Heya Serpico! I've got Hretha, and there are a few things that need to be clarified/adjusted before she can be approved. Let's start with the most involved part first: her Gift.
Gift: Nightmare Fuel
Power Details: Nightmare fuel is a mental ability that creates physical embodiments of fear drawn from an individual present. The ability feeds off of those present, growing stronger as hysteria climbs. Beings from fictional realities, moments of emotional turmoil and hurt, scenes from the past, all things that the ability is capable of dredging up. The things have the ability to interact with those present, but are not truly living and thinking, only operating off previous precedent or expectation - as such they are also predictable. The ability is not easy to control, and requires strong force of will to prevent cascade. It also cannot manifest something that is not built from a pre-existing fear. These visions depart with the presence of the user, only affecting those immediately present in a room or area with her.
Limitations and Drawbacks: The ability is difficult to control, and the user has not learned how to handle it as of yet. Control is built on mental resilience, purpose and will - if the user is weak they will fold and be victim to their own ability. The ability is all edge, when the user is vulnerable, upset and afraid, then there is little hope. Hretha spends her day to day life running from the ability and anxiety. In regular day to day life, such a thing is a hindrance. Though the ability is powerful, it only activates while the user is concious - though a conduit for danger and terror, Hretha is still a physically normal girl with very little combat capability, if knocked out or otherwise dealt with the ability will immediately stop. It also deactivates if the user is calmed.
So a lot of the wording used to describe Hretha's power is well-written but a bit confusing (to the point where I had to read it multiple times to fully understand it), and some of the details of how exactly it works I'm still a little unsure of. Additionally, Nightmare Fuel seems to be very strong given its relative lack of any limitations (though perhaps that's just my imagination running wild), which may need to be knocked down a peg or two depending on how you clarify its exact mechanisms of action (though that may also be unnecessary upon clarification). Starting from the top:
Nightmare fuel is a mental ability that creates physical embodiments of fear drawn from an individual present. The ability feeds off of those present, growing stronger as hysteria climbs. Beings from fictional realities, moments of emotional turmoil and hurt, scenes from the past, all things that the ability is capable of dredging up. The things have the ability to interact with those present, but are not truly living and thinking, only operating off previous precedent or expectation - as such they are also predictable. The ability is not easy to control, and requires strong force of will to prevent cascade. It also cannot manifest something that is not built from a pre-existing fear. These visions depart with the presence of the user, only affecting those immediately present in a room or area with her.
So first things first, everything from "the ability is not easy to control" on should go into limitations rather than power details, since they are limitations/drawbacks instead of just the raw mechanism of what the power can do. Once you move them, I'll need a bit of elaboration on what exactly you mean by "immediately present in a room or area with her" since a room or area could mean a lot of things and be a lot of different sizes. What I'd suggest here is just a solid, specific radius (in meters!), outside of which Nightmare Fuel has no effect whatsoever.
Moving onto the actual details of how the power works, I have quite a few questions!
For one, does her power affect the fears of animals too, or only humans? I would go with "only humans" on this one since Hretha is likely surrounded by tiny animals all the time (dust mites and other insects), and feeding off of their fear would likely make the power untenable in day-to-day life.
Two, I'm a bit confused as to what you mean by "physical embodiments" here. Later on you describe what the power creates as visions (suggesting that they are not capable of interacting with the world), but you also say they can interact with the present, so how does that work? Does she create illusions that can nonetheless interact with others as if they were real (which is the impression I got)? Can others see and interact with these illusions, even if they were not spawned from their own memories, or does it only affect the person they came from?
Three, I'm a bit curious as to how exactly nightmare fuel "grows stronger" by feeding off of the fear of those nearby. Does that mean that the illusions get stronger, or more numerous, or does the area of effect get bigger, or... what, exactly?
Four, I want to better understand exactly what her power can create and what exactly those things can do. For instance, do fictional creatures spawned by her power have the same abilities that they do in their respective stories (I would go with no here, unless you make it very clear that Nightmare Fuel has no effect whatsoever on what's outside her radius)? Can her power warp the landscape immediately around her (which I imagine it can, since I can't think of any other way that scenes from the past can manifest)? If she can do that, then what's to stop her from also changing people and other living creatures too? If she were to warp someone into a monster, would they turn back to normal when she leaves? What might be simpler is limiting the power in some way with regards to its ability to warp reality -- maybe it can create new things, but not change what is already there, or maybe changes to the world around her are entirely illusory, unlike the creatures she creates, or something else, it's up to you.
Lastly, I'd suggest changing "an individual present" to "nearby individuals" or "a nearby individual" (depending on if it can affect multiple people at once) for clarity.
Onto limitations...
The ability is difficult to control, and the user has not learned how to handle it as of yet. Control is built on mental resilience, purpose and will - if the user is weak they will fold and be victim to their own ability. The ability is all edge, when the user is vulnerable, upset and afraid, then there is little hope. Hretha spends her day to day life running from the ability and anxiety. In regular day to day life, such a thing is a hindrance. Though the ability is powerful, it only activates while the user is concious - though a conduit for danger and terror, Hretha is still a physically normal girl with very little combat capability, if knocked out or otherwise dealt with the ability will immediately stop. It also deactivates if the user is calmed.
First and foremost a minor change, but I would suggest changing all instances of "the user" to "Hretha" since it's her power, and her power alone, and there's no need to be that impersonal when describing it.
Control is built on mental resilience, purpose and will - if the user is weak they will fold and be victim to their own ability.
This could be a little more clearly worded. Assuming I understood what you meant, what I would suggest is: "Hretha's control weakens if she loses focus and willpower, causing her Gift to manifest her own fears."
The ability is all edge, when the user is vulnerable, upset and afraid, then there is little hope.
This is an extremely cool description, but it also doesn't communicate anything we don't already know, so you can go ahead and cut this sentence.
Hretha spends her day to day life running from the ability and anxiety. In regular day to day life, such a thing is a hindrance.
This would either be better placed in the background, or changed to make it clear that Hretha's not literally running from her own Gift (which is likely impossible) but rather having to maintain constant control in order to keep it from "leaking out" and potentially hurting her or someone else.
Though the ability is powerful, it only activates while the user is concious - though a conduit for danger and terror, Hretha is still a physically normal girl with very little combat capability, if knocked out or otherwise dealt with the ability will immediately stop.
concious > conscious
Additionally, the fact that Hretha is physically normal is a given - if the power details don't specify something, then it's assumed that whatever aspect of a character is the same as a baseline human (eg, if you have electric powers but don't specify some resistance to it in power details, then presumably you can get shocked too). Go ahead and cut that bit and make this entire sentence about how it only activates when Hretha is conscious. What I'd suggest is:
"Nightmare Fuel only activates while Hretha is conscious, and if she is knocked out or otherwise incapacitated, the ability will immediately stop."
It also deactivates if the user is calmed.
This last bit is confusing to me, given everything else - does it ONLY activate if Hretha herself is scared in some way? If that's the case, then that needs to be included in the power details (and IMO it would actually make her Gift a lot less dangerous, which would be ideal given that she apparently only savaged a single boy with it in the past). If that's not the case, then I'd suggest cutting this or adjusting it to be based on both Hretha's fear and the fear of others (like the rest of her power details implies).
--
Now with that initial pass on her Gift out of the way, let's get to the more minor bits in the rest of the profile:
Serpico wrote: ↑Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:11 amHobbies and Interests: Writing, reading, fashion, verisimilism, the violin, synthwave music.
No period necessary!
Appearance: Hretha is 5’6'' and weighs 123lbs, she does not do regular exercise and as such is not particularly strong. Hretha round blue eyes, and though they would normally be considered a nice colour, her eyes shake uncontrollably due to her nystagmus. Normally, Hretha wears glasses to help correct her vision. Hretha’s cheeks are covered in freckles, she keeps herself intentionally pale by avoiding the sun as she is concerned about it damaging her skin. Hretha sleeps little, and is anemic, as such she usually has bags under her eyes and does not have a particularly healthy complexion. Hretha’s hair is naturally curly and black in colour with white streaks throughout. Hretha usually wears dark makeup, and fashions herself in dark clothing. Usually it’s something that shows the shoulder, she has a somewhat gothic expression in her wardrobe, but is on the conservative end and does not like to stand out.
A few additions:
-What does her face look like?
-What's her build like?
-What was she wearing on the day of the abduction?
- Hretha’s powers first manifested when she was a toddler, at the time proving too much to handle for her parents.
- Because of this she was passed through to other family members, traveling between states as they tried to figure out a way to handle her dangerous ability.
- Hretha’s worst manifestation came from a boy who was into Call of Cthulhu, he mentioned the hounds of tindalos, which could endlessly chase someone through angles. Being seven at the time, caused Hretha’s idea of them to manifest into reality and attack. Although Hretha ran far enough, the boy was hospitalized as a result. Since then Hretha lived in continuous fear of the concept, struggling to quell her own ability over the years.
- Hretha has been using medications to manage her gift since, and if left without them she becomes extremely stressed as they are the only way she manages the ability.
Just noting that these bits might need to change based on how you adjust her Gift, so I may get to them in the next round. For now, though, they don't necessarily need to be adjusted.
Other Skills: Basic First Aid [Certificate through first aid provider]
No need for the bracketed text here, basic first aid is fine on its own so long as you add a bullet point about where she got the skill in the background.
--
And that's it! I know that's a lot, but I'm sure you'll make it through. Post back here when you have those edits made and I'll give Hretha another look (and make sure to be quick, the deadline is fast approaching)!
