V8 BKA/BDA Voting: June 2023

[Kermit]

Hi hoes, Kermit the Frog here

Welcome to the Best Kill and Best Death Awards for June. Before we begin, the rules:

1. In this thread, you may post as an anonymous guest to select one student to receive the day's Best Kill Award, and one handler to receive the Best Death Award. Prizes will be given out in-character for BKA, consisting of a weapon and food, and out-of-character for BDA, consisting of a quote from their character to be displayed on the board index until the next BDA is awarded.
2. You may only vote while logged out. You can identify yourself in your vote if you want, but you may not claim to be another handler.
3. You may only vote once, and you may not vote for yourself in either category. Staff can see IP addresses, and we will check them if we have reason to suspect shenanigans.
4. You must provide reasoning with your vote for why you think your choices deserve the award. Votes with no reasoning will not be counted.
5. Don't be a jerk. You can explain why some scenes are your favorites without tearing others down.
6. Make sure that your answers are clear; please don't use any formatting that might cause votes to be miscounted or left out.
7. Please be sure to read every kill and death before voting, please vote for your genuine favorites rather than just voting for your friends, and please don't campaign for awards in the chat or otherwise try to influence the vote.

And your Best Kill and Best Death contestants:

BEST KILL AWARD:
Julia Guercio for killing Przemyslaw Ziemiak
Evie McKown for killing Chloé Delacroix
Molly Oliveira for killing Lúcio Oliveira
Salem Fox for killing Colm Forsyth
Juanita Reid for killing Fred Hobbes

BEST DEATH AWARD:
Maraoone for the death of Przemyslaw Ziemiak
midnight_twelve for the death of Chloé Delacroix
VoltTurtle for the death of Lúcio Oliveira
Ruggahissy for the death of Colm Forsyth
midnight_twelve for the death of Fred Hobbes

Voting will run for four days. Votes will remain hidden until time is up, and the winners will be declared in the following announcement.

[AzureDragon]

BKA: Julia Guercio for killing Przemyslaw Ziemiak.
This kill is good. It’s a nice gradual build with the manipulation, resistance, finally punctuated with extended violence and a cut to minimalism. Also props to Carlisle for having dense detailed posts that feel worth the longer read because that’s difficult to do.

My favorite part is probably the guilt and panic combined with Julia’s need for comfort from Josh.

BDA: Maraoone for the death of Przemyslaw Ziemiak.
This death made me feel disgusted, but like, in the way you should when someone is bludgeoned to death. The religious imagery followed up with the begging for mercy and descriptions of injury, such as including the skull cracking before his death brought home how brutal and horrible it was for Prezmek.

[Medic]

Voting a duo again because what I liked about the death/kill is very much a part of both of them (plus a third party).

Julia Guercio for BKA and Przemyslaw Ziemiak for BDA.

Julia (and by extension Josh) have had a very interesting weird thing going on, and Julia being pushed into killing Przemyslaw through Josh framing it as a mercy killing and then inflicting wounds to push that angle results in a very horrific kill, and Julia’s conflicted feelings about the kill and her having to struggle over to that motion, potentially marking the start of some pretty messed up corruption going on… it’s a very interesting kill.

Przemyslaw, as well as contributing to the above, I’m giving the BDA also because of how horrific and no-punches-pulled the description of the death is, particularly him removing his bandages to ‘stare’ at them near the end. And also how the death is not a quick one, with the quick posts between the two of Julia bludgeoning him and Przemyslaw continuing to suffer just really whacking in that sense of horror. This poor guy has had like the worst week, even by the standards of this game, and him finally seemingly finding a bit of mercy only for it to take the hardest turn stings so much.

It takes a lot for me to get squeamish, and this kill/death fuckin’ did it. Ku-fucking-dos.

[KingLaceDrop]

My vote for BDA here is to Maraoone for the death of Przemyslaw Ziemiak.

This scene is a testament to the work all of the handlers put into it to construct something that's as enthralling as it is horrifying, with every post moving the story forward towards the sickening conclusion to Przemyslaw's tale which has left him now being described in exclusively feeble terms as he seemingly lies down to his unknowing death - only for the whole situation to turn on a dime and give us a final moment of Przemek seeming to taking control away from his killers by showing them the extent of his injuries, leaving them madly trying to wrench the life from his body. There's so much symbolism here too, with his final meal and indeed his final moments taking place in a church - really it's just above and beyond.

Honestly, much love to all the deaths this cycle though, the competition was very tough!

My vote for BKA is to Salem Fox for killing Colm Forsyth

Again, a scene which required some good work on both handlers to construct. It feels as though Salem is being interviewed by Colm in the latter's final moments, with him doing what he can to dig into Salem's soul, and I love how it ends up making it feel disempowering. A cowardly, angry action designed to lash out someone in avoidance of dealing with emotions he doesn't want to (or can't) handle. A great example of the drama that SOTF enables.

[just smon guy]

BKA: Julia Guercio for the murder of Przemyslaw Ziemiak

BDA: Maraoone for the death of Przemyslaw Ziemiak

On this scene as a whole, I feel everyone played their part exceptionally well and the scene was made better because of it. Josh and Julia's dynamic was certainly something unnerving here, and as written in one of Julia's posts, "This whole decision, taken on her behalf, was just another reminder of the inferiority of her morality against Joshua’s authority. Her faith buried under the weight of his dominance. Her wishes worthless to his whims."

You have to feel for Julia here, even after being forced into this mercy kill, it still ends up a lot more brutal than she wanted it to be. The final post in particular gets to me with how she starts talking about Josh just after he had gotten her to kill Przemek.

Przemek just needs a hug in all honesty. The man had suffered enough on his time on the island and his death was no different. It was brutal, and it was just sad. How he had gotten people to trust in only to have that trust broken again.

[BeefyChunkyBeefChunk]

I'll be giving my BKA and my BDA to the same scene so


BKA: Molly Oliveira

BDA: Lúcio Oliveira


I quite like the construction of this scene and I think it was well executed. I liked the start a lot with the scene split in two with the comfort and warmth of Lúcio and Aracelis in the room sleeping while Leslie and Molly talk outside, Leslie's desire to cut and run starting to surface. As Molly is left alone she realizes Lúcio is too sweet and too much in love with Aracelis to raise a hand to her if she turns on him, which she very well could from Molly's perspective given the evidence on her face and admitted murder.

Molly also does a great job in the buildup and once she's been caught trying to play off the situation as a sword is actively buried in the mattress. I really love the back and forth with the girls and how it ramps into a fight with the repetition of just lie down -- first to tell her to go back to sleep and then to kill Aracelis.

I liked that as Lúcio was dying he realized there was no coming back for him, so he prioritized making sure each of the girls had the motivation and mindset to continue forward, because he does love both. All of the beats flowed well from one to another, building on the one that came before it to tell this story of these people and their relationships. So well done to everyone.

[Tommy Wiseau]

Best Kill: Julia Guercio for killing Przemyslaw Ziemiak. I think this is the first scene in V8 that made me feel actual horror and dread. Julia's determination about still trying to be a good person and help others contrasted with her sticking with Josh and succumbing to his manipulation, and the in-your-face-ness of just how gruesome everything is, makes her comparison to a car crash that you can't look away from very appropriate. The ultimate kill on Przemyslaw was absolutely brutal. I hated it, but I loved it, and I feel like Julia is really going places in the second half of the game.

Best Death: Maraoone for the death of Przemyslaw Ziemiak. One thing Mara has done really well since adopting Przemyslaw was to sell just how horrible his situation was. He never gets used to being blind, his wounds are getting infected and hurting him, people he reaches out to for help keep abandoning him, and on and on. It's a really stark depiction of the suffering of being on the island, and as horrible as his death was, you also get the feeling that something else terrible would have befallen him no matter what. I was relieved when it was over.

Honorable mention to the Oliveira siblings! Theirs was also a solid scene that I enjoyed a lot with the ramping up of the tensions between Molly and the others, and how she just couldn't bring herself to trust when Lúcio could, and how that ultimately made everything fall apart. A very nice air of tragedy about the whole thing.

[pop culture nod]

Okay let's get down to business, voting early so we can stop the steal

BKA is Julia Guercio. Pretty much no question. I could probably go on at length about all the ways I dig her arc with Josh, but it's surely self-evident. Anyway the scene absolutely slaps, we get enough of Julia's inner turmoil to sell it without getting so much it crowds out the action, and enough detail that we can vividly imagine the extent of the damage without having to get into the reeds on every gory detail. Excellently written.

Honestly it's really hard to settle on a BDA. My instinct says do the doubler and say Przemyslaw, and I think I'll go with that instinct. The minimalism in contrast to the exacting detail from Julia's side really highlights the brutal simplicity of what's actually, physically happening in the scene. Maybe I'm biased since I've spent a lot of time following Przemek already, but Mara did a fantastic job making something of our poor blinded wrtech, giving him a compelling inner world, and then finally collapsing it into something quite profound at the end. Despite everything he didn't want to die, and yet under the circumstances, you get the slightest hint that he's glad it's over.

Yeah basically Blind Faith is a hall of fame thread, great work everyone. Honourable mention to Rugga for the third angle in there, natch.

[bananaman]

This month, I've gotta go with Julia killing Pzemyslaw for both BKA and BDA.

Pretty much everyone involved hit it out the park with this one. Josh continues to establish himself as one of V8's big iconic antagonists, Przemyslaw's final moments are particularly gut wrenching and Julia's despair at the entire messy situation is golden. Add in just how messy the kill itself was, drawing it all out even further... Yeah, even though this was a solid set of nominees, this was an easy pick for me.

[Ruggahissy]

Little under a day and a half left

[Guest]

BKA: Salem Fox for killing Colm Forsyth
I like how sudden the kill is here. "That's why Salem was already drawing the gun" in particular makes it feel so sudden and impulsive, like he hasn't thought this through and the narrative itself has to rush to catch up- it's interesting to see some cracks appear in the controlled and apathetic facade he puts on. It's also just a fun scene to read with the sarcastic and flirty banter both in his dialogue and his inner monologue.



BDA: Ruggahissy for the death of Colm Forsyth
This is a great bittersweet death for one of my V8 faves. I love Colm and it's satisfying to see him own his death and land a verbal hit on Salem that actually gets through to him, despite his unbothered facade. His last words are really poignant and sum up Colm as a character to me, someone who can empathise with the worst of humanity even though he always takes the high road himself. Also "homospectral" made me snort.

[Kermit]

Little bit under nine hours left for votes

[Blob Villain]

BKA: Julia Guercio for killing Przemyslaw Ziemiak
BDA: Maraoone for the death of Przemyslaw Ziemiak

So yeah, this scene, everything about it from the moment Julia finds Przemek is an unending march of escalation and dread up to the end result we all know is coming. The thread makes good use of the space and blocking of the church to also build up the atmosphere and tension through the building itself, all three handlers involved playing off the environmental descriptions nicely to conjure up the image of the exact place and that exact moment in time. There's some gothic horror also added to the mix to spice up the tragedy.

Julia might be a good-person but she's under the sway of Josh and inviting Przemek into the church is inviting a wounded deer into a cage with a lion, eventually he's going to eat the deer. That's exactly what happens here but with the fun knife twist of Josh making Julia take the final steps in killing Przemek both as some sort of good act so she can have her one kill to be able to leave and a power play to force her more under his control. From Julia's end the action is exactly how you'd want it to be, horrifying, messy and slow. There's no elegant way out and her part of the kill shows how ugly the entire situation is.

On Przemek's side of things the end is also messy and horrifying but somewhat defiant and hopeful. He's scared and in pain but he still forces Julia and Josh to confront what they're doing and when he does eventually pass away—after some gnarly gore writing—there's a hopeful aspect that at least his suffering is over. I could say more but I think that's enough for now. Excellent work from all three handlers involved.




Also shoutout the excellent pun thread title.

[chu gga chu gga ch]

hullo it is me again

BKA: Molly Oliveira for killing Lucio Oliveira

I love mess

I think Medic pulled off something really difficult here in doing a villain turn for someone who had largely not shown these tendencies prior, and it makes sense within the context of the thread too. She knows that Aracelis is dangerous, and that Lucio would let himself be killed if it comes to that. So she feels she has to kill her to keep her twin safe. And she messes up the execution horribly.

I liked basically everyone's performances in the thread (also want to shout out Lucio forgiving his killer, and his internal angst about feeling angry/mad about dying, but not wanting to pass that onto his sister and girlfriend. Also Aracelis taking a sympathetic turn in this thread for once)

BDA: Colm Forsyth

I was very divided between Colm and Lucio for BDA and my choice basically came down to a coin flip. But basically I wanted to shout out this scene because I really liked the interaction between Colm and Salem, the transition from cutesy almost flirting to a showdown of sorts. Colm in this scene decides to solve the puzzle of Salem my fifth favorite white haired villain twink in v8. And he knows that he's pissing him off, he knows he'll likely get killed for it, but with Betty being dead he literally has nothing left to do and he hates himself for it. It's roughly the same vibe of watching someone drive a car off a cliff.

Also wanted to shout out Salem here for nicely portraying that 'childishness,' as Colm put it, that almost pathetic malevolence that defines him so well.

[Kermit]

and that's time, motherFRICKERS