Character Sharing And Advice Thread

:(

Well, I'm not sure exactly what type of advice you're looking for here.

Without knowing that, how can I help you?

Well, with the first idea (born from humble parents) Coatzin, my aztec character, she is shy and a bit insecure about her powers. The second idea (born from a priest) is a little bit more manipulative and scheming, more attactched to her ideology and willing to use her powers more. Regardless of which, both have great curiosity in the new world that they woke up in.

The thing is, i can't decide. She will fill The Chick role of the band and while the second option would give me more interesting relationships with the cast (specially with Zenjiro) and nice space for character development, the first one is easier to relate with and less likely to overshadow the others with her great power. Lets take in mind I already have a Trickster (Zenjiro) an Inventor (Kojiro), someone Down to Earth (Janice), a sociopath (Nadeeda) and a Leader (Zed). They seem to lack a peace keeper in the group, a role played by Coatzin 1.

But If I wanna go for the second idea, what sort of role would she fill in?

Any more advice on her reaction on being abducted and frozen for almost 1000 years?

I hate to bump threads but, otherwise this discussion would be gone.

I say just blend the ideas. Go with option A, but make her more of a reserved, pacifistic peacemaker or whatever. There's no reason you can't do both.

Been revamping a story idea and switching the main characters around and stuff and wanting some criticism now.

Setting: A WWI-esque setting (though some of the technology skews a little later) with a war between planes and dragons. The story follows a four-person flight in the Air Force.

Aiden Lee: The main character. He is really meek and fearful. He was going to college, but ran out of money, dropped out, and got drafted the year his name got put onto the list of available draftees since being a college drop out instead of a college student made him ineligible for being excused from being drafted. He also tried to say he was a conscientious objector, but after it was explained to him that due to the current demands of the war conscientious objector means “go to the front without a gun” (bomb disposal, medic, ground or air scout, messenger, etc. There are no rules against shooting unarmed people as long as they count as members of the enemy forces) so Lee decided to go to flight academy since the Air Force at least gets nice beds (he likes his creature comforts). Lee also claims that he only passed because his instructor was the most frightening man in the universe and that the required hours of actual flight required was halved to send more pilots to the front faster. He has the dubious honor of crashing a penguin (a clipped wing plane). Lee is rarely confident in himself, but occasionally musters something when he gets loses his temper. Lee is a bit put off by his flight's party hard attitude. Lee is a bit of a pessimist. He is the most educated out of the group but is a bit questionable when it comes to good sense and street smarts. Although his family is poor, his parents always wanted him to get a good education and paid for as much schooling and tutoring as they could muster, but both their efforts and Lee’s part time job at a cafe were stretched farther than they could go for college tuition. Lee wants to be a writer and keeps a journal the whole time. Taggart reads (without permission) Lee’s journal regularly and suggests he write Taggart’s biography and “make it more interesting” after the war is over. Lee isn't against war, but he’s terrified of failure and the more experienced pilots’ love of joking about death creeps him out. Lee prefers to follow the rules and the only thing stopping him from reporting Biggs, Taggart, and Golden for having contraband is fear they’ll find out and want revenge. Lee is considered “girly” despite the fact there’s an actual girl in the group. Lee’s most obvious feature is probably his saucer eyes that are usually really wide even after he’s lived on the base long enough to become accustomed to everything (aside from the potential dying). Lee is the shortest of the group.

Jovie Biggs: She is a bit bitter because her wingmen don't survive long (she's gone through something like twenty in two years). She never acknowledges that it might be partially her fault, saying she can only cover her wingman so much if he's going to fly like a moron. Biggs painted a giant pink rabbit and the phrase “I wuv you bunches” on her plane because it was the most baffling image to put on a weapon of destruction that she could think up. Biggs is a hobby psychologist and thinks psyching people out and driving them batty is a very interesting topic. She is rather proud of being a female flying ace. She is the oldest in her family and all five of her brothers joined the army when the war started. Biggs herself will wrestle, play baseball, and drink a lot (if she has the opportunity and she can drink a lot). Biggs likes to fight and loves taking advantage of Would Not Hita Girl and she trounces any guy who thinks girls can’t fight pretty quickly. According to Taggart, Biggs is so full of masculinity that he'd feel a little homosexual to kiss her and the fact that she has five muscle-bound brothers makes the idea of wronging Biggs kind of scary, but he likes having a platonic friendship with her. Biggs is the one with the most friends outside of her flight. She’s the tallest woman on the base and towers over some of the men. She believes in tough love and Lee can’t tell the difference between Biggs being nice and Biggs being mean because either way he’s convinced Biggs will punch him in the face.

Charlie Taggart: A loudmouth ace who will never pass up an excuse to mention that he is awesome. He's emotionally insensitive. He's mean like a tornado, he might not be vindictive (minus a few people he has decided are his Arch-Enemy), but he ends up pulling pranks that no one thinks are funny. He flies lead in the formation with Golden as his wingman. Most of the characters are under the impression that Taggart hasn't been kicked out because he is the top ace at the base, though some people suspect that he sometimes steals Golden's victories. Prior to the war, he was a taxicab driver who constantly got speeding tickets that he paid off with the tips he got from incredibly late patrons. Taggart painted his plane with his girlfriend's name Clarisse, despite the fact he usually gives people the impression that he is very unfaithful. He has smuggled hookers onto the base. Though despite having very few long-term girlfriends throughout his life, Taggart is convinced he knows everything about women. Taggart is also very fond of naming things but is too uncreative to muster anything beyond “Name Mc Name-y” and has a dog back home named Duffy Mc Duffleson, a pet brick (a brick with a D:< face drawn on it and designated unofficial mascot) named Bricky Mc Brickster, and intends to name his not-yet-conceived child Charlie Mc Charleson. Taggart is a good pilot, or at least the craziest (he’s been known to throw bricks from the cockpit and would rather beat his machine gun back into working order than retreat). Taggart considers Golden the best pilot, but everyone else below him. Taggart is probably the most optimistic and perky out of the group. He will invade personal space for hugging. He thinks that his country’s scientists are the most intelligent in the world. He is convinced that one pilot’s prosthetic legs mean that cyborgs have been invented (the legless pilot plays along since he thinks it's more flattering to have people think his new legs are an improvement not a disability). Taggart is the least educated of the group. Taggart loves his wingman Golden to an almost obsessive point. Taggart is almost as skinny as Aiden, but is taller and has wider shoulders. Though despite the fact he hasn’t much muscle to speak of, Taggart is usually the first person to throw a chair at someone and break a bottle at a barroom brawl. Charlie hasn't a lot of friends, but is convinced everyone is his friend.

Clive Golden: He's the quiet one and most ambiguous out of the four. He has made out (in a one-sided sort of way) with Taggart once in response to the question "do you like Taggart?" though he answered "no" right after. He never speaks more than three words at a time in casual conversation (he’ll go more talking to a superior if it is required) and has the same flat expression no matter what he is doing. People have tried scaring him, but he’s pretty unflappable. He accepts being Heterosexual Life-Partners with Taggart, but Taggart loves Golden more than Golden loves Taggart. He ran a bookstore before the war. Some of his family members were killed in the first official move of the war. He is a little upset by this, but not quite to a Roaring Rampageof Revenge extent. He refuses to talk about his family, though he doesn’t dislike them. He is usually reading porn hidden behind philosophical books. Most of the characters are under the impression that he is very smart based on thinking he is reading philosophical books and interpreting his short sentences as really meaning something really deep. Charlie’s questionable levels of intelligence also make Golden look smarter. Sometimes Golden just says utter nonsense like “pineapple liger.” Golden just likes Mind Screw. He is the best pilot out of the four and was top of his class in the flight academy. Golden hired one of the mechanics (he paid him in a month’s supply of cigarettes...and was very convincing...) to paint a naked woman on his plane that goes almost from nose to tail. Golden is the tallest out of the group even with his permanent slouch. He is also the biggest and almost no one can stay conscious after getting punched by him. Golden usually tries to be left alone, but Taggart rarely lets him. Golden has no friends besides the members of his flight, but most people treat him well since he's pretty inoffensive.

As I read those characters, they got better and better. Biggs is a pretty standard Ladette, but those are pretty fun still. I really like the angle of Taggart loving to talk about how awesome he is while at the same time invading all sorts of personal space. He is also pretty great for smuggling hookers and making shitty jokes that no one likes. Golden started off being boring, and then you got to the porn part and that was great.

Lee, on the other hand, I don't really like. It sounds like your story is his coming-of-age, so that's probably why he seems kinda meh and pansy-ish. I also really dislike his temper unlocking his awesome abilities. As a friend said about someone else's character (not on these forums) that we were just ragging on, "Temper isn't a flaw. It's just an excuse to go super saiyan." I know you're not using it as a flaw, but the point remains that anger=gg is kind of meh.

Lee was the most difficult for me. >_> Originally Taggart was the main character, but Taggart doesn't change as a person and being my favorite character, he's not allowed to do much aside from be a perky badass asshole... and maybe one or two instances of manly tears.

I get what you mean about the losing one's temper going Super Saiyan thing. >_< I'll have to tweak that a bit. Thinking it over, it's more on the side of Lee deciding that some stuff is more important than his fear of failure and sucking it up rather than being abnormally good at things when he's pissed off. I feel like I might have gone overboard making Lee a loser. But he gets better over time. All the murder and dogfighting and trying desperately to explain to the wing commander that the porn in his footlocker is totally not his.

edited 20th Dec '10 8:33:18 PM by Kaxen

Yeah, he's a really big loser, haha.

Okay. This thread looks like it'd be a good place to bring one of my favorite characters that I want to write about: Adam Warden, a Villain Protagonist in a futuristic Magitek setting.

First, info about his race. He's a greyhorn. In the setting of this story, genetic modification, especially with the aid of magic, is commonplace. greyhorns are widely regarded as the most powerful bioengineered beings in the galaxy. Creating even one is a taxing process, on mages, resources, and money that could be spent elsewhere. It generally takes as long to create one as it does for a normal human woman to go through her gestation period, and that's assuming all of the necessary materials have been gathered. Once made, a greyhorn who has been given enough time to hone its power and gather knowledge is capable of tearing countries apart.

Powers: As a greyhorn, Adam has considerable magical resistance, meaning that less experienced spellcasters, unable to dilute their spells, are rarely able to even slightly harm him. If that were not enough, he has skin as hard as steel and enough strength to throw a standard-issue tank as if it were a cardboard box. They have tremendous magical auras, allowing them to cast spell after spell without risk of exhaustion, and they do not need to make physical gestures to cast; they are capable of casting with merely thoughts. Lastly, greyhorns are capable of manipulating the auras of other in ways that no normal mage can: they can sever a mage's connection to their energy, absorb it, or, in the case of ones with real experience, such as Adam, cast from it. One with experience can, however, retain control of their own power. This is all on top of Adam's lifelong magical training, which has given him at least some talent for every kind of magic.

Weaknesses: His biggest weakness is the greyhorn’s natural resistance to healing magic, left as a power-limiter, which means that he must recover from wounds at the normal rate. Otherwise, he is remarkably balanced.

Appearance: Adam, being a greyhorn, has two horns on his forehead and grey skin. He stands six feet and four inches tall, and his hair is black and shoulder-length (this is odd for a military man, but he has a preference for certain aesthetics, and no one, save for General Scales Delta, feels qualified or gutsy enough to tell him to follow regulations). He prefers grey and black clothing, usually fairly dressy outfits.

Personality: At only twenty-four years of age, Adam has been raised in a very sheltered environment, doing little but reading and practicing how to use magic since he was smuggled away. He honestly believes that purely social interaction is worthless and keeps a distance from anyone who does not fit into his world view. He has been raised by General Delta of Hyzinkoth’s army, and he is next in line to be the General. He is currently a professor at Hyzinkoth’s military academy, focusing on the manipulation of magic, instead of the battle suits that soldiers use.

Adam is very reserved, and the combination of his appearance and his disdain for personal interaction creates a shield around him. Those who have attempted to befriend him have found themselves sorely disappointed, save for Dana Marten, another greyhorn who has been brought to Hyzinkoth and told to train under him. He has taken a liking to her, but he does not allow this to show, for fear that he would contradict himself and his mask would slip completely.

Adam cares greatly for Hyzinkoth, and he strives for a solution to the issue of Lucia Flores, a greyhorn general for a galactic resistance movement that is currently much stronger than him. He has been given a solution by General Delta: a thought-to-be-forgotten time travel spell that will allow him to find Lucia as a child and kill her before she would become a threat (he is more of an antagonist to me than Lucia because, even though neither side is explicitly right, his methods are more extreme).

If any more information would be of assistance, I can provide it.

edited 21st Dec '10 7:34:50 AM by Everest

So battle weakness is inability to get insta-healed, but he's also super resilient to attack. I don't feel like it's much of a weakness then, right?

The personality flaw of believing that social interaction is useless, but taking a liking to a girl is a pretty good one, though. A little cliche to have a woman bring him out of his shell, but I guess I'm fishing for anything that makes this superman some kind of human. Because otherwise, I'm getting some Sue vibes, but maybe that's just me.

I haven't decided yet, but greyhorns might also generally be extra vulnerable to damage that breaks past their defenses as well, meaning that a fight in favor of the enemy will not last for very long. Basically, lack of survivability. He has the power to be a Sue, definitely, but he's one of four POV characters, so if the story is done right it'll be a non-issue. There should be enough people in the series who are at least on par with him, as well.

He's also barely human, and I probably should have made it a point to imply that none of the eight greyhorns ever created are mentally stable. He's personable if he is dragged into a conversation, and he's by no means belligerent or anything. His vocabulary rarely gets a test because he doesn't test himself.

Okay, there's a bit of extra fleshing-out, so thank you.

edited 21st Dec '10 2:24:30 PM by Everest

Everest, a surprise for you.◊

Wow. I did not see that coming.

Thank you very much, though. I'm grateful that you would do that when I had not expected it.

Unless that was just lying around and it coincidentally matched my character's description. But that might be a silly assumption.

What?

edited 21st Dec '10 8:15:52 PM by Everest

idgi

Nah. I did it specifically for you.

What?

"I don't get it"

Sorry about the paranoid bit. This is just one of the last things I was expecting.

^ I knew that much. What don't you get?

edited 21st Dec '10 8:22:10 PM by Everest

I'm happy to exceed your expectations.

Let me know if you have any more fun characters to draw.

Will do.

Lilith

Physical Description: Average height, long, unkempt black hair, reddish-brown eyes, slim build

Occupation(s): High school student (recent dropout), power-user

Weapons/Abilities: Can sever bonds between individual atoms, effectively disintegrating the object. Must have direct, physical contact for this to work

Character Details: Lilith was, up until five months ago, a normal high school student. She was a mathematical prodigy and played videogames in her off-time. She had a couple friends, was never picked on and even had her fair share of suitors.

It's just too bad this perfect life bored her to tears. Then, five months ago, she woke up to find she could destroy things on a molecular level. Her brain buzzed with information, registering the position, size and connection of every atom in everything she touched. Instead of being scared of this development, she was exhilarated, finally having found a release from her dull life. She experimented with her new abilities for a few days, then left home.

The way Lilith sees it, the world is now her very own sandbox rpg. She's been roaming the countryside for months, stealing to live and doing as she pleases. She's aware soldiers are after her and other power users, but as long as they don't interfere with her road trip, she doesn't care.

Relationships:

Cicero- After the military finally subdues her, Cicero is placed in charge of her well-being. Cicero acts as her de facto therapist and guardian, but they slowly become good friends. Cicero seems to be the only one to recognize that, despite her immense power, she is at worst Chaotic Neutral. She appreciates his understanding.

Family- At the time the story begins, Lilith has left her family behind her, preferring to think it wouldn't have been appropriately dramatic enough otherwise. Her family is still worried sick about their daughter and also a little angry to boot after witnessing her actions on the news. They also feel betrayed that Lilith left them but as far as Lilith is concerned, they don't matter anymore. She eventually gets over this notion but prefers to stay separated for the usual reasons.

This is a very rough character sketch, please let me know what you think.

KSPAM: I like the overall character concept, but I have some trouble interpreting what her personality "should" be.

You are talking about a person who can essentially unmake anything she touches at an atomic level. How conscious and restricted that power is determines simple things such as whether she can or not sleep calm or walk distracted across the streets (and to make it worse her hands will always be touching air in any case). Those "simple things" will in turn greasly affect how direct is her relationship with the world now that she sees it as a wide open sandbox. I'd have to question how such a start managed to last five months and then she is apparently all fine and dandy with the military that subdued her, although I took particular notice of "perfection bores her to tears", you could build more upon that.

I don't really have too much to observe otherwise. I'm definitvely not good to comment on a character's looks.

Psst...KSPAM.◊

I really like the idea of deconstructing a potential Mary sue. While sue deconstructions aren't rare or anything, they're still a bit interesting. If I were you, I'd definitely play up the wrong genre savvy.

The power is kind of cool. I'm not excited about it directly; though as has been stated, it'd be interesting to explore just how much control the girl has over it and how her environment is affected. There's also something thematic about a character being excited about havin the ability to destroy and only destroy.

Yeah, she was already slightly unstable before, put kept it under control. After she got her powers, she came to the warped conclusion that since she can only destroy, why not roll with it?