offering critique Honest OC Critiques

[Glitter Glue 79]

Hello!

I would love to help with your OCs! I will be entirely honest about them, but don't worry, I won't be rude. Also, keep in mind, my review is my opinion, while your OC is, well, your OC. If you don't agree with me, I respect that. Still, I'll try my best to help you with developing your OC to something even better.

What I ask for:

-Name

-Age (not necessarily in years, but something like 'baby', 'toddler', 'young adult'. Also, I would like if you used human definitions of age whether you state years or an age group, because pony age is perceived differently by each fan)

-Gender

-Looks (just colors are fine, a more detailed description would be better and an image of the OC would be the best)

-Cutie Mark (not only what it looks like, but it's meaning and origin as well)

-Personality

-Talents/powers (can be magical powers or something like Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom and Fluttershy's Stare too)

-Relationships (not only romantic: a bit about their family and friends would be nice as well)

 

Without these I will not review your OC. I'm sorry, but there would be nothing for me to base my opinion on. A backstory would be a nice addition too, but it is not necessary. Of course, if you have anything else to write about your character, do write it by all means, the more I know about your OC the better. 

Also:

If the OC is a ponysona, please do mention that. Telling me if the OC is an RP character or for a fanfiction would be great too. :idea:

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

@@Glitter Glue,

 

Well, I'd hate to see such an offer go unfilled. Here's something I haven't yet been able to use to a real extent in an RP or story.

 

-Name: Swift 'Odys' Message

-Age Adult, right on the edge of becoming elderly. So early fifties.

-Gender: Identifies Male

-Looks If I had a picture I'd put it, but here it goes. Swift is by all appearances a middle aged pegasus stallion with a short cut greying mane/tail and a light gray coat. He is however a changeling with the standard black body, with a pair of golden eyes and a yellow gold backplate with a similarly gold colored head fringe/tail and wings though translucent like other changelings. He goes by the name Odys when not disguised as his unique identity Swift Message.

-Cutie Mark Swift's mark is that of a letter stamped with a postal mark, signifying his talent in delivering mail. As Odys is a changeling he had no mark of his own, but created the mark to match the role he made for himself with a knowledge of his own interests and abilities. Thus he works as a mail carrier when disguised.

-Personality Swift is very caring, taking time as he delivers the local mail to chat with anyone out on his loop, he does so to cultivate positive emotions of appreciation among those he delivers to so he can harvest the energies given off to sustain himself and his hive as his other cultivator siblings do. He is quick to befriend any he encounters with his charming attitude and the caring visage of an old stallion.

-Talents/powers Swift has the ability to change his outward appearance almost instantaneously and said appearance will remain unless dropped through severe trauma, concusion, or couterspelled. Upon death his natural magics will burn the body to ash, leaving no trace of him having been a changeling. Swift is also pretty good at delivering mail and thus has done so for many years.

-Relationships Swift has no romantic relationships to speak of as he prefers the versatility provided by a single life, namely the ability to cultivate and harvest the emotional energies of appreciation from nearly everyone he meats rather than having to focus his time and attention to cultivate and harvest love from any one individual. He has a number of more regular friends from his mail route, though nothing beyond that level.

 

Backstory: Odys was born a normal changeling to the hive of Permu 'Polymorph' Tation. A hive devoted both to small time artistry in the pursuit of Awe, and to everyday assistance in the pursuit of Appreciation, the hive's preferred pair of emotions. Odys' egg group developed with the predisposition to flight, thus extra training was given to him in winged disguises and flight. Odys worked as a messenger within the hive until he was developed enough to be allowed to create his own identity and go forth in search of emotional energy to sustain the hive. Using his experience as a messenger he get himself a job delivering mail as one Swift Message, a name and face he's carried ever since, aging it over time to reflect the passage of time. In the years he's been at it only one pony has discovered his secret, and he remains good friends with that pony to this day despite it.

 

I hope that's all you need, if you have any questions I'd be happy to provide more information.

[Glitter Glue 79]

@@Illiad Easle

 

So he is part of a hive that earns the emotions they feed on instead of aggressively taking them? That is quite interesting. The changeling OCs I've seen so far were mostly kicked out of their hive for living among or befriending ponies, so it is refreshing to see a whole hive living off of actually being nice.

 

Another thing I love to see is that your character is not a young adult, nor a teen. I was really happy to see that he was older. The fact that he is a changelig kind of made me worry, but turns out I worried for absolutely nothing. Your character is absolutely fitting for the universe and is not over complicated nor too simple.

 

I really don't have anything to say against him, other than the fact I am not sure if more than one hives, or at least more than one independent hives exist. Watching the show I got the feeling the Queen Chrysalis ruled over all changelings. Of course, there is not solid proof for either, so I guess that isn't really something negative.

 

(Also, Permu Tation is a very creative name, I think)

 

I know this review is probably not much help, but really I don't see much that can be changed about your character, I think he is great the way he is.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Glitter Glue

[Illiad Easle 3,139]

@@Glitter Glue,

 

I'm glad you like him. To answer some of your questions, I based  most of my views of changelings on the story A Novel Tale which I think offered a very good and realistic insight as to what most changelings are actually like. Thus the idea of multiple hives, preferred emotions, different colors by hive, and unique identities come mostly from there. Basically in that world Chrysalis is the odd one out for being open and attacking.

 

I don't worry about the show so much as having my characters fit inside the universe of my own creation, though I do try to make sure they are all still realistic within the show's world so as to prevent a full break from what people expect in FimFiction. I did like last week's episode because it lined up nicely with what I already had in mind.

 

(Eh, it isn't the best one I've come up with but I'm fond of it.)
 

Hey, thanks for the review, it tells me that I'm actually doing something right in my character generation and really should be a bit more confident in my own writing abilities. I appreciate that you were willing to respond.

 

Anyway, with a side character out of the way, would you like to review a main character?

 

-Name Illiad Easle (Yes I named myself after him)

-Age 23

-Gender Male

-Looks

Picture

-Cutie Mark Illiad's mark is a tripple cross of a paintbrush, ruler, and a quill, symbolizing his talents in art, planning, and writing respectively, especially when combined in his chosen profession of designing security measures such as watermarks and seals for official documents. While he is still decent at any of the individual talents, such as painting, writing, and plotting, they don't bring him as much fulfillment as when he uses them all together. Illiad recieved his mark during his time working in the Canterlot Archives as an assistant shelver due to his love of books. In a similar approach that the CMC had he would read books and try out what they described to see if he was any good at it, and descovered he had a decent penchant for intricuite line designs which resulted in his talent in security marks.

-Personality Illiad is very introverted, preferring a small group of good friends to a large group of good acquaintances. He does his best to make sure his friends are happy as he hates to see them feeling down. He has a strong sense of duty and justice, occasionally acting as a force of vengeance if his friends have been wronged. Though most of the time he avoids conflict and interaction outside of his friend group.

-Talents/powers Illiad is empathic, maening he can feel the emotions of those around him similar to a changeling. Being introverted he produces more emotional energy than he typically uses, thus can spread his own emotions to those around him in addition to the inate ability to draw the emotions of others in to himself. Thus he can perform an emotional swap by taking the sadness of others and replacing it with his own happiness. Illiad is also a decently powerful unicorn, but nowhere near the level of power that Twilight has, mostly his magic is devoted to fine telikinetics and other things that assist in his work.

-Relationships Illiad is the first child of four by King Truss, an architect, and Lyre Easel, an artist, both curently living in Canterlot with the youngest of his siblings as the rest have moved out like him. He still visits them on a near monthly basis despite living so far away now. Since he moved he built up a new group of friends with two changelings(Disguised as a unicorn and pegasus respectively), a deer, a griffon, and a pegasus.

-Backstory Despite Illiad's positive outlook on life, it is one of hardship and marred by predjudice. Illiad was attacked when he was 18 by one he thought was his best friend, one he had earlier confided the seccret of his empathic nature in. Empathics were not liked in Equestria, due to propoganda that they would corrupt the minds of those around them and could manipulate others in a form of mind control. Before ponies feared the changelings, they feared the empathics. Illiad was thus attacked by his ex-best friend and a small group of others he had once considered friends and ass a result suffered a series of severe burns to his back from boiling tea being poured on him while he was restrained. After that he moved out of Canterlot, fled far enough away that no one would know about him or his secret. After a few years he has new friends and a new life in a new city.

-Other: In some stories I portrey Illiad as the balance of Good and Evil, a member of a sister group to the elements of Harmony called simply the balance. I find this describes Illiad's job pretty well: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil

[Crystal Star 37]

https://www.reddit.com/r/RateMyOC/comments/5264wf/rate_my_oc_crystal_star_details_in_the_comments/

 

Please let me know what you think and if I need to improve anything

[Holy Sword Excalibur 87]

Name: Aerisl

 

Age: 10

 

Gender: female

 

Looks: https://s13.postimg.org/okdg285vb/image.jpg

(Drawn by Tarla-Chan)

 

Cutie Mark: A pawn chess piece that is half white and half black. She gained this after arriving in Ponyville. On her first night in her own, she attempted to steal a loaf of bread to eat, but was caught by the baker. When he questioned her about why she stole it, she panicked and made up a sob story about being an orphan and having to resort to thievery. However, the baker believed her story and allowed her to keep the loaf, but told her to talk to him first next time. After finding a place to settle down, a basement left unlocked, she realized that she enjoyed how she got her dinner and thought that if she kept up what she was doing, she could get even more.

 

Race: unicorn

 

Personality: Aerisl is a feisty filly who hates to be told what to do. When cornered, she can become quite angry and her thought process becomes obscured as she will just try to get away and isolate herself to get her thoughts back together. When engaging in thievery, she prefers the "pity me" approach and will use the orphan story as she can, but that does not always work. Because not everyone will just let her have her way with a sob story, she often times will frequent the schoolhouse to try to steal lunch money from other foals to get money. If she can, she has been known to get another pony in on the plan to get bigger targets. In addition, you can take the pony out of Canterlot, but not the Canterlot out of the pony. She has a soft spot for finer things in life and will often times try to get expensive chocolates for herself as a treat. Aerisl can also be a sucker for her own routine when another pony does it. When she comes across another pony who is depressed or sad, while she will groan first, she will get a little treat to try to cheer that pony up.

 

Skills/Abilities: Basic levitation and silvertongued. She can also play the flute. She has started to get the hang of pickpocketing and has been stepping her game up by attending fairs in town to get better items that she can then sell herself.

 

Relationships: Her father is Silver Steps, play writer and her mother is Ivory Steps, a program composer. She still loves them and misses them, but she refuses to ever go back because she is scarred of how they will react when they see her. She is scarred of being yelled at for terrifying them and how she did not live up to expectations.

 

Bio: Born to the Canterlot elite, Aerisl had a silver spoon in her mouth since her first day of life. She got everything she wanted on demand as long as she minded her manners. However, she often thought that having to be proper and polite to everypony a burden, especially with those rich snobs she had to associate with. Her parents had always dreamed of their foal being a famous composer and musical genius. She spent countless hours learning to play the flute and had her nose in music theory books. On top of that, she had to study the works of famous play writers and composers. Eventually, stress took over as she was scheduled to audition for a prestigious music academy. She panicked and had another filly, one who actually musically inclined, compose a piece of flute music for her to play, and when she auditioned with it, she got accepted. The other fully got angry that her talent was being leeched on and Aerisl, lying through her teeth to keep everypony happy, told the judges that the music was indeed hers. That night, guilt ridden, Aerisl decided that the life she had was not the one she wanted and ran away. She hopped a train, not knowing where exactly it would take her. She ended up in Ponyville and began a life anew, surviving by taking what she wanted when she wanted it. At first, she felt bad about having to resort to thievery, but after some time, she realized that it was her talent and what she was truly good at. She decided to embrace her talent of taking what she wanted when she wanted it. She gained her cutie mark from this and from that day on, she has embraced her talentbas a thief.

 

This character started out as an NPC in an RP, but now is my default RP character.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Dr.Egoshire

[Quinch 1,120]

Question, does the OC in question have to be a pony?

[Victoria Sponge 1,017]

Name: Battenberg

Age: Young Adult

Gender: Female

Looks: 

Cutie Mark: A Battenberg cake because it was her mother's favourite and the first thing she baked.

Personality: Shy and reserved but wishes to be helpful and tries her best to care for her friends.

Talents/Powers:  Very good at baking.

Relationships: Very close to her mother, not so close to her father. When she makes friends with someone she comes out of her shell a little bit and forms a pretty strong bond with those she likes.