Survival Of The Fittest

I can't really say that there was a lot to Jaime as a character. Her role in the one thread she had was essentially “appear, talk to Mariavel, attack her and then get killed by her” and even within this there’s not a lot dedicated to her - the majority of the thread takes Mariavel’s perspective and the majority of what we do get dedicated to Jaime is this blank prose which - although it does give us viewpoints into Jaime’s thoughts - doesn’t really give us any ideas on how she is emotionally until the very end (which is essentially generic ‘oh no, I’ll never achieve this now that I’m dead) and doesn’t really provide any interest for the reader to grab onto. It’s pretty clear that Jaime only existed so that her death could prop up Anna’s and Mariavel’s stories, and although that might make Mariavel or Anna better, it doesn’t really make Jaime by herself an engrossing read, and personally it doesn’t make me care about her all that much.

GIMME A DRINK, BARTENDER

Ruggahissy-Today at 4:15 PM
GO FINISH


(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

i dont wanna finish my meat…..





anbel part 2:

i don no were gigi went. do u no were gigi went? anbel left thred. the end. nxet thred!

this thred is cald “i like shoping!”. i leik shoping 2. : )

brob madams and matdrew r heer! brob nd mat a prty fnuny 2! : ) dawn of teh ded suxx!

oh boi! hre cums anbel! she is at mal and their is abecombi an ftich and hrot tropic. y those r on murderisland is a biiiiiiiig mystery. anbel is confuse. me 2, anbel, me 2. anbel is like “helo is n e 1 here?” and brob an mat r like “helo”. mat says “eh?” so that means he is cnadien. also the cnadien is creeping on anbel an i feel uncomfy : ((((

sme boring stuf hapens and then farnco sebort is here nd he has a genad lonchur! rus goofball is here 2! wahoo! oh boy so is satcy hoorson! she is my face < 3 xoxoxoxox!

farnco and rus and satcy hijak the thred an then satcy gets sqished by a beem or smthn bcuz farnco made a splosion with his genad lonchur. brob and cnadien mat and anbel leaf thred.

: O in this next thred there is bryant carver and j. r. rizzolo and victoria! oh wow! bryant carver hedbuts j. r. rizzolo and the riz dies. :’ (

oh now anbel n frends r here! they hang out with bryant carver nd evry1 is hapy! I’m not happy.

haha lolz n e ways anbel never actuly show up in thred nd mistuko3 makes her head splode. the end!

Conclusion: fuk u

now i want some pudding.


Edit: Yeahhhhhhhh just ignore all of that. After she leaves the Gigi thread, she heads to the mall, where she befriends Rob Adams and Matt Drew. They talk for a bit and then Franco/Russ/Stacy show up and Stacy gets smushed. Rob/Matt/Annabelle leave. Now, Annabelle doesn't show up until the very last post of the next thread, and she is promptly collarsploded. Also her pregame's fine.

wow look an actual conclusion: Annabelle's actually pretty decent, just skip her first thread.

Satoru Kamui. Not much to say here. He's Japanese and his parents are stereotypically ruthless perfectionists. Oh, he also was in a mental hospital for a year for no particular reason, but that's never expanded upon so we'll forget about it.

I check into pregame. His first thread has seven pages. NOPE. OK, I skim through. Satoru 1) is shy 2) looks like a girl because of his long hair. A girl named Ebody at school takes a shine to him and soon they're making out and declaring each other totes boyfriend and girlfriend. They meet another guy named Tybalt who angsts and Satoru blurts out he's bisexual. I don't think any of these people appeared on island and this is why pregame is dumb. Enough of that.

On-island, there's a nothing opening thread. Satoru walks off and walks into a day one sex scene between Venus Gwendolyn and Zed. Venus is apparently sexing Zed as part of a devious scheme to steal an American flag from him. Aaaaaa. Zed is thinking about video games. Satoru plots on whether to attack them or not and oh god I'm trying to avoid most of this sex scene but aaaaaaaaaa.

"Venus’ pearly white teeth sunk into the expired sausage and she bit hard."

aaaaaaaaaaaaa

While she's chomping on down, Satoru decides to rush them with his cat claws. I agree. He maybe stabs Zed in the arm and Venus runs away and Nich Finlayson shows up angrily. Satoru runs away but his hair gets caught in a tree branch and he thrashes around in a most pathetic fashion. Nich gives him an ax whack in the arm and they have a pretty perfunctory fight where they inflict a couple surface injuries before Satoru runs off and goes in active.

He surfaces some time on in a group inactivekill. And a half-decent one by early standards, by that! Good work, Megami. Satoru hides for a few days and meets up with Alexander Bee, whoever that is. Gigi Sinclaire stomps up and assumes Satoru is Alex's girlfriend. Heehee. Hey, it shows they actually read at least a bit on who the characters were, which is better than a lot of inactivekills get. ANYWAY, the three of them decide to wait out the rain on an abandoned boat and Danya explodes them for reasons.

So yeah, not much. His pregame was pointless and he had an islandthread where all he dead was interrupt a blowjob of death and get his hair tangled in a branch. He got a much better inactivedeath than most kids are getting this version though, so good on him for that.

ANOTHER.

Tori Johnson is one of v2's long runners, with 4 pregame threads and a whopping 12 island threads. She was also closely allied with Bryan Calvert, the winner of v2 and a very good character in his own right. So naturally, Tori would be very good too, right?

Well... not exactly.

Mechanically, Tori starts off on very shaky ground. There are a lot of typos and poorly structured sentences in her early threads, which amount to almost all of pregame and a bit of her early island run. Her writing does admittedly get quite a bit better later on, especially after she meets up with Bryan on the island. However, it still makes her early run not so easy on the eyes.

Tori herself, for the most part, is inoffensive. In pregame she's the naive newcomer to Bathurst High, and on the island she's nervous and afraid until she meets Bryan, at which point she essentially becomes his protectorate. Now, I think that by far the best parts of Tori's story come when she is with Bryan, since the two of them have surprisingly good chemistry together, and that makes for some pretty good scenes. However this pairing is as much of a curse as it is a blessing, because while Tori does improve, I keep getting drawn to the much more interesting Bryan.

Another gripe I have is that sometimes Tori will suddenly have an outburst and start yelling, only to go back to her normal personality in the next post. I feel like these moments aren't as built-up as they could have been, so they tend to come off as really disjointed.

Finally, her death scene, while undoubtedly emotional, comes off as rather dumb in terms of the situation. Mariavel shows up, and even though she knows about Mariavel's huge killcount, Tori tells Bryan not to fight her. Bryan not only agrees, but he leaves Tori alone with Mariavel while he goes to stake out the rest of the hospital. Tori inevitably gets shot and dies, Bryan cries, and Mari gets away until their final showdown in Endgame.

Tori Johnson is not a bad character at all, despite not having the best of stats. However, she's not really stellar either. She's worth a look because her time with Bryan is really good, and she's in at least one really fantastic scene, but don't expect her to knock your socks off.

Another character, if you please.

I’m… a little confused right now.

So the writing behind Laura is pretty good, and we get a pretty clear sense of her voice right out from the gate and we can pretty easily tell what her character is like - as this sorta angry, sorta cynical girl trying to fight against the voice in her head that she hates. We even get the a progressive arc in the space of four posts, trying to fight against this voice and her lashings out becoming external, to the point where she decides she’s going to kill herself just to get it to shut up. It’s pretty good, and the fact that this arc was done within the space of four posts is pretty commendable, and something that if it weren’t for her problems would make me look at her more as a way to perform an arc in a short amount of time.

The problem is that there’s a lot of things aimed at the reader which are just… seriously confusing and this severely prevents the message that Shula is trying to send from being totally coherent. This is mostly in regards to the voice in Laura’s head - we as readers don’t know where the voice come from and what it tries to represent, and the fact that we never get an answer as to what it was within her posts or within the profile just leaves me as a reader confused as to what it means and what the point Shula’s trying to convey is. In addition, formatting wise, at points I’m not sure whether something is the voice in Laura’s or Shula using italics for other things, and all that does is just make me unsure about like, whether the voice made her kill herself by doing a songpost.

All in all I can see what’s there and I can appreciate what Shula was trying to achieve with Laura, but there’s some flaws in her story in regards to what the voice is and whether it’s actually there or not which severely hinder it. I would recommend her as a somewhat good V2er, but I will warn anyone else reading her that they’re probably gonna be seriously confused coming out of it.

Another please, dear Rugga.

Mariavel Varella:

I usually don't do these read-a-thon posts in too structured of a fashion - I prefer a more stream of consciousness take, as it does a better job of showing what I'm thinking while I'm actually reading - but I feel like I'd be doing you all a disservice if I didn't deliver something a bit more…academic today. I'm also going to spoiler it because it's crazy long.

One thing to note before you jump in: I wrote most of this as I was reading, as I tend to do, so if there's something I missed or mixed up early on, I probably didn't go back to fix it, though I did a general proofread before I posted.

[+] THE LION, THE BITCH, AND THE CROSSBOW AN ODYSSEY

...sigh.

Pre-Read Impressions

In my 9th grade year, freshman year of High School, I had to take a gym class because it was one of the requirements. My teacher's last name, funnily enough, was Varella. It's almost as if the universe has been preparing me for this moment, to undergo this quest for the last two years.

Call me crazy, but I don't know if that was enough time.

Even reading the profile, you can tell that things are kind of...wrong, here. Mariavel (now added to my Google Dictionary so that I don't get red squiggle lined anymore) is a violent girl, having killed someone before and gotten away with it. Having survived an abusive childhood, she joined a gang called the Bloody Fists, and while on a job with the eventual winner of v2, Bryan Calvert, she wound up beating a dude to death with a baseball bat. Combine this ultra-violence with the fact that she's a fifteen year old girl, and combine that fact with the fact that she's apparently involved in a few sex scenes down the line, and I'm made a little uncomfortable.

Part of that has to do with the fact that she's the first character I'll be reading that I'm actually older than, and the other part has to do with the fact that, well, it's a bit of a culture shock. I haven't, admittedly, delved very much into past versions of SOTF. The furthest back I've consistently gone to is v4. I'm missing out on roughly half of the trials and tribulations that the site has gone through, on both a social and literary (is that the right term here?) level, and this is my first real taste of some of the bad writing that early versions paid host to.

Oh, and her only hobby is Cheer Squad.

It's like being invited to a party where you know there's gonna be drugs, and you're expecting some weed or something, and then when you walk in the door the floor is covered with meticulously arranged heroin needles all pointed upwards and everyone's walking around barefoot.

With that shitty analogy, it's time for the Pre-Game.

---

Pre-Game:

So not only does the tough gangbuster start out blushing when she touches the hand of the guy she likes, she also thinks in colored green text, is introduced in a post with at least three typos, and she's in the thread for just two posts, two very short posts. While Mariavel is thinking that it's already looking like a good day, in light green, I'm stuck thinking that things are gonna start going downhill for me.

Cutting class is pretty much in character for her, but I feel like that's one of the least of my worries. The way she sits against the wall is described suggestively, and one girl, Tanesha, calls her out on it. The tough-violent-don't-fuck-with girl kinda just takes it, though she does stand up after that - the first sign of sense displayed. I wonder if I'll be able to count each sensible decision like that in the future, if it'll be possible to keep track of each and every one. I don't exactly know what about the class line-up made Mariavel think that "too many controversies were going to happen."

I also don't know what the "incedent" is, other than a word I don't have to add to the dictionary. What I do know is that her reaction to being bumped into is entirely uncalled for. Just being in this hallway thread is giving me the creeps. I don't think "Baby gonna cry?" is an appropriate response to anything for anybody, but obviously back then the thought process was, at the very least, different. "It isn't my fault that the only thing boys notice on you is that pointy nose," is fine, though, if it was delivered better. "Open like a 7-Eleven" was another appropriately adolescent attack, though it was just tacked on to the end of Jenna's post like an accidental afterthought. It was enough to aggravate Mariavel to attack, though, as she follows her assailant into the restroom.

I do have to give credit for this bathroom fight scene for being entertainingly over the top and bad, though. The bullfighter joke was clever, at the very least. The fact that Mariavel was able to withstand her hair being torn out is kind of a "I HAVE A FORCE FIELD!" level of playground turn around, though. The befuddlement in Jenna's own post at how Mariavel manages to headbutt while in a wrestling hold is sufficiently bad, and the not-so-subtle nudge to Mitsuko is funny on a subtext level as well.

sense wrote:OOC- Mitsuko, here is my advice to you before you post...

Copy -> Paste into Word -> F7 -> Copy -> Paste into "Post Reply -> Submit.

A free way to improve your RPing skills…

Her highness, Queen Asshat, this eleventh day of June in the year of our Lord, two thousand and six, one thirty two in the morning.


Burn. Sick fucking burn. She never took the advice.

Being able to hear the bathroom fight from the hallway thread is a nice touch, as is the courtesy to take it into another thread when there aren't any subforums for the High School in this pre-game. She collapses out onto the floor while her smartass friends diagnose her with some mach two concussion bullshit (how the hell would any of them actually know that?) and then decide that hitting her playfully while she's unconscious is a good thing for some reason. There's a Muay Thai fight for some reason? It's all, it's all a fucking blur at this point. It's her! It's Mariavel! Mariavel Carnival!

She gets up and decides that it's a good idea to try and dissuade her friends and gangs from fighting each other. That's sensible decision number two, but I think I can chalk that up to the security clearance grade two classified tier concussion she got moments ago. A kid named Darcy decides that Mariavel is some kind of Italian ("Mariavela!" is the name's new spelling twice in one post, and into the next few posts as well, not just as a verbal tic, but in the goddamn narration) and Mariavel reveals her true anti-semitic colors before them all ("She kiked my ass" [sic]) while things get sidetracked into crush talk.

Y'know, talking about your crush, who is right next to you, involved in a Muay Thai fight, while blushing like a madwoman, either that's sensible decision number three or the stupidity is contagious today.

Mariavel's Narration wrote:]"What a drag…"

Read my FUCKING mind, Mitsuko.

At least they get the sense to eventually take their crush talk somewhere else, into the locker room. I'm holding back on this being sensible decision number three, because as we all know, Mariavel doesn't exactly have the best luck with bathrooms and how they work. Careful, this next headlock headbutt might defy physics so hard it creates a black-hole!

Oh, I'm also disqualifying it because it's entirely possible Darcy made the decision and not Mariavel. So, we're at two sensible decisions so far.

Mariavel has a touching character moment in the locker room while her friend gets ready for Cheer Squad and she remarks that the reason she likes her crush is because he doesn't think she's a slut and talks to her like a person. For Mariavel's only hobby outside of bashing people's skulls in, defying the laws of nature, and losing at fights in the bathroom, she doesn't seem all too much devoted to it. I expected more of a laser focus.

CBP's Imagination wrote:"So how about that boy you like, Mariavela?"

"Darcy I will cut you if you distract me from my cheerleading one more goddamn time."

"Well shit Mariavela I was just asking you a question you didn't have to be such a bi-"

"My Pom-Poms are being RUFFLED right now, Darcy. You are RUFFLING. MY. POM-POMS."

The two have a bit of a tiff about what kind of guy Mariavel's crush, Jack, is, using various hard-hitting and complex descriptors such as "Jock" and "Emo" and "Nerd," classic and typified American archetypes that everyone can relate to and identify with at heart. Darcy's rulebook fails her here, and shows us truly that Jack is something special, a really truly special guy that Mariavel met at her locker once and then never again. Has she already forgotten about John, the boy from her first thread? Or, wait, has his name been changed? Either explanation is fair game right now.

Oh, she ditches practice. That's nice. It's not like I expected her to care about what she was doing, anyways, not if it was her only hobby. It's understandable considering that after a reasonable suggestion of having someone else do her dirty work for her, she decides to slam her whole entire hand into a mirror, shattering it, cutting up her hand, and then leaves the room, just because she can, and because Jenna is HER prey, and nobody else's prey. She is already out for blood and we haven't even left pre-game yet, folks.

Mariavel's Narration wrote: Sadly she looked at a picture. It was so sad... such a sad painting... like her... she only waned a normal life... was that too much to ask? was it?

Sadly CBP looked at a SOTF character. It was so sad... such a sad character... like him... he only waned a normal life... was that too much to ask? was it?

It's off-topic, but Slayer doesn't know how to format his posts really at all. It's just kind of weird to me to see a two sentence Mitsuko post, and then two bigass paragraphs by Slayer, and then another two sentence Mitsuko post, ad nauseam. This is the textbook case of text message rejection, and it seems that neither of them realize it. Mr. Walter drops a page long dissertation on why Mariavel should be thankful that he should "deign to speak to her," and then he disappears into art class. Mariavel kind of just teleports to the beach here - narration says she doesn't perceive walking there so given all that's happened I think teleportation is right in line with her as a person and as a physical construct.

*ahem*

Coincidentally, Mariavel runs into her best friend Lavender on the beach, her own best friend that she was just thinking about. She decides that that was ironic somehow, because that's the way that word is used, for certain!

I don't think I'm being too harsh.

The two have a bit of a rough conversation, where Mariavel asks if anything's bothering Lavender and they go on this whole spiel about a party that is not referenced anywhere else prior, and at the end of it all Lavender decides that it's a good time to tell Mariavel that, shocker, Lavender might be pregnant! It's a tense, emotional moment, and it's here that the two come into their own. The writing quality shoots up dramatically, and the two sit out and gaze at the sunset while they discuss their plans for the future. Plans that were cut short, unfortunately, by the game. It's extremely touching, and after the trainwreck that was the rest of pre-game, I'm forced to admire the context of this beautiful piece of writing.

Lavender wrote:"I'm pregnant and you're the father."

Or, y'know, it was a cruel joke that Mariavel fell for somehow. I mean, whatever. Not like I wanted to be pleasantly surprised or anything.

The two just kinda...hang out on the beach? They're just normal teenagers here, and there isn't anything to say about it. They decide that they're going to spend the rest of the night going shopping at the plaza, which, again, is just totally normal. I hope Mariavel got her hand bandaged up at some point, and her face fixed up after the fight, but hey, them not mentioning it is just, peachy, y'know? I expect it right now.

It's my expectation that those injuries are forgotten.

They go on a shopping spree and they invite some friends along too. Lavender describes a skirt as "mega good" and I almost throw up, but I have to keep reminding myself whose party it is today. It's Mariavel's party. This is All About My Mariavel. I need to keep reading, through the lens of Mariavel, and nobody else. I kind of lied when I said that they invited some friends along, because they didn't, Darcy just kind of knows where they are and shows up - teleportation? mind-reading? - just because she can.

Jesus, just because I say I want to focus on Mariavel doesn't mean that the narrative has to be just Darcy and Lavender for a whole ten posts. Eventually Mariavel gets fed up with that dynamic too, and walks over to where the other two are and listens in. Her crush is the topic of discussion, and wisely Mariavel keeps her mouth shut. Another girl just kind of wanders into the store, not running into anyone for a while, while the two other girls that still aren't Mariavel talk about how much they hate the gang, present company excepted. Wait, now the discussion is about how much they hate eachother, present company very much included, as Mariavel opens the door and stops Lavender's hand mid-slap so she can say that she doesn't want to choose friends. Annabelle, the other girl who just kind of wandered in earlier, yells at them to hurry up, like a reasonable person.

Then she gets caught in a fight because we hate reason today. Mariavel tries to calm down the catfight, but fails, because

Mariavel wrote: "This is so funking stupid! I can't handle this shit!"

She then runs out of the store and into a nearby bathroom in the mall proper. Lavender gets pissy, leaves, goes to that same bathroom, hears Mariavel crying, and then kicks the stall because she doesn't recognize who it is.

Like, holy shit, did that actually happen?

The two make-up, predictably, and then walk out to find not one, not two, but three other girls. While Mariavel was in the bathroom, Darcy and Annabelle made up, and they were also joined by another girl named Renee, who happened to see the commotion and stopped on over to say hello. Mariavel responds to this confounding situation with an apt "Who the hell are you?" while everyone else just kind of explains themselves - or really doesn't, just kind of says they need to call their parents or something - when all of a sudden

Mitsuko y u do this wrote: Bam!

A bullet from a silenced handgun blew out the side of Mariavel's neck, ripping through her carotid artery. The blonde collapsed, the last moments of her life spent gasping for air and choking on her own blood.

Mariavel Varella is Dead

"Snake, what have you done?! You've changed the future! You've created a time paradox!"

Time Paradox

This is Mitsuko's way of communicating to us how Mariavel confesses her crush. In a pre-game where one kid actually literally fucking died, this is a bit of a shocking swerve, to say the least. I'm sure by this point Mariavel's reputation has preceded her, but come on, was this really okay? Take out everything after the first death tag and I'm pretty sure people would believe she was actually fucking shot. It's just ludicrous to me that someone would do this.

Especially when it seems like nobody cares about it. Lavender just kind of laughs it off, and Renee, the new third girl from outside the restroom, doesn't even pay attention. Before we hear from Darcy, the person who cared, the thread ends.

This is presumably where the board break went, as Kaishi's characters aren't present from here forward. That, and it's where the site changed to the other one. This thread actually kind of picks up right from the other one, as Mariavel goes to the rec center for some swimming to get hit on by some boys who don't know that she's way, way younger than she should be. They just kinda splash her, and then apologize for it, to get their feet in the door. Weird. As ages are finally confirmed and gossip is exchanged, things get slightly less weird, but it's still sort of an eighteen year old hitting on a fifteen year old. They even decide to run over to the amusement park together - how long is this day, exactly? - and Mariavel goes off to get changed while her assailan- I mean, friend Christian Valero (oddly similar last name) chats up some other guy by the poolside. One typo-ridden mess later, she's changed, and they go to the carnival, and-

Wait, really? I'm free?

That's the end of Mariavel's pre-game!

---

Pre-Island Impressions:

There was a lot wrong with Mariavel's pre-game. Inconsistent behavior, a grand total of two sensible decisions - and far fewer on the actual writing side of things - combined with a lack of pride in the presentation and a general disdain for realism and physics made parts of this a painful read. That said...despite all my ragging on her, what I've heard of how her Island turns out sounds somewhat intriguing. How does slightly bitchy and violent teleportation wizard Mariavel turn into hack and slash killer Mariavel? I must know!

Let the record show, though, that it was here that CBP stopped his reading on Friday, and picked up the island portion of Mariavel's run the following day. Both were done in their individual sittings.

---

The Island:

If I had to describe V2 as a whole in three words, based off of what it is I've seen, it'd be these: Darker and Edgier. In the prologues alone - of which there are four, one for each school - you have a teacher getting raped, several other teachers being murdered, vhs clips of some of the most intense moments from the previous version (even if that is a standard, having it happen four times is kind of overkill), and a principal even turning out to be one of the terrorists all along, all wrapped up in one neat little V2 package. Pre-game had a whole event where a student was murdered before the game even started, for christ's sake! If there's any one character who is the epitome of this edginess, it's Mariavel. She comes from a broken home, is immune to certain kinds of pain because of abuse, and has an unreasonable amount of intended sex appeal for a fifteen year old. All of this and more would carry onto the island proper.

God, I'm hesitant to even click the first thread. It's even called "Why Good Girls Don't Win…"

Mariavel starts in a church, distracted by a sad picture the architecture of the building. She curses the death of her brother, I'm assuming - I couldn't find anyone else named Grant in the entirety of my research - while instantly deciding that she's going to spend the game tracking down people she hates, or that have scorned her in the past. While not the most uncommon goal of players when they get dropped on the island, it's interesting to note the routes that could have been taking here. One that instantly comes to mind is her own gang - seeking out the Bloody Fists immediately should have given her an inherent advantage over most of the other children, by means of having a big group of allies. I'm assuming she does find them eventually, though I'm ready to be surprised again by Mariavel's decision making skills. At the very least, Mariavel is equipped with a tool that's fit for the job - a tomahawk. She sets out from the church, eager to start crossing names off her checklist.

This is what I'm assuming is the start of the infamous "Mariavel Kill-Feeding," where inactive, abandoned, or, in this case, students by Mitsuko are disposed of by means of Mariavel rather than by way of collar detonation. Jaime Dibenidetti is the first to go, and, to my surprise, it turns out that this is the daughter of the man that Mariavel killed. She goes down almost effortlessly, her weapon looted and her corpse left to rot, leaving Mariavel to go off to the ranch to meet up with her "sisterhood," which I'm inclined to believe doesn't mean her gang because it's comprised of mostly boys. She can't possibly mean her list either, since there's a few boys on that, too...right?

However, on her way to the ranch, Mariavel finds her way to the residential district of the island, breaking through the glass window of a house, hoping nobody heard her breaking a glass window, and rummaging through the drawers before eventually sitting on a couch, in the same house she drew attention to, complaining when she's found because she wanted peace and quiet. Jin Li-Jen, another person with a knife, finds her, and the two...don't fight? I was promised more violence than this! Instead, Mariavel pocket-sands Jin with fishbowl dust after he rejects her partnership offer, and runs away.

Mariavel stumbles into a confrontation in the wheat field, which I'm guessing is closer to the Ranch but because a map doesn't exist I wouldn't have a clue. There, she stumbles upon a fight, Tanesha Lexx taking on Whitney Acosta and Matthias Kovalenko. Tanesha was one of the names towards the bottom of Mariavel's list earlier, so she decides to get herself involved in the fight, inadvertently saving Whitney and Matthias from Tanesha's rage. Their battle is filled with more words than attacks that land, as they furiously debate on what constitutes a whore while throwing around flashbangs. The fight ends in a draw. It's kind of unremarkable on it's own, to be completely honest.

Mariavel ends up in The Church again, somehow, where she finds Ali Grayston, one of the girls in the Sisterhood, which I'm guessing now is a rival gang. Ali isn't alone, here - she's joined by Edgar Judah, Roland Kelly, Kasumi White, and Adam Amato, who also found their way into the church. I'll hold back my nitpicks here for now, since it's a realism gripe more than anything, but the point is that Mariavel is here, and she's got a bone to pick with Ali. Ali was even at the top of the list! But Ali can wait. Mariavel is injured, and needs to rest - a church full of screaming people is where she belongs. Ali has other ideas, and promptly gets the hell out of there. Hey, I think Mariavel's decision not to fight might be our third sensible decision of this entire game. I'll be damned!

For the most part, people are getting pissy about defiling the church in this thread, though I pegged none of them as religious zealots, least of all Mariavel. Somehow, though, they manage to come around to the idea of the church as a safe haven, and the conflict de-escalates. A girl named Debrah barges in looking for her twin sister, though, and the tension shoots back up again. The first announcement happens, and the area is named as a danger zone. Most of the people there make it out, except for Kasumi, but what's important now is that everyone knows that Mariavel is a killer. That fact has been broadcast now to the whole entire world.

This next thread has a content warning.

Walter and Jin - the same Jin from earlier that Mariavel ran into, and the same Walter from pre-game that Mariavel ran into by the infamous sad picture - have a bit of a scuffle in one of the rooms of the hotel, a room that is shortly after stained with blood and the scent of murder, as Walter emerges triumphantly over Jin, and immediately falls asleep afterwards, though not before…

...going through the motions...

...I'm not going to even touch that.

What I am going to have touch, unfortunately, is what comes after. Mariavel finds her own untouched hotel room and takes a sleep, as the first announcement plays...again? Well, it played before to get Mariavel out of the church, and then it plays in this thread to wake Walter up from his sleep, which doesn't really matter because he just falls back asleep again. Oh, wait, okay, that all happened before Mariavel made it there, now it shows that Walter actually followed her up to her room, the whole time. Weird time shenanigans, but, I guess it was needed if the thread was open and Walter needed to have done something retroactively. He follows up to her room, and basically just straight up rapes her, in a very graphic way.

Mariavel is saved, however, by Seth, the leader of her gang, who shoots Walter in the back. Mariavel gets dressed again and leaves the room, right before Seth calls out Walter for playing dead. She makes it out of there before the fight breaks out, though, as insured by not-so-passive GMing to hell and back, and doesn't learn about this turn of events. She waltzes down the stairs into another hotel thread, where it seems like her just being raped is maybe the last thing on her mind, and somehow runs into another guy who kicks down another door and tries to rape her, for the second time in one night. Fortunately, Mariavel manages to find her way out of this one, killing her assailant and fleeing into the night.

But she ain't done in the Hotel yet! Bryan Calvert and Tori Johnson walk into the lobby, find a convenient room key, and then Tori is threatened by a crazed Mariavel holding her Tomahawk in the air. They have an exchange where Tori refuses to let Mariavel pass, an exchange which Bryan declines to interrupt for some unknown reason while the two almost kill each other. Eventually he interjects, and the whole thing settles down until they find the body of Mariavel's attacker in the stairwell. Bryan forges on ahead while Tori comforts Mariavel, which lasts barely any time before the announcements are declared a danger zone. Mariavel suggests leaving directions in blood for Bryan and Seth to follow, which Tori reacts unfavorably to at first, but it's a course of action I personally think isn't the worst. Sure, Mariavel has a pen and paper in her backpack, but blood is eye-catching, and eye-catching and relatively easy to read is what you need when you're in a hurry. I don't know if the decision is exactly sensible, but let's add that to the tally. That's four good decisions thus far.

Yippee.

Unlike the long-forgotten ranch (Oh, I never forget. I will never forget any of this.) they make it to the school building just fine, if a little hurried. The two reminisce on their past, thinking back to some of their memories and bad experiences, while reading through some of the leftover papers on the classroom. It's actually a nice quiet moment, and not one I expected to come across so soon after the Hotel sequence. Could it be...pacing? No, no, that's not it. It can't be. Mariavel says some (unreasonably) insightful things, here, and the mental visual of these two girls, hiding out in this one room in the dark, rain pounding outside, isn't the worst.

Then a girl who was eavesdropping, Chiaki Takao, gets ambushed outside, and the serenity of the moment is shattered. They go outside, confront the girl, have a bit of a scuffle, and then make themselves a rival. After successfully scaring Chiaki away, they have another quiet moment in the classroom, and aren't disturbed for a while after that.

Lavender wrote: "Mariavel!"

psyche.

Lavender shows up! Lavender shows up and falls into the room and just up and dies, right there! But, wait, not before she confesses her undying love to Mariavel! Dramatic plot twist!

...Tori explains it all the best when she says she doesn't know what to say to her.

Mariavel doesn't need to hear Tori's bullshit: now, she's been reinvigorated, and needs to go on a killing spree to get everything out of her system. Tori is left behind in the dust, while Mariavel gallops off elegantly into the night, stained by rain and filled with hate and anger.

This hate and anger carries her back off towards the hotel to pick up her BKA prize. She kills two random no-names along the way, taking their guns and knives and such. After this, she goes off to the shore to actually collect the prize, which is delivered in person - for some strange reason, I have no clue - by none other than Mr. Wilson.

Actual Words That Somebody Wrote wrote: “Well, It’s certainly a pleasure seeing you again Miss Varella. I never thought you’d get over that little molestation you had.” He half smirked as he said it.

“Fuck you asshole!”

It speaks for itself.

If you can't tell that by this point I'm a little burnt out, here's my official confirmation, legally: CBP is worn out. CBP is running out of fucks to give. CBP is the sad picture, and the sad picture was the villain all along.

Mariavel runs into Walter and a different Seth, now, at the mall. She kills them both, but I'm not sure if she even intended on killing Seth. Even the wiki page is unclear about exactly what happened here.

Wiki wrote: Enemies: [...] Seth Malvice (kind of)

It seems like the short valley in which Mariavel was actually maybe not the worst person ever has passed. We've returned to peak Mariavel now. All Mariavel, all the time. So much Mariavel that if the atmosphere turned into Mariavel, you wouldn't even notice, because you've been breathing Mariavel the whole time.

From the mall, Mariavel runs into Gregg and Ali. She points a gun at Ali, "to scare her," but unexpectedly Ali doesn't really seem to be phased by it. Gregg tries to defuse the situation, but Mariavel reveals her true weakness: mean words. She kind of crumbles here, turning into even more of a sobbing emotional wreck than she already was, waving guns around and not shooting them while Ali and Gregg back away slowly. The announcements come on, revealing that some of her prey has already been slaughtered before she could get to it. Now, she has no purpose. There is no reason in her life to continue living.

I mean, not until Mitsuko played the swap card.

The next thread is another goddamn slaughter, in which Mariavel goes back to the hotel again and kills a total of two people in one post. See, this is how you know I'm not skimming, because if I was, I would have seen all the death tags clustered at the bottom of the post and said "Oh, she killed four people," but in actuality, she just kills two of them. It's all just numbers anyways, right? They all die here, is all that truly matters. She's got a machete now, so now you must know that she means business. Worth noting that one of the people she killed was one of the girls on her list, Carmen Somerset. Only one she's killed so far, and probably the only one of her list she'll kill ever.

She skulks over the the hotel again, and finds…

Someone who looks like her…

Father…

Mariavel wrote:“So you show yourself on the island as well…. Father!”

There's a good reason that this is one of her notable quotes on the wiki.

This boy, Matthias, should be kind of familiar. He's the same boy that Mariavel spared earlier, so she should probably find something familiar about him - I mean, apart from the fact that apparently he looks like her daddy - and coincidentally, he's the boy that the bigger group in the Hotel is also looking for. Mariavel aims down the barrel of her pistol and shoots him, thankfully missing, buying the group some more time. The whole gimmick here is that since he looks so much like her father, it's a good enough analog for her, so she feels no remorse trying to kill him, as if it would take some great big load off of her shoulders. I wanted Matthias to win this fight, and maybe in the end Mariavel could have had some kind of redemption arc where she's all "My god, what have I done?" and then she tries to talk herself down, and then fucks off somewhere else, and just kinda disappears, but that doesn't happen here, Matthias is songposted to death, and his sister watches it, and even then Mariavel just has to bring his sister into it, saying she'll save her or some shit, and again, what should happen when the rest of the group catches up is they all gang up on Mariavel, but-

She makes it out.

A lot of stuff happens in between, but that's all that matters. Turns out Lavvy's killer killed herself. Truly, Mariavel has no purpose in life anymore except to kill Danya, which she is reminded cannot really happen, as the last guy tried that and failed, but she doesn't care either. She fights Vesu, Matthias' friend, but the fight kind of just ends in a draw, and Mariavel makes it out.

Mariavel goes over to the mall again, thinks some things about the announcements, and then leaves. Then she goes to the park, fights a guy who kills an incidentally placed girl, the guy takes his own life, and then Mariavel kills another incidentally placed girl who happened to show up. She gets really edgy in this thread, calling herself his "executioner" and the narrative referring to her as "the reaper of death," but none of it lands, really.

She kills Elizabeth Ebert with a crossbow. Yikes. It seems that my reading this was foretold as well.

After all this, she goes off and finds this Damien kid, who's another big name in the whole V2 thing, and they duke it out, shout some things at each other, it's crossbow versus gun, and these two are-

Megami wrote: ((Okay, this has gone on for way too long. You have seventy-two hours -- that's three days, kids -- to finish this fight. You've had more than enough time, and Endgame has come to a complete stop. It's been ten days since the last post. Failure to abide by this deadline may result in characters being forfeited.))

Activity in V2 was a tricky subject. It wasn't always strictly enforced, and when it was, you had things like Mariavel kill sprees. In this case, endgame was taking so long to get done that Megami herself had to step in and remind everyone how much time they had left. Comes at just an appropriate time for me, too, since I think this post has gone on pretty long already. Mariavel shoots Damien and kills him the end let's keep moving.

Bryan and Tori find Mari's unconscious body on the ground after she collapses outside the hospital and decide to help her. This is a mistake, because Mari kills Tori, and Bryan gets pissed at that.

Mitsuko hands Mariavel off to some other people here, in her last thread...named Redemption. No redemption for this girl. Bryan catches Whitney in the crossfire while trying to find Mariavel, and her companion (boyfriend?) Ricky decides that since Whitney's already dying, he might as well join her and kill himself, too. This is fine. Mariavel changes hands again here, from Dodd to Megami. This part of the fight scene is actually really cool, but I wish that Mariavel didn't die in a horrendously long songpost death where we literally get parts of her pre-game posted verbatim as "flashbacks."

She gets a hammer slashed into her skull. That's how she dies, screaming, wet with blood, covered in dirt. That's how this ends.

The Mariavel Carnival is over.

---

Conclusion:

I spend a lot of time in the above diatribe complaining. Complaining about this writing technique, and that writing technique, and everything in between. Mariavel is extremely flawed in a variety of ways. Her background is almost Mary Sueish and would never fly today, her dialogue is downright cringey nine times out of ten, her only good moments are brief, few and far between, her bad moments are horrible and her rape scene is one of the most appalling things I've read on this site, her narrative consistency is all over the place, rife with many of the issues that plagued the rest of the version. She was handed off twice during the end of the game, and is responsible for a lot of the stalling that the end-game portion of V2 went through, in some ways. She is fed kid after kid, day after day, and the hunger never ends, as she gobbles up ten lives in total.

Would I be crazy if I said all of this is somewhat romantic to me?

The story of Mariavel Varella is the story of us all, here on Survival of the Fittest. It's the story of many characters, long and short, violent and pacifist, pre-game and island, and it's the story of the people who wrote them. Many of the characters of V2 show up in some way, shape, or form in Mariavel's story, and for that reason I'd like to raise the opinion that Mariavel is one of the best starting points for V2. It clues readers in on the writing styles of the time while serving them up a bit of every character's story, on and off the island. Arguably, it's a story of what not to do in Modern SOTF. It's the story of a time in the site's history when things were more uncertain, and when everything had a certain air of whimsy to it. Realism doesn't matter here. What mattered was that everyone had fun, and while it's totally debatable whether or not anybody had fun here, some of the stories that popped up out of that attitude could not have happened anywhere else. There is no kid quite like Mariavel, and I can say that with confidence.

While it's almost certain that this site changed for the better as time went on, I can't help but look on this with admiration. I was warned repeatedly about what I'd encounter as I read Mariavel, both in chat and on the site - Rugga even italicized it when I was first rolled her - but I think it's safe to say that if it were not for those warnings, I would have had a much better time reading. The reputation that has come with Mariavel has greatly preceded her, and while it's true that it's a reputation she would have garnered were she not at times a raging dumpster fire, I think that some of it is unjustified. What we can see at times with Mariavel is something bigger than the sum of it's parts.

I didn't say greater!

But it's bigger, that's for sure. It's scary, and doesn't make sense all the time. Like adolescence! And aren't we all writing about adolescents, here?

…

Man, I'm not even sure if what I just wrote was entirely honest or not.

...

Listen, this was 29 threads, okay? That's probably the longest V2 kid there is. I am tired.

...

The lion was all of us, all along.

I'd like another kid, please.

I'll give out kids after this write up.

So I got Sarah Dao and in the course of reading her I read Chad Munteanu who only exists for half a post and is the first v2 kill and has no pre game so I thought I'd do him to spare someone else the time.

Chad:

Walks up to Jonathan Michaels who is a BOXING WORLD CHAMPION. He is a small guy and so he wants to stay with Jonathan and tries to convince him to find Whitney Acosta because she has huge boobs. Jonathan says he doesn't care how big this girl's boobs are so Chad assumes Jonathan is gay and calls him gay and Jonathan doesn't like that so he fires a warning shot with his gun and Chad pisses himself but still acts kind of smug while his pants are filling with pee. Then he tries to be friends some more but Jonathan doesn't like how smug piss-pants is and shoves his gun down Chad's throat mid-sentence. Chad vomits all over the gun and disgusted, Jonathan pulls the trigger and Chad's head explodes.

I can't recommend this, it's really unpleasant and adds nothing to the story. It feels like this character was given no thought and comes across as a failed attempt to shock.

Sarah Dao

One pre game thread of her studying, not much happens. She wakes up and watches An fight Jonathan which was a good fight and it was satisfying to see her punch him in the head with brass knuckles. After that, Sarah comes over and finds out she has a giant gun. Two boys approach, Alex Bee and Lance. Also Brandon shows up for 30 seconds to be annoying and say that they're useless to him and leaves. The girls tell Alex and Lance to hand over their bags, Alex runs away. Lance says he just wants to find his girlfriend and Sarah who has been holding him at gunpoint goes "Aww, I'm a romantic. Ok, we'll let you go" and stops pointing her gun at him. Unfortunately Marimar jumps out of the bushes and believing Lance to be an evil eel (this feels like I am telling a story while on drugs) she stabs him with a machete. LITERALLY NO ONE DOES ANYTHING. The next post after Marimar leaves is Dodd going "Sarah and An left" and no one ever says anything about what happened.

Dan takes over from here and Sarah is suddenly a new character who is a horny temptress who tries to seduce Matt even though she's never shown even the slightest interest in either sex or romance. Rob sees them, punches Matt for his stupidity, Sarah tries to shoot him, Rob kills her.

Sarah was never going to make the recommends list, but this is probably the biggest change I've ever seen in a character post-adoption. Sarah was a studious, quiet, shy, girl who liked art and planned to go to college for business who suddenly tried to jump Matt's bones and even implied a threesome if he could help her find An.

Sadly she looked at a rolls. They were so sad... such sad rolls... like her... she only waned a normal life... was that too much to ask? was it?

Special thanks to Crossbow. Your contribution and your write up are amazing. Thank you for your service.

DN: Jonathan Michaels
Sansa: Felix Travertil
Cicada: Licinia Vinici
Aura: Mihiro Duli
Yugi:Stephanie Crew
Crossbow: Cathalie Meguro
Rugga: Bryan Calvert

Fenris wrote:Brandon Cuthbert appears literally out of nowhere and is awful (i do not envy whoever has to read this kid)

hahahahahaha!!! hahaha!!!!!! ha. ha.

Brandon Cuthbert is 12 years old, has an IQ of 206, and the entire biography section of his profile is written in the first person. Also he apparently kills and dissects animals for funsies "research". literally everything about his profile is wrong and i could write paragraphs about it but i don't want to go braindead the short version is he's a murder child who hasnt actually killed anyone yet but you can Tell. you can just Tell. you can just

his first thread starts with a songpost and i hate everything. it's like 7 years long but it's not brandon's post so i am Not Reading It. actually brandon doesn't show up until the middle of the second page and his first post is also 7 years long but i have to read it this wrong motherFucker okay it starts with a really long dissertation on the milgrim experiment and him- i think he's writing a book or something. sure why not. he's writing about the milgrim experiment and how SOTF is like that except bad. then he writes paragraphs on the suitability of the other people in the topic as allies. and then he goes to talk to them and he bounces immediately from "detached observer" to "scared child" which makes more sense but like it's bad. it's bad. in his next post theres another three paragraphs about group dynamics that - apparently he's thinking and not writing?? in the last one he thought/wrote something about his Account being Published but in this one it says he's mumbling to himself. anyway he basically tells the group that they're useless to him even though he's a 12 Year Old Boy Without A Weapon and fucks off.

thread 2 is a oneshot where slacker throws two of his other kids in a gremlin meat grinder in what is the most confusing post ive ever read in my life. apparently the whole post is written as one of Brandon's diary entires (or whatever he calls them), including an interview, and then he writes down a play-by-play of how he kills Jonathan Michaels with his CONVENIENTLY HIDDEN BOX CUTTER and then dodges when another kid turns up and shoots at him (What) and then he hits the new guy over the head with his xbox controller (truly an ideal weapon) and then literally fucking dissects him w/ the box cutter and????????????????????????? then he drops his box cutter and takes the shotgun he was shot at with (which i think was jonathan michaels' first? how did chris cohen get it before brandon does????? i understand nothing) and LEAVES

thread 3 i could go into More but it's just all the same shit and i've already read the thread he goes inactive and he kills adam amato sera kills him the end.

final thoughts there's no joy left in my heart

give me another

Okay I'm gonna write like a human person because Lee-Ann doesn't seem awful from the outset and because she has 8 whole threads so she might be a real character or something. The tone of her appearance is suuuuper flowery and the rest of the bio is kinda off tone-wise but honestly considering what I've been reading recently it's a goddamn masterpiece. Lee-Ann sounds like a regular kid. She's very emotional and tends to eat her feelings, resulting in her being overweight, she's clumsy and intelligent and doesn't have many friends because she's thought of as a nerd. That sounds like a human person. I am pleased.

Lee-Ann is in four pregame threads so I'm not going to go super in depth with all of them because my posts are long enough as is. Her very first post is in part dedicated toward quiet jealousy toward Marimar Perez (let us not talk about her) which is a little but generally the writing is okay. It gets a little confusing because her handler (Aphrodite) also seems to be half-handling Lee-Ann's friend Laura, I guess when Shula isn't around to post?? Idk it gets confusing. Anyway Lee-Ann kind of has a nervous breakdown in the bathroom over Marimar having possibly seen Lee-Ann's blind eye and then suddenly she's kissing some boy named Jan which is REALLY confusing. Like her writing is fine but I have no idea what's going on here. In her next pregame topic she goes over to Marimar's house and almost dies.

'This is so embarrassing.' the girl thought before pressing the small white button designated for the loud ringing it would produce, alerting the occupants of the home of an outside visitor. In normal language, and not the language of Lee-Ann and her intellectual friends, it was a simple doorbell.

just say doorbell what the hell

Anyway she almost gets hit by a car, wanders for ages looking for Marimar's house, finds a lost kitten, and spits on her friends after said friend pours boiling water on herself (saliva is healing on burns apparently? The More You Know). Her last pregame thread is basically just her getting made fun of for her weight and then sitting with Marimar. This might just be a personal taste thing but I find a lot of Lee-Ann's posts to be really melodramatic by pregame standards? Again, maybe it's just me. She's definitely competently written, albeit with some issues that seem kinda endemic to the early versions (people being referred to as "the blonde" "the brunette" "the femme" or eyes being called Orbs all that shit that I hate).

Lee-Ann's first post starts with two paragraphs of red text that are about the game in general and I don't know why they're there. Apparently she snuck the kitten she found in pre-game in her bag. I am going to be busy feeling bad for the kitty for the rest of this writeup. Anyway this is a very long oneshot and it does a good job of making me like Lee-Ann. She reacts to the situation like a human and not a sex robot or murder gremlin. She cries, she prays, she throws up. Relatable human things. She changes clothes (after getting puke on them, because of that and also because they aren't very practical) and leaves her old clothes behind and takes a minute to realize that the memories she has attached to those clothes will be lost forever. That's weirdly powerful to me.

Also she still has a kitten (his name is George and I love him), which at this point makes her the most important character in v2.

Now we're in thread 2 and I was looking forward to how this would go but now Sam Sorenson is here and I'm having regrets. Anyway she feeds George (awh) and thinks about finding Marimar (you do not want to find marimar sweetheart trust me) and READS A BOOK, which for some reason just feels super relatable. Like if I was on murder child island I'd be like "yeah well if I'm gonna die I wanna finish this book first give me like an hour."

I don't particularly want to talk about what happens next because I don't want to acknowledge Sam any more than I half to but honestly I'd give Lee-Ann full leeway to straight murder his ass right here. If anything it'd make her More likable. Unfortunately she's like a nice person or something and she believes Sam's obvious lies and gives him clothes and I don't want to be reading Sam Sorenson, guys. I don't want to. STOP BEING NICE TO HIM LEE-ANN I WANT TO LIKE YOU

Lee-Ann's third thread starts with a really long song post which is basically just reminiscing and walking. It's all very sweet and well-written despite being a song post but I'm so distracted by Sam Sorenson still existing. Also Lee-Ann's handler takes over Sam for a post and he's still awful but like awful in a better written way. And then Lee-Ann goes inactive I assume because she next pops up in a oneshot thread where her death is handled by Mitsuko. Joy. At least she isn't thrown to Mariavel or something; Sam tries to choke her and she pops her own collar instead. The end.

final thoughts/tl;dr: WE NEVER FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE KITTEN. also Lee-Ann is a well-written and pretty believable character, not great by modern standards but definitely by v2 standards, but I still can't recommend her because she spends practically her entire game in the company of one of the worst, if not The worst, pieces of shit that v2 has to offer. Maybe read her opening oneshot, it's really good, but after that it's just a lot of ew. I'm not surprised, just disappointed.

give me another pls

So... Mihiro Duli.

Mihiro's profile is ridiculous, proclaiming that she pretends to have multiple personalities to she can get away with being mean to people, is hated by the teachers because she's a math prodigy who has memorized the first 700 digits of Pi, and is hated by literally everybody to the point that she can't walk down the hall without someone insulting her. None of this is written or formatted particularly well for the record.

The in-game story of Mihiro is a short one. In her first post, she finds a hatchet and talks in D&D slang before rolling a pair of dice and celebrating the results. Then staff comes in and tells her that she can't spontaneously gain weapons whenever she wants, Mihiro's handler briefly argues with them, then she goes inactive. Some time after that, she resurfaces to teach Roland (Who thinks that she is the spirit of Damien Carter-Madison's good side for some reason) about Dungeons and Dragons before the announcements cause him to get violent and messily kill her.

I wouldn't recommend Mihiro at all. She's nothing more than Roland fodder, and didn't inspire much hope in the first place.

Another character, plase.

Well, that was quick. Let me make the review more entertaining than this guy.

PROFILE:

This profile is full of contradictions and odd lines. Let's start with the appearance.

"Because of his farmer's tan, Randy prefers to keep his shirt on..."

Ok.

"...but with his toned abs and pectorals Randy has no problem going topless if the time is right."

So, he's okay showing his pasty abs and pectorals even though his farmer's tan embarrasses him? Why not just tan?

"Along with his impeccable pecs and abs, Randy has the tightest calves imaginable and can run a 4.65 second 40."

THE TIGHTEST CALVES IMAGINABLE. I imagine the skin wraps around and looks like stretched Play-Doh.

"can run a 4.65 second 40."



"Randy is known throughout the school as being a flirt. A real lady's man. Randy is a strong catholic in his beliefs, but maybe not so traditional in his views. Randy flirts with all the girls, but if he is serious with one, he cools it with the others, and never leads anyone on. He is a firm beleiver of God's laws and that includes "Thou shalt not kill", but Randy has come to learn that sometimes it is your life or theirs."

This is the first thing we learn about Mr. Blailocke. I like that his dating history also somehow relates to "Thou shalt not kill." As if his dating life tends to be riddled with danger.

"During the spring of his ninth grade year, the brunette learned the hard way that not all men are nice."

You're a late bloomer, clearly. Also, "brunette" is generally used solely for women. And why is that the descriptor you use? Why not "The Pasty-Abbed Catholic Lothario?"

tl;dr Randy gets in a fight with some guy trying to attack a kid and wins and barely suffers because of it. It never comes up again.

The rest of the profile blazes through his football playing and chess hobby (what happened to track?!?)

"...continued to play as a reason to stay out of the house and away from his mother."

Why? Last paragraph he was calling her because he was stabbed in the leg.

Annabelle also matters because they're workout buddies, but that's it. She's peripheral.

"Advantages: He is a really fast runner and has high stamina.
Disadvantages: He can't swim very well and knows very little of outdoor survival skills."

Surprised his whole "I know I may have to break one of the commandments to survive" isn't here.

PREGAME:

There is none, let's move on.

IN THE GAME:

There's three posts in two threads. Let's go through them one at a time.

Post One:

"His head ached a little but was not as worried about his pains as those of his classmates, especially Annabelle."

His head was worried for Annabelle?



"He knew the rules of the game, and though the brunette didn't want to be there(who did?), he was ready to what was required to win and get home."

He falls asleep twice in two threads. I'm jumping ahead, but his priorities are not in order.

"Randy really wanted to know what he would have to kill with this time."

THIS TIME?!?

"The last time he had to win big he had to do it with his fists."

Oh, that fight. So it did matter. Sort of. Kind of. Not really.

"Randy had always been against killing."



"Randy was disgusted by SOTF, but knew there was a chance that he would be selected, so he had gotten used to the idea of murder being a requirement to survive, and that God would not hold it against him if he was forced to be the bad guy."

A chance? The game's happened only once before? How did you know it'd happen the next year?

Also, I'm pretty sure God doesn't like people being bad guys. But you're clearly a lapsed Catholic, so do your thing.

"After finially getting to his feet, the boy decided to go take a look around. He had not gotten very far before he fell to the ground and realized that he would have to stretch and that even though he was knewly awaken, would have to sleep."

Let's go back a bit.

"Advantages: He is a really fast runner and has high stamina.
has high stamina.
has high stamina.

He woke up, stood up, walked a few paces, then immediately collapsed and needs to sleep.

"So, Randy stretched his cramped calves and his under used quad, and he got ready to search for somewhere to sleep."

Well, you've done a lot today (what day is this anyways? There's no time marker anywhere), so I guess you've earned that.


Post Two:


Oh, finally looked at the Death Order. He made it to Day 2. This post tells us why.

"After walking towards what he believed was the center of the island, Randy noticed a building lying to his left. Randy decided that if he was quick maybe no one would notice him and he could find somewhere to sleep inside."



You sure "narcolepsy" wasn't a disadvantage?

"Randy felt very quickly like he was in a familiar place. In the room he saw desks, textbooks and a chalk board. "A school... no duh" Randy thought to himself. "

...

He enters a classroom, goes into a classroom across the hall, goes in a closet and sleeps on the floor.

Me:



POST 3

So only now is he told he went into a Danger Zone. He's traded off to another handler for the last post, meaning his handler consciously sent this asshole to a DZ and then did nothing so a mod could kill his kid.

Me:


So Randy and his poorly managed priorities has a moment where he realizes he's in SOTF, especially since he's been asleep for hours again. He also just remembered he's had a bomb around his neck which has apparently been blinking for hours and is only now telling him to GTFO. So, he of the tightest calves and impressive "stamina," runs as fast as he can and manages to exit the school building, but settles to just being at the bottom of the steps. After some irony, his neck blows up.



CONCLUSION

Randy is three posts of contradictions, poor management, and absolutely nothing of note. He's poorly written (numerous spelling and grammatical errors) and has absolutely no story. He walks. He sleeps. He walks. He sleeps. He runs. He blows up. He's not offensive, but there's really nothing here, so don't bother.

My final reaction:

Melanie DeSilva did not impress me very much.

Her bio tells us that she is a highly intelligent student who hates studying, other students, and pretty much everything about school in general. It's stated that her only real joy in life was going shooting with her grandfather, who died when she was 14. It also says that she's willing to do whatever it takes in order to win, so one would expect her to be a fairly ruthless aspiring player.

However, on the island, Melanie spends almost all of her time panicking, and never shows the determination to survive the ordeal despite her profile claiming that she would "sure as hell adapt to it". There's also some pretty odd writing moments, like when she goes from freaking out about Preston's existence to calling him her first friend over the course of one paragraph and the space between posts. In the end, she winds up begging for Debrah Dollop to kill her, which she does.

I wouldn't recommend Melanie. She wasn't an interesting read, and her actions on the island clash greatly with the way her profile described her.

Another character, if you please.

yknow sometimes I want to be optimistic but Seth Malvice's advantage section is "Seth is unfeeling, unremorseful and uncaring, and so the lives of the others on the island with him mean very little to him." which is one step above "she's killed before" and, relatedly, he's killed by Mariavariavemel, which is basically never good

anyway so this guy. i already don't like him. his description is okay (it's super weird tone-wise but at least it boils down to Seth Is Ordinary Looking which okay fine). his bio starts off okay, and then suddenly turns into "toward the end of middle school he suddenly stopped caring about everything and he still doesn't care about anything and he's probably down w/ murder". i just scrolled down to the bottom of his profile and i'm astonished that he doesn't have any kills because that's obviously what the profile is setting up?? either that or he's so apathetic he just lets someone kill him early except no he's in six goddamn threads what the fuck

he has one pregame thread in which he doesn't care about anything and his first post has the line "Of course, Seth could do anything he wanted, his talent for everything he attempted was remarkable." so that's good, he's an apathetic wunderkind, i'm sure he's super interesting. basically the thread is him being bullied, except he doesn't care, so there are no stakes and i don't care either

island. the extent of Seth's thoughts on being in SotF are basically "might as well just sit here I guess". he hears a girl yelling in panic and immediately decides to throw a dart at her face, which she dodges before running away from him, which seems like the right move if his first thought is throwing darts at people?? another girl turns up, they talk, she tries to empathize, Seth cannot Do Empathy because he Doesn't Care, she rightfully gets annoyed and leaves, Seth's handler (Jotun) inexplicably brings in another one of his characters for one post so him and Seth can attack each other and leave. this is SO BORING. characters with no motivations and who don't care about anything are boring!!! i am bored!!! please do something interesting that isn't murderfucking or rape or whatever other godforsaken things are happening in v2 you know what i take it back this isn't so bad at least sam sorenson isn't here

next thread. Seth screams for the sake of it. he hears people coming and makes more noises to scare them off and Prepares To Fight (meowth that's right). this time he doesn't decide to immediately throw a dart at the guy and they have a conversation that basically goes "are you okay" "yes" "okay because i heard screaming and i was worried" "i'm fine" "... okay i'm gonna go now" "okay" and then they both leave. riveting stuff here people

seth just passes through his next thread with one post (which is otherwise a oneshot so i have no idea why Jotun had him come here at all) to investigate a chemical plant fucking exploding (whoever's reading garry dodd please explain to me what happened here) and deciding to go after the kid who blew it up because he's a Danger to seth's very well-thought-out plan to sit and do nothing for the rest of the game. he actually does follow him to their next thread where garry dodd is angsting over adam dodd some more and seth appears out of nowhere to make some pointless remarks at him. then the area they're in becomes a danger zone and they leave. thank god and also jesus that this is Almost Over

final thread: seth becomes another victim of the mitsuko massacre of 2006-2007 and as written by her he suddenly feels fear and is "psyching himself up" for murder. i still don't care, walter smith attacks him, then mariavel kills him basically by accident while trying to kill walter. i still don't care.

final thoughts/tl;dr: i've read Way Worse but my level of apathy here may actually exceed seth's like there isn't even a fraction of a second where i feel anything for seth whatsoever. most of the "not great but not horrible" kids i've read so far at least have moments of humanity? but seth's character is built from the start to be Unfeeling Prodigy Boy. which sucks. he's not brandon cuthbert or anything but still don't read him

throw me another

Andi Ayala

Andi Ayala is a nice friendly gay boy who enjoys jogging and knives. He takes care of his disabled father, Daniel, along with his best friend Siouxsie Sioux (???) and he has a boyfriend named Peter Rosenthal who he started dating in a pregame thread that doesn't exist anymore because of course it doesn't. He's a self-insert of his handler, Xaldien.

In the first half of his story, Andi's story is defined by the fact that Xaldien seems to want to play more with himself than with the other people. Andi's post constantly flash to Daniel and Siouxsie (the fuck?) to show how they're handling Andi's kidnapping. It's like a meanwhile thread is constantly running right in the middle of Andi's posts. He also starts talking to his friend Siouxsie (that's her name?) in hallucinations. He spends some time with a group of guys, but his posts just consist of flashes to home and him talking to his hallucinations while he mostly ignores the people he's supposed to be roleplaying with. As if that wasn't bad enough, Xaldien's other characters also come into the picture. In the meanwhile scenes, Andi's long lost mother shows up to reveal that Andi's evil half sister, Kristey, who he doesn't know about is also on the island and is trying to kill him. What follows is a clusterfuck where Kristey and another Xaldien character, Matthew, show up along with Andi's boyfriend Peter (Xaldien is controlling three characters in this scene while Croco is controlling two). Matthew is sacrificed so that Andi can score a kill, and then Kristey decides not to kill her brother so she fucks off to somewhere else.

After this, Andi and Peter are together, and the story shifts dramatically. All of the hallucinations and flashes to home are just gone. Andi becomes a sadistic/masochistic psychopath and he and Peter decide to kill everyone on the island until it's only the two of them, for survival and pleasure. They kill a guy, and shortly afterwards Andi is suddenly adopted by RePeate. The most noticeable change under repeat is that Andi seems to have forgotten about his goal to get back to his father entirely, and now he decides that he can't go on living if Peter were to die. They have sex and then Peter kills them both to spare them the pain of inevitably losing each other. After Andi's death, Xaldien suddenly comes into the thread to write an epilogue for Andi's parents and Siouxsie (fucking hell). Then R. Kelly shows up and takes their shit.

I did not like Andi Ayala. Xaldien's writing is competent, aside from some weird formatting early on, but he tried very hard to write an emotional love story and I just didn't care. Early on, Andi spends too much time up his own ass with his supporting characters, and his later personality shift is jarring and makes it hard to feel anything for him. He's pretty obviously set up as a villain from the start, but when it happens he just becomes so over the top evil. The secret sister plotline is stupid, but the fact that it's just dropped suddenly without a proper conclusion makes it even worse. His conclusion was underwhelming. RePeate and Croco didn't seem to care at all about Andi's storyline, they just wanted to write a gay sex scene with a tragic end.

Andi isn't terrible, he's just mediocre and boring. Don't waste your time on Andi when you could be reading something good or something amazingly terrible that makes you go insane.