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Penny Huang
Topic Started: Nov 18 2012, 05:40 PM (438 Views)
Brackie
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personification of adhd
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Name: Penny Huang
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Cheerleading, Singing, Piano/Keyboard, Art, First-Person Shooters

Appearance: Penny stands at an average 5'4", 122lb, with all the features common of a young girl of Korean descent. She has brown eyes topped with thin eyebrows and a pair of brown, rectangular-framed prescription glasses for long-sightedness which she replaces with contact lenses occasionally, and a pale skin tone. Her nose is small, her face is narrow but shapely, and her hair, dark brown, is long enough in length to reach the curve of her back and also part at the front with side-swept bangs that cover the sides of her face. Her lips are thin, and usually look like they're on the way to a smile.

Modest is also a good word to describe her sense of style at least when she's not cheerleading. Penny doesn't wear anything more outlandish or sexualized than a plain t-shirt, jumper and long skirt in the winter, and plain t-shirt and knee-length skirt in the summer. She occasionally spruces it up when she can afford to, but her mother usually prevents her from going out in anything outlandish, at least to her standards. She has no piercings or tattoos, her only notable accessories being her glasses and a thin silver chain around her neck that she keeps under her clothing. On the day of the abduction, Penny was wearing a red v-neck shirt visibly showing off her silver chain, a bright blue knee-length skirt, and white sneakers with yellow socks. She chose to wear contacts when she arrived at school, but she kept her glasses on her person just in case.

Biography: Penny was born in Seattle, Washington to Jin "Julia" Huang, a fourth-generation Korean-American and hiking guide and Mattie Parker, an switchboard operator in the local hospital. They lived an almost normal life for a good eight years, the only thing out of place being in their life being that Julia wanted to keep her last name when they married due to a desire to keep her family name going. However, when Penny was eight years old, her parents divorced. Her father and mother had been growing apart, but after a particularly nasty fight, the two decided that they would be best off splitting up. Not even willing to stay together for Penny's sake, the two went through a quick and almost painless divorce, and Mattie moved interstate to go pursue other options in his life. Penny would always resent her mother deep down for, at least in her eyes, driving her father away. She never believed for a moment that her father would simply leave the family, so she grew slightly distant from her mother. She would visit her father, who moved to Portland, Oregon, every year or so since the divorce and got along great with him and his at-the-time girlfriend. However, since Julia was all Penny had in terms of a loving caring parent, she at least appreciated what she had.

School was nothing special either. Like any normal girl she would make friends, make enemies, get in trouble occasionally and get a kick out of being in the limelight. The friends she made were wide and varied, since she never really belonged to a certain clique, but would simply just make friends with whomever she fancied making friends with and whoever would put up with her. This pattern never faded from her life. At Aurora High, she would become friends with different kinds of people from cheerleaders to gamer geeks, with no distinguishing between whom she preferred.

From an early age, Penny enjoyed the arts. Two arts in particular she enjoyed were music and painting, both of which she held in high regard. During her second year of middle school, she discovered an interest in the piano, and begged her mother to pay for lessons so she could learn how to play. Julia agreed on the condition that she wouldn't give up when it got hard, and she would continue until she had finished as many of the examinations as she could muster. She was a slow learner, but Penny had a lot of enthusiasm and appreciation for the piano, and managed to claw her way with lots of practice up to Piano Grade 4. She liked playing classical music, but also liked to switch it up now and again with some modern pop music.

Meanwhile, she found an enjoyment in paintings that bordered on the abstract, since in her opinion art was not supposed to make sense. Penny enjoyed making canvas paintings that both made sense and made absolutely no sense at the same time, and varied between reaching placement in contests and merely getting honorable mentions. Her favourite artist was Jackson Pollock. It wasn't about making something beautiful or something that people would enjoy, it was all about letting her express herself in art form. It was the same philosophy that she held in regards to piano and a philosophy she made into a personal motto by the time she was in her late teens; "It's not about making something good, it's all about making me happy."

Over the next few years, she would find many more things that would make her happy. She discovered around the time she was fifteen that she had an excellent singing voice, and joined the thousands of people who also had excellent singing voices and posted videos of herself playing the piano and singing pop songs onto YouTube, where she gained a weak but esteem-boosting following of around a hundred people. She also found out she enjoyed playing first-person shooter games by chance when she was sixteen, when visiting a friend's place and finding out that shooting virtual people was a great source of stress relief. She managed to sneak a few of these games such as Call of Duty 4 and Left 4 Dead onto her and her mother's shared computer and played them occasionally instead of studying. She became pretty good at them, but they never dominated her life, since she did have homework to do and friends to hang out with most of the time. Finally, she discovered a certain enjoyment in watching the cheerleaders do what they did at every sporting event they were needed. On a whim at the start of her junior year she signed up for tryouts to join the Cheer squad and despite a slightly shaky first impression, she made it on. The only real objections her mother had to any of the hobbies she knew about (her gaming hobby was still a secret from Julia) was to the way she dressed as a cheerleader, but Penny managed to talk her mother into accepting it since it did wonders for both her social life and going towards her extra-curricular credit for college.

Her mother was simply a presence in her life after Penny's father left her. She was a stereotypical mother, always making sure she studied every night, that if she went out with friends she was dressed appropriately, and had a very harsh stance on boys. Julia would never let her daughter openly have a boyfriend, since she didn't trust Caucasian boys, but that was fine with Penny, since despite being a growing teenager she had not seen anyone at her school that caught her eye in particular. She'd flirt with the occasional guy she knew was attractive, and maybe even date one or two behind her mother's back, but her relationships never even passed hand-holding, or even a peck on the cheek if they were lucky. These relationships were never serious in her eyes, since at that point in her life they didn't interest her.

Around people she doesn't know or just met, Penny is not a very interesting person. When she's cheerleading, she puts on an act of peppiness and team spirit, but off the field one could say Penny is quite boring, since she's less inclined to open up to other people if they're a stranger. Around friends and family, however, she opens up and is willing to become more excited over the smaller things, almost lapsing into her cheerleading mood. She's not an introvert, but unless around good company she doesn't really feel the need to speak up unless she has something to say or add to a conversation. She is a smart girl who gets good marks in most of her subjects, enjoying that aspect of her school life almost equally as much as she does the social aspect, so she has her options open in the future even if she can't be happy all the time. Her mother deeply wants her to go to the best college or university in Seattle after high school and take a course that would get her into a high-paying field, such as science or medicine, while Penny herself is looking into other options, such as art colleges in the area, since they seem like something she would enjoy more.

Advantages: Cheerleading has helped Penny become nimble and athletic, which she has over a good portion of her grade. She is also great at boosting morale, which could possibly help her in the short term in regards to a group or alliance.
Disadvantages: Her knowledge of firearms is purely theoretical and from video games, so she could be in trouble if she thinks she knows what she's doing when in reality she has no idea. Penny is longsighted, and has only has one pair of glasses and one pair of contacts on her, and if she loses or breaks both of them her vision would be greatly impaired.
Posted ImagePosted ImagePosted ImagePosted ImagePosted Image
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I can't sing but I wrote you a song

Wrong notes but the melody's so clear

When I'm lost, I'm still close to gold

cause I found my treasure in you
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BetaKnight
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In some cultures, what I do is considered normal.
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Hi Inky. Penny Huang is temporarily DENIED pending edits.

You switch tenses all over the profile, which needs to be addressed.

Name: Penny Huang (Why does Penny have her mother’s last name? Why is she not Penny Parker or Penny Huang-Parker?)
Gender: Female
Age: Eighteen [18] (No parenthetical notation. The number 18 will suffice.)
Grade: Senior [12th] (Same thing. Just put 12th without the brackets.)
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Cheerleading, Singing, Piano/Keyboard, Art, First-Person Shooters

Appearance: Penny stands at a very modest and petite 5'4", (5'4" tall is the average height for an American woman. How is this petite? And I don't understand what makes this height modest.) 122lb, with all the features common of a young girl of Korean descent. She has brown eyes topped with thin eyebrows and a pair of brown, rectangular-framed prescription glasses (which she replaces with contact lenses occasionally) (No parenthesis. Find a way to work this in as standard text.), and a pale skin tone. Her nose is small, her face is narrow but shapely, and her hair, dark brown, is long enough in length to reach the curve of her back and also part at the front with side-swept bangs that cover the sides of her face. Her lips are thin, and usually look like they're on the way to a smile.

Modest is also a good word to describe her sense of style, at school anyway. (The 'anyway' make this sentence tonally off since it sounds very casual. I recommend removing the comma and dropping "anyway.") While at Aurora, Penny doesn't wear anything more outlandish or sexualized than a plain t-shirt, jumper and long skirt in the winter, and plain t-shirt and knee-length skirt in the summer. (These two sentences strongly imply that Penny wears less than modest clothing when not at school since you're pointing out at school, she is covered up. However, this is never discussed anywhere else in the profile. This needs to be addressed in some fashion or the references to her being a modest dresser at school need to be changed to always modestly dressed. Also, cheerleading uniforms are not modest attire. How does she reconcile this with her mother's wishes that she be modestly dressed?) She occasionally spruces it up when she can afford to, but her mother usually prevents her from going out in anything outlandish (at least to her standards) (No parenthesis). She has no piercings or tattoos, her only notable accessories being her glasses and a silver chain around her neck that she keeps under her clothing. (How long is the chain? Is it a herringbone, serpentine, cable, or some other design?) On the day of the abduction, Penny was wearing a red v-neck shirt visibly showing off her silver chain, a bright blue knee-length skirt, and white sneakers with yellow socks.

Biography: Penny was born in Seattle, Washington to Jin "Julia" Huang, a fourth-generation Korean-American and Hiking Guide (hiking guide is not a proper noun) and Mattie Parker, a Washington native and Anesthesiologist (not a proper noun). (So is Julia not a Washington native? I need to know since you specifically said Mattie is.) For the first eight or so years of Penny's life, everything was fine - she grew up without incident, nothing tragic or notable, but the first thing that really affected Penny's life was a few months after she turned eight. (This is a run-on sentence. You might be better served by going with a less cluttered construction and simply stating, “When Penny was eight, her parents divorced.” There’s no reason to be overly flowery. The profile should be “just the facts” and to the point.) Her father and mother had been growing apart, but after a particularly nasty fight, the two decided that they would be best off splitting up. Not even willing to stay together for Penny's sake, the two went through a quick and almost painless (obviously not for Penny) divorce, and Mattie moved interstate to go pursue other options in his life. Penny would always resent her mother deep down for, at least in her eyes, driving her father away. She never believed for a moment that her father would simply leave her, so she grew slightly distant from her mother. (Has her father made no effort to contact her? Has she not seen her father since the divorce? How did the divorce affect the family financially, since an anesthesiologist makes WAY MORE than a hiking guide? How does Penny feel about her father's abandonment? Does she carry any resentment towards him?) However, since Julia was all Penny had in terms of parents, she at least appreciated what she had.

School was nothing special either. Like any normal girl she would make friends, make enemies, get in trouble occasionally and get a kick out of being in the limelight. The friends she made were wide and varied, since she never really belonged to a certain clique, but would simply just make friends with whomever she fancied making friends with and whoever would put up with her. This pattern never faded from her life. At Aurora High, she's friends with different kinds of people from cheerleaders to gamer geeks, with no distinguishing between whom she prefers. (You're switching tenses all over the place. You go from past to future tense, then switch back to past. Please fix this.)

From an early age, Penny enjoyed the arts. Two arts in particular she enjoyed were music and painting, both of which she held in high regard. During her second year of middle school, she discovered a passing interest ('passing interest' means 'temporary or brief interest'. I think you need a different word here.) in the piano, and begged her mother to pay for lessons so she could learn how to play. Julia agreed on the condition that she wouldn't give up when it got hard, and she would continue until she had finished as many of the examinations as she could muster. She was a slow learner, but Penny had a lot of enthusiasm and appreciation for the piano, and managed to claw her way with lots of practice up to Piano Grade 4. (Favorite songs to play? Favorite composers? Favorite type/genre of music to play?)

Meanwhile, (the; I think you're missing a word here) paintings she enjoyed in particular bordered on the abstract, since she was quite knowledgeable by the time she had taken up piano that art was not supposed to make sense. (Please clarify how taking piano made her an art expert and why "art was not supposed to make sense. According to whom is art not supposed to make sense? Again, lacking in details like what are her favorite pieces? Who are her favorite artists? What is it about abstract art that is interesting to her?) Penny enjoyed making paintings that both made sense and made absolutely no sense at the same time, and varied between winning contests and merely getting honorable mentions. (So without any training, she began winning contests and winning honorable mentions? What type of competitions? In what categories is she competing? Using what mediums to create? How many competitions did she enter? Please provide more details.) It wasn't about making something beautiful or something that people would enjoy, it was all about letting her express herself in art form. It was the same philosophy that she held in regards to piano, and a philosophy she made into a personal motto by the time she was in her late teens; "It's not about making something good, it's all about making me happy."

Over the next few years, she would find many more things that would make her happy. She discovered around the time she was fifteen that she had an excellent singing voice, and joined the thousands of people who also had excellent singing voices and posted videos of herself playing the piano and singing onto YouTube, where she gained a weak but esteem-boosting following of around a hundred people. (What does she sing? What style of songs?) She also found out she enjoyed playing First-Person Shooter (not a proper noun) games by chance when she was sixteen, when visiting a friend's place and finding out that shooting virtual people was a great source of stress relief. She managed to sneak a few of these games such as Call of Duty 4 and Left 4 Dead onto her and her mother's shared computer and played them occasionally instead of studying. Finally, she discovered a certain enjoyment in watching the Cheerleaders (not a proper noun) do what they did at every sporting event they were needed. On a whim at the start of her junior year she signed up for tryouts to join the Cheer squad and despite a slightly shaky first impression, she made it on.

Her mother was simply a presence in her life after Penny's father left her. She was a stereotypical mother, always making sure she studied every night, that if she went out with friends she was dressed appropriately, and a very harsh stance on boys (You're missing a verb here). Julia would never let her daughter have a boyfriend, since she didn't trust American boys,(Julia is fourth generation Korean-AMERICAN. That means Julia was born in America to American parents. She is an American. Unless she lived somewhere else, all the boys she was in contact with were Americans as well. This makes no sense.) but that was fine with Penny, since despite being a growing teenager she had not seen anyone at her school that caught her eye in particular. She'd flirt with the occasional guy she knew was attractive, and maybe even "date" (Why is date in quotes? The use of quotes gives the impression that something else, potentially unsavory is happening here.) one or two, but her relationships never even passed hand-holding, or even a peck on the cheek if they were lucky. These relationships were never serious in her eyes. (Why? Why does Penny avoid connecting with any guys? Does this have something to do with being abandoned by her dad? Expand on this some more, please.)

Around people she doesn't know or just met, Penny is not a very interesting person. (Isn't this in conflict with being a cheerleader? Aren't cheerleaders known for being outgoing or at least properly feigning being outgoing? If she is so shy, why did Penny decide to become a cheerleader?) One could almost say boring, since she's less inclined to open up to them if they're a stranger. Around friends and family, however, she opens up a little more and is willing to become more excited over the smaller things. Most of the things she thinks about or wants to stay stay in her head, and her friends are usually the only people who are able to get what's in her head out of her head. One could almost say Penny is an introvert, but she tows the line of actual shyness rather than actually being a shy person. (Actually, that is the EXACT DEFINITION of introversion. So it's not an "almost say". What you've described is introversion. Being an introvert does not make you shy.) She is a smart girl who gets good marks in most of her subjects, so she has her options open in the future even if she can't be happy all the time. (At no point have you told me about her grades as a senior. What is her current GPA? Does she enjoy school? Favorite/least favorite subjects? Plans for herself after graduation? With as controlling a mother as she has, I can't imagine there *not* being some form of higher education plan in place. Is she attending university in Seattle or somewhere else? What does she want to study?)

Advantages: Cheerleading has helped her become nimble and athletic, while a creative mind leaves her able to think of ways to escape most situations, which could work to her advantage. (Nope, sorry. Abstract painting and reading music does not give her an advantage in figuring out how to escape life-and-death situations. Need a different advantage.) While not a real advantage over someone with actual gun knowledge, she's at least a little familiar with how guns work thanks to her affluence ("affluence: 1. A plentiful supply of material goods; wealth; OR A great quantity; an abundance." You said Penny only occasionally plays these games. You need a different word) in shooting games. (No. Handing a real gun and pointing it at someone is NOTHING AT ALL like a shooting game. This is completely unacceptable. It's like saying you could cook a four-course meal because you've played Cooking Mama on your Wii extensively. No.)
Disadvantages: She's not the smallest girl in the class, but she's among them, and would be easily overpowered in direct combat. (She's not that small and she's a cheerleader. She wouldn't be easily overpowered in direct combat since she is not NOTABLY WEAKER THAN THE AVERAGE STUDENT. If she were notably weaker than the average student, she wouldn't be a cheerleader. You can see the problem here.) In addition, many of the guys she's "dated" may feel strung along thanks to her disinterest, which may not work to her advantage on the island. (There's that "dated" in quotes again. It sort of implies that Penny's giving out handies to guys out by the dumpster behind the cafeteria, or something equally unsavory. However, since that isn't the case, why would these guys be upset? They were very brief relationships that were not physical in nature at all. This is her established pattern. It was very clearly explained that Penny isn't a cock-tease, so why would any of these guys want to kill her over this? It makes no sense.)

Okay, you know how this goes. Edits, reply, and I'll give Penny another going over.
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Brackie
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personification of adhd
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Done.
Posted ImagePosted ImagePosted ImagePosted ImagePosted Image
Posted ImagePosted ImagePosted ImagePosted ImagePosted Image

I can't sing but I wrote you a song

Wrong notes but the melody's so clear

When I'm lost, I'm still close to gold

cause I found my treasure in you
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BetaKnight
Member Avatar
In some cultures, what I do is considered normal.
[ *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Still Denied.

You still have not addressed:

- Why PENNY, as the child of Maddie Parker, has always had her mother's maiden name as a surname rather than her father's surname

- Given me any details about the necklace she wears, which is the only accessory she wears so it must be of some significance to her

- Fixed your tense issues in the second paragraph of the bio section

- Two of the three questions I asked about Penny's interest in piano

- Any of the questions I asked about the competition aspect of Penny's art interest

- What her current GPA, favorite/best subjects, least favorite/worst subjects, etc. are.

Please be sure to address these issues in the next edit. If you do not, I will not give Penny her next review until they have been made as outlined in regarding profile critiques thread.

On to the new issues!

"Penny was born in Seattle, Washington to Jin "Julia" Huang, a fourth-generation Korean-American and hiking guide and Mattie Parker, an (a) switchboard operator in the local hospital.

"Not even willing to stay together for Penny's sake, the two went through a quick and almost painless divorce, and Mattie moved interstate to go pursue other options in his life." (You said he moved to Portland, Oregon. Please fix this.)

"Penny would always resent her mother deep down for, at least in her eyes, driving her father away. She never believed for a moment that her father would simply leave the family, so she grew slightly distant from her mother. She would visit her father, who moved to Portland, Oregon, every year or so since the divorce and got along great with him and his at-the-time girlfriend. However, since Julia was all Penny had in terms of a loving caring parent, she at least appreciated what she had."

Okay, this is kind of a two-fold issue that is never addressed. Issue 1 - You said she visits her dad every year and gets along well with him. How is her mother her only “loving caring parent”?

Issue 2 - How does Penny feel about the amount of control Julia enforces on her? I don’t know too many seniors who’s parents control their wardrobe, hobbies, who they socialize with, and who they date. How does her mother’s control mesh with Penny’s philosophy of “It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong as long as it makes me happy”? There's mention of resentment and distance, but you also said that Penny appreciates her mother. Since Penny isn't close to anyone, this is the main relationship in her life and it needs to be explained a bit more, please.

"The only real objections her mother had to any of the hobbies she knew about (her gaming hobby was still a secret from Julia) was to the way she dressed as a cheerleader, but Penny managed to talk her mother into accepting it since it did wonders for both her social life and going towards her extra-curricular credit for college." (No parenthetical text, please.)

"Julia would never let her daughter openly have a boyfriend, since she didn't trust Caucasian boys, but that was fine with Penny, since despite being a growing teenager she had not seen anyone at her school that caught her eye in particular." (Julia MARRIED a Caucasian boy and had a child with him. Also, if she doesn't trust Caucasian boys, shouldn't she be encouraging her daughter to date non-Caucasian boys to ensure that Penny doesn't date a Caucasian? This doesn't make a lot of sense.)

Advantages: Cheerleading has helped Penny become nimble and athletic, which she has over a good portion of her grade. (The struck through text borders on God Modding.)
Disadvantages: Her knowledge of firearms is purely theoretical and from video games, so she could be in trouble if she thinks she knows what she's doing when in reality she has no idea. (Does she think she knows what she's doing because she's played video games? The way this is worded, it's ambiguous at best. Also, not having knowledge of a firearm isn't a disadvantage since most people are unfamiliar with guns.)
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BetaKnight
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In some cultures, what I do is considered normal.
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This character biography has had no alterations for more than two weeks and has been put in the abandoned characters forum. This profile is eligible for resubmission by the handler upon alterations requested from the staff.
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