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Karen Idel
Topic Started: Jan 14 2012, 04:36 PM (491 Views)
Grim Wolf
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Name: Karen Idel
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: MMORPGS, Video Games, RTS Games, Chess, Risk, War Games

Appearance: Pale child of two pale parents, Karen, due to an unusually high metabolism, is in spite of her terrible diet and lack of exercise too thin, weighing in at a skeletal 92 pounds, a fact not helped by her complete lack of curves. She favors internet-themed T-shirts and jeans. She has a severe case of acne which mars her features, and her greasy brown hair hangs like a curtain over her face, which is overly pale since she avoids going outside whenever possible. Her eyebrows are weirdly thin. She is relatively short at 5 feet, 2 inches and has AA cup breasts. Her features are angular, emphasizing the contours of her skull. Her dark brown eyes are overly large, and her lips are pale and thin. Her nose is thin and sharp, protruding far out in front of her face. Her large ears are usually hidden by her hair.

Biography: Karen Idel was born the only child of Ralph and Elena Idel, and has lived in Seattle all her life. As a child, asthma prevented Karen from being as physically active as her peers, though it did not prevent her from wanting to join them. At the age of 7, she successfully evaded her teacher's attention and joined other kids for a game of kickball outside. She managed to deliver a fantastic kick and took off running, but by the time she was headed to second base she'd triggered a powerful asthma attack, which left her collapsed, gasping, unable to see but quite conscious. After her near-death experience, she gave up on physical activity, and also developed hypochondria so as to avoid ever being in such danger again.

She found her need for entertainment in video games, which did not require her to exert herself or leave her house and allowed her to achieve some measure of competence at something outside of sports. She became extremely good, but as she became better, she lost interest in others, and stopped inviting people over. Even when her asthma slowly receded, she refused to leave her comfort zone, refused to go outside and play with others, refused to stop playing her games.

This sudden introversion would likely have earned her parent's attention and worry, except for their own martial problems. When Karen was 10 years old, the strains lying beneath her parents relationship began to edge towards divorce. As their marriage fell apart, Elena and Ralph could spare less and less attention for their daughter, even as they fought for custody rights. Karen's introversion became more solidified as her parents screamed at one another, and she withdrew still farther into herself to avoid the kind of emotional tangles that led to such pain as her parents experienced. The battle was fierce, and ended in them agreeing to share joint custody of her at the age of 13. Both parents blamed themselves for their daughter's introversion, never challenging her or forcing her to leave her comfort zone for fear of hurting her more.

When she was 14, her loneliness, solidified by her parents' clear guilt, also became coupled with a fierce pride. Karen is very, very good at strategic games--she first bested her parents at Chess when she was six years old, and she has been a competent Risk player since the age of 9. She is top-ranked in most ladders of RTS games, and the only social interaction she actively participates in are the local strategy games hosted here and there throughout Seattle. She finds such games to be a validation of her intelligence, a clear sign that her way of doing things is better than others--that she is smarter, that her peers (even those with the same interests as her) are far stupider than she is. Due to her high intelligence she does well in school, but her attention is consumed by the various games she plays, and whatever social life she has present at the school is limited to the game clubs she reluctantly participates in.

Karen is highly intelligent, antisocial, and fairly paranoid. She prefers to be solitary in all endeavors--in online games she works with others only when she absolutely must. In MMORPGs, she assumes attempts by others to befriend her are attempts to steal her resources. Although her hypochondria has been much diminished, it still underlies some of her actions--while not caring about her appearance (as she has no faith in romance due to her parents divorce), she washes her hands if she senses some exposure to possible danger, and is careful to wash any areas prone to infection. She fears relationships, fears death, and fears others.

Advantages: Karen is very intelligent and has a very strategic mind. She is overly cautious and does not value other people very much, which will enable her to function without being betrayed. Assuming she stays under control, she will be able to manage her resources excellently and use them to great effect.
Disadvantages: Karen lacks any real muscle development. She has no stamina, no upper body strength, and no speed to her. She has not developed many friendships. And because she is so sheltered, difficult situations will likely cause her severe emotional distress, which will be further exacerbated by her remnant hypochondria.
Edited by Grim Wolf, Jan 15 2012, 09:34 PM.
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Megami
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Hi there!

I'll be helping out with profiles for pre-game since part of our staff team is still away, so I'll be critiquing your profile for you. For now, Karen's going to be denied, pending just a few revisions and elaborations, so don't get discouraged.

The first bit of information in Karen's profile works really well. I immediately get the impression that she's a gamer girl, so you've got a solid foundation going from the beginning paragraph.

Moving on to the appearance, there are a few things I'd like to point out. The first thing that sticks out is the sentence about Karen being "too thin". I feel like this flows a bit awkwardly, because her weight isn't listed until several sentences later in the section. I would re-word this to possibly include her height and weight in conjunction with this fact. It will make the section flow a little better. On a related note -- and this is just a random factoid, not a "you must change this", but at 5'2" and 99 pounds, Karen is actually only about 10 pounds underweight. Satisfactory BMI levels for someone of that height range from 109 to 136. I only want to point this out, because I'm not sure how underweight you intended to make her.

Moving on with her appearance, we have some key facts about Karen's appearance, but it looks like a few also got left out. Her hair and eye color have been omitted, and I feel like we should have more of a description of her face. For instance, what kind of eyebrows does she have? How are her nose, mouth, and jaw shaped? Does she have any piercings? Does she wear makeup, or prefer a natural look? How long is her hair? Why is it greasy? How long as she suffered from acne? Also, what ethnicity is she?

Asking yourself questions like these will help flesh out Karen's appearance and help to better portray your mental image of the character to your readers.

Moving along to her biography, the first thing that jumps out at me is Karen's serious asthma attack. If this was traumatizing enough for her that she stopped participating in sports, I feel like it should be expanded on a bit. What happened? Why was it so serious? How old was she at the time? Did she play sports before this happened? Or did she always shy away from them because of her asthma?

You also mention that up until recently she was a hypocondriac. What kind of ailments did she complain about? Why did this stop?

The next paragraph, regarding Karen's withdrawal into herself, flows really well and very clearly describes the effects her parents' divorce had on her. Excellent job here. How old was she when this occurred?

In the next paragraph, "our" is accidentally used in the place of "are" in the sentence "... her peers (...) our stupid".

This is a solid start for the character, but again, there are a few things omitted from the profile that I'd like to see expanded upon. Has Karen always lived in Seattle? You cover her father and mother, but is she an only child? Which parent wound up with custody of Karen? Did they re-marry? If so, does she have any step-siblings? Do they still have the same laissez-faire attitude about Karen's introversion now that she's in high school?

What about school? How does Karen do in school? What kind of grades does she make? Are there any classes in particular that she really enjoys, or really dislikes? Does she have any friends at all? Is she involved in any clubs, like perhaps the school chess club, or is she too uncomfortable with the social interaction to join something like that?

Looking over her interests again, how does she interact with other players online? How long has she been playing MMOs? What kind of video games does she like to play?

Hopping down to the disadvantages section, I notice you stated that she isn't very well-liked by any of her peers. I would reword this to make it more open-ended. She definitely doesn't have to be popular, but there are at least some students on roster who are pretty indifferent to their classmates -- enough so that they might try to be nice to her, or not notice her at all. Also, I notice you didn't list her asthma in your disadvantages. Is this no longer a problem in present day?

It's a good start overall, and you've got a good base to work with. Karen just needs a little fleshing out here and there to round her out a bit.
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Grim Wolf
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Corrections complete. Should be in order. Gotta get back in the swing of these things.
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V6 Players

Tara Behzad: "They don't get to decide how I die."

Lizzie Luz: "I don't want to go."

Alex Tarquin: "No more masks."

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Megami
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Double check your wording on the first sentence in the appearance, it's a fragment. ;)

Also, you might put in a paragraph or so to cover Karen's school life.
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Grim Wolf
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Edited to instead become a MONSTROUS SENTENCE.

And I didn't want to add a paragraph, but I gave a sentence at the end of her strategic games paragraph.
Want to buy my book? See my short stories? Read my fanfiction? Visit my website!

V6 Players

Tara Behzad: "They don't get to decide how I die."

Lizzie Luz: "I don't want to go."

Alex Tarquin: "No more masks."

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Megami
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Misa Achtland

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