A very long rant from Laszlo.
Warning: Some of this is mildly bitchy.
While I'm deeply honored to receive the Featured Character award, I sort of want to take a minute to rant about one of MY favorite characters in Mizahar, and his writer. Victor Lark is quite possibly one of the most misunderstood characters on the site, while for me he's one of the more inspiring (I even wrote a poem about it because I'm kind of weird). His player, Julian, is also an absolutely phenomenal writer, a deeply intelligent person, and probably the nicest person I've ever known. Occasionally, even too nice, in my opinion. Too smart, too, which is frustrating. I know he's smarter than I am and that isn't supposed to happen.
It's also no secret that he's my close friend, so naturally I'm going to be biased, but these things were the basis for my getting to know him in the first place.
Unfortunately, because of his unique writing style, Victor Lark (as well as Belgar) has been the recipient of bad grades and misinterpretation, pretty frequently even. Like many of us on the site, Julian is more interested in the writing aspect of Mizahar than the gaming aspect, preferring not to go out of his way to write long, boring, 50-word paragraphs about how to brandish a dagger. I share this opinion that writing should flow naturally, and it should feel more like you're reading an actual novel than an instruction manual.
I'm exceedingly jealous of his talent for colorful and descriptive metaphors, which give a vivid and detailed picture of what his character is doing. It sometimes gives his wording a prose-like feel, and it's something I can't replicate if I tried (and I have). Sometimes I even feel disillusioned after reading his posts, because I know what I reply with couldn't possibly compare.
But this occasionally comes back to bite him during grades. When people only skim his writing, or fail to read between the lines, they will easily miss creative implications because they were reading too hastily and didn't want to give it its deserved attention. Even I'm guilty of this sometimes, usually when I’m so excited for a post that I want to read it through to the end so I can figure out how to reply. Whenever I am confused about his writing, I ask questions. It's really not that hard. It's frustrating that when, for example, he writes a 3-4 page thread about a dagger fight with someone else, he receives only one point in the weapon skill because he only used the word "dagger" once. His more creative references were entirely skipped over because they required a person to actually read to know what was going on.
And because Julian is a really nice guy, he doesn't want to insult the Storyteller by asking for a better grade. I'm much less shy, and sometimes I try to speak for him, but it's not my place to do that so usually I have to rein myself in (that's why I'm writing this). He usually just concedes that it's not worth it to start an issue over skill points, as all he really wants to do is write. While that's a fair point, I don't think it's fair that he doesn't get the recognition he deserves.
It seems like people are really quick to misinterpret Julian when he's trying to be objective and honest; they'll read into it and think that he's somehow judging them. What I've really valued about him as a friend is that he's never judged me, even when I've told him some pretty despicable things about myself. He's extremely open minded, honest, and passive.
Victor Lark too is often misinterpreted. It seems like almost no one understands his character concept, and for those of you who think that's Julian's fault, I don't even know what to say. While sometimes even I get lost in his metaphors and I overlook things, Victor Lark's concept has always been clear to me. One of my favorite parts about him is that he's human, ordinary, the most boring race in the game. But your character is only boring if you're boring. Despite being human, Victor is one of the most unique original characters I've ever seen in my years of online writing communities.
What people often perceive of Victor is that he's quick-witted, deceiving, selfish, and manipulative. These are all true, but the reasons WHY are what's misinterpreted. I once heard someone describe his character as reserved, controlled, like a pot boiling under a tightly sealed lid. This is completely off the mark.
Victor can't feel anything, and that's the basis of his character. He's fascinated by seeing people behave and react, but he doesn't understand emotion. It's like something is literally broken in his head and the synapses don't fire. Now, he's not a badass warrior or a cutthroat thief devoid of human emotion after a long life of hardship, he's just always been this way. You might fault it to his early childhood, but I can't say for certain what caused it (and that's kind of the point). He's not emotionless to be cool, that's just his character. He's just an ordinary guy, some rich boy from Ravok who's frequently bored.
This is a character designed for roleplay, because Victor fixates on other people. It makes him very viable for social threads, but ironically it makes his character almost impossible to form a meaningful relationship with (only one's managed to so far). He likes inspiring emotion in other people, and sometimes even trying to mimic it. I think, if Victor Lark DID one day feel an emotion, he would be addicted to it like a drug and he would spend the rest of his life trying to feel like that again. This is my own speculation, of course. Julian knows his character better than I do.
Actually, this has created a plothole between Victor Lark and Laszlo that we've both mutually skirted. Hypnotism magic is supposed to be able to cause surges of emotion, but if Laszlo forced Victor to feel, it would forever change his character concept. I don't want to change his character without his consent, and there's no saying whether or not Hypnotism could work on someone who just doesn’t have the same chemical reactions. There are too many unknowns, so we're both kind of happy avoiding this happening. God forbid another Hypnotist player does this without Julian's consent, because I feel like that would put him in a difficult place—stuck between being polite and fair, and defending his character.
Julian used to refer to Victor as a sociopath, though I think his character was originally inspired by Asperger's syndrome. Victor doesn't have Asperger's, but he does have a similar way of creating frequent faux pas in social situations. For the hell of it, we one day researched a few mental disorders, and discovered that he was almost a textboox example of a psychopath. Psychopaths feel very base emotions, like pleasure and frustration, but can't really be truly happy, sad, angry, or afraid. Psychopaths learn to MIMIC these emotions, sometimes convincingly, but their inability to feel sets them apart from others.
What's astounding is that Julian the person is actually a pretty normal guy. He has emotions, passions, and genuinely wants to get along with everybody (I don't think there's a single person he dislikes). It's so weird that Victor is so consistent in his affliction, so realistic, that it's sometimes difficult to believe that Julian is the same person. This happens with me a lot for Duvalyon and his writer too—the player and character are SO DIFFERENT it's completely mind-boggling.
Julian's other characters, Chaeli and Belgar, are similarly inflicted in that they can't really behave like normal people. Chaeli is a ghost, and as a matter of course is highly emotionally unstable (the opposite of Victor), extremely bipolar and unpredictable. I don't know the kelvic Belgar as well, but I know he's disillusioned and deeply perturbed by his bondmate's death. Both Chaeli and Belgar are Julian's explorations into the Ghost and Kelvic races, which he's very fascinated by. He gets passionate about the unusual mindsets of ghosts and especially kelvic characters. He's the polar opposite of the person who creates a wolf or fox kelvic or a ghost character just to be cool and special. There's so much more to the race than being an idealized hero (or anti-hero).
We once had a conversation about how all of his characters are a bit off, which is not something I could personally keep up for very long. These characters are resistant to personal development, and it takes a lot of patience, intellect, and dedication to keep them consistent (Caelum is also someone who does this, and she excels. Both Katie and Julian are marvelous writers). I told him I would get bored with a character like that, and he countered that he'd get bored with a character who's more reasonable and level headed. Julian has a unique talent that I wish I could emulate.
Of course, beyond his characters, Julian's been working hard on Nyka. I wish I could say I've paid more attention the city since he helped open it up, but I've been too distracted with Ravok and my own life lately, plus a myriad of other poor excuses. I don't have much to say on that, other than I know he's really worked hard on it and it deserved a mention. I know Goss has been helpful and supportive, and Shade's been contributing too, so thanks to both of you.
I think I've said everything I wanted to say. Julian the person of course is very dear to me, and I just wanted to say something here about what I think, since it seems like he gets a lot of undeserved flak somehow. I'm sorry if any of this offended anyone, or if you feel like you were targeted this SB post. I'm not going to pretend I didn't have a few people in mind, but I don't want to hurt any feelings or start any debates. Please, contact me via AIM if you feel like you want to talk to me directly about any of this.
Sorry for speaking for you, Julian. I hope you aren't offended. xD
Thanks for reading. ^_^ |
by Lase on January 26th, 2012, 1:26 am 
