How do I Make this Alicorn Better?

[FemaleIntrovert1995 138]

I was writing a fanfic called, "Born an Alicorn". It is about an Alicorn named Moon Stream, who tries to live a normal life. This takes place in future Equstria. In this AU, being an Alicorn is actually a rare birth defect. The birth defect can be fatal or non-fatal. It's only fatal when the wings are swollen beyond recognition, bleed easily, or fall off easily. The newborn could die from infection. Or when the horn is so massive, it could crush the newborn's skull or snap the neck, when the foal tries to lift its head. If the horn containes too much power, they could have violent seizures. The birth defect is non-fatal when everything is balanced. The wings and horn being at decent sizes usually prove non-fatal. Sometimes the wings might not grow with the foal, but this is normal. The horn might also contain little to no magic. I don't have a mane for this birth defect yet. 

Anyway here is some information about Moon Stream. 

Name: Moon Stream

Gender: Female

Species: Alicorn 

Mane color: umber

Coat color: rosy brown 

Eye Color: light chestnut 

Aura color: tan 

Cutiemark: a tanned, glistening moonstone 

Cutiemark earning story: when she was a teenager, she attended her school dance. She felt very awkward and let. She found herself sitting near a pond. She tossed a few pebbles into the pond, using her magic aura. The more she thought about the dance, the more stressed she got. She got stressed, she turned a pebble, into a light blue moonstone. She concentrated on another pebble and it turned into another moonstone. She tried to turn slightly larger rocks into moonstones. The first time fails. Over time, she mastered her craft and got her cutiemark. She realized her magic wasn't useless after all. 

Relationships:

Midnight Blues (mother, Pegasus)

Fast Fleet (father, Pegasus)

alicorns at the secret Alicorn Club (acquaintances)

Personality: introverted, a bit pessimistic, awkward at times, a little too nice.

Likes: moonstones, watching the sunrise and sunset, dramatic books, art galleries, and pizza.

dislikes: the color red, attention, failing at poetry, magic

Residence: Cloudsdale (formerly) unknown small village (currently)

occupation: jeweler 

hobbies: making moonstones, making tiny bear figurines, taking pictures of baby animals, and making scrapbooks about them.

Please tell me what I should improve on. Please be honest. Thank you. 

 

 

 

 

 

[EightBit 284]

It sounds like you've put a lot of thought into this. She seems like a decent character. The question is, is her special talent going to benefit her role in the series? If not, why not have her thrust into a situation that she's ill prepared for and  her cutie mark doesn't benefit her in this situation, so she must rely on her own wit? I sort of feel like all that background regarding Alicorns is pointless if it isn't shown in action. It's all well and good to say that it happens, but if it's not prominent information, it's not really going to have much on an impact on the series.

 

Just as a side note, is she good at both flying and magic, or is she worse at one than the other, seeing as it's a birth defect? That would stop her from becoming overpowered. Also, does she have anything more noticeable that she isn't good at? I know that you say that she fails at poetry, but people aren't good at plenty of other things, not just one thing, and poetry isn't something that will show up in the story often.

[FemaleIntrovert1995 138]

1 hour ago, EightBit said:

It sounds like you've put a lot of thought into this. She seems like a decent character. The question is, is her special talent going to benefit her role in the series? If not, why not have her thrust into a situation that she's ill prepared for and  her cutie mark doesn't benefit her in this situation, so she must rely on her own wit? I sort of feel like all that background regarding Alicorns is pointless if it isn't shown in action. It's all well and good to say that it happens, but if it's not prominent information, it's not really going to have much on an impact on the series.

 

Just as a side note, is she good at both flying and magic, or is she worse at one than the other, seeing as it's a birth defect? That would stop her from becoming overpowered. Also, does she have anything more noticeable that she isn't good at? I know that you say that she fails at poetry, but people aren't good at plenty of other things, not just one thing, and poetry isn't something that will show up in the story often.

She's an average flyer and low par with magic. Her moonstone ability is the only thing her horn can really do. She can levitate some things, but they have to be a certain weight, no bigger than a dictionary. Teleportation is a no for her. She's not very athletic, horrible at basic algebra, hates school in general, and burns food every time she cooks. The universe doesn't like her at all. In the story, she joins a writing club (her mother wanted her to try something new). When she joins she has a very tough time grasping poetry and she wants to get good at it. I was going to put in how she loathes being an Alicorn, but I found that to be very cliched. 

Also, she's not really apart of the "series". She's just in a fanfic I'm writing. Totally separate from the mane 6 and all. 

Edited July 26, 2017 by FemaleIntrovert1995

[Widdershins 9,955]

...you sure she's not a ponysona? Cause I can see an awful lot of heart put into this character!

 Alicornhood as a birth defect is a headcannon I've spent a good deal of time on mulling over myself too. Maybe not so much a focus of it being a death sentence as just something to live with. (Maybe it doesn't even need to be AU? The four royal alicorns do seem to be special cases after all, and like as not unremarkable alicorns probably wouldn't get enough press to be widely known enough for anypony to bother with. [Yeh, kinda got my own alicorn character along this same train of thought, heh!]) 

 Maybe, what I'm thinkin' here, is more of one of the attributes or maybe both being completely useless. Like the wings being just flightless arm-like appendages or the horn just being there for decoration. Like, a natural unicorn has it well situated in their skull to be able to run facefirst into things, but if it's just so much of a bony headlump then that's going do hurt real bad horn planting into something. That'd be like getting jabbed real bad by a pencil in the forehead!

On 7/26/2017 at 7:23 AM, EightBit said:

I sort of feel like all that background regarding Alicorns is pointless if it isn't shown in action.

 Well, that's a kernel of truth there. It's like Twilight being a Magic prodigy. It's brought real heavy at the start, its kind of a point that gets talked about, but it's not her sole or most defining characteristic. I'd say the level of "showing it in action" can just be forcing your character to have to explain numerous times through her life to anypony who asks that no, despite being an alicorn, she's almost useless at magic. And knowing full well that there's four accomplished Alicorns out there is going to be a major dive to her psyche.

It's gotta play in well deep to you to have somepony rush up to you like a fanboy, all excited about meeting an alicorn and all you can do is just say: "Ah... no... It's... it's just a thing I am. That's all." That's the catch with alicorns. There's an almost expected level of Entitlement to the species and the best way to counter that is to belittle that expectation as just calling it simply a species. 

  Gosh... that's a right beautifully written Cutie Mark Earning Story!

            ...I'm going to have to look up what Umber means again...