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?
Finally; and this is my main concern, you seem to have a tendency to try and throw Sora into the most traumatic situations you can, and then let his CR pick up the pieces. I know it's fun to occasionally go the trauma route, but it's not fair on his closest CR to always have to be worried about him.
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.
This is my fault and I know it.
I'm trying to back off, especially because I know Sora doesn't exactly have a large group of support, so it exhausts the group he has. I know I've wronged his CR over and over with this, and I apologize. It's not fair on everyone's part, especially his core family group. I know it's not enjoyable CR, and I've been trying to avoid it, honestly.
I've been trying to have him opted out of the more traumatic plots- starting with the pirate ones in particular, and anything else relatively unhappy he'll be barred from for the next six months at the very least. I don't think, and it's stupid and I get overexcited and at the very least masochistic with him, and I haven't been thinking of the other players.
Medically, I've been using a few studies on malnutrition over a long term. Sora's certainly thickened since he arrived, but after almost twelve years of pretty terrible malnutrition, it's at the very least stunted his growth and tossed all sorts of hormones out of whack, particularly in the stages of bone density and anemia. Even in recovery, the body has a hard time absorbing proteins, which leads to underdeveloped muscles and other things. While he's been very well-looked after for a year, it's something that's very damaging on the body for such a long time (if we're going to be honest about it, because, LOL, manga, he probably shouldn't have survived given what he'd been dealing with, but hey.) After a year, he should be fairly well-recovered, but any sense of stress can cause the problems to resurface.
However, removing the stress (See above about removing stress), he should be able to recuperate enough to be functional and healthy. He won't ever be particularly super-strong (Even when being given godmode powers as a teenager later in life, he still has a hard time with strength for long periods of time). So he'll never be able to run the Boston Marathon, but I will try and not have him be useless and a burden on his CR, and for the sake of his family I'll bend to whatever they want.
His CR is precious to me, and I know I haven't been treating it very well. I'm sorry, thank you for coming to me, and I'll endeavor to be less of a problem in the future.
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.
Mainly, I guess, is that he's still not entirely sure what makes him happy, particularly because his upbringing didn't expose him to things most children would enjoy. Things that make Sora happy are sort of non-concrete and hard to bounce things off of. (For example in canon, he seemed to enjoy rays of light that came from a church window, smells and things) It's a strange kind of personal enjoyment that's hard to get across, but he also does things like play catch (or... more like he caught it and then rolled it back, goddamnit Sora why are you so useless at being a person.)
Wishing makes him nervous because he was more or less taught not to ask for things or want things, but perhaps after a year, he's grown used to the castle not lashing out at him for things he wants. Reason being that perhaps having an interactive object might make it easier for others to join in? Would something like that help? An esoteric dreamy-post about liking pools of sunlight might make it hard, so his happier/mellower posts aren't as attractive? Giving him something to play with/mess with/talk about could make it easier?
I'm assuming since you're linking, these concerns aren't just yours, so would this help?
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...
LOL he actually does go about the church quite a bit and encourage people to light candles for prayer, and uses the censer, but that might be assuming people go INTO the church, which could be presumptuous on my part, and ultimately limiting him to the same CR (people who would go into the church to see him or be around Abel.) So maybe it would be better for him to be out of the church?
His loss at Para is that he can't find his way/directionally impaired/etc, but that would only cause trouble for the people trying to thread with him. I could change his loss? I always found his lack of direction endearing, but it could be annoying to others. What if the loss took out chunks of traumatic memory, would that help? I just feel like it takes a huge chunk out of who he is, but if it helps, I can try to work around it?
I can give him toys and things to play with, books to read, but reading is sort of solitary unless he's being read to, and his CR does so much of that already. He's used to non-material comforts, but those are sort of hard to play through without it seeming incredibly one-sided. He could offer to give things? As it is he's trying to make cakes for people, like he learned from Jyuushiro, but that's not exactly interactive either.
It feels like I need to offer something as reward for dealing with him, and he doesn't really have much to offer. Goddamn, I suck at this. Just smiles and things aren't really satisfying, since the reaction I tend to get is that people seem sad that inconsequential things make him smile, but I'm not sure what physical things he can give them. And, weirder, in-game to have him suddenly turn around in such a way might be alarming? Or, given the nature of the game, I guess that's sort of how those things work. It'd take too long to phase it in, and I don't want to make anyone wait anymore.
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.
I keep thinking I have, but maybe it's just been too subtle...
Before he got to Paradisa, he wouldn't even touch other people, but now he willingly slips his hand in strangers' hands, or even seeks closeness with people he cares about- he let himself say he was Abel's son, when most of canon he's trying to claim he isn't anything, he knows how to laugh now when he barely knew how to smile before, he has a bunny to care for and a family he loves, he talks to people when before, he would sit in the back of a church when a crowd of children played nearby, and now he would probably approach them. To me it feels like he has changed and grown, but maybe it's just not showing outwardly, or enough? Maybe it's because he came from rock bottom that his big steps just sort of seem normal for everyone else.
Sora's always going to be a bit melancholy, even when he finally reaches a happy ending later in life, he still takes it with a bit of weight. And I guess, there's always the looming possibility in Paradisa that something awful could happen. (I can name between his arrival and now at least five different horror events)- I opted for Sora to be on the non-violent boat ride for the pirates event- he's more or less running about the beach at the moment, not reading his journal, since I know he would worry and stress if he knew Jilly was in danger. But I'm worried for the upcoming Riful plot if there's somewhere I can put him where he won't be hit with it again. When there's violence and blood being shouted across the journals, it's hard to ignore, and with a kid with this background, it'd just drag all of those painful memories back. I've been trying to snag the downtime between the events, but I should try harder.
I understand Paradisa isn't meant to be a sunshine-and-rainbows type game, the dark plots have been too appealing to me and I should show more restraint. But I do miss the guarantee of peace for a little bit to let the characters heal and bond without the pressure of danger. But that's just blaming it on the game...
I'm just not sure what to have Sora do that would be affirming but not overeactive, that I haven't done already. Should I do it again and be more forward about it? Is it just slipping through the cracks and being overshadowed by his darker posts?
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...
Maybe the actual problem is that I rush to the darker plots in order to vent out my own distress through him. Which, if I were simply writing alone, might be productive, but now I'm subjecting everyone else to it, which isn't fair in the slightest.
I guess another thing is, when happy things happen, 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, when the goal is meant to be interactive, like yarn to unwind or a puzzle to fix. But when he's happy, he simply isn't as attractive to interact with.
But, I suppose a traumatized child being more traumatized is equally unsatisfying. For someone who has so many needs, Sora has so little to give back for helping him. It's really unappealing for other players. But then, when things are stressful, what little Sora has- smiles and reassurance, actually matter. When things are peaceful, it's simply expected of him. But I'm not sure how to press further.
He's not exactly talented- canon shows his skills being math- but only average- it's only extraordinary because he taught himself with textbooks, but there are far more people in the castle more skilled than he is, so that isn't really something to offer. He can't draw or make things without instructions, and that would bother people to teach him. The only thing that seems to make him cared for is where he came from, and being polite. He's described as dedicated and hardworking, but the only thing he seems to learn is violence... and then knitting, according to the anime canon. But isn't he too young to knit? I suppose if he read a book on hobbies, he could teach himself and make things for people, but that doesn't seem conducive to further interaction. They're only items, and they would only matter to his CR because Sora made them, when a far more quality item could simply be wished into being. And even then, it hinges on pity.
Perhaps I'm overthinking everything, but I'm just so embarrassed to have stepped far enough out of line people are concerned. I want to make my character entertaining and rewarding to play with.
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.
There is no need to press further, just draw a little more attention to what you are already doing and try to make sure you balance your posts out between when things are happening and when there's a lull. You haven't stepped out of line and there's no need to be embarrassed, you haven't done anything wrong, I'm just trying to give you a little concrit and I'm sorry if it's made you feel like you're doing it wrong.
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?
Finally; and this is my main concern, you seem to have a tendency to try and throw Sora into the most traumatic situations you can, and then let his CR pick up the pieces. I know it's fun to occasionally go the trauma route, but it's not fair on his closest CR to always have to be worried about him.
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This is my fault and I know it.
I'm trying to back off, especially because I know Sora doesn't exactly have a large group of support, so it exhausts the group he has. I know I've wronged his CR over and over with this, and I apologize. It's not fair on everyone's part, especially his core family group. I know it's not enjoyable CR, and I've been trying to avoid it, honestly.
I've been trying to have him opted out of the more traumatic plots- starting with the pirate ones in particular, and anything else relatively unhappy he'll be barred from for the next six months at the very least. I don't think, and it's stupid and I get overexcited and at the very least masochistic with him, and I haven't been thinking of the other players.
Medically, I've been using a few studies on malnutrition over a long term. Sora's certainly thickened since he arrived, but after almost twelve years of pretty terrible malnutrition, it's at the very least stunted his growth and tossed all sorts of hormones out of whack, particularly in the stages of bone density and anemia. Even in recovery, the body has a hard time absorbing proteins, which leads to underdeveloped muscles and other things. While he's been very well-looked after for a year, it's something that's very damaging on the body for such a long time (if we're going to be honest about it, because, LOL, manga, he probably shouldn't have survived given what he'd been dealing with, but hey.) After a year, he should be fairly well-recovered, but any sense of stress can cause the problems to resurface.
However, removing the stress (See above about removing stress), he should be able to recuperate enough to be functional and healthy. He won't ever be particularly super-strong (Even when being given godmode powers as a teenager later in life, he still has a hard time with strength for long periods of time). So he'll never be able to run the Boston Marathon, but I will try and not have him be useless and a burden on his CR, and for the sake of his family I'll bend to whatever they want.
His CR is precious to me, and I know I haven't been treating it very well. I'm sorry, thank you for coming to me, and I'll endeavor to be less of a problem in the future.
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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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Mainly, I guess, is that he's still not entirely sure what makes him happy, particularly because his upbringing didn't expose him to things most children would enjoy. Things that make Sora happy are sort of non-concrete and hard to bounce things off of. (For example in canon, he seemed to enjoy rays of light that came from a church window, smells and things) It's a strange kind of personal enjoyment that's hard to get across, but he also does things like play catch (or... more like he caught it and then rolled it back, goddamnit Sora why are you so useless at being a person.)
Wishing makes him nervous because he was more or less taught not to ask for things or want things, but perhaps after a year, he's grown used to the castle not lashing out at him for things he wants. Reason being that perhaps having an interactive object might make it easier for others to join in? Would something like that help? An esoteric dreamy-post about liking pools of sunlight might make it hard, so his happier/mellower posts aren't as attractive? Giving him something to play with/mess with/talk about could make it easier?
I'm assuming since you're linking, these concerns aren't just yours, so would this help?
What do you want to see? I'll give it.
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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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LOL he actually does go about the church quite a bit and encourage people to light candles for prayer, and uses the censer, but that might be assuming people go INTO the church, which could be presumptuous on my part, and ultimately limiting him to the same CR (people who would go into the church to see him or be around Abel.) So maybe it would be better for him to be out of the church?
His loss at Para is that he can't find his way/directionally impaired/etc, but that would only cause trouble for the people trying to thread with him. I could change his loss? I always found his lack of direction endearing, but it could be annoying to others. What if the loss took out chunks of traumatic memory, would that help? I just feel like it takes a huge chunk out of who he is, but if it helps, I can try to work around it?
I can give him toys and things to play with, books to read, but reading is sort of solitary unless he's being read to, and his CR does so much of that already. He's used to non-material comforts, but those are sort of hard to play through without it seeming incredibly one-sided. He could offer to give things? As it is he's trying to make cakes for people, like he learned from Jyuushiro, but that's not exactly interactive either.
It feels like I need to offer something as reward for dealing with him, and he doesn't really have much to offer. Goddamn, I suck at this. Just smiles and things aren't really satisfying, since the reaction I tend to get is that people seem sad that inconsequential things make him smile, but I'm not sure what physical things he can give them. And, weirder, in-game to have him suddenly turn around in such a way might be alarming? Or, given the nature of the game, I guess that's sort of how those things work. It'd take too long to phase it in, and I don't want to make anyone wait anymore.
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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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Before he got to Paradisa, he wouldn't even touch other people, but now he willingly slips his hand in strangers' hands, or even seeks closeness with people he cares about- he let himself say he was Abel's son, when most of canon he's trying to claim he isn't anything, he knows how to laugh now when he barely knew how to smile before, he has a bunny to care for and a family he loves, he talks to people when before, he would sit in the back of a church when a crowd of children played nearby, and now he would probably approach them. To me it feels like he has changed and grown, but maybe it's just not showing outwardly, or enough? Maybe it's because he came from rock bottom that his big steps just sort of seem normal for everyone else.
Sora's always going to be a bit melancholy, even when he finally reaches a happy ending later in life, he still takes it with a bit of weight. And I guess, there's always the looming possibility in Paradisa that something awful could happen. (I can name between his arrival and now at least five different horror events)- I opted for Sora to be on the non-violent boat ride for the pirates event- he's more or less running about the beach at the moment, not reading his journal, since I know he would worry and stress if he knew Jilly was in danger. But I'm worried for the upcoming Riful plot if there's somewhere I can put him where he won't be hit with it again. When there's violence and blood being shouted across the journals, it's hard to ignore, and with a kid with this background, it'd just drag all of those painful memories back. I've been trying to snag the downtime between the events, but I should try harder.
I understand Paradisa isn't meant to be a sunshine-and-rainbows type game, the dark plots have been too appealing to me and I should show more restraint. But I do miss the guarantee of peace for a little bit to let the characters heal and bond without the pressure of danger. But that's just blaming it on the game...
I'm just not sure what to have Sora do that would be affirming but not overeactive, that I haven't done already. Should I do it again and be more forward about it? Is it just slipping through the cracks and being overshadowed by his darker posts?
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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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Maybe the actual problem is that I rush to the darker plots in order to vent out my own distress through him. Which, if I were simply writing alone, might be productive, but now I'm subjecting everyone else to it, which isn't fair in the slightest.
I guess another thing is, when happy things happen, 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, when the goal is meant to be interactive, like yarn to unwind or a puzzle to fix. But when he's happy, he simply isn't as attractive to interact with.
But, I suppose a traumatized child being more traumatized is equally unsatisfying. For someone who has so many needs, Sora has so little to give back for helping him. It's really unappealing for other players. But then, when things are stressful, what little Sora has- smiles and reassurance, actually matter. When things are peaceful, it's simply expected of him. But I'm not sure how to press further.
He's not exactly talented- canon shows his skills being math- but only average- it's only extraordinary because he taught himself with textbooks, but there are far more people in the castle more skilled than he is, so that isn't really something to offer. He can't draw or make things without instructions, and that would bother people to teach him. The only thing that seems to make him cared for is where he came from, and being polite. He's described as dedicated and hardworking, but the only thing he seems to learn is violence... and then knitting, according to the anime canon. But isn't he too young to knit? I suppose if he read a book on hobbies, he could teach himself and make things for people, but that doesn't seem conducive to further interaction. They're only items, and they would only matter to his CR because Sora made them, when a far more quality item could simply be wished into being. And even then, it hinges on pity.
Perhaps I'm overthinking everything, but I'm just so embarrassed to have stepped far enough out of line people are concerned. I want to make my character entertaining and rewarding to play with.
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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.
There is no need to press further, just draw a little more attention to what you are already doing and try to make sure you balance your posts out between when things are happening and when there's a lull. You haven't stepped out of line and there's no need to be embarrassed, you haven't done anything wrong, I'm just trying to give you a little concrit and I'm sorry if it's made you feel like you're doing it wrong.
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