(no subject)

[famouslytough]

Character Name: Sarah Harding
Series: Michael Crichton's The Lost World [Novel, not Movie]
Age: Thirty-four.
From When?: Just after her return to Africa, about a month after the end of The Lost World.


Abilities/Powers:

Sarah knows comparative anatomy, and could be useful as an on-call staff member for the infirmary. She was shown as competent in cleaning wounds and setting broken bones.

She's very strong for a woman, described as compact and muscular.

Personality:

Psychologically, Sarah Harding is an exceptionally tough person. She is extremely confident, independent, and tenacious. This is the backbone of her entire character; she literally never gives up, and hates to see others do so. Given the circumstances in which she was raised and the hard work she has put into achieving the things she wants, it’s no surprise then that she can be very persistent. This behavior can often cause her to be a source of irritation for others; she has often stepped on the wrong toes. She is very much a leader, and will butt heads with others if she thinks they’re wrong – and she’s of the opinion that ninety-five percent of the time, people are wrong. She has a tendency to be very no-nonsense and practical; a bit of a realist, she does what needs to be done, whether she likes it or not. This means that she will push others to the breaking point and become commanding if it helps to get their attention, and that she has a complete lack of squeamishness. Her attitude is matter-of-fact and without a lot of romanticism or idealism. Sarah is intelligent and has a lot of common sense – however, she also has an insatiable curiosity that will often win out over her better judgment.

With other people, she is very informal: she dresses for the field, cares very little for her own appearance (to the point that she will use dish soap to wash her hair if shampoo isn’t available, and will wear whatever clothes are available), insists on being called by her first name, and unless specifically asked not to do so, will address others by the same. She’s not much of an academic, and prefers to be a bit more down to earth than many of her colleagues. She has had an extensive education and is very protective of her own achievements, though her contemporaries in the scientific community have accused her of having an “overbearing feminist perspective” – and to their credit, she does respond negatively when being dismissed for her gender.

She is a woman of very strong opinions, and while she isn’t one for pontificating, she does tend to voice them if she hears something she doesn’t like. Sarah will not allow anyone to get in her way – and definitely responds badly if someone deliberately attempts to do her harm. During the incident with Dodgson at Site B, Sarah sacrificed him to a tyrannosaur with a lot of rage and absolutely no remorse. She was extremely dispassionate about the whole business, and lost no sleep over it later. Similarly, she has no issue with lying if she feels it’s necessary to keep people calm or make them do what needs to be done. On a religious level, Sarah has little concern for the existence of a supreme deity, stemming from her belief that the only things that really matter are the things she can touch with her own two hands, or see, or smell.

Where relationships are concerned, Sarah is a generally affable and pleasant person, though she can be one of those people you either immediately like or immediately hate because of her pushy nature. She doesn’t feel she has much time for men, but has had romances in the past (particularly with Ian Malcolm) which, while she might have been in love, cooled and ended on congenial terms because her work came first. When she is in a relationship, she acts indulgent and doesn’t push her partner – at least, to a point. However, if she feels they’re putting her, themselves, or anyone else at risk, she can be commanding and impatient. She is the sort of person who will abandon everything she holds important to help her friends, as evidenced by the fact that she left Tanzania to join Thorne and Malcolm on their expedition to Site B.

Aside from her work, Sarah enjoys being around other people. She likes to read and occasionally watch television, but prefers to be outdoors doing things that she considers challenging or competitive. Though muscular and tough, her nature makes her more suited to independent pursuits such as rock-climbing or jogging. She’s terrible at most team sports, but will play them for the social interaction.


History:

Sarah was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Gerry and Donna Harding. Her parents divorced early on in her life. Her father was, until the 1980s, a veterinarian specializing in birds for the San Diego Zoo until he was hired by InGen to work on-site at Jurassic Park. Sarah knew nothing of this, and was told his injuries (from a velociraptor attack) were from a construction accident – InGen’s official explanation for most incidents of that nature. Her mother, a rather tough woman, herself, had sole custody after the divorce. There wasn’t a lot of money to be had, and Sarah grew up in a generally poor neighborhood. Between the poverty and her mother’s constant claims that Sarah would never amount to anything, she pushed herself to study and do exceptionally well in school, at the cost of social interaction. She graduated second in her class and attended the University of Chicago on a full scholarship.

She moved on from there to Berkeley, where she studied ethology, focusing on large mammalian carnivores in the African grassland ecosystems. It was there that she met Ian Malcolm, who was one of her thesis readers. Upon completing her studies, she went on to become an assistant professor at Princeton, specializing in hyenas and lions – and, in her time, became one of the world’s foremost experts on hyenas.

After the incident at Isla Nublar as related in Jurassic Park, wherein Ian Malcolm was nearly killed by a tyrannosaur, Michael Crichton wrote, “The two had been close since Malcolm's surgery. Harding had been on a sabbatical year in Austin, and had helped nurse Malcolm back to health, after his many operations. For a while it seemed as if a romance had blossomed, and that Malcolm, a confirmed bachelor, would settle down. But then Harding had gone back to Africa, and Malcolm had gone to Santa Fe. Whatever their former relationship had been, they were now just friends.”

Beyond Malcolm, there were few other romances. She never seemed to find the time to date, much less catch herself a husband – and wasn’t particularly interested in doing so.

While visiting Malcolm in Sante Fe, Harding was present to hear Richard Levine’s proposal to fund an expedition to find a literal lost world. She returned to Africa the next day, but several months later received a call from Jack Thorne, who was designing and building the equipment to be used for the trip. He told her Richard had gone missing, likely trying to find this lost world without waiting for the others. Sarah decided to join the expedition and left Africa, flying fifteen hours to reach Costa Rica only to be told no one would take her to Isla Sorna (or Site B) due to the weather. This was how she met Lewis Dodgson. Unaware that he was representing BioSyn in an attempt to pilfer dinosaur eggs from Site B and not in any way attached to Thorne and Levine’s expedition, Sarah accepted an offer from him to reach the island. When they were nearly to the cave entrance, Dodgson pushed her overboard.
Sarah managed to swim to relative safety.

After reuniting with Ian, Thorne, and the others, Sarah was involved in an attempt to assess what sort of damage Dodgson and his crew had done to a tyrannosaur nest during their attempt to steal an egg from it. Upon discovering that one of the men had stepped on the leg of an infant rex, another member of her own group – Eddie Carr – brought said infant back to the research trailers Thorne had built. Against Sarah’s better judgment, she helped make a splint for the baby’s broken leg. However, the adult tyrannosaurs tracked the infant and subsequently viewed the land on which the trailers were situated – a high area near shear cliffs - as part of their territory. Once the infant was back in their care, the tyrannosaurs proceeded to push the trailers, with Sarah and Ian inside, toward the abovementioned cliffs. One trailer (the one containing Sarah and Ian) did go over the side, hanging to the second by a mere thread of accordion passageway, before Thorne managed to frighten them off and hook a cable between his jeep and the undercarriage of the trailers. He climbed down to help his companions to safety. Sarah made the climb from the hanging trailer to the top of the cliffs, then pulled up Ian, who was seriously injured, and Thorne using a nylon rope. When Thorne seemed about to fall, she hauled him the rest of the way by his hair.

Though there were several more incidents on the island, including a chase of a velociraptor and an attempt to signal a helicopter, the most notable one in Sarah’s history is her second encounter with Dodgson. While attempting to restart an electric jeep, Sarah was obliged to hide beneath it to escape a herd of pachycephalosaurs. When they thundered off, hearing the tyrannosaurs on the approach once more, Dodgson attempted to take the car. Sarah yanked him to the ground, and his response was to express frustration that he hadn’t finished her off like he’d thought. Sarah went red with rage, having thought it was an accident that she’d gone overboard. When Dodgson saw the tyrannosaurs, he tried to scramble under the car with her. Sarah kicked him back out into the open and, when he tried to hold on to her ankle to keep from being dragged off by the dinosaurs, she slammed her unhindered boot into his face, effectively sending him up for dinner.

She felt absolutely no remorse.

The group managed to escape the island on a boat, though whether they reached Costa Rica safely was left to the reader’s imagination. For all intents and purposes of this history, Sarah did reach the mainland and subsequently returned to her work.


Sample Journal Entry:
[From Dear_Mun]

Mundane,

I think it's great that you want to see me - this me, yes, I get it - in a setting somewhere. Just great.

I'm flattered.

I really can't, though. I have a life. I have my work. You know as well as I do that it's a very competitive field of study. You can't just expect me to drop everything and come running whenever you call. I'm not going to tell you it's unfair; it's just irresponsible and silly.

I know, I know. Richard and Ian and the Doc might be there (wherever there is) and even if one of them is a royal pain in the ass, that's very tempting. I'm not telling you anything new, though, when I say it would make things really complicated for me.

Listen, it's not just me, here, anyway: there's you. You don't have a place for me to go. Even if you did, it wouldn't matter anyway because you don't have time.

Like I said, it's flattering - but let's just leave it at that and forget about it, all right?

- Sarah

P.S. - Happy holidays.


Sample RP:

Sarah in a high-pressure situation.

Sarah stood at the rail of the Barge, peering over the side. She never tired of the view, and today there was something awe-inspiring to see: the planet on approach was magnificent, unlike anything she'd ever imagined. Then again, her work was a little closer to home.

Suddenly, there was a jolt; the Barge rocked and Sarah found herself flung forward over the rail. She managed to grip one bar and scrabbled to keep herself from falling, her legs kicking in open air. She hung for a moment like that, looking down in panic at the distance between the ship and the ground.

How did this keep happening to her?

She began to pull herself back up, straining to climb the rail bar by bar until her feet found purchase on the lip of the deck. With one final heave, she threw herself back over the railing and sat panting and staring down at the newest port.