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.
The schedule presented here adds up to about twenty-eight credit hours. In several places on the website, it says that OSU is on a quarter system, and anything more than twenty-two hours is pretty much impossible to handle. For a first year, especially, Lucy should be sticking with fifteen to seventeen credit hours. I would keep Biology, French, English and possibly voice.
Likes & Dislikes & Hobbies
You've presented a lot of ideas here, but some of them conflict, making the character seem unrealistic. The concepts are all kind of novel character-foundation ideas, so you should really just pick one schtick and stick (oh word play) with that, otherwise you've got a character that's all over the place and good at everything with very few faults.
It's perfectly normal for a real person to like a lot of different, seemingly random, things, but underneath that motley aggregation of interests is an underlying theme. Lucy has a lot of likes and dislikes that are connected, but they clump together into groups, and the groups themselves aren't connected by any theme and, in some instances, are somewhat contradictory (as a for instance, you can't really enjoy going out and partying or clubbing if you don't drink/do drugs; you can't really be an SCAer gamer nerd girl and at the same time retain a cool, regal image) and some of the likes almost seem as though they were thrown in to make the character seem more sophisticated, intelligent and likeable.
Also, I know that most games require that you list and explain each like and dislike, but I generally find that just having an array of likes and dislikes (with the stranger and more important ones explained in personality) actually gives me a much better look into the character. It's better to have 20 likes that really describe a character, than 8 likes that are described, but don't really tell me what sort of thing the character is into.
Kids; Lucy is, for all intents and purposes,
a condescending, sarcastic bitch. I don't generally equate this type of persona
with someone that's often seen with children, because you have to be exceedingly
kind and patient with them. I don't think that children would like Lucy very much,
let alone the other way around.
The Renaissance Aspects; Aside from battling
to become Queen, I really don't see how this fits in with Hera, not just the goddess,
but your character's personality. Sure, Lucina can be a closet nerd, but having
her openly be a SCA-type and at the same time try to hide that fact just isn't
going to work. It's hard enough to hide the fact that you roleplay online or
are an anime fan, let alone disguise the fact that you wear a corset and fight
imaginary battles.
Self-Sufficience- Most stereotypical young college
students with family as close as Lucy's (a 3 hour drive away) would no doubt
take laundry home to Mom and be unable to eat anything with vitamins if you
paid them. Lucy has been capable of doing her own laundry since she could reach
the dials on the machine and is perfectly capable of balancing her own budget,
eating proper meals and figuring out which end of the iron goes on the clothing.
She has a small amount of affectionate exasperation for those who don't,
including her well-meaning, but hopeless roomies, Julie and Kerrilyn.
This isn't really an outstanding trait that deserves mention in the skill section. I live three hours from home, and was thrust into the college situation without much help so I had to deal with myself by myself, because I wasn't going to school with friends and my parents weren't around. In most instances, all college students are like this unless they actually live in the city where their college is (and even some of those people are still very self-relient). Those who can't develop traits like this drop out at the end of the first quarter almost 90% of the time (which partially explains OSU's really low retention percentage).
If you want to still use this section, you can elaborate on the last sentence and that in the personality.
Sewing- Lucy has trouble finding clothes that fit that she would actually want to wear. She often sews her own formal wear and some of her everyday things. She will sew for other people if they're willing to pay and if they provide the materials.
Sewing, weaving and knitting aren't really in Hera's realm. Athena is generally the one associated with such crafts, and Amphitrite is at times addressed as the goddess of the golden spindle . Since these skills are relatively unique, I'd prefer if they were left to roles in which they fit better.
Appearance
I had a really hard time sifting through this and figuring out what Hera looked like. I assumed that she was of mixed heritage, but the strange mix of different racial characteristics made her seem very odd. If you want to make a character of mixed blood, I would try something more plausible than a mixture of African, Scottish, Cherokee and Puerto Rican. Lucy's personality seems more WASPy than anything else, and we already have more characters of non-Anglo Saxon decent.
Almond eyes are usually associated with Asian appearance--very little lid and the distinctive lift at the corners. Hera, however, was called cow eyed and described as having very beautiful eyes; so you would think that, she, of all people, would have giant googley anime eyes.
I'm not sure if the phrase mongrel blood is one you want to use in a setting that isn't fantasy based. There's no serious prejudice against being of mixed heritage, anymore, and calling someone a mongrel, even if its your own character, can be offensive to other people; try using phrases like mixed heritage.
Lucy's build needs toned down a little. 5'10 is ridiculously tall and her figure, if proportionate to her body, would be absolutely massive. Although Hera is the goddess of motherhood, our two female player characters are already curvaceous in some way, and while it would be relevant to make Hera a full figured young lady, it'd be relevant to make all Greek goddess characters full figured young ladies.
Her skin is a light golden caramel shade and rather obnoxious
towards consistency
I just wanted to point this phrase out, because I'm not quite sure what it meant. There are a lot of similar phrases that utilize simile or metaphor that I will be addressing later in the application.
The fact that Lucy is a good, if limited, singer is another aspect that seemed added for no reason; another odd thing for her to be good at. There's really no reason for it to be there.
This character's history needs reworking, as it doesn't really seem plausible. You write off nearly all the men in the application as walking erections, with the exception of Paul Clayton, who holds a very minor part. Try to go into more detail about the father; yes, Lucy was very young while he was around, but he had to leave some sort of impression on her life beyond being a cheatin' man; maybe, aside from his lustful ways, he wasn't really such a bad guy.
There's a bit of early childhood development inconsistency here. The term social butterfly can't really be applied to a child until at least ten or eleven at the earliest. At age five, they are unable to perceive things in perspectives other than their own, limiting their social ability. The mother could notice a growing unhappiness in the child, but to say that she goes from being a social butterfly before she's really had a chance to interact with children her own age to reclusive doesn't really work out.
The use of the boyfriend, Eric Zimmerman, is ridiculously
unrealistic. A star football player like Eric Zimmerman probably wouldn't be
caught dead with a girl like Lucy, especially in high school where things like
roleplaying and SCA are scorned, and participants are viewed as social lepers.
Your portrayal of him, and of most other male characters in the application,
borderlines on sexist and although a character may be sexist if handled
carefully, a player should never come across as being this way; we do have male
players.
His lack of intelligence is so great that I'm surprised he's not in the
remedial program at a special education school. He has no reason to beg for
Lucy to come back if he can get other girls, and honestly, no one is stupid
enough to cheat on their girlfriend in their girlfriend's mother's car.
You have way too many relations here and should cut them down. None of these characters are going to be making heavy appearances in the stories, so there's no reason to have paragraphs for all of them. If you're going to devote full paragraphs to deceased relatives, then you should at least mention the father as well.
As discussed in the review of Artemis and on the message
board, although it may not seem like it, there's a clearly defined difference
between motherhood and childbirth
. The attack presented here, while somewhat relevant to women, relies more in
the childbirth sphere, which does not belong to Hera. The elements for the
Queen goddess are challenging, and to simply apply an attack that creates
menstrual cramps doesn't really do Hera's spheres justice.
I also find it hard to believe that someone who is a skilled fighter in fencing
and SCA is a poor fighter while transformed, where skills are supposed to be
amplified. Don't be afraid to make Hera an asskicker; she was an asskicker in
Greek mythology, she should be an asskicker here.
The skills listed here weren't especially presented as supernatural abilities, and that's what they're supposed to be. Two of them also overlapped completely with skills for characters already in the game.
Regal Bearing- Lucy just radiates high-falutin' lady . She can be slouched behind a dumpster, grubby and gross, and there would still be this undefinable queenliness about her. For some, this inspires admiration, for others, this is intimidating.
This is really similar to Aphrodite's I Feel Pretty ability both in execution and phrasing. While relevant, it could be applied in a different way.
…the kind of glance women use when no knife is handy. (Ellery Queen)- This seems to be connected to Lucy's Regal Bearing. She has the ability to give a mean fish eye. Add this in with her typical snarling bitchiness and she has cowed bikers into leaving her alone.
This skill is basically the same as Ares's skill Eyes of Fire .
Revenge is a Cheesecake; it's sweet and best served cold! - Nobody
is quite sure how Lucy manages it, but every time Lucy is insulted or
mistreated, the person who did it suddenly finds something awful and
embarrassing happening to them. Mostly, this is Lucy pulling a prank and not
getting caught. But, if it's bad enough and Lucy is hurt enough, bad things
just seem to happen inexplicably.
Although I could definitely see a Hera being
all about revenge, there's already a goddess figure with a sphere revolving
around revenge, so supernatural abilities regarding a specific sphere already
spoken for should be reserved for that name.
Ordinarily, I won't hold applicants responsible for knowing information that is only posted up on the message board. However, you are an active member on the boards and the application not only conflicts with suggestions posted there, but there are also blatant overlaps with characters already in the game--and there are only three of them.
Like Artemis, your ideas came from
all different areas and conflicted at their very cores; these concepts wouldn't
fit together without some extensive shuffling about: you just don't see a
tabletop role-player dating a stupid football star. And while the SCA and role
playing aspects of her personality were the most developed, they were also the
least relevant, and the combat abilities which would've been developed from
trying to become Queen, didn't come into play in the sailor soldier section at
all.
Lucy was good at far too many
things with neglect to mention what she was bad at. Simply calling her a
vengeful bitch isn't going to cut it in a game where the characters are based
off of figures who were ALL vengeful bitches at some point in their reign. A
lot of little personality aspects seemed added in to make a condescending,
dislikeable character endearing, and the end result was something even more
dislikeable than before. I've said that a character who you'd hate to know in
real life is a great thing in fiction, but this character pushes it over the
edge of realistically dislikeable.
The application needed
proofreading. Mistakes aside, you overused simile and metaphor, making the
application much longer (and at times, harder to understand) than it would've
been if you had just come right out to say what you meant. In particular, the
phrases:
gratuitous scenes of Biblical interaction and Her skin is a
light golden caramel shade and rather obnoxious towards consistency were the
most confounding; the first I assumed meant sex , while the second just appeared to be a fragment.
I strongly recommend starting over
with a clean slate if you do plan on reapplying.
Verdict: Declined.