It seems like a long time since I've come out with a new character... and technically, it has, even though I've technically only written it in a month. My last character, Dr. Pembridge, was finished when I posted Stanley Simms; see last month's recap for why. In the two months after that, a whole string of viruses swept my house, with two separate Covid scares, which meant my writing was sparse and, as I'd later find out, terrible. Then classes started, which took up all of my time, and when August came, I didn't like any of what I'd written for this character, so I all but started over. So... when I had time to write, I wrote it in just a month. I'm gonna choose to view that as progress, instead of viewing it as incorrect.

But why did I throw out a dozen stages? Well... my original prompt's introduction was that of a paranormal investigator, which moved into “paranormal skeptic”... and then curdled into a general “skeptic”. And that mutated into a specific kind of Youtube '''skeptic'''. I'd written a few stages with this mindset, but after my university semester, I... kinda threw that idea out and softened him to a more general “angry Youtuber”. A few reasons for it: one, the writing was bad. More importantly, I don't think the writing was fun. I don't think he was fun. Not that every character needs to be barrels of 'fun' or have perfect morals-- mean or evil characters can be a lot of fun!-- but this character was mean in a not fun way. I think back to Malcom Montalvo: terrible person, way worse than Todd... but I personally feel he was fun to read. This character was not, so I changed him into a more comical character, going so far as to even change his name to less evoke the archetype I had. Nobody wants to read about real world misfortunes in their fun transformation stories (something these journals need to learn, seriously); we're all here for the transformations!

And this one sure is unique, eh? When I first got the prompt, it was something I was really interested in, but unsure if I could pull it off. And that's the sign of a good prompt. I'm still a little concerned about how I handled it-- both the mechanics and the subject matter-- but I am proud of what I came up with. First, the mechanics. It was really hard to come up with how to kill a character without... y'know, killing them. On air, in front of a live studio audience. I didn't wanna gradually transform the character into a ghost; that felt too gross, and conjures up some reeeeeal bad memories in me. But if I made the body and soul separate, there'd still be the problem of the soul describing her former body in the character status.

I decided to do a more... soft-killing? Jesus, that's gonna put me on a list. But I don't think Meghan teck-nick-allee dies: her soul just gets pushed out of her body, and it's the soul that experiences identity... well, death. That's one reason I wasn't too nervous of getting overly dark with the subject matter: there has been an argument (an often heated argument...) that I'm killing my characters regardless. It's the viewpoint Todd has at the beginning, and it's the reason why Meghan remembers her past life: the identity death comes after the literal death. But it's also why I've shifted to the term “identity play”, even though I prefer the other term, just to make my stories less sad and more fun. Cuz that's all these characters and stories are, and I hope this one is, too!

...Though I was a little nervous I screwed that up. Let's talk about themes.
I typically like working with archetype extremes, usually going from one extreme to the other. Sometimes that flipflop occurs midway through the character, and the “true” end meets somewhere in the middle. My last comm with the wonderful OccamsSword was like that, and so is this one! Todd goes from being cynical about the past, to being too celebratory about the past, to just appreciating the past while looking towards the present. The hitch is, the last viewpoint literally cannot escape her past. And yet, she's the one to move on, and accept her new "life". And...

...It's hard to ignore the other themes in that; at least, it's hard for me to. I mean, one could read this as a story about death, not just becoming a ghost, but suffering through tragedy, “living” through it, and moving on from the trauma. To go back to fifty paragraphs ago, that isn't very fun, and these characters should be fun. I hope that theme's not as prevalent in the actual story as I'm making it out to be, but... that was totally my mindset writing it. The unseen descriptors for the $SOUL$ section use words like “ennui” and “crisis”. The outline for my character was literally labelled after the stages of grief. And to complete this horrible traumadumpy tangent, I started writing it during a string of really triggering events, which turned out so meanspirited that I rewrote most of it. I'm really happy with this character, and I personally don't think I went over the line, but I think it's something I should keep a watch on. Being tmi in these silly journal entries is fair enough; I don't want it to infect my main content.

...Welp, it wouldn't be a yoshielder journal without some awkward topics. And it wouldn't be a yoshielder journal without the trivia!
- Name time! So the original name for this character was Todd Joseph (to evoke... yeah), but as I said, I changed it to be less evocative of that niche, while also making the name a bit less common, for all the poor real-world Todd Josephs out there. I am very sorry to the real-world Todd Randrups. Back then, his channel was TJ's Tirades. Randy Rants is just silly enough to feel better, imo.
- Meghan Catrina came from an... 80's name generator, I think? That doesn't sound right, because I don't know how names can be “80's”... whatever. And the rest is allllll thanks to OccamsSword!
- There's a few ghosts (hah!) of the edgier Todd in the character, including that MK Ultra line that literally made me spittake when I proofread it.
- I based ghostly life on how it appears in Beetlejuice: that is, kinda banal and boring. No “unfinished business”, no “unending grief”; just... another way of 'living'. If ghosts are real, that's how I'd like to envision them: just bored dead people, who stick around on Earth to waste time haunting people.
- I got to reference roguelikes again! Or at least, roguelike adjacent (roguelike... like??). Sherri's MUDs are Multi-User Dungeons, a precursor to MMOs, that were big in colleges in the 80's. My Dad was in a MUD, which ran a server for NetHack, which was a sequel to Hack, which was an offshoot of Rogue... that Rogue! Of the Roguelikes!!
- Here's where I lose even more of my nonexistent coolness: I asked my mom for lesser-known info about 80s fashion. She was adamant I include flavoured lip balm, which is why it's tucked away at the end!
- Music was either energetic, like prog rock or heavy metal, or theme appropriate, like Paula Abdul or... MGMT. This doesn't include the night I finished like six stages while listening to Enya, for some reason. Did you know she lives in a castle? That's both surprising and unsurprising...
- No Joji after finishing, for some reason. Instead, I put on Audioslave's "Tell Me How to Live", like it was the corny song choice played in the endcredits of this character.
- I think this is my first character with a content warning up front! Hope it was enough to warn the proper people. Though I think all my characters except Charlie Pelletier should have “CW: Bad” before it.

My question to you: is there any time period, in your life or in general, that you look back on with nostalgia? For me, it's the late 2000's, which have curdled into this weird fantasy epoch. Look up the video for Paramore's That's What You Get: that's how I remember the late 2000s. Everyone in muted colours, in cold decrepit backyards, standing around doing nothing... that's my shit right there.

*Pumps fist in the air, freezeframe as arena rock ballad plays*:
yoshielder