Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2019 13:40:49 GMT -5
Who am I? Just a conscience!
Introduce yourself
Hey, howdy, hey! The name's Jay, and I wished upon a star from prior knowledge. My other imaginary friends include Jiminy Cricket. Seeker and I are so very eager to join the Worlds of Disney circle of life!
Character basics
Character name: Dr. Grant Seeker
Age: 33
Species: Human
Birthplace: Philadelphia, PA
Media: Dinosaur (the ride), Countdown to Extinction (ride tie-in novel).
Custom title: A Heck of a Paleontologist
Why'd you pick this character? I think Seeker is one of the pre-show hosts at WDW with the most personality and he’s a pretty sharp contrast to the character I’ve already got around here, so I just thought it’d be fun to pick him up and see where he goes!
Character appearance (try to get at least 2 or 3 sentences for each section)
Hair description: Seeker has dark brown hair that he always keeps cut short, making it the most professional aspect of his appearance in contrast to his choice of outfits.
Facial description/mood/expressions: Seeker has light blue eyes and dark eyebrows, which tend to make his expressions always seem overstated. He’s extremely easy to read - his expressions reflect his emotions in the most dramatic way possible, as though he were perpetually overacting in a comedy. His facial structure is long and relatively square; the way it’s set would make him look stern were he not so lighthearted. Seeker doesn’t often take things too seriously - other than his research, that is, but even then he likes to make it fun because he genuinely enjoys his work - and so he’s often smiling. At least, he is when he’s not being chewed out by his higher-ups.
Clothing style: Dr. Seeker doesn’t dress as professionally as one might expert given his occupation. His clothing is usually oversized, and his ties are always changing and very, very tacky. His shirt is often untucked and he wears his lab coat at all hours. His socks are equally tacky, though they can only be seen if he pulls up his pant leg to show you, which he will always do without prompting because he wants everyone to know that he has great taste in fun footwear. This hardly counts as clothing, but he also carries around a T-Rex hand puppet more often than he should. General impressions when viewing his outfits include: ‘this man has no idea how to dress himself’ and also ‘this man has no idea how to use a washer’. Both statements are true.
Body build: Seeker is painfully average: 5’10” and of average build with no muscle to speak of. Despite this he still manages to come across as ‘awkward’ through literally all of his body language. It’s as though he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.
Any unique traits (optional): None worth noting.
Original character analysis (In your own words and please be thorough)
Personality:
Seeker is an absolute work-aholic, which largely stems from the fact that he genuinely loves what he does. Dinosaurs are his passion - they’re the number one thing he cares about, to the point that he tends to neglect his own needs in the pursuit of learning more about them. He’ll go days without sleeping and skip out on meals entirely if he’s caught up in something, because he has to see it through to the end. He’s incredibly ambitious - he’ll never settle for less when he feels that he can do more, even if it isn’t entirely realistic. He’s hardly discouraged, either; when he fails he just tries again or starts something new.
He’s stubborn, and never seems to know when enough is enough until the very last second. The risks are worth the reward, and he always makes his decisions in the heat of the moment rather than planning ahead. Because of this he tends to neglect those around him, not thinking of safety when it comes time to make ambitious leaps. He doesn’t actively not care about people, though. He just gets caught up in everything else and lost in his research. He does feel bad when things go wrong and attempts to rectify things. That being said, he doesn’t really take no for an answer, and if he wants to go through with something then he’ll do it and just hope for the best. He always has faith that things will work out even when it seems close to disaster.
Seeker doesn’t always take things seriously, be it safety or the rules. He’ll bypass security measures to get information without thinking about it. He disregards direct orders and warnings. He can’t sit still and can hardly focus when it comes to anything other than his pet project at the moment, and often jumps from topic to topic wildly. He gets so caught up in one thing that he forgets about everything else, and it makes him appear foolish and inattentive when really he’s just got a lot of manic energy all directed in one location at any given time. He jokes around a lot - he’s having the time of his life at the Dino Institute and he wants everyone else to be as excited as he is.
History:
Seeker grew up in Philadelphia to a rather average family consisting of two parents and one older sister (who later moved out, got married and had one son, Seeker’s only nephew). Throughout all of his childhood he was fascinated by dinosaurs - most children are, at one point or another - an interest which was fueled by the monthly trips he took to the Academy of Natural Sciences, where his father worked. His grandparents, once a year, would also take Grant and his sister on a road trip to go out camping - Seeker always asked to stop at any Natural History museum possible along the way. His sister shared his interest, and became a Paleontologist when she entered college. She even married another Paleontologist. This only further fueled Grant’s desire to work closely with dinosaurs - it would be a family tradition.
As he got older, his interest didn’t wane, and he enrolled in the University of Chicago once he had graduated high school. Despite his rather poor grades in virtually every other subject (Grant is a hands-on learner, and found it difficult to focus and sit still on lessons regarding subjects he had no interest in), his stellar grades in science and mathematics, not to mention enrollment in honors classes and glowing recommendations from the teachers that supported his interest in paleontology, he was accepted into the school’s Earth Sciences program, and then pursued a graduate’s degree in Paleontology. He began work in a museum shortly after obtaining his degree, but was left restless.
By chance, he was noticed by the newly-founded Dinosaur Institute in Orlando, Florida, a state-of-the-art museum seeking to open what they considered the ‘natural history museum of the future’ by truly looking into the past to study dinosaurs in the flesh. Grant jumped at the opportunity to join up with them, and worked hand in hand with brilliant scientists from all over the world as they developed the CTX Time Rovers, vehicles capable of transporting passengers to the past and then back through the use of tachyon particles. Under the supervision of Dr. Marsh, the Director of the Dino Institute, Seeker helped run the Tim Rovers as visitors to the Dino Institute paid to come take a visit into the prehistoric era to witness the creatures alive and up close. The Dino Institute became so popular that the area surrounding it began to be shaped by it - a theme park, Dinoland USA, opened up right next door, an attempt by brothers Hester and Chester to cash in on the popularity of the institute.
Despite the project’s massive success and popularity, Grant wasn’t satisfied. He didn’t want to just look at dinosaurs for a few minutes, he wanted to study them personally; but of course he couldn’t bring his lab equipment back to the past with him, and he certainly couldn’t stay behind for that long. The only solution was to bring a dinosaur back to the future. He selected an iguanodon as his target, took a little ‘unauthorized field trip’ back to tag him with a locator, and was promptly prohibited from stepping foot into another Time Rover.
But that didn’t deter him. Though it was strictly against the Institute’s policies to endanger the life of guests by sending them anywhere other than the early Cretaceous period, Seeker bypassed the coordinates lock and instead sent a rover to the late Cretaceous to pick up the Iguanodon. Following a close call that nearly ended with the rover and everyone inside of it being destroyed by an asteroid, Seeker brought them back to the present with one extra passenger. Extra-large passenger, that is. Seeker was able to find the dino roaming the Institute’s halls and bring it to safety before the Orange County PD could get to it, but Dr. Marsh was less than thrilled about the whole mess. Seeker managed to convince her of the dinosaur’s worth, and she reluctantly agreed to let him keep the dinosaur in an outside area of the Institute as Seeker’s personal project. Seeker works with his sister, brother-in-law and nephew now to better understand living dinosaurs - and now that he’s stuck in a completely alternate version of the Orlando (and the Dinosaur Institute) he knows, he’s determined to get the rovers actually working and do it all over again. If they could do it once back in his universe then they can do it again here, surely.
Ambitions:
Seeker firmly believes that the answer to understanding our present and future lie in the past; after all, history does tend to repeat itself. But he doesn’t want to study the recent past. Or even the human past. Oh, no. He wants to study dinosaurs. Granted, he already studies dinosaurs- he’s even been able to take a trip into the past to physically view them on several occasions- but that still isn’t enough for him. He wants to get up close and personal with dinosaurs. He wants to bring a dinosaur straight into present-day Orlando, Florida. Paleontology has always been his dream, but studying the bones of the past doesn’t answer nearly as much as studying live specimens does. Seeker doesn’t particularly care about fame or recognition, he just cares about making groundbreaking discoveries and, more specifically, better understanding dinosaurs.
Strengths & abilities:
Though all impressions indicate otherwise, Seeker is actually very intelligent - at least concerning science and mathematics. There’s a reason why he was chosen to work on the biggest scientific breakthrough of the century, after all. He’s a genius when it comes to Paleontology and knows more about time travel than most human beings ever will. He’s good with computers, of course, as he has to operate the technology the Time Rovers use on a daily basis and furthermore is very good at getting into places (and information) he shouldn’t be. Perhaps it’s because of how persuasive he can be, or perhaps it’s because he has no qualms about sneaking around, hacking things and breaking the rules. Either way, Seeker almost always knows more than he’s supposed to. He’s a very experienced Time Rover controller and has good coordination as a result. Oh, and he can draw. But not well.
Flaws:
Seeker’s not really good with… empathy. He doesn’t connect with people very well. Maybe it’s because he cares more about dinosaurs, or maybe it’s because he thinks of the world in terms of matters of science rather than matters of emotional connection. He pretty much ignores his nephew entirely until he starts taking interest in Grant’s dinosaur project. He doesn’t so much as apologize for nearly killing the dozen or so people he sent back into an asteroid’s path. He’s impulsive, and looks before he leaps - the consequences of his actions are never something that cross his mind. He also puts his own research before anything else. He doesn’t mind breaking rules countless times, even if it endangers others - to achieve some sort of scientific goal. He doesn’t take things as seriously as he ought to and oftentimes has a hard time focusing. He's a bit childish, if you ask some people, and very annoying if you ask others.
Likes:
Dinosaurs. This… is really his main interest and literally everything else is secondary. He likes bright, tacky patterns and is the type of person to probably wear Hawaiian print shirts under his lab coat. Likes coffee although he by no means needs the extra energy unless he’s staying up for literal days on end which he is prone to do. He has a closet passion for puppetry.
Dislikes:
Seeker doesn’t have a lot of active dislikes; he just has distaste for the things that impede him. He gets restless sitting still, impatient when dealing with safety measures, and gets a bit grumpy when he has to sit back rather than getting hands-on with a project. He does strongly dislike being belittled or disregarded; he’s proud of his position and knowledge and wants a chance to properly put it to use.
Fears:
Dr. Marsh. And getting fired. The two are closely connected. Really he just fears his progress being impeded and doesn’t want to stick around to witness the negative consequences of his actions. He fears missed opportunities and a lack of understanding, and fears not personally doing enough or having a hand in something important. He fears being considered a fool or having his mistakes reflect badly on his career.
Anything to add?:
Not that I can think of!
RP SAMPLE:
See Jiminy.