Need feedback on a idea...

[Violent Messiah]

On another board, I was taking part in a little on going RPG story. The setting was in a mall filled with zombies (oooo original, right?) and we all played characters trapped in it and we wrote about how the characters survived, or in some cases died. It went on for awhile, fun was had until it tapered out, and it was on to the next thing to post about, right?.

Well, not quite. See, the character I created kinda grew on me, so I thought more about him...And the more I thought about him, the more a story started to grow on my head. I thought he was a pretty interesting guy and could see me maybe writing a book about him, but first I want to see if he really would make a good character for others and not just me. After I get some feedback on that, I might even see how well some of my story ideas are recieved. Anyway, here's a short little bit I wrote to describe him...

Joshua Stone, a troubled youth of 17 is
a tall guy, thin and wiry. He has storm grey colored eyes behind his dark red tinted perscription glasses and spiky black hair. He's become fond of wearing army fatigues and combar boots lately, something he's picked up from hanging around the base so much.

Description: Born in Blackpool, England, Josh has been in the states since the eight grade when his British mum married the American soldier and moved onto a Army base. Unfortunately he hasn't quite managed to fit in with Americans he's met at school or work, which has led him to become sort of a loner. He's normally a quiet, unassuming guy who recently has been dealing with a lot of pressure at work, at school and at home. His mum and dad have been rather tense around the house, the root of the tension being his dad thinking of pulling another tour of duty in the Middle East and his mother not wanting him to. Then there's his brother, the older perfect son, who's been hassling him at home non stop as of late. Although he has recently been fired, he still hates the ex boss that constantly rode his ass and wouldn't give him a break, detests the snotty stuck up cashier that turned him down when he asked her out, and he really loathes the the guy that laughed at him, who just also happened to be her boyfriend. Normally he'd just smile and brush it off, quietly taking it and keeping his emotions to himself and would never think of resorting to violence.

Until today.

Josh has literally snapped, having a minor emotional and mental breakdown, and has in fact gone slightly insane. On top of losing a little of his sanity, he's had a few shots of vodka and done a couple of lines of cocaine and he's quite mad at the world, especially the people at his former place of work. Armed with liquid and chemical courage and missing common sense and reason, he's grabbed a Mossberg 590 shotgun, a HK M23 handgun and ammo for both from his dad's collection, stuffed it into a large gym bag and drives to the mall where he used to work. On the way there, Josh notices a gang of thugs mugging some poor sucker, but its not his problem so he drives on. It was kind of strange, though, as he could swear that the gang of men and women also included a couple of kids. Even stranger still, he even thought he saw that they weren't beating their victims, but rather biting and clawing at them them.

Nah...Couldn't be.

As Josh pulls up to the mall entrance, he happens to see a large group of people moving towards the other entrance of the mall. He notices that the odd looking group moves rather weirdly, more of a shambling, shuffling movement then normal walking. This reminds him of something, but as he can't quite remember what, he disregards it for the moment, takes one more hit of coke, stuffs the .45 in the back of his pants, grabs the bag and marches into the mall to cull the herd that is the human race of a few members.

Think this is a decent character, maybe fit for a story? Let me know! :cool:

[Miss Olivia]

Sounds good to me....I would read it.

[The_Return]

Originally posted by Miss Olivia
Sounds good to me....I would read it.

My thoughts exactly

[Violent Messiah]

Thanks, guys...:D

Now could you do me another favor? Read this bit of the online RPG post i wrote and then maybe help me figure out somethings, OK?
---------

As I stood at the mall entrance, I lit a smoke to calm my poor frayed and twisted nerves. "Man, what the hell am I doing? This is so ****ed to the bone!" I thought as I took a long drag. Maybe I over reacted. Maybe I should go home, lay off the blow and try to calm down.

Then I remembered how that silly slag Suzie sneered at me when she turned me down. And how Brad laughed at me and called me a ****in' loser for trying to make with his bird, the ****in' git. And can't forget that fat load Terry who fired me.

Fah...**** calming down. I decided it was time to make myself tonight's top news story, number one with a bullet.

Well, a lot of bullets, really.

I stormed into the mall and into my own personal ex- hell the electronics store, and stopped to look at the right hard bastard that's in the wall of monitors and looking back at me. That piggy bastard Terry said I was skinny enough that I looked like death warmed over. "Well, he got the death part right at least." I didn't just look like death, I was Death, the ****ing Grim Reaper himself come to cleanse the gene pool with a shotgun in hand, a ciggy hanging from my lips, ice in my veins and an angry storm in my eyes.

I looked around for any potential witness to my upcoming act of kindness to the rest of humanity. Seeing, with a slight twinge of disappointment I might add, that no one was in view I slipped the Mossberg out the bag, and then noticed that no one at all was in the front of the store or back of the store. This strikes me as odd because that piggy ex-employer of mine would never dream of leaving the store unattended for fear of missing a sale. Looking at my Disneyland souvineer watch and noticing Mickey pointing out the time, I then figured my future victims must be in the employees only part of the store, probably the break room. Smiling coldly, I silently made my way to the back of the store and through the door leading to the stock room and break room, feeling coke and adrenaline flowing through me at causing it to feel like every cell in my body was vibrating. I felt like I was an angry teenage god of death in combat fatigues, and this was judgement day for three very special people.

I creeped up to the closed door of my potential crime scene, and heard strange noises coming from within, very loud moans and slurping sounds. It sounded like they were either eating something bloody fantastic, or even better they were about to suffer a bit of 'coitus interuptus' of the 12 gauge kind. Readying myself for my grand debut as a spree killer, I took a deep breath and breached the door just like me dad taught me, God bless the special forces, kicking it in with my heavy combat boot.

"This is it, mother****ers! Heaven rains down on your ****in' heads tonight!" I yelled as the door crashed in loudly. Scanning the room quickly, I leveled the gun and was ready to blast if I saw one or all of the three I came for.

Then all the sudden the world fails to connect to reality and I began to wonder if I had gotten a bad hit of coke or perhaps my mind was slipping away even further then I had originally thought. In a scene straight out of one of Romero's wet dreams, I saw the fat bastard Terry, not eating as usual but in a final twist of irony winding up as the meal, and those ****ing tosses Suzie and Brad stuffing their gore smeared faces with their victim's very generous amount of flesh and entrails. The world seemed to slow down, each second painfully dragging on for what felt like forever as I stood there, transfixed by the grisly scene. I couldn't turn away as I saw dark crimson colored hands of the pair rending soft, wet chunks of flesh savagely, then bringing the horrible meal to open scarlet covered mouths, devouring it noisily and reaching for more.

"Bloody hell!" I said out loud, cursing myself instantly as Suzie and Brad slowly turned to face me. They gazed vacantly at me and for a second hope flares up in my head that they might not be able to see me for some miracle of a reason. This hope is quickly exstinguished as the two let out bone chilling moans that sound like they're coming from some deep pit of hell, a sound that no man living or damned should ever hear. Then ever so agonizingly slow, they rose up from the massacred carcass of that bloated ponce Terry and began to advance, blood soaked hands reaching out for me.

The coke in my system combined with raw adrenaline kicked my arse out of its stunned and paralyzed state and I pointed the shotgun at the incoming nightmares. "**** the lot of you, ya hear?" I yelled, firing at Brad and taking out a large section of his chest and knocking him back to the table. "**** the lot of you!" I then turned and blasted Suzie, hitting her in the left arm, coming close to taking it completely off and nearly knocking her down. Unfortunately this did nothing but make them moan louder as they kept coming at me, my death reflected in their glassy dead eyes.
---------

OK, a few questions, if you don't mind...

1) Should I slavishly follow the tried and true Romero formula of zombies, or step outside the box like Resident Evil with like the zombie dogs, mutants and such?

2) Should zombies speak, or just moan? Should they be able to learn to use things, like say knives, clubs, axes or even a chainsaw? :eek:

3) Should zombies be the slow moving horrors from the classics, or the track star zombies from Dawn Of The Dead 04 and 28 Days Later?

4) Goverment conspiracy, corporate experiment gone wrong, sinister occult plan come to fruition, supernatural phenomenon, twisted step of evolution or never explain the cause at all?

5) The end isn't near, its here! Humanity makes its last stand and its losing, but which scenario sounds better?

a) Earth being over run by mindless zombies, its all just a matter of surviving the ever spreading disease.

b) Earth is being taken over by zombie hordes, but while most are the mindless traditional kind some of them are frighteningly intelligent, taking over cities and turning them into huge necropolises from which to wage their war against the remaining living.

c) Earth, having been besieged by zombie hordes led by the intelligent and crafty death lords, now has another problem. The vampires ancients, now seeing a golden opportunity to move from the shadows into a position of power over the human sheep, make their play and turn numbers of humans to swell their vampiric and still living thrall armies to lead in an attack. This, however, meets with strong resistance as the death lords don't wish to share power or their food source with the vampires and attack them, resulting in a running three way battle between the zombies, the vampires and the humans.

6) First person or third person perspective story telling...Which is best? (I ask this because I started this thing first person and in mid play switched to third, and can't decide which I like better)

7) And finally, is it too sick and twisted to have a intelligent zombie girl still clinging to her humanity, a nicely perserved one and not the grisly looking kind but still undead, finding herself falling in love with a living human? And is it even sicker to have the human start too have feelings for her as well? :eek:

Thanks in advance for any help you guys give! :D

[Miss Olivia]

Wow, that's a good bit of pondering...

1. There is always merit in stepping outside the box, as long as your foot doesn't land in shit.

2. I'm of the mindframe that a zombie should NEVER be smart, because then it's not as much fun.

3. Fast zombies scare me more.

4. I like alien influence. Not like Undead though. That movie pissed me off.

5. A sounds the best.

6. Personal opinion, I like third person. But it's a matter of taste.

7. No. But it would be more entertaining if some of the more twisted human survivors were running zombie brothels.

[Violent Messiah]

Originally posted by Miss Olivia
Wow, that's a good bit of pondering...

1. There is always merit in stepping outside the box, as long as your foot doesn't land in shit.

2. I'm of the mindframe that a zombie should NEVER be smart, because then it's not as much fun.

3. Fast zombies scare me more.

4. I like alien influence. Not like Undead though. That movie pissed me off.

5. A sounds the best.

6. Personal opinion, I like third person. But it's a matter of taste.

7. No. But it would be more entertaining if some of the more twisted human survivors were running zombie brothels.

Ahh, I see from a couple of answers you lean toward the traditional style zombie story...

Well, at least until I read your idea for number 7...A zombie brothel??? HA!!! That's so twisted, I love it! I told a friend about that and I think it was the first time I made him speechless...:p

[Miss Olivia]

LOL nice to know I'm shocking complete strangers....much easier than using live wires....not to mention less messy:D

[Zero]

Originally posted by Miss Olivia
7. No. But it would be more entertaining if some of the more twisted human survivors were running zombie brothels.

not that i'd be interested but where might this brothel be located. . .ahem. . . just for curiosity's sake. . . ahem

[Miss Olivia]

LOL how about a zombie brothel TREEHOUSE???

[joshaube]

The brothel idea is amazing~