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 Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 5:49 pm
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 8:09 am
OK purp, before I begin, let me say that I found Ariella to be a very unique quest, but I do think that for this shop she may need some heavy editing work to fit in! You definitely had an original idea though, and Ariella is a character unlike most i've ever seen in the b/c.
I would really, really advise against making a quest which seems to have light themes of prostitution, even if it's just in the aesthetic, considering this is a shop about young girls and that the quest itself is so whimsical. There are times and ways to bring up controversial issues, and if you can't handle them delicately, a B/C definitely isn't the right place for them.
What confuses me about Ariella is that you don't show us where her sense of independence comes from. Children with overbearing parents often end up overshadowed by them, and while it's true some may rebel, the fact is that Ariella seems to be completely the opposite of her parents, and they seem to have had no influence on her at all. Does she take after her parents in the slightest? If not, why not? How could this have happened when, as you said, her mother had such control over her life since she was born? What triggered her rebellion and why did she rebel in a way that was so unnatural to the life she'd been leading up till that point? Usually when children rebel, they rebel from within their frame of reference, and her mom seems so domineering that Ariella would have been nowhere near prepared to live alone on the street, even with a friend's help.
What concerns me most is that Ariella does not feel like the type of character to make a contract with Kyubey at all. You repeatedly emphasize that she's free willed and independent, and that her lifestyle is one she's content with. Why would she trust a strange creature she'd never met who was offering her a wish? It seems to be out of character, considering she doesn't even trust her own parents to provide for her, or the government, or the school system to teach her. Her desires are things which she's accomplished already. Making a wish with Kyubey seems to be forced.
This quest is really interesting and different, but I feel like it's simply a character that doesn't fit well into the shop setting, nor one that I could see feasibly becoming a magical girl. The fact that she has to be eighteen to make the rest of the quest even feasible makes me think Ariella would be interesting to read about perhaps as a main character of a novel, or in another shop, but for this shop, I think she needs some work to fit the setting.
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 8:37 am
I'm a little confused where you find themes of prostitution, since she looks more like a homeless person than a prostitute, and I don't think I ever implied she was one? Or was it the color name? I can change it, since I didn't mean like a prostitute, I meant literally a person that walks the street, s**t.
I'll get to the rest later, but her wish is to keep on living her lifestyle, not to achieve it. She's terrified someone will make her go live in a shelter or force her to return to her parents' home. I feel if Kyuubey said he could help her stay, she'd jump on it, since he kind of clearly is magical...
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 8:48 am
yes, i thought it could just have been a misunderstanding, but i wanted to make sure! the colour name plus the imagery of a tight dress and tall shoes that are pretty stereotypical depictions of prostitutes made me a bit concerned.
i'll reply again when you get to the rest, but what basically confuses me is that so far ariella hasn't been able to even seek help from the government with living alone, and so far she seems to be confident and doing fine. her paranoia is never really mentioned in the quest, and she seems to have trust issues, which makes me wonder why she'd jump on an offer from a weird creature she'd never met as opposed to leaving town of her own volition if she was so worried. there's nothing keeping her in teufel town except her one friend, and moving out of town to another urban center would get her away from people who might recognize her and stop her way of life. not only that, but as an eighteen year old, even if her parents -want- her back, she's now legally allowed to decide for herself what kind of lifestyle she can lead, and since she seems to be the type of girl who looks up things she wants to know, i can't imagine that she wouldn't know that.
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 11:02 am
Hey Purp, I like what you're trying to do with your puella girl, but as it stands right now, I feel as if she needs a lot more fixing around. With a little bit more effort, I'm sure she'll be ready to go.
One of the main issues I have with Ariella's quest is that you say that she is notoriously lazy, but yet she works just enough so that she'll get enough to eat. What kind of work does she do that so that she can keep living in her current lifestyle? Is it the same job, or is it odd jobs all over the place? I'm pretty sure 18 year olds have a pretty hard time finding a job, especially one that's homeless.
And like what Kota says, we don't know where her independence stems from. She has overbearing parents, and the constant pressure to excel in everything, sure but I don't think that's enough to create a sense of independence. I can see the rebellion, cause it's pretty tiring to be living like that.
It also seems that she gets angry easily, with people telling her what to do, and also the argument with her parents, but you also say that she's passive. This part really doesn't make sense to me.
Other than that I have a few question to help you develop your character!
- Has her friend Jeannie and her mother tried to get into contact with Ariella's parents in any way shape or form? Do they tell them how Ariella is doing? On the other page, do her parents ask the Maturo's how she's doing?
- Does she ever see any of her other friends/acquaintances from high school? If she does, what usually happens?
- Ariella is also 18, meaning that she would've gone to college soon. Instead of leaving home, why didn't she choose to go to a college that's faraway instead, so she didn't have to live with her parents?
- When did she become an anarchist? What intrigued her, that she became one?
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 11:27 am
Most other things have been touched on so I'm just going to leave this question here, simple as it is.
If she works only just enough that she can eat, that must mean she barely has any cash on hand. Knowing that, how does she acquire dye for her hair? I'm under the assumption she's naturally blonde but she could also be naturally blue haired for this setting. That said, two tone hair isn't natural in this case so she must get the dye from somewhere. Does she buy it? Does she steal it? Where does she find the time to sit there and touch her hair up when she's living on the streets? Aren't there more important manners she should be paying attention to?
It might seem a little nitpicky but when I saw she was a hobo and had this hairstyle it was the first thing that came to mind.
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 12:11 pm
No, Ariella isn't a prostitute at all! I based that sort of image on this, because I thought it looked nice.
@ kota
Ariella got a sense of independence by watching stray cats. She was always so jealous of the way they could go anywhere and do whatever they want, and no one could ever really tame them. She wanted to be like that. They ended up becoming her inspiration for rebellion and what real independence is.
And um, she's not influenced by her parents at all because she's not like them. She's an obstinate person by nature. Her parents continuously telling her what to do only pushed her to be more rebellious just to spite them. She was the kind of girl to not eat her dinner just because you told her she had to. It just sorta built up over time and then boiled over.
She makes her contract after getting arrested for trespassing and has to spend the night in a police station jail. She's panicking and would do anything at that point to be free and not have to worry about this ever happening again, including taking a weird white thing for it's word that it could save her.
Or at least that's what I had planned.
Her paranoia IS mentioned, however:
>She's very secretive, as she fears she'll be made to live in a real house or brought home or to a homeless shelter, and ruin her perfect life. Or even worse, that she would be arrested for trespassing or something.
She does leave Teufel sometimes, either by walking or taking a bus, but she always comes back for her friend. Leaving wouldn't stop the fact that she is homeless and could get people trying to get her placed into a shelter or something.
@geko
Ariella mostly does odd jobs for people, usually cleaning jobs. However she doesn't have to work much because she sometimes gets money from her parents and she always knows Jeannie will feed her if she's desperate. She only works if she thinks she has to, or if she needs money for something she doesn't want to ask for help buying (new clothes, medicine, etc). She also eats out of trash cans sometimes. You'd be surprised what people throw out!
I meant she's a lot more passive now than she was before she got kicked out of her parents' house. She might still get a little mad if you tell her to do something but she won't be outwardly angry. She's mellowed out since becoming free.
-Jeannie's mom sends letters to Mr. Pisica often, telling him how Ari's doing. They keep up correspondence because even though they highly disagree with their child's lifestyle, they do care about her.
-She didn't have many friends, and she hasn't tried to contact many of them because she feels they wouldn't understand. However, if she saw them on the street she would say hello and maybe try to talk to them.
-Ariella didn't go to college because she doesn't like school. That was sort of why she stopped going to high school. She prefers learning on her own anyway.
-She learned about anarchism from a history class, when learning about forms of governments. She thought it was pretty cool, and seemed to fit her idea of a perfect world. She's really intrigued by the idea of a place where people govern themselves.
@Snoof
Her friend Jeannie does it for her when she comes over and washes her hair. Otherwise she mostly looks like she has dirt in her hair, because she does. Jeannie likes to make the time Ariella stays over into a fun sleepover party.
Hopefully this cleared her up!
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 1:22 pm
I don't think that stray cats is really a good explanation since not only would she have had to develop a sense of independence, it would have had to have been something that left her canny and able enough to go from an incredibly sheltered and secure environment to living on the street with no aid except what little money her parents send her (another note here, the fact that you make her mom out of be incredibly stern and domineering and then she does nothing when her daughter runs away to live on the streets even though she knows how to contact her seems OOC). The fact is that yes, she can act differently, but her parents raised her for 18 years. How could they have had such little influence on her besides pushing her away when by all accounts they were a pretty average family? I'm different from all three of my parents, but even my stepfather, who I'm not related to genetically, has rubbed off on me through years of living in close proximity to each other. Furthermore, I really doubt her mother or her school taught her how to fend for herself, so where did she learn it from? Why not just get a job and move into her own apartment, since legally she could? Who would hire her as a cleaning girl when her hair was dirty and she was living on the streets? How is she finding these jobs when she needs them? The streets of a big city -are- dangerous to live on your own, so how does she take care of herself and defend herself? I'm just saying, there are a ton more logical and safer ways to gain independence once you turn eighteen than living on the streets, and living on the streets seems contrary to everything Ariella was raised to be. Even if she doesn't like how she was raised, it would have affected how she thought more than just noticing that stray cats look happy would have. It's an essential part of her life.
If she was so spurred by the idea of Anarchism, furthermore, wouldn't it make more sense for her to have researched Anarchist communities? This is a girl who handles her own schooling in her own time and shows plenty of ability and willingness to research things that she decides she's interested in. Why live on the street when she could live in an Anarchist community without worrying about breaking traditional laws?
Sorry for all the questions! I'm just still a bit unclear on things and I hope that you don't mind me asking them to get things straight in my head. ;;
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