Potentially Useful Trivia
Body and Appearance
1. Describe the character's height and build. Is she heavyset, thin, short, rangy?
Polly is slender and a bit on the short side. This, combined with her decidedly youthful face tends to make people assume she is younger than she actually is. (Guessing her age is something of an exercise in futility anyway, but we'll get to that later.) Having had an active life, she is in good shape, and while she's not terribly muscle-y she does possess some muscle tone and a wiry sort of strength along with it.
2. How old is she?
Hehehehehe...
Okay, here's the thing. Polly is an immortal, whose home dimension (Calabi-Yau) is separated from the flow of Time. (In my head it's a bit like a fried egg, with Time as the yolk, and Calabi-Yau outside and around it. Canonically, Calabi-Yau is, in fact, bigger than Time.) Given that she comes from outside of Time, there were no years to measure her age until she arrived at the Thor. As such, on a purely technical level, she is very nearly two years old.
Getting past that, she is physically an adult, and she does possess the thoughts and feelings of an adult, more or less. What she lacks most of all is social integration, and certain life experiences that go along with living among other people. Because of this (mainly the lack of having had any adults to learn adult behavior from, since early childhood) her mannerisms are still somewhat childlike. This has been and is gradually changing.
3. Describe her posture. Does she carry herself well or does she slouch?
Polly tends to stand straight. (Being a little short, she kind of needs every inch.) She is an alert, and energetic person, and this tends to carry over into her posture.
4. How is her health? Is she fit or out of shape? Any illnesses or conditions? Any physical disabilities?
Polly is pretty darn fit. She spent a very large chunk of her childhood extending up into her adulthood climbing around the ruins of her people's city and running from the monsters that moved in after her people fell dormant. While she's able to relax a hell of a lot more on the Thor, she continues to take fairly active jobs a lot of the time, and trains once a week with Jushiro Ukitake, who's teaching her how to use a katana.
5. How does she move? Is she clumsy, graceful, tense, fluid?
Polly tends to move with a fair amount of grace and fluidity. She's surefooted and has good balance, and there's a restless, exuberant sort of energy that tends to be expressed in the way she moves.
6. How attractive is this character physically? How does she perceive herself in the mirror?
Well, they do say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. /:-) Polly has a doll-like, baby-faced, semi-angelic sort of loveliness to her, imo. She can be truly beautiful in a certain light, but it's the sort of beauty that has its off moments and bad angles.
So far as Polly's self image, having grown up largely alone, she doesn't tend to think about it much. Since arriving on the Thor, she has come to understand that people tend to like the way she looks. Beyond that, she more or less figures she looks the way she looks, and aside from caring enough to brush her hair in the morning and bathe regularly, doesn't think about it much beyond that, unless it's a special occasion and she gets to put on a pretty dress. ;-P
7. Describe her complexion. Dark, light, clear, scarred?
Polly has very fair skin (the curse of all redheads.) Aside from a light sprinkling of freckles, it's very clear, and actually, due to her immortal regenerative abilities cannot scar.
8. Describe her hair: color, texture, style.
Her hair is a bright firey red and fairly soft, with a loose, natural curl to it. She wears it loose a fair amount of the time, and rarely does more than a quick (often slightly messy) up-do, unless it's a special occasion. She braids it when she's sparring with Ukitake.
9. What color are her eyes?
Polly's eyes are a bright, intense blue. Generally they're about the color of gas-flames, but if you get her angry enough, they're more of an icy shade, like her mother's.
10. Does the character have any other noteworthy features?
No.. thing... comes to mind...?
11. What are her chief tension centers?
I have no idea. :-|
12. What is the character's wardrobe like? Casual, dressy, utilitarian? Bright colors, pastels, neutrals? Is it varied, or does she have six of the same suit?
Lately, Polly's style tends to range from casual to dressy casual. However, depending on what she's up to this can change. Her default style would best be described as feminine, vaguely bohemian, but not frilly. She tends to like saturated colors and jewel tones. Aside from wearing black or white sometimes, she's not a pastel/neutral person, generally. Also, last Christmas she was given a ring from Amateratsu, and a pocket watch given to her by Naoto. And a few months ago, Kiriko gave her his dogtags from his military days. She rarely goes anywhere without these things.
13. Do her clothes fit well? Does she seem comfortable in them?
Her clothes tend to fit her pretty well, and she wouldn't wear them if she wasn't comfortable in them.
14. Does she dress the same on the job as she does in her free time? If not, what are the differences?
If her job requires a particular uniform, she wears it. Otherwise it doesn't tend to change much; she'll wear what seems to make sense for it. Jeans when she was taming baby sand worms, nicer clothes when she did a turn as a librarian, etc.
15. You knew it was coming: Boxers, briefs or commando?
*snerk* I imagine Polly'd probably have a wide variety of undies purely for the novelty of it, so it probably differs from day to day.
Speech
1. What does this character's voice sound like? High-pitched, deep, hoarse?
In my head Polly's voice is a bit higher than her PB's voice. It's a little breathy.
2. How does she normally speak? Loud, soft, fast, evenly? Does she talk easily, or does she hesitate?
Polly's mother's aversion to noise influences her to this day in her tendency to be soft-spoken. She hesitates a fair amount of the time, unless she's excited about something, at which point her words tend to come out in a breathless rush.
3. Does the character have a distinct accent or dialect? Any individual quirks of pronunciation? Any, like, you know, verbal tics?
Thanks to our friend the Babelfish, her accent in my head is standard American. ;-)
4. What language/s does she speak, and with how much fluency?
Polly knows bits and pieces of various Earth languages and a few alien dialects, but hasn't made a serious study of any of them. Even if the Babelfish weren't working, she could use her telepathy to get her ideas across, so there's no huge need to study languages. Give her time, and she'll learn them anyway, simply because learning is life. ;-)
5. Does she switch languages or dialects in certain situations?
No, but she's been known to switch to Telepathy in instances when she feels strongly about something, or thinks the subject should for some reason be kept private.
6. Is she a good impromptu speaker, or does she have to think about her words?
Polly tends to think about her words quite a bit, but if it's something she feels strongly about, she can wing it with the best of 'em.
7. Is she eloquent or inarticulate? Under what circumstances might this change?
She tends to be more eloquent if it's something she's thought about a lot/has strong feelings about. If she's excited or it's a subject she doesn't know a lot about, though, she tends to slip back to simpler language.
Mental and Emotional
1. How intelligent is this character? Is she book-smart or street-smart?
Polly is insanely intelligent in some ways and flabbergastingly clueless in others. She can tell you exactly how many and what kind of atoms make up a particular object, but until a few months ago, she couldn't have told you what a hamburger tastes like. She's much more book-smart than street smart, but she's fixing this gradually. The telepathy helps.
2. Does she think on her feet, or does she need time to deliberate?
Given her little creativity-deficiency, she's better off given time to deliberate, if it's an unfamiliar situation. She makes up for this, however, by having a mind like a sponge. She can pick up some things with an almost savant-like speed.
3. Describe the character's thought process. Is she more logical, or more intuitive? Idealistic or practical?
Polly is a fairly odd duck, here. As emotional a creature as she can be (not to mention her psychic abilities), she is at core a logical person, having no imagination to speak of. She is a touch idealistic in some ways, and practical in others.
4. What kind of education has the character had?
Her mother taught her to read, and the basics of atom-craft (for lack of a better word). Beyond that she was entirely self-educated until her arrival on the Thor, at which point she has been only too happy to take advantage of the school system.
5. What are her areas of expertise? What, if anything, is she interested in learning more about?
If Polly doesn't know about something, she wants to learn more about it. I suppose her area of expertise would be atoms, how to change them and create things with them. Aside from that, she has a very empathic/intuitive understanding of people, particularly ones who've known a lot of pain.
6. Is she an introvert or an extrovert?
Primarily she's an extrovert. However, if she's troubled by something, she tends to become more and more introverted, the worse something is.
7. Describe the character's temperament. Is she even-tempered or does she have mood swings? Cheerful or melancholy? Laid-back or driven?
Outwardly, Polly is mostly a cheerful, even-tempered person. However, under that, there is a fairly strong vein of darker emotions, which she mostly keeps bottled.
8. How does she respond to new people or situations? Is she suspicious, relaxed, timid, enthusiastic?
Polly tends to dive into new situations and meeting new people. These sorts of situations are life and air to her.
9. Is she more likely to act, or to react?
On her own, she tends to act. With others, she's more likely to react. (What little upbringing she had instilled a subservient streak in her, but she's learning to overcome that, gradually.)
10. Which is her default: fight or flight?
Flight, if she's alone. Fight, if it's to defend someone else.
11. Describe the character's sense of humor. Does she appreciate jokes? Puns? Gallows humor? Bathroom humor? Pranks?
Polly tends to be a fairly earnest young woman. She doesn't always get humor very well, but her own sense of it tends to be fairly wry.
12. Does the character have any diagnosable mental disorders? If yes, how does she deal with them?
Given her background, the fact that she isn't even human, and that her primary experience of society has been the madhouse that is the Thor, that's kind of hard to gauge. The average human would probably consider her a little crazy. (Just ask Yosuke.) However, I think a person would need more imagination than she has to actually be insane.
13. What moments in this character's life have defined her as a person?
*Her mother's abuses.
*The accidental burning of their home.
*The Chronovore invasion/occupation of the Eternals' city and her subsequent tortures.
*Arrival on the Thor.
*Meeting Break
*Dear Lord, there are too many people she's met who've influenced her. (Ed, Jushiro, Ran Fan, Badou, Crowley, Genkaku a;ldkjadflj) 8-|
*Break's disappearance
*Genkaku's deamwalking
*Meeting Kiriko
*The Injection Incident
*Her torture at Kiriko's hands
*Losing her hand to the angry mob (It'll grow back, but still)
14. What does she fear?
Polly has gotten over her discomfort when around fire, for the most part. She still has aversions to small spaces/being rendered immobile, and absolute darkness. She has a strange relationship with physical pain that fluctuates between aversion and indifference, depending on her state of mind. Silence unsettles her. Most of all, she fears losing the ones that she loves, even though she knows that her immortality makes that largely inevitable. She doesn't much mind something like... death from old age. Anything else--particularly sudden losses--not so much.
15. What are her hopes or aspirations?
Polly really tends to be a very "live for today" kind of person. For the most part, she simply wants to keep learning and be happy.
16. What is something she doesn't want anyone to find out about her?
Polly's more conscientious about keeping other people's secrets than her own. The personal things she doesn't talk about are more because she doesn't want to make people unhappy/uncomfortable/worried, rather than actually feeling any kind of actual shame about them.
Relationships
1. Describe this character's relationship with her parents.
Marriage wasn't really a custom among her people, immortal and flighty as they are, so Polly never knew her father. Being as she was raised with the understanding that this was perfectly normal, she isn't bothered by this. However, since coming to the Thor and seeing what other people's relationships are with their fathers, she has become curious about what kind of person he might be. (She kind of hopes he was someone like Ukitake.)
Polly's mother was a very troubled and physically/mentally abusive person. As such Polly has a lot of mostly-buried anger, angst and fear, when it comes to her. She doesn't really like to talk about it.
2. Does the character have any siblings? What is/was their relationship like?
Polly probably has some half-siblings, but she doesn't know any of them, and they're dormant anyway.
3. Are there other blood relatives to whom she is close? Are there ones she can't stand?
Once again, none that she knows, but given that she comes from a race of immortals, she's guaranteed to have some. They would all be living, if dormant.
4. Are there other, unrelated people whom she considers part of her family? What are her relationships with them?
She considers all of her friends on the Thor to be her family--and a truer one than any of her people back in Calabi-Yau.
5. Who is/was the character's best friend? How did they meet?
It's kind of hard to narrow it down to just one. :-? Probably a toss-up between Crowley, Ed and Shinpachi...
6. Does she have other close friends?
Yes, quite a few.
7. Does she make friends easily, or does she have trouble getting along with people?
She tends to make friends pretty easily, and has a talent for making friends with people who usually have trouble making friends.
8. Which does she consider more important: family or friends?
They're kind of all the same to her.
9. Is the character single, married, divorced, widowed? Has she been married more than once?
Polly has never been married, but she's presently dating Dr. Kiriko.
10. Is she currently in a romantic relationship with someone other than a spouse?
See above.
11. Who was her first crush? Who is her latest?
Break was her first, though for her it was more than just a crush. There are a few people she's presently attracted to--and possibly even have feelings for, a bit--but Kiriko would be the only one she actually openly crushes on.
12. What does she look for in a romantic partner?
She's more likely to sort of fall into these kind of things by accident than to actually go looking.
13. Does the character have children? Grandchildren? If yes, how does she relate to them? If no, does she want any?
No and no.
14. Does she have any rivals or enemies?
Genkaku (though enemy is far too simple a term for their relationship.) Remilia Scarlet hates her pretty hardcore, now. She has a serious dislike of Vincent Nightray, due to his mistreatment of Echo and because he spoke ill of Beak the first time they talked, and tends to avoid him for that reason. (However, I think if she ever discovered his backstory, she would feel sorry for him.)
15. What is the character's sexual orientation? Where does she fall on the Kinsey scale?
She's really only just starting to figure out her sexuality, but, once she does, I expect she'll be pretty soundly a 3. Given her insatiable curiosity, I expect in a few decades she'll be about as adventurous as Captain Jack Harkness.
16. How does she feel about sex? How important is it to her?
She enjoys it very much, and I'd say it's probably fairly important to her. The isolation of her youth in Calabi-Yau has left her with a permanent hunger to connect with people, and sex is, naturally a very intimate and pleasureable way to do so.
17. What are her turn-ons? Turn-offs? Weird bedroom habits?
So far, all she knows is that she likes sex in general, and being touched and kissed. Once she starts trying to learn what else she likes, out of all the myriad kinks out there, Kiriko will either have a loooot of fun, or suffer repeated heart attacks, I'm sure. :-|
Beliefs
1. Do you know your character's astrological (zodiac of choice) sign? How well does she fit type?
Outside of time = no birthday.
2. Is this character religious, spiritual, both, or neither? How important are these elements in her life?
Not really either. I mean, she knows there are gods, since she's met a couple, but she certainly can't be said to worship them. They're just kind of another kind of people, to her.
3. Does this character have a personal code of morals or ethics? If so, how did that begin? What would it take to compromise it?
Eternals are, by nature, immoral. While she's picked up a few ideas about morality from her friends on the Thor, most of what determines her morals are things she likes and things she doesn't like.
She doesn't like hurting people/the idea of them being hurt, simply because she knows what that's like, and that it's generally very unpleasant. She particularly doesn't like this idea if it's someone she knows and likes. She protests the loss of life because it means that person will have to stop learning and being learned from, which is really the worst thing she can think of. (She understands it in Kiriko's case because he's explained it as killing to stop the pain of his patients, which she's more or less okay with, considering her experiences.)
The rest, she kind of just sees as a matter of personal opinion, and she's still forming hers. Mostly she just bases her actions on what will keep her happy and entertained while letting her get along as best she can with society as a whole.
4. How does she regard beliefs that differ from hers? Is she tolerant, intolerant, curious, indifferent?
Polly is an exceedingly tolerant person who's curious about as many different beliefs as she can learn about.
5. What prejudices does she hold? Are they irrational or does she have a good reason for them?
Generally if someone hurts people for any reason other than self defense, she's not going to be happy with them. Given her background, this is understandable. Beyond that? She's pretty much cool with everyone.
Daily Life
1. What is the character's financial situation? Is she rich, poor, comfortable, in debt?
Polly can literally make her own money. Nuff said
2. What is her social status? Has this changed over time, and if so, how has the change affected her?
Mostly, Polly is considered a fine and upstanding young woman, though the Injection Incident has put something of a stain on her reputation. She's working to fix that, though.
3. Where does she live? House, apartment, trailer? Is her home her castle or just a place to crash? What condition is it in? Does she share it with others?
Presently, Polly occupies a Suite on the 8th floor, with her non-fox Alice and her spider Harold. She tends to keep it very neat and tidy (though Alice has been guilty of bringing ruin to her shoes and furniture from time to time). It's not quite a castle, to her, but she takes care of it. Its initial purpose was a sanctuary--she moved to it after Break's disappearance, needing a place where she could be alone to grieve. To this day, the holographic window in said Suite shows a scene of one of the Thor's gardens, in the rain, as it represents one of her most treasured memories, in regards to him.
4. Besides the basic necessities, what does she spend her money on?
Her friends, books, movies... just whatever takes her fancy. She can make most of the things she wants.
5. What does she do for a living? Is she good at it? Does she enjoy it, or would she rather be doing something else?
It changes from month to month and tends to vary fairly widely.
6. What are her interests or hobbies? How does she spend her free time?
Reading, music, visiting the planets, tea, walking in the parks and gardens with Alicem, spending time with Kiriko and her friends...
7. What are her eating habits? Does she skip meals, eat out, drink alcohol, avoid certain foods?
Technically she doesn't need food food. Her people feed on knowledge. However, she does eat for fun, sometimes. She has a fairly low tolerance for alcohol, but will occasionally have a drink. (She got drunk, once, after the Injection incident, but it very nearly led to Crowley getting shot.)
Associations
Which of the following do you associate with the character, or which is her favorite:
1. Color? I associate her with bright, vibrant green, but her favorite color is purple.
2. Smell? Peaches, honeysuckle. Light, sweet, airy scents.
3. Time of day? Morning
4. Season? Spring
5. Book? YES
6. Music? Chopin
7. Place? The Thor
8. Substance? ...?
9. Plant? flowers in general.
10. Animal? a doe, maybe, or perhaps a fox, if only because of Alice.
END
{{ Get the HTML here so you can do it yourself. }}