daemonwise, answered by Yours Truly, natch.1. Give me your own personal League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (or women). Any character, medium, or era. Who’s in it?
- Hmm...
1. Cliff Steele (Doom Patrol): Sure, every team-up could use a tank, but he's much more than that. For being almost completely robotic (or depending on where you come into the series, completely robotic), he's got more compassion and care than most living beings. Maybe not the best tactician, but he's solid, and you know you can depend on him to have your back and not leave a man behind.
2. Hagbard Celine (Illuminatus!): Fabulous wealth, razor-sharp mind, brilliant planner, and a complete disregard for the governments and other institutions of Man; he'd be the perfect leader, other than the fact that he doesn't want followers, he wants equals. Still, he'd be invaluable, if you could deal with his ego.
3. Mother's Milk (The Boys): Where Celine might be the planner, MM would be the one to see the flaws and the pitfalls. He'd also be a good voice of reason.
4. Thursday Next (The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots): There's gotta be at least one member of the team that has dealt with so much weirdness that it just won't faze them too much. She's definitely fit for that role.
5. Ben Hawkins (Carnivàle): He understands that power has a price, and that sometimes you have to do what you have to do.
6. Splinter (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles): Who do you think is going to keep all these rogues and whack jobs in line? The wise old one with the ability to make you stop and think, and watch in awe and he beats the crap out of someone.
2. How did you get into gaming?
- I was 8 years old, living in Jacksonville, FL. There weren't many kids in my neighborhood. A girl lived across the street who was a year younger than me, and a boy my age lived two doors down. She was a girl and he was into sports, so my geekery was a little lost on them. The rest were teens, much older than I. I got to know one, Philip, because his mom was a piano teacher and my mom made me take lessons. Waiting for my lessons to start, we'd talk, and he mentioned playing D&D. I was a heavy reader and had plowed my way through Tolkien, so asked him a bunch of questions about it. I guess he was impressed, as he let me come watch him and his buddies play. At first, I was "the kid" who had to keep quiet, but when I started giving the thief good ideas and showed that I could figure out magical riddles, they offered to let me play "on a trial basis." That was Menas, barbarian and official Door Opener. Fun, but not what I wanted to play. I was quickly accepted as part of the crew, and Zauron Ravenbone the necromancer was born. I had to be careful, as my folks were of that "D&D is the Devil" generation, but it sparked off my life-long appreciation for role-playing games. 30 years ago, wild. The character was retired and re-played a lot over the years, and his character sheet repeatedly re-written to reflect new stuff and to repair damage, and I still have the last incarnation of his sheet. 34th level, I think. I also still have my very first d10, baby blue (because there used to only be 2 colors of dice, baby blue and pale red) and well worn around the edges.
3. What is your first memory?
- First clear memory? I was four. My dad was sick, and was lying on the couch (which is odd, in and of itself, as I have rarely seen him sick). We had one of those old console televisions, and I don't remember what he was watching. I was standing off to the side, and I somehow got it into my head that I could run in front of the TV and past fast enough that it wouldn't disturb his viewing of the show. I tensed and sprang, zipping past the TV. I stopped on the other side, looked at Dad and said "Too fast, you didn't even see me!" Seeing him giggle about it, I did it over and over again for a while, until Mom made me stop.
4. What is the punch-line to the funniest joke you know?
- "The parrot leans on her head and says "And it's fuckin' windy, too!"
5. Have you ever been to any kind of fortune teller? (Bonus question; if so, did you like what you heard?)?
- Sometime, back in high school, I bought a deck of tarot cards. It was a Morgan-Greer deck, very pretty, and I owned it until just recently, in fact. I didn't believe in it, of course, but I was one of those guys that wanted to know something about everything (still am, really), and I got interested in it. I learned to read and interpret things fairly well, and someone asked me if I'd ever been to a "real" card reader/psychic. Nope, but a quick convo led to me taking the challenge, just to see what would happen. I don't now recall her name, but I went in to see what she'd tell me. It didn't take long to see that she was just one of the typical frauds, preying on those with weak wills who need that sort of thing. I called her out on some of her interpretations, and on a few other cold attempts at "psychic reading", to the point where she got mad, dropped her accent, and made me leave. Never did pay her.