Character ideas and Bios

While this character isn't bad, it's not up to your usual standard. There's just not a lot to see about this character from what you've got so far.

Also, several types of lethal venom? I'm pretty sure that's unheard of in nature.

Anime-Junkie wrote:

While this character isn't bad, it's not up to your usual standard. There's just not a lot to see about this character from what you've got so far.

Also, several types of lethal venom? I'm pretty sure that's unheard of in nature.

Yeah, this character doesn't have a good depth to her like most of them, but the others, including her older sisters, will have a better characterization, I cam assure you.

Also, I thought dridders had a variety of poisons. Hm...my mistake, I'll check.

Dridders have a wide variety of venoms. A single dridder does not have a wide variety.

My original not-so-original character. I was thinking about Princess Mononoke several weeks ago when his idea suddenly hit, kind of. Doran's bio will probably be up sooner than some of the others I was working on. There was bound to be a naga appearing somewhere in the mix.
--------------------------------------

Malina

Species: Giant River Naga

Gender: Female

Age: 71 years old

Height: 101 feet (from top to bottom)

Length: 350 feet (from head to tail)

Hair: Dark green (almost black), shoulder-blade length

Eyes: Magenta

Skin Tone: Slightly tanned

Top scale color: Light purple

Belly scale color: Blue

Other characteristics: Has two small scales in the middle of her back.

History

Malina was the sole surviving hatchling her mother had after losing a fight between her and a dridder who took and presumably ate them. Because of this, she shared a bond to her mother closer than most parents had with their offspring. Her mother would keep her under close watch at all times and would encourage her attachment rather than wean her off as she grew older. When her mother dies of starvation, Malina is forced to become independent, a foreign concept as she had never left her mother's side growing up.

After having nearly died several times from lost battles and starvation, she finally manages to be able to support herself, albeit barely, and sharpens her water magic to a point that she manages to fend for herself sufficiently.

Several years later, she finds two humans, a mother and son, whom she managed to trap within a coil. When she is distracted, the mother runs for her life, abandoning four year old Doran to be eaten. Malina, highly disgusted by the abandonment of the human child, takes the boy into her care and raises him as if he were her own son. In that, she taught him to be her personal retriever and lead humans that would believe him to either be lost or know of a safer location to her. As his caretaker and guardian, Malina always keeps in under her surveillance as they venture around Chidokai forest.

Personality

Because of the strong bond she had with her mother, she is less open to strangers and other predators. She is rude and condescending towards other nagas smaller than her and cannot stand dridders of any kind, a prejudice passed down from her mother to her. Her rudeness is actually derived from surviving by herself since her mother's death as she never truly learned to socialize with other beings.

She does, however, have a spot for Doran. She truly loves Doran as if he were her own son and always keeps a watchful eye on him like her mother did for her. Whenever she sends him to fetch unsuspecting humans for her, she is always not too far at all. When a human-sized naga had tried to creep upon him when he was returning from playing in the branches, she immediately ate the naga and realized that she would need to teach him some form of protection against others and thus, taught him to be more agile and use water magic.

Malina sometimes finds herself yearning for her own mother, but is comforted with the life she has under her maternal care. However, she fears the day (should it occur) that Doran would choose to live amongst humans and leave her care forever, which would leave her as lonely as she was after the death of her mother, but chooses to put the thought aside whenever it arises as she sometimes concludes to herself that Doran probably wouldn't have any other human attachments after the abandonment of her mother and teaching him that other humans were food while he was an exception because he was special and superior.

Abilities

Not only is Malina sufficient in the use of water magic, but is an extraordinary swimmer, given she is a River Naga. She manipulates water pressure to give her faster bursts through streams and rivers when after a potential snack or when travelling. While somewhat weaker compared to most nagas, she is a bit faster, despite being a river naga. This stems from her days as a lone hunter trying to avoid and run from confrontations rather than fight head on for prey.

Like most naga, she can unhinge her jaw to eat prey and has a powerful tail. Her fangs are somewhat sharper than most naga, but are a bit shorter which allows her to penetrate skin, but not hold on as longer.

Hunting Habits

Malina usually feeds upon animal herds, trapping a group coiled around her tail before eating them whole. Her favorites are usually flocks of JayKay Birds and Muris.

She is voracious and will eat humans and nekoes without hesitation, just as her mother had taught her to. She rarely plays with them and swallows them whole, but will on occasion, have a small conversation with them before devouring the individuals who tried to beg for their lives. However, with the exception of Doran, there was only one other time she spared the life of a human. It was a doctor she decided to spare when Doran had suddenly fainted at the age of seven and had no choice but to beg for him to help Doran, and in return would let him go.

Other than that, she has views almost all humans and smaller sentient creatures, with the sole exception of Doran, as a morsel to be eaten. She usually sends Doran to act as a helpless child and gain the sympathy of passing travellers and lead them to her rather than hunt for herself.-------------

Doran

Aliases: Jungle Boy, the Young Trickster

Species: Human

Gender: Male

Age: 11

Height: 5'0

Hair: Blonde, somewhat messy and spiky

Eyes: Dark purple

Skin Color: Fair

Other characteristics: wears a dark green tunic with one torn sleeve and worn orange trousers with a large pouch on left thigh. Has what appears to be makeshift tribal markings on his neck.

History

Doran does not remember much about his world growing up, but he does remember his parents and how his father was last seen the day his mother and he wound up stepping into Felarya after coming back from an event he barely remembers. Unaware that he was an illegitimate child whom his mother pretended to love, he never knew why his mother seemed so distant form him growing up.

Doran was merely four at the time when both ended up in Felarya. He and his mother were soon discovered by Malina and both were about to be eaten until a sound had distracted her. His mother, who had realized that carrying her son would slow her down, managed to escape and abandoned Doran, leaving him for dead.

Malina, appalled by his mother's actions and vicarious for the crying young boy, decided to take him in rather than eat him. It took several months for the fear of being eaten by his surrogate mother should she ever get angry and decide to eat him to subside and he soon warmed up to her more and more as he soon began to see her as a true mother figure as she fed him, protected him, taught him and told stories of her past to him.

Two years after falling into her care, he noticed that his adopted mother was starving and, in desperation, led a small travelling party willing to come with him to her to be eaten in order for his mother to live.

After that event, Malina realized that he would be able to help her hunt travelers and lost souls of those willing to follow him, making the process of catching humans and nekoes easier.

At the age of seven, after a small naga tried to creep upon him, Malina realized that he needed a better way to protect himself in case she couldn't protect him. She began to teach him water magic, but he managed to only create bubbles at best. Instead, she began teach him to fight and evade the creatures he could and kept him under her surveillance even more.

At his current age of 11, he and his mother venture around the thick brushes of Chidokai forest. While his mother eats several forms of large animals, humans, and nekoes, he is merely content eating arboreal frogs and fruits.

Personality

Doran is a bit brash, mischievous and stubborn. At least around those who know him, such as the elderly Trochilli Roana, whom he sometimes teases. He sternly believes what his adopted mother says is always right and carries her prejudice of smaller nagas and dridders. He has a sharp tongue which he uses to insult lone travelers that don't follow him.

Although he loves his adopted mother, he does has abandonment issues of being abandoned by his biological mother and constantly wonders why she would leave him to die rather than save him. Because of that, however, he has somewhat of a grudge against almost all humans and feels somewhat ashamed to be of the same race as them and constantly tries to tell himself that he is a tailless naga and that Malina is his one true mother.

Because of Malina's persuasion, he has come to terms that he is a human but believes that he is a superior human and better than the others. Because of this, he doesn't mind when Malina eats a human around him and knows for a fact that the day would never come when his new mother would decide to eat him. He is very condescending to other humans he does get to know for a little and constantly finds faults with them, from their appearances to certain quirks in their personalities.

He understands why his surrogate mother does watch over him, but yearns for the day he could be on his own but is unaware that, despite his capabilities, he would not stand a chance. A bit prideful of his abilities and naïve of the world, he sometimes believes he can take on the world, but somewhere in his mind, he is fully aware that he can't.

He is also an excellent actor, which is needed in order to trick travelers to follow him and lead them to Malina, who is always happy to "take them out of his hands." However, sometimes, he uses his acting abilities to entertain his mother whenever he notices that she is downhearted.

When he isn't hanging from his mother's fingers or tail, he usually hangs around tree branches and

Abilities

Doran possesses nearly superhuman agility and amazing speed, having lived in Felarya with his new mother for a little over seven years. Nimble and flexible, comparable to that of a gymnast, he has amazing balance and can stand on thin surfaces as if they were wide platforms.

He can hide in many areas and be undetected due to his use of camouflage and ability to hold his breath for three minutes.

His best ability is his acting skills. He usually poses as a frightened lost child to sympathetic travelers who try to help him or acts as a very young guide for those who are looking for a safer place from possible predators. With his ability to make convincing lies, he makes up stories of his situation to persuade those who believe him to follow him.

He also has an amazing ability to improvise in weaponry, using dropped weapons of travelers, to a wooden pole he started carrying around fairly recently.

To get right to the heart of things, I feel it necessary to point out the rather trite usage of a Dridder as a villainous character. I'm not going to make a conjecture and say that you did this under the false impression that Dridders in general function in such ways, but I think I should bring it to your attention that some would be apt to draw this conclusion, especially given the fact that this Dridder happens to antagonize nagas in particular. You see, it is often thought by some of the newer members that the once strong hatred between the two species remains that way even now, which is simply untrue but seems to be a misconception that is perpetuated by people repeatedly making the mistake. That being said, I hope you can understand that some people would deduct points from the bio as a whole for this point alone and why. However, as I've stated, I'm not going to do that, as I believe you to be a perfectly intelligent individual and a competent writer at that.

That all aside, an actual issue that strikes me in the opening paragraph is the way you described the premature demise of her mother. Starvation is a gradual process that, even in humans, can take several weeks as the body goes through eating at its reserves before beginning to consume itself. This would be a very notable thing. As such, Malina would have likely observed it as it was happening, therefor making 'sudden' no longer an applicable adjective. Furthermore, I'm personally inclined to question how it is an individual goes about starving in a forest environment. Well, I'm left to presume it's a forest setting, anyway, as you don't seem to have specified their exact location at the time. That will be my first suggestion to you; include the environment in which these events transpired. Doing so would help make things more sensible and easier for readers to envision. If you wish to retain the death via starvation thing you could do so easily by inserting them into a place in which food isn't particularly abundant. Perhaps, given the food limitations, her mother put the needs of her child before her own and as such grew increasingly weak from doing so instead of eating? Just some food for though, pun highly intended.

Now, provided that you've forgiven me for my horrendous approximation of humor, I'd like to call your attention the segment in which you describe her trapping of two humans within a coil. That's fine in its own right. However, you go on to state that the mother of the pair was able to escape while Malina was distracted. That's somewhat of a concern. I'm finding it difficult to imagine how one could be so distracted as to lose their control over a portion of their own body. Plus, how precisely would anyone go about running out of a coil? It would have been wrapped about the entirety of her body. Even if the grip were loosened somewhat due to a lapse in attention for whatever reason, having her tail manipulated in such a way as to allow for escape from a loop in it would have been quite the notable sensation for Malina. It's simply hard to connect all those events and have them flow in a sensible manner. If you'd like to resolve this, I would personally suggest going into more detail regarding what the distraction in question was, possibly to the point of promoting it to something beyond a mere distraction. A rather inopportune arrival by a pesky creature or another sentient, maybe? An altercation of some sort would probably provide for a nice chance at escape for the mother involved. In addition, more describing of the actual manner in which the escape is performed would help. Some switching of verbs or adding of new ones entirely. Instead of simply saying she ran, why not say that she managed to wriggle free before proceeding to run? Just a bit of rewriting of what you've already got could turn this from decent to good. It's all mere suggestion though.

When it comes to the personality section I find myself immediately confused by your use of the word 'linear'. Linear usually implies something is straightforwards or straight like a line. Not really seeing how that fits there. It would suffice to say that she is reserved around strangers due to the strong bond she had with her mother, the 'linear' being done away with. Furthermore, 'reserved' and 'less open' are pretty much synonymous so it's redundant to say both together in such a way. Besides that, there are some rather perplexing points made later in that section, one of these being her apparent love for Doran, which contradicts her hunting habits. You state later that she tends to be indiscriminate in her consumption of humans, yet she adopted a human child. Indiscriminate implies a lack of discrimination, which means there is no variation in how things of a group are treated by a person. If she were to be truly indiscriminate when it came to her eating of humans, she wouldn't have so much as placed consideration into taking a son in such a manner. It's a rather glaring conflict. My advice to you regarding this is that you simply explain further why it was she opted to take him as her own instead of eating him outright. Having thought for a moment, I find it would make enough sense for her to have sympathized with a child losing its mother due to her own experience. Still, you've got to actually say that, you see. All that's provided within the bio itself presently is that the abandonment disgusted her, yet that in itself doesn't answer the question of why it did. Readers can't always be expected to place things together in such a way to explain things for themselves simply because, more often than not, they'll end up adding two and two into seven instead of four. Every bit of detail counts.

As for abilities I find it somewhat odd that you didn't make any mention of the fact that she was a river naga beforehand. It was my impression that being suited to an aquatic environment would do something to hinder abilities while on land, but in fact the opposite seems to be happening here; She's actually faster. I think some balancing is in order when it comes to this fact. Perhaps make her somewhat slower on land while retaining the speed in water? Besides for that, you could address the aforementioned fact of her being a river naga having never been spoken of before that point and fit it in somewhere in her opening description (Species: Giant 'River' Naga, perhaps?)

Alright, with all of that business said and done I will say that there are some things working pretty well here. If I'm able to read your intents correctly then they seem to be perfectly good ones, just with a slightly flawed execution. In particular I appreciate the fact that her upcoming was fairly difficult to an extent. While I acknowledge that the context is open to a bit of interpretation, I personally find it to be more of a dangerous place than anything, so characters who have fantastically easy times fending for themselves tend to bother and bore me. Also, it may sound uncharacteristically sappy of me, but I do tend to like situations in which predators care of beings who are less capable in their own right, especially human children due to how they can be more easily related to as characters. That brings me into my next point too, the fact that (If I'm reading your aim right) you placed a bit of a twist upon that more basic and common premise. She seems to be nurturing, yes, but in such a way that Doran actually grows to be a bit egocentric and actually become less of a cute device and more of a flawed person. Really well done with that bit.

Overall, I'll say that you could really turn out something great if you refine this a bit more. Keep up the good work and feel free to contact me if you wish for any advice.

W-3-K wrote:

To get right to the heart of things, I feel it necessary to point out the rather trite usage of a Dridder as a villainous character. I'm not going to make a conjecture and say that you did this under the false impression that Dridders in general function in such ways, but I think I should bring it to your attention that some would be apt to draw this conclusion, especially given the fact that this Dridder happens to antagonize nagas in particular. You see, it is often thought by some of the newer members that the once strong hatred between the two species remains that way even now, which is simply untrue but seems to be a misconception that is perpetuated by people repeatedly making the mistake. That being said, I hope you can understand that some people would deduct points from the bio as a whole for this point alone and why. However, as I've stated, I'm not going to do that, as I believe you to be a perfectly intelligent individual and a competent writer at that.

That all aside, an actual issue that strikes me in the opening paragraph is the way you described the premature demise of her mother. Starvation is a gradual process that, even in humans, can take several weeks as the body goes through eating at its reserves before beginning to consume itself. This would be a very notable thing. As such, Malina would have likely observed it as it was happening, therefor making 'sudden' no longer an applicable adjective. Furthermore, I'm personally inclined to question how it is an individual goes about starving in a forest environment. Well, I'm left to presume it's a forest setting, anyway, as you don't seem to have specified their exact location at the time. That will be my first suggestion to you; include the environment in which these events transpired. Doing so would help make things more sensible and easier for readers to envision. If you wish to retain the death via starvation thing you could do so easily by inserting them into a place in which food isn't particularly abundant. Perhaps, given the food limitations, her mother put the needs of her child before her own and as such grew increasingly weak from doing so instead of eating? Just some food for though, pun highly intended.

Now, provided that you've forgiven me for my horrendous approximation of humor, I'd like to call your attention the segment in which you describe her trapping of two humans within a coil. That's fine in its own right. However, you go on to state that the mother of the pair was able to escape while Malina was distracted. That's somewhat of a concern. I'm finding it difficult to imagine how one could be so distracted as to lose their control over a portion of their own body. Plus, how precisely would anyone go about running out of a coil? It would have been wrapped about the entirety of her body. Even if the grip were loosened somewhat due to a lapse in attention for whatever reason, having her tail manipulated in such a way as to allow for escape from a loop in it would have been quite the notable sensation for Malina. It's simply hard to connect all those events and have them flow in a sensible manner. If you'd like to resolve this, I would personally suggest going into more detail regarding what the distraction in question was, possibly to the point of promoting it to something beyond a mere distraction. A rather inopportune arrival by a pesky creature or another sentient, maybe? An altercation of some sort would probably provide for a nice chance at escape for the mother involved. In addition, more describing of the actual manner in which the escape is performed would help. Some switching of verbs or adding of new ones entirely. Instead of simply saying she ran, why not say that she managed to wriggle free before proceeding to run? Just a bit of rewriting of what you've already got could turn this from decent to good. It's all mere suggestion though.

When it comes to the personality section I find myself immediately confused by your use of the word 'linear'. Linear usually implies something is straightforwards or straight like a line. Not really seeing how that fits there. It would suffice to say that she is reserved around strangers due to the strong bond she had with her mother, the 'linear' being done away with. Furthermore, 'reserved' and 'less open' are pretty much synonymous so it's redundant to say both together in such a way. Besides that, there are some rather perplexing points made later in that section, one of these being her apparent love for Doran, which contradicts her hunting habits. You state later that she tends to be indiscriminate in her consumption of humans, yet she adopted a human child. Indiscriminate implies a lack of discrimination, which means there is no variation in how things of a group are treated by a person. If she were to be truly indiscriminate when it came to her eating of humans, she wouldn't have so much as placed consideration into taking a son in such a manner. It's a rather glaring conflict. My advice to you regarding this is that you simply explain further why it was she opted to take him as her own instead of eating him outright. Having thought for a moment, I find it would make enough sense for her to have sympathized with a child losing its mother due to her own experience. Still, you've got to actually say that, you see. All that's provided within the bio itself presently is that the abandonment disgusted her, yet that in itself doesn't answer the question of why it did. Readers can't always be expected to place things together in such a way to explain things for themselves simply because, more often than not, they'll end up adding two and two into seven instead of four. Every bit of detail counts.

As for abilities I find it somewhat odd that you didn't make any mention of the fact that she was a river naga beforehand. It was my impression that being suited to an aquatic environment would do something to hinder abilities while on land, but in fact the opposite seems to be happening here; She's actually faster. I think some balancing is in order when it comes to this fact. Perhaps make her somewhat slower on land while retaining the speed in water? Besides for that, you could address the aforementioned fact of her being a river naga having never been spoken of before that point and fit it in somewhere in her opening description (Species: Giant 'River' Naga, perhaps?)

Alright, with all of that business said and done I will say that there are some things working pretty well here. If I'm able to read your intents correctly then they seem to be perfectly good ones, just with a slightly flawed execution. In particular I appreciate the fact that her upcoming was fairly difficult to an extent. While I acknowledge that the context is open to a bit of interpretation, I personally find it to be more of a dangerous place than anything, so characters who have fantastically easy times fending for themselves tend to bother and bore me. Also, it may sound uncharacteristically sappy of me, but I do tend to like situations in which predators care of beings who are less capable in their own right, especially human children due to how they can be more easily related to as characters. That brings me into my next point too, the fact that (If I'm reading your aim right) you placed a bit of a twist upon that more basic and common premise. She seems to be nurturing, yes, but in such a way that Doran actually grows to be a bit egocentric and actually become less of a cute device and more of a flawed person. Really well done with that bit.

Overall, I'll say that you could really turn out something great if you refine this a bit more. Keep up the good work and feel free to contact me if you wish for any advice.

Wow. Such a full critique! First, I have to thank you for taking the time to point out every factor.

In any case, I definately will be working on this character a bit more and fixing flaws. The fact that she is fast on land despite being a river naga is an abnormality that will be explained more in-depth once I get around to writing her story. I probably used linear because my professor would always say linear, regarding linear thinking. A bad habit I always thought she had, but nonetheless, I will fix it. Like you said, I do need to work on my execution on some things. I will flesh out all of my characters a bit more once I get more time to work on them.