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Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 1:40 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Blastinus)

Cassie Webber is an odd one, since she actually seems like someone who would really exist, rather than some bizarre caricature. When she meets with Ryan Ashmore and they debate whether they should play the game or just defend themselves, I could imagine this as something I could see in V5 or V6. Cassie is well-meaning, scared, and wants more than anything just to survive. Rather than being selflessly opposed to killing, she's determined that she will fight if it's in self-defense. A very balanced viewpoint, and as a result, it's hard to find anything to criticize about her first few threads. Instead of ignoring when someone is being killed in front of her, her handler actually acknowledges it, even if she's too afraid to do something about it.

The most notable things about Cassie's early game are the flashbacks to life before the island. V1 started with the students being placed directly on the island, so it's difficult to get a feel of what life was like for most of them before coming to the island. The idea of flashbacking in order to fill in the gaps was probably the best solution, given the circumstances. It helps that in her case, they're fairly well-written and they provide more context for why she's the way she is upon reaching the island. One of her major struggles is that her dad abandoned her mother and her while she was in a coma, and so a little voice keeps insisting that the folks following her will do the exact same, resulting in some trust issues.

I should note a brief interruption in the narrative when a dead guy suddenly enters the scene. Cassie's handler Swoosh has to remind the dead guy's handler that the dead guy is indeed dead and shouldn't be talking to them, which is more of a reflection on the chaotic and somewhat unpolished nature of V1 as a whole. In fact, the OOC commentary takes so long that the place suddenly becomes a danger zone, forcing Cassie to run off yet again.

Strangely, at this point the new group she's with is asking her to call the shots. Put in this situation, Cassie decides that she's going to get the biggest weapon among them, because she doesn't trust anyone there. Naturally, when her team isn't inclined to pass a gun her way, she suddenly gets more hostile and threatening. This seems like a sudden shift, but we've heard her inner monologue all this time saying that she can't trust anyone and that she has to kill them before they kill her, so the temptation has always been there. When she finds that she can't rely on the group any more, she says that she's leaving to thin the herd, and in response, one of her old team members shoots her in the back, ending her game before it even starts.

Gotta say, while Cassie didn't actually do anything really, her interactions with people and the conflicts in her own head gave her an interesting vibe. Compared to a lot of V1, her writing was worlds above, and her conclusion didn't feel sudden or unsatisfying. Overall, a pretty nice read.

Can I go again?

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 1:40 pm
by Ohm
(Orignal post by Blastinus)

Ah, Aaron Bourdon, he of the technicolor eyes. His profile suggests that he's had a rough life and that he's teetering on the edge between good and evil. Interesting, I suppose, but how does that manifest ingame? Well, his handler Skythe made two characters, Aaron and another named Jake Driggers, and they both fell under the control of a handler named Kuze, who proceeded to use them as glorified jobbers for their own character, Eh-Sun Choi. In Aaron's case, he gets the thoroughly undignified death of being paralyzed with a cattle prod and drowned before he even gets a single line or even puts up the semblance of a fight. Bleh.

Mind if I keep it going?

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 1:41 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Blastinus)

Helena Van Garrett was not the stupidest first death in SOTF history. That would, of course, go to Remi Pierce. That being said, she does kind of throw herself to the wolves a bit, approaching none other than Hawley Faust with open arms. Her five minutes of fame are incredibly well-written for V1, with some fun character-building for Helena as she washes up in a nearby creek as her introduction. The girl is stupid and naive, but in a believable way, and even as Hawley opens up on her with a shotgun, she doesn't just immediately take a bullet to the head, but instead puts up an entertaining fight against him. As Hawley Faust's first kill on the island, it actually feels like he had to work for it and that it wasn't simply handed to him on a platter. In this way, orangeflamingo succeeded in not just creating an excellent death scene for their own character, but elevating Hawley as well in the process.

Correction to the above: I think that V1's first death was the best one I've ever seen. If the rest of V1 had followed in this level of quality, it would have been a whole lot less silly. To that end, I have nothing but praise for how Helena Van Garrett was handled.

Let's keep it coming!

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 1:42 pm
by Ohm
(Originally posted by Ruggahissy)

Finished Fred.

Fred starts at the warehouse with Jeremy. For the first 5 threads of Fred, please refer to Part 1 of my Jeremy review.

Anyhow, he's shot at the hospital and wanders away to try and draw the random shooter away from his friends. But it doesn't work, the shooter keeps shooting and them and he gets separated for his troubles. He next comes upon Lyndi and Callum. They are freaked out, but they know him from school and he knows them so they do their best to heal his wounds while a crazy Cody Jensen tears through. He sees Lyndi and decides he is in love with her and will do anything to possess her. The group leaves.

Next Callum hears a scream and feels guilty about leaving a girl named Beth so he leaves to his doom. They pick up Lyndi's best friend, Elsie who is secretly pregnant and can't bring herself to tell Lyndi, but Fred senses there's something making her upset. A boy named Vince comes up and he's acting a little sketchy, but mostly ok.

Lyndi and Fred talk, Lyndi is scared that he'll leave her and although he was to reunite with his brother, Jeremy and Heather, he feels for her and promises to stay with her.

Then crazy Cody comes up, still determined to kill the group and take Lyndi. Fred tells the girls to get inside the lighthouse and he'll fight Cody. He's pretty realistic about his odds though.
"Cept this time you're up against probably the craziest person on the whole bleeding island, who's at the moment armed with a tire iron. Bit better than an axe, but still not that good, and you got yourself a pipe wrench and a flashbang; oh, this is rather depressing really."
Vince is a coward and he also goes inside, leaving Fred to fight Cody alone with his pipe wrench, gifted from Heather. Lyndi breaks eventually and screams at Vince for leaving Fred alone and goes out herself. But it's too late, Fred's been shot.

Final thoughts: Fred's pretty good. He's a decent, normal guy with a protector streak. I think I prefer him to his more indecisive, less outgoing brother, Glenn. I'd recommend him, but I think he picks up more once he gets to the smaller group with Lyndi. Special shout out for Lyndi by the way, she's great.

Another.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 1:43 pm
by Ohm
(Orignally posted by Blastinus)
His dream in life is to be famous, perferably on TV. He wants the world to know his name. It got so bad one day that, when he was picked as a understudy for the lead role, he mixed cleaning fluids and put them in a bottle of coke for the student. He became so sick that Max got the lead role.
Okay, good start. We've got another felon on our hands here. Max's approach to the game was basically to play to the cameras like he was on some reality show, so in addition to resorting to petty means to get what he wants, he's also kinda dumb. Playing for fame sounds great, but it's not like being eliminated gets you a brief confessional and a short interview in the reunion show. It just gets you dead.

Right then, so he meets some kids and puts on the crocodile tears. Deciding to play along when they're suspicious of him, he surrenders his bag, and then is surprised when one of them grabs it and runs off. Really bringing his A game here. I would describe the writing, but it's primarily just short reactions and a snatch of dialogue with no real flavor. That is, until he decides to find a camera and start monologuing at it. Thankfully for us all, Cody Jenson randomly shows up and decides to attack him for no real reason. I don't like Cody, nor his handler, since he seems like one of those fight scene lawyers who try to create scenarios in which their opponent has no choice but to lose, then they complain whenever anyone else doesn't comply with their flawed reasoning.

Anyway, during this ridiculous fistfight, Shinya Motomura shows up and uses his gun to break it up, driving Cody away. That's when Max has an amazing leap of logic, deciding that in order to build his credibility, he needs to bring someone down, and his best possible option is the guy with the gun pointed at him. It doesn't work, and I don't particularly miss Max either. The problem is that no matter how narcissistic or self-absorbed you are, logic or simple fight-or-flight instincts should have probably taken over long ago. Having him be this obsessed with fame when there's bullets flying just makes him seem delusional or stupid, and it isn't a very well-written stupid either. They're all characters, of course, but Max makes it a lot more obvious than some that he doesn't exist, and never would exist by any stretch of the imagination.

Let's keep going.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 1:44 pm
by Ohm
(Originaly posted by Blastinus)

Kousaka Takeda is a transfer from DarkMagick High. And yes, it's precisely what it sounds like:
In his times at DarkMagick High, he began to learn the basics of gunship and soon became a superb user of the dark gun arts.
Well, this is shaping up to be something truly magical.

Unfortunately, nobody wants to play along with the poor Mr. Takeda in his first thread, so he just meditates under a waterfall and moves on. It's funny that we've reached a point where that's considered mundane. In his next thread, he reflects on the sunset and nobody shows up, so he moves on. In his next thread, he skips some stones over a river, but nobody shows up, so he moves on.

There's a disturbing lack of dark magic happening here.

Finally, FINALLY, he runs into some people, and he responds by acting confrontational and cold towards them. This isn't unprecedented, because his profile suggests a degree of emotional detachment, but it's also not conducive to the making of alliances. Also, there's this creepy line, taken entirely out of context:
"Well, well, a little missy here to entertain me, huh?" He said sharply lifting his chin to the air.
I don't think I like Kousaka. But oh wait, he's putting a pair of goggles on, and a dark aura is gathering around him. Are we going to see some magic happening?! Oddly, no. He reaches into his bag to pull out a smoke grenade, but then everyone else assumes that what he's actually got is flashbangs. Uh, no, everyone, his profile clearly says smoke grenades. But his handler is confused enough that Kousaka backpedals through time and instead just...starts crying and sobbing. Oooookay then. Like literally, he goes in two posts from being a cocky jerk to a wailing mess, and it's super jarring. But I guess it works, since the group lets him go and all, so maybe it was just him putting on an act to get out of a sticky situation.

Ha! No. In his next and final thread, he becomes a silent spectator to the absolutely horrible Peri Barclay sadistic choice thing with Glenn that I mentioned before, and that just makes him cry again and crumple into the fetal position. Naturally, when Eh-Sun wanders by, she does what Eh-Sun do and casually murders him, leaving me vaguely unsatisfied and more than a little confused.

Like, what happened there? Did the shock of going back a few seconds in time scramble something in Kousaka's brain? He was confident and sure of himself, emotionally distant like his profile said, and everything was hunky-dory, then for his last moments, he's completely out of character and he goes out like a chump. He didn't even get to show his dark magical gun skills.

Well, let's hope the next one is better.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 1:45 pm
by Ohm
(Originally posted by Blastinus)

Before we dive into Garrett, there's the small matter of his backstory. According to his profile, Danya has an in with the US military in the form of his father, and the reason he's on the island was that his dad basically sacrificed him to Danya. I'm going to say, for the sake of preserving whatever sanity the canon might have, that this is largely made up, and that he just invented the story to seem cool.

Anyway, Garrett starts out fine enough, trying to make friends and not acting like too big a threat with his assigned weapon: a crossbow. But wait, a wild Slayer appears! I don't care about the actual name of his character. They all basically act the same. And sure enough, the instant that he spots Garrett, he immediately goes in for the attack, using an unorthodox method I like to call "cheating".
When Garrett had come out and held him at crossbow point, something snapped in Jacob. Without warning, he charged forward, grabbing the crossbow (while forcing it away, wouldn't do much good to do that only to get shot point-blank), and slashing at the newcomer with his knife.
You saw it here, folks. Without even letting Garrett's handler react, Slayer's character has already defused his weapon and put him on the defensive. It's that kind of combat writing that I really detest, since if you try to play fair (like Garrett does, taking a slash in the arm), the cheater will just press and press until he can declare victory while never feeling the obligation to take a hit himself. Case in point, when Garrett tries to use the crossbow as a club, Slayer's character just effortlessly evades it and keeps stabbing. And even when Garrett lands a hit, he just no-sells it.
Jacob screamed in pain as the bolt buried itself deep into his left shoulder. Luckily, even though it hurt like hell, there was relatively little blood from the wound, due to the bolt being in there. It was times like this Jacob praised God that he was born right-handed. So instead of lingering on the wound (who anyone who knew anything about medicine could take care of with minor difficulty)
Uh, no Slayer. Arrows are, in fact, extremely painful and have to be removed with care, lest you end up opening a huge gash in your body by, say, yanking it out with your bare hands, which he does. Then he puts a bandage on without washing the wound, stifling the bleeding, or applying any disinfectant. I'm going to assume that this Jacob character dies in horrible agony, because every single conceivable way he could have screwed up an arrow wound happened in that scene.

He doesn't die in agony, does he?

Anyways, we're supposed to be talking about Garrett. Demonstrating the actual negative effects of being injured, he stumbles into a gathering of people and just sort of collapses, depending entirely on their mercy to get him back onto his feet. Fortunately, he finds a caring soul in riseruga's character Edward Rommel. They share some friendly conversation while treating his wounds, and he GETS ATTACKED BY JACOB AGAIN! Because if there's one thing you could depend on with Slayer, it's being unable to actually write anything thoughtful or meaningful. It's just constant shooty shooty action with infinite reloads and rules lawyer-ing. And he won't ever let you have a moment's peace.

Anyways, next scene is a confusing gun battle where Garrett contributes absolutely nothing, so we move right along and discover that Edward took a bullet during the fight. The emotional moment where they realize there's nothing Garrett can do for Edward is genuinely touching and, most importantly, free of stupid interruptions by you-know-who. If it wasn't for Slayer's weird vendetta against this guy, I think that he could have had an interesting character arc, but it takes this long for it really get going because of all the constant need for action scenes.

Of course, he throws away any chance of character development by suddenly becoming confrontational and abrasive towards the next group he finds. Even though they ask a simple question (why is he wearing Edward's jacket), he decides to make a federal case out of it and so a tense standoff occurs between him and Heather Pendergast, only to be broken up by Glenn's brother Fred. Then a bunch of other confusing stuff happens in the thread before Garrett does something again. It's not really my problem, so I skimmed over it. What's important is that Garrett's got it into his head that it's time to take revenge on Jacob, and so he departs in order to pursue this goal.

Is it much of a surprise to say that it doesn't work out? Garrett manages to get another crossbow bolt into Jacob's shoulder, but THIS time he suddenly decides that removing it wouldn't be wise. Guess someone must have informed his handler about how stupid it was the first time. They fight and they fight, and it eventually devolves into bizarrely adroit fisticuffs. Garrett's excuse is that his evil military dad taught him self-defense, but I don't know what Jacob's explanation is. He probably just has superpowers or something. Suddenly they start delivering multiple sentences in the time it takes to throw a single attack. It's very comic book-like. And long story short, he gets a knife thrust in his chest.
And with that, Garrett, one of the most outspoken and longest lasting people still in the game, finally succumbed to his wounds.
Uh, no, he kinda wasn't. Most of the time, he was being threatened by people and/or dragged around from scene to scene. The only character who even gave Garrett the time of day was Edward, and the rest of the time, he got on people's nerves. As for longest-lasting, I guess that's basically a given. Of all the people who died in the game, you'll always be the longest-lasting when you finally kick the bucket, until someone else dies and takes your title. It's only logical.

I have no idea if I like Garrett or not, since he doesn't succeed at anything. As far as the island was concerned, he existed and didn't do anything particularly offensive, and I suppose his final scene was okay, even if it got kinda ridiculous. I'd rate him generally positive, with the caveat that I'll probably forget all about him in a day or two.

More! More!

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 1:47 pm
by Ohm
(Originally posted by Blastinus)

Gabrielle Minase has an interesting backstory, since he hospitalized a giant using nothing but a baseball bat. This kid's gotta be friggin' ripped. He's socially withdrawn and won't get along well with people, and he's spent his time doing nothing but working out. Naturally, the best way to highlight this amazing strength is to give him an uzi.

Wait a minute, one of Slayer's characters had an uzi. Oh nooooooo!

Anyway, first thread, he goes stomping through the forest and sees an explosion in the distance. End of thread, on to further business. He finds a group near where the explosion occurred, and he opens with only the finest of diplomacy:
'Mess with me and you get shot, but i'm willing to talk.'
Oddly, despite what you may expect, the group is relaxed and don't consider his gun to be that great a threat, much to Minase's frustration. So he ramps it up, making wild accusations, until one of the kids collapses and he drops his gun to catch her, at which point another kid steals it and turns it on him.

One thing I've begun to discover in pre-V5 games is that if anything you own leaves your hands for a second, someone else will immediately swoop in to grab it. I can recall at least two instances in V3 where someone either dropped their bag or died with it, and another person completely unrelated to the thread zoomed in from offscreen, grabbed the bag, and left before anyone else could react.

But enough of that segue, back to Minase. The Mac-10 somehow finds its way onto the floor next to him again, so he reclaims it and resumes his threatening, which nobody is impressed by still, even when he unloads several rounds into the ceiling. Everyone else is more worried about a horrific incident involving a corkscrew, so Minase tries to take charge there instead. You can tell that his handler is trying very hard to remain relevant in this scene, even when everyone's basically ignoring him. But nobody helps him, and nobody wants to follow him when he leaves. I can't help but feel like the other folks in that thread were really giving him a rough time, since he was trying to direct the scene and nobody else was accepting it. Not really his fault there, is what I'm saying.

Take two then, since he comes across a different group and tries basically the same tack, running into who other than Edward Rommel. It's at this point that whatever sympathy I may have had for Minase evaporates entirely, because of this little bit of self-reflection:
A german thought Minase, scowling. Clueless bastard, i'll enjoy killing this guy, teach him to come on our trip at all
Then Gabrielle Minase dies of AIDS. I'm not kidding. It's exactly what it says:
Then Minase died of aids.
Would I make something like that up? No warning, no foreshadowing, no preamble, just one AIDS-tastic post and he's out the door. Fortunately, cooler heads prevail, so he un-dies and re-dies by being shot in the chest instead, but the damage has already been done. After something as weird as that, Gabrielle Minase will forever be known in my head as the kid who took an AIDS bomb to the forehead, which to be fair is probably the most interesting thing that happened with him, since he spent every thread just pointing his gun at people and acting all aggressive and haughty. No fun conversations, no character-building, just gun. And then AIDS.

I'd love another one, please. This has been really fun.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 1:56 pm
by Ohm
(originally posted by Ruggahissy)

MY BABY HEATHER

Up top: her profile is kind of whack but it actually doesn't really come into play much in her story.
Spoiler!
Heather wakes up totally confused about where she is. She's got a gun, which is lucky. She's skilled in guns and her dad is a cop who I'm assuming took her shooting and introduced her to firearms. Even still, she takes the time to read the gun manual that comes with her gun and goes about loading it, testing the safety ect. She then stores the extra ammo in her pockets for easy access, takes out the map and begins walking. So far, so good.

She walks out into the air field, weapon ready. She's accosted by David and she gets nervous, thinking of her (I guess fairly recent) rape. However, she keeps her cool, introduces herself and asks for his name, despite being terrified that he'll rape and kill her, which like, it's honestly a pretty reasonable fear. It would be an even more reasonable fear if this was V2.

She walks forward and sees David along with Amanda and Madeline and sees that David has a gun. She drops her gun, raises her hands and says "Please don't shoot." Ok, reasonable so far. Good, good. She walks forward and slides the gun away from herself, further emphasizing she does not want trouble. David then SHOOTS AT HER. AND TELLS HER TO DROP THE GUN? OR HE'LL KILL HER?

Heather is *understandably* freaked out and is thinking this guy is crazy and about to kill her because the gun is on the ground already. She's like, shaking and hoping he doesn't shoot her. Heather slides the gun away with her foot.

Wow, I totally doesn't understand what is happening. She points out it's on the ground and please don't shoot her and David is like "WELL..YOU TRIED TO GRAB IT. I SHOULD KILL YOU FOR YOUR TRICKERY, BUT I WON'T." He then says she's untrustworthy and grabs the gun and says he can't give it back because she's untrustworthy.

I am mad on her behalf and I am starting a counter for Heather doing the right thing for ungrateful morons.

Heather does the right thing for ingrates count: 1

She's near tears and points out that if she was going to shoot them she would not have dropped the gun and slid it to them. So then he steals the gun, gives it to Amanda and asks Heather for the extra clips. Is he supposed to be an irredeemable asshole?

Kuze OOC schools Slayer on how guns work.

Heather says she has more ammo and starts crying. After she tosses the ammo he tells her to fuck off and she calls him heartless for sending her out to die without a weapon. He's like "You should be thankful I let you live" and she gets mad and demands the gun back. Yes, good. As you should. He calls her "insolent" and tells her he'll shoot her in the head if she doesn't leave. Seriously, is this a good guy? Someone write in and tell me.
Heather wrote:
"You don't have the balls to shoot"
She knees him in the junk and tells him to give her back her gun. Well now he doesn't have the balls I guess.

I love you, Heather.

He shoots her in the thigh.
Do you get off on threatening and shooting defenseless people?
Apparently the kick to the junk is like a swat on the wrist because he keeps going. He shoots her some more in the arm and she gets up and grabs the gun, trying to wrench it away. He shoots her in the chest. Apparently it didn't hit anything vital, which is possible I guess, and she gets up and bites him in the neck. I like your spunk.

Dodd comes in OOC to tell Slayer he shot 14 shots without reloading and hasn't been hurt at all. Basically he's being selfish and not taking any damage while Heather is taking all the damage. I don't have a penis myself, but Dodd assures me that a kick to the dick should slow someone down a little as well.

Makaze also comes in to tell him he's godmodding and forcing Heather into being shot, which is true. Let's take a look
David wrote:
"Then you should have left when I allowed you to." David remarked simply, firing two more rounds towards Heather's chest at the close range created by her grab at him.

"Enough!" David was markably pissed off. Tossing Heather off his neck, and wincing as flesh tore free from below his collar (he was lucky his neck wasn't blown to bits right there) he pushed her away and fired seven shots consecutively to the head and chest areas.
How the flying fuck was she supposed to kung fu dodge out of that?

He said he shot her in the chest and there's not a lot Kuze could have done about that. So when he bitches about how much damage she's taken in the "Your thoughts" section of the wiki, maybe he shouldn't be complaining when he forced Heather into some of that damage. Makaze expects Heather to die there, but Heather is resilient.

She drags herself away.

Next thread has a damage count: she's been shot 5 times. She disinfects and bandages herself up and then gets going.

Next thread Heather stumbles into the school and Mason says
"What do you want?"
He also thinks that she may be faking her injures which, like, how?! She's covered in bloody bandages. Well he invites her in. He offers to help bandage the wounds better and she tells him no funny business. Too bad this guy is like, the Mayor of Molester City.
"Now, my hands and eyes are going to wander a bit, okay? Only to check where more wounds are." Mason winked, letting his hands wander over her thighs to check if she had any leg wounds.. he didn't care. For all he knew, he was going to die tomorrow. Why not have a little fun before venturing off?
She gives him a warning and tells him to not be creepy.

Heather does the right thing for ingrates count: 2

He starts propositioning her for sex after that clear warning. She grabs her gun and says no means no. He says he's not going to rape her, but tells her she's very pretty. She's had enough so she takes his bag, shoots him in the shoulder and starts to leave. He starts begging so she shoots him again in the arm. He begs her some more, and I was starting to feel like Heather was in the wrong, but he says as soon as she's close enough he'll steal her gun and kill her so, eh. She shoots at him and his handler, Kaishi, decides that the bullet hit him in the dick. At that point he thinks that he can't possibly survive in life without a dick and asks her to kill him. She does, but then she's horrified with what she's done. That's my girl.

Uriel "THE WITCH HUNTER" (??????) and Jacob come in and they start looking for whoever killed Mason. She shoots at them from under a desk. It hits Jacob in the hip but apparently that does nothing? Uriel throws himself on the desk and punches her in the face. She reaches into Mason's bag, finds a flashbag, shoves it in Uriel's mouth and it blows half his face off, killing him. Awesome. Jacob leaves and Heather is surprised that's what the flashbang did. She regroups, takes his bag and leaves.

She uses Mason's GPS tracker to find Jeremy and Fred in a warehouse. Again she says she is not a threat and raises her hands, pointing the gun away from them, but not dropping it this time. Fred asks her to put it away and she puts it in her bag. Friendship is made. Seeing that they are not crazy, Heather offers the boys a pipe wrench and the rest of the flash bangs.

Fred takes them both, but doesn't thank her.

Heather does the right thing for ingrates count: 3

Idiot Garrett comes in with the crossbow, wearing someone else's jacket. She tells him to put it down and fires warning shots, he says no and continues to be a dick, the three good people leave the area together.

Heather does the right thing for ingrates count: 4 (she could and should have killed Garrett)

They are headed to the mountains to find Fred's brother Glenn when Dodd appears. They exchange pleasantries, Heather plots out their course and she tells Dodd that he's going to lead the way. He's like "Why should I, I don't know where we're going?" and she's like "You go up front with me, I know where we're going and you are staying front because you have a shot gun"

Fred suddenly wants to go to the gazebo instead of the mountains which is where Glenn said he was during their brief phone call. Heather is like "There were screams coming from there and crazy Jacob was last seen there, that seems like a bad idea, let's go to where your brother said he was."

Heather does the right thing for ingrates count: 5

But he says he has TWIN-SENSE and can sense he's at the gazebo. They look on their GPS tracker and there are some dots at the gazebo. Heather relents and says they can go to the gazebo despite it being an insane idea. I guess twin sense is bullshit though because Fred's brother Glenn comes walking up to them as they're standing at the ravine. Yaaaaay.

They come across crazy Daphne, Heather is the last one to show up because she's walking with a lot of injuries and Maria is killed. Heather is like "let's leave" and they do. They come across David again and she demands her weapon back. He says no because she's killed people. She offers to trade him her original gun for the pistol she has now. Still no. She also says he doesn't know the circumstances of her kill of Mason and that Uriel is obviously an insane person that tried to kill her. None of that is a lie. She fires three shots at him. I'm shocked that Slayer allows the three to hit David. He shoots three times at her and they hit, one in the knee. He apparently doesn't really care about his bullet wounds though. For contrast, Heather is collapsed and crying.
"I'm fine...those bullets just hit the bone, that's all. I can get Hawley to patch it up later." he said, dismissing what was wrong with him as always.
=_=

Heather passes out and Jeremy and Fred carry her to the hospital.

She wakes up outside the hospital, still dizzy from blood loss, to find she's being carried by Fred. The group talks of escape and then Daphne pops out of her murder bush and kills two people. She pulls out her gun while still hanging on piggyback style to Fred and says
"Fred, going inside would be a brilliant idea right about now."
Fred agrees. He goes and puts Heather inside the hospital, yanks his brother inside and tells Jeremy to get in the hospital. Fred throws a flashbang at crazy Daphne and Heather scoots to a window and shoots her. One of the shots hits her shoulder and one takes her left eye out. Also recoil exists to Heather so she falls backwards after taking the shots.

Blah blah blah, Glenn and Daphne has a moment, he chooses to spare her and then all the development is undone when Jason randomly walks in and shoots everyone and kills Daphne.

The announcements declare the hospital a danger zone and Heather says they should head towards the nearby well. Since they have 5 minutes before they explode, everyone agrees. Also she trades her glock for Aiden's shotgun.

Once outside the danger zone everyone just starts talking about stuff, bandaging themselves and Heather is like "HELLO CAN WE GET MOVING?" You know, because they just escaped a crazy murderer who is probably still in the area due to the hospital being a danger zone.

Everyone is unhappy she yelled at them, but they agree.

Heather does the right thing for ingrates count: 6

They get to the school and hear a scream. Limping Heather is annoyed everyone is crowded around the door, but no one is going inside.
"What the hell? is someone getting stabbed or something? Heather said as the rest of the group gathered around the door, like it was a Japanese electronics store when the Playstation 2 was released.
A firefight breaks out and Kuze stops posting with Heather for a bit because he's posting with Eh Sun. Glenn has a sword/ wrench fight with Antonio and drops the sword so he tells Jeremy (and I guess Heather as well since she's standing there and she has a gun) that he and Mallory and gonna peace out because he's too wounded. Can they shoot at the attackers while he and Mallory escape? Kthnx byeeeee

Heather does the right thing for ingrates count: 7

Everyone runs off and Heather is left to hobble after them. Thanks for nothing, jerks.

Heather disappears for a while and then reappears a long time later. Her last post in the shoot out thread is December 9 and then the next post is March 11. Surely she's inactive by now? The announcements tell her that Fred, Mallory and Glenn died. Jeremy is still around though and he's happy to see her. Now that Heather is here, he thinks everything is going to be ok.

On April 3rd Dodd takes over for Heather, likely because she is MEGA inactive by now. He does her death post where she dies of her wounds and it's actually a mostly nice death post. She enters a state of euphoria as she starts to die from her many wounds and blood loss. Jeremy asks her if she remembers when they met and she smiles when she thinks about it.
She felt a calming sensation as she looked over Jeremy. The boy had been a good luck charm for her in the past week, and when she'd been around him, she'd felt safe. It was when she had been separated from him and his group that things had gotten out of hand. Now that she was back with Jeremy, things would be okay. Things wouldn't be bad at all.


CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: I would recommend Heather. I wish she got to do more and I'm not going to say she's the best v1 character, but she's solid. Something about her makes me feel a kinship to her. She is neither stupid nor a crazy murderer in the sea of both of those that make up v1. As Zarina said in chat "She's mostly competent and that's rare for v1." She even learns, as evidenced by putting her gun away in a bag rather than on the ground the next time she encounters a group. She's a good character, someone toughened by bad experiences but still willing to open up and make friends and I think she deserved better than what she got.

Please select a new child for me.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 2:02 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Ruggahissy)

Anya starts by having a dream about a B-movie where a giant fork kills people and then she's drowning, but she wakes up and is on STOF. Whoever did her wiki mid-game evaluation didn't read carefully and said SHE was drowning when her post very clearly states she woke up next to the river and not in it.

She realizes she's on a death game, pulls out an airline bottle of booze (doesn't say what kind of liquor it is) downs it and then starts thinking. She has a gun in her bag so that's good. Nearby screams cause her to look at her map, decide the school is a good option and set off.

Right at the outset I want to mention that the writing here is pretty good and there are a refreshing lack of typos.

Anya arrives at school and it's been barricaded. She says hello and says she's not playing, asking to be let in. When the response is slow she becomes frightened, but doesn't know what else to do.

Sydney Morvran tells her if she tosses her gun inside then they'll let her in, otherwise they'll shoot her. Xian and Tayli both say Anya is trustworthy. Tayli asks Sydney not to shoot her friend with her weapon that she's loaned him. Sydney lets her in and says "Enjoy your stay I guess."

Anya asks Sydney about being in SOTF before. Tayli suggests locking all the firearms in one cabinet and all the ammo in another so everyone can focus on barricading the school without worry of betrayal. She'll hold the key to one cabinet and Xian the other.

But then Minase walks in. He's pretty hostile so things get tense. Also Tayli just spent a long post talking about how people in school like her and Minase is like "I don't like her." CAN'T WIN EM ALL. Kaishi declares no more people can come in the thread because it's full, which might make this the first private thread.

Minase starts accusing Sydney of stuff, he starts having V0 flashbacks and throws a grenade at him (pin is still in). Xian intervenes and gets hit in the back with the grenade, Minase drops his gun to catch her (and is suddenly in love with her), Sydney continues to freak out and crym caught in a feedback loop of V0 memories. Xian freaks out.
She dropped [her bag] onto her lap and searched through it pulling out another bottle of gin, thinking that joining this group might have been a mistake.
Ahahahaha

She finishes the bottle -- for her sake I hope it was another airline bottle -- and thinks that Minase is an idiot. She proposes that since SOTF is being broadcast that the government will come for them as soon as they recognize the location so perhaps if they just wait they might be ok.

Minase thinks Xian and Syndey are crazy and hates Anya for her "diplomacy crap" and takes them all hostage. I'm glad he died of AIDS.

Anya pulls out a THIRD bottle of liquor and drinks it, telling Minase they can listen to him without the threat of death and to at least put the safety on and preferably put the gun down.

Minase HATES her attitude and smarts so he shoots above her head. Anya screams, and then brushes the ceiling bits out of her hair that fell on her. She opens a FOURTH bottle of booze and drinks it all. As she drinks she wonders if there's an easy way to kill Minase. I have to say I'm on her side.

Tayil has had enough so she goes and falls asleep in a janitor's closet. When she wakes up she finds a laptop and is excited it could be their ticket out. She runs out, slips, falls on the floor and in falling shoots Sydney in the lung. Wahhh wahhhh. Minase and Anya start trying to help him, Anya gets a FIFTH bottle of gin to disinfect the wound. Did this girl pack nothing but alcohol? Xian runs past Anya and Anya, in surprise, pulls the trigger of her gun but nothing happens because she put the safety on. Xian runs off screaming, Sydney dies, Minase leaves, Anya leaves and Tayil stays there until the area is made a danger zone and she dies.

Anya runs back to the river where Jacob Starr and Uriel are. Jacob is wearing a suit (??). She drops the gun when Jacob approaches her with a knife and he stabs her in the leg. She gets up and he continues trying to stab her. They know each other from school but he's basically a robot. He stabs her square in the chest and picks up her gun. Well she grabs the gun while he's holding it and pulls the trigger but it shoots her and she dies.

Conclusion: She's ok. I guess I'd recommend her. I was expecting more sass from Inky's recommendation of her. She's a little funny, but not remarkably so. She's generally well written and has some attitude, but not a must for v1 reading. Trivia says she's the first person ever to be posted with on SOTF so I guess you can read her for the novelty of that combined with her being decent overall.

Another child please

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 2:04 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Ruggahissy)

Miranda is a murder bush kill and this is the fourth time I've had to read this murder bush kill. Stop giving me this kill.

So Miranda's profile starts with a news article about a time when she was kidnapped by a 30-year-old shop clerk when she was 13. The shop clerk fell in love with her and decided to kidnap her and keep her in the cellar of his cabin until she loved him. She escaped and then I think he was arrested. Oh and she kept a diary while she was in captivity which was then published after she escaped. Most of her profile is dedicated to this event.

Then on the island she wakes up and immediately runs into her ex-boyfriend Eddie Serjeantson. He was her boyfriend before she got kidnapped. Anywho, they have some pretty nice back and forth sassing of each other. She tells him she can protect her with her 104 pounds of all fighting muscle. It's a joke, but they're cute and she's the better of the two.

The two walk up on the hospital and the positioning of everyone is out of whack as fuck. I'm assuming Miranda went into the hospital while Eddie went to the group loitering outside. The group talks of escape, Eddie kicks a rock into a bush. But that bush has crazy moron Daphne in it. For those not in the know, Daphne murdered a girl at school and her own parents shortly before arriving on the island. Daphne sees the rock roll into her bush, takes this as an attack, pops out of her bush and stabs Eddie to death. Miranda runs out of the hospital in hysterics and Daphne is like "ANOTHER ENEMY RUSHING AT ME" and stabs her from her bush as well.

:|

Conclusion: I don't like how focused she is on her weird Kiss The Girls situation prior to the game, but her first thread shows she's got a fun personality. Then she's killed by the murder bush. I can't recommend. Please stop making me read the murder bush. Another please.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 2:06 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Kermit)

Extra Curricular Activity: Comic Book Club, Video Game Club, Anime Club, Track Team.
look at this fukin nerd lol Kermitthrows things at jake


Well, on the bright side, his hobbies are like, normal.

Bio:

Jake is a stinky neeeeeeeeeerd! also ">>;". I'm unsure what it means, but it's it's in his profile.
"Particularly his sister, Anna, who would often get in his way while playing video games. He realized, of course, that she was just an infant but that didn't mean she couldn't show his games the respect they deserved!"
Kermitbeats jake up
"His brother, who was only older than him by a year, was much the same but instead of being responsible, he often found himself in trouble. Once, he had even nearly killed another boy. Boy, had that gotten his parents angry."
??????????????????what?????????????????????
"His parents had decided that it was probably wise if Jake and his older brother didn't go to the same school because they had never gotten along overly well. Had he the chance, John would beat Jake up every chance he got."
I'm John.

TLDR;

Image

ISLAND:

Jake's only thread is "?????????????????" which does not bode well.
"(Shinya continued from: Truth be Told, the Child was Borne))
((Eh-Sun continued from ?? ?? ??? ??))
(and Jake is just starting because Skythe gave me premission to kill him XD)"
well rip jake

The post starts off with Shinya killing himself in a confusing and overly-elaborate way. Not sure why it wasn't just a oneshot, but ok.

Jake crawls over to Shinya's corpse, steals all of his shit, and says "Hell yes now the jocks cant kill me" and then a gunshot goes boom and Jake dies. THE END!

EDIT: OH MAN HOW COULD I FORGET KOUJI!

he's there for a single post after everyone dies.
Kouji wonder towards the Bamboo Coppice and found Eh-Sun, "YOU!" Kouji shouted aloud. "Hey you I want my blade back!"
oh klouji i love you so



Conclusion: the most I can say about Jake is that he existed.

Fuck it, another one, please.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 2:07 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Kermit)

Hmmm ok this'll be entirely out of memory 'cus I read Art like last week for my spriteathon.

In his profile, Art's kinda set up as this master-manipulator type dude, but Dodd was like "well I don't know what to do with him" on-island, so he gets foddered to Cillian.

His profile isn't the worst, he seems relatively normal (sans mental-disorder), and yeah.


ISLAND:

Hi Cillian.

So Art finds Cillian crying or whatever and is like "strangle" and Cillian is like "NO BAD DOCTOR MEN AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" and Art is like "shh no no its ok dont struggle" and Cillian somehow slides his hand into Art's gut (WWWWHAAAAAAAAT!?) and Devi's here and she's like "hmhmhmhmhm i hope theres blood" and then Cillian jumps on art so many times that he has a hole straight through him. rip art.

Conclusion: Just read Cillian, I guess.

not asking for another right now, you know the drill.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 2:10 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Ruggahissy)

I've seen Elsie twice now, once for two threads with Fred and once in a thread where Michael tried to get into her hiding place, so I think I've read about half of her already. Let's rock.

Profile:

Sexy blonde cheerleader from a rich family. It says she's a bit of a snob, but smart. Interesting drama: she had sex with her rival's cousin, Matt Vreeland,(related to Tayli Vreeland) and she's pregnant. Matt pressured her to abort the child and she still is nervous about talking her best friend Lyndi about it, but desperately wants to so she can get advice. Onward.
Spoiler!
Island:

It seems that she's scared. She thinks about stuff and I think Matt was her first for whatever that's worth. She hears Lyndi's voice though and calls out to her. Meanwhile Cody Jenson showed up on his bike and he's fighting Shinya. Callum and Lyndi pick up a nearly dying Fred Hughes. Cody is instantly in love with Lyndi and he and Shinya run off. Pregame did not exist so Elsie has a flashback to when she tried out for cheerleading and the other girls were all saying mean things about her because her sister was cheer captain and they felt that she was going to get on the squad out of nepotism. Only one girl is friendly to her, and that's Lyndi.

The group arrives at the lighthouse and they come upon Vince who is kindda shady. Callum runs off to die, saying he has to look after his friend Beth. Vince's shadiness becomes a back burner issue when Cody shows back up, determined to kill everyone but Lyndi. Everyone goes in the lighthouse by Fred who tries to fight off Cody though he's like, dying. Then he does die. Lyndi can't stand to sit inside and do nothing so she goes out to help Fred and Elsie is convinced by her bravery to go out too. Then she trips over a crate, hits her head on the ground and passes out. Truly a fighter.Vince gets beat up and then runs away like a coward leaving Lyndi and unconscious Elsie. Um, Elsie is out cold for the rest of this so even though I read it we'll skip forward. Cody kidnaps Lyndi. Elsie wakes up hours later and sets off to find her.

Somehow Lyndi escaped Cody and is in the school. Elsie hears her and asks her to let her in. CHARACTER GROWTH: Elsie decides she has to dedicate her to protecting people she cares about, that being Lyndi and her unborn child. She lets it slip she's pregnant with this sort of hilarious line:

"Lyndi open the fucking door I'm playing for two out here and you're the only one who can help me!" Elsie screamed.

Lyndi pulls her inside and her only response to the news of the baby is to hug Elsie tightly. Lyndi had been thinking of killing herself, but hearing the news of her best friend's pregnancy inspires her to keep living, if only to protect her.

Why is Lyndi great?
"Oh my God Lyndi what am I gonna do?!"

Having kept her pregnancy a secret from everyone but Matt for so long had taken it's toll on her and now here she was breaking down, on live television.

"I was so scared Lyndi... I was so scared. What are we gonna do? I'm sorry I didn't tell you but I was so scared."

This is a nice moment. Michael Suarez comes over and they tell him to fuck off. I really like this kind of protector/protectee thing we've seen a lot, but with two platonic girlfriends. Elsie is a bit the weaker of the two both in story and as a character despite being the one with the baby.

The girls run to the woods and Elsie runs face first into a tree branch and gets AMNESIA as well as separated from Lyndi. That's how amnesia works, right? I'm pretty sure. Welp that happens on March 23rd. June 10th Megami takes over with permission from Elsie's handler MooCow.


Warning: This next part causes my mind to cloud, the walls to melt, flowers to wilt. I question the fabric of space and time itself. I thought that I'd gotten a relatively safe draw, but this was all to lure me into a false sense of security.

You are interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable. That is why you are here. We are giving you all the evidence, based only on the secret testimonies of the miserable souls who survived this terrifying ordeal. The incidents, the places, my friend, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent....

Elsie approaches Cody in a field and is like "Where am I? Who are you?" and he taunts her slasher villain style before she takes off running. He runs her down with his motorcycle and hits her with the tire iron. She grabs his bag and gets the axe from it and they have a pretty decent fight where she holds her own for awhile. She notices that while he's fighting her he's getting a murder boner. Oh, this should have been my first clue, but it was not.

After more fighting he grabs her by the hands, head butts her and she drops the axe. He beats her for awhile and then this happens
In one fell swoop, Cody Jenson swung the axe and all Elsie Darroch saw was the gleam of the blade, followed by an intense black, as Cody completely severed her mid-section in half with the weapon. Elsie continued to stand for a moment, as if dumbfounded, before finally both her top and bottom half fell to the ground with a loud thump.
Image

Cody continued to marvel at the bloody speciman before him. As if finally deciding on a course of action, Cody once again raised the axe and severed the blonde's head from the rest of her body. The quiet sound of humming once again started to emit from Cody's throat as he went about using the blonde's hair to fasten her decapitated head around the handlebars of Loretta.
Image
FINAL THOUGHTS: ....no......no?....NO


Elsie was fine until a death that frankly comes out of no where and I don't know why any of it happened. Either way, Lyndi is the better character so just read her and pretend Elsie floated away on a raft?

Another

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 2:11 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Aura)

Eh-Sun Choi was not an enjoyable character to read. Her profile is very over-the-top, featuring many of the common tropes of v1 characters, and she doesn't get much better on the island.

It doesn't take very long for Eh-Sun to decide to start killing, and the way she does it is very abrupt and not believable at all. When she wakes up, she's confused and scared, but in her very next thread she uses her cattle prod to drown Aaron Bourdon with no reason given for her change in behavior until after the deed is done, at which point she states that killing makes her feel good. So essentially, she becomes a player out of nowhere without a good in-universe explanation.

Things don't get better in her next thread, where she comes upon the site of Shinya Motomura's suicide, shoots Jake Driggers, then takes all of their stuff. The extra-sketchy bit about this is that Shinya was handled by Eh-Sun's handler, and he had just been rolled. So with that knowledge, it looks like they just had Eh-Sun conveniently show up and take all of their previous character's possessions while padding their kill count, and I'm raising an eyebrow at this.

Eh-Sun then goes on to have a feud with Kouji Ginsenshi, who tries to chase her for a while before just disappearing, then forges an alliance with Peri Barclay and Stevan Hyde. Along the way she kills a cowering Kousaka Takeda while bluntly rebuffing his last request. This leads to a climasx where she, Stevan, and Peri fight McLocke, one of the terrorists who had been recently released on the island, and they actually win. However, McLocke blows himself up, and the bast and ensuing shrapnel badly injure Peri and Eh-Sun.

It was at this point that Eh-Sun switched handlers to LadyMakaze, who had her feel the pain of all of her repressed tragic memories at once and freak out. Her final appearance then took place at the Old Warehouse, where she seemingly loses her grip on sanity and gets blown up along with several other characters by Angelina Kaige.

I do not recommend Eh-Sun at all. She is not well-written, she doesn't interact with many good characters, and she's generally a chore to get through. I'm sorry to be so negative, but I didn't have fun with this one.

Another character, if you please.