returnjourneymemes | FEBRUARY PLOTTING MEME

FEBRUARY PLOTTING MEME

Welcome to the Return Journey's first plotting meme!

In plotting memes, we share what we're doing next, our dream storylines, and any gentle workshopping on tricky subjects or character choices — essentially a CR Meme with an optional smidge of How's My Driving.

These memes are not mandatory, but they are highly encouraged because it's a place to plan CR and communicate your character arc in a way that can get others involved with yours. They're meant to be low pressure and high yield. When in doubt, ask questions!

Every month, we offer a few different prompts or character-building questions. These are entirely optional; you can absolutely just fill in the base form if you want.

Monthly Prompts

This month we're asking questions themed around consequences.

Think about the thing that your character desires most — if they failed to fulfill that desire, what would the consequence be? Does it change how they pursue their desire? Is it entirely personal, or beyond them, impacting others?

What consequences does your character need to grow? Consequences are crucial to telling a character arc for both inmates and wardens. Without them, there can't be stakes or tension, and without stakes or tension, there's no impetus to grow. What's a kick in the teeth your character needs? What are they robbing themselves of when they try to avoid these consequences?

How do consequences affect your character externally and internally? How do they react? What kinds of consequences are intolerable or tolerable, necessary or unnecessary?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Character: Theo Crawford
Canon: Original
Status: Inmate

Info: It's ya boy, Theo, that kid everyone hates and who hates you back. Theo used to be a very powerful mage who specialized in necromancy and the occasional gravity spells. He's so good at magic that he got dangerously obsessed, became a paranoid megalomaniacal narcissist over it, and went apeshit to show up his former mentor and the magic guilds. Ended up killing nearly a thousand people in San Francisco with necromantic spells which is like 10x more than he intended. He's very guilty about it but will never admit it in a million years. Maybe. He'll gladly brag about it to inmates like he's proud, but will shy away from telling wardens anything, due to his guilt. And because he just really hates authority figures. Without his powers, he feels totally defenseless and has been lashing out at everyone and everything, treating nearly every interaction he's had like it's an aggressive challenge. He's desperately trying to come off as tough and mean so he'll be left alone, while also wanting nothing more than to be paid attention to. I'm sorry about him.

Plotting: This kid is unravelling faster than expected and it's mostly Lucifer's fault. Okay, mostly it's his own fault, but Lucifer is his temp warden and is making him talk to him every day and he hates it so. very. much. He went through substance withdrawal, he's still recovering from the damage spellcasting did to his mind and body, he's absolutely wracked with guilt and PTSD, and he's terrified of everyone here because he has no way to defend himself and he's mistrustful by nature to begin with. He's out to prove himself as a Big Tough Man while being a 100-pound malnourished teenager with nothing else going for him now. Please just pay attention to him and tell him what a big cool man he knows he is already!! JEEZ.

Goals: I'd love for him to do some real, actual damage to the ship or something, but I don't want to make the other PC's lives too miserable, so I'd love to discuss ideas. Maybe something that would be inconvenient for awhile but can be fixed by PCs/replaced eventually by the Admiralty? Idk.

I'd love for him to have ONE conversation where he doesn't push back or get aggressive, idk if this is actually possible but it'd be a nice change of pace. Sometimes he even tires me out lol.

He might be getting put to work in the greenhouse, which is a great idea. He needs some purpose, something to keep him occupied, and he's good with plants thanks to his mentor, who was (ostensibly) an alchemist.

Etc:

What consequences does your character need to grow?

We're getting there, faster than I expected. Lucifer simply confronted Theo with his continuous series of contradicting lies, and Theo couldn't stand to be shown his own weakness. If he admits that he feels guilty for all of those deaths, then he feels like those deaths were for nothing. It's what he needs to come to terms with, but is deeply in denial about it. Those people died, he is responsible for it, but they died to prove a point to his mentor. That's a reason. A good reason to him, not to anyone else, but he doesn't care about that. Not yet.

When he was brought here, Theo panicked, wanting to live. But he really doesn't. He's very bitter about being alive again, feeling he doesn't deserve it or is worth it, and has admitted a few times out loud that he wishes he was still dead. It's one thing he says that isn't a lie. To him, it's much easier just being dead and no longer having to deal with the consequences of his actions, rather than be reminded of them at every second of every day. That inflated ego has been shattered, and he feels worthless now. He needs to get over this feeling, and maybe he can start to feel like he's worthy of life by finding new purposes that aren't just being the biggest, baddest mage on Earth.

Edited 2022-02-26 03:10 (UTC)

I'd love for him to do some real, actual damage to the ship or something

Hear me out: Poisoning the Greenhouse plants. I know SOMEONE who would help or even suggest it, but that part's not necessary.

Might be good for getting Theo to wrestle with the desire to prove how good he is at things / a sense of purpose versus peer pressure / the non-pressured urge to be a shitlord.

OH. That's good. Because he'll probably actually like working in there, and doing something like that would risk it... But also he'd have a chance to impress the inmates and do some shit to the wardens.

My immediate thought was this: maybe not outright poison, but maybe he can cultivate something that would put people who touched/consumed it asleep. Slip it to the wardens just as they were getting to the next port so the inmates can try to make a break for it.

I think he'd be less likely to do it without a motivation like that. Considering working in the greenhouse is probably the one and only thing he'd actually like, he'd be less likely to risk doing something with no reward. But something like this would definitely be a motivation.

My concern then is that it would change whatever the port plot was going to be (ie., characters getting off the ship and doing fun/different things for a change) into a mad scramble by the wardens to get the inmates back. Which, personally, I think sounds great, but I wouldn't want to steamroll a port plot. Definitely something I can talk to the mods about and see what we can come up with though. The chance of him hitting all wardens at one time would be slim, but the inmates could still have an enormous advantage.

FEBRUARY PLOTTING MEME

Theo

CR Question

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