Link to character workshop topic: Workshop Topic
Rank Applying For: Novice
At least three of your recent role play topics:
PERFECTDAY;withacentaur
This was my very first RP post on this site and it takes place with Travis just relaxing and sort of studying until he hears a shriek from a fellow Hufflepuff and he races off to help her. After subduing the attacking centaur, Travis finally gets the chance to talk to Alice and he starts to develop emotions for her which leads into his plot later on.

Into the Night
This topic with another fellow Hufflepuff deals with Travis talking with Edward Phillips. Now there is a 'time lapse’ and Travis’s feelings and emotions have developed quite a bit for Alice but he has trouble expressing them and gets advice from a friend about it and finally gets SOME courage to talk to her.

Telescopes and Shooting Stars
Now this isn’t part of Travis’s plot. In this topic Travis needed to clear his head from a long day of stress and decides to go spend some time in the Communal Common Room. But upon entering he runs into a Sixth year Gryffindor, Alexandria Ericson. After some awkward conversation, the magic in the room was shut off and they became sealed in, giving Travis some bad worries because of his nervousness of girls and being alone with them, putting Travis in a awkward position.

Why you feel that you should move up:
I feel I should move up because I believe I am a very good RPer, been RPing for a good five years; I'm active, I spend a good hour or so each day depending on my work schedule and school work; I'm very detailed when it comes to posting, I try my best to post at least 3 paragraphs minimum while not constantly repeating myself or restating what the other person has said.

Sorry it's taken so long to get to this, I've had work training for the past few days.

Profile:

Your appearance needs a lot of work. Not for grammar or vocabulary, which are more than fine, or for your eye for detail, which is similarly well-developed. This is all issues with realism, cliche, and phrasing. Oh yeah, and did I mention the strongly sexist and heteronormative undertones? Yeah, those do not work well with me.

Let's put it this way. "stunning", "appealing", "hottie", and other adjectives of their ilk are not appropriate in a profile. Profiles state absolute fact about a character, and "stunning" or "appealing" are OPINIONS. I strongly dislike it when profiles force opinions on others. If I had a female character, I'd feel like your profile is set up such that my character would have to find yours attractive, and that's not sporting or fair.

What's more annoying is that this is all about "girls" and "the ladies". Never once do you mention the possibility that a male could be attracted to him. Alternatively, you don't allow for the possibility that a girl might not be attracted to him- whether or not she's attracted to men at all, or more "trivially" if Travis is her type.

I want a FULL overhaul of your appearance before you apply for Intermediate. I don't want to see any cliches, any assignment of opinions to others (PARTICULARLY if you're going to assign them to women and not men), and I want to see you couch him in more accurate description. He's a normal 15-year old boy, not some magical male model.

Your entire personality is almost as disappointing. Although the concept of someone being shy around girls and boisterous with guys is solid, you spend the entire personality talking about his appearance and girls, throwing in one sentence at the end with actual traits.

The history is... iffy. I don't like the portrayal of the Ministry as not understanding the basic concept of killing in self-defense- and STOPPING SOMEONE COMING AT A CHILD WITH A KNIFE counts as self-defense. Everything after he gets to Michael and Katie is fairly good, although the boulder is a little freaky and overpowered.

Topics:

Overall, you're doing alright, although the need for expansion is there. I like the natural style with which you portray Travis, but you need to start bringing in some more description. Try experimenting with scene-setting and more sensory detail.

Thoughts for the future:

Rehaul your profile, particularly the appearance section, or I will not NOT approve you for Intermediate.

Get involved with some more "friend" characters, to really contrast the unease with girls with the ease with guys. I see it fairly well here, just not completely developed.

Don't dismiss the thread with Alexandria as "not being in your plot"! Surely some gossip will let it out that Alex and Travis spent the night in the Astronomy tower together... what if Alice hears?

Final judgment:

Despite the fact that I have major problems with your profile, they're not the right type of problems to deny you for Novice. Take this as your "warning", and keep developing and changing your character.

Approved for Novice.

Sheesh, Jax. You always say everything I'm going to say...

Hey, Travis! I'll be your second reviewer today, so let's get started.

Profile:

When I have a bit more time, I can go through it more in the workshop, but please keep in mind what Jax said. Not every girl is going to find Travis "hot", so please don't use words like that when describing him. Instead of using "how many girls like them" (about his lips), try using something like "how many of the girls he has kissed like them". You still get the point across, but it doesn't make generalisations about characters he hasn't met yet.

Your personality section is almost entirely how Travis relates to girls. You really need to look at changing this and adding more about his actual personality (what he's like). Write about what he likes to do during his free time or his favourite class(es). Is he afraid of anything? Does he have any secrets? What are his dreams? Go ahead and include those.

Topics:

Don't be too quick to discount a thread that's "not part of your plot". Some of the best plot ideas I've had have come from threading randomly with someone.

This doesn't really need to be mentioned now, but watch for typos, homophones and choppy sentences. It helps to read your posts aloud before you post them to make sure they flow; you'll catch a lot of mistakes that you probably wouldn't have caught by doing that and it only takes a few minutes!

Your posts are solid length. Now, try adding details from the surrounding atmosphere. If you're RPing in the Hufflepuff CR, you don't need to spend five paragraphs describing what the common room looks like, but maybe mention what kind of chair Travis is sitting on within your narration. It'll help make your threads more realistic and more fun to read.

Overall:

Approved for Novice. You have a long way to go before Intermediate, specifically with your profile. I highly suggest a complete revamp because we'll be looking to see that you've fixed what both Jax and I have called to your attention when you apply for rank next time.

You guys pretty much said it all, but I'll echo everything anyway. :)

PROFILE

Overall, your profile doesn't flow correctly. You have a lot of run-ons mixed in with choppy sentences. You put a lot of focus on girls. In fact, most of the personality and appearance center around girls. I get that you want Travis to be a ladies man character, but you're definitely overstating that part of him. You need to include how he reacts with other people, his fears, best memories and worst memories, how he reacts under pressure, how he solves problems, etc. Really get into his head and fish around for a bit until you come up with something other than how he feels about girls.

TOPICS

You definitely need to get into the habit of describing more of the surroundings and setting of the scene. You have a grasp of how Travis would react in different situations, but I don't see a lot of his thoughts or emotions coming out in any of your writing. You're getting there, but you certainly have a ways to go. Overall, your topics are good, but they're still almost totally centered around girls. Travis cannot be one hundred and fifty percent concentrated on just girls. It tends to get too much into the stereotypical ladies man kind of character, which isn't good.

So, try putting him in different situations where he ISN'T thinking about girls at all. Just try putting him into some fun topics where he's just having fun with a group of people, or with one person.

VERDICT

For now, I approve you for Novice. Before you're approved for Intermediate, however, you really need to work on redoing your profile and adding some depth to Travis. Before Intermediate as well, you need to watch your sentences and grammar. Try reading your posts out loud before you type them. You have a way to go before your next approval, but kudos on this one. :)

Link to character workshop topic(with original and revised posts): Workshop Topic
Rank Applying For: Intermediate
At least three of your recent role play topics:
Bored at its Peak
In this topic Travis is just wasting the day away in the common room when second year Emilia Spellman comes in. Just talking away, Travis does some advanced magic and animates the books that they were discussing and end up staying really late to watch them. In this topic Travis almost becomes a Big Brother figure to Emilia.

Time Drags On
In this topic Travis is just reading by himself in the Communal Common Room where he meets Beatrice Bellemy. Although she was rude and curt to him, he didn't take offense and tried to strike up a conversation. Even through her persistance, they hit it off and end up meeting again later. The fact that Bea was rude to Travis made it easier and a bit more comfortable for him to talk to her.

You Really Got a Hold of Me
In this topic Travis starts to develop a relationship of sorts as Beatrice seems to trip up more than the lovestruck fool, Travis. He begins to break out of his shell more and become more comfortable with girls.

GAME 1.4: HUFFLEPUFF BLACK/SLYTHERIN SILVER
So this one is kinda mandatory with the multiple people, but Travis is shown as a determined person as he goes all out to help win for his team in Quidditch. Despite not liking the limelight, Travis attempts to have fun but ends up going all out trying to win it.

Stuck Between a Witch and a Tree
Although this topic isn't complete yet, it has the best moment for the Special Ability I want to get. In this topic a very distressed and upset Lucy hears a guitar being played by a Hufflepuff neverless. Travis does all he can to try to calm her down as he can sense and see the anger she has, and Travis goes to measures he never thought possible to try to calm her down.

Why you feel that you should move up:
I feel like I should move up because even though I was gone for a year, I feel like the context for most of my posts have become more thought out and more detailed in ways I didn't think. I believe I've improved in grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure too.
Special request: Empathy
Justification: Travis tries to understand how people feel and he tends to all he can to either calm the person down or cheer someone up because Travis puts others first, he always wants people to feel better even if he, himself is having a horrible day.

Hello, Travis! I'm Jay, and I will be your first reviewer.

So, just a few things. You're almost at Intermediate. Almost, and it's painful because you're SO. EFFING. CLOSE. xD There are some things you will need to work on in order to get to Intermediate, and I want you to know that we are VERY proud of how far you've come!

The biggest thing I want you to work on is this - Show, don't tell. Show us what your character sees, feels and hears - don't just sit there and tell us! It's about making your sentences flow, using all of your character's senses, and really describing what's happening in your posts, rather than just telling us. Try and connect sentences together, by using rhetorical devices such as metaphors, similes and others. Connect them together! The word "and" is your best friend!

If you're a little confused by what I mean, then feel free to send me a PM, and I will describe it in more detail ... but that is the main thing we want you to work on before you get to Intermediate.

Another thing - remember to make a new paragraph every time your character speaks! It breaks up the large chunks of writing you have, and allows everything to flow nicely.

So, with that said, you may re-apply in two weeks. YOU ARE SOOO CLOSE! D:

Profile:

You have to add more flaws into his profile, especially into his physical appearance. I understand that he is shy around girls, but why is that? The description you gave of him hints that girls would naturally flock to him so naturally he would have more interaction with them than most. Here is just a suggestion to add a flaw or insecurity to his profile: Does the fact that he looks so young cause people to react to him in a negative way, such as assuming he is younger than he normally is and thus incapable of certain things?

His personality and appearance somewhat contradict themselves. You say that he is conservative and shy, but when you describe what he usually wears it doesn't seem like he is that way at all. Also, you say he is not a "typical hottie", I would stay away from using words like that because what a hottie is to you may not be a hottie to another person. Show that he is good looking rather than saying it.

Posts:

I agree with Jordan is saying you are so close to intermediate. I see that you do a great job setting the scene and you have some interaction with the environment, but I would like to see more. For example in Stuck Between Two Girls, you do a great job making it clear that it is a very hot day. What does that do to Travis, does he sweat, is the sweating causing his hair to become unmanageable or making his clothes stick to him. That is the kind of stuff we look for at intermediate and you are very close.

I think you should wait two weeks before applying again. In that time make sure you update your profile to include any new personality traits or habits that you happen upon as you RP him. I think you have a great outline of the character and you are filling him in very nice, we just need more before approval for intermediate. If you need any clarification or help you can always PM me as well. Also, I would be more than happy to thread with Travis. I think Vorian and him would get along pretty well.

Hey Travis. <3

I agree with everything mentioned above and especially agree that you are ALMOST THERE. <3 I just want you to watch the way your sentences flow together. Reading them out loud usually helps me to make sure that they are smooth.

Just wanted to point that out. It's himself. Just a pet peeve of mine. x3 Otherwise, I think your profile will be great with expansion. The more that Taylor grows, the more you can add to it. I'd also love to see some of the 'other' things mentioned in his profile. They have room for expansion!

Like the above, I suggest that you wait two more weeks before applying again. Just work on everything we have suggested and you will be golden! c: