MOUNT
A couple of options come to mind. He could use gadget, of course,
changing its form as necessary, surfing when there's water, biking when
it's rocky, skating when it's smooth, hang gliding when there's no ground
at all...
ANNOYING THINGS
He's a little, um, how do I put this? Distracted. He gets bored easily
and tends not to pay attention to things unless they're his definition of
interesting.
WHY MIGHT OTHERS DISLIKE HIM?
He's too honest sometimes. Not because he's mean, he just generally
doesn't sugar coat things, you know, like "Whoa, Babe, nice dress, does
it come in your size?" He's somewhat irresponsible, too. He's probably
*never* cleaned his room.
ANNOYING HABITS
Being the casual guy that he is, he sort of lounges when he sits, puts
his feet up on things, (like antique coffee tables) spreads out. Of
course, the way he talks will probably get on at least a few peoples'
nerves sooner or later, too.
BANDIT PUNISHMENT
Something highly embarassing, like tying him to his horse bare-assed
naked and parading him through town and making him apologize publicly to
the family for robbing them, etc. Then he'd probably do something like
take the guy somewhere where there's a really high bridge, put a
bungie-jumping rig on him (not Gadget, of course) push him off and let
him flounder around and pee himself for awhile, then cut the bungie and
let him fall into the water. If retaliation against the family was
likely, I'd cart him off to another shadow after that.
AGE TEN
At ten. Oh boy. Trouble. I figure that's around the age where kids are
really discovering what they can do, and that's about when he would have
truly started developing his "extreme" streak, finding dangerous things
to do wherever he was living at the time. If I do a story I'll send it
separately or this message is likely to make your computer explode. Alot
of what I write would depend on who my parent, is actually, and whether
or not they would have a heart attack over some of the stuff "Little
Sander" is likely to have done at that age, and whether or not anyone
would give them shit about it. For example, if I were Benedict or
Fiona's kid, I mean, who the hell is going to give them shit about
*anything*?"
BANDIT BANISHMENT
A very rough shadow. Somewhere that he would be considered a wuss and
get pushed around, beaten up and just generally picked on.
OLD WEST
Appearance-wise, I'm sure he'd have a blast dressing up like a cowboy,
for starters, so he'd probably have a big old hat, boots, chaps, gunbelt
and the whole she-bang. He'd always be dusty. The most exciting and
dangerous thing I can think of offhand during that time period would be
running the Pony Express, he'd probably get a kick out of that. He
might also hire out as a jockey for some of those high-stakes, cross
country horse races they used to have, they could get pretty rough on
occasion, too. I get the feeling he'd have a reputation for being crazy.
SWASHBUCKLERS
He's pretty much a big kid, he'd definitely want to be a pirate. Not
the raping and pillaging kind, of course, more the "Robin Hood of the
Sea" type of thing, ala Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. His favorite part would
naturally be swinging across onto another ship.
PERSONAL SPACE
Since Amber has all kinds of fun stuff, I see him spending alot of time
there. I mean, there's a beach not too far away, a big mountain he can
do all sorts of fun stuff on. So even though he'd eventually get bored
and move onto scarier and scarier things, Amber would be his most
frequented "home base". That said, his room would be a total mess.
There's clothes, magazines, mummified food all over the floor, posters of
women in swimsuits and other revealing type stuff all over the walls,
along with pictures of him defying gravity, a poster of the Tazmanian
Devil surfing, stolen street signs (One Way, Steep Grade, Curves Ahead,
Falling Rock, Bourbon Street), an unfolded parachute on the ceiling.
He's got trophies up on the bookshelves from different competitions in
different shadows. There's sports equipment of all kinds all over the
place, knee and elbow pads, skateboards, shin guards, catcher's gear, a
basketball, a hockey stick, etc. He's got a basket in one corner that he
uses with a Nerf basketball.
The furniture is "early bachelor", picked for comfort, not for looks.
He's got a couch that people sink into, two recliners that don't match,
a couple bookshelves, lava lamp, a plastic bead curtain separating the
front room from the bedroom, a stoplight, a life-sized cardboard cutout
of Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon holding a surfboard from "Beach
Blanket Bingo". The headboard and footboard of the bed have been
"splatter-painted", and he's got a couple sets of sheets he rotates,
motorcycles, race cars, and of course Star Wars.
His favorite chair? A big, oversized day-glo blue bean bag. Favorite
reading spot varies, he just drags the bean bag wherever he feels like
sitting at the moment. Preferred reading, hmm. Sander's not as dumb as
he looks, but he does have a short attention span, so he's more likely to
read comic books than say, Hugo or Dumas. Probably "pulp fiction"
novels, detective stories, science fiction that doesn't get too deep into
the technical babble (no Crichton for *this* guy!), maybe some
Brust-esque type stuff (like Cowboy Feng's).
WHAT CLASS SHOULD HE TAKE?
"Organizing Your Life". Because he's a slob. Some people live in a
straight line, some run their lives on a cycle, Sander just sort of leaps
around to random points with no thought whatsoever as to what happens
next, and he's too busy to worry about what just happened a minute ago.
WHAT CLASS COULD HE TEACH?
If it were any one of them it would be "Assertiveness Training". He's
not a shy boy, that's for sure. Give him a couple weeks with a nerdy
wall flower and he'll have them screaming down the side of a mountain
with their hair on fire.
SERVANTS
Nope, no servants, for two reasons. One, he's a physical kind of guy (no
shit, there, right?) he'd much rather just get up and get things
himself, and two, it probably wouldn't occur to him to call a servant and
say "hey, bring me lunch, Dude". He would enjoy bugging a servant if he
were in the mood, though, calling them "Jeeves" and getting them to do
silly things if he knew they had to.
IMPORTANT ITEM
He's pretty attached to Gadget, even though he abuses the hell out of it
like he would any other piece of sports equipment. He's still got his
first skateboard, which he has up on the wall, and regards as sort of an
idol, but I his favorite object (and let me know if this isn't a
possibility) is the soccer ball he kicked a winning "World Cup" goal with
that was signed by the whole Austrailian team. He's built sort of a
shrine around it.
HUNTER BEAST
Oh, easy one. It would look like an Australian shepherd with a blue
bandana around its neck. It would, of course, have to know how to catch
a frisbee.
VOICE
If there's a notch somewhere below casual...He can be proper when he
wants to, but it's a very conscious effort. Being the honest type he
doesn't like it when people pretend to be something they're not, and so
he doesn't like doing it himself. Favorite expressions/curses: "Damn" is
way up there, often accompanied by some noun or another, as in, "damn,
Dude". There's also "what the hell?"; "whoa", drawn out, more like
"whoooa" or "whoohooa"; along with all the usual colorful "surfer guy"
talk.
TOUGHIE
If the source left me out, it's probably because my Amberite parent is a
little embarassed by me, which is highly likely, 'cause let's face it,
chances are Sander won't grow up to be throne material and he's hardly
the guy you'd want involved in any kind of relations with some other
kingdom as a representative of Amber.
If Zelazny left me out, it's probably because Sander would look a little strange alongside all those heroic archetypal characters. That, and he'd probably make the whole "suspension of disbelief" a little more difficult. I mean, who's gonna buy *that* guy as a member of the royal family of Amber?