Survival Of The Fittest

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The V1 Read-A-Thon

https://sotfmain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=568

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Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:15 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Blastinus)

Kaleigh Jones...where to begin. I guess let's start with her profile. Apparently she's got multiple personalities and has used them to become a versatile model, performing a number of nude shots at the age of 16. I'm reasonably sure there's a law against that, but let's set that aside, since naturally, one of her personalities is a little girl, and the other one is obsessed with sex. Kaleigh herself is just...there, I guess? She doesn't get a description of her personality besides being the "normal" one, whatever that means.

Right, well, first thread is just a oneshot where Kaleigh, "Carly" (the little girl), and "Freya" (the sex-obsessed one) have a giant argument with one another. It's as by-the-numbers as you might expect, so moving right along, the next thread has Carly go to the river and do nothing, before Freya takes over and leaves, since nobody responded for a full week. Finally, Adam Dodd kills the three of them in a Dodd oneshot where he naturally picks the least sympathetic personality and has her become generically villainous so he can justify shooting her in the head. After all, if he actually killed someone who was just trying to survive, then his character would be more ambiguous.

There's nothing to say about Kaleigh. The personalities are just another gimmick character and there's never an opportunity to flesh them out. Kind of a waste of time, really.

Right then, let's do another.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:17 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Blastinus)

Arsenio Thanodeus is a Greek kid with a dead mom and a fascination with wiccan lore. Sounds like a decent start. Too bad he only has one thread that's actually considered to be canon. We'll unpack that can of worms pretty shortly, but let's start with his four-page intro thread.

Both Arsenio and his new buddy Drew Lynn started before they could get their weapons, so at least we get to skip that part of the island wake-up checklist. Instead the two of them talk and get to know each other a bit better. Arsenio has a pretty severe protective streak, especially when it comes to women, and that'll turn out to be a pretty fatal character trait. But first, it's non-canon time, as the two of them schlep over to the warehouse and are not-so-politely informed that since there's a thread going on already that contradicts the details in their thread, they should close their thread and either integrate with the one in progress or go somewhere else. It's pretty harsh and honestly a bit tactless, but because Arsenio's thread becomes a mess of OOC complaints, that's why its canonicity is in question.

Instead, they just return to their original thread as if they never left it. Of course, Swoosh isn't quite done with being a pest towards the two of them:
((Bearing in mind about 7 people have arrived in the woods since this post died, I'd re-direct this post to that thread if I were you... unless we're just assuming they're in different parts of the woods? Could happen, I guess... OK, ignore me XDD))
Could be worse, I suppose, but if I were in their position, having just been shouted out of a thread, I'd consider that to be not very funny at all. Regardless, noticing that Drew got a gun while all he got was a crowbar, Arsenio suspects that he might not make it to the end of the game. That's rather prescient, because no sooner does a new pair arrive than so does Cody Jenson, dragging along Lyndi. Opening fire on the group because he's Cody Jenson, he lands three good shots on Arsenio, but the big man doesn't quite die yet, since he tries desperately to get a good hit on Cody so the group can make it out. To his credit, he ends up providing the distraction necessary for Lyndi to escape, and the rest of the group follows suit soon after. So while he dies without doing anything to Cody, the fact that he was willing to keep fighting through his wounds for just a little longer was what made the difference in that confrontation.

Arsenio's life on the island was short-lived, but I found it to be a satisfactory story arc. He died a hero and a fighter, and I found nothing to complain about with him. Too bad all that stuff about wicca never made a difference to the story, but you can only do so much in a limited timeframe.

I'd love to do another, if possible.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:18 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Blastinus)

I see Ash Holmes' profile and a few alarm bells immediately sound. Things like "Has no concept of basic morality", "Obsessed with parkour and living for thrills", "Alienates others and doesn't have any friends", and of course "Dead parents." It's like going down a laundry list of every premade player trope imaginable, and I can't help but wonder if Ash was the blueprint by which future players were born.

First point of order, he's yet another character who got their smokes onto the island. And this actually matters, since in his one and only kill, he actually burns someone's hands with them, but first, he's got to try his hand at a regular conversation. Apparently he's decided to imitate every slasher horror character at once in his interaction with Xian, letting out a laugh that's like "a murder of crows" then talking in a harsh whisper. He's laying it on so thick, it's downright laughable. And Xian just responds with incredulity and mockery, so even she's not buying into it. He lets out a bunch of pseudo-intellectual garbage that ultimately doesn't mean anything, and Xian responds by backing off and heading for the hills.

Next thread, he encounters the pregnant Sophie Maraschino and extends an "offer" to her to let her out of her misery. Fearfully reaching for her weapon, she shoots him full in the chest, but doesn't know about his assigned weapon: a kevlar vest. This reveal is genuinely disquieting and eerie, and I actually have to give Ash's handler credit for framing this scene the way they do, because it feels like something out of a slasher horror film. He gets shot, looks down at where Sophie hit him, and then starts walking at her again. And to his credit, he just holds her down and drowns her in a stream without doing the downright disgusting and tasteless stuff that pregnant characters would be subjected to in later versions. All of this gave him some definite bonus points in my eyes. There's actual depth to this character that he didn't exhibit in his opening thread.

I suppose it's only fitting then that this decent villain would get done in by a generic crazy. Cillian Crowe is a babbling idiot who wants to play "games" with people, and I dislike him immensely from the little I see of him. As the two of them tussle, rolling back and forth in the sand, Ash and Cillian give each other a lot of shilling in how the two of them fight, which I appreciate. They don't try to force a simple conclusion, and the end of the fight where Ash takes a cleaver to the brain feels like there was a decent leadup to it and a proper payoff.

I wasn't sold on Ash at first, but once I saw him properly in action, I felt like he had potential to be a more likable Cody Jenson. Shame that his story ended as early as it did.

One more please!

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:22 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by CPB)

Sven Kekule:

I wrote Sven's writeup. Here it is, though it is not particularly long. I disappoint, I am aware, but I did this all in one go so please forgive me for that and any details I may have missed along the way. I tried my best all the same. Still spoilered, out of tradition. Please understand.
Spoiler!
This kid's from a rehab center, and appearance wise, it kind of shows. He's got a milky eye, what remains of his hair is dyed lime green and is patchy, he's a pale ghost looking fucker with a few piercings, basically stitched together. His brother was a drug addict, and he became one when his brother's stash got stolen. He has to take pills, or else
Profile wrote:
Other: If he even misses one pill a day he starts to hallucinate again.
So, being that he's been thrown on the island, we can expect good things from this guy. Good hallucinations.
Spoiler!
and as someone planning an addict kid, it should be a good case study in that sense for me as well
Sven starts in a bathroom facility, which I hope isn't a bad pun that just kind of happened to be indicative of quality. This guy Shinya walks into the bathroom and whips out his **** to take a leak, while Sven, somewhere outside the actual bathroom, wakes up and starts to celebrate newfound freedom. The plain way that the narrative stuffs his surreal ramblings right into the middle of descriptive paragraphs nonchalantly is pretty interesting and valuable in terms of like, stealing?

He continues to wait for Shinya to finish up in the bathroom, but what he doesn't realize is that Shinya is having a reflective moment inside. It takes enough time for Sven to get up, walk around, and sit back down in the bushes, checking out the surrounding area. He gets impatient for a while, then goes over to open the door, looking for hidden doors in the walls. Sven must've been creative designer on, like, Dark Souls or something. When he sees Shinya walking towards him, long hair down his back, he tries to run out and hits a wall, but finds his way out. That's good points on the conflict aversion so far!

He finds his way, then, to the Gazebo. Sitting around in the grass, he hears some people talking about possible escape and decides to chime in with his own delusions about how he got here. Jason is the one who stumbles upon him, an apparently well established killer. Glenn and Eddie run into the two of them, and are rightly suspicious when Jason puts down his gun and renounces killing. Oh, and also this girl Marie was there, but there was no post announcing her arrival, and her only post in thread was to leave with Glenn, so, that happened, I guess. There's a bit of a kerfuffle here, with a dispute over godmodding in a post about a gunfight that Sven isn't involved in other than watching. Apparently, characters were referred to as "charries" back then, in some cases? Very odd. In any case, 8 posts are spent on this, and then Eddie's handler decides to just have him run away after getting shot at.

Sven is understandably confused. He has believed, this entire time, that he was here because he escaped from the asylum, and is now having it explained to him that he did not, in fact, escape from any asylum at all. Jacob is very patient with Sven, comparatively, and for this reason he's listed as Sven's only ally on the wiki. Go figure.

Then, Shinya appears! Turns out he managed to find his way to the gazebo, and he holds Jacob and Sven at gunpoint. Jacob, whose position across the gazebo is made clear in an OOC comment, points his own gun back, while Sven decidesÂ…

...to get the fuck out of there!

He arrives at the helicopter crash site, and, to kill some time, starts reading the rule booklet in his bag. He laughs at a few of the rules before he realizes that the booklet is dripping with blood. This is, in fact, however, incidentally, conjunction, just a hallucination, and Sven is unable to tell since it's been awhile since he had one. Martyn comes along and sees Sven, who in turn sees him, and proclaims that this is his own hiding spot, not to be taken by some miscreant.

And then we get maybe the most polite sounding note of inactivity I've ever read.
A Note to the Reader: From this point forward, Sven Kekule is no longer roleplayed by handler NyteDarkness and thusly becomes an inactive character. In Sven's next appearance, he will be controlled by fellow handler Riserugu. Therefore, bits and pieces of the remainder of his story may not coincide with what you have already read. We at Survival of the Fittest apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
The way this happens in character is that Martyn falls into a reflective moment all of a sudden and runs off to decompress. Tactful.

Sven is continued in a songpost-two-characters-by-the-same-handler-interacting-with-no-distinction death. Timely. Sven's hallucinations have turned him into a shadow of his former self, and in this haze he attacks Lucinda Garnett, who was simply having a reflective moment on her own in a clearing. Frightened, Lucinda chops into his neck with her axe, and he falls to the ground, tormented no more by the images in his head.

Thus ends the saga of Sven Kekule. I'm not entirely sure this was the best way to handle addiction that there could have been. He goes slightly crazy, sure, but he doesn't link it to wanting drugs, nor does he exhibit any characteristics that would have led the reader to believe that he was a drug addict if they hadn't read his profile. There isn't any showing here, only telling. I wouldn't recommend Sven, really. He doesn't do much at all.

I could take another.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:24 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Flare)

Definitely didn't forget about this, no siree.

I was GONNA comment that Hannah Juett's profile was super refreshingly normal, but then right at the end she walks in on her boyfriend's dead body after he commits suicide. Her profile specifically states that "she vowed never to let anyone she knew die unsaved again" ('unsaved' referring to Christianity and the afterlife and all that jazz), so in one fell swoop she's been obviously set up as a religious fanatic who could either go around trying to heroically save people because God or go crazy and start trying to off the heathens and sinners because God. Good to know this stereotype has been around for a while!

Her first thread is a oneshot where her handler, the well-known guitarjack87, plays both Hannah and another student Adib Harrabi. Hannah's pack has a gun in it, but when Adib comes in, she's doubtful of his trustworthiness and lies about what weapon she has. She soon begins to trust him more, but accidentally shows the gun when she opens her bag, so Adib freaks out and threatens her and she freaks out back, paranoia builds on itself, you know how it goes. It ends with Hannah shooting him point blank and killing him before running off in horror at her own actions.

I'm honestly pretty into this scene as a starting point. Given how many first threads are just people standing around, asking if other people are playing and trying to make threads, having action right out of the gate is a welcome change of pace. The build-up from Hannah trying to take the pacifistic religious route and avoid conflict to her reluctantly lashing out in self-defense seems natural given the tension of the situation. And while her faith plays a big part in a lot of her inner thoughts and narration, it rarely comes across as over-the-top cheesy or unnatural, just a very religious teenage girl. It is kiiiiiiinda sketch that the one Middle Eastern character I know of in V1 is a one thread-wonder that exists solely as a sacrifice to build up another person's story, buuuuuuut that's another discussion. Overall a strong scene!

Her next thread is much more mundane, a lot like the 'usual first thread' I just mentioned, as she runs into Lucinda Garrett and teams up with her after they confirm they can trust each other. Not too much to talk about, but I do like how Hannah's paranoia comes through in certain spots, bursting out into awkward and off-putting laughter at one point and making nervous jokes about her gun. There isn't a whole novel dwelling on the fact that she just killed a guy, but the feelings are obviously there, just in the process of being shoved into the back of her mind as much as she can. It gives this sense that she *might* go all psycho murderer later on, but if she does it will seem more set up and natural while also not committing to the idea too early on. More good writing, woah~

They head off and run into A D A M D O D D and also Amanda and stuff, who seem to be having a distressed moment. Lucinda kinda goes in and gets things all started up, so Hannah comes in half a page after cause she was 'lagging behind' and doing a bit of silent crying and all that. Aaaaand then she disappears again, only showing up for one last post right at the end of the thread. And what proceeds it is a whole lot of Lucinda monologuing and Dodd being introspective and shiz, so she doesn't have much to come back in on. NOW is when she starts being more explicit about 'oh no i killed a dude' internally, which honestly is kind of a disappointment given how well the under-the-surface writing was going. The jump in inactivity for her just kinda put her in a rough spot.

Just a random thought, but it's definitely some generational whiplash hearing that the game is down to just 40 players in a character's 3rd thread. V1 was a crazy time.

Hannah's final thread has come up, and she's been shuffled off to another handler entirely, and according to the wiki it was a new person that was allowed to slip in under the cap by adopting Hannah. What a novel idea! The new handler's writing is... well, it's alright. There's nothing super off or jarring about it, but Hannah seems kinda basic and one note, just a scared girl with a gun who doesn't want to shoot and just wants to help, but ~what if~... it's a bit of a drag with how much I was enjoying her before. Hannah is now also thinking about Kurt, her dead boyfriend, like every other line. It does bring to attention how surprisingly little guitarjack actually brought up such a big event in her life before now, but it's waaaaaay too far in the other direction. She's got no real drive or motivation now other than making ~Kurt~ proud, so nice female character writing there.

Hannah's not with Lucinda anymore thanks to the time-honored SOTF tradition of "we got separated ~somehow~", so she arrives at the warehouse where Sidney Crosby and Jack O'Connor and some other people are hanging out and biding their time. After doing the 'scared girl with gun' thing for a while she joins their shaky alliance and helps out with her first aid kit, only for the peace to be broken when the announcements come on and everyone finds out that Sidney just killed someone. Hannah attempts to play mediator because "NO ONE SHOULD DIE, *silent tears*", but the fight gets broken up due to other matters and the eventual arrival of other people, so Hannah just goes off and... sits around, really. There's a whole lot of action going on and she just kinda... stays out of it, doesn't really react, doesn't do anything of note. It's like the handler got tired of writing her trying to make peace so decided to give up on anything at all. She literally notes that people are leaving the warehouse room to go try and kill other people, and she doesn't do anything about it or react in any way shape or form, just twiddles her thumbs and goes "man all this FIGHTING, I miss Kurt".

Kurt is now my least favorite SOTF character. I am counting him now and I don't like him.

Eventually she goes to climb up the roof but then she hallucinates that KURT is there so she goes chasing after KURT but because he's not there she just slips and falls off the roof and she thinks about KURT on the way down and her last line as she crumples in a heap on the ground is "I love you KURT!!"

God.

CONCLUSION: Hannah makes me sad. Her first two threads are definitely enjoyable, her third one basically doesn't involve her, and her last (and by far her longest) thread is essentially "I'm scared and am thinking about Kurt" plastered over like 6 pages. Wasted potential at its finest.

Anotha

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:25 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Blastinus)

Dorian Greywood is a book nerd, and his handler would really like for you to know that, what with him being a BOOKworm who prizes his BOOKS above anything else and how he's really distraught that the bullies who picked on him mistreated his BOOKS and that caused him great distress whenever his BOOKS got torn or roughed up or burned or...Wait what? Folks were burning books in his school? That's pretty hardcore, not gonna lie.

Why's he coming from Sunnyside High in Florida instead of Barry Coleson anyway? Did the terrorists find him headfirst in a toilet and decide they might as well since they had some room in the back? Mysteries upon mysteries.

Suitable to his awkward geekiness, his first encounter on the island is downright embarrassing, since he succeeds in losing both his bag and his glasses and falling onto his derriere. He has a reason to be afraid, since all they gave him is razor blades in a version where characters seem to be drawing guns left and right. Being distrusting and frightened, he leaves their presence and ends up running into Angharad and being somewhat insensitive towards her Welsh-ness:
He just brought hish ands up and said "Shoo! Go away" a couple of times..What use was a ally he couldnt communicate with?
Unsurprisingly, she takes this as an incentive to go at him with her weapon, and he flees into the next scene, where he runs into Jacob Starr, master of teleportation. Why do I call him that? Because the very first thing he does is come up to Dorian and press his gun against the guy's temple. Fortunately, Jacob has a deal to make with Dorian, since he can tell he's a smart guy somehow: find an escape plan and he won't give Dorian's skull a new ventilation shaft. It's actually an okay thread, since Dorian and Jacob discuss with one another what their options actually are. It's rare to see this kind of thing in V1, and Dorian seems like he's playing it smart and not saying anything that might set Jacob off. This continues into the next thread where Jacob barricades his fortress while Dorian tries to figure out a way to determine which island they're on.

Too bad that they're soon interrupted by Garrett Langston who's got Jacob in his sights. Dorian grabs a bread knife from the kitchen and proceeds to do nothing with it while the two of them have their extended brawl. For what it's worth, Dorian's handler actually acknowledges that his character is being somewhat useless right now. He's got these ideas about putting together the materials to ride a glider off of the island, but aside from showing some proficiency at cleaning and handling Jacob's gun, he's not really pulling his weight in this alliance. Nonetheless, once Garrett's done for, the two of them depart for the warehouse to pick up supplies, little realizing that they're being followed by Angharad. Oddly, when she pretends to be wounded, Dorian doesn't recognize her as the lady who chased him. Was that intentional of the handler or did they just forget that scene had happened?

Regardless, in the ensuing confusion with Amanda and Cody and so forth, MismatchedEyes gets sort of shunted to the side, so they explain it as Dorian passing out from the proceedings, all the stress being too much for him. By the time he's woken up, the announcement has sounded and it's time for everyone to leave.
He would run till his balls pumped battery acid and his head hurt like a metaller at a metallica marathon.
I love a good analogy.

In the next thread, he's running running running, in fact he's running for three whole posts before he finally meets up with the group in the thread. He barely has time to cough out an explanation before it's VINCE WITH A SMOKE GRENADE! Dorian takes a round in the shoulder and tries to rally everyone to the sound of his voice, which...you know, the advantage of being in smoke is that you aren't an obvious target, but whatever. The point is that the group gets the upper side on Vince and Dorian suggests just wounding him, because he doesn't want anyone to die today. I guess he didn't realize that a shot to the foot would launch Vince like he was flung from a catapult and deposit him on a strangely pointy rock. Then the group flees from Jason, leaving Dorian to accomplish nothing again and also feel bitterness for being abandoned. Is it time for some pent-up nerd rage?!

Well, no, he's feeling pathetic again almost immediately. Coming across a sleeping girl, he screams at her to go away and so she does, leaving him to wait in the Lighthouse for an ambush that'll never come. Well, not immediately. It doesn't help that his approach to every conflict is to shriek that he has a gun. And wouldn't you know it, someone calls his bluff and starts breaking into his fortifications. Deciding that he'll take his attackers out in an over-the-top way, Dorian causes a gas leak that results in a giant explosion, and he's forced to escape by climbing to the top and descending down the side of the lighthouse with a rope. The only problem is that nobody followed him inside, so all he did was cause some meaningless property damage. At this point, Dorian drops from MismatchedEyes to Lien, and subsequently, he starts to reflect on how little he's accomplished thus far, which I have to agree with. I mean really, he just blew up a building with absolutely nobody in it. Even when he does something cool, it ends up being pointless.

Oh also, MismatchedEyes did Peri Barclay, which went to a different handler, so now the two of them are in a thread together, and Peri's being suddenly chummy and wanting to welcome in Dorian as an ally? Really? Peri is doing that? Not to dictate how someone's interpretation of Peri should go, but I know Peri. I've seen enough of him with Angharad to know how he treats seemingly weak people. If this was the Peri I know, Dorian would be put through some sadistic test right about now. But maybe it's because Peri and Dorian are actually in love with one another which...sure, I guess that's a thing? No real reason for it and it doesn't suit Peri's character at all, but yeah, let's have Peri fall head over heels for Dorian to the point of Dorian jerking him off before bequeathing him his uzi and departing. I want to emphasize that. A ruthless and sadistic killer who's been putting people through the wringer for petty reasons just got smitten with a random pathetic nerd, had a blowjob with him, and handed over his best weapon. I really have to ponder how MismatchedEyes took this interpretation of their characters.

Of course, Dorian just has to go out on a low note because that's the only note he knows, so he gets shot up by Angelina Kaige and dies immediately afterwards. Funny how a character who went as far as he did managed to leave almost no impression everywhere he went. He alienated a lot of people with his panicked nature, made an alliance that ditched him immediately, caused a giant explosion that had no real affect on the game, and in summary, his only true contribution was giving Peri Barclay a BJ in a dirty bathroom stall. Would I recommend reading him? Probably not. It's really boring, and his interaction with Peri isn't worth the dull ride. There are bad characters who are a good read because of how terrible they are, and there are good characters who are just a good read in general, and there are folks like Dorian who lie somewhere in the middle, just drifting along through the game and being generally unimportant. They're there for all that's worth, but that's all you can say about them. Dorian existed, and I guess he and Peri hit it off. That's it.

Can I go again?

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:28 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by MK Kilmarnock)

Xian Chun:


Spoiler!
Xian in her first thread, as written by Yumi22, is entirely ordinary and nothing too offensive nor fantastic. Unfortunately her first thread also happens to be with Kaishi's Sydney Morvran, SotF's original pre-made player (in the sense that he's started the game completely in a playing mood by having survived the first game, though with no kills yet to his belt). It's not so much that Syndey the character is terrible, but Kaishi's writing behind him is pretty systemic of SotF's early years between V1 and V2. Just take how this shit reads:
He leapt out, launching himself at her like a lion pouncing onto its prey. "I've got you!!" He yelled out, spit flying out from his lips. If Xian had a good enough reaction time, she might be able to roll out of the way in time, but with the bamboo stalks surrounding them both, it would be rather hard to roll out of the way to safety.
It's like reading back to the Mariavel fight in the bathroom in V2's pregame in how passively GM-ing this shit is. But we're not here to review Sydney, we're hear to review Xian. Anywho, the disadvantaged girl is basically bowled over (not wanting to miraculously ninja dodge, Yumi? That's your first mistake in this game). Anyway, Sydney crawls atop her and is all creepy and whispering in her ear being like "be my friiiiend" and Xian's like "WHO ARE YOU DON'T HURT ME," which is so far pretty reasonable. Tayli runs in and is ALSO understandable because Sydney's being a fucking creeper.

Sydney throws a flashbang at her, which Kaishi insists will blind her for one hour, unless she turned away and 'halfen the effects'.


Fucking.

Shoot.

Me.

Anyway, Xian's like 'seriously what the hell is wrong with you, she wasn't going to hurt us!'. I guess we could see Sydney as acting extra-jumpy for having survived V0 but there's a distinct lack of consistency in his behaviors and personality from post to post. Sydney eventually calms down while the still-blind Tayli is crept upon by some fucker named Niniko. Sydney's current personality is now 'hero' and he's all "HALT VILLAIN YOU'VE BROKEN THE LAW" and holds out his gun to stop Niniko from enacting the creepies on the chick that Sydney blinded for no fucking reason. The thread starts to break down a little but nothing else of note happens before Tayli gets herself and Xian out of there (and Kaishi complains but like, fuck you?)

Okay, second thread. And for such a long thread at the schoolhouse, it's remarkable how long it takes for anything of substance to happen. Sifting through the fluff, it looks like the three are just hanging out, taking care of Tayli because wow I didn't realize flashbangs lasted this long, and Anya comes around and they let her in. Tayli's the most strategic mind somehow when it comes to barricading themselves, which all goes to shit because Minase shows up (with a header AND footer telling us what thread he's coming from because... the handler forgot halfway through that they already told us?). "Mess with me and get shot but I'm willing to talk" says Minase, none-too-encouraging. Like, who the fuck would want to talk to THAT? Also fun fact, I always thought Gabrielle Minase was a girl. Huh, oh well.

Kaishi makes more bossy OoC notes banning people from entering the thread. "Hello there, Gabrielle. Squeeze the trigger, and as I slowly die, I will pull the pin out of this grenade. But, here's the catch..." He smirked, filling himself with false bravado. "What kind of grenade is it? A hand grenade that will explode, and kill you and my friends here? Or, is it a smoke grenade that will cloud up the whole room, causing everyone to fire in a frenzy? Or, better...is it a flashbang grenade that will both blind you and deafen you for about an hour's time, considering how you're so close to me." ... Dude, that just got less threatening over time. And why are you so sure the flashbang blinds AND deafens you for an hour's time!? Why arbitrarily an hour? This isn't a fucking video game with a set cooldown timer, and I still don't think flashbangs incapacitate you for that long!

Minase picks at the hanging plot thread of Sydney and the boy immediately goes from 'hahaha look at me I'm confident' to a basket case holding his head. Xian's really just along for the ride here and it's a shame I have nothing to really say about her for the moment because Sydney's too much of a terrible distraction. Xian FINALLY says something to the effect of 'everybody stop!' Sydney throws a flashbang (just like, the whole thing, not pulling the pin) at Minase. Xian gets in the way like kiiiind of an idiot and gets clocked in the back, falling into Minase's arms (how romantic). Sydney's like 'noooo it's happening again', Xian just hauls ass like nothing ever hit her and runs upstairs into the school building's second floor. This reads like a bunch of kids competing for attention when playing house.

Sydney gets rolled so he follows Xian upstairs and sets down his gun on a desk with this terrible footnote of 'He kept his distance from her, dropping down to his knees. The Mac-10 sat ontop of a desk, giving off a menacing aura, as if it could be picken up and pulled at any moment.' Yes, we get it, hint hint. I guess in fairness to Kaishi here, V1 didn't have a chat or any real way to coordinate stuff behind the scenes. Sydney tells Xian that he accidentally hit her with the grenade and Xian has a freakout. She's been 'eh' up to this point but here her dialogue is pretty bad to read. Here's a quick excerpt:
Liar...liar...all boys..liars!!! want...want to be friends...but....liar!!!

I....dont wanna.....dont make me....I..Im not a killer. P..please...l..leave me alone..g..go...away..far away. Take Minase with you.....all boys....liars....go away!!!

Lying...lying to me. All boys lie...take what they want..then lie, lie lie!!!! He...he lied to Kathy. Told her he loved her...never leave her. Kathy got pregnant.....had to leave school..and where was he??? I SAID....WHERE WAS HE!!!!!! HE LIED!!!! L....I.....E...D!!!!
Yeah. So Xian's freaking out hard and other people come up, think Sydney's gonna murder Xian or whatever, and try to defuse the tense situation. It LOOKS like Xian's going to be the one to kill Sydney with her corkscrew when whooooOOOOOPS! Tayli slips on a banana peel to a cartoon soundtrack and just so HAPPENS to shoot Sydney dead. Xian runs away, thinking she's at fault for merely wishing Sydney dead and using V1 logic, maybe she's right. Next thread.

Xian's snapping and she's snapping pretty rapidly, laugh-crying about how it's all her fault. She runs into Cole who has a case of schizophrenia, or so I'm lead to assume, because there's a little voice in his head telling him to kill everybody, especially Xian. The two have a normal conversation for a bit and seem to want to team up. Then they get high. Then Andrew Klock shows up and how I picture this whole engagement is Cole acting like he's the star of the movie, protecting Xian and throwing out witty one-liners and Andrew's a total fucking jobber (and seems to be knowingly written like one). Like, check out this exchange.

Andrew: "Well, well, well. It seems I have stumbled upon another player while sifting through the cannon fodder. Very well, if it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get."
Cole: *adjusts sledgehammer in his grip* "Don't get me wrong. I've got nothing against you personally, it's just your arrogance - it'll be your undoing, as I'm sure you probably have no idea."
Andrew: "Arrogance? No, not arrogance... I know I'll win. I have to win. And for me to win, you have to die!"

Pause the dusty VHS tape that was playing on because we have a review to continue. But see what I mean?

They fight for a couple pages and Andrew hacks into Cole's arm with the machete like... four times. Cole whacks the kid in the back with a sledgehammer AND shatters Andrew's left hand, but I'm gonna go with Andrew's disbelief and agree that Cole should have grievous wounds on his arm at this point and might not even have use of it. This fight started out great but goes on way. TOO. FUCKING. LONG. Xian jumps down and ninjas and stabs Andrew in the back or shoulder with her corkscrew, then people book it separate ways. Nobody dies, and my time is wasted for eight pages.

Cole carries Xian away and has the corkscrew embedded in his arm somehow (I stopped reading after Xian leaves the last thread). Xian takes care of him for a bit and then he dies of blood loss because Xian rips the corkscrew out of his arm (she's actually credited with the kill!). To be fair to her, Cole DOES tell her to do it, but... geez. So yeah, Cole bleeds to death and she goes 'nooo don't leave me' and it's not a very sad scene, sorry. Xian resolves to kill Andrew, and also to kill Danya who must be hiding on the island somewhere. I guess that's not a terrible assumption, since I think that's how it worked in Battle Royale, maybe?

Next thread never happened, so let's skip to the one after that.

For the first time in basically ever, Xian actually makes me feel the inkling of an emotion as she sees Ash from behind and thinks he might be Cole. She even seems pretty quietly broken up when she realizes that, of course, it's not him and that the boy really is dead. Ash speaks to Xian and she reacts in... uh, tremendous fashion, ironically calling Ash out on being melodramatic with this beauty of a post:
wrote:
Xian stared at the boy, as he slowly descended upon her, and....laughed.

Xian burst into a loud, hearty laugh, tears in her eyes.

Christ...what is it...Melodrama Day?? Oh...please, youre killing me here. OOOh....look at me...Im the creepy loner...ooooh.....Im dark and mysterious....oooooooo....get over yourself.

Xian folds her arms across her chest, and smirks at Ash.

Look here, this is serious, and I have no time for fun and games. Do I want to kill...no. Will I kill if someone attacks me...fuck yeah! Im only interested in two things. Finding that Mr Danya, and slicing his throat, then finding a way off this island. I dont have time to play the damsel in distress, or listen to your little insightful speeches. Two boys got close to me, and I had to watch as those two boys died. Im trying hard not to make it a habit of watching others die, so watch your step!

But, before Xian can continue, all hell seems to break loose around them.
What's the hell breaking loose? Oh, just Cillian randomly showing up with Jon, Cillian murdering Jon, and Cillian leaving just like that.

Sigh.

Xian leaves after exchanging some stupid stupid words, and it's time to say goodbye to Ash, who was the best read so far in this little trip. Theeeeen Kaishi adopts Xian and... phew, here we go. Down the slope. I want to get off this wild ride.

Okay, so here's the thing: As of The Morning After the Night Before, Xian is basically totally a different person. She's a snapped killer but she taunts people, mimicking and mocking speech and making matter-of-fact statements. Here's a sample of Xian under Kaishi's control so you can get the stark difference:
wrote:
"Oh? My weapon..." Xian looked down at her clothes, searching with her hands for the little tool. Once she found it, she mirrored Angharad's movements and pointed the corkscrew at her.

"Right here. Unlike my lovely dress, it's pretty darn sucky." Cole's blood had long dried since its removal from his arm.

The girl chuckled softly at the sight of Angharad and her gun.

"You better turn that thing around, girl. Don't know what you're getting yourself into. At all." Xian shook her head and pouted in mock sympathy.
That's not the same girl anymore, is it? But the kicker is I have yet to decide if this Xian is better or worse than the one that we started with. Before she was a nervous wreck ready to fly off the handle who had decent interactions with only one other person (Cole), and now she's just Mitsuko. Two kids, Andrew and Vince, join Xian and Angharad, the girl Xian was talking to before. The four of them seem to get along with relatively little unease and go about their business. Next thread.

Xian's 'maaaaster manipulation skills' come into play when the announcements ring out and she tries to play the boys against Angharad once it comes out she's killed somebody. Not really shit the old Xian would do but fuck it, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. "Don't-give-a-fuck-about-my-adopted-kid's-original-personality" is in full play here. The scene is actually tense for a while before a guy shows up and, because his name is NEVER mentioned in his posts I have to go back to his previous thread to find out this motherfucker's name is Peri. He just waltzes in and BLAM BLAM BLAM TIME TO START SHOOTING WHAT WERE YOU GUYS DOING BEFOREHAND FUCK THAT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Kill me please.

Andrew songposts a deathpost. Handler goes 'wow that was awesome, now I know why people love deathposts!' You. Fucking. Fool. I hate you all. Angharad's like 'fuck yeah I'll team up with the psycho and she leaves the thread. Vince, meanwhile, deems it fit to stick with Xian, who is all 'man this girl who I have wronged has wronged me back, I must get my revenge!'. Okay. I don't care anymore. This next thread is the last one, right?

So Angharad's been injured in a previous encounter (didn't read much of anything before Xian showed up. Not my job. Don't have to care. You're not fucking paying me to care). Xian and Vince show up, and Xian is slowly preparing to kill Angharad with her corkscrew. She acts all creepy and playful and other non-Xian things.
She stretched out Angharad's arms so that they were crossed over her head. As she held Angharad's wrists, she started to lick up the cut on her pretty little face. Tentatively at first, since the taste of someone else's blood was new. It was kind of like sucking on a penny. Very coppery, not all that satisfying, edging on nasty. But, unlike a penny, there was just something in the taste of blood that called people to it. The added effect of someone in pain? No.

That wasn't it. It was the mingling of your saliva and their blood. You bonded with someone when you sucked out their red. Now I see why vampires are so horny.

"Mmm, Angharad." Xian moaned into the Welsh speaker's wound. "Ever had your boyfriends do something like to you? This sure is erotic."
My penis just retreated into my abdominal cavity. My dick is now concave and I have Old Greg's Man-gina, that is how turned off I am right now. Anyway things get more rapey and Xian is compared to Mitsuko OoC. Kaishi is proud of it because of course. Anyway, Vince has seen enough and tries to drag Angharad away to end this miserable scene but his leg wound causes him to collapse. Xian's pissed and stabs him, but "((Ha im not letting him get killed that easy ya Shmuck))" says Bloody_Fists. Vince almost immediately dies. Then Xian stops being so damned rapey, changes into clothes after pulling them off the corpse of Cynthia Pullman, and starts acting all friendly with Angharad for... I'unno, reasons.

Then Angelina Kaige throws a grenade in and everybody dies, lol.


... Man. This SUCKED.

I don't want another.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:28 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Blastinus)

Before we go too far into Selene Acton's story, let's touch on a few points in her profile. First, she's described primarily in terms of her sex appeal. To whit:
Sexually alluring, wide hipped, with a petite bosom and a devious smile. Short hair down to her neck, red/brown and very 'bouncy'. 5' 5 and thin, with small rimmed glasses.
Also, she's apparently been involved in petty crimes that have gotten her suspended from school at age 15, like graffiti and arson. You know, kid stuff. What we may be looking at is a premade player of sorts, only the female variety where she's going to be a femme fatale. Let's see how that translates to her island experience.

First thread, she's observing the manic antics of Sydney Morvran with "shrink-wrapped eyes" before deciding to step in and participate in the action. Too bad he chucks a flashbang, rendering her unable to see and forcing her to flee the scene. Next thread she's in the lighthouse when Garrett Langston arrives, and she tells him that he can come in, but only if he removes the bolts from his crossbow. This suggests a deal of strategy, which goes out the window when Jacob Starr and Uriel arrive and she's just hiding behind a bed. She continues to hide behind the bed for the rest of the scene, since her handler doesn't post again, resulting in her being danger zone'd.

Well, okay then.

To summarize, she gets three lines in this entire game, two of which are her just musing to herself. She's a passive observer to everything and dies from inactivity. I can't even form an opinion of her because she has absolutely nothing to go on. Bleh.

Another!

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:29 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Blastinus)

Jamie Amy Robins is hardly worth mentioning, because she's another inactive kill that Adam Dodd harvests without her handler even getting a post, and I'm beginning to notice a pattern here. Much like Cody Jenson just randomly bumped off people who put up a token fight, Adam Dodd's method is to have the character attack him for whatever reason and then kill them in retaliation so he can still claim to be a hero. It's really disquieting to see the greater narrative emerging because when it comes right down to it, Dodd is just as bad as Cody for killing random people. It's just framed so that Dodd can claim that he's acting in self-defense.

I suppose I should go into Jamie's background a little. She's a Christian who lost her mother on Christmas and is overall a pretty kind girl who's boring and unassuming. Naturally, this is the kind of girl who would reflexively try to kill someone and then apologize for it afterwards. Sure...And her character has a blowgun with tranq darts, but Dodd just shrugs off two of them with only a token mention of being groggy that goes away in the next immediate scene, so way to sell the self-defense angle, you git.

Let's keep going!

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:29 pm
by Ohm
(original post by Blastinus)

Luca Donovan is a rich snob archetype who seemingly went inactive without being posted with at all, leading to her becoming an easy kill for Megami's character, Jill Gatling. For what it's worth, Megami extended it out to a fight lasting three posts, but otherwise, there's really nothing to see here. And Jill Gatling would become part of Angelina Kaige's warehouse massacre just a few pages later, so really, it's all a moot point.

I just really like that name though. Jill Gatling. It's the kind of silliness that really makes V1 fun most of the time.

Alright, let's do another.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:30 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Blastinus)

Lucinda Garnett is a little unusual in terms of characteristics because she starts her game in a oneshot deathpost. Not dying, mind you, but being the one who kills a guy. I think the clue is in the date that she starts, which is three months from the time when Adam Dodd starts culling inactive characters. Based on that, what we can assume is that Lucinda was written in order to add more characters to the island which was rapidly being depopulated. Fortunately, there's another character just nearby called Hannah Juett who she can do the belated starting character talking points with, and as the two of them reflect on that guy who's dead in front of them, they agree to form an alliance, just in time to run into Adam Dodd, who's songposting to himself. And sure enough, she starts joining in the songposting, and my eyes just glaze over immediately.

I'll put it right out there, I can't stand posts that throw in song lyrics to make you identify with the character's feelings. Writing is a visual medium, not an auditory one, and therefore the mood should be set with clever descriptions, actions, and details. The more I have to skim over meaningless filler, the less invested I am with the story. Fortunately, once the introductions are over with, so are the songs, and Lucinda and Adam can reflect on the horrible nature of the game in peace. To Dodd's credit, he's beginning to ask himself if what he's doing is right. This is before he starts shooting people in the head for swinging bags of sawdust at him, but at least the question is there. Lucinda responds as a comforter, but in a really long-winded fashion that's kinda hard to read. To whit:
Smiling brightly for the first time since she had arrived on this place, Lucinda reached up placing a hand on Adam's shoulder in a comforting manner. "Let me tell you something though, Mama used to always tell me when I was little that I have nothing to fear in life because not only was I protected here, my loved ones that had passed on before me where always around to protect me from harm's way as well. Adam I believe this is true in all of us, if you continue to trust and love your friends even though they're gone, they'll protect you...

You're friends loved you in life, they love you now too I bet. And because they're your friends, they probably understand better than anyone what's going through your head. Though they've passed on, truly though they continue to live on." At this point, her hand dropped, she using a finger to lightly poke at an area of his chest right over his heart. "They continue to live on right there, in meeting those people alone you took a part of them into yourself. Becoming friends made that even stronger, and that little piece of them will always be there.

Be it their laughter, their sorrow, their anger, their love or everything in between, it's all right in your heart now. And unless you let them die in there, they're really not dead at all...
I think I'm going to be sick. I mean, I LIKE positive characters who try to be inspirational, and even I'm bothered by how sugary that is.

Next thread, she's all alone and she just rests and then re-gathers her gear, so let's move on. The next thread adds more than enough details to make up for it. Enough details, in fact, for one post to fill an entire page. If indeed it is true that brevity is the soul of wit, then this delivery is dead on arrival. By the time she's finished thinking about what's going on, taking in the scenery, and all that, I don't even have the ability to process that something important is happening in this post. She discovers the body of a boy named Ryan, one who she'd been looking for all game, and this makes her distraught and determined to win the game at all costs. There's also a conversation with Cody Jenson and Adam Dodd happening nearby, which she spectates but doesn't do anything about until the thread ends. Good stuff.

Her appearance might be hard to find at the warehouse massacre thread, since riseruga never mentioned her arriving in the usual format and she disappears in the same post. Having apparently settled on the murder plan, she's got knives from her first kill and she's ready to start stabbing. Not very successfully, as her attempt to kill another of riseruga's characters gets part of her face blown off, and she delivers a non-fatal throat cut and a non-fatal stab to the back, non-fatal enough for this guy to survive several more pages, in fact. Her transformation from survivor to player doesn't quite work for me, and I can't sympathize with her next thread where she's sobbing over the fact that she got her face shot trying to kill someone. I mean, I get that it hurts, but it's like lamenting the fact that you cut your knuckles punching someone in the face. She meets up with a couple people in a conversation slightly dripping with menace, and nothing happens.

But don't worry, that's just because Lucinda's handler was saving the real excitement for what's coming up next. It starts out normally enough. She enters a house, has a tense standoff with Steven Hyde, and then is interrupted by the arrival of Jeremy Torres. After she casually fires off a shot into his shoulder, Lucinda and Jeremy do what comes naturally in this sort of situation: jump into a couple of nearby parked cars (that nobody noticed before apparently) and have a giant car chase.

Yes, a car chase. Steven is so unprepared for the awesomeness to come that he's standing gormlessly outside and gets promptly steamrolled, Mad Max style. Naturally, neither participant spares any expense in making this sequence (sprawling over several threads) into the most ridiculous display ever. We're talking spontaneous seat adjustments to dodge shotgun blasts, turning donuts, blaring the radio at each other, crashes, mid-chase banter, and a giant flaming wreck at the end. Unable to escape her burning car, and trapped inside a danger zone, Lucinda's neck goes kablooey shortly before Jeremy's, putting them both in the top ten. And to be honest, that death was so much better than Cody's, it's hard to express it. THAT'S what a dramatic denouement looks like. It doesn't even matter that she had a really wordy and kind of "eh" beginning. Everything that happened in that chase made Lucinda one of my absolute favorite characters to read in V1, well deserving of her spot.

I'll take another, please.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:31 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Blastinus)

Johnny "Mordread" Lamika is the Josh Goodman of V1, in that he's a clever child killer in his backstory who somehow escapes detection despite seemingly having the intelligence of cement once you see him in action. I don't even want to go into his backstory too much, other than to say that his first kill was at AGE FREAKIN' SEVEN! Or maybe earlier, because that's the first age mentioned. Riiiight.

I guess I can see the inspiration, because he apparently thinks he's a "shingami". And no, I'm not misspelling that.
~Pretty little kittens...all waiting for Shingami to show them to the afterlife~

(OOC: Shingami=God of Death)
Nerrrrrrd!

Unfortunately for those reading, his weapon of choice was a set of fishhooks, which he immediately puts to use against Callum Hadley, who you might know as the guy with the imaginary friends. Mordread approaches him with the same stupid "kitty" monologue, in a manner that suggests that we're supposed to take this character seriously.
Dread silently emerged from his hiding place and approached the figure crouched on the ground, fishhooks hidden in the palm of his hand he silently moved, almost seeming to float across the ground.
That's the entire post, by the way. He throws his fishhooks at Callum, somehow catching him in the eyes, and Callum asks why he's doing this, to which he responds, you guessed it, by saying he's "the Shingami, kitten." Cripes, this guy is a broken record. Every post from him is kitty this, kitty that, and it's really friggin' annoying. Also, he rips out Callum's tongue, I guess, but frankly, I'm two threads in, and I'm already beyond caring about this character.

Then he gets inactive killed by Adam Dodd, and good riddance. But not before Dodd gets almost violated once again. Dodd, if you're reading this, I would really love an explanation for why you liked to write people sexually assaulting your character. It's really odd how often it keeps coming up. It's not like Mordread was such a compelling and lovable character that you needed to add more villainy to him. I think we would have just given you a pass.

Whatever the case, I could really use a palate cleanser after that hot garbage, so please, keep them coming!

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:32 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Blastinus)

Ryan Ashmore's entire bio can be summed up as "He wants to be a doctor". Every single aspect of his appearance, backstory, and personality drills right down to the heart of the matter, and as a result, one would think that what he brings to the table will be some crucial life-saving medical knowledge. A useful skill to have in V1 especially, when people are constantly taking hits when they don't have to. Let's see how that plays out, shall we?

First thread, he flashes back to right before the trip, and it's clear that the guy wants to gain more experiences from life, despite the protestations of his family. I suppose it's intending to be ironic, since the one time he gets to go on a trip is also looking very likely to be his last. The rest of it is a oneshot that establishes the typical SOTF ritual. Check bag, muse about your situation, get scared and panicky, run off to find people to interact with.

Of course, when his initial encounter is with an uzi-wielding Slayer character, it's probably for the best that he chooses to hide in a closet and then make a break for it, all in one post, of course. Doesn't even give Slayer a chance to contrive a reason for why he knew that Ryan was hiding in the closet. All for the better, since that would have just resulted in a million bullets being flung in the closet's direction and Megami having to somehow write a way around that.

Fortunately, in the club of scared kids running for their lives, Ryan has found a soulmate at this point, as Cassie Webber and he bond together over the fact that everything's crazy and nothing makes sense any more. Oddly, rather than taking the moral high ground and saying that playing is wrong, the two of them decide that they're going to have to defend themselves, which might mean killing people. It's a surprisingly mature direction to go in, but it's too bad that he's not going to get much opportunity to put that thought into action, since the next encounter is with an already-wounded Angharad Davies, who puts up such a token fight that he can have a crisis of faith when she's not five feet away. Speaking as a Christian myself, I've often pondered how a proper one would act if thrust into this kind of situation. It seems to me like a lot of characters written to have faith either just have it so they can lose it dramatically (as Ryan is doing here) or exaggerate it to such a degree that it becomes nonsensical. Rachel Gettys from V4 and Uriel Hunter fit into the latter category. I dunno, maybe there are examples of Christian characters who were kind and courageous and the like, but I've never seen any.

Regardless, Ryan and Cassie decide to vacate so Angharad can get her death scene on, and find themselves caught in the middle of Cody Jenson doing his best King Kong impersonation with Lyndi. Disoriented by the flashbang, Ryan loses track of Cassie and instead catches sight of Lyndi, deciding that he's going to free her from Cody. Or at least, that's how the plan starts, but he regrettably leads her right into Cody's booby-trapped lair which he totally set up at some point and then...well, maybe I'll just quote this:
"The way to defeat the program," he said in a near whisper, "The way to save all of us from it, to liberate ourselves from this prison... it's right here. Don't you see it, Lyndi? It's been right here, all along. I'm going to save you. I'm going to save Cassie and Drew. All of us. I'm going to take us far, far away from this place. I'm going to defeat Danya and this whole god damned system. It's been right here all along. And Lyndi, you'll be the first. You'll be the first person I send to their salvation!"

The last few words of Ryan's speech turned from a quiet utterance into a loud yell as he lunged toward the girl he had been trying to protect only moments ago, knife in hand.
Yeah. Because he gets wounded, Ryan suddenly turns a 180 and decides that he's going to save everyone by killing them. Guess there was always room for Christian Type B after all. In the ensuing struggle, they do the classic knife thing where it gets lodged in Ryan as they're fighting over it, and that's basically all she wrote.

You notice a distinct lack of any medical-related stuff in that whole mishmash of ideas? Yeah, you might have forgotten that his medical aspirations were even a thing, since they sure as heck never came up. I find myself simultaneously pondering what could have been and lamenting what was, and while Ryan was well-written and had some good ideas in the mix, I can't ultimately recommend him, because nothing that was ever written about him ever bore fruit. Truly a tragedy.

How many are left at this point? I feel like we've got to be close to the end.

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:33 pm
by Ohm
(original post by Brackie)

Jayne is a beige boring waste of time. Her profile's not terrible, but she has no voice and only hangs around characters as boring and incomprehensible as she is, and then she gets stabbed in the back of the head by her own vodka bottle by one of Slayer's many killbots. I'd do a full write-up summary, but that is time better spent doing something else completely.

Instead I'm going to ask for another character!

Re: The V1 Read-A-Thon

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 5:34 pm
by Ohm
(Original post by Blastinus)

Umi Martin's profile would probably ring some alarm bells if she was submitted today, since her primary skills are hunting with rifles, biology, and first aid. Seemingly innocuous hobbies, but oddly specific towards surviving on a murder island. Maybe that wasn't what Lien was going for, but it certainly seems that way. The proof will be in the execution itself.

First thread, she does the Island Starting Post Waltz and leaves, and then I suddenly realize why her name seems familiar. She's the third wheel of the Daisuke and Aiden alliance. Most of what she does was already covered in my Daisuke writeup, so let's cut to the part where she rescues Andrew Lipson from a hole. Here's where she actually gets a bit of time to shine, and I love her anxiety over telling Andrew that they're on the island. The part at the end, where she's almost unable to choke out the true nature of everything, was something I haven't seen too often. It's very rare that characters feel sorry for other characters in this version, and Umi, you can tell, wishes that Andrew was anywhere else but here.

This thread also results in an interesting revelation. Apparently Kichiro Taka, another kid on the island, was actually Umi's brother. This bombshell strikes at the same time as the bolt of lightning that signals Andrew's end, and she just breaks down in tears, crying out angrily at Danya:
"I am personally going to rip your eyes out so you can watch yourself die! I'm going to use every bone in my body to make you pay for what you've done, and I will--" she cut short.

There was something wrong.

"Hey... guys? Which one of you knows about cameras?"
We never figure out what Umi meant regarding the cameras, since she's immediately distracted by Chi making a grab for her gun and then turning the Wednesday switch to "Go", so whatever she was planning was lost to the mists of time. Instead, she follows the Daisuke alliance to her last thread, where she threatens Heather and the two of them have a petty insult-off. It's a little embarrassing to read. Then after Heather and Co. leave, Peri Barclay arrives, though you wouldn't know it's Peri because...oh wait, I did this one. Anyway, Umi levels her gun on him, and he responds by somehow drawing his weapons in the blink of an eye. Then the rest of the group arrives and we have that exchange with Kiyoko where she distrusts Peri but only Daisuke can understand her.

It's becoming clearer as the scene progresses that Umi has no trust for Peri either, especially since he's done nothing but cause trouble since showing up. Confronting him with a new handler (Lien passed her off to LadyMakaze), she has the drop on him with her gun but he manages to avoid the shots as he drops to the floor, pretending to be dead. She goes to investigate, letting her guard down, and he springs to life, shooting her twice at close range. Her last action before collapsing is to thank him, since her time on the island had been nothing but torment.

It's hard to say what to think of Umi really. She had her moments to show real emotion and stand out, but her alliance was pretty firmly the Daisuke and Aiden show. She mostly provided side commentary on what was going on and she didn't contribute a great deal to the alliance besides being someone with a gun. I was left with a feeling of lukewarmness, which I guess is better than revulsion at least.

One more please?
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