Subject: Shallow?
Author:
Posted on: 2011-12-09 21:36:00 UTC
This was simply a short summary of the main points in each character's life and their personality, not a complete description of all of their lives, emotions, looks, etc. That would take pages.
... Sorry if that came out sounding snarky.
I will probably end up using Lisa and a normal person, seeing as Scribe paired with her is a bit much.
Obviously, I can't ask for permission yet, but would you lovely people be willing to check out my characters for me? Just so I don't die of anxiety? Thanks.
The Scribe: The Scribe is a 200-some-odd-year-old female Time Lord from the Doctor Who plot continuum who lived during a short period of time before the Time War. She had found a plot hole caused by the sudden influx of badfic from the reboot of the series in 2005. Curious, she flew her TARDIS in, crashed in the PPC lobby, and was subsequently recruited. Her TARDIS died soon afterwards, as the rift energy in any universe will not be compatible with a TARDIS from a different universe (as evidenced in Rise of the Cybermen, if you were wondering).
The Scribe, after six months of grief and much therapy due to the death of her TARDIS, then cannibalized the parts to modify her console and other technology in her room.
As of now, The Scribe has no knowledge of the Time War, and has no idea that most of her race is dead.
The Scribe was named so because of her way with words and her, quite frankly, rather amazing reliability as a minutes-taker during meetings.
While The Scribe does not have any amazing powers other than the general Time Lord power of regeneration, she does have a sonic pen and a permanent case of indigestion. She claims that the sonic pen is quite useful, since she can “write and sonic things at the same time!” She does not offer any comments on the indigestion.
The Scribe is a touch awkward around people, but her excitable personality and mad ideas (read: Very Bad Ideas) make her rather endearing. She is a huge stickler for SPaG, hates Mary Sues with a passion, and absolutely hates squick.
She is a fan of Harry Potter, Naruto, Maximum Ride (before the series jumped the shark), Artemis Fowl, Uglies, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and His Dark Materials.
As of now, this is her third regeneration. She currently has spiky hair that she dyes every week (blue at the moment), tan skin, and a tattoo of a butterfly on her back. The Scribe generally wears dark-colored vests with frayed, denim, thigh-length shorts.
Lisa Frick: Lisa is a thirteen-year-old background character from an unpublished Suefic (written by me when I was eight), which was set in the Young Wizards continuum. She had exactly six sentences of ‘screen’ time. When this fic was deleted from the world by the author, most original characters were also deleted. For reasons unknown to everyone but that physics professor down the hall, Lisa was instead dumped into the PPC universe.
Lisa’s manual (a sort of ‘spellbook’ for wizards in her continuum) was luckily teleported with her. While she will not use it on missions often, it may come in handy for the more stubborn badfics. Also, as she (like every wizard in her canon) is fairly fluent in the Speech (the language to cast spells, every species can understand it), she may be able to communicate with nonhumans in certain fics. Whether this works outside of her canon or not is untested.
Lisa is very cheerful and outgoing. While she does have a tendency to forcibly glomp the cuter minis, as well as being unable to resist panda-themed objects, Lisa can be a very sympathetic and understanding person. As it turns out, she is also a seemingly limitless source of Very Bad Ideas.
Lisa is a fangirl over Doctor Who (some may even say the Eleventh Doctor is one of her objects of lust), Discworld, Kiki Strike, and anything by Scott Westerfield. Except Leviathan. She hates Leviathan.
Lisa is rather short (again, she’s thirteen), with a shock of close-cropped, bright red curls and quite a lot of freckles. She wears small, rectangular glasses; black, blue, or dark blue jeans; and t-shirts with funny sayings on them. She has an otherspace pocket in which she keeps her manual, a small stuffed panda, and all of her PPC materials; as well as her iPod stocked with Doctor Who episodes and noise-canceling headphones, in case of particularly gory fics.
What is /with/ this influx of Time Lords into HQ? Is it the promise of TARDISes? 'cos I mean really, those DoSAT-issued knock-offs aren't a patch on good old-fashioned Gallifrey-make.
I suppose it's all down to that so-called 'reboot'? It's not enough that my bloomin' planet gets blown up offscreen (and I later find out Rassilon came back when I wasn't looking - seriously, I wasn't /that/ unobservant back then... was I?), but I have to put up with new mysteriously-named fellow Time Lords every time I turn around! I dunno, it almost makes me want to leave the old place behind... maybe take a tour out in the 'verses, check up on the Avon Rift...
Nah. Not yet, I don't think. Maybe in another few years - like, just before the Hobbit film comes out.
... sorry, don't mind me. I'm just cranky. Just came out of a couple of years of hibernation courtesy of a little mixup in DoSAT to find my partner's dead and I'm still stuck in a cranky body. Then I come on here and this is the first thing I...
... hang on. This isn't the HQ network. How did I get on here?
Um, look, just really ignore me.
-Agent Morgan, DMS
This so-called 'Agent' Morgan is clearly just a delusional individual. The PPC is of course fictional and no agents from it could ever post on this board which is devoted to a fictional entity which is definitely not real. Definitely.
Justin Agent, definitely not of any department of the PPC (which is fictional) and certainly not of the DIO (which doesn't exist)
I tink ya be mistaken, dere, sir. Ya see, I been in da PPC for some time, an I can tell ya dat it does exist. Da DIO don' exist, a'course, but if it did den it would probly be full'a a bunch'a dwarves wit axe handles up dey behinds.
-Agent Barid, All-purpose Department, Warcraft Division
How could the PPC possibly exist? First of all, it's fictional, secondly, the whole idea is ridiculous - all those portals and things couldn't possibly work under the physics these people know about. And thirdly it's fictional. You, according to something that definitely isn't top secret (because why would anything be top secret? We're talking about a fictional organisation!), are simply out to steal everyone's money.
Wait, what? This algorithm is messed up...
Justin Agent of the real world (of course)
Because OF COURSE the PPC exists, or how else would I exist? And I do know I exist, beign an expert on my my existential... ness... stuff.
Airam Elagnithgin
But the point is that you, um, Airam, are not who you think you are. You are, um, delusional.
Unless this is a joke. Which it might be. In which case ha ha ha we're all real people having a joke together.
I'm in the, well, in the lounge, and she's here, Peter, she's here. What do I doooo? She's *talking* to me, Peter...
Who's talking to you? Why is this a problem? Remember your training - and stop posting DIO business on the network. It's even less secure than usual.
Anyone else reading this - there's no such thing as the DIO. Or the PPC. We're just weather balloons.
PP
Using different names to write dumb stuff isn't exactly favored on the Board. Please stop.
See, I told you they were all crazy/lying. They all have the same intellectual property address (... is that right? I think that's right), so they must all be liars and not with the PPC, because the PPC doesn't exist and its network therefore can't be entangled with this one in the real world which is the only world.
Justin Agent, real person
Please do brush up on the Constitution.
'6. Silliness and insanity are welcome here — even encouraged. Feel free to leave your sanity at the door. Most of the Regulars do.'
There's nothing wrong with silliness, especially when it is intended as a bit of good fun and is likely intended to spread some good humor around before people get so serious their socks catch fire from it.
Is there something wrong with *not knowing* this was supposed to be a joke? For all I knew there was a troll leaving pointless comments. I'm not intimately acquainted with hS's work.
Maybe an explanation that it's a reference to something else would be helpful, instead of flatly getting told that I'm wrong?
But one would think there'd be a hint in that many of them have 'Agent' right there in the name space, and that others are taking part- such as Phobos, and me.
You could have asked politely what was going on.
Instead, you made a statement bordering on being downright rude and condescending, and you're reacting in a negative way to being told it was just for fun.
Pardon me for not drawing a connection between names I've never seen before and people I know exist.
*gives up*
Especially when Phobos only changed his nick to Phobos from it being Barid not too long ago?
And I've *definitely* never heard of Phobos being anything but Phobos. How long is "not too long ago"?
If you look down a couple threads you'll see my contribution, clear as day.
And in Phobos' case, with a loud announcement saying he was doing so.
I thought it was quite offensive, actually... why are there people claiming I'm not real? I know I'm from a badfic, but I'm still a person. If you cut me I don't bleed... or however that goes.
S
[[No, there isn't. I admit to being a confusing person at times. But now you know - come join in! THe HQ network has gotten entangled with the Board, so agents can see what we're posting...]]
There are philosophies out there that hold all of life to be one grand joke at life's expense. I don't think so myself, but I do know for a fact that reality is a matter of perspective. So, no sense worrying over it. You know you're real, and that's what counts. Cogito, ergo sum and all that.
Unless you're crazy, of course. Feel free to drop by my department if you are. :)
~Jenni, FicPsych
It's humorous to the people who've read hS's DIO stuff and get what's happening. It seems you haven't, which is fair enough, but please look it up before you say any more.
But I didn't see anything making any references to anything else, so how am I supposed to know there's something to look up?
Justin talks about the DIO and its non-existence in his very first post.
Also, it's funny.
hS
WHAT!!! SHE HATES LEVIATHAN! HOW DARE SHE! I LOVE LEVIATHAN!! HOW DARE SHE! Wait, was that redundant? GOLIATH IS AWESOME!
Hmm... let's see... Discworld (quite common), Artemis Fowl (I'm an Artemis Fowl fan too), His Dark Materials (read it about three years ago), and, that's pretty much it. But still... HOW DARE SHE HATE LEVIATHAN!
I have to say, I like them. Time Lord OCs you always have to be careful about, but The Scribe sounds like she can work well. (There is precedent; check out Morgan and The Fisherman to see how Time Lord agents have been handled before.) Also, as has been mentioned, the PPC has used TARDISes before. The Fisherman still uses his. An idea could be to have her come out of the plothole somewhere dangerous like DOSAT new technologies testing or the Reality Room or something, and have her TARDIS be destroyed and unsalvageable, if you want to continue that plotline.
As for not knowing about the Time War, I think it could be a very powerful story if you write her only learning about it for the first time through the PPC.
And while "Because it's cool!" is a flimsy justification on its own, the Doctor isn't the only one to have a sonic device. Jack Harkness had a sonic blaster and seemed to imply that those, at least, weren't particularly uncommon; the Master had a laser screwdriver, mostly to be able to boast that it was so much cooler than a stupid sonic one. So if you can come up with a good reason - "sonic engineering is a popular class at the Academy," maybe - I see no reason why you can't keep it.
As for Lisa, thirteen is a bit young. I have an agent who's 17-18, and he's on the younger side of the age curve.
I would really like to see a Young Wizards-verse agent, though. I think she could be really cool.
I know this is just a short bio and you can't put everything in. But, as it looks now, if you tighten up the backstory a little and flesh them out as characters, I think you could have a great pair of agents on your hands!
Were this a request I was PGing, I would probably make my call based on how you wrote the two of them in your writing sample and just make some comments on possible problems here, so I'll do that now:
The Scribe: I don't know the Whoverse so I can't make a call on the validity of her background, but she doesn't sound bad as long as the emotional connection to her TARDIS is canonical. I wouldn't name her "THE Scribe", though - aside from being awkward to read, it'll be irritating to type so many times - but just "Scribe". Also, I'm assuming that the Time War is a known part of Whoverse canon, and so I believe it'd be almost impossible for an active agent working in that field not to have active access to the knowledge.
I like the touch about indigestion. Saying she "absolutely hates squick" is all nice and good, but squick is subjective, so all you're actually saying here is that she hates the things that make her cringe and hide, which is just redundant - you haven't defined what it actually is that she hates.
Lisa: Generally, unless something has changed while I've been away, if a fic is unpublished it doesn't actually affect canon - as in, it hasn't gone out into the world of public access and so can't affect the word worlds. You could easily change this by pretending the fic was once posted and then deleted.
Having Lisa be speshully dumped in the PPC is not the best idea - how about just have her be recruited like so many other agents are? You don't want PPC agents to have things happen "luckily" very often; it makes them seem favoured by the Ironic Over-Power/Universe/TPTB/et cetera, which they never are. I worry about her youth in that it's far too easy to write children (or teenagers) as adults, or at least as equals with adults. I see that you're going for contrast with Scribe, but I don't think it needs to be that extreme. If you don't want to change the fic she came from, how about saying she was thirteen when she was recruited, and put to work behind a desk for the next five or six years until she could go out into the field?
Overall, for the both of them, you're paying a lot of attention to how they look, but as this is just bios I'm not worried. Their interactions oculd be very funny; just be careful not to push them to extremes just to make contrast.
And... those are all my initial thoughts. I would like to see some more depth of character for both of them, but again, that's what the writing sample is for. I hope that was helpful!
The Scribe: First, about TARDISes and the PPC: The PPC used them occasionally, and at least one pair of agents uses one as an RC. So they seem to work in the PPC.
Another thing: Why is it that Time Lords all have a sonic whatever? It was an invention of The Doctor... or has it been leaked and I don't know about that?
Also, since when are Very Bad Ideas endearing? They're very bad.
Lisa: The mysterious sole surviver of a deletion. Does that whole "my world has been deleted and I've probably been floating through the space between spaces" thing even bother her? She's thirteen. Also, oh wonder, she still has her manual... what a nice coincidence.
Also, thirteen seems to be a bit young to become an agent.
Lisa: Mostly the sole-survivor thing was to be used for Humor Only, since I didn't want any SRS BSNS. I can change the age, though, and go into more detail with the space-wacey-wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff.
TARDIS: Really? I had been trying to conform to DW canon, since I am probably the most canon-Nazi-ish Whovian you will ever find. More opinions?
Sonic: Because I wanted a sonic pen and sonic pens are awesome.
Very Bad Ideas: I've got nothing for this one, just that my friends are always rather endeared to my personal Very Bad Ideas (such as the time we tried to ride sleds with no snow and a brick wall at the end of the hill... or that one time with the rubber octopus... or with the dinosaur...)
Deleted world humor? I can't really imagine that. Having one's home destroyed is always serious. Just because it's the PPC that doesn't mean that there can't be things that are serious.
Also giving a character stuff because you want it/it's awesome is often a Sue thing. If you can't find an in-universe justification, drop it.
In general, your characters seem to be a bit shallow. Backstory's not there to look pretty, it actually influences your characters.
This was simply a short summary of the main points in each character's life and their personality, not a complete description of all of their lives, emotions, looks, etc. That would take pages.
... Sorry if that came out sounding snarky.
I will probably end up using Lisa and a normal person, seeing as Scribe paired with her is a bit much.
I was also trying to conform to canon here, since in the series, your manual cannot be destroyed/tampered with/stolen, and it will 'teleport' to you if someone tries to do any of those things.
Pretty much.
It's complicated.
PPC is always understaffed. AFAIK there have been 12 years old Agents.