[OOC] ~ ❀ Swept Away, Underneath the Cherry Blossom Trees ❀ ~

[BurningDaisies]

Sorry for the delay. I've been sidelined with a beast of a fever the past week.

Anywho.... We were in the middle of making characters, if memory serves. My original response to the character creation stuff was submitted about 5 or 6 posts ago.

[Genkai]

Jeeze, I hope you're feeling okay. If I were you, I'd hibernate forever. :/

Aha! I found the post in question. There we goooo. Okay so yeah, I think the cliche school kids (maybe they're at the tail end of high school or...as i may prefer, at some small private college so they're a bit older) is endearing and probably best captures innocence which I think is what I was going for. But if you would like to tack on the fact that your school guy has a heart of gold with some rough edges, that would work for me. Those types can be challenging to crack but fun to see develop.

[BurningDaisies]

I 'm having a hard time imagining a strong association between innocence and college students of really any age. xD
I could see the argument made for wanderlust--wanting to explore the world or the unknown--, maybe acute sensation-seeking, or more generally a paucity of life experiences, but not... innocence. (I will, however, redouble my efforts to suspend disbelief, if we do go that route.)

That said, I typically enjoy roleplaying within a college/university setting more than a high school setting.

Any preferences on a location? That will drastically change the nuances of any character I create.
Personally, I favor korea, south africa, and the UK as places of interest, particularly large cities/capitals. What about you?

[Genkai]

I meant innocence in terms of, them not a lot of baggage and instead being emotional stable and not too unpredictable or without merit. Throw a 16 year old and a 23 year old into a tough situation and the older one usually has more of a chance of making it through. I probably used the wrong word but I do find college kids can be sheltered, it depends on 'how' but there are some who haven't had to deal with certain conflicts or themes before, though it does depend a lot on each individual.

The UK or Korea would be cool for me. Honestly, it would be a coin flip. Did you have a city in mind for those? We could probably come up with 1-2 each and narrow it down that way?

[BurningDaisies]

Sounds good to me.

Let's see... probably Glasgow, Scotland and Leeds, England as my picks for the UK.
South Korea... Geoje Island probably (I'm a sucker for islands and beaches), if not Gumi.

You?

[Genkai]

Oooh I like Glasgow.

For my UK thoughts: Belfast or Dorset.

For my Korean thoughts: Seoul or Jeonju.

[BurningDaisies]

Well... we could do ranked voting system, to pick them.

Skip, if uninterested

The higher the number the higher the ranking, like so:

8 Glasgow
7 Gumi
6 Belfast
5 Leeds
4 Geoje Island
3 Seoul
2 Dorset
1 Jeonju

The rank equals the number of votes. The 2 lowest ranked picks between the two of us are eliminated, and the votes for those two picks go to the highest two picks. Round two would only have 6 options to pick from, and the same voting rules apply. Rinse and repeat, until we have a clear majority winner. Ideally, this would be a lot faster, if we could meet on IM for even 2 minutes. xD

Discussing the individual merits of each seems like it would get really tedious, more so than voting (since the math is painfully simple.)
But I can boil my own thoughts on the matter into as few words as possible

Like so:

Glasgow - Personal bias, I have family and friends there.
Leeds - Seemed like a good idea.
Goeje Island - It's an island. <3
Gumi - Large enough to have economic growth, small enough to not be bursting at the seems and probably the feel of a smaller city.

Belfast & Dorset - I feel as strongly about these as I do Leeds. =P
Seoul - I admit it has a "Rule of Cool" factor, but while I like cities, megalopolises whose individual districts are cities unto themselves, I'd like to avoid.
Jeonju - While I've never heard of this place until now, it ranks about where Gumi does after a google search.

[Genkai]

I think we're making a bigger fuss than we need to but I'll follow the approach of ranking. XD

8. Belfast
7. Glasgow
6. Seoul
5. Dorset
4. Gumi
3. Leeds
2. Jeonju
1. Geoje Island

It looks as through our top 3-4 are looking like the UK but that doesn't mean we could eventually wind up in say Korea. I mean who knows how the magic might work, one tree in the fantasy world may take the heroes somewhere else in the world that we know now. But then again that might be adding too much to the pot already. Personally I'd be cool with Belfast or Glasgow and it seems like Glasgow might be the route to go. I think when I saw your suggestion, I already knew we'd be going with that.

So we have the setting in order, we could narrow down the colleges/universities where our characters would be coming from.

[BurningDaisies]

Do prefer some place prestigious like the University of Glasgow or more something like a community college?

[Genkai]

I was leaning toward something prestigious. Maybe in a more close-knit setting, they may already know one another (degree could be discussed)?

[BurningDaisies]

I was imagining a character with a seedy background, so I'm leaning more towards a law degree, business program, or something similar.

[Genkai]

Law would be good I think.

I'd probably peg mine as a chef or doctor.

In terms of pictures, do you lean toward anime or some kind of actual photo? I think for this anime might be the best since it's more of a fantastical adventure but if you'd prefer real life visualization, that's okay with me.

[BurningDaisies]

I have no preference between anime or realistic photos, or even good-old fashioned walls of text.

If you're leaning towards the anime, we'll go with that.

[Genkai]

Awesome! Anime it is then.

And the ages would be early 20s yeah?

Now with a CS, I can go from something basic/rough to something more heavily detailed. I have a feeling for this, we may need something in the middle. I don't have a template but I think we can easily make one or just wing it and adjust as we go?

[BurningDaisies]

Personally, while I do like making a fully-fledged character sheet, if I may, I'd like to propose a few challenges instead:

1) An exercise in breviloquence: Describe succinctly each character in one sentence.

Seems simple enough, right? But conciseness can be difficult achieve, if there's nuanced details to cover.

2) A declaration of inspiration: Describe the dreams each character and how that influences what future they are striving for.

What matters in a story is not the "who", not the "when", not the "where", but the "why". Thus, illustrating this "why" factor is desperately necessary.

I believe covering these two would really be sufficient to capture the essence of a character. And, of course, we can add the basic demographic information--name, age, and so on.

Other miscellany can be uncovered later as we see fit, either in-character or out-of-character.

Thoughts?

[Genkai]

You have a really good idea. So many people go at creating and presenting characters with a formulaic sheet and it often seems so flat and lifeless. I love the idea of presenting the dreams/ambition of the character since I think that's their core and should be what pushes them forward. Sure someone may be bubbly or sarcastic but what matters at the end of the day is why they do what they do and how they're reaching their own personal goals.

And I also like the idea of using a single sentence to describe a character. It is a challenge! And of course run-ons wouldn't be acceptable but it's tempting I'm sure. I'll be able to list the information for mine tomorrow, it's pretty late tonight and it's been a long weekend of cleaning and unpacking boxes. -___- I hope yours has been slightly less strenuous.

[BurningDaisies]

I feel that too often character sheets represent more of the what than the why of the character.

I like giving the "why" the spotlight because it not only helps me. as the author, understand my own character's motivations, it makes sympathizing with the character much easier when reading as a third party.

As a side note, I was originally thinking of presenting the first challenge as describing the character in the form of a haiku, but I thought that was too restrictive after idly mulling it over for a couple days. xD

[Genkai]

Making a haiku or even just a limerick would be fun but probably more restrictive and since we have the sentence itself, it should be enough to wrestle with. :3

And gaining an introspective idea of a character early on is likely best. So many people seem disconnected from their characters these days...

[BurningDaisies]

Still alive by the way. I've just been really busy with work. I should have some free time this next week.

[BurningDaisies]

As much as I wanted to keep these characters sheets concise, it really helped to just outline a rough backstory first. For now, I'll just keep it private.

Anyway, I'm more or less done with my character. I'll add it to the OP. Just give me a heads up when yours is done, so I can add it too.

No rush.
I wont be free for awhile anyway.

Edit;;

Aside from characters, is there anything else you want to flesh out before we start?
I feel we could really just jump in pretty quickly once characters are arranged.