YMMV / The Seventh Player

• Creator's Pet: Adaine, full stop. You can't read through one chapter of The Seventh Player without at least one of the characters (usually Machaira) singing her praises at some point, and the Bad Kids (again, usually Machaira) seem to practically go out of their way to lavish her with compliments directed at her skills, personality, looks, etc. in great abundance. With Machaira in particular, while the author has no issue having Machaira dish out Tough Love when the other Bad Kids make asses of themselves, Machaira seems to be boundlessly and ceaselessly forgiving and favoring of her, not only when Adaine would arguably deserve the very same Tough Love that she doles out to the rest of the party, but even when Adaine does things that are far more worthy of offense than the things Machaira gets on the other Bad Kids' cases for; the one time that Machaira actually does call out Adaine's behavior in some capacity- specifically, the other Bad Kids torturing Biz in "Arcade Ambush"- she forgives her so quickly and so unconditionally that it undercuts how seriously Machaira treated the situation... which is especially notable considering that Machaira is still quite brusque with the other five Bad Kids about the whole situation in the next chapter, as well as the fact that- throughout all of it- she was the only Bad Kid who seriously advocated for executing Biz. Furthermore, when the author wants to paint Adaine as being right or having the moral high ground about something, either over Machaira or in general, Machaira conveniently becomes much more passive and submissive to Adaine's behavior and perspective than she would be with any of the others; at (arguably) its most egregious, in spite of Machaira's Dark and Troubled Past heavily involving years of toxic relationships, sexual abuse, and even outright rape, she's conveniently still willing enough to have sex, and conveniently skilled enough in pleasuring people sexually, to effectively be an ideal lover for Adaine right out of the gate.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: It seems like the author goes out of their way to paint Adaine as being the best of the Bad Kids (mainly through Machaira), but this is undercut by the fact that she is leagues less likable here than she is in Dimension 20. She's remarkably ungrateful, considering who else she keeps as company (she was willing to disown Machaira after she failed to call in and check on her once, in what's worth noting as being a completely isolated occurence in a history of consistent check-up calls by this point, later in the day after killing Coach Daybreak when emotions were running high, not only after several months of Machaira having unconditionally given her the affection and compassion that her parents deny her, but only hours after Machaira had once again stood up to Adaine's family on her behalf), she's self-righteous and hypocritical (having the audacity to get angry at Machaira for expressing her concerns aloud as to how much she really values them, given her longevity and agelessness as an elf, after having just persuaded Machaira to essentially mock-seduce her in a replication of one aspect of the tabaxi's painful and sordid past with sex, as well as similarly having the gall to get on Fig's case about the deceitfulness of her Fille Fatale tendencies when, as Fig herself points out, Adaine did nothing to address the romantic tension forming between her and Machaira for the better part of three-to-four months), and she's vain and even downright manipulative (as alluded to before, when Adaine overhears a subdued Anguished Declaration of Love directed towards her from Machaira while she thinks she's asleep, she chooses to stay silent and prioritize processing her own feelings as being more important rather than confronting Machaira and talking about how she feels so that she could at least partially absolve the tabaxi's emotional turmoil over the situation, all the while she continues to simply lap up all of the love that Machaira has always shown her without even once seeing it as a reason to reconsider whether or not she should be hiding the truth from her). Adaine rarely apologizes for or even recognises any of this (and it's just as rarely called out by the rest of the characters, least of all Machaira), and whenever she does (or is called out), it's either so quick and cheap that it barely addresses the reasons why she was called out or needed to apologize in the first place, or she's forgiven so quickly and so unconditionally that it downplays just how damaging her behavior really was. But what really makes her this, at the end of the day, is that when she acts in these ways, the story treats her reasons as being easily understandable, tragically misguided, and as all part of the process of growing up as a teenager and coming to as a budding adult, and all-around presents her as someone who should be pitied and sympathized with... and yet when any of the other teenage characters in the story act in ways that are exactly the same or are similar (particularly Kristen, who also was hit with the Adaptational Jerkass stick), their behavior is treated as being exactly as egregious as it would be realistically, and the consequences for how they behave are played completely straight.
  • Machaira could count, too. For a character who's supposed to be a Knight in Sour Armor and is meant to show the ways that trauma and hardship can make a person both stronger and weaker, a lot of her outward expressions and internal ponderings of her personal woes and how much life has mistreated her can be overdramatic, and even downright theatric, enough to enter Wangst territory (made more notable by the fact that she otherwise conducts herself as if she's the most mature person in the party), and at its most intense, her Tough Love can come off less like that and more like the author is just using her to bully characters that they don't like. It doesn't help that these attributes are really dialed up a notch once she's Demoted to Satellite Love Interest halfway into the story.
  • Kristen is a downplayed example, in that the author seems to be knowingly and actively going out of their way to make Kristen less likable than she is in canon. This being said, they insist that they plan on Kristen undergoing Character Development that has her grow past this... hence where the "unintentionally" part comes in; between the author having already played up her lustful and attention-seeking behavior from canon to an overwhelmingly obnoxious degree and making her far more disrespectful and insensitive than she was even in canon, there are people who are bound to end up hating her too much to care even if she does.