I Find That, When Writing Bios, Its Really Helpful To Look At A List Or A Chart Like The One Above. Picking

I find that, when writing bios, it’s really helpful to look at a list or a chart like the one above. Picking two or three traits from each chart and building a character based around them will give you a really interesting bio, because they will serve as a reminder that characters need depth and dimension.

Independent and clever.

VS.

Independent, clever, pretentious, and stubborn.

The first combination doesn’t come with any flaws, whereas the second will provide a more dynamic character.

(Barely) Controlled Chaos # 13

A timely update!  The last one, probably, because I'm away this weekend, but I'll post again on Thursday possibly, then it's gonna be either Sunday or Monday.

Warnings for this part: other than swearing, none in particular

August 1997, Stark Industries Main Office, New York

“Mr Stark?”

Tony looked up at the voice.  He was half-heartedly glancing through the third fucking ream of paperwork his good-for-nothing secretary had dumped on his desk ten minutes before, just prior to screaming that nothing was worth putting up with his bullshit and quitting.  The woman knew how to make an exit, he’d give her that.  Pity she didn’t know anything about filing; the first two piles he’d looked at had been nothing to do with him; they were for Marketing and Accounts respectively.    Tony had no idea who’d hired her – he certainly hadn’t, and he was quite glad that she’d gone – but they’d done a shit job.  Hell, he hated paperwork with a passion that had once led Ditto to turn itself into a paper shredder, and he had managed to do a better job in the last few minutes; the woman was not getting any kind of recommendation from him.

Not that Tony thought she’d take one if he offered.  She had made her opinion of him quite clear before she stormed out of his office.  Well, him and Ditto.  Mostly Ditto.  The blob freaked her out, usually on purpose.  That was her problem so far as Tony was concerned, and one of the big reasons he was glad to see the back of her.

As he’d threatened when he was seventeen, the first thing he’d changed when he inherited Stark Industries three months ago was the ‘no Pokémon allowed’ rule.  Obie had not been happy, and neither had his neurotic secretary (whose name he had never bothered to learn – she had shrieked the first time she saw Ditto, so he had dubbed her ‘Screamer’ and ignored all her attempts to correct the nickname), but everyone else had loved the change, and the upswing in productivity – after a week or so of the novelty wearing off – had silenced any objections on Obie’s part.

So yes, Screamer was gone, and she had left him with a headache from staying up four nights in a row working on crap that he had very little interest in and the shrill pitch of her voice as she yelled at him, and a pile of paperwork that was taller than he was.  Even Herdier had been pissed at her, and that took some doing.  The dog put up with Tony and Ditto every day; annoying him to the point where he showed it visibly was a feat and a half.

So Tony was understandably thankful for the interruption/rescue from the ridiculous amount of paper on his desk.  He leaned sideways to see around the largest pile, and couldn’t help the smirk that crossed his lips as he saw the owner of the voice.  It was a woman of about his own age, certainly no older than his own twenty-one years, and she was very pretty.  Her hair was fire-red, swinging down her back to her waist, and framing her slim shape nicely.  She was an inch or so taller than him, if he had to guess from his seated position, mostly because her legs were about six miles long and revealed quite nicely from the knee down by a modest skirt that was far too long for his liking.  Also, there was a small grey Pokémon peering from behind her knees, which instantly gained her points.

Tony smiled at her, pushing his exhaustion back as he did so.  He needed to sleep soon, but he could fake his way through whatever she wanted before collapsing and dealing with this shit when he woke up.

“I am.  Who are you?”

“Virginia Potts, sir.  From Accounting.”

Tony made a mental note to look her up on the company files later – when he wasn’t close to passing out from lack of sleep, he was going to hit on her until she swooned.

She stepped fully inside the office and eyed the desk with distaste, the Pokémon at her side doing the same thing.  It had a white tail that was wrapped about its neck like a fur scarf – it was a very well-groomed, elegant looking thing, like the woman it was with.  Tony had no idea what it was, but he was going to find out; it was rare these days for him to see a Pokémon that he didn’t know the species of.  Walking forwards, she gingerly placed her own – small, thank god – pile of papers on the tiny clear space remaining on his desk.

“I wanted to talk to you about a problem I found with some of your numbers.”

That woke Tony up.  His appreciative leer turned into a scowl as he totally abandoned the prior paperwork (not that he’d been paying it much attention in the first place) to study the file in front of him.

“Impossible.  I don’t make mistakes with math.”

“Third page, fifteenth line from the top,” she reeled off.  Tony frowned at the pages as he flipped through and found the so-called ‘error’.  He read the line, blinked, then read it again.  And then a third time.  He sighed loudly.

“Fuck.”

“Told you,” Potts said, not sounding as smug as he would have thought – not many people corrected Tony Stark, it was usually the other way around – and he looked up to find her elbow-deep in the papers on his desk, her Pokémon sitting by her side passing her piles and taking ones she filtered out from the much larger selection to her left.  He cleared his throat, wondering what she was doing.

“I’m pretty sure at least some of those are private.”

Not that he cared, but the statement made her blush, and yep, he was right, she looked good like that.

“Sorry sir,” she said, sounding embarrassed.  “I shouldn’t have touched it.”

“I don’t actually care,” he said, waving one hand carelessly and taking a pen from Herdier with the other to correct his error.  “Screamer dumped it all on here and left; I don’t know what most of it is.”

Potts smiled, a tiny quirk of lips on one side.  “Most of it isn’t for you.”

OMG yes

You know what would be a really cool alarm clock, If it were Nick Fury from the Avengers, so when it went off it said “Wake up MOTHER FUCKER!!!” and when you pressed snooze it went “I acknowledge that you’ve made the decision to snooze, but given that it’s a stupid ass decision i’ve elected to ignore it” and just kept beeping.

I wish my cats were this cool

(Barely) Controlled Chaos # 15

Ok, so, in short, flu sucks and work eats my time.  But I'm alive, so here, have some more fic :)

Warnings for this part: none, but spot the cameo ;)

September 1997, Stark Industries Main office, New York

Pepper Potts was an angel from heaven, and Tony was having her canonised.  She’d rolled her eyes at him when he’d made that declaration, but he’d written it down on a memo with Stark Industries letterheads, therefore it was now official and had to happen.  Unfortunately, he’d forgotten that part of Pepper’s job now was sorting all the paperwork.

She had screwed the memo up and tossed it over her shoulder onto her Charmeleon’s lap, who promptly fried it to ashes.  Tony was tempted to mime being mortally wounded, but Ruby, the Charmeleon, gave him the evil eye, and he didn’t quite dare risk it.  Pepper may be sporting a halo and white feathery wings, but Ruby quite literally had horns and a tail, breathed fire, and apparently hated his guts.  Tony knew why she felt like that, but still felt it was unfair; what happened had been Dummy’s fault, not his.  And hey, Pepper was talking to him, so why the dragon felt the need to blow smoke at him every time he so much as breathed in Pepper’s direction, he didn’t know.  Whatever, Tony wasn’t stupid enough to pick a fight with the Pokémon.

Back to Pepper.  Homicidal dragon aside, his new PA was a full-fledged, halo-bearing angel of the lord, and Tony was considering giving up atheism just on the evidence of Pepper alone.  She had come into his life literally

『25 Lives』 by Tongari (ಌ)

This is beautiful