Slightly In-depth Roleplaying Character Questions: MAURICE/GENERAL
I found some neat questions on therp_discuss community and thought I'd spend the hour and some it takes for furcadia to re-download answering them!
COPY-PASTED DIRECTLY FROM THE PAGE: http://community.livejournal.com/rp_discuss/1517.html
For character specific questions, I'm just going to go with Maurice because he's one of my more solid guys. I may copy/past and edit this list of questions later and do them for other guys.
Questions from writers_almanac:
-How did your character(s) get their names? Wait! Not how you thought up their names. You're just the creator; the small god. Somebody had to bestow your characters' names upon them within their own universe. Who were they, and why did they choose those particular names? Cover middle names, code names, married or maiden names, etc. if relevant.
Maurice Zachary Hutch (Maury to friends)
OOCLY: Maurice's character started off as a joke picture and eventually evolved into one of the most solid book characters I have. He started out as Jay, then Jake, then Willas, Will, William, and suddenly out of the blue I was hit with MAURICE and it stuck. It was fun to say and I'd never met anybody named Maurice. I chose Zachary because I wanted a Z in there because MZ Hutch sounds like a lame rockstar name he'd pick out himself.
ICLY: Maurice's first name was more or less just a word that rolled off his mother's tongue well. Margret Rose had three children before Maurice and as time went on, her nerves grew closer to snapping. She needed a good, medium-sized name with a peak to it that did well and carried far when screamed at the top of her lungs.
His middle name, Zachary, is after his father.
-Tell us about the bad habits of your character(s).
Maurice has several bad habbits. Some of them he came with and others he developed over RP tiems.
Abusing Substances: Maurice is something of a worried, harassed soul so he seeks consolation in food and drink if friendly company is too far away. Anything that can alter his state of mind for a few hours, is easily accessable, and affordable, he welcomes with open arms. This includes mostly alcohol. He has been known to abuse nerve medication (An otherworldly brand of depressant made for undead people called Cryptocalm) and lick batteries/chew on wires/ jab things into light sockets for a jolt of electricity. It would not be out of character for him to explore other methods such as injections. Maurice has no interest in smoking.
Clinging: When substances aren't available, Maurice finds himself addicted to people or an individual. He'll trail after them like a silent, overy large shadow until asked to leave. Unless paticularly stricken, he won't try to include himself in conversation or interrupt goings ons. He has been known to physically latch onto people though and not let go.
Eating when Bored: Self explanitory.
Mumbling: Maurice has always been very soft-spoken, even when he used to be a schoolyard bully. It makes him difficult to understand. Occasionally he'll mumble to himself just loud enough for it to be annoying.
Blindly mowing people over when he becomes afraid: Poor Dom...
Fixing things 'later': Mauirce has a veeery long to-do list. He'll get to it. Eventually.
-List your characters' dates of birth and places of birth. If you wish, you can give a small description of the place where they were born. The climate, what it was like living there at the time, that kind of thing.
Maurice was BORN on November 26, 1979 via C-section. His brothers and sisters told him from an early age that they found him in the cabbage section at the grocery store and if he wasn't good, they'd take him back. He still gets leery around the produce section today.
Maurice DIED (turned) on November 23, 2005, just three days before his birthday. It wasn't a fun day. Meranda jokingly suggests he have 'deathday' parties. He usually spends the 23rd out drinking himself sick or locked inside his deep-freeze.
-Do any of your characters have an old friend from their childhood? If so, what kind of a relationship does your character have to them? Are they best friends, do they treat each other like siblings, do they have crushes on each other? If none of your characters have any, invent one and give some small details about them and the relationship they have to one of your characters.
Maurice did not have many childhood friends outside of peopl he just talked to while in class. He didn't go visit or have people visit him because once he got old enough to realise he was a lot BIGGER than the other children, he used it to his advantage to aquire rights to any table he desired to sit at and lunchmoney from anybody stupid enough to get in his way.
He did heckle a band student named Stuart though... I wonder what ever happened to him.
-Do your characters have pets? What are they? Did they have any childhood pets? If not, what might they want for a pet, or if they don't want one, why not? Any kind of companion animal qualifies - the faithful steed as much as the kitten.
Maurice grew up awash in an OCEAN of cats kept by his mother. He enjoyed their company but at the age of eight developed severe allergies. Scratches and dander makes his throat close up. Luckily he's dead now and doesn't need to breathe unless he plans on speaking. He also sneezes and his eyes water.
In adulthood, he posesed a pair of fish which didn't survive because he was usually too hung-over to remember they existed and a telepathtic alien in the guize of a dog that eventually ran away.
He has a 'minion' that he turned by accident which his a black rooster named Bloodspur. It seems to think it's some kind of small dog and rabbidly attacks peoples' ankles. Cats in the area have gone missing.
-What are those little things that come to mind when your characters wish upon a star, or blow the birthday candles out, or kneel before the Goddess statue in the city temple, or toss a penny in the well, or do whatever it is they do to cast a wish? Do they wish for the same thing every time or different things?
"For everything to just be okay."
-What's your character's favorite holiday? If you're working in a fantasy world, tell us about their favorite local holiday or feast day. If they don't have one, why not?
Maurice has grown to dislike most getting-together holidays because he has to visit his family. He loves his mother and she knows about his vampirism but he's slowly starting to worry that his family will notice he's not aging. Also he doesn't like JW being a part of the family. If he had to pick, he'd say Christmas.
-Who do your characters envy, and/or for what reasons? Over which qualities or things? The object of their envy can be a specific person, in or out of story. Or it can be a trait or thing and everyone in general who possesses it. Or... whatever you think up.
XD Maurice envies plenty. He enveys tall thin people, people who are ALIVE, who have girlfriends who love them, guys who are TOO COOL 4 U, people who didn't make dumb choices like he did. If anybody has a 'better' mullet than him, IT IS ON LIKE DONKEY KONG.
-Say anything you like about your characters' hair. Or lack thereof, when appropriate. What color, texture, length, style is it? Where do they go to have it cut? How do they feel about it? How will it change as they age?
Well..XD It's a rocker mullet. In fact, THE HAIR CAME BEFORE THE MAN. I just wanted to draw somebody with that rediculous hairstyle David Bowie had in Labyrinth. I was in LOVE with the fairy-fro or whatever the hell it was. Maurice's mullet is twisted into short spikes in front that sometimes hang down in front of his brow but it isn't very long. In the back, though, it brushes his shoulders and is long enough to be put into a ponytail.
This is his CROWNING FEATURE in his opinion. He doesn't feel like he has a whole lot else going or him so he takes care of the 'do. This is a dillusion because mullets have been dead for..a while. Longer than HE has. But just humor him. He does his best to keep it clean. If his hair is flat, there's usually something WRONG with him.
SAD BUT TRUE.
-A lot of people have recurring dreams, or favorite dreams, or terrifying nightmares. What kinds of things do your characters dream?
He has a lot of scary, disjointed dreams about attacking people and not being able to controle himself.
He also dreams that he's a rockstar. Have you ever seen a man air-guitar in his sleep?
-Spiders, snakes, centipedes, cockroaches, etc.... how do your characters feel about them? Who digs them? Who doesn't?
For a vampire, Maurice doesn't really enjoy the presence of creepy crawlies. He's absolutly phobic of spiders. He will litterally clumb up walls to avoid them. He's not WILD about snakes but wont' shreik in their presence. Other insects get a bit of an 'ew'. Unless they're moths or butterflies or something in the harmless and nice to look at cadigory.
However ALIGATORS ARE AWESOME.
-Do your characters have good luck, or bad? Are they superstitious, or not at all? Do they have any lucky charms? Do they believe in the notion of random chance, or do they make their own luck?
Maurice's luck is questionable and he knows this. Somebody just looking in would say he's 'one unlucky bastard'. Maurice himself thinks he's rather lucky. He may be dead but he has a roof over his head, a job, and people that care about him. He doesn't feel like he can rightly complain. He does anyway though from time to time.
-Do you prefer to run a game or to play in it? Why? If you like both, what do you like best about each one?
I just like playing most of the time. I only 'run' a one-on-one plot that's been going for 5+ years.
-How long have you been roleplaying? How/why did you get into it and with what (eg D&D, online text based, WoW etc)?
I've been roleplaying since maybe the 8th grade? I'm 21 now so that's...uh. seven years? Eight years? SOMETHING like that. What got me into RPing was actually some prodding from my friend Ben to come to this OMG SAILOR MOON~ board. I didn't know anything about sailor moon but there I was exposed to 'lets pretend' in text form. I was blown away.
-Which of your characters is most like you and why?
Oh, man. hard one XD. They ALL have a bit of me in them. 8I I am technically a lot of people.
-How do you research for your characters, if needed?
Well, it really depends. For MAURICE, he was a learning experiance for me in drawing and writing. I started out drawing mostly animals. Then JW who was more or less a stickman. Then Maurice came along and just knocked everything I knew into the USELESS PILE. Maurice smiled, was short, fat, and had an overall different face shape. I had to do reasearch on how people like him MOVED, how clothing fell, stuff like that.
THEN when he DIED, I dug up all kinds of lore to see what would work best and what would make a good story.
-What are the greatest difficulties you find in writing your characters?
With writing Maurice, it's hard to get him to DO stuff. He's withdrawn and likes to sit and just go
-Do you prefer writing about heroes, antiheroes, or villains?
I like writing about average jack-offs trying to get through their day.
-Which came first - the name or the character?
The character. XD He went through several name changes first.
-What aspects of your personality do you see in your character(s)?
I see a bit of me in Maurice. He's goofy, withdrawn, and aches to please. He's also southern and a little slow. He likes bad movies.
-If you could choose any actors to play your characters in a movie, who would they be and why?
XD I'm not sure who could play Maurice as far as acting goes. Though if he were in need of a VOICE actor, the late Lorenzo Music would have done a wonderful job. He has that slow, sleepy tone Maurice uses and sounds hillarious when he hollers.
-How would your characters translate into today's society? (Bard=wedding singer, etc)
Maurice is modern so...fairly well I guess XD
-Describe your character (main or other characters) in three words
World's Worst Vampire.
COPY-PASTED DIRECTLY FROM THE PAGE: http://community.livejournal.com/rp_discuss/1517.html
For character specific questions, I'm just going to go with Maurice because he's one of my more solid guys. I may copy/past and edit this list of questions later and do them for other guys.
Questions from writers_almanac:
-How did your character(s) get their names? Wait! Not how you thought up their names. You're just the creator; the small god. Somebody had to bestow your characters' names upon them within their own universe. Who were they, and why did they choose those particular names? Cover middle names, code names, married or maiden names, etc. if relevant.
Maurice Zachary Hutch (Maury to friends)
OOCLY: Maurice's character started off as a joke picture and eventually evolved into one of the most solid book characters I have. He started out as Jay, then Jake, then Willas, Will, William, and suddenly out of the blue I was hit with MAURICE and it stuck. It was fun to say and I'd never met anybody named Maurice. I chose Zachary because I wanted a Z in there because MZ Hutch sounds like a lame rockstar name he'd pick out himself.
ICLY: Maurice's first name was more or less just a word that rolled off his mother's tongue well. Margret Rose had three children before Maurice and as time went on, her nerves grew closer to snapping. She needed a good, medium-sized name with a peak to it that did well and carried far when screamed at the top of her lungs.
His middle name, Zachary, is after his father.
-Tell us about the bad habits of your character(s).
Maurice has several bad habbits. Some of them he came with and others he developed over RP tiems.
Abusing Substances: Maurice is something of a worried, harassed soul so he seeks consolation in food and drink if friendly company is too far away. Anything that can alter his state of mind for a few hours, is easily accessable, and affordable, he welcomes with open arms. This includes mostly alcohol. He has been known to abuse nerve medication (An otherworldly brand of depressant made for undead people called Cryptocalm) and lick batteries/chew on wires/ jab things into light sockets for a jolt of electricity. It would not be out of character for him to explore other methods such as injections. Maurice has no interest in smoking.
Clinging: When substances aren't available, Maurice finds himself addicted to people or an individual. He'll trail after them like a silent, overy large shadow until asked to leave. Unless paticularly stricken, he won't try to include himself in conversation or interrupt goings ons. He has been known to physically latch onto people though and not let go.
Eating when Bored: Self explanitory.
Mumbling: Maurice has always been very soft-spoken, even when he used to be a schoolyard bully. It makes him difficult to understand. Occasionally he'll mumble to himself just loud enough for it to be annoying.
Blindly mowing people over when he becomes afraid: Poor Dom...
Fixing things 'later': Mauirce has a veeery long to-do list. He'll get to it. Eventually.
-List your characters' dates of birth and places of birth. If you wish, you can give a small description of the place where they were born. The climate, what it was like living there at the time, that kind of thing.
Maurice was BORN on November 26, 1979 via C-section. His brothers and sisters told him from an early age that they found him in the cabbage section at the grocery store and if he wasn't good, they'd take him back. He still gets leery around the produce section today.
Maurice DIED (turned) on November 23, 2005, just three days before his birthday. It wasn't a fun day. Meranda jokingly suggests he have 'deathday' parties. He usually spends the 23rd out drinking himself sick or locked inside his deep-freeze.
-Do any of your characters have an old friend from their childhood? If so, what kind of a relationship does your character have to them? Are they best friends, do they treat each other like siblings, do they have crushes on each other? If none of your characters have any, invent one and give some small details about them and the relationship they have to one of your characters.
Maurice did not have many childhood friends outside of peopl he just talked to while in class. He didn't go visit or have people visit him because once he got old enough to realise he was a lot BIGGER than the other children, he used it to his advantage to aquire rights to any table he desired to sit at and lunchmoney from anybody stupid enough to get in his way.
He did heckle a band student named Stuart though... I wonder what ever happened to him.
-Do your characters have pets? What are they? Did they have any childhood pets? If not, what might they want for a pet, or if they don't want one, why not? Any kind of companion animal qualifies - the faithful steed as much as the kitten.
Maurice grew up awash in an OCEAN of cats kept by his mother. He enjoyed their company but at the age of eight developed severe allergies. Scratches and dander makes his throat close up. Luckily he's dead now and doesn't need to breathe unless he plans on speaking. He also sneezes and his eyes water.
In adulthood, he posesed a pair of fish which didn't survive because he was usually too hung-over to remember they existed and a telepathtic alien in the guize of a dog that eventually ran away.
He has a 'minion' that he turned by accident which his a black rooster named Bloodspur. It seems to think it's some kind of small dog and rabbidly attacks peoples' ankles. Cats in the area have gone missing.
-What are those little things that come to mind when your characters wish upon a star, or blow the birthday candles out, or kneel before the Goddess statue in the city temple, or toss a penny in the well, or do whatever it is they do to cast a wish? Do they wish for the same thing every time or different things?
"For everything to just be okay."
-What's your character's favorite holiday? If you're working in a fantasy world, tell us about their favorite local holiday or feast day. If they don't have one, why not?
Maurice has grown to dislike most getting-together holidays because he has to visit his family. He loves his mother and she knows about his vampirism but he's slowly starting to worry that his family will notice he's not aging. Also he doesn't like JW being a part of the family. If he had to pick, he'd say Christmas.
-Who do your characters envy, and/or for what reasons? Over which qualities or things? The object of their envy can be a specific person, in or out of story. Or it can be a trait or thing and everyone in general who possesses it. Or... whatever you think up.
XD Maurice envies plenty. He enveys tall thin people, people who are ALIVE, who have girlfriends who love them, guys who are TOO COOL 4 U, people who didn't make dumb choices like he did. If anybody has a 'better' mullet than him, IT IS ON LIKE DONKEY KONG.
-Say anything you like about your characters' hair. Or lack thereof, when appropriate. What color, texture, length, style is it? Where do they go to have it cut? How do they feel about it? How will it change as they age?
Well..XD It's a rocker mullet. In fact, THE HAIR CAME BEFORE THE MAN. I just wanted to draw somebody with that rediculous hairstyle David Bowie had in Labyrinth. I was in LOVE with the fairy-fro or whatever the hell it was. Maurice's mullet is twisted into short spikes in front that sometimes hang down in front of his brow but it isn't very long. In the back, though, it brushes his shoulders and is long enough to be put into a ponytail.
This is his CROWNING FEATURE in his opinion. He doesn't feel like he has a whole lot else going or him so he takes care of the 'do. This is a dillusion because mullets have been dead for..a while. Longer than HE has. But just humor him. He does his best to keep it clean. If his hair is flat, there's usually something WRONG with him.
SAD BUT TRUE.
-A lot of people have recurring dreams, or favorite dreams, or terrifying nightmares. What kinds of things do your characters dream?
He has a lot of scary, disjointed dreams about attacking people and not being able to controle himself.
He also dreams that he's a rockstar. Have you ever seen a man air-guitar in his sleep?
-Spiders, snakes, centipedes, cockroaches, etc.... how do your characters feel about them? Who digs them? Who doesn't?
For a vampire, Maurice doesn't really enjoy the presence of creepy crawlies. He's absolutly phobic of spiders. He will litterally clumb up walls to avoid them. He's not WILD about snakes but wont' shreik in their presence. Other insects get a bit of an 'ew'. Unless they're moths or butterflies or something in the harmless and nice to look at cadigory.
However ALIGATORS ARE AWESOME.
-Do your characters have good luck, or bad? Are they superstitious, or not at all? Do they have any lucky charms? Do they believe in the notion of random chance, or do they make their own luck?
Maurice's luck is questionable and he knows this. Somebody just looking in would say he's 'one unlucky bastard'. Maurice himself thinks he's rather lucky. He may be dead but he has a roof over his head, a job, and people that care about him. He doesn't feel like he can rightly complain. He does anyway though from time to time.
-Do you prefer to run a game or to play in it? Why? If you like both, what do you like best about each one?
I just like playing most of the time. I only 'run' a one-on-one plot that's been going for 5+ years.
-How long have you been roleplaying? How/why did you get into it and with what (eg D&D, online text based, WoW etc)?
I've been roleplaying since maybe the 8th grade? I'm 21 now so that's...uh. seven years? Eight years? SOMETHING like that. What got me into RPing was actually some prodding from my friend Ben to come to this OMG SAILOR MOON~ board. I didn't know anything about sailor moon but there I was exposed to 'lets pretend' in text form. I was blown away.
-Which of your characters is most like you and why?
Oh, man. hard one XD. They ALL have a bit of me in them. 8I I am technically a lot of people.
-How do you research for your characters, if needed?
Well, it really depends. For MAURICE, he was a learning experiance for me in drawing and writing. I started out drawing mostly animals. Then JW who was more or less a stickman. Then Maurice came along and just knocked everything I knew into the USELESS PILE. Maurice smiled, was short, fat, and had an overall different face shape. I had to do reasearch on how people like him MOVED, how clothing fell, stuff like that.
THEN when he DIED, I dug up all kinds of lore to see what would work best and what would make a good story.
-What are the greatest difficulties you find in writing your characters?
With writing Maurice, it's hard to get him to DO stuff. He's withdrawn and likes to sit and just go
-Do you prefer writing about heroes, antiheroes, or villains?
I like writing about average jack-offs trying to get through their day.
-Which came first - the name or the character?
The character. XD He went through several name changes first.
-What aspects of your personality do you see in your character(s)?
I see a bit of me in Maurice. He's goofy, withdrawn, and aches to please. He's also southern and a little slow. He likes bad movies.
-If you could choose any actors to play your characters in a movie, who would they be and why?
XD I'm not sure who could play Maurice as far as acting goes. Though if he were in need of a VOICE actor, the late Lorenzo Music would have done a wonderful job. He has that slow, sleepy tone Maurice uses and sounds hillarious when he hollers.
-How would your characters translate into today's society? (Bard=wedding singer, etc)
Maurice is modern so...fairly well I guess XD
-Describe your character (main or other characters) in three words
World's Worst Vampire.