anyway thanks for the acceptance i can't guarantee anything like Kindred up there but there is good news in that I've finished my full plot re-write, so that's progress. now to actually approach planning and writing posts.
C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y
_________________________________________________________ John Thomas Constantine _________________________________________________________ 19 | Single _________________________________________________________ Independent | English
N O T A B L E A B I L I T I E S & T O O L S N O T A B L E A B I L I T I E S & T O O L S
John was born May 10th 2006 to Mary-Anne Constantine and Thomas Constantine, alongside his stillborn twin brother, Jacob. Mary-Anne died during the birth, and Thomas, now a widower with a dead son, never forgave John. John wouldn't understand his father's hatred - but Cheryl, his older sister, would, and did her utmost to shield him from what she could all her life.
For seventeen years, the bond between Cheryl and John would form an impenitrable barrier against Thomas' hate, a bubble of compassion and love to retreat into no matter what baseless punishment their father meted out; a bubble made only stronger by the addition of Gary Lester and Francis Kramer to their alternative family. The four formed a powerful union of friendship, each individual guided and guarded by the other three, pursuing interests both independently and collectively, treading the new and old that surrounded them. The darker aspects of art, Punk and Emo, Horror and the Occult, let them explore the darkness of their own lives in measured, controlled environments, binding them with a common pursuit. In each other they found safe harbour.
Until Cheryl disappeared.
The absence of one splintered those remaning. Gary turned to vice, pushing his mind to oblivion rather than suffer the hole; Francis fled to London, abandoning memories now turning sour; John found his psyche fracturing completely, growing obssessive and fevered, now subject to Thomas without shelter. When the investigation stalled, and then closed, John threw himself from the Ethelfleda Bridge, and after being fished from the Mersey River, was sectioned to Ravenscar Psychiatric Hospital.
Two years later and nineteen years old, John has been remanded from Ravenscar to temporary residency. Cheryl is still gone, and John is still haunted by her absence. Thomas is to the wind, absconded from the family he had grown to hate so much. His old and only friends are scattered, burying their pain in the intervening years. But fresh spectres are beginning to re-open old wounds; will John lose what little fragile mind he has left entirely? Or will he strive to finally put old ghosts to rest?
P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S )
My drive behind bringing John back into the mix is to rekindle my drive for writing in general. After a long period of struggle and burnout at work I now find myself facing into a lot of free time, and to that end I want to re-discover my passions and hobbies, and begin a slow-but-steady road back to some manner of happiness. Please understand my character submission is predicated on a real possibility that I will not be able to immediately overcome these barriers.
This story for Constantine is, I think, one of my best; mapped out from start to finish with (I feel) a strong narrative and a core thread of emotion, it brings a humanist side to John that I think in recent years has been lost behind the Liverpool con-man bravado and the occultist flash-magic. John Constantine is a man with sadness and heartbreak at his core, and I think the idea of him as a wretched, pitiable figure who'd rather just have a normal life but is inexorably forced - one way or another - to face into tragedy after tragedy is one left by the wayside in many incarnations and appearances.
The use of the Absolute ident is no accident or embellishment, either; the central principle of DC's new run is to retain the core traits and pillars of the characters while stripping away something previously thought vital: Bruce's wealth, Kal-El's upbringing with the Kents, Flash's connection to the Speedforce. My Constantine - my Absolute Hellblazer - is a John without Astra, without magic; and yet, calamity somehow even more profound has struck him down, and John will have to rely on deals struck with others and the strength of his own wits to claw himself back from the Hell he will find himself mired in.
May 10th, 2004. Mary-Anne Constantine, struggling with a strenuous labour compounded by complications from a previous abortion, passes away while giving birth to John Constantine and his stillborn twin brother. Thomas Constantine, father and suddenly widower, would not forgive the mewling infant for the death of his wife, or the stillbirth of his other son. John would not come to understand this animosity from his only remaining guardian for twelve years; but his older sister, Cheryl Constantine, would pick up on it the same night that Thomas returned home with John. She would spend her days from that point forwards protecting John from the father that had spurned him, pouring into him the love he was otherwise denied.
By the time of his teen years, the bond between Cheryl and John had created an impenetrable barrier against Thomas' drunkenly-hurled abuse and persecution, and was only stronger for the addition of Gary Lester and Francis Kramer to their cabal of found-family. The four of them formed a strong union of friendship, each guarded and guided by the others. They would pursue their interests both independently and as a unit, exploring the new and old of the world around them. The darker aspects of art would become the glue that cemented them together, a deep interest in Punk and Emo, as well as Horror and the Occult, binding them with a common pursuit. Cheryl, oldest of the group, would often guide the four in practice rituals and pretend spells, filling the younger boys' minds with fantasies of weaved magic and sorcery that would fix their fragmented lives and grant them all their teenaged minds could dare to imagine.
When John was seventeen, he would participate in another such ritual lead by Cheryl, one she treated with hitherto unknown gravitas. This one was different, they could all feel it; Cheryl radiated a solemnity that was undeniable, bringing promises of magical power and great fortune that the four boys were compelled to believe in.
The ritual was no fantasy - no pig-english nonsense garbled for cheap thrills, words catching in throats from schoolboy fright - no pound-shop tealights, extinguished accidentally when you waved your arm too enthusiastically. This was the real deal: components scavenged and crafted, specific chants and intonations to be uttered at specific intervals. Words and runes were drawn carefully, positions selected with forethought, and when the hour finally came, all was conjured as it was meant to be - but what the ritual achieved was not what Cheryl had been lead to believe.
Unbeknownst to Cheryl, John, Thomas, or even the departed Mary-Anne, the Constantine's bloodline was one of powerful magic and a specific title passed down through ancestry from one Constantine to the next: the Laughing Magician, a wizard unlike any other, who bent the world to their will through the secret power of synchronicity. It was John's stillborn twin, Jacob, that had been the next to inherit this power - but with Jacob's death, powerful wheels had been set it motion to re-right this broken prophecy. Cheryl's previous rituals had been no mere games - they were in fact practice runs, as Cheryl had secretly uncovered her own witchcraft, granted through her bloodline. The ancestral ghosts of Constantine mages had felt this, and spun lies around Cheryl, tricking her into casting a very special spell.
The ritual, rather than granting power and fortune, instead opened a terrible gateway to the Astral Plane, through which flooded the warped spirits of long-dead Laughing Magicians. They tormented the attendees, lashing them with psychological scars, and abducted Cheryl wholly into their ethereal, limbo-like plane. When the tear closed, Cheryl was gone, and John was left only with the memory of her screaming, pleading face, surrounded by hundred of hideous spectres.
Each in attendance left traumatised, and each experienced their own fallout. Gary turned to drink and drugs, pushing his mind into oblivion rather than live with the memories. Francis fled to London, reinventing himself as 'Chas', a man who'd never experienced such terror. John, for his part, found his psyche fracturing completely, reeling from the loss of Cheryl, and ended up committed and incarcerated at Ravenscar Asylum.
Now, two years later and only nineteen years old, John has been remanded from Ravenscar to a temporary residency in a halfway-house for recent releases. Cheryl is still gone, and John remains haunted by her absence; his father refuses to reveal his whereabouts to his only remaining family; and his only friends have scattered to the winds in the intervening years. When fresh hauntings from John's past begin tormenting him anew will he lose what little fragile mind he has left? Or strive to finally put old ghosts to rest?
C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y
_________________________________________________________ John Thomas Constantine _________________________________________________________ 19 | Single _________________________________________________________ Independent | English
A L L I E S & A N T A G O N I S T S A L L I E S & A N T A G O N I S T S
A L L I E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ FRANCIS 'CHAS' CHANDLER - Best Friend ◼ CHERYL CONSTANTINE - Sister ◼ GARY LESTER - Friend (Deceased) A N T A G O N I S T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ THOMAS CONSTANTINE - Father ◼ THE LAUGHING MAGICIANS - Ancestral Constantines ◼ JACOB CONSTANTINE - Stillborn Brother ◼ NERGLE - Demon ◼ BEVERLY 'BEAVER' HUGHES - Drug Dealer -
-
P O S T C A T A L O G U E P O S T C A T A L O G U E
John was born May 10th 2006 to Mary-Anne Constantine and Thomas Constantine, alongside his stillborn twin brother, Jacob. Mary-Anne died during the birth, and Thomas, now a widower with a dead son, never forgave John. John wouldn't understand his father's hatred - but Cheryl, his older sister, would, and did her utmost to shield him from what she could all her life.
For seventeen years, the bond between Cheryl and John would form an impenetrable barrier against Thomas' hate, a bubble of compassion and love to retreat into no matter what baseless punishment their father meted out; a bubble made only stronger by the addition of Gary Lester and Francis Kramer to their alternative family. The four formed a powerful union of friendship, each individual guided and guarded by the other three, pursuing interests both independently and collectively, treading the new and old that surrounded them. The darker aspects of art, Punk and Emo, Horror and the Occult, let them explore the darkness of their own lives in measured, controlled environments, binding them with a common pursuit. In each other they found safe harbour.
Until Cheryl disappeared.
The absence of one splintered those remaning. Gary turned to vice, pushing his mind to oblivion rather than suffer the hole; Francis fled to London, abandoning memories now turning sour; John found his psyche fracturing completely, growing obssessive and fevered, now subject to Thomas without shelter. When the investigation stalled, and then closed, John threw himself from the Ethelfleda Bridge, and after being fished from the Mersey River, was sectioned to Ravenscar Psychiatric Hospital.
Two years later and nineteen years old, John has been remanded from Ravenscar to temporary residency. Cheryl is still gone, and John is still haunted by her absence. Thomas is to the wind, absconded from the family he had grown to hate so much. His old and only friends are scattered, burying their pain in the intervening years. But fresh spectres are beginning to re-open old wounds; will John lose what little fragile mind he has left entirely? Or will he strive to finally put old ghosts to rest?
P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S )
My drive behind bringing John back into the mix is to rekindle my drive for writing in general. After a long period of struggle and burnout at work I now find myself facing into a lot of free time, and to that end I want to re-discover my passions and hobbies, and begin a slow-but-steady road back to some manner of happiness. Please understand my character submission is predicated on a real possibility that I will not be able to immediately overcome these barriers.
This story for Constantine is, I think, one of my best; mapped out from start to finish with (I feel) a strong narrative and a core thread of emotion, it brings a humanist side to John that I think in recent years has been lost behind the Liverpool con-man bravado and the occultist flash-magic. John Constantine is a man with sadness and heartbreak at his core, and I think the idea of him as a wretched, pitiable figure who'd rather just have a normal life but is inexorably forced - one way or another - to face into tragedy after tragedy is one left by the wayside in many incarnations and appearances.
The use of the Absolute ident is no accident or embellishment, either; the central principle of DC's new run is to retain the core traits and pillars of the characters while stripping away something previously thought vital: Bruce's wealth, Kal-El's upbringing with the Kents, Flash's connection to the Speedforce. My Constantine - my Absolute Hellblazer - is a John without Astra, without magic; and yet, calamity somehow even more profound has struck him down, and John will have to rely on deals struck with others and the strength of his own wits to claw himself back from the Hell he will find himself mired in.
Fae - Seelie/Unseelie courts, various english/irish/scottish mythology and folklore; interesting premise/setting, no story :/
Jonah Hex returned from the dead - maybe a ghost rider/spectre angle - again, no story!!
Old Man Ghost Rider; brought back but there's no 'heir' so he has to find one? STORY???
Kid Deadman solving his own murder - how to write a supernatural crime mystery/thriller? How to go about piecing the case together?
Constantine year zero
Sonic time travel/Metal plot
yeah kid you got ideas but you're burnt out your mojo is missing and you got. no. S T O R I E S. all the time in the world doesn't matter if there's no drive
[center][b]Watch out. [/b]
The gap in the door... it's a separate reality.
The only me is me.
[i]Are you sure the only you is you?[/i][/center]
[right][sub][s][i][b]DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL NOW, WE'RE JUST GETTING STARTED[/b][/i][/s][/sub][/right]
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><div class="bb-center"><span class="bb-b">Watch out. </span><br><br>The gap in the door... it's a separate reality. <br>The only me is me.<br><span class="bb-i">Are you sure the only you is you?</span></div><br><br><div class="bb-right"><sub><span class="bb-s"><span class="bb-i"><span class="bb-b">DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL NOW, WE'RE JUST GETTING STARTED</span></span></span></sub></div></div>