Fandom: It's a script I'm writing so details about certain traits are left vague. Besides that, it's a story about how certain families, known as Guardians, are assigned to protect their town or city from supernatural threats, usually standard vengeful ghosts, and from time to time there are bigger threats such as chimera, ogres, spiderchicks and/or fish with human faces. One of these families is the Lee family, they live in a small town in Maine, and do their thing, while also holding down normal jobs, such as weavers, theatre teachers and exotic dancers (I'm not joking).
[A script now you've peeked my interest. I like how it's a script rather than just a story, it gives people the chance to add their own flair to the characters, it's very interesting I haven't seen it done before. The plot seems solid, I like the idea of them having normal jobs as well as being Guardians that could make some pretty good potentially humorous moments. I am intrigued on how families are assigned, do they have to show particular traits or ability?]
Name: Nicole René Lee
Name meaning: Nicole is a feminine variant of Nicholas which means "Victory of the people", René is French meaning "Born again" or "Reborn", and Lee is a surname that appears in many languages and cultures, which means there can be multiple meanings.
[I appreciate you didn't name her something like Alexa which means "defender" just because she grows to be Guardian. Nicole René Lee has a nice ring to it.]
Age: 13-29
[Hopefully, we'll see the development and how she changes as she matures into a woman throughout the script.]
Gender: Cis Female
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Species: Human
Nationality: American
Appearance: I want to leave it up to a director's creativity, but my general rule for her appearance is that she's mixed race, muscular, and tall (6'4"), medium brown eyes, light curly brown hair dyed honey blonde, and olive skin.
[I really like this, it's giving others the chance to push their own imagination as well as showing how they see Nicole, it lets you see your character in a different light too, which is always good for every creator no matter the medium.]
Clothing style appears to have a lot of influence from alternative fashion, such as goth and grunge, her most noticeable feature, is a large brimmed black hat, that she earned from "punching a witch in the throat", along with that she's shown wearing her adoptive father's high school class ring on her right index finger. If she wears more revealing clothes, it exposes the tattoos on her which are primarily protective sigils, which are mostly on her back, and lower arms, while her left upper arm is a triple goddess (Hecate) tattoo, on the opposite arm is a tattoo of her son's name in kanji (琴音) which is close to her shoulder, her chest has her adoptive father's name tattooed close to her heart, and the entirety of her left leg has a intricate tattoo of a Chinese dragon.
[The tattoos are a nice touch, especially her sons and adoptive fathers name shows that she cares about them seeing as she's willing to permanently mark her skin for them. The protective sigils make sense too. What's the history behind Hecate does it have something do with Hecate being goddess of magic, witchcraft, and necromancy, is it extra protection? The dragon too? Protection? Something else?]
Health: Nicole is fine physically and mentally at first, but later when she's dragged to hell, and brought back she's sent to a mental institution after being declared mentally insane. That's not the end though, she ends up getting mentally fixed by the Greek god of insanity himself, Dionysus, after some "favors" are performed.
[Nice, nothing in life is ever free.]
Personality: Nicole was trained to be a warrior, which has made her war-like, and militaristic, but it has also made her awkward and shy when not in a fight setting.
[If she was trained to be a warrior wouldn't she have been trained to hold her own in any situation, in and out of combat, to appear fearless in the face of anything? Even if that's just an act she's putting on. Also, there is nothing wrong with her being shy it's just that it's overdone a lot. Now, her being awkward makes sense to me, perhaps she spent so long training that she's not used to interacting with new people, and does so in an ungainly manner that make from some humourous moments.]
She's highly competitive, but that can cause her to inflict injury onto opponents during friendly sparring matches, such as when she broke the ribs of the wrestling captain.
[I like this it's a strength-weakness sort of thing. It's good to be competitive and want to be the best but when the need to be the best is too strong people get hurt. It tells me that she can occasionally let her needs get the best of her, whether that's true or not, it's an interesting thing to play around with.]
She doesn't like it when people get on their high horse, or people who try to push her down, so she won't hesitate to push them off their imaginary thrones, although she herself can get cocky, but only when someone admits that she was right all along.
[Her not hesitating to push people off their imaginary thrones, seems a little contradictory to her being shy, it seems like she can switch her shyness on and off. If she only gets cocky and pushes people she knows off their high horse that's fair enough. However, if it's a complete stranger does she still push them off or get cocky? Of course, no one likes to be pushed down, but wouldn't a shy person be subtler, like facial expressions, or deaths stares, rather than with words or with physical violence. Perhaps making her reserved or quiet fit her more?]
Nicole is a girl who enjoys, and appreciates balance in everything, she enjoys playing high risk sports, while also enjoying the arts, and she enjoys bodybuilding while also enjoying dress shopping. One well known characteristic of Nicole, is she doesn't like to speak in class, she mostly communicates in American Sign Language, or writes down what she wants to say, and if she wants to have a private conversation with her brothers, she speaks Enochian.
[How do others feel about her choice to use ALS rather than words, when she has the capacity to speak? Do they think she's selfish or ungrateful? Do they think she's rude for not talking directly to them when she is capable of doing so?
How is her pronunciation when she speaks, does she sometimes slip up on more complex words because she doesn't get as much practice as her peers? But all in all, it's a pretty interesting quirk.]
Nicole is also noted to be just a little impulsive, as seen when she punched a witch for a hat.
[Clashes slightly with her being shy but it's not a big deal seeing as you've only noted the impulsive action of hers once, it seems that she doesn't do it much.]
She loves her brothers and feels very comfortable around them, even admitting that the family is a little strange for some of their habits. Deep down inside, there's this constant nagging feeling about the Lee bloodline, as she knows that her children would not be blood related to Andrew or any children he might have, which has made her consider marrying someone who is a Lee by blood, it bothers the hell out of her, and she can't stop it.
[That's something new and honestly very clever, I've had a few friends who were adopted over the years and it's interesting to think if they ever felt the same as Nicole]
Skills: She's good with guns and blades which is standard, but her true skill is mixed martial arts, hers is a mix of Muay Thai, Jeet Kun Do, and Ba Ji Quan, which she has mostly used in self-defense but she has used it once or twice as a non-verbal way to tell people to back off and to not piss her off. Along with this she's also shown to be a excellent weaver, in spring she takes a maximum of 10 commissions for anything that can be weaved from bracelets to tapestries.
[Were there any consequences to her using martial arts on these people? Was she clocked by authorities? Was her family disappointed?]
Weaknesses: "Human fragility", her and her brothers heavily depend on each other heavily, impulsive, pugnacious
[ Human fragility seems like a pretty general weakness, but you've also done weaknesses specific to Nicole which is appreciated. Her being pugnacious and shy clash, but her dependency on her brothers and vice versa seems pretty good.]
Strengths: Physical strength, high intelligence, can improvise with a gun if she ever ran out of bullets
[Does she have a high intelligence in general or is it in more specific areas, for example, does she excel in areas of tactics or strategies due to her training.]
Powers: So during her time in hell she became a demon, during the demon period, she gained telekinesis, the ability to possess humans, and consume their souls, the setbacks were that she could enter places of worship (Temples, Synagogues, Mosques, and Churches), or places that were warded, touching anything or anyone holy would burn her (Priests, holy water, crosses, Star of David, Bibles etc.). Also I haven't decided fully yet, but if I do make her biological mother a witch, then I want the mother to manipulate the daughter into spending time with her and learning magic.
[Does she have a limit on the number of humans she can possess at once? Also, I like how you've included different types of religions and their religious symbols.]
Fears: She fears that her dependency of her brothers will be used against her, so she pretends that she doesn't need them.
[This is good. How do the brothers feel about is? Also about her not liking to speak in class, was that caused by something negative in her past? Perhaps someone would twist her words when she spoke, perhaps she's scared of that repeating so she uses ASL/ Enochian.]
Relationship with Family: Noah Lee (Adoptive father)- She loved him as shown when she first met God, she asked if he was in Heaven and was satisfied with God's answer. Sometimes she cries in her sleep, and says his name while she's asleep.
[All good.]
Andrew Lee (Adoptive brother)- Nicole is grateful for everything Andrew endures with his job, as she understood at a young age what he did for a living. Nicole treats her brothers equally and it annoys her when they have arguments about her. As a joke she started celebrating the day Andrew made his first adult video, much to his annoyance.
[Not important but where's Andrew's mom? Andrew seems like a wee' cinnamon roll.]
Samson Lee (Biological brother)- Nicole loves her brother and seems to be oblivious to how overprotective he is over her. On nice days they sit on the porch together and take turns reading classic novels aloud while drinking sweet tea.
[This is fine and sweet.]
Kimiko Tachibana (Biological mother)- Nicole knew nothing about Kimiko until the woman came waltzing back into her life, at first Nicole didn't know what to think of Kimiko, then Kimiko tried to feed her lies, which all ended with Nicole killing Kimiko. Nicole stated that she felt nothing as she burned Kimiko's body, meaning that there's still no bond between mother and daughter.
[Nicole killing her mother seems understandable considering the situation. Where's Nicole's biological father?]
Kotone Lee (Biological Son)- Nicole loves her son and tries to do what's best for him, but she has fears of what others think about them, a human mother and her half-kitsune son.
[Not sure if I want to know how a kitsune impregnated a human if that's even what happened here. I'm presuming he shapeshifted into a human form.]
Backstory: Nicole René Lee was originally born Kaori Tachibana, she was born on November 27 1988 in Hawaii, her biological mother had "problems" such as substance abuse, and a need for attention, leading her to party and get high, which quite obviously had negative affects on her children, one of them being that Nicole was both 2 months premature.
[Having her mother have a need for attention is a creativity and pretty solid way to get her into partying and drugs, rather than having her mother go partying and getting high for no reason, well done.]
Her older brother Samson, struggled to care for her while attending school, he would hide her in the bushes of his school, then proceeded to drink a lot of water in order to have a excuse to leave class, when he was able to leave he would check to make sure everything was okay with her.
[That seems highly problematic, but desperate times calls for desperate measures. Was there no-one else Samson would take Nicole? Father? Grandparents? Family friends? Neighbours? Perhaps if Samson went to the neighbours that called the police sooner Kimiko would have been done for neglect and whatever else.]
.
It wasn't until Nicole was 6 months old when things went down hill, mother was hungover at home, Nicole was hungry so Samson attempted to make her some baby food, but he accidentally knocked over the ceramic bowl. This awoke the mother, who became angry, and beat Samson, while his screaming alerted neighbors to call the police, which resulted in Kimiko being arrested and losing custody of her children. Nicole and Samson were given to Noah Lee, who was to be their foster father until courts decided on what to do with Miss Tachibana, 2 months later, Kimiko was sent to prison, and Noah formally adopted Nicole and Samson, changing their names as a symbol of starting new.
[Child abuse is used quite a lot in OCs and most times it's done poorly or out of the blue. You, on the other hand, gave a pretty good backstory of the mother being high or hungover frequently, and having a 'me, me, me' attitude and a pretty good trigger for the abuse with the broken bowl.]
When she was almost 1 the family moved back to Noah's hometown Matlock, as Noah was needed to replace his injured sister, Noah realized that he wouldn't be able to take care of Nicole if he was busy fighting the supernatural, so he summoned Kotaro, a kitsune (Japanese fox spirit), to be a nurse for Nicole, he put a lot of trust into Kotaro as he was formerly his biological son's nurse.
[Why did Noah summon a kitsune? Why not something else? Is he Japanese or has ties to Japanese culture and mythology hence summoning a Japanese spirit?]
Kotaro adored Nicole, and did everything he could to be a good nurse to Nicole, once when she was 3, she had pneumonia, Kotaro first didn't do much as he wanted to see if her body would fight it off, when it didn't and got worse, Kotaro finally stepped in, and helped slowly cure her.
[That's a bit risky for him to do especially because of her young age and the possibility of permanently affecting her lungs. Kitsune are meant to have superior intelligence so he must have known the risks of making her worse by not treating her as soon as she displayed symptoms. But, I can understand why he would want to see if she could deal with it herself, but still, it's risky.]
When she was 6 Nicole became friends with a boy that was hard-of-hearing, they had a hard time communicating with each at first, but Nicole eventually learned sign language to communicate, unfortunately the friendship did not last, as the boy was later killed by a ghoul. Nicole was upset by this, and felt bad for his parents, so before they moved she created a tapestry for them so they can remember all the good the boy brought.
[That's sweet.]
When Nicole was 10 Noah died during a fight with a vampire, in her grief Nicole threw herself into work as a Guardian, even though you have to be 15 to start work as a Guardian; Nicole began weightlifting, learning various martial arts, and how to use weapons that Noah didn't teach her how to use. Before her 13th birthday, the Shinto god Inari came down to earth and told Nicole that there was a high chance of her dying young unless she had powerful weapons to keep that from happening, she asked what those powerful weapons would be, Inari said "a powerful sword that attacks only the wicked, and a child with an undying devotion towards you as its mother".
[Why a sword? Swords are used so much; it's actually starting to trigger me. I understand that maybe it's a sword because it's ancient or has been passed down for centuries before guns were even invented. But you've got to remember if she's 13 it'll be around 2001 {kill me if my math is wrong} I'd think that swords would be a bit out-dated in 2001, not mention that it'll be obvious if she's carrying a sword unless she's using magic to mask it and a pain in the arse to carry around 24/7.]
This made Nicole feel conflicted but ultimately she vowed to find that sword and create that child, Inari appointed Kotaro to father the child, he obliged since that was his creator. So that's why the first "episode" starts with Nicole being 5 months pregnant, but no baby bump because of her abdominal muscles.
[Why does she need a child? Something to motivate her to continue to fight? Or something to do with the half-kitsune abilities? "You'll need a sword that attacks only the wicked... oh, and how are you with changing nappies cause you're gonna need a kid." It seems a pretty odd choice to be completely honest but I'm sure it'll get explained further down in the script.]
Now let's get down to business...
Pros
· The plot is solid, and the fact that it's a script is pretty interesting.
· Aging is good, it'll show how Nicole matures into a woman and everyone loves a little character development.
· Competitiveness, it's good that she has this, gives her drive to do the best she can, also an explanation of her training so hard, she wants to be the best she can for her adopted father.
· Strengths and weaknesses are solid.
· Family relations are well-done.
· From what you've written you seem to be able to know what you're doing with the child abuse, you've got a pretty good reason for it to happen.
Cons
· One of my biggest concerns with Nicole is with her shyness clashing with other personality traits.
· Her powers don't really seem to have that many setbacks over than the religious places/objects/people. Those things can burn her, but can they stop her supernatural abilities?
· Adding magic on top of telekinesis, possess and consuming of souls, maybe a bit much, do so with caution make sure you balance out the weaknesses to her magic well.
· Although an interesting choice of language, where and why would Nicole and her brother learn to speak Enochian there is no explanation to this, it's just out of the blue.
· I don't think a kitsune, an intelligent being would take unnecessary risks with a 3-year-old child with pneumonia.
· The sword but that's more of personal preference, feel free to ignore my comments on it.
Possible Improvements/Changes...
I think the number one thing would be to take a quick look at her personality and sort out her shyness, there are just a few places where it clashes with other traits. Switching out shy for something like reserved, quite, or private may work just as well.
Her being burned by religious objects and so on, is fine but I feel like it needs a little something else. Perhaps she can only possess weak minded human or perhaps when she's around religious objects she can't use her telekinesis, something like that.
Obviously, you need to figure out what you're doing with Nicole learning magic, if you do go down that route make sure you balance out the weaknesses.
[These are just suggestions, you by no means have to do any of these.]
Mary Sue?
No, Nicole is far from it.
Marks & Grades
Originality – 9 – Hey, that's pretty good.
Overall Grade – A – Hey, that's also pretty good.
[Thank you to Bokukkokhmer for submitting Nicole, it's been a pleasure reviewing her!]
×Isaac×