Halfpenny OC Reviews

Pollux Deer

This character was submitted by: PinkCottonClouds

Fandom: Original. It follows a young boy who becomes the newbie in a group of misfit children with problems

Okay, cool.

Name: Pollux Deer. The deer in his last name was because he liked deers and does so the misfits decided to name him that

Pollux makes me think of the Greek Gemini. Does he have a real last name, since he had parents and his older brother is certainly old enough to remember what their last name was. Also, side note, 'deer' is the plural, and deer is just the neutral term, a male deer is called a buck.

Nickname: Polly, Lux, Doe

Cute.

Age:For the purpose of the misfits and book, Pollux is around four years old, the youngest one out of the misfits apart from his older brother whose Ten

Y'all got some grammar mistakes here. Oh well, solid ages. You'll have to make sure his voice doesn't read as mature beyond belief though.

Gender/Sexuality: Pollux is a male though he doesn't know about sexuality, he sure does understand that he hates girls and thinks that romance is yucky with them but when it's a boy couple, he doesn't seem to mind much which probably implies that he's homosexual not that he knows it

That's fair.

Appearance: Pollux is a young and rather small boy. Compared to his problem with food and the fear of doing anything that involves knives, forks, or any type of silverware, he's rather skinny, probably too skinny for a young child such as himself. Pollux has pale, white skin as a effect of slight albinism and never being able to go outside much. His skin is covered with red freckles all over and the most is mainly seen on his face. His cheeks are a bit round but seem sunken in because of his lack of food which causes his lips to poke out as if they're swelling up, coupled with that is the fact that his eyes are round and wider than usual so along with his sunken in cheeks and poking lips, his eyes look as if they're bulging out of his sockets when in reality, the baby fat had lessened to the point where he looked like some looney tunes character. Apart from his odd and deformed looking Appearance to most people, Pollux has a mop of curly silver blonde hair that's actually white instead. Said hair has a few red streaks but other than that, it's simply white. His round eyes are a pale icy blue that looks almost violet and are framed by curly eyelashes. His limbs aren't too thin but they are easy to break. His hands are rather bony and his fingers are dainty and crooked; deformed really. Because of his appearance, you can tell why the misfits wanted to take him in.

This is a very unique appearance, and I like how much effort you put into it. There are just a couple things I noticed while reading: One is the albinism, I'm not sure there is such a thing as 'slight' albinism, I think it's an all or nothing type of thing, but I could be wrong so you'll have to do some research there. I'm also wondering where the red streaks in his hair came from, but as far as I know it's not entirely impossible for that to happen, so I'll let it slide. You also mentioned that the misfits wanted to take him in, and I'm wondering if there was any conflict over that? At least some, if not most, of the misfits would be very concerned with survival, and adding a member as sickly-looking and potentially feeble as Pollux would not be great for the overall survival of the group. Just something to think about.

Personality: Despite his appearance and horrid past, Pollux is actually a very sweet boy. He's always polite and only seems to misbehave when he's frightened or confused. To anyone who meets him, they would describe the toddler as a very nice and behaved child who doesn't screech his lungs off in time out and who doesn't hit his superiors over and over in s fit of confused rage. Pollux, at a young age, firmly believes in simply being nice and that everything will work out, he doesn't think too much on the trivial or major things in life and seems to have a knack for making even the most silliest things the most wisest things said. Pollux has a way with his silky words that he might not understand but other people do, they look deeper and find out that whatever the boy says has more meaning than he realizes such as when he says "Don't be the same crayon like everyone else! It's really boring and you'll get broken by these kids who just don't like your color and then you'll find yourself in the garbage, that's really not fun!" Some day dismiss it as a silly thing he wanted to say but then you realize that he's telling you not to be like everyone else because then everyone won't like you and you'll get broken down and tossed aside like trash.... wisdom from a four year old? How ridiculous .

Pollux isn't apart from throwing tantrums and having meltdowns, in fact, he has a /lot/ of them and it usually ends in him passing out or being calmed down and sent to the 'silent' room. Despite these things, he's honestly just a sweet four year old boy

Okay, okay. So being a super calm four year old is definitely a Gary Stu trait, simply because he is, you know, four. It's good that you mentioned he still has a lot of tantrums, because a normal four year old would, but you're also going to have to watch out for balance. The wisdom thing is a bit far fetched, keep it toned down, unless you intend to be writing the next Dahli Lama. I don't completely disagree with it, but whatever bits of wisdom he drops will have to be very contextual and even a bit puzzling, in order to keep his young, naïve appearance. Also, don't be afraid to have him give bad words of wisdom, he is four after all, not all of his sagely advice is going to be good.

Backstory: Pollux was born to a middle class family who wanted nothing more than a peaceful family life however when they found out how deformed he looked, life only became a down spiral of events for you see, when Pollux was just a young baby, he had trouble eating food and any food would usually result in him throwing up or causing him constant pain. This developed a phobia of eating that the misfits try correcting. His parents never once liked the fact that their son was a 'picky eater' and didn't Believe that he was actually afraid of eating or touching his food. His parents abandoned him inside the house when he turned four after a meltdown about trying to eat some crackers that were all salty (As a two year old, when he ate something salty, it usually burned his tongue and throat so he threw it up). They couldn't handle it anymore and simply... left. The older two of the misfits (20 and 18 years of age) found him crying on the doorstep inside, waiting for his parents with a dry stain of vomit on the floor (they assumed he tried to eat something because he was hungry but ended up throwing it up).

What horrible parents would abandon their child like that for 'being a picky eater'. What the hell dude. The backstory is pretty realistic up until that point, I think you just need to tweak it a bit at the end, maybe make it less that the parents' abandoned him, and more that the misfits kidnapped him? I just don't think the average parent would abandon their child like that, even if they thought he was being an ass about eating.

Powers: N/A

Alright.

Strengths: He doesn't have much Strengths since he's only four but he does know how to make someone's day better if that counts.

Makes sense.

Weaknesses: His weakness is that he can't eat food because of his phobia although the misfits keep up in trying to fix it and that he only likes plastic stuff. Anything silver will make him scream

Okay, so how do the misfits keep him from starving to death? There must be some food that he can tolerate, or perhaps they pin him down and siphon soft, mushy food down his throat?

Other: He has a phobia of food and silverware. The food one is justified but no one knows why he seems to start a meltdown when given a silver spoon or fork.

Alright, fits with the backstory. Is the silverware phobia relevant to the story, or is that just an extra detail?

.: Scores and Feedback :.

Originality Score: 80%: He's cute, he's well developed, the fear of food in particular is a great detail. There are some parts of him that are a bit far-fetched and need to be pared down a bit, and minor details that could use just a bit of a lift. But other than that, he's a solid character.

Interest Score: 85%: Really the biggest thing I'd worry about as far as interest would be the writing style, especially since this character is so young. I would love reading a story with this character though.

Suggestions for improvement: I feel like I say this on every review, and I'm going to say it again because it's true; a bit of research wouldn't hurt. Also, I recommend read Room in order to get a better feel for what writing from the POV of someone so young is like. This is a good character and I hope you make good use of him!