Welcome to Gaia! ::

Thank you so much, Peach!

And the quest is now ready to be marked! Er, there's no rush, seriously. I do realize it's extremely long and could take a while to get through...

I'm still definitely open for crits! Any feedback would be great! Thank you!

Hi there! This is FKT, from the 'Crit the Person Above You Thread'. 8D

First off...wow, what a novel. I have to give you credit for going so in depth with your character and really figuring out everything about him. Normally I try to go piece by piece with quests, but I think if I found myself commenting on everything that I'd be writing a novel as well. So, I'm just going to go over the main things that stuck out to me, and hopefully that can help you out.

Chris sounds like a total golden boy, and you've done a great job in setting up that type of character, but despite trying to give him something of a normal edge, he still seems a little too...golden (I mean, his eyes sparkle. Only not.). I can't even imagine how immaculate his older brother must be by comparison. The easiest way I see about getting out of this is if his brother's perfection was only perceived in Chris's head, which would be an interesting route to go if you wanted to have it revealed later on that of the two siblings, Chris was actually the more accomplished one for his age. As a side note, I'm not really sure how independent is a virtue as opposed to a flaw from the way you've worded it, but my main focus would be to perhaps tone down how SUPER AWESOME this guy is (and that'll probably come with some revisions and editing later on down the road). Also, you mention that Dylan would pick Chris because he wouldn't really stand out anywhere, and that's not what reads in his profile at all. He seems like someone that everyone would know, so again, if you're going for the more anonymous route, a tone-down is in order.

Having read his virtues, his flaws felt weak in comparison, which adds to the whole 'golden boy' image. I try to imagine that there's a balance between the good and the bad, so for such benevolent traits like 'magnanimous' and 'super loyal' and '100 percent hard working', it kinda feels lame that the flip side of the coin is 'reckless' or 'short-tempered' (reckless especially is a flaw that has grown to become frowned on in the shop as something of a 'cool' flaw, because it doesn't really make him a bad person). There's a lot of potential for his superiority complex, though I'd like to see that expressed perhaps a little more publicly if it's such a big part of his personality. If his ego's the size of a small building, it's not going to be some well-kept secret, and it might be interesting to note how other people generally received someone with that much of a personality.

The way you've interpreted Landmarks is awesome, in my humble opinion, and I think it's great that you've taken something that otherwise would be a little bland and turned it into a really neat abstract concept. That being said, don't let your interpretation overshadow the actual sphere that Glaucus holds: he's the Cavalier of the Landmark, not Cavalier of Souls or Psyche, which seems to get reflected in his challenge and in his sword name. I don't see any need to change the name of the sword itself, but the challenge could easily be fixed to "Have you already lost your way?", which feels a little more Landmark-y to me. The attack, while a neat concept, also feels more like 'souls' than landmark to me, but check with a stamper before changing it, because it seems like it might check off with them.

As hesitant as I am about Chris's profile, I really really like what you did with Glaucus, and you've made yourself a character that really fits the mold for 'Cavalier' (and also has the potential for some major humor, if you played him right). The biggest thing I'd like to see is how you plan to mesh his personality with Chris's, which is something you noted that 'you weren't really sure about'. Even if you want to leave some of the surprises up to rp, you should probably have a general direction to work towards, which should help you when you rp. It doesn't have to be set in stone, but a little planning can go a long way, and you've definitely shown that you can do at least a little planning. smile

Interestingly enough, my Hillworth boy has a similar backstory to yours! 8D Having played the whole 'expelled because they were framed' story myself, I would really suggest looking at how this event affected Chris, because something that significant could really change a person. How is he still so trusting, after being betrayed? How does he feel about leaving his friends at Meadowview, the people he was so loyal to? How does he cope? I went about it from an entirely different angle than what Chris is going through, but Zachary has severe emotional scars from his experience, and you can see it in bits and pieces all over his profile. If I hadn't read his backstory, I wouldn't have even known that Chris had been expelled for that. And, as a final note, it struck me weird that you would mention Chris as 'bi-curious' if a big part of his concept is being a good Catholic, because of strong anti-same-sex coupling messages sent out by the Church. It's a minor detail, but I thought I'd throw it out there all the same.

...And wow, I guess I ended up writing a novel after all. XD; TL;DR, I really like some of the concepts you're playing around with and you're definitely an awesome writer, but I'd be careful to make sure that, in the end, the character comes out feeling three-dimensional and consistent in the long run, and I have to reiterate that I feel that some of that will come with combing through your quest and omitting some things that aren't quite as necessary to note. You've got a lot of good stuff to work with, and I wish you the best of luck with your quest! <3

Like FKT said, very detailed profile! <3 Pretty much anything that I want answers to I can find somewhere down the road so very nice. You've clearly put a lot of work into this and it shows.

I have to admit I'm really curious why you want this boy landed in Hillworth, especially for four separate and pretty darn serious charges. Just doing a quick Googling of penalties for narcotics possession and possession of marijuana would be enough to get him some serious drug counseling classes plus probation (even if he didn't have it in his system). Add onto that a theft charge plus the money (which could point to drug trafficking) you're essentially looking at a kid who would be sent straight to juvie. Narcotic trafficking alone is enough to get people sent to jail even for first time offenders.

You also don't really touch upon his family's reactions to him going to Hillworth. I mean, wouldn't you be a little more than "a bit concerned" or "a little unhappy" if your son was expelled from school for theft, drug possession and drug trafficking? Those charges alone are enough to seriously taint a family name, and all because he was too trusting of his classmate. This isn't a kind of slap on the wrist situation. If he's in Hillworth he is in deep trouble.

I would personally suggest you stick to one, or even two of the charges, probably staying well away from the narcotics. Weed possession and stolen calculators are probably as bad as you need to go. By getting into drug dealing charges you're into things that are probably too heavy of a charge for Hillworth. You're looking for misdemeanors, not charges that would send an adult offender to jail.

Ultimately, I'm back to the question of why do you want him to go to Hillworth? Getting duped and getting punished for someone else's crime is a good reason for being there, but like FKT said it doesn't really come off in his profile. He learned nothing from the experience. He's not jaded or angry and his parents aren't even really concerned that he's been sent to a school of hooligans. So it really comes down to the why. What purpose does being in Hillworth serve for him as a way of character building? Right now, what I'm seeing is a guy who's been made into a victim of circumstance, who everyone will feel bad for because he was duped but who has no potential in his own right to hurt someone else's feelings or do someone else damage (even inadvertently). I believe FKT said that he was a bit too much of a golden boy and I would have to echo her statements. His biggest flaw is that he thinks everyone is as golden as he is and thus trusts people. Sure, it's going to get him into trouble, but is that literally the worst thing about him? He gets himself into trouble but that's okay because he keeps on trekking?

Glaucus suffers from a little bit of the same problems, in that his flaws stand on shaky legs. Typically, stoicism is seen as a very "cool" flaw, and you have it down almost twice. He's unemotional and it keeps people away from him because he's scary. What if people aren't scared of him? There is always at least one character that finds stoicism hilarious and wants to poke them until they snap. (I mean think of the London Guards. Everybody loves trying to get a reaction out of them, right?) I could understand it was a flaw if, for example, he was so used to shutting himself up that he mentally wasn't able to let himself go again and thus, for example, couldn't be able to grieve properly for someone. That I could definitely see as a problem.

The fact that you say things like "it's not his fault he's frowning" really takes away from the flaw. If it's something not under his control it becomes a character fact rather than a character flaw.

The I Told You So flaw has so much potential it almost hurts but you sort of use it to tell the reader how awesome Glaucus is. Why? We know he has lots of experience. You imply with the name of the title that he gives the worst "I told you so" speeches ever and you will be so annoyed hearing them you'll want to tear your hair out but then you don't follow through. Why is the flaw named that if he doesn't actually do it?

I'm not sure I really understand his final flaw either. It's probably a little annoying, sure, but I think we all have little habits that annoy people, right? Is the fact that I leave my socks strewn around the house a flaw?

Overall, I really think you've got the flaws that make a character look dumb down very well. What you should also consider are flaws that have the potential for them to hurt other people otherwise you're stuck with a character is never really to blame. There should be something he does, by his own weakness, that is ultimately his fault. Everyone's got a dark side and I really think both Glaucus and Chris could benefit from some darker traits. Conflict is awesome, right? XD

Phrasing potential relationships with the existing Parallel court members is a huge challenge and one I remember running into when I wrote my quest. They're really hard to write without coming off as dictating the relationship. It may be better to write them in a way that suggests what Chris and Glaucus have to offer to a relationship rather than how they'll react to things that a specific character does. Your Glaucus/Hector one is really good at that. I would just watch in a couple of them not to dictate how two characters may or may not get along. When in doubt, just hint.

Moving on to the character that I know the best (hurr hurr) I may have to politely disagree that Johnny and Chris would get along very well. Johnny isn't really the type of person to make good friends with someone especially if they are what he'd consider "stupid." Chris's first two flaws essentially put him in that category. I'd actually be more interested to know what Chris would do to combat Johnny's dismissal of him rather than the fact that he wouldn't try to publically embarrass him or question his secret hobbies. XD Would he try and prove himself at all? Or would he just be content to tolerate Johnny's naturally suspicious nature and not try to become bffs? The relationship between them could definitely be more than just the fact that Chris doesn't push his buttons, right?

I'm assuming you're being sarcastic about Laocoon's musical talents? XD Because he plays the piano with his elbows and feet. Just putting that out there. Also, what about Glaucus would make Laocoon offer him the puzzle book in the first place? Is he good at them? The "protecting Laocoon from manipulation" thing has come up in a couple of quests and I would be interested to see how he'd go about doing it simply because it is one of my favourite flaws of Laocoon's. What does Glaucus do/say to try and convince his pestilence of a teammate that he's actually being goaded into doing something?

Wow I wrote a lot lawl. XD ANYWAYS UH SUMMING IT ALL UP: I like him. He's really cute as a good boy but I'd really love to see more of him than his good side. I want to see him so enraged he'd kick a puppy, even if he'd feel immensely guilty about it later. XD GOOD LUCK!

Chibi • Thank you so much for your crit!! It was very helpful and pointed out things that completely went over my head, as well as making me think about the characters more. I feel like a moron for not Googling charges for things like that before hand. I guess I was worried that it wouldn't be enough, so I went overboard. Hopefully it's better now. I also put in more of his family's reaction to it and updated his profile to include how the experience has changed him.

I also took out and redid a couple of Glaucus's flaws so that hopefully they're actually something that can be worked with and/or cause problems with others. And I took your advice on his "I told you so" flaw, because you're right. I shouldn't have called it that if he doesn't actually do it. I hope it's now better than before. I also took out his last flaw because it really is just a random annoyance instead of an actual flaw.

And I almost completely redid the possible relationships with the Parallel court! You're completely right, again, and rereading everything I did see how it was dictating relationships, rather than allowing something to build. And I was trying to be sarcastic about his talents, but that definitely failed at coming across! [/shame] I hope that now it's more just hinting than dictating. Thank you so much, again! It really helped. <333

Spy • Thank you for your crit, too!! I included why Glaucus collects/drinks wine to his profile, so hopefully it makes more sense now.

FKT • Hopefully I've dulled down the shininess now?? I also went back and changed what you suggested about why I think Dylan would pick Chris. And I've changed his virtues and flaws more to hopefully add to his Superiority flaw.

I also switched a lot of the "soul" stuff back to the actual sphere, so hopefully it reads more as "landmark" than anything else, now. I definitely didn't want to break out of the set boundaries. (Pun not intended. XD; )

Finally, I went through and thought out the potential Chris and Glaucus have in their merging together! They both feel a lot more developed, to me at least, now.

Thank you all so much for your crits!! I'm definitely open to more now that I've re-done a lot of the quest! I'm also working on family things (such as Chris's brother), and those should be updated soon! <3

Heeee I like him much better at Sovereign. <3 You've only got one slip that I could see in his too trusting flaw, which I mention later.

I really like what you've done with Chris's virtue/flaw combo. A good boy who isn't entirely selfless? A+. You've just got a couple of conflicting ideas going on, which are very easy to address.

i) The nature of his loyalty

Starting from his virtues, you say in Unwavering in Allegiance that if someone does something nice for him, he'll be their bff for life. You then go on to say that " he believes that people are naturally good intentioned and hopes, probably in vain, that his own actions will make others want to be their best, as well." However, the final paragraph doesn't fit the bill. If his loyalty is betrayed, instead of being too trusting and giving the people the benefit of the doubt you say that his trust can't be regained and he'll never talk to them again. (As a secondary note, all of this almost belongs into the flaw section simply because it starts to turn this virtue into a flaw). The very title of this virtue is unwavering in allegiance, which suggests that he's loyal no matter what you do to him. I think giving away your loyalty but then taking it back if someone betrays you is a very natural human behaviour, and if you want to use loyalty as a virtue of his you should make it unique. Loyalty, like the flaw reckless, is really hard to sell because it comes up so often. If he swears allegiance to someone and never lets them down, even if they steal his technicoloured dream coat and then sell him to slave traders then I'd say yup, that's a special kind of loyal. XD


ii) Too trusting vs All that Glimmers

You're sort of repeating yourself in these two flaws, but the All that Glimmers is 10x stronger. They also start to rub each other the wrong way once you hit the second paragraph of Too Trusting. I think it's because you've left the paragraph that came with him getting expelled? Because you say in one flaw: "If he knows the bad reputation someone has, he’ll be much more cautious, but would do his best to give them a chance" but then in another "Chris sees people as he wants to see them, not necessarily as they really are. He has the tendency to build someone up and above amazing." If he gave everyone the benefit of the doubt because he saw them as golden, why would he give any credence to rumours of a bad rep?

Essentially, if he's too trusting because he sees people as he wants to see them (and thus, thinks that everyone is as good hearted as him) then you might as well just compress the two into one since they're saying the same thing.

- Your Temper flaw has a lot going on and I like it! There's just one line that takes away from the darker aspect of it:

"Seeing harm being done to humans and animals alike sets him off, especially when they are defenseless or asking for mercy, or not even able to ask for mercy."

I'm not sure very many bully victims would get angry at Chris for intervening on their behalf, you know? Most people applaud this kind of behaviour, so the fact that he marches in to save because it angers him isn't really relevant to this flaw.

Expansion of this flaw would also be great. Will he not accept help even if he's certain he's going to be beaten? Would he say thank you to someone who helped him or just brush them off, saying he didn't need their interference?

What do you mean by "he can be easily antagonized, especially where his faults are involved?" Does that mean people can egg him on into a challenge (which you've mentioned later but didn't tie into this aspect of it). I'm not seeing the jump from bugging him on his faults to touching his model toys.

What kinds of things does Chris say when he's angry? When he's lost a match? Does he run at the mouth? Does he demand a rematch? Claim his opponent was cheating? How does this flaw affect his loyalty? Like, for example, say he repeated lost at chess (IDK) to Johnny and then Laocoon needed his help on the battle field. Would this get in the way of that? Or does his loyalty allow him to push through his temper and still be there for people even though he's still angry he's lost?

How long does his anger last? Is he a volcano (he explodes violently but the anger doesn't last long) or ice princess (he holds the anger in and becomes vindictive to the people who've wronged him)?

How does his temper tie in with his All that Glimmers virtue in so much as can he a) think badly of the people who keep beating him and b) what if one of his idols beat him?


Glaucus's flaws look much better. (Now I'm scared to piss him off XDD)

An overall comment on the whole profile the * beside certain things confused the heck out of me because I was looking for an explanation of WHY it was marked. I never saw it and had to scroll down a number of posts to find it. My suggestion would be to state somewhere up in the top that (The *’d items are down in post x this is to explain …) an then whatever you’re putting there like ‘why I picked this’. Because looking at it I’m like Bwuah? I normally always explain footnotes at the bottom of a post if I have to have them otherwise I make a general note of why it’s there. It’s just less confusing for the person reading to have this information ahead of time so they can reference it.

So on to Hobbies

Baseball- First there’s a little grammar thing that word picked up, with in is suppose to be with, in I believe otherwise it’d be within, however I think the whole sentence here could use some restructuring. Perhaps consider something to the effect of “Even when he isn’t playing the game, time he likes to keep a baseball to play with when he has spare time” I mean you can word it however you’d like. Just that one sentence seems choppy. As far as sentence structure goes, when you’re talking about his positions and then move into the fact he likes these because they give him control, etc… you may want to consider combining this into one sentence, for me the two as single sentences leave something to be desired. Of course that may just be me in that area.

Next thing is a question, how has he gotten in trouble for the baseball? I don’t see them allowing him to carry it in the classrooms. If he managed to sneak it in I’m sure they’ve taken them away more than once. I’d like to see a little bit more on how he’s gotten in trouble with it so we see why he’s in trouble.

Donating Blood - Really there’s only a question here, why do you have the random fact spouting in this part? I mean I understand it’s important to know these things, but I’m not sure you need it particularly here. It might be more useful to state that Chris knows the statics of how many people can give blood and how many one donation can help. Also if it’s suppose to read like it’s on the flier, you may want to opt in saying that he often hands out fliers that give statics on how many people can give blood and how many people one donation can help, as well as encouraging those that can’t give blood to help out. Just to me personally the stat seems really out of place. Also the following line ‘Chris might as well be the poster boy for the ARC’ why should he be? Is it just because he knows the facts? Or does he have the looks to bring people in? Otherwise this also seems a bit… useless as well, unless you mention he’s a walking fact book on the ARC and might as well be the poster boy because he knows so much. I hope this part isn’t really confusing.

Model Toys- The only thing here is why did you call the model toys? I mean they’re not really play things. They’re models to look at from my understanding. I know a lot of people that love to do the model thing, perhaps just referring to them as Models maybe better than model toys? But this is just a ‘nitpick’ on words. (That and I’ve never heard anyone else call them toys. Probably because they all think they’re too grown up for toys. >> << xD )

Virtues

Really not much at all to say here. I think Chibi covered pretty much anything I had a small issues with here.

Flaws
Temper How does the following “It doesn’t help that he’s not the most patient of people and can be easily antagonized into getting upset” affect his virtues of being compassionate and noble and mind and heart? This bit to me seems like it might put a strain on the two virtues, mainly because sometimes it takes patient people to deal with broken hearts and others that might not know a game he knows, if he’s trying to teach them.

Other than that it looks pretty good. Temper is a bit long, you might want to be careful with it and hope it isn’t ‘too’ long. (I’d had this problem once before… something was a bit long because I got to rambling and I could’ve cut it down.) I’m not saying change it, just tossing out that it is a bit long and might could be summarized, but honestly I’d really only do it if the staff felt the need for it… (Hopefully this isn’t confusing either.)


((I didn't want to touch Glaucus with a 20 foot pole. XD;; There wasn't that much I saw that I had questions on unlike Chris. I might run through glaucus again another day.))

Thank you for giving me crit on my quest. So I'll try to return the favor, though it might not be the best....

Chris's

Hobbies:

-baseball

For some reason, I really don't like this hobby. I mean, I see how it fits a bit with supportive traits... But he has a more team player and competitive attitude... Even though baseball is a team sport, the catcher and pitcher pretty much do their own thing. And even though it might be fun to pitch an impossible-to-hit ball, it's not nearly as satisfying as actually scoring something... he seems more offensive (he's an attention hog, right?). But it almost seems like even in another position, he wouldn't be that great, because it's still mostly fend for yourself... There's relatively little you can do to help your teammates. I'm thinking he's be better at an all-out team sport, like football or basketball. And he seems too nice for football. I think basketball would be much better... It would be easy to support and prove yourself at the same time... Just my opinion, though. I think it's really important that he's in a sport, though, it really reflects his personality, even if you decide to stay with baseball.

Donating blood-

This is a really great hobby, unique, not overused, not to mention creative. But though I can see why he started to donate blood to keep up with his perfect brother, why did he keep on? Was it the idea of helping people, or more keeping up... probably a mixture, but would you mind elaborating? I know there's some stuff in virtues... but I don't exactly see the connection.

Virtues:

((all that have to do with kindness)) : What if he gets overwhelmed? I mean, it's obvious from what you said that sometimes people walk over him without him hardly noticing, he's very slow to judge and stuff. But what if he gets asked for help more than once at the same time? Does he have a mental breakdown, or simply logic it out? He seems to rely mostly on emotion to make his decisions, so that might be hard. On another idea completely, what about combining the first two virtues, since it hardly seems fair that he has more virtues than flaws.

Flaws: all seem... ok... can't directly address any of them, anyway.

So how much does he care about what other people think of him? Because he seems to be selfless, but also so selfish, but I can't exactly see his social skills or anything about people outside his family at all... except that he'll give them basically whatever they want and if they're nice to him, he'll do a lot for them... What about his ego and stuff? Does he care about himself, and does he think that the people want the gifts for stupid stuff or that maybe they just want his respect... does he give respect, because his gift-giving would seem to me almost like a mask over his emotions if I really met him. But really, I think this is a truly awesome character, and you're almost done with the quest. OK, I'll get the Cavalier tomorrow, I'm out of time, but i thought you might want to read this.