Subject: Nothing is not a good thing in this situation
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Posted on: 2014-07-28 02:02:00 UTC
I'm just gonna paraphrase something PC commented on my Cheesy thread.
Gimmicks aren't enough.
You have to have a character behind the gimmick. So far he's just a nameless sapient rat. I don't care about nameless sapient rats. Named sapient rats that have likes and dislikes and are unique, however, I care about them.
Agent Kimberly had a good "vacation" by working in Despatch and working in My Little Pony and other continua that she wasn't familiar with, but her knowledge of Supernatural and various other realistic worlds would be wasted, and Hue couldn't work there even if he survives his breakdown.
Rats, Bats, and Vats is a story where genetically-manipulated rodents and bats were grown and then cybernetically-enhanced to fight in a war. DoSAT went on a little looting trip to retrieve some dead rats and bats to study the uplift technology and the "slow shields" that were also implanted in them.
I could go two ways with this... either one of the rats was not quite dead, or someone who didn't know about the universe decided to implant one of the looted chips into a new brain. (The personality and memories reside in the chip, so effectively a canon bit could be resurrected into a new body.)
Either way, the uplifted creature would be downright lewd and have a knowledge of Shakespeare, resulting in some very interesting dialogue that would sound strange but not lewd to modern audiences.
It would turn the tables where Kim would be the one balking where her partner would be fine with watching.
The disadvantage to leaving him as a surviving rat is that his metabolism is ridiculous. He'd ride in her bag most of the time to conserve energy, and Kim would have to keep a full box of energy bars to eliminate the threat of him deciding to eat her. On missions with a Sue, the method of disposal would always include him eating her best parts.
If he remains a rat, his slow-shield absolutely must be altered by DoSAT to include an off-switch.
I'd prefer that he do a few missions as a rat, then somehow get killed so that his new body is something that is appropriate for his job, rather than some random animal that might or might not be appropriate. (Though I am willing to go domesticated dog as long as it's not a chihuahua.)
The first thing that jumps out at me is the issue of scale- an Agent small enough to ride on someone else's shoulder would actually be something I'd like to see happen. It would, however, make actually affecting his environment very difficult, so he'd end up being either completely dependent on his partner or possessed of, I dunno, telekinetics or something. Disguises would help with this, but to do so they'd also have to eliminate the main trait that sets him apart from the other Agents.
If we're not leaving him a rat, I do have to question what would happen to the personality of the "host" the chip gets implanted into. There's some MAJOR ethical concerns to that, even if the host body is not sentient.
Already happened. Agent Corolla, currently a technician but used to be in the Special Operations Division.
Small enough (six inches tall) to actually fit in her partners' pockets to have a nap during a HQ trip.
I remember something about planning an agent that was a talking Pikachu pulled out of a nonexistent Mystery Dungeon badfic...
Just bear in mind that there's going to be a bit of unbalance - the "big" one will tend to do most of the physical things, so you have to be careful to not have him or her overshadow the tiny partner.
I know that from experience.
Assuming that the smaller Agent doesn't just get disguised into something bigger every single time, if DoSAT could make a comparably-sized CAD and some sort of miniature recording device, a small Agent could be very effective at going where their partner couldn't to get charges, take readings, and sneak up on or distract a Sue. I'm envisioning them hiding on top of a shelf or something, reading off charges to a Sue who has no idea where the voice is coming from, and giving their partner a chance to sneak up and make the kill.
Seems to me that it was also a three-person team, the tiny one crashed, and there was a lot going on with the other girl.
I'm not worried about the physical aspect so much as the personalities, since the agents spend most of a fic talking and sneaking around. Kim's previous partner is more of a concern with being overshadowed.
Where I already introduced Nikki. In fact, her introduction was partially meant as a solution to theunbalanced team issue.
The rats are described in the appendix of this book. http://baencd.freedoors.org/Books/Rats,%20Bats%20&%20Vats/
With more research, it looks like he'd be about 5 pounds, which I think Kim could manage if she rearranges her gear. I also think Kim would be the less-capable one of the team, since she has mostly self-defense training and he's a trained conscript. Kim would be doing the writing and gear-hauling, but he would be in charge of restraining Sues.
http://judeline.net/extras/GenieOutoftheBottle.htm If you read beginning at "Methinks he is popular enough with them. They clapped." then down to the paragraph about the nursemaid, that's basically what my guy would be. (Also would like help figuring out a name.)
The transplanted personality comes from this book. http://baencd.freedoors.org/Books/The%20Rats,%20the%20Bats,%20and%20the%20Ugly/
"Korozhet mindwiping techniques scoured all traces of memory and existing personality from the brain."
and
"Someone tapped Fitz tentatively on the shoulder, as he sat on the ground next to the small body resting on Van Klomp's bush jacket."
...just seems to be made up of bits of other characters. What about this rat makes it distinct from the examples you've culled it from?
I'm thinking of having DoSAT mess with his tech, but it's just justification for having him occasionally lapse into "pirate talk" instead of sticking to Shakespearean English.
Basically his story is only slightly different from a "World One" person who fell through a plothole. Except that he came from some other world.
I'm just gonna paraphrase something PC commented on my Cheesy thread.
Gimmicks aren't enough.
You have to have a character behind the gimmick. So far he's just a nameless sapient rat. I don't care about nameless sapient rats. Named sapient rats that have likes and dislikes and are unique, however, I care about them.
The gimmick seems to be enough for people to think they can't be a good character.
Having him be almost indistinguishable from a canon rat, save for having PPC knowledge, is enough to start working with. He likes rum and chocolate, and hates being told what to do. (Let's just say that even if PPC agents don't get paid, he's going to be.) I just have to find a better first fic than the Dick Hardbones one to figure out who he is.
I do have a favorite line for him. "To be sure, the Sue has a lengthy description to show that she is effable."
Hopefully I'll remember to grab this book when it should go free next Saturday. http://www.amazon.com/Talk-Dirty-Shakespeare-Hollee-Temple-ebook/dp/B006S8C4OS His name might come from there. I think there already is a Falstaff and I don't like Don John that well.
Look at it from a buisiness standpoint. You're a Flower with two courses of action. You could neuralyze this character and let him go with no knowledge of the PPC, or you could hire him.
If this character is going to be difficult and won't do the Duty unless he gets things other agents don't, I'm not going to hire him. I'm gonna neuralyze this guy and throw him back in the sewers or whatever he came from.
And as for characterization, like I said, I don't care one way or the other whether he has a gimmick or not. Characters don't need a gimmick to survive, but won't die if they have them. Heck, just look at Cheesy. The only reason you'd want a gimmick is so you can build a character with the gimmick as something to help define the character. Okay, so your character is an A.I., how is he gonna deal with that? Okay, so your character is in a rat's body, how is he gonna deal with that?
The thing that DOES make a difference, and DOES make a character stand on its own, is characterization. A personality. If there's a gimmick, the personality has to support the gimmick. If there's no gimmick, no problem, you don't need a gimmick to be a personality.
If Cheesy didn't have a personality he'd just be another Porygon-Z, you can get boxes full of them in any Pokemon game after the fourth generation.
And if your character doesn't have a personality he's gonna be just another rat in the sewer.
However, at least you have a start with "likes rum and chocolate, hates being told what to do." Just make sure that the personality you create is hire-able.
I don't know my characters are until I write them. It's not that he doesn't have a personality, he's just going to be as close to the canon rats as I can make him. This is just a test to make sure his base concept isn't where he's flawed.
I suppose the threat of getting sent back to Harmony and Reason, and that he would be found if he scampered off in a mission, is enough to get him to stay. It might fall on Kimberly to make sure there's enough bribe material to keep him happy.
You have some detail going on here with what your agents are, but there's not very much of what they're like.
I'm not saying this is a necessarily a bad thing- certainly, having a species and some kind of background attached to them is a good thing- it's very useful to know when a character is human or not human, as the case may be!- but it doesn't give them anything to make them stand out as interesting characters, rather than things.
Yes, a character can be more memorable when these things add to them on top of them being memorable via being interesting characters due to their actions and personality, but it doesn't help them stand out.
Lemme try to explain this in different terms.
Let's think of characters in terms of food.
Your average poorly written character is junk food of various levels of quality. When you add things on top of that- loads of powers, extra special things, super unique things that don't really do anything but be there for the sake of being there- it's added junk. Sugar, sugar substitute, those dyes that make food all those great colors only found naturally in poisonous or venomous animals or plantlife- all that. It's fluff and adds no nutritional content.
When a character is written in a way that doesn't rely on those sort of things, it adds nutritional value. For example, let's take one of my favorite characters: Sam Vimes from Discworld.
Vimes starts off as a very sorry sad sack of alcoholism and profound cynicism. There is nothing about him that makes him apparently special in the grand scheme of things.
What makes him an interesting character is what he's like and how he reacts to everything. That's where the meat and potatoes is. Vimes doesn't become more interesting by being forcibly further and further up in terms of importance through the progression of what's going on in the Disc- it's his reactions and how they build on top of each other to give us a very vivid image of this man and what he's like. His reaction to things.
All you've given here is the uplifted character is lewd and has knowledge of Shakespeare and is fine with presumably gross things, which tells us very little in the grand scheme of things. As a character point, it's not all that compelling.
A few years back when I was first getting into the PPC, I read every single spin off, mission, side story and otherwise available PPC thing available online at the time. Kept up with loads of spin-offs since then and plenty of agent ideas.
I could not to save my life tell you how many of the ones that I found dead boring were the ones with all the junk food details added on because I don't remember them. There are a few that were memorable, but not as characters with compelling personalities or arcs. Instead, it was for the sheer amount of fluff that had been added on that resulted in something that was completely ridiculous and out of place.
I'm not saying that the uplift is a bad idea, but I do think you should consider more than just the what of the character; think about how they act, react, their personality, how they are.
When it comes to characters and writing, it should come down to qualities, not quantities.
It's a case of I don't know what they're like until I start working with them. And he'll probably have a few quirks different if he wakes up in a new body.
If he stays a rat, he won't care for the Duty, he'll be in it for the rum. (I will be able to get him real rum in HQ? He'll have no need for bleep products.) He probably won't care about Kim much at first, either.
The first mission will probably have Kim threatening to take his rum away. Eventually he'll realize that she's not treating him as a lesser person.
I find that it is easier for me to create a character if I start out with a basic outline and some personality traits, and let them "grow" as they react to the events around them. Their personalities fill out as they have a chance to interact with more of the world around them. If I start out rigidly prescribing everything about their personality, it can feel artificial and it may not serve the needs of the story very well.
But that's more a matter of style. The important thing isn't exactly how a writer gives a character their personality; it's that they do eventually end up with one.
Oh, here's a very silly but effective trick I use: I pretend I'm talking to my character, asking them about themselves, about recent events, or about their past. If you're at all into role-playing, you might find that useful, if you can get past the "oh jeez, I'm sitting here talking to myself" angle.