From: ikonoqlast@gmail.com   
      
   On Thursday, July 24, 2014 12:35:52 PM UTC-7, Shawn Wilson wrote:   
      
      
   > My question for you, are the following characters acceptably plausible?     
      
      
   More details about some characters.     
      
      
   Bosun- ran away from home at 18 to join the navy and see the universe.    
   'Obviously' from a lower class, 'welsh/scottish/irish' background.  Actual   
   fact is, he is 'english' (his accent is fake, and occasionally wanders) and   
   his family is a very, very,    
   very wealthy merchant clan, specializing in shipping.  He has since made up   
   with them (it's been decades, and he is hardly a teenager anymore).  His   
   father could literally buy him his own fleet to play with.  But he's happy   
   with his life in the navy.   
      
   The hero knows this via his grandfather, and is willing and able to blackmail   
   the bosun with the information.   
      
      
      
   Reporter/captain's friend- most recently was covering the Starkweather-Moore   
   expedition, a follow-on to the Miskatonic University expedition to Ultima   
   Thule (planet, not Antarctica), site of a failed colony from one of Earth's   
   original colony ships.  '   
   The Rats in the Walls' meets 'At the Mountains of Madness' meets 'Forbidden   
   Planet'(Shoggoths are perfectly obedient and so advanced they respond to even   
   your subconscious thoughts.  Ooops...).  He is still suffering occasional   
   flashbacks.   
      
   So far as humanity knows the only aliens out there are the stone-age denizens   
   of Zarathustra (sorry, no 'Laundry' here), but Elder Things and Shoggoths   
   exist(ed) in this universe even if no living (and/or sane) person knows...   
      
      
      
   Love interest- Born to a white trash woman in a port 'city' (orbital) who, if   
   you squint, might not be considered a prostitute.  Ran away from home at age   
   12 in lieu of practical sex education from mom's latest gentleman friend.     
      
   Lived as a street urchin for a few years, idolizing the social status and   
   clean uniforms of the naval officers she saw.  The brother of a local gang   
   leader and his friends decided she should be a prostitute, and to initiate her   
   into the field themselves.    
    She defended herself (until they died, they were rather chemically impaired   
   at the time) and ran, until being corralled by the police (for her own   
   protection, the gang leader now wants to do *very bad* things to her...).     
      
   The local baron took her in and, learning of her desire to be a naval officer,   
   arranged for her to take the academy entrance examination.  She bombed, badly,   
   as she was only a 14-15 year old girl with a 6th grade education at this   
   point.  And the navy    
   wouldn't take a child under any circumstances anyway, which the baron knew   
   perfectly well and she did not.  He also elided the possibility of her joining   
   the navy as an enlisted (at 18, again).  The test (her in her dirty rags among   
   the well manicured    
   JNROTC cadets she was taking the test with, and driving away heartbroken after   
   failing would be about the most traumatic events in her life.   
      
   Then part B of the baron's plan kicked in.  He took her to her girl's school   
   run by a convent, where she was admitted (a Dickensian *looking* place, but   
   actually a good one) and they 'rebuilt' her.  Along the way he adopted her and   
   gave her the name    
   Prudence, he and his wife have now 6 adopted children, none of their own).    
   Figure the headmistress/mother superior is a Granny Weatherwax clone, and her   
   'housemother' a Nanny Ogg clone.  The other various nuns/teachers would be   
   clones of various other    
   extraordinary female characters.  The 'marine' would be modelled on Xena,   
   Warrior Princess.   
      
   She retook the academy entrance exam at 18 and passed with flying colors.  At   
   the academy she was Miss Perfect, always doing 100% on any test/   
   uiz/paper/assignment/course.     
      
   In their first year she and the hero had a distant relationship of mutual   
   indifference-dislike based on their contrasting views on naval discipline.    
   She was always outside the navy, looking in, and considers naval discipline   
   comforting.  He was always    
   inside, looking for any slack he could find.  In their second year their   
   relationship bloomed into passionate mutual hatred and loathing.  In their   
   third year, when they finally took a class together (leadership/   
   actics/strategy, with the Captain as    
   instructor) that developed into wary mutual respect as they learned each   
   others strengths and true character, as opposed to the mere sketches they had   
   had previously.     
      
   The final examination of the tactics course changed their relationship.  He   
   waged that he could beat her score and the whole school got in on it   
   (reasoning logically that you can't actually beat perfect).  After he goaded   
   her into it, she attempted to    
   sabotage his performance vie a well placed bottle of something made from   
   apples, well, mainly apples...     
      
   He won anyway, and damn well DID beat perfect.  Yes, he is THAT good at   
   strategy and tactics.  His father is the best in the universe, and he is his   
   dad's star pupil after all.  She was humbled and forced to publicly apologize   
   to him for her sabotage and    
   got her first (and only) demerit.  Attempting to sabotage a classmate cannot   
   be tolerated, even if everyone agrees that he deserved it, especially when it   
   results in making him MORE of a superior ass).  Oh, yeah, everyone knows he   
   was drunk when he did    
   it, the floor outside the simulator is said to still smell of apples (and   
   vomit)  Note- he was NOT drunk when he took the test.  He took his first swig   
   AFTER, and immediately vomited and passed out.  He doesn't tell people this   
   and no one knows.     
      
   Wherever their relationship was going before then, things /changed/   
   afterwards.     
   She got married immediately after graduation.  Romantic relations among cadets   
   are strictly forbidden, but marriages immediately after graduation are not.    
   As the church has to be reserved months in advance...  The hero likes to make   
   jokes, at her    
   expense, about her desperately looking for a groom after graduation, because a   
   strict rule follower like her COULD NOT POSSIBLY have been carrying on in   
   secret with a boy...   
      
   Now they seem to be friends, though everyone but, apparently, her knows he's   
   actually in love.     
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)