Spoiler: TF2 drabble The thing about respawn is that it robs the war of a certain sorta grandeur, Engineer thinks. They’re fighting an endless war over useless land and they can’t even die for it. There’s a tragedy to a pointless war, but not one where every man that dies comes back fifteen minutes later with a fresh pair of boots and a faint sense of ennui. It’s enough to make a man start climbing up the walls. Or blasting up them. Whatever works. It’s a good job, Engineer thinks, shifting his weight from side to side. Can’t complain. He wets a finger and tests the breeze. He shuffles six inches to the left and one inch back. Pays well. More than well, really. Exorbitantly. It’d better, kind of shit he has to put up with. Company makes killing and dying a 9 to 5 better damn well be generous with their paychecks. He unclips his Wrangler from his belt. “Hardhat, where the hell are you?” his earpiece shrieks. “We’re gettin’ frickin shredded out here!” “Busy.” Engineer says. His sentry beeps affirmatively. The earpiece morphs Scout’s indignant sputters into a flurry of static. “B-busy? With goddamned what? I haven’t seen you all damn day!” “Busy.” “Engie, please man, I--” a harsh crackle of what is undoubtedly gunfire and a yelp of pain and the line goes silent. Engineer huffs through his nose. “Told y’all I’d be busy all day.” He mutters. “Shouldn’t be countin on a man to be where he’s told you he ain’t gonna be. Damn fool brat.” He aims the Wrangler at the ground at his feet, and braces himself for the blast. Four rockets at close range blast the ground out from under his feet and near about burst his eardrums, but Medic’s made monsters of them all, and he remains intact and alert enough to surf the blast through the air. He practically belly flops onto the rounded top of a sandstone spire, his breath driven out of him in a painful burst. He fumbles for the small canister of Medigun fluid strapped to his hip and huffs a great big lungful of the stuff through a mouthful of broken teeth. Medic’s miracle cure works its magic, and in seconds Engie’s unslinging his toolkit from his back and planting it on the flattest part of the spire’s slim top. With the push of a button, Engineer’s greatest creation unfurls. “Ahh.” Engineer sighs, settling back on his Rancho Relaxo just as the tray of beers clicks into place. He selects a cold one, frost still clinging to its surface from the miniature refrigerating device he’d cooked up this morning, and idly pops the top. Down below, his Soldier finishes decapitating the enemy Demoman with his shovel, while the BLU Spy leisurely decloaks behind him. The BLU Scout is twisted nearabout in half from where he appears to have been shoved off a cliff. The RED Sniper is clutching at his guts, ropey coils of intestine slipping through his fingers and trailing along the ground. Engineer takes a deep swig of his beer. “Ahhh, life of Reilly. Mmm.” I'm kinda proud to have finished this, given my track record of thinking up a concept, pounding out a middle bit, then getting so overwhelmed with how to start and end it that I just give up and come back a month down the line all "christ, this is actually pretty okay, why did i leave this oh yeah, that's right, i suck."
I'm remaking a character who isn't human and doesn't have a human name to be a human, and I'm struggling to pick a surname. I picked two potential first names for him which are Greek and Punjabi, leaning towards the latter. I don't know enough about Indian surnames, and the first one I picked was Bengali so I don't think I can use that with a Punjabi first name. It's a fantasy setting, but I'm trying to not go "duhhh all this foreign place and its various demographics are basically the same thing" and that's how it's going to come across if I do that.
Ah, I know of those. I was hoping for resources involving meanings and class connotations of the surnames. I don't want to give him something linguistically okay but totally inappropriate.
Found one! Settled on naming him Jaswinder Arya. All research implies that's an okay name, fingers crossed I'm right.
So, the concept of a Mary Sue is on my mind bc character development and I'm curious what people think: have two characters that might be sue/antisue respectively The Main Character, Balu: - (not actually the main character.) - basically a slightly more metal version of the classic Magical Girl, as run through a few rounds of (classic) dramatic power escalation - specifically, a supernatural force for good created by three very powerful beings to fight the battles they weren't strong enough to fight on their own - she Punched Out Cthulu and gained the ability to rip through to other universes to fight more of those things. Which she took to with great gusto - in actual conversation is REALLY ANNOYING because she's not really human and doesn't bother to fake social skills. - will never, ever give up. - can be beaten, but only if she realizes it's literally impossible for anything to solve a problem... Or she's dead. Also scrappy enough the latter is quite difficult to arrange. (Note: the SPEED at which she accomplishes things is not very high.) - name is kinda stupid because the opening scene has someone screaming it repeatedly and having someone with a similar name show up instead The Sidekick, Wolf - actual main character - former child soldier left to die, with all the mental health issues that comes with, just usually able to tune them out. Rescued by Balu. very loyal to her. - opens the story after getting teleported to "somewhere safe" in the middle of battle, but instead ends up in the middle of wilderness, still bleeding and concussed, with no idea where Balu is. - spends the rest of the story still pretty concussed and having to deal with all sorts of Weird Shit and having real prophetic visions intermingled with brain noise - NOT a determinator, but later on does a lot of "what would Balu do?" And then trying to do that, even if it's probably not going to work. Usually very practical and good at working through problems levelheadedly - major part of story is him learning that he's something good in his own right/self-pride
I've spent the last hour poking at names and it is SO HARD. possibly because in some ways the name defines the character for me so it's hard to get a really snappy sense of them until then. also I tend to just want to start all names with vwels which is Bad
I have this weird thing where like 70% of my RP characters (thankfully not here) have names that start with A or L. I have no idea why it just Happens. Last night I decided to make a 100% new FO4 character... and I wanted them to have a name Codsworth would say. Which limits me to a single list. I think I cried at one point.
I'm down to needing one more name... For the human protagonist, of course. Maybe I'll give that list a - why is assface a recognized name? Anyway I've been very careful with these to have none of them start with the same letter. You can definitely tell that my naming pattern is "3-4 syllables crammed into less than ten letters" but other than that I think they're reasonably distinctive. I want the human name to be one that's less The Author Smashed the Keyboard and Made This Up, though.
fuck I can't call her libra that has the same first two letters as lirisoir hits behind the name for something similar - atalanta might work, that's got a common letter with one of the others but I can change that one's first letter to an E (Adecoya -> Edecoya) plus it fits her personality more I think
Saw Split with family today, and it's made me decide to write a heroic character with DID because I've never seen one. I don't know what they should do or who they should be, but I need one. Tips?
I think I have too many characters for the thing I'm doing with abusive backstories - five out of a dozen or so. Their circumstances are all very different though, and two of them are Victorian London street kids who would need a reason to be on the streets so yeah, probably that's okay.
