Questions of transmedia narratives

1) Star Wars is a transmedia narrative because different parts of the story of the Star Wars universe are told through different media. The novels contain more detail for different story and character arcs, the films tell the main story thread, and the video games and television series (like the Clone Wars animated or even the Droids cartoon) allow different stories to be told within the narrative's world. There's even an online game to allow fans to interact with each other within a recreation of the Star Wars universe.
2) Characterization can be shown through writings from the character's perspective. Illustrations and descriptions of the character's surroundings and demeanor obviously give insight to who the character is. Characters should have a distinct voice.
3) Some suggested means of developing a character concept is to write about types of people who are familiar to you, while avoiding characters who are stereotypical or the same boring or offensively poorly written stock characters. Traits that play against the type aid in avoiding some of these pitfalls. Your character, even if a meant to be boring person, should at least be within an interesting situation. The character should have a history of their own to consider.
4) Characters can be more distinctive with details thought through such as their profile, what they would use as an online pseudonym, their daily habits, and so on. Do they have a particular time of day that they like to tweet? How does your character usually talk? Are there any particular structural patterns to their sentences or words they frequently use? Make certain that your characters don't all sound the same.
5) Extra material can be used in transmedia narratives. Maps indicating where events occurred, letters to or from your characters can shed more light on events throughout your story. Tweeting can cover an event in real time, or an event can be conveyed after it occurs within the timeline.

So who is Varney? Who is Alcyone?

Varney is an androgynous candy demon with enormous claws and a love of art. Varney's preferred pronoun is "they," being a gestalt of many people who died in the forest dreaming of escaping an oppressive small town environment. The collection of energy started within the coalfields, where they stayed for some time, and picked up a thick Appalachian accent and the habit of collecting coal figurines as a result. They are fascinated with how it is formed and the process of its extraction. “Dead stones workers dig from their graves.” They have a fascination with its utility of the corpse past death, the scale of time it represents for how long something has been dead, how old a graveyard is, all part of a major fascination with geology and funeral rites. Varney feels that the earth is sacred, and has great reverence for nature. Of course being a combination of many dead souls that may have been incorporated into a forest spirit, they feel a great connection to the ecosystem.

They advise people who stumble upon their Hobbit hole like cave. Their attachment to nature does not mean that they don't appreciate modern comforts. Most who go there do not expect Varney to have a VHS cassette player, and less so that they prefer it to DVDs. Snack foods are also a greatly appreciated gift that are occasionally given in return for advice or what some have perceived as protection from the forest spirits. Their favorite snack foods are Pitch Black Mountain Dew, barbecue chips, and grape taffy.

It is highly probably that Varney's appearance of being a cutesy mix of a rabbit, kangaroo, and assorted types of candy comes from the fact that many of those who compose their form died as children, leading them to feel very protective of children they find, to the point of vicious violence towards those who would be abusive. To illustrate an example of their humor and easygoing nature, as well as part of their past: "I wanted to be a kangaroo when I grew up. In that respect, I guess I'm doing better than my peers did for their goals. Maybe drowning in the river was the best thing to ever happen to me."

Alternately, I may go with Alcyone. Alcyone is in her early 20s and working as a projectionist. While very clever and sometimes sarcastic, she frequently comes across as in a world of her own. This is largely due to her somewhat shaky grasp on reality. She has been accompanied by the monster under her bed from the time she was about 11, and they've gotten along perfectly well having a similar sense of humor. Her companion, Fachtna, has now moved into her closet in her new one bedroom apartment. Having been institutionalized for a short time, she now knows not to talk about her "roommate" with others or any other supernatural beings she sees, or may in fact be hallucinating. She is kind of insecure, finding her own place in the world, finally free of doctors' orders and the watchful eye of her helicopter parents. Sometimes this insecurity manifests as a tendency to present herself as tougher than she really is and a somewhat aggressive or over the top manner. 

Games and reality

"The brilliant masterstroke of Chore Wars is that it convinces us that we want to do these tasks." While the concept of Chore Wars is interesting and it had the author cleaning at odd hours, and may work better for more competitive sorts, I couldn't be prompted to scrub my bathtub via an online game. Perhaps the participation of her husband is what furthers this response. I do participate in SuperBetter, as an ally to my sister in her efforts to improve her health, and the interaction of the game does prompt me to check in on her recovery more often in addition to our usual chats.Her point of connecting activities to a larger social experience does stand in my own use of this website. Encouraging participation in this manner creates a communal experience and makes an activity more rewarding, both through the interactions and the rewards of the game (such as avatar items or improved character capabilities), as well as tangible real world rewards in the form of the social experience and in the case of Chore Wars a cleaner area or better health with SuperBetter.This participatory factor has educational and work applications as the audience is more engaged, and more likely to pay greater attention and contribute a greater effort. From my own engagement in the SuperBetter game with my sister, to a biology teacher who had distributed a ROM hack of Pokemon with curriculum information added into the dialogue and Pokedex (which the instructor had posted about on tumblr), the benefits of games and social interaction in real life are quite apparent.

Fictional character blog

Currently I'm between working on two particular characters that I had already worked with before. Alcyone is a fierce and witty, but deeply disturbed young woman who is either able to see supernatural beings or prone to hallucinations. She works as a projectionist and lives alone with her possibly imagined roommate, Fachtna, a chaotic creature that lives in her closet. The two have a similar sense of humor, and so they get along fairly well. She is recently released from a mental institution and attempting to find a footing without her controlling mother.
The other possible character is Varney, a gestalt being (a large kangaroo/rabbit/candy monster with large claws) that lives in the woods in an oddly well furnished cave. Varney is composed of many people who died in the woods, dreaming of a better life away from the coalfields where this mountainous forest sits. Varney is easygoing and has a number of hobbies to keep themself occupied: watching their collection of VHS tapes (VHS is their preferred format), eating copious amounts, studying geology and collecting coal figurines. Coal is something of a morbid obsession of theirs, as it forms over vast spans of time from decaying organic matter, as well as the amount of risk people take to recover it, like digging long gone corpses from a hole that occasionally becomes a mass grave. Not that Varney is entirely morbid, but has something of a dark sense of humor.

On Anonymous

Watching Anonymous move from its roots at 4chan to force of anti-corruption activists has been an intriguing transformation, starting with their opposition to the Church of Scientology from antagonistic group of loosely associated /b/tards to a loosely organized collective of activists and an empowering concept of anybody being able to stand up to powers greater than the individual. Given the nature of the group, lacking leaders and formal orders, stating definite goals is not such an easy thing to do. Their methods are using hacking to obtain information outing subterfuge and abuse of power and disrupting their services, selfishly restricting innovation and exchange of information in the name of protection, such as the legislative control given to the MPAA. Anti-censorship activity and generating discussion via their bravado make for major real world changes from a collective with no given directive. Their targets, being authorities who engage in conspiracy and oppression, from the cutting of cellular service at BART station to more readily abuse protesters to the hiding of kidnapping and gang rape in Steubenville, is that the voiceless, the man who set himself ablaze in Tunisia and the 99%, can affect the greater world around them precisely by being nobodies. The lack of a definite identity allows one to freely speak their mind against corruption without the threat of retribution, as well as the ability to more freely organize for protests and other actions.

Who is this?

My online presence is mostly composed of a Facebook account where my real name is used and very little is posted, and the identity of MorgueDweller where I should write more frequently but have too long neglected a different journal of nonfiction writing and the occasional craft tutorial. Using the same alias I also have a highly active tumblr that would be advisable to avoid while at work. I mostly use internet communications to keep in touch with my siblings and collaborate with my twin on projects for Strawberry Tower, a creative group she formed along with a few friends from her art school. I have a few online friends, and don't really go out of my way to craft an alternate identity.