Warning. LONG post ahead. So long in fact that I had to split in to two and double post. Sorry in advance. (Of course that was four hours ago and Almighty and Jadawulf have posted since then. >.< lol Man.)
I have taken the last few OCs I have seen that didn’t have a critique and critiqued them. The following is, of course, purely my opinion. However, it is also the opinion of someone who reads
a lot of fan fiction and, she hopes, can provide a good reader’s perspective on your OCs.
So, that said, lets get on with it.
I will post the description first and then whether I think Sue or no.
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Creator: Fierymetis
Name: Pandy
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Nation: Earth
Bending: Earth
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Black, waist length.
Outfit: A brown and green dress with sleeves that go just past her shoulders.
Weapons: None.
Personality: Energetic and upbeat. It takes a lot to get Pandy down. However, she is afraid of people disliking her. Because of this, she is very passive and will let people walk all over her.
History: Pandy grew up in a small Earth Kingdom village. She wasn't a very skilled Earthbender, despite her mother's best efforts at teaching her. Pandy lived very happily until the day her village was attacked by Firebenders. Pandy's mother and father were killed in front of her in their home. One of the Firebenders advanced toward her, and Pandy flung up her arms to cover her face. Without realizing it, Pandy bent a huge amount of earth at the Firebender, killing him instantly.
It was at that moment that Pandy wished she wasn't an Earthbender, and after that you could almost never catch her Bending. She never had to worry about having to protect herself, because her greatest skill was making herself completely inconspicuous. No one ever noticed the plain-looking girl wandering around the town. And that was just how Pandy liked it.
She was thirteen then and after she fled the village, she spent the next five years just wandering, finding work where she could and sleeping on street corners. She didn't have anyone to travel with and generally avoided human contact, but she was always very kind and polite to anyone she met.
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Sue or No? No, but I see an issue.
I think the name is a little funny, but it isn’t sue-ish or anything. Just cutesy.
Is it short for something? Or is it related to the Panda Lilly we heard about in “The Fortuneteller”, maybe? Just curious.
Looks are good.
Clothes are good.
Personality seems fine to me.
History. Some might say the “parents dying in front of her” thing is sue-ish(and it often is), but I don’t think so here. You had the Fire Nation raid on her village serve a purpose other than just torturing your character to give her a sad past. You had it bring out her potential in earthbending and gave her reason to fear that power later on b/c she killed someone with it. So good job on that point.
I *do* question why exactly she is a wanderer and has been for the last few years. You didn’t give any indication that she has a restless spirit or enjoys adventure or anything. If she does, please say so. If not, why didn’t she just settle down and get a job in another town? And she is doing all this wandering alone? Even though she is scared to/won’t use her earthbending? And has no weapons? Combine that with her being a pushover and she doesn’t have much to protect her from possible threats. And this, in my mind, makes her unlikely to want to travel the world alone, even if she
is good at blending into the crowd.
And, just to flesh her out more, could you please tell me how she is surviving during this wandering? Is she begging or stealing or what?
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Creator: Concreteangel
Name: Kagome
Age: 9
Bender: Water
Nation: Water (natural parents) and fire (adoptive parents)
Parents: Two unknown water tribe members are her natural-born parents; her adoptive parents are Fire Lord Zuko and his wife
Hair: brown
Eyes: blue
Clothes: a red Fire Nation dress. It’s very beautiful, expensive, and adorned with many decorations
Flaws: She’s a really bad bender, no matter how hard she tries; she can never get it right. She also is very sensitive to any criticism about her father.
Description: Kagome is a nine-year-old Waterbender. She was adopted by the Fire Lord, Zuko, when he found her on the side of the road. He knew that she would be an outcast, so he decided to continue his life on a ship. The only people that know about his daughter are: his wife; his sister, Azula; Azula’s son and husband; Iroh; the Avatar; Katara, Sokka, and a few ‘trustworthy’ soldiers. She knows that she has to be hidden from the outside world, but the only reason that she knows about her adoption is because she overheard her parents talking about it one night. Kagome is defiantly a “Daddy’s Girl” and can’t take any criticism about him. When she learns about the War, she storms off in fury. She develops a crush on the Avatar’s son, Shiro.
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Sue or No? Maybe. I’ll explain.
You have stated your history with the name, but I am still iffy on it. Though you obviously don’t intend it to be a rip-off from Inuyasha, you have to think of your readers when naming a character, too. Every time I read the name Kagome, I picture the heroine of Inuyasha. You should really think about changing it because, even though Kagome is a beautiful name, its potential as an OC name has been totally spoiled. Sorry. We can all blame Rumiko Takahashi. lol
Her physical features are just fine. Perfect for someone of Water Tribe heritage. The dress sounds really pretty and girly and princessy, which is just what we would expect for the Fire Lord’s daughter. Good job, there. I would love to hear if there are any specific patterns or brocades on the dress, like embroidery of her favorite animal or the sun or something. But I just think it would be some interesting detail you could give us to flesh her out. It isn’t a requirement or anything.
Her flaws make sense. Good job, there.
Now, her description is where things get iffy. Actually, I guess it is more the history part of it. Zuko just randomly finding her on the side of the road and adopting her is kind of unbelievable. You would have to write this incident very, very well to keep it from being sue-ish. I mean, why *exactly* did he adopt her? Did he just love the little girl from the moment they met or something (which isn’t necessarily a bad idea)? Another important aspect of this is when did he find her? When she was a baby? Or was she already a few years old? The answer to this question determines whether she would have memory of her parents or not and, thus, puts into question her knowledge of her adopted status. The open-endedness here leaves it very possible for this aspect of her past to become sueish.
Also, the idea that the Fire Lord would seclude himself on a naval ship for the rest of his life, choosing to run his post-war, recovering country from abroad, also seems fairly unbelievable. And you are saying he is doing this because of his adopted daughter. This again begs the question again of why exactly he adopted her, if it was going to cause so much trouble as to basically force him to become an exile from his own country?
Again. Now, if I may offer a suggestion here…
You have to have them on the ship for Kagome’s whole life as Zuko’s daughter for plot reasons, right? It allows her to be secluded and also gives you a way for her to travel to the Northern Water Tribe. Well, couldn’t you have her live in the Fire Nation and just live in seclusion there? Not because no one knows of her, but just because not many in the still xenophobic Fire Nation choose to associate with her. Or her seclusion could be like Toph’s was. Zuko just kept her so sheltered in the confines of the palace that no one, outside of those you mentioned, were really told she existed. That is still weird to me, but I suppose you could make it work. Either way you fix the problem of Zuko being so Out Of Character(OOC) as to become an absentee ruler and you still get Kagome’s seclusion. Now, as for getting her to the Northern Water Tribe, that is easy enough. Why did Zuko go there? Since you haven’t said, I am going to guess it was either for matters of state or to visit Aang and Katara. If either of them is true, then he could simply bring Kagome along for the trip. That is believable to me. I don’t know what reason you picked for them to be in the Northern Tribe, but I would recommend that you look at it and make sure it is believable.
The setting and plot of a story are like characters all their own. And if they are sueish (i.e. don’t make sense), then that will trickle down to your characters.
Really the problem I see with this OC is more that she is underdeveloped than she is a sue. However, you may have the answers to my questions already and you just haven’t told us. So, if you want a clearer assessment of her, you are going to need to answer those questions for me. Otherwise, I can only reply that she has the potential to become a sue. Right now, she just isn’t a very developed OC.
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Creator: Concreteangel
Name: Shiro
Age: 12
Bender: Water and air
Nation: water (technically air, too)
Parents: Katara and Aang
Hair: light brown, looks nearly blonde in the bright sunlight.
Eyes: grey-blue
Clothes: water tribe stuff, as only the Avatar himself is allowed to wear non-water tribe clothes
Flaws: He pretty much hates his parents. He has nothing against them personally, but he hates the fact that his dad is the Avatar. Also, he tried to use Kagome in order to gain access to the ship that she lives on
Description: Shiro is the 12-year-old son of the Avatar. He despises that his father is the Avatar, since that made him an instant celebrity. Due to his father and genetics, Shiro is an excellent bender, and, his family moved from the Southern Water Tribe to the Northern one so that he could interact with other bending kids his own age. He still despises his genetics and wants to go back to the Southern Water Tribe where he was born and his favorite Uncle lives. When Kagome came, he tried to use her to gain access to the Fire Navy ship where she lives. Appa, his father’s flying bison, is too old to fly and Shiro wants to get out of the Northern Water Tribe – and fast. After a while, he starts to like Kagome (not the way she likes him), and starts to enjoy teaching and helping her to master her bending, though she’s pretty much a hopeless cause.
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Stu or No? No, but I have an issue.
I like his name. Does it have a particular meaning, or did you just pick it because of how it sounds? Just wondering.
Now, onto my problem. The dual-bending. I know he is the son of the Avatar. But unless he *is* the Avatar, which ain’t possible here, he should only be able to bend one element. If you are thinking that Shiro could dual-bend because of the genetic influence of being the Avatar’s son, I think you need to keep in mind that the Avatar isn’t special and a multi-bender because of genetic reasons. It is because of his status as the Avatar, a specific, powerful, special, reincarnated individual. As far as we know, there are no blood ties between Avatars, only that spiritual one. So there isn’t really a way that the effects of being the Avatar, things like multi-bending or the Avatar State, could be passed along to his children. They are not in his blood to be passed on.
His parents...
*looks* Ack, it’s a Kataang child! *eyes bleed*
Oh, the humanity! *dies*
... X.X…….
*gets up off the ground* Lol I’m just kiddin’!
I mean, look at my icon and sig. You know I had to do it. ;D Hehe.
So, yeah… back to the serious business…
Shiro’s looks are believable considering his heritage, though you could do without the “nearly blonde in the bright sunlight” in the description. I’d save that for any impressions of him in the story itself. If you include it in the description it just makes it sound like you are trying to cheat and have a blonde haired Avatar character. I don’t think you are, but it gives that impression.
Clothing makes sense.
His flaws are believable. Though the “Also, he tried to use Kagome in order to gain access to the ship that she lives on” isn’t a flaw, it is an immoral action. The flaw, which is what I think you were trying to show, would be the character trait
behind that action. The trait is that he is manipulative, or that he is willing to
be manipulative to get what he wants if he is desperate enough. If you are going to list flaws, remember that they are personality traits, the things that precipitate bad actions, not the actions themselves. Physical deformities and disabilities can also be listed in this category I think, though that would really go more under the physical description.
His description/history thingy is pretty good. I love your reasoning for why his parents brought him from the Southern to the Northern Tribe. It is very believable and makes good sense since we know that there are no benders in the Southern Tribe.
(At least not currently, but whatever. We can pretend that there aren’t any there during the time frame of your story, too.) I also like how you seem to have Kagome and his relationship pretty much fleshed out already.
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Creator: Concreteangel
Name: Miko
Age: 7
Bender: fire
Nation: fire
Parents: Azula (yes, I mean it) and her dead husband
Hair: short, buzzed brown hair
Eyes: red (like fire)
Clothes: red shirt and matching black cargos (his mother dresses him)
Flaws: He's 7! What all can 7-year-olds do?
Description: Miko is Zuko's nephew, making him Kagome's cousin. He loves his cousin to death and is one of the few people that know about her existence. After the death of her husband, Azula turned cruel to the outside world. Only her family sees her as the caring person whom they love. With the help of his mother and Uncle, Miko mastered firebending at the age of 6.
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Stu or No? Possibly. Need more on him.
Name sounds cool, though are you sure it is masculine?
Bending and nation, good.
Azula is his mom??? ….You mean it? Lol Sorry.
Couldn’t resist. You obviously had Azula end up non-psychotic. Since we don’t know her fate yet, then this is completely possible and is fine here.
Now, his eyes being red. That could be a problem. It depends on if you mean a bright red or really a dark brown with a red tint to them. Amber-brown dark enough to have a bit of a red tint, I have seen. Azula’s eyes look sort of like that during her brief 10 second appearance in the end of “The Siege of the North Part II”. But actually bright red eyes, like Kagura’s eyes from Inuyasha for example, would be completely unbelievable in Avatar. They seem to stick with normal looking physical traits on this show. The only weird stuff we have seen is Yue’s white hair, but that had a funky explanation to go along with it. Zuko having yellow eyes is also weird, but it is canon, so it is allowable. Bright red eyes have not been seen yet, so they aren’t believable in Avatar. Just plain amber/yellow/gold eyes seem more believable since Miko is of the royal family and they have that color in their bloodline.
Also, on the eye topic, you should actually
describe the color of the eyes. You know, with adjectives like “dark” and “bright” and so on. I say this because you say “red(like fire)”. Fire isn’t red. It is shades of orange and yellow normally. So, this contradicts itself and doesn’t give me a clue what the eyes really look like.
Cargo pants are out. That is a modern design. Just say black pants. They can be the poofy, Agni Kai pants if you want(and this is probably what you meant), but still not cargos.
On his flaws, he could be precocious or bossy or any number of things that a child can be.
What you have written for the description is fine. Him mastering Firebending at the age of 6 is believable, I suppose, considering his parentage and his teachers.
He doesn’t seem a sue, but he is underdeveloped and I really can’t tell you, with certainty, he whether he is one or not. You need to flesh him out more.
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Creator: Concreteangel
Name: Alaya
Age: 12
Bender: earth
Nation: she thinks earth, since it's her bending element
Parents: none (orphan)
Hair: brown
Eyes: slanted green-brown eyes
Clothes: whatever she can find. normally it's a green dress
Flaws: She longs to find out about her past, and she can't bend well, due to her lack of teaching
Description: Alaya is a 12-year-old earthbender. The only memory of her parents that she has is looking into her mother's eyes and noticing that they matched her own. Alaya only knows simple earthbending things, enough for her to manage to eat. Shiro, Miko, and Kagome meet her when they stop at her city on their way to the South Pole.
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Sue or No? From what we have here, yes.
The name isn’t Asian. But it *is* the Earth Kingdom, the same people who gave us the name “Jet”, so Alaya is allowable I think. Though, if she has no clue of her nationality and her parents, just *how* does she know her name? Or did she give the name to herself? If so, you need to state that in the description somewhere.
Bending and nation good.
For her eyes, do you mean they are hazel? Or some kind of brown-green swirl?
Being an orphan has been overdone and done pretty badly by many. That being said, it is still possible for you to write her and make her believable. You need to keep a few things in mind when developing her story. How does she manage to take care of herself while on the streets?(Which is where I assume you have her live) How would living on her own like that, in a world where she has had to fend completely for herself, affect her attitude toward other people? Has she been met with kindness by others or has she run into purely indifferent, mean, or even abusive people? A little of both things? And how has *that* effected how she would regard strangers? If you can manage to write her realistically, then, even though she would be an orphan, she could be saved from becoming a sue.
Another thing that could be sueish is her amnesia about her past. You need to have a good reason for it and have her past come out gradually.
Right now, she seems the sue. But, with a little development and fleshing out, that can change.
Also, by your description here, am I to assume that you are going to have a 7 yr old, a 9yr old, and two 12 yr olds traipsing around the world
on their own? Because that is a bit sueish in and of itself. Sure, with the present characters we have Aang and Toph who are 12, but they are accompanied by two others on the cusp of adulthood in the Avaverse. This is just four children…
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Creator: RavenSetFree
Name: Kiyomi (means clear sky in Japanese)
Gender: female
Age: 16
Nation: currently she belongs to no nation, but she grew up in the Earth Kingdom.
Bending: none
Weapons: knives, she's very skilled with them.
Outfit: She has an oriental top. . . .it's hard to describe so go here:
www.animegalleries.net/albums/Naruto/tenten/naruto_tenten0013.jpg It looks like that top except its dark blue and the button things (what are they called?) are silver instead of gold. Also, it doesn't have the red part on the shoulders. And she wears a knee length dark blue skirt with a silver trim to match her top, and it's cut down the side. She wears short black pants under her skirt.
Hair: Jet black. Falls just below her waist. She ties it back so that it doesn't get in her face when she's fighting.
Eyes: Light blue.
Personality: She's really bi***y and irritable. She's not a brat, but just very rude. She can show compassion and stuff, she's not completely a beatch, but you don't want to get on her in a bad mood.
History: Her mother was from the Water tribe and her father was an Earth bender. They got married, but her mother was forced to leave the Water Tribe because she had married someone from another Nation. When they had Kiyomi, the two elements cancelled each other out and she could bend neither Earth nor Water. Instead, she became skilled with knives. She practiced every day, for she feared that the Fire Nation would attack their small town one day. When she was 11, the Fire Nation invaded her town, and her parents were killed. The Fire benders forced the surviving women and children of her town to work as slaves for the Fire Nation. This is when she turned angry and rude. She detested the Fire Nation. One night, she was able to slip past the guards that were watching the slaves. With her knives, she murdered the Fire Nation admiral who had taken over the town. She was able to escape before the guards got to her. But now she is wanted by the Fire Nation, and when they find her they will kill her. She travels from place to place, hoping that one day she will find somewhere safe.
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Sue or No? Nope!
Name is good.
Nationality explanation makes sense.
Wow, a non-bender! The fact that she is a non-bender makes it more believable that she is good at a weapon instead. She would have more time to focus on it. Nice.
Clothing sounds fine, but I can’t really tell because your link… isn’t working. >.< However, what you have written sounds like it would fit in Avatar so you are probably fine.
Hair is good. The eyes being blue sounds a bit odd at first, but then we *have* seen random extras with blue eyes. But not with blue eyes and black hair, both. I’d think about this.
Personality is good. It is completely understandable considering her history.
History is good. It is well thought out. And you give a believable reason for why she is wandering from place to place. I like that. lol
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