Gift Horses From My Muse
(Cross-posted from Tumblr)
As I was saying the other day, I’m finally feeling a little inspired again, in a WoW-ward direction, but the character who’s sticking in my head is my necromancer-turned-lich-turned-shade, Dariahn’s “It’s Complicated”, Etheris. I’ve gone on at length in other venues about writing and RPing characters of dubious morality. It’s something I’ve had a lot of fun with since getting into WoW RP.
Etheris is a bit tricky, though. To start with, he’s currently a bitter, miserable Shadow of a man. Even when he’s gotten involved with other villainous characters he’s tended to pace about in mid-air scowling and refusing to talk in anything but Gutterspeak. It’s been a rare character indeed who’s earned his respect, and his disdain for those who haven’t, while fun to RP, makes it hard to get him motivated into RP situations. Once upon a time he had all kinds of charisma, but he’s not that person anymore.
And that’s the other problem I’ve had with him: The simple matter of getting my head around a character who has been through so many dramatic life - or unlife - changes. I have a pretty good handle on who he is now, but I often feel like there’s too much of a disconnect between Etheris the reluctant Forsaken and Etheris the young student in Dalaran falling in with the Cult of the Damned, or Etheris the power-drunk Scourge necromancer, or Etheris the finally-inhuman lich. The fact that each of these phases of his life was accompanied by a significant physical change makes it more difficult to visualize them all as the same man. In a way, maybe that’s good. Major life changes can make you feel like a different person, or more dramatically, can make you feel disconnected from who you were before. I already explored that a little with Dariahn. I’m just not super-comfortable with it.
There’s also the walking-a-tightrope issue of writing a gay villain, even if he’s a foil for a gay (anti)hero, but Peter David, one of my favorite comic writers, has already made some good points about that kind of thing. I’ll leave that be. But hey, inspiration is inspiration. I can only hope the rest of my life leaves me some time to take advantage of it.
As I was saying the other day, I’m finally feeling a little inspired again, in a WoW-ward direction, but the character who’s sticking in my head is my necromancer-turned-lich-turned-shade, Dariahn’s “It’s Complicated”, Etheris. I’ve gone on at length in other venues about writing and RPing characters of dubious morality. It’s something I’ve had a lot of fun with since getting into WoW RP.
Etheris is a bit tricky, though. To start with, he’s currently a bitter, miserable Shadow of a man. Even when he’s gotten involved with other villainous characters he’s tended to pace about in mid-air scowling and refusing to talk in anything but Gutterspeak. It’s been a rare character indeed who’s earned his respect, and his disdain for those who haven’t, while fun to RP, makes it hard to get him motivated into RP situations. Once upon a time he had all kinds of charisma, but he’s not that person anymore.
And that’s the other problem I’ve had with him: The simple matter of getting my head around a character who has been through so many dramatic life - or unlife - changes. I have a pretty good handle on who he is now, but I often feel like there’s too much of a disconnect between Etheris the reluctant Forsaken and Etheris the young student in Dalaran falling in with the Cult of the Damned, or Etheris the power-drunk Scourge necromancer, or Etheris the finally-inhuman lich. The fact that each of these phases of his life was accompanied by a significant physical change makes it more difficult to visualize them all as the same man. In a way, maybe that’s good. Major life changes can make you feel like a different person, or more dramatically, can make you feel disconnected from who you were before. I already explored that a little with Dariahn. I’m just not super-comfortable with it.
There’s also the walking-a-tightrope issue of writing a gay villain, even if he’s a foil for a gay (anti)hero, but Peter David, one of my favorite comic writers, has already made some good points about that kind of thing. I’ll leave that be. But hey, inspiration is inspiration. I can only hope the rest of my life leaves me some time to take advantage of it.