character meme 1

(The following meme has not been authored by me or anyone I know. All of these were acquired from other sources that did not designate an original author. If you know the original author of any of these memes or are the author, yourself, please let me know and I will either remove the meme in my blog post or edit the post to give you the proper credit.)

Ten Character Meme

(Instructions)

Choose ten of your characters and list them by name giving each one a brief description. Anser the following questions based on the list of characters you've named.

(Characters)

1. Chief Councilor Vodstvo: Old man who appears to be very old. Main advisor of court, close friend of crown prince, wise, sarcastic, suspicious
2. Abigail Richmond: Woman in mid-20's, athletic, aloof, average intelligence, unknown past
3. Leo Slater: Man who appears to be in his mid-20's. Quiet, observant, serene, empathetic
4. Cecilia Carrera: Woman in late-20's. Broken, dejected, afraid, anxious.
5. Tate McMurphy: Man in mid-20's. Religious, faithful, loyal.
6. Cade Gregori - Man in early-20's. Down to earth, average, surprisingly caring
7. Grady Camacho - Man in late-20's. Classic bad boy, sarcastic, rude, asshole
8. Rose Carrera - Woman in late-70's. Classic matriarch, out-spoken, strong, fiercely protective
9. Lumine - Woman who appears to be in her late teens. Lady of the court, daughter of high priest, sister-in-law of crown prince, nervous, capricious, curious.
10. Nixon Perry - Man in late-20's. Enigmatic, vague, smart, deep.

(Questions)

4 invites 3 and 8 to dinner at their house. What happened?

Rose mistakens this dinner as a chance to meet her daughter's new boyfriend, Leo, whom she swiftly falls in love with herself. She is overjoyed that Leo is a good man whom she believes will properly love and care for her only daughter, Cecilia. She does not disguise her disappointment when Cecilia insists that she and Leo are not dating. Leo says nothing. He doesn't want to add to Cecilia's embarrassment. Rose spends the bulk of the night trying to forge a romantic connection between Leo and Cecilia. She also spends a lot of time criticizing her daughter's kadu, which needs more salt, and fingering the crucifiz hanging from her neck.

9 tries to get 5 to go to a strip club. What happens?

Tate is initially freaked out at the idea of a significant member of the court taking part in such debauchery that is a sin against the flesh. But Tate refuses to outwardly judge her. When he questions their place there, Lumine insists that this outting in only to better understand the people of this land and their motivation. She tells Tate that his faith is a comfort to her and she needs that when faced with such dangerous ideas.

You need to stay at a friend's house for a night. Who do you choose: 1 or 6?

Cade. Just because Vodstvo's place would be hella cold.

2 and 7 are making out. 10 walks in. What is their reaction?

There's a very brief flash of disgust on Nix's face until he quickly composes himself to exhibit his usual aloofness. He mutters something vaguely nihilistic and leaves the room before Abby and Grady can react. When they are interrupted, Abby realizes whose arms she is in and insults Grady. Gray says something kind of obscene and scratches himself and leaves, laughing at Abby as her sneers at her over his shoulder.

3 falls in love with 6. 8 is jealous. What happens?

Rose is only jealous because of how badly she wants Leo to date her daughter. She then laughs and figures that someone so sweet and good looking has to be gay. But she tries to sway Leo from liking Cade. Cade reminds her all too much of the kind of bad influence Grady was in her own daughter's life and she doesn't want Leo to get hurt by Cade the way Sissy was hurt by Grady.

4 jumps you in a dark alleyway. Who comes to your rescue: 10, 2, or 7?

Abby. Grady would likely be laughing or helping Cecilia. Nix wouldn't even care.

1 decides to start a cooking show. Fifteen minutes later, what is happening?

Vodstvo's face is bloody with entrails sticking out of his mouth as he sighs in relief to the end of his hunger that was caused by the drought.

3 has to marry either 8, 4, or 9. Whom do they choose?

He'd probably choose Lumine. Those Carrera women are more hastle than they are worth.

7 kidnaps 2 and demands something from 5 for 2's release. What is it?

A bottle of Jack and a carton of Marlboro lights.

Everyone gangs up on 3. Does 3 have a chance in hell?

Yes. Because Leo can heal.

Why is 6 afraid of 7?

Because Grady is a sign of where Cade is headed.

1 arrives late for 2 and 10's wedding. What happens, and why were they late?

He was consuming souls.

5 and 9 get roaring drunk and end up at your house. What happens?

I find they only drank 2 chi-chi's each. And they were virgin chi-chi's. I convince them they are so drunk they need to sleep and proceed to tell everyone about it.

9 murders 2's best friend. What does 2 do to get back at him?

Abby wastes the bitch. Lumine is no match for her. But Lumine accepts her fate as she is disgusted at the fact that she was capable of murder.

6 and 1 are in mortal peril and only one of them can survive. Does 6 save themself or 1?

Cade saves himself. He is certain Vodstvo is the bad guy.

8 and 3 go camping. For some reason they forgot to bring along any food. What do they do?

Rose is ready to kill some animals with her bare hands, clean and cook them. Leo is trying to figure out why the hell he keeps finding himself alone with this crazy old lady.

10 is in a chariot crash and is critically injured. What does 9 do?

Pray.

My, how you have grown!

I obviously don't update this half as much as I should. So I'm going to come up with different ways to fill the blank spots as I do in the Mommy blog. To be perfectly honest, it doesn't quite help me publish more. It's not for a lack of words that I am not on my blogs near enough. It's for a lack of time and motivation.

But let's try it out anyway.

My first attempt at lulls in posting will be to post various character memes found wandering around the Internet at the fingertips of creative people. These character memes involve questions and hypothetical situations for different characters. Sometimes the meme calls for known characters. Most of the time they call for original characters. No matter the case, for this blog I will mostly be using original characters unless otherwise stated.

Oh yeah, I'm an "aspiring writer". Whatever the hell that means.

Now as an introduction: I currently have three ongoing projects. One's been on hold for several years now. That is the only one that actually has a full working outline. The other two are relatively new works. None of them are anywhere near being finished. I justify lulls in writing by saying I'm still in research mode.

I am generally a reality based fiction writer. That means my plots involve things that could possibly happen in real life as opposed to fantasy or science fiction. However, two of the aforementioned works are fantasy. Those fantasy novels do largely take place in this world or a world much like ours. Both are part reality-based fiction. I mention this because it seems that these character memes have largely involved characters from fantasy works. Most of my characters - or at least half - will be more realistic than fantastic.

I will also be adding this disclaimer to all memes:

The following meme has not been authored by me or anyone I know. All of these were acquired from other sources that did not designate an original author. If you know the original author of any of these memes or are the author, yourself, please let me know and I will either remove the meme in my blog post or edit the post to give you the proper credit.

First one coming up pronto...

in an ideal world

Ayn Rand said that, "If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject."

I am not Ayn Rand and have no desire to be anything like her other than achieving her best-selling author status. But even the most idealistic, most compassionate and most empathetic person should strive to see the logic in this belief along with its grave weaknesses.

Altruism taps into basic human emotions and the condition that we are above our primal instincts and have the ability to care in a manner that is beyond our need for survival. Part of that is our ability to empathize and when that feeling rules our actions, we take steps to consider the welfare of others. We are uncomfortable with the thought that someone else like us is suffering at the hands of a world that is much more cruel than many of us have experienced first hand.

But is there such a thing as taking such empathy too far? I believe there is. The line for me is drawn when such empathy is demanded or made law, either by official decree or because it is expected of a civilization due to a majority mindset. I may not want to live in a world where altruism is stifled. I would also not want to live in a world where altruism is expected.

We often come across people who are so good in their own nature and want so badly for others to understand, believe and foster that goodness within themselves. We understand their idealism and often agree. We also often agree that it would be the best if only we knew for certain a way to gently and naturally mold the human race to feel similarly.

There are so many reasons the human race is not going to come together as a whole to agree to provide care for all of this world's citizens. We could debate about how accurate the triune brain model is regarding the workings of the brain and the relationship among its many parts. We can talk about the R-Complex and how evolution changes or adds, it does not take away and as such, we, as humans, we will never evolve to a point that the reptilian complex is completely gone or even over-ridden. We could weigh in on whether or not it would even be beneficial to society if we lost our ability to feel rage, understand fight or flight, or have a desire for power and territory. We can trek back in history and discuss thousands upon thousands of years worth of influence on the many different cultures that exist in this world and the high improbability of being able to change such influence in less time than it took to create it. We can discuss the strange phenomenon of cultural canon being silenced and changed by occupation, and still finding its influence on a generation that did not even know such an idea existed. We could discuss, at length, all the psychological things we have yet to really theorize about and so many in existence that we still do not understand.

There are so many reasons that equality is merely an idea that cannot truly exist for anyone. There is the simple fact that aptitude and skill differ from person to person. The knowledge that if given a choice, we'd want to deal with the best of any given field because there will always be people who are better than others. There is the understanding that with different people come different interests. The understanding that our motivation often goes way beyond mere passion. There is the belief that without incentive, people are not always smart, motivated or, again, altruistic enough to want to follow certain paths that are commonly associated with wealth and security in a cash world. Those who would question the chances of someone choosing to be a surgeon over a ditch digger knowing the payback would be equally nothing, at least nothing material that could be measured against one's neighbor's, when the drawbacks stack strongly against the other profession.

All of those, of course, are simply theories. But those theories are based on observation and experience. And with all of that mentioned, there are still so many other reasons a utopia of self-sufficiency is an idea that most will say is never going to manifest itself, no matter how hard we try or how many of us would love to live in such an idyll. The vast majority of this world try to perform actions that they believe will lead them to such a place. That place is their salvation. This place is their trial. The reality of this trial is that things are not going to reach a point of harmony and sustaining in a world even remotely similar to ours. This is the strangest point of agreement to me. Both science and faith seem to agree on this one thing very often: There is no such thing as perfection.

For me, this argument can only be solved in one way. It's not in deciding whether we can change the zeitgeist of the whole world or not. When nature is something that cannot be changed, it's the outer environment that is. We, as a society, are the nature. The rules, both written and unwritten, are the environment. Changing our environment will involve changing our canon, our actions, our history, our language, our morality and our laws. Altruism can only be globally achieved if it was agreed by a governing group that it is in our best interest as a whole to mandate good deeds.

The whole is part of the problem as much as it is part of the solution. In any situation when the whole is considered, the individual is not. In accepting our differences, we accept that someone will be disappointed. There may be basics that most of society agree on that have to consider the whole before the individual. A person may feel it's in his best interest to kill the person standing next to him. But as that would hurt society as a whole, laws are in place to deal with such things. Yet even then, there are factors that make such a law malleable to consider the individual. A man who kills an innocent person in cold blood is different from a mother's calculated plan to murder the man who killed her child is different from the guy who hears voices that command him to kill is different from the government that decides to execute a man deemed unfit to ever live in society again.

There is still a line I'd prefer the government not cross. Just as I would not support a government that persecutes thought crime, I also cannot support a government that would dictate how a person should live and thrive and one that mandates a person's possessions and expression of the individual's beliefs and gifts to such a degree no matter the intention.

When the floodgates are open, we don't always know what's going to rush through. We don't know how much a ruling population is going to dictate the way society grows and prospers. We don't always know what the next step will be or how long it will be till a line is crossed. We all want a big change and some drastic step to be taken when the quality of life starts to slip faster than we can keep up with. We reach a point when it feels like we cannot take another step or live another day in our present living conditions. But ore rules to achieve a utopia may not change our world. It may only allow for more control and more influence when we have all learned by now that some of our best intentions become sullied by a deeper need for control. The less involved the leaders of our society are in my life, the better.

I don't know what kind of world our future generations will live in. I don't know how many future generations will even exist. But I do know that despite how bad life is for so many, smaller steps to get to a better tomorrow are more preferable than drastic solutions that have not been examined or tested enough. I do know that supreme control in any group's hands, again, whether it be by law or majority belief, is not an answer to the problems we have most likely contributed to more than we have helped alleviate.