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peregrinari
Oct. 9th, 2017 03:45 pmYOU
Player name: Krystal
Contact: spartabitch @ plurk!
THEM
Character Name: Ford Pines
Character Age: 65
Canon: Gravity Falls, cartoon + Journal 3
Canon Point: Near the tail end of the interdimensional wandering, before he meets Parallel Fiddleford and completes his death ray but after he gets the metal plate installed in his head.
History/World: This is pretty complete. His world is basically like ours, except aliens are real, magic exists, and cryptids wander the woods of Oregon. All this is a secret from the general public, and the government, though involved with a couple of run-of-the-mill conspiracies like the erasure from history of one of the early presidents, isn't covering up UFOs or run by lizard people or anything like that.
...probably.
Personality: You remember those old pulp adventure novels, don't you? The ones with the old-timey art of square-jawed men in long coats and open shirts, with yellowed pages that have gone soft with age, that all have that old paperback smell and are on sale in the bargain cart for $2?
Yeaaaah, that's Ford Pines. At least, it's how he thinks he is. In his mind, he's Doc Savage; in reality, he's a Lovecraft protagonist.
Everything about him is a little incredibly dramatic. He's got a long coat with elbow patches, a Booming Adventure-y Adventure Voice, he carries futuristic space-guns under his coat, and he pauses to pose dramatically on top of spaceships. That isn't to say Ford is all talk; he's survived a lot of weird and dangerous things over his last thirty years of dimension-hopping, and he studied dangerous supernatural creatures in the woods of the Pacific Northwest for years before that. Very few things truly frighten Stanford Pines; when something is dangerous but not an immediate threat (and even sometimes when it is) he's more likely to respond with interested curiosity. He's in amazing shape for his age, thanks both to deliberate exercise and nutrition as well as years of interdimensional adventures.
He's also a nerd, though. A giant nerdy nerd nerd. He's anxious in normal social situations and loves science fiction, the paranormal, and super crunchy tabletop roleplaying games from the 70s. In his weird cartoon world, he has twelve PhDs, acquired before age 35 through what Ford says is just hard work. He's intellectually brilliant, though his strengths lie more in mathematics and the paranormal than engineering. His pop culture and technological know-how only go up to 1982, though, so he's got some catching up to do when it comes to computers and Star Wars.
Personality-wise, underneath the bravado and curiosity and scientific enthusiasm, Ford Pines is a self-absorbed jerk. Remember how he sees himself as a hero? Well, although his six-fingered hands and the childhood bullying they caused left him feeling isolated and misunderstood, Ford's gotten academic validation pretty much his whole life. He was a socially inept child, but his teachers told him he was brilliant, and he was able to get grant money to study the paranormal in the middle of nowhere. Despite this, Ford was still very susceptible to being told he was special, and he gets very enthusiastic and bonds very quickly with people who he gets a sense of validation from, who fit well into his personal narrative where he is a misunderstood but brilliant hero. Ford's not a bad dude -- he genuinely cares about the people he's close to -- but he's up his own ass like you wouldn't believe. Ford is extremely determined, energetic, and stubborn: once he gets going on a project, he's hard to stop, and he tends to sweep unsuspecting people up with him. Even after his giant mistake with the doomsday portal, Ford is very sure Ford Pines Knows Best, and he rarely, if ever, listens to advice he doesn't like (and can be real condescending about it). Only Stanford Pines could recognize his own hubris in disregarding the frantic warnings of a real friend (who he put through a remarkable amount of trauma as a direct result of his research, which didn't slow him down) and take away from it the idea that he is a lone hero, who must do everything himself, alone, trusting no one. He makes a production out of everything, he's bad at not accidentally insulting people because he hasn't thought his words out first, and he makes very morally ambiguous decisions. This man is wanted in dozens of dimensions for stealing technology to make a death ray to fight Bill Cipher. He built a mind-control tie in college because the government asked him to. He recklessly endangers a twelve-year-old boy because he, Ford Pines, thinks the kid can handle it.
Speaking of that kid, Ford has a bad habit of projecting himself and his situation onto other people. He's terrible at self-examination, and he doesn't like to admit the big mistakes he's made. He's easy to manipulate, easily conned, and can be manipulative of other people without entirely realizing it. You see, Ford Pines is the most important person in the world because it's up to Ford Pines to stop the apocalypse that's coming because of his actions, and everyone else is a supporting character in his story. He gets better at the end of his canon, when he realizes he's not the hero and that he's been self-absorbed, self-righteous, and he lost sight of what was important a long, long time ago, but at this canon point, he hasn't learned those lessons yet.
Items: Glasses, a long coat with giant pockets on the inside, a pen, a small functional ray gun, a large incomplete ray gun that he calls a quantum destabilizer but hasn't found a way to power it, a flask, an infinity-sided die that I'm willing to roleplay very responsibly or nerf if needed. It's saved Ford's life twice but endangered it many more times, so it's a double-edged sword at best and he's very very reluctant to use it.
Powers/skills: Ford's a genius, straight-up. He's got 12 PhDs, all earned by the time he was 35, through what he refers to as "hard work." He took classes with ridiculously sci-fi subject matter, so while he's not the best mechanic he knows and couldn't build a portal to punch a hole in space-time alone, he's got way more engineering know-how than the average engineer and is creative with it. He's familiar with alien technology and alien races. He's a font of paranormal knowledge, though without his journals it's limited to what he remembers (which is a lot). He aced cryptography, he draws well, and he's in the best shape a 65-year-old man can possibly be in: he survived in dimensions with barely-breathable atmospheres. (This may be due in part to a vampire bite he received and recovered from back in the 80s.)
SAMPLE
Hope this is enough!
Player name: Krystal
Contact: spartabitch @ plurk!
THEM
Character Name: Ford Pines
Character Age: 65
Canon: Gravity Falls, cartoon + Journal 3
Canon Point: Near the tail end of the interdimensional wandering, before he meets Parallel Fiddleford and completes his death ray but after he gets the metal plate installed in his head.
History/World: This is pretty complete. His world is basically like ours, except aliens are real, magic exists, and cryptids wander the woods of Oregon. All this is a secret from the general public, and the government, though involved with a couple of run-of-the-mill conspiracies like the erasure from history of one of the early presidents, isn't covering up UFOs or run by lizard people or anything like that.
...probably.
Personality: You remember those old pulp adventure novels, don't you? The ones with the old-timey art of square-jawed men in long coats and open shirts, with yellowed pages that have gone soft with age, that all have that old paperback smell and are on sale in the bargain cart for $2?
Yeaaaah, that's Ford Pines. At least, it's how he thinks he is. In his mind, he's Doc Savage; in reality, he's a Lovecraft protagonist.
Everything about him is a little incredibly dramatic. He's got a long coat with elbow patches, a Booming Adventure-y Adventure Voice, he carries futuristic space-guns under his coat, and he pauses to pose dramatically on top of spaceships. That isn't to say Ford is all talk; he's survived a lot of weird and dangerous things over his last thirty years of dimension-hopping, and he studied dangerous supernatural creatures in the woods of the Pacific Northwest for years before that. Very few things truly frighten Stanford Pines; when something is dangerous but not an immediate threat (and even sometimes when it is) he's more likely to respond with interested curiosity. He's in amazing shape for his age, thanks both to deliberate exercise and nutrition as well as years of interdimensional adventures.
He's also a nerd, though. A giant nerdy nerd nerd. He's anxious in normal social situations and loves science fiction, the paranormal, and super crunchy tabletop roleplaying games from the 70s. In his weird cartoon world, he has twelve PhDs, acquired before age 35 through what Ford says is just hard work. He's intellectually brilliant, though his strengths lie more in mathematics and the paranormal than engineering. His pop culture and technological know-how only go up to 1982, though, so he's got some catching up to do when it comes to computers and Star Wars.
Personality-wise, underneath the bravado and curiosity and scientific enthusiasm, Ford Pines is a self-absorbed jerk. Remember how he sees himself as a hero? Well, although his six-fingered hands and the childhood bullying they caused left him feeling isolated and misunderstood, Ford's gotten academic validation pretty much his whole life. He was a socially inept child, but his teachers told him he was brilliant, and he was able to get grant money to study the paranormal in the middle of nowhere. Despite this, Ford was still very susceptible to being told he was special, and he gets very enthusiastic and bonds very quickly with people who he gets a sense of validation from, who fit well into his personal narrative where he is a misunderstood but brilliant hero. Ford's not a bad dude -- he genuinely cares about the people he's close to -- but he's up his own ass like you wouldn't believe. Ford is extremely determined, energetic, and stubborn: once he gets going on a project, he's hard to stop, and he tends to sweep unsuspecting people up with him. Even after his giant mistake with the doomsday portal, Ford is very sure Ford Pines Knows Best, and he rarely, if ever, listens to advice he doesn't like (and can be real condescending about it). Only Stanford Pines could recognize his own hubris in disregarding the frantic warnings of a real friend (who he put through a remarkable amount of trauma as a direct result of his research, which didn't slow him down) and take away from it the idea that he is a lone hero, who must do everything himself, alone, trusting no one. He makes a production out of everything, he's bad at not accidentally insulting people because he hasn't thought his words out first, and he makes very morally ambiguous decisions. This man is wanted in dozens of dimensions for stealing technology to make a death ray to fight Bill Cipher. He built a mind-control tie in college because the government asked him to. He recklessly endangers a twelve-year-old boy because he, Ford Pines, thinks the kid can handle it.
Speaking of that kid, Ford has a bad habit of projecting himself and his situation onto other people. He's terrible at self-examination, and he doesn't like to admit the big mistakes he's made. He's easy to manipulate, easily conned, and can be manipulative of other people without entirely realizing it. You see, Ford Pines is the most important person in the world because it's up to Ford Pines to stop the apocalypse that's coming because of his actions, and everyone else is a supporting character in his story. He gets better at the end of his canon, when he realizes he's not the hero and that he's been self-absorbed, self-righteous, and he lost sight of what was important a long, long time ago, but at this canon point, he hasn't learned those lessons yet.
Items: Glasses, a long coat with giant pockets on the inside, a pen, a small functional ray gun, a large incomplete ray gun that he calls a quantum destabilizer but hasn't found a way to power it, a flask, an infinity-sided die that I'm willing to roleplay very responsibly or nerf if needed. It's saved Ford's life twice but endangered it many more times, so it's a double-edged sword at best and he's very very reluctant to use it.
Powers/skills: Ford's a genius, straight-up. He's got 12 PhDs, all earned by the time he was 35, through what he refers to as "hard work." He took classes with ridiculously sci-fi subject matter, so while he's not the best mechanic he knows and couldn't build a portal to punch a hole in space-time alone, he's got way more engineering know-how than the average engineer and is creative with it. He's familiar with alien technology and alien races. He's a font of paranormal knowledge, though without his journals it's limited to what he remembers (which is a lot). He aced cryptography, he draws well, and he's in the best shape a 65-year-old man can possibly be in: he survived in dimensions with barely-breathable atmospheres. (This may be due in part to a vampire bite he received and recovered from back in the 80s.)
SAMPLE
Hope this is enough!
