Character 911/Character r

Chatterbox: Inkwell

Character 911/Character r

Character 911/Character rentals!

Got a character who won't do what you want? Think you have a Mary Sue, but can't bring yourself to kill it dead? Need help with writing an accent? Want general critique? Come here, maybe someone'll have some advice.

Alternatively... Want to rent a character to use in your story? Want a chance to play around with someone else's creation? Want to see how someone else uses your character? Drop your creations here, and borrow someone else's for a while. Swap babysitting tales.

I'll start, shall I?

Thursday Silvertongue II is a small, pale, grey-eyed black-haired member of a race which, at present, has no name. Her left arm is heavily tattooed in black ink; her shoulder sports a solid black maple leaf and spiderwebs and intricate patterns spiral down her arm from its stem, ending at her ring and fourth finger, which are also solid black. 

This race is extremely long-lived (Thursday is considered young, and she's nearly 200 years old). They are somewhat elflike and tend towards small stature, and their home is a world known as Excelsior, where they live on the northern continent, M'ntred (I went into Tolkein-esque detail with this world/idea, it's been simmering for a long time, bear with me for a while). 

This race is a very magical race, and everyone has a practical, everyday magic within them; above that are seven "ranks" of magic, and these seven ranks determine one's status. The class order is very dynamic due to this, as amounts of magical ability are not hereditary.

I won't go into detail about the ranks; suffice to say that the lowest is peasant-level and is basically a simple "task-magic", which can be used for simple everyday tasks, and the highest is royalty-level and involves elemental distortion.

There are also "melders". Thursday is one of these. Melding, essentially, is the ability to fuse, or "meld" with a solid, liquid, and a handful of visible gases. Once melded one can manipulate the shape and behaviour of the material, for example making stone mobile by quickening the movement of the atoms. Basically, melders can walk through solid objects or water, change the landscape as they see fit, even "possess" other people through physical, rather than mental, means.

Of course there are limitations; melders risk spreading themselves so thinly through a material ("mediums" they're called) that they break the link between their physical selves and their minds and souls; when this happens they become golems of whatever they happened to be melded with, and end up beasts of burden or wild animals, depending on whether they are caught and herded to captivity or not. Also, while melded they are highly vulnerable to attack; fr'instance you could kill a melder by waiting for them to meld with a tree, and then killing the tree by setting fire to it, because, by melding to a living thing, the melder literally becomes that thing, if only for an instant, and if it dies suddenly, the melder doesn't have the time to get away. Nonliving things do not carry that risk, simply because the melder's psyche has nothing to "stick" to as it would with a living thing. Does that make sense? 

This level of power has a dreadful tendency to corrupt, naturally, so the majority of melders are evildoers.

Thursday II also has a rare genetic disorder of her species, a disease known as Garnet Syndrome. It's a kind of blood disorder which causes groups of blood cells to spontaneously crystalize into hard, colourful lumps called "garnets" due to their texture and similarity to both garnet stones and pomegranate seeds (which gave garnet stones their name). They are very painful and can temporarily cripple the victims if they become lodged in or near the joints; garnets usually last about a week ((not one of our weeks - the Excelsioran year is 5 42-day months, each month comprised of 3 14-day weeks; and each day is approximately 6 hours of daylight followed by 3 hours of dusk and 3 of night, for a total of 12 hours.)). If they last longer they are usually surgically removed.

Occasionally garnets burst through the skin and solidify; in which case they are usually left alone, as removal would be potentially very damaging.

The disorder also causes severe muscle atrophy, mostly in the legs, if not caught and treated at an early age; Thursday's wasn't caught until she was well into her 30's (the equivalent of about 10 years old) and she's forced to wear leg braces ever since, because the damage was, by that time, irreversible.

She's kind of an outcast because of the volatile, corrupting nature of her power; but the rulers of her race rely heavily on her strategic help in times of war. She's slightly... off... in her thought patterns, and in our world she'd be considered insane, but her different views have saved the army more than once.

She's a mite bitter and cynical due to her treatment, and her condition (the near-cripple condition, that is, not the melder one).

Anyway, I'm offering her up for rental because I am TOO BUSY with my vampire story and Broken Dreams to write a story with her in it/about her. Any takers? 

submitted by TNÖ, age 15, Deep Space
(May 7, 2009 - 11:45 pm)

Hiya, Lena!

submitted by Hi Lena! -EH
(May 10, 2009 - 5:34 pm)

Okay, so I have this character, a complete Mary Sue. She's a daredevil, a loyal friend, and other wise perfect. She never messes up or looks like an idiot, and I don't know how to un-Mary Sue her!

submitted by Ella
(May 11, 2009 - 1:52 pm)

I have a total Mary Sue friend, too. She is pretty, skinny, gets amazing grades, and is insane at gymnastics. Whenever we sit next to each other in classes and I try to talk to her, she whispers really quietly and covers her mouth so that I can't understand what she's saying, and so she won't get in trouble.

My advice? Accept it! You can't really get her to change her personality. But act really crazy around her, and come up with catch phrases. Maybe your un-Mary-Sue-ness will rub off.  

submitted by poetonearth13
(May 11, 2009 - 2:54 pm)

Um, I think she was talking about a story character.

submitted by Brynne, age 13, Flying away on
(May 11, 2009 - 3:37 pm)

Oopsy daisy! I just skimmed through. . .

Still, if anyone does have that problem. . .*winks* 

submitted by poetonearth13
(May 11, 2009 - 7:07 pm)

Does anyone have suggestions for flaws to un-Mary Sue one of my characters? And I'm talking big flaws, because I've tried little flaws like stinking at a subject, interrupting, etc. and none have worked. HELP!

submitted by Allison P., age 12
(May 11, 2009 - 3:58 pm)

Aargh! It's bad enough that my teacher thinks I'm too negative, too mature, too nquisitive, too argumentative, annoying, a bad influence, and all that, in ADDITION Lena thinks I'm a villain, a stalker, and a plagarist! AAH!

;) *not serious* ;)

@ anybody trying to un-Mary-Sue their characters, um... try making them really ugly. Because then, oviously their looks suffer, but so, preumptively, does their self-esteem, social image, and the like.

By the way, Lena, yes, I am plagarizing. Or maybe I never read the book and I just got that idea from stalking GCL...

*is still joking* ;)

submitted by Mary W., age 11.35, NJ
(May 11, 2009 - 4:50 pm)

You're good at joking. H'm... is that suspicious? *retrieves Lena's Big Book of Suspicious Behaviors At Which To Freak Out About* *looks up 'good at joking* *finds no serious offense* *wipes brow*

 

*is just joking also ;)* 

submitted by Lena G
(May 11, 2009 - 5:39 pm)

Sure! How 'bout missing a leg? Or an arm? Or being paralyzed from the waist down! Or having one eye! Or anything that could have a gruesome back-story to it! Whee! (You can probably tell I'm a little hyper right now..... :D)D)D)D)D)D)D)D)D)D)D.....)

submitted by Pirocks
(May 11, 2009 - 6:22 pm)

Mutilated/ugly people can still be Sues, you know. All the physical issues in the world can't make up for a flat personality.

My suggestion? Make her a chronic liar, a kleptomaniac, a coward. Give her a superiority complex or manic depression. Give her some unpleasant character traits (but not ALL unpleasant, she needs some redeeming qualities too or you'll have an Anti Sue). She's abusive towards her friends, she throws tantrums when she doesn't get her way, she's narcissistic. 

Above all, ignore the temptation to make your character a perfect or near-perfect being who can do no wrong in spite of their lowly/difficult past/childhood. No one is like this; therefore no one can relate to your character. There's a reason some of the most famous fiction in the world - Shakespeare, for example - had flawed, imperfect characters. Les Mis? The main character is a convict. Phantom? The titular character is a psycho who falls for a 16-year-old. Fahrenheit 451? The guy burns books. Sweeney Todd? He's a serial killer. Mrs. Lovett? She puts people in her pies. (I love that movie). Wicked? Elphie is one messed up witch by the time Dorothy arrives in Oz. Tin Man? DG is a scared waitress from Kansas, with newly awakened guilt for letting her sister be possessed by an evil witch and causing the whole mess. Azkadellia, for that matter, has got just about every personality disorder you can name. Glitch is missing half his brain and he's got a zipper in his head.

Conversely... Twilight? Bella's only flaw is clumsiness, and that vanishes mysteriously after the first book. She's a complaint to her friends, yet they love her anyway. She smells SUPER SPESHUL and her mind is "secret" for reasons that are never explained. Even in the fandom, she's the character that gets a lot/most of the hate. Harry Potter? The titular character become a Gary Stu towards the end (understandably but still) and fails utterly to die, possibly leading to Draco Malfoy and Tom Riddle fandoms. 

submitted by TNÖ, age 15, Deep Space
(May 12, 2009 - 8:25 am)

Ok, here, I'll make up a character because I can't find a spare one hanging around. Here goes....

 

Garneth Hurgh is a Gar'sheth, a people easily at the level of space travel. Most of them are vegetarians due mainly to the influence of one of their greatest philosophers, who lived almost a millenium ago by Earth standards. Their language is rather guttural and is characterized by an abundance of g's and r's. They are somewhat more logical than humans and live peacefully, generally content to stay on their planet even though they invented faster-than-light travel seven centuries ago. They have had exactly one war in their entire history. It so nearly wiped out their civilization that they took extensive measures to change their entire culture so as to preven another such disaster. Even though the war was two millenia ago, they remember it well and use it to teach their children the folly of war.

Garneth has short black hair dark eyes, and a generally small, wiry build. She is something of a maverick among her people, having joined the crew of an explorer starship in the Fleet (sorry, don't have a better name yet - think Starfleet in Star Trek) when she reached the age of thirty, which is the time of coming of age. She is rather resistant to authority and has certain ambitions that concern a captain's chair. Her parents disowned her when she joined the Fleet, and, of course, that didn't exactly endear her people to her, especially as she was already beginning to think along courses perpendicular to most Gar'sheth.

I'll leave it at that and, of course, feel free to change any small details. The Gar'sheth are a people in a story I'm writing, but Garneth isn't in it, so take her if you want her. Have fun!

-EH

submitted by Emily H. :), age 13, Sparks, NV
(May 11, 2009 - 6:33 pm)

Uh, I have a character to put up for borrowing :D. I would appreciate if you would change the name because Kake came up with it, and she will kill me if anyone else uses it, but I thought it fit for the description.

Name: Reev G.

Description: Siren that lives on the edge of the world in a deserted lagoon. Silver hair, emerald eyes, fangs that protrude from under her scarlett upper lip. Excellents swimmer, commonly mistaken for beautiful from a distance, but once you get up close you find her fangs are yellow, eyes slightly bloodshot and silver hair not as beautiful as it appeared from afar.

Uh...yeah. Don't use that name please...not that anyone will want her anyway. I've been toying with her for a while, but I can't find anything to put her in.

submitted by Koffee
(May 11, 2009 - 8:45 pm)

Where is Kake, anyway? I haven't seen her on chatterbox in ages!

submitted by Ella
(May 12, 2009 - 3:27 pm)

I find it indescribably weird that I could laugh at words written on a computer screen, but hey, it just happened twice on the same post.

@ TNO (umlaut): Sorry, missed your response to my post, but it cracked me up. ...Although actually, that might work... hmm... give me a while to think about it.

And @ Lena: *is still laughing* :D You are hilarious! (Just so I don't appear stalkerish, ;), I am speaking in response to your post that included a reference to your "book of suspicious behavior.") You had me in stitches. :)

*continues laughing* *looks stupid*

submitted by Mary W., age 11.35, NJ
(May 12, 2009 - 6:30 pm)

You have me laughing too!!! :) Wow, I would've never guessed that hilarity could come out of accusing someone of plagarism. :) *laughs again*

submitted by Lena G
(May 13, 2009 - 7:09 am)