Muddled Musings

Ch 9 is now live! Read here!

Summary: Kai sees his pulmonlogist, who's mystified by Kai's symptoms. Jon expresses his concern about his brother's mental health. Kai finally meets up with Becca and deals with the fall out. Jon hires an ASL tutor. Kai turns to Nikki for help in his crisis. Jon visits his parents grave and we learn of one of the Taylor family secrets that could have significance in Kai's life.

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Antagonist: Order of the Knights Goetia

Who they are: An organization spanning millennia dedicated to protecting the heirs of Solomon from being consumed by the demon Naberius. 

Over three thousand years, the Order has amassed a lot of political and economic power. They’ve set up false organizations such as the Illuminati and the Free Masons to divert attention from themselves. 

Each individual who holds a prestigious position in the Order does so because they stood by King Solomon three thousand years ago. Their souls are recycled promptly, with no rest prior to rebirth, to carry out their duty. 

Tythrec / Tyler Brann

“Blame your father for what is about to happen here, and give your mother my best regards. You will see her again soon.”

He’s a curve ball compared to my previous two posts, I know, but just stay with me, please.

-The enemy of my enemy is not my friend-

Taking the role as director of the psychology department at a local university, he mans a doctorate program under the alias of Tyler Brann- Prof. Brann. He does this to scout for new recruits for a reincarnation program, like many others in his rank are. Unlike his own species, human souls are easy to mold, contain, and relocate.

Tythrec is a general of the Howland Army. Call him an angel because he is one, from a human’s perspective, although he prefers to be called a Ralian. He’s calm, collected, and easily irritated. He’s irked by how he is represented in human religious texts, where he is presented as a warrior from the sky who fought with honor.

He holds a mean grudge too.

Music Inspiration - El・Tango ・Egoista

Okay, he’s really more of a contagonist. There isn’t a traditional central antagonist in this story, only a lot of infuriating people who get in the way. But this is the worst culprit. 

Mr Prideaux

An assistant school-teacher, and a sharp-tempered chain-smoker– he has a shabby blue coat and a questionable history, and a nasty habit of showing up when he isn’t wanted and disappearing again just when he’s actually needed.

He’s a temporary school-master. An amateur historian. A part-time researcher. But what he does is still a mystery. He has too many names, knows too much, and gives too little away.

‘Miss Godden,’ said the man with crisp civility. His gloved handshake was hard and brief. His long fingers must be fine as bones. He was younger than his hoarse voice– not nearly forty– and thin beneath his heavy coat, and tall, bare-headed amongst the passing hats. His wave of dark hair was held carefully in gloss and unruffled by the wind.

Five facts: 

1. He has a very polite foxhound dog.

2. He is good with words but has terrible handwriting.

3. He feels the cold.

4. He was a linguistics researcher at Oxford but he left for… reasons. 

Being against evil, doesn’t make you good - Ernest Hemingway

Antagonist: A person who opposes the main character.

Antagonists can be people, can be the villain, but they don’t need to be. 

Villain antagonists: They tend to be seen as the ‘bad’ guy. Their motivations are often perceived as ‘selfish’ or ‘evil’. Most Disney villains adhere to this type of antagonist. 

Internal antagonist: Some people are their worst enemies and their own flaws are something they need to overcome. Ex: Holden Caulfield. 

Clique/Group antagonist: Consists of many people. A jury. A group like the girls in “Mean Girls” or the town of Salem in fictional accounts of the Witch Trials. 

Inhuman antagonists: This can be a natural disaster, a zombie apocalypse, an animal - King’s Cujo for example. 

Here are some resources to help develop your antagonist: 

Tips on writing complex villains

Villain motivations - list & description

100 characteristics of ‘the bad guy”

Ditto Hamilton, aged 21. 

She’s Rom’s flatmate and best friend, and a cabaret dancer in the clubs of Soho. A brilliant mimic and born performer, she is the more impulsive of the pair, and frequently has a no-nonsense answer to Rom’s dithering.

Ditto wore anything. Flowers were her favourite, clean blues and corals pinks and anything with a glitter of metal. She was short as a child and slim as anything, with a face like a bow-lipped doll’s. Ditto’s father was Japanese, and she worked on the stage, and that seemed to be the reasoning for her bright brave clothing; nobody takes me seriously anyhow, she said. I’ll dress to please myself.

********************

Alec Godden, aged 19.

Rom’s younger brother, he’s a quick-witted junior journalist living in Edinburgh. Sceptical, clever, prone to sarcasm– a family trait– but fond of his bossy older sister in his own way. Terrible taste in clothing and very proud of it.

He looked more like Mother than ever, with his freckles and whippet face and the sweep of rusty hair across his high forehead.

‘Since when do you smoke?’

He shrugged. ‘It stops me dozing off at work.’

'You oughtn’t.’

But he was the type, of course, as Mother was. And that was her way of walking, too, a swift bound as Alec went from the table to the bar and back.

**************

Shaun

A disgustingly hopeless romantic. Not in a good way either. His personal aspirations to be with someone he likes always lead him into doing some of the most foul, immoral things anyone could think of. Even going as far as playing God if they had to. 

He thought back to the time he took scissors someone’s hair as their back was turned out of jealously. Spite. His body shivered involuntarily at the memory.

A doctorate student with chronic pain and nerve damage caused by a traumatic incident with his ex-fiance. He’s unable to lift anything heavier than fifteen pounds on a good day and uses a cane when needed. 

Somnophilia greatly affects his daily life. He wakes up soaked in his own urine, shaking. Days go by. Focus is replaced with paranoia until a dark fog takes over. The cycle repeats. 

His study has him working with humans that struggle with their own tendencies. To make things easier for him, he’s managed to convince two of these types to live with him in a rundown home hiding right in the middle of the downtown. 

Appearance: Thin, almost skeletal with only tan skin to cover his organs and other important pieces. Raven hair that’s always tied up but flows down to his mid-torso when it’s down. The way his bangs never seem to stay pulled back is a personal curse of his. He claims to be 5′6, but he’s really 5′5.

What makes them interesting- Don’t look in the basement. He has a DOG! A big boy! A beautiful saint bernard named Pooch.

What reminds me of them - Yoon Bum from Killing Stalking

You’re getting three because my ow is secretly a harem anime

Charlie Jones

If Shaun were Doctor Frankenstein, then Charlie would have been his Igor. If Igor was only allowed to help out because they had dirt on the Doctor, just enough details that could get a certain Doctor jailed if it certain details were leaked to the public, and if Igor wasn’t a hunchback. Or if Igor was a woman who felt the need to look the part of a high school rebel from some cheesy 80′s film.

Shaun never bothered to read Frankenstein.

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. Her bite is worse than her bark. She is bound by no rules, and, in turn, knows more than she should. Shaun really is lucky to know that she can bite her tongue when it counts. 

She’s known around town as the girl given a false verdict over the murder of her parents and a younger sister. All the evidence was pointed at her; nothing ever came of it though, so it doesn’t really matter now. It’s been 18 years since then. 

Today she lives with Shaun under the promise that she’ll take part in his study. Free housing. Free food. 

Joshua Avraham

In another life, Shaun could see himself with poor Joshua. He seemed almost perfect. Too perfect even. He was basically the ‘what-if’ version of Shaun’s previous partner: ‘What if’ he didn’t- 

Most people would take one good look at him and never even know that he had a history of bad choices. Maybe it’s because he’s doing everything he can to turn himself around.

If emotional support humans were a real, legal thing, Joshua would be just that. There’s really not much else to him or his personality at first. Really, too good to be true. Because it is.

He was scouted by Shaun to be part of his study and they’ve been living together since.

Leon Samuel

“You’re holding me to stereotypes. If you don’t hold up your end of our deal, I’ll probably just be bitter and disappointed in you for the rest of our endless lives. But I know you better than that.”

Shaun’s closest friend, fellow doctorate student, and roommate. They’ve known each other since Leon was young. In fact, Leon sought him out specifically. He doesn’t do that very often. He doesn’t do much outside from taking care of his reptilian pets and reading for the most part. He hates being touched.

Leon directly translates to lion in Spanish, but there’s nothing lion-like about him other than his mane of black hair. Being 5′9, he has an average build and a wardrobe of only jeans and t-shirts. 

Samuel is actually his middle name. He refuses to associate with his paternal side of the family in any way, but he never got to learn his mother’s maiden name before he was disowned. He was blinded after a quarrel with one of his older brothers. Because of his relations, however, he has access to a lot of things Shaun doesn’t. They often make small deals with one another to share info in exchange for extra groceries or help with notes.

In the middle of the Empty was a forest with trees that weren’t trees. They stretched into the grey sky that wasn’t a sky. Just a vacuum of hyperdimensionality where the past and the future were experienced simultaneously.

The surface was reserved for the present.

Naberius tread somewhere between the here and the now. His tail meandered an eternity behind him, mist to most, absent to those who noticed, in search of the cry he’d been waiting for.

Name: Malleus Crowley ( a.k.a Naberius)

Age: Timeless

Name Origin: Malleus - from the Mallus Maleficarum (The Witch’s Hammer) - in this case the “Hammer” - known for extinguishing life. It’s also part of the ear that transmits vibrations ~ things that are felt before they are heard. Crowley, from the occultist “Aleister Crowley”. 

Hails from: The Empty

Occupation:  Most valiant Marquess of Hell with nineteen legions of demons under his command. Also poses as mentor and priest to Pax Waldegrave, educating him in the matters of demonic possession. 

Demeanor: Secretive, insensitive, amoral, possessive, quick to anger. 

Health: A powerful being who starves himself on purpose. 

What makes him special: His vengeance, the magical shackle he wields, lack of moral understanding, his ability to piss off all the wrong beings. 

Musical inspiration: A Familiar Taste

Sidekick: A secondary character who helps the protagonist achieve a goal. 

That being said, a sidekick’s life shouldn’t solely center on the protagonist’s. They should be sufficiently fleshed out characters with their own backgrounds, issues and successes. 

This article is an awesome resource on how to write stronger characters with tips on developing their personalities, giving them a voice and giving them a goal. 

Blogger Kristen Kieffer at www.well-storied.com suggests and elaborates on six purposes of a side-kick. 

Sidekick: A secondary character who helps the protagonist achieve a goal. 

That being said, a sidekick’s life shouldn’t solely center on the protagonist’s. They should be sufficiently fleshed out characters with their own backgrounds, issues and successes. 

This article is an awesome resource on how to write stronger characters with tips on developing their personalities, giving them a voice and giving them a goal. 

Blogger Kristen Kieffer at www.well-storied.com suggests and elaborates on six purposes of a side-kick. 

OMG! This is officially the first ask I get on this blog about Pax! Thank you soooooo much <3 

The first three chapters take place in France in 1840. Pax and his seminarian colleagues try to flee the country back to their homes in the UK and are met with several (supernatural) problems. The following 5 take place in the Highlands and the remainder in London. 

Expect a lot of spooky churches, cemeteries and forests as immediate settings. 

The shackles have a supernatural-soulmate-y aspect to them and it’s something I’m really excited about writing. 

Name: Andromeda Godden

Rom is my protagonist! A 20-year-old student living in 1920′s London. She’s independent, impatient, good-humoured, a little bit bossy– and a keen critic of people’s oddities. But she’s a fierce friend and warmer than she likes to pretend. 

It’s 1924, and in the wake of the Great War young women drastically outnumber men. Like many kids of her time Rom lost her father in the War. Her mother was a suffragette. Rom is a feminist too, but she’s part of a younger generation: the world has changed, and there are opportunities. She’s studying archaeology at King’s College and looking forward to getting out of Britain and over to the good stuff, the digs in Egypt and Sumeria. 

In the meantime, she shares a shabby flat with her best friend Ditto– and their respective dogs. 

Rom pictured herself alone with trowel and brush and stringline, stylised to simplicity– bent in the fields, a woman harvesting history. Like Margaret Murray excavating over in Malta. Or Hilda Petrie, who’d married Flinders on the Thursday and caught a boat to Cairo with him on the Friday.

Because they wanted silence, surely, the people who dug over there. They wanted sunlight and silence and freedom, like she did; and fame, which wasn’t so interesting, and the discovery, which was everything. To find the word, and read it, and even understand it, the word that would change the world.

Five facts about Miss Godden:

She hasn’t bobbed her hair yet. Everyone else seems to be cutting their hair shorter every year– but she refuses to follow the fashion, and has a long plait of hair which she pins up under her hat.

She is deaf in her left ear from an infection in her early childhood, and lip-reads if her environment is too noisy. It made her shy when she was younger but it doesn’t stop her from doing much these days– she’s determined. And it has given her some sharp observation skills.

Her mother is a free-spirited bohemian and before Rom and her younger brother Alec started boarding school, they lived with her in Egypt.

Rom is bisexual, though she hasn’t labelled herself anything: she just likes people. Her lovers are frequent and her emotions are complicated, though she tries hard to keep things straightforward.

Title: Baroness Jane Harrington

Gender: Female

Age: 24

Appearance: Average height; slender, fragile build; porcelain skin; dark brown eyes; long, fine chestnut-colored hair; has constant dark circles

Personality: Introverted, creative, writer, stubborn, bent on as much independence as she can grasp, observant, longs to be normal, sarcastic, blunt

Summary: Jane is the daughter of a self-made nobleman and notorious arms dealer, Charles Harrington. Since before she was introduced to society, she (along with her younger sister, Sarah) was groomed by her father to be a suitable partner to whomever her father determines will be her husband and the future head of Lord Harrington’s deadly business. However, unlike her sister, Jane has been a frail, sickly thing since childhood so her specialty lies not in physical feats, but ones of the mind. She is the one who accompanies Lord Harrington when he meets with potential clients or partners. While Sarah may be their father’s gun and dagger, Jane is his eyes and ears with her sharply trained intuition. Though her unassuming presence is by far her greatest weapon, one which she has used to persuade the greatest of secrets from her father’s enemies.

She had been able to maintain a sense of altered normalcy for most of her life. That was until, in late April 1888, she contracted pneumonia, which damaged her lungs and led to her developing hydrothorax (pulmonary edema). The illness confines her to their home on her best days, or her bed for days (or possibly weeks) on her worst. This has been a crippling blow to Jane for multiple reasons, the chief being that it has completely robbed her of what little independence she had and has left her an object of pity.

Agreeing with people was easy. There were no arguments to make. Nothing to defend. All it took was a muffled noise. A nod. A curt dip of the chin. 

But for Pax, it also took a little sin. A conscious repression of guilt. A sleepless night. A confession come morning. Why was the path of least resistance always the most inconvenient in the end?

Name: Pax Waldegrave

Age: 16

Name Origin: Pax - Latin for Peace. Waldegrave: An historical noble lineage in  Britain. Notorious for their support of Catholicism in Protestant England. 

Hails from: Scottish Highlands

Occupation: Seminarian at St-Sulpice, Paris. He’s exiled when the Third French Revolution breaks out. 

Demeanor: Quiet, sullen, introspective, haughty. Guilt-ridden & God-fearing. 

Health: Suffers from consumption, magical shackles make it difficult to walk without assistance

What makes him special: His impossible birth. The pedigree of his soul. 

Music Inspiration for this character: Sin in Justice 

Protagonist: Main character in your story. Word from ancient Greece. The prefix “proto-” means “first” and the suffix “-agonistes” means actor. 

Popular Protagonists: Sherlock Homes, T’Challa, Elizabeth Bennett, Tom Ripley, Miles Morales, Lyra Silvertongue, Victor Vale, Sethe

Consider the following questions for your own protagonist: 

1. Do they have flaws (not the kind you skirt over in interviews to make you look good in the eyes of an employ - a REAL flaw. Look here for a list of flaws. 

2. Do they have a secret (and would it impact your story if someone found out - this helps to add tension). Read more about adding secrets here. 

3. Do they have a fear? Is it rational? Is it relevant? Will the cause be revealed in your story? How does your character react to fear? Ideas for fears here . 

A popular misconception about protagonists is that they must be a ‘good person’, a ‘hero’. But anti-heroes are also protagonists. Read here for 10 ways to make everyone root for your amoral protagonist. 

What makes your protagonist interesting? 

Hey Owwieseptember participants!

On the eve of this writing event, I’d like to wish you good luck in your endeavours!

Here’s a reminder of what we’ll be doing this month:

Week 1 focuses on your characters. Below are banners made by @peonacotton​ that you can use on your own blog for each day.

You can got off on your own, add pictures, music, anything you want that fits this category, or check this blog for sample questions and activities that will help you flesh them out.

As always, add #owwieseptember in your tags so we can follow what you do!