searching Xenograft (Sci-Fi, Adventure) (OOC)

[Arylett Charnoa 4,919]

Okay, let's give this another shot. Do you think this character would be suited to the RP? 

 

https://mlpforums.com/page/roleplay-characters/_/%E3%83%AC%E3%82%A4%EF%BF%BD%EF%BF%BD-reiki-for-xenograft-r8662

Sorry to have to do this to you again, but...

 

Not Accepted.

 

I've placed my critique of your character and the reasons why in a spoiler, as it is quite lengthy. I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings. I am merely trying to be honest and pinpoint things for the sake of improvement, as well as to tell you why we can't accept you into the roleplay.

 

Let me try to explain this as sufficiently as I can. I find it a bit difficult to pinpoint these sorts of flaws.

 

One of my issues is with your writing style. It's rather chaotic, and hard to follow. Paragraphs tend to feature sentences that are unrelated to each other. I'd suggest trying to make each paragraph about a singular topic rather than jumping from thing to thing.

 

Secondly, your character does not fit in this setting still. Once again, you have the issue of giving her too many things to be good at. Equestria Girls has a more realistic setting, and most people don't lead such illustrious lives. Most of the things she's good at just seem rather random, and don't fit with each other or connect at all. It doesn’t really make sense for wealthy owners of cosmetics manufacturers to be interested in teaching their daughter martial arts. Nor does it make sense for them to teach her music as a way to keep discipline in martial arts. The motives aren’t explained here, and it comes out random and disconnected. 

 

I think your issue is that you are focusing too much on giving your character "cool" abilities rather than on their actual personality. The personality isn't really even related all that much to the backstory, now that I think of it. I usually write my personality and backstory at the same time of each other, because people's personalities in real life are based on their experiences much of the time. And their personalities influence their interests and pursuits in careers.

 

This is just too all over the place. Focus on one thing at a time. Don't try to jam in so many things your person can do. I would suggest to stop concentrating so much on all of her abilities and concentrate more on her behavior and how she acts. 

 

And I do see that you've made an attempt to have some flaws in there, by having her weapons making business not working out. her family hate her, her martial art movie dreams fail,  and her friends suddenly disappear. But it seems that you've misunderstood what our problem is, and that makes sense. Because it is difficult to explain. But basically, just jamming in these flaws haphazardly still doesn't make a good interesting character. The backstory has to all flow together and make sense. All of these circumstances just happening all of a sudden doesn’t really seem realistic. Particularly her friends disappearing out of nowhere. That could happen realistically, but it just happens so jarringly and out of nowhere. There’s no foreshadowing, nothing to hint why her friends would have been kidnapped, and no real reason for her to go to “Canterlot University” (I presume you meant Crystal City University) other than “they were last spotted there.” Why were they there? Are they students? You need to allude to things before they happen. There has to be a build-up, otherwise, it just is very abrupt.

 

These seem like they were just put in there due to a desperation to not have your character be a Mary Sue as Lunaris put it. Your character is still a little too perfect, because she is just doing far too much with her life, and some troubled circumstances aren't going to change that. Especially since, as you put it, "the results have been modest at best." That makes it sound like it didn't really affect her all that much. There’s no mention of her reaction to this, the emotional toll these events would take on her, how these might’ve changed her personality. You’re just focusing too much on making the things around her bad, making her have to go through these situations, and aren’t focusing on how she is forced to adapt or react to these. The things that would give her character some depth and make her interesting.

 

As for her personality, there is potential, but it’s just so disconnected to the backstory and is even more all over the place and unfocused. If she is a perfectionist who tries to do too much at once, it really isn’t evident in the backstory. By this logic, she should’ve had massive failures trying to pursue her dreams. But these failures weren’t all that important, and she succeeded at doing what was most important to her anyway. This concept should’ve been explored more in the personality field and the backstory.

 

Also, I’m not sure if you’re trying to play this off as a flaw, but sexual preferences and being a “lech” aren’t really a flaws. It would be a flaw if she had trouble getting close to people and making genuine connections with them. 

 

The rest of the personality is just too unrelated. Caring for her hair is nice, but it doesn’t seem particularly relevant, nor does it seem to contribute anything to her personality unless it was played as some kind of humorous quirk or a serious insecurity. The Personality field isn’t for random facts about a character. That’s what “Other” is for. Personality is for how they behave and act, and it should be cohesive and gel somewhat together.

 

Speaking of the Other field though, I’m afraid this is the point where I too will have to use the word Mary Sue. It takes people years to learn complex languages like Japanese, Chinese, and Korean if they aren’t native speakers. Most people have trouble with just ONE language. And her age isn’t feasible for this level of prowess. There is also no reason for her to be skilled at a sword if she is a musician or living in this universe. This is set in a modern day setting, and most people aren’t going to need to learn how to be swordsmen because most people don’t run around the streets going on epic adventures or murdering others.

 

My overall analysis: There is some potential, but it is just far too unfocused. Like your character, you’re trying to do too much at once, and it doesn’t make for a particularly well-written entry. Cut things out to the bare essentials, and focus more on personality than the cool abilities your character can do. And try not to include unfitting elements to a modern day setting as well.

 

Also, the Japanese symbols don’t show up properly on my browser. And probably not a few others’ either. So I’d just suggest sticking to the Latin alphabet.

[Arylett Charnoa 4,919]

All right guys, it's been two days since anyone's posted in the RP. And I'd like to wait a bit before I post my response to Ochre Dust, so let's pick up the pace! We don't want this thing to die or anything.

[Durandal 623]

@@Ochre_Dust, All I had to go on for appearance was the pony-version, so I just extrapolated from there. Hope you don't mind.

 

Also, I apologize for not posting sooner. Haven't done a roleplay in a while, so I was floundering for ideas a little bit. All the more reason to get back into it.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Durandal

[FortyTwo42 1,287]

I'm mainly waiting on a post from @@Driz at the moment, as Aero and Celes are interacting right now. I could potentially make my next post about Aero's reaction to what Lunaris did, but Lunaris didn't directly interact with Aero so there's not too much to comment on there. I don't think I'll be able to do 800 characters worth of describing Aero's reaction to Lunaris going about the cafeteria. Ideally, I want to make my next post after Driz's next post, so I can talk about Aero's response to both of them at once.

 

By the way, I'm assuming Aero was out of earshot since he sat a little bit away from the counter, so he didn't overhear the part about him accidentally ordering 300 anemometers instead of 30. If instead you want to make it Aero overheard that, then he would have a very different reaction, and in that case I'd probably be able to get that over 800 characters. But again, ideally in my next post, I want Aero to be reacting to both that and what Driz does in his next post.

Edited August 6, 2015 by FortyTwo42

[Ochre_Dust 329]

@@Durandal, 

 

Well now, just read your post in the RP, and it sounds like your character may well end up shooting at mine. If it goes to that, would it be possible for the fight to eventually lead to a brawl at the fountain where all the characters are to gather?

[Durandal 623]

@@Ochre_Dust, 

 

Oh no no no, I don't intend for him to be shooting at anyone, much less Gut. I apologize if that was unclear. Artful's intention is to get back at his previous employers, though I fully intend for him to fall through the portal before any fighting goes on.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Durandal

[Reaver 350]

Oookay, I'm back guys! Nice to see not too much happened while I was gone. Will catch up and see if there's room for a post. If a day hasn't passed yet, I think I oughtta wait, as Talisman went home for the day.

[Ochre_Dust 329]

Oookay, I'm back guys! Nice to see not too much happened while I was gone. Will catch up and see if there's room for a post. If a day hasn't passed yet, I think I oughtta wait, as Talisman went home for the day.

Oh man, Guy-Man and Peregrine haven't even visited his lot! We did meet Markus the gryphon though.

 

EDIT: I'm an idiot, I got this confused with a different RP OOC.

Edited August 11, 2015 by Ochre_Dust

[Arylett Charnoa 4,919]

@@Reaver, 

 

Welcome back! Yeah, not much has happened yet. But I look forward to seeing what Talisman does next.

[Reaver 350]

@@Reaver, 

 

Welcome back! Yeah, not much has happened yet. But I look forward to seeing what Talisman does next.

Psh, she's going to be really fun to RP. I love RPing really straight-forward characters. I'll try to tone down her idiocy for this RP to make it as realistic as possible, but... yeah, she's a moron.

 

Anyway, since a day hasn't passed, I'll wait. Do you guys want to fall into Equestria on this RP day, and Talisman will follow, or should you guys just use the rest of this RP day to meet each-other, get suspicious, and fall in the following RP day(s)?

[Arylett Charnoa 4,919]

Psh, she's going to be really fun to RP. I love RPing really straight-forward characters. I'll try to tone down her idiocy for this RP to make it as realistic as possible, but... yeah, she's a moron.

 

Anyway, since a day hasn't passed, I'll wait. Do you guys want to fall into Equestria on this RP day, and Talisman will follow, or should you guys just use the rest of this RP day to meet each-other, get suspicious, and fall in the following RP day(s)?

I'd say we'll probably be falling in on this RP day. I've already got my character into position, and it seems FortyTwo has followed suit.

[Reaver 350]

I'd say we'll probably be falling in on this RP day. I've already got my character into position, and it seems FortyTwo has followed suit.

Alright. I shouldn't have shut myself off like I did before we left to camp, but eh, what's done is done. Gives me time to think about how to get Talisman in. She'll probably come in late and fall on top of Anatase or Gut Feeling in Equestria, cause that would be fun. Anyway, I'll wait till something happens.

[Arylett Charnoa 4,919]

Alright. I shouldn't have shut myself off like I did before we left to camp, but eh, what's done is done. Gives me time to think about how to get Talisman in. She'll probably come in late and fall on top of Anatase or Gut Feeling in Equestria, cause that would be fun. Anyway, I'll wait till something happens.

Perhaps you could have her come back because she forgot something, and THEN she accidentally stumbles into the fountain as they're leaving.

[Reaver 350]

@,

 

...Hey, good idea! 8D Why didn't I think of that. As I'm working on something else at the moment, I'm not going to post quite yet... But if nobody's posting within a day, I'll go ahead and make one that's just that!

[Valynne 2,682]

can i join?

[Arylett Charnoa 4,919]

@,

 

You can join if you read the the first post in this thread, follow its instructions, and we accept you.

[Klopp 2,050]

@@Driz, 

 

It's been more than two weeks since you posted in the Roleplay. I also noticed you haven't even been on the forums in a week. But regardless of that, if you don't post soon, or give us some sort of message in this thread, we are going to have to remove you from the Roleplay.

 

We'll give you five more days, but if there's nothing from you by then you'll be removed.

[Arylett Charnoa 4,919]

@@FortyTwo42, @@Ochre_Dust, @@Reaver, @@Durandal, 

 

All right, people. So Lunaris and I had a chat about the inactivity of this roleplay. Or more specifically, it being halted by everyone having to wait for one person to post. And we've decided to lay on a new rule:

 

You must post at least once a week or your spot will be revoked. Two times a week is preferable. But the absolute minimum is once a week. This rule doesn't apply if you tell us you're going to be somewhere else in advance.

 

Now I implore you all to try to get in a post whenever it is possible. If one person doesn't post, it stops the whole RP, and then we just spiral into a pit of doom. We don't have to want to close the roleplay as we have so many ideas and we haven't even left the human world yet.

[Durandal 623]

I apologize for my recent absence, I've just made the transition from moving from my parents' house to the campus apartments, and it seems like there's a thousand and one things to do.

 

I'll try to get a post in later today.

[FortyTwo42 1,287]

@@FortyTwo42, @@Ochre_Dust, @@Reaver, @@Durandal, 

 

All right, people. So Lunaris and I had a chat about the inactivity of this roleplay. Or more specifically, it being halted by everyone having to wait for one person to post. And we've decided to lay on a new rule:

 

You must post at least once a week or your spot will be revoked. Two times a week is preferable. But the absolute minimum is once a week. This rule doesn't apply if you tell us you're going to be somewhere else in advance.

 

Now I implore you all to try to get in a post whenever it is possible. If one person doesn't post, it stops the whole RP, and then we just spiral into a pit of doom. We don't have to want to close the roleplay as we have so many ideas and we haven't even left the human world yet.

I'm currently in the middle of what's turning out to be a very busy uni semester, so that's limiting how often I can post here. However, I should still be able to make at least one post a week. Two posts a week is kind of pushing it for me, though. I often find I start making a post one day, run out of time, and have to continue making and finally post it a day or two later.

 

That said, I think changing the minimum from once every two weeks to once every week is a really good idea. Like you said, it often comes down to everyone waiting on one or two people, and if they don't post it holds everything up. Two weeks really felt too lenient and too slow. However, it's really difficult to say how busy uni will make me, so sometimes I may really become too busy to make a post within a week. But if that ever looks like it'll happen, I'll be sure to make a post here explaining my situation so you know I'm still interested and haven't just forgotten about this awesome RP.

 

I've actually got a new post about 75% typed up from before, so I should most likely be able to finish it and post it today!

[Durandal 623]

I'd say we'll probably be falling in on this RP day. I've already got my character into position, and it seems FortyTwo has followed suit.

 

Upon rereading the thread I was surprised to find this. Not that it's anything shocking - I just thought we'd be on Earth for a good chapter or so before falling in. That said, I had written myself into a corner with how things played out, so the fact we aren't expected to remain on Earth much longer actually makes posting quite a bit simpler.

[Ochre_Dust 329]

This RP isn't turning out to be very fun. I'm going to have to leave.

[Arylett Charnoa 4,919]

This RP isn't turning out to be very fun. I'm going to have to leave.

Sorry to hear that.

 

---

 

It looks like Reaver is the only one who isn't at the fountain yet. I can get in another post, but I would prefer @@Reaver, be there before I initiate the next phase of the RP.

[FortyTwo42 1,287]

@@Arylett Charnoa,

 

I'll probably be writing up my next post shortly in which I'll have Aero fall into the portal too. But first, I want to quickly clarify two things so we can hopefully prevent any confusion. Do all the characters see the fountain water glowing with the pink light and see their transformed non-human form's reflection through it? And will they all end up in the same area of the Crystal Caves together in their transformed form?

[Arylett Charnoa 4,919]

@@Arylett Charnoa,

 

I'll probably be writing up my next post shortly in which I'll have Aero fall into the portal too. But first, I want to quickly clarify two things so we can hopefully prevent any confusion. Do all the characters see the fountain water glowing with the pink light and see their transformed non-human form's reflection through it? And will they all end up in the same area of the Crystal Caves together in their transformed form?

Yes to both questions.