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Knight Title: Newgrange Page

Challenge: "I hate to shake things up, but…”

Uniform: x

Top – An undershirt the same color as his bottoms; it has a high collar and sleeves that go down half of his upper arm; the fabric clings so it doesn’t get in the way. Atop the undershirt, he wears a light brown tunic with a collar that flips up in back and attached shoulder pads.
Bottoms – Smokey brown color, tight leggings that tuck into the boots
Gloves – Almost elbow length brown gloves that are the same color as the trimming on the tunic, the shoulder pads, and the boots.
Belt – Very dark brown belt with an off center copper buckle engraved with the planetary symbol for Earth resting over his waist.
Shoes – Thigh high brown boots with a bit of extra sole at the back, but it could hardly be classified as a heel. They are laced up with string the same color as the tunic.
Shoulders – Leather shoulder pads attached to the tunic
Accessories – A single necklace with a small pendent featuring the designs of the triple spiral Newgrange Triskelion: x

***Really, I'm no good with clothing designs, so even though this is my rough idea and I would prefer a pallete based off of browns, I'm pretty open to allowing the artist to improvise.

Weapon –

Stage one: A pair of relatively normal brown leather gloves which protects the hands from dirt and cold, but doesn’t really do much to add to defense or offense.

Stage two: A pair of stronger leather gloves that extend to his elbow and provide a fair amount of protection. When using his magic, he has the ability to create tremors within a five foot range of wherever his fist makes contact with the ground. The tremors are localized with the epicenter where his fist makes contact with the ground and pulse out until the magic is expended; the attack lasts for twenty seconds before his energy is completely depleted. The magic is best used to stall or disorient an opponent, as the tremors don’t cause any sort of physical damage and just serves the purpose to knock off balance for the twenty seconds it is used. The drawback to this is that the tremors spread around him and he is caught in the middle for the duration of the attack, so while he is disorienting those around him, he is held in place unless he wants to be affected by the tremors as well. In addition, due to the small area of effect, he has to be relatively close to have any effect.

Stage three: A pair of studded leather gloves with the same power as in stage two, however instead of the tremors expanding out in a circular manner from the epicenter in only five feet, it has grown to eight. Due to the increase in the area of effect, Arias is able to attack the ground near an enemy without being too close and giving him a bit more distance from them. The increase in magical stamina will allow the duration of his magic to be used for thirty five seconds, though he doesn’t have to expend all his energy during one attack in battle and can instead use his magic whenever he’s sees fit for however long he sees fit until his thirty five seconds expire.

**Weapon is something I'm teetering on; I was thinking either gloves or boots or something but would very much love any output on such. I'm totally open to other ideas if neither are acceptable.

Hi there! I was going through the quest forum and decided to do some crits, and saw you hadn't had any yet, so I figured this was a good place to start! = u= I take notes and crit as I go, so sometimes I may make remarks that don't take into account the entire profile until I get to the end, because I haven't read it all yet.

HOBBIES:

I'm wondering a little bit about Painting vs Cleaning. In my experience, though I haven't painted too much... painting is actually pretty messy, whether you're using a medium that requires you to blend your own colors, or you're just painting in general. You have to put paint splots on a little board and stuff, don't you, when you use the tubes? And artists wear a smock and everything to protect their clothes, since paint has a habit of getting everywhere even when you don't intend it to. I would downplay the cleaning hobby a little bit if you want to keep painting, just because it seems like if he needs to be in a constantly clean environment, sitting there and making messes while he paints would drive him a little batty, and you've said painting is his relaxing activity.

A good thing to do with cleaning, actually, might be to make it a part-time job of his! I have an aunt who runs a business cleaning apartments, and some of those are just... terrifyingly disgusting, but she makes good money. Maybe he could work part-time for a family member's cleaning business, which could be a fun way to get him involved in plots with characters in the shops -- if someone has a youma running wild and a place gets trashed or there's a senshi vs Nega smackdown, he could work to help clean up and run into people that way. I know a lot of characters also live in apartment complexes, so if he was constantly around cleaning out apartments that are going to be lent, that would give you a lot of opportunities for interaction.

Cleaning just feels like a little bit of a strange hobby to me because... cleaning's not usually a hobby! Generally, people who clean obsessively are either, well, obsessive, or they do so to let off steam. Since painting is his go-to activity for de-stressing, and working on a painting tends to require a lot of time, maybe reconsider using cleaning itself as a hobby? I've found myself sitting back and thinking over it a lot since I started reading your profile, just because hobbies are things you go out of your way to do for pleasure. Sure, he hates being in a dirty environment, but does he pop up at friends' houses and immediately set in on their dirty kitchen? Wipe his finger underneath the tabletop and tsk when it doesn't pass the white glove test?

Also, if he's a very outdoorsy person, I'm wondering how that would go with being so particular about being in a clean environment. The outdoors are beautiful and lovely and you say he helps with community clean-up, but nature can also be really... gross. There's mud, rain, soot, animal poop, dust, sap, and all sorts of weird and cool things that exist outside. The out of doors just... really aren't very clean. So is his problem with trash and clutter, more than dirtiness? How does he handle being in Destiny City, which is a bustling metropolis, if he prefers a clean environment and his problems lie with industrialized mess rather than natural mess?

Hobbies say a lot about your character generally, but it's also a good idea to make sure that you have built-in opportunities to interact with others. I'm loving his outdoors-y activities for this reason, though you might want to stick to a couple specific ones so that he has time to really get into them and enjoy himself. Someone who hikes and camps and kayaks and climbs rock walls and take long nature walks would probably literally spend all of their time outside, you know? And since he's only seventeen, he's got school and other obligations. It would make more sense from a personal standpoint for him to pick one or two activities that he's really passionate about, I'd think, and when he goes outside he'll participate in them. Nature walks are awesome, and maybe taking that (which could also include hiking and camping, to a lesser extent!) and one of the more action-oriented ones would be your best bet here. That way, when he's feeling really gung-ho, he knows to head for his kayak, but if he's more feeling like he wants to vibe with nature, he and his parents will go take a long walk and camp out for the weekend or something.

I'm not sure exactly on the location, though, but I think a lot of the nature-type activities he'd have to travel a bit for, considering Destiny City is a big city. You might want to check on that with GMs to get a good idea on whether these hobbies are ones he'd pursue on his own time and dollar or if he'd only be able to go kayaking and camping up in the mountains on vacations with the family.

You could possibly tie nature walks in with his painting, though! If he took a sketchbook up with him and got ideas down, maybe, or even took a small set of paints on one of his camping trips, that could be fun and pretty.

In short, just be careful you don't overload your character with too many solitary hobbies. Give him a few strong things that he does often and make sure you've built in ways for him to run into other people! If he paints alone and goes on rambling nature walks alone and kayaks alone when is he going to run into other people? There might be others out and about in the woods, sure, but how often would he run into the same people? Why is he so obsessive about cleaning? Is it something his parents taught him, or did he have some bad experiences in a dirty environment, or what-have-you?

VIRTUES:

"My words are my ways" and "I'll see this through" are reading very similarly to me. Perhaps focus in the first virtue on honesty, highlighting the fact that he strives to live honestly and fairly -- you could possibly even rename it that, as it tends to help me personally (though this is by no means across the board!) to chose a key word for a virtue and then explain how it is interpreted for your character. Some people will put the trait's name and then a quote right after it, which could be a format you might like. For example:

Honesty - "My words are my ways." And then here you would explain how Arias strives to tell the truth and would rather keep his mouth shut than lie. Maybe dig a little deeper into the trait here -- does he go out of his way to find the truth so that he can spread it? Given that he's so honest, does he have high moral standards that he sets for others and holds himself to? You can consider here whether he's the type who'll suck in a quick breath and just frown disapprovingly at someone spreading lies, or if he's an honesty crusader, going around and doing his best to spread the truth, or somewhere in between. How does this trait effect him generally? Do his friends appreciate his honesty -- is it gentle enough that they can handle it, and does he practice discretion for the sake of sparing feelings? Or is he blunt and ruthless with his honesty? will he tattle on classmates and coworkers, giving him a leg up with his superiors but making him a pariah among his peers?

"I'll see this through" could be called diligence just as easily, since that's what you mostly focus on here! He's hard-working and task-oriented, which would make him excellent when it came to cleaning and finishing projects that he starts, so I really like this trait for him. You could focus here on his methodology when it comes to his diligence to give us a clear view of his character -- does he break things into small pieces and work on a bit at a time? Does he go step by step in order and god help him if he has to go out of order? Will he take on more than one task at once, or will he doggedly pursue one project until he has satisfactorily completed it?

"I've got your back" actually reads a little more like a flaw than it does a virtue! Loyalty is an excellent character trait to have and is certainly a virtue, except when you take it too far. You mention that he is loyal through thick and thin -- does this extend to when those he considers worthy are in the wrong? Will he stand up for them and defend their cause because they are his friends and he feels allegiance to them? Blind loyalty is very dangerous and almost never a positive trait for the person who exhibits it -- it's almost exclusively positive for those who exploit it, however. Does his loyalty extend to where he could be manipulated by someone he was loyal to? Would he stand by his best friend through thick and thin no matter what? Can he justify his allies doing terrible things because they are his allies, and he is just sure that they're doing it for the greater good? The way you've written this virtue, this is how it seems to come off, and I would suggest flipping it over to flaws if that is the case.

"It's okay.. it'll all be okay." I really like! I think it's well-described and gives me a good indication of his compassion -- though he doesn't take it to the point of it being a detriment to himself, does he? That's not really the indication I got, but maybe adding in a clear line saying something to the effect that he will take a step back and preserve himself rather than sink all of his life and time into helping someone would be good here. Basically, he will help people to a point, but he understands that there's a time when they have to want to help themselves and he won't become an enabler for them.

FLAWS:

"There's good in everyone" is what I was getting at with loyalty! I feel that his loyalty fits better as a flaw than a virtue given the nature of it, and typically, when you're going through a profile it's a good idea to pick distinct traits that play off each other but aren't necessarily the same four traits shown in a positive and negative light through his virtues. So if you cut loyalty from his virtues and combined it into this flaw, I think that would serve you very well, and open up a slot for another virtue to further expand and flesh out his character.

"To the death" takes one of your virtues and shows the extreme side of it, pushing it to the length that it's a flaw. While this is fine, I'd like to again caution you against taking one trait and splitting it into a virtue and a flaw. Every human trait has a good and a bad aspect to it, so of course your virtues won't be 100% positive all the time, and they will lead to negative things, and sometimes your flaws will actually work to the benefit of your character, but in constructing a profile like this, I personally feel it's a good idea to decide which category a trait most belongs to. That way, rather than giving us essentially four personality traits -- with a positive and negative for each one -- you can provide eight personality traits! This will give a much broader and clearer picture of your character, and allow us to see more into who he is as a person, as more ground is covered in his personality.

"I like things the way they are, thanks" is perfectly fine as a personality trait, I'm just worried it will be limiting. If he really takes it to excess to the point of it being a flaw like this, when will he ever go outside of his personal comfort zone to interact with other characters? I'm worried you might be writing yourself into a bit of a corner here, so you might want to consider lessening the severity of his unwillingness to push against his own boundaries and try new things. Leave a little wiggle room for him to have a little spontaneity and try new things so that you can interact with a wider variety of characters and he has a chance for character growth! He'll never grow if he stays in the same place doing the same things all the time, after all.

"Just leave me alone" is a trait that, you say, applies to his "bad days." How frequent are these? If his bad days only happen every so often when he gets in far too deep/over his head, it might not merit being one of his core flaws, just because it wouldn't come into play that often. This is, again, taking one of your main virtues and showing the negative aspects of it, and actually gives me a very different impression of the type of person he is. Reading to this point, I thought he was more level-headed and recognized his own limits better, but if he can be pulled in so deep and assumes total responsibility for things that are outside of his control, that implies something else entirely different about his character.

My main suggestion to you would be to look at the core personality traits you have for Arias and decide firmly whether they are predominantly a flaw or a virtue. That way, you have spaces opened for you to further explore his character and give a more thorough picture of who he is. As of right now, we're seeing a few basic traits and, in essence, it's the same as if you had two virtues and two flaws -- because you're only full exploring four traits. The goal of this profile is to cover as much ground as you can, in a general sense, to give a good idea of what your character is mostly like, so you'd be well served by picking character traits that say a lot about him, and virtues and flaws that tie together but are not necessarily positive/negative versions of one another.

I'm going to hold off on critting the powered section because I'm not so good with that. I hope my crit has been helpful!

YEAH, I kind of -- I kind of always end up wall of text-ing people, and it's generally mostly because I have questions. ;; I often run into exactly what you did here, and that's the simple situation where my character is all laid out in my head and then I have to take that character and put them into a form. Inevitably, I leave things out, so having a fresh pair of eyes and brain to comb over what I've written will point out where there are gaps in my logic. Nine times out of ten, it's just something that I've already thought out but didn't write in or explain. So I'm glad I could be helpful!

Honestly, critiques are one of my favorite things to do, because I love characters and I love seeing them come together. So if you ever want to bounce ideas or anything, feel free to fling me a PM! I am by no means an authority, but I'll do my best to help out where I can.

I'm glad you're going to keep going with Arias, though, because I like him a lot and would really enjoy writing with you once you get him!

The personality is lovely! However, his weapon abilities are more similar to a Negaverser than a Knight -- his Squire ability is something you might see on a Negaverse General! This can easily be fixed by changing the whip to a weapon that can't do physical damage on its own. Whips can cause a lot of pain. XD

Knights also typically have a maximum total amount of channeling time, not a maximum number of uses. c:

Dragons don't technically 'exist' so it would probably be better if you made it some kind of indeterminate leather. They are magical, after all, so who knows what they're really made of.

Just swap that out, and you're good to go, pending Mouse's review.