Alana O'Clery, Demonologist-in-training - Looking
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Anyway! My character is Alana O'Clery, Lana for short.
Lana was born and raised on a small farm not far outside the city of Dansul, to a family with a fair history of magic in their blood. Her great-aunt was the local witch, and she taught Lana everything she knows about herbology and potion-making; Lana was even considering following in her footsteps before she found her great-grandfather's dusty summoning tome in the attic when she was 16.
Unfortunately, Lana's relationship with her parents has become strained since she left to study demonology. Her great-grandfather was not well respected by her family or by the community as a whole, and her parents fear for both the safety of her physical health and her reputation. Her mother in particular would rather she come home and take up study of witchery again, and her father, while less opinionated on what else she does with her life, would really like to see her do something else. Anything else. Ditch digging, even.
Equally unfortunate is that Lana does not get along well with many of her classmates at the academy she attends. The majority are city-born, and almost all of them have been studying since a young age. They resent this chipper newcomer, and although none of them would go so far as to sabotage her, they mostly avoid her. Lana spends more time alone than she would like (hence, she summons demons for company - ironically, the practice she gets from this summoning has put her ahead of many of her classmates in terms of skill, which leads to more resentment in an endless loop).
Sample roleplay snippet!
"I wish you would change your mind," Fiona said as she smoothed her daughter's hair for the tenth time that hour. "At least, dear, couldn't you stay home and study out of that book? It just won't be the same without you about."
"Mum. We've been over this. A lot. I can't learn everything out of that book." Lana took her mother's hand and gave it a squeeze. She knew the day of her departure was going to drag, but she hadn't expected the endless repetition of pleas from her parents - they'd been waiting for the train for just over an hour and already they'd devolved into screaming once, and her mother periodically dabbed at her eyes with her floral hanky. She'd be glad to just be off already.
"We'll miss you," Aran said. Lana grimaced at him, and he shrugged. "We will."
"I'll miss you too," Lana said. And wouldn't she look forward to that homesickness! It meant she'd be well away from them.
Comments and critique are welcome! Also people interested in playing with her. c:
Your character Alana is a rather well-rounded character and is probably, by far, the only Demonologist/Demonic sommoner I seen so far, usually everything has been restricted to either slaying or becoming demons. It is nice to see someone doing something different for a change and I always love the idea of summoning demons or powerful spirits to battle or for whatever the sommoner wants them to do. Your character is pretty good with understandable conflicts and understandable reason to be slightly better or different from other sommoners.
She is a character I would love to RP with or just have her interact with my two half-witted demons, one of them being a silly trash-talking toon demon (yes you heard that right). Sorry for not really giving you hard concrete critiquing, but I don’t really see anything wrong with her or enough to make a Mary-sue or an undeveloped.
- It's okay! I'm glad you like her so much :3c if you want to tell me about your two demons, we could start thinking of a roleplay for them. Even if it's just silly slice-of-life stuff, I'd probably be up for it!
Hello! =) Alana seems like a very interesting character. Like the previous commenter said, she seems fairly unique. I haven't seen a Demonologist on the site before, either. So good on you!
There are some grammatical issues in your post (mainly just some awkward wording), but I'm sure you can find those if you read through it again. (For example, the phrase "Equally unfortunate was that..." seems awkward to me. The wording could use some re-organizing!)
More than that, though, I'm feeling a lack of depth. You've told us about her history and what she does. She's kind-of a loner. But we don't really know much about her, and how her past has affected her emotionally, etcetera. Also, she doesn't seem to have any flaws -- except for that she seems to be a little naive. I think you should really consider how you want others to perceive your character on top of just giving the basic details of her history, if that makes sense.
I like the character. And while it probably doesn't need to be put down as part of the description, have you put thought into some of the methods she uses for her summoning? What precautions does she take? As much as an unusually peppy personality can unbalance someone who expects to see the exact opposite, recovery can occasionally be swift, and the mirth on her face might be seen as naivety by some of the more calculating.
A character of mine, Ruby (pictured to the right here), dabbles in the occasional summoning. Things typically go explosively badly and the common result is that summoned something running far off to do its thing. Mind you, she'd kind of self-taught, and was never in some formal school that would have taught her the basics and IMPORTANCE of making a warded containment zone to keep whatever you summon from running wild or trying to chomp your head off.
Obviously there is a fine line between 'safety zone' and 'cage' when dealing with an otherworldly being in this manner. The school probably teaches more of the 'cage or leash them' method primarily while Alana seems to be more inclined to give the individual she calls forth some room to stretch their legs, claws. wings... whatever they may have, since she seems to value them as other sentient beings with thoughts opinions and feelings. While in contrast my Ruby doesn't set up any of that and puts her neck on the line about every time, and really risks injury if she gets someone too disgruntled to care immediately that they have a means of escape.
Less of a thing that needs clarified and more of a thing to make sure you have in mind when playing her.
Personality-wise: She's the social outcast for her 'unorthodox' style/manner/education. Does she do just fine by this or does she try to jump into conversations? Is she a loner or is she gregarious? (basically does sitting around with no one to talk to via online/in person/over phone bother her?) I'm getting the idea that she is less of a loner due to a tendency to whip up a demon nearby to shoot the breeze with as a means of passing the time, but how does this translate to her human interactions?
"Take me down to the Paragon City where the Trolls are green and the-...."
Remember City of Heroes.
& Ping me with
- Thank you for the critique! Unfortunately, I don't often take critique regarding my writing; I use long sentences and parentheticals, and you either like it or you don't. I've modified my style to please one person only to find that another person doesn't like what I've just changed - I do appreciate it, though! At the very least, it made me look back and realize my egregious comma abuse, and I did fix that :P
As for the depth of the character and her lack of flaws, oof, I hadn't even noticed. I hadn't put as much thought into her as I should have before posting this. She isn't a loner at all, though, hence summoning demons for company; she's perfectly sociable, but it's difficult to make friends with people who don't like you.
Lana's family has never been anything but supportive, but before now Lana been a model daughter. Her way of raising hell was not waking up on time to feed the chickens. I'd say she's awfully pugnacious - if she thinks she's right, she'll keep on about it until you give in or prove her wrong to her satisfaction. She likes to play Devil's Advocate and will argue even if she isn't upset. (If you've ever argued with someone who does this, you know how annoying it can be.) This all plays into an undercurrent of arrogance in her personality. She isn't mean! But she's right, you're wrong, and she knows what she's doing - she readily dismisses the concerns of her parents, as we see.
(She was a model daughter because before finding the tome, she never thought of any other career path than the one set for her by her great-aunt. Thus, she never came into conflict with her parents about Major Life Issues.)
- Whenever I thought of her summoning, I typically imagined the usual pentagram + incantations, etc. If you've read the Bartimaeus trilogy, think that. (If you haven't, you should, they're wonderful books.)
She definitely tried to elbow her way into conversations... at first. The idea that she might spend her years at this school alone as inconceivable, and as she is a social person, she was willing to put herself out there, so to speak. The problem is that magic schools are very clique-y in this world; magic talent isn't terrible widespread, so often a school will have 50 to 100 kids in the same grade that grow up together, and it can be difficult for a new person to jump in at age 18 or 19.
After a year, two years at the school, she's given up. She has a handful of friends that she met off the school grounds while out collecting reagents or while shopping, but in her classes she ignores her classmates just as they ignore her. There are a handful of students she talks to, but she wouldn't consider them friends.
And sorry for the late reply on this! I dropped off Subeta for a while...
Hey, thanks for the reply. So yeah, I've not read that trilogy, but I'd imagine even the drawings on the ground are larger than what is taught (extra room instead of tiny little cage) in classes for her. Having just a couple closer friends is good, especially when of the other students are just 'there'.
Good-good~
"Take me down to the Paragon City where the Trolls are green and the-...."
Remember City of Heroes.
& Ping me with