Survival Of The Fittest

Name: Emma Drakenberg-West
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Playing electric guitar, singing, listening to and playing metal and punk music, recreational drug use, and riding and repairing motorcycles

Appearance: Emma Drakenberg-West stands at 5’7’’, with a slim figure outlined with natural muscle and weighing about 140 lbs. She is Caucasian with pale skin due to her Swedish heritage. Emma has sharp, brown, upturned eyes with a straight nose and pale, thin lips. Despite the disapproval of her foster parents, Emma insists on wearing her facial piercings. She notably has snake bite stud piercings below her lips, a stud piercing at her nose, and silver ring earrings on each ear. Emma wears large, bookish glasses with black frames for her nearsightedness. Her hair is white-blonde and cut short with a mini ponytail on the back, with a curl that goes down her right cheek. Emma is noted to have a deep and growly voice, which she attributes to her time spent singing. She also has a pink heart-shaped tattoo on her upper chest.

Emma likes to wear a black battle jacket that has multi-colored skull patches on the front and back, an anarchist A patch on the breast pocket, patches themed to Emma's favorite bands, and a green "rat fink" character patch sewn in. On the day of the trip, she also wore a Dead Kennedys t-shirt under her battle jacket; black jeans with a dark, leather belt with a silver buckle; a spiked collar; a pink ribbon wrapped around her right wrist; black, leather, fingerless gloves; and black motorcycle boots.

Biography: Emma Drakenberg-West was born to Swedish immigrants who immigrated to the United States in 2005, Anders and Helga Drakenberg. Anders and Helga intended to live in the United States to pursue the American dream and experience an adventurous life compared to their home country. After giving birth to Emma, the two focused on getting jobs in the country. Anders worked as a construction worker, while Helga worked as a secretary in an office. When Emma was an infant, she was left alone in their apartment with a babysitter while her parents were out. Both Anders and Helga were driving towards immigration services to finalize some paperwork when they were killed in a car accident en route.

Despite her parents being dead, Emma still had kin within the States in the form of her uncle Mikeal, who could provide for her. Mikeal originally was part of the American Air Force, being given an "other than honorable" discharge from a fight that ended his military career. Mikeal didn't intend to care for Emma initially but wanted to raise her due to lacking a spouse or girlfriend and hoping for a familial connection. He also made a promise to Emma at a young age that he is able to send her to her relatives one day if that's what she wanted. What Mikeal didn't disclose to Emma, however, was that he didn't intend to keep that promise of taking her to Sweden. Due to loneliness and a refusal to admit that he couldn't raise a kid, Mikeal resolved to keep Emma in his custody so that he could prove others wrong about his ability to be a parent.

Emma grew up living in a trailer park in Reno, Nevada with Uncle Mikeal, who lived off of odd jobs like working as a Walmart stocker and restaurant dishwasher. Emma attempted to socialize with her neighbors and their children at the trailer park, forming some friendships. Emma was also enrolled in the nearby elementary school so she was given an education. To sustain them, Mikeal applied to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to adopt Emma in order to provide basic needs during her first several years with him. While Mikeal fed her and clothed her, he started to become indifferent toward his adopted daughter. Mikeal didn't have any interest in teaching or offering Emma any hobbies, and began treating Emma like they were related by blood, despite being her uncle.

At age 9 she became fascinated with the motorcycles that drove by her home. These motorcycles were part of a local biker club that was near the trailer park, though Emma was forbidden to venture over there due to her young age. Luckily for her, the boyfriend of one of her neighbors happened to be a biker. She had the chance to ask the biker some questions about his bike, expressing interest. While not delving into his personal life, he discussed with her the elements of the biker culture, along with his experiences with riding. The biker eventually broke up with Emma's neighbor, though Emma still caught glimpses of him driving by the trailer park.

At 10 years old, Emma developed an interest in music from a neighbor that she viewed as more of a father figure to her than her uncle Mikeal, despite lacking children. The neighbor in question was a former amateur punk rocker and metalhead, Joey Lumary, who Emma referred to her as "grandpa" due to the signature sweater that he wore around the trailer park. Joey Lumary was very active in the 80's music scene, considering himself as an anti-capitalist rebel against the mainstream music industry at the time. Lumary shared with Emma his personal political views, noting the political climate following President Canon’s 2016 election, and offered to help Emma get into the same style of music that he once played. As a result, he told her about the ways of punk and metal music. Some of his birthday gifts to Emma's included cassettes of some of the bands that Lumary followed, along with an old spare electric guitar that he used to play. Due to his influence, Emma listened to any metal and punk music that she got a hold of. She started with help from Lumary, who introduced her to bands such as Dead Kennedys, Ozzy Osbourne, Anthrax, and the Sex Pistols. While Mikeal was out of his trailer, Emma practiced playing her electric guitar and singing in the same style as the singers in the songs she listened to.

While her friendship with Lumary grew, Mikeal's behavior became worse. He developed a drinking problem and had random bouts of rage and outbursts at others. Places began turning him down for employment because of his behavior. Emma didn't want to mention these problems to her classmates when she was starting middle school. Around the time Mikeal's behavior became worse, he began manipulating Emma by telling her that if anyone found out about their issues, she could be at risk of being taken away from him by social services. Emma had to deal with her uncle's problems at home, but still tried to be presentable at school and act like nothing was wrong. Her uncle Mikeal also became aware of her friendship with Lumary, which caused some friction towards Emma and general resentment towards his neighbor out of envy.

Unfortunately, when Emma was 13, Joey Lumary was found dead in his trailer, having suffered from a stroke. Mikeal began to steer Emma away from Lumary's ideals and interests, due to seeing his late neighbor as a negative influence on his adoptive daughter. Emma became depressed at losing Lumary and she began to develop emotional problems from her sense of alienation from Mikeal. Still tight-lipped about her uncle and not knowing what to do, Emma ended up lashing out at her fellow middle school peers who got on her nerves by yelling at them. This behavior isolated her from her peers, and she began to avoid her classmates since she felt that they created more problems for her by being around.

When Emma was 14 years old, Mikeal got involved with a woman named Amanda Hoskins, who had an obnoxious, selfish, and aggressive attitude. Emma couldn’t decide who was worse between the two that she resided with, as they were both dysfunctional and hostile in their relationship. By that point, Mikeal's relationship with Emma had become completely estranged and Amanda was adding to Mikeal's bad habits. Mikeal was drinking alcohol regularly and was verbally abusive to Emma. Amanda derided Emma seemingly at any given chance, being emotionally and physically abusive.

It came to a head on one cold night on April 2nd, 2020, when Amanda Hoskins got into an altercation with Emma, who was getting tired of her mistreatment. What started as an argument became a full-on fight, when Amanda punched Emma and threatened to stab her with a knife. This ended up getting the attention of Emma's neighbors who came to her aid, to which Emma told them that Amanda intended physical malicious harm upon her. Mikeal ended up getting involved in the fight, blaming Emma, and began to destroy her guitar and some of her albums. At the request of her neighbors, Emma stayed briefly at the other end of the trailer park, while some trailer park residents went to contact child protective services on the matter.

Upon investigating the matter, it was declared that Mikeal was unfit to be a guardian for Emma. To add onto the matter, Emma's school had discovered that Mikeal was lying and concealing his issues from them, which child protective services used as extra evidence to take Emma from him. While in the temporary care of social services, Emma proposed that she didn't want to continue living in Reno, not wanting to be reminded of her original living place with Mikeal. Her social worker offered her a chance to be given to foster parents elsewhere in the state, to which Emma agreed. However, this meant that Emma had to get used to residing in a completely different location than Reno. At the same age of 13, Emma was brought to Las Vegas.

Emma ended up in the care of Ralph West, an economist, who was married to his husband Jonah West, a middle school science teacher in the same school district as Red Rock. The West family also had an adoptive younger daughter named Riley, who is currently attending in the 4th grade. Emma still kept her Drakenberg name, merging it with her adoptive parent's, since she wanted to honor her real biological parents who didn't have the opportunity to take care of her. Emma's introduction into the West household was shaky since the fathers were hesitant about Emma's interests. Despite enjoying her new adoptive family's company, Emma still felt alienated at her new residence at Meadowbrook.

Jonah helped arrange for Emma to attend Southwest Red Rock High School, having tabs being kept on her with a school counselor. Emma started back from scratch by learning about motorcycle mechanics, intending to have her chopper motorcycle someday. To gain experience, Emma got invested in auto class at her school so that she could be taught to fine-tune motorcycles. Later during her time in Red Rock, Emma got a license to drive her motorcycle. Emma failed her vision screening due to her developing nearsightedness, which required her to wear glasses. She passed her driver's test during her junior year. Originally, she wanted to buy a Harley-Davidson chopper motorcycle, only to later find out how expensive they were. Nevertheless, Emma used her own money and settled for a Honda Rebel 250 motorcycle, which she drives around town and to school.

Finally being able to explore her musical talents without the interference of her previous abusive guardians, Emma restarted her music collection. She aimed to venture back into her metal and punk music roots but became aware that her taste could veer into the pop-punk territory, though she tries to excuse this as being interested in metalcore. Overall, she aims to be more faithful to classic heavy metal and hardcore punk. She still orientated her musical taste in modern bands, such as Megadeth, System of a Down, Rise Against, and The Offspring. Her foster parents let her use the garage, where she could practice her singing and guitar playing, finding some comfort in playing the tunes that she could enjoy.

Emma's focus on music would be what caused her to start her band called "Finest in Niflhel", paying homage to her Swedish roots. While she first thought of doing things solo, she felt that a solo act wouldn't work without help. It was around her freshman year in Red Rock when she ended up meeting and befriending Heather Klein, who had a reputation for being antisocial and alienating others with her political and ethical principles. Emma didn't have any other options at the time, since she felt that she didn't connect and grew up with other kids in Red Rock who came from healthier households than where Emma grew up. Despite not seeing herself as a delinquent, she ended up socializing with them and falling within their clique. Emma is aware that Heather's influences in music are not what she envisioned Finest in Niflhel, but she wanted the band to stand out from the other bands at school.

Despite being away from her abusive uncle and his girlfriend, both Ralph and Jonah West are aware of other issues that manifested from Emma's time in Reno, which they worry could devolve into self-destructive tendencies. Emma was noted by others and herself, to have a wild temper, which caused her to be hostile towards several kids at school. Her school counselor recommended that Emma consult with a therapist to help with her issues. Being given the same advice from her parents, Emma started seeing a therapist. Her therapist noted that Emma was likely diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder, but Emma worried that she might be suffering from antisocial personality disorder that was caused by her neglect and abuse back in Reno.

While at high school, Emma began to use marijuana to deliberately numb herself. She usually gets drugs from older kids who linger by Red Rock or relying on students she knows who have access to marijuana. She does so in the belief that she can remove and/or decrease the chances of her mood swings. Her adoptive father Jonah ended up discovering Emma's habit when he went to clean her room, only to find that she had hidden a few small baggies of marijuana under her bed. Emma's drug habit was added as issues to discuss with her therapist that she was already taking for her anger issues. Afterward, Emma attempted to keep herself clean but periodically found herself indulging in marijuana whenever she found herself placed in unbearable situations.

Emma still wants to maintain a healthy relationship with her adoptive family, due to them being grateful for raising her and being a necessary far cry from her past. Her father Jonah acts as a figure of reasonable authority for her, supporting her in her efforts not to cause trouble in school, along with having her try her hardest for good grades. Her other father, Ralph, also encourages her to be her best behavior. To that end, he also helped by purchasing her a new guitar and some musical equipment for her band. As for her relationship with her sister Riley, she tries to maintain a friendly relationship with her and wants to make sure she stays out of trouble. She allows Riley to listen to some of her music that is suitable and child-friendly for her. Emma even plays the guitar for Riley to show her how she likes to perform. She attends therapy sessions usually every weekend to avoid conflict with school. She intends to attempt to use her music experience to start a career as a performer, knowing of some of her bandmates' plans to go independent. She has no plans in terms of college since she believes that she's able to thrive without attending a university after graduating from high school. Even though the Wests are not involved with the rest of the Drakenberg family, Emma believes that when she is older enough and has more power to be independent, she can venture to Sweden, since she believes that more of her family still reside in her home country.

Advantages: Emma has strength from her work in mechanics, which she can use when handling tools or even weapons. She has been able to fend for herself before, making her possible to act independent in survival.
Disadvantages: Emma doesn't have a positive reputation. Many considered her to be a threat since she is easy to enrage and anger. Emma's emotional issues and dependence on recreational drugs can also pose other mental issues when on the island.

Hey Deblod. I'm going to be your moderator for this critique. I'm going to approach this one a little differently.

I'm going to be going over all the content itself in this first pass. Once the larger issues with the actual concepts and storylines are ironed out, we'll go back in and take a look at grammar and writing mechanics. I would highly, highly recommend at this point going back over and re-reading the whole profile for clarity and grammar. There are several instances of sentences which are worded awkwardly, use the wrong word, or just don't make sense. I would recommend reading things out loud. If you don't like that, I would also recommend a text to speech program that will do the same. There are many available online and it is an accessibility feature in things like Microsoft Word.


OK, with that preamble out of the way let's dive in.

and motorcycles (riding and mechanics).

- I know I just said I wasn't gonna grammar immediately but that is what I am doing. I lied to you, and for that I'm sorry. Anyway, no period at the end of this list.

Facially, Emma has sharp diamond-shaped brown eyes

- I think you need a different descriptor here. I'm not sure how her eyes could be diamond shaped. I tried Googling and came up empty. Please describe the eyes.

and some ring-shaped piercings on her earlobes.

- She has piercings the shape of rings on her earlobes? They carved out an entire chunk of flesh in the shape of a ring on her ear?

Emma wears large bookish glasses with a black frame which is mandatory for driving her motorcycle,

- Wait, so are these bookish glasses? You mean black frames plural, yes? If they are for her motorcycle why is she wearing them all the time? Does she need glasses to see?

Emma is forced to adhere to the school's dress code, however, she manages to get away with some rebellious clothing.

- None of the clothes described following this are against dress code.

a pink sash wrapped around her right wrist

- That's not what a sash is .


On to bio

Emma Drakenberg-West was born to a pair of Swedish immigrants who recently immigrated to the United States, both Anders and Helga Drakenberg. While Emma was left alone in the maternity ward, both of her parents were killed in a car accident. Despite her parents being dead, Emma still had kin within the States in the form of her uncle Mikeal who could provide for her. Mikeal, however, had a major negative reputation after being dishonorably discharged from the American Air Force over a fight that ended his military career.

Few issues here.
1. Why did they immigrate? When? What did they do?
2. Why was Emma left alone in a maternity ward? Where did they go? Mothers and newborns are released at the same time. This seems to have been a typical birth. Why did both parents decide to take a car ride and leave a newborn at the hospital?
3. Why does her uncle take her in when he seems to both not have any way to support a child and also seems to hate children?
4. No one would care about the dishonorable discharge within the community unless its a heavily military community.

Emma grew up living in a trailer park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with Uncle Mikeal, who lived off of odd jobs and welfare checks.

- Why is Mikael getting welfare?

Emma's only other company that she had growing up, besides being sent to elementary school, were her neighbors, who she viewed as more sympathetic to her situation, unlike Mikeal, who became indifferent to her. Emma dealt with this indifference by being forced to fend for herself, though she was still fed when needed.

- Does she not have other children she has made friends with at this elementary school? Do her neighbors not have children? Mikael is basically her father, he's been taking care of her since she was a newborn. She knows no one else as a parent or no other environment, so why is looking for sympathy for her situation. Why is he indifferent to her? Why does he keep her on all these years since as mentioned previously, he doesn't have the funds or interest to raise a child? She's been fending for herself since she was a month old? How?

While living in the trailer park, she became fascinated with the motorcycles that would drive by her home. These motorcycles were part of a local biker club that was near the trailer park, which she ended up visiting once and twice as a kid, showing her interest. Being curious, she asked questions about some bikers in terms of riding and the overall culture.

- They let a child of unknown age into the biker club, usually held at bars?

- So it's an issue that thus far throughout the profile, I don't have any idea at what age anything is happening until a few sentences later that tell me she's in middle school

Negative word of mouth in Emma's starting years of middle school would relate her to Uncle Mikeal, mostly from teachers and seeing how her rebellious interests were being seen as dysfunctional by her peers.

1. "relate to her Uncle Mikael" "seeing how her rebellious interests were being seen". OK, so the sentence starts saying the bad reputation is about her uncle and ends by saying that it's about her interests. I need the sentence to be consistent about what is being discussed.
2. If teachers know that her uncle is an alcoholic, they are mandated reporters and someone will be dropping by to check out the household.
3. What are her rebellious interests? Punk music? I think that's not something that's unusual for tweens.
4. Actually, let's talk about teachers a little more. It says that pretty much from birth all her uncle is doing is feeding her now and then. If she shows up with ratty clothes, not clean, not having the right supplies, etc the teachers will be reporting the household.

Unfortunately, when Emma was 13, Joey Lumary was found in his trailer from a stroke that struck him.

- I'm gonna lie again because this is another grammar point but "stroke that struck him" is very strange and also incorrect terminology. You aren't "struck" by illnesses usually. It would read oddly to say someone was struck by cancer. He had or suffered a stroke.

In an infamous moment, Mikeal celebrated Lumary's demise, since he wanted Emma to "square up" in his eyes.

- Infamous? Also "square up" means to turn to face someone directly usually, colloquially, in preparation to fight them. So I don't know what this means. Her uncle wants her to prepare a stance to fist fight him?

Around the same time, Uncle Mikeal would get involved with a woman named Amanda Hoskins, who would also have the same level of reputation as Mikeal.

- In what way? Did she also get discharged from the Air Force for fighting?

Mikeal was drinking alcohol regularly and was verbally abusive to Emma, while Amanda derided Emma seemingly at any given chance, being emotionally and physically abusive. Emma, not knowing what to do, since she lacked any responsible parental figures, ended up coping with this by lashing out towards her fellow middle school peers, earning a poor response from her teachers.

- This is roughly the third or more time that teachers would be looking into her situation. Physically abusive how? Teachers will notice that. And they also have mandated reporter training, they will know that this behavior is common among children who are in unideal home environments.

From what other neighbors at the trailer park described, Amanda intended physical malicious harm upon Emma.

- I don't care about the thoughts of third parties not present for this incident. You can tell me what occurred as the omniscient narrator.

Mikeal got wrapped in it, blaming Emma, and began to destroy her guitar and some of the music albums that she had.

- Wrapped in it how? What does that mean?

Several days later, with the aid of her neighbors in a far early morning, Emma and some others would put her plan into motion. Having become sick of Mikeal and Amanda, her neighbors arranged and help Emma gain some cash to buy a bus ticket that would take her far away from her trailer park community. Being only 14, Emma traveled with the help of whatever money she had, conversing when necessary. The COVID pandemic was still occurring around the time, forcing Emma to remain extra cautious. Her bus ticket managed to get her past multiple states, but she was admittedly lost. Getting a sense of direction, Emma discovered that she was traveling west. Her best idea was that she could be able to reach the West Coast of the United States, after hearing about Lumary being active in California. Wanting to take a shot at reaching the state, Emma attempted to travel there by all means necessary. However, Emma was forced to be admitted to a nearby hospital while traveling across Nevada, when she tested positive for COVID-19. Upon delving into her records, Emma would be forced to admit to being a runaway.

After no longer testing positive, Emma was placed in a temporary youth homeless shelter, while social workers began to comb her case. What followed was a one-sided, but lengthy battle in favor of Emma for custody. After Emma left Iowa, her uncle Mikeal was arrested after an incident with another woman that placed him as a sex offender. Mikeal attempted to implement the "veteran card", in which Emma needed to accommodate him following his service, but this statement was quickly shot down. Amanda Hoskins' involvement with Emma was also brought up, to which statements from Emma's old neighbors mentioned the hostile tension between the two, along with the mentioned knife incident. When Emma's case was leaning towards her going towards a suitable foster family that could take care of her, Amanda privately threatened and blamed Emma for her problems, mentioning that she intended to bring her back to Iowa, whether she liked it or not.

Emma would repeat what Amanda said to her social worker.

As a result, the courts in both Nevada and Iowa placed a restraining order on Mikeal and Amanda, to prevent them from contacting Emma. Amanda would attempt to know of Emma's address in Nevada, but she was arrested for violating private records by doing so.

1. Why would her neighbors help gather money for a child to go on a bus to some other state? That's insanely dangerous and irresponsible and I don't think any responsible adult would do that.
2. What do you mean "conversing when necessary"? What does that have to do with money?
3. How could she possibly get lost? You buy a bus ticket to a destination. The ticket or tickets (if you've bought more than one) will tell you where you are going.
4. How is an unattended child getting on multiple buses alone? No one has found this suspicious? No one has asked a question?
5. Why is she going to California? She heard Lumary used to live there for a bit, but how is that going to help her? He's dead and she doesn't seem to know anyone there. Why would she go to some place just because her dead friend spent time there?
6. Why was she forced to be admitted to a hospital? During COVID when hospitals were at capacity they were only admitting people who were in need of a respirator or were otherwise in very serious condition.
7. What does "delving into her records" mean? They would find out she's a runaway as soon as they asked where her guardian is.
8. What does a "one sided" battle for custody mean? There is no custody battle, they would send her back to her guardian unless she told them it was an abusive environment and even then, they would send her back to Iowa and evaluate all this there.
9. There is no law that categorically prohibits someone with a sex offence conviction on their record from getting custody of a child, even less so since this incident was with an adult. I don't know the nature of the incident because it's not stated.
10.

Mikeal attempted to implement the "veteran card", in which Emma needed to accommodate him following his service, but this statement was quickly shot down.

I just don't know what any of this means. What does "The veteran card" mean? What does "Accommodate him following his service" mean? What statement? Who is shooting what down?
11. Restraining orders aren't just granted. You have to request one. In rare cases a court might issue one without a filing but those will be temporary.








I'm going to take a moment before we keep going. I think that the entire bus-to-California plot line should be excised. I don't think the majority of this would or could happen in the real world. There are so many issues with it and her adoptive abusive uncle that I don't know that it's worth it to keep either of them. I also don't think they add much to Emma's story. If you deleted these elements and just kept her as a foster child who has a neighbor she's attached to who likes punk music and is adopted by Wests, what would change about this character? What are you looking to achieve by having all of that as part of her backstory? There may be an easier and better way to get there.



Back to the profile.

and she used her own money to buy herself a Harley-Davidson chopper motorcycle.

- According to the Harley-Davidson website a new 2025 motorcycle starts at $25,749.00. A new 2024 model will run $24,999.00. These are very expensive. Not to mention, they are huge. She is 5'6''. This is an absolutely terrible starter motorcycle for someone of that age and size, even putting aside the big price tag. Might I suggest something more like the Honda Rebel 250 or the Honda Grom?

Emma didn't have any other options at the time, since she was seen as a delinquent by most of the student body and her failed attempts to avoid succumbing to the wrath caused by other kids did not help her case.

- She's a delinquent? Since when? This is the first I'm hearing about her doing harm against other children? What is she doing? Why?

- Please give some examples of some artists that Emma likes as part of her hobby of punk music.

Despite being away from her abusive uncle and his girlfriend, both Ralph and Jonah West would be aware of other issues from Emma that have manifested, which they worried would devolve into self-destructive tendencies. Emma was noted by others and herself that she was prone to a wild temper, to which she was hostile towards several kids who messed with her back at school. Her school counselor tried to reason that Emma was diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder, but Emma worried that she might be suffering from antisocial personality disorder that was caused by her neglect and abuse back in Iowa.

- "Would be aware"? Is this hypothetical? Do they know she has issues? Hostile how? Messed with her how? At her old school in Iowa? In this school? Also, a school counselor cannot give that diagnosis. From the American School Counselor Association website:

School counselors do not diagnose students and provide ongoing therapy for a variety of reasons.

They can only recommend the child see someone for a diagnosis.

Mentally, Emma finds herself being left with personal internal scars caused by her bleak childhood.

- Not sure the purpose of this sentence. Cut.

While at high school, Emma began to use marijuana and abuse painkillers to deliberately numb herself. She does so in the belief that she can remove and/or decrease the chances of her mood swings.

- Or she can go to therapy. Which I guess her parents finally send her to in the next paragraph. Also where is she getting painkillers from? Opiates and pain killers would be way harder to find than weed, especially in Nevada which is a legal weed state. Hospitals keep very tight track of opiates.

Emma doesn't have a shiny reputation.

- What is a "shiny" reputation?






OK, we're at the end. I would suggest you think about what it is you want for this character to be and why. Several things that happen in the profile seem to happen for some kind of intended effect that I think could be achieved through more realistic means. Please read over the profile and rework the more improbable or impossible components to be simpler and more realistic. I'm available if you need help both here and on Discord. Please let me know when the edits have been done and I'll do another pass.

Edited!

I took your advice and cut out a chunk of her biography that served as unneeded melodrama, though I'm confident that I'm still on the right track here. Might be some screws that were left unloosed that need adjusting, but I'm trying to shoot for the right trajectory.

Alrighty, looking a bit better. Let's get into some grammar and remaining content issues in this round.

Emma Drakenberg-West stands at 5'7

- This needs to be either 5 feet 7 inches or 5’7’’.

Her heritage ties back to her ethnicity from Sweden, being Caucasian with pale skin.

- “Her heritage ties to her ethnicity.” Doesn’t everyone’s? If you mean that she is Caucasian with pale skin due to her Swedish heritage, then that’s what you should say.

Facially, Emma has sharp brown upturned eyes with a straight nose and pale thin lips.

- Don’t need “facially” since you then proceed to talk about her face. You also need commas between adjectives. Sharp, brown, upturned eyes. Same with pale, thin lips.

Emma wears large bookish glasses with black frames for her nearsightedness.

- Same here re: commas with a list of adjectives. Large, bookish glasses.

Emma wears large bookish glasses with black frames for her nearsightedness. Her glasses were made mandatory for driving her motorcycle, though she wears them all the time.

- “Were made mandatory” is odd phrasing and makes it sound like this rule was made for her. Her glasses are mandatory for driving her motorcycle. Doesn’t she need to wear them anyway though, unless she just doesn’t enjoy seeing objects not immediately in front of her?

Her hair is a white-blond color, which is cut short

- Because the last thing mentioned is the color, this structure makes it sound like the color is what has been cut short. “Her hair is white-blond and cut short”

Emma likes to wear a signature "battle jacket", which is a black jacket sewed with multiple multi-colored skulls on the front and back of the jacket, including an anarchist "A" visible at the breast pocket of the jacket,

- Again here, by saying “including an anarchist A” after saying “the jacket is sewed with multiple skulls” it implies the A is a skull. “Emma likes to wear a jacket that has multi-colored skull patches on the front and back, an A patch on the breast pocket” etc etc.

On the day of the trip, she also wore a Dead Kennedys t-shirt under her battle jacket, black jeans with a dark leather belt with a silver buckle, a spiked collar, a pink ribbon wrapped around her right wrist, black leather fingerless gloves, and black motorcycle boots.

- Same issue here with adjectives in a list. It should be black, leather fingerless gloves. Unless you are treating black leather as its own adjective in which case it’s black-leather fingerless gloves. If you go with the first this is now a list with commas within the list items. When this happens, you instead separate the individual list items with semicolons and then retain the commas inside each list item. This link can help: https://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons ... _lists.htm

Emma Drakenberg-West was born to Swedish immigrants who immigrated to the United States in 2005, both Anders and Helga Drakenberg

- “both Anders and Helga” reads strangely. If you remove “both” it reads cleaner and doesn’t lead to confusion.

to live out the American Dream

- No cap on dream
- Also, this wasn’t answered from the first round. The parents have no occupations at present.

Past Rugga wrote: What did they do?

Despite her parents being dead, Emma still had kin within the States in the form of her uncle Mikeal who could provide for her. Mikeal originally was part of the American Air Force, being dishonorably discharged from the American Air Force over a fight that ended his military career.

- Let’s dive deeper here. A “dishonorable discharge” is the worst discharge you can receive from the military and often is accompanied by being sent to military prison. These are for serious offenses like murder, fraud, sexual assault, espionage. A fight does not rise to this level unless he killed someone or hurt someone to the point he’s going to jail. Please take a look at the types of military discharge and read up about which would be appropriate for your needs: https://lawforveterans.org/work/84-disc ... -discharge. Additionally, “who could provide for her” can be removed or kept if you add a comma before “who.” If he did not intend to care for this child he’s going to continue to be lonely because the kid is going to die. Maybe he should have gotten a dog if he didn’t want to be lonely. And last, American Air Force does not need to be repeated twice in the same short sentence.

He also made a promise to Emma at a young age that he was supposedly able to take her back to Sweden to live with relatives.

- Then why doesn’t he call these people to come get her when he realizes this isn’t working out?

Emma grew up living in a trailer park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with Uncle Mikeal, who lived off of odd jobs and unemployment benefits.

- You can only stay on unemployment for a maximum of 16 weeks in Iowa. Source: https://workforce.iowa.gov/new-changes- ... nt-process. So what are the odd jobs he’s doing? And how can he live once 16 weeks of unemployment is out?

She still stood out among her community and peers, due to her heritage and her involvement with Mikeal.

- Her heritage doesn’t really play a part in her life, does it? It’s not mentioned she’s doing anything especially Swedish throughout her life. Also why is her guardian making her stand out? Also also, “involvement” is a weird term for your guardian. You wouldn’t say “your involvement with your parents.”

To sustain themselves, Mikeal would get childcare benefits for being in adoptive custody of Emma to provide basic needs for Emma.

- “for being in adoptive custody” is very wordy. “for adopting Emma.” Also, this is called Family Investment Program (FIP) and payouts are pretty low and there is a 60-month limit aka 5 years.

These motorcycles were part of a local biker club that was near the trailer park, though Emma was forbidden to venture over there, due to her young age.

- When you have an interrupting phrase like this offset by commas it is understood that this is extra information and it should make sense even if the phrase was removed. Take out the second comma, this isn’t an interrupting phrase, it’s joining a dependent and independent clause with the first comma.

Luckily for her, the boyfriend of one of her neighbors would happen to be a biker.

- This strange version of the past tense with “would” has shown up several times in this profile and can lead to ambiguity. It’s clearer and cleaner to just use the past tense. “one of her neighbors happened to be a biker.” It comes up a few times in this profile. I’m not sure why you’re so fond of this type of past tense. But a CNTRL-F for “would” yields 36 results in this profile (65 total, but subtracting the times I used it in my critique). Please go back and see if these instances wouldn’t read smoother just using simple past tense.

The biker wouldn't come by often until he would eventually break up with Emma's neighbor.

- I think there’s a typo in this sentence because it doesn’t make sense.

Within her late years in elementary school around 9 to 11 years old, Emma got her hobbies in music from a neighbor that she viewed as a more respectable parent than her uncle Mikeal.

- Why is he a more respectable parent? Does he have children? Also there has to be a better way to say this than “got her hobbies in music.”

Within her late years in elementary school around 9 to 11 years old,

- Don’t need the first part. Just tell me what age, not an age range.

Joey was ironically a better father figure than her uncle Mikeal, knowing of how the latter handled Emma.

- Clunky. “knowing how he treated Emma.”

Lumary would share his personal political views towards Emma, noting the political climate around the time after President Canon was elected for the first time back in 2016.

- This sentence needs some work. “his personal political views towards Emma” makes it sound like he has views TOWARDS her. Like, he has some feelings about Emma, politically. I guess the second half would work better as something like “noting the political climate following President Canon’s 2016 election.”

One of Emma's birthday gifts was some cassette copies of some of the bands that Lumary followed

- This needs grammatical reworking. ONE of her gifts was CASSETTES plural? He gave her cassettes of bands he followed.

Emma would listen to metal and punk music that she would get a hold of.

- Needs an “any” or “every” before metal.

She would start with help from Lumary, who introduced her to bands, such as Dead Kennedys, Ozzy Osbourne, Anthrax, and the Sex Pistols.

- Same note with the “would” as before (though there are many of these). Same note with the interrupting phrase as before, no comma after bands.

Not only was he being seen as a black sheep of the town by gaining a drinking problem and random bouts of rage at others, but he was also being turned down for employment by multiple places who were unwilling to even hire him.”

- Gaining a drinking problem? Did he get it delivered to him? Also you need sentences to have internal grammatical consistency. So let’s say we use the more apt verb “develop.” “Not only was he seen as a black sheep by the town by developing a drinking problem.” Great. Then the next clause after the conjunction is “random bouts of rage.” You need the second clause to match the first one in structure by having a verb in the clause. So in the first clause the predicate starts with “by developing” which is a verb phrase. Ergo, you need to have the second clause start with a verb phrase. We’ll use “having” as our verb. “Not only was he seen as the black sheep of the town by developing a drinking problem and having random bouts of rage, but he was also turned down for employment” etc.

Emma didn't want to mention these problems to her classmates when she was starting middle school since she was concerned that revealing such information could have her removed from school.

- Her classmates can’t get her removed from school. None of this would remove her from school. If the entire town knows he drinks and fights people the teachers will know. You said the whole town knows. They will be calling child protective services.

Emma would have to deal with her uncle's problems back at her home, though trying to be presentable and not being seen as an old man out.

- Don’t know what this means. She doesn't want to be seen as an old man?

In a notorious part of Emma's life, Uncle Mikeal began to steer Emma clear of Lumary's ideals and interests, due to seeing his late neighbor as a negative influence on his adoptive daughter.

- Notorious means “generally known and talked of. Widely and unfavorable known.” So this is also known throughout the town?

Emma would end up lashing out at her fellow middle school peers.Her school reported her problems to her uncle, but he would feign ignorance and cite Emma as being stubborn.

- How?
- He can’t feign ignorance if they keep calling him. His saying she’s stubborn will mean nothing if they decide to expel her for doing whatever it is she’s doing.

Around when Emma was 14 years old, Uncle Mikeal would get involved with a woman named Amanda Hoskins, who was known by some of Emma's neighbors for being seen as trashy.

- Don’t care what the neighbors think. You are the omniscient narrator. Tell me what she is or is not. And “trashy” is very vague.

Emma couldn't debate who was the worst that was supposed to be raising her since both ended up causing a hostile and dysfunctional relationship with one another.

- This all needs a redo but the biggest grammatical issue is “worst” is used for a comparison of three or more things. When there are only two things you use “worse.” My bike is worse than my car. This apple pie is worse than the cherry pie. It would sound wrong and be incorrect to say “My bike is worst than my car.” It implies that there are more than two things being compared.

To add onto the matter, Emma's school had discovered that Mikeal was lying and concealing them about his adoptive daughter's issues,

- “Concealing them” is not correct. “Concealing his issues from them.”

Her social worker offered her a chance to be taken out of state to foster parents in a better living situation, to which Emma agreed.

- This can happen but most often happens with a child has relatives in another state who are qualified to adopt them. There isn’t really any reason to send her to Nevada for adoption. I’m not sure why you are holding so tightly to her initially being born and living in Iowa when it wouldn’t change her story at all to start in Nevada. Doesn’t have to be Las Vegas. But it makes it more plausible for her to be adopted by a couple in Las Vegas if she is up for adoption nearby. If there is some reason that it HAS to be Iowa, I am willing to discuss it with you.

Emma ended up in the care of Ralph West, a foster parent and economist, who was married to his husband Jonah West, a science teacher at Emma's high school. Both of which lived in Las Vegas, Nevada.

- Flagged this during the first critique and forgot to mention it, so apologies on that. However, you cannot have one of her parents be a teacher at the school. Teachers are created by staff. If he’s a teacher, he can be a middle school teacher, an elementary school teacher, or a teacher in a different high school.

As a part-time job and to gain experience, Emma got work at a mechanic store, so that she can be taught to fine-tune motorcycles.

- Is this a mechanic or a store? Is she working for a place that fixes motorcycles or a parts place like AutoZone? Also, I don’t believe a mechanic would take on a teenager with no experience. Maybe have her get really into auto class at school and work some other job a teenager might have. Cashier at a parts and supply place would even work.

Emma didn't have any other options at the time, since she felt alienated from her peers.

- Why? She’s new to the school. She hasn’t done anything to these kids.

Despite not seeing herself as a delinquent

- Why?

Emma was noted by others and herself that she was prone to a wild temper, to which she was hostile towards several kids who messed with her back at school.

- Read out loud please. Was she hostile to kids at her old school? This school? Which school?

Her therapist noted that Emma was likely diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder, but Emma worried that she might be suffering from antisocial personality disorder that was caused by her neglect and abuse back in Iowa.

- Likely diagnosed by who? The therapist can and should be diagnosing her.

While at high school, Emma began to use marijuana and abuse painkillers to deliberately numb herself. Her method of gaining such drugs consists of relying on older kids who linger out of Red Rock or relying on students she knows who have narcotics.

- No narcotics. Weed can stay.

- What does she want to do after high school?


And we've reached the end. I would recommend maybe having a friend read the profile and giving you some feedback on something reads weirdly or if the grammar seems off. As always, I'm available if you need anything as far as questions or clarification.

Edited at last.

In terms of revisions, I took your word and decided that Emma being in Iowa is retconned to have her be from Reno within the state. Which means I took a subtle incision or two, though in some other stuff, I may or may not used a sledgehammer in the mix for chiseling.

I did do a read through quick with another grammar check. There may or may not be some blind spots I missed, but I tried to iron things out.

OK, we're getting there. We're closer than ever before.

He also made a promise to Emma at a young age that he was supposedly able to take her back to Sweden to live with relatives, along with serving both Anders and Helga's original ideal of living the American life. What Mikeal didn't disclose to Emma, however, was that he was estranged from her relatives in Sweden, serving no interest in having them take her from his hands. As a result, Mikeal took custody of Emma and decided to raise her.

- Not sure what “supposedly” means here. Just say plainly what the situation was. Also “serving no interest” is awkward and doesn’t make sense. Is what you mean to say that he made her a promise at a young age to take her back to Sweden to relatives, but never intended to keep that promise? If he’s estranged from the relatives, how does that affect her? Surely, they would still want to know she exists. I see where you want to get to so my advice might be to say something like he promised to send her to relatives one day if that’s what she wanted, but didn’t intend to keep the promise because [I don’t know, he’s lonely, he doesn’t want to admit he can’t raise a kid, he doesn’t think it would be good to send her to a new country, some other thing]

Emma couldn't debate who was the worse that was supposed to be raising her since both ended up causing a hostile and dysfunctional relationship with one another.

- This one is still not quite right. But also, I don’t know why it’s here. It should be something like
“Emma couldn’t decide who was worse between the two who were supposed to be raising her, as they were both dysfunctional and hostile in their relationship.”
However, Amanda isn’t supposed to be raising her, is she? She’s just the girlfriend and they’ve probably known each other a few months?

Upon investigating the matter, it was declared that Mikeal and Amanda were unfit to be guardians for Emma.

- Amanda’s not a guardian as far as I know. She has no legal responsibilities over Emma.

Emma ended up in the care of Ralph West, a foster parent and economist, who was married to his husband Jonah West, a science teacher at Red Rock before he was relocated to a middle school in the same school district.

- No former teacher at Red Rock. Just middle school teacher is fine. If you are worried about needing a reason why she’s at Red Rock, you’re good. They can just live in that district and she goes there automatically.

As a part-time job and to gain experience, Emma got invested in auto class at her school so that she could be taught to fine-tune motorcycles.

- Cool and good, but not a job. She’s not getting paid for auto class.

Emma didn't have any other options at the time, since she felt alienated from her peers, due to some of them coming from wealthy households than of Emma's previous trailer park lifestyle.

- I’m not quite following here. Emma feels she alienated her peers at Red Rock because some of them come from healthy households and Emma came from a trailer park. But she doesn’t live there now. And they would only know if she said something.

Despite being away from her abusive uncle and his girlfriend, both Ralph and Jonah West are aware of other issues that manifested from Emma's time in Iowa, which they worry could devolve into self-destructive tendencies.

- Leftover Iowa snuck in here.

but Emma worried that she might be suffering from antisocial personality disorder that was caused by her neglect and abuse back in Iowa.

- And here.

After a talk with both of her foster fathers, they argued that Emma's problems needed direct intervention which meant having her be given therapy, should these issues continue.

- But per the previous paragraph she’s already in therapy for the anger issues.

Emma still wants to maintain a healthy relationship with her foster family, due to them being a healthier alternative and a necessary far cry from her past.

- That’s why? Not because she loves them or is grateful? This is a good time for me to add: can I know a little bit about her relationship with her foster fathers? Her foster sister?
- Also wait a second, foster family? Are they a foster family or did they adopt her? If they are a foster family she would not be taking their last name.

making her possible to act as a lone wolf.

- “Lone wolf” is a little informal.


OK! Home stretch! And I will be quicker this time. Post when edits are done.

Edits have been made.

YAY

I only have two things!!

1. Characters have to have been going to the high school of the version since freshman year to avoid the many international transfer students we used to get. Could you tell me at what age she moves to Vegas (will have to be 13 at the latest).
2. I see Emma is 19. I assume she missed time due to being relocated, though she could have caught up depending on the time of year. If you keep her 19, I'll ask how she feels about that/ how she's affected by it. If you change it to 18, no further questions.

THAT'S IT

SHOULD BE GOOD NOW.