Alright, so right off, we can see that Roland Kelly, also known as R.Kelly, is a Republican, and is written by laZardo. With that, you can tell that theres no way that this kid wont be an asshole. His profile doesnt have much in it besides politics, though in one of the later paragraphs, it mentions that Roland is part of something called the Valenti Syndicate. Im not exactly sure what that is, but I assume its yet another one of Dentons many street gangs. As for his disadvantages, I dont think has never fought with melee weapons before and is accustomed to living in an urban/suburban environment really count as disadvantages, seeing as Id expect those to be the norm for most high school students. Then again, this is Denton, New Jersey, where every other person seems to be a gang member or a murderous psychopath inches from snapping, so what do I know?
His only pregame thread is rather confusing, with laZardo and Xaldien re-doing the opening posts several times, each time changing the manner in how Kristey initially approaches Damien. Damien is consistently terrified that Kristey is about to murder him, though her own narration gives no indication that she has anything close to that sort of intent. Shortly after the two of them meet up, all of laZardos other characters walk into the thread and immediately begin threatening to kill Damien for no apparent reason. Kristey stands up to defend him and stabs Roland in the neck with a pair of scissors. We dont get to see anything of Rolands reaction to this other than the fact that the other characters hear him scream. Hes basically an NPC in this scene, his lack of importance highlighted by the fact that his name is consistently misspelled by the other handlers and the fact that laZ directly refers to him as an NPC in the OOC notes. After a tense standoff, the bullies let Damien go, and imply that they plan to kill Kristey and Damien at some point in the future as retribution for standing up to them. Roland says nothing over the course of this entire scene. The whole event felt rather ridiculous and over the top, but given the overall tone of V2, I guess Ill have to let it slide.
Shortly after the beginning of V2 proper, Roland wakes up in a confession booth in the church. The first half of the awakening post isnt too bad, with Roland taking a while to come to his senses, trying to make out where he is as the knockout gas wears off. I actually thought it was interesting that his first assumption is that hes been buried alive, and his first few paragraphs give a decent feeling of claustrophobia. Unfortunately, the trouble starts once Roland looks down at his bag and realizes that the terrorists have stamped it with the name of R. Kelly, the well-known African-American R&B artist. Seeing the name of a famous black man on his bag awakens Rolands prejudice against ethnic minorities (because hes a Republican, get it? >_<) and he loudly shouts out a racial slur, focusing his anger on an unnamed terrorist, who happened to be black, and Danya, whom Roland assumes without evidence to be non-white.
He gives a long and drawn out prayer, because of course he would, before exiting the booth. I did like that he does acknowledge that he isnt too good of a person and feels regret for some of the bad things that hes done in the past. He then quotes Psalm 23:4, taking care to mention that he doesnt mean anything sexual from the use of the words rod and staff. Im not sure why anyone would take the phrase in that way, but laZ seems to be quite concerned about the possibility, even mentioning in the OOC notes that he applauds anyone who doesnt notice anything sexual about the phrase, Tightly clutching his staff in one hand, Roland slowly pushed the confessional door open just a crack
. This pointing out of double entendres in his writing seems to be a strange fixation for Rolands handler, but I suppose its not worth dwelling on.
Roland watches the escalating confrontation between Mariavel and the others in the church from his hiding place, debating whether or not it would be a good idea to step in. He fears that he will get killed in the conflict, but on the other hand, he worries that letting his classmates die would reflect badly on his god-fearing, conservative image. This debate does not get resolved, as Roland pushes the booths door open by accident, exposing himself without actually having to make a decision concerning the morality of entangling himself in the conflict happening outside his hiding place. He remains frozen in fear for a while before trying to calm down the increasingly hysterical Adam Amato. Almost immediately after he speaks, the church is declared a danger zone. Roland gets out of there, worrying that Franco Sebberts is going to track him down and kill him, just like he murdered Marvin, another one of the minor bully characters from Rolands pregame thread.
As an aside, though his was barely in his pregame thread at all, I like that the neck wound that he received in it continues to inconvenience him, giving his character a sense of continuity from that otherwise pointless scene.
Rolands next post is a rather long songpost. He experiences a humanizing bout of survivors guilt as he hears Kasumi Whites collar explode. His internal monologue makes a brief reference to the Left Behind series as well as multiple mentions of how much he loves America to yet again establish that yes, this guy is a conservative evangelical Christian. He angsts over the fact that one of his classmates had just died and, prays for forgiveness for not attempting to save her.
Alice Nichols walks in and throws a frisbee to him from inside the slaughterhouse before promptly going inactive. Roland goes inside, looking for her, the smell of death inside the slaughterhouse causing him to reflect on how God probably isnt happy with him for all the terrible things he did before he came to the island. For a while, it actually looks like Roland is going to attempt to redeem himself, experiencing genuine regret for his actions.
Unfortunately, this character development is cut short as he walks in on Alice and immediately loses his mind as the announcement starts. His eyes scan over her voluptuous figure and her revealing clothing, which freaks him out for by now obvious reasons, before mistaking her face for that of Damien Carter-Madisons. Roland comes to the conclusion that he is in hell, and what stands before him is Damien, somehow magically transformed into the metaphorical Whore of Babylon, and sent by God to punish him for his sins. Roland charges at Alice, knocking her down and quickly executes her without much resistance.
His collar begins beeping, and Roland tries desperately to escape what he assumes is now a danger zone. He flees in a panic, before the narrative mentions an explosion, followed by the words, B57 - Kelly, R - DEAD.
Immediately after the death tag, it is revealed that Rolands collar detonating was only part of his hallucination, and he thanks God for giving him a chance to redeem himself for his sins by committing brutal murder. Of course. No actual redemption arc for you, silly republican. He then runs off into the night, realizing too late that he forgot his supplies back in the danger zone that he escaped from.
After this scene, Rolands narrative really goes off the rails. He believes himself to be in purgatory, and assumes that everything that happens after this point to be a simulation set up by God to test him. He happens upon a sobbing Michiro Duli, and attempts to comfort her in another rare moment of humanity. After Michiro manages to convince him that Dungeons and Dragons isnt some sort of tool of the Devil, they sit down and attempt to play a game. This, of course doesnt get too far, as Roland immediately begins to hallucinate that Michiro is actually Damien Carter-Madison, back from the dead. After a brief struggle, he mercilessly kills her and mutilates her body in order to ensure that she wont somehow come back to life. He quotes the same verse as in his first post (though thankfully with no OOC note this time), as he bandages his wounds, coming to the conclusion that God wont let him into heaven until he murders Damien Carter-Madison enough times to act as penance for his sins.
Roland then enters the Hospital, convinced that everyone on the island who isnt him is actually Damien Carter-Madison in disguise. He refers to the flashbang grenades that he looted off the corpse of Tanesha Lexx as holy hand grenades and thanks the Lord for giving him better weapons with which to smite Damien.
He encounters another player, Dan Johnson, and a fight begins in short order. After stunning Damien with a flashbang, he rushes into the fight. As the stunning effect wears off, Dan quickly overpowers the heavily injured R. Kelly and breaks his arm. As Dan leans down to finish off his opponent, Roland pulls the pin out of another grenade with his good arm and sets it off mere inches from Dans face. Roland uses this moment of respite to roll away from Dan, scrabbling on the ground looking for anything to use as a weapon, terrified that hes about to miss his shot at getting into heaven. As Dan descends upon him wielding a hockey stick (which Roland hallucinates as being a giant scythe), Rolands hands happen upon the syringe that Dan used to kill Edgar Judah earlier. He injects air into Dans veins, causing him to collapse before Roland disarms him and again, brutally executes Damien Carter-Madison for the third time.
Roland then hallucinates a brief conversation with Lucifer who tells him that he never had a chance to get into heaven, and that hes been in hell this whole time. Roland accepts this surprisingly easily. Soon forgetting about the seemingly earth-shattering revelation that he had just received, he proceeds to create a makeshift splint for his broken arm out from the aforementioned hockey stick and exits the hospital with Damiens stun gun.
His next thread begins with Peter Rosenthal and Andi Ayala having an extremely awkward sex scene before killing themselves. Drawn into the house by the sound of gunshots, Roland looks upon the two bodies before him with disgust, not because the two characters are dead, but because Roland considers gay people to be freaks of nature. He grabs the gun that they had shot themselves with and quickly exits the scene without much reflection, following a trail of blood splatters which he assumes is a marker sent by God to tell him where to go next.
The trail leads him to the edge of a cliff, and Roland reacts with frustration at the dead end. He throws his weapons over the edge, concluding that Damien has been killed for good, and, despite this, God has no intention of letting him into heaven. This is supposed to be a massive shock, but if falls flat because we found this out about this two threads ago and Roland didnt seem to care. Unsure of what to do next, Roland contemplates suicide, the pain of his wounds continuing to dog him. After a rather long songpost, Roland concludes that there must be another way for him to get into heaven, and leaves to go search for it.
After he leaves the cliffs, Roland comes upon the real Damien Carter-Madison, seemingly back from the dead for the third time. Roland immediately forgets about everything that happened in the previous thread and shifts back to believing that hes in purgatory again. The two of them have a surprisingly calm and relaxed conversation, considering that the subject matter is mocking the students who have already died, followed by an agreement that only one of them will be able to leave this encounter alive. They agree to square off and fight, and before Roland can finish his final sentence, Damien pulls out his revolver and blows Rolands head off. R. Kelly dies, feeling at peace with himself despite the fact that until now he had accepted that Damien murdering him would send him on a one-way trip to hell. The parts of the post written from Rolands point of view are rather shallow and uninteresting, confirming the fact that his only purpose on this island was to be little more than an NPC within Damiens story.
Overall, I was massively disappointed by Roland Kelly. His story didnt start out too bad, really. He was kind of an asshole, and aware of that fact as he started to proceed down the beginnings of what could have been an interesting character arc. Unfortunately, this is then ruined by him going insane at basically the flip of a switch and spending the rest of his story obsessed with another one of his handlers characters. My recommendation is to read his first two island threads, and just pretend that he died at the moment his death tag comes up in the second one. His character arc is still cut disappointingly short, but at least you wont have to be subjected to the remaining story, which makes very little sense and contradicts itself many, many times, for the sole purpose of pimping how great Damien Carter-Madison is.
Alrighty, time for another character! Thankfully we've almost reached the final five.
The V2 Read-o-thon
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
These kids just get shorter and shorter! Well, I mean, this guy's technically not very short, at six feet tall, but you know what I mean. He's another guy who got inactive killed, this time by Bryan. Let's just jump right into it now, shall we?
Jordan McKieman is a seventeen year old kid from Franklin High, and he can't decide what exactly he wants out of the things he does for fun, even though he is somehow good at all of them yet still doesn't stick to one thing for very long. He's apparently good looking, though of average build, which somehow doesn't really make too much sense to me but I'll take it. I'm just glad that he isn't younger than me, like the last few kids.
His mother "wears the pants" in the family, as a successful trial lawyer, while his father is a washed-up former musician from whom Jordan gets the majority of his personality. His dabbling in interests leads to a reputation as someone that's good at everything, which leads to many challenging him at whatever hobby they choose, eventually boring Jordan to the point where he just throws whatever competition they choose. The most fitting conclusion about this kid is just that he doesn't apply himself, and that he has the capability to do whatever he wants, but chooses not to because it's all just too much work, or something.
His advantages are that he doesn't get attached to stuff, and that he has a lot of skills. His disadvantages are that he gives up easily and doesn't follow through.
The weapon he gets assigned? Goggles.
I can already tell that this is going to be something of an uneventful ride.
Jordan's first thread, and first post, are the only things done by his original handler, OnceForgotten. He wanders over to the ranch, musing on how quiet everything is, and investigates the building. However, when he sees someone else, he panics, but steels himself to meet someone else. After all, sneaking everywhere can only last so long, he realizes, and goes over to the meet them at the entrance to the barn. This post shows some promise, but it was promise not to be fulfilled, as from here on out Jordan is given to Cyco, as his handler goes inactive and never returns.
We next see Jordan in the record store at the mall, while Tori and Bryan walk around. In a flashback, Jordan decides to turn tail and walk away after hearing the confrontation inside of the barn, and ever since then he's been hiding out and waiting for everything to blow over. However, he hears noises, noticing Bryan's footsteps, and walks over to the corner, seeing that Bryan carries a shotgun. He's content with just leaving the area until he spots Tori, whom he speed walks towards vigorously, dropping his backpack. Tori doesn't bother to look, thinks that Bryan is the one running towards her, and promptly freaks out when she notices that this isn't her companion. He goes in for the kill, wrapping a hand around her neck, as we get another flashback to his walk to the mall, as he searched for a weapon to replace his goggles and hears a gunshot. I like this method of handling the inactivity - flashing back to the time between threads in an attempt to establish a more cohesive narrative link is welcome, I feel.
He reaches out for a blade on a nearby counter, but Tori manages to elbow free and get to it before him, slashing his ankle out. Jordan falls, but pulls himself up on the counter. Unfortunately for himself, Tori is waiting, and tears his mouth open with her knife, Jordan grasping at the bleeding parts of himself, screaming one last desperate war cry, trying to rally his body for one last lunge, only for Bryan to arrive and shoot him square in the leg. He falls, his mangled leg giving out, and breaks his neck when he hits the ground.
That was quicker than I expected. I could count how many posts this guy had on two hands. I do think that Cyco handled him pretty well, though. Don't know how much I'd recommend him alone, but he's still a decently enough written kid, and a good example of inactivity done well in V2, so on those grounds I think he's worth comparing to someone whose inactivity wasn't handled the best.
Last hurrah! Fight to the finish! One more kid!
Jordan McKieman is a seventeen year old kid from Franklin High, and he can't decide what exactly he wants out of the things he does for fun, even though he is somehow good at all of them yet still doesn't stick to one thing for very long. He's apparently good looking, though of average build, which somehow doesn't really make too much sense to me but I'll take it. I'm just glad that he isn't younger than me, like the last few kids.
His mother "wears the pants" in the family, as a successful trial lawyer, while his father is a washed-up former musician from whom Jordan gets the majority of his personality. His dabbling in interests leads to a reputation as someone that's good at everything, which leads to many challenging him at whatever hobby they choose, eventually boring Jordan to the point where he just throws whatever competition they choose. The most fitting conclusion about this kid is just that he doesn't apply himself, and that he has the capability to do whatever he wants, but chooses not to because it's all just too much work, or something.
His advantages are that he doesn't get attached to stuff, and that he has a lot of skills. His disadvantages are that he gives up easily and doesn't follow through.
The weapon he gets assigned? Goggles.
I can already tell that this is going to be something of an uneventful ride.
Jordan's first thread, and first post, are the only things done by his original handler, OnceForgotten. He wanders over to the ranch, musing on how quiet everything is, and investigates the building. However, when he sees someone else, he panics, but steels himself to meet someone else. After all, sneaking everywhere can only last so long, he realizes, and goes over to the meet them at the entrance to the barn. This post shows some promise, but it was promise not to be fulfilled, as from here on out Jordan is given to Cyco, as his handler goes inactive and never returns.
We next see Jordan in the record store at the mall, while Tori and Bryan walk around. In a flashback, Jordan decides to turn tail and walk away after hearing the confrontation inside of the barn, and ever since then he's been hiding out and waiting for everything to blow over. However, he hears noises, noticing Bryan's footsteps, and walks over to the corner, seeing that Bryan carries a shotgun. He's content with just leaving the area until he spots Tori, whom he speed walks towards vigorously, dropping his backpack. Tori doesn't bother to look, thinks that Bryan is the one running towards her, and promptly freaks out when she notices that this isn't her companion. He goes in for the kill, wrapping a hand around her neck, as we get another flashback to his walk to the mall, as he searched for a weapon to replace his goggles and hears a gunshot. I like this method of handling the inactivity - flashing back to the time between threads in an attempt to establish a more cohesive narrative link is welcome, I feel.
He reaches out for a blade on a nearby counter, but Tori manages to elbow free and get to it before him, slashing his ankle out. Jordan falls, but pulls himself up on the counter. Unfortunately for himself, Tori is waiting, and tears his mouth open with her knife, Jordan grasping at the bleeding parts of himself, screaming one last desperate war cry, trying to rally his body for one last lunge, only for Bryan to arrive and shoot him square in the leg. He falls, his mangled leg giving out, and breaks his neck when he hits the ground.
That was quicker than I expected. I could count how many posts this guy had on two hands. I do think that Cyco handled him pretty well, though. Don't know how much I'd recommend him alone, but he's still a decently enough written kid, and a good example of inactivity done well in V2, so on those grounds I think he's worth comparing to someone whose inactivity wasn't handled the best.
Last hurrah! Fight to the finish! One more kid!
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
ugh fineRuggahissy - Today at 1:01 PM
to see this to the end with us
this is your fault
gimme another
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
kermit got Burton.
KermittimreK - Today at 12:04 PM
Me too, Kevin, me too
OH MY GOD BURTON YES
KermittimreK - Today at 12:04 PM
Me too, Kevin, me too
OH MY GOD BURTON YES
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
Kevin Kapustiak wasn't really much of a character, in my opinion.
Most of his hobbies aren't even mentioned in his profile, and his advantage of being good in street fights pretty much comes out of nowhere. He also has no pregame, so we can jump straight into the island.
Kevin just seems to wander from one place to another without much purpose. He doesn't have a particularly strong voice, either. Also, he refers to himself as "The Wolf" in his first and last threads despite there being no mention of him having a nickname anywhere in his profile, much less being referred to as "The Wolf". In fact, Kevin's most notable quality is the fact that he suddenly starts thinking about burgers multiple times during his journey, which is somewhat amusing.
In Kevin's last thread, he switches handlers, and his personality changes entirely. Now all of a sudden he is incredibly foulmouthed and aggressive, and offers sex with Sera Wingfeld as a prize if Matt Drew manages to kill him, which is pretty gross. Kevin gets overconfident and dies when Matt's friend Rob shoots him in the back of the head, and that is that.
Kevin was never a stellar character, but the personality switch that came when he switched handlers pretty much wrecked what character he had. It's just to jarring for the guy who was just thinking about how Heaven is a land of infinite burgers to suddenly be offering a woman as a wager for a fight to the death. It's just too inconsistent, and I can't recommend him.
Another character, if you please.
Most of his hobbies aren't even mentioned in his profile, and his advantage of being good in street fights pretty much comes out of nowhere. He also has no pregame, so we can jump straight into the island.
Kevin just seems to wander from one place to another without much purpose. He doesn't have a particularly strong voice, either. Also, he refers to himself as "The Wolf" in his first and last threads despite there being no mention of him having a nickname anywhere in his profile, much less being referred to as "The Wolf". In fact, Kevin's most notable quality is the fact that he suddenly starts thinking about burgers multiple times during his journey, which is somewhat amusing.
In Kevin's last thread, he switches handlers, and his personality changes entirely. Now all of a sudden he is incredibly foulmouthed and aggressive, and offers sex with Sera Wingfeld as a prize if Matt Drew manages to kill him, which is pretty gross. Kevin gets overconfident and dies when Matt's friend Rob shoots him in the back of the head, and that is that.
Kevin was never a stellar character, but the personality switch that came when he switched handlers pretty much wrecked what character he had. It's just to jarring for the guy who was just thinking about how Heaven is a land of infinite burgers to suddenly be offering a woman as a wager for a fight to the death. It's just too inconsistent, and I can't recommend him.
Another character, if you please.
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
Burton Harris, AKA. Ken Lawrence, AKA. Kenurton Larris, is an amazing read. He's got some confusing and convoluted plot related to V3 which I won't talk about because this is the V2 RAT. Also, he's not the real Burton Harris. I think I'll be calling Kenurton "The Nurtmeister" in this writeup. Also Also he's written by Dodd.
Profile:
TLDR of his appearance: HE LOOKS LIKE A DIRTY COMMIE HIPPY *insert Nixonesque rambling here*
The Nurtmeister is a very smart boy. He scores off the charts on IQ tests, but does not do so on school tests. Because The Nurtmeister is a very smart boy, school bores him and he just doesn't give a shit. He likes writing, though. The Nurtmeister writes an advice column in the school newspaper where he masquerades as a 14-year-old girl. I am concerned by this behavior.
The Nurtmeister is basically always high on marijuana, and the school is okay with this for some reason. Also, he always keeps a cool head, even in like the most traumatic circumstances.
Pregame: IT'S A MYSTERY!
Island: So, uh, I guess Xaldien's handling The Nurtmeister now. Rip Dodd.
Also he's in a DZ and heeeeeeeereeeee's Chiaki! The Nurtmeister points his gun at Chiaki for no reason while she's running the heck out of the DZ and then tackles her. Why? Why did u do that The Nurtmeister?
First off, Chiaki creamed. Ew. Icky! Barffff! Gross, Chiaki. I knew you were into murderviolence, but not like that. Two, does "Stupid woman, what the hell are you talking about." sound like something The Nurtmeister as described in his profile would say? No, I don't think it does.
Chiaki punches The Nurtmeister in the face and grabs her gun. Then, Chiaki begins to run away from The Nurtmeister because she's in a DZ and her collar's beeping, but The Nurtmeister fucking tackles her again. The Nurtmeister, do u know how this whole SOTF thing works?
Chiaki shoots The Nurtmeister in the dick (SO MANY GENITAL MUTILATIONS V2! CALM DOWN!), and then she punches him in the face again for some reason. Chiaki fucks off and The Nurtmeister's collar explodes.
Conclusion: WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!
Profile:
TLDR of his appearance: HE LOOKS LIKE A DIRTY COMMIE HIPPY *insert Nixonesque rambling here*
The Nurtmeister is a very smart boy. He scores off the charts on IQ tests, but does not do so on school tests. Because The Nurtmeister is a very smart boy, school bores him and he just doesn't give a shit. He likes writing, though. The Nurtmeister writes an advice column in the school newspaper where he masquerades as a 14-year-old girl. I am concerned by this behavior.
YES THANK YOU BLESSED DODD! Also The Nurtmeister wrote a play based on V1. Okaaaaaaay...The Nurtmeister's profile wrote:Burton doesn't have any crazy idiosyncratic tendancies, he's not a maniac, he's not a sociopath
The Nurtmeister is basically always high on marijuana, and the school is okay with this for some reason. Also, he always keeps a cool head, even in like the most traumatic circumstances.
Pregame: IT'S A MYSTERY!
Island: So, uh, I guess Xaldien's handling The Nurtmeister now. Rip Dodd.
: )The Nurtmeister's first thoughts wrote:I could really use some weed right about now.
Also he's in a DZ and heeeeeeeereeeee's Chiaki! The Nurtmeister points his gun at Chiaki for no reason while she's running the heck out of the DZ and then tackles her. Why? Why did u do that The Nurtmeister?
Hm, so, okay...Actual conversation between The Nurtmeister and Chiaki after the tackle wrote:"You fucking idiot, let me get away from here," she creamed as she struggled and punched to get him off of her.
"Stupid woman, what the hell are you talking about."
First off, Chiaki creamed. Ew. Icky! Barffff! Gross, Chiaki. I knew you were into murderviolence, but not like that. Two, does "Stupid woman, what the hell are you talking about." sound like something The Nurtmeister as described in his profile would say? No, I don't think it does.
Chiaki punches The Nurtmeister in the face and grabs her gun. Then, Chiaki begins to run away from The Nurtmeister because she's in a DZ and her collar's beeping, but The Nurtmeister fucking tackles her again. The Nurtmeister, do u know how this whole SOTF thing works?
Christ on a bike, The Nurtmeister, you've really got a problem. You've gotta stop injecting those marijuanas, dude.The Nurtmeister's thoughts again wrote:His regular cool started to fade away. Where's weed when you need it?
Chiaki shoots The Nurtmeister in the dick (SO MANY GENITAL MUTILATIONS V2! CALM DOWN!), and then she punches him in the face again for some reason. Chiaki fucks off and The Nurtmeister's collar explodes.
THE END!The Nurtmeister's last words wrote:"Fuck... I need wee-"
Conclusion: WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
((I'm gonna go ahead and slap a Trigger Warning for Sexual Violence, Nonconsent, and Genital Mutilation up top here))
I actually really enjoy Zachary's profile. There are moments where it's a little try-hardy and goes overboard from what we'd consider standard these days, but it's about being really good at vidya games rather than, say, being a military sharpshooter or the world's expert in experimental new wave parkour so I'm down to give it a pass. I like the details of including aliases like IM names and such, it brings a personal flair and sells his involvement in the online/gaming scene. I also really like the little description of his voice that's given at the end of his appearance, I'm sure there are other profiles that have done this but this is the first time I've noticed it and while I'd love to have a more thorough description it's something that's lowkey really smart. I'm definitely gonna be stealing that for future profiles.
Pre-game's not too notable for him. One thread that's mostly him paling around with Nich and Andrew after a couple other people appear and vanish without explanation. The thread never concluded, but one thing I do like here is that it reinforces the nature of Zachary as a punching bag and a dude who takes a lot of pain. It's something that's mentioned in his profile as relevant and he keeps on selling it in this thread by having Zed biff it and fail throughout, which provides further excuse for some of the try-hardiness in the profile. There's a real average skater punk vibe to the whole thing and I have no idea how accurate any of the terminology or descriptions are because lol I can't even ride a bike, but at least as far as the conversational/attitude vibe goes Laz does pretty okay here, I'm into it.
Welcome to the Jungle has a NC-17 tag on it. I didn't know what to expect from that going in. Zed's got a classic wake-up sequence with some memories of being kidnapped and convinces himself the whole thing is a game. It's a weird jump, to be honest, and I don't think it works as well as the moments where he thinks this is real. The blue text Laz uses for his thoughts is also suuuuper grating on evolution, unfortunately, so I guess I'm getting used to that.
"((The BS in BSOD doesn't mean Blue Screen, if you get what I mean.
)"<---This is my favorite OOC text note I've ever read and I'm legitimately disappointed that NAFT never parodied this one when he was doing Weiss. Fukn missed opportunities, folks.
Okay. Sidebar here. I...kinda love the start of this scene. Like, a lot. It's cringey and awkward and no one is happy and that all just sort of works for what's happening. There's some extremely uncomfortable issues of consent that I think could have been handled much, much better, but this is an ugly scene. I don't appreciate Zed's complete shift in tone as things continue because I feel it's stereotypical and problematic as all hell, but some of the ideas at play in the beginning here are pretty obvious issues that would come up in a game like this that we tend to steer away from as a sight and it's framed way, way better than I expected it to be. Where the scene really starts to stumble is about the time the actual dick-munching takes place. There's a lot of flailing in the narrative but honestly Zed plays it off a lot easier than I'd expect and it makes the whole thing kinda difficult to take seriously. Less genital mutilation, more that scene in 21 Jump Street where the guy gets his dick shot off. I mean...dude slathers Neosporin all over his open bloody wound. Don't do that kids. That's a very bad idea. The execution just isn't there on this one.
Ignoring that, I also quite like the dynamic that Zachary and Nich have in this thread, and there's some decent payoff to the videogame theming that's going on with the "You Found: Cat's Claw!" and "Nich Joined Your Team" thoughts that pop up here. I would have liked to see more of this before now, but it justifies the turn, and if it wasn't for all the physical pain I could even buy in that that's why Zed's taking having his dick bit off so comparatively well. The cheeky bit in Improvising about the lack of background music being eerie is another good thought for this theme. I think it helps his aggressiveness in Don't Panic, though I wish we could have seen A and B line up a little more directly because I feel like the implication is that Zed is still in video game mode and is playing to win and that's not 100% clear until the latter half of this thread. I also think he belabors talking about "save-points" way too much. It starts off kinda funny and then just keeps cropping up every post or two. Maybe it pays off in the future, we'll see.
""Al- most- done...AAGH!" It was becoming impossible to tell if Zed was either or both of reeling from or enjoying what he was doing."<---I'm leaving this line of Zed trying to patch up the gaping hole where his dick used to be here because I don't have the words to discuss how I feel about it and I just, I just need people to know it happened, okay? Okay.
"Stay calm...it's not like they'd have out-and-out yaoi in video games these days...it's probably going to be censored like that Hot Coffee thing..."<---Also this. I dunno where Zed's latent bicuriosity is supposed to stem from but it jumps out of nowhere in Pale Shelter. It's kind of interesting in a way and I'd like to have seen it elaborated on as more than a physical comedy goof because "consequence-free videogame as space to explore my sexuality" is a decent plot thread that I could have gotten on board with, but unfortunately it seems like it was just played for laughs, which is another problematic element of Zachary's story. It continues on into his death, which...man, V2 culture is weird about multiple characters from the same handler meeting, OOC notes, all that jazz, and Stopping For The Night is a mash-up of exactly why I'm glad we've moved on from that for the most part as a site because I find it very difficult to read and keep track of, there's just too much.
All in all, Zach's pretty readable and has moments where his story is very interesting! It's full of problematic issues mainly around his relationship with Andrew there at the end and the initial scene with Venus, but there's some good stuff in here and I particularly like how he played most of the videogame stuff. There's a lot of room for improvement but I mean, just based on how much I wrote going through him I'd say there's a lot to dissect here and that makes him worth reading. I'd recommend him for learning purposes alone and I think you'll have an alright to decent time along the way as well.
I actually really enjoy Zachary's profile. There are moments where it's a little try-hardy and goes overboard from what we'd consider standard these days, but it's about being really good at vidya games rather than, say, being a military sharpshooter or the world's expert in experimental new wave parkour so I'm down to give it a pass. I like the details of including aliases like IM names and such, it brings a personal flair and sells his involvement in the online/gaming scene. I also really like the little description of his voice that's given at the end of his appearance, I'm sure there are other profiles that have done this but this is the first time I've noticed it and while I'd love to have a more thorough description it's something that's lowkey really smart. I'm definitely gonna be stealing that for future profiles.
Pre-game's not too notable for him. One thread that's mostly him paling around with Nich and Andrew after a couple other people appear and vanish without explanation. The thread never concluded, but one thing I do like here is that it reinforces the nature of Zachary as a punching bag and a dude who takes a lot of pain. It's something that's mentioned in his profile as relevant and he keeps on selling it in this thread by having Zed biff it and fail throughout, which provides further excuse for some of the try-hardiness in the profile. There's a real average skater punk vibe to the whole thing and I have no idea how accurate any of the terminology or descriptions are because lol I can't even ride a bike, but at least as far as the conversational/attitude vibe goes Laz does pretty okay here, I'm into it.
Welcome to the Jungle has a NC-17 tag on it. I didn't know what to expect from that going in. Zed's got a classic wake-up sequence with some memories of being kidnapped and convinces himself the whole thing is a game. It's a weird jump, to be honest, and I don't think it works as well as the moments where he thinks this is real. The blue text Laz uses for his thoughts is also suuuuper grating on evolution, unfortunately, so I guess I'm getting used to that.
"((The BS in BSOD doesn't mean Blue Screen, if you get what I mean.
)"<---This is my favorite OOC text note I've ever read and I'm legitimately disappointed that NAFT never parodied this one when he was doing Weiss. Fukn missed opportunities, folks.Okay. Sidebar here. I...kinda love the start of this scene. Like, a lot. It's cringey and awkward and no one is happy and that all just sort of works for what's happening. There's some extremely uncomfortable issues of consent that I think could have been handled much, much better, but this is an ugly scene. I don't appreciate Zed's complete shift in tone as things continue because I feel it's stereotypical and problematic as all hell, but some of the ideas at play in the beginning here are pretty obvious issues that would come up in a game like this that we tend to steer away from as a sight and it's framed way, way better than I expected it to be. Where the scene really starts to stumble is about the time the actual dick-munching takes place. There's a lot of flailing in the narrative but honestly Zed plays it off a lot easier than I'd expect and it makes the whole thing kinda difficult to take seriously. Less genital mutilation, more that scene in 21 Jump Street where the guy gets his dick shot off. I mean...dude slathers Neosporin all over his open bloody wound. Don't do that kids. That's a very bad idea. The execution just isn't there on this one.
Ignoring that, I also quite like the dynamic that Zachary and Nich have in this thread, and there's some decent payoff to the videogame theming that's going on with the "You Found: Cat's Claw!" and "Nich Joined Your Team" thoughts that pop up here. I would have liked to see more of this before now, but it justifies the turn, and if it wasn't for all the physical pain I could even buy in that that's why Zed's taking having his dick bit off so comparatively well. The cheeky bit in Improvising about the lack of background music being eerie is another good thought for this theme. I think it helps his aggressiveness in Don't Panic, though I wish we could have seen A and B line up a little more directly because I feel like the implication is that Zed is still in video game mode and is playing to win and that's not 100% clear until the latter half of this thread. I also think he belabors talking about "save-points" way too much. It starts off kinda funny and then just keeps cropping up every post or two. Maybe it pays off in the future, we'll see.
""Al- most- done...AAGH!" It was becoming impossible to tell if Zed was either or both of reeling from or enjoying what he was doing."<---I'm leaving this line of Zed trying to patch up the gaping hole where his dick used to be here because I don't have the words to discuss how I feel about it and I just, I just need people to know it happened, okay? Okay.
"Stay calm...it's not like they'd have out-and-out yaoi in video games these days...it's probably going to be censored like that Hot Coffee thing..."<---Also this. I dunno where Zed's latent bicuriosity is supposed to stem from but it jumps out of nowhere in Pale Shelter. It's kind of interesting in a way and I'd like to have seen it elaborated on as more than a physical comedy goof because "consequence-free videogame as space to explore my sexuality" is a decent plot thread that I could have gotten on board with, but unfortunately it seems like it was just played for laughs, which is another problematic element of Zachary's story. It continues on into his death, which...man, V2 culture is weird about multiple characters from the same handler meeting, OOC notes, all that jazz, and Stopping For The Night is a mash-up of exactly why I'm glad we've moved on from that for the most part as a site because I find it very difficult to read and keep track of, there's just too much.
All in all, Zach's pretty readable and has moments where his story is very interesting! It's full of problematic issues mainly around his relationship with Andrew there at the end and the initial scene with Venus, but there's some good stuff in here and I particularly like how he played most of the videogame stuff. There's a lot of room for improvement but I mean, just based on how much I wrote going through him I'd say there's a lot to dissect here and that makes him worth reading. I'd recommend him for learning purposes alone and I think you'll have an alright to decent time along the way as well.
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
Okay, I finished reading the threads Alice Nichols was a part of. I'm going to be honest, Alice's story was kind of boring. All I learned about her was that she was considered ugly, had raven hair, and is of Russian/Chinese mixed race. Although, it is hard to expect anything from a character that only appeared in two threads total. In those two threads, she met Matthew Lafferty, then abruptly left like a scene was missing, and then come upon the slaughterhouse where she used her frisbee as a decoy against Roland Kelly. What stood out to me was her death scene. During her death, Roland hallucinated that she was Damien. The hallucination was highlighted in yellow text, which is a nice stylistic choice.
So, all in all, Alice was a short, uneventful read. Would not recommend.
So, all in all, Alice was a short, uneventful read. Would not recommend.
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
Gregg Archer is one half of a love story plotted out by Megami and Riserugu. Ali Grayston is the queen bee of Bathurst High, and she's secretly in love with her childhood friend Gregg Archer, who goes to Franklin and is unaware of Ali's mean girl tendencies or of her feelings for him. I think the two handlers wanted Ali/Gregg to be one of the big stories of V2, a romance for the ages. it didn't end up that way.
Gregg himself is a pretty down-to-earth guy. He's nice, humble, athletic, intelligent, artistic... maybe he's a bit too much of a dreamboat, but he comes off as a normal guy who's a bit too dense to realize that his best friend is, as today's cool kids would say, "Thirsty AF". He's the more submissive one in the relationship, and he has absolutely nothing going on outside of Ali. She's the protagonist and he's the love interest. That doesn't make him a bad character of course, I like how Riserugu writes him. However, there's problems.
Gregg's pregame consists of one outing with Ali that's stretched over 2 1/2 threads. They go to the mall, go to a restaurant, decide to watch a movie, etc. It's boring as hell. Every post in the thread is around 2,000 words, mostly consisting of the characters dwelling on insignificant nonsense. How will Gregg cope with eating at a fancy restaurant? Will Ali's NPC ex-fling tell Gregg about their relationship? What movie will Gregg choose to have them watch? If you care about the answers to these riveting questions, read Gregg's pregame (except for the movie thing, we never learn what movie Gregg picked, they make me read about it for a fucking eternity and never reveal the result). All of this normal life stuff wouldn't be a problem if it really helped develop the characters, but it doesn't. You can learn everything important about Ali and Gregg by reading the first few posts of the first thread, beyond that it's just retreading the same characters traits over and over in a painfully slow manner. It doesn't have an ending, either, it just drones on until it stops mid-scene.
Okay, wow, the game. That's important, too. Gregg's first two threads in-game are the only threads where he's without Ali. They're pointless. He's just searching for Ali while having short and shallow interactions with Tori and Seth Malvice. In his third thread, he reunites with Ali, which is nice and all, but this is where it really starts to fall apart.
Ali and Gregg only have two threads after this. Riserugu leaves the site and Gregg is adopted by Megami. She does a decent job at writing him, and with Gregg and Ali now being written by the same handler, their story is told in only half of the words! Hooray! They run into everyone's favorite Marivarella Variavel, and in the confrontation Ali's mean girl history revealed in the open. It's all coming to a head pretty quickly. She gets herself shot, and Gregg carries her to the school, where he meets Beth. Suddenly, it just comes to an explosive conclusion. Beth hears a loud noise and runs, and in the very next post Gregg and Ali are incinerated when the school's furnace explodes (which happened because a nearby inactive kill, whatever). in the seconds before they're killed, Ali wakes up but can barely move. Gregg decides to stay and die rather than abandon her. Ali kisses him, he reciprocates, then... poof! They're gone.
As much as I've complained about post length, it's only really a problem in pregame. The in-game posts are still bloated, but they're shorter and have more going on. Gregg is a good character, and what I've seen of Ali is pretty good as well. The biggest problem is that the grand love story set up between Ali and Gregg in peters out and ends suddenly once they meet on the island. It's not a satisfying story. It's clear that OOC issues crippled the Ali/Gregg story. Riserugu stopped posting and Megami was left to handle Ali and Gregg while dealing with a million other problems as the only person holding the site together. She wrapped their story up in a sudden end because she just didn't want to deal with them anymore. Or maybe they were just rolled, I didn't check.
Gregg and Ali are victims to one of V2's biggest problems. Everyone had really big plans for their characters, but almost none of them came to fruition. The version is full of wasted potential and miserable ends to promising characters. Don't read Gregg Archer or Ali Grayston, it's a waste of time. If for some reason you want to read them after reading this, just follow Ali. Ali seems to have some more stuff going on by herself, and Ali is in all of Gregg's threads aside from two short, pointless ones.
Gregg himself is a pretty down-to-earth guy. He's nice, humble, athletic, intelligent, artistic... maybe he's a bit too much of a dreamboat, but he comes off as a normal guy who's a bit too dense to realize that his best friend is, as today's cool kids would say, "Thirsty AF". He's the more submissive one in the relationship, and he has absolutely nothing going on outside of Ali. She's the protagonist and he's the love interest. That doesn't make him a bad character of course, I like how Riserugu writes him. However, there's problems.
Gregg's pregame consists of one outing with Ali that's stretched over 2 1/2 threads. They go to the mall, go to a restaurant, decide to watch a movie, etc. It's boring as hell. Every post in the thread is around 2,000 words, mostly consisting of the characters dwelling on insignificant nonsense. How will Gregg cope with eating at a fancy restaurant? Will Ali's NPC ex-fling tell Gregg about their relationship? What movie will Gregg choose to have them watch? If you care about the answers to these riveting questions, read Gregg's pregame (except for the movie thing, we never learn what movie Gregg picked, they make me read about it for a fucking eternity and never reveal the result). All of this normal life stuff wouldn't be a problem if it really helped develop the characters, but it doesn't. You can learn everything important about Ali and Gregg by reading the first few posts of the first thread, beyond that it's just retreading the same characters traits over and over in a painfully slow manner. It doesn't have an ending, either, it just drones on until it stops mid-scene.
Okay, wow, the game. That's important, too. Gregg's first two threads in-game are the only threads where he's without Ali. They're pointless. He's just searching for Ali while having short and shallow interactions with Tori and Seth Malvice. In his third thread, he reunites with Ali, which is nice and all, but this is where it really starts to fall apart.
Ali and Gregg only have two threads after this. Riserugu leaves the site and Gregg is adopted by Megami. She does a decent job at writing him, and with Gregg and Ali now being written by the same handler, their story is told in only half of the words! Hooray! They run into everyone's favorite Marivarella Variavel, and in the confrontation Ali's mean girl history revealed in the open. It's all coming to a head pretty quickly. She gets herself shot, and Gregg carries her to the school, where he meets Beth. Suddenly, it just comes to an explosive conclusion. Beth hears a loud noise and runs, and in the very next post Gregg and Ali are incinerated when the school's furnace explodes (which happened because a nearby inactive kill, whatever). in the seconds before they're killed, Ali wakes up but can barely move. Gregg decides to stay and die rather than abandon her. Ali kisses him, he reciprocates, then... poof! They're gone.
As much as I've complained about post length, it's only really a problem in pregame. The in-game posts are still bloated, but they're shorter and have more going on. Gregg is a good character, and what I've seen of Ali is pretty good as well. The biggest problem is that the grand love story set up between Ali and Gregg in peters out and ends suddenly once they meet on the island. It's not a satisfying story. It's clear that OOC issues crippled the Ali/Gregg story. Riserugu stopped posting and Megami was left to handle Ali and Gregg while dealing with a million other problems as the only person holding the site together. She wrapped their story up in a sudden end because she just didn't want to deal with them anymore. Or maybe they were just rolled, I didn't check.
Gregg and Ali are victims to one of V2's biggest problems. Everyone had really big plans for their characters, but almost none of them came to fruition. The version is full of wasted potential and miserable ends to promising characters. Don't read Gregg Archer or Ali Grayston, it's a waste of time. If for some reason you want to read them after reading this, just follow Ali. Ali seems to have some more stuff going on by herself, and Ali is in all of Gregg's threads aside from two short, pointless ones.
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
Sorry for taking so long, but I'm reading through Jenna now. Here are my, uh... 'thoughts' (man, wish I could turn my brain off for this).
Jenna has a single thread in the 'distant past' section... sorta. It's a single post by Chase and I read it, then instantly forgot it, then went back and re-read it because it's just such a nothing piece of information that tells me absolutely nothing about the character. It's also not truly a piece of Jenna herself because it wasn't written by the author. Moving on to pre-game.
Oh, but before I go too crazy, let's call attention to Jenna's profile, which is a work of art much in the same way Okalani's was. Her interests are 'The Hellbirds, not much else', which is instantly painting a picture of this character in my head. And the picture is a single line, because that's one-dimensional as fuck. The appearance doesn't do any favors either, with lines such as "... the girl has a rather interesting caboose, that if anyone noticed under her baggy cargo capris they would be castrated" and "First to notice Jenna's pointed nose would get decked in a minute". We get it. She's violent. The biography backs this up by turning her into nothing but a thug in one of the billion gangs apparently filling New Jersey. The only service the bio actually does to her is point out that she's nothing more than a teenage stereotype, a "ne'er do well."
Jenna has, for a V2 character, a decent amount of threads with four pre-game threads and four proper game threads. The first is "How many ways can you define the word 'cow'?", which has a whooooole lot of... something going on. Jenna pops in for a two-post drive-by calling Mariavel a whore, then entering the bathroom... which is where 'Bank on this, Bitch' takes us. You know how sometimes kids have profiles that are a complete mismatch to a character's actions? This is NOT one of those. CATFIGHT, CATFIIIIIIIIGHT!
Ahem.
I thought reading Jenna would have to be the most painful thing I do today, and this is the same day I got a huge blister on my index finger during band practice. Unfortunately, I also have to read Mariavel. Two posts into this thread and I honestly want to call it quits, but instead, let's make it fun: let's tally up all the times somebody should have totally died in this fight but didn't, or does something quite unlikely in the realm of possibility.
1. Mariavel is thrown full-tilt into a bathroom stall and crashes head first into the toilet seat. Dead.
2. Jenna slips off her jacket in between the time it takes Mariavel to come rushing out of the stall (she's already on her way out before Jenna even starts) and to meet her mid-charge, then holds it out like a matador, complete with a shout of 'ole'. Yes, she really does this.
3. In the same breath, Jenna grabs Mariavel's hair and stomps on the rear of the girl's knee, but Mariavel completely no-sells it- nae, LAUGHS IT OFF, claiming that her hair has been pulled out so many times (presumably by her abusive father) that it doesn't even faze her. She then sweeps Jenna's legs.
4. While falling to the ground, Jenna somehow kicks Mariavel in the chest, comes up behind her and locks her in a full nelson.
5. Mariavel manages to headbutt Jenna. While in a full nelson.
6. Jenna manages to lift a toilet seat while locking Mariavel in a full nelson. Psychic powers confirmed.
7. Mariavel's arm is twisted behind her back but she goes for a knife anyway, to 'plunge it into Jenna's arm'. Jenna is only scratched.
8. Jenna slams the seat down on Mariavel's head and stomps on her ankle.
9. Mariavel gets up moments later, acknowledging she'll 'have bruises'.
Now, if I have a reputation as SotF's fight scene guru, allow me to dispense my full analysis of that fight scene: it fucking stunk on ice. Mariavel leaves to go back to "Cow" but Jenna enters a thread called "Down the Stairs Your Ride Awaits", which is unfortunately lost on the Invisionfree site but exists in some fragments in the Distant Past section. In this glorious piece of world building, we meet about Alex Stevens, a character central in Jenna's story (in pregame at least) and the leader of the Hellbirds, the gang she's in. We learn through Alex that Denton is apparently sharing a universe with 'The Warriors' as the area is positively riddled with gangs for miles around. They're even themed!
"He'd much rather go north of his turf with some other Hellbirds and bash up some Jackals, or south to tangle with the Prophets (a Christian gang that dressed in priest robes and shaved their heads, they killed anyone who wasn't Christian or did anything they considered "ungodly". They mainly used knives and guns, but the biggest member of the gang-appropriately nicknamed Goliath by his fellow Prophets, as he was over seven feet tall and all muscle- often used a bike chain as a weapon, and it wasn't unheard of for them to agree to a simple fistfight, as had happened about a year prior in a territory dispute."
Holy shit, a gang of preachers, and they're led by the gang version of Big Show!? That sounds badass! The Bloody Fists sound like total pissants compared to any of these hotshots. At least, that's what the narrative here is trying very, very hard to push. Things go on for a long while between Alex, Jenna and John and unfortunately several pieces of the thread are missing. Beyond those initial bits of 'what the everlasting flavor of fuck' world building we get nothing interesting. Last pregame thread.
Jenna skips every class and then skips the trip to the principal's office because she is a badass and going to class is for SQUARES! John, the hanger-on from the previous thread hangs out with a cheery attitude which of course is met with a less-than-enthusiastic response from the dour Jenna. John speaks a whooooole lotta crazy at her, hits on her a little bit, and then the two go their separate ways. Nothing of major interest happens here except hinting at a bit of a relationship between the two, and also it's heavily implied this takes place after the Mariavel fight... so when did all that shit with Alex happen, then? That seemed like it was another day. Whatever. No more time for questions, only the game proper.
Which will be continued later because it is very late.
Jenna has a single thread in the 'distant past' section... sorta. It's a single post by Chase and I read it, then instantly forgot it, then went back and re-read it because it's just such a nothing piece of information that tells me absolutely nothing about the character. It's also not truly a piece of Jenna herself because it wasn't written by the author. Moving on to pre-game.
Oh, but before I go too crazy, let's call attention to Jenna's profile, which is a work of art much in the same way Okalani's was. Her interests are 'The Hellbirds, not much else', which is instantly painting a picture of this character in my head. And the picture is a single line, because that's one-dimensional as fuck. The appearance doesn't do any favors either, with lines such as "... the girl has a rather interesting caboose, that if anyone noticed under her baggy cargo capris they would be castrated" and "First to notice Jenna's pointed nose would get decked in a minute". We get it. She's violent. The biography backs this up by turning her into nothing but a thug in one of the billion gangs apparently filling New Jersey. The only service the bio actually does to her is point out that she's nothing more than a teenage stereotype, a "ne'er do well."
Jenna has, for a V2 character, a decent amount of threads with four pre-game threads and four proper game threads. The first is "How many ways can you define the word 'cow'?", which has a whooooole lot of... something going on. Jenna pops in for a two-post drive-by calling Mariavel a whore, then entering the bathroom... which is where 'Bank on this, Bitch' takes us. You know how sometimes kids have profiles that are a complete mismatch to a character's actions? This is NOT one of those. CATFIGHT, CATFIIIIIIIIGHT!
Ahem.
I thought reading Jenna would have to be the most painful thing I do today, and this is the same day I got a huge blister on my index finger during band practice. Unfortunately, I also have to read Mariavel. Two posts into this thread and I honestly want to call it quits, but instead, let's make it fun: let's tally up all the times somebody should have totally died in this fight but didn't, or does something quite unlikely in the realm of possibility.
1. Mariavel is thrown full-tilt into a bathroom stall and crashes head first into the toilet seat. Dead.
2. Jenna slips off her jacket in between the time it takes Mariavel to come rushing out of the stall (she's already on her way out before Jenna even starts) and to meet her mid-charge, then holds it out like a matador, complete with a shout of 'ole'. Yes, she really does this.
3. In the same breath, Jenna grabs Mariavel's hair and stomps on the rear of the girl's knee, but Mariavel completely no-sells it- nae, LAUGHS IT OFF, claiming that her hair has been pulled out so many times (presumably by her abusive father) that it doesn't even faze her. She then sweeps Jenna's legs.
4. While falling to the ground, Jenna somehow kicks Mariavel in the chest, comes up behind her and locks her in a full nelson.
5. Mariavel manages to headbutt Jenna. While in a full nelson.
6. Jenna manages to lift a toilet seat while locking Mariavel in a full nelson. Psychic powers confirmed.
7. Mariavel's arm is twisted behind her back but she goes for a knife anyway, to 'plunge it into Jenna's arm'. Jenna is only scratched.
8. Jenna slams the seat down on Mariavel's head and stomps on her ankle.
9. Mariavel gets up moments later, acknowledging she'll 'have bruises'.
Now, if I have a reputation as SotF's fight scene guru, allow me to dispense my full analysis of that fight scene: it fucking stunk on ice. Mariavel leaves to go back to "Cow" but Jenna enters a thread called "Down the Stairs Your Ride Awaits", which is unfortunately lost on the Invisionfree site but exists in some fragments in the Distant Past section. In this glorious piece of world building, we meet about Alex Stevens, a character central in Jenna's story (in pregame at least) and the leader of the Hellbirds, the gang she's in. We learn through Alex that Denton is apparently sharing a universe with 'The Warriors' as the area is positively riddled with gangs for miles around. They're even themed!
"He'd much rather go north of his turf with some other Hellbirds and bash up some Jackals, or south to tangle with the Prophets (a Christian gang that dressed in priest robes and shaved their heads, they killed anyone who wasn't Christian or did anything they considered "ungodly". They mainly used knives and guns, but the biggest member of the gang-appropriately nicknamed Goliath by his fellow Prophets, as he was over seven feet tall and all muscle- often used a bike chain as a weapon, and it wasn't unheard of for them to agree to a simple fistfight, as had happened about a year prior in a territory dispute."
Holy shit, a gang of preachers, and they're led by the gang version of Big Show!? That sounds badass! The Bloody Fists sound like total pissants compared to any of these hotshots. At least, that's what the narrative here is trying very, very hard to push. Things go on for a long while between Alex, Jenna and John and unfortunately several pieces of the thread are missing. Beyond those initial bits of 'what the everlasting flavor of fuck' world building we get nothing interesting. Last pregame thread.
Jenna skips every class and then skips the trip to the principal's office because she is a badass and going to class is for SQUARES! John, the hanger-on from the previous thread hangs out with a cheery attitude which of course is met with a less-than-enthusiastic response from the dour Jenna. John speaks a whooooole lotta crazy at her, hits on her a little bit, and then the two go their separate ways. Nothing of major interest happens here except hinting at a bit of a relationship between the two, and also it's heavily implied this takes place after the Mariavel fight... so when did all that shit with Alex happen, then? That seemed like it was another day. Whatever. No more time for questions, only the game proper.
Which will be continued later because it is very late.
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
My word, am I going to be one of the last ones standing?
Here goes, Girl 66, Penelope Withers!
Penny has no pregame, and I'm calling her Penny for short now, so let's move on to...
[spoiler="Version 2, the Island!"]
She begins at the Cliffs in A Withering Flower, whose position in time is hard to gauge beyond that it's in the same area that three kids got blown up in. It's not really explained what she was doing beforehand, only that she was close enough to get slightly burned but not too badly. That quibble aside, she's played pretty reasonably; she's horrified by the gruesome deaths she just witnessed, and scared that she might be next. She's a little scared of her own weapon, and regrets wearing stilettos on her way out of this oneshot.
Next we arrive at the Mall in Prophetic Counterfeit, in which it turns out Penny's arm got burned worse than we thought, now it's hanging limp at her side and probably won't be much use to her any more. Dang. She sees a guy lying in wait with a hockey stick, as though planning an ambush, so... okay that was a quick turnaround, she's no longer scared of her mace, she's going to get the drop on the boy and smash his head in with it. Okay. Poor guy tries to block with his hockey stick, didn't really have enough reaction time to go for the sick parry, and of course it gets smashed in two, and its remains get smashed in to (get it, it's a play on words) his chest along with the deadly deadly mace. Then she tells him to stay down, only to go add insult to injury by pulverising his groin with the mace. He throws up, and then she gets the coup-de-grace with a mace to the head. It seems like it's supposed to be played off as her fending him off in a blind panic after hitting him the first time, but, uh, this is kind of a one-sided curb-stomp battle here. Poor guy doesn't put up a fight at all.
Penny has a one-sentence crisis of conscience about killing the guy, immediately deciding she can't make amends so she might as well jump off the moral slippery slope entirely and into full player-hood. Joy of joys, here I thought we might have some regret from the sweet, naive, trusting girl. Guess not.
To Be The Strongest finds Penny, along with two other Mitsuko characters, on the Expressway. Apparently there were usable cars in V2? But yeah Mitsuko's other two, Carmen and Andrew, are driving along and swerve when they spot Penny standing in the middle of the road. Guess she didn't know you could drive here either. Andrew's a terrible driver and straight up kills himself doing this, while Carmen's airbag goes off and she and Penny are fine. Penelope snaps the stiletto heels of her boots to climb onto the upturned van and help Carmen get out (won't those boots be basically unwearable now, with just a big unsupported gap? I dunno), Carmen asks her to help Andrew, probably knowing full well he's dead, which Penny does... so Carmen runs off with all their stuff. Hey, it's Penny's trusting disadvantage coming into play! Apparently she didn't take Penny's mace though, so that's nice.
Penelope makes her way to the River for In The Darkest of Times, and despite her talk of resolving to play to win in the last post, apparently now she's upset that she can't just escape, and nobody else seems to want to. Girl, you didn't want to five seconds ago. Penny crawls under the bridge to shelter from the rain, and cries. Maybe all the bravado earlier was really just bravado then? Or this character's just really inconsistent. So Stephanie and Matthias join the thread and have a chat about Matthias' missing sister, and Penny leaps out to call Steph out on lying about having seen her, completely abandoning her shelter and the element of surprise for some reason. Then two more guys join the thread, Rob and Matt, and they... drag Stephanie away for some reason? And she just kinda goes with them after they tell her they're not a threat? They all leave together. Huh.
Anywho that weird interlude over, Debrah also turns up and reminds us that she's got her sister's severed head in her bag, lovely. Matthias says Penny can come with him, what a gentleman, and suggests hurrying when he notices said crazed, bloodied axe-wielding girl approaching. She begs them not to leave, she just wants to be loved! Very believable, I'd trust her. Anyway they run off now, and Debrah... I think she follows them? Hard to say, nobody updated their "continued elsewhere"s with links to new threads in this version, apparently.
Last thread, exciting times. Penny goes to the Mall again to uncover some Little Known Facts, where Beth is creeping around thinking of the Pink Panther theme song and hoping she'll run into Adam Dodd. Of all the weird things I've seen in V2, this sure isn't the weirdest, but it might be the most surreal. We're how many days into hellmurder island and you're humming goofy music and tiptoeing around exaggeratedly? What the actual fuck. So Penny sees that Beth has a gun and decides that's a great reason to attack her head on, declaring that she "won't let you kill me!". Could've just hidden, love, might've been easier. A swing and a miss, Beth points the gun at her and tries to act tough. Clearly not a dangerous type, otherwise she would've just shot her and been done with it. Beth shoots, apparently thinking her rifle won't be loaded with live rounds, and gets Penny right in the abdomen. RIP in peace kiddo. The girl who just charged in unprovoked, swinging a goddamn mace, asks aloud "Why?! Why play?" She just wants to go home, after all, which explains why she's attacking people on sight with a mace she claimed to be afraid of four threads ago. Beth, for her part, is genuinely distressed, and holds onto Penny's dying form.
She gets some dramatic... last... words... out, with lots of... ellipses...
Yeah she wonders if her erstwhile companion Matthias will be okay, and his sister Jodeen, who she'd previously made next to no effort to help look for. She pleads with Beth to look for her, make sure she's alright. She tells her dead family to wait for her, she's coming, then expires.
[/spoiler]
Well, here's the summary. Decent prose, poor content. Penelope's only consistent feature is that she's inconsistent, going from poor put-upon woobie one moment to bloodthirsty berserker the next. I won't say I enjoyed reading her, but it wasn't awful either, it passed the time. Like I say the technical writing skill was there, just let down by the subject matter. You can safely skip Penelope, she doesn't really interact with anyone in a meaningful way besides killing one guy and getting killed by another. I hope at least she served a purpose in bringing Elizabeth Ebert down to earth and out of her "it's all a TV show!" schtick. Maybe I'll read Beth later and find out.
All in all, another resounding "meh". And I do believe we're out of kids now.
It's been real guys, thanks Rugga!
Here goes, Girl 66, Penelope Withers!
Penny has no pregame, and I'm calling her Penny for short now, so let's move on to...
[spoiler="Version 2, the Island!"]
She begins at the Cliffs in A Withering Flower, whose position in time is hard to gauge beyond that it's in the same area that three kids got blown up in. It's not really explained what she was doing beforehand, only that she was close enough to get slightly burned but not too badly. That quibble aside, she's played pretty reasonably; she's horrified by the gruesome deaths she just witnessed, and scared that she might be next. She's a little scared of her own weapon, and regrets wearing stilettos on her way out of this oneshot.
Next we arrive at the Mall in Prophetic Counterfeit, in which it turns out Penny's arm got burned worse than we thought, now it's hanging limp at her side and probably won't be much use to her any more. Dang. She sees a guy lying in wait with a hockey stick, as though planning an ambush, so... okay that was a quick turnaround, she's no longer scared of her mace, she's going to get the drop on the boy and smash his head in with it. Okay. Poor guy tries to block with his hockey stick, didn't really have enough reaction time to go for the sick parry, and of course it gets smashed in two, and its remains get smashed in to (get it, it's a play on words) his chest along with the deadly deadly mace. Then she tells him to stay down, only to go add insult to injury by pulverising his groin with the mace. He throws up, and then she gets the coup-de-grace with a mace to the head. It seems like it's supposed to be played off as her fending him off in a blind panic after hitting him the first time, but, uh, this is kind of a one-sided curb-stomp battle here. Poor guy doesn't put up a fight at all.
Penny has a one-sentence crisis of conscience about killing the guy, immediately deciding she can't make amends so she might as well jump off the moral slippery slope entirely and into full player-hood. Joy of joys, here I thought we might have some regret from the sweet, naive, trusting girl. Guess not.
To Be The Strongest finds Penny, along with two other Mitsuko characters, on the Expressway. Apparently there were usable cars in V2? But yeah Mitsuko's other two, Carmen and Andrew, are driving along and swerve when they spot Penny standing in the middle of the road. Guess she didn't know you could drive here either. Andrew's a terrible driver and straight up kills himself doing this, while Carmen's airbag goes off and she and Penny are fine. Penelope snaps the stiletto heels of her boots to climb onto the upturned van and help Carmen get out (won't those boots be basically unwearable now, with just a big unsupported gap? I dunno), Carmen asks her to help Andrew, probably knowing full well he's dead, which Penny does... so Carmen runs off with all their stuff. Hey, it's Penny's trusting disadvantage coming into play! Apparently she didn't take Penny's mace though, so that's nice.
Penelope makes her way to the River for In The Darkest of Times, and despite her talk of resolving to play to win in the last post, apparently now she's upset that she can't just escape, and nobody else seems to want to. Girl, you didn't want to five seconds ago. Penny crawls under the bridge to shelter from the rain, and cries. Maybe all the bravado earlier was really just bravado then? Or this character's just really inconsistent. So Stephanie and Matthias join the thread and have a chat about Matthias' missing sister, and Penny leaps out to call Steph out on lying about having seen her, completely abandoning her shelter and the element of surprise for some reason. Then two more guys join the thread, Rob and Matt, and they... drag Stephanie away for some reason? And she just kinda goes with them after they tell her they're not a threat? They all leave together. Huh.
Anywho that weird interlude over, Debrah also turns up and reminds us that she's got her sister's severed head in her bag, lovely. Matthias says Penny can come with him, what a gentleman, and suggests hurrying when he notices said crazed, bloodied axe-wielding girl approaching. She begs them not to leave, she just wants to be loved! Very believable, I'd trust her. Anyway they run off now, and Debrah... I think she follows them? Hard to say, nobody updated their "continued elsewhere"s with links to new threads in this version, apparently.
Last thread, exciting times. Penny goes to the Mall again to uncover some Little Known Facts, where Beth is creeping around thinking of the Pink Panther theme song and hoping she'll run into Adam Dodd. Of all the weird things I've seen in V2, this sure isn't the weirdest, but it might be the most surreal. We're how many days into hellmurder island and you're humming goofy music and tiptoeing around exaggeratedly? What the actual fuck. So Penny sees that Beth has a gun and decides that's a great reason to attack her head on, declaring that she "won't let you kill me!". Could've just hidden, love, might've been easier. A swing and a miss, Beth points the gun at her and tries to act tough. Clearly not a dangerous type, otherwise she would've just shot her and been done with it. Beth shoots, apparently thinking her rifle won't be loaded with live rounds, and gets Penny right in the abdomen. RIP in peace kiddo. The girl who just charged in unprovoked, swinging a goddamn mace, asks aloud "Why?! Why play?" She just wants to go home, after all, which explains why she's attacking people on sight with a mace she claimed to be afraid of four threads ago. Beth, for her part, is genuinely distressed, and holds onto Penny's dying form.
She gets some dramatic... last... words... out, with lots of... ellipses...
Yeah she wonders if her erstwhile companion Matthias will be okay, and his sister Jodeen, who she'd previously made next to no effort to help look for. She pleads with Beth to look for her, make sure she's alright. She tells her dead family to wait for her, she's coming, then expires.
[/spoiler]
Well, here's the summary. Decent prose, poor content. Penelope's only consistent feature is that she's inconsistent, going from poor put-upon woobie one moment to bloodthirsty berserker the next. I won't say I enjoyed reading her, but it wasn't awful either, it passed the time. Like I say the technical writing skill was there, just let down by the subject matter. You can safely skip Penelope, she doesn't really interact with anyone in a meaningful way besides killing one guy and getting killed by another. I hope at least she served a purpose in bringing Elizabeth Ebert down to earth and out of her "it's all a TV show!" schtick. Maybe I'll read Beth later and find out.
All in all, another resounding "meh". And I do believe we're out of kids now.
It's been real guys, thanks Rugga!
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
I heard Mai committed a pregame murder and was instantly sold on this.
Ok so, to give a serious critique of Mai.
In short, she's not great.
In a slightly longer form:
Besides the entire pregame murder deal, her voice and character just aren't that interesting and we never get to see another side of her other than the ugly person who killed her best friend over a role in a play. Like a lot of V2 and some of V3 there's the basis for some interesting character work there. The jealous friend who sabotages her bestie to get what she wants and there could be some interesting explorations of jealously and self-worth as well as self-esteem issues given her dance instructor and best friends fixation of physical appearance.
Instead what we get is a shallow evil character who just isn't very interesting and going onto the island doesn't help this out much.
Part of this may be that Jack's original handler went AWOL so Mai's handler took over. Now obviously it's not ideal but if you were going to stick with it you'd imagine the greater degree of control over both characters would mean you're able to produce something with a lot of detail and interesting bit. Unfortunately this doesn't happen either. The rest of Mai's threads end up being her having conversations with Jack which means that they all end up being lines of dialogue with no description or thoughts behind them. This ends up really hurting everything because the dialogue we're given doesn't have much depth to it, it's just the kind of the regular conversations you'd expect from characters stuck in SOTF but without knowing what's going on in the characters heads it comes off as fairly bland. That and due to the weird red text stuff we're left waiting for the moment Mai turns on him.
This moment never comes though. Ok that's not entirely true, we do get this moment but it doesn't come in the way that is being built up. Which doesn't mean its a good surprise, it's almost the opposite since the foreshadowing we were being given has us expecting Mai to just kill Jack because she wants to move on and she killed her best friend in pregame. Because of a play.
The other issue is the whole death sequence starting from Mai chugging her poison capsules in an attempt to commit suicide. As soon as this happens Jack instantly realizes she killed Kim. It seems to come too fast as a realization and while I'm aware it's probably for the purpose of getting deaths done it still doesn't quite hit the mark. It's just too soon to reach this point in their stories. This then also causes a continuity snafu as Mai fights off the effects of the poison for a massive amount of time, catching up to Jack and killing him. The death itself, is a bit of a mess as well due to the formatting choices that were made. Also she tears his face off.
Overall I can't say I'd recommend Mai. Not even for the curiosity factor of the pregame murder. She has the potential to be interesting and hit some intriguing themes but she's a victim of most of the early being very similar to Battle Royale in that most characters are exaggerated archetypes. It makes her come off as very flat, and worse boring. It's disappointing because there could be so much more here, but the choices of how her on island story plays out and how it's presented to us undercut all of it.
But hey, she'll always have the pregame murder.
Ok so, to give a serious critique of Mai.
In short, she's not great.
In a slightly longer form:
Besides the entire pregame murder deal, her voice and character just aren't that interesting and we never get to see another side of her other than the ugly person who killed her best friend over a role in a play. Like a lot of V2 and some of V3 there's the basis for some interesting character work there. The jealous friend who sabotages her bestie to get what she wants and there could be some interesting explorations of jealously and self-worth as well as self-esteem issues given her dance instructor and best friends fixation of physical appearance.
Instead what we get is a shallow evil character who just isn't very interesting and going onto the island doesn't help this out much.
Part of this may be that Jack's original handler went AWOL so Mai's handler took over. Now obviously it's not ideal but if you were going to stick with it you'd imagine the greater degree of control over both characters would mean you're able to produce something with a lot of detail and interesting bit. Unfortunately this doesn't happen either. The rest of Mai's threads end up being her having conversations with Jack which means that they all end up being lines of dialogue with no description or thoughts behind them. This ends up really hurting everything because the dialogue we're given doesn't have much depth to it, it's just the kind of the regular conversations you'd expect from characters stuck in SOTF but without knowing what's going on in the characters heads it comes off as fairly bland. That and due to the weird red text stuff we're left waiting for the moment Mai turns on him.
This moment never comes though. Ok that's not entirely true, we do get this moment but it doesn't come in the way that is being built up. Which doesn't mean its a good surprise, it's almost the opposite since the foreshadowing we were being given has us expecting Mai to just kill Jack because she wants to move on and she killed her best friend in pregame. Because of a play.
The other issue is the whole death sequence starting from Mai chugging her poison capsules in an attempt to commit suicide. As soon as this happens Jack instantly realizes she killed Kim. It seems to come too fast as a realization and while I'm aware it's probably for the purpose of getting deaths done it still doesn't quite hit the mark. It's just too soon to reach this point in their stories. This then also causes a continuity snafu as Mai fights off the effects of the poison for a massive amount of time, catching up to Jack and killing him. The death itself, is a bit of a mess as well due to the formatting choices that were made. Also she tears his face off.
Overall I can't say I'd recommend Mai. Not even for the curiosity factor of the pregame murder. She has the potential to be interesting and hit some intriguing themes but she's a victim of most of the early being very similar to Battle Royale in that most characters are exaggerated archetypes. It makes her come off as very flat, and worse boring. It's disappointing because there could be so much more here, but the choices of how her on island story plays out and how it's presented to us undercut all of it.
But hey, she'll always have the pregame murder.
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
So I read Jack Russell. Here we go.
Profile: What the fuck?
"Jacks grades and musical talent has caused him to have the highest GPA in his class (this causes him to be on National Junior Honors Society)..."
"Jack is known for being a complete and total joker, it is rare for Jack to take anything seriously and this has gotten him in trouble in the past."
Um. No.
So Jack's mom is heavily pregnant with him and still coaching dance classes when " the excruciating pain and the weight of the baby caused her to collapse." Also "the charlatans she had to work" for some reason made a woman seconds from popping a baby out "go up on stage and demonstrate a ballet step."
Then:
"Her ankles where rendered almost useless and shortly after giving birth she was told that she would never be able to dance again she managed to inject her vein with an air bubble killing her almost instantly. As if Jacks birth couldnt get any more disturbing future investigation of Jacks blood proved that he was the product of an affair his mother had with one of the many male dancers she worked with. In a surprising act of nobility Jacks father decided to raise Jack as if he was his own"
How do these things lead to one another? How does labor destroy your ankles? How did she inject her vein with an air bubble (I know how you do, but how did she?)? Why is the birth of her son not motive enough to keep going? Why did they investigate his blood? Aren't they concerned with the woman killing herself? Where's Jack's real dad?
Uh, it eventually comes out but doesn't seem to matter.
"A note where Jack fell from social grace wouldve to be in his sixth grade year..."
Oh good, we've gone back in time after describing his high school life.
"Jack found himself being bullied by some eighth graders and was thus panced in gym class and thrown into the girls locker room, with no pants or boxers on. The only catch was that the eleven year old Jack Russell had yet to develop at all."
I have no idea what "develop...at all" means in this context. I'm guessing it means he has no pubes, but the phrasing makes me think he's 11 and his balls haven't dropped. Yeah, actually, that sounds right. Jack has no testicles. IT'S CANON, GODAMMIT.
"This caused him to become the brunt of many joke thorough the year, however this caused him to cultivate a friendship with Mai. She prevented him from becoming a social pariah and thus theyre very close."
Did he relate to her because she had no testicles too? Whatever. Let's move on.
Pregame: He has two threads, two posts total. One is on the ugly-ass old board and is shared with Jonathan Michaels. They're reacting to the murder and smoking. They're both insufferable, and the shared post makes it hard to tell who's talking.
The second thread is a homeroom. Jack appears once, but honestly, everyone here is so loathsome I didn't want to read too deep. Homerooms seemed better in concept than execution.
Game: Jack has only one thread where he's handled by his original handler. This is also the only thread where he interacts with someone besides Mai.
He wakes up nearly suffocating because his war hammer was in his bag and it was placed on his chest. Mai saves him, they look around for a bit. Tanesha appears, and he makes some really unfunny comments about her weight and skin color to scare her aware. Somehow it works, but now I hate this fucker.
After that is a three-thread continuous chain. He and Mai talk, but at this point, Mai's handler is writing him, so these posts are more Mai's than Jack's. Jack loses any sort of character and just becomes someone Mai has to bounce off and react to. He somehow figures out that he killed that chick in pregame just because he sees her taking pills and runs away (hey, a guy was stabbed to death in Vermont and I used a knife to make dinner tonight. Am I the murderer?)
After that is the final thread between these two. Again, it's Mai's post, really. Jack is just here to have his face and arms chopped off unnecessarily before Mai offs herself. And that's it.
Jack Russell Terrier is unfunny, dull, and solely a prop for Mai's story. Any character that is glimpsed in his profile is muddied under unflattering characterization and one-dimensional complexity. He loses all autonomy and personality once Mai's handler takes him over, and it doesn't make Mai interesting either. Now she's just a psycho who's taking her psychosis off on this dude because he's a friend, and that makes his maiming all the more shocking an action by her.
Oh, and this also made me realize my V7 kid Tanisha is super similar to this Tanesha, so I really have to overhaul the fuck out of this character to avoid comparisons. Also, Mai and Paris suck.
Profile: What the fuck?
"Jacks grades and musical talent has caused him to have the highest GPA in his class (this causes him to be on National Junior Honors Society)..."
"Jack is known for being a complete and total joker, it is rare for Jack to take anything seriously and this has gotten him in trouble in the past."
Um. No.
So Jack's mom is heavily pregnant with him and still coaching dance classes when " the excruciating pain and the weight of the baby caused her to collapse." Also "the charlatans she had to work" for some reason made a woman seconds from popping a baby out "go up on stage and demonstrate a ballet step."
Then:
"Her ankles where rendered almost useless and shortly after giving birth she was told that she would never be able to dance again she managed to inject her vein with an air bubble killing her almost instantly. As if Jacks birth couldnt get any more disturbing future investigation of Jacks blood proved that he was the product of an affair his mother had with one of the many male dancers she worked with. In a surprising act of nobility Jacks father decided to raise Jack as if he was his own"
How do these things lead to one another? How does labor destroy your ankles? How did she inject her vein with an air bubble (I know how you do, but how did she?)? Why is the birth of her son not motive enough to keep going? Why did they investigate his blood? Aren't they concerned with the woman killing herself? Where's Jack's real dad?
Uh, it eventually comes out but doesn't seem to matter.
"A note where Jack fell from social grace wouldve to be in his sixth grade year..."
Oh good, we've gone back in time after describing his high school life.
"Jack found himself being bullied by some eighth graders and was thus panced in gym class and thrown into the girls locker room, with no pants or boxers on. The only catch was that the eleven year old Jack Russell had yet to develop at all."
I have no idea what "develop...at all" means in this context. I'm guessing it means he has no pubes, but the phrasing makes me think he's 11 and his balls haven't dropped. Yeah, actually, that sounds right. Jack has no testicles. IT'S CANON, GODAMMIT.
"This caused him to become the brunt of many joke thorough the year, however this caused him to cultivate a friendship with Mai. She prevented him from becoming a social pariah and thus theyre very close."
Did he relate to her because she had no testicles too? Whatever. Let's move on.
Pregame: He has two threads, two posts total. One is on the ugly-ass old board and is shared with Jonathan Michaels. They're reacting to the murder and smoking. They're both insufferable, and the shared post makes it hard to tell who's talking.
The second thread is a homeroom. Jack appears once, but honestly, everyone here is so loathsome I didn't want to read too deep. Homerooms seemed better in concept than execution.
Game: Jack has only one thread where he's handled by his original handler. This is also the only thread where he interacts with someone besides Mai.
He wakes up nearly suffocating because his war hammer was in his bag and it was placed on his chest. Mai saves him, they look around for a bit. Tanesha appears, and he makes some really unfunny comments about her weight and skin color to scare her aware. Somehow it works, but now I hate this fucker.
After that is a three-thread continuous chain. He and Mai talk, but at this point, Mai's handler is writing him, so these posts are more Mai's than Jack's. Jack loses any sort of character and just becomes someone Mai has to bounce off and react to. He somehow figures out that he killed that chick in pregame just because he sees her taking pills and runs away (hey, a guy was stabbed to death in Vermont and I used a knife to make dinner tonight. Am I the murderer?)
After that is the final thread between these two. Again, it's Mai's post, really. Jack is just here to have his face and arms chopped off unnecessarily before Mai offs herself. And that's it.
Jack Russell Terrier is unfunny, dull, and solely a prop for Mai's story. Any character that is glimpsed in his profile is muddied under unflattering characterization and one-dimensional complexity. He loses all autonomy and personality once Mai's handler takes him over, and it doesn't make Mai interesting either. Now she's just a psycho who's taking her psychosis off on this dude because he's a friend, and that makes his maiming all the more shocking an action by her.
Oh, and this also made me realize my V7 kid Tanisha is super similar to this Tanesha, so I really have to overhaul the fuck out of this character to avoid comparisons. Also, Mai and Paris suck.
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
The character who accidentally killed chat, the quotation mark and sanity.
I'm not going to quote that line from Ali's profile here, because of the swathes of destruction left by it's introduction in chat. Megami was probably too innocent to realise what effect her words could have upon future generations of SOTFers.
Ali is a bit of a stereotype at points, the stereotypical rich bitch, daughter of a senator, who cares a little too much about guys. There's an interesting nuance in her profile, she's head over heels for someone who isn't interested back, and she doesn't really understand the ramifications about the way she presents herself on anything more than a surface level.
Pregame:
So Ali's pregame is kinda long. Really long.
Her first pregame thread sets her characterisation from the start. She's a rich kid who never takes no for an answer, and sneaks up on Ian Rico and decides that it'd be fun to snatch Sofie de Wilde's (Sofie seems to be pregame only) not-quite-boyfriend away, insults the friends next to him to his face while buttering him up. And then this drops:
Her second thread though, is a little more nuanced. Sophie plays off Ali rather well, almost unflappable in the face of Ali's insults and jabbing at how shallow Ali is, while Ali remains oblivious and spiteful, unable to get what Sophie means. The dialogue is a little cheesy, with gems like "Au revoir mon cheri, I do so hope we'll meet again," but it's an interesting thread in all.
She then goes on to meet CJ (our dear hook-handed janitor) Bryan, and Tori, and spends her single post in the thread telling Bryan that he'd missed a spot. It seems a little out of nowhere, but actually helps setup a little bit of the Bryan-Ali and Tori-Ali dynamic for the next thread.
Tori is a character I like from the get go, her personality is rather down to earth, even if her posts are marred by a rather large number of typos. Tori wants to get in with the cool kids, and sees Ali and Preston as a chance to do so, which sets up an really interesting dynamic. Ali hates Bryan for being part of the "Bloody Fists", and his shabby dress, and wants Tori to join her "Sisterhood", while Tori is intrigued by Bryan's kindness and the conversation she'd had with him earlier that they, and yet wanting to be part of the cool kids. It's rather unfortunate that not a lot more comes from this, but it's a quality scene that actually could be the setup for a lot more.
Then comes the part I kinda don't like. Megami and Riserugu spend at least twenty thousand words describing a date between Ali and Gregg and while on a technical level the writing is good, I can't actually bring myself to like it. Gregg doesn't know Ali's mean girl personality and she's head over heels for him. Unfortunately, the thread feels like it wears out it's outcome fairly soon, with so little to actual propel things forward. There are several subtle things that work well, but too often the thread simply meanders on, an it merely comes to an uneventful stop as pregame ends.
Island:
Ali's first Island thread has her exchanging usual island pleasantries like "What weapons do you have?". Mariavel stumbles into this thread, worn and bloodied after a couple battles. The two of them seem to have a personal grudge that goes beyond just the feud between their cliques, but Mariavel refuses to defile a church with fighting, a move that comes across as rather surprising given that this is the very first Mariavel post I've ever read. In any case, the thread gets rather crowded with the addition of the very unfortunate, R. Kelly and Ali decides to get the hell out of there.
There are some interesting inconsistencies in the thread, which unfortunately seem less of a personal contradiciton than a mistake. She notes her disbelief in god, before selfishly praying to god in her first post, and then goes on to deny any thought of religiosity.
But she's off without a single thought of that, and she wanders over to witness Jameson Doeert's death. Skraal's already mentioned this one, but she uses it to good effect. We get a little look into her mind that's different from her regular prissy rich kid thoughts, and notes points which she actually fails to notice herself in the narrative, and is a touch of humanisation that Ali has sorely lacked thus far.
Her next thread is an interesting fight with Tanesha, with an interesting flashback about how Ali had basically coerced Sera into pasting Tanesha's diary, which contained stories about her infatuations, in a place for all to see. I really enjoy this post right up till the last bit when Ali decides that she needs to give a speech about how much better she is than Tanesha, instead of running away with her tail between her legs. Seriously, if Ali would actually stop interjecting everything with "but anyway, I'm better than you" and have some mild introspection, she would be a much, much stronger read.
Well, on to the next thread, and Ali is doing her makeup? But in any case, she meets up with Gregg here, which is a rather nice thread, though my earlier complaint about them taking too long to do anything in pregame starts to rear its ugly head once more.
Gregg goes inactive and Megami picks him up and the two enter the next thread where the pair are accosted by Mariavel. Mariavel, doesn't actually want to kill Ali, which is really making me confused about all these second-hand Mariavel reports, and instead merely wants to humilate her in front of her crush. Mariavel reveals Ali's terrible side to Gregg, and Ali merely responds with vitriol. And so Mariavel shoots her, as Mariavel does.
But anyway, Ali is shot, and her horrible nature is revealed, and Gregg is somehow perfectly fine with that. The horribleness, not the fact that she'd been shot. They travel to the school where he tries to patch her up, and have a short encounter with Beth before the place blows sky high. But as they die, they manage to squeeze in a kiss within a song post.
Final thoughts:
Ali is competently written, but to be honest she doesn't have a strong story going for her. Her relationship with Gregg is the only real focus, and she suffers a little for it. The chemistry between them is shallow in too many ways, and really doesn't deserve the focus it gets. There are several interesting scenes, but they are all too often marred by weird choices and there's a ridiculously large amount of wasted character development potential in her.
In all, not a read I would strongly recommend, but an inoffensive one. If you want to read her, I would recommend you skip all the threads in pregame after the one where she meets Tori. You only really need to know that her and Gregg are a thing, and that she hides her mean side from him before getting into the game proper.
I'm not going to quote that line from Ali's profile here, because of the swathes of destruction left by it's introduction in chat. Megami was probably too innocent to realise what effect her words could have upon future generations of SOTFers.
Ali is a bit of a stereotype at points, the stereotypical rich bitch, daughter of a senator, who cares a little too much about guys. There's an interesting nuance in her profile, she's head over heels for someone who isn't interested back, and she doesn't really understand the ramifications about the way she presents herself on anything more than a surface level.
Pregame:
So Ali's pregame is kinda long. Really long.
Her first pregame thread sets her characterisation from the start. She's a rich kid who never takes no for an answer, and sneaks up on Ian Rico and decides that it'd be fun to snatch Sofie de Wilde's (Sofie seems to be pregame only) not-quite-boyfriend away, insults the friends next to him to his face while buttering him up. And then this drops:
In a move that brings thoughts of Fiyori to mind, Mitch Gunther, leaps at her, biting her in the arm. She's pissed and slaps him, leaving for the infirmary with an overwrought line.Mitch wrote:RED CARD! Somebody stop this child molester!
Herein lies one of the big problems with Ali. There's a little too much focus on how beautiful she is, almost every sentence is laced with a descriptor of either her looks/ her ability to snatch men away. This really is a problem of Ali, most of the writing is good, but it often feels a need to overstate things that are already clear to the reader, or simply unnecessary for the current post. She uses the word 'muses' far too often, and other small things in the use of vocabulary that could be evocative if they weren't overdone. Still, it brings across her character fairly well, even if I feel that a lot of her lines are way over the top.Ali wrote:"I'll have you suspended for this, you know," she mused, no hint of remorse echoing in her words, "I don't think you understand who you're messing with. My Daddy's a senator, don't you know that I can pull the strings to get whatever I want? You people... I could make your lives a living hell. Remember that."
Her second thread though, is a little more nuanced. Sophie plays off Ali rather well, almost unflappable in the face of Ali's insults and jabbing at how shallow Ali is, while Ali remains oblivious and spiteful, unable to get what Sophie means. The dialogue is a little cheesy, with gems like "Au revoir mon cheri, I do so hope we'll meet again," but it's an interesting thread in all.
She then goes on to meet CJ (our dear hook-handed janitor) Bryan, and Tori, and spends her single post in the thread telling Bryan that he'd missed a spot. It seems a little out of nowhere, but actually helps setup a little bit of the Bryan-Ali and Tori-Ali dynamic for the next thread.
Tori is a character I like from the get go, her personality is rather down to earth, even if her posts are marred by a rather large number of typos. Tori wants to get in with the cool kids, and sees Ali and Preston as a chance to do so, which sets up an really interesting dynamic. Ali hates Bryan for being part of the "Bloody Fists", and his shabby dress, and wants Tori to join her "Sisterhood", while Tori is intrigued by Bryan's kindness and the conversation she'd had with him earlier that they, and yet wanting to be part of the cool kids. It's rather unfortunate that not a lot more comes from this, but it's a quality scene that actually could be the setup for a lot more.
Then comes the part I kinda don't like. Megami and Riserugu spend at least twenty thousand words describing a date between Ali and Gregg and while on a technical level the writing is good, I can't actually bring myself to like it. Gregg doesn't know Ali's mean girl personality and she's head over heels for him. Unfortunately, the thread feels like it wears out it's outcome fairly soon, with so little to actual propel things forward. There are several subtle things that work well, but too often the thread simply meanders on, an it merely comes to an uneventful stop as pregame ends.
Island:
Ali's first Island thread has her exchanging usual island pleasantries like "What weapons do you have?". Mariavel stumbles into this thread, worn and bloodied after a couple battles. The two of them seem to have a personal grudge that goes beyond just the feud between their cliques, but Mariavel refuses to defile a church with fighting, a move that comes across as rather surprising given that this is the very first Mariavel post I've ever read. In any case, the thread gets rather crowded with the addition of the very unfortunate, R. Kelly and Ali decides to get the hell out of there.
There are some interesting inconsistencies in the thread, which unfortunately seem less of a personal contradiciton than a mistake. She notes her disbelief in god, before selfishly praying to god in her first post, and then goes on to deny any thought of religiosity.
But she's off without a single thought of that, and she wanders over to witness Jameson Doeert's death. Skraal's already mentioned this one, but she uses it to good effect. We get a little look into her mind that's different from her regular prissy rich kid thoughts, and notes points which she actually fails to notice herself in the narrative, and is a touch of humanisation that Ali has sorely lacked thus far.
Her next thread is an interesting fight with Tanesha, with an interesting flashback about how Ali had basically coerced Sera into pasting Tanesha's diary, which contained stories about her infatuations, in a place for all to see. I really enjoy this post right up till the last bit when Ali decides that she needs to give a speech about how much better she is than Tanesha, instead of running away with her tail between her legs. Seriously, if Ali would actually stop interjecting everything with "but anyway, I'm better than you" and have some mild introspection, she would be a much, much stronger read.
Well, on to the next thread, and Ali is doing her makeup? But in any case, she meets up with Gregg here, which is a rather nice thread, though my earlier complaint about them taking too long to do anything in pregame starts to rear its ugly head once more.
Gregg goes inactive and Megami picks him up and the two enter the next thread where the pair are accosted by Mariavel. Mariavel, doesn't actually want to kill Ali, which is really making me confused about all these second-hand Mariavel reports, and instead merely wants to humilate her in front of her crush. Mariavel reveals Ali's terrible side to Gregg, and Ali merely responds with vitriol. And so Mariavel shoots her, as Mariavel does.
That doesn't add anything to what I want to say about Ali, but I just wanted to share that. Somehow Mariavel can't confirm the shot because Danya is speaking. It's amazing.Mariavel wrote:Shed never know if they hit Ali because the announcements came on after she shot.
But anyway, Ali is shot, and her horrible nature is revealed, and Gregg is somehow perfectly fine with that. The horribleness, not the fact that she'd been shot. They travel to the school where he tries to patch her up, and have a short encounter with Beth before the place blows sky high. But as they die, they manage to squeeze in a kiss within a song post.
Final thoughts:
Ali is competently written, but to be honest she doesn't have a strong story going for her. Her relationship with Gregg is the only real focus, and she suffers a little for it. The chemistry between them is shallow in too many ways, and really doesn't deserve the focus it gets. There are several interesting scenes, but they are all too often marred by weird choices and there's a ridiculously large amount of wasted character development potential in her.
In all, not a read I would strongly recommend, but an inoffensive one. If you want to read her, I would recommend you skip all the threads in pregame after the one where she meets Tori. You only really need to know that her and Gregg are a thing, and that she hides her mean side from him before getting into the game proper.
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Ruggahissy
- Posts: 2563
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:13 pm
this is how I die. not with a bang, or with a whimper, but by the immortal words:
"Well, Paris Persephone, the King of Gossip. We meet again."
tl;dr/final thoughts:
"Well, Paris Persephone, the King of Gossip. We meet again."
tl;dr/final thoughts:
