So I touched upon this in chat but I have thought of doing a format change as reading a character’s full arc and writing something semi-cohesive and complete is a little daunting and overwhelming! So I thought of ways I could still give critique and thoughts while also focusing on more intimate moment by moment analysis.
So this is a play by post RP and I would like to analyze v7 post by post and thread by thread. So bam, wam, shablam! There is the format change right there! Let’s start off with lucky number 7, priority will be given to singular posts but I also would like to talk about what makes a good thread and as well as what makes a good post! Least in my humble and often misguided smiley faced opinion!
So let’s get it poppin’! Link your threads/posts in your requests, v7 only! Meaning island posts only!
1.Lately Kiss My Ass Lately (Post #22)
2. The Sweet Smell of Blood on a Summer Breeze
3. Cabin Fever
4. Don't mind me, I'll just be over here
5. Valediction
6.Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)
7. Still Waiting
Thotty Thoughts
Totally chill, not at all a big deal, fun and free critiques! Format change: Singular post and thread analysis! Queue is CLOSED!
Alright, I'd love to know what you think of Ty's journey so far, given that he's the one I'm least sure of.
Arj, please! Also thanks for doing a critique thread, that's super cool of you
I'd love to get some thoughts on Amelia if you want.
Thoughts on Aliya would be fun if you don't mind!
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Somersault
- Posts: 312
- Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2018 8:56 am
Mike Brown, pls! Ik I'm late, but anyways, thanks for doing this!
Alright, alright, Somer, you in! Closed for now though!
Not going in order because chaos v2 energy and also because I’ve actually threaded with Amelia! Whaaaaaaaaaaat?
Amelia Fischer aka StarFisch
First Thots
So off rip, the first thing that is apparent with Amelia is the strong voice and characterization that you provide with her--that innocent and wholesome spaciness is very good and very quirky without feeling unnatural. It’s so strong that I feel comfortable admitting that I committed probably a big faux paux of RPing on SOTF by not really reading her bio for our thread. In doing so, I gotta say, there’s more to little Amelia than on the surface and those themes of abandonment and dependency at a very early age (birth even) provide a good contrast and depth to her very prominent, positive and wholesome voice.
I like that she’s described as traditionally pretty but that she doesn’t act this way, that she’s so bright and yet she has dark hair and dark lipstick. It’s small things and surface level but it adds to the whole picture of Amelia. “She has a style all her own”, so you say in her appearance and it’s the uniqueness of your own style when writing with her that makes her fun to read!
Island Thots
So, this is something I do with my own posts sometimes just to see what sorta vibes I am putting out and the consistency of my own voice and ideas from post to post. Because the nature of what we do tends to line up with improv (as in, even if we’re outlining and planning every post, most are simply written and then posted shortly after with little editing outside of the author), I think it’s cool to see what foreshadowing and consistencies pop up from post to post.
So, anyway, since I know what happens in this thread, I’m just going to read Amelia’s posts and get the full Tony experience uninterrupted. Raw and uncut. Tony the Tiger. Frost my flakes. Oh baby!
“When she’d thought about getting abducted, and she’d thought about it quite significantly if she were being honest, she had no idea it would happen like this. There weren’t even any Aliens here!”
What a great way to start her journey, first and foremost, we get this silly wholesome voice right at the forefront. There’s a certain amount of camp in Amelia’s narration, she sounds almost bubbly, but she doesn’t sound stupid. Sometimes I get Luna Lovegood vibes from her and other times I get Bubbles from Powerpuff Girls. Not everybody likes camp or maybe feels it’s not really, y’know, real and honest--but as entertainment (and I do think that entertainment is worth something on it’s own) you provide a good energy that translates over the post. Intro posts are so crucial in setting a tone to follow and you made sure to set that tone in the first line.
Going further into the thread itself the camp continues with the Miss Lori schtick and I think we get into the core of why we should introduce anything: what does it accomplish? I would argue that it’s your commitment to the camp and bit that allow for more stuff shine through. The bubbly tone and voice and silliness contribute to characterization and that characterization serves to show Amelia as someone both kind, subservient and innocent. Bad for your chances on SOTF, but good ultimately in endearing yourself to the audience. Amelia is very endearing and I feel that you try to keep the theme of her innocence and world view from post to post.
I would be remiss to not mention her bad trip and comment on the narrative choice to do that. On the surface, it provided the thread with necessary action in terms of being the catalyst for the gun firing, but it also goes back to the themes established in Amelia’s biography. I felt both her isolation, her fear with a candy coating of whimsy and while I think in some respects it was a bit over the top, I also felt like it didn’t hurt. It’s very hard to write drugs convincingly without going over the top and transitioning into Hunter S. Thompson style gonzo rip offs and I appreciated both your commitment to respecting the drug while also maintaining your commitment to camp.
It was a tight wire act and Amelia did good in staying interesting and dynamic, especially when you had an obnoxious thread partner making out with everybody.
Final Thots
Amelia has a strong voice and a pretty good backstory with a lot of room and themes to explore. I had fun threading with her and she’s a pretty easy and fun and funny read. Looking forward to seeing the come down and see what Amelia does moving forward! I think she has room for a lot of nuance compared to the more surface level interesting stuff you got with Zo. I hope that her energy keeps going and I ponder how long that numbness she had in her first post and that veneer of positivity she had up until her bad trip, can last. Good stuff!
Alright! Let’s knock out all the people I have threaded with first! My laziness won’t be misconstrued as nepotism for certain!
Aliya Kimia Nemati aka One in a Million aka Fuck that Extra A aka 3 Names and 0 fucks
Initial Thots
So, just like with Amelia I discover that my penchant for only skimming my threadmates biographies is a trait I carried on Pre-Game and on the island. Whatever, me not reading is partly why this thread exists in the first place. Aliya, like a lot of your characters, is very efficient in her use of thread real estate...or word choice. You get the vibes. You do a lot of show not tell and that’s that whole minimalism thing I’ve been hearing about. You know your strengths as a writer and your experience tends to bleed into all of your characters and so it was very easy for me and by extension Ace to get an understanding of how she ticks without really needing to read the bio so much. That’s an indication of strong and solid voice on your part. Just on a technical and basic level you should be proud that you’re hitting all your marks.
So, those were my impressions of her off rip, I gave her biography a bit of a deeper read in preparation for this commentary and what not.
The phrase “write what you know” is one often given to writers and it’s for good reason--it really enriches the story being told. I understand in reading some commentary on v6’s Kimiko that research, especially in regards to different cultures, is a strength of yours and I feel like you hit those notes very strongly in examining Aliya’s home life and especially her spirituality. I personally think that the “write what you know” is made better by “writing what you love” and you can tell, even without the OOC knowledge that I have, your love of wrestling by how much focus and attention you give it in Aliya’s bio. It’s something that I can relate to as I largely gave football so much focus in Ace’s biography because I love it so much.
I don’t know if it’s intentional but I like how her biography is almost a wrestling backstory done seriously, especially with the racial and religious undertones as well as the sexism she faces in pursuing her dream. It’s a bit Shounen protagonist in the best sort of sense and I enjoyed almost like the deconstruction of wrestling storylines and stereotypes we’re presented with.
Good stuff!
Also Hip-Hop and Sneaker head so you know I was bout it. You calling her sneakers trainers is the most British thing I have ever seen and the fact that Slam approved that shit (and I knew he did and checked just to be sure) is a sign that we need more cross checking for brit terms on American characters. It really shattered my suspension of disbelief.
Not really, but y’all some fish and chips ass people.
Island Thots!
One thread gang stand up! And as the scene of the Benny killing (but not death) an important thread on the island but also one that I’ve read before! Really going in on the bunny slopes of wanting to read more of v7, huh?
"Not doing great huh? I feel that."
I like looking at first lines in intro posts and this is a double whammy as it’s her first spoken words. I think one of the smart things about not writing such long, purple prose-y posts is that it allows the reader to sort of interject some of their own worldviews and perceptions onto the character. What this goes to show me is Aliya’s willingness to engage and engage in spite of her fears. Within the first post we get both a picture of her bravery, her empathy and the doubt bubbling under the surface. A great tone setter and that little bit of dialogue, 7 words, said enough and with enough weight to almost come off as cinematic.
And when we talk about remaining thematically consistent and being consistent in character, I think this thread is a good show case for Aliya. She’s brave, she immediately confronts Justin but then she also calms him down. I like that she sized him up and her mind immediately went to physically subduing him but that ultimately she went with diplomacy. She showed a great deal of emotional intelligence, level headedness and moral fiber in this thread and those stories are good to see on the island. Especially early on when they're more believable. She’s without a doubt a super Babyface, to keep up with the deconstruction--but I was on a Shounen RP for 12 years in between my SOTF runs, I am about it.
A boy needs a hero, sometimes we create our own. I think Aliya is as good of one as any.
Final Thots!
So there’s a lot of really good stuff you’re doing with Aliya and I find her to be pretty engaging and super easy to root for. Like with all characters with a heroic bend or one trending towards positivity, I have to wonder how long her bravery and mental strength can last? But what makes Aliya special is that she also is aware of how fragile and impermanent any bravery or mental security she has is. Very strong first thread and a strong showing for her in particular! What's next? Especially with knowledge of Benny's death looming on the horizon? Can she maintain that peace with diplomacy for long? Or are we soon due for suplexing? I'm really curious to see.
Oh and uh, can't forget...
Let’s go wiiiiiiiiiiiiiith...Arjen! Because I feel like I’m now forced to work from the middle and also by leaving the Dodd brothers for last I get to passive aggressively start an international blood feud over WiFi.
Arjen Kramer aka Kramer vs Kramer
First Thots: Engage!
Arjen is an interesting one for me to review because the way I’ve consumed him is largely how I’ve consumed v7: nebulous and moment by moment as opposed to a cohesive whole. It’s impossible to talk about Arjen without talking about Marco and their dynamic--my first impressions of him are obviously along those lines. You and Toxie have done a great job and you can tell by how adored that combo of Arjen/Marco is in the chat zeitgeist. You’ve committed hard in leaning on the joke, making Arjen the butt of quite a few and handling his sniveling sneakiness with equal parts satire and skill. There’s a reason why that pairing is easy to talk about: Arjen is very easy and entertaining to read. If a writer’s goal is to communicate effectively, I think you do a great job of communicating and illustrating a good picture of Arjen: that’s a sign of great voice. Which I guess I say all the time and to everybody but it really is a writer’s first tool in separating themselves from a crowd.
Arjen’s vulnerability and quirkiness remains at the forefront of his biography and you can tell in his interests (particularly the anime section and the parts detailing his family and where those two intersect) sort of the vibe you’re going with. Arjen is very grounded to me with a sorta ho-hum biography with a lot of nuance and niche interests. You play the weirdo very honestly and very straight and I think Arjen is able to rise because of how grounded he really is. He’s a weird kid, but the normal type of weird--the homebody weeb ventriloquist who wanders graveyards in his free time.
That’s a high level, top percentage Tinder bio right there.
Island Thots: LET'S GO! LET'S GO! LET'S GO!
So, I thought Arjen’s first thread was the one on the yacht where he meets Marco, I wasn’t aware of the one shot that really kicked off the game. I read the one shot a few times and I didn’t know how I felt at first. I thought it was a little theatrical and it felt kinda corny? I kinda don’t like the whole narrator addressing me personally (go run and find all the times I’ve done that now), especially because while addressing me in a literal sense (the constant use of you) you’re also talking narratively to a viewer of SOTF, which I am not, SOTF ain’t real. I think if you’re breaking the 4th wall, especially with a prose style piece like this, you should’ve fully committed and really addressed the real reader as opposed to the fictional viewer.
Now, this was largely my first impression of the one shot, it really is made powerful by the ending and the switch back to Arjen’s perspective. I enjoy the dichotomy and the awareness of Arjen. The final reveal of first person at the end in turn strengthens the third person used throughout and it became clearer to me in a second reading that there was no disconnect between Arjen and the narrator. They’re one in the same. I like that stuff even if it threw me for a loop at first. So while normally I think the first line in an intro post is the most important, it’s a great flip to have Arjen’s last line matter the most. It’s very cool!
One of the things that I like about the intro post is that it lays out a tone and a goal for you as a writer right off the bat. It clues the reader into the story and your hopes for it and it also contributes to the thought that you even have a plan and endpoint in the first place. I didn’t know how I felt about the one shot and the narrative decision at first but the more I thought about it the more I enjoyed it.
“While there will be some scenes containing (dark) humour upcoming, the majority of the journey will be full of fights, betrayal, extreme violence and death.”
I appreciate this line, I see it as you setting out your mission statement. It’s a risk to introduce a character without actually explicitly utilizing the character until the end. I don’t know if this paid off and we probably won’t until Arjen’s story is done--but it’s very creative, smart and brave. I appreciate what you’re doing and it did a good job of setting the story you wished to tell.
Moving onto the thread on the yacht, I felt like this was a pretty funny thread and while Marco is the comedian, you for sure are the one setting him up and allowing it to work. I guess the translation to that is that Arjen is the butt of the joke but the practicality in an RP sense is that it makes him sort of the catalyst for the action. It’s centrally Arjen’s paranoia and Juliette’s duplicity which are the motivating factors here towards the ultimate goal of getting us a full mainline of Marco heroin. You’re a great teammate here, building up your threadmate without sacrificing your own characterization. I really enjoyed it.
What follows is a good bit of measured characterization between the two and you stay committed to Arjen’s paranoia and patheticness--while revealing an underlying resoluteness when he finally separated from Marco. The robbery was particularly high drama and your ending punch to the dick (metaphorically) was very satisfying! Arjen is kinda in a panicky limbo right now, alone and given way to his paranoia--but I wonder how long that will last? I don't know what I want more, him to become stronger or to continue getting beat down. I think that's how you want me to feel so good on you!
Also, like, did links beat you as a child? Link your threads kid, it sucks trying to read a piece cohesively and having to jump back and forth to the Wiki. Keep the Enter/Exit gimmick--just give me a goddamn link! The whole product will be better for it and it's already pretty good!
Final Thots: The Last of the Thots
I feel I kinda rambled here a bit! I overall really enjoy Arjen, I think he’s funny and interesting and a great display of fragility and weakness with a perspective coming from a low place as opposed to a high one. I’m curious as to what your plans are moving forward and I fully expect that it will be both zany, emotional, head scratching and thought provoking in very fun and good ways. Keep it up! Good stuff overall!
LINK YOUR THREADS B!
If you’re open for more characters to check out, might I offer my boy Ned?
I'll put Ned on the next group of 5, but requests are atm closed, I wanna get the first wave done before I move onto others. So I'll put Ned on the list but he gotta wait till next round of critiques!
So I did a little format change I spoke about in chat and kinda elaborated in a basic way in my intro post to this thread! Uh, long story short, new format, new queue--the thot is lookin to hop! Hit me y'all!