Firefly OC

[indigoneutrino]

I was going to post this to Yahoo Answers, but it's too long (knowing how much I waffle on, that should not be a surprise). So, I'm going to post it here and might link to it elsewhere.

Is my character a Mary Sue? (Firefly OC, very detailed question)

I’d like some advice on a character I’m writing for a Firefly fic. The story is set a couple of months after the events of the Serenity movie, but I’m making it slightly AU in that I’m basing many aspects of it off of the Doctor Who book The Coming of the Terraphiles by Michael Moorcock (probably best known for his Elric of Melnibone and Jerry Cornelius series). That means the ‘Verse is going to be slightly weirder, quirkier and more Moorcockian. That’s where my OC comes in. She isn’t, strictly speaking, an entirely original character as she is based off a character who is made reference to frequently in the Terraphiles book, but she never actually makes an appearance. I wanted to do an alternative take on how the story could progress in the Firefly verse instead of the Doctor Who one, which means changing and twisting  lot of things while trying to keep the essence of the story intact. Therefore, I’ve decided to make my version of Diana of Loondoon (as she was named by Moorcock) much more central to the story. However, I will be building up the character almost entirely from scratch save for a few key details given in the book, so I’d like to know what people think of her.

At this point, I’d like to warn you I will probably give away the entire plot of the story in this character profile, so if you’d like to give me advice it’s probably best that you don’t particularly care about reading the story, or at least you don’t care about spoilers. If I’m honest, I’m not expecting that many people will read it because it could be alienating to people who haven’t read the book (which is pretty niche already) but I’m more interested in writing it for my own enjoyment than anything. I would, however, appreciate some feedback on this as I plan on tackling some themes and giving my characters certain characteristics that are usually frowned upon in fanfiction, but given that I’m already planning on making this story highly unusual I wanted to set myself a challenge of making them work.

So, here goes…

Profile

Name: Diana Bond aka Diana of Londinium (in the DW book it was Loondoon, in my story it’s Londinium to fit in with Firefly)

D.O.B: May 27^th 2488, making her 30 at the time of the story

Appearance: slim, a little on the skinny side, not curvy. Black hair that is naturally wavy and reaches to just below her shoulders, but she usually has it pinned up. Pale skin befitting someone who spends a lot of time indoors. Bluish-green eyes. Could be described as pretty in a way that is more ‘cute’ than ‘beautiful’.

Occupation: professional hat maker, considered to be rather fashionable and upmarket (like in the book). Hence she refers to herself as ‘Diana of Londinium’ as opposed to ‘Diana Bond’ so as to make her business sound more elite.

Upbringing: Born to a well off, upper-class Alliance politician and his wife, who is a painter. She lives a fairly sheltered and privileged lifestyle on Londinium, having a private tutor instead of formal schooling so she is able to accompany her father on political trips. However, her travels do not necessarily educate her about the wider ‘Verse and the furthest she ever travelled from the core planets during her childhood was Persephone.

Family: Her father is Nathaniel Bond, a Parliamentary candidate for the Winchelsea district of Londinium, who is elected to office for three out of four parliaments during Diana’s lifetime. Before becoming a politician he already had a military background, and when war breaks out he gains a commission as Captain in the Alliance army, and is eventually promoted to Major and later to Lieutenant-Colonel. He almost survives the entire war, but dies at Serenity Valley when Diana is 23. Diana’s mother – Artemis Bond nee Lynd - was a painter, but developed brain cancer when Diana was six and eventually died from it when Diana was nine. Diana was obviously sad about this at the time, but she got over it and barely thinks about it by the time the story takes place. Diana does take after her mother with her artistic streak and her creative philosophy when making hats – design the hat to fit the personality of the wearer.

Political philosophy: despite her father being a moderate conservative member of Parliament, she is actually quite liberal. She supports unification insofar as it should allow all planets to be governed equally and by the same rules, but is not wholly satisfied with how it is put into practise and believes each planet should have some degree of autonomy or devolution. However, nor does she wholly support the Independents, as she believes many of them to be borderline anarchists and she doesn’t see how complete independence for each individual planet could lead to a fair and just society. She is a pacifist and wholly opposed to the war, but she is still proud of her father fighting in it to defend his beliefs. She believes that the conflict over the independence of the rim worlds should have been resolved with diplomacy and negotiation, not violence.

Religion: Raised a Catholic, but eventually becomes an apathetic deist, at best. She believes it’s possible that God exists, but doesn’t consider it important as she doubts he does anything to interfere with the affairs of humans. There are several points in the story where this belief is challenged, but ultimately her conviction in it holds strong. By the end of the story she’s leaning much more strongly towards atheist.

Style of dress: usually rather fashionable if a little eccentric. Her clothes are always made from high quality materials such as silk and linen, but she won’t wear fur. She views hats as a form of self-expression and very often wears one (which she always makes herself). She has at least fifty hats akin to the kind worn at Ascot, which she likes to wear on a day-to-day basis, and dozens more less formal designs. Her hats are often very elaborate and seen as distasteful by some, although to others they are the height of fashion. Occasionally, she chooses not to wear a hat to ‘let her head breathe’, and for the same reason will sometimes wear her hair down instead of pinned up. Her colour scheme is mostly pastel and neutral.

Personality: despite her privileged upbringing, she tries hard to be non-judgmental and is not a snob, but often comes across as conceited and a little self-absorbed. She is fair-minded and tries to treat all people equally, although she’s a little ashamed to admit to herself that she sometimes has double standards. Has been very naïve in the past and has suffered for it, but yet she still hasn’t learnt from her mistakes. She’s very aware of this and feels like a fool for it, but she’s reluctant to admit it even to herself. Even though she has a hard time trusting people, she sometimes does so despite her better judgement because she wants to be proved wrong. She can superficially appear to be very friendly and outgoing, but when somebody tries to connect with her on a deeper level she closes off completely and becomes very distant and cold. Is rather rude and blunt when she’s feeling her most vulnerable and defensive. Can be a little careless with words and doesn’t always realise when she may cause offence. Very articulate and eloquent when dealing with logic and hard facts, but struggles to communicate her emotions. Her most effective way of expressing herself is through making hats. She is very perceptive and good at reading people, and her best way of summing up a person’s personality is by deciding what sort of hat would suit them. Does have a rather child-like playful streak to her, which is masking a lot of self doubt and insecurity. Considered by most to be eccentric. Although she is creative, she is also very rational-minded and often tries to analyse her own thoughts and emotions, and when she finds herself thinking or feeling things she can’t justify she tries to suppress them. This over-rationalisation of everything is the reason for so many of her emotional and mental issues.

Sum her up in a sentence: posh hippy with a peculiar love of hats.

Backstory

In the latter stages of the war when the Independents were believed to have been almost beaten, the Browncoats launched a surprise attack on an Alliance army base on Fortrand which took its defenders by surprise. The base fell quite quickly and proved to be a small but significant victory for the Browncoats, even if it didn’t impact the eventual overall outcome of the war. Due to the location of the base and that it was believed to be in ‘safe’ territory, Alliance forces were not particularly concentrated there and it was considered as more of a reserve post. Several officers’ families were housed there, and Diana was also staying at the base at the time of the attack. Most of the Independents played fairly and treated the prisoners they took well, but there were also several more who were either bitter that they were losing the war, or had only joined the Browncoats in the first place because they were anarchists looking for a fight and not out of any real ideology. There were several assaults on the civilians in the base, and Diana herself was subjected to gang rape. It was also at this point that she first encounters Captain Jerry Cornelius (from Terraphiles) – the man who completely changes her life forever. He ‘rescues’ her in that after turning up at the base and killing several of the more out-of-control renegades, he then shoots two of the men who attacked Diana and leaves the third one alive to face a court martial after breaking both his wrists, an ankle, four ribs and his jaw.

This leaves Diana in a pretty messed-up place. Firstly, her tendency to over-rationalise stops her from fully dealing with what happened. She never allows herself to cry or break down because she doesn’t want to concede any kind of victory to her attackers, but yet she never gets any satisfaction from two of them being killed immediately and the third sentenced to execution. She never gets any kind of closure because she refuses to acknowledge her own emotions, which is the reason for her beginning to act so cold and emotionally distant from people. Secondly, she is grateful to Cornelius for saving her, worried that now she owes him something and perhaps she can’t repay him, intrigued and confused by who he is and where he came from, and also scared and intimidated because of what she witnessed him do. Through a series of events following this, Diana and Cornelius end up in a very odd kind of relationship with each other. She goes through a period of questioning whether or not she trusts him, if she does in fact owe him anything and if so how she can repay him, and have they actually ended up in love with each other. She eventually concludes that they probably have. However, she won’t stand to let him touch her except for the occasional hug, and she doesn’t even know what he really looks like (his character in the Terraphiles book always wears a mask, and he won’t remove it even for her). Bizarrely, that arrangement suits them just fine due to Diana having issues she won’t face up to and Cornelius already being the kind of person who avoids deep emotional interaction. They both try and treat their feelings for each other as objective and quantifiable, which although unusual, actually makes the arrangement work for both of them. It does call into question how genuine their feelings are and can they really stand up to the events that are going to unfold, but that’s another subplot which is dealt with in the story. (In Terraphiles Diana is just described as Cornelius’ ‘long lost love’. I intend to give it more development than that.)

More about Cornelius now and his role in the story…

Cornelius is a human and a time-traveller who sails the Multiverse on a galleon-shaped spaceship called the Paine. His origin in time is unknown, but he has assembled a crew of many different species from various planets and timestreams. He comes to the ‘Verse because he believes the time is ready for the colonists there to no longer be isolated from the rest of the Multiverse and the myriad of races that inhabit it, but should start to expand out into the stars,

And this is the basis for the story. When the ‘Verse was first terraformed, built underground into one of the planets was the ‘Covert Matrix’. This was a system that generated extra-dimensional gravity and electroweak forces in such a way that caused the space surrounding the ‘Verse to warp, and as such become almost impossible to traverse. The Paine is one of only two ships in existence capable of crossing it. The intention behind building the Matrix into the ‘Verse was that the Alliance wished to keep humankind safe from outside interference at a time of such uncertainty and instability, and so put out the myth that alien life did not exist and prevented alien life from making contact. The Matrix ensured that the ‘Verse was free to grow and for humankind to settle into their new home without external threats, but time-travellers such as Cornelius knew that eventually the ‘Verse would reach a level of stability where it was ready to know of the existence of the outside world. He believes that the right time would come when the war ended and the Alliance took complete control of the ‘Verse, and so he intends to find the location of the Covert Matrix and shut it down.

However, Diana doesn’t agree with him. Following her father’s death and the aftermath of the war, she convinces Cornelius that the ‘Verse is now in a more fragile state than it has ever been – with things such as the Reavers and the insurgent Dust Devils confirming that – and that he should wait. He agrees, and then says in that case there is no point to him staying in the ‘Verse any longer. He will return when things have settled down, and offers Diana the chance to come with him and see the rest of the Multiverse.

Initially, she agrees, but when it comes down to it she chickens out. She still has so many issues she has to face up to on top of dealing with her father’s death, and she isn’t sure if she could handle leaving her home to be with Cornelius and his crew of aliens. She says she’ll stay, and he tells her fine, but he’ll be back when the time is ready. She lets him go, and spends the next eight years regretting that decision, convinced that by the time he returns she’ll be dead and that’s she’s thrown away her chance to see the Multiverse.

However, then there’s the Miranda incident. The revelation of what the Alliance have been secretly doing is something of a wake-up call for her: it isn’t stability the ‘Verse is waiting for, it’s liberation from the Alliance regime and a chance for everybody to see the truth for themselves. She believes that now the time has come to reveal the truth about the other races out in space, and with Cornelius gone she takes matters into her own hands. Cornelius told her how to locate the Covert Matrix – shortly after the ‘Verse was first terraformed an orrery (scale model of the ‘Verse) was built that contained its location. To get the location to be revealed, the orrery’s computer-controlled rotation mechanisms would have to be activated using a certain cipher, which Diana has a copy of saved to a silicon chip. Diana tracks down the orrery and finds it in the possession of antiques collector Orion Tarbutton, and uses the power of suggestion to convince him to make a gift of it to the King of Londinium at that year’s U-Day celebrations (she can’t convince him to remove it from his high-security vault for any other purpose, and so this is the only way she will get close to it). Diana then finds someone who she knows will be attending the U-Day festival (in this case, the Banning-Cannons from the Terraphiles book) and makes a hat for Mrs Enola Banning-Cannon (a relative of Orion Tarbutton) to wear to the event. Although the hat appears to be purely decorative, it is in fact a satellite-dish style transmitter which will be able to transmit the cipher to activate the orrery and reveal the location of the Matrix (although Diana keeps this strictly secret).

Now for a bit more about the plot…

The Banning-Cannons are terraforming tycoons who helped terraform most of the ‘Verse, and as Enola Banning-Cannon strikes up a personal relationship with Diana (who starts to act as her personal hat maker), Diana accompanies them on one of their annual tours of the planets they terraformed. It’s during this tour that Diana first encounters Mal on Persephone at Eavesdown Docks. They get off to a bit of a bad start (I’ve already written this part in chapter two http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7616617/1/Into_The_Second_Aether) but neither of them realise the significance they will eventually play in each other’s lives at this point. Mal goes back to Serenity and Diana goes back to the BCs without giving it a second thought. It’s also during this tour that Diana makes Enola the transmitter hat, but while they are staying on Beaumonde the hat is stolen. As Enola kicks up a fuss and the local police search for it, they miss the scheduled departure of the touring cruiser they were travelling on. The hat eventually turns up in a rather ruined and battered state. Diana promises Enola she’ll make her a new one, but the silicon chip and transmitting system have been removed from the hat, which indicates to Diana someone else is onto her and is also after the orrery and the location of the Matrix.

Due to having become stranded, the BC’s and Diana are forced to find passage that will get them back to Londinium in time for U-Day. They end up becoming passengers on board Serenity as the crew needed extra income to make up the fuel costs to get them to Londinium to complete their next job. Incidentally, that job was given to them by Badger and is to steal the orrery that Diana also needs. Of course, this isn’t information they disclose to each other, but suspicions are aroused on both sides when Diana asks Mal to take a detour to Rhodes so she can restock on hat-making supplies (buy more material to make a replacement transmitter and get a new silicon chip since she has the cipher memorised) and when the BCs want to know what the crew’s business is on Londinium and they get a very sketchy answer. After their prickly first encounter, Mal and Diana are not happy to be on the same boat as each other, but realise that they both need either the passage or the money.

Things go reasonably smoothly on board – save for an incident where Enola begins spouting that she believes the Miranda report was a hoax and Browncoat propaganda, which obviously doesn’t go down well with the crew; and an incident where Diana and Inara don’t see eye to eye and Mal decides to get involved – but any repercussions of those events don’t have chance to occur before the ship comes under threat from Reavers. The crew are all preparing to fight or die, when Cornelius’ ship returns at the last minute and his force cannons blow the Reavers out of the sky. Cornelius realised that something was going on and decided it must be time to come back. He requests permission to board Serenity and discuss a further course of action with Mal – who is completely confused as to what it going on but doesn’t see that he has much choice other than to agree.

Diana and Cornelius are frosty with each other at first – she’s angry with him for making her wait seven years to see him again and for not even trying to send her any kind of message, but eventually they warm up to each other again. The truth finally comes out about both Mal and Diana’s true intentions. Cornelius theorises that somebody – most likely whoever Badger plans to sell the orrery to – is also looking for the location of the Matrix, and whoever they are and whatever their motives, it’s vital that Cornelius gets to the Matrix first. He enlists the help of Mal and his crew to do that, and in turn Diana agrees to help them carry out their plan to steal the orrery.

And the plot goes from there…

Please let me know what you think of this; if there are any aspects of it that need explaining further, or if there are any aspects of it you would change. I’m aware rape backstories are generally regarded as a no-no in fanfiction, but I intend to try and write it as realistically as possible and show just how emotionally messed up Diana is over it.

Relationship with other characters

Mal: very cold towards Mal, doesn’t like to talk to him and is very abrupt when she does. The fact he is a Browncoat puts her on edge, and although she tries to be rational and make the distinction between him and the men who raped her, she can’t stop herself associating the brown coat with all the negative emotions she’s tried to suppress. Therefore, she avoids interacting with Mal where possible, although there’s inevitably going to be a lot of tension between them that Mal can’t understand and that Diana can’t satisfactorily explain. However, being in close proximity with Mal on his ship for an extended period of time does force Diana to get to know him and to face up to her demons to some extent, and by the end of the story they do reach some kind of mutual respect and understanding.

Zoe: is wary of Zoe because she is also a Browncoat, but doesn’t sense the same kind of threat from her as she does Mal (largely due to Zoe being female, and also pregnant at the time this story takes place). Although she and Zoe are able to get along civilly, if not amicably, Zoe is very much aligned with Mal in that she doesn’t like Diana being on the ship, which makes Diana even more cold towards her as she senses she isn’t welcome.

Jayne: the first time they meet he’s wearing his hat, which endears him to her immediately. They get along very well, and oddly he’s the member of the crew she feels least threatened by (excepting Kaylee) – he’s not very bright or complex, and she feels she can read him very easily. That helps give her a sense of security around him as she thinks his intentions are always transparent. She's even able to tolerate bit of flirting from him, provided it doesn’t go anywhere (although that perhaps demonstrates her naivety or her unwillingness to face up to the truth in the assumption that it won’t go anywhere or that Jayne is, in fact, everything he seems).

Inara: quite cool towards Inara and is unable to relax around her. Most of the rest of the crew misconstrue this as contempt for Inara’s profession, when in fact she’s just envious and resentful of the fact that Inara has the privilege of saying ‘no’ to the men who want to have sex with her. It’s Inara herself who notices that there’s some deeper reason for Diana treating her the way she does, and Inara is the first person Diana confesses the truth about her past to.

Kaylee: gets along very well with Kaylee, who brings out the more light-hearted playful side in her. She can tell Kaylee is completely genuine and Diana is therefore able to trust her, and she is perhaps the one person on Serenity she comes to think of as a genuine friend. She makes Kaylee lots of hats, which is a sign of great affection coming from her.

River: is quite amicable towards River until River asks her the question “Why does he never show his face?” and Diana understands what she is referring to and becomes very panicked. Diana never shared the secret of Cornelius or his secrets of the Multiverse with anyone and she wants to know how River knew to ask that. When it’s revealed that River is a psychic, Diana shuts herself in her dorm and doesn’t come out until she’s made herself a new hat that scrambles brainwaves, which she sees as a form of defence to stop River invading her thoughts. River thinks the hat is hideous and tries either getting rid of it, destroying it or at least ‘improving’ it several times, which causes a lot of friction between her and Diana. River struggles to trust Diana when she’s trying to cover up her own thoughts and wonders if she has malicious intentions, and Diana practically mirrors this sentiment in worrying that River has malicious intentions in trying to read her mind. They are both, of course, just misunderstanding each other, which they do realise by the end of the story.

Simon: is rather ambivalent towards Simon, and has no problem with him in his own right but is wary of him due to him being River’s brother. She sees him as perhaps being a similar threat to River or in support of the threat posed by River.

So, that’s my explanation of Diana and I’d like to know what you think of her. Is she Mary Sue-ish in any way? Does the plot focus too much around her? Does her history give her too much excuse for angst and not enough substance? Criticism is welcome, provided it is constructive.