Character’s Name: Emilia Hope Lockhart
Novel Character or Original: Original
Age: 16
Godly Parent: Psyche
Person being used to portray this character: Michelle Trachtenberg
Brief history or personality description of your character (if OC):
Personality: Emilia is a soft spoken girl who is often more introverted but when someone gets close enough to her, she opens up. It takes her awhile to open up to someone, but once she does you can really see her blossom. She’s a very sweet girl who always tries to be considerate of others and always tries to make people smile.
Bio: Emilia, unlike most demigods, has known about the godly blood running through her veins throughout her entire life. She lives alone with her father, a university professor, yet she rarely gets to spend time with him. Emilia will spend most of her time alone in the garden wondering about her mother, and if she’s lonely enough, praying to her. Despite knowing she was a demigod, Emilia has only been aware of Camp Half-blood since the age of 12. The only reason stayed home all this time was she hoped she could become closer with her father, but he has been growing apart from her for years and she’s finally decided he’s not going to change, which lead to her voluntarily entering camp.
Give me a para sample of who you RP:
It was midday when she had made her decision. Her mind was made up. He had forgotten and ignored her for the last time. Today was the day she would leave to where she truly belonged. Emilia quickly stuffed her belongings into an old backpack she had lying around collecting dust. This was finally it. A day she always denied but knew it would come despite all her objections. The day she would finally leave behind the ordinary life she knew and join those just like her. She had hoped it would never come to this. She hoped finally her father would pay attention to her, but no. He had been drifting away from her for years. Whether it was out of bitterness towards her mother or not was unclear, but that was no excuse to Emilia. For years she felt like she had been living with a stranger as she desperately tried have her father be a part of her life. She might as well have been living alone. She always tried to get her father to attend her school functions, or just to have a conversation with her with no success. Now she had finally had enough. She quickly grabbed the last of her belongings she slammed the door to her room as she made her way out of the house. As she passed by her father’s office, she begged and pleaded internally for him to turn around and stop her but to no avail. He didn’t even notice her leaving. Emilia sighed, fully aware that that was going to happen. ‘Why do I set myself up for so much disappointment?’ Crestfallen, she left the house she never felt at home in, wondering if he would ever notice she’d gone but being fully aware that he wouldn’t.
As Emilia walked the distance to her destination, she couldn’t help but look back every few moments to see if maybe…just maybe, her dad was following behind her. ‘You need to stop that, Em. You know he’s not there. Just stop it.’ As her mind warred with itself, the road seemed to stretch and she soon realized she severely underestimated the distance between her and camp. Day was immediately overtaken by Night yet still the distance taunted Emilia as her paranoia heightened with the darkness creeping in, like a predator lying in wait for it’s prey. Suddenly, she heard branches snapping as if a large beast were charging at her. Whether this was a manifestation of her fear, or an actual monster, it didn’t matter. Regardless, Emilia quickly broke into a sprint seeking desperate escape. She ran as fast as her body would possibly allow her, running on pure adrenaline. Then she heard the hideous cry of the demon, which only confirmed it wasn’t her mind creating monsters, it was really a beast chasing her. Forcing her body to run beyond their limits and refusing to turn and see what exactly was behind her, she saw as the sign leading into camp’s entrance was fast approaching. Her eyes filled with tears as she desperately bounded to freedom leaving the beast behind to claw at the magical barrier surrounding camp. She let out a deep sigh of relief and tried to recapture her lost breath causing her lungs to expand painfully. Trying not to focus on her painful breaths, she took in all of her surroundings. This was her sanctuary. Camp Half-Blood; her new home.
RPer’s note: Hey guys! I know Flo is tired of people sayin’ their paras aren’t good and stuffs (I pay attention to these things, lovelies. And I will gladly agree to your terms.) So instead, I will say this. I don’t write paras and stuff often, so constructive criticism would be much appreciated but only on the condition that it is not harsh/brutal criticism. (I’m a bit sensitive.)
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Hi there, love! The presence of my nickname in that note might have summoned me, hehe. So yes, constructive criticism it is — because we’re not exactly brutal, are we?
Anyway, about your baby right here. Well, my mind could be playing tricks on me, but I think she’s the first child of Psyche we’ve had, if not ~ever~, then at least in a long, long while, and it’s quite nice to see people keep aiming for originality. It’s even close to a motto for Emilia, because there are a lot of tiny details about her personality and bio that change from what we usually get, but without it making her sound too unlikely. It also makes sense that she wouldn’t get attacked by monsters too often (at least, not to the point she’d need camp) given that her mother isn’t a super high ranked deity. So yes, about the bio and all, everything’s good.
Now for your para. First off, the length of it is completely okay, which is important to point out because when you don’t write those often, you can easily write too much just to make sure you’ve written enough, you know what I mean? While reading, I also noticed you have a very nice vocabulary range and know how to use it properly. It definitely screams “this person reads!!!” but doesn’t get in the way of the narration (it happens sometimes, people use all the pretty words they know, yet in the end the text itself doesn’t quite make sense).
I think that as far as hints and advice go, I’ve only got two relevant things to say, and it’s more a matter of style and direction than “stuff to sort out”, really. The first tip is that you could separate the whole thing into several smaller parts, like jump to the next line only or turn a part or another into a whole new paragraph. Then again, it depends on what you’re writing (and what you usually read, some authors aren’t afraid to make one paragraph last 5 pages), but generally it’s nice to let the text breathe a little. (exactly what I’m not doing with this long-ass note HAH)
Second tip-which-isn’t-really-a-tip, don’t hesitate to dwell on things like her thoughts and emotions if you feel it’s necessary. I don’t know just how (un)comfortable you are with the whole para/headcanons ordeal, but don’t hold back just because you don’t want your text to drag or be redundant. In your sample para, the action versus emotion ratio was 50-50, which is most likely the best thing to do for a sample, but it’s okay if some future headcanons are 70-30 or 10-90 and all. But you’ll figure that out on your own, I have faith and trust and pixie dust! /o/
I’ll go add Em to the list now, and here’s to hoping you’ll have fun playing her! :D
