Here’s slightly better write-ups on the characters I’ll kick off with:
Meriana Casterian: A 40 year-old Malakim pilot, who originally came from the Esper Union. She joined the Malakim in 45 WR; prior to that, she had been a KN Garrison pilot of some fame. Meriana married a STORM, Hadrian Casterian, in the early days of the Esper Union and had one daughter. They divorced as they grew older, having grown apart during the Leviathan War. The final nail in the coffin was discovering her daughter was an Imbued. Her ex-husband has since become the Lord Commander of the Phoenix Knights. She is a Hauptmann in the Grand Army; she is also one of the few Malakim to not side with White Cell in the civil war. Meriana is pleasant, smart, and a bit of a mother hen. Her divorce and departure from the EU are a topic of some gossip, even aboard the Reinhardt. She is a good shot with her sidearm.
Celiose “Sel” Harcourt: An 18 year-old from Grand Casar, who is one of the second-generation colonists born on Avalon. His parents were part of a small Baronian contingent and he was trained, like his father before him, as a Dragoon. He is part of the Far Patrol, a part-time civilian militia that does long-ranging patrols around Grand Casar and beyond. He is enthusiastic and eager, but also somewhat forgetful and prone to daydreaming. He was named after Celiose Cole, who at the time before his birth was a newly minted hero across the Web of Worlds. Sel idealizes the Grand Army and his namesake, but doesn’t really understand either of them or the Web. He wants to see all three some day. He uses a specially made long rifle with a large bayonet that lets it double as a spear. The rifle was made by…
Old Man Ruger: A man in his fifties who originally came from West. He wears an eyepatch and has greying short hair, and operates a store in Grand Casar called Ruger’s Arms. He showed up in Grand Casar about eight years ago; no one quite knows where he was before that, but he since has become a constant presence and friendly enough. He is a master gunsmith, but he also does lots of little mechanical repairs on farm equipment and the like. He doesn’t lead the town, but the elders listen to what he has to say, and he has the honorary position of chief adviser to the town and mentor to the youth.
“HEY KIDS! We have an exciting new character to introduce this season of Kupopolis: Avalon… the talking black fish man, MANNY! Manny likes to point croissants at people because he loves cooking and he always has a lollipop in his mouth! He doesn’t swear because the Lord doesn’t like that, so don’t you worry! Manny is always nice to ladies and never hurts people. His catchphrase is, ‘Aw, fins! I goofed again!’”
Hey guys… I’ve been reading the stuff in Avalon, and I just wanted to say: nice! I missed reading you guys.
I’ve been trying to determine the scope of my own involvement, and been all over the place, to be honest. Matt could probably tell you from conversations we’ve had that I’ve had a lot of crazy ideas (most form and function; not story) that run very contrary to how the story operated in the past. I’ve swung between the poles of “There’s no way I can write in this” to “Well, maybe just a little,” back to “No way” to “Maybe try this? But will it piss people off?”
One thing I may do is try to simply use the great stuff you guys have already written to inspire some low-level music composition, an ongoing hobby. Using the 16-bit era a model, developing character themes, that kind of stuff.
The other notion I had was simply to write, but without introducing any new characters or places. Just use the people and stuff you’ve already put down. I’m not sure how well this would go over, and inevitably I would get stuff “wrong.” I guess the question is, what would you do with my wrongness? Write around it? Just ignore it? It would be disruptive, that’s for sure, in bad and possibly good ways. But is it worth tolerating the bad to get to the possibly good? To use a bad analogy, it would sort of be like running into the middle of a kids baseball game halfway through, and replacing some of the baseball gloves with lacrosse sticks, some with blow horns, and some with wads of cotton candy, and then saying “Play ball!”
That would be amazing, Nick. I know I always loved when Kupop got multimedia; Mike’s soundtracks were a highlight, and original music for Kupop? Yes please.
Also, with regards to using my characters: I’m totally fine with it. If you get something a little wrong (or really wrong, but in an interesting way!), I’ll call it an opportunity. If it’s wrong in a way that would disrupt things, I figure we can work it out – maybe you edit it, maybe we call it a great what if story. I’m a lot more laid back about this than I used to be, and I think we can bend some to get more people in.
I think we should try this… The baseball game idea, I mean. I mean, it would teach kids valuable improvisation skills, as well as hone their senses of humor and the absurd.
