Welcome to Gaia! ::

How much of it's genetics? How much of it is fate? How much of it depends on the choices that we make? He says I have her eyes, did I also inherit his shame?

One more. Ish.

Crit time!

As I was looking over this character, it presented itself like it was written with a broad idea of what it ought to aim for - but then hadn't gotten developed beyond that point. You mentioned in the first post that you haven't really got a plan for her, and I think that might be what's hindered her from getting as a strong character. Think of it like this: Even if you don't know if you want to take her down a supernatural route, Senshi or Nega or Cavalier or whatnot, the character still needs a goal, or it will fall flat. Developing Shiloh into a full-bodied character should be your aim right now, regardless of what plans you make for her later - so my focus in this critique will be to help you to do that.

For a start: What does your character want to do in life? She's going to Sovereign Heights (which, by the way, means she ought to be 18 years old); so she survived high school, and is just starting down the path toward higher education. What sort of school subjects interest her? How does she perform socially? Maybe put some thought into her personality type - try the personality test, through her eyes, and see what turns up - then, go to Google and search your personality type and "Jobs", and take a look at what comes up. Try applying those ideas to Shiloh, and see which ones you think she would be interested in; then, start working out why in order to develop new personality traits.

That's enough for overview, anyway. Looking at the details you have written so far:

The hobbies all seem good. I especially like the connection between Shiloh star-gazing with her father, and then her collecting star-shaped objects. I might actually suggest you reorganize the hobbies to put those one after the other, really, because that is a very human, very meaningful piece of your character.

You mention that Shiloh likes DDR, but you never really get into the reason why she does. Is it just what she does for exercise? Does she approach it robotically, not even caring about the music, or is there some sort of appeal there, too? Does she try pushing herself to be competitive and learn advanced moves (they do exist, believe it or not - I learned about them when I was in my own DDR phase); does she try throwing in extra moves when she's dancing for flair; or does she just try to keep going as long as she can, as hard as she can? These are all things that can speak about her personality, so develop the answers carefully!

When it comes to virtues and flaws, I'm not really sure what I can say. It's very bare-bones, here. It's not just that there are very few traits, but the content of them is also very minimal. For every trait, there's a number of things you need to define for the reader. At the minimum, you need to ask yourself clearly:

• Who? We know that this trait is supposed to apply to her, of course, but does she expect it in others as well? Does her being determined affect her views of people who are not?
  
• What? Because a lot of traits can have multiple meanings - for a random example, faithful can mean pious to God, or it can mean loyal to friends - you need to clearly define what it means, in this instance, with this character.
  
• When and Where? Are there times or situations that this trait might be stronger or weaker? Are there nuances in her personality that can make her into a hypocrite - times that she might refuse to sympathize with someone, for example? (Maybe if they were kicking puppies?)
  
• Why and How? Are there influences in Shiloh's life that inspired her to cultivate these traits in herself? Were they things she just grew up adopting, possibly learned from a parental figure, or something she consciously tried to push herself towards, having had her eyes opened to the need of them in her life?

At first, it will probably help you to just write down everything you can think of along these lines. Don't worry too much about whether they're relevant to the reader for now - developing the character is the first concern, presentation is second. Once you've gotten these thoughts down for all of the traits, it will be time to start drawing connections between them to figure out how to make a stronger, cohesive character through all these developments - but that can wait for another day. smile

As a side note: I think this has come up before, but most people will not consider physical handicaps to be personality flaws. Although it is a challenge that the character has to overcome, you really ought to approach the handicap as a development tool rather than a trait in itself - like how you used it to justify Shiloh's determination. Maybe you could make a trait talking about her being sensitive about her inability to hear in one ear, and how she is too embarrassed to ask for clarification all of the time, even though it can cause misunderstandings or hurt feelings when she mishears something?

That looks like the main character points, anyway. The main things you need to do: Develop the personality traits further, and probably you're also going to want to develop more of them while you're at it. Although you can get away with only two for each category in the shop, in real life, people have dozens of virtues and flaws that are deeply detailed and nuanced. Now, nobody would actually want to read that much, let alone write it, so the four-maximum is a blessing like that, but unless you have two traits that are developed and interconnected in ways of unbelievably complexity, you're probably going to want to at least try for developing four.

I think that Shiloh is a very cute character design, and at her base, she feels very real to me - but I also think that the profile leaves too much up to the imagination at this point, and what I'm getting out of this character might have nothing to do with what you're actually planning for her. Work to expand things and create more complexities in the character, and try to develop her in terms of her future aspirations and how she would interact with other characters. There's a lot that you can do with her, so stick with it!

Mostly for my record, as I'll be working on this off and on:

Switched Star Collecting and DDR.
Added in Astronomy as another hobby.
Replaced Hard of Hearing with Sensitive.

Hey Bunni!

I think the main thing you've got to be concerned with is the fact that this is a cosplay, or at least reads a lot like one. Shiloh not only shares a name with Shiloh Wallace, she also has a similar motivation (cure their particular disease, which has no known cure), personality (sweet and determined) and appearance (black hair, gray eyes, pale skin, similar facial structure, body type and height). Even their family situations (single father, mother removed from picture with no contact whatsoever with the daughter) are similar. This makes it really hard for me to look at this character as seriously as I normally would; I don't know if the similarities are intentional or not, but I think they are definitely things that should be corrected, or made more personal to who Shiloh Morgan is as a character in order to remove the similarity to Shiloh Wallace.

Beyond that, I think you could benefit from having a few more virtues and flaws. The max is four, so make good use of it, henna? You could also add in how the hobbies you've listed make opportunities for social interaction; that would help a lot!

Good luck~

I don't think she said it was exactly, just that it strongly reminded her of that character. To be honest, I got the same vibe, and I haven't even seen Repo all the way through. :'D There's no need to be upset though, as you said, you didn't realize, and this is what crit is for!

I'm going to take a look at the rest of the character now, so please bear with me. <3

Right off the bat, I realize that two flaws/virtues are the minimum, but I feel like you can really expand here. It doesn't give me the clearest picture of Shiloh, and I feel like if you added in even one more flaw and virtue each, it'd help me see her a lot better. I mean, she has a mom who tried to kill her! She must have a lot going on up in that head of hers, right? :'D So I'd like to see more. <3

The second thing I noticed was that sensitive actually seems to be more of an example for 'pride' than a second flaw. This is because of this part: Due to a incident in her childhood, she is entirely deaf in one ear. Because of her pride Shiloh finds herself often refusing to ask for clarification when she mishears things when talking with others, and it has lead to - more often then naught - misunderstandings and hurt feelings from both parties. If you take out the part that's because of her pride, that leaves just the fact that she's deaf in one ear, which is a fact, not a flaw. I feel that you should tack this example onto pride, since it's a good example, but also rewrite sensitive.

Next, why does she hate seafood? Her father's a fisherman, so I'd think that she'd be accustomed to it. Is there a psychological reason? Just personal preference? It just stuck out to me on the form, is all, so I was curious.

Maybe you can combine stargazing and collecting stars? I feel like one is a symptom of the other. :> Also, does she have any other hobbies? Genetics must be time consuming, but so far you have stargazing, an activity that's difficult to do in a big city, which suggests that it would take time to get to the suburbs or outside Destiny City, Genetics, which is directly related to her career, and DDR. Is there anything else she does in her spare time for fun? Once again, this isn't necessary, but I feel like it would help me get a feel for Shiloh.

That's all the things that I could see! I hope I helped. :'D <3