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Roman Foster
Topic Started: Feb 12 2013, 07:09 AM (387 Views)
Sean
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Internet de geso~
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Name: Roman Foster
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Writing, music, cannabis, retro gaming, political slacktivism

Appearance: Roman Foster is a young Caucasian man of vaguely European descent. He is roughly five feet and seven inches tall, and weighs about 140 pounds; he is of an average build with little muscle definition and a slight potbelly, suggesting a rather sedentary lifestyle punctuated by just enough exercise to avoid health problems. He has a mostly unremarkable face with a strong jawline, an aquiline nose, and large, deep blue eyes. Roman has short, dark brown hair that is slightly longer on top than on the sides and back, and a short (yet unkempt) beard. There is a faint, but long scar on his right cheek extending from just in front of his ear to his upper lip. He typically wears eyeglasses with thick black plastic rectangle frames, but chose to forgo these for the bus ride in favor of a pair of Oakley Batwolf sunglasses with a grey frame and prescription black lenses.

On the day of the trip, he was wearing the aforementioned sunglasses, a black T-shirt for the band Crystal Castles with their singer looking pensive on the front and the band name in white text under, eleven-inch J. Crew chino shorts in graphite, and DC Factory Lite HI skate shoes in monochromatic black, grey, and white.

Biography: Roman Foster was born to middle-class parents in New Orleans, LA on March 20, 1994. His early childhood was almost remarkable in how unremarkable it was; between birth and the age of six, very little of interest happened to him.

He was raised in the Catholic tradition, as his mother hailed from a partly Irish Catholic family; his father was a Southern Baptist, but opted not to raise Roman in that tradition. His first communion and first confession went smoothly, though even at his early age, his parents had decided to wait until he was almost an adult before letting him go through confirmation so as to let him decide for himself which faith he wished to follow.

Roman's love of retro video games was one of the first hobbies he acquired; he grew up playing a Sega Genesis and Nintendo Entertainment System that his father had bought for himself several years before Roman was born, and while this put Roman significantly behind the technological curve for all of his early childhood, he was frankly too young to care and loved it all the same. Often, his reward for being particularly good to a babysitter was to go to the used game shop the next day and pick a couple of games out, which he would then practically devour; he loved everything, from Sonic the Hedgehog all the way to Castlevania and Contra. While this love eventually took a back seat in Roman's mind as greater concerns developed, it never ceased to be one of his hobbies, and any attempt to get him to part with his collection would meet with great resistance as he got older.

At the age of six, Roman was enrolled in a local Catholic elementary school. He quickly became noted by his teachers as being a bright, inquisitive boy, and became a surprisingly voracious reader for his age. His teachers, seeing the potential in the young boy, quickly moved to have him placed in the school's Gifted and Talented program, where he thrived. Over the course of his elementary and middle school years, Roman also developed a knack for creative writing; he would frequently enter into competitions for young writers and poets, and would rather often win as well, earning him small sums of money to spend how he saw fit.

However, Roman, in spite of his intelligence, was not a social butterfly. He was, in fact, somewhat shunned by his peers; this was partly because other parents distrusted Mr. and Mrs. Foster, due to their status as former hippies who never entirely abandoned the mindset, and partly because Roman himself was slightly nerdy and odd and did not take a huge amount of interest in what the other children found fun, spurning football and soccer in favor of books and video games. While his elementary years were reasonably pleasant, they were also somewhat lonely, much to his chagrin. One of the few times that he did go over to another child's house resulted in him being clawed on the face by the child's dog, giving him his distinctive scar on his cheek.

At the age of fourteen, right as he was about to begin ninth grade, Roman's parents were forced to move to Seattle due to a change in Mr. Foster's job. Roman took the news very well; this was perhaps one of the upsides of his lonely schooling, as he had not formed many particularly close ties to others in New Orleans. However, he would gradually begin to think of his Cajun-ness as the strongest cultural tie he had, due to his eclectic ancestry.

In Seattle, Roman entered the public school system and began attending Aurora High School in his freshman year. While he was not particularly a social butterfly there, either, the different atmosphere of public schooling (and, perhaps more importantly, of Seattle) meant that the things that had aroused prejudices against him in Louisiana did not matter as much in the new setting, and he was somewhat less lonely as a result. In addition, his grades continued to be very high; the high standards of his previous school had gotten him accustomed to much more challenging work, and he thrived in honors and AP classes.

On his sixteenth birthday, he got his first iPod, a sixth-generation iPod Classic with one hundred and sixty gigabytes of storage, along with a pair of designer headphones. While he had always been a cursory fan of music, as most people are, this (combined with his parents' gentle nudge towards using BitTorrent to acquire his music rather than buying it) caused his appetite towards it to grow voracious. He quickly began downloading nearly everything he could find, from classic metal (such as the discographies of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest) to indie electronica like Crystal Castles and Chromatics all the way to Wu-Tang Clan and bizarre things like Merzbow and Boredoms; it was as if an entire new world had opened for the boy that could only be accessed through an internet connection and a pair of Skullcandy Ink'd earbuds. He notably gets somewhat irritable if he is deprived of this, in point of fact.

Throughout his life, Roman had been raised to be politically somewhat liberal, though up until he moved to Seattle this was not something he was encouraged to explore due to the typically conservative outlook of Catholics. His parents, being slightly older than usual, had been old enough (if only barely) to protest the Vietnam War at the time it was ongoing and privately took great pride in the fact that they voted for Carter in 1980 and Mondale in 1984; their anti-war, anti-fascist values rubbed off on Roman quite a bit and resulted in him self-identifying as a democratic socialist by the time he was seventeen. While he never really participated in any protests, due to considering himself most likely ineffectual at doing so, he certainly developed a taste for grousing about conservative politicians on Internet forums and social networks. Eventually, his politics would bring him into conflict with the stated views of the Catholic church, due to their distaste for abortion; he chose not to undergo his confirmation due to this, and his revelation to his parents that he was, in fact, agnostic was met with understanding and the implication that they, too, were actually agnostic.

During his junior year of high school, Roman came home one day to find his mother holding an odd sort of hand-rolled cigarette that was producing a smell that he didn't recognize. Being rather quick on the uptake, Roman guessed that the cigarette contained cannabis, and stood there in abject shock for several seconds before retreating to his room. Later that night, his father sat down with him and discussed the plant with him; Roman was not entirely unfamiliar with it, but had never actually tried it, a situation which his father offered to remedy. Roman took him up on the offer, and found himself greatly enjoying it; it made music sound better, it made the TV more interesting, and it even made sleep feel better. While the experience did not greatly change Roman, and he would begin to find the "stoner" stereotype somewhat absurd as a result, he began to treat cannabis as a serious hobby, building a small collection of glassware and finding new and exciting ways to get high without attracting negative attention.

Advantages: Roman's intellect when it comes to matters of objective fact is razor sharp due to his studies and his inquisitive nature. Due to his writing abilities, he has a way with words and can potentially talk himself out of a hairy situation better than most.
Disadvantages: While Roman is not in particularly bad shape, he is not in particularly good shape either and would probably have trouble outrunning the majority of people. In addition, while Roman himself is largely unaware of this, he has a slight physical dependency on cannabis; cannabis withdrawals are extremely mild compared to those from other substances, but they will affect his mental state negatively if he is unable to smoke. Coupled with the fact that his iPod has limited battery life and that a lack of music makes him irritable, this may result in his mental state deteriorating somewhat quickly.
Edited by Sean, Feb 12 2013, 07:19 AM.
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One day, the fabled Ragnarok will come, and as the gods descend to earth and wage war while the world dies around them, WickedIcon will lead the charge, a 12-gauge shotgun in his right hand, and a bottle of Jack Daniels in his left as he rides a steed made of fire and pain.

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BetaKnight
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In some cultures, what I do is considered normal.
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Hi, Sean. Welcome back and sorry about the delay.

Roman Foster is currently DENIED pending some edits. My critique style is to try and hit everything in a single go in order to try and decrease the number of edits required to get the profile up to spec. Places where I have questions or concerns will be tagged in colors and my feedback will be in green.

Let's get started.

Name: Roman Foster
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Writing, music, cannabis, retro gaming, political slacktivism

Appearance: Roman Foster is a young Caucasian man of vaguely European descent. He is roughly five feet and seven inches tall, and weighs about 140 pounds; he is of an average build with little muscle definition and a slight potbelly, (Okay, 5'7" and 140 lbs is well within the normal BMI range for that height/weight combo. I'm a bit confused how Roman has a potbelly. Please elaborate.) suggesting a rather sedentary lifestyle punctuated by just enough exercise to avoid health problems. He has a mostly unremarkable face (I'd like to know what is the shape of Roman's face, please) with a strong jawline, an aquiline nose, and large, deep blue eyes. Roman has short, dark brown hair that is slightly longer on top than on the sides and back, and a short (yet unkempt) beard. (No parenthetical notations in profiles please. Fix all of them so that they work as standard text.) There is a faint, but long scar on his right cheek extending from just in front of his ear to his upper lip. He typically wears eyeglasses with thick black plastic rectangle frames, but chose to forgo these for the bus ride in favor of a pair of Oakley Batwolf sunglasses with a grey frame and prescription black lenses. (A lot of people are wearing glasses with thick plastic frames for fashion reasons. Are these glasses prescription or for show? If they are for prescription, I need more info about Roman’s vision.)

(You are missing any mention of Roman's overall fashion choices and style.)

On the day of the trip, he was wearing the aforementioned sunglasses, a black T-shirt for the band Crystal Castles with their singer looking pensive on the front and the band name in white text under, eleven-inch J. Crew chino shorts in graphite, and DC Factory Lite HI skate shoes in monochromatic black, grey, and white.

Biography: Roman Foster was born to middle-class parents in New Orleans, LA on March 20, 1994. His early childhood was almost remarkable in how unremarkable it was; between birth and the age of six, very little of interest happened to him. (I'm going to need some more background information like Roman's parent’s names. Is he an only child? Do they work? What are their professions?)

He was raised in the Catholic tradition, as his mother hailed from a partly Irish Catholic family; his father was a Southern Baptist, but opted not to raise Roman in that tradition. His first communion and first confession went smoothly, though even at his early age, his parents had decided to wait until he was almost an adult before letting him go through confirmation so as to let him decide for himself which faith he wished to follow. (It is really not unusual to individuals to be near adulthood when they make the sacrament of conformation. The current average age for the making sacrament of confirmation in the US is between 15 and 18 years of age.)

Roman's love of retro video games was one of the first hobbies he acquired; (When did he start playing video games?) he grew up playing a Sega Genesis and Nintendo Entertainment System that his father had bought for himself several years before Roman was born, and while this put Roman significantly behind the technological curve for all of his early childhood, he was frankly too young to care and loved it all the same. Often, his reward for being particularly good to a babysitter, (Is Roman being left with a babysitter a regular occurrence or more of a rarity? As mentioned earlier, you haven’t told me his parents names, what they do for a living, or if Roman has any siblings.) Roman being babysat was to go to the used game shop the next day and pick a couple of games out, which he would then practically devour; he loved everything, from Sonic the Hedgehog all the way to Castlevania and Contra. While this love eventually took a back seat in Roman's mind as greater concerns developed, it never ceased to be one of his hobbies, and any attempt to get him to part with his collection would meet with great resistance as he got older. (You’re going to need to bring this hobby/interest up to date with a lot more details. For example, what type of games does he enjoy at age 18? What systems/platforms does he play on? Does he game online? What are his favorite types of games? Which specific games are his favorites? How long is an average gaming session for him? How frequently does he play? What is it about gaming that he enjoys? Why?)

At the age of six, Roman was enrolled in a local Catholic elementary school. He quickly became noted by his teachers as being a bright, inquisitive boy, and became a surprisingly voracious reader for his age. His teachers, seeing the potential in the young boy, quickly moved to have him placed in the school's Gifted and Talented program, where he thrived. (Most Catholic schools don’t offer GATE programs because they lack the specially credentialed teachers required to develop the program, nor the numbers to sustain such a class. For this to stand, it’s going to need a lot more detail. When was he identified? When was he tested? What sort of GATE activities did Roman participate in? What type of program was it?) Over the course of his elementary and middle school years, Roman also developed a knack for creative writing; he would frequently enter into competitions for young writers and poets, (Where are these competitions? What is he writing about? How many has he won? How much has he won? This needs to be brought up to date since this is the only mention of writing as a hobby and the last time it’s mentioned in here when he’s in elementary school. Is he still writing? What is he writing about? Does he focus on fiction or non-fiction? Is he still entering competitions? What are some of his writing inspirations? How often does he write? What skill level is his writing at?) and would rather often win as well, earning him small sums of money to spend how he saw fit.

However, Roman, in spite of his intelligence, was not a social butterfly. (Your choice of words here implies that being intelligent makes a person very outgoing and that Roman’s disposition is outside the norm. Please rephrase.) He was, in fact, somewhat shunned by his peers; this was partly because other parents distrusted Mr. and Mrs. Foster, due to their status as former hippies who never entirely abandoned the mindset, (What is the hippie mindset? Please explain.) and partly because Roman himself was slightly nerdy and odd and did not take a huge amount of interest in what the other children found fun, spurning football and soccer in favor of books and video games. (Okay, I think it’s really, really odd for other children to not have an interest in video games. Is this really why he’s considered nerdy? Because he likes video games? Also, why would the other parents distrust Roman’s parents? This is going to need some context to explain what it is about his parents that makes him an outcast among his peers at school.) While his elementary years were reasonably pleasant, they were also somewhat lonely, much to his chagrin. One of the few times that he did go over to another child's house resulted in him being clawed on the face by the child's dog, giving him his distinctive scar on his cheek. (This is going to need some more details. Generally speaking, being scratched by a dog doesn’t translate into a scar unless it’s a pretty serious wound. How big was the dog that scratched him? How was this wound treated? How did his parents react? How does Roman feel about dogs in general after this incident?)

(Okay, we have a problem here. Roman and his family live in New Orleans until he is 14. That would make it 2008 when the family leaves New Orleans. On August 23, 2005, Hurricane Katrina decimated the city of New Orleans. I’m going to need A LOT of detail about this period of time in Roman’s life because of the amount of chaos and damage this life-changing event had on all of the citizens of the city. In what ways were the Fosters affect by the storm? Why did they wait for three years to move out of the city after Katrina? What did Mr. Foster do that his company waited three years after Katrina to transfer him out of the city?)

At the age of fourteen, right as he was about to begin ninth grade, Roman's parents were forced to move to Seattle due to a change in Mr. Foster's job. Roman took the news very well; this was perhaps one of the upsides of his lonely schooling, as he had not formed many particularly close ties to others in New Orleans. However, he would gradually begin to think of his Cajun-ness as the strongest cultural tie he had, due to his eclectic ancestry. (In what way is Roman Cajun? There is no prior mention of this at all.)

In Seattle, Roman entered the public school system and began attending Aurora High School in his freshman year. (Why? Why is Roman in public school now when every bit of his educational history is in private parochial schools? Other than meta reason of needing him to be an Aurora student to participate in v5, what is the IC reason for his parents to not enroll him in a private school in Seattle?) While he was not particularly a social butterfly there, either, the different atmosphere of public schooling (and, perhaps more importantly, of Seattle) (no parentheticals) meant that the things that had aroused prejudices against him in Louisiana did not matter as much in the new setting, (There’s no mention of this earlier in the profile. What prejudices are you talking about here?) and he was somewhat less lonely as a result. In addition, his grades continued to be very high; the high standards of his previous school had gotten him accustomed to much more challenging work, and he thrived in honors and AP classes.

On his sixteenth birthday, he got his first iPod, a sixth-generation iPod Classic with one hundred and sixty gigabytes of storage, along with a pair of designer headphones. While he had always been a cursory fan of music, as most people are, this (combined with his parents' gentle nudge towards using BitTorrent to acquire his music rather than buying it) caused his appetite towards it to grow voracious. He quickly began downloading nearly everything he could find, from classic metal (such as the discographies of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest) to indie electronica like Crystal Castles and Chromatics all the way to Wu-Tang Clan and bizarre things like Merzbow and Boredoms; it was as if an entire new world had opened for the boy that could only be accessed through an internet connection and a pair of Skullcandy Ink'd earbuds. He notably gets somewhat irritable if he is deprived of this, in point of fact. (This highlighted section is worded a bit awkwardly. Please fix it. Also, while he’s been exposed to a wide variety of music, which types are his favorite? Who are his favorite artists? What are his favorite songs? I also need the whys to go with these answers, especially since deprivation of music ties into one of his disadvantages.)

Throughout his life, Roman had been raised to be politically somewhat liberal, though up until he moved to Seattle this was not something he was encouraged to explore due to the typically conservative outlook of Catholics. (New Orleans is a party city. In what way are the politics of the city very conservative? Also, this is really Godmodding the entire Catholic population of New Orleans.) His parents, being slightly older than usual, had been old enough (if only barely) to protest the Vietnam War at the time it was ongoing and privately took great pride in the fact that they voted for Carter in 1980 and Mondale in 1984; their anti-war, anti-fascist values rubbed off on Roman quite a bit and resulted in him self-identifying as a democratic socialist by the time he was seventeen. While he never really participated in any protests, due to considering himself most likely ineffectual at doing so, he certainly developed a taste for grousing about conservative politicians on Internet forums and social networks. (If this is the reference to his “slactivism”, it needs a lot more specifics and details. When did he start doing this? What issues is he posting about? What politicians? Where is he posting?) Eventually, his politics would bring him into conflict with the stated views of the Catholic church, due to their distaste for abortion; he chose not to undergo his confirmation due to this, and his revelation to his parents that he was, in fact, agnostic was met with understanding and the implication that they, too, were actually agnostic. (Then why did they enroll him in a religious school and have him make any of his sacraments? I’m very confused by this.)

During his junior year of high school, Roman came home one day to find his mother holding an odd sort of hand-rolled cigarette that was producing a smell that he didn't recognize. Being rather quick on the uptake, Roman guessed that the cigarette contained cannabis, and stood there in abject shock for several seconds before retreating to his room. Later that night, his father sat down with him and discussed the plant with him; Roman was not entirely unfamiliar with it, but had never actually tried it, a situation which his father offered to remedy. Roman took him up on the offer, and found himself greatly enjoying it; it made music sound better, it made the TV more interesting, and it even made sleep feel better. While the experience did not greatly change Roman, and he would begin to find the "stoner" (no quotation marks) stereotype somewhat absurd as a result, he began to treat cannabis as a serious hobby, building a small collection of glassware and finding new and exciting ways to get high without attracting negative attention. (Such as? That needs a detailed explanation. This distain for the stoner stereotype as being absurd is really odd when he thinks smoking weed makes music sound better, tv more interesting, and sleep feel better. Again, this interest needs A LOT more detail. So his parents want him to partake of illegal substances? They offer it to him? A serious weed hobby is an expensive hobby. How is he paying for his bongs, pipes, and glassware? How is he financing his smoking? Who is his dealer? How did he get in contact with this person initially? How frequently does he smoke? How much does he smoke?)

Advantages: Roman's intellect when it comes to matters of objective fact is razor sharp due to his studies and his inquisitive nature. (There is no discussion of this anywhere in the biography.) Due to his writing abilities, he has a way with words and can potentially talk himself out of a hairy situation better than most. (Writing takes time. How does this translate into having to be verbally sharp in face-to-face situations? This needs a lot more elaboration, especially since there’s nothing in the biography about Roman being comfortable with people or having good interpersonal skills.)
Disadvantages: While Roman is not in particularly bad shape, he is not in particularly good shape either and would probably have trouble outrunning the majority of people. In addition, while Roman himself is largely unaware of this, he has a slight physical dependency on cannabis; cannabis withdrawals are extremely mild compared to those from other substances, but they will affect his mental state negatively if he is unable to smoke. Coupled with the fact that his iPod has limited battery life and that a lack of music makes him irritable, this may result in his mental state deteriorating somewhat quickly. (I’m sort of confused by these two statements. Are you telling me that without music and weed, Roman can’t function? Please clarify. Also, given the frequency with which he smokes, how is it that his lung function isn't affected by his marijuana habit? And what about his impaired vision?)

(Other issues that need to be addressed: No discussion of his eye sight, no mention of his relationship with his parents, no mention of his current GPA, no mention of his favorite/least favorite subjects in school, not mention of who he socializes with or where he falls in the school’s social groupings, and no mention of his post-graduation plans.)

Okay, that should do it for now. Once you have made the necessary adjustments to Roman's profile, post here, and I will give Roman another going over.
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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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