Subject: There is actually a Jack Harkness-replacement Agent.
Author:
Posted on: 2014-04-13 16:43:00 UTC
His name is Jacques Bonnefoy, he's a one-man Broadway musical, and he speaks French.
Would be interesting to see these two interact.
I usually wouldn't talk about them so long before asking permission, but I once tried to post a version of this character (she's one of my common OCs, was created for a Fallout: Equestria idea that I haven't put to paper yet) as a character for a collar, and was rejected harshly on the grounds that she was overpowered, so I'm going to show a version here and check with you guys. If she is, I will moderate her.
Her name is Amanda, and her age is undetermined, although she looks like and is a mature adult. She has very short, somewhat spiky hair, that has turned white from stress early on, and dark eyes, and somewhat light skin (light enough to sunburn).
In the past, Amanda ran afoul of a chaos god somewhere (originally it was Discord) and ended up with a curse: She would not die until the maximum possible age for a human, not age after maturity, and would quickly heal from would-be lethal wounds, and heal somewhat faster than a regular human from regular wounds, although she still feels pain.
The curse part is that she would get to use that talent often, dying often in hilarious and commonly quite painful ways. A day when she only dies once is considered a really good day. Amanda signed on to the PPC because it was a dangerous job, so she could fill up her dying quota while still doing something useful.
Her curse has given her a very hard shell, and she is quite crabby and rather anti-social and snarky, although she does have a generous heart hidden in a dark corner somewhere. She's usually a bit laid-back. Thinks she is immune to insanity, but isn't really, she just reacts to it in different ways.
Her major randoms are Harry Potter, Dresden Files, Discworld, Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dwarf Fortress, and Minecraft.
Her lust object is Ron Weasley, whom she thinks is cute, and when he's bashed she gets mad, and if the Sue really bashes Ron she can be sure of a painful death.
Methods of fighting/assassination: Keeps knives on her person, tipped with various poisons. She likes to use large, collateral-damagey methods of assassination, often involving lava. Yes, she gets herself with these too, but that's what the curse is there for. She's moderately good at hand-to-hand combat, and fights dirty.
Doesn't really care what she wears, as long as it's practical.
Belongs to the Department of Floaters.
So, commentary and advice.
is for the Agent's partner to hide behind them every time there's a combat situation, let them soak up the fire, and then kill the Sue? It's a win-win situation.
That's what Amanda reminds me of, though as far as I know, Jack's immortality allows him to still age- so he'll eventually look like a wrinkly little old man (or a giant face).
Don't think I'm saying you're copying his character, because I'm not. That's just what I'm reminded of.
The curse could make for some rather hilarious situations (like Amanda getting killed almost immediately on her first mission and her partner freaking out- and then freaking out even more when Amanda starts breathing again)
How would it affect her, personally? The first few times she died, especially, probably left some pretty big emotional impact on her. How does Amanda react to her deaths now? I'm assuming she's used to them at this point in her life, but it's probably still weird to die so often and come back. How long does she take to regenerate? Does it depend on the wounds (like being stabbed would take less time to heal than going ka-splat off a cliff)? Is she ever disoriented when she comes back to life? What happens if she gets vaporized?
The collateral damage bit I'm not too sure on... What if she burns down Hogwarts castle? What if she blows up the Millenium Falcon or the Enterprise?
Anyway, I'm most definitely not a PG, but I think Amanda could work as an agent. ;)
Yeah, I only realized the similarities to Jack after I thought her up. Although, Jack arguably has it better; he can theoretically take a vacation without dying horribly several times a day.
Hilarious situations involving death is pretty much what her curse is used for (other examples might be a Jerk Sue killing her and then freaking out when it doesn't work).
Her curse is the reason for half of her personality; she's crabby and anti-social mostly because of the trauma from it.
She heals from deadly wounds at the same rate (very quick; she only spends a fews moments dead from both a stab wound and vaporization), but any non-lethal wound (say a broken arm), heals at a rate twice as fast as normal human healing, unless that's OP. She was probably disoriented the first times, but by now she's used to it.
The collateral damage thing is usually either a small-scale thing, or used to kill Sue locations.
She's this Scootaloo. If it's anywhere near as funny as this fic, I think we could have one of the funniest agent pairs yet.
His name is Jacques Bonnefoy, he's a one-man Broadway musical, and he speaks French.
Would be interesting to see these two interact.
Quite true...
...Lily, someone needs to describe Jacques like that in canon. Alternatively, it should be on his wiki agent page, once he gets one.
"Meet Jacques Bonnefoy. He's a Jack Harkness-character replacement, he's a one-man Broadway musical, and he speaks French."
That's it, the agent page has to open with that, it just has to, Lily.
(Or something like it, anyway...)
~DF
You at least didn't create stu agents.
overall,Amanda is pretty cool. the curse could use some work,though.
so,she fights dirty,huh. that's not uncommon for an agent.
I wonder,she might become one of my favorite agents.
Any suggestions?
I think it will really come down to who her partner is and how they interact. Other than that, I don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said.
The person I'm thinking of for her partner is a Monk of Rinjswand (the home-brew class I posted about earlier), and is a coward and survivalist (although this doesn't mean that she foists all the duties of assassination on her partner; she just tends to use a megaphone, record of herself, or a written message to deliver the charges while she shoots Sue from a safe distance) who, due to following the path of Rincewind, is, like him, constantly getting into dangerous situations and then surviving them. Other than that, she's usually sweet and preppy with a fondness for pink, is very religious, and may whatever supreme being you choose to believe in help you if you blaspheme or take away her pendant with a design of her holy symbol (Rincewind's wizzard hat) on it.
The curse sounds sort of like the Japanese variety, where the character gets amazing superpowers, but is still suffers from being, y'know, cursed and all. (See: Princess Mononoke, Naruto- Curse Seals) The only difference is that the downside of those curses comes from unstoppable rage and desire to kill, not never being able to die, no matter how much you're hurt.
That being said, have a nice day.
Boonzayah.
Like Pretzel says, the nature of her immortality will take a bit of tweaking, but other than that, she sounds interesting. Her age--fortyish? fiftyish? makes her somewhat unique among agents, who are mostly young. Playing with somebody who's had half a lifetime of experiences will add to the story.
I agree with Pretzel that her immortality and bad luck doesn't sound like a chaos curse. To me, it sounds more like a wish twisted by a particularly sadistic or incompetent genie--perhaps worded something like, "I wish I could recover quickly from anything but old age."--a wish for a full lifespan, a relatively sensible one from a sensible person who knows that living forever isn't all it's cracked up to be, but who still wants to live long enough to raise their children, see their grandchildren, and finish what they're doing before they pass on. Perhaps she had a terminal illness or severe injury that would otherwise have killed her.
With her being, say, fiftyish, she is old enough to have a grown child. Maybe the child was why she made that wish to begin with--she wanted to live to raise the child, and now that they're grown flown the nest, she wants something useful to do.
Anyway, that's just one of many possibilities. Essentially, you want to have her curse/power be an intrinsic part of her character, something that tells the reader more about her rather than a power stuck on for her to use.
Really, the whole 'chaos god' thing was more of a leftover from her MlP FiM beginning, where the only character powerful enough to place such a curse would be Discord. It could be anything that placed the curse, really.
And I'm trying to have it be an intrinsic part of her character- it's why she's so crabby and has such a hard shell, and it's why she got into the PPC to begin with. Without the curse, she'd be a very different character, if still sarcastic.
I didn't think about the grown child thing, but great idea! Thank you!
Everyone on this board is so nice. Last time I tried to post her, I got a violent rejection saying that her ability was way to OP. It made me cry whenever I thought about it for days afterwards (although I cry easily).
I've seen the same argument--"immortality is overpowered"--and I never understood why. There are many things that are much more powerful than immortality. It's certainly not so powerful that you'd have to categorically rule it out.
A character who doesn't age would be very lucky in the real world, but in a role-play or in a tabletop game, dying of old age is highly unlikely to ever be a threat to the characters. In a tabletop game, I would give a character this kind of immortality--doesn't age but can be killed--for free, if the player wanted it. It won't make the character any stronger and it's not unfair in any way.
Being unkillable is a pretty powerful ability. However--it's not infallible. It doesn't mean the person can't be imprisoned, slowed down, drugged, tricked, turned into a frog or a statue, or put into a situation they can't get out of. They don't have super strength or speed or intelligence. They're vulnerable to everything but actual murder, including things that are worse than death. (Drop them into an active volcano, for example...)
Being able to repeatedly come back from death--once again, a powerful ability, but not out of the question. There have to be rules: Do they resurrect in the same body in the same position? What happens if their body is destroyed at death? Do they leave multiple bodies behind, one for every death, or do they re-create their old one? How long does it take to come back? If the place where they died is incompatible with life (see previous "active volcano" suggestion), do they repeatedly die, or do they just not come back until something makes that location survivable? How long does it take to rebuild their body, and are they vulnerable while that's happening? A consistent set of rules goes a long way, and offers interesting story possibilities.
Even at the extremes of immortality, the trait won't make an automatic Mary Sue. It's totally possible to create a good character who doesn't age and can't be killed. Their storyline would focus on their interactions with others and with the world around them. They can't lose their lives--but they can lose just about everything else that's important to them, and they're not superhuman in any other way. You can still get them into deep trouble that their immortality can't get them out of.
I agree on tweaking the exact details of how she came across the power/curse, but it is a rather interesting twist for an agent, and dependent upon how long it takes her to revive, it could be a serious impediment during a mission. I think the possibility of leaving her partner to face something dangerous could make the power seem less powerful. It could always interfere with the mission. I kind of like the genie origin idea, but any of the others could work with the right telling of back-story. I'm kind of fond of the agents who are crabby, but hide a softer interior, too.
I suppose my first question is this: why such a specific curse? It seems more like something a vengeful sorcerer would put on someone than a chaos god. Usually chaos deities are all about the instant gratification: they want panic and disorder as soon as possible. What would said deity be getting out of such a prolonged curse on someone? Also, depending on what canon you use for a human's life span, that's anywhere from around 120 years old (the common max lifespan for a World One human, IIRC, but which is very, very rare). I'm not sure if there are any continua that have long-living humans, but I'm sure someone else knows.
To me she almost seems like an expy of Jack Harkness thanks to her basic immortality, but with a dash of Highlander Immortals. Actually, that gives me an idea. You could still have a similar character, but get rid of the whole curse thing. The Highlander-style Immortals, for example, can't die unless their heads are cut off. It's a firmly established fact within the Highlander universe. You could still have her be immortal and go through wacky hijinks, but without the onus of a time limit or a curse.
Everything else looks good to me, however, and not OP. Take my advice as you will, but in her current form, she'd definitely need to be nerfed heavily to be acceptable.
Originally, it was a curse on one of her ancestors, with the curse simply giving a good effect and a bad effect, evening out to having an interesting life. She simply got one of the more obviously supernatural effects.
And yeah, I was thinking somewhere along the span of 120 years for the curse's effect, at maximum.
And believe me, I didn't have Jack Harkness in mind when I created her. She isn't supposed to be immortal, just dying a lot and always getting up to die again.
Examples for what I could nerf?