Lilliana Monroe

[EarthBound]

Name: Lilliana Monroe (also known as Pamahas)
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Grade: Senior
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Traditional dance, beadwork, history.

Appearance: Lilliana stands at five foot seven, and weighs exactly 140 pounds. She is skinny in size with her shoulders being around the same width as her hip-line. Her cool-golden skin is rough and dry as a result of her xeroderma. Her dark brown eyes are close set with thin, tapered eyebrows. Her nose has a short bridge, a round tip, and a slight upward curve. She has narrow lips, straight teeth, and her jaw sits between round and oval-shaped. Her deep black hair is long, straight, and has never been cut from the day she was born. She has a reservation accent which has more of a musical and tonal feel.

Lilliana’s everyday wear leans toward the minimalist side, typically emulating a mixture between late nineties fashion and traditional Native wear. She most resembles the casual chic and Y2K eras, known for lightweight athletic clothing and bold fashion statements.

On the day of her kidnapping, Lilliana wore a mint green slip dress over a pair of dark blue ripped jeans. She also had a mint green pair of Converse to match with her dress. Lastly, her hair was tied up in braids and she wore a beaded, beige cowboy hat.

Biography: Lilliana (Pamahas) Monroe was born on May 3rd to Benjamin (Wovoka) and Lilette (Thocmentony) Monroe, and ended up being their only child. She was named Pamahas, which translates to meadow, due to her birth location, as she was born in a meadow near the Monroe household with assistance from a midwife. She was raised in the Las Vegas Indian Colony, holding the Paiute tribe known as the Nuvagantucimi. This is a small reservation, with a reservation population of sixty and a tribe population of eighty. It ended up being a close knit community, as everyone knew each other.

Lilliana’s parents were ingrained deeply in their culture, as they are unsure for how long it will last. The Southern Paiute people only have five federally recognized tribes, with Benjamin and Lilette having lived long enough to see their tribe recognized as a sovereign nation. They believe that their existence as Paiute people nust be used to uphold the traditions of those before them. Lilette does traditional Native art with beadwork and pottery, and usually participates in art shows nearby. Benjamin is a part of the Las Vegas Paiute Police Department, but also participates in the annual Snow Mountain Powwow to honor traditional Native dance.

Lilliana’s parents wanted to pass the traditions that they held closest to them down to their daughter, in an effort to keep them alive in future generations. They began educating her on their history when she was just beginning to understand them, and Lilliana soon began participating in the culture. This began with traditional dance, taught by Benjamin. Lilliana attended every powwow since she was born, and began getting enrolled in them at age six, still doing them to this day. Lilliana has always enjoyed participating in powwows, but she did feel overworked when she was younger. Her parents wanted her to get everything right, which put pressure on her from a young age. As she has gotten older, she has learned to embrace her own style and understand why her parents wanted her to master the culture. She only wishes that she was able to have more freedom from young and not have to be pressured.

Lilliana’s mother was also quick to introduce Lilliana to beadwork, as Lilette wanted her daughter to leave a physical impression on the world. While oral tradition and passing down dances were both valued, Lilette wanted to pass this on in fear that their culture would one day be erased if not. Lilliana found her to be overreacting at that comment, but she was not one to complain. She found beadwork to be a great way to use her hands, as beadwork requires patience and picking at the small, small details. While Lilliana also finds it weird that this was pushed onto her, she found it to be a nice passtime even as she grew older. It would end up being an enjoyable hobby that she would bring to school in order to pass time, as a form of self expression.

Benjamin and Lilette wanted to keep Lilliana close to home throughout her childhood, but they also knew that they couldn’t teach her everything. As a result, Lilliana’s first major experience outside of the tribe was at her elementary school. This was Lilliana’s first experience being separated from her parents, and she found it hard to branch out at first. The people around her were from all cultures, races, and ethnicities, and she didn’t know how to blend in with that at first. The first few weeks in elementary school ended up being a nightmare for her.

That was all until Lilliana met Rejanee Austin. Rejanee was another little girl who tirelessly worked to make sure all of her classmates were included, and that included Lilliana. An outsiders group was formed from the students who couldn’t find a place, and Lilliana began interacting with kids from various different backgrounds, who had different worldviews, and new experiences that Lilliana couldn’t even fathom. The very first seed was planted in Lilliana’s mind that there could be more to life than just her tribe. There could be people everywhere that could share what makes them unique. That enticed her from the beginning.

Benjamin and Lilette quickly showed concern for their daughter, as they saw their daughter becoming more of a risk taker. She suddenly had questions about everything around her, wanting to see what was beyond the reserve and Las Vegas as a whole. In their hearts, Benjamin and Lilette knew that her daughter was just trying to interact with the world around her, but they didn’t want her to lose what made her so special. Their paranoia caused Lilliana to be transferred when middle school began, which officially cut her off from Rejanee. As Rejanee moved to a different state, the two never saw each other ever again.

Middle school approached next, and Lilliana once again was retracting into her shell. She was entering a new school district, with people who had known each other from elementary, and no Rejanee to help her guide her way through. She felt as if she had a hit a wall in her social connections, being limited to her parents and her tribe just like when she was pre-elementary. She focused her time in middle school toward her studies only.

The barrier that Lilliana’s parents had put on her started showing its effects, as Lilliana fully retracted herself in fear that she would end up losing her friends once again. The only aspects of her elementary self showed through her dominant subjects, specifically in history and ethnic studies classes. This part of her old self turned into an interest, as Lilliana would use her freetime to research history for every location she could find on a globe. Benjamin and Lilette had never seen their daughter so invigorated in an interest before. The reality set in on them that they were restricting their daughter from pursuing her passions and from truly communicating with her peers. As a result, they decided to leave their daughter to life. They wanted her to be happy, and as she was entering high school, she needed to once again find her voice.

A switch in school districts went on to happen again, and that is how Lilliana ended up at Red Rock High School. Her first goal was to make up for lost time, and so she started trying everything she missed before. Cheerleading, TTPRG, metalworking, tennis, volleyball, and theatre have all seen Lilliana Monroe in their doors at some point, but they never kept her as a result of an ongoing indecisiveness. Cheerleading, tennis, and volleyball all seemed to be a problem due to her frailness, metalworking was a heat of the moment decision and didn’t stick, and while she enjoyed both TTRPG and theatre, she did not see herself staying in either pathway. She attempted to gain as many social connections as possible. She became the social butterfly of the school, knowing almost everything about everyone after the first three years. The only negative part of this was that she was known for constantly switching between activities, thus giving her the reputation as an activity hopper.

Lilliana finally felt herself inside of a community in her senior year. She has solid grades, a good social standing, and she is now attempting to join the Outdoor Rattlers before she departs to college. She is hesitant to be leaving, as she worked from her elementary days to finally feel as if she belonged. Her parents had finally let their strict grasp onto her, and she only had four years to expand upon that. The idea of starting again in university is a concept that has frightened her since her sophomore year.

Lilliana decided to push these ideas down by embracing the idea of change. She decided to apply to universities all out of state, in order to branch off and fully gain her independence. Her parents were worried about fully losing control of their daughter, but they could not say anything after she chose to attend University of Alaska Anchorage, majoring in history. They believe that their daughter is trying too hard to prove a point, but Lilliana finally has a goal of moving out of college. She wants to be a master in her field, and she wants to meet as many people as she can to achieve that goal. She wants to make a name for herself in the history department, even if the dreams seem far fetched. Lilliana remains blissfully ignorant to the challenges along the way, as she now believes that helping others to tell their stories is her pathway in life.

Advantages: Lilliana can work quickly and effectively with her hands as a result of her beadwork.
Lilliana is acquainted with many groups of people at Red Rock, thus having connections that could push her forward.
Disadvantages: Lilliana sets goals for herself that seem almost impossible, such as her future career, thus setting far too high expectations for everything she does.
Lilliana is frail, and she doesn’t have any major physical strength. This is shown through her failures in most sports.

[Deamon]

Hi EarthBound! I'm Deamon and I'll be your staffer today. Lilliana is off to a good start but we need to add more detail in a few different places before she'll be ready for pregame. So with that let's get to it.

She is skinny in stature,

Just some weird phrasing here as stature refers to height so saying skinny in stature doesn't read right.

They had the money to go along with it, therefore they decided to take the risk

What risk?

This paragraph about his jumping around elementary schools and middle schools is too slight at present and needs to be expanded. We don't need details on every school she ever went to, but we do need to know why her parents were shuffling her around so consistently and a deeper look at how Lilliana felt about all this if she even understood at first.

What does Lilliana enjoy about sewing?

Lilliana used to be one of the top students of the class in middle school, but that was only because she had failed to start thinking out what lay ahead.

This combination of sentences doesn't make sense. I'm not sure how thinking about her future made her grades collapse in on themselves. I'm aware it does say after this that her parents were pushing her to be the best but this is the first time this is brought up. If they've been pushing her to be the best it should be brought up prior to now. Again I think this links back to the previous education paragraph and how glossed over it is. It leads to this situation where we are being provided details but we're missing context so the details don't make sense.

The realization set in that Lilliana’s interests and personality outside of school was attributed to two hobbies.

I feel like it would be three hobbies as she also has sewing which was discussed earlier.

As for the other two hobbies and interests, the gardening hobby isn't really enough of a thing to qualify as a hobby. But both of these hobbies need expanding and further details.

Additionally, based off the profile she doesn't actually have hobbies or interests she actively does routinely. So, this will need to be changed or additional hobbies added, because people don't just do nothing and everyone has things they do regularly that they enjoy.

You also switch to present tense around this point, and the biography should be in past tense so this will need to be amended so that everything is in past tense.

High school was soon approaching, and Lilliana continued to hold high A’s and B’s.

So did Lilliana stop being one of the kids in class and then regain her grades or did she never drop her grades? It's confusing that we have a note that she started to suffer from burnout and had good grades until she didn't but now she still has good grades.

They either had a group of people that did not sit in line with her beliefs, was something she could not see a career with

What beliefs and what career aspirations? We have a lot of details like this in the profile, where something is mentioned with no explanation or context so it just comes off as weird.

Basically, what I'm saying is that we need more expansion on everything. The profile leaves too many details out that are referred to as if they are present. I am sure you know what beliefs Lilliana holds and what career she wants, but at present none of that is on the page. As such I'd like you to go back through and add more detail to every part of the profile to give the grounding for her decision-making and thought processes.

Lilliana now finds herself stuck in a dilemma. Going into the new semester, she is trying out the Outdoor Rattlers.

There's a bit of a timeline issue created here, in that the previous paragraph was talking about going into high school, but now we're entering a new semester of her senior year. Again we've just jumped through a large batch of time without commentating upon it and it means contextual details are missing.

She feels overwhelmed by the amount of thoughts going through her head, and that nothing seems to be taking a stance

What thoughts? What stance would she want to be taking?

She’s applied to most colleges “undecided” and finds herself uninterested in any of the highest paying jobs.

What colleges? Which jobs? Highest-paying should have a hyphen also.

For Lilliana's advantages and disadvantages, the first one about being able to communicate with people doesn't come up in the profile at all, so will need to be added or removed as an advantage. This is the same for the first disadvantage.

And that is everything I caught on this pass. So once you make the edits post back here and I'll give Lilliana another look!

[EarthBound]

heyyy so i rewrote literally everything bc i realized i rushed her.......smiles....

[Deamon]

Right so, I'm going to open with the biggest issue facing this profile at present, and that is the lack of detail throughout. This profile is too short and as a result we are missing basic information about Lilliana and her life. We don't have her parents' jobs or any information regarding her tribal name and how she feels about her heritage at all for example. Lilliana also only has two hobbies when we expect three at a minimum. You are going to need to go through this profile and expand everything that is here and add details.

Remember that profiles are tools that let us get an understanding of your characters' life and their personality. I'd recommend reading some other approved profiles to get an idea of what we want from these content-wise.

Anyway, let's move on to what we have so far and cover some more specific stuff:

What are Lilliana's parents jobs?

I can't stress this enough, but if Lilliana is going to be Native American there is going to need to be more time and consideration put into how this influences her life and how she engages with her heritage. Currently, it is only mentioned at the beginning and then it is never brought up again. This will need to be expanded in detail.

She emerged as a solid B student. She wasn’t amazing at anything she did, but she did a good enough job to get by. That was good enough for her, at least.

Grades don't matter this much at elementary and I doubt any elementary school child is going to be fretting over grades so much that they'd even worry about if they were getting good enough grades, unless they were on the brink of being held back, but that's more of a progress thing rather than purely grades based.

How did Lilliana feel about her parents scolding her for picking a "wasteful career"? This sounds like a fairly key moment in their relationship but we just breeze on past it. These are the sort of things we should go into detail on as they can give great reasons for why a character thinks and acts the way they do. So please expand on this with how Lilliana felt, how she reacted and how this affected her relationship with her parents at the time.

Currently, we just jump from middle school all the way to high school with no details about anything that happens, now sometimes middle school is boring and that's fine, but I would assume Lilliana does something in this time, she did just have her parents crush her career hopes after all.

They had bright plans for her when it came to college, after all,

There are two issues with this section. Firstly, this is the first time this has been mentioned in the profile. If this is important information—and it appears to be—then it should be mentioned earlier. The other problem is that conversational turns of phrase like after all are too informal for a profile so that will need to be removed.

Her parents did not believe in a potential career in material, and wanted her to branch out to something more professional.

I don't know what you mean when you say a career in material. The jump from middle school straight to high school really does no favors here, as this would be better in the middle school section. As it is, it reads like her parents told her sewing was a bad career and then never brought up a potential career again until she was in high school.

Lilliana felt a lack of passion hit her as soon as her first career choice was suddenly put to the side.

Again this would be better to cover in middle school when this first happens.

There was a lack of passion for every subject offered at school, which warranted her to begin looking at clubs and other areas of expertise.

This is the second time you say some variant of this in as many sentences so it doesn't add any information. Also, I'm unsure why her grades dropping warrants her looking at clubs etc. That isn't going to make a difference with her grades, so I'm unsure of the reason for this being here in this sentence.

What other groups did she join at Red Rock? Did she join any sports teams? What sports did she like or dislike?

We need more on her birdwatching if it is going to be a hobby. We need details such as when she got into birdwatching, how she participates, where does she go to do this etc.

The second hobby that Lilliana picked up was geocaching. She had always been an outdoorsy person from her childhood,

This is confusing coming directly after birdwatching as the reason we're given for why Lilliana took up birdwatching was part of an effort to be more outdoorsy, so saying she's always been outdoorsy conflicts with that. The same details I asked for with birdwatching also apply here.

I'd also advise with these hobbies to put them in the profile at the point where Lilliana takes them up in the timeline of her life. As that will make things easier to follow.

When formatting the advantages and disadvantages make sure they're all in the same paragraph, with no line breaks for each new one. They should also be related to her abilities during the SOTF game, so the second disadvantage isn't relevant and should be removed.

For Lilliana's frail and weak disadvantage this will need to be expanded upon in the profile itself as we need all advantages and disadvantages to be present and this one is never brought up.

And that is everything for now, really make sure you dig into this details when you go through your edits and once you're done I'll give Lilliana another look.

[EarthBound]

ATTEMPT #3!! another major rewrite so I'm really sorry for putting you through this, BUT I ACTUALLY LIKE HER CHARACTER NOW!!! PLEASE AGREE WITH ME!!!

also just want to say like ty so much for all of these critiques bc you really helped me remake who i want her to be and it has opened a LOT up for me

[Deamon]

Alright, Lilliana is looking a lot better, we have much better detail across the profile now. But there are still somethings we can do to improve and tighten things up with her so we'll be doing that in this next pass.

This is a small reservation, with a reservation population of sixty and a tribe population of eighty. It ended up being a close knit community, as everyone knew each other.

This reads a bit funny in the context of the paragraph and is also tense switch. It will need to be smoothed out to fit more naturally with the rest of the paragraph. Close-knit also requires a hyphen,

Lilliana’s parents were ingrained deeply in their culture, as they are unsure of how long it will last.

This sentence is kind of all over the place grammatically but a simple fix is swapping the are and for with a were and of.

They believe that their existence as Paiute people nust be used to uphold the traditions of those before them.

An N has managed to sneak into must instead of an M.

This began with traditional dance, taught by Benjamin. Lilliana attended every powwow since she was born, and began getting enrolled in them at age six

You use began twice in this sentence and you can swap the second one for started.

Lilliana has always enjoyed participating in powwows, but she did feel overworked when she was younger. Her parents wanted her to get everything right, which put pressure on her from a young age. As she has gotten older, she has learned to embrace her own style and understand why her parents wanted her to master the culture. She only wishes that she was able to have more freedom from young and not have to be pressured.

I'm highlighting this whole part because it feels like a holdover from the previous profile and doesn't make as much in this new version. It's not clear what she is overworked by, what exactly her parents wanted her to get right, and what exactly embracing her own style means in this context. So this will need rewriting to make more sense and be less vague.

Also on that previous quote, "to have more freedom from young and not have to be pressured" feels like it has a typo in there somewhere.

Lilette wanted to pass this on in fear that their culture would one day be erased if not.

This has already been mentioned once in the profile so it's redundant to say it again here.

Lilliana found her to be overreacting at that comment, but she was not one to complain.

This is phrased oddly, as it makes it sound like Lilliana said that their culture could one day be erased, which she didn't, you'll want to reword this.

she found it to be a nice passtime even as she grew older.

Pastime only has one T and you have a double space between she and grew. At the end of this paragraph self-expression also needs a hyphen.

Benjamin and Lilette quickly showed concern for their daughter, as they saw their daughter becoming more of a risk taker.

As you already said their daughter earlier you don't need to repeat the phrase in the second half of the sentence, and simple her will work better.

This sentence does say they see her becoming more of a risk taker, but then the rest of the paragraph is nothing to do with taking risks at all, it's just curiosity about the world, so if Lilliana is supposed to be taking risks it will need to be elaborated what these risks would be.

Starting this next sentence saying middle school is approaching doesn't work within the timeline of the profile as the paragraph about her being a risk taker ends with her getting transferred when she starts middle school, so it can't now be approaching.

She felt as if she had a hit a wall in her social connections

You've got an accidental A before hit here.

She focused her time in middle school toward her studies only.

On not toward.

The barrier that Lilliana’s parents had put on her started showing its effects, as Lilliana fully retracted herself in fear that she would end up losing her friends once again.

I am unsure what friends she would have as none have been mentioned and the previous paragraph said she was focused on her studies.

Ok so, I appreciate the whole idea with the parents wanting her to branch out and experience more of the world but then hesitating and blinking on that endeavour when they feel like she's leaving them behind. That's good and has narrative juice. But the problem we have is the switch to Red Rock. The way it is explained in the profile is her parents realise that their decision to have her switch districts from elementary to middle school had a negative effect on Lilliana, but then they immediately do it again. This doesn't make any sense as a solution or a decision-making process. They're just repeating the same thing that didn't work previously. This will need to be rewritten, and I think the simples solution would be to have Lilianna stay within the same district to attend Red Rock, as that would be the less disruptive option for her.

Also for your next round of edits, the school's full name is Southwest Red Rock High School, so the first time it is mentioned it will need to be referred to as that or Southwest Red Rock, and then you can use Red Rock High, Red Rock etc. for the other mentions.

Cheerleading, TTPRG, metalworking, tennis, volleyball, and theatre have all seen Lilliana Monroe in their doors at some point,

In their doors is clunky phrasing and it would be better to just say they've have Lilliana as a member at some point.

She became the social butterfly of the school, knowing almost everything about everyone after the first three years.

Let's not go to far here, it's a bit too much for someone to know almost everything about all their other classmates, that could potentially be over like 200 students.

Lilliana finally felt herself inside of a community in her senior year.

This is confusingly worded.

Why does Lilliana want to join the Outdoor Rattlers?

A general note, but Lilliana's hobbies all drop off after we go to like middle school, so you'll probably want to add in some updates on them for the present day.

Her parents had finally let their strict grasp onto her,

I feel like you are missing some words here.

She decided to apply to universities all out of state

That were all out of state.

in order to branch off and fully gain her independence.

Traditionally the phrase is branch out rather than branch off.

after she chose to attend University of Alaska Anchorage, majoring in history.

the University of Alaska Anchorage, also why did Lilliana decide to pick this college specifically?

She wants to make a name for herself in the history department, even if the dreams seem far fetched.

Far-fetched has a hyphen.

Lilliana remains blissfully ignorant to the challenges along the way, as she now believes that helping others to tell their stories is her pathway in life.

When did Lilliana decide on this? This is the first time this has come up in the profile. So it will need to be brought up before now in order to make sense.

A note for advantages and disadvantages, they need to be in the same paragraph, no line breaks.

The advantages seem fine but we need to focus in on the disadvantages right now. Firstly, a general note, advantages and disadvantages should all appear in the profile in some shape or form and ideally with some detail behind them. This is important with the second disadvantage as we mention that Lilliana is frail and physically weak, which is fine, a good sensible disadvantage to include. But it hasn't shown up in the profile before now, and additionally, the justification we're given is her failure at most sports, which is another detail that has not come up in the profile. The fix for this is really simple, you just need to add further details regarding this into the profile.

The first disadvantage is a bit trickier because while it is a potential issue for someone in their life, it doesn't apply to the SOTF game the way it's currently written. I'm not sure how having high expectations in a general sense is going to be actively detrimental enough to be included here, it also doesn't show up in the profile either, but that's a lesser problem then the application.

And that is everything, let me know once the edits have been made and I'll take another look at Lilliana for you!