WillfulWren
Rawr XD
Just some characters for RP and writing I'd like reviewed.
Character reviews, please?
- Thread starter WillfulWren
- Start date
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Well, we can't give any feedback without the actual characters here 
WillfulWren
Rawr XD
I'm working on it, I just haven't really outlined some of these guys in character sheet form, and they're being little brats about being describedWell, we can't give any feedback without the actual characters here
WillfulWren
Rawr XD
Character No°1: Clarisse Laxei
Real name: Unknown (Admin's struggling a lot with this). All that's known is that it meant "Clarity" in her mother's native language. It's very likely that Clarisse has forgotten it - after all, she chose the name Clarisse in a world like our modern day world three thousand years ago.
Aliases: Clarisse Laxei (her chosen name, the name that she considers to be her 'real' name), Clari, shorty, short stack, basically lots of short person nicknames.
Age: She was Turned into a vampire at the age of twenty one, but her true age is around three thousand years old. However, mentally, she's still a lot like the fragile young woman she once was, before she fell into the vampire king's trap. If you ask for her age, she'll just say "Twenty one" or find a way to change the subject.
Gender: Cisgender female
Sexuality / Romantic orientation: Pansexual, however, she has some difficulty with relationships. Clarisse can and will seduce humans for fun, and sleeps with them with no qualms, but if she actually has genuine feelings for them she's cautious and careful, because she's still hurting from an abusive relationship that ended around two years ago with her murdering her abuser so she could finally escape after centuries with him.
Species: Vampire.
Physical / Appearance: Silvery blonde hair she normally has in a waterfall braid (her hair's like that, except for the colour). Her eyes are a light shade of violet, the one tell of her ancestry - her mother was a witch. She has unnaturally pale skin, and that, coupled with the fangs that are just about visible when she smiles, and her ever-so-slightly pointed ears are the obvious clues to her species, a vampire. She's quite skinny, due to the fact that she's always forgetting to eat, or sleep, or drink blood (all with disastrous consequences). She's five foot one and hates her height with a passion. Due to her witch ancestry, she's very weak for a vampire (Still a lot stronger than a human), and there are days, about once every two months, when her witch magic will, as a spirit-aligned force, try to drive the demonic parasite that causes vampirism out of her blood, leading to her spending the day throwing up and in immense pain (And vampire puke is not nice).
Personality: Well, she's difficult to get along with, that's for certain. She's manipulative, and due to difficulties with feeling empathy, she can often be cruel, even when she doesn't mean to be. She has absolutely no qualms about biting humans for their blood, and even killing them for amusement, but she takes precautions to not let a human ingest her blood, or her blood getting into a humans cut or bite, because she really doesn't want the responsibility of having to look after a newborn vampire. Clarisse has a dislike of authority figures, and if you tell her to do something, there's a ninety eight per cent chance that she'll do the opposite. However, when the need arises, she's skilled at managing to seem subservient while working for her own agenda.
She calls herself a mad scientist, and in the vampire Coven's headquarters her room is less living space, more lab. She's insatiably curious about all the ways the different worlds interact with each other, and she's trying to figure out where each of the different species come from. She's easily distracted, for the most part, flitting from project to project with no cares, but if she's actually involved with something she suffers from a kind of tunnel vision, leading to her forgetting to eat, drink, or sleep, which is why she's quite skinny and unhealthy. She's incredibly vain, and, when she gets to know someone better, she can even seem quite childish (Though that may be due to the fact that she never had a true childhood, she had to look after her mentally ill mother).
Backstory: Her mother was abandoned by her father after he found out that her mother (Calianthe) was a witch. At the age of nineteen, Calianthe was pregnant on the streets, with only her twenty-year old sister to help her, in a society where their kind was literally being hunted, and burned alive. They gathered a small group of witches, and crossed worlds until they found a magicless world that magical creatures fleeing persecution had started to congregate in. Clarisse's aunt, Karina, became a priestess at the temple of Isis (This was about three thousand years ago), and ended up setting a primordial demonic entity loose. Her and her family were cursed by the three Fates, and they were cut off from all help. Karina, also a scientist, was completely focused on her experiments (Her children, there's a reason this woman is one of my worst villains), leaving Clarisse, only a child, to look after her mother, who was broken by her abandonment, and never did much more than stare out the window. In her more lucid moments, she would ramble, eyes wild, and would scream at her daughter for looking like her father, for being an eternal reminder.
When Clarisse was nineteen, her mother committed suicide, and, for the first (And the last) time, Clarisse was free. She started wandering the worlds, using her limited witch powers to move between the worlds and stay out of danger. Her main intention was to learn, but if she ran into a smooth-talking musician with blond hair and golden eyes, she would gladly kick his ass. She never got that chance though, because only a few months into her traveling, she met a man with sparkling scarlet eyes and a voice as smooth and honeyed as syrup.
She fell fast, and easily fell prey to the vampire king's lies. By the time she realized that he was only with her to destroy her in revenge against her aunt, who had badly insulted him by scorning his affections (After having two kids with him as an experiment) it was too late. He Turned her, and kept her as some kind of prized pet / possession for three thousand years, until she got involved with the plot to stage a coup. She was the one to kill him in the end, and, for about thirty seconds she felt free, and light. Then one of the only people she cared about was killed right in front of her. To earn a place in the new coven regime, she was forced to kill her best friend, and, with his final breath, he cursed her. It's probably the one thing that she won't joke about. Due to her time with Erebus, she has panic attacks when she feels trapped, especially if she's being pinned to a surface like a wall or a bed.
Real name: Unknown (Admin's struggling a lot with this). All that's known is that it meant "Clarity" in her mother's native language. It's very likely that Clarisse has forgotten it - after all, she chose the name Clarisse in a world like our modern day world three thousand years ago.
Aliases: Clarisse Laxei (her chosen name, the name that she considers to be her 'real' name), Clari, shorty, short stack, basically lots of short person nicknames.
Age: She was Turned into a vampire at the age of twenty one, but her true age is around three thousand years old. However, mentally, she's still a lot like the fragile young woman she once was, before she fell into the vampire king's trap. If you ask for her age, she'll just say "Twenty one" or find a way to change the subject.
Gender: Cisgender female
Sexuality / Romantic orientation: Pansexual, however, she has some difficulty with relationships. Clarisse can and will seduce humans for fun, and sleeps with them with no qualms, but if she actually has genuine feelings for them she's cautious and careful, because she's still hurting from an abusive relationship that ended around two years ago with her murdering her abuser so she could finally escape after centuries with him.
Species: Vampire.
Physical / Appearance: Silvery blonde hair she normally has in a waterfall braid (her hair's like that, except for the colour). Her eyes are a light shade of violet, the one tell of her ancestry - her mother was a witch. She has unnaturally pale skin, and that, coupled with the fangs that are just about visible when she smiles, and her ever-so-slightly pointed ears are the obvious clues to her species, a vampire. She's quite skinny, due to the fact that she's always forgetting to eat, or sleep, or drink blood (all with disastrous consequences). She's five foot one and hates her height with a passion. Due to her witch ancestry, she's very weak for a vampire (Still a lot stronger than a human), and there are days, about once every two months, when her witch magic will, as a spirit-aligned force, try to drive the demonic parasite that causes vampirism out of her blood, leading to her spending the day throwing up and in immense pain (And vampire puke is not nice).
Personality: Well, she's difficult to get along with, that's for certain. She's manipulative, and due to difficulties with feeling empathy, she can often be cruel, even when she doesn't mean to be. She has absolutely no qualms about biting humans for their blood, and even killing them for amusement, but she takes precautions to not let a human ingest her blood, or her blood getting into a humans cut or bite, because she really doesn't want the responsibility of having to look after a newborn vampire. Clarisse has a dislike of authority figures, and if you tell her to do something, there's a ninety eight per cent chance that she'll do the opposite. However, when the need arises, she's skilled at managing to seem subservient while working for her own agenda.
She calls herself a mad scientist, and in the vampire Coven's headquarters her room is less living space, more lab. She's insatiably curious about all the ways the different worlds interact with each other, and she's trying to figure out where each of the different species come from. She's easily distracted, for the most part, flitting from project to project with no cares, but if she's actually involved with something she suffers from a kind of tunnel vision, leading to her forgetting to eat, drink, or sleep, which is why she's quite skinny and unhealthy. She's incredibly vain, and, when she gets to know someone better, she can even seem quite childish (Though that may be due to the fact that she never had a true childhood, she had to look after her mentally ill mother).
Backstory: Her mother was abandoned by her father after he found out that her mother (Calianthe) was a witch. At the age of nineteen, Calianthe was pregnant on the streets, with only her twenty-year old sister to help her, in a society where their kind was literally being hunted, and burned alive. They gathered a small group of witches, and crossed worlds until they found a magicless world that magical creatures fleeing persecution had started to congregate in. Clarisse's aunt, Karina, became a priestess at the temple of Isis (This was about three thousand years ago), and ended up setting a primordial demonic entity loose. Her and her family were cursed by the three Fates, and they were cut off from all help. Karina, also a scientist, was completely focused on her experiments (Her children, there's a reason this woman is one of my worst villains), leaving Clarisse, only a child, to look after her mother, who was broken by her abandonment, and never did much more than stare out the window. In her more lucid moments, she would ramble, eyes wild, and would scream at her daughter for looking like her father, for being an eternal reminder.
When Clarisse was nineteen, her mother committed suicide, and, for the first (And the last) time, Clarisse was free. She started wandering the worlds, using her limited witch powers to move between the worlds and stay out of danger. Her main intention was to learn, but if she ran into a smooth-talking musician with blond hair and golden eyes, she would gladly kick his ass. She never got that chance though, because only a few months into her traveling, she met a man with sparkling scarlet eyes and a voice as smooth and honeyed as syrup.
She fell fast, and easily fell prey to the vampire king's lies. By the time she realized that he was only with her to destroy her in revenge against her aunt, who had badly insulted him by scorning his affections (After having two kids with him as an experiment) it was too late. He Turned her, and kept her as some kind of prized pet / possession for three thousand years, until she got involved with the plot to stage a coup. She was the one to kill him in the end, and, for about thirty seconds she felt free, and light. Then one of the only people she cared about was killed right in front of her. To earn a place in the new coven regime, she was forced to kill her best friend, and, with his final breath, he cursed her. It's probably the one thing that she won't joke about. Due to her time with Erebus, she has panic attacks when she feels trapped, especially if she's being pinned to a surface like a wall or a bed.
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
My only real issue is with the backstory. It seems far too over the top and overdramatic, seeming to jump from one tragedy to the next without proper connection between them or benefit for the characterization as a whole. It's fine for the characters to have issues in their lives, but be careful not be excessive, as you will write yourself into a corner where you can't really raise the stakes and where it becomes difficult for other characters to properly interact with you because it becomes hard to take them seriously by contrast with the horrible tragedy yours is, and by consequence your own character becomes hard to take seriously. Good tragedy is always in the downfall, and where there is too much of a fall, people start taking the bottomlessness as a joke.
Beyond that, the backstory doesn't seem to be oriented, this is, there isn't a particular direction that it seems to want to go to. I guess this is fine since this OC isn't built for a specific RP or story, but simply "in the air" but still that's something you may want to keep in mind.
As for the rest, I would have appreciated to have a list of skills, powers, magic, items that kind of stuff, since that tends to be pretty relevant. The personality was nice, but I do recommend adding a little more humanity to it, try naming some more specific interests and tastes that do not particularly relate to what she is.
Beyond that, the backstory doesn't seem to be oriented, this is, there isn't a particular direction that it seems to want to go to. I guess this is fine since this OC isn't built for a specific RP or story, but simply "in the air" but still that's something you may want to keep in mind.
As for the rest, I would have appreciated to have a list of skills, powers, magic, items that kind of stuff, since that tends to be pretty relevant. The personality was nice, but I do recommend adding a little more humanity to it, try naming some more specific interests and tastes that do not particularly relate to what she is.
WillfulWren
Rawr XD
Thanks for the input! I mainly try to have reasons for the tragedy - Calianthe was abandoned due to being a witch because her love interest had some witch blood that didn't even give him any magic, just made his eyes golden, so no one would hire him for a job and he ended up on the streets, and she broke down because it was established from the start that she was a 'weak' character, who always had to be looked after and protected by her big sister. They didn't get help because Karina was messing with the fabric of their universe - which was a thing that was a thing long before where Clarisse being her niece fitted into things was even thought of.
Heck, Kari's been messing with stuff she shouldn't be messing with before half my characters were even made. Erebus is an overall asshat, who found enjoyment in torturing people, and after Kari dismissed his feelings for her, he went for one of the two people she cared about. And the other Ancients, pretty much the only friends Clarisse has managed to keep for a long amount of time because of her overall abrasiveness, had to die because they were too much of a 'flight risk ' to live, and Isabel, the new queen, knew full well how untrustworthy Clarisse is, and wanted to see how easily Clarisse could be manipulated, or what she would do to survive.
"Kill him or i kill you" works pretty well because Clarisse is a coward.
....I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING I FORGOT
DAMMIT.
She has normal vampire speed and strength. As in, she can move faster than the eye can see, but she needs to drink blood afterwards, and she's a lot stronger than your average human. As a SirenSinger - a subset of vampires - she can compel humans with her voice.
No magic items (at least not in her story canon) but they can be added if the RP calls for it.
Her combat skills are quite poor, normally relying heavily upon her speed and strength. She can't draw or sew to save her life, but she has a surprisingly sweet singing voice. She can also dance pretty well.
Despite her hatred for responsibility, in her canon she accidentally adopts a Shifter child (chaos ensues) and she has a seventeen year old werewolf inventor living with her. On one occasion Lyra (werewolf) accidentally called her Mum and Clarisse pretty much shut down because she was so panicked / excited. She's self-centred, and extremely possessive of what she considers to be 'hers', but will sacrifice a lot for knowledge.
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
While I applaud you for having in-character justifications, a lot of those read like soap opera plotting to an outside view- the visible impact on the actual characterization. It doesn't seem like you're giving the tragedy any more reason than adding tragedy, you're making the character miserable for the sake of them being miserable, and even that much is not really showing on the character's present state. for example, her abandoment seems like throw-out prejudice. It doesn't seem to have a big impact on the character as it is, and it's a shitty way to treat someone for no reason at all (as the whole eye-color thing is nothing anyone can get behind) so the result is you just tortured a character we were supposed to care about, rewards zero and meaning zero. If anything, that bit of backstory just destroyed our encounter with an entire culture of witches and someone that inhabited and grew up in said culture.
Maybe this is just the fruit of the fact you are trying to summarize a character you've already worked on and so it's naturally harder to communicate. Maybe it's just an error caused by the fact that you listed a set of events- I think I saw two actions in that whole backstory and one was when she was forced to kill a loved one and the other being when she killed one as revenge. Characters that are purely vicitms are never interesting, as a reader will have about as much reason to care about the character as they will for caring about a tree. Sure, some may do it, but the reasons are unlikely to be because the "tree" is attracting those people of it's own merit. This is especially concerning when it comes to the topic of roleplaying the character, as the other players cannot work if your character won't make decisions. In fact, if your character only makes the right calls or makes no calls at all, that will just kill the plot and with it the excitment. Failure is the most important aspect of a character to have in right doses.
If you want to communicate weakness, then you ought to present the character, by their own actions and decisions, failing to accomplish what they need to do or better yet, giving up before really giving their all. Just the unwillingness to even try works, if it's by the character's own volition and not abused.
In short, it's important to remember that perhaps even more importantly than having an in-universe justification,is posing the dilema to outsiders: Knowing that the character's pain is real and so is their growth as people, are you willing to share it? If the other person feels like your character is in pain, but that pain is either comically overbearing and/or seems to be almost shurgged off in the current state of the character, why would they take anything you give to the character seriously? If you, who makes the character, shows no hesitation in doing anything to them for a bit of drama, why should there be hopeful despair from your readers and partners, why should they care more for the character than what they feel is the care you put into it (regardless of how much care you actually put into it, which I know is a lot, but when you treat these huge things as so disposable you write them in less than a paragraph, it deosn't really convey the sort of significance it has).
Oh boy be careful with that one. Mind control is really OP if not given proper limitations, not to mention a drag to deal with if your partner or worse, if your enemy just so happens to be vulnerable to it.
Sorry about the harshness, I take my criticisms very seriously.
WillfulWren
Rawr XD
There are (obviously) limitations. The only characters I have that are like seriously overpowered are the Spirits, and they're literal embodiements of things like "Earth" and "Fire" so they literally control all that is that thing. Sirensingers can compel not control. Those with a strong mind can probably resist them, and it takes a heck ton of concentration for the vampire, and often gives them a headache....
And that's the only point I can argue. Her backstory probably isn't going to be revealed fully in the story she's in, it just...Exists, as a kind of reason why she's the way she is, to help me figure out how she'd react to some situations.
....She's not really the sort to open up about stuff.
And it's okay, serious is good! I do need to work on the issue of me giving all my favourite character's horrifyingly tragic backstories
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
I don't know if you're into anime at all, but for any mind-control subjects, code geass and in particular the character Lelouch vi Brittania are excellent examples of mind contorl limitations done right. Just for future reference
I see. Well, you should have it written down fully at least, even if you don't reveal it. As a writer, roleplaying or writing stories, you're gonna sometimes find yourself in situations where you want really badly to tweak this or that about your character. If you ever heard the word "contrived", well, that's how those situations come to be. With experience writers learn to tweak details in more organic manners, but I would recommend trying to stick to a solid character and not changing that solid frama beyond natural character growth, until you have really mastered doing that
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Tip: A good tragedy is tragic not in the middle but in the conclusion. You WANT to contrast the bad parts with good parts. A parade of terrible stuff is nothing compared to the power of a girl who carried a cherished teddy bear all the way to her adult years, only to loose it by accident in a cruiseship and desperately coming to the realization that she will never see the bear that carried her fond memories again now that the ship has sailed and cannot return. It's a simple, yet potentially more effective story, because the tragedy only works as well as the weight of the stakes you've set before the tragedy itself began,
WillfulWren
Rawr XD
I love anime, and Code Geass has been in my list for like three years but I've never quite got round to it...I don't know if you're into anime at all, but for any mind-control subjects, code geass and in particular the character Lelouch vi Brittania are excellent examples of mind contorl limitations done right. Just for future reference
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
I really recommend giving it a watch.
WillfulWren
Rawr XD
I would, but I'm currently watching Katekyo Hitman Reborn
Idea
The Pun Tyrant
No one said it had to be right now lol
