Memory Book/Necessity James (Jason Toms)
In the real world, I'm Jason, a 26 (at time of writing) year old male from Cornwall in the UK.
Characters
Necessity James Lucien Landau Rayden Kayne
Real Life information
I used to be a chef, and before that I was a warehouse assistant at a large supermarket, but due to having spina bifida menigomyleocele I had to give both of those things up as standing up and rushing about all day caused problems. So now I'm looking for a "normal job", as my doctor put it. My hobbies include Warhammer/tabletop wargaming, Rugby Union, wrestling (mainly CHIKARA and lucha libre, not so much WWE these days), music (oldschool heavy metal, folk metal/power metal and hard rock, mostly), video games (mostly RPGs) and, of course, writing.
How you came to UFOP: SB118
I honestly don't remember... I seem to remember searching more for RPGs than Star Trek, I didn't know what PBeM was at the time, but I was into wrestling e-feds (which were essentially forum-based wrestling RPGs) at the time, and I've always been into sci-fi, so it was natural that I'd end up here at some point!
I have to confess, I'm not actually a massive Star Trek fan. I mean, I do like it, I'm just not as "in to" it as a lot of people here. I'm here more for my love of writing and general Sci-Fi than my love of Trek, which is why I rarely play characters in the more 'technical' fields, I've mostly been an Ops or Helm officer (though Lucien found a home at Tactical). My favourite series by far is Deep Space Nine, with TNG a close second. I've seen very few TOS episodes, almost none of Enterprise, and considering how many seasons there are of it, not a lot of TNG either. Whereas I've seen almost all of Voyager and most of DS9. Blame TV syndication!
History
Where were you first placed? What was it like starting to sim on your vessel? My first posting, I think, was on the original USS Discovery. I know my first captain was briefly Day-van Pel Nekkar and also remember being commanded by Jordan Hurne and Megan Parker on the USS Victory at some point in the early days. I was a poorly-thought out character on Helm, I remember serving with Mal Avatar, Taffarel DaSilva and Makal Kora in those days. As Kayne, I served alongside then-Lieutenant (maybe even JG!) Tyr Waltas, and vividly remember something involving a rogue ship called the Tiamat which we sabotaged and nearly died. I remember Tyr being blind for a while. Why can I remember those things and not, for definitely, my first posting?! Sadly, my tenure as Ensign Kayne was relatively brief as real life issues (not for the first time in my career) reared their ugly head.
Starting simming was an interesting experience. I think I got the hang of the format and such pretty quickly. I remember back then I was still in secondary school, so I'd quite often spend my lunch break in the computer lab reading sims. I don't really remember my first mission that well; it was something to do with the Grand Nagus. I remember my character and Makal Kora working together for it. The first sim I really remember vividly was the aforementioned Tiamat story as Rayden Kayne, working with Ensign Firehawk and Lieutenant Waltas.
What have been your greatest challenges in this group? My greatest challenge seems to be playing a character for an extended period of time without something crappy happening in real life. ¬_¬ Hopefully, after my latest LOA, things will settle down? Who knows! Secondary to that is the challenge of playing a Star Trek character without such a vast knowledge of the shows as a lot of people in the group have. I know most of the basics, but some of the finer points elude me.
What have been your greatest achievements in this group? The character of Lucien Landau, I think, was pretty awesome. I might bring him back some day (though I'm enjoying Nessa at the moment). I stopped playing him because of real life issues, and when I returned I had a new idea (one I was toying with as a PNPC while writing for Landau), who has panned out rather well so far. Other than that, I haven't really done much of note, despite being 'around' for ages.
What do you hope to ultimately accomplish? My first goal is to clock up one continuous year in the group, with no LOAs! That'd be a start. After that, my main goal with this character is to realistically develop her to a point where she's no longer a nutjob, and also OOC to make some long-standing friends within the group. I haven't really done that yet, the LOAs and constantly changing characters probably didn't help!