the afternoon breeze. He also gave her a
human name she could use when walking among mortal people -- Ishida
Yukio (a Japanese name).

Willowind had another companion as she grew up: the great lake
dragon, Hu-warang Loong. He visited her occassionally, and when she
was older he taught her dragon-style kung-fu, which he had taught to
the warrior-priests of China many years before.

Eventually Mr. Ishida died, and Willowind became lonely. Her dragon
friend gave her some of his scales to protect her, and she headed
out into the world.

Mr. Ishida's Story

Ishida Akira was a Japanese soldier working in China in the years
before World War 2. His job was to guard the scientists who were
experimenting on the Chinese peasants in their attempts to create
the perfect warrior. He did his duty faithfully until the day he saw
them bring in the child. It was too much for him to bear to think of
the gruesome experiments that would be performed on this little
baby, so that night he stole her away and headed for Hong Kong.
There he was able to book passage to the United States, where he
worked as a gardener to support himself and the little girl he named
Yukio.

Years passed, and Yukio did not seem to grow any older. He had not
rescued her soon enough; the Japanese scientists had done something
to her that kept her from growing up. Mr. Ishida had been in the USA
for years, and still she was a baby.

Eventually, Yukio did begin to grow older, although very slowly.
Immediately, Mr. Ishida could see that she was no ordinary child,
"talking" to the plants in his garden and disappearing for hours
among the river grass. Mr. Ishida decided that it would be kinder to
let her think she was a child of nature rather than the freakish
result of a scientific experiment, and so he never told her the
truth of how he had brought her here to the USA. He tried to teach
her what he knew of Chinese mythology, as well as the philosophy he
followed as a man and a soldier. He indulged her belief in the great
dragon in the lake, assuming she would one day grow out of such
stories.

Eventually, he died of old age, and Yukio made her way into the
world.

The Real Story

Willowind may actually be a spirit of the river grass. The
scientists in China had found her with the aid of a malicious
sorceror in the peasant village near the Japanese laboratory. They
had yet to experiment on her when Ishida Akira rescued her and took
her to the United States.

Hu-warang Loong really is an ancient Chinese dragon. He never
revealed himself to Mr. Ishida, preferring to remain invisible when
the human was nearby. His natural form is serpentine, some ten
meters long, with smooth black fur and scintillating silver scales.
He can also take the form of a human being, usually that of an old
Chinese man. He may have other powers, as well. He has always been
kind to Willowind, but he has not always been available -- sometimes
years pass between his visits.

Although Willowind was probably born in China, and considers herself
Chinese, her facial features are Japanese (actually, she bears a
striking resemblance to Mr. Ishida). Most Americans won't be able to
tell, but some Asians might. As she spends more time among
Caucasians, she will gradually become more Caucasian in appearance.
It would take many years for this change to be complete, and she
will probably always retain a somewhat exotic appearance.

[SKJAM!]

Talion

I have a recurring dream. Have had, for years. In the dream I'm on stage. It's a huge auditorium, filled with people. I can't see their faces, because I'm in the spotlight.

I bow, and the people call my name. They call my name, and I can hear the love in their voices. The auditorium shakes with the echoes.

At last I am recognized for who I truly am, and my heart soars.

Then I wake, and am a monster.

Today, I will wade ankle-deep in blood, much of it my own. There will be a few more evil men dead tonight, of an inexhaustible supply. I kill and kill and kill again. I look like a nobody, but I am a monster.

Pray for me, the monster in human form.

And pray for the dead, whom I envy.

[OddHat]

Style

My father was a Mystery Man. From 1936 until 1939 he traveled the world in the service of his country, helping to fight a shadow war nearly as terrible as the war to come. It was in 1939 that he first put on the Crown. My father was almost a god.

My father was a Hero. He fought dragons, and maniacs. In WWII they called him Doc Emerald, they dressed him in fatigues without insignia, and the whispering of the crown meant nothing when matched against the roars of the beasts he faced. They tell me he destroyed battalions, the crown shining.

My father was a Family Man. My mother was called something ridiculous by the press, and something I cannot pronounce in her native tongue. He called her Helen, and gave her his name. He wore a green suit and the crown. She wore an evening gown and a domino mask. They fought dragons, and maniacs. He began to listen to the whispers.

My father was a Dragon. In Korea he again wore the fatigues without insignia. The crown whispered, and the sound cut through the screams. He was a dragon, and they tell me he was glorious. In Vietnam, the dragon-slayers came.

I am a Mystery Man. The gifts of the crown passed through my father’s blood to me. The secrets of my mother’s people shaped my art. I wear a fedora and a domino mask, and I fight dragons and maniacs. I shall never be a dragon; I don’t hear the whispers. I am free.

The Dragon is coming for me, and I cannot stop it.

[OddHat]

As always SK, very interesting. Tallion sounds like he must be a blast to play.


Talion

I have a recurring dream. Have had, for years. In the dream I'm on stage. It's a huge auditorium, filled with people. I can't see their faces, because I'm in the spotlight.

I bow, and the people call my name. They call my name, and I can hear the love in their voices. The auditorium shakes with the echoes.

At last I am recognized for who I truly am, and my heart soars.

Then I wake, and am a monster.

Today, I will wade ankle-deep in blood, much of it my own. There will be a few more evil men dead tonight, of an inexhaustible supply. I kill and kill and kill again. I look like a nobody, but I am a monster.

Pray for me, the monster in human form.

And pray for the dead, whom I envy.

[Zed-F]

Here's an actual soliloquy from a game on HC. It's not addressed to the reader, though, but to the other characters in the game about recent in-game events. Still, it should tell you something about the character. This is for a heroic fantasy game. The character's name is Tatyana, who is a low-powered witch with a troubled past and an unusual biology. I broke the HC post size limit with this soliloquy. :)

---------------------

A couple minutes later, Rhys and Tatyana arrive at the camp. Tatyana is filthy, covered with soot and ash, her dress charred and ripped along one side. Her face is a mask of exhaustion and hopelessness, and she's obviously freezing. She refuses to look directly at Taurin.

"Tatyana, are you okay?" Ania asks while still sitting next to Taurin. Telmirin stands to one side, watching.

Tatyana answers, still looking at the ground. "No," she says faintly.

Silence reigns through the camp for several moments as all wait for the girl to expand on her answer. In time, she does. "Taurin and I were practicing at the edge of camp. He was constantly getting the better of me, trying to goad me into rash anger. I'm no warrior, but even I know that letting your anger get the best of you in a fight is foolish. I expected him to be a better fighter than I; after all, he has trained for it, and I have not. In time, I began to tire. Once I was too tired to continue fighting, I expected that Taurin would call a stop to the practice. But he did not. Instead, he renewed his assault, and moreover, began grabbing at my skirt, trying to tear it off of me.

"This was not the Taurin I knew. This was not the Taurin I trusted. The Taurin I knew would never try to take advantage of me while I was exhausted, like some kind of animal. At first, I didn't know what to think -- no, I couldn't think. I bolted, like a rabbit. Taurin gave chase. I felt fear rising up, threatening to overpower me, and still I ran. We ran for a long ways, to the rim of the treeline to the east, I in the lead, Taurin following; neither of us could outdistance the other. Then, while I was looking back to see if he yet followed me, I tripped over a tree limb and fell into the mud. Taurin soon caught up, and squatted before me like a conquering warlord intent on taking the spoils of war as I lay there in the mud, struggling to rise. Making his intentions clear, he pushed my dress off my shoulder..."

Tatyana, still looking at the ground, pauses, closing her eyes, her hands balled into fists at her side. She struggles for several moments to contain her emotions, before she continues. "I can never remember clearly what happens afterward. Three times, it has happened, and it has been the same each time: for some few minutes, the memories are clear, but within the space of no more than an hour, they grow blurry and indistinct. I know not what causes it; perhaps my mind simply recoils from what I have done, and protects itself by refusing to hold the memories of it clearly. But, I do retain elements of what happened -- enough to capture the essence. You see, this is not the first time that someone has tried to force me in this manner. The last time it happened, I killed four men. This time, as then, my fear at last overcame my conscious mind, and I strove once more to escape, with renewed vigor. I picked up the tree branch that I had tripped over and smote Taurin with it. I cannot fathom how I could do so; it was large, almost a log in size, and I'm sure if it were here now I could hardly move it, let alone lift it. The blows I struck were terrible, crushing blows that would have felled any mortal man -- but Taurin had one more surprise for me.

"As I laid into Taurin with a killing blow, suddenly a burst of fire erupted from him, incinerating the branch I held, charring my dress and covering us both with soot. He grabbed a practice sword and struck, and where he struck, I felt pain of a type I had never felt before -- a ripping surge inside my body that went far beyond any blow a simple wooden sword could conceivably produce. I cannot say what I was thinking at that point, if indeed I was thinking at all. I only know what happened next. I picked up a large rock and heaved it at him, and in order to evade it Taurin dove aside and rolled down a hill. At that point, I turned and once again began to run. This time, he did not pursue."

After another pause to collect herself and draw a long breath, Tatyana goes on. "How long I ran, I am not sure, but eventually my mind began to return to me. I came to realize that the reason Taurin had attacked me after our sparring at the camp had exhausted me, the reason he had pursued me so doggedly, the reason he had been able to withstand those blows, the reason he had been able to generate such a wash of fire as to incinerate my makeshift weapon, and the reason his own weapon had had such an abnormal effect on me, were one and the same: this was not the real Taurin.

"Rhys has told me that Taurin has claimed to have pretended to be the demon in order to frighten me. It is true that at one point, when Taurin was himself, he held a demon locked within; I saw it while we were meditating. I warned him then not to pursue that demon, for it was terrifying to behold even while chained. I now know there came to be a point when he chose to disregard that warning, and loosed the demon. It is the demon that now possesses Taurin's body which is capable of what Taurin did during our battle. Yet you might wonder, if my memory is less than crystal clear, how can I be so sure. Indeed, if my memory of the battle were the sole indicator of the demon's true nature, I might be tempted to dismiss the physical evidence myself as some strange coincidence," she remarks, indicating the state of her dress. "But that is not the only evidence I have beheld. I have had independent confirmation that Taurin is no longer in posession of his own body, and of what now resides in it.

"After running from Taurin for the second time, I had come to a place among the rocks and trees where I rested to recover my wits and wrestle my fear back to its place. It was at this time that a spirit came to me, but not one such as I normally call to. This was not a spirit of nature, but the spirit of a once-living person, the ghost of a woman who had once loved Taurin and who had participated in the binding of the demon to him." Tatyana pauses once more to wrestle with her emotions, before continuing in a bitter tone. "She named the demon who posesses Taurin's body, calling it Legion, and blamed me for its release. She claimed that my magic had somehow weakened the cords that bound it tight, deep under the surface of Taurin's soul, and she claimed that it was my flight from the grey creatures in the labyrinth that drove Taurin to such lengths as to release the demon. She held me responsible for Legion's presence in this world, and revealed his motive in retaining Taurin's body; it seeks the Ire Blade, for with that power at its command, nothing could stand against it. She even predicted that I would come back here and tell my story, and that I would not be believed." Tatyana chuckles briefly, darkly, bitterly. "She was right."

"But she also gave me a charge to undo the damage I have caused. She told me that she held me responsible for binding the demon anew, as I was the one that had so carelessly loosened the binding they had placed on it. I told her that I had no way of knowing that my magic would loosen those cords, and that Taurin and everyone else would likely have died back in the swamp had I not used my magic as I did. I told her that Taurin was the one who had made the choice to call upon the demon, and that I had warned him against it. I told her that I had no knowledge of how to fight such a demon; where the initial binding had required great power and skill from many sorceresses, how could I, alone, with none of their lore, hope to succeed? She would have none of it, but stubbornly stuck to her charge. And, after all, who am I to argue? It seems that everything I have done has been cursed, fraught with unforeseen consequences, and doomed to bring ruin in the end. And so, here I am, when I would rather be ten thousand miles away from what Taurin has become."

Tatyana finally looks up at Taurin, her face a mask of despair. "Legion, I have been charged with this, and so I shall make the attempt, though I fully expect that you will kill me for it. But I am not a warrior; I do not know how to fight one such as you. I am merely what I am, and that is a summoner, a bringer of power. And so, I shall summon the only one that I can think of who has a hope of being able to drive you out, and I shall bring him the power to do so."

With that, Tatyana begins to chant in a low, cracked voice, calling power from nature to infuse Taurin's body.

[bblackmoor]

That's pretty good: like something from a novel. With work, it could be something from a pretty good novel.

I do not mean that as an insult: it'd be less appropriate for a game if you did that, so of course you should not do it in a game. What is approipriate for a work of fiction is often at odds with what is appropriate for a game. Still, from what you've written here, I think it might be worth reading if you re-worked it as a straight piece of fiction.

[BcAugust]

I wish I could believe in gods.

I wish that there was a reason I was here. A reason that I've had to watch so many horrors and deaths and applaud those who did them. A reason I am bound to a people whose name is a synonym for corruption throughout the galaxy.

If only my people were as they used to be. If only I had been born in another time, to a different fate. If only I wasn't someone who had to stay, someone with no responsibilities beyond herself.

But I know, the world is what is. And in this world, I am the Princess of a people that I can never show shame of, or a moment's weakness to. There is no Gods, no Fate, no good, no evil, just the choices of people and a mechanical universe. That might makes right, and that there's nothing I can do to stop most of it, in a galaxy most think I'm one of the most powerful in. And all I have is a duty that binds them too me stronger then the tightest chains.

But, by the uncaring stars, I wish it was different.

[Reaverofpeace]

Warmaster Fielan al Hakra


Once I would wake and not have a worry in the world, I knew my father would be there for me, and my mother would sing me a tale to cheer me up. Once I was part of a family in the millions, one in which I shared my being day in and day out. Once I was a leader of armies and the men would be glad to serve under me, I craved the recognition that came from it. Once I served a living goddess who ruled with a just and powerful hand. Once I used my talents to maintain her rule. Then the darkness comes.

Through the darkness I move, ever onwards to the light ahead, fleeing with the speed of an assassin. I stumble and land on the beach of a sea, with a storm brewing in the distance. To my sides I see breakers to try and stop the storm from laying waste to what’s ahead of me, but they do not seem strong enough. With a burst of light I fall through the sand and into a field of grass. Then the day is now.

Now I am alone in a sea of minds, none of which can see. Now I have been dishonored and can never hope to greet my brothers and sisters. Now I devolve secrets that were trusted to me. Now I must sit and hope that a land that knows no discipline can save itself. Now I see beings that would have been stopped run rampant, resisted only by a few brave individuals. Now I see my shattered honor be broken further by a betrayal that I had no part of. Then I wake.

Soon I shall bring the way to the minds of those willing. Soon I shall find my brothers and sisters in the brave of a world that is not ruled. Soon I shall cast aside old regrets and be what I was intended to be from the beginning. Soon I shall find what the path truly teaches. Soon I shall lend my aid and my voice to repel a twisted goddess and my enslaved family. Soon I shall join those few who protect the innocents. Soon I shall no longer be a bringer of death. Then the light shines through.

I am a man of many years, I have served my honor as was required. This day I find that even though my mind is alone I can find companions that would make the great teacher herself proud to fight besides. I am a warmaster without a brotherhood so I will forge a new one, made of those willing to adopt the path and willing to walk a road of growth. For through this conflict and loss I have found what I was missing.

[BcAugust]

(Note, the first monologue was Cyrande at the start of the game. This one is set somewhere in the future, shortly after she's become a full fledged member of the Sentinels.)

I wonder if I envy them. Starguard for her bright innocence, Micro's joy in discovering life, Horus's assurance in a higher power, Warmaster's assurance in himself, even Warp's humor, never meant to hurt. Sitting alone, watching the stars above, so different from Malva, I wonder what I feel. It seemed so clear on Malva, though poisonously so. What harm could these primitives ever do to a Princess of Malva? I never expected them to claim my heart.

None of them know what a lethal wound that is, and I can not bear to tell them. How could I? A slight hint of my world turned Warp against me for too painfully long, and more would turn the rest away, surely. And the wildness of their spirits could never bloom under Malva's sun. Every one of my old protections would simply turn them against me. So I, who can order the destruction of all their enemies with a word from home, who could raise this world to a paradise if I wished, who from home could hold and order even the Sun God to my bed, do nothing but stand beside them.

Cyrande looks up, seeking her home star, seeing it in her mind's eye.

How my father would laugh at me, seeing this weakness of mine. How far the Ice Princess has fallen, to wish the respect of primitives. To want to be part of their circle, to be adored for my actions, to wish the ones I admire, admire me back for just being Cyrande, not the princess. And yet, they do so anyway, not even knowing what they give and how preciously rare it is.

Cyrande hops down from the skin of her ship, walking back to the hanger, then looking again to the night sky over her shoulder before stepping inside.

I hope they never have to learn.

[BcAugust]

3 pm. It still, after all this time, feels bizzare to wake up in the middle of the day. And yet, it's right. I get up, amused, walking in what would be total darkness for anyone else but me and getting dressed, fighting down the urge to be Nox again. I suppose that's why I've never fixed the lights in here, so that no one else sees how close together my identies really are. How little being "Sherry" means to me. The only pictures are after Nox came. The team, and clippings of news stories about Nox's heroics. Even the clothes are different, and it strikes me again how little there was to keep from my old life.

By the sudden glare outside my room, I notice Diomedes finally got around to fixing the light in the hallway. It can't be more then 20 watts, but it feels so much brighter. The shadows I insist that he leave are inviting, but I force myself to walk in the light. The memories are strong tonight, and I know if I shadow walk, I'll hear them again. Though I never hear what I want in them. On days like this, when wanting to be Nox is just below my skin, willing to shy from the light, I wonder. What exactly did I agree to?

I turn the lights in the kitchen all the way up, noting with amusement the guys have again emptied out the fridge. I throw some of the cinnimon rolls in to bake, loving the feeling of being home, as I start preparing food for the rest. Though I note we'll stretch the budget again this week. Oh, well, at least it's starting to look like a base.

Mmm.... I know I shouldn't eat so much, or so much sugar, but I enjoy the baking. I put the roast in, and groan aloud at the sound of the phone, amused at myself. "Yes, yes. No, only me. Ok, I'll be there ASAP."

It takes only a few seconds to change, becoming Nox and ready to leave. The calming feeling, of hearing the darkness again, letting it respond to me, I pause just a moment to salute the only thing in the base I insist on being bright lit, the first thing we put up. Then I'm off, hoping the previous heros of Chicago know we're looking after the city.

[OddHat]

Under the Hat

I sit alone in the rain and the darkness. I am cold, and I am angry. I have a duck on my head.

I hold onto the anger. The anger keeps me warm, feeds my tired muscles, gives me strength. I lean forward, my cloak failing to flow dramatically behind me. It’s too wet for that. I stifle a sneeze as the thugs make the exchange.

There’s at least twenty million worth of pure heroin in that case. I have them. I charge, my feet splashing through dirty water, my arm snapping forward and flinging a sleep gas pellet into the back of the van. If it didn’t take the punks in the van out, it would at least slow them down. The four outside of the van begin to turn. I snarl, savoring the shock on their faces. That shock gives me the time I need.

A spin-kick sweep takes two of them down. The others begin to bring their weapons up. I look at their faces. No fear. They are starting to grin.

“Ha ha! It’s Captain Duck Hat!” “Hey guys, help! It’s Night Duck!”

The rage is so great I shake now. My vision blurs. A spinning knife hand smashes the big one’s collar bone as I bring my knee up into his side. The other one is still laughing at me as he pumps shots into my body armor. There’ll be bruises in the morning, but right now I don’t even feel the impacts.

I grab his gun-arm and throw him into my knee, crushing his rib cage. The four in the van are starting to shake off the gas now, but it left them groggy. One of them looks out and sees me, standing over his buddies, a flash of lighting outlining me against the darkness. He starts to giggle.

“Hey! It’s the Duck Knight Avenger!”

Screaming, the pain of the gun-shots forgotten, I charge. The four in the van last only a few seconds.

As the cops cart the punks off I can see them struggling to hide their grins. They’re grateful, but still, their eyes keep drifting up. As I begin to head away from the docks I hear one ask The Question.

“Why does he have that duck on his head?”

I wish I could tell them.

[Chuckg]

You are so getting my therapy bills!

*falls back down on the floor in convulsions of laughter*

[JeffreyWKramer]

Very, very, very good, OddHat! My hat (non-ducky) is off to you.

[jackalope]

Ben Batcock aka Arcturus, Master of Magnetism

Here, a thousand meters above the city, Ben felt content. Here he was alone with his thoughts, his only company the ever present song of the skyscrapers, each bearing a million tons of steel that called out to him.

"Love us!" they called out, "Give us life! Make us dance!" Ben wanted to, he wanted to reach out with his mind and twist the skyscrapers into new and interesting forms. But he banished the thought. Those buildings were full of people, he could feel them as well. Scurrying about, like so many bags filled with iron-rich blood.

It was an intense feeling, knowing that you could simply will any of them to death, simply tear them to pieces while they screamed helplessly. "What could they do to you?" he thought. "Come at you with their weapons, weapons forged from iron and steel?"

Ben knew that they, his people, his charges, couldn't harm him. Their power rested in their mastery of steel and iron, their ability to shape it to their needs. That was Ben's power as well. His power, compared to their power, it made him smile. Their power was nothing, they could forge all the tools they could ever wanted, and he could unmake them with a thought. Let them bring their guns and bombs, Ben had dealt with all - and worse.

As he lowered himself into the city, people on the street began to notice him. He floated above their heads, and they pointed up to him. A father held his child up to see. "Yes child," thought Ben, "Look up to the Gods who protect you."

He was over Times Square now, and everyone was watching him. None of them dared to call out to him, they were awed by his presence. There were a thousand men who could fly, but to them, those who couldn't, it would always seem a miracle to see.

Wait, there in the crowd, a man not looking at him, unaware of the focus of the crowd's attention. His mind was on something else entirely. Ben reached out with his mind, already prepared to act. A truck was parked below him, it's bed full of tools. A hefty wrench would suit Ben's needs, and he reached out with his mind, touched it, gave it life. It rose from the bed of the truck, hovered over the crowd. Few noticed it, least of all Ben's quarry.

He moved, that man who had paid no mind to Ben. A fast hand grabbed a loose purse, and fleet feet moved him away. "Pursesnatchers," Ben thought, "pathetic. Barely qualifies as a criminal."

The man was running, but there was no point. He couldn't run fast enough, as Ben pushed the wrench flying his way. It slammed into the pursesnatcher, catching him square in the middle of the back. He hit the ground hard. A stainless steel zipper on the bad was all ben needed to pull it from his hands. He brought the purse to himself as he lowered himself to the street next to the near victim.

"Ma'am, I believe this yours." The thief was staggering to his feet. He leaned against a steel pole for balance, and Ben grabbed it with his mind. "Dance little pole, find your partner," he thought, as steel twisted with a groan, wrapping tight around the would-be thief.

Ben gave the woman a half-hearted smile as she heaped praise and adulation on him. Strange he thought, that after only a few years, the sound of praise had grown so...banal. It meant nothing to him anymore. "Yes, yes, you're welcome, of course." he said.

Suddenly the crowd was gathering around him, passing him things to autograph, telling him how wonderful they thought he was. It began to irritate him, to grate on his nerves. The fawning, worshipful masses. Sometimes he almost hated them for their weakness.

"I'm sorry good citizens, but I must depart. Crime never rests anywhere in this fair city, and I must return to my patrol. Fare well to you all, and remember: crime does not pay."

He lifted up into the sky again, waved goodbye to the crowd, and left them behind. It was good to be a god, to be worshiped and adored by those under your care. But somedays, somedays it was simply wearying...

[Chuckg]

Fair warning, this one's LONG. The character in question does tend to ramble on and on and on... she's 16. :)

The following is for a 350-point teen supers character I've created, but never played. OTOH, I like to map out a personality fairly deeply before I play it, so...

Sprite



Dear Diary. It's that time of the week again, so... ladies, start your monologueing!

Now comes the part where I recap my entire life history for you -- not! It's not like I don't already know it, right? If you're not me and reading this, put the book down. If you're the sort of creep who ignores common courtesy like this, and you absolutely have to know the details of my pre-getting-powers career, hit the website of USA Gymnastics and look under "Spencer, Katherine".

Yup, that's me, Katie Spencer, the little darling of the last Summer Olympics... and the genetically-ineligible-to-compete in the upcoming one. Well, you can't let people with superpowers in the games, right? Especially not when their event is ladies' gymnastics... and their superpower is super-agility. Well, actually, it's having the synapses in your nervous system mutate and start working at a speed of transmission more appropriate to an organic superconductor than normal human nerves, or at least that's what Dr. Silverback said when they handed him the test results. Nice guy... and no, not "... for a talking gorilla", just, nice guy. Old, though.

At any rate, ever since I manifested my powers, my already-incredible agility, balance, and reflexes have moved up into the truly ridiculous range. Those moves you saw in the Matrix? This girl don't need CGI. Yup, even the bullet time... which freaked me out the first time it happened, let me tell you. Add in my sense of balance, which was always great, going up to where it feels like I've got gyroscopes in both inner ears, and a hand-eye coordination so good I can almost write like a laser printer, and, well, pretty nice stuff, huh?

Bleh.

Yes, "bleh". By now, you're probably going 'Man, what kind of spoiled brat is this girl? She's young, she's gorgeous, she's rich, she's got perfect teeth, her body-fat percentage is lower than her shoe size but she's still in perfect health, she's got ligaments you could use to anchor aircraft carriers with, everybody likes her, and she has superpowers that make her the absolute best in the world at what she likes to do. What's she got to gripe about? If she wants to have problems, she could come live my life for a while!'

... oh, come on, it's not like I can't hear you all thinking it. And no, I'm not a telepath. I'm just in high school. Like that isn't enough.

Let's take a look at the above statement, all right? "She has superpowers that make her the absolute best in the world at what she likes to do." Well, that's Problem Numero Uno. They make the best in the world at it, not me make me the best in the world at it. Four to five hours of practice a day, every day for eight years, starting at age six... have you ever done anything like that, Miss Kibitzer? Have you even imagined doing anything like that? Could you even try to do that without having a nervous breakdown, or having to stop and quit before you have one? And don't shake your head at me, girl -- some girls do. More than a few, actually. They don't hand out those medals just for looking pretty, let me tell you.

So, to recap -- half my life practicing to get so good... very good, actually. Good enough to make the Olympic team at age 13, even if I was the anchor girl. Good enough to not screw up my end of the business, even if I only got a silver medal in one of the individuals. Good enough to not choke any routines, not bust out, not score so low that I kept the team from making a team gold. Yeah, that good. Maybe not the best in the world, not the individual champion, but good enough to be in the top team. Good enough to do my part of it. That good. That was me.

And then... one second of my DNA combining in my mom's womb, fifteen-year waiting period, boom... and I'm a million times better than "that good". I'm so good I can clear out a gym just by doing my easier warm-up routine, 'cause I make everybody else there feel like there's no point in even trying. I'm so good that I could play dodge ball against Randy Johnson's fastball in my sleep. But is it me? Nope. It's just my mutation. And it could have happened to anyone.

You want sucking? Here's sucking. Sucking is knowing that you could've spent the vast majority of your life up until now parking your hips on the couch with a quart of Haagen-Daaz and a Playstation, and you'd still be the most agile girl in the world by the time you were sixteen. Yay me!

Speaking of Playstation, do you have any idea how boring Super Mario is when you've got my reaction time? And it used to be my favorite game! I mean, come on!

'But wait!', you might ask. 'Sure, gymnastics competition is no longer meaningful for you -- besides, you're not eligible to compete anyway -- but doesn't getting superpowers mean that an entire new vista of challenges opens up for you? More opportunities to push your envelope, to prove that you're the best, to feel the adrenaline rush?'

And whoa, boy, does it ever! Just one slight problem. Most of that "new vista of challenges" involves people trying to KILL ME. And I don't know about you, but for me, the whole 'one wrong move and you might die' part ruins the fun, you know? Effort is one thing. Risk is one thing. Even being terrified that you're going to slip off the balance beam live on worldwide TV, tank the team's chances for a gold medal, and go down in history forever as 'The Choker', right next to all the other footnotes... well, actually, at the time, I thought I could never know anything half as terrifying as that. We're talking mouth-dry, herd-of-stampeding-buffalo-in-stomach, thank-God-I-went-just-before-my-routine-or-else-I'd-be-wetting-my-leotard scary, all right?

Then I grew up to have people trying to shoot me in the face. Next to that? I'll take going into the Olympic finals balance beam with the team 0.5 behind the Romanians and needing me to make up the gap single-handed, thank you! It'll be a breeze!. And even Bela Karolyi wouldn't shoot a student just for putting a foot wrong during a floor exercise... well, not from what I've heard, at any rate. Didn't have him. But anyway.

So sorry, not enjoying the rush anymore. The taste is kinda ruined by that coppery feeling at the back of my mouth. You know, the one that's Mother Nature's body-signal for "In case you weren't keeping up with current events, you are scared spitless."

Still skeptical, huh? Not thinking that Katie could ever be mature enough to actually see the dangers inherent in her situation? There's just no way that a prom-queen-in-training like her could have perspective? Well, the world will never know. Because for my first few months having these powers, especially after I got to Ravenswood, that's how I did feel. Like there was no way anyone was ever touching me, because I was always going to duck. And then a lucky shot -- from my blind side, I might add -- from a VIPER goon taught me otherwise.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't actually have a perfect complexion, you know. You can't see it... because there's no way I'm taking my top off in public... but my skin actually does have a blemish on it now. It's a few inches under my left armpit. It's the kind of scar you get from a bullet hole.

'Nuff said.

'But wait!', you cry, o Hopefully-Hypothetical Future Diary Snoop, perennially mistrustful soul that you are. 'If you're attending Ravenswood Academy, they wouldn't let you go out and fight crime! Especially VIPER! School policy forbids it!'

... yes, school policy most definitely does. And, of course, every student here obeys every individual line item in the school rules, at all times, with no exceptions whatsoever. And I'm Istvatha V'Han. Now that you've gotten through proving that too much skepticism destroys the common sense lobe of the brain, may I continue? Hmm? Thank you.

Yes, some of the older students here sneak out to get in trouble. And yes, I go with them. At first, it was just because it was exciting. Now? Now it's because even after they've carried me to the emergency room, even after some of us have some so close to dying for good that it makes me want to skip lunch thinking about it... and if you know what my metabolism's like, me passing up a chance at food is a MAJOR signal, thank you. Forget everything you learned about starving gymnasts. My coach was smart enough to know that at 3000+ calories' worth of exercise a day, that plus growing bones equals "let 'em graze."

But I digress. So, even after we've got every reason in the world -- complete with Blue Cross bills and hospital charts -- to have it sink into our pointy little teenaged heads "Hey, kids! Supervillains can be seriously hazardous to your health!" You know what? Some of the lunatics that this school laughingly calls honor students STILL THINK IT'S FUN.

Look, when somebody who obsessed for half the waking hours of her entire life, who gave up school and childhood playmates and normality, all for a few line items in the record books, maybe a couple of medals, and then nothing to do from age 18 on... when that girl thinks that you are acting like an idiot, then trust me, you are redefining the Platonic Ideal of boneheadedness. Period. End of argument.

But, three guesses who can't just step back and let them go out while she stays safe in her dorm room and get themselves all smeared over Pulsar's fist because she's one of the best, if not THE best, fighters in the entire school and they'll only get smeared faster without her. Go on, guess. It's not that hard.

Really, I love my conscience. It's what keeps me from growing up to be a psycho like Faith on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or something. Which would suck. So no, honestly, not unhappy that I was born or raised with some kind of basic moral sense, God... but dear sweet guardian angels keep me from getting perforated, it's like my conscience wants me to not only be a good girl and go to Heaven someday, but to go there right now and avoid the rush. Because it keeps telling me to go back out there with them, every single time.

I hate guilt. Hate it. Guilt is your brain's way of forcing you to do things that you really don't want to do. I guess that's why they made the guilt button so powerful in there... so it could override everything else in your brain. Like your brain.

Wow, this is one depressing diary entry.

Back to how I ended up at Ravenswood. Well, there I was, 15 years old, won the Nationals (finally) for the first time, and only a couple months away from going back for my glorious repeat performance, all mile markers on the way to my inevitable triumphal march back to the next Summer Olympics and this time, individual all-around gold! Go Katie go!

Problem is, that was the first year they refined the DNA testing to be able to spot latent, as well as active, mutants. So, I get a letter from USA Gymnastics instead, telling me that a) I'm not going to Nationals, b) I'm not going to the Olympics again, c) I'm not going to any officially sanctioned gymnastics competition again forever, oh yes, and d), both the governing board of USA Gymnastics and the IOC are going to be holding hearings on whether or not they should void the medals I already have. Like I was some steroid-pumping cheater or something. So, take that, everybody from "A Current Affair" to "Hard Copy" camping outside our house, my coach and all the other girls in Seniors-level gymnastics -- aka "My friends" -- suddenly not returning phone calls, add all that together, mix in a blender, serve, and you get chocolate. Yes, chocolate. As in "there is not enough chocolate on the planet Earth to kill this kind of pain".

And then, just a week or so before the first of the hearings, I sneak out of the house to go see a movie, and some psycho reject from the local high school decides to express how PO'ed he is that his ex-girlfriend has moved on to date somebody with an actual sanity gland by going postal with a gun. And, of course, in pure 'Basketball Diaries' tradition, he picks the pretty blonde with the killer looks to blast first...

... and the danger triggered the first active expression of my mutant powers, I easily dodged all the bullets like they were in Matrix time, and I kicked his butt all over the lobby despite not knowing anything about martial arts, simply because I was that many orders of magnitude above him agility-wise. What? You need me to tell you the ending? It's not like you were expecting anything else, right?

So, good news -- having just had conclusive proof delivered that I was still 'latent' and 'unexpressed' during my competetive days, because Lord knows I was nowhere near as agile then as I am now, they let me keep the medals, and the record books didn't have to have asterisks and correction fluid. Bad news -- the entire free world knew that Katie Spencer was a mutant. Oh yes, and worse news -- my folks freaked.

OK, if, at this moment, my Hypothetical Reader had a mental image of my parents being some type of IHA bigots, or anything near, I swear that if I ever find out who you are I am beating you with a chair until all your parts stop twitching and then I'm using your nuts as springboard for a tumbling routine. They weren't like that at all. They love me, OK? They're good people, OK? They were the sort of parents every girl in gymnastics wishes they had... you know, the sane ones. And having once been teammates with a girl who was spawned by the worst pair of lunatics I've ever seen outside of colored tights and an ugly mask, I'm not speaking theoretically, OK?

No, not saying who she is. If she ever wants people to know, she can call her agent and have him find someone to write a book. Besides, she lives with her aunt now anyway.

No, Mom and Dad freaked becuase they figured out right at the start something that it took me not only being shot at but shot into to figure out... specifically, that people with superpowers tend to spend the rest of their lives meeting other people with superpowers, or nuts like VIPER, and that those nuts will shoot back. So hey, you just found out that your little girl's probably going to grow up to be a superhero, which means that she's probably ending up someday with her name carved on a wall like the heroes in Memorial Park. Wouldn't you freak? If you were any kind of a parent?

So, to help keep me safe, they sent me to Ravenswood.

And yes, in hindsight, that plan did kinda backfire, didn't it? But can you blame them? They were certain that as soon as the newness of my powers wore off I'd be putting my leotards back on, painting them with pin-stripes, getting a mask, and going out to save the world, or at least our particular suburb, all by my lonesome. And to be fair, I might have. I mean, it's the traditional sort of thing you do when you get superpowers, right? Especially ones like mine? And goodness knows I originally jumped at the first chance I had to get into that kind of stuff after I got here.

So, they treated it same as when I started going all crazy about balance beams and uneven bars back when I was a little girl. If you can't convince her not to do it -- and to be fair, I am one stubborn little rhymes-with-witch when I want something -- then help her find the best training you can get, and a coach who will keep her from hurting herself trying too hard. And voila, Ravenswood.

You have no idea how hard I had to fast-talk to keep Ms. Pelvanen from telling my parents exactly how I ended up in the hospital. I ended up telling her that if Mom & Dad found out everything, they'd pull me out of here even faster than they put me in here, and poof, there goes any chance she'd have of ever stopping me from doing something stupid again. Goodness knows that they couldn't, it's why they sent me here, right?

Amazingly, it worked. But hey, like I said just now, guilt is a very powerful emotion. And I can be a really stubborn you-know-what when I want something.

So, now I'm a superhero-in-training, and member of a not-quite-authorized superhero team. Not that we're exactly secret or anything -- this is Millennium City, and the news crews have learned how to show up fast when a superfight's in progress. So we've all had lots of chances to be on the evening news, and if we don't move fast enough, we even get stuck with "superteen-on-the-street" interviews.

Still, at least we don't do anything stupid like telling the world that a group of the Ravenswood kids play hooky to try and get themselves thrashed by superpowered lunatics every weekend... the school's been really good to all of us, it would be a complete loser trick to pay it back with that kind of bad press. Not that they can't guess, but we can't admit it. Not that some of the team haven't tried -- look, I know we can't all be former Olympians, but haven't any of you ever had a camera and a microphone shoved into your face before? You just keep cool, smile, and remember your lines. Me, I've been living with cameras and reporters since I was twelve, I can breeze it without even trying. So three guesses who got made team spokesgirl. Uh-huh.

Well, I am good on-camera, I have to admit that. Plus the fact that if I put any real effort into my cute routine, I can charm almost any grown-up on the planet out of his socks. Ah, the power of being blonde, blue-eyed, perky, and with a figure perfectly sculpted to be on the borderline between petite, athletic, and just plain stacked. Works on reporters, coaches, parents, most official authority figures, some teachers, and -- unfortunately -- everything between the ages of 13 and 18 with a Y chromosome. There's times I wish I could selectively filter out that last one. Such as "99 out of 100 times I walk into the school lunchroom". But I digress.

Still, good thing that nobody knows just where Katie Spencer's parents sent her to boarding school after she was a nine-day wonder as "the mutant gymnast", or else I'd be blowing our cover just by showing up and breathing.

What else haven't I covered in this weekly fit of self-introspection, diary? Ah, yes, romance. Love. L'amour. Dating. Kissy stuff.

OK, the three-word summary -- Ain't Gettin' None.

I can hear the gasps of incredulity from here. How can the best-looking girl in school not be dated up until the year 2010? To this, I answer with a question of my own -- have you seen these guys?

I can fit every male student in this school into one of these following categories -- too young, too shy, too boring, too ugly, too much of a jerk (and they're running a bumper crop of that one), and then the last category, which is composed of one.

*sigh* Just my luck that the only boy in this school who combines all the necessary qualities -- decent, honest, smart, funny, cheekbones, muscle tone, and cute butt -- is absolutely unattainable. As in "don't even think about it". As in "major interstellar incident lies a-waiting".

Yes, interstellar incident. This year's class is all provided with handsome hunk o' burnin' alien love, in the form of an extraterrestrial prince secretly on Earth to [CLASSIFIED]. I mean, he wouldn't even tell me. Anyway, he's here, he's gorgeous, he's perfect, and he's one of my teammates.

He's also royalty, and I've read enough history to know what that means. It means that in any place where they still take royalty seriously -- as opposed to, oh, England -- he's going to grow up to marry who they pick for him, not who he wants to.

And yes, I am too young to be thinking about marriage. I'm not thinking about marriage. I'm not even seventeen yet, sheesh. But what I am thinking is that if I'm going to date a guy, or, you know, more than date a guy, I have to like the guy. Well, more than like the guy. There has to be some genuine element of the L-word there. And, well, while I have absolutely no idea what's on his mind -- boys can be so obscure sometimes, like, every moment they're not asleep or dead -- maybe there could be.

But remember that marriage thing. No matter what else a relationship with him might be, I can already know 100% for sure one thing that it will be -- temporary. And, well, if his inevitable future destiny is arranged marriage, then the least I can do is let him go into it with a chance to like it, as opposed to leaving his one true love tragically behind forever. I mean, if you like a guy, perpetual heartbreak should not be your choice of a graduation present to him, right? Right.

It still sucks, though. Oh well, if you can't vent to your diary, who can you vent to?

What else haven't I covered? Oh, classes. Feh. Classes. I always did good in school, even with home-schooling. And apparently, one of the side effects of my new nervous system is also photographic memory, so I don't even have to study now. Straight-As for Katie, no waiting! The only class that gives me any problem any more is math... I hate math.

Spare me the blonde jokes, you can't tell me one I haven't heard already. Yes, I. Hate. Math. It's not like I can't do it... the lowest grade I ever got in my life, even pre-memory-upgrades, was a B-. It's just that I don't like to do it.

Although it's weird. Math and how much it sucks is about the only thing that's not changed for me -- everything is easier now, because every other piece of learning requires either book memory or muscle memory, and I've got perfect at both. So it's almost like I look forward to calculus class now (aka Math: The Sucking), because it's dreadful, but familiar.

God, I am such a dork when nobody else is looking.

Moving on.

OK, we've done my life story, my (lack of) romance, math class... what's left? What's left to do? Why are we here?

Well, that's the question, isn't it Katie? Why are we here? What are we going to do with ourselves for the rest of our life? What are our goals now?

Every week, I sit down and write these long letters to myself in my diary, right before I rip the pages out and flush them down the toilet to keep anybody else from reading them -- people with total recall don't need diaries, I'm surprised you didn't spot that, O Hypothetical And Never-To-Actually-Be Reader -- because, well, it helps me gets my thoughts outside my head and out where I can look at them.

Except that the thought I'm looking for -- the whole what-do-I-want-to-do-with-my-life one -- is still hiding in there. Every week I try and trap it and get it out here, and every week, nada.

I'll catch that wabbit one of these days, though. And meanwhile... hey, while I shot down the idea pretty harsh in the first page of this little epistle, there was a lot of truth in it. Most of my life is going great from day to day. I mean, by some weird alchemy of coincidence, the weirdness of being a home-schooled gymnastics nut plus the weirdness of being a mutant superstar in the school for superpowered kids has added up to "Katie has completely skipped out on almost every problem of normal high school."

And it's not like I don't have powers that aren't easy to control... my power is super-agility, and I was an Olympic gymnast beforehand? Compared to the kids who throw lightning bolts or fly or move stuff with their mind, I was born with the instruction manual to my genes. They're busy trying to figure out how to deal having senses, or abilities, or limbs the human brain was never wired to even have in the first place, and I'm just working out in the gym putting more fine-tuning on things I've had all my life, just not so much of. There's a reason I'm one of the star students and best fighters around here, and it's not because I'm Teleios. Heck, I put Nightwind almost through the mat last week in sparring sessions. Nightwind. Can you believe it? He trained at martial arts twice as hard as I did for twice as long as I did at gymnastics, and I still whomp him, because my genes are just that darned good.

... you know, now that I think about, that must have really really sucked for him. Ouch. OK, Katie, note to self -- apologize to him next week. I know we don't do 'apology' well, but try, OK? Humble, that's the ticket. I can do humble, right?

So I'm breezing through here. I'm breezing classes. Most of the time, I'm even breezing superhero work -- we don't fight VIPER or Black Paladin or suchlike every day, after all. And most of the mooks with guns in this town barely qualify as the warm-up act. Feels good to stop them from shooting the people who can't dodge bullets, though. And if I practice enough, maybe I can get breezy enough with superfights that I stop being so scared all the time, too. Maybe that will be my career someday, as ridiculous as that notion sounds right now.

OK, too much thinking. Long experience has taught me that when the self-introspection session reaches a certain length, it's time to lose the pen, loses the pages, and go find a monumentally-greasy triple-decker cheeseburger. God bless my hyperactive little blast furnace of a stomach... I have no idea why superfast nerves make me able to eat anything and never gain an ounce now, but I am most definitely not complaining!

See you next week, diary. Until then, well, I'll just keep on trying to be the best.

... thought I was going to use some Olympics cliche like "score a perfect ten", did you? Nope, sorry. That was gymnastics. This is real life.

See you around.

[zornwil]

Very very good, I didn't read every word but this is clearly excellent, solid character background and personality.

[Hawksmoor]

Wow this is almost like necromancy. Not really far back but deep enough.

As to writing what the PC thinks I do it all the time, so it is a good thing that I'm not in a game with Brandon isn't it?

PBEM is a plumber's dream, all the time to explore the soul of a character. But, the journey loses its richness if no one is along for the ride. I would like to see more 'thought ballons' in games I run and play in. They are important.

Hawksmoor

[Chuckg]

Eh, I had a sudden attack of monologue for a character I've had in the prop box for a good long while, but have no opportunity to use and won't have for quite a while. I would have started a new thread, but I dimly remembered one already existing, so I went archive-divin' for it. :)

[bblackmoor]

The following is for a 350-point teen supers character I've created, but never played. OTOH, I like to map out a personality fairly deeply before I play it, so...

That's one of the main reasons I write character monologues, too.

Good post.

[Chuckg]

Oh, hell, just realized I forgot to acknowledge a source.

The character of 'Sprite' is based upon Trebuchet's mainstay of MidGuard, Zl'f -- I liked the basic idea but wanted to take it in a substantially different direction, so I removed the speedster and other secondary powers, made her almost ten years younger and thoroughly American-ized, and put her in Ravenswood. Her student code name is a deliberate homage -- "zl'f" *is* the Russian word for "sprite".

Oh, and she's a /little/ taller. Okay, five-three. :)

[CBikle]

Not quite a monologue, but this press release pretty much describes my character.

[zornwil]

Not quite a monologue, but this press release pretty much describes my character.
:rofl: Priceless! :thumbup:

[CBikle]

:rofl: Priceless! :thumbup:

Thanks.

[Karma]

I generally only do 'character monologues' in PBEM games. I feel it's better than simply posting your character's actions and can give the other players a feel for your character. I especially like doing it in PBEM's where players are allowed to add the actions and thoughts of other people's characters and NPC's to their posts (as long as they stay within the predetermined boundries of the character. IOW no having someone elses character act 'out of character' (although you can have your own do so, which keeps people wondering). Some people might accuse me of being a post-hog, but I like my posts to be interesting and :

Hardball comes in through the doorway and hits the thug.

is far less interesting than:

Hardball creeps into the room. Around him he sees his team mates. Jockboy Titan, the brick of his group, has already layed out two thugs
"Typical" thinks Hardball "We could have sneaked in and avoided all this trouble, but Jockboy had to go and play hero. With this noise whoever is behind this will know we're here and have placed the hostages in a 'inescapable death trap' by the time we reach him. What is it about teenages and subtlety?"
He sneaks up behind one opf the tugs looking at the fight and beans him with a baseball bat.

[assault]

Meh. Just keep buying Assault beers and be prepared to listen and he'll give you the longest monologue you've ever heard. Of course, it's quite likely that in the space of five minutes he will tell you that his powers are a result of a radiation accident, that he's a mutant, and that his father was an Empyrean, but that's what happens when you listen to people in pubs.

Alcohol doesn't effect him, but he's still a master of the art of BSing.

Because it's fun... :)

[bblackmoor]

"Typical" thinks Hardball "We could have sneaked in and avoided all this trouble, but Jockboy had to go and play hero...."

This is exactly the kind of self-indulgent, passive-aggressive behavior that I despise in games (any kind of game, email or not). If the player has a problem, the player should say so. If the character has a problem, the character should say so (or, better, demonstrate it through their actions, body language, and so on). Criticizing or insulting another PC in a way that makes it impossible for them to respond is obnoxious. Once in a while, it's not a big deal, but if the player makes a habit of it, it basically just poisons the game.

[Enforcer84]

Enforcer's monolgue might read a lot like a letter to Penthouse Forum.:D

[zornwil]

Enforcer's monolgue might read a lot like a letter to Penthouse Forum.:D
Heh, sounds like what happened in our game today...the Punisher "dropped by" (blasting through the base's walls!) and was demanding the Justice Squad help him as he was sure they were involved in an, ahem, incident which the Men in Black were going after him for. But (quite unexpected to the GM), one of the player's followers, Jane, who is a shapeshifter, and, like the player's main PC, continually tries to learn and mimic human behavior (they're aliens), decided to try out her sexual prowess on him. It worked. They made quite a racket in the elevator and then the base's prisoner cold-sleep area (she figured that would be perverse). At one point, Gere-luce, the base scientist, came by to Laughton (one of the PCs, contacting the MiB to work something out) and said, disgustedly, "I'm shutting off the cameras..." and wandered back out. Definitely not a turn I expected all the way arond, lol!

Laughton had a talk with Sammy (Jane's mate, the PC related to Jane) about her adult video watching habits and to curtail her activities. Sammy just doesn't get Laughton's attitude! By the way, Laughton is also an alien, but he's the opposite of Sammy and Jane. Sammy and Jane are complete sensualists, and extremely interested in mimicing and experiencing human emotions (though being alien their own emotional reactions are at quite a tangent to human ones), whereas Laughton is ascetic.

Anyway, the Penthouse Forum thing reminded me.

[BcAugust]

Folding the paper carefully in the headland wind, looking at the old picture of her on the article, Nox smiles slightly. It figures, I wonder how long that photo's been stock in the States. Then again, I don't usually change my appearance for over there... yet. Though I could see the newsseller look at me as if he couldn't believe his eyes. Who says New Yorkers are unflappable?

Scanning it, the headline the usual tabloid scaremongering. It's strange, over half my life dismissed with two sentences. Then again, I suppose that's the way I feel too, how far I am from that girl...yet knowing my strength comes from being her. At least they aren't repeating the rumors I was a villain first... or left to become one.

Another smile, at the picture of her old team, then as she turns the page, she looks away, her face becoming a mask, letting the sea wind blow her hair back as she tries to compose herself. I couldn't be there. I knew there were heroes going to be there, and that there was only one facing down that cult. I had to choose, and I chose the one that stopped the dark gods from coming here. I had to fight for the greater good. Even when it cost so, so much. I remember finally smashing the alter, getting ready to go to Detroit...when the hammer blow fell. That's the only time I've cried since I changed, and I hated what I was at that moment. When the tears falling down my face changed to obsidian hitting the ground, when what I was called me to something else. But I pray those souls went to a proper rest.

Shaking her head out of her introspection, then looking through again, another smile. How American. Then again, I did have a few different hero names... a few different names, period. Still, you'd think I was distinctive enough that they could say more then I disappeared until recently, when all I've been doing is fighting beyond America's shores. Though, I'll trust they'll eventually dig that up. And I think my free time is up.. Looking to the sky, then folding the paper carefully, putting it in a spare shadow pocket, then leaving, no sign she'd ever been here.

[input.jack]

This is exactly the kind of self-indulgent, passive-aggressive behavior that I despise in games (any kind of game, email or not). If the player has a problem, the player should say so. If the character has a problem, the character should say so (or, better, demonstrate it through their actions, body language, and so on). Criticizing or insulting another PC in a way that makes it impossible for them to respond is obnoxious. Once in a while, it's not a big deal, but if the player makes a habit of it, it basically just poisons the game.

Who are you saying is being self-indulgent? The player monologuing? Or the player whose character rushed in ahead of the plan?

Also, sometimes its not in -character- for a character to say they have a problem with another character. If its a player to player conversation, yeah, sure, bring it up. But sometimes players let something go on that bugs their character -because- it bugs their character. And in being bugged, the character gets to think and feel things that are interesting to the player.

(Note: This is not to say that its all right to allow your character being annoyed -in- character to transfer to you -out- of character. If youre annoyed -out- of character, please tell someone!)

[Comic]

"Now, in general, I'm of few words, as folks say..." there's a pause. The figure scans his audience, strides a step, languidly wave an open-hand gesture of undefined nuance. "Folks not being me, as I'm of few words."

"But seein' as no one's shooting at me at the moment," there's a muffled moan, cut short by a sudden kick from the last man standing.. and talking, "I suppose I best make the best of this opportunity to explain a few things to you all."

"One. If you bring a fight to me again, ever," And then his voice drops so low it is the merest whisper, intimately audible, insinuative, "I will end you."

"Two," voice louder again. "When a feller stands up and tells you you best lay down your arms and reason things out, that feller might be me. Refer back to item One. I don't always wear this same outfit, and am given to changing the way I part my hair. You never know."

"Three. You should tell all your friends, colleagues, collaborators, bosses, underlings and so forth, as I would consider it a courtesy, what with me leaving you all alive, and you being so inhospitable and saying such uncouth things about me earlier. There ain't overmuch courtesy left in the world."

"Now, I'd go past three, but I don't want to strain you folks' counting skills, what with the headaches you all must be havin', them loud sirens comin', and the way the ceiling seems to be creaking and crumblin' so noisily just now. Those of you what can still crawl might want to think on makin' for the way out. If not, sit tight. I'm fair sure somone will be by to dig you out.

With that, the figure vanishes, retreating back to his usual mode of fewer words. Which is just as well. His next words would have been, "And I think I've got a splinter under one of my fingernails. You ever have one of them? That surely smarts. Ow. Ow. Ow."

[Comic]

Once played supermodel heroine-against-her-will Fluff, who could "wield the power cosmetic", and break down the structural integrity of matter on a large, large scale.

Not so much a monologue as a one-liner, but sums her up:

"Oh look, all their big guns just went all soft and fuzzy and limp and flopsy and bendy. Those would be good names for bunnyrabbits, don't you think?

[Gemphyre]

Once played supermodel heroine-against-her-will Fluff, who could "wield the power cosmetic", and break down the structural integrity of matter on a large, large scale.

Not so much a monologue as a one-liner, but sums her up:

"Oh look, all their big guns just went all soft and fuzzy and limp and flopsy and bendy. Those would be good names for bunnyrabbits, don't you think?

"The power COSMETIC???":confused: Should I even ask? Although it would explain how she became a supermodel.

Gemphyre

[Lucius]

Under the Hat

I sit alone in the rain and the darkness. I am cold, and I am angry. I have a duck on my head.

*** *** *** ***

I hear one ask The Question.

“Why does he have that duck on his head?”

I wish I could tell them.

And thus the Odd name is finally explained....

Lucius Alexander

Why is he riding a palindromedary?

["V"]

Jack-a-Dandy's Resignation

I am told that many people awaken to a few seconds worth of confusion or mental cloudiness that is rapidly replaced by the recollection of whatever bad news is currently preoccupying them. Not so Jack-a-Dandy. No, for one reason or another I have always accelerated from sleep to full alertness with no intervening period of psychological transition.

It can be disorienting, especially if one has been dreaming of an enjoyable evening a few months ago with a menage of the most exquisite runners-up from that dreadful television Idol programme. Apparently it is quite popular with the great unwashed. Television that is. I have no idea what the Idol programme is about, but I do know it produces the most self absorbed narcissists this side of... well, me I suppose.

It had been a splendid evening, and no wonder it still echoed in my dreams. That look of delightful surprise as I impart a new trick or two never fails to thrill.

But still, this is no time for trivial fond records, no indeed. Today is a notable day in Jack-a-Dandy's life and career here. I dress with care, and with even more care admire the splendid fellow looking out of my cheval mirror at me as I do so. I allow myself the vanity of tutting disapprovingly at the growing number of pale star shaped bullet scars - I cannot help but feel that the miscreants responsible should be considered philistines not felons, for damaging such a sublime work of art. Father Oscar was wrong you know: The only thing worse than being talked about is being attacked by gun toting Americans.

Breeches, silk shirt, waistcoat, tailcoat, fob watch in place, and that ridiculous domino mask. And now I can face the world.

I have already written out my letter of resignation, perfectly proper and professional, setting out the reason for my growing disenchantment with my life as one of the Bastions of this fair city. No sense in becoming improperly emotional about the matter, no need at all to complain that the blood on my hands is growing thicker by the day and that each news report reveals how inept a job we are doing at protecting the helpless.

No. A simple clear letter of resignation and then Jack-a-Dandy will fade quietly away into the background of some discreet little club somewhere. Perhaps I shall finish that novel, or learn to paint. On the other hand I may decide to betray my former comrades to a dreadful fate at my own hands. I really haven't decided yet.

Though between you and me, the choice of ink for my resignation letter - an alchemical compound that will bleed through even Paladin's much vaunted invulnerability and strip the flesh from his bones - may suggest that I have made my mind up after all.

Ah, the breakfast bell.

[Vondy]

Who are you saying is being self-indulgent? The player monologuing? Or the player whose character rushed in ahead of the plan?

Also, sometimes its not in -character- for a character to say they have a problem with another character. If its a player to player conversation, yeah, sure, bring it up. But sometimes players let something go on that bugs their character -because- it bugs their character. And in being bugged, the character gets to think and feel things that are interesting to the player.

(Note: This is not to say that its all right to allow your character being annoyed -in- character to transfer to you -out- of character. If youre annoyed -out- of character, please tell someone!)

Your responding to someone who has been banned for fifteen months, which is cool, but don't expect an answer.

[Comic]

Overgamer's Monologue (he calls himself 'Magister' in 'hero id'...

"D20's fake man! It's _FAKE! I know! I know. Only Champions is real. Only Dark Champs, man!

The figure paces back and forth, agitated, gesticulating, twitching.

"Believe me, I held out hope for years. I tried to find them -- wizard chicks, sorceress types with mega CHA, she-Paladins with healing touch.. Nothin'.

"I kept the faith. I mean, d20 is so.. beautiful, man. It seduces you with those pretty pretty dice and that cover art. All that cover art.

He pauses, sighs, carries on, ranting and rambling.

"My path kept getting darker and darker. They don't exist. There's no TG. Not even a TG. I mean, I tried to bribe.. I tried to find it with bugging and hacking and shadowing. I tried beating it out of panhandlers and addicts and pimps, man. Nada. There's no such thing as the TG. d20 is so FAKE!"

It's a shout, repeated, to the sky, "D20 is FAKE!"

The rain laughs, spitting down. The wind laughs over the shout. The sodden figure draws out a pair of very heavy-looking handguns.

"But Dark Champions -- that's real. These SIGs are real, man. The dragonsbreath rounds -- they're the only real dragons there are, except the tatts on my arms and my chi-power throat-strike.

The weapons are brought level. One taps the steel cable wrapping the bound man who stares incomprehendingly. From the look on the struggling, prone man's face, he's only making out perhaps half of the psychotic ranter's meaning. He whimpers in a puddle of more than just rainwater, pleading for "M-m-mercy."

"Mercy? You filthy scum, begging Magister for mercy? Did they show me mercy, man? Did they show me mercy when they threw me in that place? I don't think so. Man, you are so dead. You tell me where to find the VIPER's nest, and I'll make it quick. That's the only mercy you'll get, you scum. You slipped green into my crystal for the last time tonight, man."

There's a mechanical sound as the weapon is readied to fire. One points at the prone man's head. The other at his elbow. "Your choice, man. Fast or slow. Where is the VIPER's Nest?"

[Lucius]

Crossposted from an old thread:



The clouds above Stormwalker's head darken and expand as he listens. The air is still, but grows cooler. Finally he speaks.

"What you ask of me is impious. I don't expect you to understand that, and in fact, it would not necessarily dissuade me - although I hope it always gives me pause. But the reason I will not help you is that it is futile."

The clouds weave about his form.

"You think you are merely fighting a single mortal. Someone whose own child was hurt, and so hunts those who hurt children. But if you capture this one, two more will appear. You might as well be fighting the Hydra."

A strand of cloud rears up, snakelike, then divides, and divides again, until Stormwalker is surrounded by waving tentacles of mist.

"You are not facing one mortal, nor a group of them. You are up against the Furies."

A low rumble of thunder punctuates the word "Furies."

"The Furies are ancient. They are the avengers, the spirits of blood-feud. They are relentless in pursuit. They feed on the suffering and blood of the guilty. Only one thing has ever stopped them, and permitted mortal civilizations to exist, and that is the Pact."

At mention of the Pact, the drifting fogsnakes dissipate.

"One version of the Myth says the Goddess Athena made the Pact. You may know that one. Aeschylus wrote a play. In fact, the Pact was made in different times and places, by Gods and kings and priestesses. In essence, the Pact means that the Furies will not pursue and punish those who are under the King's Protection. Yes, I know, we don't have a literal king - that doesn't matter. Read 'State' if you will, or better yet, 'Law.' But the Pact holds only so long as the king undertakes to establish justice. The specific version of the Pact covering this land dates to when those words - 'establish justice' - were written in the Preamble to the Constitution. And don't think some members of the Constitutional Convention didn't know Who was watching and listening. Why do you think after fighting to be rid of one king, some people wanted to set up George Washington as another? They weren't sure they didn't need a literal king to have a valid Pact."

Stormwalker smiles at the way they are looking at him.

"You don't believe in the Furies, and the Pact? Then look at what happens in the criminal underworld, look at the violence of gang wars. The old word is 'outlaw.' These are people who have repudiated the Pact, who have put themselves outside the protection of the Law, and left themselves at the mercy - no. At the mercilessness of the Furies, alternately possessed and pursued by Them. The outlaw's life is miserable and often short, consumed in the cycle of violence and revenge. Even those you call supervillains have more to fear from one another than from people like me. I for one have never yet killed - although it has been prophesied that I will." He frowns.

"The Kindly Ones (as they are known when restrained by the Pact) are usually content to let the king - or other mortal institutions- deal with finding and punishing the guilty. As long as it gets done. You don't have to catch every wrongdoer, you don't have to punish each one of them, and you can and should permit considerations of reason, of mercy in your system. And after all, mortal law can only be an approximation of true Justice. BUT IT MUST AT LEAST BE AN APPROXIMATION!"

A flash, a smell of ozone, a crack of thunder that somehow does not drown out Stormwalker's last words.

"Forgive the display, but I confess, stupidity makes me angry. Trying to divide something into three equal halves is stupid. Passing a law to change the value of Pi, or to repeal gravity, is stupid. And it is stupid to think you can do without Justice, and not expect Vengeance and Feud to appear. You WILL have one or the other; there is no 'None of the Above' on this question. If this mortal's targets had been duly slain by law, after exhaustive investigation and a fair trail established their guilt beyond doubt, the Kindly Ones would have remained Kindly. Indeed, if they had merely been confined, prevented from doing harm, and perhaps studied by healers in hopes of learning to predict or prevent their evil in future, that may have sufficed. I do not know. But for child-violators to be loosed, even among a populace warned of their presence, seems an obvious violation of the Pact. The wrath of the Furies will follow, and if you want me to stop that, you may as well ask me to stop the Moon in Her orbit. That would be easier."

"We ask for help; we get mythology" grouses the liaison as the clouds begin to clear.

"Mythology is as real as physics, and its consequences as ineluctable," counters Stormwalker. "I will give you advice. You cannot stop the Furies, but there are ways to slow them down. One way would be to get rid of the Register. I don't think that will stop this mortal, who probably already has a list made out. But it will make it harder for those who come after. The Furies can tell by smelling you what you're guilty of, but their mortal agents cannot, and even a Fury will find you faster if She has an address than if She's just randomly sniffing around.....if it comes to that. Meanwhile, I will help in so far as this; Give me a list of what you regard as likely potential victims. If some of them are persons I already have a duty towards, I may take steps to protect them; although I'll also be asking how they got on that list."

Lucius Alexander

The character of Stormwalker is copyright Palindromedary Enterprises, 1991

[oconnellmd]

There are other creative alternatives to the monologue, too. There's the interview, for example. I did a fictional interview with my (retired) character Dr. Jackal, for example. Great way to get inside their heads:

http://forteuniverse.com/forte05/import-jackal-home.htm

(Keep in mind it's a fake web page, so none of the links works on it except for the big one in the middle that goes to the interview).

I just finished up our "Forte.com" page, which is a simulation of the Forte computer system, and includes fake message boards, a chat room, and an email system. There are fictional threads, chat room transcripts and emails there. Another great way to find the character's "voice".

http://forteuniverse.com/fortedotcom/index.htm

And there's always the old-fashioned fiction method. Plenty of those on the Forte 2000 Adventures page:

http://forteuniverse.com/forte2000/forte2kadventures.htm

...or the "Forte '05" page:

http://forteuniverse.com/forte05/index.html

You can do a lot of exploration IN the game, of course, but you can get a lot deeper and explore the character more outside the game.

[Trebuchet]

Yes, I posted an interview with my Champions character Zl'f about three years ago:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=126731&postcount=1

[oconnellmd]

Nice. That was fun (da!). Exactly what I'm talking about. Helpful, too, if someone ELSE is asking you the questions, and you're not just interviewing yourself (as I did). I think the media interview should be a requirement in every campaign. Like, the GM writing up the interview questions for each character. Doesn't even have to be done live. Could be done by email or whatever. Helps you learn more about your character, and it's a great way for your fellow players to learn more, too.