by Sixpence » 12/06/2008 5:47 PM
I'd like to give it a shot, if I may. This is a character concept I've had in my head for a while now, although I never really got around to finalizing it. It -is- a concept more so than a bio, so it's a tad disjointed. Of course I'm going to try to explain myself to the best of my ability, but if you have any questions please feel free to PM me.
That being said, let's do this =P
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Concept subject (what idea I based my concept around)- "You can try to hide it, but the body is honest."
*snickers* It sounds like it came out of a...well, nevermind.
In essence, my idea summary would be this:
A magic-using girl whose thoughts/feelings form and shift as actual physical (indelible) statements just underneath her skin.
An in-depth and fleshed out explanation of my idea:
THE PHYSICAL SIDE
So we have a girl whose thoughts/feelings (you pick, one, both, whatever) write themselves just underneath the surface of her skin, where they can be seen as though living tattoos for all to behold. The thoughts erase and write themselves and in my mind, I always imagined them appearing letter by letter, as though being written by someone invisible, but already, we have some possibility for variation:
- The phrases all appear/disappear at once (sudden)
- The phrases write/erase themselves out letter by letter (fade)
- Font type/size depends on the emotion behind the thought/feeling
- Placement of the phrase on the body could be loosely dictated by the emotion ie. If she is feeling sadness the words of her emotion might write themselves down her cheeks.
- Plus the language choices for the actual words. Could be Sanskrit, English, Arabic, some made up alphabet etc...
Okay, enough ideas for that- moving on.
The words may write themselves and erase themselves as they are writing, or they may last for hours, days, years, depending on the type of thought/emotion; whether it is a fleeting thing, or one that makes up a significant part of her psyche. The more relevant the emotion is to the character, the more likely the phrases relating to it will stay under her skin for a longer portion of time. For example, the phrase describing her emotion of fear (specifically fear of abandonment) would stay much longer as opposed to the fleeting feeling of hunger which (at most) would probably only stick around until she was no longer hungry.
The phrases themselves can be written however you like: your imagination and grasp of the English language are the only limits to what her skin might say, or how she might express how she is feeling in words. Thoughts are often fairly arbitrary things, with strange connections between ideas, so the language you use for her phrases may be as ambiguous as "Thus the posies of the field turned to ash and sang no more" (A blatant reference to the nursery rhyme and its connection with the Bubonic plague) or they may be as precise and direct as "Why do I feel like crying?" The first example references fear of death, while the second references the emotion of sadness (it could arguably be happiness but to keep things clear we'll say sad).
Now, I mentioned that this character is a magic-user and it's the best part because it ties directly into this strange physical phenomena of hers that we've been discussing.
THE MAGICAL SIDE
Now, this character is an incredibly powerful sorceress/mage/witch/insert magic-use here with virtually no limit to what she can and can't achieve, but there's a catch: She can only work magic as related to her emotion. So, let me explain.
Let's imagine that this character has lately been feeling weighted down by responsibilities she feels she can't handle and so the phrase "Ah, these chains!" has been on her body for a week now. If she needed to do some magic while in this frame of mind she could easily summon some type of chain, since that is how her emotions are manifesting, but how she used the chains would be limited by her emotion. For example:
- She WOULD NOT be able to conjure up a chain ladder to help herself and her friends out of a pit they had fallen into (lol, wut?) because rising upward out of something goes against the emotion of feeling weighted down.
- She WOULD be able to conjure up chains to bind or restrain, since that is what her emotion is doing to her, OR she could possibly make a chain barrier to stop someone from escaping or moving forward, again because that is what the emotion is doing to her.
Moreover, the intensity of her magic would depend greatly on the language of the phrase she is using the power of. So, the more ambiguous the language, the more versatile her capabilities, but ambiguity is related to uncertainty and uncertainty to confused emotions. The more confused or unrealized the emotion, the weaker the resulting magic because of the lack of force behind it. That seems like a harder concept to grasp, so let's make an example. We'll go back to the death and sadness quotes from before:
Fear of death: "Thus the posies of the field turned to ash and sang no more"
- Possibilities for magic as dictated by the phrase could include: Summoning flowers/vines/plants to strangle, creating ear-shattering noise, creating fire, creating a barrier out of any of these three things, forcing someone to hallucinate (poppies = opiates), blinding walls of ash etc....again, limited only by what you can connect to the words.
HOWEVER, because the phrase "Thus the posies of the field turned to ash and sang no more" is so vague, it's not immediately evident that the character is feeling afraid of death. Since that emotion is buried underneath ambiguous language, she can't feel it as intensely, so the magic she creates with it will be versatile (on account of the ambiguity) but will be weaker than if she had used an emotion she identified immediately with (again because of the ambiguity). So, in short, more possibility for use means she sacrifices power.
Feeling deep Sadness: "Why do I feel like crying?"
-Possibilities for magic as dictated by the phrase could include: ...can pretty much only be some type of manifestation of water. Maybe shrieking or creating sound waves, too.
Do you see what I'm driving at here? So the power of this emotion is obvious: she's really, really sad. So there's no ambiguity here, but also because there is no ambiguity in the phrase, there is not a whole lot she can do with it. The resulting magic when using this phrase will be very strong, but not very imaginative.
Naturally, the more depressing the emotion, the more harmful to others her magic would become....which leads to a very real possibility of her being used/manipulated by others trying to force her to feel things for their own ends. Of course, this would depend entirely on what type of personality you'd want her to have. She could just as easily be a weak-willed child as a strong minded individual, or anywhere in between. She may have confidence in spades, or sorely lack it...she may be bitter, lonely, in love, a kleptomaniac...etc...this choice is entirely yours to make because the best thing about this character concept is how well it fits every personality type. Basically, the best about this idea is its sheer versatility (Heh, have I used that word enough yet?) of her capabilities, which are virtually limitless, and the thousand-and-one ways in which you can use them to supplement the personality you choose for her.
Plus, her abilities can shape, shift, and grow as she does as a person, so they will never confine her, define her character, or become boring and repetitive. Yay ^^
IE: She may start out as a weak willed little brat who doesn't believe in herself and is easily manipulated. But then she finds love, or a steadfast friend, comes to believe in herself and as a result turns into a confident woman. In this scenario, you can see how her abilities, thoughts and emotions would grow and shift through each major life turn point.
Also, something to keep in mind is that emotions/feelings with which she may be stuck for life (so say she was a slave at one point, and as such, she's never been able to shake the perpetual feeling of being trapped) are the ones she would be most readily able to call on. Fleeting emotions/feelings/thoughts would be good for adding flourishes and interesting new techniques/ideas, but everyone has something they rely heavily on, or fall back on, and she would be no exception. These feelings (in this case, the feeling of being trapped) is so ingrained into her persona that it's only second nature for her to call upon it....so she would have attacks/uses/defenses that she would use more readily than others. She's certainly not limited to them, but she feels most comfortable using them, if you see what I mean ^^
Personality & History
I'm hoping my my concept will help you spark some ideas of your own in your head because I think this is something that needs to be tailored to fit the player as much as the character. Nor can I give you a name for her since she's your character, not mine. I wish I could say more on this subject, but I really hope something will just burst out from you, and your creativity will return.
Random ideas to maybe help jog your creativity
- Hated by people because they tend to revile the truth and that which they cannot understand
- Revered as an oracle of the truth, mistaken for the mouthpiece and avatar of God(s)
- Manipulated by a two-bit magician who uses her for parlor tricks and doesn't understand her full potential
- The 'Atlas' of (enter a city here), who carries the weight of the hopes of people on her shoulders as a heavy burden. If she fails, they fail etc...
- The physical manifestation of the Apocalypse; once out of control and feeling emotions she can't handle, she becomes deadly enough to possibly destroy the world.
- Simply a comedic character who has strange thoughts, and does -strange- things with the resulting magic in order to spice things up. Loves life. A very random, wacky personality who marches to the beat of her own band.
- A very, very little girl who simply doesn't understand what is happening to her although everyone else understands her immense power. She's innocent enough and some want to save her innocence while others want to use it to manipulate her for their own ends. Only uses her powers for things like...making herds of unicorns or cotton candy clouds, or whatever makes her happy etc...but can be easily coerced to do things she doesn't know is bad.
ETC...!
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Anyway, I hope that helps you out some :3
Good luck finding a personality that you love for your lady there!
PS. Oh, I don't think I mentioned it, but the glowy marks on your Lucain? I'm imagining those are the letters xD. So like, her body color would be brown with fluorescent blue lettering appearing and disappearing like mist. OOooh, like the movie Atlantis! Except that they move and shift and fade.
Also, design works for anthro, partial anthro, or quad. Yay!