App for paradisa
NAME: Katie
JOURNAL: superkappa
EMAIL: mostlyverytired@gmail.com
AIM: MoonGoddessSK
WIKI NAME: N/A
CHARACTERS: N/A
CHARACTER NAME: Gretchen Berg
FANDOM: Heroes
CANON: Post Orientation/Jump Push Fall, right after she sees Claire jump out the window and pull herself back together.
WHAT THEY LOST: The memory of seeing Claire jump from the window and heal.
ABOUT THE CHARACTER:
One of the first things that someone would notice about Gretchen is that she's socially awkward. She often says the wrong thing and ends up putting her foot, and this mostly comes from the fact that she rarely thinks before speaking. She says things very bluntly, not paying attention to who around her could be listening in on things (an example of this would be like when she talked about murder in the middle of the lunch hall, or trying to confront Claire about her ability in the middle of the dorm hall). In general, she can be a pretty impulsive person, jumping into things without first thinking about the consequences.
She also can be really backhanded and snarky when she feels people are holding out on information from her. She doesn't like not knowing things, and when things are unclear to her she'll do anything in her power to figure out what's really going on. She loves mysteries and weird oddities. She doesn't see the harm in doing something like stealing a cadaver to test whether someone jumped out a window or was pushed.
She tends to be very obsessive in nature, whether it's about a topic or event, or even a person. Canonly, when she develops feelings for Claire, Claire basically becomes the center of her world. She wants to know everything about her, and feels easily threatened when she sees the possibility of Claire growing close to someone else.
The reason why she's so easily threatened greatly stems from the fact that she doesn't have high self esteem at all. She often makes small little comments and jabs at herself that sound like jokes, but clearly are insight to how she views herself. She doesn't see herself as someone interesting or particularly worth getting to know. Another sign of this low self esteem is the fact that she admits to having suffered from bulimia in the past. It was so bad that the girls at her school used to call her Retchin' Gretchen. This confession also suggests that she was probably bullied and teased a lot in high school. She mentions trying out for cheerleading once, but it only ended up being embarrassing for her. Some of these issues are clearly still prevelent as we see her getting up right after a meal to go to the bathroom which suggests she might still be forcing herself to throw up. This would suggest why she was so paper thin.
Canonly, we're not given a lot of information on her life before college. We know she lived in Austin, Texas, and that she knew about Claire's high school being attacked, and that's really about this. The issue of her parents is never addressed, but I would assume that they're probably alive, but she isn't too close to them. The fact that she ends up clinging to Claire's friendship and seems almost desperate for affection suggests that she didn't get a lot of it when she was growing up. This would also explain why she went to Mr. Bennet's apartment in New York for Thanksgiving instead of going back to Texas to spend it with her family.
She mentions having been in six relationships with guys before, along with dating girls which tells us more than just the fact that she's attracted to both genders: none of these relationships lasted long. This is probably due to how intense her personality is. And because of this, it would explain why she has so much doubt and fear of rejection in her relationships and friendships now. Experience has taught her that if she's herself, she'll eventually just push people away.
Gretchen has a distinct interest in the morbid and strange. Instead of being scared or worried at the idea of someone murdering Annie, she's excited to try to solve the mystery. Not only that, but she remembers the Union Well Incident, and seems to be want to become friends with Claire because she survived something so horrific and violent. Definitely not the normal kind of fascination that someone should have.
She mentions wanting to change her major from art history to physiology because she has such an interest in how the human body works. Though she could have been making that statement to try to unnerve Claire, there's a lot of truth to it. She wants to understand how the weird and strange things of the world work. She not only accepts Claire for her ability, but seems to idolize her for it. She is absolutely excited to cut Claire's hand in order to get another demonstration on how her power worked.
She is also in many ways an intellectual, it seems easy enough to assume she's probably a bit of a nerd. She quotes a tv show (Crossing Jordan) as the way she knows about the jump, push, fall test and comments on Claire's taste in literature, wanting to borrow one of her books from her. She also adapts rather quickly to playing Guitar Heroes which suggests that she probably has experience playing video games. She was also an art history major at one point.
THIRD-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:
Gretchen made her way into the library with a bounce in her step. She knew she shouldn't be so excited about a possible murder but she just couldn't help herself. She felt like she was one of the memebers of CSI or something. If only she could pull off the sunglasses things without looking like a tool, then her life would be complete. But as it was, she was pretty pleased.
She made her way into the criminal justice section, looking through a few books. And then a few more. They all sounded so fascinating, especially the sections about the jump, push, fall test (which she had first heard about on Crossing Jordan) and other ways you can tell whether someone faked a suicide or not. Like the note showing up way later. If that wasn't suspicious, Gretchen didn't know what in the world was.
She took her empty book bag and began filling it up with book after book. Claire was going to be having lunch soon, so she'd have to hurry to get to the cafeteria in time. Claire had seemed a little iffy about the idea of looking into what really happened to Annie, but Gretchen knew that she just needed some coaxing. After all, to let a murder go unsolved would be wrong, and it could be putting other people in danger. People like Claire herself. Which she didn't want to see happen. Sure, they had just met but Claire seemed really interesting. She had witnessed a murder, after all. How many people could say that? Not anyone Gretchen had ever met, that was for sure. To say the very least, she wanted the chance to get to know the other girl better.
Which was, admittingly, another reason why she wanted to work together to try to solve this mystery. It gave her an excuse to talk to Claire more, which was always a nice thing to have. She didn't want to seem just randomly clingy or annoying or something, like she often was around people she thought was interesting.
So she checked out the books, chatting with the librarian a little bit as she did so. She had only been on campus for a few days now and she was already considered a regular. Some things never changed.
She slung her now much heavier book back over her shoulder and headed out to the cafeteria to try to find Claire. They had a mystery to solve.
FIRST-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:
Huh.
So this is different. I mean, last thing I remember was looking out my window of my dorm room, and next thing I know, I'm here. I mean, I know it's pretty stereotypical for college students to wake up in weird places and not remember how they got there, but a castle? They don't even have those in America. And I didn't even drink so none of this makes any sense.
I mean, I've read books where things like this happen and stuff, but this is real life. How did I get here? Why was I brought here? Are there even any answers to these questions? I gotta say, I'm a little curious about the whole situation even if I'm totally weirded out about it at the same time.
So how long have people been here? Did you all just land here suddenly? What exactly is this place? Anything I need to know? Is there a way to leave and go home? I mean, I'm assuming it's not that easy because things in situations like this rarely are, but I figured I might as well ask.
Any and all information you could give me about this place would be really helpful.
INTENT:
I find Gretchen to be an interesting character because she seems really unique and real. She's flawed, and manages to somehow manage to be creepy and endearing all at once. From her first appearance she quickly became one of my favorite characters in the whole series. I think a game like Paradisa would be a fun place to play her because she loves things that are strange and unusual, and loves the chance to explore and learn more about that kind of stuff. I think it would be a really intriguing environment for her, and it would be interesting to see how she would deal with it over time.
JOURNAL: superkappa
EMAIL: mostlyverytired@gmail.com
AIM: MoonGoddessSK
WIKI NAME: N/A
CHARACTERS: N/A
CHARACTER NAME: Gretchen Berg
FANDOM: Heroes
CANON: Post Orientation/Jump Push Fall, right after she sees Claire jump out the window and pull herself back together.
WHAT THEY LOST: The memory of seeing Claire jump from the window and heal.
ABOUT THE CHARACTER:
One of the first things that someone would notice about Gretchen is that she's socially awkward. She often says the wrong thing and ends up putting her foot, and this mostly comes from the fact that she rarely thinks before speaking. She says things very bluntly, not paying attention to who around her could be listening in on things (an example of this would be like when she talked about murder in the middle of the lunch hall, or trying to confront Claire about her ability in the middle of the dorm hall). In general, she can be a pretty impulsive person, jumping into things without first thinking about the consequences.
She also can be really backhanded and snarky when she feels people are holding out on information from her. She doesn't like not knowing things, and when things are unclear to her she'll do anything in her power to figure out what's really going on. She loves mysteries and weird oddities. She doesn't see the harm in doing something like stealing a cadaver to test whether someone jumped out a window or was pushed.
She tends to be very obsessive in nature, whether it's about a topic or event, or even a person. Canonly, when she develops feelings for Claire, Claire basically becomes the center of her world. She wants to know everything about her, and feels easily threatened when she sees the possibility of Claire growing close to someone else.
The reason why she's so easily threatened greatly stems from the fact that she doesn't have high self esteem at all. She often makes small little comments and jabs at herself that sound like jokes, but clearly are insight to how she views herself. She doesn't see herself as someone interesting or particularly worth getting to know. Another sign of this low self esteem is the fact that she admits to having suffered from bulimia in the past. It was so bad that the girls at her school used to call her Retchin' Gretchen. This confession also suggests that she was probably bullied and teased a lot in high school. She mentions trying out for cheerleading once, but it only ended up being embarrassing for her. Some of these issues are clearly still prevelent as we see her getting up right after a meal to go to the bathroom which suggests she might still be forcing herself to throw up. This would suggest why she was so paper thin.
Canonly, we're not given a lot of information on her life before college. We know she lived in Austin, Texas, and that she knew about Claire's high school being attacked, and that's really about this. The issue of her parents is never addressed, but I would assume that they're probably alive, but she isn't too close to them. The fact that she ends up clinging to Claire's friendship and seems almost desperate for affection suggests that she didn't get a lot of it when she was growing up. This would also explain why she went to Mr. Bennet's apartment in New York for Thanksgiving instead of going back to Texas to spend it with her family.
She mentions having been in six relationships with guys before, along with dating girls which tells us more than just the fact that she's attracted to both genders: none of these relationships lasted long. This is probably due to how intense her personality is. And because of this, it would explain why she has so much doubt and fear of rejection in her relationships and friendships now. Experience has taught her that if she's herself, she'll eventually just push people away.
Gretchen has a distinct interest in the morbid and strange. Instead of being scared or worried at the idea of someone murdering Annie, she's excited to try to solve the mystery. Not only that, but she remembers the Union Well Incident, and seems to be want to become friends with Claire because she survived something so horrific and violent. Definitely not the normal kind of fascination that someone should have.
She mentions wanting to change her major from art history to physiology because she has such an interest in how the human body works. Though she could have been making that statement to try to unnerve Claire, there's a lot of truth to it. She wants to understand how the weird and strange things of the world work. She not only accepts Claire for her ability, but seems to idolize her for it. She is absolutely excited to cut Claire's hand in order to get another demonstration on how her power worked.
She is also in many ways an intellectual, it seems easy enough to assume she's probably a bit of a nerd. She quotes a tv show (Crossing Jordan) as the way she knows about the jump, push, fall test and comments on Claire's taste in literature, wanting to borrow one of her books from her. She also adapts rather quickly to playing Guitar Heroes which suggests that she probably has experience playing video games. She was also an art history major at one point.
THIRD-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:
Gretchen made her way into the library with a bounce in her step. She knew she shouldn't be so excited about a possible murder but she just couldn't help herself. She felt like she was one of the memebers of CSI or something. If only she could pull off the sunglasses things without looking like a tool, then her life would be complete. But as it was, she was pretty pleased.
She made her way into the criminal justice section, looking through a few books. And then a few more. They all sounded so fascinating, especially the sections about the jump, push, fall test (which she had first heard about on Crossing Jordan) and other ways you can tell whether someone faked a suicide or not. Like the note showing up way later. If that wasn't suspicious, Gretchen didn't know what in the world was.
She took her empty book bag and began filling it up with book after book. Claire was going to be having lunch soon, so she'd have to hurry to get to the cafeteria in time. Claire had seemed a little iffy about the idea of looking into what really happened to Annie, but Gretchen knew that she just needed some coaxing. After all, to let a murder go unsolved would be wrong, and it could be putting other people in danger. People like Claire herself. Which she didn't want to see happen. Sure, they had just met but Claire seemed really interesting. She had witnessed a murder, after all. How many people could say that? Not anyone Gretchen had ever met, that was for sure. To say the very least, she wanted the chance to get to know the other girl better.
Which was, admittingly, another reason why she wanted to work together to try to solve this mystery. It gave her an excuse to talk to Claire more, which was always a nice thing to have. She didn't want to seem just randomly clingy or annoying or something, like she often was around people she thought was interesting.
So she checked out the books, chatting with the librarian a little bit as she did so. She had only been on campus for a few days now and she was already considered a regular. Some things never changed.
She slung her now much heavier book back over her shoulder and headed out to the cafeteria to try to find Claire. They had a mystery to solve.
FIRST-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:
Huh.
So this is different. I mean, last thing I remember was looking out my window of my dorm room, and next thing I know, I'm here. I mean, I know it's pretty stereotypical for college students to wake up in weird places and not remember how they got there, but a castle? They don't even have those in America. And I didn't even drink so none of this makes any sense.
I mean, I've read books where things like this happen and stuff, but this is real life. How did I get here? Why was I brought here? Are there even any answers to these questions? I gotta say, I'm a little curious about the whole situation even if I'm totally weirded out about it at the same time.
So how long have people been here? Did you all just land here suddenly? What exactly is this place? Anything I need to know? Is there a way to leave and go home? I mean, I'm assuming it's not that easy because things in situations like this rarely are, but I figured I might as well ask.
Any and all information you could give me about this place would be really helpful.
INTENT:
I find Gretchen to be an interesting character because she seems really unique and real. She's flawed, and manages to somehow manage to be creepy and endearing all at once. From her first appearance she quickly became one of my favorite characters in the whole series. I think a game like Paradisa would be a fun place to play her because she loves things that are strange and unusual, and loves the chance to explore and learn more about that kind of stuff. I think it would be a really intriguing environment for her, and it would be interesting to see how she would deal with it over time.