Silentcreek

Decline #1 - Check Results - 5 October 2014

Greetings and welcome to your first go-round in our applications department! Characters ususally go through 2-4 rounds of decline and editing, so do not feel discouraged about the fact that this was declined. CoSC has diffrent rules, and a diffrent approch to Warriors. The Apps process is where new players pick up a ton of these critical details.

In the decline itself I will take the section that I have change requests for and quote it, and then describe the needed changes. (Occasionally, it's just me commenting, but those situations that don't require change will be noted in the text). If you run into any questions, please feel welcome to contact me for clarifications.

APPEARANCE

• it helps her keep her balance in trees - This isn't a request for change, just a comment to make sure you understand a CoSC Perspective. Here at CoSC tree climbing for anything not related directly to escaping a predator is considered a dangerous and unnecessary use of time. Hunting from the trees is just asking for a broken leg, if not a broken back.
• her ears have some knicks in them from fighting - There have not been enough fights in recent IC history to result in a cat with multiple fighting related nicks in the ears. She was born, and has lived her life, in times where most of the danger has come from outside the clans.

PERSONALITY

• very balanced and well-rounded - Powerplay. A balanced and well-rounded personality changes based on the individual making the judgement.
• She enjoys swimming, likes to run, Silentcreek enjoys hunting - Her likes and dislikes are not exactly personality traits. These sentences do not count towards meeting the minimum length (which was just barely met without them).

KEY DATES: Birth - This field was incorrectly configured. Birth CoC means born into the cats of camelot is what is output. For a clan cat you select the kit option. Please keep in mind that full definitions for all of the options are provided in the form if you click "expand" on the Birth Options box.

HISTORY

• Weird box around some text - This is caused by placing a space, or spaces, prior to a paragraph. Remove the spaces and the box will go away.
• two brothers who were born still and her mother buried them immediately so that Silentkit would not be upset or scared, but, she saw. - Kittens eyes do not open their eyes for 8-10 days after birth. She could not have seen the bodies unless her mother was a sociopath and the leadership of the clan was insane, too.
• it chilled her skin in the cold leaf-bare morning. It was too cold, she couldn't stand it anymore and so she picked herself up herself up off of the mud and stumbled helplessly, eyes closed, over to her mother's scent. - Two other queens were in the nursery at the time and a Medicine Cat would have been presiding over the birth. Between these three I doubt such negligence and abuse of a newborn would have been permitted.
• In the later years - Poor wording choice, as she's less than a year and a half old total. You'll want to pick a more appropriate word than "years" for that phrase.
• her mother thought that the games were ridiculous and talked about how she wanted a tom, not a she-cat. - Two important things. The first is that there is no formal mate-hood at CoSC (As explained in detail Here). The mother wouldn't have a tom at all, and grew up in a world where she would know she had no right to any control of him. Secondly, kits are considered the domain of the mother. The father only gets the access to the kits that the mother permits. She would have been within her rights to ban him from the nursery.
• her mother told her to sleep with another queen because she wouldn't have her in her own nest - More abuse and negligence. The Medicine Cat would likely have become involved. Chances are it would have ended with Stormwhisker being stripped of her position of Queen and the kitten being put into someone else's care.
• Silentpaw's mentor was excellent at climbing trees - While useful for escaping the occasional enemy, this wouldn't be considered a skill worthy enough to either earn him a place as a mentor, or to excuse his inability to fish.
• To return the favor, Silentpaw taught her mentor how to fish, his mentor had never taught him. - She's an apprentice. She wouldn't be teaching him anything like that because she simply wouldn't know it. ShadowClan has a stream in it and a great deal of water. Fishing would be considered mandatory for promotion to warrior.
• Fighting was her least favorite aspect of training, she was excellent at it, but thought that making her fight others was unfair. She should've been practicing on warriors, not young apprentices, she had more skill, it was not fair and usually let the youngest ones win without a real fight. - This whole section makes it sound like ShadowClan is holding cagefights with its apprentices. Combat training is generally saves for the intermediate and advanced levels of training, and mentors would usually teach the moves themselves, and spar with their apprentice themselves to train them. Bouts between apprentices, who don't know what they're doing, would be few and far between before they had the body control for the sparing to be safe.
• Eventually, after several moons of training she received her warrior name. - The wording isn't very clear and suggests less time spent, so I'm going to clarify that cats are apprentices for at least 6 moons.
• Her leader named her Silentcreek because she was silent, cunning, and great at fishing. - Powerplaying. You cannot make others interpret your character as cunning (something that is neither supported nor suggested anywhere in the entire rest of the sheet) nor great at fishing (considering she has a mentor who didn't know how to fish, I doubt she'd ever be more than good enough to be passed, frankly. She'd have had to beg what training she could get off other cats, who wouldn't want to step on the senior warriors toes by interfering with his apprentice).

A respectable start. Most of it is rooted in CoSC's standards compared to what you're used to seeing at other games, I think. It won't take much to get the details sorted out. Let me know if there are any questions.  Kitsufox  ^{Fox's Den} 10:44, 5 October 2014 (CDT)

Decline #2 - Check Results - 5 October 2014

PERSONALITY: is pretty well balanced - Still a powerplay. You're still deciding what well balanced is, and how much of that thing she is.

KEY DATES: Spacing - I just checked the spacing of the dates. Long Nights '07 is only 4 moons from First Green '08. Kittens are not apprenticed until they are 6 moons of age. Period. You'll need to adjust that date, and then adjust the date for Warrior Name (which is traditionally given at 12 moons, unless something holds the matter up, like the cat having not completed all elements of training yet).

HISTORY

• her mother buried them immediately - I meant to bring this up in the last decline, but it was overshadowed. Why was her mother involved in burying the dead kits? She had just given birth and had a kitten to tend. The Medicine Cat would have arranged the detail to take away the bodies. Unless they were getting buried under the nursery floor she wouldn't have been permitted to leave her newborn to handle it herself. As stillbirths, they're unnamed and not even part of the clan. They wouldn't even get a vigil.
• her mother told her many stories, but couldn't tell her everything. Another queen told her that the elders knew many stories of the clans' history. She wanted to go see them, but her mother said for her not to bother them. - Why would her mother ban her from seeing the elders? Her mother, once she was weaned, would be back on hunting patrols already. The elders would be among the cats assigned as babysitters (young warriors would have the duty, too) for the kittens to free the mothers up to be providing members of the clan again.
• Silentpaw rarely ate anything but fish from the fresh kill pile, except when older cats wanted fish. - The Cats live in tight quarters. She would have quickly been scolded for not eating a proper variety of foods by the Medicine Cat.
• Adulthood - Her history ends abruptly with her Warrior Ceremony, normally received at 12 moons of age. This means there is half a year that you're just not addressing. even if all you do is look at the Plots Index and use the Plot Timeline to figure out which plots were happening at the time and how they effect her, that would be enough.
• Her leader named - The leader of ShadowClan during her entire lifetime had been Elmstar. (Reference)

Good improvement was made. Not far too go from here. Mainly just some history stuff that needs tending to.  Kitsufox  ^{Fox's Den} 12:32, 5 October 2014 (CDT)

Decline #3 - Check Results - 6 October 2014

APPEARANCE: She is cream colored with some slightly darker tan marks on her ears. [. . .] her ears have some flecks of tan hair on them. - The word tan belongs to another set of colors and would not be used to describe the darker marks on a cream tabby without muddling the clarity of the description. Replacing tan with darker (or removing it as a modifier from darker) would create the clarity we need. Sorry I didn't catch this one sooner.

PERSONALITY

• Length - Only two sentences deal with things that are not her likes or dislikes. Likes and dislikes, unless used to pack of a specific personality trait that you're attempting to describe, simply don't get counted towards your minimum.
• climb trees for squirrels - Climbing a tree to hunt a squirrel would be an exercise in futility. Pursuing the prey item into the space where it has all of the advantages and you have none is foolish. Squirrel hunting would generally be accomplished by ambushing them on the ground, when they're collecting or storing food.
• she does not like fighting [. . .] though she is [. . .] cunning - It is a powerplay to just claim that she is cunning. Instead describe what you feel should lead others to this impression. Check out this writeup about Powerplaying for examples and tips on avoiding it.

HISTORY

• when she was an apprentice and had to change the elders' bedding, she would ask them all that they knew. Her apprentice ceremony was the next morning, - It's an interesting choice in storytelling to address part of her time as an apprentice first, then mention her ceremony. For the sake of clarity, you may want to adjust it for timeline flow.
• Fighting [. . .] she didn't like the idea of hurting her own kind. - This is just a comment, but fighting other cats isn't the only use for combat training. It's one of the defenses for dealing with predators and protecting camp, too (though there is an emphasis on fighting other felines, most of the moves transfer).
• The Badger murdered Smokeclaw and Blizzardfury, buzz spread quickly about the two warriors' deaths, it scared her. - They were not the only deaths. Reference.
• After 7 moons of hard, labor intensive training - By my count it was 6.
• the Desperate Times began, prey was scarce, the river was cold, the forest was silent. - You're really underestimating the power of Desperate Times. It wasn't just scarcity. It was near starvation for most, coupled with illness brought in the by the weakness. (At least) 5 ShadowClanners fell ill and died. On top of that there was a Blizzard in Tiger's Wrath that made everything worse. Only the current moon and the two before it have really been times of peace and plenty again.

We're in a good place. It's down to nitpicking for perfection and details. As long as the personality (one of the trickier sections for newbies) gets sorted this round, I think everuthing else will be ready to go by the end of this round.  Kitsufox  ^{Fox's Den} 08:32, 6 October 2014 (CDT)

Decline #4 - Check Results - 7 October 2014

PERSONALITY: Length - [2nd INCLUDE] Only two sentences deal with things that are not her likes or dislikes. Likes and dislikes, unless used to pack of a specific personality trait that you're attempting to describe, simply don't get counted towards your minimum. You need to dislike the likes and dislikes in the personality. It doesn't tell you anything about her except her preferences, which isn't the point of the field. This section cares what the character is like, not what she likes.

HISTORY: The Badger murdered Smokeclaw, Blizzardfury, Eaglegaze, Foxdancer, Heathertail, and Owling, buzz spread quickly about the two warriors' deaths, it scared her. - the list is no longer just two warriors strong. You also don't have to make it a list. You could opt to talk about one or two by name, and then mention there are more deaths. All you have to make sure is that you make it clear that more than just the ones you choose to mention by name are dead. Keep in mind that the deaths were spread over moons. We're talking more a serial killer situation that a killing spree.

Good progress. Just a few more details to handle. I have D&D tonight, but after 8CST I will try and make time to check and see if you have had time for any changes. If you can get the personality sorted out and the last history detail fixed I could see you in character either tonight or tomorrow depending on schedules.  Kitsufox  ^{Fox's Den} 07:32, 7 October 2014 (CDT)

Decline #5 - Check Results - 8 October 2014

PERSONALITY

• Length - [3rd INCLUDE] Only two sentences deal with things that are not her likes or dislikes. Likes and dislikes, unless used to pack of a specific personality trait that you're attempting to describe, simply don't get counted towards your minimum. You need to dislike the likes and dislikes in the personality. It doesn't tell you anything about her except her preferences, which isn't the point of the field. This section cares what the character is like, not what she likes.
• she can swim for fish - Fishing isn't accomplished through swimming (I should really write up the fishing training documentation. This is such a common misconception...).

HISTORY: The Badger murdered Smokeclaw, Blizzardfury, Eaglegaze, Foxdancer, Heathertail, and Owling, buzz spread quickly about the two warriors' deaths, it scared her. - [2nd INCLUDE] The list is no longer just two warriors strong. You also don't have to make it a list. You could opt to talk about one or two by name, and then mention there are more deaths. All you have to make sure is that you make it clear that more than just the ones you choose to mention by name are dead. Keep in mind that the deaths were spread over moons. We're talking more a serial killer situation that a killing spree.

I'm not sure you actually made any changes this time around... It's all exactly the same except the resubmit according to the data the website kept. I'm wondering if you missed pressing the save button at some point...  Kitsufox  ^{Fox's Den} 17:29, 8 October 2014 (CDT)

Decline #6 - Check Results - 9 october 2014

PERSONALITY: also can be sarcastic, in fact, she almost always is. - Powerplay. You can't force others to view her as sarcastic.

We just have to nail that personality down and get the Powerplays out of it and we'll be good to go.  Kitsufox  ^{Fox's Den} 07:49, 9 October 2014 (CDT)