William :my debut character

STANDARDS
Name: William Frost
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Species: Human/symbiote host
Skin colour: White/grey(when undernourished)
Eye colour: Amber Green/Yellow(when undernourished)
Height: 6' 2"
Hair colour: black/brown
Hair length: cheek

BIOGRAPHY

William was born in Southampton, England. Whilst his family was by no means rich and wealthy, he lived a comfortable life.With a warm bed, and hot food on his table, he couldn't complain. From a young age, William exhibted a liking, bordering an addiction or obsession with horror films, most particularly body horror. Learning from these, he quickly developed an art for makeup special effects, utilising his skills to earn money as a freelance effects artist. However, as his parents asked him t learn a more practical skill, William took up two musical instruments, piano and guitar. However, whilst he was capable at playing both, he told himself that he was nothing special.

However, William's rather unique choice of interest estranged him from his peers. Many believed his obsession with the gore and bloodshed of films to be the onset of some form of violent disposition, and so avoided him. By the age of 15, William had become extremelyproficient in his work, and was able to occassionally get work proffesionally, but on relativley low wages. However, his isolation from people hardened him, but gave himself a refined personnality. Without any lustfull desires, William became an embodimen of "British charm".

However, one year later, William found someone who playued on his heart strings. A dark skinned beauty called Grace Haley. He was drawn in not by just her nearly flawless features, but also by her silky voice, and her personality. She seemed to understand his enjoyment of his art, and the love of his work. She even took part in it, allowing herself to be a model for his goriest makeup pieces. After what at first started out as merely meeting to work together as professionals, soon turned into a flirtatious relationship. Williams time old charm somehow seemed to meld perfectly with Graces modern "wild girl" attitude. From there, it soon turned into a night of sex, with William giving himself to her.

However, the next morning when he awoke, Grace was gone. The realisation hit him, Grace had merely used him for a quick sense of satisfaction. Turning his rage inwards, William began drinking, inebriating himself over the course of the day, slowly poisoning himself with alchohol, either stolen or bought illegally from the few people who would socialise with him. His body slowly being killed by the concentration in his system, he staggered through the city. And then, everything changed. For the briefest of moments, there was nothingness, but at the same time, there was the most violent of burnings in his heart. Suddenly, he found his sobriety returned to him, and a whole knew landscape to call home.

However, all this was drowned out by one sensation, the overwhelming hunger. Wiliiam set for the fist thing he set his eyes on, a Duiker. Snapping its neck, he drained the flesh of any fluids it had, and set about the growth of his empowerer and vice. Over the course of the year, William wandered Chordoni waterfalls, satiating his hunger upon the immense numbers of glittersquids whilst he hid in the mist. However, on one lucky occassion, he suceeded in capturing an emerald pheonix, by leaping onto its back. However, overwhelmed with guilt, he released the bird, but kept one of its glorious tail feathers as a memento.

However, a year from his arrival, William's both benefactor and torturer made itself apparent. A parasite had lodged itself to his heart,at was steadily forming a symbiotic bond with his body as it grew throughout him.. Now able to control some of it's adaptive biology at will, William has set out as a predator himself, and has began his trek across Felarya to see if the creature can be removed.

PERSONALITY

William is almost an embodiment of British charm. Seductive and charismatic, his voice is always level, and rarely betrays his emotions except to those he truly calls friends, or when it will benefit him. However, due to his parasite, William is also prone to violent outbursts, and is compelled to follow them.Given his previous heartbreak, he is also mistrusting of any romantic advances, and now only engages them himself, with the other individual responding. Despite hislloathig of the parasite inside him, William is not above using it to his own advantage, such as using its tendrils to pickpocket. In a similar manner, due to the fact the parasite leeches his blood, he can no longer become drunk, and will drink alchohol in copious amounts. He has also become very accustomed to Felaryas "survival of the fitest" way of life, and greatly respects creatures such as the Nagas or Giantesses.

APPEARANCE

William is fairly tall, and whilst not incredibly muscular, he has a lean and defined build. A signiature feature is his long fingers, which are ideal for playing piano keys or plucking a guitar string. Williams skin is rather pale, but he has a distinctive blush to his cheeks and dark circles around his eyes. However, this changes if he doesn't feed. His skin loses its pigment and turns grey, and his eyes become a sickly yellow as the parasite begins sucking him of his blood. As for clothing, William tends to wear a long leather trnch coat to hide his rather unpredictable parasite biology, and white shirts, witha variety of cargo trousers.

PARASITE ALTERATIONS

Due to the parasite altering his biology to fit its current situation by growing through him, Williams body is prone to additions or alterations. Such include tentacles, bone shards, fangs and even temporary limbs. One peculier alteration is that William no longer has a digestive system beneath his stomach, as almost everything is absorbed. Anything that is not is sweated out, giving him a rather sickly smell, giving him the odour of a butchers shop on a hot day. To improve his chances of survivng, Williams adrenaline glannds now never stop, giving him a high level of strength. He is also able to temporarily use almost superhuman levels of his strength and stamina, but not willfully, due to his emotional status. More importantly for those he deems worthy of his attention, William has a now insatiable sexual appetite. However, he often ends up killing humans in the heat of the moment.

FEEDING HABITS

William generally isn't cruel, and simply eats his victims quickly. By using tendrils, he can suck the victim dry of fluids, feeding the parasite directly, but leaving the flesh for himself. William is more than capable of swallowing his victims whole, but this has some rather unfortunate side effects. Nolonger able to defecate, he must vomit up any non digestibles, such as jewellery or implants. While hunting, Williams parasite normally provides him with different abilities for each one, however, they is never a general rule.

Humans
As much as he dislikes it, William will snack on humans if he has to. He is never cruel with them, unless they are particularly malicious, in which case he will taunt them. Generally to eat humans, his lower jaw will split in half, and clamp over their heads, smothering them as he eats them.

Larger predators
If a predator is of a reasonable size, William will carve an opening into their body, and devour them from the inside. However, for giant creatures, he himself will temporarily become a secondary parasite, leeching from them before trying to get away. Although the prospect terrifies him, he relishes the opportunity to test his skill against something far larger, if only to tempt it.

General additions
For similar sized prey, William can generate all manner of biological implements from his parasite. Such include calws, tendrils, fangs, and blades.

LIKES

Sugary foods :William has a potent addiction to anything sugary
Live prey
Nature: William has a preference for a natural environment over a city
Parasite abilities
Apples
Nagas

DIS-LIKES

The parasite
Things trying to eat him
Things he's trying to eat getting away
Animal cruelty

Well, this is my first, I'll add a little more later, but give me feedback.

well I have to say I've never heard of anything like William before.

he does seem like a good person deep down if you ask me .

I hope he will be able to find a way to destroy that parasite of his.

Ugh... where to begin?

Well to start with something good, most of the mechanics this character is built on are good...

The problem... is that his biography SUCKS!

First off, William's improbable age...
Now, it's not nearly as bad as some cases, but still, you expect us to believe that young Mr. Frost was a good enough Effects Makeup artist to get professional work and, judging by the rest of the Biography, able to live independently?

Bullshit.

This age problem also extends to his relationship with Grace Haley and the subsequent fallout.
Besides the awkward handling of the "romance" where Grace 'Loves' him then leaves him suddenly with no good explanation, there is then clunky description of how he deals with it.

Now, I can easily understand his being torn up by the betrayal of a woman he loved and, hell, I can even understand him turning to the bottle...
But since he was only sixteen at the time, you decided you needed some cumbersome exposition as to how he had acquired the illegal liquor.
This also begs the question... WHERE THE HELL ARE THIS KIDS PARENTS?!?!
Even if he was living on his own, they still should have at least had an interest in their sons well-being.

All and all, this character could use an age up of at least five years.
The only difference it would have on his back-story is to make it far less ungainly by eliminating the need to explain how he was able to gain access to booze and questions about why his parents didn't intervene.

The romance angle also need work, since it doesn't make sense for Grace to go through all the work of building up a relationship with William if she's just going to use him for a one night stand.

Then there are the inconsistencies.

You spent the first two paragraphs building up his love of Horror films and his passion for Effects makeup...
Only for it to be completely ignored afterwards.
As someone else has pointed out, it's not even in his "Likes" list...
It also states that he dislikes animal cruelty, but like hunting down live pray and dislikes when it gets away...
And that William dislikes his parasite, but loves the powers its given him.

Then there's the claim that he's never cruel to the humans he eats... but he kills them through a very traumatic method of suffocation instead of using his powers to snap their necks or for some other means of instant death.

His personality has some major problems, mainly that he is "almost the embodiment of British Charm" and is therefore both "Seductive" and "Charismatic"...

What the fuck?!?!

You had his back story set him up as a pariah due to his love of the morbid... and that turned him into a Casanova?

Now, I could see him maybe having a bit of dark charm about him if he was, say, a deadpan snarker who had a macabre sense of humor, but definitely not some suave ladies man.

While we're on the subject, cut that bit about the "insatiable sexual appetite".
It's just stupid to turn your character into a sex machine.
If you REALLY need to include something like it, say that "the parasite greatly increased his libido".
That similar enough, but doesn't quite carry the implication that William only exist to screw and then eat hot chicks.

Also, I'd drop the bit about his adrenal gland being the source of his increased strength.

Finally... you should be imprisoned for your abuse of the word "However"!!!
Seriously dude, half the damn sentences in the Biography section start with it!
Other then that, there's only some minor grammatical errors that should be easily caught by a word processing document's Spelling and Grammar Check.


Of course, it's not all bad.
Like I said, I do like most of the mechanics this character is build on.

I love the bit with the sweating, and how he now has what is essentially a one-way digestive system.
It's great to see that the parasite is having a psychological effect on him, and the power-set granted to him by his parasite is semi-decent.

There has been some concern raised on how he deals with predators larger than himself, but that can probably be tuned and adjusted later.

In the end, the Biography needs a hell of a lot of work, but the character seems to have a viable base.

All of the things you have said will be taken into use for the revision, but i do have one thing. I myself am 17, and i frequently get work on feature films in the makeup department. Makeup is one of the easier arts to learn.

And also, for living independantly, for those in education there is housing support. But you are quite right, that requires altering. Bios really aren't my thing, I am a physical designer by my nature. Even taking looks at other bios on the site, I can't really develop any good base to work off. But it's a learning experience right?

I'm glad you got the harsher stuff done first, but if you can also give me pointers on how to improve this, then that shall also be most greatly appreciated. And the sex thing, I missed a bit there, the idea is that it's a lure for more prey for the parasite. That's not exactly William doing it, i guess the idea is he's something of a incubus. But yes, maybe if i can give shorter pieces instead?

Oh, and large predators. For maybe 30 foot creatures, he'll eat them from within. But for the true giants, he's just a mosquito.Maybe if you can PM me good sir, you can help me do this right?

Lobo wrote:

All of the things you have said will be taken into use for the revision, but i do have one thing. I myself am 17, and i frequently get work on feature films in the makeup department. Makeup is one of the easier arts to learn.

This sounds plausible, but honestly I'd like to get some more evidence.

Lobo wrote:

And also, for living independantly, for those in education there is housing support.

Yep, I'm 18 now and I moved out of my parents at 16. I live independently with the help of a rent assistance payment from my government.

That aside, let's talk about self inserts.
Self inserts are basically when an author inserts themselves into a fantasy setting via a character that is basically themselves plus powers.
One of the easiest ways to tell this is via the age. You and your character both share the same age.


Second is how powerful they are. Self insert Authors tend to make their self insert character very powerful, because that is how they would like to be, so a lot of self insert characters are either unreasonably powered (ie: 16 year old master swordsman/mage/etc) or just plain overpowered. Your character isn't exactly overpowered, but his history is unreasonable for his age.


Another thing is their likes. Your character is basically you as we can see from your own words. Your character likes body horror. You like body horror. You apparently have worked as an effects artist. So has your character. I can understand him working with another professional, but freelance? That does seem a little far fetched considering his age.

OK, so why is self insertion bad? Because it leads to unrealistic stories. The author does what they fantasize about doing if they were in a fantasy world and had a near ideal body or ideal skills, etc. This often involves getting romantically involved with characters they find sexually appealing, winning all their fights (since the character is basically the author and nobody likes to see themselves lose).
This leads to bland, predictable and uninteresting stories.

An author still needs to be able to identify with his characters in order to write what they're thinking, but the character must not be the author.
A good way of achieving this is to base characters off friends or acquaintances. Even combining personalities from two different people you know to produce a new and interesting character.

Quote :

Oh, and large predators. For maybe 30 foot creatures, he'll eat them from within. But for the true giants, he's just a mosquito.

I'd see it as being easier with the larger giants, since they're less likely to notice. Wouldn't' you notice someone carving a hole the size of your fist in your side?

Quote :

Maybe if you can PM me good sir, you can help me do this right?

If Black Aquilla does not wish to, I will aid you.

Yes, I've used self inserts in the past. I'm trying to avoid them, but sfx is something I give to most as a running gag. I really need to be more descriptive, the idea is once he's disabled something, say 30ft long, and its crippled and helpless, he'll devour it at his leisure. Trying to do that with something bigger, can be summend up like an ant trying to carve open a watermelon. And mahalo for the offer

Well I did give you a bit of advice with aging the character up five years.

Now ok, I didn't really know how easy it was to get into Movie Effects makeup, still...
It may be my lack of experience with anything other then a College dorm room, but do they really offer "educational housing" for 15 years olds?
I'll also admit that I don't know anything about British government housing assistance or it's regulations, although it would strike me as odd that it didn't have anything in regards to a client trying to drink themselves to death.

An age increase would make this exponentially easier.

I noticed that you didn't address any of my other concerns, so I'm going to try and give you the best advice I can for those.

For the romance that would make him a booze hound, I'm probably the last person to go to for this, but it's just not at all realistic sounding.
People don't go to all the trouble of developing a relationship with someone only to leave them after a one-night stand!
And that is where the problem lies.
If you make his encounter with Grace a single night of passion, then it really doesn't explain why he'd be as broken up as he was.
His self-destructive binge would then simply be angsting for the sake of angst.

On the other hand, if you make it an in-depth relationship, then you have to develop a DAMN good reason why she up and disappeared after a single roll in the hay.

Now, lets get into what AJ was talking about: Self Inserts.

I don't agree with his opinion that Self Inserts are bad, they can be QUITE good in fact, but the biggest problem with doing them correctly is adequately capturing the entirety of oneself.
People tend to only focus on good character traits, while ignoring their own faults.
This leads to the most vile of character archetypes, The Mary Sue.

Pretty much what sets off the "Sue Alarm" for me when I read William's profile is this line:

Quote :

William is almost an embodiment of British charm. Seductive and charismatic

This after it was established that your character was an OUTCAST!!!

How did he become an outcast if he was the epitome of "British charm"?
The profile tries to explain that he became so "Seductive and Charismatic" while he was distance from people...

...BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY DAMN SENSE!!!
How did he exercise his social skills if he didn't have anyone to talk to?!?!

The rest of the Personality entry falls in line with the information we've been provided, but how in the hell did he become mister socialite?
Like I said in my first post man, that bit needs to be change, preferably something more in line with the "loner" archetype that I think you're trying to present here.

As for the sex thing, I can see where you are coming from with it, but wording it as an "insatiable sexual appetite" just makes it look like your character is just here to fuck things.
That's why I suggested changing it to an "increase in Libido", since they technically mean the same thing, but the latter sounds more clinical.

Another bit of advice, thought I don't know how useful you'll find it, is that instead of simple list of "Likes" and "Dislikes", figure out a way to work those items into the rest of the profile.
When they're just listed off, they lack any real context to give them meaning.

Also, try and work his SFX work into his survival strategy in Felarya...

The predator thing was really just me bring up other peoples concerns.
The only thing I had any problems had to do with the fact that I thought you were going for an Endo-parasitism thing instead of the Exo-parasitism you're actually doing.

Okay, I get all except the last bit. I know what endon and exo means, but what about it was confusing or complicated? But thanks again for the constructive critiscism. I'll get a revised version done soon. I think the issue is really how i've characterised him, he's too outside the norm beforehand. He needs to be someone more "usual" as it were.

Being far from the norm isn't a bad thing you just have to be able to pull it off correctly. This requires a believable back-story as to why they are so far from the norm and as all characters a well developed personality.

Exo- as in exoskeleton means outer.
Endo- as in endoskeleton means interior.

What Black Aquila meant to say was that it was believed that your character would be consuming larger creatures from the inside as opposed to the outside.

As to removing the likes and dislikes and hiding them in with your character I find it easiest and best to include them in the back-story with supporting details as to why they like the things they do and dislike the things they don't.

Let m just clear this up. If he could avoid being eaten by a creature that's mayb the size of a car , in which case he would die, or there would have to be some old wound he could tear open, and could disable it, then much in the manner of a tarantula hawk wasp, he would cut his way inside its body and devour its main organs first. However, for actual giants (Nagas, giants etc) then the worst h can be is the equivalent toa mosquito.

I think that you should be a little less harsh with some of your word choices Black Aquila. It is very possible to critique without being insulting. But it also appears that Lobo took them in stride, so it does not seem like any harm was done.

In particular...

Black Aquila wrote:

Ugh... where to begin?

There really isn't a need point out that there are many things you think are wrong; simply pointing the things you think are wrong/need fixing is enough, in my opinion.

Black Aquila wrote:

The problem... is that his biography SUCKS!

Does bolding and italicizing the word "sucks" really add anything to your critique?

Black Aquila wrote:

and is therefore both "Seductive" and "Charismatic"...
What the fuck?!?!

Likewise, does bolding, italicizing, and underlining "What the fuck!?!?" really add anything over "What the fuck!?", or even over "That doesn't make any sense!"?

He's entitled to his words. My uncle threw a brick at me in a rage! Now if he did that I'd have an issue.

Quote :

I think that you should be a little less harsh with some of your word choices Black Aquila. It is very possible to critique without being insulting. But it also appears that Lobo took them in stride, so it does not seem like any harm was done.

In particular...
Black Aquila wrote:
Ugh... where to begin?

There really isn't a need point out that there are many things you think are wrong; simply pointing the things you think are wrong/need fixing is enough, in my opinion.


Black Aquila wrote:
The problem... is that his biography SUCKS!

Does bolding and italicizing the word "sucks" really add anything to your critique?


Black Aquila wrote:
and is therefore both "Seductive" and "Charismatic"...
What the fuck?!?!


Likewise, does bolding, italicizing, and underlining "What the fuck!?!?" really add anything over "What the fuck!?", or even over "That doesn't make any sense!"?

oldman, you stole the words from my fingers <3

(though, i admit, mine would have been harsher...)

People, please, stop the harshness. Sometimes firm words are the best way.

Krisexy26 wrote:

Quote :

I think that you should be a little less harsh with some of your word choices Black Aquila. It is very possible to critique without being insulting. But it also appears that Lobo took them in stride, so it does not seem like any harm was done.

In particular...
Black Aquila wrote:
Ugh... where to begin?

There really isn't a need point out that there are many things you think are wrong; simply pointing the things you think are wrong/need fixing is enough, in my opinion.


Black Aquila wrote:
The problem... is that his biography SUCKS!

Does bolding and italicizing the word "sucks" really add anything to your critique?


Black Aquila wrote:
and is therefore both "Seductive" and "Charismatic"...
What the fuck?!?!


Likewise, does bolding, italicizing, and underlining "What the fuck!?!?" really add anything over "What the fuck!?", or even over "That doesn't make any sense!"?

oldman, you stole the words from my fingers <3

(though, i admit, mine would have been harsher...)

There's really no need to step in just to praise what a mod says after a mod says it...especially if you aren't even going to comment on the bio at all in your post.

Try and keep the thread on-topic, Kri.

Now, to get back on-topic...

I think AJ summed things up fairly well. There are some good ideas in this bio, it is just a bit rough around the edges, and maybe a bit too close to being a self-insert (but honestly, that really depends on how the character is handled in-story more than anything). I think Aquilla raised some valid concerns as well, even if his language was a bit too harsh.

The important thing is you have a decent enough base, with some good ideas, to work with. Just gotta clean some things up and smooth out the bio. No character bio is perfect from the start. The important thing is to create a good base on which to refine and build off of. : )

Which is what I am hoping all you lovely people will help me with

Lobo wrote:

I think the issue is really how i've characterised him, he's too outside the norm beforehand. He needs to be someone more "usual" as it were.

It's not that he's too "unusual" before hand, in fact, it's probably one of the best bits of his characterization.
The problem is that you tried to make him "Seductive and Charismatic", which really doesn't make any sense if he wasn't at all social when growing up.

When I think of someone whose spent most of their life watching horror films, I think of someone like The Angry Video Game Nerd or Phelous; a person who may be funny or have a little charm, but who's also obviously a geek.

Like I said in my first post, if he was a deadpan snarker who had a macabre sense of humor, that would fit with the background we've been given.
It would also make him a believably like-able character instead of a "Supah Cool Dude" everyone in-story just loves, but that none of us reading can understand appeal of.

I'm also not liking all of this hate self-inserts are getting.
Basing a character on yourself isn't bad, but the biggest problem is that people often write an idealised version of themselves.
This means they lack any realistic flaws, which turns the character into a Mary Sue.

Lobo wrote:

He's entitled to his words. My uncle threw a brick at me in a rage! Now if he did that I'd have an issue.

*Hides a brick behind his back.*
<.<
>.>
Nope, no problems here...

.....Don't mock it. I really don't enjoy having a huge scar on my leg.

Lobo wrote:

.....Don't mock it. I really don't enjoy having a huge scar on my leg.

Sorry...
You're uncle sounds like a dick...

I can't blame him, he was at a really bad point in his life.