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.
Dawn Melody Byron. Sailor Eos. The MYTHOS Organization.
“Name: Dawn Melody Byron
Meaning: it’s pretty self-explanatory”
This post, found in the application help article section of the forums, explicitly states that one should avoid picking out things that are too obvious or boring, and you don’t get much more obvious than naming a soldier of the dawn “Dawn”. There was an obvious lack of effort placed into the character’s name – evident from the fact that the only aspect of the name that has anything to do with the character or the deity is her first name of dawn. If you had looked at other accepted profiles, a considerable amount of effort is put into explaining the names; profiles explain why the character’s parents chose the name, nicknames and what the character thinks of the name.
The empowered female niche is already filled by two characters, and it was hardly approached creatively in this application. Women’s Studies has nothing to do with Eos at all, and is already a major field of interest that has been used before.
You’ve got a good start here with a lot of personal likes and dislikes, but it would be better to have a bit more Eos-oriented. Right now the only thing I’m seeing that is even remotely close to the goddess is a fondness for yellow, and the relevance there is stretching it.
Skills
You’ve got an all right start, but the same problem is still persisting:
where’s the dawn? Where’s the goddess Eos? I’m just not seeing it in this
application at all. This character is more a girl who probably writes
fanfiction on the internet and less Sailor Eos, soldier of dawn and college
student.
In particular, I think this skill needs to be removed from the application entirely: “No matter what problem she gets into, she always seems to be able to talk her way out of it (of course, she’s pretty much never in trouble anyway). Something about her just appeals to people, and her natural charm combined with her linguistic flair always seems to find a way out of any predicament.” In Mythology, Eos was notoriously dumb. She didn’t know to tell Zeus to grant her lover eternal youth on top of eternal life, and got dicked over. This myth in particular seems to indicate that Eos would NOT be very loquacious. Considering the rest of the application does not show many aspects of Eos, I’m guessing that this skill was not an attempt at being ironic so much as just skipping over this myth entirely.
“People just don’t seem to be able to hate her, and she’s a great sport about it too.” There are two problems with this particular part of the personality. (1) it is making an assumption about other characters in the game, this is not something you want to do because it’s more than a little likely that many MYTHOS members won’t like her. (2) The “she’s a great sport about it, too” part doesn’t actually make sense. I’m not sure how you could be a bad sport about people not being able to hate you. What comes to mind is someone going “Neener! Neener! You can’t hate me!”
“She always has time for her friends, even when the list of “Dawn’s Friends” includes half the student body.” This is a little unrealistic. I have only a few friends on campus and I have a hard time keeping up with them all. And you may want to pick a smaller-scale exaggeration than half the student body, because that’s 20,000 people. Also, Croix is already our resident extreme social butterfly with a million friends and connections. Since this trait doesn’t really have anything to do with Eos, I would prefer that it be removed.
“From her sunrise exercise in her indoor swimming pool” I’m not sure where this indoor swimming pool thing came from. Even most massively rich families don’t have indoor swimming pools, let alone a college student living in the cramped campus area. You’ve called her middle class, but all signs so far have pointed to her being massively, massively rich. Please don’t try and fool me by saying in one place in the application that the character is middle class, because I do read the rest of the application carefully, and this is obviously not a middle class person.
“Despite her propensity to get into awkward situations, Dawn’s never truly in trouble.” This, combined with the fact that Dawn has all the time in the world for her millions of friends and her inability to be hated, makes Dawn seem extremely unrealistic. She’s way too perfect, and that’s evident from the first paragraph alone. There are multiple articles on the website and on the forums that address faults and perfection. Please read them.
“No matter what happens, everyone seems to know that deep down, Dawn’s a great girl.” Dawn is perfect beauty and happiness and sunshine and genki and perfection. These traits are not the making of a good character for any game. Period.
“The only time anyone sees Dawn even a little bit pissed off is when she hears people talking about injuring animals or hurting the planet. Dawn is a vegetarian do-gooder who is deeply devoted to saving the animals and helping renew the planet’s resources.” The “friend of animals” anti-archetype is addressed on the forums and, I believe, linked from the main website in more than one place. Eos has no reason to be a Friend of Animals and Lover of the Environment, and this seems added in to only further sugar coat an already obnoxiously saccharine character.
“This can only spell disaster if she was ever to live with a roommate. Thankfully, though, Dawn’s only sibling is a boy, so her parents couldn’t consider making them room together.” I was a bit confused on this. First, in the history, you say that Dawn’s mother died, and so it would be parent. Secondly, the way you speak about Dawn living with her brother makes it seem as though incest is being insinuated, because most normal parents don’t care if their children live together. Most siblings share rooms for years and years if they live in small houses, anyway, so to say this without elaborating is extremely strange.
“One of Dawn’s major problems, however, is that she has an addictive personality. Everything she does presents a potential addiction threat to her.” If Dawn has a major addiction problem (which, by the way, isn’t particularly relevant for a character who represents a goddess who is always jumping around from one lover to the next), you could’ve picked out something other than diet pills and exercise – something more relevant to the goddess or something slightly more hardcore. The faults you have presented so far – being a slob, and an addiction to exercise and diet pills – aren’t good enough to compensate for the fact that Dawn is the poster child for Utter and Complete Faultless Perfection and the princess of being loved.
“It is easy for her to fall in and out of love quickly, enjoying the first few days of that bliss that comes from a new love interest, and then moves on so fast she barely remembers the names of the people she “falls in love” with.” This is basically one of Croix (Aphrodite’s) defining traits. Please read the character profiles, because it’s kind of obvious that you haven’t. They are made available for a reason.
In terms of relevance, Eos was not plagued with love, she was plagued with passion – she wanted sex, not romance.
“Another of Dawn’s problems is that, despite her propensity to make friends, she has never had what people call a best friend. Not that she’s lonely, but she has never had someone with whom she can spill her deepest thoughts or darkest desires. This might be due to the fact that she is, on a very core level, a selfish person. She loves attention and craves multiple sources for that attention. She is the most radiant when people are praising her, complimenting her, or just plain worshiping her. While she may crave it, she still feels guilty about being so selfish, but not to the point of sending people away or anything silly like that.” This is another aspect of Dawn’s personality that is too similar to Croix’s, and, on some level, Noah’s.
What you’ve presented here is an unrealistic and one-dimensional character. You’ve overwhelmed the reader with emphasizing how good and perfect and happy and peppy and loveable Dawn, the endearing martyr, is, and, contrary to what you may believe, this character is not only seriously annoying and extremely dislikeable, it’s incredibly boring. No one wants to read about Princess Poofy Pants triumphing over all evil by fluttering her magical eyelashes, and I assure you she gets boring to write for really fast, too. This is a basic rule of character creation, and I’m surprised that you didn’t notice what you were doing.
Sifting through the personality was much like being force-fed eight boxes of sugarcoated children’s cereal. This went above and beyond a simply sweet character and became ridiculously saccharine, and you completely skimmed past any real, decent faults. Any potential faults you did list were contradicted later in the personality section (Dawn doesn’t ever get angry, Dawn never gets in trouble, so on and so fourth), and this is something that has been addressed time and time again in reviews, on the website and on the forums.
I know I said that a long personality wasn’t necessary, but at the same time, this personality is nothing more than a constant emphasis of how absolutely great and amazing Dawn is. This wasn’t a personality so much as a bunch of paragraphs about how amazing she is. Read over this personality again and think to yourself: do you know ANYONE in the ENTIRE WORLD who is like this? Someone who has suffered BOTH the loss of a mother to cancer at a very young age AND statutory rape and is STILL perfect and amazing and faultless? I don’t even know anyone who is as happy and perky as Dawn is all the time. I honestly can’t find anything worth salvaging here.
You call her hair short, but how short is it? To the shoulders? Chin? Ears? More description would be nice.
Eyes
”Her eyes are a beautiful hazel, changing their
predominant shade frequently at seemingly random moments. Every time she
opens her eyes, they appear to be a slightly different color.” No
mood ring eyes, please. That’s one of the first rules of character creation in any
fandom, for fanfiction or roleplay. Please refer to this link: http://piratemonkeysinc.com/ms1.htm
and specifically, the second comic in the series http://piratemonkeysinc.com/ms2.htm
- Different fandom. Same thing is happening.
You seem really attached to having a cute and chubby, curvy character and we already have enough of those. If you’re going to make your character addicted to diet pills and exercising, and have her have been addicted to these things for years, then you should just make her thin and sickly/muscular. Don’t be afraid to make a character that you think is ugly.
“Born to a middle-class family as the first child, Dawn was given every advantage in her younger years. She was pampered from the moment she was born with lace and lovely frilly clothing and all the best toys that money could buy.” You say middle-class, but you obviously mean upper crust, and we already have more than enough of those types. You can’t just say “middle-class” and then make your character super rich – talk the talk and walk the walk.
“Dawn had taught herself to read at the age of four” A child cannot teach themselves to read. You don’t spontaneously start understanding letters and words – they’re arbitrary gibberish; speaking came before writing. At the very least, she would need an audiotape to go along with a book, and that means that she didn’t teach herself.
“During those two short months of therapy, Dawn spent every moment with the therapist lying or manipulating the conversation to discuss only what she was comfortable with discussing.” Unless Dawn’s therapist was a stuffed animal, this is just not possible; especially with a girl who hasn’t even hit puberty yet. Lies are EXTREMELY easy to detect, and therapists are trained in not only noticing these things, but steering the conversations themselves so that they can address what they want to address. A twelve-year-old is not going to be fooling a trained, licensed therapist.
“It was during this crucial period of time that Dawn began to develop her constantly perky demeanor so that no one would question her.” The fact that Dawn is perky and wonderful because her life is so angsty makes the character even more unrealistic. When you lose a parent – especially during adolescence or early adulthood – you change, and probably not in the direction that Dawn has moved.
“Dawn lost her virginity at the age of fifteen to a twenty year old camp counselor when she was at Girl Scout camp during the summer.” Logistically, this is not possible. All staffers in the girl scouts are female. You probably should’ve also addressed the fact that daddy, or one of the other councilors would’ve been severely angered that a twenty-year-old pedophile manipulated her and had his way with her. It is NOT likely that no one found out about it.
“It was a real blow to her ego and her psyche when she discovered that he never truly wanted to see her again. To counteract that pain, Dawn became a social butterfly.” This is the exact same as the prior comment about Dawn became perky. Children who are, essentially, sexually molested by someone almost a decade older than they are when they are very young usually end up suffering serious psychological trauma – that doesn’t mean they become even more spastically happy and cheerful.
“In her junior year, the pressure started getting to her. She wanted to be perfect for everyone; she wanted to live up to their expectations, but something just wasn’t right. She had read somewhere that diet pills were a great thing to have – not only did they help you lose some weight (she just *had* to loose ten pounds after Christmas – no one loves a fat chick) but they gave you tons of energy.” If Dawn is this susceptible to peer pressure I find it INCREDIBLY hard to believe that she’s not a drinker, especially with her addictive personality.
“It sounded perfect! So she went out to her local drug store and bought a jar, and she hasn’t looked back since.” I somehow doubt that a drug store is going to let an unsupervised sixteen or seventeen year old waltz in and buy diet pills.
“After the first few months and the first few close calls, Dawn learned to keep her habit a secret from everyone – she usually keeps the pills in a box under her bed that’s filled with pictures.” I also find it hard to believe that Dawn is able to keep this habit a secret, considering over the counter diet pills cost a small fortune (never mind the prescription diet pills). She’d have to shell out around 15 bucks a week to keep this up.
“Dawn applied to many colleges, hoping to get one that was as far away from home as possible.” Dawn had led, basically, a more than perfect life up to this point, so why in the world would she want to go to college as far away from home as possible? It makes sense if you disliked your surroundings or the people around you or your life up to that point (as with Rosemary and Nnenna), but Dawn seemed perfectly content in NY.
“She even scored fairly well on the SAT’s, gaining herself a 1280 to go along with her 3.5 gpa.” Please don’t list actual standardized testing scores. The SAT scoring table has changed, and a 1280 is actually considered kind of low, now. Also, once again, you’ve failed to read what has been provided to you. There is a post on the forums stating just describe the score (very good, okay, poorly), if you even feel like mentioning it at all – which none of the accepted characters have done.
“She was accepted to Ohio State University. It was the only out of state school she had applied to” If Dawn applied to as many schools as possible to get as far away from home as possible, then why did she ONLY apply to OSU, and why is she so absolutely excited about it? That makes no sense. If she was getting accepted into every college she applied to (with a 3.5 GPA, which I find incredibly hard to believe), why on god’s green earth would OSU be her top pick? If I were a Mythos soldier and I had the option of OSU or NYU, I would go for NYU in a heartbeat. OSU is a loud, massive party school, not an Ivy.
Casper/Hades already has the cancer-angst in his history. His angst was handled much more realistically than how it was presented in this application. Please read the character applications to make sure that you’re not overlapping. Don’t just look at the pretty pictures. As with personality, I recommend starting over with a clean slate. There wasn’t really anything here that was Eos or dawn-oriented, with the exception of an attempt at referencing Tithonius and nymphomania, and that was handled rather poorly. You’ve made a severely angsty history with no reprocussions on Dawn’s psyche to speak of, besides just mentioning that it messed with her psyche.
There was really no reason to describe the grandparents, since they won’t appear in the story and didn’t have any major impression upon her life. This point is mentioned in several reviews.
Element(s) of Influence: Light,
Hope
No. You are not Tsukino Usagi. You are not Sailor Moon. You are not the light of hope. You are not the main character of this game. Eos has nothing to do with hope. There is already a soldier of light on the available cast list and the soldier of hope is not available for application. Sailor Eos is the soldier of dawn – with dusk and day if you are truly desperate for an easier element. Read the website.
Symbol: A rising, partial sun
set on a horizon line.
This should be described with actual geometric shapes – a half circle on a line – and then the symbolic nature of it should be described later. This harkens an image of a giant flaming ball of gas melting her forehead off.
“Inside the symbol is a piece of pink tourmaline that glows with the power of her crystal. Each of the rays streaming from the rising sun is chemically altered to be a different color – each color of the rainbow.”
Eos is associated not with pink but with saffron. Also, I don’t see why Eos’s locket has “all the colors of the rainbow” in it. She has no association with rainbows. This and the fact that you have made her elements “light” and “hope” make me think that you’re trying to make Sailor Eos into some sort of Tsukino Usagi figure. No one character in Mythos is more important than any other.
“Her shoes are ballet boots in a delightful shade of pink.” Eos was a golden sandaled goddess, so there’s no reason for her to have ballet boots.
“Both the mini-dress and the toga grow some to respect her sense of modesty – the toga is lengthened three inches, and the mini-dress is lengthened approximately two inches.” For some reason, lengthening the fuku is very popular for applicants, and it’s always described as being done for “modesty”. The toga really isn’t all that short – it’s longer than what you’d see a twelve-year-old wearing at your local mall, although I guess that isn’t really saying much. Basically what I’m saying is, I don’t see a reason for Eos to have a longer minidress and toga than the other characters, especially considering mythologically, she was a total skank.
There’s a LOT of great imagery present in Eos that you’ve completely ignored: blush of dawn, rosy fingers, golden-armed, etc. Eos could have an absolutely fantastic uniform, and what you’ve presented here has none of the splendor of dawn or her patron goddess. This uniform could basically work for Sailor Anyone.
This is just “Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss” with Tira’s weapon from Soul Calibur III, and that’s a big no.
“As Sailor Eos, Dawn remembers the skill needed to use her Dawnbringer and becomes much more flexible, agile, and graceful. Dawn doesn’t understand why this happens while Sailor Eos is completely comfortable with her weapon of choice.”
The grammar here, and in the rest of this section, is incredibly shaky and hard to understand, leading me to believe that the application was rushed. You should never rush an application. In regard to the actual skill, there’s no reason for Eos to be more flexible, graceful or agile. The goddess Eos was not associated with any of these things.
“Whenever she cries, traces of star dust linger on her cheeks for hours afterward, giving her a slightly sparkly appearance. She’s never truly understood why this happens, but family members and friends have all commented on how sparkly she looks some days, often making wisecracks about laying off the body glitter. Only a truly perceptive person would be able to immediately associate her tears with the sparkles, as she never allows anyone to see her crying.”
First of all, Eos’s tears were the dew – not stardust. Eos wasn’t glittery; she glowed. You’ve also negated the skill by saying that Dawn “never allows anyone to see her crying.” So, it will never show up in play. Although, I get the idea that it’s going to conveniently be used as a tool to make Eos look more “beautiful” and “dramatic” when she’s being angsty, so that Croix and Valdis and Casper and Noah and Milo will all fall in love with her and rush to her aid.
“In times of solitude or times sorrow, the sound of crickets can be heard all around her. Others have sometimes noticed this, but never been able to explain it. After Dawn awakens as Sailor Eos, she realizes that it is a magical auditory memory to remind her to never be selfish in love again. This leads to a fear of repeating the past, which then heightens her fear of commitment.”
If this is a skill that occurs while untransformed, it should have been mentioned in the main skills section. Also, I’m not really sure what the “never be selfish in love” thing means. Are you saying that her relationship to Tithonius in mythology also played out on Mythos? If so, you should have elaborated more. And anyway, Dawn would not make a connection to her past life, because no one has.
There is absolutely no reason for Eos to have a “ring blade”. Female soldiers should only have weapons if it is relevant and absolutely necessary – Hoplites are the ones with weapons – and a ring blade is in no way relevant to Eos. Helios, of all the characters, should be the one with a circular weapon. Eos is the dawn – something that is completely independent of the sun and the moon.
I’m afraid my suggestion is that you start anew, as I couldn’t find anything to salvage in what you’ve presented. You’ve overlapped characters and blatantly ignored information on the page – from sphere of influence to things that are listed as “DON’T DO THIS” – and in doing so have created a character that I have seen a million times before and have yet to see actually accepted into a serious roleplaying game. The same problems are present here as there have been in other applications to this game, and that could’ve been solved by actually reading the reviews: you’ve presented a character that you think is loveable and wonderful and great, but in reality, she’d be a total joke – no one would want to hang out with her, she’d just be too obnoxious. Mythos is looking for unique and interesting spins on Greek mythology, not a sailor soldier with a random Greek deity name attached to two completely unrelated elements that are combined to, essentially, recreate Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss.
If you would like to resubmit, then I suggest reading the website and taking more time to put together your application: There were parts in the history that didn’t make any sense grammatically, and made it obvious that that section was rushed; there were many overlaps, large and small, that could’ve been avoided by even a quick glance at Croix’s profile; and there were sections that directly went against what I have stated on the page and on the forums. Mythos aside, a character that violates this many rules would not be accepted into any game, let alone this one.
Verdict: Declined