Discuss anything and everything that has to do with SOTF here -- from your favorite character to comments and suggestions about the site! This forum also contains roleplaying guides for your benefit!
By popular demand of like 3 people, here is the V2 Read-O-Thon. V2 is a bit of the in-between child of SOTF and probably one of the lesser known games. It is also the second smallest game in terms of size.
The rules are simple enough. You post that you want a character and I will give you one randomly from the list below. Read through the character and then post what you thought of them, though that is not mandatory. However, if you could, please let me know if you would or would not recommend the character to readers for the V2 Best Of list. If you were the writer of one of these characters and would not like them to be included, let me know and I will remove them from the list.
His profile is honestly much more interesting than his on-game stay, but in all the worst ways. tl;dr Rupert is a Fat Angry Bully with all the inherent stereotypes. OK, boring. What's not boring is why he became this way, and I'm honestly offended. His father has basically been raping, molesting and abusing his entire family their entire lives, and it continues up until Rupert is abducted. He forces him to have sex with his sister and mother. Also, his father apparently gets away with this because he's a policeman. I'm really really really not a fan of how this is used to explain Rupert's bullying ways, and it simply should not be there. It is not handled well at all.
Pregame, he's used as a high school bully to make Andrew Ponikarovsky look good. Onto the island we go.
On the island, he shows up for one post, where it's stated that he's simply dropped from the plane onto the island, yet he survives because he's cushioned by his fat. Not a doctor but I don't think that's How It Works. Then, he trades insults with Jonathan Michaels, who points a gun at him and tells him to screw off. Rupert is written by Dodd, so at the very least, his writing is technically competent. Also, I appreciate how he actually at least attempts to have a moral dilemma regarding killing people, although this quickly goes the way of most bullies, the old 'oh I hate everyone so SOTF is the best thing ever' approach.
Now, his death.
This is a Mariavel Inactive Massacre Thread, and basically he tries to attack her with a stiletto right after she kills Alex Ovechkin. A total of around two sentences are devoted to his death.
Overall, I'm really really annoyed with how rape and incest are just wantonly used in his profile, and Rupert Stockton is the definition of fodder. Nothing more.
Her bio makes her out to be a sort of queen bee popular mean girl. She has one pregame thread where she's a little menacing, but talks to a fat unpopular girl. It's kind of nice, even though she's still being a bit mean in her thoughts.
In her first thread she meets Andrew Ponikarovsky and they are honestly pretty charming. She puts on an act of being an innocent bimbo to get her to trust him and he does because he's a good guy. As they talk she lets real things about her slip and she starts to wonder if putting on this act even in real life is what causes her to attract men, but also causes them never to stay long. They have a kind of cute moment together and start driving away in a van.
Then Mitusko adopts her. The quality in writing drops and she becomes the porn version of herself. Out of no where she is bending over, propositioning people, licking her lips, talking about what she likes in sex. Gone is whatever depth she might have had before with Andrew. She fools around with Rob (I think it was Rob) and says she doesn't want to go all the way so he calls her a whore and that makes her amused. Great.
She gets killed quickly and suddenly along with two other people in a Mariavel spree kill thread. I'm really disappointed considering how good she started off that she becomes sexed up Mariavel fodder.
Alex Ovechkin is a bizarre waste of time. He's bizarre because he's just an insert of an actual professional athlete and is still a professional athlete with a super flimsy, idiotic reason for being in high school that makes no sense. He's already been through high school in Russia and has a job as a pro-athlete but went to high school "to become better at English" like he couldn't just buy a Rosetta Stone. It's really weird and distracting.
I feel like Dodd realized this was a bad idea because he has 1 pregame post, 3 posts in the game and then promptly goes inactive. He's killed in another Mariavel spree kill thread. There are worse character in SOTF, but so few are just not even worth your time.
PROFILE: So, the first bit of information we get about Chiaki is that she dropped out of school but went back for some reason. Im not sure if thats a thing that actually happens, but its ok because V2. She likes playing guitar, war history, shooting stuff, and martial arts. Im sure the latter two definitely werent an attempt to give her more skillz. Theres nothing really to say about her physical description. Theres nothing outlandish, and its pretty decent by V2 standards. Chiaki has a Japanese mom, and an American father, who who used to serve as a major figure in the US Army. What exactly he was isnt elaborated upon, so Ill be forced to assume he was George Washington, who was an influential figure in the American military.. Because her dad was George Washington, he told her war stories from a young age, (which I do not recommend irl, traumatizing children is bad), and also taught her how to play the guitar for some reason. Chiaki decided she wanted to join the military when she grew up, obviously having been indoctrinated by George Washington (also now she likes guns PEW PEW BANG BANG POW!). When she was 13, she started skipping class (bad sign), and for some reason, George Washington didnt care, as he was happy that Chiaki knew how to play guitar and wanted to join the military. Im beginning to doubt George Washingtons parental skills. Chiaki dropped out of school at 15; again, not a thing that actually happens. George Washington was like go back 2 skool (even though Im contradicting my earlier statements) and Chiakis like ugh fine, and now shes back at school. This whole dropping-out thing seems unnecessary. Oh well. Now Chiakis real good at learning, but is bad at group work because as her pride over her own abilities led her to the conclusion that she doesn't need groupwork or teamwork.. Her narcissism was literally not mentioned until now, and this is the second-last paragraph of her profile. Huh.Chiakis recently been approached with a record deal for her...guitar playing, I guess? And then thats the end of her profile. Im pretty sure my analysis of her profile is longer than the profile itself. Well, what can you do?
Island time!
Chiaki doesnt know what to do, because George Washington was always there to guide her (??????????) and she has no ability to think for herself. Oh, apparently the gun she got was one of the guns shed been trained to use. Oh dear. Also, she knows the exact weight of the gun BY FUCKING MEMORY! I am now forced to assume that Chiaki is a robot with internet access. So, she got woken up by an announcement (the 1st, I think. Its not stated.), and she seemed to laugh. I dunno if she actually laughed, maybe she was crying, theres a lot of things that seem like laughing.
So, apparently she was actually laughing. Her reasoning behind this is, and I quote: She had a chance to put all of her dad's war stories into her own reality, and fell such a huge of adrenaline at the thought of pointing that gun of hers at someone, pulling the trigger, and ending their pathetic existance. Anyone who dies here was obviously too weak to continue on. So, shes a bog-standard v1/2 style villain whos entire thought process is just wow murder is fun!.
I died a bit inside when I read this next part. Ahem, also a direct quote: She thought it would be an added bonus if she could get some begging and pleading from her victims. It would sound like a wonderful chorus to a song... but she ditched that anology when she realized how emo fagtastic it sounded.
Swiftly moving on, Derrin Istoli (have been previously tortured by Adam Dodds cousin) stumbles across the road, and is all like AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUHHHHHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH PAIN IT HURTS YOWCH HLEP PLS!. Chiaki responds by being all like Oh jee whiz, are you okay?, continuing in the V2 tradition of female players who pretend to be nice, but are actually EVIIIIIILLLLLL (seriously there are a lot of them in V2). Chiaki shoots at Derrin, and Chiakis writer proceeds to GM Derrin into getting shot in the gut. Also Chiaki calls her gun her lover. Oh V2, I love you so very much (not sarcasm).
Derrin proceeds to die. Now, theres some stuff about Derrin that I wont touch upon right now, but his schizophrenia (the voice in his heads name is JEFF!) is cured by getting shot in the stomach. Chiaki is like wow that was fun and then leaves. One thread down, three to go.
Mariavels in the next thread, but so is Tori, who is generally a pretty good character. Heres hoping they balance each other out. Chiakis happy that God gave people the ability to kill each other. Okay then. I think shes got a sexual thing about killing, because thats honestly the only explanation Ive got. If she hadnt been kidnapped for SOTF, shed grow up to be a serial killer. Thanks for killing all the future serial killers, terrorists.
Chiaki wants to have sex with her weapons. Im beginning to think she might have a few underlying mental issues that have gone untreated. If you are having thoughts similar to Chiakis, you should immediately go to the doctor. Take your meds, kids.
Chiaki notices Mariavel and Tori doing stuff (Toris reading stuff, and Mariavels having another flashback). Chiakis like YES I WILL KILL THEM, MURDER IS VERY FUN! I AM EVIL!, but then
A voice
Its very rude to eavesdrop.
AND THEN ANOTHER ONE OF CHIAKIS HANDLERS CHARACTERS PUNCHES HER IN THE FACE AND THEN LEAVES!
Tori notices Chiaki out in the hallway and then some Chiaki says some weird stuff and then theres a whole bunch of OOC posts about GMing. Everything that Chiakis saying right now is some kind of innuendo or talking about murder/pain in a sexual way. Im uncomfortable. Hilarity involving Mariavel being EEEEEEVILLLL and also Chiaki being EEEEEEEEEEEVILLLLL and Tori being a normal fucking person and also some GMing ensues. BUT SUDDENLY, ONE OF MARIAVELS FRIENDS POPS OUT AND DIES! And then Mariavels like :( AND THEN SHES LIKE GET AWAY FROM ME MY FRIEND DIED!, even though nobodys had a chance to fucking react yet jesus christ aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh. And then Mariavel leaves.Only Tori has had a chance to post, but whatever. Chiaki also leaves. Well, that was a thread. (aw fuck she left just before Bryan Calvert arrives in the thread)
Chiaki stumbles upon the OG Kenurton Larris (who is inactive-dying this thread), and Chiakis all like murder is my fetish and Kenurtons like DUDE WHERES MY WEED BRO? and then Chiaki shoots Kenurton in his his wiggly-woogly boy parts. Chiaki runs away and Kenurton get DZed. NEXT THREAD!
Well, looks like Chiakis gone inactive now. Heck. Anyways, she gets in a tizzy with Franco Sebberts, there's some taser-inside-mouth action, and then Franco shoots her in the gut. Too bad getting shot in the stomach didnt cure her crazy like it did for Derrin. Oh well.
Conclusion: I feel like Chiaki embodies many of V2s pitfalls; shes a premade player, turned on by violence, pretended to be a nice person when she was a meanie, killed an inactive, and then got inactive killed. Her first thread was fun to read, but I just kinda felt uncomfortable with the rest. Shes definitely not the best V2s got to offer, but shes not the worst.
Joshua Moore only had a grand total of 3 posts in one thread but his writing is good and his last post in which he dies is nearly a masterpiece that crams an entire life history into one post.
He's a boy originally from Alabama who loves music. There are some hints to what happened in his bio which is all explained in the death post, but he was raised in a religious household and realized he was gay at a young age. His parents take him to a traumatic church experience that tries to pray the gay out of him and when relating this story to a new friend he finds sympathy from him and they fall in love. Through bad luck his family finds out about the relationship and they move from Alabama to New Jersey to the new school (a reason to move that makes sort of sense? WHAT IS THIS?). His old boyfriend is sent to conversion therapy and pretends to be "fixed." Josh calls him one last time and David tells him he'll always love him. Josh can't deal with his feelings of homosexuality conflicting with his parents telling him his preferences are sinful so he punishes himself by vomiting up his food because he feels like he's going to hell. Even so, he starts sleeping with boys and girls to try and fill the void in his heart by David whom he still loves and who loves him, though they can't be together.
He dies, remembering that his parents told him that his bulimia and homosexuality will send him to hell, really believing that he's about to be sent to Hell.
It's a tremendously sad, but quick read that I would recommend.
Eric Silvstedt was a frustrating read for me. In his first thread he comes off as a complete psycho, and whenever he's with his friend Ricky Callahan (who he happens to share a handler with, for the record) he's just kinda shunted off to the side so Ricky can take center stage. However, in his pregame oneshots, he came across as a much more interesting character. His flaws were still present, most notably his anger and inability to refer to his mother with anything other than pure hatred, but other nuances to his character were apparent. His miserable station in life was emphasized and used to show how he became such an angry, negative person, yet at the same time, he also cares greatly about his siblings and wants to protect them. He is also aware of his flaws and, as shown in the thread where he meets with his therapist, wants to deal with these issues. So at the end of pregame, he comes off as a person with a lot of deeply-rooted issues, but is still redeemable.
However, all of that goes straight out the window on the island, where he immediately decides that he wants to play because, in his words, it's a competition, and he's a competitor. All that complexity involving his family and personal problems goes out the window as he decides that he's out to kill everyone in order to win. This gets particularly repugnant when he mocks Matthias Kovalenko by implying that his sister may be getting raped or murdered while he's not there to watch out for her. Considering that Eric had worried about the same sorts of things happening to his siblings before the island, it seems pretty out-of-character for him to attack someone like that.
I'm not saying that I'm opposed to people becoming players on the island. That's one of the things that makes the SOTF story keep going on. Rather, I'm bothered that Eric instantly becomes a really generic-minded player as soon as he wakes up. And then his death thread comes along and, while it is quite well-written, ultimately proves what I had feared in pregame, which was that he was a prop for Ricky's story all along. He tries to kill Whitney, but Ricky interrupts him and causes his death by accident. It's a sad scene, but Eric doesn't get the focus. Ricky does. But then again, that's a problem pretty much any time handlers kill off their own characters with their other characters.
I really wanted to be positive about Eric and recommend him, but I can't really do it. The pregame oneshots where he's on his own are worth giving a look, but his story as a whole is kind of disappointing.
Sylvea Hill's reaction to Lester's appearance was "..." and that pretty much just sums up mine as well. He wasn't the worst, just...a bizarre combination of a handler using one of his own characters to prop his flagship/SI up, fight scenes being written by someone who is not good at fight scenes, circumventing logic in order to set up a kill, and a death I'm pretty sure was taken from Mortal Kombat. I've read him twice now and I've forgotten nearly everything about him apart from the fact he's apparently an asshole, but only because that's the first line of his profile biography.
ETA: I'm pretty sure there are less fingers on my hands than there are handlers who have used Mad World in their songposts.
Andrew Panterescu/Andrew Ponikarovski/Pants is a character in Version Two of the online roleplay/collaborative writing project Survival of the Fittest. Today, I will be referring to him as Pants.
So, I dont really have much to say about Pants profile, other than that its pretty good. Theres a few run-on sentences here and there, and him being Character!Adam Dodds bff is dubious in its realism, but hey, whatever. While he probably wouldnt be approved today, hes good for V2.
Pants has some pregame! Yay sotfs first pregame wahoo! Oh, and its on the V1 forums! ITS LIKE WERE BACK IN 2006, BABYYYYYYYY! TLDR, Rupert Stockton (who Maras already talked about, in detail) is like Yo Pants ur a gay and Pants is like No Im not, you doofus. and then Pants walks away with his girlfriend. Well okeydokey, that happened. Not really much to say about it that Mara didnt say. Ruperts used as a prop to make Pants look good, and not much else happens. Its decent on Andrews part, and hes who Im supposed to be talking about, so yeah.
ISLAND TIME! So, Pants first post it actually pretty fucking good (thank god 4 dodd)! Like, theres a lot of talk about Character!Dodd, but thats fine. The ever-hanging shadow of Character!Dodd is always hanging over Pants, but its not overplayed IMO. I mean, by todays standards, its whack AF, but for V2 its fine.
Carmen Somerset pops up, and Ruggas already talked about her. Shes gucci. This threads been talked about, and so I wont go into too much detail, but its a good thread and both characters are solid in it. (Sidenote: Cars in SOTF are fun!)
Now, unfortunately for Pants, all the V1 handlers excluding Megami disappeared from V1, so he got inactived/adopted or whatever. IMO, a big problem with V2 is that when a kid went inactive (which happened A LOT), they either got foddered off or their character changed completely, and Pants is a pretty good way to illustrate this. Post-adoption, hes completely entranced by Carmen (who is now EEEEEVVVVVIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLL), when before he thought she was pretty but was not like, literally in love with her. I mean, Pants is by far not the worst case of this, but its a V2 thing thats irked me, and is gonna be a recurring theme through this readathon.
Anyways, as I was saying before I got distracted with my rant, stuff is happening. Pants n Carmen are havin a gay old time driving around the island in the rain WHEN ALL OF A SUDDEN A WILD PENELOPE WITHERS APPEARS!
Pants swerves around Penelope, but unfortunately drive right into a fucking tree. Carmens airbag deployed and saved her, but Pants bonked his head and ded. Pants death is kinda glossed over (also he manages to say some last words despite having fatal head trauma), but thats par for the course when were dealing with V2 inactive deaths. I will admit that I have a soft spot for Pants death, though; its not completely and totally bonkers (In fact, it was a fresh dose of realism in the land of wackiness that is V2), and death by car is really rare in SOTF (thanks jerry fury).
Conclusion: I have pretty much of the same feeling about Pants as Rugga did about Carmen, but to a lesser degree. While he was handled by Dodd, he was pretty good, and when Mitsuko took over for his death, he lost some of his depth, but that didnt end up being a huge issue because he died right off the bat. Im curious to what wouldve become of the Carmen/Pants duo had Makaze/Dodd not gone inactive, but theres not much I can do about that. Overall, hes pretty solid IMO.
You know, Sylvea Hill isn't a bad character at all!
She starts her journey alongside Garry Dodd and Lester Treskington, who quickly break into a fight. She manages to keep her cool for the most part, but she's pretty weirded out by what she witnessed, which provides good reason for her to leave them and go solo. Her second thread features her getting injured and being tended to by Vesa Turunen. Unfortunately, the two of them get paranoid and wind up fighting. Vesa gets the upper hand and ends up killing Sylvea, who encounters a cluster of old memories in the moments before her death.
Aside from a few technical slip-ups, I have little to complain about involving Sylvea. She had a pretty unique voice, and she came across as pretty relatable. Even when she collapsed into paranoia, the rational part of her could still be seen trapped under the layers of fear and aggression. She's a short read, and the death post may be a little over-the-top for some, but I found her to be pretty decent.
And on that note, I would like to request another character.
Alright, so Vesas pregame is fairly uninteresting. 3/4 threads hes in have him mostly watching whats going on from the sidelines with posts that, going by the OOC notes in them, were written in a hurry. I did really like the 3rd thread where he briefly spends time with his host family, though there are too many characters introduced in a relatively short post, so the reader cant really get too attached to them.
Theres a recurring thing in his story where Vesa talks to himself in Finnish, with translations given beside in brackets. Its kind of weird that he talks to himself in Finnish, but his personal thoughts (written in italics) arent given the same treatment. It feels weird that while he is so comfortable talking in Finnish that he slips into the language during conversations with non-Finnish speakers, but his thoughts are, as far as the reader can tell, in grammatically perfect English.
Now, onto the island.
Right in the first thread, his characterization is...not great. He goes from being really scared and timid to declaring his intention to play mid conversation to a stranger and potential threat. That whole conversation was pretty weird, since both of the two characters turn fairly sharply from being terrified and worried that theyll get killed to gleefully announcing that they wont hesitate to kill anyone in their way, complete with slasher smiles and cinematic brandishing of weapons.
Perhaps this switch could have been more justified had we had more access to Vesas inner thoughts, but Crocos posts are all so short that we get barely any detail beyond the words coming directly coming out of his mouth and a few scattered fragments of thought here and there. Im not saying every poster has to write a novel in every post, but having nearly every post (excluding flashbacks) in those early threads be under 250 words doesnt give a ton to work with, especially since one of them has him enter and leave within a single post.
Throughout the rest of his time on the island, Vesa oscillates between being fairly caring and helpful to the people around him, and being cold and threatening to those same people. One minute, hell be helping someone find life-saving medicine to flashing his knife at them and bragging about how hes definitely ready to kill someone any moment.
This duality continues throughout Vesas story. It seems as there are two Vesas: a bloodthirsty murderer who kills for his enjoyment and a decent, empathetic young man who wanders around the island scared and regretful of the violent acts hes committed. While these two themes definitely can be combined successfully, it feels like Vesa switches between the two personas at the flick of a switch, and every post seems to be from the perspective of one or the other whenever the writer finds it convenient.
One thing I did like is that he seems to be one of the only people who recognizes how famous Alex Ovechkin is, though obviously Ovechkins inactivity doesnt lead to anything coming out of it.
Overall, I feel like the saddest part of Vesa is that Croco really was improving significantly as the story went on, and he did attempt to capitalize on the earlier interactions he had with other characters, sparse as they may have been. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. The fact that his motivations had not been properly established, combined with the contradictory and confusing characterization, makes his late game still quite messy. His posts get further and further apart, as IRL issues cause him to give his thread partners permission to skip him again and again, until he becomes barely a part of the final thread he was in before he went inactive.
Despite making it to the final ten, he meets the same inglorious end as many other characters in the version, being adopted by an established handler and quickly killed off in a single post to pad another characters kill count.
The best part of reading Vesa is seeing him enter threads containing a lot of interesting interactions between characters more interesting than him, and watch him not participate in them. At least reading what the other characters were doing was pretty entertaining. For a guy who made it into the V2 final ten, he really didnt do much, unfortunately.
Theres not a lot of material in Mary-Annes story. She was in three very short threads, and was extremely angry at all times for reasons that are only vaguely hinted at. The disadvantages section of her profile basically sums up her final thread.
wrote:
Disadvantages: While she is a fighter, she isnt a killer and has never dreamed of ever being so. Mary is not very intelligent and her fiery attitude might get her into unnecessary conflict.
She runs into a guy with a gun, provokes him into attacking her through completely unwarranted aggression, and then throws her weapon away and rushes him with her fists. A kind of stupid, lemming-like death, but consistent with her characterization up until that point. Not much else to say.
He wakes up and raids Amanda's corpse (spacing on the last name, I'm not going back and you can't make me). He makes his way to the hospital where he runs into several other people, all of whom are more interesting than him. Carmen is an absolute treat when she pops in; she's like Jessica Rabbit off her meds, trying to drown everybody in half-cocked sex appeal. Horace calmly assesses the situation, then totally freaks out for basically no reason, saying he's going to try and run into the terrorists somewhere on the island and kill them.
But first, he naps in the hospital.
He wakes up, hears the announcements and dangerzones, then hoofs it to the Industrial Sector... where, in an example of 'rocks fall, everyone dies' so fantastic it needs to be seen to be believed, all of Nealosi's characters hole up in the same slaughterhouse which then promptly collapses and kills all of them in a hastily-written blurb by Mitsuko.
So reading Okalani's profile was a fucking treat. Just about died laughing when I checked out her drug binge.
But by the time we get to the island proper, she's actually... she's actually pretty good, and she reads like a real, if somewhat edgy, high school teenager. Lani doesn't do much. She spends the best part of the day learning how to throw her dagger at a tree (why waste her time and energy? Who knows, but she's not keen on actively looking for anybody) before she's happened upon by a boy named Harry. They chat and actually seem to be getting along great... then time passes, announcements roll, the area's declared a dangerzone, and Harry (who has been ousted as a killer by the announcements) runs for the hills.
And, unfortunately, Lani says 'fuck it' and lets the depression part of her character take over, which is apparently stronger than her will to live for no apparent reason despite getting along fine for the past few posts. She wonders about her death and it's pretty cool in the way it's written, especially for V2, before an abrupt and un-noteworthy end.
And done!
I guess I was lucky to get one of Cyco's, he's a solid writer, though it does seem his best was saved for Bryan. Anyway. Andrew's a perfectly decent character, I didn't much like him at first but he grew on me, and his progression from the skater dork you see in pre-game, to the poor little guy just trying to hold it together, down to his untimely end ultimately wholly not cut out to be the group's sole survivor... it's naturalistic and believable, and I really felt bad for him, not least for his father gruesome demise.
Ratings out of ten are a meme so I'll just conclude with; Andrew Swainson is solid, well written, engaging and brisk enough that he doesn't take super long to finish. Would recommend as one of the stronger parts of V2.
I might come back for another, but don't roll me one just yet.
