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Okay, this keeps on happening, and I want some answers now, please:

What the hell is wrong with killing one's characters?

I've had this from nightskywarlock a few times when killing off characters in stories, or at least considering it. The concept of killing one's avatars (which I once called "avatacide") is apparently verboten. It's considered not a good thing to happen, no matter how much it makes sense for it to happen.

And yet, torturing one's characters in-game and actually all-out asking the ST to hurt their characters some more is alright. That, apparently, is perfectly healthy.

Look, Aidan's not playable anymore. It might have been alright if it had just been Viola coming back into his life. It might have been alright if she'd just come back into his life and reciprocated the flirting with Juan. It might even have been alright if the above had happened and she'd done the sniping at him. Even most of Fiora's knife-twisting about how she'd never seen a love so true as his for Viola probably wouldn't have made Aidan completely unplayable ... or at least that much less unplayable than he already was. Fiora's veiled offer of using sorcery to "help his situation" ... final straw. Note to the uninitiated -- she's a Strega; a Fate Witch. She can manipulate the strands of fate and basically change people's lives. If Aidan really needs that kind of help to get a woman, he's a loser beyond all redemption anyway. And the very idea that he'd let someone do that to someone he loves ... unthinkable.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, depending), there's no really viable way of writing him out of the current scenario; they're on a volcanic island and the boat to pick them up is only coming in three days. And I don't want to play him again anyway; he's my first character, rolled up when I had no understanding whatsoever of the rules, and two sessions of playing him has convinced me that I never want to play him again. He's no fun. So yes, I want to have him killed off. Preferably in a reasonably noble way, mind you, but still, I want him no-holds-barred dead, wiped off the board and irrevocably out of my playlist. Besides, the character's lived for nearly a hundred years, chronologically speaking; it's not like he hasn't had a decent run.

However, cholten99 does not like this idea. Says it takes the fun out. I thought drama was half the fun. Besides, people die. It's a thing. And Aidan's been lucky a long time. I know it's roleplay and people's characters shouldn't die; I know how much GMs fudge things so that characters don't die (God knows I've had to do it for two PCs in Mage already). However, if the player wants the character dead, and it can be written properly into a campaign, I don't see a problem. Besides, this little Vesten volcanic island is a good place to throw in the Vesten rune mage I wanted to roll up.

So come on, roleplayers and readers of my stories. What the hell is the problem with killing off a character who's of no more use and who I want to die?

Doctor, Doctor

Actually woke up early due to nausea. Oh, this is not good or right. After a week of bedrest, I should not still be about to throw up. However, I am awake, albeit feeling like hell.

So I have twofold options at the minute. I could go to work feeling like hell, on the fair assumption that I will feel better eventually and I've been out too long already. Alternatively, I could ring in sick again and go to the stupid doctor. I may as well find out what's wrong with me, I suppose, even if it's just to find out if it can be cured easily.

*sigh* It's a mark of how physically unhealthy I am, or perhaps how mentally healthy I've become, that I'm going for the second option. Swollen glands, constant nausea, possible fever, aches & pains and general malaise are not something that should last a week if it's just a bug. I'm going to the doctor, I'm going to find out what's wrong and work's just going to have to wait.

Oh God I don't believe I said that.

In other doctor-related news ... the Aidan thing. Thanks all for the commentary about that; it's more I'm curious about other thoughts on the issue than anything else. In answer to the question, "Why death instead of just absence?", the answer would be a) in this instance, absence would force me to play the character for another session when I really don't want to and b) absenting one's self is a wussy way out, not to mention bringing up the temptation to play him again because, as I thought when I brought him back into this game, "It can't be that bad, really". Because it bloody well can, you know. Besides the whole "clean slate" theory, character death also offers great scope for drama, which unless I'm mistaken is kind of the point of something like 7th Sea, where one gets drama dice and everything...

I content myself with the fact that I don't do character death lightly. When things conspired to make Alison entirely too difficult to play, I could talk to weaselbitch and corone about it. You know, "Look, I really want to play her because I like her as a character, but under these circumstances, she'd go completely mental and suicidal; can we do something about this so I don't have to lose a character I like?" I think if orchestrated right, we can avoid the problem of Viola blaming herself in this (a challenge for Simson, on my life!), we can go for the high drama, I can get rid of a character I really am not interested in...

And then there's the fact that, given that we're on a Vesten island, it's very much advisable for me to roll up the Vesten rune mage I've been coveting. ^_^

Anyway, time to consider that phone call to work. It'll be Violet's answerphone, I know that, but it'd be Violet's answerphone pretty much no matter what time I rang and I need to leave relatively soon to get in the queue for open surgery anyway. I don't believe I'm going to the doctor after nearly a year avoiding them. I completely suck.

Everybody else is doing it, so why don't I?

Which Member of the Endless Are You?

Trip to the doctor's office. Ten minutes wait outside before place opened, half-hour wait inside with wailing infant and the coughing, hacking shambling semi-dead, all for a five minute consultation that basically involved the phrase, "Take these tablets and give it time". Not to mention the badgering into making an appointment for a smear test -- have I mentioned how much I hate being female? Then twenty-minute wait at Boots for prescription. I hate doctors. I hate prescriptions. I hate pills. I really hate the idea of smear tests. But at least I don't have to give up caffeine for any length of time.

Told work to write me off today and tomorrow. By then the stupid tablets should have kicked in. So back to work on Wednesday. Hurray. At least I'll be out of the bloody house. For the time being, new 7th Sea character roll-up and petting the cat, who has taken up permanent residence in my lap since I got home. She's going to pine when I'm not in the house anymore, poor love. Then again, she tends to while away the lonely hours by sleeping in the airing cupboard.

The Price

Can I just say that full-blood mages are fucking expensive?

I finished rolling up my alternate 7th Sea character. She's quite fun, for an on-again-off-again. A few interesting skill sets, vague on the backgrounds (because it doesn't matter how many points you put in it; the GM will ignore that just to screw you all the more), and of course, the whole magic thing. Forty points at character creation for full-blooded! Jeeeeeeez.

I've had some commentary on how playable she is out of this particular setting. I think it depends on how sensitive you are in game. It pisses some people off to be treated like peasants and looked down on by other members of the party who're of nobler birth than you. Um, excuse me; Aidan never acknowledged that he was (a long, long time ago) son of the head of his clan; he was set apart a little because he was a scholar, but as far as anyone knew, he was an Avalon peasant whose brains had led him up in the world. And Alison? Hello -- Avalon Jenny; that's all she was when she first joined the group. However, despite the fact that her entire fate was reconstructed around the idea that she was a peasant, she was treated with respect by ... okay, most of the party. It never bothered either character that there was no deference, because neither expected any. If people needed to listen to either of them ... well, Alison tended to just barge in and say what needed saying and Aidan was fairly persistent and someone listens to the guy with the book-learnin' eventually... It's all about attitude, I guess. You can't go into a situation where noble birth is all and automatically expect respect for your skills. Respect costs, and earning it takes time.

Story of my life, really.