CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Hey, everyone! Emma the Veritas here. I edited the descriptions of the main protagonists of the first book of my manga, "Silver Dust,'' Lady Roseladia, Simon, and Mr,. Baker, with more edits to come soon!

Queen Satori : A young human woman with blue eyes, cerulean blue hair, fair skin, blue cat ears, and a blue furred cat tail. She is the rightful ruler of the Violet Kingdom and rules over the Shimas. She is a skilled fighter with the sword and loves the Veritas ways and the Christian faith. Satori was named after my close friend, Tori, and is compassionate, kind, humorous, a good politician, loyal, merciful, and faithful.

Roseladia: Lady Roseladia is a human woman Satori's age with dark auburn hair, hazel eyes, and a serious demeanor.She is a relative of Satori. As a baby, she was born on a small moon not far from the planet of our setting, Rythysiah, and under her parents' gentle care, the Lord and Lady of that moon. She and her brother, Dragon, were taught polotics, ettiquite, the love of Christianity, history, and taught all this by tutors, as her parents were taken as prisoners of war as an infant. At age 26, she rediscovered an old prophecy involving her and Dragons' ten children (five on one side and five on the other) and hurried to Rythysiah with the news, hoping to free her relative's planet of a terrible reign of Washimas. This gave Satori hope to revive the Vetitas and hopefully defeat the Washima's dark magic-crazy Empress, Avaritia. Roseladia became the main leader and diplomatic speaker of the soon newly-raised Veritas army. She can be fierce and spunky and is a loyal and witty leader. She also has an array of vast abilities that she aquirred when she was proven to be a true Veritas.

Yuki: Like Satori, Yuki keeps his identity as a human/Shima cross very secret and is a close bodyguard of Satori's . He keeps himself concealed in gold and black armour and wears a helmet and visor over his face. He is a frightening character who wields a scythe in suit of the rest of the bodyguards. On the inside he is truly a softie, and fiercely loyal to Satori and the Veritas. But he can be arrogant, and cocky, and constantly argues with and annoys Satori's close friend, Simon.

Simon Spotson: A Shima who is Satori's best friend with brown cat ears, and dusty brown hair. He has a secret fancy for Satori , and tries to compete constantly with the sometimes arrogant and cocky bodyguard, Yuki. He is humorous, bold, quirky, and intelligent, and tends to fall asleep delving deep into romance novels.

Sam Mellen and Peter 'Splotch' Trunan: Two Shima librarians of the castle. They are almost inseperable as best friends and hold a vast knowledge of literature and history. Sam has red hair, brown cat ears, freckled cheeks and a kind demeanor, while 'Splotch' has golden hair, gold cat ears, mechanical glasses, and a timid yet friendly attitude.

Phantian: The mysterious and playful royal jester who wears a black and gray mask that he is never seen without. He has eerie glowing purple eyes and loves to joke around, though he is highly intelligent and strangely unnerving. He is skilled in energy- manipulation, teleportation, and optical illusions. He also excessively quotes Shakespeare lines, though, being in a different dimension than Earth, how could he possibly know who Shakespeare even is, hm? Tell me if you wanna know or if I should surprise you later

Mr. Baker: A jumpy and aged Shima butler and a close friend to Satori. Baker was also good friends with Satori's parents growing up. He is a great Christian consoler and can impart wisdom from his teacher who disappeared in battle years ago. He has brown hair, brown cat ears, graying whiskers, and silver glasses.

And now I'll add villains!

Empress Avaritia: She is the bloodthirsty, maddened by dark-magic empress and alpha of the Washima race. Her name means greed in Latin; which is exactly her biggest flaw. She, like her satanic ancestor, Empress Summalia, is easily angered and highly sadistic. She doesn't know what's in store, though, as she leaves the former Veritas under less guard and accidentally gives them their chance to revive their faith and create their Christian army. She looks similar to Satori, but with violet hair, black eyes, a thin layer of grayn fur coating her body, and more cat-like features, such as violet cat ears, a tail, cat-like facial features, and retractable claws on her fingers. She is an excellent swordswoman and will kill even for pleasure, though she rarely does this anyways. Avaritia is also skllied in advanced dark magic and truly believes that her form of Christianity is the real religion, and that the Veritas are the evil ones. Really, Avaritia is a lost soul that is being used as a pawn by the Fallen One (Satan) and does have the chance to be redeemed. But only time will tell...

Loato: He is a mysterious and slightly insane warlord of the Washima kingdom and Avaritia's right-hand man. No one knows where he came from, but he means business, and will go to the breaking point for order and his own corrupt version of justice. He was said to have captured Lady Roseladia's parents in battle, so she holds an intense grudge against him. He is egotistical, power-hungry, and madly in love with Avaritia. But he is loyal to his people and a gentleman to Avaritia, whereas he would love to see Roseladia's dying breaths at his feet.

These are just a few of the main protagonists and two of the amin antagonists. I know I didn't give you all the entirety of every character but I promise to update as soon as possible! Thanks for reading and I hope you liked the descriptions! Encouraging critique and questions or tips are welcome and wanted! Thanks again!
Veritas out!

Well, I'm no critic, but I'm sure the real ones will come along quickly enough. I do have one thing to say.
About Phantian. I obviously have no idea where you're planning on going with his character, so I may be way off base with this, but bear with me. From the sound of it, he's going to be one of those "seems light-hearted and fun-loving, but there's really much more to him and he's hiding emotional scars from a dark past", or something along those lines. While that's perfectly fine (and generally my favorite kind of character, I might add), you don't want to make that too obvious. In general, stories don't give lots of details about people's pasts anyway, so mentioning that not much is known about his past isn't really necessary. It's better and more intriguing to introduce the character, maybe make him seem simple and only show the playful and joking side of him at first, then slowly start implementing the other elements of his character, without ever mentioning anything about his past or lack thereof. You don't want your readers to right off the bat realize there's something off about him.

Then again, I could be completely and utterly wrong, or you might have some plan I don't know about, in which case I just need to shut up.
Anyways, this looks really intriguing and I look forward to seeing more of it!

If they're young how does she have ten children? Did someone slip fertility drugs into her food or something and she had octuplets and then two other kids, or what? Or did she just start having kids at like 14?

Nate has a point. 30ish can still be considered "young". And 10 kids? Whoa. Might want to take a closer look at that. Unless she's maybe in her 20s, sterile, and therefore all those kids are hers via surrogate mothers (like in Immortal Rain).

All right, first, a few general comments. Your group seems to be a pretty clean-cut group - not much in the way of shortcomings or things that could become flaws. While you shouldn't go overboard with this, a couple realistically written issues (i.e., things that affect the way they act or make decisions ; more on that later) that each character has shouldn't be too much, and better yet, so that the characters cover for each other These shortcomings are the key to character development, after all, it's hard to improve if you're already perfect. Think about this: there are positive qualities that can cross over and become negatives, like honesty, or an obsession with honor above reason. Additionally, a character's refusal to change can be part of that development, especially if there's something forcing them to change that they're resisting for some other reason.

Something you could work into this, too, is how each character reacts to the presence of the Divine in their midst. This might come across as overly mystical, but think about it: In your world, these Veritas who are going to be the main characters have a physical piece of God's power within them! Go look at how different people in the Bible responded to a face-to-face contact with God, and how each was contacted, especially within the prophets' books. Ezekiel was called through a colossal light-show and getting a scroll jammed down his throat, and it was so overwhelming that after it was over, he just sat down for a week, completely overwhelmed. Jonah ran as fast as he could in the other direction because he didn't want to realize the fullness of God's mercy, and wanted to die when he had to see it done against his own will. That sort of thing. Coming into contact with God changes you. Use that as a starting point.

Other than that, you've got the beginnings of an ensemble cast, which, if you can do it right, can be incredibly rewarding. Just remember that as you're juggling all these characters, what ends up happening is that one or two will be your central characters, and a few others will get the short end of the development stick. (See, for example, Final Fantasy 6 for one that does both well enough, and is the perfect example of that trap.) But no matter what, you need some sort of focus character (or characters) whose actions drive the plot and serve as the readers' entry point into the world, who will gain the empathy of the readers through who they are. This is where letting the interactions and flaws of the characters balance each other out will come into play, where they have to work as a team and yet be their individual selves, identifiable from the mass.

And one last thing, speaking of being identifiable from the mass, your character descriptions are almost all based on their appearances. While you're working in a visual medium, and that's pretty important, their characterization is even more important - you can have the prettiest character designs possible, but if you can't get people to identify with them as characters, you're dead in the water.

And now, to the individual characters and some thoughts that came up about them:

Satori - This one could be trouble. She's perfect in every way. There's nothing I see that could trip her up, meaning that there's no potential for drama or meaningful conflict, and that's certainly not good for someone you're setting up to be your main character. This one gets done a lot, but since Roseladia's been described as being a little more rash, what if you make Satori the more peaceful or level-headed one, the Alphonse Elric to Roseladia's Edward, the Quattro to a Kamille? It would fit the queenly personality, being less willing to get her own hands dirty, but still being able to keep people in control?

Speaking of queenly, how did she become queen? She's only half-Shima, but she rules over full-Shimas, so where'd she get her throne from? Is it a hereditary title? Does she actually have any real power, or is she more like the Queen of England and the power over the people is with some other organization?

Roseladia - Nate and K brought up one of the biggest issue: her age relative to how many kids she has. When you say she's a young woman, in my mind she's anywhere from 16 to 30, but some ages are more likely than others, and even those are pushing it for 10 kids. Are they hers biologically? Maybe she adopted them. Does she have them yet - maybe she's prophesied to have them in the future? You haven't brought up a husband or even a love interest for her yet, so who knows?

Yuki - A greater weeaboo than I might correct me on this, but I think Yuki is usually a girl's name in Japan.

But how close are bodyguards like him to the royal family? That could be worth some delving into.

Simon - This one might be bordering on bad taste, actually, wringing out a bit of humor? Pathos? from a physical disability, something he can't change. If you're not careful and you're not offensive, it'll fall into that wonderful fallback of bad writers, making a character clumsy rather than meaningfully flawed. It's easy to write, but it's not nearly as good as a true character flaw. It's an interesting turnaround of the Twilight setup, where a clumsy girl falls in love with a flawless guy, but it could get very ugly if you're not careful.

Sam and Peter - The first thing that came to mind was the scientists from Pacific Rim. What's these two's relationship like, how close are they, and how long have they been working together? Do they have different specialties? What sort of knowledge can they impart to our heroes?

Phantian - Claec said most of it, but I'm more curious about the role he's going to play? Is he the comic relief, and what's his dark past like? Could he have been a turncoat from the enemy or something similar? Or is it the other way around and he's a spy for the enemy?

Mr. Baker - A butler will know the deepest, darkest secrets of the family he's serving, the way they treat each other behind closed doors, the things they try to keep hidden, he knows it all. Take that and run with it.

Anyway, there's some things I'm tossing out there to chew on. Get out there and do some writing!

Along the lines of character sheets, you should also try sketching out scenarios for your characters, to get a feel for how they would react to a given scenario, or how they would interact with each other during a given crisis. You want your characters to be like real people toward your audience, and one way to keep them relatable is to think of how they can play off each other (e.g. 2 of them being best friends, rubbing each other the wrong way, a mentor relationship, the list goes on) and incorporate that into your writing.

Hey! Thanks all for reading this post!
Okay, so, thanks so much for the tip, Claec!
Okay, now to answer the question about Lady Roseladia... she is actually in her mid-twenties. She had quintuplets at 23 and triplets at 25. The triplets almost didn't survive, but they did. Two of them are adopted. There is a father, but you don't see him much because he is fighting in the war that begins. This was all my sister's idea, and she won't change it. She's only in sixth grade, so she'll change her mind in a while. Don't panic. Roseladia was NOT given fertility drugs, NATE. (i jokingly give you an evil eye...really, all in good fun,no harsh feelings: you made my day when I read that)
Now, Davidlizer...Good grief this is going to take me forever.
In my first post about Silver Dust, it may have been Invader93 who asked for physical details, so pleeze dun kill meh. Also, this happens to be a summary. I can private message you all the physical appearances and characteristics of each listed character,if you want.
Also, Queen Satorii only WANTS you to THINK that she has no flaws. Behind that pretty face you will discover is a treasure trove of secrets. And her grandfather was a Shima and the king and he married a peasant woman. That's where her heritage came from. It's very rare that the Shimas marry a human, but he did. Also, even though Empress Avarita is the ruler of the planet, she puts a representative for each country as second -in-command, whether they are willing or not.
Now Yuki I believe is courage in Japanese, to whoever said it was a girl name; in CLAMP's Cardcaptor Sakura there is a man who goes by the name of Yuki, and in Fruits Basket( good gravy, no offense,I shudder to think, but I couldn't get through a whole book because the themes were getting a bit mature for my tastes) I think there is also a boy named Yuki. I could be wrong, though. Anyways, the royal guard are very close to the royal family. Like good friends.
Thank you for your insight on Simon, too, I wanted to see how people would react to a character that I created when I was ten. I'll be sure to fix that, to my sis's dismay.
Sam and Splotch have been close since they were very young. Many have mistaken them for brothers. Sam is the head librarian in the castle and Splotch is his secretary.
Phantian...holy cow, brothe, did I giggle! You are so funny! Phantian, a spy? A turncoat? You made my day! I'm not trying to pick on you. Christians shouldn't pick on eachothers insights. I just mean that I have already created ALL of Phantian's past, which you needn't worry about yet, but thank you for your questions. It really stimulates my imagination.
Thank you all for the tips and comments! You all mean a lot to me as peers.
God bless you all.
I have chortles!
Veritas out!

You've got some very good ideas here, Emma, but I do notice some problems as well:
1) I would strongly, strongly advise you to minimize the number of children she has and cast your sister's protests into the winds (all's fair in love and publishing, after all). It seems a little incredible - fanficky, even - that she would have so many children and be emotionally/psychologically/physically/etc. ready to raise them all properly by such a young age. Also, even in modern medical practice multiple births are still very dangerous, and since your story is set in a pre-modern, steampunk-esque world, it would be highly unlikely that such a young mother would survive TWO sets of multiple births in the span of just two years. Even if she did, it would have had catastrophic effects on her body that would basically cripple her for the rest of her life. I'd cut it down to a maximum of three children if you want to keep her in her twenties; five if she's in her thirties.
2) Related but slightly less problematic than the above issue: It is extremely, extremely uncommon (even, in a few countries, illegal) for a ruling royal house to adopt children. It complicates the line of succession and creates too much potential for political instability (for instance, if an adopted child ended up inheriting the crown, it would be all too easy for a rival claimant to declare they have no blood right to it and attempt a coup or spark a war). Now, you could very well incorporate this into the story - for instance, one of the older children was adopted, it was and remains a very controversial action in the minds of the people, and some of the queen's opponents see this as an opportunity to pull the throne out from under her, all of which would obviously have very profound psychological effects on both mother and child. But if you're not going to address that sort of thing then I'd suggest you leave the adoption bit out.
3) Lastly...oh dear, I'm blushing like a TB patient right now trying to think of how to word this, but it needs to be addressed kindly before someone else addresses it cruelly. Apologies for the following awkardness, but...how, erm, closely related are the Shima to humans? Because if they're not at least half human in their genetics then you're treading into very, VERY dangerous and uncomfortable territory. I realize this is a YA story and getting into the sexual habits of the characters was not at all and should not be your intention. But by having a catlike being actually have children with a human, you will inevitably get scores of people wondering how those children, erm, "came to be." And if the Shima are all or mostly cat, well....like I said, dangerous and uncomfortable territory. An easy way to dodge around this would be to both make the Shima more prominently hominid in origin, and to more obviously differentiate the alien "human" characters from actual humans as they are found on Earth.
Best of luck to you, dear. You continue to improve and I have high hopes for your project. Might want to keep that sister of yours a little more in tow, though

As a mom of a little baby myself, PLEASE do not treat your character's kids as accessories. You might want to observe parental relationships involving babies, toddlers, teens, because there is a lot that you may not be addressing in putting this cast of characters together. My baby is really cute and it's fun to bring her along and have people coo at her, but she is still a human being with needs like the rest of us. So again, treat the kids/parent relationship as real as you can so that this character can be seen as a realistic mother and not just "that character with x amount of kids".

emmatheveritas wrote:Also, Queen Satorii only WANTS you to THINK that she has no flaws. Behind that pretty face you will discover is a treasure trove of secrets.

Like...what? Because right now, she's coming off as a perfect character, and it's impossible to see her as an actual person, just a cardboard cutout. There's no room to change or grow or make mistakes.
It's like that for all these characters. The biggest "flaw" I can see is a damaged ankle, and that's not good. You need to do some serious character development before I can say anything beyond "they're boring."

Emma let me give you some writing advice.
If you're looking for advice on a character, you have to give people the whole character. If you don't feel comfortable doing that in a public forum, then you need to rethink how you're looking for advice, because incomplete information about characters will lead to inaccurate or incomplete advice. If you want to keep this stuff 'secret' then find a group of strong critics either offline or in private message and provide the full character to them so they can see them full cloth, rather than making people guess a characters motivations and background.

On adoption in the royal family, this might not be something you have to work around, after all, you're writing a different society with different rules - maybe there's something in their past that forced them to open up that possibility. That's the whole point of sci-fi, to make an artistic statement about our society through the rules of a world you make up, talking about what could be better in ours, or what's wrong and how to fix it, etc. But whatever you do in that vein, make sure that your world serves your plot and not the other way around, same as any other element of your story.

This plays into K's point, that kids aren't props for your characters. You might be able to get away with that if they were something secondary to a plot, like a character who runs an orphanage and who has a herd of kids around when they visit them, but you've already said that these ten kids are going to be vital to the plot or are part of some sort of prophecy. This means that you have to envision, design, write up, and make new model sheets for ten separate new characters, and worse still, the audience has to keep those ten characters straight in their heads for the duration. Again, it's not that you couldn't do that, it's just that you have to do it well or it'll get ugly and hard to follow.

emmatheveritas wrote:Christians shouldn't pick on eachothers insights.

This is a pet peeve of mine, but I would strongly disagree, and I believe this is one of the reasons why the Christian publishing industry is seen the way it is, as Christian agitprop, written for a willing choir who will buy it without the discernment for quality a more general audience would have, immune to any criticism because it's done in the service of God. (The other reason is pressure from the top causing artists to conform to that lowered ideal, but that's separate. One's led to the other, whichever way, and besides, the non-fiction/doctrinal books are the ones that get all the scrutiny anyway.) For example, the Left Behind is pretty poor writing from any standpoint - there's a Christian blogger who's spent the last ten years combing through its awful writing and theology with a fine-toothed comb, and using it to talk about the state of Christianity in the US, because there's just that much material to work from. As a Christian artist, it is your responsibility to create the best art you can in service of God no matter what, and doubly so if you're explicitly working for that purpose. You need people in your life, editors, friends, whatever, who can point out your work's flaws and what you need to be doing better, otherwise you'll never live up to that standard that you're called to. Trying to use God to wheedle your way out of criticism isn't the way to good writing.

One last thing: If the queen's grandfather is the only Shima she has in her family, that would make her quarter-Shima, not half, unless both her parents were half-Shima. (And what about her parents, what's happened to them?) But what's it like being a half-Shima ruling over full Shimas, for that matter? Do they accept her rule graciously because of her skill, or are there tensions because they look down on mixed people? Or are there even rumors about the legitimacy of her birth, seeing as her grandmother is a commoner? Obviously you won't go into that last one in quite so many details, but it would be worth it to hit up the history books and read about the European royal families and how they did things. And while you're at it, keep an eye on their queens, how they ruled, and maybe finding a model to work from for your own characters.

Other than those, though, you've still got some sort of direction, and in terms of quality and vision you're a couple steps ahead of most CAA writing projects. But don't let that go to your head, that's a very low bar to get over. Keep writing out (and re-writing!) your plot and characters, and eventually build up a script or storyboard of the action and some character designs before you start drawing comics. Learn to recognize good criticism and how to take it properly, because if you want to get this published, the professional editors you would be working with aren't going to be nearly as nice about things!

Once again, best of luck.

Hey, everyone! I really and truly accept the great info and tips...though I feel you all STILL don't understand that I have been working on this manga for three years. I have drawn literally every single character in the series and done their whole background. Do you all truly want to know the real way I've been imagining it for this long?
Live roleplaying.
Yes, my sister and I have sat on eachother's bed late at night, done character voices, pretended to be them. Those who think I'm nuts...keep believing what you will. I am not kidding. Live role-playing. Yup. Haha! Understand now?
You want character flaws, I got 'em. Definitely. And to K...I bet your baby is so cute! I wuv babies. XD Roseladia's children are not props, though, no offense to your statement, I hope. They become HUGE parts in the series, and even the main characters now become supporting characters because of them. Lila, the fifth child and the prophesied most powerful, becomes the main character in the third main story arc.
Davidizer, you rock. You are an amazing critic and a great cheerleader. I mean, all of you are! XD But you, brother in Christ, have been a serious inspiration. You, Claec, K, Invader, goldenspines, Xeno, and co. are all great!
To answer the question asked about how closely related Shimas are to humans...Shimas are chibi-sized and proportioned humans, so to speak, with cat ears, retractable claws, and a thin layer of fur covering most of their body. Other than that they are entirely human. Thanks for asking! Also, both of Satori's parents are half-Shima. They were killed when she was a baby by terrorists of an unknown speicies. Mr. Baker then raised her. The Shimas all love Satori very much and are intensely loyal to her, even to the point where she is almost like Princess Peach to the Toads in Super Mario.
Also, Davidizer, thanks for stating what I was going to say. In that world, there are different rules, after all it IS fantasy. Adopting is okay, but most people actually don't know she adopted two. You are all such observant and intelligent critics and peers!
I really admire you all and hope to hear back from you!
Veritas out!
I have chortles

Three years. From ten to thirteen. You know, ideas that were good when you were ten aren't necessarily good later. I had a story going all throughout middle school. It was supposed to stretch across several books, with tons of characters, a big world, all that jazz. Where is it now?
Nuked. Not even gutted. Nuked. Nothing's left of it, because I later found it to be awful, full of poorly constructed characters, an inane, bland, good vs evil storyline, and a confusing world that would only make sense in the wildest fantasy. Even the story I began developing after that underwent so many changes, it's virtually unrecognizable next to its first version.
One of the most important traits an author must have is the ability to recognize weak parts of their story and change them. Just because you two sat around and role played your characters doesn't make them good characters. You said you've got flaws for them? It would really help if you, you know, list them. Until you do, I won't believe that you ever thought about it. Even then, I'd have a hard time imagining anything other than you scrambling to think of something, given how flat your characters are. They aren't even characters, they're shells of characters living in the shell of a world with a shell of a story. Flesh it out already!
Also, Satori(i) is Batman.
Continuing on, you haven't answered V's question about mixed species breeding. The half-Shima had to get there somehow, and the full Shima sound so far removed from actual humans, they shouldn't be able to breed. Evolution or creation, they don't sound compatible.
Something else that I've been meaning to bring up: prophesies. You've got an incredibly lazy plot device here. Oh, the children are going to become powerful warriors and defeat the Washima (speaking of, you still haven't addressed the racism)? Boring, predictable, you already spoiled the ending...do you even NEED a prophesy in the first place? Unless you plan to twist it (and, by the sounds of it, you're playing it painfully straight), just slash it.

Finally, to add to what David said earlier, if you can't take criticism, you're not ready to be an author.

One reason for someone in the noble class to adopt a baby is due to being unable to produce an heir of his/her own. Another possible scenario is having an illegitimate heir being raised in a home but NOT as the legal son or daughter. Read the Sherlock Holmes short stories The Adventure of the Priory School and The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire for examples of how to include tension between siblings.

Okay, K, I have some things to tell you.
Firstly, I CAN take critsisim. I am totally fine with it, so hit me with your best shots.
Also, if you look in my last reply, I did answer your question about the Shimas. But I'll tell you again. The Shimas are chibi-sized and proportioned humans with cat-like faces, oversized cat ears, retractable claws, and a small layer of thin fur of an array of different colors, like cat's real coats covering their faces, hands, and feet.
And, I wanted to ask if you are all would like Roseladia to have ten children (who are totally not accessories) then maybe YOU give me a way to have it be valid. A friendly challenge.
Now, all my posts concerning my characters are going to be separated into parts:
•a main overall summary for each character catergory
•characteristics and flaws
•backstories( as much as possible without spoilers)
This one is the summary of the main protagonists so you know who they are before I post anything else . Hope you'll all enjoy the spread out posts (does an evil grin)
Oh yes, and Satori is not Batman! LOL
Thanks all for the tips!
Veritas out!
I have chortles!

Ante Bellum wrote:Something else that I've been meaning to bring up: prophesies. You've got an incredibly lazy plot device here. Oh, the children are going to become powerful warriors and defeat the Washima (speaking of, you still haven't addressed the racism)? Boring, predictable, you already spoiled the ending...

Reaaaallly? Have you ever read the Harry Potter books? J.K. Rowling seemed super predicatable in the one I just read, the Half-Blood Prince, and I was amazed! I thought that she was sooo predictable and that I knew everything that would happen. But that's why I dispise mystery books. No matter what, I always am right before the end. They are too predictable.
Actually, to spoil it even more tne kids do not defeat the Washimas. Actually, most of them are only ten when the Washimas are defeated. I'm not that predictable! Thanks for your tips now. And my latest post before this talks about how I'm dividing topics on my chacters into different posts. I got it all under control. Thank you! Please keep up the useful critsisim!
Veritas out!

emmatheveritas wrote:And, I wanted to ask if you are all would like Roseladia to have ten children (who are totally not accessories) then maybe YOU give me a way to have it be valid. A friendly challenge.

I'll do you one better: Why?

Why is it so necessary to your plot that this character has ten kids, suspension of disbelief and realities of biology be darned? It's not as if these characters are people who are going to die if you write them out of the story. Heck, you could even write your original plans for them back into the story as something other than her kids if you still need them, but I'm telling you right now, the way you've got things set up, it's stretching the credulity of the audience, even taking into account the tolerance for unrealistic that sci-fi/fantasy readers have. It's because this is something that ties back to reality, unlike your cat people or God-magic steampunk warrior kingdoms, which are given more of a pass because they're not expected to behave like things in the real world. But a succession of multiple pregnancies? That's something I can relate to more easily, and I think it's unrealistic with the conditions you've set up for your world. Suspension of disbelief is weird like that, but when it's stretched beyond your readers' limits, it's baaaaaad for your story.

Furthermore, besides setting up a plot for way later on in your story (Protip: just stick to your first story before you go writing continuations. You'll save yourself a lot of heartache that way.) and fulfilling some prophecy you've set up (which is something you can change, because you're the writer!), will these characters actually do anything for your storyline besides make it more complicated to follow? Your last post talks about how they're going to be young kids at the end of the story, so why not just save them until the end and do all the characterizations and designs when you get to the point where you can do something better with them? Pick a few of your other characters for the plot and stick with them for now, and come back to them later. Do one story at a time.

As for prophecies, I have a little more tolerance for them than Ante does, but that's mostly because I like them done Greek mythology-style, where they're double-edged (the Oracle of Delphi's stock in trade), they're accidentally self-fulfilling even as there's attempts to prevent them from happening (Oedipus), things like that. Give us multiple choices or false trails about how they're fulfilled, surprise us with how they happen, anything other than playing them perfectly straight. Do them right or don't do them at all.

And all this talk about your characters not being flawed and how it makes for a bad story? I mean every word. Think about it: in all the stories you've probably read, the characters are dragged down by their own hubris or weaknesses, bit by bit or in one sudden moment, and have to drag themselves back up to triumph. Everyone loves watching sports when the winner comes from behind and scrapes it out in the last seconds. Even the bog-standardest of action movies have the heroes are battered, humiliated, dirty, they've been up for two days straight, and they're at the end of the rope when they're finally able to beat the bad guy. In Les Miserables, Valjean's been dragging his daughter's boyfriend through the sewers of Paris when he runs straight into Javert, which forces Javert to make the choices that ultimately destroy him. But none of that would have been possible if they hadn't had their flaws to drag them to the bottom, allowing the bad guys get some points before the heroes come roaring back. The foes are evenly matched, and the heroes have to fight as hard as they can before they can make the breakthrough. If your heroes are always strong, always perfect, you have no meaningful conflict. At all.

If the kids don't defeat the Washimas in the end, then yes that isn't overly predictable...but it also removes any sense of importance or agency in the plot from those characters. You're right back where you started, with a bunch of apparently superfluous children who no one can keep track of. You have to watch out for these sorts of things, dearie. I'd suggest posting a timeline of events relevant to the series so we can follow your plot and characters better, as well as (again) taking a good hard look at which characters you need and which you really don't. I'd suggest the following as a good guideline of how necessary/developed a character is.
THE AGENCY TEST:
*Does the character make decisions that affect the outcome of the plot? The more decisions made, the stronger and more crucial the character (Note: these do not have to be good or moral or even smart decisions. They just have to happen).

And, I wanted to ask if you are all would like Roseladia to have ten children (who are totally not accessories) then maybe YOU give me a way to have it be valid. A friendly challenge.

The last time I heard those words on CAA, someone was trying to make others work for her, then rejected every suggestion. Just ask for help if you're stuck. In this case, though, you're really stretching my suspension of disbelief here. David's right that I have little tolerance for prophesies (and time travel, and lots of other little things, but hey), but my SoD is pretty strong otherwise. I don't call things out without a reason. And this reason? Multiple births are rare and dangerous in such a setting, especially when nobody's taking advantage of incredibly advanced technology.

I read the Harry Potter books, but I started to lose interest by the time I hit HBP. I only read the last two books out of completion obligations. That has little to do with your story, though. You've just rendered the prophesy (and, to an extent, ten characters) totally unneeded, so unless you make it matter to the story, you're just adding on layer upon layer of useless elements.

Okie dokie! More edits and new antagonists! Sorry I didn't give you the entireties of each newbie but I'll try to update as soon as possible! Veritas out!

Is there a link somewhere I can read what the story is? I'm kinda lost.