Alright so... if you don't mind me addressing the points I find confusing or somewhat nonsensical.
The thing is... reading and an overall level of literacy is something you would expect from an upbringing among scholars, not blacksmiths. That is not to say that a blacksmith can't somehow be educated and literate and a bookworm or what you have, but your standard, run of the mill blacksmith is probably more concerned about his craft and trade, and probably know a lot how to bend and forge metals and alloys, but why would they bother with books, except as a hobby? In any case, there is absolutely no apparent logical link between having blacksmithing parents and a very good literacy upbringing. You might need another reason, or to elaborate on that a bit.
Edit: you seem to elaborate on that a bit on the history section, that he actually taught himself due to his own passion for books. Sounds fine by me, but I think you might need an explanation to capitalize a bit on that. What made your character suddenly craving for books, reading stuff, etc? If I take mine for example, she loved that kind of stuff because she actually felt like a misfit in a society where books are not always the standard fare for children and adults alike, except scholars, guildmasters, archivists and conjurers. At best, her family was into books on botany and herbariums, because that was their trade. Why did she chose to chase after every spooky or cool book she could get her hand on? Because she felt like a misfit and tried to evade her condition through her own, naive, almost futile dreams. If that makes sense?
The positives to me are the combat (basic sword and shield) and crafting skills (blacksmithing), that seem all but over the top, and flesh out the character more and are one of the best traits that give an overall direction to the character in my opinion. You can definitely capitalize on that.
The chocobo story can also act as a good emotional story to forge your character personality.
Character seems to be a good old fashioned, tradition ridden (values hard work and respect) paladin archetype. It might be a bit cliché left like that without any other twist, but it works. Wants to protect everyone, gets riled up by human misery and exploitation... Over used troped just left at that I think, but it's a good start otherwise.
Overall now, if I may be blunt, your character read like a mishmash of things put together with the hope they make sense. To me at least, they don't. You have some interesting bits that could form a basis for things to happen, but they get literally drowned into the amount of things that I find either rubbish or out of place.
The whole thing feels to me like Mary-Sue-ism associated with Weeboo-ism, anchored in a good dose of a brooding Shonen manga main character tropes. Overall, and I know you didn't bring your FC concept here, but coupled with it, it tends to be reminiscent of your usual young shonen hero afflicted by being chosen by a primal as its bearer.
Please keep in mind that a lot of those tropes are definitely not inherently bad, as some good fiction characters directly stem from them or even inspired them, but put that way and especially associated with generally very negative concepts like Mary-Sueism and Weeaboo-ism, especially in roleplay, it can lead to a few cringe worthy things. And generally it just ends up in breaking suspension of disbelief, at least for me.
Then, to everyone's their tastes I guess. That's for my honest feedback.
Quote:Vocabulary/reading level: Very good. He was mentored throughout life by his parents, father being a weaponsmith and mother a blacksmith.
The thing is... reading and an overall level of literacy is something you would expect from an upbringing among scholars, not blacksmiths. That is not to say that a blacksmith can't somehow be educated and literate and a bookworm or what you have, but your standard, run of the mill blacksmith is probably more concerned about his craft and trade, and probably know a lot how to bend and forge metals and alloys, but why would they bother with books, except as a hobby? In any case, there is absolutely no apparent logical link between having blacksmithing parents and a very good literacy upbringing. You might need another reason, or to elaborate on that a bit.
Edit: you seem to elaborate on that a bit on the history section, that he actually taught himself due to his own passion for books. Sounds fine by me, but I think you might need an explanation to capitalize a bit on that. What made your character suddenly craving for books, reading stuff, etc? If I take mine for example, she loved that kind of stuff because she actually felt like a misfit in a society where books are not always the standard fare for children and adults alike, except scholars, guildmasters, archivists and conjurers. At best, her family was into books on botany and herbariums, because that was their trade. Why did she chose to chase after every spooky or cool book she could get her hand on? Because she felt like a misfit and tried to evade her condition through her own, naive, almost futile dreams. If that makes sense?
The positives to me are the combat (basic sword and shield) and crafting skills (blacksmithing), that seem all but over the top, and flesh out the character more and are one of the best traits that give an overall direction to the character in my opinion. You can definitely capitalize on that.
The chocobo story can also act as a good emotional story to forge your character personality.
Character seems to be a good old fashioned, tradition ridden (values hard work and respect) paladin archetype. It might be a bit cliché left like that without any other twist, but it works. Wants to protect everyone, gets riled up by human misery and exploitation... Over used troped just left at that I think, but it's a good start otherwise.
Overall now, if I may be blunt, your character read like a mishmash of things put together with the hope they make sense. To me at least, they don't. You have some interesting bits that could form a basis for things to happen, but they get literally drowned into the amount of things that I find either rubbish or out of place.
The whole thing feels to me like Mary-Sue-ism associated with Weeboo-ism, anchored in a good dose of a brooding Shonen manga main character tropes. Overall, and I know you didn't bring your FC concept here, but coupled with it, it tends to be reminiscent of your usual young shonen hero afflicted by being chosen by a primal as its bearer.
Please keep in mind that a lot of those tropes are definitely not inherently bad, as some good fiction characters directly stem from them or even inspired them, but put that way and especially associated with generally very negative concepts like Mary-Sueism and Weeaboo-ism, especially in roleplay, it can lead to a few cringe worthy things. And generally it just ends up in breaking suspension of disbelief, at least for me.
Then, to everyone's their tastes I guess. That's for my honest feedback.
Balmung:Â Suen Shyu
