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Post by purple on May 18, 2013 13:01:49 GMT -8
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Restless. Reclusive. Wild. | | [cs=3][atrb=style,width: 460px; text-align: center; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px;]
Dizzy, Dizzy Mae, Des, Sula Mae (parents only; hates this)
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Twenty-One | | [cs=3][atrb=style,width: 460px; text-align: center; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px;]
November 9, 1990
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Woman | | [cs=3][atrb=style,width: 460px; text-align: center; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px;]
Pansexual
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Civilian | | [cs=3][atrb=style,width: 460px; text-align: center; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px;]
Student/Miscellaneous Odd Jobs (Generally Retail/Sales-Oriented)
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Personality | [cs=3][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style,width: 450px; text-align: center; padding-left: 25px; padding-right: 25px;]
Competitive, sharp, and deceptively spacey, Dizzy will make for one of the most strenuous type B personality encounters you'll ever have. Dizzy has an incisive wit and a knack for well-timed deadpan snark, and her sarcasm can disarm even the quickest thinkers. That is, when she feels like it—Dizzy has chronic issues with depression which have profoundly affected her general demeanor. While she is overall outspoken and a bit over-the-top when she’s at 100% (and totally comfortable), she tends to be dealing with some mix of depressive symptoms which harshly reduce this. As a result of her depression, her baseline disposition is to be very quiet, observant, and prone to yawning. Others might describe this state as “chill,” and many people have asked her if she’s high while like this (she might be). Having spent most of her life awkward and unsociable, Dizzy can be a little bit shy, and this tends to come out during her depressive episodes. She either stays this way until she’s comfortable or decides to turn on the juice and be more outgoing—this happens most often when she feels confident and healthy (and wants attention). In this state, she can also be arrogant, a little vain, and sort of a condescending jackass. This is due to a bit of ugly duckling syndrome—she didn’t accept herself fully until more recently in life, and given how down she feels during depressive episodes, she really appreciates herself when she’s up.
Along those lines, Dizzy can be a bit spoiled and too wanting of praise at times. When this is the case, she shows off her wit and her lack of fear by saying whatever she wants—these things tend to involve sex, but they vary based on company and surrounding. These actions aren't entirely pretense—this isn’t far from Dizzy’s normal personality—but she hams it up just a little sometimes, again due to a sort of “high” she gets when she doesn’t feel exhausted and down. She also tends to be very blunt with people, but she is very careful about doing so; she is good at convincing people that these comments are out of love (and they tend to be) and boldly rejects tact at moments in order to seem more courageous. Of course, she doesn’t manage to do so without people disliking her, but she tends to end up with those she wants around in her corner. She has luckily curbed her tendency to be intellectually condescending, though she still has some pride issues which affect her behavior. Dizzy is far more manipulative than she would like to admit and sometimes takes advantage of those who are drawn to her—not in substantial ways, but in exploring or abusing power dynamics in public social situations. She picked up more nasty little alpha wolf tendencies in her early college years than she’d like to admit.
Though she attracts relatively more people to her when she acts like this, she still isn’t equipped to deal with this sort of attention and gets tired very quickly. This, ironically, likely contributes to her recurring bouts of depression, along with her natural tendency to stay to herself. Her love of praise and love of aloneness often conflict. For this reason, Dizzy tends to cling to those she manages to be comfortable with—they’re safe enough to feel similar to being alone, but she can get praise and positive attention from them if she needs. She is a demanding (borderline needy) friend and keeps very few people in her inner circle at a time, whether because of her distrustful tendencies or because few people can put up with her needs. She just tells herself people self-select wisely, though. She also tends to give too freely, which is why she doesn’t try to make more close friends—it’s a way to minimize being taken advantage of. While she loves herself overall now, she still finds herself in low moments where she wants to give solely to receive attention and love.
When experiencing depressive symptoms, Dizzy also has trouble talking to important people—for example, she would have a lot of trouble applying for a job or setting up an interview. She also has a lot of trouble asking for help—this has caused her huge issues with falling behind on schoolwork in college (again, because she fails to self-regulate) and with a myriad of stress- and depression-based medical issues, both physical and mental. She draws into herself completely and sometimes goes days without taking care of herself—along with the (praise-based) habit for vanity she’s picked up in recent years, this causes her to feel that she can’t be seen in public and becomes even worse. Dizzy also becomes very irritable and judgmental of those around her.
Dizzy tends to cycle through hobbies and interests, mainly because she adhered so strictly to her parents’ wishes (schoolwork first) throughout her life; as such, she never really figured out what her own life interests were and tends to change her mind rapidly. This is because Dizzy finds it easy to contextualize new information—she figures out the “rules” of a new activity, figures out how to fit them with her own knowledge, and excels quickly—at least, at a basic (or sometimes intermediate) level. She does have a nasty habit of not practicing, though, hating repetitive activities and lacking enough discipline to push herself without structured plans; she’s sort of a jack-of-all-trades and a master of few. If not for her parents riding her on schoolwork, she probably wouldn't have done as well, though the structure and the fact that she didn't have to self-regulate likely explained that as well. Outside of that, though, she usually rides natural talent and doesn’t go much farther, which leads to a range of mediocre results. The only two things that have really held her attention lately are boxing and singing—she is currently deep into boxing lessons and finds that her ability to learn patterns has helped a lot with her skills.
Dizzy enjoys doing work around activism and identity, and these are activities that she remains passionate about; as such, she finds it very frustrating when she runs into sexism, racism, homophobia, or nearly anything of the sort. She sometimes finds it therapeutic to troll people who participate in these things; Dizzy is extremely liberal and sometimes bullies such people with her knowledge of social norms, advocacy, and facets of identity, and often finds herself at her most flamboyant at these moments (which is saying something).
She can make people uncomfortable with her radical views on… most things; for example, she is a diehard womanist with strong critiques of non-racialized (read: white) feminism, a strong stance against transphobia, and a general distaste for any manifestation of patriarchy (or kyriarchy). She also… completely doesn’t believe in gender constructs. Like, almost at all—this stemmed from her being a tomboy as a kid and doing so well in life as a woman (and contributed to her eventually majoring in psychology). Sharing these views is another method she uses to sort of show off in certain company, but she mainly does this when she feels the need to defend herself, in hostile environments or otherwise. In any case, she is prone to going into colorfully worded rants about these issues.
Dizzy decided to be polyamorous about a year after recovering from an abusive relationship. She realized that even healthy monogamous relationships could stunt growth and decided that she didn’t want to possess anyone in this way. She decided that, while she wouldn't completely preclude romantic feelings, she was somewhat averse to any type of possession in relationships--she would try to love and accept those in her life fully for who they were and love them that way, giving them more room to grow. Given her personality, this change is deliberate and difficult enough to be more of a life goal than a self-improvement project. This has made her dating life very difficult; she is very honest very quickly about her sexuality and dating, and responses usually range from skeptical at best to disgusted at worst. As a result (of this and some unusual kinks Dizzy has), Dizzy has become somewhat jaded about sex and dating—again, adding to her recurring bouts of depression.
As a result of terrible communication in her family growing up, Dizzy is very good at reading other people and situations once she gets to know them a little bit—nothing was ever really stated directly within her family, so if something was wrong, she had to dig for it. She has a knack for knowing who should and shouldn’t be in her life not long after meeting them, and she quickly picks up on the patterns of people she does know—unfortunately, this is a direct result of her neediness. She laser focuses on what people say and do, more out of distrust than insight. She has tailored this in more recent years to be more of a cold reading skill than a check of friendship, since her philosophies on friendship and love have changed dramatically. She enjoys messing with people a little, even going so far as using zodiac signs to trick people into thinking she’s better at figuring them out than she really is.
Dizzy is also very sensitive to the emotions and demeanor of those around her while in her quiet moods—if someone around her is stressed, for example, she eventually becomes stressed after a prolonged period. As such, she tends to try to keep people around her calm and avoid people who may negatively affect her mood. Further, she isn’t sure whether it’s because of her depression or because of being in high-stress environments so often, but Dizzy is very slow to panic in highly stressful situations and keeps a relatively clear head (this, too, has helped with her boxing). Again, prolonged exposure to anyone else’s emotions will affect hers, but her initial reaction is rarely irrational panic.
While Dizzy is on her own now, her tendency to cling and spoiled upbringing cause her to mooch a bit more than she should and generally be less independent than she'd plan.
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Lineage | [cs=3][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style,width: 450px; text-align: center; padding-left: 25px; padding-right: 25px;]
While Dizzy very definitively defines herself as black (American-black, as of meeting so many Caribbean and African students in college), she gets a lot of questions about her heritage, as she seems biracial to many people due to the tone of her skin. Rest assured, though—she’s “just black” and she means it. There may have been (probably was) some mixing in her gene pool back when, but it's nothing she particularly knows about and nothing that really affects her (outside of some preferential treatment). She speaks English, proficient French, okay Italian, and a tiny bit of Japanese and Chinese, passed down to her from the great force of omg-I-don’t-know-what-I-want-to-study-in-college. She also speaks fluent African-American Vernacular English and code switches somewhat unwillingly, more based on comfort zone than anything else. Her English tends to be slightly accented and sometimes comes with a very subtle southern twang, thanks to her parents’ very strong southern accents.
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History | [cs=3][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style,width: 450px; text-align: center; padding-left: 25px; padding-right: 25px;]
Desdemona was raised in a middle class household in a lower class but safe Detroit neighborhood. It was enough to impart some street smarts, but mild enough that you wouldn’t get shot in the ass; her parents figured it was a way to keep their girls grounded and sensible, and honestly, despite her father making a decent amount of money, moving somewhere better with five girls to take care of wasn't the most financially secure move. A tomboy growing up, Des was the youngest of five girls and by far the most spoiled, and her older sisters often reminded her of that. In her childhood years, she was primarily raised by a mix of her mom and her sisters; her dad worked long hours and she would excitedly meet him at the door every night when she was supposed to be asleep. Though Des’s family was not the most emotionally functional, her parents made sure she got the best education she could get, and her natural hunger for knowledge allowed her to excel. This had also been the case with her older sisters, who set a precedent for her doing well in school. Having gone to a public school near her home in the city for most of her childhood, her parents moved her to a private institution for middle school. She had always been somewhat socially awkward, and the transition served to aggravate this—in addition to normal middle school woes, she now faced identity questions as she was one of few black students. Add to this religious beliefs which differed from her conservative Christian upbringing, and Des’s middle school life became a clusterfuck of weird growing pains and odd questions.
Adding to the stress of this transition was her father’s retirement; with him around more, Des found it more and more difficult to idolize him. What she had seen as high intelligence before she now saw as petty attempts to seem smarter than everyone else, and due to a generational gap in education, it wasn't long before her knowledge of everything outside accounting began to catch up to his. She also resented him because she could see herself becoming more and more like him in that superior, condescending way. Between intellectual standoffs with her father and feeling that she had to prove something at her school, Dizzy found herself growing more and more aloof and acting more and more superior. She had a habit of correcting those around her and needing to seem like the smartest person in the room which didn’t help her socially—the fact that she often was the smartest in the room (at this point in life) didn’t help either. It was around the 8th grade that Des first started experiencing seasonal depression, which was aggravated by her beginning to date and discover how needy she had become as she drifted away from her family, marking the beginning of a series of unhealthy relationships.
Des played a number of sports and kept in good shape, also showing a small amount of musical talent through her school’s extracurricular offerings. It was likely because of her exhaustive use of free time that she wasn’t depressed for the entire year instead of just winter, as she would experience chronic depression later in life. However, the more she adapted to school life, the more alienated she felt from her parents; while her mom and dad were very financially supportive, there were mutual issues about expressing affection and Des found herself growing jealous of the friendships others around her had with their parents. To add to this, she was much less conservative than the rest of her family, and she found Christianity less and less appealing. She also began, very slowly, to explore her sexuality, though this was something she would wait until later in life to fully develop. The growing rift between her and her family caused Des to have a very unhealthy series of relationships with friends and romantic interests, who she would depend on far too much. By the time she got to college, she was mildly depressed with few close friends.
She was accepted to and attended Columbia, where things didn’t get a whole lot better. On top of everything else, she felt terrible for having so much opportunity and feeling so ungrateful; like most Ivy League schools, Columbia's need-based financial aid had her well-covered and well within what her parents could pay. Further, extracurriculars weren’t as appealing to her; everything seemed to be either at a far higher or far lower level than what she was used to, and she ended up using her friends from home as a crutch to avoid really interacting. It wasn’t until she began dating in college that she really started to branch out, but due to a number of unforeseeable events in her boyfriend's life, the relationship slowly became mutually abusive and toxic, and she sank into a very severe depression. This worsened when the two broke up, and Des was nearly kicked out of school. She found that she hated her major (Comparative Literature) and hated everything about being at that school, so she took time off for the first time, beginning to work in retail. It wasn’t difficult, but it was a new challenge and a way to get new skills. Unexpectedly, it broke her out of her shell, too—having to interact with people every day let her develop a charisma she didn’t know she could tap into. She took time to have a long series of very frank moments of meditation, beginning to address her flaws and be honest with herself. She realized that she should more closely follow her intuition with people rather than following her need of companionship. Not long after, she was ready to go back to school.
However, when she got back, she was surprised to find that—while she found a lot of ways to like being there now—it very clearly felt like the wrong place for her. As Columbia's Core Curriculum led to to take a number of low-level classes that served as prerequisites, she tried switching majors to Psychology, but she found that even that wasn’t fulfilling. She still had issues with rampant racism and classism (even at a relatively more liberal Ivy), which were aggravated by the fact that she'd only just gotten comfortable with her own identity. She found that even without her relationship adding to the problem, she was still prone to depression. Further, having been somewhat artsy in high school, she felt that she wasn’t creating like she’d like to be. It was too late at this point to switch again, so Des made a radical decision—she left Columbia to work and attend school part-time in California. The weather would help combat the seasonal depression she was prone to, the cultural climate would be different, she’d be farther from home, and she could start fresh. At this point, while her relationship with her parents still wasn’t the best, they were still willing to provide some financial contribution; with their money and a couple friends out in Cali, she was able to make the move and started supporting herself not long after. She didn't officially transfer yet--she simply starting taking classes at local schools with the intent to try a Computer Science major once she got enough classes under her belt (pretty much entirely for the potential income, but also due to clinging a bit too optimistically to an old dream of being a video game designer). She began dabbling in whatever was around her—boxing lessons were a must, as she’d wanted to try that for a while, and she’d look for somewhere to try aikido. Singing lessons were expensive, so that could wait for a little—but Des found herself creating and building like she hadn’t for years. Des gifted herself with a new nickname, and it was appropriate; she couldn’t really say she felt like herself again—she was just starting to feel what healthy was like, perhaps for the first time ever.
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Roleplayer Information | [cs=3][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style,width: 400px; text-align: center; padding-left: 50px; padding-right: 50px;]
PURPLE;; Also plays the world's smallest violin
PREFERENCE;; Yes, plz. =D
FACE CLAIM;; 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors – Lotus | [cs=3][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style,width: 500px; height: 35px;] |
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DESTINY
UNKNOWN ENTITY
ANCIENT GUIDE
Posts: 221
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Post by DESTINY on May 18, 2013 20:39:01 GMT -8
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DESTINY HAS FOUND SOME PROBLEMS | [cs=3][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style,width: 450px; text-align: center; padding-left: 25px; padding-right: 25px;]
Welcome to the site Purple! Before we get started, there's a few things that we need to go over.
Her personality seems well written, but at the moment is suffering from being a bit scattered. At the moment, we're seeing a lot about Dizzy, but it becomes a bit hard to tell what's important in her personality. Which of these traits are important things everyone is going to see? Which parts are relatively small and less obvious? This ties into the three traits at the top--these should be the three most significant traits in her character. You repeatedly describe her as being really intelligent and knowledge-oriented in the History, but this is really only mentioned in the personality very briefly. If it's so important it controls a big part of her life, it should be featured far more prominently.
Because of how spread out it is, we're also seeing a lot of minor contradictions. In most cases, these could probably be explained away by one trait being less prominent then the others, but because you've given so many small details about her, it's hard for the reader to tell. For example, you talk about how she is very good at reading situations and knowing who should and shouldn't be in her life, but then you have her in an abusive relationship. You mention she repels people with her bluntness, but then this also attracts people to her. You have her acting out, haming it up for attention, but she's also a little bit shy.
Ideally, I would choose five positive traits and five negative traits that are the most important to her character, and then elaborate on them in a paragraph.
There's several other small issues we see catching up at the end of personality, where you get into her sexuality and activism.
I think you've mixed up polyamorous with promiscuity. You describe Dizzy as having no interest in relationships at all. Being polyamorous means you have several committed relationships, so if she didn't want any relationships at all, she would be promiscuous (open to sex outside of relationships). That in itself also isn't a sexuality, so it should be removed from the sexuality field.
I have to admit I'm a bit confused bout her activism. I'm getting the impression she's very passionate about it, dislikes sexism, racism, etc... but then she bullies people? If she's a hypocrite, please just say so explicitly. You also mention her having radical views, but don't explain what those radical views are. If her views are so radical they upset people around her, they should be explained clearly. You also mention she goes out of her way to stay away from people who would affect her mood, which seems to contradict going out of her way to bully people.
The bit about 'bullying people with knowledge of her identity' leaves me confused. Knowledge of her identity? You also describe her as flamboyant, but I'm not sure what you mean by that?
Seasonal depression is a fairly serious condition, and we aren't seeing many details on this. From your description, I'm assuming she has the classic winter-version. However, it wouldn't be aggravated by her starting to date or discovering her neediness. It also wouldn't be affected by her playing sports in the way you explain. Playing an instrument will cheer up an average person, but depression is a chemical imbalance, and you cannot simply be cheered out of it. You refer repeatedly due to her bouts of depression, but we aren't really seeing the affects of this in her personality. Someone who suffers from depression in any variety will lack energy and motivation. Despite this, you have her in a whole lot of activities and extra curricular. Would the complete lack of energy not affect these?
Onto lineage! First, I'm going to have to say no to Lotus being fully African-American. While people of African heritage can come in a wide variety of skin tones, Lotus is simply too pale to pass as someone who's fully African-American. Lotus isn't even particularly tan, and while she could possibly pass as someone of mixed heritage, she's simply too pale.
The languages should be elaborated on a bit more. She seems to have a lot of language proficiency for someone who has no family background in any of those languages. Was she intending to major in linguistics? You also have her with a southern accent, but she wasn't raised in the south. Even if her parents had a thick accent, the affect on her would be nearly nonexistent by the time she's twenty-one, as she'd have been exposed to so many other accents. She would almost certainly end up picking up the accent of those around her, and considering that her parents are not particularly present in her life, it seems strange she would pick up an accent from them that is so out of place.
Onto the history now! You describe her family as being middle class, but the impression that we're getting isn't one of someone who is middle class. If she is just middle class, getting into an ivy league school would be a huge deal. She would need scholarships and/or financial aid. A middle class family with only one working parent would also not be able to just move their daughter to California. That's well above middle class.
She would live in either a rough neighborhood or a safe neighborhood. As a rule of thumb, those terms are used to describe opposite areas entirely.
There are some confusing bits of the family dynamic. She's the youngest of five girls and the most spoiled (I assume because she's the youngest?). Your have her father retire, and he dotes on her, but she can't idolize him? Why does she have intellectual standoffs with him? What are they over? Why is a middle schooler managing to intellectually beat her father? They obviously see the value of education, are they not educated themselves?
A reoccurring theme is her hobbies, and just how good she is at them. We're seeing a whole lot of hobbies across a whole spectrum of experiences. It's plausible for someone to be good at a few similar things, like a teenager being active in soccer and rugby. In this case, she's extremely good at five or six different hobbies. Having a natural talent isn't something that you just are. You have a natural talent at one or two specific things. Being able to learn quickly is a skill that requires hard work and practice--it means you pick things up faster then normal. It doesn't mean you can just become really good at everything without practicing.
At the moment, she seems to be a very strong character. You describe her as being, more often then not, the 'smartest person in the room'. She is good at seemingly everything she tries. I would strongly recommend toning down either her intelligence or her talents, or even both.
Her schooling seems to need some fleshing out. How were her grades if she doesn't practice or put effort in? How did she manage to get into an ivy league school? How did she afford it? As a rule of thumb, changing majors in an ivy league school would be a fairly major undertaking. It also seems strange to get into an ivy league school and then to decide to go... where? What school is she going to in California? What's her major? | | [cs=3][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style,width: 500px; height: 35px;] |
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Post by purple on May 19, 2013 0:02:10 GMT -8
Hey there! Made a bunch of small changes, so just sort of breaking this up to explain what I did change/how I changed it to make it as painless as possible to re-review. XD
Her personality seems well written, but at the moment is suffering from being a bit scattered. At the moment, we're seeing a lot about Dizzy, but it becomes a bit hard to tell what's important in her personality. Which of these traits are important things everyone is going to see? Which parts are relatively small and less obvious? This ties into the three traits at the top--these should be the three most significant traits in her character. You repeatedly describe her as being really intelligent and knowledge-oriented in the History, but this is really only mentioned in the personality very briefly. If it's so important it controls a big part of her life, it should be featured far more prominently.
Hmm. I don’t want to tone down the complexity, though I certainly see how what I’ve written could seem contradictory. I’ve clarified some things and moved a couple things around, so hopefully that should help—the two biggest things about Dizzy’s personality that I wanted to flesh out were her general flamboyance/attention-seeking behavior and the profound impact her depression has on that, both of which will feature prominently in her interactions. I guess I was going more for the intelligence being reflected in her other personality traits—e.g. the learning new hobbies thing. I think the tweaks there should add more to the intelligence thing and maybe help curb the natural talent thing? Maybe? o.o
Onto lineage! First, I'm going to have to say no to Lotus being fully African-American. While people of African heritage can come in a wide variety of skin tones, Lotus is simply too pale to pass as someone who's fully African-American. Lotus isn't even particularly tan, and while she could possibly pass as someone of mixed heritage, she's simply too pale.
This is a bit awkward for me… Because there’s someone in my direct family who’s even lighter than Lotus and identifies as black. Not to mention me (also very light). Certainly not trying to be combative here, but I’m not super comfortable changing that on principle. =\ I added a small portion to maybe clarify, but I’m sort of adamant about this.
As a rule of thumb, changing majors in an ivy league school would be a fairly major undertaking.
>_> It’s not at mine. Literally an email and two signatures if the prereqs are together. XD But… I switched some things up, though.
The languages should be elaborated on a bit more. She seems to have a lot of language proficiency for someone who has no family background in any of those languages. Was she intending to major in linguistics? You also have her with a southern accent, but she wasn't raised in the south. Even if her parents had a thick accent, the affect on her would be nearly nonexistent by the time she's twenty-one, as she'd have been exposed to so many other accents. She would almost certainly end up picking up the accent of those around her, and considering that her parents are not particularly present in her life, it seems strange she would pick up an accent from them that is so out of place.
Clarified with original choice of major—she was a foreign lit kid.
Tweaked to clarify accent as well—it wasn’t meant to be a strong or easily-to-place accent. Also keep in mind she was sort of a recluse for several years of her schooling and developmental years and stayed around her family a lot (and ended up going to a school where she really didn’t want to end up talking like everyone around her).
I think you've mixed up polyamorous with promiscuity. You describe Dizzy as having no interest in relationships at all. Being polyamorous means you have several committed relationships, so if she didn't want any relationships at all, she would be promiscuous (open to sex outside of relationships). That in itself also isn't a sexuality, so it should be removed from the sexuality field.
Polyamory actually comes in a lot of different forms… This is… sort of from life experience as well XD. I tweaked some things to clarify, but Dizzy wasn’t meant to be promiscuous in the first place—it’s more of a love everyone in your life type of deal than a love no one/have feelings for no one thing. I only put it in the sexuality field because I wanted it somewhere more prominent, but I took it out now. ^.^
I have to admit I'm a bit confused bout her activism. I'm getting the impression she's very passionate about it, dislikes sexism, racism, etc... but then she bullies people? If she's a hypocrite, please just say so explicitly. You also mention her having radical views, but don't explain what those radical views are. If her views are so radical they upset people around her, they should be explained clearly. You also mention she goes out of her way to stay away from people who would affect her mood, which seems to contradict going out of her way to bully people.
Tweaked to clarify! Only other thing I can say is, you can’t categorically avoid everything bad in life? Especially racism/sexism, and especially if you do activism/community organizing… You engage these people on purpose—sometimes. Not really sure what would help in tweaking this, but I’m open to it if you wouldn’t mind explaining what you mean. o.o
Her schooling seems to need some fleshing out. How were her grades if she doesn't practice or put effort in? How did she manage to get into an ivy league school? How did she afford it?
Fleshed out, explained more in growing-up history, and explained with real-life facts, in that order. ^_^
It also seems strange to get into an ivy league school and then to decide to go... where? What school is she going to in California? What's her major?
Clarified.
Onto the history now! You describe her family as being middle class, but the impression that we're getting isn't one of someone who is middle class. If she is just middle class, getting into an ivy league school would be a huge deal. She would need scholarships and/or financial aid. A middle class family with only one working parent would also not be able to just move their daughter to California. That's well above middle class.
Clarified the first part with more info about her sisters—it wasn’t necessarily a small thing for her to get in, but also wasn’t earth-shattering. (Also keep in mind that there are middle-class Ivy League grads—not everyone goes on to be rich and fabulous XD) Clarified second part with a bit more detail.
She would live in either a rough neighborhood or a safe neighborhood. As a rule of thumb, those terms are used to describe opposite areas entirely.
Clarified.
Seasonal depression is a fairly serious condition, and we aren't seeing many details on this. From your description, I'm assuming she has the classic winter-version. However, it wouldn't be aggravated by her starting to date or discovering her neediness. It also wouldn't be affected by her playing sports in the way you explain.
This is… another personal experience thing, both in the way that I actually experience this and am a Psychology major. XD
Seasonal depression can be serious, depending on symptoms—the way DSM diagnoses are made is that if a person has a certain number of symptoms out of the ones listed, they’re diagnosed. And since depression is strongly related to the body’s chemistry, exercise can actually have a profound effect on it. I didn’t say exercise caused it to go away—just sort of curbed some of the symptoms. Also, negative enough external stimuli can aggravate depression—maybe I’m misunderstanding you here, though? The dating thing is essentially unhealthy relationships (made unhealthy by her neediness, not any recurring issues with other people)—clarified that a bit, too.
A reoccurring theme is her hobbies, and just how good she is at them. We're seeing a whole lot of hobbies across a whole spectrum of experiences. It's plausible for someone to be good at a few similar things, like a teenager being active in soccer and rugby. In this case, she's extremely good at five or six different hobbies. Having a natural talent isn't something that you just are. You have a natural talent at one or two specific things. Being able to learn quickly is a skill that requires hard work and practice--it means you pick things up faster then normal. It doesn't mean you can just become really good at everything without practicing.
So, I’ve said she picks things up quickly initially, but I’m having trouble finding the five or six things she’s good at—I have school, wit, and reading people. I guess picking things up at a basic level? She’s learning boxing, was decent at sports and music in high school—would you mind clarifying just a bit more for me? I tweaked some things, but I’m not really sure I quite hit what you’re going for, so just let me know.
There are some confusing bits of the family dynamic. She's the youngest of five girls and the most spoiled (I assume because she's the youngest?). Your have her father retire, and he dotes on her, but she can't idolize him? Why does she have intellectual standoffs with him? What are they over? Why is a middle schooler managing to intellectually beat her father? They obviously see the value of education, are they not educated themselves?
Clarified!
The bit about 'bullying people with knowledge of her identity' leaves me confused. Knowledge of her identity? You also describe her as flamboyant, but I'm not sure what you mean by that?
Knowledge of identity—sorry, vague activisty talk. XD Should be clearer now. /The flamboyancy just revolves around her attention-seeking.
At the moment, she seems to be a very strong character. You describe her as being, more often then not, the 'smartest person in the room'. She is good at seemingly everything she tries. I would strongly recommend toning down either her intelligence or her talents, or even both.
Intelligence wouldn’t make sense I think, so I’ll definitely tone down talents—I don’t think I had her as super-good at anything outside school, so I added more about how her depression negatively affects her and about how she fails to self-regulate around life decisions with lack of structure (should also further explain how lack of motivation manifests with her, specifically).
Because of how spread out it is, we're also seeing a lot of minor contradictions. In most cases, these could probably be explained away by one trait being less prominent then the others, but because you've given so many small details about her, it's hard for the reader to tell. For example, you talk about how she is very good at reading situations and knowing who should and shouldn't be in her life, but then you have her in an abusive relationship. You mention she repels people with her bluntness, but then this also attracts people to her. You have her acting out, haming it up for attention, but she's also a little bit shy.
These things have the most to do with her natural personality versus how her depression affects her—tweaked things throughout to clarify. Just hoping she doesn’t seem manic now… XD
About the abusive relationship, there’s no level of foresight that can totally prevent certain life events from happening—especially for someone still in her early twenties and relatively young. Abusive relationships are also very often unexpected. I did, however, add a bit of detail to make that make more sense.
Playing an instrument will cheer up an average person, but depression is a chemical imbalance, and you cannot simply be cheered out of it. You refer repeatedly due to her bouts of depression, but we aren't really seeing the affects of this in her personality. Someone who suffers from depression in any variety will lack energy and motivation. Despite this, you have her in a whole lot of activities and extra curricular. Would the complete lack of energy not affect these?
It’s more the lack of time to ruminate (which can hugely aggravate any type of depression) that helps than anything else with the activities—I think the above clarification might help with this. Dizzy would be a ball of energy and quips if not for the depression—it’s what causes her old shyness and most quiet moments to come out. Again, though—none of these things is “curing” her depression—just helping it so that it doesn’t become severe like it does later in her life. The depression also has to do with her leaving an Ivy League school to do… stuff in California. It’s precisely because of the lack of motivation that she tries to keep herself up doing a bunch of other stuff and can’t stay interested in one thing long enough to get really good at it.
Hope this all helps! Willing to make more tweaks as necessary, where applicable. ^_^
(EDIT: Also clarified the smartest in the room thing--that wwas only meant to be during middle school lol. Being the smartest person in the room isn't really... a thing in the Ivy League, as far as I can tell. Not in the same way, at least, unless you're an insufferable supergenius. I'm oversimplifying but you get it. XD)
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DESTINY
UNKNOWN ENTITY
ANCIENT GUIDE
Posts: 221
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Post by DESTINY on May 19, 2013 20:06:23 GMT -8
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DESTINY HAS FOUND SOME PROBLEMS | [cs=3][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style,width: 450px; text-align: center; padding-left: 25px; padding-right: 25px;]
Welcome back! Just to start us off, I do want to mention a thing about personal experience. As staff, we have to assume the average case unless otherwise specified. While a lot of things might be possible, they might not be plausible in the average case. For example, someone might mention that their characters died in a car crash while going at only five miles an hour. In the vast majority of cases, this wouldn't be plausible, and there's no way for staff to know if this is an error (maybe they meant fifty?) or a conversion error (are they used to kilometers?). Of course, it is entirely possible for this to happen--they could be t-boned by a truck moving much faster for example--but in situations that seem odd or implausible, it's up for the app writer to mention it.
Your personality has improved, but I'm still really getting that feeling of being 'scattered'. Right now we're getting a ton of traits, and it can be very hard to distinguish which ones happen when.
To give an example, here's a section of the personality:
"She also tends to be very blunt with people, but she is very careful about doing so; she is good at convincing people that these comments are out of love (and they tend to be) and boldly rejects tact at moments in order to seem more courageous. Of course, she doesn’t manage to do so without people disliking her, but she tends to end up with those she wants around in her corner. "
The first two sentences imply she's blunt, but only with people she thinks can take it, and is very good at convincing people not to be offended... but then the second half is talking about how she offends people but only if they're not her friends anyway. If she's careful, and good at convincing people, why do people dislike her? If it's the average case, that she offends some and not others, there's really no need to mention it at all. You can just say she's blunt. Adding all the extra stuff just leads to confusion.
I was intending to make a list of all the traits to show just how many there are, but I quickly ended up with simply too many. by paragraph four I had more then seventeen traits for when she's not depressed, and nine for when she is. The problem is that I still don't know how important these are. Which is more prominent, her competitiveness or her vanity? Her bluntness or her alpha wolf tendencies? You also get a lot of small contradictions this way, because it's not always clear which traits are 'depressed traits' and which are 'normal traits'. You say she's a little bit shy, but she's also up front, outspoken, and snarky.
I also wanted to clarify something I mentioned last time, since you asked for clarification. You can't always avoid bad things in life, but going out of your way to bully others is the exact opposite of what you've said she does. In one paragraph, she goes out of her way to harass and bully people who hold views against hers. In another paragraph, she goes out of her way to avoid people who might negatively affect her mood. Unless she's somehow getting a high off bullying people (in which case that's a whole other thing and should be clarified), she's going to end up in a negative mood from dealing with people who are racist, sexist, etc. So either one of those would need to be removed, or more clarification is needed.
The bit with her father has been clarified, but it's a bit confusing. She doesn't like him because he acts superior and condescending, and she's afraid of becoming superior and condescending herself, and as a result... she becomes superior and condescending? Wouldn't she try and humble herself if she's so worried about becoming like her father?
Just as a clarification, you mention in the personality she's a psychology major. While she was at one point, I'd strongly recommend moving that part since she's not currently, as it might lead to some confusion.
I also want to point out that her current choice of major is extremely problematic considering her social views. Comp Sci (especially those going into Game Development) is an extremely sexist and problematic industry from a social justice point of view. The ratios in computer science classes are downright ridiculous. While it varies from college to college, in the average computer science class of fifty, there would be maybe two non-Asian POC, and maybe three or four women. There's no such thing as a woman who's a game developer--they'll always be a 'female game developer'. There's huge salary differences, and the sexism isn't generally 'discrete' like a lot of sexism is--it's up front and blunt.
It simply seems very odd to me that someone who's outgoing with her activism to the point where she'll confront others would choose to have a career in such a problematic industry. | | [cs=3][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style,width: 500px; height: 35px;] |
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TERRESA
UNKNOWN ENTITY
RESIDENT UNICORN
小書瑀
Posts: 105
MINI INFO - GENDER: Female
MINI INFO - D.O.B.: HOW DARE YOU ASK A WOMAN HER AGE?
MINI INFO - OCCUPATION: Guardian Kirin of the White Rice Paddies
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Post by TERRESA on May 21, 2013 19:10:28 GMT -8
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TWO WEEKS FROM START | [cs=3][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style,width: 450px; text-align: center; padding-left: 25px; padding-right: 25px;]
The above application has until 04 June 2012 to be completed. If the application is not completed by said date, it will be moved.
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TERRESA
UNKNOWN ENTITY
RESIDENT UNICORN
小書瑀
Posts: 105
MINI INFO - GENDER: Female
MINI INFO - D.O.B.: HOW DARE YOU ASK A WOMAN HER AGE?
MINI INFO - OCCUPATION: Guardian Kirin of the White Rice Paddies
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Post by TERRESA on Jun 3, 2013 20:07:53 GMT -8
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OVERTIME | [cs=3][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style,width: 450px; text-align: center; padding-left: 25px; padding-right: 25px;]
The above application had over two weeks to be completed and was not, so it will be moved. Please contact Fate or Destiny if you would like for if to be moved back.
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