Character Creation: Manic Pixie Dream Girl Commandos

 Got a bit of time before Chill today, so I think I shall make a character. 

The Game: Manic Pixie Dream Girl Commandos (part of #Feminism)
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

The book in which this game appeared is a nano-games anthology composed of 34 different games, but the only one that has a character creation system that really fits into this project is Manic Pixie Dream Girl Commandos. Most of the other games feel a little more like theater improv exercises than roleplaying games, inasmuch as there's often not so much of a "game" aspect to them as is commonly understood. But that's how you innovate - challenge assumptions, change stuff around, do something different. There's definitely some great stuff in this book, even if a lot of the games wouldn't really fall in my comfort zone (which, again, is fine; one of the things I really like about this book is that some of the games flat-out say "if you aren't interested in X, this game isn't for you, don't play it").

Anyhow, MPDGC takes the titular trope and has the characters going out and changing the world in a way that only a Manic Pixie Dream Girl can. The game helpfully provides the definition that Nathan Rabin gave when he coined the term (though doesn't mention that he basically disowned the term a few years later and feels ashamed for creating it. I guess that's not relevant but I thought it was interesting). The definition is: "the free-spirited life-lover who cheers up a male sad-sack." It lists a few examples, including one (Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) that I really disagree with, but in any case, we've got enough to make characters. Rabin's actual definition from the essay on Elizabethtown where he coined the term was: 

Well, with all of that in mind, let's make a character! The setup here is that my MPDG wanted to work in STEM but wasn't able to afford grad school, joined up with the military and got assigned to this squad that goes out and saves the world by cheering up sad dudes and being vaguely magical. No sheet for this game, so:

1. Dream Job. I pick a STEM that my character really wants to do. I pick physics, something that's always been fascinating to me personally but that I just don't have the head for (it's the math).
2. Hair. Let's say colored in rainbow stripes and shaved on the back. 
3. Accessories. Tattoos! I love ink anyway. I'll say she has equations and other physics-themed tats; Newton's Laws and so forth. 
4. Physicality. Definitely feisty. Small but fierce.
5. Adorable Instrument. Harmonica. 
6. Catch Phrase. "Stay in motion." (Can't you just hear, like, Jordan Ladd with rainbow hair saying that to Taylor Lautner or someone? "Stay in motion, Steve.")
7. Civilian Name. Ivy Crenshaw
8. Commando Code Name. Superball. 

And that's it, actually!