Survival Of The Fittest

In that case...

Skraal: Joe Rios

[+] Review of Joe Rios

Joe’s first thread was a bit of a rough start. His character, though still trying to find his voice, seems likeable and interesting. However, though not his handler’s fault, he runs into an issue which is pretty common with newcomers to roleplays that have been running for a while. He unfortunately found himself in a thread with a few characters with very strong established relationships to each other, and no real connection to him. Predictably, they don’t want very much to do with him, and his interaction with them is fairly limited. Thankfully, he gets a text message from one of the handler’s other characters inviting him out of the thread into a one-shot transition scene before heading to the movies. The thread at the movies is fairly crowded and again, his characters don’t end up interacting much with anyone but each other. It was rather sad to see the lack of any relationship built up at this stage, since relationships between two characters handled by the same person never really have satisfying resolutions on island, though the small tidbits we get of his personality are interesting. I also liked the continuity of his pregame threads, taking place on the same day, with the character explicitly moving from place to place over the course of his posts. It was a pragmatic use of the limited time he had to spend in pregame, given the circumstances, it’s just a shame it happened to be in V4, the version with perhaps the longest and most intricate pregame in SOTF history.

Predictably, his first island thread is a little difficult to read. Not because of him, specifically, but because Day 1 threads in main versions are almost consistently massively overcrowded, with a total of ten characters participating in this particular one. Thankfully, Joe’s internal narrative mainly focuses on Cisco, again showing a valuable pragmatism in writing that makes his work feel much tighter and easier to read than would be usual for such a thread. I don’t really buy how quickly he seems to catch on to Cisco’s delusions, though it’s no more unrealistic than Cisco’s handler’s usual schtick of having his characters lose touch with reality immediately upon waking up on the island, and I can overlook it for the interesting dynamic that it creates between the characters. Joe’s almost sociopathic lack of regard for the wellbeing of those around him clashes a bit with the more sensitive, awkward nature of the personality displayed in his pregame threads, but I won’t be too harsh on that. I would have liked to see something of a transition into this mindset rather than a sharp u-turn. Though Joe seems getting a bit more of his humanity back after finding out that his crush had died during the announcements in the next thread, his empathy still barely seems to extend much further than people named either “Joe Rios” or “Rose Codreanu”.

His next few threads are reminiscent of his first pregame thread. He enters after the action has already begun, and is forced to take on the role of a detached observer, with little interaction between him and the other characters in the thread. It’s rather sad, in a way, that no matter where his character goes, it becomes quickly clear that he’s not wanted there, and a couple characters explicitly attempt to ignore him when he does speak.

With such an experience, it’s no wonder that Joe develops a death wish. It’s seems to me that the handler is rather bored with the character by the time he ends up participating in the inactive kill of Mike Maszer. That said, the direction he takes the character from that point is fairly interesting, and the standoff between him and Alan Rickhall in “To Die Hating Them, That Was Freedom”, is definitely the highlight of his arc. I really enjoyed his storyline from here on out, with his desperate desire to find some sort of a purpose on the island contrasting poignantly with the inaction displayed earlier in the game. In the end, he finds himself as he began, a follower, though with a clear sense of what he plans to do with the little remaining time he has left in his life. His final thread was fantastic, with a very enjoyable fight scene between him and Reiko Ishida and some touching final moments with Aston Bennett after Reiko flees the scene.

Overall, the question of whether I would recommend Joe Rios is a difficult one. The final third of his time on the island is very solid, with two extremely well written threads, in particular, and interesting interactions with other members of the cast. However, a great deal of his earlier threads are fairly uninteresting, as far as he is concerned. I would feel bad criticizing him for that, as that issue is primarily due to OOC concerns, though the issue still stands that a great deal of his character arc is a tough slog to get through. If you are willing to fight through all of that, you’ll find an interesting character, somewhat hampered by his handler’s inexperience, though a great read nevertheless. I’ll have to come down on the side of giving him a positive recommendation, as I feel like the good parts of his story are much more good than the bad parts are bad, and I’d like to see more people exposed to the underappreciated character.

Another character please!

Coolio!

Skraal: Maria Santiago

[+] Review of Maria Santiago

Honestly, there wasn't much to talk about here. I liked Maria as a character, and her internal narrative felt believable and consistent. I'm not really a fan of V4's formatting gimmicks with regards to colours and explicitly representing the character's thoughts as italicized lines of speech, or songposts for that matter, but that's personal preference, so I can't dock points for that. Her character was rather short-lived, but she served her purpose. Her death post clearly had a lot of effort in it, and its a shame that she didn't really live long enough to make something of herself. I especially liked the part where she freaked out about the fact that her personal mundane actions like changing clothes or going to the bathroom are being broadcast live to millions of people. I feel like not very many characters take that into consideration, which I, as someone who highly values their privacy, find very strange.

Overall, while she adds to the threads she is in rather than detracting from them, I wouldn't recommend her to be read just on her own. There's just not that much there.

Another kid please!

For three!

Skraal: Acacia Salinger

[+] Review of Acacia Salinger

Oof, this is a long one. My first impressions were fairly positive. The profile was promising, with a lot of backstory to potentially make use of, as well as the thread list showing that she was one of V4’s escapees. Though I don’t remember reading her specifically, V4’s postgame has rarely disappointed me. I really like the space that it provides for characters to reflect on their grief and trauma in a far more subtle and sensitive manner than you usually see in SOTF. It infuses the relaxed timeline of pregame with the emotional weight of main island threads, providing a unique and enjoyable reading experience. It may be nostalgia talking, but the postgame is a big reason why I consider V4 to be my favourite version, so I’m glad to be assigned to read a character who got to play around with it.

Now, with the preliminary rambling out of the way, let’s get into the actual review.

Unsurprisingly, Acacia’s promisingly written profile translates into a very engaging pregame. Her interactions with the students around her are not only believable and realistic, but interesting on a level not often seen in that stage. A lot of the time, pregame threads are fairly messy, with characters struggling somewhat to find their voice, but that’s not the case here. Her narrative made me feel very much invested in the conflict between her reputation as a beautiful cheerleader and inner desire for people to see past her body and treat her like any other normal person. It was interesting to see her dissatisfaction with this situation contrasted with her often unwittingly slipping into the mask that others have created for her to wear. The single subtle reference to SOTF continuity in her penultimate pregame thread grounded her in the setting without seeming like breaking the fourth wall, though it’s a shame that the thread was apparently never finished. Overall, this was a fairly good start that left me very hopeful for her island threads.

Right off the bat, her time on the island starts out strong with an attempt to get one final message home to her family. Roman getting shot opens up a lot of room for a wide variety of emotions, and xylophonefairy does a good job of representing the emotional turmoil that Acacia goes through as she watches Roman’s condition deteriorate. The scene where she takes it upon herself to mercy kill him is very well done, with her final post in that thread and the following one creating an emotionally touching scene where she reflects on what she has done and where she will go from there. The killing has a massive impact on her character on there on out, with her growing despair at the loss of so many friends rendered very well throughout her posts. Every interaction she has with other students on the island is interesting and believable, making good use of the relationships established in pregame. The internal conflict established early on takes an interesting turn when she realizes that she has fully shed her flirty, cheerleader persona, though that which remains ends up making her no more happy with herself than before.

Her final post on the island is of the utmost quality, making good use of her backstory and her experiences on the island to describe her thoughts as she is being rescued, and as with most posts in that thread, really connected with me emotionally in a way that doesn’t often happen when reading SOTF posts. Her postgame threads were short but sweet, and neatly tie up all the loose ends left behind in her story and give it a fitting emotional conclusion. After reading her final thread, I had to stop for a bit to reflect on what I read. It was very touching and well written, and I came away fairly satisfied from following her story to completion.

Overall, her story is a rather slow burn, with little action, though it is definitely no worse for that. No matter what happens to her, she manages to hang on to her humanity the entire time, keeping the reader cognizant that she is a kid in a desperate situation, with no strange gimmicks to force her to stand out. Her character is well written, and makes good use of the plot hooks in her backstory as well as the relationships she develops throughout the game. I would absolutely recommend that people give her story a look. You won’t be disappointed.

I'll take another one, I suppose. Looks like I'm on a roll so far, so let's continue the streak.

Random.org loves giving you the high numbers!

Skraal: Rose Codreanu

[+] Review of Rose Codreanu

I already read most of Rose's threads while reading Joe Rios earlier, so I can make this fairly quick. As a character, she was fairly interesting in concept, but never ends up really going anywhere in game, serving as more of a supporting character for Joe Rios than a protagonist in her own right. I wasn't a big fan of the way she died either. The dream/flashback was interesting, but I didn't really buy that an intelligent girl like Rose would choose to fall asleep during the first announcement and then wait until her collar got blown for remaining in a danger zone. I wouldn't really recommend to read her own her own, as she never really does anything particularly interesting, though her time in game is so short that you won't really waste much time if you do decide to check her out. Overall, a fairly sad waste of potential, but that's what happens when you get rolled early, I guess.

Bet you didn't expect me to get that done so quickly, though hopefully my review does a good job of explaining why. Let's keep going!

*blinks*

Welp. That was fast.

Skraal: Alan Birkman

since everyone's getting kids for RAT, one more please

Damn you train.

I've thrown all outstanding kids back into the pile.

Mara: Charlotte Cave

Oh good because I completely forgot who I was supposed to be reading here. I might hit you up again in a bit.

So I guess I'm back. I shall do readathons as my penance for not waiting until the END of the version to disappear for months this time. Let's start what the familiarest of territories. If this is starting up again re-hit me a character!

PENANCEEEEEE

DN: Alice Blake

Wooo, it's Alice Blake! Someone I probably thought I'd read but obviously hadn't at least outside of probably snippets. Here we go..

PROFILE
So let's get the monkey dragon out of the desk for starters. Alice is the girlfriend of Victoria Logan, and it came out after the game that Alice's handler and Victoria's handler were not actually an adorable Irish couple, but instead one guy in the States playing multiple handlers and characters under a WEB OF LIES AND DECEIT. So they were banned, and that will forever cast a pall over his characters. We'll deal with the repercussions of knowing that later, but as a v4 guy I don't really remember much about them except that I definitely wasn't like "aha I knew it all along!" but I also don't think I was all that surprised, and looking back with about 19 years distance I don't think most people would be surprised to know that after the fact.

Alice's profile is a thing. A very v4-thing in one sense, an outlier in another. Basically she's 6 foot 5 and essentially an albino and is covered with scars from the tragic car accident that killed her parents. Holy shit you say! What wacky older version stuff, no way she'd fly today! And that's true, but Alice is also clearly well-written enough from the bio that she was able to overcome that and get approved, although my guess is that like folks like Liz Polanski and Raidon Naoko, she probably got a lot of grumbling in chat when she did so. Along the lines of "grumble grumble why did they let THAT person in, this is supposed to be the realism version!" And as today v4 is more clearly the transition version, just look, we were doing what we could at the time. DO YOU NEWER KIDS HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY ABANDONED V4 PROFILES THERE WERE WHO MAKE ALICE'S PROFILE LOOK LIKE A SAINT? We had a kid who was also in a tragic car accident, except he was paralyzed before managing to UNPARALYZE himself through sheer will and become a superstar MMA fighter!

So anyway. Alice was acceptable enough to squeak through. Her profile is competent if definitely more bare-bones than we'd need today. Also in retrospect she really didn't need to be that tall or pale or scarred as it doesn't effect her character in any way. She was a happy-go-lucky kid until the tragic accident and now she's depressed and mopey. She's also a masochist (oh no red flag) and has recently found her bestest girlfriend, one Victoria Logan. Let's see where it leads!


PREGAME
Alice appears practicing her fencing with Ben Powell. Ah fencing, a classic way for your kids to have plausible deniability if they need to stab people later. She beats Ben cleanly enough and establishes herself as a sullen women of few words. This is very much a "get your feet wet and feel out the character" thing and it's fine, although having to read through a fencing match is pretty darn boring and also just seems like practicing for writing fight scenes later. Nothing wrong with it, just is what it is. Victoria comes in at the end and they embrace to establish their couplehood and think about how the LURV each other.

Now to establish her (only) other friendship! It's Bounce! Bounce the SOTF fan is in the library just stone cold watching SOTF at school, which even as an ardent defender of v4-era SOTF-is-still-a-phenomenon characterization I must say strikes me as too much like were school Internet filters not a thing in 2008? OH WELL, here's something far more troublesome as Monty Pondsworth kabongs his way in as part of his reign of terror. He's very anti-SOTF himself apparently. Alice arrives to defend Bounce and they all argue much more verbosely than their characters really read as. They start insulting mothers alive and dead and Monty slaps Bounce in the face and walks off. Alice is comforting Bounce when Victoria shows up and is all disappointed that the brutal violence is occupying Alice's attention. But Bounce bounces back up and Alice is off to meet Victoria at the mall. The librarian has done nothing whatsoever during this scene it should be noted except for yell a bit at everyone. Troublesome content aside, again it's OK. We're establishing Alice as someone who will Stand Up for Their Friends even though (or because) they don't have many. The writing is still fine, although I'd prefer more establishing of Alice's voice rather than just straight description of her thoughts and actions.

Alice goes off to the mall and meets Victoria, who in between threads has also been attacked by Monty, who put out a freaking cigarette on her neck like a Belorussian human trafficker or something. Alice is sad and guilty about that. Theo Behr arrives and is all like "Yeah, Monty sure sucks" and Alice gets a call on her cell phone to go play D&D at Aaron Hughes' house with Bounce. Alice is definitely being set up from what I see here as a sort of Protector Archetype who has to overcome her own self-worth issues, so we'll see how that leads.

She gets to Aaron Hughes' house and muses that she really doesn't play this NERD stuff, but she's trying to be friends with Bounce and meet new people. I like that aspect of Alice's character. It fleshes her out a bit. She's damaged and introverted as a result, but is trying to go out of her comfort zone. As for the thread itself though, y'know how I said that reading a fencing match is pretty darn boring. Well reading a twice as long Dungeons and Dragons session is like a gazillion times worse. I skim most of this and Alice must leave to go see Victoria again. I appreciate that her pregame threads flow together, but I also don't see why they all HAVE to be taking place on the same day.

Aaaaaand it's time for a gratuitous Victoria/Alice sex scene.

OK, so here's the thing. It could be a lot worse. It reads mostly like basic Harlequin-novel stuff and it's not exactly enthralling. The prose is workmanlike as always, although it's really here that you can see how similar Alice and Victoria's writing really is. There's generic sexytalk and some pandering to Alice's masochism, but it's not as gruesomely amateurish as I was fearing. It also does serve to establish. Victoria and Alice's relationship a bit more. Victoria was apparently your classically ridiculously-promiscuous girl and she's afraid that Alice will leave her as a result and Alice is afraid for the same reasons. Alice has never been with a girl before so you kind of get the sense that's she's being taken advantage by Victoria, who's latched on to her as someone who won't judge due to her nature and inexperience. The problem is that the relationship comes off more like the handler wants us to see it as TRUE LOVE, when it doesn't actually read that way. The problem is also that it, and Victoria's constantly returning to how much she wants sex in other threads, added to our overall meta knowledge, is that you come out of this realizing that these two were almost certainly written at least partly as a kink/fetish vehicle by the handler. Because there's nothing in the relationship that we couldn't have learned without having to read through all the fingering to get there.

In Alice's last pregame thread she gets ready for prom with Vic and she's all shy and moody because of her body and not being a prom person and Vic is like "ooh sexy sexy I love prom gonna tie you up after mmmm." Victoria has some character potential but she can't seem to through a single post without reference to how much she sure loves Alice and sex and it's gotten grating after all this pregame. Alice fares a bit better on the whole though. Let's see where we go on-island!

ISLAND
Alice wakes up in ORIENTATION stared by Darren LOCKE (it's a LOST reference see), just in time to hear Dallas Reynolds go "Boy howdy! Yeee-Haw!" and have his collar explode after an allergic bee reaction. Alice has a revolver, immediately decides on her course of action (find Vic duh) and strategy (she will kill in self-defence), and speaks in front of the corpse in a cold robotic emotionless voice. That's not a good start and seems to fly against her character from what it's been built up in pre-game. Or at the least, I'd have liked to see her decisions either come via more struggle or be drawn out more before they're revealed. Instead, all her thoughts are just dumped on us in the first post, and now that the island has started, that I think is Alice's biggest problem. As I've said, her writing is good. But it's very straightforward. We basically hear all her thoughts as she thinks them, which makes her repetitive in a lot of ways. It also prevents us from being surprised or excited or in suspense as to what she'll do. And in cases like this, she comes off as your standard emotionless robot. This (spoiler) does improve somewhat, but it never stops being an issue. She needed a more unique voice, some more imagination to her inner monologue to really elevate as a character.

Anyway, Alice wants to loot Dallas' stuff, and does so in a bit godmoddy fashion by sneaking it in her post while Roman Jackson shows up. Eh, not a big deal. Acacia Salinger also arrives. Roman wants to know if they've seen his sister (COME ON ROMAN IT'S TEN DAMN MINUTES INTO THE GAME). Darren Locke peaces out and Alice is suspicious and untrusting and leaves to search for Victoria and Bounce.

She takes a rest at the beach and thinks about stuff and her parents. GOOD POST ALERT. This is the best I've seen Alice so far, as she gets some time to herself. She becomes more real in posts like these. One thing that is very good about Alice is that her super-tragic background isn't brought up as if it had happened only yesterday. It's part of her character and defines her in many ways, but it doesn't dominate her. That's a good thing. She hears gunshots, freaks out, and relaxes again so Tyler Franklin sneaks up behind her and clubs her with a tire iron. I really do hope that was worked out between the handlers in. advance because otherwise Tyler just did a particularly egregious version of the classic godmod "He backed her into the corner and fired ten bullets at her chest". But Alice rolls with it, and Tyler bashes her three more times how is she not ded. Alice shrugs this brutal beatdown off in a minute or so and points her gun at Tyler and says "Walk away" menacingly so he does after having looted all her food from her bag (OH THE TRAGIC IRONY). Alice supposes she might have a concussion. Yeah, being smashed in the back of the skull with a tire iron might do that to you. It does serve to drive her as being all "NOW I'M PISSED" and that's not necessarily bad, I just wish it had been done in a better fashion.

Alice moves on to meet with hehehe it's PANDORA GRIMDARK BLACK. She's at least selling the effects of being horribly concussed, so good for that. Finds a corpse, gets all pissy at Meredith and her Death Book, tells her off, then apologizes. A bit of a nice moment there. GOOD POST ALERT. Meredith is all then like "uh hey you don't look so good" but Alice resolves to power through and moves on.

Now at this point Alice has had some nice moments. But her story is really still stuck in first gear after three full threads. She's still looking for Victoria and Bounce, she hasn't teamed up or traveled or formed lasting relationships with anyone else. This is the doomed treadmill of SOTF, especially in the "I YAM SEARCHING FOR MY BOYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND/SIBLING/CATSITTER" plotlines, and so it's resolved in the only possible way -- by having her miraculously find them!

So Alice and Vic meet in a house and are all like LOVE AND HUGS AND KISSES. And two posts in Vic is already "oooh I'l clean up your concussion and then I'll clean YOU UP maybe wink wink" Oy. Alice's injuries have at least not been totally thrown away but that doesn't mean they haven't been heavily diminished from what they should be. They're gonna find Bounce now when suddenly Naoko Raidon shows up! He points the gun and we've got a standoff. Victoria hides behind Alice in a nice moment, convincing herself that she totally should since Alice is the big protector. Alice is resolute to kill if she needs to protect Vic, so. she's not wrong. Then Victoria stupidly decides to step out in front of Alice and be like "C'mon we don't wanna get hurt here." BAD IDEA VIC, as she didn't count on Raidon's apparently magical ability to teleport in front of her and put his gun to her head while neither she nor Alice do anything. At least in this case I'm fairly certain it was worked out between the handlers given what comes up, but still. He wants Alice's gun to add to his collection. Alice is like "fuck no, I'm pointing my gun at you and if you shoot her you die ASAP" and Raidon is all "hmmmm, maybe didn't think this through." Alice reiterates about five times how much she loves Vic and Vic is changed her mind quick and is now pleading with Alice to give him the gun. I'm liking Victoria's character here, like in how we're seeing more of how she's not really a good person and is kinda dumb and cowardly now that she's not thinking about sex every thirty seconds. Which improves this thread because Alice is still kinda stuck in "GRR MUST PROTECT WHAT DO I DO" *brow furrows* We get some noble words of wisdom between Raidon and Alice that hurt the pace of things and Raidon breaks the standoff by just going for Alice's gun himself. I don't mind that. Alice BLOWS HIS GODDAMN PINKY OFF and Raidon shoots her in the shoulder and runs away.

One very good note I should point out. Thankfully at no point do Alice's masochistic bedroom tendencies bleed out into any of her horrible injuries on-island. She's like in intense horrible pain and hates it and that's good. Relatively. Fortunately for her, Vic pulls the bullet out like it ain't no thing and Alice is bandaged up. Yeah, this is even more glossed-over than the concussion was. Still, it's interesting that now the tables might be turned and Victoria is now the one who will have to protect Alice, and Alice is feeling pretty bad about that. Messy thread, but at least we may be heading somewhere now. Victoria also has the gun now.

Welp, met Victoria time to meet Bounce. This is the Liz Polanski-announcement-extravaganza day so everyone's musing on Liz. Bounce is freaking out, Collin Falcone is here, his boys Jacob Charles and Tim Questaire show up in a bit but all off to the side for now. Alice is all YAY BOUNCE. Victoria stays back to let them have their moment and also has the gun now due to Alice's injuries. Meanwhile, Bounce ends up being a big old ball of crazy meta-SOTF paranoia, as she's like "WAIT A MINUTE THIS IS THE MOMENT WHERE PEOPLE INEVITABLY TRAGICALLY DIE IN SOTF RIGHT ISN'T IT" which comes off as too cute by half. So Bounce brings out some gasoline and an lighter and screams to watch for hidden snipers. Alice grabs the lighter and tries to take cold command of the situation and other group and she needs to be reacting more rather than again just saying what she's doing and thinking. Also her gunshot would already seems to be forgotten. Alice walks into the open unarmed and tells the guys to screw off so obviously she gets a gun pointed at her. They all stand around for a bit and then the guys leave. Including Victoria, who runs away in terror like the snivelling coward she is when she sees Alice stroll into the open, taking the gun with her. I like the concept. I just wish the scene itself had more oomph to justify it. Alice is all glad that the situation is defused until she sees that Vic has left. And I'm just gonna quote so you can see the real problem I have with the character:

She had to be around here somewhere, she just had to be! But she wasn't, and Alice knew it. She was, God, she was gone. She'd left Alice behind. But that was, it was impossible. Vic loved her, there was no way that she'd leave. Yet that was exactly what happened. Alice felt sick. Sick and angry and betrayed and hurt. She wanted to scream or cry, she wasn't sure which was more likely.

It's just... too straightforward. Especially for such a huge moment as this. It's all spelled out like a Cliff's notes version or bad Japanese translation or something. We get better in the next post as she gets a chance to ruminate on things a little before leaving with Bounce at least, so that's good.

Ugh, this next thread is a mess. Two idiots named Andrea and Allen are bumblefucking around looking for the terrorist helicopter that came by earlier and they pretty much just stand around. Roland Hayes and Dutchy show up and they also stand around around while Dutchy blubbers and wails. Alice and Bounce come by, and they..... if you can guess stand around you win a prize. This threesome of gruesome twosomes keep hairy eyeballs at each other and call out a bit, but then IT'S ASH MORRISON burrowing through the dirt and throwing rocks around for inscrutable reasons. Dutchy of course takes the rock to the leg and collapses and everyone is like "WHO DID THIS!" and most everyone runs away after a bit more pointlessness. Except for Alice and Bounce and Ash, who wants Dutchy's abandoned bag. So Ash emerges from the ground like a Graboid from Tremors and runs at Alice and Bounce swinging a lantern all "AIEEEEE!" and Alice steps aside and shoves Ash down the hill where she breaks her neck and dies. Alice and Bounce run off. Well, that was that thread OH WAIT ONE MORE THING.

JUST THE LITTLE THING THAT VICTORIA GOT MURDERIZED BY RAIDON AND IT WAS ANNOUNCED BUT ALICE'S REACTION WAS JUST LIKE "NAH THAT COULDN'T BE VIC MUST BE MISTAKEN!" And Bounce is like "Uhhhh, sure Alice. Sure it wasn't." while giving shifty eyes.

Ooooh. Aaaaah... Eeeeegh. Y'know, if you really wanna do that as a plotlline, OK. Not my favourite, but I'm willing to see where it goes.

It does not go. In the next thread she's recognizing that Victoria is dead. I'm not sure if this was deliberate, or an oversight, or just a bunch of supposed-to-happen-in-the-future stuff coming together in the need to wrap things up because it's suddenly EXCAPE TIME. Bounce passes out and Alice breaks down while coming to terms with Vic dying and her failures. Bounce wakes up and is all like "man I'm such a failure too." This is pretty nice. Alice is really at her best at her isolated moments where she ruminates alone. The two of them are like "well at least we have each other" and then Alice is kissing Bounce.

No. No worky for me. It's clearly a reactive thing and Alice apologizes afterwards, but I dunno. I'm just not buying these two as a couple. We're told a bunch of times that they're best friends but it's lacking the meat for the sauce. Or something. Bounce forgives her and Alice is still super-depressed and then the announcement of the boats come and and they're gonna check it out. Alice lugs Bounce down to the beach, moodily grumps her way up to the boat and kind of hopes she isn't allowed on as she doesn't think she deserves it, but of course she is. She resolves to live for Vic and Bounce.

I'm pretty sure we've all totally forgotten about the gaping bullet hole in her shoulder by now as well. OH. WELL.

POSTGAME
Oh man we ain't done yet!

Alice is back in St. Paul living like a neckbeard hermit in her apartment all still consumed with all her failings. Bounce comes by in a really nice post that establishes some of the blanks on her journey home and knocks on Alice's door and is all like "Stop it bitch you gotta pull yourself together." Alice sits down on the couch and cradles a framed picture of Vic that's a little too on-the-nose there Alice. Oh hey, she remembers she got shot too, that's something. Alice is still all like "Vic Vic VIIIIIC" so the new Bounce knows how to cheer Alice up. A makeout session! It works and Alice remembers that Vic was kind of a terrible person who abandoned her and Bounce is way better. And thus Bounce now becomes Lizzie to signify her new life. They kiss and fade to black.

Again, I'm not fully onboard here. Alice has spent so long being so obsessed (over and over) with Victoria that it doesn't come off as the happy fairytale ending that it's being presented as. On one hand I can get the sense of how they'd latch on to each other, on the other hand... maybe it would've worked a lot better if there was more time between Victoria's death and the rescue. And I do like how it's clear the Alice still has a long way to go heal.

So let's keep healing as we're not quite done yet! A few days later, Alice is like all "I'm a bit better now but still skulking around my apartment like Gollum." Looks like she needs another visitor. It's Mizore Soryu, who was there when Raidon killed Vic and was Raidon's super-champion girl. She tells Alice how Vic died and defends herself and Alice has to take it in. This, for the record, is Alice's best thread by a country mile. Her dialogue is still a bit clunky but it's such a breath of fresh air to see her interact with someone new and have to deal with what she's hearing, and that's where Alice has always shone. Again, the descriptive effort and voice could be stronger, but we're finally, FINALLY having some real sense of character growth and change for Alice. Basically, since pre-game she's been stuck in three alternating versions 1) The Stoic Unfeeling Girl Who Must Protect Her Friends; 2) The Wounded Girl Who Cries and Hates Her Failure; and 3) VIC LUV VIC LUV Now Bounce Love? Her decision on how she feels about Mizore and ultimate forgiveness seems real. Shoutout to Mizore as well for helping to drive this.

And we're finally at the end! What better way with some screaming sunny-days glurge interspersed with sex and ballgags? What's that you say, there's a million better ways?

Yeah, probably. Because now it's the future and Alice and Lizzie are married and live in a big house protected from everyone. Alice is happy and Lizzie gives inspirational speeches and they have a dog and Lizzie is preggo. This goes on and we get drawn halfway into a new sex scene as now Alice has mostly become the Dom and they banter on who's gonna get tied up next while purring and rubbing and biting each other. I'm not sure if this is supposed to read like a switch with Alice becoming the new Vic and Lizzie becoming the new Alice but it kinda does. Either way, the sex was oh so definitely not needed here. Lizzie and Alice's ending is nice but that's because it's written nice. It's just a bit too pat. It's a healthier relationship than Alice and Vic was and I'm glad that's how it came across, but I'm still just not feeling like they're the best match. But I guess that's just me. For Alice, we leave her the happiest person in the world! She's got a doting wife, kinky sex, and she's even got a great new job as a Minnesota cop! What could go wrong?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cphNpqKpKc4

Anyway this is already years long. Alice is by no means terrible, she just, like many v4 chars and even moreso than many, has a lot of underlying issues. She's well-written enough but doesn't rise above her writing, which can make her a bit of a slog to read since her overarching storyline is OK but not great. Uh, yeah!

I'll take another hopefully shorter one!