Rate the above poster's character

Dude. Leigh. One character at a time.

Read my stories!

I'm just gonna post a character due to sheer number of the above

• Overall Background:
  • Genre: Cosmic Horror/Slice of Life/Comedy/Action (to a point)
  • Setting: Arkham, Innsmouth, Kingsport and Dunwich

• Personal Detail:
  • Name: Donovan
  • Race: Not-important
  • Age: 22
  • Appearance: Tall, white hair, red eyes. Wears a regular clothing, pants are often cargos and a wears dog tag. Otherwise, he wears black pants and a black and red longcoat, which appears to have moving eyes, but only move in his Elder Form (see below)
  • Desired Role in Story: Anti-Hero and Protagonist

• Relationships
  • Identity of and relationship with father: He rarely spent time with him and is often incredibly rude to him, but loves him as his father regardless.
  • Identity of and relationship with mother: Loving and keeps in touch, one of the few people he isn't spiteful towards.
  • Identity of and relationship with siblings: Younger sister visits him occasionally.
  • Other relatives: His cousin seems very friendly to him for some strange reason
  • Friends and acquaintance: Attends Miskatonic University with his seven friends, which he is lucky to have. Nyarlathotep is his professor and is also his boss
  • Love interest: Irrelevant to the story, but there was an incident where people thought he was going out with Cthylla
  • Enemies both major and minor: Far to many to list, but there was a funny Foe Yay incident with Herbert West and a Villainesses Want Heroes period with a Succubus

• Character details:
  • Character history: In short, he's really just an ordinary student, with an ordinary life, attending Miskatonic University. He got into an incident with his professor (Nyarlathotep), where he got one fraction of his power (Needless to say, it's a very, very, VERY tiny fraction). His new rush of power changes his morality, which causes Nyarlathotep to take interest. The Eldritch Abomination pretty much took him under wing, and he accidently corrupted his friends, turning them all into Humanoid Abominations. He now pretty much works under Nyarlathotep with his friends, more or less un-willingly joining him.
  • Skills and abilities: Can turn into something called an Elder Form, where he pretty much changes into a Humanoid Abomination. He knows only forty magical spells, which to say is a very small number in terms of the number of spells one is allowed to know. He also has a gun named Violet Rose, which he only carries under circumstances.
  • Personality: Spiteful and cynical, even before he gained his powers, he's pretty much the most emotionless, blunt and seemingly uncaring. He still is kind of "Human" inside, as in he still has the faintest inklings of having human morals, but otherwise, he's a psychopath
  • Goal, dream and motivation: Hasn't decided yet, he himself is still iffy about his future
  • First appearance: First chapter as he enter the university grounds
  • Last appearance: Hasn't happened yet

• Character Trivia:
  • Picky eater.
  • Prefers to spend his time doing what he wants, rather than what Nyarlathotep wants him to do. (Nyarlathotep fails to realize, that no matter how powerful you are, you can not take a man away from his pizza)

edited 6th Oct '11 6:02:41 AM by draconiansuperior

The next person who wants to post a character: PLEASE, rate a character above first.

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

@draconian: I'm going to give you a 5. Nothing outright wrong here, but this guy seems like a collection of factoids rather than a character. Nothing jumped out at me either way, except the "ordinary student, ordinary life" thing. There is no such thing as an ordinary life. Also, why is he so spiteful to everyone? Does he resent his powers? Did I just miss that part?

I'd take all this with a grain of salt, though; your work sounds anime-influenced and that isn't a genre I'm fond of, for the specific reason of the way characters are handled *

. Also, I'm a tough grader when it comes to characters...16 years of RP Gs, with 10 of them being a Storyteller and reading reams of character backgrounds does that to a person.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

Alright, thank you that really helps, I got a character to work on, thank you

—suddenly has urge to challenge Scribes to rate all the characters previously posted in the thread—

Read my stories!

@draconian: Points awarded for taking negative criticism like an adult. -tips hat- glad to have been of service.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

Support.

@AHR: As you wish, milady...but me being me, and you putting me on the spot, I'm going to do it my way.

@Thread

Ahem. I did give the thread a cursory scan, looking for bios I felt like reading deep enough for critiquing...and not finding any left me scratching my head as to why. You see, I've conversed with most of you and I know how intelligent you are; intelligent enough to, say, come up with a decent character premise.

My take; the flaw is not in the information, but in how its being presented. Dry lists of facts aren't going to catch anyone's eye, and that's what you need if you want your work read. Even if the work in question is just a bio of your main character, it needs to stand out among the crowded pack of people waving their work around yelling different versions of "pay attention to me!" that is present in every Writer's Block thread.

There's my critique. My suggestion; try it again, only this time use the sheet as a reminder of what facts to include rather than a strait-jacket tying you down as to how they need to be presented. And don't tell me about your character, sell me on your character.

Put bluntly, give me a good reason to give a fuck and take ten minutes of my life to help you that I might otherwise spend on writing, ranting, drinking, sleeping, smoking, fucking or any one of the more directly beneficial-to-me activities I could be doing right now.

Writer's Block always veers towards all-take-no-give (a few notable exceptions...well, noted) because of this; our time is precious and we want to spend it on something that directly benefits or excites us. We can fight this and get nowhere, or we can accept it and work within it.

Write your bios with an eye towards interest. Do something different.

Happy, AHR?

EDIT: I guess not, because I seem to have murdered the thread.

edited 6th Oct '11 8:03:21 PM by drunkscriblerian

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

^ Eh, WB is just slow this time of year, I guess.

I'm content, in any case. Wasn't expecting much different.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am...

@Merlo: Well, then tailor your posts to the environment instead of being content with a sub-par result. It might (GASP!) help reform Writer's Block into something that actually helps us write.

Also...is there a time of year for writers to be productive and helpful? If there is, no one told me about it.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

Summer, because most people aren't in school at that time.

Er, not sure what you mean by this. Well I mean, I do, if this was say OTC or a media subforum, but it's Writer's Block, where it's all take and no give. Dunno if there's anything to be done there.

edited 6th Oct '11 10:46:17 PM by Merlo

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am...

Give someone a reason to want to give?

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

To be honest, I don't know how to do that

Even the "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" doesn't work, in my experience.

On my end I haven't seen a lot in here that I'd want to put time and effort into reading, myself. So... yeah.

edited 6th Oct '11 10:57:39 PM by Merlo

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am...

The irony of suggesting a willingness to tailor it to the environment while refusing to do so yourself (and indeed refusing to tailor your review to the standards suggested) is somewhat staggering, Drunk.

This isn't about interest. There's no reference to it in the OP or following posts. It's about "does this make sense". You acknowledged this in your review of Drac's character by outright stating his doesn't meet that criteria. You have personal reasons for being unwilling to contribute, you believe your time is better spent elsewhere, that's fine, but they remain personal. From the fact others have used the thread as intended without even the given-and-take makes it clear there are people altruistic enough to give of their time and effort regardless.

(And some of us simply enjoy the act of analysis.)

Nous restons ici.

I guess Leigh still needs it despite the arghity argh of posting multiples. I'll deal with the-

Actually come to think of it, no I won't. Any opinion I would render on this would end up somewhat vitriolic as I find it uninformed and oddly idealistic.

Nous restons ici.

@Drunk: As much as I hate to say it, you've done it a bit wrong for this thread's purposes.

This isn't about whether a character interests you personally, it's about whether or not they are well-written moreso that they are well-written and make sense for the setting they are in, regardless if it interests you or not.

Characters are the ultimate test in subjectivity, even the best written characters will be uninteresting to somebody.

I know that everyone is more interested in their own characters than in others. But I reviewed 3 characters and posted only 1, because, hey, maybe I like to place myself in other people's places and imagine that they would be glad if they received some attention.

Still, that interest only goes so far. I'm really not going to believe you deserve any attention if you post 5 characters in a row and are completely unwilling to analyse others.

edited 7th Oct '11 5:47:46 AM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

I tailored my first one to the rules...having to review everyone's isn't in the OP either, but that's what I was asked to do so I found a way to do it. Without resorting to a Wall of Text that most people wouldn't have sifted through anyway.

I've seen plenty of the "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" threads come and go here, and they go the same place every time; everyone asking for reviews and critiques while not providing any. Maybe this is a flawed model, which is why I made the "Writer/Critic Dating Service" thread in an attempt to try something different. I guess people who've used it can tell me if it works or not.

@Major Tom: I know I did it a bit wrong. That was the point. Apologies to the OP for that, but I as I said above I didn't see much in the way of reviewing going on except for AHR (who did more reviewing than posting) and a few others who did bother to do what the OP asked for.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

I think people should be more strict to those who don't bother reviewing other characters. If someone posts a character without reviewing the previous one, ignore them. Don't be a good person and give a critique for free in order to fill the void. If I had created the thread, I'd even PM those people asking them to edit their posts out until they review someone.

It would be a hassle, but I think the thread could work that way. The "who cares, I'll just post mine, everyone does that anyway" mentality that exists in Writer's block is really problematic.

DS: Hmmmm. Challenge accepted. If not in this thread, in writing life in general.

Read my stories!

I'm wary of posting a character into this thread because then I will be obligated to review someone, and I honestly have little to nothing useful to say about most of the other character profiles I see in this thread.

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

Then review someone who got reviewed already.

Or review someone's review, to see if it's a fair critique.

Reaching a bit further back I'm going to rate IB Li S's character Sebya. I give it an 8... was going to be a seven but extra point gained for the "feels emotions but processes them differently" element on acount of personal bias for that.

Anyhow, I rather like the idea of the creature, the idea of a whole entity that is a hivemind developing an individuated part but that being treated as a bad thing by the mind as a whole.

"They called me mad, I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me." - Nathaniel Lee, playwright, upon being committed to Bedlam

I'll review it and then you have no obligation to review anything because I can't get the character I want to post here sorted to my satisfaction.

Nous restons ici.