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 Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 12:39 am
Welp, I feel the need to post the profile of one of my least tortured characters of all. All she really does is angst a little towards the end because everyone's getting so screwed up and she has nothing to do while they do so.
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Name: Sabine Connely (For anyone who cares, her name means "from the boundary line/peacemaker | love, friendship/chaste fire/strong wolf.")
Age: 19. (Her birthday is April 21st, if you must know.)
Hair: Curlycurlyfrizzy red. She usually keeps it pulled back and fastened with a metal clip and sometimes wears a head scarf.
Eyes: Green.
Race: Easterner, aka agrarian human-person.
Family: Her mother died when she was nine, and when she was twelve her father married a widow from a neighboring town. This widow had a ten-year-old son named Leste, who became Sabine's step-brother. Since Sabine's father re-married around the same time that Nathan was sent away to school, Sabine coped with the "loss" of her dearest friend by cleaving to Leste, and so the two grew up to be very close, despite only being step-siblings. Incidentally, her step-mother is the cook at the Four Roses Inn, which is owned by Nathan's parents.
Appearance: She's 5"5', which makes her shorter than the men of the group (including Leste xd I just realized that), and taller than Yinda. She has relatively pale skin and a smattering of freckles, but overall isn't unduly beautiful. *scans bio* Says here she has "gentle features" and "fine eyebrows," but whatever. For clothes she wears a baggy green robe lined inside and out with pockets, which contain impliments of her trade as an herbalist. Under the robe she wears an apron with several more pockets sewn into it, and under the apron her "normal clothes," which to this day have only been seen twice in the novel. Unfortunately, I have no idea what these "normal clothes" look like, beyond the fact that she wears a dress/skirt and blouse. ^^;
Personality: She's compassionate when she has to be, bossy most of the time, and usually the first to try and smooth over a situation. In fact, she jumps to make sure situations don't get out of hand, especially if said situation involves Nathan and his anger issues. She often comes across as being bossy, and, well, she is, especially when one of her companions is being unreasonable. *coughVITAEcough*
Random other stuff: Sabine is in training as an herbalist, though she technically isn't apprenticed to anyone at the moment. She knows just enough to be useful in a pinch, but is constantly on the lookout for people from whom she can learn the profession.
Despite the fact that I ignore her a great deal of the time, a good portion of the plot actually revolves around her. Apparently she closely resembles the Southern princess (or the Southern princess resembles her, since Sabine is actually older by several months). Jericho once brought the subject up to the princess's caretaker, the High Priest of Emanon. Therefore, when the princess mysteriously went missing, the High Priest remembered what Jericho had said and, in order to prevent a public uproar (and possible lynching of the high priest, since caretakers are always the ones blamed first), Jericho was sent to find Sabine and bring her to Southern to stand in for the princess while the high priest secretly sent out agents to search for the missing princess. And that's how all the hell of the story started in the first place. >>;
Growing up, Sabine was like an older sister to Nathan (despite Nathan's being a year older), due to the fact that Nathan was very small, quiet, and shy, and tended to get picked on by the boys in town. Whenever something went wrong, Sabine was the one Nathan ran to to make everything better. (I'd even go so far as to bet she actually beat kids up for him on several occasions.) When Sabine's mother died, she coped by turning all her attention toward taking care of Nathan, and so when Nathan was sent away, she was completely devastated (until, of course, her father re-married). However, when she meets Nathan again in the story, she's understandably shocked and even somewhat disgusted by the way he's reinvented himself since he left home.
Sabine tends to become very attached to people and has a secret fear of being abandoned or losing those who are close to her, which sprouts from her mother dying and Nathan being sent away to school.
She loves cats.
She likes to appear as proper and lady-like as possible--or at least, what she thinks is proper and ladylike.
Since she knew Nathan back when he was a wallflower, she has little trouble seeing through all his charm and glitter, though she's not completely immune to his manipulation. She's also one of the few people who knows how to keep Nathan on-topic in a conversation.
She begins to believe very devoutly in the Southern religion (which is pretty close to Christianity) while pretending to be the princess.
While filling in for the princess in Emanon, she actually plays two different roles. Before her arrival, the high priest explained the princess (Ciora)'s absence as her coming down with a mysterious disease, and claims he sent Jericho (and all the search parties) to find a medic somewhere who is skilled enough to treat her. Sabine is therefore disguised by Nathan as a Western brunette (still named Sabine) come to cure the princess of her horrible illness. She actually spends most of her time as "Sabine," while appearing as Ciora only for the purpose of reassuring people that the princess is, in fact, alive.
Tortures: Losing her mother, losing Nathan (temporarily, though she's definitely lost "her" Nathan for good), she (sort of, Vitae kept her from actually seeing it) witnesses the murder of the Eastern prince at the hands of someone she thought she could trust, and she suffers from frequent nightmares after Vitae and Nathan disappear towards the end of the book.
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OMGAR, who would have thought I had so much to say about the outspoken little biddy? It's actually really hard to describe her personality without making her come across as the typical Healer-type, who's so compassionate she's bossy and will break your arm in order to make you sit still long enough for her to put a band-aid on your knee.
And is it just me, or does her whole life revolve around Nathan? @@;
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:11 am
It's never to late to torture her some more. Or, you could stuff more tortures into her backstory if you don't think she's suffered enough. twisted
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 2:13 pm
1) Wow, she's a lot younger than I thought she would be. I was expecting mid twenties.
2) I know you've told me this before, but I probably wasn't paying attention. What kind of shade of red are we talking about as far as her hair goes? On the orange-y end of the scale or bright, scathing red?
*might make a Sabine picture* ninja
3) She sounds like the kind of character that would annoy me, to be quite honest. sweatdrop There isn't a lot to her other than her basic characteristics, and she doesn't really seem like ... I don't know. I'm not wanting to say that she's not interesting, but she is kind of dull. I don't see much here other than the basic bossy redhead character/apprenticeish healer character.
And from the looks of it she relies entirely on the other characters to form her personality: all of her isms with Nathan, her relationship with Leste, etc.
I'unno, Sabine just isn't my cup of tea. Not trying to be mean or anything, though. I hope I don't sound hateful. ; 3;
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Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 8:07 pm
I actually don't like Sabine that much either. >> I'm only just now starting to develop her beyond her basic characteristics. The thing that frustrates me most is that she's so damn normal, it doesn't give me much to work with. >< But trust me, if I were to post Leste and Jericho's descriptions, their lack of development would make you wince.
And I'm not really sure the exact shade of her hair. I would sooner it be obnoxiously red than orange-red. It's definitely not carroty. Maybe a notch down from scathing.
You know what? I have a tendency to hate my female characters. *stabs Sabine in the back with scissors* mad
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Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 11:22 pm
Actually, I think it's just so noticable because she's such a big part of the story. I mean, she's pretty much the entire main plot, right?
Lemme see if I can kind of more effectively pinpoint what I'm trying to say here ...
Does she really have to be a healer character? Does the story absolutely have to have one? I think that doesn't read well with me either, because healer characters (especially female ones) are just so hard a class to work with effectively. That mixed with the fact that she gets to play princess for a while (I realize she's only pretending to be the princess and what have you; understand my point and ignore the brash terminology) kind of adds up to a Garnet-type character with frizzy red hair.
And from what I understand she's also very naive, so I'm just really feeling "stereotypical" from her. To have such a demure-and-yet-bossy typecast as the main plot point is really difficult. Personally, I would try to kind of take one of her facets and re-work it; either the healer part, the princess part or something in-between.
Again, hope I'm not sounding bitchy from my comment (or sound like I'm soooo~ much better at characters than you xd just read Iris' profile to realize otherwise), I'm just trying to help. :'3
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Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 7:43 pm
Well, the story does sort of need a healer character, considering Vitae's penchant for getting sick/mauled/maimed/paralyzed/what-have-you, and Nathan's chronic debilitating headaches. And Yinda getting lit on fire. Things like that. With the sort of torture I have lined up for my characters, they definitely need a medic around more often than not, and it's pretty much implausible for them to be running to the nearest herbalist/wise woman/healer mage/what-have-you every time something goes wrong. Besides which, it's not like Sabine works miracle cures. Herbalists can only do so much, especially nineteen-year-olds who've never left home before. That's why there are infirmaries and professionals, like Dear Simon.
And it's not even so much as she's naive as she keeps quiet or purposfully overlooks things (for instance, she realizes Nathan's a man-slut but pretty much keeps quiet about it). I wouldn't call her demure, either. She'd like to think she's the picture of femininety, but let's face it. Her mother died, she has a step-mom she can't really connect with, and as far as I know she hasn't had many close female friends. She's frankly spent more of her life in a stable than a kitchen. (Still, even I'll admit that she's innocent, but then most girls were back then. I can't help it if she blushes every time she sees Vitae or Nathan shirtless. Crap, I just said "back then," didn't I?)
Anyway, I'm thinking of toning down her appearances as the princess to extremely few, just enough to keep people from getting suspicious of Ciora's social non-existence. Because eventually the servants and so forth would get suspicous about the fact that the supposedly "ill" princess never has to be waited on--and you can't tell servants that the princess has disappeared, because we all know they're all gossip whores.
I still see her as more of a means to an end than a real main character. Not sure if that's good or bad. The plot more or less focuses on her, but the story revolves around Vitae. Since I haven't reworked the beginning yet, I'm not quite sure how the balance there is going to work out, but so far it's shoved her a bit more to the side just for the fact that Vitae doesn't like her and has very little to do with the whole Princess-deal yet.
I hope I'm not sounding bitchy, either. I think part of the issue here is that there are some things that are hard to describe in a bio. That, and I was typing it all up just as my lucidity was fading last Thursday. Not to try and explain away all of Sabine's problems, either.
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Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:28 am
Okay, after our argument over MSN yesterday and after reflecting on it overnight I felt the need to say this:
It's perfectly fine that you disagree with me -- different people, different opinions on stereotypes and the story in general. 3nodding Some things you just don't want to change; I understand that completely. Say if you were to argue against me that red-and-black hair is a cliche, there's pretty much no way in hell I'd change Janus' hair color.
What enraged me was that, perhaps out of love for your characters, you were missing my point entirely and instead fighting against me, making me feel like some bumbling idiot who had no clue what I was talking about just because I did not like aspects of one of your OCs.
My point, by the way, wasn't that you should strip her of her "healer" position face-blank, but was that you should re-evaluate either its usefulness or the way it works into the story. As well my point was that it piled on top of the fact that she slips into the "princess" slot, even if she's not actually a princess, and the two together make for a Final Fantasy white mage-esque cookie cutter.
I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.
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