Writing Evaluation/s Perhaps?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I was thinking about not doing this, but I decided to jump on the bandwagon and go for it!

The past couple of years I've avoided any 'evaluation' thread starting because I simply haven't done a lot of RPing (compared to my usual output, pre-babies). But I'm curious what people think of my characters. Are they interesting? Backstory fleshed out? Do they act consistently, or am I writing them inconsistently?

And... yeah I think that's it. Constructive criticism welcomed!

be gentle with me

Characters:
Serena Laran
James Prent
Lilaena De'Ville
Jane Starborn
Sasseeri Reeouurra
Ecks

and any others you want to mention, if you want to mention any at all. Thanks guys. :)

[I'nu]

I've been reading here since Lamar Starworth came on the scene. Yeah. That was me, if nobody notice, and I just had to say something here...

Lilaena De'Ville. The character is interesting. It isn't just her backstory, and how she was brought up as a Jedi and thwarted so heavely by the Jedi Purge that gets me, it's how she grew since. A lot of how you write her makes her a bad ass, and that's never bad. Especially since it's almost reminiscent of Angelina Jolee in Wanted. However, this is a lot of praise, and if you want some real critism...I'll give it to you.

Recently, I haven't seen Lilaena make any giant leaps like she use to. Before there was the amazing Khendon battle, the attempt on assassination, and further endeavours that were seedy - she has started bubbling behind the scenes and thats great. Thats really great. But personally, I'd like to see her pop on the scene again. In a big way.

We need her.

James Prent

She's had a wild story. From being a lowly waitress to a full-blown Force-user, it's been a great transition. I can still remember her along with the gang (Sanis & s'll) hanging out, only to blossom into something of a bad-ass herself. I like when girls can beat the boys ass...sometimes. Anyway, point is - I've really dug her development, I'd just like to see more of it.

Basically, I want you to RP more of her, with more people, with the same luster that Serena Laran was played with before her "hiatus"

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Aw, thanks I'nu! And yes, I knew Lamar was you. ;) You play Anj now, right? On the Wheel? (I love the accents you give your characters, btw.)

To respond to what you said about Lilaena, she is currently 'infiltrating' the Rebel Alliance. Hopefully there will be some opportunities for bad assery in the near future. :D

[Anbira Hicchoru]

I've really enjoyed the transition you've had with James. She's got this sort of very frantic & urgent energy about any of her actions, and she comes off as endearing and sad at all the right times that she needs to work heartstrings. I'm kind of hoping there's a happy ending (or happy trend, shall we say) that she gets to experience. Then again, to cop a line from Better than Ezra, setting her up to let her fall & turning her over in your hands makes for some very compelling high drama. What I'm trying to say is that I'm pretty torn at times at what I want to see out of James but I think whatever way you go with her I'll be really happy.

Sasseeri, well, the thread with Tear's been a real gas (boy howdy it has) but I hope he's done torturing your ass because it's high time you're let loose amongst the general population again to wreak havoc. She's been tied up (literally lol) and I think we're all ready for a transition. You write her machinations and emotional underpinnings very well, and I'm looking forward to having her bring a few characters to account when she's back on the prowl.

I have nary a damn idea what you've got up your sleeve with LD. I'm keenly curious since it has a chance at making a few of my characters looking like horses asses.

Jane still has some room to go. We need to give her more to do, because while I'm keen on the character's concept, I know very little about her and she doesn't feel lived in quite yet.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Jane is sort of a living, breathing, recap machine. If anyone has long story arcs that they need summed up, then they should invite her into their thread (assuming, of course, that she would have been privvy to the story in the first place). But yeah, I haven't had a chance to DO a lot with her yet, and I'm still feeling her out as a character.

Having all that information in your head all the time is bound to cause some sort of disconnect, so I want to see how she interacts with say, her mother.

Thanks for the input! I hope I can make some of your characters look like horses asses in the future. ;)

[A'na Eldhil]

I just want to add, I'm hoping to explore a lot of darkness and interesting places with A'na in the RP Innocence Betrayed. I hope it will come off as realistic as I want it to be, and I also hope people will read it. ^_^;

RPing someone's fall to the darkside isn't something I've done before.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

This is a bit of thread necromancy, but it seems silly to do a new thread when this one only got two replies. ;) I need some help, guys. Maybe this is weird, and maybe it's just being a mom of a four year old, a two year old, and a two month old, but I need some positive reinforcement.

Actually, I'd take any sort of comment. Sometimes I feel like I'm writing into the wind (and let's face it, writing at all has been scarce for months because of baby stuff).

So, what did I used to do / am doing now that you might have thought was good? Who do you want to see more of? Do you want to RP with one of my characters?

Don't make me beg (I am begging), it's not cool. I will gladly reciprocate in kind for you if you leave a message for me. I just need something to read when I'm feeling down on myself, which is, let's be honest, pretty much a lot.

Characters:
Star Wars
Lilaena De'Ville
Arya Ravenwings
James Prent
Serena Laran
Sasseeri Reeouurra
Kal Olorin
...et cetera :cat

WoD
All inactive but I love my Sansa, Katarina, and Thaddeus.

Mutants
Anna Fernandez
Vigilante/Ginny Hayes
Aimee Connors
various Fernandez brothers
Jane
Susie Quinn (the newbie)

I think that's mostly it.

*puts self out there* ^_^;

[Freight Train]

It's been a long while since I've read much content containing ANY of these characters, so my ideas and knowledge may be outdated. Please bear with me.

Anna is very sweet and matronly. I love reading her posts, though grinding through her romance with Tycho is kind of a chore. It's not so much a fault of your writing though. They're sweet, but not sappy or corny, and their serene moments in the face of the House's calamity are heartwarming. Really, I'm just slap out of patience for romantic coupley things right now. Most of it has to do with writing a ton of it in Felix's early days with Banner, and the glut of it I endured in 'Fans Classic (but we won't speak of that now). Plus I was hoping she'd give in a little to Feral's crush, even though I knew long ahead of time it wasn't going to work.

For whatever reason I thought Vigilante/Ginny was Morg for a long time. She gives me an impression kind of like Namor the Submariner. I love them both, but they're kinda jerks about what it is they do and how they do it, so I hate 'em a little, too. She's always engaging and I like reading her.

Aimee grinds my nerves super-badly. I feel like she's too co-dependent on her boyfriend (who I also cannot stand) and waaaaay too deep in self-pity over her physical mutation. I feel like she could somehow justify it to the general public as an eccentric obsession with bodypaint and colored contacts, or being obsessively fanatic over Lady Gaga, or SOMETHING. I confess that I skip her posts entirely when I can, and read them minimally for the important bits so I can move on to the next post. :| Sorry.

I wish I knew enough to critique your Star Wars characters, in particular LD, James, and Sass, as they're classic characters on this forum and I'm attached to them. Sadly, I haven't been engaged in Star Wars nearly enough in recent history to even start reading that forum's threads outside of my brother's Lightsaber Mastery threads. I'll change that in the coming week while I'm on vacation and report back, promise.

[Rev Solomon]

Since we're just coming back from a long hiatus, a lot of these characters have been in hold for a while. You've invested a lot of great storytelling into all of them, and there's great potential left for each one to claim. It's just a matter of which ones you choose to pick up again.


Lilaena De'Ville: Knowing where she comes from, how her master shaped and manipulated her, really gives a tragic arc to this character. I loved the glimpses we got of her childhood in the Shadows thread as a counterpoint to her exploits as an anarchist. She's been buried undercover for quite a while, which has really limited her presence lately. I'd love to see her getting up to no good again, especially if he she can drag Akasha with her. She needs to show Akasha she owns that kitty just as A'na owned her!

As I've said before, I get the sense that Arya Ravenwing and Vigilante are very similar characters in very different situations - both of them are lone wolves who've forsaken all attachments, and both are just trying to take their lives back from the soulless authorities that are trying to control them. I know Arya much less than Ginny, so I primarily know her only as the gritty exterior she presents as a hard-bitten spacer, with some elements of a broken past left by her mother. I think to really emerge as more than a supporting character, she needs to establish more relationships to bounce off of, as Ginny's beginning to do in LA.

I've told you before how I really like James Prent - she reminds me a bit of Taya in her innocence and vulnerability and optimism, but with the edge that comes from a much rougher background. She was a surprising partner to match up with Byl, and it was fun to see her caught up in his whirlwind of intrigue. Now I'm really eager to see what her next step is. She needs to be made less comfortable, whether that means shipping her off to the Wheel to become a "proper" Jedi, or throwing her into the grinder of Rebel Intel without Byl to guide her.

Serena Laran... :love Oh! Ahem. I mean...

I loved writing out the backstory between Serena and Sol in The Underground and The Wilderness, seeing how that spark developed between them. Now, Serena has just come back from a season in the valley, and she needs her moment of redemption to regain her strength and wholeness as a character. I think helping Solomon through his own valley experience will go a long way to restoring her.

I'm not as familiar with Sasseeri Reeouurra and really don't know anything about her character arc. Same with Kal Olorin. In my mind, they're more supporting characters. That said, Kal was absolutely hilarious in our Kale and Rai'raa thread. I loved his interactions with the hoi palloi of the casino, including Kale in cognito. :)

More to come later...

[Aidan Fox]

I realized as I was typing up my last post that I tend to evaluate characters in terms of their arcs more than in terms of how I feel about their individual posts. So I'll continue in that vein as I move to the muties...


Anna Fernandez: I don't know that I've ever told you how grateful I am that you stepped up to play the matriarch of Redención House! That role was always going to shape the emotional tenor of the place, the culture, the spirit that inhabits the walls. Anna's home is a beautiful place, chaotic and lively, but so warm and welcoming, an island of peace and hospitality in a cruel and violent neighborhood. Anna is the House, and as much as Aidan and Jake are fighting a war to protect the House and its kids, they're also fighting to protect Anna, and to keep her hands clean so she can continue to do her work for the kids.

That said, she's been very passive lately. I loved seeing her hold her own against the likes of Saladin, facing down the astral demon in Jamie's room, helping to foil a robbery in a grocery store way back when. She's been through incredible trauma, and she's obviously still someone who needs to be protected, especially during her pregnancy, but I want to see her strength again, her resiliency. I want her to show she's not a china doll, and that she is the momma bear over her kids. That doesn't necessarily mean putting her in combat, but I think she can still show herself to be a tower of strength in the hard times that are looming ahead. :)

Ginny Hayes: I already touched on my impressions of her. I'm really looking forward to seeing her personal journey continue, and the eventual reckoning between Ginny and Virginia. She's dynamic and exciting to read, a great outlet to show your action hero chops. As much as she's a character driven by plot, it occurs to me that she will be a blank slate once the current arc is finished. You could go anywhere at all with her if you choose.

Aimee Connors: I will agree with Freight Train that she's not as likeable as most of your characters, and knowing your plans for her, I know that's by design. She's a kid who makes bad decisions and suffers for it, just the kind of kid who needs the House. What she needs at this point is a thread that really drives that idea home. The culmination of Cameron and Aimee's "romance" should do the trick. ;)

Super Fernandez Bros.: It was fun seeing the family dynamics among them and the subtle differences in their characters in the thread where they all got together to talk about Anna. No strong opinion about these guys; so far they serve as supporting characters, and they do their job just fine.

Jane: I really liked the vindictive streak that came out of her in "Dead Rising," and the battle between her and Zero was epicly fun. She's a believable leader for the LA Brotherhood. The Brotherhood in general just needs more activity; we'll have to put our heads together and see what we can come up with post-Firestorm, after the 3-11s have faded as a primary antagonist.

Susie Quinn: I'm not sure where Meadowbridge is ultimately going to fit into the MU mythos, since the concept was ultimately something to do when the LA scene was defunct. I don't really have a good handle on Susie yet, but she's really helped to sell the creepy desolation of the school, and her brief interactions with Andrea were fun and interesting. I'm not sure her voice as a character has quite taken shape yet. I feel like she either needs to become more lucid or less, or she needs to lapse between relative lucidity and a more dreamlike quality as her precognition mixes with her perception of real time.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

You are absolutely right about Arya - she's sort of been floundering for a while. Hopefully after Minecraft is finished I'll have a clear direction in which to take her. My favorite times RPing her have been when she's under the thumb of an unscrupulous employer, so I shall have to look into getting one of those. :)

Aimee - I didn't know she was so annoying, but I can see how her personality might rub people the wrong way. She isn't a strong person, and she's lost herself in the idea of being in love. All on purpose, of course! But I hope people understand that while a character might make bad life choices or be someone that they wouldn't want to be friends with that that doesn't make them a bad character? Or does it? Anyway, I think I will stay the course with my plans for her, she's only been around for two IC months and she's got a lot of character development in the works. ^_^;

Spot on with Susie - I did find myself struggling in my last RP with how lucid to make her. I'm not sure how she and Meadowbridge are going to fit in with the grand scheme of things, but maybe for Act 2 we will have a more global scope. I like the place too much to give it up. ;)

Anna is in a passive phase and I too can't wait for Firestorm to wrap up so I can kick some figurative butt with her. :)

Thank you for the input you two, I really appreciate it. :)

[Dasquian Belargic]

Lilaena is my favourite character of yours, without a doubt. She has a lot of depth to her, complexity in her motivations, and I can never really predict what her she is going to do next. In some characters, that would come across as inconsistency - but in her, it feels more like a reflection of her psyche and to some extent an unwillingness to become predictable. I'm interested to see where her relationship with Salem will go.


WoD
All inactive but I love my Sansa, Katarina, and Thaddeus.

I love them too. I wish I could find that muse that possessed me when we first got into WoD :(


But I hope people understand that while a character might make bad life choices or be someone that they wouldn't want to be friends with that that doesn't make them a bad character? Or does it?

Nope, some of the best characters to read (for me) are the ones I love to hate... partly because I'm waiting to find out when their actions will come back around and kick them in the arse ;)

I'm not sure how Arya and Vega getting reunited well help put her back on track, but it should be... an interesting meeting, at least.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Well, it might not put her on the 'right track', as it were, but it will certainly add some new conflict and motivations for her as a character. ;)

[Flux]

The thing with Aimee isn't so much that she's unlikeable. As Dasq said, unlikeable characters are fun. We like to dislike them. We like to see them get their comeuppance. But some characters we don't like to dislike. Remember how nobody ever liked Scrappy Doo? I won't say Aimee is that bad, but there's nothing to her (yet) that makes me like her unlikeability. Unlikeableness. Whatever. I feel like she's got a way to go yet, and I'm going to stick it out and watch it happen so I can come back here and tell you how amazing she is to read.

[Ruz'im]

As far as Aimee goes, I can both enjoy her, and not enjoy her at the same time. She's a sort of opposite in my mind to José: Her mutant genes have mainly activated physically on her, but she's basically a normal girl dealing with being a mutant on top of everything normal girls deal with, whereas José's mutant abilities are invisible. To all eyes, he's basically normal, but instead of dealing with normal everyday things for a guy his age, he's dodging bullets and going around setting up mannequin dioramas of orgies in mall lobbies.

She does seem weak, but I think that she's definitely due some character development so that weakness can be weighed against something else.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I think of Aimee as very similar to Sansa (WoD) and James (SW), when it comes to being a submissive or weak character. I'm really surprised that she rubs people the wrong way. :)

I do think that not reading her posts fully does her a disservice? But I understand if you just don't like her, I'm not trying to change your mind. ;)

But enough about her! She sucks, I know it now. ;) Eviscerate my other characters!

[Ruz'im]

I don't mean she rubs me the wrong way at all. She strikes me as being in the first chapter or so of her story, and the main issue is that it's a slow start.

As for your other characters:

Serena: I loved how she was written before I dropped the ball in the interrogation thread. She's imbibed the soul of the people she was helping on Dhomanda Alainn. I do feel she's somewhat restricted though, because her story's mostly focused around a few core characters, like Morg, Rihanna, and Rev Solomon/Sol Iman. I can see why, and I don't think you dropped the ball or anything, but once Laran gets the ability for some breadth in her story, grab it. I find it interesting that Inquisitor Iscandar has connections to both of them completely without any knowledge of their own deep connection to each other.

[Vek Vek]

I really only interract with James and Sassy, but I do read LD a bit and I have to say she's got probably the most realistic mindset (IMO) that a Dark Jedi would / should have of anybody out there. She's very well thought out and I kinda wish there was more stuff of late from her because I'd like to see what she's up to. I also want to see a build-up accelerate in her plans because we've talked about plans too and I would like to see how she fits into the endgame.

James is perfect. Do not change a thing. Maybe allow her to explore some of her own complications (ie, does she join the Jedi) but personality and motives, she's excellent.

Sasseeri, I think I'd like to see what she wants. I mean yes she's a vigo and on top of whatever she does, but I'd like to see more of whatever that is. I'd like to see her accelerate ambitions, whether that's just to improve the brand or something more grandiose I don't know.