Colin: Another guy for Roanoake. Woo. If you say that Dad had frequent young mistresses, there's no point in saying he was blatantly unfaithful. Give me more detail on mom, dad, twins, and grandma. You can't just mention them in passing; I want to know things like appearance, and a little insight on personality. Also, does Mom just deny the whole unfaithful thing? You also don't make it clear as to whether or not Mom and Dad are seperated or not. A lot of the details you have in family are better sorted under history and personality. I want to know more about what these people look like and how they react to each other or else you're better off not mentioning them. Also, what brought them to Roanoke? Why did he drop out? Do his folks even give a damn? Cut down on a few likes/dislikes; funnel a few into personality for material to write about. Does he eat sushi often? Why is he so enlightened when his upbringing seems like the depths of society? Could I first have some more organization in your history/personality sections? It's kind of hard to follow. Why exactly did he drop out? Lack of credit would just mean an additional semester or two of school and not exactly dropping out. What did his family think/care/acknowledge? You'd think they'd figure out he wasn't a VT student after awhile, y'know. As a matter of fact, the whole going to Roanoke to crash with a friend at college seems too deus ex machina. Maybe the fact that he doesn't bathe often is why people don't like to talk to him? His personality is the stock dirtiest-yet-smartest man in the world type. What's so charismatic about jumping off a building? Would it be more like making others jump off of said building? Then is school and a cleaner way of life just not high on his list of interests, if he doesn't persue them with the same vigor he would other things? And again, why is he so enlightened? Why does he give people the benefit of the doubt so often? While I'm thinking about it, Sailor Sculptor has the whole bum thing pretty much cornered. The appearance isn't too bad, but cut down on some of your details. The fuku makes me want to cry; give me some more details on those buckles and patches. How can sparkles be masculine? And don't get me started on that saucy smile; it seems to negate all masculinity contained by said masculine sparkles. That's the wrong transformation phrase, too. Is that high enough to break something after falling off on your first attack? Cut the thundercat refferences or I'll cry. Anyway, I take it this affects both friends and foe? Could it kill a person? Add any other nasty status effects? And the third power might need to be lengthened a bit or people will just end up waiting it out. Your writing sample is fairly good, but it'd realy help if you'd do some spacing between paragraphs and dialogue. Sometimes your first time just doesn't get it right; try again! reject for revision; family, history, personality, fuku, format errors ----- Emiko: Well, things start out okay, until you get to "younger twin brothers." Believe it or not, we already have a senshi or two with younger twins. I don't know why people seem to want to do this, but be advised it's overused. How does his dad get access to high school girls and why hasn't he been caught? You have a nice rundown of his parents' history, but that could go in the history section and you could give us a little more description on his parents' appearances and personalities besides the blatantly obvious. Ages would also be helpful. Wow, where did Mr. "I'm not White Trash Boy" get the opportunity to try nigiri sushi? Most of the people I know just go, "Raw fish? People eat that? Eww." (Chickens!) Gosh, he has an immense amount of history from the time he was a Sophomore up til now. Stuff that could more reasonably stretch out into a few more years. Sophomore is, what, about age 16? All this happened in three years? My advice would be to make him a bit older and make all these events more impactful and meaningful. As-is, they just kind of fly by. I'm having trouble picturing how he got from such ultimate lows to the end of the history section. Suddenly he seems to turn around and read a lot more. Overall, history goes by way too fast. His childhood is barely there, and everything past sophomore year seems a blur. Definitely throw some more childhood in, make him older to accommodate the rapidfire succession of post-high school events, and I think you'll be good to go. His personality seems entirely too contradictory. There's no focus to it. It jumps around, going from one thing to another without any seeming sense of the totality. Streamline the elements of his personality and then delve deeper into whatever elements you choose to keep and try to add in supporting elements rather than contradictory ones. I'm surprised he helped his dad at all. Maybe some more detail on how their relationship actually is up in history would be helpful. (Like I said, more childhood detail.) He let a drunk tattoo him? How drunk was he at the time? (And how come alcoholism hasn't played a bigger part? One minute he's drunk every night, the next he simply doesn't drink as much.) With an apartment and lifestyle like his, I'd really expect him to be a little less healthy-looking. Maybe if you strengthened the alcholism you could give him a smell. I do like his tendency to pick things up and wear them for weeks -- it's a nice touch of realism to it, the kind of little obsessiveness we can easily see in the people around us. I like the chopstick. What if he's completely surrounded? Then what does the mask do? AHHH!!! THUNDERCATS!!! ... You knwo what this means? *grabs Atri* Atri and Em: Thundercats, thundercats, THUNDERCATS! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! *both dissolve into laughter* (Don't ask me why that gets us so much. It just does. It's our "thing" we do.) Ahem. I love this energy pedastal power. It'd play so well on senshi with fears of height! *suppresses urge to do T-Cats thing again* I also like the support drop, makes for difficult battles. And, finally, support withdraw is great as well. You've realy done a wonderful job with the powers. I think they're well-balanced, interesting, useful, and you've incorporated more than one aspect of the word "support." Your power base and powers get my full approval. (So does your research and logic, by the way. Excellent work here!) You're got a couple of errors in the dialogue of your writing sample, like using a comma at the end of a line. Quick example: "Um, yeah" mumbled Troy "Lets go." "Um, yeah," mumbled Troy. "Let's go." Overall, though, your writing is good, it's just missing a few punctuation details. I very much enjoyed this application, but you really need to sort out history and personality, so rejected for revisions. I really love those powers, though, so please re-apply! ----- Angie: Time to do my duty, eh? *blows dust of my read pen* Support, huh? Interesting power base. Let's see what you mean by it, hmmm? ^_^ *reads name, grins* Whoooa, heaven isn't too far away, closer to it every day... Cecily: *rolls eyes* I heard your wailing over in Rome. Quit it. You bloody well know it's not -that- Warrant. *snickers* I know. Good name despite my insanity. *moves on* Oh, that's awkward. You list his family and then zip off some history. Traditionally, what the family category is for is a listing and rundown of the family members, their looks and personalities. Just a personal thing but it really improves coherency. I hope this stuff is repeated in the history section... *snickers* Oh, dear, interesting assortment of likes and dislikes. Very original. Ah, here we go. History. Just shift it all to one place please. Then we don't have to try to remember what we read those sections back. Makes for a fuller read... He's originally from where? Did I miss it or was it to be assumed? Aha. Originally from Oregon... Ebay? I'm assuming here that he uses public computers at internet cafes (stupid me, you just covered that)? And, oh, I know it's possible. Sad but possible... Hmm, seems a rather hard-knock life, slightly used, but good enough. Especially if you correlate it all. Very good personality. Rayya: *whispers* Oh, be quiet. No, it's not because he's a cooler version of what Jack was like when Jack was drinking. Troy's got a round personality of his own... How does he feel about his day to day life, though? Does it bother him at all? How does he feel about his roomies? Appearance is good, nice and normal looking. Which makes me wonder about the phrase "somewhat distinctive, but if someone noticed him on the street, they wouldn't remember him by the next block." Didn't think it was possible to be distinctive and imminently forgetable. ^_^ I approve that he's not a model and not built. But, uh, how tall is he? Fuku... What kind of green shirt? The same color as the coat? A t- shirt? A button up? A tank top? Is the coat something like a high- collared frock coat or an outerwear coat? ^_^ Slightly garish but, yay, it works. "Young man, I'm warning you... It's all fun and games until someone pokes an eye out!" *rolls around, giggling* Rayya: *sighs* I'll finish up, huh? Okay, chopstick behind the ear with short hair? The boy's so gonna lose it and, boy, that makes guardians unhappy. *grins* Okay, the stick gets longer. How long? Walking stick long? Quarter staff long? Stilts long? But I'm seeing how the stick relates so that's good... Thundercats, huh? Interesting... *grins* Okay, powers. Energy Pedestal is good; kinda makes me laugh and, wow, how good would that be on a senshi who's afraid of heights! Support Drop sounds almost useless in battle but, when it works, I bet it's awfully cool. I personally think it's always good to have one unreliable, draining power. That's because you're a pacifist and hope everyones' powers fizzle out. Rayya: So? Anyway... Support Withdraw is an interesting idea, I think, but it's giving me a few wiggies. First off, think you could better explain its relationship to support for us goofies? And, second, the other two powers stuck with the idea of support as a physical manifestation. It seems awkward and slightly illogical to switch to emotional definitions mid-stream. *beams* *gapes at her* Rayya, that sounded... Scholarly. Rayya: Don't worry, hon. It won't happen again. *giggles* And the final tally is? Hmm. Reject for revisions but, darn it, you'd better revise. He's got tons of potential and you have a good writing style. Please join us!