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Generals 

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re: Rigor Mortis (An excerpt from the SWTOR forum RP)- Comments

Wow, this is very good. Your knowledge of survival mechanics and skill as a storyteller have merged very nicely indeed.

I started to read the first few sentences and suddenly I was at the end, feeling chilled to the bone. Well done!


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AltaVista

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re: Rigor Mortis (An excerpt from the SWTOR forum RP)- Comments

Oh! Well thank you. Happy I admit I don't have that much knowledge about survival tactics, but have some very lovely resources (yay internetz!). Putting credit where credit is due: the "rule of threes" was news to me, but my ex-EMT father mentioned it to me one night and I just knew I would have to include it in one of my stories.

Thanks for the encouragement!
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re: Rigor Mortis (An excerpt from the SWTOR forum RP)- Comments

I finally got around to reading this.

What an untimely end for the poor chap. This was beautifully written, but I couldn't help but wince and feel the man's plight. I didn't like it (the feeling), but I guess that means that you did a very good job. wink Well done.

Tell me, if you will, how do you come to terms with killing a character that (I assume) you had spent a great deal of time working on? How do you decide to give them this type of end? Was it an end befitting the man and his actions? Or just an end unto itself?

Curious am I.
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re: Rigor Mortis (An excerpt from the SWTOR forum RP)- Comments

I finally got around to reading this.

What an untimely end for the poor chap. This was beautifully written, but I couldn't help but wince and feel the man's plight. I didn't like it (the feeling), but I guess that means that you did a very good job. wink Well done.

Tell me, if you will, how do you come to terms with killing a character that (I assume) you had spent a great deal of time working on? How do you decide to give them this type of end? Was it an end befitting the man and his actions? Or just an end unto itself?

Curious am I.

Spoilers.

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NexusLuke
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re: Rigor Mortis (An excerpt from the SWTOR forum RP)- Comments

Recklan wrote:
NexusLuke wrote:
I finally got around to reading this.

What an untimely end for the poor chap. This was beautifully written, but I couldn't help but wince and feel the man's plight. I didn't like it (the feeling), but I guess that means that you did a very good job. wink Well done.

Tell me, if you will, how do you come to terms with killing a character that (I assume) you had spent a great deal of time working on? How do you decide to give them this type of end? Was it an end befitting the man and his actions? Or just an end unto itself?

Curious am I.


Spoilers.


One should not read the OOC, before they read the story my friend. wink
Naandi

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re: Rigor Mortis (An excerpt from the SWTOR forum RP)- Comments

One of my favorite RPs we ever did was one where we killed Vista's character. So worth that one scene!

But maybe that's the Joss Whedon in me speaking.


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re: Rigor Mortis (An excerpt from the SWTOR forum RP)- Comments

Naandi wrote:
One of my favorite RPs we ever did was one where we killed Vista's character. So worth that one scene!

But maybe that's the Joss Whedon in me speaking.

Oh, that scene was so much fun! :D Still one of my favorites as well--ah, irony.

Haha! Yeah, killing off characters is becoming a bit of a habit. :P As much as I love character creation, it's actually quite refreshing to come full circle and get to the point where the character gets final resolution by dying--especially if it aids the plot. I mean, would we all love Darth Vader as much if he /hadn't/ died? What if he had survived and left with Luke? Then his act of redemption would have seemed so much more... lackluster. Personally, I think that even during character creation it's just good practice to think through how that particular character might die: tragically? selflessly? surrounded by loved ones? or alone, embittered, and forgotten?

Granted, in this particular case, I was highly motivated by an OOC (out-of-character) situation to find some means of ending my involvement the thread. I won't go into details, except to say that it's super important for RPers to familiarize themselves with the RP protocols and etiquette of that particular roleplay community. All that to say, I wanted out, and since I had created the character knowing he would have to die to fit the storyline, it wasn't a hard decision to kill him off. Fortunately, because I became far too attached to this character, that particular storyline for him will be considered non-canon, meaning it is not part of his "real" timeline. Dredge Tin is still alive and kicking!... just not in this scene.

I guess I should have given more background on the character. He's not really meant to be a character you sympathize with. He's a convicted felon, sentenced to life imprison on a penal colony planet and escaped merely by strange happenstance. Although seemingly a nice guy, he's become quite a villain over the years, as was "necessary" to survive in that kind of prison environment (obviously, it wasn't necessary to sink to such a low, but given his background and his outlook on the world, throwing in that whole nature vs. nurture controversy... he became the monster that he is).

Lately, as I create characters, I try to come up with a basic idea of who they are (gender, age, profession, personality, ect) and then begin thinking of themes I want to develop as a writer. Knowing that I wanted Dredge to be a villain for that particular thread, I chose several different themes to explore with his character, but focused mainly on "violence promoting violence," "the pursuit of freedom", and "the agnostic mindset". While some of those themes are not inherently bad, taken to the extreme they will inevitably lead someone to become a terrible person indeed.

For instance, violence in and of itself is not a bad thing. Some of the most godly men of the Bible were men of war. But being violent for the sake of being violent, or for no purpose, can only lead to retaliation and a sequence of events where things go from bad to worse. Dredge has an undiagnosed case of intermittent explosive disorder, meaning that when he gets angry, he "snaps" and can beat people, sometimes to the point of death. There are literally people out there in the world like that--and it's scary. You can imagine then why he's a convict: involuntary manslaughter is a crime that's difficult to sentence.

Freedom is something we, as Americans, treasure and defend with our lives. Not a bad thing at all. However, Dredge was willing to do anything to be free: in his particularly despicable case, that meant he was a scavenger, stealing the dead's items, and be willing to kill anyone who threatened his right to be free.

Agnosticism is something that I've always had trouble understanding. How could anyone possibly think that God wasn't doing "all things for good"? As a Christian, that is absolutely baffling and I find it nearly impossible to relate to others who think that way. So, I wanted to explore that concept. Because of his personality and his penchant for violence, Dredge has been kicked around all his life. He has no hope, nothing to believe in, and no future. To him, everything that could have possibly gone wrong... has. Life stinks, and it's only going to get worse. Strangely, agnosticism makes a bit more sense now.

So! He's not a nice person (though, through RP I hope to develop him into a "nicer" person... we'll see).

Deciding to kill him in this particular way was more of a result of inspiration and the necessity to kill him off suddenly, and on his own. I had originally hoped to have him die in a Mexican standoff with one of my RP buddies (who had a similar desire to leave that thread), but a lack of time meant I needed to take the plunge on my own. So! I had earlier spoken with my father on the many ways of surviving in sub-zero temperatures, and all the dangers involved in icy climates. Death by freezing takes too long (generally several hours, leaving too long of a passage of time in the storyline), as is generally waaaay too placid of an ending (when you fall victim of hypothermia and begin to die, you actually become lethargic and happy... weirdly). I wanted to write a quick and painful death, and something that would be both intense for the reader and terrifying for me to write (I HATE water, go fig--so you can imagine how I was freaking myself out just trying to think about the situation). A combination of drowning and freezing fit the bill. Hehe... I hadn't even thought of it before, but Dredge's name is literally the word for scrapping/cleaning junk off the seafloor/riverbed. Haha! Rock on.

So, his end was fitting (even if it was more of a writing exercise) not only for the character, but for that particular thread. He had ultimately gained his freedom, but died through just one more disappointing circumstance. Unheroically. Tragically. Realistically. Accidentally. And even though he was a bad guy, he was still, in one sense, an everyman-type character: trying to make due with his lot in life, and failing miserably.

Wow, this all seems very depressing and macabre. :P I suppose it all stems from a rather point-blank outlook on death. Naandi and I grew up around A LOT of animals, so things died often and we were continually exposed to that reality. And as sad as it was (sometimes), it became normal and expected, and you moved on quickly (a good note for future parents to consider!).

Blahblahblah, I'm tempted to continue on in this stream-of-consciousness blithering in answer to your questions, but I talk too much.
NexusLuke
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re: Rigor Mortis (An excerpt from the SWTOR forum RP)- Comments

Thanks Vista. I always think it is cool to "see into" the writing process and the decisions behind it.
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