John Smith (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dreamtofbeing) wrote2009-04-11 07:12 pm
dreamtofbeing) wrote2009-04-11 07:12 pm
Entry tags:
Character Samples--Taxon App
First Person Sample:
Taste is a funny old thing.
Really, I should say, senses are a funny old thing. Taste, eyesight, touch--they connect you to the outside world, and depending on which senses you have, you'll perceive the outside world differently. A blind person can't know what the colour red looks like. A deaf person has no way of perceiving the concept of the standard pitch. A human can't ever perceive the universe the way it can be perceived if you have a time sense.
But I was talking about taste.
I used to like bananas. No, I mean, I really did. I really liked them. I still do. Bananas are good, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But they're just not that good anymore. Nowadays, if I have to choose between a banana and a pear, I might just end up picking the pear. See, I used to hate pears. Couldn't stand the taste. It's the pantothenic acid; in that particular concentration, it's murder on Gallifreyan degustation. Any Time Lord would tell you the same thing; eating a pear tastes a lot like ammonia smells--not good.
Not anymore, though. When I eat a pear now, the pantothenic acid doesn't bother me. In fact, I can't even taste it anymore. Or, rather, I can taste it, but I can't identify it anymore among all the other vitamins and the iron and the potassium and what have you. It's all just one great big mess of taste. Quite a delicious mess, but still, there's no distinction. You could almost say that "pear" is a taste in its own right rather than a combination of the tastes of a pear's chemical components.
It really is a funny old thing, taste, if you stop to think about it.
Have you seen my glasses anywhere? I put them down, and then I can't find them anymore because I can't see. I should put a bell on them. Except that wouldn't be of much use, since they're not in the habit of moving around a lot--I think. I can't know for sure. After all, if they did, I wouldn't see it.
Third Person Sample:
Six feet by nine feet, and about eight feet in height. Those are estimates of the cell's measurements, but the Doctor can't tell exactly. He wouldn't have thought that it would be so important--after all, who cares how small exactly this cell is; pretty small is as good a way to describe it as any--but it is. It bugs him. Are those six feet, or six feet and two inches? He can't tell. He can only guess.
At least he's figured out the glasses thing by now. The Master took away his jacket, so he doesn't have his screwdriver, or his toothbrush--and he's wished for both things equally; two days in this place and the taste in his mouth almost made him throw up--but his glasses he keeps in his trouser pocket. When he had woken up, everything had been blurred; he hadn't been able to see anything clearly. All his other senses had been dulled as well--dulled, or eliminated entirely, like the time sense, and the Doctor never realized how disorienting it is, being suspended in a point in time without a clue about what came before or what's going to come after--so the idea of trying his glasses hadn't even crossed his mind. When he eventually did try them, the world shifting into focus again almost made him choke up. Sight is important; he never realized how important it is.
The glasses don't help with the estimates, though. He should be able to tell, he's always been able to tell. Six feet or six feet two? It's not important, but he can't stop thinking about it. And he's stopped trying, because thinking about this is easier than thinking about all those other things--the fact that it feels like he's sleeping more than he's awake, the fact that he's starving even though it's only been two days at the most, the fact that he can't actually tell how long it has been exactly because he lost track of time when he fell asleep for the first time. That's the scariest thing of them all. He doesn't know the time. He always knows the time.
But he's not thinking about that. He's thinking about measurements. Six feet or six feet two? There has to be a way to be sure. He just needs to figure it out.
Taste is a funny old thing.
Really, I should say, senses are a funny old thing. Taste, eyesight, touch--they connect you to the outside world, and depending on which senses you have, you'll perceive the outside world differently. A blind person can't know what the colour red looks like. A deaf person has no way of perceiving the concept of the standard pitch. A human can't ever perceive the universe the way it can be perceived if you have a time sense.
But I was talking about taste.
I used to like bananas. No, I mean, I really did. I really liked them. I still do. Bananas are good, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But they're just not that good anymore. Nowadays, if I have to choose between a banana and a pear, I might just end up picking the pear. See, I used to hate pears. Couldn't stand the taste. It's the pantothenic acid; in that particular concentration, it's murder on Gallifreyan degustation. Any Time Lord would tell you the same thing; eating a pear tastes a lot like ammonia smells--not good.
Not anymore, though. When I eat a pear now, the pantothenic acid doesn't bother me. In fact, I can't even taste it anymore. Or, rather, I can taste it, but I can't identify it anymore among all the other vitamins and the iron and the potassium and what have you. It's all just one great big mess of taste. Quite a delicious mess, but still, there's no distinction. You could almost say that "pear" is a taste in its own right rather than a combination of the tastes of a pear's chemical components.
It really is a funny old thing, taste, if you stop to think about it.
Have you seen my glasses anywhere? I put them down, and then I can't find them anymore because I can't see. I should put a bell on them. Except that wouldn't be of much use, since they're not in the habit of moving around a lot--I think. I can't know for sure. After all, if they did, I wouldn't see it.
Third Person Sample:
Six feet by nine feet, and about eight feet in height. Those are estimates of the cell's measurements, but the Doctor can't tell exactly. He wouldn't have thought that it would be so important--after all, who cares how small exactly this cell is; pretty small is as good a way to describe it as any--but it is. It bugs him. Are those six feet, or six feet and two inches? He can't tell. He can only guess.
At least he's figured out the glasses thing by now. The Master took away his jacket, so he doesn't have his screwdriver, or his toothbrush--and he's wished for both things equally; two days in this place and the taste in his mouth almost made him throw up--but his glasses he keeps in his trouser pocket. When he had woken up, everything had been blurred; he hadn't been able to see anything clearly. All his other senses had been dulled as well--dulled, or eliminated entirely, like the time sense, and the Doctor never realized how disorienting it is, being suspended in a point in time without a clue about what came before or what's going to come after--so the idea of trying his glasses hadn't even crossed his mind. When he eventually did try them, the world shifting into focus again almost made him choke up. Sight is important; he never realized how important it is.
The glasses don't help with the estimates, though. He should be able to tell, he's always been able to tell. Six feet or six feet two? It's not important, but he can't stop thinking about it. And he's stopped trying, because thinking about this is easier than thinking about all those other things--the fact that it feels like he's sleeping more than he's awake, the fact that he's starving even though it's only been two days at the most, the fact that he can't actually tell how long it has been exactly because he lost track of time when he fell asleep for the first time. That's the scariest thing of them all. He doesn't know the time. He always knows the time.
But he's not thinking about that. He's thinking about measurements. Six feet or six feet two? There has to be a way to be sure. He just needs to figure it out.