In Dark Alleys Chargen pt. 1
"You won't find it on any map, but take a step in any direction, and you're in Trouble."
--Lee Hazlewood
I talk about In Dark Alleys (IDA) here.
My run-down of character types is here.
An open-ended bit of fic about the character is here.
mrteufel wanted me to create a Lost character, so I'm doing that.
Consuela Ortiz grew up in a pleasantly boring neighborhood in Westchester, West Los Angeles. She was forced to take piano lessons, which she eventually learned to love (discovering Tori Amos and Dr. John in the process). She got good grades in High School, and went to UCLA to study Musical Performance.
Consuela was a smart young woman, but not exactly a model student. She discovered the freedom of college life, and often stayed out late drinking. It was when she staggered home from one of these drinking sessions that she got Lost. She had turned a corner, thinking of nothing in particular, and realized that she had no idea where she was. Consuela was sloshed enough to find this intriguing rather than disconcerting. The next morning was another story however. Consuela found herself with a brutal hangover outside an IHOP in Barstow.
Consuela has been neglecting her studies, getting drunk and exploring her gift (as well as places as far away as Las Cruces, New Mexico. When we meet her, she's just been let go by the strangely fearful abductor.
(Of course this doesn't tell us much about Consuela. I'm sure more will come up during chargen).
The first mechanical step is Psychodynamics. They're sorta personality elements borrowing heavily from the Dynamic Duo Freud & Jung. There are eight of these stats, and I have eighty points to distribute among them. And whaddaya know, ten is 'normal'. The futher one deviates from this median, the more people think of you as 'odd', 'strange' or 'plumb loco'. Furthermore we're told that these elements can become corrupted, and how that affects the character. Not how it comes about though.
ANIM: Anima/animus, the masculine side of a woman, or feminine side of a man. Exactly what this means isn't entirely clear, apart from the point that a high ANIM makes a character more understanding of, and empathy towards the opposite gender.
If a character's ANIM is corrupted, it means that feminine/masculine impulses are felt as frightening and alien, and people of the opposite gender as frightening.
I don't want to tangle too much with this, so I give Consuela an ANIM of 10. Dead normal.
EGO: The part of a character's psychic make-up that 'ties the room together'. The concept of self, which allows or denies the other psychodynamics time on-stage. A person with a low EGO is afloat in a sea of impulses and thoughts she doesn't understand. There is little coherent sense of self to speak of. At EGO 20, the character is completely known to herself, and never experiences feelings or urges which she doesn't understand.
Having a corrupted EGO means having a poison sense of self, 'knowing' wrong and unhelpful things about oneself.
Consuela is fairly sure of herself, and her newfound powers have made her curious rather than frightened. Her EGO is a solid 14.
ID: The psychodynamic of instant gratification and lazy hedonism.It does not think, it just aims for pleasure. The higher the stat, the more pronounced the behavior. A person with a low ID values ideas, convictions and identity higher that personal pleasure.
A corrupted ID leads a character to actively seek out the unpleasant. Intense pain, genuine humiliation, that sort of thing.
Consuela is a bit of a hedonist. She enjoys drinking, and dislikes the repetition of studying. Her ID is 13.
REPT: Short for Reptile. This stat governs the basic survival impulses to acquire food, shelter, and to react to danger. A person with a low REPT relies on logic, ethics, aesthetics and other such artificial tripe. Hehe. A person with a high REPT is a creature of instinct and action.
Having a corrupted REPT means having instincts that misfire and tell the character to do dangerous or bizarre things, like eating pins or pursuing sex with a relative.
Consuela is not a person with particularly well-honed instincts. She is curious, and has never wanted for anything. I put her at REPT 7.
SEGO: That would be the Super-Ego, the psychodynamic which makes the character feel guilt and fear punishment. The policeman of the mind. A high SEGO means a strong conscience and respect for authority figures, and a low one means little fear from external or internal punishments.
Having a corrupted SEGO means feeling guilt over things like brushing one's hair, having fingers. Things no healthy person would feel guilt over.
Consuela is at the low end of normal. SEGO 9.
SHAD: The character's shadow side. A high value means that the character has many scary, dark, and downright ego-dystonic* impulses and thoughts. Whether she acts upon them is a matter of whether the character's EGO and SECO are strong (so she can keep the evil impulses down), or weak (and she finds herself doing bad things despite her own wishes.
A character with low SHAD either hasn't got a mean bone in her body, or is comfortable with being a psychopath.
Having a poisoned SHAD means that some of the character's mental resources are disappearing into the shadow. Thus a character might be unable to be creative when she isn't acting out her dark side's urges.
I put Consuela at 6. She's pretty comfortable with herself, and her EGO is strong. She's basically a good egg (or perhaps just uncritical of herself).
STRA: STRA is for stranger/that man in the street/Do you embrace him/or beat the retreat? STRA is the stat which indicates how you deal with the Other, those unlike yourself, and their ideas. A high stat means that the character is accepting of strangers and the strange. New ideas are exciting and useful. A low stat means that those unlike the character are outrageous and quite possibly dangerous. New ideas are ridiculous nonsense.
Consuela is at 11. The new is inteesting, but her experience is still pretty limited.
THAN(nathos): The death-urge, plain and simple.A high THAN indicates that the character doesn't fear death. Rather the certainty of death makes life bearable. A low score means that the character has a fear of death and manifestations of mortality.
Having a corrupted THAN means being convinced that others want and need to die.
Consuela is not overly fearful, but she doesn't court death either. THAN 10.
Phew! That was a lot of blab. I quite enjoyed it, but we've only just begun. More later.
*All too rarely do I get to use that word. This entry was originally posted at http://hafwit.dreamwidth.org/6493.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
--Lee Hazlewood
I talk about In Dark Alleys (IDA) here.
My run-down of character types is here.
An open-ended bit of fic about the character is here.
mrteufel wanted me to create a Lost character, so I'm doing that.
Consuela Ortiz grew up in a pleasantly boring neighborhood in Westchester, West Los Angeles. She was forced to take piano lessons, which she eventually learned to love (discovering Tori Amos and Dr. John in the process). She got good grades in High School, and went to UCLA to study Musical Performance.
Consuela was a smart young woman, but not exactly a model student. She discovered the freedom of college life, and often stayed out late drinking. It was when she staggered home from one of these drinking sessions that she got Lost. She had turned a corner, thinking of nothing in particular, and realized that she had no idea where she was. Consuela was sloshed enough to find this intriguing rather than disconcerting. The next morning was another story however. Consuela found herself with a brutal hangover outside an IHOP in Barstow.
Consuela has been neglecting her studies, getting drunk and exploring her gift (as well as places as far away as Las Cruces, New Mexico. When we meet her, she's just been let go by the strangely fearful abductor.
(Of course this doesn't tell us much about Consuela. I'm sure more will come up during chargen).
The first mechanical step is Psychodynamics. They're sorta personality elements borrowing heavily from the Dynamic Duo Freud & Jung. There are eight of these stats, and I have eighty points to distribute among them. And whaddaya know, ten is 'normal'. The futher one deviates from this median, the more people think of you as 'odd', 'strange' or 'plumb loco'. Furthermore we're told that these elements can become corrupted, and how that affects the character. Not how it comes about though.
ANIM: Anima/animus, the masculine side of a woman, or feminine side of a man. Exactly what this means isn't entirely clear, apart from the point that a high ANIM makes a character more understanding of, and empathy towards the opposite gender.
If a character's ANIM is corrupted, it means that feminine/masculine impulses are felt as frightening and alien, and people of the opposite gender as frightening.
I don't want to tangle too much with this, so I give Consuela an ANIM of 10. Dead normal.
EGO: The part of a character's psychic make-up that 'ties the room together'. The concept of self, which allows or denies the other psychodynamics time on-stage. A person with a low EGO is afloat in a sea of impulses and thoughts she doesn't understand. There is little coherent sense of self to speak of. At EGO 20, the character is completely known to herself, and never experiences feelings or urges which she doesn't understand.
Having a corrupted EGO means having a poison sense of self, 'knowing' wrong and unhelpful things about oneself.
Consuela is fairly sure of herself, and her newfound powers have made her curious rather than frightened. Her EGO is a solid 14.
ID: The psychodynamic of instant gratification and lazy hedonism.It does not think, it just aims for pleasure. The higher the stat, the more pronounced the behavior. A person with a low ID values ideas, convictions and identity higher that personal pleasure.
A corrupted ID leads a character to actively seek out the unpleasant. Intense pain, genuine humiliation, that sort of thing.
Consuela is a bit of a hedonist. She enjoys drinking, and dislikes the repetition of studying. Her ID is 13.
REPT: Short for Reptile. This stat governs the basic survival impulses to acquire food, shelter, and to react to danger. A person with a low REPT relies on logic, ethics, aesthetics and other such artificial tripe. Hehe. A person with a high REPT is a creature of instinct and action.
Having a corrupted REPT means having instincts that misfire and tell the character to do dangerous or bizarre things, like eating pins or pursuing sex with a relative.
Consuela is not a person with particularly well-honed instincts. She is curious, and has never wanted for anything. I put her at REPT 7.
SEGO: That would be the Super-Ego, the psychodynamic which makes the character feel guilt and fear punishment. The policeman of the mind. A high SEGO means a strong conscience and respect for authority figures, and a low one means little fear from external or internal punishments.
Having a corrupted SEGO means feeling guilt over things like brushing one's hair, having fingers. Things no healthy person would feel guilt over.
Consuela is at the low end of normal. SEGO 9.
SHAD: The character's shadow side. A high value means that the character has many scary, dark, and downright ego-dystonic* impulses and thoughts. Whether she acts upon them is a matter of whether the character's EGO and SECO are strong (so she can keep the evil impulses down), or weak (and she finds herself doing bad things despite her own wishes.
A character with low SHAD either hasn't got a mean bone in her body, or is comfortable with being a psychopath.
Having a poisoned SHAD means that some of the character's mental resources are disappearing into the shadow. Thus a character might be unable to be creative when she isn't acting out her dark side's urges.
I put Consuela at 6. She's pretty comfortable with herself, and her EGO is strong. She's basically a good egg (or perhaps just uncritical of herself).
STRA: STRA is for stranger/that man in the street/Do you embrace him/or beat the retreat? STRA is the stat which indicates how you deal with the Other, those unlike yourself, and their ideas. A high stat means that the character is accepting of strangers and the strange. New ideas are exciting and useful. A low stat means that those unlike the character are outrageous and quite possibly dangerous. New ideas are ridiculous nonsense.
Consuela is at 11. The new is inteesting, but her experience is still pretty limited.
THAN(nathos): The death-urge, plain and simple.A high THAN indicates that the character doesn't fear death. Rather the certainty of death makes life bearable. A low score means that the character has a fear of death and manifestations of mortality.
Having a corrupted THAN means being convinced that others want and need to die.
Consuela is not overly fearful, but she doesn't court death either. THAN 10.
Phew! That was a lot of blab. I quite enjoyed it, but we've only just begun. More later.
*All too rarely do I get to use that word. This entry was originally posted at http://hafwit.dreamwidth.org/6493.html. Please comment there using OpenID.