Quotes directly from the application will be in this color. My comments will be in black.
Since this application did not receive an outright acceptance, I have provided much more information in the overall review than simply "strengths" and "suggestions". This is normal procedure for applications that are not immediately accepted.
Sailor Bia. Sarah Drusilla Reich. The MYTHOS
organization.
I don't think that being on a varsity team, having a job,
and being a sailor soldier would work out for Sarah. Being on a varsity sports
team is a full time job. I don't think she's even be allowed to have a job
on the side, as she'd already be having a hard time juggling classes and softball.
You could put her on a club or intramural team. Club teams are slightly less
intense than varsity teams, although still time consuming and she probably
wouldn't have a job, and intramural teams are usually not that serious and
usually involve residence hall-sized teams playing against each other.
Likes & Dislikes & Hobbies
I really, really loved that you were setting up a super feminist/femmenazi
character here. The idea totally cracked me up and I felt it really, really fit
in with Bia. However, this section is the only place where Sarah's feminist
interests are discussed. They seem, here at least, to be a very important
aspect of her persona, but they aren't really explained or detailed at all in
the personality, and only briefly mentioned in the history.
This section ended up being a little wordier than it needed to be, many things could've been changed or cut down. Here's an example:
"arguing and debating important issues" becomes "debating current events"
"misogynistic practices and those who follow them" becomes "misogyny and misogynists" or just "misogyny"
Calling "activism" a like creates too broad a picture. Activism can be any number of things ranging from peaceful to violent, animal rights to gay rights to white supremacy. I think you should drop this like and substitute in "feminism" "women's rights" and/or "lobbying for women's rights".
The dislike: being pressured into things, can be left out, as it's something that pretty much everyone dislikes, generally.
In general, the skills presented here could use elaboration. You're supposed to be saying "Sarah can do this and this extraordinary thing because of this.", and the only one you did that on was the first one. The final skill, "Quite the Fighter" leads me to believe that this means she's good at fighting, but you don't actually say that in the description, just in the skill "name".
Forceful
Persuasion:
Whenever Sarah wants to know something, you can be sure as day that she'll
force it out of you. Using words alone can only get one so far, and that's when
a properly executed painful twist of ones arm behind their back works a whole
lot better in her opinion.
Impulsive Like Whoa: Sarah isn't one for
stopping and thinking things through. Whenever she gets the urge to do
something, she does it, baby. She's a woman of action, not words. She feels
that if everyone stood around talking things out, nothing would be accomplished
by the end of the day. Of course, being so impulsive isn't always a good thing
and it gets her into hot water from time to time.
These two items aren't skills so much as personality points.
While it seems like writing a character's personality in subsection paragraphs makes for a more organized persona section, I definitely don't recommend doing this unless you've done it before. With this application, some things were mentioned once or twice and then never brought up again or were mentioned in sections they didn't belong in. It's much easier to cover everything when you're just writing a big lump personality.
Sarah's personality seemed so dependant on being an impulsive, forceful feminist, and I didn't really see that at all in the personality section where these things are supposed to be emphasized.
I'm getting the idea that you're trying to go for a "rough exterior; rich and creamy center" type of character, but it's really not presented clearly here.
Egotistical.
I'm not so sure Egotistical is a good word to
describe Sarah. After reading this paragraph, I understood her to be insecure
and overcompensating and a braggart. You might want to drop egotistical, and
emphasize these three traits. An insecure, overcompensating braggart may not be
someone you want to know in real life, but in fiction they can make for very
interesting characters.
Also in this section I noticed that you mention that she's bitchy and very driven, but these are the only places these traits are mentioned and they aren't explained at all.
Jealous: Although she hates to admit it, Sarah gets jealous of
people who seem to have everything she never had. This is especially true when
she encounters spoiled little rich girls who get everything they desire from
their fathers.
Jealousy is a great trait to have, however, I feel
that her specific hatred for shallow girls and spoiled rich girls is misogynistic,
which goes against what was mentioned above
Paranoid.
She starts to fidget and sweat and has to get away
from that person as soon as possible to collect her thoughts. While she'd love
to go up to the person and ask them what their problem is, she worries that in
doing so she'll gain a larger audience of people gossiping about her for all
the wrong reasons.
This, I feel, contradicts what's going on in the rest of the application. If Sarah is a forceful fighting activist for women's rights, then why does she poop her pants when she thinks someone is talking about her? She can be paranoid, but judging by the rest of the ideas presented in this application, she's more likely to run in there and bonk some heads than she is to run out with her tail between her legs.
Affectionate & Shoulder to Cry On
Regarding these traits, I don't think they quite fit in. Sarah's affection
seems more like clingy co-dependency, which would probably work for someone
going through her . But I just don't see her being a "Shoulder to Cry On",
after the rest of her personality.
Appearance
The face is the hardest aspect to describe, I
know. Your description of Sarah's face was a little awkward. Calling her face
"diamond shaped" and her eyes "oval shaped" makes me think of a strange
geometric person.
Also, if she plays softball in college, Sarah is
going to be very muscular. Not body-builder sized, but she's going to be
a noticeably strong girl, possibly with smaller breasts (C-cups are kind of
large/above average).
A person like Sarah, who plays on the softball team, wears baggy clothes and has an almost-buzz cut, probably isn't going to be wearing "fancy skirts" and "fancy tops" when she goes out. I just don't see someone like this doing a total appearance-180 willfully.
The content of the history was good. You handled having an abusive father well, although it seemed you were telling the history of Alessa and Ethan's relationship, rather than the history of Sarah. I'd like to see more focus on her than on her father; especially her during her teen years.
The execution of the history, on the other hand, needs some work. There were a lot of small mistakes in grammar and syntax that could've been taken care of by having a friend proofread the application before submitting. Here are some examples:
"She barely seen him home" - Subject-verb agreement error.
"He
called him his 'little troops'"
- the pronoun should be 'them'
"Ever
since that faithful day her father's lack of interest in her" - The word to use here was "fateful" not
"faithful"
With this, I also
saw some word repetitions (especially the word cop) and use of informal
language that wasn't used anywhere else in the app that made the history kind
of hard to get through. Using idioms once in a while are okay, but you used
quite a few of them here, and they really stuck out.
One thing here,
Hoplite Aphrodite's name is Saint Croix Davies. Please change Alessa's maiden
name.
Uniform I loved the chains here. Very cool.
This can be resolved by simply altering this attack to make it damaging, I think.
As with the skills in the civilian section, you said a bunch of different things, but didn't literally just say "This skill does this and this because of this."
In particular, I'm not really sure what "A Pillar of Power"
does.
"When Bia
enters the scene, those who look in her direction are promptly smacked by the
sheer power radiating off of her." -
leads me to believe that this is an actual physical force that is exerted
outward on people around her that pushes them away. This is a very awesomely
cool idea, however…
"She looks like she knows what's what and won't tolerate any bullshit. Enemies get the brief feeling that they'll get their asses kicked just by looking at her the wrong way. Needless to say, when she shows up, bones are going to get broken." - This makes me think that this skill strikes fear into the hearts of people. Fear is not within Bia's domain. Compulsion, however, is. You could conceivably split this up into two abilities. One that physically moves people away from her (Not so that she's untouchable; maybe something relatively weak, that she can or cannot control) and one that makes people act on their basic, first instincts (compulsion).
Strengths You have a great basic idea here. I love the idea of a rough, femmenazi character; especially for Bia. You handled an emotionally abusive father without creating a festival of pity and woe, a feat which not many can accomplish.
Things I loved: Feminist Bia, the uniform.
Suggestions I honestly didn't see a lot of Bia in Sarah. This is partially due to the fact that I think the personality section needs expanded upon. I got the idea that you were going for an outwardly strong, inwardly weak character. However, I don't think you quite made that clear. A lot of things here went unexplained and needed reworking in the personality. Sarah went through emotional trauma that she's trying to cope with but she's not coping with it in the right way. You need to better explain this in her personality as well. I think you should expand upon the feminist and forceful aspects of her persona, and possibly leave out the section ‘shoulder to cry on'. Instead of affectionate I think Sarah is clingy, and instead of egotistical she's an insecure braggart.
The history needs some grooming. It took me far longer than it should have to get through because of a lot of small errors that made reading it awkward.
I don't think Sarah will work as a varsity softball player. It's not a big enough aspect of her character and being on an official college sports team is not just a small part of your life.
Verdict: Declined--Revise. You've got a great basic concept here, but the application needs a lot of reworking. I'd really, really love to see Sarah's character concept in the game, but cannot accept it in its current form.