So We Meet for the First Time - For the Last Time?

Always whining, isn't he? (The answer is yes, trust me.) Ah, well, it isn't really that bad, I suppose. I do have to live with him after all, and I haven't had to shoot the both of us yet. Alas, I don't want to get into too much of a review of my partner's ramblings. (He'd rather I not go there, either.) Today, we would both like to spend time talking about me. It's about time.

Have you ever been in a situation in which you suddenly find yourself to be too deeply entrenched in a particular state of being to really be able to progress in a, shall we say, interesting manner? Your every response and action has turned from being clever and quick-witted to routine and, perhaps, pompous? I would imagine that the vast majority of the five or so readers of this article probably cannot say that they have experienced such a thing. And good for them because it sucks hardcore. The unfortunate thing for me is that this isn't the first time this has happened to me, either. I could take an hour or so lightly detailing the various stages and forms that I've had adopted to me over the past fifteen years, give or take a few. There have been three distinct occasions in which I have had my personality and/or form change drastically to fit my host's current psyche, and those don't include those that allegedly took place during the convoluted background story that attempts to explain how I got to be what I am at present. (Such are the downsides of existing as a purely imaginative and hypothetical being. You have no rights to your own person.) My point in all this is that I am very likely, and unfortunately, to have to go through the same kind of process in the coming weeks and months, assuming my writer can get his bloody brain unclogged and actually start writing things again.

Let me take some time to introduce myself as I am at present. I think it will be fun. If you don't, well, I have some choice words for you that I will choose to not share in this article in respect of my host's particular moral views. And I don't do that all too often, so scram. Anyway, getting back to the stated topic: Me. I believe that my host wrote of me previously - though I can't be asked to go look for myself - that I am a rather grey character. This is true. Ideally, I'm supposed to be the kind of character that you root for, but wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable leaving your children in the care of. I am said to lean towards good in general, but that I may take rather unpleasing paths to achieve its goals. Now, for anyone who is well versed in the arts of good character building, this probably says to them that I am supposed to be a 'righteous' individual with many rather large flaws. The good cop who drinks too much and has a short temper, the father tries to provide for his family but often finds himself at casinos or the tracks. Ideally, I am supposed to be a powerful force for peace and freedom in my particular occupation, while suffering from a lack of compassion and patience for ineptitude or bureaucracy, an incomplete understanding of humanity and having a taste for battle. M stated lack of patience also leads me to act against orders or conduct business to achieve a goal that is less than admirable.

Well, I am all that. so where's the problem? I'm not just all that. As an off-the-cuff estimate, I'd say there's about six different modes that I have been made to play recently. Many of them are inherently incompatible with the others, as well. Let's see... I'm the smart and calculating warrior, the brash and impersonal soldier type, the impatient and disaffected subordinate, the comic relief, the one that hates the comic relief, the mentor, the father figure, the wise and experienced confidante, etc. There's probably more, but those are the only big ones that I can call to mind at the moment. Now, you may have noticed that a few of those kinda-sorta don't go together very well. Yeah, so have we.

I dare say that most people would love to always be right, to never be beaten or outsmarted. Well, with the exception of a handful of infuriating cases that played out in an RP that I was involved in, I have been just that. I'm like Jack Bauer from 24. Always on the right track, but for some odd reason, no one ever believes him and it's up to him and a handful of loyal comrades on the inside to make sure things don't go all to hell in a handbag. I'm like Jack Bauer, except that depending on the circumstances, I'm content to either lecture your head off with some idealist rant or just simply take it off with a quick arm motion. Too often I've found myself in contradictory roles doing things that at one point or another I determined that I'd rather set fire to orphanages than be doing. I'm always right and I can make you shut up. (I'm a psion, after all.) I'll let you in on a little secret, but you'll have to pardon my language. It's fucking boring. Things get too predictable. All the work that went into my character development fades behind the tacky backdrop of a final meeting in the drawing room of an Agatha Christie mystery. I knew it all from the start and let me tell you how! The problem I'm facing is that I've become too perfect in too many ways. My expectations of performance are set far too high for me to really be able to do anything interesting; for me to ever be wrong even.

So what do we do from here? I've been in this mode for the past four years or so. The prior one wasn't much different, just more young teenager-like. I just thank the gods that I was beyond my Dragon Ball Z phase by that point. The Single Dragon Trilloton Cannon Beam was a pain in my krillium ass to use, considering I had to announce it slowly every time I wished to use it. But back to my question: What now? I'm pretty certain that the road forward involves a fundamental reset of who and what I am, along with who and what my friends and contemporaries are. For the most of us it will just be a routine refresh, but it will be a sad day for Jarice and Lindsay. Jarice is a weird genetics experiment and a rather embarrassing teenage stand-in for my host and Lindsay is a normal teenage girl from Earth. Clearly, the background of the one needs to be rehashed, and the other just doesn't exist in the same galaxy. She'll probably turn up again sooner or later, though.

So what can we expect to see me as in the future? Well, so far as the version of me that lives so intimately close to my partner here (that is to say in his head), I probably won't change all that much at all. I will likely continue to forever be that rude, defacing voice in the back of his mind that simultaneously reminds him what a twat he is and plots with him on how we would best like to introduce peoples' faces to concrete walls and such. As for my story form, I suspect that I'll be a slightly less polished and humanoid creature with (hopefully) a lot more room for character faults. The biggest question is whether or not I will retain my psionic potential? I'm already a walking tank with jump jets, so do I really need semi-psychic powers? Don't they always make me just a tad too strong? I dunno. We'll just have to see.

As an aside, it's a good thing that my host is naturally so non-confrontational and nonviolent. I blame myself for most of his gratuitously violent imaginings, but it's still good to know that they are all purely hypothetical. Otherwise, our life might be way more interesting. ;)