You might find these 'internet trolls' to be less of trolls if you take their advice and re-examine your character. DASK makes some good points--diction on the internet can be just as important as what you say (ak how you say it is important too), and blowing off people who are trying to help (and yes he was trying to help, not troll) is only going to exacerbate the problem. I'm not going to spend a ton of time talking about the grammar (it is odd, kind of like you put something in Google translate in English, and then translated it back through to English again. You use 'neither' where you should use 'nor', and that really grates on me)), but I am going to take a moment to describe why your character strikes me as a Marty Stu, and thus a problem. EXAMPLE ONE: The "This character can be like this and also like this, but also like this and this and this" Conundrum. I'll try to use exact quotes so it doesn't seem like I'm pulling shit out of thin air here. Mary Sues tend to be perfect. They can fit in any situation, be whatever they need to be. That's what this sentence implies, that your Snakeman can be whatever is needed. Nobody is like that irl, which makes it very difficult to believe here. EXAMPLE TWO: Dark and Edgy Tvtropes defines a common trait of a Marty Stu as the following. This is what I'm seeing here with our boy Snake. Born on a heavily industrialized world? Check. Abandoned at a young age and raised in a brutal environment? Check. Managed to survive it and become a master thief instead of dying horribly from pollution? You betcha. This isn't a problem technically, but it's got such a negative connotation that it makes the fairly substandard grammar worse just by reading it. In other words, your issue with grammar (not definitions of words, I'm talking syntax here) is made worse by having a dark/edgy character with a backstory typically associated with a stereotypical Marty Stu. Marty Stus aren't terrible if you're the ONLY writer of a story, but in this case you have a ton of other people writing too, and if your character starts stealing the entire stage you'll ruin the fun for everyone. Now, how do we fix that? Well, when you have more writers, you have to make sure your character is unique, but it's not so crazy unique that everyone else is overshadowed. For example, rather than being the sole heir to the Master Thief throne, our boy Snake could be a highly skilled pickpocket living on the streets of "Overly Polluted world", being streetsmart and skilled, but not being the be-all, end-all of the thieving world. EXAMPLE THREE: The "This character can be like this and also like this, but also like this and this and this" Conundrum -- PART TWO Oh boy, here we go. Last one. This paragraph describes how Snake is this dark, brooding character who is constantly fighting against his dark and edgy past, and yet somehow he has used this terrible past as a springboard. He can relate to people's pain and use that in a fight to his advantage? That doesn't make much sense at all. Maybe it would make him a kinder person, but I don't see how understanding pain would make you a better fighting. I've been hurt a lot, too, it doesn't make me a better fighter. And he doesn't intend to be raging and angry, but sometimes he is capable of it. Do you see the problem here? It's kind of the same thing as saying: "Oh, he's a loner, but he can be outgoing and friendly at times" or "He's a hardened killer, but he empathizes with certain people about their loss". It is implausible, and the only real purpose I can think of is so that this Snake boy doesn't have any real weaknesses. Let your guy be an angry dude. It adds character and makes writing him more fun. Weaknesses aren't a bad thing for a character to have. It's realistic and fun to think of how your character can develop around those weaknesses (and strengths too) thanks for your time im done being pointless now
The only time I could feasible see for someone to have a 'perfect' character is if the RP's premise is that all the players start as 'perfect' characters, but over a short time they develop flaws that make them different from the rest of society, forcing them to have to leave their 'perfect' society.
So...is everyone finished? I want to make sure before I start writing up the next part: Obstacle Course!
Wait a second or two, my character was a Mary Sue? If someone could have clarified that, it would have saved a lot of time and me satirically responding.
I think most of us were more thinking about the relatively uncommon sentence wording, but considering that Mercenary Lord is, like, one of the local gods in this RP subforum, we tend to defer to his judgment.
How do you want me to go about the Obstacle Course, @DarkAndStormyKnight ? Just write about the end result of d'Artangan's efforts, or about each obstacle he has to overcome?
Well he's overconfident, but still very skilled. Ideally, he masters the entire course flawlessly, but makes a stupid error at the end, and finishes badly. Now I don't know much about your idea of the course, so go nuts.
Alright then, I'll leave it to you to decide what the Obstacle course consists of, and if you succeed or fail (my creativity has been exhausted last night working on an assignment for a class.)
Spam twice, and calling someone a f*cktard.... But that was said jokingly to a friend and the mods took it far more seriously than it was meant to be....