Feedback - Leah Siskin

[Rosetango]

A thread for your criticisms, impressions, etc. for Leah Siskin, a stuttering, limping Cargo Technician.

[Haveatya]

I enjoyed watching you rp as a ghost. Your character has real flaws and you as a player seeks roleplay over just seeking to survive or get a valid. Both traits I very much appreciate.

[Pratepresidenten]

Props for sticking up for the cat miners!

[Rosetango]

I would just like to say thank you to the people who have replied thus far. I'm sure some people who I've talked to on discord have deeper insight into Leah as I often "soundboard" (throw ideas at other ppl until they stick) with other people familiar with Leah, but you are still allowed to comment here if you're one of those people.

I would also like to say thank you to Haveatya, you have no idea how much it means to me that you say those things. I try to make sure that everything that my character does has a reason, and I want to ensure that if I'm interacting with any antags that they also get the best RP possible. So thank you, over all.

[Meroko]

Even though I haven't played with her too much, I like Leah cause she seems to be a very believable character. Physical flaws notwithstanding she doesn't just rocket around the station like some techs might. Mentally it's all about seeing the struggles of her life come to a forefront with whatever's been happening in the round, yet whenever I interact with her something inside makes my goal to want to see her genuinely smile. (unless I'm antagging that round, but even then it hurts a little.

The only thing I don't like about her is that she's so quiet a lot of the time. You even put a song in your description to show what she sounds like! I wanna 'hear' that voice more.

[sdtwbaj]

she getting frisky

[Rosetango]

Boost, so that I can get more feedback.

[Scheveningen]

The implementation of chronic stuttering as a mild speech quirk is always an interesting one, as it's a rather frequent trope in terms of character design on roleplay servers. Note I say chronic, as chronic stammering is extremely distinct from stammering caused by nervousness, so forgive me if I falsely assume Leah is a sufferer of chronic stammering.

I'm not terribly good at noticing things and committing nuance to memory, but I'll assume you do the following with your character's mannerisms in terms of stammering:

-You don't over-excessively accentuate the stutter to a point where it is noticeable, such as:

“O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-okay. I-I-I-I-I’ll d-d-d-d-do i-i-i-it.” or “Th-th-there i-i-isn’t o-o-o-one.”

-You ensure the stutter is incorporated as a condition that your character was born with, as in reality psychogenic stuttering is not only extremely rare but really unlikely to ever develop as a result of trauma. Stammering may be accompanied by emotional trauma but it is not caused by it.

-It's established by you as a long-term condition that hasn't ever made significant progress on to fixing. A major thing to know is that chronic stammering is a difficult quirk to hammer out of someone, even with speech therapy there's a chance it will be ineffective. Otherwise it'd be too easy to simply retcon out of your character, thus making the detail completely nuanced and voiding it of any importance as a quality! Smaller negative quirks of a character cause conflict for a character, the especially prevalent ones also happen to create interesting obstacles for the character to overcome. It's these tiny problems that make a character seem real and relatable. A very difficult thing to execute in terms of writer skill, as it's too easy to succumb to the pitfalls that need to be avoided.

-You incorporate more than a few aspects that involve chronic stuttering such as sound prolongation, especially for words that begin with a soft S, such as 'snake'. Thus, it'd be enunciated such as "ssssnake" though hopefully distinct in a manner in how Unathi slither when enunciating soft or hard S in basic. ss-ss-snake functions well enough for this purpose, as an example. Repeating the same word once or twice and also incorporating interjections (such as uh, um, like, but, etc) into your speech patterns also reflects further as to how the character has a bit of trouble tripping over their own anxiety when they notice they're stuttering a bit, thus exacerbating it even worse for themselves.

-You hopefully make it so that your character is very self-conscious about their stuttering and loathes it to death, and as mentioned, a stutter that happens once will most likely just increase the rate at which your character stutters if left for too long in a social encounter. For some people it's very, very embarrassing and they don't know how to deal with it. Don't let this stop you from making Leah proud of what she does, of course, as it could create interesting plotlines.

I apologize again if I've made any inaccurate assumptions, I only know so much from what I've seen and haven't really interacted with you meaningfully on either an OOC or IC level.

[StainlessInk]

Beep boop, don't really know your character too well far from throwing drinks at you. But from what i can tell you, stutter is well balanced. And not irritating. Seems natural. You can tell the char has Some depth to them. And fits well into the world. Anywho that's enough rehashing what's all ready been said. She seems like a good char to get to know, and i hope i get the chance too. Have fun with my useless post!