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Post by Beelzebibble on Feb 11, 2016 10:45:34 GMT -5
If you've been wondering why there hasn't been a character poll since 2010, fun fact! We were going to run one in 2012, but then it turned out that only two people completed their ratings, and out of those, one person's computer broke and all his ratings disappeared into the digital ether. Or maybe just his keyboard broke, and that somehow wiped all the files on his computer. Or something like that. I'm just saying, hang onto system32, kids, that's a big one. But now a few of us are trying to get an informal "poll" cooked up in time for the big ten-year anniversary. So, on this portentous date, one month out from double digits, I'm gonna go ahead and poop out all the ratings I wrote back in 2012, so that in case I want to refer back to these in the new ratings, you're not lost. Oh, I was the guy whose ratings didn't explode. That was obvious, right? I mean, everybody read that paragraph above and knew it was Lee, right? Okay, I thought as much. So here we go. These are some wordy mammajammas. I can promise that the 2015-16 Pohatu ratings will feature far less of Pohatu debating tediously with himself about whether or not to give that extra half a point, based on tiny pros and cons. So far, the 2015-16 Pohatu ratings are mostly just a bunch of dumb throwaway jokes. ZEBEDEE: 3 Oh man. I read it. The Great Zebedee TL;DR Bonanza 2011. Alternate title: Dragonball Zeb Unabridged. Alternate title: War and Peace, by Lee Tolst oy-VEY-that’s-a-Fucking-Huge-Post. Alternate title… ah, but I could go on for days. Kinda like that post!! Ha ha! Ha. Look, I’m running on fumes here, okay?... Well, listen, I hear you, Lee, on the whole “Stop flanderizing Zebedee, guys, he is totally not just a super-pious ultra-serious straight man for us to bounce our godless badasses off” thing. And maybe it would be unfair, given the context of LaDC, to point to that DAMNED MONOLITH of a post (Alternate title: Saint, Vincent, and the Funny Word That Sounds Like “Grenadines” And Conveys How Long This Post Is) and say “But Lee, Zebedee spends almost five thousand words being super-pious and ultra-serious in that one post alone.” Unfair! Maybe! I get it. I understand that the situation in LaDC demanded a particular mode of behavior from Zebedee, and that we should really be looking to, I don’t know, like Luxury Train Ride or something to get our understanding of Zebedee’s real character. But, dammit, with all that philosophizing and all that spectacle (and make no mistake, Lee, you are an excellent author of spectacle), where do you think our overriding impressions of Zebedee are going to be founded? In LaDC, dude! And according to LaDC, Zebedee does use a few silly trick weapons but is otherwise a super-pious ultra-serious straight man who is certain all conflict would end if everyone just realized that God loves the shit out of them and wants them to be happy. That sorta muscles out any “trickster” image you’re trying to push. But you know I still like ol’ Zeb, I just think it’s a little disingenuous for you to crank out that behemoth (Alternate title: How To Seduce EVERYONE In Five Minutes Or Less. It’s In There! Just Skip Past The Stuff About Light And Darkness Colliding) and then fault us for misinterpreting the character. As a completely unrelated final note, I like that you’ve started to use a whole bunch of parentheses as a sort of narrative verbal tic to set him apart, though occasionally – “(This time) he (really) flew” – the use of parens feels a little scattershot. It’s a good tool for careful, subtle emphasis and de-emphasis, but I want to know that every pair of parens was put there for a reason. THYRA: 2.5 3 Oh no she’s losing points from last time!! Half a point, anyway. This dame needs an action topic, methinks. Badly. It’s all well and good for Lee to tout her as one of the few completely defensive Powers in RP (and I’m not saying that sarcastically or condescendingly, because we know I tout my own characters a lot), but when all we’ve seen her do since the last poll is make with the mouth-flappin’ talky yap yaps in Luxury Train Ride, it’s… easy to forget that she’s a Power at all. Have I ever even seen her toss up a beehive barrier at any point? I don’t think so. Maybe in LaDC but my memory is a sieve when it comes to that RP. Of course when she isn’t using her power what we’re left with to analyze is her personality and I’m not trying to register any big complaints there. I do like the ”too clever not to use” bit in LTR. But she could really use a featuring role that focuses on her abilities in adventurin’ scenarios. That’s what would properly set her apart in the minds of… well, me, and also everyone who is newer to RP than me. Have you considered enrolling her in What Lurks? We could make it another Girls Only And Choobs Too RP! EDIT: Lee posted in Urakuni. So I guess Thyra does use her power sometimes. Although I can’t tell how much of the brain-bendingly awesome imagery in that post comes courtesy of Thyra, and how much of it relates to the inherent mirror motif of the plot. (It’s got a mirror motif, I believe.) Anyway that post is worth bumping Thyra back up to a 3. MIKO: 2.5 His other post since the last poll was in LaDC and pretty much got swallowed up in the Great Zebedee TL;DR Bonanza 2011, so I’m pretty much basing this review on the Summoner Style post. And… I like it! It’s nice to see him taking such an enlightened view of his own past behavior, and admitting that the actions of the Summoners back then really did close a lot of doors for them. Though I have to ask… isn’t that, like, the end of his character arc, then? Isn’t this how it’s supposed to go for tragic heroes? They mess up, they spend most of the plot bouncing between anger and denial about how much they messed up, and then at the end they come to terms with having messed up and then they die. Right? I mean I know how Lee feels about offing characters but I’m just saying, if I were him, Miko would be fuckin’ wallpaper right now. In fact I’m going to throw the glove down. Lee. . Are you a bad enough dude to KILL MIKO?? NATALIE: 4 “Here’s your review: SHE IS F*CKING NATALIE!” HELEN: 3.5 I’m a big fan of the “You have at my word/That isn’t your sword” trick she pulls off in the Ishkabibble fight. It’s fun when Lee finds a way to break up her rhymes like that so she isn’t saying both lines in one go. More interesting, and it can catch the reader by surprise when they weren’t actually expecting a spell. (Come to think of it, that experience more closely matches what would be the sensation of actually hearing her manage one of those rhymes in real life. As opposed to noticing that the next paragraph consists of two short spoken lines and thinking “Oh, rhyming spell coming up, right then.”) But I have to wonder why she kind of… disappeared as soon as Rhys turned up. This isn’t Lee being neglectful, right? There’s a reason why the last we saw of Helen was Natalie’s bladed arm plunging downward over her chest… in early 2011… right? She’s not dead? Is she dead? If she’s dead then I have to congratulate Lee on completely throwing my Ishkabibble plans for a loop. I can actually deal with that though so no problem. NOPCSA: 4.5 Maybe this is just because Natalie has been stuck in the Fight That Would Not End recently, but I’m pretty sure Nopcsa has handily deposed her by now as Lee’s most dynamic and compelling character. (What’s that? His most dynamic and compelling character is really supposed to be, like, Miko or someone? Ah.) Nopcsa is quite simply a standout, a truly distinctive character not just in Lee’s stable but in the RP generally. Granted, we’re not hurting for duplicitous and well-dressed young men, but I would submit that Nopcsa is kind of the paragon of that model, a happy medium between Terrian and Antonio: he’s definitely a snarky provocateur in the same mold as Antonio, but Lee also brings a lot of humor to his persona, more like Terrian, which gives Nopcsa an undeniable charm with the reader. Add on the mindreading ability and suddenly Nopcsa’s winsome jerk appeal is shot through with serious intrigue and danger, not to mention a healthy dose of good old-fashioned FUCKING CREEPINESS as evidenced by his recent parting message to Williams!! I always look forward to reading more from ORP’s resident troll king, and even though there’s certainly plenty more that could be done to flesh out the character, the “game” he plays (I like thinking of characters as each playing their own “game” with unique “rules”) is well-defined enough, and he’s good enough at it, that a 4 didn’t feel sufficient. By the way, I pronounce it “Nopsa”. Just, like, with a silent “c”, as in “indictment”, or “Philadelphia” (the “c” is silent and also invisible). That’s accurate, right? God, I hope so. If we’re supposed to pronounce the “c” in any way whatsoever then that might drop him down to like a 1, 1.5, tops. DACE: 3 4 I’m sorry, what’s she doing here? Have we seen any posts with Dace since the last poll? Let me check okay in fact the answer is no (Fallfish hasn’t had posts since May 2010). I love this girl something fierce but I think it’s a bit silly that she’s here, to be honest. EDIT: Actually I was wrong and she was in this 2011 post, just not mentioned by name, which was why it didn’t come up in the search. Frankly, that much writing still wouldn’t be worth entering her in the poll again, but Lee quite recently (i.e. after I originally submitted this) posted with her again, so I’ve really got no choice but to give her back the 4. Even though I feel like she’s getting flanderized a bit into ending virtually every single sentence with an exclamation point. Nevertheless I’m happy that she took the plunge and acted as the first in-story character to broach The Inevitable Topic. The one that arose with the release of Gen V. You know what I mean. GARTH: 1.5 He loses half a point from last time for logging zero RP posts since the last poll finished. Seriously, Lee? All the action Garth’s gotten since then was in Triannual Abridged! What are these characters doing here, even. Are you holding out for reviews from people who weren’t active enough in 2010 to rate ‘em then? Well, I’ve really got nothing better to do here than air out my gums, so… Did you know that Meowth’s Japanese name, though technically “Nyasu”, is often romanized as “Nyarth”? Surely what this means is that if ORP becomes the next big fad in Japan, they are going to have to do a one-eighty and call him “Geowth” over there. Okay, that’s all I got. Tune in again tomorrow for more “Fun With Garth” EDIT: DAMMIT you POSTED in BOWS now I have no excuse not to renew my opinion on Garth. A whole awesome review, wasted. Um… he feels guilty about… something to do with lions? Did he feed his whole family to lions? This would be a pleasantly interesting twist and would absolutely improve my opinion of Garth. In the meantime, can we talk about where the hell the name “Garth” came from? Is it a contraction of something? “Garthur”? “Gartholomew”? “Garthunkel”? Mail your own suggestions in and we’ll run a poll to see which one is best! That’ll be next time on “Fun With Garth” …EDIT: And then Lee posted in Bows again. Making four times in a month and a half. I am disgusted by this crass favoritism toward an RP that no one but he and Cendra really cares about. I will retaliate by paying no attention to any new Garth developments that occurred in these posts. Yes, Lee: I can ignore your Garth. FUTURE EDIT: I wrote that “ignore your Garth” joke several years before Lee got to it, just so everyone knows. GIGUERE: 2.5 Whenever Lee gets to writing a wealthy and self-assured middle-aged man who loves to hear himself go off on philosophical tangents, I find that I need to double-check whether I’m reading the latest from Mssrs. Buckland, Giguere, or Tylor. Nevertheless I’ll allow that Giguere is the most immediately entrancing of these three, with his inhuman heritage very well-extrapolated into a difficult, alienating worldview. Still, Nopcsa’s dynamic with Giguere feels just a wee bit too similar to his dynamic with Auguste Tylor, even though it’s predicated on hostility (as of LTR) instead of cooperation. If Nopcsa and George Buckland ever start pallin’ around then it’s time for Lee to just strand Nopcsa on an island with a mixed-gender population of attractive young folk, and leave the old farts to themselves. GEORGE: 2.5 So! Um… All right! I just clapped my hands and rubbed them together all business-like. You know, I really could’ve sworn George had shown his face in at least one RP besides LTR since the last poll, but… no? Okay let’s do this. Well, I really like how, since he wasn’t actually hitting on Rie aboard the train, he felt free to dial up the creepiness way out of proportion. I was close to giving him a 3, but the whole “there’s no right or wrong beyond the definitions of those in power” shtick held me back. Because you and I both know, Lee, that that’s a pretty hackneyed sentiment to put into the mouth of a corrupt man, no matter how pretty the language is that he surrounds it with. I could almost give him the half point back for the way that he tempers his Big Philosophical Plans for Humanity with an unabashedly-admitted desire for money, but… I don’t know. Maybe I took the half-point back for a line as juvenile and unbecoming as “Normal people, normal senses. They suck, so very badly.” Is it a bad sign that I keep going back and forth on George based on small isolated things he says? It’s definitely good news on Lee’s part that there’s so much to analyze. But until I see George put his money where his mouth is and really do something, I don’t think he’s in 3 range. The aforementioned similarity to Giguere and Tylor, and whatnot. LACIANUS: 3 She gets points just for carving an elaborate castle out of potatoes with her spoon. These are the kind of hijinx we want to see out of someone who was engineered specifically for pinpoint dexterity, but didn’t get the sense of whimsy completely wrung out of her either. Also the bit about Berthold envying her ability to handle food very loosely without spilling a drop. Lacianus has a lot of nice little wrinkles that are easy to miss on an initial readthrough, and that kind of thoughtful writing is one of Lee’s big strengths. I guess, though, that I don’t find her particularly compelling. Actually I’d call that a weakness of Lee’s, in turn, that with a few exceptions (I mentioned Nat and Nop already, and Dace qualifies too), his characters rarely seem to reach out and grab you by the collar. They’re enjoyable reads yet they lack energy! But of course LTR is a mostly low-key setting to begin with, and though I stand by loving her cameo in Boullogne, I guess it’s time to try and find another scenario that’ll put Lacianus in a more active stance. The way she was in GnR. I think. I am in no mood right now to reread GnR, where “right now” means the entire span of time between writing this and submitting it. Btw is “schizocentric” really a word? I doubt you, Mr. English major. EMILY: 2.5 I was so close to being able to disqualify this chick on the grounds that she doesn’t have any posts since the last poll, but then SWRP came along and harshed my buzz something fierce. (She’s also one of those characters I’m always half-convinced must be fluttering around LTR somewhere, but… apparently not?) Listen, though, I got to drop points for the fact that Clicker herself hasn’t logged any posts with Emily since last time. Is Clicker, like, dead? I was all smiles about Emily last time but there’s virtually nothing to distinguish her in the aborted SWRP. She remains THE STRONGEST CHARACTER ON THE BOARD, but that don’t mean much when we’s seein’ so little of her.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Feb 11, 2016 10:50:15 GMT -5
YOSHIMITSU: 3.5 I’m writing this after already doing most of the other Elliot character reviews and I can tell you that they’re pretty good stuff so I’m going to request to take a pass on this one. I just… Maybe I’m, like, secretly autistic or something, but Yoshimitsu is total sensory overload for me at this point. Where would I even start with this guy? He’s in so many RPs that it would take a better mind than mine to synthesize my impressions of him into a concise review. I like him. I just feel overwhelmed by him. Let’s move on to other stuff that I’ve already put down by the time of this writing. ILLIANA: 4 Pretty sure I’ve already said this somewhere, probably on the ol’ formed spring, but in spite of Elliot’s obvious proclivity toward writing young adult men, he really can go ahead and give us one or two more ladies if he feels like it. Illiana in OT is just a natural, a fine character who goes about learning from and influencing others with perfect integrity. Integrity on Elliot’s part, I mean – though she also has great integrity herself – and that’s how I think he really charmed me on Illiana: you get the sense that he’s playing completely fair with her, taking care that she actually earns every new piece of knowledge even as she’s surrounded with characters who are pretty much all, in various ways, better-informed than she is (except for the crucial detail of knowing that Antonio is the Butterfly!). As a personality, she’s reacted to this fair-play approach by proving herself as a polite, thoughtful, inquisitive, even-tempered human being, a sorely-needed presence amid the eccentric cast of Obscured Truth. Just as Yoshi flipped frequent criticism in 2009 around into widespread praise in 2010, so do I expect Illiana’s assessment here to be a lot warmer than her tepid reception last time. ANTONIO: 3.5 I can remember cautioning Elliot in the past that Antonio was coming across as pretty unsympathetic, and that it was fine if he was supposed to evoke that reaction but that just needed to be clearer… and… I guess… this post pretty much represents Elliot tacitly saying “Yes, he’s supposed to be a prick, your reaction is what I want”? I mean, with the “superior, smug laugh” and Illiana reflecting that there’s no changing Antonio because he’s “still self-important and arrogant to a fault”, and all. So we’re meant not to like him very much? Okay good, then we can toss aside any hangups about his merits as a relatable character and just focus on his merits as a character generally. As far as that goes, my feelings are still kind of mixed, because – well, I wouldn’t call him an uninteresting guy, because I’m very much interested in him, but it’s hard to find him in any situation – neither in OT nor in Exploration nor in Reemergence – where it isn’t kind of obvious that he’s totally above this and is sure to prevail. Frankly, with an aura of inevitable success like that, I can’t help but wonder if he’d be a more compelling villain than anti-hero? Someday he’s got to get bored with pulling off heists against people who “deserve it”. What if he started sliding outward and committing burglaries against more and more innocent targets, while constantly realigning his Robin Hood moral code to keep himself in the right because he couldn’t quite consciously acknowledge what awful things he was doing? That’s my pitch for “darker, grittier Antonio”. Time to snort some cocaine and greenlight four G.I. Joe prequels. FRATLEY: 1 Man, I have tried to like Phi Rho Alpha Tau over here, I have tried to be open-minded and not such a giant speciesist, but………. he just isn’t clicking with me. Notwithstanding a couple of admirers (Lee and SV, judging from last year’s poll), he doesn’t seem to be much of an audience’s character. I get the feeling that his major role in Exploration and LaDC is just to talk about others among Elliot’s cast. I wish I could offer advice on how to win the same esteem for Fratley that Elliot himself holds for the rat man, but… jeez, I dunno. Maybe he just needs to appear in an RP completely alone, so we can focus entirely on Fratley’s own personality and the Burmecian people, without shifting focus away to his relations with other Elliot characters. FELIX: 2 Elliot picked a tough road with this one. Since the “hedonistic party animal with mouth of sailor” archetype got codified for the ages by Hector, anyone else who treads the same turf has to work hard to set himself apart. (NOTA BENE: I do not actually recall Hector swearing that much. He still codified it though. Yeah, he can codify things without even doing them, what’s your point?) For the most part, I don’t want to tool on characters just for not having had enough development, considering the slow pace of RP, but… Felix is everywhere. He’s logged hours in FIVE RPS since 2010 (Elliot only mentioned Reemergence and Crystal 2, but he left out Azure King, LTR and Vanguard), which blows most of the other hundred and fifty-nine characters on the Sporcle quiz out of the water. (Except Yoshimitsu!!!!) And yet, beyond his satisfying interactions with Julia and Yoshi, I don’t feel like all that screentime is really doing much for him. It’s too easy to just write him taking an endless line of drinks and lighting an endless line of spliffs and croaking an endless line of “fucks”, which makes him sorta boring when he’s flying solo or only interacting with Samm… Mind you, I do consider it a plus that he has an actual job, and a difficult one, forcing the “hedonist” archetype to jump through some hoops he’d otherwise happily pass beneath – but then, why on earth do his employers tolerate Felix’s tendency to get shwasted on the job? Is he really that effective? Is he like a Bunny Ears Lawyer, where one bunny ear is a joint and the other one is a handle of scotch? If so then we could stand to see that come through a bit more. I’m not saying he shouldn’t have gotten his ass kicked by Yoshi because that was perfectly realistic (I’d probably turn around and start complaining from the other direction if he’d won!), but… From what I can tell, Felix just has a lot of cool gadgets. Someone else could use those gadgets too and also be completely sober while doing so. That’s why I think he needs to justify himself more. FUTURE EDIT: And then Hector was a sailor. MARSHALL: 4 Who would’ve guessed ORP needed more cowboy? Despite being, if anything, even more ridiculously period than Renard, Marshall’s acquitted himself as a great fit in the Ecruteak scene. With his menacing figure and reputation for ruthlessness, he bears all the trappings of a villain, but we’ve also seen him treat Illiana with friendliness and respect that I take to be quite sincere (how many bad guys do you see actually admitting that the hero is made of better stuff than they’d expected, without following that with “TOO BAD I HAVE TO KILL YOU THOUGH!!!”?); and we’ve spied upon him in a position of real desperation some years back, in a scene that definitely evokes some pity. His vendetta against Antonio is partially worrisome, as we’re given to suppose it might drive Marshall to cross a line at some point, but it’s also justified and even a bit sympathetic, since Antonio really did screw him right the hell over in the past. He’s a well-rounded character, in short, and even though I can’t help but suspect he’ll prove to be the real bad guy of Obb Troozies, Elliot’s treatment of him is no less nuanced than this RP demands. That our man also roped him in for a surprise cameo in Reemergence I find comforting: it assures that Marshall isn’t just a strawman positioned for a rise and fall within OT (like someone else I can name), but has found a permanent place as one of the most distinctive characters in Elliot’s roster. SAMM: 1 There’s nothing wrong with a purely functional character, but let’s not pretend Samm is anything else. I just don’t see very much to evaluate: he serves as Felix’s straight man most of the time, and occasionally asks questions that allow Yoshimitsu to exposit on stuff. Elliot said he might be being “hopeful” with both Samm and Araini, but I think Araini was a fair choice, and I’ve got more to say about him in a second. Samm, though… nah, like Fratley, he’s not an audience’s character. Let’s move on. ARAINI: 1.5 He seems to get mentioned by other characters a whole lot more often than he actually appears onscreen. His personality is such a cipher to me that I originally thought he was a bad guy, and I’m still not totally sure how accurate or inaccurate that is. I did enjoy the bits about his disdain for “playing around with dangerous variables” and his talk about how “magic is an unknown variable” for humans, and his concern with isolating “the unknown element in play”. It seems there’s a theme Elliot is trying to establish, wherein Araini is so deeply secure about what he does know to be true that he’s proportionally insecure about and therefore much possessed with what he doesn’t know for sure. That’s cool and a good direction in which to take a smarty smartface character. But if there’s a recurring pitfall in Elliot’s cast, it is this weird sort of oil-and-water mixture of urbane and magical elements that never quite synthesize – seemingly cropped a little too closely from the patchwork Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts aesthetic – and Araini epitomizes this in his torn sleeves and cargo pants. What Elliot gains in versatility from this approach (with so many of his characters equally adaptable to both high-level and “street” RPs), he loses in definition. It’s just hard for me to pin Araini down, and consequently impossible to rate him higher.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Feb 11, 2016 10:53:58 GMT -5
FUTURE EDIT: I'm pretty sure I'm not giving 4s to any of my own cast this year. Then again, Yoon and Williams aren't on there. TERRIAN: 4 Last rating&review of them all yaaaay. No, seriously. And I promise that I didn’t just slap a 4 on there Because He’s Terrian!! and call it a day. But I really do think he deserves to hold onto the 4, even though his whole paradigm seems to have shifted. A lot of you, even Blood/Ninety/Biscuit, may not have been around long enough to know this, but back in the 2008-2009 kinda day, Terrian was in like every other RP. You could not even throw a punch into the air without knocking a Terrian’s teeth out. But then Ishkabibble came along and he hasn’t joined a single new RP since then! And it’s not because he dies at the end of Ish or anything (sorry, guys, I know you were hoping)… I just haven’t really felt like it was right to enroll him in anything else until that story finishes. So his RPing model has shifted away from lots of smaller appearances and toward fewer but BIGGER posts. Which is a policy some could criticize, but… I think those are four pretty dope posts. Each one still adds a lot to his character (whether directly or via a duplicate), which is why I’d argue he isn’t just spinning his wheels, despite a couple accusations of stagnation in the last poll. Pretty much I just need to finish Ishkabibble and get him rolling again. I’m actually putting together this great new little plot for him. It’s called “The Brick Strip Bluff”. Remember that name, okay? “The Brick Strip Bluff”. You’ll like it. I promise. WILLIAMS: 4 Would you believe Williams isn’t the character whom Elliot originally approached me about enrolling in OT? That was actually Charles Tanner!! At this point, I’m not so sure if Obscured Truth still particularly needs Tanner, but it needed Williams, and Williams sure as hell needed it in return. None of my characters has ever gotten so much out of being in someone else’s RP, save Terrian in Triannual. That’s not really bragging, that is a plain fact. From a hackneyed, simplistic, unsympathetic figure, Williams has been growing into an indispensable fixture of ORP. He really is saddled with one of the hardest jobs anywhere in RP, and for all his grouchiness and bigotry, he’s proving himself strong enough to handle the burden, pain, and frustration of his work. And the sequence at the Odio household in particular did a lot for him as a sympathetic figure, showing his compassionate and protective side. In the end, Williams is still cliched at his core, but he’s also a living, breathing character, with his motivations and principles much better defined than most of my flashier but more elusive cast. YOON: 4 Gotta love her. Also gotta love the way I frontloaded all of my 4 characters at the beginning of my group, thereby making it seem like I’m a huge jerk who’s gonna rate all of his characters high, when actually these are the only three who are getting 4s from me. Blah blah anyway. Muddy Season was a fun character study. By focusing on three separate stories that progressively “closed in” on Yoon, we saw three different layers to her persona: the dangerous and vengeful monopolist using her Mafia ties to wipe out competition; the pleasant but condescending informant who’s always hovering on the edge of smug bitchery; and the thoughtful, world-weary, sensitive soul at the center. Plus, that monologue in OT is pretty rad, as well as the whole Marshall-Yoon dynamic. So I guess this paragraph is just me sucking my dick about how great Yoon is?? Man, it’s just tough cause she’s kinda great, is the thing. RENARD: 3 After Burgled Boullogne, it was kind of inevitable that sophomore slump would loom, and accordingly I wasn’t too happy with Renard’s first handful of posts in OT (the change in Micmac’s demeanor, I think, contributed to the sense of mild fatigue, but there’s a reason for that and we’ll see it soon). I felt that I was just going through the same motions again, and also worried (and still do) that people might think I brought Renard in to ~!~SOLVE THE MYSTERY~!~, when actually his ultimate purpose in the story is very narrow and specific, although it extends beyond just finding Marshall for Williams. Anyway, all of this is why I bumped his rating down, although he definitely won me back over with this post, which I think makes very good use of what Lee has called Renard’s “outsider status” (not exact words, but it was in the last poll) to offer a distinctive brand of insight that one wouldn’t expect to stem from any of OT’s principal players. He’s a pretty smart guy, our Rules. CESARE: 2.5 There are moments I thought were successful with Cesare in Muddy Season, and other moments I’m still not quite satisfied with (example of the latter: the line about popping Gaussier’s skull off his shoulders). But what worked, I think helped Cesare a lot, such as the bit where Gaussier had to admit to himself that there was no need for Cesare to keep a gun on him at close range, Cesare’s pride at losing a tooth in a fight with Vecchione thugs, and the strangely endearing revelation that he is an absolutely batshit insane driver. He’s still slipping around in the quagmire of cliché, and I think it’s probably harder for me to drag a character like him out of the muck because he’s mostly physical, and I tend to write more cerebral types. Still, for what he is, he’s satisfying enough. NICO: 3 I found Nico a compelling guy to work with in Muddy Season. He has a certain tendency to appear kind of angrily awkward and put-upon, but as we saw in the Felice Potabile when he first approached the hapless Franklin Gaussier, he can set forth that air while actually being in complete, fearsome control of the situation, which retroactively shades his behavior in LTR a bit differently. I admit that it’s harder to sell him as an interesting character who isn’t just “cold, efficient criminal” when he doesn’t have Cesare to bounce off, but if Due Parole ever sees the light of day then we should really have some fun with Nico. Speaking of which, I need to kick Ishkabibble into high gear… CHANNERY: 3.5 Mah bebbeh. I really like writing Channery, a lot. I guess she is one of those characters I have to actively keep from being too glib, and my success record has been pretty spotty so far: lines like “ You guys have to burn sweat right off your skin just to make it through Rookie's Beginner Guide to Magic for Novices, Chapter One Point Oh Oh One” are really shameful indulgences on my part, and I gotta scale them back, but I just hate deleting stuff I think is funny. Bad habit – no, it really is, and it’s got to stop. On the other hand, I do think that the consistent undercurrent of wry humor helps keep her distinct from other comparable Action Girls (also: the fact that we’ve barely seen her fight at all, but that’ll change in What Lurks, I’m assuming), and I’m hoping there won’t be as many comparisons to Natalie and Rie this year. She’s just a cool chick, with some nice details like the STORM WATCH candle continuing to give shape to her personality, and I look forward to seeing how her dynamic with Illiana holds up in the present day. MAYORDOMO: 2.5 Awww, Roofie. It’s so cute how he acts like a good guy even though he is actually a pretty horrifying mercenary. But you know he’s not lying or anything, he really is a super chill dude at the same time. I enjoy him as a sidekick to Yoon, although this wasn’t his original intended purpose. Still, we need to see him stand on his own at some point, despite the fact that it runs contrary to his dependent nature. I was gonna enlist him in Prime’s prison-break RP, but then that turned into Chains of Prometheus and I couldn’t subsequently persuade Prime to reframe the same action in a less far-reaching context. Damn. Mayordomo will have his day, though. By the way, can we talk about what a great surname “Mayordomo” is? Cause I’m pretty proud of it. TANNER: 2.5 I really do think this post should be worth giving him another half a point over the last poll. There’s a lot going on there, with details of Tanner’s origin and the tale of the magician’s coat being spun together pretty deftly. I think anyway. But we know there is just not anything that comes out of my mouth that isn’t bragging. At any rate, I’ve been putting together the pieces of a nice plot featuring Tanner in my mind. It’s time to really get our sense of how he operates on a grand scale, and what he’s capable of, and I think I can concoct something that’ll do him justice. Because as of right now, you’d never believe he was the third RP character I brought in. (Actually, you probs wouldn’t believe Rho & Hig were collectively my second, either.) ESTHER: 3.5 I enjoy the fact that she’s not actually into books for their own sake. I think at some point on Formspring I described her as “mining books for vocabulary” instead of processing the literature properly, which to me makes her more interesting than if she really were an avid and enthusiastic bookworm. Oh, I kind of like her power, too, a little bit. Just got to figure out a good opening for her to really participate in a topic, since she isn’t fooling anyone with this LTR flashback nonsense. SHOUTA: 2 Actually Shouta’s pretty much got the same problem as Esther, and maybe it’s just an issue for me in general, that I come up with high-concept characters that are just too demanding and situational to work in most RPs. (There’s a reason Masha & Misha still haven’t debuted yet.) Mind, I’m the first to admit that “demented criminal whose perception of reality has been blurred by gaming” is pretty cliched territory, but Through the Arras was a wonderful platform for him, providing the opportunity to really poke around in this nutcase’s head and, I think, turn over some imagery and ideas that redeemed him from being purely trite. It’s going to be a tough slog writing him in normal RP contexts, because there’s humor in the character that’s worth playing with, but I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that he really is very, very screwed-up in the head, in ways that aren’t exactly “wacky”. Oh well, no telling how it’ll pan out.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Feb 11, 2016 10:57:10 GMT -5
HUCKABEE: 5 I’m not gonna pretend that he and Rance aren’t worthy of 5s. Just… Just take ‘em and move on. MICKEY: 4 Easy 4, here. I’m a big of Mickey. The heavily phoneticized accent adds a dollop of campy good fun to his laid-back personality. I enjoyed him so much that unlike Ender, I’m not taking off a point just because he’s dead. But it really was a shame to see him go, the ol’ sheepfucker. I’d be more upset except that I watched Darker than Black so I’m desensitized to really charismatic villains showing up for twenty minutes to win the audience over and then dying. P.S. Can we please agree that Mayordomo and zombie Mickey should actually be best friends? Or do I need to hurry up and kill Mayordomo so they can be zombie bros? MILLSAP: 2.5 Fine bloke. He brings a touch of nostalgia to the setting without coming across as superficially out of place like self-conscious throwbacks Renard and Marshall, and nicely balances the friendly with the news-hungry. Can’t tell exactly what Biscuit is really hoping to do with the guy – so far, he seems kind of doomed to prowl at the margins of Obb Troozies – but that doesn’t stop him from being an eminently pleasant and readable construct. GOODMAN: 1.5 There’s no such thing as a bad Biscuit character, but I’d delicately submit that if I still felt like Landsvale wasn’t developed enough to face the ratings yet, then putting Harris Goodman in there is definitely jumping the gun a bit. At least the other Post employees got their hooks in quickly; Goodman, though, is still kind of right now just “the one that Millsap talks to”. Which is a fine thing to be for the moment, but I’m not sure what he’s doing in the ratings. MARTINEZ: 2 My problem with Benita Applebum over here is that I’m not sure she earns the exaggerated hostile response Millsap and Goodman toss her way. I mean, I guess she has icy eyes, and insisted on taking on the Odio scoop…? HYPERBITCH?? Doesn’t seem like it. Barely a single word escaped from her mouth in this post that seemed specifically unpleasant. Then again, maybe that’s the point – maybe Biscuit is actually trying to write this as a subtle flaw on the part of the decidedly old-fashioned Millsap and Goodman? That they have a hard time working with a woman who isn’t all smiles and pert boobs all the time, so they unfairly characterize her as a soul-starved banshee? If that’s his true intention then I give him props. But if we’re meant to feel the same way about Martinez that Goodsap does, then Biscuit’s got to push us a little harder in that direction. DINH QUINTS: 3 Oh, you! Biscuit! And your funny foreigners!! These guys definitely cross the line at least four or five times. The way in which they speak English is really kind of alienating – like, you can’t possibly click into the moment while you’re reading them speak English. You pretty much just have to stand back and marvel at Biscuit’s sheer audacity. Of course, all of that is redeemed by their power, and by the beautiful poetic language which such an ability invites. I get the feeling that if the Dinh Quints could be portrayed in cel animation, it would be utterly rapturous to behold. But I worry that there’ll be no use for them after Chasing the Mad Rabbit… They don’t exactly seem like the type to pack up and head to the Archipelago, do they? RANCE: 5 I’m not gonna pretend that he and Huckabee aren’t worthy of 5s. Just… Just take ‘em and move on. LAWSON: 1 Can’t tell these Mission Impossible kids apart, sorry. Hard secrets time: I actually enjoy Azure King more when it’s “The Prime Show, feat. Kalim & Nugget!” than when we’re being expected to follow all these anonymous agents around and I guess, care when they die and stuff? Doesn’t strike a chord with me. FUTURE EDIT: As if Choobs really expected us to care when these non-nouns die and stuff. REAGAN: 1 See above. BARCLAY: 3 I was going back and forth between 2.5 and 3 since we have so little of him to work with, but I eventually listened to my heart just cause of how much I enjoy the concept and design here. It’s a cool power, married to a refreshingly un-Choobsy personality. He loses cred with me for singing “They see me rollin,” which is something that just nobody should ever do, even characters who are deliberately intended to be pretty annoying. But he gains the cred back again for ineptly hitting on Julia, and also for having such a sweet baller-ass first name. Barclay. Barclay barclay barclay! Say it a few times, come on! PRICE: 1.5 He is Canadian Jason Statham? Then he should probably also be in What Lurks because that takes place in Canada! Thus cementing his reputation as the Bloke Choobs Turns To when Everyone Else is Fielding Chicks. The other advantage of this is that it would force me to actually invest myself in Price and I guess try to maybe like him a little, or something? I… look, I’m all about Price when he’s doing things like that cinema crowd-blending trick, but then as soon as he starts shooting guns and running around and stuff I am just like, yawn, you have no personality. But he’s interesting in tense stealthy situations without open combat. With more establishment of that as his niche, he could be RP’s Solid Snake. (That’s what Solid Snake does, right? I never played any of the games. Crawls around in cardboard boxes, poops all over the place. Right?)
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Post by Beelzebibble on Feb 11, 2016 11:00:40 GMT -5
TELRIEN: 2.5 I want to give her an extra half-point for knowing sign language, but since Cendra didn’t even tell us what Telrien signed I feel like it’s a missed opportunity. Okay, in all seriousness, though, I praised Telrien’s voice a couple of years ago, but her attitude is starting to come off as kinda forced. Lines like “Rule number one of warfare: always pee before the battle”… That is some forced attitude right there. Which I actually think Cendra might intend, given that Telrien tips to putting on “the lost and annoyed act” around Nopcsa and Garth. But if that’s true then we could use some more inner exploration of Telrien, beyond the level of the things she says aloud, because as it is, her act’s wearing on me. BELWYN: 2 Okay I’m probably going to be like, the only person besides Lee to say anything about Belwyn so let’s make the most of it. I think her power consists of generating physiological links with other people whereby she can transfer wounds from body to body? Well now that’s a pretty bitchin’ idea so points for that. (Actually it’s faintly similar to Masha & Misha’s collective power. High-five.) Plus it makes sense that someone with that kind of power would invest herself heavily in learning how to treat injuries, so all that stuff with her Balms and Salves and whatnot is a good addition. But here’s my grievance. Her personality is pretty generic female-warrior “I am very compassionate and shy, but will also take you down” material, and by itself that would just be kind of boring. But look at that power again! Apparently she can take other people’s injuries onto herself which is very you know messianic and all, but she can also heal her own wounds instantaneously BY CONFERRING THEM ONTO OTHERS. Guys. GUYS. Did you not read this post?? THAT IS WHAT HAPPENS TO “HER FIRST OPPONENT” IN THAT POST. Look, Cendra, I’m not trying to be rude, but you can’t sell me a character with such an unbelievably morally problematic (though awesome) ability, and a generic personality. Such a power absolutely has to have remolded her demeanor from the ground up over the years. Can you imagine? Every time Belwyn so much as gets a paper cut, she must entertain, even for only the slightest moment, the possibility of just foisting that paper cut off onto someone else and not having to fuss around with her salves. Or let’s look at the big picture, here. Suppose she’s badly mangled in a terrible accident, and can’t use Super Potion to restore herself – she’s too weak, her hands are smashed, whatever. What will Belwyn do? Will she accept the possibility of death (whether now or in treatment), or maim someone else – at least long enough for the restored Belwyn to heal this victim with her salves? HOLY SHIT, CENDRA. Even if such a scenario never came about, don’t you wonder if Belwyn has ever worried about that possibility, and what she might choose to do in that event? I’m not saying this bad power means Belwyn can’t be a good person, but she must have faced the temptation to use her abilities in selfish, frankly evil ways again and again throughout her life, and I feel that if that were really internalized into her personality, out would pop a character about twenty billion times more fascinating than what we’ve seen so far. IDRIS: 1 Just have to wait and see more of this one, methinks. As a Terse Badass Female, she’s gonna have to take some decisive steps to distinguish herself from the mold, particularly as established by reigning champion Rie. I’m curious to know what her power is. ARVAD: 3.5 Definitely got to award him some serious cred for the sheer visual detail that went into establishing him in Reemergence. Stel, your writing style and your art style are a natural match: both fleshed out with exceptional care toward minor elements of design, creating work in both media that is, sure, pretty emotionally chilly, but very formally impressive. Of course, we’re here to rate the character, not the writer, but Arvad is such an alien entity that the raw act of describing him is as much part of the character as the things he says and does. So points on that front. Now, do I actually like Arvad that much? No, not particularly, but I can appreciate him. Personally, if I were writing an alien who’s unused to communicating via the spoken word, I would try to come up with some cool “incorrect” linguistic mannerisms instead of giving him poetically perfect speech. But who cares. He’s still cool, and I hope we’ll see him again now that the elaborate setup is out of the way and you can get to some more active plot work. On another note entirely, I’m slipping back into “rate the writer” mode, but there’s something that must be said: I delicately su6mit that y9u need t9 check y9ur italics privilege. I mean, I’m not talking about using it for inner thoughts and such, but wow there sure are a whole lot of sentences in Reemergence that end with words in italics. Almost as if it’s for emphasis. But the accumulated effect of pulling this trick so often makes it sound kind of childish. As if you don’t trust that the material is interesting enough by itself so you have to kind of rope us into being engaged by using the verbal equivalent of excited gesticulating. It’s okay. This is intriguing stuff. Arvad is an interesting character. You can relax with the italics! TAYLOR: 2.5 He gets mad props for being gay, but then loses HELLA MAD points for “smirking and cocking his head”. Okay, I shouldn’t harsh on Testbug, who’s new to ORP and can surely stand to work a few smirks and head-cockin’s out of his system (no, there was no straight-faced way to say that), but… well, these are some Old World gestures, is what I mean to say. Anyway Taylor’s got marbles each of which gives him a special power, is that it? That’s pretty cool. I guess I’m most interested in what he was doing in his debut post. Can he actually make more of these magic marbles, if he can find an appropriate vessel??? That’s definitely a good bit more interesting than just owning a fixed set. Anyway, I also give Testbug credit for having Yoshimitsu barf on Taylor. Perhaps more characters should be inaugurated into RP by getting ceremonially upchucked-upon by Yoshi/Hector/Jimmy the Orangutan. FUTURE EDIT: Wow, snobby. Folks, I don't actually care these days if your character smirks.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Feb 11, 2016 11:07:23 GMT -5
DOM: 1.5 Okay, SHADOWMASTER89… welp that’s not gonna work. Shadow? No we already have one. And there is no way I’m calling you Master. Um… SM89? SM89. I’m going to actually say stuff about your characters which is more than you’ll get from most of these clowns (hey Lee most of these clowns aren’t reviewing his characters right?? right? if not leave that comment in here anyway as a marker of my hubris), but… please know that I’m not going to be too forgiving, because you’re a year older than me and I ain’t goin’ easy on no one who’s been on this damn earth longer than I have. All this being said, I do find Dom to be the best of your characters in Past Whitefall. There’s a natural sympathy that comes with his role as the long-suffering straight man to Jake’s antics, and his speech to Elliot about Azira definitely added an unexpectedly felt, human note to the early setup of the story. Even so, I can’t rate him any higher than this, because like the rest of your cast in that RP, he’s held back by the writing level. And understand that it’s not really a question of getting the punctuation right and everything, it’s a question of style. The style in which Dom is written is just too stripped-down and unsophisticated to invite us to actually engage with him as a human being, or credit him with any depth beyond what’s on the screen. For comparison, I admit I’m never very kind to Blood’s characters either (bar Alyssa and the Larks duo), but even a perfunctory scroll down Past Whitefall shows that his style is quite discernibly better-developed. You could stand to take a page from his book, regarding the execution of character. Dom and the rest of your cast might gain a lot from it. FUTURE EDIT: Jesus, I was really harshing on SM89/Merc three years ago. Talia and Habiba show he’s come a long way since then. I'm sorry, dude! FUTURE FUTURE EDIT: On the other hand, none of these other clowns did review his characters... JAKE: 0.5 Like, see, this guy. He’s just kind of gross at first, all “boobies!” and whatnot. And then after the shootout, he stands up and does a triple back flip into TOTAL RAGE MODE at Elliot. Graah boobies graaaaaahh!! But the problem is that since he was essentially nothing but a flat Leisure Suit Larry before the shootout, his anger, even if it’s justified, just kinda comes from nowhere and doesn’t generate much of an impression. With a richer style, we would have been able to take him at least a little bit more seriously as a character beforehand – even if he were still a total sleazebag – which would give his subsequent explosion more heft. AZIRA: 1 Has anyone here seen the movie 10,000 B.C.? I hope not, it was terrible. Well, in that movie, the main male character was given the singularly hideous name of D’Leh, and the other characters all sported similarly ugly monikers like Tic’Tic, Tudu and Lu’Kibu, except for the female romantic interest whose name was Evolet. Oh, did people see How to Train Your Dragon? So much better, right?? Great movie! Now the main male character in that film was called Hiccup, and everyone else had similarly crude names like Snotlout, Fishlegs, and Gobber the Belch, except for the female romantic interest whose name was Astrid. Um… now, the point is… The point is… uh… actually I forget what I’m doing here. Who am I supposed to be – oh yeah! Azira!!!! Okay now it is time to talk about the girl in Past Whitefall, who is a girl whose name is Azira. Forget all that stuff I just said a minute ago, sorry, I dunno where I was going with that. Um… I think we really need a post from Azira’s POV at some point. Because right now the most interesting thing she’s done in that RP was try to hack’n’slice into Agent Pike’s files, but hearing her report that she’s had no success doing that is way less interesting than if we could actually follow along with her thoughts and actions as she tries to decrypt dem datamorsels. This would also allow us to see her as something more than, the girl one. The girl one what does computers. And the best thing of all about giving POV to Azira is that when it comes time for necessary exposition like ”i've been a computer tech my entire career thus far,” she could just mention that in the narrative directly rather than having to vocalize this fact to her best friends even though they presumably already know about her career!HIGGENS: 1.5 I liked his debut well enough – it’s certainly a familiar archetype, but how many characters don’t start off that way? And, though at first I felt like complaining about how powerless Gen. Higgens comes out seeming in Past Whitefall, I’m pretty sure SM89 intended that, so I’ll call it a success of the narrative that this apparently senior officer has no more control over the situation than his men. All that being said, we’re still struggling here with SM89’s malnourished writing style, and because Higgens doesn’t (I think) have any POV posts after that first one, there’s nothing further into the RP that conjures up any inner life for him. (A character shouldn’t really need to hold POV to show us that they have an inner life, but I’m afraid they do if you’re SM89.) Just as Azira would benefit a whole lot if we got to spend a sequence with her just watching as she does her tech thing, I think Gen. Higgens would get a major boost out of a sequence in which we actually got to listen in on him struggling with his superiors over the Hydra – Heart of Valor transfer or some related issue, which would give him a clear focal point of reader sympathy. PIKE: 1 Boy, he sure is……. cold! You can tell because the word “cold” is used to describe his appearance or behavior four times in three posts! I think this guy is comin’ on a little bit too strong with the “HATE ME, I’M EVIL” routine. I also want to know what it looks like when someone closes their phone AS IF having just called in something important. Is there some special flick to the wrist or something I’m not aware of? Some little gesture that visually conveys “Yeah, just got off the phone with the President, he keeps bugging me for advice on how to fix the economy”? Perhaps it would have made more sense to just come right out and state that Pike had just finished an important phone call? Ah, but this would require that Pike, too, be allowed to hold POV, and we simply can’t have that. He has no inner thoughts and feelings for us to explore; he is simply an Object of fear and scorn. I guess what I’m saying in conclusion with regard to SM89’s characters altogether is that Past Whitefall would be way more engaging if SM89 didn’t limit himself to Dom’s and occasionally Jake’s point of view. Azira, Higgens, Pike… these characters are getting squandered in non-POV roles. Exploring their inner worlds would help a lot. ELLIOT: 2 Chuckles at his own jokes an awful lot. Snickers also. He does this so often that it’s actually uncommon to see him crack a joke without vocalizing his own approval of it. All of this I find pretty annoying, but maybe it was intended as a flaw? That’d be legitimate, except I kind of get the sense that we’re supposed to share in the jokes, not judge Elliot for touting his lukewarm brand of humor. Maybe I’m wrong, though, and not giving Blood enough credit, so if it is actually supposed to be a flaw then good call. Either way, now that that trivial observation has been given top billing, on we go. Elliot gets credit for supplying Past Whitefall with its teeth and backbone, being unafraid to argue on every point Agent Pike throws his way, and to confront Jake with what a miserable failure of comportment he is. I mentioned this to Blood by PM, but I do think there’s a bit of an imbalance in how much he talks vs. how much he thinks to himself, which makes his words sound just a little bit too fluent and rehearsed when we don’t witness any of their premeditation. So… I just spent like half a dozen reviews telling SM89 he needs to open up POV to more of his characters, and now apparently I’m telling Blood that his character just isn’t making good enough use of POV, so I’m really just moving the goalposts all over the field and you should pay no heed. But, honestly, lines like the “officer” bit just make me think he could use more of an inner voice. And that concludes the six-part series “Pohatu Tools On Past Whitefall”. DURANT: 3 Belongs on this poll no more than Dace does. Or Laksha. Who? Oh, you know, the third one, who isn’t on this poll. ALYSSA: 3 Again: no posts, no sympathy. At least, as an ORP character, it is maybe a little more useful for new people to offer their thoughts on her? If anyone new is actually going to do so? But I said my complimentary bit on her last time and since she’s done nothing since then, I ain’t got a lot to add. MARCUS: 1.5 Well, okay, the “drawing others’ injuries into himself” shtick is cool and all, but a little similar to Belwyn’s power, and since Telrien doesn’t have that many characters I’d let her take it. Drawing others’ negative emotions into himself is a lot more promising. So he can suck the fear, anger and sadness straight out of people and leave them calm, content and happy? So he could rape, like, anyone. Why isn’t this guy a villain? Why isn’t he perpetrating countless crimes against a string of placidly accepting victims? That would be so – oh, hold on, I’m getting a – oh… wait, really? Damn. Okay. Apparently I had the wrong Marcus. What I meant to say is: Great cool he’s a kendo sensei who runs his own dojo. Then he gets his head chopped off by JuniorHigh!Prime. Can we all agree that a story in which Prime – katanas, spiky hair and all – actually tries to fit in at junior high would be way more interesting than Marcus? I thought so. Title suggestion: “In A Moment, I’m Gonna Snap Your Neck”… wait… no. No. Fuckin’ – Are you serious? Not that Marcus?? Then, for God’s sake, which Marcus is it??? Oh, I see. This Marcus. The one who’s friends with Rick, which is to say, not that Rick, or that other Rick, but this Rick. And let’s see what we got here oh DAMMIT MORE ZOMBIES. C’MON, BLOOD. (I wrote this review after writing Sarah’s.) This is what too much Minecraft does to a person. I assume. There are zombies in Minecraft, right? Anyway, at least Marcus’ personality is evident enough. He’s found what he loves and it is shooting zombies. But… it’s really hard to contextualize that when we have no idea where the zombies came from or what Haven colony is like as a society. Which are simple problems that are sure to be resolved as the story progresses and we learn more. But for the moment – hey, you guessed it! – I don’t think Marcus should’ve been in the poll. ACKERLY: 1 Okay, just one post since last time, but at least it’s of a decent size. Even so, there’s the only Tanner post since last time and then there’s the only Ackerly post since last time, and Ackerly doesn’t seem to have made much use of his moment in the spotlight. Most of that post consists of the invitation letter and descriptions of the scenery. There’s hardly so much as a single character beat for Ackerly himself. Is he excited for the tournament? Nervous about the possibility of losing early? Suspicious that the organization behind the tournament didn’t care to name itself? Who knows? Indeed, in all of Ackerlyana there is only one proper character beat, and that is right here and it establishes that Ackerly is too autistic to see any inherent human value in introducing himself before the match. Which is fine! No, really. But that’s from before the last poll and I’m trying to be stringent about not evaluating material from back then. And anyway, that really is seriously The Only Line which tells us anything about what Ackerly is like. And I don’t want Lee to chime in with “MM WELL TO BE FAIR BLOOD HAS ACTUALLY DEVELOPED HIM QUITE THOROUGHLY OVER THE COURSE OF FORTY-SEVEN PRIVATE BATTLES AGAINST LONE WHICH THEY SIMPLY HAVEN’T POSTED HERE ON THE SITE.” I don’t even want to hear that. Okay? We can only rate what we see. And there’s nothing to see. REGAL: 1.5 This is interesting. His bio, I mean. And, on the whole, I appreciate that he’s an unusual Blood character with a cheerier, not to say kind of gleefully sadistic, personality. But the whole idea of an underground sporting coach who gets off on the Agony of Defeat is a concept that would be so much better served in some kind of farcical black comedy than in… whatever SWRP is. And, Regal would also be better served by having more than two junior-sized posts to date. Maybe, Blood, you should consider spinning him off into a standalone short story? Could be really fun. And… oh, what is this. What is this next character on the list. Who is this fellow named………… TERRY RAELBY: 0.5 THAT “TERRY” BETTER BE SHORT FOR “TERRENCE”, FRIENDSALOT.Also, did you make up the surname? Google is pretty much telling me you made up the surname. I’m… really not a fan of the “ae” combination. Didn’t like it in “Rednael”, don’t like it here. I guess it is pretty annoying and douchey of me to nitpick the name so much, but um, what else are we supposed to say? He has one post. It is about two hundred words long. There is a grand total of one remotely informative detail on display – I mean informative about Terry’s personality, not setting the scene, which is mostly what the post does – and that is that his grandfather left him a trilby hat. Ol’ Grandpa Raelby, left him a traelby. That’s all we’ve got. Blood, I… I just don’t understand. What are you looking for, here? Constructive criticism? On what? Praise? For what? SCATHING VITRIOL?? In reaction to what??? I get the feeling you only included this character because your principles tell you that you should enter every character you’ve written in the past two years. In which case, dude, you got to stop listening to those damn principles, they are bound to steer a spirit wrong. SARAH: 2 Huge confession here: I actually laughed aloud at “except tetanus”. I’m not even sure if that was meant to be funny per se, but somehow it worked really well as a deadpan throwaway line. Otherwise I don’t see much to Sarah, and she seems to be yet another of those characters whose presence in the poll is a little premature. There’s really just too little to analyze here. She mentions Loons, which are apparently zombies, basically, but we get nothing at all about how the presence of these carnivorous ghouls has actually affected Sarah, apart from an offhand “dang paranoia” (which is something no actually paranoid person would say, so she must be exaggerating). What happened when Sarah saw a Loon attack another girl? Did she scream, herself, or did she have to bite her tongue to hold it back? Did she quietly vomit and then hide somewhere and tremble violently for a while? Or was she rooting for the Loon the whole time, and like, touching her nipples maybe? Beats me, and I can’t tell enough about Sarah to make a guess.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Feb 11, 2016 11:08:18 GMT -5
FLYNN: 4 Okay I’m totally burned out and look, I’m pretty sure I gave all the Househeld characters pretty in-depth reviews on the Formspring back in the day. And a lot of them have barely even moved since then. So… I’m not gonna retread all this, I’m sorry. Look, it’s really hard work being Pohatu, all right? You guys don’t even know. You think I just yawn and stretch out of bed every once in a while to fart out another RP post and then snuggle back under the covers amid the roar of critical accolades from all sides. IT’S NOT THAT GREAT OKAY. So I’m just going to do some speed reviews. Flynn gets a 4 for character versatility and expressiveness.
BICE: 4 Bice gets a 4 for managing to be quite interesting and engaging without any quirks or extremes to her personality.
BUSTIN: 2.5 Bustin gets a 2.5 for some great sight gags but a pretty limited, uninteresting range of emotion and speaking style.
KITTEN: 3.5 Kitten gets a 3.5 for surprising depth, combining goofball cutesy humor and grouchy snark in a sometimes shaky but very fun manner.
SHIRO: 4 Shiro gets a 4 for sheer determination and a fresh, upbeat voice, making him one of the better Pesterchum users.
COLIN: 3 Colin gets a 3 for such intensely thought-out writing, even though (I think, anyway) he’s still struggling to shake off the “high horse” perception that hit him early on.
TWEAK: 2.5 Tweak gets a 2.5 for some fun genre play and dope animation but for Choobs failing to realize that the whole “lazy and apathetic” shtick works better for himself as a person than for Tweak as a character.
ROYCE: 3 Royce gets a 3 for having one of the most distinctive and endearing personalities in the bunch, though we need more of him.
MARK: 3 Mark gets a 3 for style and some solid Pesterchum chats. But he will get a 5 once I take over and start writing him. Just you wait. FUTURE EDIT: Mark gets a 5 now, he’s perfect.
REBA: 3 Reba gets a 3 for being probably the best-conceived character in the bunch, though we desperately need to see more of that in her execution.
MOSE: 2 Mose gets a 2 for tragic underactivity, obscuring what a choice bro he truly is.
YULIA: 2 Yulia also gets a 2 for tragic underactivity, obscuring what a choice brah she truly is. Aaaaand that is the end! Looks like my average rating this year came out to a 2.61971831. Which… sounds about right. No ratings below 0.5, but also practically no ratings above 4. So, we’re done here. Go in peace! AS FOR ANY MAN WHO SPEAKS ILL OF THESE RATINGS, THOTH WILL FIGHT HIM.
(Also, is “Solid Snake” actually just straight-up a euphemism for poop? Because… I feel like it has to be.)
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Post by Tout-Perd on Feb 11, 2016 12:27:26 GMT -5
I am disappointed that the formspring reviews are largely lost to posterity. But then again, I get a feeling re-reading it, we'd all mostly be galled by the sheer degree at which we focused on Househeld, much to the neglect of other major projects. And that my answers were mostly natter about characters I barely even focus on these days.
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Post by Tout-Perd on Feb 11, 2016 12:37:24 GMT -5
Also fun fact; right before LTR died I'd started drafting a post with Emily, Thyra, and Natalie decorating cupcakes together. Alas, it was not meant to be.
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Post by Loogs on Feb 11, 2016 14:15:15 GMT -5
dont kill miko i quite like him
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Post by ch00beh on Feb 11, 2016 14:51:37 GMT -5
canon: Vieve stole the cupcakes
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Feb 11, 2016 15:32:49 GMT -5
2012 Pohatu hated all of my characters. They all smirked. Lots.
Edit: I don't think Illiana smirked actually.
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Post by {WW}BetaBloodWolf7 on Feb 12, 2016 15:07:09 GMT -5
Photu hates everything I do. Clearly instead of stating how I'd like to enter Alyssa into an RP and get her moving again I should just delete it all and quit.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Feb 13, 2016 9:26:53 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm sorry. I went way too hard into nitpicking mode.
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Post by Tout-Perd on Feb 17, 2016 10:00:43 GMT -5
As an aside, since I can't find a better thread for this and it won't fit in the Shoutbox, I found the perfect title for Whisper in my Ear, had it not already been titled.
"Hai voluto la bicicletta? E adesso pedala! | You wanted the bike? Now you’ve got to ride it! This is used when someone refuses to take responsibility for his or her own actions. It’s said with very little empathy and lots of sarcasm, so either you don’t like your friend so much or you already told him several times that he was making a mistake."
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Post by {WW}BetaBloodWolf7 on Feb 17, 2016 17:10:56 GMT -5
"Hai voluto la bicicletta? E adesso pedala! | You wanted the bike? Now you’ve got to ride it!" I usually hear "You wanted it, now you've got it" with either "live with it" or "deal with it" at the end.
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Feb 17, 2016 17:51:45 GMT -5
Just throwing out, I'm still surprised you ranked Marshall so high.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Feb 17, 2016 18:51:48 GMT -5
Dude, he's a good character. He's risen well above what seemed to be his initial conception as a straw antagonist to Sharpe with a silly genre theme. Complex guy. Not easy to dislike.
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