JW (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
goldeneyeball) wrote2021-09-26 11:30 pm
goldeneyeball) wrote2021-09-26 11:30 pm
Ryslig App
OOC INFORMATION
Name: Wolfy
Contact: https://www.plurk.com/quesadillawizard
Age: 34
Other Characters: N/A
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: James "JW" Walter
Age: 27
World Information:
JW's setting is sort of your run-of-the-mill Earth with hidden supernatural things that have some kind of magnetic attraction to main characters. It's sort of a monster-of-the-week kind of setting for a series of short stories I'm working on. As of right now there are no real history differences between our own world and the Earth JW is from. I may eventually decide that some famous figure like Elvis was actually a unicorn or something, but that doesn't really matter in the long run.
There are three classes of supernatural being: undead, fae, and monsters. Undead contains everything from ghosts to vengeful 'demons' to homebrew necromancy projects. Fae are kind of that weird blurry space between creature and spirit and they don't even give a damn. They are unstable, free-roaming, and snobby. Don't mess with them. Monsters are simply creatures bound by biology that haven't been discovered or have fallen off the radar. They're the rarest.
Other dimensions exist and if you know where the thin places are you can pass between them. Like the layers in an onion, there are infinite dimensions circling the main 'base' dimension the stories take place in. Some are just blurry in-between places. It's possible to slip out of the world behind a gas station in Tennessee and pop out of some lady's bathroom in China. However you must know where the roads are. Otherwise, you might just wind up somewhere in the vacuum of space and promptly turn inside out. Some dimensions are exactly the same as Earth except you, dear reader, you actually play the saxophone. Or if you already play the sax, you're a belly dancer. Or maybe a rabbit.
There are three notable dimensions that cluster close to the base-world and make up something called The Memory Dogma: The Attic, The Underbed, and The Basement. They are guarded by three horses: Lost, Forgotten, and False. The memories of man collect here and sort of form a 'mindscape' for Earth as a whole. Some think fae are formed from this place but nobody knows.
One unique feature of this setting is that every single sentient being capable of reasoning between right and wrong has something called a Mindscape. This is a world that exists inside the individual's head and is populated by manifestations of facets of their personality. The happenings and appearance and even the functionality of this little world reflect what has happened to the character. Everyone's is different and VERY rarely do people even know theirs exists. JW has had brief brushes with his since he did some involuntary dimension hopping, but doesn't really understand it. He just knows there's an annoying trap-mouthed man in his head.
Character Information:
JW was born around 1950 in rural Tennessee. His family mostly got on with the help of his mother's parents. When his mother contracted pneumonia and died suddenly (heart enlargement) his father fell into a guilt-driven depression and drinking habit which set off the schizophrenia that his own father had suffered from. He grew abusive and JW was taken away from him to live with his grandfather on his mother's side at the age of six or seven. JW lived with him and learned farm work until he was 14. After the death of his grandfather he was placed back with his father who had deteriorated greatly. JW was a sheltered kid and didn't know to look for help. He was pulled out of school after failing tenth grade and kept secluded from people.
He left his father's home at 18 after a violent fight and took his grandfather's horse to a different town. There he fell in with a Mexican-American family after making friends with the oldest son, Horas Valentine. They unofficially adopted him and repaired the damage that had been done to him as best they could. He was fed, clothed, given a role in the family, and spoiled just a little bit. He grew up along side Horas and the two of them did everything together, including sharing an apartment and working at the same deli. They were like Timon and Pumba if both of them were Timon and smoked weed and occasionally vandalized buildings.
"Hawksaw" is the first ‘book’ in the series. It describes JW’s arrival in the year 2007 from 1974. It hints that this is not his first adventure, but a terrible creature he encountered on the last one still has his claws sunk in deep from Beyond. The being, described only as The Man in the Cap attempts to puppet JW’s body from within and force him to kill himself. JW over powers him and manages to force him ‘back through the veil’. The Man in the Cap steals a chunk of his memory on his way to being shoved into spectator mode and proceeds to make a pest of himself from there on out.
The thing about JW that I want to make very clear is, yes he is schizophrenic and he is aware of it. He experiences audio and visual hallucinations along with pain, but they are separate from the ‘man in his head’ that yells at him for the entire book. JW is very familiar with his symptoms. The Man in the Cap is very real as an entity.
JW tries to confess to the murder of a girl from 1974 but being only 27 years old, no one believes him. The Man in the Cap causes an outburst that makes the cops to write JW off as ‘just a crazy homeless kid’. Unbeknownst to JW, when they investigated his claim, they managed to find a photo of a man that looked very similar to him, sure enough, from 1974. Bugle, Chief of Police, got mighty spooked and decided to throw JW onto the streets so he didn’t have to deal with it.
The local busybody church lady named Betty notices JW and decides to make him her new charity project. She drags him to church and shows him off to the Do Good Comity to make herself look good. JW is bounced around from host to host, leaving each time due to things like alcohol triggering his PTSD or simply witnessing domestic abuse. When Betty can’t keep him homed, she elects to put him in a ‘historical’ house at the edge of town as its groundskeeper.
JW is not an idiot and accepts this free house. The moment he manages to land a job and starts to get his feet under him it turns out that Something Else is in the house with him: an undead taxidermy nightmare of a wolf that can speak and wants him out. JW, fed up with just about everything at this point, refuses to leave. A fight ensues which causes his elderly neighbor to overhear the ruckus and rush JW to the ER for a severe eye injury.
The neighbor is Mrs. Shirley and she tells JW that Betty also put her on the hill as a ‘charity trophy’ and they bond over how much they hate her.
With a huge ER bill hanging over his head, JW is more determined than ever to defy the creature living in his house. One day, while he is out, the city brings some machines onto the property to deal with some dead trees. The wolf, who we learn is called Deuteronomy, thinks they have come to knock down the house and in an act of desperation, contacts another monster that lives even deeper in the house. Deuteronomy was made by a man and the monster was made by the same man. As the elder, she orders it to destroy JW so that development of the land will stop, but the monster, Feverdream, decides to run out into the town and Do a Crime instead. Deuteronomy is like “fuck”.
JW returns from an outing and actually manages to talk to Deuteronomy without her trying to murder him, he reveals to her that he just wants to live in the house and not destroy it. She’s like ‘Oh. hey by the way…” so he teams up with her in search of Feverdream so that the monster does not kill anybody in town because a) that would be bad and b) they will TOTALLY knock the house down if folks know that horrible monsters come out of it and also that horrible monsters exist??? Also neither of them will have a house.
So, armed with a spell that Deuteronomy’s creator used to make Feverdream, they chase the monster through town. They run into Chief Bugle and he gives them a lead on where the monster went. He’s also like “What the fuck this isnt in my job description.” JW and Deuteronomy trail Feverdream into someone’s house. There’s a really cool fight that eventually starts a fire and the paper that the spell is on gets burnt up. JW opts for just making up his own spell on the spot and beating the monster to death with an empty rifle. The house burns down and JW is rescued from the wreckage by the fire department.
In the end, JW’s medical bills are “taken care of” by Bugle on the condition that if any other monsters pop up, JW takes care of them. Instead of, you know, people trained in combat that have guns. And muscles. Okay.
"Bitter Pills" is the second Hawksaw story.
While waiting on a call from a real actual normal job for real actual normal people, JW was called on by Bugle. He went with him to the home of a little old man in assisted living. The entity in the house made his eyes hurt and his nose bleed and soon, JW discovered it to be a strange angel-looking being. He couldn't hear anything it said so JW called on Deuteronomy for help. She agreed to come to the house with him and act as a translator. It turned out, all they needed to do was move the sofa off the angel's leg so that it could stand up. Once this was done, it thanked them and disappeared.
Case closed! The next hurtle to come up was JW's impending doctor appointment. This would be the appointment that got him his first prescription to help with his hallucinations, as per Bugle's demands. If he fixed his head, he got to go on jobs. If he went on jobs, he got to stay in the house.
While waiting for the doctor's appointment, JW drifted aimlessly around town, feeling guilty that he'd possibly missed the other normal person job calling him back. While hiding in the woods and feeling sorry for himself, discovered a big and mysterious creature in the woods behind his house. He didn't get a good look at it and it occupied his mind during the days leading up to his doctor visit, filling him with worry and dread that he could not keep doing the job. Finally the day did arrive and his neighbor Shirley drove him. The appointment went well and soon JW had himself a fancy new prescription.
The side effects were terrible. While it did cause his hallucinations to fade and made it impossible for the Man in the Cap to speak, it made him very nauseous and tired and it did nothing for his arm pain. He barely had a chance to adjust to them before Bugle called him on another job. He didn't want to get sick in front of the new client, so he skipped out on the medicine. He also went on the job alone because he didn't want Deuteronomy to know about the trouble he was having. This allowed The Man in the Cap to return and berate him while he investigated and scare him into being afraid of being found out as a fraud since JW couldn't find anything wrong. He quickly made up a bullshit ritual that would make the lady happy and left.
Shortly after he got home, his neighbor found him passed out on the lawn. Shirley forced him to tell her what was up and gave him some lemonade. JW told her how his medicine wasn't improving his life. She urged him to call the doctor and ask for a different prescription and after a little fussing, he gave in and made a new appointment.
While he waited for the new appointment to roll around, the woman from his previous paranormal job called him and told him that his 'cure' hadn't worked and that things were getting worse. He made up an excuse and told her to try a little longer. Deuteronomy overheard the conversation and demanded to know why she wasn't called. JW insisted that he could do things without her help and without his medicine. They had an argument about his health and she stormed off.
The next doctor visit came. JW was given a new medicine to try. This medicine helped both his hallucinations AND his pain but caused him to have long periods of lost time. It also sent his body directly (metaphorically) to hell if he dared to take it without eating--something he didn't always have time for. Something strange started happening in the house though. Food started to go missing and things started changing places like the toothpaste in his medicine cabinet or his loose change on top of the dresser. JW worried that he was doing these things himself during the space-outs that his new medicine caused. He worried he was eventually going to disappear all together and not remember anything, especially after Deuteronomy told him that the smoky creatures that followed her around weren't able to move things.
Bugle then called him on the phone and called him on his bullshit that he did nothing to help the woman with the haunted house. Things were even worse now. He threatened to pull their deal if he didn't shape up. JW wrestled with wondering if the new meds and the weirdness they'd added to his life were worth going back to the house and possibly getting someone (himself included) seriously injured or killed. JW begged for more time and after some groveling, Bugle let him have it.
He called the library to see if they had any books on ghosts, but when the librarian suggested kids' books, JW got frustrated and hung up. He went on a walk in the woods behind his house and encountered the big monster again. As he hid from it behind a tree, he decided he would dedicate himself to solving THIS mystery instead because he could actually see it with his eyes and see evidence from its passing on the ground. He became obsessed with it.
JW grew very familiar with the woods behind his house. He found clearings and ponds and even a mysterious old car full of recent magazines wedged between some trees. One night, the creature surprised JW. It knocked him to the ground, threatened him, and stole his gun. Wounded and scared, JW returned home to prepare for a real battle. He crafted some weapons from junk in his attic and hunted the monster in the woods for several days. One night he found it and they engaged in a Yakkity-Sax worthy chase and back-and-forth all out fight before JW managed to hook it with one of the weapons he'd made. He'd happened to choose silver and this was the creature's weakness. JW eventually managed to make it run away.
Sure that it would return and determined to beat it into complete submission, JW went entirely off his meds and camped in the woods like Bear Grills for like two days, slowly succumbing to withdrawal symptoms. He and the monster--which he deems a werewolf--meet one last time and he wins the fight. By that point, he's so riled up and delirious that he decides that he doesn't need Bugle's help and he doesn't need the doctor's help. He did that all on his own!
The next day, as he's cleaning himself up and boasting about his new independence, he notices a tiny man on his shoulder. This man introduces himself as Havoc, one half of his conscience. He explains that he and his brother (Harmony) leaked out of JW's head in order to tell him that going off his meds entirely was a terrible idea and that it was putting their entire world (aka JW's life) in jeopardy. They know about the Man in the Cap, who they name as Knives, and tell him about Knives's plan to create a machine to reach back through the veil like he had on the night JW had washed up in Hawksaw. JW tries to tell Deuteronomy about all this and also crow about how he was right that it wasn't actually him moving all the stuff around the house in a medicine-induced blackout. Naturally they hide from Deuteronomy and she doesn't belive JW until he manages to catch Havoc in a Tupperware bowl.
There is another explosive argument as nobody will believe JW that he defeated the werewolf in the woods. The next day, JW storms off into town for a walk and then decides to just keep walking. Suddenly he is overtaken by a vision created by Knives and his nightmare machine that tricks him into thinking he's back in 1974 and reliving the day that he killed his best friend who is also his girlfriend. He nearly runs right out in front of an eighteen wheeler before Harmony manages to catch up to him and snap him out of it. He reels and realizes what almost just happened as a result of his not taking Harmony and Havoc's advice. JW agrees to be more accepting of recovery and help. They reconcile and decide to work together. They still have a frightened lady with a haunted house to help.
Finally swallowing his pride and admitting that he needs Deuteronomy as part of his always-team, JW asks her for her help. Together, the four of them do some research and discover that all the symptoms in the lady's house don't match ghosts but fair folk instead. Bugle takes JW and Deuteronomy to the house and this time they send the lady outside to wait with Bugle. Armed with iron and a knowledge of fairy game rules, they call out the game. The fae retaliate by throwing every movable object in the house at JW and his friends. When they manage to avoid getting 'tagged' by sharp debris, the fae concede that they won the game and agree to leave.
But they are very very cross with JW for spoiling their fun. There will be consequences.
With the day saved, everyone returns home. Harmony asks JW how he feels about his new lot in life. JW admits that even though they won, he feels worse than before.
Personality:
You know that sign at McDonalds that says 'refills same visit only'? They put that there because of people like JW.
James Walter picks his way through life glancing over one shoulder. Street smart and shifty-eyed, if he can take it, he will. Finders keepers, losers SUCK. Growing up in poverty with an abusive father, hopping from home to home and then world to world, and suddenly landing himself in an important position as an adult has given JW a skewed sense of WANT vs NEED. Suddenly an entire town is at his mercy and his fingertips. If it's yours, he covets it. If it's addressed to him, he gives it the stink eye and dunks it in water first because why are you being so nice? Nobody is nice for no reason! Money is his weakness though and it's an easy way to twist his arm no matter how high on the ladder he sees himself. JW has gone so far as to swallow live goldfish for a crisp twenty dollar bill.
And yet, he hates those with money. He envies and despises them and lets his envy leak over onto other privileged people like folks with high educations, claiming them to be know-it-alls. JW is petty and delights in any failure he sees them face. He is a hypocrite in denouncing things like fancy cars and expensive houses when he himself would absolutely indulge in the very same.
On the social end of things, JW tends to go on long solo walks, only coming home when it's time for dinner. When he does hang around people, he tends to be a wallflower and provide snide internal commentary. He isn't good at talking to people outside of ranting, small talk, or making sales. People are more trouble than they're worth in his opinion and if he can't get anything out of them, what's the use in bothering at all? As much as he'd like to call himself a lone wolf, he's more of a lonely wolf. JW is mentally ill and his schizophrenia causes him to come off as rude (even when he isn't trying to be) and distant. He's in a lot of pain due to it and other issues with his body so his fuse is short and his patience is thin as he is. When JW actually does make an effort to reach out and attempt to make friends, he tends to shove his entire leg down his throat. The best way to be friends with JW is to not take anything he says personally because he doesn't mean half of it.
James does surprisingly well with children though. He's ashamed of his incomplete education and doesn't feel nearly as pressured to sound 'smart' around them. He talks to them like equals. Their protection is very important to him. That is, until they become teenagers. He finds himself easily frustrated by them since he is suddenly an opponent. He reads too much into the attitudes they put on as they come into their own and, in turn, makes himself a great target for anybody looking to ruffle his feathers. JW somehow seems to age at least ten years when he comes within a twelve foot radius of a single Hip Teen.
Though his moral compass is wobbly (lying, cheating, stealing, more lying, leading people he doesn't like into fae-infested groves so that they end up on the receiving end of their pranks instead of him) he's not the sort to go out of his way to be cruel. He might make messes in public spaces but he won't do things that could cause harm, such as setting fires or leaving broken glass laying around. He doesn't like animals very much and while he will shout and shoo strays, he wouldn't hurt them. He smokes weed like a train that smokes a lot of weed and has been tempted by other substances but will turn right around and judge anybody with a scowl if he sees them drinking, toting himself as a teetotaler.
James Walter is not a terribly good man, but he's not a bad man either. That's what is most important.
5-10 Key Character Traits:
- loud
- untrusting
- resourceful
- sarcastic
- lonely
- nosy
- immature
- hypocritical
- bitter
- vengeful
Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? Fits!
Opt-Outs:
♦ WALDERGEIST
♦ GOBLIN
♦ SHADE
♦ TROLL
♦ NYMPH
♦ POOKA
Roleplay Sample:
A Thread from Victory Road where JW Gets Glasses And Is Annoying About It
Name: Wolfy
Contact: https://www.plurk.com/quesadillawizard
Age: 34
Other Characters: N/A
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: James "JW" Walter
Age: 27
World Information:
JW's setting is sort of your run-of-the-mill Earth with hidden supernatural things that have some kind of magnetic attraction to main characters. It's sort of a monster-of-the-week kind of setting for a series of short stories I'm working on. As of right now there are no real history differences between our own world and the Earth JW is from. I may eventually decide that some famous figure like Elvis was actually a unicorn or something, but that doesn't really matter in the long run.
There are three classes of supernatural being: undead, fae, and monsters. Undead contains everything from ghosts to vengeful 'demons' to homebrew necromancy projects. Fae are kind of that weird blurry space between creature and spirit and they don't even give a damn. They are unstable, free-roaming, and snobby. Don't mess with them. Monsters are simply creatures bound by biology that haven't been discovered or have fallen off the radar. They're the rarest.
Other dimensions exist and if you know where the thin places are you can pass between them. Like the layers in an onion, there are infinite dimensions circling the main 'base' dimension the stories take place in. Some are just blurry in-between places. It's possible to slip out of the world behind a gas station in Tennessee and pop out of some lady's bathroom in China. However you must know where the roads are. Otherwise, you might just wind up somewhere in the vacuum of space and promptly turn inside out. Some dimensions are exactly the same as Earth except you, dear reader, you actually play the saxophone. Or if you already play the sax, you're a belly dancer. Or maybe a rabbit.
There are three notable dimensions that cluster close to the base-world and make up something called The Memory Dogma: The Attic, The Underbed, and The Basement. They are guarded by three horses: Lost, Forgotten, and False. The memories of man collect here and sort of form a 'mindscape' for Earth as a whole. Some think fae are formed from this place but nobody knows.
One unique feature of this setting is that every single sentient being capable of reasoning between right and wrong has something called a Mindscape. This is a world that exists inside the individual's head and is populated by manifestations of facets of their personality. The happenings and appearance and even the functionality of this little world reflect what has happened to the character. Everyone's is different and VERY rarely do people even know theirs exists. JW has had brief brushes with his since he did some involuntary dimension hopping, but doesn't really understand it. He just knows there's an annoying trap-mouthed man in his head.
Character Information:
JW was born around 1950 in rural Tennessee. His family mostly got on with the help of his mother's parents. When his mother contracted pneumonia and died suddenly (heart enlargement) his father fell into a guilt-driven depression and drinking habit which set off the schizophrenia that his own father had suffered from. He grew abusive and JW was taken away from him to live with his grandfather on his mother's side at the age of six or seven. JW lived with him and learned farm work until he was 14. After the death of his grandfather he was placed back with his father who had deteriorated greatly. JW was a sheltered kid and didn't know to look for help. He was pulled out of school after failing tenth grade and kept secluded from people.
He left his father's home at 18 after a violent fight and took his grandfather's horse to a different town. There he fell in with a Mexican-American family after making friends with the oldest son, Horas Valentine. They unofficially adopted him and repaired the damage that had been done to him as best they could. He was fed, clothed, given a role in the family, and spoiled just a little bit. He grew up along side Horas and the two of them did everything together, including sharing an apartment and working at the same deli. They were like Timon and Pumba if both of them were Timon and smoked weed and occasionally vandalized buildings.
"Hawksaw" is the first ‘book’ in the series. It describes JW’s arrival in the year 2007 from 1974. It hints that this is not his first adventure, but a terrible creature he encountered on the last one still has his claws sunk in deep from Beyond. The being, described only as The Man in the Cap attempts to puppet JW’s body from within and force him to kill himself. JW over powers him and manages to force him ‘back through the veil’. The Man in the Cap steals a chunk of his memory on his way to being shoved into spectator mode and proceeds to make a pest of himself from there on out.
The thing about JW that I want to make very clear is, yes he is schizophrenic and he is aware of it. He experiences audio and visual hallucinations along with pain, but they are separate from the ‘man in his head’ that yells at him for the entire book. JW is very familiar with his symptoms. The Man in the Cap is very real as an entity.
JW tries to confess to the murder of a girl from 1974 but being only 27 years old, no one believes him. The Man in the Cap causes an outburst that makes the cops to write JW off as ‘just a crazy homeless kid’. Unbeknownst to JW, when they investigated his claim, they managed to find a photo of a man that looked very similar to him, sure enough, from 1974. Bugle, Chief of Police, got mighty spooked and decided to throw JW onto the streets so he didn’t have to deal with it.
The local busybody church lady named Betty notices JW and decides to make him her new charity project. She drags him to church and shows him off to the Do Good Comity to make herself look good. JW is bounced around from host to host, leaving each time due to things like alcohol triggering his PTSD or simply witnessing domestic abuse. When Betty can’t keep him homed, she elects to put him in a ‘historical’ house at the edge of town as its groundskeeper.
JW is not an idiot and accepts this free house. The moment he manages to land a job and starts to get his feet under him it turns out that Something Else is in the house with him: an undead taxidermy nightmare of a wolf that can speak and wants him out. JW, fed up with just about everything at this point, refuses to leave. A fight ensues which causes his elderly neighbor to overhear the ruckus and rush JW to the ER for a severe eye injury.
The neighbor is Mrs. Shirley and she tells JW that Betty also put her on the hill as a ‘charity trophy’ and they bond over how much they hate her.
With a huge ER bill hanging over his head, JW is more determined than ever to defy the creature living in his house. One day, while he is out, the city brings some machines onto the property to deal with some dead trees. The wolf, who we learn is called Deuteronomy, thinks they have come to knock down the house and in an act of desperation, contacts another monster that lives even deeper in the house. Deuteronomy was made by a man and the monster was made by the same man. As the elder, she orders it to destroy JW so that development of the land will stop, but the monster, Feverdream, decides to run out into the town and Do a Crime instead. Deuteronomy is like “fuck”.
JW returns from an outing and actually manages to talk to Deuteronomy without her trying to murder him, he reveals to her that he just wants to live in the house and not destroy it. She’s like ‘Oh. hey by the way…” so he teams up with her in search of Feverdream so that the monster does not kill anybody in town because a) that would be bad and b) they will TOTALLY knock the house down if folks know that horrible monsters come out of it and also that horrible monsters exist??? Also neither of them will have a house.
So, armed with a spell that Deuteronomy’s creator used to make Feverdream, they chase the monster through town. They run into Chief Bugle and he gives them a lead on where the monster went. He’s also like “What the fuck this isnt in my job description.” JW and Deuteronomy trail Feverdream into someone’s house. There’s a really cool fight that eventually starts a fire and the paper that the spell is on gets burnt up. JW opts for just making up his own spell on the spot and beating the monster to death with an empty rifle. The house burns down and JW is rescued from the wreckage by the fire department.
In the end, JW’s medical bills are “taken care of” by Bugle on the condition that if any other monsters pop up, JW takes care of them. Instead of, you know, people trained in combat that have guns. And muscles. Okay.
"Bitter Pills" is the second Hawksaw story.
While waiting on a call from a real actual normal job for real actual normal people, JW was called on by Bugle. He went with him to the home of a little old man in assisted living. The entity in the house made his eyes hurt and his nose bleed and soon, JW discovered it to be a strange angel-looking being. He couldn't hear anything it said so JW called on Deuteronomy for help. She agreed to come to the house with him and act as a translator. It turned out, all they needed to do was move the sofa off the angel's leg so that it could stand up. Once this was done, it thanked them and disappeared.
Case closed! The next hurtle to come up was JW's impending doctor appointment. This would be the appointment that got him his first prescription to help with his hallucinations, as per Bugle's demands. If he fixed his head, he got to go on jobs. If he went on jobs, he got to stay in the house.
While waiting for the doctor's appointment, JW drifted aimlessly around town, feeling guilty that he'd possibly missed the other normal person job calling him back. While hiding in the woods and feeling sorry for himself, discovered a big and mysterious creature in the woods behind his house. He didn't get a good look at it and it occupied his mind during the days leading up to his doctor visit, filling him with worry and dread that he could not keep doing the job. Finally the day did arrive and his neighbor Shirley drove him. The appointment went well and soon JW had himself a fancy new prescription.
The side effects were terrible. While it did cause his hallucinations to fade and made it impossible for the Man in the Cap to speak, it made him very nauseous and tired and it did nothing for his arm pain. He barely had a chance to adjust to them before Bugle called him on another job. He didn't want to get sick in front of the new client, so he skipped out on the medicine. He also went on the job alone because he didn't want Deuteronomy to know about the trouble he was having. This allowed The Man in the Cap to return and berate him while he investigated and scare him into being afraid of being found out as a fraud since JW couldn't find anything wrong. He quickly made up a bullshit ritual that would make the lady happy and left.
Shortly after he got home, his neighbor found him passed out on the lawn. Shirley forced him to tell her what was up and gave him some lemonade. JW told her how his medicine wasn't improving his life. She urged him to call the doctor and ask for a different prescription and after a little fussing, he gave in and made a new appointment.
While he waited for the new appointment to roll around, the woman from his previous paranormal job called him and told him that his 'cure' hadn't worked and that things were getting worse. He made up an excuse and told her to try a little longer. Deuteronomy overheard the conversation and demanded to know why she wasn't called. JW insisted that he could do things without her help and without his medicine. They had an argument about his health and she stormed off.
The next doctor visit came. JW was given a new medicine to try. This medicine helped both his hallucinations AND his pain but caused him to have long periods of lost time. It also sent his body directly (metaphorically) to hell if he dared to take it without eating--something he didn't always have time for. Something strange started happening in the house though. Food started to go missing and things started changing places like the toothpaste in his medicine cabinet or his loose change on top of the dresser. JW worried that he was doing these things himself during the space-outs that his new medicine caused. He worried he was eventually going to disappear all together and not remember anything, especially after Deuteronomy told him that the smoky creatures that followed her around weren't able to move things.
Bugle then called him on the phone and called him on his bullshit that he did nothing to help the woman with the haunted house. Things were even worse now. He threatened to pull their deal if he didn't shape up. JW wrestled with wondering if the new meds and the weirdness they'd added to his life were worth going back to the house and possibly getting someone (himself included) seriously injured or killed. JW begged for more time and after some groveling, Bugle let him have it.
He called the library to see if they had any books on ghosts, but when the librarian suggested kids' books, JW got frustrated and hung up. He went on a walk in the woods behind his house and encountered the big monster again. As he hid from it behind a tree, he decided he would dedicate himself to solving THIS mystery instead because he could actually see it with his eyes and see evidence from its passing on the ground. He became obsessed with it.
JW grew very familiar with the woods behind his house. He found clearings and ponds and even a mysterious old car full of recent magazines wedged between some trees. One night, the creature surprised JW. It knocked him to the ground, threatened him, and stole his gun. Wounded and scared, JW returned home to prepare for a real battle. He crafted some weapons from junk in his attic and hunted the monster in the woods for several days. One night he found it and they engaged in a Yakkity-Sax worthy chase and back-and-forth all out fight before JW managed to hook it with one of the weapons he'd made. He'd happened to choose silver and this was the creature's weakness. JW eventually managed to make it run away.
Sure that it would return and determined to beat it into complete submission, JW went entirely off his meds and camped in the woods like Bear Grills for like two days, slowly succumbing to withdrawal symptoms. He and the monster--which he deems a werewolf--meet one last time and he wins the fight. By that point, he's so riled up and delirious that he decides that he doesn't need Bugle's help and he doesn't need the doctor's help. He did that all on his own!
The next day, as he's cleaning himself up and boasting about his new independence, he notices a tiny man on his shoulder. This man introduces himself as Havoc, one half of his conscience. He explains that he and his brother (Harmony) leaked out of JW's head in order to tell him that going off his meds entirely was a terrible idea and that it was putting their entire world (aka JW's life) in jeopardy. They know about the Man in the Cap, who they name as Knives, and tell him about Knives's plan to create a machine to reach back through the veil like he had on the night JW had washed up in Hawksaw. JW tries to tell Deuteronomy about all this and also crow about how he was right that it wasn't actually him moving all the stuff around the house in a medicine-induced blackout. Naturally they hide from Deuteronomy and she doesn't belive JW until he manages to catch Havoc in a Tupperware bowl.
There is another explosive argument as nobody will believe JW that he defeated the werewolf in the woods. The next day, JW storms off into town for a walk and then decides to just keep walking. Suddenly he is overtaken by a vision created by Knives and his nightmare machine that tricks him into thinking he's back in 1974 and reliving the day that he killed his best friend who is also his girlfriend. He nearly runs right out in front of an eighteen wheeler before Harmony manages to catch up to him and snap him out of it. He reels and realizes what almost just happened as a result of his not taking Harmony and Havoc's advice. JW agrees to be more accepting of recovery and help. They reconcile and decide to work together. They still have a frightened lady with a haunted house to help.
Finally swallowing his pride and admitting that he needs Deuteronomy as part of his always-team, JW asks her for her help. Together, the four of them do some research and discover that all the symptoms in the lady's house don't match ghosts but fair folk instead. Bugle takes JW and Deuteronomy to the house and this time they send the lady outside to wait with Bugle. Armed with iron and a knowledge of fairy game rules, they call out the game. The fae retaliate by throwing every movable object in the house at JW and his friends. When they manage to avoid getting 'tagged' by sharp debris, the fae concede that they won the game and agree to leave.
But they are very very cross with JW for spoiling their fun. There will be consequences.
With the day saved, everyone returns home. Harmony asks JW how he feels about his new lot in life. JW admits that even though they won, he feels worse than before.
Personality:
You know that sign at McDonalds that says 'refills same visit only'? They put that there because of people like JW.
James Walter picks his way through life glancing over one shoulder. Street smart and shifty-eyed, if he can take it, he will. Finders keepers, losers SUCK. Growing up in poverty with an abusive father, hopping from home to home and then world to world, and suddenly landing himself in an important position as an adult has given JW a skewed sense of WANT vs NEED. Suddenly an entire town is at his mercy and his fingertips. If it's yours, he covets it. If it's addressed to him, he gives it the stink eye and dunks it in water first because why are you being so nice? Nobody is nice for no reason! Money is his weakness though and it's an easy way to twist his arm no matter how high on the ladder he sees himself. JW has gone so far as to swallow live goldfish for a crisp twenty dollar bill.
And yet, he hates those with money. He envies and despises them and lets his envy leak over onto other privileged people like folks with high educations, claiming them to be know-it-alls. JW is petty and delights in any failure he sees them face. He is a hypocrite in denouncing things like fancy cars and expensive houses when he himself would absolutely indulge in the very same.
On the social end of things, JW tends to go on long solo walks, only coming home when it's time for dinner. When he does hang around people, he tends to be a wallflower and provide snide internal commentary. He isn't good at talking to people outside of ranting, small talk, or making sales. People are more trouble than they're worth in his opinion and if he can't get anything out of them, what's the use in bothering at all? As much as he'd like to call himself a lone wolf, he's more of a lonely wolf. JW is mentally ill and his schizophrenia causes him to come off as rude (even when he isn't trying to be) and distant. He's in a lot of pain due to it and other issues with his body so his fuse is short and his patience is thin as he is. When JW actually does make an effort to reach out and attempt to make friends, he tends to shove his entire leg down his throat. The best way to be friends with JW is to not take anything he says personally because he doesn't mean half of it.
James does surprisingly well with children though. He's ashamed of his incomplete education and doesn't feel nearly as pressured to sound 'smart' around them. He talks to them like equals. Their protection is very important to him. That is, until they become teenagers. He finds himself easily frustrated by them since he is suddenly an opponent. He reads too much into the attitudes they put on as they come into their own and, in turn, makes himself a great target for anybody looking to ruffle his feathers. JW somehow seems to age at least ten years when he comes within a twelve foot radius of a single Hip Teen.
Though his moral compass is wobbly (lying, cheating, stealing, more lying, leading people he doesn't like into fae-infested groves so that they end up on the receiving end of their pranks instead of him) he's not the sort to go out of his way to be cruel. He might make messes in public spaces but he won't do things that could cause harm, such as setting fires or leaving broken glass laying around. He doesn't like animals very much and while he will shout and shoo strays, he wouldn't hurt them. He smokes weed like a train that smokes a lot of weed and has been tempted by other substances but will turn right around and judge anybody with a scowl if he sees them drinking, toting himself as a teetotaler.
James Walter is not a terribly good man, but he's not a bad man either. That's what is most important.
5-10 Key Character Traits:
- loud
- untrusting
- resourceful
- sarcastic
- lonely
- nosy
- immature
- hypocritical
- bitter
- vengeful
Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, EITHER, or opt for 100% RANDOMIZATION? Fits!
Opt-Outs:
♦ WALDERGEIST
♦ GOBLIN
♦ SHADE
♦ TROLL
♦ NYMPH
♦ POOKA
Roleplay Sample:
A Thread from Victory Road where JW Gets Glasses And Is Annoying About It