Character Madame Kuri

Tags(introduced): #character #Madame Kuri

Yo, As hinted all the way back on yesterday. I’m gonna talk about a character I’ve written which I feel has the most value to their particular story. They aren’t part of a complex narration, they are not heavily relied upon within the story they belong to, buuuut. I like her.

Alright alright alright, let’s talk Kuri

This is going to be an exercise for myself to better understand why I have adoration to this particular character. And why I suck at making them, by far the weakest aspect of my ability as a writer. Let’s nail the absolute basics.

Madame Kuri is a name and title. She serves as a general to the kingdom, commanding armies of loyal soldiers sworn during peace time to her. And her to the state. She is roughly 30-40 years of age with a youthful spark about her. But the eyes of someone who has lived. And the cautiousness of someone who is ultimately never safe.

Name, Occupation, and Age? Check. Moving on. Ability, Beliefs, and Relations.

Kuri while born with the disadvantage of a slight frame and right arm missing at the shoulder. Has crafted her own story, her own legacy as more than someone that is only that. She has mastered the voice, and the art unique to her of absolute balance. Combined with her creative armor which accentuates to her own benefit, she excels on the battlefield.

Quick clicks Voice: the art of commanding those to succeed and your opponents to crumble. Absolute Balance: Kuri cannot fall, no amount of fatigue, she has prioritized her balance and her breathing. Nothing can shake her.

Madame Kuri is pragmatic, she’s focused on what can happen and what will happen instead of what might or might not. Her ability to read another person is invaluable to her position. Her choices are built upon experience and empathy to everyone. She wants to better understand a person. She is a pacifist by nature.

Kuri has no familial relations. No next of kin. No significant other. She trusts herself to herself. She will allow those around her in, but they will see no more than she will allow them to see. Not a loner, but someone who struggles with the idea of romance.

This is all well and good. But it’s all just faff without context. So let’s talk story and where Kuri fits.

Kuri is a key ancillary character within Project TLP. She is the mentor which trains the exiled Prince as tasked by his father a King with considerable influence in Kuri’s life. Kuri takes the position with pride and hones the prince in the way of the voice and the basics of disarming an opponent as well as positioning. She sees the battlefield as game pieces on a board, and conveys to the prince he has the ability to win under any circumstances if he can assess the worth to the game each piece holds. She spends a great deal of time with the prince. She sees the young boy grow into an young man with great potential. It’s within these sessions however that the prince shows a level of volatility which Kuri does her best to temper. Part of Kuri’s teaching is showing not telling. She pulls no punches, gives the prince no easy outs. This frustrates him, but in Kuri’s mind she is preparing him for the eventuality of finding someone who he cannot influence with what he possesses. This part of the lesson is never reached however, during the prince’s early adolescent years his family is assassinated during a night of absolute upheaval to the societal system and the kingdom. The prince now has the foundation laid by Kuri without her final touches, the polish is never applied and in his rage he utilizes what she has taught him to maximum effect. Revenge is what he seeks however with the use of this gift.

Kuri is not gone at this point though. She is still in command of the armies of the kingdom. Now under rule of a civilian council based system of governance. The prince will meet her a few more times before the completion of the story. His raw and unfettered use of her own teachings won’t net him a victory at first. Kuri will refuse to put him down as well however, not ready to relinquish the role of teacher just yet. The prince’s mind sees Kuri as the enemy at this point. Anything she does or says will not sway him. Their fates are destined to meet until either he succeeds or Kuri dies.

Kuri raised the prince as closely as anyone in her life. She felt a powerful bond with him. Much more than he did her. She let him in. She gave him access to her on personal and borrowed time. An exercise in becoming more humane with herself and spurring on a future of change and what Kuri wanted to see. She feels utmost remorse and self-loathing for how she left him. She would rather see herself die before him. But the consequences of letting him win are the same now as they were then. If anything she is the deciding factor on his life. The consequences of his actions can only be served by her. Kuri does not favor this. She does not savor this.

Without spoiling the ending I think that’s pretty okay, nay? Eh, you get it.

Thanks for reading if you did.

catchin' up. Gonna mash.

tags: #project #TLP

We’re gonna play catch-up. So far it’s been all scraps, let’s get into some projects and tie it into something that makes me go ‘huh, I like that.’

I have a project, call it TLP. An acronym, not important.

At it’s base it’s about a young person of royal bloodline who is seeking revenge for the overthrowing of his families control. Killing all but him in the process. This is initially seen from the perspective of a young man going through the motions we’ve seen a lot. He’s basically Mel Gibson doing things that are on on-the-line.

read on you crazy diamond.

It starts off with him in exile, with a scant few survivors of the event which saw his family over thrown. It was cloak and dagger, one night event. A quick and succinct revolt/assassination. He was trained in the art of ‘the voice’. His teacher is one of my favourite characters I’ve created to this point in my writings. I’ll do a character thing for her next maybe. This is catch-up after all.

BACK ON TOPIC.

The voice is a means to do damage to your opponent and also rouse your army to overachieve. It’s charisma, but also choice of words. Actions, and understanding the absolute limits of what you or your opponent is willing to do to get to the goal.

He learned from a master. He uses this to drum up support. He’s raising a militia to take back his lineage. Reclaim, revenge, and yadda yadda. So far, so normal.

What made me want to write this however is how he receives push back. Go figure not everything was great for those under control of a kingdom ruled by a strict bloodline. He can recruit to his hearts content, but it’s not all friendship is magic. The exiled boyo is gonna make choices. You see, he abuses his knowledge of how to use the voice. He pushes things to the extreme. This is because the boyo is very much all-or-nothing. You don’t see it right off the hop. But when he receives that push back he doesn’t think about it too much. He sees these people with these concerns as a part of the problem. The problem of him not being in that seat of power. He feels entitled yes. The prince will push himself and the limits of his people to their limits. In what? To achieve what? It’s fairly telegraphed near the end, but he has to learn it. But will he acknowledge it?

I like to write stories. I don’t write fables as much. I want there to be people. Not morals. The prince is not an allegory for something. He’s just what he is. Someone who is not aware of what others want. He’s simple in that way, but his ability to convince and coerce makes him a volatile part of history. Will he or won’t he? It’s like that but more or less, pushing the button labeled “end things”.

Where am I going with this? I dunno. I like stories.

let's talk Shards (and not my absence)

Tags #shards

So, I started this adventure not long ago. Planning nothing in advance. I’m learning though yeah. It’s been 2 days of inactivity vs one day of actual content. Do I feel inspired to write? Potentially. Motivated to write? Surely not.

Yeah, so, I’m gonna continue on with that thought trail on Sky Lords from before the break. Let’s talk about shards, and that whole system.

Sky Lords have a place in the world where they are wholly not understood. Their moment in history is cemented in the current age as wondrous. The lost civilization from where these magi encased in Earth hail from long forgotten. Erased even, save some relics. Magic in the world? Only in the eyes of children. That’s boring though, like, who cares at that point.

Enter the shard system. Sky Lords are essentially floating magic capsules. As they break down occasionally from too much mass what they shed is magical shards. The size of which would normally denote the potency of the magics infused within. This balances the output within the world. The most powerful magic is used through huge fragments. Can’t walk around with a fragment in your pocket. So they have to be housed. Can’t move around with’em. Magic is no longer just for kids.

Shards though, this is the basis. They can be used and consumed. Shards represent the building blocks of the old magic system. They allow the used to bend things in so many words. Move faster. Think faster. Lift heavy things. Make heavy things lighter. Swift shards. Focus shards. Lift shards. Float shards.

These shards can be pocketed, they can influence each other. They are used and consumed however. The potency of which is more powerful when first used. Think canned air. Diminishing returns yeah.

So this is a currency as well as something one can use beyond the weight of capital. There’s a trade off. Focus shards for example allow the user to enter into a swift-stream kinda state. It’s near impossible to retain this without actual/natural aptitude.

This system greatly benefits the user if they practice under the principle they are trying to achieve. When the user becomes proficient with the shards they utilize it means they do not rely on them, can control the output.

I’m getting out of control here with my thoughts, but as for what more you can do with this system and where it shines. Some examples: 1- a shard user can combine say, float + focus. Move weightlessly while also hyper focusing. While the user has to go faster but also moving not as quick. 2- a fragment can be large, the impact incredible. When a shard is the size of a boulder we enter into more fun elements. There’s an aspect of fire/ice/lightning. You get into military type things. Bombs, big bangs, wars fought. 2b- a fragment is impossible to move, so that land it’s kept becomes a control point. Not only that but if the fragment is used by someone capable of uncapping it. (a rare state) It would become volatile. This is the Chernobyl type scenario. 3- I. Love. Scale. So you can imagine what more can be done when you just ‘up the ante.’

This is my hell. Welcome to it.

Sky Lords

Tags: +Sky Lords +Scraps

Yo, How about a conceptual idea thing I’ve had in my head for a bit? Eh whatever, today we’re talking Sky Lords.

The idea of a Sky Lord is a gigantic mass in the sky which orbits at around cloud level within the atmosphere. In my realm of thinking, a Sky Lord represents a school of magic completely sealed away from use by the population of this world. At it’s base a Sky Lord is a person/being who has absorbed that particular school of magic. In the story it accompanies a powerful entity from beyond the world is drawn to consume all of what these people’s call magic. And in an attempt to stave off complete annihilation the authoritative powers decide to dismantle the entire system based on their understanding. So that the world can continue and not be consumed. The idea was to seal what was there away, however the greed of a few outruled the whole operation. Leading to all schools of magic being absorbed by 5 or so people. These people became immortal beings incapable of anything coherent. On a world where nothing would exist for awhile, they lived forever. Accumulating mass and debris as they lived out their natural mental lives in anguish and solidarity. Behind the walls that encase the Sky Lord, is the prototypical body of a person. Dead in every sense of the word, and harboring and containing all known magics from before. Along with any of the last remnants of a society ages and ages ago.

My dog is whining at me so I’ll leave it at that.

Lazy Poster, adminin'

Tags: +Admin +Lazy

Yeah, so.

My intentions with this blog-ish thing is to keep myself writing, motivated to write, and inspired to write. In the past I would get overwhelmed and convolute things. I'm gonna keep it simple here however. As best I can.

As such I'll work within the infrastructure and keep a fairly rigid tagging effort in place. It'll be things that make sense in my folder structure for things I want to keep sorted. Scrivener is what I intend to use to keep everything in order.

What to expect from this area of the internet? No engaging memes, social-esque postings, uhhh.... I just wanna make it about writing. I'm an introvert anyways, so you wouldn't be interested in where I lean on societal issues. This ain't that.

I write though yeah. I write poems, I write short stories, I write long-form projects. I'm wicked fictitious. Mostly.

I'm into plot development and planning things out. But I really want to get away from that, too. I'm a little too heavy into world building that I've forgotten how to craft a scene and minutia of a well laid interaction.

For the brave souls who happen upon my un-marketed and un-advertised endeavor? I dunno, enjoy the stay.

Also also, if something new is introduced into this space and it requires a tag I'll try to make note of it in a very simple system. You'll know it when you see it.

I plan to make a post of some substance every day. It's for me at this point so I only have to worry about disengaging me. I look forward to the back n' forth I have with myself over this.

Tumblr seemed the simplest means to reach the ends I'm after. Yeah I'm done, on with the show.