I've noticed that Sora has now been in Paradisa for a full year, and I'd like to address a couple of concerns I have with you. I'll say first off that I don't know the canon, and thus these aren't characterisation issues per se.
While I know that Sora is frail and has had a terribly traumatic life, I find it a little hard to believe that after a full year of tender care and good meals he is still falling over if he stands up for too long. A year is more than enough time to build muscle mass and body fat, so even if he was still timid, there should be no reason he is still frail.
I don't claim to be an expert on child psychology, far from it, especially those who have been abused so dreadfully. But I can't say that I've seen any improvement in Sora's trust or confidence, despite having a loving family and friends for a full year reaffirming his safety and affection. I don't think he should be Smiler McGee, as he has had a lot of trauma and that doesn't fade entirely, but perhaps a little improvement might be nice to see
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Thanks so much for your concerns. I have the feeling this is coming from the minds of several, so thank you so much for speaking to me about it
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I appreciate what you've said about stress exacerbating the conditions that he will have been left with from malnutrition. However, if after a year he has undergone so much stress as to completely cancel out the good work of Jilly, Lilith, Abel, etc. then that is far too much stress to be putting him under.
It's good that you recognise that you need to take a step back from traumatising him for the sake of his CR; and I'll probably link this crit to his immediate CR so they can be assured of that as well.
I'm not saying he's a burden or a problem, but I don't remember seeing a happy post with him at all. He's got a loving family now, and maybe it might be nice for that CR (not especially myself, as we don't interact often) to have interactions that are not all wholly heartbreaking for one reason or another.
The last three I've done have been trying to be on the mellower side of things. I put him on the silly...uh... Inception Zero-Gravity loss, he spent most of the spring festival frolicking, making daisy chains, baking and being otherwise content. But many of those are lurking in comments or hiding. Perhaps it's that he's just more vocal/me posting more often when distressing things are happening? It's still my fault either way, but I do have him post cheerful things from time to time. It's no excuse for what I've done to his family, who deserves a nobel prize reward for seeing their hard work getting somewhere with caring for him
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It's good that you're trying to do mellower threads; but as you've said yourself, you only seem to post when things go wrong or are more distressing. Perhaps an actual post when things aren't going so badly might be nice? Just to see that Sora isn't all doom and gloom and help his CR feel like they're actually making a difference in his life.
You said he enjoys catch, maybe make a post playing catch? Or even being in the church, as I know he likes it in there, tidying things up but humming a hymn while he does? Just little things to show he's happy, or at least happier. I think he does sometime have these moments of happiness, but your activity only seems to pick up during times of distress so it's hard to play anything more light hearted?
Enjoys wouldn't exactly be the word, but his canon shows that one of the few times he was outside, he tossed a baseball back and forth with his brother. Hard to tell if he enjoyed it or not, the thing only smiled when he read, but again, that's not a very interactive activity, so I'd be back where I started
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I'm really sorry. I don't want to seem argumentative. I agree with everything you're saying, but I'm just not sure how to fix it. I really want to fix it.
You don't seem argumentative, discussing the problem is what it's all about, and I think you might be going a little overboard in your suggestions.
There's no need to alter his loss or take away his trauma completely; heck, a lot of the fun of helping a hurt character is to see them improve slowly. Not necessarily take an OOC 180 turn into complete happiness, but subtly see the changes start to take place that make for character growth instead of stagnating.
Just take it by steps, nobody is wanting a complete miracle wonder that is OOC for Sora, just the occasional clue what they're doing to help him with hasn't been in vain over the past full year.
That all sounds like great growth, and I'm not suggesting he should become something extraordinarily happy.
Perhaps the problem lies a little bit with your activity. As I've stated before, you tend to only get really active when there is doom and gloom going on, and the happiness is more implied in between, if that makes sense?
Recently I moved overseas and have been pounding the pavement every day trying to find work. After five months of looking and applying at over 75 places, I'm finally a waitress, but I need to find more work. To stay in the country, I have to go to grad school, and to go to grad school, I have to find more work. To find more work, I have to stay in the country
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I appreciate that everyone has a life outside of RP and my concern was perhaps badly worded, I wasn't intending to bash you for poor activity overall, only that you only seem to get active when there is drama to be had.
It's not about giving something back material, and none of his CR care if he's a good cook or good at knitting or anything like that. A smile every so often and a bit of peace is the only reward needed for the people who care about him.
"I feel like I don't have very much of worth to say or add. As a child character, he only has platonic relationships, which, after a point, finally plateau, and simply having a contented child be content is not very interesting for other people to play off of..."Might I disagree? This is where the problem is stemming from, that there isn't any contented child interactions and I think a lot of his CR would find it interesting to do that as well as comfort him and reassure him
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I've noticed that Sora has now been in Paradisa for a full year, and I'd like to address a couple of concerns I have with you. I'll say first off that I don't know the canon, and thus these aren't characterisation issues per se.
While I know that Sora is frail and has had a terribly traumatic life, I find it a little hard to believe that after a full year of tender care and good meals he is still falling over if he stands up for too long. A year is more than enough time to build muscle mass and body fat, so even if he was still timid, there should be no reason he is still frail.
I don't claim to be an expert on child psychology, far from it, especially those who have been abused so dreadfully. But I can't say that I've seen any improvement in Sora's trust or confidence, despite having a loving family and friends for a full year reaffirming his safety and affection. I don't think he should be Smiler McGee, as he has had a lot of trauma and that doesn't fade entirely, but perhaps a little improvement might be nice to see ( ... )
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It's good that you recognise that you need to take a step back from traumatising him for the sake of his CR; and I'll probably link this crit to his immediate CR so they can be assured of that as well.
I'm not saying he's a burden or a problem, but I don't remember seeing a happy post with him at all. He's got a loving family now, and maybe it might be nice for that CR (not especially myself, as we don't interact often) to have interactions that are not all wholly heartbreaking for one reason or another.
Thanks for listening and taking this on board.
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You said he enjoys catch, maybe make a post playing catch? Or even being in the church, as I know he likes it in there, tidying things up but humming a hymn while he does? Just little things to show he's happy, or at least happier. I think he does sometime have these moments of happiness, but your activity only seems to pick up during times of distress so it's hard to play anything more light hearted?
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There's no need to alter his loss or take away his trauma completely; heck, a lot of the fun of helping a hurt character is to see them improve slowly. Not necessarily take an OOC 180 turn into complete happiness, but subtly see the changes start to take place that make for character growth instead of stagnating.
Just take it by steps, nobody is wanting a complete miracle wonder that is OOC for Sora, just the occasional clue what they're doing to help him with hasn't been in vain over the past full year.
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Perhaps the problem lies a little bit with your activity. As I've stated before, you tend to only get really active when there is doom and gloom going on, and the happiness is more implied in between, if that makes sense?
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It's not about giving something back material, and none of his CR care if he's a good cook or good at knitting or anything like that. A smile every so often and a bit of peace is the only reward needed for the people who care about him.
"I feel like I don't have very much of worth to say or add. As a child character, he only has platonic relationships, which, after a point, finally plateau, and simply having a contented child be content is not very interesting for other people to play off of..."Might I disagree? This is where the problem is stemming from, that there isn't any contented child interactions and I think a lot of his CR would find it interesting to do that as well as comfort him and reassure him ( ... )
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