Lincoln Lee (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skepticalities) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
campfuckuvote2012-06-16 07:58 am
skepticalities) wrote in campfuckuvote2012-06-16 07:58 am
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Counselor time! Apps are still open for another hour.
Remember!
- Applicants, respond anonymously.
- If you're going to do the whole "ask me why I voted you out!" thing, please state who you voted out.
- No speculating about the identity of the applicants!
Now VOTE. Closed!
Character: Jamie Madrox / "Multiple Man"
Series: X-Factor (Marvel 616)
Character Age: Late 20s/Early 30s
Job: Lost & Found Curator
Canon: Being a superhero isn't all about beating up bad guys and getting the girl, sometimes you have to look out for the little guy too. Your invisible son has gone missing? Good luck getting ahold of The Avengers. A witch turned your husband into a cat? The X-Men won't even leave their driveway for that. Fortunately for you, X-Factor Investigations is there to take the case! Jamie Madrox, the leader of this team, is a mutant who has the power to make perfect duplicates ("dupes") of himself whenever his body suffers any type of impact, with some dupes representing a specific aspect of his personality.
Generally, Jamie is a pretty easygoing guy with a sense of humor and tries his best to take everything in stride. Up until fairly recently in his life, he had assumed the role of the comic relief, rarely taking the spotlight and always had other people making decisions for him. Because of this, he struggles with maintaining his team and trips up anytime there's a major fork in the road. He also tends to mask his more difficult emotions beneath conversational misdirects and quips, some of which are based on pop culture references that tend to go unnoticed or unappreciated.
Sample Post:
Usually when a woman comes to me and says "Hey Jamie, I've got a job for you down south", it can mean any number of things. But unfortunately this time it meant the southern continental United States -- home of the infamous "Bible Belt", reality shows about gator hunting, and uh...apparently something named Marcy. I suppose it could be worse, but for the sake of exposition, let's just say that it's a bad place and I don't want to be here.
In fact, I'm only here because of a vague letter that was addressed to me, urgently requesting my presence. The return address said "CFUD", which lead to the most uninformative Google search ever, and the stamp on the envelope wasn't even a real stamp, it was just a crude drawing of a man's peni--
Is there anything I should be doing right now, or do you just like having someone around to listen to you talk? Seeing as how I'm your dupe, I already know everything you're going to say and none of it is interesting.
Well you're a lot mouthier than the last guy I was monologuing to, but then again a lot of his face was missing because he was a zombie, so he probably wasn't be able to articulate very well. He also seemed more focused on trying to take a bite out of me. Do you think it's too soon to make a joke about bath salts?
Are we really going to do this?
I thought we could do a whole dupe schtick to pass the time, but clearly you're the part of me who gets up on the wrong side of the bed.
Just absorb me please, it's grotesquely humid out here and I don't feel like listening to your--
Alright, you're done. And since there's no way out of this summer camp/cult compound/whatever it is, I'm basically stuck here in the worst tourist attraction ever, hoping that I didn't just walk into the middle of a horror movie. I'm not using that term lightly, this place has everything from monster animals to zombies, straight out of a meth-head's nightmare. I have no clue what would happen if any of my dupes died here, but something tells me that it would be in my best interest not to find out. The last thing the world needs is 30 Madrox zombies dragging their feet around and eating dead opossums while talking about last night's episode of Dancing with the Stars.
Name: Sonoda Sarina
Series: Kamen Rider Fourze
Age: ~22
Job: Astrology Teacher
Canon: Amanogawa High School is located underneath the Hole, an area where the cosmic energy of space is leaking onto Earth. The school's chairman is looking for people who will use the power of the stars to become superhuman monsters called Zodiarts. Chosen students are given Switches which allow them to transform into such monsters. Those who surpass this trial have the chance to become one of twelve commanders and Switch distributors, a group known only as the Horoscopes. As monsters, the children rain holy terror upon the school unhindered—at least until the arrival of Kamen Rider Fourze, who is determined to win them all over with friendship.
Mild spoilers within! If the students at Amanogawa were to describe their literature teacher, they would agree that Sonoda Sarina is kind, friendly and encouraging. She pushes individualism with a bright smile and adores teaching. Even her co-workers would agree that she is caring and nurturing, just a regular, sweet young teacher. This is all true on the outside, at least. In truth, Sonoda works for the chairman as Scorpio, a commander. At her core, Sonoda is vicious and merciless, always setting her students against each other in super-powered grudge matches. There is no love lost between herself and her pupils. If it meant making the chairman happy, she’d gladly poison another student. Everything she does is motivated by her need to please the chairman and to help him with his sinister plans. She is easily the most loyal to his cause but maintains a normal, sunny persona and keeps her cruel, sadistic true disposition perfectly hidden from all public eyes.
Sample Post:
So this my new assignment? Pathetic. Hello! Is this the star-gazing group? Ah, here we go! My name is Sonoda Sarina, and I'll be your new astrology teacher from this day forward. Let's work well together, okay? I'm a little bit nervous, but I think if we all do our best, things will work out splendidly. I'm sorry for being late, but let's not let that deter us. Besides, if your teacher can wrestle her shoe free from a pervert in a monkey suit, then she's sure to do her best to teach you, right? I’m sure that bully won’t bother anyone else.
Right! So let's begin by looking up. Astrology is the study of the stars and planets, using their positions in the sky to predict the future or analyze your personality traits. Oh, look! You can see already that there are benefits to living out in a place like this, so far away from all your neighbors. Without all the light pollution you would find back home in the city, you can see all the stars in earnest. Isn't the view of the sky around this camp just lovely? If you can ignore that grisly looking volcano, anyway ...
Now, to our north, you can see the maiden constellation, known as Virgo. That should be a good first lesson, I think. This is actually one of the star signs used for the zodiac. Interestingly enough, anyone born in the early summer months are Gemini, not Virgo. Ah, I... I don't believe that being reborn during this month is quite the same thing, but that is a very good point to bring up. As zombies you have two birthdays, wouldn't you? In a way, that does make the twins rather fitting.
As I was saying earlier, for thousands of years people have read the stars and planets to learn their destiny. How about it? Your assignment is to look up and see what images you can find. Let's see... If you use the two brightest stars just over the mess hall for eyes, you can see a happy waving tentacle. See, the tip of it is Venus. If I had to guess, I’d say that means your friend Marcy is going to fall deeply in love. Doesn’t that sound nice? So, does anybody else see anything they want to share? How about you, Graugh?
... Firstly, that's pronounced Uranus, not My — And second of all, I can assure you that your future doesn't lie there!
Character: Britta Perry
Series: Community
Character Age: Late 20s
Job: Camp Psychology Major
Canon: When Jeff Winger, ex-lawyer and new student at Greendale Community College, creates a Spanish study group, he's expecting two things: One, that this will help him in his quest to bang the hot blonde in his class, and two, that he might learn some Spanish and get that college degree that he's been lying about having. What he ends up with is a strange bunch of people who stick with him through typical college events like relationship drama, epic paintball games, and zombie attacks, all while teaching him the true value of friendship.
The aforementioned hot blonde, Britta Perry is a passionate activist and the cool, worldly member of the group. Or so she likes to think! In truth, Britta's so insecure and worried about being a Good and Sensitive Person that she often takes things too far, coming off as an opinionated, obnoxious, and painfully uncool buzzkill. However, under the self-righteousness and occasional awkwardness is a genuinely caring person who adopts one-eyed cats and decided to help people by majoring in psychology. She’s only taken a few classes and still has problems grasping basic concepts (and the actual names thereof-- like the "edible complex") but Britta doesn't let that dampen her enthusiasm for shoving her nose into other people's lives and trying to fix their problems.
Sample Post:
When I heard about a summer camp looking for a someone to assist the staff in managing the issues of their troubled teens, of course I jumped at the chance to help out. Now that I’m here, I can see why the local therapists are so swamped. There are hordes of you!-- I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have used that word, it makes you sound like livestock instead of the human beings that you are. Human beings who just need someone to help you work out your problems. Because-- and I know this may be hard to hear-- but claiming you have the desire to “eat brains” is a problem. A strangely familiar problem, even, which can only mean this is a textbook case of ... something.
... Okay, hey, stop groaning! I may be a licensed psych major, but this is a tricky diagnosis, okay? At first glance it appears to be a simple case of Dissociative Romeromania. Yes, that’s a real thing! You have all the symptoms: The slow shuffling, the rejection of traditional hygienic norms, the repetition of a single word over and over again. But that particular disorder is all rooted in the desire to conform to what society and the latest supernatural romance fad says is cool. And I’ve seen enough sheep-like behavior from the masses to know when something is teenagers trying to conform and when it’s something else, and this is something else. It’s more than youthful inclinations towards sameness! It’s a serious case of ... a mass inferiority complex.
Here, allow me to explain. You feel as if you’re not as smart as your fellow campers, and can’t measure up to the examples they set. These negative feelings have festered-- right, sorry, word choice again-- uh, matured into a larger issue that you’re allowing to define your entire existence. This is then combined with classical conditioning, finally manifesting itself as a compulsion to verbalize a desire for literal brains. Like Pavlov and his cat, except instead of the drool of animal cruelty being triggered by a bell, you’ve been trained to respond to the metaphorical sounds of judgement by crying out for the brains of supposedly more intelligent campers. You distract from this by putting on layers of zombie makeup, which you hope will cause observers to believe that your problems come from a fixation on death and not your envy of their thinking organs.
So friends, patients, campers hiding behind a facade of rotting flesh in order to cope with your issues! Don’t let your low self-esteem dictate your entire lives. The delicious brains you’re looking for aren't sitting in the craniums of your peers. They're already within you! In your heart, and also your skull. It may be hard for you to believe, but you can trust that I know what I'm talking about. After all, I'm a psychology major.
Character: Abed Nadir
Series: Community
Character Age: Mid-20s
Job: Director
Canon: Community is a live-action comedy based on the life and times of one ragtag study group as they try to navigate the random, choppy waters of Greendale Community College, its classes, and its students. Wacky misadventures so far involve brutal high-stakes paintball wars, a Halloween zombie outbreak, an unexpected in-class birth, and a pen-stealing, air vent-dwelling monkey named Annie’s Boobs. But with every obstacle conquered, the group only gets closer—or starts another shouting match that ends in hurt feelings, irrational decisions, and man tears. Oops.
A monotone fast-talker, diehard cinephile, and budding filmmaker, Abed describes himself as the “fast-blinking, stoic, removed, uncomfortably self-aware type.” He has trouble recognizing social cues and tends to use common tropes and scenarios from television to interpret what’s going on and predict what will happen next. He makes references to movies and shows left and right, having been basically “raised by TV,” and can be meta to the point where he even noticed when an episode was done in claymation for a Christmas special. Abed is very aware that he’s considered weird by most standards, but always stays confident and is able to pinpoint the root of his friends’ problems or the moral of an event with shocking clarity. While he leans heavily toward deadpan, he spends endless hours in his “Dreamatorium,” and he and his best friend Troy often indulge in epic make-believe-athons, giant blanket forts, real life roleplaying, and otherchildish awesome antics.
Sample Post:
… and that’s why, considering the previously discussed rules of the universe and the general trend of devil-may-care scientific attitudes in movies, a Tyrannosaurus rex would have eventually ended up terrorizing San Diego with or without John Hammond and InGen. Any questions? No? Alright, moving on. Over the past three hours you’ve gotten to know me a little, so I hope we can start things off with a sense of mild trust and understanding. Now, let’s get down to business. I’m supposed to be making a movie to show what this place is like, in order to cut back on the amount of repetitive exposition that goes on. But I also don’t want it to drag, so I think I’m gonna switch things up and do some editing.
The summer camp thing works in theory, but I’d really like to turn this trope on its head, and to do that we’re going to have to steer clear of any solo serial killers and swamp things. You—that’s the general you, I know getting too meta too soon can alienate the audience but trust me, this will all run a lot smoother if I stay vague here—have been doing a good job skirting the line between suspenseful and campy, but we need to narrow the genres down if we’re going to fit this into a 30 minute film. Or a five minute silent short. I’m still deciding. My point is, we can’t be every Coen Brothers movie at once. Too sloppy, and we’ll never get Frances McDormand.
Basically, under all the gimmicky hijinks and seemingly random happenstances with occasional bouts of nightmare fuel, what we have here is your typical character-based anything-goes slice-of-life romantic comedy. That’s good. People like that. But the sudden switches from “hilarity ensues” to survival mode, that’s just a zombie apocalypse blockbuster if they didn’t all conveniently start right before the outbreak. And let’s be honest, even with adjustments that’s not even close to clever anymore. Once a movie fad has gotten popular enough to warrant TV shows trying to ride the same wave, it’s essentially lost its edge—zombies, vampires, manic pixie dream girls.
What I want to focus on is when it all settles down, when chaos melts into routine—crossing to the other side of the path to avoid a wayward gorilla, waving hello to Marcy on your way to breakfast, living and laughing in an off-kilter occasionally nightmarish genre blender. Zero in on the people, not the abnormal. That’s our hook. It’ll tone down the inconsistencies and anachronisms, improving the flow. We can play the creepy and arbitrary weirdness off as quirky. Not full out Wes Anderson quirky, I don’t have a wide-angle lens, but we can still have some slow motion. Maybe throw in a joke or two—“Hey, have you tried her cooking? I’d rather eat Tuesday’s soup!” No laugh track, to keep it fresh. Indian Summer meets Heavyweights meets Indiana Jones set in the world of post-movie Shaun of the Dead—youthful humor, nostalgic good times, acceptance, adventure. British accents are optional but encouraged.
We’ll start filming tomorrow. I look forward to working with you all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find a giant boulder, a blowgun, and the inspiration for two real sequels plus one failed attempt at milking a sad, tired cash cow. Zing. Too easy.
Character: Troy "Butt Soup" Barnes
Series: Community
Character Age: 22
Counselor Job: Backend Receiver
Canon: Community colleges attract students from all walks of life, be they brand new high school graduates, middle-aged housewives looking for new direction, or the elderly with nothing better to do. One group of students band together in order to hopefully survive and receive a degree. Community follows the study group as they navigate the bizarre waters of Greendale Community College.
Troy Barnes comes to Greendale after a disastrous kegflip destroys his chances at a football scholarship. Despite his jock background, Troy is sensitive, perhaps overly so. It soon becomes evident that he is actually the most responsible person in the study group. He'll attempt to do the right thing, even if it means possibly upsetting a close friend, or earning himself some future difficulty. Troy is still often fairly obtuse, and his train of thought can be hard to follow. Cue frequent non-sequiturs and bizarre leaps of logic. Add in his general slowness and sometimes outrageous gullibility, and you have a guy who's prone to tears and rambling streams of consciousness.
Sample Post:
Okay, the weird costumes, the smell of hormone driven desperation, the mindless undead... I know exactly what this is: another community college sponsored dance party. Or an 8 AM drama class. Or that 3 PM class on textile differentiation. Man, they have the best cupcakes. Not a lot of icing, but just enough to smooth the way, y'know? Your first bite of cupcake shouldn't be all icing. There needs to be some cake. A moist crumb is super important in a cupcake. Since there's so much less cake than an actual cake, you need to create a cake event. Every mouthful is a explosion of tastiness in your mouth. With sprinkles. And those little silver balls. Where do those even come from? Is someone plucking the balls off of tiny robots? …Is that why robots are so angry?
Uh, yeah. Back to business not related to robot junk. You wanted me for something, right? Something that wasn't my sick dance moves. Don't you worry, girl, this ass is always ready to back it up. When you ride this Soul Train, you don't just get one car, you get the whole caboose. Because caboose means butt, get it? And we're... pulling into the station? Out of the station? Which one is sexy? ...I'm never gonna get a boner again without Thomas the Tank Engine's creepy doll face showing up.
I need someone new to drive my brain. We keep going places that aren't awesome. Just tell me what you need so I can get back to that Mission Impossible marathon. The internet says the fourth one stars Jeremy Renner's butt! I'm really excited to see a movie about butts fighting paranormal phenomenon that isn't a porno. Hollywood really is where the magic happens. But we're not in Hollywood right now. So let me work some magic for you. As your newly appointed Backend Receiver, I'm ready to take on anything. Coaching your amateur-- really amateur football team, fixing the plumbing, repairing some air conditioners... placing your TV antenna, okay. Wasn't expecting that. --Wait, you want me to stick that WHERE? Listen, my mind's open to a lot, but the back door is closed. Also, the reception's no good in my plop plop.
Remember!
- Applicants, respond anonymously.
- If you're going to do the whole "ask me why I voted you out!" thing, please state who you voted out.
- No speculating about the identity of the applicants!
Character: Jamie Madrox / "Multiple Man"
Series: X-Factor (Marvel 616)
Character Age: Late 20s/Early 30s
Job: Lost & Found Curator
Canon: Being a superhero isn't all about beating up bad guys and getting the girl, sometimes you have to look out for the little guy too. Your invisible son has gone missing? Good luck getting ahold of The Avengers. A witch turned your husband into a cat? The X-Men won't even leave their driveway for that. Fortunately for you, X-Factor Investigations is there to take the case! Jamie Madrox, the leader of this team, is a mutant who has the power to make perfect duplicates ("dupes") of himself whenever his body suffers any type of impact, with some dupes representing a specific aspect of his personality.
Generally, Jamie is a pretty easygoing guy with a sense of humor and tries his best to take everything in stride. Up until fairly recently in his life, he had assumed the role of the comic relief, rarely taking the spotlight and always had other people making decisions for him. Because of this, he struggles with maintaining his team and trips up anytime there's a major fork in the road. He also tends to mask his more difficult emotions beneath conversational misdirects and quips, some of which are based on pop culture references that tend to go unnoticed or unappreciated.
Sample Post:
Usually when a woman comes to me and says "Hey Jamie, I've got a job for you down south", it can mean any number of things. But unfortunately this time it meant the southern continental United States -- home of the infamous "Bible Belt", reality shows about gator hunting, and uh...apparently something named Marcy. I suppose it could be worse, but for the sake of exposition, let's just say that it's a bad place and I don't want to be here.
In fact, I'm only here because of a vague letter that was addressed to me, urgently requesting my presence. The return address said "CFUD", which lead to the most uninformative Google search ever, and the stamp on the envelope wasn't even a real stamp, it was just a crude drawing of a man's peni--
Is there anything I should be doing right now, or do you just like having someone around to listen to you talk? Seeing as how I'm your dupe, I already know everything you're going to say and none of it is interesting.
Well you're a lot mouthier than the last guy I was monologuing to, but then again a lot of his face was missing because he was a zombie, so he probably wasn't be able to articulate very well. He also seemed more focused on trying to take a bite out of me. Do you think it's too soon to make a joke about bath salts?
Are we really going to do this?
I thought we could do a whole dupe schtick to pass the time, but clearly you're the part of me who gets up on the wrong side of the bed.
Just absorb me please, it's grotesquely humid out here and I don't feel like listening to your--
Alright, you're done. And since there's no way out of this summer camp/cult compound/whatever it is, I'm basically stuck here in the worst tourist attraction ever, hoping that I didn't just walk into the middle of a horror movie. I'm not using that term lightly, this place has everything from monster animals to zombies, straight out of a meth-head's nightmare. I have no clue what would happen if any of my dupes died here, but something tells me that it would be in my best interest not to find out. The last thing the world needs is 30 Madrox zombies dragging their feet around and eating dead opossums while talking about last night's episode of Dancing with the Stars.
Poll #10841 Vote!
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 47
In or out?
Name: Sonoda Sarina
Series: Kamen Rider Fourze
Age: ~22
Job: Astrology Teacher
Canon: Amanogawa High School is located underneath the Hole, an area where the cosmic energy of space is leaking onto Earth. The school's chairman is looking for people who will use the power of the stars to become superhuman monsters called Zodiarts. Chosen students are given Switches which allow them to transform into such monsters. Those who surpass this trial have the chance to become one of twelve commanders and Switch distributors, a group known only as the Horoscopes. As monsters, the children rain holy terror upon the school unhindered—at least until the arrival of Kamen Rider Fourze, who is determined to win them all over with friendship.
Mild spoilers within! If the students at Amanogawa were to describe their literature teacher, they would agree that Sonoda Sarina is kind, friendly and encouraging. She pushes individualism with a bright smile and adores teaching. Even her co-workers would agree that she is caring and nurturing, just a regular, sweet young teacher. This is all true on the outside, at least. In truth, Sonoda works for the chairman as Scorpio, a commander. At her core, Sonoda is vicious and merciless, always setting her students against each other in super-powered grudge matches. There is no love lost between herself and her pupils. If it meant making the chairman happy, she’d gladly poison another student. Everything she does is motivated by her need to please the chairman and to help him with his sinister plans. She is easily the most loyal to his cause but maintains a normal, sunny persona and keeps her cruel, sadistic true disposition perfectly hidden from all public eyes.
Sample Post:
So this my new assignment? Pathetic. Hello! Is this the star-gazing group? Ah, here we go! My name is Sonoda Sarina, and I'll be your new astrology teacher from this day forward. Let's work well together, okay? I'm a little bit nervous, but I think if we all do our best, things will work out splendidly. I'm sorry for being late, but let's not let that deter us. Besides, if your teacher can wrestle her shoe free from a pervert in a monkey suit, then she's sure to do her best to teach you, right? I’m sure that bully won’t bother anyone else.
Right! So let's begin by looking up. Astrology is the study of the stars and planets, using their positions in the sky to predict the future or analyze your personality traits. Oh, look! You can see already that there are benefits to living out in a place like this, so far away from all your neighbors. Without all the light pollution you would find back home in the city, you can see all the stars in earnest. Isn't the view of the sky around this camp just lovely? If you can ignore that grisly looking volcano, anyway ...
Now, to our north, you can see the maiden constellation, known as Virgo. That should be a good first lesson, I think. This is actually one of the star signs used for the zodiac. Interestingly enough, anyone born in the early summer months are Gemini, not Virgo. Ah, I... I don't believe that being reborn during this month is quite the same thing, but that is a very good point to bring up. As zombies you have two birthdays, wouldn't you? In a way, that does make the twins rather fitting.
As I was saying earlier, for thousands of years people have read the stars and planets to learn their destiny. How about it? Your assignment is to look up and see what images you can find. Let's see... If you use the two brightest stars just over the mess hall for eyes, you can see a happy waving tentacle. See, the tip of it is Venus. If I had to guess, I’d say that means your friend Marcy is going to fall deeply in love. Doesn’t that sound nice? So, does anybody else see anything they want to share? How about you, Graugh?
... Firstly, that's pronounced Uranus, not My — And second of all, I can assure you that your future doesn't lie there!
Poll #10842 Vote!
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 44
In or out?
Character: Britta Perry
Series: Community
Character Age: Late 20s
Job: Camp Psychology Major
Canon: When Jeff Winger, ex-lawyer and new student at Greendale Community College, creates a Spanish study group, he's expecting two things: One, that this will help him in his quest to bang the hot blonde in his class, and two, that he might learn some Spanish and get that college degree that he's been lying about having. What he ends up with is a strange bunch of people who stick with him through typical college events like relationship drama, epic paintball games, and zombie attacks, all while teaching him the true value of friendship.
The aforementioned hot blonde, Britta Perry is a passionate activist and the cool, worldly member of the group. Or so she likes to think! In truth, Britta's so insecure and worried about being a Good and Sensitive Person that she often takes things too far, coming off as an opinionated, obnoxious, and painfully uncool buzzkill. However, under the self-righteousness and occasional awkwardness is a genuinely caring person who adopts one-eyed cats and decided to help people by majoring in psychology. She’s only taken a few classes and still has problems grasping basic concepts (and the actual names thereof-- like the "edible complex") but Britta doesn't let that dampen her enthusiasm for shoving her nose into other people's lives and trying to fix their problems.
Sample Post:
When I heard about a summer camp looking for a someone to assist the staff in managing the issues of their troubled teens, of course I jumped at the chance to help out. Now that I’m here, I can see why the local therapists are so swamped. There are hordes of you!-- I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have used that word, it makes you sound like livestock instead of the human beings that you are. Human beings who just need someone to help you work out your problems. Because-- and I know this may be hard to hear-- but claiming you have the desire to “eat brains” is a problem. A strangely familiar problem, even, which can only mean this is a textbook case of ... something.
... Okay, hey, stop groaning! I may be a licensed psych major, but this is a tricky diagnosis, okay? At first glance it appears to be a simple case of Dissociative Romeromania. Yes, that’s a real thing! You have all the symptoms: The slow shuffling, the rejection of traditional hygienic norms, the repetition of a single word over and over again. But that particular disorder is all rooted in the desire to conform to what society and the latest supernatural romance fad says is cool. And I’ve seen enough sheep-like behavior from the masses to know when something is teenagers trying to conform and when it’s something else, and this is something else. It’s more than youthful inclinations towards sameness! It’s a serious case of ... a mass inferiority complex.
Here, allow me to explain. You feel as if you’re not as smart as your fellow campers, and can’t measure up to the examples they set. These negative feelings have festered-- right, sorry, word choice again-- uh, matured into a larger issue that you’re allowing to define your entire existence. This is then combined with classical conditioning, finally manifesting itself as a compulsion to verbalize a desire for literal brains. Like Pavlov and his cat, except instead of the drool of animal cruelty being triggered by a bell, you’ve been trained to respond to the metaphorical sounds of judgement by crying out for the brains of supposedly more intelligent campers. You distract from this by putting on layers of zombie makeup, which you hope will cause observers to believe that your problems come from a fixation on death and not your envy of their thinking organs.
So friends, patients, campers hiding behind a facade of rotting flesh in order to cope with your issues! Don’t let your low self-esteem dictate your entire lives. The delicious brains you’re looking for aren't sitting in the craniums of your peers. They're already within you! In your heart, and also your skull. It may be hard for you to believe, but you can trust that I know what I'm talking about. After all, I'm a psychology major.
Poll #10843 Vote!
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 49
In or out?
Character: Abed Nadir
Series: Community
Character Age: Mid-20s
Job: Director
Canon: Community is a live-action comedy based on the life and times of one ragtag study group as they try to navigate the random, choppy waters of Greendale Community College, its classes, and its students. Wacky misadventures so far involve brutal high-stakes paintball wars, a Halloween zombie outbreak, an unexpected in-class birth, and a pen-stealing, air vent-dwelling monkey named Annie’s Boobs. But with every obstacle conquered, the group only gets closer—or starts another shouting match that ends in hurt feelings, irrational decisions, and man tears. Oops.
A monotone fast-talker, diehard cinephile, and budding filmmaker, Abed describes himself as the “fast-blinking, stoic, removed, uncomfortably self-aware type.” He has trouble recognizing social cues and tends to use common tropes and scenarios from television to interpret what’s going on and predict what will happen next. He makes references to movies and shows left and right, having been basically “raised by TV,” and can be meta to the point where he even noticed when an episode was done in claymation for a Christmas special. Abed is very aware that he’s considered weird by most standards, but always stays confident and is able to pinpoint the root of his friends’ problems or the moral of an event with shocking clarity. While he leans heavily toward deadpan, he spends endless hours in his “Dreamatorium,” and he and his best friend Troy often indulge in epic make-believe-athons, giant blanket forts, real life roleplaying, and other
Sample Post:
… and that’s why, considering the previously discussed rules of the universe and the general trend of devil-may-care scientific attitudes in movies, a Tyrannosaurus rex would have eventually ended up terrorizing San Diego with or without John Hammond and InGen. Any questions? No? Alright, moving on. Over the past three hours you’ve gotten to know me a little, so I hope we can start things off with a sense of mild trust and understanding. Now, let’s get down to business. I’m supposed to be making a movie to show what this place is like, in order to cut back on the amount of repetitive exposition that goes on. But I also don’t want it to drag, so I think I’m gonna switch things up and do some editing.
The summer camp thing works in theory, but I’d really like to turn this trope on its head, and to do that we’re going to have to steer clear of any solo serial killers and swamp things. You—that’s the general you, I know getting too meta too soon can alienate the audience but trust me, this will all run a lot smoother if I stay vague here—have been doing a good job skirting the line between suspenseful and campy, but we need to narrow the genres down if we’re going to fit this into a 30 minute film. Or a five minute silent short. I’m still deciding. My point is, we can’t be every Coen Brothers movie at once. Too sloppy, and we’ll never get Frances McDormand.
Basically, under all the gimmicky hijinks and seemingly random happenstances with occasional bouts of nightmare fuel, what we have here is your typical character-based anything-goes slice-of-life romantic comedy. That’s good. People like that. But the sudden switches from “hilarity ensues” to survival mode, that’s just a zombie apocalypse blockbuster if they didn’t all conveniently start right before the outbreak. And let’s be honest, even with adjustments that’s not even close to clever anymore. Once a movie fad has gotten popular enough to warrant TV shows trying to ride the same wave, it’s essentially lost its edge—zombies, vampires, manic pixie dream girls.
What I want to focus on is when it all settles down, when chaos melts into routine—crossing to the other side of the path to avoid a wayward gorilla, waving hello to Marcy on your way to breakfast, living and laughing in an off-kilter occasionally nightmarish genre blender. Zero in on the people, not the abnormal. That’s our hook. It’ll tone down the inconsistencies and anachronisms, improving the flow. We can play the creepy and arbitrary weirdness off as quirky. Not full out Wes Anderson quirky, I don’t have a wide-angle lens, but we can still have some slow motion. Maybe throw in a joke or two—“Hey, have you tried her cooking? I’d rather eat Tuesday’s soup!” No laugh track, to keep it fresh. Indian Summer meets Heavyweights meets Indiana Jones set in the world of post-movie Shaun of the Dead—youthful humor, nostalgic good times, acceptance, adventure. British accents are optional but encouraged.
We’ll start filming tomorrow. I look forward to working with you all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find a giant boulder, a blowgun, and the inspiration for two real sequels plus one failed attempt at milking a sad, tired cash cow. Zing. Too easy.
Poll #10844 Vote!
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50
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Character: Troy "Butt Soup" Barnes
Series: Community
Character Age: 22
Counselor Job: Backend Receiver
Canon: Community colleges attract students from all walks of life, be they brand new high school graduates, middle-aged housewives looking for new direction, or the elderly with nothing better to do. One group of students band together in order to hopefully survive and receive a degree. Community follows the study group as they navigate the bizarre waters of Greendale Community College.
Troy Barnes comes to Greendale after a disastrous kegflip destroys his chances at a football scholarship. Despite his jock background, Troy is sensitive, perhaps overly so. It soon becomes evident that he is actually the most responsible person in the study group. He'll attempt to do the right thing, even if it means possibly upsetting a close friend, or earning himself some future difficulty. Troy is still often fairly obtuse, and his train of thought can be hard to follow. Cue frequent non-sequiturs and bizarre leaps of logic. Add in his general slowness and sometimes outrageous gullibility, and you have a guy who's prone to tears and rambling streams of consciousness.
Sample Post:
Okay, the weird costumes, the smell of hormone driven desperation, the mindless undead... I know exactly what this is: another community college sponsored dance party. Or an 8 AM drama class. Or that 3 PM class on textile differentiation. Man, they have the best cupcakes. Not a lot of icing, but just enough to smooth the way, y'know? Your first bite of cupcake shouldn't be all icing. There needs to be some cake. A moist crumb is super important in a cupcake. Since there's so much less cake than an actual cake, you need to create a cake event. Every mouthful is a explosion of tastiness in your mouth. With sprinkles. And those little silver balls. Where do those even come from? Is someone plucking the balls off of tiny robots? …Is that why robots are so angry?
Uh, yeah. Back to business not related to robot junk. You wanted me for something, right? Something that wasn't my sick dance moves. Don't you worry, girl, this ass is always ready to back it up. When you ride this Soul Train, you don't just get one car, you get the whole caboose. Because caboose means butt, get it? And we're... pulling into the station? Out of the station? Which one is sexy? ...I'm never gonna get a boner again without Thomas the Tank Engine's creepy doll face showing up.
I need someone new to drive my brain. We keep going places that aren't awesome. Just tell me what you need so I can get back to that Mission Impossible marathon. The internet says the fourth one stars Jeremy Renner's butt! I'm really excited to see a movie about butts fighting paranormal phenomenon that isn't a porno. Hollywood really is where the magic happens. But we're not in Hollywood right now. So let me work some magic for you. As your newly appointed Backend Receiver, I'm ready to take on anything. Coaching your amateur-- really amateur football team, fixing the plumbing, repairing some air conditioners... placing your TV antenna, okay. Wasn't expecting that. --Wait, you want me to stick that WHERE? Listen, my mind's open to a lot, but the back door is closed. Also, the reception's no good in my plop plop.
Poll #10845 Vote!
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 46
In or out?