Rye Wilson [D9f] fin

Hey! I have just a few notes for you before setting you free to write your little heart out:

For starters I’d like to note that I don’t want to censor your writing (this is a site about the systematic mass murder of children, after all), but when a bio or a post or a thread contains commonly upsetting topics like rape and child abuse, it’s kind to potential readers to add a trigger warning to your title and/or the top of your post - just so people are prepared. Especially when it’s written in a character voice like this one. Rye is harsh and flippant, which can make for fantastic characterization, but it also makes the material particularly upsetting for people who may have experienced these issues themselves or who are just sensitive to them in general. The trigger warning doesn’t need to be anything huge, just an update of the title to “Rye Wilson [D9f] fin (trigger warning)” and then a small explanation at the head of the bio noting that “Warning: this bio contains themes of rape, child abuse, and domestic violence.”

That said, I think the voice you’ve given your character is really interesting and that it gives you a lot to work with. She has a real point of view and I feel like there’s some major potential here and I just want you to tap into it a bit more. Rye is a bit of a double-edged sword of a character in that the better you write her, the more upset people reading her posts might feel. With that in mind, I’d like for you to go more in depth with the mistreatment she’s suffered and her emotional reactions to it all (or lack thereof). You’ve hit the minimum requirement for bio length and I don’t want you to write more only for the sake of more, but I think there’s so much emotional content here that this bio could easily be two or three times this length and that it would really bring her to life, if you’re up for that. Generally fleshing things out aside, at the very least there are a few clarification issues that need to be sorted out before this can be accepted.

First off, you mention that she was raped and abused, but we don’t get a lot of context for this. At first I read it as her father being the one who raped her, but then later you seem to imply that it was a boy (boyfriend?) from school. Or both? The outlining of events needs some clarification.

You give some really effective details that show more than tell and I really appreciate that. Calling her dad by Travis, twisted amusement that she can survive what it feels like she shouldn’t be able to, “feeling like a little girl” as if she isn’t absolutely still a child, not wanting to show weakness and being so flippant in her storytelling - things like this really make her feel realistic, despite her intense attitude about life. However, while these details are great to have, you’re missing a lot of the big picture.

You note the father as being controlling (forcing her to hang out with the wrong crowd), but there’s no explanation or examples for the ways in which she was pushed this way. We’re missing a lot of information about what his presence in the house felt like, how he behaved beyond quickly noting that he slapped her. A parental figure who is this intense would cause Rye to develop all sorts of habits in her everyday living situation, but we don’t get a real feel for her home life or how the abuse began or for how long it had been happening, etc. If someone feels like they’ve been killed on the inside then there must be a lot more to get into emotionally. In what ways did her mom try to protect her?

Next you bring up Milo, but it’s difficult to get a sense of his true relationship with Rye. Were they actually friends in the beginning? What happened there? Their history feels less real than other events in this bio because you don’t go into any detail. How does Rye feel about Milo? Before the baby vs after? Does she have any attachment to Milo now, despite what happened? If she hates him completely, does she hold that against their child at all? Will she be upset if her son grows up to look like his father? There’s gotta be a ton of complexity there and you haven’t touched on it yet.

In what way did Travis try to kill her? That’s a major event and we aren’t given any description of what exactly happened or how that felt for Rye, the ways in which it changed her as a person.

You skip around a bit in the bio when it comes to time - it’s particularly awkward when it comes to before and after the baby is born. Suddenly it’s in present tense and then there’s a major time jump and then you switch back to past tense and it’s difficult to follow. I’d take a look at that and see if you can make it feel more cohesive.

Overall these questions are just thoughts I had while reading through and while you don’t have to add the answer to every single question I asked into the bio, I wanted to give you some prompts to work with. Whether or not everything is included 100%, these are questions you should have answers to in your head and the reader should at least get the feeling while reading through the bio that anything left unsaid is still implied.

Flesh this out a bit more, add a trigger warning in there, and bump this thread whenever you’re ready for staff to take another look!