Percy Jackson OC Critiques [PAUSED]

33 - SteampunkDevil

Full name: Charlotte Angelique Crawford 

Nicknames: Charlie 

Height/weight: 5'5/90 lb 

Description: Dark brown hair cut as a bob, brown eyes, olive tone skin. Always wearing navy blue hoodie unzipped over shirt, usually tied around the waist if too hot. Likes wearing the camp shirts because they're easy and basically match every pair of pants she owns. Prefers wearing leggings, but usually wears jeans because they're more durable.

Okay, but, like, how buff is she? What's her fighting style? Does she have any weapons? Any character establishing scars or birthmarks?

It's very tempting to think of your character's appearance as a floating face with clothes, but "character" appearance goes from head to toe! Your character's appearance is a great way to subtly establish their personality, whether they're a dumbass adrenaline junkie who's covered in scars or they have a tattoo of their favorite TV show on their shoulder because they really thought that supernatural was going to be good forever.

It's a little more difficult for kids since a lot of them aren't super in control of their appearance, but that's just an excuse to get creative! When does it look like she last washed her hair(this can be used to establish that she's either a grimy goblin OR a clean freak)? Does she try to put on makeup even if she has at least 1 year of 0 experience and only lip gloss to work with? Does she usually have a scab or bruise somewhere? Does she do archery so her hands are messed up? Adding in details like this can make your characters seem a lot more real and grounded.

Birthday: November 6, 2004 

Godly parent: Ares 

Powers: N/A 

That's gotta be fun. Not even the boring ones like "slightly better at learning weapons"?

Age: 15 

Personality: Prideful, confident, logical, ambitious, determined, self-preservative, opinionated, stubborn, straight forward. 

Okay, just because it's easier for me to condense traits into a list doesn't mean I don't want you to give those traits context that I can take into account when I make my simplified list.

Prideful/confident - gonna mark her down as "arrogant" for now.

Logical - "pretentious" has been added in front of arrogant.

Ambitious/determined - "mean" has been added in front of pretentious and arrogant.

Self-preserving - "mean" has been underlined.

Opinionated - "mean" has been bolded.

Stubborn - "annoying" has been added in front of mean, pretentious, and arrogant.

Straight-forward - "mean" has been italicized.

She sounds great! If this seems overly uncharitable, well, it...kind of is because I have no nuanced explanation of any of these traits so I don't know if she only deploys them when absolutely necessary, but also the subtext of all these traits is that she's...kind of a selfish bastard. 

The opinionated, confident character who takes nobody's shit because she knows she's right and is brutally honest and she's logical so she puts facts over feelings is a great power fantasy, and it can be fun to imagine just being an unapologetic asshole to the people around you, but if you want her to be a character that your readers will like, she needs to be less of a selfish bastard.

She can still be a mean bastard, obviously, there are plenty of relatable characters who are huge dicks. If you want to keep her bite without making her insufferable, I'd suggest removing "logical" and "straight-forward" and replacing them with "self-aware". The character who knows they're a bastard and is reveling in it is a) much more fun because she can get way more over-the-top that way which will be a much more cathartic fantasy, and b) will tone down the annoyingness factor a lot and make it much easier to actually like her. Your readers might even want her to get a character arc where she learns to be a better person(not nicer, just less of a bastard).

Alternatively, you could keep her exactly as she is and have a character arc about learning to not be the bastard goblin queen. In that case, you'd probably want the narrative to clearly frame her as the goblin queen of goblins who the reader doesn't have to like.

Likes: Snakes (specifically pythons), proving people wrong, the color blue, the song Bad Guy by Billie Eilish, dark chocolate, people that listen to her and agree with her opinions. 

Dislikes: People that try to argue with her, the color yellow, people that are ignorant yet confident, being ignored, people that say she's wrong without any evidence. 

See? No self-awareness!

Otherwise her likes/dislikes are fine, she doesn't need a deep inner reason for liking dark chocolate and I'm sorry for being that jackass when I started this book.

Interests: She's on the debate team at her school, most of her time is occupied by taking care of her Burmese Python, Dexter. Reads the book Holes at least 3 times a week. Works at the pet store "Unleashed" Tuesdays after school and Saturdays. 

Those are...activities. I guess a lot of my personality when I was 15 was just the things I did. I'll allow it.

Worst fear: Atychiphobia 

Fear of being judged to be bad, for anyone who's too lazy to google it.

Sexual Orientation: Aromantic 

Friend: Carmen West- Lesbian, laid back, optimistic, manipulative, open minded, stubborn. Blonde, blue eyes, somehow has a perfect tan even in winter. Daughter of Aphrodite. Only person able to deal with Charlie's sh!t. Carmen is positive that Charlie is secretly a Slytherin student at Hogwarts. She also is respected by most of her half siblings, but none she would consider FRIENDS. 

Cool! Carmen also sounds like a real piece of work, so are the two of them only friends because they're the only people who can stand each other?

Enemies:... A lot of people. Like, almost everyone. Charlie doesn't really get along with anyone or understood by anyone except Carmen. It's a problem, Carmen's forcing her to try and work on it. 

Expected. Is Carmen trying to get her to be a better person, or is she just teaching Charlie how to manipulate people into liking her?

Backstory: Charlie grew up in Queens, New York. She lived with her mom who always had high expectations of her- Any grade below a B automatically got her grounded for a week. No excuses. Her mom's explanation for this was that Charlie was a smart girl, and her grades should reflect that. She got punished for bad grades and a "Good job" or pat on the back for good ones. Sometimes her mom would randomly quiz her on a question from any subject and give her a disapproving look if she got it wrong.

For her 13th birthday her mom bought her Dexter the Burmese Python, who Charlie adored, for receiving a top score on her standardized state tests. Charlie was elated since this was the only real reward she had ever gotten for exceeding the standards. That was where the rewarding began and ended. Her mom forced her to join the debate team if she "loved to argue so much", which she actually ended up enjoying. 

Well, this is a pretty understandable reason for her to become an asshole smart kid with 0 compassion and -3 social skills.

Her mother got more strict and demanded that she get a job when she turned 14 to pay for her own animal. That's when she started working at the pet store. She wasn't allowed to go near the animals, she just took care of the cash register and helped customers. Her boss was a monster- she obviously didn't know that- and the critters were vicious monsters disguised by the mist. When a new guy starts working there- A satyr in disguise- suddenly the little dogs and scaly lizards don't look so precious. After going to Camp Half Blood, she immediately makes it known that she wasn't there to make friends. Carmen West was having none of it. After numerous attempts and determination, Carmen and Charlie slowly grow closer. Carmen even helps Charlie discover her sexuality after realizing how her friend was always uncomfortable with the discussion of crushes and love. Carmen even manages to convince a few Hermes kids to smuggle Dexter into camp, where his terrarium is kept at the foot of her bed, and hidden under her bed during cabin inspection.Her half siblings all adored the snake and agreed to keep him a secret. Chiron pretends not to know. She goes to live with her mom during the school year because, even if she's strict with unreasonably high expectations, she needed an education.

Rating: 8/10

If you intended to write an absolute bastard, you succeeded with flying colors and all you need to do is flesh out her appearance and personality a bit more. If you didn't...scrap her and start over completely.