NAMEGENDERSPECIESBODY COLOURMANE COLOUREYE COLOUR
Reasonable colours. Honestly can’t say much more than that because this art shows no detail whatsoever. FOALHOODFinally, a decent story. I both love and hate this on a fundamental level. Breaking free from one’s past is a trope that is used commonly when creating characters. I feel that it will serve your character well if you invest time into determining your character’s motivations and the chain of events that led up to them wanting to be something more than what they were given. Any given person can be intelligent if they invest the time to learn. Why did your character decide to take advantage of this? Just don’t make it stupid. I don’t understand this detail, because you’ve taken a character that was already above average as you mentioned before, and have simply said, “The character then did what they have always been doing… but BETTER!”. That’s weak. Rephrase this and change the tone and connotation that comes with it. There’s a better way to do this detail somewhere. So far all I’m hearing from this story is that your character hit their head and then instantly grew a superiority complex. To be clear - this is better than most. At least you didn’t start out with a superiority complex.HOLY SHIT DID A CHARACTER GET SUBMITTED TO MY THREAD THAT ACTUALLY SHOWS CHARACTER GROWTH OVER TIME!? Yeah, I’m surprised too. I didn’t know that CA had this many collective brain cells to rub together. I love these fantasies of kids running away with a handfull of cash and think that it’s enough to survive for enough time to get somewhere significant. Police pick up kids who run away from home so often right when they run out of money because they don’t actually know how expensive buying enough food to survive is. They also tend to eat too much because they’re not used to being hungry. It’s so dumb. But, your character’s going to succeed because fuck logic. Also I’d like to mention that the last thing you had to say about your parents was, “she was as gifted as her parents had always told her”Because nothing says neglect, like her parents attempting to instill confidence in their offspring. This is the only conclusion that I can come to, because the only other thing you’ve said about your parents is that they’re dumb hicks. You haven’t shown me anything else beyond that. So basically fuck you, you ungrateful prick. You’re the kind of child that parents have nightmares about. CUTIE MARKNo image, so not really anything to mention here. CUTIE MARK STORYI would love to get some more detail on this. Having the cutie mark appear as soon as you’ve crossed a rubicon is a great way to bring it across. However, there’s so much more that you can do with this part of your character’s life. It is their rite of passage into adulthood, and the event that will quite literally define the rest of your character’s life. Put some effort into it. You wrote like 4 paragraphs for all the other parts of this submission, so why is there no detail here? PERSONALITYI don’t know when your character changed their name from Dusty to Cambia. You probably should explain that. Ah. Character with a psychological diagnosis to explain secondary personality traits. We meet again. You dirty little bitch. Like I have mentioned before, only use the clinical term if you’re going to be clinical. Say it as it is, your character does not empathise well with others, and can be selfish. Here’s something I’d like to get cleared up. Your character disowned their friends in exchange for the curiosity that embedded itself in the character’s mind. Because why? Because their friends did not appreciate the inherent beauty of an onyx piece of shit you found in the mine? Why is this such a significant source of motivation to your character, even years down the line? At this point you could handwavium it away, and let the significance of the object be rooted in its symbolism of the moment that your character broke out of their shackles. This however is not entirely made clear through your explanation. LIKESIt was literally left blank. This sounds exactly like you. DISLIKESThis however, does not. SKILLSHonestly don’t have much to say about this. Good shit. DETAILED HISTORYI would change that to ‘She was exactly what Canterlot already had an abundance of.’I wanna know what she said to force these people to so quickly backpedal. It’s going to be dumb whether I know or not, but I wanna satiate my curiosity. What? You didn’t have enough money for school in a big city from the savings you stole from your parents who earned an honest labourer’s wage for all their lives? I am shocked. SHOCKED!No, she faced years of entry-level labour until she could prove that she was destined for greater things, and overcame this obstacle through the same kind of dedication and hard work she showed when she was young. Or she can just get it through the inevitable ex machina that’s going to show itself in the next few sentences. Fucking called it. Because fuck hard work and dedication, just whine your way to the top!Then she dropped out a few days later because she was unable to keep herself alive as she had no money left. GG you got swindled. If it had no similarities, then how did the people who lead the society see value in the object? It was not similar to anything they’ve seen before, therefore they could not reasonably determine its value. For all they know she carved it herself. Ah yes, that estimated date and origin of an object that could not be directly compared to any other findings - and the most data they have on it is that “this pony said they found it here.” Also I’m not allowing you to handwave the date away with carbon dating. Ponies use magic. Which has somehow only been determined now, because objects that would be easily retrieved from above the surface in a mine would definitely not have been discovered before this point. Her classmate’s mary sue radars are on point, then. Only three? That’s enough to ruin her reputation? She must have been a real cunt to get on the nerves of that many people. Probably not unwarranted. This is completely unrealistic. No man would accept that they’re wrong. 
Nothing says love more than telling me I’m right. Insinuating that Academic society is not inherently a gutter? So apart from this mystery benefactor funding an expedition based on the incoherant ramblings of a disgraced archaeologist, he sends his son along with the delusional hic and her yes-man boyfriend to scour the site for the remnants of a dead civilization. This reads like the most mediocre B-movie ever. IT WAS THE PATTERNS SHE WAS SEEING DUE TO THE EXHAUSTION OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION THAT YOU HIT AT ABOUT 55 CONSECUTIVE HOURS OF NO SLEEP. Seriously kids, always remember to sleep. Shit goes nutty if you go too long. I love the embedded racism/classism in here. That’s called a health and safety violation causing death, and the site would either be closed pending insane litigation from the society as well as the worker’s family, or she’d just get arrested. But I know this detail is going to be completely forgotten and the character’s not going to suffer any consequences for their actions because, why would they? This makes me laugh, because a cave in killed someone already, and yet she takes the son of the benefactor of her dig in with her. Evidently she did not think of the consequences of his death or injury. Site closed. Finances locked. Possible arrest for incompetence. Convenient for him to arrive in the nick of time, considering he wasn’t on the breaching expedition. Which indirectly saved the lives of many who were going to be abused, worked to the bone, and likely killed by her incapability to lead a team. Now are you talking about the money that she kept to survive after she got her scholarship, or the money she had left after she spent all of it to do this expedition? This character has a talent for finding money when they need it. I want that superpower. Do not blame him in the slightest. Except for her amazing money-finding abilities, that’s a bomb that goes off at least twice a day. Ain’t nobody got time to console the inconsolable. And this my friend, is how cults start. Followers of an ideology, who believe that the only way they can gain knowledge is through the power of a single other being, and are asked to make financial donations in exchange for this knowledge. I want this to happen now. Make Cambia start her own cult and use their fanaticism to do illegal digs. Physical Attributes: 3Psychological Attributes: 3Historical Attributes: 4Unity: 4No extra points this day, as nothing about this character particularly stands out. Total: 14Verdict: 13-17: Good details, needs some help around the edgesTLDR; A completely normal teenager pulls a Pick of Destiny to try and find the plot to the last Indiana Jones Movie. Fails. Loses everything. Becomes a hermit. Hopefully founds a cult so they can take out their anger against their perceived persecution by the world and lead a holy war against nerds. Tips of the day:Something that you find significant, is probably not significant to someone else. You need to look for things that your characters will find significant in order to craft an impactful story. Your readers cannot read your mind, but with your help they can read your character’s. Give your characters something to latch on to, and explain their intent so that the reader can follow along properly.
Dusty Bones
Male
Pony - Earth
Tan Brown
Golden Yellow
Emerald
Dusty Bones was born in a weary old town near the borders of Yakyakistan, a mining town that hugged the foot of a rolling glacier, named Glittering Ice. She was the only child of a warm couple, Dusty Drawers and Iron Bones, a soft spoken and traditional housewife and an ever-tiring miner respectively. The budding mare made few close friends amongst the locals of the town, attending the better of it's two small schoolhouses at the behest of her parent's hard-earned savings. While an intelligent girl, Dusty abused her intelligence to skirt through school with as little effort as possible, rebelling as best she could against the idealistic upbringing her parents had in mind for her with her little cluster of friends, yet keeping her marks high enough to stay out of trouble where her pals sunk deeper into their hedonistic lifestyles as expulsions and local justice caught up with them. That was until in her late teens: When she had been skipping school as any rebellious teen should and her small gang had chosen the refuse sumps of the mineworks as their hideout; the jagged rocks, unstable walkways and minecart tracks were a perfect running ground for teenagers testing their courage.Dusty slipped up while clambering along one of the workman's bridges between the sumps, tumbling down the back-side of a mound of waste rock in a nasty fall. Out of sight of her friends in a valley of flinty stones and gifted a full-body cast of tiny cuts and scrapes; the mare had warned her friends off - insisting she was fine. (After all, to cry after a fall would be social suicide. She needed some time to recuperate before clambering out to face them) It was while she stifled her pain and shook the threat of tears out of her head that she sought a distraction- anything to focus on to ignore the pain as it subsided. She found the perfect distraction, as nestled amongst the shattered rocks was a strange shape: Plucked from the rubble it revealed a stout statuette, a lean and thin mockery of a unicorn, albeit scuffed and weathered, and with the horn half-removed. It was alien to her, she knew of the occasional soap-stone carving by her father or the town's resident mason, but this was the work of a master and carved from a shimmering Onyx. The statuette ignited a curiosity in the mare, and having banished all thoughts of tears or pain, she scrambled out of the refuse heap, and proudly revealed her discovery to her friends. They did not care for it one bit, and her defence of her find spiralled into an argument, a scuffle, and a bitching-match that broke Dusty off from that clump of ponies. Incensed, Dusty Bones stormed back to school, now determined to prove them wrong, and for the first time in her life: Dusty walked into the school library on her own whim.Her gifts helped her excel, and what started as a curiosity developed into a fascination, rejecting her friends, one would have expected Dusty to return to the side of her family, but oh no. Dusty was too smart for her hick parents now. In a couple of years she had went from scraping through her classes, to outpacing her classmates and running the school library dry of books. She had learned Equestrian history off by heart, knew the names of major historical figures from all walks of the past, and had built an ego for herself as the smartest pony in Glittering Ice, which soon fostered a resentment for the 'idiots' that surrounded her. She knew too much to be stuffed up in a hick town in the Frozen North. Dusty had the brains for Canterlot, she was as gifted as her parents had always told her; and she needed to act on those gifts.A few days before coming of age, Dusty Bones stole the rest of her parent's savings and snuck out of town aboard the trade caravan that ran south every few months, leaving only a blunt letter for her ever neglected parents: she was on her way to Canterlot and as she put it 'The glacier will melt before I ever come back.'
Dusty Drawers
Dusty abused her intelligence to skirt through school with as little effort as possible,
In a couple of years she had went from scraping through her classes, to outpacing her classmates and running the school library dry of books.
which soon fostered a resentment for the 'idiots' that surrounded her.
A few days before coming of age, Dusty Bones stole the rest of her parent's savings and snuck out of town aboard the trade caravan that ran south every few months, leaving only a blunt letter for her ever neglected parents:
A Greco-roman pillar crossed with a bone.
Dusty's cutie mark appeared on the day she stepped foot into the Library by her own accord, her rebellious youth was fostered by the lack of direction she'd had in growing up. Her shunning of her studies, towering self-importance and the wrong group of friends had only helped sustain the blank flank she'd bore. Until that point, she had worn it as a pride symbol; she was wild and free and her flank reflected that. After that point, it only confirmed in her mind that she had made the right choice in abandoning her friends for this fascination, she knew what mattered to her after the discovery of her talent, and this ego-boost would float her all the way to Canterlot.
Cambia is a weathered woman. A long life of mistakes, adversities and hard graft have broken down what began as a driven and passionate young mare into a fanatical, sociopathic machine. She has one love left in this world: The research that began the moment she threw away her friends over an Onyx statuette. Her studies and work have become her comfort zone, but her utter obsession with residing in this zone has been as much the cause of her troubles as her escape from them, she has suffered through many a storm in her 41 years in Equestria, and what is left is a gifted, talented woman, marred by an unhinged mind; Desperately working to fill in damage to her ego that can never be repaired. She cannot socialise well, and is uncomfortable doing anything but indulging in her obsessions. She has become a danger to herself and others around her.
sociopathic machine
The research that began the moment she threw away her friends over an Onyx statuette.
Cambia is a talented Archeologist. Able to conduct and orchestrate digging operations, catalogue finds and develop theories with remarkable efficiency. A very literate woman, she has read a terrifying volume of literature, and even penned a few texts herself. Cambia is also surprisingly apt at sustaining herself, a survivalist born from a rough home climate, and decades of dangerous explorations, though she's no Daring Do.
Dusty Bones came to Canterlot city confident that she needed no friends and no family to support her. She had plenty of money, and she was dashingly smart. She was exactly what Canterlot needed, and so she marched proudly into the city, and approached the preeminent Historical Society for placement and further education as a Historian. She was nearly laughed out of the room, but her aggressive backlash of her wounded pride caught out the ponies she'd approached, who hastily agreed to at least allow the mare the opportunity to sit an Entrance Exam, to see if she was of the quality they sought (And to placate this heavy-set mare before she got Violent.) This satisfied her somewhat, but her ego was still bleeding from their initial response. When it came to the entry exam, Dusty achieved commendably high marks, though nowhere as high as she had expected, which caught her off guard. It was at least good enough to bring her back to the Historians to discuss the opportunity for a placement, where Dusty then learned she had nothing close to the funds required for a Scholarship. She faced ruin if she could not secure a placement, there was no way she could go back home, there was simply no way she could let herself fail. So Dusty began to beg. She pleaded, she offered everything she had, her money, her life, and finally that Onyx Statuette: When the artefact was brought up, there was a change of tune for the Historians and they made an agreement. Exchanging all of the money she had brought and the Onyx statuette for a scholarship. Dusty Bones was accepted into the Canterlot Historical society, and the next decade of her life would be spent fighting back against the blow that had been dealt to her. Shivering recollections of begging for her placement, and the discomforting thought that she may not be as smart as she thought she was, and the hollowing loss of that prized possession.She rose rapidly. She eventually wrote off most of her poor start to simply the poor supplies of that hick town for educating a proper historian, and she quickly became a maverick lead, she made a sizable wealth as she rose up the social structure of the Society, heading expeditions on her own when she could not accrue enough funds, leading dig sites and becoming a hot-topic name for other Historians. Yet despite her early success, something nipped at her mind, and Dusty soon went back to the artefact she had first uncovered. There was something off about it, the item held no similarities to any other historical item, at least in her mind. While the rest of the Society had estimated a date and origin for it, Dusty's incredible knowledge (and her gut) insisted that they were wrong. Whether this was her own negative perception of her peers or a fact stands to be debated, but it lead her on to comparing some other finds, and the mare soon started to notice a trend. Out-of-place artefacts, there were many of them and a lot of them bore similar traits, workmanship similarities, similar markings or discovery sites: eventually Dusty started on a theory. Certain that they all were not infact out of place, but were the remnants of a civilisation that predated Ancient Equestria. A people she would come to name, the Cirollans.Her peers took full advantage of this claim, not to reinforce it or research it themselves, but to finally shoot down the hot-shot hick mare who had been so rapidly ascending through the society. Three veteran Historians wrote separate papers denouncing the Cirollans theory, using their own (Perhaps flawed) practices. Yet they were peer-reviewed, and in weeks: Dusty's reputation was shattered. Her ego was dealt another deadly blow, and the mare faded from the public eye, desperately scrabbling to hold together what threads of power and authority she still held as her world crumbled around her. During this time, on one of the few digs she could even drag herself onto: She got into a heated argument with a Mercenary guarding the expedition caravan. This ironically was the blossoming of a strange relationship, as arguing down the Mercenary, he relented. Accepted that he was wrong and respected her for telling him so, Dusty fell almost immediately in love with him, and she found support on his shoulder, importantly because: The failing years of her time in Canterlot were the defining point that her Cirollan theory became her comfort zone. She was the only one she could trust regarding it, she was the only one smart enough to see the trends, and so, only she needed to be involved in it. She pursued her other works to keep face, ensuring her Mercenary lover would also accompany her on these trips, but quietly skimmed her funds and bought whatever authority she could to pursue her own research into the Cirollans. It took years, scrambling around in the gutters of Academic society, before she could finally decide on a dig site, a place to prove them all wrong at long last. She burned all the bridges she had left to get the grant for the dig, and with a rare show of luck, was granted a fully funded expedition by a benefactor. On one condition, she take his son, a recent apprentice of the society, along for the expedition. Given Dusty's still respectable quality of site-conduct and procedure, this mistake seemed like an excellent choice at the time, and so a few months later, they departed for the dig site on a flat plane just below the foothills of the Unicorn Range.Dusty Bones was right. When they reached the site, the small party began turning up artefacts, all bearing similar trends to her claims. The labour force were not too impressed, but for Dusty, this was her Magnum Opus. She pushed the workers to dig up more ground, heading work for days at a time with little food or rest, ignoring concerns as she uncovered more and more, and finally; she found something life changing. She realised that there was a pattern to the discoveries, a pattern that told her clearly: the hill in which the dig site sat shadowed was a burial mound. A capsule of ages past! Her procedures began to break down, overcome with her fanaticism; she pushed the workers harder and harder, forcing untrained stallions to dig a tunnel through the hill to the burial chamber, men abandoned the site as soon as the first short cave in claimed a life, but those that stayed she pushed even harder. Even digging herself to get through the hill faster.On the first day of Winter, they broke through into the Chamber. Cambia, the apprentice and two workmen smashed through a stone wall into a capsule lost to time, the gravesite of a Cirollan. She sent the labourers away, instead stepping in herself, with her apprentice carrying a torch behind. Dusty's every dream had came true, everything she could ever hope, decades worth of information would be contained within this dome beneath the hill. It really was her Magnum Opus, and she was so caught up, so starry-eyed and amazed, that neither her nor her apprentice noticed the flames from the torch licking at the dry, rotted supports of the underground chamber.The creaking came suddenly, but Dusty was no idiot, her sharp turn startled her apprentice, who at last realised he'd set the roof ablaze. She had no time to scream obscenities as the chamber began to cave in. She would have died there had the Mercenary she loved not hauled her away from the chamber as it collapsed. Finally spurred on to run, Dusty scrambled free of the collapsing tunnel with her apprentice narrowly escaping behind her. Her life's work was ruined, and the mare simply... broke.She turned on her apprentice, and the young colt never made it home. She screamed bloody murder at her lover: driving even him away after the labour force had taken off running. Dusty Bones was left alone, bloodied, and shattered. Her lover disappeared, while the Historical Society (not to mention Canterlot as a whole) learned of her tragic downfall. She was decried as a failure, and a bounty was placed on her head should she ever return - and so she never did.That was the last anyone saw of Dusty Bones, as the mare adopted a new name from one of her favourite ancient texts as a cover. Taking it from a merchant named Cambia Amore. With a new name, and the money she had left; Cambia has spent the rest of her life hiding in a small home, far from most of Equestria. She works endlessly on her theories from what artefacts survived the Unicorn Range dig, and has spiralled ever deeper into a fanatical madness. Her heart broken, she swore off love after her partner 'abandoned' her: and has poured her heart and soul into her studies, and nothing but her studies - supported now only by a fringe cluster of devout believers in her theory, that are willing to spare money for the lonesome mare in only the hope that she reveals more to them of her discoveries. So, while her parents mourn her in Glittering Ice, and while Historians tell cautionary tales about her in Canterlot, Cambia Amore works, and works, and works.
She had plenty of money, and she was dashingly smart. She was exactly what Canterlot needed,
who hastily agreed
where Dusty then learned she had nothing close to the funds required for a Scholarship
She faced ruin if she could not secure a placement,
So Dusty began to beg.
When the artefact was brought up, there was a change of tune for the Historians and they made an agreement.
Exchanging all of the money she had brought and the Onyx statuette for a scholarship. Dusty Bones was accepted into the Canterlot Historical society
the item held no similarities to any other historical item,
had estimated a date and origin for it
remnants of a civilisation that predated Ancient Equestria.
but to finally shoot down the hot-shot hick mare who had been so rapidly ascending through the society.
Three veteran Historians wrote separate papers denouncing the Cirollans theory,
This ironically was the blossoming of a strange relationship, as arguing down the Mercenary, he relented.
Dusty fell almost immediately in love with him,
scrambling around in the gutters of Academic society,
On one condition, she take his son, a recent apprentice of the society, along for the expedition.
She realised that there was a pattern to the discoveries, a pattern that told her clearly:
Even digging herself
men abandoned the site as soon as the first short cave in claimed a life,
Cambia, the apprentice and two workmen smashed through a stone wall into a capsule lost to time,
She would have died there had the Mercenary she loved not hauled her away from the chamber as it collapsed.
and the mare simply... broke.
and the money she had left;
Her heart broken, she swore off love after her partner 'abandoned' her:
fringe cluster of devout believers in her theory, that are willing to spare money for the lonesome mare in only the hope that she reveals more to them of her discoveries.