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May. 2nd, 2014 02:59 amPlayer Name: Joysweeper
Player DW:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
joysweeper
Contact: Joysweeper, on plurk
Character Number: 1
Character: Robert “Bob” London
Source: Dinoverse
Appearance: As a human, he possessed hawklike features and a receding hairline. In the body of a Hypsilophodon he’s a small dinosaur, bipedal with long legs and wide hips, beaked, and colored pink and green. He’s only two feet tall standing balanced, three feet tall if he uses his tail as a support, and six feet from beak to tail tip. Half of that is tail. I've drawn him with a ridge of soft quills running down his spine, too.
History: As a child Bob London was just about always alone, despite his best efforts. He was in the Boy Scouts and loved reading adventure stories. Intelligent from an early age, he was said to be a prodigy and went to college when he was fifteen, but like many prodigies he plateaued. He took the career path of teaching science to high schoolers in Montana.
At one point he notes that even in adulthood, as a teacher, he had no friends, only students who wanted something from him - but he liked some of them. He was particularly fond of a shy, nerdy freshman, Bertram, giving him public speaking lessons and helping him with his science fair project, the showy but not exactly useful M.I.N.D. Machine.
On the day of the science fair the machine started doing things it wasn’t designed to do. Electricity from it surged through Bertram and a handful of other students. They collapsed and rose again seconds later. In secret Bertram told Bob that during those brief seconds of unconsciousness they had gone back in time, inhabited the bodies of dinosaurs, and were there for weeks before returning.
Bertram then made Bob swear to destroy the machine, but Bob was captivated, obsessed, by the potential it held. He snuck it into the school basement. Over the next eight months he tried and tried to activate it without success. One day he he got a message from some future version of himself, giving him a vision of how to use it. Bob started immediately. As he was about to try choosing a destination he was interrupted by students and mashed the keyboard.
...and while he hadn’t meant to pick any point in the age of dinosaurs, he ended up in the Cretaceous period, in the tiny body of a Hypsilophodon. He was immediately fought over by two huge theropods, one of whom held the consciousness of a student, Patience. She won, determined that they needed to have an “amber key” safe before they could get back, and took charge, rescuing another student, Zane, who was in the body of a big sauropod.
Bob exposited and advised, but it was Patience calling all the shots, bodily picking up and carrying him around while he wailed and whimpered, and making sure things got done. They fished a key-shaped chunk of amber from a chasm. He went with her when she went to find food and fetched Zane to help when she got trapped. Then he left to investigate some Iguanadon. When he came back Patience had left to retrieve the amber key from a thief; when she came back a tornado appeared and whisked Bob London away.
He landed safe, grouped up with four normal Hypsilophodon who looked to him as a leader, and had various adventures with danger and rafting across a lake before he found the others again, as well as a third student, Will, who was a Deinonychus. Patience made plans, Bob taught her to dance, and then in the morning he, his Hypsilophodon friends, and Will went to enact these plans, planting improvised bombs in a cave. The real amber key escaped to safety. Conditions were met, and everyone returned to their own time.
A human and teacher once more, Mr. London flew out to be interviewed about taking a position in the UCLA, but turned it down to return to Wetherford. He insisted on using the machine again and broke space-time. Someone else managed to fix it eventually, but he was still left stranded somewhere, somewhen in the multiverse waiting for rescue.
Timeline: Immediately upon ending up in the body of a Hypsilophodon. It will be very confusing.
Personality: Some of Bob London’s personality depends on circumstances, but there are certain things that remain the same. He’s a teacher! He likes to lecture on things he knows about, reflexively tell people to behave, and try to offer help, ask questions, and try to understand people. In a strange situation he’s inquisitive and tries to observe and catalog everything he can.
In his role as a teacher he’s fairly popular with students. He takes an interest in them and what they do, and pride in their accomplishments, he doesn’t really take charge, and he’s pretty tolerant of foolish things and tangents. He’s also free with praise and easily excited about special talents. Though he’s not creative himself, he appreciates creativity in others.
Otherwise he’s not really good with people. He’s got a bit of a nervous, clueless disposition. Thanks to being awkward and feeling set apart from a young age, Bob feels like he lost out on having much of an adolescence. He’s closer to his students than any peers. Popular students make him jealous. Secretly he longs to be Important, to do things no one else has, go on adventures, and be popular and respected himself. Some aspects of his Cretaceous jaunt are thanks to the M.I.N.D. Machine picking up on this and arranging things.
Throughout his parts of the series, various larger characters push him around, intimidate him, do things they know will annoy him, and (rightfully!) blame him for the situation. He tries at one point to redirect the blame to someone else - one of those popular students he was jealous of - but realizes otherwise and retracts that in the end. He never shows signs of holding a grudge, or resenting anyone for long. When Patience apologizes for being harsh he answers her lightly with “I’ve hidden my tears before.”
The man isn’t unintelligent. He knows a range of information and can be drawn into philosophical discussions, and he's a huge nerd. Also, he can think quickly, is good at working with what he has, and incorporates new information and resources easily. And he's not unkind.
However, he easily gets too interested or focused on something. When seized by some idea, Bob strongly tends to dismiss, downplay, or just plain never consider things like consequences, other priorities, safeguards, and whether it’s just plain a bad idea. Starting up the M.I.N.D. Machine during school hours (twice!), leaving the group, interrupting important information to boast about his adventures, bringing his Hypsilophodon friends along to poke a sleeping theropod...
In his eagerness to share his knowledge he often doesn’t consider its effect - when treating Zane for a wound he happily gabbled about how it might get infected and kill him slowly, and how there was nothing they’d be able to do to prevent that. His student’s growing horror and dismay never registered. After Betram's jaunt in the Cretaceous Bob's general science classes all ended up more about dinosaurs than anything else, to the point where people expected he'd be fired. He can be very oblivious when excited.
While he’s got a distinct tendency to scream and babble shrilly, he’s never panicked for long. Actually he quickly starts being able to switch off the reaction and act pretty normal as soon as whatever’s scared him stops. Despite the shrieking he’s pretty brave, though this is really most evident when there isn’t someone bigger and stronger there to protect him. He's quite happy to let more capable others handle what they can.
Upon being blown away by a tornado and having to cope on his own, when before he’d been in the protective shade of his students, Bob became giddy and enthusiastic over surviving the tornado. His analytical side faded back for a time and he acted for the moment rather than trying to think past it. New Hypsilophodon friends looking up to him and thinking he was the coolest thing ever didn’t help. Even back with his students, he acted more impulsive and self-centered than before, flip-flopping between immaturity and teacherliness.
Even beforehand there was a student observing that he was actually on the childish side. Bob may try to mediate, but he does not take charge or object to someone else leading. Deep down he really can be self-centered and doesn’t attach strongly to anyone. Even those adoring Hypsilophodon friends he left cheerfully, and despite feeling close to some of his students he does not confide in them or tell him his plans.
His host body’s mind is still present, but mostly suppressed. He fights it at times, and it can cause him to flee when he’s scared even when he doesn’t want to. The Hypsilophodon wants to run from danger, hang out around other creatures, soak in sunlight, and similar animal functions.
Abilities: The M.I.N.D. Machine winnowed out the mind/spirit/”essence” of Bob London, flung it millions of years back in time, and installed it in a small dinosaur. While he’s out of his own body he has certain psychic powers. Truly imaginative characters can use their powers to create full-sensory illusions and nonverbally share ideas. Bob can’t do that.
What he can do is psychically project what people and animals perceive as sound. It’s easiest to project his own voice, but with more effort he may be able to reproduce other voices, sounds, or music. Alert characters can pick up that this is actually soundless. Given time and concentration he can project images of things he’s seen, though not well enough to fool even animals into thinking these things are actually there.
Bob can also project whatever emotions he’s feeling to anyone within a conversational radius. “Real” Hypsilophodon, ones without humans possessing them, are particularly susceptible and tend to flock around and look up to him, answering his unspoken desire to be popular and admired. Artifacts and people that have had much to do with time travel have a kind of pull to them, and he can orient towards them like a compass.
There are also some talents that come with being in the body of a Hypsilophodon. He’s agile and can run faster than a human, burrow, and climb. He has quills, modified feathers, in a line down his spine. Quills aren’t mentioned in the book - I drew them on the icons after reading about how common feathers were on dinosaurs and because I like this reconstruction. The quills are softer than those of hedgehogs and don't cover much, but they make things marginally harder for predators attacking from behind as he flees.
As a Hypsilophodon Bob is mostly vegetarian and a browser of plants, generally able to determine the edibility of unfamiliar plants he encounters and their basic medical uses, if they have them. He patches up Zane's wound effectively enough using sap and leaves. Bob's sense of smell is more acute than a human’s, and he can determine pretty easily if something is infected or contaminated. Small five-fingered hands like his aren’t quite as deft as a human’s, but he can manage tool use.
Inventory: Nothing at the moment. Later - after a canon update, probably - I’d like for him to somehow get the amber key. It’s a small item that looks like, well, a key made of amber. If held up it catches the light spectacularly and may distract or hypnotize. There’s a weird draw to it. It’s warm when touched and evokes a sense of safety and belonging. Bob says that it feels like home.
Prose Sample:
Bob cringed and ran as the young Pleurocoleus galumphed after him. He hopped and scrambled up a hillock too steep for Runt to follow him up. The creature reared up onto its hind legs, bracing with its tail behind and forelegs and extending its head on its long neck, seeking after him.
Trying not to recoil, Bob stood his ground and called, :Zane! Zane, control your little brother!:, chittering squeals escaping his beak as he did so.
He heard a lowing chuff and the boy’s voice, both thin with distance. :He’s not gonna hurt you, Mr. L! He’s just trying to play.:
Runt was moving his head to look out at Bob with first one wide-set-eye, then the other, and made a sound like a coo. :He could crush me!: Bob cried, but there was no response. :Detention,: he muttered, and observed the Pleurocoleus.
“Runt”. The young sauropod was small compared to Zane and Patience, to be sure, but what wasn’t? They claimed that he was the size of a VW Beetle. Maybe that was true, maybe not, there was no way to really measure scale here. Still, he towered over Bob, larger by far, and had a special joy for jumping over the much, much smaller dinosaur. It was bad enough usually but had gotten worse since they cleared the swamp.
“Oooo-ooo-ooooooooom,” Runt whined. His breath was an interesting mixture of various plants fermenting in digestive fluids. Turning away so he wouldn’t have to smell it, Bob’s bristly tail brushed against ferns and he stopped. Zane was big enough to be able to graze from treetops. Patience of course was a carnivore, eating sparse but higher-calorie meat. Bob himself could browse selectively on roots, shoots, and the odd insect. What was Runt finding to eat out here?
He watched for a moment, and then started to break off the ferns sprouting from the hillock and offering them to the young dinosaur, who ate greedily. Soon he had denuded the spot and Runt had sunk back to all four columnlike legs - but when Bob hopped back to the forest floor, he was nudged hard enough that he took off running, Runt in happy pursuit.
Journal Sample: Test thread with Dis.
Player DW:
joysweeperContact: Joysweeper, on plurk
Character Number: 1
Character: Robert “Bob” London
Source: Dinoverse
Appearance: As a human, he possessed hawklike features and a receding hairline. In the body of a Hypsilophodon he’s a small dinosaur, bipedal with long legs and wide hips, beaked, and colored pink and green. He’s only two feet tall standing balanced, three feet tall if he uses his tail as a support, and six feet from beak to tail tip. Half of that is tail. I've drawn him with a ridge of soft quills running down his spine, too.
History: As a child Bob London was just about always alone, despite his best efforts. He was in the Boy Scouts and loved reading adventure stories. Intelligent from an early age, he was said to be a prodigy and went to college when he was fifteen, but like many prodigies he plateaued. He took the career path of teaching science to high schoolers in Montana.
At one point he notes that even in adulthood, as a teacher, he had no friends, only students who wanted something from him - but he liked some of them. He was particularly fond of a shy, nerdy freshman, Bertram, giving him public speaking lessons and helping him with his science fair project, the showy but not exactly useful M.I.N.D. Machine.
On the day of the science fair the machine started doing things it wasn’t designed to do. Electricity from it surged through Bertram and a handful of other students. They collapsed and rose again seconds later. In secret Bertram told Bob that during those brief seconds of unconsciousness they had gone back in time, inhabited the bodies of dinosaurs, and were there for weeks before returning.
Bertram then made Bob swear to destroy the machine, but Bob was captivated, obsessed, by the potential it held. He snuck it into the school basement. Over the next eight months he tried and tried to activate it without success. One day he he got a message from some future version of himself, giving him a vision of how to use it. Bob started immediately. As he was about to try choosing a destination he was interrupted by students and mashed the keyboard.
...and while he hadn’t meant to pick any point in the age of dinosaurs, he ended up in the Cretaceous period, in the tiny body of a Hypsilophodon. He was immediately fought over by two huge theropods, one of whom held the consciousness of a student, Patience. She won, determined that they needed to have an “amber key” safe before they could get back, and took charge, rescuing another student, Zane, who was in the body of a big sauropod.
Bob exposited and advised, but it was Patience calling all the shots, bodily picking up and carrying him around while he wailed and whimpered, and making sure things got done. They fished a key-shaped chunk of amber from a chasm. He went with her when she went to find food and fetched Zane to help when she got trapped. Then he left to investigate some Iguanadon. When he came back Patience had left to retrieve the amber key from a thief; when she came back a tornado appeared and whisked Bob London away.
He landed safe, grouped up with four normal Hypsilophodon who looked to him as a leader, and had various adventures with danger and rafting across a lake before he found the others again, as well as a third student, Will, who was a Deinonychus. Patience made plans, Bob taught her to dance, and then in the morning he, his Hypsilophodon friends, and Will went to enact these plans, planting improvised bombs in a cave. The real amber key escaped to safety. Conditions were met, and everyone returned to their own time.
A human and teacher once more, Mr. London flew out to be interviewed about taking a position in the UCLA, but turned it down to return to Wetherford. He insisted on using the machine again and broke space-time. Someone else managed to fix it eventually, but he was still left stranded somewhere, somewhen in the multiverse waiting for rescue.
Timeline: Immediately upon ending up in the body of a Hypsilophodon. It will be very confusing.
Personality: Some of Bob London’s personality depends on circumstances, but there are certain things that remain the same. He’s a teacher! He likes to lecture on things he knows about, reflexively tell people to behave, and try to offer help, ask questions, and try to understand people. In a strange situation he’s inquisitive and tries to observe and catalog everything he can.
In his role as a teacher he’s fairly popular with students. He takes an interest in them and what they do, and pride in their accomplishments, he doesn’t really take charge, and he’s pretty tolerant of foolish things and tangents. He’s also free with praise and easily excited about special talents. Though he’s not creative himself, he appreciates creativity in others.
Otherwise he’s not really good with people. He’s got a bit of a nervous, clueless disposition. Thanks to being awkward and feeling set apart from a young age, Bob feels like he lost out on having much of an adolescence. He’s closer to his students than any peers. Popular students make him jealous. Secretly he longs to be Important, to do things no one else has, go on adventures, and be popular and respected himself. Some aspects of his Cretaceous jaunt are thanks to the M.I.N.D. Machine picking up on this and arranging things.
Throughout his parts of the series, various larger characters push him around, intimidate him, do things they know will annoy him, and (rightfully!) blame him for the situation. He tries at one point to redirect the blame to someone else - one of those popular students he was jealous of - but realizes otherwise and retracts that in the end. He never shows signs of holding a grudge, or resenting anyone for long. When Patience apologizes for being harsh he answers her lightly with “I’ve hidden my tears before.”
The man isn’t unintelligent. He knows a range of information and can be drawn into philosophical discussions, and he's a huge nerd. Also, he can think quickly, is good at working with what he has, and incorporates new information and resources easily. And he's not unkind.
However, he easily gets too interested or focused on something. When seized by some idea, Bob strongly tends to dismiss, downplay, or just plain never consider things like consequences, other priorities, safeguards, and whether it’s just plain a bad idea. Starting up the M.I.N.D. Machine during school hours (twice!), leaving the group, interrupting important information to boast about his adventures, bringing his Hypsilophodon friends along to poke a sleeping theropod...
In his eagerness to share his knowledge he often doesn’t consider its effect - when treating Zane for a wound he happily gabbled about how it might get infected and kill him slowly, and how there was nothing they’d be able to do to prevent that. His student’s growing horror and dismay never registered. After Betram's jaunt in the Cretaceous Bob's general science classes all ended up more about dinosaurs than anything else, to the point where people expected he'd be fired. He can be very oblivious when excited.
While he’s got a distinct tendency to scream and babble shrilly, he’s never panicked for long. Actually he quickly starts being able to switch off the reaction and act pretty normal as soon as whatever’s scared him stops. Despite the shrieking he’s pretty brave, though this is really most evident when there isn’t someone bigger and stronger there to protect him. He's quite happy to let more capable others handle what they can.
Upon being blown away by a tornado and having to cope on his own, when before he’d been in the protective shade of his students, Bob became giddy and enthusiastic over surviving the tornado. His analytical side faded back for a time and he acted for the moment rather than trying to think past it. New Hypsilophodon friends looking up to him and thinking he was the coolest thing ever didn’t help. Even back with his students, he acted more impulsive and self-centered than before, flip-flopping between immaturity and teacherliness.
Even beforehand there was a student observing that he was actually on the childish side. Bob may try to mediate, but he does not take charge or object to someone else leading. Deep down he really can be self-centered and doesn’t attach strongly to anyone. Even those adoring Hypsilophodon friends he left cheerfully, and despite feeling close to some of his students he does not confide in them or tell him his plans.
His host body’s mind is still present, but mostly suppressed. He fights it at times, and it can cause him to flee when he’s scared even when he doesn’t want to. The Hypsilophodon wants to run from danger, hang out around other creatures, soak in sunlight, and similar animal functions.
Abilities: The M.I.N.D. Machine winnowed out the mind/spirit/”essence” of Bob London, flung it millions of years back in time, and installed it in a small dinosaur. While he’s out of his own body he has certain psychic powers. Truly imaginative characters can use their powers to create full-sensory illusions and nonverbally share ideas. Bob can’t do that.
What he can do is psychically project what people and animals perceive as sound. It’s easiest to project his own voice, but with more effort he may be able to reproduce other voices, sounds, or music. Alert characters can pick up that this is actually soundless. Given time and concentration he can project images of things he’s seen, though not well enough to fool even animals into thinking these things are actually there.
Bob can also project whatever emotions he’s feeling to anyone within a conversational radius. “Real” Hypsilophodon, ones without humans possessing them, are particularly susceptible and tend to flock around and look up to him, answering his unspoken desire to be popular and admired. Artifacts and people that have had much to do with time travel have a kind of pull to them, and he can orient towards them like a compass.
There are also some talents that come with being in the body of a Hypsilophodon. He’s agile and can run faster than a human, burrow, and climb. He has quills, modified feathers, in a line down his spine. Quills aren’t mentioned in the book - I drew them on the icons after reading about how common feathers were on dinosaurs and because I like this reconstruction. The quills are softer than those of hedgehogs and don't cover much, but they make things marginally harder for predators attacking from behind as he flees.
As a Hypsilophodon Bob is mostly vegetarian and a browser of plants, generally able to determine the edibility of unfamiliar plants he encounters and their basic medical uses, if they have them. He patches up Zane's wound effectively enough using sap and leaves. Bob's sense of smell is more acute than a human’s, and he can determine pretty easily if something is infected or contaminated. Small five-fingered hands like his aren’t quite as deft as a human’s, but he can manage tool use.
Inventory: Nothing at the moment. Later - after a canon update, probably - I’d like for him to somehow get the amber key. It’s a small item that looks like, well, a key made of amber. If held up it catches the light spectacularly and may distract or hypnotize. There’s a weird draw to it. It’s warm when touched and evokes a sense of safety and belonging. Bob says that it feels like home.
Prose Sample:
Bob cringed and ran as the young Pleurocoleus galumphed after him. He hopped and scrambled up a hillock too steep for Runt to follow him up. The creature reared up onto its hind legs, bracing with its tail behind and forelegs and extending its head on its long neck, seeking after him.
Trying not to recoil, Bob stood his ground and called, :Zane! Zane, control your little brother!:, chittering squeals escaping his beak as he did so.
He heard a lowing chuff and the boy’s voice, both thin with distance. :He’s not gonna hurt you, Mr. L! He’s just trying to play.:
Runt was moving his head to look out at Bob with first one wide-set-eye, then the other, and made a sound like a coo. :He could crush me!: Bob cried, but there was no response. :Detention,: he muttered, and observed the Pleurocoleus.
“Runt”. The young sauropod was small compared to Zane and Patience, to be sure, but what wasn’t? They claimed that he was the size of a VW Beetle. Maybe that was true, maybe not, there was no way to really measure scale here. Still, he towered over Bob, larger by far, and had a special joy for jumping over the much, much smaller dinosaur. It was bad enough usually but had gotten worse since they cleared the swamp.
“Oooo-ooo-ooooooooom,” Runt whined. His breath was an interesting mixture of various plants fermenting in digestive fluids. Turning away so he wouldn’t have to smell it, Bob’s bristly tail brushed against ferns and he stopped. Zane was big enough to be able to graze from treetops. Patience of course was a carnivore, eating sparse but higher-calorie meat. Bob himself could browse selectively on roots, shoots, and the odd insect. What was Runt finding to eat out here?
He watched for a moment, and then started to break off the ferns sprouting from the hillock and offering them to the young dinosaur, who ate greedily. Soon he had denuded the spot and Runt had sunk back to all four columnlike legs - but when Bob hopped back to the forest floor, he was nudged hard enough that he took off running, Runt in happy pursuit.
Journal Sample: Test thread with Dis.
