Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-24993958-20150605221100/@comment-26397825-20150606140947

Yeah, names are really difficult, especially with sticking to the colour name rule. Some places you can go are here here [thestir.cafemom.com/pregnancy/172524/30_Beautiful_Baby_Names_for here] and here

I didn't mean to say stop writing altogether, sorry if it came across like that. And I know how hard it is to not ship your OC with the main character - sometimes it's all you really want to do. But Gary Stu is less because it has cliches in it and more because it has a lot, like a metric tonne of cliches. One or two is fine - you can have the orphan who hops from orphanage to orphanage, but try not to then also make him the guy who single handidly saves an entire village at the age of twelve or something ridiculous.

The main problems with his background are the sheer amounts of bullying happening - it doesn't matter how much a kid is hated, there are going to be at least a handfull that aren't going to participate that he could find refuge with - not because they like him but more becasue they literally just don't give a shit. Also, the Queen pulling him out of the school to homeschool him doesn't tie in with the history of 'hidden at birth and pronounced stillborn to the Kng - it's far more likely that she would instead pay for his guardians (because she would pay for someone to look after him) to hire private tutors, and make sure that she can't be traced back to in any case. The anti-Caerulus thing can be explained as well in that she would determine what he was to learn, and probably get reports on his progress and personality as time went by.

As for the 'only three people survived the fall of the Kingdom', it doesn't work. The Kingdom's fall by your timeline is ten years before volume 1, when Taranis is 4. So he'd survive, the royal family would survive, a tonne of guards and retainers and quite possibly quite a few of their subjects as well, as well as his guardians. What you need to do is instead find a way for the queen to still have contact with his guardians, but not be queen anymore whilst he's growing up.

His age also doesn't quite add up; Ruby is a special case because she had dedicated trainers who were related to her. Most others, even those who have private trainers after being pulled out of school, aren't quite so strong as to become infamous at the age of 14, like Taranis is at the start of volume 1. He'd either have to be older, or he'd have to be starting out on his journey to become infamous, where no one has heard of him just yet except mayybe the few people he has saved and the couple of thugs he's taken down - enough that a handfull of people might start spreading the rumour, but not enough to be infamous.

Hope this helps. I think he could be an interesting character - the Arthurian legends is full of interesting people after all - you just need to work out the small details a bit more.