@Themerlinhawk

Good answers, I'll keep them in mind looking through your posts.

And a failure of a character...that was actually surprisingly difficult for me to answer. I'm not sure that you can have a 'failure of a character', in that characters in and of themselves basically are what they are. To me a character is a 'failure' only in that it doesn't come through the way that you want it to, so I think I would have to say that a character of mine that failed cleanly was a soldier named Silas Colt.

He was a soldier who had come back from a distant war with his memory wiped and a dishonorable discharge for something he couldn't remember and couldn't be explained due to confidentiality, so he was a very angry fellow. I still think he was actually a very good character, but I say he failed because his tone was significantly darker than the rest of the group was interested in, so rather than a conflicted and angry veteran he came across as Murderer McMonster, Slayer of Puppies and Bunnies. Everyone basically just thought he was an asshole and left him alone, which wasn't what I'd intended with him, so I think that's probably the best character fail I can think of.

I still think he was a legit character, though. I'm a dick like that. >.>

@HowlerNah i feel ya mate. Thats part of why i avoid games that dont have a darker tone

@Howler
Silas sounds like a legit dude. War and the men who walk away from it are dark and deep themes worth exploring, and your descriptive syle bears the weight of such things quite well. I'd say your fellow rpers missed out!

@Themerlinhawk
I choose question 3! If you had to pick salsa for your chips, would you go hot, medium, or mild?

@FairessMedium, Although I work for a Thai Resturant and I regularly consume what is known as Thai Hot ;) I just find chips and salsa to be the sort of thing to be enjoyed thoughtlessly while Pad Thai, Thai Basil or any number of curries require proper attention to eat, at which point its more enjoyable to eat something spicy. Strange I know but there it is.

Okay your turn. Favorite childhood author and the work they are best known for as a reference in case I dont recognize the author

@Themerlinhawk
Interesting! Tai food always struck me as super hot when it wants to be hot. Tongues of steel and peppers of iron, I say!

Brian Jacques has been my favorite author since I was in elementary school. He's best known for his book, Redwall, and the Redwall series spun off from it, of which a cartoon series was made after.

@Fairessyou are my new best friend. Besides maybe Wind. Knighthood, my original setting when it was first conceptualized it was created as an extention of the Redwall universe. Turns out I've always been this nerdy

I want to play too~ :3 Merlin, and the others if you feel like answering:

2. Writing: Do you use music as inspiration and do you have specific music playlists/genres for different characters or stories?

Btw I'm not used to tagging, will you see my messages if I don't tag you?

@Themerlinhawk, @Fairess, @Howler

@Wind Wild
We'll see it if we check the thread but tagging someone sends them a notification that there's a message they haven't seen with that tag in it, so it can be helpful for response.

As for your question, totally. Characters for me often start out with a song, or the feeling of a song, and then acquire more to round them out as they roll (though they rarely develop into actual playlists). Speaking of, there's a fun enough activity in and of itself. What are the various characters' theme songs, if they have them? Jasper's is almost certainly Personal Jesus.

I'd say we should think of what they are for other people's characters, but I'm not sure I know enough of them well enough.

@Wind Wild
I subscribe to all my threads, so I always see when someone has posted regardless of notification. As for yo' question...

Music within writing as a theme interests me, as I feel that too few writers give justice to the way mucisians think about, perform, and are affected by music. Too often, being able to play an instrument is regarded as a convenient quirk, an extra checkmark on a resume to make a character seem more interesting than they really are.

I learned how to play the piano at a young age and had the experience of performing at small family recitals my teacher arranged, and I can say that experience has had an immense impact on my math skills, my confidence in public speaking, and certainly my affinity for interpreting sound and rhythm beyond "pretty sounding." I imagine anyone who has ever picked up an instrument to seriously perform with it has had similar experiences.

So, to say music inspires me is to say that I love the challenge of describing sound in writing. To interpret music described through the personal experience of a character, to communicate and describe the phenomenon that is music with serious, creative language, and to be aware of the sound and rhythm of my own grammar is something I strive for.

That being said, I tend to use music as themed background noise when I write. I can't say I've ever based a character on a song, but I do tend to pick a musical theme that works for that character when I'm writing. For Roanne, it seems to be pretty much anything Muse or old American rock lately.

@Howler
Roanne's personal rebellion seemed best written to Uprising.

@Fairess@Howler@Wind Wild

So the answer to Wind's question is blatantly yes. Specifically for Essence: Lazarus was written while listening to I'm Shipping up to Boston, on repeat. Ian was written while listening to Victor and his Demons and Shaylee was written to Mordred's Lullaby (Nightcore version not the original, and I may or not have been listening to I like it Loud, as well but that's a different story). You can note that all of those are basically Irish rock. Essence has always required Irish rock to write for, don't ask me why. I've done some of my best work for Essence listening to Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys and Enter the Haggis (not Irish but close enough).

As for playlists I do have them XD I wont write fight scenes unless i'm listening to Fallout boy, Paramore or some of Imagine Dragons, Three Doors down or Nickle backs songs.

To round all of this out I actually pulled one over on Wind that I've never shared but I thought I might as well now since we're talking about musician characters. Ian is actually a reference.

I was a musician all through high school, only guy in the Flute section and Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull was my hero. All of Ian's solo posts are written to Jethro Tull if they aren't a fight scene. (For reference my last post was written listening to Hymn 43 if you were wondering)

And for Wind's personal chuckle. My OC Christian Highfell, His character sheet was written to a metal version of the Song of Storms ;) I'm as cheeky as they get.

Neeeeeeerp.

Who wanna get in some trouble with lil ol Fran?

@Lucius Cypher@Howler OMG, Jasper, please! =3 *grabs the popcorn*

Welcome back Cypher. Promise to be active this time. :p

On a random note: Why Essence should NEVER be a movie

Thank you all for the musical imput, it's all very interesting info. For me, I have themes/genres/bandsorwhatever for RPs more than anything. Essence Season 1 was based on the music of Yuki Kajiura (mostly Tsubasa Chronicles OST), New Age was based on her music for ./hack + Linkin Park + some others and Cadence is mostly youtube's epic rock/pop stuff + some random others.

Different characters deffinitely have theme songs in my head (you can see some of them in their CSes and I can post more if you're curious) and some, like Andri, basically emerged from their songs. Some have more of a theme/playlist like Hazumi who is often a contemporary orchestral or violin type character. (Merlin, in Knighthood she's more of a classical type in contrast). Sam/Beat that Merlin refferenced earlier is almost entirely Linkin Park while Tokarin is anywhere between Vocaloid, pop and epic pop.

But I also love to use songs as inspirations for scenes. I also tend to find songs for others' characters on occassion. Which brings us nicely to Howler's proposition. I'm totally up for it (but we might need some time to get a better feel of the characters) :3
Oh btw Howler, please add your chara to the Char section too. Thank you~

I promise to get into as much trouble as applicable possible. Now, anyone got any business that could use a nosy succubi? Or better, absolutely shouldn't have one?

Ok everyone, a guy called Azel/Azoth has been added to the character section (among the last few posts). His past is only known to people who might have seen him in his early day on the Surface as an Angel's pet.

His Judas War days may be known to a few more. Same with the resulting business.

Nowadays he's considered "just another dealer". To most. :)

I also added the timeline to the first ooc post.

Lastly, I'll give you something quite provocative to think about in my next post. Which hopefully will be sometime before Tuesday.

@Lucius Cypher@Wind Wild
Hey, if you want to throw a succubus at Jasper by all means, he could totally use a slutty secretary another soldier against evil. It would even give you an easy out as to what happened to her if you disappear!

It would also probably make poor Roanne froth at the mouth.

Though do be warned--he's perfectly capable of messing up yon demons but good if they're acting up around him and not quite as likely to let them go, so we'd probably have to work out how we want to go about things in advance if that's your interest in throwing them together. xD

Fran is under a cursed Chasity belt that prevents her from engaging in carnal sin, and the only way to open it is if an angel takes it off of her willingly and under their own influence. So she just needs to find an angel who'll do her a solid and take off her panties, basically.

@Lucius Cypherthis character smacks of the anime Panty and Stocking. If you know what that is don't ask how I do and if you don't know. Don't ask me

That's the inspiration!

@Lucius Cypher

Does the chastity belt at least have a sex toy on the inside or something I mean good lord people

@Monochromatic Rainbow No, there isn't. She can't even rub against anything! It's torture.

Anyways if you really want, @Howler, I'm down for something. If @Wind Wild doesn't mind Fran taking her leave of course.