|
Post by Loogs on Jul 21, 2016 21:38:19 GMT -5
WELCOME BACK, KIDS, IT’S TIME TO PLAY (DIS)ASSEMBLING™: TRIANNUAL EDITION
BROUGHT TO YOU BY BAYER™ ASPIRIN BUT FIRST AN INTRODUCTION
The year was 2008. Obama was set to ascend to the presidency, Twilight became the craze that was sweeping the globe, and I was off having a really terrible time being sixteen and alright I’m gonna be honest with you I’ve repressed a great deal of my adolescence so let’s not talk further about the rest of 2008 because we’re here to talk about none other than Triannual. Triannual doesn’t need an introduction for the old guard, but for the new kids on the block: it’s widely considered, in retrospect, to be the genesis of the modern Exodus ORP metagame, and the gold standard for narratives at the time. It features an all-star cast of characters, with a couple of standouts; Tri was Garth’s breakout role, resident Exodus golden boy Nopcsa’s debut, and one of the first in a series of successful narratives that would eventually launch Terrian into superstar status. Because there are many who reminisce about it so fondly, I decided to make Triannual the subject of my next entry in the (Dis)Assembling series. Why? It’s because much like (Dis)Orientation, I am jumping into it fresh. This means that I’m evaluating it as a third-party outsider taking in the entire narrative in one sitting instead of serially as it was being rolled out. I also get the opportunity to evaluate its historical merit with the luxury of hindsight. So without further ado, here's a quick OVERVIEWName: TriannualYear: 2008-2010Participants: Lee, Pohatu, Kevin, DL, Clicker, Prime, Choobs, BulbsCast: Natalie, Garth, Terrian (+ duplicate), Dracon, Emily, Prime, Valon, Ender, Sly, Nopcsa, Abatis, Auguste, Nachoset, UcaSynopsis: A bad omen in the air leads to a huge misunderstanding between strangers. After minor fisticuffs are exchanged, the standoff is resolved, but left in its wake is a mysterious invitation from a sinister organization scouting for potential new recruits to implement its dubious agenda. PART 1 COMING THIS WEEKEND STAY TUNED
|
|
|
Post by Loogs on Jul 23, 2016 19:04:55 GMT -5
LET’S GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD, IT’S TIME FOR (DIS)ILLUSIONMENTS Triannual may be considered a trailblazing RP, but it is of course, not without its faults. Let’s take a moment to analyze the five key missteps I’ve identified for discussion:1. PHONING IT INEnder yawned and stretched, taking his gun off his target as he did so. This yawn occurred as Valon protected the group from the flames in the sky. The psychic blinked. "Oh man, I must be tired. Completely missed that one." A flicker of psionic energy passed overhead, reminding anyone who saw it of a lazy person swatting at a fly. OOC: ._. Aww man, look, I know it was 2008 and it was a very different playing field than the more sophisticated writing of the 2010s, but it doesn’t make it any less of a bummer when someone throws down a handful of sentences and that’s it. What makes it worse is that a) it happens all too frequently and b) for some of the participants (Kevin, Choobs), it’s all they contribute. This means that at least for the first two pages, it’s really just Lee and Hatu running the show. As a result, Triannual ends up feeling like its weights are unevenly distributed in ways that make me uncomfortable at times. It pains me to say it, but Tri could use a streamlining to shed the dead weight of narrative contributions that ultimately feel really unnecessary. 2. WHO’S THAT BOY"Boss?" The redhead queried, putting a hand on the man's heaving shoulders. "I'm fine, Aythya. I'm fine. None of us are dead from that blast." Triannual heavily features the Fascere Order and a good number of its operatives within the narrative. With so many faces floating around, it becomes frustrating that most of them don’t get names until late-game territory. (The only one involved in the big fight that doesn’t get a name, strangely enough, is the man with the barbs on his hands. A weird choice, since the others eventually get named.) We have Nopcsa, Auguste, Abatis, Nachoset, Aythya, and Uca; they’re all interacting at once and when vague descriptors like “the man” are used, it makes it very hard to keep them all straight. This also detracts from the construction of individual voices for the most prominent members because I flat-out can’t figure out who is saying/doing what. Hell, even when they get names Lee still switches into using “the man” and proceeds to get me real lost. Additionally, I’m bothered by the fact that Aythya “the redhead” is acknowledged quite often, yet he’s without a name until very close to the conclusion. I don’t know about anyone else, but the choice to go with an epithet for most of Tri really affected how much I got into the character. Not having a name made me feel like I wasn’t going to pay this guy much mind, but the frequency with which he keeps reappearing made me want to try and get invested in him more. Instead I’m just left a bit cold on both fronts. 3. RETURN FROM THE LETHESomething shot across the horizon, and Prime's eyes opened. The hand in Abatis' hand suddenly blazed with violent azure energy. Covered with azure light, Prime's body rose into the air, his arms spread out. His cybernetic arm blazed into nothingness, as the skeletal hand moved into place, and regenerated his whole arm in a blaze of azure light. The trees were white, glowing with an inner light, and had glowing azure leaves on their branches. At length, she pulled out a very long katana, slowly curving and pure white, with azure sigils on the blade. The spirit sword came to inhabit it, and suddenly it was bright white with azure sigils all down the thick blade. Let’s talk about this magnificent tire fire of a post. There’s many places we can start, but let’s talk about the most infamous mistake: Prime’s overuse of the word ‘azure’, which I’ve taken the liberty of compiling for you and helpfully highlighting it in, what else but azure. Prime drops the A-bomb a total of six times in this one post alone. Oh, did you think all those jokes were just exaggerating? THINK AGAIN SCRUBLORDWe can talk about other formalism errors—the line, for example, where he describes the naked lady as having “soft, angular features”, which as you may have noticed are two adjectives that are in direct fucking conflict with each other for fuck's sake. We could discuss his stilted, generic, conflicted hero dialogue— ”"I want to fight, I've always wanted to fight." She nodded, just listening. "There's always been this part of myself questioning whether that's right, whether I'm somehow broken and inhuman because of it.” We can even talk about how this was clearly supposed to be a move to create compelling character growth for Prime but instead ends up being a huge unwelcome distraction in this big unfocused rats’ nest of a scene. Nah, I’m gonna close out point number 3 by addressing the last two paragraphs and why they made me so angry at this one damn post. Hey yeah, remember what I just said in point [HASH]2? I had to read these two paragraphs and wonder who the fuck is Knuckles and where the hell did he come from??? I thought maybe I’d missed a name or something, not to mention the very obvious association with a certain fictional echidna. Knuck knuck it’s Knockles, fuck this post, let’s just move on. 4. BRINGING A NUKE TO A KNIFE FIGHTValon threw a hand upward and smiled as his aura flared around his body. The room burst to life with the scent of freshly fallen rain. Crackling energy pooled in Valon's hand and a grim smile formed on his face. “GRANDEUR WAVE!!” The upper portions of the building vanished as the massive wave of energy ripped through the structure, turning the wood and steel into nothingness. The beam lasted for a few seconds and then faded away from view. Basilisk was nowhere to be seen but Valon knew that even a point-blank Grandeur Wave wasn't enough to take the monster out. I’m not going to dance around the issue; Triannual’s big climactic showdown is easily my least favorite part of the whole RP. One of the biggest strikes against it is the narrative being schismed off into what’s essentially several one-on-one fights, and the fact that some of them feel jarring within Tri as a whole. I singled out Valon vs. Abatis/Basilisk here because it’s probably the most prominent example (not because the writing is necessarily bad or anything—it’s a pretty neat fighting scene in and of itself) but the other guilty parties include Prime vs. Pointy Man (have I mentioned lately how much I loathe you for not naming this one dude and making my job that much harder, Lee) and to a lesser extent, Dracon vs. Uca. I bring this up as a (Dis)Illusionment because tonally it feels so much different than what I had been reading up until this point: Tri’s first half consists of people trying to diffuse a very tense disagreement with a little violence here and there, and while a certain level of escalation is natural and even expected, the Grandeur Waves and the Divine Intervention of Prime really feel like overkill. Why send all these other ants when you can send fucking Godzilla over there to vaporize Fascere HQ off the surface of Hawaii? Or vice versa; why send out all these other cronies to do what Basilisk can do in the blink of an eye? It makes very little sense and really rips me away from my immersion. 5. WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE“I just made it so Auguste couldn't threaten Garth. The rest was him.” Ender pushed his shades up the bridge of his nose. With the rising sun, they certainly were more helpful than they had been throughout the long evening. “It seems our young friend has taken a few steps forward, just in the time that we've known him.” Valon's grandiose tones echoed off of the damaged building and the mountain behind it. Garth blushed deeply as the King of Dragons patted him on the back. Poor Garth really can’t catch a break ever, can he. A little recap before we begin: wimpy-ass Garth meets Natalie, gets into a tussle with some Fascere flunkies, acts like a general wimp, reveals that they performed some mad science on him and implanted the amulet into his body which is making him quite ill, courageously declares that he wants to go in and confront Fascere to find a treatment for his grave condition. Alright, so far so good, we’re all set up for some dynamic character action with what’ll hopefully be a satisfying payoff. and then you turn around and you do thisThe jokes about Garth getting overlooked and ignored are downright memetic at this point. I knew going in that Triannual wasn’t gonna be any different. What I didn’t realize, however, is just how dire of a flaw this was until we hit the epilogue. Garth being pushed to the sidelines in the latter half sucked for sure, but I’m not sure I would have even noticed that much if it hadn’t been for Sly and Ender telling us how much Garth has changed. The key word in that last sentence is tell, and the guys pointing out his development wouldn’t have been that bad; the problem is Lee never shows us this development ever. Garth gets relegated to the sidelines as soon as the fight breaks out, and doesn’t do much on-screen besides make insignificant chit-chat with Nopcsa and Auguste. How on earth am I supposed to believe that he’s become stronger as a result of his ordeals? Why’d you have to go and rob me like that, Lee? I was rooting for you, Garth. we were all rooting for you
PART 2: (DIS)TINCTIONS COMING SOON
|
|
|
Post by Beelzebibble on Jul 23, 2016 21:00:47 GMT -5
Nah, I’m gonna close out point number 3 by addressing the last two paragraphs and why they made me so angry at this one damn post. Hey yeah, remember what I just said in point [HASH]2? I had to read these two paragraphs and wonder who the fuck is Knuckles and where the hell did he come from??? I thought maybe I’d missed a name or something, not to mention the very obvious association with a certain fictional echidna. Knuck knuck it’s Knockles, fuck this post, let’s just move on. I couldn't tell whether you figured this out, but "Knuckles" was the spiky guy Prime fought. Which means Prime (the author) did more for him namingwise than Lee ever did. What a helpful, contributive author! (thank you for not letting "soft, angular features" slide) P.S. I'm amazed Treynor's raptor attack didn't qualify as a (dis)illusionment. We must have set the bar pretty low for him to clear it.
|
|
|
Post by Loogs on Jul 23, 2016 21:22:48 GMT -5
P.S. I'm amazed Treynor's raptor attack didn't qualify as a (dis)illusionment. We must have set the bar pretty low for him to clear it. It was crossed out so I thought we were treating it as if it'd never happened I thought about adding it as a (Dis)Honorable Mention at the end but honestly what do I have to say about it other than "man you sure were a fourteen-year-old kid, Treynor"? Hatu please I take my job as Exodus Roleplay Analyst very seriously here and there is a difference between "kid still learning the ropes" and "grown-ass adults who should know better than to tell and not show"
|
|
|
Post by AngelicTragedy on Jul 23, 2016 22:20:48 GMT -5
Not to rain on your parade, or even distract from your thing here as it's shaping up quite nicely, but shouldn't we remove the (Dis) tag from this thread?
Tri isn't officially a (Dis) thread but that could just be me being nitpicky.
Also, I want to see a full section devoted to Prime in Tri. You've made your feelings clear before, but I want to see it all in one word dump so that I can laugh heartily.
|
|
|
Post by Beelzebibble on Jul 23, 2016 22:40:33 GMT -5
I thought about suggesting a non-(Dis) alternative, like something based around "Tri", but I couldn't come up with anything good.
The best I've got is:
TRIAL BY FIRE: TRIANNUAL TRIPUPS TRIUMPHS
|
|
|
Post by ch00beh on Jul 23, 2016 22:41:03 GMT -5
(Tri)Aging Triannual
|
|
|
Post by Loogs on Jul 23, 2016 22:43:19 GMT -5
Tri isn't part of the (Dis) series proper but I thought that analyzing other plots in this way might be a fun exercise and I already had a good title for this series right here (I "disassemble" and then "reassemble" the material in a way) so I don't know dude if you can come up with a better solution that unites all these articles into a single theme I'm all ears
|
|
|
Post by Tout-Perd on Jul 24, 2016 10:21:41 GMT -5
To be fair to me on the Knuckles front, I'm 99% sure that in some long lost PM or MSN chat log, I actually gave Prime a name for the guy he was fighting so he could drop it in his fight scene, Prime took one look at the spelling, and told me "fuck it, I'm calling him knuckles".
IIRC, I was going without naming the Fascere Order members at first to play up their creepy cultishness, but I think that would have gone better if I had name dropped one or two earlier. Aythya... was a victim of circumstance. He was supposed to have a brief fight with Emily, but Clicker was largely busy at the time. However, he does at least serve the purpose of showing that Terrian interfering did have SOME effect.
And yeah, I oversold Garth in Tri, I fear. By the time we get to the end of Bows or into Dis, we actually see Garth's character growth in action, but he didn't get a chance to actually strut his stuff in Dis. If I was to redo Tri in a remastered version, I don't know exactly how I'd go about addressing the elephant in the room, Prime... Maybe introduce him a page earlier, and have him further bull-in-a-china-shop his was through all the debate at the start of things, and actually when we get to a fight scene, just have Auguste go "here's your money, get out of here." and have Prime bail. And I think I'd make Basilisk a more clear cut major threat- Have him take on Sly, Ender, and Valon all at once, and only the surprise intercession of Garth to the rescue lets the prevail.
I kinda like that thought- That when Terrian intercedes, he ends every fight but the one with Abatis (and Natalie and Nachoset, but that goes without saying), Abatis unleashes Basilisk, the stakes are upped, and the RP becomes a brief throwdown with that nasty demon with ALL the good guys piling on.
And yeah, Ender and Dracon sure could've used more to do within the plot. Ender should have had a moment or two with Natalie, because they have good chemistry, and I'm not really sure where Dracon fits into things- He kinda was just along for the ride. Ultimately, Ender just served as Natalie's morality pet and served as the cavalry in a pinch. I mean, softening Natalie in a role where she was a total hardass helps quite a bit, but he could do a lot more heavy lifting.
|
|
|
Post by Beelzebibble on Jul 24, 2016 10:35:28 GMT -5
I like Aythya. He's the Aythy-est.
|
|
|
Post by Loogs on Jul 24, 2016 17:14:26 GMT -5
HERE’S OUR NEXT PUZZLE, THE CATEGORY IS (DIS)TINCTIONS Now that we got the negatives out of the way, it’s time for us to take a look at Triannual’s strongest aspects.A minor note: I had more trouble filling out this section than I had anticipated. The problem is that, as the first RP to raise the bar on storytelling prowess, there aren’t a lot of clear-cut apexes that don’t come courtesy of Lee and Pohatu. Out of the seven six other authors in Tri, two (Choobs and Bulbs) offer nothing but a few very short posts, one (Kevin) comes in at the end with one okay combat post with the rest being short, glorified transformation sequences, one (Clicker) has mostly short posts with their only longer offering actually being a collaboration with Lee, one (Prime) is Prime, and finally the last author (DL) who only hit his stride in the latter half with a combat scene which, while choreographed well enough, feels too cumbersome in the overall context of the plot. In any case, here are the five moments I’ve chosen to highlight for praise: 1. RIGHT INTO THE DEEP ENDBrogue swallowed, realizing he would have to start earlier. He looked to Terrian for encouragement, but the original was staring at his leg and hadn't deigned to look up for any of this. Son of a bitch, Hatu’s done it again. One of his biggest strengths as a writer is his ability to get a narrative ball rolling quietly and follow through on it with poise and grace until it starts hitting the payoff. If I’m recalling right, Triannual is an early Terrian piece, so I’m gonna frame this next point in the overall historical context: there’s something really neat that happens when we hit this post, and that something is one of the best character-developing moves in all of Tri. There are early hints here and there to Terrian’s dupes developing a sense of self-awareness, followed by a more overt reference to it a bit later on. So how does the lovable Mr. Brogue respond? He throws the dupe straight into the fire. If this dupe really is becoming its own person, he’s gonna have to take off the metaphorical training wheels and that’s precisely what he does. Natalie’s grilling of Terrian and Co. becomes a test to see if the dupe can fend for himself successfully. As it turns out, he sure can. It makes for a really good early-game play in what ultimately transformed into the current Exodus ORP metagame. 2. GIVE ‘EM HELL, KID"I know you, Helogale." Nachoset sidestepped a stab, flickering as the attack was turned into a slash. It passed through him harmlessly. He raised an arm, catching the returning blade on his spiked forearm. Sparks and chips of bone flew. "Big whoop! So does the waitress at the Golden Griddle, but you don't see her kickin' my ass!" Natalie twisted, snapping off the end of the blade, and lunged forward. Her weapon struck home, lancing into Nachoset's side. A bit of its broken tip jutted out of his back, blood pouring freely from the wound. I present to you the diamond in the rough of the latter half: Natalie vs. Nachoset. To be honest, I’m not Natalie’s biggest fan otherwise; I think she comes off as a huge bully when she’s just dealing with other people in an ordinary manner, and this applies for Tri’s former half for the most part, but throw her into a fight with some smug asshole and suddenly you’ve got me rallying behind her all the way. That being said, why then, among all the other face-to-face altercations, does this one stand out so much? Well, a couple things. My personal pick would be the dialogue between these two that not only feels organic and natural, but also gets my blood rushing and actually has me cheering Natalie on to put Nacho in the hospital. Unlike the dialogue in a lot of the other matchups, Lee’s not trying to go for ostentatious heroics, Nat’s just fucking angry and wants to beat this guy to a bloody pulp, she’s not pretending to be anything otherwise. On the other side of the ring, Nachoset does a really good job goading her and provides a suitable antagonizing force for us. It doesn’t hurt that it’s also one of the better choreographed spars in all of Tri. There is heavy use of bone and metal imagery that produces grinding and snapping and piercing that feels so damn bare-knuckled and gritty in all the best ways. Yeah, keep this one, because it’s a real winner. [ADDED NOTE: this is the reason why I’m petitioning to Lee to go back and edit her swears back in—the censoring is the only thing that pulls me out of her otherwise excellent dialogue. Natalie is too beast mode to be restrained by mere asterisks] 3. MY DAD CAN TURN INTO YOUR DAD<You were pretty good with him, Sly.> Ender privately intoned. <It's natural. He reminds me of Rick when he was younger.> Sly responded. <And if there's one thing you never forget, it's how to be a father.> Oh, god damn it, see what I mean? I go out of my way to earmark something from people not named Lee or Hatu that made me smile a bit and I go back to cite it only to find that it actually came from Lee acting in Bulbs’ stead. God damn it I hate this I hate you Leander you can eat my entire assAnyway, this part right here, the one where Sly steps in and good-cops Garth after he gets viciously bad-copped by Natalie. This is probably just coming down to sheer favoritism on my part, but it’s kind of cool comparing that scene to this one in Smooth Sailing where Hector tries dealing with Didn’t after Halley confronts her so brusquely. The devoted parent angle is one that was very underexplored in Exodus ORP at the time, and it’s nice to see someone who’s willing to be a little more tender and nurturing in an ensemble that’s either real tough or real sleazy. (One could say it’s still underexplored in a way; besides Hector, the only other parents are either on hiatus or their authors are focusing more on other aspects of theirs) It’s a pity this is the most emotionally significant show we get from Sly. After this, he’s gone except for some flailing around in the climax and a short part in the epilogue playing unofficial narrator and filling us in on Prime’s fate. And once again, none of this can be credited to Sly’s actual creator, and that makes me frowny. 4. OSHA WOULD LIKE A WORD WITH YOUNopcsa turned to Terrian. "Of course, since you'll be working for us, I'll have to let you in on standard practices here. For example, Fridays are casual day. No capes, crowns, or pointy hats allowed then. And Wednesday is potion-sampling-" "Nopcsa, enough with the chitchat. I have to say something." This fucking shitsmear. One of the issues that Tri’s latter half faces is the fact that the dialogue kinda takes a backseat to all the fight choreography. Natalie vs. Nachoset, the exception, manages to keep a pretty tidy balance of both. On the bleachers, however, we have Nopcsa conducting new worker orientation and just being his stupid snarky Nopcsa self. While everyone else on the battlefield is all Serious Business™, Nop’s over here talking about betting pools and casual Fridays as if this were some damn ordinary 9-to-5 job. Triannual really should have focused on having sharper dialogue instead of sensationalized action and violence. I know I keep coming back to “god why do I have to read all these fight scenes” but the parts that ended up suffering because of it (the development of the spectators save for Terrian because Pohatu is a man who knows how to take initiative into his own hands) were the parts with the most potential to be charming and emotionally engaging. I enjoyed the precious little time we got to spend with Nopcsa here and I’m glad Lee ended up seeing his true potential later on in his career. 5. AT LEAST RIDE IT YOU ASSHOLE<Prime seems to have gotten a very sizable check. I'm not sure what happened to him afterwards, but he's no longer around here. The last I heard from him, he mentioned something about “upgrading”. Probably looking into some repairs for his motorcycle, which I certainly could understand.> Alright, look, I made it to point number 5 and I was honestly trying to come up with something really good that came from someone who wasn’t Lee or Pohatu and came up empty so (Dis)Tinction [HASH]5 is gonna be stupid Prime and his stupid broken bike. On Prime’s end it’s not even like that well-written (the quote above is actually taken from the ending courtesy of Lee) but if Prime is going to exist in this story, he is going to exist as a big greedy Wario-esque buffoon who wants money and hella rides. I want to believe that he was grinning like a big dumb asshole when Auguste signed that check for eleventy billion smackaroos. Give me all the meatheaded tough guy Primes with his big dumb idiot motorcycle who isn’t trying to pretend he’s any more noble than a dude who’s just demanding payment for his damn busted bike. It’s like the one thing Prime managed to get right somehow, and if he’d just kept going in that direction we would have been spared god damn Azure Big Sword Naked Lady Afterlife Variety Hour. Sorry I wasted your time for this last point except wait oops I don’t care haha ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
|
|
|
Post by Loogs on Jul 24, 2016 18:14:21 GMT -5
AND NOW THE MOMENT YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR, IT’S THE GREAT BIG CHARACTER ROUNDUP We conclude this entry in the (Dis)Assembling series with a quick overview of the entire cast of Triannual. Unlike our last installment, the scores are from a scale of 0 to 5 because I realized I’m probably never going to use the negative scores. Let’s start off with…THE SQUADNATALIE ULIMA: Natalie’s my own personal dark horse. For the first half of Tri, I had penned her down for nothing more than maybe a 2.5, because I just wasn’t digging her ornery shenanigans. The second half, however, is another story. As I said before, what sets Nat apart from the others in the fight is that her dialogue isn’t melodramatic but rather PISSED OFF WITH YOUR BULLSHIT in a damningly very human way. I am always okay with Nat going ape on some arrogant jackass who’s had it coming for a long time. [ FINAL SCORE: 3.5] GARTH FIRBOLG: Things I Liked About Garth in Triannual: the fact that he’s a big ol’ weenie who wants to be stronger for the sake of his friends as well as for himself. Things I Did Not Like About Garth in Triannual: the fact that he becomes stronger only in the damn denouement delivered to us secondhand by the guys who barely existed throughout this whole ordeal instead of through his own actions consistently through the plot in the biggest damn spectacular Show-Don’t-Tell oversight I’ve ever seen Lee stage. I was really rooting for him to score a solid 3 at least, but I’m way too let down by his glaring absence from the climax. Triannual sorely needed more on-screen Garth development and less hammy fight scenes. [ FINAL SCORE: 2.5] VALON LORSHA: This is the part where I would like to remind you, dear reader, that the character roundup section only applies to a character’s performance in the plot being discussed and not a character overall. Okay, good, with that out of the way, let’s continue. In my opinion, Valon’s not….a good fit for Triannual. You have a few scrappy underdogs, some big bruisers throwing some weight around, and then you throw in the guy who can lay waste to entire city blocks with a snap of his fingers. To reiterate my previous points, the Valon vs. Basilisk DBZ-caliber showdown feels kind of out of place with the rest of this fight (how was there not more severe collateral damage to the others with these two trading blows???) The part of the fight I felt the most emotionally invested in, Natalie/Emily vs Nachoset, gets completely hosed by the fact that Valon and Prime jump in to bail them out with a mere threat. Valon is a powerful king, and I’m not even sure what a guy like him is doing getting his hands dirty in these kinds of trifling matters when he should probably be out watching over Drakengrad or something. Yes, I know he showed up to protect some friends, but that doesn’t change the fact that his very presence here provides too convenient of a solution to what was otherwise going to be a really satisfying triumph on Natalie/Emily’s part. DL, it’s not that your writing is bad (it’s pretty good for the time era actually) it’s just that you probably will want to keep him in entire-nation-tier high stakes and diplomatic plots like King’s from now on; it’s where I feel he’s always belonged. [ FINAL SCORE: 2] TERRIAN BROGUE: Right yeah, this guy everyone seems to like. Yeah, he’s fine. What I knew about him before reading Tri is that he’s generally a bit of a shady dude, and it’s cool to see him in action being a slippery, shady, morally unstable dude. With Garth MIA for almost the entire latter half and Nopcsa falling behind in the background, Terrian is the one that really steps in to steal the show here at the end of the day, with the most successfully executed character growth in the whole story. Hats off to Pohatu for sticking with one perspective long enough to develop it properly. [ FINAL SCORE: 4] SLY: Sly gets an extra point for being a good dad and for presumably cracking complex Andalite dad jokes that no one gets off-screen. That’s all he’s getting, though, because you can’t win if you don’t play, Bulbs. [ FINAL SCORE: 2] ENDER: Oh god damn it, Choobs, you wet fart, why do you have all these really weak performances in all these great plots? Ender was barely a noun in Triannual. He just teleports in and like, gets a headache and fires a gun and shit? What am I even supposed to say here? [ FINAL SCORE: 1] EMILY SCHWARTZWALD: Another casualty of the Absent Author Phenomenon that plagues like half of Tri’s cast. She jumps back in at the end as an effective oblivious, ditzy foil to the lean mean stabbing machine that is Nat. I can’t help but think, though, that if she’d had a stronger presence earlier in the plot, she could have not only had a shot at being a little less one-note, but also softened Nat up a bit and made her more sympathetic. That’s a bad double whammy right there. [ FINAL SCORE: 2.5] PRIME: AND THEN THERE'S THIS CLOWN. Okay, first of all, I thought the P.R.I.M.E. thing was just a stupid joke that Hatu snuck in and I guess it’s not and I’m so angry that it’s legit canon. I’ve also already addressed the complete 180 of the pearly gates scene, so I’m not going to harp on that here. I’m also not going to dwell on the fact that he fucking harshed my Natalie buzz by doing nothing except being fucking Prime. I’m not even going to go into how much I hate his stupid trite fight monologues. No, I’m gonna give you some realtalk: Prime had the potential to be a really good cast member; the idea of some selfish, boorish oaf tagging along and playing the loose cannon of the group is really interesting and makes for a diverse mix of perspectives among what is otherwise a mostly competent crew. The problem, of course, is that Prime the author is wildly inconsistent in his writing, and never actually finds a secure grip on his character’s personality and identity before he’s offed and dead. I can’t believe Prime is fucking dead. uh loogs actually I’m pretty sure he was resurreI CAN'T BELIEVE PRIME IS FUCKING DEAD[ FINAL SCORE: 1.5] DRACON: Look, all due respect to Kevin, but Dracon is very far away from his best RP offering. Save for one big action post which I’ll get to in a sec, Dracon’s posts are all very brief and most offer nothing but elaborate descriptions of transformations. Almost all of his actual dialogue is hackneyed and cheesy. The battle scene was neat I guess, but I’m not as interested in fight scenes in general and one decent beat in the portion of Triannual I honestly find the most boring doesn’t even come close to redeeming him. See, here’s the thing: make no mistake that Prime’s contributions to Tri were awful, but at least he managed to catch my interest here and there. Dracon never manages even that. You can drop him and Triannual would still be just as good, if not better off from the streamlining. [ FINAL SCORE: 0.5] THE FASCERE ORDER STAFFNOPCSA: Bruh I never got to be in any RPs with Nopcsa so I spent my whole life before 2016 not giving a damn shit about Nopcsa meanwhile everyone else is out flipping their god damn shit fawning over this guy, and now at this point in the game, I can maybe see why. His dialogue is among my favorites in Triannual; his skeezy brand of charisma is rather captivating and I am absolutely all up on his blasé small talk about the Fascere gig as if it’s some kind of water cooler cubicle shit. What a shame then, it is, that Lee was writing Triannual never intending to pull Nopcsa into the spotlight! I don’t get nearly enough Nopcsa here to rate him as highly as I would like to. Dear Triannual HD Remastered Edition, please trim off the fat in the combat scenes and give me more Nopscotch instead. Yours truly, Loogs. [ FINAL SCORE: 3] AUGUSTE TYLOR: Oh look, yet another decent character that got shafted in favor of flashy Super Smash Bros nonsense. His intro was great but then you gotta factor in the issue that he gets lost in all the Fascere staff ambiguity and also he has to share the stage with Nopcsa and others, and thus his overall score suffers accordingly. [ FINAL SCORE: 1.5] ABATIS/BASILISK: As I’ve said before, Abatis calling in Basilisk clashes real bad tonally with the rest of Triannual. I can handily take a pass on him here. [ FINAL SCORE: 1] NACHOSET: I have a feeling the only reason I even care about Nachoset at all is because he makes a great punching bag for Nat, so there’s some brownie points for being part of the only fight I actually liked. I’ve said a little about him already, and I don’t really have much else to add. [ FINAL SCORE: 2] UCA ARGENTUM: Point blank: Uca is less of a character and more of a plot device. Crabs are kind of cool I guess idk who even cares about Uca infinite shrug [ FINAL SCORE: 0.5] AYTHYA: I was actually getting kind of down with Aythya’s relative mellowness among his more eccentric coworkers, but Lee neglecting to give him a name for most of his screen time and also giving him less purpose than the guy who never even gets a name means he never got to live up to his full potential. Well, at least he can sleep well knowing he’s the new frontrunner for my favorite Lee Tupper bit role. [ FINAL SCORE: 2] ”KNUCKLES”: Fuck you Lee for not giving this guy a name and yet subjecting me to him actually humoring Prime in battle therefore facilitating more stupid idiot Prime shenanigans. Fuck you for not naming this guy yet making him enough of a presence in Tri that I can’t like, not add him as a character. But most of all, fuck you for giving this guy more screen time than Aythya. Eat my entire ass[ FINAL SCORE: -$TEXAS 0] THAT'S ALL THE TIME WE HAVE FOR TODAY TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR ANOTHER THRILLING EPISODE OF (DIS)ASSEMBLING and remember to spay and neuter your pets post in the RP AS ALWAYS, THANKS FOR READING
|
|
|
Post by Beelzebibble on Jul 24, 2016 21:54:10 GMT -5
Uca Argentum may not have really been a noun but there was some really sweet nightmare fuel imagery in his transformation, I would have vouched for that as a (dis)tinction. On the other hand it was another Lee post, so whoopoes Your analysis is preeeeeetty sweeeeeeeet breh
|
|
|
Post by Tout-Perd on Nov 6, 2017 13:29:23 GMT -5
Just realized I forgot to add the fact that Prime threatened to quit the Exodus over this plot. In the bout with Knux, I had dropped a bunch of hints that the blades in his arms were made from a soul that killed people by tearing their soul out (since Prime's flavor of the week was Shinigami, and he had requested excuse to ascend to a Bleach style soul reaper).
So I had a villain with tearing out soul powers hit him, to get his soul out of his body so he could soul reaper up.
Prime, however, misread my post, got the notion that it was a soul-destroying weapon, and flipped shit on me for like three paragraphs in a PM that is mercifully lost to the depths of time. And after clarification about it, he still went with "you destroyed Prime's soul! I AM QUIT."
Unfortunately, I managed to calm him down by saying "oh hey, we can handwave this... as the thing that I originally implied it was, but shrug."
Could you imagine Tri had I let him storm out? Prime just gets ONE PUNCHED, and then lays there dead for the rest of the plot.
|
|