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Cavalier: Cavalier Terra of the Forest

Name: Philomel Selyck

Nicknames: Phil was a childhood nickname, but she only goes by her full name these days. She doesn't have any horribly negative feelings about being called Phil, but she never calls herself that anymore. She rather likes her full name. "Philomel" is a poetic name for the nightingale, and it appears in some of Shakespeare's works, which was what Philomel's parents were thinking of when they named her, and Philomel likes how that makes her full first name sound cultured. Her name is like a monument to her amazing fantastic mother, and just "Phil" doesn't really do it.

Gender: Female

Age: 15

Birthday: January 3rd, 1995

Sign: Capricorn

Gemstone: Garnet

Blood Type: A-

Fav. Food: A nice big cheeseburger. Cheeseburgers are very substantial. It's hard to forget what you've eaten when you have something like a cheeseburger.

Hated Food: Lobster. It's far too complicated. Philomel will eat lobster, but all the shelling involved makes dinner feel like science lab. Science lab is fine. It's just not dinner.

School: Meadowview High

Hobbies:

Putting little things in little boxes -- Philomel is fond of organization and putting things away in their own particular compartments. It's a quiet, meditative activity, and she keeps her personal places neat and tidy as a result. She is not compulsive about the habit, however; it's simply something she finds pleasant and relaxing, and she is not compelled to straighten up messy places. Though she'd often like to, she's quite aware that cleaning up others' messes is not a normal teenage activity. She'd be willing to do it if asked, but there are plenty of other things to do, and sometimes mess is essential to the atmosphere of a place. There is that stationary store she loves that sells a lot of dusty old crap, after all.

Running Errands -- Philomel is always willing to run little errands for anyone who asks. She'll do grocery shopping for you, if you'd like, or if you need snacks for your upcoming club meeting to encourage attendance. You forgot paper, too? She'll get that for you. It's not a problem. Philomel likes being busy, and not out of an overly-developed sense of social responsibility-- it makes her feel competent, trusted, and helpful. The limited social interaction involved in running errands and doing favors for others keeps her from feeling lonely without sacrificing her sense of independence. She is peripherally involved in several social clubs at Meadowview, mostly doing minor tasks-- making sure there are enough copies of fliers advertising a planned food drive to hang in all the visible spaces, for example, or hanging said fliers up, or taking the cans from the drive down to the homeless shelter after school. If the club minute-taker is absent, Philomel will do that job too, but that is the closest to club leadership that she's comfortable going.

Video Games (single-player adventure RPGs) -- For all that Philomel claims to be a plain jane with no desire for adventure or need for excitement in her life, she likes to curl up and play at being a legendary hero from the safety and comfort of the comfy couch. Philomel makes an effort to play her games slowly, talking to every NPC, going on every sidequest, never taking shortcuts, and so on. Philomel's father Neal likes adventuring, and he likes video games, and he rushes through to the final boss whenever possible, and Philomel is terrified of growing up to be anything like him. Since she can't stop liking video games, though, she tries to differentiate herself from him in playing style and attitude.

Reading (Fables and Shakespeare)-- Fables are timeless and simple. Philomel likes timeless and simple. She can read and reread whenever she likes, and nothing in her books changes between reads. Philomel takes her time reading, like she prefers doing for everything else, so the library isn't a viable option for obtaining new reading material-- she has no desire to be punished for being slow, and lateness fines are basically that. Rereading old books is a more nostalgic and timeless activity, anyway. She's not exactly an adventurous reader.

Virtues:

Strong Work Ethic -- Philomel does what she says she'll do. Every time, or nearly every time, and she'd rather not talk about those times. If Philomel is asked to do something, she'll do it. She doesn't believe in excuses-- she is never too busy or too tired for a task. She may be too busy or too tired at a particular time, but that's no reason to refuse making additions to the to-do list.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race -- Philomel likes being slow and careful. She really likes being slow and careful. Philomel's mother is slow and careful, and Philomel is pretty sure Tessa Selyck knows the secret of life. Being slow and steady keeps Philomel's criminal record nonexistent. It keeps her calm. It keeps her from tackling too many things at once, no matter how long her to-do list gets. And it tends to impress teachers, and that is really a good thing for a student to be able to do.

Confident -- Philomel's social status is somewhere between "friendly enough, but still no fun" and "this person is completely forgettable why are you talking to her nobody cares." She doesn't mind. Philomel believes strongly in her way of doing things, and success at that is not based on cafeteria popularity. She doesn't mind what her classmates think of her (although if they thought she was untrustworthy and unfriendly, she might have a harder time keeping busy with errands from classmates, and that would be a bit inconvenient), because she's proud of herself for working hard to become the industrious eternally calm person she wants to be. Philomel likes people, but they are just not the point of her life, and she is most concerned with that.

Straight-Shooter -- Philomel is a practical person. She does practical things, or at least that's what she'd like to think. It's not entirely true, of course-- a lot of the tasks she takes on aren't as necessary as they seem, and her fondness for RPGs certainly has no practical value in her life. Philomel approaches everything as if it really mattered, though. Everything she does, whether public or private, small or large, important or unimportant, Philomel sees as an opportunity to prove she is who she wants to be: reliable, wise, and self-sufficient. Since method matters most of all, and her actions prove she is who she wants to be, she's honest in the things she does. She believes the integrity of her actions is the integrity of herself.

Flaws:

Don't Argue With the Mugger -- Philomel wants people to trust her. She needs people to feel comfortable asking things of her badly enough that sometimes she's a bit more passive in the face of opposition than she should be. Arguments are tiring and time-consuming, and they distract her from her work and disrupt her quest to find inner peace through busy work and other quiet, pleasant endeavors. If Philomel finds herself in a confrontation, she backs off and looks for the fastest out possible. This tends to result in Philomel attempting to distance herself by zoning out and agreeing to statements and tasks she wouldn't generally agree with. She'd rather not be pressured into agreeing to rob a bank, though, because she won't go quite that far, and having to break her word bothers her terribly.

Progress is our most important product -- Philomel keeps busy for the pleasure of working, not for the result. She doesn't go out of her way to do a bad job, mind you, but she doesn't put nearly as much pride in the excellence of the end result as she does in the process. In some ways, it's a good thing, because she can be happy with herself and her performance despite not being particularly gifted academically. Unfortunately, Philomel has grown out of the stage where simply giving school your best effort counts for more than 10% of your final grade. She is no longer in math classes where working hard on a problem you get completely wrong gives you half-credit. It's kind of exasperating, but Philomel likes how she does things and sees no problem with it. Marks were never what made her happy, so as long as she at least passes her classes, all's cool in her world.

Careless Under Pressure -- Please do not make working an unpleasant experience. Philomel is less concerned with being right than keeping busy, but she will do a hack job on purpose if she's rushed and unhappy. Teachers who demand strict punctuality, people who pester her about taking her time with tasks and errands-- those people are enemies to Philomel's personal pursuit of happiness, and that is really uncool. People who rush her are clearly asking for crappy rushed work.

Teamwork is hard -- Philomel's dislike of confrontations makes it quite difficult for her to work satisfactorily with others. Good teamwork requires working at a common pace, and it is not uncommon for Philomel's teammates work at a faster pace than she does, which frustrates her a great deal. Philomel is far more likely to distance herself from a group project and sulk than assert herself and try to set the pace and the rhythm herself. Being uninvolved in something she knows she should be involved in makes her feel lousy and irresponsible, but Philomel really doesn't want to get into an argument about it. She doesn't want to risk snapping at someone.

Physical Description:

Eyes: Dark blue

Hair: Light brown. More desaturated brown than close to blond, though. Above shoulder-length, but not by very much. Kind of nondescript. Thin, by which I mean not voluminous or flowing.

Face: Fairly soft with a well-defined chin. Narrowish face, but still kind of round.

Fashion: Shirts and medium-length skirts, maybe pants sometimes. Philomel is not unwashed or overly dull and proper, but her fashion sense is a little dumpy. Run-of-the-mill, more like. She doesn't want to stand out.

CAVALIER

Challenge: The woods begin to move.

Fuku Colour: Brown. I'd find it hilarious if it was similar in shade to nightingale plumage, but that's pretty stupid. I also don't think I would be able to tell.

Philomel the Cavalier: There's nothing like someone in your face trying to kill you to encourage action. Being a Cavalier would force Philomel to act quickly and decisively, and being forced to act makes her fairly uncomfortable in general. Her tendency to complete tasks that she is forced to do on a schedule she is uncomfortable with sloppily is absolutely completely unacceptable for a Cavalier, and she knows it. For many reasons, not the least of which is staying alive. Being slow and steady does not bother her in civilian life, but it would bother her deeply as a Cavalier. Retaining her inner calm is important to her, but she is not immune to the urgency of war. Philomel finds it rather exciting, actually, which will make her doubt herself. She won't be able to shake the feeling she has been wrong about the best way for her to live until now. Philomel has yet to figure out that she cannot will herself into being a clone of her mother, and it may seem to her at first that she could've been just like her mother if she wasn't a Cavalier, but that isn't really the case. Philomel and her mother are different people, and Philomel's newfound love of excitement and energy does not mean she's suddenly become someone else. And it doesn't mean she's turning into her father, either. One of these days, Philomel will realize that she doesn't need to suppress parts of herself to become someone she can be proud of.

Philomel will try to keep her identities completely separate at first, although she'll never be terribly successful. Being a Cavalier is the most important part of her life, and she can't be two different people at once. She can't keep her experiences as Terra from influencing her life as Philomel. It's impossible. Philomel will always feel a little robbed, though. It's nice to be needed and have real, serious duties. She loves that. But she doesn't rule the pattern of her life anymore, and she'll always miss her quiet, steady life.

Why Terra?: Because Philomel is like Birnam wood. She is quiet and dumpy and slow, but when she moves, someone is going to die. Eventually.

I wanted to interpret "the forest" as meaning something besides a bunch of trees. It's boring and uncreative, and forests are much more than that. Philomel's love of busy work comes from that conception of the forest-- it's busy, even when it looks empty and still to the human eye. Insects have crazy complicated societies in piles of dead leaves and all of that stuff. I decided to run with that idea, though I'm not sure how visible it is now, since I've gone through several revisions since then. I can't forget she's a teenage girl, either, and that I need to give her some immaturity and space to grow. So Philomel has become a girl who is confident in who she thinks she is, but who she thinks she is isn't all of herself. Like it's impossible to know everything about life in a forest at once, I suppose. She is more complicated than she ever wanted to be.

Other:

Family: Philomel lives with her mother, Tessa Selyck. Philomel's father, Neal Plugh, has never lived with his wife and daughter. Despite the separate living arrangements and the fact Philomel bears her mother's surname, there is not and has never been any lack of love in Tessa and Neal's relationship. They love each other very much; Neal's just never around and cannot bear to move out of his bachelor pad. Neal is a very enthusiastic freelance photographer. He fancies himself an explorer of dangerous and exotic ruins, but he really just travels around taking photos of tourist sites to sell to travel guide publishers. Philomel regularly gets stupid photos of her father posing in front of statues and strangely-shaped rocks in the mail. Neal does not fail to notice that his daughter thinks his passions are stupid. He thinks she's going through a phase. Tessa has long phone calls with her husband in the wee hours of the morning somewhat often when he's away on a trip. She sounds like a giggly lovestruck teenager when she's on the phone with Neal, which Philomel absolutely can't stand, preferring to pretend that her normally calm, reasoned, and patient mother is always calm, reasoned, and patient. Philomel is pretty sure infatuation holds the marriage together. Tessa could not possibly be as fond of Neal as she is if he was bouncing off their walls rather than his own.

Tessa works from home as a private tutor for small children with learning disabilities and is totally Zen most of the time. She's glad Philomel can keep herself happy. Philomel gets her slow pace from her mother, and together they are like happy turtles. Unlike Philomel, though, Tessa has arrived at her happy turtle ways through the process of maturity and life experience. Nothing threatens her calm most of the time. Philomel loves her mother very much and wants to be just like her when she grows up, no matter what. Tessa, on the other hand, thinks that Philomel's view of self-discovery as a step to fall down on or else o'erleap is silly, but she never mentions it, since adolescence is the time for such silliness. Tessa was silly then, too. She believes that her daughter has to figure out how to be herself on her own. It's not as if Philomel's adolescent identity crisis could put anyone in danger. She isn't the sort of girl to experiment with drugs or alcohol or anything.

Notes:

I don't get your Birnam Wood reference, Pyry.

In Macbeth, it was prophesied that "Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until / Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him."

Philomel hopes she doesn't need to be cut down in order to move.

Excuses, excuses

I am a terrible designer of things, especially of imaginary things belonging to imaginary people in my head. So if you think my physical description sucks and/or is missing something important, please do speak up. My visualization skills are pathetic, so I'd really appreciate it. I'm not attached to anything about Philomel physically, I just want her to look plain in some way or another. She has very little presence, so it'd help if she doesn't have striking features.

You changed her challenge! What's with that?

From Macbeth: "As I did stand my watch upon the hill, / I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, / The wood began to move."

I tweaked it a little, and then I tweaked it a little more to avoid a certain common euphemism.

For some reason, I'm interested in learning about this Frog character. All I know is that Philomel apparently loves him dearly.

Frog is a reluctant heroic swordsamphibian. He is dignified and gallant and completely awesome. If you want proof, right this way. It is absolutely not something you need to read.

Hey Pyry, pull justification for Philomel's unusual sense of time out of your a**. Besides it just feeling right, that is.

ROSALIND. I pray you, what is't o'clock?
ORLANDO. You should ask me what time o' day; there's no clock in the forest.
--

I'd love crit. Words cannot express how much I'd love crit. A marking, though, is fine too.

I'm really interested in how she comes off to other people. I did write Philomel with Terra in mind, but I'd like her to be playable as an ordinary civilian if I can't make it.

There is no useless crit. I can't easily see where the holes are because I've written it. You make good points. Thank you.

The overdue fines bothered her because they make her pace a flaw. I clarified that, I hope.

I have no idea how the extra fashion got there or how I missed the mistake, but thank you for catching it.

I've changed the first virtue, but I haven't changed passive-aggressive. I understand what you mean, but passive-aggressive is still technically right. I'll try to come up with another name for it if I can.

As for poor team player, I threw in some things to help clarify, and I'll think about what else needs to be there. I've stuck pretty much everything about Philomel as a Cavalier in the cavalier section, but you're right, that part is a bit unclear. Being a Cavalier will make her method of passive-aggressiveness very unwise, since expressing frustration through sloppiness when your life is at stake is stupid and defeats the point of the defending people thing. It's far too petty. On the other hand, Philomel has no idea what to do or how to do it, so she can't really go off and do things herself. That would be irresponsible and stupid. So she'll just have to suffer though working at foreign paces and hoping that her frustration doesn't give her holes in her guard. Which it totally does.


Thank you very much! Crit is very appreciated. I'd be quite happy to crit you back.

DS, when I said "please crit me I don't care if you don't have horrible things to say," I didn't mean you had to break out the hug. It's nice, but. You know. Your points are good, and I will get to editing. Right after I tell you this story, which may or may not actually have happened.




One day, Philomel's father was in town, and Philomel was at his house for bonding time, which always was and still is hilariously awkward because he forbids her from doing anything while he does something irritating and boring. Sometimes he asks his daughter what she wants to do, but she never really asserts that she'd like to stop sitting around while he talks to her about pyramids and temples and pyramid temples and stuff. Philomel's father had an SNES when she was young. Actually, he still has it because he has no life and clutters everything, but it's now caked with dust and unusable. This time, Philomel was watching him play Chrono Trigger. Yeah, whatever, frog in the forest, great hero, broken sword, of course Dad, of course. Then Frog had his flashback about Cyrus, and she immediately fell in love. Her father totally missed the moment, and Philomel went back to being bored once her father got to Prehistory. Her first love, lost forever.

Then her father got her a DS and Chrono Trigger and some other RPGs for some holiday. Philomel remembered her first love and played very hard until her mom came and teased her about being her father's daughter. Philomel decided to bother all the tavern people about Frog instead, which broke her heart because they call Frog ugly and weird, but it also made her feel less like her father, who speeds through games like an idiot. She may play video games, but she plays them like her mother. Okay, okay, like her mother would. Shut up.

I do know Chrono Trigger was released when Philomel would be too young to remember it at all. Her father was playing it when it was already pretty old in video game years. Just so you know.

Thank you!

There is no bust on her desk, but she does have a nice Shakespeare bookmark.

She thinks he's irresponsible and whim-driven. Her parents have the sort of relationship where she can't be sour at him for abandoning her poor mother for his dreams, since he calls all the time and it's probably for the best he doesn't even pretend to be a responsible parent. She just doesn't understand him or what he does or why he's happy doing what he does. Philomel tries not to think very hard about who he is to her as much as possible.

Her father loves her and thinks she's adorably shy and cute and needs A Father's Love and encouragement to draw her out of her homely shell. He rather likes thinking about her that way. That's why he sends her photos of places he visits, to encourage her to seize the day and live life freely and stuff. Philomel has no desire to tell him it makes him look like a crazy idiot and that she does not really want to go explore the world. He might decide she needs him around more often or something if she corrected him.

Critstuffs!

To start off with: I'd like to see some expansion in the loved/hated foods area. You included reasons with the foods you put down which lead me to think there's more than one sort of meal that could fall into the categories. For example, she doesn't like lobster because it's hard to eat - can that be expanded to more than one kind of shellfish (why lobster specifically? What about crab? Would she eat lobster if it were already shelled for her?), or encompass other foods that might also overcomplicated?

The next thing that came to my attention: Under the reading hobby, you might consider mentioning specifically what sort of books Philomel enjoys reading. We know Shakespeare is one, but what else? Does she enjoy old fairy tales, modern fiction, historical accounts, science fiction? This is something the shop owners have brought up a couple times to people, so it's definitely something they look for; the sort of media that a character consumes can speak a lot about them.

(The same might be said for the RPG hobby as well; you have a good take on things, going specifically into the character details of how she plays and why, but it might be worth recounting what sort of titles are her favorites.)

Getting into her virtues: It seems like these are out of order. "Confident" references "Slow and Steady", and so should come after that so that readers aren't scratching their heads at the reference.

I'd also like to know a bit more of the why behind her virtues. Don't be confused, I think you did a great job picking them out - they mesh together very nicely, and form a strong character - but I find myself curious as to where and how she learned them. The way they're designed, for some reason, makes me think she must have had a very strong role model in her life as a child, and I'd like to know more about it.

One thing that interests me about her character flaws is how she doesn't seem to fall in line with the North American time culture. The way that she approaches work and ignores time limits is typical of, say, Mediterranean or Central American or Arabian cultures. I wonder about her punctuality? Is she someone inclined to arrive to events "on her own time?" If so, you may want to consider instilling some more cultural influences from one of these places into her character - maybe not necessarily writing her as having lived in one of these cultures, but maybe creating a significant NPC presence in her life that would have influenced her (a family friend, or maybe a family that Philomel's mother worked with a lot?) It's an idea, anyway.

I'm also curious: If she agrees to something when she's under stress that she really didn't want to, will she stick to her word later on, or shrug off the responsibility for it?

I'm not going to poke at appearances or the like, since frankly, visual design tends to be where I'm weakest. Her challenge, though, I have to admit - and this is purely a personal opinion - I am not fond of. Mostly because my brain lives in the gutter, and without context, the challenge sounds uhm. Suggestive, in a way that only the internet can make it. However, that's probably not a good enough reason to switch it around, so unless you can find something that's just as character-appropriate, I'd ignore this bit.

One thing I seriously, seriously love: How you tied in Philomel's character into the interpretation of Terra. You have an amazing concept there, and it's one I could see instantly upon reading your explanation. Seriously; that pulled everything together for me, so really well done!

Overall, I think you have the makings of an exceptionally strong character concept here. The only thing I really want to see is perhaps a bit more diversification and expansion - it's hard to get a really good look at the whole character through these forms, it's more like peeking into a window and seeing a few scraps of the most essential pieces of character, but there's definitely some pieces that I haven't learned about Philomel at all yet. For example, what are friendships like to her? Does she make enemies as well? Boyfriends/girlfriends, has she ever had any? Try to tie these things into the personality points already available so that we can get an idea of how her virtues and flaws will tie into interactions during roleplay, and it'll help develop the character more fully.

But seriously, you've done a great job. Good luck!

Hello, this is a bump to rescue my quest from the depths of page three, where fresh eyes may not go. I'd still really love to know what people think. There has been some editing recently, so even stale eyes may have fresh crit. Or something.

I hate making contentless bumps, so I'll just say some totally irrelevant things I care about because I'm crazy. And a completist. You don't have to read this post for any reason ever. Unless you are also crazy, you might want to pretend this is just a bump. Seriously, nothing I say in this post matters.

The word "philomel" comes from Greek mythology. Philomela was a princess of Athens who got turned into a nightingale because mortal women in Greek mythology either have sex with gods or turn into animals. Sometimes both. I am generalizing, but it is sort of the way things go. Anyway, Philomel has nothing to do with Philomela.

People besides Shakespeare have also used Philomel to refer to nightingale in their poems and stuff. To show this, I have here a couple of quotes from various poems with philomel in them. They also have nothing to do with Philomel the character. I'm just weird. Quotes link to full text.

"Returning home at evening, with an ear / Catching the notes of Philomel."

"The lofty whispering forest, / Where rapturously Philomel invoketh the night / And million eager throats the morn."

How could I not make five million Macbeth references? I know that play far too well for someone who has no reason to know it particularly well.

Thank you for your crit! I think what you said about Passive-Aggressive helped me see it from a different angle than I'd been seeing it before. I've broken up one of Philomel's flaws, which I think clarifies and focuses some of the elements you addressed. Begins to address your crit, at the very least. Thank you again!

But isn't crit just a series of targeted questions anyway? Whatever you want to call it, I do always appreciate feedback. Thank you! I don't have time to try to work these things into the profile itself, but I do have answers, so I'll just state them here for now.

Philomel has great love for maturity, so she tends to gravitate to people on a higher level than she is over her own peer group, but that isn't to say she actively dislikes her peer group or gives them the cold shoulder or anything like that. She's on vague good acquaintance terms with the average peer, I'd say. She does the social niceties and probably isn't widely disliked, but she isn't really anyone's friend, either. She's just that nice kid over there, for most people. Sorry this answer isn't very in-depth and is generally somewhat boring, but I've got things to do tonight, and "tonight" is actually really very soon.

Thank you, again.

EDIT: I've done a couple quick edits. They are minuscule.