The Oliver Twist Project

[rober1236Jua]

For my graduate studies I am taking a class Victorian lit and I have to admit I have had a problem with Dickens, so I have decided to use New Babbage to construct a Dickens character. I hope to in this way connect better to his work by walking a mile in his characters shoes. You may find me wondering the streets for a few weeks, begging from the ladies and guvnors a few pence for a dance and song to help feed by 19-34 children who all have nothing but brown bread for their tea

Each person I get a small sum from I IM that /me "takes his gold watch without him noticing" and then puts on what I have taken. I hope to slowly develop myself as the underworld king of New Babbage. I will be looking to get some of the orphans in me gang.

I would hope that more people can join this performance, creating Dickens like characters but also reading Dickens and adding more solid Victorian "presence" in New Babbage

But mostly I want to get motivated to read Dickens who I generally can't really see the purpose of. Living as his characters live I hope to get through.

I could see people becoming PC, judges, line ladies and me, reformers, pick pockets to RP a Dickens like soap opera.

[Jimmy Branagh]

'ello Rob! An' welcome to our fair city an' awl. It's a plyce full of surproises!

'at's a most interestin' sentyment yaw proferrin' there, bein' so intersested in 'elpin' th' starvin' awphans an' awl. Oy 'ope ya keep all yaw stuff in yaw front pockets where it will be syfe from awl th' thugs an' miscreants walkin' about. Ya know ya can trust us urchins, though, eh? We'll do roight boy ya. Loighten yer load, so ta speak!

((Jimmy winks and saunters off))

[Koen]

Interesting that you "don't see the purpose of" Dickens. He wrote about the things he saw around him and experienced himself. Like Oliver, he was sent to work in the poorhouse as a child. He saw children just like the Artful Dodger prowling the streets day and night searching for something to eat or steal. He also saw the disgustingly rich who couldn't care for their downtrodden countrymen in the least.

Some things never change.

[rober1236Jua]

Its really that I can't generally connect to how he writes and his views on life. Its a matter of the novel clicking for me. I much more enjoy Jane Austen.

But I want to use VR as a problem to expore the identites of a Dickens Universe, to get in to the novels better to prepare for next months paper on Tale of Two Cities, which is a novel I have read twice and still detest.

[Dickens the kitten]

...quietly climbs into Robert's pocket looking for fried shrimp...

[Jimmy Branagh]

Careful Dickens! Ya don't know where any pocket shrimpies moight 'ave been!

[Softpaw]

*lures Dickens out of the pocket with catnip coated fried shrimps in the teahouse*

[Grendel Footman]

he already took my watch, glad i have spares

[Ceejay Writer]

He got my cigarette holder, and I don't even smoke! Now THAT'S talent!

[rober1236Jua]

I got it and you didn't even have any. The utter joy of virtual reality artful dodging.

[Beq Janus]

he stole a small pocket bible, which I didn't miss, probably because the atheist in me didn't know I had it. I would wager that the dastardly reverse pickpocket who goes by the name of Gideon stuck it there in the first place

[rober1236Jua]

But to be really "Victorian" (Victorianism at the heart of steampunk) you must grant (or play along) that the small lock of hair from your long deceased, and that you used to contemplate upon that piece of hair for long Gothic hours until the Jane Austen like demands of company returned you briefly to your more proper humors.

The lost of the lock of hair, though you deny it in public, has thrown you in to a utter state of distraction. Your friends have consulted some individuals back from Austria who have been in contact with a new theory developing of the physics of mental states, and they believe that perhaps you may benefit from being the first AVATAR (not human) to under an examination of Freudian physco-dynamics.

(Oh if you play along this could be so much fun)

[Koen]

Catnip coated...fried...shrimp?

*licks lips*

I'm going to have to stop by.